There would in such case have arisen on Lady Macleod's countenance a sternness of rebuke which Alice did not choose to encounter.

The same sternness of rebuke would come upon the countenance on receipt of the written information; but it would come in its most aggravated form on the immediate receipt of the letter, and some of its bitterness would have passed away before Alice's arrival.

I think that Alice was right.

It is better for both parties that any great offence should be confessed by letter.
But Alice trembled as the cab drew up at No.

3, Paramount Crescent.
She met her aunt, as was usual, just inside the drawing-room door, and she saw at once that if any bitterness had passed away from that face, the original bitterness must indeed have been bitter.