Then she opened the other, which was shorter, and when she saw her cousin's signature, "Glencora Palliser," she read that letter first,--read it twice before she went back to the disagreeable task of perusing Lady Midlothian's lecture.

The reader shall have both the letters, but that from the Countess shall have precedence.
Castle Reekie, N.B.
-- Oct.

186--.
MY DEAR MISS VAVASOR, I have not the pleasure of knowing you personally, though I have heard of you very often from our dear mutual friend and relative Lady Macleod, with whom I understand that you are at present on a visit.

Your grandmother,--by the mother's side,--Lady Flora Macleod, and my mother the Countess of Leith, were half-sisters; and though circumstances since that have prevented our seeing so much of each other as is desirable, I have always remembered the connection, and have ever regarded you as one in whose welfare I am bound by ties of blood to take a warm interest.
"'Since that!'-- what does she mean by 'since that' ?" said Alice to herself.

"She has never set eyes on me at all.