She asks me to go and see her at Matching Priory, her husband's house; but I shall not go." But at last Alice agreed to pay this visit, and it may be as well to explain here how she was brought to do so.

She wrote to Lady Glencora, declining, and explaining frankly that she did decline, because she thought it probable that she might there meet Lady Midlothian.

Lady Midlothian, she said, had interfered very unwarrantably in her affairs, and she did not wish to make her acquaintance.

To this Lady Glencora replied, post haste, that she had intended no such horrid treachery as that for Alice; that neither would Lady Midlothian be there, nor any of that set; by which Alice knew that Lady Glencora referred specially to her aunt the Marchioness; that no one would be at Matching who could torment Alice, either with right or without it, "except so far as I myself may do so," Lady Glencora said; and then she named an early day in November, at which she would herself undertake to meet Alice at the Matching Station.

On receipt of this letter, Alice, after two days' doubt, accepted the invitation..