And Alice had managed generally to drive her friend away from those topics which were so dangerous,--those allusions to her childlessness, and those hints that Burgo Fitzgerald was still in her thoughts.

And sometimes, of course, they had spoken of Alice's own prospects, till she got into a way of telling her cousin freely all that she felt.

On such occasions Lady Glencora would always tell her that she had been right,--if she did not love the man.

"Though your finger were put out for the ring," said Lady Glencora on one such occasion, "you should go back, if you did not love him." "But I did love him," said Alice.
"Then I don't understand it," said Lady Glencora; and, in truth, close as was their intimacy, they did not perfectly understand each other.
But on this occasion they were speaking of Jeffrey Palliser.

"I declare I don't think he could do any better," said Lady Glencora.
"If you talk such nonsense, I will not stay," said Alice.
"But why should it be nonsense?
You would be very comfortable with your joint incomes.