I am becoming an old woman, and if I did not learn to know you now, or very shortly, I might never do so." Alice could not help thinking that even under those circumstances neither might have had, so far as that was concerned, much cause of sorrow, but she did not say so.

She was thinking altogether of Lady Midlothian's letter to her, and trying to calculate whether or no it would be well for her to rush away at once to the subject.

That Lady Midlothian would mention the letter, Alice felt well assured; and when could it be better mentioned than now, in Glencora's presence,--when no other person was near them to listen to her?
"You are very kind," said Alice.
"I would wish to be so," said Lady Midlothian.

"Blood is thicker than water, my dear; and I know no earthly ties that can bind people together if those of family connection will not do so.

Your mother, when she and I were young, was my dearest friend." "I never knew my mother," said Alice,--feeling, however, as she spoke, that the strength of her resistance to the old woman was beginning to give way.
"No, my dear, you never did; and that is to my thinking another reason why they who loved her should love you.