While this conversation was passing below, Alice Heathcote was having by no means a pleasant time of it upstairs. Captain Bradshaw had taken his usual place by the fire, with his port wine upon a small table beside him, while Alice sat down opposite, with a piece of fancy work in her hands as an excuse for idleness. For a little time after the servant had left the room, there was silence, and then Captain Bradshaw, after drinking off a glass of wine, and pouring himself out another, said, with great deliberation,— “And now, Alice, I shall be glad if you will give me an explanation of all this; for, damme, if I can make head or tail of it.” “My dear uncle,” Alice said, cheerfully, “I don’t know that there is anything to explain. You see, Frank and I do not want to marry each other, and although I believe that parents and guardians have a right to put a veto upon marriages of which they do not approve, I confess that I do not think their power extends to the point of compelling two strongly objecting parties to marry each other.” Captain Bradshaw rubbed his forehead with his handkerchief, and then performed the same operation with great violence all over his head, brushing up his short grey hair into a state of the wildest and most aggressive looking confusion. It was not that he was actually hot, but it was a trick he had acquired in India, and was a certain sign, with him, of great irritation. “But I always looked upon it as a settled thing, Alice; I have set my mind upon it for years, and I always felt sure that you were fond of him. I don’t know what to make of it; but if you do care for him, Alice, by Gad, he shall marry you, or, at any rate, he shall be made most thoroughly to understand that not one penny of my money shall he ever have if he does not.” “Thank you very much, uncle,” Alice said, smiling quietly; “but you see I should not particularly care about being married to a man who only took me as an incumbrance with my money and yours.” “But, Alice,” her uncle said impatiently, “I do not understand why you took his part to-day, and so rendered all I said of no avail. I was sure you cared for him. You never attempted to deny it when I spoke to you upon the subject, and now you upset all the force of my arguments, and confirm that young jackanapes in his refusal to listen to my wishes, by saying that you are mutually indifferent to each other.” “My dear uncle,” Alice said, very gravely, “the whole of the unfortunate position has been brought about by your deceiving yourself in the first place; and in the second, by the very unfair and unjustifiable way in which you have deceived me.” “Upon my word, Alice,” Captain Bradshaw said, astonished at this sudden attack upon himself, and replacing untasted upon the table the wine he was in the act of raising to his lips, “I do not understand what you mean.”