"Ellen," said Henry, "you cannot go on seeing Alice, or have anything to do with any of that family. You are quite a child, and childishly headstrong I well know, but I really must insist upon this." "I do not exactly see the right that you have to insist upon my doing or my not doing anything; but, at least, give me some good reason for this dictation." "They are people with whom you cannot with propriety associate; at your age you can be no judge of such things." "It was my aunt who sent me to them, in the first instance; consequently, she can know nothing against Mrs. Tracy; and, as to Alice, you cannot mean that _she_--unless--" I stopped short; my heart was beating violently. I felt that modesty, propriety, dignity, forbade my hinting at my suspicions; but they were rushing again on my mind with fresh force; and as I looked at Henry, I felt that my cheeks were burning, and my eyes flashing. "No," he said, as if he had not remarked my agitation, or else that it had calmed his. "No; Alice's character is perfectly good; but, in visiting her, you would be liable to fall in with persons whom it would be in every way unpleasant to be thrown amongst." I remembered the two men at Salisbury, and felt this might be true; there was something so plain, and indifferent, too, in his manner of doing justice to Alice, that it removed my suspicions; and when he said-- "Well, now, for Heaven's sake, let us leave off talking on a subject on which it seems we are always destined to quarrel." I smiled, and made no effort to pursue it farther, but listened to his account of the society at Brandon. "Lady Wyndham (he said) is as you can see in looks, the very reverse of her husband--quite guiltless of his insipid comeliness. I have never found out anything beyond that; for she is as stern and as silent as he is communicative, perhaps on the system of compensation, and from a strict sense of justice to society." "And the Miss Farnleys (I said), we have just made acquaintance; but I am quite disposed to like or dislike them, according to the report you make of them." "The Miss Farnleys (he replied) have been brought almost entirely abroad, and are, perhaps, not spoilt, but certainly fashioned by this circumstance. The oldest is not the least affected in manner, nor indeed in conversation, except that one is willing to attribute to affectation the very silly things which an otherwise intelligent person is in the habit of saying." "What kind of things?"