Rector--scornfully, because conscious of the secret inclination towards him, which, alas! lay treacherous at the bottom of her heart? Oh, Lady Greenfield! Oh, dearest of “dear” Elinors! if you had anywhere two most sincere well-wishers, they were surely Miss Polly and myself! CHAPTER X. “Why will not you come with us to London, Alice?” said I. “Mr. Crofton wishes it almost as much as I do. Such a change would do you good, and I do not need to tell you how pleasant it would be to me. Mrs. Harley and the young people at home can spare you. Kate, you know, is quite old enough to help your mother. Why are you so obstinate? You have not been in town in the season since the year after Clara’s marriage.” “I went up to see the pictures last year,” said Alice demurely. “Oh pray, Alice, don’t be so dreadfully proper!” cried Clara; “that’s what she’s coming to, Mrs. Crofton. The second week in May--to see all the exhibitions and hear an Oratorio in Exeter Hall--and make ‘mems.’ in her diary when she has got through them, like those frightful people who have their lives written! Oh dear, dear! to think our Alice should have stiffened into such a shocking old maid!” “Well, Clara, dear, I am very glad you find your own lot so pleasant that you would like to see everybody the same as yourself,” said Alice, sententiously, and with no small amount of mild superiority; “for my part I think the _rôle_ of old maid is quite satisfactory, especially when one has so many nephews and nieces--and why should I go to London, Mrs. Crofton? It is all very well for Clara--Clara is in circumstances, of course, that make it convenient and natural--but as for me, who have nothing at all to do with your grand life, why should I go and vex myself with my own? Perhaps I might not have strength of mind to return comfortably to the cottage, and look after the butcher’s bills, and see that there were no cobwebs in the corners--and though I am of very little importance elsewhere,” said Alice, coloring a little, and with some unnecessary fervor, “I am of consequence at home.” “But then, you see,” said I, “Mrs. Harley has four daughters--and I have not one.” “Ah! by-and-by,” said Alice, with a smile and a sigh, “Mrs. Harley will only have one daughter. Kate and little Mary will marry just as Clara has done. I shall be left alone with mamma and Johnnie; that is why I don’t want to do anything which shall disgust me with my quiet life--at least that is one reason,” added Alice, with a slight blush. “No, no--what would become of the world if we were all exactly alike--what a hum-drum, dull prospect it would be if everybody were just as happy, and as gay, and as much in the sun as everybody else. You don’t think, Clara, how much the gray tints of our household that is to be--mamma old, Johnnie, poor fellow, so often in trouble, and myself a stout housekeeper, will add to the picturesqueness of the landscape--much more than if our house were as gay as your own.”