"Oliver? Well, there are moments in every family when it is no use shirking. We have to think of Oliver's career, and what he may do for his party, and for reform. You think he proposed to her in that walk on the hill?" said Mrs. Fotheringham, turning to her cousin Alicia. Alicia woke up from a brown-study of her own. She was dressed with her usual perfection in a gray cloth, just suggesting the change of season. Her felt hat with its plume of feathers lay on her lap, and her hair, slightly loosened by the journey, captured the eye by its abundance and beauty. The violets on her breast perfumed the room, and the rings upon her hands flashed just as much as is permitted to an unmarried girl, and no more. As Mrs. Fotheringham looked at her, she said to herself: "Another Redfern! Really Alicia is too extravagant!" On that head no one could have reproached herself. A cheap coat and skirt, much worn, a hat of no particular color or shape, frayed gloves and disreputable boots, proclaimed both the parsimony of her father's will and the independence of her opinions. "Oh, of course he proposed on the hill," replied Alicia, thoughtfully. "And you say, Aunt Lucy, that _he_ guessed--and she knew nothing? Yes!--I was certain he guessed." "But she knows now," said Lady Lucy; "and, of course, we must all be very sorry for her." "Oh, of course!" said Isabel. "But she will soon get over it. You won't find it will do her any harm. People will make her a heroine." "I should advise her not to go about with that cousin," said Alicia, softly. "The girl who told you?" "She was an outsider! She told me, evidently, to spite her cousin, who seemed not to have paid her enough attention, and then wanted me to swear secrecy." "Well, if her mother was a sister of Juliet Sparling, you can't expect much, can you? What a mercy it has all come out so soon! The mess would have been infinitely greater if the engagement had gone on a few weeks." "My dear," said her mother, gravely, "we must not reckon upon Oliver's yielding to our persuasions." Isabel smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Oliver condemn himself to the simple life!--to the forfeiture of half a million of money--for the sake of the _beaux yeux_ of Diana Mallory! Oliver, who had never faced any hardship or gone without any luxury in his life! Alicia said nothing; but the alertness of her brilliant eyes showed the activity of the brain behind them. While Mrs. Fotheringham went off to committees, Miss Drake spent the rest of the day in ministering to Lady Lucy, who found her company, her gossip about Beechcote, her sympathetic yet restrained attitude toward the whole matter, quite invaluable. But, in spite of these aids, the hours of waiting and suspense passed heavily, and Alicia said to herself that Cousin Lucy was beginning to look frail. CHAPTER XIII