So Sir Walter had told him, and so Maria, the naughty girl, had said also--“Only for your beaux yeux, Major Rossiter, we shouldn’t have had any party at all.” This had been said by Maria when she was laughing at him about her sister Georgiana. “I don’t know how that may be,” said the Major; “but all the same I shall never be at home at Brook Park.” “Don’t you like the young ladies?” asked Mrs. Dugdale. “Oh, yes; very much; and Lady Wanless; and Sir Walter. I like them all, in a way. But yet I shall never find myself at home at Brook Park.” Alice was very angry with him. He ought not to have gone there at all. He must have known that he could not be there without paining her. She thoroughly believed that he was engaged to marry the girl of whose family he spoke in this way. He had thought,--so it seemed to her,--that he might lessen the blow to her by making little of the great folk among whom his future lot was to be cast. But what could be more mean? He was not the John Rossiter to whom she had given her heart. There had been no such man. She had been mistaken. “I am afraid you are one of those,” she said, “who, wherever they find themselves, at once begin to wish for something better.” “That is meant to be severe.” “My severity won’t go for much.” “I am sure you have deserved it,” said Mrs. Dugdale, most indiscreetly. “Is this intended for an attack?” he asked, looking from one to the other. “Not at all,” said Alice, affecting to laugh. “I should have said nothing if I thought mamma would take it up so seriously. I was only sorry to hear you speak of your new friends so slightingly.” After that the conversation between them was very difficult, and he soon got up to go away. As he did so, he asked Alice to say a word to him out in the garden, having already explained to them both that it might be some time before he would be again down at Beetham. Alice rose slowly from her sewing-machine, and, putting on her hat, led the way with a composed and almost dignified step out through the window. Her heart was beating within her, but she looked as though she were mistress of every pulse. “Why did you say that to me?” he asked. “Say what?” “That I always wished for better things and better people than I found.” “Because I think you ambitious,--and discontented. There is nothing disgraceful in that, though it is not the character which I myself like the best.” “You meant to allude specially to the Wanlesses?” “Because you have just come from there, and were speaking of them.” “And to one of that family specially?”