was spending the evening with some friends, and to urge the
unkindness of leaving Miss Carew lonely. At last Alice washed away
the traces of her tears and returned to the castle, feeling very
miserable, and trying to comfort herself with the reflection that
her sister had been spared the scene which had just passed.

Lucian Webber had not arrived when she reached the castle. Miss
Carew glanced at her melancholy face as she entered, but asked no
questions. Presently, however, she put down her book, considered for
a moment, and said,

"It is nearly three years since I have had a new dress." Alice
looked up with interest. "Now that I have you to help me to choose,
I think I will be extravagant enough to renew my entire wardrobe. I
wish you would take this opportunity to get some things for
yourself. You will find that my dress-maker, Madame Smith, is to be
depended on for work, though she is expensive and dishonest. When we
are tired of Wiltstoken we will go to Paris, and be millinered
there; but in the meantime we can resort to Madame Smith."

"I cannot afford expensive dresses," said Alice.

"I should not ask you to get them if you could not afford them. I
warned you that I should give you expensive habits."

Alice hesitated. She had a healthy inclination to take whatever she
could get on all occasions; and she had suffered too much from
poverty not to be more thankful for her good-fortune than humiliated
by Miss Carew's bounty. But the thought of being driven, richly
attired, in one of the castle carriages, and meeting Janet trudging