Can You Forgive Her?

The Balcony at Basle. Frontispiece. "Would you mind shutting the window?" Chapter II. "Sometimes you drive me too hard." Chapter III. "Peace be to his manes." Chapter VII. Captain Bellfield proposes a toast. Chapter IX. "If it were your friend, what advice would you give her?" Chapter XI. "I'm as round as your hat, and as square as your elbow; I am." Chapter XIII. "Mrs. Greenow, look at that." Chapter XIV. Edgehill. Chapter XVII. "Arabella Greenow, will you be that woman?" Chapter XX. "Baker, you must put Dandy in the bar." Chapter XXII. "Mr. Palliser, that was a cannon." Chapter XXIII. "The most self-willed young woman I ever met in my life." Chapter XXVI. The Priory Ruins. Chapter XXVII. Burgo Fitzgerald. Chapter XXIX. Swindale Fell. Chapter XXXI. "I have heard," said Burgo. Chapter XXXIII. "Then--then,--then let her come to me." Chapter XXXVI. "So you've come back, have you?" said the Squire. Chapter XXXVIII. "Dear Greenow; dear husband!" Chapter XL.

Volume II.

Great Jove. Chapter XLII. "Friendships will not come by ordering," said Lady Glencora. Chapter XLII. "I asked you for a kiss." Chapter XLVI. Mr. Cheesacre disturbed. Chapter XLVII. "All right," said Burgo, as he thrust the money into his breast-pocket. Chapter XLIX. Mr. Bott on the watch. Chapter L. The last of the old squire. Chapter LIII. Kate. Chapter LVI. Lady Glencora. "Before God, my first wish is to free you from the misfortune that I have brought on you." Chapter LVIII. She managed to carry herself with some dignity. Chapter LXIII. A sniff of the rocks and valleys. Chapter LXIV. "I wonder when you're going to pay me what you owe me, Lieutenant Bellfield?" Chapter LXV. Lady Glencora at Baden. Chapter LXVIII. Alice. Chapter LXX. "Oh! George," she said, "you won't do that?" Chapter LXXI. "How am I to thank you for forgiving me?" Chapter LXXV. "Good night, Mr. Palliser." Chapter LXXVI. Alice and her bridesmaids. Chapter LXXIX. "Yes, my bonny boy,--you have made it all right for me." Chapter LXXX.

VOLUME I.

CHAPTER I.

Mr. Vavasor and His Daughter.

Whether or no, she, whom you are to forgive, if you can, did or did not belong to the Upper Ten Thousand of this our English world, I am not prepared to say with any strength of affirmation. By blood she was connected with big people,--distantly connected with some very big people indeed, people who belonged to the Upper Ten Hundred if there be any such division; but of these very big relations she had known and seen little, and they had cared as little for her. Her grandfather, Squire Vavasor of Vavasor Hall, in Westmoreland, was a country gentleman, possessing some thousand a year at the outside, and he therefore never came up to London, and had no ambition to have himself numbered as one in any exclusive set. A hot-headed, ignorant, honest old gentleman, he lived ever at Vavasor Hall, declaring to any who would listen to him, that the country was going to the mischief, and congratulating himself that at any rate, in his county, parliamentary reform had been powerless to alter the old political arrangements. Alice Vavasor, whose offence against the world I am to tell you, and if possible to excuse, was the daughter of his younger son; and as her father, John Vavasor, had done nothing to raise the family name to eminence, Alice could not lay claim to any high position from her birth as a Vavasor. John Vavasor had come up to London early in life as a barrister, and had failed. He had failed at least in attaining either much wealth or much repute, though he had succeeded in earning, or perhaps I might better say, in obtaining, a livelihood. He had married a lady somewhat older than himself, who was in possession of four hundred a year, and who was related to those big people to whom I have alluded. Who these were and the special nature of the relationship, I shall be called upon to explain hereafter, but at present it will suffice to say that Alice Macleod gave great offence to all her friends by her marriage. She did not, however, give them much time for the indulgence of their anger. Having given birth to a daughter within twelve months of her marriage, she died, leaving in abeyance that question as to whether the fault of her marriage should or should not be pardoned by her family.