Chapter XLII. Parliament Meets
Chapter XLIV. The Election for the Chelsea Districts
Chapter XLV. George Vavasor Takes His Seat
Chapter XLVII. Mr Cheesacre’s Disappointment
Chapter XLVIII. Preparations for Lady Monk’s Party
Chapter XLIX. How Lady Glencora Went to Lady Monk’s Party
Chapter L. How Lady Glencora Came Back From Lady Monk’s Party
Chapter LI. Bold Speculations on Murder
Chapter LII. What Occurred in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall
Chapter LIII. The Last Will of the Old Squire
Chapter LIV. Showing How Alice Was Punished
Chapter LVI. Another Walk on the Fells
Chapter LVII. Showing How the Wild Beast Got Himself Back From the Mountains
Chapter LVIII. The Pallisers at Breakfast
Chapter LIX. The Duke of St Bungay in Search of a Minister
Chapter LX. Alice Vavasor’s Name Gets Into the Money Market
Chapter LXI. The Bills Are Made All Right
Chapter LXIII. Mr John Grey in Queen Anne Street
Chapter LXIV. The Rocks and Valleys
Chapter LXVI. Lady Monk’s Plan
Chapter LXVIII. From London to Baden
Chapter LXIX. From Baden to Lucerne
Chapter LXXI. Showing How George Vavasor Received a Visit
Chapter LXXII. Showing How George Vavasor Paid a Visit
Chapter LXXIII. in Which Come Tidings of Great Moment to All Pallisers
Chapter LXXIV. Showing What Happened in the Churchyard
Chapter LXXVI. The Landlord’s Bill
Chapter LXXVII. The Travellers Return Home
Chapter LXXVIII. Mr Cheesacre’s Fate
Chapter LXXIX. Diamonds Are Diamonds
Chapter LXXX. The Story Is Finished Within the Halls of the Duke of Omnium
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