“LADDIE” PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE.
“I think we have managed that as well as possible!” exclaimed Phillis, when they found themselves outside the gates. “What a good thing Adelaide and Mrs. Forbes and Lily were there! Now we need only call at those three houses to say good-bye. How hot you look, Nan! and how they all hemmed you in! I was obliged to come to your rescue, you were so beset; but I think I have put them off the scent.”
“Yes, for the present; but think, Phil, if Carrie really carries out her intention, and all the Paine tribe and Adelaide come down to Hadleigh next summer! No wonder I am hot; the bare idea suffocates me.”
“Something may turn up before then; it is no good looking so far ahead,” was the philosophical rejoinder. “Adelaide is rather formidable, certainly, and, in spite of her good nature, one does not feel at home with her. There is a flavor of money about her, I think; she dresses, talks, and lives in such a gilded way one finds her heavy; but she may get married before then. Mr. Dalrymple certainly seemed to mean it when he was down here last winter, and he will be a good match for her. But here we are at Fitzroy Square. I wonder what sort of humor her ladyship will be in?”
Lady Fitzroy received them very graciously. She had just been indulging in a slight dispute with her husband, and the interruption was welcome to both of them; besides, she was always gracious to the Challoners.
“You have just come in time, for we were boring each other dreadfully,” she said, in her pretty languid way, holding out a hand to each of them. “Percival, will you ring the bell, please? I cannot think why Thorpe does not bring up the tea as usual!” 86
Lord Fitzroy obeyed his wife’s behest, and then he turned with a relieved air to his old friend Phillis. She was the clever one; and though some people called her quiet, that was because they did not draw her out, or she had no sympathy with them. He had always found her decidedly amusing and agreeable in the days of his bachelorhood.
He had married the beauty of a season, but the beauty was not without her little crotchets and tempers; and though he was both fond and proud of his wife, he found Phillis’s talk a relief this afternoon.
But Phillis was a little distraite on this occasion: she wanted to hear what Nan was saying in a low voice across the room, and Thorpe and his subordinate were setting the tea-table, and Lord Fitzroy would place himself just before her.
“Now look here, Miss Challoner,” he was saying, “I want to tell you all about it;” but here Thorpe left the room, and Lady Fitzroy interrupted them: