appointment.
Erminie makes a resolve.
"I'll come, Phil," she says, holding out her hand.
"But it will be so inconvenient!"
"Never mind. I shall interest Eleanor in my things, and try to win her
from the widow. Erminie Henderson _versus_ Giddy Mounteagle. What is
the betting, Phil?"
He grasps her hands, and wrings them heartily.
"You are the best little woman that ever lived!" he says.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SHADOWS RISE AND FALL.
"I am so sorry, Giddy, darling," Eleanor writes, "but I can't possibly
go to town with you this afternoon, as Philip's cousin, Miss Henderson,
has just arrived to stay, and her _fiance_, Nelson, is coming too. She
is quite jolly, and I thought she would be horrid. Many thanks for
sending on that silly little note from Mr. Quinton. Why did he address
it to your house? I suppose he forgot 'Lyndhurst' though I told him
the name.
"Ever your devoted,
"ELEANOR."
"Dense little idiot!" sighs Giddy. "She cannot understand poor Carol's
passion, and yet he kissed her in the hansom. It was like Eleanor to
tell me. She always gives herself away. I pity those refreshingly
young people who can never keep anything to themselves." Giddy waves
up to the windows of Lyndhurst as she drives by.
"Who is that little Jezebel?" asks Erminie.
"My great friend, Mrs. Mounteagle," replies Eleanor.
"Tell her to knock off blanc de perle," responds Miss Henderson, "she
would be twice as good-looking."
"I quite miss Erminie and Nelson," says Eleanor, glancing at her
husband across the tea-table, with a bright smile. "They were most
delightful people certainly."
It is several weeks later, and Erminie and Nelson are honeymooning in
foreign climes.
"Yes, dear, and I really think we have been happier since their visit.
They were so peaceful, so loving together; perhaps it was the force of
good example."
"I don't think there has been one cross word for a fortnight," says
Eleanor, laughing. She piles up the silken pillows on the sofa beside
her.
"Come and sit here close by me, and we will have a little flirtation,
like in the old days. Only you must imagine these brocade flowers are
real red field poppies, and this sofa is a haycock, just at the back of
Copthorne Farm. I can almost hear the lazy hum of the bees, and smell
the fresh mown grass. I am not in a silk tea jacket, but my old blue
cotton frock with the tear in the elbow, you remember I caught it on a
nail b
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