I tell her there is safety in number. I have to look kind
and sympathetic while I am bored to death."
"Shall I accompany you and help you to amuse Lady Farnley?"
She repeated the words with a little laugh.
"Amuse Lady Farnley? I never undertake the impossible. You might as well
ask me to move the monument, it would be quite as easy."
"Shall I help her to amuse you, then?" he said.
"No, I will not impose on your friendship. Make yourself as comfortable
as you can, and I will try to hasten her departure."
Just as she was going away Lord Arleigh called to her.
"Philippa!" she turned her beautiful head half impatiently to him.
"What is it, Norman? Quick! The countess will think I am lost."
"May I go into your pretty rose-garden?" he asked.
She laughed.
"What a question! Certainly; you my go just where you please."
"She has forgotten her companion," he said to himself, "or she is not
about."
He went into the morning-room and through the long, open French window;
there were the lovely roses in bloom, and there--oh, kind, blessed
fate!--there was his beautiful Madaline, seated in the pretty trellised
arbor, busily working some fine point-lace, looking herself like the
fairest flower that ever bloomed.
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