e a month."

"I am afraid I rather broke in upon your conversation just now," says
Branscombe, looking earnestly at her. "But for my coming, Kennedy
would have stayed on with you; and he is a--a rather amusing sort of
fellow, isn't he?"

"Is he? He was exceedingly stupid to-day, at all events. I don't
believe he has a particle of brains, or else he thinks other people
haven't. I enjoyed myself a great deal more with the old duke, until
that ridiculous Sir John Lincoln came to us. I don't think he knew a
bit who the duke was, because he kept saying odd little things about
the grounds and the guests, right under his nose; at least, right
behind his back: it is all the same thing."

"What is? His nose and his back?" asks Dorian; at which piece of folly
they both laugh as though it was the best thing in the world.

Then they make their way over the smooth lawns, and past the glowing
flower-beds, and past Sir John Lincoln, too, who is standing in an
impossible attitude, that makes him all elbows and knees, talking to a
very splendid young man--all bone and muscle and good humor--who is
plainly delighted with him. To the splendid young man he is nothing
but one vast joke.

Seeing Mrs. Branscombe, they both raise their hats, and Sir John so
far forgets the tulips as to give it as his opinion that she is "Quite
too, too intense for every-day life." Whereupon the splendid young
man, breaking into praise too, declares she is "Quite too awfully
jolly, don't you know," which commonplace remark so horrifies his
companion that he sadly and tearfully turns aside, and leaves him to
his fate.

Georgie, who has been brought to a standstill for a moment, hears both
remarks, and laughs aloud.

"It is something to be admired by Colonel Vibart, isn't it?" she says
to Dorian; "but it is really very sad about poor Sir John. He has
bulbous roots on the brain, and they have turned him as mad as a
hatter."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"There's not a scene on earth so full of lightness
That withering care
Sleeps not beneath the flowers and turns their brightness
To dark despair."--HON. MRS. NORTON.

It is a day of a blue and goldness so intense as to make one believe
these two are the only colors on earth worthy of admiration. The sky
is cloudless; the great sun is wide awake; the flowers are drooping,
sleeping,--too languid to lift their heavy heads.

"The gentle wind, that like a ghost doth