ates. "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!"

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