well.

'What--she covets her still? How impertinent of the woman!' said Lady
Mottisfont.

'She seems to do so . . . You see, dearest Philippa, the advantage to
Dorothy would have been that the Countess would have adopted her legally,
and have made her as her own daughter; while we have not done that--we
are only bringing up and educating a poor child in charity.'

'But I'll adopt her fully--make her mine legally!' cried his wife in an
anxious voice. 'How is it to be done?'

'H'm.' He did not inform her, but fell into thought; and, for reasons of
her own, his lady was restless and uneasy.

The very next day Lady Mottisfont drove to Fernell Hall to pay the
neglected call upon her neighbour. The Countess was at home, and
received her graciously. But poor Lady Mottisfont's heart died within
her as soon as she set eyes on her new acquaintance. Such wonderful
beauty, of the fully-developed kind, had never confronted her before
inside the lines of a human face. She seemed to shine with every light
and grace that woman can possess. Her finished Continental manners, her
expanded mind, her ready wit, composed a study that made the other poor
lady sick; for she, and latterly Sir Ashley himself, were rather rural in
manners, and she felt abashed by new sounds and ideas from without. She
hardly knew three words in any language but her own, while this divine
creature, though truly English, had, apparently, whatever she wanted in
the Italian and French tongues to suit every impression; which was
considered a great improvement to speech in those days, and, indeed, is
by many considered as such in these.

'How very strange it was about the little girl!' the Contessa said to
Lady Mottisfont, in her gay tones. 'I mean, that the child the lawyer
recommended should, just before then, have been adopted by you, who are
now my neighbour. How is she getting on? I must come and see her.'

'Do you still want her?' asks Lady Mottisfont suspiciously.

'Oh, I should like to have her!'

'But you can't! She's mine!' said the other greedily.

A drooping manner appeared in the Countess from that moment.

Lady Mottisfont, too, was in a wretched mood all the way home that day.
The Countess was so charming in every way that she had charmed her gentle
ladyship; how should it be possible that she had failed to charm Sir
Ashley? Moreover, she had awakened a strange thought in Philippa's mind.
As soon as she reached home she rushed to