Please leave me at
home, Lady Laura."
"But Geraldine begs that you will go. She'll keep her room all day, I've no
doubt; she generally does, when she has one of her headaches. Every one
is going, and I have set my heart on driving you. I want to hear what you
think of the roans. Come, George, I really must insist upon it."
She led him off to the phaeton triumphantly; while Frederick Armstrong was
fain to find some vent for his admiration of his gifted wife's diplomacy
in sundry winks and grins to the address of no one in particular, as he
bustled to and fro between the terrace and the hall, arranging the mode and
manner of the day's excursion--who was to be driven by whom, and so on.
Clarissa found herself bestowed in a landau full of ladies, Barbara Fermor
amongst them; and was very merry with these agreeable companions, who gave
her no time to meditate upon that change in Mr. Fairfax's manner last
night, which had troubled her a little in spite of her better sense. He was
nothing to her, of course; an accidental acquaintance whom she might never
see again after this visit; but he had known her brother, and he had been
kind and sympathetic--so much so, that she would have been glad to think
that he was really her friend. Perhaps, after all, there was very little
cause that she should be perplexed or worried on account of his quiet
avoidance of her that one evening; but then Clarissa Lovel was young and
inexperienced, and thus apt to be hypersensitive, and easily disturbed
about trifles.
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