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"You can't think of my helplessness! If it were a Greek verb now, or a lost and strayed angle but poetry!" Betty trotted back and forth between the room and the library, delved into books, and even evolved a verse which she audaciously tagged "old play," in imitation of Sir Walter Scott. "I think they are really and truly very bright, and I know Mrs. Fernell will be delighted."
Meanwhile, in view of her coming marriage, the Countess decided to abandon the remainder of her term at Fernell Hall, and return to her pretty little house in town. But she could not do this quite so quickly as she had expected, and half a year or more elapsed before she finally quitted the neighbourhood, the interval being passed in alternations between the country and London.
Nevertheless, when the change came, and Dorothy was handed over to the kind cottage-woman, the poor child missed the luxurious roominess of Fernell Hall and Deansleigh; and for a long time her little feet, which had been accustomed to carpets and oak floors, suffered from the cold of the stone flags on which it was now her lot to live and to play; while chilblains came upon her fingers with washing at the pump.
One day at dinner, on their return from a short absence in town, whither they had gone to see what the world was doing, hear what it was saying, and to make themselves generally fashionable after rusticating for so long on this occasion, I say, they learnt from some friend who had joined them at dinner that Fernell Hall the manorial house of the estate next their own, which had been offered on lease by reason of the impecuniosity of its owner had been taken for a term by a widow lady, an Italian Contessa, whose name I will not mention for certain reasons which may by and by appear.
'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.
When they reached home, the Countess and Dorothy were still absent from the neighbouring Fernell Hall, but in a month or two they returned, and a little later Sir Ashley Mottisfont came into his wife's room full of news. 'Well would you think it, Philippa! After being so desperate, too, about getting Dorothy to be with her! 'Ah what? 'Our neighbour, the Countess, is going to be married again!
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