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Clever Woman of the Family by Charlotte Mary Yonge
page 301 of 697 (43%)
places, quite enough to make the heliotropes sorrowful, strip the
fig-trees, and shut Colonel Keith up in the library. Then came the
rain, and the result was that the lawn of Myrtlewood became too
sloppy for the most ardent devotees of croquet; indeed, as Bessie
said, the great charm of the sport was that one could not play it
above eight months in the year.

The sun came back again, and re-asserted the claim of Avonmouth to be
a sort of English Mentone; but drying the lawn was past its power,
and Conrade and Francis were obliged to console themselves by the
glory of taking Bessie Keith for a long ride. They could not
persuade their mother to go with them, perhaps because she had from
her nursery-window sympathized with Cyril's admiration of the great
white horse that was being led round to the door of Gowanbrae.

She said she must stay at home, and make the morning calls that the
charms of croquet had led her to neglect, and in about half an hour
from that time she was announced in Miss Williams' little parlour,
and entered with a hurried, panting, almost pursued look, a
frightened glance in her eyes, and a flush on her cheek, such as to
startle both Ermine and the Colonel.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, as if still too much perturbed to know quite
what she was saying, "I--I did not mean to interrupt you."

"I'm only helping Rose to change the water of her hyacinths," said
Colonel Keith, withdrawing his eyes and attention to the
accommodation of the forest of white roots within the purple glass.

"I did not know you were out to-day," said Lady Temple, recovering
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