Girls in pretty light summer
costumes made picturesque groups under the stately oaks and
beeches,--gay laughter echoed from the leafy shrubberies, and stray
couples were seen sauntering meditatively through the rose-gardens,
treading on the fallen scented petals, and apparently too much absorbed
in each other to notice anything that was going on around them. Most of
these were lovers, of course--intending lovers, if not declared
ones,--in fact, Eros was very busy that day among the roses, and shot
forth a great many arrows, aptly aimed, out of his exhaustless quiver.
Two persons there were, however,--man and woman,--who, walking in that
same rose-avenue, did not seem, from their manner, to have much to do
with the fair Greek god,--they were Lady Winsleigh and Sir Francis
Lennox. Her ladyship looked exceedingly beautiful in her clinging dress
of Madras lace, with a bunch of scarlet poppies at her breast, and a
wreath of the same vivid flowers in her picturesque Leghorn hat. She
held a scarlet-lined parasol over her head, and from under the
protecting shadow of this silken pavilion, her dark, lustrous eyes
flashed disdainfully as she regarded her companion.
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