So Neil was very gracious, and sugared
Blanche's strawberries for her at breakfast, and read to her after
breakfast, and staid at home to lunch, and never mentioned Bessie, or
hinted that he would much rather be sitting with her on the old
hair-cloth sofa in Mrs. Buncher's parlor than in that elegantly
furnished boudoir, and when the hour for driving came, and his mother
complained of a headache, and asked him to go with Blanche, he consented
readily, but suggested that she leave her poodle at home, as one puppy
was enough for her, he said.
And so about five o'clock the McPherson carriage drove into the park
near Apsley House, and in it sat Miss Blanche, gorgeous in light-blue
silk and white lace hat, with large solitaires in her ears, her red
parasol held airily over her head and her insipid face wreathed in
smiles, as she talked to her companion, the handsome Neil, whose dark
face was such a contrast to her own, and who reclined indolently at her
side, answering her questions mechanically, but thinking always of
Bessie, and wondering if she were there in the hired chair, and if she
would see him, or, what was more to the purpose, if he should see her
among the multitude which thronged the park that afternoon.
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