By degrees the two households became friendly, and very seldom did a
week pass without their seeing something of each other. Try as she
might, and dangerous as she assumed the acquaintanceship to be, Lady
Mottisfont could detect no fault or flaw in her new friend. It was
obvious that Dorothy had been the magnet which had drawn the
Contessa hither, and not Sir Ashley.
Such beauty, united with such understanding and brightness, Philippa
had never before known in one of her own sex, and she tried to think
(whether she succeeded I do not know) that she did not mind the
propinquity; since a woman so rich, so fair, and with such a command
of suitors, could not desire to wreck the happiness of so
inoffensive a person as herself.
The season drew on when it was the custom for families of
distinction to go off to The Bath, and Sir Ashley Mottisfont
persuaded his wife to accompany him thither with Dorothy. Everybody
of any note was there this year. From their own part of England
came many that they knew; among the rest, Lord and Lady Purbeck, the
Earl and Countess of Wessex, Sir John Grebe, the Drenkhards, Lady
Stourvale, the old Duke of Hamptonshire, the Bishop of Melchester,
the Dean of Exonbury, and other lesser lights of Court, pulpit, and
field. Thither also came the fair Contessa, whom, as soon as
Philippa saw how much she was sought after by younger men, she could
not conscientiously suspect of renewed designs upon Sir Ashley.
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