"There was nothing ailed him," he said to Ethelyn, when she asked what
was the matter, and accused him of being positively cross. She was very
gay; Camden society suited her; and as the season advanced, and the
festivities grew more and more frequent, she was seldom at home more
than one or two evenings in the week, while the day was given either to
the arrangement of dress or taking of necessary rest, so that her
husband saw comparatively little of her, except for the moment when she
always came to him with hood and white cloak in hand to ask him how she
looked, before going to the carriage waiting at the door. Never in her
girlish days had she been so beautiful as she was now, but Richard
seldom told her so, though he felt the magic influence of her brilliant
beauty, and did not wonder that she was the reigning belle. He seldom
accompanied her himself. Parties, and receptions, and concerts, were
bores, he said; and at first he had raised objections to her going
without him. But after motherly Mrs. Harris, who boarded in the next
block, and was never happier than when chaperoning someone, offered to
see to her and take her under the same wing which had sheltered six
fine and now well-married daughters, Richard made no further objections.
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