She already hated
Anne Ashton with a fierce and bitter hatred. She turned sick with envy
when, in the morning visit that was that day paid by the Ashtons, she saw
that Anne was really what Lord Hartledon had described her--one of the
sweetest, most lovable, most charming of girls; almost without her equal
in the world for grace and goodness and beauty. She turned more sick with
envy when, at dinner afterwards, to which the Ashtons came, Lord
Hartledon devoted himself to them, almost to the neglect of his other
guests, lingering much with Anne.
The countess-dowager marked it also, and was furious. Nothing could be
urged against them; they were unexceptionable. The doctor, a chatty,
straightforward, energetic man, of great intellect and learning, and
emphatically a gentleman; his wife attracting by her unobtrusive
gentleness; his daughter by her grace and modest self-possession.
Whatever Maude Kirton might do, she could never, for very shame, again
attempt to disparage them. Surely there was no just reason for the hatred
which took possession of Maude's heart; a hatred that could never be
plucked out again.
But Maude knew how to dissemble. It pleased her to affect a sudden and
violent friendship for Anne.
"Hartledon told me how much I should like you," she whispered, as they
sat together on the sofa after dinner, to which Maude had drawn her.
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