Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/184

182 of the day, properly applied. I wish, however, to give you one piece of advice before I leave: have I your permission?" Henrietta bowed a polite assent. "Allow me," continued Lord Marchmont, "to enter my protest against your passion for forming female friendships. They are generally useless—often inconvenient. Your friendship with Mrs. Courtenaye induced you to wear mourning, to the great hazard of my political consistency." "He has only been in the opposition a week!" thought his wife. "Your friendship for Miss Churchill has induced you to wish that I should lend the sanction of my countenance to traitors and Jacobins. I beg that, for the future, you will follow my example—I have no intimate friends!" "I should very much wonder if you had!" muttered the countess, as the door closed on the slow and stately exit of her husband.