Page:The Private Life, Lord Beaupré, The Visits (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893).djvu/137

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LORD BEAUPRÉ
127

on such an occasion, emptied itself of most of its inmates. Mary Gosselin asked her brother to join her in a devious ramble; she might have had other society, but she was in a mood to prefer his. These two were "great chums," and they had been separated so long that they had arrears of talk to make up. They had been at Bosco more than once, and though Hugh Gosselin said that the land of the free (which he had assured his sister was even more enslaved than dear old England) made one forget there were such spots on earth, they both remembered, a couple of miles away, a little ancient church to which the walk across the fields would be the right thing. They talked of other things as they went, and among them they talked of Mr. Bolton-Brown, in regard to whom Hugh, as scantily addicted to enthusiasm as to bursts of song (he was determined not to be taken in), became in commendation almost lyrical. Mary asked what he had done with his paragon, and he replied that he believed him to have gone out stealthily to sketch; they might come across him. He was ex-