London had gone quiet, and Annabella had grown first listless, then dull, then bored altogether, and subsequently irritable—after which it needed only a run of wet days to induce in her a steady depression of spirits. Lady Melbourne, from private motives she promised later to reveal, wished for Miss Milbanke to call on her. She had a little test to set her niece, which, she suspected, might prove as amusing as it promised to be instructive. Annabella arrived at Melbourne House on a cold morning whose dryness suggested the real beginnings of autumn. The smoke of hearth-fires sharpened the air. She had not felt so light-hearted in weeks. She had walked all the way, as she confessed at once to Jennings when he showed her inside. He complimented her on her fresh colour, and she glanced at her reflection in the hall mirror, to test his praise. Her own eyes stared back at her, bright with exercise. As she looked, she felt the startle of an actual recognition, blinking back at her, and quickly turned to follow Jennings into the library.
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