Phineas declared that he remembered it well. "I must go round by the
woodman's cottage. You won't mind coming?" Phineas said that he would
not mind, and trotted on to tell them in the carriage.
"Where is she going?" asked Lady Baldock; and then, when Phineas
explained, she begged the Earl to go back to Violet. The Earl,
feeling the absurdity of this, declared that Violet knew her way very
well herself, and thus Phineas got his opportunity.
They rode on almost without speaking for nearly a mile, cantering
through the trees, and then they took another turn to the right, and
came upon the cottage. They rode to the door, and spoke a word or two
to the woman there, and then passed on. "I always come here when I am
at Saulsby," said Violet, "that I may teach myself to think kindly of
Lord Chiltern."
"I understand it all," said Phineas.
"He used to be so nice;--and is so still, I believe, only that he has
taught himself to be so rough. Will he ever change, do you think?"
Phineas knew that in this emergency it was his especial duty to be
honest. "I think he would be changed altogether if we could bring him
here,--so that he should live among his friends."
"Do you think he would? We must put our heads together, and do it.
Don't you think that it is to be done?"
Phineas replied that he thought it was to be done.
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