Beulah - Page 188/348

"My child, won't you come down to the sitting room?"

"No, sir; I am better here."

"But you will be so lonely."

"Not with Beulah."

"But, of course, Miss Benton will desire to see the tableaux. You

would not keep her from them?" remonstrated her father.

"Thank you, Mr. Graham, I prefer remaining with Cornelia," answered

Beulah, who had no wish to mingle in the crowd which, she understood

from the conversation, would assemble that evening in the parlors.

The trio round the hearth looked at each other, and evidently

thought she manifested very heathenish taste. Cornelia smiled, and

leaned back with an expression of pleasure which very rarely lighted

her face.

"You are shockingly selfish and exacting," said Antoinette, curling

her long ringlets over her pretty fingers and looking very

bewitching. Her cousin eyed her in silence, and not particularly

relishing her daughter's keen look Mrs. Graham rose, kissed her

forehead, and said gently: "My love, the Vincents, and Thorntons. and Hendersons all sent to

inquire after you this morning. Netta and I must go down now and

prepare for our tableaux. I leave you in good hands. Miss Benton is

considered an admirable nurse, I believe."

"Mother, where is Eugene?"

"I really do not know. Do you, Mr. Graham?"

"He has gone to the hotel to see some of his old Heidelberg

friends," answered Netta, examining Beulah's plain merino dress very

minutely as she spoke.

"When he comes home be good enough to tell him that I wish to see

him."

"Very well, my dear." Mrs. Graham left the room, followed by her

husband and niece.

For some time Cornelia sat just as they left her; the diamond

necklace slipped down and lay a glittering heap on the carpet, and

the delicate waxen hands drooped listlessly over the arms of the

chair. Her profile was toward Beulah, who stood looking at the

regular, beautiful features, and wondering how (with so many

elements of happiness in her home) she could seem so discontented.

She was thinking, too, that there was a certain amount of truth in

that persecuted and ignored dictum, "A man only sees that which he

brings with him the power of seeing," when Cornelia raised herself,

and, turning her head to look for her companion, said slowly: "Where are you? Do you believe in the Emersonian 'law of

compensation,' rigid and inevitable as fate? I say, Beulah, do you

believe it?"

"Yes; I believe it."