"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."