Beulah - Page 207/348

"How you do rattle on about things you don't comprehend!" laughed

Beulah.

"Come, don't set me down for a simpleton! I tell you I am in

earnest! You must come back to Uncle Guy!"

"Pauline, it is worse than useless to talk of this matter. I decided

long ago as to what I ought to do, and certainly shall not change my

opinion now. Tell me what you saw in Europe."

"Why, has not Eugene told you all you wish to know? Apropos! I saw

him at a party last night, playing the devoted to that little

beauty, Netta Dupres. We were all in Paris at the same time. I don't

fancy her; she is too insufferably vain and affected. It is my

opinion that she is flirting with Eugene, which must be quite

agreeable to you. Oh, I tell you, Beulah, I could easily put her

mind, heart, and soul in my thimble!"

"I did not ask your estimate of Miss Dupres. I want to know

something of your European tour. I see Eugene very rarely."

"Oh, of course we went to see all the sights, and very stupid it

was. Mr. Lockhart scolded continually about my want of taste and

appreciation, because I did not utter all the interjections of

delight and astonishment over old, tumbledown ruins, and genuine

'masterpieces' of art, as he called them. Upon my word, I have been

tired almost to death, when he and ma descanted by the hour on the

'inimitable, and transcendent, and entrancing' beauties and glories

of old pictures, that were actually so black with age that they

looked like daubs of tar, and I could not tell whether the figures

were men or women, archangels or cow drivers. Some things I did

enjoy; such as the Alps, and the Mediterranean, and St. Peter's, and

Westminster Abbey, and some of the German cathedrals. But as to

keeping my finger on the guide-book and committing all the ecstasy

to memory, to spout out just at the exact moment when I saw nothing

to deserve it, why, that is all fudge. I tell you there is nothing

in all Europe equal to our Niagara! I was heartily glad to come

home, though I enjoyed some things amazingly."

"How is Mr. Lockhart's health?"

"Very poor, I am sorry to say. He looks so thin and pale I often

tell him he would make quite as good a pictured saint as any we saw

abroad."

"How long will you remain here?"

"Till Uncle Guy thinks Mr. Lockhart is well enough to go to his

plantation, I suppose."