Beulah - Page 61/348

"Don't you feel better than you did this morning?"

"Oh, I am well enough in body; a little weak, that is all."

"You look quite tired. Suppose you lean your head against me and

take a short nap?"

"You are very good indeed; but I am not at all sleepy."

Clara was engaged in drawing, and, looking on, Beulah became

interested in the progress of the sketch. Suddenly a hand was placed

over the paper, and a tall, handsome girl, with black eyes and

sallow complexion, exclaimed sharply: "For Heaven's sake, Clara Sanders, do you expect to swim into the

next world on a piece of drawing-paper? Come over to my seat and

work out that eighth problem for me. I have puzzled over it all the

morning, and can't get it right."

"I can show you here quite as well." Taking out her Euclid, she

found and explained the obstinate problem.

"Thank you! I cannot endure mathematics, but father is bent upon my

being 'thorough,' as he calls it. I think it is all thorough

nonsense. Now, with you it is very different; you expect to be a

teacher, and of course will have to acquire all these branches; but

for my part I see no use in it. I shall be rejoiced when this dull

school-work is over."

"Don't say that, Cornelia; I think our school days are the happiest,

and feel sad when I remember that mine are numbered."

Here the bell announced recess over, and Cornelia moved away to her

seat. A trembling hand sought Clara's arm.

"Is that Cornelia Graham?"

"Yes. Is she not very handsome?"

Beulah made no answer; she only remembered that this girl was

Eugene's adopted sister, and, looking after the tall, queenly form,

she longed to follow her and ask all the particulars of the storm.

Thus ended the first dreaded day at school, and, on reaching home,

Beulah threw herself on her bed with a low, wailing cry. The long-

pent sorrow must have vent, and she sobbed until weariness sank her

into a heavy sleep.

Far out in a billowy sea, strewed with wrecks, and hideous with the

ghastly, upturned faces of floating corpses, she and Eugene were

drifting--now clinging to each other--now tossed asunder by howling

waves. Then came a glimmering sail on the wide waste of waters; a

little boat neared them, and Lilly leaned over the side and held out

tiny, dimpled hands to lift them in. They were climbing out of their

watery graves, and Lilly's long, fair curls already touched their

cheeks, when a strong arm snatched Lilly back, and struck them down

into the roaring gulf, and above the white faces of the drifting

dead stood Mrs. Grayson, sailing away with Lilly struggling in her

arms. Eugene was sinking and Beulah could not reach him; he held up

his arms imploringly toward her, and called upon her to save him,

and then his head with its wealth of silken, brown locks

disappeared. She ceased to struggle; she welcomed drowning now that

he had gone to rest among coral temples. She sank down--down. The

rigid corpses were no longer visible. She was in an emerald palace,

and myriads of rosy shells paved the floors. At last she found

Eugene reposing on a coral bank, and playing with pearls; she

hastened to join him, and was just taking his hand when a horrible

phantom, seizing him in its arms, bore him away, and, looking in its

face, she saw that it was Mrs. Chilton. With a wild scream of

terror, Beulah awoke. She was lying across the foot of the bed, and

both hands were thrown up, grasping the post convulsively. The room

was dark, save where the moonlight crept through the curtains and

fell slantingly on the picture of Hope and the Pilgrims, and by that

dim light she saw a tall form standing near her.