Beulah - Page 65/348

The girl's face flushed and paled alternately, as she received the

note and broke the seal with trembling fingers. Glancing over the

contents, her countenance became irradiated, and she exclaimed

joyfully: "Good news! The 'Morning Star' has arrived at Amsterdam. Eugene is

safe in Germany."

Beulah's head went down on her desk, and just audible were the

words: "My Father in Heaven, I thank thee!"

Only Clara and Cornelia heard the broken accents, and they looked

curiously at the bowed figure, quivering with joy.

"Ah! I understand; this is the asylum Beulah I have often heard him

speak of. I had almost forgotten the circumstance. You knew him very

well, I suppose?" said Cornelia, addressing herself to the orphan,

and crumpling the note between her fingers, while her eyes ran with

haughty scrutiny over the dress and features before her.

"Yes, I knew him very well." Beulah felt the blood come into her

cheeks, and she ill brooked the cold, searching look bent upon her.

"You are the same girl that he asked my father to send to the public

school. How came you here?"

A pair of dark gray eyes met Cornelia's gaze, and seemed to answer

defiantly, "What is it to you?"

"Has Dr. Hartwell adopted you? Pauline said so, but she is so

heedless that I scarcely believed her, particularly when it seemed

so very improbable."

"Hush, Cornelia! Why, you need Pauline's tuition about as much as

Fred Vincent, I am disposed to think. Don't be so inquisitive; it

pains her," remonstrated Clara, laying her arm around Beulah's

shoulder as she spoke.

"Nonsense! She is not so fastidious, I will warrant. At least, she

might answer civil questions."

"I always do," said Beulah.

Cornelia smiled derisively, and turned off, with the parting taunt: "It is a mystery to me what Eugene can see in such a homely,

unpolished specimen. He pities her, I suppose."

Clara felt a long shiver creep over the slight form, and saw the

ashen hue that settled on her face, as if some painful wound had

been inflicted. Stooping down, she whispered: "Don't let it trouble you. Cornelia is hasty, but she is generous,

too, and will repent her rudeness. She did not intend to pain you;

it is only her abrupt way of expressing herself."

Beulah raised her head, and, putting back the locks of hair that had

fallen over her brow, replied coldly: "It is nothing new; I am accustomed to such treatment. Only

professing to love Eugene I did not expect her to insult one whom he

had commissioned her to assist, or at least sympathize with."