Beulah Part 52

She softly smoothed back his hair and kissed his forehead. She was a n.o.ble-looking woman, with a tranquil countenance that betokened a serene, cloudless soul; and as she stood beside her husband, his eyes rested on her face with an expression bordering on adoration.

Beulah could not avoid wondering why such women were so very rare, and the thought presented itself with painful force, "If Cornelia Graham and I had had such mothers, we might both have been happier and better." Probably something of what crossed her mind crept into her countenance, for the doctor asked laughingly:

"In the name of Venus! what are you s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up your lips and looking so ugly about?"

"I suppose one reason is that I must go home." She rose, with a suppressed sigh.

"I am disposed to think it much more probable that you were envying me my wife. Come, confess."

"I was wis.h.i.+ng that I had such a mother."

With some sudden impulse she threw her arms round Mrs. Asbury's neck, and hid her face on her shoulder.

"Then let me be your mother, my dear child," said she, pressing the girl affectionately to her heart and kissing her pale cheek.

"Are you troubled about anything, my dear?" continued Mrs. Asbury, surprised at this manifestation of feeling in one usually so cold and reserved.

"An orphan heart mourns its dead idols," answered Beulah, raising her hand and withdrawing from the kind arm that encircled her. Mrs.

Asbury interpreted a quick glance from her husband, and did not press the matter further; but, at parting, she accompanied Beulah to the front door, and earnestly a.s.sured her that if she could in any way advise or a.s.sist her she would consider it both a privilege and a pleasure to do so. Returning to the library, she laid her soft hand on her husband's arm, and said anxiously:

"George, what is the matter with her?"

"She is distressed, or, rather, perplexed, about her religious doubts, I inferred from what she said just before you came in. She has drifted out into a troubled sea of philosophy, I am inclined to think, and, not satisfied with what she has found, is now irresolute as to the proper course. Poor child, she is terribly in earnest about the matter." He sighed heavily.

His wife watched him eagerly.

"What did you tell her?"

"Not to come to me; that it would be a perfect exemplification of 'the blind leading the blind'; and when she learned my own state of uncertainty, she seemed to think so herself."

An expression of acute pain pa.s.sed over her features; but, banis.h.i.+ng it as speedily as possible, she answered very gently:

"Take care, my husband, lest by recapitulating your doubts you strengthen hers."

"Alice, I told her the whole truth. She is not a nature to be put off with halfway statements. Hartwell is an avowed infidel, and she knows it; yet I do not believe his views have weighed with her against received systems of faith. My dear Alice, this spirit of skepticism is scattered far and wide over the land; I meet with it often where I least expect it. It broods like a hideous nightmare over this age, and Beulah must pa.s.s through the same ordeal which is testing the intellectual portion of every community. But--there is that eternal door-bell. Let us have dinner, Alice; I must go out early this afternoon."

He took down a pair of scales and began to weigh some medicine. His wife wisely forbore to renew the discussion, and, ringing the bell for dinner, interested him with an account of her visit to a poor family who required his immediate attention.

With a heart unwontedly heavy Beulah prepared to call upon Pauline, later in the afternoon of the same day. It was not companions.h.i.+p she needed, for this was supplied by books, and the sensation of loneliness was one with which she had not yet been made acquainted; but she wanted a strong, healthy, cultivated intellect, to dash away the mists that were wreathing about her own mind. Already the lofty, imposing structure of self-reliance began to rock to its very foundations. She was nearly ready for her walk, when Mrs. Hoyt came in.

"Miss Beulah, there is a lady in the parlor waiting to see you."

"Is it Miss Graham?"

"No. She is a stranger, and gave no name."

Beulah descended to the parlor in rather an ungracious mood. As she entered a lady sprang to meet her, with both hands extended. She was superbly beautiful, with a complexion of dazzling whiteness, and clear, radiant, violet eyes, over which arched delicately penciled brows. The Grecian mouth and chin were faultlessly chiseled; the whole face was one of rare loveliness.

"You don't know me! For shame, Beulah, to forget old friends!"

"Oh, Pauline, is it you? I am very glad to see you."

"Don't say that for politeness' sake! Here I have been for ten days and you have not stirred a foot to see me."

"I didn't know you were in town till this morning, and just as you came I was putting on my bonnet to go and see you."

"Are you telling the truth?"

"Yes; positively I am."

"Well, I am glad you felt disposed to see me. After my uncle, you and Charon are all I cared anything about meeting here. Bless your dear, solemn, gray eyes! how often I have wanted to see you!"

The impulsive girl threw her arms round Beulah's neck, and kissed her repeatedly.

"Be quiet, and let me look at you. Oh, Pauline, how beautiful you have grown!" cried Beulah, who could not forbear expressing the admiration she felt.

"Yes; the artists in Florence raved considerably about ray beauty. I can't tell you the number of times I sat for my portrait. It is very pleasant to be pretty; I enjoy it amazingly," said she, with all the candor which had characterized her in childhood; and, with a vigorous squeeze of Beulah's hand, she continued:

"I was astonished when I came, and found that you had left Uncle Guy, and were teaching little ragged, dirty children their A B C's.

What possessed you to do such a silly thing?"

"Duty, my dear Pauline."

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't begin about duty. Ernest--" She paused, a rich glow swept over her face, and, shaking back her curls, she added:

"You must quit all this. I say you must!"

"I see you are quite as reckless and scatter-brained as ever,"

answered Beulah, smiling at her authoritative tone.

"No; I positively am not the fool Uncle Guy used to think me. I have more sense than people give me credit for, though I dare say I shall find you very skeptical on the subject. Beulah, I know very well why you took it into your wise head to be a teacher. You were unwilling to usurp what you considered my place in Uncle Guy's home and heart.

You need not straighten yourself in that ungraceful way. I know perfectly well it is the truth; but I am no poor, suffering, needy innocent, that you should look after. I am well provided for, and don't intend to take one cent of Uncle Guy's money, so you might just as well have the benefit of it. I know, too, that you and ma did not exactly adore each other. I understand all about that old skirmis.h.i.+ng. But things have changed very much, Beulah; so you must quit this horrid nonsense about working and being independent."

"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."