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Page 11
Eliot, who was busy in the adjoining room, heard an excited exclamation,
and then the call, "Oh, Eliot, Eliot! Come here, quick!" She was
stooping over the bed inspecting some clean clothes that had been sent
in from the laundry. Before she could straighten herself up to answer
the call, her elbows were seized from behind, and Eugenia began waltzing
her around backwards at a rate that made her head spin.
"Dance! You giddy old thing!" cried Eugenia. "Whoop and make a noise and
act as if you are glad! We are going to get out of our cage next week.
I'm invited to a house party. We are to spend a whole month in a
_house_, not a hotel. We're going to be part of a real live family in a
real sure enough home,--in an old Southern mansion."
"Goodness gracious, Miss Eugenia," panted Eliot, as she staggered into a
chair and settled her cap on her head. "You a'most scared me out of me
five wits, you were that sudden in your movements. I thought for a bit
as you had gone stark mad. You gave me quite a turn, you did."
Eugenia laughed. "I had to let off steam in some way," she said; "and
really, Eliot, you can't imagine how glad I am. They're cousins of
papa's, you know, the Shermans are. I used to know Lloyd when they lived
in New York. We played together every day, and fussed--my eyes, how we
fussed! But that was before she could talk plain, and she must be
eleven now, for she's about two years younger than I am."
Perching herself on the bed among piles of snowy linen, Eugenia clasped
her hands around her knees and began to tell all she could remember of
the Little Colonel. Because there was no one else to confide in, she
confided in the maid. Patient old Eliot listened to much family history
that did not interest her and which she immediately forgot, and to many
girlish rhapsodies over "Cousin Elizabeth," whom Eugenia declared was
the dearest thing that ever drew the breath of life.
As Eugenia talked on, idly rocking herself back and forth on the bed,
Eliot sorted the linen with deft fingers, laying some of it away in
drawers, sweet with dainty sachets, and putting some aside that needed a
stitch or two. Presently, as she listened, she found herself taking more
interest in the country place that Eugenia described than in anything
she had heard of since she said good-bye to her dear little cottage home
in England. She began to hope that Mr. Forbes would consent to Eugenia's
accepting the invitation, and expressed that wish to Eugenia.
"Why, of course I am going!" exclaimed Eugenia, in surprise. "Whether
papa wants me to or not! I shall answer Cousin Elizabeth's letter this
very minute and accept the invitation before he comes home. Then if he
makes a fuss it will be too late, and I can tease him into a good
humour."
Bouncing off the bed, she went back to the sitting-room and sat down at
her desk. When that letter was written, carefully, and in her best
style, she dashed off three notes in an almost unreadable scrawl, to
Mollie and Fay and Kell, telling them of her invitation and the delight
it gave her. Then she wandered back to the bedroom where Eliot sat
mending, and wandered restlessly around the room.
"How slow the time goes," she exclaimed, pausing in front of the mantel.
"Two hours until papa will be here. I want to tell him about it, and ask
for some more money. I need an extra allowance for this visit."
There was a little Dresden clock on the mantel; two cupids holding up a
flower basket, from which swung a spray of roses that formed the
pendulum.
"Two long hours," she fumed, scowling at the clock. "Hurry up, you old
slow-poke," she cried, catching up the fragile little timepiece and
shaking it until the pendulum rattled against the cupids' plump legs. "I
can't bear to wait for things."
"But life is mostly waiting, miss," said Eliot, with a solemn shake of
her head. "You'll find that out when you are as old as I am. We wait
for this and we wait for that, and first thing we know the years are
gone, and we are standing with one foot in the grave, waiting for Death
to lift us in."
Eugenia put her hands over her ears with a little scream. "Stop talking
like that, Eliot," she cried. "I won't listen, and I won't spend my life
waiting in that way. You may if you want to."
Running back to her sitting-room, she banged the door behind her to shut
out the sound of Eliot's voice. The next hour she spent by the window,
looking down on the shifting scenes of the streets below,--the noisy New
York streets, spread out like a giant picture-book before her. Then it
began to grow dark, and lights twinkled here and there, and great
letters of flame appeared as by magic across the fronts of buildings,
and on the electric arches spanning the streets.
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