The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864, page 109 by Various Authors
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reys! And you've put geraniums in my hair, when I meant to wear those beautiful blue poison-bells!"
"I never saw any one so dark as you are wear so much blue."
"But it's becoming to me, isn't it?" said Éloise, turning with her smile, as radiant for Lottie as for Marlboro'.
"St. George," said Marlboro', with a beaming face bent over his shoulder, as he took Éloise out to dinner, "my intention was the earlier; it will succeed!"
"As being the eldest born and heir to the succession. Does the good general expose his campaign?"
"There we are quits. It is precisely as a good general that I exposed it."
"But did the Levites unveil the sacred ark?" said Mr. St. George, severely.
"We are talking freemasonry, Miss Changarnier," said Marlboro', and they moved on.
* * * * *
Whether she would or not, Éloise found herself in exactly the same position in the house as before her adopted father's death,--partly because almost all the company, being old friends, recognized no difference, partly because Mr. St. George silently chose it should be so. She soon forgot herself entirely in the pleasure of it, and was unconsciously, even towards Mr. St. George, so sweet and genial, so blithe and bewitching, that his scanning glance would suddenly have to fall, since an expression, he felt, entered it that he dared not have her see. There was always a certain disarray about the costume of Éloise; one tress of her hair was always drooping too low, or one thrust back behind the beautiful temple and tiny ear, or a bracelet was half undone, or a mantle dropping off,--trifles that only gave one the desire to help her; she constantly wore, too, a scarf or shawl, or something of the kind, and the drapery lent her a kind of tender womanliness, which only such things do; then, too, she garnished her hair with flowers always half falling away, somewhat faded with the warmth, and emitting strong, rich fragrances in dying. When she laughed, and the brilliant lit