"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."
"How long will you remain here?"
"Till Uncle Guy thinks Mr. Lockhart is well enough to go to his plantation, I suppose."
"What makes you so restless, Pauline? Why don't you sit still?" asked Beulah, observing that her visitor twisted about as if uncomfortable.