"Oh, you dear darling! you shall have everything you want, and do nothing but read." The impulsive child threw her arms around Beulah's neck, and kissed her repeatedly, while the latter bent down over her basket.
"Lilly, here are some chinquapins for you and Olaudy. I am going out into the yard, and you may both go and play hull-gull."
In the debating room of the visiting committee Miss White again had the floor. She was no less important a personage than vice president of the board of managers, and felt authorized to investigate closely and redress all grievances.
"Who did you say sent that book here, Mrs. Mason?"
"Eugene Rutland, who was once a member of Mrs. Williams' orphan charge in this asylum. Mr. Graham adopted him, and he is now known as Eugene Graham. He is very much attached to Beulah, though I believe they are not at all related."
"He left the asylum before I entered the board. What sort of boy is he? I have seen him several times, and do not particularly fancy him."
"Oh, madam, he is a noble boy! It was a great trial to me to part with him three years ago. He is much older than Beulah, and loves her as well as if she were his sister," said the matron, more hastily than was her custom, when answering any of the managers.
"I suppose he has put this notion of being a teacher into her head. Well, she must get it out, that is all. I know of an excellent situation, where a lady is willing to pay six dollars a month for a girl of her age to attend to an infant, and I think we must secure it for her."
"Oh, Miss White! she is not able to carry a heavy child always in her arms," expostulated Mrs. Williams.
"Yes, she is. I will venture to say she looks all the better for it at the month's end." The last sentence, fraught with interest to herself, fell upon Beulah's ear, as she passed through the hall, and an unerring intuition told her "You are the one." She put her hands over her ears to shut out Miss Dorothea's sharp tones, and hurried away, with a dim foreboding of coming evil, which pressed heavily upon her young heart.