Chapter V
Pauline’s Birthright
‘Do you believe in altitudes?’ It was Richard Everidge, Aunt Rutha’s favourite nephew, who asked the question of Pauline, as they sat on the broad piazza after church waiting for lunch.
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean that trilogy of exulting triumph over the trammels of circumstance that Mr Dunn gave us this morning. Don’t you remember? “Life is what we make it—an anthem or a dirge, a psalm of hope or a lamentation of despair.” Do you believe any one can live in such a rare atmosphere every day?’
‘Of course she does,’ and Belle laughed merrily. ‘Anyone who has courage to stroll through the Middle Ages with old Mr Hallam before sunrise, must have plenty of altitude in her composition. It is my belief she lives on Mount Shasta, in a moral sense, and I shouldn’t be surprised to hear of her taking out a building permit at the North Pole, if she thought duty called her. But, Dick, how can you be such an atrocious sceptic as to doubt the possibility of one’s living above the clouds when you know my lady!’
‘Ah, but she is Tryphosa, the blessed.’
‘Tryphosa!’ echoed Pauline in a mystified tone.
‘That is her name,’ said Richard Everidge, with a tender reverence in his voice, ‘and she deserves it, for she is among the aristocracy of the elect. I never see her without feeling envious, and yet she has been a sufferer for years. I am amazed that Belle has let all this time pass without taking you to call at the threshold of the Palace Beautiful.’