A tall, black-haired girl of twenty-five rushed in.
"Why, Ben," she said, "you were not expected. And this is Miss Morgeson," shaking hands with me. "You will spend a month, won't you?" She put her chin in her hand, and scanned me with a cool deliberateness. "Pa, do you think she is like Caroline Bingham?"
"Yes, so she is; but fairer. She is a great belle," nodding to me.
"Do you really think she looks like her, Somers?" said Mrs. Somers, in a tone of denial.
"Certainly, but handsomer," Adelaide replied for him, without looking at her mother.
"Would you like to go to your room?" she asked. "What a pretty dress this is!" taking hold of the sleeve, her chin in her hand still. "We will have some walks; Belem is nice for walking. Pa, how do you feel now?"
She allowed me to go downstairs with father, without following, and sent Murphy in with wine and biscuit. I put my arms round his neck and kissed him, for I had a lonesome feeling, which I could not define at the last moment.
"You will not stay long," he said; "there is something oppressive in this atmosphere."
"Something artificial, is it? It must be the blood of the Bellevue
Pickersgills that thickens the air."
"Now," said Ben, with father's hat in his hand, "the time is up."