None so wretched, none so bare,
So o’erdriven by despair
But the hearing will repair,
Give him jollity to spare,
So rich the tale.”
As she finished the verse Eugenia reached down and taking hold of Barbara lifted her to her feet.
“You are perfectly absurd with your little love tale, dear, and I don’t see the least point in it. Still, it has been nice and restful to have had a quiet evening like this. Perhaps it is better for us to forget the tragedies about us now and then. Besides, I expect I need more education in romance. But go upstairs to bed, all of you at once. I’ll close up the house for the night.”
Eugenia shooed the three girls away as if they had been chickens and she a guardian hen. But after they left her she did not start upon her task at once. Instead she stood with her hands clasped looking down into the fire.
Outside the rain must have ceased for she no longer heard the noise of it. Indeed, the world seemed strangely quiet to ears accustomed to the cannonading she had heard so often in the past months.
But she was not thinking of this at the present moment, but of her visit to the chateau earlier in the afternoon. The call had not been an agreeable one, for she had never felt more ill at ease. However, Eugenia made up her mind that she would never accept an invitation there again. She might then escape meeting either the Countess or her son. And with this thought in mind she stopped to put out the last flickering flames of the fire.