"Why, are you clairvoyant?"
"Yes, Barbara, sometimes."
Millicent seemed somewhat disconcerted at what she had said; and, without noticing anything more in the pretty room, ascended the dainty little ebon staircase with its fanciful rail, and, pushing back a panel which slid into the wall, entered her bedroom. Later, when both of the girls had exchanged their travelling dresses, Barbara knocked at Millicent's boudoir.
"Entraté," was the response, in obedience to which she opened the door, and found Millicent lying on the low, crescent-shaped sofa, her fair head resting on a pile of cushions. Her graceful figure was clad in a gown soft amber in color, her only ornaments wonderful strings of amber beads falling over the white neck, which the fashion of the frock disclosed, and encircling the smooth bare arms, with their delicate tracery of blue veins like the lines in purest marble. Her hands were hidden, clasped behind her head, and the expression of her face was almost vacant in its look of absorbing reverie. Beside her on the floor lay a small parchment book, ivory-clasped,--"The Sonnets of Petrarch." Her eyes were fixed on the panel over the mantel shelf, but they saw more than the artist had pictured with brush and color: a waking day dream of her home as she had last seen it, and ah! how much sweeter an imagining of how she might next see it,--with what surroundings, with what companionship! O blessed dream-castles of women, in which all the cares and privations of life are forgotten; in which there is never a weariness or a pain; where lonely watching is succeeded by joyous reunion; where those who have lived and know too surely that they must die without that greatest happiness which life can hold, drink the cup of joy innocently, purely, fearing no bitter after-taste, finding no foul dregs!
At Barbara's entrance Millicent slowly drew herself back from dreamland into the actual present. Her eyes, which had been staring widely with a blank look, now seemed to change color with returning consciousness. It was a long journey, and she gave a deep sigh when it was accomplished, and she realized that plump, pretty Barbara, with her best frock and ribbons, stood by her side looking curiously in her face.
"I was reading, and I fancy I had fallen asleep, Bab, what can I do for you?"
"Mrs. Shallop suggested our all having tea here, if you liked. They do not dine till eight to-night. Mr. Shallop has been detained in San Francisco."
"Very well, dear, just as you say. You did not mean to send for the gentlemen?"
"Oh, yes, this room is always used for a tea room, unless you object, of course. If you prefer to 'sport your oak,' you have a perfect right to do so, and we will go downstairs."
"No, no, let us have it here by all means, if it is the custom."