"Don't ask me to appear while you are receiving your guests," Edith says. "I'll step in unobserved, when everybody has come."
She declines all offers of assistance, and dresses herself. It is a simple toilet surely—the crisp white muslin, out of which the polished shoulders rise; a little gold chain and cross, once her mother's; earrings and bracelet of gold and coral, also once her mother's; and her rich, abundant, blackish-brown hair, gathered back in a graceful way peculiar to herself. She looks very pretty, and she knows it. Presently sails in Miss Stuart, resplendent in the pink silk and pearls, the "court train" trailing two or three yards behind her, her light hair "done up" in a pyramid wonderful to behold, and loaded with camelias.
"How do I look, Dithy? This strawberry-ice pink is awfully becoming to me, isn't it? And you—why, you look lovely—lovely! I'd no idea you made up so handsomely. Ah! we blondes have no chance by gaslight, against you brunettes."
She sweeps downstairs in her rose-colored splendor, and Edith is alone. She sits by the open window, and looks out at the night life of the great city. Carriage after carriage roll up to the door, and somehow, in the midst of all this life, and brightness, and bustle, a strange feeling of loneliness and isolation comes over her. Is it the old chronic discontent cropping up again? If it were only not improper for Charley to come up here and sit beside her, and smoke, in the sweet spring dusk, and be sarcastic as usual, what a comfort it would be just now! Somehow—"how it comes let doctors tell"—that restless familiar of hers is laid when he is by her side—never lonely, never discontented then. As she thinks this, innocently enough, despite all her worldly wisdom, there is a tap at the door, and Lucy, the maid, comes smilingly in, holding an exquisite bouquet, all pink and white roses, in her hand.
"Mr. Charles' compliments, please, miss, and he's waiting for you at the foot of the stairs, when you're ready, miss, for the ball-room."
She starts and colors with pleasure.
"Thank you, Lucy!" she says, taking the bouquet. "Tell Mr. Stuart I will be down in a moment."
The girl leaves the room.
With a smile on her face it is just as well "Mr. Charles" does not see, she stands looking at her roses; then she buries her face, almost as bright, in their dewy sweetness.
"Dear, thoughtful Charley!" she whispers gratefully. "What would ever have become of me but for him?"