* * * * *
One morning in the spring, after the last of the soft and balmy winter,
Mr. St. George said to Mrs. Arles, at breakfast,--
"A dozen rooms, or more, can be ready by Wednesday? There will be guests
at noon, for several weeks. That is the list. I rely on Miss
Changarnier's assistance." And he handed her a paper, and went out.
"It will be useless for you to keep your room now," said Mrs. Arles to
Eloise, on Wednesday morning. "It isn't like Mr. St. George's bachelor
parties with Marlboro' and Montgomery and Mavoisie, when I like to see
you keep to yourself as you do. These are all old friends."
"I shall still have my work to do," said Eloise; and she went into the
cabinet and sharpened her pens with a _vim_.
It would doubtless have relieved Mr. St. George of much annoyance and
perplexity, if Eloise would have assumed her old place in welcoming the
guests; but that was not set down in her part, and Eloise rightly felt
that it would be a preposterous thing for her to do. And though, when
she heard their voices in the hall, she longed just to open the door and
give one glance at Laura Murray sweeping by, or draw Lottie Humphreys in
through the crack and indulge in one quick squeeze, she heroically bent
herself upon the debit and credit beneath her eye, and tried to forget
all about it,--succeeding only in remembering who had lived and who had
died since the last time that hall had rung with their voices.
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