Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/729

Rh Bee thinks otherwise.

She was prepared for something of this sort, and perhaps could have been down a little sooner, had she not thought it expedient to slip into the dining-room behind the others. They caught her a moment too soon.

She has quite made up her mind to wear the silver grenadine this evening.

Not without a qualm, it is true, a tremulous shaking of the resolution ere it settled down; but once fixed, such vibrations only serve to render the resolve more steady.

Our pretty Beatrix is, you see, a very young lady.

Trifles, questions which will appear to her of minute importance by-and-by, now loom before her fancy, mighty as giants.

Of the world she had seen next to nothing.

A presentation, a few weeks' uncertain and limited gaieties, for which Lady Graeme took her to a London hotel, and which neither of them enjoyed in the least; this, with a round of visits at country-houses in August and September, including the northern meeting, are all that Bee could point to, if she came to confession about that "season," and those "house parties," to which she so glibly alludes in conversation.

She makes the most of it, poor child!

She skims over the surface of her small experience so lightly, and prates in the half-acquired jargon of Belgravia so cleverly, that good Lady Graeme does not half like it, and wonders whether, after all, she was right in undertaking that expedition, which cost her such infinite trouble with Sir Charles, and for which the poor baronet had to pay so heavily.

She had felt it at the time to be her duty.

Even now she does not see what else she could have done. The children must have their day. All the other girlies of her acquaintance are either going through the same or have been so, and why not her Beatrix?

Here is Bee shut up for the winter in an old Scotch country-house, where she will see nobody, and be seen by nobody, until perhaps the New Club Ball may stir up Sir Charles to think he would enjoy meeting his old cronies once more; and they may spend a week or so in the rush of engagements which cluster round that important event in Auld Reekie, and that is all.

Is it fair to her young daughter on the threshold of life?

For herself, the gentle dame is quite content; her winter months are never dull, but she looks at Beatrix.

Yes; she is sure, quite sure, that she could have done nothing else; and still — Why should Bee be so different when she stays out to what she is at home?

Why should all these little airs and graces be packed up in her travelling-trunk to go with her, as regularly as are her dresses? and why should there be such a stock of them both?

A morning and evening garment for every day of the visit, no matter to whom, or for how long; such a fuss about her flowers and her ribbons, her hats to match, her gloves to contrast; and such attentions exacted from the maid, who rarely fastens a button for her at other times!

And when in the drawing-room, there is creeping over her a something — it is too vague to define, but it is not real, it is not inborn — an engrafted taint of artificiality, that just takes the edge off little Bee's attractiveness.

Even with the Malcolms, whom she has known so long, and the Cathcarts, who are the plainest and quietest of country folks, even before them, the small display goes on; and her mother hears the soft voice take a peculiar note, and marks certain turns of phrases, inflation of facts, suppressions, newly-acquired accentuations — in truth, a host of petty distortions, which seem even to trivial too think of, but which nevertheless cause her to twist her conscience inside-out to see if she can be to blame in any way for it all.

Of course, whenever there is company at their own old castle, it is the same; but for the last month visitors there have been rare.

With the exception of poor Miss Williams's annual visitation, indeed, they have been quite alone.

Betty has superseded Beatrix altogether in the boys' lips; and Betty has been as merry and pleasant and delightful a little household spirit as mother's heart could wish to see.

She walks and rides with her father, practises diligently every forenoon, and sings to them her sweet simple songs in the evenings; produces rough sketches of the November sunsets, wonders of art in the family estimation; and, above all, is great in the boating, the sea-fishing, the oyster-gathering, during those famous low tides which only come in the late autumn.

Macky, the old nurse, remonstrates against the last-named amusement — remonstrates, at least, against Miss Bee's