Chapter 6 - Page 2

vanished under the duties of the toilet, and she
came forth from her chamber, bright and cloudless as the glorious May-
morning, which had returned to cheer the solitude of the manor. Beulah
followed, tranquil, bland and mild as the day itself, the living image
of the purity of soul, and deep affections, of her honest nature.

The sisters went into the breakfast-room, where they had little lady-
like offices of their own to discharge, too, in honour of the guest;
each employing herself in decorating the table, and in seeing that it
wanted nothing in the proprieties As their pleasing tasks were
fulfilled, the discourse did not flag between them. Nothing, however,
had been said, that made the smallest allusion to the conversation of
the past night. Neither felt any wish to revive that subject; and, as
for Maud, bitterly did she regret ever having broached it. At times,
her cheeks burned with blushes, as she recalled her words; and yet she
scarce knew the reason why. The feeling of Beulah was different. She
wondered her sister could ever think she was a Meredith, and not a
Willoughby. At times she feared some unfortunate oversight of her own,
some careless allusion, or indiscreet act, might have served to remind
Maud of the circumstances of her real birth. Yet there was nothing in
the last likely to awaken unpleasant reflections, apart from the
circumstance that she was not truly a child of the family into which
she had been transplanted. The Merediths were, at least, as nonourable
a family as the Willoughbys, in the ordinary worldly view of the
matter; nor was Maud, by any means, a dependant, in the way of money.
Five thousand pounds, in the English funds, had been settled on her, by
the marriage articles of her parents; and twenty years of careful
husbandry, during which every shilling had been scrupulously devoted to
accumulation, had quite doubled the original amount. So far from being
penniless, therefore, Maud's fortune was often alluded to by the
captain, in a jocular way, as if purposely to remind her that she had
the means of independence, and duties connected with it. It is true,
Maud, herself, had no suspicion that she had been educated altogether
by her "father," and that her own money had not been used for this
purpose. To own the truth, she thought little about it; knew little
about it, beyond the fact, that she had a fortune of her own, into the
possession of which she must step, when she attained her majority. How
she came by it, even, was a question she never asked though there were
moments when tender regrets and affectionate melancholy would come over
her heart, as she thought of her natural parents, and of their early
deaths. Still, Maud implicitly reposed on the captain and Mrs.