"
"Do you wish me to go and let Eloise come?" Edith asked,
pettishly, and Richard replied,
"No, Edith, I need you more than Arthur ever can, and you'll stay
with me, too, stay always, won't you? Promise that you will."
"Of course I shall," she answered. "I'll stay until I'm married,
as I suppose I shall he sometime; everybody is."
Richard tried to be satisfied with this reply, but it grated
harshly, and it seemed to him that a shadow deeper, darker than
any he had ever known, was creeping slowly over him, and that
Arthur St. Claire's was the presence which brought the threatening
cloud. He knew this half jealous feeling was unworthy of him, and
with a mighty effort he shook it off and saying to Edith, calmly,
"Mr. St. Claire asked many questions concerning you and your
attainments, and when I spoke of your passion for drawing,
lamenting that since Miss Chapin's departure, there was in town no
competent instructor, he offered to be your teacher, provided you
would come up there twice a week. He is a very sensible young man,
for when I hesitated he guessed at once that I was revolving the
propriety of your going alone to the house of a bachelor, where
there were no females except the servants, and he said to me 'You
can come with her, if you like.
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