CHAPTER XII "IN SILK ATTIRE" "My salad days, When I was green in judgment." Antony and Cleopatra. WHEN Eden went up to the boudoir the next morning at the usual hour, she found it empty, and it was nearly twenty minutes later before Bonnie flew in, looking flushed and heated, as though she had been running. As she turned her cheek to Eden, she remarked rather breathlessly, “I am afraid I am late, but I was in the garden, talking to Randall about the flowers; he is the stingiest old miser out: but I made Uncle Alick put his foot down." Then, with a pompous little air, "If I only knew what you were going to wear this evening, I would send you down some flowers; there are some lovely Maréchal Niel roses, and a splendid Cramoisie." But Eden shook her head with a smile. "Thank you, dear, for the kind thought; but you see I am in mourning, and I do not care to make myself smart." She fancied Bonnie looked a little disappointed at this; she eyed Eden somewhat uneasily, and seemed about to remonstrate; then she changed her mind and opened her book. Eden felt inwardly amused. She was shrewd enough to perceive that Bonnie was particularly anxious that her governess should appear to advantage that evening, and that she was not quite comfortable in her mind on the subject. Eden's sense of humour was somewhat tickled by Bonnie's girlish pomposity and vanity. She was pleasantly aware that the pretty black dress at that moment lying on her bed was perfectly irreproachable in cut and taste, and that she would probably be as well dressed as any one in the room. This idea gave her a little glow of satisfaction, for when is any true woman indifferent to her clothes? Bonnie said no more; she began reading one of Molière's plays, but it evidently required a strong effort to fix her attention on the page. When the Dresden clock on the mantelpiece chimed one, she closed her book with a bang; and even Eden was relieved, for her pupil's abstraction and wandering attention had made her instruction more trying and fatiguing than usual. "For what we have received," began Bonnie flippantly; but Eden's shocked look recalled her. "Dear me, Eden," she returned provokingly, "I don't see that I have said anything so dreadful. I thought you would have been edified by my youthful piety; but you are a regular Puritan." And here Bonnie turned down the corners of her mouth, and rolled her eyes until only the whites showed, and ambled across the room with mincing steps, and her pretty girlish hands crossed over her breast, while Pomp and Vanity barked round her, expecting a new game of play; then she lifted an imaginary apron to her eyes, and broke into tempestuous sobs. "I won't bear it-no, that I won't!" And here Bonnie sobbed still more artistically, and the dogs barked more loudly. "I shall say my grace after lessons if I like. I am a dood dirl, I am, and I am going to heaven! And then, before Eden could stop laughing, Bonnie had raced downstairs, and was singing, at the top of her fresh young |