Cruel As The Grave

"I also received some sweet flattery intended for the pretty little

Puritan maiden, and learned some bitter truths about myself," answered

Sybil.

"How hollow your voice is, Sybil! Bosh! who cares for such

double-dealing wretches, who flatter us before our faces and abuse us

behind our backs?" exclaimed Beatrix, as she quickly finished her

Puritan toilet, and announced herself ready.

Sybil was also dressed, and they went down stairs and entered the

drawing-room together.

The last quadrille before supper was over, the supper-rooms were thrown

open, and the company were marching in.

Captain Pendleton hastened to meet Sybil, and another gentleman offered

his arm to Beatrix, and thus escorted, they fell in the line of march

with others.

As each couple passed into the supper-room, they took off their masks,

and handed them to attendants, placed for that purpose, to the right and

left of the door. Thus, when the company filled the rooms, every face

was shown.

There were the usual surprises, the usual gay recognitions.

Among the rest, "Harold the Saxon" and "Edith the Fair" stood confessed

as Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle, and much silent surprise as well as

much whispered suspicion was the result.

"Is it possible?" muttered one. "I took them for a pair of lovers, they

were so much together."

"I thought they were a newly married pair, who took advantage of their

masks to be more together than etiquette allows," murmured a second.

"I think it was very improper; don't you?" inquired a third.

"Improper! It was disgraceful," indignantly answered a fourth, who was

no other than Beatrix Pendleton, who now completely understood why it

was that Sybil Berners wished to change dresses with her, and also how

it was that Sybil's voice was so hollow, as she spoke in the

bed-chamber. "She wished to put on my dress that she might watch them

unsuspected, and she was right. She detected them in their sinful

trifling, and she was wretched," said Beatrix to herself. And she looked

around to catch a glimpse of Sybil's face. Sybil was sitting too near

her to be seen. Sybil was on the same side with herself, and only two or

three seats off. But Beatrix saw Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle sitting

immediately opposite to herself, and with a recklessness that savored of

fatuity, still carrying on their sentimental flirtation.

Yes! Rosa was still throwing up her eyes to his eyes, and cooing "soft

nonsense" in his ears; and Lyon was still dwelling on her glances and

her tones with lover-like devotion. Suddenly assuming a gay tone, she

asked him: "Where is our ghastly friend, Death! I do not see him anywhere in the

room, and I was so anxious to see him unmasked, that I might find out

who he is. Where is he? Do you see him anywhere?"