“But life is mostly waiting, miss,” said Eliot, with a solemn shake of her head.  “You’ll find that out when you are as old as I am.  We wait for this and we wait for that, and first thing we know the years are gone, and we are standing with one foot in the grave, waiting for Death to lift us in.”

Eugenia put her hands over her ears with a little scream.  “Stop talking like that, Eliot,” she cried.  “I won’t listen, and I won’t spend my life waiting in that way.  You may if you want to.”

Running back to her sitting-room, she banged the door behind her to shut out the sound of Eliot’s voice.  The next hour she spent by the window, looking down on the shifting scenes of the streets below,—­the noisy New York streets, spread out like a giant picture-book before her.  Then it began to grow dark, and lights twinkled here and there, and great letters of flame appeared as by magic across the fronts of buildings, and on the electric arches spanning the streets.

Eliot came and drew the curtains, and a glance at the little cupids told her it was time to dress for dinner.

“I’ll wear my buttercup dress to-night, Eliot,” said Eugenia, when her black hair had been carefully brushed and plaited in two long braids.  “It always makes my eyes look so big and dark, somehow, and brings out the colour in my lips and cheeks.”

“You are a young one to be noticing such things as that,” said Eliot, under her breath.  She wanted to say it aloud, but she only pursed her lips together as she got out the dress Eugenia had asked for.  It was of some soft, clinging material, of the same sunny yellow that buttercups wear, and Eugenia knew very well how becoming it was to her brunette style of beauty.  After she was dressed, she spun around before the pier-glass until she heard her father’s step in the hall.

Although she had been so impatient for his coming, she said nothing about the invitation from Locust until they had gone down to dinner and were seated in the great dining-room together.  She knew that that was not the way Mollie or Fay or Kell would have done.  Any one of them would have rushed at her father the moment he came in sight, and would have put her arms around his neck and poured out the whole story.  But Eugenia had never felt on such intimate terms with her father.  She admired him extremely, and thought he was the handsomest man she had ever seen, but her love for him was of a selfish kind.  So long as he indulged her and never opposed her will, she was a most dutiful little daughter, but as soon as his wishes crossed hers she pouted and sulked.

To her surprise, he made no objection to her accepting the invitation to the house party, except to say, half-laughingly, “Don’t you think you are a little selfish to want to run off and leave me alone when I’ve scarcely seen you all winter?” Then he laughed outright as she made a saucy little grimace in answer.  He would miss her very much when she was gone, for she was a bright little thing and amused him, but he had a feeling of relief as well to think that a month of her vacation would be pleasantly occupied.  She had been so discontented away from her little friends.