Beverly banner. [volume] (Beverly, N.J.) 1877-1964, 1890-01-04
A TABLEAU.

We were a merry party that gath
cred together that glorious summer at
Sea View, the beautiful Devonshire
home of Isabel Vernon (my most in
innate school friend, and nothing oc-
CURED to mar our happiness, and no
thought came of the terrible tragedy
that was soon to trail its dark shadow
over US, until the fatal day on which
Isabel entered the exquisitely furnish
ed boudoir where Inez Vasquez and
myself were seated near the open win
dow engaged in working flower on
broadcloth, and said:
Girls, we are soon to have an addi-
ton to our little party, for papa has
invited Madeline Harleigh, the daugh-
ter of his old friend Col. Harleigh, to
remain our guest at Sea View while
her father and mother are abroad for
the change of air prescribed by their
physician for Mrs. Harleigh, who is in
most delicate health"
Report says, continued Isabel,
''that Madeline is very beautiful, and
that all men bow down before and
worship her. as if she were saint"
$50 be careful, Inez," she added,
roguishly, after moments silence,
that your lover, my handsome broth
er Cecil, does not do likewise"
Inez bent more closely over her
work, but not before / had noticed a
dangerous CLEAN in her dark eyes that
could bode no good to Madeline Har-
leigh if she came to Sea View to rob
her Qnez) of handsome Cecil Vernon's
love.
Madeline Harleigh was even more
beautiful than report had pictured her,
and when | first beheld her on the diJy
of her arrival at Sea View, leaning
with picturesque grace against vine
trellis, whose leaves formed an effect
i've frame for her strange, weird
beauty, while she murmured some
trifie to Cecil Vernon, who was stand
ing beside her ~ the sweet Voice
which was one of her greatest charlhs,
l thought it no wonder that he ga3ed
upon her with such a look of passion
ate admiration in his deep, blue gray
eyes.
The last rays of the setting sun shone
through the vine trellis and touched
her heavy waves of gold bronze hair
into a very aureole of light, and the
wind blowing from the blue cleaning
sea beyond drift of rosebloom into
her lily fair face, while dress of some
soft blue material, trimmed with
foamy cascades of lace, foated in bill
lowy lines of grace about her, making
in all picture that made m y gaze as
one fascinated, while thought:
~ l,ok IL
well want to love and cherish, and die
for if need be, that she might know no
sorrow"
And while I still continued gazing
upon her Inez joined me, and she too
gazed upon the fair picture that her
rival made standing there in the sun
set light, but with such look of bit
ter hatred in her dark, starry eyes,
half yelled by their snowy lids, that l
shuddered with a half defined terror
of know not what,
Never before had | beheld Inez look
ing more strangely and radiantly
beautiful.
For she wore a thin black dress,
touched here and there with vivid
scarlet spots that glared among its
dark folds like tongues of flame, and
in her heavy braids of hair that were
twisted in the coronal about the regal
head were fastened tiny star-shaped
flowers of the same bright hue, while
upon her ivory white throat sparkled
a unique necklace, with a serpent's
diamond head that seemed to hiss forth
sparks of fire. and circlets of the same
blazing gems were clasped around her
superbly rounded arms.
A rich color bloomed upon her
proud, fawless face, and her dark eyes
seemed to sparkle with wondrous
light, and, in short, she seemed the
very personifcation of living, glow.
ing sunshine, beside which Madeline
Harleigh appeared as cool shadow,
or moonlight shining upon snow.
1t would have taken one more
skilled in reading the human heart
than myself to decide, after that night,
which of these two strangely beauti-
full women, each such q contrast to the
other, handsome Cecil Vernon adj
mired most, for he seemed to divide
his attentions equally between them.
For many days l watched and wait
ed for some sign that would betray it
to me; but / found my task a vain
one, for he would turn from Inez after
a gay passage of witticisms to enfold
Madeline in her soft blue wrap if she
shivered in the cool night air, and
then, after a sentimental discussion of
Tennyson with her, he would as
quickly turn from her to Inez again
to throw about her the crimson wrap
that she usually wore because it was
SO becoming to her dark, glowing
Spanish beauty.
But at last the time came when
knew for a certainty which Of these
two beautiful women held his heart in
her keeping. and never can time blot
out the memory of that night.
1t was the night on which gay and
brilliant party had been invited to Sea
View to witness some tableaux that
were Isabels conception. The last and
most beautiful was to be the one en-
titled THE Jealous Wife"
When / learned that Inez had been
chosen to act the part Of the jealous
wife, and was to stand, half concealed
by heavy draperies, with a cleaning
dagger held aioft in her hand over the
couch on which would recline her
rival, this character having been as
signed to Madeline, while handsome
Cecil Vernon, as the false husband,
knelt beside the couch gazing upon
10, x,,.4l, - 1oolx ~ 4lo ,,rle4 IL