NOTICE: Return or renew ell Library Materials! The Minimum Fee for each Lost Book is $50.00.

The person charging this material is responsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below.

Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for discipli- nary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

L161— O-1096

PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

VOL. III.

!

PH(EBE, JUNIOR.

% %m\ (promdt of ^arlingford.

BY

MRS. OLIPHANT.

IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III.

;

LONDON; HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,

13, GEE AT MAKLBOKOUGH STREET. 1876.

, All rights reserved.

OJLZfi

i/; 3

PH(EBE, JUNIOR.

a Hast Chronicle of Carlmgforo.

CHAPTER I.

SOCIETY.

NOTWITHSTANDING such little social -L* crosses, however, the society at the Parsonage, as thus constituted, was very agreeable. Mr. May, though he had his faults, was careful of his daughter. He sat in the drawing-room every evening till she retired, on the nights their visitors came, and even when it was Clarence only who remained, an inmate of the house, and free to go and come as he pleased. Ur-

VOL. III. B

2 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

sula, he felt, must not be left alone, and though it is uncertain whether she fully appreciated the care he took of her, this point in his character is worth noting. When the young party went out together, to skate, for instance, as they did, for several merry days, Reginald and Janey were, he considered, sufficient guardians for their sister. Phoebe had no chaperon — " Unless you will take that serious office upon you, Ursula," she said, shrugging her shoulders prettily ; but she only went once or twice, so well was she able, even when the temptation was strongest, to exercise self-denial, and show her perfect power of self-guidance. As for old Tozer and his wife, the idea of a chaperon never entered their homely heads. Such articles are unnecessary in the lower levels of society. They were anxious that their child should enjoy herself, and could not understand the reason of her staying at home on a bright frosty day, when the

SOCIETY. 6

Mays came to the door in a body to fetch her.

" No, if they'd have gone down on their knees, nor if I had gone down on mine, would that girl have left me," cried the old lady, with tears in her eyes. " She do behave beautiful to her old granny. If so be as I haven't a good night, no power on earth would make that child go pleasuring. It's 'most too much at her age."

But Phoebe confided to Ursula that it was not altogether anxiety about her grandmother.

" I have nobody of my own to go with. If I took grandpapa with me, I don't think it would mend matters. Once or twice it was possible, but not every day. Go and enjoy yourself, dear," she said, kissing her friend.

Ursula was disposed to cry rather than to enjoy herself, and appealed to Reginald, who was deeply touched by Phoebe's fine feeling. He took his sister to the ice, but that day he went so far as to go back himself

b 2

4 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

to No. 6, actually into the house, to make a humble protest, jet to insinuate his admiration. He was much impressed, and approved highly of this reticence, having a very high standard of minor morals for ladies, in his mind, like most young men.

" She is not one of the girls who rush about everywhere, and whom one is sick of seeing," he said.

" I think it is very silly," cried Janey. " Who cares for a chaperon ! and why shouldn't Phoebe have her fun, like the rest, instead of shutting herself up in a stuffy room with that dreadful old Mrs. Tozer ?"

Her brother reproved her so sharply for this speech that Janey withdrew in tears, still asking " Why ?" as she rushed to her room. Clarence Copperhead, for his part, stroked his moustache and said it was a bore.

" For she is the best skater of all the ladies here," he said. " I beg your pardon,

SOCIETY. O

Miss Ursula. She's got so much go in her, and keeps it up like fun. She's the best I know for keeping a fellow from getting tired ; but as it's Thursday, I suppose she'll be here in the evening."

Clarence never called them anything but Miss Ursula and Miss Phoebe, dropping the prefix in his thoughts. He felt that he was " a little sweet upon " them both ; and, indeed, it had gleamed dully across his mind that a man who could marry them both need never be bored, but was likely always to find something " to do." Choice, however, being necessary, he did not see his way so clearly as to which he would choose. " The mountain sheep are sweeter, but the valley sheep are fatter," he said to himself, if not in these immortal words, yet with full appreciation of the sentiment. Ursula began to understand dinners with a judicious intelligence, which he felt was partly created by his own instructions and remarks ; but in the even- ing it was Phoebe who reigned supreme.

6 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

She was so sensible that most likely she could invent a menu all out of her own head, he thought, feeling that the girl who got him through the " Wedding March " with but six mistakes, was capable of any intellectual feat. He had not the slightest doubt that it was in his power to marry either of the girls as soon as he chose to intimate his choice ; and in the meantime he found it very agreeable to maintain a kind of mental possibility of future pro- prietorship of them both.

And thus the pleasant life ran on in the most agreeable absorption and abstraction from the world outside. " Don't ask any- one else ; why should we have anyone else ?" they all said, except Janey, who had condescended to appear in the evening in her best frock, though she was not ad- mitted at dinner, and who thought a few additional guests, and a round game now and then, would be delightful variations upon the ordinary programme ; but the others did not agree with her. They

SOCIETY. /

became more and more intimate, mingling the brother and sister relationship with a something unnamed, unexpressed, which gave a subtle flavour to their talks and flirtations. In that incipient stage of love- making this process is very pleasant even to the spectators, full of little excitements and surprises, and sharp stings of moment- ary quarrel, and great revolutions, done with a single look, which are infinitely amusing to the lookers-on. The house became a real domestic centre, thought of by each and all with tender sentiment, such as made its owners somewhat proud of it, they could scarcely tell why. Even Mr. May felt a certain complacence in the fact that the young men were so fond of the Parsonage, and when he heard com- plaints of the coldness and dullness of domestic intercourse, smiled, and said that he did not feel it so, with that pleasant sense of something superior in himself to cause this difference, which is sweet to the greatest Stoic ; for he was not as yet en-

8 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

lightened as to the entire indifference of the little circle to any charm in him, and would have been utterly confounded had anyone told him that to the grave and reflective Northcote, whom he had treated with such magnanimous charity, binding him (evidently) by bonds of gratitude to himself for ever, it was little Ursula, and not her father, who was the magnet of at- traction. Mr. May was a clever man, andyet it had not occurred to him that any com- parison between his own society and that of Ursula was possible. Ursula ! a child ! He would have laughed aloud -at the thought.

But all this pleasant society, though father and daughter both agreed that it cost nothing, for what is a cake and a cup of tea ? and the late dinners, and the extra maid, and the additional fires, and gene- ral enlargement of expenditure made im- mense inroads it must be allowed into the additional income brought by Clarence Copperhead. The first quarter's payment was spent, and more than spent, before it

society. y

came. The money that was to be laid up for that bill of Tozer's — perhaps — had now no saving peradventure left in it ; for the second half would not be due till two months after the Tozer bill, and would but be half, even if procurable at once. Mr. May felt a slight shock when this gleamed across his mind, but only for a moment. There was still a month, and a month is a long time, and in the mean- time James was almost certain to send something, and his Easter offerings might, probably would, this year, be something worth having. Why they should be bet- ter than usual this year Mr. May did not explain to himself ; his head was a little turned it must be supposed by the moment- ary chance of having more money in his hands than he used to have. Already he had got into the habit of ordering what he wanted somewhat recklessly, without asking himself how the things he ordered were to be paid, and, as so often happened, followed up that first tampering with the

10 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

rules of right and wrong by a general recklessness of the most dangerous kind. He was not so much alone as he had been, his house, in which he was infinitely more amiable than of old, had become more pleasant to him, he liked his life better. His son was independent with an income of his own, and therefore he felt much more respect for him, and treated him as a companion. His daughter had developed, if not in the way of entrees, a talent for dinners which raised her very much in his eyes ; and naturally the regard shown to her by the visitors reacted upon Mr. May, though it had not crossed his mind as yet that anyone could be in love with Ursula. All this made him happier in spite of himself. When you begin to esteem and be proud of your children your life is naturally happier than when you scoff and jeer at them, and treat them as creatures of inferior mould to yourself. Mr. May found out all at once that Reginald was a fine young fellow,

SOCIETY. 11

that Ursula was pretty and pleasant, and that droll Janey with her elf-locks and angles was amusing at least, if no more. As for the little ones, they were consider- ably thrust into a corner when the elder youth forced itself into the front. They learned their lessons in corners, and had their tea by themselves, and were much humbled and subdued from the moment in which their schoolbooks and toys had meandered over the whole house, and their looks and likings had been just as important as anything else. When there is no mother to protect them, the elder sister's first lover marks a terribly critical period for the children of the house. They were banished from the drawing-room, except on special occasions, when they came en grande tenue, in their best things, and were jeered at by Mr. Copperhead. He called them " the kids," both Amy and Robin were aware, and they resented it unspeakably. Thus the inward happiness of the Mays confined itself to the upper regions of the family.

12 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

Even Betsy regretted the days when, if she had more to do, she had at least " her kitchen to herself" and nobody to share the credit. There was more fuss and more worry, if a trifle less labour, and the increase in consequence which resulted from being called cook, instead of maid-of- all-work, was scarcely so sweet in posses- sion as it had seemed in prospect.

" Them late dinners" were the object of her perpetual railings ; " oh, how much more comfortable it was, if gentry would but think so, to have your dinner at two, and get done with your washing up before you was cleaned, or had any occasion to bother yourself about your cap !" When little Amy cried over the loneliness of " the children's tea," which they frequently had to pour out for themselves, Betty gave her a cake and a kiss, and felt dis- posed to cry too.

" And she don't know, poor child, not the half," said Betty, which was a kind of oracular sentence difficult for Betty

SOCIETY. 13

herself to understand. The children had nothing to do with the late dinner ; they were sent to bed earlier than they used to be, and scolded if any distant sound of romps made itself audible at seven o'clock when their elders were dining ; and then when the little ones went injured to bed, and Johnny indignant, worked at his les- sons by himself in a corner of the old nursery, deeply aware that his schoolboy boots and jacket were quite unfit for the drawing-room, the grown up young people ran lightly up stairs, all smiles and plea- sure, and those delightful evenings began. The children sometimes could not get to sleep for the piano and the raspings of the fiddle, which sounds of mirth sug- gested nothing but the wildest enjoyment to them ; and when the door opened now and then, bursts of laughter and mingling voices would come out like the sounds the Peri heard at the gates of Paradise. The elder ones were happy ; their little atoms of individual life had all united for the

14 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

moment into one suushiny and broad foundation, on which everything seemed to rest with that strange sense of stability and continuance, which such a moment of happiness, though it carries every element of change in it, almost invariably brings. It felt as if it might go on for ever, and yet the very sentiment that inspired it made separation and convulsion inevitable — one of those strange paradoxes which occur every day.

Thus the year crept round, and winter melted away with all its amusements, and spring began. Mr. Northcote's time at Salem Chapel was more than half over, a fact on which the congregation con- gratulated itself much.

" If so be as he had a settled charge of his own, I shouldn't be sorry to see him gone to-morrow," said one of the recent members.

" Settled charge ! You take my word," said Mrs. Pigeon, who was getting old, but always continued a woman of spirit,

SOCIETY. 1 5

" he'll never have a settled charge in our connection. He carries on here, 'cause he can't help hisself, but he ain't cut out for a pastor, and he's a deal too thick with them Church folks. A parson, too ! I'd 'a thought he had more pride."

" Nay, now, but I don't wish him no harm," said the first speaker ; " he's a civil spoken gentleman if he ain't so free and so pleasant as a body looks for."

" Civil spoken !" said the other ; " one of our own ministers in our own connec- tion! Bless you ! they're our servants, that's what they are. I'd like to see one on 'em as 'ud take upon him to be civil spoken to me."

" Well, I wouldn't go as far as that," cried Mrs. Brown ; " we pays 'em their salary, and we 'as a right to a civil word : but a minister's a minister, and I'll show him respect as long as he deserves it. I ain't one for being too hard upon minis- ters, especially when they're young men,

16 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

as has their temptations like, we all know."

" I don't know what you call temp- tations," said Mrs. Pigeon ; " licking the dust under the feet of a Church parson ! and after speaking up so bold against young May and them old cheats at the College. I wish he was gone from here, that's what I wish, and our old pastor (if we can't get none better) back again. He was one as knew his place, and wouldn't have set his foot inside one of them Parsonages. Parsonages, indeed ! kept up with our money. If ever there was an iniquity on this earth it's a State Church, and all the argufying in the world won't put that out of me."

It happened that Northcote was in the poulterer's shop, talking to the poulterer himself at this moment, and he heard the conclusion of this speech delivered with much unction and force. Such senti- ments would have charmed him three months ago, and probably he would have

SOCIETY. 17

thoughtt his uneducated but strenuous partisan an extremely intelligent woman. He hurried away now with an uncomfort- able smile. If an opinion is the right opinion, why should it have an air of absurdity thrown upon it by being thus uttered in ungrammatical language by a poulterer's wife ? Truth is the same by whomsoever stated ; but yet, was not dog- matism on any subject the sign of an in- experienced and uncultivated, or a rude and untutored mind ? What did this woman know of the Parsonage, which she sup- posed she helped to pay for ? What had he himself known three months ago of Reginald May, whom he had assaulted so savagely ? This Church family, which Mrs. Pigeon knew no better than to abuse with what divine charity it had received himself, notwithstanding his public sin against it. When he thought of that public sin, Northcote's countenance glowed with shame, and it continued to glow with a more agreeable warmth wheu he vol. in. c

18 PH(EBE, JUNIOE.

escaped into thought of the goodness which the Mays had shown him. Had there ever been such goodness? Was there ever so sweet a home of the heart as that faded, homely drawing-room ? His heart beat high, his steps quickened ; they carried him down Grange Lane in a path so often trod that he felt there must be a special track of his own under the garden walls, going Parsonage way.

19

CHAPTER II.

LOVE-MAKING

MRS. SAM HURST had been a long time out of Carlingford ; she had been paying visits among her friends, with whom, though the young Mays would never believe it, she was very popular, for she was not ill-natured in her gossip, and she was often amusing in the fullness of her interest in other people. It was April when she came back, and the early warmth and softness of the spring were beginning to be felt in Grange Lane ; the doors of the houses began to be left open, and the girls at the Parsonage had taken to running out and in without their hats.

20 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

gleaming through the little shrubbery in front, and round to the back garden. One evening it was so mild that they all (which comprehensive term sometimes extended to " the whole party " began to be com- monly used among them with that compla- cence in the exclusiveness of their little coterie, which every "set" more or less feels) came downstairs in a body, and wandered about among the laurel bushes in the spring moonlight. There was Ursula and Mr. Northcote, Phoebe and Reginald, and Clarence Copperhead, with Janey behind, who followed where they went, but did not enjoy the ceremony. It was bad enongh in the drawing-room ; but moonlight, who cared about moonlight, Janey said to herself indignantly-? She was the only one who looked up to Mrs. Hurst's window where there was a faint light, and when the voices became audible Janey perceived some one come behind the curtain and look out. The girl was divided between her faithful family feur1

LOVE-MAKLNG. 21

against Mrs. Hurst, and a vague sense of satisfaction in her presence as a Marplot, who one way or other would infallibly in- terfere.

" She will say something to papa," said Janey, her heart involuntarily rising at the thought, though at the same time she shivered to think of the treachery involved to all the tenets of the family. Janey sat on the steps and listened to the others talking. No one pointed out the stars to her, or followed her about as Reginald followed Phoebe. As for Mr. Copperhead, Janey thought he was almost as lonely as she was. He had lighted his cigar, and was strolling up and down interrupting both of the other pairs occasionally, break- ing into the midst of Northcote's astro- nomical lecture abruptly, and stopping Phcebe herself in the middle of a sentence. Janey, watching sharply from the steps, noticed, as a spectator has it in her power to do, that whereas Northcote was ex- tremely impatient of the interruption, and

22 PHCEBE, JUNIOK.

discovered immediately that the stars could be seen better from another spot, Phoebe took it quite sweetly, and addressed her- self to him as she went on, which Reginald did not like, Janey was sure. Were they in love with each other, the girl asked her- self— was this how it was managed? When the moon went under a cloud for a moment, Clarence Copperhead's vast shirt- front made a kind of substitute down below. Janey lost the other two among the bushes, but she alwavs beheld that orb of white moving back and forward with two dark figures near. She felt sure Eeginald did not want to have him in such close neighbourhood; but Phoebe's voice went on talking to both alike. Janey was half pleased, and half indignant. She had a jealous dislike, such as most girls have, to see her brother engrossed by anyone, but no more did she like to see another man preferred to Reginald ; she was jealous both ways. As she sat and watched, a slight little creak came to her sharp ears,

LOVE-MAKING. 23

and looking up she saw Mrs. Hurst's drawing-room window opened the very least little bit in the world. Ah ! Janey said, with a long breath. There was nothing she would not have given to have talked it all over with Mrs. Hurst, and to hear what she would say, if she had not been the traditional adversary against whom all the family steeled their hearts.

That was a very pleasant evening ; they all remembered it afterwards. It was the moment when Ursula discovered all in the darkness, when the moon was under that cloud, what Mr. Northcote meant. It- flashed upon her like a sudden light, though they were standing in the shade of a great laurel. He did not make any declaration, nor say a word that she could remember. And yet all at once, by some magic which is not explainable, she found out that that was what he was meaning. This is not an admirable sentence ; but it is difficult to know how to put it better. It was quite a strange discovery. It set

24 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

her heart beating, thumping against her breast. She herself meant nothing what- ever, and she never thought of any re- sponse, or of the time when he might ask her to make a response. The sensation of the moment was quite enough for Ursula. She was greatly startled, sur- prised, yet not surprised, touched and full of a wondering respect and sympathy, awe and half amusement. Could it be possi- ble, was that what it was ? Though he was not conscious of betraying himself in any way, Northcote thought he had done something to offend her. Her shy silence and withdrawal from him went to his heart ; never had her society been so sweet, never had he had her so completely to himself. What had he done to alarm or offend her ? He went home with his head full of this, able to think of nothing else.

And Phoebe went home too, escorted by Reginald and Clarence together, to her grandfather's door, with her head buzzing with many thoughts. It was not her

LOVE-MAKING. 25

heart that was in a commotion, like little Ursula's. She was more experienced, though she was not much older, and had gone through such discoveries before now. But a much more perplexing accident had befallen her. Reginald May had fallen in love with her, and Clarence Copperfield, after considerable resistance and banging off, was making up his mind to propose. Yes. Phoebe felt with unerring instinct that this was the state of affairs. He was making up his mind to propose. So much of her and so little of her had at length made an end of all the prudent hesitations that lay under the crisp pie-crust of that starched and dazzling shirt front. That he should never be able to speak a word to her without that May ! that fellow !" the son of my coach I" poking himself in, was a thing which at length had fired his cool blood to fever heat. Nobody else could play his accompaniments like that, or pull him through the " Wedding March" like that ; and who would look better at the head of

26 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

a table, or show better at a ball, or get on better in society ? No one he knew, certainly. It was true she was only a Minister's daughter, and without a penny ; for the little fortune Mr. and Mrs. Beecham had carefully gathered together and preserved for their daughter, what was that to the Copperheads ? — nothing, not a penny. But, on the other hand, Clarence felt that he himself, or rather his father, was rich enough to be able to afford a wife without money. There was no reason why he should marry money ; and a wife like Phoebe, what a relief that would be, in the way of education ! No need of any more coaching. She was clever, and fond of reading, and so forth. She would get everything up for him, if he went into parliament, or that sort of thing; why, she'd keep him posted up. " There ain't many girls that could do that," he said to himself. She would save him worlds of trouble ; save his money even, for coaches and that sort of thing

LOVE-MAKING. 27

cost money; and then that fellow May would be out of it ; his nose would be put out of joint. These are not eloquent sentiments, but so it was that Clarence's natural feelings expressed themselves. He had intimated that he would see Miss Phoebe home, but May had stalked out side by side with him — had not left them for a moment ; and Clarence determined that he would not stand it any longer. If there was no other way of shaking this fellow off, why, then he would make up his mind to it, and propose.

Phoebe somehow saw all this written in his fine countenance, and she saw at the same time that poor Reginald, who was (she thought) young and simple, and just the sort of poor boy to yield to such folly, was in love with her ; and her head was buzzing with the double discovery. The first was (of course) the most im- portant. She had no time to indulge her thoughts while she walked up between them, keeping them in play each

28 PH(EBE, JUNIOtt.

with a word, talking all the way to fill up the somewhat sulky silence between them ; but when she got safely within the garden door, and heard it shut behind her, and found herself in the quiet of the little green enclosure, with the budding trees and the lilac bushes for her only com- panions, the relief was very grateful to her. She could not go in all at once to make conversation for grandpapa and grand- mamma, and give them the account they liked to hear, of how she had " enjoyed herself." She took off her hat to be cooler, and walked slowly down under the moonlight, her head all throbbing and rustling with thought. The paths were bordered with primroses, which made a pale glimmer in the moon, and shed a soft fragrance about. Phoebe had nothing to appeal to heaven about, or to seek counsel from nature upon, as sentimental people might do. She took counsel with herself, the person most interested. What was the thing she ought to do ? Cla-

LOVE-MAKING. 29

rence Copperhead was going to propose to her. She did not even take the trouble of saying to herself that he loved her ; it was Reginald who did that, a totally different person, but yet the other was more urgent. What was Phoebe to do ? She did not dislike Clarence Copperhead, and it was no horror to her to think of marrying him. She had felt for years that this might be on the cards, and there were a great many things in it which demanded consideration. He was not very wise, nor a man to be enthusiastic about, but he would be a career to Phoebe. She did not think of it humbly like this, but with a big capital — a Career. Yes; she could put him into parliament, and keep him there. She could thrust him forward (she believed) to the front of affairs. He would be as good as a pro- fession, a position, a great work to Phoebe. He meant wealth (which she dismissed in its superficial aspect as something mean- ingless and vulgar, but accepted in its

30 PHOEBE, JUNIOR.

higher aspect as an almost necessary condition of influence), and he meant all the possibilities of future power. Who can say that she was not as romantic as any girl of twenty could be ? only her ro- mance took an unusual form. It was her head that was full of throbbings and pulses, not her heart. No doubt there would be difficulties and disagreeables. His father would oppose it, and Phoebe felt with a slight shiver that his father's opposition was nothing to be laughed at, and that Mr. Copperfield had it in him to crush rebellion with a ferocious hand. And would Clarence have strength of mind or spirit to hold out? This was a very serious question, and one which included all the rest. If she accepted his proposal, would he have the heart to stand to it against his father? or would her consent simply involve her in a humiliating struggle which would end in defeat ? That was the great question. If this should be the case, what use would there

4

LOVE-MAKING. 31

be in any sacrifice that Phoebe might make ? A struggle with Mr. Copperhead would affect her father's position as much or more than her own, and she knew that a great many of the congregation would infallibly side with Mr. Copperhead, feeliug it a most dangerous precedent that a pastor's daughter should be encouraged to think herself eligible for promotion so great, and thus interfere with the more suitable matrimonial prospects of wealthy young men who might happen to attend her father's chapel. Such a thing the conscript fathers of the connection would feel ought to be put a stop to with a high hand. So it may be supposed that Phoebe had enough to think of, as she strolled about in the moonlight alone, be- tween the two borders of primroses. Tozer thought she had gone upstairs to take off her " things," and it was natural that when a girl got before a looking-glass she should forget the progress of time; so that he merely wondered at her non-

32 PHCEBE, JUNIOE.

appearance until the little chill of air stole in from the open door, and made Mrs. Tozer cough.

" If it ain't our Phoebe a-walking about in the moonlight like a play-actor !" said Tozer, in consternation, drawing aside the curtain to look out. " I'll tell you what, old woman, the girl's in love; and that's what it is." He thought this was a capital joke, and followed his witticism with a laugh.

"Not much wonder, neither, with all them young fellows about," said the old lady. " You may laugh ; but, Tozer, I ain't so easy in my mind as you. If it's him as they call Northcote, that don't matter ; but if it's that big gabby of a Copperhead, there's troubles a-coming; though he's as rich, they do say, as Creases, whoever Creases might be, and it would be a credit to have the girl make a match like that out of our house."

Whereat Tozer again laughed loud and long.

LOVE-MAKING. 33

"Well," he said, "if Mister Creases himself was here, I wouldn't say as he was a bit too good for our Phoebe. Don't you trouble your head, old woman ; Cop- perhead or t'other one, let her make her choice. Phoebe junior's the girl as '11 be their match, and you may take my word for that. Phoebe's the one as will keep them in their right place, whoever they may be."

Phoebe heard this laugh echo out into the quiet of the night. Of course, she did not know the cause of it, but it disturbed her in her thoughts. Poor, kind, excel- lent grandpapa, she said to herself, how would he get on with Mr. Copperhead ? He would touch his forelock to so rich a man. He would go down metaphorically upon his knees before so much wealth ; and what a fool Clarence would be thought on every side for wanting to marry her ! Even his mother, who was a romantic woman, would not see any romance in it if it was she, Phoebe, who was the poor

VOL. Ill, d

34 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

girl whom he wanted to marry. Ursula might have been different, who was a cler- gyman's daughter, and consequently a lady by prescriptive right. But herself, Tozer's grand-daughter, Tom Tozer's niece, fresh from the butter-shop, as it were, and redolent of that petty trade which big trade ignores, as much as the greatest aristocrat does ! Phoebe was too sensible by far to vex or distress herself on this point, but she recognised it without any hesitation, and the question remained — was it for her advantage to enter upon this struggle, about which there could be no mistake, or was it not ? And this question was very difficult. She did not dislike Clarence, but then she was not in love with him. He would be a Career, but he was not a Passion, she said to herself with a smile ; and if the struggle should not turn out successful on her part, it would involve a kind of ruin, not to herself only, but to all concerned. What, then, was she to do ? The only thing Phoebe de-

LOVE-MAKING. 35

cided upon was that, if she did enter upon that struggle, it must be successful. Of this alone there could be no manner of doubt.

d 2

36

CHAPTER III.

A DISCLOSURE.

" TTTELL, young ladies I" said Mrs. "^ Sam Hurst, "I left you very quiet, but there seems to be plenty going on nowadays. What a beautiful moon there was last night ! I put up my win- dow to look at it, and all at once I found there was a party going on below. Quite a, fete champetre. I have newly come from abroad, you know, and it seemed quite congenial. I actually rubbed my eyes, and said to myself, ' I can't have come home. It's Boulogne still, it isn't Car- lingford!"

" There was no company," said Ursula,

A DISCLOSURE.

37

with dignity ; " there was only our own party. A friend of Reginald's and a friend of mine join us often in the evening, and there is papa's pupil — if you call that a party. We are just as quiet as when you went away. We never invite strangers. We are as much by ourselves as ever."

" With a friend of Reginald's, and a friend of yours, and papa's pupil I" said Mrs. Hurst, laughing ; " double your own number, Ursula ! and I don't suppose Janey counts yet. Why, there is a young man too many. How dare you waste the gifts of Providence, you prodigal child ? And now let me hear who they are."

"You may say Janey doesn't count," cried that young woman in person. " Oh, Mrs. Hurst, what a bore they are ! If that's society, I don't care for society. One always following Ursula about when- ever she moves, so that you can't say a word to her ; and the others pulling poor Phoebe to pieces, who hates them, I am sure. Phoebe was so jolly at first. She

38 PH(EBE, JUNIOK.

would talk to you, or she would play for you ! Why, she taught Johnny and rae a part-song to sing with her, and said he had a delightful voice ; but she never has any time to look at us now," said Janey, stopping in this breathless enumeration of wrongs. " She is always taken up with those horrible men."

" I suppose you call Reginald a horrible man ?" said Ursula, with rising colour. " If that was my opinion of my own brother, I should take care not to say it, at least."

" Oh, Reginald isn't the worst ! There's your Mr. Northcote, and there's that Cop- perhead— Woodenhead, we call him in the nursery. Oh, how papa can put up with him, I can't tell ! he never had any patience with us. You can't think how dull he is, Mrs. Hurst ! I suppose girls don't mind when a man goes on, whether he's stupid or not. I never heard Mr. ISTorthcote say much that was interesting

A DISCLOSURE. 39

either; but lie looks clever, and that is always something."

"So Mr. Northcote is Ursula's one," said Mrs. Hurst, laughing. "You are a perfect jewel, Janey, and I don't know how I should ever find out anything that's going on, but for you. Northcote ! it is a new name in Carlingford. I wonder I have not heard of him already ; or have you kept him entirely to yourself, and let nobody know that there was a new man in the place?"

There was a little pause here. The girls knew nothing about Northcote, ex- cept the one fact that he was a Dissenter ; but as Mrs. Hurst was an excellent Church- woman, much better than they were, who had, perhaps, been brought up too com- pletely under the shadow of the Church to believe in it implicitly, they hesitated before pronouncing before her that un- fortunate name.

" I don't know whether you are aware," Ursula said at last, with some slowness

40 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

and reluctance, " that papa's pupil is of a Dissenting family. He is related, through his mother, to our cousins, the Dorsets." (This fact Ursula put forth with a little triumph, as refuting triumphantly any ready conclusion as to the social standing of Dissenters). "I think Mr. Northcote came first to the house with Mr. Copper- head. He is a Dissenter too."

" Why, Ursula," cried Mrs. Hurst, " not the man who attacked Reginald in the Meeting? It was in all the papers. He made a frightful violent speech about the College and the sinecure, and what a dis- graceful thing it was that your brother, a young man, could accept it. You don't mean him ?"

Ursula was struck dumb. She looked up at her questioner with her lips falling apart a little, with a look of mingled con- sternation and fear.

" Of course it can't be," said the gossip, who was not ill-natured. " You never read the papers, but your papa does, and

A DISCLOSURE. 41

so does Reginald. Oh, you may be sure it is some other Northcote, though I don't know the name."

" Ursula doesn't like to tell you," said Janey; "but he's the Dissenting Minister. I know he is. Well ! I don't care ! He is just as good as anybody else. I don't go in for your illiberal ways of thinking, as if no one was worth talking to except in the Church. Mr. Northcote is very nice. I don't mind what you say. Do you mean to tell me that all those curates and people who used to plague our lives out, were nicer ? Mr. Saunders, for in- stance ; he is a real good Churchman, I have always heard people say — "

" Hold your tongue, Janey ; you don't know anything about it," said Mrs. Hurst, whom this wonderful disclosure elevated into authority. " A Dissenting Minis- ter ! Ah, me ! what a thing it is for you poor girls to have no mother. 1 did not think your papa would have had so little consideration as to expose you to society

42 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

like that. But men are so thoughtless."

" I don't know what right you have to speak of exposing us to society like that," cried Ursula, quivering all over with sud- den excitement.

She felt as if some one had dug a knife into her, and turned it round in the wound.

" Men have so little consideration," re- peated Mrs. Hurst, " especially when a girl is concerned. Though how your papa could have received a man who made such an assault upon him — even if he had passed over the attack upon Reginald, he was attacked himself."

" It must be a mistake," said Ursula, growing pale. Her hands came together half unconsciously, and clasped in a mute gesture of appeal. " It is not possible ; it cannot be true."

" Well, it is very odd that your papa should show such charity, I allow. I don't think it is in human nature. And Reginald, what does Reginald say? If it is that man, it will be the strangest thing

A DISCLOSURE. 48

I ever heard of. But there could not be two Northcotes, Dissenting Ministers in Carlingford, could there ? It is very strange. I can't think what your papa can have in his head. He is a man who would do a thing for a deep reason, whether he liked it or not. How did this Mr. Northcote come first here ?"

" Oh, it was through Mr. Copperhead," said Janey. " It was the first dinner- party we had. You should have seen the fright Ursula was in ! And papa would not let me come to dinner, which was a horrid shame. I am sure I am big enough, bigger than Ursula."

" If he came with the pupil, that makes it all quite plain. I suppose your papa did not want to quarrel with his pupil. What a predicament for him, if that was the case ? Poor Mr. May ! Of course, he did not want to be uncivil. Why, it was in the 6 Gazette,' and the ' Express,' and all the papers ; an account of the Meeting, and that speech, and then a leading article

44

upon it. I always file the ' Express/ so you can see it if you like. But what an embarrassment for your poor papa, Ursula, that you should have taken this man up ! And Reginald, how could he put up with it, a touchy young man, always ready to take offence ! You see now the drawback of not paying a little attention to what is going on round you. How uncomfortable you must have made them. It might be very well to look over an offence, not to be unpleasant to the stranger ; but that you should have thoughtlessly led this man on into the position of an intimate — "

" I did nothing of the sort," cried Ur- sula, growing red and growing pale, start- ing up from her work with a sense of the intolerable which she could not restrain. " What have I done to be spoken of so ? I never led him on, or anyone. What you say is cruel, very cruel ! and it is not true."

" Isn't it true that he was here last night, following you about, as Janey says ? Oh, I know how these sort of things go

A DISOLOSUKE. 45

on. But you ought to think of your papa's position, and you ought to think of Regi- nald. If it was to come to the Bishop's ears that St. Roque's Parsonage was a refuge for Dissenters ! For I know who your friend is, Ursula ! That Tozer girl, another of them ! Indeed, I assure you, it makes me feel very uncomfortable. And Reginald, just at the very beginning of his career."

Ursula did not make any reply. She bent her head down over her work, so low that her flushed cheeks could scarcely be seen, and went on stitching with energy and passion such as needles and thread are seldom the instruments of; and yet how much passion is continually worked away through needles and thread ! Mrs. Hurst sat still for some time, looking at her, very little satisfied to keep silence, but feeling that she had discharged an efficient missile, and biting her lips not to say more to weaken its effect. When some time had passed in this way, and it was apparent

46 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

that Ursula had no intention of breaking the silence, her visitor got up and shook out her skirts with a little flutter of indig- nation

" You are offended," she said, " though I must say it is very ill on your part to be offended. What motive can I have but your good 5 and regard for your poor dear papa ? It is he that is always the victim, poor man, whether it is your vagaries he has to pay for, or Reginald's high-flying. Oh, yes ; you may be as angry as you like, Ursula ; but you will find out the differ- ence if your encouragement of this Dis- senter interferes with something better — a living for Reginald, perhaps, or better pre- ferment for your poor papa."

" Oh !" cried Janey, awe-stricken ; " but after all, it was not Ursula ; it was papa himself. I think he must have done it to please Mr. Copperhead ; for, Mrs. Hurst, you know Mr. Copperhead is very im- portant. We have all to give in to him. He pays papa three hundred a-year."

A DISCLOSURE.

47

" Three thousand wouldn't make up for it if it spoilt all your career," cried the indignant woman, and she swept away without saying any more to Ursula, who kept quite still over her work without budging. Janey went downstairs meekly after her to open the door, whispering an entreaty that she would not be angry.

"No, no, I am not angry," said Mrs. Hurst, " but I shall keep it up for a day or two. It is the best thing for her. I think she was struck with what I said."

Janey stole upstairs again, feeling rather guilty ; but Ursula took little notice of her. The dinner was ordered and every- thing settled for the day. She was busy with her week's mending and darning, with the stockings and other things in a big basket beside her. When she came to some articles belonging to Janey, she threw them out with great impatience.

"You may surely mend your things yourself, you are big enough. You can talk for yourself and me too," cried

48 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

Ursula with sudden impetuosity ; and then she sat and worked, her needle flying through the meshes of her darning, though it is hard to darn stockings in that impas- sioned way. They were socks of Johnny's, however, with holes in the heels that you could put your fist through, and the way in which the big spans filled themselves up under this influence was wonderful to see. Janey, who was not fond of mend- ing, set to work quite humbly under the influence of this example, and made two or three attempts to begin a conversation, but without avail.

The girls were seated thus in a dis- turbed and restless silence, working as if for their lives, when the usual little jar of the gate and sound of the bell down- stairs announced a visitor. On ordinary occasions, they were both in the habit of rushing to the window when the gate was opened to see who was coming, and Janey had thrown asside her work to do so, when a look from Ursula stopped her.

A DISCLOSURE. 49

High-spirited as Janey was, she did not dare to disobey that look. By right of the passion that had got possession of her, Ur- sula took the absolute command of the situation in a way she had never done before, and some sudden intuition made her aware who it was who was coming. The girls both sat there still and breath- less, waiting for his appearance. He never came in the day, never had been seen in the Parsonage at that hour before, and yet Ursula was as certain who it was, as if she had seen him a mile off. He came into the room, himself looking a little breathless and disturbed, and gave a quick impatient look at Janey as he went up to her sister. Ursula saw it and understood well enough. Janey was in his way ; he had come this morning with a special pur- pose. Her heart sank down to her very shoes, and then rose again with a feverish and unreal leap. Was it not her duty to take the initiative, to cut away the very ground from beneath his feet ? He took a

VOL. III. e

50 PHOEBE, JUNIOB.

seat, not far from where she was sitting, and made an effort to begin a little ordinary conversation, throwing frequent glances at Janey. He said it was a fine day, which was self-evident ; that he almost feared they would be out ; that he had come to — to tell her something he had forgotten last night, about — yes, about — Cassiopeia's chair, to correct what he said about Orion — yes, that was it ; and again he looked at Janey, who saw his looks, and wondered much what she ought to do — go away, as he evidently wished her, or stay and listen, which was the eager desire of her mind. When Ursula lifted her head from her darning, and looked at him with cheeks alternately white and crimson, Janey felt herself grow hot and breathless with kindred excitement, and knew that the moment had come.

" Mr. Northcote," said Ursula, looking at him fixedly, so fixedly that a nervous trembling ran over him, " I have a ques- tion to ask you. You have been coming

A DISCLOSURE. 51

to us very often, and perhaps papa may know, but I don't. Is it true that you made a speech about Reginald when you first came here ?"

Janey, looking eagerly on, saw North- cote grow pale, nay, grey in the fresh daylight. The colour seemed to ebb out of him. He started very slightly, as if waking up, when she began to speak, and then sat looking at her, growing greyer and greyer. A moment elapsed before he made any reply.

" Yes, I did," he said, with a half groan of pain in his voice.

" You did ! really you did ! Oh !" cried Ursula, the hot tears falling suddenly out of her eyes, while she still looked at him, " I was hoping that it was all some hor- rible mistake, that you would have laughed. I hoped you would laugh and say no.,,

Northcote cleared his throat ; they were waiting for him to defend himself. Janey, holding herself on the leash, as it were, keeping herself back from springing upon

e 2

UBRARY JJMVERSmrOMn'w™.

52 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

him like a hound. Ursula gazed at him with great blazing reproachful eyes ; and all he could do was to give that sign of embarrassment, of guilt, and confusion. He could not utter a word. By the time he had got himself wound up to the point of speech, Ursula, impatient, had taken the words out of his mouth.

" Reginald is my brother," she said. " Whatever is against him is against us all; we have never had any separate in- terests. Didn't you think it strange, Mr. Northcote, to come to this house, among us all, when you had been so unkind to him?"

" Miss May—"

He made a broken sort of outcry and motion of his head, and then cleared his throat nervously once more.

" Did you think how your own brothers and sisters would have stood up for you ? that it would have been an offence to them if anybody had come to the house who

A DISCLOSURE. 53

was not a friend to you ? that they would have had a right — "

"Miss May," said the culprit; " all this I have felt to the bottom of my heart ; that I was here on false pretences — that I had no right to be here. But this painful feeling was all quenched and extinguished, and turned into gratitude by the goodness of your father and brother. I did not even know that you had not been told. I thought you were aware from the be- ginning. You were colder than they were, and I thought it was natural, quite natural, for it is easier to forgive for one's self than for those one loves ; and then I thought you melted and grew kinder to me, that you saw how all my ideas were changed, all my feelings — my mind itself; changed by the great charity, the wonderful good- ness I have found here I"

"Mr. Northcotel" Ursula had been struggling to break in all the time ; but while he spoke her words dispersed, her feelings softened, and at the end she found

54 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

nothing but that startled repetition of his name with which to answer him. No doubt if he had given her time the eloquence would have come back ; but he was too much in earnest to be guilty of such a mistake.

" What can I say about it ?" cried the young man. " It has filled me with shame and with happiness. I have been taken in my own trap — those whom I attacked as you say — went out of my way to attack, and abused like a fool because I knew nothing about them — have shown me what the Bible means. Your father and brother knew what I had done, they met me separately, quite independent of each other, and both of them held out their hands to me; why, except that I had offended them, I cannot tell. A stranger, be- longing to an obscure class, I had no claim upon them except that I had done what ought to have closed their house against me. And you know how they have in-

A DISCLOSURE. OO

terpreted that. They have shown me what the Bible means."

The two girls sat ' listening, both with their heads bent towards him, and their eyes fixed upon his face. When he stopped, Janey got up with her work in her lap, and coming a little nearer to Ursula, addressed her in a wondering voice,

" Is it papa he is talking of like that ?" she said, under her breath.

" Yes," he said, fervently, turning to her. " It is your father. He has made charity and kindness real things to me."

" Poor papa !" said Ursula, whose tears were arrested in her eyes by the same surprised sensation, half pleasure, half pain, which hushed even Janey's voice. They were " struck," as Mrs. Hurst had said, but by such a strange mingling of feelings that neither knew what to make of them. Northcote did not understand what they meant; their words conveyed a slight shock of surprise, but no distinct idea to him ; and when Janey, too much

56 PH(EBE, JUNIOR.

impressed to settle down again, went away after a while musingly, carrying her work in the upper skirt of her gown, held like a market-woman's apron by her elbow against her side ; and he found himself to have attained in the very confusion of his intentions to what he wished, i.e., an inter- view with Ursula by herself, he was almost too much agitated to take advantage of it. As for Ursula, she had floated a hundred miles away from that sensation of last night which, had no stronger feeling come in to bewilder her, would have made his errand very plain to her mind. She had ceased to think about him, she was think- ing with a certain tenderness, and wonder- ing half-awed, half-amused self-question- ing, about her father. Was he so good as this ? had he done this Christian action ? ■were they all perhaps doing papa injustice ? She was recalled to herself by Northcote's next proceeding. He went to the door and closed it after Janey, who had left it open of course, and then he came to the

A DISCLOSURE. 57

back of the chair on which stood the great basket of darning. His voice was tremu- lous, his eyes liquid and shining with emotion.

"Will you forgive me, since they have forgiven me ? and may I ask you some- thing ?" he said.

58

CHAPTER IV.

AN EXTEAVAGANCE.

TV/TR- MAY did not take any particular -*-'-■- notice of what was going on around him among the young people. Nobody could have been more startled than he, had he been told of the purpose with which Horace Northcote, the Dissenting minister, had paid his early morning visit; and though he had a half-scornful, half-amused glimmer of insight into the feelings of his son, and saw that * Clarence Copperhead was heavily veering the same way, it did not occur to him that any crisis was ap- proaching. He was enjoying himself in his way, and he had not done that for a

AN EXTBAVAGANCE. 59

long time. He dearly liked the better way of living, the more liberal strain of house- keeping and expenditure, he liked the social meetings in the evening, the talk after dinner with the three young men, the half- fatherly flirtation with Phoebe, which she too enjoyed much, avowedly preferring him, with pretty coquetry, to the others. All this was very pleasant to him ; and the additional money in his pocket was very pleasant, and when the post came in, one of these April mornings, and brought a letter from James, enclosing a draft for fifty pounds, his satisfaction was intense. The sight of the money brought an itching to his fingers, a restless- ness about him generally. And yet it was not all that might have been desired, only fifty pounds ! he had been buoying himself up by vain thoughts of how James this time, having been so long writing, would send a larger sum, which would at once tide him over the Tozer business, and on this account had been giving himself no

60 PHCEBE, JUNIOK.

trouble about it. Never before had he been so insouciant, although never before had the risk been so great. He had suffered so much about it last time, pro- bably, that was why he took it so easily now; or was it because his trust in the chapter of accidents had grown greater since he was more dependent on it? or because of the generally expanded sense of living in him which made anxiety un- congenial anyhow ? Whatever the cause was, this was the effect. A momentary disappointment when he saw how little James's draft was — then a sense of that semi-intoxication which comes upon a poor man when a sum of money falls into his hands — gradually invaded his soul. He tried to settle down to his writing, but did not feel equal to the effort. It was too little for the purpose, he said to him- self, for which he wanted it ; but it was enough to do a great many pleasant things with otherwise. For the first time he had no urgent bills to swallow it up ; the very

AN EXTRAVAGANCE. 61

grocer, a long suffering tradesman who made less fnss than the others, and about whom Ursula made less fuss, had been pacified by a payment on account off the Copperhead money, and thus had his mouth stopped. Barring that bill, indeed, things were in a more comfortable state than they had been for a long time in the May household ; and putting that out of account, James's money would have been the nearest approach to luxury — reckoning luxury in its most simple form as money to spend without any absolutely forestall- ing claim upon it — which Mr. May had known for years. It is so seldom that poor people have this delicious sense of a little, ever so little surplus ! and it would be hard to say how he could entertain the feeling that it was an overplus. There was something of the fumes of despera- tion perhaps, and impending fate in the lightness of heart which seized upon him. He could not keep still over his writing. He got up at last, and put

62 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

James's draft into his pocket-book, and got his hat to go out. It was a fine morning, full of that exhilaration which belongs only to the spring. He went to the bank, and paid in the money, getting a small sum at the same time for his own immediate use ; bat somehow his restless- ness was scarcely satisfied by that very legitimate piece of business, and he ex- tended his walk into the town, and strayed, half by chance, half by intention, to the old furniture shop at the other end of the High Street, which was a favourite resort of the higher classes in Carlingford, and where periodically there was an auction, at which sometimes great bargains were to be had. Mr. May went into this dan- gerous place boldly. The sale was going on ; he walked into the midst of tempta- tion, forgetting the prayer against it, which no doubt he had said that morning. And as evil fate would have it, a carved book-case, the very thing he had been sighing for, for years, was at that moment

AN EXTRAVAGANCE. 63

the object of the auctioneer's praises. It was standing against the wall, a noble piece of furniture, in which books would show to an advantage impossible other- wise, preserved from dust and damp by the fine old oak and glass door. Mr. May's heart gave a little jump. Almost everybody has wished for something un- attainable, and this had been the object of his desires for years. He gave a little start when he saw it, and hurried forward. The bidding had actually begun, there was no time to think and consider, if he wished to have a chance, and it was going cheap, dead cheap. After a minute or two of competition the blood rose to his cheeks, he got thoroughly excited. The effect of this excitement was twofold — not only did it drive all thought of prudence out of his head, but it raised by several pounds the price of the book-case, which, had he gone about it coolly, he might have had at a much cheaper rate. When he suddenly woke up to find himself the

64 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

owner of it, a thrill of consternation ran over him — it was all so sudden ; and it was perfectly innocent, if only he had any money; and to be sure he had James's money, which was not enough to do any- thing else — certainly not to do the thing he wanted it for. He tried to laugh at himself for the little thrill of alarm that ran through him ; but it was too late to recede; and he gave his cheque for the money and his directions as to having it sent to the Parsonage, with a quake at his heart, yet a little flourish of satisfac- tion.

" Just what I have been wanting for years," he said, as he examined his new acquisition, and the people about looked at him with additional respect he felt, not being used to see Mr. May so prompt in payment, and so ready with his money. This pleased him also. He walked home with his head a little turned still, although there was a quake and flutter underneath. Well ! he said to himself, who could call

AN EXTRAVAGANCE. 65

it an extravagance ? a thing he had wanted for years — a thing which was a necessity, not for luxury, but every day use — a thing which was not dear, and which was very handsome and substantial, and really good ; how could anyone say it was extravagant ? Ursula might stare with her big eyes, but she was only a silly little girl, and women always were silly about expenses, alarmed by a big bold handsome purchase, though there was nobody better at the art of frittering away money in petty nothings. When he got home, he began at once ner- vously to clear the space where it should stand. What an improvement it would be ! and his books were getting spoiled daily in those unsightly, open shelves, entirely spoiled. It was exciting to antici- pate its arrival, and the admiration and commotion in the house. He called in Betsy and gave her orders about it, how, if it came when he was absent, it was to be put in that particular place, no other. "And mind that great care is takeu,

VOL. III. P

66 PHCEBE, JUNIOK.

for it is valuable, and a beautiful piece of furniture;" he said.

" La, Sir !" said Betsy, who was thunderstruck, though she knew it was not " her place " to show any feeling. He did not think it was necessary to appeal to Ursula on the same subject, but was rather glad to get out again, feeling the restless- ness which had not been dissipated, but rather the reverse. He went and saw one or two poor people, to whom he was much more tolerant and kind than his wont, for in general Mr. May was not attracted towards the poor ; and he gave them a shilling or two of the money he had drawn at the bank that morning — though some- how it had acquired a certain value in his eyes, and it was with a grudge that he took it out of his pocket. I must not spend this, he said to himself; but gave the shillings as a kind of tithe or propitia- tory offering to Providence, that things might go well with him. Why should not things go well with him ? He was not a

AN EXTRAVAGANCE. 67

bad man, he wronged nobody. He had done nothing to-day that a saint might not have done ; he wanted the book-case, and he had the money, a sum not big enough for any more important purpose ; but which was far better disposed of so, than frittered away in nothings, as no doubt it would have otherwise been. By the afternoon, when the book-case arrived, he had convinced himself that it was not only quite reasonable but a most lucky chance, a thing he could scarcely have hoped for, the opportunity and the money both coming in such exact accord with each other. When he returned from his walk the girls were looking at it, Ursula somewhat scared, Janey in open raptures.

" It is very nice indeed, papa," said the elder girl ; " but it must have cost a great deal of money."

" Be thankful that you haven't got to pay for it," he said, brusquely. He was not disposed to stand criticism. How it filled up his bare room, and made it, Mr.

F 2

68 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

May thought, all at once into a library, though the old writing-table and shabby chairs looked rather worse perhaps than before, and suggested renewal in the most urgent way. To make it all of a piece, to put a soft Turkey carpet instead of the drugget, how pleasant it would be ! not extravagant, only a natural inclination towards the seemly, and a desire to have things around him becoming his position. No doubt such things were things which he ought to have in his position ; a gentle- man and a scholar, how humiliating it was that nothing but the barest elements of comfort should be within his reach. This was not how life ought to be ; a poor creature like Clarence Copperhead, with- out birth or breeding, or brains, or any- thing but money, was able to gratify every wish, while he — his senior, his superior ! Instead of blaming himself, therefore, for his self-indulgence, Mr. May sympathized with himself, which is a much less safe thing to do ; and accordingly it soon be-

AN EXTRAVAGANCE. 69

gan to appear to him that his self-denial all this time in not giving himself what he wanted had been extreme, and that what he had now done, in conceding himself so harmless a gratification, was what he ought to have done years ago. It was his own money sent to him by his dutiful son with- out conditions, and who had any right to interfere ?

When he was at dinner, Betsy came behind his chair under pretence of serving him, Betsy, whose place was in the kitchen, who had no right to show in the dining-room at all, and whose confused toilette had caught Ursula's eye and filled her with horror.

" Please, Sir," she said, breathing hot on Mr. May's ear, till he shrank with sen- sitive horror. " Cotsdean's in the kitchen. He says as how he must see you ; and I can't get him away."

" Ah, Cotsdean ? tell him if he has any- thing to say to me, to write it down."

"Which he's done, Sir," said Betsy;

70 PHCEBE, JUNIOE.

producing a little bit of paper rolled tightly together, " but I wasn't to give it till I'd asked you to see him. Oh, please see him, Sir, like a dear good gentleman. He looks like a man as is going off his head."

"He is a fool," said Mr. May, taking the paper, but setting his teeth as he did so. Evidently he must get rid of this fellow — already beginning to trouble him, as if he was not the best person to know when and how far he could go.

" Tell him I'll attend to it, he need not trouble himself," he said, and put the paper into his pocket, and went on with his dinner. Cotsdean, indeed ! surely there had been enough of him. What were his trumpery losses in comparison with what his principal would lose, and how dare that fellow turn up thus and press him continually for his own poor selfish safety. This was not how Mr. May had felt three months before; but everything changes, and he felt that he had a right to be angry at this selfish solicitude. Surely it was of

AN EXTRAVAGANCE. 71

as much consequence to him at least as to Cotsdean. The man was a fussy disagree- able fool, and nothing more.

And as it happened they sat late that night at dinner, without any particular reason, because of some discussion into which Clarence and Reginald fell, so that it was late before Mr. May got back to his room, where his books were lying in a heap waiting their transportation. They seemed to appeal to him also, and ask him reproachfully how they had got there, and he went to work arranging them with all the enthusiasm natural to a lover of books. He was a book lover, a man full of fine tastes and cultured elegant ways of think- ing. If he had been extravagant (which he was not) it would have been in the most innocent, nay delightful and lauda- ble way. To attach any notion of crimi- nality, any suspicion of wrong-doing to such a virtuous indulgence, how unjust it would be ! There was no company up-

72 PHCEBE, JUNIOK.

stairs that evening. Copperhead had strolled out with Reginald to smoke his cigar much against the will of the latter, and was boring him all the way to the college with accounts of his own lavish expenditure, and how much he had given for this and that, his cameos, his diamond studs, the magnificent dressing- case which was the wonder of the Parson- age. " Hang it all, what is the good of having money if you don't spend it ?" said Clarence, and Reginald, who had not much money to spend, felt as near hating him as it was in his nature to do. Thus Mr. May was released from duty in the draw- ing-room, where Ursula, palpitating with many thoughts which were altogether new to her, sat doing her darning, and eluding as well as she could Janey's ques- tions. Janey was determinedly conver- sational that night. She drove Ursula nearly out of her senses, and kept Johnny — who had crept into the drawing-room in

AN EXTRAVAGANCE. (6

high delight finding it for once free to him — from learning his lessons.

" Oh, how nice it is to be by ourselves," said Janey, " instead of all those new- people. I don't mind Phoebe ; but strange men in the house, what a nuisance they are, always getting in one's way — don't you think so, Ursula?"

Ursula made no reply, and after awhile even Janey sank into silence, and the drawing-room, usually so gay, got a cold and deserted look. The new life which had come in had left its mark, and to go back to what had once been so pleasant in the past was no longer possible. Johnny and Janey might like it, having regained their former places, but to Ursula the solitude was horrible. She asked herself, with a great blush and quiver, what she would do if that temporary filling up of new interests and relationships was to fall away as was likely, and leave her to the old life unbroken, to Janey's childish society and questions, and papa's im-

74

PHOEBE, JUNIOR.

perious and unmodified sway. She grew pale and chill at the very thought.

But Mr. May, as we have said, was off duty. He forgot all about Cotsdean and the note in his pocket, and set to work with the most boyish simplicity of delight to arrange his books in his new shelves. How well they looked ! never before had their setting done them justice. There were books in gorgeous bindings, college prizes which had never shown at all, and which now gleamed out in crimson and gold from behind the glass, and made their owner's heart beat with pleasure. Alas ! to think how much innocent pleasure is denied us by the want of that small sum of money ! and worse still how an innocent pleasure becomes the reverse of innocent when it is purchased by the appropriation of some- thing which should have been employed elsewhere. Perhaps, however, the sense of guilt which he kept under, added zest in Mr. May's mind to the pleasure of his ac-

AN EXTRAVAGANCE. 75

quisition ; he was snatching a fearful joy, heaven knows how soon the penalty might overwhelm him. In the meantime he was determined to take the good of it, and enjoy what he had gained.

When the books were all in he sat down at his table and surveyed it, rubbing his dusty hands. How much that is childish, how much that is fresh, and youthful, and innocent must be in the mind of a man (you would say) who could be thus excited about a bookcase ! and yet this was not the kind of man whom vou would call unsophisticated and youthful. It was probably the state of suppressed excite- ment in which he was, the unreality of his position that helped him to that sense of elation as much as anything else ; for emotion is a Proteus ready to take any form, and pain itself sometimes finds vent in the quick blazing up of fictitious delight, as much as in the moanings that seem more accordant with its own nature. He put his hand into his pocket for his pencil

76 PH(EBE, JUNIOR.

to make a note of the contents of the new shelves, and then he found Cotsdean's note, which he had not forgotten, but which he had felt no desire to remember. When he felt it between his fingers his countenance fell a little; but he took it out and read it with the smile still upon his face. It was a dirty little roll of paper, scribbled in pencil.

" Rev. Sir, " I hope as you are not forgetting the 15th. Pleas excuse anxiety and bad writing, i am a poor nervous man i no, a word of answer just to say as it is all right will much oblidge.

" Rev. Sir,

" Your humble servant,

" T. COTSDEAN."

Betsy knocked at the door as he read this, with a request for an answer to Mr. Cotsdean's note. " Little Bobby, Sir, is waiting for it in the kitchen."

AN EXTRAVAGANCE. 77

" Give Bobby some supper," said Mr. May, " tell him to tell his father it's all right, and I shan't forget. You under- stand ? He is a troublesome little fool ; but it's all right, and I shan't forget, and give the child some supper, Betsy. He ought not to be out so late."

" He is a delicate little thing, Sir, thankye, Sir," said Betsy, half frightened by her master's amiability ; and he smiled and repeated,

" Tell him it's all right."

Was it all right, the 15th? Cotsdean must have made a mistake. Mr. May's countenance paled, and the laugh went off; he opened a drawer in his writing table and took out a book, and anxiously consulted an entry in it. It was the 18th certainly, as clear as possible. Something had been written on the opposite page, and had blotted slightly the one on which these entries were written ; but there it stood, the 18th April. Mr. May prided himself on making no mistakes in business.

78 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

He closed the book again with a look of relief, the smile coming back once more to his face. The 1 8th, it was three days additional, and in the time there was no doubt that he would find out what was the right thing to do.

79

CHAPTER V.

THE MILLIONAIRE.

TT7HEN Mr. May woke next morning, it * ' was not the bookcase he thought of, but that date which had been the last thing in his mind on the previous night. Not the 15th, the 18th. Certainly he was right, and Cotsdean was wrong. Cotsdean was a puzzle-headed being, making his calculations by the rule of thumb ; but he had put down the date, and there could be no possible mistake about it. He got up disposed to smile at the poor man's igno- rance and fussy restlessness of mind. " I have never left him in the lurch, he may trust to me surely in the future," Mr.

80

May said to himself, and smiled with a kind of condescending pity for his poor agent's timidity; after all, perhaps, as Cotsdean had so little profit by it, it was not wonderful that he should be uneasy. After this, it might be well if they did anything further of the sort, to divide the money, so that Cotsdean too might feel that he had got something for the risk he ran ; but then, to be sure, if he had not the money he had no trouble, except by his own foolish anxiety, for the payment, and always a five pound note or two for his pains. But Mr. May said to himself that he would do no more in this way after the present bill was disposed of; no, he would make a stand, he would insist upon living within his income. He would not allow himself to be subject to these perpetual agitations any more. It would require an effort, but after the effort was made all would be easy. So he said to himself ; and it was the J 8th, not the 15th, three days more to make his ar-

THE MILLIONAIEE. 81

rangements in. It had come to be the 12th now, and up to this moment he had done nothing, having that vague faith in the Indian mail which had been realized, and yet had not been realized. But still he had nearly a week before him, which was enough certainly. Anything that he could do in six months, he said to himself, he could easily do in six days — the mere time was nothing ; and he smiled as he dressed himself leisurely, thinking it all over. Somehow everything looked perfectly easy to him this time ; last time he had been plunged into tragic despair ; now, and he did not know why, he took it quite easily, he seemed to fear nothing. There were various ways of getting the money as natural as the daylight, and in the mean- time why should he make himself unhappy. As soon as he was ready he went to his room and had another look at the bookcase which, with his best books in it, all in order and ranged in unbroken lines, looked everything a bookcase ought to vol. III. G

82 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

look. It made him feel more of a man somehow, more like the gentleman and scholar he had meant to be when he started in life ; he had not intended then to be a poor district incumbent all his life, with a family of eight children. His bookcase somehow transported him back to the days when he had thought of better things for himself, and when life had held an ideal for him. Perhaps at the best of times it had never been a very high ideal; but when a man is over fifty and has given up doing anything but struggle through each day as it comes, and get out of his work as best he may, doing what he must, leaving undone what he can, any ideal almost seems something higher than himself; but the recollection of what he had meant to be, came back to him strongly when he looked at his carved oak. It had not been carried out ; but still he felt rehabilitated and better in his own opinion as he stood beside this costly purchase he had made,

THE MILLIONAIRE. 83

and felt that it changed his room and all his surroundings. It might have been almost wicked to run into such an extra- vagance, but yet it did him good.

" My people came down to the Hall last night," Clarence Copperhead said to him at breakfast, " and the Governor is coming over along with Sir Robert. He'd like to see you, I am sure, and I suppose they'll be going in for sight seeing, and that sort of thing. He is a dab at sight seeing, is the Governor. I can't think how he can stand it for my part."

" Then you must remember that I put myself at his orders for the day," said Mr. May graciously. " Sir Robert is not a bad guide, but I am a better, though it sounds modest to say it; and, Ursula, of course Mr. Copperhead will take luncheon with us."

"Don't think of that," said Clarence, " he's queer and likes his own way. Just as likely as not he'll think he ought to support the hotels of the place where he is

G 2

84 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

— sort of local production you know. I

think it's nonsense, but that is how it is —

that's the man."

" We shall look for him all the same," »

said Mr. May, with a nod at Ursula ; and a sudden project sprang up in his mind, wild as projects so often are. This father whom his fancy, working upon what Clarence said, immediately invested with all the prodigal liberality of a typical rich man, this stranger to whom a hundred pounds was less than a penny was to him- self, would give him the money he wanted. What so easy ? He drew a long breath, and though he had not been aware that he was anxious, he was suddenly conscious of a sense of relief. Yes, to be sure, what so simple, what so likely; he would explain his monetary necessities lightly and with grace, and Mr. Copperhead would supply them. He was in the mildest state of desperation, the painless stage, as may be seen, when this strange idea entered into his head. He hugged it, though

THE MILLIONAIRE. 85

he was a man of the world and might have known better, and it produced a kind of elation which would have been a very strange spectacle to any looker on who knew what it meant. The thing seemed done when he next thought of it ten minutes later, settled as if it had been so for years. Mr. Copperhead would make it all right for him, and after that he would undertake such risks no more.

Mr. Copperhead, however, did not come for two days, though Ursula spent all the morning and a great deal of trouble in arranging a luncheon for him ; but on the second morning he came, driven by Sir Robert, who had changed horses on the road, and who was in a somewhat irritated and excited condition, very glad to get rid of his visitor.

" I hope you don't mind having your toes trodden on, May," he said, privately ; " that fellow is never happy but when he's insulting some one." And indeed Mr. Copperhead began this favourite

86 PHOEBE, JUNIOR.

pastime at once by making very big eyes at the sight of Ursula. " A — ah !" he said, rubbing his hands, and elevating his eyebrows ; and he gave a meaning laugh as he shook hands with her, and declared that he did not expect to find young ladies here. " I haven't a great deal of education myself, and I never knew it could be carried on so pleasantly,' ' he said. " You're a lucky young dog, Clar, that's what you are ;" and the son laughed with the father at this excellent joke, though the rest of the company looked on with great gravity. Ursula, for her part, turned with wondering eyes from the new- comer to her old friend, Sir Robert.

"What does he mean ?" she asked, with an appealing look.

" He is the greatest brute I know," said poor Sir Eobert, under his breath ; and he went off suddenly on the plea of business, leaving his unpleasant visitor in Mr. May's hands, who undertook the charge not unwillingly, being possessed

THE MILLIONAIRE. 87

by his own plan. Mr. Copperhead went all over Carlingford. He inspected the town-hall, the infirmary, and the church, with the business-like air of a man who was doing his duty.

" Poor little place, but well enough for the country," he said. "A country- town's a mistake in my opinion. If I had it in my power I'd raze them all to the ground, and have one London and the rest green fields. That's your sort, Mr. May. Now you don't produce anything here, what's the good of you ? Ail un- productive communities, Sir, ought to be swept off the face of the earth. I'd let Manchester and those sort of places go on till they burst ; but a bit of a little piggery like this, where there's nothing doing, no trade, no productions of any kind."

"We like it all the same," said Mr. May ; " we small sort of people who have no enterprise like you — "

" I daresay you like it ! To be sure,

88 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

you can moon about here as much as you please, and make believe to do something, and there's nobody to contradict you. In a great centre of industry you couldn't live like that ; you must work or you'll get pushed aside altogether ; unless, of course, you're a millionaire to start with," Mr. Copperhead added, with a noisy laugh.

" Which I am not certainly — very much the reverse — in short, a poor man with a large family, which I suppose is a thing about as objectionable in a centre of in- dustry as anything can be."

" The large family aint objectionable if you make 'em work," said Mr. Copper- head ; " it all depends on that. There's always objections, you know," he said, with a jocular grin, " to pretty girls like that daughter of yours put straight in a young fellow's way. You won't mind my saying it ? They neither work themselves nor let others work — that sort. I think we could get on with a deal fewer women, I must allow. There's where Providence

THE MILLIONAIRE. 89

is in a mistake. We don't want 'em in England ; it's a waste of raw material. They're bad for the men, and they ain't much good for themselves, that I can see."

" You are a little hard upon the ladies, Mr. Copperhead."

"Not I — we can't do without 'em of course, and the surplus we ought to ex- port as we export other surpluses ; but I object to them in a youug man's way, not meaning anything unpleasant to you. And perhaps if I had been put up to it sooner — but let's hope there's no mischief done. What is this now ? some of your antiquities, I suppose. Oh yes, let's have a look at it ; but I confess it's the present age I like best."

"This is the College," cried Mr. May, swallowing certain sensations which im- paired his sense of friendliness ; " but not an educational college, a foundation for old men — decayed citizens, as they are called — founded in the fifteenth century.

90 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

My son is the chaplain, and will be very glad to show it you. There are twelve old men here at present, very comfortably looked after, thanks to the liberal arrange- ments of the founder. They attend chapel twice a day, where Reginald officiates. It is very agreeable to me to have him settled so near me."

" Cunning I call it," said Mr. Copper- .head, with his hoarse laugh ; " does you credit ; a capital snug nest — nothing to do — and pay — pay good now ? those old fellows generally managed that ; as it was priests that had the doing of it, of course they did well for their own kind. Good Lord, what a waste of good money all this is I" he continued, as they went into the quadrangle, and saw the little park beyond with its few fine trees; " half-a-dozen nice villas might be built on this site, and it's just the sort of place I should fancy where villas would pay. Why don't the Corpora- tion lay hands on it ? And your son lives here? Too dull for me; I like a little

THE MILLIONAIRE. 91

movement going on, but I daresay he likes it; and with how much a year ?"

" Two hundred and fifty ; and some advantages beside — "

" Bravo I" said Mr. Copperhead, " now how many curates could you get for that two and a-half ? I've got a great respect for you, Mr. May; you know what's what. That shows sense, that does. How do you do, Sir ? fine old place you've got here — capital snug appointment. I've just been saying to your father I admire his sense, looking out for you a nice fat easy appointment like this."

Keginald turned from red to white and then to portentous blackness. The sub- ject was of all others the one least likely to please him.

" It is not very fat," he said, with a look of offence, quite undeserved by the chief suf- ferer, towards his father, " nor very easy. But come in. It is rather an interesting old place. I suppose you would like to see the Chapel, and the old captain's

92

rooms ; they are very fine in their way." " Thank you ; we've been seeing a deal already, and I feel tired. I think I'll let you off the chapel. Hallo ! here's another old friend — Northcote, by George ! and what are you doing here I should like to know, a blazing young screamer of the Liberation Society, in a high and dry parson's rooms ? This is as good as a play."

" I suppose one is not required to stay at exactly the same point of opinion all one's life," said Northcote, with a half smile.

" By George ! but you are though, when you're a public man ; especially when you're on a crusade. Have'nt I heard you call it a crusade ? I can tell you that changing your opinion is just the very last thing the public will permit you to do. But I shan't tell for my part — make yourself easy. Clarence, don't you let it out; your mother, fortunately, is out of the way. The world shall never know

THE MITXIONAIRE. 93

through me that young Northcote, the anti-state Churchman, was discovered hob-nobbing with a snug chaplain in a sinecure appointment. Ha, ha ! had you there."

" To do Northcote justice," said Mr. May ; " he began life in Carlingford by pointing out this fact to the neighbour- hood ; that it was a sinecure, and that my son and I — "

" Would it not be more to the point to inspect the chapel ?" said Reginald, who had been standing by impatiently playing with a big key ; upon which Mr. Copper- head laughed more loudly than before.

" We'll not trouble the chapel," he said, " railway stations are more in my way ; you are all a great deal finer than I am, and know a deal more I suppose ; but my roughness has served its purpose on the whole, better perhaps for some things — yes, for some things, Clar, and you may thank your stars, old boy. If you had been a parson's son, by George ! there

94 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

would have been no fat appointment waiting for you."

" After all, my son's appointment is not so very fat," said Mr. May, forcing a laugh. " It is not so much as many a boy at school gets from his father."

" Ah, you mean my boy at school ! he's an extravagant dog. His mother and he, Sir, are made of different clay from me ; they are porcelain and I am delft. They want fine velvet cupboards to stand them- selves in, while I'm for the kitchen dresser. That's the difference. But I can afford it, thank heaven. I tell Clarence that he may thank his stars that I can afford it, and that he isn't born a poor man's son. He has been plucked at Oxford, you know," he said, with a big laugh, thrusting forth his chest, as Clarence thrust forth his shirt-front, with an apparent compla- cency over the very plucking. My son can afford to be plucked he seemed to say. He got up as he spoke, and approaching the fireplace turned his back to it, and

THE MILLIONAIRE. 95

gathered up his coat-tails under his arm. He was no taller than Mr. May, and very little taller than Reginald ; but they both shrank into insignificance beside the big self-assertive figure. He looked about the room as if he was thinking of " buying up " the whole contents of it, and thought very little of them. A glance of contempt, a shrug more implied than actual, testified his low opinion of everything around. When he withdrew his eyes from the furniture he shook out his leg, as Clarence had done his, and gave a pull to his trousers that they might sit properly. He had the word " Rich " painted in big letters all over him, and he seemed to feel it his vocation to show this sense of superi- ority. Clarence by his side, the living copy of the great man's appearance and manners, strutted and put himself forward like his father, as a big calf might place itself beside the parent cow. Mr. Copper- head did not look upon his offspring, however, with the cow's motherly com-

96 PHCEBE, JUNIOE.

placency. He laughed at him openly, with cynical amusement. He was clever in his way and Clarence was stupid, and beside he was the proprietor, and Clarence, for all he was porcelain, was his goods and chattels. When he looked at him, a wicked leer of derision awoke in his eye.

" Yes, my boy," he said, " thank your stars ; you would not make much of it, if you were a poor man. You're an orna- ment that costs dear; but I can afford you. So, JSTorthcote, you're changing your opinions, going over to the Church, eh ? Extremes meet they say ; I shouldn't have thought it — "

" I am doing nothing of the kind," said Northcote stoutly. He was not in a mood to be taken to task by this Mammon of unrighteousness, and indeed had at all times been a great deal too independent and unwilling to submit to leading mem- bers of the connection. Mr. Copperhead, however, showed no resentment. North-

THE MILLIONAIEE. 97

cote too, like Clarence, had a father be- fore him, and stood on quite a different footing from the ordinary young pastor, whose business it was to be humble and accept all that his betters might portion out.

" Well," he said, " you can afford to please yourself and that's always some- thing. By the way, isn't it time to have something to eat. If there is a good hotel near — "

" Luncheon will be waiting at my house," said Mr. May, who was still doing his best to please the man upon whom he had built such wild hopes, " and Ursula will be waiting."

" Ah, ah, the young lady ! so she will. I wouldn't miss that for something; but I don't like putting you to so much expense. My son here has an excellent appetite as you must have found out by this time, and for my part so have I. I think it a thousand pities to put you to this trouble — and expense."

vol. in. a

93 PHOEBE, JUNIOR.

" Pray don't think of that," said Mr. May with courtesy, which belied his feel- ings, for he would have liked nothing so well as to have knocked down his com- placent patron. He led the way out, almost with eagerness, feeling Mr. Copperhead to be less offensive out of doors than within four walls. Was this the sort of man to be appealed to for help as he had thought? Probably his very arrogance would make him more disposed towards liberality. Probably it would flatter his sense of consequence, to have such a re- quest made to him. Mr. May was very much at sea, letting I dare not wait upon I would, afraid to speak lest he should shut this door of help by so doing, and afraid to lose the chance of any succour by not speaking. He tried hard, in spite of all difficulties, to be smooth and agreeable to a man who had so much in his power ; but it was harder work than he could have thought.

99

CHAPTER VI.

FATHER AND SON.

URSULA had prepared a very careful luncheon for the stranger. She thought him disagreeable, but she had not looked at him much, for, indeed, Ur- sula's mind was much unsettled. Horace Northcote had spoken to her that morning, after Mrs. Hurst's visit and her retaliation upon him, as no man yet had ever spoken to her before. He had told her a long story, though it was briefly done, and could have been expressed in three words. He was not of her species of humanity ; his ways of thinking, his prejudices, his traditions, were all different to hers, and

h 2

100 THCEBE, JUNIOR.

yet that had happened to him which hap- peos all over the world in every kind of circumstances — without knowing how it was, he had got to love her. Yes, he knew ver}^ well how it was, or rather, he knew when it was, which is all that is to be expected from a lover. It was on the evening of the entries, the first dinner- party, and he had gone on ever since, deeper and deeper, hearing her say many things which he did not agree in, and tracing her life through a score of little habits which were not congenial to his, yet loving her more and more for all that was new to him, and even for the things which were uncongenial. He had told her all this, and Ursula had listened with a kind of awe, wondering at the ardour in the young man's eyes, and the warmth with which he spoke ; wondering and trembling a little. She had guessed what he meant the night before, as has been said, and this had touched her with a little thrill of awakened feeling; but the inno-

FATHER AND SON. 101

cent girl knew no more about passion than a child, and when she saw it, glowing and ardent, appealing to her, she was half alarmed, half overawed by the strange sight. What answer could she make to him ? She did not know what to say. To reject him altogether was not in Ursula's heart ; but she could not respond to that strange, new, overwhelming sentiment, which put a light in his eyes which she dared not meet, which dazzled her when she ventured a glance at him. " Was he to go away ?" he asked, his voice, too, sounding musical and full of touching chords. Ursula could nob tell him to go away either. What she did say to him, she never quite knew; but at least, whatever it was, it left him hopeful, if unsatisfied. And since that time her mind had been in a strange confusion, a confusion strange but sweet. Gratified vanity is not a pretty title to give to any feeling, and yet that mixture of gratification and gratitude, and penetrating pleasure in the fact of being

102 PH(EBE, JUNIOR.

elevated from an often-scolded and imper- fect child to an admired and worshipped woman is, perhaps, of all the sensations that feminine youth is conscious of, the most poignant in its sweetness. It went through her whole life ; sometimes it made her laugh when she was all alone, and there was nothing of a laughter-producing nature in her way ; and sometimes it made her cry, both the crying and the laughter being one. It was strange, very strange, and yet sweet. Under the influence of this, and of the secret homage which Northcote paid her whenever they met, and which she now understood as she had never understood it before, the girl's whole nature expanded, though she did not know. She was becoming sweet to the children, to puzzled Janey, to everyone around her. Her little petulances were all subdued. She was more sympathetic than she had ever been before. And yet she was not in love with her lover. It was only that the sunshine of young life had caught her,

FATHER AND SON. 103

that the highest gratification of youth had fallen to her share unawares. All this might have been, and yet some one else come in to secure Ursula's real love ; but in the meantime she was all the happier, all the better for the love which she did not return.

This is a digression from our immediate subject, which was the luncheon prepared for Mr. Copperhead. Ursula sent up an urgent message for Phcebe, who came to her in her prettiest morning dress, very carefully arranged, but with a line of care upon her brow.

" I will come if you wish it, dear," she said ; " but I don't want to meet Mr. Copperhead. I don't like him."

" Neither do I like him," cried Ursula. " He said something disagreeable the little moment he was here. Oh, I don't re- member what it was, but something. Please stay. What am I to do with them all by myself? If you will help me, I may get through."

104 PHOEBE, JUNIOR.

Phoebe kissed her with a tremulous kiss ; perhaps she was not unwilling to see with her own eyes what the father of Clarence meant, and what brought him here. She sat down at the window, and was the first to see them coming along the street.

" What a gentleman your father looks beside them," cried Phoebe ; " both of them, father and son; though Clarence, after all, is a great deal better than his father, less like a British snob."

Ursula came and stood by her, looking out.

" I don't think he is much better than his father," she said.

Phoebe took her hand suddenly and wrung it, then dropped it as if it had hurt her. What did it all mean ? Ur- sula, though rays of enlightenment had come to her, was still perplexed, and did not understand.

Mr. Copperhead did not see her till he went to luncheon, when Phoebe appeared

FATHER AND SON. 105

with little Amy May looking like a visitor, newly arrived. She had run upstairs after that first sight of him from the win- dow, declaring herself unable to be civil to him except at table. The great man's face almost grew pale at the sight of her. He looked at Ursula, and then at Clarence, and laughed.

" ' Wheresoever the carcase is the eagles are gathered together,' " he said. " That's Scripture, ain't it, Miss Ursula? T am not good at giving chapter and verse."

" What does it mean ?" asked Ursula.

She was quite indifferent to Mr. Copper- head, and perfectly unconscious of his ob- servation. As for Phoebe, on the contrary, she was slightly agitated, her placid sur- face ruffled a little, and looking her best in her agitation. Mr. Copperhead looked straight at her across the table, and laughed in his insolent way.

" So you are here, too, Miss Phoebe !" he said. " I might think myself in the Crescent if I didn't know better. I met

106 PHCEBE, JUNIOft.

young Northcote just now, and now you. What may you be doing here, might one ask ? It is what you call a curious coin- cidence, ain't it, Clarence and you both here ?"

" I said so when Mr. Clarence came," said Phoebe. " I came to take care of my grandmother, who is ill; and it was a very lucky thing for me that I had met Miss May at your ball, Mr. Copperhead."

" By Jove, wasn't it !" said Clarence, roused to some dull sense of what was going on. " We owe all the fun we have had here to that, so we do. Odd, when one thinks of it ; and thought so little of it then, didn't we ? It's a very queer world."

" So you've been having fun here ?" said his father. " I thought you came here to work ; that's how we old fellows get taken in. Work ! with young ladies dangling about, and putting things into your head ! I ought to have known better, don't you

FATHER AND SON. 107

think so, Miss Ursula ? You could have taught me a thing or two."

"I?" said Ursula, startled. "I don't know what I could teach anyone. I think Mr. Clarence Copperhead has kept to his hours very steadily. Papa is rather severe ; he never would take any excuse from any of us when we were working with him.,,

" He is not so severe now, I'll be bound," said Mr. Copperhead. " Let's you have your fun a little, as Clarence tells me, don't you, May ? Girls will be girls, and boys, boys, whatever we do ; and I am sure, Miss Phoebe, you have been very entertaining, as you always were."

" I have done my best," said Phoebe, looking him in the face. " I should have had a dull life but for the Parsonage, and I have tried to be grateful. I have accom- panied your son on the violin a great many evenings, and I hope our friends have liked it. Mr. Clarence is a promising

108 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

player, though I should like him to trust less to his ear ; but we always pulled through."

" Thanks to you," said Clarence, in the middle of his cutlet.

He did not quite see why she should flourish this music in his father's face ; but still he was loyal in a dull fashion, and he was obstinate, and did not mean to be " sat upon," to use his own words. As for Phoebe, her quick mind caught at once the best line of policy. She determined to deliver Ursula, and she determined at the same time to let her future father-in-law (if he was to be her father-in-law) see what sort of person he had to deal with. As soon as she made up her mind, her agitation disappeared. It was only the uncertainty that had cowed her ; now she saw what to do.

" So !" said Mr. Copperhead, " musical evenings ! I hope you have not turned poor Clar's head among you, young ladies. It's not a very strong head ; and two is

FATHER AND SON. 109

more than a match for one. I daresay he has had no chance between you."

" Make yourself quite easy," said Phoebe, with her sweetest smile ; " he was only one of a party. Mr. Reginald May and Mr. Northcote are both very pleasant com- panions. Your son is bored sometimes, but the rest of us are never bored. You see, he has been accustomed to more bril- liant society ; but as for us, we have no particular pretensions. We have been very happy. And if there has been two to one, it has been the other way."

" I think I must let your people know of your gaieties, Miss Phoebe. If your mother sent you here, I don't doubt it was for a purpose, eh ? She knows what she's about, and she won't like it if she knows you are fritting away your chances and your attentions. She has an eye for bnsiness, has Mrs. Beecham," said the leading member, with a laugh.

" You cannot tell mamma more about

110 PHGEBE, JUNIOR.

me than she knows already," said Phoebe, with rising colour.

And by this time everyone else at table was uncomfortable. Even Clarence, who had a dull appreciation of his father's jokes when they were not levelled at himself, and who was by no means indisposed to believe that " girls," generally, were " after him," and that even in this particular case Phcebe herself might have come to Car- lingford on purpose to complete his con- quest, even Clarence was moved.

" I don't know what you mean by bril- liant society," he said. " I know I'm the dull one among you clever people. I don't say much, but I know it all the same ; and it's awfully good of you to pull me through all that music. I don't begrudge you your laugh after. Is my mother coming over, Sir, to see the place ?"

" To see what ? There is not much in the place," said Mr. Copperhead. " You're coming back with me, my boy. I hope it won't inconvenience you, May. I've other

FATHER AND SON. Ill

views for him. Circumstances alter cases, you know. I've been turning it over in my head, and I think I can see my way to another arrangement.' '

" That, of course, is entirely in your own hands," said Mr. May, with a cheer- fulness he did not feel. His heart sank, but every rule of good society made it in- cumbent upon him to show no failure at such a moment. " Copperhead, see that your father has some wine. Well, I sup- pose our poor little Carlingford is not much of a place ; no trade, no movement, no manufactures — "

" The sort of place that should be cleared off the face of the earth," said the mil- lionaire ; " meaning no offence, of course. That's my opinion in respect to country towns. What's the good of them ? Nests of gossip, places where people waste their time, and don't even amuse themselves. Give me green fields and London, that is my sort. I don't care if there was not another blessed brick in the country.

112 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

There is always something that will grow in a field, corn or fat beasts — not that we couldn't get all that cheaper from over the water if it was managed as it ought to be. But a place like this, what's the good of it ? Almshouses and chaplains, and that kind of rubbish, and old women; there's old women by the score."

" They must be somewhere, I suppose," said Mr. May. " We cannot kill them off, if they are inoffensive, and keep the laws. So that, after all, a country town is of use."

" Kill 'em off — no ; it's against what you benevolent humbugs call the spirit of the time, and Christianity, and all that; but there's such a thing as carrying Christianity too far ; that's my opinion. There's your almshouses now. AY hat's the principle of them ? I call it encouraging those old beggars to live," said Mr. Cop- perhead ; " giving them permission to bur- den the community as long as they can manage it ; a dead mistake, depend upon

FATHER AND SON. 113

it, the greatest mistake in the world." " I think there is a great deal to be said in favour of Euthanasia," said Phoebe, quietly stepping in to the conversation; " but then it would have to be with the consent of the victims. When anyone found himself useless, unnecessary to the world, or unhappy in it — "

" Humbug and nonsense," said Mr. Copperhead. " A likely thing for any- body to do. No, it is not a question for law-making. Let 'em die out naturally, that's my opinion. Don't do anything to hurry 'em — that is, I don't see my way to it ; but let 'em go quiet, and don't bring 'em cordials and feather-beds, and all that middyeval nonsense, to keep 'em going as long as possible. It's wicked, that's what it is."

"At all events," said Mr. May who, poor man, was bent on pleasing, " it is refreshing to hear opinions so bold and original. Something new is always a

VOL. III. I

114 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

blessing. I cannot say I agree with

you-"

" ISTo parson would be bold enough for that. Christianity's been a capital thing for the world," said Mr. Copperhead, " T don't say a word against it; but in these go-ahead days, Sir, we've had enough of it, that's to say when it's carried too far. All this fuss about the poor, all the row about dragging up a lot of poor little beggars to live that had far better die, and your alms-houses to keep the old ones going, past all nature ! Shovel the mould over them, that's the thing for the world ; let 'em die when they ought to die; and let them live who can live — that's my way of thinking — and what's more I'm right."

" What a fine thing for you, Mr. Clarence," cried Phoebe, " who are go- ing into Parliament ! to take up your father's idea and work it out. What a speech you could make on the subject ! I saw a hospital once in Paris that would

FATHER AND SON. 115

make such a wonderful illustration. I'll tell you about it if you like. Poor old wretched people whose life was nothing but wretchedness kept going, kept living for years and years — why, no one could tell ; for I am sure it would have been better, far better for them to die and be done with it. What a speech you might make when you bring a bill into Parlia- ment to abolish alms-houses and all sorts of charities !" she added with a laugh, turning from Clarence, at whom she had been looking, to his father, who was puzzled and did not know how to under- stand the young woman's eyes.

" I'll never make much of a speech in Parliament," said Clarence; " unless you make it for me," he added in an under- tone. But no one else was speaking, and the undertone was quite audible. Mean- while Phoebe had not ceased to look at his father, and held him with a pair of eyes not like the Ancient Mariner's. Mr. Cop- perhead was confused, his power even of

i 2

116 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

insolence was cowed for the moment. He obeyed quite docilely the movement made to leave the table. Was it possible that she defied him, this Minister's daugh- ter, and measured her strength against his r Mr. Copperhead felt as if he could have shaken the impertinent girl, but dared not, being where he was.

And lunch being over, Mr. May led his pupil's father into his study. " I want to show you what your boy has been doing," he said, pointing to a line of books which made the millionnaire's soul shrink within him. 6#I have not bothered him with classics; what was the use as he is not going back to Oxford ? but I have done my best for him in a practical way. He has read history, largely as you see, and as much as I could give him of political and constitutional — "

" Yes, yes," said Mr. Copperhead, reading the titles of some of the books under his breath. They impressed him deeply, and took away for a moment

FATHER AND SON.

117

his self-confidence. It was his habit to boast that he knew nothing about books ; but in their presence he shrank, feeling that they were greater than he, which was, there is little doubt, a sign of grace.

"If you wish to remove Clarence," said Mr. May, " perhaps I had better make out a scheme of reading for him."

" Look here," cried the rich man, " I didn't want to remove him ; but there he is, the first I see of him, cheek for jowl with a good-looking girl. I don't mean to say a word against Miss May, I've no doubt she's charming ; but anyhow there she is side by side with Clar, who is no more able to resist that sort of thing — "

Mr. May laughed, and this time with unmitigated amusement. " Do you mean Ursula? I think I can answer for it that she made no attempts upon him for which resistance would be necessary."

" That's all very well to say ; but bless you they do it, every one," said Mr.

118 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

Copperhead, " without exception, when a young fellow's well off and well-looking ; and as if one wasn't bad enough, you've got Phoebe Beecham. You won't tell me she doesn't mean anything ? — up to any mischief, a real minister's daughter. 1 don't mean anything uncivil to you or yours. I suppose a parson's different ; but we know what a minister's daughter is in our connection. Like the men them- selves, in short, who are always pouncing on some girl with a fortune if her relations don't take care. And Clarence is as weak as a baby, he takes after his mother — a poor bit of a feeble creature, though he's like me in exterior. That's how it is, you perceive ; I don't quite see my way to letting him go on."

" That is of course precisely as you please," said Mr. May, somewhat sharply. He would preserve his dignity even though his heart was sinking ; but he could not keep that tone of sharpness out of his voice.

FATHER AND SON. 119

" Of course it is as I please. I'll pay up of course for the second three months, if you choose, fair and square. I meant him to stay, and I'll pay. But that's all. You've no further claim upon me that I know of; and I must say that for a tutor, a regular coach, to keep girls in his house, daughters or whatever you choose to call them, is something monstrous. It's a thing no fellow's friends would put up with. It's what I call dishonourable."

" Perhaps," said Mr. May, with all the self-possession he was master of, " you will let your son know at once that he must pack and go. I dare say, Sir Robert can take him, and we will send the port- manteaux. In such a case, it is better there should not be a moment's delay."

" Clarence !" cried Mr. Copperhead, walking to the door and opening it. " Come along, look sharp, you're to go. I'll take you with me, do you hear ? And May will see to sending you your boxes. Quick, come along, there's no time to lose."

120 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

" Go !" said Clarence, coming in startled, with his eyebrows rising almost into his hair. " Go ? What do you mean ? Out of the Parsonage ? The Governor's been having too much sherry," he said, coming close to Mr. May's arm ; he had himself been taking too much of the sherry, for the good reason that nobody had taken any notice of what he did, and that he had foreseen the excitement .that was coming. " You don't mean it, I know," he added aloud, " I'll go over^or the night if Sir Robert will have me, and see my mother — "

"Ask May," said Mr. Copperhead, " you'll believe him I suppose, he's as glad to get rid of you as I am to take you away."

" Is this true ?" cried Clarence, roused and wondering, " and if so, what's hap- pened ? I ain't a baby, you know, to be bundled about from one to another. The Governor forgets that."

Ci Your father," said Mr. May, " chooses

FATHER AND SON. 121

to remove you, and that is all I choose to say."

" But, by George, I can say a deal more," said Mr. Copperhead. " You sim- pleton, do you think I am going to leave you here where there's man-traps about ? None of such nonsense for me. Put your things together, I tell you. Phoebe Beecham's bad enough at home ; but if she thinks she's to have you here to pluck at her leisure, she and her friends — "

" W — -hew !" said Clarence, with along whistle. " So that's it. I am very sorry, father, if these are your sentiments ; but I may as well tell you at once I shan't go."

"You — must go."

" No," he said, squaring his shoulders and putting out his shirt front; he had never been roused into rebellion before, and perhaps without these extra glasses of sherry he would not have had the courage now. But what with sherry, and what with amour propre, and what with the thing he called love, Clarence Copper-

122 PHCEJBE, JUNIOR.

head mounted all at once upon a pedestal. He had a certain dogged obstinacy in him, suspected by nobody but his mother, who had little enough to say in the guidance of her boy. He set himself square like a pugilist, which was his notion of resistance. Mr. May looked on with a curious mixture of feelings. His own sudden and foolish hope was over, and what did it matter to him whether the detestable father or the coarse son should win ? He turned away from them with contempt, which was made sharp by their utter uselessness to himself. Had it been possible that he might have what he wanted from Mr. Copperhead, his patience would have held out against any trial; but the moment that hope was over, what further interest had he in the question ? He went to his writing-table and sat down there, leaving them to fight it out as they would, by. themselves. It was no affair of his.

123

CHAPTER VII.

A PLEASANT EVENING.

rjlHE result, however, was a compromise. -*- Clarence Copperhead went off with his father and Sir Robert to the Hall for the night, but was to return next day, and Phoebe was left in a condition of some excitement behind them, not quite know- ing what to think. She was as sure as ever that he had made up his mind to propose ; but he had not done it, and what effect his father's visit, and perhaps his mother's entreaties, might have upon him, Phoebe could not tell. The crisis excited her beyond any excitement which she would have thought possible in respect to Cla-

124 PHCEBE, JUNIOE.

rence Copperhead. She was more like an applicant for office kept uncertain whether she was to have a desirable post or not, than a girl on the eve of a lover's declara- tion. This was her own conception of the circumstances. She did not dislike Cla- rence ; quite the reverse. She had no sympathy with Ursula's impatience of his heavy vanity. Phoebe had been used to him all her life, and had never thought badly of the heavy boy whom she had been invited to amuse when she was six years old, and whom she had do particular objection to amuse still, let the others wonder at her as they might. Poor Regi- nald, contemplating bitterly her many little complacencies to his rival, set them down hastily to an appreciation of that rival's worldly advantages, which was not quite a just sentence. It was true, and yet it was not true; other feelings mingled in Phoebe's worldliness. She did, indeed, perceive and esteem highly the advantages which Cla- rence could give her ; but she had not the

A PLEASANT EVENING. 125

objections to Clarence himself that the others had. She was willing, quite willing, to undertake the charge of him, to manage, and guide, and make a man of him. And yet while it was riot pure worldliness, much less was it actual love which moved her. It was a kind of habitual affection, as for the " poor thing, but mine own, Sir," of the jester. He was but a poor creature, but Phoebe knew she could make something of him, and she had no distaste to the task. When she began to perceive that Reginald, in so many ways Clarence's superior, was at her disposal, a sense of gratification went through Phoebe's mind, and it certainly occurred to her that the feeling he might inspire would be a warmer and a more delightful one than that which would fall to Clarence Copperhead ; but she was not tempted thereby to throw Clarence off for the other. No, she was pleased, and not unwilling to expend a little tender regret and gratitude upon poor Reginald. She was ready to be

126 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

" kind " to him, though every woman knows that is the last thing: she ought to be to a rejected lover ; and she was full of sympathy for the disappointment which, nevertheless, she fully intended was to be his lot. This seems paradoxical, but it is no more paradoxical than human creatures generally are. On this particular evening her heart beat very high on account of Clarence, to know if he would have strength of mind to hold his own against his father, and if he would come back to her and ask her, as she felt certain he meant to do, that one momentous ques- tion. Her heart would not have been broken had he not done so, but still she would have been disappointed. Notwith- standing, when the evening came, the absence of Clarence was a relief to Phoebe as well as to the rest of the party, and she gave herself up to the pleasure of a few hours of half tender intercourse with Regi- nald, with a sense of enjoyment such as she seldom felt. This was very wrong,

A PLEASANT EVENING. 127

there is no denying it, but still so it was. She was anxious that Clarence should come back to her, and ask her to be his wife ; and yet she was pleased to be rid of Clarence, and to give her whole attention and sympathy to Reginald, trying her best to please him. It was very wrong ; and yet such things have happened before, and will again ; and are as natural, perhaps, as the more absolute and unwavering passion which has no doubt of its object, passion like Northcote's, who had neither eyes nor ears for anything but Ursula. The four were alone together that evening, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Clarence was away, who, to all but Phoebe, was an interruption of their intercourse; and Mr. May was away in his study, too much absorbed to think of any duties that ought to have devolved upon him as chaperon ; and even Janey was out of the way, taking tea with Mrs. Hurst. So the two young pairs sat round the table and talked ; the girls, with a mutual panic, which neither breathed

128 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

to the other, keeping together, avoiding separation into pairs. Ursula out of very shyness and fright alone, lest another chapter of the strange, novel, too moving love-tale might be poured into her ears ; but Phoebe with more settled purpose, to prevent any disclosure on the part of Reginald. The evening was mixed up of pleasure and pain to the two young men, each eager to find himself alone with the girl whom he loved ; but it is to be feared the girls themselves had a furtive guilty enjoyment of it, which they ought not to have had. Open and outrageous love- making is not half so delicate a pastime as that in which nothing distinct dare be said, but all is implication, conveyed and understood without words. I know it is a dangerous thing to confess, but veracity requires the confession ; you may say it was the playing of the cat with the mouse, if you wish to give a disagreeable version of it ; but, however you choose to explain it, this was how it was.

A PLEASANT EVENING. 129

It was with fear and trembling at last that Phoebe went to the piano, which was at the other end of the room, after making all the resistance which was possible.

" Thank Heaven, that idiot and his fiddle isn't here to-night to interfere !" cried Reginald.

Phoebe shook her head at him, but ven- tured on no words ; and how she did exert herself on the piano, playing things which were a great deal too classical for Regi- nald, who would have preferred the sim- plest stock piece, under cover of which he might have talked to her hanging over her chair, and making belief to turn over the music ! This was what he wanted, poor fellow. He had no heart nor ears for Beethoven, which Phoebe played to him with a tremor in her heart, and yet, the wicked little witch, with some enjoyment too.

" This is not the sort of thing you play when Copperhead is here," he said at last, driven to resistance.

VOL. III. k

130 PH(EBE, JUNIOR.

"Oh, wt play Mendelssohn," said Phoebe, with much show of innocence ; and then she added, " you ought to feel the compli- ment if I play Beethoven to you."

" So I ought, I suppose," said Reginald. " The truth is, I don't care for music. Don't take your hands off the keys."

" Why, you have done nothing but worry me to play !"

" Not for the music," said Reginald, quite satisfied to have got his will. " Why will you not talk to me, and play to me, as I wish ?"

" Perhaps, if I knew what you wish — " Phoebe said, in spite of herself.

" Oh, how T should like to tell you ! No, not Beethoven ; a little, just a little music. Heavens !" cried Reginald, as she crashed into a fortissimo, "another sonata! Listen, I am not equal to sonatas. Nay, Miss Beecham, play me a little nothing — talk to me."

She shook her head at him with a laugh, and went on playing the hardest piece of

A PLEASANT EVENING. 181

music she could think of, complicating herself in difficult chords and sudden accidentals. If there had been anybody there to hear who cfould have understood, Phoebe's performance would, no doubt, have appeared a masterpiece of brilliant execution, as it was ; but the two others were paying not the slightest attention, and as for Reginald, he was in a state of tantalized vexation, which half amused himself, and filled the performer with an exhilarating sense of successful mischief. Northcote was trying to say — what was he not trying to say ? — to Ursula, under cover of the music, which was the best shield he could have had; and perhaps in reality, though Reginald was tantalized to the ut- most degree of tantalization, even he had a certain enjoyment in the saucy self- defence which was more mischievous than cruel. He stood behind Phoebe's chair, now and then meeting her laughing glance with one of tender appeal and reproach, pleased to feel himself thus isolated with

132

PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

her, and held at arm's-length in so genial a way. He would have his opportunity after a while, when there would be no piano to give her a momentary refuge, and then he would say out all that was in his heart, with no possible shadow of a rival to interfere with him. Angry? no; as he stood behind her, watching her fingers fly over the keys, a delightful calm stole over Reginald. Now and then she would throw a half-mocking glance at him upward over her shoulder, as she swept over the resounding board. When the sonata was concluded, Phoebe sprang up from the piano, and went back to the table. She proposed that they should play a game at cards, to which Ursula agreed. The young men shrugged their shoulders and protested; but after all, what did it matter, so long as they were together ? They fell into their places quite naturally, the very cards assisting ; and so the moments flew by. There was not so much sound as usual in the old faded drawing-room,

A PLEASANT EVENING. lod

which had come to look so bright and homelike ; not so much sound of voices, perhaps less laughter — yet of all the even- ings they had spent there together, that was the one they looked back upon, all four, with most tender recollection. They had been so happy, or, if not happy, so near (apparently) to happiness, which is better sometimes than happiness itself.

" Don't let Reginald come with me," Phoebe whispered, as she kissed her friend, and said good night, " or ask Mr. North- cote to come too."

"Why?" said Ursula, with dreamy eyes ; her own youug tide of life was rising, invading, for the moment, her per- ceptions, and dulling her sense of what was going on round her. There was no time, however, for anything more to be said, for Reginald was close behind with his hat in his hand. Phcebe had to resign herself, and she knew what was coming. The only thing was, if possible, to stop the declaration on the way.

134 PHOEBE, JUNTOR.

" This is the first chance I have had of seeing you home without that perpetual shadow of Copperhead — "

"Ah, poor Clarence!" said Phcebe. " I wonder how he is getting on away from us all to-night."

" Poor Clarence I" echoed Reginald aghast. " You don't mean to say that you — miss him, Miss Beecham ? I never heard you speak of him in that tone before."

81 Miss him ! no, perhaps not exactly," said Phoebe, with a soft little sigh; " but still — I have known him all my life, Mr. May ; when we were quite little I used to be sent for to his grand nursery, full of lovely toys and things — a great deal grander than mine."

" And for that reason — " said Reginald, becoming bitter, with a laugh.

" Nothing for that reason," said Phcebe ; " but I noticed it at six as I should at twenty. I must have been a horrid little worldly-minded thing, don't you think ? So you see there are the associations of a

A PLEASANT EVENING. 135

great many years to make me say Poor Clarence, when anything is the matter with him."

" He is lucky to rouse your sympathies so warmly," cried Reginald, thoroughly wretched ; " but I did not know there was anything the matter."

" I think there will be if he has to leave our little society, where we have all been so happy," said Phoebe, softly. " How little one thought, coming here a stranger, how pleasant it was to be ! I especially, to whom coming to Carlingford was rather — perhaps I might say a humiliation. I am very fond of grandpapa and grand- mamma now, but the first introduction was something of a shock — I have never denied it ; and if it had not been for sweet kind Ursula and you — all."

The little breathless fragmentary pause which Phoebe made between the you and the " all," giving just a ghost of emphasis to the pronoun, sounded to poor Regi- nald in his foolishness almost like a caress.

136 PH(EBE, JUNIOR.

How cleverly it was managed, with just so much natural feeling in it as gave it reality ! They were approaching No. 6, and Martha, the maid, already was visible at the open door.

" Then you do give me some share — some little share," he cried, with a broken voice. " Ah, if you would only let me tell you what your coming has been to me. Tt has opened up my life ; I feel everything different, the old earth itself; there is a new light upon the whole world—"

" Hush, here is Martha !" cried Phoebe, " she will not understand about new lights. Yes, it has been pleasant, very pleasant ; when one begins to sigh and realize how pleasant a thing has been, I always fear it is going to be broken, up."

" Absit omen !" cried Reginald, fer- vently, taking the hand she had put out to bid him good night, and holding it fast to detain her ; and was there moisture in the eyes which she lifted to him, and

A PLEASANT EVENING.. 137

which glistened he thought, though there was only the distant light of a lamp to see them by ?

"You must not keep me now," cried Phoebe, " here is grandpapa coming. Good night, Mr. May, good night."

Was Phoebe a mere coquette pure et simple ? As soon as she had got safe within these walls, she stooped down over the primroses to get rid of Martha, and then in the darkness had a cry, all by herself, on one side of the wall, while the young lover, with his head full of her, checked, but not altogether discouraged, went slowly away on the other. She cried, and her heart contracted with a real pang. He was very tender in his reverential homage, very romantic, a true lover, not the kind of man who wants a wife or wants a clever companion to amuse him, and save him the expense of a coach, and be his to refer to in everything. That was an altogether different kind of thing. Phoebe went in with a sense in her mind

138 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

that perhaps she had never touched so close upon a higher kind of existence, and perhaps never again might have the oppor- tunity ; but before she had crossed the garden, she had begun once more to ques- tion whether Clarence would have the for- titude to hold his own against everything that father or mother could do to change his mind. Would he have the fortitude ? Would he come back to her, safe and de- termined, or would he yield to arguments in favour of some richer bride, and come back either estranged or at the least doubtful ? This gave her a pang of pro- found anxiety at the bottom of her heart.

139

CHAPTER VIII.

AN EXPEDITION.

MR. MAY did not come upstairs that evening. It was not that he was paralysed as he had been on the previous occasion, when he sat as now and heard Phoebe go away after her first visit, and when the wind blowing in from the open door playfully carried to his feet the scribbled note with Tozer's name. He was not stupefied as then, nor was he miserable. The threatened withdrawal of Clarence Copperhead was more to him than the impending ruin meant by that bill which was so nearly due. He was occupied by that to the exclusion of the

140 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

other. It would be a most serious change to him in every way. He had calculated on the continuance of this additional in- come for at least a year, and short of the year it would have done him no good, but had simply plunged him into additional expense. It was this he was thinking of, and which kept him in his study after the young people had assem- bled. Cotsdean had come again while Mr. May was at dinner, which by some curious unconscious aggravation on his part was the time he specially chose as most convenient for him ; and he had again sent a dirty note by Bobby, im- ploring his principal to think of the impending fate, and not to desert him. Mr. May was angry at this perpetual appeal. " Why should I desert him, the idiot ?" he said to himself, and moved by the man's persistence, he took out his pocketbook again, and made out beyond all chance of mistake, that it was the 18th. Why should the fool insist upon its

AS EXPEDITION. 141

being the 15 th with such perpetual itera- tion ? There were the figures as plain as possible, 18th April. Mr. May wrote a peremptory note announcing this fact to Cotsdean, and then returned to his own thoughts. Sir Robert had asked him to go over that morning and spend the day at the Hall with the Copperheads, not knowing of any breach between them. He thought he had better do this. If Clarence determined to stay, that would be a great thing in his favour, and he had seen that the young man's dull spirit was roused ; and if that hope failed, there might still be advantage even in this sudden breaking of the bond. Part of the second quarter was gone, and the father had offered three months additional pay. These two payments would make up the hundred and fifty pounds at once, and settle the business. Thus, in either way, he should be safe, for if Clarence went away the money would be paid ; and if he stayed, Mr. May himself had made up his

142

mind to risk the bold step of going to the bank and asking an advance on this in- alienable security. All these deliberations made his mind easy about the bill. It must come right one way or another; he might have chosen perhaps not to run it quite so close ; but after all the 1 5th was only to-morrow, and there were still three days. While his mind was full of these things he did not care to go upstairs. He heard the voices of the young people, but he was too much engrossed with his own calculations to care to join them. It was a close thing, he said to himself, a very close thing ; but still he felt that he could do it — surely he could do it. If Mr. Cop- perhead settled with him — and he was the sort of man, a man to whom money was nothing, to do so on the spot if he took it into his head — then all was right. And if Mr. Copperhead did not do so, the bank, though his past transactions with it had not been encouragiug, would cer- tainly make all right on account of these

AN EXPEDITION. 143

Copperhead payments, which were as cer- tain as any payments could be. He went to bed early, being engrossed by these thoughts, not even saying good night to Ursula, as was his wont ; and he made up his mind to take an early breakfast, and start the first thing in the morning for the Hall. There was an early train which would suit admirably. He could not afford to drive, as Sir Robert had done, changing horses half way. He went up- stairs to bed, somewhat heavily, but not discontented, seeing his way. After all the great thing in life is to see your way. It does not matter so much whether that way is great or small, so long as you can see it plain before you. Mr. May breathed a sigh of anxiety as he ended the day. He had a great many things on his mind ; but still he was not altogether heavy- hearted or discouraged beyond measure ; things, he felt, would shape themselves better than he had hoped. He was not perhaps going to be so much better off

144 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

than of old, as he thought possible when Clarence Copperhead came. Such delu- sive prospects do glimmer across a poor man's path when any apparent expansion of means occurs to him ; but in the majority of cases he has to consent to see the fine fictitious glow die away. Mr. May was not ignorant of this experience already. A man who is over fifty is generally more or less prepared for anything that can happen to him in this kind ; but he thought he could " get on ;" and after all that is the sum of life to three parts of mankind.

He was silent at breakfast, but not dis- agreeable, and Ursula was too much taken up with her own concerns to pay much attention to him. Ursula's concerns were developing with a rapidity altogether ex- traordinary. In the mind of a girl of twenty, unforestalled by any previous ex- perience, the process that goes on between the moment when the surprising, over- whelming discovery rushes upon her that

AN EXPEDITION. 145

some one loves her in the old way of romance, until the corresponding moment when she finds out that her own heart too has been invaded by this wonderful senti- ment, which is like nothing that was ever known before, is of a very rapid description. It is like the bursting of a flower, which a day's sunshine brings to the blooming point like a miracle, though it is in reality the simplest result of nature. Already there began to glow a haze of brightness about those three months past in which everything had begun. When or how it began she could not now tell. The glow of it was in her eyes and dazzled her. She heard the voices of the others sound- ing vaguely through this bright mist in which she herself was isolated ; when she was obliged to reply, she called herself back with an effort, and did so — but of her own will she seldom spoke. How Janey chattered, how the children maundered on about their little concerns which were of consequence to nobody ! Papa was the

VOL. III. L

146 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

person whom Ursula really respected this morning, for he had more sense than to talk. How could people talk, as if there was pleasure in that ? But papa had more sense, he had things to think of — too. So the girl approved her father, and thought more highly of him, and never inquired what it might be that occupied his mind, and kept him from noticing even when the children were unruly. And it would be giving the reader an un- fair idea of the children, if we attempted to conceal that they did take advantage of their opportunities, and were as unruly as well-conditioned children in the cir- cumstances were likely to be. Mr. May took no notice ; he took his coffee hurriedly and went off to the station.

" If I don't return this evening you need not be alarmed. I shall come back at the latest to-morrow morning," he said.

The children all rushed to the window to see him go away ; even Ursula looking out dreamily remarked him too, as she seldom

AN EXPEDITION. 147

did ; and Mrs. Sam Hurst at her window, wondering where her neighbour could be going, heaved a deep sigh of admiration, which though she was not " in love," as the girls thought, with Mr. May, was a passing- tribute to his good looks and training. He looked a gentleman every inch of him — an English gentleman, spotless in linen, speck- less in broadcloth, though his dress was far from new ; the freshness of sound health and a clear conscience on his handsome face, though he was no longer young. His abundant hair, steel-grey, slightly crisped under his hat, not curling exactly, but with a becoming twist in it — clerical, yefc not too clerical, a man given to no extremes, decorously churchmanlike, yet liberal and tolerant of the world. Though she was too wise to compromise her own comfort by marrying him, Mrs. Hurst felt that there was a great pleasure in making his daughters anxious about her " intentions," and that even to be said to

148 PHCEBE, JUNTOR.

be in love with such a man was no shame, but rather the reverse.

He went away accordingly, taking a short cut to the railway, and thus missing Cotsdean, who came breathless ten minutes after he was gone, and followed him to the train ; but too late.

" Well, well," Cotsdean said to himself, wiping his forehead, " Old Tozer has plenty, it ain't nothing to him to pay. They can settle it between 'em."

Cotsdean himself was easier in his mind than he had ever been before on such an occasion. His clergyman, though per- sonally an awful and respect-inspiring personage, was so far as money went a man of straw, as he well knew, and his name on a bill was very little worth ; but Tozer was a man who could pay his way. A hundred and fifty pounds, or even ten times that, would not ruin the old shop- keeper. Cotsdean's sense of commercial honour was not so very keen that the dishonouring of his bill in the circum-

AN EXPEDITION. 149

stances should give him a very serious pang. He would not be sold up, or have an execution put into his shop when the other party to the bill was so substantial a person. Of course Tozer, when he signed it, must have been told all about it, and Cotsdean did not see how with two such allies against ruin, anything very serious could befall him. He was uneasy indeed, but his uneasiness had no such force in it as before. He went back to his shop and his business prepared to take the matter as calmly as possible. He was but passive in it. It could not barm him much in the eyes of his banker, who knew his affairs too well to be much as- tonished at any such incident, and Tozer and Mr. May must settle it between them. It was their affair.

Meanwhile Mr. May rattled along in the railway towards the Hall. He got a dog- cart at the little inn at the station to take him over, though generally when he went to see the Dorsets it was his custom to

150 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

walk. " But what were a few shillings?" he said to himself, the prodigality of despera- tion having seized upon him. In any case he could pay that, and if he was to be ruined, what did a few shillings more or less matter ? but the discomfort of walk- ing over those muddy roads, and arriving with dirty boots and a worn-out aspect, mattered a great deal. He reached the Hall at a propitious moment, when Mr. Copperhead was in the highest good- humour. He had been taken over the place, from one end to another, over the stables, the farm buildings, the farm itself from end to end, the preserves, the shrub- beries, the green-houses, everything; all of which details he examined with an un- failing curiosity which would have been highly flattering to the possessors if it had not been neutralized by a strain of com- ment which was much less satisfactory. When Mr. May went in, he found him in the dining-room, with Sir Robert and his daughters standing by, clapping his wings

AN EXPEDITION. 151

and crowing loudly over a picture which the Dorsets prized much. It represented a bit of vague Italian scenery, mellow and tranquil, and was a true "Wilson," bought by an uncle of Sir Robert's, who had been a connoisseur, from the Master himself, in the very country where it was painted ; and all these details pleased the imagina- tion of the family, who, though probably they would have been but mildly delighted had they possessed the acquaintance of the best of contemporary painters, were proud that Uncle Charles had known Italian Wilson, and had bought a picture out of his studio. A Hobbema or a Poussin would scarcely have pleased them so much, for the worst of an old Master is that your friends look suspiciously upon it as a copy ; whereas Wilson is scarcely old enough or precious enough to be copied. They were showing their picture and telling the story to the millionaire, with an agreeable sense that, though they were not so rich, they

152 PH(EBE, JUNIOR.

must, at least, have the advantage of him in this way.

" Ha !" said Mr. Copperhead, " you should see my Turner. Didn't I show you my Turner ? I don't venture to tell you, Sir Robert, what that picture cost me. It's a sin, it is, to keep that amount of capital hanging useless upon a bit of wall. The Wilson may be all very well. I ain't a judge of art, and I can't give my opinion on that point, though it's a common sort of a name, and there don't seem to be much in it ; but everybody knows what a Turner means. Here's May ; he'll be able to tell you as well as another. It means a few cool thousands, take my word for it. It means, I believe, that heaps of people would give you your own price. I don't call it a profitable investment, for it brings in no interest; but they tell me it's a thing that grows in value every year. And there it is, Sir, hanging up useless on my wall in Portland Place, costing a fortune, and bringing in not a penny. But I like

AN EXPEDITION. 153

it ; I like it, for I can afford it, by George ! Here's May ; he knows what that sort of thing is ; he'll tell you that a Turner is worth its weight in gold."

" Thank you, I don't think I need any information on that subject," said Sir Robert. " Besides, I saw your Turner. It is a pretty picture — if it is authentic ; but Wilson, you know — "

" Wasn't a big enough swell not to be authentic, eh ?" said Mr. Copperhead. " Common name enough, and I don't know that I ever heard of him in the way of painting; but I don't pretend to be a judge. Here's May ; now, I daresay he knows all about it. Buying's one thing, knowing's another. Your knowing ones, when they've got any money, they have the advantage over us, Sir Robert ; they can pick up a thing that's good, when it happens to come their way, dirt cheap ; but fortunately for us, it isn't often they've got any money," he added, with a laugh, slapping Mr. May on the shoulder in a

154 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

way which made him totter. But the clergyman's good humour was equal even to this assault. It is wonderful how patient and tolerant we can all be when the motive is strong enough.

" That is true," he said ; " but I fear I have not even the compensation of know- ledge. I know enough, however, to feel that the possessor of a Turner is a public personage, and may be a public benefactor if he pleases. "

" How that ? If you think I am one to go lending my pictures about, or leaving them to the nation when I'm done for, that's not my sort. No, I keep them to myself. If I consent to have all that money useless, it is for myself, you may depend, and not for other people. And I'll leave it to my boy Clarence, if he behaves himself. He's a curiosity, too, and has a deal of money laid out on him that brings no interest, him and his mother. I'll leave it to Clar, if he doesn't make a low marriage, or any folly of that kiod."

AN EXPEDITION. 155

"You should make it an heir-loom," said Sir Robert, with sarcasm too fine for his antagonist ; " leave it from father to son of your descendants, like our family dia- monds and plate."

Anne and Sophy looked at each other and smiled, the one sadly, the other satiri- cally. The Dorset family jewels were rose- diamonds of small value, and the plate was but moderate in quantity, and not very great in quality. Poor Sir Robert liked to blow his little trumpet too, but it was not so blatant as that of his visitor, whose rude senses did not even see the intended malice.

" By George ! I think I will," he said. " I'm told it's as safe as the bank, and worth more and more every year, and if it don't bring in anything, it don't eat any- thing, eh, May ? Look here ; perhaps I was hasty the other day," he said, pushing the clergyman a little apart from the group with a large hand on his shoulder. " Cla- rence tells me you're the best coach he

156 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

ever saw, and that he's getting on like a house on fire."

" He does make progress, I think," answered the tutor, thus gracefully com- plimented.

" But all the same, you know, I had a right to be annoyed. Now a man of your sense — for you seem a man of sense, though you're a parson, and know what side your bread's buttered on — ought to see that it's an aggravating thing when a young fellow has been sent to a coach for his instruction, and to keep him out of harm's way, to find him cheek by jowl with a nice-looking young woman. That's not what a father has a right to expect."

" You couldn't expect me to do away with my daughter because I happened to take a pupil ?" said Mr. May, half -amused ; " but I can assure you that she has no designs upon your son."

" So I hear, so I hear," said the other, with a mixture of pique and satisfaction. " Won't look at him, Clar tells me ; got

AN EXPEDITION. 157

her eye on some one else, little fool! She'll never have such a chance again. As for having no designs, that's bosh, you know ; all women have designs. I'm a deal easier in my mind when I'm told she's got other fish to fry."

"Other fish to fry?" said Mr. May; this time he was wholly amused, and laughed. " This is news to me. How- ever, we don't want to discuss my little Ursula; about your son it will be well that I should know, for I might be forming other engagements. This moment is a time of pecuniary pressure with me," he added, with the ingratiating smile and half-pathetic frankness of the would-be borrower. " I have not taken pupils be- fore, but I want money for the time. My son's settlement in life, you see, and — but the father of a large family can always find good reasons for wanting money."

" That's it," said Mr. Copperhead, seriously. " Why are you the father of a large family? That's what I ask our

158 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

ministers. It's against all political eco- nomy, that is. According as you've no money to give 'em, you go and have child- ren— when it should be just the other way."

" That may be very true ; but there they are, and can't be done away with ; and I do want money, as it happens, more now than I shall want it a year hence, or, perhaps, even six months hence."

"Most people do," said Mr. Copper- head, withdrawing his hand from his pocket, and placing his elbow tightly against the orifice of that very important part of him. " It's the commonest thing in the world. I want money myself, for that matter. I've always got a large amount to make up by a certain date, and a bill to pay. But about Clar, that's the important matter. As he seems to have set his mind on it, and as you assure me there's no danger — man-traps, or that sort of thing, eh ?"

The colour came to Mr. May's cheek ;

AN EXPEDITION. 159

but it was only for a moment. To have his own daughter spoken of as a man- trap gave him a momentary thrill of anger; but, as he would have applied the word quite composedly to any other man's daughter, the resentment was evan- escent. He did not trust himself to answer, however, but nodded somewhat impatiently, which made the millionaire laugh the more.

" Don't like the man-trap ?" he said. " Bless you they're all alike, not yours more than the rest. But as I was saying, if it's warranted safe I suppose he'll have to stay. But I don't stand any nonsense, May ; and look here, your music and all that ain't in the agreement. He can have a master for his music, he's well enough able to pay for it; but I won't have a mistress, by George, to put folly into his head."

" I am to forbid him the drawing-room, I suppose, and take his fiddle from him ! I have no objections. Between ourselves,

160 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

as I am not musical, it would be very agreeable to me ; but perhaps he is rather over the age, don't you think, for treat- ment of that kind."

Clarence had come in, and stood watch- ing the conversation, with a look Mr. Copperhead was not prepared for. Those mild brown eyes which were his mother's share in him, were full a-stare with sullen resolution, and his heavy mouth shut like that of a bull-dog. He lingered at the door, looking at the conversation which was going on between his father and his tutor, and they both noticed him at th~e same moment, and drew the same con- clusion. Mr. May was in possession of the parole as the French say, and he added instinctively in an under-tone.

" Take care ; if I were you I would not try him too far."

Mr. Copperhead said nothing ; but1 he stared too, rather aghast at this new reve- lation. What ! his porcelain, his Dresden figure of a son, his crowning curiosity,

AN EXPEDITION. 161

was he going to show a will of his own ? The despot felt a thrill go over him. What kind of a sentiment love was in his mind it would be hard to tell; but his pride was all set on this heavy boy. To see him a man of note, in Parliament, his name in the papers, his speeches printed in the " Times," was the very heaven of his expectations. " Son of the famous Copperhead, the great contractor." He did not care about such distinction in his own person ; but this had been his dream ever since Clarence cameiuto being. And now there he stood gloomy, obdu- rate. If he had made up his mind to make a low marriage, could his father hinder him — could anything hinder him ? Mr. Copperhead looked at his son and quailed for the first time in his life.

" May," he said, hurriedly, " do the besf you can ; he's got all his mother's

d d obstinacy, you can see, can't you ?

but I've set my heart on making a man of him — do the best you can."

VOL. III. m

162 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

Mr. May thought to himself afterwards if he had only had the vigour to say, " Pay me six months in advance," the thing would have been done. But the lingering prejudices of breeding clung about him, and he could not do it. Mr. Copperhead, however, was very friendly all the rest of the day, and gave him private looks and words aside, to the great admiration of the Dorsets, to whom the alliance between them appeared remarkable enough.

163

CHAPTER IX.

A CATASTROPHE,

MR MAY left the Hall before dinner, notwithstanding the warm invita- tion which was given to him to stay. He was rather restless, and though it was hard to go out into the dark just as grate- ful odours began to steal through the house, it suited him better to do so than to spend the night away from home. Be- sides he comforted himself that Sir Robert's cook was not first rate, not good enough to make it a great temptation. It was a long walk to the station, for they had no horses at liberty to drive him, a fact at which he was slightly offended,

164 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

though he was aware that Sir Robert's stable was but a poor one. He set out just as the dressing bell began to ring, fortified with a glass of sherry and a biscuit. The night was mild and soft, the hedgerows all rustling with the new life of the spring, and the stars beginning to come out as he went on ; and on the whole the walk was pleasant, though the roads were somewhat muddy. As he went along, he felt himself fall into a curious dreamy state of mind which was partly fatigue perhaps, but was not at all unpleasant. Sometimes he almost seemed to himself to be asleep as he trudged on, and woke up with a start, thinking that he saw indistinct figures, the skirt of a dress or the tail of a long coat, disappear- ing past him, just gone before he was fully awake to what it was. He knew there was no one on the lonely road, and that this was a dream or illusion, but still he kept seeing these vanishings of indis- dinct wayfarers, which did not frighten

A CATASTROPHE. 165

him in the least, but half amused him in the curious state of his brain. He had got rid of his anxiety. It was all quite plain before him what to do, to go to the Bank, to tell them what he had coming in, and to settle everything as easily as possible. The consciousness of having this to do, acted upon him like a gentle opiate or dream-charm. When he got to the railway station, and got into a carriage, he seemed to be floating somehow in a prolonged vision of light and streaks of darkness, not quite aware how far he was goiug, or where he was going, across the country ; and even when he arrived at Carlingford roused himself with difficulty, not quite certain that he had to get out, then smiling at himself, seeing the gas- lights in a sort of vague glimmer about him, not uncomfortable, but misty and half asleep. " If Sir Robert's sherry had been better, I should have blamed that," he said to himself; and in fact it was a kind of drowsy, amiable mental intoxica-

166 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

tion which affected him, he scarcely could tell how. When he got within sight of his own house, he paused a moment and looked up at the lights in the windows, There was music going on, Phoebe, no doubt, for Ursula could not play so well as that, and the house looked full and cheerful. He had a cheerful home, there was no doubt of that. Young Copper- head, though he was a dunce, felt it, and showed an appreciation of better things in his determination not to leave the house where he had been so happy. Mr. May felt an amiable friendliness stealing over him for Clarence too.

Upstairs in the drawing-room another idyllic evening had begun. Phoebe " had not intended to come," but was there not- withstanding, persuaded by Ursula, who, glad for once to escape from the anxieties of dinner, had celebrated tea with the children, to their great delight, though she was still too dreamy and pre-occupied to respond much to them. And Northcote

A CATASTROPHE. 167

had " not intended to come." Indeed, he had gone further than this, he had in- tended to keep away. But when he had eaten his solitary dinner, he, too, had strayed towards the centre of attraction, and walking up and down in forlorn con- templation of the lighted windows, had been spied by Reginald, and brought in after a faint resistance. So the four were together again, with only Janey to inter- pose an edge of general criticism and re- mark into the too personal strain of the conversation. Janey did not quite realize the importance of the place she was occu- pying, but she was keenly interested in all that was goiug on, very eager to under- stand the relationships in which the others stood, and to see for herself what progress had been made last night while she was absent. Her sharp girlish face, in which the eyes seemed too big for the features, expressed a totally different phase of existeuce from that which softened and subdued the others. She was all eyes and

168 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

ears, and watchful scrutiny. It was she who prevented the utterance of the half- dozen words trembling on Northcote's lips, to which Ursula had a soft response flut- tering somewhere in her pretty throat, but which was not destined to be spoken to- night ; and it was she who made Phoebe's music quite a simple performance, attended with little excitement and no danger. Phoebe was the only one who was grateful to her, and perhaps even Phoebe could have enjoyed the agitations of the evening better had Janey been away. As it was, these agitations were all suppressed and incipient ; they could not come to any- thing; there were no hairbreadth escapes, no breathless moments, when the one pursued had to exercise her best skill, and only eluded the pursuer by a step or two. Janey, with all her senses about her, hearing everything, seeing everything, neutralized all effort on the part of the lovers, and reduced the condition of Ursula and Phoebe to one of absolute safety.

A CATASTROPHE. 169

The j were all kept on the curb, in the leash, by the presence of this youthful observer; aud the evening, though full of a certain excitement and mixture of hap- piness and misery, glided on but slowly, each of the young men outdoing the other in a savage eagerness for Janey's bed- time.

" Do you let her sit up till midnight every night ?" said Reginald, with indig- nation.

" Let me sit up !" cried Janey, " as if I was obliged to do what she tells me !"

Ursula gave a little shrug to her pretty shoulders, and looked at the clock.

" It is not midnight yet; it is not nine o'clock," she said, with a sigh. " I should have thought papa would have come home before now. Can he be staying at the Hall all night ?"

Just then, however, there was the well- known ring at the bell, and Ursula ran downstairs to see after her father's supper. Why couldn't Janey make herself useful

170 PH(EBE, JUNIOR.

and do that, the little company thought indignantly and with one accord, instead of staying here with her sharp eyes, put- ting everybody out ? Mr. May's little dinner, or supper, served on a tray, was very comfortable, and he ate it with great satisfaction, telling Ursula that he had, on the whole, spent a pleasant day.

" The Dorsets were kind, as they always are, and Mr. Copperhead was a little less disagreeable than he always is ; and you may look for Clarence back again in a day or two. He is not going to leave us. You must take care that he does not fall in love with you, Ursula. That is the chief thing they seem to be afraid of."

" Fall in love with me /" cried Ursula. " Oh, papa, where are your eyes ? He has fallen in love, but not with me. Can't you see it ? It is Phoebe he cares for."

Mr. May was startled. He raised his head with a curious smile in his eyes, which made Ursula wonder painfully

A CATASTROPHE. 171

whether her father had taken much wine at the Hall.

" Ah, ha ! is that what they are fright- ened for?" he said, and then he shrugged his shoulders. " She will show bad taste, Ursula; she might do better; but I sup- pose a girl of her class has not the deli- cacy— So that is what they are frightened for ! And what are the other fish you have to fry ?"

" Papa !"

" Yes. He told me he was not alarmed about you, that you had other fish to fry, eh ? Well, it's too late for explanations to-night. What's that? Very odd, I thought I saw some one going out at the door — just a whiff of the coat-tails. I think my digestion must be out of order. I'll go into the study and get my pills, and then I think I'll go to bed."

" Won't you come upstairs to the draw- ing-room ?" said Ursula, faltering, for she was appalled by the idea of explanations. What had she to explain, as yet ? Mr.

172 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

May shook his head, with that smile still upon his face.

" No, you'll get on excellently well with- out me. I've had a long walk, and I think I'll go to bed."

" You don't look very well, papa."

" Oh, yes, I'm well enough ; only con- fused in the head a little with fatigue and the things I've had to think about. Good night. Don't keep those young fellows late, though one of them is your brother. You can say I'm tired. Good night, my dear."

It was very seldom that he called her " my dear," or, indeed, said anything affectionate to his grown up children. If Ursula had not been so eager to return to the drawing-room, and so sure that " they " would miss her, she would have been anxious about her father ; but as it was, she ran upstairs lightly when he stopped speaking, and left him going into the study, where already his lamp was burning. Betsy passed her,

A CATASTROPHE. 173

as she ran up the stairs, coming from the kitchen with a letter held between two folds of her apron. Poor papa! no doubt it was some tiresome parish business to bother him, when he was tired already. But Ursula did not stop for that. How she wanted to be there again, among " them all," even though Janey still made one ! She went in breathless, and gave her father's message only half articulately. He was tired. " We are never to mind ; he says so." They all took the intimation very easily. Mr. May being tired, what did that matter ? He would, no doubt, be better to-morrow; and in the meantime those sweet hours, though so hampered by Janey, were very sweet.

Betsy went in, and put down the note before Mr. May on his table He was just taking out his medicine from the drawer, and he made a wrv face at the note and at

4/

the pills together.

" Parish ?" he said, curtly.

"No, Sir; it's from Mr. Cotsdean. He

174 PHOEBE, JUNIOR.

came this morning, after you'd gone, and lie sent over little Bobby."

" That will do."

A presentiment of pain stole over him. He gave Betsy a nod of dismissal, and went on with what he was doing. After he had finished, he took up the little note from the table with a look of disgust. It was badly scrawled, badly folded, and dirty. Thank Heaven, Cotsdean's com- munications would soon be over now.

Janey had proposed a round game up- stairs. They were all humble in their desire to conciliate that young despot. Reginald got the cards, and Northcote put chairs round the table. He placed Ursula next to himself, which was a consolation, and sat down by her, close to her, though not a word, except of the most common- place kind, could be said.

Just then — what was it? an indescrib- able thrill through the house, the sound of a heavy fall. They all started up from their seats to hear what it was. Then

A CATASTROPHE. 175

Ursula, with a cry of apprehension, rushed downstairs, and the others after her. Betsy, alarmed, had come out of the kitchen, followed by her assistant, and was standing frightened, but irresolute; for Mr. May was not a man to be dis- turbed with impunity. And this might be nothing — the falling of a chair or a table, and nothing more.

" What is it ?" cried Ursula, in an anxious whisper.

She was the leader in the emergency, for even Reginald held back. Then, after a moment's pause, she opened the door, and with a little cry rushed in. It was, as they feared, Mr. May who had fallen ; but he had so far recovered himself as to be able to make efforts to rise. His face was towards them. It was very pale, of a livid colour, and covered with moisture, great beads standing on his forehead. He smiled vaguely when he saw the circle of faces.

" Nothing — nothing — a fastness/' he faltered, making again an effort to rise.

176 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

"What is it, papa? Oh, what's the matter?" cried Janey, rushing at him and seizing him by the arm. " Get up ! get up ! what will people think ? Oh, Ursula, how queer he looks, and he feels so heavy. Oh, please get up, papa !"

66 Go away," said Mr. May, " go away. It is — a faintness. I am very well where I am—"

But he did not resist when Reginald and Northcote lifted him from the floor. He had a piece of paper tightly clasped in his hand. He gave them a strange sus- picious look all round, and shrank when his eyes fell upon Phoebe. " Don't let her know," he said. " Take me away, take me away."

" Reginald will take you upstairs, papa — to your room — to bed ; you ought to go to bed. It is the long walk that has worn you out. Oh, Reginald, don't contradict him, let him go where he pleases. Oh, papa, where are you going?" cried Ursula, " the other way, you want to go to bed."

A CATASTROPHE. 177

" This way, take me — somewhere," said the sufferer; though he could not stand he made a step, staggering between them, and an effort to push towards the hall door, and when they directed him in the other direction to the staircase which led to his room, he struggled feebly yet violently with them. " No, no, no, not there !" he cried. The sudden confusion, dismay, and alarm into which the family was plunged, the strange sense of a catastrophe that came upon them, cannot be told. Ursula, calling out all the time that they were not to contradict him, insisted imperiously with words and gestures that he should be taken upstairs. Janey, altogether overcome, sat down on the lower steps of the staircase and cried. Reginald almost as pale as his father, and not saying a word, urged him towards the stairs. To get him up to his room, re- sisting as well as he could, and moaning inarticulate remonstrances all the way, was no easy business. As the procession

VOL. III. n

178 , PR(EBE, JUNIOR.

toiled along Phoebe was left below, the only one in possession of her faculties. She sent the housemaid hurriedly off for the doctor, and despatched Betsy to the kitchen.

"Hot water is always wanted," said Phoebe, "see that you have enough in case he should require a bath."

Then with her usual decision she stepped back into the study. It was not vulgar curiosity which was in Phoebe's mind, nor did it occur to her that she had no right to investigate Mr. May's private affairs. If she could find what had done it, would not that be a great matter, something to tell the doctor, to throw light on so mysterious a seizure ? Several bits of torn paper were lying on the floor ; but only one of these was big enough to contain any information. It was torn in a kind of triangular shape, and contained a corner of a letter, a sec- tion of three lines,

A CATASTROPHE. 179

6C must have mistaken the date

presented to-day,

paid by Tozer,"

was what she read. She could not be- lieve her eyes. What transactions could there be between her grandfather and Mr. May ? She secured the scrap of paper, furtively putting it in her pocket. It was better to say nothing either to the doctor, or any one else of anything so utterly in- comprehensible. It oppressed Phoebe with a sense of mystery and of personal con- nection with the mystery, which even her self-possession could scarcely bear up against. She went into the kitchen after Betsy, avowedly in anxious concern for the boiling of the kettle.

" Hot water is good for everything," said Phoebe, " mamma says a hot bath is the best of remedies. Did Mr. May have any- thing— to worry him, Betsy ? I suppose it is only fatigue, aud that he has taken

too long a walk."

n 2

180

" I don't believe in the long walk, Miss," said Betsy, " it's that Cotsdean as is always a-tormenting with his dirty letters. When that man comes bothering here, master is always put out."

" Cotsdean ? I don't know the name." " Don't say nothing, Miss," said Betsy sinking her voice, " but you take my word it's money. Money's at the bottom of everything. It's something, as sure as you're alive, as master has got to pay. I've been a deal with gentlefolks," added Betsy, " and ne'er a one of them can abide that."

181

CHAPTER X.

THE SINNED AGAINST.

pHCEBE'S mind was full of many and J- somewhat agitating thoughts. She went upstairs with a restless haste, which she would have been the first to condemn, to the room where the others were con- gregated, when they had laid Mr. May on his bed with no small difficulty, and were now consulting what to do. Ursula had fallen a little from the position of com- mand she had taken up. To get him to bed, to send for the doctor, these were evident practical steps to take ; but after having done these she was bewildered and fell back upon her advisers.

J 82 PHCEEE, JUNIOR.

" We can't do anything, we can only wait and watch him," Reginald was saying as Phoebe, herself unseen, looked in at the anxious party ; and without ask- ing any question she turned and went downstairs again, and hastily putting on her shawl and hat, went out shutting the door softly, and ran home on the shady side of Grange Laue, where nobody could see her. It was a very quiet road, and she was not disturbed by any unreasonable alarms. It was still early when she got home, earlier than usual, and her inten- tion was not to stay there at all, but to go back again and offer her assistance to Ursula, for whom she had left a message to this effect. Phoebe was full of genuine regard and friendliness towards the Mays. She felt that she had obligations to all of them, to the parson-father for submit- ting to her presence, nay, encouraging it, and to Ursula for receiving her with that affectionate fervour of friendship which had completely changed the tenor of

THE SINNED- AGAINST. 1S3

Phoebe's life at Carlingford. She was obliged to them, and she knew that she was obliged to them. How different these three months would have been but for the Parsonage ; what a heavy leaden-coloured existence without variety and without interest she must have lived; whereas it had gone by like a summer day, full of real life, of multiplied interests, of everything that it was most desirable to have. Not at home and in London could she have had the advantages she hnd enjoyed here. Phoebe was sensible enough — or perhaps we might use a less complimentary word — worldly enough, to count within those manifest benefits the advantage of seeing more of Clarence Copperhead, and of drawing him within the charmed circle of her influence, and she was grateful to the Mays, for this was their doing. And then on the other hand, quite a different thing, her heart was touched and softened with gratitude to Reginald for loving her ; of all her gratitudes, perhaps this indeed was

184 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

the most truly felt. They had given her unbounded kindness, friendliness, every- thing that is most sweet to the solitary ; and over and above, as if these were not enough, they had made her the exquisite present of a heart, the best thing that can be given or received by man. Phoebe felt herself penetrated with gratitude for all this, and she resolved that, if anything she could do could benefit the Mays, the effort on her part should not be wanting. " paid by Tozer," what had been paid by Tozer ? What had her grandfather to do with it. Could it be he who had lent money to Mr. May ? Then Phoebe resolved with a glow on her face, he should for- give his debtor. She went in with her mind fully made up, whatever might hap- pen, to be the champion of the sufferer, the saviour of the family. This would show them that their kindness had been appreciated. This would prove even to Reginald that though she would not sacri- fice her own prospects by marrying him,

THE SINNED-AGAINST. 135

yet that she was grateful to him, to the bottom of her heart. Her mind was full of geuerous ardour as she went in. She knew her power ; her grandfather had never yet refused her anything, never resisted her, and it did not seem likely that he should begin now.

Mrs. Tozer was by herself in the par- lour, dozing over the fire. She woke up with a little start when Phoebe came in, and smiled at the sight of her.

" I didn't expect as you'd have come so soon," she said, i( you've broke up early to-night, darling. Couldn't you have no music ? I didn't look for you for an hour or more."

"You know, grandmamma, it is Mr. Copperhead who teases me most for music, and he is not here."

" Yes, yes, I know," said the old lady, nodding her head with many smiles. " I know a deal more about it than you think for, Phoebe, and don't you think as I dis- approve, for it's quite the other way.

186 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

But you won't tell me as there ain't others as cares for music as well as young Cop- perhead. I've seen one as couldn't take his eyes off of you while you were play- ing."

" Hush, grandmamma ; the others like music for music's sake, or perhaps for my sake ; but Mr. Copperhead likes it for his own sake, and therefore he is the one who insists upon it. But this is not the reason why I have come home so soon. Mr. May has been taken suddenly ill."

" Lord bless us !" cried Mrs. Tozer, " deary, deary me ? I'm very sorry, poor gentleman, I hope it ain't anything serious. Though he's a church parson, he's a very civil-spoken man, and I see his children drag him into his own house one day as me and Tozer was passing. I said to Tozer at the time, you take my word, whatever folks say, a man as lets his chil- dren pull him about like that ain't a bad one. And so he's ill, poor man ! Is there anything as we can do to help, my dear ?

THE SINNED-AGAINST. 187

They ain't rich, and they've been as kind to you as if you'd been one of their own."

" I thought that would be the first thing you would ask me," said Phoebe gratefully, giving her a kiss, " dear grandmamma, it is like your kind heart ? and I ran off to see that you were quite well and comfort- able, thinking perhaps if you did not want me I might go back to poor Ursula for the night."

To hear her grand-daughter call Miss May by her Christian name was in itself a pleasure to Mrs. Tozer. She gave Phoebe a hug. " So you shall, my dar- ling, and as for a bottle of good wine or that, anything as is in the house, you know you're welcome to it. You go and talk to your grandfather ; I'm as comfort- able as I can be, and if you'd like to run back to that poor child — "

" Not before you are in bed," said Phoebe, " but if you please I'll go and talk to grandpapa as you said. There are things in which a man may be of use."

188 PHCEBE, JUNIOE,

" To be sure," said Mrs. Tozer3 doubt- fully; " your grandfather ain't a man as is much good in sickness; but I won't say as there ain't some things — "

" Yes, grandmamma, I'll take your advice and run and talk to him ; and by the time I come back you will be ready for bed."

" Do, my dear," said Mrs. Tozer. She was very comfortable, and did not care to move just then, and, as Phoebe went away, looked after her with dreamy satis- faction. "Bless her! there ain't her match in Carlingford, and the gentlefolks sees it," said Mrs. Tozer, to herself. But she had no idea how Phoebe's heart was beating as she went along the dimly lighted passage, which led to a small room fitted up by Tozer for himself. She heard voices in earnest talk as she ap- proached, but this made her only the more eager to go in, and see for herself what was going on. There could be no doubt, she felt sure of it, that the discussion

THE SINNED-AGAINST. 189

here had some connection with the calamity there. What it was she had not the slightest idea ; but that somehow the two were connected she felt certain. The voices were loud as she approached the door.

"I'll find out who done it, and I'll punish him — as sure as that's my name, though I never put it on that there paper," Tozer was saying. Phoebe opened the door boldly, and went in. She had never seen her grandfather look so unlike him- self. The knot of the big white necker- chief round his neck was pushed away, his eyes were red, giving out strange lights of passion. He was standing in front of the fireplace gesticulating wildly. Though it was now April and the weather very mild and genial, there were still fires in the Tozer sitting-rooms, and as the win- dows were carefully shut, Phoebe felt the atmosphere stifling. The other person in the room was a serious large man, whom she had already seen more than once, one

190 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

of the chief clerks in the bank where Tozer kept his account, who had an old acquaintance with the butterman, and who was in the habit of coming when the bank had anything to say to so sure a customer about rates of investment or the value of money. He was seated at one side of the fire, looking very grave and shaking his head as the other spoke.

" That is very true, and I don't say anything against it. But, Mr. Tozer, I can't help thinking there's some one else in it than Cotsdean."

" What one else ? what is the good of coming here to me with a pack of non- sense ? He's a poor needy creature as hasn't a penny to bless himself with, a lot of children, and a wife as drinks. Don't talk to me of some one else. That's the sort of man as does all the mischief. What, Phoebe ! run away to your grand- mother, I don't want you here."

" I am very sorry to interrupt you,

THE SINNED-AGAINST. 191

grandpapa. Mayn't I stay ? T have some- thing to say to you — "

Tozer turned round and looked at her eagerly. Partly his own fancy, and partly his wife's more enlightened observations, had made him aware that it was possible that Phgebe might one day have something very interesting to reveal. So her words roused him even in the midst of his pre- occupation. He looked at her for a second, then he waved his hand and said,

" I'm busy, go away, my dear, go away ; I can't talk to you now."

Phoebe gave the visitor a look which perplexed him ; but which meant, if he could but have read it, an earnest entreaty to him to go away. She said to herself, impatiently, that he would have understood had he been a woman ; but as it was he only stared with lack-lustre eyes. What was she do ?

" Grandpapa," she said, decisively, " it is too late for business to-night. However urgent it may be, you can't do anything

192 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

to-night. Why, it is nearly ten o'clock, and most people are going to bed. See Mr. , I mean this gentleman — to- morrow morning the first thing ; for you know, however anxious you may be, you can't do anything to-night."

" That is true enough," he said, looking with staring eyes from her to his visitor, "and more's the pity. What had to be done should ha' been done to-dav. It should have been done to-day, Sir, on the spot, not left over night like this, to give the villain time to get away. It's a crime, Phoebe, that's what it is — that's the fact. It's a crime."

" Well, grandpapa, I am very sorry ; but it will not mend matters, will it ? if sitting up like this and agitating yourself like this, makes you ill. That will not do away with the crime. It is bed-time, and poor grandmamma is dozing, and wonder- ing what has become of you. Grand- papa— "

" Phoebe, go away, it ain't none of

THE SINNED-AGAINST. 193

your business ; you're only a bit of a girl, and how can you understand. If you think I'm going to sit down with it like an old fool, lose my money, and what is worse nor my money, let my very name be forged before my eyes — "

Phoebe gave so perceptible a start that Tozer stopped short, and even the banking clerk looked at her with aroused curiosity.

" Forged !" she cried, with a gasp of dismay, " is it so bad as that ?" She had never been more near betraying herself, showing a personal interest more close than was natural. When she saw the risk she was running, she stopped short and summoned all her energies. " I thought some one had pilfered something," she said, with an attempt at a laugh. " I beg your pardon, grandpapa ; but any- how what can you do to-night ? You are keeping — this gentleman — and yourself out of bed. Please put it off till to- morrow."

"I think so too," said the banker's

vol. in. o

194 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

clerk. " I'll come to you in the morning as I go to the Bank. Perhaps I may have been wrong; but I think there's more in it than meets the eye. To-morrow we can have the man Cotsdean up and question him."

" After he's had time to take himself off," said Tozer, vehemently. " You take my word he ain't in Carlingford, not now, let alone to-morrow."

" Then that shows," said Phoebe, quietly, " that it is of no use making your- self ill to-night. Grandpapa, let this gentleman go — he wants to go; and I have something to say to you. You can do anything that is necessary to-morrow."

" I think so indeed," said Mr. Simpson, of the Bank, getting up at last, " the young lady is quite right. We can't act hastily in a thing like this. Cotsdean's a man of good character, Mr. Tozer ; all that has to be taken into account — and he is not a beggar. If he has done it, we can recover something at least ; but if he has

THE STNNED-AGAINST. 195

been taken advantage of — I think the young lady is a good counsellor, and that it's much the best to wait till to-morrow."

Phcebe seized upon her grandfather's arm to restrain him, and held him back. "Good night," she said, "grandpapa, stay with me, I have something to say to you. Listen, you don't think me very silly, do you, grandpapa dear ?"

" Silly !" he said, listening to the steps of the departing visitor as they receded along the passage. " What has a chit like you to do with business. I tell you it'll kill me. Me a-signing of accommodation bills for a bit of a small shopkeeper like that Cotsdean! I tell you it'll make an end of me, that will, unless I gets my money and clears myself afore the world. And here you've been and sent away Simpson, and who's to manage for me ? I ain't a lawyer to know what to do. Get away, get away, and leave me to myself. I can't be disturbed with women folks when I've got real business in hand."

o 2

196 PHCEBE, JUNIOR.

" I'll manage for you," said Phoebe, " you need not stare at me like that, grandpapa — "

" Go out o' the room this moment, Miss!" he cried furious, "you! here's a sort of thing for me to put up with. Sam Tozer wasn't born yesterday that a bit of an impudent girl should take upon her to do for him. Manage for me ! go out o' my sight ; I'm a fool, am I, and in my dotage to have a pack of women meddling in my affairs ?"

Phoebe had never met with such an outburst of coarse anger in her life before, and it gave her a shock, as such assaults naturally do to people brought up softly, and used to nothing but kindness. For a moment she wavered, doubtful whether she should not proudly abandon him and his affairs altogether; but this was to abandon her friends too. She mastered herself accordingly and the resentment which she could not help feeling — and stood pale but quiet opposite to the in-

THE SINNED-AGAINST.

197

furiated old man. His grey eyes seemed to give out sparks of fire. His hair bristled up on his head like the coat of a wild animal enraged. He went up and down on the hearth-rug like the same animal in a cage, shaking his fist at some imaginary culprit.

" Once I get him, see if I let him go," he cried, his voice thick with fast-coming words and the foam of fury. " Let the bank do as it likes ; I'll have him, I will. I'll see justice on the man as has dared to make free with my name. It ain't nothing to you my name ; but I've kep it honest, and out of folks' mouths, and see if I'll stand disgrace thrown on it now. A bill on me as never had such a thing, not when 1 was struggling to get on ! Dash him ! damn him !" cried the old man, transported with rage. When he had come to this unusual and terrible length, Tozer paused dismayed. He had lost his temper before in his life ; but very seldom had he been betrayed into anything so

1 y<5 PHCEBE, JUNTOR.

desperate as this. He stopped aghast, and cast a half-frightened look at Phoebe, who stood there so quiet, subdued out of her usual force, pale, and disapproving — his own grandchild, a pastor's daughter ! and he had forgotten himself thus before her. He blushed hotly, though he was not used to blushing, and stopped all at once. After such frightful language, language so unbecoming a deacon of Salem, so un- like a consistent member of the connec- tion, what could he say ?

" Grandpapa," said Phoebe softly, " it is not good to be so angry ; you are made to say things you are sorry for. Will you listen to me now ? Though you don't think it, and perhaps won't believe it, I have found out something quite by chance — "

He went up to her and clutched her by the arm. " Then what are you a-stand- ing there for, like a figure in stone ? Can't you out with it, and ease my mind ?

THE SINNED-AGAINST. 199

Out with it, I tell you ! Do you want to drive me out of my senses ?"

He was so much excited that he shook her in the hot paroxysm of returning rage. Phoebe was not frightened, but indignation made her pale. She stood without flinch- ing, and looked at him, till poor old Tozer let go his hold, and dropping into a chair, covered his face with his hands. She was too generous to take advantage of him, but went on quietly, as if nothing had occurred.

" Grandpapa, as I tell you, I have found out something by chance that has to do with the thing that troubles you ; but I don't know quite what it is. Tell me first, and then — is this the thing ?" said Phoebe, curiously, taking up a slip of paper from the table, a stamped piece of paper, in a handwriting which seemed horribly familiar to her, and yet strange. Tozer nodded at her gloomily, holding his head between his hands, and Phoebe read over the first few words before her with an aching heart,

200