"Not to-day," replied Gerald. "I could not. It is impossible." She looked up at him, holding the little victim pressed close in her arms, utterly regardless of its rough and grimy coat. Her eyes were swimming with tears.

"As you decide, of course," said De Forest, sulkily, releasing her, and tossing his bridle to the boy. "Here you, Sim, or Tim, or Jim, or whatever you are, take away the horses, and as you value your tip, mind you don't have any more dogs around the next time I want you."

Gerald turned away without another word, gathering up her dress as she best could, and went into the house. Olly, who had witnessed the whole proceeding enchantedly from the window, ran to meet her. "I say, let's see him. My, ain't he dirty! Is he dead? just as dead as he can be?"

"Yes," answered his sister, very gently; "the poor thing is quite dead. Come and help me bury him decently somewhere. No, Phebe, stay there. I wish it. Don't let us have any more fuss about it, please."

De Forest lifted his hat and turned to leave as Gerald disappeared. "Pray don't let me detain you from the interesting ceremony, Miss Lane," he said, with his most cynical and mocking voice; "Miss Vernor as high-priestess will be worth a full audience. Good-morning."

"Gerald wouldn't like it if I went to her when she said not; I must stay here," said Phebe turning her distressed face to Halloway, who had stood a silent spectator of it all. "Oh, I'm so sorry it happened! Isn't it too bad?"

"It certainly is,—for the dog."

"She won't get over it for ever so long, and it wasn't really her fault. She was only in fun when she turned her horse that way. Gerald is very tender-hearted."

"I see she is,—toward dogs."

"Mr. Halloway, you don't like her!"

"Miss Phebe, I am madly in love with her."

"Don't laugh at me, please. Isn't she handsome?"

"Well, I couldn't judge of the length of her hair."

"Nonsense, tell me what you really think of her."

Denham pondered a moment. "I think all sorts of things," he answered presently, with an amused laugh. "She is so contradictory she'll fit almost any opinion, and the worst I can say of her is that she'll never concern herself in the least to find out what my opinion may be."

"Ah," said Phebe, softly, "just wait. You don't either of you know each other yet!"



CHAPTER VI.

THE PICNIC.

Gerald's and Olly's visit was quite an event in the quiet Lane household. Olly flagrantly broke every existing custom in it with the sublime autocracy of childhood, and regained his health at the cost of the peace of mind of every individual with whom he came in contact, from nervous Miss Lydia down to the protesting servants; while Gerald was one of those intense personalities whose influence seems to recreate the entire atmosphere about them at once, go where they will. Poor Miss Lydia was afraid of her quick speech and brusque ways and decided opinions, and spent more hours than usual upstairs alone in her own little room, and wore her best cap whenever she appeared below, as a sort of mute appeal to the young lady's indulgence. But Gerald, in her robust health, had no sympathy whatever with invalids as a class, and for "chronic nerves" she had an absolute contempt, unmitigated by even the best cap's gay ribbons. "It's altogether a matter of will," she asserted. "People needn't be ill if they are only resolved not to be so."

"Humph!" said Mrs. Lane, who had chanced to overhear; and there was a trifle more tenderness than usual in her manner when she went up later to put the mid-day cup of beef-tea into her sister's thin hands, and stood looking compassionately down at her. "Nothing is easier than to insist that a thing is so and so, just because there's no way to prove that it isn't so."

"How you do always talk in proverbs, Sister Sophy!" said Miss Lydia, admiringly. "I only wish Solomon could have heard you. I do believe he would have put some of them in."

"He would have been far too busy taking down Mrs. Upjohn's fine speeches to mind me," grunted Mrs. Lane. "And I never did think much of Solomon, anyway. He was too much of a Mormon with his hundred wives and that. Want any thing else, Lyddy?"

"No, thank you. The house is very nice and still this morning. There's a picnic up at the Dexter's farm, isn't there? I suppose they've all gone to it."

"Of course. Who ever heard of a picnic unless Phebe went along to do all the fussing and mussing that everybody else shirks? Don't tell me there's any fun in a picnic,—going off in the woods like that, to do for yourself what you'd sell the clothes off your back to have somebody else do for you at home, and eating all kinds of heathenish messes with your fingers because you've forgotten the forks. But what people like let them have. They'll get experience out of it if nothing better. And of course Phebe had to go."

True enough, Phebe was as essential to any picnic as the feast, though much less obtrusively so, and Gerald watched her friend's quiet helpfulness with lazy interest. She herself was stretched at ease on the clean, fresh grass under some glorious old trees. The place chosen was a lovely spot at the head of the lake; the drive there had been long and hot, and now she lay enjoying to the full the refreshment of the shadow and the breeze, and the perfection both of the view and of her immediate surroundings. Bell Masters sat near her, having discovered that she was generally surest of Mr. De Forest's company when in Gerald's neighborhood. Nor had she been mistaken this time. He had openly abandoned the greedy band of berry-pickers, and the artistic knot of sketchers, and the noisy body of pleasure-seekers, who were paddling frivolously around the shores of the lake and screaming with causeless laughter, as soon as he found that Gerald did not intend attaching herself to any of them but had struck out the new and independent line of doing absolutely nothing at all. Halloway had been helping industriously with the fire, but he came toward the group under the trees when his services seemed no longer required.

"You look most invitingly comfortable," he said, fanning himself with his hat. "We must try to coax Miss Phebe here for a rest."

"Pray don't," said De Forest, lifting a lazy hand with an air of finding even that motion too great an effort. "At least not till the coffee is well under way. I tasted a cup of her make yesterday. Don't call her off. We are all benefiting in a manner by her absence."

"I can make good coffee too, when I choose," said Bell, biting at the rim of her straw hat.

De Forest contemplated her with new interest. "Ah, can you. 'Tis a gift of the gods given to few. And when do you choose, may I ask? Apparently not to-day."

"'Tisn't my picnic."

"Oh! Is it Miss Lane's?"

"One would say it was, from the way she slaves for it," remarked Gerald.

"Why don't you help too?" asked De Forest, breaking off blades of grass and flinging them out singly upon the air.

"For Miss Masters' excellent reason: it is not my picnic."

"You contribute your valuable aid solely to your own undertakings then?"

"Why am I called upon to contribute it to any other?"

"'Tis a problem for philosophers. But for argument's sake, let us say for the good of humanity at large, and of the Dexters in particular."

"I am not bound to the Dexters by any obligation that I can see to help them carry out their entertainment. If they are not equal to it, they should not give it."

"Nothing Quixotic about you, is there?" said De Forest, looking at her quizzically.

"Nothing whatever," replied Gerald, easily. "Why should there be? Let every one look out for himself."

"And if some can't?"

"That is no business of mine. It's simply my business to make sure that I can look after myself."

"What an outrageously frank exposure of a universally concealed sentiment! Mr. Halloway is scandalized. He is thinking how he can fit a scorching text to it to wither you with next Sunday."

"No; here is a sermon ready made on the spot," said Denham, as Phebe came slowly toward them. "Miss Lane in herself is a sufficient illustration of the opposite doctrine."

"Prove it," answered Gerald, shrugging her shoulders. "Prove that Phebe, who toils for everybody, is any happier than I, who only follow my inclination."

"You certainly look vastly the more comfortable at present," said De Forest, looking from Gerald's cool cheeks and unruffled muslin flounces to Phebe's flushed face and tumbled cambric. "You are a practical embodiment of the beauty and expediency of selfishness."

"What are you talking about?" asked Phebe, coming up and leaning wearily against a tree.

"About you and Miss Vernor," explained Bell. "Which of you is happier? I should say Miss Vernor decidedly."

A loving look came into Phebe's eyes, as she glanced down at Gerald.

"Miss Vernor, of course", she said, with a very tender inflection of voice. "Being what she is, how can she help being the happier?"

"Virtue advocating vice," said De Forest. "Mr. Halloway, your sermon is a dead failure,—as a sermon."

"By no means," answered Denham, smiling. "I don't expect to convert you in a single lesson. Will you not sit down with us, Miss Phebe? You look tired."

"Not just yet, thank you."

"And why not?" asked Gerald.

"I want to see a little after Miss Delano first. She's off there all alone hunting for ferns."

"Well," persisted Gerald, "what of it? Are you fonder of her society than ours, that you must run after her?"

"I am not fonder of any one's society than of yours, Gerald."

"But are you fond of that tiresome creature at all? Confess it; doesn't she bore you to death with her interminable grasshopper chatter?"

Phebe glanced at Halloway, and laughed a little as she moved away. "Oh, I am learning by degrees not to be bored by people,—not even by Miss Delano."

"Now, will any one explain why she should wish to teach herself not to know a bore from a Christian?" exclaimed Gerald, impatiently. "It is quite beyond me."

"But do you really never talk to anybody unless you want to, Miss Vernor?" asked Bell, disagreeably conscious that Gerald had not voluntarily addressed her once that morning.

"Never," replied Gerald, staring out at the lake.

"Don't you ever do any thing you don't want to, because you ought to?"

"I don't always see the ought. For instance, why should I put myself out to entertain Miss Delano as Phebe does?"

"I don't know," muttered Bell. "I wouldn't, I am sure. She is mortally dull."

"One might imagine reasons for the self-sacrifice, I suppose," said De Forest, making a languid snatch at a butterfly fluttering near. "The possibility, we will say, that it might please the gentle old babbler to come under the condescension of your notice. How would that do for a motive?"

"Why should I want to please her?" insisted Gerald, removing a hideous beetle from her dress with all possible care lest she should hurt it. "I don't want to. I don't care for her, nor she for me. Why should I put myself out for her? What claim has she on me that I should displease myself to please her?"

"Let us see," said Denham, ruminatingly. "Miss Delano's pleasure against Miss Vernor's displeasure, or _vice versa, Miss Vernor's pleasure against Miss Delano's displeasure. Yes; the balance of pleasure remains quite the same whichever lady has it. Apart from principle, the logic is unanswerable."

"It is admirable," commented De Forest. "I always did like logic so much better than moral philosophy. Hello, what's the matter now?"

There was a wail of distress somewhere in the distance.

Gerald turned her shapely head and listened a moment. "It's only Olly," she said, composedly. "I recognize the cry. He isn't hurt. Oh, you needn't go, Mr. Halloway; Olly never comes to any harm. He's only quarrelling with some one."

De Forest raised himself on his elbow to listen, while Halloway walked off in the direction of the outburst. "There are possibilities lurking in picnics, you know," he remarked, resuming his recumbent position, "mad bulls, and rabbit traps, and fine chances for a drown now and then. But I suppose we needn't trouble ourselves, Mr. Halloway'll see to it. Besides, Olly bears the charmed life of the wicked. Miss Masters, I hope you remember to give daily thanks that you haven't any small brothers."

"I do devoutly give thanks that I haven't any sisters," said Bell, with an unaffectionate glance toward Gerald. "I should hate them."

And so the desultory talk rambled on, the little group growing larger by degrees as the approaching luncheon hour brought back the stragglers, and with them Olly, trotting contentedly along, clinging to Halloway's hand, meek as any lamb.

"What were you doing when you cried out so a little while ago?" asked Gerald, going up to the child.

Olly looked at her with instant defiance in his eyes. "I hurt my foot."

"You know perfectly well you can't deceive me, Olly. Tell me the truth. What mischief were you at?"

"I tell you I hurt my foot, and it hurt like mischief, and that's all the mischief there was. I wish it had been your foot, and I wouldn't have cried a bit."

Halloway was turning aside, but Gerald appealed to him. "Is he telling the truth?"

"Yes," answered Denham, dryly. "He was racing with the Anthony boys and fell, but, as you see, he's right enough now."

"Ya-ah!" said Olly, and leered into her face with brotherly disrespect. "I'll tell you a lie next time if you'd rather. Ya-ah!"

Gerald looked as if she were going to shake him on the spot, and to prevent any such catastrophe Denham suddenly seized the little fellow and put him through a number of acrobatic feats in breathless succession, till he was fairly hustled into good temper and everybody around was laughing, even Gerald. Jake Dexter was instantly incited to display some marvellous limber-jointed powers of his own, and had just demonstrated to the assembled company, to his and their entire satisfaction, that the impossible is after all sometimes possible, when luncheon was announced by the ringing of a cow-bell, and a gay onslaught upon the usual picnic table, rich in luxuries and poor in necessities, superseded for the nonce all less material forms of amusement.

Later in the afternoon Halloway wandered off from the rest for one of the solitary strolls that he preferred to companionship as being less lonely,—a feeling often experienced when fate and not choice appoints one's comrades,—and returning leisurely along the banks of the lake, he came upon a little group of picnickers, and stopped unperceived beyond them, to enjoy for a while that comfortable sense of being in the world yet out of it, which is the birthright of all spectatorship. Gerald and Phebe were skipping stones, thoroughly absorbed in energetic enjoyment of the simple game; their two contrasting figures, Gerald dark and tall and slim, and Phebe so round and fair and supple, making a pretty-enough picture for any artist. Olly, little Maggie Dexter, and an assortment of sturdy urchins known throughout Joppa only as the Anthony boys, were dancing and chattering aimlessly around, and near by was drawn up a clumsy old boat where Phebe had made a comfortable niche for Miss Delano, who every day at about this hour was afflicted with a remarkable disorder which had grown upon her wholly of late years, and whose symptoms, so far as she was willing to admit them, consisted of a painful heaviness of the eyelids, a weakness in the nape of the neck, and an irresistible tendency to retire for a brief season within herself. A little farther off still, having taken fortune at the flood and secured De Forest at last, Bell Masters was embarked on another kind of craft, a thorough-going, fully-freighted flirtation, all sails set; and through the trees were glimpses of lazily moving figures beyond, generally in twos and twos, following some occult rule of common division peculiar to picnics. By degrees the children wandered off up the bank, and presently there came a shout, followed by an evident squabble. Phebe looked around uneasily. Gerald kept on with her sport.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven times, Phebe. Now do better than that."

At this juncture little Maggie ran up, her pretty brown eyes wide and her red lips quivering. "Oh! Miss Vernor, Olly shan't do it, shall he? Do say he shan't!"

"Do what?" asked Gerald, pausing in the act of searching for another pebble.

"Put it in the water to swim like a duck. It isn't a duck, it's a little, little young bird he's found in a nest, and it can't swim, it can't hardly fly. Oh, don't let him!"

"Let him!" echoed Gerald sharply. She sprang toward the children with a bound, almost lifting Olly off his feet as she drew him back from the water's edge. "You cruel boy!" she cried. "Give it to me directly."

"I won't!" answered Olly, trying to shake himself free from her grasp. "It's mine, I found it."

But the small hands held him in a grip as strong as a man's, and in another moment Gerald had taken the poor little half-feathered creature from him, and bidden Maggie restore it carefully to its nest.

"It's mine! It's mine! I'll have it back!" shouted Olly, angrily, after the little girl.

Gerald took hold of him by the shoulders and turned him round toward her. There was a great deal of hatred for the sin, and not overmuch love for the sinner, in her face, as she looked down at him. "If you dare touch that bird again, Olly, I'll find a punishment for you that you will not soon forget, do you hear?"

A hidden thought of revenge for the spoiled sport came into Olly's mind. He twisted himself away from his sister with a little grunt, and stood peevishly playing a moment with a couple of marbles; then suddenly darting aside, seized the boat in which Miss Delano was established, still struggling, but more feebly, with the mysterious trouble that held her in thrall; and with a strength with which one would hardly have credited his slight form, he pushed it off into the water. There was, of course, not a particle of real danger for Miss Delano, even though this chanced to be the only boat at that point, and she was no oarswoman; but the poor little old lady, thus suddenly roused from the strange hallucinations (as she called them) which were the most marked feature of her complaint, and finding herself afloat upon the unstable deep, instantly supposed that her last hour was come. She sprang up, too terrified to scream, with a look of deadly horror in her face, and then sank again all in a heap in the bottom of the boat. Olly gave a fiendish laugh, but before any one else could move to the rescue, Gerald, with one fierce, unutterable look at her brother, and no thought but how soonest to end Miss Delano's speechless agony, quick as a flash, caught hold of an overhanging bough and swung herself on to a rock quite far out in the water, and thence, with a light, bold spring, landed safely in the middle of the boat as it drifted past.

"All right, Miss Delano," she said, briskly, seating herself and laying hold of the oars with accustomed hands; "I'm a born sailor, and we'll have a little row first before we go back."

Had an angel visibly descended from heaven to assume the helm, Miss Delano could not have been more grateful and overcome. "Oh, my dear, my dear!" she said, and, in the intensity of her relief, began to cry a little softly. Gerald pretended not to notice her emotion (she was very awkward as a comforter, and as shy before tears as a man), and rowed around for a while in utter silence; and then feeling that conversation might aid in quieting her companion's unnecessarily excited nerves she began abruptly charging her with questions as one loads a gun with cartridges, dropping down one after another with cruel directness into the harmless vacancy of Miss Delano's brain. How many inhabitants had Joppa in precise figures? what was the height of those farther hills to the left? upon what system was the village-school governed? what was the mineral nature of the soil? what was the fastest time ever made by that bay mare of Mr. Upjohn's with the white hind foot? etc. etc., etc., on all which points poor Miss Delano could only assure her timidly: "I don't know, dear; it would be well if I did," and relapsed into an alarmed and most uncharacteristic silence.

Phebe stood watching the boat as Gerald rowed off, then, as if recollecting some neglected duty, turned suddenly, and found herself face to face with Mr. Halloway.

"No farther," he said, playfully barring her passage.

"Oh, but I must! I want to find Olly and talk him into a better frame of mind before Gerald comes back."

"Leave Olly to me, please. I am a perfect child-tamer, and guarantee to exorcise his seven evil spirits in less than no time. Meanwhile, sit you down and rest."

"Oh, I don't need rest. If you'll undertake Olly I'll help put back the lunch things. Picnics are quite like the Biblical feasts: five loaves and two fishes somehow always make twelve basketfuls to take up."

"And you are always a true disciple at the feast, Miss Phebe, intent only upon ministering to others."

Phebe laughed her own peculiarly light-hearted, gay laugh. "That is a much prettier way of putting it than Gerald's. She says I make myself maid-of-all-work."

"Miss Gerald, of course, doesn't approve of such service."

"But you do. So I needn't mind her blame."

"But I shall blame too, Miss Phebe, when you overdo yourself. I don't see why others' recreation need be all work for you. Let each take his share of both the pleasure and the toil."

"But you see this is my share, Mr. Halloway, because I can't help in any better way. I don't know enough to entertain people's guests just by talking to them, as Gerald does. You forget how dull I am."

"So I do," said Denham, gravely. "I forget it all the time. Indeed, the forgetfulness has quite become chronic. Now I'll find Olly, and we'll all go at the dishes together and make a game of it."

Certainly Denham Halloway must have possessed some secret charm in his management of children, for by the time Gerald turned her boat to the shore, he stood at the bank to meet them, with Olly by his side, as amiable a little fellow as any Sunday-school-book hero ever born.

"I am glad your sail turned out such a success, Miss Delano," said Halloway, cheerily, as he lifted the little old lady carefully out on to the pebbles. "You have been envied of us all. But here is a little boy come to tell you all the same how sorry he is that he gave you such a fright. Olly, my lad, I think Miss Delano looks as if she had forgiven you through and through."

"Oh, indeed, indeed yes," answered Miss Delano, hurriedly. "It was only my silly way of being scared, particularly when I'm roused up so sudden out of one of those turns of mine. And it's all right, my dear, all right."

"But I'm sorry, real and honest," declared Olly, stoutly, looking squarely in Miss Delano's kindly face. "And I didn't mean to scare you."

"You meant it for a revenge on me, I suppose," said Gerald, in a low, harsh voice. She took hold of his arm as she spoke. "Give me those marbles of yours."

Olly looked at her, hesitated, and then reluctantly produced three very handsome agates from some outlying storehouse of his jacket.

"I bought you six," said Gerald. "Where are the rest?"

"I lost one," answered Olly, sullenly. "It fell down a hole."

"Then give me the other two."

Olly obeyed still more reluctantly, fixing great, anxious eyes upon his treasures as he laid them, each one more slowly than the last, in his sister's hand.

"There," said Gerald. "Perhaps this will teach you to behave better another time. I shall not buy you any more this summer." She flung out her hand suddenly, and the five pretty stones fell with a splash far out in the lake and disappeared forever, five little cruel sets of circles instantly beginning to widen and widen over their graves in a perfect mockery of roundness. Olly gave one sharp cry, and then stood stock-still, a bitterly hard look coming over his face; those marbles had been very, very dear to his heart. Halloway put his arm tenderly around the little fellow, and drew him close in a very sympathetic way.

"Olly," he said, gently, "you know you deserved some punishment, but now that your sister has punished you, I am sure she will forgive you too, as Miss Delano has done, if you only ask her."

Olly buried his face in his friend's coat, and burst into a fit of heart-broken tears. "I don't want her to forgive me," he sobbed. "I only want my agates,—my pretty, pretty agates!"

"Surely you will forgive him?" pleaded Halloway, looking up at Gerald over Olly's head, and holding out one of the boy's hands in his own. "He was really penitent when you came up. Let me ask for him."

Gerald moved a step away, ignoring the hand. "Certainly, if you wish it," she said, coldly.

Halloway bent and kissed Olly's flushed face. "Do you hear, my boy? It is all right now, and there is Maggie calling you to swing her. Don't forget you promised to make me a visit at the rectory to-morrow."

Olly threw his arms around Denham's knees and gave him a convulsive hug. "I like you though you are a minister," he said, through his tears. "I just wish you were my sister!" And then he went slowly off to Maggie, and Denham and Gerald stood silently where he had left them. Gerald was the first to speak.

"You think I am hard on Olly. I see it in your face."

"I do think," replied Denham, slowly, with a faint smile curving his well-cut lips, "that perhaps it might be happier for Olly if you would try to consider him less in the light of a boy, and more as—as only a little animal. You are so tender-hearted and pitiful toward animals."

Gerald flushed angrily. "I like plain speaking best. You think I am hard on him. Why don't you say so?"

"I will if you prefer it. I do think so."

"Thanks. Is there any thing else you would like to say to me in your capacity as clergyman before we join the others?"

"Yes, if I may really venture so far. Your hat is quite crooked."

Gerald straightened it without a smile. "Thanks again. Anything else?"

"Absolutely nothing." He turned to escort her back, but Gerald stood still, frowning out at the lake.

"You don't know Olly," she said, curtly.

"Maybe not, but I know childish nature pretty well, perhaps because I love it."

"Ah! I don't love it. It isn't lovable to me. It is all nonsense to call it the age of innocence. It is vice in embryo instead of in full leaf, that is all."

"But that is an inestimable gain of itself. A little of a bad thing is surely much better than a great deal of it. For my part I confess to a great partiality for children. There is something pathetic to me in the little faults and tempers that irritate us now chiefly because they clash against our own weaknesses, and yet on the right guidance of which lies the whole making or marring of the child's life."

"Doesn't guidance include punishment?"

"Yes, it includes it. But it does not consist of it."

Gerald still stood half turned from him, frowning out over the placid blue water. "Ah," she said, "it chiefly consists of good example and that sort of thing, I suppose."

"I think it consists chiefly of love," said Halloway, simply.

Gerald made no answer at first, then turned and looked at him almost defiantly. Her changeable eyes seemed black as she raised them to his. "Would you have thrown Olly's marbles into the lake?"

"No," replied Halloway, looking steadily back at her.

"Then you would have been very foolish," said Gerald, haughtily. "It was the only way to touch him. I was quite right to do it."

"You should be the best judge of your actions, Miss Vernor."

Gerald bowed without answer, and moved past him like an offended duchess. Halloway stood looking after her with an amused sparkle in his eyes. "Miss Geraldine Vernor," he said to himself, "with all your beauty and your reputed accomplishments and intellect, you would yet do well to take a few lessons of my little friend Phebe Lane."



CHAPTER VII.

TRIED AS BY FIRE.

"Gerald, what are you thinking of?"

"I was wondering how soon you would let us have the lamp."

"I'll get it immediately, if you like, but it's so pleasant talking in the twilight. I could spend hours contentedly sitting here so with you."

"How reprehensibly idle!"

"No, I should be learning something all the time. You have always something to teach me. Or if you didn't feel like talking, I could just sit still and hold your hand and not need any thing more."

Gerald put her hand instinctively out of reach. "I beg you won't try it. I hate having my hand held."

"Yes, I know you do. You hate being kissed, too. You hate being admired and made a fuss over. I don't suppose any thing would induce you to let me call you a pet name. O Gerald, I do wish you liked being loved!"

"But I do like it well enough. Of course every one likes being cared for and all that sort of thing. It's only the gushing and spooning and sentimentalizing that I can't endure. I never could, even as a child."

Phebe sat suddenly upright, away from Gerald. Perhaps even the mute caress of her attitude jarred upon her friend. "To me the half of being loved would be the being told so," she said. "I should never weary of hearing it said over and over again."

"Bah!" ejaculated Gerald, "it would make me sick!" She got up as if the very thought were too much for her, and going to the window stood still there looking out. Phebe followed her with her eyes.

"I am afraid you are fated to be deadly sick all your life through, Gerald. What will you do with your lovers?"

"Dismiss them."

"All?"

"All but one."

"What will you do with him?"

"Marry him, of course. That is what he will be there for, won't it? I expect to marry some one some time. Marriage makes a woman's life fuller and freer, though not necessarily happier. I want to get all into my life that I can."

"I wonder whom you will marry," mused Phebe, where she sat curled up on the sofa. "I wonder what he could be like. Gerald, how I should like to see you in love!"

"You won't see it," replied Gerald. "No one will ever see it. It wouldn't be my way to make a display of the insanity, supposing, that is, that I have it."

"I hope at least you will show it to him."

"Not overmuch even to him. He'll have to take it on faith. I haven't the faintest intention of informing any one of the state of my affections a dozen times a day. Once for all ought to be sufficient with the declaration, as it is with the marriage vow."

Phebe puckered up her forehead. "Ah, how different we are! If I am ever engaged to any one I shall want to keep telling him all the time how much I love him, for fear he wouldn't guess it."

"You will bore him to death then."

"I suppose I shall," replied Phebe, dejectedly. "I don't suppose any one living wants to be loved so much as I would want to love him. I couldn't be cool and deliberate and wise at loving as you would be. I should have to do it with my whole heart and just give myself up to it for good and all."

"That's the story-book way of loving," said Gerald. "I don't believe in it for real life. Blind adoration doesn't do either the lover or the loved any good. There should be sense in one's emotions as well as in one's opinions."

Phebe was silent a moment or two. "You are so self-possessed, and so self-controlled, Gerald," she said at last. "It must be very nice to have one's self so perfectly in command as you have. And yet I don't know. I think it would be rather nice too to find one's self suddenly under the power of some one a great deal better and stronger and wiser than one's self, who compelled one to love him, not because one would, but just because one could not help it."

The girls were alone in the sitting-room, Mrs. Lane having gone out to a neighbor's, taking Olly with her, and Miss Lydia not having yet appeared for her usual hour downstairs. It was a few days after the picnic, and was one of those suddenly cool August evenings that sometimes drop down so unexpectedly upon the summer heat, and a wood-fire lay upon the hearth ready to light at the invalid's coming. Phebe too sprang from the sofa as she spoke, as if her words had evoked too vivid a picture, and kneeling down by the hearth, applied a match. The bright flame leaped swiftly up and filled all the room with a flickering golden glow. Gerald turned in the window to watch it. How quickly it had flushed Phebe's cheeks, and how soft her eyes looked in its light!

"It's downright cruelty to spoil our first cool evening with a fire, Phebe, but I'll forgive you, it makes you look so pretty," she said, quite unconscious of her beauty as she stood against the dark background of the curtain in picturesque stateliness, her dress of soft cream-white cloth falling in clinging folds about her, and her clear pale face turned dreamily toward the light, which gleamed out in fitful reflection from the heavy gold ornaments at her throat and wrists.

"Ah, you do not see yourself!" murmured Phebe, looking adoringly back at her. "No one else could look pretty to you if you did."

"How foolish!" said Gerald, scornfully. "Pray don't let us begin bandying compliments back and forth. That's next worse to eternally discussing love. Why it is that two girls seem never able to talk together half an hour without lugging in that threadbare subject as if it were the one most important thing in the world, I don't understand."

"Well, isn't love the most important thing,—to women?" asked Phebe, sitting down on the floor to nurse the fire, her thin muslin making a little ripple of pretty lightness around her.

"No, it isn't," replied Gerald. "It may be to some few perhaps, but certainly not to all women. It isn't to me. It's one thing; not every thing; and not even the best thing. Knowledge is better, and goodness is better, and to come down to purely personal blessings, health is better, and so is common-sense better, and in the long run there are dozens of things infinitely better worth having and better worth aiming for. It's a good enough thing to have in addition, but as to its being the sum and substance, the Alpha and Omega, of any sensible woman's life, that's all foolishness. Let's have done with it and order in the lights. I want to get at Euclid again. It will never do for that conceited Yale brother of mine to get ahead of me. Shall I call to Nancy?"

"No use. The servants are out. Wait a moment till the fire is well started, and I'll bring in the lamp."

"The servants are out?" repeated Gerald. "Both? At the same time? Is that the way you keep house in Joppa?"

"Oh, they like running out together, and we never want any thing in the evenings, you know. The front door always stands ajar, and visitors let themselves in."

"And you make your own fires and bring in your own oily lamps; or do your evening guests assist you perhaps in lieu of the servants?"

"But we don't generally have fires," laughed Phebe, greatly amused at Gerald's disgust. "Only to-night it would be too chilly for Aunt Lydia here without one. I feel cool too. I was not so sensible as you, and put on too thin a dress. Isn't it a pretty blaze? Wait just till I throw on another log. How it snaps and crackles!"

"Take your time," said Gerald, turning back to the window. "But what a way to manage! Why should you hire servants, if you do their work for them?"

Phebe only laughed, and a little shower of sparks flew over her from the hearth as if the fire laughed too.

"It's being needlessly indulgent," pursued Gerald. "One can give servants proper liberties without making one's self a slave to their caprices. If you yield to them in one instance because it chances to be convenient, they'll certainly exact it of you another time when it is not convenient. Gracious heavens! Phebe, what is it?"

There was a sudden outburst of light behind her, and a sharp scream of mingled terror and pain, and she turned to find Phebe standing the centre of a pillar of fire. Her light dress had ignited from the flying sparks, and the devouring flames seemed to burst forth in a hundred places at once and rush exultantly together. Phebe gave another wild cry and started for the door in that blind agony of despair which seems to hasten people at such times to their doom, as if by aimless flight they could escape the awful demon who possesses them. Too horror-stricken to utter a sound, Gerald sprang at her, and seizing her with fearless hands, forced the poor struggling girl by main strength down on to the floor. No one near to help! No water at hand! Not so much as a rug or a shawl to throw over her and stifle the flames! Yes! there was the table-cover, heavy and thick, as if created for this very life-service. Gerald tore it off,—books, boxes, china cups, and glass vases crashing to the ground together,—and flinging it over Phebe, threw herself on top of it, pressing it close in every direction with hands and limbs, and smothering the flames resolutely beneath it. It was but a moment, though a moment of lifetime horror, and all was over. There was only the fire on the hearth hissing and leaping as if in anger at its defeated design.

"Phebe!" whispered Gerald, hoarsely; "Phebe!"

Phebe had ceased to struggle, and lay perfectly motionless, apparently scarcely breathing, but she opened her eyes and smiled faintly as Gerald called her. The fright and the pain had taken her speech away. She could not find it at once. But the smile gave new hope and energy to Gerald.

"Never mind talking," she exclaimed, springing briskly to her feet. "If you are only alive it's all right. Don't attempt to stir. I'll get some one."

"Aunt Lydia—don't let her know," Phebe managed to gasp.

"No, no, of all people!" cried Gerald. She paused an instant. Not a servant in the house! whom was she to summon? A vague idea seized her of running into the street and catching hold of the first passer, when at the moment the door opened, and Mr. Halloway appeared on the threshold.

"Is there any one at home? Shall I come in, please?" called the bright, cheery voice.

"Mr. Halloway! oh, thank Heaven!" And seizing him by the arm, Gerald dragged him over to where Phebe lay. "Help me to take her up-stairs to her room."

Denham staggered back unutterably shocked and horrified as he recognized the prostrate form at his feet, the fire-light playing mockingly over it and revealing the white face and loosened hair. For the instant he thought her dead. He caught his breath and put his hand up over his eyes. "My God! what has happened?"

"Her dress took fire—she is burned, no, not badly I am sure, but let us get her up-stairs without losing time. Quick!"

Denham put Gerald aside almost roughly, and stooping down lifted Phebe tenderly in his arms. She moaned as he touched her, but smiled up at him as she had done at Gerald.

"Do I hurt you, dear?" he asked, with infinite pity and tenderness in his voice. "I will be as gentle as I can. Poor child! poor child!"

"Let me help you," said Gerald. "The stairs are steep and I am very strong."

She came nearer, but he shook his head. "I need no help."

"This way, then," said Gerald, shortly. "And don't speak. Miss Lydia mustn't know."

She led the way to Phebe's room, and he followed slowly, laying his burden carefully down on the bed and arranging the pillows under her head with all of a woman's gentleness of touch.

"Now go for the doctor," ordered Gerald, turning to the bureau to light the candles. "Dr. Dennis. If he is out, Dr. Harrison. Only find some one immediately."

Denham lingered an instant, bending down over the bed.

"I thought we had lost you to-night, Phebe," he said, so low the words were but just audible. "God be thanked if only that you are still here!" And stooping nearer yet he added: "We could not let you go, dear child."

Gerald came anxiously back to the bedside as he left the room. "Are you in much pain now?" she asked, lifting off the heavy braid that lay across Phebe's bosom like a great rope of loosely twisted silk. "You do not think you are badly hurt, do you, dear?"

Phebe looked up at her, smiling strangely.

"Oh, Gerald," she whispered, while two big tears rolled slowly down on to the pillow, "I wish I might die to-night! I don't think I can ever be so happy again!"

"Nonsense!" said Gerald, with utmost sternness. "Don't talk about dying. I won't allow it." And then she suddenly put down her head beside Phebe's, and burst into tears.



CHAPTER VIII.

GERALD OBEYS ORDERS.

In an incredibly short time Denham brought back not only Dr. Dennis, whom he had caught just setting out for a stolen game of whist with Mr. Upjohn, during the absence of that gentleman's wife at prayer-meeting, but also Soeur Angelique, whose mere presence in a sick-room was more than half the cure. And then he sat in the dark, disordered room below, impatiently enough, anxiously waiting for news from Phebe. The time seemed to him interminable before at last the door opened, and Gerald entered, bearing a lamp. The vivid light, flung so full upon her, showed traces of passionate weeping; and her white dress all scorched and burned and hopelessly ruined, with the rich lace hanging in shreds from the sleeves, made her a startling contrast indeed to the usually calm, self-possessed, perfectly-dressed Gerald Vernor.

Denham sprang forward to take the heavy lamp from her. "How is she, please?"

Gerald started. "What, you here?"

"Did you think I could leave till I knew?"

"Oh, of course not, I had forgotten you. I was only thinking of Phebe."

"But how is she?"

"Better. She is burned about the shoulders and a little on the arms, but not seriously, and nothing that will disfigure. It is so fortunate. The doctor is still with her, but she is much easier now, and there is nothing to fear."

"Ah, what a relief! It seemed as if I should never hear. She is really in no danger then?"

"None."

"Thank God! As you came in you looked so distressed I feared—"

"When it was all over and there was nothing to cry about, I cried," interrupted Gerald. "Women are always fools. I'll except Mrs. Whittridge, however. She has been the greatest comfort to Phebe."

"It is Soeur Angelique's characteristic privilege always to be a comfort, I believe," answered Denham, recovering his light-heartedness in a flash. "Might I inquire if you have any especial object with this lamp? Shall I do any thing particularly with it?"

"Let it down, please—anywhere. I remembered the room was dark, and ran down to put it to rights before Mrs. Lane should comeback. Her orderly soul would have a spasm if she came upon it suddenly like this."

"It was well I had no light," said Denham, looking around him. "It would have frightened even me. Shan't I call some one?"

"It's the ridiculous fashion of the house to suppose it never needs servants at this hour. There's not one within reach."

"You must let me help you then. Is this the table-cover?"

"Thanks. I am afraid the fire has done for it, but we can't help that. Pull it a little farther to your side, please. Farther still. That's too far. So. That's right. Now the lamp here. Now the books. Cover up the holes with them."

"Ah, Miss Lydia's pet cup! and her little favorite statuette!"

"Hideous things! I'm glad they're smashed."

"Will you equally enjoy imparting to her the fact of their loss?"

"Somebody else may do that. I had my share telling her about Phebe."

"I suppose she was terribly shocked, poor old soul. I don't wonder."

"She had an instant attack of hysterics, and I did wonder," rejoined Gerald, tartly. "But as I told you, women are always fools, and nervous women the worst ones, I haven't any patience with them. I was vexed enough with her for keeping me from Phebe. I don't believe she was ever hurried so out of an attack before."

"I'm afraid there's need of a broom or something here, Miss Vernor. This vase is in a thousand pieces."

Gerald seized the hearth-brush and was on her knees by him in a moment. "The lamp, please, Mr. Halloway. Set it on the floor an instant."

Denham moved it as desired, and stood looking down at her as she began deftly brushing up the scattered bits.

"Miss Vernor!" he suddenly exclaimed in a shocked voice. The bright light, falling broadly across her hands, showed two great angry-red blotches just above one of the delicate wrists. He stooped and laid masterful hold of the long handle of the brush.

"Well?" she said, stopping perforce and looking up in surprise. "What is it?"

"Your arm—you are burned, badly burned."

Gerald made a little sound of contempt for all reply.

"It should be dressed at once. How it must pain you!"

Gerald looked at her arm reflectively. "I haven't had time to feel," she said, vainly trying to pull her sleeve over it. "It will make an ugly scar, won't it? I shall have to abandon elbow sleeves. Now please let go the brush."

"Miss Vernor, why should you be so cruel to yourself? Do go up to the doctor at once!"

"And take him away from Phebe? I will not. It won't hurt any more now than it has done already. I must ask you to let me have the brush, Mr. Halloway. I am losing time."

Halloway relinquished it without speaking, and went quietly out of the room, and Gerald unconcernedly resumed her work, scarcely pausing to wonder where he had gone or what he intended. He returned just as she had finished, and lifting the lamp back to the table, called to her: "Will you come here, please?"

"What in the world have you there?" she inquired, coming up to him in sheer curiosity.

"Soap. I found the way to the kitchen, you see. I had to bring the water in this tin thing. I didn't know where to look for a cup."

"Pray what is it for?"

"For you. Soap is good for burns. Will you let me take your hand, please?"

Gerald put the wounded member behind her. "Thank you. I neither require nor desire assistance."

"Pardon me, you do require it, and if you refuse to see the doctor—"

"Is that any reason why I should resort to you—and kitchen soap?"

"I grant it is a very homely remedy, Miss Vernor, but it is an excellent one and the only one I know."

"I daresay. It is one more than I know of."

"You will not try it?"

"No."

"Perhaps you are afraid of the pain attending the dressing?"

It was a masterly stroke. Gerald gave him one look of intense scorn, almost of anger, and immediately reached out her hand. "I am afraid of nothing—not even of your lack of skill."

Denham took her hand without further ceremony, and holding it firmly, pushed back the hanging lace from her arm and began rubbing the soap over the burns, without so much as a word of pity for the pain he knew he was giving her. She winced involuntarily at the first touch, but set her teeth tightly lest she should cry out. It hurt her cruelly. "I was not aware before that the custody of souls extended to that of the temples they inhabit," she said, when she could command herself sufficiently to assume a supreme indifference of tone. "You believe in purely household remedies, I see."

"I believe always in doing what I can with what means I have. One moment more, please. I am not quite through."

Gerald held out her hand again. "Perhaps you had better try sandstone on it this time, or a little burning oil."

Halloway did not answer, but hastily tearing his handkerchief into strips, bound the arm as closely as he could. "There," he said, surveying the bandages critically, and inwardly well pleased with his success; "at least that will do till you can see the doctor."

"Are you sure you are quite through now?" asked Gerald, in mock submission. "You don't think it necessary to put the arm in a splint, or to fasten weights to it, or to amputate the first joint of the thumb?"

"I am sorry to say that is all I know how to do for you, Miss Vernor."

"Then I will go back to Miss Lydia. By the way, would you recommend soap also for hysterics?"

"Applied with a close bandage over the mouth? Certainly, it will be both effectual and immediate."

"Thank you. Good-night."

"Will you not shake hands with me?"

Gerald turned as she was moving off and held out her hand, more as a queen might have extended it in motion of dismissal than as friend to friend. Denham took it between both his. "Before you go, I want to thank you in the name of all Miss Phebe's friends," he said, earnestly. "You have saved her life to-night, and at the risk of your own."

"The table-cloth was her savior, not I," returned Gerald, lightly, but with a softened voice. "And anyway, is it not quite thanks enough only to know that Phebe is safe? Now good-night in earnest."



CHAPTER IX.

JOPPA'S MINISTRATIONS TO THE SICK.

All news, good, bad, and indifferent, flies equally fast in Joppa; and had there been a town-crier deputed for the purpose, Phebe's accident could not have sooner become a household tale in even the most distant districts of the place. After a contradiction of the first rumor, reporting her burned to a crisp and only recognizable by a ring of her mother's on her left hand,—which ring by-the-way she never wore,—and after a contradiction in due course of the second rumor, reporting Gerald to be lying in the agonies of death and Phebe to have escaped without a hair singed, followed a period of dire uncertainty, when nobody knew what to believe, and felt only an obstinate conviction that everybody else had got it entirely wrong. But at last the story straightened itself out into something bearing a family resemblance to actual facts, and then Joppa settled itself resolutely down to doing its duty. My duty toward my sick neighbor in Joppa consists in calling twice a day, if not oftener, at his house; in inquiring after his condition down to minutest and most sacred details; in knowing accurately how many hours he slept last night, and what he ate for breakfast, and what is paid the sick-nurse, and if it includes her washing. My second duty toward my sick neighbor is to bring him something to eat, on the supposition that "outside things taste differently;" or something to look at; or, if nothing better, at least something to refuse. My third and last duty toward my neighbor,—the well neighbor who possesses the sick one,—is to narrate every somewhat similar case on record, with all its circumstances and the ultimate career of the sufferer; to prescribe remedies as infallible as the Pope; to disapprove wholly, and on the best grounds, of those in actual use; to offer every assistance in and out of my power; and to say at leaving that I hope it may all turn out well, but that I should have called in the other doctor. Joppa had learned by heart its duty toward its neighbor from its earliest, stammering infancy, and it adhered strictly to the path therein marked out. It inquired after Phebe diligently; it thoroughly mastered all possible intricacies of her case; it made her gifts digestible and indigestible; and it said that, by all odds, it was Dr. Harrison who should have attended her from the first. Dr. Dennis took very good care of her, nevertheless, and it was not long before he pronounced that all she needed was quiet and rest to complete the cure.

"We shall have her out of bed in a few days now, Mrs. Lane; in a week or so perhaps," he said, as he passed out at the front door where Mrs. Lane was standing talking with Mrs. Hardcastle. "She is doing very well, as well as I could wish. All she needs is rest. Keep her perfectly quiet." And the doctor bowed himself off, first politely inquiring of Mrs. Hardcastle after her husband's gout and her own dyspepsia.

"He is a fair-spoken man, certainly, very," said Mrs. Hardcastle, "though I won't say that I shouldn't prefer Dr. Harrison in the long run as surest to bring his patient through. I think I'll just go up with this myself to Phebe, Mrs. Lane. I suppose she's longing for visitors by now, poor soul!"

"Well, I dare say. You know her room,—just at the head of the stairs. Go right up, and I'll step out to market."

"Now, my dear," said Mrs. Hardcastle, rustling into Phebe's room, "I thought I would come up and have a look at you myself to make sure how you were. No, don't move. You do look pale, but that's all. Glad to see your pretty face isn't harmed. Why, I heard one whole side of it was about burned off. I've brought you some wine-jelly, my dear."

"She had a lot yesterday, Pheeb did," said Olly, who was curled up with a geography in a corner of the room and furtively cutting Europe out of the maps. "She doesn't need any more."

"Oh, but this is some of my own make. This is quite different from anybody else's," declared Mrs. Hardcastle. "Phebe remembers my jelly of old, don't you, dear?"

Phebe smiled faintly. All she remembered at the moment was being invariably requested by the good lady to come and make it for her whenever she gave a party.

"I thought I heard talking and so I ventured to come up too," said a timid voice, and Miss Delano tiptoed softly in. "Phebe, my dear child, my dear child!" and the soft-hearted little old maid stooped to kiss Phebe's pale cheek, and straightway began to whimper.

"Come, none of that," said Mrs. Upjohn's peremptory tones, as that lady swept into the little room, seeming to fill it all to overflowing. "I met the doctor just now and he said Phebe was to be kept perfectly quiet. Don't let's have any weeping over her. She wants cheering up, and she isn't quite dead yet, you know, though really the evening before last, Phebe, I heard that you weren't expected to live the night through."

"How ridiculous!" said Gerald, impatiently. "Miss Delano, will you have a chair?"

"Thank you, no, dear. I'll just sit here on the bed," said the little old dame, humbly, anxious not to make any one any trouble. "O Phebe, my dear!"

Phebe smiled at her affectionately, and Mrs. Hardcastle, who was on the point of leaving when Mrs. Upjohn came in, sat down again to ask that lady about the character of a servant whom she had just engaged.

"I thought I should have died when I heard it," said Miss Delano, patting Phebe's cheek. "Poor dear, poor dear! And they say you won't ever be able to walk again!"

"Who says that?" asked Phebe, laughing. "I shall be a terrible disappointment to them."

"'Tain't her legs at all; it's her shoulders," said Olly, as he emerged from his corner, chewing Europe into a pasteboard bull. "What have you got in that paper?"

"Oh, the blessed child, and I was forgetting it. My dear, it's just a little sponge-cake I made free to bring you, it turned out so light. Don't you think you could eat a bit perhaps?"

"My, but it looks good!" said Olly, approaching a hungry finger and poking at it softly. "I'll get a knife."

"I hope you don't allow any such trash as that about, Miss Vernor," said Mrs. Upjohn, sharply, in the middle of her discussion of Jane's demerits. "Phebe ought to be exceedingly careful what she eats for a great while to come. It's doubtful, indeed, whether her stomach ever recovers its tone after such a shock. I knew one woman who died just of the shock alone some two months after precisely such an accident as this, when everybody thought she had got well, and Phebe must be very careful. Her appetite is not to be tempted, but guided."

"Well, ladies, I must be going," announced Mrs. Hardcastle, rising. "You really think I am safe, then, in engaging her, Mrs. Upjohn?" But just then Mrs. Dexter came in with two of her daughters, and Mrs. Hardcastle sat down again.

"There was no one downstairs, and as the doctor says Phebe is so much better, we thought we might just come up," said the new comer. "Why, Phebe, you are as blooming as a rose, and I understood you had lost all your pretty hair. I've brought you some grapes, my dear, and a jar of extra fine brandy peaches, and little Maggie insisted on sending some molasses candy she had just made."

"Well, well, I did look for more sense from you," said Mrs. Upjohn, tapping Mrs. Dexter rather smartly on the shoulder. "Where'll you sit? Oh, on the bed. Yes, Phebe's had a narrow escape, and one she'll likely bear the marks of to her dying day. Let it be a warning to you, young ladies, to be prepared. There's no knowing how soon some one of you may not be carried off in the same way,—just as you are dressed for a dance, maybe." Her tone implied that death could not overtake them at a more sinful moment.

"Hullo, up there! I say!" shouted a voice in the hall below, "how's Phebe?"

"Oh, it's Dick!" cried the Dexter girls in a breath. "You can't come up, Dick."

"Ain't a-going to. But a fellow can speak, can't he, without his body a-following his voice? How's Phebe?"

"She's splendid."

"What's the doctor say?"

"He says she only needs to be kept perfectly quiet."

"Hooray!" said Dick, and apparently executed a war-dance on the oil-cloth, while Olly profited by the general hubbub created by the entrance of two more ladies, to satisfactorily investigate the sponge-cake.

"Why, quite a levee, isn't it, Phebe?" said one of the last arrivals, looking in vain for a chair, and forced to seat herself on a low table, accidentally upsetting Phebe's medicines as she did so.

"Yes, altogether too much of one," said Gerald, knitting her brows as she rescued a bottle just in time, and darted an angry glance around the crowded room. "Phebe isn't at all equal to it yet."

"You are right, Miss Vernor," agreed Mrs. Upjohn, drawing out her tatting from her pocket, and settling herself at it with an answering frown. "There are quite too many here. Some people never know when to stay away."

"Oh, there's Bell. I hear her voice," called Mattie, running to look over the banisters. "She's got both Mr. De Forest and Mr. Moulton with her."

There was a sound of many voices below, a giggling, a rush for the stairs, and a playful scuffle.

"It's me" (Bell's voice); "Dick won't let me pass."

"Me is Bell" (Dick's voice); "she wouldn't pass if she could. Too many fellows down here for her to want to leave 'em. Send us down a girl or two from up there, can't you?"

A girl or two, however, apparently appeared from outside, greetings were called up to Phebe, offerings of flowers and delicacies transmitted via Dick on the stairs to Olly at the top (who took toll by the way), and the liveliest kind of a time went on. It was quite like a party, Dick shouted up, only that there was no ice-cream and a singular scarcity of girls.

"It's a shame," said Mrs. Upjohn, severely, in her chair, while Gerald held her peace, too wrathful to speak, and conscious of her inability to mend matters. "I should think people might have sense enough not to crowd all the air out of a sick-room in this fashion."

"It's exceedingly inconsiderate of them, I am sure," answered Mrs. Hardcastle, drawing a sofa cushion behind her back. "She ought to be so quiet."

"Phebe!" shouted Dick. "Here's the parson. He wants to know if you're dead yet. Shan't I send him up? It will be all right, you know, quite the thing. He's a parson, and wears a gown on Sundays."

"Dick, Dick!" screamed his mother. "Was there ever such a lad!"

"He's coming. Get ready for him. Have out your Prayer-books," called Dick.

Phebe flushed crimson, and looked imploringly at Gerald. An indignant murmur ran through the room. Mrs. Upjohn drew herself up to her severest height. "What shameless impertinence! How dare he intrude!" A shout of unholy laughter downstairs followed Dick's sally.

"Mr. Halloway isn't there at all," cried Olly, his fine, clear-voice pitched high above the rest, "He only asked about Pheeb at the door, and went right off."

"Well, he left this for her with his compliments, and this, and this," called Dick, rummaging in his pockets, and tossing up an apple, and then a hickory nut, and last a good-sized and dangerously ripe tomato. Olly caught them dexterously with a yell of delight, and was immediately rushed at by three of the nearest ladies and ordered not to make a noise, for Phebe was to be kept perfectly quiet.

"Such doings would never be permitted a moment if she had only been in Dr. Harrison's hands," said Mrs. Upjohn, in denunciatory tones. "He would have forbidden her to see any one. It is scandalous."

"It is outrageous," added Mrs. Hardcastle. "Most inconsiderate."

"Ah, I can't get over it that it isn't your legs, poor dear!" murmured Miss Delano, still plaintively overcome. "And you will walk, after all?"

"Dr. Dennis is an excellent physician," said Mrs. Dexter, somewhat defiantly. It was impossible not to enter the lists against Mrs. Upjohn. This last lady was immediately up in arms, and a heated discussion as to the respective skill of the two practitioners took place, everybody gradually taking sides with one or the other of the leaders, and forgetting both poor exhausted Phebe and the noise downstairs, which finally culminated in a rousing lullaby led by Bell, and lustily seconded by half a dozen others:

"Slumber on, Phebe dear; Do not hear us fellows sigh!"

The song, however, suddenly stopped in the midst. Some one seemed speaking very low and softly, and neither the chorus nor the laughter nor the tumult was resumed. Phebe drew a deep breath. Was relief really coming at last? Yes. Soeur Angelique stood in the door-way.

"Will you excuse me, ladies," she said, in that soft, irresistible voice of hers, as she laid aside bonnet and shawl in a quiet, business-like way. "I came to relieve Miss Vernor and play nurse for a while, and I think Phebe looks as if she needed a little sleep. If you will kindly take leave of her, I will darken the room at once."

She stood so evidently waiting for them to go, that in a few moments they all found themselves somehow or other outside the door, with Gerald politely escorting them down-stairs, and Olly dancing joyously ahead, crying that Mr. Halloway had sent for him to the rectory. Left mistress of the situation, Mrs. Whittridge proceeded to draw down the shades, straighten the chairs, smooth the bedclothes and rearrange the pillows, all with the noiseless, graceful movements peculiar to her. Then she drew a low chair up to the bedside, and laid her cool hand soothingly on Phebe's forehead. A great peace seemed suddenly to fill the room.

"Now, my darling, you must sleep. Between them they have quite worn you out."

"Who told you I needed you?" asked Phebe, drawing the gentle hand down to her lips. "How did you happen to come just when I wanted you so?"

"Denham sent me over," answered Soeur Angelique. "He thought perhaps I could make it a little quieter for you."

"Ah," murmured Phebe. A faint tinge crept up into her white cheeks. She turned her head away and closed her eyes. "I knew it was he who sent you."



CHAPTER X.

AN APOLOGY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

It was some days after Phebe's accident before Halloway saw Gerald again. She was generally upstairs when he called, or driving or sailing with De Forest, who was in daily attendance upon her, paying her persistent, blase devotion. She was in the parlor one evening, however, sitting with De Forest near the door, when Denham came in, but he merely bowed to her and passed on to the other end of the room, where Mrs. Lane was seated with Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle. Mr. Hardcastle rose at once to receive him. "Ah, good-evening, good-evening. Pray take a seat. I am delighted to see you. I suppose you came to ask after our little invalid. Sad accident, sir; sad accident, very. It has kept us most anxious and busy seeing after her. But she is doing nicely now. We shall have her about again before we know it." He spoke as if her recovery were altogether due to himself, for the regularity with which he had fulfilled his neighborly duties toward her, and he paused and looked at Halloway for a recognition of the same.

"It will be a bright day for us all when we have her among us once more," Halloway said in answer to the look. "You must tell her how much we miss her, Mrs. Lane."

"Ah, that we do," murmured Mrs. Hardcastle. "My knitting has been at a standstill ever since the poor dear child's misfortune. I have been so thankful her hands were spared. There's always some cause for gratitude in every evil, after all."

"That's one way of looking at it," said Mrs. Lane, turning up the lamp and drawing her work-basket nearer. "The Lord make us thankful for all our mercies, but a misfortune's a misfortune, and I don't know as we're called upon to look at it as any thing else. Won't you sit down, Mr. Halloway?"

"Thank you, not this evening. It is nearly time for service. I only wanted to know that Miss Phebe was doing well."

Mr. Hardcastle rose again to bow off the guest. "Sorry you can't stay, sir. In spite of our difference of faith,—and how great it is I am in hopes you will appreciate some day when you have come to see the errors of the way you are walking in,—in spite of our material differences, I say, you are always very welcome at any time. But pray don't let us detain you from what you deem your duty."

"Mr. Halloway, a moment, please," said Gerald, rising as he was going by. He stopped, and she came toward him holding out her hand. "I want to thank you for your kindness of the other night. I believe I was ungrateful and perhaps rude at the time, and I have not seen you since to apologize."

"Pray do not speak of it!" said Denham, flushing a little as he took her hand. "There was no occasion whatever for gratitude, and therefore no possible lack of it. I trust you are quite well now."

"There was occasion for gratitude," persisted Gerald, "or at least for an acknowledgment of your kindness, and it is because I am ashamed of my remissness that I take this first opportunity to thank you."

"You embarrass me," said Denham, laughingly. "I am not at all accustomed to having public restitution made me in this manner, and especially for purely imaginary slights. But may I not be permitted now—as a sort of reward if you will—to inquire if you have quite recovered?"

"At least I have sufficiently recovered to retract my disbelief in kitchen soap, and—and in your skill," she added, with a little visible effort.

"You honor us above our deserts,—the soap and me," answered Denham, playfully. "I don't know how deleteriously it may affect the soap, but as for me I feel myself growing alarmingly conceited. So good-night."

"What a very elaborate apology," said De Forest, as Denham went out. "If the offence were at all proportionate, I tremble to think of the enormity of your crime; or is it because he is a Reverend, that you demean yourself so humbly before him?"

Halloway was still hunting for his hat in the hall, and could scarcely help overhearing De Forest's remark and Gerald's answer.

"I demean myself before nobody in seeking to make amends for a previous neglect. The humiliation is in the misconduct, not in the confession of it; and whether I owed the apology to Mr. Halloway or to a beggar in the street, I should have made it quite the same, not at all for sake of his pardon, but simply for sake of clearing my own conscience."

"Not at all for sake of my pardon," said Denham, as he strode on toward the church, with the uncomfortable sensation of having been an involuntary eavesdropper. "It is fortunate that my conceit was only veneered on."

The following Sunday Gerald was in church both morning and evening, sitting in Phebe's accustomed place. She was one of those noticeable presences impossible to overlook, and as Denham mounted into the pulpit he felt as if he were preaching solely to her, or rather as if hers were the only criticism he feared in all the friendly congregation. He was annoyed that he should feel so, and quite conscious at the same time that he was far from doing his best, and once or twice he caught a flash in the serious eyes fastened on his face, that seemed to say she knew this last fact too, and was impatient with him for it. What excuse had any one, in Gerald's eyes, for not doing his best always? De Forest was with her in the evening, and as Halloway came out of the vestry after service, he found himself directly behind them.

"He's not a mighty orator," De Forest was saying with his cynical drawl. "I doubt if he is destined to be one of the pillars or even one of the cushions of the church."

"He was not doing his best to-night," answered Gerald.

"Thank you," said Halloway, coming quickly to her side, anxious to avoid further eavesdropping. "Thank you—I mean for thinking I might do better."

"That is not much to be grateful for, I am afraid," replied Gerald, "since it implies, you know, that you have not done well."

"I hope you like uncompromising truth, Mr. Halloway," said De Forest, leaning forward to look at him across Gerald. "It's the only kind Miss Vernor deals in."

"I prefer it infinitely to the most flattering falsehood imaginable," answered Denham.

"I believe clergymen are usually the last people to hear the truth about themselves," continued Gerald. "Their position at the head of a community, pre-supposes their capability for the office, and naturally places them outside of the criticism of those under their immediate charge, who are nevertheless just the ones best qualified to judge them. But of course scholars may not teach the teacher."

"What an invaluable opening for you who are not one of Mr. Halloway's flock," said De Forest, "to undertake to remedy the deficiency, and to be in yourself a whole critical public to him, a licensed Free Press as it were, pointing out all his errors with the most unhesitating frankness and unsparing perspicuity!"

"Do you think your love of truth would hold out long under such a crucial test?" asked Gerald, turning quite seriously to Denham. The moonlight shone full on her clear-cut, cameo-like face. Her eyes, with their shadowy fringe, looked deeper and blacker than midnight. It did not seem possible that truth spoken by her could be any thing but beautiful too. Denham smiled down at her seriousness.

"Try me."

"Well, then, it seems to me you do not often enough try to do your best. You are contented to do well, and not ambitious to do better. You are quite satisfied, so I think, if your sermons are good enough to please generally, instead of seeking to raise your standard all the time by hard effort toward improvement, and I doubt, therefore, if at the end of a year your sermons will show any marked change from what they are to-day. Am I too hard?"

"You are very just," answered Denham, pleasantly, though the blood mounted to his face. "You have found out my weak spot. I confess I am not ambitious. I aspire to no greatness of any kind."

"You have discovered the secret of contentment," said De Forest, with effusive approbation. "I am glad to have met you, Mr. Halloway. You are the one happy man I know."

"The secret of contentment?" repeated Gerald. "Say rather the principle of all stagnation, mental and spiritual. Not to aspire to become greater than one can be is to fall short of becoming all that one may be; to be satisfied with one's powers is to dwarf them hopelessly."

"A powerful argument against conceit," reflected De Forest. "Still, upon my word, I think I would as lief be conceited in every pore as eternally in a state of dissatisfaction with myself about every thing."

"It is well, above all, I think, to have a just appreciation of one's own powers or lack of powers," said Denham, slowly. "Ambition, without the corresponding strength to gratify it, is a cruel taskmaster."

"How can you tell, till you have tried, that there is no corresponding strength?" asked Gerald, turning full upon him again. How marvellously expressive her face was, with its earnest eyes and mobile mouth! "If I were a man,—and great heavens! how I wish I were one!—I would create the strength if it were not there of itself. I would force myself upward. I would never rest till I had become something more than nature originally made me."

"Then Heaven be thanked, who has spared us the monstrosity you would have developed into under the harrowing circumstances of a reversal of your sex," said De Forest, devoutly.

"I was always glad you were a woman. Now I am positively aglow with gratitude for it."

Denham was silent. They had reached Mrs. Lane's now, and Gerald and her cavalier paused.

"I have not hurt you, Mr. Halloway, have I?" said Gerald, more gently. "I know I sometimes speak strongly where I am least qualified to do so."

"A very womanly trait," put in De Forest. "Don't apologize for your one redeeming weakness."

"No, you have not hurt me," said Denham, in a low voice. "I hope you have done me good." And without adding even a good-night or a message for Phebe, he lifted his hat and crossed over to the rectory. His sister was not there as he entered her sitting-room, and throwing himself down on the sofa, clasped his hands over his forehead and stared thoughtfully up at the ceiling. She had been sitting with Phebe while the Lane household went to its various churches, Phebe was tired, in consequence of the entire population of Joppa having run in to ask after her between services "on their way home," and she was not talking much. But only to look up and smile into Soeur Angelique's sweet face was pleasure enough for the girl, and she lay very quietly, holding a rose that Denham had sent her over by his sister, and feeling supremely contented.

"How would you like me to read to you?" asked Mrs. Whittridge at last, taking up a book. "Shall I try it?"

"No, thank you. I am afraid my thoughts would be louder than your words, and I should be listening to them and losing what you are saying."

"And, pray, what are these remarkably noisy thoughts?" asked the lady. "Let me listen and hear them too."

"I don't think I could say just what they are," replied Phebe, dreamily. "They are running through my head more like indistinct music than like real thoughts. And I never was clever at saying things, you know. But, oh! I do feel very happy."

"You look so," said Soeur Angelique, tenderly. "You poor little one, is it just the getting well again that makes you so?"

Phebe flushed ever so slightly. "I don't know just what it is," she answered, lifting the rose to her face. "Perhaps it is only the listening to that indistinct music. It seems to have put all my soul in tune. Oh, dear Mrs. Whittridge, what a beautiful world this is, when only there are no discords in one's own heart!"

A day or two went by, and Phebe, though rapidly convalescing, was still a prisoner to her room.

"You're missing a lot of fun," said Bell Masters, sympathetically, as she bustled in to see her one morning, and sat down by the window, pushing back the curtain so that she could look out into the street and nod to passers as she talked. "There's no end going on. Dear me, it's a shame to come to you empty-handed, Phebe. I had two or three rosebuds for you,—beauties they were too,—but the fact is I gave them away piecemeal as I came along, and I haven't one left. It seemed as if I met every man there was this morning. How soon do you think you'll be out again?"

"I don't know," answered Phebe, pushing a box of bonbons within reach of Bell's easy-going fingers. "I think I might go down-stairs now, but Dr. Dennis won't let me."

"Too bad. You'll miss Dick's coming of age, won't you? There are to be high doings. Mr. Hardcastle is too mysterious and pompous to live. One can't get any thing out of him but just 'My son Dick doesn't come of age but once' (as if we thought it was a yearly occurrence), 'and we don't celebrate it but once.' But I got hold of Dick privately and wheedled it out of him in less than no time with a piece of soft gingerbread. It's to be something stunning. His father wanted to do it up in English style, dinner to the tenantry, and all that sort of thing, only unluckily there wasn't any tenantry, and he had to abandon the benevolent role and take to a jollier one. He won't show off as well, but we'll have a deal more fun. It's to be a sort of royal picnic, but in the evening, mind,—wasn't that a brilliant idea for the old gentleman? We are all to go up in boats, and there are to be great rafts with blazing torches, and a supper in the woods grander than any of Mrs. Upjohn's, and bonfires, and the band from Galilee, and bouquets for the ladies, and I don't know what not, and best of all, unlimited opportunities for flirting. It's to be the affair of this and every other season past or future. It's a crying shame you can't go."

"Oh! how I wish I could!" sighed poor Phebe.

"I made pa give me a new dress for it," continued Bell, leaning forward to pick off the biggest grapes from a bunch on the table. "I mean to look just too-too. Mr. De Forest is going to row me up. I don't know exactly how I made him ask me, but I did. It's such a triumph to get him away from Miss Vernor for once, though I suspect I'll have to pay for it by doing more than half the rowing myself. I don't suppose he would exert his precious self to pull an oar more than five minutes at a time. Amy tried her best to get Mr. Halloway, and so did the Dexters. The way those girls run after him is a caution even to me; but they didn't get him. He's monstrously clever in keeping out of people's clutches. I gave him up long ago as a bad job. Well, good-by, Phebe. Awfully sorry you can't go. Everybody'll be there, and it's to be the biggest lark out."

During the few days that intervened before Dick's birthday, little else was talked of anywhere than Mr. Hardcastle's party, which was never spoken of, by the way, as Mrs. Hardcastle's party, though upon that good lady devolved the onus of the weighty preparations. It seemed purely Mr. Hardcastle's affair, just as every thing did in which he was in any way concerned. Impromptu meetings were held at every house in turn to discuss the coming event, and the latest bits of information regarding it were retailed with embellishments proportionate to the imagination of the accidental narrator. Not a soul in Joppa but knew every proposed feature of the entertainment better than the hosts themselves. The old people said it would be damp and rheumatic and would certainly be the death of them. The young people said it would be divine, and quite worth dying for. The people who were neither old nor young said nobody could tell how it would be till after it was over, and they felt it their duty to go to look after the others. The day came, brilliantly clear and soft and warm: such a day, in short, as Mr. Hardcastle had felt to be his due, and had expected of the elements all along as the one token of regard in their power to accord him, and he accepted his friends' congratulations upon it with a grave bow which seemed to say: "I ordered it so. Pray, did you suppose I had forgotten to attend to the weather?" The sun set in a cloudless heaven; the evening star hung quivering over the green-topped hills; the twilight dropped noiseless and fragrant over earth and water, and the long-dreamed-of moment had arrived at last.

"Just let me have one more look at you, Gerald, before you start," said Phebe, wistfully. "Oh, how beautiful you look! Nobody's dresses ever fit like yours, and that great dark-red hat and feather,—I thought I should not like it,—but it makes a perfect picture of you."

"For pity's sake do stop!" begged Gerald. "You know of all things I hate compliments. Where's that boy Olly?"

"He's coming to me later. I promised to make up to him for his not going to the party, poor little fellow."

"Phebe, dear," said Gerald, suddenly stooping to give her one of her rare kisses, "I cannot bear to leave you all alone so. That miserable Miss Lydia and Olly aren't any sort of company. Let me stay with you. I had a great deal rather."

"Oh, no, no, no!" cried Phebe, almost pushing her toward the door. "I don't mind a bit being left, and I wouldn't have you stay for anything. How lovely of you to propose it! You are an angel, Gerald, even though you don't like being told so, Good-by. And—Gerald,"—she had followed her friend out into the hall, and stood leaning against the banisters,—"Gerald, dear, will you tell Mr. Halloway I am going down-stairs to-morrow?"

Halloway was to be Gerald's escort that evening, and stood waiting for her now in the hall below, and looking up at sound of Phebe's voice, he gave an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, and immediately sprang up the stairs.

"Miss Phebe!" he said, taking both her hands in his. "How glad I am to see you once more!"

Phebe shrank back from him with a little cry of dismay. Ah! when does ever any thing happen exactly as we plan it shall? She had pictured this meeting to herself over and over again during the long days of her seclusion,—just what he would say and what she would say, and just how she would dress on that first day when she went down-stairs. She meant to look so particularly nice on that first day! And now to be caught in her plain little gray flannel wrapper with its simple red trimmings, her hair all loose and mussy, and even her very oldest slippers on,—and with Gerald standing beside her in her rich, dainty, becoming attire as if to make the contrast all the more painfully striking! Poor little Cinderella Phebe! She looked up at Denham almost ready to cry, and said never a word.

"It has been such a long, long time!" he said, still holding her hands. "I do not know how we have made out to spare you."

"We shall not have to spare her much longer," said Gerald. "She is coming down-stairs to-morrow."

And then Halloway dropped Phebe's hands, and turning to Gerald, held out a hand to her.

"Forgive me for not even noticing you, Miss Vernor. At first I could only see Miss Phebe."

"Doesn't Gerald look nice?" asked Phebe, trying to choke back the uncomfortable lump rising so unreasonably in her throat. Halloway moved back a little and looked at Gerald, who stood fastening her long glove, utterly unconscious or unheedful of his scrutiny. The light in the niche at the head of the stairs threw its full glow over both her and Phebe.

"Yes," he answered, quietly, after an imperceptible pause, and, as he turned back to Phebe, it seemed to her that his eyes glanced over her with a suddenly awakened consciousness of the wrapper and the tumbled hair and even of the little worn-out slippers. "You look pale," he said, kindly. "I know I am wrong to keep you standing here just because it is so pleasant to see you again. And it is easier to say good-by, knowing I have only till to-morrow to wait now. A demain."

"Good-night," murmured Phebe, without looking up; "good-night, Gerald." And then she turned quickly into her room, and closed the door, and stood stock-still behind it, holding her breath and listening intently till she heard the front door close upon them and the last echo of their footsteps die away in the street outside. Then she flung herself face downward upon the bed and cried miserably to herself out of sheer disappointment. Why did it have to be all so very, very different from her dream?



CHAPTER XI.

"MY SON DICK."

Never had there been a more perfect night than that whereon Dick Hardcastle's coming of age was celebrated. Only enough wind stirred to toy softly with the gay little pennons streaming from the many boats winding their way to the rendezvous, and to throw dancing shadows of light upon the water from the torches at their prow. All along the banks of the lake, where high hills shut out the moonlight and bound the shore in an almost Egyptian darkness, rafts were stationed at intervals, blazing with colored lights. The sound of distant music floated far down upon the air, mingled with the swish of steady oars and laughter and happy voices as the occupants of the various boats called out merrily to each other across the water, or here and there broke into light-hearted song. Denham's boat glided stilly along through all this carnival-like revelry. Gerald was not in a mood for talking, and he felt little inclined to disturb her. It was companionship enough merely to glance at her ever and anon as she sat silently in the stern, the red ropes of the tiller drawn loosely around her slender waist like a silken girdle. He wondered idly what she was thinking of. Her broad hat threw too deep a shadow for him to see her face save when they neared one of the beacon rafts; then it was suddenly in brilliant illumination, and it was impossible not to watch for these moments of revelation, which lit her up to such rare beauty. He fancied he could almost see her thoughts as there flashed across her face some new, swift expression more speaking than words,—now a noble thought, he was sure; now an odd fancy, now a serious meditative mood, that held her every sense and faculty in thrall at once. Through all her revery she never forgot her duty with the rudder, though she quite forgot her oarsman. She made no effort whatever toward his entertainment, and he felt sure that he could do no more toward hers than simply not to obtrude himself upon her. Were there many, he wondered, even among her chosen friends (in whose ranks he could not count himself), who would have enjoyed this silent sail with her so much as he? They neared the destined spot all too soon for him, and Gerald at last roused herself.

"Are we there now? I had no idea it was so far."

"It is not far enough," answered Denham, resting a moment on his oars as he looked around. "Nothing surely can be devised, even in this pleasure-ingenious society, so enjoyable as I have found our evening sail."

"Why do you go to the party at all then?" asked Gerald, abruptly. "It isn't compulsory, is it? After you land me, are you not at liberty to row off if you prefer?"

"Ah, but I don't prefer," Halloway said gayly, resuming his oars. "I expect to be very greatly entertained there too. There is almost always something to be got out of every thing, and anyway I particularly like parties."

"I hate them."

"Yes, because you do not care for people. I like them just because I do care for people, and parties are but people collectively instead of individually, you know."

By this time Denham had shot the boat up to the landing, where the hosts of the evening stood ready to receive them. Dick was in a wild state of boyish hilarity, profiting by the novelty of his exalted position as hero of the evening, boldly to take a kiss from every pretty girl in succession as he swung her to the shore. "It's my right, to-night, you know, or if it isn't, I'm major now and can make laws for myself," he explained complacently to any expostulatory subject; and Mr. Hardcastle rubbed his soft, plump hands, and added: "Never you mind, never you mind, my dear; every dog must have his day, and this is Dick's day. And after all it's my son Dick, you know, and that makes it all right. He doesn't need any other guaranty than that he's my son, I'm sure, and seeing I'm Dick's papa, my dear, why I'll just make bold to follow suit."

But Dick would as soon have thought of offering to kiss the polar star as Gerald, and she was suffered to pass on unmolested to Mrs. Hardcastle, who stood just beyond, looking fagged and jaded, and as if she were heartily thankful that in all his life Dick could never come of age again. One of the next arrivals was Bell Masters, very fine in her new dress, but flushed and overheated to an unbecoming degree. She rowed up smartly, shipped her oars in true nautical fashion, sprang from the boat, and held out her hand to her companion with a hardly repressed sneer: "Pray allow me to assist you, Mr. De Forest."

That gentleman got up leisurely from his cushioned seat in the stern, and came forward cool and comfortable to an enviable degree. "Thanks," he said, with even a little more drawl than usual as he took her proffered hand. "This boat is a little teetery. You are uncommonly kind, and quite a champion oarswoman."

"You ought to be a judge of my powers by this time certainly," said Bell, snappishly. She had rowed the entire distance from Joppa unaided.

"Yes, I flatter myself that I am. People can always judge best of what they don't do themselves. And I will say that you do row well—uncommonly well—for a woman. I don't know a girl, except Miss Vernor, fit to pull stroke oar to you. Ah, Mr. Hardcastle, what an adorable evening you have provided for us! Mr. Dick Hardcastle, permit me to congratulate you upon attaining your majority, than which, believe me, there is but one greater blessing in the world—that of minority. I see you have not yet abandoned all the privileges of the latter, however," he added, as Dick caught Bell round the waist and gave her a sounding salute on the cheek. "That is an alleviation it seems unfair to monopolize."

Bell laughed and boxed Dick's ears, whereupon he speedily kissed her again, and Mr. Hardcastle chuckled and pulled one of the long, light braids hanging over her back. Bell's blonde hair, with her black eyes, was her strong point, and she invariably dressed it a la Kenwigs when she wore a hat. None of Miss Bell's lights ran any danger of ever being hidden under a bushel.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Hardcastle. "It's all right. It's only Dick, you know, my son Dick; and bless my heart, the boy's good taste too. He inherited it."

"Take my arm or let me take yours," muttered De Forest to Bell as Mr. Hardcastle turned away, "and do let's get through it with his good lady. Do you suppose she'll kiss me? Get her to make it easy for me, won't you?"

"Where now?" asked Bell, undecidedly, after the due politenesses with the hostess had been exchanged. The woods were fairly ablaze with bonfires and hanging lanterns, making a strangely brilliant and fantastic scene. Here and there rugs were spread out on the grass for the older people to congregate upon in gossiping groups, while the young ones had speedily converted a large, smooth spot of lawn into an impromptu dancing-ground, and were whirling merrily away to the music of the band, in the very face of the scandalized Mrs. Upjohn. This last field of action was the first to attract Bell's quick eye. "Oh, come," she said. "Of course you dance?"

De Forest gave a shudder. "My dear young lady! no sane man ever dances. But pray do not let me detain you. Where your heart is, there would your feet be also." He dropped her arm as he spoke. Bell shrugged her shoulders and put her arm back in his.

"'Tisn't fair to abandon you so soon after bringing you here. There's Janet Mudge" (hastily selected as the plainest girl present and the farthest from Gerald, toward whom De Forest's steps were manifestly directing themselves); "let's go and speak to her."

"On the contrary, let us avoid her by every means in our power," said De Forest, imperturbably, walking Bell off in the opposite direction. "I never choose pearls when I may have diamonds. There's Miss Vernor. We'll go and speak with her."

"But I don't want to," objected Bell, crossly. "I am not at all as fond of Miss Vernor as you are."

"Naturally not," answered De Forest, pursuing his way undisturbed. "Men always like girls better than girls do. I appreciate your feelings. But she's got that good-looking young minister with her. You like him. All feminine souls incline to clergymen next to officers. Buttons first; then surplices."

"Thirdly, For(r)esters, I suppose," suggested Bell, saucily.

"Undoubtedly," assented her companion. "Miss Vernor, your humble servant." His glance, as it invaribly did when they met, seemed to make swift, approbative note of every smallest particular of her appearance. "Mr. Halloway, here is a young lady who has just openly informed me that she prefers you to me, so I suppose I must resign her to you with what grace I can. Don't you think, Miss Vernor, you might try to divert my mind from dwelling too cruelly on Miss Masters' defalcation by showing me what Mr. Hardcastle's grand intellect has devised for my entertainment? That bonfire yonder has a sort of cannibalistic look about it suggestive of dancing negroes and unmentionable feasts behind the flames. Shall we inspect it nearer?" And he marched Gerald deliberately away, scarcely remembering to bow to Bell. Still, to be left with Mr. Halloway was by no means an unenviable fate, and Bell, like the wise girl she was, proceeded to make the most of it without delay, and paraded her prey wherever she chose, finding him much more tractable than her last companion, and not in the least dictatorial as to the direction he went in.

That out-door evening party was long remembered as one of the most novel and successful entertainments ever given in Joppa. Even Mrs. Upjohn admitted it to be very well, very well indeed, all but the dancing, for which, however, Mr. Hardcastle apologized to her handsomely as a quite unexpected ebullition of youthful spirits which in his soul he was far from countenancing, and upon which she resolutely turned her back all the evening, so at least not to be an eye-witness of the indecorum. Of course, therefore, she knew nothing whatever about it when Mr. Upjohn toward the end of the evening, actually allowed himself to be decoyed into the gay whirl by one of the youngest and most daring of the girls, and galloped clumsily around like a sportive and giddy elephant set free for the first time in its native jungle, and finding it very much to its liking. His daughter Maria, faithfully at her mother's side, sat with one ear grudgingly lent to the prosy heaviness of Mr. Webb's light talk, and her whole face turned longingly toward the spot where the happy sinners were gyrating, and, seeing her father there, her round eyes grew rounder than ever, as she watched in breathless alarm lest the earth should open under his feet in instant retribution. Gracious, if ma should turn her head! But there are some wrongs it is best to ignore altogether, where prevention is hopeless, and Mrs. Upjohn, like many another good woman, always knew when not to see. So she persistently did not see now, and Mr. Upjohn spun away to his heart's content (prudently keeping in the remotest corner of the sward, to be sure), winking at Maria every now and then in the highest glee, and once absolutely signing to her to sneak over to him and try a turn too.