And then came supper-time, and such a supper, setting all confectioners and doctors at defiance at once! Mr. Upjohn, red and perspiring, and remarking how curiously hot the bonfires made the woods at night, waited on his wife with gallant solicitude, lest she should leave a single dish untasted. Mrs. Bruce had left town the day before, and in the absence of any new admiration he always fell back with perfect content upon his old allegiance. Mrs. Upjohn received his devotion as calmly as his intermittent neglects, and only raised her eyebrows when he stooped to whisper, "My love, you're the most handsomely dressed woman here!" which was strictly true as regarded the materials of her attire, and unblushingly false as regarded the blending of them. Dick had been in his element all the evening. He had had a serio-comic flirtation with every girl in turn. He had cut out Jake Dexter with Nellie Atterbury, and made it up to his friend by offering him a lock of Bell's hair, which he had surreptitiously cut from her hanging braids, and which Jake wore pinned in his button hole as a trophy for the rest of the evening, to the immense scandal of everybody. But with the supper-hour Dick's spirits ebbed. He knew, poor fellow, what Fate held in store. His father intended making a few remarks over him, as a sort of substitute for his defrauded speech to the non-existing tenantry.

"Stand by me, Jake, there's a man!" whispered Dick, forlornly, to his crony.

"I will, Dick, like a woman!" Jake responded, tenderly, and the two stood together just at Mr. Hardcastle's elbow, as that worthy advanced to a central spot between the bonfires, cleared his throat ominously, and pirouetted solemnly around, holding up his hand to attract general attention.

"My friends," began Mr. Hardcastle, swelling with the importance of the moment to even more than his usual rotundity, "this has been a day of days to me. All of you who are parents will appreciate my feelings of mingled pride and humility,—of pride and humility," repeated Mr. Hardcastle, pleased with the antithesis, and swaying gently back and forth, "as I stand here before you with my son, the boy whom I have watched over from his cradle up with an unsleeping eye, and whose tender feet"—Dick here stooped over to inspect those honest, able members. Jake did the same with evident disapproval of them. Mr. Hardcastle raised his voice—"whose tender feet I have endeavored from his youth up, so far as lay in my limited power, to guide in the way that I hope he may never depart from. This boy I now present to you, friends, a man,—this boy who has grown up among you, whom you all know, and whom I hope you all harbor some kindly feeling for,—this boy,"—he put out his hand to draw him forward, Dick gave Jake a gentle push toward the hand and vanished, and Mr. Hardcastle, quite unconscious of the manoeuvre, drew the grinning Jake solemnly up to him, and casting around a look of triumph which seemed to say: Do better than this, friends, if you can, placed his hand on Jake's shoulder with his grandest air, and continued, sonorously,—"my son, ladies and gentlemen,—my son Dick."

There was a moment's pause of consternation among the guests and a suppressed scream from the defrauded Mother Dexter. Mr. Hardcastle slowly turned his radiant face toward his supposed son, and immediately dropped his hand and exclaimed, in entirely altered and most natural tones of amazement: "Well, I never! How in the world did you get here, Jake Dexter?"

A shout instantly went up all round; even Mr. Hardcastle himself was overcome with the ludicrousness of the mistake, and further solemnity being impossible, a signal was given, and from a barge far out on the water a score of rockets shot hissing into the air, announcing the beginning of fireworks. A brilliant display of these followed, closing the evening's entertainment, and immediately afterward a large raft was towed up to the landing, and the whole merry party embarked and returned to Joppa together, the band following on another boat and treating them to music all the way. Halloway stood near Gerald in the crowd, but he did not attempt to join her until the raft reached the pier and was made fast. Then he quietly went to her and offered his arm. De Forest stepped up at the same moment. "Miss Vernor, will you condescend to accept of my valuable escort home?"

"I beg your pardon," interrupted Denham, "I am Miss Vernor's escort to-night."

De Forest stood still. "I did not know it was a return-ticket arrangement."

"It was," answered Denham, decidedly. "You can hardly expect me to relinquish my rights."

"I should say your rights depended wholly on Miss Vernor's choice. Fair lady, two hearts and four arms are at your immediate disposal. If you could make up your volatile mind to determine between them—"

"There can be no question of choice," said Gerald, quietly. "I accepted Mr. Halloway's escort yesterday; so good-night."

"You leave me a blighted being," said De Forest. "For the peace of my soul, let me ascribe your decision to a love of justice rather than of individual. Au revoir."

Halloway drew Gerald's hand through his arm with a very comfortable feeling of possession, and they walked on some time in silence. "Are you tired?" he asked at last.

"No—yes. Parties always tire me, and life in Joppa consists of parties. Do you always go?"

"Oh, always!"

"Your mental constitution must be robust to stand such a steady strain upon it."

"The shepherd must keep by his sheep, you know," laughed Denham.

"I thought the shepherd was to lead the sheep, not to be led by them. Don't you hope to inspire them with a love for better things? I fancied the province of a clergyman was to improve people—not just to preach to them."

A shadow crossed Denham's face. "There are many of them more fitted to improve me than I them," he said, humbly. "How would you have me begin?"

"With making Mr. Hardcastle less offensively pompous, and Mrs. Hardcastle less tedious, and Mrs. Upjohn less dogmatic, and Mrs. Anthony more sincere, and Miss Delano less namby-pamby,—in short, by taking a little of the superficiality and narrow-mindedness and provinciality out of the place if possible."

Denham tossed back his head with a light laugh. "Ah, how you relieve my mind! Most of those whom you have so scathingly described belong to other congregations, and are therefore beyond my jurisdiction."

"Do you really feel so? Are you so like a physician?" asked Gerald, quickly. "Do you seek to do good only to those who pay for the care you give them? Is not your mission with all with whom you are thrown?"

"The days of single-handed combat against the world are over," answered Denham. "You cripple a man by giving him too wide a field of action."

"I would not take less than the widest were I a man!" exclaimed Gerald, proudly.

"Would you be a clergyman?"

"No. I have no talent for writing. I could not preach."

"Nay, I think you an admirable preacher," said Denham, gently, without the faintest tinge of sarcasm in either tone or look. Gerald glanced at him quickly and flushed slightly.

"I am too dogmatic myself," she said, biting her lip and turning away her head. "I should not be so hard on Mrs. Upjohn."

"You do not intend to be hard on any one."

"But to be just is to seem hard," said Gerald.

"It is a divine prerogative to know just how far to temper justice with mercy," Denham answered. "I suppose none of us can hope to attain to perfect knowledge; but if there must be error, I would for myself rather err in excess of mercy than of justice."

"In other words, between two evils you would choose the least," Gerald replied. "That is the common way of getting out of the difficulty. But it seems to me like compromising with evil. There ought to be always some third, wholly right, way out of every dilemma, if only one sought earnestly enough." She spoke more as if to herself than to him.

"Then perhaps," said Denham, pleasantly, "we may hope that you will in time light upon the very kindliest and rightest way combined of judging not only abstract subjects, but also the not altogether unworthy inhabitants of even this little place of Joppa."

"Oh, Joppa!" cried Gerald, all the impatience instantly coming back to her face and voice. As instantly too she frowned in self-conviction, and turned almost contritely to Denham. "You see, Mr. Halloway, I shall have to bring my own character first to that future Day of Judgment, and to be very careful that I do not err on your side,—in being too merciful."



CHAPTER XII.

WHY DO SUMMER ROSES FADE?

A few more days slipped by, easily and swiftly, as all days did in Joppa. The famous party was discussed and re-discussed down to its minutest details. Mrs. Hardcastle recovered from her subsequent attack of neuralgia. Mr. Hardcastle, who went from house to house, gathering compliments as an assessor levies taxes, completed the round of the village and began again. Mrs. Upjohn asked for and obtained the recipe of a certain dish, the like of which had never before been seen in Joppa, and the Joppites commended her boldness in asking and condemned Mrs. Hardcastle's weakness in giving. The report that Mr. Upjohn had apostatized from the Presbyterian Church, disapproving of its tenets as regarded waltzing, was duly started, denied, violently adopted, and as violently exploded. The statements that Jake Dexter was engaged to Nellie Atterbury, that Bell Masters had offered herself to Mr. Halloway and been declined with thanks, and that Gerald's hat had been imported from Paris two days before, were also duly aired and evaporated. It had, moreover, by this time become a town fact, that it was Bell Masters and not Janet Mudge whom Halloway had rowed to the party, and that he had walked home with Mrs. Lane. Miss Brooks overheard him taking leave of her at her door, and fancied—but was not sure—that she told him to change his boots lest his feet should be damp. Everybody had also found out beyond discussion or doubt that De Forest was Gerald's escort home on that occasion, but that the engagement between them was broken off. It was definitely known that he had said he was a blighted being, and should shortly take a return ticket to New York. Everybody said it was a shame, when they were so manifestly cut out for each other. In fact, every thing had been found out about every thing. The evening had been talked threadbare, and, alas, there was nothing else to talk about. Phebe's reappearance downstairs, unscarred and bonnie as ever, was become an old story long since, and Dr. Dennis' treatment of the case was now admitted to have been the very best possible next to what Dr. Harrison's treatment would have been, though by all means, it was decided, Dr. Dennis and not Dr. Harrison should have been called in when Mr. Brown, the grocer, fell ill of a fever. Poor Joppa was indeed fairly talked out. It had to settle down upon the fever and Mr. Brown for lack of any thing else. It was really almost a godsend when Mrs. Brown took the fever too, for it gave Joppa just twice as much to talk about, and everybody said it was somebody's duty to see that the poor souls had right advice in the matter. Jabez Brown, Jr., carried on the business in his father's stead, and measured out his sugars and teas at so much advice the pound, and did a thriving business, but the poor old father died all the same. He was a respectable, honest man, and all his customers attended his funeral in the most neighborly way in the world, with a grim look upon their sympathetic countenances of "I told you so. It should have been Dr. Dennis."

Yes, to all but Phebe, her illness and long imprisonment and her return to matter-of-fact life downstairs, was a tame-enough story now. But to her it was as the opening chapter of a new history. Life seemed changed and strange to her when she stepped back into it, and took up again the duties and labors that she had laid by only so lately. Had she dreamed herself into another world, or why was it so hard to put herself back into the place she had stepped out of? Everybody about her was the same; nothing had really changed in any way, and certainly she had not. Neither had Gerald. Neither had Mr. Halloway. What had she expected? What was it she had vaguely looked forward to? What was it that was so different?

"Pray, what are you thinking of?" Denham asked suddenly one day, turning to her with his bright, sweet smile. "You have been quiet for very long."

"So have you been quiet," returned Phebe. "I do not think I have been any less talkative than you."

"Perhaps not," said Denham. "We are leaving Soeur Angelique and Miss Vernor to have a regular tete-a-tete of it, are we not? But you evade my question in a very unbecoming way, Miss Phebe. Tell me, what were you thinking of?"

"I don't quite know," answered Phebe, slowly. "But I think I was wishing for impossibilities,—for things that can't possibly happen, just because it would be so nice if they could."

"Ah," said Halloway, dreamily. "That is a very bad habit, a frightfully unsatisfactory, delusive, and, indeed, an altogether pernicious habit, Miss Phebe. It takes the taste out of every thing solid, and leaves one an appetite only for indigestible sweets. I must correct you of it. I will, just as soon, that is, as I have broken myself of it. Will you wait till I have taken myself in hand?"

They were together sitting in a little recess of the rectory parlor, while Mrs. Whittridge and Gerald were talking at the farther end of the room. Soeur Angelique had invited the two girls to tea, and Halloway, when he came in from his study, seated himself at once by Phebe, though after his warm greeting and self-congratulations upon having her back in her old haunts, he had fallen into quite an unusual silence. Phebe was looking very sweet and fresh that afternoon. All the care that she had meant to devote to her toilet upon the occasion of her first meeting with Halloway, she had expended in dressing herself for this visit to the rectory. Never had her shining hair been braided so glossily, or coaxed into waving more prettily about her forehead; never had the simple etceteras of her dress been more studiously selected and more carefully put together. Looking in the glass when all was done, she had been fain to confess that she really did look nice for once, though she reproached herself immediately afterward in severest terms for the unpardonable vanity of the thought, and made a little grimace at her own image to effectually dispel the illusion. What could it ever matter how she looked? And particularly how could it matter when Gerald was by,—Gerald, who possessed that rare and enviable gift of always looking her best? So Phebe put the subject of her looks entirely away from her mind, and leaned back on the sofa, her hands folded idly in her lap, feeling perfectly content with the passing moment, and asking nothing from the future but that it might be always "now." What more could she want? The room held her three dearest friends in the world,—Gerald, Soeur Angelique, and Mr. Halloway;—of course one should always put ladies before gentlemen even only in thought. How handsome Gerald looked as she stood with her head slightly bent forward, listening to Mrs. Whittridge. If Gerald did not choose to listen, no one could ever force her to lend an ear. But when she did so choose, she listened with her whole mind, and was lost to all else. Phebe smiled with quiet amusement at her friend's intensity in every thing, and turned with the smile on her face to Halloway. He was not smiling at all, but he too was looking fixedly at Gerald.

"It has been lovely having her here, but how we shall miss her, shall we not, when she goes?" said Phebe, softly.

"Goes?" repeated Halloway, blankly. "It is scarcely September yet."

"What, have you not heard?" exclaimed Phebe. "Do you not know? Gerald has been sent for. She and Olly go back next Thursday."

"Thursday?" echoed Halloway, in a sort of stunned way. "So soon? Going for good? Thursday?"

What closely guarded secret did the loving gray eyes, fastened upon him, read in the swift, uncontrollable look that flashed suddenly across his face, like the lightning that leaps out of the dark by night, laying all earth bare in one brief, vivid glimpse? He was so taken by surprise as to be completely off guard. It was but an instant, and with a start he recovered himself.

"I had not heard your news," he said, with perfect quiet, reaching out to the table for an uncut magazine, and proceeding leisurely to open its pages. "I suppose it is a sign that summer is over when the birds begin to fly home."

Phebe did not answer immediately. In that one short moment, all her face had changed also. As by the stroke of a wand, its brightness and sweet content had given place to an expression of unutterable weariness. She got up and went to the window, standing with her back to Halloway.

"We had our first cold night that evening of my accident," she said, with an effort to speak very calmly. "I think the summer really ended then."



CHAPTER XIII.

JOPPA'S TRIAL.

It was the night before Gerald's departure, and a number of people strayed into Mrs. Lane's parlor to bid the fair traveller god-speed. She had not been at all a popular guest, but that was no reason why Joppa should lack in any possible courtesy toward her, little as she appreciated the magnanimity of its conduct.

"Very sorry to lose you, very," said Mr. Hardcastle, taking her hand in the soft, warm grasp that Gerald so particularly detested. "But maybe it's as well you are going. Joppa isn't the place it used to be. Here's Mr. Anthony's got the fever to-night, and there's a poor family down in the village as have all got it, Dennis says; and I noticed that little Nellie Atterbury had monstrous red cheeks when Dick and I passed her to-night, and indeed I crossed the street to avoid her in case she might be going to have the fever too. Where one has a family one has duties one would never feel for one's self. So I say, my dear, it's as well you're going, if only on account of that boy of yours. We must all learn early to sacrifice ourselves for our children."

"Olly isn't my child," said Gerald, twisting her handkerchief around her hand to efface the remembrance of Mr. Hardcastle's touch.

"Hey? Ah, yes, to be sure, he's your brother; but it's all one. You stand in the light of a parent to him just now, my dear." He was actually going to pat Gerald paternally on the shoulder, but she moved abruptly aside, and he pulled Olly's ear instead. It was necessary to do something with his outstretched hand before drawing it back. Olly was playing cat's-cradle with the good-natured Mr. Upjohn, and merely kicked out at his caresser, as a warning that he was not to be interrupted.

"Fine spirited boy," muttered Mr. Upjohn under his breath. "Very fine. Will make a man some day."

"Not so big as you, though, I won't be when I'm a man," declared Olly. "You're too fat."

"Now just hear him!" exclaimed Mr. Upjohn, shaking all over with corpulent mirth. "Maybe you would rather be like Mr. Webb then?"

"No, I wouldn't neither," retorted Olly, nothing deterred by that gentleman's presence from a frank exposure of his sentiments. "He's too lean. He's leaner than any thing. He's just like the blade of my pocket-knife with clothes on. Oh, crickey!"

It was conveniently discovered at this crisis that it was Olly's bedtime, and he was with some difficulty conveyed from the parlor, followed by an angry glare from Gerald and a severely truthful comment from Mrs. Upjohn. De Forest outstayed the rest of the leave-takers. Phebe thought it hard, when she so wanted to have Gerald all to herself on this last evening; and she wondered too that Halloway had not come to say good-by. He came in, however, at last, flushed and tired, apologizing for the lateness of his call, saying he had been sent for by two of his parishioners who were also down with the fever.

"It looks something like an epidemic," remarked Gerald. "I am really rather glad we are going."

"You have no ambition to remain and turn Florence Nightingale then?" asked De Forest.

"Not in the slightest. It is a role I am eminently unfitted for. I detest sick people."

"Not always, I think, Gerald," said Phebe, with a grateful glance, which Gerald returned with one of real though undemonstrative tenderness.

"Your case was very different, Phebe."

"I should think it would be extremely difficult to detest Miss Phebe under even the must aggravating circumstances," said Halloway, smiling frankly at her. "Hallo, who is this?"

It was Olly, bootless and coatless, whom the sound of Halloway's voice had brought down from the midst of his slow preparations for bed, to bid his friend good-by, and who sprang upon him with a rush of suffocating affection.

"What would Mrs. Upjohn say!" drawled De Forest.

Gerald rose at once to send off the child with a reprimand, and remained standing after he had gone. De Forest rose too and slowly came toward her.

"I suppose I had better leave you to follow Olly up-stairs. I wish you to be fresh to entertain me during to-morrow's tedious journey."

"What, do you go back to-morrow too?" asked Gerald, in surprise. "I thought you were to stay till next week."

"I am afraid of the fever," pronounced De Forest with great gravity, his handsome eyes fastened on her face. "I am running away from it. I don't think it safe to stay another day in the place."

Gerald colored a little,—not at his words, but his look. "Then I suppose I need not bid you good-by," she said, turning away. She seemed almost embarrassed. "Good-night."

"Oh, but Gerald,—Mr. Halloway, you must say good-by to him you know," said Phebe, distressed.

"Surely. I forgot," replied Gerald, with uncomplimentary sincerity. She turned back, the faint shade of confusion quite disappearing. "Good-by, Mr. Halloway. I wish you success in finding all the Nightingales that you may require."

"Thank you," answered Denham, shortly. "Good-by."

Phebe glanced up at him quickly. She noticed a shade of bitterness in his voice for the first time. He said nothing more, and dropped Gerald's hand almost immediately. De Forest bent forward and raised it. "Am I to be defrauded of a good-night, Miss Vernor, simply because it is not my good-by? Au revoir."

It seemed to Phebe that he held Gerald's hand an instant longer when she would have withdrawn it, and that she permitted or at least did not resent it, and before releasing it he stooped and touched her fingers lightly with his lips. "Au revoir," he said again.

Halloway turned abruptly to Phebe. "Good-night." He spoke almost brusquely, and went directly away, without offering his hand or looking at any of them again.

Phebe followed Gerald into her room when the two girls went up-stairs, and sat watching her friend's quick movements as she completed some last arrangements for the journey. It was strangely unlike Phebe not to offer to help her, but somehow Gerald looked so strong and able and self-sufficient, and she herself felt so tired and weak to-night.

"How quiet you are!" said Gerald, folding a soft shawl smoothly over the top of a tray. "Haven't you any last message to give me? Isn't there any thing you would like me to do for you in New York?"

"Nothing, thank you."

"You are sure? Well, now I am through and mustn't keep you up longer. You have all been exceedingly kind, Phebe, both to myself and that troublesome Olly. I appreciate it, even though I don't say as much about it as perhaps some would."

"Have you really enjoyed it here, Gerald? Have you been happy? Will you miss us a little—just a little—when you are gone?"

"I shall miss you, child, of course. You constitute Joppa to me, you know. And indeed I have enjoyed it here very much, and it has done Olly a world of good. Good-night, dear."

Phebe had her arms about her friend at once, clasping her close. "O Gerald, Gerald, I think it is almost better to have no friends at all, it is so hard—so cruelly hard—to part with them, and—and to lose them! O Gerald!"

"Parting with them isn't losing them, you foolish sentimentalist," returned Gerald, gently unclasping Phebe's arms. "Now go to bed. You look worn out."

"Just tell me once first, Gerald, that you love me. I haven't many to love me. I need all your love."

"Of course I love you," said Gerald. "You know it without my saying so. And don't talk so foolishly. I never knew a girl with more friends. Now good-night."

Phebe kissed her very quietly, and then crept into Olly's room, and sat down on his bed. "Olly, dear," she murmured, "are you asleep?"

The little fellow sprang up and flung his arms closely around her neck, embracing collar, ruffles, and ribbon in one all-comprehensive destruction.

"Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?" whispered Phebe, half laughing and half crying, as she strained him to her heart. "Oh, Olly dear, I do want some one just to say so!"

"I do, I do, I do, and I do!" said Olly, with a bear's hug at each assertion. "Blest if I don't. That's what Mr. Upjohn said when I asked him if he didn't want some taffy. 'Blest if I don't.' I guess it's a swear, 'cause he said I mustn't tell Mrs. Upjohn he said so, not to the longest day I lived. The longest day won't come now till next year, the twenty-first of June. That's the longest day, ain't it? Mr. Halloway taught me that. My, don't he know a lot! I'm going to be like him when I'm a man. That's who I'm going to be like. And I'm going to love you always. He loves you too, doesn't he, Pheeb?"

"No, dear," answered Phebe, still laughing and crying together, and rocking gently back and forth with the boy in her arms; "he doesn't at all. There doesn't any body really love me, I think, but just you. But you do, don't you, dear?"

"Bet on it!" said Olly, with forcible vulgarity.

"God bless you," said Phebe, very softly, as she put the boy back in the bed, and laid her wet cheek on his. "God bless you now and always."

"Forever and ever, amen," whispered Olly back, with an impression that Phebe was saying her prayers over him. "And oh, I say, Pheeb, can't you let us have some of that jelly cake with raisins in it, to take with us for luncheon to-morrow?"

And Phebe promised she would, and laughed and went away feeling, somehow, a little comforted.

And so Gerald and Olly and De Forest all disappeared from the scene together, and shortly after the Dexters went to Morocco on a visit, and the Masters adjourned to Bethany to do their fall shopping; and there were whisperings around that something was wrong; there was more and more talk of the fever; of how it ought to be checked, and why it had not been checked, and what would be the dire consequences if it were not checked. The summer guests all slipped quietly away, leaving Joppa alone to its growing trouble. Every day brought some new case, sometimes a death, and people began to look suspiciously at each other in the streets and to avoid each other on the flimsiest pretexts. Miss Lydia cried helplessly in her room and said she was sure she should take it and die of it. Mr. Hardcastle found he was too busy at home to have time for neighborly visits, and went around the block rather than pass a door where he saw the doctor's gig. When one has a family, one owes it duties that should not be neglected. Mrs. Upjohn declared the panic to be ridiculous. She shouldn't be scared away by a red flag, like a crow from a cornfield. There had never been a case of typhoid known in Joppa, and places were like people, they never broke out with diseases that were not already in their constitutions. It was all arrant nonsense. However, she was perfectly willing that Maria should make that proposed visit to her aunt in Boston if she liked, and it was quite proper that Mr. Upjohn, in the character of gallant father, should escort her there; the girl couldn't go alone. So every day saw some new flight from the village. The doctors began to look overworked and very grave, and Mr. Hardcastle appeared less and less outside his gates, and took to walking always in the middle of the streets, whence he could wave a salutation to his passing friends without stopping to speak to them. Dick said he'd like to see the fever catch him, and pursued the rough tenor of his ways fearlessly as of old, though he assured his anxious father that it was wholly because Nellie Atterbury lived in the healthiest quarter of the town, that he spent so much of his time at her house. There was no use denying or qualifying it. An epidemic of typhoid fever had stolen upon Joppa as a thief in the night, and there was no knowing what house it would not enter next, to rob it of its dearest and best.

Through all this slowly increasing alarm, Phebe Lane had been living as in a dream. It was as if she found herself back in that old life before she knew Halloway, when people bored her, and when there seemed nothing worth doing or worth looking forward to, though the days were so full of duties. She had been at the rectory but once since Gerald left, and that was to the Bible-class, and when Mrs. Whittridge had tried to detain her afterward, she had pleaded some pressing business at home, though chancing to look out of her window a little later, Soeur Angelique was almost sure that through the closed shutters in Phebe's room, she saw a dim shadow of the girl's head laid down listlessly on her folded arms on the sill. But when the epidemic reached its height, Phebe seemed suddenly to awaken from her languor and rouse herself to action. Here was something worth doing at last. Once more her soft, sweet whistling sounded bird-like through the house. The spring came back to her step, the brightness to her eyes, and more than the old tenderness to her voice, as she went from one shunned sick-room to another like a living sunbeam, bringing the freshness of a May morning with her, and seeming always to come solely for her own pure pleasure. And when poor motherless Janet Mudge was struck down too with the dreaded disease, and had no one but servants to care for her, her own aunt, who lived in Joppa, being afraid to so much as go to the house to ask after her, it seemed perfectly natural to everybody that Phebe Lane, who had no cares at home and no one really dependent upon her, should quietly install herself as Janet's nurse. It was a very proper and natural thing for Phebe to do, everybody said, and thought no more about it. It was so manifestly a duty sent direct from Heaven, labelled "For Phebe Lane."

"I met Dr. Dennis to-day," said Halloway one afternoon, coming into his sister's room and throwing himself wearily down on the sofa. "He says Janet Mudge is better,—is really going to get well."

Soeur Angelique put aside her work and came to sit by the sofa and stroke her boy's head. If the doctors were overworked and spent, so too was he. The hour of trial had not found him wanting. His unambitious, simple spirit, that sought no wider duty than merely to fulfil the moment's call as he best could, met and conquered a stress of work that would have disheartened many a bolder hero. He never thought of it in the light of duty at all. There was nothing heroic or high-minded about it. It was simply what in the nature of things he was bound to do. Wherever he was wanted he went, and because where he went he brought such sunny cheer, and such sympathetic help, and such bright, kindly ways, he was wanted everywhere; not only those of his own parish, but those of the other churches too came to look to Mr. Halloway as the one whose visit helped them the most in any season of trial. Among the poor he was held a ministering angel, and supplemented by Soeur Angelique as an unseen force, often proved one in truth, while his bright face did them more good, they said, than a power of sermons; and no one ever thought the less of him because he seemed so much more the friend than the pastor, and did no preaching at all.

"So Janet is better," said Soeur Angelique, toying caressingly with the wavy brown hair tossed over his forehead. "Now I hope we shall see more of our Phebe again. What a little heroine she is!"

"A perfectly unconscious one," answered Halloway, lazily submitting himself to the fondling hand. "She thinks it the most matter-of-fact thing in the world that she should play Sister of Charity to other people's sick, and never expect so much as a thank-you from them."

"She is a lovely character," said Mrs. Whittridge, warmly.

"She is indeed," assented her brother. "A rare character. She is one in a thousand."

"I cannot but compare her sometimes with her friend, Gerald Vernor," continued Mrs. Whittridge. "And despite Miss Vernor's beauty and her power, which makes itself felt even by me, still it is always to Phebe's advantage."

Halloway got up and began slowly pacing the room, with an odd smile upon his lips. "Always to Phebe's advantage," he repeated. "Yes, she is by far the more amiable, the more unselfish, the more lovable, the better worth loving of the two. She is all heart. She is brimming over with affection, and must speak it or die, while Gerald is colder than stone,—than ice. She is so cold she burns. She reminds one of stars in mid-winter, of icicles in the moonlight, of any thing eminently frigid and brilliant and remote. I daresay, despite all her beauty and her talent and even with her wealth thrown in, she will have comparatively few lovers, yet those few will be truer to her through all her coldness and her disfavor than the lovers of many a sweeter girl. Did I say Phebe was one in a thousand? Well Miss Vernor is one in nine hundred and ninety-nine,—or one in ten thousand,—I don't know which."

"You said Phebe was the better worth loving of the two," said Mrs. Whittridge, coming to walk up and down the room with him and clasping her hands over his arm. "I used to think,—I fancied you cared for the child,—that you would care for her."

Denham stood still and faced his sister very gravely, "I was growing to care for her, Soeur Angelique," he said. "I believe I would have loved her if,—if Gerald Vernor had not come here when she did."

"Oh, Denham!"

"Yes, Soeur Angelique. It is a humiliating confession, is it not, that one has wilfully thrown away something that perhaps one might have had, for something that one knows one can never have? It is sheerest folly. And to do it with one's eyes open is the maddest folly of all. Gerald Vernor is as indifferent to me as it is possible for one human creature to be to another. I hold no more place in her thoughts than had I never existed. And yet, Soeur Angelique, I am fool enough,—or helpless enough,—whichever you please, to love her. I love her not for what she is to me, but for what she is in herself, for what she really is, rather than for what she seems,—for the strength and the heroism of her heart, which I see through all the glaring, commonplace faults, which she is at no pains to hide. Or perhaps I only love her because it was meant that I should. Be it as it may, I do love her, and as passionately, as entirely, and as hopelessly as it is possible for man to love."

"O Denham, Denham, my boy!"

Denham laid his hand lightly on his sister's lips. "Now we have had a sufficiency of heroics for once, indeed for always," he said, with a wholly altered voice. "Life has enough of solemnity in it and in spare, without our adding aught to it. We will not speak of this again, if you please. Folly is always best forgotten. But Soeur Angelique, if you imagine me to be a blighted being, if you think I walk the floor in the dead of night, tearing my hair and calling on all the stars to witness the unearthly gloom in my racked bosom, you are utterly mistaken. I do nothing of the kind. I am not blighted at all. My damask cheek is not going to be preyed upon, nor shall I take to an excess of tobacco and poetry. I have made a mistake, but I mean to sing over it,—not weep over it,—and to become a stronger and better man, if possible, for having been so weak a one."

"And Phebe?" said Soeur Angelique. Great tears stood in her eyes. "I hoped—"

Denham placed both hands on his sister's shoulders. "Soeur Angelique, you must bury those hopes in the grave. Loving Gerald Vernor, never, now, or in the future, shall I have one word of love for any other woman. But for her, I should have come perhaps to love Phebe with this same love; perhaps,—who knows?—Phebe might so have loved me. As it is—Soeur Angelique you know what I am. You know if I am likely to deceive myself. Gerald Vernor has changed my life for always. What might have been, now can never be."

He stood still a moment, looking full at her. It was wonderful how resolute and firm and yet brave and gentle too those merry brown eyes of his could become. Soeur Angelique sighed and shook her head softly. He stooped and kissed her, then turned away saying: "Now that chapter has been read through to the end. Woe be to him who turns back the page! And it is time I went to call on poor Widow Brown."

Soeur Angelique stood in the window as a moment later he passed by. He kissed his hand to her with a gay smile and went on. But she still stood there with the tears welling and welling in her eyes till they fell gently over upon her cheeks. She did not heed them, she was so busy with her thoughts. "Poor Phebe," she said softly to herself. "My poor little Phebe! But perhaps,—with time—"



CHAPTER XIV.

PHEBE'S GOOD-BY.

When was it Phebe first fell ill? No one knew. Mr. Hardcastle had kept cautiously out of her way this long time past, but nobody else suspected that the brilliant cheeks and eyes which shone like stars were telltales of a hidden fire burning her life away. The fever was abating in the village. The doctors declared the epidemic virtually over, and mutually congratulated each other upon the success of their measures. Mr. Hardcastle returned to the sidewalks; Mr. Upjohn brought back Maria; Miss Lydia said death had spared her this once, but next time it would be her turn to go; Mrs. Lane said she needn't make her will yet for all that; and everybody said how very much worse the fever would have been in any less peculiarly healthy spot than Joppa. How was it that at the very last, when there was no reason at all, when she had been apparently so perfectly well all along, Phebe Lane should suddenly take to her bed? Not only one doctor was called in, but both, and when they saw her they said the fever had been running a long time already, and then they looked very grave and shook their heads. She did not seem so ill. Most of their patients had had far more aggravated symptoms yet still they shook their heads as they looked at her, and murmured something about lake of vitality, a general giving way, a complete want of will power, etc. People looked at each other aghast. Was it possible that little Phebe Lane was really going to die? Nobody really believed it could be, excepting only Soeur Angelique. "Oh, my darling, my darling!" she cried out when she first heard of it, and then she instantly went over and installed herself in Phebe's room. And there she sat the slow days through, waiting and waiting with a breaking heart. Phebe suffered very little. She lay generally perfectly still, too weak to move, too weak to care to speak. People came and went noiselessly below, but no one was admitted to her room save her step-mother and Mrs. Whittridge. Mrs. Lane watched her with growing anxiety. The fever was so slight, why did she not rally from it? How was it credible she could fail so rapidly and so causelessly? And Mrs. Whittridge sat by with despair in her heart.

One day, late in the afternoon, as she sat so watching, Phebe suddenly opened her eyes. "Will you call him, please? I hear him."

"Who? Denham?" asked Soeur Angelique, with quick intuition. A finer ear than hers had caught the light step and low voice in the narrow hall below.

"Yes, Denham," said Phebe, softly. "Denham. I want to see him."

It pleased her to say his name so. She said it to herself over and over beneath her breath, while waiting for him to come. It was but a moment, and he was kneeling by the bedside, holding both her hands in his. She looked up in his face and smiled, and said his name again, lower still.

"Denham."

"Yes, Phebe—yes, dear," he answered, too moved to say more.

"I only wanted to say good-by," she continued, her eyes full of a love unutterable that not even the shadow of coming death could wholly darken. "Will you kiss me good-by please, this once, good-by—for always?"

A faint, soft flush crept up over her white face, and he bent down and kissed her gently, as one would kiss the Madonna of a shrine.

"Phebe," he whispered, "not for always only for a time, dear—good-by."

"Yes," she said, with a glad smile lighting up all her sweet, pure face. "Only for a time."

And them, still holding her hands tightly clasped in his, Denham bent down his head upon them and prayed.

The sunset came and faded, and the twilight came and went, giving place to the solemn stillness of the enduring night. The stars shone clear and still. Not a breath stirred. In his study Denham knelt alone, praying for a dear and lovely life, praying against hope, against belief—against all but faith. He did not know what time it was—it seemed as if it might be morning—-when at last the door opened and Soeur Angelique came in. He got up and stood waiting, too agitated to speak. What news could she bring him but the one? She came slowly up to him, then gave a little gasp, and flinging her arms around his neck, burst into tears.

"O Denham, Denham, all is over! Phebe is dead!"



CHAPTER XV.

ONLY AN INCIDENT.

The morning sun was streaming brilliantly in through the richly curtained windows of a handsome New York dwelling. Mr. and Mrs. De Forest were about sitting down to breakfast, which waited for them ready served, and which indeed had been so waiting for some minutes. The butler coughed behind his hand as a discreet reminder of his presence, and so indirectly of the cooling dishes. The gentleman looked up from his easy-chair by the fire and yawned.

"My dear, I've been up so long I think it's getting bedtime again."

"Just one moment, Ogden," answered the lady, from her desk. "I must send off this note by the first mail."

"Any thing important?"

"Yes. I will not be put on that new committee. They must find some one else. My time is too full."

De Forest rose and stood with his back to the fire, looking complacently at his wife. "What an odd sensation it must be—having one's time too full! It's an experience I'm willing always to delegate to some one else. Doesn't it feel rather like too tight shoes?"

Gerald laughed as she passed her husband to her seat at the table, and he stood still watching her as she began pouring coffee. It was always a pleasure to watch her. The butler drew out the gentleman's chair firmly. It was time his master took his seat with his lady. There was too much of this dilly-dallying. De Forest came lazily forward and seated himself.

"Any news?" asked Gerald.

"None whatever. It's a swindle to pay three cents for the Herald in such monotonous times. I was reduced to searching in your church paper to see if by any chance something new had gotten lost in there."

"I hope you found it."

"I didn't. Not so much even as the death of someone I knew to cheer me. There would have been variety at least in that. By the way, though, I did see a familiar name among the personals,—just a notice that the Rev. Denham Halloway had accepted a call to some church or other in some place or other. He was quite a friend of yours, wasn't he, that summer before we were married, when we were all in that odious little Joppa together? How bored I was there!"

"Denham Halloway," repeated Gerald, musingly. "Denham Halloway. Why, I don't believe I have thought of him since. But he was never any especial friend of mine, you know."

"Ah, there was somebody else who managed to engross a great deal of your time and most of your thoughts that summer, was there not, my dear, while nobody but myself was bold enough to suppose that any impression had been made on that frigid heart of yours? Well, I was perfectly fair. I left your friend, Phebe, for Halloway."

"Poor little Phebe!" said Gerald, with softened eyes. "How long ago it all seems. Poor dear little Phebe! I have never wanted to hear of Joppa since her death. I feel as if she had given her life for it. Yes; I don't suppose I have thought twice of Denham Halloway since."

Ah, so it was! That brief summer meeting, which had had so potent an influence on the lives of those other two, had in her life been only an incident.

THE END.