Read the book: «Hopes and Fears or, scenes from the life of a spinster», page 17

Phœbe had never known a room-mate nor the solace of a bed-time gossip, and by the time Miss Charlecote began to think of opening the door between their rooms, and discussing the disgusts of the day, the sounds of moving about had ceased.  Honor looked in, and could not help advancing to the bedside to enjoy the sight of the rosy face in the sound healthful sleep, the lips unclosed, and the silken brown hair wound plainly across the round brow, the childish outline and expression of the features even sweeter in sleep than awake.  It rested Honora’s wearied anxious spirit to watch the perfect repose of that innocent young face, and she stood still for some minutes, breathing an ejaculation that the child might ever be as guileless and peaceful as now, and then sighing at the thought of other young sleepers, beside whose couches even fonder prayers had been uttered, only, as it seemed, to be blown aside.

She was turning away, when Phœbe suddenly awoke, and was for a moment startled, half rising, asking if anything were the matter.

‘No, my dear; only I did not think you would have been in bed so quickly.  I came to wish you good night, and found you asleep.’  And with the strong tender impulse of a gentle wounded spirit, Honor hung over the maiden, recomposing the clothes, and fondling her, with a murmured blessing.

‘Dear Miss Charlecote,’ whispered Phœbe, ‘how nice it is!  I have so often wondered what it would be like, if any one came in to pet us at night, as they do in books; and oh! it is so nice!  Say that again, please.’

That was the blessing which would have made Lucilla in angry reserve hide her head in the clothes!

CHAPTER VII

 
But, ah me! she’s a heart of stone,
Which Cupid uses for a hone,
I verily believe;
And on it sharpens those eye-darts,
With which he wounds the simple hearts
He bribes her to deceive.
 

—A Coquette, by X.

Breakfast was late, and lengthened out by the greater lateness of many of the guests, and the superlative tardiness of the lady of the house, who had repudiated the cares of the hostess, and left the tea-equipage to her sister-in-law.  Lucilla had been down-stairs among the first, and hurried away again after a rapid meal, forbidding any one to follow her, because she had so much to do, and on entering the drawing-room, she was found with a wilderness of flowers around her, filling vases and making last arrangements.

Honora and Phœbe were glad to be occupied, and Phœbe almost hoped to escape from Rashe.  Speaking to Lucilla was not possible, for Eloïsa had been placed by Rashe in a low chair, with a saucer before her, which she was directed to fill with verbenas, while the other four ladies, with Owen, whom his cousin had called to their aid, were putting last touches to wreaths, and giving the final festal air to the rooms.

Presently Robert made his appearance as the bearer of Mr. Prendergast’s flowers, and setting his back against a shutter, in his favourite attitude, stood looking as if he wanted to help, but knew not how.  Phœbe, at least, was vividly conscious of his presence, but she was supporting a long festoon with which Owen was adorning a pier-glass, and could hardly even turn her head to watch him.

‘Oh, horrid!’ cried Lucilla, retreating backwards to look at Ratia’s performance; ‘for love or money a bit of clematis!’

‘Where shall I find one?’ said Robert, unseeing the masses waving on the cloister, if, good youth, he even knew what clematis was.

‘You there, Mr. Fulmort!’ exclaimed Rashe; ‘for goodness gracious sake, go out to tennis or something with the other men.  I’ve ordered them all out, or there’ll be no good to be got out of Cilly.’

Phœbe flashed out in his defence, ‘You are letting Owen alone.’

‘Ah! by the bye, that wreath of yours has taken an unconscionable time!’ said Miss Charteris, beginning to laugh; but Phœbe’s grave straightforward eyes met her with such a look, as absolutely silenced her merriment into a mere mutter of ‘What a little chit it is!’  Honora, who was about indignantly to assume the protection of her charge, recognized in her what was fully competent to take care of herself.

‘Away with both of you,’ said Lucilla; ‘here is Edna come for a last rehearsal, and I won’t have you making her nervous.  Take away that Robin, will you, Owen?’

Horatia flew gustily to greet and reassure the schoolmistress as she entered, trembling, although moving with the dignity that seemed to be her form of embarrassment.  Lucilla meanwhile sped to the others near the window.  ‘You must go,’ she said, ‘or I shall never screw her up; it is a sudden access of stage fright.  She is as pale as death.’

Owen stepped back to judge of the paleness, and Robert contrived to say, ‘Cannot you grant me a few words, Lucy?’

‘The most impossible thing you could have asked,’ she replied.  ‘There’s Rashe’s encouragement quite done for her now!’

She bounded back to the much-overcome Edna, while Phœbe herself, perceiving how ill-advised an opportunity Robert had chosen, stepped out with him into the cloister, saying, ‘She can’t help it, dear Robin; she cannot think, just now.’

‘When can she?’ he asked, almost with asperity.

‘Think how full her hands are, how much excited she is,’ pleaded Phœbe, feeling that this was no fair moment for the crisis.

‘Ireland?’ almost groaned Robert, but at the same moment grasped her roughly to hinder her from replying, for Owen was close upon them, and he was the person to whom Robert would have been most reluctant to display his feelings.

Catching intuitively at his meaning, Phœbe directed her attention to some clematis on the opposite side of the cloister, and called both her companions to gather it for her, glad to be with Robert and to relieve Miss Murrell of the presence of another spectator.  Charles Charteris coming up, carried the two young men to inspect some of his doings out of doors, and Phœbe returned with her wreaths of creepers to find that the poor schoolmistress had become quite hysterical, and had been take away by Lucilla.

Rashe summoned her at the same time to the decoration of the music-room, and on entering, stopped in amusement, and made her a sign in silence to look into a large pier-glass, which stood so as to reflect through an open door what was passing in the little fanciful boudoir beyond, a place fitted like a tent, and full of quaint Dresden china and toys of bijouterie.  There was a complete picture within the glass.  Lucilla, her fair face seen in profile, more soft and gentle than she often allowed it to appear, was kneeling beside the couch where half reclined the tall, handsome Edna, whose raven hair, and pale, fine features made her like a heroine, as she nervously held the hands which Lucilla had placed within her grasp.  There was a low murmur of voices, one soothing, the other half sobbing, but nothing reached the outer room distinctly, till, as Phœbe was holding a long wreath, which Ratia was tying up, she heard—‘Oh! but it is so different with me from you young ladies who are used to company and all.  I dare say that young lady would not be timid.’

‘What young lady, Edna?  Not the one with the auburn hair?’

Ratia made an ecstatic face which disgusted Phœbe.

‘Oh, no!—the young lady whom Mr. Sandbrook was helping.  I dare say she would not mind singing—or anything,’ came amid sobs.

Ratia nodded, looked excessively arch, and formed a word with her lips, which Phœbe thought was ‘jealous,’ but could not imagine what she could mean by it.

‘I don’t know why you should think poor Phœbe Fulmort so brazen.  She is a mere child, taking a holiday from her strict governess.’

Phœbe laughed back an answer to Rashe’s pantomime, which in this case she understood.

‘She has not had half your training in boldness, with your inspectors and examinations, and all those horrid things.  Why, you never thought of taking fright before, even when you have sung to people here.  Why should you now?’

‘It is so different, now—so many more people.  Oh, so different!  I shall never be able.’

‘Not at all.  You will quite forget all about yourself and your fears when the time comes.  You don’t know the exhilaration of a room full of people, all lights and music!  That symphony will lift you into another world, and you will feel quite ready for “Men must work and women must weep.”’

‘If I can only begin—but oh! Miss Sandbrook, shall you be far away from me?’

‘No, I promise you not.  I will bring you down, if you will come to Ratia’s room when you are dressed.  The black silk and the lilac ribbon Owen and I chose for you; I must see you in it.’

‘Dear Miss Sandbrook, you are so kind!  What shall I do when you have left?’

‘You are going yourself for the holidays, silly puss!’

‘Ah! but no one else sympathizes or enters into my feelings.’

‘Feelings!’ said Lucilla, lightly, yet sadly.  ‘Don’t indulge in them, Edna; they are no end of a torment.’

‘Ah! but if they prey on one, one cannot help it.’

Rashe made a face of great distaste.  Phœbe felt as if it were becoming too confidential to permit of listening, all the more as she heard Lucilla’s reply.

‘That’s what comes of being tall, and stately, and dignified!  There’s so much less of me that I can carry off my troubles twice as well.’

‘Oh, dear Miss Sandbrook, you can have no troubles!’

‘Haven’t I?  Oh, Edna, if you knew!  You that have a mother can never know what it is to be like me!  I’m keeping it all at bay, lest I should break down; but I’m in the horridest bother and trouble.’

Not knowing what might come next, ashamed of having listened to so much, yet with one gleam of renewed hope, Phœbe resolutely disobeyed Ratia’s frowns and gestures, and made her presence known by decided movements and words spoken aloud.

She saw the immediate effect in Edna Murrell’s violent start; but Lucilla, without moving, at once began to sing, straining her thin though sweet voice, as though to surmount a certain tremulousness.  Edna joined, and the melody was lovely to hear; but Phœbe was longing all the time for Robert to be at hand for this softer moment, and she hoped all the more when, the practising being over, and Edna dismissed, Lucy came springing towards her, notifying her presence by a caress—to outward appearance merely playful, but in reality a convulsive clasp of vehement affection—and Phœbe was sure that there had been tears in those eyes that seemed to do nothing but laugh.

The security that this wild elf was true at heart was, however, not enough for Phœbe.  There was the knowledge that each moment’s delay would drive Robert farther aloof, and that it was a mere chance whether he should encounter this creature of impulse at a propitious instant.  Nay, who could tell what was best for him after all?  Even Phœbe’s faithful acceptance of her on his word had undergone sundry severe shocks, and she had rising doubts whether Lucy, such as she saw her, could be what would make him happy.

If the secrets of every guest at a fête were told, would any be found unmixedly happy?  Would there be no one devoid of cares of their own or of other people’s, or if exempt from these, undisturbed by the absence of the right individual or by the presence of the wrong one, by mishaps of deportment, difficulties of dress, or want of notice?  Perhaps, after all, it may be best to have some one abiding anxiety, strong enough to destroy tedium, and exclude the pettier distresses, which are harder to contend with, though less dignified; and most wholesome of all is it that this should be an interest entirely external.  So, after all, Phœbe’s enjoyment might hardly have been increased had her thoughts been more free from Robin’s troubles, when she came down dressed for her first party, so like a lily of the valley in her delicate dress, that Owen acknowledged that it justified her choice, and murmured something of ‘in vernal green and virgin white, her festal robes, arrayed.’  Phœbe was only distressed at what she thought the profanation of quoting from such a source in compliment to her.  Honora was gratified to find the lines in his memory upon any terms.  Poor dear Honor, in one case at least believing all things, hoping all things!

Phœbe ought to have made the most of her compliment.  It was all she obtained in that line.  Juliana herself could not have taken umbrage at her success.  Nobody imagined her come out, no one attempted to disturb her from under Miss Charlecote’s wing, and she kept close to her the whole afternoon, sometimes sitting upon a haycock, sometimes walking in the shrubbery, listening to the band, or looking at the archery, in company with dignified clergyman, or elderly lady, astonished to meet Honor Charlecote in so unwonted a scene.  Owen Sandbrook was never far off.  He took them to eat ices, conducted them to good points of view, found seats for them, and told them who every one was, with droll comments or anecdotes which entertained them so much, that Phœbe almost wished that Robin had not made her sensible of the grain of irreverence that seasoned all Owen’s most brilliant sallies.

They saw little of the others.  Mr. and Mrs. Charteris walked about together, the one cordial, the other stately and gorgeous, and Miss Charlecote came in for her due and passing share of their politeness.  Rashe once invited Phœbe to shoot, but had too many on her hands to be solicitous about one.  Flirting no longer herself, Rashe’s delight was in those who did flirt, and in any assembly her extreme and unscrupulous good-nature made her invaluable to all who wanted to have themselves taken off their own hands, or pushed into those of others.  She ordered people about, started amusements, hunted gentlemen up, found partners, and shook up the bashful.  Rashe Charteris was the life of everything.  How little was wanting to make her kind-hearted activity admirable!

Lucilla never came in their way at all.  She was only seen in full and eager occupation embellishing the archery, or forcing the ‘decidedly pious’ to be fascinated by her gracious self-adaptation.  Robert was equally inaccessible, always watching her, but keeping aloof from his sister, and only consorting at times with Mr. Prendergast.

It was seven o’clock when this act of the drama was finally over, and the parties staying in the house met round a hurried meal.  Rashe lounging and yawning, laughing and quizzing, in a way amazing to Phœbe; Lucilla in the very summit of spirits, rattling and laughing away in full swing.  Thence the party dispersed to dress, but Honora had no sooner reached her room than she said, ‘I must go and find Lucy.  I must do my duty by her, little hope as I have.  She has avoided me all day; I must seek her now.’

What a difference time and discipline had made in one formerly so timid and gentle as to be alarmed at the least encounter, and nervous at wandering about a strange house.  Nervous and frightened, indeed, she still was, but self-control kept this in check, and her dislike was not allowed to hold her back from her duty.  Humfrey’s representative was seldom permitted to be weak.  But there are times when the difference between man and woman is felt in their dealings with others.  Strength can be mild, but what is strained can seldom be gentle, and when she knocked at Horatia Charteris’s door, her face, from very unhappiness and effort, was sorrowfully reproachful, as she felt herself an unwelcome apparition to the two cousins, who lay on their bed still laughing over the day’s events.

Rashe, who was still in her morning dress, at once gave way, saying she must go and speak to Lolly, and hastened out of the room.  Lucy, in her dishabille, sat crouched upon the bed, her white bare shoulders and floating hair, together with the defiant glance of the blue eye, and the hand moodily compressing the lips, reminding Honor of the little creature who had been summarily carried into her house sixteen years since.  She came towards her, but there was no invitation to give the caress that she yearned to bestow, and she leant against the bed, trembling, as she said, ‘Lucy, my poor child, I am come that you may not throw away your last chance without knowing it.  You do not realize what you are about.  If you cast aside esteem and reliance, how can you expect to retain the affection you sometimes seem to prize?’

‘If I am not trusted, what’s the good of affection?’

‘How can you expect trust when you go beyond the bounds of discretion?’ said Honor, with voice scarcely steadied into her desired firmness.

‘I can, I do!’

‘Lucy, listen to me.’  She gave way to her natural piteous, pleading tone: ‘I verily believe that this is the very turn.  Remember how often a moment has decided the fate of a life!’  She saw the expression relax into some alarm, and continued: ‘The Fulmorts do not say so, but I see by their manner that his final decision will be influenced by your present proceedings.  You have trifled with him too long, and with his mind made up to the ministry, he cannot continue to think of one who persists in outraging decorum.’

Those words were effort enough, and had better have been unsaid.  ‘That is as people may think,’ was all the answer.

‘As he thinks?’

‘How do I know what he thinks?’

Heartsick at such mere fencing, Honor was silent at first, then said, ‘I, for one, shall rate your good opinion by your endeavour to deserve it.  Who can suppose that you value what you are willing to risk for an unladylike bet, or an unfeminine sporting expedition!’

‘You may tell him so,’ said Lucilla, her voice quivering with passion.

‘You think a look will bring him back, but you may find that a true man is no slave.  Prove his affection misplaced, and he will tear it away.’

Had Honora been discreet as she was good, she would have left those words to settle down; but, woman that she was, she knew not when to stop, and coaxingly coming to the small bundle of perverseness, she touched the shoulder, and said, ‘Now you won’t make an object of yourself to-night?’

The shoulder shook in the old fashion.

‘At least you will not go to Ireland.’

‘Yes, I shall.’

‘Miss Charlecote, I beg your pardon—’ cried Rashe, bursting in—(oh! that she had been five seconds earlier)—‘but dressing is imperative.  People are beginning to come.’

Honora retreated in utter discomfiture.

‘Rashe!  Rashe!  I’m in for it!’ cried Lucilla, as the door shut, springing up with a look of terror.

‘Proposed by deputy?’ exclaimed Horatia, aghast.

‘No, no!’ gasped Lucilla; ‘it’s this Ireland of yours—that—that—’ and she well-nigh sobbed.

‘My bonny bell!  I knew you would not be bullied into deserting.’

‘Oh! Rashe, she was very hard on me.  Every one is but you!’ and Lucilla threw herself into her cousin’s arms in a paroxysm of feeling; but their maid’s knock brought her back to composure sooner than poor Honora, who shed many a tear over this last defeat, as, looking mournfully to Phœbe, she said, ‘I have done, Phœbe.  I can say no more to her.  She will not hear anything from me.  Oh! what have I done that my child should be hardened against me!’

Phœbe could offer nothing but caresses full of indignant sorrow, and there was evidently soothing in them, for Miss Charlecote’s tears became softer, and she fondly smoothed Phœbe’s fair hair, saying, as she drew the clinging arms closer round her: ‘My little woodbine, you must twine round your brother and comfort him, but you can spare some sweetness for me too.  There, I will dress.  I will not keep you from the party.’

‘I do not care for that; only to see Robin.’

‘We must take our place in the crowd,’ sighed Honora, beginning her toilet; ‘and you will enjoy it when you are there.  Your first quadrille is promised to Owen, is it not?’

‘Yes,’ said Phœbe, dreamily, and she would have gone back to Robin’s sorrows, but Honora had learnt that there were subjects to be set aside when it was incumbent on her to be presentable, and directed the talk to speculations whether the poor schoolmistress would have nerve to sing; and somehow she talked up Phœbe’s spirits to such a hopeful pitch, that the little maiden absolutely was crossed by a gleam of satisfaction from the ungrateful recollection that poor Miss Charlecote had done with the affair.  Against her will, she had detected the antagonism between the two, and bad as it was of Lucy, was certain that she was more likely to be amenable where there was no interference from her best friend.

The music-room was already crowded when the two made their way into it, and Honora’s inclination was to deposit herself on the nearest seat, but she owed something otherwise to her young charge, and Phœbe’s eyes had already found a lonely black figure with arms crossed, and lowering brow.  Simultaneously they moved towards him, and he towards them.  ‘Is she come down?’ he asked.

Phœbe shook her head, but at the same moment another door near the orchestra admitted a small white butterfly figure, leading in a tall queenly apparition in black, whom she placed in a chair adjacent to the bejewelled prima donna of the night—a great contrast with her dust-coloured German hair and complexion, and good-natured plain face.

Robert’s face cleared with relief; he evidently detected nothing outré in Lucilla’s aspect, and was rejoicing in the concession.  Woman’s eyes saw further; a sigh from Honora, an amused murmur around him, caused him to bend his looks on Phœbe.  She knew his eyes were interrogating her, but could not bear to let her own reply, and kept them on the ground.

He was moving towards Lucilla, who, having consigned her protegée to the good-humoured German, had come more among the guests, and was exchanging greetings and answering comments with all her most brilliant airs of saucy animation.

And who could quarrel with that fairy vision?  Her rich double-skirted watered silk was bordered with exquisitely made and coloured flies, radiant with the hues of the peacock, the gold pheasant, the jay, parrots of all tints, everything rich and rare in plumage.  A coronal of the same encircled her glossy hair, the tiny plumes contrasting with the blonde ringlets, and the bonâ fide hooks ostentatiously displayed; lesser and more innocuous flies edged the sleeves, corsage, shoes, and gloves; and her fan, which she used as skilfully as Jenny Wren, presented a Watteau-like picture of an angling scene.  Anything more daintily, quaintly pretty could not be imagined, and the male part of the assembly would have unanimously concurred in Sir Harry Buller’s ‘three cheers for the queen of the anglers.’

But towards the party most concerned in her movements, Lucilla came not; and Phœbe, understanding a desire to keep as near as might be to Miss Murrell, tried to suggest it as the cause, and looking round, saw Owen standing by Miss Charlecote, with somewhat of an uneasy countenance.

‘Terribly hot here,’ he said, restlessly; ‘suffocating, aren’t you, Honor?  Come and take a turn in the cloister; the fountain is stunning by moonlight.’

No proposal could have been more agreeable to Honora; and Phœbe was afraid of losing her chaperon, though she would rather have adhered to her brother, and the barbs of that wicked little angler were tearing him far too deeply to permit him to move out of sight of his tormentor.

But for this, the change would have been delicious.  The white lights and deep shadows from the calm, grave moon contrasted with the long gleams of lamp-light from every window, reddened by the curtains within; the flowers shone out with a strange whiteness, the taller ones almost like spiritual shapes; the burnished orange leaves glistened, the water rose high in silvery spray, and fell back into the blackness of the basin made more visible by one trembling, shimmering reflection; the dark blue sky above seemed shut into a vault by the enclosing buildings, and one solitary planet shone out in the lustrous neighbourhood of the moon.  So still, so solemn, so cool!  Honora felt it as repose, and pensively began to admire—Owen chimed in with her.  Feverish thoughts and perturbations were always gladly soothed away in her company.  Phœbe alone stood barely confessing the beauty, and suppressing impatience at their making so much of it; not yet knowing enough of care or passion to seek repose, and much more absorbed in human than in any other form of nature.

The music was her first hope of deliverance from her namesake in the sky; but, behold, her companions chose to prefer hearing that grand instrumental piece softened by distance; and even Madame Hedwig’s quivering notes did not bring them in.  However, at the first sounds of the accompaniment to the ‘Three Fishers’ Wives,’ Owen pulled back the curtain, and handed the two ladies back into the room, by a window much nearer to the orchestra than that by which they had gone out, not far from where Edna Murrell had just risen, her hands nervously clasped together, her colour rapidly varying, and her eyes roaming about as though in quest of something.  Indeed, through all the music, the slight sounds of the entrance at the window did not escape her, and at the instant when she should have begun to sing, Phœbe felt those black eyes levelled on herself with a look that startled her; they were at once removed, the head turned away; there was an attempt at the first words, but they died away on her lips; there was a sudden whiteness, Lucilla and the German both tried to reseat her; but with readier judgment Owen made two long steps, gathered her up in his strong arms, and bore her through the curtains and out at the open window like a mere infant.

‘Don’t come, don’t—it will only make more fuss—nobody has seen.  Go to Madame Hedwig; tell her from me to go on to her next, and cover her retreat,’ said Lucilla, as fast as the words would come, signing back Honora, and hastily disappearing between the curtains.

There was a command in Lucilla’s gestures which always made obedience the first instinct even with Honora, and her impulse to assist thus counteracted, she had time to recollect that Lucy might be supposed to know best what to do with the schoolmistress, and that to dispose of her among her ladies’ maid friends was doubtless the kindest measure.

‘I must say I am glad,’ she said; ‘the poor thing cannot be quite so much spoilt as they wished.’

The concert proceeded, and in the next pause Honor fell into conversation with a pleasant lady who had brought one pair of young daughters in the morning, and now was doing the same duty by an elder pair.

Phœbe was standing near the window when a touch on her arm and a whispered ‘Help! hush!’ made her look round.  Holding the curtain apart, so as to form the least possible aperture, and with one finger on her lip, was Lucy’s face, the eyes brimming over with laughter, as she pointed to her head—three of the hooks had set their barbs deep into the crimson satin curtain, and held her a prisoner!

‘Hush!  I’ll never forgive you if you betray me,’ she whispered, drawing Phœbe by the arm behind the curtain; ‘I should expire on the spot to be found in Absalom’s case.  All that little goose’s fault—I never reckoned on having to rush about this way.  Can’t you do it?  Don’t spare scissors,’ and Lucilla produced a pair from under her skirt.  ‘Rashe and I always go provided.’

‘How is she?—where is she?’ asked Phœbe.

‘That’s exactly what I can’t tell.  He took her out to the fountain; she was quite like a dead thing.  Water wouldn’t make her come to, and I ran for some salts; I wouldn’t call anybody, for it was too romantic a condition to have Owen discovered in, with a fainting maiden in his arms.  Such a rummage as I had.  My own things are all jumbled up, I don’t know how, and Rashe keeps nothing bigger than globules, only fit for fainting lady-birds, so I went to Lolly’s, but her bottles have all gold heads, and are full of uncanny-looking compounds, and I made a raid at last on Sweet Honey’s rational old dressing-case, poked out her keys from her pocket, and got in; wasting interminable time.  Well, when I got back to my fainting damsel, non est inventus.’

‘Inventa,’ murmured the spirit of Miss Fennimore within Phœbe.  ‘But what? had she got well?’

‘So I suppose.  Gone off to the servants’ rooms, no doubt; as there is no White Lady in the fountain to spirit them both away.  What, haven’t you done that, yet?’

‘Oh! Lucy, stand still, please, or you’ll get another hook in.’

‘Give me the scissors; I know I could do it quicker.  Never mind the curtain, I say; nobody will care.’

She put up her hand, and shook head and feet to the entanglement of a third hook; but Phœbe, decided damsel that she was, used her superior height to keep her mastery, held up the scissors, pressed the fidgety shoulder into quiescence, and kept her down while she extricated her, without fatal detriment to the satin, though with scanty thanks, for the liberation was no sooner accomplished than the sprite was off, throwing out a word about Rashe wanting her.

Phœbe emerged to find that she had not been missed, and presently the concert was over, and tea coming round, there was a change of places.  Robert came towards her.  ‘I am going,’ he said.

‘Oh! Robert, when dancing would be one chance?’

‘She does not mean to give me that chance; I would not ask it while she is in that dress.  It is answer sufficient.  Good night, Phœbe; enjoy yourself.’

Enjoy herself!  A fine injunction, when her brother was going away in such a mood!  Yet who would have suspected that rosy, honest apple face of any grievance, save that her partner was missing?

Honora was vexed and concerned at his neglect, but Phœbe appeased her by reporting what Lucy had said.  ‘Thoughtless! reckless!’ sighed Honora; ‘if Lucy would leave the poor girl on his hands, of course he is obliged to make some arrangement for getting her home!  I never knew such people as they are here!  Well, Phœbe, you shall have a partner next time!’

Phœbe had one, thanks chiefly to Rashe, and somehow the rapid motion shook her out of her troubles, and made her care much less for Robin’s sorrows than she had done two minutes before.  She was much more absorbed in hopes for another partner.