sprang up after my spring-time. Is it my chastisement, or is it my training? Alas! maybe I took those children more for myself than for duty’s sake! May it all be for their true good in the end, whatever it may be with me. And now I will not dream. It is of no use save to unnerve me. Let me go to my book. It must be a story to-night. I cannot fix my attention yet.’
As she rose, however, her face brightened at the sight of two advancing figures, and she went forward to meet them.
One was a long, loosely-limbed youth of two-and-twenty, with broad shoulders, a heavy overhanging brow, dark gray serious eyes, and a mouth scarcely curved, and so fast shut as to disclose hardly any lip. The hair was dark and lank; the air was of ungainly force, that had not yet found its purpose, and therefore was not at ease; and but for the educated cast of countenance he would have had a peasant look, in the brown, homely undress garb, which to most youths of his age would have been becoming.
With him was a girl, tall, slim, and lightly made, though of nicely rounded figure. In height she looked like seventeen, but her dress was more childish than usual at that age; and the contour of her smooth cheeks and short rounded chin, her long neck, her happy blue eyes, fully opened like those of a child, her fair rosy skin and fresh simple air, might almost have belonged to seven years old: and there was all the earnestness, innocence, and careless ease of childhood in her movements and gestures, as she sprang forward to meet Miss Charlecote, exclaiming, ‘Robin said I might come.’
‘And very right of him. You are both come to tea?’ she added, in affirmative interrogation, as she shook hands with the young man.
‘No, thank you,’ he answered; ‘at least I only brought Phœbe, having rescued her from Miss Fennimore’s clutches. I must be at dinner. But I will come again for her.’ And he yawned wearily.
‘I will drive her back; you are tired.’
‘No!’ he said. ‘At least the walk is one of the few tolerable things there is. I’ll come as soon as I can escape, Phœbe. Past seven—I must go!’
‘Can’t you stay? I could find some food for you.’
‘No, thank you,’ he still said; ‘I do not know whether Mervyn will come home, and there must not be too many empty chairs. Good-bye!’ and he walked off with long strides, but with stooping shoulders, and an air of dejection almost amounting to discontent.
‘Poor Robin!’ said Honora, ‘I wish he could have stayed.’
‘He would have liked it very much,’ said Phœbe, casting wistful glances toward him.
‘What a pity he did not give notice of his intentions at home!’
‘He never will. He particularly dislikes—’
‘What?’ as Phoebe paused and coloured.
‘Saying anything to anybody,’ she answered with a little smile. ‘He cannot endure remarks.’
‘I am a very sober old body for a visit to me to be the occasion of remarks!’ said Honor, laughing more merrily than perhaps Robert himself could have done; but Phœbe answered with grave, straightforward sincerity, ‘Yes, but he did not know if Lucy might not be come home.’
Honora sighed, but playfully said, ‘In which case he would have stayed?’
‘No,’ said the still grave girl, ‘he would have been still less likely to do so.’
‘Ah! the remarks would have been more pointed! But he has brought you at any rate, and that is something! How did he achieve it?’
‘Miss Fennimore is really quite ready to be kind,’ said Phœbe, earnestly, with an air of defence, ‘whenever we have finished all that we have to do.’
‘And when is that?’ asked Honor, smiling.
‘Now for once,’ answered Phœbe, with a bright arch look. ‘Yes, I sometimes can; and so does Bertha when she tries; and, indeed, Miss Charlecote, I do like Miss Fennimore; she never is hard upon poor Maria. No governess we ever had made her cry so seldom.’
Miss Charlecote only said it was a comfort. Within herself she hoped that, for Maria’s peace and that of all concerned, her deficiency might become an acknowledged fact. She saw that the sparing Maria’s tears was such a boon to Phœbe as to make her forgive all overtasking of herself.
‘So you get on better,’ she said.
‘Much better than Robin chooses to believe we do,’ said Phœbe, smiling; ‘perhaps it seemed hard at first, but it is comfortable to be made to do everything thoroughly, and to be shown a better best than we had ever thought of. I think it ought to be a help in doing the duty of all one’s life in a thorough way.’
‘All that thou hast to do,’ said Honor, smiling, ‘the week-day side of the fourth commandment.’
‘Yes, that is just the reason why I like it,’ said Phœbe, with bright gladness in her countenance.
‘But is that the motive Miss Fennimore puts before you?’ said Honor, a little ironically.
‘She does not say so,’ answered Phœbe. ‘She says that she never interferes with her pupils’ religious tenets. But, indeed, I do not think she teaches us anything wrong, and there is always Robert to ask.’
This passed as the two ladies were entering the house and preparing for the evening meal. The table was placed in the bay of the open window, and looked very inviting, the little silver tea-pot steaming beside the two quaint china cups, the small crisp twists of bread, the butter cool in ice-plant leaves, and some fresh fruit blushing in a pretty basket. The Holt was a region of Paradise to Phœbe Fulmort; and glee shone upon her sweet face, though it was very quiet enjoyment, as the summer breeze played softly round her cheeks and danced with a merry little spiral that had detached itself from her glossy folds of light hair.
‘How delicious!’ she said. ‘How sweet the honeysuckle is, dear old thing! You say you have known it all your life, and yet it is fresh as ever.’
‘It is a little like you, Phœbe,’ said Honor, smiling.
‘What! because it is not exactly a pretty flower?’
‘Partly; and I could tell you of a few other likenesses, such as your being Robert’s woodbine, yet with a sort of clinging freedom. Yes, and for the qualities you share with the willow, ready to give thanks and live on the least that Heaven may give.’
‘But I don’t live on the least that Heaven may give,’ said Phœbe, in such wonder that Honor smiled at the justice of her simile, without impressing it upon Phœbe, only asking—
‘Is the French journey fixed upon, Phœbe?’
‘Yes; they start this day fortnight.’
‘They—not you?’
‘No; there would be no room for me,’ with a small sigh.
‘How can that be? Who is going? Papa, mamma, two sisters!’
‘Mervyn,’ added Phœbe, ‘the courier, and the two maids.’
