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I was sorry to set Miss Locke's tears flowing, because it hindered her work; tears are such a simple luxury, but poor folk cannot always afford to indulge in them. I had just commenced that beautiful song, 'Waft her, angels, through the air, when the impatient thumping of a stick on the floor arrested me; it came from Phoebe's room.
Hinpoha began to wonder, as she was thus thrown into closer contact with her aunt, whether Aunt Phoebe's austere tastes came from her having such a narrow nature, or because she had never known anything different. She could not help noticing that there were woefully few friends who came to see her during her indisposition. The daily visit of the doctor was about the only break in the monotony.
The chicken, hereupon, though almost as venerable in appearance as its mother possessing, indeed, the whole antiquity of its progenitors in miniature, mustered vivacity enough to flutter upward and alight on Phoebe's shoulder. "That little fowl pays you a high compliment!" said a voice behind Phoebe.
She had reason, perhaps, to smile, remembering the costly elegance of her own apartments; but there was something in that sardonic smile that seemed to have a deeper meaning than any natural contempt for Phoebe's attempts at decoration. She went to the dressing-table and, smoothed her wet hair before the looking-glass, and then put on her bonnet.
He is prepared to make the speech of his life tonight at seven-thirty, but at ten he joins his friends to hunt. Didn't you draw your conclusions hurriedly and against David?" In a second the tightness in Phoebe's throat relaxed and the tears flowed back to their source, only one little splash jeweled her cheek that had flamed into a blush of joy and contrition.
Ban't that nothing?" "I married when I was forty-two," remarked the miller, reflectively, looking down at his fox-head slippers, the work of Phoebe's fingers. "An' a purty marryin' time tu!" declared Mr. Blee. "Look at me," he continued, "parlous near seventy, and a bacherlor-man yet." "Not but Widow Comstock will have 'e if you ax her a bit oftener.
"'Tain't no use," snapped Debby, "I can't hear you, you speak so faint. Wait till I get my horn; it's in the settin' room." Phoebe's wonder as to what the "horn" might be was relieved by the widow's appearance, a moment later, with the biggest ear trumpet her caller had ever seen. "There, now!" she said, adjusting the instrument and thrusting the bell-shaped end under the teacher's nose.
"Thank God! thank God!" And then, as if in sympathy with Phoebe's whispered ejaculation, they heard Hepzibah's voice more distinctly. "Thank God, my brother, we are at home!" "Well! Yes! thank God!" responded Clifford. "A dreary home, Hepzibah! But you have done well to bring me hither! Stay! That parlor door is open. I cannot pass by it!
Farnaby, at their first interview, had been overheard by the unknown person who had opened the swinging window in the kitchen, he might have recalled Phoebe's vindictive language at his lodgings, and the doubts suggested to him by his discovery of the vagabond waiting for her in the street. As it was, he was simply puzzled.
She thinks of other people now. Miss Locke heard me silently, but I saw that she was still incredulous. She was not sanguine enough to hope for a miracle; and surely only a miracle could change Phoebe's sullen and morbid nature.
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