‘Yes.  My father heard the invitation, and said that you were a good girl, and deserved a holiday.’

Commendation from that quarter was so rare, that excess of gladness made Phœbe cast down her eyes and colour intensely, a little oppressed by the victory over her governess.  But Miss Fennimore spoke warmly.  ‘He cannot think her more deserving than I do.  I am rejoiced not to have been consulted, for I could hardly have borne to inflict such a mortification on her, though these interruptions are contrary to my views.  As it is, Phœbe, my dear, I wish you joy.’

‘Thank you,’ Phœbe managed to say, while the happy tears fairly started.  In that chilly land, the least approach to tenderness was like the gleam in which the hardy woodbine leaflets unfold to sun themselves.

Thankful for small mercies, thought Robert, looking at her with fond pity; but at least the dear child will have one fortnight of a more genial atmosphere, and soon, maybe, I shall transplant her to be Lucilla’s darling as well as mine, free from task-work, and doing the labours of love for which she is made!

He was quite in spirits, and able to reply in kind to the freaks and jokes of his little sister, as she started, spinning round him like a humming-top, and singing—

 
Will you go to the wood, Robin a Bobbin?
 

giving safe vent to an ebullition of spirits that must last her a good while, poor little maiden!

Phœbe took a sober walk with Miss Fennimore, receiving advice on methodically journalizing what she might see, and on the scheme of employments which might prevent her visit from being waste of time.  The others would have resented the interference with the holiday; but Phœbe, though a little sorry to find that tasks were not to be off her mind, was too grateful for Miss Fennimore’s cordial consent to entertain any thought except of obedience to the best of her power.

Miss Fennimore was politely summoned to Mrs. Fulmort’s dressing-room for the official communication; but this day was no exception to the general custom, that the red baize door was not passed by the young ladies until their evening appearance in the drawing-room.  Then the trio descended, all alike in white muslin, made high, and green sashes—a dress carefully distinguishing Phœbe as not introduced, but very becoming to her, with the simple folds and the little net ruche, suiting admirably the tall, rounded slenderness of her shape, her long neck, and short, childish contour of face, where there smiled a joy of anticipation almost inappreciable to those who know not what it is to spend day after day with nothing particular to look forward to.

Very grand was the drawing-room, all amber-coloured with satin-wood, satin and gold, and with everything useless and costly encumbering tables that looked as if nothing could ever be done upon them.  Such a room inspired a sense of being in company, and it was no wonder that Mrs. Fulmort and her two elder daughters swept in in as decidedly procession style as if they had formed part of a train of twenty.

The star that bestowed three female sovereigns to Europe seemed to have had the like influence on Hiltonbury parish, since both its squires were heiresses.  Miss Mervyn would have been a happier woman had she married a plain country gentleman, like those of her own stock, instead of giving a county position to a man of lower origin and enormous monied wealth.  To live up to the claims of that wealth had been her business ever since, and health and enjoyment had been so completely sacrificed to it, that for many years past the greater part of her time had been spent in resting and making herself up for her appearance in the evening, when she conducted her elder daughters to their gaieties.  Faded and tallowy in complexion, so as to be almost ghastly in her blue brocade and heavy gold ornaments, she reclined languidly on a large easy-chair, saying with half-closed eyes—

‘Well, Phœbe, Miss Fennimore has told you of Miss Charlecote’s invitation.’

‘Yes, mamma.  I am very, very much obliged!’

‘You know you are not to fancy yourself come out,’ said Juliana, the second sister, who had a good tall figure, and features and complexion not far from beauty, but marred by a certain shrewish tone and air.

‘Oh, no,’ answered Phœbe; ‘but with Miss Charlecote that will make no difference.’

‘Probably not,’ said Juliana; ‘for of course you will see nobody but a set of old maids and clergymen and their wives.’

‘She need not go far for old maids,’ whispered Bertha to Maria.

‘Pray, in which class do you reckon the Sandbrooks?’ said Phœbe, smiling; ‘for she chiefly goes to meet them.’

‘She may go!’ said Juliana, scornfully; ‘but Lucilla Sandbrook is far past attending to her!’

‘I wonder whether the Charterises will take any notice of Phœbe?’ exclaimed Augusta.

‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Fulmort, waking slowly to another idea, ‘I will tell Boodle to talk to—what’s your maid’s name?—about your dresses.’

‘Oh, mamma,’ interposed Juliana, ‘it will be only poking about the exhibitions with Miss Charlecote.  You may have that plaid silk of mine that I was going to have worn out abroad, half-price for her.’

Bertha fairly made a little stamp at Juliana, and clenched her fist.

If Phœbe dreaded anything in the way of dress, it was Juliana’s half-price.

‘My dear, your papa would not like her not to be well fitted out,’ said her mother; ‘and Honora Charlecote always has such handsome things.  I wish Boodle could put mine on like hers.’

‘Oh, very well!’ said Juliana, rather offended; ‘only it should be understood what is to be done if the Charterises ask her to any of their parties.  There will be such mistakes and confusion if she meets any one we know; and you particularly objected to having her brought forward.’

Phœbe’s eye was a little startled, and Bertha set her front teeth together on edge, and looked viciously at Juliana.

‘My dear, Honora Charlecote never goes out,’ said Mrs. Fulmort.

‘If she should, you understand, Phœbe,’ said Juliana.

Coffee came in at the moment, and Augusta criticized the strength of it, which made a diversion, during which Bertha slipped out of the room, with a face replete with mischievous exultation.

‘Are not you going to play to-night, my dears?’ asked Mrs. Fulmort.  ‘What was that duet I heard you practising?’

‘Come, Juliana,’ said the elder sister, ‘I meant to go over it again; I am not satisfied with my part.’

‘I have to write a note,’ said Juliana, moving off to another table; whereupon Phœbe ventured to propose herself as a substitute, and was accepted.

Maria sat entranced, with her mouth open; and presently Mrs. Fulmort looked up from a kind of doze to ask who was playing.  For some moments she had no answer.  Maria was too much awed for speech in the drawing-room; and though Bertha had come back, she had her back to her mother, and did not hear.  Mrs. Fulmort exerted herself to sit up and turn her head.

‘Was that Phœbe?’ she said.  ‘You have a clear, good touch, my dear, as they used to say I had when I was at school at Bath.  Play another of your pieces, my dear.’

‘I am ready now, Augusta,’ said Juliana, advancing.

Little girls were not allowed at the piano when officers might be coming in from the dining-room, so Maria’s face became vacant again, for Juliana’s music awoke no echoes within her.

Phœbe beckoned her to a remote ottoman, a receptacle for the newspapers of the week, and kept her turning over the Illustrated News, an unfailing resource with her, but powerless to occupy Bertha after the first Saturday; and Bertha, turning a deaf ear to the assurance that there was something very entertaining about a tiger-hunt, stood, solely occupied by eyeing Juliana.

Was she studying ‘come-out’ life as she watched her sisters surrounded by the gentlemen who presently herded round the piano?

It was nearly the moment when the young ones were bound to withdraw, when Mervyn, coming hastily up to their ottoman, had almost stumbled over Maria’s foot.

‘Beg pardon.  Oh, it was only you!  What a cow it is!’ said he, tossing over the papers.

‘What are you looking for, Mervyn?’ asked Phœbe.

‘An advertisement—Bell’s Life for the 3rd.  That rascal, Mears, must have taken it.’

She found it for him, and likewise the advertisement, which he, missing once, was giving up in despair.

‘I say,’ he observed, while she was searching, ‘so you are to chip the shell.’

‘I’m only going to London—I’m not coming out.’

‘Gammon!’ he said, with an odd wink.  ‘You need never go in again, like the what’s-his-name in the fairy tale, or you are a sillier child than I take you for.  They’—nodding at the piano—‘are getting a terrible pair of old cats, and we want something young and pretty about.’

With this unusual compliment, Phœbe, seeing the way clear to the door, rose to depart, most reluctantly followed by Bertha, and more willingly by Maria, who began, the moment they were in the hall—

‘Phœbe, why do they get a couple of terrible old cats?  I don’t like them.  I shall be afraid.’

‘Mervyn didn’t mean—’ began perplexed Phœbe, cut short by Bertha’s boisterous laughter.  ‘Oh, Maria, what a goose you are!  You’ll be the death of me some day!  Why, Juliana and Augusta are the cats themselves.  Oh, dear! I wanted to kiss Mervyn for saying so.  Oh, wasn’t it fun!  And now, Maria,—oh! if I could have stayed a moment longer!’

‘Bertha, Bertha, not such a noise in the hall.  Come, Maria; mind, you must not tell anybody.  Bertha, come,’ expostulated Phœbe, trying to drag her sister to the red baize door; but Bertha stood, bending nearly double, exaggerating the helplessness of her paroxysms of laughter.

‘Well, at least the cat will have something to scratch her,’ she gasped out.  ‘Oh, I did so want to stay and see!’

‘Have you been playing any tricks?’ exclaimed Phœbe, with consternation, as Bertha’s deportment recurred to her.

‘Tricks?—I couldn’t help it.  Oh, listen, Phœbe!’ cried Bertha, with her wicked look of triumph.  ‘I brought home such a lovely sting-nettle for Miss Fennimore’s peacock caterpillar; and when I heard how kind dear Juliana was to you about your visit to London, I thought she really must have it for a reward; so I ran away, and slily tucked it into her bouquet; and I did so hope she would take it up to fiddle with when the gentlemen talk to her,’ said the elf, with an irresistibly comic imitation of Juliana’s manner towards gentlemen.

‘Bertha, this is beyond—’ began Phœbe.

‘Didn’t you sting your fingers?’ asked Maria.

Bertha stuck out her fat pink paws, embellished with sundry white lumps.  ‘All pleasure,’ said she, ‘thinking of the jump Juliana will give, and how nicely it serves her.’

Phœbe was already on her way back to the drawing-rooms; Bertha sprang after, but in vain.  Never would she have risked the success of her trick, could she have guessed that Phœbe would have the temerity to return to the company!

Phœbe glided in without waiting for the sense of awkwardness, though she knew she should have to cross the whole room, and she durst not ask any one to bring the dangerous bouquet to her—not even Robert—he must not be stung in her service.

She met her mother’s astonished eye as she threaded her way; she wound round a group of gentlemen, and spied the article of which she was in quest, where Juliana had laid it down with her gloves on going to the piano.  Actually she had it!  She had seized it unperceived!  Good little thief; it was a most innocent robbery.  She crept away with a sense of guilt and desire to elude observation, positively starting when she encountered her father’s portly figure in the ante-room.  He stopped her with ‘Going to bed, eh?  So Miss Charlecote has taken a fancy to you, has she?  It does you credit.  What shall you want for the journey?’

‘Boodle is going to see,’ began Phœbe, but he interrupted.

‘Will fifty do?  I will have my daughters well turned out.  All to be spent upon yourself, mind.  Why, you’ve not a bit of jewellery on!  Have you a watch?’

‘No, papa.’

‘Robert shall choose one for you, then.  Come to my room any time for the cash; and if Miss Charlecote takes you anywhere among her set—good connections she has—and you want to be rigged out extra, send me in the bill—anything rather than be shabby.’

‘Thank you, papa!  Then, if I am asked out anywhere, may I go?’

‘Why, what does the child mean?  Anywhere that Miss Charlecote likes to take you of course.’

‘Only because I am not come out.’

‘Stuff about coming out!  I don’t like my girls to be shy and backward.  They’ve a right to show themselves anywhere; and you should be going out with us now, but somehow your poor mother doesn’t like the trouble of such a lot of girls.  So don’t be shy, but make the most of yourself, for you won’t meet many better endowed, nor more highly accomplished.  Good night, and enjoy yourself.’

Palpitating with wonder and pleasure, Phœbe escaped.  Such permission, over-riding all Juliana’s injunctions, was worth a few nettle stings and a great fright; for Phœbe was not philosopher enough, in spite of Miss Fennimore—ay, and of Robert—not to have a keen desire to see a great party.

Her delay had so much convinced the sisters that her expedition had had some fearful consequences, that Maria was already crying lest dear Phœbe should be in disgrace; and Bertha had seated herself on the balusters, debating with herself whether, if Phœbe were suspected of the trick (a likely story) and condemned to lose her visit to London, she would confess herself the guilty person.

And when Phœbe came back, too much overcome with delight to do anything but communicate papa’s goodness, and rejoice in the unlimited power of making presents, Bertha triumphantly insisted on her confessing that it had been a capital thing that the nettles were in Juliana’s nosegay!

Phœbe shook her head; too happy to scold, too humble to draw the moral that the surest way to gratification is to remove the thorns from the path of others.