Читать книгу The Maidens' Lodge; or, None of Self and All of Thee (In the Reign of Queen Anne) - Emily Sarah Holt - Страница 8

“Ah, be not sad, although thy lot be cast Far from the flock, and in a distant waste: No shepherds’ tents within thy view appear, Yet the Chief Shepherd is for ever near.”

Cowper.

The Abbey Church of White-Ladies, to which allusion has already been made, was not in any condition for Divine Service, being only a beautiful ruin. When Madam went to church, therefore, she drove two miles to Tewkesbury.

At nine o’clock punctually, the great lumbering coach was drawn to the door by the two heavy Flanders mares, with long black tails which almost touched the ground. Madam, in a superb costume of black satin, trimmed with dark fur and white lace, took her seat in the place of honour. Rhoda, in a satin gown and hood, with a silk petticoat, all black, as became the day, sat on the small seat at one side of the door. But Rhoda sat with her face to the horses, while the yet lower place opposite was reserved for Phoebe, in her unpretending mourning. The great coach rumbled off, out of the grand gates, always opened when Madam was present, past the ruins of the Abbey Church, and drew up before a row of six little houses, fronted by six little gardens. They were built on a very minute scale, exactly alike, each containing four small rooms—kitchen, parlour, and two bedrooms over, with a little lean-to scullery at the back. On the mid-most coping-stone appeared a lofty inscription to the effect that—

“The Maidens’ Lodge was built to the Praise and Glory of God, by the pious care of Mistress Perpetua Furnival, Widow, for the lodging of six decayed gentlewomen, Spinsters, of Good Birth and Quality—A.D. 1702.”

It occurred to Phoebe, as she sat reading the inscription, that it might have been pleasanter to the decayed gentlewomen in question not to have their indigence quite so openly proclaimed to the world, even though coupled with good birth and quality, and redounding to the fame of Mistress Perpetua Furnival. But Phoebe had not much time to meditate; for the door of the first little house opened, and down the gravel walk, towards the carriage, came the neatest and nicest of little old ladies, attired, like everybody that day, in black, and carrying a silver-headed cane, on which she leaned as if it really were needed to support her. She was one of those rare persons, a pretty old woman. Her complexion was still as fair and delicate as a painting on china, her blue eyes clear and expressive. Of course, in days when everyone wore powder, hair was of one colour—white.

“This is Mrs. Dolly Jennings,” whispered Rhoda to Phoebe; “she is the eldest of the maidens, and she is about seventy. I believe she is some manner of cousin to the Duke—not very near, you know.”

The Duke, in 1712, of course, meant the Duke of Marlborough.

“Good morning, Madam,” said Mrs. Jennings, in a cheerful yet gentle voice, when she reached the carriage.

“Good morning, Mrs. Dorothy. I am glad I see you well enough to accompany me to church.”

“You are very good, Madam,” was the reply, as Mrs. Dorothy clambered up into the lumbering vehicle; “I thank God my rheumatic pains are as few and easy to-day as an old woman of threescore and ten need look for.”

“You are a great age, Mrs. Dorothy,” observed Madam.

“Yes, Madam, I thank God,” returned Mrs. Dorothy, as cheerfully as before.

While Phoebe was meditating on this last answer, the second Maiden appeared from Number Two. She was an entire contrast to the first, being tall, sharp, featured, florid, high-nosed, and generally angular.

“Mrs. Jane Talbot,” whispered Rhoda.

Mrs. Jane, having offered her civilities to Madam, climbed also into the coach, and placed herself beside Mrs. Dorothy.

“Marcella begs you will allow her excuses, Madam, for she is indisposed this morning,” said Mrs. Jane, in a quick, sharp voice, which made Phoebe doubt if all her angularity were outside.

While Madam was expressing her regret at this news, the doors of Numbers Five and Six opened simultaneously, and two ladies emerged, who were, in their way, as much a contrast as Mrs. Jane and Mrs. Dorothy. Number Six reached the carriage first. She was a pleasant, comfortable looking woman of about fifty years of age, with a round face and healthy complexion, and a manner which, while kindly, was dignified and self-possessed.

“Good morning, my Lady Betty!” said the three voices.

Phoebe then perceived that the seat of honour, beside Madam, had been reserved for Lady Betty. But Number Five followed, and she was so singular a figure that Phoebe’s attention was at once diverted to her.

She looked about the age of Lady Betty, but having evidently been a beauty in her younger days she was greatly indisposed to resign that character. Though it was a sharp January morning, her neck was unprotected by the warm tippet which all the other ladies wore. There was nothing to keep her warm in that quarter except a necklace. Large ear-rings depended from her ears, half a dozen rings were worn outside her gloves, a long chatelaine hung from her neck to her waist, to which were attached a bunch of trinkets of all shapes and sizes. She was laced very tight, and her poor nose was conscious of it, as it showed by blushing at the enormity. Under her left arm was a very small, very fat, very blunt-nosed Dutch pug. Phoebe at once guessed that the lady was Mrs. Vane, and that the pug was Cupid.

“Well, Clarissa!” said Mrs. Jane, as the new-comer took her seat at the door opposite Rhoda; “pity you hadn’t a nose-ring!”

Mrs. Vane made no answer beyond an affected smile, but Cupid growled at Mrs. Jane, whom he did not seem to hold in high esteem. The coach, with a good effort on the part of the horses, got under way, and rumbled off towards Tewkesbury.

“And how does Sir Richard, my Lady Betty?” inquired Madam, with much cordiality.

“Oh, extremely well, I thank you,” answered Lady Betty. “So well, indeed, now, that he talks of a journey to London, and a month at the Bath on his way thence.”

“What takes him to London?” asked Mrs. Jane.

“ ’Tis for the maids he thinks to go. He would have Betty and Gatty have a season’s polishing; and for Molly—poor little soul!—he is wishful to have her touched.”

“Is she as ill for the evil as ever, poor child?”

“Oh, indeed, yes! ’Tis a thousand pities; and such sprightly parts as she discovers!”

(Note: So clever as she is.)

“ ’Tis a mercy for such as she that the Queen doth touch,” said Mrs. Jane. “King William never did.”

“Is that no mistake?” gently suggested Lady Betty.

“Never dared,” came rather grimly from Madam.

“Well, maybe,” said Mrs. Jane. “But I protest I cannot see why Queen Mary should not have done it, as well as her sister.”

“I own I cannot but very much doubt,” returned Madam, severely, “that any good consequence should follow.”

By which it will be perceived that Madam was an uncompromising Jacobite. Mrs. Jane had no particular convictions, but she liked to talk Whig, because all around were Tories. Lady Betty was a Hanoverian Tory—that is, what would be termed an extreme Tory in the present day, but attached to the Protestant Succession. Mrs. Clarissa was whatever she found it the fashion to be. As to Mrs. Dorothy, she held private opinions, but she never allowed them to appear, well knowing that they would be far from acceptable to Madam. And since Mrs. Dorothy was sometimes constrained unwillingly to differ from Madam on points which she deemed essential, she was careful not to vex her on subjects which she considered indifferent.

Rhoda was rather disappointed to find that Phoebe showed no astonished admiration of Tewkesbury Abbey. She forgot that the Abbey Church at Bath, and Saint Mary Redcliffe at Bristol, had been familiar to Phoebe from her infancy. The porch was lined with beggars, who showered blessings upon Madam, in grateful anticipation of shillings to come. But Madam passed grandly on, and paid no attention to them.

The church and the service were about equally chilly. Being a fast-day, the organ was silent; but all the responding was left to the choir, the congregation seemingly supposing it as little their concern as Cupid thought it his—who curled himself up comfortably, and went to sleep. The gentlemen appeared to be amusing themselves by staring at the ladies; the ladies either returned the compliment slily behind their fans, or exchanged courtesies with each other. There was a long, long bidding prayer, and a sermon which might have been fitly prefaced by the announcement, “Let us talk to the praise and glory of Charles the First!” It was over at last. The gentlemen put down their eye-glasses, the ladies yawned and furled their fans; there was a great deal of bowing, and courtesying, and complimenting—Mr. William informing Mrs. Betty that the sun had come out solely to do her honour, and Mrs. Betty retorting with a delicate blow from her fan, and, “What a mad fellow are you!” At last these also were over; and the ladies from Cressingham remounted the family coach, nearly in the same order as they came—the variation being that Phoebe found herself seated opposite Mrs. Clarissa Vane.

“Might I pat him?” said Phoebe, diffidently.

“If you want to be bit, do!” snapped Mrs. Jane.

“Oh deah, yes!” languishingly responded Mrs. Clarissa. “He neveh bites, does ’e, the pwetty deah!”

“Heyday! Doesn’t ’e, the pwetty deah!” observed Mrs. Jane, in such exact imitation of her friend’s affected tones as sorely to try Phoebe’s gravity.

Lady Betty laughed openly, but added, “Mind what you are about, child.”

“Poor doggie!” softly said Phoebe.

Cupid’s response was the slightest oscillation of the extreme point of his tail. But when Phoebe attempted to stroke him, to the surprise of all parties, instead of snapping at her, as he was expected to do, Cupid only wagged rather more decidedly; and when Phoebe proceeded to rub his head and ears, he actually gave her, not a bite of resentment, but a lick of friendliness.

“Deah! the sweet little deah! ’E’s vewy good!” said his mistress.

The gentle reader is requested not to suppose that the elision of Mrs. Clarissa’s poor letter H, as well as R, proceeded either from ignorance or vulgarity—except so far as vulgarity lies in blindly following fashion. Mrs. Clarissa’s only mistake was that, like most country ladies, she was rather behind the age. The dropping of H and other letters had been fashionable in the metropolis some eight years before.

“Clarissa, what a goose are you!” said Mrs. Jane.

“Come, Jenny, don’t you bite!” put in Lady Betty. “Cupid has set you a better example than so.”

“I’ll not bite Clarissa, I thank you,” was Mrs. Jane’s rather spiteful answer. “It would want more than one fast-day to bring me to that. Couldn’t fancy the paint. And don’t think I could digest the patches.”

Lady Betty appeared to enjoy Mrs. Jane’s very uncivil speeches; while Cupid’s mistress remained untouched by them, being one of those persons who affect not to hear anything to which they do not choose to respond.

“Well, Rhoda, child,” said Lady Betty, as the coach neared home, “ ’tis no good, I guess, to bid you drink tea on a fast-day?”

“Oh, but I am coming, my Lady Betty,” answered Rhoda, briskly. “I mean to drink a dish with every one of you.”

“I shan’t give you anything to eat,” interpolated Mrs. Jane. “Never do to be guzzling on a fast-day. You won’t get any sugar from me, neither.”

“Never mind, Mrs. Jane,” said Rhoda. “Mrs. Dolly will give me something, I know. And I shall visit her first.”

Mrs. Dorothy assented by a benevolent smile.

“I hope, child, you will not forget it is a fast-day,” said Madam, gravely, “and not go about to divert yourself in an improper manner.”

“Oh no, Madam!” said Rhoda, drawing in her horns.

No sooner was dinner over—and as Rhoda had predicted, there was nothing except boiled potatoes and bread and butter—than Rhoda pounced on Phoebe, and somewhat authoritatively bade her come upstairs. Madam had composed herself in her easy chair, with the “Eikon Basilike” in her hand.

“Will Madam not be lonely?” asked Phoebe, timidly, as she followed Rhoda.

“Lonely? Oh, no! She’ll be asleep in a minute,” said Rhoda.

“I thought she was going to read,” suggested Phoebe.

“She fancies so,” said Rhoda, laughing. “I never knew her try yet but she went to sleep directly.”

Unlocking a closet door which stood in their bedroom, and climbing on a chair to reach the top shelf, Rhoda produced a small volume bound in red sheepskin, which she introduced to Phoebe’s notice with a rather grandiloquent air.

“Now, Phoebe! There’s my Book of Poems!”

Phoebe opened the book, and her eye fell on a few lines of faint, delicate writing, on the fly-leaf.

“To Rhoda Peveril, with her Aunt Margaret’s love.”

“Oh, you have an aunt!” said Phoebe.

“I have two somewhere,” said Rhoda. “They are good for nothing. They never give me anything.”

Phoebe looked up with a rather surprised air. “They seem to do, sometimes,” she observed, pointing to the book.

“Well, that one did,” answered Rhoda; “one or two little things like that; but she is dead. The others are just a pair of spiteful old cats.”

Phoebe’s look of astonishment deepened.

“They must be very different from my aunt, then. I have only one, but I would not call her names for the world. She loves me, and I love her.”

“Why, what are aunts good for but to be called names?” was the amiable response. “But now listen, Phoebe. I am going to read you a piece of my poetry. You see, our old church is dedicated to Saint Ursula; and there is an image in the church, which they say is Saint Ursula—it has such a charming face! Madam doesn’t think ’tis charming, but I do. So you see, this poem is to that image.”

Phoebe looked rather puzzled, but did not answer.

“Now, I would have you criticise, Phoebe,” said Rhoda, condescendingly, using a word she had picked up from one of her grandfather’s books.

“I don’t know what that is,” said Phoebe.

“Well, it means, if you hear anything you don’t like, say so.”

“Very well,” replied Phoebe, quietly.

And Rhoda began to read, with the style of a rhetorician—as she supposed—

“Step softly, nearer as ye tread

To this shrine of the royal dead!

This Abbey’s hallowed unto one,

Daughter of Britain’s ancient throne—

History names her one sole thing,

The daughter of a British King.”

Rhoda paused, and looked at her cousin—ostensibly for criticism, really for admiration. If Phoebe had said exactly what she thought, it would have been that her ear was cruelly outraged: but Phoebe was not accustomed to the sharp speeches which passed for wit with Rhoda. She fell back on a matter of fact.

“Does history say nothing more about her?”

“Of course it does! It says the Vandals martyred her. Phoebe, you can’t criticise poetry as if it were prose.”

It struck Phoebe that Rhoda’s poetry was very like prose; but she said meekly, “Please go on. I ask your pardon.”

So Rhoda went on—

“Her glorious line has passed away—

The wild dream of a by-gone day!

We know not from what throne she sprang,

Britain is silent in her song—”

“What’s the matter?” asked Rhoda, interrupting herself.

“I ask your pardon,” said Phoebe again. “But—will song do with sprang? And if Ursula was a real person, as I thought she had been, she wasn’t a wild dream, was she?”

“Phoebe, I do believe you haven’t a bit of taste!” said Rhoda. “I’ll try you with one more verse, and then—

“O wake her not! Ages have passed

Since her fair eyelids closed at last.”

“I should think, then, you would find it difficult to wake her,” remarked Phoebe: but Rhoda went on as if she had not heard it—

“For twice six hundred years, ’tis said,

Hath rested ’neath yon tomb her head—

That head which soft reposed of old

On couch of satin and of gold.”

“Dear!” was Phoebe’s comment. “I didn’t know they had satin sofas twelve hundred years ago.”

“ ’Tis no earthly use reading poetry to you!” exclaimed Rhoda, throwing down the book. “You haven’t one bit of feeling for it, no more than if it were a sermon I was reading! Tie your hood on, and make haste, and we’ll go and see the Maidens.”

Phoebe seemed rather troubled to have annoyed her cousin, though she evidently did not perceive how it had been effected. The girls tied on their hoods, and Rhoda, who was not really ill-natured, soon recovered herself when she got into the fresh air.

“Now, while we are going across the Park,” she said, “I will tell you something about the old gentlewomen. I couldn’t this morning, you know, more than their names, because there was Madam listening. But now, hark! Mrs. Dolly Jennings—the one who came in first, you know, and sat over against Lady Betty—I don’t know what kin she is, but there is some kin between her and the Duchess of Marlborough. She is the oldest of the Maidens, and the best one to tell a story—except she falls to preaching, and then ’tis tiresome. Do you like sermons, Phoebe?”

“It all depends who preaches them,” said Phoebe.

“Well, of course it does,” said Rhoda. “I don’t like anyone but Dr. Harris—he has such white hands!”

“He does not preach about them, does he?” said Phoebe, apparently puzzled as to the connection.

“Oh, he nourishes them about, and discovers so many elegancies!” answered Rhoda.

“But how does that make him preach better?”

“Why, Phoebe, how stupid you are! But you must not interrupt me in that way, or I shall never be done. Mrs. Dolly, you see, is seventy or more; and in her youth she was in the great world. So she has all manner of stories, and she’ll always tell them when you ask her. I only wish she did not preach! Well, then, Mrs. Jane Talbot—that one with the high nose, that sat next Mrs. Dolly in the coach—she has lively parts enough, and that turn makes her very agreeable. I don’t care for her sister, Mrs. Marcella, that lives next her—she’s always having some distemper, and I don’t like sick people. Mrs. Clarissa Vane is the least well-born of all of them; but she’s been a toast, you see, and she fancies herself charming, poor old thing! As for Lady Betty—weren’t you surprised? I believe Madam pays her a good lot to live there; it gives the place an air, you know. She is Sir Richard Delawarr’s aunt, and he is the great man all about here—all the land that way belongs to him, as far as you can see. He is of very good family—an old Norman house. They are thought a great deal of, you know.”

“But isn’t that strange?” said Phoebe, meditatively. “If Sir Richard is thought more of because his forefathers came from France six hundred years ago, why is my grandfather thought less of because he came from France thirty years ago?”

“O Phoebe! It is not the same thing at all!”

“But why is it not the same thing?” gently persisted Phoebe.

“Oh, nonsense!” said Rhoda, cutting the knot peremptorily. “Phoebe, can you speak French?”

“Yes.”

“Have a care you don’t let Madam hear you! Who taught you?—your father?”

“Yes. He said it was our own language.”

“Why, you don’t mean to say he was proud of being a Frenchman?” cried Rhoda, in amazement.

“I think he was, if he was proud of anything,” answered Phoebe. “He loved France very dearly. He thought it the grandest country in the world.”

And Phoebe’s voice trembled a little. Evidently her father was in her eyes a hero, and all that he had loved was sacred.

“But, Phoebe! not greater than England? He couldn’t!” cried Rhoda, to whom such an idea seemed an impossibility.

“He was fond of England, too,” said Phoebe. “He said she had sheltered us when our own country cast us off, and we should love her and be very thankful to her. But he loved France the best.”

Rhoda tried to accept this incredible proposition.

“Well! ’tis queer!” she said at last. “Proud of being a Frenchman! What would Madam say?”

“ ’Tis only like Sir Richard Delawarr, is it?”

“Phoebe, you’ve no sense!”

“Well, perhaps I haven’t,” said Phoebe meekly, as they turned in at the gate of Number One.

Mrs. Dolly Jennings was ready for her guests, in her little parlour, with the most delicate and transparent china set out upon the little tea-table, and the smallest and brightest of copper kettles singing on the hob.

“Well, you thought I meant it, Mrs. Dolly!” exclaimed Rhoda laughingly, as the girls entered.

“I always think people mean what they say, child, until I find they don’t,” said Mrs. Dorothy. “Welcome, Miss Phoebe, my dear!”

“Oh, would you please to call me Phoebe?” said the owner of that name, blushing.

“So I will, my dear,” replied Mrs. Dorothy, who was busy now pouring out the tea. “Mrs. Rhoda, take a chair, child, and help yourself to bread and butter.”

Rhoda obeyed, and did not pass the plate to Phoebe.

“Mrs. Dolly,” she said, interspersing her words with occasional bites, “I am really concerned about Phoebe. She hasn’t the least bit of sense.”

“Indeed, child,” quietly responded Mrs. Dorothy, while Phoebe coloured painfully. “How doth she show it?”

“Why, she doesn’t care a straw for poetry?”

“Is it poetry you engaged her with?”

“What do you mean?” said Rhoda, rather pettishly. “It was my poetry.”

“Eh, dear!” said Mrs. Dorothy, but there was a little indication of fun about her mouth. “Perhaps, my dear, you write lyrics, and your cousin hath more fancy for epical poetry.”

“She doesn’t care for any sort, I’m sure,” said Rhoda.

“What say you to this heavy charge, Phoebe?” inquired little Mrs. Dorothy, with a cheery smile.

“I like some poetry,” replied Phoebe, bashfully.

“What kind?” blurted out Rhoda, apparently rather affronted.

Phoebe coloured, and hesitated. “I like the old hymns the Huguenots used to sing,” she said, “such us dear father taught me.”

“Hymns aren’t poetry!” said Rhoda, contemptuously.

“That is true enough of some hymns, child,” answered Mrs. Dorothy. “But, Phoebe, my dear, will you let us hear one of your hymns?”

“They are in French,” whispered Phoebe.

“They will do for me in French, my dear,” replied Mrs. Dorothy.

Rhoda stared in manifest astonishment. Phoebe struggled for a moment with her natural shyness, and then she began:—

“Mon sort n’est pas à plaindre,

Il est à désirer;

Je n’ai plus rien à craindre,

Car Dieu est mon Berger.”

“My lot asks no complaining,

But joy and confidence;

I have no fear remaining,

For God is my Defence.”

But the familiar words evidently brought with them a rush of associations which was too much for Phoebe. She burst in tears, and covered her face with her hands.

“What on earth are you crying for?” asked Rhoda.

“Thank you, my dear,” said Mrs. Dorothy. “The verse is enough for a day, and the truth which is in it is enough for a life.”

“I ask your pardon!” sobbed Phoebe, when she could speak at all. “But I used to sing it—to dear father, and when he was gone I said it to poor mother. And they are all gone now!”

“Oh, don’t bother!” said Rhoda. “My papa’s dead, and my mamma too; but you’ll not see me crying over it.”

Rhoda pronounced the words “Pappa,” and “Mamma,” as is done in America to this day.

“You never knew your parents, Mrs. Rhoda,” said the little old lady, ever ready to cast oil on the troubled waters. “Phoebe, dear child, wouldst thou wish them all back again?”

“No; oh, no! I could not be so unkind,” said Phoebe, wiping her eyes. “But only a year ago, there were seven of us. It seems so hard!”

“I say, Phoebe, if you mean to cry and take on,” said Rhoda, springing up and drinking off her tea, “you’ll give me the spleen. I hate to be hipped. I shall be off to Mrs. Jane. Come along!”

“Go yourself, Mrs. Rhoda, my dear, and leave your cousin to recover, if tears be your aversion.”

“Why, aren’t they all our aversions?” said Rhoda, outraging grammar. “You don’t need to pretend, Mrs. Dolly! I never saw you cry in my life.”

“Ah, child!” said Mrs. Dorothy, as if she meant to indicate that there had been more of her life than could be seen from Rhoda’s standing-point. “But you’ll do well to take an old woman’s counsel, my dear. Run off to Mrs. Jane, and divert yourself half an hour; and when you return, your cousin will have passed her trouble, and I will have a Story to tell you both. I know you like stories.”

“Come, I’ll go, for a story when I came back,” said Rhoda; “but I meant to take Phoebe. Can’t she wipe her eyes and come?”

“Then I shall not tell you a story,” responded Mrs. Dorothy.

Rhoda laughed, and ran off. Mrs. Dorothy let Phoebe have her cry out for a short time. She moved softly about, putting things in order, and then came and sat down by Phoebe on the settle.

“The world is too great for thee, poor child!” she said, tenderly, taking Phoebe’s hands in hers. “It is a long way from thy father’s grave; but, bethink thee, ’tis no long way from himself, if he is gone to Him that is our Father.”

“I know he is,” whispered Phoebe.

“And is the Lord thy Shepherd, dear child?”

“I know He is,” said Phoebe, again.

“ ‘Mon sort n’est pas à plaindre,’ ” softly repeated Mrs. Dorothy.

“Oh, it is wrong of me!” sobbed Phoebe. “But it does seem so hard. Nobody cares for me any more.”

“Nay, my child, ‘He careth for thee.’ ”

“Oh, I know it is so!” was the answer; “but I can’t feel it. It all looks so dark and cold. I can’t feel it!”

“Poor little child, lost in the dark!” said Mrs. Dorothy, gently. “Dear, the Lord must know how very much easier it would be to see. But His especial blessing is spoken on them that have not seen, and yet have believed. ’Tis an honour to thy Father, little Phoebe, to put thine hand in His, and let Him lead thee where He will. Thine earthly father would have liked thee to trust him. Canst thou not trust the heavenly Father?”

Phoebe’s tears were falling more softly now.

“Phoebe, little maiden, shall I love thee?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Dorothy, but people don’t love me,” said Phoebe, as if it were a fact, sad, indeed, but incontrovertible. “Only dear father and Perry.”

“And thy mother,” suggested Mrs. Dorothy, in a soothing tone.

“Well—yes—I suppose so,” doubtfully admitted Phoebe. “But, you see, poor mother—I had better not talk about it, Mrs. Dorothy, if you please.”

Mrs. Dorothy let the point pass, making a note of it in her own mind. She noticed, too, that Phoebe said, “Dear father” and “poor mother”; yet it was the father who was dead, and the mother was living. The terms, thought Mrs. Dorothy, must have some reference to character.

“Little Phoebe,” she said, “if it should comfort thee betimes to pour out thine heart to some human creature, come across the Park, and tell thy troubles to me. Thou art but a young traveller; and such mostly long for some company. Yet, bethink thee, my dear, I can but be sorry for thee, while the Lord can help thee. He is the best to trust, child.”

“Yes, I know,” whispered Phoebe. “You are so good, Mrs. Dorothy!”

“Now for the story!” said Rhoda, dancing into the little parlour. “You’ve had oceans of time to dry your eyes. I have been to Mrs. Jane, and Mrs. Clarissa, and my Lady Betty; and I’ve had a dish of tea with each one. I shall turn into a tea-plant presently. Now I’m ready, Mrs. Dorothy; go on!”

“What fashion of tale should you like, Mrs. Rhoda?”

“Oh, you had better begin at the beginning,” said Rhoda. “I don’t think I ever heard you tell about when you were a child; you always begin with the Revolution. Go back a little earlier, and let us have your whole history.”

Mrs. Dorothy paused thoughtfully.

“It won’t do me any harm,” added Rhoda; “and I can’t see why you should care. You’re nearly seventy, aren’t you?”

Phoebe’s shy glance at her cousin might have been interpreted to mean that she did not think her very civil; but Mrs. Dorothy did not resent the question.

“Yes, my dear, I am over seventy,” she said, quietly. “And I don’t know that it would do you any harm. You have to face the world, too, one of these days. Please God, you may have a more guarded entrance into it than I had! Here is a cushion for your back, Mrs. Rhoda; and, Phoebe, my dear, here is one for you. Let me reach my knitting, and then you shall hear my story. But it will be a long one.”

“So much the better, if ’tis agreeable,” answered Rhoda. “I don’t care for stories that are over in a minute.”

“This will not be over in a day,” said Mrs. Dorothy.

“All right,” responded Rhoda, settling herself as comfortably as she could. “I say, Phoebe, change cushions with me; I’m sure you’ve got the softer.”

And Phoebe obeyed in an instant.