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Phoebe had pondered much on how she should announce her intended absence that afternoon, almost deciding at one time to slip away without saying a word, but her conscientious little heart would not allow that. So while the family were at breakfast she said to Emmeline:

"I wish you'd tell me what work you want done besides the rest of the ironing. I'm invited out to tea this afternoon, and I want to get everything done this morning."

"Where to ? "exploded Alma, her curiosity getting the better of her superiority to her aunt for once.

"Indeed!"said Emmeline, disdainfully. "Invited out to tea! What airs we are takin' on with our money! Pretty soon you won't have any time to give at home at all. If I was you I'd go and board somewhere, you have so many social engagements. I'm sure I don't feel like askin' a young lady like you to soil her hands washin' my dishes. I'll wash 'em myself after this. Alma, you go get your apron on and help ma this mornin'. Aunt Phoebe hasn't got time. She'll have to take all the mornin' to curl her hair."

"Now, Emmeline!"said Albert, gently reproachful, "don't tease the child. It's real nice for her to get invited out. She don't get much change, that's sure."

"Oh, no, two tea-parties inside of a week's nothin'. I've heard of New York ladies goin' out as often as every other day,"said Emmeline, sarcastically.

Albert never could quite understand his wife's sarcasm, so he turned to Phoebe and voiced the question that the rest were just bursting with curiosity to have answered.

"Who invited you, Phoebe?"

"Mrs. Spafford,"said Phoebe, trying not to show how near she was to crying over Emmeline's hateful speeches.

"Well, now, that's real nice,"said Albert, in genuine earnest. "There isn't a finer man in town than David Spafford. His paper's the best edited in the whole state of New York, and he's got a fine little wife. I don't believe she's many days older than you are, Phoebe, either. She looked real young when he brought her here, and she hasn't grown a day older that I can see."

"Good reason why,"sniffed Emmeline; "she's nothin' to do but lie around and be waited on. I'm sure Phoebe's welcome to such, friends if they suit her; fer my part I'd ruther go to see good self-respectin' women that did a woman's work in the world, and not let their husbands make babies of them, and go ridin' round in a carriage forever lookin' like a June mornin'. I call it lazy, I do. It's nothing"more'n or less—and she keepin' that poor good-fer-nothin' Miranda Griscom slavin' from mornin' to night fer her. If Phoebe was my sister I shouldn't choose such friends fer her. Besides, she hasn't got very good manners not to invite your wife, too, Albert Deane, but I suppose you never thought o' that. I shouldn't think Phoebe would care to accept an invitation that was an insult to her relations, even if they wasn't just blood relations—they're all she's got, that's sure."

"Say, look here, Emmeline. Your speech don't hang together. You just said you didn't care to make friends of Mrs. Spafford, and now you're fussing because she didn't invite you, too. It looks like a case of sour grapes. Eh, Phoebe?"

Hank caught the joke and laughed uproariously, though Phoebe looked grave, knowing how bitter it would be to Emmeline to be laughed at. Two red spots flamed out on the wife's cheeks, and her eyes snapped.

"Seems to me things has gone pretty far, Albert Deane,"she said, in a high, excited voice, "when you—YOU—can insult your wife in public, and then LAUGH! I shan't forget this of you, Albert Deane!"and with her head well up she shoved her chair back from the table and left the room, closing the door with loud decision behind her.

Albert's merry laugh came to an abrupt end. He looked after his wife with startled surprise. Never in all their one-sidedly-harmonious wedded life had Emmeline taken offence like that in the presence of others. He looked helplessly, inquiringly, from one to another.

"Well, now! "he began, aimlessly. "You don't suppose she thought I meant that, do you ?"

"'Course! "said Alma, knowingly. "You've made her dreadful mad, pa. My! But you're goin' to get it!"

"Looks mighty like it,"snickered Hank.

Albert continued to look at Phoebe for a reply.

"I'm afraid she thought you were in earnest, Albert. You better go and explain,"said Phoebe, commiseratingly.

"You better not go fer a while, pa,"called out Johnny, sympathetically. "Wait till she gets over it a little. Go hide in the barn. That's the way I do! "

But Albert was going heavily up the stairs after his offended wife and did not hear his young hopeful's voice. Albert was tender-hearted and could not bear to hurt any one's feelings. Besides, it never was pleasant to have Emmeline angry. He wished if possible to explain away the offence before it struck in too deep for healing and had to be lived down.

This state of things was rather more helpful to Phoebe than otherwise. Hank took himself off, finding a certain embarrassment in Phoebe's dignified silence. The children slipped away, glad to get rid of any little duties usually required by their mother. Phoebe went at her work unhindered and it vanished before her while her thoughts took happy flight away from the unhappy home to the afternoon that was before her. Upstairs the conference was long and uncertain. Phoebe could hear the low rumbling of Albert's conciliatory tones, and the angry rasp of Emmeline's tearful charges. Albert came downstairs looking sad and tired about an hour before dinner-time, and hurried out to the barn to his neglected duties. He paused in the kitchen to say to Phoebe, apologetically:

"You mustn't mind what Emmeline says, child. Her bark's a great deal worse than her bite always. And after all, she's had it pretty hard with all the children and staying in so much. I'm sure she appreciates what you do. I'm sure she does, but it isn't her way to say much about it. You just go out to tea and have a good time and don't think any more about this. It'll blow over, you know. Most things do."

Phoebe tried to smile, and felt a throb of gratitude toward the brother who was not really her brother at all.

"You're a good girl, Phoebe,"he went on, patting her cheek. "You're like your mother. She was little, and pretty, and liked things nice, and had a quiet voice. I sometimes think maybe it isn't as pleasant here for you as it might be. You're made of different kind of stuff, that thinks and feels in a different way. Your mother was so. I've often wondered whether father understood her. Men don't understand women very well, I guess. Now, I don't really always understand Emmeline, and I guess it's pretty hard for her. Father was some rough and blunt, and maybe that was hard for your mother at times. I remember she used to look sad, though I never saw her much, come to think about it. I was off working for myself when they were married, you know. Say, Phoebe, you didn't for a minute think I meant what I said about sour grapes and Emmeline, did you? I told her you didn't, but I promised her I'd make sure about it. I knew you didn't. Well, I must go out and see if Hank's done everything."

He went out drawing a long breath as if he had accomplished an unpleasant task, and left Phoebe wondering about her own mother, and trying to get a little glimpse into her possible sorrows and joys through the words that Albert had spoken. Somehow that sentence in her birthday letter came back to her: "Unless you can marry a man to whom you can look up and honor next to God it is better not to marry at all, believe your mother, child. I say it lovingly, for I have seen much sorrow and would protect you."

Had her father been hard to live with? Phoebe put the thought from her and was half glad she could not answer it. Her own life was enough of a problem without going back and sorrowing for her mother's. But it made her heart throb with a sense of a fuller understanding of her mother's life and warnings.

Emmeline did not come downstairs until dinner time, and her manner was freezing. Phoebe was glad that the work was all done carefully, even to the scrubbing of the back steps, and that the dinner was more than usually inviting. But Emmeline seemed not to see anything, and her manner remained as severe as when she first entered the kitchen. She poured the coffee, and drank a cup of it herself, and ate a bit of bread, but would not touch anything else on the table. She waited on the children with ostentatious care, but would not respond to the solicitations of her anxious husband, who urged this and that dainty upon her. Hank even suggested that the hot biscuits were nicer than usual. But that remark had to be lived down by Hank, for Emmeline usually made the biscuits, and Phoebe had made these. She did not condescend to even look at him in response.

Phoebe was glad when the last bit of pumpkin pie and cheese had disappeared and she could rise from her chair and go about the after-dinner work. Glad, too, that Emmeline went away again and left her to herself, for so she could more quickly finish up.

She was just hanging up her wiping towels when Emmeline came downstairs with the look of a martyr on her face, and the quilting frames in her hand. Over her shoulder was thrown her latest achievement in patchwork, a brilliant combination of reds and yellows and white known as the "rising sun "pattern. It was a large quilt, and would be quite a job to put on the frames. It was a Herculean task for one person without an assistant.

Phoebe stopped with an exclamation of dismay.

"You're not going to put that on the frames to-day, Emmeline? I thought you were saving that for next month!"

Emmeline's grim mouth remained shut for several seconds. At last she snapped out: "I don't know that it makes any difference what you thought. This is a free country and I've surely a right to do what I please in my own house."

"But, Emmeline, I can't help you this afternoon!"

"I don't know that I've asked you! "

"But you can't do it alone! "

"Indeed! What makes you think I can't! Go right along to your tea-party and take your ease. I was brought up to work, thank fortune, and a few burdens more or less can't make much difference. I'm not a lady of leisure and means like you."

Phoebe stood a minute watching Emmeline's stubby, determined fingers as they fitted a wooden peg into its socket like a period to the conversation. It seemed dreadful to go away and leave Emmeline to put up that quilt alone, but what was she to do? There seemed to be no law in the universe that would compel her to give up her first invitation out to tea in order that Emmeline might finish that quilt this particular week. It was plain that she had brought it down on purpose to hold her at home. Indignation boiled within her. If she had slipped stealthily away this would not have happened, but she had done her duty in telling Emmeline, and she felt perfectly justified in going. It wasn't as if she had invited herself. It would not be polite, now she had accepted the invitation, not to go. So, with sudden determination Phoebe left the kitchen and went up to dress.

With swift fingers she fastened the buff merino, put her hair in order, and tied on her locket, but nowhere was the little brown velvet bow to be found that belonged to her hair. She had not missed it before, for on Sunday she had worn her bonnet, and had dressed in a hurry. In perplexity she looked over her neat boxes of scant finery, but could not find it. She had to hurry away without it. She went out the other door, for she could not bear the sight of Emmeline putting up that sunrise bedquilt all alone. The thought of it seemed to cloud the sun and spoil the anticipation of her precious afternoon.

Once out in the crisp autumn air she drew a long breath of relief. It was so good to get away from the gloomy atmosphere that had been cramping her life for so many years. In a lonely place in the road between farm-houses she uttered a soft little scream under her breath. She felt as if she must do something to let out the agony of wrath and longing and hurt and indignity that were trying to burst her soul. Then she walked on to the town with demure dignity, and the people in the passing carryalls and farm wagons never suspected that she was aught but a happy maiden with thoughts busy with the joys of life.

The autumn days were lingering in sunny deep-blue haze, though the reds were changing into brown, and in the fields were gathering huddled groups of cornshocks like old crones, waving skeleton arms in the breeze, and whispering weird gossip. A rusty-throated cricket in the thicket by the way piped out his monotonous dirge to the summer now deceased. A flight of birds sprang into sight across the sky, calling and chattering to one another of a warmer climate. An old red cow stood in her well-grazed meadow, snuffed the short grass, and, looking at Phoebe as she passed, bawled a gentle protest at the decline of fresh vegetables. Everything spoke of autumn and the winter that was to come. But Phoebe, every step she took from home, grew lighter and lighter hearted, and could only think of the happy time she was to have.

It was not that she was thinking of the stranger, for there was no possibility of meeting him. The Bristol place, a fine old Colonial house behind a tall white fence and high privet hedge with a glimpse of a wonderful garden set off with dark borders of box through the imposing gateway, was over near the Presbyterian church. It was not near the Spaf- fords' house. She felt the freer and happier because there was no question of him to trouble her careful conscience.

Miranda had gone to the window that looked up the road towards the Deanes at least twenty times since the dinner dishes were washed. She was more nervous over the success of this her first tea-party than over anything she had ever done. She was beginning to be afraid that her guest would not arrive.

Everything was in train for supper. There was to be stewed chicken, with "riz biscuits"and honey, raspberry preserves, spiced peaches, fruitcake and caraway-seed cookies with delectable sugary tops. The tea was to be served in the very thinnest of the blue china cups. It was with difficulty that Marcia had suppressed a multitude of varieties of pickles and jellies and preserves and cakes, for Miranda could not understand why it wasn't "skimpin'"to have so few dishes upon the table.

"Gran'ma was never half satisfied ef you could see the tablecloth much between dishes,"she was wont to say, dubiously. But Marcia tried patiently to explain that it was not refined to load the table with too many varieties, and Miranda, half convinced, gave it up, thinking Marcia sweet, but "inexperienced."

Miranda, fidgeting from window to door and back again to the kitchen, came at last to the library where sat Marcia with her work, watching a frolic between Rose and her kitten outside the window.

"Say, Mrs. Marcia,"she began, ingratiatingly, "you'll find out what troubles that poor little thing, and see ef you can't help her, won't you? She's your size an' kind, more'n she is mine, an' you ought to be able to give her some help. You needn't think you've got to tell out to me every thing you find out. I shan't ask. I can find out enough fer my own use when I'm needed, but I think she needs you this time. When there's any use fer me I seem always to kind o' feel it in the air."

"Bless your heart, Miranda, I don't believe you care much for any one unless they need helping!"exclaimed Marcia, laughing. "What makes you so sure Phoebe Deane needs helping?"

"Oh, I know,"said Miranda, mysteriously, "an' so will you when you look at her real hard. There she comes now. Don't you go an' tell I said nothing 'bout her. You jes' make her tell you. She's that sweet an' so are you that you two can't help pourin' out your perfume to each other like two flowers."

"But trouble isn't perfume, Miranda."

"H'm! Flowers smells all the sweeter when you crush 'em a little, don't they? There, you set right still where you be, I'll go to the door. Don't you stir. I want her to see you lookin' that way with the sun across the top o' your pretty hair. She'll like it, I know she will."

Marcia sat quite still as she was hidden, with the madonna smile upon her lips that David loved so well, smiling over Miranda's strange fancies, yet never thinking of herself as a picture against the window panes. In a moment more Phoebe Deane stood in the doorway, with Miranda beside her, looking from one to another of the two sweet girl-faces in deep admiration, and noting with delight that Phoebe fully appreciated the loveliness of her "Mrs. Marcia."