Grace Denio Litchfield

“ Lane having gone out to a neighbor's, taking Olly with her, and Miss Lydia not having yet appeared for her usual hour downstairs. It was a few days after the picnic, and was one of those suddenly cool August evenings that sometimes drop down so unexpectedly upon the summer heat, and a wood-fire lay upon the hearth ready to light at the invalid's coming. Phebe too sprang from the sofa as she spoke, as if her words had evoked too vivid a picture, and kneeling down by the hearth, applied a match. The bright flame leaped swiftly up and filled all the room with a flickering golden glow. ”

“ A young, innocent face it was, with soft brown hair as bright and as fine as silk, all turned back from a low forehead, around which it grew in the very prettiest way in the world, and gathered in loose braids in the neck; and she had such a fresh, clear complexion, and such honest, loving, gray eyes, and such a round, girlish figure,—how was it people never made more of her prettiness?
"I think you look nicer than any one here," Mr. Halloway added, in thorough conviction. "You must be an adept in ironing." Phebe laughed softly in pure pleasure. ”

“ That's next worse to eternally discussing love. Why it is that two girls seem never able to talk together half an hour without lugging in that threadbare subject as if it were the one most important thing in the world, I don't understand."
"Well, isn't love the most important thing,—to women?" asked Phebe, sitting down on the floor to nurse the fire, her thin muslin making a little ripple of pretty lightness around her.
"No, it isn't," replied Gerald. "It may be to some few perhaps, but certainly not to all women. It isn't to me. It's one thing; not every thing; and not even the best thing. ”

“ Real humility is rare enough the world over, but nowhere is it less conspicuously apparent than among the flourishing virtues of Joppa; and it was not long before this fact was discovered by Denham Halloway, who, with all his gayety and light-heartedness, was a keen and discriminating observer of character. He was one of those interesting people whom all other people interest; one of those who derive their peculiar charm more from what they find in you than from what they show you of themselves, though one might be ashamed to confess the truth so baldly. ”

“ Olly, little Maggie Dexter, and an assortment of sturdy urchins known throughout Joppa only as the Anthony boys, were dancing and chattering aimlessly around, and near by was drawn up a clumsy old boat where Phebe had made a comfortable niche for Miss Delano, who every day at about this hour was afflicted with a remarkable disorder which had grown upon her wholly of late years, and whose symptoms, so far as she was willing to admit them, consisted of a painful heaviness of the eyelids, a weakness in the nape of the neck, and an irresistible tendency to retire for a brief season within herself. ”

“ Miss Phebe made us all friends of yours long since."
Gerald's brows contracted. "Phebe is very kind," she said, with quite the opposite from gratitude in her voice, "but I hate to be talked about beforehand. One starts on a false basis from the first. Besides, it gives every one else the advantage over one."
"To be sure," replied Denham, "we cannot expect you to know us as well from hearsay. It would be too much to hope that Miss Phebe should have had as much to say for any of the rest of us." He turned laughingly to Phebe as he spoke, and she looked at him with eyes full of implicit faith. ”

“ And particularly how could it matter when Gerald was by,—Gerald, who possessed that rare and enviable gift of always looking her best? So Phebe put the subject of her looks entirely away from her mind, and leaned back on the sofa, her hands folded idly in her lap, feeling perfectly content with the passing moment, and asking nothing from the future but that it might be always "now." What more could she want? The room held her three dearest friends in the world,—Gerald, Soeur Angélique, and Mr. Halloway;—of course one should always put ladies before gentlemen even only in thought. ”

“ Halloway. Don't you know it's very unlady-like to whistle? Mrs. Upjohn puts Maria to bed for it."
"Dear me. I must take care she doesn't ever catch me at it. Ah! the dress has ironed nicely, hasn't it? Would you mind standing out a little from the shadow?"
Phebe moved a step forward into the stream of light that shot across the piazza from the open window, and stood so, looking up at him out of her soft white muslin draperies and white ribbons, not a ray of color about her anywhere, like a very material and sweet little ghost. ”

“ Is that the way you keep house in Joppa?"
"Oh, they like running out together, and we never want any thing in the evenings, you know. The front door always stands ajar, and visitors let themselves in."
"And you make your own fires and bring in your own oily lamps; or do your evening guests assist you perhaps in lieu of the servants?"
"But we don't generally have fires," laughed Phebe, greatly amused at Gerald's disgust. "Only to-night it would be too chilly for Aunt Lydia here without one. I feel cool too. I was not so sensible as you, and put on too thin a dress. ”

“ And holding up her habit with one hand, the young lady reached out with the other,—a very small and white but determined-looking little hand Denham noticed (from where he stood he could not see her face) —and wrenching the child by no means gently away from Phebe, she dragged him with her toward the parlor.
"I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" cried Olly, vociferously, doing battle valiantly with hands and feet as he went. "I hate you every day worse than ever!"
"Hate me all you like," said Gerald, with utmost coolness and disdain. ”

“ Phebe only laughed, and a little shower of sparks flew over her from the hearth as if the fire laughed too.
"It's being needlessly indulgent," pursued Gerald. "One can give servants proper liberties without making one's self a slave to their caprices. If you yield to them in one instance because it chances to be convenient, they'll certainly exact it of you another time when it is not convenient. Gracious heavens! Phebe, what is it?" ”

“ Your hat is quite crooked."
Gerald straightened it without a smile. "Thanks again. Anything else?"
"Absolutely nothing." He turned to escort her back, but Gerald stood still, frowning out at the lake.
"You don't know Olly," she said, curtly.
"Maybe not, but I know childish nature pretty well, perhaps because
I love it."
"Ah! I don't love it. It isn't lovable to me. It is all nonsense to call it the age of innocence. It is vice in embryo instead of in full leaf, that is all."
"But that is an inestimable gain of itself. A little of a bad thing is surely much better than a great deal of it. ”

“ Halloway I am going down-stairs to-morrow?"
Halloway was to be Gerald's escort that evening, and stood waiting for her now in the hall below, and looking up at sound of Phebe's voice, he gave an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, and immediately sprang up the stairs.
"Miss Phebe!" he said, taking both her hands in his. "How glad I am to see you once more!"
Phebe shrank back from him with a little cry of dismay. Ah! when does ever any thing happen exactly as we plan it shall? ”

“ O Gerald!"
"Parting with them isn't losing them, you foolish sentimentalist," returned Gerald, gently unclasping Phebe's arms. "Now go to bed. You look worn out."
"Just tell me once first, Gerald, that you love me. I haven't many to love me. I need all your love."
"Of course I love you," said Gerald. "You know it without my saying so. And don't talk so foolishly. I never knew a girl with more friends. Now good-night."
Phebe kissed her very quietly, and then crept into Olly's room, and sat down on his bed. "Olly, dear," she murmured, "are you asleep?" ”

“ Gerald replied. "That is the common way of getting out of the difficulty. But it seems to me like compromising with evil. There ought to be always some third, wholly right, way out of every dilemma, if only one sought earnestly enough." She spoke more as if to herself than to him.
"Then perhaps," said Denham, pleasantly, "we may hope that you will in time light upon the very kindliest and rightest way combined of judging not only abstract subjects, but also the not altogether unworthy inhabitants of even this little place of Joppa." ”

“ The longest day won't come now till next year, the twenty-first of June. That's the longest day, ain't it? Mr. Halloway taught me that. My, don't he know a lot! I'm going to be like him when I'm a man. That's who I'm going to be like. And I'm going to love you always. He loves you too, doesn't he, Pheeb?"
"No, dear," answered Phebe, still laughing and crying together, and rocking gently back and forth with the boy in her arms; "he doesn't at all. There doesn't any body really love me, I think, but just you. But you do, don't you, dear?"
"Bet on it!" said Olly, with forcible vulgarity. ”

“ Halloway, cheerfully. "The art of not being bored by people. Once acquired, the other, that of not boring them, follows of itself. Society hangs on it."
"I wish you would teach me that right away," said Phebe, earnestly. "I believe I need that more than any thing else."
"Well, I will, immediately,—after supper, that is. I am exhausted now with ministerial duties. You have asked Miss Phebe to tea have you not, Soeur Angélique? You cannot stay? Oh, but of course you must."
"Of course she will," said Mrs. Whittridge, with her tender smile. "Phebe only lives to give pleasure to others. ”

“ Phebe still knelt with her arms around Mrs. Whittridge, but she looked up at him with her frank, loving eyes and smiled. "You know I meant you both," she said softly.
An almost irresistible impulse came over the young man to lay his hand, as his sister had done, on the soft, bright-brown hair. Clergymen are but human after all. He bent forward, but only lifted one of his sister's thin white hands and held it a moment between his. "We must both do our best by this foolish little girl who trusts us so frankly with her friendship, must we not, Soeur Angélique?" ”

“ It would be like her to go if it bored her."
"Only there's Olly," said Phebe, grimly, the light fading out of her face a little. "She'll have to stay for him."
"Oh, no. She can put him to board somewhere and leave him. Miss Vernor doesn't concern herself overmuch with the young ones. They are an awful nuisance to her."
"She does every thing for them. You can't know her," said Phebe, indignantly. "Did you say you knew her well, Mr. De Forest?"
"I don't remember just what I said, Miss Lane, but it would have been the truth if I did, and I generally speak the truth when it's equally convenient. ”

“ He had cut out Jake Dexter with Nellie Atterbury, and made it up to his friend by offering him a lock of Bell's hair, which he had surreptitiously cut from her hanging braids, and which Jake wore pinned in his button hole as a trophy for the rest of the evening, to the immense scandal of everybody. But with the supper-hour Dick's spirits ebbed. He knew, poor fellow, what Fate held in store. His father intended making a few remarks over him, as a sort of substitute for his defrauded speech to the non-existing tenantry.
"Stand by me, Jake, there's a man!" whispered Dick, forlornly, to his crony. ”