It was the one point on
which she was silly, but on that she was as silly as any cynic could
desire.

And thus with a huge trunk full of charming dresses, a dressing-case fit
for any bride, the prettiest travelling costume imaginable, and
everything about her fit, Mrs. Beecham fondly thought, for a duke's
daughter, Phoebe junior took her departure, to be the comfort of her
grandmamma, and to dazzle Carlingford. Her fond parents accompanied her
to the station and placed her in a carriage, and fee'd a guard heavily
to take care of and watch over her. "Not but that Phoebe might be safely
trusted to take care of herself anywhere," they said. In which
expression of their pride in their daughter, the observant reader may
see a proof of their own origin from the humbler classes. They would
probably have prided themselves on her timidity and helplessness had
they been a little better born.

CHAPTER XII.

GRANGE LANE.

Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had retired from business several years before. They
had given up the shop with its long established connection, and all its
advantages, to Tom, their son, finding themselves to have enough to live
upon in ease, and indeed luxury; and though Mrs. Tozer found the house
in Grange Lane shut in by the garden walls to be much duller than her
rooms over the shop in High Street, where she saw everything that was
going on, yet the increase in gentility was unquestionable. The house
which they were fortunate enough to secure in this desirable locality
had been once in the occupation of Lady Weston, and there was
accordingly an aroma of high life about it, although somebody less
important had lived in it in the mean time, and it had fallen into a
state of considerable dilapidation, which naturally made it cheaper. Mr.
Tozer had solidly repaired all that was necessary for comfort, but he
had not done anything in those external points of paint and decoration,
which tells so much in the aspect of a house. Lady Weston's taste had
been florid, and the walls continued as she had left them, painted and
papered with faded wreaths, which were apt to look dissipated, as they
ought to have been refreshed and renewed years before. But outside,
where the wreaths do not fade, there was a delightful garden charmingly
laid out, in which Lady Weston had once held her garden parties, and
where the crocuses and other spring bulbs, which had been put in with a
lavish hand, during Lady Weston's extravagant reign,