to snow, don't you think? I suppose you skate
like all the young ladies now. It seems the first thing any one thinks
of when the winter begins."

"Do you skate?" said Ursula, her eyes brighter and opener than ever.

"Oh, a little--as everybody does! Perhaps if there is no society," said
Phoebe, turning to Reginald for the first time, "people are free here
from the necessity of doing as everybody does. I don't think there is
any such bondage in the world--dressing, living, working, amusing
yourself--you have to do everything as other people do it. So I skate--I
can't help myself; and a hundred foolish things beside."

"But I should think it _delightful_," cried Ursula, "I have always
envied the boys. They look so warm when we are all shivering. Reginald,
if it freezes will you teach us? I think I should like it better than
anything in the world."

"Yes," said Reginald, "if Miss--if we can make up a party--if you," he
added with a perfectly new inflection in his voice, "will come too."

"I see you don't know my name," said Phoebe, with a soft little laugh.
"It is Beecham. One never catches names at a party. I remembered yours
because of a family in a novel that I used to admire very much in my
girlish days--"

"Oh! I know," cried Janey, "the Daisy Chain. We are not a set of prigs
like those people. We are not goody, whatever we are; we--"

"I don't suppose Miss Beecham cares for your opinion of the family
character," said Reginald in a tone that made Janey furious. Thus
discoursing they reached the gates of the Parsonage, where Ursula was
most eager that her friend should come in. And here Mr. May joined them,
who was impressed, like everybody else, by Phoebe's appearance, and made
himself so agreeable that Reginald felt eclipsed and driven into the
background. Ursula had never been so satisfied with her father in her
life; though there was a cloud on Mr. May's soul, it suited him to show
a high good-humour with everybody in recompense for his son's
satisfactory decision, and he was, indeed, in a state of high
complacence with himself for having managed matters so cleverly that the
very thing which should have secured Reginald's final abandonment of the
chaplaincy determined him, on the contrary, to accept it. And he admired
Phoebe, and was dazzled by her self-possession and knowledge of the
world. He supported Ursula's invitation warmly; but the stranger freed
herself with graceful excuses. She had her patient to