'll be their match, and you may take my word for
that. Phoebe's the one as will keep them in their right place, whoever
they may be."

Phoebe heard this laugh echo out into the quiet of the night. Of course,
she did not know the cause of it, but it disturbed her in her thoughts.
Poor, kind, excellent grandpapa, she said to herself, how would he get
on with Mr. Copperhead? He would touch his forelock to so rich a man. He
would go down metaphorically upon his knees before so much wealth; and
what a fool Clarence would be thought on every side for wanting to marry
her! Even his mother, who was a romantic woman, would not see any
romance in it if it was she, Phoebe, who was the poor girl whom he wanted
to marry. Ursula might have been different, who was a clergyman's
daughter, and consequently a lady by prescriptive right. But herself,
Tozer's granddaughter, Tom Tozer's niece, fresh from the butter-shop, as
it were, and redolent of that petty trade which big trade ignores, as
much as the greatest aristocrat does! Phoebe was too sensible by far to
vex or distress herself on this point, but she recognised it without any
hesitation, and the question remained--was it for her advantage to enter
upon this struggle, about which there could be no mistake, or was it
not? And this question was very difficult. She did not dislike
Clarence, but then she was not in love with him. He would be a Career,
but he was not a Passion, she said to herself with a smile; and if the
struggle should not turn out successful on her part, it would involve a
kind of ruin, not to herself only, but to all concerned. What, then, was
she to do? The only thing Phoebe decided upon was that, if she did enter
upon that struggle, it _must_ be successful. Of this alone there could
be no manner of doubt.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A DISCLOSURE.

"Well, young ladies!" said Mrs. Sam Hurst, "I left you very quiet, but
there seems to be plenty going on now-a-days. What a beautiful moon
there was last night! I put up my window to look at it, and all at once
I found there was a party going on below. Quite a _fete champetre_. I
have newly come from abroad, you know, and it seemed quite congenial. I
actually rubbed my eyes, and said to myself, 'I can't have come home.
It's Boulogne still, it isn't Carlingford!'"

"There was no company," said Ursula with dignity; "there was only our
own party. A friend of Reginald's and a friend of mine join us often in
the evening, a