ly) to happiness, which is better sometimes than happiness
itself.

"Don't let Reginald come with me," Phoebe whispered, as she kissed her
friend, and said good night, "or ask Mr. Northcote to come too."

"Why?" said Ursula, with dreamy eyes; her own young tide of life was
rising, invading, for the moment, her perceptions, and dulling her sense
of what was going on round her. There was no time, however, for
anything more to be said, for Reginald was close behind with his hat in
his hand. Phoebe had to resign herself, and she knew what was coming. The
only thing was, if possible, to stop the declaration on the way.

"This is the first chance I have had of seeing you home without that
perpetual shadow of Copperhead--"

"Ah, poor Clarence!" said Phoebe. "I wonder how he is getting on away
from us all to-night."

"Poor Clarence!" echoed Reginald aghast. "You don't mean to say that
you--miss him, Miss Beecham? I never heard you speak of him in that tone
before."

"Miss him! no, perhaps not exactly," said Phoebe, with a soft little
sigh; "but still--I have known him all my life, Mr. May; when we were
quite little I used to be sent for to his grand nursery, full of lovely
toys and things--a great deal grander than mine."

"And for that reason--" said Reginald, becoming bitter, with a laugh.

"Nothing for that reason," said Phoebe; "but I noticed it at six as I
should at twenty. I must have been a horrid little worldly-minded thing,
don't you think? So you see there are the associations of a great many
years to make me say Poor Clarence, when anything is the matter with
him."

"He is lucky to rouse your sympathies so warmly," cried Reginald,
thoroughly wretched; "but I did not know there was anything the matter."

"I think there will be if he has to leave our little society, where we
have all been so happy," said Phoebe, softly. "How little one thought,
coming here a stranger, how pleasant it was to be! I especially, to whom
coming to Carlingford was rather--perhaps I might say a humiliation. I
am very fond of grandpapa and grandmamma now, but the first introduction
was something of a shock--I have never denied it; and if it had not been
for sweet kind Ursula and you--all."

The little breathless fragmentary pause which Phoebe made between the you
and the "all," giving just a ghost of emphasis to the pronoun, sounded
to poor Reginald in his foolishness almost like a caress. How cleverly
it was managed, with just so