sly, Rose?"

"Yes, Aunty, very seriously. He never jokes about such things."

"Mercy on us! What shall we do about it?"

"Nothing, ma'am, but be as glad as we ought and congratulate him as soon
as she says 'yes.'?

"Do you mean to say she didn't accept at once?"

"She never will if we don't welcome her as kindly as if she belonged to
one of our best families, and I don't blame her."

"I'm glad the girl has so much sense. Of course we can't do anything of
the sort, and I'm surprised at Archie's forgetting what he owes to the
family in this rash manner. Give me my cap, child I must speak to Alec
at once." And Aunt Plenty twisted her hair into a button at the back of
her head with one energetic twirl.

"Do speak kindly, Aunty, and remember that it was not Phebe's fault. She
never thought of this till very lately and began at once to prepare for
going away," said Rose pleadingly.

"She ought to have gone long ago. I told Myra we should have trouble
somewhere as soon as I saw what a good-looking creature she was, and
here it is as bad as can be. Dear, dear! Why can't young people have a
little prudence?"

"I don't see that anyone need object if Uncle Jem and Aunt Jessie
approve, and I do think it will be very, very unkind to scold poor Phebe
for being well-bred, pretty, and good, after doing all we could to make
her so."

"Child, you don't understand these things yet, but you ought to feel
your duty toward your family and do all you can to keep the name
as honorable as it always has been. What do you suppose our blessed
ancestress Lady Marget would say to our oldest boy taking a wife from
the poorhouse?"

As she spoke, Miss Plenty looked up, almost apprehensively, at one
of the wooden-faced old portraits with which her room was hung, as if
asking pardon of the severe-nosed matron who stared back at her from
under the sort of blue dish cover which formed her headgear.

"As Lady Marget died about two hundred years ago, I don't care a pin
what she would say, especially as she looks like a very narrow-minded,
haughty woman. But I do care very much what Miss Plenty Campbell says,
for she is a very sensible, generous, discreet, and dear old lady who
wouldn't hurt a fly, much less a good and faithful girl who has been a
sister to me. Would she?" entreated Rose, knowing well that the elder
aunt led all the rest more or less.

But Miss Plenty had her cap on now and consequently felt herself
twice the woman she was wi