too."

"I don't think I could say just what they are," replied Phebe, dreamily.
"They are running through my head more like indistinct music than like
real thoughts. And I never was clever at saying things, you know. But,
oh! I do feel very happy."

"You look so," said Soeur Angelique, tenderly. "You poor little one, is
it just the getting well again that makes you so?"

Phebe flushed ever so slightly. "I don't know just what it is," she
answered, lifting the rose to her face. "Perhaps it is only the listening
to that indistinct music. It seems to have put all my soul in tune. Oh,
dear Mrs. Whittridge, what a beautiful world this is, when only there are
no discords in one's own heart!"

A day or two went by, and Phebe, though rapidly convalescing, was still a
prisoner to her room.

"You're missing a lot of fun," said Bell Masters, sympathetically, as she
bustled in to see her one morning, and sat down by the window, pushing
back the curtain so that she could look out into the street and nod to
passers as she talked. "There's no end going on. Dear me, it's a shame to
come to you empty-handed, Phebe. I had two or three rosebuds for
you,--beauties they were too,--but the fact is I gave them away piecemeal
as I came along, and I haven't one left. It seemed as if I met every man
there was this morning. How soon do you think you'll be out again?"

"I don't know," answered Phebe, pushing a box of bonbons within reach of
Bell's easy-going fingers. "I think I might go down-stairs now, but Dr.
Dennis won't let me."

"Too bad. You'll miss Dick's coming of age, won't you? There are to
be high doings. Mr. Hardcastle is too mysterious and pompous to live.
One can't get any thing out of him but just 'My son Dick doesn't come
of age but once' (as if we thought it was a yearly occurrence), 'and
we don't celebrate it but once.' But I got hold of Dick privately and
wheedled it out of him in less than no time with a piece of soft
gingerbread. It's to be something _stunning_. His father wanted to do it
up in English style, dinner to the tenantry, and all that sort of thing,
only unluckily there wasn't any tenantry, and he had to abandon the
benevolent role and take to a jollier one. He won't show off as well, but
we'll have a deal more fun. It's to be a sort of royal picnic, but in the
evening, mind,--wasn't that a brilliant idea for the old gentleman? We
are all to go up in boats, and there are to be great rafts with blazing
torch