you, my dear,' said Miss
Fennimore, with emphasis.

'It must be about Mr. Hastings!' said Phoebe, gathering recollection and
confidence. 'I did not like to tell you yesterday, but I had a letter
from poor Lucy Sandbrook. Some friends of that man, Mr. Hastings, have
set it about that he is going to be married to me!' and Phoebe laughed
outright. 'If Juliana has heard it, I don't wonder that she is shocked,
because you know Miss Charlecote said it would never do for me to
associate with those gentlemen, and besides, Lucy says that he is a very
bad man. I shall write to Juliana, and say that I have never had
anything to do with him, and he is going away to-morrow, and Mervyn must
be told not to have him back again. That will set it all straight at
Acton Manor.'

Phoebe was quite herself again. She was too well accustomed to
gratuitous unkindness and reproaches from Juliana to be much hurt by
them, and perceiving, as she thought, where the misconception lay, had no
fears that it would not be cleared up. So when she had carefully written
her letter to her sister, she dismissed the subject until she should be
able to lay it before Miss Charlecote, dwelling more on Honor's pleasure
on hearing of Lucy than on the more personal matter.

Miss Fennimore, looking over the letter, had deeper misgivings. It
seemed to her rather to be a rebuke for the whole habit of life than a
warning against an individual, and she began to doubt whether even the
seclusion of the west wing had been a sufficient protection in the eyes
of the family from the contamination of such society as Mervyn received.
Or was it a plot of Lady Acton's malevolence for hunting Phoebe away from
her home? Miss Fennimore fell asleep, uneasy and perplexed, and in her
dreams beheld Phoebe as the Lady in Comus, fixed in her chair and
resolute against a cup effervescing with carbonic acid gas, proffered by
Jack Hastings, who thereupon gave it to Bertha, as she lay back in the
dentist's chair, and both becoming transformed into pterodactyles, flew
away while Miss Fennimore was vainly trying to summon the brothers by
electric telegraph.

There was a whole bevy of letters for Phoebe the following morning, and
first a kind sensible one from her guardian, much regretting to learn
that Mr. Fulmort's guests were undesirable inmates for a house where
young ladies resided, so that, though he had full confidence in Miss
Fulmort's discretion, and understood that she had