lice station and telegraph
office. Phoebe implored him to rest and send a messenger, but he roughly
bade her not to be so absurd, commanded again that nothing should be
disturbed, or, if she _would_ be busy, that she should make out a list of
all that was missing.

'Grateful!' indignantly thought Miss Fennimore, as Phoebe was left
leaning on a pillar in the portico, watching him ride away, the pale
light of the yellow setting moon giving an almost ghostly appearance to
her white drapery and wistful attitude. Putting an arm round her, the
governess found her shivering from head to foot, and pale and cold as
marble; her knees knocked together when she walked, and her teeth
chattered as she strove to smile, but her quietness still showed itself
in all her movements, as she returned into the hall, and reached the
welcome support of a chair beside the rekindled fire.

Miss Fennimore chafed her hands, and she looked up, smiled, and said,
'Thank you.'

'Then you were frightened, after all, Phoebe,' cried Bertha,
triumphantly.

'Was I?--I don't know,' said Phoebe, as in a dream.

'What, when you don't know what you are talking of, and are still
trembling all over?'

'I can't tell. I think what came on me then was thankfulness.'

'I am sure we may be thankful that our jewels are the only things safe!'

'Oh! Bertha, you don't know, then, that the man was taking aim at
Mervyn!' and the shudder returned.

'There, Phoebe, for the sake of candour and psychology, confess your
terror.'

'Indeed, Bertha,' said Phoebe, with a smile on her tremulous lip, 'it is
very odd, but I don't think I was afraid; there was a feeling of
shadowing Wings that left no room for terror.'

'That enabled you to think and act?' asked Miss Fennimore.

'I didn't think; it came to me,' said Phoebe. 'Pray, let me go; Bertha
dear, you had better go to bed. Pray lie down, Miss Fennimore.'

She moved slowly away, her steps still unsteady and her cheeks
colourless, but the sweet light of thankfulness on her face; while Bertha
said, in her moralizing tone, 'It is a curious study to see Phoebe taking
her own steady nerves and power of resource for something external to
herself, and being pious about it.'

Miss Fennimore was not gratified by her apt pupil's remark. 'If Phoebe's
conduct do not fill you with reverence, both for her and that which
actuates her, I can only stand astonished,' she said.

Bertha turned away, and erected her eyebrows.