ct little nun, and
what is she to do with a graceless dog like me?'

'You will see,' said Phoebe, smiling.

'What do you think, then?' he demanded, in some alarm. 'You know I can't
take to the pious tack. Will nothing else satisfy her?'

'You are not the same as you were. You don't know what will happen to
you yet,' said Phoebe, playfully.

'The carriage is ready, ma'am; my lady is waiting,' said a warning voice.

'I say,' quoth Mervyn, intercepting her, 'not a word to my lady. It is
all conditional, you understand--only that I may ask again, in a year, or
some such infernal time, if I am I don't know what--but they do, I
suppose.'

'Perhaps you will by that time. Dear Mervyn, I am sorry, but I must go,
or Augusta will be coming here.'

He made a ludicrous gesture of shrinking horror, but still detained her
to whisper, 'You'll meet her at Moorcroft; they will have her for the
Forest to-do.'

Phoebe signed her extreme satisfaction, and ran away.

'I am surprised at you, Phoebe; you have kept me five minutes.'

'Some young ladies do worse,' said the Admiral, who was very fond of her;
'and her time was not lost. I never saw her look better.'

'I don't like such a pair of milkmaid's cheeks, looking so ridiculously
delighted, too,' said Lady Bannerman, crossly. 'Really, Phoebe, one
would think you were but just come up from the country, and had never
been to a concert before. Those stupid little white marabouts in your
hair again, too!'

'Well,' said Sir Nicholas, 'I take them as a compliment--Phoebe knows I
think they become her.'

'I don't say they are amiss in themselves, but it is all obstinacy,
because I desire her to buy that magnificent ruby bandeau! How is any
one to believe in her fortune if she dresses in that twopenny-halfpenny
fashion? I declare I have a great mind to leave her behind.'

Phoebe could almost have said 'pray do,' so much did she long to join the
party in Woolstone-lane, where the only alloy was, that poor Maria's
incapacity for secrecy forbade her hearing the good news.

Miss Charlecote, likewise, was secretly a little scandalized at the
facility with which the Raymonds had consented to the match; she thought
Mervyn improved, but neither religious nor repentant, and could not think
Cecily or her family justified in accepting him. Something of the kind
became perceptible to Robert when they first talked over the matter
together.

'It may be so,' he said, 'but I really