ry grand. Whipped cream is a truer
exponent of milk than cheese, especially when it tastes of soap-suds. Is
that it?'

'It is a much prettier thing, and not near so hard and dry,' said Phoebe;
'but, you see, you are talking in figures after all.'

'The effect of example. Look here, my dear, the last generation was that
of mediaevalism, ecclesiology, chivalry, symbolism, whatever you may call
it. Married women have worked out of it. It is the middle-aged maids
that monopolize it. Ours is that of common sense.'

'I don't know that it is better or prettier,' said Phoebe.

'And it may be worse! But how are the two to live together when there is
no natural conformity--only undeserved benefits on one side and gratitude
on the other?'

'You will be more at ease when you are stronger and better,' said Phoebe.
'Your brother will make you feel more natural with her.'

'Don't talk of it, Phoebe. Think of the scene those two will get up!
And the showing him that terrible little Cockney, Hoeing, as the old
woman calls him. If I could only break the neck of his h's before poor
Owen hears them.'

'Miss Charlecote did say something of having him here, but she thought
you were not strong enough.'

'Justly judged! I shall have enough of him by and by, if I take him out
to Canada. Once I used to think that would be deliverance; now it has
become nothing but a gigantic trouble!'

'If you are really equal to it, you will not feel it so, when the time
comes. Bertha was miserable at the thought of moving, till just when she
had come to the right point, and then she grew eager for it.'

It was wonderful how much freshened Lucy was by this brief contact with
Phoebe's clear, practical mind; but only for the time. Ever since her
arrival at the Holt she had sadly flagged, though making every effort
against her depression. There was something almost piteous in her
obedience and submission. All the employments once pressed upon her and
then spurned, were solicitously resumed; or if Honor remonstrated against
them as over-fatiguing, were relinquished in the same spirit of resigned
meekness. Her too visible desire to make an onerous atonement pressed
with equal weight on both, and the essential want of sympathy rendered
the confidences of the one mysteries to the other.

Honora was grieved that her child had only returned to pine and droop,
charging much of her melancholy lassitude upon Robert, and waiting on her
with soli