ess they were peacocks too stupid to appreciate
the dignity of labour! For the first time Phoebe wished her secret known
to Miss Charlecote, for the sake of her appreciation of his triumph of
principle.

'This is Robert's doing!' was Mervyn's first exclamation, when Phoebe
gave him the letter. 'If there be an intolerable plague in the world, it
is the having a fanatical fellow like that in the family. Nice requital
for all I have thrown away for the sake of his maggots! I declare I'll
resume every house I've let him have for his tomfooleries, and have a gin
bottle blown as big as an ox as a sign for each of them.'

Phoebe had a certain lurking satisfaction in observing, when his
malediction had run itself down, 'He never consulted Robert.'

'Don't tell me that! As if Robert had not run about with his mouth open,
reviling his father's trade, and pluming himself on keeping out of it.'

'Mervyn, you know better! Robert had said no word against you! It is
the facts that speak for themselves.'

'The facts? You little simpleton, do you imagine that we distil the
juices of little babies?'

Phoebe laughed, and he added kindly, 'Come, little one, I know this is no
doing of yours. You have stuck by this wicked distiller of vile liquids
through thick and thin. Don't let the parson lead you nor Randolf by the
nose; he is far too fine a fellow for that; but come up to town with me
and Cecily, as soon as Lady Caroline's bear fight is over, and make him
hear reason.'

'I should be very glad to go and see him, but I cannot persuade him.'

'Why not?'

'When a man has made up his mind, it would be wrong to try to
over-persuade him, even if I believed that I could.'

'You know the alternative?'

'What?'

'Just breaking with him a little.'

She smiled.

'We shall see what Crabbe, and Augusta, and Acton will say to your taking
up with a dumpy leveller. We shall have another row. And you'll be
broken up again!'

That was by far the most alarming of his threats; but she did not greatly
believe that he would bring it to pass, or that an engagement, however
imprudent, conducted as hers had been, could be made a plea for accusing
Miss Fennimore or depriving her of her sisters. She tried to express her
thankfulness for the kindness that had prompted the original proposal,
and her sympathy with his natural vexation at finding that a traffic
which he had really ameliorated at considerable loss of profit, was still
c