ate.'

'Is it?' cried Phoebe, springing up; 'I thought I had only been here an
hour.'

'Three, at least,' said Robert, yawning; 'six by my feelings. I could
not get away, for Mr. Crabbe stayed to dinner; Mervyn absented himself,
and my father went to sleep.'

'Robin, only think, Miss Charlecote is so kind as to say she will take me
to London!'

'It is very kind,' said Robert, warmly, his weary face and voice suddenly
relieved.

'I shall be delighted to have a companion,' said Honora; 'and I reckon
upon you too, Robin, whenever you can spare time from your work. Come
in, and let us talk it over.'

'Thank you, I can't. The dragon will fall on Phoebe if I keep her out
too late. Be quick, Phoebe.'

While his sister went to fetch her hat, he put his elbows on the sill,
and leaning into the room, said, 'Thank you again; it will be a wonderful
treat to her, and she has never had one in her life!'

'I was in hopes she would have gone to Germany.'

'It is perfectly abominable! It is all the others' doing! They know no
one would look at them a second time if anything so much younger and
pleasanter was by! They think her coming out would make them look older.
I know it would make them look crosser.'

Laughing was the only way to treat this tirade, knowing, as Honor did,
that there was but too much truth in it. She said, however, 'Yet one
could hardly wish Phoebe other than she is. The rosebud keeps its charm
longer in the shade.'

'I like justice,' quoth Robert.

'And,' she continued, 'I really think that she is much benefited by this
formidable governess. Accuracy and solidity and clearness of head are
worth cultivating.'

'Nasty latitudinarian piece of machinery,' said Robert, with his fingers
over his mouth, like a sulky child.

'Maybe so; but you guard Phoebe, and she guards Bertha; and whatever your
sense of injustice may be, this surely is a better school for her than
gaieties as yet.'

'It will be a more intolerable shame than ever if they will not let her
go with you.'

'Too intolerable to be expected,' smiled Honora. 'I shall come and beg
for her to-morrow, and I do not believe I shall be disappointed.'

She spoke with the security of one not in the habit of having her
patronage obstructed by relations; and Phoebe coming down with renewed
thanks, the brother and sister started on their way home in the
moonlight--the one plodding on moodily, the other, unable to repress her
glee, bounding