with some impatience, 'I never was
pledged. I may be of much more use and influence, and able to effect
more extended good as a partner in a concern like this than as an obscure
clergyman. Don't you see?'

Phoebe had only time to utter a somewhat melancholy 'Very likely,' before
Miss Charlecote returned to take her to her room, the promised brown
cupboard, all wainscoted with delicious cedar, so deeply and uniformly
panelled, that when shut, the door was not obvious; and it was like being
in a box, for there were no wardrobes, only shelves shut by doors into
the wall, which the old usage of the household tradition called awmries
(_armoires_). The furniture was reasonably modern, but not obtrusively
so. There was a delicious recess in the deep window, with a seat and a
table in it, and a box of mignonette along the sill. It looked out into
the little high-walled entrance court, and beyond to the wall of the
warehouse opposite; and the roar of the great city thoroughfare came like
the distant surging of the ocean. Seldom had young maiden's bower given
more satisfaction. Phoebe looked about her as if she hardly knew how to
believe in anything so unlike her ordinary life, and she thanked her
friend again and again with such enthusiasm, that Miss Charlecote laughed
as she told her she liked the old house to be appreciated, since it had,
like Pompeii, been potted for posterity.

'And thank you, my dear,' she added with a sigh, 'for making my coming
home so pleasant. May you never know how I dreaded the finding it full
of emptiness.'

'Dear Miss Charlecote!' cried Phoebe, venturing upon a warm kiss, and
thrilled with sad pleasure as she was pressed in a warm, clinging
embrace, and felt tears on her cheek. 'You have been so happy here!'

'It is not the past, my dear,' said Honora; 'I could live peacefully on
the thought of that. The shadows that people this house are very gentle
ones. It is the present!'

She broke off, for the gates of the court were opening to admit a
detachment of cabs, containing the persons and properties of the new
incumbent and his wife. He had been a curate of Mr. Charlecote, since
whose death he had led a very hard-working life in various towns; and on
his recent presentation to the living of St. Wulstan's, Honora had begged
him and his wife to make her house their home while determining on the
repairs of the parsonage. She ran down to meet them with gladsome steps.
She had never enti