ny
more of this; let it alone, Phoebe, and trust me that things will adjust
themselves all the better for letting them have their swing. Don't you
look prematurely uneasy, and don't go and make Robin think that I have
immolated him at the altar of the salmon. Say nothing of all this; you
will only make a mess in narrating it.'

'Very likely I may,' said Phoebe; 'but if you will not speak to him
yourself, I shall tell him how you feel.'

'If you can,' laughed Lucilla.

'I mean, how you receive what I have told you of his views; I do not
think it would be fair or kind to keep him in ignorance.'

'Much good may it do him,' said Lucy; 'but I fancy you will tell him,
whether I give you leave or not, and it can't make much difference. I'll
tackle him, as the old women say, when I please, and the madder he may
choose to go, the better fun it will be.'

'I believe you are saying so to tease me' said Phoebe; 'but as I know you
don't mean it, I shall wait till after the party; and then, unless you
have had it out with him, I shall tell him what you have said.'

'Thank you,' said Lucilla, ironically conveying to Phoebe's mind the
conviction that she did not believe that Robert's attachment could suffer
from what had here passed. Either she meant to grant the decisive
interview, or else she was too confident in her own power to believe that
he could relinquish her; at all events, Phoebe had sagacity enough to
infer that she was not indifferent to him, though as the provoking damsel
ran down-stairs, Phoebe's loyal spirit first admitted a doubt whether the
tricksy sprite might not prove as great a torment as a delight to Robin.
'However,' reflected she, 'I shall make the less mischief if I set it
down while I remember it.'

Not much like romance, but practical sense was both native and cultivated
in Miss Fennimore's pupil. Yet as she recorded the sentences, and read
them over bereft of the speaker's caressing grace, she blamed herself as
unkind, and making the worst of gay retorts which had been provoked by
her own home thrusts. 'At least,' she thought, 'he will be glad to see
that it was partly my fault, and he need never see it at all if Lucy will
let him speak to her himself.'

Meantime, Honora had found from Owen that the young ladies had accepted
an invitation to a very gay house in Cheshire, so that their movements
would for a fortnight remain doubtful. She recurred to her view that the
only measure to be taken