,' said Phoebe; then pausing, and speaking more
diffidently, though with a smile, 'I think she looks up to you so much,
that she is afraid to put herself in your power, for fear she should be
made to give up her odd ways in spite of herself, and yet that she has no
notion of losing you. Did you see her face at the station?'

'I would not! I could not meet her eyes! I snatched my hand from the
little clinging fingers;' and Robert's voice almost became a gasp. 'It
was not fit that the spell should be renewed. She would be miserable, I
under constant temptation, if I endeavoured to make her share my work!
Best as it is! She has so cast me off that my honour is no longer bound
to her; but I cannot tell whether it be due to her to let her know how it
is with me, or whether it would be mere coxcombry.'

'The Sunday that she spent here,' said Phoebe, slowly, 'she had a talk
with me. I wrote it down. Miss Fennimore says it is the safest way--'

'Where is it?' cried Robert.

'I kept it in my pocket-book, for fear any one should see it, and it
should do harm. Here it is, if it will help you. I am afraid I made
things worse, but I did not know what to say.'

It was one of the boldest experiments ever made by a sister; for what man
could brook the sight of an unvarnished statement of his proxy's
pleading, or help imputing the failure to the go-between?

'I would not have had this happen for a thousand pounds!' was his
acknowledgment. 'Child as you are, Phoebe, had you not sense to know,
that no woman could endure to have that said, which should scarcely be
implied? I wonder no longer at her studied avoidance.'

'If it be all my bad management, cannot it be set right?' humbly and
hopefully said Phoebe.

'There is no right!' he said. 'There, take it back. It settles the
question. The security you childishly showed, was treated as offensive
presumption on my part. It would be presuming yet farther to make a
formal withdrawal of what was never accepted.'

'Then is it my doing? Have I made mischief between you, and put you
apart?' said poor Phoebe, in great distress. 'Can't I make up for it?'

'You? No, you were only an over plain-spoken child, and brought about
the crisis that must have come somehow. It is not what you have done, or
not done; it is what Lucy Sandbrook has said and done, shows that I must
have done with her for ever.'

'And yet,' said Phoebe, taking this as forgiveness, 'you see she never