herself she
thought but little in comparison with the heartless contempt towards
Robert, and the miserable light-mindedness that it manifested.

'My poor, poor child!' was all she said, as she saw Phoebe looking with
terror at her countenance; 'yes, there is an end of it. Let Robert never
vex himself about her again.'

Phoebe took up the note, read it over and over again, and then said low
and gravely, 'It is very cruel.'

'Poor child, she was born to the Charteris nature, and cannot help it!
Like seeks like, and with Paris before her, she can see and feel nothing
else.'

Phoebe vaguely suspected that there might be a shadow of injustice in
this conclusion. She knew that Miss Charlecote imagined Lucilla to be
more frivolous than was the case, and surmised that there was more
offended pride than mere levity in the letter. Insight into character is
a natural, not an acquired endowment; and many of poor Honor's troubles
had been caused by her deficiency in that which was intuitive to Phoebe,
though far from consciously. That perception made her stand thoughtful,
wondering whether what the letter betrayed were folly or temper, and
whether, like Miss Charlecote, she ought altogether to quench her
indignation in contemptuous pity.

'There, my dear,' said Honor, recovering herself, after having sat with
ashy face and clasped hands for many moments. 'It will not bear to be
spoken or thought of. Let us go to something else. Only, Phoebe, my
child, do not leave her out of your prayers.'

Phoebe clung about her neck, kissed and fondled her, and felt her cheeks
wet with tears, in the passionate tenderness of the returning caress.

The resolve was kept of not going back to the subject, but Honora went
about all day with a soft, tardy step, and subdued voice, like one who
has stood beside a death-bed.

When Phoebe heard those stricken tones striving to be cheerful, she could
not find pardon for the wrong that had not been done to herself. She
dreaded telling Robert that no one was coming whom he need avoid, though
without dwelling on the tone of the refusal. To her surprise, he heard
her short, matter-of-fact communication without any token of anger or of
grief, made no remark, and if he changed countenance at all, it was to
put on an air of gloomy satisfaction, as though another weight even in
the most undesirable scale were preferable to any remnant of balancing,
and compunction for possible injustice were remove