you is the
self-pleasing, which the mortified one, at this moment?'

Robert could not but look convicted as his eyes fell on the innocent
face, with the tears just kept back by strong effort, and the struggling
smile of pardon.

'Never mind, Robin,' said Phoebe, as she saw his air of vexation; 'I know
you never meant unkindness. Do as you think right, only pray think of
what Miss Charlecote says.'

'She has one thing more to say,' added Honor. 'Do you think that
throwing aside Phoebe's little services will make you fitter to go among
the little children?'

There was no answer, but a reluctant approach to a smile gave Phoebe
courage to effect her restorations, and her whispered 'You will not
disturb them?' met with an affirmative satisfactory to herself.

Perhaps he felt as of old, when the lady of the Holt had struck him for
his cruelty to the mouse, or expelled him for his bad language. The same
temper remained, although self-revenge had become the only outlet. He
knew what it was that he had taken for devoted self-denial.

'Yes, Robin,' were Miss Charlecote's parting words, as she went back to
days of her own long past. 'Wilful doing right seldom tends to good,
above all when it begins by exaggeration of duty.'

And Robert was left with thoughts such as perchance might render him a
more tractable subordinate for Mr. Parsons, instead of getting into
training for the Order of St. Dominic.

Phoebe had to return less joyfully than she had gone forth. Her first
bright star of anticipation had faded, and she had partaken deeply of the
griefs of the two whom she loved so well. Not only had she to leave the
one to his gloomy lodgings in the City, and the toil that was to deaden
suffering, but the other must be parted with at the station, to return to
the lonely house, where not even old Ponto would meet her--his last hour
having, to every one's grief, come in her absence.

Phoebe could not bear the thought of that solitary return, and even at
the peril of great disappointment to her sisters, begged to sleep that
first night at the Holt, but Honor thanked her, and laughed it off: 'No,
no! my dear, I am used to be alone, and depend upon it, there will be
such an arrear of farm business for me, that I should hardly have time to
speak to you. You need not be uneasy for me, dear one, there is always
relief in having a great deal to do, and I shall know you are near, to
come if I want you. There's a great deal i