pply
as the retail business increased.

Staines wrote an article on pure food, and incidentally mentioned the
shop as a place where flour, milk, and butter were to be had pure. This
article was published in the Lancet, and caused quite a run upon the
little shop. By and by Phoebe enlarged it, for which there were great
capabilities, and made herself a pretty little parlor, and there she and
Dick sat to Falcon for their portraits; here, too, she hung his rejected
landscapes. They were fair in her eyes; what matter whether they
were like nature? his hand had painted them. She knew, from him, that
everybody else had rejected them. With all the more pride and love did
she have them framed in gold, and hung up with the portraits in her
little sanctum.

For a few months Phoebe Dale was as happy as she deserved to be. Her
lover was working, and faithful to her--at least she saw no reason to
doubt it. He came to see her every evening, and seemed devoted to her:
would sit quietly with her, or walk with her, or take her to a play, or
a music-hall--at her expense.

She now lived in a quiet elysium, with a bright and rapturous dream
of the future; for she saw she had hit on a good vein of business, and
should soon be independent, and able to indulge herself with a husband,
and ask no man's leave.

She sent to Essex for a dairymaid, and set her to churn milk into
butter, coram populo, at a certain hour every morning. This made a new
sensation. At other times the woman was employed to deliver milk and
cream to a few favored customers.

Mrs. Staines dropped in now and then, and chatted with her. Her sweet
face and her naivete won Phoebe's heart; and one day, as happiness is
apt to be communicative, she let out to her, in reply to a feeler or two
as to whether she was quite alone, that she was engaged to be married to
a gentleman. "But he is not rich, ma'am," said Phoebe plaintively; "he
has had trouble: obliged to work for his living, like me; he painted
these pictures, EVERY ONE OF THEM. If it was not making too free, and
you could spare a guinea--he charges no more for the picture, only you
must go to the expense of the frame."

"Of course I will," said Rosa warmly. "I'll sit for it here, any day you
like."

Now, Rosa said this, out of her ever ready kindness, not to wound
Phoebe: but having made the promise, she kept clear of the place for
some days, hoping Phoebe would forget all about it. Meantime she sent
her husband t