had so strangely disappeared out of his life. On a
Sunday evening when, of course, their wanderings were over, she would
sit with them in summer by the attic window, which, overlooked the
river, and in winter by the fireside, recounting again and again all she
knew of him, especially of how good he always was to her. There were a
vividness and vivacity in all she said of him which charmed their
imagination and kept the memory of him alive in their hearts. Phebe gave
dramatic effect to her stories of him. Hilda could scarcely remember
him, though she believed she did; but to Felix he remained the tall,
handsome, kindly father, who was his ideal of all a man should be; while
Phebe, perhaps unconsciously, portrayed him as all that was great and
good.

For neither Madame nor Phebe could find it in their hearts to tell the
boy, so proud and fond of his father's memory, that any suspicion had
ever been attached to his name. Madame, who had mourned so bitterly over
his premature death in her native land, but so far from his own, had
never believed in his guilt; and Phebe, who knew him to be guilty, had
forgiven him with that forgiveness which possesses an almost sacred
forgetfulness. If she had been urged to look back and down into that
dark abyss in which he had been lost to her, she must have owned
reluctantly that he had once done wrong. But it was hard to remember
anything against the dead.

CHAPTER XXIV.

AT HOME IN LONDON.

Every summer Phebe went down to her own home on the uplands, according
to her promise to the Nixeys. Felix and Hilda always accompanied her,
for a change was necessary for the children, and Felicita seldom cared
to go far from London, and then only to some sea-side resort near at
hand, when Madame always went with her. Every summer Simon Nixey
repeated his offer the first evening of Phebe's residence under her own
roof; for, as Mrs. Nixey said, as long as she was wed to nobody else
there was a chance for him. Though they could see with sharp and envious
eyes the change that was coming over her, transforming her from the
simple, untaught country girl into an educated and self-possessed woman,
marking out her own path in life, yet the sweetness and the frankness
of Phebe's nature remained unchanged.

"She's growing a notch or two higher every time she comes down," said
Mrs. Nixey regretfully; "she'll be far above thee, lad, next summer."

"She's only old Dummy's daughter after all," answ