pies spread;
You seize the flower--its bloom is shed."

The dull, rumbling sound of wheels was heard on the pavement in the
yard.

"It is the carriage returned," said Shirley; "and dinner must be just
ready, and I am not dressed."

A servant came in with Mr. Moore's candle and tea; for the tutor and his
pupil usually dined at luncheon time.

"Mr. Sympson and the ladies are returned," she said, "and Sir Philip
Nunnely is with them."

"How you did start, and how your hand trembled, Shirley!" said Henry,
when the maid had closed the shutter and was gone. "But I know
why--don't you, Mr. Moore? I know what papa intends. He is a little ugly
man, that Sir Philip. I wish he had not come. I wish sisters and all of
them had stayed at De Walden Hall to dine.--Shirley should once more
have made tea for you and me, Mr. Moore, and we would have had a happy
evening of it."

Moore was locking up his desk and putting away his St. Pierre. "That was
_your_ plan, was it, my boy?"

"Don't you approve it, sir?"

"I approve nothing utopian. Look Life in its iron face; stare Reality
out of its brassy countenance. Make the tea, Henry; I shall be back in a
minute."

He left the room; so did Shirley, by another door.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

PHOEBE.

Shirley probably got on pleasantly with Sir Philip that evening, for the
next morning she came down in one of her best moods.

"Who will take a walk with me?" she asked, after breakfast. "Isabella
and Gertrude, will you?"

So rare was such an invitation from Miss Keeldar to her female cousins
that they hesitated before they accepted it. Their mamma, however,
signifying acquiescence in the project, they fetched their bonnets, and
the trio set out.

It did not suit these three young persons to be thrown much together.
Miss Keeldar liked the society of few ladies; indeed, she had a cordial
pleasure in that of none except Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone. She
was civil, kind, attentive even to her cousins; but still she usually
had little to say to them. In the sunny mood of this particular morning,
she contrived to entertain even the Misses Sympson. Without deviating
from her wonted rule of discussing with them only ordinary themes, she
imparted to these themes an extraordinary interest; the sparkle of her
spirit glanced along her phrases.

What made her so joyous? All the cause must have been in herself. The
day was not bright. It was dim--a pale, waning autumn day. The wal