"She has not told me so," said the indignant woman. "She has always spoken of you with tenderness and gentleness. You know best how you deserved it at her hands. If she cannot find love and protection here, she can find them with me and mine!" She knelt and kissed Phœbe's pale face. "My sweet child! so happy but an hour ago! Come to me if they oppress you here—my child! my daughter!"
"Bundle them out," cried Miser Farebrother, "neck and crop!"
They had no right to stay, and they left the place mournfully.
"Do not be false to Phœbe," said Aunt Leth to Fred.
"No need to say that to me, Aunt Leth," said the young fellow. "Phœbe, and no other woman, shall be my wife."
This encounter it was between Aunt Leth and Miser Farebrother which had caused the miser to extract a binding oath from Phœbe that she would not leave Parksides without his permission.
"How was that done, Jeremiah?" he asked, when his daughter left the room.
"Capitally! capitally, sir!" said Jeremiah. "What an actor you would have made!"
"Perhaps—perhaps," said Miser Farebrother, with a sneer. "I am not half so ill as I look, Jeremiah. Don't reckon too soon upon my death. Excitement like this does me a power of good. They came to trap me, my fine lawyer and tearful sister-in-law; but I have turned the tables upon them. As I will upon every one"—with a keen look at Jeremiah—"who dares to play me false!"
It was fortunate for the miser that his managing clerk did not possess the power of striking a man dead by a glance; if he had, that moment would have been Miser Farebrother's last.