"I shall never know you better," Phœbe replied, "and I shall never love you."
"Proud spirits can be broken," said Mrs. Pamflett.
"Yes," sighed Phœbe; "but I am not proud—I am only faithful; and perhaps I shall soon die."
"You will be no loss," said Mrs. Pamflett; "but before you die you will be my daughter-in-law."
At this period Miser Farebrother had not spoken positively to Phœbe about Jeremiah; he had left it to the young villain to make his way, and, indeed, Jeremiah had attempted to do so. But Phœbe utterly baffled him. He brought her flowers, and at her father's command she received them from his hands. An hour afterward he saw them lying on the floor or in the grounds, where she had dropped or thrown them. He arrayed himself in new suits of clothes and laid himself out for admiration, which she never bestowed upon him. He strove to draw her into conversation, and if he managed to extract a word from her it was but a word—often not even that; a look of scorn and contempt was then his reward. At meals his offers of small courtesies were disregarded. By her father's order she sat at the head of the breakfast and tea table, but she would never pass Jeremiah's cup nor accept it from him. His mean nature resented this treatment in mean ways, and after a while he indulged in sarcasms, speaking at her instead of to her. This change passed unnoticed by her; she might have been deaf and blind to everything he said and did. Two or three weeks after the visit of her aunt and Fred Cornwall to Parksides, Phœbe went to her father with a letter.
"I wish to post this letter," she said. "May I do so?"
"You have sworn not to leave Parksides without my permission," he replied. "I will not allow you to go to the village."
"I had no intention of going without your permission," she said.
He kept her so strictly to her oath that she was virtually a prisoner in Parksides.
"I will have the letter posted for you," he said.