"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?"
"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.
PHŒBE.
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?"