‘To be sure, I am,’ said Bertha; ‘but it is such a shame! I shall tell Robin, and he’ll say so too. I shall tell him you nearly cried!’
‘Don’t vex Robin,’ said Phœbe. ‘When you go out, you should set yourself to tell him pleasant things.’
‘So I’m to tell him you wouldn’t go on any account. You like your political economy much too well!’
‘Suppose you say nothing about it,’ said Phœbe. ‘Make yourself merry with him. That’s what you’ve got to do. He takes you out to entertain you, not to worry about grievances.’
‘Do you never talk about grievances?’ asked Bertha, twinkling up her eyes.
Phœbe hesitated. ‘Not my own,’ she said, ‘because I have not got any.’
‘Has Robert, then?’ asked Bertha.
‘Nobody has grievances who is out of the schoolroom,’ opined Maria; and as she uttered this profound sentiment, the tinkle of Miss Fennimore’s little bell warned the sisters to return to the studies, which in the heat of summer were pursued in the afternoon, that the walk might be taken in the cool of the evening. Reading aloud, drawing, and sensible plain needlework were the avocations till it was time to learn the morrow’s lessons. Phœbe being beyond this latter work, drew on, and in the intervals of helping Maria with her geography, had time to prepare such a bright face as might make Robert think lightly of her disappointment, and not reckon it as another act of tyranny.
When he opened the door, however, there was that in his looks which made her spirits leap up like an elastic spring; and his ‘Well, Phœbe!’ was almost triumphant.
‘Is it—am I—’ was all she could say.