She gives thee a garland woven fair,
Take care!
It is a fool’s-cap for thee to wear,
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee!—Longfellow, from Müller
Behold Phœbe Fulmort seated in a train on the way to London. She was a very pleasant spectacle to Miss Charlecote opposite to her, so peacefully joyous was her face, as she sat with the wind breathing in on her, in the calm luxury of
contemplating the landscape gliding past the windows in all its summer charms, and the repose of having no one to hunt her into unvaried rationality.
Her eye was the first to detect Robert in waiting at the terminus, but he looked more depressed than ever, and scarcely smiled as he handed them to the carriage.
‘Get in, Robert, you are coming home with us,’ said Honor.
‘You have so much to take, I should encumber you.’
‘No, the sundries go in cabs, with the maids. Jump in.’
‘Do your friends arrive to-night?’
‘Yes; but that is no reason you should look so rueful! Make the most of Phœbe beforehand. Besides, Mr. Parsons is a Wykehamist.’
Robert took his place on the back seat, but still as if he would have preferred walking home. Neither his sister nor his friend dared to ask whether he had seen Lucilla. Could she have refused him? or was her frivolity preying on his spirits?