‘I shall tell them that two of a trade never agree. Come, and let us choose.’ And opening a drawer, Lucilla took out her
long parchment book, and was soon eloquent on the merits of the doctor, the butcher, the duchess, and all her other radiant fabrications of gold pheasants’ feathers, parrot plumes, jays’ wings, and the like. Phœbe could not help admiring their beauty, though she was perplexed all the while, uncomfortable on Robert’s account, and yet not enough assured of the usages of the London world to be certain whether this were unsuitable. The Charteris family, though not of the most élite circles of all, were in one to which the Fulmorts had barely the entrée, and the ease and dash of the young ladies, Lucilla’s superior age, and caressing patronage, all made Phœbe in her own eyes too young and ignorant to pass an opinion. She would have known more about the properties of a rectangle or the dangers of a paper currency.
Longing to know what Miss Charlecote thought, she stood, answering as little as possible, until Rashe had been summoned to the party in the outer room, and Cilly said, laughing, ‘Well, does she astonish your infant mind?’
‘I do not quite enter into her,’ said Phœbe, doubtfully.
‘The best-natured and most unappreciated girl in the world. Up to anything, and only a victim to prejudice. You, who have a strong-minded governess, ought to be superior to the delusion that it is interesting to be stupid and helpless.’
‘I never thought so,’ said Phœbe, feeling for a moment in the wrong, as Lucilla always managed to make her antagonists do.
‘Yes, you do, or why look at me in that pleading, perplexed fashion, save that you have become possessed with the general prejudice. Weigh it, by the light of Whately’s logic, and own candidly wherefore Rashe and I should be more liable to come to grief, travelling alone, than two men of the same ages.’
‘I have not grounds enough to judge,’ said Phœbe, beginning as though Miss Fennimore were giving an exercise to her reasoning powers; then, continuing with her girlish eagerness of entreaty, ‘I only know that it cannot be right, since it grieves Robin and Miss Charlecote so much.’
‘And all that grieves Robin and Miss Charlecote must be shocking, eh? Oh, Phœbe, what very women all the Miss Fennimores in the world leave us, and how lucky it is!’
‘But I don’t think you are going to grieve them,’ said Phœbe, earnestly.