was done, that now he hoped to save a few of the children that are turned out in the streets to steal.’
‘Steal! They’ll steal all his property! A proper fool your uncle was to leave it all to a lad like that. The sure way to spoil him! I could have trebled all your fortunes if that capital had been in my hands, and now to see him throw it to the dogs! Phœbe, I can’t stand it. Conscience? I hate such coxcombry! As if men would not make beasts of themselves whether his worship were in the business or not.’
‘Yes!’ ventured Phœbe, ‘but at least he has no part in their doing so.’
‘Much you know about it,’ said her father, again shielding himself with his newspaper, but so much less angrily than she had dared to expect, that even while flushed and trembling, she felt grateful to him as more placable than Mervyn. She knew not the power of her own sweet face and gently honest manner, nor of the novelty of an attentive daughter.
When the neighbours remarked on Mrs. Fulmort’s improved looks and spirits, and wondered whether they were the effect of the Rhine or of ‘getting off’ her eldest daughter, they knew not how many fewer dull hours she had to spend. Phœbe visited her in her bedroom, talked at luncheon, amused her drives, coaxed her into the garden, read to her when she rested before dinner, and sang to her afterwards. Phœbe likewise brought her sister’s attainments more into notice, though at the expense of Bertha’s contempt for mamma’s preference for Maria’s staring fuchsias and feeble singing, above her own bold chalks from models and scientific music, and indignation at Phœbe’s constantly bringing Maria forward rather than her own clever self.
Droning narrative, long drawn out, had as much charm for Mrs. Fulmort as for Maria. If she did not always listen, she liked the voice, and she sometimes awoke into descriptions of the dresses, parties, and acquaintance of her youth, before trifling had sunk into dreary insipidity under the weight of too much wealth, too little health, and ‘nothing to do.’
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘I am glad you are not out. Quiet evenings are so good for my nerves; but you are a fine girl, and will soon want society.’
‘Not at all, mamma; I like being at home with you.’
‘No, my dear! I shall like to take you out and see you dressed. You must have advantages, or how are you to marry?’
‘There’s no hurry,’ said Phœbe, smiling.