‘My dear, what shall I do with the others without you? Maria has such odd tricks, and Bertha is so teasing without you! You promised they should not tire me!’
‘I will beg them to be good, dear mamma; I am very sorry, but it is only this once. She will be alone. Owen Sandbrook is obliged to go away.’
‘I can’t think what she should want of you,’ moaned her mother, ‘so used as she is to be alone. Did she ask you?’
‘No, she does not know yet. I am to tell her, and that is why I want you to be so kind as to spare me, dear mamma.’
‘My dear, it will not do for you to be carrying young men’s secrets, at least not Owen Sandbrook’s. Your papa would not like it, my dear, until she had acknowledged him for her heir. You have lost your glove, too, Phœbe, and you look so heated, you had better come back with me,’ said Mrs. Fulmort, who would not have withstood for a moment a decree from either of her other daughters.
‘Indeed,’ said Phœbe, ‘you need not fear, mamma. It is nothing of that sort, quite the contrary.’
‘Quite the contrary! You don’t tell me that he has formed another attachment, just when I made sure of your settling at last at the Holt, and you such a favourite with Honor Charlecote. Not one of those plain Miss Raymonds, I hope.’
‘I must not tell, till she has heard,’ said Phœbe, ‘so please say nothing about it. It will vex poor Miss Charlecote sadly, so pray let no one suspect, and I will come back and tell you to-morrow, by the time you are dressed.’
Mrs. Fulmort was so much uplifted by the promise of the grand secret that she made no more opposition, and Maria and Bertha hurried in with Phœbe’s glove, which, with the peculiar fidelity of property wilfully lost, had fallen into their hands while searching for Robert. Both declared they had seen him on the hill, and clamorously demanded him of Phœbe. Her answer, ‘he is not in the forest, you will not find him,’ was too conscious fully to have satisfied the shrewd Bertha, but for the pleasure of discoursing to the other girls upon double gangers, of whom she had stealthily read in some prohibited German literature of her governess’s.
Leaving her to astonish them, Phœbe took up a position near Miss Charlecote, who was talking to the good matronly-looking Lady Raymond, and on the first opportunity offered herself as a companion. On the way home, Honor, much pleased, was proposing to find Owen, and walk through a beautiful and less frequented forest path, when she saw her own carriage coming up with that from Beauchamp, and lamented the mistake which must take her away as soon as Owen could be found.