‘I hope not,’ said Phœbe, gravely.
‘My poor child, you are in for a world of perplexities! I wish I had not to leave you to them.’
‘Every labyrinth has a clue,’ said Phœbe, smiling; ‘as Miss Fennimore says when she gives us problems to work. Only you know the terms of the problem must be stated before the solution can be made out; so it is of no use to put cases till we know all the terms.’
‘Right, Phœbe. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’
‘I cannot see the evil yet,’ said Phœbe; ‘the trouble has brought so much comfort. That happy Sunday with you, and my own year of being with them both, have been such blessings! Last year, how much worse it would have been for us all, when I scarcely knew mamma or Mervyn, and could not go about alone nor to church! And Miss Charlecote will soon come home. There is so much cause for thankfulness, that I can’t be afraid.’
Robert said no more, but felt that innocent buoyancy a mystery to his lower-pitched spirit. Never very gay or merry, Phœbe had a fund of happiness and a power of finding and turning outwards the bright side, which made her a most comfortable companion.
CHAPTER XV
Happy are they that learn in Him,
Though patient suffering teach
The secret of enduring strength,
And praise too deep for speech:
Peace that no pressure from without,
No strife within can reach.—A. L. Waring
Well was it for Phœbe that she had been trained to monotony, for her life was most uniform after Robert had left home. Her schoolroom mornings, her afternoons with her mother, her evenings with Mervyn, were all so much alike that one week could hardly be distinguished from another. Bertha’s vagaries and Mervyn’s periodical journeys to London were the
chief varieties, certainly not her mother’s plaintiveness, her brother’s discontent, or the sacrifice of her own inclinations, which were pretty certain to be traversed, but then, as she said, something else happened that did as well as what she had wished.