‘No,’ said he to himself, as he paused in the Court, and was busy wiping from the sleeve of his coat two broad dashes of wet that had certainly not proceeded from the clouds, ‘the dear child’s whole heart is with her brother now she has got him back again. I’ll not torment her any more. What a fool I was to think that anything but loneliness could have made her accept me—poor darling! I think I’ll go out to the Bishop of Sierra Leone!’
‘What can have happened to him?’ thought Phœbe, as he strode past the little party on their walk to the Tower. ‘Can that wretched little Cilly have been teasing him? I am glad Robert has escaped from her clutches!’
However, Phœbe had little leisure for such speculations in the entertainment of witnessing her companion’s intelligent interest in all that he saw. The walk itself—for which she had begged—was full of wonder; and the Tower, which Robert’s slight knowledge of one of the officials enabled them to see in perfection, received the fullest justice, both historically and loyally. The incumbent of St. Matthew’s was so much occupied with explanations to his boys, that Phœbe had the stranger all to herself, and thus entered to the full into that unfashionable but most heart-stirring of London sights, ‘the Towers of Julius,’ from the Traitors’ Gate, where Elizabeth sat in her lion-like desolation, to her effigy in her glory upon Tilbury Heath—the axe that severed her mother’s ‘slender neck’—the pistol-crowned stick of her father—the dark cage where her favourite Raleigh was mewed—and the whole series of the relics of the disgraces and the glories of England’s royal line—well fitted, indeed, to strike the imagination of one who had grown up in the New World without antiquity.
If it were a satisfaction to be praised and thanked for this expedition, Phœbe had it; for on her return she was called into Owen’s room, where his first words to her were of thanks for her good-nature to his friend.
‘I am sure it was nothing but a pleasure,’ she said. ‘It happened that Robert had some boys whom he wanted to take.’ Somehow she did not wish Owen to think she had done it on his own account.
‘And you liked him?’ asked Owen.
‘Yes, very much indeed,’ she heartily said.
‘Ah! I knew you would;’ and he lay back as if fatigued. Then, as Phœbe was about to leave him, he added—‘I can’t get my ladies to heed anything but me. You and Robert must take pity on him, if you please. Get him to Westminster Abbey, or the Temple Church, or somewhere worth seeing to-morrow. Don’t let them be extortionate of his waiting on me. I must learn to do without him.’
Phœbe promised, and went.
‘Phœbe is grown what one calls a fine young woman instead of a sweet girl,’ said Owen to his sister, when she next came into the room; ‘but she has managed to keep her innocent, half-wondering look, just as she has the freshness of her colour.’