‘Seeing how a man that is called Humfrey can bear with your two sisters making themselves ridiculous. Really I should set the backwoods down as the best school of courtesy, but that I believe some people have that school within themselves. Hollo!’
For Phœbe absolutely kissed Bertha as she went up-stairs.
‘Ha?’ said Bertha, interrogatively; then went into the drawing-room, and looked very grave, almost sad.
Phœbe could not but think it rather hard when, on the last afternoon of Humfrey Randolf’s visit, there came a note from Mervyn ordering her up to Beauchamp to arrange some special contrivances of his for Cecily’s morning-room—her mother’s, which gave it an additional pang. It was a severe, threatening, bitterly cold day, not at all fit for sliding, even had not both the young ladies and Miss Fennimore picked up a suspicion of cold; but Phœbe had no doubt that there would be a farewell visit, and did not like to lose it.
‘Take the pony carriage, and you will get home faster,’ said Bertha, answering what was unspoken.
No; the groom sent in word that the ponies were gone to be rough-shod, and that one of them had a cold.
‘Never mind,’ said Phœbe, cheerfully; ‘I shall be warmer walking.’
And she set off, with a lingering will, but a step brisk under her determination that her personal wishes should never make her neglect duty or kindness. She did not like to think that he would be disappointed, but she had a great trust in his trust in herself, and a confidence, not to be fretted away, that some farewell would come to pass, and that she should know when to look for him again.
Scanty sleety flakes of snow were falling before her half-hour’s walk was over, and she arrived at the house, where anxious maids were putting their last touches of preparation for the mistress. It was strange not to feel more strongly the pang of a lost home; and had not Phœbe been so much preoccupied, perhaps it would have affected her strongly, with all her real joy at Cecily’s installation; but there were new things before her that filled her mind too full for regrets for the rooms where she had grown up. She only did her duty scrupulously by Cecily’s writing-table, piano, and pictures, and then satisfied the housekeeper by a brief inspection of the rooms, more laudatory than particular. She rather pitied Cecily, after her comfortable parsonage, for coming to all those state drawing-rooms. If it had been the west wing, now!
By this time the snow was thicker, and the park beginning to whiten. The housekeeper begged her to wait and order out the carriage, but she disliked giving trouble, and thought that an unexpected summons might be tardy of fulfilment, so she insisted on confronting the elements, confident in her cloak and india-rubber boots, and secretly hoping that the visitor at the cottage might linger on into the twilight.