"Not any," answered Phebe; "just as I was drawing near to say something helpful Phill came in, and then my opportunity had gone. His arrival on the scene quite spoilt my little plan."
But had it? If Phebe had known a little more of the Unseen Hand which shapes our lives, she would not have been quite so sure her little plan was spoilt.
The sight of Mrs. Waring brought to Phill Marchant's mind a little train of thought he had been cogitating over lately, and as soon as she left he remarked to his mother: "Mrs. Waring has got something you haven't got, mother."
"What's that?" snapped the mother. "I'm as well off as she is any day. She's got no jewellery to speak of, and goodness knows, her house is poor enough!"
"Oh, I don't mean that sort of thing."
"Well, what do you mean?"
"She never seems to get into flusters like you do, she seems to have something that steadies her, somehow; I hardly know how to put it." Phill saw from the look on his mother's face he was getting on to dangerous ground, and that made it all the more difficult to clothe his thoughts in words.
"Flusters, indeed! She'd be flustered right enough if she had the worries I have."
"I should think she has more to worry her than you have," Phill ventured to remark.
"That shows all you know about it! Why, she came in this afternoon to try and cheer me up a bit—she as good as said so just before you came in."