“I say, Phoebe, if you mean to cry and take on,” said Rhoda, springing up and drinking off her tea, “you’ll give me the spleen. I hate to be hipped. I shall be off to Mrs Jane. Come along!”
“Go yourself, Mrs Rhoda, my dear, and leave your cousin to recover, if tears be your aversion.”
“Why, aren’t they all our aversions?” said Rhoda, outraging grammar. “You don’t need to pretend, Mrs Dolly! I never saw you cry in my life.”
“Ah, child!” said Mrs Dorothy, as if she meant to indicate that there had been more of her life than could be seen from Rhoda’s standing-point. “But you’ll do well to take an old woman’s counsel, my dear. Run off to Mrs Jane, and divert yourself half an hour; and when you return, your cousin will have passed her trouble, and I will have a Story to tell you both. I know you like stories.”
“Come, I’ll go, for a story when I came back,” said Rhoda; “but I meant to take Phoebe. Can’t she wipe her eyes and come?”
“Then I shall not tell you a story,” responded Mrs Dorothy.
Rhoda laughed, and ran off. Mrs Dorothy let Phoebe have her cry out for a short time. She moved softly about, putting things in order, and then came and sat down by Phoebe on the settle.
“The world is too great for thee, poor child!” she said, tenderly, taking Phoebe’s hands in hers. “It is a long way from thy father’s grave; but, bethink thee, ’tis no long way from himself, if he is gone to Him that is our Father.”
“I know he is,” whispered Phoebe.
“And is the Lord thy Shepherd, dear child?”