“Are you sure it will come to you?”
“Why, of course it will!” exclaimed Rhoda, sitting up, and leaning on her elbow. “To whom else would Madam leave it, I should like to know! Why, you never expect her to give it to you, poor little white-faced thing? I vow, but that is a good jest!”
Rhoda’s laugh had more bitterness than mirth in it. Phoebe’s smile was one of more unmixed amusement.
“Pray make yourself easy,” said Phoebe. “I never expect anything, and then I am not disappointed.”
“Well, I’ll just tell you what!” rejoined her cousin. “If I catch you making up to Madam, trying to please all her whims, and chime in with her vapours, and that—fancying she’ll leave you White-Ladies—I tell you, Phoebe Latrobe, I’ll never forgive you as long as I live! There!”
Rhoda was very nearly, if not quite, in a passion. Phoebe turned and looked at her.
“Cousin,” she said, gently, “you will see me try to please Madam, since ’tis my duty: but if you suppose ’tis with any further object, such as what she might give me, you very ill know Phoebe Latrobe.”
“Well, mind your business!” said Rhoda, rather fiercely.
A few minutes later she was asleep. But sleep did not visit Phoebe’s eyes that night.
When the morning came, Rhoda seemed quite to have forgotten her vexation. She chattered away while she was dressing, on various topics, but chiefly respecting the new clothes which Madam had promised to Phoebe. If words might be considered a criterion, Rhoda appeared to take far more interest in these than Phoebe herself.