She held out her two hands and Vassie thought swiftly: "It's no good, my dear; he's for your betters—he and I …" and with a worldliness that went far towards bearing out her claims to ladyhood she broke in with:
"You remember little Phoebe, Ishmael—from the mill…."
"Why, of course. You haven't grown much, though you've got your hair done up," said Ishmael, thankful for any diversion from Annie's reproachful arms, which had slid from his neck to hang by her side.
"I'm quite grown-up, though," said Phoebe, dimpling.
"She mean's she's too old for you to kiss, lad," said simple John-James with directness, grinning as he took the mare's bridle to lead her to the stable. Ishmael had not yet the social cleverness to kiss Phoebe at once and without embarrassment or to laugh the suggestion away, but she, who had no social sense at all and never attained any, met the moment perfectly, with a little curtsey and a sidelong look of merriment. "Ah, I remember when Ishmael refused to kiss me, and I cried myself to sleep over it," she said; "'tisn't likely I'm going to let him kiss me now."
"No—did I …?" asked he; and Vassie gave a shrill laugh.
"To be sure he did and would again," she declared; "he's not thinking of such things. Mamma, is tea ready in the parlour?"
"I fear I forgot about it, Vassie, my dear, but Katie shall get it to wance. Come in here, Ishmael. We do sit here now; simminly we're quality, according to she."
Ishmael followed his mother into the ugly room, which offended his eyes, used as they were to the Parson's taste. An album lay on the floor, and he stooped to pick it up, but his mother, quick for all her years and rheumatism, was before him and had thrust it out of his reach.
Tea was a stiff meal; everyone was on company manners. John-James, in from stabling the mare, sat at the edge of a chair; Vassie was too genteel, Phoebe too arch, Annie grim. Ishmael's heart sank with a terrible weight upon it as he thought that these were the people with whom his lot was cast—that he must see them, talk to them, day in, day out, all the round of the seasons…. Vassie's beauty seemed dimmed to him; Phoebe became an annoyance like a musical-box that will not leave off tinkling out the same tune. He bent his head lower as he sat, aware, with a misery of shame, that tears were burning perilously near his eye-lids. Life was sordid, and his position, over which he had not been guiltless of sometimes dreaming as romantic, held nothing but mortification and hatefulness.