"Well, I will, immediately,—after supper, that is. I am exhausted now with ministerial duties. You have asked Miss Phebe to tea have you not, Soeur Angélique? You cannot stay? Oh, but of course you must."
"Of course she will," said Mrs. Whittridge, with her tender smile. "Phebe only lives to give pleasure to others. Now tell me something about your friends. Who are they?"
"I haven't any here. Mr. Halloway is quite right," answered Phebe, locking her hands over one of Mrs. Whittridge's. "Not real, real friends. As a child I had ever so many, and Bell Masters and I quite grew up together, but somehow we have all grown away from each other, and—oh, I don't know!—it seems as if there wasn't any thing in the girls here. Not that there's more in me. They are brighter and better than I in every way, but we don't get on together; they don't seem to have any thing to give me, any thing they can help me to. I can't get at them. Oh! Mr. Halloway is quite right. In all Joppa I haven't a single friend—except just you and him."
"We are indeed your friends," said Mrs. Whittridge. "You need never doubt that."
The girl turned and threw her arms impulsively around the other's neck. "Oh, no, no!" she said. "I could not doubt it. I know it. I feel it! Oh, you can't guess what it is to me to know it! I have so little in my life to make it grow to any thing, and I want so much! And you can give me all I want—all, all; and it makes me so happy when I think of it,—that I have got you and can have all I want!"
"And is this frantic outburst meant exclusively for Soeur Angélique?" asked Denham. "I am green with unutterable jealousy. I thought I was your friend too, Miss Phebe."
Phebe still knelt with her arms around Mrs. Whittridge, but she looked up at him with her frank, loving eyes and smiled. "You know I meant you both," she said softly.
An almost irresistible impulse came over the young man to lay his hand, as his sister had done, on the soft, bright-brown hair. Clergymen are but human after all. He bent forward, but only lifted one of his sister's thin white hands and held it a moment between his. "We must both do our best by this foolish little girl who trusts us so frankly with her friendship, must we not, Soeur Angélique?" he said gravely.
"I for one am very glad to assume the trust," said Mrs. Whittridge.
"And won't you ever tire of me? ever? ever?" asked the girl.