Only an Incident

by Grace Denio Litchfield

Through all this slowly increasing alarm, Phebe Lane had been living as in a dream. It was as if she found herself back in that old life before she knew Halloway, when people bored her, and when there seemed nothing worth doing or worth looking forward to, though the days were so full of duties. She had been at the rectory but once since Gerald left, and that was to the Bible-class, and when Mrs. Whittridge had tried to detain her afterward, she had pleaded some pressing business at home, though chancing to look out of her window a little later, Soeur Angélique was almost sure that through the closed shutters in Phebe's room, she saw a dim shadow of the girl's head laid down listlessly on her folded arms on the sill. But when the epidemic reached its height, Phebe seemed suddenly to awaken from her languor and rouse herself to action. Here was something worth doing at last. Once more her soft, sweet whistling sounded bird-like through the house. The spring came back to her step, the brightness to her eyes, and more than the old tenderness to her voice, as she went from one shunned sick-room to another like a living sunbeam, bringing the freshness of a May morning with her, and seeming always to come solely for her own pure pleasure. And when poor motherless Janet Mudge was struck down too with the dreaded disease, and had no one but servants to care for her, her own aunt, who lived in Joppa, being afraid to so much as go to the house to ask after her, it seemed perfectly natural to everybody that Phebe Lane, who had no cares at home and no one really dependent upon her, should quietly install herself as Janet's nurse. It was a very proper and natural thing for Phebe to do, everybody said, and thought no more about it. It was so manifestly a duty sent direct from Heaven, labelled "For Phebe Lane."

"I met Dr. Dennis to-day," said Halloway one afternoon, coming into his sister's room and throwing himself wearily down on the sofa. "He says Janet Mudge is better,—is really going to get well."

Soeur Angélique put aside her work and came to sit by the sofa and stroke her boy's head. If the doctors were overworked and spent, so too was he. The hour of trial had not found him wanting. His unambitious, simple spirit, that sought no wider duty than merely to fulfil the moment's call as he best could, met and conquered a stress of work that would have disheartened many a bolder hero. He never thought of it in the light of duty at all. There was nothing heroic or high-minded about it. It was simply what in the nature of things he was bound to do. Wherever he was wanted he went, and because where he went he brought such sunny cheer, and such sympathetic help, and such bright, kindly ways, he was wanted everywhere; not only those of his own parish, but those of the other churches too came to look to Mr. Halloway as the one whose visit helped them the most in any season of trial. Among the poor he was held a ministering angel, and supplemented by Soeur Angélique as an unseen force, often proved one in truth, while his bright face did them more good, they said, than a power of sermons; and no one ever thought the less of him because he seemed so much more the friend than the pastor, and did no preaching at all.

"So Janet is better," said Soeur Angélique, toying caressingly with the wavy brown hair tossed over his forehead. "Now I hope we shall see more of our Phebe again. What a little heroine she is!"

"A perfectly unconscious one," answered Halloway, lazily submitting himself to the fondling hand. "She thinks it the most matter-of-fact thing in the world that she should play Sister of Charity to other people's sick, and never expect so much as a thank-you from them."

"She is a lovely character," said Mrs. Whittridge, warmly.

"She is indeed," assented her brother. "A rare character. She is one in a thousand."

"I cannot but compare her sometimes with her friend, Gerald Vernor," continued Mrs. Whittridge. "And despite Miss Vernor's beauty and her power, which makes itself felt even by me, still it is always to Phebe's advantage."

Halloway got up and began slowly pacing the room, with an odd smile upon his lips. "Always to Phebe's advantage," he repeated. "Yes, she is by far the more amiable, the more unselfish, the more lovable, the better worth loving of the two. She is all heart. She is brimming over with affection, and must speak it or die, while Gerald is colder than stone,—than ice. She is so cold she burns. She reminds one of stars in mid-winter, of icicles in the moonlight, of any thing eminently frigid and brilliant and remote. I daresay, despite all her beauty and her talent and even with her wealth thrown in, she will have comparatively few lovers, yet those few will be truer to her through all her coldness and her disfavor than the lovers of many a sweeter girl. Did I say Phebe was one in a thousand? Well Miss Vernor is one in nine hundred and ninety-nine,—or one in ten thousand,—I don't know which."

"You said Phebe was the better worth loving of the two," said Mrs. Whittridge, coming to walk up and down the room with him and clasping her hands over his arm. "I used to think,—I fancied you cared for the child,—that you would care for her."