"Estimate!" sniffed Sarah. "I wouldn't give much for an 'estimate' that makes a coward of a boy who drilled till he dropped, put out a fire that might have terrified a grown person, and bore all those burns on his poor little hands and legs without a whimper!" and she left the General to his own thoughts.
The General's thoughts were not pleasant. He had no doubt of his supposed nephew's guilt, and it gave him great pain to reflect upon the duplicity and cowardice that he thought he detected in the child he already loved. Singularly enough he did not think of Philip in connection with the fire. The nature of Philip's communication—"Gay has set the barn afire!" was calculated to mislead; the General would have scorned to question Philip further. He wanted Gay's confession, not Philip's accusation, and in his morning calls at Dr. Brentwood's he avoided Philip as carefully as that young man avoided him.
Sarah was equally unsuspicious of Philip. Phyllis was the only one who took a sensible view of the matter; she believed that he knew more about the fire than he was willing to tell. One day she so far forgot her deference for her mistress as to depart from her rule of monosyllables and say,—
"That Brentwood boy knows more about the fire than he tells. Perhaps he set it and Master Gay didn't tell on him—expecting he'd tell himself—and he saw his chance and kept quiet. That's what I think."
"You had much better not think at all if you can't think of something sensible!" Sarah replied. "What makes you think so?" she added, a moment later, not without curiosity.
"I don't know, ma'am, but I do think so."
"I have my opinion of persons who don't know why they think a thing. It all comes of your stuffing your head with romantic nonsense instead of doing something useful. You've read silly romances till you've lost what little reasoning power nature gave you."
"Yes'm," said Phyllis, meekly, but without altering her opinion.
Sarah had once found a novel in Phyllis's room, and from that time forth all of Phyllis's shortcomings, from careless dusting to forgetfulness of the thirty-nine articles of the Episcopalian faith, had been ascribed by Sarah to the pernicious influence of the romance!