“You mean about the daughters? That is true enough, there are always difficulties in the way; but you need not be afraid of Clarence Copperhead. He is not the fascinating pupil of a church-novel. There's nothing the least like the Heir of Redclyffe about him.”
“You are very well up in Miss Yonge's novels, Miss Beecham.”
“Yes,” said Phœbe; “one reads Scott for Scotland (and a few other things), and one reads Miss Yonge for the church. Mr. Trollope is good for that too, but not so good. All that I know of clergymen's families I have got from her. I can recognize you quite well, and your sister, but the younger ones puzzle me; they are not in Miss Yonge; they are too much like other children, too naughty. I don't mean anything disagreeable. The babies in Miss Yonge are often very naughty too, but not the same. As for you, Mr. May——”
“Yes. As for me?”
“Oh, I know everything about you. You are a fine scholar, but you don't like the drudgery of teaching. You have a fine mind, but it interferes with you continually. You have had a few doubts—just enough to give a piquancy; and now you have a great ideal, and mean to do many things that common clergymen don't think of. That was why you hesitated about the chaplaincy? See how much I have got out of Miss Yonge. I know you as well as if I had known you all my life; a great deal better than I know Clarence Copperhead; but then, no person of genius has taken any trouble about him.”
“I did not know I had been a hero of fiction,” said Reginald, who had a great mind to be angry. All this time they were walking briskly backward and forward before Tozer's open door, the Anglican, in his long black coat, following the lively movements of Tozer's granddaughter, only because he could not help himself. He was irritated, yet he was pleased. A young man is pleased to be thought of, even when the notice is but barely complimentary. Phœbe must have thought of him a good deal before she found him out in this way; but he was irritated all the same.
“You are, however,” she answered lightly. “Look at that blaze of crimson, Mr. May; and the blue which is so clear and so unfathomable. Winter is grander than summer, and even warmer—to look at; with its orange, and purple, and gold. What poor little dirty, dingy things we are down here, to have all this exhibited every evening for our delight!”
“That is true,” he said; and as he gazed, something woke in the young man's heart—a little thrill of fancy, if not of love. It is hard to look at a beautiful sunset, and then see it reflected in a girl's face, and not to feel something—which may be nothing, perhaps. His heart gave a small jump, not much to speak of. Phœbe did not talk like the other young ladies in Grange Lane.
“Mr. May, Mr. May!” she cried suddenly, “please go away! I foresee a disastrous encounter which alarms me. You can't fight, but there is no saying what you might do to each other. Please go away!”
“What is the matter?” he said. “I don't understand any encounter being disastrous here. Why should I go away?”