“This is the first chance I have had of seeing you home without that perpetual shadow of Copperhead—”
“Ah, poor Clarence!” said Phœbe. “I wonder how he is getting on away from us all to-night.”
“Poor Clarence!” echoed Reginald aghast. “You don't mean to say that you—miss him, Miss Beecham? I never heard you speak of him in that tone before.”
“Miss him! no, perhaps not exactly,” said Phœbe, with a soft little sigh; “but still—I have known him all my life, Mr. May; when we were quite little I used to be sent for to his grand nursery, full of lovely toys and things—a great deal grander than mine.”
“And for that reason—” said Reginald, becoming bitter, with a laugh.
“Nothing for that reason,” said Phœbe; “but I noticed it at six as I should at twenty. I must have been a horrid little worldly-minded thing, don't you think? So you see there are the associations of a great many years to make me say Poor Clarence, when anything is the matter with him.”
“He is lucky to rouse your sympathies so warmly,” cried Reginald, thoroughly wretched; “but I did not know there was anything the matter.”
“I think there will be if he has to leave our little society, where we have all been so happy,” said Phœbe, softly. “How little one thought, coming here a stranger, how pleasant it was to be! I especially, to whom coming to Carlingford was rather—perhaps I might say a humiliation. I am very fond of grandpapa and grandmamma now, but the first introduction was something of a shock—I have never denied it; and if it had not been for sweet kind Ursula and you—all.”
The little breathless fragmentary pause which Phœbe made between the you and the “all,” giving just a ghost of emphasis to the pronoun, sounded to poor Reginald in his foolishness almost like a caress. How cleverly it was managed, with just so much natural feeling in it as gave it reality! They were approaching No. 6, and Martha, the maid, already was visible at the open door.
“Then you do give me some share—some little share,” he cried, with a broken voice. “Ah, if you would only let me tell you what your coming has been to me. It has opened up my life; I feel everything different, the old earth itself; there is a new light upon the whole world—”