“They can't be up to much,” said Clarence. “Thank you, Miss Phœbe, I like you better than the mare.”
“But you can't be here all day, and I can't be here all day,” she said. “I must look after grandmamma, and you ought to go down and inquire after poor Mr. May—he is so ill. I have been there all night, helping Ursula. You ought to go and ask for him. People don't forget all the duties of life because—because a thing of this sort has happened—”
“Because they've popped and been accepted,” said graceful Clarence. “By Jove! I'll go. I'll tell young May. I'd like to see his face when I tell him the news. You may look as demure as you like, but you know what spoons he has been upon you, and the old fellow too—made me as jealous as King Lear sometimes,” cried the happy lover, with a laugh. He meant Othello, let us suppose.
“Nonsense, Clarence! But go, please go. I must run to grandmamma.”
Mr. Simpson had gone in, and Phœbe's heart had begun to beat loudly in her throat; but it was not so easy to get rid of this ardent lover, and when at last he did go, he was slightly sulky, which was not a state of mind to be encouraged. She rushed upstairs to her grandmother's room, which was over the little room where Tozer sat, and from which she could already hear sounds of conversation rapidly rising in tone, and the noise of opening and shutting drawers, and a general rummage. Phœbe never knew what she said to the kind old woman, who kissed and wept over her, exulting in the news.
“I ain't been so pleased since my Phœbe told me as she was to marry a minister,” said Mrs. Tozer, “and this is a rise in life a deal grander than the best of ministers. But, bless your heart, what shall I do without you?” cried the old woman, sobbing.
Presently Tozer came in, with an air of angry abstraction, and began to search through drawers and boxes.
“I've lost something,” he answered, with sombre looks, to his wife's inquiry. Phœbe busied herself with her grandmother, and did not ask what it was. It was only when he had searched everywhere that some chance movement directed his eyes to her. She was trembling in spite of herself. He came up to her, and seized her suddenly by the arm. “By George!” he cried, “I'm in a dozen minds to search you!”
“Tozer! let my child alone. How dare you touch her—her as is as good as Mr. Copperhead's lady? What's she got to do with your dirty papers? Do you think Phœbe would touch them—with a pair of tongs?” cried the angry grandmother.
Phœbe shrank with all the cowardice of guilt. Her nerves were unstrung by weariness and excitement. And Tozer, with his little red eyes blazing upon her, was very different in this fury of personal injury, from the grandfather of the morning, who had been ready to see every virtue in her.