“I hope not, indeed,” said Phœbe. “No fear of my being too fine for my duty, grandpapa. Do you live down this nice road? How pretty it is! how delightful these gardens must be in summer. I beg your pardon for calling it the country. It is so quiet and so nice, it seems the country to me.”
“Ah, to be sure; brought up in the London smoke,” said Mr. Tozer. “I don't suppose, now, you see a bit of green from year's end to year's end? Very bad for the 'ealth, that is; but I can't say you look poorly on it. Your colour's fresh, so was your mother's before you. To be sure, she wasn't cooped up like you.”
“Oh, we do get a little fresh air sometimes—in the parks, for instance,” said Phœbe. She was somewhat piqued by the idea that she was supposed to live in London smoke.
“Ah, the parks are always something; but I suppose it takes you a day's journey to get at them,” said Mr. Tozer, shaking his head. “You mustn't mind your grandmother's temper just at first, my dear. She's old, poor soul, and she ain't well, and she's sometimes cross above a bit. But she'll be that proud of you, she won't know if she's on her 'eels or 'er 'ead; and as for a cross word now and again, I hope as you won't mind—”
“I shan't mind anything, grandpapa,” said Phœbe, sweetly, “so long as I can be of use.”
And these were, indeed, the dutiful sentiments with which she made her entry upon this passage in her life, not minding anything but to be of use. The first glimpse of old Tozer, indeed, made it quite evident to Phœbe that nothing but duty could be within her reach. Pleasure, friends, society, the thought of all such delights must be abandoned. And as for Clarence Copperhead and the Miss Dorsets, the notion of meeting or receiving them was too absurd. But Duty remained, and Phœbe felt herself capable of the sacrifice demanded from her. That confidence in herself which we have already indicated as a marked feature in her character, gave her the consoling certainty that she could not suffer from association with her humble relations. Whosoever saw her must do her justice, and that serene conviction preserved her from all the throes of uneasy pride which afflict inferior minds in similar circumstances. She had no wish to exhibit her grandfather and grandmother in their lowliness, nor to be ostentatious of her homely origin, as some people are in the very soreness of wounded pride; but if hazard produced the butterman in the midst of the finest of her acquaintances, Phœbe would still have been perfectly at her ease. She would be herself, whatever happened.
In the mean time, however, it was apparent that Duty was what she had to look to; Duty, and that alone. She had come here, not to amuse herself, not to please herself, but to do her duty; and having thus concluded upon her object, she felt comparatively happy, and at her ease.
Mrs. Tozer had put on her best cap, which was a very gorgeous creation. She had dressed herself as if for a party, with a large brooch, enclosing a curl of various coloured hair cut from the heads of her children in early life, which fastened a large worked collar over a dress of copper-coloured silk, and she rustled and shook a good deal as she came downstairs into the garden to meet her grandchild, with some excitement and sense of the “difference” which could not but be felt on one side as well as on the other. She, too, was somewhat frightened by the appearance of the young lady, who was her Phœbe's child, yet was so unlike any other scion of the Tozer race; and felt greatly disposed to curtsey and say “Ma'am” to her.
“You've grown a deal and changed a deal since I saw you last,” she said, restraining this impression, and receiving Phœbe's kiss with gratified, yet awe-struck feeling; and then her respectful alarm getting too much for her, she added, faltering, “You'll find us but humble folks; perhaps not altogether what you've been used to—”
Phœbe did not think it expedient to make any reply to this outburst of humility.