“Oh! I know,” cried Janey, “the Daisy Chain. We are not a set of prigs like those people. We are not goody, whatever we are; we—”
“I don't suppose Miss Beecham cares for your opinion of the family character,” said Reginald in a tone that made Janey furious. Thus discoursing they reached the gates of the Parsonage, where Ursula was most eager that her friend should come in. And here Mr. May joined them, who was impressed, like everybody else, by Phœbe's appearance, and made himself so agreeable that Reginald felt eclipsed and driven into the background. Ursula had never been so satisfied with her father in her life; though there was a cloud on Mr. May's soul, it suited him to show a high good-humour with everybody in recompense for his son's satisfactory decision, and he was, indeed, in a state of high complacence with himself for having managed matters so cleverly that the very thing which should have secured Reginald's final abandonment of the chaplaincy determined him, on the contrary, to accept it. And he admired Phœbe, and was dazzled by her self-possession and knowledge of the world. He supported Ursula's invitation warmly; but the stranger freed herself with graceful excuses. She had her patient to attend to.
“That is a very lady-like young woman,” said Mr. May, when they had gone in, after watching regretfully their new acquaintance's progress through Grange Lane. “You met her in town, did you? A friend of the Dorsets? Where is she living, I wonder; and whom does she belong to? One does not often see that style of thing here.”
“I never saw any one like her before,” said Ursula fervently; and they were still all uniting in admiration of Phœbe—when—
But such an interruption demands another page.
CHAPTER XX.
THAT TOZER GIRL!
“Well, who is she?” cried Mrs. Sam Hurst, too curious to think of the ordinary decorums. She had no bonnet on, but a light “cloud” of white wool over her cap, and her whole aspect was full of eagerness and excitement. “Why didn't you tell me you knew her? Who is she? I am dying to know.”