“Miss Phebe!”
“Oh, Mr. Halloway!”
“Hush. Don’t let
them know I’m here. I couldn’t help
peeping in as I went by. You look done up.”
“I am.”
“What’s going on?”
“Come in and see.”
“Heaven forbid! Gracious! Mrs. Upjohn
will think that’s a swear.
Don’t look this way, Miss Phebe. They’ll
discover me. What’s Mr.
Hardcastle saying?”
“The world is very evil.”
“‘The times are waxing late.’
Why doesn’t he add that and go?”
“He never goes. He only comes.”
“What is Mrs. Upjohn so wrought up about?”
“She caught one of her Sunday-school boys breaking
Sunday.”
“How?”
“Eating apples.”
“Horrible! Where?”
“Up in a tree.”
“Whose tree?”
“That’s where the unpardonable comes in.
Her tree.”
“Poor boy; what a mistake!
What are you doing with that hideous silk stocking?”
“Picking up dropped stitches.”
“Whose stitches? Yours?”
“Mrs. Hardcastle’s.”
“Don’t aid and abet her
in creating that monstrosity. It’s participation
in crime. It’s worse than eating apples
up a tree. Do you always have such a crowd here
in the morning?”
“Always.”
“How long have they been here?”
“Nearly two hours.”
“What do they come for?”
“Habit.”
“Miss Lydia’s asleep.”
“Habit too.”
“What shall you do when you are done with that
odious stocking?”
“Sort crewels for Mrs. Upjohn.”
“And then?”
“Iron out my dress for the party.”
“Oh, at Mrs. Anthony’s? Who’ll
be there?”
“Everybody who has dropped in here this morning.”
“Who else?”
“Those who dropped in yesterday.”
“But what will you do to make it party-like?”
“Simper. Aren’t you coming too?”
“Not if you think it would do
for me to say that I held party-going wrong for a
clergyman. Could I? I might win over Mrs.
Upjohn to the Church by so holy a statement.”
“You had better take to round-dancing
instead, then, to keep her out of it.”
“Miss Phebe, is it possible you are severe on
poor Mrs. Upjohn?”
“Very possible.”
“As your pastor I must admonish
you. Don’t be. Besides, it’s
safer to keep on her blind side.”
“She hasn’t any.”
“Unhappy woman! What a
blaze of moral light she must live in! But I
ought to have been in my study an hour ago. I
must tear myself away. I wish you all ill-luck
possible with those stitches.”
“Ah, is that you, Mr. Halloway?
I was wondering what kept Phebe so long in the window.
Good-morning, sir. Good-morning, sir. Pray,
come in.” And having, by a turn of his
slow old head, discovered the young man standing just
outside the window, Mr. Hardcastle came pompously forward,
waving his hand in a grand way he had, that seemed
to bespeak him always the proprietor, no matter in
whose house he chanced to be.
“Thank you, Mr. Hardcastle,
not this morning. I was just telling Miss Phebe
I ought to be at work. Good-morning, Mrs. Lane.
Good-morning, Mrs. Upjohn Mrs. Hardcastle Miss
Delano Miss Brooks.”
And with a cheery bow to each individual
head, craning itself forward to have a look at the
unusual young man who had work to do, the Rev. Mr.
Halloway walked off to his rectory, which was directly
opposite, giving a merry glance back at Phebe from
the other side of the street. Phebe was still
smiling as she went with the stocking to its owner.
“Thank you, my dear,”
said Mrs. Hardcastle, taking it from her without looking.
“Oh, my child, how could you be so careless!
You have let me pull out one of the needles.
Well well.”
Phebe took the work silently back,
and sat herself down on a stool to remedy the mischief.
“A nice young fellow enough,”
remarked Mr. Hardcastle, condescendingly, returning
to the group of ladies. “But he’ll
never set the river on fire.”
“No need he should, is there?”
said Mrs. Upjohn, looking up sharply from her embroidery.
She always contradicted, if only for argument’s
sake, so that even her assents usually took a negative
form. “It’s enough if he’s
able to put out a fire in that Church.
It doesn’t take much of a man, I understand,
to fill an Episcopalian pulpit.” (Nobody had
ever yet been able to teach the good dame the difference
between Episcopal and Episcopalian, and she preferred
the undivided use of the latter word.) “Any
thing will go down with them.”
“Yes, my dear Mrs. Upjohn.
It’s undeniably a poor Church, a poor Church,
and I hope we may all live to witness its downfall.
It must have been a hard day for you, Mrs. Lane, when
Phebe went over to it. I never forgave old Mr.
White for receiving her into it; I never did, indeed.”
Phebe only smiled.
“Humph!” said Mrs. Lane,
biting off a thread. “Phebe may go where
she likes, for all me, so long as only she goes.
Baptist I was bred, and Baptist I’ll be buried;
but it’s with churches as with teas, I say.
One’s as good as another, but people may take
green, or black, or mixed, as best agrees with their
stomachs.”
“That’s a very dangerous
doctrine,” said Mrs. Upjohn. “Push
it a little further, and you’ll have babes and
sucklings living on beef, and their elders dining
on pap.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Mrs.
Lane again. “If they like it, what’s
the odds?”
“He-he!” snickered Miss Brooks.
“Well, now,” resumed Mr.
Hardcastle, “it stands to reason children should
learn to like what their elders have liked before them.
That’s the only decent and Christian way of
living. And as I said to my son, to
my Dick, you know” (Mr. Hardcastle had a son
of whom he always spoke as if sole owner of him, and
indeed solely responsible for his being), “‘Dick,’
I said, when he spoke disrespectfully of Mr. Webb’s
prayers, and Mr. Webb is a powerful prayer-maker,
to be sure, ’Dick,’ I said,
’church is like physic, and the more you don’t
like it, the more good it does you. And if you
think Mr. Webb’s prayers are too long, it’s
a sign that for your soul’s salvation they ought
to be longer.’ And I said
Mrs. Lane knew by long experience
that now or never was the time to stop Mr. Hardcastle.
Once fairly started on the subject of his supposed
advice to Dick on any given occasion, there was no
arresting his eloquence. She started up abruptly
from her sewing-machine with her mouth full of pins,
emptying them into her hand as she went. “Those
ginger-cookies ” she mumbled as she
passed Mr. Hardcastle. “They ought to be
done by this.”
A promissory fragrance caught the
old gentleman’s nostrils as she opened the door,
dispelling sterner thoughts. “Ah,”
he said, sniffing the air with evident approbation,
“I was about going, but I don’t mind if
I stay and try a few. Your make, Phebe?”
“No,” answered Phebe,
shortly, moving just out of reach of the bland old
hand, which stretched itself out to chuck her under
the chin, and was left patting the air with infinite
benevolence “mother made them.”
“All wrong,” commented
Mrs. Upjohn. “All wrong. You should
not leave your mother any work that you could spare
her. One of the first things I taught our Maria”
(Mrs. Upjohn in Mr. Hardcastle’s presence always
said our Maria with great distinctness), “one
of the first things I taught her was, that it was
her privilege to save me in every thing. I don’t
believe in idleness for girls. Aren’t you
ready yet to attend to these crewels, Phebe?
Miss Brooks is snarling them terribly.”
“Phebe’s really a very
good girl in her way though,” remarked Mrs.
Hardcastle, indulgently, from her easy chair.
“I will testify that she can make quite eatable
cake at a pinch.”
Phebe secretly thought Mrs. Hardcastle
ought to know. She remembered her once spoiling
a new-made company loaf by slashing into it without
so much as a by-your-leave.
“That was very nice cake Miss
Lynch gave us last night,” piped in Miss Delano.
“Too much citron,” pronounced
Mrs. Upjohn, decisively. “You should never
overload your cake with citron. It turns it out
heavy, as sure as there’s a sun in the heavens.”
“There isn’t any to-day;
it’s cloudy,” Phebe could not help putting
in, demurely, but no one paid any attention, except
that Mrs. Upjohn turned on her an unworded expression
of: “If I say so, it is so whether or no.”
An animated debate on cake followed,
in the middle of which Mrs. Lane reappeared with a
trayful of cookies hot from the oven; and two more
callers came in, Bell Masters and Dick Hardcastle,
which last first woke up Miss Lydia with a boisterous
kiss, frightening the poor soul half to death by assuring
her she had been snoring so that he heard her way down
street, and then devoted himself to the cookies with
a good-will and large capacity that filled one with
compassionate feelings toward his mother’s larder.
With these new and younger elements the talk varied
a little. They discussed last night’s party,
the supper, the dresses, the people, and then the
probabilities of to-night’s party, the people,
the dresses, the supper. And then Dick made a
sensation by saying right out, that he had just met
Mr. Upjohn on Main Street with Mrs. Bruce, holding
a parasol gallantly over her head. And everybody
looked at once at Mrs. Upjohn, and then back at the
graceless Dick, and an awful silence succeeded, broken
by Mrs. Upjohn’s reaching out her hand and saying
in the tone of a Miss Cushman on the stage: “Dick,
dear, I’ll take another cookie.”
If Mr. Upjohn chose to walk down town shielding women’s
complexions for them, why in the world should
she trouble herself about it, beyond making sure that
he did not by mistake take her parasol for the kindly
office? And so the talk went on, people coming
and people going, and Mrs. Lane did up a whole basketful
of work undisturbed, and Phebe inwardly chafed and
fumed and longed for dinner-time, that at last the
ceaseless, aimless chatter might come to an end.
She went to the party that night,
because in Joppa everybody had to go when asked.
To refuse was considered tantamount to an open declaration
of war, unless in case of illness, and then it almost
required a doctor’s certificate to get one off.
It was a good law and ensured the suppers being disposed
of. There was no dancing to-night, it being an
understood thing that when Mrs. Upjohn was asked there
should be none or she would not come; but there was
music. Bell Masters had a very nice contralto
voice, and was always willing to sing, thus sure of
securing one of Joppa’s few young gentlemen
to stand by and turn over her leaves; she thoughtfully
took her music on that account, giving out that she
could not play without notes. Phebe had been
doing her best all unconsciously to herself to help
her hosts entertain, but when the singing began she
stole away to the nearly empty piazza, and stood leaning
by the window, enjoying the cool air and softly whistling
an accompaniment to the song; and there Mr. Halloway
found her. She looked up at him and smiled as
he joined her, but went on with her low, sweet whistling
all the same.
“I like that better than the
singing,” he said, when at last it came to an
end with the music.
“You ought not to, Mr. Halloway.
Don’t you know it’s very unlady-like to
whistle? Mrs. Upjohn puts Maria to bed for it.”
“Dear me. I must take care
she doesn’t ever catch me at it.
Ah! the dress has ironed nicely, hasn’t it?
Would you mind standing out a little from the shadow?”
Phebe moved a step forward into the
stream of light that shot across the piazza from the
open window, and stood so, looking up at him out of
her soft white muslin draperies and white ribbons,
not a ray of color about her anywhere, like a very
material and sweet little ghost.
“Yes, you look very nice, very
nice indeed,” he said, after a grave inspection
that took in every detail of face and figure.
A young, innocent face it was, with soft brown hair
as bright and as fine as silk, all turned back from
a low forehead, around which it grew in the very prettiest
way in the world, and gathered in loose braids in the
neck; and she had such a fresh, clear complexion,
and such honest, loving, gray eyes, and such a round,
girlish figure, how was it people never
made more of her prettiness?
“I think you look nicer than
any one here,” Mr. Halloway added, in thorough
conviction. “You must be an adept in ironing.”
Phebe laughed softly in pure pleasure. It was
so new to have such pretty things said to her.
“Would it be very wrong to slip away together
for a rest?” he continued, leading her a little
farther along. “Let us sit down on the
steps here and recruit. I have talked my throat
hoarse to each of the very deafest old ladies in turn, I
suppose they came here purposely to be screeched at, and
I saw you working valiantly among the old men.
What a place this is for longevity!”
“You are finding out its characteristics
by degrees, I see.”
“Yes, am I not?” said
he, with his pleasant laugh. “I know intimately
every member of my parish and every member of every
other parish by this time from sheer hearsay.
Each house I visit gives me no end of valuable and
minute information about all the other houses.
I am waiting to come out with a rousing sermon against
gossip, till I shall have gained all possible enlightenment
and help from it. I mustn’t kill my goose
that lays the golden eggs before I have all the eggs
I want, must I?”
“And knowing us all so well,
what do you think of Joppa as a whole?” asked
Phebe, curiously. “You always say it is
too soon to judge, but surely you must really know
by this time.”
He did not answer for a moment, then
turned to her very seriously. “I think,”
he said slowly, “it is a place that needs a much
older, a much better, and a much wiser man than I
am to be among its leaders in any sense. It is
not at all what I thought it would be when I accepted
the trust. It is beyond me. But since the
Bishop sent me here, I mean to stay and do my best.”
“How will you begin?”
“I will begin with you,”
he answered, lightly, with a smile that lit up all
his face, the moment’s seriousness quite gone.
“You were my first friend, and I ought to take
you first in hand, ought I not? I am going to
do you a great deal of good.”
“How?”
“I’m going to teach you to love books.”
“You can’t.”
“Yes, I can. You don’t
know books, that is all. I intend to introduce
you to each other. I have some so interesting
you can’t help liking them, and you’ll
find yourself crying for more before you know it.
I am going to bring them over to you. You shall
have something better to do than fill up all your
mornings with promoting stockings of exasperating colors,
and listening to tales of Sabbath-breakers. Just
wait and see. I am going to metamorphose you.”
“Oh, I wish you would!”
sighed Phebe, clasping her hands and speaking so earnestly
that he looked at her in surprise. “I am
so sick of myself. I do want to be something
better than I am. I am so dreadfully common-place.
I amount to so little. I know so little.
I can do so little. And there is no one here
who cares to help me to any thing better. I don’t
know enough even to know how to improve myself.
But I do want to. Will you help me, Mr. Halloway?
Will you really help me?” She positively had
tears shining in her eyes.
Mr. Halloway leaned forward and gently
took her hand. “Am I not here for that?”
he asked. “Here purposely to help you and
all who need me in any way? Will it not be my
greatest pleasure to do so, as well as my best and
truest work? You may be sure, Miss Phebe, I will
do all I can for you, with God’s help.”
“Rather damp for you to be sitting
there without a shawl, isn’t it, my child?”
It was only Mrs. Anthony’s friendly
voice, as that lady passed hurriedly by, intent on
hospitable duties, but Phebe started guiltily.
What right had she to be out here with Mr. Halloway,
keeping him from the other girls, when she ought,
of course, to be in the parlors seeing that the old
ladies got their ice-cream safely? “I’ll
go right in,” she said, rising hastily; but
Mr. Halloway drew her hand through his arm to detain
her.
“Why? Because it is damp?”
“No; because I ought not to be selfish, ought
to go back and help.”
“Ah,” said he, “I
am getting new lights every moment. Then you don’t
go to parties just to enjoy yourself?”
She opened wide, serious eyes.
“Oh, no.” He smiled down at her very
kindly, “You shall go right away,” he said,
releasing her. “I will not keep you another
instant from dear Mr. Hardcastle and that nice Mrs.
Upjohn. But before you go let me tell you, Miss
Phebe, that, if only in view of your latest confession,
I do not think you commonplace at all!”