of satin and of gold.”

“Dear!” was Phoebe’s comment. “I didn’t know they had satin sofas twelve hundred years ago.”

“’Tis no earthly use reading poetry to you!” exclaimed Rhoda, throwing down the book. “You haven’t one bit of feeling for it, no more than if it were a sermon I was reading! Tie your hood on, and make haste, and we’ll go and see the Maidens.”

Phoebe seemed rather troubled to have annoyed her cousin, though she evidently did not perceive how it had been effected. The girls tied on their hoods, and Rhoda, who was not really ill-natured, soon recovered herself when she got into the fresh air.

“Now, while we are going across the Park,” she said, “I will tell you something about the old gentlewomen. I couldn’t this morning, you know, more than their names, because there was Madam listening. But now, hark! Mrs Dolly Jennings—the one who came in first, you know, and sat over against Lady Betty—I don’t know what kin she is, but there is some kin between her and the Duchess of Marlborough. She is the oldest of the Maidens, and the best one to tell a story—except she falls to preaching, and then ’tis tiresome. Do you like sermons, Phoebe?”

“It all depends who preaches them,” said Phoebe.

“Well, of course it does,” said Rhoda. “I don’t like anyone but Dr Harris—he has such white hands!”

“He does not preach about them, does he?” said Phoebe, apparently puzzled as to the connection.

“Oh, he nourishes them about, and discovers so many elegancies!” answered Rhoda.

“But how does that make him preach better?”

“Why, Phoebe, how stupid you are! But you must not interrupt me in that way, or I shall never be done. Mrs Dolly, you see, is seventy or more; and in her youth she was in the great world. So she has all manner of stories, and she’ll always tell them when you ask her. I only wish she did not preach! Well, then, Mrs Jane Talbot—that one with the high nose, that sat next Mrs Dolly in the coach—she has lively parts enough, and that turn makes her very agreeable. I don’t care for her sister, Mrs Marcella, that lives next her—she’s always having some distemper, and I don’t like sick people. Mrs Clarissa Vane is the least well-born of all of them; but she’s been a toast, you see, and she fancies herself charming, poor old thing! As for Lady Betty—weren’t you surprised? I believe Madam pays her a good lot to live there; it gives the place an air, you know. She is Sir Richard Delawarr’s aunt, and he is the great man all about here—all the land that way belongs to him, as far as you can see. He is of very good family—an old Norman house. They are thought a great deal of, you know.”

“But isn’t that strange?” said Phoebe, meditatively. “If Sir Richard is thought more of because his forefathers came from France six hundred years ago, why is my grandfather thought less of because he came from France thirty years ago?”

“O Phoebe! It is not the same thing at all!”

“But why is it not the same thing?” gently persisted Phoebe.

“Oh, nonsense!” said Rhoda, cutting the knot peremptorily. “Phoebe, can you speak French?”

“Yes.”

“Have a care you don’t let Madam hear you! Who taught you?—your father?”

“Yes. He said it was our own language.”

“Why, you don’t mean to say he was proud of being a Frenchman?” cried Rhoda, in amazement.

“I think he was, if he was proud of anything,” answered Phoebe. “He loved France very dearly. He thought it the grandest country in the world.”

And Phoebe’s voice trembled a little. Evidently her father was in her eyes a hero, and all that he had loved was sacred.

“But, Phoebe! not greater than England? He couldn’t!” cried Rhoda, to whom such an idea seemed an impossibility.

“He was fond of England, too,” said Phoebe. “He said she had sheltered us when our own country cast us off, and we should love her and be very thankful to her. But he loved France the best.”

Rhoda tried to accept this incredible proposition.

“Well! ’tis queer!” she said at last. “Proud of being a Frenchman! What would Madam say?”

“’Tis only like Sir Richard Delawarr, is it?”

“Phoebe, you’ve no sense!”

“Well, perhaps I haven’t,” said Phoebe meekly, as they turned in at the gate of Number One.

Mrs Dolly Jennings was ready for her guests, in her little parlour, with the most delicate and transparent china set out upon the little tea-table, and the smallest and brightest of copper kettles singing on the hob.

“Well, you thought I meant it, Mrs Dolly!” exclaimed Rhoda laughingly, as the girls entered.

“I always think people mean what they say, child, until I find they don’t,” said Mrs Dorothy. “Welcome, Miss Phoebe, my dear!”

“Oh, would you please to call me Phoebe?” said the owner of that name, blushing.

“So I will, my dear,” replied Mrs Dorothy, who was busy now pouring out the tea. “Mrs Rhoda, take a chair, child, and help yourself to bread and butter.”

Rhoda obeyed, and did not pass the plate to Phoebe.

“Mrs Dolly,” she said, interspersing her words with occasional bites, “I am really concerned about Phoebe. She hasn’t the least bit of sense.”

“Indeed, child,” quietly responded Mrs Dorothy, while Phoebe coloured painfully. “How doth she show it?”

“Why, she doesn’t care a straw for poetry?”

“Is it poetry you engaged her with?”

“What do you mean?” said Rhoda, rather pettishly. “It was my poetry.”

“Eh, dear!” said Mrs Dorothy, but there was a little indication of fun about her mouth. “Perhaps, my dear, you write lyrics, and your cousin hath more fancy for epical poetry.”

“She doesn’t care for any sort, I’m sure,” said Rhoda.

“What say you to this heavy charge, Phoebe?” inquired little Mrs Dorothy, with a cheery smile.

“I like some poetry,” replied Phoebe, bashfully.

“What kind?” blurted out Rhoda, apparently rather affronted.

Phoebe coloured, and hesitated. “I like the old hymns the Huguenots used to sing,” she said, “such us dear father taught me.”

“Hymns aren’t poetry!” said Rhoda, contemptuously.

“That is true enough of some hymns, child,” answered Mrs Dorothy. “But, Phoebe, my dear, will you let us hear one of your hymns?”

“They are in French,” whispered Phoebe.

“They will do for me in French, my dear,” replied Mrs Dorothy.

Rhoda stared in manifest astonishment. Phoebe struggled for a moment with her natural shyness, and then she began:—

“Mon sort n’est pas à plaindre,
    Il est à désirer;
Je n’ai plus rien à craindre,
    Car Dieu est mon Berger.”

“My lot asks no complaining,
But joy and confidence;
I have no fear remaining,
For God is my Defence.”

But the familiar words evidently brought with them a rush of associations which was too much for Phoebe. She burst in tears, and covered her face with her hands.

“What on earth are you crying for?” asked Rhoda.

“Thank you, my dear,” said Mrs Dorothy. “The verse is enough for a day, and the truth which is in it is enough for a life.”

“I ask your pardon!” sobbed Phoebe, when she could speak at all. “But I used to sing it—to dear father, and when he was gone I said it to poor mother. And they are all gone now!”

“Oh, don’t bother!” said Rhoda. “My papa’s dead, and my mamma too; but you’ll not see me crying over it.”

Rhoda pronounced the words “Pappa,” and “Mamma,” as is done in America to this day.

“You never knew your parents, Mrs Rhoda,” said the little old lady, ever ready to cast oil