“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 Phoebe’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. Phoebe 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 Phoebe 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. Phoebe 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 Phoebe would touch them—with a pair of tongs?” cried the angry grandmother.
Phoebe 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.
“I believe as you’ve got it!” he cried, giving her a shake. It was a shot at a venture, said without the least idea of its truth; but before the words had crossed his lips, he felt with a wild passion of rage and wonder that it was true. “Give it up, you hussy!” he shrieked, with a yell of fury, his face convulsed with sudden rage, thickly and with sputtering lips.
“Tozer!” cried his wife, flinging herself between them, “take your hands off the child. Run, run to your room, my darling; he’s out of his senses. Lord bless us all, Sam, are you gone stark staring mad?”
“Grandpapa,” said Phoebe, trembling, “if I had it, you may be sure it would be safe out of your way. I told you I knew something about it, but you would not hear me. Will you hear me now? I’ll make it up to you—double it, if you like. Grandmamma, it is a poor man he would drive to death if he is not stopped. Oh!” cried Phoebe, clasping her hands, “after what has happened this morning, will you not yield to me? and after all the love you have shown me? I will never ask anything, not another penny. I will make it up; only give in to me, give in to me—for once in my life! Grandpapa! I never asked anything from you before.”
“Give it up, you piece of impudence! you jade! you d⸺d deceitful—”
He was holding her by the arm, emphasizing every new word by a violent shake, while poor old Mrs. Tozer dropped into a chair, weeping and trembling.
“Oh! it ain’t often as he’s like this; but when he is, I can’t do nothing with him, I can’t do nothing with him!” she cried.
But Phoebe’s nerves strung themselves up again in face of the crisis. She shook him off suddenly with unexpected strength, and moving to a little distance, stood confronting him, pale but determined.
“If you think you will get the better of me in this way, you are mistaken,” she said. “I am not your daughter; how dare you treat me so? Grandmamma, forgive me. I have been up all night. I am going to lie down,” said Phoebe. “If grandpapa has anything more to say against me, he can say it to Clarence. I leave myself in his hands.”
Saying this, she turned round majestically, but with an anxious heart, and walked away to her room, every nerve in her trembling. When she got there, Phoebe locked the door hastily, in genuine terror; and then she laughed, and then she cried a little. “And to think it was here all the time!” she said to herself, taking out the little Russia leather purse out of her pocket. She went into the closet adjoining her room, and buried it deep in her travelling trunk which was there, relieving herself and her mind of a danger. Then—Phoebe did what was possibly the most sensible thing in the world, in every point of view. She went to bed; undressed herself quietly, rolled up her hair, and lay down with a grateful sense of ease and
