Phoebe’s admission to the house had been more simple still. A girlish fancy on Ursula’s part, a fit of good-nature on her father’s, and then that secret thread of connection with Tozer which no one knew of, and the coming of Clarence Copperhead, to please whom Mr. May permitted himself to be persuaded to do much; and in addition to all this, her good looks, her pretty manners, her cleverness and the deference she had always shown in the proper quarter. Mr. May did not enter into the lists with his son, or think of offering himself as a suitor to Phoebe; but he liked to talk to her, and to watch what he called “her little ways,” and to hear her play when Clarence and his violin were otherwise disposed of. He was an experienced man, priding himself on a knowledge of human nature, and Phoebe’s “little ways” amused him greatly. What did she mean?—to “catch” Clarence Copperhead, who would be a great match, or to fascinate Northcote? Oddly enough Mr. May never thought of Reginald, though that young man showed an eagerness to talk to Phoebe which was more than equal with his own, and had always subjects laid up ready to discuss with her, when he could find the opportunity. Sometimes he would go up to her in the midst of the little party and broach one of these topics straight on end, without preface or introduction, as which was her favourite play of Shakespeare, and what did she think of the character of King Lear? It was not very wise, not any wiser than his neighbour was, who made pretty little Ursula into the ideal lady, the most gentle and stately figure in poetry; and yet no doubt there was something in both follies that was a great deal better than wisdom. The society formed by these two young pairs, with Clarence Copperhead as a heavy floating balance, and Mr. May and Janey—one philosophical, wise and mistaken; the other sharp-sighted and seeing everything—as spectators, was very pleasant to the close little coterie themselves, and nobody else got within the charmed circle. They grew more and more intimate daily, and had a whole vocabulary of domestic jokes and allusions which no one else could understand. It must be allowed, however, that the outside world was not pleased with this arrangement on either side of the question. The Church people were shocked with the Mays for harbouring Dissenters under any circumstances whatever, and there had not been a Minister at Salem Chapel for a long time so unpopular as Horace Northcote, who was always “engaged” when any of the connection asked him to tea, and preached sermons which went over their heads, and did not remember them when he met them in the street. Tozer was about the only one of the congregation who stood up for the young man. The others thanked Heaven that “he was but tempory,” and on the whole they were right, for certainly he was out of place in his present post.
As for Clarence Copperhead, he led an agreeable life enough among all these undercurrents of feeling, which he did not recognise with any distinctness. He was comfortable enough, pleased with his own importance, and too obtuse to perceive that he bored his companions; and then he considered himself to be slightly “sweet upon” both the girls. Ursula was his favourite in the morning, when he embarrassed her much by persistently seeking her company whenever liberated by her father; but Phoebe was the queen of the evening, when he would get his fiddle with an unfailing complacency which drove Reginald frantic. Whether it was mere good-nature or any warmer impulse, Phoebe was strangely tolerant of these fiddlings, and would go
