few and gentle, praises hearty and abundant; and she poured out her soul as freely as a spring gushes up when its hidden source is full.
Always comely, with a large and wholesome growth, in moments such as these Phebe was beautiful with the beauty that makes a man's eye brighten with honest admiration, and thrills his heart with a sense of womanly nobility and sweetness. Little wonder, then, that the chief spectator of this agreeable tableau grew nightly more enamoured; and, while the elders were deep in whist, the young people were playing that still more absorbing game in which hearts are always trumps.
Rose, having Dummy for a partner, soon discovered the fact, and lately had begun to feel as she fancied Wall must have done when Pyramus wooed Thisbe through its chinks. She was a little startled at first, then amused, then anxious, then heartily interested, as every woman is in such affairs, and willingly continued to be a medium, though sometimes she quite tingled with the electricity which seemed to pervade the air. She said nothing, waiting for Phebe to speak; but Phebe was silent, seeming to doubt the truth, till doubt became impossible, then to shrink as if suddenly conscious of wrong-doing, and seize every possible pretext for absenting herself from the "girls' corner," as the pretty recess was called.
The concert plan afforded excellent opportunities for doing this; and evening after evening she slipped
