"I'm glad the girl has so much sense. Of course we can't do any thing of the sort; and I'm surprised at Archie's forgetting what he owes to the family in this rash manner. Give me my cap, child: I must speak to Alec at once." And Aunt Plenty twisted her hair into a button at the back of her head with one energetic twirl.
"Do speak kindly, Aunty, and remember that it was not Phebe's fault. She never thought of this till very lately, and began at once to prepare for going away," said Rose, pleadingly.
"She ought to have gone long ago. I told Myra we should have trouble somewhere as soon as I saw what a good-looking creature she was; and here it is as bad as can be. Dear, dear! why can't young people have a little prudence?"
"I don't see that any one need object if Uncle Jem and Aunt Jessie approve; and I do think it will be very, very unkind to scold poor Phebe for being well-bred, pretty, and good, after doing all we could to make her so."
"Child, you don't understand these things yet; but you ought to feel your duty toward your family, and do all you can to keep the name as honorable as it always has been. What do you suppose our blessed ancestress, Lady Marget, would say to our oldest boy taking a wife from the poor-house?"
As she spoke, Miss Plenty looked up, almost apprehensively, at one of the wooden-faced old portraits
