man so much as to get out her best tea-things for a minister;
she 'as a great respect for ministers, has Mrs. Tozer, sir; and now
she's got Phoebe to show off as well as the chiney. Come along, sir, I
can't take no refusal. It's just our time for tea."

Northcote made an unavailing attempt to get away, but partly it appeared
to him that to refuse the invitation might look to Phoebe like a pretence
of superiority on his part, and partly he was interested in herself, and
was very well aware he should get no company so good in Carlingford,
even with the drawback of the old shop-people among whom she lived. How
strange it was to see her in the dress of which Mrs. Sam Hurst had
raved, and of which even the young Nonconformist vaguely divined the
excellence, putting her daintily-gloved hand upon old Tozer's greasy
sleeve, walking home with the shuffling old man, about whose social
position no one could make the least mistake! He turned with them, with
a sensation of thankfulness that it was in Grange Lane, Carlingford,
where nobody knew him. As for Phoebe, no such comfort was in her mind;
everybody knew her here, or rather, everybody knew old Tozer. No
disguise was possible to her. The only way to redeem the position was to
carry it with a high hand, as she did, holding her head erect, and
playing her part so that all the world might see and wonder. "I think
you had better come, Mr. Northcote, and have some tea," she said
graciously, when the awe-stricken young man was floundering in efforts
to excuse himself. Old Tozer chuckled and rubbed his hands.

"Take Phoebe's advice," he said, "Phoebe's the sensiblest girl I know; so
was her mother before her, as married one of the most popular preachers
in the connection, though I say it as shouldn't. My old woman always
said as our Phoebe was cut out for a minister's wife. And Phoebe junior's
just such another," cried the admiring grandfather. Heavens above! did
this mean traps and snares for himself, or did the old shopkeeper think
of him, Horace Northcote, as another possible victim? If he had but
known with what sincere compassionate toleration Phoebe regarded him, as
a young man whom she might be kind to, he might have been saved all
alarm on this point. The idea that a small undistinguished Dissenting
minister should think her capable of marrying him, was a humiliation
which did not enter into Phoebe's head.

CHAPTER XVII.

A PUBLIC MEETING.

Phoebe's philosophy, ho