dresses. You can't think what funny shades we wear in
town. But must I go to this Meeting? I should not like to leave you
alone. It is so much nicer for me to be here."

"You _are_ a good girl, you are," said Mrs. Tozer admiringly, "and me as
was frightened for a fine lady from London! But Tozer would say as it
was my doing. He would say as it wasn't natural for a young creature;
and, bless you, they'll all be there in their best--that Pigeon and the
others, and Mrs. Tom. I just wish I could go too, to see you outshine
'em all, which you'll do if you take pains. Take a little more pains
with your hair, Phoebe, mount it up a bit higher, and if you want
anything like a bit of lace or a brooch or that, just you come to me. I
should like Mrs. Tom to see you with that brooch as she's always wanting
for Minnie. Now why should I give my brooch to Minnie? I don't see no
reason for it, for my part."

"Certainly not, grandmamma," said Phoebe, "you must wear your brooches
yourself, that is what I like a great deal better than giving them
either to Minnie or me."

"Ah, but there ain't a many like you, my sweet," cried the old woman,
wiping her eyes. "You're my Phoebe's own daughter, but you're a touch
above her, my darling, and us too, that's what you are. Run now and
dress, or I don't know what Tozer will say to me. He's set his heart on
showing you off to-night."

Thus adjured, Phoebe went away reluctantly. It is unnecessary to say that
her disinterestedness about her grandmother's brooch was not perhaps so
noble as it appeared on the outside. The article in question was a kind
of small warming-pan in a very fine solid gold mount, set with large
pink topazes, and enclosing little wavy curls of hair, one from the head
of each young Tozer of the last generation. It was a piece of jewelry
very well known in Carlingford, and the panic which rose in Phoebe's
bosom when it was offered for her own personal adornment is more easily
imagined than described. She went upstairs feeling that she had escaped,
and took out a black silk dress at which she looked lovingly.

"But grandmamma would think it was no better than this," she said to
herself, and after much searchings of heart she chose a costume of
Venetian blue, one soft tint dying into another like the lustre on a
piece of old glass, which in her own opinion was a great deal too good
for the occasion. "Some one will tread on it to a certainty, and the
colours don't show in candle-