less you wish
to be ill, you will do much better to go to bed. It is your usual hour,
and I am going to grandmamma. Say good-night, please. I am going out
again to stay all night. Mr. May is ill, and I ought to help poor
Ursula."

"You go a deal after them Mays," said Tozer, with a cloud over his face.

"Yes. I wonder whom else I should go after? Who has been kind to me in
Carlingford except the Mays? Nobody. Who has asked me to go to their
house, and share everything that is pleasant in it? None of your Salem
people, grandpapa. I hope I am not ungrateful, and whatever happens, or
whatever trouble they are in," cried Phoebe, fervently, "I shall stand up
for them through thick and thin, wherever I go."

The old man looked at her with a startled look.

"You speak up bold," he said; "you won't get put upon for want of
spirit; and I don't know as what you're saying ain't the right
thing--though I don't hold with the Church, nor parsons' ways. I'd do a
deal myself, though you think me so hard and cross, for folks as has
been kind to you."

"I know you will, grandpapa," said Phoebe, with a slight emphasis which
startled him, though he did not know why; and she kissed him before she
went to her grandmother, which she did with a perfectly composed and
tranquil mind. It was astonishing how the crackle of that bit of paper
in her handkerchief calmed and soothed her. She recovered her breath,
her colour, and her spirits. She ran up to her room and changed her
dress, which was silk, for a soft merino one, which made no rustling;
and then she folded the bill carefully, and put it into the safe keeping
of the little purse which she always carried in her pocket. No one would
think of searching for it there, and she would always have it at hand
whatever happened. When she had made these needful arrangements, she
went to old Mrs. Tozer, and took her comfortably upstairs. Never was
there a more devoted nurse. The old lady chatted cheerfully, yet
sympathetically, of the poor gentleman and his illness, with the
half-satisfaction of an invalid in hearing of some one else who is ill.

"And be sure you take him some of the port wine as the doctor ordered,
and Tozer paid that dear for. I don't care for it, not a bit, Phoebe. I'd
sooner have it from the grocer's, at two shillings a bottle. That's what
I've always been used to, when I did take a glass of wine now and again.
But I dare say as Mr. May would like it, poor gentleman."

When