eggs, and sausages with which Phoebe's care had heaped the table. They
had no _pate de foie gras_, it is true, but the simple fare was of the
best quality, as Tozer had boasted. Mrs. Tozer did not come downstairs
to breakfast, and thus Phoebe was alone with the two men, who suited each
other so much better than she could have hoped. The girl sat by them
languidly, though with a beating heart, wondering, as girls will wonder
sometimes, if all men were like these, braggards and believers in brag,
worshippers of money and price. No doubt, young men too marvel when they
hear the women about them talking across them of _chiffons_, or of
little quarrels and little vanities. Phoebe had more brains than both of
her interlocutors put together, and half-a-dozen more added on; but she
was put down and silenced by the talk. Her lover for the moment had
escaped from her. She could generally keep him from exposing himself in
this way, and turn the better side of him to the light; but the presence
of a believer in him turned the head of Clarence. She could not control
him any more.

"A good horse is a deuced expensive thing," he said; "the governor gave
a cool hundred and fifty for that mare that brought me over this
morning. He bought her from Sir Robert; but he didn't know, Phoebe, the
use I was going to put her to. If he'd known, he'd have put that hundred
and fifty in the sea rather than have his beast rattled over the country
on such an errand." Here he stopped in the midst of his breakfast, and
looked at her admiringly. "But I don't repent," he added. "I'd do it
again to-morrow if it wasn't done already. If you stand by me, I'll face
him, and twenty like him, by Jove!"

"You don't say nothing," said her grandfather. "I wouldn't be so
ungrateful. Gentlemen like Mr. Copperhead ain't picked up at every
roadside."

"They ain't, by Jove!" said Clarence; "but she's shy, that's all about
it," he added, tenderly; "when we're by ourselves, I don't complain."

Poor Phoebe! She smiled a dismal smile, and was very glad when breakfast
was over. After that she took him into the garden, into the bright
morning air, which kept her up, and where she could keep her Clarence in
hand and amuse him, without allowing this revelation of the worst side
of him. While they were there, Martha admitted the visitor of yesterday,
Mr. Simpson from the Bank, bringing back to Phoebe's mind all the other
matter of which it had been full.

"Don't you think