t--"can't be your fault, nor anybody
else's. But 'tis a shame, for all that. She'd no business to let me go
on all these years, expecting to have everything, and knew all the while
her will wasn't right made. 'Tis too bad! My Lady Betty!--Mrs
Dorothy!--don't you think so?"

"My dear," said Lady Betty, "I am indeed grieved for your
disappointment. But there is decorum, my dear Mrs Rhoda--there is
decorum!"

"No, my dear," was Mrs Dorothy's answer. "I dare not call anything bad
that the Lord doth. Had it been His will you should have White-Ladies,
be sure you would have had it."

"Well, you know," said Rhoda, in a subdued tone, and folding one of her
black gauze ribbons into minute plaits, "of course, one can't complain
of God."

"Ah, child!" sighed Mrs Dorothy, "I wish one could not!"

"O my dear Mrs Rhoda, I feel for you so dreadfully!" accompanied the
tragically clasped hands of Mrs Clarissa. "My feelings are so keen,
and run away with me so--"

"Then let 'em!" said Mrs Jane Talbot's voice behind. "Mine won't. My
dears, I'm sorry you've lost Madam. But as to the money and that, I'll
wait ten years, and then I'll tell you which I'm sorry for."

"Well, I'm sorry for both of you," added Mrs Eleanor Darcy. "I don't
think, Mrs Phoebe, my dear, you'll lie on roses."

No one was more certain of that than Phoebe herself.

She wrote a few lines to her mother, which went inside Mr Dawson's
letter. Mrs Latrobe was in service near Reading. Her daughter felt
sure that she would lose no time in taking possession. The event proved
that she was right. The special messenger whom Mr Dawson sent with the
letters returned with an answer to each. Phoebe's mother wrote to her
thus:--

"Child,--Mr Dawson hath advertized me of the deth of Madam Furnivall,
my mother. I would have you, on rect of this, to lett your cousen
know that shee need not lieve the house afore I come, wich will be as
soon as euer I can winde all upp and bee wth you. I would like to
make aquaintance wth her ere anything be settled. I here from the
layer [by which Mrs Latrobe meant _lawyer_] that she is to be maried,
and it will be soe much ye better for you. I trust you may now make a
good match yrself. But I shal see to all yt when I com.

"Yr mother, A. Latrobe."

Phoebe studied every word of this letter, and the more she studied it,
the less she liked it. First, it looked as if Mrs Latrobe did mean
Rhoda to leav