bserved,
at last, fixing her serious glance on Mr. Cheyne. "I must seek for an
opportunity to speak to Miss Mewlstone. It must be broken carefully to
your poor wife; I am sure of that. Miss Mewlstone will help us. She
will tell us what to do, and how to do it. Oh, she is so kind, so
thoughtful and tender, just as though Mrs. Cheyne were a poor wayward
child, who must be guided and helped and shielded. I like her so much:
we must go to her for counsel."

"You must indeed, and at once!" he returned, rather peremptorily; and
Phillis had a notion now what manner of man he had been before
misfortunes had tamed and subdued him. His eyes flashed with
eagerness; he grew young, alert, full of life in a moment. "Forgive me
if I am too impetuous; but I have waited so long, and now my patience
seems exhausted all at once during the last hour. I have been at
fever-point ever since you have proved to me that my wife--my
Magdalene--has been true to me. Fool that I was! why have I doubted so
long? Miss Challoner, you will not desert me?--you will be my good
angel a little longer? You will go to Miss Mewlstone now,--this very
moment,--and ask her to prepare my wife?"

"It is time for me to be going home: mother and Nan will think I am
lost," returned Phillis, in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone. "Come Mr.
Cheyne, we can talk as we go along." For he was so wan and agitated
that she felt uneasy for his sake. She took his arm gently, and guided
him as though he were a child; and he obeyed her like one.

"Promise me that you will speak to her at once," he said, as he walked
beside her rather feebly; and his gait became all at once like that of
an old man. But Phillis fenced this remark very discreetly.

"This afternoon or this evening, when I get the chance," she said,
very decidedly: "if I am to help you, it must be as I think best, and
at my own time. Do not think me unkind, for I am doing this for your
own good: it would not help you if your wife were to be brought to the
brink of a nervous illness. Leave it to me. Miss Mewlstone will serve
us best, and she will know." And then she took her hand from his arm,
and bade him drop behind a little, that she might not be seen in the
town walking with him. "Good-bye! keep up your courage. I will help
you all I can," she said, with a kindly smile, as he reluctantly
obeyed her behest. She was his good angel, but he must not walk any
longer in her shadow: angels do their good deeds invisibly, as P