"

When she had shut the door after Mrs. Frankland one swift thought and
bitter came into her mind. "Charley was not wholly wrong as to Mrs.
Frankland. Perhaps he was nearer right in other regards than I thought
him."

Half an hour later the door-bell rang, and Agatha answered the call.
Then she put her head into the parlor where Phillida sat, back to the
door, gazing into the street.

"I say, Philly, what do you think? Mr. Frankland came to the door just
now for his wife, and seemed quite crestfallen that she had forgotten
him, and left him to go home alone. Didn't like to be out so late
without an escort, I suppose."

It was one of a hundred devices to which Agatha had resorted during this
day to cheer her sister. But seeing that this one served its purpose no
better than the rest, Agatha went over and put her arms about her
sister's neck and kissed her.

"You dear, dear Philly! You are the best in the world," she said, and
the speech roused Phillida from her despair and brought her the balm of
tears.

XXVI.

ELEANOR ARABELLA BOWYER.

It is a truth deep and wide, that a brother is born for adversity. The
spirit of kin and clan, rooted in remote heredity, outlives other and
livelier attachments. It not only survives rude blows, but its true
virtue is only extracted by the pestle of tribulation. Having broken
with her lover, and turned utterly away from her spiritual guide and
adviser, Phillida found herself drawn more closely to her mother and her
sister. It mattered little that they differed from her in regard to many
things. She could at least count on their affection, and that sympathy
which grows out of a certain entanglement of the rootlets of memory and
consciousness, out of common interest and long and intimate association.

Mrs. Callender had been habituated when she was a little girl at home to
leave the leadership to her sister Harriet, now Mrs. Gouverneur, and to
keep her dissents to herself. Her relation with her husband was similar;
she had rarely tried to influence a man whose convictions of duty were
so pronounced, though the reasons for these convictions were often quite
beyond the comprehension of his domestically minded wife. Toward
Phillida she had early assumed the same diffident attitude; it was
enough for her to say that Phillida was her father over again. That
settled it once for all. Phillida was to be treated as her father had
been; to be trusted with her own destiny without