sitting-room windows as one strolled along the wooden sidewalks. And
people were in the habit of looking in that way a good deal. Nothing was
ever going on in there that could not bear this sudden outside
inspection, and it was the shortest way to call Phebe when she was wanted
for any thing of a sudden,--to bear a fourth hand at whist, or to stone
raisins for Mrs. Adams the day before her luncheon, or to run on an
errand down town for some lazy body who preferred other people's legs to
her own for locomotion, or to relieve some wearied host in the
entertainment of his dull guest, or to help in some way or other, here,
there, and yonder. She was just the one to be called upon, of course, for
she was just the one who was always on hand, and always ready to go. She
never had any thing to keep her at home. Her father had long been dead,
and she lived alone with her step-mother and step-aunt in the house which
was left her by her mother, but in which the present Mrs. Lane still
ruled absolute, as she did when she first came into it in Phebe's
childish days. Mrs. Lane was strong and energetic and commonplace; and
she ran the little house from garret to cellar with a thoroughness that
left Phebe no part whatever to take in it, while the remainder of her
energy she devoted to nursing her invalid sister, Miss Lydia, a little
weak, complaining creature, who had had not only every ill that flesh is
heir to, but a great many ills besides that she was firmly persuaded no
other flesh had ever inherited, and who stood in an awe of her sister
Sophia only equalled by her intense admiration of her.

So what was there for Phebe to do? She was fond of music, and whistled
like a bird, but she had no piano and did not know one note from
another; and she did not care for books, which was fortunate, as their
wee library, all told, did not count a hundred volumes, most of which,
too, were Miss Lydia's, and were as weak and wishy-washy as that poor
little woman herself. And she did not care for sewing, though she made
nearly all her own clothes, besides attending at any number of
impromptu Dorcas meetings, where the needy were the unskilled rich
instead of the helpless poor, so that of course her labor did not count
at all as a virtue, since it was not doing good, but only obliging a
friend. And she did not care for parties, though she generally went and
was always asked, being such a help as regarded wall-flowers, while
none of the young girl