o kept house for him
at the rectory, through all the length and the breadth of Joppa there
were no two opinions with regard to her. She was a woman of about fifty,
enough older than her brother to have been his mother, and she seemed
indeed to cherish almost a mother's idolatrous affection for him. She had
lost her husband many years before, and had been left with considerable
fortune and no family besides this one brother. So much information,
after repeated and unabashedly point-blank questions, had the Joppites
succeeded in extracting from Mr. Halloway, who with all his apparent
frankness was the most difficult person in the world ever to be brought
to talk of himself and his own affairs. But just to see Mrs. Whittridge,
with her sweet face and perfect manners, was to recognize her at once for
a gentlewoman in every sense of the word, while to be in her society, if
but for ten minutes, was to come very nearly to loving her. The Joppites
saw but one fault in her; she did not and would not visit. All who sought
her out were made more than welcome; but whether from the extreme
delicacy of her health, which rendered visiting a burden, or because of
her widow's dress of deepest mourning, which she had never laid aside, it
came to be an accepted thing that she went nowhere. It was a great
disappointment in Joppa; nevertheless it was impossible to harbor
ill-will toward this lovely, high-bred lady, who drew all hearts to
herself by the very way she had of seeming never to think of herself at
all. She won Phebe Lane's affection at once and forever with almost her
first words, spoken in the low, clear, sweet tones that sounded always
like Sunday-night's music.

"Do you know, Mr. Halloway," Phebe said to him one day, "I think it does
me more good only to hear your sister's voice than to listen to the very
best sermon ever preached."

"Miss Phebe," he rejoined, with a merry twinkle in his brown eyes, "if
you propagate that doctrine largely, I am a ruined man. I must hold you
over to eternal secrecy. But as regards the fact,--there is my hand,--I
am quite of your way of thinking! I am persuaded an angel's voice got
into Soeur Angelique by mistake." Mrs. Whittridge's baptismal name was
Angelica, but to her brother she had always been "Soeur Angelique" and
nothing else.

"Yes, and an angel's soul too," said Phebe.

"Even that," replied Mr. Halloway. "She is all and more than you can
possibly imagine that she is. But I positive