ur friends. Who are they?"

"I haven't any here. Mr. Halloway is quite right," answered Phebe,
locking her hands over one of Mrs. Whittridge's. "Not real, real friends.
As a child I had ever so many, and Bell Masters and I quite grew up
together, but somehow we have all grown away from each other, and--oh, I
don't know!--it seems as if there wasn't any thing in the girls here. Not
that there's more in me. They are brighter and better than I in every
way, but we don't get on together; they don't seem to have any thing to
give me, any thing they can help me to. I can't get at them. Oh! Mr.
Halloway is quite right. In all Joppa I haven't a single friend--except
just you and him."

"We are indeed your friends," said Mrs. Whittridge. "You need never
doubt that."

The girl turned and threw her arms impulsively around the other's neck.
"Oh, no, no!" she said. "I could not doubt it. I know it. I _feel_ it!
Oh, you can't guess what it is to me to know it! I have so little in my
life to make it grow to any thing, and I want so much! And you can give
me all I want--all, all; and it makes me so happy when I think of
it,--that I have got you and can have all I want!"

"And is this frantic outburst meant exclusively for Soeur Angelique?"
asked Denham. "I am green with unutterable jealousy. I thought I was your
friend too, Miss Phebe."

Phebe still knelt with her arms around Mrs. Whittridge, but she looked up
at him with her frank, loving eyes and smiled. "You know I meant you
both," she said softly.

An almost irresistible impulse came over the young man to lay his hand,
as his sister had done, on the soft, bright-brown hair. Clergymen are but
human after all. He bent forward, but only lifted one of his sister's
thin white hands and held it a moment between his. "We must both do our
best by this foolish little girl who trusts us so frankly with her
friendship, must we not, Soeur Angelique?" he said gravely.

"I for one am very glad to assume the trust," said Mrs. Whittridge.

"And won't you ever tire of me? ever? ever?" asked the girl.

"Not ever."

"You won't ever be tired helping me, or tired of having me come to you
for help, or tired of my loving you?"

"Where is your faith gone, my child?"

Phebe drew a deep sigh of content. "I am just as happy as can be," she
said. "I don't want any thing else now in the world except just Gerald."

"Ah, Gerald again. I expected that," said Mr. Halloway, raising his
eyebrows humo