t leave my little Felix and
Hilda, or Felicita: she is my son's dear wife. But he will come home
some day, and we can return then; you hope so, don't you, Phebe?"

"If God pleases!" said Phebe, sighing.

"In truth, if God pleases!" repeated Madame.

When the last hour came in which Phebe could see Roland's wife, she
sought for her in her study, where she was choosing the books to be sent
after her. In the very words in which Roland had sent his message he
delivered it to Felicita. The cold, sad, marble-like face did not
change, though her heart gave a throb of disappointment and anguish as
the dread hope that he was no longer alive died out of it.

"I will meet him there," she said. But she asked Phebe no questions, and
did not tell her where she was to meet her husband.

CHAPTER XI.

OLD MARLOWE.

Life had put on for Phebe a very changed aspect. The lonely farmstead on
the uplands had been till now a very happy and tranquil home. She had
had no sorrow since her mother died when she was eight years of age, too
young to grieve very sorely. On the other hand, she was not so young as
to require a woman's care, and old Marlowe had made her absolute
mistress of the little home. His wife, a prudent, timid woman, had
always repressed his artistic tendencies, preferring the certainty of
daily bread to the vague chances of gaining renown and fortune. Old
Marlowe, so marred and imperfect in his physical powers, had submitted
to her shrewd, ignorant authority, and earned his living and hers by
working on his little farm and going out occasionally as a carpenter.
But when she was gone, and his little girl's eyes only were watching him
at his work, and the child's soul delighted in all the beautiful forms
his busy hands could fashion, he gave up his out-door toil, and, with
all the pent-up ardor of the lost years, he threw himself absorbingly
into the pleasant occupation of the present. Though he mourned
faithfully for his wife, the woman who had given to him Phebe, he felt
happier and freer without her.

Phebe's girlhood also had been both free and happy. All the seasons had
been sweet to her: dear to her was "the summer, clothing the general
earth with greenness," and the winter, when "the redbreast sits and
sings be-twixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch of the mossy
apple-tree." She had listened to "the eave-drops falling in the trances
of the blast," and seen them "hang in silent icicles, quietly shining to