osphere, as of a clear
and peaceful day, which seemed to surround her, had fled. She was absent
and depressed, and avoided society, even that of Hilda, who had been
like her own child to her. Towards Felicita there was a subtle change in
Phebe's manner, which could not fail to impress deeply her sensitive
temperament. She felt that Phebe shrank from her, and that she was no
longer welcome to the studio, which of all places in the world had been
to her a place of repose, and of brief cessation of troubled thought.
Phebe's direct and simple nature, free from all guile and worldliness,
had made her a perfect sympathizer with any true feeling. And Felicita's
feeling with regard to her past most sorrowful life had been absolutely
real; if only Phebe had known all the circumstances of it as she had
always supposed she did.

Phebe was, moreover, fearful of some accident betraying to Felicita the
circumstance of Jean Merle living at Riversborough. There had never
been any direct correspondence between Felicita and Mr. Clifford, except
on purely business matters; and Felix was too much engrossed with his
own affairs to find time to run down to Riversborough, or to keep up an
animated interchange of letters with his old friend there. The
intercourse between them had been chiefly carried on through Phebe
herself, who was the old man's prime favorite. Neither was he a man
likely to let out anything he might wish to conceal. But still she was
nervous and afraid. How far from improbable it was that through some
unthought-of channel Felicita might hear that a stranger, related to
Madame Sefton, had entered the household of Mr. Clifford as his
confidential attendant, and that this stranger's name was Jean Merle.
What would happen then?

She was burdened with a secret, and her nature abhorred a secret. There
was gladness, almost utterly pure, to her in the belief that there was
One being who could read the inmost recesses of her heart, and see, with
the loving-kindness of an Allwise Father, its secret faults, the errors
which she did not herself understand. That she had nothing to tell to
God, which He did not know of her already, was one of the deepest
foundations of her spiritual life. And in some measure, in all possible
measure, she would have had it so with those whom she loved. She did not
shrink from showing to them her thoughts, and motives, and emotions. It
was the limit of expression, so quickly reached, so impassable, that