Cobwebs and Cables | Page 5

the gable seemed to hang in mid-air, without visible support,
over the garden sloping down a steep bank to the river-side.
Phebe Marlowe, in her coarse dark blue merino dress, and with her
market-basket of golden blossoms on her arm, walked with a quick step
along the quiet street, having left her pony at a stable near the entrance
to the town. There were few persons about; but those whom she met
she looked at with a pleasant, shy, slight smile on her face, as if she
almost claimed acquaintance with them, and was ready, even wishful,
to bid them good-morning on a day so fine and bright. Two or three
responded to this inarticulate greeting, and then her lips parted gladly,
and her voice, clear though low, answered them with a sweet
good-humor that had something at once peculiar and pathetic in it. She
passed under a broad archway at one side of the bank offices, leading to
the house entrance, and to the sloping garden beyond. A private door
into the bank was ajar, and a dark, sombre face was peering out of it
into the semi-darkness. Phebe's feet paused for an instant.
"Good-morning, Mr. Acton," she said, with a little rustic courtesy. But
he drew back quickly, and she heard him draw the bolt inside the door,
as if he had neither seen nor heard her. Yet the face, with its eager and
scared expression, had been too quickly seen by her, and too vividly

impressed upon her keen perception; and she went on, chilled a little, as
if some cloud had come over the clear brightness of the morning.
Phebe was so much at home in the house, that when she found the
housemaid on her knees cleaning the hall floor, she passed on
unceremoniously to the dining-room, where she felt sure of finding
some of the family. It was a spacious room, with a low ceiling where
black beams crossed and recrossed each other; with wainscoted walls,
and a carved chimney-piece of almost black oak. A sombre place in
gloomy weather, yet so decorated with old china vases, and great brass
salvers, and silver cups and tankards catching every ray of light, that
the whole room glistened in this bright May-day. In the broad
cushioned seat formed by the sill of the oriel window, which was
almost as large as a room itself, there sat the elder Mrs. Sefton, Roland
Sefton's foreign mother, with his two children standing before her.
They had their hands clasped behind them, and their faces were turned
toward her with the grave earnestness children's faces often wear. She
was giving them their daily Bible lesson, and she held up her small
brown hand as a signal to Phebe to keep silence, and to wait a moment
until the lesson was ended.
"And so," she said, "those who know the will of God, and do not keep
it, will be beaten with many stripes. Remember that, my little Felix."
"I shall always try to do it," answered the boy solemnly. "I'm nine years
old to-day; and when I'm a man I'm going to be a pastor, like your
father, grandmamma; my great-grandfather, you know, in the Jura. Tell
us how he used to go about the snow mountains seeing his poor people,
and how he met with wolves sometimes, and was never frightened."
"Ah! my little children," she answered, "you have had a good father,
and a good grandfather, and a good great-grandfather. How very good
you ought to be."
"We will," cried both the children, clinging round her as she rose from
her chair, until they caught sight of Phebe standing in the doorway.
Then with cries of delight they flew to her, and threw themselves upon
her with almost rough caresses, as if they knew she could well bear it.

She received them with merry laughter, and knelt down that their arms
might be thrown more easily round her neck.
"See," she said, "I was up so early, while you were all in bed, finding
May-roses for you, with the May-dew on them. And if your father and
mother will let us go, I'll take you up the river to the osier island; or
you shall ride my Ruby, and we'll go off a long, long way into the
country, us three, and have dinner in a new place, where you have
never been. Because it's Felix's birthday."
She was still kneeling on the floor, with the children about her, when
the door opened, and the same troubled and haggard face, which had
peered out upon her under the archway, looked into the room with
restless and bloodshot eyes. Phebe felt a sudden chill again, and rising
to her feet put the children behind her, as if she feared some danger