Cobwebs and Cables | Page 8

genius. It is God who has
ordered it so."
She would have laughed if she had been less simple-hearted than she
was, at the anxious care with which the boy arranged the boat for his
mother. No cushions were soft enough and no shawls warm enough for
the precious guest. When at length all was ready, and he fetched her
himself from the house, it was not until she was comfortably seated in
the low seat, with a well-padded sloping back, against which she could
recline at ease, and with a soft, warm shawl wrapped round her--not till
then did the slight cloud of care pass away from his face, and the little
pucker of anxiety which knitted his brows grow smooth. The little girl
of five, Hilda, nestled down by her mother, and Felix took his post at
the helm. In unbroken silence they pushed off into the middle of the
stream, the boat rowed easily by Phebe's strong young arms. So silent
were they all that they could hear the rustling of the young leaves on
the trees, under whose shadows they passed, and the joyous singing of
the larks in the meadows on each side of the sunny reaches of water,
down which they floated. It was not until they landed the children on

the osier island, and bade them run about to play, and not then until
they were some distance away, that their merry young voices were
heard.
"Phebe," said Felicita, in her low-toned, softly-modulated voice, always
languid and deliberate, "talk to me. Tell me how you spend your life."
Phebe was sitting face to face with her, balancing the boat with the oars
against the swift flowing of the river, with smiles coming and going on
her face as rapidly as the shadows and the sunshine chasing each other
over the fields this May morning.
"You know," she answered simply, "we live a mile away from the
nearest house, and that is only a cottage where an old farm laborer lives
with his wife. It's very lonesome up there on the hills. Days and days go
by, and I never hear a voice speaking, and I feel as if I could not bear
the sound of my own voice when I call the cattle home, or the fowls to
come for their corn. If it wasn't for the living things around me, that
know me as well as they know one another, and love me more, I should
feel sometimes as if I was dead. And I long so to hear somebody
speak--to be near more of my fellow-creatures. Why, when I touch the
hand of any one I love--yours, or Mr. Sefton's, or Madame's--it's almost
a pain to me; it seems to bring me so close to you. I always feel as if I
became a part of father when I touch him. Oh, you do not know what it
is to be alone!"
"No," said Felicita, sighing; "never have I been alone, and I would give
worlds to be as free as you are. You cannot imagine what it is," she
went on, speaking rapidly and with intense eagerness, "never to belong
to yourself, or to be alone; for it is not being alone to have only four
thin walls separating you from a husband and children and a large busy
household. 'What are you thinking, my darling?' Roland is always
asking me; and the children break in upon me. Body, soul, and spirit, I
am held down a captive; I have been in bondage all my life. I have
never even thought as I should think if I could be free."
"But I cannot understand that," cried Phebe. "I could never be too near
those I love. I should like to live in a large house, with many people all

smiling and talking around me. And everybody worships you."
She uttered the last words shyly, partly afraid of bringing a frown on
the lovely face opposite to her, which was quickly losing its vivid
expression and sinking back into statuesque coldness.
"It is simply weariness to me and vexation of spirit," she answered. "If
I could be quite alone, as you are, with only a father like yours, I think I
could get free; but I have never been left alone from my babyhood; just
as Felix and Hilda are never left alone. Oh, Phebe, you do not know
how happy you are."
"No," she said cheerfully, "sometimes when I stand at our garden-gate,
and look round me for miles and miles away, and the sweet air blows
past me, and the bees are humming, and the birds calling to one another,
and everything is so peaceful, with father happy over his work not far
off, I think I don't know how happy