Only an Incident | Page 7

rousing sermon against gossip, till I shall
have gained all possible enlightenment and help from it. I mustn't kill
my goose that lays the golden eggs before I have all the eggs I want,
must I?"
"And knowing us all so well, what do you think of Joppa as a whole?"
asked Phebe, curiously. "You always say it is too soon to judge, but
surely you must really know by this time."
He did not answer for a moment, then turned to her very seriously. "I
think," he said slowly, "it is a place that needs a much older, a much
better, and a much wiser man than I am to be among its leaders in any
sense. It is not at all what I thought it would be when I accepted the
trust. It is beyond me. But since the Bishop sent me here, I mean to stay
and do my best."
"How will you begin?"

"I will begin with you," he answered, lightly, with a smile that lit up all
his face, the moment's seriousness quite gone. "You were my first
friend, and I ought to take you first in hand, ought I not? I am going to
do you a great deal of good."
"How?"
"I'm going to teach you to love books."
"You can't."
"Yes, I can. You don't know books, that is all. I intend to introduce you
to each other. I have some so interesting you can't help liking them, and
you'll find yourself crying for more before you know it. I am going to
bring them over to you. You shall have something better to do than fill
up all your mornings with promoting stockings of exasperating colors,
and listening to tales of Sabbath-breakers. Just wait and see. I am going
to metamorphose you."
"Oh, I wish you would!" sighed Phebe, clasping her hands and
speaking so earnestly that he looked at her in surprise. "I am so sick of
myself. I do want to be something better than I am. I am so dreadfully
common-place. I amount to so little. I know so little. I can do so little.
And there is no one here who cares to help me to any thing better. I
don't know enough even to know how to improve myself. But I do want
to. Will you help me, Mr. Halloway? Will you really help me?" She
positively had tears shining in her eyes.
Mr. Halloway leaned forward and gently took her hand. "Am I not here
for that?" he asked. "Here purposely to help you and all who need me
in any way? Will it not be my greatest pleasure to do so, as well as my
best and truest work? You may be sure, Miss Phebe, I will do all I can
for you, with God's help."
"Rather damp for you to be sitting there without a shawl, isn't it, my
child?"
It was only Mrs. Anthony's friendly voice, as that lady passed hurriedly

by, intent on hospitable duties, but Phebe started guiltily. What right
had she to be out here with Mr. Halloway, keeping him from the other
girls, when she ought, of course, to be in the parlors seeing that the old
ladies got their ice-cream safely? "I'll go right in," she said, rising
hastily; but Mr. Halloway drew her hand through his arm to detain her.
"Why? Because it is damp?"
"No; because I ought not to be selfish, ought to go back and help."
"Ah," said he, "I am getting new lights every moment. Then you don't
go to parties just to enjoy yourself?"
She opened wide, serious eyes. "Oh, no." He smiled down at her very
kindly, "You shall go right away," he said, releasing her. "I will not
keep you another instant from dear Mr. Hardcastle and that nice Mrs.
Upjohn. But before you go let me tell you, Miss Phebe, that, if only in
view of your latest confession, I do not think you commonplace at all!"

CHAPTER III.
GERALD.
It was another article of the Joppian creed, that there was no such thing
possible as a purely Platonic friendship between a young man and a
young woman; there must always be "something in it": either a mitten
for him, or a disappointment for her, or wedding-cake for all--generally
and preferably, of course, the wedding-cake;--and belonging to such
friendship as lawfully as a tail belongs to a comet, was a great,
wide-spreading area of gossip. It was only in the case of Phebe Lane
that this universal and common-sense rule had its one particular and
unreasonable exception; and it was acting upon a speedily acquired
knowledge of this by-law, that Mr. Halloway boldly pursued his plan
for metamorphosing his young friend, right under the open eyes and
ears of