The Maidens Lodge | Page 7

but Madam won't hear of it."
"We never had but one," said Phoebe, the quiver coming again into her
voice, "and--it died."

"What was it?"
"A little dog."
"I don't much care for dogs," said Rhoda. "Mrs Vane is the one for pets;
that is, whenever they are modish. She carries dormice in her pocket,
and keeps a lapdog and a squirrel. When the mode goes out, she gives
the thing away, and gets something newer."
"Oh, dear!" said Phoebe. "I could never give my friends away."
"Oh, it is not always to friends," said Rhoda, misunderstanding her.
"She gave one of her cats to a tailor at Tewkesbury."
"But the creatures are your friends," said Phoebe. "How can you bear to
give them away?"
"Cats, and dogs, and squirrels--friends!" answered Rhoda, laughing.
"Why, Phoebe, what a droll creature you are!"
"They would be my friends," responded Phoebe.
"I vow, I'd like to see you make a friend of Mrs Vane's Cupid!"
exclaimed Rhoda, laughing. "He is the most spiteful little brute I ever
set eyes on. He thinks his teeth were made to bite everybody, and his
tail wasn't made to wag."
"Poor little thing! I don't wonder, if he has a mistress who would give
him away because it was not the mode to keep him."
"I never saw a maid so droll!" said Rhoda, still laughing; "'twill never
serve to be so mighty nice, that I can tell you. Why, you talk as if those
creatures had feelings, like we have!"
"And so they have," said Phoebe, warming up a little.
"You are mightily mistaken," returned Rhoda.
"Why do they bark, and bite, and wag their tails, then?" said Phoebe,

unanswerably. "It means something."
"Why, what does it signify if they have?" demanded Rhoda, not very
consistently. "I say, Phoebe, is that your best hood? How shabby you
go!"
"Yes," answered Phoebe, quietly.
"How much pin-money do you mean to stand for?" was Rhoda's next
startling question.
"How much what?" said astonished Phoebe, dropping the gloves she
was taking out of her trunk.
"How much pin-money will you make your husband give you?"
"I've not got one!" was Phoebe's very innocent response.
"Well, you'll have one some day, of course," said Rhoda. "I mean to
have five hundred, at least."
"Pounds?" gasped Phoebe.
"Of course!" laughed Rhoda. "I tell you, I mean to be a modish
gentlewoman, as good as ever Mrs Vane; and I'll have a knight at least.
Oh, you'll see, one of these days. I can manage Madam, when I
determine on it. Phoebe, there's the supper bell. Come on."
And quite regardless of the treasonable language in which she had just
been indulging, Rhoda danced down into the parlour, becoming
suddenly sober as she crossed the threshold.
Phoebe followed, and unless her face much belied her thoughts, she
was a good deal puzzled by her new cousin.
CHAPTER TWO.
MAKING ACQUAINTANCES.

"Ah, be not sad, although thy lot be cast Far from the flock, and in a
distant waste: No shepherds' tents within thy view appear, Yet the
Chief Shepherd is for ever near."
Cowper.
The Abbey Church of White-Ladies, to which allusion has already been
made, was not in any condition for Divine Service, being only a
beautiful ruin. When Madam went to church, therefore, she drove two
miles to Tewkesbury.
At nine o'clock punctually, the great lumbering coach was drawn to the
door by the two heavy Flanders mares, with long black tails which
almost touched the ground. Madam, in a superb costume of black satin,
trimmed with dark fur and white lace, took her seat in the place of
honour. Rhoda, in a satin gown and hood, with a silk petticoat, all black,
as became the day, sat on the small seat at one side of the door. But
Rhoda sat with her face to the horses, while the yet lower place
opposite was reserved for Phoebe, in her unpretending mourning. The
great coach rumbled off, out of the grand gates, always opened when
Madam was present, past the ruins of the Abbey Church, and drew up
before a row of six little houses, fronted by six little gardens. They
were built on a very minute scale, exactly alike, each containing four
small rooms--kitchen, parlour, and two bedrooms over, with a little
lean-to scullery at the back. On the mid-most coping-stone appeared a
lofty inscription to the effect that--
"The Maidens' Lodge was built to the Praise and Glory of God, by the
pious care of Mistress Perpetua Furnival, Widow, for the lodging of six
decayed gentlewomen, Spinsters, of Good Birth and Quality,--A.D.
1702."
It occurred to Phoebe, as she sat reading the inscription, that it might
have been pleasanter to the decayed gentlewomen in question not to
have their indigence quite so