'Or no one has liked her, which comes to the same,' said Mervyn. 'The regiment went to the Cape, and there was an end of it, till we fell in with the Merivales on board the steamer; and they mentioned their neighbour, Sir Bevil Acton, come into his property, and been settled near them a year or two. Fine sport it was, to see Juliana angling for an invitation, brushing up her friendship with Minnie Merivale--amiable to the last degree! My stars! what work she must have had to play good temper all these six weeks, and how we shall have to pay for it!' 'Or Acton will,' said Mr. Fulmort, with a hearty chuckle of triumphant good-humour. Was it a misfortune to Phoebe to have been so much refined by education as to be grated on by the vulgar tone of those nearest to her? It was well for her that she could still put it aside as their way, even while following her own instinct. Mervyn and Juliana had been on cat and dog terms all their lives; he was certain to sneer at all that concerned her, and Phoebe reserved her belief that an attachment, nipped in the bud, was ready to blossom in sunshine. She ran up with the news to her mother. 'Juliana going to be married! Well, my dear, you may be introduced at once! How comfortable you and I shall be in the little brougham.' Phoebe begged to be told what the intended was like. 'Let me see--was he the one that won the steeple-chase? No; that was the one that Augusta liked. We knew so many young men, that I could never tell which was which; and your sisters were always talking about them till it quite ran through my poor head, such merry girls as they were!' 'And poor Juliana never was so merry after he was gone.' 'I don't remember,' replied this careful mother; 'but you know she never could have meant anything, for he had nothing, and you with your fortunes are a match for anybody! Phoebe, my dear, we must go to London next spring, and you shall marry a nobleman. I must see you a titled lady as well as your sisters.' 'I've no objection, provided he is my wise man,' said Phoebe. Juliana had found the means of making herself welcome, and her marriage a cause of unmixed jubilation in her family. Prosperity made her affable, and instead of suppressing Phoebe, she made her useful, and treated her as a confidante, telling her of all the previous intimacy, and all the secret sufferings in dear Bevil's absence, but passing lightly over the last happy meeting, which Phoebe respected as too sacred to be talked of.