'I should never have believed a man of his years could be so green; but some men get crotchets about honour in the army, especially if they get elderly there.' 'It is very noble, if it be right, and he can take those vows from his heart,' moralized Phoebe. 'But no, Mervyn, she cannot think so. No woman could take any one on such terms.' 'Wouldn't she, though?' sneered her brother. 'She'd have him if grim death were hanging on to his other hand. People aren't particular, when they are nigh upon their third ten.' 'Don't tell me such things! I don't believe them; but they ought never to be suggested.' 'You ought to thank me for teaching you knowledge of the world.' He was called off, but heavy at her heart lay the text, 'The knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom.' Mervyn's confidences were serious troubles to Phoebe. Gratifying as it was to be singled out by his favour, it was distressing to be the repository of what she knew ought never to have been spoken, prompted by a coarse tone of mind, and couched in language that, though he meant it to be restrained, sometimes seemed to her like the hobgoblins' whispers to Christian. Oh! how unlike her other brother! Robert had troubles, Mervyn grievances, and she saw which were the worst to bear. It was a pleasing novelty to find a patient listener, and he used it to the utmost, while she often doubted whether to hear without remonstrance were not undutiful, yet found opposition rather increased the evil by the storm of ill-temper that it provoked. This last communication was dreadful to her, yet she could not but feel that it might be a wholesome warning to avoid giving offence to the jealousy which, when once pointed out to her, she could not prevent herself from tracing in Juliana's petulance towards herself, and resolve to force her into the background. Even Bertha was more often brought forward, for in spite of a tongue and temper cast somewhat in a similar mould, she was rather a favourite with Juliana, whom she was not unlikely to resemble, except that her much more elaborate and accurate training might give her both more power and more self-control.