They had no right to stay, and they left the place mournfully. "Do not be false to Phoebe," said Aunt Leth to Fred. "No need to say that to me, Aunt Leth," said the young fellow. "Phoebe, and no other woman, shall be my wife." This encounter it was between Aunt Leth and Miser Farebrother which had caused the miser to extract a binding oath from Phoebe that she would not leave Parksides without his permission. "How was that done, Jeremiah?" he asked, when his daughter left the room. "Capitally! capitally, sir!" said Jeremiah. "What an actor you would have made!" "Perhaps--perhaps," said Miser Farebrother, with a sneer. "I am not half so ill as I look, Jeremiah. Don't reckon too soon upon my death. Excitement like this does me a power of good. They came to trap me, my fine lawyer and tearful sister-in-law; but I have turned the tables upon them. As I will upon every one"--with a keen look at Jeremiah--"who dares to play me false!" It was fortunate for the miser that his managing clerk did not possess the power of striking a man dead by a glance; if he had, that moment would have been Miser Farebrother's last. CHAPTER XVI. THE ENGAGEMENT RING. From that day Phoebe's life in Parksides was, as Mrs. Pamflett had threatened, a torture, and had it not been that she was endowed with a reserved strength which lies latent in many gentle natures until a supreme occasion calls it forth, it is likely she could not have lived through the next three or four months. One day her father summoned her. "It is time now," he said, "that our plans for your future should be finally settled. I have already waited too long." Phoebe knew what was coming, and though she dreaded it, she had nerved herself to meet it. "Cannot things remain as they are?" she asked. It was impossible for her to speak with any show of affection. She had discovered that her father's wish that she should be his nurse was a mere pretence. Believing in it, she had endeavoured to carry it out and to perform her duty; but the stern repulses she met with had convinced her that she had been deceived and betrayed. The oaths she had sworn were binding upon her; she knew that she could not escape from them, and that her life's happiness was blasted; but she resolved not to be beguiled by any further treachery. So she suffered in silence, and with some fortitude, praying for strength, and in some small degree finding it; but she was growing daily thinner and paler, and sometimes an impression stole upon her that her life was slowly ebbing away. "It will be better that I should die," she thought; "then I shall see my mother, and my torture will be at an end." It was a torture subtly carried out. Phoebe had gauged Mrs. Pamflett, and had rejected with quiet scorn all attempts at an affectionate intimacy. Mrs. Pamflett repaid her with interest. "When you are my son's wife," she said, "you will be more tractable; you will know me better, and you will love me."