"I shall never know you better," Phoebe replied, "and I shall never love you." "Proud spirits can be broken," said Mrs. Pamflett. "Yes," sighed Phoebe; "but I am not proud--I am only faithful; and perhaps I shall soon die." "You will be no loss," said Mrs. Pamflett; "but before you die you will be my daughter-in-law." At this period Miser Farebrother had not spoken positively to Phoebe about Jeremiah; he had left it to the young villain to make his way, and, indeed, Jeremiah had attempted to do so. But Phoebe utterly baffled him. He brought her flowers, and at her father's command she received them from his hands. An hour afterward he saw them lying on the floor or in the grounds, where she had dropped or thrown them. He arrayed himself in new suits of clothes and laid himself out for admiration, which she never bestowed upon him. He strove to draw her into conversation, and if he managed to extract a word from her it was but a word--often not even that; a look of scorn and contempt was then his reward. At meals his offers of small courtesies were disregarded. By her father's order she sat at the head of the breakfast and tea table, but she would never pass Jeremiah's cup nor accept it from him. His mean nature resented this treatment in mean ways, and after a while he indulged in sarcasms, speaking at her instead of to her. This change passed unnoticed by her; she might have been deaf and blind to everything he said and did. Two or three weeks after the visit of her aunt and Fred Cornwall to Parksides, Phoebe went to her father with a letter. "I wish to post this letter," she said. "May I do so?" "You have sworn not to leave Parksides without my permission," he replied. "I will not allow you to go to the village." "I had no intention of going without your permission," she said. He kept her so strictly to her oath that she was virtually a prisoner in Parksides. "I will have the letter posted for you," he said. She gave it to him, and he opened it, read it, and burnt it. No answer, of course, could come to a letter that was not sent; but Aunt Leth, of her own accord, wrote to Phoebe, very careful in what she said, because she suspected treachery, and feared that her letter might not reach Phoebe's hands. It did not; nor did letters written by Fanny. They were all opened by Miser Farebrother, read, and burnt. "Have any letters come for me?" asked Phoebe. "None," replied her father. "Your precious friends have forgotten you. Now that they are convinced they cannot wring any money out of me, they will have nothing more to do with you."