"I don't know. But when the thousand is gone I'll earn more if I want to spend more." "Ach, my," groaned the woman, "you talk like money grew on trees! What's the world comin' to nowadays?" She rose and pushed her rugging frame into a corner of the kitchen. "Maria," her brother suggested, "we can get a hired girl if the work's too much for you alone." "Hired girl! I don't want no hired girl! Half of 'em don't do to suit, anyhow! I don't just want Phœbe here to help to work. It'll be awful lonesome with her gone." Phœbe saw the glint of anguish in the dark eyes and felt that her aunt's protestations were partly due to a disinclination to be parted from the child she had reared. "Aunt Maria," she said kindly, "I hate to do what you think I shouldn't do, for you're good to me. You mustn't feel that I'm doing this just to be contrary. You and I think differently, that's all. Perhaps I'm too young to always think right, but I don't want you to be hurt. I'll come home often." "Ach, yes well," the woman was touched by the girl's tenderness, but was still unconvinced. "Not much use my saying more, I guess. You and your pop will do what you like. You're a Metz, too, and hard to change when you make up your mind once." That night when Phœbe went to bed in her old-fashioned walnut bed she lay awake for hours, dreaming of the future. If Aunt Maria had known the visions that flitted before the girl that night she would have quaked in apprehension, for Phœbe finally drifted into slumber on clouds of glory, forecasts of the wonderful time when, as a prima donna in trailing, shimmering gown, she would have the world at her feet while she sang, sang, sang! CHAPTER XII THE PREACHER'S WOOING THERE belonged to the Metz farm an old stone quarry which Phœbe learned to love in early childhood and which, as she grew older, she adopted as her refuge and dreaming-place. Almost directly opposite the green gate at the country road was a narrow lane which led to the quarry. It was bordered on the right by a thickly interlaced hedge of blackberry bushes and wild honeysuckle, beyond which stood the orchard of the Metz farm. On the left of the lane a wide field sloped up along the road leading to the summit of the hill where the schoolhouse and the meeting-house stood. The lane was always inviting. It was the fair road to a fairer spot, the old stone quarry. The old stone quarry banked its rugged height against the side of a great wooded hill. Some twenty feet below the level of the lane was a huge semicircular base, and from this the jagged sides reared perpendicularly to the summit of the hill. The top and slopes of this hill were covered with a dense growth of underbrush and trees. Tall sycamores bordered the road opposite the quarry, making the spot sheltered and secluded. To this place Phœbe hurried the morning after she had gained her father's consent to go to Philadelphia.