"_You_ could do that, but _I_ never can. Answer me this, Rose, and answer truly as you love me. If you had been taken into a house, a friendless, penniless, forlorn girl, and for years been heaped with benefits, trusted, taught, loved, and made, oh, so happy! could you think it right to steal away something that these good people valued very much? To have them feel that you had been ungrateful, had deceived them, and meant to thrust yourself into a high place not fit for you; when they had been generously helping you in other ways, far more than you deserved. Could you then say as you do now, 'Be happy and never mind them'?" Phebe held Rose by the shoulders now, and searched her face so keenly that the other shrunk a little; for the black eyes were full of fire, and there was something almost grand about this girl who seemed suddenly to have become a woman. There was no need of words to answer the questions so swiftly asked; for Rose put herself in Phebe's place in the drawing of a breath, and her own pride made her truthfully reply,-- "No: I could not!" "I knew you'd say that, and help me do my duty;" and all the coldness melted out of Phebe's manner, as she hugged her little mistress close, feeling the comfort of sympathy even through the blunt sincerity of Rose's words. "I will if I know how. Now come and tell me all about it;" and, seating herself in the great chair which had often held them both, Rose stretched out her hands as if glad and ready to give help of any sort. But Phebe would not take her accustomed place; for, as if coming to confession, she knelt down upon the rug, and, leaning on the arm of the chair, told her love-story in the simplest words. "I never thought he cared for me until a little while ago. I fancied it was you, and even when I knew he liked to hear me sing I supposed it was because you helped; and so I did my best, and was glad you were to be a happy girl. But his eyes told the truth; then I saw what I had been doing, and was frightened. He did not speak; so I believed, what is quite true, that he felt I was not a fit wife for him, and would never ask me. It was right: I was glad of it, yet I _was_ proud; and, though I did not ask or hope for any thing, I did want him to see that I respected myself, remembered my duty, and could do right as well as he. I kept away; I planned to go as soon as possible, and resolved that at this concert I would do so well he should not be ashamed of poor Phebe and her one gift." "It was this that made you so strange, then; preferring to go alone, and refusing every little favor at our hands?" asked Rose, feeling very sure now about the state of Phebe's heart.