“Not even to say good-bye,” Amy exclaimed, rocking herself to and fro. It quite shocked Phœbe to see how Amy dwelt upon this departure of Hammerton; to see how it overshadowed all the other bitter news. Amy had not even uttered one expression of pity for the brother whom she loved so well. This secret love of Lionel Hammerton had burned itself into her very nature. However much she might have doubted her powers to bring him to her side, and however much she may have despaired of the return of her love, on the ground of their great disparity of position, she had long since been convinced that Lionel cared a little for her. She had brooded over his acts of kindness and courtesy; she had bound up his image in all her ways of life, and Phœbe knew how much she loved him. His leaving without explanation, and without a word at parting, was not only a blow to the girl’s soft and tender dreams of love returned, but it struck at her pride, and brought her down to the abject thing at which she had seemed to rate herself in her thoughts of the greatness and glory of Lionel Hammerton. There might have been something like the aping of humility in this girl’s love; in her own estimation she had been as nothing compared with him, to whom she had given up her secret soul; but, trodden upon and slighted, she rose up, conscious of her own beauty, and with a sense of her own deserts, burning with wounded pride. “He treats me with contempt and indifference, Phœbe,” she said, casting the newspaper upon the floor, and trampling upon it. “Let him; he shall have scorn for scorn, contempt for contempt. Does he think that a woman’s heart is to be trampled upon because of lowly birth? Does he think true love and English chivalry have exclusive inheritance amongst the titled and the wealthy? Does he think I am a poor silly country girl, with a weak, pliable nature, that will bend and adapt itself to whatever may turn up in a jog-trot country life? He shall see; he shall see.” With this Amy Somerton swept out of the room like an enraged queen, who counted her subjects by millions. “Poor Amy, she has read too much poetry of late, and thought it all true,” said Phœbe, the big tears rolling down her fair cheek. “Whatever will become of us all! I am sure my head swims with the thought of all the dreadful things that have taken place. My poor dear father!” then she exclaimed, and the next minute she had burst into his room, and flung herself upon his neck. “Dear, dear father,” she said, “do bear up; perhaps it is not true; perhaps he has repented, and all may come right again,” said Phœbe, smoothing the merchant’s grey hair; but she felt how hopeless was Richard’s case notwithstanding.