And as to Mrs. Whittridge, Mr. Halloway’s sister, who kept house for him at the rectory, through all the length and the breadth of Joppa there were no two opinions with regard to her.  She was a woman of about fifty, enough older than her brother to have been his mother, and she seemed indeed to cherish almost a mother’s idolatrous affection for him.  She had lost her husband many years before, and had been left with considerable fortune and no family besides this one brother.  So much information, after repeated and unabashedly point-blank questions, had the Joppites succeeded in extracting from Mr. Halloway, who with all his apparent frankness was the most difficult person in the world ever to be brought to talk of himself and his own affairs.  But just to see Mrs. Whittridge, with her sweet face and perfect manners, was to recognize her at once for a gentlewoman in every sense of the word, while to be in her society, if but for ten minutes, was to come very nearly to loving her.  The Joppites saw but one fault in her; she did not and would not visit.  All who sought her out were made more than welcome; but whether from the extreme delicacy of her health, which rendered visiting a burden, or because of her widow’s dress of deepest mourning, which she had never laid aside, it came to be an accepted thing that she went nowhere.  It was a great disappointment in Joppa; nevertheless it was impossible to harbor ill-will toward this lovely, high-bred lady, who drew all hearts to herself by the very way she had of seeming never to think of herself at all.  She won Phebe Lane’s affection at once and forever with almost her first words, spoken in the low, clear, sweet tones that sounded always like Sunday-night’s music.

“Do you know, Mr. Halloway,” Phebe said to him one day, “I think it does me more good only to hear your sister’s voice than to listen to the very best sermon ever preached.”

“Miss Phebe,” he rejoined, with a merry twinkle in his brown eyes, “if you propagate that doctrine largely, I am a ruined man.  I must hold you over to eternal secrecy.  But as regards the fact,—­there is my hand,—­I am quite of your way of thinking!  I am persuaded an angel’s voice got into Soeur Angelique by mistake.”  Mrs. Whittridge’s baptismal name was Angelica, but to her brother she had always been “Soeur Angelique” and nothing else.

“Yes, and an angel’s soul too,” said Phebe.

“Even that,” replied Mr. Halloway.  “She is all and more than you can possibly imagine that she is.  But I positively forbid your putting her up on a pedestal and worshipping her.  In the first place, too great a sense of her own holiness might mar her present admirable but purely earthly management of our little household, thus seriously interfering with my comforts.  And in the second place, I feel it my duty to warn you from a habit of canonization, which, if too extensively indulged in, will inevitably warp your powers of frank and right judgment.”