Phebe laughed, but did not forget.

One afternoon, some time later, she was at the rectory, whither she had gone, at Mrs. Whittridge’s request, to explain a new and intricate embroidery stitch.  They were upstairs in that lady’s charming little sitting-room, Phebe on a low stool by her friend’s side, and Halloway had just come in from a round of parochial visits and joined them there.

“Mrs. Whittridge,” said Phebe, suddenly, “do you think it is possible to care too much for one’s friends?  Mr. Halloway says one can.  I know he means that I do.”

Mrs. Whittridge laid her hand caressingly on the girl’s bonny brown hair.  “How can I judge, my child?  I do not even know who your friends are.”

“Who are they, in fact?” said Denham, drawing up a chair and seating himself in front of the group by the table.  “Oh, Miss Phebe is friends with the entire village in a way.  They all call her ‘Phebe,’ and keep accurate track of her birthdays, from Dick Hardcastle up.  And I am sure she hasn’t an enemy in the world.  But there is this remarkable feature in the case, that you could go over the entire population of Joppa by name without eliciting a single thrill of enthusiasm from this really enthusiastic young lady.”

“I cannot help it,” Phebe murmured, a little shamefacedly.  “I bore them, and they bore me.”

“That’s a point in your education I am going to take up later,” remarked Mr. Halloway, cheerfully.  “The art of not being bored by people.  Once acquired, the other, that of not boring them, follows of itself.  Society hangs on it.”

“I wish you would teach me that right away,” said Phebe, earnestly.  “I believe I need that more than any thing else.”

“Well, I will, immediately,—­after supper, that is.  I am exhausted now with ministerial duties.  You have asked Miss Phebe to tea have you not, Soeur Angelique?  You cannot stay?  Oh, but of course you must.”

“Of course she will,” said Mrs. Whittridge, with her tender smile.  “Phebe only lives to give pleasure to others.  Now tell me something about your friends.  Who are they?”

“I haven’t any here.  Mr. Halloway is quite right,” answered Phebe, locking her hands over one of Mrs. Whittridge’s.  “Not real, real friends.  As a child I had ever so many, and Bell Masters and I quite grew up together, but somehow we have all grown away from each other, and—­oh, I don’t know!—­it seems as if there wasn’t any thing in the girls here.  Not that there’s more in me.  They are brighter and better than I in every way, but we don’t get on together; they don’t seem to have any thing to give me, any thing they can help me to.  I can’t get at them.  Oh!  Mr. Halloway is quite right.  In all Joppa I haven’t a single friend—­except just you and him.”

“We are indeed your friends,” said Mrs. Whittridge.  “You need never doubt that.”

The girl turned and threw her arms impulsively around the other’s neck.  “Oh, no, no!” she said.  “I could not doubt it.  I know it.  I feel it!  Oh, you can’t guess what it is to me to know it!  I have so little in my life to make it grow to any thing, and I want so much!  And you can give me all I want—­all, all; and it makes me so happy when I think of it,—­that I have got you and can have all I want!”