“That is no business of mine.  It’s simply my business to make sure that I can look after myself.”

“What an outrageously frank exposure of a universally concealed sentiment!  Mr. Halloway is scandalized.  He is thinking how he can fit a scorching text to it to wither you with next Sunday.”

“No; here is a sermon ready made on the spot,” said Denham, as Phebe came slowly toward them.  “Miss Lane in herself is a sufficient illustration of the opposite doctrine.”

“Prove it,” answered Gerald, shrugging her shoulders.  “Prove that Phebe, who toils for everybody, is any happier than I, who only follow my inclination.”

“You certainly look vastly the more comfortable at present,” said De Forest, looking from Gerald’s cool cheeks and unruffled muslin flounces to Phebe’s flushed face and tumbled cambric.  “You are a practical embodiment of the beauty and expediency of selfishness.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Phebe, coming up and leaning wearily against a tree.

“About you and Miss Vernor,” explained Bell.  “Which of you is happier? I should say Miss Vernor decidedly.”

A loving look came into Phebe’s eyes, as she glanced down at Gerald.

“Miss Vernor, of course”, she said, with a very tender inflection of voice.  “Being what she is, how can she help being the happier?”

“Virtue advocating vice,” said De Forest.  “Mr. Halloway, your sermon is a dead failure,—­as a sermon.”

“By no means,” answered Denham, smiling.  “I don’t expect to convert you in a single lesson.  Will you not sit down with us, Miss Phebe?  You look tired.”

“Not just yet, thank you.”

“And why not?” asked Gerald.

“I want to see a little after Miss Delano first.  She’s off there all alone hunting for ferns.”

“Well,” persisted Gerald, “what of it?  Are you fonder of her society than ours, that you must run after her?”

“I am not fonder of any one’s society than of yours, Gerald.”

“But are you fond of that tiresome creature at all?  Confess it; doesn’t she bore you to death with her interminable grasshopper chatter?”

Phebe glanced at Halloway, and laughed a little as she moved away.  “Oh, I am learning by degrees not to be bored by people,—­not even by Miss Delano.”

“Now, will any one explain why she should wish to teach herself not to know a bore from a Christian?” exclaimed Gerald, impatiently.  “It is quite beyond me.”

“But do you really never talk to anybody unless you want to, Miss Vernor?” asked Bell, disagreeably conscious that Gerald had not voluntarily addressed her once that morning.

“Never,” replied Gerald, staring out at the lake.

“Don’t you ever do any thing you don’t want to, because you ought to?”

“I don’t always see the ought.  For instance, why should I put myself out to entertain Miss Delano as Phebe does?”