“It is well, above all, I think, to have a just appreciation of one’s own powers or lack of powers,” said Denham, slowly.  “Ambition, without the corresponding strength to gratify it, is a cruel taskmaster.”

“How can you tell, till you have tried, that there is no corresponding strength?” asked Gerald, turning full upon him again.  How marvellously expressive her face was, with its earnest eyes and mobile mouth!  “If I were a man,—­and great heavens! how I wish I were one!—­I would create the strength if it were not there of itself.  I would force myself upward.  I would never rest till I had become something more than nature originally made me.”

“Then Heaven be thanked, who has spared us the monstrosity you would have developed into under the harrowing circumstances of a reversal of your sex,” said De Forest, devoutly.

“I was always glad you were a woman.  Now I am positively aglow with gratitude for it.”

Denham was silent.  They had reached Mrs. Lane’s now, and Gerald and her cavalier paused.

“I have not hurt you, Mr. Halloway, have I?” said Gerald, more gently.  “I know I sometimes speak strongly where I am least qualified to do so.”

“A very womanly trait,” put in De Forest.  “Don’t apologize for your one redeeming weakness.”

“No, you have not hurt me,” said Denham, in a low voice.  “I hope you have done me good.”  And without adding even a good-night or a message for Phebe, he lifted his hat and crossed over to the rectory.  His sister was not there as he entered her sitting-room, and throwing himself down on the sofa, clasped his hands over his forehead and stared thoughtfully up at the ceiling.  She had been sitting with Phebe while the Lane household went to its various churches, Phebe was tired, in consequence of the entire population of Joppa having run in to ask after her between services “on their way home,” and she was not talking much.  But only to look up and smile into Soeur Angelique’s sweet face was pleasure enough for the girl, and she lay very quietly, holding a rose that Denham had sent her over by his sister, and feeling supremely contented.

“How would you like me to read to you?” asked Mrs. Whittridge at last, taking up a book.  “Shall I try it?”

“No, thank you.  I am afraid my thoughts would be louder than your words, and I should be listening to them and losing what you are saying.”

“And, pray, what are these remarkably noisy thoughts?” asked the lady.  “Let me listen and hear them too.”

“I don’t think I could say just what they are,” replied Phebe, dreamily.  “They are running through my head more like indistinct music than like real thoughts.  And I never was clever at saying things, you know.  But, oh!  I do feel very happy.”

“You look so,” said Soeur Angelique, tenderly.  “You poor little one, is it just the getting well again that makes you so?”

Phebe flushed ever so slightly.  “I don’t know just what it is,” she answered, lifting the rose to her face.  “Perhaps it is only the listening to that indistinct music.  It seems to have put all my soul in tune.  Oh, dear Mrs. Whittridge, what a beautiful world this is, when only there are no discords in one’s own heart!”