Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/57

Rh "That is what I am afraid of, George. The boy was to have driven me, but he is so excited, I suppose, about the man-of-war coming in, that he has run off. There! take care!" "Can't you go on now?" asked De Witt, letting go the bridle. Immediately the horse began to jib and rear. "You are lugging at his mouth fit to break his jaw, Phœbe. No wonder the beast won't go." "Am I, George? It is the fright. I don't understand the horse. O dear! O dear! I shall never get to Waldegraves by myself."

"Let the horse go, but don't job his mouth in that way."

"There he is turning round. He will go home again. O George! save me."

"You are pulling him round, of course he will turn if you drag at the rein." "I don't understand horses," burst forth Phœbe, and she threw the reins down. "George, there's a good, dear fellow, jump in beside me. There's room for two, quite cosy. Drive me to Waldegraves. I shall never forget your goodness." She put her two hands together, and looked piteously in the young man's face.

Phœbe Musset was a very good-looking girl, fair with bright blue eyes, and yellow hair, much more delicately made than most of the girls in the place. Moreover, she dressed above them. She was a village coquette, accustomed to being made much of, and of showing her caprices. Her father owned the store at the city where groceries and drapery were sold, and was esteemed a well-to-do man. He farmed a little land. Phœbe was his only child, and she was allowed to do pretty much as she liked. Her father and mother were hard-working people, but Phœbe's small hands were ever unsoiled, for they were ever unemployed. She neither milked the cows nor weighed the sugar. She liked indeed to be in the shop, to gossip with anyone who came in, and perhaps the only goods she condescended to sell was tobacco to the young sailors, from whom she might calculate on a word of flattery and a lovelorn look. She was always well and becomingly dressed. Now, in a chip bonnet trimmed with blue riband, and tied under the chin, with a white lace-edged kerchief