"How d'you know I haven't called to see you, Miss Phoebe?" asked
Boase, stepping into the passage. She ran and seized him by the knees,
flinging back her head so that her dark curls hung away from her
softly-rounded face. Her pouting mouth, always slightly open to show a
hint of two little front teeth, laughed up at him, her dove's eyes
narrowed with her mirth. Of Ishmael she took no more notice than if he
had not been there, and he leant against the doorpost, scraping the
earth with the toe of his hard little boot, his thumbs stuck in his
belt.

"I be gwain to help cry the Neck over to Cloom!" announced Phoebe--to
the Parson and at Ishmael--"and I be gwain to stay to th' supper, and
maybe I'll dance wi' a chap. There's Maister Jacka's John-Willy would be
proud to dance wi' I!"

"So you're fond of dancing, Phoebe?" asked the Parson.

"Sure 'nough! Dancen' and singen'--that's life, that is. Ef you can't
dance and sing I don't see no good in liven'! I don't hold wi' chaps who
think of nawthen but wanten' to be saved. Time 'nough for that when
gettin' on for thirty!"

Ishmael winced at the hit, and the Parson laughed as he tied two of
Phoebe's ringlets into a bow under her chin.

"There are ways and ways of remembering the Creator in the days of your
youth, Phoebe," he said, "and one of them's by dancing and singing--if
it's with the right kind of chap. I don't think much of Jacka's
John-Willy; if you really want to be a great lady to-night you must get