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“You’re very pretty here,” said she, looking also, and thinking what a sketch it would make, if she could keep on friendly terms with this old recluse, and get leave to sit in the garden. Then her conscience smiting her for selfishness, she turned her big eyes on him and put out her small hand.

“I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Darwin, very much obliged to you indeed. And I hope that Jack will do credit to your kindness. And thank you so much for the cloves,” she added, hastily changing a subject which had cost some argument, and which she did not wish to have reopened.

Daddy Darwin had thoughts of reopening it. He was slowly getting his ideas together to say that the lad should see how he got along with the school before trying the choir, when he found the young lady’s hand in his, and had to take care not to hurt it, whilst she rained thanks on him for the flowers.

“You’re freely welcome, Miss,” was what he did say after all.

In the evening, however, he was very moody, but Jack was dying of curiosity, and at last could contain himself no longer.

“What did Miss Jenny want, Daddy?” he asked.

The old man looked very grim.

“First to make a fool of me, and i’ t’ second place to make a fool of thee,” was his reply. And he added with pettish emphasis, “They’re all alike, gentle and simple. Lad, lad! If ye’d have any peace of your life never let a woman’s foot across your threshold. Steek t’ door of your house–if ye own one–and t’ door o’ your heart–if ye own one–and then ye’ll never rue. Look at this coat!”

And the old man went grumpily to bed, and dreamed that Miss Jenny had put her little foot over his threshold, and that he had shown her the secret panel, and let her take away his savings.

And Jack went to bed, and dreamed that he went to school, and showed himself to Phoebe Shaw in his Sunday suit.

This dainty little damsel had long been making havoc in Jack’s heart. The attraction must have been one of contrast, for whereas Jack was black and grubby, and had only week-day clothes–which were ragged at that–Phoebe was fair, and exquisitely clean, and quite terribly tidy. Her mother was the neatest woman in the parish. It was she who was wont to say to her trembling handmaid, “I hope I can black a grate without blacking myself.” But little Phoebe promised so far to out-do her mother, that it seemed doubtful if she could “black herself” if she tried. Only the bloom of childhood could have resisted the polishing effects of yellow soap, as Phoebe’s brow and cheeks did resist it. Her shining hair was–compressed into a plait that would have done credit to a rope-maker. Her pinafores were speckless, and as to her white Whitsun frock–Jack could think of nothing the least like Phoebe in that, except a snowy fantail strutting about the Dovecot roof; and, to say the truth, the likeness was most remarkable.

It has been shown that Jack March had a mind to be master of his fate, and he did succeed in making friends with little Phoebe Shaw. This was before Miss Jenny’s visit, but the incident shall be recorded here.

Early on Sunday mornings it was Jack’s custom to hide his work-day garb in an angle of the ivy-covered wall of the Dovecot garden, only letting his head appear over the top, from whence he watched to see Phoebe pass on her way to Sunday School, and to bewilder himself with the sight of her starched frock, and her airs with her Bible and Prayer-book, and class card, and clean pocket-handkerchief.

Now, amongst the rest of her Sunday paraphernalia, Phoebe always carried a posy, made up with herbs and some strong smelling flowers. Countrywomen take mint and southernwood to a long hot service, as fine ladies take smelling-bottles (for it is a pleasant delusion with some writers that the weaker sex is a strong sex in the working classes). And though Phoebe did not suffer from “fainty feels” like her mother, she and her little playmates took posies to Sunday School, and refreshed their nerves in the stream of question and answer, and hair oil and corduroy, with all the airs of their elders.