CHAPTER V.
PHŒBE.
Shirley probably got on pleasantly with Sir Philip that evening, for the next morning she came down in one of her best moods.
"Who will take a walk with me?" she asked, after breakfast. "Isabella and Gertrude—will you?"
So rare was such an invitation from Miss Keeldar to her female cousins, that they hesitated before they accepted it. Their mama, however, signifying acquiescence in the project, they fetched their bonnets, and the trio set out.
It did not suit these three young persons to be thrown much together: Miss Keeldar liked the society of few ladies: indeed, she had a cordial pleasure in that of none except Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone. She was civil, kind, attentive even to her cousins; but still she usually had little to say to them. In the sunny mood of this particular morning, she contrived to entertain even the Misses Sympson. Without deviating from her wonted rule of discussing with them only ordinary themes, she
