Because it's Felix's birthday." She was still kneeling on the floor, with the children about her, when the door opened, and the same troubled and haggard face, which had peered out upon her under the archway, looked into the room with restless and bloodshot eyes.

Phebe felt a sudden chill again, and rising to her feet put the children behind her, as if she feared some danger for them.
"Where is Mr.Sefton ?" he asked in a deep, hoarse voice; "is he at home, Madame ?" Ever since the elder Mr.Sefton had brought his young foreign wife home, now more than thirty years ago, the people of Riversborough had called her Madame, giving to her no other title or surname.

It had always seemed to set her apart, and at a distance, as a foreigner, and so quiet had she been, so homely and domesticated, that she had remained a stranger, keeping her old habits of life and thought, and often yearning for the old pastor's home among the Jura Mountains.
"But yes," she answered, "my son is late this morning; but all the world is early, I think.

It is not much beyond nine o'clock, Mr.Acton.

The bank is not open yet." "No, no," he answered hurriedly, while his eyes wandered restlessly about the room; "he is not ill, Madame ?" "I hope so not," she replied, with some vague uneasiness stirring in her heart.
"Nor dead ?" he muttered.
"Dead!" exclaimed both Madame and Phebe in one breath; "dead!" "All men die," he went on, "and it is a pleasant thing to lie down quietly in one's own grave, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.