"If I could be quite alone, as you are, with only a father like yours, I think I could get free; but I have never been left alone from my babyhood; just as Felix and Hilda are never left alone.

Oh, Phebe, you do not know how happy you are." "No," she said cheerfully, "sometimes when I stand at our garden-gate, and look round me for miles and miles away, and the sweet air blows past me, and the bees are humming, and the birds calling to one another, and everything is so peaceful, with father happy over his work not far off, I think I don't know how happy I am.

I try to catch hold of the feeling and keep it, but it slips away somehow.

Only I thank God I am happy." "I was never happy enough to thank God," Felicita murmured, lying back in her seat and shutting her eyes.

Presently the children returned, and, after another silent row, slower and more toilsome, as it was up the river, they drew near home again, and saw Madame's anxious face watching for them over the low garden wall.