COUSIN PHILLIS. 125
set my lips tight together, and waited for the words to come. I did not see his face; I looked straight at the wall opposite; but I heard him once begin to speak, and then turn over the leaves in the book before him. How awfully still that room was! The air outside, how still it was! The open windows let in no rustle of leaves, no twitter or movement of birds — no sound whatever. The clock on the stairs — the minister's hard breathing — was it to go on for ever? Impatient beyond bearing at the deep quiet, I spoke again, — "I did it for the best, as I thought." The minister shut the book to hastily, and stood up. Then I saw how angry he was.
"For the best, do you say? It was best, was it, to go and tell a young girl what you never told a word of to her parents, who trusted you like a son of their own?"
He began walking about, up and down the room close under the open windows, churning up his bitter thoughts of me.
"To put such thoughts into the child's head," continued he; "to spoil her peaceful maidenhood with talk about another man's love; and such love, too," he spoke scornfully now — "a love that is ready for any young woman. Oh, the misery in my poor little daughter's face to-day at dinner — the misery, Paul! I thought you were one to be trusted — your father's son too, to go and put such thoughts into the child's mind; you two talking together about that man wishing to marry her." I could not help remembering the pinafore, the childish garment which Phillis wore so long, as if her parents were unaware of her progress tovfards woman-
