She had been at the rectory but once since Gerald left, and that was to the Bible-class, and when Mrs.Whittridge had tried to detain her afterward, she had pleaded some pressing business at home, though chancing to look out of her window a little later, Soeur Angelique was almost sure that through the closed shutters in Phebe's room, she saw a dim shadow of the girl's head laid down listlessly on her folded arms on the sill.

But when the epidemic reached its height, Phebe seemed suddenly to awaken from her languor and rouse herself to action.

Here was something worth doing at last.

Once more her soft, sweet whistling sounded bird-like through the house.

The spring came back to her step, the brightness to her eyes, and more than the old tenderness to her voice, as she went from one shunned sick-room to another like a living sunbeam, bringing the freshness of a May morning with her, and seeming always to come solely for her own pure pleasure.