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Title: Not Like Other Girls

Author: Rosa N. Carey

Release Date: March 31, 2009 [EBook #28463]

Language: English

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NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS

BY

ROSA N. CAREY

AUTHOR OF

"Aunt Diana," "Averil," "Lover or Friend," "Merle's Crusade,"
"Esther," "Mary St. John," "Queenie's Whim," "We Wifie," Etc., Etc.

CHICAGO

M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY

407-429 Dearborn Street




[Illustration]


M.A. DONOHUE & CO.
CHICAGO.




CONTENTS

  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE
       I. Five-o'clock Tea.                                          7
      II. Dick objects to the Mountains.                            14
     III. Mr. Mayne makes Himself Disagreeable.                     22
      IV. Dick's Fête.                                              28
       V. "I am Quite Sure of Him."                                 35
      VI. Mr. Trinder's Visit.                                      41
     VII. Phillis's Catechism.                                      48
    VIII. "We should have to carry Parcels."                        55
      IX. A Long Day.                                               62
       X. The Friary.                                               68
      XI. "Tell us all about it, Nan."                              77
     XII. "Laddie" puts in an Appearance.                           85
    XIII. "I must have Grace."                                      91
     XIV. "You can dare to tell me These Things."                   99
      XV. A Van in the Braidwood Road.                             108
     XVI. A Visit to the White House.                              118
    XVII. "A Friend in Need."                                      124
   XVIII. Dorothy brings in the Best China.                        132
     XIX. Archie is in a Bad Humor.                                139
      XX. "You are Romantic."                                      147
     XXI. Breaking the Peace.                                      154
    XXII. "Trimmings, not Squails."                                162
   XXIII. "Bravo, Atalanta!"                                       167
    XXIV. Mothers are Mothers.                                     174
     XXV. Mattie's New Dress.                                      181
    XXVI. "Oh, You are Proud!"                                     189
   XXVII. A Dark Hour.                                             196
  XXVIII. The Mysterious Stranger.                                 202
    XXIX. Mrs. Williams's Lodger.                                  210
     XXX. "Now we understand Each Other."                          219
    XXXI. Dick thinks of the City.                                 226
   XXXII. "Dick is to be our Real Brother."                        232
  XXXIII. "This is Life and Death to Me."                          240
   XXXIV. Miss Mewlstone has an Interruption.                      248
    XXXV. "Barby, don't You recollect Me?"                         255
   XXXVI. Motes in the Sunshine.                                   262
  XXXVII. "A Man has a Right to His Own Thoughts."                 268
 XXXVIII. About Nothing Particular.                                277
   XXXIX. "How do you do, Aunt Catherine?"                         283
      XL. Alcides.                                                 292
     XLI. Sir Harry Bides his Time.                                299
    XLII. "Come, now, I call that Hard."                           307
   XLIII. "I will write no such Letter."                           315
    XLIV. Mr. Mayne orders a Basin of Gruel.                       321
     XLV. An Uninvited Guest.                                      328
    XLVI. A New Invasion of the Goths.                             336
   XLVII. "It was so Good of You to ask me Here."                  343
  XLVIII. Mrs. Sparsit's Poodle.                                   349
    XLIX. Mattie in a New Character.                               356
       L. Phillis's Favorite Month.                                362




NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS




CHAPTER I.

FIVE-O'CLOCK TEA.


Five-o'clock tea was a great institution in Oldfield.

It was a form of refreshment to which the female inhabitants of that
delightful place were strongly addicted. In vain did Dr. Weatherby,
the great authority in all that concerned the health of the
neighborhood, lift up his voice against the mild feminine
dram-drinking of these modern days, denouncing it in no measured
terms: the ladies of Oldfield listened incredulously, and, softly
quoting Cowper's lines as to the "cup that cheers and not inebriates,"
still presided over their dainty little tea-tables, and vied with one
another in the beauty of their china and the flavor of their
highly-scented Pekoe.

In spite of Dr. Weatherby's sneers and innuendoes, a great deal of
valuable time was spent in lingering in one or another of the pleasant
drawing-rooms of the place. As the magic hour approached, people
dropped in casually. The elder ladies sipped their tea and gossiped
softly; the younger ones, if it were summer-time, strolled out through
the open windows into the garden. Most of the houses had
tennis-grounds, and it was quite an understood thing that a game
should be played before they separated.

With some few exceptions, the inhabitants of Oldfield were wealthy
people. Handsome houses standing in their own grounds were dotted here
and there among the lanes and country roads. Some of the big houses
belonged to very big people indeed; but these were aristocrats who
only lived in their country houses a few months in the year, and whose
presence added more to the dignity than to the hilarity of the
neighborhood.

With these exceptions, the Oldfield people were highly gregarious and
hospitable; in spite of a few peculiarities, they had their good
points; a great deal of gossip prevailed, but it was in the main
harmless and good-natured. There was a wonderful simplicity of dress,
too, which in these days might be termed a cardinal virtue. The girls
wore their fresh cambrics and plain straw hats: no one seemed to
think it necessary to put on smart clothing when they wished to visit
their friends. People said this Arcadian simplicity was just as
studied: nevertheless, it showed perfection of taste and a just
appreciation of things.

The house that was considered the most attractive in Oldfield, and
where, on summer afternoons, the sound of youthful voices and laughter
were the loudest, was Glen Cottage, a small white house adjoining the
long village street, belonging to a certain Mrs. Challoner, who lived
here with her three daughters.

This may be accounted strange in the first instance, since the
Challoners were people of the most limited income,--an income so small
that nothing but the most modest of entertainments could be furnished
to their friends; very different from their neighbors at Longmead, the
large white house adjoining, where sumptuous dinners and regular
evening parties were given in the dark days when pleasures were few
and tennis impossible.

People said it was very good-natured of the Maynes; but then when
there is an only child in the case, an honest, pleasure-loving, gay
young fellow, on whom his parents dote, what is it they will not do to
please their own flesh and blood? and, as young Richard Mayne--or
Dick, as he was always called--loved all such festive gatherings, Mrs.
Mayne loved them too; and her husband tried to persuade himself that
his tastes lay in the same direction, only reserving certain groans
for private use, that Dick could not be happy without a houseful of
young people.

But no such entertainments were possible at Glen Cottage:
nevertheless, the youth of the neighborhood flocked eagerly into the
pleasant drawing-room where Mrs. Challoner sat tranquilly summer and
winter to welcome her friends, or betook themselves through the open
French windows into the old-fashioned garden, in which mother and
daughters took such pride.

On hot afternoons the tea-table was spread under an acacia-tree, low
wicker-chairs were brought out, and rugs spread on the lawn, and Nan
and her sisters dispensed strawberries and cream, with the delicious
home-made bread and butter; while Mrs. Challoner sat among a few
chosen spirits knitting and talking in her pleasant low-toned voice,
quite content that the burden of responsibility should rest upon her
daughters.

Mrs. Challoner always smiled when people told her that she ought to be
proud of her girls. No daughters were ever so much to their mother as
hers; she simply lived in and for them; she saw with their eyes,
thought with their thoughts,--was hardly herself at all, but Nan and
Phillis and Dulce, each by turns.

Long ago they had grown up to her growth. Mrs. Challoner's nature was
hardly a self-sufficing one. During her husband's lifetime she had
been braced by his influence and cheered by his example, and had
sought to guide her children according to his directions; in a word,
his manly strength had so supported her that no one, not even her
shrewd young daughters, guessed at the interior weakness.

When her stay was removed, Mrs. Challoner ceased to guide, and came
down to her children's level. She was more like their sister than
their mother, people said; and yet no mother was more cherished than
she.

Her very weakness made her sacred in her daughters' eyes; her
widowhood, and a certain failure of health, made her the subject of
their choicest care.

It could not be said that there was much amiss, but years ago a doctor
whom Mrs. Challoner had consulted had looked grave, and mentioned the
name of a disease of which certain symptoms reminded him. There was no
ground for present apprehension; the whole thing was very shadowy and
unsubstantial,--a mere hint,--a question of care; nevertheless the
word had been said, and the mischief done.

From that time Mrs. Challoner was wont to speak gloomily of her
health, as of one doomed. She was by nature languid and lymphatic, but
now her languor increased; always averse to effort, she now left all
action to her daughters. It was they who decided and regulated the
affairs of their modest household, and rarely were such wise young
rulers to be found in girls of their age. Mrs. Challoner merely
acquiesced, for in Glen Cottage there was seldom a dissentient voice,
unless it were that of Dorothy, who had been Dulce's nurse, and took
upon herself the airs of an old servant who could not be replaced.

They were all pretty girls, the three Misses Challoner, but Nan was
_par excellence_ the prettiest. No one could deny that fact who saw
them together. Her features were more regular than her sisters', and
her color more transparent. She was tall too, and her figure had a
certain willowy grace that was most uncommon; but what attracted
people most was a frankness and unconsciousness of manner that was
perfectly charming.

Phillis, the second sister, was not absolutely pretty, perhaps, but
she was nice-looking, and there was something in her expression that
made people say she was clever; she could talk on occasions with a
fluency that was quite surprising, and that would cast Nan into the
shade. "If I were only as clever as Phillis!" Nan would sigh.

Then there was Dulce, who was only just eighteen, and whom her sisters
treated as the family pet; who was light and small and nimble in her
movements, and looked even younger than she really was.

Nobody ever noticed if Dulce were pretty; and one questioned if her
features were regular or not, or cared to do such a thing. Only when
she smiled, the prettiest dimple came into her cheek, and her eyes had
a fearless child-like look in them; for the rest, she was just Dulce.

The good-looking daughters of a good-looking mother, as somebody
called them; and there was no denying Mrs. Challoner was still
wonderfully well preserved, and, in spite of her languor and invalid
airs, a very pretty woman.

Five-o'clock tea had long been over at the cottage this afternoon, and
a somewhat lengthy game of tennis had followed; after which the
visitors had dispersed as usual, and the girls had come in to prepare
for the half-past seven-o'clock dinner; for Glen Cottage followed the
fashion of its richer neighbors, and set out its frugal meal with a
proper accompaniment of flower-vases and evening toilet.

The three sisters came up the lawn together, but Nan carried her
racquet a little languidly; she looked a trifle grave.

Mrs. Challoner laid down her knitting and looked at them, and then she
regarded her watch plaintively.

"Is it late, mother?" asked Nan, who never missed any of her mother's
movements. "Ten minutes past seven! No wonder the afternoon seemed
long."

"No one found it long but Nan," observed Dulce, with an arch glance at
her sister at which Nan slightly colored, but took no further notice.
"By the bye," she continued, as though struck by a sudden
recollection, "what can have become of Dick this afternoon? he so
seldom fails us without telling us beforehand."

"That will soon be explained," observed Phillis, oracularly, as the
gate-bell sounded, and was immediately followed by sharp footsteps on
the gravel and the unceremonious entrance of a young man through the
open window.

"Better late than never," exclaimed two of the girls. Nan said, "Why,
what has made you play truant, Dick?" in a slightly injured voice. But
Mrs. Challoner merely smiled at him, and said nothing; young men were
her natural enemies, and she knew it. She was civil to them and
endured their company, and that was all.

Dick Mayne was not a formidable-looking individual; he was a strong,
thick-set young fellow, with broad shoulders, not much above middle
height, and decidedly plain, except in his mother's eyes; and she
thought even Dick's sandy hair beautiful.

But in spite of his plainness he was a pleasant, well-bred young
fellow, with a fund of good humor and drollery, and a pair of honest
eyes that people learned to trust. Every one liked him, and no one
ever said a word in his dispraise; and for the rest, he could
tyrannize as royally as any other young man who is his family's sole
blessing.

"It was all my ill luck," grumbled Dick. "Trevanion of Exeter came
over to our place, and of course the mater pressed him to stay for
luncheon, and then nothing would do but a long walk over Hillberry
Downs."

"Why did you not bring him here?" interrupted Dulce, with a pout. "You
tiresome Dick, when you must know what a godsend a strange young man
is in these wilds!"

"My dear!" reproved her mother.

"Oh, but it is true, mamma," persisted the outspoken Dulce. "Think how
pleased Carrie and Sophy Paine would have been at the sight of a fresh
face! it was horrid of you, sir!"

"I wanted him to come," returned the young man, in a deprecating
voice. "I told him how awfully jolly it always is here, and that he
would be sure to meet a lot of nice people, but there was no
persuading him: he wanted a walk and a talk about our fellows. That is
the worst of Trevanion, he always will have his own way."

"Never mind," returned Nan, pleasantly; she seemed to have recovered
her sprightliness all at once. "It is very good of you to come so
often; and we had Mr. Parker and his cousin to look after the
Paines."

"Oh, yes! we did very well," observed Phillis, tranquilly. "Mother,
now Dick has come so late, he had better stay."

"If I only may do so?" returned Dick; but his inquiry was directed to
Nan.

"Oh, yes, you may stay," she remarked, carelessly, as she moved away;
but there was a little pleased smile on her face that he failed to
see. She nodded pleasantly to him as he darted forward to open the
door. It was Nan who always dispensed the hospitalities of the house,
whose decision was unalterable. Dick had learned what it was to be
sent about his business; only once had he dared to remain without her
sovereign permission, and on that occasion he had been treated by her
with such dignified politeness that he would rather have been sent to
Coventry.

This evening the fates were propitious, and Dick understood that the
sceptre of favor was to be extended to him. When the girls had flitted
into the little dusky hall he closed the door, and sat down happily
bedside Mrs. Challoner, to whom he descanted eloquently of the
beauties of Hilberry and the virtues of Ned Trevanion.

Mrs. Challoner listened placidly as the knitting-needles flashed
between her long white fingers. She was very fond of Dick, after her
temperate fashion; she had known him from a child, and had seen him
grow up among them until he had become like a son of the house. Dick,
who had no brothers and sisters of his own, and whose parents had not
married until they were long past youth, had adopted brotherly airs
with the Challoner girls; they called each other by their Christian
names, and he reposed in them the confidences that young men are wont
to give to their belongings.

With Nan this easy familiarity had of late merged into something
different: a reserve, a timidity, a subtile suspicion of change had
crept into their intimacy. Nan felt that Dick's manner had altered,
but somehow she liked it better: his was always a sweet bountiful
nature, but now it seemed to have deepened into greater manliness.
Dick was growing older; Oxford training was polishing him. After each
one of his brief absences Nan saw a greater change, a more marked
deference, and secretly hoped that no one else noticed it. When the
young undergraduate wrote dutiful letters home the longest messages
were always for Nan; when he carried little offerings of flowers to
his young neighbors, Nan's bouquet was always the choicest; he
distinguished her, too, on all occasions by those small nameless
attentions which never fail to please.

Nan kept her own counsel, and never spoke of these things. She said
openly that Dick was very nice and very much improved, and that they
always missed him sadly during the Oxford terms; but she never
breathed a syllable that might make people suspect that this very
ordinary young man with the sandy hair was more to her than other
young men. Nevertheless Phillis and Dulce knew that such was the case,
and Mrs. Challoner understood that the most dangerous enemy to her
peace was this lively-spoken Dick.

Dick was very amusing, for he was an eloquent young fellow:
nevertheless Mrs. Challoner sighed more than once, and her attention
visibly wandered; seeing which, Dick good-humoredly left off talking,
and began inspecting the different articles in Nan's work-basket.

"I am afraid I have given your mother a headache," he said when they
were sitting round the circular table in the low, oddly-shaped
dining-room. There was a corner cut off, and the windows were in
unexpected places, which made it unlike other rooms; but Dick loved it
better than the great dining-room at Longmead; and somehow it never
had looked cosier to him than it did this evening. It was somewhat
dark, owing to the shade of the veranda: so the lamp was lighted, and
the pleasant scent of roses and lilies came through the open windows.
A belated wasp hovered round the specimen glasses that Nan had filled;
Dick tried to make havoc of the enemy with his table-napkin. The
girls' white dresses suited their fresh young faces. Nan had fastened
a crimson rose in her gown; Phillis and Dulce had knots of blue
ribbon. "Trevanion does not know what he lost by his obstinacy,"
thought Dick, as he glanced round the table.

"What were you and the mother discussing?" asked Dulce, curiously.

"Dick was telling me about his friend. He seemed a very superior young
man," returned Mrs. Challoner. "I suppose you have asked him for your
party next week?"

Dick turned very red at this question. "Mater asked him, you may trust
her for that. If it were not for father, I think she would turn the
whole house out of the windows: every day some one fresh is invited."

"How delightful! and all in your honor," exclaimed Dulce,
mischievously.

"That spoils the whole thing," grumbled the heir of the Maynes: "it
is a perfect shame that a fellow cannot come of age quietly, without
his people making this fuss. I begin to think I was a fool for my
pains to refuse the ball."

"Yes, indeed; just because you were afraid of the supper speeches,"
laughed Dulce, "when we all wanted it so."

"New mind," returned Dick, sturdily; "the mater shall give us one in
the winter, and we will have Godfrey's band, and I will get all our
fellows to come."

"That will be delightful," observed Nan, and her eyes sparkled,--already
she saw herself led out for the first dance by the son of the house,--but
Dulce interrupted her:

"But all the same I wish Dick had not been so stupid about it. No one
knows what may happen before the winter. I hate put-off things."

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,--eh, Miss Dulce?"

"Yes, indeed; that proverb is truer than people think," she replied,
with a wise nod of her head. "Don't you remember, Nan, when the
Parkers' dance was put off, and then old Mr. Parker died; and nearly
the same thing happened with the Normatons, only it was an uncle in
that case."

"Moral: never put off a dance, in case somebody dies."

"Oh, hush, please!" groaned Nan, in a shocked voice; "I don't like to
hear you talk about such dreadful things. After all, it is such
delicious weather that I am not sure a garden-party will not be more
enjoyable; and you know, Dulce, that we are to dance on the lawn if we
like."

"And supposing it should rain," put in that extremely troublesome
young person, at which suggestion Dick looked very gloomy.

"In that case I think we must persuade Mrs. Mayne to clear a room for
us," returned Nan, cheerfully. "If your mother consults me," she
continued, addressing Dick, who visibly brightened at this, "I shall
recommend her to empty the front drawing-room as much as possible.
There is the grand piano, or the band might come in-doors; there will
be plenty of room for the young people, and the non-dancers can be
drafted off into the inner drawing-room and conservatory."

"What a head you have!" exclaimed Dick, admiringly; and Phillis, who
had not joined in the argument, was pleased to observe that she was
quite of Nan's opinion: dancing was imperative, and if the lawns were
wet they must manage in-doors somehow. "It would never do for people
to be bored and listless," finished the young lady, sententiously, and
such was Phillis's cleverness that it was understood at once that the
oracle had spoken; but then it was never known for Nan and Phillis to
differ.

Things being thus amicably arranged, the rest of the conversation
flowed evenly on every other point, such as the arrangements of the
tennis-matches in the large meadow, and the exact position of the
marquees; but just as they were leaving the table Dick said another
word to Nan in a somewhat low voice:

"It is all very well, but this sort of thing does make a fellow feel
such a conceited fool."

"If I were you I would not think about it at all," she returned, in
her sensible way. "The neighborhood will expect something of the kind,
and we owe a little to other people; then it pleases your mother to
make a fuss, as you call it, and it would be too ungrateful to
disappoint her."

"Well, perhaps you are right," he returned, in a slightly mollified
tone, for he was a modest young fellow, and the whole business had
occasioned him some soreness of spirit. "Take it all in all, one has
an awful lot to go through in life: there are the measles, you know,
and whooping cough, and the dentist, and one's examination, and no end
of unpleasant things; but to be made by one's own mother to feel like
an idiot for a whole afternoon! Never mind; it can be got through
somehow," finished the young philosopher, with a sigh that sent Nan
into a fit of laughter.




CHAPTER II.

DICK OBJECTS TO THE MOUNTAINS.


"Shall we have our usual stroll?" asked Phillis, as Nan and Dick
joined her at the window.

This was one of the customs at Glen Cottage. When any such fitting
escort offered itself, the three girls would put on their hats, and,
regardless of the evening dews and their crisp white dresses, would
saunter, under Dick's guidance through the quiet village, or down and
up the country roads "just for a breath of air," as they would say.

It is only fair to Mrs. Challoner's views of propriety to say that she
would have trusted her three pretty daughters to no other young man
but Dick; and of late certain prudential doubts had crossed her mind.
It was all very well for Phillis to say Dick was Dick, and there was
an end of it. After all, he belonged to the phalanx of her enemies,
those shadowy invaders of her hearth that threatened her maternal
peace. Dick was not a boy any longer; he had outgrown his hobbledehoy
ways; the slight sandy moustache that he so proudly caressed was not a
greater proof of his manhood than the undefinable change that had
passed over his manners.

Mrs. Challoner began to distrust these evening strolls, and to turn
over in her own mind various wary pretexts for detaining Nan on the
next occasion.

"Just this once, perhaps, it does not matter," she murmured to
herself, as she composed herself to her usual nap.

"We shall not be long, little mother; so you must not be dull," Dulce
had said, kissing her lightly over her eyes. This was just one of the
pleasant fictions at the cottage,--one of those graceful little
deceptions that are so harmless in families.

Dulce knew of those placid after-dinner naps. She knew her mother's
eyes would only unclose when Dorothy brought in the tea-tray; but she
was also conscious that nothing would displease her mother more than
to notice this habit. When they lingered in-doors, and talked in
whispers so as not to disturb her, Mrs. Challoner had an extraordinary
facility for striking into the conversation in a way that was somewhat
confusing.

"I don't agree with you at all," she would say, in a drowsy voice. "Is
it not time for Dorothy to bring in the tea? I wish you would all talk
louder. I must be getting a little deaf, I think, for I don't hear
half you say."

"Oh, it was only nonsense talk, mammie," Dulce would answer; and the
sisterly chit-chat would recommence, and her mother's head nid-nodded
on the cushions until the next interruption.

"We shall not have many more of these strolls," observed Dick,
regretfully, as they all walked together through the village, and then
branched off into a long country road, where the air blew freshly in
their faces and low mists hung over the meadow land. Though it was not
quite dark, there was a tiny moon, and the glimmer of a star or two;
and there was a pleasant fragrance as of new-mown grass.

They were all walking abreast, and keeping step, and Dick was in the
middle, with Nan beside him. Dulce was hanging on to her arm, and
every now and then breaking into little snatches of song.

"How I envy you!" exclaimed Phillis. "Think of spending three whole
months in Switzerland. Oh, you lucky Dick!"

For the Maynes had decided to pass the long vacation in the Engadine.
Some hints had been dropped that Nan should accompany them, but Mrs.
Challoner had regarded the invitation with some disfavor, and Mrs.
Mayne had not pressed the point. If only Nan had known! but her mother
had in this matter kept her own counsel.

"I don't know about that," dissented Dick; he was rather given to
argue from the mere pleasure of opposition. "Mountains and glaciers
are all very well in their way; but I think, on the whole, I would as
soon be here. You see, I am so accustomed to mix with a lot of
fellows, that I am afraid of finding the pater's sole company rather
slow."

"For shame!" remarked his usual monitress. But she spoke gently: in
her heart she knew why Dick failed to find the mountains alluring.

"Why could not one of you girls join us?" he continued, wrathfully.
The rogue had fairly bullied the unwilling Mrs. Mayne into giving that
invitation.

"Do ask her, mother; she will be such a nice companion for you when
the pater and I are doing our climbing; do, there's a dear good soul!"
he had coaxed. And the dear good soul, who was secretly jealous of
Nan, and loved her about as much as mothers usually love an only son's
choice, had bewailed her hard fate in secret; and had then stepped
over to the cottage with a bland and cheerful exterior, which grew
more cheerful as Mrs. Challoner's reluctance made itself felt.

"It is not wise; it will throw them so much together," Nan's mother
had said. "If it were only Phillis or Dulce; but you must have
noticed----"

"Oh, yes, I have noticed!" returned Mrs. Mayne, hastily. She was a
stout, comely-looking woman, but beside Mrs. Challoner she looked like
a housekeeper dressed in her mistress's smart clothes. Mrs. Mayne's
dresses never seemed to belong to her; it could not be said that they
fitted her ill, but there was a want of adaptability,--a lack of taste
that failed to accord with her florid style of beauty.

She had been a handsome woman when Richard Mayne married her, but a
certain deepening of tints and broadening of contour had not improved
the mistress of Longmead. Her husband was a decided contrast: he was a
small, wiry man, with sharp features that expressed a great deal of
shrewdness. Dick had got his sandy hair; but Richard Mayne the elder
had not his son's honest, kindly eyes. Mr. Mayne's were small and
twinkling; he had a way of looking at people between his half-closed
lids, in a manner half sharp and half jocular.

He was not vulgar, far from it; but he had a homely air about him that
spoke of the self-made man. He was rather fond of telling people that
his father had been in trade in a small way and that he himself had
been the sole architect of his fortune. "Look at Dick," he would say;
"he would never have a penny, that fellow, unless I made it for him:
he has come into the world to find his bread ready buttered. I had to
be content with a crust as I could earn it. The lad's a cut above us
both, though he has the good taste to try and hide it."

This sagacious speech was very true. Dick would never have succeeded
as a business man; he was too full of crotchets and speculations to be
content to run in narrow grooves. The notion of money-making was
abhorrent to him; the idea of a city life, with its hard rubs and
drudgery, was utterly distasteful to him. "One would have to mix with
such a lot of cads," he would say. "English, pure and undefiled, is
not always spoken. If I must work, I would rather have a turn at law
or divinity; the three old women with the eye between them knows
which."

It could not be denied that Dick winced a little at his father's
homely speeches; but in his heart he was both proud and fond of him,
and was given to assert to a few of his closest friends "that, take it
all in all, and looking at other fellows' fathers, he was a rattling
good sort, and no mistake."

When Mrs. Challoner had entered her little protest against her
daughter's acceptance of the invitation, Mrs. Mayne had risen and
kissed her with some effusion as she took her leave.

"It is so nice of you to say this to me; of course I should have been
pleased, delighted to have had Nan with us" (oh, Mrs. Mayne, fie for
shame! when you want your boy to yourself), "but all the same I think
you are so wise."

"Poor child! I am afraid I am refusing her a great treat," returned
Mrs. Challoner, in a tone of regret. It was the first time since her
husband's death that she had ever decided anything without reference
to her daughters; but for once her maternal fears were up in arms, and
drove her to sudden resolution.

"Yes, but, as you observed, it would throw them so entirely together;
and Dick is so young. Richard was only saying the other night that he
hoped the boy would not fancy himself in love for the next two years,
as he did not approve of such early engagements."

"Neither do I," returned Mrs. Challoner, quickly. "Nothing would annoy
me more than for one of my daughters to entangle herself with so young
a man. We know the world too well for that, Mrs. Mayne. Why, Dick may
fall in and out of love half a dozen times before he really makes up
his mind."

"Ah, that is what Richard says," returned Dick's mother, with a sigh;
in her heart she was not quite of her husband's opinion. She
remembered how that long waiting wasted her own youth,--waiting for
what? For comforts that she would gladly have done without,--for a
well-furnished house, when she would have lived happily in the poorest
lodging with the Richard Mayne who had won her heart,--for whom she
would have toiled and slaved with the self-abnegating devotion of a
loving woman; only he feared to have it so.

"'When poverty enters the door, love flies out of the window:' we had
better make up our minds to wait, Bessie. I can better work in single
than double harness just now." That was what he said to her, and
Bessie waited,--not till she grew thin, but stout, and the spirit of
her youth was gone; and it was a sober, middle-aged woman who took
possession of the long-expected home.

Mrs. Mayne loved her husband, but during that tedious engagement her
ardor had a little cooled, and it may be doubted whether the younger
Richard was not dearer to her than his father; which was ungrateful,
to say the least of it, as Mr. Mayne doted on his comely wife, and
thought Bessie as handsome now as in the days when she came out
smiling to welcome him, a slim young creature with youthful roses in
her cheeks.

From this brief conversation it may be seen that none of the elders
quite approved of this budding affection. Mrs. Challoner, who
belonged to a good old family, found it hard to forgive the Maynes'
lowliness of birth; and though she liked Dick, she thought Nan could
do better for herself. Mr. Mayne pooh-poohed the whole thing so
entirely that the women could only speak of it among themselves.

"Dick is a clever fellow; he ought to marry money," he would say. "I
am not a millionaire, and a little more would be acceptable;" and
though he was always kind to Nan and her sisters, he was forever
dealing sly hits at her. "Phillis has the brains of the family," he
would say: "that is the girl for my money. I call her a vast deal
better looking than Nan, though people make such a fuss about the
other one;" a speech he was never tired of repeating in his son's
presence, and at which Dick snapped his fingers metaphorically and
said nothing.

When Dick wished that one of them were going to Switzerland, Nan
sighed furtively. Dick was going away for three months, for the
remainder of the long vacation. After next week they would not see him
until Christmas,--nearly six months. A sense of dreariness, as new as
it was strange, swept momentarily over Nan as she pondered this. The
summer months would be grievously clouded. Dick had been the moving
spirit of all the fun; the tennis-parties, the pleasant dawdling
afternoons, would lose their zest when he was away.

She remembered how persistently he had haunted their footsteps. When
they paid visits to the Manor House, or Gardenhurst, or Fitzroy Lodge,
Dick was sure to put in an appearance. People had nicknamed him the
"Challoners' Squire;" but now Nan must go squireless for the rest of
the summer, unless she took compassion on Stanley Parker, or that
dreadful chatterbox his cousin.

The male population was somewhat sparse at Oldfield. There were a few
Eton boys, and one or two in that delightful transition age when youth
is most bashful and uninteresting,--a sort of unfledged manhood, when
the smooth boyish cheek contradicts the deepened bass of the
voice,--an age that has not ceased to blush, and which is full of
aggravating idosyncrasies and unexpected angles.

To be sure, Lord Fitzroy was a splendid specimen of a young guardsman,
but he had lately taken to himself a wife; and Sir Alfred Mostyn, who
was also somewhat attractive and a very pleasant fellow, and
unattached at present, had a tiresome habit of rushing off to Norway,
or St. Petersburg, or Niagara, or the Rocky Mountains, for what he
termed sport, or a lark.

"It seems we are very stupid this evening," observed Phillis for Dick
had waxed almost as silent as Nan. "I think the mother must nearly
have finished her nap, so I propose we go back and have some tea;"
and, as Nan languidly acquiesced they turned their faces towards the
village again, Dulce still holding firmly to Nan's arm. By and by Dick
struck out in a fresh direction.

"I say, don't you wish we could have last week over again?"

"Yes! oh, yes! was it not too delicious?" from the three girls; and
Nan added, "I never enjoyed anything so much in my life," in a tone so
fervent that Dick was delighted.

"What a brick your mother was, to be sure, to spare you all!"

"Yes; and she was so dull, poor dear, all the time we were away.
Dorothy gave us quite a pitiful account when we got home."

"It was a treat one ought to remember all one's life," observed
Phillis, quite solemnly; and then ensued a most animated discussion.

The treat to which Phillis alluded had been simply perfect in the
three girls' eyes. Dick, who never forgot his friends, had so worked
upon his mother that she had consented to chaperon the three sisters
during Commemoration; and a consent being fairly coaxed out of Mrs.
Challoner, the plan was put into execution.

Dick, who was in the seventh heaven of delight, found roomy lodgings
in the High Street, in which he installed his enraptured guests.

The five days that followed were simply hours snatched out of
fairyland to these four happy young creatures. No wonder envious looks
were cast at Dick as he walked in Christ Church Meadows with Nan and
Dulce, Phillis bringing up the rear somewhat soberly with Mrs. Mayne.

"One pretty face would content most fellows," his friends grumbled;
"but when you come to three, and not his own sisters either, why, it
isn't fair on other folk." And to Dick they said, "Come, it is no use
being so awfully close. Of course we see what's up: you are a lucky
dog. Which is it, Mayne?--the pretty one with the pink and white
complexion or the quiet one in gray, or the one with the mischievous
eyes?"

"Faix, they are all darlints and jewels, bless their purty faces!"
drawled one young rogue, in his favorite brogue. "Here's the top of
the morning to ye, Mayne; and it is mavourneen with the brown eyes and
the trick of the smile like the sunshine's glint that has stolen poor
Paddy's heart."

"Oh, shut up, you fellows!" returned Dick, in a disgusted voice. "What
is the good of your pretending to be Irish, Hamilton, when you are a
canny Scotchman?"

"Hoots, man, mind your clavers! You need not grizzle at a creature
because he admires a wee gairl that is just beyond the lave,--a sonsie
wee thing with a glint in her een like diamonds."

"Hamilton, will you leave off this foolery?"

"Nae doubt, nae doubt; would his honor pe axing if he pe wrang in the
head, puir thing? Never mind that, put pe giving me the skene-dhu, or
I will fight with proud-swords like a gentleman for the bit lassie;"
but here a wary movement on Dick's part extinguished the torrent of
Highland eloquence, and brought the canny Scotchman to the ground.

Perfectly oblivious of all these compliments, the Challoners enjoyed
themselves with the zest of healthy, happy English girls. They were
simply indefatigable: poor Mrs. Mayne succumbed utterly before the
fine days were over.

They saw the procession of boats; they were at the flower-show at
Worcester; Sunday afternoon found them in the Broad Walk; and the next
night they were dancing at the University ball.

They raved about the beauty of Magdalen cloisters; they looked down
admiringly into the deer-park; Addison's Walk became known to them,
and the gardens of St. John's. Phillis talked learnedly about Cardinal
Wolsey as she stood in Christ Church hall: and in the theatre "the
young ladies in pink" invoked the most continuous cheers.

"Can they mean us?" whispered Dulce, rather alarmed, to their faithful
escort Dick. "I don't see any other pink dresses!"

And Dick said, calmly,--

"Well, I suppose so. Some of those fellows up there are such a
trumpery lot."

So Dulce grew more reassured.

But the greatest fun of all was the afternoon spent in Dick's room,
when all his special friends were bidden to five o'clock tea, over
which Nan, in her white gown, presided so gracefully.

What a dear, shabby old room it was, with old-fashioned window-seats,
where one could look down into the quadrangle. Dick was an Oriel man,
and thought his college superior even to Magdalen.

It became almost too hot and crowded at last, so many were the
invitations given; but then, as Dick said afterwards, "he was such a
soft-hearted beggar that he could not refuse the fellows that pestered
him for invitations."

Mrs. Mayne, looking very proud and happy, sat fanning herself in one
of these windows. Phillis and Dulce were in the other attended by that
rogue Hamilton and half a dozen more. Nan was the centre of another
clique, who hemmed her and the tea-table in so closely that Dick had
to wander disconsolately round the outskirts: there was no getting a
look from Nan that afternoon.

How hot it was! It was a grand _coup_ when the door opened and the
scout made his appearance carrying a tray of ices.

"It is well to be Mayne!" half grumbled young Hamilton, as Dulce took
one gratefully from his hand. "He is treating us like a prince,
instead of the thin bread-and-butter entertainment he led us to
expect. Put down that tea, Miss Challoner. I see iced claret-cup and
strawberries in the corner. There is nothing like being an only child;
doting parents are extremely useful articles. I am one of ten; would
you believe it?" continued the garrulous youth. "When one has six
brothers older than one's self, I will leave you to imagine the
consequences."

"How nice!" returned Dulce, innocently; "I have always so longed for a
brother. If it had not been for Dick, we should have had no one to do
things for us."

"Oh, indeed! Mayne is a sort of adopted brother!" observed her
companion, looking at her rather sharply.

"We have always looked upon him as one. We do just as we like with
him,--scold and tease him, and send him on our errands;" which
intelligence fairly convinced the envious Hamilton that the youngest
Miss Challoner was not his friend's fancy.

Dick always recalled that evening with a sense of pride. How well and
gracefully Nan had fulfilled her duties! how pretty she had looked, in
spite of her flushed cheeks! He had never seen a girl to compare with
her,--not he!

They were so full of these delightful reminiscences that they were at
the cottage gate before they knew it; and then Dick astonished them by
refusing to come in. He had quite forgotten, he said, but his mother
had asked him to come home early, as she was not feeling just the
thing.

"Quite right; you must do as she wishes," returned Nan, dismissing him
far too readily, as he thought; but she said "Good-night!" with so
kind a smile after that, that the foolish young fellow felt his pulses
quicken.

Dick lingered at the corner until the cottage door was closed, and
then he raced down the Longmead shrubbery and set the house-bell
pealing.

"They are in the library, I suppose?" he asked of the butler who
admitted him; and, on receiving an answer in the affirmative, he
dashed unceremoniously into the room, while his mother held up her
finger and smiled at the truant.

"You naughty boy, to be so late; and now you have spoiled you father's
nap!" she said, pretending to scold him.

"Tut! tut! what nonsense you talk sometimes!" said Mr. Mayne, rather
crossly, as he stood on the hearth-rug rubbing his eyes. "I was not
asleep, I will take my oath of that; only I wish Dick could sometimes
enter a room without making people jump;" by which Dick knew that his
father was in one of his contrary moods, when he could be very
cross,--very cross indeed!




CHAPTER III.

MR. MAYNE MAKES HIMSELF DISAGREEABLE.


The library at Longmead was a very pleasant room, and it was the
custom of the family to retire thither on occasions when guests were
not forthcoming, and Mr. Mayne could indulge in his favorite nap
without fear of interruption.

A certain simplicity, not to say homeliness, of manners prevailed in
the house. It was understood among them that the dining-room was far
too gorgeous for anything but occasions of ceremony. Mrs. Mayne,
indeed, had had the good taste to cover the satin couches with pretty,
fresh-looking cretonne, and had had arranged hanging cupboards of old
china until it had been transformed into a charming apartment,
notwithstanding which the library was declared to be the family-room,
where the usual masculine assortment of litter could be regarded with
indulgent eyes, and where papers and pamphlets lay in delightful
confusion.

Longmead was not a pretentious house--it was a moderate-sized
residence, adapted to a gentleman of moderate means; but in summer no
place could be more charming. The broad gravel walk before the house
had a background of roses; hundreds of roses climbed up the railings
or twined themselves about the steps: a tiny miniature lake, garnished
with water-lilies, lay in the centre of the lawn; a group of old
elm-trees was beside it; behind the house lay another lawn, and beyond
were meadows where a few sheep were quietly grazing. Mr. Mayne, who
found time hang a little heavily on his hands, prided himself a good
deal on his poultry-yard and kitchen-garden. A great deal of his spare
time was spent among his favorite Bantams and Dorkings, and in
superintending his opinionated old gardener--on summer mornings he
would be out among the dews in his old coat and planter's hat, weeding
among the gooseberry-bushes.

"It is the early bird that finds the worm," he would say, when Dick
sauntered into the breakfast-room later on; for, in common with the
youth of his generation, he had a wholesome horror of early rising,
which he averred was one of the barbarous usages of the dark ages in
which his elders had been bred.

"I never took any interest in worms, sir," returned Dick, helping
himself to a tempting rasher that had just been brought in hot for the
pampered youth. "By the bye, have you seen Darwin's work on 'The
Formation of Vegetable Mould'? he declares that worms have played a
more important part in the history of the world than most people
would at first suppose: they were our earliest ploughmen."

"Oh, ah! indeed, very interesting!" observed his father, dryly; "but
all the same, I beg to observe, no one succeeded in life who was not
an early riser."

"A sweeping assertion, and one I might be tempted to argue, if it were
not for taking up your valuable time," retorted Dick, lazily, but with
a twinkle in his eye. "I know my constitution better than to trust
myself out before the world is properly aired and dried. I am thinking
it is less a case of worms than of rheumatism some early birds will be
catching;" to which Mr. Mayne merely returned an ungracious "Pshaw!"
and marched off, leaving his son to enjoy his breakfast in peace.

When Dick entered the library on the evening in question, Mr. Mayne's
querulous observation as to the noisiness of his entrance convinced
him at once that his father was in a very bad humor indeed, and that
on this account it behooved him to be exceedingly cool.

So he kissed his mother, who looked at him a little anxiously, and
then sat down and turned out her work-basket, as he had done Nan's two
or three hours ago.

"You are late after all, Dick," she said, with a little reproach in
her voice. It was hardly a safe observation, to judge by her husband's
cloudy countenance; but the poor thing sometimes felt her evenings a
trifle dull when Dick was away. Mr. Mayne would take up his paper, but
his eyes soon closed over it; that habit of seeking for the early worm
rather disposed him to somnolent evenings, during which his wife
knitted and felt herself nodding off out of sheer _ennui_ and dulness.
These were not the hours she had planned during those years of
waiting; she had told herself that Richard would read to her or talk
to her as she sat over her work, that they would have so much to say
to each other; but now, as she regarded his sleeping countenance
evening after evening, it may be doubted whether matrimony was quite
what she expected, since its bliss was so temperate and so strongly
infused with drowsiness.

Dick looked up innocently. "Am I late, mother?"

"Oh, of course not," returned his father, with a sneer; "it is not
quite time to ring for Nicholson to bring our candles. Bessie, I think
I should like some hot water to-night; I feel a little chilly." And
Bessie rang the bell obediently, and without any surprise in her
manner. Mr. Mayne often woke up chilly from his long nap.

"Are you going to have a 'drap of the cratur'?" asked his son, with
alacrity. "Well, I don't mind joining you, and that's the truth, for
we have been dawdling about, and I am a trifle chilly myself."

"You know I object to spirits for young men," returned Mr. Mayne,
severely: nevertheless he pushed the whiskey to Dick as soon as he
had mixed his own glass, and his son followed his example.

"I am quite of your opinion, father," he observed, as he regarded the
handsome cut-glass decanter somewhat critically; "but there are
exceptions to every rule, and when one is chilly----"

"I wish you would make an exception and stay away from the cottage
sometimes," returned Mr. Mayne, with ill-suppressed impatience. "It
was all very well when you were all young things together, but it is
high time matters should be different."

Dick executed a low whistle of surprise and dismay. He had no idea his
father's irritability had arisen from any definite cause. What a fool
he had been to be so late! it might lead to some unpleasant
discussion. Well, after all, if his father chose to be so disagreeable
it was not his fault; and he was no longer a boy, to be chidden, or
made to do this or that against his own will.

Mr. Mayne was sufficiently shrewd to see that his son was somewhat
taken aback by this sudden onslaught, and he was not slow to press his
advantage. He had wanted to give Dick a bit of his mind for some time,
and after all there is no time like the present.

"Yes, it was all very well when you were a lot of children together,"
he continued. "Of course, it is hard on you, Dick, having no brothers
and sisters to keep you company; your mother and I were always sorry
about that for your sake."

"Oh, don't mention it," interrupted Dick: "on the whole, I am best
pleased as it is."

"But it would have been better for you," returned his father, sharply:
"we should not have had all this fooling and humbug if you had had
sisters of your own."

"Fooling and humbug!" repeated Dick, hotly; "I confess, sir, I don't
quite understand to what you are referring." He was growing very
angry, but his mother flung herself between the combatants.

"Don't, my boy, don't; you must not answer your father in that way.
Richard, what makes you so hard on him to-night? It must be the gout,
Dick: we had better send for Dr. Weatherby in the morning," continued
the anxious woman, with tears in her eyes, "for your dear father would
never be so cross to you as this unless he were going to be ill."

"Stuff and nonsense, Bessie! Dr. Weatherby indeed!" but his voice was
less wrathful. "What is it but fooling, I should like to know, for
Dick to be daundering his time away with a parcel of girls as he does
with these Challoners!"

"I suppose you were never a young man yourself, sir."

"Oh, yes, I was, my boy," and the corners of Mr. Mayne's mouth relaxed
in spite of his efforts to keep serious. "I fell in love with your
mother, and stuck to her for seven or eight years; but I did not make
believe that I was brother to a lot of pretty girls, and waste all my
time dancing attendance on them and running about on their errands."

"You ought to have taken a lesson out of my book," returned his son,
readily.

"No, I ought to have done no such thing, sir!" shouted back Mr. Mayne,
waxing irate again. It could not be denied that Dick could be
excessively provoking when he liked. "Don't I tell you it is time this
sort of thing was stopped? Why, people will begin to talk, and say you
are making up to one of them, it is not right, Dick; it is not,
indeed," with an attempted pathos.

"I don't care that for what people say," returned the young fellow,
snapping his fingers. "Is it not a pity you are saying all this to me
just when I am going away and am not likely to see any of them for the
next six months? You are very hard on me to-night, father; and I can't
think what it is all about."

Mr. Mayne was silent a moment, revolving his son's pathetic speech. It
was true he had been cross, and had said more than he had meant to
say. He had not wished to hinder Dick's innocent enjoyments; but if he
were unknowingly picking flowers at the edge of a precipice, was it
not his duty as a father to warn him?

"I think I have been a little hard, my lad," he said, candidly, "but
there, you and your mother know my bark is worse than my bite. I only
wanted to warn you; that's all, Dick."

"Warn me!--against what, sir?" asked the young man, quickly.

"Against falling in love, really, with one of the Challoner girls!"
returned Mr. Mayne, trying to evade the fire of Dick's eyes, and
blustering a little in consequence. "Why, they have not a penny, one
of them, and, if report be true, Mrs. Challoner's money is very
shakily invested. Paine told me so the other day. He said he should
never wonder if a sudden crash came any minute."

"Is this true, Richard?"

"Paine declares it is; and think of Dick saddling himself with the
support of a whole family!"

"It strikes me you are taking things very much for granted," returned
his son, trying to speak coolly, but flushing like a girl over his
words. "I think you might wait, father, until I proposed bringing you
home a daughter-in-law."

"I am only warning you, Dick, that the Challoner connection would be
distasteful to me," replied Mr. Mayne, feeling that he had gone a
little too far. "If you had brothers and sisters it would not matter
half so much; but it would be too hard if my only son were to cross my
wishes."

"Should you disinherit me, father?" observed Dick, cheerfully. He had
recovered his coolness and pluck, and began to feel more equal to the
occasion.

"We should see about that, but I hardly think it would be for your
advantage to oppose me too much," returned his father with an ominous
pucker of his eyebrows, which warned Dick, that it was hardly safe to
chaff the old boy too much to-night.

"I think I will go to bed, Richard," put in poor Mrs. Mayne. She had
wisely forborne to mix in the discussion, fearing that it would bring
upon her the vials of her husband's wrath. Mr. Mayne was as choleric
as a Welshman, and had a reserve force of sharp cynical sayings that
were somewhat hard to bear. He was disposed to turn upon her on such
occasions, and to accuse her of spoiling Dick and taking his part
against his father; between the two Richards she sometimes had a very
bad time indeed.

Dick lighted his mother's candle, and bade her good-night; but all the
same she knew she had not seen the last of him. A few minutes
afterwards there was a hasty tap at the bedroom door, and Dick thrust
in his head.

"Come in, my dear; I have been expecting you," she said, with a
pleased smile. He always came to her when he was ruffled or put out,
and brought her all his grievances; surely this was the very meaning
and essence of her motherhood,--this healing and comfort that lay in
her power of sympathy.

When he was a little fellow, had she not extracted many a thorn and
bound up many a cut finger? and now he was a man, would she be less
helpful to him when he wanted a different kind of comfort?

"Come in, my son," she said, beckoning him to the low chair beside
her, into which Dick threw himself with a petulant yawn.

"Mother, what made the pater so hard on me to-night? he cut up as
rough as though I had committed some crime."

"I don't think he is quite himself to-night," returned Mrs. Mayne, in
her soft, motherly voice. "I fancy he misses you, Dick, and is half
jealous of the Challoners for monopolizing you. You are all we have,
that's where it is," she finished, stroking the sandy head with her
plump hand; but Dick jerked away from her with a little impatience.

"I think it rather hard that a fellow is to be bullied for doing
nothing at all," replied Dick, with a touch of sullenness. "When the
pater is in this humor it is no use saying anything to him; but you
may as well tell him, mother, that I mean to choose my wife for
myself."

"Oh, my dear, I dare not tell him anything of the kind," returned Mrs.
Mayne, in an alarmed voice; and then, as she glanced at her son, her
terror merged into amusement. There was something so absurdly boyish
in Dick's appearance, such a ludicrous contrast between the manliness
of his speech and his smooth cheek; the little fringe of hirsute
ornament, of which Dick was so proud, was hardly visible in the dim
light; his youthful figure, more clumsy than graceful, had an
unfledged air about it, nevertheless, the boldness of his words took
away her breath.

"Every man has a right to his own choice in such a matter," continued
Dick, loftily. "You may as well tell him, mother, that I intend to
select my own wife."

"My dear, I dare not for worlds----" she began; and then she stopped,
and laid her hand on his shoulder. "Why do you say this to me? there
is plenty of time," she went on hastily; "that is what your father
says, and I think he is right. You are too young for this sort of
thing yet. You must see the world; you must look about you; you must
have plenty of choice," continued the anxious mother. "I shall be hard
to please, Dick, for I shall think no one good enough for my boy; that
is the worst of having only one, and he the best son that ever lived,"
finished Mrs. Mayne, with maternal pride in her voice.

Dick took this effusion very coolly. He was quite used to all this
sort of worship; he did not think badly of himself; he was not
particularly humble-minded or given to troublesome introspection; on
the whole, he thought himself a good fellow, and was not at all
surprised that people appreciated him.

"There are such a lot of cads in the world, one is always glad to fall
in with a different sort," he would say to himself. He was quite of
his mother's opinion, that an honest, God-fearing young fellow, who
spoke the truth and shamed the devil, who had no special vices but a
dislike for early rising, who had tolerable brains, and more than his
share of muscle, who was in the Oxford eleven, and who had earned his
blue ribbon,--that such a one might be considered to set an example to
his generation.

When his mother told him she would be hard to please, Dick looked a
little wicked, and thought of Nan; but the name was not mentioned
between them. Nevertheless, Mrs. Mayne felt with unerring maternal
instinct that, in spite of his youth, Dick's choice was made, and
sighed to herself at the thought of the evil days that were to come.

Poor woman, she was to have little peace that night! Hardly had Dick
finished his grumble and sauntered away, before her husband's step was
heard in his dressing-room.

"Bessie," he called out to her, "why do you allow that boy to keep you
up so late at night? Do you know that it is eleven, and you are still
fully dressed?"

"Is it so late, Richard?"

"Yes, of course," he snapped; "but that is the care you take of your
health; and the way you cosset and spoil that boy is dreadful."

"I don't think Dick is easily spoiled," plucking up a little spirit to
answer him.

"That shows how little you understand boys," returned her husband.
Evidently the whiskey, though it was the best Glenlivat, had failed to
mollify him. It might be dangerous to go too far with Dick, for he had
a way of turning around and defending himself that somewhat
embarrassed Mr. Mayne, but with his wife there would be no such
danger. He would dominate her by his sharp speeches, and reduce her to
abject submission in a moment, for Bessie was the meekest of wives.
"Take care how you side with him," he continued, in a threatening
voice. "He thinks that I am not serious in what I said just now, and
is for carrying it off with a high hand; but I tell you, and you had
better tell him, that I was never more in earnest in my life. I won't
have one of those Challoner girls for a daughter-in-law!"

"Oh, Richard! and Nan is such a sweet girl!" returned his wife, with
tears in her eyes. She was awfully jealous of Nan, at times she almost
dreaded her; but for her boy's sake she would have taken her now to
her heart and defied even her formidable husband. "She is such a
pretty creature, too; no one can help loving her."

"Pshaw!" returned her husband; "pretty creature indeed! that is just
your soft-hearted nonsense. Phillis is ten times prettier, and has
heaps more sense. Why couldn't Dick have taken a fancy to her?"

"Because I am afraid he cares for the other one," returned Mrs. Mayne,
sadly. She had no wish to deceive her husband and she knew that the
golden apple had rolled to Nan's feet.

"Stuff and rubbish!" he responded, wrathfully. "What is a boy of his
age to know about such things? Tell him from me to put this nonsense
out of his head for the next year or two; there is plenty of time to
look out for a wife after that. But I won't have him making up his
mind until he has left Oxford." And Mrs. Mayne, knowing that her
husband had spoken his last word, thankfully withdrew, feeling that in
her heart she secretly agreed with him.




CHAPTER IV.

DICK'S FÊTE.


As Mr. Mayne's wrath soon evaporated, and Dick was a sweet-tempered
fellow and bore no malice, this slight altercation produced no lasting
effect, except that Dick, for the next few days, hurried home to his
dinner, talked a good deal about Switzerland, and never mentioned a
Challoner in his father's hearing.

"We must keep him in a good temper for the 25th," he said to his
mother, with a touch of the Mayne shrewdness.

That day was rapidly approaching, and all sorts of festive
preparations were going on at Longmead. Dick himself gravely
superintended the rolling of the tennis-ground in the large meadow,
and daubed himself plentifully with lime in marking out the courts,
while Mr. Mayne stood with his hands in the pockets of his
shooting-coat watching him. The two were a great deal together just
then: Dick rather stuck to his father during one or two mornings; the
wily young fellow knew that Nan was closeted with his mother, helping
her with all sorts of feminine arrangements, and he was determined to
keep them apart. Nan wondered a great deal why Dick did not come to
interrupt or tease them as usual, and grew a little absent over Mrs.
Mayne's rambling explanations. When the gong sounded, no one asked her
to stay to luncheon. Mrs. Mayne saw her put on her hat without
uttering a single protest.

"It is so good of you to help me, dear," she said, taking the girl
into her embrace. "You are quite sure people won't expect a sit-down
supper?"

"Oh no; the buffet system is best," returned Nan, decidedly. "Half the
people will not stay, and you need not make a fuss about the rest. It
is an afternoon party, you must remember that; only people who are
very intimate will remain for the fun of the thing. Tell Nicholson to
have plenty of ices going; people care most for that sort of
refreshment."

"Yes, dear; I will be sure to remember," returned her friend, meekly.

She was very grateful to Nan for these hints, and was quite willing to
follow her guidance in all such matters; but when Nan proposed once
sending for Dick to ask his opinion on some knotty point that baffled
their women's wits, Mrs. Mayne demurred.

"It is a pity to disturb him; he is with his father; and we can settle
these things by ourselves," she replied, not venturing to mar the
present tranquillity by sending such a message to Dick. Mr. Mayne
would have accompanied his son, and the consultation would hardly have
ended peaceably. "Men have their hobbies. We had better settle all
this together, you and I," she said hurriedly.

Nan merely nodded, and cut the Gordian knot through somewhat
ruthlessly; but on that occasion she put on her hat before the gong
sounded.

"You must be very busy, for one never has a glimpse of you in the
morning," she could not help saying to Dick, as he came in that
afternoon to escort them to Fitzroy Lodge.

"Well, yes, I am tolerably busy," he drawled. "I am never free to do
things in the afternoons,"--a fact that Nan felt was unanswerable.

When Nan and her sisters woke on the morning of the memorable day, the
bright sunshine of a cloudless June day set all their fears at rest.
If the sun smiled on Dick's fête, all would be well. If Nan's
devotions were longer than usual that morning, no one was the wiser;
if she added a little clause, calling down a blessing on a certain
head, no one would be the poorer for such pure prayers; indeed, it
were well if many such were uttered for the young men who go forth
morning after morning into the temptations of life.

Such prayers might stretch like an invisible shield before the
countless foes that environ such a one; fiery darts may be caught upon
it; a deadly thrust may be turned away. What if the blessing would
never reach the ear of the loved one, who goes out unconscious of
sympathy? His guardian angel has heard it, and perchance it has
reached the very gate of heaven.

Nan came down, smiling and radiant, to find Dick waiting for her in
the veranda and chattering to Phillis and Dulce.

"Why, Dick!" she cried, blushing with surprise and pleasure, "to think
of your being here on your birthday morning!"

"I only came to thank you and the girls for your lovely presents,"
returned Dick, becoming rather incoherent and red at the sight of
Nan's blush. "It was so awfully good of you all, to work all those
things for me;" for Nan had taken secret measurements in Dick's room,
and had embroidered a most exquisite mantelpiece valance, and Phillis
and Dulce had worked the corners of a green cloth with wonderful
daffodils and bulrushes to cover Dick's shabby table: and Dick's soul
had been filled with ravishment at the sight of these gifts.

Nan would not let him go on, but all the same his happy face delighted
her.

"No, don't thank us, we liked doing it," she returned, rather coolly.
"You know we owed you something after all your splendid hospitality,
and work is never any trouble to us."

"But I never saw anything I liked better," blurted out Dick. "All the
fellows will be jealous of me. I am sure I don't know what Hamilton
will say. It was awfully good of you, Nan, and so it was of the
others: and if I don't make it up to you somehow, my name is not
Dick:" and he smiled round at them as he spoke. "Fancy putting in all
those stitches for me!" he thought to himself.

"We are so glad you are pleased," returned Nan, with one of her sweet,
straightforward looks; "that is what we wanted to give you,--a little
surprise on your birthday. Now you must tell us about your other
presents." And Dick, nothing loath, launched into eloquent
descriptions of the silver-fitted dressing-case from his mother, and
the gun and thorough-bred collie that had been his father's gifts.

"He is such a fine fellow; I must show him to you this afternoon,"
went on Dick, eagerly. "His name is Vigo, and he has such a superb
head. Was it not good of the pater? he knew I had a fancy for a
collie, and he has been in treaty for one ever so long. Is he not a
dear old boy?" cried Dick, rapturously. But he did not tell his
friends of the crisp bundle of bank-notes with which Mr. Mayne had
enriched his son; only as Dick fingered them lovingly, he wondered
what pretty foreign thing he could buy for Nan, and whether her mother
would allow her to accept it.

After this Nan dismissed him somewhat peremptorily; he must go back to
his breakfast, and allow them to do the same.

"Mind you come early," were Dick's last words as he waved his straw
hat to them. How often the memory of that morning recurred to him as
he stood solitarily and thoughtful, contemplating some grand sketch of
Alpine scenery!

The snow peaks and blue glaciers melted away before his eyes; in their
place rose unbidden a picture framed in green trellis-work, over which
roses were climbing.

Fresh girlish faces smiled back at him; the brightest and kindest of
glances met his. "Good-bye, Dick; a thousand good wishes from us all."
A slim white hand had gathered a rose-bud for him; how proudly he had
worn it all that day! Stop, he had it still; it lay all crushed and
withered in his pocket-book. He had written the date under it; one day
he meant to show it to her. Oh, foolish days of youth, so prodigal of
minor memories and small deeds of gifts, when a withered flower can
hold the rarest scent, and in a crumpled roseleaf there is a whole
volume of ecstatic meaning! Oh, golden days of youth, never to be
surpassed!

Never in the memory of Oldfield had there been a more delicious day.

The sky was cloudless; long purple shadows lay under the elm-trees; a
concert of bird-music sounded from the shrubberies: in the green
meadows flags were waving, tent-draperies fluttering; the house-doors
stood open, showing a flower-decked hall and vista of cool shadowy
rooms.

Dick, looking bright and trim, wandering restlessly over the place,
and Mr. Mayne fidgeted after him; while Mrs. Mayne sat fanning herself
under the elm-trees and hoping the band would not be late.

No there it was turning in now at the stable-entrance, and playing
"The girl I left behind me;" and there at the same moment was Nan
coming up the lawn in her white gown, closely followed by her mother
and sisters.

"Are we the first?" she asked, as Dick darted across the grass to meet
her. "That is nice; we shall see all the people arrive. How
inspiriting that music is, and how beautiful everything looks!"

"It is awfully jolly of you to be the first," whispered Dick; "and how
nice you look, Nan! You always do, you know, but to-day you are
first-rate. Is this a new gown?" casting an approving look over Nan's
costume, which was certainly very fresh and pretty.

"Oh, yes; we have all new dresses in your honor, and we made them
ourselves," returned Nan, carelessly. "Mother has got her old silk,
but for her it does not so much matter; at least that is what she
says."

"And she is quite right. She is always real splendid, as the Yankees
say, whatever she wears," returned Dick, wishing secretly that his
mother in her new satin dress looked half so well as Mrs. Challoner in
her old one. But it was no use. Mrs. Mayne never set off her handsome
dresses; with her flushed, good-natured face and homely ways, she
showed to marked disadvantage beside Mrs. Challoner's faded beauty.
Mrs. Challoner's gown might be antique, but nothing could surpass the
quiet grace of her carriage, or the low pleasant modulations of her
voice. Her figure was almost as slim as her daughters', and she could
easily have passed for their elder sister.

Lady Fitzroy, who was a Burgoyne by birth,--and every one knows that
for haughtiness and a certain exclusive intoleration none could match
the Burgoynes,--always distinguished Mrs. Challoner by the marked
attention she paid her.

"A very lady-like woman, Percival. Certainly the most lady-like person
in the neighborhood," she would say to her husband, who was not quite
so exclusive, and always made himself pleasant to his neighbors; and
she would ask very graciously after her brother-in-law, Sir Francis
Challoner. "He is still in India, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes; he is still in India," Mrs. Challoner would reply, rather
curtly. She had not the faintest interest in her husband's brother,
whom she had never seen more than twice in her life, and who was
understood to be small credit to his family. The aforesaid Sir Francis
Challoner had been the poorest of English baronets. His property had
dwindled down until it consisted simply of a half ruined residence in
the north of England.

In his young days Sir Francis had been a prodigal, and, like the
prodigal in the parable, he had betaken himself into far countries,
not to waste his substance, for he had none, but if possible to glean
some of the Eastern riches.

Whether he had been successful or not Mrs. Challoner hardly knew. That
he had married and settled in Calcutta,--that he had a son named
Harry, who had once written to her in round hand and subscribed
himself as her affectionate nephew, Henry Ford Challoner--this she
knew; but what manner of person Lady Challoner might be, or what sort
of home her brother-in-law had made for himself, those points were
enveloped in mystery.

"I suppose she is so civil to me because of your uncle Francis," she
used to say to her girls, which was attributing to Lady Fitzroy a
degree of snobbishness that was quite undeserved. Lady Fitzroy really
liked Mrs. Challoner and found intercourse with her very pleasant and
refreshing. When one is perfectly well-bred, there is a subtile charm
in harmony of voice and manner. Mrs. Challoner might have dressed in
rags if she liked, and the young countess would still have aired her
choicest smiles for her.

It was lucky Nan had those few words from Dick, for they fell apart
after this, and were separated the greater portion of the afternoon.

Carriages began to drive in at the gates; groups of well-dressed
people thronged the lawn, and were drafted off to the field where the
band was playing.

Nan and her sisters had their work cut out for them; they knew
everybody and they were free of the house. It was they who helped Dick
arrange the tennis-matches, who pointed out to the young men of the
party which was the tea-tent, and where the ices and claret-cup were
to be found. They marshalled the elder ladies into pleasant nooks,
where they could be sheltered from the sun and see all that was going
on.

"No, thank you; I shall not play tennis this afternoon; there are too
many of us, and I am so busy," Nan said, dismissing one after another
who came up to her. "If you want a partner, there is Carrie Paine, who
is dying for a game."

Dick, who was passing with Lady Fitzroy on his arm, whom he was
hurrying somewhat unceremoniously across the field, threw her a
grateful glance as he went by.

"What a sweet-looking girl that is!" said Lady Fitzroy, graciously, as
she panted a little over her exertion.

"Who?--Nan? Yes; isn't she a brick?--and the others too?" for Phillis
and Dulce were just as self-denying in their labors. As Mr. Mayne said
afterwards, "They were just everywhere, those Challoners, like a hive
of swarming bees;" which, as it was said in a grumbling tone, was
ungrateful, to say the least of it.

Dick worked like a horse too; he looked all the afternoon as though he
had a tough job in hand that required the utmost gravity and despatch.
He was forever hurrying elderly ladies across the field towards the
refreshment-tent, where he deposited them, panting and heated, in all
sorts of corners.

"Are you quite comfortable? May I leave you now? or shall I wait and
take you back again?" asked Dick, who was eager for a fresh convoy.

"No, no; I would rather stay here a little," returned Mrs. Paine, who
was not desirous of another promenade with the hero of the day. "Go
and fetch some one else, Dick: I am very well off where I am,"
exchanging an amused glance with one of her friends, as Dick, hot and
breathless, started off on another voyage of discovery.

Dick's behavior had been simply perfect all the afternoon in his
father's eyes; but later on, when the band struck up a set of
quadrilles, he committed his first solecism in manners: instead of
asking Lady Fitzroy to dance with him, he hurried after Nan.

"This is our dance; come along," he said, taking her unwilling hand;
but she held back a moment.

"Are you sure? Is there not some one else you ought to choose?--Lady
Fitzroy, for example?" questioned Nan, with admirable forethought.

"Bother Lady Fitzroy!" exclaimed Dick, under his breath; he had had
quite enough of that lady. "Why are you holding back, Nan, in this
fashion?" a cloud coming over his face. "Haven't you promised weeks
ago to give me the first dance?" And Nan, seeing the cloud on his
face, yielded without another word. Dick always managed to have his
own way somehow.

"Dick! Dick!" cried his father, in a voice of agony, as they passed
him.

"All in good time; coming presently," returned the scapegrace,
cheerfully. "Now, Nan, this is our place. We will have Hamilton and
Dulce for our _vis-a-vis_. What a jolly day; and isn't this
first-rate?" exclaimed Dick, rubbing his hands, and feeling as though
he were only just beginning to enjoy himself.

Nan was not quite so easy in her mind.

"Your father does not look very pleased. I am afraid, after all, you
ought to have asked Lady Fitzroy," she said, in a low voice; but Dick
turned a deaf ear. He showed her the rose in his buttonhole; and when
Nan told him it was withered, and wanted him to take it out, he gave
her a reproachful look that made her blush.

They were very happy after this; and, when the dance was over, Dick
gave her his arm, and carried her off to see Vigo, who was howling a
deep mournful bass at the back of the gardener's cottage.

Nan made friends with him, and stroked his black curly head, and
looked lovingly into his deep melancholy eyes; and then, as her
flowers were fading, they strolled off into the conservatory, where
Dick gathered her a fresh bouquet and then sat down and watched her
arrange it.

"What clever fingers you have got!" he said, looking at them
admiringly, as Nan sorted the flowers in her lap; and at this unlucky
moment they were discovered by Mr. Mayne, who was bringing Lady
Fitzroy to see a favorite orchid.

He shot an angry suspicious glance at his son.

"Dick, your mother is asking for you," he said, rather abruptly; but
Dick growled something in an undertone, and did not move.

Nan gave him a frightened nudge. Why was he so imprudent?

"I cannot move, because of my flowers; do go, Dick. You must indeed,
if your mother wants you;" and she looked at him in such a pleading
way that Dick dared not refuse. It was just like his father to come
and disturb his first happy moments and to order him off to go and do
something disagreeable. He had almost a mind to brave it out, and
remain in spite of him; but there was Nan looking at him in a
frightened, imploring way.

"Oh, do go, Dick," giving him a little impatient push in her
agitation; "if your mother wants you, you must not keep her waiting."
But Nan in her heart knew, as Dick did in his, that the message was
only a subterfuge to separate them.




CHAPTER V.

"I AM QUITE SURE OF HIM."


Nan would willingly have effected her escape too, but she was detained
by the flowers that Dick had tossed so lightly into her lap. She was
rather dismayed at her position, and her fingers trembled a little
over their work. There was a breath--a sudden entering current--of
antagonism and prejudice that daunted her. Lady Fitzroy cast an
admiring look at the girl as she sat there with glowing cheeks and
downcast lids.

"How pretty she is!" she said, in a low voice, as Mr. Mayne pointed
out his favorite orchid. "She is like her mother; there is just the
same quiet style, only I suspect Mrs. Challoner was even better
looking in her time."

"Humph! yes, I suppose so," returned her host, in a dissatisfied tone.
He had not brought Lady Fitzroy there to talk of the Challoners, but
to admire his orchids. Then he shot another glance at Nan between his
half-closed eyes, and a little spice of malice flavored his next
words.

"Shall we sit here a moment? Let me see: you were asking me, Lady
Fitzroy, about Dick's prospects. I was talking to his mother about
them the other day. I said to her then, Dick must settle in life well;
he must marry money."

"Indeed?" replied Lady Fitzroy, somewhat absently; she even indulged
in a slight yawn behind her fan. She liked Dick well enough, as every
one else did, but she was not partial to his father. How tiresome it
was of Fitzroy to insist so much on their neighborly duties!

Mr. Mayne was not "one of them," as she would have phrased it; he did
not speak their language or lead their life; their manners and
customs, their little tricks and turns of thought were hieroglyphics
to him.

A man who had never had a grandfather,--at least a grandfather worth
knowing,--whose father's hands had dabbled in trade,--actually
trade,--such a one might be a very worthy man, an excellent citizen,
an exemplary husband and father, but it behooved a woman in her
position not to descend too freely to his level.

"Percival is such a sad Radical," she would say to herself; "he does
not make sufficient distinction between people. I should wish to be
neighborly, but I cannot bring myself to be familiar with these
Maynes;" which was perhaps the reason why Lady Fitzroy was not as
popular at Longmead and in other places as her good-natured husband.

"Oh, indeed?" she said, with difficulty repressing another slight yawn
behind her fan, but speaking in a fatigued voice: but Mr. Mayne was
too intent on his purpose to notice it.

"If Dick had brothers and sisters it would not matter so much; but
when one has only a single hope--eh, Lady Fitzroy?--things must be a
little different then."

"He will have plenty of choice," she returned, with an effort at
graciousness. "Oldfield is rich in pretty girls:" and she cast another
approving glance at poor Nan, but Mr. Mayne interrupted her almost
rudely.

"Ah, as to that," he returned, with a sneer, "we want no such nonsense
for Dick. Here are the facts of the case. Here is an honest,
good-tempered young fellow, but with no particular push in him; he has
money, you say,--yes, but not enough to give him the standing I want
him to have. I am ambitious for Dick. I want him to settle in life
well. Why, he might be called to the bar; he might enter Parliament;
there is no limit to a man's career nowadays. I will do what I can for
him, but he must meet me half-way."

"You mean," observed Lady Fitzroy, with a little perplexity in her
tone, "that he must look out for an heiress." She was not in the
secret, and she could not understand why her host was treating her to
this outburst of confidence. "It was so disagreeable to be mixed up
with this sort of thing," as she told her husband afterwards. "I never
knew him quite so odious before; and there was that pretty Miss
Challoner sitting near us, and he never let me address a word to
her."

Nan began to feel she had had enough of it. She started up hastily as
Lady Fitzroy said the last words, but the entrance of some more young
people compelled her to stand inside a moment, and she heard Mr.
Mayne's answer distinctly: "Well, not an heiress exactly; but the girl
I have in view for him has a pretty little sum of money, and the
connection is all that could be wished; she is nice-looking, too, and
is a bright, talking little body----" But here Nan made such a
resolute effort to pass, that the rest of the sentence was lost upon
her.

Dick, who was strolling up and down the lawn rather discontentedly,
hurried up to her as she came out.

"They are playing a valse; come, Nan," he said, holding out his hand
to her with his usual eagerness; but she shook her head.

"I cannot dance; I am too tired: there are others you ought to ask."
She spoke a little ungraciously, and Dick's face wore a look of
dismay, as she walked away from him with quick even footsteps.

Tired! Nan tired! he had never heard of such a thing. What had put her
out? The sweet brightness had died out of her eyes, and her cheeks
were flaming. Should he follow her and have it out with her, there and
then? But, as he hesitated, young Hamilton came over the grass and
linked his arm in his.

"Come and introduce me to that girl in blue gauze, or whatever you
call that flimsy manufacture. Come along, there's a good fellow," he
said, coaxingly; and Dick's opportunity was lost.

But he was wrong; for once in her life Nan was tired; the poor girl
felt a sudden quenching of her bright elasticity that amounted to
absolute fatigue.

She had spoken to Dick sharply; but that was to get rid of him and to
recall him to a sense of his duty. Not for worlds would she be seen
dancing with him, or even talking to him, again!

She sat down on a stump of a tree in the shrubbery, and wondered
wearily what had taken it out of her so much. And then she recalled,
sentence by sentence, everything that had passed in the conservatory.

She had found out quite lately that Mr. Mayne did not approve of her
intimacy with Dick. His manner had somewhat changed to her, and
several times he had spoken to her in a carping, fault-finding
way,--little cut-and-dried sentences of elderly wisdom that she had
not understood at the time.

She had not pleased him of late, somehow, and all her little efforts
and overtures had been lost upon him. Nan had been quite aware of
this, but it had not troubled her much: it was a way he had, and he
meant nothing by it. Most men had humors that must be respected, and
Dick's father had his. So she bore herself very sweetly towards him,
treating his caustic remarks as jokes, and laughing pleasantly at
them, never taking his hints in earnest; he would know better some
day, that was all; but she had no idea of any deeply-laid plan against
their happiness. She felt as though some one had struck her hard; she
had received a blow that set all her nerves tingling. It was very
funny, what he said; it was so droll that it almost made her laugh;
and yet her eyes smarted, and her cheeks felt on fire.

"'Dick must marry money.' Why must he?--that was so droll. 'Well, not
an heiress exactly, but a pretty little sum of money, and a bright,
taking little body.' Who was this mysterious person whom he had in
view, whose connections were so desirable, who was to be Dick's future
wife? Dick's future wife!" repeated Nan, with an odd little quiver of
her lip. "And was it not droll, settling it all for him like that?"

Nan fell into a brown study, and then woke up with a little gasp. It
was all clear to her now, all these cut-and-dried sentences,--all
those veiled sneers and innuendoes.

They were poor,--poor as church-mice,--and Dick must marry money. Mr.
Mayne had laid his plans for his son, and was watching their growing
intimacy with disapproving eyes. Perhaps "the bright, taking little
body" might accompany them to Switzerland; perhaps among the mountains
Dick would forget her, and lend a ready acquiescence to his father's
plans. Who was she? Had Nan ever seen her? Could she be here this
afternoon, this future rival and enemy of her peace?

"Ah, what nonsense I am thinking!" she exclaimed to herself, starting
up with a little shame and impatience at her own thoughts. "What has
this all got to do with me? Let them settle it between
them,--money-bags and all. Dick is Dick, and after all, I am not
afraid!" And Nan marched back to the company, with her head higher,
and a great assumption of cheerfulness, and a little gnawing feeling
of discomfort at her heart, to which she would not have owned for
worlds.

Nan was the gayest of the gay that evening, but she would not dance
again with Dick: she sent the poor boy away from her with a decision
and peremptoriness that struck him with fresh dismay.

"You are not tired now, Nan; and have been waltzing ever so long with
Cathcart and Hamilton."

"Never mind about me to-night: you must go and ask Lady Fitzroy. No, I
am not cross. Do you think I would be cross to you on your birthday?
but all the same I will not have you neglect your duties. Go and ask
her this moment, sir!" And Nan smiled in his face in the most
bewitching way, and gave a little flutter to her fan. She accepted Mr.
Hamilton's invitation to a valse under Dick's very eyes, and whirled
away on his arm, while Dick stood looking at her ruefully.

Just at the very last moment Nan's heart relented.

"Walk down to the gate with us," she whispered, as she passed him on
her way to the cloak-room.

Dick, who was by this time in a somewhat surly humor, make no sort of
response; nevertheless Nan found him out on the gravel path waiting
for them in company with Cathcart and Hamilton.

Nan shook off the latter rather cleverly, and took Dick's arm, in
cheerful unconsciousness of his ill-humor.

"It is so good of you to come with us. I wanted to get you a moment to
myself, to congratulate you on the success of the evening. It was
admirably managed; every one says so: even Lady Fitzroy was pleased,
and her ladyship is a trifle fastidious. Have the band in-doors, and
set them to dancing,--that is what I said; and it has turned out a
complete success," finished Nan, with a little gush of enthusiasm; but
she did not find Dick responsive.

"Oh! bother the success and all that!" returned that very misguided
young man; "it was the slowest affair to me, I assure you, and I am
thankful it is over. You have spoiled the evening to me, and that is
what you have done," grumbled Dick, in his most ominous voice.

"I spoiled your evening, you ungrateful boy!" replied Nan, innocently;
but she smiled to herself in the darkness, and the reproach was sweet
to her. They had entered the garden of Glen Cottage by this time, and
Dick was fiercely marching her down a side-path that led to the
kitchen. The hall door stood open. Cathcart and Hamilton were
chattering with the girls in the porch, while Mrs. Challoner went
inside. They peered curiously into the summer dusk, as Dick's
impatient footsteps grated on the gravel path.

"I spoiled your evening!" repeated Nan, lifting her bright eyes with
the gleam of fun still in them.

"Yes," blurted out Dick. "Why have you kept me at such a distance all
the evening? Why would you not dance with me? and you gave Hamilton
three valses. It was not like you, Nan, to treat me so,--and on my
birthday too," went on the poor fellow, with a pathos that brought
another sort of gleam to Nan's eyes, only she still laughed.

"Ah, you foolish boy!" she said, and gave his coat-sleeve a coaxing
little pat. "I would rather have danced with you than Mr. Hamilton,
though he does reverse beautifully, and I never knew any one who
waltzed more perfectly."

"Oh, I do not presume to rival Hamilton," began Dick hotly, but she
silenced him.

"Listen to me, you foolish Dick! I would have danced with you, and
willingly, but I knew my duty better, or rather I knew yours. You were
a public man to-day; the eyes of the county were upon you. You had to
pay court to the big ladies, and to take no notice of poor little me.
I sent you away for your own good, and because I valued your duty
above my pleasure," continued this heroic young person, in a perfectly
satisfied tone.

"And you wanted to dance with me, Nan, and not with that goose of a
Hamilton?" in a wheedling voice.

"Yes, Dick; but he is not a goose for all that: he is more of a swan
in my opinion."

"He is a conceited ass!" was the very unexpected reply, which was a
little hard on Dick's chum, who was in many ways a most estimable
young man and vastly his superior. "Why are you laughing, when you
know I hate prigs? and Hamilton is about the biggest I ever knew." But
this did not mend matters, and Nan's laugh still rang merrily in the
darkness.

"What are those two doing?" asked Phillis, trying to peep between the
lilac-bushes, but failing to discover more than the white glimmer of
Nan's shawl.

Nan's laugh, though it was full of sweet triumph, only irritated Dick;
the lord of the evening was still too sore and humiliated by all these
rebuffs and repulses to take the fun in good part.

"What is it that amuses you so?" he asked, rather crossly. "That is
the worst of you girls; you are always so ready to make merry at a
fellow's expense. You are taking Hamilton's part against me, Nan,--I,
who am your oldest friend, who have always been faithful to you ever
since you were a child," continued the young man, with a growing sense
of aggravation.

"Oh, Dick!" and Nan's voice faltered a little; she was rather touched
at this.

Dick took instant note of the change of key, and went on in the same
injured voice:

"Why should I look after all the big people and take no notice of you?
Have I not made it my first duty to look after you as long as I can
remember? Though the whole world were about us, would you not be the
first and the principal to me?"

"Don't, Dick," she said, faintly, trying to repress him; "you must not
talk in that way, and I must not listen to you; your father would not
like it." The words were sweet to her,--precious beyond
everything,--but she must not have him speak them. But Dick, in his
angry excitement, was not to be repressed.

"What does it matter what he likes? This is between you and me, Nan;
no one shall meddle between us two." But what imprudent speech Dick
was about to add was suddenly quenched in light-pealing laughter. At
this critical moment they were met and surrounded; before them was the
red glow of Cathcart's cigar, the whiteness of Phillis's gown; behind
were two more advancing figures. In another second the young people
had joined hands: a dusky ring formed round the startled pair.

"Fairly caught!" cried Dulce's sunshiny voice; the mischievous little
monkey had no idea of the sport she was spoiling. None of the young
people thought of anything but fun; Dick was just Dick, and he and Nan
were always together.

Dick muttered something inaudible under his breath; but Nan was quite
equal to the occasion; she was still palpitating a little with the
pleasure Dick's words had given her, but she confronted her tormentors
boldly.

"You absurd creatures," she said, "to steal a march on us like that!
Dick and I were having a quarrel; we were fighting so hard that we did
not hear you."

"I enjoy a good fight above everything," exclaimed Cathcart, throwing
away his cigar. He was a handsome dark-eyed boy, with no special
individuality, except an overweening sense of fun. "What's the odds,
Mayne? and who is likely to be the winner?"

"Oh, Nan, of course," returned Dick, trying to recover himself. "I am
the captive of her spear and of her bow: she is in possession of
everything, myself included."

The rest laughed at Dick's jest, as they thought it; and Mr. Hamilton
said, "Bravo, Miss Challoner! we will help to drag him at your
chariot-wheels." But Nan changed color in the darkness.

They went in after this, and the young men took their leave in the
porch. Dick's strong grip of the hand conveyed his meaning fully to
Nan: "Remember, I meant it all," it seemed to say to her.

"What did it matter? I am quite sure of him. Dick is Dick," thought
Nan, as she laid her head happily on the pillow.

As for Dick, he had a long ordeal before him ere he could make his
escape to the smoking-room, where his friends awaited him. Mr. Mayne
had a great deal to say to him about the day, and Dick had to listen
and try to look interested.

"I am sure Dick behaved beautifully," observed Mrs. Mayne, when the
son and heir had at last lounged off to his companions.

"Well, yes; he did very well on the whole," was the grudging response;
"but I must say those Challoner girls made themselves far too
conspicuous for my taste;" but to this his wife prudently made no
reply.




CHAPTER VI.

MR. TRINDER'S VISIT.


The next few days passed far too quickly for Nan's pleasure, and
Dick's last morning arrived. The very next day the Maynes were to
start for Switzerland, and Longmead was to stand empty for the
remainder of the summer. It was a dreary prospect for Nan, and in
spite of her high spirits her courage grew somewhat low. Six months!
who could know what might happen before they met again? Nan was not
the least bit superstitious, neither was it her wont to indulge in
useless speculations or forebodings; but she could not shake off this
morning a strange uncanny feeling that haunted her in spite of
herself--a presentiment that things were not going to be just as she
would have them,--that Dick and she would not meet again in exactly
the same manner.

"How silly I am!" she thought, for the twentieth time, as she brushed
out her glossy brown hair and arranged it in her usual simple
fashion.

Nan and her sisters were a little behind the times in some ways; they
had never thought fit to curl their hair _en garcon_, or to mount a
pyramid of tangled curls in imitation of a poodle; no pruning scissors
had touched the light-springing locks that grew so prettily about
their temples; in this, as in much else, they were unlike other girls,
for they dared to put individuality before fashion, and good taste and
a sense of beauty against the specious arguments of the multitude.

"How silly I am!" again repeated Nan. "What can happen, what should
happen, except that I shall have a dull summer, and shall be very glad
when Christmas and Dick come together;" and then she shook her little
basket of housekeeping keys until they jingled merrily, and ran
downstairs with a countenance she meant to keep bright for the rest of
the day.

They were to play tennis at the Paines' that afternoon, and afterwards
the three girls were to dine at Longmead. Mrs. Challoner had been
invited also; but she had made some excuse, and pleaded for a quiet
evening. She was never very ready to accept these invitations; there
was nothing in common between her and Mrs. Mayne; and in her heart she
agreed with Lady Fitzroy in thinking the master of Longmead odious.

It was Mr. Mayne who had tendered this parting hospitality to his
neighbors, and he chose to be much offended at Mrs. Challoner's
refusal.

"I think it is very unfriendly of your mother, when we are such old
neighbors, and on our last evening, too," he said to Nan, as she
entered the drawing-room that evening bringing her mother's excuses
wrapped up in the prettiest words she could find.

"Mother is not quite well; she does not feel up to the exertion of
dining out to-night," returned Nan, trying to put a good face on it,
but feeling as though things were too much for her this evening. It
was bad enough for Mr. Mayne to insist on them all coming up to a long
formal dinner, and spoiling their chances of a twilight stroll; but it
was still worse for her mother to abandon them after this fashion.

The new novel must have had something to do with this sudden
indisposition; but when Mrs. Challoner had wrapped herself up in her
white shawl, always a bad sign with her, and had declared herself
unfit for any exertion, what could a dutiful daughter do but deliver
her excuses as gracefully as she could? Nevertheless, Mr. Mayne
frowned and expressed himself ill pleased.

"I should have thought an effort could have been made on such an
occasion," was his final thrust, as he gave his arm ungraciously to
Nan, and conducted her with ominous solemnity to the table.

It was not a festive meal, in spite of all Mrs. Mayne's efforts. Dick
looked glum. He was separated from Nan by a vast silver epergne, that
fully screened her from view. Another time she would have peeped
merrily round at him and given him a sprightly nod or two; but how was
she to do it when Mr. Mayne never relaxed his gloomy muscles, and when
he insisted on keeping up a ceremonious flow of conversation with her
on the subjects of the day?

When Dick tried to strike into their talk, he got so visibly snubbed
that he was obliged to take refuge with Phillis.

"You young fellows never know what you are talking about," observed
Mr. Mayne, sharply, when Dick had hazarded a remark about the
Premier's policy; "you are a Radical one day, and a Conservative
another. That comes of your debating societies. You take contrary
sides, and mix up a balderdash of ideas, until you don't know whether
you are standing on your head or your heels;" and it was after this
that Dick found his refuge with Phillis.

It was little better when they were all in the drawing-room together.
If Mr. Mayne had invited them there for the purpose of keeping them
all under his own eyes and making them uncomfortable, he could not
have managed better. When Dick suggested a stroll in the garden, he
said,--

"Pshaw! what nonsense proposing such a thing, when the dews are heavy
and the girls will catch their deaths of cold!"

"We do it every evening of our life," observed Nan, hardily; but even
she dared not persevere in the face of this protest, though she
exchanged a rebellious look with Dick that did him good and put him in
a better humor.

They found their way into the conservatory after that, but were hunted
out on pretence of having a little music; at least Nan would have it
that it was pretence.

"Your father does not care much for music, I know," she whispered, as
she placed herself at the grand piano, while Dick leaned against it
and watched her. It was naughty of Nan, but there was no denying that
she found Mr. Mayne more aggravating than usual this evening.

"Come, come, Miss Nancy!" he called out,--he always called her that
when he wished to annoy her, for Nan had a special dislike to her
quaint, old-fashioned name; it had been her mother's and grandmother's
name; in every generation there had been a Nancy Challoner,--"come,
come, Miss Nancy! we cannot have you playing at hide-and-seek in this
fashion. We want some music. Give us something rousing, to keep us all
awake." And Nan had reluctantly placed herself at the piano.

She did her little best according to orders, for she dared not offend
Dick's father. None of the Challoners were accomplished girls. Dulce
sang a little, and so did Nan, but Phillis could not play the simplest
piece without bungling and her uncertain little warblings, which were
sweet but hardly true, were reserved for church.

Dulce sang very prettily, but she could only manage her own
accompaniments or a sprightly valse. Nan, who did most of the
execution of the family, was a very fair performer from a young lady's
point of view, and that is not saying much. She always had her piece
ready if people wanted her to play. She sat down without nervousness
and rose without haste. She had a choice little repertory of old songs
and ballads, that she could produce without hesitation from
memory,--"My mother bids me bind my hair," or "Bid your faithful Ariel
fly," and such-like old songs, in which there is more melody than in a
hundred new ones, and which she sang in a simple, artless fashion that
pleased the elder people greatly. Dulce could do more than this, but
her voice had never been properly tutored, and she sang her bird-music
in bird-fashion, rather wildly and shrilly, with small respect to
rule and art, nevertheless making a pleasing noise, a young foreigner
once told her.

When Nan had exhausted her little stock, Mr. Mayne peremptorily
invited them to a round game; and the rest of the evening was spent in
trying to master the mysteries of a new game, over the involved rules
of which Mr. Mayne as usual, wrangled fiercely with everybody, while
Dick shrugged his shoulders and shuffled his cards with such evident
ill-humor that Nan hurried her sisters away half an hour before the
usual time, in terror of an outbreak.

It was an utterly disappointing evening; and, to make matters worse,
Mr. Mayne actually lit his cigar and strolled down the garden-paths,
keeping quite close to Nan, and showing such obvious intention of
accompanying them to the very gate of the cottage that there could be
no thought of any sweet lingering in the dusk.

"I will be even with him," growled Dick, who was in a state of
suppressed irritation under this unexpected surveillance; and in the
darkest part of the road he twitched Nan's sleeve to attract her
attention, and whispered, in so low a voice that his father could not
hear him, "This is not good-bye. I will be round at the cottage
to-morrow morning;" and Nan nodded hurriedly, and then turned her head
to answer Mr. Mayne's last question.

If Dick had put all his feelings in his hand-shake, it could not have
spoken to Nan more eloquently of the young man's wrath and chagrin and
concealed tenderness. Nan shot him one of her swift straightforward
looks in answer.

"Nevermind," it seemed to say; "we shall have to-morrow;" and then she
bade them cheerfully good-night.

Dorothy met her in the hall, and put down her chamber-candlestick.

"Has the mother gone to bed yet, Dorothy?" questioned the young
mistress, speaking still with that enforced cheerfulness.

"No, Miss Nan; she is still in there," jerking her head in the
direction of the drawing-room. "Mr. Trinder called, and was with her a
long time. I thought she seemed a bit poorly when I took in the
lamp."

"Mamsie is never fit for anything when that old ogre has been," broke
in Dulce, impatiently. "He always comes and tells her some nightmare
tale or other to prevent her sleeping. Now we shall not have the new
gowns we set our hearts on, Nan."

"Oh, never mind the gowns," returned Nan, rather wearily.

What did it matter if they had to wear their old ones when Dick would
not be there to see them? And Dorothy, who was contemplating her
favorite nursling with the privileged tenderness of an old servant,
chimed in with the utmost cheerfulness:

"It does not matter what she wears; does it, Miss Nan? She looks just
as nice in an old gown as a new one; that is what I say of all my
young ladies; dress does not matter a bit to them."

"How long are you all going to stand chattering with Dorothy?"
interrupted Phillis, in her clear decided voice. "Mother will wonder
what conspiracy we are hatching, and why we leave her so long alone."
And then Dorothy took up her candlestick, grumbling a little, as she
often did, over Miss Phillis's masterful ways, and the girls went
laughingly into their mother's presence.

Though it was summer-time, Mrs. Challoner's easy-chair was drawn up in
front of the rug, and she sat wrapped in her white shawl, with her
eyes fixed on the pretty painted fire-screen that hid the blackness of
the coals. She did not turn her head or move as her daughters entered;
indeed, so motionless was her attitude that Dulce thought she was
asleep, and went on tiptoe round her chair to steal a kiss. But Nan,
who had caught sight of her mother's face, put her quickly aside.

"Don't, Dulce; mother is not well. What is the matter, mammie,
darling?" kneeling down and bringing her bright face on a level with
her mother's. She would have taken her into her vigorous young arms,
but Mrs. Challoner almost pushed her away.

"Hush, children! Do be quiet, Nan; I cannot talk to you. I cannot
answer questions to-night." And then she shivered, and drew her shawl
closer round her, and put away Nan's caressing hands, and looked at
them all with a face that seemed to have grown pinched and old all at
once, and eyes full of misery.

"Mammie, you must speak to us," returned Nan, not a whit daunted by
this rebuff, but horribly frightened all the time. "Of course, Dorothy
told us that Mr. Trinder has been here, and of course we know that it
is some trouble about money." Then, at the mention of Mr. Trinder's
name, Mrs. Challoner shivered again.

Nan waited a moment for an answer: but, as none came, she went on in
coaxing voice:

"Don't be afraid to tell us, mother darling; we can all bear a little
trouble, I hope. We have had such happy lives, and we cannot go on
being happy always," continued the girl, with the painful conviction
coming suddenly into her mind that the brightness of these days was
over. "Money is very nice, and one cannot do without it, I suppose;
but as long as we are together and love each other----"

Then Mrs. Challoner fixed her heavy eyes on her daughter and took up
the unfinished sentence:

"Ah, if we could only be together!--if I were not to be separated from
my children! it is that--that is crushing me!" and then she pressed
her dry lips together, and folded her hands with a gesture of despair;
"but I know that it must be, for Mr. Trinder has told me everything.
It is no use shutting our eyes and struggling on any longer; for we
are ruined--ruined!" her voice sinking into indistinctness.

Nan grew a little pale. If they were ruined, how would it be with her
and Dick! And then she thought of Mr. Mayne, and her heart felt faint
within her. Nan, who had Dick added to her perplexities, was hardly
equal to the emergency; but it was Phillis who took the domestic helm
as it fell from her sister's hand.

"If we be ruined, mother," she said, briskly, "it is not half so bad
as having you ill. Nan, why don't you rub her hands! she is shivering
with cold, or with the bad news, or something. I mean to set Dorothy
at defiance, and to light a nice little fire, in spite of the clean
muslin curtains. When one is ill or unhappy, there is nothing so
soothing as a fire," continued Phillis as she removed the screen and
kindled the dry wood, not heeding Mrs. Challoner's feeble
remonstrances.

"Don't, Phillis: we shall not be able to afford fires now;" and then
she became a little hysterical. But Phillis persisted, and the red
glow was soon coaxed into a cheerful blaze.

"That looks more comfortable. I feel chilly myself; these summer
nights are sometimes deceptive. I wonder what Dorothy will say to us;
I mean to ask her to make us all some tea. No, mamma, you are not to
interfere; it will do you good, and we don't mean to have you ill if
we can help it." And then she looked meaningly at Nan, and withdrew.

There was no boiling water, of course, and the kitchen fire was raked
out; and Dorothy was sitting in solitary state, looking very grim.

"It is time for folks to be in their beds, Miss Phillis," she said,
very crossly. "I don't hold with tea myself so late: it excites
people, and keeps them awake."

"Mother is not just the thing, and a cup of tea will do her good.
Don't let us keep you up, Dorothy," replied Phillis, blandly. "I have
lighted the drawing-room-fire, and I can boil the kettle in there. If
mother has got a chill, I would not answer for the consequences."

Dorothy grew huffy at the mention of the fire, and would not aid or
abet her young lady's "fad," as she called it.

"If you don't want me, I think I will go to bed, Miss Phillis. Susan
went off a long time ago." And, as Phillis cheerfully acquiesced in
this arrangement, Dorothy decamped with a frown on her brow, and left
Phillis mistress of the situation.

"There, now, I have got rid of the cross old thing," she observed, in
a tone of relief, as she filled the kettle and arranged the little
tea-tray.

She carried them both into the room, poising the tray skilfully in her
hand. Nan looked up in a relieved way as she entered. Mrs. Challoner
was stretching out her chilled hands to the blaze. Her face had lost
its pinched unnatural expression; it was as though the presence of
her girls fenced her in securely, and her misfortune grew more shadowy
and faded into the background. She drank the tea when it was given to
her, and even begged Nan to follow her example. Nan took a little to
please her, though she hardly believed its solace would be great; but
Phillis and Dulce drank theirs in a business-like way, as though they
needed support and were not ashamed to own it. It was Nan who put down
her cup first, and leaned her cheek against her mother's hand.

"Now, mother dear, we want to hear all about it. Does Mr. Trinder say
we are really so dreadfully poor?"

"We have been getting poorer for along time," returned her mother,
mournfully; "but if we had only a little left us I would not complain.
You see, your father would persist in these investments in spite of
all Mr. Trinder could say, and now his words have come true." But this
vague statement did not satisfy Nan; and patiently, and with
difficulty, she drew from her mother all that the lawyer had told
her.

Mr. Challoner had been called to the bar early in life, but his career
had hardly been a successful one. He had held few briefs, and, though
he worked hard, and had good capabilities, he had never achieved
fortune; and as he lived up to his income, and was rather fond of the
good things of this life, he got through most of his wife's money,
and, contrary to the advice of older and wiser heads, invested the
remainder in the business of a connection who only wanted capital to
make his fortune and Mr. Challoner's too.

It was a grievous error; and yet, if Mr. Challoner had lived, those
few thousands would hardly have been so sorely missed. He was young in
his profession, and if he had been spared, success would have come to
him as to other men; but he was cut off unexpectedly in the prime of
life, and Mrs. Challoner gave up her large house at Kensington, and
settled at Glen Cottage with her three daughters, understanding that
life was changed for her, and that they should have to be content with
small means and few wants.

Hitherto they had had sufficient; but of late there had been dark
whispers concerning that invested money; things were not quite square
and above-board; the integrity of the firm was doubted. Mr. Trinder,
almost with tears in his eyes, begged Mrs. Challoner to be prudent and
spend less. The crash which he had foreseen, and had vainly tried to
avert, had come to-night. Gardiner & Fowler were bankrupt, and their
greatest creditor, Mrs. Challoner, was ruined.

"We cannot get our money. Mr. Trinder says we never shall. They have
been paying their dividends correctly, keeping it up as a sort of
blind, he says: but all the capital is eaten away. George Gardiner,
too, your father's cousin, the man he trusted above every one,--he to
defraud the widow and the fatherless, to take our money--my children's
only portion--and to leave us beggared." And Mrs. Challoner, made
tragical by this great blow, clasped her hands and looked at her girls
with two large tears rolling down her face.

"Mother, are you sure? is it quite as bad as that?" asked Nan; and
then she kissed away the tears, and said something rather brokenly
about having faith, and trying not to lose courage; then her voice
failed her, and they all sat quiet together.




CHAPTER VII.

PHILLIS'S CATECHISM.


A veil of silence fell over the little party. After the first few
moments of dismay, conjecture, and exclamation, there did not seem to
be much that any one could say. Each girl was busy with her own
thoughts and private interpretation of a most sorrowful enigma. What
were they to do? How were they to live without separation, and without
taking a solitary plunge into an unknown and most terrifying world?

Nan's frame of mind was slightly monotonous. What would Dick say, and
how would this affect certain vague hopes she had lately cherished?
Then she thought of Mr. Mayne, and shivered, and a sense of coldness
and remote fear stole over her.

One could hardly blame her for this sweet dual selfishness, that was
not selfishness. She was thinking less of herself than of a certain
vigorous young life that was becoming strongly entwined with hers. It
was all very well to say that Dick was Dick; but what could the most
obstinate will of even that most obstinate young man avail against
such a miserable combination of adverse influences,--"when the stars
in their courses fought against Sisera"? And at this juncture of her
thoughts she could feel Phillis's hand folding softly over hers with a
most sisterly pressure of full understanding and sympathy. Phillis had
no Dick to stand sentinel over her private thoughts; she was free to
be alert and vigilant for others. Nevertheless, her forehead was
puckered up with hard thinking, and her silence was so very expressive
that Dulce sat and looked at her with grave unsmiling eyes, the
innocent child-look in them growing very pathetic at the
speechlessness that had overtaken them. As for Mrs. Challoner, she
still moaned feebly from time to time, as she stretched her numb hands
towards the comforting warmth. They were fine delicate hands, with the
polished look of old ivory, and there were diamond rings on them that
twinkled and shone as she moved them in her restlessness.

"They shall all go; I will keep nothing," she said, regarding them
plaintively; for they were heirlooms, and highly valued as relics of a
wealthy past. "It is not this sort of thing that I mind. I would live
on a crust thankfully, if I could only keep my children with me." And
she looked round at the blooming faces of her girls with eyes brimming
over with maternal fondness.

Poor Dulce's lips quivered, and she made a horrified gesture.

"Oh, mamsie, don't talk so. I never could bear crusts, unless they
were well buttered. I like everything to be nice, and to have plenty
of it,--plenty of sunshine, and fun, and holiday-making, and friends;
and--and now you are talking as though we must starve, and never have
anything to wear, and go nowhere and be miserable forever?" And here
Dulce broke into actual sobs; for was she not the petted darling? and
had she not had a life so gilded by sunshine that she had never seen
the dark edge of a single cloud? So that even Nan forgot Dick for a
moment, and looked at her young sister pityingly; but Phillis
interposed with bracing severity:

"Don't talk such nonsense, Dulce. Of course we must eat to live, and
of course we must have clothes to wear. Aren't Nan and I thinking
ourselves into headaches by trying to contrive how even the crusts you
so despise are to be bought?" which was hardly true as far as Nan was
concerned, for she blushed guiltily over this telling point in
Phillis's eloquence. "It only upsets mother to talk like this." And
then she touched the coals skilfully, till they spluttered and blazed
into fury. "There is the Friary, you know," she continued, looking
calmly round on them, as though she felt herself full of resources.
"If Dulce chooses to make herself miserable about the crusts, we have,
at least, a roof to shelter us."

"I forgot the Friary," murmured Nan, looking at her sister with
admiration; and, though Mrs. Challoner said nothing, she started a
little as though she had forgotten it too. But Dulce was not to be
comforted.

"That horrid, dismal, pokey old cottage!" she returned, with a shrill
rendering of each adjective. "You would have us go and live in that
damp, musty, fusty place?"

Phillis gave a succession of quick little nods.

"I don't think it particularly dismal, or Nan either," she returned,
in her brisk way. Phillis always answered for Nan, and was never
contradicted. "It is not dear Glen Cottage, of course, but we could
not begin munching our crusts here," she continued, with a certain
grim humor. Things were apparently at their worst; but at least
she,--Phillis,--the clever one, as she had heard herself called, would
do her best to keep the heads of the little family above water. "It is
a nice little place enough if we were only humble enough to see it;
and it is not damp, and it is our own," running up the advantages as
well as she could.

"The Friary!" commented her mother, in some surprise: "to think of
that queer old cottage coming into your head! And it so seldom lets.
And people say it is dear at forty pounds a year; and it is so dull
that they do not care to stay."

"Never mind all that, mammy," returned Phillis, with a grave
business-like face. "A cottage, rent-free, that will hold us, is not
to be despised; and Hadleigh is a nice place, and the sea always suits
you. There is the house, and the furniture, that belongs to us; and we
have plenty of clothes for the present. How much did Mr. Trinder think
we should have in hand?"

Then her mother told her, but still mournfully, that they might
possibly have about a hundred pounds. "But there are my rings and that
piece of point-lace that Lady Fitzroy admired so----" but Phillis
waved away that proposition with an impatient frown.

"There is plenty of time for that when we have got through all the
money. Not that a hundred pounds would last long, with moving, and
paying off the servants, and all that sort of thing."

Then Nan, who had worn all along an expression of admiring confidence
in Phillis's resources, originated an idea of her own.

"The mother might write to Uncle Francis, perhaps;" but at this
proposition Mrs. Challoner sat upright and looked almost offended.

"My dear Nan, what a preposterous idea! Your uncle Francis!"

"Well, mammy, he is our uncle; and I am sure he would be sorry if his
only brother's children were to starve."

"You are too young to know any better," returned Mrs. Challoner,
relapsing into alarmed feebleness; "you are not able to judge. But I
never liked my brother-in-law,--never; he was not a good man. He was
not a person whom one could trust," continued the poor lady, trying to
soften down certain facts to her innocent young daughters.

Sir Francis Challoner had been a black sheep,--a very black sheep
indeed: one who had dyed himself certainly to a most sable hue; and
though, for such prodigals, there may be a late repentance and much
killing of fatted calves, still Mrs. Challoner was right in refusing
to intrust herself and her children to the uncertain mercies of such a
sinner.

Now, Nan knew nothing about the sin; but she did think that an uncle
who was a baronet threw a certain reflected glory or brightness over
them. Sir Francis might be that very suspicious character, a black
sheep; he might be landless, with the exception of that ruined
tenement in the North; nevertheless, Nan loved to know that he was of
their kith and kin. It seemed to settle their claims to
respectability, and held Mr. Mayne in some degree of awe; and he knew
that his own progenitors had not the faintest trace of blue blood, and
numbered more aldermen than baronets.

It would have surprised and grieved Nan, especially just now, if she
had known that no such glory remained to her,--that Sir Francis
Challoner had long filled the cup of his iniquities, and lay in his
wife's tomb in some distant cemetery, leaving a certain red-headed Sir
Harry to reign in his stead.

"I don't think we had better talk anymore," observed Phillis, somewhat
brusquely: and then she exchanged meaning looks with Nan. The two
girls were somewhat dismayed at their mother's wan looks; her
feebleness and uncertainty of speech, the very vagueness of her
lamentations, filled them with sad forebodings for the future. How
were they to leave her, when they commenced that little fight with the
world? She had leaned on them so long that her helplessness had become
a matter of habit.

Nan understood her sister's warning glance, and she made no further
allusion to Sir Francis; she only rose with assumed briskness, and
took her mother in charge.

"Now I am going to help you to bed, mammy darling," she said,
cheerfully. "Phillis is quite right: we will not talk any more
to-night; we shall want all our strength for to-morrow. We will just
say our prayers, and try and go to sleep, and hope that things may
turn out better than we expect." And, as Mrs. Challoner was too
utterly spent to resist this wise counsel, Nan achieved her pious
mission with some success. She sat down by the bedside and leaned her
head against her mother's pillow, and soon had the satisfaction of
hearing the even breathing that proved that the sleeper had forgotten
her troubles for a little while.

"Poor dear mother! how exhausted she must have been!" thought Nan, as
she closed the door softly. She was far too anxious and wide awake
herself to dream of retiring to rest. She was somewhat surprised to
find her sisters' room dark and empty as she passed. They must be
still downstairs, talking over things in the firelight: they were as
little inclined for sleep as she was. Phillis's carefully decocted tea
must have stimulated them to wakefulness.

The room was still bright with firelight. Dulce was curled up in her
mother's chair, and had evidently been indulging in what she called "a
good cry." Phillis, sombre and thoughtful, was pacing the room, with
her hands clasped behind her head,--a favorite attitude of hers when
she was in any perplexity. She stopped short as Nan regarded her with
some astonishment from the threshold.

"Oh, come in, Nan: it will be such a relief to talk to a sensible
person. Dulce is so silly, she does nothing but cry."

"I can't help it," returned Dulce, with another sob; "everything is so
horrible, and Phillis will say such dreadful things."

"Poor little soul!" said Nan, in a sympathetic voice, sitting down on
the arm of the chair and stroking Dulce's hair; "it is very hard for
her and for us all," with a pent-up sigh.

"Of course it is hard," retorted Phillis, confronting them rather
impatiently from the hearth-rug; "it is bitterly hard. But it is not
worse for Dulce than for the rest of us. Crying will not mend matters,
and it is a sheer waste of tears. As I tell her, what we have to do
now is to make the best of things, and see what is to be done under
the circumstances."

"Yes, indeed," repeated Nan, meekly; but she put her arm round Dulce,
and drew her head against her shoulder. The action comforted Dulce,
and her tears soon ceased to flow.

"I am thinking about mother," went on Phillis, pondering her words
slowly as she spoke; "she does look so ill and weak. I do not see how
we are to leave her."

Mrs. Challoner's moral helplessness and dread of responsibility were
so sacred in her daughters' eyes that they rarely alluded to them
except in this vague fashion. For years they had shielded and petted
her, and given way to her little fads and fancies, until she had
developed into a sort of gentle hypochondriac.

"Mother cannot bear this; we always keep these little worries from
her," Nan had been accustomed to say; and the others had followed her
example.

The unspoken thought lay heavy upon them now. How were they to prevent
the rough winds of adversity from blowing too roughly upon their
cherished charge? The roof, and perhaps the crust, might be theirs;
but how were they to contrive that she should not miss her little
comforts? They would gladly work; but how, and after what fashion?

Phillis was the first to plunge into the unwelcome topic, for Nan felt
almost as helpless and bewildered as Dulce.

"We must go into the thing thoroughly," began Phillis, drawing a chair
opposite to her sisters. She was very pale, but her eyes had a certain
brightness of determination. She looked too young for that quiet
care-worn look that had come so suddenly to her; but one felt she
could be equal to any emergency. "We are down-hearted, of course; but
we have plenty of time for all that sort of thing. The question is,
how are we to live?"

"Just so," observed Nan, rather dubiously; and Dulce gave a little
gasp.

"There is the Friary standing empty; and there is the furniture; and
there will be about fifty pounds, perhaps less, when every thing is
settled. And we have clothes enough to last some time, and----" here
Dulce put her hands together pleadingly, but Phillis looked at her
severely, and went on: "Forty or fifty pounds will soon be spent, and
then we shall be absolutely penniless; we have no one to help us.
Mother will not hear of writing to Uncle Francis; we must work
ourselves or starve."

"Couldn't we let lodgings?" hazarded Dulce, with quavering voice; but
Phillis smiled grimly.

"Let lodgings at the Friary! why, it is only big enough to hold us. We
might get a larger house in Hadleigh; but no, it would be ruinous to
fail, and perhaps we should not make it answer. I cannot fancy mother
living in the basement story; she would make herself wretched over it.
We are too young. I don't think that would answer, Nan: do you?"

Nan replied faintly that she did not think it would. The mere
proposition took her breath away. What would Mr. Mayne say to that?
Then she plucked up spirit and went into the question vigorously.

There were too many lodging-houses in Hadleigh now; it would be a
hazardous speculation, and one likely to fail; they had not sufficient
furniture for such a purpose, and they dare not use up their little
capital too quickly. They were too young, too, to carry out such a
thing, Nan did not add "and too pretty," though she colored and
hesitated here. Their mother could not help them; she was not strong
enough for housework or cooking. She thought that plan must be given
up.

"We might be daily governesses, and live at home," suggested Dulce,
who found a sort of relief in throwing out feelers in every direction.
Nan brightened up visibly at this, but Phillis's moody brow did not
relax for a moment.

"That would be nice," acquiesced Nan, "and then mother would not find
the day so long if we came home in the evening; she could busy herself
about the house, and we could leave her little things to do, and she
would not find the hours so heavy. I like that idea of yours, Dulce;
and we are all so fond of children."

"The idea is as nice as possible," replied Phillis, with an ominous
stress on the noun, "if we could only make it practicable."

"Phil is going to find fault," pouted Dulce, who knew every inflection
of Phillis's voice.

"Oh, dear, no, nothing of the kind!" she retorted, briskly. "Nan is
quite right: we all dote on children. I should dearly like to be a
governess myself; it would be more play than work; but I am only
wondering who would engage us."

"Who?--oh, anybody!" returned Nan, feeling puzzled by the smothered
satire of Phillis's speech. "Of course we are not certificated, and I
for one could only teach young children; but----" here Phillis
interrupted her:

"Don't think me horrid if I ask you and Dulce some questions, but
do--do answer me just as though I were going through the Catechism: we
are only girls, but we must sift the whole thing thoroughly. Are we
fit for governesses? what can you and I and Dulce teach?"

"Oh, anything!" returned Nan, still more vaguely.

"My dear Nanny, anything won't do. Come, I am really in earnest; I
mean to catechise you both thoroughly."

"Very well," returned Nan, in a resigned voice; but Dulce looked a
little frightened. As for Phillis, she sat erect, with her finger
pointed at them in a severely ominous fashion.

"How about history, Nan? I thought you could never remember dates; you
used to jumble facts in the most marvellous manner. I remember your
insisting that Anne of Cleves was Louis XII.'s second wife; and you
shocked Miss Martin dreadfully by declaring that one of Marlborough's
victories was fought at Cressy."

"I never could remember historical facts," returned Nan, humbly.
"Dulce always did better than I; and so did you, Phillis. When I teach
the children I can have the book before me." But Phillis only shook
her head at this, and went on:

"Dulce was a shade better, but I don't believe she could tell me the
names of the English sovereigns in proper sequence;" but Dulce
disdained to answer. "You were better at arithmetic, Nan. Dulce never
got through her rule of three; but you were not very advanced even at
that. You write a pretty hand, and you used to talk French very
fluently."

"Oh, I have forgotten my French!" exclaimed Nan, in a panic-stricken
voice. "Dulce, don't you remember me quite settled to talk in French
over our work three times a week, and we have always forgotten it; and
we were reading Madame de Sevigne's 'Letters' together, and I found
the book the other day quite covered with dust."

"I hate French," retuned Dulce, rebelliously. "I began German with
Phillis, and like it much better."

"True, but we are only beginners," returned the remorseless Phillis:
"it was very nice, of course, and the Taugenichts' was delicious; but
think how many words in every sentence you had to hunt out in the
dictionary. I am glad you feel so competent, Dulce; but I could not
teach German myself, or French either. I don't remember enough of the
grammar; and I do not believe Nan does either, though she used to
chatter so to Miss Martin."

"Did I not say she would pick our idea to pieces?" returned Dulce,
with tears in her eyes.

"My dear little sister don't look so dreadfully pathetic. I am quite
as disheartened and disappointed as you are. Nan says she has
forgotten her French, and she will have to teach history with an open
book before her; we none of us draw--no, Dulce please let me finish
our scanty stock of accomplishments. I only know my notes,--for no one
cares to hear me lumber through my pieces,--and I sing at church. You
have the sweetest voice Dulce, but it is not trained; and I cannot
compliment you on your playing. Nan sings and plays very nicely, and
it is a pleasure to listen to her; but I am afraid she knows little
about the theory of music, harmony and thorough-bass: you never did
anything in that way, did you, Nan?"

Nan shook her head sadly. She was too discomfited for speech. Phillis
looked at them both thoughtfully; her trouble was very real, but she
could not help a triumphant inflection in her voice.

"Dear Nan, please do not look so unhappy. Dulce, you shall not begin
to cry again. Don't you remember what mother was reading to us the
other day, about the country being flooded with incompetent
governesses,--half-educated girls turned loose on the world to earn
their living? I can remember one sentence of that writer, word for
word: 'The standard of education is so high at the present day, and
the number of certificated reliable teachers so much increased, that
we can afford to discourage the crude efforts to teach, or un-teach,
our children.' And then he goes on to ask, 'What has become of womanly
conscientiousness, when such ignorance presses forward to assume such
sacred responsibilities? Better the competent nurse than the
incompetent governess.' 'Why do not these girls,' he asks, 'who,
through their own fault or the fault of circumstances, are not
sufficiently advanced to educate others--why do they not rather
discharge the exquisitely feminine duties of the nursery? What an
advantage to parents to have their little ones brought into the
earliest contact with refined speech and cultivated manners,--their
infant ears not inoculated by barbarous English!'" but here Phillis
was arrested in her torrent of reflected wisdom by an impatient
exclamation from Dulce.

"Oh, Nan, do ask her to be quiet! She never stops when she once
begins. How can we listen to such rubbish, when we are so wretched?
You may talk for hours, Phil, but I never, never will be a nurse!" And
Dulce hid her face on Nan's shoulder in such undisguised distress that
her sisters had much ado to comfort her.




CHAPTER VIII.

"WE SHOULD HAVE TO CARRY PARCELS."


It was hard work to tranquillize Dulce.

"I never, never will be a nurse!" she sobbed out at intervals.

"You little goose, who ever thought of such a thing? Why will you
misunderstand me so?" sighed Phillis, almost in despair at her
sister's impracticability. "I am only trying to prove to you and Nan
that we are not fit for governesses."

"No, indeed; I fear you are right there," replied poor Nan, who had
never realized her deficiences before. They were all bright, taking
girls, with plenty to say for themselves, lady-like, and well-bred.
Who would have thought that, when weighed in the balance, they would
have been found so wanting? "I always knew I was a very stupid person;
but you are different,--you are so clever, Phil."

"Nonsense, Nanny! It is a sort of cleverness for which there is no
market. I am fond of reading. I remember things, and do a great deal
of thinking; but I am destitute of accomplishments: my knowledge of
languages is purely superficial. We are equal to other girls,--just
young ladies, and nothing more; but when it comes to earning our
bread-and-butter----" Here Phillis paused, and threw out her hands
with a little gesture of despair.

"But you work so beautifully; and so does Nan," interrupted Dulce, who
was a little comforted, now she knew Phillis had no prospective
nurse-maid theory in view. "I am good at it myself," she continued,
modestly, feeling that, in this case, self-praise was allowable. "We
might be companions,--some nice old lady who wants her caps made, and
requires some one to read to her," faltered Dulce, with her child-like
pleading look.

Nan gave her a little hug; but she left the answer to Phillis, who
went at once into a brown study, and only woke up after a long
interval.

"I am looking at it all round," she said, when Nan at last pressed for
her opinion; "it is not a bad idea. I think it very possible that
either you or I, Nan,--or both, perhaps,--might find something in that
line to suit us. There are old ladies everywhere; and some of them are
rich and lonely and want companions."

"You have forgotten me?" exclaimed Dulce, with natural jealousy, and a
dislike to be overlooked, inherent in most young people. "And it is I
who have always made mammy's caps and you know how Lady Fitzroy
praised the last one."

"Yes, yes; we know all that," returned Phillis, impatiently. "You are
as clever as possible with your fingers; but one of us must stop with
mother, and you are the youngest, Dulce; that is what I meant by
looking at it all round. If Nan and I were away, it would never do for
you and mother to live at the Friary. We could not afford a servant,
and we should want the forty pounds a year to pay for bare
necessaries; for our salary would not be very great. You would have to
live in lodgings,--two little rooms, that is all; and even then I am
afraid you and mother would be dreadfully pinched, for we should have
to dress ourselves properly in other people's houses."

"Oh, Phillis, that would not do at all!" exclaimed Nan, in a voice of
despair. She was very pale by this time: full realization of all this
trouble was coming to her, as it had come to Phillis. "What shall we
do? Who will help us to any decision? How are you and I to go away and
live luxuriously in other people's houses, and leave mother and Dulce
pining in two shabby little rooms, with nothing to do, and perhaps not
enough to eat, and mother fretting herself ill, and Dulce losing her
bloom? I could not rest; I could not sleep for thinking of it. I would
rather take in plain needlework, and live on dry bread if we could
only be together, and help each other."

"So would I," returned Phillis, in an odd, muffled voice.

"And I too," rather hesitatingly from Dulce.

"If we could only live at the Friary, and have Dorothy to do all the
rough work," sighed Nan, with a sudden yearning towards even that very
shabby ark of refuge: "if we could only be together, and see each
other every day, things would not be quite so dreadful."

"I am quite of your opinion," was Phillis's curt observation: but
there was a sudden gleam in her eyes.

"I have heard of ladies working for fancy-shops; do you think we could
do something of that kind?" asked Nan, anxiously. "Even mother could
help us in that; and Dulce does work so beautifully. It is all very
well to say we have no accomplishments," went on Nan, with apathetic
little laugh, "but you know that no other girls work as we do. We have
always made our own dresses. And Lady Fitzroy asked me once who was
our dressmaker, because she fitted us so exquisitely; and I was so
proud of telling her that we always did our own, with Dorothy to
help----"

"Nan," interrupted Phillis, eagerly, and there was a great softness in
her whole mien, and her eyes were glistening,--"dear Nan, do you love
us all so that you could give up the whole world for our sakes,--for
the sake of living together, I mean?"

Nan hesitated. Did the whole world involve Dick, and could even her
love for her sisters induce her voluntarily to give him up? Phillis,
who was quick-witted, read the doubt in a moment, and hastened to
qualify her words:

"The outside world, I mean,--mere conventional acquaintances, not
friends. Do you think you could bear to set society at defiance, to
submit to be sent to Coventry for our sakes; to do without it, in fact
to live in a little world of our own and make ourselves happy in it?"

"Ah, Phillis, you are so clever, and I don't understand you," faltered
Nan. It was not Dick she was to give up; but what could Phillis mean?
"We are all fond of society; we are like other girls, I suppose. But
if we are to be poor and work for our living, I dare say people will
give us up."

"I am not meaning that," returned her sister, earnestly; "it is
something far harder, something far more difficult, something that
will be a great sacrifice and cost us all tremendous efforts. But if
we are to keep a roof over our heads, if we are to live together in
anything like comfort, I don't see what else we can do, unless we go
out as companions and leave mother and Dulce in lodgings."

"Oh, no, no; pray don't leave us!" implored Dulce, feeling that all
her strength and comfort lay near Nan.

"I will not leave you, dear, if I can possibly help it," returned Nan,
gently. "Tell us what you mean, Phillis, for I see you have some sort
of plan in your head. There is nothing,--nothing," she continued, more
firmly, "that I would not do to make mother and Dulce happy. Speak
out; you are half afraid that I shall prove a coward, but you shall
see."

"Dear Nan, no; you are as brave as possible. I am rather a coward
myself. Yes; I have a plan; but you have yourself put it into my head
by saying what you did about Lady Fitzroy."

"About Lady Fitzroy?"

"Yes; your telling her about our making our own dresses. Nan, you are
right: needlework is our forte; nothing is a trouble to us. Few girls
have such clever fingers, I believe; and then you and Dulce have such
taste. Mrs. Paine once told me that we were the best-dressed girls in
the neighborhood, and she wished Carrie looked half as well. I am
telling you this, not from vanity, but because I do believe we can
turn our one talent to account. We should be miserable governesses; we
do not want to separate and seek situations as lady helps or
companions; we do not mean to fail in letting lodgings; but if we do
not succeed as good dressmakers, never believe me again."

"Dressmakers!" almost shrieked Dulce. But Nan, who had expressed
herself willing to take in plain needlework, only looked at her sister
with mute gravity; her little world was turned so completely upside
down, everything was so unreal, that nothing at this moment could have
surprised her.

"Dressmakers!" she repeated, vaguely.

"Yes, yes," replied Phillis, still more eagerly. The inspiration had
come to her in a moment, full-fledged and grown up, like Minerva from
the head of Jupiter. Just from those chance words of Nan's she had
grasped the whole thing in a moment. Now, indeed she felt that she was
clever; here at least was something striking and original; she took no
notice of Dulce's shocked exclamation; she fixed her eyes solemnly on
Nan. "Yes, yes; what does it matter what the outside world says? We
are not like other girls; we never were; people always said we were so
original. Necessity strikes out strange paths some times. We could not
do such a thing here; no, no, I never could submit to that myself," as
Nan involuntarily shuddered; "but at Hadleigh, where no one knows us,
where we shall be among strangers. And then, you see, Miss Monks is
dead."

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! what does she mean?" cried Dulce, despairingly;
"and what do we care about Miss Monks, if the creature be dead, or
about Miss Anybody, if we have got to do such dreadful things?"

"My dear," returned Phillis, with compassionate irony, "if we had to
depend upon you for ideas----" and here she made an eloquent pause.
"Our last tenant for the Friary was Miss Monks, and Miss Monks was a
dressmaker; and, though perhaps I ought not to say it, it does seem a
direct leading of Providence, putting such a thought into my head."

"I am afraid Dulce and I are very slow and stupid," returned Nan,
putting her hair rather wearily from her face: her pretty color had
quite faded during the last half-hour. "I think if you would tell us
plainly, exactly what you mean, Phillis, we should be able to
understand everything better."

"My notion is this," began Phillis, slowly: "remember, I have not
thought it quite out, but I will give you my ideas just as they occur
to me. We will not say anything to mother just yet, until we have
thoroughly digested our plan. You and I, Nan, will run down to the
Friary, and reconnoitre the place, judge of its capabilities, and so
forth; and when we come back we will hold a family council."

"That will be best," agreed Nan, who remembered, with sudden feelings
of relief, that Dick and his belongings would be safe in the Engadine
by that time. "But, Phillis, do you really and truly believe that we
could carry out such a scheme?"

"Why not?" was the bold answer. "If we can work for ourselves, we can
for other people. I have a presentiment that we shall achieve a
striking success. We will make the old Friary as comfortable as
possible," she continued, cheerfully. "The good folk of Hadleigh will
be rather surprised when they see our pretty rooms. No horse-hair
sofa; no crochet antimacassars or hideous wax flowers; none of the
usual stock-in-trade. Dorothy will manage the house for us; and we
will all sit and work together, and mother will help us, and read to
us. Aren't you glad, Nan, that we all saved up for that splendid
sewing-machine?"

"I do believe there is something, after all, in what you say," was
Nan's response; but Dulce was not so easily won over.

"Do you mean to say that we shall put up a brass plate on the door,
with 'Challoner, dressmaker,' on it?" she observed, indignantly. A red
glow mounted to Nan's forehead; and even Phillis looked disconcerted.

"I never thought of that: well, perhaps not. We might advertise at the
Library, or put cards in the shops. I do not think mother would ever
cross the threshold if she saw a brass plate."

"No, no; I could not bear that," said Nan, faintly. A dim vision of
Dick standing at the gate, ruefully contemplating their name--her
name--in juxtaposition with "dressmaker," crossed her mind directly.

"But we should have to carry parcels, and stand in people's halls, and
perhaps fit Mrs. Squails, the grocer's wife,--that fat old thing, you
know. How would you like to make a dress for Mrs. Squails, Phil?"
asked Dulce, with the malevolent desire of making Phillis as
uncomfortable as possible; but Phillis, who had rallied from her
momentary discomfiture, was not to be again worsted.

"Dulce, you talk like a child; you are really a very silly little
thing. Do you think any work can degrade us or that we shall not be as
much gentlewomen at Hadleigh as we are here?"

"But the parcels?" persisted Dulce.

"I do not intend to carry any," was the imperturbable reply, "Dorothy
will do that; or we will hire a boy. As for waiting in halls, I don't
think any one will ask me to do that, as I should desire to be shown
into a room at once; and as for Mrs. Squails, if the poor old woman
honors me with her custom, I will turn her out a gown that shall be
the envy of Hadleigh."

Dulce did not answer this, but the droop of her lip was piteous; it
melted Phillis at once.

"Oh, do cheer up, you silly girl!" she said, with a coaxing face.
"What is the good of making ourselves more miserable than we need? If
you prefer the two little rooms with mother, say so; and Nan and I
will look out for old ladies at once."

"No! no! Oh, pray don't leave me!" still more piteously.

"Well, what will you have us do? we cannot starve; and we don't mean
to beg. Pluck up a little spirit, Dulce; see how good Nan is! You have
no idea how comfortable we should be!" she went on, with judicious
word-painting. "We should all be together,--that is the great thing.
Then we could talk over our work; and in the afternoon, when we felt
dreary, mother could read some interesting novel to us,"--a tremulous
sigh from Nan at this point.

What a contrast to the afternoons at Glen Cottage,--tennis, and
five-o'clock tea, and the company of their young friends! Phillis
understood the sigh, and hurried on.

"It will not be always work. We will have long country walks in the
evening; and then, there will be the garden and the sea-shore. Of
course we must have exercise and recreation, I am afraid we shall have
to do without society, for no one will visit ladies under such
circumstances; but I would rather do without people than without each
other, and so would Nan."

"Yes, indeed!" broke in Nan; and now the tears were in her eyes.

Dulce grew suddenly ashamed of herself. She got up in a little flurry,
and kissed them both.

"I was very naughty; but I did not mean to be unkind. I would rather
carry parcels, and stand in halls,--yes, and even make gowns for Mrs.
Squails,--than lose you both. I will be good. I will not worry you any
more, Phil, with my nonsense; and I will work; you will see how I will
work," finished Dulce, breathlessly.

"There's a darling!" said Nan; and then she added, in a tired voice,
"But it is two o'clock; and Dick is coming this morning to say
good-bye; and I want to ask you both particularly not to say a word to
him about this. Let him go away and enjoy himself, and think we are
going on as usual; it would spoil his holiday; and there is always
time enough for bad news," went on Nan, with a little tremble of her
lip.

"Dear Nan, we understand," returned Phillis, gently; "and you are
right, as you always are. And now to bed,--to bed," she continued, in
a voice of enforced cheerfulness; and then they all kissed each other
very quietly and solemnly, and crept up as noiselessly as possible to
their rooms.

Phillis and Dulce shared the same room; but Nan had a little chamber
to herself very near her mother's: a door connected the two rooms. Nan
closed this carefully, when she had ascertained that Mrs. Challoner
was still sleeping, and then sat down by the window, and looked out
into the gray glimmering light that preceded the dawn.

Sleep; how could she sleep with all these thoughts surging through her
mind, and knowing that in a few hours Dick would come and say
good-bye? and here Nan broke down, and had such a fit of crying as she
had not had since her father died,--nervous, uncontrollable tears,
that it was useless to stem in her tired, overwrought state.

They exhausted her, and disposed her for sleep. She was so chilled and
weary that she was glad to lie down in bed at last and close her eyes;
and she had scarcely done so before drowsiness crept over her, and she
knew no more until she found the sunshine flooding her little room,
and Dorothy standing by her bed asking rather crossly why no one
seemed disposed to wake this beautiful morning.

"Am I late? Oh, I hope I am not late!" exclaimed Nan, springing up in
a moment. She dressed herself in quite a flurry, for fear she should
keep any one waiting. It was only at the last moment she remembered
the outburst of the previous night, and wondered with some dismay what
Dick would think of her pale cheeks and the reddened lines round her
eyes, and only hoped that he would not attribute them to his going
away. Nan was only just in time, for as she entered the breakfast-room
Dick came through the veranda and put in his head at the window.

"Not at breakfast yet? and where are the others?" he asked in some
surprise, for the Challoners were early people, and very regular in
their habits.

"We sat up rather late last night, talking," returned Nan, giving him
her hand without looking at him, and yet Dick showed to advantage this
morning in his new tweed travelling suit.

"Well, I have only got ten minutes. I managed to give the pater the
slip: he will be coming after me, I believe, if I stay longer. This is
first-rate, having you all to myself this last morning. But what's up,
Nan? you don't seem quite up to the mark. You are palish, you know,
and----" here Dick paused in pained embarrassment. Were those traces
of tears? had Nan really been crying? was she sorry about his going
away? And now there was an odd lump in Dick's throat.

Nan understood the pause and got frightened.

"It is nothing. I have a slight headache; there was a little domestic
worry that wanted putting to right," stammered Nan; "it worried me,
for I am stupid at such things, you know."

She was explaining herself somewhat lamely, and to no purpose, for
Dick did not believe her in the least. "Domestic worry!" as though she
cared for such rubbish as that; as though any amount could make her
cry,--her, his bright, high spirited Nan! No; she had been fretting
about their long separation, and his father's unkindness, and the
difficulties ahead of them.

"I want you to give me a rose," he said, suddenly, _a propos_ of
nothing, as it seemed; but looking up, Nan caught a wistful gleam in
his eyes, and hesitated. Was it not Dick who had told her that
anecdote about the queen, or was it Lothair? and did not a certain
meaning attach to this gift? Dick was forever picking roses for her;
but he had never given her one, except with that meaning look on his
face.

"You are hesitating," he said, reproachfully; "and on my last morning,
when we shall not see each other for months;" And Nan moved towards
the veranda slowly, and gathered a crimson one without a word, and put
it in his hand.

"Thank you," he said, quite quietly; but he detained the hand as well
as the rose for a moment. "One day I will show you this again, and
tell you what it means if you do not know; and then we shall see, ah,
Nan, my----" He paused as Phillis's step entered the room, and said
hurriedly, in a low voice, "Good-bye; I will not go in again. I don't
want to see any of them, only you,--only you. Good-bye: take care of
yourself for my sake, Nan." And Dick looked at her wistfully, and
dropped her hand.

"Has he gone?" asked Phillis, looking up in surprise as her sister
came through the open window; "has he gone without finding anything
out?"

"Yes, he has gone, and he does not know anything," replied Nan, in a
subdued voice, as she seated herself behind the urn. It was over now,
and she was ready for anything. "Take care of yourself for my sake,
Nan!"--that was ringing in her ears; but she had not said a word in
reply. Only the rose lay in his hand,--her parting gift, and perhaps
her parting pledge.




CHAPTER IX.

A LONG DAY.


Nan never recalled the memory of that "long gray day," as she inwardly
termed it, without a shiver of discomfort.

Never but once in her bright young life had she known such a day, and
that was when her dead father lay in the darkened house, and her
widowed mother had crept weeping into her arms as to her only
remaining refuge; but that stretched so far back into the past that it
had grown into a vague remembrance.

It was not only that Dick was gone, though the pain of that separation
was far greater than she would have believed possible, but a moral
earthquake had shattered their little world, involving them in utter
chaos.

It was only yesterday that she was singing ballads in the Longmead
drawing-room,--only yesterday; but to-day everything was changed. The
sun shone, the birds sang, every one ate and drank and moved about as
usual. Nan talked and smiled, and no stranger would have guessed that
much was amiss; nevertheless, a weight lay heavy on her spirits, and
Nan knew in her secret heart that she could never be again the same
light-hearted, easy-going creature that she was yesterday.

Later on, the sisters confessed to each other that the day had been
perfectly interminable; the hours dragged on slowly; the sun seemed as
though it never meant to set; and to add to their trouble, their
mother looked so ill when she came downstairs, wrapped in her soft
white shawl in spite of the heat, that Nan thought of sending for a
doctor, and only refrained at the remembrance that they had no right
to such luxuries now except in cases of necessity.

Then Dorothy was in one of her impracticable moods, throwing cold
water on all her young mistress's suggestions, and doing her best to
disarrange the domestic machinery. Dorothy suspected a mystery
somewhere; her young ladies had sat up half the night, and looked pale
and owlish in the morning. If they chose to keep her in the dark and
not take her into their confidence, it was their affair; but she meant
to show them what she thought of their conduct. So she contradicted
and snapped, until Nan told her wearily that she was a disagreeable
old thing, and left her and Susan to do as they liked. She knew Mr.
Trinder was waiting for her in the dining-room, and, as Mrs. Challoner
was not well enough to see him, she and Phillis must entertain him.

He had slept at a friend's house a few miles from Oldfield, and was to
lunch at Glen Cottage and take the afternoon train to London.

He was not sorry when he heard that Mrs. Challoner was too indisposed
to receive him. In spite of his polite expressions of regret, he had
found the poor lady terribly trying on the previous evening. She was a
bad manager, and had muddled her affairs, and she did not seem to
understand half of what he told her; and her tears and lamentations
when she had realized the truth had been too much for the soft hearted
old bachelor, though people did call him a woman-hater.

"But I never could bear to see a woman cry; it is as bad as watching
an animal in pain," he half growled, as he drew out his red
pocket-handkerchief and used it rather noisily.

It was easier work to explain everything to these two bright, sensible
girls. Phillis listened and asked judicious questions; but Nan sat
with downcast face, plaiting the table-cloth between her restless
fingers, and thinking of Dick at odd intervals.

She took it all in, however, and roused up in earnest when Mr. Trinder
had finished his explanations, and Phillis began to talk in her turn;
she was actually taking the old lawyer into her confidence, and
detailing their scheme in the most business-like way.

"The mother does not know yet,--this is all in confidence; but Nan and
I have made up our minds to take this step," finished the young
philosopher, calmly.

"Bless my soul," ejaculated Mr. Trinder,--he had given vent to this
expression at various intervals, but had not further interrupted her.
"Bless my soul! my dear young ladies, I think--but excuse me if I am
too abrupt, but you must be dreaming."

Phillis shook her head smilingly; and as Dorothy came into the room
that moment to lay the luncheon, she proposed a turn in the garden,
and fetched Mr. Trinder's hat herself, and guided him to a side-walk,
where they could not be seen from the drawing-room windows. Nan
followed them, and tried to keep step with Mr. Trinder's shambling
footsteps, as he walked between the girls with a hot perplexed face,
and still muttering to himself at intervals.

"It is all in confidence," repeated Phillis, in the same calm voice.

"And you are actually serious? you are not joking?"

"Do your clients generally joke when they are ruined?" returned
Phillis, with natural exasperation. "Do you think Nan and I are in
such excellent spirits that we could originate such a piece of
drollery? Excuse me, Mr. Trinder, but I must say I do not think your
remark quite well timed." And Phillis turned away with a little
dignity.

"No, no! now you are put out, and no wonder!" returned Mr. Trinder,
soothingly; and he stood quite still on the gravel path, and fixed his
keen little eyes on the two young creatures before him,--Nan, with her
pale cheeks and sad eyes, and Phillis, alert, irritated, full of
repressed energy. "Dear, dear! what a pity!" groaned the old man; "two
such bonnie lasses and to think a little management and listening to
my advice would have kept the house over your heads, if only your
mother would have hearkened to me!"

"It is too late for all that now, Mr. Trinder," replied Phillis,
impatiently: "isn't it waste of time crying over spilt milk when we
must be taking our goods to market? We must make the best of our
little commodities," sighed the girl. "If we were only clever and
accomplished, we might do better; but now----" and Phillis left her
sentence unfinished, which was a way she had, and which people thought
very telling.

"But, my dear young lady, with all your advantages, and----" Here
Phillis interrupted him rather brusquely.

"What advantages? do you mean we had a governess? Well, we had three,
one after the other; and they were none of them likely to turn out
first-rate pupils. Oh, we are well enough, compared to other girls: if
we had not to earn our own living, we should not be so much amiss.
But, Nan, why don't you speak? why do you leave me all the hard work?
Did you not tell us last night that you were not fit for a
governess?"

Nan felt rather ashamed of her silence after this. It was true that
she was leaving all the onus of their plan on Phillis, and it was
certainly time for her to come to her rescue. So she quietly but
rather shyly endorsed her sister's speech, and assured Mr. Trinder
that they had carefully considered the matter from every point of
view, and, though it was a very poor prospect and involved a great
deal of work and self-sacrifice, she, Nan, thought that Phillis was
right, and that it was the best--indeed the only--thing they could do
under the circumstances.

"For myself, I prefer it infinitely to letting lodgings," finished
Nan: and Phillis looked at her gratefully.

But Mr. Trinder was obstinate and had old-fashioned views, and argued
the whole thing in his dictatorial masculine way. They sat down to
luncheon, and presently sent Dorothy away,--a piece of independence
that bitterly offended that crabbed but faithful individual,--and
wrangled busily through the whole of the meal.

Mr. Trinder never could remember afterwards whether it was lamb or
mutton he had eaten; he had a vague idea that Dulce had handed him the
mint-sauce, and that he had declined it and helped himself to salad.
The doubt disturbed him for the first twenty miles of his homeward
journey. "Good gracious! for a man not to know whether he is eating
lamb or mutton!" he soliloquized, as he vainly tried to enjoy his
usual nap; "but then I never was so upset in my life. Those pretty
creatures, and Challoners too,--bless my soul!" And here the lawyer's
cogitations became confused and misty.

Nan, who had more than once seen tears in the lawyer's shrewd little
gray eyes, had been very gentle and tolerant over the old man's
irritability; but Phillis had resented his caustic speeches somewhat
hotly. Dulce, who was on her best behavior, was determined not to
interfere or say a word to thwart her sisters: she even went so far as
to explain to Mr. Trinder that they would not have to carry parcels,
as Phillis meant to hire a boy. She had no idea that this magnanimous
speech was in a figurative manner the last straw that broke the
camel's back. Mr. Trinder pushed back his chair hastily, made some
excuse that his train must be due, and beat a retreat an hour before
the time, unable to pursue such a painful subject any longer.

Nan rose, with a sigh of relief, as soon as the door closed upon their
visitors, and took refuge in the shady drawing-room with her mother,
whom she found in a very tearful, querulous state, requiring a great
deal of soothing. They had decided that no visitors were to be
admitted that afternoon.

"You may say your mistress is indisposed with a bad headache, Dorothy,
and that we are keeping the house quiet," Nan remarked, with a little
dignity, with the remembrance of that late passage of arms.

"Very well, Miss Nan," returned the old servant. However, she was a
little cowed by Nan's manner: such an order had never before been
given in the cottage. Mrs. Challoner's headaches were common events in
every-day life, and had never been known before to interfere with
their afternoon receptions. A little eau de Cologne and extra petting,
a stronger cup of tea served up to her in her bedroom, had been the
only remedies; the girls had always had their tennis as usual, and the
sound of their voices and laughter had been as music in their mother's
ears.

"Very well, Miss Nan," was all Dorothy ventured to answer; but she
withdrew with a face puckered up with anxiety. She took in the
tea-tray unbidden at an earlier hour than usual; there were Dulce's
favorite hot cakes, and some rounds of delicately-buttered toast, "for
the young ladies have not eaten above a morsel at luncheon," said
Dorothy in explanation to her mistress.

"Never mind us," returned Nan, with a friendly nod at the old woman:
"it has been so hot to-day," And then she coaxed her mother to eat,
and made believe herself to enjoy the repast while she wondered how
many more evenings they would spend in the pretty drawing-room on
which they had expended so much labor.

Nan had countermanded the late dinner, which they all felt would be a
pretence and mockery; and as Mrs. Challoner's headache refused to
yield to the usual remedies, she was obliged to retire to bed as soon
as the sun set, and the three girls went out in the garden, and walked
up and down the lawn with their arms interlaced, while Dorothy watched
them from the pantry window, and wiped away a tear or two, as she
washed up the tea-things.

"How I should like a long walk?" exclaimed Dulce, impatiently. "It is
so narrow and confined here; but it would never do: we should meet
people."

"No, it would never do," agreed her sisters, feeling a fresh pang that
such avoidance was necessary. They had never hidden anything before,
and the thought that this mystery lay between them and their friends
was exquisitely painful.

"I feel as though I never cared to see one of them again!" sighed poor
Nan, for which speech she was rather sharply rebuked by Phillis.

They settled a fair amount of business before they went to bed that
night; and when Dorothy brought in the supper-tray, bearing a little
covered dish in triumph, which she set down before Nan, Nan looked at
her with grave, reproachful eyes, in there was a great deal of
kindness.

"You should not do this, Dorothy," she said, very gently: "we cannot
afford such delicacies now."

"It is your favorite dish, Miss Nan," returned Dorothy, quite ignoring
this remark. "Susan has cooked it to a nicety; but it will be spoiled
if it is not eaten hot." And she stood over them, while Nan dispensed
the dainty. "You must eat it while it is hot," she kept saying, as she
fidgeted about the room, taking up things and putting them down again.
Phillis looked at Nan with a comical expression of dismay.

"Dorothy, come here," she exclaimed, at last, pushing away her plate.
"Don't you see that Susan is wasting all her talents on us, and that
we can't eat to-day?"

"Every one can eat if they try, Miss Phillis," replied Dorothy,
oracularly. "But a thing like that must be hot, or it is spoiled."

"Oh, never mind about it being hot," returned Phillis, beginning to
laugh. She was so tired, and Dorothy was such a droll old thing; and
how were even stewed pigeons to be appetizing under the
circumstances?

"Oh, you may laugh," began Dorothy, in an offended tone; but Phillis
took hold of her and nearly shook her.

"Oh, what a stupid old thing you are! Don't you know what a silly,
aggravating old creature you can be when you like? If I laugh, it is
because everything is so ludicrous and wretched. Nan and Dulce are not
laughing."

"No, indeed," put in Dulce; "we are far, far too unhappy!"

"What is it, Miss Nan?" asked Dorothy, sidling up to her in a coaxing
manner. "I am only an old servant, but it was me that put Miss Dulce
in her father's arms,--'the pretty lamb,' as he called her, and she
with a skin like a lily. If there is trouble, you would not keep it
from her old nurse, surely?"

"No, indeed, Dorothy: we want to tell you," returned Nan touched by
this appeal; and then she quietly recapitulated the main points that
concerned their difficulties,--their mother's loss, their future
poverty, the necessity for leaving Glen Cottage and settling down at
the Friary.

"We shall all have to work," finished Nan, with prudent vagueness, not
daring to intrust their plan to Dorothy: "the cottage is small, and,
of course, we can only keep one servant."

"I dare say I shall be able to manage if you will help me a little,"
returned Dorothy, drying her old eyes with the corner of her apron.
"Dear, dear! to think of such an affliction coming upon my mistress
and the dear young ladies! It is like an earthquake or a flood, or
something sudden and unexpected,--Lord deliver us! And to think of my
speaking crossly to you Miss Nan, and you with all this worry on your
mind!"

"We will not think of that," returned Nan, soothingly. "Susan's
quarter will be up shortly, and we must get her away as soon as
possible. My great fear is that the work may be too much for you, poor
Dorothy; and that--that--we may have to keep you waiting sometimes for
your wages," she added, rather hesitatingly fearing to offend
Dorothy's touchy temper, and yet determined to put the whole matter
clearly before her.

"I don't think we need talk about that," returned Dorothy, with
dignity. "I have not saved up my wages for nineteen years without
having a nest-egg laid up for rainy days. Wages,--when I mention the
word, Miss Nan," went on Dorothy, waxing somewhat irate, "it will be
time enough to enter upon that subject. I haven't deserved such a
speech; no, that I haven't," went on Dorothy, with a sob. "Wages,
indeed!"

"Now, nursey, you shan't be cross with Nan," cried Dulce, throwing her
arms round the old woman; for, in spite of her eighteen years, she was
still Dorothy's special charge. "She's quite right; it may be an
unpleasant subject, but we will not have you working for us for
nothing."

"Very well, Miss Dulce," returned Dorothy, in a choked voice preparing
to withdraw; but Nan caught hold of the hard work-worn hand, and held
her fast.

"Oh, Dorothy, you would not add to our trouble now, when we are so
terribly unhappy! I never meant to hurt your feelings by what I said.
If you will only go to the Friary and help us to make the dear mother
comfortable, I, for one, will be deeply grateful."

"And you will not talk of wages?" asked Dorothy, mollified by Nan's
sweet, pleading tones.

"Not until we can afford to do so," returned Nan, hastily, feeling
that this was a safe compromise, and that they should be eked out
somehow. And then, the stewed pigeons being regarded as a failure,
Dorothy consented to remove the supper tray, and the long day was
declared at an end.




CHAPTER X.

THE FRIARY.


Oldfield was rather mystified by the Challoners' movements. There were
absolutely three afternoons during which Nan and her sisters were
invisible. There was a tennis-party at the Paines' on one of these
days, but at the last minute they had excused themselves. Nan's
prettily-worded note was declared very vague and unsatisfactory, and
on the following afternoon there was a regular invasion of the
cottage,--Carrie Paine, and two of the Twentyman girls, and Adelaide
Sartoris and her young brother Albert.

They found Dulce alone, looking very sad and forlorn.

Nan and Phillis had gone down to Hadleigh that morning, she explained
in rather a confused way: they were not expected back until the
following evening.

On being pressed by Miss Sartoris as to the reason of this sudden
trip, she added, rather awkwardly, that it was on business; her mother
was not well,--oh, very far from well; and they had to look at a house
that belonged to them, as the tenant had lately died.

This was all very plausible; but Dulce's manner was so constrained,
and she spoke with such hesitation, that Miss Sartoris was convinced
that something lay behind. They went out in the garden, however, and
chose sides for their game of tennis; and, though Dulce had never
played so badly in her life, the fresh air and exercise did her good,
and at the end of the afternoon she looked a little less drooping.

It was felt to be a failure, however, by the whole party; and when tea
was over, there was no mention of a second game. "No, we will not stay
any longer," observed Isabella Twentyman, kissing the girl with much
affection. "Of course we understand that you will be wanting to sit
with your mother."

"Yes, and if you do not come in to-morrow we shall quite know how it
is," added Miss Sartoris, good-naturedly, for which Dulce thanked her
and looked relieved.

She stood at the hall door watching them as they walked down the
village street, swinging their racquets and talking merrily.

"What happy girls!" she thought, with a sigh. Miss Sartoris was an
heiress, and the Twentymans were rich, and every one knew that Carrie
and Sophy Paine would have money. "None of them will have to work,"
said poor Dulce sorrowfully to herself: "they can go on playing tennis
and driving and riding and dancing as long as they like." And then she
went up to her mother's room with lagging footsteps and a cloudy
brow.

"You may depend upon it there is something amiss with those
Challoners," said Miss Sartoris, as soon as they were out of sight of
the cottage; "no one has seen anything of them for the last three or
four days, and I never saw Dulce so unlike herself."

"Oh, I hope not," returned Carrie, gravely, who had heard enough from
her father to guess that there was pecuniary embarrassment at the
bottom. "Poor little thing, she did seem rather subdued. How many
people do you expect to muster to-morrow, Adelaide?" and then Miss
Sartoris understood that the subject was to be changed.

While Dulce was trying to entertain her friends, Nan and Phillis were
reconnoitring the Friary.

They had taken an early train to London, and had contrived to reach
Hadleigh a little before three. They went first to Beach House,--a
small unpretending house on the Parade, kept by a certain Mrs. Mozley,
with whom they had once lodged after Dulce had the measles.

The good woman received them with the utmost cordiality. Her place was
pretty nearly filled, she told them proudly; the drawing-room had been
taken for three months, and an elderly couple were in the
dining-room.

"But there is a bedroom I could let you have for one night," finished
Mrs. Mozley, "and there is the little side parlor where you could have
your tea and breakfast." And when Nan had thanked her, and suggested
the addition of chops to their evening meal, they left their modest
luggage and set out for the Friary.

Phillis would have gone direct to their destination, but Nan pleaded
for one turn on the Parade. She wanted a glimpse of the sea, and it
was such a beautiful afternoon.

The tide was out, and the long black breakwaters were uncovered; the
sun was shining on the wet shingles and narrow strip of yellow sand.
The sea looked blue and unruffled, with little sparkles and gleams of
light, and white sails glimmered on the horizon. Some boatmen were
dragging a boat down the beach; it grated noisily over the pebbles. A
merry party were about to embark,--a tall man in a straw hat, and two
boys in knickerbockers. Their sisters were watching them. "Oh, Reggie,
do be careful!" Nan heard one of the girls say, as he waded knee-deep
into the water.

"Come, Nan, we ought not to dawdle like this!" exclaimed Phillis,
impatiently; and they went on quickly, past the long row of
old-fashioned white houses with the green before them and that sweet
Sussex border of soft feathery tamarisk, and then past the
cricket-field, and down to the whitewashed cottage of the Preventive
Station; and then they turned back and walked towards the Steyne, and
after that Nan declared herself satisfied.

There were plenty of people on the Parade, and most of them looked
after the two girls as they passed. Nan's sweet bloom and graceful
carriage always attracted notice; and Phillis, although she generally
suffered from comparison with her sister, was still very
uncommon-looking.

"I should like to know who those young ladies are," observed a
military-looking man with a white moustache, who was standing at the
Library door waiting for his daughter to make some purchases. "Look at
them, Elizabeth: one of them is such a pretty girl, and they walk so
well."

"Dear father, I suppose they are only some new-comers: we shall see
their names down in the visitors' list by and by;" and Miss Middleton
smiled as she took her father's arm, for she was slightly lame. She
knew strangers always interested him, and that he would make it his
business for the next few days to find out everything about them.

"Did you see that nice-looking woman?" asked Phillis, when they had
passed. "She was quite young, only her hair was gray: fancy, a
gray-haired girl!"

"Oh, she must be older than she looks," returned Nan, indifferently.

She was not looking at people: she was far too busily engaged
identifying each well-remembered spot.

There was the shabby little cottage, where she and her mother had once
stayed after an illness of Mrs. Challoner's. What odd little rooms
they had occupied, looking over a strip of garden-ground full of
marigolds! "Marigolds-all-in-a-row Cottage," she had named it in her
home letters. It was nearly opposite the White House where Mrs. Cheyne
lived. Nan remembered her,--a handsome, sad-looking woman, who always
wore black, and drove out in such handsome carriages.

"Always alone; how sad!" Nan thought; and she wondered, as they walked
past the low stone walls with grassy mounds slopping from them, and a
belt of shrubbery shutting out views of the house, whether Mrs. Cheyne
lived there still.

They had reached a quiet country corner now; there was a clump of
trees, guarded by posts and chains; a white house stood far back.
There were two or three other houses, and a cottage dotted down here
and there. The road looked shady and inviting. Nan began to look about
her more cheerfully.

"I am glad it is so quiet, and so far away from the town, and that our
neighbors will not be able to overlook us."

"I was just thinking of that as a disadvantage," returned Phillis,
with placid opposition. "It is a pity, under the circumstances, that
we are not nearer the town." And after that Nan held her peace.

They were passing an old-fashioned house with a green door in the
wall, when it suddenly opened, and a tall, grave looking young man, in
clerical attire, came out quickly upon them, and then drew back to let
them pass.

"I suppose that is the new vicar?" whispered Phillis, when they had
gone a few steps. "You know poor old Dr. Musgrave is dead, and most
likely that is his successor."

"I forgot that was the vicarage," returned Nan. But happily she did
not turn round to look at it again; if she had done so, she would have
seen the young clergyman still standing by the green door watching
them. "It is a shabby, dull old house in front; but I remember that
when mother and I returned Mrs. Musgrave's call we were shown into
such a dear old-fashioned drawing-room, with windows looking out on
such a pleasant garden. I quite fell in love with it."

"Well, we shall be near neighbors," observed Phillis, somewhat
shortly, as she paused before another green door, set in a long blank
wall; "for here we are at the Friary, and I had better just run over
the way and get the key from Mrs. Crump."

Nan nodded, and then stood like an image of patience before the
shabby green door. Would it open and let them into a new untried life?
What sort of fading hopes, of dim regrets, would be left outside when
they crossed the threshold? The thought of the empty rooms, not yet
swept and garnished, made her shiver: the upper windows looked blankly
at her, like blind, unrecognizing eyes. She was quite glad when
Phillis joined her again, swinging the key on her little finger, and
humming a tune in forced cheerfulness.

"What a dull, shut-in place! I think the name of Friary suits it
exactly," observed Nan, disconsolately, as they went up the little
flagged path, bordered with lilac-bushes. "It feels like a miniature
convent or prison: we might have a grating in the door, and answer all
outsiders through it."

"Nonsense!" returned Phillis, who was determined to take a bright view
of things. "Don't go into the house just yet, I want to see the
garden." And she led the way down a gloomy side-path, with unclipped
box and yews, that made it dark and decidedly damp. This brought them
to a little lawn, with tall, rank grass that might have been mown for
hay, and some side-beds full of old fashioned flowers, such as lupins
and monkshood, pinks and small pansies; a dreary little greenhouse,
with a few empty flower-pots and a turned-up box was in one corner,
and an attempt at a rockery, with a periwinkle climbing over it, and
an undesirable number of oyster-shells.

An old medlar tree, very warped and gnarled, was at the bottom of the
lawn, and beyond this a small kitchen-garden, with abundance of
gooseberry and currant-bushes, and vast resources in the shape of
mint, marjoram, and lavender.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! what a wretched little place after our dear old
Glen Cottage garden!" And in spite of her good resolutions, Nan's eyes
grew misty.

"Comparisons are odious," retorted Phillis, briskly. "We have just to
make the best of things,--and I don't deny they are horrid,--and put
all the rest away, between lavender, on the shelves of our memory."
And she smiled grimly as she picked one of the gray spiky flowers.

And then, as they walked round the weedy paths, she pointed out how
different it would look when the lawn was mown, and all the weeds and
oyster-shells removed, and the box and yews clipped, and a little
paint put on the greenhouse.

"And look at that splendid passion-flower, growing like a weed over
the back of the cottage," she remarked, with a wave of her hand: "it
only wants training and nailing up. Poor Miss Monks has neglected the
garden shamefully; but then she was always ailing."

They went into the cottage after this. The entry was rather small and
dark. The kitchen came first: it was a tolerable-sized apartment, with
two windows looking out on the lilacs and the green door and the blank
wall.

"I am afraid Dorothy will find it a little dull," Nan observed,
rather ruefully. And again she thought the name of Friary was well
given to this gruesome cottage; but she cheered up when Phillis opened
cupboards and showed her a light little scullery, and thought that
perhaps they could make it comfortable for Dorothy.

The other two rooms looked upon the garden: one had three windows, and
was really a very pleasant parlor.

"This must be our work-room," began Phillis, solemnly, as she stood in
the centre of the empty room, looking round her with bright knowing
glances. "Oh, what an ugly paper, Nan! but we can easily put up a
prettier one. The smaller room must be where we live and take our
meals: it is not quite so cheerful as this. It is so nice having this
side-window; it will give us more light, and we shall be able to see
who comes in at the door."

"Yes, that is an advantage," assented Nan. She was agreeably surprised
to find such a good-sized room in the cottage; it was decidedly low,
and the windows were not plate-glass, but she thought that on summer
mornings they might sit there very comfortably looking out at the lawn
and the medlar-tree.

"We shall be glad of these cupboards," she suggested, after a pause,
while Phillis, took out sundry pieces of tape from her pocket and
commenced making measurements in a business-like manner. "Our work
will make such a litter, and I should like things to be as tidy as
possible. I am thinking," she continued, "we might have mother's great
carved wardrobe in the recess behind the door. It is really a
magnificent piece of furniture, and in a work-room it would not be so
out of place; we could hang up the finished and unfinished dresses in
it out of the dust. And we could have the little drawing-room
chiffonnier between the windows for our pieces, and odds and ends in
the cupboards. It is a pity our table is round; but perhaps it will
look all the more comfortable. The sewing-machine must be in the
side-window," added Nan, who was quite in her element now, for she
loved all housewifely arrangements; "and mother's easy-chair and
little table must stand by the fireplace. My davenport will be useful
for papers and accounts."

"It is really a very convenient room," returned Phillis, in a
satisfied voice, when they had exhausted its capabilities; and, though
the second parlor was small and dull in comparison, even Nan dropped
no disparaging word.

Both of them agreed it would do very well. There was a place for the
large roomy couch that their mother so much affected, and their
favorite chairs and knick-knacks would soon make it look cosey: and
after this they went upstairs hand in hand.

There were only four bedrooms, and two of these were not large; the
most cheerful one was, of course, allotted to their mother, and the
next in size must be for Phillis and Dulce. Nan was to have a small
one next to her mother.

The evening was drawing on by the time they had finished their
measurements and left the cottage. Nan, who was tired and wanted her
tea, was for hurrying on to Beach House; but Phillis insisted on
calling at the Library. She wanted to put some questions to Miss
Milner. To-morrow they would have the paper-hanger, and look out for a
gardener, and there was Mrs. Crump to interview about cleaning down
the cottage.

"Oh, very well," returned Nan, wearily, and she followed Phillis into
the shop, where good-natured bustling Miss Milner came to them at
once.

Phillis put the question to her in a low voice, for there were other
customers exchanging books over the counter. The same young clergyman
they had before noticed had just bought a local paper, and was waiting
evidently for a young lady who was turning over some magazines quite
close to them.

"Do we know of a good dressmaker in the place?" repeated Miss Milner,
in her loud cheerful voice, very much to Nan's discomfort, for the
clergyman looked up from his paper at once. "Miss Monks was a
tolerable fit, but, poor thing! she died a few weeks ago; and Mrs.
Slasher, who lives over Viner's the haberdasher's, cannot hold a
candle to her. Miss Masham there,"--pointing to a smart ringleted
young person, evidently her assistant,--"had her gown ruined by her:
hadn't you, Miss Masham?"

Miss Masham simpered, but her reply was inaudible; but the young lady
who was standing near them suddenly turned round:

"There is Mrs. Langley, who lives just by. I shall be very happy to
give these ladies her address, for she is a widow with little
children, and I am anxious to procure her work--" and then she looked
at Nan, and hesitated; "that is, if you are not very particular," she
added, with sudden embarrassment, for even in her morning dress there
was a certain style about Nan that distinguished her from other
people.

"Thank you, Miss Drummond," returned Miss Milner, gratefully. "Shall I
write down the address for you, ma'am?"

"Yes,--no,--thank you very much, but perhaps it does not matter,"
returned Nan, hurriedly, feeling awkward for the first time in her
life. But Phillis, who realized all the humor of the situation,
interposed:

"The address will do us no harm, and we may as well have it, although
we should not trouble Mrs. Langley. I will call in again, Miss Milner,
to-morrow morning, and then I will explain what it is we really want.
We are in a hurry now," continued Phillis, loftily, turning away with
a dignified inclination of her head toward the officious stranger.

Phillis was not prepossessed in her favor. She was a dark, wiry little
person, not exactly plain, but with an odd, comical face; and she was
dressed so dowdily and with such utter disregard of taste that Phillis
instinctively felt Mrs. Langley was not to be dreaded.

"What a queer little body! Do you think she belongs to him?" she asked
Nan, as they walked rapidly toward Beach House.

"What in the world made you strike in after that fashion?" demanded
the young man, as he and his companion followed more slowly in the
strangers' footsteps. "That is just your way, Mattie, interfering and
meddling in other folks' affairs. Why cannot you mind your own
business sometimes," he continued, irritably, "instead of putting your
foot into other people's?"

"You are as cross as two sticks this afternoon, Archie," returned his
sister, composedly. She had a sharp little pecking voice that seemed
to match her, somehow; for she was not unlike a bright-eyed bird, and
had quick pouncing movements. "Wait a moment: my braid has got torn,
and is dragging."

"I wish you would think a little more of my position, and take greater
pains with your appearance," returned her brother, in an annoyed
voice. "What would Grace say to see what a fright you make of
yourself? It is a sin and a shame for a woman to be untidy or careless
in her dress; it is unfeminine! it is unlady-like!" hurling each
separate epithet at her.

Perhaps Miss Drummond was used to these compliments, for she merely
pinned her braid without seeming the least put out.

"I think I am a little shabby," she remarked, tranquilly, as they at
last walked on. "Perhaps Mrs. Langley had better make me a dress too,"
with a laugh, for, in spite of her sharp voice, she was an
even-tempered little body; but this last remark only added fuel to his
wrath.

"You really have less sense than a child. The idea of recommending a
person like Mrs. Langley to those young ladies,--a woman who works for
Miss Masham!"

"They were very plainly dressed, Archie," returned poor Mattie, who
felt this last snub acutely; for, if there was one thing upon which
she prided herself, it was her good sense. "They had dark print
dresses,--not as good as the one I have on,--and nothing could be
quieter."

"Oh, you absurd little goose!" exclaimed her brother, and he burst
into a laugh, for the drollery of the comparison restored him to
instant good humor. "If you cannot see the difference between that
frumpish gown of yours, with its little bobtails and fringes, and
those pretty dresses before us, I must say you are as blind as a bat,
Mattie."

"Oh, never mind my gown," returned Mattie, with a sigh.

She had had these home-thrusts to meet and parry nearly every day,
ever since she had come to keep house for this fastidious brother. She
was a very active, bustling little person, who had done a great deal
of tough work in her day, but she never could be made to see that
unless a woman add the graces of life to the cardinal virtues she is,
comparatively speaking, a failure in the eyes of the other sex.

So, though Mattie was a frugal housekeeper, and worked from morning to
night in his service,--the veriest little drudge that was ever
seen,--she was a perpetual eyesore to her brother, who loved feminine
grace and repose,--whose tastes were fastidious and somewhat
arbitrary. And so it was poor Mattie had more censure than praise, and
wrote home piteous letters complaining that nothing she did seemed to
satisfy Archie, and that her mother had made a great mistake in
sending her, and not Grace, to preside over his bachelor
establishment.

"Oh, Phillis, how shall we have courage to publish our plan?"
exclaimed Nan, when they were at last discussing the much-needed tea
and chops in the little parlor at Beach House.

The window was wide open. The returning tide was coming in with a
pleasant ripple and wash over the shingle. The Parade was nearly
empty; but some children's voices sounded from the green space before
the houses. The brown sail of a fishing craft dipped into the horizon.
It was so cool, so quiet, so restful; but Nan's eyes were weary, and
she put the question wistfully.

Phillis looked into the teapot to gain a moment's reprieve; the
corners of her mouth had an odd pucker in them.

"I never said it was not hard," she burst out at last. "I felt like a
fool myself while I was speaking to Miss Milner; but then that
clergyman was peeping at us between the folds of his paper. He seemed
a nice-looking, gentlemanly sort of man. Do you think that queer
little lady in the plaid dress could be his wife? Oh, no; I remember
Miss Milner addressed her as Miss Drummond. Then she must be his
sister: how odd!"

"Why should it be odd?" remarked Nan, absently, who had not
particularly noticed them.

"Oh, she was such a dowdy little thing, not a bit nice-looking, and he
was quite handsome, and looked rather distinguished. You know I always
take stock of people, and make up my mind about them at once. And then
we are to be such close neighbors."

"I don't suppose we shall see much of them," was Nan's somewhat
depressed reply; and then, as they had finished their tea they placed
themselves at the open window, and began to talk about the business of
next day; and, in discussing cupboards and new papers, Nan forgot her
fatigue, and grew so interested that it was quite late before they
thought of retiring to rest.




CHAPTER XI.

"TELL US ALL ABOUT IT, NAN."


Nan overslept herself, and was rather late the next morning; but as
she entered the parlor, with an exclamation of penitence for her
tardiness, she found her little speech was addressed to the empty
walls. A moment after, a shadow crossed the window, and Phillis came
in.

She went up to Nan and kissed her, and there was a gleam of fun in her
eyes.

"Oh, you lazy girl!" she said; "leaving me all the hard work to do. Do
you know, I have been around to the Library, and have had it all out
with Miss Milner; and in the Steyne I met the clergyman again,
and--would you believe it; he looked quite disappointed because you
were not there!"

"Nonsense!" returned Nan, sharply. She never liked this sort of joking
speeches: they seemed treasonable to Dick.

"Oh, but he did," persisted Phillis, who was a little excited and
reckless after her morning's work. "He threw me a disparaging glance,
which said, as plainly as possible, 'Why are you not the other one?'
That comes from having a sister handsomer than one's self."

"Oh, Phillis! when people always think you so nice, and when you are
so clever!"

Phillis got up and executed a little courtesy in the prettiest way,
and then she sank down upon her chair in pretended exhaustion.

"What I have been through! But I have come out of it alive. Confess,
now, there's a dear, that you could not have done it!"

"No; indeed," with an alarmed air. "Do you really mean to say that you
actually told Miss Milner what we meant to do?"

"I told her everything. There, sit down and begin your breakfast, Nan,
or we shall never be ready. I found her alone in the shop. Thank
goodness, that Miss Masham was not there. I have taken a dislike to
that simpering young person, and would rather make a dress for Mrs.
Squails any day than for her. I told her the truth, without a bit of
disguise. Would you believe it, the good creature actually cried about
it! she quite upset me too. 'Such young ladies! dear, dear: one does
not often see such,' she kept saying over and over again. And then she
put out her hand and stroked my dress, and said, 'Such a beautiful
fit, too; and to think you have made it yourself! such a clever young
lady! Oh, dear! whatever will Mr. Drummond and Miss Mattie say?'
Stupid old thing! as though we cared what he said!"

"Oh, Phillis! and she cried over it?"

"She did indeed. I am not exaggerating. Two big round tears rolled
down her cheeks. I could have kissed her for them. And then she made
me sit down in the little room behind the shop, where she was having
her breakfast, and poured me out a cup of tea and----" But here Nan
interrupted her, and there was a trace of anxiety in her manner.

"Poured you out a cup of tea! Miss Milner! And you drank it!"

"Of course I drank it; it was very good, and I was thirsty."

But here Nan pounced upon her unexpectedly, and dragged her to the
window.

"Your fun is only make-believe: there is no true ring about it. Let me
see your eyes. Oh, Phil, Phil! I thought so! You have been crying,
too!"

Phillis looked a little taken aback. Nan was too sharp for her. She
tried to shake herself free a little pettishly.

"Well, if I choose to make a fool of myself for once in my life, you
need not be silly about it; the old thing was so upsetting, and--and
it was so hard to get it out." Phillis would not have told for worlds
how utterly she had broken down over that task of hers; how the
stranger's sympathy had touched so painful a chord that, before she
knew what she was doing, she had laid her head down on the counter and
was crying like a baby,--all the more that she had so bravely pent up
her feelings all these days that she might not dishearten her
sisters.

But, as Nan petted and praised her, she did tell how good Miss Milner
had been to her.

"Fancy a fat old thing like that having such fine feelings," she said,
with an attempt to recover her sprightliness. "She was as good as a
mother to me,--made me sit in the easy-chair, and brought me some
elder-flower water to bathe my eyes, and tried to cheer me up by
saying that we should have plenty of work. She has promised not to
tell any one just yet about us; but when we are really in the Friary
she will speak to people and recommend us: and--" here Phillis gave a
little laugh--"we are to make up a new black silk for her that her
brother has just sent her. Oh, dear, what will mother say to us, Nan?"
And Phillis looked at her in an alarmed, beseeching way, as though in
sore need of comfort.

Nan looked grave; but there was no hesitation in her answer:

"I am afraid it is too late to think of that now, Phil: it has to be
done, and we must just go through with it."

"You are right, Nanny darling, we must just go through with it,"
agreed Phillis; and then they went on with their unfinished breakfast,
and after that the business of the day began.

It was late in the evening when they reached home. Dulce who was at
the gate looking out for them, nearly smothered them with kisses.

"Oh, you dear things! how glad I am to get you back," she said,
holding them both. "Have you really only been away since yesterday
morning? It seems a week at least."

"You ridiculous child! as though we believe that! But how is mother?"

"Oh, pretty well: but she will be better now you are back. Do you
know," eying them both very gravely, "I think it was a wise thing of
you to go away like that? it has shown me that mother and I could not
do without you at all: we should have pined away in those lodgings; it
has quite reconciled me to the plan," finished Dulce, in a loud
whisper that reached her mother's ears.

"What plan? What are you talking about, Dulce? and why do you keep
your sisters standing in the hall?" asked Mrs. Challoner, a little
irritably. But her brief nervousness vanished at the sight of their
faces: she wanted nothing more, she told herself, but to see them
round her, and hear their voices.

She grew quite cheerful when Phillis told her about the new papers,
and how Mrs. Crump was to clean down the cottage, and how Crump had
promised to mow the grass and paint the greenhouse, and Jack and
Bobbie were to weed the garden-paths.

"It is a perfect wilderness now, mother: you never saw such a place."

"Never mind, so that it will hold us, and that we shall all be
together," she returned, with a smile. "But Dulce talked of some plan:
you must let me hear it, my dears; you must not keep me in the dark
about anything. I know we shall all have to work," continued the poor
lady; "but if we be all together, if you will promise not to leave me,
I think I could bear anything."

"Are we to tell her!" motioned Nan with her lips to Phillis; and as
Phillis nodded, "Yes," Nan gently and quietly began unfolding their
plan.

But, with all her care and all Phillis's promptings, the revelation
was a great shock to Mrs. Challoner; in her weakened state she seemed
hardly able to bear it.

Dulce repented bitterly her incautious whisper when she saw her
sisters' tired faces, and their fruitless attempts to soften the
effects of such a blow. For a little while, Mrs. Challoner seemed on
the brink of despair; she would not listen; she abandoned herself to
lamentations; she became so hysterical at last that Dorothy was
summoned from the kitchen and taken into confidence.

"Mother, you are breaking our hearts," Nan said, at last. She was
kneeling at her feet, chafing her hands, and Phillis was fanning her;
but she pushed them both away from her with weak violence.

"It is I whose heart is breaking! Why must I live to see such things?
Dorothy, do you know my daughters are going to be dressmakers?--my
daughters, who are Challoners,--who have been delicately
nurtured,--who might hold up their heads with any one?"

"Dorothy, hold your tongue!" exclaimed Phillis, peremptorily. "You are
not to speak; this is for us to decide, and no one else. Mammy, you
are making Nan look quite pale: she is dreadfully tired, and so am I.
Why need we decide anything to-night? Every one is upset and excited,
and when that is the case one can never arrive at any proper
conclusion. Let us talk about it to-morrow, when we are rested." And,
though Mrs. Challoner would not allow herself to be comforted, Nan's
fatigue and paleness were so visible to her maternal eyes that they
were more eloquent than Phillis's words.

"I must not think only of myself. Yes, yes, I will do as you wish.
There will be time enough for this sort of talk to-morrow. Dorothy,
will you help me? The young ladies are tired; they have had a long
journey. No, my dear, no," as Dulce pressed forward; "I would rather
have Dorothy." And, as the old servant gave them a warning glance,
they were obliged to let her have her way.

"Mammy has never been like this before," pouted Dulce, when they were
left alone. "She drives us away from her as though we had done
something purposely to vex her."

"It is because she cannot bear the sight of us to-night," returned
Phillis, solemnly. "It is worse for her than for us; a mother feels
things for her children more than for herself; it is nature, that is
what it is," she finished philosophically; "but she will be better
to-morrow." And after this the miserable little conclave broke up.

Mrs. Challoner passed a sleepless night, and her pillow was sown with
thorns. To think of the Challoners falling so low as this! To think of
her pretty Nan, her clever, bright Phillis, her pet Dulce coming to
this; "oh, the pity of it!" she cried in the dark hours, when vitality
runs lowest, and thoughts seem to flow involuntarily towards a dark
centre.

But with the morning came sunshine, and her girl's faces,--a little
graver than usual, perhaps, but still full of youth and the brightness
of energy; and the sluggish nightmare of yesterday's grief began to
fade a little.

"Now, mammy, you are not going to be naughty to-day!" was Dulce's
morning salutation as she seated herself on the bed.

Mrs. Challoner smiled faintly:

"Was I very naughty last night, Dulce?"

"Oh, as bad as possible. You pushed poor Nan and Phillis away, and
would not let any one come near you but that cross old Dorothy, and
you never bade us good-night; but if you promise to be good, I will
forgive you and make it up," finished Dulce, with those light
butterfly kisses to which she was addicted.

"Now, Chatterbox, it is my turn," interrupted Phillis; and then she
began a carefully concocted little speech, very carefully drawn out to
suit her mother's sensitive peculiarities.

She went over the old ground patiently point by point. Mrs. Challoner
shuddered at the idea of letting lodgings.

"I knew you would agree with us," returned Phillis, with a convincing
nod; and then she went on to the next clause.

Mrs. Challoner argued a great deal about the governess scheme. She was
quite angry with Phillis, and seemed to suffer a great deal of
self-reproach, when the girl spoke of their defective education and
lack of accomplishments. Nan had to come to her sister's rescue; but
the mother was slow to yield the point:

"I don't know what you mean. My girls are not different from other
girls. What would your poor father say if he were alive? It is cruel
to say this to me, when I stinted myself to give you every possible
advantage, and I paid Miss Martin eighty pounds a year," she
concluded, tearfully, feeling as though she were the victim of a
fraud.

She was far more easily convinced that going out as companions would
be impracticable under the circumstances. "Oh, no, that will never
do!" she cried, when the two little rooms with Dulce were proposed;
and after this Phillis found her task less difficult. She talked her
mother over at last to reluctant acquiescence. "I never knew how I
came to consent," she said, afterwards, "but they were too much for
me."

"We cannot starve. I suppose I must give in to you," she said, at
last; "but I shall never hold up my head again." And she really
believed what she said.

"Mother, you must trust us," replied Phillis, touched by this victory
she had won. "Do you know what I said to Dulce? Work cannot degrade
us. Though we are dressmakers, we are still Challoners. Nothing can
make us lose our dignity and self-respect as gentlewomen."

"Other people will not recognize it," returned her mother, with a
sigh. "You will lose caste. No one will visit you. Among your equals
you will be treated as inferiors. It is this that bows me to the earth
with shame."

"Mother, how can you talk so?" cried Nan, in a clear, indignant voice.
"What does it matter if people do not visit us? We must have a world
of our own, and be sufficient for ourselves, if we can only keep
together. Is not that what you have said to us over and over again?
Well, we shall be together, we shall have each other. What does the
outside world matter to us after all?"

"Oh, you are young; you do not know what complications may arise,"
replied Mrs. Challoner, with the gloomy forethought of middle age.
She thought she knew the world better than they, but in reality she
was almost as guileless and ignorant as her daughters. "Until you
begin, you do not know the difficulties that will beset you," she went
on.

But notwithstanding this foreboding speech, she was some what
comforted by Nan's words: "they would be together!" Well, if
Providence chose to inflict this humiliation and afflictive
dispensation on her, it could be borne as long as she had her children
around her.

Nan made one more speech,--a somewhat stern one for her.

"Our trouble will be a furnace to try our friends. We shall know the
true from the false. Only those who are really worth the name will be
faithful to us."

Nan was thinking of Dick; but her mother misunderstood her, and grew
alarmed.

"You will not tell the Paines and the other people about here what you
intend to do, surely? I could not bear that! no, indeed, I could not
bear that!"

"Do not be afraid, dear mother," returned Nan, sadly, "we are far too
great cowards to do such a thing, and, after all, there is no need to
put ourselves to needless pain. If the Maynes were here we might not
be able to keep it from them, perhaps, and so I am thankful they are
away."

Nan said this quite calmly, though her mother fixed her eyes upon her
in a most tenderly mournful fashion. She had quite forgotten their
Longmead neighbors, but now, as Nan recalled them to her mind, she
remembered Mr. Mayne, and her look had become compassionate.

"It will be all over with those poor children," she thought to
herself: "the father will never allow it,--never; and I cannot wonder
at him." And then her heart softened to the memory of Dick, whom she
had never thought good enough for Nan, for she remembered now with a
sore pang that her pride was laid low in the dust, and that she could
not hope now that her daughters would make splendid matches: even Dick
would be above them, though his father had been in trade, and though
he had no grandfather worth mentioning.

A few days after their return from Hadleigh, there was an other long
business interview with Mr. Trinder, in which every thing was settled.
A tenant had already been found for the cottage. A young couple, on
the eve of their marriage, who had long been looking for a suitable
house in the neighborhood had closed at once with Mr. Trinder's offer,
and had taken the lease off their hands. The gentleman was a cousin of
the Paines and, partly for the convenience of the in-coming tenants,
and partly because the Challoners wished to move as soon as possible,
there was only a delay of a few weeks before the actual flitting.

It would be impossible to describe the dismay of the neighborhood when
the news was circulated.

Immediately after their return from Hadleigh, Nan and Phillis took
counsel together, and, summoning up their courage, went from one to
another of their friends and quietly announced their approaching
departure.

"Mother has had losses, and we are now dreadfully poor, and we are
going to leave Glen Cottage and go down to a small house we have at
Hadleigh," said Nan, who by virtue of an additional year of age was
spokeswoman on this occasion. She had fully rehearsed this little
speech, which she intended to say at every house in due rotation. "We
will not disguise the truth; we will let people know that we are poor,
and then they will not expect impossibilities," she said, as they
walked down the shady roads towards the Paines' house,--for the Paines
were their most intimate friends and had a claim to the first
confidence.

"I think that will be sufficient; no one has any right to know more,"
she continued, decidedly, fully determined that no amount of coaxing
and cross-examination should wring from her one unnecessary word.

But she little knew how difficult it would be to keep their own
counsel. The Paines were not alone: they very seldom were. Adelaide
Sartoris was there, and the younger Miss Twentyman, and a young widow,
a Mrs. Forbes, who was a distant connection of Mrs. Paine.

Nan was convinced that they had all been talking about them, for there
was rather an embarrassed pause as she and Phillis entered the room.
Carrie looked a little confused as she greeted them.

Nan sat down by Mrs. Paine, who was rather deaf, and in due time made
her little speech. She was rather pale with the effort, and her voice
faltered a little, but every word was heard at the other end of the
room.

"Leave Glen Cottage, my dear? I can't have heard you rightly. I am
very deaf, to-day,--very. I think I must have caught cold." And Mrs.
Paine turned a mild face of perplexity on Nan; but, before she could
reiterate her words, Carrie was on the footstool at her feet, and Miss
Sartoris, with a grave look of concern on her handsome features, was
standing beside her:

"Oh, Nan! tell us all about it! Of course we saw something was the
matter. Dulce was so strange that afternoon; and you have all been
keeping yourselves invisible for ever so long."

"There is very little to tell," returned Nan, trying to speak
cheerfully. "Mother has had bad news. Mr. Gardiner is bankrupt, and
all our invested money is gone. Of course we could not go on living at
Glen Cottage. There is some talk, Carrie, of your cousin, Mr.
Ibbetson, coming to look at it: it will be nice for us if he could
take the lease off our hands, and then we should go down to the
Friary."

"How I shall hate to see Ralph there!--not but what it will suit him
and Louisa well enough, I dare say. But never mind him: I want to
know all about yourselves," continued Carrie, affectionately. "This is
dreadful, Nan! I can hardly believe it. What are we to do without you?
and where is the Friary? and what is it like? and what will you do
with yourselves when you get there?"

"Yes, indeed, that is what we want to know," agreed Miss Sartoris,
putting her delicately-gloved hand on Nan's shoulder; and then Sophy
Paine joined the little group, and Mrs. Forbes and Miss Twentyman left
off talking to Phillis, and began listening; with all their might. Now
it was that Nan began to foresee difficulties.

"The Friary is very small," she went on, "but it will just hold us and
Dorothy. Dorothy is coming with us, of course. She is old, but she
works better than some of the young ones. She is a faithful
creature----"

But Carrie interrupted her impatiently:

"But, Nan, what will you do with yourselves? Hadleigh is a nice place,
I believe. Mamma, we must all go down there next summer, and stay
there,--you shall come with us, Adelaide,--and then we shall be able
to cheer these poor things up; and Nan, you and Phillis must come and
stay with us. We don't mean to give you up like this. What does it
matter about being poor? We are all old friends together. You shall
give us tea at the Friary; and I dare say there are tennis-grounds at
Hadleigh, and we will have nice times together."

"Of course we will come and see you," added Miss Sartoris, with a
friendly pressure of Nan's shoulder; but the poor girl only colored up
and looked embarrassed, and then it was that Phillis, who was watching
her opportunity, struck in:

"You are all very good; but, Carrie, I don't believe you understand
Nan one bit. When people lose their money they have to work. We shall
all have to put our shoulder to the wheel. We would give you tea, of
course, but as for paying visits and playing tennis, it is only idle
girls like yourselves who have time for that sort of thing. It will be
work and not play, I fear, with us."

"Oh, Phillis!" exclaimed poor Carrie, with tears in her eyes, and Miss
Sartoris looked horrified, for she had West-Indian blood in her veins
and was by nature somewhat indolent and pleasure-loving.

"Do you mean you will have to be governesses?" she asked, with a touch
of dismay in her voice.

"We shall have to work," returned Phillis, vaguely. "When we are
settled at the Friary we must look round us and do the best we can."
This was felt to be vague by the whole party; but Phillis's manner was
so bold and well assured that no one suspected that anything lay
beyond the margin of her speech. They had not made up their minds,
perhaps; Sir Francis Challoner would assist them; or there were other
sources of help: they must move into the new house first, and then see
what was to be done. It was so plausible, so sensible, that every one
was deceived.

"Of course you cannot decide in such a hurry: you must have so much to
do just now," observed Carrie. "You must write and tell us all your
plans, Phillis, and if there be anything we can do to help you. Mamma,
we might have Mrs. Challoner here while the cottage is dismantled. Do
spare her to us, Nan, and we will take such care of her!" And they
were still discussing this point, and trying to overrule Nan's
objections,--who knew nothing would induce her mother to leave
them,--when other visitors were announced, and in the confusion they
were allowed to make their escape.




CHAPTER XII.

"LADDIE" PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE.


"I think we have managed that as well as possible!" exclaimed Phillis,
when they found themselves outside the gates. "What a good thing
Adelaide and Mrs. Forbes and Lily were there! Now we need only call at
those three houses to say good-bye. How hot you look, Nan! and how
they all hemmed you in! I was obliged to come to your rescue, you were
so beset; but I think I have put them off the scent."

"Yes, for the present; but think, Phil, if Carrie really carries out
her intention, and all the Paine tribe and Adelaide come down to
Hadleigh next summer! No wonder I am hot; the bare idea suffocates
me."

"Something may turn up before then; it is no good looking so far
ahead," was the philosophical rejoinder. "Adelaide is rather
formidable, certainly, and, in spite of her good nature, one does not
feel at home with her. There is a flavor of money about her, I think;
she dresses, talks, and lives in such a gilded way one finds her
heavy; but she may get married before then. Mr. Dalrymple certainly
seemed to mean it when he was down here last winter, and he will be a
good match for her. But here we are at Fitzroy Square. I wonder what
sort of humor her ladyship will be in?"

Lady Fitzroy received them very graciously. She had just been
indulging in a slight dispute with her husband, and the interruption
was welcome to both of them; besides, she was always gracious to the
Challoners.

"You have just come in time, for we were boring each other
dreadfully," she said, in her pretty languid way, holding out a hand
to each of them. "Percival, will you ring the bell, please? I cannot
think why Thorpe does not bring up the tea as usual!"

Lord Fitzroy obeyed his wife's behest, and then he turned with a
relieved air to his old friend Phillis. She was the clever one; and
though some people called her quiet, that was because they did not
draw her out, or she had no sympathy with them. He had always found
her decidedly amusing and agreeable in the days of his bachelorhood.

He had married the beauty of a season, but the beauty was not without
her little crotchets and tempers; and though he was both fond and
proud of his wife, he found Phillis's talk a relief this afternoon.

But Phillis was a little _distraite_ on this occasion: she wanted to
hear what Nan was saying in a low voice across the room, and Thorpe
and his subordinate were setting the tea-table, and Lord Fitzroy would
place himself just before her.

"Now look here, Miss Challoner," he was saying, "I want to tell you
all about it;" but here Thorpe left the room, and Lady Fitzroy
interrupted them:

"Oh, Percival, what a pity! Do you hear?--we are going to lose our
nicest neighbors? Dear little Glen Cottage is to be empty in a week or
so!"

"Mr. Ralph Ibbetson will decide to take it, I think; and he and Miss
Blake are to be married on the 16th of next month," returned Nan,
softly.

"Ibbetson at Glen Cottage! that red-headed fellow! My dear Miss
Challoner, what sacrilege!--what desecration! What do you mean by
forsaking us in this fashion? Are you all going to be married? Has Sir
Francis died and left you a fortune? In the name of all that is
mysterious, what is the meaning of this?"

"If you will let a person speak, Percival," returned his wife, with
dignity, "you shall have an answer:" and then she looked up in his
handsome, good-natured face, and her manner softened insensibly. "Poor
dear Mrs. Challoner has had losses! Some one has played her false, and
they are obliged to leave Glen Cottage. But Hadleigh is a nice place,"
she went on, turning to Nan: "it is very select."

"Where did you say, Evelyn?" inquired her husband, eagerly. "Hadleigh,
in Sussex? Oh, that is a snug little place; no Toms and Harries go
down there on a nine hours' trip. I was there myself once, with the
Shannontons. Perhaps Lady Fitzroy and I may run down one day and have
a look at you," he continued, with a friendly look at Phillis. It was
only one of his good-natured speeches, but his wife took umbrage at
it.

"The sea never agrees with me. I thought you knew that, Percival!"
rather reproachfully; "but I dare say we shall often see you here,"
she went on, fearing Nan would think her ungracious. "You and the
Paines are so intimate that they are sure to have you for weeks
together; it is so pleasant revisiting an old neighborhood, is it not?
I know I always feel that with regard to Nuneaton."

"Nuneaton never suits my constitution. I thought you would have
remembered that, Evelyn," returned her husband, gravely; and then they
both laughed. Lord Fitzroy was not without a sense of humor, and often
restored amity by a joking word after this fashion, and then the
conversation proceeded more smoothly.

Nan and Phillis felt far more at their ease here than they had felt at
the Paines'. There were no awkward questions asked: Lady Fitzroy was
far too well bred for that. If she wondered at all how the Challoners
were to live after they had lost their money, she kept such remarks
for her husband's private ear.

"Those girls ought to marry well," observed Lord Fitzroy, when he
found himself alone again with his wife. "Miss Challoner is as pretty
a creature as one need see, but Miss Phillis has the most in her."

"How are they to meet people if they are going to bury themselves in a
little sea-side place?" she returned, regretfully. "Shall I put on my
habit now, Percy? do you think it will be cool enough for our ride?"

"Yes, run along, my pet, and don't keep me too long waiting."
Nevertheless, Lord Fitzroy did not object when his wife made room for
him a moment beside her on the couch, while she made it up to him for
her cross speeches, as she told him.

"There, little mother, it is all done!" exclaimed Phillis, in a tone
of triumph, as later on in the afternoon they returned to the cottage;
but in spite of her bravado, both the girls looked terribly jaded, and
Nan especially seemed out of spirits; but then they had been round the
Longmead garden, and had gathered some flowers in the conservatory,
and this alone would have been depressing work to Nan.

From that time they lived in a perpetual whirl, a bustle of activity
that grew greater; and not less, from day to day. Mrs. Challoner had
quietly but decidedly refused the Paines' invitation. Nan was right;
nothing would have induced her to leave her girls in their trouble:
she made light of their discomfort, forgot her invalid airs, and
persisted in fatiguing herself to an alarming extent.

"You must let me do things; I should be wretched to sit with my hands
before me, and not help you," she said with tears in her eyes, and
when they appealed in desperation to Dorothy, she took her mistress's
side:

"Working hurts less than worrying. Don't you be fretting about the
mistress too much, or watching her too closely. It will do her no
harm, take my word for it." And Dorothy was right.

But there was one piece of work that Nan set her mother to do before
they left the cottage.

"Mother," she said to her one day when they were alone together. "Mrs.
Mayne will be wondering why you do not answer her letter. I think you
had better write, and tell her a little about things. We must not put
it off any longer, or she will be hurt with us." And Mrs. Challoner
very reluctantly set about her unpleasant task.

But, after all, it was Nan who furnished the greater part of the
composition. Mrs. Challoner was rather verbose and descriptive in her
style. Nan cut down her sentences ruthlessly, and so pruned and
simplified the whole epistle that her mother failed to trace her own
handiwork: and at the last she added a postscript in her own pretty
handwriting.

Mrs. Challoner was rather dissatisfied with the whole thing.

"You have said so little, Nan! Mrs. Mayne will be quite affronted at
our reticence."

"What is the use of harrowing people's feelings?" was Nan's response.

It was quite true she had dwelt as little as possible on their
troubles.

The few opening sentences had related solely to their friends'
affairs.

"You will be sorry to hear," Mrs. Challoner wrote after this, "that I
have met with some severe losses. I dare say Mr. Mayne will remember
that my poor husband invested our little income in the business of his
cousin, Mark Gardiner. We have just heard the unwelcome news that
Gardiner & Fowler have failed for a large amount. Under these
circumstances, we think it more prudent to leave Glen Cottage as soon
as possible, and settle at Hadleigh, where we have a small house
belonging to us called the Friary. Fortunately for us, Mr. Trinder has
found us a tenant, who will take the remainder of the lease off our
hands. Do you remember Mr. Ralph Ibbetson, the Paines' cousin, that
rather heavy-looking young man, with reddish hair, who was engaged to
that pretty Miss Blake?--well, he has taken Glen Cottage; and I hope
you will find them nice neighbors. Tell Dick he must not be too sorry
to miss his old friends, but of course you will understand this is a
sad break to us. Settling down in a new place is never very pleasant;
and as my girls will have to help themselves, and we shall all have to
learn to do without things, it will be somewhat of a discipline to us;
but as long as we are together, we all feel, such difficulties can be
easily borne.

"Tell Mr. Mayne that, if I had foreseen how things were to turn out, I
would have conquered my indisposition, and not have forfeited my last
evening at Longmead."

And in the postscript Nan wrote hurriedly,--

"You must not be too sorry for us, dear Mrs. Mayne, for mother is as
brave as possible, and we are all determined to make the best of
things.

"Of course it is very sad leaving dear Glen Cottage, where we have
spent such happy, happy days; but, though the Friary is small, we
shall make it very comfortable. Tell Dick the garden is a perfect
wilderness at present, and that there are no roses,--only a splendid
passion-flower that covers the whole back of the house."

Nan never knew why she wrote this. Was it to remind him vaguely that
the time of roses was over, and that from this day things would be
different with them?

Nan was quite satisfied when she had despatched this letter. It told
just enough, and not too much. It sorely perplexed and troubled Dick;
and yet neither he nor his father had the least idea how things really
were with the Challoners.

"Didn't I tell you so, Bessie?" exclaimed Mr. Mayne, almost in a voice
of triumph, as he struck his hand upon the letter. "Paine was right
when he spoke of a shaky investment. That comes of women pretending to
understand business. A pretty mess they seem to have made of it!"

"Mother," said poor Dick, coming up to her when he found himself alone
with her for a moment, "I don't understand this letter. I cannot read
between the lines, somehow, and yet there seems something more than
meets the eye."

"I am sure it is bad enough," returned Mrs. Mayne, who had been
quietly crying over Nan's postscript. "Think of them leaving Glen
Cottage, and of these poor dear girls having to make themselves
useful!"

"It is just that that bothers me so," replied Dick, with a frowning
brow. "The letter tells us so little; it is so constrained in tone; as
though they were keeping something from us. Of course they have
something to live upon, but I am afraid it is very little."

"Very likely they will only have one servant,--just Dorothy and no one
else; and the girls will have to help in the house," returned his
mother, thoughtfully. "That will not do them any harm, Dick: it always
improves girls to make them useful. I dare say the Friary is a very
small place, and then I am sure, with a little help, Dorothy will do
very well."

"But, mother," pleaded Dick, who was somewhat comforted by this
sensible view of the matter, "do write to Nan or Phillis and beg of
them to give us fuller particulars." And, though Mrs. Mayne promised
she would do so, and kept her word, Dick was not satisfied, but sat
down and scrawled a long letter to Mrs. Challoner, so incoherent in
its expressions of sympathy and regret that it quite mystified her;
but Nan thought it perfect, and took possession of it, and read it
every day, until it got quite thin and worn. One sentence especially
pleased her. "I don't intend ever to cross the threshold of the
cottage again," wrote Dick: "in fact, Oldfield will be hateful without
you all. Of course I shall run down to Hadleigh at Christmas and look
you up, and see for myself what sort of a place the Friary is. Tell
Nan I will get her lots of roses for her garden so she need not
trouble about that; and give them my love, and tell them how awfully
sorry I am about it all."

Poor Dick! the news of his friends' misfortunes took off the edge of
his enjoyment for a long time. Thanks to Nan's unselfishness, he did
not in the least realize the true state of affairs; nevertheless, his
honest heart was heavy at the thought of the empty cottage, and he was
quite right in saying Oldfield had grown suddenly hateful to him, and,
though he kept these thoughts to himself as much as possible, Mr.
Mayne saw that his son was depressed and ill at ease, and sent him
away to the Swiss Tyrol, with a gay party of young people, hoping a
few weeks' change would put the Challoners out of his head. Meanwhile
Nan and her sisters worked busily, and their friends crowded round
them, helping or hindering, according to their nature.

On the last afternoon there was a regular invasion of the cottage. The
drawing-room carpet was up, and the room was full of packing-cases.
Carrie Paine had taken possession of one and her sister Sophy and Lily
Twentyman had a turned-up box between them. Miss Sartoris and Gussie
Scobell had wicker chairs. Dorothy had just brought in tea, and had
placed before Nan a heterogeneous assemblage of kitchen cups and
saucers, mugs, and odds and ends of crockery, when Lady Fitzroy
entered in her habit, accompanied by her sister, the Honorable Maud
Burgoyne, both of whom seemed to enjoy the picnic excessively.

"Do let me have the mug," implored Miss Burgoyne: she was a pretty
little brunette with a _nez retrousse_. "I have never drunk out of one
since my nursery days. How cool it is, after the sunny roads! I think
carpets ought to be abolished in the summer. When I have a house of my
own, Evelyn, I mean to have Indian matting and nothing else in the
warm weather."

"I am very fond of Indian matting," returned her sister, sipping her
tea contentedly. "Fitzroy hoped to have looked in this afternoon, Mrs.
Challoner, to say good-bye, but there is an assault-at-arms at the
Albert Hall, and he is taking my young brother Algernon to see it. He
is quite inconsolable at the thought of losing such pleasant
neighbors, and sent all sorts of pretty messages," finished Lady
Fitzroy, graciously.

"Here is Edgar," exclaimed Carrie Paine; "he told us that he meant to
put in an appearance; but I am afraid the poor boy will find himself
_de trop_ among so many ladies."

Edgar was the youngest Paine,--a tall Eton boy, who looked as though
he would soon be too big for jackets, and an especial friend of
Nan's.

"How good of you to come and say good-bye, Gar!" she said summoning
him to her side, as the boy looked round him blushing and half
terrified. "What have you got there under your jacket?"

"It is the puppy I promised you," returned Edgar, eagerly; "don't you
know?--Nell's puppy? Father said I might have it." And he deposited a
fat black retriever puppy at Nan's feet. The little beast made a
clumsy rush at her and then rolled over on its back. Nan took it up
in high delight, and showed it to her mother.

"Isn't it good of Gar, mother? and when we all wanted a dog so! We
have never had a pet since poor old Juno died; and this will be such a
splendid fellow when he grows up. Look at his head and curly black
paws; and what a dear solemn face he has got!"

"I am glad you like him," replied Edgar, who was now perfectly at his
ease. "We have christened him 'Laddie:' he is the handsomest puppy of
the lot, and our man Jake says he is perfectly healthy." And then, as
Nan cut him some cake, he proceeded to enlighten her on the treatment
of this valuable animal.

The arrival of "Laddie" made quite a diversion, and, when the
good-byes were all said, Nan took the little animal in her arms and
went with Phillis for the last time to gather flowers in the Longmead
garden, and when the twilight came on the three girls went slowly
through the village, bidding farewell to their old haunts.

It was all very sad, and nobody slept much that night in the cottage.
Nan's tears were shed very quietly, but they fell thick and fast.

"Oh, Dick, it is hard--hard!" thought the poor girl, burying her face
in the pillow; "but I have not let you know the day, so you will not
be thinking of us. I would not pain you for worlds, Dick, not more
than I can help." And then she dried her eyes and told herself that
she must be brave for all their sakes to-morrow; but, for all her good
resolutions, sleep would not come to her any more than it did to
Phillis, who lay open-eyed and miserable until morning.




CHAPTER XIII.

"I MUST HAVE GRACE."


When the Rev. Archibald Drummond was nominated to the living of
Hadleigh in Sussex, it was at once understood by his family that he
had achieved a decided success in life.

Hadleigh until very recently had been a perpetual curacy, and the
perpetual curate in charge had lived in the large, shabby house with
the green door on the Braidwood Road, as it was called. There had been
some talk of a new vicarage, but as yet the first brick had not been
laid, the building-committee had fallen out on the question of the
site, and nothing had been definitely arranged: there was a good deal
of talk, too, about the church restoration, but at the present moment
nothing had been done.

Mr. Drummond had not been disturbed in his mind by the delay of the
building-committee in the matter of the new vicarage, but on the topic
of the church restoration he had been heard to say very bitter
things,--far too bitter, it was thought, to proceed from the lips of
such a new-comer. It is not always wise to be outspoken, and when Mr.
Drummond expressed himself a little too frankly on the ugliness of the
sacred edifice, which until lately had been a chapel-of-ease, he had
caused a great deal of dissatisfaction in the mind of his hearers; but
when the young vicar, still strongly imbued with the beauties of
Oxford architecture, had looked round blankly on the great square pews
and galleries, and then at the wooden pulpit, and the Ten Commandments
that adorned the east end, he was not quite so sure in his mind that
his position was as enviable as that of other men.

Church architecture was his hobby, and, if the truth must be told, he
was a little "High" in his views; without attaching himself to the
Ultra-Ritualistic party, he was still strongly impregnated with many
of their ideas; he preferred Gregorian to Anglican chants, and would
have had no objection to incense if his diocesan could have been
brought to appreciate it too.

An ornate service was decidedly to his taste. It was, therefore, a
severe mortification when he found himself compelled to minister
Sunday after Sunday in a building that was ugly enough for a
conventicle, and to listen to the florid voices of a mixed choir,
instead of the orderly array of men and boys in white surplices to
which he had been accustomed. If he had been combative by nature,--one
who loved to gird his armor about him and to plunge into every sort of
_melee_,--he would have rejoiced after a fashion at the thought of the
work cut out for him, of bringing order and beauty out of this chaos;
but he was by nature too impatient. He would have condemned and
destroyed instead of trying to renovate.

"Why not build a new church at once?" he said, with a certain youthful
intolerance that made people angry. "Never mind the vicarage; the old
house will last my time: but a place like this--a rising place--ought
to have a church worthy of it. It will be money thrown away to restore
this one," finished the young vicar, looking round him with sorely
troubled eyes; and it was this outspoken frankness that had lost him
popularity at first.

But, if the new vicar had secret cause for discontent in the Drummond
family there was nothing but the sweetness of triumph.

"Archie has never given me a moment's trouble from his birth," his
proud mother was wont to declare; and it must be owned that the young
man had done very fairly for himself.

There had been plenty of anxiety in the Drummond household while
Archibald was enjoying his first Oxford term. Things had come to a
climax: his father, who was a Leeds manufacturer, had failed most
utterly, and to a large amount. The firm of Drummond & Drummond, once
known as a most respectable and reliable firm, had come suddenly, but
not unexpectedly to the ground; and Archibald Drummond the elder had
been compelled to accept a managership in the very firm that, by
competition and underselling, had helped to ruin him.

It was a heavy trial to a man of Mr. Drummond's proud temperament; but
he went through with it in a tough, dogged way that excited his wife's
admiration. True, his bread was bitter to him for a long time, and the
sweetness of life, as he told himself, was over for him; but he had a
large family to maintain, sons and daughters growing up around him,
and the youngest was not yet six months old; under such circumstances
a man may be induced to put his pride in his pocket.

"Your father has grown quite gray, and has begun to stoop. It makes my
heart quite ache to see him sometimes," Mrs. Drummond wrote to her
eldest son; "but he never says a word to any of us. He just goes
through with it day after day."

At that time Archie was her great comfort. He had begun to make his
own way early in life, understanding from the first that his parents
could do very little for him. He had worked well at school, and had
succeeded in obtaining one or two scholarships. When his university
life commenced, and the household at Leeds became straitened in their
circumstances, he determined not to encumber them with his presence.

He soon became known in his college as a reading-man and a steady
worker; he was fortunate, too, in obtaining pupils for the long
vacation. By and by he became a fellow and tutor of his college, and
before he was eight-and-twenty the living of Hadleigh was offered to
him. It was not at all a rich living,--not being worth more than three
hundred a year,--and some of his Oxford friends would have dissuaded
him from accepting it; but Archibald Drummond was not of their
opinion. Oxford did not suit his constitution; he was never well
there. Sussex air, and especially the sea-side, would give him just
the tone he required. He liked the big old-fashioned house that would
be allotted to him. He could take pupils and add to his income in that
way; at present he had his fellowship. It was only in the event of his
marriage that his income might not be found sufficient. At the present
moment he had no matrimonial intentions: there was only one thing on
which he was determined, and that was, that Grace must live with him
and keep his house.

Grace was the sister next to him in age. Mattie,--or Matilda, as her
mother often called her,--was the eldest of the family, and was two
years older than Archibald. Between him and Grace there were two
brothers, Fred and Clyde, and beyond Grace a string of girls ending in
Dottie, who was not yet ten. Archibald used to forget their ages and
mix them up in the most helpless way; he was never quite sure if
Isabel were eighteen or twenty, or whether Clara or Susie came next.
He once forgot Laura altogether, and was only reminded of her
existence by the shock of surprise at seeing the awkward-looking,
ungainly girl standing before him, looking shyly up in his face.

Archibald was never quite alive to the blessing of having seven
sisters, none of them with any pretension to beauty, unless it were
Grace, though he was obliged to confess on his last visit to Leeds
that Isabel was certainly passable-looking. He tried to take a proper
amount of interest in them and be serenely unconscious of their want
of grace and polish; but the effort was too manifest, and neither
Clara nor Susie nor Laura regarded their grave elder brother with any
lively degree of affection. Mrs. Drummond was a somewhat stern and
exacting mother, but she was never so difficult to please as when her
eldest son was at home.

"Home is never so comfortable when Archie is in it," Susie would
grumble to her favorite confidante, Grace. "Every one is obliged to be
on their best behavior; and yet mother finds fault from morning to
night. Dottie is crying now because she has been scolded for coming
down to tea in a dirty pinafore."

"Oh, hush, Susie dear! you ought not to say such things," returned
Grace, in her quiet voice.

Poor Grace! these visits of Archie were her only pleasures. The
brother and sister were devoted to each other. In Archie's eyes not
one of the others was to be compared to her; and in this he was
perfectly right.

Grace Drummond was a tall, sweet-looking girl of two-and-twenty,--not
pretty, except in her brother's opinion, but possessing a soft, fair
comeliness that made her pleasant to look upon. In voice and manner
she was extremely quiet,--almost grave; and only those who lived with
her had any idea of the repressed strength and energy of her
character, and the almost masculine clearness of intellect that lay
under the soft exterior. One side of her nature was hidden from every
one but her brother, and to him only revealed by intermittent flashes,
and that was the passionate absorption of her affection in him. To her
parents she was dutiful and submissive, but when she grew up the yoke
of her mother's will was felt to be oppressive. Her father's nature
was more in sympathy with her own; but even with him she was reticent.
She was good to all her brothers and sisters, and especially devoted
to Dottie; but her affection for them was so strongly pervaded by
anxiety and the overweight of responsibility that its pains
overbalanced its pleasures. She loved them, and toiled in their
service from morning to night; but as yet she had not felt herself
rewarded by any decided success. But in Archie her pride was equal to
her love; she was critical, and her standard was somewhat high, but he
satisfied her. What other people recognized as faults, she regarded
as the merest blemishes. Without being absolutely faultless, which was
of course impossible in a creature of flesh and blood, he was still as
near perfection, she thought, as he could be. Perhaps her affection
for him blinded her somewhat, and cast a sort of loving glamour over
her eyes; for it must be owned that Archibald was by no means
extraordinary in either goodness or cleverness. From a boy she had
watched his career with dazzled eyes, rejoicing in every stroke of
success that came to him as though it were her own. Her own life was
dull and laborious, spent in the overcrowded house in Lowder Street,
but she forgot it in following his. Now and then bright days came to
her,--few in number, but absolutely golden, when this dearly-loved
brother came on a brief visit,--when they had snatches of delicious
talk in the empty school-room at the top of the house, or he took her
out with him for a long, quiet walk.

Mrs. Drummond always made some dry sarcastic remark when they came in,
for she was secretly jealous of Archie's affection for Grace. Hers was
rather a monopolizing nature, and she would willingly have had the
first share in her son's affections. It somewhat displeased her to see
him so wrapt up in the one sister to the exclusion of all the others,
as she told him.

"I think you might have asked Matilda or Isabel to accompany you. The
poor girls never see anything of you, Archie," she would say
plaintively to her son. But to Grace she would speak somewhat sharply,
bidding her fulfil some neglected duty, which another could as well
have performed, and making her at once understand by her manner that
she was to blame in leaving Mattie at home.

"Mother," Archibald said to her one day, when she had spoken with
unusual severity, and the poor girl had retreated from the room,
feeling as though she had been convicted of selfishness, "we must
settle the matter about which I spoke to you last night. I have been
thinking about it ever since. Mattie will not do at all. I must have
Grace!"

Mrs. Drummond looked up from her mending, and her thin lips settled
into a hard line that they always took when her mind was made up on a
disagreeable subject. She had a pinafore belonging to Dottie in her
hand; there was a jagged rent in it, and she sighed impatiently as she
put it down; though she was not a woman who shirked any of her
maternal duties, she had often been heard to say that her work was
never done, and that her mending-basket was never empty.

"But if I cannot spare Grace," she said, rather shortly, as she
meditated another lecture to the delinquent Dottie.

"But, mother, you must spare her!" returned her son, eagerly, leaning
his elbow on the mantelpiece, and watching her rapid manipulations
with apparent interest. "Look here; I am quite in earnest. I have set
my heart on having Grace. She is just the one to manage a clergyman's
household. She would be my right hand in the parish."

"She is our right hand too, Archie; but I suppose we are to cut it
off, that it may benefit you and your parish."

Mrs. Drummond seldom spoke so sharply to her eldest son; but this
request of his was grievous to her.

"I think Grace ought to be considered, too, in the matter," he
returned, somwhat sullenly. "She works harder than any paid governess,
and gets small thanks for her trouble."

"She does her duty," returned Mrs. Drummond, coldly,--she very seldom
praised any of her children,--"but not more than Mattie does hers. You
are prejudiced strongly against your sister, Archie; you are not fair
to her in any way. Mattie is a capital little housekeeper. She is
economical, and full of clever contrivances. It is not as though I
asked you to try Isabel. She is well enough, too, in her way, but a
little flighty, and rather too pretty, perhaps--" but here a laugh
from Archie grated on her ear.

"Too pretty!--what an absurd idea! The girl is passable-looking, and I
will not deny that she has improved lately; but, mother, there is not
one of the girls that can be called pretty except Grace."

Mrs. Drummond winced at her son's outspoken words. The plainness of
her daughters was a sore subject.

She had never understood why her girls were so ordinary-looking. She
had been a handsome girl in her time, and was still a fine-looking
woman. Her husband, too, had had a fair amount of good looks, and,
though he stooped, was still admirable in her eyes. The boys, too,
were thoroughly fine fellows. Fred was decidedly handsome, and so was
Clyde; and as for her favorite Archie, Mrs. Drummond glanced up at him
as he stood beside her.

He certainly looked a model young clergyman. His features were good,
but the lower part of his face was quite hidden by the fair mustache
and the soft silky beard. He had thoughtful gray eyes, which could
look as severe as hers sometimes; and, though his shoulders were
somewhat too sloping, there could be no fault found with his figure.
He was as nice-looking as possible, she thought, and no mother could
have been better satisfied. But why, with the exception of Grace and
Isabel, were her girls so deficient in outward graces? It could not be
denied that they were very ordinary girls. Laura was overgrown and
freckled, and had red hair; Susie was sickly-looking, and so
short-sighted that they feared she would have to take to spectacles;
and Clara was stolid and heavy-looking, one of those thick-set girls
that dress never seems to improve. Dottie had a funny little face; but
one could not judge of her yet. And Mattie,--Mrs. Drummond sighed
again as she thought of her eldest daughter,--Mattie was thirty; and
her mother felt she would never marry. It was not that she was so
absolutely plain,--people who liked her said Mattie had a nice
face,--but she was so abrupt, so uncouth in her awkwardness, such a
stranger to the minor morals of life, that it would be a wonder indeed
if she could find favor in any man's eyes.

"I do think you are too hard on your sisters," returned Mrs. Drummond,
stung by her son's remark. "Isabel was very much admired at her first
party last week. Mrs. Cochrane told me so, and so did Miss Blair." She
could have added that her maternal interest had been strongly stirred
by the mention of a certain Mr. Ellis Burton, who she had understood
had paid a great deal of attention that evening to Isabel, and who was
the eldest son of a wealthy manufacturer in Leeds. But Mrs. Drummond
had some good old-fashioned notions, and one of these was never to
speak on such delicate subjects as the matrimonial prospects of her
daughters: indeed, she often thanked heaven she was not a match-making
mother,--which was as well, under the circumstances.

"Well, well, we are not talking about Isabel," returned her son,
impatiently. "The question is about Grace, mother. I really do wish
very much that you and my father would stretch a point for me here. I
want her more than I can say."

"But, Archie, you must be reasonable. Just think a moment. Your father
cannot afford to send the girls to school, or to pay for a good
finishing governess. We have given Grace every advantage; and just as
she is making herself really useful to me in the school-room, you want
to deprive me of her services."

"You know I offered to pay for Clara's schooling," returned her son,
reproachfully. "She is more than sixteen, is she not! Surely Mattie
could teach the others?"

But Mrs. Drummond's clear, concise voice interrupted him:

"Archie, how can you talk such nonsense? You know poor Mattie was
never good at book-learning. She would hardly do for Dottie. Ask
Grace, if you doubt my word."

"Of course I do not doubt it, mother," in rather an aggravated voice,
for he felt he was having the worst of the argument.

"Then why do you not believe me when I tell you the thing you ask is
impossible?" replied his mother more calmly. "I am sorry for you if
you are disappointed, Archie; but you undervalue Mattie,--you do
indeed. She will make you a nice little housekeeper, and, though she
is not clever, she is so amiable that nothing ever puts her out; and
visiting the poor and sick-nursing are more in her line than in
Grace's. Mrs. Blair finds her invaluable. She wanted her for one of
her district visitors, and I said she had too much to do at home."

Archie shrugged his shoulders. Mrs. Blair was the wife of the vicar of
All Saints', where the Drummonds attended, and from a boy she had been
his pet aversion. She was a bustling, managing woman, and of course
Mattie was just to her taste. He did not see much use in continuing
the conversation; with all his affection for his mother,--and she was
better loved by her sons than by her daughters,--he knew her to be as
immovable as a rock when she had once made up her mind. He thought at
first of appealing to his father on Grace's behalf, but abandoned this
notion after a few minutes' reflection. His father was decided and
firm in all matters relating to business, but for many years past he
had abandoned the domestic reins to his wife's capable hands. Perhaps
he had proved her worth and prudence; perhaps he thought the
management of seven daughters too much for any man. Anyhow, he
interfered less and less as the years went on; and if at any time he
differed from his wife, she could always talk him over, as her son
well knew.

When the subject had been first mooted in the household, he had said a
word or two to his father, and had found him very reluctant to
entertain the idea of parting with Grace. She was his favorite
daughter, and he thought how he should miss her when he came home
weary and jaded at night.

"I don't think it will do at all," he had said, in an undecided
dissatisfied tone. "Won't one of the other girls serve your turn?
There's Mattie, or that little monkey Isabel, she is as pert and
lively as possible. But Grace; why, she is every one's right hand.
What would the mother or the young ones do without her?"

No; it was no use appealing to his father, Archie thought, and might
only make mischief in the house. He and Grace must make up their mind
to a few more years' separation. He turned away after his mother's
last speech, and finally left the room without saying another word.
There was a cloud on his face, and Mrs. Drummond saw that he was much
displeased; but, though she sighed again as she took up a pair of
Clyde's socks and inspected them carefully, there was no change in her
resolution that Mattie, and not Grace, should go to the vicarage for
the year's visit that was all Archie had asked.

There are mothers and mothers in this world,--some who are capable of
sacrificing their children to Moloch, who will barter their own flesh
and blood in return for some barren heritage or other. There are those
who will exact from those dependent on them heavy tithes of daily
patience and uncomplaining drudgery; while others, who are "mothers
indeed" give all, asking for nothing in return.

Mrs. Drummond was a good woman. She had many virtues and few faults.
She was lady-like, industrious and self-denying in her own personal
comforts, an exemplary wife, and a tolerant mistress; but she was
better understood by her sons than by her daughters.

Her maternal instincts were very strong, and no mother had more
delighted in her nursery than she had in hers. As long as there was a
baby in the house the tenderness of her love was apparent enough. She
wore herself out tending her infants, and no one ever heard her say a
harsh word in her nursery.

But as her children grew up, there was much clashing of wills in the
household. Her sons did not fear her in the least; but with her
daughters it was otherwise. They felt the mother's strong will
repressive; it threatened to dwarf their individuality and cramp that
free growth that is so necessary to young things.

Dottie, who by virtue of being the last baby had had more than her
fair amount of petting, was only just beginning to learn her lesson of
unquestioning obedience; and, as she was somewhat spoiled, her lesson
was hard one. But Laura and Susie and Clara had not yet found out that
their mother loved them and wished to be their friend; they were timid
and reserved with her, and took all their troubles to Grace. Even
Mattie, who was her first-born, and who was old enough to be her
mother's companion, quailed and blushed like a child under the dry
caustic speeches at which Clyde and Fred only laughed.

"You don't understand the mother. Her bark is worse than her bite,"
Clyde would say to his sister sometimes. "She is an awfully clever
woman, and it riles her to see herself surrounded by such a set of
ninnies. Now, don't sulk, Belle. You know Mattie's a duffer compared
to Grace; aren't you, Matt?"

At which truism poor Mattie would hang her head.

"Yes, Clyde; I know I am dreadfully stupid sometimes, and that makes
mother angry."

Mrs. Drummond often complained bitterly of her daughters' want of
confidence in her, but she never blamed herself for the barrier that
seemed between them. She was forever asserting maternal authority,
when such questions might have been safely laid to rest between her
and her grown-up daughters. Mrs. Challoner's oneness of sympathy with
her girls, her lax discipline, her perfect equality, would have
shocked a woman of Mrs. Drummond's calibre. She would not have
tolerated or understood it for a moment.

"My girls must do as I wish," was a very ordinary speech in her mouth.
"I always do as my girls wish," Mrs. Challoner would have said. And,
indeed, the two mothers were utterly dissimilar; but it may be doubted
whether the Challoner household were not far happier than the family
in Lowder Street.




CHAPTER XIV.

"YOU CAN DARE TO TELL ME THESE THINGS."


Archibald Drummond had left his mother's presence with a cloud on his
brow. He had plenty of filial affection for her, but it was not the
first time that he had found her too much for him. She had often
angered him before by her treatment of Grace, but he had told himself
that she was his mother, that a man could have but one, and so he had
brought himself to forgive her. But this time she had set herself
against the cherished plan of years. He had always looked forward to
the time when he could have Grace to live with him; they had made all
sorts of schemes together, and all their talk had concentrated itself
towards this point; the disappointment would place a sort of blankness
before them; they would be working separately, far away from each
other, and the distance would not be bridged for years.

He stood for a moment in the dark, narrow hall, thinking intently over
all this, and then he went slowly upstairs. He knew where he should
find Grace. His mother had paid an unwonted visit to the school-room
during their walk, and on their return had expressed herself with some
degree of sharpness on the disorder she had found there. Grace would
be busily engaged in putting everything to rights. It was Clara's
business, but she had gone out, and had, as usual, forgotten all about
it. Grace had taken the blame upon herself, of course: she was always
shielding her younger sisters.

Everything was done when he entered the room, and Grace was sitting by
the window, with her hands folded in her lap, indulging in a few
minutes' rare idleness. She looked up eagerly as her brother made his
appearance.

The school-room was a large, bare-looking room at the top of the
house, with two narrow windows looking out over a lively prospect of
roofs and chimney-pots. Mrs. Drummond had done her utmost to give it
an air of comfort, but it was, on the whole, a dull, uncomfortable
apartment, in spite of the faded Turkey carpet, and the curtains that
had once been so handsome, but had now merged into unwholesome neutral
tints.

Laura, who was the wit of the family, had nicknamed it the Hospital,
for it seemed to be a receptacle for all the maimed and rickety chairs
of the household, footstools in a dilapidated condition, and odd
pieces of lumber that had no other place. Archibald regarded it with a
troubled gaze; somehow, its dinginess had never before so impressed
him; and then as he looked at his sister the frown deepened on his
face.

"Well, Archie?"

"Oh, Grace, it is no use! I have talked myself hoarse, but the mother
is dead against it: one might as well try to move a rock. We shall
have to make up our minds to bear our disappointment as well as we
can."

"I knew it was hopeless from the first," returned Grace, slowly; but,
as she spoke, a sort of dimness and paleness crept over her face,
belying her words.

She was young, and in youth hope never dies. Beyond the gray daily
horizon there is always a possible gleam, a new to-morrow; youth
abounds in infinite surprises, in probabilities which are as large as
they are vague. Grace told herself that she never hoped much from
Archie's mission; yet when he came to her with his ill success
plainly stamped upon his countenance, the dying out of her dream was
bitter to her.

"I knew it was hopeless from the first," had been her answer, and then
breath for further words failed her, and she sat motionless, with her
hands clasped tightly together, while Archie placed himself on the
window-seat beside her and looked out ruefully at the opposite
chimneys.

Well, it was all over, this dearly-cherished scheme of theirs; she
must go on now with the dull routine of daily duties, she must stoop
her neck afresh to the yoke she had long found so galling; this
school-room must be her world, she must not hope any longer for wider
vistas, for more expansive horizons, for tasks that should be more
congenial to her, for all that was now made impossible.

Mattie, not she, must go and keep Archie's house, and here for a
moment she closed her eyes, the pain was so bitter; she thought of the
old vicarage, of the garden where she and Archie were to have worked,
of the shabby old study where he meant to write his sermons, while she
was to sit beside him with her book or needlework, of the evenings
when he had promised to read to her, of the walks they were to have
taken together, of all the dear delightful plans they had made.

And now her mother had said them nay; it was Mattie who was to be his
housekeeper, who would sit opposite to him and pour out his coffee,
who would mend his socks and do all the thousand-and-one things that a
woman delights in doing for the mankind dependent on her for comfort.

Mattie would visit his poor people, and teach in the schools,
entertain his friends, and listen to his voice every Sunday; here
tears slowly gathered under the closed eyelids. Yes, Mattie would do
all that, but she would not be his chosen friend and companion; there
would be no long charming talks for her in the study or the sunny
garden; he would be as lonely, poor fellow, in his way as she would be
in hers, and for this her mother was to blame.

"Well, Gracie, haven't you a word to say?" asked her brother, at last,
surprised at her long silence.

"No, Archie; it does not bear talking about," she returned, so
passionately that he turned round to look at her. "I must not even
think of it. I must try and shut it all out of my mind, or I shall be
no good to any one. But it is hard--hard!" with a quiver of her lip.

"I call it a shame for my father and mother to sacrifice you in this
way!" he burst out, moved to bitter indignation at the sight of her
trouble. "I shall tell my father what I think about it pretty
plainly!"

But this speech recalled Grace to her senses.

"Oh, no, dear! you must do no such thing: promise me you will not. It
would be no good at all; and it would only make mother so angry. You
know he always thinks as she does about things, so it would be no
use. I suppose"--with an impatient sigh--"that I ought to feel myself
complimented at knowing I cannot be spared. Some girls would be proud
to feel themselves their mother's right hand; but to me it does not
seem much of a privilege."

"Don't talk in that way, Grace: it makes me miserable to hear you. I
am more sorry for you than I am for myself, and yet I am sorry for
myself too. If it were not that my mother would be too deeply
offended, I would refuse to have Mattie at all. We never have got on
well together. She is a good little thing in her way, but her
awkwardness and left-handed ways will worry me incessantly. And then
we have not an idea in common----" but here Grace generously
interposed:

"Poor old fellow! as though I did not know all that; but you must not
vent it on poor Mattie. She is not to blame for our disappointment.
She would gladly give it up to me if she could. I know she will do her
utmost to please you, Archie, and she is so good and amiable that you
must overlook her little failings and make the best of her."

"It will be rather difficult work, I am afraid," returned her brother,
grimly. "I shall always be drawing invidious comparisons between you
both, and thinking what you would do in her place."

"All the same you must try and be good to her for my sake, for I am
very fond of Mattie," she returned, gently; but he could not help
feeling gratified at the assurance that he would miss her. And then
she put her hand on his coat-sleeve, and stroked it, a favorite caress
with her. "It does not bear talking about: does it, Archie? It only
makes it feel worse. I think it must be meant as a discipline for me,
because I am so wicked, and that it would not do at all for me to be
too happy." And here she pressed his arm, and looked up in his face,
with an attempt at a smile.

"No, you are right: talking only makes it worse," he returned,
hurriedly; and then he stooped--for he was a tall man--and kissed her
on the forehead just between her eyes, and then walked to the door,
whistling a light air.

Grace did not think him at all abrupt in thus breaking off the
conversation. She had caught his meaning in a moment, and knew the
whole business was so painful to him that he did not care to dwell on
it. When the tea-bell rang, she prepared herself at once to accompany
him downstairs.

It was Archibald's last evening at home, and all the family were
gathered round the long tea-table. Since Mr. Drummond's misfortunes,
late dinners had been relinquished, and more homely habits prevailed
in the household. Mrs. Drummond had, indeed, apologized to her son
more than once for the simplicity of their mode of life.

"You are accustomed to a late dinner, Archie. I wish I could have
managed it for you; but your father objects to any alteration being
made in our usual habits."

"He is quite right; and I should have been much distressed if you had
thought such alteration necessary," returned her son, very much
surprised at this reference to his father. For Mrs. Drummond rarely
consulted her husband on such matters. In this case, however, she had
done so, and Mr. Drummond had been unusually testy--indeed,
affronted--at such a question being put to him.

"I don't know what you mean, Isabella," he had replied; "but I suppose
what is good enough for me is good enough for Archie." And then Mrs.
Drummond knew she had made a mistake, for her husband had felt
bitterly the loss of his late dinner. So Archie tried to fall in with
the habits of his family, and to enjoy the large plum or seed-cake
that invariably garnished the tea-table; and, though he ate but
sparingly of the supper, which always gave him indigestion, Grace was
his only confidante in the matter. Mr. Drummond, indeed, looked at his
son rather sharply once or twice, as though he suspected him of
fastidiousness. "I cannot compliment you on your appetite," he would
say, as he helped himself to cold meat; "but perhaps our home fare is
not so tempting as Oxford living?"

"I always say your meat is unusually good," returned Archibald,
amicably. "If there be any fault, it is in my appetite; but that
Hadleigh air will soon set right." But, though he answered his father
after this tolerant fashion, he always added, in a mental aside, that
nine-o'clock suppers were certainly barbarous institutions, and
peculiarly deleterious to the constitution of an Oxford fellow.

Mrs. Drummond looked at them both somewhat keenly as they entered. In
spite of her resolution, she was secretly uncomfortable at the thought
that Archie was displeased with her: her daughter's vexation was a
burden that could be more easily borne; but her maternal heart yearned
for some token that her boy was not estranged from her. But no such
consolation was to be vouchsafed to her. She had kept his usual place
vacant beside her; Archie showed no intention of taking it. He placed
himself by his father, and began talking to him of a change of
ministry that was impending, and which would overthrow the
Conservative party. Mrs. Drummond, who was one of those women who can
never be made to take any interest in politics, was reduced to the
necessity of talking to Mattie in an undertone, for the other boys
never put in an appearance at this meal; but as she talked she took
stock of Grace's pale, abstracted looks as she sat with her plate
before her, not pretending to eat, and taking no notice of Susie and
Laura, who chatted busily across her.

It was not a festive meal; on the contrary, there was an unusual air
of restraint over the whole party. The younger members felt
instinctively that there was something amiss. Archie looked decidedly
glum; and there was an expression on the mother's face that they were
not slow to interpret. No one could hear what it was she was saying to
Mattie that made her look so red and nervous all at once; but
presently she addressed herself abruptly to her husband:

"It is all settled, father. I have arranged with Archie that Matilda
should go down to Hadleigh next month."

Archie stroked his beard, but did not look up or make any remark,
though poor Mattie looked at him beseechingly across the table, as
though imploring a word. His mother would carry her point; but he
would not pretend for a moment that he was otherwise than displeased,
or that Mattie would be welcome.

His silence attracted Mr. Drummond's attention.

"Oh, what, you have settled it, you say? I hope you are satisfied,
Archie, and properly grateful to your mother for sparing Mattie. She
is to go for a year. Well, it will be a grand change for her. I should
not be surprised if you were to pick up a husband, Miss Mattie;" for
Mr. Drummond was a man who, in spite of his cares, was not without his
joke; but, as usual, it was instantly frowned down by his wife:

"I wonder at you, father, talking such nonsense before the children.
Why are you giggling, Laura? It is very unseemly and ill-behaved. I
hope no daughter of mine has such unmaidenly notions. Mattie is going
to Hadleigh to be a comfort to her brother, and to keep his house as a
clergyman's house ought to be kept."

"And you are satisfied, Archie?" asked Mr. Drummond, not quite pleased
at his wife's reprimand, and struck anew by his son's silence.

"I consider these questions somewhat unnecessary. You know my wishes,
sir, on the subject, and my mother also," was the somewhat
uncompromising remark; "but it appears that they are not to be met in
this instance. I hope Mattie will be comfortable and not miss her
sisters;" but he did not look at the poor girl, and the tears came
into her eyes.

"Oh, Archie, I am so sorry! I never meant-----" she stammered; but her
mother interrupted her:

"There is no occasion for you to be sorry about anything; you had far
better be silent, Mattie. But you have no tact. Father, if you have
finished your tea, I suppose you and Archie are going out." And then
Archie rose from the table, and followed his father out of the room.

It was Isabel's business to put Dottie to bed. The other girls had to
prepare their lessons for the next day, and went up to the
school-room. Mattie made some excuse, and went with them, and Mrs.
Drummond and Grace were left alone.

Grace had some delicate work to finish, and she placed herself by the
lamp. Her mother had returned to her mending-basket; but as the door
closed upon Mattie, she cleared her throat, and looked at her
daughter.

"Grace, I must say I am surprised at you!"

"Why, mother?" But Grace did not look up from the task she was running
with such fine even stitches.

"I am more than surprised!" continued Mrs. Drummond, severely. "I am
disappointed to see in what a bad spirit you have received my
decision. I did not think a daughter of mine would have been so blind
to her sense of duty!"

"I have said nothing to make you think that."

"No, you have said nothing, but looks can be eloquent sometimes. I am
not speaking of Archie, though I can see he is put out too, for he is
a man, and men are not always reasonable; but that you should place
yourself in such silent opposition to my wishes, it is that that
shocks me."

There was an ominous sparkle in Grace's gray eyes, and then she
deliberately put down her work on the table. She had hoped that her
mother would have been contented with her victory, and not have spoken
to her on the subject. But if she were so attacked, she would at least
defend herself.

"You have no right to speak to me in this way, mother!"

"No right, Grace?" Mrs. Drummond could hardly believe her ears. Never
once had a daughter of hers questioned her right in anything.

"No; for I have said nothing to bring all this upon me! I have been
perfectly quiet, and have tried to bear the bitterness of my
disappointment as well as I could. No one is answerable for their
looks, and I, at least, will not plead guilty on that score."

"Grace, you are answering me very improperly."

"I cannot say that I think so, mother. I would have been silent, if
you had permitted such silence; but when you drive me to speech, I
must say what I feel to be the truth,--that I have not been well
treated in this matter."

"Grace!" And Mrs. Drummond paused in awful silence. Never before had a
recusant daughter braved her to her face.

"I have not been well treated," continued Grace, firmly, "in a thing
that concerns me more than any one else. I have not even been
consulted. You have arranged it all, mother, without reference to me
or my feelings. Perhaps I ought to be grateful for being spared so
painful a decision; but I think such a decision should have been
permitted to me."

"You can dare to tell me such things to my very face!"

"Why should I not tell them?" returned Grace, meeting her mother's
angry glance unflinchingly. "It seems to me that one should speak the
truth to one's mother. You have treated me like a child; and I have a
right to feel sore and indignant. Why did you not put the whole thing
before me, and tell me that you and my father did not see how you
could spare me? Do you really believe that I should have been so
wanting to my sense of duty as to follow my own pleasure?"

"Grace, I insist upon your silence! I will not discuss the matter with
you."

"If you insist upon silence, you must be obeyed, mother: but it is you
who have raised the question between us. But when you attack me
unjustly, I must defend myself."

"You are forgetting yourself strangely. Your words are most
disrespectful and unbecoming in a daughter. You tell me to my face
that I am unjust--I, your mother--because I have been compelled to
thwart your wishes."

"No, no--not because of that!" returned Grace, in a voice of
passionate pain; "why will you misunderstand me so?--but because you
have no faith in me. You treat me like a child. You dispute my
privilege to decide in a matter that concerns my own happiness. You
bid me work for you, and you give me no wage--not a word of praise;
and because I remonstrate for once in my life, you insist on my
silence."

"It seems that I am not to be obeyed."

"Oh, yes; you will be obeyed, mother. After to-night I will not open
my lips to offend you again. If I have said more than I ought to have
said as a daughter, I will ask your pardon now; but I cannot take back
one of my words. They are true,--true!"

"I must say your apology is tardy, Grace."

"Nevertheless, it is an apology; for, though you have hurt me, I must
not forget you are my mother. I know my life will be harder after
this, because of what I have said; and yet I would not take back one
of my words!"

"I am more displeased with you than I can say," returned her mother,
taking up her neglected work; and her mouth looked stern and hard.

Never had her aspect been so forbidding, and yet never had her
daughter feared her less.

"Then, if you are displeased with me, I will go away," replied Grace,
moving from her seat with gentle dignity. "I wish you had not
compelled me to speak, mother, and then I should not have offended
you: but as it is there is no help for it." And then she gathered up
her work and walked slowly out of the room.

Mrs. Drummond sat moodily in the empty room that had somehow never
seemed so empty before. Her attitude was as rigid and uncompromising
as usual; but there was a perplexed frown on her brow. For the first
time in her life one of her girls had dared to assert her own will and
to speak the truth to her; and she was utterly nonplussed. It was not
too much to say that she had received a blow. Her justice and sense of
fairness had been questioned,--her very maternal authority
impugned,--and that by one of her own children! Mattie, who was eight
years older, would not have ventured to cross her mother's will.
Grace had so dared; and she was bitterly angry with her. And yet she
had never so admired her before.

How honestly and bravely she had battled for her rights! her gray eyes
had shone with fire, her pale cheeks had glowed with the passion of
her words: for once in her life the girl had looked superbly
handsome.

"You have no faith in me; you treat me like a child." Well, she was
right; it was no child, it was a proud woman who was flinging those
hard words at her. For the first time Mrs. Drummond recognized the
possibility of a will as strong as her own. In spite of all her
authority, Grace had been a match for her mother: Mrs. Drummond knew
this, and it added fuel to her bitterness.

"I know my life will be harder for what I have said." Ah, Grace was
right there; it would be long before her mother would forgive her for
all those words, true as they were; and yet in her heart she had never
so feared and admired her daughter. Grace went up to her own room,
where Dottie was asleep in a little bed very near her sister's: it was
dark and somewhat cold, but the atmosphere was less frigid than the
parlor downstairs. Grace's frame was trembling with the force of her
emotion; her face was burning, and her hands cold. It was restful and
soothing to put down her aching head on the hard window-ledge and
close her eyes and think out the pain! It seemed hours before Isabel
came to summon her to supper, but she made an excuse that she was not
hungry, and refused to go downstairs.

"But you ate nothing at tea, and your head is aching!" persisted
Isabel, who was a bright, good-natured girl, and, in spite of Archie's
strictures, decidedly pretty. "Do let me bring you something. Mother
will not know."

But Grace refused: she could not eat, and the sight of food would
distress her.

"Why not go to bed at once, then?" suggested Isabel,--which was
certainly sensible counsel. But Grace demurred to this; she knew
Archie would be up presently to say good-night to her: so, when Isabel
had gone, she lighted the candle, shading it carefully from Dottie's
eyes, and then she bathed her hot face, and smoothed her hair, and
took up her work again.

Archie found her quite calm and busy, but he was not so easily
deceived.

"Now, Gracie, you have got one of your headaches: it is the
disappointment and the bother, and my going away to-morrow. Poor
little Gracie!"

"Oh, Archie, I feel as though I shall never miss you so much!"
exclaimed the poor girl, throwing down her work and clinging to him.
"When shall I see your dear face again?--not until Christmas?"

"And not then, I expect. I shall most likely run down some time in
January, and then I shall try hard to take you back with me, just for
a visit. Mattie will be dull, and wanting to see some of you, and I
will not have one of the others until you have been."

"I don't believe mother will spare me even for that," returned Grace,
with a sudden conviction that her mother's memory was retentive, and
that she would be punished in that way for her sins of this evening;
"but promise me, Archie, that you will come, if it be only for a few
days."

"Oh, I will promise you that. I cannot last longer without seeing you,
Grace!" And he stroked her soft hair as she still clung to him.

The next day Archibald bade his family good-bye: his manner had not
changed toward his mother, and Mrs. Drummond thought his kiss
decidedly cold.

"You will be good to Mattie, and try to make the poor girl happy; you
will do at least as much as this," she said, detaining him as he was
turning from her to see Grace.

"Oh, yes, I will be good to her," he returned, indifferently, "but I
cannot promise that she will not find her life dull." And then he took
Grace in his arms, and whispered to her to be patient, and that all
would be well one day; and Mrs. Drummond, though she did not hear the
whisper, saw the embrace and the long lingering look between the
brother and sister, and pressed her thin lips together and went back
to her parlor and mending-basket, feeling herself an unhappy mother,
whose love was not requited by her children, and disposed to be harder
than ever towards Grace, who had inflicted this pain on her.




CHAPTER XV.

A VAN IN THE BRAIDWOOD ROAD.


One bright July morning, Mattie Drummond walked rapidly up the
Braidwood Road, and, unlatching the green door in the wall, let
herself into the large square hall of the vicarage. This morning it
looked invitingly cool, with its summer matting and big wicker-work
chairs; but Mattie was in too great haste to linger; she only stopped
to disencumber herself of the various parcels with which she was
ladened, and then she knocked at the door of her brother's study, and,
without waiting for the reluctant "Come in" that always answered her
hasty rap, burst in upon him.

It was now three months since Mattie had entered upon her new duties,
and it must be confessed that Archie's housekeeper had rather a hard
time of it. As far as actual management went, Mattie fully justified
her mother's eulogiums in her household arrangements: she was orderly
and methodical,--far more so than Grace would have been in her place;
the meals were always punctual and well served, the domestic machinery
worked well and smoothly. Archie never had to complain of a missing
button or a frayed wrist-band. Nevertheless, Mattie's presence at the
vicarage was felt by her brother as a sore burden. There was nothing
in common between them, nothing that he cared to discuss with her, or
on which he wished to know her opinion; he was naturally a frank,
outspoken man, one that demanded sympathy from those belonging to him;
but with Mattie he was reticent, and as far as possible restrained in
speech.

One reason for this might be that Mattie, with all her virtues,--and
she was really a most estimable little person,--was sadly deficient in
tact. She never knew when she was treading on other people's pet
prejudices. She could not be made to understand that her presence was
not always wanted, and that it was as well to keep silence sometimes.

She would intrude her advice when it was not needed, in her
good-natured way; she had always interfered with everything and
everybody. "Meddlesome Mattie" they had called her at home.

She was so wonderfully elastic, too, in her temperament, that nothing
long depressed her. She took all her brother's snubbings in excellent
part: if he scolded her at dinner-time, and made the ready tears come
to her eyes,--for it was not the least of Mattie's sins that she cried
easily and on every possible occasion,--she had forgotten it by
tea-time, and would chatter to him as happily as ever.

She was just one of those persevering people who seem bound to be
snubbed; one cannot help it. It was as natural to scold Mattie as it
was to praise other people; and yet it was impossible not to like the
little woman, though she had no fine feelings, as Archie said, and was
not thin-skinned. Grace always spoke a good word for her; she was very
kind to Mattie in her way,--though it must be owned that she showed
her small respect as an elder sister. None of her brothers and sisters
respected Mattie in the least; they laughed at her, and took liberties
with her, presuming largely on her good nature. "It is only Mattie;
nobody cares what she thinks," as Clyde would often say. "Matt the
Muddler," as Frederick named her.

"I wonder what Mattie would say if any one ever fell in love with
her?" Grace once observed in fun to Archie. "Do you know, I think she
would be all her life, thanking her husband for the unexpected honor
he had done her, and trying to prove to him that he had not made such
a great mistake, after all."

"Mattie's husband! He must be an odd sort of person, I should think."
And then Archie laughed, in not the politest manner. Certainly Mattie
was not appreciated by her family. She was not looking her best this
morning when she went into her brother's study. She wore the
offending plaid dress,--a particular large black-and-white check that
he thought especially ugly. Her hat-trimmings were frayed, and the
straw itself was burnt brown by the sun, and her hair was ill arranged
and rough, for she never wasted much time on her own person, and, to
crown the whole, she looked flushed and heated.

Archie, who was sitting at his writing-table in severely-cut
ecclesiastical garments, looking as trim and well-appointed a young
clergyman as one might wish to see, might be forgiven for the tone of
ill-suppressed irritation with which he said,--

"Oh, Mattie! what a figure you look! I am positively ashamed that any
one should see you. That hat is only fit to frighten the birds."

"Oh, it will do very well for the mornings," returned Mattie,
perfectly undisturbed at these compliments. "Nobody looks at me: so
what does it matter?" But this remark, which she made in all
simplicity, only irritated him more.

"If you have no proper pride, you might at least consider my feelings.
Do you think a man in my position likes his sister to go about like an
old beggar-woman? You are enough to try any one's patience, Mattie;
you are, indeed!"

"Oh, never mind me and my things," returned Mattie coaxingly; "and
don't go on writing just yet," for Archie had taken up his pen again
with a great show of being busy. "I want to tell you something that I
know will interest you. There are some new people come to the
Friary."

"What on earth do you mean?--what Friary? I am sure I never heard of
such a place."

"Dear me, Archie, how cross you are this morning!" observed Mattie, in
a cheerful voice, as she fidgeted the papers on the table. "Why, the
Friary is that shabby little cottage just above us,--not a stone's
throw from this house."

"Indeed? Well, I cannot say I am much interested in the movements of
my neighbors. I am not a gossip like you, Mattie!"--another fling at
poor Mattie. "I wish you would leave those papers alone. You know I
never allow my things to be tidied, as you call it, and I am really
very busy just now. I am in the middle of accounts, and I have to
write to Grace and----"

"Well, I thought you would like to know." And Mattie looked rather
crestfallen and disappointed. "You talked so much about those young
ladies some weeks ago, and seemed quite sorry not to see them again;
and now----" but here Archie's indifference vanished, and he looked up
eagerly.

"What young ladies? Not those in Milner's Library, who asked about the
dressmaker?"

"The very same," returned his sister, delighted at this change of
manner. "Oh, I have so much to tell you that I must sit down,"
planting herself comfortably on the arm of an easy-chair near him.
Another time Archie would have rebuked her for her unlady-like
attitude, and told her, probably, that Grace never did such things;
but now his interest was so excited that he let it pass for once. He
even suffered her to take off her old hat and deposit it unreproved on
the top of his cherished papers. "I was over at Crump's this morning,
to speak to Bobbie about weeding the garden, when I was surprised to
see a railway-van unloading furniture at the Friary."

"What an absurd name!" _sotto voce_ from Archie: but he offered no
further check to Mattie's gossip.

"I asked Mrs. Crump, as a matter of course, the name of the new
people; and she said it was Challoner. There was a mother and three
daughters, she believed. She had seen two of them,--pretty,
nice-spoken young creatures, and quite ladies. They had been down
before to see the cottage and to have it done up. It looks quite a
different place already,--nicely painted, and the shrubs trimmed. The
door was open, and as I stood at Mrs. Crump's window, peeping between
her geraniums, I saw such a respectable gray-haired woman, like an
upper servant, carrying something into the house; and a moment after
one of those young ladies we saw in the Library--not the pretty one,
but the other--came to the door and spoke to the men."

"Are you sure you did not make a mistake, Mattie?" asked her brother,
incredulously. "You are very short-sighted: perhaps you did not see
correctly. How can those stylish-looking girls live in such a shabby
place? I can hardly believe it possible."

"Oh, it was the same, I am positive about that. She was in the same
cambric dress you admired. I could see distinctly. I watched her for a
long time; and then the pretty one came out and joined her. She is
pretty, Archie, she has such a lovely complexion."

"But are they poor?--they don't look so. What on earth can it mean?"
he asked, in a perplexed voice; but Mattie only shook her head, and
went on:

"We must find out all about them by and by. They are worth knowing, I
am sure of that. Poor?--well, they cannot be rich, certainly, to live
in the Friary; but they are gentle-people, one can see that in a
moment."

"Of course! who doubted it?" was the somewhat impatient answer.

"Well, but that is not all," went on Mattie, too delighted with her
brother's interest to try to curtail her story. "Of course I could not
stand long watching them, so I did my errand and came away; and then I
met Miss Middleton, and we walked down to the Library together to
change those books. Miss Milner was talking to some ladies when we
first went in and, as Miss Masham was not in the shop, we had to wait
our turn, so I had a good look at them. The elder one was such a
pretty, aristocratic-looking woman,--a little too languid, perhaps
for my taste; and the younger one was a little like Isabel, only
nicer-looking. I shouldn't have stared at them so much,--at least, I
am afraid I stared," went on Mattie, forgetting for the moment how
often she had been taken to task for this very thing,--"but something
Miss Milner said attracted my attention, 'I am not to send it to the
Friary, then, ma'am?' 'Well, no,' the lady returned, rather
hesitatingly. She had such a nice voice and manner, Archie. 'My
youngest daughter and I are at Beach House at present; I am rather an
invalid, and the bustle would be too much for me. Dulce, we had better
have these things sent to Beach House.' And then the young lady
standing by her said, 'Oh, yes, mother; we shall want them this
evening.' And then they went out."

"There is a third sister, then?" observed Archie, not pretending to
disguise his interest in Mattie's recital.

"Yes, there is a third one: she is certainly a little like Isabel; she
has a dimple like hers, and is of the same height. I asked Miss
Milner, when they were out of hearing, if their name were Challoner,
and if they were the new people who were coming to live at the empty
cottage on the Braidwood Road. I thought she did not seem much
disposed to give me information. Yes, their name was Challoner, and
they had taken the Friary; but they were quite strangers in the town,
and no one knew anything about them. And then Miss Middleton chimed
in; she said her father had noticed the young ladies some weeks ago,
and had called her attention to them. They were very pretty girls, and
had quite taken his fancy; he had not forgotten them, and had spoken
of them that very morning. She supposed Mrs. Challoner must be a
widow, and not very well off: did Miss Milner know. Would you believe
it, Archie? Miss Milner got quite red, and looked confused. You know
how she enjoys a bit of gossip generally; but the questions seemed to
trouble her. 'They were not at all well off, she knew that, but nicer
young ladies she had never seen, or wished to see; and she hoped every
one would be kind to them, and not forget they were real born ladies,
in spite of----' And here the old thing got more confused than ever,
and came to a full stop, and begged to know how she could serve us."

"It is very strange,--very strange indeed," returned her brother, in a
meditative voice; but, as Mattie had nothing more to tell him, he did
not discuss the matter any further, only thanked her for her news, and
civilly dismissed her on the plea that his business was at a
stand-still.

But he did not resume his accounts for sometime after he was left
alone. Instead of doing so, he walked to the window and looked out in
a singularly absent manner. Mattie's news was somewhat exciting. The
idea of having such pleasant neighbors located within a stone's throw
of the vicarage was in itself disturbing to the imagination of a young
man of eight-and-twenty, even though a clergyman. And then, it must be
confessed, Nan's charming face and figure had never been forgotten:
he had looked out for the sisters many times since his chance
encounter with Phillis, and had been secretly disappointed at their
total disappearance. And now they proved not mere visitors, but
positively inhabitants of Hadleigh. He would meet them every day; and,
as there was but one church in the place, they would of course be
numbered among his flock. As their future clergyman he would have a
right of entrance to the cottage.

"How soon do you think we ought to call upon them, Mattie?" he asked,
when he was seated opposite to his sister at the luncheon-table. The
accounts had not progressed very favorably, and the letter to Grace
was not yet commenced. Mattie's news had been a sad interruption to
his morning's work.

"Whom do you mean, Archie," she returned, a little bewildered at this
abrupt remark; and then, as he frowned at her denseness, she bethought
herself of the new people. It was not often Archie asked her advice
about anything, but on this occasion the young vicar felt himself
incompetent to decide.

"I suppose you mean the new folk at the Friary," she continued,
carelessly. "Oh, they are only moving in to-day, and they will be in a
muddle for a week, I should think. I don't think we can intrude for
ten days or so."

"Not if you think it will be intrusive," he returned, rather
anxiously; "but they are strangers in the place, and all ladies--there
does not seem to be a man belonging to them--would it not be
neighborly, as we live so close, just to call, not in a formal way,
you know, but just to volunteer help? There are little things you
could do for them, Mattie; and, as a clergyman, they could not regard
my visit as an intrusion, I should think. Do you not agree with me?"
looking at his sister rather gravely.

"Well, I don't know," replied Mattie, bluntly: "I should not care for
strangers prying into my concerns, if I were in their place. And yet,
as you say, we are such close neighbors, and one would like to be kind
to the poor things, for they must be lonely, settling in a strange new
place. I'll tell you what, Archie," as his face fell at this
matter-of-fact speech: "it is Thursday, and they will be sure to be at
church on Sunday; we shall see them there, and that will be an excuse
for us to call on Monday. We can say then that we are neighbors, and
that we would not wait until they were all in order. We can offer to
send them things from the vicarage, or volunteer help in many little
ways. I think that would be best."

"Yes, perhaps you are right, and we will wait until Monday," returned
Archie, taking off his soft felt hat. "Now I must go on my rounds, and
not waste any more time chattering." But, though he spoke with unusual
good nature, he did not invite Mattie to be his companion, and the
poor little woman betook herself to the solitary drawing-room and some
plain sewing for the rest of the afternoon.

The young clergyman stood for a moment irresolutely at the green door,
and cast a longing glance in the direction of the Friary, where the
van was still unloading, and then he bethought himself that, though
Mattie had given orders about the weeding of the garden-paths, it
would be as well to speak to Crump about the wire fence that was
wanted for the poultry-yard; and as soon as he had made up his mind on
this point he walked on briskly.

The last piece of furniture had just been carried in; but, as Mr.
Drummond was picking his way through the straw and debris that
littered the side-path, two girlish figures came out of the doorway
full upon him.

He raised his hat involuntarily, but they drew back at once, and, as
he went out, confused at this sudden rencontre, the sound of a light
laugh greeted his ear.

"How annoying that we should always be meeting him!" observed Nan,
innocently. "Don't laugh, Phillis: he will hear you."

"My dear, it must be fate," returned Phillis solemnly. "I shall think
it my duty to warn Dick if this goes on." But, in spite of her
mischievous speech, she darted a quick, interested look after the
handsome young clergyman as he walked on. Both the girls stood in the
porch for some minutes after they had made their retreat. They had
come out to cool themselves and to get a breath of air, until a July
sun and Mr. Drummond's sudden appearance defeated their intention.
They had no idea that they were watched from behind the screening
geraniums in Mrs. Crump's window. Both of them were enveloped in
Dorothy's bib-aprons, which hid their pretty rounded figures.
Phillis's cheeks were flushed, and her arms were bare to the dimpled
elbows; and Nan's brown hair was slightly dishevelled.

"We look just like cooks!" exclaimed Phillis, regarding her coarse
apron with disfavor; but Nan stretched her arms with a little
indifference and weariness.

"What does it matter how we look,--like cooks or housemaids? I am
dreadfully tired; but we must go in and work, Phil. I wonder what has
become of Dulce?" And then the charming vision disappeared from the
young clergyman's eyes, and he was free to fix his mind on the wire
fence that was required for the poultry-yard.

As soon as he had accomplished his errand he set his face towards the
vicarage, for he made up his mind suddenly that he would call on the
Middletons, and perhaps on Mrs. Cheyne. The latter was a duty that he
owed to his pastoral conscience; but there was no need for him to go
to the Middletons'. Nevertheless, the father and daughter were his
most intimate friends, and on all occasions he was sure of Miss
Middleton's sympathy. They lived at Brooklyn,--a low white house a
little below the vicarage. It was a charming house, he always thought,
so well arranged and well managed; and the garden--that was the
colonel's special hobby--was as pretty as a garden could be. The
drawing-room looked shady and comfortable, for the French windows
opened into a cool veranda, fitted up with flower-baskets and wicker
chairs; and beyond lay the trim lawn, with beds of blazing verbenas
and calceolarias. Miss Middleton's work-table was just within one of
the windows; but the colonel, in his gray summer suit, reclined in a
lounging-chair in the veranda. He was reading the paper to his
daughter, and was just in the middle of last night's debate;
nevertheless, he threw it aside, well pleased at the interruption.

"I knew how I should find you occupied," observed Mr. Drummond, as he
exchanged a smile with Miss Middleton. He was fully aware that
politics were not to her taste, and yet every afternoon she listened
to such reading, well content even with the sound of her father's
voice.

Elizabeth Middleton was certainly a charming person. Phillis had
called her the "gray-haired girl," and the title suited her. She was
not a girl by any means, having reached her six-and-thirtieth year;
but her hair was as silvery as an old woman's, gray and plentiful, and
soft as silk, and contrasted strangely with her still youthful face.

Without being handsome, Elizabeth Middleton was beautiful. Her
expression was sweet and restful, and attracted all hearts. People who
were acquainted with her said she was the happiest creature they
knew,--that she simply diffused sunshine by her mere presence; such a
contrast, they would add, to her neighbor Mrs. Cheyne, who bore all
her troubles badly and was of a proud, fretful disposition. But then
Mrs. Cheyne had lost her husband and her two children, and led such a
sad, lonely life; and no such troubles had fallen to Miss Middleton.

Elizabeth Middleton could afford to be happy, they said, for she was
the delight of her father's eyes. Her young half-brother, Hammond, who
was with his regiment in India, was not nearly so dear to the old man;
and of course that was why she had never married, that her father's
house might not be left desolate.

This is how people talked; but not a single person in Hadleigh knew
that Elizabeth Middleton had had a great sorrow in her life.

She had been engaged for some years most happily, and with her
father's consent, to one of his brother officers. Captain Sedgwick was
of good family, but poor; and they were waiting for his promotion, for
at that time Colonel Middleton would have been unable to give his
daughter any dowry. Elizabeth was young and happy, and she could
afford to wait. No girl ever gloried in her lover more than she did in
hers. Capel Sedgwick was not only brave and singularly handsome, but
he bore a reputation through the whole regiment for having a higher
standard of duty than most men.

Promotion came at last, and, just as Elizabeth was gayly making
preparations for her marriage, fatal tidings were brought to her.
Major Sedgwick had gone to visit an old servant in the hospital who
had been struck down with cholera; he had remained with him some time,
and on his return to his bungalow the same fell disease had attacked
him, and before many hours were over he was dead. The shock was a
terrible one; in the first moments of her bitter loss, Elizabeth cried
out that her misery was too great,--that all happiness was over for
her in this world, and that she only prayed that she might be buried
in the same grave with Capel.

The light had not yet come to the poor soul that felt itself afflicted
past endurance and could find no reason for such pain. It could not be
said that Elizabeth bore her trouble better than other girls would
have borne theirs under like circumstances. She fretted and grew thin,
and dashed herself wildly against the inevitable, only reproaching
herself for her selfishness and want of submission when she looked at
her father's care-worn face.

But then came a time when light and peace revisited the wrecked
heart,--when confused reasonings no longer beset the poor weak brain
and filled it with dismay and doubt,--when the Divine will became her
will, and there was no longer submission, but a most joyful surrender.
And no one, and least of all she herself, knew when the darkness was
vanquished by that clear uprising of pure radiance, or how those
brooding wings of peace settled on her soul. From that time, every
human being that came within her radius was welcome as a new object of
love. To give and yet to give, and never to be satisfied, was a daily
necessity of life to Elizabeth. "Now there is some one more to love,"
she would say to herself, when a new acquaintance was brought to her;
and, as the old adage is true that tells us love begets love, there
was no more popular person in Hadleigh than Elizabeth Middleton. She
had something to say in praise of every one; not that she was blind to
the faults of her neighbors, but she preferred to be silent and ignore
them.

And she was especially kind to Mattie. In the early days of their
intimacy, the young vicar would often speak to her of his sister Grace
and lament their enforced separation from each other. Miss Middleton
listened sympathetically, with the same sweet attention that she gave
to every man, woman, and child that laid claim to it; but once, when
he had finished, she said, rather gravely,--

"Do you know, Mr. Drummond, that I think your mother was right?"

"Right in dooming Grace to such a life?" he said, pausing in utter
surprise at her remark.

"Pardon me; it is not her mother who dooms her," returned Miss
Middleton, quickly, "but duty,--her own sense of right,--everything
that is sacred. If Mrs. Drummond had not decided that she could not be
spared, I am convinced from all you tell me, that Grace would still
have remained at home: her conscience would have been too strong for
her."

"Well, perhaps you are right," he admitted, reluctantly. "Grace is a
noble creature, and capable of any amount of self-sacrifice."

"I am sure of it," returned Miss Middleton, with sparkling eyes. "How
I should like to know her! it would be a real pleasure and privilege;
but I am very fond of your sister Mattie, too."

"Fond of Mattie!" It was hardly brotherly, but he could not help that
incredulous tone in his voice. How could such a superior woman as Miss
Middleton be even tolerant of Mattie?

"Oh, yes," she replied, quite calmly; "I have a great respect for your
sister. She is so unselfish and amiable, and there is something so
genuine in her. Before everything one wants truth," finished
Elizabeth, taking up her work.

Now, as the young clergyman entered the room, she stretched out her
hand to him with her usual beaming smile.

"This is good of you, to come so soon again," she said, making room
for him between her father and herself. "But why have you not brought
Mattie?" and Archie felt as though he had received a rebuke.

"She is finishing some work," he returned, a little confused; "that
is, what you ladies call work. It is not always necessary for the
clergywoman to pay visits, is it?"

"The clergywoman, as you call her, is doing too much. I was scolding
her this morning for not sparing herself more: I thought she was not
looking quite well, Mr. Drummond."

"Oh, Mattie is well enough," he replied, carelessly. He had not come
to talk about his sister: a far more interesting subject was in his
mind. "Do you know, colonel," he went on, with some animation, "that
you and I have new neighbors? Do you remember the young ladies in the
blue cambric dresses?" And at this question the colonel threw aside
his paper at once.

"Elizabeth has been telling me. I remember the young ladies perfectly.
I could not help noticing them. They walked so well,--heads up, and as
neat and trim as though they were on parade; pretty creatures, both of
them. Elizabeth pretends not to be interested, but she is quite
excited. Look at her!"

"Nay, father, it is you who can talk of nothing else; but it will be
very nice to have such pleasant neighbors. How soon do you think we
may call on them?"

And then Archie explained, with some little embarrassment, that he and
Mattie thought of calling the following Monday and offering their
services.

"That is very thoughtful of Mattie. She is such a kind-hearted little
creature, and is always ready to serve everybody."

And then they entered into a discussion on the new-comers that lasted
so long that the tea-things made their appearance; and shortly
afterwards Mr. Drummond announced that he must go and call on Mrs.
Cheyne.




CHAPTER XVI.

A VISIT TO THE WHITE HOUSE.


Hitherto Mr. Drummond had acknowledged his afternoon to be a success.
He had obtained a glimpse of the new-comers through Mrs. Crump's
screen of geraniums, and had listened with much interest to Colonel
Middleton's innocent gossip, while Miss Middleton had poured out their
tea. Indeed, his attention had quite flattered his host.

"Really, Drummond is a very intelligent fellow," he observed to his
daughter, when they were at last left alone,--"a very intelligent
fellow, and so thoroughly gentlemanly."

"Yes, he is very nice," returned Elizabeth; "and he seems wonderfully
interested in our new neighbors." And here she smiled a little
archly.

There was no doubt that Mr. Drummond had fully enjoyed his visit.
Nevertheless, as he left Brooklyn, and set his face towards the White
House, his manner changed, and his face became somewhat grave.

He had told himself that he owed it to his pastoral conscience to call
on Mrs. Cheyne; but, notwithstanding this monition, he disliked the
duty, for he always felt on these occasions that he was hardly up to
his office, and that this solitary member of his flock was not
disposed to yield herself to his guidance. He was ready to pity her if
she would allow herself to be pitied; but any expression of sympathy
seemed repugnant to her. Any one so utterly lonely, so absolutely
without interest in existence, he had never seen or thought to see;
and yet he could not bring himself to like her, or to say more than
the mere commonplace utterances of society. Though he was her
clergyman, and bound by the sacredness of his office to be specially
tender to the bruised and maimed ones of his flock, he could not get
her to acknowledge her maimed condition to him, or to do anything but
listen to him with cold attention, when he hinted vaguely that all
human beings are in need of sympathy. Perhaps she thought him too
young, and feared to find his judgments immature and one-sided; but
certainly his visits to the White House were failures. Mrs. Cheyne was
still young enough and handsome enough to need some sort of
chaperonage: and though she professed to mock at conventionality, she
acknowledged its claims in this respect by securing the permanent
services of Miss Mewlstone--a lady of uncertain age and uncertain
acquirements. It must be confessed that every one wondered at Mrs.
Cheyne and her choice, for no one could be less companionable than
Miss Mewlstone.

She was a stout, sleepy-looking woman, with a soft voice, and in
placidity and a certain cosyness of exterior somewhat resembled a
large white cat. Some people declared she absolutely purred, and
certainly her small blue eyes were ready to close on all occasions.
She always dressed in gray,--a very unbecoming color to a stout
person,--and when not asleep or reading (for she was a great reader)
she seemed always busy with a mass of soft fleecy wool. No one heard
her ever voluntarily conversing with her patroness. They would drive
together for hours, or pass whole evenings in the same room, scarcely
exchanging a word. "Just so, my dear," she would say, in return to any
observation made to her by Mrs. Cheyne. "Just so Mewlstone," a young
wag once nicknamed her.

People stared incredulously when Mrs. Cheyne assured them her
companion was a very superior woman. They thought it was only her
satire, and did not believe her in the least. They would have stared
still more if they had really known the extent of Miss Mewlstone's
acquirements.

"She seems so stupid, as though she cannot talk," one of Mrs. Cheyne's
friends said.

"Oh, yes, she can talk, and very well too," returned that lady,
quietly, "but she knows that I do not care about it; her silence is
her great virtue in my eyes. And then she has tact, and knows when to
keep out of the way," finished Mrs. Cheyne, with the utmost frankness;
and, indeed, it may be doubted whether any other person would have
retained her position so long at the White House.

Mrs. Cheyne was no favorite with the young pastor, nevertheless she
was an exceedingly handsome woman. Before the bloom of her youth had
worn off she had been considered absolutely beautiful. As regarded the
form of her features, there was no fault to be found, but her
expression was hardly pleasing. There was a hardness that people found
a little repelling,--a bitter, dissatisfied droop of the lip, a
weariness of gloom in the dark eyes, and a tendency to satire in her
speech, that alienated people's sympathy.

"I am unhappy, but pity me if you dare!" seemed to be written legibly
upon her countenance; and those who knew her best held their peace in
her presence, and then went away and spoke softly to each other of the
life that seemed wasted and the heart that was so hardened with its
trouble. "What would the world be if every one were to bear their
sorrows so badly?" they would say. "There is something heathenish in
such utter want of resignation. Oh, yes, it was very sad, her losing
her husband and children, but it all happened four or five years ago;
and you know"--And here people's voices dropped a little ominously,
for there were vague hints afloat that things had not always gone on
smoothly at the White House, even when Mrs. Cheyne had her husband.
She had been an only child, and had married the only survivor of a
large family. Both were handsome, self-willed young people; neither
had been used to contradiction. In spite of their love for each other,
there had been a strife of wills and misunderstandings from the
earliest days of their marriage. Neither knew what giving up meant,
and before many months were over the White House witnessed many
painful scenes. Herbert Cheyne was passionate, and at times almost
violent; but there was no malice in his nature. He stormed furiously
and forgave easily. A little forbearance would have turned him into a
sweet-natured man; but his wife's haughtiness and resentment lasted
long; she never acknowledged herself in the wrong, never made
overtures of peace, but bore herself on every occasion as a
sorely-injured wife, a state of things singularly provoking to a man
of Herbert Cheyne's irritable temperament.

There was injudicious partisanship as regarded their children: while
Mrs. Cheyne idolized her boy, her husband lavished most of his
attentions on the baby girl,--"papa's girl," as she always called
herself in opposition to "mother's boy."

Mrs. Cheyne really believed she loved her boy best, but when
diphtheria carried off her little Jane also, she was utterly
inconsolable. Her husband was far away when it happened: he had been a
great traveller before his marriage, and latterly his matrimonial
relations with his wife had been so unsatisfactory that virtual
separation had ensued. Two or three months before illness, and then
death, had devastated the nursery at the White House, he had set out
for a long exploring expedition in Central Africa.

"You make my life so unbearable that, but for the children, I would
never care to set foot in my home again," he had said to her, in one
of his violent moods; and, though he repented of this speech
afterwards, she could not be brought to believe that he had not meant
it, and her heart had been hard against him even in their parting.

But before many months were over she would have given all she
possessed--to her very life--to have recalled him to her side. She was
childless, and her health was broken; but no such recall was possible.
Vague rumors reached her of some miserable disaster: people talked of
a missing Englishman. One of the little party had already succumbed to
fever and hardship; by and by another followed; and the last news that
reached them was that Herbert Cheyne lay at the point of death in the
kraal of a friendly tribe. Since then the silence had been of the
grave: not one of the party had survived to bring the news of his last
moments: there had been illness and disaster from the first.

When Mrs. Cheyne recovered from the nervous disorder that had
attacked her on the receipt of this news, she put on widow's mourning,
and wore it for two years; then she sent for Miss Mewlstone, and set
herself to go through with the burden of her life. If she found it
heavy, she never complained: she was silent on her own as on other
people's troubles. Only at the sight of a child of two or three years
of age she would turn pale, and draw down her veil, and if it ran up
to her, as would sometimes happen, she would put it away from her
angrily, pushing it away almost with violence, and no child was ever
suffered to cross her threshold.

The drawing-room at the White House was a spacious apartment, with
four long windows opening on the lawn. Mrs. Cheyne was sitting in her
low chair, reading, with Miss Mewlstone at the farther end of the
room, with her knitting-basket beside her; two or three grayhounds
were grouped near her. They all rushed forward with furious barks as
Mr. Drummond was announced, and then leaped joyously round him. Mrs.
Cheyne put down her book, and greeted him with a frosty smile.

She had laid aside her widow's weeds, but still dressed in black, the
sombreness of her apparel harmonizing perfectly with her pale, creamy
complexion. Her dress was always rich in material, and most carefully
adjusted. In her younger days it had been an art with her,--almost a
passion,--and it had grown into a matter of custom.

"You are very good to come again so soon, Mr. Drummond," she said, as
she gave him her hand. The words were civil, but a slight inflection
on the word "soon" made Mr. Drummond feel a little uncomfortable. Did
she think he called too often? He wished he had brought Mattie; only
last time she had been so satirical, and had quizzed the poor little
thing unmercifully; not that Mattie had found out that she was being
quizzed.

"I hardly thought I should find you at home, it is so fine an
afternoon; but I made the attempt, you see," he continued, a little
awkwardly.

"Your parochial conscience was uneasy, I suppose, because I was
missing at church?" she returned, somewhat slyly. "You would make a
capital overseer, Mr. Drummond,"--with a short laugh. "A headache is a
good excuse, is it not? I had a headache, had I not, Miss Mewlstone?"

"Yes, my dear, just so," returned Miss Mewlstone. She always called
her patroness "my dear."

"Miss Mewlstone gave me the heads of the sermon, so it was not quite
labor lost, as regards one of your flock. I am afraid you think me a
black sheep because I stay away so often,--a very black sheep, eh, Mr.
Drummond?"

"It is not for me to judge," he said, still more awkwardly. "Headaches
are very fair excuses; and if one be not blessed with good
health----"

"My health is perfect," she returned, interrupting him ruthlessly. "I
have no such convenient plea under which to shelter myself. Miss
Mewlstone suffers far more from headaches than I do. Don't you, Miss
Mewlstone?"

"Just so; yes, indeed, my dear," proceeded softly from the other end
of the room.

"I am sorry to hear it," commenced Mr. Drummond, in a sympathizing
tone of voice. But his tormentor again interrupted him.

"I am a sad backslider, am I not? I wonder if you have a sermon ready
for me? Do you lecture your parishioners, Mr. Drummond, rich as well
as poor? What a pity it is you are so young! Lectures are more
suitable with gray hair; a hoary head might have some chance against
my satire. A woman's tongue is a difficult thing to keep in order, is
it not? I dare say you find that with Miss Mattie?"

Mr. Drummond was literally on thorns. He had no repartee ready. She
was secretly exasperating him as usual, making his youth a reproach,
and rendering it impossible for him to be his natural frank self with
her. In her presence he was always at a disadvantage. She seemed to
take stock of his learning and to mock at the idea of his pastoral
claims. It was not the first time she had called herself a black
sheep, or had spoken of her scanty attendances at church. But as yet
he had not dared to rebuke her; he had a feeling that she might fling
back his rebuke with a jest, and his dignity forbade this. Some day he
owed it to his conscience to speak a word to her,--to tell her of the
evil effects of such an example; but the convenient season had not yet
arrived.

He was casting about in his own mind for some weighty sentence with
which to answer her; but she again broke in upon his silence:

"It seems that I am to escape to-day. I hope you are not a lax
disciplinarian; that comes of being young. Youth is more tolerant,
they say, of other people's errors: it has its own glass houses to
mind."

"You are too clever for me, Mrs. Cheyne," returned the young man, with
a deprecating smile that might have disarmed her. "No, I have not come
to lecture: my mission is perfectly peaceful, as befits this lovely
afternoon. I wonder what you ladies find to do all day?" he continued,
abruptly changing the subject, and trying to find something that would
not attract her satire.

Mrs. Cheyne seemed a little taken aback by this direct question; and
then she drew up her beautiful head a little haughtily, and laughed.

"Ah, you are cunning, Mr. Drummond. You found me disposed to take the
offensive in the matter of church-going, and now you are on another
track. There is a lecture somewhere in the background. How doth the
little busy bee, etc. Now, don't frown,"--as Mr. Drummond knitted his
brows and really looked annoyed: "I will not refuse to be
catechised."

"I should not presume to catechise you," he returned, hastily. "I
appeal to Miss Mewlstone if my question were not a very innocent
one."

"Just so; just so," replied Miss Mewlstone; but she looked a little
alarmed at this appeal. "Oh, very innocent; oh, very so."

"With two against me I must yield," returned Mrs. Cheyne, with a curl
of her lip. "What do we do with our time, Miss Mewlstone? Your
occupation speaks for itself: it is exquisitely feminine. Don't tell
Miss Mattie, Mr. Drummond, but I never work. I would as soon arm
myself with a dagger as a needle or a pair of scissors. When I am not
in the air, I paint. I only lay aside my palette for a book."

"You paint!" exclaimed Archie, with sudden interest. It was the first
piece of information he had yet gleaned.

"Yes," she returned, indifferently: "one must do something to kill
time, and music was never my forte. I sketch and draw and paint after
my own sweet will. There are portfolios full of my sketches in
there,"--with a movement of her hand towards a curtained recess. "No,
I know what you are going to say: you will ask to see them; but I
never show them to any one."

"For what purpose, then, do you paint them?" were the words on his
lips; but he forbore to utter them. But she read the question in his
eyes.

"Did I not say one must kill time?" she returned, rather irritably:
"the occupation is soothing: surely that is reason enough."

"It is a good enough reason, I suppose," he replied, reluctantly, for
surely he must say a word here; "but one need not talk about killing
time, with so much that one could do."

Then there came a gleam of suppressed mischief in her eyes:

"Yes, I know: you may spare me that. I will listen to it all next
Sunday, if you will, when you have it your own way, and one cannot sin
against decorum and answer you. Yes, yes, there is so much to do, is
there not?--hungry people to be fed, and sick to visit,--all sorts of
disagreeables that people call duties. Ah, I am a sad sinner! I only
draw for my own amusement, and leave the poor old world to get on
without me. What a burden I must be on your conscience, Mr.
Drummond,--heavier than all the rest of your parish. What, are you
going already? and Miss Mewlstone has never given you any tea."

Then Archie explained, very shortly, that he had partaken of that
beverage at Brooklyn, and his leave-taking was rather more formal than
usual. He was very much surprised, as he stood at the hall door, that
always stood open in the summer, to hear the low sweep of a dress over
the tessellated pavement behind him, and to see a white pudgy hand
laid on his coat-sleeve.

"My dear Miss Mewlstone, how you startled me!"

"Just so; yes, I am afraid I did, Mr. Drummond; but I just wanted to
say, never mind all that nonsense; come again: she likes to see you;
she does, indeed. It is only her way to talk so; she means no harm,
poor dear,--oh, none at all!"

"Excuse me," returned Archie, in a hurt voice, "but I think you are
mistaken. Mrs. Cheyne does not care for my visits, and shows me she
does not: if it were not my duty, I should not come so often."

"No, no; just so, but all the same it rouses her and does her good. It
is a bad day with her, poor dear!--the very day the darlings were
taken ill, four years ago. Now, don't go away and fancy things, don't,
there's a dear young man; come as often as you can, and try and do her
good."

"Oh, if I only knew how that is to be done!" returned Archie, slowly;
but he was mollified in spite of himself. There were tears in Miss
Mewlstone's little blue eyes: perhaps she was a good creature after
all.

"I will come again, but not just yet," he said, nodding to her
good-humoredly; but as he walked down the road he told himself that
Mrs. Cheyne had never before made herself so disagreeable, and that it
would be long before he set foot in the White House again.




CHAPTER XVII.

"A FRIEND IN NEED."


Human nature is weak, and we are told there are mixed motives to be
found even in the holiest actions. Mr. Drummond never could be brought
to acknowledge even to himself the reason why he took so much pains to
compose his sermon for that Sunday. Without possessing any special
claim to eloquence, he had always been earnest and painstaking,
bestowing much labor on the construction and finish of his sentences,
which were in consequence more elaborate than original. At times, when
he took less pains and was simpler in style, he seldom failed to
satisfy his hearers. His voice was pleasant and well modulated, and
his delivery remarkably quiet and free from any tricks of gestures.

But on this occasion his subject baffled him; he wrote and rewrote
whole pages, and then grew discontented with his work. On the Sunday
in question he woke with the conviction that something out of the
common order of events distinguished the day from other days; but even
as this thought crossed his mind he felt ashamed of himself, and was
in consequence a little more dictatorial than usual at the
breakfast-table.

The inhabitants of Hadleigh were well accustomed to the presence of
strangers in their church. In the season there was a regular influx
of visitors that filled the lodging-houses to overflowing. Hadleigh
had always prided itself on its gentility, as a watering-place it was
select and exclusive; only the upper middle classes, and a sprinkling
of the aristocracy, were the habitual frequenters of the little town.
It was too quiet; it offered too few attractions to draw the crowds
that flocked to other places. Mr. Drummond's congregation was well
used by this time to see new faces in the strangers' pew;
nevertheless, a little thrill of something like surprise and
excitement moved a few of the younger members as Nan and her sisters
walked down the aisle, with their mother following them.

"The mother is almost as good-looking as her daughters," thought
Colonel Middleton, as he regarded the group through his gold-mounted
eye-glasses, and Miss Middleton looked up for an instant from her
prayer-book. Even Mrs. Cheyne roused from the gloomy abstraction which
was her usual approach to devotion, and looked long and curiously at
the three girlish faces before her. It was refreshing even to her to
see anything so fresh and bright-looking.

Nan and her sisters were perfectly oblivious of the sensation they
were making. Nan's pretty face was a trifle clouded: the strange
surroundings, the sight of all those people unknown to them, instead
of the dear, familiar faces that had always been before her, gave the
girl a dreary feeling of oppression and dismay. Her voice quavered
audibly as she sang, and one or two drops fell on her prayer-book as
she essayed to join in the petitions.

"Why is there not a special clause in the Litany for those who are
perplexed and in poverty? It is not only from murder and sudden death
one need pray to be delivered," thought Nan, with much sinking of
heart. "Oh, how helpless they were,--so young, and only girls, with a
great unknown world before them, and Dick away, ignorant of their
worst troubles, and too youthful a knight to win his spurs and pledge
himself to their service!"

Nan's sweet downcast face drew many eyes in the direction of the great
square pew in which they sat. Phillis intercepted some of these looks,
as her attention insensibly wandered during the service. It was wrong,
terribly wrong of course, but her thoughts would not concentrate
themselves on the lesson the young vicar was reading in his best
style. She was not heavy-hearted like Nan; on the contrary, little
thrills of excitement, of impatience, of repressed amusement, pervaded
her mind, as she looked at the strange faces round her "They would not
be long strange," she thought: "some of them would be her neighbors.
What would they say, all these people, when they knew----" And here
Phillis held her breath a moment. People were wondering even now who
they were. They had dressed themselves that morning, rehearsing their
parts, as it were, with studied simplicity. The gown Nan wore was as
inexpensive as a gown could be; her hat was a model of neatness and
propriety: nevertheless, Phillis groaned in spirit as she glanced at
her. Where had she got that style? She looked like a young princess
who was playing at Arcadia. Would people ever dare to ask her to work
for them? Would they not beg her pardon, and cry shame on themselves
for entertaining such a thought for a moment? Phillis almost envied
Nan, who was shedding salt tears on her prayer-book. She thought she
was absorbed in her devotions, while her own thoughts would wander so
sadly; and then a handsome face in the opposite pew attracted her
attention. Surely that must be Mrs. Cheyne, who lived in the White
House near them, of whom Nan had talked,--the poor woman who had lost
husband and children and who lived in solitary state. The sermon had
now commenced, but Phillis turned a deaf ear to the sentences over
which Mr. Drummond had expended so much labor: her attention was
riveted by the gloomy beautiful face before her, which alternately
attracted and repelled her.

As though disturbed by some magnetic influence, Mrs. Cheyne raised her
eyes slowly and looked at Phillis. Something in the girl's keen-eyed
glance seemed to move her strangely. The color crept into her pale
face, and her lip quivered: a moment afterwards she drew down her veil
and leaned back in her seat and Phillis, somewhat abashed, endeavored
fruitlessly to gather up the thread of the sermon.

"There! it is over! We have made our _debut_," she said, a little
recklessly, as they walked back to Beach House, where Mrs. Challoner
and Dulce were still staying. And as Nan looked at her, a little
shocked and mystified by this unusual flippancy, she continued in the
same excited way:

"Was it not strange Mr. Drummond choosing that text, 'Consider the
lilies'? He looked at us; I am sure he did, mother. It was quite a
tirade against dress and vanity; but I am sure no one could find fault
with us."

"It was a very good sermon, and I think he seems a very clever young
man," returned Mrs. Challoner, with a sigh, for the service had been a
long weariness for her. She had not been unmindful of the attention
her girls had caused; but if people only knew--And here the poor lady
had clasped her hands and put up petitions that were certainly not in
the Litany.

Phillis seemed about to say something, but she checked herself, and
they were all a little silent until they reached the house. This first
Sunday was an infliction to them all: it was a day of enforced
idleness. There was too much time for thought and room for regret. In
spite of all Phillis's efforts,--and she rattled on cheerily most of
the afternoon,--Mrs. Challoner got one of her bad headaches, from
worry, and withdrew to her room, attended by Dulce, who volunteered to
bathe her head and read her to sleep.

The church-bells were just ringing for the evening service, and Nan
rose, as usual, to put on her hat; but Phillis stopped her:

"Oh, Nan, do not let us go to church again this evening. I am terribly
wicked to-day, I know, but somehow I cannot keep my thoughts in order.
So what is the use of making the attempt? Let us take out our
prayer-books and sit on the beach: it is low tide, and a walk over the
sands would do us good after our dreadful week."

"If you are sure it would not be wrong," hesitated Nan, whose
conscience was a little hard to convince in such matters.

"No, no. And the run will do Laddie good. The poor little fellow has
been shut up in this room all day. We need not tell the mother. She
would be shocked, you know. But we never have stayed away from church
before, have we? And, to tell you the truth," continued Phillis, with
an unsteady laugh that betrayed agitation to her sister's ear, "though
I faced it very well this morning, I do not feel inclined to go
through it again. People stared so. And I could not help thinking all
the time, 'If they only knew!'--that was the thought that kept buzzing
in my head. If only Mr. Drummond and all those people knew!"

"What does it matter what people think?" returned Nan. But she said it
languidly. In her heart she was secretly dismayed at this sudden
failure of courage. Phillis had been quite bold and merry all the day,
almost reckless in her speeches.

"I am glad we came. This will do us both good," said Nan, gently, as
they left the parade behind them, and went slowly over the shelving
beach, with Laddie rolling like a clumsy black ball about their feet.
Just before them there was a pretty black-timbered cottage, covered
with roses, standing quite low on the shore, and beyond this was
nothing but shingly beach, and a stretch of wet, yellow sand, on which
the sun was shining. There was a smooth white boulder standing quite
alone, on which the girls seated themselves. The tide was still going
out; and the low wash of waves sounded pleasantly in their ears as
they advanced and then receded. A shimmer of silvery light played upon
the water, and a rosy tinge began to tint the horizon.

"How quiet and still it is!" said Phillis, in an awe-struck voice.
"When we are tired we must come here to rest ourselves. How prettily
those baby waves seem to babble! it is just like the gurgle of baby
laughter. And look at Laddie splashing in that pool: he is after that
poor little crab. Come here, you rogue!" But Laddie, intent upon his
sport, only cocked his ear restlessly and refused to obey.

"Yes, it is lovely," returned Nan. "There is quite a silvery path over
the water; by and by the sunset clouds will be beautiful. But what is
the matter, dear?" as Phillis sighed and leaned heavily against her;
and then, as she turned, she saw the girl's eyes were wet.

"Oh, Nan! shall we have strength for it? That is what I keep asking
myself to-day. No you must not look so frightened. I am brave enough
generally, and I do not mean to lose pluck; but now and then the
thought will come to me, Shall we have strength to go through with
it?"

"We must think of each other; that must keep us up," returned Nan,
whose ready sympathy fully understood her sister's mood. Only to Nan
would Phillis ever own her failure of courage or fears for the future.
But now and then the brave young heart needed comfort, and always
found it in Nan's sympathy.

"It was looking at your dear beautiful face that made me feel so
suddenly bad this morning," interrupted Phillis, with a sort of sob.
"It was not the people so much; they only amused and excited me, and I
kept thinking, 'If they only knew!' But, Nan, when I looked at
you--oh, why are you so nice and pretty, if you have got to do this
horrid work?"

"I am not a bit nicer than you and Dulce," laughed Nan, embracing her,
for she never could be made to understand that by most people she was
considered their superior in good looks. The bare idea made her angry.
"It is worse for you, Phillis, because you are so clever and have so
many ideas. But there! we must not go on pitying each other, or else,
indeed, we shall undermine our little stock of strength."

"But don't you feel terribly unhappy sometimes?" persisted Phillis.
Neither of them mentioned Dick, and yet he was in both their minds.

"Perhaps I do," returned Nan, simply; and then she added, with
quaintness that was pathetic, "You see, we are so unused to the
feeling, and it is over-hard at first: by and by we shall be more used
to not having our own way in things."

"I think I could give up that readily, if I could be sure you and
Dulce were not miserable," sighed Phillis.

"That is what I say," returned Nan. "Don't you see how simple and
beautiful that is? Thinking of each other gives us strength to go
through with it all. This evening trying to cheer you up has done me
good. I do not feel the least afraid of people to-night. Looking at
that sea and sky makes one feel the littleness and unreality of all
these worries. What does it matter--what does anything matter--if we
only do our duty and love each other, and submit to the Divine will?"
finished Nan, reverently, who seldom spoke of her deeper feelings,
even to Phillis.

"Nan, you are a saint," returned Phillis, enthusiastically. The
worried look had left her eyes; they looked clear and bright as usual.
"Oh, what a heathen I have been to-day! but, as Dulce is so fond of
saying, 'I am going to be good. I will read the evening Psalms to you,
in token of my resolution, if you like. But wait: is there not some
one coming across the sand! How eerie it looks, such a tall black
figure standing between the earth and sky!"

Phillis had good sight, or she would hardly have distinguished the
figure, which was now motionless, at such a distance. In another
moment she even announced that its draperies showed it to be a woman,
before she opened her book and commenced reading.

There is something very striking in a lonely central figure in a
scene, the outline cuts so sharply against the horizon. Nan's eyes
seemed riveted on it as she listened to Phillis's voice; it seemed to
her as immovable as a Sphinx, its rigidity lending a sort of
barrenness and forlornness to the landscape, a black edition of human
nature set under a violet and opal sky.

She almost started when it moved, at last, with a steady bearing, as
it seemed, towards them; then curiosity quickened into interest, and
she touched Phillis's arm, whispering breathlessly,--

"The Sphinx moves! Look--is not that Mrs. Cheyne, the lady who lives
at the White House near us, who always looks so lonely and unhappy?"

"Hush!" returned Phillis, "she will hear you;" and then Mrs. Cheyne
approached with the same swift even walk. She looked at them for a
moment, as she passed, with a sort of well-bred surprise in her air,
as though she marvelled to see them there; her black dress touched
Laddie, and he caught at it with an impotent bark.

The sisters must have made a pretty picture, as they sat almost
clinging together on the stone: one of Nan's little white hands rested
on Laddie's head, the other lay on Phillis's lap. Phillis glanced up
from her book, keen-eyed and alert in a moment; she turned her head to
look at the stranger that had excited her interest, and then rose to
her feet with a little cry of dismay.

"Oh, Nan, I am afraid she has hurt herself! She gave such a slip just
now. I wonder what has happened? She is leaning against the
breakwater, too. Shall we go and ask her if she feels ill or
anything?"

"You may go," was Nan's answer. Nevertheless, she followed Phillis.

Mrs. Cheyne looked up at them a little sharply as they came towards
her. Her face was gray and contracted with pain.

"I have slipped on a wet stone, and my foot has somehow turned on me,"
she said, quickly, as Phillis ran up to her. "It was very stupid. I
cannot think how it happened; but I have certainly sprained my ankle.
It gives me such pain. I cannot move."

"Oh, dear, I am so sorry!" returned Phillis, good-naturedly; and, in
the most natural manner, she knelt down on the beach, and took the
injured foot in her hands. "Yes, I can feel it is swelling dreadfully:
we must try and get your boot off before the attempt gets too
painful." And she commenced unfastening it with deft fingers.

"How am I to walk without my boot?" observed Mrs. Cheyne, a little
drily, as she looked down on the girl; but here Nan interposed in her
brisk sensible way:

"You must not walk; you must not think of such a thing. We will wet
our handkerchiefs in the salt water, and bind up your ankle as well as
we can; and then one of us will walk over to the White House for
assistance. Your servants could easily obtain a wheeled chair."

"You knew I lived at the White House, then?" returned Mrs. Cheyne,
arching her eyebrows in some surprise; but she offered no opposition
to Nan's plan. The removal of the boot had brought on a sensation of
faintness, and she sat perfectly still and quiet while the girls
swathed the foot in wet bandages.

"It is a little easier now," she observed, gratefully. "How neatly you
have done it! you must be used to such work. I am really very much
obliged to you both for your kindly help; and now I am afraid I must
trouble you further if I am ever to reach home."

"I will go at once," returned Nan, cheerfully; "but I will leave my
sister for fear you should feel faint again: besides, it is so
lonely."

"Oh, I am used to loneliness!" was the reply, as a bitter expression
crossed her face.

Phillis, who was still holding the sprained foot in her lap, looked up
in her eager way.

"I think one gets used to everything; that is a merciful dispensation;
but all the same I hope you will not send me away. I dearly like to be
useful; and at present my object is to prevent your foot coming into
contact with these stones. Are you really in less pain now?--you look
dreadfully pale."

"Oh, that is nothing!" she returned, with a smile so sudden and sweet
that it quite startled Phillis, for it lit up her face like sunshine;
but almost before she caught it, it was gone. "How good you are to me!
and yet I am a perfect stranger!" and then she added, as though with
an afterthought, "But I saw you in church this morning."

Phillis nodded: the question certainly required no answer.

"If I knew you better, I should ask why your eyes questioned me so
closely this morning. Do you know, Miss--Miss----" And here she
hesitated and smiled, waiting for Phillis to fill up the blank.

"My name is Challoner,--Phillis Challoner," replied Phillis, coloring
a little; and then she added, frankly, "I am afraid you thought me
rude, and that I stared at you, but my thoughts were all topsy-turvy
this morning and refused to be kept in order. One feels curious,
somehow, about the people among whom one has come to live."

"Have you come to live here?" asked Mrs. Cheyne, eagerly, and a gleam
of pleasure shot into her dark eyes,--"you, and your mother and
sisters?"

"Yes; we have just come to the Friary,--a little cottage standing on
the Braidwood Road."

Her manner became a little constrained and reserved as she said this:
the charming frankness disappeared.

"The Friary!" echoed Mrs. Cheyne; and then she paused for a moment,
and her eyes rested searchingly on Phillis. "That shabby little
cottage!" was the thought that filled up the outline of her words;
but, though she felt inward surprise and a momentary disappointment,
there was no change in the graciousness of her manner. Never before
had she so thawed to any one: but the girl's sweet ministry had won
her heart. "Then you will be near me,--just at my gates? We shall be
close neighbors. I hope you will come and see me, Miss Challoner."

Poor Phillis! the blood suddenly rushed over her face at this. How was
she to answer without appearing ungracious?--and yet at this moment
how could she explain?

"If you please, we are dressmakers." Oh, no! such words as these would
not get themselves said. It was too abrupt, too sudden, altogether:
she was not prepared for such a thing. Oh, why had she not gone to the
White House instead of Nan? Her officiousness had brought this on her.
She could not put the poor foot off her lap and get up and walk away
to cool her hot cheeks.

"Thank you; you are very good," she stammered, feeling herself an
utter fool: she,--Phillis,--the clever one!

Mrs. Cheyne seemed rather taken aback by the girl's sudden reserve and
embarrassment.

"I suppose you think I should call first, and thank you for your
kindness," she returned, quickly; "but I was afraid my foot would keep
me too long a prisoner. And, as we are to be neighbors, I hardly
thought it necessary to stand on ceremony; but if you would rather
wait----"

"Oh, no," replied Phillis, in despair; "we will not trouble you to do
that! Nan and I will call and ask after your foot, and then we will
explain. There is a little difficulty: you might not care to be
friends with us if you knew," went on Phillis with burning cheeks;
"but we will call and explain. Oh, yes, Nan and I will call!"

"Do; I shall expect you," returned Mrs. Cheyne, half amused and half
mystified at the girl's obvious confusion. What did the child mean?
They were gentle-people,--one could see that at a glance. They were in
reduced circumstances: they had come down to Hadleigh to retrench.
Well, what did that matter? People's wealth or poverty never affected
her; she would think none the less well of them for that; she would
call at the Friary and entertain them at the White House with as much
pleasure as though they lived in a palace. The little mystery piqued
her, and yet excited her interest. It was long since she had
interested herself so much in anything. To Miss Middleton she had
always been cold and uncertain. Mr. Drummond she treated with a
mixture of satire and haughtiness that aroused his ire. Phillis's
frankness and simplicity had won her for a moment to her earlier and
better self: she conceived an instantaneous liking for the girl who
looked at her with such grave kindly glances. "I shall expect you,
remember," she repeated, as Nan at that moment appeared in sight.

"Oh, yes, Nan and I will come," returned Phillis, slowly, and almost
solemnly; but an instant afterwards a flicker of amusement played
round her mouth. It was painful, of course; but, still, how droll it
was!

"How long you have been, Nan!" she exclaimed, a little unreasonably,
as Nan ran towards them, flushed and breathless from her haste.

"It has not been long to me," observed Mrs. Cheyne, pointedly. She
talked more to Nan than to Phillis after this, until the servants
appeared with the wheeled chair; but nevertheless her last words were
for Phillis. "Remember your promise," was all she said, as she held
out her hand to the girl; and Phillis tried to smile in answer, though
it was rather a failure after all.




CHAPTER XVIII.

DOROTHY BRINGS IN THE BEST CHINA.


"What a fool I made of myself yesterday! but to-day Richard is himself
again," said Phillis, as she gathered up another muslin curtain in her
arms ready to hand to Nan, who was mounted on some steps. It was only
Monday afternoon, but the girls had done wonders: the work-room, as
they called it, was nearly finished. The great carved wardrobe and
mahogany table had been polished by Dorothy's strong hands. Mrs.
Challoner's easy-chair and little work-table at one window looked
quite inviting; the sewing-machine and Nan's rosewood davenport were
in their places. A hanging cupboard of old china, and a few well-bound
books, gave a little coloring and finish, and one or two fine old
prints that had hung in the dining-room at Glen Cottage had been
disposed with advantage on the newly-papered walls. An inlaid clock
ticked on the mantelpiece, and some handsome ruby-colored vases stood
on either side of it. Nan was quite right when she had glanced round
her a few minutes ago in a satisfied manner and said no one need be
ashamed of living in such a room.

"Our pretty things make it look almost too nice for the purpose," she
continued, handling a precious relic, a Sevres cup and saucer, that
had been her especial pride in old days. "I think you were wrong,
Phil, not to have the china in the other room."

"No, indeed; I want people to see it and be struck with our taste,"
was Phillis's frank answer. "Think what pleasure it will give the poor
ladies when their dresses are being tried on. Don't you remember the
basket of wax fruit at Miss Slinders's, when we were small children? I
thought it the loveliest work of art, and feasted my eyes all the time
Miss Slinders was fitting my pink frock. Now, our pictures and china
will refresh people's eyes in the same way."

Nan smiled and shook her head, as she dusted and arranged her
treasures. The china was very dear to her,--far more than the books
Phillis was arranging on the chiffonnier. The Dresden figures that
Dick had given to her mother were among them. She did not care for
strangers to look at them and appraise their value. They were home
treasures,--sacred relics of their past. The last time she had dusted
them, a certain young man of her acquaintance had walked through the
open window whistling "Blue bonnets over the Border," and had taken up
his station beside her, hindering her work with his chattering. Dulce
was in the upper regions, unpacking a box in her mother's room. Mrs.
Challoner was coming home the next day, and Dorothy and she were hard
at work getting things in order.

When Phillis made her downright speech, Nan looked down from her lofty
perch, and held out her arms for the curtain.

"Richard is always himself, my dear," she said, softly. "Do you know
when you are down, Phil, I feel as though we are all at a stand-still,
and there's no getting on at all? and then at one of your dear droll
speeches the sunshine comes out again, and we are all as right as
possible."

"Don't talk nonsense," was Phillis's blunt answer; but she could not
help being pleased at the compliment. She looked up archly at Nan, as
the mass of soft white drapery lay between them; and then they both
broke into a laugh, just as two shadows seemed to glide past the
window, and a moment afterwards the house-bell sounded.
"Visitors!--oh, Nan!" And Phillis glanced down at the neat bib apron
that she wore over her cambric dress.

"Don't be afraid; Dorothy will have too much sense to admit them,"
returned Nan, quite indifferently, as she went up a step higher to
hang up the curtain.

Phillis was still holding it; but her manner was not quite so well
assured. She thought she heard Dulce's voice in confabulation with the
stranger. A moment afterwards Dulce came briskly into the room.

"Nan, Mr. Drummond and his sister have kindly called to see us. We are
not in order, of course. Oh, dear!" as Nan looked down on them with
startled eyes, not venturing to descend from her perch. "I ought not
to have brought them in here," looking half mischievously and half
guiltily at the young clergyman, who stood hat in hand on the
threshold.

"It is I who ought not to have intruded," he began, in a perfect agony
of embarrassment, blushing over his face like a girl as Nan looked
down at him in much dignity, but Mattie, who was behind him, pushed
forward in her usual bustling way.

"Oh, Miss Challoner, it is too bad! I told Archie that we ought not to
come too soon----" but Phillis stopped her with an outstretched hand
of welcome.

"What is too bad? I call it very kind and friendly of you both: one
hardly expected to find such good neighbors. Nan, if that curtain is
finished I think you had better come down. Take care; those steps are
rickety: perhaps Mr. Drummond will help you."

"Let me do the other ones for you. I don't think those steps are
safe!" exclaimed Archie, with sudden inspiration.

No one at home would have believed such a thing of him. Mattie's eyes
grew quite round and fixed with astonishment at the sight. He had not
even shaken hands with Nan, yet there he was, mounted in her place,
slipping in the hooks with dexterous hands, while Nan quietly held up
the curtain.

Months afterwards the scene came back on Archibald Drummond with a
curious thrill half of pain and half of amusement. How had he done it?
he wondered. What had made him all at once act in a way so unlike
himself?--for, with the best intention, he was always a little stiff
and constrained with strangers. Yet there he was laughing as though he
had known them all his life, because Nan had rebuked him gravely for
slipping two hooks into one ring. Months afterwards he recalled it
all: Nan glancing up at him with quietly amused eyes, Phillis standing
apart, looking quaint and picturesque in her bib-apron, Dulce with the
afternoon sunshine lighting up her brown hair; the low old-fashioned
room, with the great carved wardrobe, and the cupboard of dainty
china; the shady little lawn outside, with Laddie rolling among the
daisies. What made it suddenly start up in his memory like a picture
one has seen and never quite forgotten?

"Thank you, Mr. Drummond. You have done it so nicely," said Nan, with
the utmost gravity, as he lingered, almost unwilling to descend to
conventionality again. Dulce and Phillis were busily engaged looping
up the folds. "Now we will ask Dorothy to remove the steps and then we
can sit down comfortably."

But here Archie interposed:

"Why need you call any one? Tell me where I shall put them." Mattie
broke into a loud laugh. She could not help it. It was too droll of
Archie. She must write and tell Grace.

Archie heard the laugh as he marched out of the room with his burden,
and it provoked him excessively. He made some excuse about admiring
Laddie, and went out on the lawn for a few minutes, accompanied by
Nan. When they came back, the curtains were finished and the two girls
were talking to Mattie. Mattie seemed quite at ease with them.

"We have such a dear old garden at the vicarage," she was saying, as
her brother came into the room. "I am not much of a gardener myself
but Archie works for hours at a time. He talks of getting a set of
tennis down from town. We think it will help to bring people together.
You must promise to come and play sometimes of an afternoon when you
have got the cottage in order."

"Thank you," returned Phillis; and then Nan and she exchanged looks. A
sort of blankness came over the sisters' faces,--a sudden dying out of
the brightness and fun.

Mr. Drummond grew a little alarmed:

"I hope you will not disappoint my sister. She has few friends, and is
rather lonely, missing so many sisters; and you are such close
neighbors."

"Yes, we are close neighbors," returned Phillis. But her voice was a
little less clear than usual; and, to Archie's astonishment,--for they
all seemed talking comfortably together,--her face had grown suddenly
pale. "But you must not think us unkind if we refuse your
hospitality," she went on, looking straight at him, and not at Mattie.
"Owing to painful circumstances, we have made up our minds that no
such pleasure are in store for us. We must learn to do without things:
must we not, Nan?"

"Yes, indeed," returned Nan, very gravely. And then the tears came
into Dulce's eyes. Was Phillis actually going to tell them? She would
have run away, only she was ashamed of such cowardice.

"I hope you do not mean to do without friends," stammered Archie.
"That would be too painful to bear." He thought they were excusing
themselves from partaking of their neighbors' hospitality because they
were too poor to return it, and wanted to set them at their ease. "You
may have reasons for wishing to be quiet. Perhaps Mrs. Challoner's
health, and--and--parties are not always desirable," he went on,
floundering, a little in his speech, and signing to Mattie to come to
his help, which she did at once, breathlessly:

"Parties! Oh, dear, no! They are such a trouble and expense. But
tennis and tea on the lawn is just nothing,--nothing at all. One can
give a little fruit and some home-made cake. No one need scruple at
that. Archie is not rich,--clergymen never are, you know,--but he
means to entertain his friends as well as he can. I should like you to
see Miss Middleton. She is a charming person. And the colonel is as
nice as possible. We will just ask them to meet you in a quiet way,
and, if your mother is not too much of an invalid, I hope she will
give us the pleasure of her company, for when people are such close
neighbors it is stupid to stand on ceremony," finished Mattie,
bringing herself rapidly to a full stop.

"You are very kind. But you do not understand," returned Phillis. And
then she stopped, and a gleam of fun came into her eyes. Her sharp
ears had caught the rattle of cups and saucers. Actually, that absurd
Dorothy was bringing in tea in the old way, making believe that they
were entertaining their friends in Glen Cottage fashion! She must get
out the truth somehow before the pretty purple china made its
appearance. "Oh," she went on, with a sort of gulp, as though she felt
the sudden touch of cold water, "you come here meaning kindly, and
asking us to your house, and taking compassion upon us because we are
strangers and lonely, and you do not know that we are poor, and that
we have lost our money, and----" But here Mr. Drummond was absolutely
rude enough to interrupt her:

"What does that matter, my dear Miss Challoner? Do you think that is
of any consequence in mine or my sister's eyes? I suppose if I be your
clergyman----" And then he stopped, and stroked his beard in an
embarrassed way; for though Phillis's face was pale, there was
laughter in her eyes.

"Oh, if this be a parochial visit," she began, demurely; "but you
should not have talked of tennis, Mr. Drummond. How do you know we are
not Roman Catholics, or Wesleyans, or even Baptists, or Bible
Christians? We might have gone to your church out of curiosity on
Sunday, or to see the fashions. There is not a Quaker cut about us;
but, still, we might be Unitarians, and people would not find it out,"
continued Phillis, looking with much solemnity at the bewildered young
Anglican.

The situation was too absurd; there was no knowing to what length
Phillis's recklessness and sense of humor would have brought her, only
Nan's good sense came to the rescue:

"Phillis is only in fun, Mr. Drummond. Of course we are Church-people:
and of course we hope to attend your services. I am sure my mother
will be pleased to see you, when you are kind enough to call. At
Oldfield we were always good friends with our clergyman: he was such a
dear old man."

"Do you mean to forbid my sister's visits, then?" asked Archie,
looking anxiously at her sweet face; Nan looked so pretty, in spite of
her discomposure.

"Oh, no! we do not mean to be so rude: do we, Phillis? We shall be so
glad to see Miss Drummond; but--but," faltered Nan, losing breath a
little, "we have been unfortunate, and must work for our living; and
your sister perhaps would not care to visit dressmakers."

"What!" exclaimed Archie: he almost jumped out of his chair in his
surprise.

Phillis had uttered a faint "Bravo, Nan!" but no one heard her.
Dulce's cheeks were crimson, and she would not look at any one; but
Nan, who had got out the dreaded word, went on bravely, and was well
hugged by Phillis in private afterwards.

"We are not clever enough for governesses," continued Nan, with a
charming smile, addressing Mattie, who sat and stared at her, "and
there was nothing we dreaded so much as to separate: so, as we had
capable fingers and were fond of work, my sister Phillis planned this
for us. Now you see, Miss Drummond, why we could not accept your kind
hospitality. Whatever we have been, we cannot expect people to visit
us now. If you would be good enough to recommend us, and help us in
our efforts to make ourselves independent, that is all we can ask of
you."

"Well, I don't know," returned Mattie, bluntly: "as far as I am
concerned, I am never ashamed of any honest calling. What do you say,
Archie?"

"I say it is all very proper and laudable," he returned, hesitating;
"but surely--surely there must be some other way more suitable to
ladies in your position! Let me call again when your mother comes, and
see if there is nothing that I can do or recommend better than this.
Yes, I am sure if I can only talk to your mother, we could find some
other way than this."

"Indeed, Mr. Drummond, you must do nothing of the kind," replied
Phillis, in an alarmed voice: "the poor dear mother must not be
disturbed by any such talk! You mean it kindly, but we have made up
our own minds, Nan and I: we mean to do without the world and live in
one of our own; and we mean to carry out our plan in defiance of
everything and everybody; and, though you are our clergyman and we are
bound to listen to your sermons, we cannot take your advice in this."

"But--but I would willingly act as a friend," began the young man,
confusedly, looking not at her, but at Nan.

He was so bewildered, so utterly taken aback, he hardly knew what he
said.

"Here comes Dorothy with the tea," interrupted Nan, pleasantly, as
though dismissing the subject: "she has not forgotten our old customs.
Friends always came around us in the afternoon. Mr. Drummond, perhaps
you will make yourself useful and cut the cake. Dorothy, you need not
have unpacked the best silver teapot." Nan was moving about in her
frank hospitable way. Laddie was whining for cake, and breaking into
short barks of impatience. "This is one of our Glen Cottage cakes.
Susan always prides herself on the recipe," said Nan, calmly, as she
pressed it on her guests.

Mr. Drummond almost envied his sister as she praised the cake and
asked for the recipe. He had always found fault with her manners; but
now nothing could be finer than her simplicity. Pure good nature and
innate womanliness were teaching Mattie something better than tact.
Nan had dropped a painful subject, and she would not revive it in her
brother's presence. There would be plenty of time for her to call and
talk it over with them quietly. Help them!--of course she would help
them. They should have her new silk dress that Uncle Conway had just
sent her. It was a risk, for perhaps they might spoil it; but such
fine creatures should have a chance. At present she would only enjoy
the nice tea, and talk to poor little frightened Dulce, who seemed
unable to open her lips after her sister's disclosure.

Archie could not emulate her ease: a man is always at a disadvantage
in such a case. His interest had sustained no shock: it was even
stimulated by what he had just heard; but his sympathy seemed all at
once congealed, and he could find no vent for it. In spite of his best
efforts his manner grew more and more constrained every moment.

Nan looked at him more than once with reproachful sweetness. She
thought they had lost caste in his eyes; but Phillis, who was shrewd
and sharp-set in her wits, read him more truly. She knew--having
already met a score of such--how addicted young Englishmen are to
_mauvaise honte_, and how they will hide acute sensibilities under
blunt and stolid exteriors; and there was a certain softness in Mr.
Drummond's eye that belied his stiffness. Most likely he was very
sorry for them, and did not know how to show it; and in this she was
right.

Mr. Drummond was very sorry for them; but he was still more grieved
for himself. The Oxford fellow had not long been a parish priest, and
he could not at all understand the position in which he found
himself,--taking tea with three elegant young dressmakers who talked
the purest English and had decided views on tennis and horticulture.
He had just been congratulating himself on securing such companionship
for his sister and himself. Being rather classical-minded, he had been
calling them the gray-eyed Graces, and one of them at least "a
daughter of the gods,--divinely tall and most divinely fair;" for
where had he seen anything to compare with Nan's bloom and charming
figure? Dressmakers!--oh, if only Grace were at hand, that he might
talk to her, and gain her opinion how he was to act in such case!
Grace had the stiff-necked Drummond pride as well as he, and would
hesitate long behind the barriers of conventionality. No wonder, with
all these thoughts passing through his mind, that Nan, with her bright
surface talk, found him a little vague.

It was quite a relief to all the party when Mattie gave the signal for
departure and the bell was rung for Dorothy to show them out.

"Well, Nan, what do you think of our visitors?" asked Phillis, when
the garden-door had clanged noisily after them, and she had treated
Nan to the aforesaid hugs; "for you were so brave, darling, and
actually took the wind out of my sails!" exclaimed the enthusiastic
Phillis. "Miss Drummond is not so bad, after all, is she, in spite of
her dowdiness and fussy ways?"

"No; she means well; and so does her brother. He is very nice, only
his self-consciousness spoils him," returned Nan, in a calm,
discursive tone, as though they were discussing ordinary visitors.

It was impossible for these young girls to see that their ordinary
language was not humble enough for their new circumstances. They would
make mistakes at every turn, like Dorothy, who got out the best china
and brewed her tea in the melon-shaped silver teapot.

Phillis opened her eyes rather widely at this. Nan was not often so
observant. It was true: self-consciousness was a torment to Archibald
Drummond, a Frankenstein of his own creation, that had grown
imperceptibly with his growth to the fell measure of his manhood, as
inseparable as the shadow from the substance. Phillis had recognized
it at once; but then, as she said, no one was faultless; and then, he
was so handsome. "Very handsome" chimed in Dulce, whose opinions were
full-fledged in such matters.

"Is he? Well, I never cared for a man with a long fair beard,"
observed Nan, carelessly. Poor Archie! how his vanity would have
suffered if he had heard her! for, in a masculine way, he prided
himself excessively on the soft silky appendage that Grace had so
often praised. A certain boyish countenance, with kindly honest eyes
and a little sandy moustache, was more to Nan's taste than the
handsome young Anglican.

"Oh, we all know Nan's opinion in such matters," said Dulce, slyly;
and then Nan blushed, and suddenly remembered that Dorothy was waiting
for her in the linen-closet, and hurried away, leaving her sisters to
discuss their visitors to their hearts' content.




CHAPTER XIX.

ARCHIE IS IN A BAD HUMOR.


"Oh, Archie, I was never more astonished in my life!" exclaimed
Mattie, as she tried to adapt her uneven trot to her brother's long
swinging footsteps; and then she glanced up in his face to read his
mood: but Archie's features were inscrutable and presented an
appalling blank. In his mind he was beginning his letter to Grace, and
wondering what he should say to her about their new neighbors.
"Writing is such a nuisance when one wants to talk to a person," he
thought, irritably.

"Oh, Archie, won't you tell me what we are to do?" went on Mattie,
excitedly. She would not take Archie's silence as a hint that he
wanted to keep his thoughts to himself. "Those poor girls! oh, how
nice and pretty they all are, especially the eldest! and is not the
youngest--Dulce, I think they called her--the very image of Isabel?"

"Isabel! not a bit. That is so like you, Mattie. You always see
likenesses when other people cannot trace the faintest resemblance,"
for this remark was sure to draw out his opposition. Isabel was a
silly flirting little thing in her brother's estimation, and, he
thought, could not hold a candle to the youngest Miss Challoner.

"Oh dear! now I have made you cross!" sighed poor Mattie, who
especially wanted to keep him in good humor. "And yet every one but
you thinks Isabel so pretty. I am sure, from what Grace said in her
last letter, that Mr. Ellis Burton means to propose to her."

"And I suppose you will all consider that a catch," sneered Archie.
"That is so like a parcel of women, thinking every man who comes to
the house and makes a few smooth-tongued speeches--is, in fact,
civil--must be after a girl. Of course you have all helped to instill
this nonsense into the child's head."

"Dear me, how you talk, Archie!" returned Mattie, feeling herself
snubbed as usual. Why, Archie had been quite excited about it only the
other day, and had said quite seriously that with seven girls in a
family, it would be a great blessing if Isabel could make such a
match; for it was very unlikely that Laura and Susie, or even Clara,
would do much for themselves in that way, unless they decidedly
improved in looks.

"Well, it is nothing to me," he returned in a chilling manner; "we all
know our own mind best. If an angular lantern-jawed fellow like
Burton, who, by the bye, does not speak the best English, is to
Isabel's taste, let her have him by all means: he is well-to-do, and I
dare say will keep a carriage for her by and by: that is what you
women think a great advantage," finished Archie, who certainly seemed
bent on making himself disagreeable.

Mattie heaved another great sigh, but she did not dare to contradict
him. Grace would have punished him on the spot by a dose of satire
that would have brought him to reason and good nature in a moment; but
Mattie ventured only on those laborious sighs which she jerked up from
the bottom of her honest little heart.

Archie heard the sigh, and felt ashamed of his bad temper. He did not
know himself why he felt so suddenly cross; some secret irritation was
at work within him, and he could scarcely refrain from bidding Mattie
quite roughly to hold her tongue and not tease him with her chatter.
If she expected him in his present state of mind, which was at once
contradictory and aggressive, to talk to her about the Challoners, she
must just make up her mind to be disappointed, for he could not bring
himself to speak of them to her just now: he wanted to hold counsel
with his own thoughts and with Grace. He would call at the Friary
again and see Mrs. Challoner, and find out more of this strange
matter; but as to talking it over with Mattie, he quite shrugged his
shoulders as he swung open the green door.

"Are you going in?" faltered Mattie, as she noticed this movement.

"Well, yes; I have letters to write, and it is too hot for a longer
walk," he returned, decidedly; and then, as Mattie stood hesitating
and wistful in the middle of the road, he strode off, leaving the door
to close noisily after him, and not caring to inquire into her further
movements, such being the occasional graceless manners of brothers
when sisterly friendship is not to their liking.

Mattie felt snubbed; but for the first time in her life, she did not
take her snubbing meekly. It was too much to expect of her, who was
only a woman and not one of Archie's divinities, that she should
follow him into the house and hold her tongue just because he was
pleased to refrain from speaking. Water must find its vent; and
Mattie's tongue could not be silenced in this way. If Archie would not
talk to her, Miss Middleton would: so at once she trotted off for
Brooklyn, thereby incurring Archie's wrath if he could only have known
her purpose; for gossip was to him as the sin of witchcraft, unless he
stooped to it himself, and then it was amiable sociability.

Miss Middleton was listening to her father's reading as usual, but she
welcomed Mattie with open arms, literally as well as metaphorically,
for she kissed Mattie on either cheek, and then scolded her tenderly
for looking so flushed and tired; "for somebody who is always looking
after other people, and never has time to spare for herself, is
growing quite thin; is she not, father? and we must write to Grace if
this goes on," finished Miss Middleton, with one of her kind looks.

All this was cordial to poor Mattie, who, though she was used to
snubbing, and took as kindly to it as a spaniel to water, yet felt
herself growing rather like a thread-paper and shabby with every-day
worries and never an encouraging word to inspirit her.

So she gave Elizabeth a misty little smile,--Mattie's smile was
pretty, though her features were ordinary,--and then sat up straight
and began to enjoy herself,--that is, to talk,--never noticing that
Colonel Middleton looked at his paper in a crestfallen manner, not
much liking the interruption and the cessation of his own voice.

"Oh, dear!" began Mattie: she generally prefaced her remarks by an
"Oh, dear!" ("That was one of her jerky ways," as Archie said.) "I
could not help coming straight to you, for Archie would not talk, and
I felt I must tell somebody. Oh, dear, Miss Middleton! What do you
think? We have just called at the Friary--and----" but here Colonel
Middleton's countenance relaxed, and he dropped his paper.

"Those young ladies, eh? Come, Elizabeth, this is interesting. Well,
what sort of place is the Friary, seen from the inside, eh, Miss
Drummond?"

"Oh, it is very nice," returned Mattie, enthusiastically. "We were
shown into such a pretty room, looking out on the garden. They have so
many nice things,--pictures, and old china, and handsomely-bound
books, and all arranged so tastefully. And before we went away, the
old servant--she seems really quite a superior person--brought in an
elegant little tea-tray: the cups and saucers were handsomer even than
yours, Miss Middleton,--dark-purple and gold. Just what I admire
so----"

"Ah, reduced in circumstances! I told you so, Elizabeth," ejaculated
the colonel.

"I never saw Archie enjoy himself so much or seem so thoroughly at
home anywhere. Somehow, the girls put us so at our ease. Though they
were hanging up curtains when we went in,--and any one else would have
been annoyed at our intruding so soon,--actually, before we were in
the room a moment, Archie was on the steps, helping the eldest Miss
Challoner fasten the hooks."

Miss Middleton exchanged an amused look with her father. Mattie's
narrative was decidedly interesting.

"Oh, don't tell him I repeated that, for he is always calling me
chatterbox!" implored Mattie, who feared she had been indiscreet, and
that the colonel was not to be trusted, which was quite true as far as
jokes were concerned. No one understood the art of teasing better than
he, and the young vicar had already had a taste of his kindly satire.
"Archie only meant to be good-natured and put every one at their
ease."

"Quite right. Mr. Drummond is always kind," returned Elizabeth,
benignly. She had forgotten Mattie's frequent scoldings, and the poor
little thing's tired face, or she would never have hazarded such a
compromise with truth. But somehow Elizabeth always forgot people's
weaknesses, especially when they were absent. It was so nice and easy
to praise people; and if she always believed what she said, that was
because her faith was so strong, and charity that is love was her
second nature.

"Oh, yes, of course," returned Mattie, innocently. She was far too
loyal a little soul to doubt Archie's kindness for a moment. Was he
not the pride and ornament of the family,--the domestic pope who
issued his bulls without possibility of contradiction? Whatever Archie
did must be right. Was not that their domestic creed?--a little
slavish, perhaps, but still so exquisitely feminine. Mattie was of
opinion that--well, to use a mild term--irritability was a necessary
adjunct of manhood. All men were cross sometimes. It behooved their
womankind, then, to throw oil on the troubled waters,--to speak
peaceably, and to refrain from sour looks, or even the shadow of a
frown. Archie was never cross with Grace: therefore it must be she,
Mattie, on whom the blame lay; she was such a silly little thing, And
so on. There is no need to follow the self-accusation of one of the
kindest hearts that ever beat.

"Did not your visit end as pleasantly as it began?" asked Elizabeth,
who, though she was over-merciful in her judgments, was not without a
good deal of sagacity and shrewdness. Something lay beyond the margin
of Mattie's words, she could see that plainly; and then her father was
getting impatient.

"Well, you see, that spoiled everything," returned Mattie, jumbling
her narrative in the oddest manner. "Archie was so sorry, and so was
I; and he got quite--you know his way when he feels uncomfortable. I
thought Miss Challoner was joking at first,--that it was just a bit of
make-believe fun,--until I saw how grave Miss Phillis, that is the
second one, looked: and then the little one--at least, she is not
little, but somehow one fancies she is--seemed as though she were
going to cry."

"But what did Miss Challoner say to distress you and Mr. Drummond so?"
asked Elizabeth, trying patiently to elicit facts and not vague
statements from Mattie.

"Oh, she said--no, please don't think I am exaggerating, for it is all
true--that they had lost their money, and were very poor, and, that
she and her sisters were dressmakers."

"Dressmakers!" shouted the colonel, and his ruddy face grew almost
purple with the shock: his very moustache seemed to bristle.
"Dressmakers! my dear Miss Drummond, I don't believe a word of it!
Those girls! It is a hoax!--a bit of nonsense from beginning to end!"

"Hush, father! you are putting Mattie out," returned Elizabeth,
mildly. It was one of her idiosyncrasies to call people as soon as
possible by their Christian names, though no one but her father and
brother ever called her Elizabeth. Perhaps her gray hair, and a
certain soft dignity that belonged to her, forbade such freedom. "Dear
father, we must let Mattie speak." But even Elizabeth let her work lie
unheeded in her lap in the engrossing interest of the subject.

"I do not mean they have been dressmakers all this time, but this is
their plan for the future. Miss Challoner said they were not clever
enough for governesses, and that they did not want to separate. But
that is what they mean to do,--to make dresses for people who are not
half so good as themselves."

"Preposterous! absurd!" groaned the colonel. "Where is their
mother? What can the old lady be thinking about?" Mrs. Challoner
was not an old lady by any means; but then the choleric colonel had
never seen her, or he would not have applied that term to the
aristocratic-looking gentlewoman whom Mattie had admired in Miss
Milner's shop.

"I had a good look round the room afterwards," went on Mattie,
letting this pass. "They had got a great carved wardrobe,--I thought
that funny in a sitting-room; but of course it was for the
dresses,"--another groan from the colonel,--"and there was a
sewing-machine, and a rosewood davenport for accounts, and a
chiffonnier of course for the pieces. Oh, they mean business; and I
should not be surprised if they understand their work well," went on
Mattie, warming up to her subject and thinking of the breadths of
green silk that reposed so snugly between silver paper in her
drawers at the vicarage,--the first silk dress she had ever owned,
for the Drummond finances did not allow of such luxuries,--the new
color, too; such a soft, invisible, shadowy green, like an autumn
leaf shrivelled by the sun's richness. "Oh, if they should spoil it!"
thought Mattie, with a sigh, as the magnitude of her intended
sacrifice weighed heavily upon her mind.

"It is sheer girlish nonsense,--I might say foolery; and the mother
must be a perfect idiot!" began the colonel, angrily.

He was an excitable man; and his wrath at the intelligence was really
very great. He had taken a fancy to the new-comers, and was prepared
to welcome them heartily in his genial way; but now his old-fashioned
prejudices were grievously wounded. It was against his nice code of
honor that women should do anything out of the usual beaten groove:
innovations that would make them conspicuous were heinous sins in his
eyes.

"Come, Mattie, you and I will have a chat about this by ourselves,"
observed Elizabeth, cheerfully, as she noticed her father's vexation.
He would soon cool down if left to himself: she knew that well.
"Suppose we go down to Miss Milner, and hear what she has to say: you
may depend upon it that it was this that made her so reserved with us
the other day."

"Oh, do you think so?" exclaimed Mattie; but she was charmed at the
idea of fresh gossip. And then they set off together.

Miss Milner seemed a little surprised to see them so soon, for Mattie
had already paid her a visit that day; but at Miss Middleton's first
words a look of annoyance passed over her good-natured face.

"Dear, dear! to think of that leaking out already," she said, in a
vexed voice; "and I have not spoken to a soul, because the young
ladies asked me to keep their secret a few days longer. 'You must give
us till next Monday,' one of them said this very morning: 'by that
time we shall be in order, and then we can set to work.'"

"It was Miss Challoner who told me herself," observed Mattie, in a
deprecating manner. "My brother and I called this afternoon: you see,
being the clergyman, and such close neighbors, he thought we might be
of some use to the poor things."

"Poor things indeed!" ejaculated Miss Milner. "I cannot tell you how
bad I felt," she went on, her little gray curls bobbing over her high
cheek-bones with every word, "when that dear young lady put down her
head there"--pointing to a spot about as big as a half-crown on the
wooden counter--"and cried like a baby. 'Oh, how silly I am!' she
said, sobbing-like; 'and what would my sisters say to me? But you are
so kind, Miss Milner; and it does seem all so strange and horrid.' I
made up my mind, then and there," finished the good woman, solemnly,
"that I would help them to the best of my powers. I have got their
bits of advertisements to put about the shop; and there's my new black
silk dress, that has laid by since Christmas, because I knew Miss
Slasher would spoil it; not but what they may ruin it finely for me;
but I mean to shut my eyes and take the risk," with a little smile of
satisfaction over her own magnanimity.

Elizabeth stretched out her hand across the counter.

"Miss Milner, you are a good creature," she said, softly. "I honor you
for this. If people always helped each other and thought so little of
a sacrifice, the world would be a happier place." And then, without
waiting for a reply from the gratified shopwoman, she went out of the
library with a thoughtful brow.

"Miss Milner has read me a lesson," she said, by and by, when Mattie
had marvelled at her silence a little. "Conventionality makes cowards
of the best of us. I am not particularly worldly-minded," she went on,
with a faint smile, "but all the same I must plead guilty to feeling a
little shocked myself at your news; but when I have thought a little
more about it, I dare say I shall see things by a truer light, and be
as ready to admire these girls as I am now to wonder at them." And
after this she bade Mattie a kindly good-bye.

Meanwhile, Phillis was bracing herself to undergo another ordeal. Mr.
Drummond and his sister had only just left the cottage when a footman
from the White House brought a note for her. It was from Mrs. Cheyne,
and was worded in a most friendly manner.

She thanked the sisters gracefully for their timely help on the
previous evening, and, though making light of her accident, owned that
it would keep her a prisoner to her sofa for a few days; and then she
begged them to waive ceremony and come to her for an hour or two that
evening.

"I will not ask you to dinner, because that will perhaps inconvenience
you, as you must be tired or busy," she wrote; "but if one or both of
you would just put on your hats and walk up in the cool of the evening
to keep Miss Mewlstone and myself company, it would be a real boon to
us both." And then she signed herself "Magdalene Cheyne."

Phillis wore a perplexed look on her face as she took the note to Nan,
who was still in the linen-closet.

"Very kind; very friendly," commented Nan, when she had finished
reading it; "but I could not possibly go, Phil. As soon as I have done
this I have promised to sit with mother. She has been alone all day.
You could easily send an excuse, for Mrs. Cheyne must know we are
busy."

"I don't feel as though an excuse will help us here," returned
Phillis, slowly. "When an unpleasant thing has to be done, it is as
well to get it over: thinking about it only hinders one's sleep."

"But you will surely not go alone!" demanded Nan, in astonishment.
"You are so tired, Phil: you have been working hard all day. Give it
up, dear, and sit and rest in the garden a little."

"Oh, no," returned Phillis, disconsolately. "I value my night's rest
too much to imperil it so lightly: besides, I owe it to myself for a
penance for being such a coward this afternoon." And then, without
waiting for any further dissuasion, she carried off the letter and
wrote a very civil but vague reply, promising to walk up in the
evening and inquire after the invalid; and then she dismissed the
messenger, and went up to her room with a heavy heart.

Dulce came to help her, like a dutiful sister, and chattered on
without intermission.

"I suppose you will put on your best dress?" she asked, as she dived
down into the recesses of a big box.

Phillis, who was sitting wearily on the edge of her bed, roused up at
this:

"My best blue silk and cashmere, that we wore last at Fitzroy Lodge?
Dulce, how can you be so absurd! Anything will do,--the gray stuff, or
the old foulard. No, stop; I forgot: the gray dress is better made and
newer in cut. We must think of that. Oh, what a worry it is going out
when one is tired to death!" she continued, with unusual irritation.

Dulce respected her sister's mood, and held her peace, though she knew
the gray dress was the least becoming to Phillis, who was pale, and
wanted a little color to give her brightness.

"There, now, you look quite nice," she said, in a patronizing voice,
as Phillis put on her hat and took her gloves. Phillis nodded her
thanks rather sadly, and then bethought herself and came back and
kissed her.

"Thank you, dear Dulce; I am not nearly so tired now; but it is
getting late, and I must run off." And so she did until she had turned
the corner, and then, in spite of herself, her steps became slower and
more lagging.




CHAPTER XX.

"YOU ARE ROMANTIC."


Human nature is prone to argument; a person will often in the course
of a few moments bring himself or herself to the bar of conscience,
and accuse, excuse, and sum up the case in the twinkling of an eye.

On arriving at the lodge-gates Phillis began to take herself to task.
Conscience, that "makes cowards of us all," began its small inner
remonstrance; then followed self-flagellation and much belaboring of
herself with many remorseful terms. She was a pitiful thing compared
to Nan; she was conventional; there were no limits to her pride. Where
were that freedom and nobility of soul which she once fancied would
sweep over worldly prejudices, and carry her into purer air? She was
still choking in the fogs of mere earthly exhalations; no wonder Nan
was a little disappointed in her, though she was far too kind to say
so. Well, she was disappointed in herself.

By this time she had reached the hall door; and now she began to hold
up her head more boldly, and to look about her; when a very
solemn-looking butler confronted her, she said to herself, "It will be
all the same a hundred years hence, and I am determined this time not
to be beaten;" and then she asked for Mrs. Cheyne with something of
her old sprightliness, and nothing could exceed the graceful ease of
her entrance.

All the Challoners walked well. There was a purity of health about
them that made them delight in movement and every bodily exercise,--an
elasticity of gait that somehow attracted attention.

No girls danced better than they. And when they had the chance, which
was seldom, they could ride splendidly. Their skating was a joy to
see, and made one wish that the ice would last forever, that one could
watch such light, skimming practice; and as for tennis, no other girl
had a chance of being chosen for a partner unless the Challoners
good-naturedly held aloof, which ten times out of twelve they were
sure to do.

Phillis, who, from her pale complexion, was supposed to possess the
least vitality, delighted in exercise for its own sake. "It is a
pleasure only to be alive and to know it," was a favorite speech with
her on summer mornings, when the shadows were blowing lightly hither
and thither, and the birds had so much to say that it took them until
evening to finish saying it.

Mrs. Cheyne, who was lying on her couch, watched with admiring eyes
the girl's straightforward walk, so alert and business-like, so free
from fuss and consciousness, and held out her hand with a more
cordial welcome than she was accustomed to show her visitors.

It was a long room; and as the summer dusk was falling, and there was
only a shaded lamp beside Mrs. Cheyne, it was full of dim corners.
Nevertheless, Phillis piloted herself without hesitation to the
illuminated circle.

"This is good of you, Miss Challoner, to take me at my word. But where
is your sister? I wanted to look at her again, for it is long since I
have seen any one so pretty. Miss Mewlstone, this is the good
Samaritan who bound up my foot so cleverly."

"Ah, just so," returned Miss Mewlstone. And a soft, plump hand touched
Phillis's, and then she went on picking up stitches and taking no
further notice.

"Nan could not come," observed Phillis. "She had to run down to Beach
House to report progress to mother. We hope she is coming home
to-morrow. But, as you were so kind as to write, I thought I would
just call and inquire about your foot. And then it would be easier to
explain things than to write about it."

"Oh! so your mother is coming home!" returned Mrs. Cheyne, with so
much interest in her voice that Miss Mewlstone left off counting to
look at her. ("Just so, just so," Phillis heard her mutter.) "You must
have worked hard to get ready for her so soon. When my foot will allow
me to cross a room without hobbling, I will do myself the pleasure of
calling on her. But that will be neither this week nor the next, I am
afraid. But I shall see a good deal of you and your sister before
then," she concluded, with the graciousness of one who knows she is
conferring an unusual honor.

"I do not know," faltered Phillis. And then she sat upright, and
looked her hostess full in the face. "That will be for you to decide
when you hear what I have to say. But I fear"--with a very poor
attempt at a smile--"that we shall see very little of each other in
the future."

"Oh, there is a mystery, is there?" returned Mrs. Cheyne, with a
little scorn in her manner; and her mouth took one of the downward
curves that Mr. Drummond so thoroughly disliked. She had taken an odd
fancy to these girls, especially to Phillis, and had thought about
them a good deal during a sleepless, uneasy night. Their simplicity,
their straightforward unconsciousness, had attracted her in spite of
her cynicism. But at the first suspicion of mystery she withdrew into
herself rather haughtily. "Do speak out, I beg, Miss Challoner; for if
there be one thing that makes me impatient, it is to have anything
implied."

"I am quite of your opinion," replied Phillis, with equal haughtiness,
only it sat more strangely on her girlishness. "That is why I am here
to-night,--just to inquire after your foot and explain things."

"Well?" still more impatiently, for this woman was a spoiled child,
and hated to be thwarted, and was undisciplined and imperious enough
to ruin all her own chances of happiness.

"I told you that we were very poor," went on Phillis, in a sweet and
steady voice; "but that did not seem to impress you much, and I
thought how noble that was,"--catching her breath an instant; "but it
will make a difference and shock you dreadfully, as it did Mr.
Drummond, when I tell you we are dressmakers,--Nan and Dulce and I: at
least that will be our future occupation."

"Ah, just so!" ejaculated Miss Mewlstone; but she said it with her
lips far apart, and a mistiness came into her sleepy blue eyes.
Perhaps, though she was stout and middle-aged and breathed a little
too heavily at times, she remembered--long ago when she was young and
poor and had to wage a bitter war with the world--when she ate the dry
bread and drank the bitter water of dependence and felt herself ill
nourished by such unpalatable sustenance. "Oh, just so, poor thing!"
And a little round tear dripped on to the ball of scarlet fleecy
wool.

But Mrs. Cheyne listened to the announcement in far different mood.
There was an incredulous stare at Phillis, as though she suspected her
of a joke; and then she laughed, a dry, harsh laugh, that was not
quite pleasant to hear.

"Oh, this is droll, passing droll!" she said, and leaned back on her
cushions, and drew her Indian cashmere round her and frowned a
little.

"I am glad you find it so," returned Phillis, who was nonplussed at
this, and did not know what to say, and was a little angry in
consequence; and then she got up from her chair with a demonstration
of spirit. "I am glad you find it so; but to us it is sad
earnestness!"

"What! are you going?" asked Mrs. Cheyne, with a keen glance through
her half-shut eyes at poor Phillis standing so tall and straight
before her. "And you have not told me the reason for taking so strange
a step!"

"The reason lies in our poverty and paucity of resources," was
Phillis's curt reply.

"It is not to make a sensation, then? no, I did not mean that," as
Phillis shot an indignant glance at her,--"not exactly; but there is
no knowing what the emancipated girl will do. Of course I have no
right to question, who was a stranger to you four-and-twenty hours
ago, and had never heard the name of Challoner, except that it was a
good and an old name; but when one sees young things like you about to
forfeit caste and build up a barrier between yourselves and your
equals that the bravest will fear to pass, it seems as though one must
lift up one's voice in protest."

"Thank you; but it will be of no use," returned Phillis, coldly.

"You are determined to make other people's dresses?" And here her lip
curled a little, perhaps involuntarily.

"We must must make dresses or starve; for our fingers are cleverer
than our brains," replied Phillis, defiantly; for she knew nothing
about it, and her powers were so immature and unfledged that she had
never tried her wings, and had no notion whether she could fly or not,
and yet no girl had a clearer head. "We have chosen work that we know
we can do well, and we mean not to be ashamed of our occupation. In
the old days ladies used to spin and weave, and no one blamed them,
though they were noble; and if my work will bring me money, and keep
the mother comfortable, I see nothing that will prevent my doing it."

"Ah, you are romantic, Miss Challoner; you will soon be taught
matter-of-fact!"

"I am willing to learn anything, but I must choose my teachers,"
retorted Phillis, with a little heat, for the word "romantic," and the
satirical droop of Mrs. Cheyne's lip made her decidedly cross. "But I
must not detain you any more with our uninteresting affairs," dropping
a little courtesy, half in pique and half in mockery, for her spirits
were rising under this rough treatment.

"It is far from uninteresting; I have not heard anything so exciting
for a long time. Well, perhaps you had better go before I say anything
very rude, for I am terribly outspoken, and I think you are all silly
self-willed young people." Then, as Phillis bridled her neck like an
untamed colt, she caught hold of the girl's dress to detain her, and
the sharpness passed out of her eyes. "Now, don't go away and believe
that I think any worse of you for telling me this. I am a
cross-grained body, and contradiction makes me worse. I don't know how
I shall act: I must have time to consider this extraordinary bit of
news. But all the same, whatever I do, whether I know you or do not
know you, I shall always think you the very bravest girl I ever saw."
And then she let her go, and Phillis, with her head in the air and her
thoughts all topsy-turvy, marched out of the room.

But when she reached the end of the corridor there was a soft but
distinctly audible breathing behind her, and, as in Mr. Drummond's
case Miss Mewlstone's shadowy gray gown swept between her and the
door.

"Miss Mewlstone, how you startled me! but the carpets are so soft and
thick!"

"Yes, indeed! just so, my dear; but Phillips must be asleep as he does
not answer the bell, and so I thought I would let you out. You are
young to walk alone: shall I throw a shawl over my cap, and walk down
the road with you?"

"Not for worlds, my dear Miss Mewlstone;" but Phillis was quite
touched at this unexpected kindness. Miss Mewlstone did not look
sleepy now; her small blue eyes were wide open, and her round placid
face wore a most kindly expression, and there was a tremulous movement
of her hands, as though they were feeling after something. "It is
only such a little bit of road; and though the trees make it dark, I
am not the least afraid of going alone."

"Ah! just so. When we are young, we are brave; it is the old who are
afraid of the grasshopper. I like your spirit, my dear; and so does
she, though she is a little taken aback and disappointed; but anything
that interests and rouses her is welcome. Even this may do her good;
for it will give her something to think about besides her own
troubles."

"I have heard of her troubles----" began Phillis; but a moving door
arrested Miss Mewlstone's attention, and she interrupted her
hurriedly:

"Ah! there is Phillips at last. Just so; you shall hear from me again.
It is a gray satin,--one of her presents,--but I have never had it
made up; for what is the use, when we keep no company?" went on Miss
Mewlstone incoherently. "Oh! is that you, Phillips? Please go with
this young lady to the lodge-gate.--You shall make it after your own
fashion," she whispered in Phillis's ear; "and I am not as particular
as other people. There is Magdalene now. Ah! just so. Good-night, my
dear; and mind the scraper by the gate."

Phillis was almost sorry when the obsequious Phillips left her; for
the road certainly looked terribly dark. There was no moon, and the
stars chose to be invisible; and there was a hot thundery feeling in
the air that suggested a storm. And she moved aside with a slight
sensation of uneasiness--not fear, of course not fear--as a tall,
gloomy-looking figure bore swiftly down on her; for, even if a girl be
ever so brave, a very tall man walking fast on a dark night with a
slouching hat like a conspirator's is rather a terrifying object; and
how could she know that it was only Archie Drummond in his old
garden-hat, taking a constitutional?

But he brought himself up in front of her with a sudden jerk.

"Miss Challoner!--alone at this time of night!"

"Why, it is not ten; and I could not wait for Dorothy to fetch me,"
returned Phillis, bound to defend herself, and quite palpitating with
relief; not that she was afraid--not a bit of it!--but still, Mr.
Drummond's presence was very welcome.

"I suppose I shall do as well as Dorothy?" he returned veering round
with the greatest ease, just as though he were Dick, and bound to
escort a Challoner. "Challoners' Squire,"--that was Dick's name among
people.

"Oh poor Dick!" thought Phillis, with a sudden rush of tenderness for
her old playmate; and then she said, demurely but with a spice of
malice,--

"Thank you, Mr. Drummond. The road is so gloomy that I shall be glad
of your escort this evening, but we shall have to do without that sort
of thing now, for our business may often bring us out after dark, and
we must learn not to be too particular."

"Oh, this must not be!" he returned, decidedly; and, though it was too
dark to see his face, she knew by his voice that he was dreadfully
shocked. "I must see your mother and talk to her about this; for it
would never do for you to run such risks. I could not allow it for a
moment; and as your clergyman"--coming down from his high horse, and
stammering a little,--"I have surely--surely a right----" But Phillis
snapped him up in a moment, and pretty sharply too, for she had no
notion of a young man giving himself airs and torturing her.

"Oh, no right at all!" she assured him: "clergymen could only rebuke
evil-doers, to which class she and her sisters did not belong, thank
heaven!" to which Mr. Drummond devoutly said an "amen." "And would he
please tell her if dressmakers were always met two and two, like the
animals in the ark? and how would it sound when she or Nan had been
fitting on a dress, on a winter's evening, if they were to refuse to
leave the house until Dorothy fetched them? and how----" But here Mr.
Drummond checked her, and the darkness hid his smile.

"Now you are beyond me, Miss Challoner. In a matter of detail, a man,
even a parson, is often at fault. Is there no other way of managing
this odious business? Forgive me; the word slipped out by accident!
Could you not do the fitting, or whatever you call it, by daylight,
and stay at home quietly in the evening like other young ladies?"

"Of course not," returned Phillis, promptly. She had not the least
idea why it could not be done; indeed, if she had been perfectly
cool--which she was not, for Mrs. Cheyne had decidedly stroked her the
wrong way and ruffled her past endurance--she would have appreciated
the temperate counsel vouchsafed her, and acquiesced in it without a
murmur; but now she seemed bent on contradiction.

"Our opinions seem to clash to-night," returned Mr. Drummond,
good-humoredly, but feeling that the young lady beside him had
decidedly a will of her own. "She is very nice, but she is not as
gentle as her sister," he said to himself; which was hard on Phillis,
who, though she was not meek, being a girl of spirit, was wholesomely
sweet and sound to the heart's core.

"One may be supposed to know one's business best," she replied rather
dryly to this. And then, fearing that she might seem ungracious to a
stranger, who did not know her and her little ways, she went on in a
more cordial tone: "I am afraid you think me a little cross to-night;
but I have been having a stand-up fight, and am rather tired. Trying
to battle against other people's prejudices makes one irritable. And
then, because I am down and out of heart about things, our clergyman
thinks fit to lecture me on propriety."

"Only for your good. You must forgive me if I have taken too much upon
myself," returned Mr. Drummond, with much compunction. "You seem so
lonely,--no father or brother; at least--pardon me--I believe you have
no brother?"

"Oh, no; we have no brother," sighed Phillis. Their acquaintance was
in too early a stage to warrant her in bringing in Dick's name.
Besides, that sort of heterogeneous relationship is so easily
misconstrued. And then she added, "I see. You meant to be very kind,
and I was very ungrateful."

"I only wish I could find some way of helping you all," was his reply
to this. But it was said with such frank kindness that Phillis's brief
haughtiness vanished. They were standing at the gate of the Friary by
this time; but Mr. Drummond still lingered. It was Phillis who
dismissed him.

"Good-night, and many thanks," she said, brightly. "It is too late to
ask you in, for you see, even dressmakers have their notions of
propriety." And as she uttered this malicious little speech, the young
man broke into a laugh that was heard by Dorothy in her little
kitchen.

"Oh, that is too bad of you, Miss Challoner," he said, as soon as he
recovered himself; but, nevertheless, he liked the girl better for her
little joke.

Mr. Drummond's constitutional had lasted so long that Mattie grew
quite frightened, and came down in her drab dressing-gown to wait for
him. It was not a becoming costume, but it was warm and comfortable;
but then Mattie never considered what became her. If any one had
admired her, or cared how she looked or what she wore, or had taken an
interest in her for her own sake, she would doubtless have developed
an honest liking for pretty things. But what did it matter under the
present circumstances? Mr. Drummond was lighting his chamber candle
when Mattie rushed out on him,--a grotesque little figure, all capes
and frills.

"Oh, Archie, how you frightened me! Where have you been?"

Archie shrugged his shoulders at this.

"I am not aware, Matilda,"--for in severe moods he would call her by
her full name, a thing she especially disliked from him,--"I did not
know before that I was accountable to you for my actions. Neither am I
particularly obliged to you for spying upon me in this way." For the
sight of Mattie at this time of night was peculiarly distasteful. Why
was he to be watched in his own house?

"Oh, dear, Archie! How can you say such things? Spy on you, indeed!
when there is a storm coming up, and I was so anxious."

"I am very much obliged to you," returned Archie, ironically; "but, as
you see I am safe, don't you think you had better take off that
thing"--pointing to the obnoxious garment--"and go to bed?" And such
was his tone that poor Mattie fled without a word, and cried a little
in her dark room, because Archie would not be kind to her and let her
love him, but was always finding fault with one trifle or other.
To-night it was her poor old dressing-gown, which had been her
mother's, and had been considered good enough for Mattie. And then he
had called her a spy. And here she gave a sob that caught Archie's
ears as he passed her door.

"Good-night, you little goose!" he called out, for the sound made him
uncomfortable; and though the words were contemptuous, the voice was
not, and Mattie at once dried her eyes and was comforted.

But before Archie went to sleep that night he made up his mind that it
was his duty as a clergyman and a Christian to look over Phillis's
wilfulness, and to befriend to the utmost of his power the strangers,
widow and fatherless, that Providence had placed at his very gates.

"They are so very lonely, poor things!" he said to himself; "not a
man about them. By the bye, I noticed she did not wear an
engagement-ring." But which was the "she" he meant, was an enigma
known only to himself. "Not a man about them!" he repeated, in a
satisfied manner, for as yet the name of Dick had not sounded in his
ear.




CHAPTER XXI.

BREAKING THE PEACE.


Nan went to Beach House to fetch her mother home, escorted by Laddie,
who was growing a most rollicking and friendly little animal, and a
great consolation to his mistress, whom he loved with all his doggish
heart.

They all three came back in an old fly belonging to their late host,
and found Phillis waiting for them on the door-step, who made her
mother the following little speech:

"Now, mammie, you are to kiss us, and tell us what good industrious
girls we have been; and then you are to shut your eyes and look at
nothing, and then sit down in your old arm-chair, and try and make the
best of everything."

"Welcome home, dearest mother," said Nan, softly kissing her. "Home is
home, however poor it may be; and thank God for it," finished the
girl, reverently.

"Oh, my darlings!" exclaimed the poor mother; and then she cried a
little, and Dulce came up and put a rose-bud in her hand; and Dorothy
executed an old-fashioned courtsey, and hoped that her mistress and
the dear young ladies would try and make themselves as happy as
possible.

"Happy, you silly old Dorothy! of course we mean to be as busy as
bees, and as frolicsome as kittens!" returned Phillis, who had
recovered her old sprightliness, and was ready to-day for a dozen Mrs.
Cheynes and all the clergy of the diocese. "Now, mammie, you are only
to peep into this room: this is our work-room, and those are the
curtains Mr. Drummond was kind enough to hang. In old days," continued
Phillis, with mock solemnity, "the parson would have pronounced a
benediction; but the modern Anglican performs another function, and
with much gravity ascends the steps, and hooks up the curtains of the
new-comers."

"Oh, Phillis, how can you be so absurd! I am sure it was very
good-natured of him. Come, mother, dear, we will not stand here
listening to her nonsense." And Nan drew the mother to the parlor.

It was a very small room, but still snug and comfortable, and full of
pretty things. Tea was laid on the little round table that would
hardly hold five, as Nan once observed, thinking of Dick; and the
evening's sunshine was stealing in, but not too obtrusively. Mrs.
Challoner tried not to think it dull, and endeavored to say a word of
praise at the arrangements Dulce pointed out to her; but the thought
of Glen Cottage, and her pretty drawing-room, and the veranda with its
climbing roses, and the shady lawn with the seat under the
acacia-trees, almost overpowered her. That they should come to this!
That they should be sitting in this mean little parlor, where there
was hardly room to move, looking out at the little strip of grass, and
the medlar-tree, and the empty greenhouse! Nan saw her mother's lip
quiver, and adroitly turned the subject to their neighbors. She had so
much to say about Mr. Drummond and his sister that Mrs. Challoner grew
quite interested; nevertheless, it was a surprise even to Nan when
Dorothy presently opened the door, and Mr. Drummond coolly walked in
with a magnificent basket of roses in his hand.

Nan gravely introduced him to her mother, and the young man accosted
her; but there was a little surprise on his face. He had taken it into
his head that Mrs. Challoner would be a far older-looking and more
homely person; but the stately-looking woman before him might have
been an older and faded edition of Nan. Somehow, her appearance
confused him; and he commenced with an apology for his intrusion:

"I ought not to have been so unceremonious. I am afraid, as you have
just arrived, my visit will seem an intrusion; but my sister thought
you would like some of our roses,"--he had obliged poor Mattie to say
so,--"and, as we had cut some fine ones, we thought you ought to have
them while they are fresh."

"Thank you; this is very kind and neighborly," returned Mrs.
Challoner; but, though her tone was perfectly civil, Nan thought her
manner a little cold, and hastened to interpose with a few glowing
words of admiration.

"The roses were lovely; they were finer than those at Longmead, or
even at Fitzroy Lodge, though Lady Fitzroy prided herself on her
roses." Archie pricked up his ears at this latter name, which escaped
quite involuntarily from Nan. "And was it not good of Miss Drummond to
spare them so many, and of Mr. Drummond to carry them?" all of which
Nan said with a sweet graciousness that healed the young man's
embarrassment in a moment.

"Yes, indeed!" echoed Mrs. Challoner, obedient, as usual, to her
daughter's lead. "And you must thank your sister, Mr. Drummond, and
tell her how fond my girls are of flowers." But, though Mrs. Challoner
said this, the roses were not without thorns for her. Why had not Miss
Drummond brought them herself? She was pleased indeed that, under
existing circumstances, any one should be civil to her girls; but was
there not a little patronage intended? She was not quite sure that she
rejoiced in having such neighbors. Mr. Drummond was nice and
gentlemanly, but he was far too young and handsome for an unmarried
clergyman; at least, that was her old-fashioned opinion; and when one
has three very good-looking daughters, and dreads the idea of losing
one, one may be pardoned for distrusting even a basket of roses.

If Mr. Drummond perceived her slight coldness, he seemed quite
determined to overcome it. He took small notice of Nan, who busied
herself at once arranging the flowers under his eyes; even Phillis,
who looked good and demure this evening, failed to obtain a word. He
talked almost exclusively to Mrs. Challoner, plying her with artful
questions about their old home, which he now learned was at Oldfield,
and gaining scraps of information that enabled him to obtain a pretty
clear insight into their present circumstances.

Mrs. Challoner, who was a soft hearted woman, was not proof against so
much sympathy. She perceived that Mr. Drummond was sorry for them, and
she began to warm a little towards him. His manner was so respectful,
his words so discreet; and then he behaved so nicely, taking no notice
of the girls, though Nan was looking so pretty, but just talking to
her in a grave responsible way, as though he were a gray-haired man of
sixty.

Phillis was not quite sure she approved of it: in the old days she had
never been so excluded from conversation: she would have liked a word
now and then. But Nan sat by quite contented: it pleased her to see
her mother roused and interested.

When Mr. Drummond took his leave, she accompanied him to the door, and
thanked him quite warmly.

"You have done her so much good, for this first evening is such a
trial to her, poor thing!" said Nan, lifting her lovely eyes to the
young man's face.

"I am so glad! I will come again," he said, rather incoherently. And
as he went out of the green door he told himself that it was his clear
duty to befriend this interesting family. He ought to have gone home
and written to Grace, for it was long past the time when she always
expected to hear from him. But the last day or two he had rather
shirked this duty. It would be difficult to explain to Grace. She
might be rather shocked, for she was a little prim in such things,
being her mother's daughter. He thought he would ask Mattie to tell
her about the Challoners, and that he was busy and would write soon;
and when he had made up his mind to this, he went down to the
sea-shore and amused himself by sitting on a breakwater and staring at
the fishing-smacks,--which of course showed how very busy he was.

"I think I shall like Mr. Drummond," observed Mrs. Challoner, in a
tolerant tone, when Nan had accompanied the young vicar to the door.
"He seems an earnest, good sort of young man."

"Yes, mammie dear. And I am sure he has fallen in love with you,"
returned Phillis, naughtily, "for he talked to no one else. And you
are so young-looking and pretty that of course no one could be
surprised if he did." But though Mrs. Challoner said, "Oh, Phillis!"
and looked dreadfully shocked in a proper matronly way, what was the
use of that, when the mischievous girl burst out laughing in her
face?

But the interruption had done them all good, and the evening passed
less heavily than they had dared to hope. And when Mrs. Challoner
complained of fatigue and retired early, escorted by Dorothy, who was
dying for a chat with her mistress, the three girls went out in the
garden, and walked, after their old fashion, arm in arm up and down
the lawn, with Nan in the middle; though Dulce pouted and pretended
that the lawn was too narrow, and that Phillis was pushing her on the
gravel path.

Their mother's window was open, and they could have heard snatches of
Dorothy's conversation if they had chosen to listen. Dulce stood still
a moment, and wafted a little kiss towards her mother's room.

"Dear old mamsie! She has been very good this evening, has she not,
Nan? She has only cried the least wee bit, when you kissed her."

"Yes, indeed. And somebody else has been good too. What do you say,
Phillis? Has not Dulce been the best child possible?"

"Oh, Nan, I should be ashamed to be otherwise," returned Dulce, in
such an earnest manner that it made her sisters laugh, "Do you think I
could see you both so good and cheerful, making the best of things,
and never complaining, even when the tears are in your eyes,--as yours
are often, Nan, when you think no one is looking,--and not try and
copy your example? I am dreadfully proud of you both,--that is what I
am," continued the warm-hearted girl. "I never knew before what was in
my sisters. And now I feel as though I want the whole world to come
and admire my Phillis and Nan!"

"Little flatterer!" but Nan squeezed Dulce's arm affectionately. And
Phillis said, in a joking tone,--

"Ah, it was not half so bad. This evening there was mother looking so
dear and pretty: and there were you girls; and, though the nest is
small, it feels warm and cosy. And if we could only forget Glen
Cottage, and leave off missing the old faces, which I never shall--"
("Nor I," echoed Nan, with a deep sigh, fetched from somewhere)--"and
root ourselves afresh, we should contrive not to be unhappy."

"I think it is our duty to cultivate cheerfulness," added Nan,
seriously; and after this they fell to a discussion on ways and means.
As usual, Phillis was chief spokeswoman, but to Nan belonged the
privilege of the casting vote.

The next few days were weary ones to Mrs. Challoner: there was still
much to be done before the Friary could be pronounced in order. The
girls spent most of the daylight hours unpacking boxes, sorting and
arranging their treasures, and, if the truth must be told, helping
Dorothy to polish furniture and wash glass and china.

Mrs. Challoner, who was not strong enough for these household labors,
found herself condemned to hem new dusters and mend old table-linen,
to the tune of her own sad thoughts. Mr. Drummond found her sorting a
little heap on the parlor table when he dropped in casually one
morning,--this time with some very fine cherries that his sister
thought Mrs. Challoner would enjoy.

When Mr. Drummond began his little speech he could have sworn that
there were tears on the poor lady's cheeks; but when he had finished
she looked up at him with a smile, and thanked him warmly, and then
they had quite a nice chat together.

Mr. Drummond's visit was quite a godsend, she told him, for her girls
were busy and had no time to talk to her; and "one's thoughts are not
always pleasant companions," she added, with a sigh. And Mr. Drummond,
who had caught sight of the tears, was at once sympathetic, and
expressed himself in such feeling terms--for he was more at ease in
the girls' absence--that Mrs. Challoner opened out in the most
confiding way, and told him a great deal that he had been anxious to
learn.

But she soon found out, to her dismay, that he disapproved of her
girls' plans; for he told her so at once, and in the coolest manner.
The opportunity for airing his views on the subject was far too good
to be lost. Mrs. Challoner was alone; she was in a low, dejected mood;
the rulers of the household were gathered in an upper chamber. What
would Phillis have said, as she warbled a rather flat accompaniment to
Nan's "Bonnie Dundee," which she was singing to keep up their spirits
over a piece of hard work, if she had known that Mr. Drummond was at
that moment in possession of her mother's ear?

"Oh, Mr. Drummond, this is very sad, if every one should think as you
do about my poor girls! and Phillis does so object to being called
romantic;" for he had hinted in a gentlemanly way that he thought the
whole scheme was crude and girlish and quixotic to a degree.

"I hope you will not tell her, then," returned Mr. Drummond in a
soothing tone, for Mrs. Challoner was beginning to look agitated. "I
am afraid nothing I say will induce Miss Challoner to give up her pet
scheme; but I felt, as your clergyman, it was my duty to let you know
my opinion." And here Archie looked so very solemn that Mrs.
Challoner, being a weak woman, and apt to overvalue the least
expression of masculine opinion, grew more and more alarmed.

"Oh, yes!" she faltered; "it is very good--very nice of you to tell me
this." Phillis would have laughed in his face and Mrs. Cheyne would
have found something to say about his youth; but in Mrs. Challoner's
eyes, though she was an older woman, Archie's solemnity and Oriental
beard carried tremendous weight with them. He might be young,
nevertheless she was bound to listen meekly to him, and to respect his
counsel as one who had a certain authority over her. "Oh, you are very
good! and if only my girls had not made up their minds so quickly! but
now what can I do but feel very uncomfortable after you have told me
this?"

"Oh, as to that, there is always time for everything; it is never too
late to mend," returned Mr. Drummond, tritely. "I meant from the first
to tell you what I thought, if I should ever have an opportunity of
speaking to you alone. You see, we Oxford men have our own notions
about things: we do not always go with the tide. If your daughters--"
here he hesitated and grew red, for he was a modest, honest young
fellow in the main--"pardon me, but I am only proposing an
hypothesis--if they wanted to make a sensation and get themselves
talked about, no doubt they would achieve a success, for the
novelty----" But here he stopped, reduced to silence by the shocked
expression of Mrs. Challoner's face.

"Mr. Drummond! my girls--make a sensation--be talked about?" she
gasped; and all the spirit of her virtuous matronhood, and all the
instinctive feeling that years of culture and ingrained refinement of
nature had engendered, shone in her eyes. Her Nan and Phillis and
Dulce to draw this on themselves!

Now, at this unlucky moment, when the maternal fires were all alight,
who should enter but Phillis, wanting "pins, and dozens of
them,--quickly, please," and still warbling flatly that refrain of
"Bonnie Dundee!"

"Oh, Phillis! Oh, my darling child!" cried Mrs. Challoner, quite
hysterically; "do you know what your clergyman says? and if he should
say such things, what will be the world's opinion? No, Mr. Drummond, I
did not mean to be angry. Of course you are telling us this for our
good; but I do not know when I have been so shocked."

"Why, what is this?" demanded Phillis, calmly; but she fixed her eyes
on the unlucky clergyman, who began to wish that that last speech had
not been uttered.

"He says it is to make a sensation--to be talked about--that you are
going to do this," gasped Mrs. Challoner, who was far too much upset
to weigh words truly.

"What!" Phillis only uttered that very unmeaning monosyllable:
nevertheless, Archie jumped from his seat as though he had been shot.

"Mrs. Challoner, really this is too bad! No, you must allow me to
explain," as Phillis turned aside with a curling lip, as though she
would leave them. He actually went between her and the door, as though
he meant to prevent her egress forcibly. There is no knowing to what
lengths he would have gone in his sudden agitation. "Only wait a
moment, until I explain myself. Your mother has misunderstood me
altogether. Never has such a thought entered my mind!"

"Oh," observed Phillis. But now she stood still and began to collect
her pins out of her mother's basket. "Perhaps, as this is rather
unpleasant, you will have the kindness to tell me what it was you said
to my mother?" And she spoke like a young princess who had just
received an insult.

"I desire nothing more," returned Archie, determined to defend himself
at all costs. "I had been speaking to Mrs. Challoner about all this
unfortunate business. She was good enough to repose confidence in me,
and, as your clergyman, I felt myself bound to tell her exactly my
opinions on the subject."

"I do not quite see the necessity; but no doubt you know best," was
Phillis's somewhat sarcastic answer.

"At least, I did it for the best," returned the young man, humbly. "I
pointed out things to Mrs. Challoner, as I told you I should. I warned
her what the world would say,--that it would regard your plan as very
singular and perhaps quixotic. Surely there is nothing in this to
offend you?"

"You have not touched on the worst part of all," returned Phillis,
with a little disdain in her voice. "About making a sensation, I
mean."

"There it was that your mother so entirely misunderstood. What I said
was this: If this dressmaking scheme were undertaken just to make a
sensation, it would of course, achieve success, for I thought the
novelty might take. And then I added that I was merely stating an
hypothesis by way of argument, and then Mrs. Challoner looked shocked,
and you came in."

"Is that all?" asked Phillis, coming down from her stilts at once, for
she knew of old how her mother would confuse things sometimes; and, if
this were the truth, she, Phillis, had been rather too hard on him.

"Yes. Do you see now any necessity for quarrelling with me?" returned
Mr. Drummond, breathing a little more freely as the frown lessened on
Phillis's face. He wanted to be friends with these girls, not to turn
them against him.

"Well, no, I believe not," she answered, quite gravely. "And I am sure
I beg your pardon if I was rude." But this Archie would not allow for
a moment.

"But, Mr. Drummond, one word before peace is quite restored," went on
Phillis, with something of her old archness, "or else I will fetch my
sisters, and you will have three of us against you."

"Oh, do, Phillis, my dear," interrupted her mother; "let them come and
hear what Mr. Drummond thinks."

"Mammy, how dare you!--how dare you be so contumacious, after all the
trouble we have taken to set your dear fidgety mind at rest? Just look
what you have done, Mr. Drummond," turning upon him. "Now I am not
going to forgive you, and we will not trust the mother out of our
sight, unless you promise not to say this sort of thing to her when we
are not here to answer them."

"But, Miss Challoner, my pastoral conscience!" but his eyes twinkled a
little.

"Oh, never mind that!" she retorted, mischievously. "I will give you
leave to lecture us collectively, but not individually: that must not
be thought about for a moment." She had not a notion what the queer
expression on Mr. Drummond's face meant, and he did not know himself;
but he had the strongest desire to laugh at this.

They parted after this the best of friends; and Phillis tasted the
cherries, and pronounced them very good.

"You have quite forgiven me?" Mr. Drummond said, as she accompanied
him to the door before rejoining her sisters. "You know I have
promised not to do it again until the next time."

"Oh, we shall see about that!" returned Phillis, good-humoredly.
"Forewarned is forearmed; and there is a triple alliance against
you."

"Good heavens, what mockery it seems! I never saw such girls,--never!"
thought Mr. Drummond, as he took long strides down the road. "But
Mattie is right: they mean business, and nothing in the world would
change that girl's determination if she had set herself to carry a
thing out. I never knew a stronger will!" And in this he was tolerably
right.




CHAPTER XXII.

"TRIMMINGS, NOT SQUAILS."


The longest week must have an end; and so at last the eventful Monday
morning arrived,--"Black Monday," as Dulce called it, and then sighed
as she looked out on the sunshine and the waving trees, and thought
how delicious a long walk or a game of tennis would be, instead of
stitch, stitch, stitching all day. But Dulce was an unselfish little
soul, and kept all these thoughts to herself, and dressed herself
quickly; for she had overslept herself, and Phillis had long been
downstairs.

Nan was locking up the tea-caddy as she entered the parlor, and
Phillis was standing by the table, drawing on her gloves, and her lips
were twitching a little,--a way they had when Phillis was nervous.

Nan went up and kissed her, and gave her an encouraging pat.

"This is for luck, my dear; and mind you make the best of poor Miss
Milner's dumpy, roundabout little figure. There I have put the
body-lining, and the measuring-tape, and a paper of pins in this
little black bag; and I have not forgotten the scissors,--oh, dear,
no! I have not forgotten the scissors," went on Nan, with such
surprising cheerfulness that Phillis saw through it, and was down on
her in a moment.

"No, Nan; there! I declare I will not be such a goose. I am not
nervous,--not one bit; it is pure fun, that's what it is. Dulce, what
a naughty child you are to oversleep yourself this morning, and I had
not the heart to wake you, you looked so like a baby: and we never
wake babies because they are sure to squall!"

"Oh, Phil, are you going to Miss Milner's? I would have walked with
you if I had had my breakfast; but I am so hungry."

"I could not possibly wait," returned Phillis; "punctuality is one of
the first duties of--hem!--dressmakers; all orders executed promptly,
and promises performed with undeviating regularity: those are my
maxims. Eat a good breakfast, and then see if mammy wants any help,
for Nan must be ready for me at the work-table, for she is our head
cutter-out." And then Phillis nodded briskly, and walked away.

By a singular chance, Mr. Drummond was watering his ferns in the front
court as Phillis passed, and in spite of her reluctance, for somehow
he was the last person she wanted to encounter that day, she was
obliged to wish him good-morning.

"Good-morning! Yes, indeed, it is a glorious morning," observed
Archie, brightly. "And may I ask where you are going so early?"

"Only to the Library," returned Phillis, laconically; but the color
mounted to her forehead. "We begin business to-day."

And then Archie took up his watering-pot and refrained from any more
questions. It was absurd, perhaps, but at the moment he had forgotten,
and the remembrance was not pleasing.

Phillis felt quite brave after this, and walked into the Library as
though the place belonged to her. When it came to details, Miss Milner
was far more nervous than she.

She would keep apologizing to Phillis for making her stand so long,
and she wanted to hold the pins and to pick up the scissors that
Phillis had dropped; and when the young dressmaker consulted her about
the trimmings, she was far too humble to intrude her opinions.

"Anything you think best, Miss Challoner, for you have such beautiful
taste as never was seen; and I am sure the way you have fitted that
body-lining is just wonderful, and would be a lesson to Miss Slasher
for life. No, don't put the pins in your mouth, there's a dear."

For, in her intense zeal, Phillis had thought herself bound to follow
the manner of Mrs. Sloper, the village factotum, and she always did
so, though Nan afterwards assured her that it was not necessary, and
that in this particular they might be allowed to deviate from
example.

But she was quite proud of herself when she had finished, for the
material seemed to mould under her fingers in the most marvellous way,
and she knew the fit would be perfect. She wanted to rush off at once
and set to work with Nan; but Miss Milner would not let her off so
easily. There was orange wine and seed-cake of her own making in the
back parlor, and she had just one question--a very little question--to
ask. And here Miss Milner coughed a little behind her hand to gain
time and recover her courage.

"The little papers were about the shop, and Mrs. Trimmings saw one,
and--and----" Here Phillis came promptly to her relief.

"And Mrs. Trimmings wants to order a dress, does she?" And Phillis
bravely kept down the sudden sinking of heart at the news.

Mrs. Trimmings was the butcher's wife,--the sister of that very Mrs.
Squails of whom Dulce once made mention,--well known to be the
dressiest woman in Hadleigh, who was much given to imitate her
betters. The newest fashions, the best materials, were always to be
found on Mrs. Trimmings's portly figure.

"What could I do?" observed Miss Milner, apologetically: "the papers
were about the shop, and what does the woman do but take one up? 'I
wonder what sort of dressmakers these are?' she said, careless-like;
'there is my new blue silk that Andrew brought himself from London
and paid five-and-sixpence a yard for in St. Paul's Churchyard; and I
daren't let Miss Slasher have it, for she made such a mess of that
French merino. She had to let it out at every seam before I could get
into it, and it is so tight for me now that I shall be obliged to cut
it up for Mary Anne. I wonder if I dare try these new people?"

"And what did you say, Miss Milner?"

"What could I do then, my dear young lady, but speak up and say the
best I could for you? for though Mrs. Trimmings is not high,--not one
of the gentry, I mean,--and has a rough tongue sometimes, still she
knows what good stuff and good cutting-out means, and a word from her
might do you a power of good among the townfolks, for her gowns are
always after the best patterns."

"All right!" returned Phillis, cheerfully: "one must creep before one
runs, and, until the gentry employ us, we ought to think ourselves
fortunate to work for the townpeople. I am not a bit above making a
dress for Mrs. Trimmings, though I would rather make one for you, Miss
Milner, because you have been so kind to us."

"There, now! didn't I say there never were such young ladies!"
exclaimed Miss Milner, quite affected at this. "Well, if you are sure
you don't mind, Miss Challoner dear, will you please go to Mrs.
Trimmings's this morning? for though I told her my dress was to be
finished first, still Trimmings's isn't a stone's-throw from here; and
you may as well settle a thing when you are about it."

"And I will take the silk, Miss Milner, if you will kindly let me have
a nice piece of brown paper."

"Indeed and you will do no such thing, Miss Challoner; and there is
Joseph going down with the papers to Mr. Drummond's, and will leave it
at the Friary as he passes."

"Oh, thank you," observed Phillis, gratefully. "Then I will pencil a
word to my sister, to let her know why I am detained." And she
scrawled a line to Nan:

"Trimmings, not Squails: here beginneth the first chapter. Expect me
when you see me, and do nothing until I come."

There was no side-door at Trimmings's, and Mrs. Trimmings was at the
desk, jotting down legs of mutton, and entries of gravy-beef and suet,
with a rapidity that would have tried the brain of any other woman
than a butcher's wife.

When Phillis approached, she looked up at her suavely, expecting
custom.

"Just half a moment, ma'am," she said, civilly. "Yes, Joe, wing-rib
and half of suet to Mrs. Penfold, and a loin of lamb and sweet-bread
for No. 12, Albert Terrace. Now, ma'am, what can I do for you?"

"I have only come about your dress, Mrs. Trimmings," returned Phillis,
in a very small voice; and then she tried not to laugh, as Mrs.
Trimmings regarded her with a broad stare of astonishment, which took
her in comprehensively, hat, dress, and neat dogskin gloves.

"You might have taken up my pen and knocked me down with it," was Mrs.
Trimmings's graphic description of her feelings afterwards, as she
carved a remarkably fine loin of veal, with a knuckle of ham and some
kidney-beans to go with it. "There was the colonel standing by the
desk, Andrew; and he turned right round and looked at us both. 'I've
come about your dress, Mrs. Trimmings,' she said, as pertlike as
possible. Law, I thought I should have dropped, I was that taken
aback."

Phillis's feelings were none of the pleasantest when Colonel Middleton
turned round and looked at her. There was an expression almost of
sorrow in the old man's eyes, as he so regarded her, which made her
feel hot and uncomfortable. It was a relief when Mrs. Trimmings roused
from her stupefaction and bustled out of the desk.

"This way, miss," she said, with a jerk of her comely head. But her
tone changed a little, and became at once sharp and familiar. "I hope
you understand your business, for I never could abide waste; and the
way Miss Slasher cut into that gray merino,--and it only just meets,
so to say,--and the breadths are as scanty as possible; and it would
go to my heart to have a beautiful piece of silk spoiled,
flve-and-sixpence a yard, and not a flaw in it."

"If I thought I should spoil your dress I would not undertake it,"
returned Phillis, gently. She felt she must keep herself perfectly
quiet with this sort of people. "My sister and I have just made up
some very pretty silk and cashmere costumes, and they fitted as
perfectly as possible."

"Oh, indeed!" observed Mrs. Trimmings, in a patronizing tone. She had
no idea that the costumes of which Phillis spoke had been worn by the
young dressmakers at one of Lady Fitzroy's afternoon parties. She was
not quite at her ease with Phillis; she thought her a little
high-and-mighty in her manner. "A uppish young person," as she said
afterwards; "but her grand airs made no sort of difference to me, I
can assure you."

There was no holding pins or picking up scissors in this case. On the
contrary, Mrs. Trimmings watched with a vigilant eye, and was ready to
pounce on Phillis at the least mistake or oversight, seeing which
Phillis grew cooler and more off-hand every moment. There was a great
deal of haggling over the cut of the sleeve and arrangement of the
drapery. "If you will kindly leave it to me," Phillis said once; but
nothing was further from Mrs. Trimmings's intention. She had not a
silk dress every day. And she had always been accustomed to settle all
these points herself, while Miss Slasher had stood by humbly turning
over the pages of her fashion-books, and calling her, at every
sentence, "Ma'am," a word that Phillis's lips had not yet uttered.
Phillis's patience was almost tired out, when she was at last allowed
to depart with a large brown-paper parcel under her arm. Mrs.
Trimmings would have wrapped it up in newspaper, but Phillis had so
curtly refused to have anything but brown paper that her manner rather
overawed the woman.

Poor Phillis! Yes, it had really come to pass, and here she was,
actually walking through Hadleigh in the busiest time of the day, with
a large, ugly-looking parcel and a little black bag! She had thought
of sending Dorothy for the dress, but she knew what a trial it would
have been to the old woman to see one of her young ladies reduced to
this, and she preferred ladening herself to hurting the poor old
creature's feelings. So she walked out bravely in her best style. But
nevertheless her shapely neck would turn itself now and then from side
to side, as though in dread of some familiar face. And there were
little pin-pricks all over her of irritation and mortified self-love.
"A thing is all very well in theory, but it may be tough in practice,"
she said to herself. And she felt an irresistible desire to return the
offending dress to that odious Trimmings and tell her she would have
nothing to do with her,--"a disagreeable old cat," I am afraid Phillis
called her, for one is not always charitable and civil-spoken in one's
thoughts.

"We are going the same way. May I carry that formidable-looking parcel
for you?" asked a voice that was certainly becoming very familiar.

Poor Phillis started and blushed; but she looked more annoyed than
pleased at the rencontre.

"Mr. Drummond, are you omnipresent?--one is forever encountering you!"
she said, quite pettishly; but, when Archie only laughed, and tried to
obtain possession of the parcel, she resisted, and would have none of
his assistance.

"Oh, dear, no!" she said: "I could not think of such a thing! Fancy
the vicar of Hadleigh condescending to carry home Mrs. Trimmings's
dress!"

"Mrs. Trimmings's dress?" repeated Mr. Drummond, in a rapid crescendo.
"Oh, Miss Challoner! I declare this beats everything!"

Phillis threw him a glance. She meant it to be cool, but she could not
keep the sadness out of her eyes; they did so contradict the assumed
lightness of her words:

"Miss Milner was far more considerate: she made Joseph carry hers to
the Friary when he left your papers. Was he not a benevolent Joseph?
Mrs. Trimmings wanted to wrap up her silk in newspaper; but I said to
myself, 'One must draw the line somewhere;' and so I held out for
brown paper. Do you think you could have offered to carry a parcel in
newspaper, Mr. Drummond? Oh, by the bye, how can you condescend to
walk with a dressmaker? But this is a quiet road, and no one will see
you."

"Pardon me if I contradict you, but there is Colonel Middleton looking
over his garden palings this moment," returned Mr. Drummond, who had
just become painfully aware of the fact.

"Don't you think you had better go and speak to him, then? for you see
I am in no need of help," retorted Phillis, who was sore all over, and
wanted to get rid of him, and yet would have been offended if he had
taken her at her word. But Mr. Drummond, who felt his position an
uncomfortable one, and was dreadfully afraid of the colonel's banter,
was not mean enough to take advantage of her dismissal. He had joined
himself to her company out of pure good nature, for it was a hot day
and the parcel was heavy, but she would have none of his assistance.

So he only waved his hand to his friend, who took off his old felt hat
very solemnly in return, and watched them with a grieved expression
until they were out of sight.

"Now I will bid you good-bye," he said, when they had reached the
vicarage.

Phillis said nothing; but she held out her hand, and there was a
certain brightness in her eyes that showed she was pleased.

"He is a gentleman, every inch of him; and I won't quarrel with him
any more," she thought, as she walked up to the Friary. "Oh, how nice
it would have been if we were still at Glen Cottage and he could see
us at our best, and we were able to entertain him in our old fashion!
How Carrie and the other girls would have liked him! and how jealous
Dick would have been! for he never liked our bringing strange young
men to the house, and always found fault with them if he could," and
here Phillis sighed, and for the moment Mrs. Trimmings was forgotten.




CHAPTER XXIII.

"BRAVO, ATALANTA!"


Phillis received quite an ovation as soon as she crossed the
threshold. Dulce, who was listening for her footsteps, rushed out into
the little hall, and dragged her in, as though she were too weary to
have any movement or volition of her own. And then Nan came up, in her
calm elder-sisterly way, and put her arm round her, and hoped she was
not so very tired, and there was so much to say, and so much to do,
and she wanted her advice, and so on.

And on Nan's forehead lay a thoughtful pucker; and on the centre-table
were sundry breadths of green silk, crisp-looking and faintly bronzed,
like withered leaves with the sun on them.

"Oh, dear! has Miss Drummond been here in my absence?" asked Phillis,
with the overwhelmed feeling of a beginner, who has not yet learned to
separate and classify, or the rich value of odd moments. "Three
dresses to be done at once!"

"One at a time. But never mind Miss Drummond's this moment. Mother is
safe in the store-cupboard for the next half-hour, and we want to know
what you mean by your ridiculous message, 'Trimmings, not Squails.'
Dulce is dying of curiosity, and so am I."

"Yes; but she looks so hot and tired that she must refresh herself
first." And Dulce placed on her sister's lap a plate of yellow plums,
perfectly bedded in moss, which had come from the vicarage garden. And
as Phillis enjoyed the dainty repast and poured out her morning's
experiences in the ears of her astonished auditors, lo, the
humiliation and the sting were forgotten, and only an intense sense of
the humor of the situation remained.

It was Dulce whose pink cheeks were burning now.

"Oh, Phillis! how could you? It is too dreadful even to think about!
That fat old thing, too! Why, she is twice as big as Mrs. Squails!"

"Beggars cannot be choosers, my dear," replied Phillis, airily; for
rest was pleasant, and the fruit was good, and it was so delicious to
feel all that was over and she was safe in her nest again; and then
the pleasure of talking it all over! "Do you know--?" she began, in a
disconnected manner, and then sat and stared at her sisters with
luminous gray eyes, until they begged to know what the new idea was.

"Oh, nothing," she replied, and colored a little. And then she blurted
out, in an oddly-ashamed way, "it was talking to you two dears that
put it in my head. But I could not help thinking that moment that if
one is ever good enough to get to heaven, one of the greatest
pleasures will be to talk about all our past miseries and
difficulties, and how the angels helped us! and, though you may laugh
at me,"--they were doing nothing of the kind, only admiring her with
all their might,--"I have a kind of fancy that even my 'Trimmings, not
Squails' episode may have a different look up there!"

"My dear," returned Nan, gently, for she loved all speeches of this
sort, being a devout little soul and truly pious, "nothing was further
from my thoughts than to laugh at you, for the more we think in this
way the grander our work will appear to us. Mrs. Trimmings may be fat
and vulgar, but when you were measuring her and answering her so
prettily--and I know how nicely you would speak, Phil--I think you
were as brave as one of those old knights--I cannot remember their
names--who set out on some lofty quest or other!"

"I suppose the child means Sir Galahad," observed Phillis, with a
groan at Nan's ignorance. "Oh, Nannie, I wish I could say,--

               "'My strength is as the strength of ten,
                   Because my heart is pure;'"

and then she softly chanted,--for quotation never came amiss to her,
and her head was crammed with choice selections from the poets,--

                 "'All armed I ride, whate'er betide,
                     Until I find the Holy Grail.'"

"Yes, the Sangreal, or the Quest. It does not matter what, for it was
only an allegory," returned Nan, who had plenty of ideas, only she
confused them sometimes, and was not as clever in her definitions as
Phillis. "It only meant that those grand old knights had some holy
purpose and aim in their lives, for which they trained and toiled and
fought. Don't you see?--the meaning is quite clear. We can have our
Quest too."

"Bless her dear heart, if she is not travelling thousands of years and
miles from Mrs. Trimmings!" exclaimed Phillis, who never could be
serious long. "Well, Nannie, I understand you, though you are a trifle
vague. We will have our Quest and our unattainable standard; and I
will be your maiden knight--yours and Dulce's.

                "'How sweet are looks that ladies bend
                    On whom their favors fall!
                For them I'll battle till the end,
                    To save from shame and thrall.'"

And when she had repeated this she rose, laughing, and said they were
all a little demented; and what did they mean by wasting their time
when there were three dresses to be cut out? and Dulce must have the
work fixed for the sewing-machine.

For the next hour there was little talk, only the snipping sound of
scissors and the rustling of silken breadths, and sometimes the swish
and the tearing of sundry materials, and then the whirring and burning
and tappings of Dulce's sewing machine, like a dozen or two of
woodpeckers at work on an iron tree. And no one quoted any more
poetry, for prose was heaped up everywhere about them, and their heads
were full of business.

But in the afternoon, when things were in progress and looked
promising, and Mrs. Challoner had had her nap, and was busy over some
sleeves that they had given her to keep her quiet and satisfy her
maternal conscience that she was helping her girls, Phillis did hear a
little about Miss Drummond's visit. The sewing machine, which they
worked by turns, had stopped for a time, and they were all three round
the table, sewing and fixing as busily as possible: and Phillis,
remembering Sir Galahad, dared not say she was tired, only she looked
out on the lengthening shadows with delight, and thought about tea and
an evening walk just to stretch her cramped muscles. And if one day
seemed so long, how would a week of days appear before the blessed
Sunday gave them a few hours of freedom?

It was at this moment that Nan, with fine tact, broke the silence that
was good for work, but was apt to wax drowsy in time:

"Miss Milner's dress is getting on well. How fast you two girls work!
and mammie is doing the sleeves beautifully. Another afternoon you
must let the work rest, mammie, and read to us, or Phillis will get
restive. By the bye, Dulce, we have not told her a word about Miss
Drummond's visit."

"No, indeed: was it not good of her to come so soon?" exclaimed Dulce.
"She told us she wanted to be our first customer, and seemed quite
disappointed when we said that we were bound in honor and mere
gratitude to send Miss Milner's dress home first. 'Not that I am in a
hurry for my dress, for nobody cares what I wear,' she said, quite
cheerfully; 'but I wanted to be the first on your list.' I wish we
could oblige her, for she is a nice, unaffected little thing, and I am
beginning to like her, though she is a little fussy."

"But she was as meek as a lamb about her dress," added Nan, who was a
first-rate needle-woman, and could work rapidly while she talked.
"Just fancy, Phil! she wanted to have a jacket with tabs and loose
sleeves, just for comfort and coolness."

"Loose sleeves and a jacket!" almost gasped Phillis, for the princess
skirts were then worn, and jackets were consigned to oblivion for the
time being. "I hope you told her, Nan, that we had never worked for
Mrs. Noah, neither had Mrs. Shem ever honored us by her custom."

"Well, no, Phillis; I was not quite so impertinent, and clever
speeches of that sort never occur to me until you say them. But I told
Miss Drummond that I could not consent to spoil her lovely dress in
that way; and then she laughed and gave in, and owned she knew nothing
about fashions, and that her sister Grace always ordered her clothes
for her, because she chose such ugly things. She sat and chatted such
a long time with us; she had only just gone when you came home."

"And she told us such a lot about this wonderful Grace," went on
Dulce: "she says Archie quite worships her.--Well, mammie," as Mrs.
Challoner poised her needle in mid-air and regarded her youngest
daughter with unfeigned astonishment, "I am only repeating Miss
Drummond's words; she said 'Archie.'"

"But, my dear, there was no need to be so literal," returned Mrs.
Challoner, reprovingly; for she was a gentlewoman of the old school,
and nothing grieved her more than slipshod English or any idiom or
idiotcy of modern parlance in the mouths of her bright young
daughters: to speak of any young man except Dick without the
ceremonious prefix was a heinous misdemeanor in her eyes. Dulce would
occasionally trespass, and was always rebuked with much gravity. "You
could have said 'her brother,' could you not?"

"Oh, mammie, I am sure Providence intended you for an old maid, and
you have not fulfilled your destiny," retorted Dulce, who was rarely
awed by her mother's solemnity. "All that fuss because I said
'Archie!' Oh, I forgot, that name is sacred: the Rev. Archibald
Drummond adores his sister Grace."

"And she must be very nice," returned Mrs. Challoner with an indulgent
smile at her pet Dulce. "I am sure, from what Miss Drummond told us
this morning, that she must be a most superior person. Why, Phillis,
she teaches all her four younger sisters, and one of them is sixteen.
Miss Drummond says she is never out of the school-room, except for an
hour or two in the evening, when her father and brothers come home.
There are two more brothers, I think she said. Dear what a large
family! and Miss Drummond hinted that they were not well off."

"I should like to know that Grace," began Phillis; and then she shook
her head reflectively. "No, depend upon it, we should be disappointed
in her: family paragons are generally odious to other folk. Most
likely she wears spectacles, and is a thin thread-papery sort of
person."

"On the contrary, she is a sweet-looking girl, with large melancholy
eyes; for Miss Drummond showed us her photograph. So much for your
imagination, Phil?" and Dulce looked triumphant. "And she is only
twenty-two, and, though not pretty, just the sort of face one could
love."

"Some people's swans turn out to be geese in the end," remarked
Phillis, provokingly; but she registered at the same time a mental
resolve that she would cross-examine Mr. Drummond on the earliest
opportunity about this wonderful sister of his. Oh, it was no marvel
if he did look down on them when they had not got brains enough to
earn their living except in this way! and Phillis stuck her needle
into Miss Milner's body-lining so viciously that it broke.

The sharp click roused Nan's vigilance, and she looked up, and was at
once full of pity for Phillis's pale face.

"You are tired, Phil, and so are we all," she said, brightly; "and, as
it is our first day of work, we will not overdo ourselves. Mammie, if
you will make the tea, we will just tidy up, and look out the patterns
for you to match the trimmings and buttons to-morrow;" for this same
business of matching was rather hailed by Mrs. Challoner as a relief
and amusement.

Phillis grumbled a little over this additional labor, though, at the
same time, no one worked harder than she; but she was careful to
explain that it was her right, as a freeborn Britoness, to grumble,
and that it was as much a relief to her peculiar constitution as a
good long yawn is to some people.

"And it answers two purposes," as she observed; "for it airs the
lungs, and relieves the mind, and no one takes any more notice than if
I set the wind blowing. And thankful I am, and every mother's child of
us, that Dorothy is approaching this room with her dust-pan and brush.
Dorothy, I have a nice little sum for you to do. How many snippets of
green and black silk go to a dust-pan? Count them, and subtract all
the tacking-thread, and Dulce's pins."

"Phillis, you are just feverish from overfatigue and sitting so long
in one place, for you are used to running about." And Nan took her by
the shoulders, and marched her playfully to the small parlor, where
Mrs. Challoner was waiting for them.

"Come, girls!" she said, cheerfully. "Dorothy has baked your favorite
little cakes, and there are new-laid eggs for those who are hungry;
and I am sure you all earned your tea, darlings. And, oh, Phillis! how
tired you look!" And Mrs. Challoner looked round on each face in turn,
in the unwise but loving way of mothers.

This was too much for Phillis; and she interlaced her fingers and put
them suddenly and sternly over her mother's eyes.

"Now, mammie, promise."

"Phillis, my dear, how can you be so absurd!" but Mrs. Challoner
strove in vain to release herself. Phillis's fingers had iron tenacity
in them when she chose.

"A thing like this must be nipped in the bud," pronounced Phillis,
apostrophizing her laughing sisters. "You must not look at us in that
fashion every evening, as though we were sheep in a pen, or rabbits
for sale. You will be weighing us next; and my nerves will not stand
it. No, mother; here I strike. I will not be looked at in that
manner."

"But, Phillis--Oh, you nonsensical child!"

"Personal remarks are to be tabooed from this moment. You must not
say, 'How tired you look!' or 'How pale you are!' It is not manners at
the Friary, and it is demoralizing. I am ten times more tired this
minute than I was before you told me so."

"Very well, Phillis; but you must let me pour out the tea." And then
Phillis subsided. But she had started the fun, and Dulce soon took it
up and set the ball rolling. And Dorothy, working hard with her
dust-pan and brushes, heard the merriment, and her old face lighted
up.

"Bless their sweet faces!--pretending to be happy, just to cheer up
the mistress, and make believe it is only a game they are having!"
muttered the old woman, as she paused to listen. "But, if I am not
mistaken, Miss Phillis, poor dear, is just ready to drop with fatigue.
Only to hear her, one would think she was as perky as possible."

When the evening meal was over, Mrs. Challoner leaned back in her
chair and made a little speech to her daughters:

"Thank you, my dears. You have done me so much good. Now, if you want
to please me, you will all three put on your hats and take a nice long
walk together."

The girls looked at each other, and every pair of eyes said, as
plainly as possible, "What a delicious idea! But only two can go, and
I intend to be the filial victim." But Mrs. Challoner was too quick
for them. "I said all three," she remarked, very decidedly. "If one
offers to stay with me, I shall just put myself to bed and lock the
door; but if you will be good, and enjoy this lovely evening, I will
take my book in the garden and be quite happy until you come back to
me." And when they saw that she meant it, and would only be worried by
a fuss, they went off as obediently as possible.

They walked very sedately down the Braidwood Road, and past the White
House; but when they got into the town, Phillis hurried them on a
little: "I don't want people. It is air and exercise and freedom for
which I am pining." And she walked so fast that they had some trouble
to keep up with her.

But when they had left every trace of human habitation behind them,
and were strolling down the rough, uneven beach, towards a narrow
strip of sand, that would soon be covered by the advancing tide,
Phillis said, in an odd, breathless way, "Nan, just look round and see
if there be any one in sight, before, behind, or around us;" and Nan,
though in some little surprise, did at once as she was bidden, in the
most thorough manner. For she looked up at the sky first, as though
she were afraid of balloons or possible angels; and then at the sea,
which she scanned narrowly, so that not even a fish could escape her;
and after that she beat the boundaries of the land.

"No, there is not a creature in sight except ourselves and Laddie,"
she answered.

"Very well," answered Phillis promptly. "Then, if it be all safe, and
the Hadleigh wits are away wool gathering, and you will not tell
mother, I mean to have a race with Dulce, as far as we can run along
the shore; and if I do not win----" And here she pursed up her lips
and left her sentence unfinished, as though determined to be
provoking.

"We shall see about that," returned Dulce, accepting the challenge in
a moment; for she was always ready to follow a good lead.

"Oh, you foolish children?" observed Nan, in her staid fashion. But
she did not offer the slightest remonstrance, knowing of old that
unless Phillis found some safety-valve she would probably wax
dangerous. So she called Laddie to her, and held him whining and
struggling, for he wanted to stretch his little legs too; thinking a
race was good for dogs as well as for girls. But Nan would not hear of
it for a moment: he might trip them up and cause another sprained
ankle.

"Now, Nan, you must be umpire, and say, One, two, three!" And Nan
again obeys, and then watches them with interest. Oh, how pretty it
was, if only any one could have seen it, except the crabs and the
star-fish, and they never take much notice: the foreground of the
summer sea coming up with little purple rushes and a fringe of foam;
the yellow sand, jagged, uneven, with salt-water pools here and there;
the two girls in their light dresses skimming over the ground with
swift feet, skirting the pools, jumping lightly over stones, even
climbing a breakwater, then running along another level piece of
sand,--Dulce a little behind, but Phillis as erect and sure-footed as
Atalanta.

Now Nan has lost them, and puts Laddie down and prepares to follow. In
spite of her staidness, she would have dearly loved a run too; only
she thinks of Dick, and forbears.

Dulce, who is out of breath, fears she must give up the race, and
begins to pant and drop behind in earnest, and to wish salt water were
fresh, and then to dread the next breakwater as a hopeless obstacle;
but Phillis, who is still as fresh as possible, squares her elbows as
she has seen athletes do, and runs lightly up to it, unmindful and
blissfully ignorant of human eyes behind a central hole.

Some one who is of a classical turn has been thinking of the daughter
of Iasus and Clymene, and cries out, "Bravo, Atalanta! but where is
Milanion, that he has forgotten the golden apples?" And Phillis,
stricken dumb by the question and the sudden apparition of a bearded
face behind the breakwater, remains standing as though she were carved
in stone.




CHAPTER XXIV.

MOTHERS ARE MOTHERS.


"Mr. Drummond! Oh dear! is one never to be free from pastoral
supervision?" muttered Phillis, half sulkily, when she roused from her
stupefaction and had breath to take the offensive. And what would he
think of her? But that was a question to be deferred until later, when
nightmares and darkness and troublesome thoughts harass the unwary
soul. "Like a dog, he hunts in dreams," she might have said to
herself, quoting from "Locksley Hall." But she did nothing of the
kind,--only looked at the offending human being with such an outraged
dignity in her bearing that Mr. Drummond nearly committed himself by
bursting out laughing.

He refrained with difficulty, and said rather dryly,--

"That was a good race; but I saw you would win from the first; and you
jumped that stone splendidly. I suppose you know the story of
Atalanta?"

"Oh, yes," responded Phillis, gloomily; but she could not help showing
off her knowledge all the same; and she had always been so fond of
heathen mythology, and had even read translations of Homer and Virgil.
"She had a she-bear for a nurse, and was eventually turned into a
lion; and I always thought her very stupid for being such a baby and
stopping to pick up the golden apple."

"Nevertheless, the subject is a charming one for a picture," returned
Archie, with admirable readiness, for he saw Phillis was greatly hurt
by this untoward accident, and he liked the girl all the better for
her spirit. He would not have discovered himself at all, only in
another moment she must have seen him; and if she would only have
believed how fully he entered into the fun, and how graceful and
harmless he thought it, there would have been no pang of wounded
self-esteem left. But girls, especially if they be worthy of the name,
are so sensitive and prickly on such matters.

Dulce had basely deserted her sister, and, at the sight of the
clerical felt hat, had fled to Nan's side for protection.

"Oh, never mind," Nan had said, consoling her: "it is only Mr.
Drummond. And he will know how it was, and that we thought there was
not a creature in sight." Nevertheless, she felt a little sorry in her
heart that such a thing had happened. It would spoil Phillis's mirth,
for she was very proud; and it might shock their mother.

"Oh, he will think us such tomboys for grown-up young ladies!" sighed
Dulce, who was only just grown up.

"Never mind what he thinks," returned Nan, walking fast, for she was
anxious to come to Phillis's relief. She joined them very quietly, and
held out her hand to Archie as though nothing had happened.

"Is this a favorite walk of yours, Mr. Drummond? We thought we had it
all to ourselves, and so the girls had a race. They will be dreadfully
troubled at having a spectator; but it might be worse, for you already
know us well enough not to misconstrue a little bit of fun."

"I am glad you judge me so truly," returned Archie, with a gleam of
pleasure in his eyes. Phillis certainly looked uncommonly handsome, as
she stood there, flushed and angry. But how sweet and cool Nan
looked!--not a hair ruffled nor a fold of her dress out of order;
whereas Dulce's brown locks were all loose about her shoulders, shaken
down by the exercise. Nevertheless, at that moment Phillis looked the
most striking.

"I am afraid my sudden appearance has put your sister out dreadfully.
I assure you I would have made myself into thin air if I could," went
on Archie, penitently; "but all the same it was impossible not to
applaud the winner. I felt inclined to wave my hat in the air, and
cry, 'Bravo, Atalanta!' half a dozen times. You made such pretty
running, Miss Challoner; and I wish Grace could have seen it."

The last word acted like magic on Phillis's cloudy brow. She had
passed over two delicately-implied compliments with a little scorn.
Did he think her, like other girls, to be mollified by sugar-plums and
sweet speeches? He might keep all that for the typical young lady of
Hadleigh. At Oldfield the young men knew her better.

It must be owned that the youth of that place had been slightly in awe
of Phillis. One or two had even hinted that they thought her
strong-minded. "She has stand-off ways, and rather laughs at a fellow,
and makes one feel sometimes like a fool," they said; which did not
prove much, except that Phillis showed herself above nonsense, and
had a knowledge of shams, and would not be deceived, and, being the
better horse of the two, showed it; and no man likes to be taken down
in his class.

As Phillis would not flirt,--not understanding the art, but Dulce
proved herself to be a pretty apt pupil,--they left off trying to make
her, and talked sensibly to her instead, which she liked better. But,
though more than one had admired her, no one had ventured to persuade
himself or her that he was in love; but for that there was plenty of
time, Phillis not being the sort of girl to remain long without a
lover.

So when she heard Grace's name she pricked up her ears, and the proud
look left her face; and she said, a little archly, but in a way that
pleased Mr. Drummond,--

"All the same, I am glad your sister was not here, for she would think
Dulce and me such tomboys!" using Dulce's very expression.

Archie shook his head very decidedly at this.

"Ah! you do not know Grace, and how she loves a bit of fun; only she
never gets it, poor girl!" sighing in a marked manner, for he saw how
interested Phillis looked. "If you could only hear her laugh; but
please sit down a moment and rest yourselves," continued the artful
young man, who had not dared to purpose such a thing before.

Nan hesitated; but a glance at Phillis's hot face decided her.

"Just for five minutes," she said, "and then we must go back to
mother;" for she had already determined that they must cut their walk
short for the purpose of getting rid of Mr. Drummond.

And then they sat down on the beach, and Dulce retired behind the
breakwater to take off her hat and tuck up her hair; while Archie,
taking no notice, leaned against the other side, and felt well
contented with his position,--three such pretty girls, and all the
world well away!

"Is Grace your favorite sister?" asked Phillis, suddenly, as she
menaced Laddie with a small pebble.

This was a lucky opening for Archie. He was never seen to more
advantage than when he was talking about Grace. There was no
constraint or consciousness about him at such times, but he would
speak with a simple earnestness that made people say, "What a good
fellow he is!"

"Oh, she has always been that, you know," he said, brightly, "ever
since she was a little thing, and I used to carry her about in my
arms, and string horse-chestnuts for her, when she was the funniest,
merriest little creature, and so clever. I suppose when a man has
seven sisters he may be allowed to have a favorite among them? and
there is not one of them to compare with Grace."

"Seven sisters!" repeated Nan, with a smile; and then she added "you
are very lucky, Mr. Drummond."

Archie shrugged his shoulders at this: he had never quite recognized
his blessings in this respect. Isabel and Dottie might be tolerated,
but he could easily have dispensed with Susie and Laura and Clara; he
had a knack of forgetting their existence when he was absent from
them, and when he was at home he did not always care to be reminded of
their presence. He was one of those men who are very exacting to their
women-kind, who resent it as a personal injury if they fail in good
looks or are not pleasant to the eye. He did not go so far as to say
to himself that he could dispense with poor Mattie too, but he
certainly acted on most occasions as though he thought so.

"Are you not fond of all your sisters?" asked Phillis, rather
maliciously, for she had remarked the shrug.

"Oh, as to that," replied the young man, coloring a little, "one
cannot expect to be interested in a lot of school-girls. I am afraid I
know very little about the four youngest, except that they are working
Grace to death. Just fancy, Miss Challoner!" he continued, addressing
Nan, and quite disregarding Phillis's sympathetic looks. "Grace has
actually no life of her own at all; she teaches those girls, sits with
them, walks with them, helps them mend their clothes, just like a
daily or rather a nursery governess, except that she is not paid, and
has no holidays. I cannot think how my mother can find it in her heart
to work her so hard!" finished Archie, excited to wrath at the
remembrance of Grace's wrongs.

"Well, do you know," returned Nan, thoughtfully, as he seemed to
expect an answer to this, and Phillis for a wonder was silent, "I
cannot think your sister an object of pity. Think what a good and
useful life she is leading! She must be a perfect treasure to her
mother; and I dare say they all love her dearly."

"The girls do," was the somewhat grudging response: "they follow her
about like four shadows, and even Isabel can do nothing without her
advice. When I am at home I can scarcely get her for a moment to
myself; it is 'Grace, come here,' and 'Grace, please do this for me,'
until I wonder she is not worn out."

"Oh, how happy she must be!" responded Nan, softly, for to her no lot
seemed sweeter than this. To be the centre and support of a large
family circle,--the friend and trusted confidante of each! What a
wonderful creature this Grace must be! and how could he speak of her
in that pitying tone? "No life of her own!" Well, what life could she
want better than this? To be the guide and teacher of her younger
sisters, and to be loved by them so dearly! "Oh, I think she is to be
envied! her life must be so full of interest," she said, addressing
the astonished Archie, who had certainly never taken this view of it.
And when she had said this, she gave a slight signal to her sisters,
which they understood at once; and then they paced slowly down the
beach, with their faces towards the town, talking as they went.

They did not walk four abreast, as they used to do in the Oldfield
lanes; but Nan led the way with Mr. Drummond, and Phillis and Dulce
dropped behind.

Archie was a little silent; but presently he said, quite frankly, as
though he had known her for years,--but from the first moment he had
felt strangely at home with these girls,--

"Do you know, you have thrown a fresh light on a vexed subject? I have
been worrying myself dreadfully about Grace. I wanted her to live with
me because there was more sympathy between us than there ever will be
between my sister Mattie and myself. We have more in common, and think
the same on so many subjects; and I knew how happy I could have made
her."

"Yes, I see," returned Nan; and she looked up at him in such an
interested way that he found no difficulty in going on:

"We had planned for years to live together; but when I accepted the
living, and the question was mooted in the family council, my mother
would not hear of it for a moment. She said Grace could not possibly
be spared."

"Well, I suppose not, after what you have told me. But it must have
been a great disappointment to you both," was Nan's judicious reply.

"I have never ceased to regret my mother's decision," he returned,
warmly; "and as for Grace, I fear she has taken the disappointment
grievously to heart."

"Oh, I hope not!"

"Isabel writes to my sister Mattie that Grace is looking thin and pale
and has lost her appetite, and she thinks the mother is getting uneasy
about her; and I cannot help worrying myself about it, and thinking
how all this might have been averted."

"I think you are wrong in that," was the unexpected answer. "When one
has acted rightly to the very best of one's power, it is of no use
worrying about consequences."

"How do you mean?" asked Archie, very much surprised at the decided
tone in which Nan spoke. He had thought her too soft in manners to
possess much energy and determination of character; but he was
mistaken.

"It would be far worse if your sister had not recognized her duty and
refused to remain at home. One cannot find happiness if one moves out
of one's allotted niche; but of course you know all this better than
I, being a clergyman. And, oh! how beautifully you spoke to us last
Sunday!" finished Nan, remembering all at once that she was usurping
his place and preaching a little sermon of her own.

"Never mind that," he replied, impatiently: "tell me what you mean.
There is something behind your speech: you think I am wrong in pitying
poor Grace so much?"

"If you ask me so plainly, I must say yes, though perhaps I am not
competent to judge; but, from what you tell me, I think you ought not
to pity her at all. She is fulfilling her destiny. Is she not doing
the work given her to do? and what can any girl want more? You should
trust your mother, I think, Mr. Drummond; for she would not willingly
overwork her. Mothers are mothers: you need not be afraid," said Nan,
looking up in her clear honest way.

"Thank you; you have taken a weight off my mind," returned Archie,
more moved by this than he cared to own. That last speech had gone
home: he must trust his mother. In a moment scales seemed to fall from
the young man's eyes as he walked along gravely, and silently by Nan.
"Why, what manner of girls could these be?" he thought; "frolicsome as
kittens, and yet possessing the wisdom of mature womanhood?" And those
few simple words of Nan abided long with him.

What if he and Grace were making a mistake, and there was no hardship
in her case at all, but only clear duty, and a most high privilege, as
Nan hinted? What if his mother were right, and only they were wrong?

The idea was salutary, but hardly pleasant; for he had certainly aided
and abetted Grace in her discontent, and had doubtless increased her
repinings at her dull surroundings. Surely Grace's talents had been
given her for a purpose; else why was she so much cleverer than the
others,--so gifted with womanly accomplishments? And that clear head
of hers,--she had a genius for teaching, he had never denied that. Was
his mother, a sensible large-sighted woman in her way, to be secretly
condemned as a tyrant, and wanting in maternal tenderness for Grace,
because she had made use of this gifted daughter for the good of her
other children, and had refused to part with her at Archie's request?

Archie began to feel uncomfortable, for conscience was waxing warm
within him; and there had been a grieved hurt tone in his mother's
letters of late, as though she had felt herself neglected by him.

"Mothers are mothers: you need not be afraid," Nan had said, with
simple wholesome faith in the instincts of motherhood; and the words
had come home to him with the strongest power.

His poor harassed mother,--what a hard life hers had been! Archie
began to feel his heart quite tender towards her; perhaps she was a
little severe and exacting with the girls, but they none of them
understood her in the least, "for her bark was always worse than her
bite," thought Archie; and girls, at least the generality of them, are
sometimes aggravating.

He thought of the weary times she must have had with his father,--for
Mr. Drummond could make himself disagreeable to his wife when things
went wrong with him, and the sullen fortitude with which he bore his
reversal of fortune gave small opening to her tenderness; the very
way in which he shirked all domestic responsibilities, leaving on her
shoulders the whole weight of the domestic machinery and all the
home-management, had hardened and embittered her.

A large family and small means, little support from her husband,--who
interfered less and less with domestic matters,--all this had no doubt
fostered the arbitrary will that governed the Drummond household. If
her husband had only kept her in check,--if he had supported her
authority, and not left her to stand alone,--she would have been, not
a better woman, for Archie knew his mother was good, but she would
have been softer and more lovable, and her children would have seen
deeper into her heart.

Some such thoughts as these passed through Archie's mind as he walked
beside Nan; but he worked them out more carefully when he was alone
that night. Just before they reached the Friary, he had started
another subject; for, turning to Phillis and Dulce, whom he had
hitherto ignored, he asked them whether he might enroll one or all of
them among his Sunday-school teachers.

Phillis's eyes sparkled at this.

"Oh, Nan, how delightful! it will remind us of Oldfield."

"Yes, indeed:" chimed in Dulce, who had left her infant-class with
regret; but, to their surprise, Nan demurred.

"At Oldfield things were very different," she said, decidedly: "we
played all the week, and it was no hardship to teach the dear children
on Sunday; but now we shall have to work so hard that we shall be glad
of one day's rest."

"But surely you might spare us one hour or two in the afternoon?"
returned Archie, putting on what Grace called "his clerical face."

"In the afternoons mother will be glad of our company, and sometimes
we shall indulge in a walk. No, Mr. Drummond, our week-days are too
full of work, and we shall need all the rest we can get on Sunday."
And, with a smile, Nan dismissed the subject.

Phillis spoke regretfully of it when he had left them.

"It would have been so nice," she pleaded; but Nan was inexorable.

"You can go if you like, Phil; but I think mother is entitled to that
one afternoon in the week, and I will not consent to any parish work
on that account; and then I am sure we shall often be so tired." And
Nan's good sense, as usual, carried the day.

After that they all grouped round the window in the little parlor, and
repeated to their mother every word of their conversation with Mr.
Drummond.

Mrs. Challoner grew alarmed and tearful in a moment.

"Oh, my darlings, promise me to be more careful for the future!" she
pleaded. "Of course it was only fun, Phillis and he will not think
anything of it. Still, in a strange place, where no one knows
you----"

"Dulce and I will never run a race again, I think I can promise you
that," replied Phillis, very grimly, who felt that "Bravo, Atalanta!"
would haunt her in her dreams.

"And--and I would not walk about with Mr. Drummond, though he is our
clergyman and a very gentlemanly person. People might talk: and in
your position, my poor dears"--Mrs. Challoner hesitated, for she was
very nice in her scruples, and not for worlds would she have hinted to
her daughters that Mr. Drummond was young and unmarried, and a very
handsome man in the bargain: "You see, I cannot always be with you,
and, as you have to work for your living, and cannot be guarded like
other girls, you have all the more need to be circumspect. You don't
think me over strict, do you, darlings?"

"No, dear mother, you are perfectly right," returned Nan, kissing her.
"I knew how you would feel, and so we came home directly to get rid of
him: it would never do for the vicar of the parish to be seen walking
about with dressmakers."

"Don't, Nan!" exclaimed Phillis, with a shudder. Nevertheless, as she
turned away she remembered how she had enjoyed that walk down the
Braidwood Road that very morning, when he offered to carry home Mrs.
Trimmings's dress and she would not let him.




CHAPTER XXV.

MATTIE'S NEW DRESS.


The remainder of the week passed harmlessly and without any special
event to mark it, and, thanks to Nan's skilful management and
Phillis's pride, there were no further _contretemps_ to shock Mrs.
Challoner's sense of propriety. The work progressed with astonishing
rapidity: in the mornings the young dressmakers were sufficiently
brisk and full of zeal, and in the afternoons, when their energies
flagged and their fingers grew weary, Dulce would sing over her task,
or Mrs. Challoner would read to them for the hour together; but,
notwithstanding the interest of the tale, there was always great
alacrity manifested when the tea-bell gave them the excuse for putting
away their work.

On one or two evenings they gardened, and Mrs. Challoner sat under the
mulberry-tree and watched them; on another occasion they took a long
country walk, and lost themselves, and came back merry and tired, and
laden with primrose-roots and ferns: they had met no one, except a
stray laborer,--had seen glow-worms, picked wild flowers, and declared
themselves mightily refreshed. One evening Phillis, who was not to be
repressed, contrived a new amusement.

"Life is either a mill-pond or a whirlpool," she said, rather
sententiously: "we have been stagnant for three days, and I begin to
feel flat. Races are tabooed: besides, we cannot always leave mother
alone. I propose we go out in the garden and have a game of battledore
and shuttlecock;" for this had been a winter pastime with them at the
cottage.

Nan, who was always rather sober-minded now, demurred to this. She
would have preferred gardening a little, or sitting quietly with her
mother under the mulberry-tree; but Phillis, who was in a wild mood,
overruled all her objections, and by and by the battle began, and the
shuttlecocks flew through the air.

The week's work was finished, and the three dresses lay in their
wrappers, waiting for Dorothy to convey them to their several owners.
Nan who was really an _artiste_ at heart, had called her mother
proudly into the room to admire the result of their labors. Mrs.
Challoner was far too accustomed to her daughter's skilfulness to
testify any surprise, but she at once pronounced Miss Drummond's dress
the _chef-d'oeuvre_. Nan's taste was faultless; and the trimmings she
had selected harmonized so well with the soft tints of the silk.

"They are all very nice; and Mrs. Trimmings will be charmed with her
blue silk," observed Mrs. Challoner, trying to throw a little interest
into her voice, and to suppress a sigh; and then she helped Nan to
adjust the wrappers, and to pin the neatly-written bills inside each.

"I am sure that is business-like," said Nan, with a satisfied nod, for
she never could do anything by halves; and she was so interested in
her work that she would have been heart-broken if she thought one of
the dresses would be a misfit; and then it was that Phillis, who had
been watching her very closely, brightened up and proposed a game.

It was a very pretty sight, the mother thought, as she followed her
girls' movements; the young figures swayed so gracefully as they
skimmed hither and thither over the lawn with light butterfly
movements, the three eager faces upturned in the evening light, their
heads held well back.

"Two hundred, two hundred and one, two hundred and two--don't let it
drop, Dulce!" panted Phillis, breathlessly.

"Oh, my darlings, don't tire yourselves!" exclaimed Mrs. Challoner, as
her eyes followed the white flutter of the shuttlecocks.

This was the picture that Mr. Drummond surveyed. Dorothy, who was just
starting on her round, and was in no mood for her errand, had admitted
him somewhat churlishly.

"Yes, the mistress and the young ladies were in; and would he step
into the parlor, as her hands were full?"

"Oh, yes, I know the way," Mr. Drummond had returned, quite undaunted
by the old woman's sour looks.

But the parlor was empty, save for Laddie, who had been shut up there
not to spoil sport, and who was whining most piteously to be let out.
He saluted Archie with a joyous bark, and commenced licking his boots
and wagging his tail with mute petition to be released from this
durance vile.

Archie patted and fondled him, for he was good to all dumb creatures.

"Poor little fellow! I wonder why they have shut you up here?" he
said; and then he took him up in his arms, and stepped to the window
to reconnoitre.

And then he stood and looked, perfectly fascinated by the novel sight.
His sisters played battledore and shuttlecock in the school-room
sometimes, or out in the passages on a winter's afternoon. He had once
caught Susie and Clara at it, and had laughed at them in no measured
terms for indulging in such a babyish game. "I should have thought
Dottie might have played at that," he had said, rather contemptuously.
"I suppose you indulge in skipping-ropes sometimes." And the poor
girls had paused in their game, feeling ashamed of themselves. Archie
would think them such hoydens.

He remembered his reprimand with a strange feeling of compunction, as
he stood by the window trying vainly to elude Laddie's caresses. What
a shame of him to have spoiled those poor children's game with his
sneer, when they had so little fun in their lives! and yet, as he
recalled Clara's clumsy gestures and Susie's short-sighted attempts,
he was obliged to confess that battledore and shuttlecock wore a
different aspect now. Could anything surpass Phillis's swift-handed
movements, brisk, graceful, alert, or Nan's attitude, as she sustained
the duel? Dulce, who seemed dodging in between them in a most
eccentric way, had her hair loose as usual, curling in brown lengths
about her shoulders. She held it with one hand, as she poised her
battledore with the other. This time Archie thought of Nausicaa and
her maidens tossing the ball beside the river, after washing the
wedding-garments. Was it in this way the young dressmakers disported
themselves during the evenings?

It was Phillis who first discovered the intruder. The shuttlecocks had
become entangled, and fallen to the ground. As she stooped to pick
them up, her quick eyes detected a coat-sleeve at the window; and an
indefinable instinct, for she could not see his face, made her call
out,--

"Mother, Mr. Drummond is in the parlor. Do go to him, while Dulce puts
up her hair." And then she said, severely, "I always tell you not to
wear your hair like that, Dulce. Look at Nan and me; we are quite
unruffled; but yours is always coming down. If you have pretty hair,
you need not call people's attention to it in this way." At which
speech Dulce tossed her head and ran away, too much offended to
answer.

When Archie saw Mrs. Challoner crossing the lawn with the gait of a
queen, he knew he was discovered: so he opened the window, and stepped
out in the coolest possible way.

"I seem always spoiling sport," he said, with a mischievous glance at
Phillis, which she received with outward coolness and an inward
twinge. "Bravo, Atalanta!" sounded in her ears again. "Your maid
invited me in; but I did not care to disturb you."

"I am glad you did not open the window before," returned Nan, speaking
with that directness and fine simplicity that always put things to
rights at once: "it would have startled us before we got to the five
hundred, and then Phillis would have been disappointed. Mother, shall
we bring out some more chairs instead of going into the parlor? It is
so much pleasanter out here." And as Mrs. Challoner assented, they
were soon comfortably established on the tiny lawn; and Archie, very
much at his ease, and feeling himself unaccountably happy, proceeded
to deliver some trifling message from his sister, that was his
ostensible reason for his intrusion.

"Why does she not deliver her messages herself?" thought Phillis; but
she kept this remark to herself. Only, that evening she watched the
young clergyman a little closely, as though he puzzled her. Phillis
was the man of the family; and it was she who always stood upon guard
if Nan or Dulce needed a sentinel. She was beginning to think Mr.
Drummond came very often to see them, considering their short
acquaintance. If it were Miss Mattie, now, who ran in and out with
little offerings of flowers and fruit in a nice neighborly fashion!
But for this very dignified young man to burden himself with these
slight feminine messages,--a question about new-laid eggs, which even
Nan had forgotten.

Phillis was quite glad when her mother said,--

"You ought to have brought your sister, Mr. Drummond: she must be so
dull all alone,"--forgetting all about the dressmaking, poor soul! but
Phillis remembered it a moment afterwards, with a rush of bitter
feeling.

Perhaps, after all, that was why he came in so often, because he was
so sorry for them, and wished to help them, as he said. A clergyman
has more privileges than other men: perhaps she was wrong to suspect
him. He might not wish his sister to visit them, except in a purely
business-like way; but with him it was different. Most likely he had
tea with Mrs. Trimmings sometimes, just to show he was not proud; he
might even sit and chat with Mrs. Squails, and not feel compromised in
the least. Oh, yes! how stupid she was to think he admired Nan,
because she had intercepted a certain glance! That was her mania,
thinking every one must be after Nan. Things were different now.

Of course he would be their only link with civilized society,--the
only cultivated mind with which they could hold converse; and here
Phillis ceased to curl her lip, and her gray eyes took a sombre
shade, and she sighed so audibly that Archie broke off an interesting
discussion on last Commemoration, and looked at her in unfeigned
surprise.

"Oh, yes! we were there," returned Nan, innocently, who loved to talk
of those dear old times; "and we were at the _fête_ at Oriel, and at
the concert at Magdalen also. Ah! do you remember, Dulce?" And then
she faltered a little, and flushed,--not because Mr. Drummond was
looking at her so intently but at certain thoughts that began to
intrude themselves, which entwined themselves with the moonlighted
cloisters.

"I was to have been there too, only at the last moment I was
prevented," replied Archie; but his tone was inexplicable to the girl,
it was at once so regretful and awe-struck. Good heavens! if he had
met them, and been introduced to them in proper form! They had
mentioned a Mr. Hamilton: well, Hamilton had been a pupil of his; he
had coached him during a term. "You know Hamilton?" he had said,
staring at her; and then he wondered what Hamilton would say if he
came down to stay with him next vacation.

These reflections made him rather absent; and even when he took his
leave, which was not until the falling dews and the glimmer of a late
dusk drove Mrs. Challoner into the house, these thoughts still pursued
him. Nothing else seemed to have taken so strong a hold on him as
this.

"Good heavens!" he kept repeating to himself, "to think that the
merest chance--just the incidental business of a friend--prevented me
from occupying my old rooms during Commemoration! to think I might
have met them in company with Hamilton and the other fellows!"

The sudden sense of disappointment, of something lost and irremediable
in his life, of wasted opportunities, of denied pleasure, came over
the young man's mind. He could not have danced with Nan at the
University ball, it is true: clergymen, according to his creed, must
not dance. But there was the _fête_ at Oriel, and the Magdalen
concert, and the Long Walk in the Christchurch meadows, and doubtless
other opportunities.

He never asked himself if these girls would have interested him so
much if he had met them first in ordinary society: from the very first
moment they had attracted him strangely. Had he only known them a
fortnight? Good heavens! it seemed months, years, a lifetime! These
revolutions of mind are not to be measured by time. It had come to
this that the late fellow of Oriel, so aristocratic in his tastes, so
temperate in his likings, had entered certain devious paths, where
hidden pitfalls and thorny enclosures warn the unwary traveller of
unknown dangers, and in which he was walking, not blindfold, but by
strongest will and intent, led by impulse like a mere boy, and not
daring to raise his eyes to the future. "And what Grace would have
said!" And for the first time in his life Archie felt that in this
case he could not ask Grace's advice. He was loath to turn in at his
own gate; but Mattie was standing there watching for him. She ran out
into the road to meet him, and then he could see there were letters in
her hand.

"Oh, dear, Archie, I thought you were never coming home!" she
exclaimed. "And I have such news to tell you! There is a letter for
you from Grace, and mother has written to me; and there is a note from
Isabel inside, and she is engaged--really and truly engaged--to Mr.
Ellis Burton; and the wedding is to be in six weeks, and you and I are
to go down to it, and--oh, dear----" Here Mattie broke down, and began
to sob with excitement and pleasure and the longing for sympathy.

"Well, well, there is nothing to cry about!" returned Archie, roughly;
and then his manner changed and softened in spite of himself; for
after all, Isabel was his sister, and this was the first wedding in
the family, and he could not hear such a piece of news unmoved. "Let
me hear all about it," he said, by and by; and then he took poor
hysterical little Mattie into the house, and gave her some wine, and
was very kind to her, and listened to his mother's letter and Isabel's
gushing effusion without a single sneer. "Poor little Belle; she does
seem very happy!" he said, quite affectionately, as he turned up the
lamp still more, and began Grace's letter.

Mattie sat and gazed at him in a sort of ecstasy; but she did not
venture to ask him to read it to her. How nice he was to-night, and
how handsome he looked! there never was such a brother as Archie. But
suddenly, as though he was conscious of being watched, he sat down by
the table, and shaded his face with his hand.

No, Mattie, was right in her surmise: he would not have cared to show
that letter to any one.

The first sheet was all about Isabel. "Dear little Isabel has just
left me," wrote Grace. "The child looks so pretty in her new
happiness, you would hardly know her. She has just been showing me the
magnificent hoop of diamonds Ellis has given her. She says we must all
call him Ellis now. 'Chacun a son gout:' Poor Ellis is not very
brilliant, certainly: I remember we used to call him clownish and
uncultivated. But he has a good heart, and he is really very fond of
Isabel; and as she is satisfied, I suppose we need not doubt the
wisdom of her choice. Mother is radiant, and makes so much of the
little bride-elect that she declares her head is quite turned. The
house is quite topsy-turvy with the excitement of this first wedding
in the family. Isabel is very young to be married, and I tell mother
six weeks is far too short for an engagement; but it seems Ellis will
not listen to reason, and he has talked mother over. Perhaps I am
rather fastidious, but, if I were Isabel, I should hate to receive my
trousseau from my lover; and yet Ellis wants his mother to get
everything for his _fiancee_. I believe there is to be a sort of
compromise, and Mrs. Burton is to select heaps of pretty
things,--dresses and mantles and Paris bonnets. They are rolling in
riches. Ellis has taken a large house in Sloane Square, and his father
has bought him a landau and a splendid pair of horses;
everything--furniture, plate and ornaments--is to be as massive and
expensive as possible. If I were Isabel I should feel smothered by all
these grand things but the little lady takes it all quite coolly.

"When I get a moment to myself I sit down and say, 'In six weeks I
shall see Archie!' Oh, my darling! this is almost too good news to be
true! Only six weeks, and then I shall really see you! Now do you
know, I am longing for a good clearing-up talk? for your letters
lately have not satisfied me at all. Perhaps I am growing fanciful,
but I cannot help feeling as though something has come between us. The
current of sympathy seems turned aside, somehow. No, do not laugh, or
put me off with a jest, for I am really in earnest; and but for fear
of your scolding me I should own to being just a little unhappy.
Forgive me, Archie, if I vex you; but there is something, I am
thoroughly convinced of that. You have some new interest or worry that
you are keeping from me. Is this quite in accordance with our old
compact, dear? Who are these Challoners Mattie mentions in her
letters? She told me a strange rigmarole about them the other
day,--that they were young ladies who had turned dressmakers. What an
eccentric idea! They must be very odd young ladies, I should think, to
emancipate themselves so completely from all conventionalities. I wish
they had not established themselves at Hadleigh and so near the
vicarage. Mattie says you are so kind to them. Oh, Archie! dear
brother! do be careful! I do not half like the idea of these girls;
they sound rash and designing, and you are so chivalrous in your
notions. Why not let Mattie be kind to them instead of you? In a
parish like Hadleigh you need to be careful. Mother is calling me, so
I will just close this with my fondest love.

                                                              "GRACE."

Archie threw down the letter with a frown. For the first time he was
annoyed with Grace.

Nan and her sisters rash and designing! "Odd young ladies"! She was
sorry they had established themselves at Hadleigh! It was really too
bad of Grace to condemn them in this fashion. But of course it must be
Mattie's fault: she had written a pack of nonsense, exaggerating
things as much as possible.

Poor Mattie would have had to bear the brunt of his wrath as usual,
only, as he turned to her with the frown black on his forehead, his
eyes caught sight of her dress. Hitherto the room had been very dimly
lighted; but now, as he looked at her in the soft lamplight, his anger
vanished in amazement.

"Why, Mattie, what have you done to yourself? We are not expecting
company this evening: it is nearly ten o'clock."

Mattie blushed and laughed, and then she actually bridled with
pleasure:

"Oh, no, Archie; of course not. I only put on my new dress just to see
how it would fit; and then I thought you might like to see it. It is
the one uncle gave me; and is it not beautifully made? I am sure Mrs.
Cheyne's dresses never fit better. You and Grace may say what you like
about the Challoners, but if they can make dresses like this, it would
be tempting Providence not to use such a talent, and just because they
were too fine ladies to work."

"I do believe you are right, Mattie," returned Archie, in a low voice.
"Turn round and let me look at you, girl. Do you mean--that she--that
they made that?"

Mattie nodded as she slowly pivoted on one foot, and then revolved
like the figures one used to see on old-fashioned barrel-organs; then,
as she stood still, she panted out the words,--

"Is it not just lovely, Archie?" for in all the thirty years of her
unassuming life Mattie had never had such a dress, so no wonder her
head was a little turned.

"Yes, indeed; I like it excessively," was Archie's comment; and then
he added, with the delicious frankness common to brothers, "It makes
you look quite a different person, Mattie: you are almost nice-looking
to-night."

"Oh, thank you, dear!" cried poor Mattie, quite moved by this
compliment; for if Archie thought her almost nice-looking he must be
pleased with her. Indeed, she even ventured to raise herself on tiptoe
and kiss him in gratitude, which was taking a great liberty; only
Archie bore it for once.

"She really looked very well, poor little woman!" thought Archie, when
Mattie had at last exhausted her raptures and bidden him good-night.
"She would not be half so bad-looking if some one would take her in
hand and dress her properly. The women must be right, after all, and
there is a power in dress. Those girls do nothing by halves," he
continued, walking up and down the room. "I would not have believed
they had made it, if Mattie had not told me. 'Rash and designing,'
indeed! just because they are not like other girls,--because they are
more natural, more industrious, more courageous, more religious in
fact." And then the young clergyman softly quoted to himself the words
of the wise old king, words that Nan and her sisters had ever loved
and sought to practise:

"Whatsoever thy hands findeth to do, do it with thy might."




CHAPTER XXVI.

"OH, YOU ARE PROUD!"


On the following Monday morning, Nan said in rather a curious voice to
Phillis,--

"If no customers call to-day, our work-room will be empty. I wonder
what we shall do with ourselves?"

To which Phillis replied, without a moment's hesitation,--

"We will go down and bathe, and Dulce and I will have a
swimming-match; and after that we will sit on the beach and quiz the
people. Most likely there will be a troupe of colored minstrels on the
Parade, and that will be fun."

"Oh, I hope no one will come!" observed Dulce, overjoyed at the idea
of a holiday; but, seeing Nan's face was full of rebuke at this
outburst of frivolity, she said no more.

It was decided at last that they should wait for an hour to see if any
orders arrived, and after that they would consider themselves at
liberty to amuse themselves for the remainder of the day. But, alas
for Dulce's hopes! long before the appointed hour had expired, the
gate-bell rang, and Miss Drummond made her appearance with a large
paper parcel, which she deposited on the table with a radiant face.

The story was soon told. Her silk dress was such a success, and dear
Archie was so charmed with it--here Mattie, with a blush, deposited a
neatly-sealed little packet in Nan's hand--that he had actually
proposed that she should have another gown made after the same pattern
for every-day wear. And he had taken her himself directly after
breakfast down to Mordant's, and had chosen her this dress. He had
never done such a thing before, even for Grace: so no wonder Mattie
was in the seventh heaven of delight.

"It is very pretty," observed Nan, critically: "your brother has good
taste." Which speech was of course retailed to Archie.

Mattie had only just left the cottage, when another customer appeared
in the person of Miss Middleton.

Nan, who had just begun her cutting-out, met her with a pleased glance
of recognition, and then, remembering her errand, bowed rather
gravely. But Miss Middleton, after a moment's hesitation, held out her
hand.

She had not been able to make up her mind about these girls. Her
father's shocked sense of decorum, and her own old-fashioned
gentlewoman's idea, had raised certain difficulties in her mind, which
she had found it hard to overcome. "Recollect, Elizabeth, I will not
have those girls brought here," the colonel had said to her that very
morning. "They may be all very well in their way, but I have changed
my opinion of them. There's poor Drummond: now mark my words, there
will be trouble by and by in that quarter." For Colonel Middleton had
groaned in spirit ever since the morning he had seen the young vicar
walking with Phillis down the Braidwood Road, when she was carrying
Mrs. Trimmings's dress. Elizabeth answered this gentle protest by one
of her gentle smiles. "Very well, dear father: I will ask no one to
Brooklyn against your wish, you may be sure of that; but I suppose
they may make my new dress? Mattie's has been such a success; they
certainly understand their business."

"You have a right to select your own dressmaker, Elizabeth," returned
the colonel, with a frigid wave of his hand, for he had not got over
his disappointment about the girls. "I only warn you because you are
very quixotic in your notions; but we must take the world as we find
it, and make the best of it; and there is your brother coming home by
and by. We must be careful, for Hammond's sake." And, as Elizabeth's
good sense owned the justice of her father's remark, there was nothing
more said on the subject.

But it was not without a feeling of embarrassment that Miss Middleton
entered the cottage: her great heart was yearning over these girls,
whom she was compelled to keep at a distance. True, her father was
right, Hammond was coming home, and a young officer of
seven-and-twenty was not to be trusted where three pretty girls were
concerned: it would never do to invite them to Brooklyn or to make too
much of them. Miss Middleton had ranged herself completely on her
father's side, but at the sight of Nan's sweet face and her grave
little bow she forgot all her prudent resolutions, and her hand was
held out as though to an equal.

"I have come to ask you if you will be good enough to make me a
dress," she said, with a charming smile. "You have succeeded so well
with Miss Drummond that I cannot help wishing to have one too." And
when she had said this she looked quietly round her, and surveyed the
pretty work-room, and Dulce sitting at the sewing-machine, and lastly
Phillis's bright, intelligent face, as she stood by the table turning
over some fashion-books.

At that moment Mrs. Challoner entered the room with her little
work-basket, and placed herself at the other window. Miss Middleton
began talking to her at once, while Nan measured and pinned.

"I don't think I ever spent a pleasanter half-hour," she told her
father afterwards. "Mattie was right in what she said: they have made
the work-room perfectly lovely with pictures and old china: and
nothing could be nicer than their manners,--so simple and unassuming,
yet with a touch of independence too."

"And the old lady?" inquired the colonel, maliciously, for he had seen
Mrs. Challoner in church, and knew better than to speak of her so
disrespectfully.

"Old lady, father! why, she is not old at all. She is an exceedingly
pleasing person, only a little stately in her manner; one would not
venture to take a liberty with her. We had such a nice talk while the
eldest daughter was fitting me. Is it not strange, father dear, that
they know the Paines? and Mrs. Sartoris is an old acquaintance of
theirs. I think they were a little sorry when they heard we knew them
too, for the second girl colored up so when I said Adelaide was your
goddaughter."

"Humph? we will have Adelaide down here, and hear all about them,"
responded her father, briskly.

"Well, I don't know; I am afraid that would be painful to them, under
their changed circumstances. Just as we were talking about Adelaide,
Miss Mewlstone came in; and then they were so busy that I did not like
to stay any longer. Ah, there is Mr. Drummond coming to interrupt us,
as usual."

And then the colonel retailed all this for Archie's benefit. He had
come in to glean a crumb or two of intelligence, if he could, about
the Challoners' movements, and the colonel's garrulity furnished him
with a rich harvest.

Phillis had taken Miss Mewlstone in hand at once in the intervals of
business: she had inquired casually after Mrs. Cheyne's injured
ankle.

"It is going on well: she can stand now," returned Miss Mewlstone.
"The confinement has been very trying for her, poor thing, and she
looks sadly the worse for it. Don't take out those pins, my dear: what
is the good of taking so much pains with a fat old thing like me and
pricking your pretty fingers? Well, she is always asking me if I have
seen any of you when I come home."

"Mrs. Cheyne asks after us!" exclaimed Phillis, in a tone of
astonishment.

"Ah, just so. She has not forgotten you. Magdalene never forgets any
one in whom she takes interest; not that she likes many people, poor
dear! but then so few understand her. They will not believe that it is
all on the surface, and that there is a good heart underneath."

"You call her Magdalene," observed Phillis, rather curiously, looking
up into Miss Mewlstone's placid face.

"Ah, just so; I forgot. You see, I knew her as a child,--oh, such a
wee toddling mite! younger than dear little Janie. I remember her just
as though it were yesterday; the loveliest little creature,--prettier
even than Janie!"

"Was Janie the child who died?"

"Yes, the darling! She was just three years old; a perfect angel of a
child! and Bertie was a year older. Poor Magdalene! it is no wonder
she is as she is,--no husband and children! When she sent for me I
came at once, though I knew how it would be."

"You knew how it would be?" repeated Phillis, in a questioning voice,
for Miss Mewlstone had come to a full stop here. She looked a little
confused at this repetition of her words.

"Oh, just so--just so. Thank you, my dear. You have done that
beautifully, I am sure. Never mind what an old woman says. When people
are in trouble like that, they are often ill to live with. Magdalene
has her moods; so have we all, my dear, though you are too young to
know that; but no one understands her better than her old Bathsheba;
that is my name, and a funny old name too, is it not?" continued Miss
Mewlstone, blinking at Phillis with her little blue eyes. "The worst
of having such a name is that no one will use it; even father and
mother called me Barby, as Magdalene does sometimes still."

Bathsheba Mewlstone! Phillis's lip curled with suppressed amusement.
What a droll old thing she was! and yet she liked her, somehow.

"If she takes it into her head to come and see you, you will try and
put up with her sharp speeches?" continued Miss Mewlstone, a little
anxiously, as she tied on her bonnet. "Mr. Drummond does not
understand her at all: and I will not deny that she is hard on the
poor young man, and makes fun of him a bit; but, bless you, it is only
her way! She torments herself and other people, just because time will
not pass quickly enough and let her forget. If we had children
ourselves we should understand it better, and how in Ramah there must
be lamentation," finished Miss Mewlstone, with a vague and peculiar
reference to the martyred innocents which was rather inexplicable to
Phillis, as in this case there was certainly no Herod, but an ordinary
visitation of Providence; but then she did not know that Miss
Mewlstone was often a little vague.

After this hint, Phillis was not greatly surprised when, one morning,
a pair of gray ponies stopped before the Friary, and Mrs. Cheyne's
tall figure came slowly up the flagged path.

It must be owned that Phillis's first feelings were not wholly
pleasurable. Nan had gone out: an invalid lady staying at Seaview
Cottage had sent for a dressmaker rather hurriedly, and Miss Milner
had of course recommended them. Nan had gone at once, and, as Dulce
looked pale, she had taken her with her for a walk. They might not be
back for another hour; and a _tete-a-tete_ with Mrs. Cheyne after
their last interview was rather formidable.

Dorothy preceded her with a parcel, which she deposited rather
gingerly on the table. As Mrs. Cheyne entered the room she looked at
Phillis in a cool, off-hand manner.

"I am come on business," she said with a little nod. "How do you do,
Miss Challoner? You are looking rather pale, I think." And then her
keen glance travelled round the room.

The girl flushed a little over this abruptness, but she did not lose
her courage.

"Is this the dress?" she asked, opening the parcel; but her fingers
would tremble a little, in spite of her will. And then, as the rich
folds of the black brocade came into view, she asked, in a
business-like tone, in what style Mrs. Cheyne would wish it made, and
how soon she required it. To all of which Mrs. Cheyne responded in the
same dry, curt manner; and then the usual process of fitting began.

Never had her task seemed so tedious and distasteful to Phillis. Even
Mrs. Trimmings was preferable to this: she hardly ventured to raise
her eyes, for fear of meeting Mrs. Cheyne's cold, satirical glance;
and yet all the time she knew she was being watched. Mrs. Cheyne's
vigilant silence meant something.

If only her mother would come in! but she was shelling peas for
Dorothy. To think Nan should have failed her on such an occasion! even
Dulce would have been a comfort, though she was so easily frightened.
She started almost nervously when Mrs. Cheyne at last broke the
silence:

"Yes, you are decidedly paler,--a little thinner, I think, and that
after only a fortnight's work."

Phillis looked up a little indignantly at this; but she found Mrs.
Cheyne was regarding her not unkindly.

"I am well enough," she returned, rather ungraciously; "but we are not
used to so much confinement and the weather is hot. We shall grow
accustomed to it in time."

"You think restlessness is so easily subdued?" with a sneer.

"No; but I believe it can be controlled," replied poor Phillis, who
suffered more than any one guessed from this restraint on her sweet
freedom.

Mrs. Cheyne was right: even in this short time she was certainly paler
and thinner.

"You mean to persevere, then, in your moral suicide?"

"We mean to persevere in our duty," corrected Phillis, as she pinned
up a sleeve.

"Rather a high moral tone for a dressmaker to take: don't you think
so?" returned Mrs. Cheyne, in the voice Archie hated. The woman
certainly had a double nature: there was a twist in her somewhere.

This was too much for Phillis: she fired up in a moment.

"Why should not dressmakers take a high moral tone? You make me feel
glad I am one when you talk like that. This is our ambition,--Nan's
and mine, for Dulce is too young to think much about it,--to show by
our example that there is no degradation in work. Oh, it is hard!
First Mr. Drummond comes, and talks to us as though we were doing
wrong; and, then you, to cry down our honest labor, and call it
suicide! Is it suicide to work with these hands, that God has made
clever, for my mother?" cried Phillis; and her great gray eyes filled
up with sudden tears.

Mrs. Cheyne did not look displeased at the girl's outburst. If she had
led up to this point, she could not have received it more calmly.

"There, there! you need not excite yourself, child!" she said, more
gently. "I only wanted to know what you would say. So Miss Mewlstone
has been to you, I hear?--and Miss Middleton, too? but that's her
benevolence. Of course Miss Mattie comes out of curiosity. How I do
detest a fussy woman, with a tongue that chatters faster than a
purling brook! What do you say? No harm in her?" for Phillis had
muttered something to this effect. "Oh, that is negative praise! I
like people to have a little harm in them: it is so much more
amusing."

"I cannot say I am of your opinion," returned Phillis, coldly: she was
rather ashamed of her fit of enthusiasm, and cross in consequence.

"My dear, I always thought Lucifer must have been rather an
interesting person." Then, as Phillis looked scandalized, and drew
herself up, she said, in a funny voice, "Now, don't tell your mother
what I said, or she will think me an improper character; and I want to
be introduced to her."

"You want to be introduced to my mother!" Phillis could hardly believe
her ears. Certainly Mrs. Cheyne was a most inexplicable person.

"Dressmakers don't often have mothers, do they?" returned Mrs. Cheyne,
with a laugh; "at least, they are never on view. I suppose they are in
the back premises doing something?"

"Shelling peas, for example," replied Phillis, roused to mischief by
this: "that is mother's work this morning. Dorothy is old and
single-handed, and needs all the help we can give her. Oh, yes! I will
take you to her at once."

"Indeed you must not, if it will inconvenience her!" returned Mrs.
Cheyne, drawing back a little at this. She was full of curiosity to
see the mother of these singular girls, but she di