"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 fete 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 fete 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 did not wish to have her illusion too roughly dispelled; and the notion of Mrs. Challoner's homely employment grated a little on the feelings of the fine lady who had never done anything useful in her life.

"Oh, nothing puts mother out!" returned Phillis, in an indifferent tone. The old spirit of fun was waking up in her, and she led the way promptly to the parlor.

"Mother, Mrs. Cheyne wishes to see you," she announced, in a most matter-of-fact voice, as though that lady were a daily visitor.

Mrs. Challoner looked up in a little surprise. One of Dorothy's rough aprons was tied over her nice black gown, and the yellow earthenware bowl was on her lap. Phillis took up some of the green pods, and began playing with them.

"Will you excuse my rising?—you see my employment," observed Mrs. Challoner, with a smile that was almost as charming as Nan's; and she held out a white soft hand to her visitor.

The perfect ease of her manner, the absence of all flurry, produced an instant effect on Mrs. Cheyne. For a moment she stood as though at a loss to explain her intrusion; but the next minute one of her rare sunshiny smiles crossed her face:

"I must seem impertinent; but your daughters have interested me so much that I was anxious to see their mother. But I ought to apologize for disturbing you so early."

"Not at all; all hours are the same to me. We are always glad to see our friends: are we not, Phillis? My dear, I wish you would carry these away to Dorothy and ask her to finish them."

"Oh, no! pray do nothing of the kind," returned Mrs. Cheyne, eagerly. "You must not punish me in this way. Let me help you. Indeed, I am sure I can, if I only tried." And, to Phillis's intense amusement, Mrs. Cheyne drew off her delicate French gloves, and in another moment both ladies were seated close together, shelling peas into the same pan, and talking as though they had known each other for years.

"Oh, it was too delicious!" exclaimed Phillis, when she had retailed this interview for Nan's and Dulce's benefit. "I knew mother would behave beautifully. If I had taken the Princess of Wales in to see her, she would not have had a word of apology for her apron, though it was a horrid coarse thing of Dorothy's. She would just have smiled at her, as she did at Mrs. Cheyne. Mother's behavior is always lovely."

"Darling old mammie!" put in Dulce, rapturously, at this point.

"I made some excuse and left them together, because I could see Mrs. Cheyne was dying to get rid of me; and I'm always amiable, and like to please people. Oh, it was the funniest sight, I assure you!—Mrs. Cheyne with her long fingers blazing with diamond rings, and the peas rolling down her silk dress; and mother just going on with her business in her quiet way. Oh, I had such a laugh when I was back in the work-room!"

It cost Phillis some trouble to be properly demure when Mrs. Cheyne came into the work-room some time afterwards in search of her. Perhaps her mischievous eyes betrayed her, for Mrs. Cheyne shook her head at her in pretended rebuke:

"Ah, I see; you will persist in treating things like a comedy. Well, that is better than putting on tragedy airs and making yourselves miserable. Now I have seen your mother, I am not quite so puzzled."

"Indeed!" and Phillis fixed her eyes innocently on Mrs. Cheyne's face.

"No; but I am not going to make you vain by telling you what I think of her: indiscriminate praise is not wholesome. Now, when are you coming to see me?—that is the point in question."

"Dorothy will bring home your dress on Saturday," replied Phillis, a little dryly. "If it requires alteration, perhaps you will let me know, and of course I will come up to the White House at any time."

"But I do not mean to wait for that. You are misunderstanding me purposely, Miss Challoner. I want you to come and talk to me one evening,—any evening. No one but Miss Mewlstone will be there."

"Oh, no!" responded Phillis, suddenly turning very red:

"I do not think that would do at all, Mrs. Cheyne. I do not mean to be rude or ungrateful for your kindness, but—but——" Here the girl stammered and broke down.

"You wish, then, to confine our intercourse to a purely business relation?" asked Mrs. Cheyne, and her voice had a tone of the old bitterness.

"Would it not be better under the circumstances? Forgive me if I am too proud, but——"

"Oh, you are proud, terribly proud!" returned Mrs. Cheyne, taking up her words before she could complete her sentence. "You owe me a grudge for what I said that night, and now you are making me pay the penalty. Well, I am not meek: there is not a human being living to whom I would sue for friendship. If I were starving for a kind word, I would sooner die than ask for one. You see, I am proud too, Miss Challoner."

"Oh, I did not mean to hurt you," returned Phillis, distressed at this, but determined not to yield an inch or bend to the sudden caprice of this extraordinary woman, who had made her suffer so once.

"To be hurt, one must have feelings," returned this singular person. "Do not be afraid, I shall not attempt to shake your resolution: if you come to me now it must be of your own free will."

"And if I come, what then?" asked Phillis, standing very straight and stiff, for she would not be patronized.

"If you come you will be welcome," returned Mrs. Cheyne; and then, with a grave inclination of the head, she swept out of the room.



CHAPTER XXVII.

A DARK HOUR.

"I should go one evening, if I were you: it is easy to see that Mrs. Cheyne has taken a fancy to you," said Nan, who was much interested by this recital; but to this Phillis replied, with a very decided shake of the head,—

"I shall do nothing of the kind; I was not made to be a fine lady's protegee. If she patronized me, I should grow savage and show my teeth; and, as I have no desire to break the peace, we had better remain strangers. Dear Magdalene certainly has a temper!" finished Phillis, with a wicked little sneer.

Nan tried to combat this resolution, and used a great many arguments: she was anxious that Phillis should avail herself of this sudden fancy on the part of Mrs. Cheyne to lift herself and perhaps all of them into society with their equals. Nan's good sense told her that though at present the novelty and excitement of their position prevented them from realizing the full extent of their isolation, in time it must weigh on them very heavily, and especially on Phillis, who was bright and clever and liked society; but all her words were powerless against Phillis's stubbornness: to the White House she could not and would not go.

But one evening she changed her mind very suddenly, when a note from Miss Mewlstone reached her. A gardener's boy brought it: "it was very particular, and was to be delivered immediate to the young lady," he observed, holding the missive between a very grimy finger and thumb.

"MY DEAR YOUNG LADY,—

"Pride is all very well, but charity is often best in the long run, and a little kindness to a suffering human being is never out of place in a young creature like you.

"Poor Magdalene has been very sadly for days, and I have got it into my stupid old head—that is always fancying things—that she has been watching for folks who have been too proud to come, though she would die sooner than tell me so; but that is her way, poor dear!

"It is ill to wake at nights with nothing but sad thoughts for company, and it is ill wearing out the long days with only a silly old body to cheer one up; and when there is nothing fresh to say, and nothing to expect, and not a footstep or a voice to break the silence, then it seems to me that a young voice—that is, a kind voice—would be welcome. Take this hint, my dear, and keep my counsel, for I am only a silly old woman, as she often says.

"Yours, Bathsheba Mewlstone."

"Oh, I must go now!" observed Phillis, in an embarrassed voice, as she laid this singular note before Nan.

"Yes, dear; and you had better put on your hat at once, and Dulce and I will walk with you as far as the gate. It is sad for you to miss the scramble on the shore; but, when other people really want us, I feel as though it were a direct call," finished Nan, solemnly.

"I am afraid there is a storm coming up," replied Phillis, who had been oppressed all day by the heavy thundery atmosphere: she had looked so heated and weary that Nan had proposed a walk by the shore. Work was pouring upon them from all sides: the townspeople, envious of Mrs. Trimmings's stylish new dress, were besieging the Friary with orders, and the young dressmakers would have been literally overwhelmed with their labors, only that Nan, with admirable foresight, insisted on taking in no more work than they felt themselves able to complete.

"No," she would say to some disappointed customer, "our hands are full just now, and we cannot undertake any more orders at present: we will not promise more than we can perform. Come to me again in a fortnight's time, and we will willingly make your dress, but now it is impossible." And in most cases the dress was brought punctually at the time appointed.

Phillis used to grumble a little at this.

"You ought not to refuse orders, Nan," she said, rather fretfully, once. "Any other dressmaker would sit up half the night rather than disappoint a customer."

"My dear," Nan returned, in her elder-sisterly voice, which had always a great effect on Phillis, "I wonder what use Dulce and you would be if you sat up sewing half the night, and drinking strong tea to keep yourselves awake? No, there shall be no burning the candles at both ends in this fashion; please God we will keep our health, and our customers; and no one in their senses could call us idle. Why, we are quite the fashion! Mrs. Squails told me yesterday that every one in Hadleigh was wild to have a gown made by the 'lady dressmakers.'"

"Oh, I daresay!" replied Phillis, crossly, for the poor thing was so hot and tired that she could have cried from pure weariness and vexation of spirit: "but we shall not be the fashion long when the novelty wears off; people will call us independent, and get tired of us; and no wonder, if they are to wait for their dresses in this way."

Nan's only answer was to look at Phillis's pale face in a pitying way; and then she took her hand, and led her to the corner, where her mother's Bible always lay, and then with ready fingers turned to the well known-passage, "Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor unto the evening."

"Well, Nan, what then?"

"Evening is for rest,—for refreshment of mind and body: I will not have it turned into a time of toil. I know you, Phillis; you would work till your poor fingers got thin, and your spirits were all flattened out, and every nerve was jarring and set on edge; and you would call that duty! No, darling,—never! Dulce shall keep her roses, and we will have battledore and shuttlecock every evening; but, if I have to keep the key of the work-room in my pocket, you and Dulce shall never enter it after tea." And Nan's good sense, as usual, carried the day.

Phillis would much rather have joined her sisters in their walk than have turned in at the gloomy lodge-gates.

"'All ye who enter here, leave hope behind,'"

she quoted, softly, as she waved her hand to Nan.

The servant who admitted her looked a little dubious over his errand.

"His mistress was in her room," he believed, "and was far too unwell to see visitors. He would tell Miss Mewlstone, if the young lady liked to wait; but he was sure it was no use,"—all very civilly said. And as Phillis persisted in her intention of seeing Mrs. Cheyne, if possible, he ushered her into the library, a gloomy-looking room, with closed blinds, one of which he drew up, and then went in search of Miss Mewlstone.

Phillis did not find her surroundings particularly cheerful. The air was darkened by the approaching storm. A sullen cloud hung over the sky. The library windows opened upon the shrubberies. Here the trees were planted so thickly that their shade obscured much of the light. The room was so dark that she could only dimly discern the handsome bindings of the books in the carved oak book-cases. The whole of the furniture seemed sombre and massive. The chair that the footman had placed for her was covered with violet velvet, and was in harmony with the rest of the furniture.

Dreary as the room looked, it was nothing to the shrubbery walk. A narrow winding path seemed to vanish into utter darkness. In some places the trees met overhead, so closely had they grown.

"If I were the mistress of the White House," Phillis said to herself, "I would cut every one of those trees down. They must make this part of the house quite unhealthy. It really looks like a 'ghost walk' that one reads about." But scarcely had these thoughts passed through her mind when she uttered a faint cry of alarm. The dark room, the impending storm, and her own overwrought feelings were making her nervous; but actually, through the gloom, she could see a figure in white approaching.

In another moment she would have sought refuge in the hall, but contempt at her own cowardice kept her rooted to the spot.

"She was an utter goose to be so startled! It was—yes, of course it was Mrs. Cheyne. She could see her more plainly now. She would step through the window and meet her."

Phillis's feelings of uneasiness had not quite vanished. The obscurity was confusing, and invested everything with an unnatural effect. Even Mrs. Cheyne's figure, coming out from the dark background, seemed strange and unfamiliar. Phillis had always before seen her in black; but now she wore a white gown, fashioned loosely, like a wrapper, and her hair, which at other times had been most carefully arranged, was now strained tightly and unbecomingly from her face, which looked pallid and drawn. She started violently when she saw Phillis coming towards her, and seemed inclined to draw back and retrace her steps. It evidently cost her a strong effort to recover herself. She seemed to conquer her reluctance with difficulty.

"So you have come at last, Miss Challoner," she said, fixing her eyes, which looked unnaturally bright, on Phillis. Her voice was cold, almost harsh, and her countenance expressed no pleasure. The hand she held out was so limp and cold that Phillis relinquished it hastily.

"You said that I should be welcome," she faltered, and trying not to appear alarmed. She was too young and healthy to understand the meaning of the word hysteria, or to guess at the existence of nervous maladies that make some people's lives a long torment to them. Nevertheless, Mrs. Cheyne's singular aspect filled her with vague fear. It did not enter into her mind to connect the coming storm with Mrs. Cheyne's condition, until she hinted at it herself.

"Oh, yes, you are welcome," she responded, wearily. "I have looked for you evening after evening, but you chose to come with the storm. It is a pity, perhaps; but then you did not know!"

"What would you have me know?" asked Phillis, timidly.

Mrs. Cheyne shrugged her shoulders a little flightily.

"Oh, you are young!" she returned; "you do not understand what nerves mean; you sleep sweetly of a night, and have no bad dreams: it does not matter to you happy people if the air is full of sunshine or surcharged with electricity. For me, when the sun ceases to shine I am in despair. Fogs find me brooding. An impending storm suffocates me, and yet tears me to pieces with restlessness: it drives me hither and thither like a fallen leaf. I tire myself that I may sleep, and yet I stare open-eyed for hours together into the darkness. I wonder sometimes I do not go mad. But there! let us walk—let us walk." And she made a movement to retrace her steps; but Phillis, with a courage for which she commended herself afterwards, pulled her back by her hanging sleeves.

"Oh, not there! it is not good for any one who is sad to walk in that dark place. No wonder your thoughts are sombre. Look! the heavy rain-drops are pattering among the leaves. I do not care to get wet: let us go back to the house."

"Pshaw! what does it matter getting wet?" she returned, with a little scorn; but nevertheless she suffered Phillis to take her arm and draw her gently towards the house. Only as they came near the library window, she pointed to it indignantly. "Who has dared to enter that room, or open the window! Have I not forbidden over and over again that that room should be used? Do you think," she continued, in the same excited way, "that I would enter that room to-night of all nights! Why, I should hear his angry voice pealing in every corner! It was a good room for echoes; and he could speak loudly if he chose. Come away! there is a door I always use that leads to my private apartments. I am no recluse; but in these moods I do not care to show myself to people. If you are not afraid, you may come with me, unless you prefer Miss Mewlstone's company."

"I would rather go with you," returned Phillis, gently. She could not in truth say she was not afraid; but all the same she must try and soothe the poor creature who was evidently enduring such torments of mind: so she followed in silence up the broad oak staircase.

A green-baize door admitted them into a long and somewhat narrow corridor, lighted up by a row of high narrow windows set prettily with flower-boxes. Here there were several doors. Mrs. Cheyne paused before one a moment.

"Look here! you shall see the mysteries of the west wing. This is my world; downstairs I am a different creature—taciturn, harsh, and prone to sarcasm. Ask Mr. Drummond what he thinks of me; but I never could endure a good young man—especially that delicious compound of the worldling and the saint—like the Reverend Archibald. See here, my dear: here I am never captious or say naughty things!"

She threw open the door, and softly beckoned to Phillis to enter. It was a large empty room,—evidently a nursery. Some canaries were twittering faintly in a gilded cage. There were flowers in the two windows, and in the vases on the table: evidently some loving hands had arranged them that very morning. A large rocking-horse occupied the centre of the floor: a doll lay with its face downwards on the crimson carpet; a pile of wooden soldiers strutted on their zigzag platform,—one or two had fallen off; a torn picture-book had been flung beside them.

"That was my Janie's picture-book," said Mrs. Cheyne, mournfully: "she was teaching her doll out of it just before she was taken ill. Nothing was touched; by a sort of inspiration,—a foreboding,—I do not know what,—I bade nurse leave the toys as they were. 'It is only an interrupted game: let the darlings find their toys as they put them,' I said to her that morning. Look at the soldiers, Bertie was always for soldiers,—bless him!"

Her manner had grown calmer; and she spoke with such touching tenderness that tears came to Phillis's eyes. But Mrs. Cheyne never once looked at the girl; she lingered by the table a moment, adjusting a leaf here and a bud there in the bouquets, and then she opened an inner door leading to the night-nursery. Here the associations were still more harrowing. The cots stood side by side under a muslin canopy, with an alabaster angel between them; the little night-dresses lay folded on the pillows; on each quilt were the scarlet dressing-gown and the pair of tiny slippers; the clothes were piled neatly on two chairs,—a boy's velvet tunic on one, a girl's white frock, a little limp and discolored, hung over the rails of the other.

"Everything just the same," murmured the poor mother. "Look here, my dear,"—with a faint smile—"these are Bertie's slippers: there is the hole he kicked in them when he was in his tempers, for my boy had the Cheyne temper. He was Herbert's image,—his very image." She sighed, paused, and went on: "Every night I come and sit beside their beds, and then the darlings come to me. I can see their faces—oh, so plainly!—and hear their voices. 'Good-night, dear mamma!' they seem to say to me, only Bertie's voice is always the louder."

Her manner was becoming a little excited again; only Phillis took her hand and pressed it gently, and the touch seemed to soothe her like magic.

"I am so glad you come here every night," she said, in her sweet, serious voice, from which every trace of fear had gone. "I think that a beautiful idea, to come and say your prayers beside one of these little beds."

"To say my prayers!—I pray beside my darlings' beds!" exclaimed Mrs. Cheyne, in a startled voice. "Oh no! I never do that. God would not hear such prayers as mine,—never—never!"

"Dear Mrs. Cheyne, why not?" She moved restlessly away at the question, and tried to disengage herself from Phillis's firm grasp. "The Divine Father hears all prayers," whispered the girl.

"All?—but not mine,—not mine, or I should not be sitting here alone. Do you know my husband left me in anger,—that his last words to me were the bitterest he ever spoke? 'Good-by, Magdalene: you have made my life so wretched that I do not care if I never live to set foot in this house again!' And that to me,—his wedded wife, and the mother of his children,—who loved him so. Oh, Herbert! Herbert!" and, covering her face, the unhappy woman suddenly burst into a passion of tears.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER.

Phillis kept a sad silence: not for worlds would she have checked the flow of tears that must have been so healing to the tortured brain. Besides, what was there that she, so young and inexperienced, could say in the presence of a grief so terrible, so overpowering? The whole thing was inexplicable to Phillis. Why were the outworks of conventionality so suddenly thrown down? Why was she, a stranger, permitted to be a witness of such a revelation? As she sat there speechless and sympathizing, a faint sound reached her ear,—the rustle of a dress in the adjoining room,—footsteps that approached warily, and then paused; a moment afterwards the door closed softly behind them. Phillis looked round quickly, but could see nothing; and the same instant a peal of thunder rolled over their heads.

Mrs. Cheyne started up with an hysterical scream, and caught hold of Phillis. "Come," she said, almost wildly, "we will not stay here. The children will not come to-night, for who could hear their voices in such a storm? My little angels!—but they shall not see me like this. Come, come!" And, taking the girl by the arm, she almost dragged her from the room, and led the way with rapid and disordered footsteps to a large luxurious chamber, furnished evidently as a dressing-room, and only divided from the sleeping-room by a curtained archway.

As Mrs. Cheyne threw herself down in an arm-chair and hid her face in her hands, the curtain was drawn back, and Miss Mewlstone came in with an anxious, almost frightened expression on her good-natured countenance. She hurried up to Mrs. Cheyne and took her in her arms as though she were a child.

"Now, Magdalene, now, my dear," she said, coaxingly, "you will try to be good and command yourself before this young lady. Look at her: she is not a bit afraid of the storm:—are you, Miss Challoner? No, just so; you are far too sensible."

"Oh, that is what you always tell me," returned Mrs. Cheyne, wrenching herself free with some violence. "Be sensible,—be good,—when I am nearly mad with the oppression and suffocation, here, and here," pointing to her head and breast. "Commonplaces, commonplaces; as well stop a deluge with a teacup. Oh, you are an old fool, Barby: you will never learn wisdom."

"My poor lamb! Barby never minds one word you say when you are like this."

"Oh, I will beg your pardon to-morrow, or when the thunder stops. Hark! there it is again," cowering down in her chair. "Can't you pray for it to cease, Barby? Oh, it is too horrible! Don't you recollect the night he rode away,—right into the storm, into the very teeth of the storm? 'Good-bye, Magdalene; who knows when we may meet again?' and I never looked at him, never kissed him, never broke the silence by one word; and the thunder came, and he was gone," beating the air with her hands.

"Oh, hush, my dear, hush! Let me read to you a little, and the fever will soon pass. You are frightening the poor young lady with your wild talk, and no wonder!"

"Pshaw! who minds the girl? Let her go or stop; what do I care? What is the whole world to me, when I am tormented like this? Three years, four years—more than a thousand days—of this misery! Oh, Barby! do you think I have been punished enough? do you think where he is, up in heaven with the children, that he forgives and pities me, who was such a bad wife to him?"

As Miss Mewlstone paused a moment to wipe the tears that were flowing over her old cheeks, Phillis's voice came to her relief.

"Oh, can you doubt it?" she said, in much agitation. "Dear Mrs. Cheyne, can you have an instant's doubt? Do you think the dead carry all these paltry earthly feelings into the bright place yonder? Forgive you—oh, there is no need of forgiveness there; he will only be loving you,—he and the children too."

"God bless you!" whispered Miss Mewlstone. "Hush, that is enough! Go, my dear, go, and I will come to you presently. Magdalene, put your poor head down here: I have thought of something that will do you good." She waved Phillis away almost impatiently, and laid the poor sufferer's head on her bosom, shielding it from the flashes that darted through the room. Phillis could see her bending over her, and her voice was as tender as though she were soothing a sick infant.

Phillis was trembling with agitation as she stole down the dark corridor. Never in her happy young life had she witnessed or imagined such a scene. The wild words, the half-maddened gestures, the look of agony stamped on the pale, almost distorted features, would haunt her for many a day. Oh, how the poor soul must have suffered before she lost self-control and balance like this!

It was not the death of her children that had so utterly unnerved her. It must have been that bitter parting with her husband, and the remembrance of angry words never to be atoned for in this life, that was cankering the root of her peace, and that brought about these moods of despair.