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 d.i.c.k.

"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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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.