"With two against me I must yield," returned Mrs. Cheyne, with a curl of her lip. "What do we do with our time, Miss Mewlstone? Your occupation speaks for itself: it is exquisitely feminine. Don't tell Miss Mattie, Mr. Drummond, but I never work. I would as soon arm myself with a dagger as a needle or a pair of scissors. When I am not in the air, I paint. I only lay aside my palette for a book."

"You paint!" exclaimed Archie, with sudden interest. It was the first piece of information he had yet gleaned.

"Yes," she returned, indifferently: "one must do something to kill time, and music was never my forte. I sketch and draw and paint after my own sweet will. There are portfolios full of my sketches in there,"--with a movement of her hand towards a curtained recess. "No, I know what you are going to say: you will ask to see them; but I never show them to any one."

"For what purpose, then, do you paint them?" were the words on his lips; but he forbore to utter them. But she read the question in his eyes.

"Did I not say one must kill time?" she returned, rather irritably: "the occupation is soothing: surely that is reason enough."

"It is a good enough reason, I suppose," he replied, reluctantly, for surely he must say a word here; "but one need not talk about killing time, with so much that one could do."

Then there came a gleam of suppressed mischief in her eyes:

"Yes, I know: you may spare me that. I will listen to it all next Sunday, if you will, when you have it your own way, and one cannot sin against decorum and answer you. Yes, yes, there is so much to do, is there not?--hungry people to be fed, and sick to visit,--all sorts of disagreeables that people call duties. Ah, I am a sad sinner! I only draw for my own amus.e.m.e.nt, and leave the poor old world to get on without me. What a burden I must be on your conscience, Mr.

Drummond,--heavier than all the rest of your parish. What, are you going already? and Miss Mewlstone has never given you any tea."

Then Archie explained, very shortly, that he had partaken of that beverage at Brooklyn, and his leave-taking was rather more formal than usual. He was very much surprised, as he stood at the hall door, that always stood open in the summer, to hear the low sweep of a dress over the tessellated pavement behind him, and to see a white pudgy hand laid on his coat-sleeve.

"My dear Miss Mewlstone, how you startled me!"

"Just so; yes, I am afraid I did, Mr. Drummond; but I just wanted to say, never mind all that nonsense; come again: she likes to see you; she does, indeed. It is only her way to talk so; she means no harm, poor dear,--oh, none at all!"

"Excuse me," returned Archie, in a hurt voice, "but I think you are mistaken. Mrs. Cheyne does not care for my visits, and shows me she does not: if it were not my duty, I should not come so often."

"No, no; just so, but all the same it rouses her and does her good. It is a bad day with her, poor dear!--the very day the darlings were taken ill, four years ago. Now, don't go away and fancy things, don't, there's a dear young man; come as often as you can, and try and do her good."

"Oh, if I only knew how that is to be done!" returned Archie, slowly; but he was mollified in spite of himself. There were tears in Miss Mewlstone's little blue eyes: perhaps she was a good creature after all.

"I will come again, but not just yet," he said, nodding to her good-humoredly; but as he walked down the road he told himself that Mrs. Cheyne had never before made herself so disagreeable, and that it would be long before he set foot in the White House again.

CHAPTER XVII.

"A FRIEND IN NEED."

Human nature is weak, and we are told there are mixed motives to be found even in the holiest actions. Mr. Drummond never could be brought to acknowledge even to himself the reason why he took so much pains to compose his sermon for that Sunday. Without possessing any special claim to eloquence, he had always been earnest and painstaking, bestowing much labor on the construction and finish of his sentences, which were in consequence more elaborate than original. At times, when he took less pains and was simpler in style, he seldom failed to satisfy his hearers. His voice was pleasant and well modulated, and his delivery remarkably quiet and free from any tricks of gestures.

But on this occasion his subject baffled him; he wrote and rewrote whole pages, and then grew discontented with his work. On the Sunday in question he woke with the conviction that something out of the common order of events distinguished the day from other days; but even as this thought crossed his mind he felt ashamed of himself, and was in consequence a little more dictatorial than usual at the breakfast-table.

The inhabitants of Hadleigh were well accustomed to the presence of strangers in their church. In the season there was a regular influx of visitors that filled the lodging-houses to overflowing. Hadleigh had always prided itself on its gentility, as a watering-place it was select and exclusive; only the upper middle cla.s.ses, and a sprinkling of the aristocracy, were the habitual frequenters of the little town.

It was too quiet; it offered too few attractions to draw the crowds that flocked to other places. Mr. Drummond's congregation was well used by this time to see new faces in the strangers' pew; nevertheless, a little thrill of something like surprise and excitement moved a few of the younger members as Nan and her sisters walked down the aisle, with their mother following them.

"The mother is almost as good-looking as her daughters," thought Colonel Middleton, as he regarded the group through his gold-mounted eye-gla.s.ses, and Miss Middleton looked up for an instant from her prayer-book. Even Mrs. Cheyne roused from the gloomy abstraction which was her usual approach to devotion, and looked long and curiously at the three girlish faces before her. It was refreshing even to her to see anything so fresh and bright-looking.

Nan and her sisters were perfectly oblivious of the sensation they were making. Nan's pretty face was a trifle clouded: the strange surroundings, the sight of all those people unknown to them, instead of the dear, familiar faces that had always been before her, gave the girl a dreary feeling of oppression and dismay. Her voice quavered audibly as she sang, and one or two drops fell on her prayer-book as she essayed to join in the pet.i.tions.

"Why is there not a special clause in the Litany for those who are perplexed and in poverty? It is not only from murder and sudden death one need pray to be delivered," thought Nan, with much sinking of heart. "Oh, how helpless they were,--so young, and only girls, with a great unknown world before them, and d.i.c.k away, ignorant of their worst troubles, and too youthful a knight to win his spurs and pledge himself to their service!"

Nan's sweet downcast face drew many eyes in the direction of the great square pew in which they sat. Phillis intercepted some of these looks, as her attention insensibly wandered during the service. It was wrong, terribly wrong of course, but her thoughts would not concentrate themselves on the lesson the young vicar was reading in his best style. She was not heavy-hearted like Nan; on the contrary, little thrills of excitement, of impatience, of repressed amus.e.m.e.nt, pervaded her mind, as she looked at the strange faces round her "They would not be long strange," she thought: "some of them would be her neighbors.

What would they say, all these people, when they knew----" And here Phillis held her breath a moment. People were wondering even now who they were. They had dressed themselves that morning, rehearsing their parts, as it were, with studied simplicity. The gown Nan wore was as inexpensive as a gown could be; her hat was a model of neatness and propriety: nevertheless, Phillis groaned in spirit as she glanced at her. Where had she got that style? She looked like a young princess who was playing at Arcadia. Would people ever dare to ask her to work for them? Would they not beg her pardon, and cry shame on themselves for entertaining such a thought for a moment? Phillis almost envied Nan, who was shedding salt tears on her prayer-book. She thought she was absorbed in her devotions, while her own thoughts would wander so sadly; and then a handsome face in the opposite pew attracted her attention. Surely that must be Mrs. Cheyne, who lived in the White House near them, of whom Nan had talked,--the poor woman who had lost husband and children and who lived in solitary state. The sermon had now commenced, but Phillis turned a deaf ear to the sentences over which Mr. Drummond had expended so much labor: her attention was riveted by the gloomy beautiful face before her, which alternately attracted and repelled her.

As though disturbed by some magnetic influence, Mrs. Cheyne raised her eyes slowly and looked at Phillis. Something in the girl's keen-eyed glance seemed to move her strangely. The color crept into her pale face, and her lip quivered: a moment afterwards she drew down her veil and leaned back in her seat and Phillis, somewhat abashed, endeavored fruitlessly to gather up the thread of the sermon.

"There! it is over! We have made our _debut_," she said, a little recklessly, as they walked back to Beach House, where Mrs. Challoner and Dulce were still staying. And as Nan looked at her, a little shocked and mystified by this unusual flippancy, she continued in the same excited way:

"Was it not strange Mr. Drummond choosing that text, 'Consider the lilies'? He looked at us; I am sure he did, mother. It was quite a tirade against dress and vanity; but I am sure no one could find fault with us."

"It was a very good sermon, and I think he seems a very clever young man," returned Mrs. Challoner, with a sigh, for the service had been a long weariness for her. She had not been unmindful of the attention her girls had caused; but if people only knew--And here the poor lady had clasped her hands and put up pet.i.tions that were certainly not in the Litany.

Phillis seemed about to say something, but she checked herself, and they were all a little silent until they reached the house. This first Sunday was an infliction to them all: it was a day of enforced idleness. There was too much time for thought and room for regret. In spite of all Phillis's efforts,--and she rattled on cheerily most of the afternoon,--Mrs. Challoner got one of her bad headaches, from worry, and withdrew to her room, attended by Dulce, who volunteered to bathe her head and read her to sleep.

The church-bells were just ringing for the evening service, and Nan rose, as usual, to put on her hat; but Phillis stopped her:

"Oh, Nan, do not let us go to church again this evening. I am terribly wicked to-day, I know, but somehow I cannot keep my thoughts in order.

So what is the use of making the attempt? Let us take out our prayer-books and sit on the beach: it is low tide, and a walk over the sands would do us good after our dreadful week."

"If you are sure it would not be wrong," hesitated Nan, whose conscience was a little hard to convince in such matters.

"No, no. And the run will do Laddie good. The poor little fellow has been shut up in this room all day. We need not tell the mother. She would be shocked, you know. But we never have stayed away from church before, have we? And, to tell you the truth," continued Phillis, with an unsteady laugh that betrayed agitation to her sister's ear, "though I faced it very well this morning, I do not feel inclined to go through it again. People stared so. And I could not help thinking all the time, 'If they only knew!'--that was the thought that kept buzzing in my head. If only Mr. Drummond and all those people knew!"

"What does it matter what people think?" returned Nan. But she said it languidly. In her heart she was secretly dismayed at this sudden failure of courage. Phillis had been quite bold and merry all the day, almost reckless in her speeches.

"I am glad we came. This will do us both good," said Nan, gently, as they left the parade behind them, and went slowly over the shelving beach, with Laddie rolling like a clumsy black ball about their feet.

Just before them there was a pretty black-timbered cottage, covered with roses, standing quite low on the sh.o.r.e, and beyond this was nothing but shingly beach, and a stretch of wet, yellow sand, on which the sun was shining. There was a smooth white boulder standing quite alone, on which the girls seated themselves. The tide was still going out; and the low wash of waves sounded pleasantly in their ears as they advanced and then receded. A shimmer of silvery light played upon the water, and a rosy tinge began to tint the horizon.

"How quiet and still it is!" said Phillis, in an awe-struck voice.

"When we are tired we must come here to rest ourselves. How prettily those baby waves seem to babble! it is just like the gurgle of baby laughter. And look at Laddie splashing in that pool: he is after that poor little crab. Come here, you rogue!" But Laddie, intent upon his sport, only c.o.c.ked his ear restlessly and refused to obey.

"Yes, it is lovely," returned Nan. "There is quite a silvery path over the water; by and by the sunset clouds will be beautiful. But what is the matter, dear?" as Phillis sighed and leaned heavily against her; and then, as she turned, she saw the girl's eyes were wet.

"Oh, Nan! shall we have strength for it? That is what I keep asking myself to-day. No you must not look so frightened. I am brave enough generally, and I do not mean to lose pluck; but now and then the thought will come to me, Shall we have strength to go through with it?"

"We must think of each other; that must keep us up," returned Nan, whose ready sympathy fully understood her sister's mood. Only to Nan would Phillis ever own her failure of courage or fears for the future.

But now and then the brave young heart needed comfort, and always found it in Nan's sympathy.

"It was looking at your dear beautiful face that made me feel so suddenly bad this morning," interrupted Phillis, with a sort of sob.

"It was not the people so much; they only amused and excited me, and I kept thinking, 'If they only knew!' But, Nan, when I looked at you--oh, why are you so nice and pretty, if you have got to do this horrid work?"

"I am not a bit nicer than you and Dulce," laughed Nan, embracing her, for she never could be made to understand that by most people she was considered their superior in good looks. The bare idea made her angry.

"It is worse for you, Phillis, because you are so clever and have so many ideas. But there! we must not go on pitying each other, or else, indeed, we shall undermine our little stock of strength."

"But don't you feel terribly unhappy sometimes?" persisted Phillis.

Neither of them mentioned d.i.c.k, and yet he was in both their minds.

"Perhaps I do," returned Nan, simply; and then she added, with quaintness that was pathetic, "You see, we are so unused to the feeling, and it is over-hard at first: by and by we shall be more used to not having our own way in things."