"Oh! so your mother is coming home!" returned Mrs. Cheyne, with so much interest in her voice that Miss Mewlstone left off counting to look at her. ("Just so, just so," Phillis heard her mutter.) "You must have worked hard to get ready for her so soon. When my foot will allow me to cross a room without hobbling, I will do myself the pleasure of calling on her. But that will be neither this week nor the next, I am afraid. But I shall see a good deal of you and your sister before then," she concluded, with the graciousness of one who knows she is conferring an unusual honor.

"I do not know," faltered Phillis. And then she sat upright, and looked her hostess full in the face. "That will be for you to decide when you hear what I have to say. But I fear"--with a very poor attempt at a smile--"that we shall see very little of each other in the future."

"Oh, there is a mystery, is there?" returned Mrs. Cheyne, with a little scorn in her manner; and her mouth took one of the downward curves that Mr. Drummond so thoroughly disliked. She had taken an odd fancy to these girls, especially to Phillis, and had thought about them a good deal during a sleepless, uneasy night. Their simplicity, their straightforward unconsciousness, had attracted her in spite of her cynicism. But at the first suspicion of mystery she withdrew into herself rather haughtily. "Do speak out, I beg, Miss Challoner; for if there be one thing that makes me impatient, it is to have anything implied."

"I am quite of your opinion," replied Phillis, with equal haughtiness, only it sat more strangely on her girlishness. "That is why I am here to-night,--just to inquire after your foot and explain things."

"Well?" still more impatiently, for this woman was a spoiled child, and hated to be thwarted, and was undisciplined and imperious enough to ruin all her own chances of happiness.

"I told you that we were very poor," went on Phillis, in a sweet and steady voice; "but that did not seem to impress you much, and I thought how n.o.ble that was,"--catching her breath an instant; "but it will make a difference and shock you dreadfully, as it did Mr.

Drummond, when I tell you we are dressmakers,--Nan and Dulce and I: at least that will be our future occupation."

"Ah, just so!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Mewlstone; but she said it with her lips far apart, and a mistiness came into her sleepy blue eyes.

Perhaps, though she was stout and middle-aged and breathed a little too heavily at times, she remembered--long ago when she was young and poor and had to wage a bitter war with the world--when she ate the dry bread and drank the bitter water of dependence and felt herself ill nourished by such unpalatable sustenance. "Oh, just so, poor thing!"

And a little round tear dripped on to the ball of scarlet fleecy wool.

But Mrs. Cheyne listened to the announcement in far different mood.

There was an incredulous stare at Phillis, as though she suspected her of a joke; and then she laughed, a dry, harsh laugh, that was not quite pleasant to hear.

"Oh, this is droll, pa.s.sing droll!" she said, and leaned back on her cushions, and drew her Indian cashmere round her and frowned a little.

"I am glad you find it so," returned Phillis, who was nonplussed at this, and did not know what to say, and was a little angry in consequence; and then she got up from her chair with a demonstration of spirit. "I am glad you find it so; but to us it is sad earnestness!"

"What! are you going?" asked Mrs. Cheyne, with a keen glance through her half-shut eyes at poor Phillis standing so tall and straight before her. "And you have not told me the reason for taking so strange a step!"

"The reason lies in our poverty and paucity of resources," was Phillis's curt reply.

"It is not to make a sensation, then? no, I did not mean that," as Phillis shot an indignant glance at her,--"not exactly; but there is no knowing what the emanc.i.p.ated girl will do. Of course I have no right to question, who was a stranger to you four-and-twenty hours ago, and had never heard the name of Challoner, except that it was a good and an old name; but when one sees young things like you about to forfeit caste and build up a barrier between yourselves and your equals that the bravest will fear to pa.s.s, it seems as though one must lift up one's voice in protest."

"Thank you; but it will be of no use," returned Phillis, coldly.

"You are determined to make other people's dresses?" And here her lip curled a little, perhaps involuntarily.

"We must must make dresses or starve; for our fingers are cleverer than our brains," replied Phillis, defiantly; for she knew nothing about it, and her powers were so immature and unfledged that she had never tried her wings, and had no notion whether she could fly or not, and yet no girl had a clearer head. "We have chosen work that we know we can do well, and we mean not to be ashamed of our occupation. In the old days ladies used to spin and weave, and no one blamed them, though they were n.o.ble; and if my work will bring me money, and keep the mother comfortable, I see nothing that will prevent my doing it."

"Ah, you are romantic, Miss Challoner; you will soon be taught matter-of-fact!"

"I am willing to learn anything, but I must choose my teachers,"

retorted Phillis, with a little heat, for the word "romantic," and the satirical droop of Mrs. Cheyne's lip made her decidedly cross. "But I must not detain you any more with our uninteresting affairs," dropping a little courtesy, half in pique and half in mockery, for her spirits were rising under this rough treatment.

"It is far from uninteresting; I have not heard anything so exciting for a long time. Well, perhaps you had better go before I say anything very rude, for I am terribly outspoken, and I think you are all silly self-willed young people." Then, as Phillis bridled her neck like an untamed colt, she caught hold of the girl's dress to detain her, and the sharpness pa.s.sed out of her eyes. "Now, don't go away and believe that I think any worse of you for telling me this. I am a cross-grained body, and contradiction makes me worse. I don't know how I shall act: I must have time to consider this extraordinary bit of news. But all the same, whatever I do, whether I know you or do not know you, I shall always think you the very bravest girl I ever saw."

And then she let her go, and Phillis, with her head in the air and her thoughts all topsy-turvy, marched out of the room.

But when she reached the end of the corridor there was a soft but distinctly audible breathing behind her, and, as in Mr. Drummond's case Miss Mewlstone's shadowy gray gown swept between her and the door.

"Miss Mewlstone, how you startled me! but the carpets are so soft and thick!"

"Yes, indeed! just so, my dear; but Phillips must be asleep as he does not answer the bell, and so I thought I would let you out. You are young to walk alone: shall I throw a shawl over my cap, and walk down the road with you?"

"Not for worlds, my dear Miss Mewlstone;" but Phillis was quite touched at this unexpected kindness. Miss Mewlstone did not look sleepy now; her small blue eyes were wide open, and her round placid face wore a most kindly expression, and there was a tremulous movement of her hands, as though they were feeling after something. "It is only such a little bit of road; and though the trees make it dark, I am not the least afraid of going alone."

"Ah! just so. When we are young, we are brave; it is the old who are afraid of the gra.s.shopper. I like your spirit, my dear; and so does she, though she is a little taken aback and disappointed; but anything that interests and rouses her is welcome. Even this may do her good; for it will give her something to think about besides her own troubles."

"I have heard of her troubles----" began Phillis; but a moving door arrested Miss Mewlstone's attention, and she interrupted her hurriedly:

"Ah! there is Phillips at last. Just so; you shall hear from me again.

It is a gray satin,--one of her presents,--but I have never had it made up; for what is the use, when we keep no company?" went on Miss Mewlstone incoherently. "Oh! is that you, Phillips? Please go with this young lady to the lodge-gate.--You shall make it after your own fashion," she whispered in Phillis's ear; "and I am not as particular as other people. There is Magdalene now. Ah! just so. Good-night, my dear; and mind the sc.r.a.per by the gate."

Phillis was almost sorry when the obsequious Phillips left her; for the road certainly looked terribly dark. There was no moon, and the stars chose to be invisible; and there was a hot thundery feeling in the air that suggested a storm. And she moved aside with a slight sensation of uneasiness--not fear, of course not fear--as a tall, gloomy-looking figure bore swiftly down on her; for, even if a girl be ever so brave, a very tall man walking fast on a dark night with a slouching hat like a conspirator's is rather a terrifying object; and how could she know that it was only Archie Drummond in his old garden-hat, taking a const.i.tutional?

But he brought himself up in front of her with a sudden jerk.

"Miss Challoner!--alone at this time of night!"

"Why, it is not ten; and I could not wait for Dorothy to fetch me,"

returned Phillis, bound to defend herself, and quite palpitating with relief; not that she was afraid--not a bit of it!--but still, Mr.

Drummond's presence was very welcome.

"I suppose I shall do as well as Dorothy?" he returned veering round with the greatest ease, just as though he were d.i.c.k, and bound to escort a Challoner. "Challoners' Squire,"--that was d.i.c.k's name among people.

"Oh poor d.i.c.k!" thought Phillis, with a sudden rush of tenderness for her old playmate; and then she said, demurely but with a spice of malice,--

"Thank you, Mr. Drummond. The road is so gloomy that I shall be glad of your escort this evening, but we shall have to do without that sort of thing now, for our business may often bring us out after dark, and we must learn not to be too particular."

"Oh, this must not be!" he returned, decidedly; and, though it was too dark to see his face, she knew by his voice that he was dreadfully shocked. "I must see your mother and talk to her about this; for it would never do for you to run such risks. I could not allow it for a moment; and as your clergyman"--coming down from his high horse, and stammering a little,--"I have surely--surely a right----" But Phillis snapped him up in a moment, and pretty sharply too, for she had no notion of a young man giving himself airs and torturing her.

"Oh, no right at all!" she a.s.sured him: "clergymen could only rebuke evil-doers, to which cla.s.s she and her sisters did not belong, thank heaven!" to which Mr. Drummond devoutly said an "amen." "And would he please tell her if dressmakers were always met two and two, like the animals in the ark? and how would it sound when she or Nan had been fitting on a dress, on a winter's evening, if they were to refuse to leave the house until Dorothy fetched them? and how----" But here Mr.

Drummond checked her, and the darkness hid his smile.

"Now you are beyond me, Miss Challoner. In a matter of detail, a man, even a parson, is often at fault. Is there no other way of managing this odious business? Forgive me; the word slipped out by accident!

Could you not do the fitting, or whatever you call it, by daylight, and stay at home quietly in the evening like other young ladies?"

"Of course not," returned Phillis, promptly. She had not the least idea why it could not be done; indeed, if she had been perfectly cool--which she was not, for Mrs. Cheyne had decidedly stroked her the wrong way and ruffled her past endurance--she would have appreciated the temperate counsel vouchsafed her, and acquiesced in it without a murmur; but now she seemed bent on contradiction.

"Our opinions seem to clash to-night," returned Mr. Drummond, good-humoredly, but feeling that the young lady beside him had decidedly a will of her own. "She is very nice, but she is not as gentle as her sister," he said to himself; which was hard on Phillis, who, though she was not meek, being a girl of spirit, was wholesomely sweet and sound to the heart's core.

"One may be supposed to know one's business best," she replied rather dryly to this. And then, fearing that she might seem ungracious to a stranger, who did not know her and her little ways, she went on in a more cordial tone: "I am afraid you think me a little cross to-night; but I have been having a stand-up fight, and am rather tired. Trying to battle against other people's prejudices makes one irritable. And then, because I am down and out of heart about things, our clergyman thinks fit to lecture me on propriety."

"Only for your good. You must forgive me if I have taken too much upon myself," returned Mr. Drummond, with much compunction. "You seem so lonely,--no father or brother; at least--pardon me--I believe you have no brother?"

"Oh, no; we have no brother," sighed Phillis. Their acquaintance was in too early a stage to warrant her in bringing in d.i.c.k's name.

Besides, that sort of heterogeneous relationship is so easily misconstrued. And then she added, "I see. You meant to be very kind, and I was very ungrateful."

"I only wish I could find some way of helping you all," was his reply to this. But it was said with such frank kindness that Phillis's brief haughtiness vanished. They were standing at the gate of the Friary by this time; but Mr. Drummond still lingered. It was Phillis who dismissed him.

"Good-night, and many thanks," she said, brightly. "It is too late to ask you in, for you see, even dressmakers have their notions of propriety." And as she uttered this malicious little speech, the young man broke into a laugh that was heard by Dorothy in her little kitchen.

"Oh, that is too bad of you, Miss Challoner," he said, as soon as he recovered himself; but, nevertheless, he liked the girl better for her little joke.