"And when are they to be married?" asked her cousin, curiously. He was not quite pleased with this discovery.

"When?--Oh, Harry, there is an 'if' in the case," returned Phillis, solemnly. "The dearest fellow in the world has an ogre of a father,--a man so benighted, so narrow in his prejudices, that he thinks it decidedly _infra dig._ for his intended daughter in-law to sew other people's gowns. I do love that expression. Harry: it is so forcible.

So he forbids the banns."

"No, really!--Is she serious, Nan?" But Nan grew shy all at once, and would not answer.

"I am serious, Sir Henry Challoner," replied Phillis, pompously. "The path of true love is impeded. Poor d.i.c.k is pining in his rooms at Oxford; and Nan--well, I am afraid her looks belie her; only you know appearances are sometimes deceitful." And indeed Nan's pink cheeks and air of placid contentment scarcely bore out her sister's words.

The newly found cousin sat in silent perplexity staring at them both.

Love-affairs were not much in his way; and until now he had never been thrown much with his equals in the other s.e.x. His rough colonial life, full of excitement and money-getting, had engrossed his youth. He was now a man of thirty; but in disposition, in simplicity, and in a certain guilelessness of speech, he seemed hardly more than an overgrown boy.

"Well, now, is it not like a book?" he said, at last, breaking the silence quite abruptly. "It must be an awful bother for you, Nan; but we must put a stop to all that. I am the head of the family; and I shall have a word to say to that Mr.--what is his name?"

"Mr. Mayne," returned Nan, softly.

It was at this moment that the name of Hercules came into Phillis's head for her cousin. What feats of strength did he mean to undertake on their behalf? Would he strangle the hydra-headed monster of public opinion that p.r.o.nounced "women who sewed other women's gowns" were not to be received into society? Would he help Nan gather the golden apples of satisfied love and ambition? What was it that he meant to do by dint of sheer force and good nature?

Harry Challoner did not long leave them in ignorance of his intentions. In the coolest possible way he at once a.s.sumed the headship of the family,--adopting them at once, and giving them the benefit of his opinions on every point that could possibly be mooted.

"I had not a soul belonging to me until now," he said, looking around on his cousins' bright faces with a glow of honest satisfaction on his own. "It made a fellow feel precious lonely out there, I can tell you."

"You ought to have married, Harry," suggested Dulce.

"I never thought any one would care for such a great hulking fellow,"

he returned, simply; "and then the girls over there were not to my taste. Besides, I never thought of it; I was too busy. I am going to take a holiday now, and look about me a little; and when you and Aunt Catherine are settled, I may have a try myself at some one," he finished, with a big laugh.

This notion amused the girls immensely, then and afterwards. They began to talk of the future Lady Challoner. Nan proposed one of the Paines. Phillis thought if Grace Drummond were only as sweet-looking as her photograph he could hardly help falling in love with her. And Dulce was of opinion that Adelaide Sartoris, handsome and queenly as she was, would not consider a baronet beneath her. They confided all these thoughts to Sir Harry, who thanked them quite gravely for their interest and promised to consider the matter. He even wrote down the names in his pocket-book one after another.

"Adelaide Sartoris, did you say? Ah, we had an Adelaide at Sydney, a little, dark thing, with hair blown all over her temples, and such a pair of mischievous eyes: that girl was always laughing at me, somehow. And yet she seemed sorry to bid me good-bye."

"Perhaps she was in love with you?" observed Dulce. But Phillis frowned at this. She thought they had gone too far in their jokes already with a cousin who was such a complete stranger. But he returned, quite gravely,--

"Well, now, you know, such a thing never came into my head. I talked to her because a fellow likes to be amused by a lively girl like Miss Addie. But as to thinking seriously of her--well, I could not stand that, you know to be laughed at all one's life; eh, Miss Mattie?" And Mattie, at this appeal, looked up with round, innocent eyes, and said, "Certainly not," in such an impressive tone that the other girls burst out laughing.

They all went home after that. Sir Harry escorted his cousins and Mattie to the Friary, and then returned to his hotel to dinner. But the girls, who were in a merry mood, would not part with Mattie. They sent her home to put on her green silk dress, with strict orders that she was to return as soon as possible.

"We are all going to make ourselves pretty," announced Phillis. "A cousin does not turn up every day; and when he promises to be a good fellow, like Harry, we cannot do him too much honor."

"Ah, I should like to come," returned Mattie. "I have had such a nice day; and, if Archie will not mind----" And then she bustled into the vicarage, and into her brother's study.

Archie roused himself a little wearily from his abstraction to listen to his sister's story; but at the end of it he said good-naturedly, for he had taught himself to be tolerant of Mattie's little gaucheries,--

"And the long and short of it is that you want to be gadding again.

Well, run and get ready, or you will keep their tea waiting; and do put on your collar straight, Mattie." But this slight thrust was lost on Mattie as she delightedly withdrew. Archie sighed as he tried to compose himself to his reading. He had not been asked to join Mattie.

For the last few weeks he had become a stranger to the cottage. Did they notice his absence? he wondered. Did they miss the visits that had once been so frequent? By and by he would resume his old habits of intimacy, and go among them as he had done; but just now the effort was too painful. He dreaded the unspoken sympathy in Phillis's eyes.

He dreaded anything like an understanding between them. Nan's perfect unconsciousness was helpful to him; but there was something in Phillis's manner that stirred up an old pain. For the present he was safer and happier alone in his study, though Mattie did not think so, and told her friends that Archie looked terribly dull.

Mrs. Challoner proposed sending for him; but Phillis, greatly to her mother's surprise, negatived the proposition:

"Oh, no, mother; pray do not! Mattie, you must excuse me. I do not mean to be rude, but we should all have to be so dreadfully well-behaved if Mr. Drummond came, and I just feel myself in a 'nonsense mood,' as Dulce used to say when she was a baby." And then they all forgot Archie, and fell to discussing the new cousin.

"He is dreadfully ugly, mammie, is he not?" observed Dulce, who had a horror of red hair. But Mrs. Challoner demurred:

"Well, no, pet; I cannot agree with you. He is very plain, but so is d.i.c.k; but it struck me they were both rather alike." An indignant "How can you, mother!" from Nan. "Well, my dear," she continued, placidly, "I do not mean really alike, for they have not a feature in common; but they have both got the same honest, open look, only d.i.c.k's face is more intelligent." But this hardly appeased Nan, who was heard to say under her breath "that she thought d.i.c.k had the nicest face in the world."

"And Sir Harry has a nice face too: has he not, Mrs. Challoner?"

exclaimed Mattie, who never could be silent in a discussion. "It takes time to get used to such very red hair; and, of course, he is dreadfully big,--almost too big, I should say. But when he talks he has such a good-natured way with him; now, hasn't he?" appealing to Nan, who looked just a little glum,--that is, glum for Nan, for she could not do the sulks properly; she could only look dignified.

Mrs. Challoner grew a little alarmed at her daughter's demure face: "Nan, darling, you know I am as fond of d.i.c.k as possible; but I cannot help being pleased with my new nephew, can I? And I must say I think Harry is very nice, in spite of his roughness." But here Phillis, who had been unaccountably silent, suddenly struck in:

"Mother, it was a mistake mentioning d.i.c.k: the name is sacred. Nan, if it will please you we will declare that he is beautiful as a young Apollo."

"Don't be a goose, Phil!" from her sister. But Nan was smiling.

"As for Harry, he is a perfect hero. I expect great things from the great man. To my imagination he is a perfect Hercules,--Heracles, son of Zeus and Alcmene. I wonder if Harry could tell us the name of Hercules's mother?"

"Of course not, and no one else either," retorted Dulce.

But Phillis did not heed this.

"To me he shall be the young Alcides. He has promised to fight the Nemaean lion, in the shape of Richard Mayne the elder. By and by we shall have him striking off the heads of the Lernean Hydra. You look mystified, Nan. And I perceive Mattie has a perplexed countenance. I am afraid you are deficient in heathen mythology; but I will spare your ignorance. You will see, though, I am right----"

"But, Phillis----" broke in Dulce, eagerly. But Phillis waved her hand majestically at the interruption:

"Mother, to be serious, I consider Harry in the light of a providential interposition. You are always mourning that there is not a man belonging to us. Well, now we have got one, large as life, and larger, and a very good fellow, as you say; and we are no longer 'forlorn females.'"

"And indeed, Phillis, I am most thankful for that, my dear; for if Harry be only as good as a brother to you----"

"He means to be more," returned Phillis, with a sage nod of her head.

"He talks in the coolest way, as though he had adopted the whole family and meant to put a spoke into the domestic wheel. 'I must put a stop to this,' or, 'That must be altered,' has been a frequent remark of his. Mother, if he is dreadfully rich, as he says, does he mean to make us rich too?"

"My dear, we have no claim on him."

"He thinks we have the strongest possible claim: does he not, Nan? You should have heard him talk this afternoon! According to him, we were never to sew gowns again; Nan and d.i.c.k were to be immediately united; the Friary was to be pulled down, and a glorified Glen Cottage to be erected in its stead. But mother,"--here Phillis's lip grew plaintive,--"you won't desert your own girls, and be talked over even by an Alcides? We do not mean to have our little deeds all put on the shelf in that off-hand fashion. I shall sew gowns as long as I like, in spite of a hundred Sir Harrys."

And then they perceived that under Phillis's fun there was a vein of serious humor, and that, in spite of her admiration of her hero, she was a little afraid that her notions of independence would be wounded.

They became divided on the question. Mrs. Challoner, who had never had a son of her own, and did not much like the idea of a son-in-law, was disposed to regard her nephew warmly, and to accord to him at once his privilege of being head of the family.

"In this case, a cousin is as good as a brother," she averred; and Nan rather leaned to her opinion.

"You see," she said, in her practical way, addressing no one in particular, but looking at Phillis, "it has been terribly against us, having no one belonging to us of the same name; and it will really give us a standing with some sort of people."

"Fie, Nan! what a worldly speech! You are thinking of that tiresome Mayne _pere_ again."

"I have to think of him," returned Nan, not at all put out by this.

"d.i.c.k's father must be a person of great importance to me. He has often hinted in my hearing that we have no relations, and that the Challoner name will die out. I expect he will be rather taken aback at Harry's appearance."

"Yes; and d.i.c.k will be jealous: he always is of other fellows, as he calls them. You must score that up against d.i.c.k, please. Well, I won't deny that Harry may make himself useful there: all I protest against is the idea that he will bundle us out of this dear old Friary, and make us grand, in spite of ourselves."