CHAPTER IX.A LONG DAY.
Nan never recalled the memory of that “long gray day,” as she inwardly termed it, without a shiver of discomfort.
Never but once in her bright young life had she known such a day, and that was when her dead father lay in the darkened house, and her widowed mother had crept weeping into her63arms as to her only remaining refuge; but that stretched so far back into the past that it had grown into a vague remembrance.
It was not only that Dick was gone, though the pain of that separation was far greater than she would have believed possible, but a moral earthquake had shattered their little world, involving them in utter chaos.
It was only yesterday that she was singing ballads in the Longmead drawing-room,—only yesterday; but to-day everything was changed. The sun shone, the birds sang, every one ate and drank and moved about as usual. Nan talked and smiled, and no stranger would have guessed that much was amiss; nevertheless, a weight lay heavy on her spirits, and Nan knew in her secret heart that she could never be again the same light-hearted, easy-going creature that she was yesterday.
Later on, the sisters confessed to each other that the day had been perfectly interminable; the hours dragged on slowly; the sun seemed as though it never meant to set; and to add to their trouble, their mother looked so ill when she came downstairs, wrapped in her soft white shawl in spite of the heat, that Nan thought of sending for a doctor, and only refrained at the remembrance that they had no right to such luxuries now except in cases of necessity.
Then Dorothy was in one of her impracticable moods, throwing cold water on all her young mistress’s suggestions, and doing her best to disarrange the domestic machinery. Dorothy suspected a mystery somewhere; her young ladies had sat up half the night, and looked pale and owlish in the morning. If they chose to keep her in the dark and not take her into their confidence, it was their affair; but she meant to show them what she thought of their conduct. So she contradicted and snapped, until Nan told her wearily that she was a disagreeable old thing, and left her and Susan to do as they liked. She knew Mr. Trinder was waiting for her in the dining-room, and, as Mrs. Challoner was not well enough to see him, she and Phillis must entertain him.
He had slept at a friend’s house a few miles from Oldfield, and was to lunch at Glen Cottage and take the afternoon train to London.
He was not sorry when he heard that Mrs. Challoner was too indisposed to receive him. In spite of his polite expressions of regret, he had found the poor lady terribly trying on the previous evening. She was a bad manager, and had muddled her affairs, and she did not seem to understand half of what he told her; and her tears and lamentations when she had realized the truth had been too much for the soft hearted old bachelor, though people did call him a woman-hater.
“But I never could bear to see a woman cry; it is as bad as watching an animal in pain,” he half growled, as he drew out his red pocket-handkerchief and used it rather noisily.64
It was easier work to explain everything to these two bright, sensible girls. Phillis listened and asked judicious questions; but Nan sat with downcast face, plaiting the table-cloth between her restless fingers, and thinking of Dick at odd intervals.
She took it all in, however, and roused up in earnest when Mr. Trinder had finished his explanations, and Phillis began to talk in her turn; she was actually taking the old lawyer into her confidence, and detailing their scheme in the most business-like way.
“The mother does not know yet,—this is all in confidence; but Nan and I have made up our minds to take this step,” finished the young philosopher, calmly.
“Bless my soul,” ejaculated Mr. Trinder,—he had given vent to this expression at various intervals, but had not further interrupted her. “Bless my soul! my dear young ladies, I think—but excuse me if I am too abrupt, but you must be dreaming.”
Phillis shook her head smilingly; and as Dorothy came into the room that moment to lay the luncheon, she proposed a turn in the garden, and fetched Mr. Trinder’s hat herself, and guided him to a side-walk, where they could not be seen from the drawing-room windows. Nan followed them, and tried to keep step with Mr. Trinder’s shambling footsteps, as he walked between the girls with a hot perplexed face, and still muttering to himself at intervals.
“It is all in confidence,” repeated Phillis, in the same calm voice.
“And you are actually serious? you are not joking?”
“Do your clients generally joke when they are ruined?” returned Phillis, with natural exasperation. “Do you think Nan and I are in such excellent spirits that we could originate such a piece of drollery? Excuse me, Mr. Trinder, but I must say I do not think your remark quite well timed.” And Phillis turned away with a little dignity.
“No, no! now you are put out, and no wonder!” returned Mr. Trinder, soothingly; and he stood quite still on the gravel path, and fixed his keen little eyes on the two young creatures before him,—Nan, with her pale cheeks and sad eyes, and Phillis, alert, irritated, full of repressed energy. “Dear, dear! what a pity!” groaned the old man; “two such bonnie lasses and to think a little management and listening to my advice would have kept the house over your heads, if only your mother would have hearkened to me!”
“It is too late for all that now, Mr. Trinder,” replied Phillis, impatiently: “isn’t it waste of time crying over spilt milk when we must be taking our goods to market? We must make the best of our little commodities,” sighed the girl. “If we were only clever and accomplished, we might do better; but now––” and Phillis left her sentence unfinished, which was a way she had, and which people thought very telling.65
“But, my dear young lady, with all your advantages, and––” Here Phillis interrupted him rather brusquely.
“What advantages? do you mean we had a governess? Well, we had three, one after the other; and they were none of them likely to turn out first-rate pupils. Oh, we are well enough, compared to other girls: if we had not to earn our own living, we should not be so much amiss. But, Nan, why don’t you speak? why do you leave me all the hard work? Did you not tell us last night that you were not fit for a governess?”
Nan felt rather ashamed of her silence after this. It was true that she was leaving all the onus of their plan on Phillis, and it was certainly time for her to come to her rescue. So she quietly but rather shyly endorsed her sister’s speech, and assured Mr. Trinder that they had carefully considered the matter from every point of view, and, though it was a very poor prospect and involved a great deal of work and self-sacrifice, she, Nan, thought that Phillis was right, and that it was the best—indeed the only—thing they could do under the circumstances.
“For myself, I prefer it infinitely to letting lodgings,” finished Nan: and Phillis looked at her gratefully.
But Mr. Trinder was obstinate and had old-fashioned views, and argued the whole thing in his dictatorial masculine way. They sat down to luncheon, and presently sent Dorothy away,—a piece of independence that bitterly offended that crabbed but faithful individual,—and wrangled busily through the whole of the meal.
Mr. Trinder never could remember afterwards whether it was lamb or mutton he had eaten; he had a vague idea that Dulce had handed him the mint-sauce, and that he had declined it and helped himself to salad. The doubt disturbed him for the first twenty miles of his homeward journey. “Good gracious! for a man not to know whether he is eating lamb or mutton!” he soliloquized, as he vainly tried to enjoy his usual nap; “but then I never was so upset in my life. Those pretty creatures, and Challoners too,—bless my soul!” And here the lawyer’s cogitations became confused and misty.
Nan, who had more than once seen tears in the lawyer’s shrewd little gray eyes, had been very gentle and tolerant over the old man’s irritability; but Phillis had resented his caustic speeches somewhat hotly. Dulce, who was on her best behavior, was determined not to interfere or say a word to thwart her sisters: she even went so far as to explain to Mr. Trinder that they would not have to carry parcels, as Phillis meant to hire a boy. She had no idea that this magnanimous speech was in a figurative manner the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Mr. Trinder pushed back his chair hastily, made some excuse that his train must be due, and beat a retreat an hour before the time, unable to pursue such a painful subject any longer.
Nan rose, with a sigh of relief, as soon as the door closed upon their visitors, and took refuge in the shady drawing-room with66her mother, whom she found in a very tearful, querulous state, requiring a great deal of soothing. They had decided that no visitors were to be admitted that afternoon.
“You may say your mistress is indisposed with a bad headache, Dorothy, and that we are keeping the house quiet,” Nan remarked, with a little dignity, with the remembrance of that late passage of arms.
“Very well, Miss Nan,” returned the old servant. However, she was a little cowed by Nan’s manner: such an order had never before been given in the cottage. Mrs. Challoner’s headaches were common events in every-day life, and had never been known before to interfere with their afternoon receptions. A little eau de Cologne and extra petting, a stronger cup of tea served up to her in her bedroom, had been the only remedies; the girls had always had their tennis as usual, and the sound of their voices and laughter had been as music in their mother’s ears.
“Very well, Miss Nan,” was all Dorothy ventured to answer; but she withdrew with a face puckered up with anxiety. She took in the tea-tray unbidden at an earlier hour than usual; there were Dulce’s favorite hot cakes, and some rounds of delicately-buttered toast, “for the young ladies have not eaten above a morsel at luncheon,” said Dorothy in explanation to her mistress.
“Never mind us,” returned Nan, with a friendly nod at the old woman: “it has been so hot to-day,” And then she coaxed her mother to eat, and made believe herself to enjoy the repast while she wondered how many more evenings they would spend in the pretty drawing-room on which they had expended so much labor.
Nan had countermanded the late dinner, which they all felt would be a pretence and mockery; and as Mrs. Challoner’s headache refused to yield to the usual remedies, she was obliged to retire to bed as soon as the sun set, and the three girls went out in the garden, and walked up and down the lawn with their arms interlaced, while Dorothy watched them from the pantry window, and wiped away a tear or two, as she washed up the tea-things.
“How I should like a long walk?” exclaimed Dulce, impatiently. “It is so narrow and confined here; but it would never do: we should meet people.”
“No, it would never do,” agreed her sisters, feeling a fresh pang that such avoidance was necessary. They had never hidden anything before, and the thought that this mystery lay between them and their friends was exquisitely painful.
“I feel as though I never cared to see one of them again!” sighed poor Nan, for which speech she was rather sharply rebuked by Phillis.
They settled a fair amount of business before they went to bed that night; and when Dorothy brought in the supper-tray, bearing a little covered dish in triumph, which she set down before67Nan, Nan looked at her with grave, reproachful eyes, in there was a great deal of kindness.
“You should not do this, Dorothy,” she said, very gently: “we cannot afford such delicacies now.”
“It is your favorite dish, Miss Nan,” returned Dorothy, quite ignoring this remark. “Susan has cooked it to a nicety; but it will be spoiled if it is not eaten hot.” And she stood over them, while Nan dispensed the dainty. “You must eat it while it is hot,” she kept saying, as she fidgeted about the room, taking up things and putting them down again. Phillis looked at Nan with a comical expression of dismay.
“Dorothy, come here,” she exclaimed, at last, pushing away her plate. “Don’t you see that Susan is wasting all her talents on us, and that we can’t eat to-day?”
“Every one can eat if they try, Miss Phillis,” replied Dorothy, oracularly. “But a thing like that must be hot, or it is spoiled.”
“Oh, never mind about it being hot,” returned Phillis, beginning to laugh. She was so tired, and Dorothy was such a droll old thing; and how were even stewed pigeons to be appetizing under the circumstances?
“Oh, you may laugh,” began Dorothy, in an offended tone; but Phillis took hold of her and nearly shook her.
“Oh, what a stupid old thing you are! Don’t you know what a silly, aggravating old creature you can be when you like? If I laugh, it is because everything is so ludicrous and wretched. Nan and Dulce are not laughing.”
“No, indeed,” put in Dulce; “we are far, far too unhappy!”
“What is it, Miss Nan?” asked Dorothy, sidling up to her in a coaxing manner. “I am only an old servant, but it was me that put Miss Dulce in her father’s arms,—‘the pretty lamb,’ as he called her, and she with a skin like a lily. If there is trouble, you would not keep it from her old nurse, surely?”
“No, indeed, Dorothy: we want to tell you,” returned Nan touched by this appeal; and then she quietly recapitulated the main points that concerned their difficulties,—their mother’s loss, their future poverty, the necessity for leaving Glen Cottage and settling down at the Friary.
“We shall all have to work,” finished Nan, with prudent vagueness, not daring to intrust their plan to Dorothy: “the cottage is small, and, of course, we can only keep one servant.”
“I dare say I shall be able to manage if you will help me a little,” returned Dorothy, drying her old eyes with the corner of her apron. “Dear, dear! to think of such an affliction coming upon my mistress and the dear young ladies! It is like an earthquake or a flood, or something sudden and unexpected,—Lord deliver us! And to think of my speaking crossly to you Miss Nan, and you with all this worry on your mind!”
“We will not think of that,” returned Nan, soothingly. “Susan’s quarter will be up shortly, and we must get her away68as soon as possible. My great fear is that the work may be too much for you, poor Dorothy; and that—that—we may have to keep you waiting sometimes for your wages,” she added, rather hesitatingly fearing to offend Dorothy’s touchy temper, and yet determined to put the whole matter clearly before her.
“I don’t think we need talk about that,” returned Dorothy, with dignity. “I have not saved up my wages for nineteen years without having a nest-egg laid up for rainy days. Wages,—when I mention the word, Miss Nan,” went on Dorothy, waxing somewhat irate, “it will be time enough to enter upon that subject. I haven’t deserved such a speech; no, that I haven’t,” went on Dorothy, with a sob. “Wages, indeed!”
“Now, nursey, you shan’t be cross with Nan,” cried Dulce, throwing her arms round the old woman; for, in spite of her eighteen years, she was still Dorothy’s special charge. “She’s quite right; it may be an unpleasant subject, but we will not have you working for us for nothing.”
“Very well, Miss Dulce,” returned Dorothy, in a choked voice preparing to withdraw; but Nan caught hold of the hard work-worn hand, and held her fast.
“Oh, Dorothy, you would not add to our trouble now, when we are so terribly unhappy! I never meant to hurt your feelings by what I said. If you will only go to the Friary and help us to make the dear mother comfortable, I, for one, will be deeply grateful.”
“And you will not talk of wages?” asked Dorothy, mollified by Nan’s sweet, pleading tones.
“Not until we can afford to do so,” returned Nan, hastily, feeling that this was a safe compromise, and that they should be eked out somehow. And then, the stewed pigeons being regarded as a failure, Dorothy consented to remove the supper tray, and the long day was declared at an end.
CHAPTER X.THE FRIARY.
Oldfield was rather mystified by the Challoners’ movements. There were absolutely three afternoons during which Nan and her sisters were invisible. There was a tennis-party at the Paines’ on one of these days, but at the last minute they had excused themselves. Nan’s prettily-worded note was declared very vague and unsatisfactory, and on the following afternoon there was a regular invasion of the cottage,—Carrie Paine, and two of the Twentyman girls, and Adelaide Sartoris and her young brother Albert.69
They found Dulce alone, looking very sad and forlorn.
Nan and Phillis had gone down to Hadleigh that morning, she explained in rather a confused way: they were not expected back until the following evening.
On being pressed by Miss Sartoris as to the reason of this sudden trip, she added, rather awkwardly, that it was on business; her mother was not well,—oh, very far from well; and they had to look at a house that belonged to them, as the tenant had lately died.
This was all very plausible; but Dulce’s manner was so constrained, and she spoke with such hesitation, that Miss Sartoris was convinced that something lay behind. They went out in the garden, however, and chose sides for their game of tennis; and, though Dulce had never played so badly in her life, the fresh air and exercise did her good, and at the end of the afternoon she looked a little less drooping.
It was felt to be a failure, however, by the whole party; and when tea was over, there was no mention of a second game. “No, we will not stay any longer,” observed Isabella Twentyman, kissing the girl with much affection. “Of course we understand that you will be wanting to sit with your mother.”
“Yes, and if you do not come in to-morrow we shall quite know how it is,” added Miss Sartoris, good-naturedly, for which Dulce thanked her and looked relieved.
She stood at the hall door watching them as they walked down the village street, swinging their racquets and talking merrily.
“What happy girls!” she thought, with a sigh. Miss Sartoris was an heiress, and the Twentymans were rich, and every one knew that Carrie and Sophy Paine would have money. “None of them will have to work,” said poor Dulce sorrowfully to herself: “they can go on playing tennis and driving and riding and dancing as long as they like.” And then she went up to her mother’s room with lagging footsteps and a cloudy brow.
“You may depend upon it there is something amiss with those Challoners,” said Miss Sartoris, as soon as they were out of sight of the cottage; “no one has seen anything of them for the last three or four days, and I never saw Dulce so unlike herself.”
“Oh, I hope not,” returned Carrie, gravely, who had heard enough from her father to guess that there was pecuniary embarrassment at the bottom. “Poor little thing, she did seem rather subdued. How many people do you expect to muster to-morrow, Adelaide?” and then Miss Sartoris understood that the subject was to be changed.
While Dulce was trying to entertain her friends, Nan and Phillis were reconnoitring the Friary.
They had taken an early train to London, and had contrived to reach Hadleigh a little before three. They went first to70Beach House,—a small unpretending house on the Parade, kept by a certain Mrs. Mozley, with whom they had once lodged after Dulce had the measles.
The good woman received them with the utmost cordiality. Her place was pretty nearly filled, she told them proudly; the drawing-room had been taken for three months, and an elderly couple were in the dining-room.
“But there is a bedroom I could let you have for one night,” finished Mrs. Mozley, “and there is the little side parlor where you could have your tea and breakfast.” And when Nan had thanked her, and suggested the addition of chops to their evening meal, they left their modest luggage and set out for the Friary.
Phillis would have gone direct to their destination, but Nan pleaded for one turn on the Parade. She wanted a glimpse of the sea, and it was such a beautiful afternoon.
The tide was out, and the long black breakwaters were uncovered; the sun was shining on the wet shingles and narrow strip of yellow sand. The sea looked blue and unruffled, with little sparkles and gleams of light, and white sails glimmered on the horizon. Some boatmen were dragging a boat down the beach; it grated noisily over the pebbles. A merry party were about to embark,—a tall man in a straw hat, and two boys in knickerbockers. Their sisters were watching them. “Oh, Reggie, do be careful!” Nan heard one of the girls say, as he waded knee-deep into the water.
“Come, Nan, we ought not to dawdle like this!” exclaimed Phillis, impatiently; and they went on quickly, past the long row of old-fashioned white houses with the green before them and that sweet Sussex border of soft feathery tamarisk, and then past the cricket-field, and down to the whitewashed cottage of the Preventive Station; and then they turned back and walked towards the Steyne, and after that Nan declared herself satisfied.
There were plenty of people on the Parade, and most of them looked after the two girls as they passed. Nan’s sweet bloom and graceful carriage always attracted notice; and Phillis, although she generally suffered from comparison with her sister, was still very uncommon-looking.
“I should like to know who those young ladies are,” observed a military-looking man with a white moustache, who was standing at the Library door waiting for his daughter to make some purchases. “Look at them, Elizabeth: one of them is such a pretty girl, and they walk so well.”
“Dear father, I suppose they are only some new-comers: we shall see their names down in the visitors’ list by and by;” and Miss Middleton smiled as she took her father’s arm, for she was slightly lame. She knew strangers always interested him, and that he would make it his business for the next few days to find out everything about them.71
“Did you see that nice-looking woman?” asked Phillis, when they had passed. “She was quite young, only her hair was gray: fancy, a gray-haired girl!”
“Oh, she must be older than she looks,” returned Nan, indifferently.
She was not looking at people: she was far too busily engaged identifying each well-remembered spot.
There was the shabby little cottage, where she and her mother had once stayed after an illness of Mrs. Challoner’s. What odd little rooms they had occupied, looking over a strip of garden-ground full of marigolds! “Marigolds-all-in-a-row Cottage,” she had named it in her home letters. It was nearly opposite the White House where Mrs. Cheyne lived. Nan remembered her,—a handsome, sad-looking woman, who always wore black, and drove out in such handsome carriages.
“Always alone; how sad!” Nan thought; and she wondered, as they walked past the low stone walls with grassy mounds slopping from them, and a belt of shrubbery shutting out views of the house, whether Mrs. Cheyne lived there still.
They had reached a quiet country corner now; there was a clump of trees, guarded by posts and chains; a white house stood far back. There were two or three other houses, and a cottage dotted down here and there. The road looked shady and inviting. Nan began to look about her more cheerfully.
“I am glad it is so quiet, and so far away from the town, and that our neighbors will not be able to overlook us.”
“I was just thinking of that as a disadvantage,” returned Phillis, with placid opposition. “It is a pity, under the circumstances, that we are not nearer the town.” And after that Nan held her peace.
They were passing an old-fashioned house with a green door in the wall, when it suddenly opened, and a tall, grave looking young man, in clerical attire, came out quickly upon them, and then drew back to let them pass.
“I suppose that is the new vicar?” whispered Phillis, when they had gone a few steps. “You know poor old Dr. Musgrave is dead, and most likely that is his successor.”
“I forgot that was the vicarage,” returned Nan. But happily she did not turn round to look at it again; if she had done so, she would have seen the young clergyman still standing by the green door watching them. “It is a shabby, dull old house in front; but I remember that when mother and I returned Mrs. Musgrave’s call we were shown into such a dear old-fashioned drawing-room, with windows looking out on such a pleasant garden. I quite fell in love with it.”
“Well, we shall be near neighbors,” observed Phillis, somewhat shortly, as she paused before another green door, set in a long blank wall; “for here we are at the Friary, and I had better just run over the way and get the key from Mrs. Crump.”
Nan nodded, and then stood like an image of patience before72the shabby green door. Would it open and let them into a new untried life? What sort of fading hopes, of dim regrets, would be left outside when they crossed the threshold? The thought of the empty rooms, not yet swept and garnished, made her shiver: the upper windows looked blankly at her, like blind, unrecognizing eyes. She was quite glad when Phillis joined her again, swinging the key on her little finger, and humming a tune in forced cheerfulness.
“What a dull, shut-in place! I think the name of Friary suits it exactly,” observed Nan, disconsolately, as they went up the little flagged path, bordered with lilac-bushes. “It feels like a miniature convent or prison: we might have a grating in the door, and answer all outsiders through it.”
“Nonsense!” returned Phillis, who was determined to take a bright view of things. “Don’t go into the house just yet, I want to see the garden.” And she led the way down a gloomy side-path, with unclipped box and yews, that made it dark and decidedly damp. This brought them to a little lawn, with tall, rank grass that might have been mown for hay, and some side-beds full of old fashioned flowers, such as lupins and monkshood, pinks and small pansies; a dreary little greenhouse, with a few empty flower-pots and a turned-up box was in one corner, and an attempt at a rockery, with a periwinkle climbing over it, and an undesirable number of oyster-shells.
An old medlar tree, very warped and gnarled, was at the bottom of the lawn, and beyond this a small kitchen-garden, with abundance of gooseberry and currant-bushes, and vast resources in the shape of mint, marjoram, and lavender.
“Oh, dear! oh, dear! what a wretched little place after our dear old Glen Cottage garden!” And in spite of her good resolutions, Nan’s eyes grew misty.
“Comparisons are odious,” retorted Phillis, briskly. “We have just to make the best of things,—and I don’t deny they are horrid,—and put all the rest away, between lavender, on the shelves of our memory.” And she smiled grimly as she picked one of the gray spiky flowers.
And then, as they walked round the weedy paths, she pointed out how different it would look when the lawn was mown, and all the weeds and oyster-shells removed, and the box and yews clipped, and a little paint put on the greenhouse.
“And look at that splendid passion-flower, growing like a weed over the back of the cottage,” she remarked, with a wave of her hand: “it only wants training and nailing up. Poor Miss Monks has neglected the garden shamefully; but then she was always ailing.”
They went into the cottage after this. The entry was rather small and dark. The kitchen came first: it was a tolerable-sized apartment, with two windows looking out on the lilacs and the green door and the blank wall.
“I am afraid Dorothy will find it a little dull,” Nan observed,73rather ruefully. And again she thought the name of Friary was well given to this gruesome cottage; but she cheered up when Phillis opened cupboards and showed her a light little scullery, and thought that perhaps they could make it comfortable for Dorothy.
The other two rooms looked upon the garden: one had three windows, and was really a very pleasant parlor.
“This must be our work-room,” began Phillis, solemnly, as she stood in the centre of the empty room, looking round her with bright knowing glances. “Oh, what an ugly paper, Nan! but we can easily put up a prettier one. The smaller room must be where we live and take our meals: it is not quite so cheerful as this. It is so nice having this side-window; it will give us more light, and we shall be able to see who comes in at the door.”
“Yes, that is an advantage,” assented Nan. She was agreeably surprised to find such a good-sized room in the cottage; it was decidedly low, and the windows were not plate-glass, but she thought that on summer mornings they might sit there very comfortably looking out at the lawn and the medlar-tree.
“We shall be glad of these cupboards,” she suggested, after a pause, while Phillis, took out sundry pieces of tape from her pocket and commenced making measurements in a business-like manner. “Our work will make such a litter, and I should like things to be as tidy as possible. I am thinking,” she continued, “we might have mother’s great carved wardrobe in the recess behind the door. It is really a magnificent piece of furniture, and in a work-room it would not be so out of place; we could hang up the finished and unfinished dresses in it out of the dust. And we could have the little drawing-room chiffonnier between the windows for our pieces, and odds and ends in the cupboards. It is a pity our table is round; but perhaps it will look all the more comfortable. The sewing-machine must be in the side-window,” added Nan, who was quite in her element now, for she loved all housewifely arrangements; “and mother’s easy-chair and little table must stand by the fireplace. My davenport will be useful for papers and accounts.”
“It is really a very convenient room,” returned Phillis, in a satisfied voice, when they had exhausted its capabilities; and, though the second parlor was small and dull in comparison, even Nan dropped no disparaging word.
Both of them agreed it would do very well. There was a place for the large roomy couch that their mother so much affected, and their favorite chairs and knick-knacks would soon make it look cosey: and after this they went upstairs hand in hand.
There were only four bedrooms, and two of these were not large; the most cheerful one was, of course, allotted to their mother, and the next in size must be for Phillis and Dulce. Nan was to have a small one next to her mother.
The evening was drawing on by the time they had finished74their measurements and left the cottage. Nan, who was tired and wanted her tea, was for hurrying on to Beach House; but Phillis insisted on calling at the Library. She wanted to put some questions to Miss Milner. To-morrow they would have the paper-hanger, and look out for a gardener, and there was Mrs. Crump to interview about cleaning down the cottage.
“Oh, very well,” returned Nan, wearily, and she followed Phillis into the shop, where good-natured bustling Miss Milner came to them at once.
Phillis put the question to her in a low voice, for there were other customers exchanging books over the counter. The same young clergyman they had before noticed had just bought a local paper, and was waiting evidently for a young lady who was turning over some magazines quite close to them.
“Do we know of a good dressmaker in the place?” repeated Miss Milner, in her loud cheerful voice, very much to Nan’s discomfort, for the clergyman looked up from his paper at once. “Miss Monks was a tolerable fit, but, poor thing! she died a few weeks ago; and Mrs. Slasher, who lives over Viner’s the haberdasher’s, cannot hold a candle to her. Miss Masham there,”—pointing to a smart ringleted young person, evidently her assistant,—“had her gown ruined by her: hadn’t you, Miss Masham?”
Miss Masham simpered, but her reply was inaudible; but the young lady who was standing near them suddenly turned round:
“There is Mrs. Langley, who lives just by. I shall be very happy to give these ladies her address, for she is a widow with little children, and I am anxious to procure her work—” and then she looked at Nan, and hesitated; “that is, if you are not very particular,” she added, with sudden embarrassment, for even in her morning dress there was a certain style about Nan that distinguished her from other people.
“Thank you, Miss Drummond,” returned Miss Milner, gratefully. “Shall I write down the address for you, ma’am?”
“Yes,—no,—thank you very much, but perhaps it does not matter,” returned Nan, hurriedly, feeling awkward for the first time in her life. But Phillis, who realized all the humor of the situation, interposed:
“The address will do us no harm, and we may as well have it, although we should not trouble Mrs. Langley. I will call in again, Miss Milner, to-morrow morning, and then I will explain what it is we really want. We are in a hurry now,” continued Phillis, loftily, turning away with a dignified inclination of her head toward the officious stranger.
Phillis was not prepossessed in her favor. She was a dark, wiry little person, not exactly plain, but with an odd, comical face; and she was dressed so dowdily and with such utter disregard of taste that Phillis instinctively felt Mrs. Langley was not to be dreaded.75
“What a queer little body! Do you think she belongs to him?” she asked Nan, as they walked rapidly toward Beach House.
“What in the world made you strike in after that fashion?” demanded the young man, as he and his companion followed more slowly in the strangers’ footsteps. “That is just your way, Mattie, interfering and meddling in other folks’ affairs. Why cannot you mind your own business sometimes,” he continued, irritably, “instead of putting your foot into other people’s?”
“You are as cross as two sticks this afternoon, Archie,” returned his sister, composedly. She had a sharp little pecking voice that seemed to match her, somehow; for she was not unlike a bright-eyed bird, and had quick pouncing movements. “Wait a moment: my braid has got torn, and is dragging.”
“I wish you would think a little more of my position, and take greater pains with your appearance,” returned her brother, in an annoyed voice. “What would Grace say to see what a fright you make of yourself? It is a sin and a shame for a woman to be untidy or careless in her dress; it is unfeminine! it is unlady-like!” hurling each separate epithet at her.
Perhaps Miss Drummond was used to these compliments, for she merely pinned her braid without seeming the least put out.
“I think I am a little shabby,” she remarked, tranquilly, as they at last walked on. “Perhaps Mrs. Langley had better make me a dress too,” with a laugh, for, in spite of her sharp voice, she was an even-tempered little body; but this last remark only added fuel to his wrath.
“You really have less sense than a child. The idea of recommending a person like Mrs. Langley to those young ladies,—a woman who works for Miss Masham!”
“They were very plainly dressed, Archie,” returned poor Mattie, who felt this last snub acutely; for, if there was one thing upon which she prided herself, it was her good sense. “They had dark print dresses,—not as good as the one I have on,—and nothing could be quieter.”
“Oh, you absurd little goose!” exclaimed her brother, and he burst into a laugh, for the drollery of the comparison restored him to instant good humor. “If you cannot see the difference between that frumpish gown of yours, with its little bobtails and fringes, and those pretty dresses before us, I must say you are as blind as a bat, Mattie.”
“Oh, never mind my gown,” returned Mattie, with a sigh.
She had had these home-thrusts to meet and parry nearly every day, ever since she had come to keep house for this fastidious brother. She was a very active, bustling little person, who had done a great deal of tough work in her day, but she never could be made to see that unless a woman add the graces of life to the cardinal virtues she is, comparatively speaking, a failure in the eyes of the other sex.76
So, though Mattie was a frugal housekeeper, and worked from morning to night in his service,—the veriest little drudge that was ever seen,—she was a perpetual eyesore to her brother, who loved feminine grace and repose,—whose tastes were fastidious and somewhat arbitrary. And so it was poor Mattie had more censure than praise, and wrote home piteous letters complaining that nothing she did seemed to satisfy Archie, and that her mother had made a great mistake in sending her, and not Grace, to preside over his bachelor establishment.
“Oh, Phillis, how shall we have courage to publish our plan?” exclaimed Nan, when they were at last discussing the much-needed tea and chops in the little parlor at Beach House.
The window was wide open. The returning tide was coming in with a pleasant ripple and wash over the shingle. The Parade was nearly empty; but some children’s voices sounded from the green space before the houses. The brown sail of a fishing craft dipped into the horizon. It was so cool, so quiet, so restful; but Nan’s eyes were weary, and she put the question wistfully.
Phillis looked into the teapot to gain a moment’s reprieve; the corners of her mouth had an odd pucker in them.
“I never said it was not hard,” she burst out at last. “I felt like a fool myself while I was speaking to Miss Milner; but then that clergyman was peeping at us between the folds of his paper. He seemed a nice-looking, gentlemanly sort of man. Do you think that queer little lady in the plaid dress could be his wife? Oh, no; I remember Miss Milner addressed her as Miss Drummond. Then she must be his sister: how odd!”
“Why should it be odd?” remarked Nan, absently, who had not particularly noticed them.
“Oh, she was such a dowdy little thing, not a bit nice-looking, and he was quite handsome, and looked rather distinguished. You know I always take stock of people, and make up my mind about them at once. And then we are to be such close neighbors.”
“I don’t suppose we shall see much of them,” was Nan’s somewhat depressed reply; and then, as they had finished their tea they placed themselves at the open window, and began to talk about the business of next day; and, in discussing cupboards and new papers, Nan forgot her fatigue, and grew so interested that it was quite late before they thought of retiring to rest.
77CHAPTER 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 Dick.
“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! such78a 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.79
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 grass 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 Phillis80was 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 passed 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.
Mrs. Challoner smiled faintly:
“Was I very naughty last night, Dulce?”
“Oh, as bad as possible. You pushed poor Nan and Phillis away, and would not let any one come near you but that cross old Dorothy, and you never bade us good-night; but if you81promise to be good, I will forgive you and make it up,” finished Dulce, with those light butterfly kisses to which she was addicted.
“Now, Chatterbox, it is my turn,” interrupted Phillis; and then she began a carefully concocted little speech, very carefully drawn out to suit her mother’s sensitive peculiarities.
She went over the old ground patiently point by point. Mrs. Challoner shuddered at the idea of letting lodgings.
“I knew you would agree with us,” returned Phillis, with a convincing nod; and then she went on to the next clause.
Mrs. Challoner argued a great deal about the governess scheme. She was quite angry with Phillis, and seemed to suffer a great deal of self-reproach, when the girl spoke of their defective education and lack of accomplishments. Nan had to come to her sister’s rescue; but the mother was slow to yield the point:
“I don’t know what you mean. My girls are not different from other girls. What would your poor father say if he were alive? It is cruel to say this to me, when I stinted myself to give you every possible advantage, and I paid Miss Martin eighty pounds a year,” she concluded, tearfully, feeling as though she were the victim of a fraud.
She was far more easily convinced that going out as companions would be impracticable under the circumstances. “Oh, no, that will never do!” she cried, when the two little rooms with Dulce were proposed; and after this Phillis found her task less difficult. She talked her mother over at last to reluctant acquiescence. “I never knew how I came to consent,” she said, afterwards, “but they were too much for me.”
“We cannot starve. I suppose I must give in to you,” she said, at last; “but I shall never hold up my head again.” And she really believed what she said.
“Mother, you must trust us,” replied Phillis, touched by this victory she had won. “Do you know what I said to Dulce? Work cannot degrade us. Though we are dressmakers, we are still Challoners. Nothing can make us lose our dignity and self-respect as gentlewomen.”
“Other people will not recognize it,” returned her mother, with a sigh. “You will lose caste. No one will visit you. Among your equals you will be treated as inferiors. It is this that bows me to the earth with shame.”
“Mother, how can you talk so?” cried Nan, in a clear, indignant voice. “What does it matter if people do not visit us? We must have a world of our own, and be sufficient for ourselves, if we can only keep together. Is not that what you have said to us over and over again? Well, we shall be together, we shall have each other. What does the outside world matter to us after all?”
“Oh, you are young; you do not know what complications may arise,” replied Mrs. Challoner, with the gloomy forethought82of middle age. She thought she knew the world better than they, but in reality she was almost as guileless and ignorant as her daughters. “Until you begin, you do not know the difficulties that will beset you,” she went on.
But notwithstanding this foreboding speech, she was some what comforted by Nan’s words: “they would be together!” Well, if Providence chose to inflict this humiliation and afflictive dispensation on her, it could be borne as long as she had her children around her.
Nan made one more speech,—a somewhat stern one for her.
“Our trouble will be a furnace to try our friends. We shall know the true from the false. Only those who are really worth the name will be faithful to us.”
Nan was thinking of Dick; but her mother misunderstood her, and grew alarmed.
“You will not tell the Paines and the other people about here what you intend to do, surely? I could not bear that! no, indeed, I could not bear that!”
“Do not be afraid, dear mother,” returned Nan, sadly, “we are far too great cowards to do such a thing, and, after all, there is no need to put ourselves to needless pain. If the Maynes were here we might not be able to keep it from them, perhaps, and so I am thankful they are away.”
Nan said this quite calmly, though her mother fixed her eyes upon her in a most tenderly mournful fashion. She had quite forgotten their Longmead neighbors, but now, as Nan recalled them to her mind, she remembered Mr. Mayne, and her look had become compassionate.
“It will be all over with those poor children,” she thought to herself: “the father will never allow it,—never; and I cannot wonder at him.” And then her heart softened to the memory of Dick, whom she had never thought good enough for Nan, for she remembered now with a sore pang that her pride was laid low in the dust, and that she could not hope now that her daughters would make splendid matches: even Dick would be above them, though his father had been in trade, and though he had no grandfather worth mentioning.
A few days after their return from Hadleigh, there was an other long business interview with Mr. Trinder, in which every thing was settled. A tenant had already been found for the cottage. A young couple, on the eve of their marriage, who had long been looking for a suitable house in the neighborhood had closed at once with Mr. Trinder’s offer, and had taken the lease off their hands. The gentleman was a cousin of the Paines and, partly for the convenience of the in-coming tenants, and partly because the Challoners wished to move as soon as possible, there was only a delay of a few weeks before the actual flitting.
It would be impossible to describe the dismay of the neighborhood when the news was circulated.83
Immediately after their return from Hadleigh, Nan and Phillis took counsel together, and, summoning up their courage, went from one to another of their friends and quietly announced their approaching departure.
“Mother has had losses, and we are now dreadfully poor, and we are going to leave Glen Cottage and go down to a small house we have at Hadleigh,” said Nan, who by virtue of an additional year of age was spokeswoman on this occasion. She had fully rehearsed this little speech, which she intended to say at every house in due rotation. “We will not disguise the truth; we will let people know that we are poor, and then they will not expect impossibilities,” she said, as they walked down the shady roads towards the Paines’ house,—for the Paines were their most intimate friends and had a claim to the first confidence.
“I think that will be sufficient; no one has any right to know more,” she continued, decidedly, fully determined that no amount of coaxing and cross-examination should wring from her one unnecessary word.
But she little knew how difficult it would be to keep their own counsel. The Paines were not alone: they very seldom were. Adelaide Sartoris was there, and the younger Miss Twentyman, and a young widow, a Mrs. Forbes, who was a distant connection of Mrs. Paine.
Nan was convinced that they had all been talking about them, for there was rather an embarrassed pause as she and Phillis entered the room. Carrie looked a little confused as she greeted them.
Nan sat down by Mrs. Paine, who was rather deaf, and in due time made her little speech. She was rather pale with the effort, and her voice faltered a little, but every word was heard at the other end of the room.
“Leave Glen Cottage, my dear? I can’t have heard you rightly. I am very deaf, to-day,—very. I think I must have caught cold.” And Mrs. Paine turned a mild face of perplexity on Nan; but, before she could reiterate her words, Carrie was on the footstool at her feet, and Miss Sartoris, with a grave look of concern on her handsome features, was standing beside her:
“Oh, Nan! tell us all about it! Of course we saw something was the matter. Dulce was so strange that afternoon; and you have all been keeping yourselves invisible for ever so long.”
“There is very little to tell,” returned Nan, trying to speak cheerfully. “Mother has had bad news. Mr. Gardiner is bankrupt, and all our invested money is gone. Of course we could not go on living at Glen Cottage. There is some talk, Carrie, of your cousin, Mr. Ibbetson, coming to look at it: it will be nice for us if he could take the lease off our hands, and then we should go down to the Friary.”
“How I shall hate to see Ralph there!—not but what it will suit him and Louisa well enough, I dare say. But never mind84him: I want to know all about yourselves,” continued Carrie, affectionately. “This is dreadful, Nan! I can hardly believe it. What are we to do without you? and where is the Friary? and what is it like? and what will you do with yourselves when you get there?”
“Yes, indeed, that is what we want to know,” agreed Miss Sartoris, putting her delicately-gloved hand on Nan’s shoulder; and then Sophy Paine joined the little group, and Mrs. Forbes and Miss Twentyman left off talking to Phillis, and began listening; with all their might. Now it was that Nan began to foresee difficulties.
“The Friary is very small,” she went on, “but it will just hold us and Dorothy. Dorothy is coming with us, of course. She is old, but she works better than some of the young ones. She is a faithful creature––”
But Carrie interrupted her impatiently:
“But, Nan, what will you do with yourselves? Hadleigh is a nice place, I believe. Mamma, we must all go down there next summer, and stay there,—you shall come with us, Adelaide,—and then we shall be able to cheer these poor things up; and Nan, you and Phillis must come and stay with us. We don’t mean to give you up like this. What does it matter about being poor? We are all old friends together. You shall give us tea at the Friary; and I dare say there are tennis-grounds at Hadleigh, and we will have nice times together.”
“Of course we will come and see you,” added Miss Sartoris, with a friendly pressure of Nan’s shoulder; but the poor girl only colored up and looked embarrassed, and then it was that Phillis, who was watching her opportunity, struck in:
“You are all very good; but, Carrie, I don’t believe you understand Nan one bit. When people lose their money they have to work. We shall all have to put our shoulder to the wheel. We would give you tea, of course, but as for paying visits and playing tennis, it is only idle girls like yourselves who have time for that sort of thing. It will be work and not play, I fear, with us.”
“Oh, Phillis!” exclaimed poor Carrie, with tears in her eyes, and Miss Sartoris looked horrified, for she had West-Indian blood in her veins and was by nature somewhat indolent and pleasure-loving.
“Do you mean you will have to be governesses?” she asked, with a touch of dismay in her voice.
“We shall have to work,” returned Phillis, vaguely. “When we are settled at the Friary we must look round us and do the best we can.” This was felt to be vague by the whole party; but Phillis’s manner was so bold and well assured that no one suspected that anything lay beyond the margin of her speech. They had not made up their minds, perhaps; Sir Francis Challoner would assist them; or there were other sources of help: they must move into the new house first, and then see what85was to be done. It was so plausible, so sensible, that every one was deceived.
“Of course you cannot decide in such a hurry: you must have so much to do just now,” observed Carrie. “You must write and tell us all your plans, Phillis, and if there be anything we can do to help you. Mamma, we might have Mrs. Challoner here while the cottage is dismantled. Do spare her to us, Nan, and we will take such care of her!” And they were still discussing this point, and trying to overrule Nan’s objections,—who knew nothing would induce her mother to leave them,—when other visitors were announced, and in the confusion they were allowed to make their escape.