“Nan, you are a saint,” returned Phillis, enthusiastically. The worried look had left her eyes; they looked clear and bright as usual. “Oh, what a heathen I have been to-day! but, as Dulce is so fond of saying, ‘I am going to be good. I will read the evening Psalms to you, in token of my resolution, if you like. But wait: is there not some one coming across the sand! 129 How eerie it looks, such a tall black figure standing between the earth and sky!”
Phillis had good sight, or she would hardly have distinguished the figure, which was now motionless, at such a distance. In another moment she even announced that its draperies showed it to be a woman, before she opened her book and commenced reading.
There is something very striking in a lonely central figure in a scene, the outline cuts so sharply against the horizon. Nan’s eyes seemed riveted on it as she listened to Phillis’s voice; it seemed to her as immovable as a Sphinx, its rigidity lending a sort of barrenness and forlornness to the landscape, a black edition of human nature set under a violet and opal sky.
She almost started when it moved, at last, with a steady bearing, as it seemed, towards them; then curiosity quickened into interest, and she touched Phillis’s arm, whispering breathlessly,—
“The Sphinx moves! Look—is not that Mrs. Cheyne, the lady who lives at the White House near us, who always looks so lonely and unhappy?”
“Hush!” returned Phillis, “she will hear you;” and then Mrs. Cheyne approached with the same swift even walk. She looked at them for a moment, as she passed, with a sort of well-bred surprise in her air, as though she marvelled to see them there; her black dress touched Laddie, and he caught at it with an impotent bark.
The sisters must have made a pretty picture, as they sat almost clinging together on the stone: one of Nan’s little white hands rested on Laddie’s head, the other lay on Phillis’s lap. Phillis glanced up from her book, keen-eyed and alert in a moment; she turned her head to look at the stranger that had excited her interest, and then rose to her feet with a little cry of dismay.
“Oh, Nan, I am afraid she has hurt herself! She gave such a slip just now. I wonder what has happened? She is leaning against the breakwater, too. Shall we go and ask her if she feels ill or anything?”
“You may go,” was Nan’s answer. Nevertheless, she followed Phillis.
Mrs. Cheyne looked up at them a little sharply as they came towards her. Her face was gray and contracted with pain.