“Mr. Drummond! my girls—make a sensation—be talked about?” she gasped; and all the spirit of her virtuous matronhood, and all the instinctive feeling that years of culture and ingrained refinement of nature had engendered, shone in her eyes. Her Nan and Phillis and Dulce to draw this on themselves!
Now, at this unlucky moment, when the maternal fires were all alight, who should enter but Phillis, wanting “pins, and dozens of them,—quickly, please,” and still warbling flatly that refrain of “Bonnie Dundee!”
“Oh, Phillis! Oh, my darling child!” cried Mrs. Challoner, quite hysterically; “do you know what your clergyman says? and if he should say such things, what will be the world’s opinion? No, Mr. Drummond, I did not mean to be angry. Of course you are telling us this for our good; but I do not know when I have been so shocked.”
“Why, what is this?” demanded Phillis, calmly; but she 160 fixed her eyes on the unlucky clergyman, who began to wish that that last speech had not been uttered.
“He says it is to make a sensation—to be talked about—that you are going to do this,” gasped Mrs. Challoner, who was far too much upset to weigh words truly.
“What!” Phillis only uttered that very unmeaning monosyllable: nevertheless, Archie jumped from his seat as though he had been shot.
“Mrs. Challoner, really this is too bad! No, you must allow me to explain,” as Phillis turned aside with a curling lip, as though she would leave them. He actually went between her and the door, as though he meant to prevent her egress forcibly. There is no knowing to what lengths he would have gone in his sudden agitation. “Only wait a moment, until I explain myself. Your mother has misunderstood me altogether. Never has such a thought entered my mind!”
“Oh,” observed Phillis. But now she stood still and began to collect her pins out of her mother’s basket. “Perhaps, as this is rather unpleasant, you will have the kindness to tell me what it was you said to my mother?” And she spoke like a young princess who had just received an insult.
“I desire nothing more,” returned Archie, determined to defend himself at all costs. “I had been speaking to Mrs. Challoner about all this unfortunate business. She was good enough to repose confidence in me, and, as your clergyman, I felt myself bound to tell her exactly my opinions on the subject.”
“I do not quite see the necessity; but no doubt you know best,” was Phillis’s somewhat sarcastic answer.