“At least, I did it for the best,” returned the young man, humbly. “I pointed out things to Mrs. Challoner, as I told you I should. I warned her what the world would say,—that it would regard your plan as very singular and perhaps quixotic. Surely there is nothing in this to offend you?”
“You have not touched on the worst part of all,” returned Phillis, with a little disdain in her voice. “About making a sensation, I mean.”
“There it was that your mother so entirely misunderstood. What I said was this: If this dressmaking scheme were undertaken just to make a sensation, it would of course, achieve success, for I thought the novelty might take. And then I added that I was merely stating an hypothesis by way of argument, and then Mrs. Challoner looked shocked, and you came in.”
“Is that all?” asked Phillis, coming down from her stilts at once, for she knew of old how her mother would confuse things sometimes; and, if this were the truth, she, Phillis, had been rather too hard on him.
“Yes. Do you see now any necessity for quarrelling with me?” returned Mr. Drummond, breathing a little more freely 161 as the frown lessened on Phillis’s face. He wanted to be friends with these girls, not to turn them against him.
“Well, no, I believe not,” she answered, quite gravely. “And I am sure I beg your pardon if I was rude.” But this Archie would not allow for a moment.
“But, Mr. Drummond, one word before peace is quite restored,” went on Phillis, with something of her old archness, “or else I will fetch my sisters, and you will have three of us against you.”
“Oh, do, Phillis, my dear,” interrupted her mother; “let them come and hear what Mr. Drummond thinks.”
“Mammy, how dare you!—how dare you be so contumacious, after all the trouble we have taken to set your dear fidgety mind at rest? Just look what you have done, Mr. Drummond,” turning upon him. “Now I am not going to forgive you, and we will not trust the mother out of our sight, unless you promise not to say this sort of thing to her when we are not here to answer them.”
“But, Miss Challoner, my pastoral conscience!” but his eyes twinkled a little.