Phillis spoke regretfully of it when he had left them.
“It would have been so nice,” she pleaded; but Nan was inexorable.
“You can go if you like, Phil; but I think mother is entitled to that one afternoon in the week, and I will not consent to any parish work on that account; and then I am sure we shall often be so tired.” And Nan’s good sense, as usual, carried the day.
After that they all grouped round the window in the little parlor, and repeated to their mother every word of their conversation with Mr. Drummond.
Mrs. Challoner grew alarmed and tearful in a moment.
“Oh, my darlings, promise me to be more careful for the future!” she pleaded. “Of course it was only fun, Phillis 181 and he will not think anything of it. Still, in a strange place, where no one knows you––”
“Dulce and I will never run a race again, I think I can promise you that,” replied Phillis, very grimly, who felt that “Bravo, Atalanta!” would haunt her in her dreams.
“And—and I would not walk about with Mr. Drummond, though he is our clergyman and a very gentlemanly person. People might talk: and in your position, my poor dears”—Mrs. Challoner hesitated, for she was very nice in her scruples, and not for worlds would she have hinted to her daughters that Mr. Drummond was young and unmarried, and a very handsome man in the bargain: “You see, I cannot always be with you, and, as you have to work for your living, and cannot be guarded like other girls, you have all the more need to be circumspect. You don’t think me over strict, do you, darlings?”
“No, dear mother, you are perfectly right,” returned Nan, kissing her. “I knew how you would feel, and so we came home directly to get rid of him: it would never do for the vicar of the parish to be seen walking about with dressmakers.”
“Don’t, Nan!” exclaimed Phillis, with a shudder. Nevertheless, as she turned away she remembered how she had enjoyed that walk down the Braidwood Road that very morning, when he offered to carry home Mrs. Trimmings’s dress and she would not let him.