And then he stood and looked, perfectly fascinated by the novel sight. His sisters played battledore and shuttlecock in the school-room sometimes, or out in the passages on a winter’s afternoon. He had once caught Susie and Clara at it, and had laughed at them in no measured terms for indulging in such a babyish game. “I should have thought Dottie might have played at that,” he had said, rather contemptuously. “I suppose you indulge in skipping-ropes sometimes.” And the poor girls had paused in their game, feeling ashamed of themselves. Archie would think them such hoydens.
He remembered his reprimand with a strange feeling of compunction, as he stood by the window trying vainly to elude Laddie’s caresses. What a shame of him to have spoiled those poor children’s game with his sneer, when they had so little fun in their lives! and yet, as he recalled Clara’s clumsy gestures and Susie’s short-sighted attempts, he was obliged to confess that battledore and shuttlecock wore a different aspect now. Could anything surpass Phillis’s swift-handed movements, brisk, graceful, alert, or Nan’s attitude, as she sustained the duel? Dulce, who seemed dodging in between them in a most eccentric way, had her hair loose as usual, curling in brown lengths about her shoulders. She held it with one hand, as she poised her battledore with the other. This time Archie thought of Nausicaa and her maidens tossing the ball beside the river, after washing the wedding-garments. Was it in this way the young dressmakers disported themselves during the evenings?
It was Phillis who first discovered the intruder. The shuttlecocks had become entangled, and fallen to the ground. As she stooped to pick them up, her quick eyes detected a coat-sleeve at the window; and an indefinable instinct, for she could not see his face, made her call out,—
“Mother, Mr. Drummond is in the parlor. Do go to him, while Dulce puts up her hair.” And then she said, severely, “I always tell you not to wear your hair like that, Dulce. Look at Nan and me; we are quite unruffled; but yours is always coming down. If you have pretty hair, you need not call people’s attention to it in this way.” At which speech Dulce tossed her head and ran away, too much offended to answer.
When Archie saw Mrs. Challoner crossing the lawn with the 184 gait of a queen, he knew he was discovered: so he opened the window, and stepped out in the coolest possible way.
“I seem always spoiling sport,” he said, with a mischievous glance at Phillis, which she received with outward coolness and an inward twinge. “Bravo, Atalanta!” sounded in her ears again. “Your maid invited me in; but I did not care to disturb you.”
“I am glad you did not open the window before,” returned Nan, speaking with that directness and fine simplicity that always put things to rights at once: “it would have startled us before we got to the five hundred, and then Phillis would have been disappointed. Mother, shall we bring out some more chairs instead of going into the parlor? It is so much pleasanter out here.” And as Mrs. Challoner assented, they were soon comfortably established on the tiny lawn; and Archie, very much at his ease, and feeling himself unaccountably happy, proceeded to deliver some trifling message from his sister, that was his ostensible reason for his intrusion.
“Why does she not deliver her messages herself?” thought Phillis; but she kept this remark to herself. Only, that evening she watched the young clergyman a little closely, as though he puzzled her. Phillis was the man of the family; and it was she who always stood upon guard if Nan or Dulce needed a sentinel. She was beginning to think Mr. Drummond came very often to see them, considering their short acquaintance. If it were Miss Mattie, now, who ran in and out with little offerings of flowers and fruit in a nice neighborly fashion! But for this very dignified young man to burden himself with these slight feminine messages,—a question about new-laid eggs, which even Nan had forgotten.
Phillis was quite glad when her mother said,—
“You ought to have brought your sister, Mr. Drummond: she must be so dull all alone,”—forgetting all about the dressmaking, poor soul! but Phillis remembered it a moment afterwards, with a rush of bitter feeling.