Mattie had only just left the cottage, when another customer appeared in the person of Miss Middleton.
Nan, who had just begun her cutting-out, met her with a pleased glance of recognition, and then, remembering her errand, bowed rather gravely. But Miss Middleton, after a moment’s hesitation, held out her hand.
She had not been able to make up her mind about these girls. Her father’s shocked sense of decorum, and her own old-fashioned gentlewoman’s idea, had raised certain difficulties in her mind, which she had found it hard to overcome. “Recollect, 190 Elizabeth, I will not have those girls brought here,” the colonel had said to her that very morning. “They may be all very well in their way, but I have changed my opinion of them. There’s poor Drummond: now mark my words, there will be trouble by and by in that quarter.” For Colonel Middleton had groaned in spirit ever since the morning he had seen the young vicar walking with Phillis down the Braidwood Road, when she was carrying Mrs. Trimmings’s dress. Elizabeth answered this gentle protest by one of her gentle smiles. “Very well, dear father: I will ask no one to Brooklyn against your wish, you may be sure of that; but I suppose they may make my new dress? Mattie’s has been such a success; they certainly understand their business.”
“You have a right to select your own dressmaker, Elizabeth,” returned the colonel, with a frigid wave of his hand, for he had not got over his disappointment about the girls. “I only warn you because you are very quixotic in your notions; but we must take the world as we find it, and make the best of it; and there is your brother coming home by and by. We must be careful, for Hammond’s sake.” And, as Elizabeth’s good sense owned the justice of her father’s remark, there was nothing more said on the subject.
But it was not without a feeling of embarrassment that Miss Middleton entered the cottage: her great heart was yearning over these girls, whom she was compelled to keep at a distance. True, her father was right, Hammond was coming home, and a young officer of seven-and-twenty was not to be trusted where three pretty girls were concerned: it would never do to invite them to Brooklyn or to make too much of them. Miss Middleton had ranged herself completely on her father’s side, but at the sight of Nan’s sweet face and her grave little bow she forgot all her prudent resolutions, and her hand was held out as though to an equal.
“I have come to ask you if you will be good enough to make me a dress,” she said, with a charming smile. “You have succeeded so well with Miss Drummond that I cannot help wishing to have one too.” And when she had said this she looked quietly round her, and surveyed the pretty work-room, and Dulce sitting at the sewing-machine, and lastly Phillis’s bright, intelligent face, as she stood by the table turning over some fashion-books.
At that moment Mrs. Challoner entered the room with her little work-basket, and placed herself at the other window. Miss Middleton began talking to her at once, while Nan measured and pinned.
“I don’t think I ever spent a pleasanter half-hour,” she told her father afterwards. “Mattie was right in what she said: they have made the work-room perfectly lovely with pictures and old china: and nothing could be nicer than their manners,—so 191 simple and unassuming, yet with a touch of independence too.”
“And the old lady?” inquired the colonel, maliciously, for he had seen Mrs. Challoner in church, and knew better than to speak of her so disrespectfully.
“Old lady, father! why, she is not old at all. She is an exceedingly pleasing person, only a little stately in her manner; one would not venture to take a liberty with her. We had such a nice talk while the eldest daughter was fitting me. Is it not strange, father dear, that they know the Paines? and Mrs. Sartoris is an old acquaintance of theirs. I think they were a little sorry when they heard we knew them too, for the second girl colored up so when I said Adelaide was your goddaughter.”