Phillis stammered out something about hoping that she was better, but she interrupted her almost abruptly:
“Much better, thank you. I am afraid you found me decidedly strange yesterday. I had what people call a nervous attack: electricity in the air, a brooding storm, brings it on. It is a pity one should be so childish as to dread thunder; but we are oddly constituted, some of us.” She shrugged her shoulders, as though to dismiss the subject, and stroked the head of the greyhound that lay at her feet.
Poor Phillis found her position decidedly embarrassing. To be sure, Miss Mewlstone had warned her of the reception that she might expect; but all the same she found it very unpleasant. She must not abridge her visit so much as to excite suspicion; and yet it seemed impossible to carry on a comfortable conversation with Mrs. Cheyne in this freezing mood, and, as Phillis could think of nothing to say, she asked after Miss Mewlstone.
“Oh, she is very well,” Mrs. Cheyne answered, indifferently. “Nothing ever ails Barby: she is one of those easy-going people who take life as they find it, without fuss and grumbling.”
“I think she is very nice and sympathetic,” hazarded Phillis.
“Oh, yes Miss Mewlstone has a feeling heart,” returned Mrs. Cheyne; but she said it in a sarcastic voice. “We have all our special endowments. Miss Mewlstone is made by nature to be a moral feather bed to break other people’s awkward tumbles. She hinders broken bones, and interposes a soft surface of sympathy between unlucky folks. There is not much in common between us, but all the same old Barby is a sort of necessity to me. We are a droll household at the White House, Miss Challoner, are we not,—Barby and the greyhounds and I?—oh, quite a happy family!” And she gave a short laugh, very much the reverse of merriment.
Phillis began to feel that it was time to go.
“Well, how does the dressmaking progress?” asked her hostess, suddenly. “Miss Middleton tells me the Challoner fit is quite the rage in Hadleigh.”
“We have more orders than we can execute,” returned Phillis, curtly.
“Humph! that sounds promising. I hope your mother is careful of you, and forbids any expenditure of midnight oil, or you will be reduced to a thread-paper. As I have told you you 216 are not the same girl that you were when you came to the relief of my injured ankle.”