“You have put no idea into my head,” replied Phillis, with crisp obstinacy. “There! I am only moralizing for my own good, as well as yours. Small beginnings make great endings. If we once began to gossip, we might end by flirting; and, 243 Nan, if you knew how I hate that sort of thing!” And Phillis looked grand and scornful.
“Yes, dear; and I know you are right,” returned Nan, humbly. She was not quite sure what she had done to provoke this outburst of high moral feeling: but she felt that Phillis was dreadfully in earnest. They kissed each other rather solemnly after that, and Phillis was suffered to depart in silence.
That night there was no wistful little prayer that Mr. Drummond might be comforted: Phillis had too many petitions to offer up on her own account. She was accusing herself of pride, and Pharisaism, and hypocrisy, in no measured terms. “Not like other girls! I am worse,—worse,” she said to herself. And then, among other things, she asked for the gift of content,—for a quiet, satisfied spirit, not craving or embittered,—strength to bear her own and her friends’ troubles, and far-looking faith to discern “God’s perfectness round our uncompleteness,—round our restlessness His rest.”
The following evening, as Phillis was sorting out patterns in the work-room, a note was brought to her from the White House. It was in Mrs. Cheyne’s handwriting, and, like herself, strangely abrupt.
“Your visits are like angels’ visits,—extremely rare,” it began. “I am afraid I have frightened you away, as I have frightened the parson. I thought you had more wit than he to discern between mannerism and downright ill-humor. This evening the temperature is equable,—not the sign of a brooding cloud: so put on your hat, like a good girl, and come over. Miss Mewlstone and I will be prepared to welcome you.”
“You had better go,” observed Nan, who had read the note over her sister’s shoulder: “you have worked so dreadfully hard all day, and it will be a little change.”
“No one cares for east winds as a change,” replied Phillis, dryly; nevertheless, she made up her mind that she would go. She was beginning to dread being summoned to the White House: she felt that Mrs. Cheyne alternately fascinated and repelled her. She was growing fond of Miss Mewlstone; but then, on these occasions, she had so little intercourse with her. The charitable instinct that was always ready to be kindled in Phillis’s nature prompted her to pay these visits; and yet she always went reluctantly.
She had two encounters on the road, both of which she had foreseen with nice presentiment.
The first was with Mr. Drummond.
He was walking along slowly, with his eyes on the ground. A sort of flush came to his face when he saw Phillis; and then he stopped, and shook hands, and asked after them all comprehensively, yet with constraint in his voice. Phillis told him rather hurriedly that she was going to the White House: Mrs. Cheyne had sent for her. 244