Archie smiled: he could not help it. The colonel was so whimsical in his wrath.
“They had plenty of notice from the folk at the White House,” he returned, quietly.
“Ah, Cheyne was always a bit of a Radical, and madam is no better. They can do as they like, without being afraid of consequences. But that is not my case.” And, as Archie looked at him rather mystified, he went on: “Bless me, you do not suppose I am afraid of knowing them for my own sake? Elizabeth tells me that she is intimate with them. But that is not my business, so long as she does not have them at Brooklyn. ‘We must draw the line there, Elizabeth,’ I said. ‘If you choose to visit your dressmakers, it is not for me to prevent you; you are old enough to select your own friends, so you may be as eccentric as you like. But your brother is coming home. Young men are young men; and I do not choose to expose Hammond to such temptation.’”
“Oh, Hammond! That is your son, I suppose?” asked Archie, who was much amused at the colonel’s earnestness.
“Yes; my boy Hammond! the finest fellow in the regiment, though I say it, who should not. Do you think that I, his father, would expose him to such danger as to throw him into the society of a set of fascinating young women who have chosen to emancipate themselves from all conventionality, and who call themselves—stuff and rubbish!—dressmakers?” 282
“Not call themselves, so: they are excellent dressmakers!” was Archie’s somewhat malicious reply.
“All the more reason that my son should not know them!” thundered the old man. “What, sir! an officer in one of her Majesty’s regiments—the son and grandson of officers,—is such a one to be mixed up with a family that has lost caste,—to flirt with or make love to girls who are not above making gowns for my butcher’s wife? Before Hammond does such a thing as that––” And here the colonel paused from excess of emotion.
“You are perfectly right to defend your son from such danger,” returned the young clergyman with covert sarcasm. “In your case I should probably feel the same. But, in my position, being intimate with those ladies of whom you speak, and having had good opportunity to form my opinions of them, I cannot help saying, in their defence, that even your son, excellent officer as he is,—and, I am sure, a most worthy young man,—would scarcely be dishonored by an alliance with the finest young gentlewomen I ever met!” And, as he said this, with all due gravity, Archie released his arm, and, with a farewell nod, went off, leaving the colonel, open-mouthed and gasping with astonishment, at his own gate.
Elizabeth met him on the threshold.
“Oh, father, why did you not bring Mr. Drummond in!” she said, reproachfully; “it is so long since he has paid us a visit.”