AN UNINVITED GUEST.
During the next few days Grace and Phillis made great strides towards intimacy; and, as though some magnetic influence attracted each to each, they were to be found constantly together. Neither of them was a girl to indulge in gushing sentimentality; but Grace, whose refined intellectual nature had hitherto met with no response except from her brother, perceived at once Phillis’s innate superiority and clear generous temperament. For the first time she felt feminine friendship a possibility, and hailed it as a new-found joy. Nan testified her pleasure on more than one occasion: jealousy never found a resting-place in a corner of her heart.
“I am so glad, Phillis,” she observed, once, “that you and Grace Drummond like each other so much. You have never found any girl equal to you yet; and I was always too stupid to give you what you wanted.”
“Oh, Nannie, as though I would change you for a dozen Grace Drummonds!” returned Phillis, stanch as ever to her domestic creed, that there never was and never could be such another as Nan.
“Oh, of course we shall always be the same to each other, you and I,” returned Nan, seriously, “we are such old comrades, Phil; but then I have Dick, and it is only fair you should have some one too;” but she did not understand why Phillis suddenly sighed and turned away.
An amusing little incident happened to Phillis after this, which she greatly enjoyed. Colonel Middleton’s avoidance of them had long been a sore point with her, as it was with Dulce.
“I feel almost like that wicked Haman,” she said, once, in a serio-comic voice, “and as if he were my Mordecai. I shall never think we have achieved perfect success until I have forced him to shake hands with me.” But Nan, who cared very little about such things, only laughed.
On Sunday morning Colonel Middleton marched up the aisle rather more pompously than usual, and there followed him a tall, very solemn-faced young man, with serious eyes that reminded them of Elizabeth.
“Son Hammond,” whispered Phillis, who was not always as devout as she ought to be; and Dulce tried hard to compose her dimples.
Possibly the young officer was not as solemn as his looks, for he certainly paid more attention to the opposite pew than he 329 did to his prayer-book; and as he walked home with his sister, Colonel Middleton being just then out of earshot, he questioned her rather closely on the subject: