“Your chef-d’œuvre!” he replied, rather wickedly.
“Oh, yes, I recognize my handiwork,” returned Phillis, nonchalantly. “I am quite as proud of it as an artist would be of a picture. Here comes Mattie; poor little thing! she seems tired, but she looks nice, too.”
Archie moved away after this, for the Middletons were announced; but he thought as he left her that he had never seen her look so handsome. Nan’s beauty had so blinded him that he had hardly been aware what a charming face Phillis really had: when she was pleased or excited she lighted up quite radiantly.
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Mattie, fussily coming up at that moment. “I don’t know what has become of your cousin; but Captain Middleton says all the trains have been snowed up.”
“If the train he is in has been snowed up, of course we must not expect to see him this evening,” was Phillis’s laughing reply. “Never mind; I dare say we shall all survive it; though Harry is such a good fellow, and I am immensely fond of him.”
“Oh, but the tea and coffee will be spoiled. I must go and pour it out now. Look, Grace is making signs to me.”
“Shall I come and help you?” was the ready response. “What a pretty little tea-table, Mattie, and how charmingly 333 snug it looks in the bay-window! The gentlemen will wait on us, of course. I like this way better than servants handing round lukewarm cups from the kitchen: it is not so grand, but it is cosier. Was it your arrangement, Mattie?”
“Oh, yes,” returned Mattie, in a disconsolate tone, as she took her place. “But, Phillis, are you really not anxious about your cousin? It is so dreadful to think of him snowed up all night, with nothing to eat and drink!”
Phillis laughed outright at this.
“My imagination will not conjure up such horrors. I believe Harry is at this moment sitting in the hotel discussing a good dinner before a blazing fire.” And, as Mattie looked injured at this, she continued, still more merrily: “My dear, are you such an ignoramus as to believe that any amount of wax candles and charming women will induce an Englishman to forego his dinner? He will come by and by; and if he gets cold coffee, he will have his deserts.” And then Mattie’s anxious face grew more cheerful.