Archie
would think them such hoydens.

He remembered his reprimand with a strange feeling of compunction, as
he stood by the window trying vainly to elude Laddie's caresses. What
a shame of him to have spoiled those poor children's game with his
sneer, when they had so little fun in their lives! and yet, as he
recalled Clara's clumsy gestures and Susie's short-sighted attempts,
he was obliged to confess that battledore and shuttlecock wore a
different aspect now. Could anything surpass Phillis's swift-handed
movements, brisk, graceful, alert, or Nan's attitude, as she sustained
the duel? Dulce, who seemed dodging in between them in a most
eccentric way, had her hair loose as usual, curling in brown lengths
about her shoulders. She held it with one hand, as she poised her
battledore with the other. This time Archie thought of Nausicaa and
her maidens tossing the ball beside the river, after washing the
wedding-garments. Was it in this way the young dressmakers disported
themselves during the evenings?

It was Phillis who first discovered the intruder. The shuttlecocks had
become entangled, and fallen to the ground. As she stooped to pick
them up, her quick eyes detected a coat-sleeve at the window; and an
indefinable instinct, for she could not see his face, made her call
out,--

"Mother, Mr. Drummond is in the parlor. Do go to him, while Dulce puts
up her hair." And then she said, severely, "I always tell you not to
wear your hair like that, Dulce. Look at Nan and me; we are quite
unruffled; but yours is always coming down. If you have pretty hair,
you need not call people's attention to it in this way." At which
speech Dulce tossed her head and ran away, too much offended to
answer.

When Archie saw Mrs. Challoner crossing the lawn with the gait of a
queen, he knew he was discovered: so he opened the window, and stepped
out in the coolest possible way.

"I seem always spoiling sport," he said, with a mischievous glance at
Phillis, which she received with outward coolness and an inward
twinge. "Bravo, Atalanta!" sounded in her ears again. "Your maid
invited me in; but I did not care to disturb you."

"I am glad you did not open the window before," returned Nan, speaking
with that directness and fine simplicity that always put things to
rights at once: "it would have startled us before we got to the five
hundred, and then Phillis would have been disappointed. Mother, shall
we bring out some more chairs instead o