Poor Phillis found her position decidedly embarrassing. To be sure,
Miss Mewlstone had warned her of the reception that she might expect;
but all the same she found it very unpleasant. She must not abridge
her visit so much as to excite suspicion; and yet it seemed impossible
to carry on a comfortable conversation with Mrs. Cheyne in this
freezing mood, and, as Phillis could think of nothing to say, she
asked after Miss Mewlstone.

"Oh, she is very well," Mrs. Cheyne answered, indifferently. "Nothing
ever ails Barby: she is one of those easy-going people who take life
as they find it, without fuss and grumbling."

"I think she is very nice and sympathetic," hazarded Phillis.

"Oh, yes Miss Mewlstone has a feeling heart," returned Mrs. Cheyne;
but she said it in a sarcastic voice. "We have all our special
endowments. Miss Mewlstone is made by nature to be a moral feather bed
to break other people's awkward tumbles. She hinders broken bones, and
interposes a soft surface of sympathy between unlucky folks. There is
not much in common between us, but all the same old Barby is a sort of
necessity to me. We are a droll household at the White House, Miss
Challoner, are we not,--Barby and the greyhounds and I?--oh, quite a
happy family!" And she gave a short laugh, very much the reverse of
merriment.

Phillis began to feel that it was time to go.

"Well, how does the dressmaking progress?" asked her hostess,
suddenly. "Miss Middleton tells me the Challoner fit is quite the rage
in Hadleigh."

"We have more orders than we can execute," returned Phillis, curtly.

"Humph! that sounds promising. I hope your mother is careful of you,
and forbids any expenditure of midnight oil, or you will be reduced to
a thread-paper. As I have told you you are not the same girl that you
were when you came to the relief of my injured ankle."

"I feel tolerably substantial, thank you," returned Phillis,
ungraciously, for, in common with other girls, she hated to be pitied
for her looks, and she had a notion that Mrs. Cheyne only said this to
plague her. "Nan is our head and task mistress. We lead regular lives,
have stated hours for work, take plenty of exercise and on the whole,
are doing as well as possible."

"There speaks the Challoner spirit."

"Oh, yes; that never fails us. But now Nan will be waiting for me, and
I only called just to inquire after you."

"And you did not expect to see me. Well, come again when I am in a
better