ut of temper."

"I will recollect your advice when the time comes," replied Archie
rather audaciously at this, as he laughed and stroked his beard.

It pleased him to see the old fun brimming over again, fresh and
sparkling; but, as he answered her in the same vein of pleasantry, she
colored up in her dark corner and shrank back into herself, and all
the rest of the evening he could hardly win a smile from her.

"My dear, I think Mr. Drummond comes very often," Mrs. Challoner said
to her eldest daughter that night. "He is very gentlemanly, and a most
excellent young man: but I begin to be afraid what these visits
mean." But Nan only laughed at this.

"Poor mother!" she said, stroking her face. "Don't you wish you had us
all safe at Glen Cottage again? There are so few young men at
Oldfield."

"I cannot bear young men," was the somewhat irritable answer. "What is
the use of having children, when just when they grow up to be a
comfort to you, every one tries to deprive you of them? Dick has
robbed me of you,"--and here Mrs. Challoner grew tearful,--"and Dulce
is always with the Middletons; and I am not at all sure that Captain
Middleton is not beginning to admire her."

"Neither am I," observed Nan, a little gravely; for, though they
seldom talked of such things among themselves, "son Hammond's"
attentions were decidedly conspicuous, and Dulce was looking as shy
and pretty as possible.

No; she could not give her mother any comfort there, for the
solemn-faced young officer was clearly bent on mischief. Indeed, both
father and son were making much of the little girl. But as regarded
Mr. Drummond there could be no question of his intentions. The growing
earnestness, the long wistful looks, were not lost on Nan who knew all
such signs by experience. It was easy to understand the young vicar:
it was Phillis who baffled her.

They had never had any secrets between them. From their very
childhood, Nan had shared Phillis's every thought. But once or twice
when she had tried to approach the subject in the gentlest manner,
Phillis had started away like a restive colt, and had answered her
almost with sharpness:

"Nonsense, Nannie! What is it to me if Mr. Drummond comes a dozen
times a day?" arching her long neck in the proudest way, but her
throat contracting a little over the uttered falsehood; for she knew,
none better, what these visits were to her. "Do you think I should
take the trouble to investigate his motives?