"You have quite forgiven me?" Mr. Drummond said, as she accompanied him to the door before rejoining her sisters. "You know I have promised not to do it again until the next time."
"Oh, we shall see about that!" returned Phillis, good-humoredly. "Forewarned is forearmed; and there is a triple alliance against you."
"Good heavens, what mockery it seems! I never saw such girls,--never!" thought Mr. Drummond, as he took long strides down the road. "But Mattie is right: they mean business, and nothing in the world would change that girl's determination if she had set herself to carry a thing out. I never knew a stronger will!" And in this he was tolerably right.
The longest week must have an end; and so at last the eventful Monday morning arrived,--"Black Monday," as Dulce called it, and then sighed as she looked out on the sunshine and the waving trees, and thought how delicious a long walk or a game of tennis would be, instead of stitch, stitch, stitching all day. But Dulce was an unselfish little soul, and kept all these thoughts to herself, and dressed herself quickly; for she had overslept herself, and Phillis had long been downstairs.
Nan was locking up the tea-caddy as she entered the parlor, and Phillis was standing by the table, drawing on her gloves, and her lips were twitching a little,--a way they had when Phillis was nervous.
Nan went up and kissed her, and gave her an encouraging pat.
"This is for luck, my dear; and mind you make the best of poor Miss Milner's dumpy, roundabout little figure. There I have put the body-lining, and the measuring-tape, and a paper of pins in this little black bag; and I have not forgotten the scissors,--oh, dear, no! I have not forgotten the scissors," went on Nan, with such surprising cheerfulness that Phillis saw through it, and was down on her in a moment.
"No, Nan; there! I declare I will not be such a goose. I am not nervous,--not one bit; it is pure fun, that's what it is. Dulce, what a naughty child you are to oversleep yourself this morning, and I had not the heart to wake you, you looked so like a baby: and we never wake babies because they are sure to squall!"
"Oh, Phil, are you going to Miss Milner's? I would have walked with you if I had had my breakfast; but I am so hungry."