"Oh, no right at all!" she assured him: "clergymen could only rebuke evil-doers, to which class she and her sisters did not belong, thank heaven!" to which Mr. Drummond devoutly said an "amen." "And would he please tell her if dressmakers were always met two and two, like the animals in the ark? and how would it sound when she or Nan had been fitting on a dress, on a winter's evening, if they were to refuse to leave the house until Dorothy fetched them? and how----" But here Mr. Drummond checked her, and the darkness hid his smile.
"Now you are beyond me, Miss Challoner. In a matter of detail, a man, even a parson, is often at fault. Is there no other way of managing this odious business? Forgive me; the word slipped out by accident! Could you not do the fitting, or whatever you call it, by daylight, and stay at home quietly in the evening like other young ladies?"
"Of course not," returned Phillis, promptly. She had not the least idea why it could not be done; indeed, if she had been perfectly cool--which she was not, for Mrs. Cheyne had decidedly stroked her the wrong way and ruffled her past endurance--she would have appreciated the temperate counsel vouchsafed her, and acquiesced in it without a murmur; but now she seemed bent on contradiction.
"Our opinions seem to clash to-night," returned Mr. Drummond, good-humoredly, but feeling that the young lady beside him had decidedly a will of her own. "She is very nice, but she is not as gentle as her sister," he said to himself; which was hard on Phillis, who, though she was not meek, being a girl of spirit, was wholesomely sweet and sound to the heart's core.
"One may be supposed to know one's business best," she replied rather dryly to this. And then, fearing that she might seem ungracious to a stranger, who did not know her and her little ways, she went on in a more cordial tone: "I am afraid you think me a little cross to-night; but I have been having a stand-up fight, and am rather tired. Trying to battle against other people's prejudices makes one irritable. And then, because I am down and out of heart about things, our clergyman thinks fit to lecture me on propriety."
"Only for your good. You must forgive me if I have taken too much upon myself," returned Mr. Drummond, with much compunction. "You seem so lonely,--no father or brother; at least--pardon me--I believe you have no brother?"