"Ah, just so!" ejaculated Miss Mewlstone; but she said it with her lips far apart, and a mistiness came into her sleepy blue eyes. Perhaps, though she was stout and middle-aged and breathed a little too heavily at times, she remembered--long ago when she was young and poor and had to wage a bitter war with the world--when she ate the dry bread and drank the bitter water of dependence and felt herself ill nourished by such unpalatable sustenance. "Oh, just so, poor thing!" And a little round tear dripped on to the ball of scarlet fleecy wool. But Mrs. Cheyne listened to the announcement in far different mood. There was an incredulous stare at Phillis, as though she suspected her of a joke; and then she laughed, a dry, harsh laugh, that was not quite pleasant to hear. "Oh, this is droll, passing droll!" she said, and leaned back on her cushions, and drew her Indian cashmere round her and frowned a little. "I am glad you find it so," returned Phillis, who was nonplussed at this, and did not know what to say, and was a little angry in consequence; and then she got up from her chair with a demonstration of spirit. "I am glad you find it so; but to us it is sad earnestness!" "What! are you going?" asked Mrs. Cheyne, with a keen glance through her half-shut eyes at poor Phillis standing so tall and straight before her. "And you have not told me the reason for taking so strange a step!" "The reason lies in our poverty and paucity of resources," was Phillis's curt reply. "It is not to make a sensation, then? no, I did not mean that," as Phillis shot an indignant glance at her,--"not exactly; but there is no knowing what the emancipated girl will do. Of course I have no right to question, who was a stranger to you four-and-twenty hours ago, and had never heard the name of Challoner, except that it was a good and an old name; but when one sees young things like you about to forfeit caste and build up a barrier between yourselves and your equals that the bravest will fear to pass, it seems as though one must lift up one's voice in protest." "Thank you; but it will be of no use," returned Phillis, coldly. "You are determined to make other people's dresses?" And here her lip curled a little, perhaps involuntarily. "We must must make dresses or starve; for our fingers are cleverer than our brains," replied Phillis, defiantly; for she knew nothing about it, and her powers were so immature and unfledged that she had never tried her wings, and had no notion whether she could fly or not, and yet no girl had a clearer head. "We have chosen work that we know we can do well, and we mean not to be ashamed of our occupation. In the old days ladies used to spin and weave, and no one blamed them, though they were noble; and if my work will bring me money, and keep the mother comfortable, I see nothing that will prevent my doing it." "Ah, you are romantic, Miss Challoner; you will soon be taught matter-of-fact!"