Cousin Phillis Read Free

her, and made a slanting stream of
light into the room within. She was dressed in dark blue cotton of some
kind; up to her throat, down to her wrists, with a little frill of the
same wherever it touched her white skin. And such a white skin as it
was! I have never seen the like. She had light hair, nearer yellow than
any other colour. She looked me steadily in the face with large, quiet
eyes, wondering, but untroubled by the sight of a stranger. I thought
it odd that so old, so full-grown as she was, she should wear a
pinafore over her gown.
    Before I had quite made up my mind what to say in reply to her mute
inquiry of what I wanted there, a woman's voice called out, 'Who is it,
Phillis? If it is any one for butter-milk send them round to the back
door.'
    I thought I could rather speak to the owner of that voice than to the
girl before me; so I passed her, and stood at the entrance of a room
hat in hand, for this side-door opened straight into the hall or
house-place where the family sate when work was done. There was a brisk
little woman of forty or so ironing some huge muslin cravats under the
light of a long vine-shaded casement window. She looked at me
distrustfully till I began to speak. 'My name is Paul Manning,' said I;
but I saw she did not know the name. 'My mother's name was Moneypenny,'
said I,—'Margaret Moneypenny.'
    'And she married one John Manning, of Birmingham,' said Mrs Holman,
eagerly.
    'And you'll be her son. Sit down! I am right glad to see you. To think
of your being Margaret's son! Why, she was almost a child not so long
ago. Well, to be sure, it is five-and-twenty years ago. And what brings
you into these parts?'
    She sate down herself, as if oppressed by her curiosity as to all the
five-and-twenty years that had passed by since she had seen my mother.
Her daughter Phillis took up her knitting—a long grey worsted man's
stocking, I remember—and knitted away without looking at her work. I
felt that the steady gaze of those deep grey eyes was upon me, though
once, when I stealthily raised mine to hers, she was examining
something on the wall above my head.
    When I had answered all my cousin Holman's questions, she heaved a long
breath, and said, 'To think of Margaret Moneypenny's boy being in our
house! I wish the minister was here. Phillis, in what field is thy
father to-day?'
    'In the five-acre; they are beginning to cut the corn.'
    'He'll not like being sent for, then, else I should have liked you to
have seen the minister. But the five-acre is a good step off. You shall
have a glass of wine and a bit of cake before you stir from this house,
though. You're bound to go, you say, or else the minister comes in
mostly when the men have their four o'clock.'
    'I must go—I ought to have been off before now.'
    'Here, then, Phillis, take the keys.' She gave her daughter some
whispered directions, and Phillis left the room.
    'She is my cousin, is she not?' I asked. I knew she was, but somehow I
wanted to talk of her, and did not know how to begin.
    'Yes—Phillis Holman. She is our only child—now.'
    Either from that 'now', or from a strange momentary wistfulness in her
eyes, I knew that there had been more children, who were now dead.
    'How old is cousin Phillis?' said I, scarcely venturing on the new
name, it seemed too prettily familiar for me to call her by it; but
cousin Holman took no notice of it, answering straight to the purpose.
    'Seventeen last May-day; but the minister does not like to hear me
calling it May-day,' said she, checking herself with a little awe.
'Phillis was seventeen on the first day of May last,' she repeated in
an emended edition.
    'And I am nineteen in another month,' thought I, to myself; I don't
know why. Then Phillis came in, carrying a tray with wine and cake upon
it.
    'We keep a house-servant,' said cousin Holman, 'but it is churning day,
and she is busy.' It was meant as a little proud apology for her
daughter's being the handmaiden.
    'I like doing it, mother,' said