Mrs Molesworth (continued 4)

“I beg your pardon for mistaking you,” she said. “I thought you were the groom from—”

“I cannot beg your pardon,” interrupted Philip, “for I am absolutely in the dark as to whether I have mistaken you or not. Are you—” but here he hesitated, though the tone of her voice and the manner of her speech had almost satisfied him that his recognition had been correct—“are you Miss Wyndham, and if so—what in the world—”

It was by this time all Ella could do to repress her laughter.

“What in the world am I doing here?” she said, finishing his sentence for him. “Did you not ask if you would find me scouring pots and pans if you came to see me? Well—I have been doing something of the kind—witness my apron, and my hands,” staring ruefully at some black streaks on her fingers.

“And your cheek, Miss Ella,” interrupted Hetty, understanding the gesture though not the words. “It’s a deal smuttier nor your hands.”

Ella’s face grew still more scarlet.

“Oh, you horrid little girl,” she exclaimed, “why didn’t you tell me?” and lifting a corner of the apron she began to rub her cheek so indignantly that Sir Philip could scarcely keep his countenance. But his bewilderment and curiosity overcame his amusement.

“Then,” he said, for though Hetty’s name for the young lady had vaguely caught his ear, it had not as yet awakened any association, “then I am to conclude you are Miss Wyndham?”

“No,” said Ella sharply, for the consciousness of the smut on her face had quite upset her temper, “I’m not, and I never said I was; and why you chose to call me by a name that was not mine I am sure I don’t know. I didn’t know yours, and I don’t now, and you wouldn’t tell it me, but for all that I didn’t call you by an imaginary one.”

Sir Philip looked rather taken aback.

“When I had the honour of being introduced to you,” he said stiffly, “I think I was told your name was Wyndham?”

“I am not responsible for other people’s stupidity,” said Ella. “I have no objection to your knowing who I am. I—”

But at this moment little Hetty gave her a tug. “There’s daddy a coming, Miss Ella,” she said. “I see him over there in the long path. May I run to tell him what mammy said?” and hardly waiting for permission, the child set off.

Chapter Thirteen.

Ermine Misses the Fun.

A mist seemed suddenly to roll away from Sir Philip’s brain.

“Miss Ella,” he repeated, with a sort of gasp; “you don’t mean to say—you can’t be little Ella St Quentin?”

“Why not?” Ella retorted, sharply still—the “little” was unfortunate. “I am Ella St Quentin and I have never pretended to be any one else; but at my age people are not spoken of as if they were three or four years old.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Philip.

“And,” she went on, “I don’t understand why you should speak of me in that way at all. I don’t know who you are.”

But Philip did not at once reply—his thoughts for the moment were pursuing another train. “I can’t make out,” he said, speaking more to himself than to her, “why they all mystified us. They must have known we were dancing together—Madelene, Ermine, certainly, and my grandmother must have—was it with her you came to the Belvoirs’?” he exclaimed suddenly. “Was that the reason of Granny’s strange freak?”

In her turn, Ella’s face looked first astonished, then illumined.

“Are you speaking of Lady Cheynes, my godmother?” she said. “Then are you Sir Philip Cheynes? Oh, how fearfully stupid of me not to know! But,” and her bewilderment took the same direction as his, “why did none of them introduce us properly? Of course I never thought of you being here; I understood till yesterday that you were up in the north somewhere. I did not hear your surname at all, and I was not sure if you were ‘Sir Philip,’ though I remembered that much. If I had thought of it—it is not such a very common name—but I just never thought of you, of my godmother’s grandson, at all.”

“I see,” Philip replied; “and they all lent themselves to the—‘mystification,’ that is plain. I confess I don’t see much point in it.”

He spoke stiffly, but he was not resenting it on her—indeed he had no reason to do so, but when people are vexed they are not always reasonable—so Ella remained gracious. Suddenly his eyes fell on her quaint figure—she had forgotten all about her personal travesty by this time—and a half dubious, half quizzical smile lighted up his face as if in spite of himself.

“It seems mystifications all round,” he said. “It is, to say the least, an extraordinary coincidence that I should light upon you like this, all perfectly got up in the Aschen-puttel style.”

“You are very,”—“impertinent” was on the tip of Ella’s tongue, but she suppressed it. “I daresay he has heard of all my iniquities from Madelene. I am not going to have him endorse her opinion of me,” she thought, and a very charming smile stole over her face, as, colouring again a little, she replied gently, “You are right. It is very queer that we should have met again like this,” and she went on to explain Hetty’s domestic tribulations.

“It was most kind of you,” said Philip warmly. “But,” as at that moment the little girl and her father joined them, “don’t you think you had better return to your own character now? It is very cold, too. Rose, you mustn’t let Hetty keep house alone in this style, my good fellow,” he went on to the gardener; “the child might have fallen into the fire and been badly burnt.”

It had never happened before, and never should again, the man assured him civilly. He had not known of his wife’s absence; she had, so Hetty had been charged to explain, been tempted to take advantage of the unexpected chance of getting her boy to the doctor’s; and by the invariable rule of contrary, Rose himself had been detained at work much later than usual. While the gardener was thus explaining matters, Ella had run in to the lodge, and a moment later reappeared in hat and jacket, minus the apron and the smuts.

“Good-bye, Hetty,” she said, and “good-bye Sir Philip Cheynes,” she added, turning to him. “I am going a little further, towards the outer gate.”

Philip looked at her.

“Will you not take your constitutional in another direction?” he said quietly. “There is—I have something to say to you, which I may not find another opportunity for.”

Ella looked surprised and a little startled. His tone was solemn. Was he going after all to make out that she deserved lecturing for her innocent deception? But her expression changed to relief when he went on, Rose and Hetty having by this time retired—

“It is not exactly something to say; it is rather something to give you. If you don’t mind walking beside me while I lead my horse, I will explain. A—a piece of property of yours has come into my possession. I had no expectation of course of seeing you here, but I have the—article in my pocket, because, to tell the truth, I was going to show it to my cousins and consult them about it. I thought it probable they had noticed the shoes ‘Miss Wyndham’ wore the other evening if they were the peculiar-looking ones in question, and that they would be able to tell me where to find her.”

Ella had had hard work to keep down her impatience during this long explanation, and when he came to the word “shoe” her eyes danced with delight.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “if you have found my slipper I can’t thank you enough. You don’t know how miserable I have been about it,” and she went on to tell how her anxiety to hear if it had been found had brought her to the lodge that morning. “It must be mine,” she went on; “it is too impossible that such a queer accident should have happened to any one else the same evening. But please let me see it, that I may be quite sure.”

Philip drew a little parcel out of his pocket and held it out to Ella, who eagerly unwrapped it. Yes—there it lay—the dainty little old-world slipper, with infinite pathos about its mellow satin and quaint buckle to any one who knew its history.

Ella looked inclined to kiss it.

“Oh, how pleased I am,” she said. “Do tell me where you found it and all about it—and how odd it was that you should have noticed the slippers I had on and known it was mine.”

Sir Philip looked at her quizzically.

“I must take your word for it, I suppose, that it is yours,” he said. “By rights, you know, you should try it on, at least after Madelene and Ermine have done so.”

“What nonsense,” Ella exclaimed. “You are not in earnest?”

It was not till some time afterwards that she understood what he had meant.

“I can show you the fellow to it, if you like,” she added.

“Well—perhaps that would do as well,” he agreed, looking much amused.

“And as for trying it on, that wouldn’t convince you,” she said after a moment’s reflection, “for they’re too big for me. They weren’t made for me—”

“Scarcely, unless—you are even more of a fairy personage than I have suspected. The slippers must be thirty years old at least. If you were grown-up thirty years ago, you look young for your age,” he said.

Ella laughed.

“Yes, I see,” she answered. “But, by the by, I wonder you never saw them before. They belonged to your sis—no, she couldn’t have been your sister—what was she to you, then, Clarice Cheynes?” and she glanced up in his face with a little frown of perplexity on her own.

A light broke over Philip’s.

“They were hers!” he exclaimed, “and poor granny disinterred them for you to dance in!”

“I am her godchild,” Ella replied, rearing her head a little as she spoke.

“Of course. I only meant, what I am sure you think too, that it was very good of her. People are sometimes more selfish about feelings of that kind than about anything else. No—I never saw the slippers before, but I know that granny has a room where she treasures up all the little possessions of my aunt—who never was my aunt—Clarice.”

“Did she die before you were born then?” asked Ella.

“Yes—she died the year my father and mother were married, and I was not their eldest child,” said Sir Philip, “though all the others died as babies.”

They were near the house by this time. Ella looked up dubiously.

“Perhaps you will get on your horse again now,” she said, “and ride up to the door. My sisters are expecting you, I know—perhaps you will tell them of having met me, and found out who I was.”

“Will you not tell them yourself?” he said.

“No, I am going round the other way, behind the house. I have no longer any interest in watching for the groom,” Ella replied, “and I would rather you told my sisters, please.” She hesitated a little—“They, Madelene, might be a little annoyed, at—at my having been at the lodge, and all that.”

Philip looked surprised.

“I don’t think that is at all the sort of thing to vex Maddie,” he said. “Indeed it is rather in Ermine’s own line, I should say.”

But Ella still looked doubtful, and hurried off, half smiling, but with a gesture that implied her preference for not making one at the forthcoming interview.

Philip mounted and rode up, en règle, to the door, where, in answer to his inquiries, he was told that Miss St Quentin was at home and in the library.

There, sure enough, he found his elder cousin. She started up as he came in.

“Oh, Philip, that’s right,” she exclaimed. “We were just hoping you would come before luncheon. It is so nice to have you at home again,” she added affectionately.

“It is nice to be home again,” he replied, as he went up to the fire and stood warming his hands at the blaze. Then there fell a little silence.

“Madelene,” said Sir Philip at last, “you haven’t yet introduced me to you sister Ella.”

“No,” Miss St Quentin replied, “there has not yet been any opportunity for my doing so,” she was beginning, when she suddenly and unaccountably stopped. “If you will ring, Philip,” she said, “I will send to tell both Ermine and Ella to come.”

But Philip did not move towards the bell.

“I don’t want them to come just yet,” he said. “I want to talk to you a little first. And besides, Ella is out.”

“Ella out,” repeated Madelene, looking up and changing colour slightly. Her manner seemed rather constrained and nervous. “How do you know?” her glance at him said.

Philip smiled.

“Yes,” he said, “I know what you are looking so ‘funny’ about, Maddie, as we used to say when we were children. You cannot sham the very least bit in the world; you never could, you know. Yes—I have met Ella, and the mystification is at an end. But by Jove what it ever began for, I cannot imagine. Will you not enlighten me?”

Miss St Quentin grew more and more uneasy.

“No,” she said, “I can’t. It—it was a freak of Ermine’s, and Aunt Anna took it up and joined in it, so I could not oppose it, though to tell you the truth I never liked it. Of course at the beginning it was altogether accidental; we had no idea—Ermie and I, I mean—of Aunt Anna’s getting papa to let Ella go to the ball—we had done our utmost to persuade him, but he wouldn’t. And then your being there was unexpected—and they made a muddle of Ella’s name: all that came about of itself.”

“Yes,” said Philip. “I see. But I see, too, how cleverly you all—no, not so much you, Maddie—joined to keep up the mistake, though upon my word I can’t see any point in it. I cannot find fault with my grandmother, but I shall have it out with Ermine.”

Madelene looked distressed; she saw that Philip was on the point of being angry.

“It is my clumsiness,” she said. “If you had seen Ermine first it would have been all right. She would have made you see it differently—but don’t be vexed about it, Philip. I do beg you not to be. I do so want to have no more worries in which Ella is concerned. I am so tired of misunderstandings and all that kind of bother.”

Philip took her up at once.

“Have you had many bothers, poor Maddie?” he said. “Is she—is Ella not—not nice and gentle with you?”

Madelene felt as if she could have bitten her tongue off for having spoken so ill-advisedly.

“No, of course I didn’t mean to say anything against Ella,” she replied quickly. “You shouldn’t take one up so, Philip. It makes me think Ermine was right.”

“Right in what? Maddie, I am tired of all these half-speeches and cross-purposes. And I foresee I shall very likely have a quarrel with Ermine if you won’t speak out. What was she right in, and why did she want me to make your young sister’s acquaintance without knowing who she was.”

“She thought—as it had happened so—it was not our doing at first, remember—she thought you would like Ella better, judge her for herself as it were, if you met her as a stranger. Ermie has fancied you were a little prepossessed against Ella, and, I think,” Miss St Quentin went on, consideringly, “I think, perhaps she blames herself a little for its being so. You remember—that day when Ella first arrived—Ermine had been really hardly fair about her.”

Philip sat listening.

“Well?” he said, after waiting as if for his cousin to continue.

“That’s all,” said Madelene. “It really is, Philip. I can’t tell you any more of what Ermine thinks or doesn’t think, and as it is, I didn’t want to tell you this. You might have treated it, I do think, as a simple little piece of fun. But now that I have said so much, I trust you to make no to-do about it.”

“I shall have it out with granny,” remarked Philip; “but that’s our own affair, hers and mine.” But he said no more about quarrelling with Ermine.

After a while he looked up and related to Madelene how he and Ella had met. A variety of expressions crossed Madelene’s face as he spoke.

“I wish you had not met her for the first time—”

“But it wasn’t the first time,” Philip interrupted.

“Well—you know what I mean—the first time at home, in that extraordinary guise. She must have looked comical,” said Madelene, laughing however. “She is very impulsive.”

“Impressionable, I should say,” said Philip. “And very warm-hearted. I like to see that sort of impulsiveness,” he added heartily, watching Madelene’s face rather closely the while.

Again a slightly uneasy look stole over it.

“Yes,” she said, “it was kind, thoroughly kind of her to help poor Hetty.”

But even in this cordial praise there was a suggestion of reserve which did not escape Philip.

“Cross-purposes. They’re all at cross-purposes,” he thought, “and I’m afraid Maddie’s in a mood for a good long ride on her hobby-horse at present. Madelene,” he said suddenly after some moments silence, “you’ve had a letter from Bernard lately. I know you have, for he wrote to me by the same mail.”

“In that case I need not give you any news, as you will have heard it all direct,” Miss St Quentin replied dryly.

“Come now, Maddie, I know what that means. You don’t want to talk about him. Is there no change then—do you see no prospect of any?”

“None at all,” Madelene replied, in a voice which she strove to make as expressionless as possible.

“It’s rather hard upon Omar, I must say,” said Philip; and if his object were to rouse his cousin, he succeeded.

“Did I ever say it wasn’t hard on him?” she exclaimed. “Is it my fault? Have I left undone anything to make him give it up?”

“I don’t say you have. I don’t say that in that way you are to blame,” said Philip quietly; “always allowing that the obstacles are as insuperable as you make out.”

“They are more so—worse and worse,” said Madelene, with a rather wintry smile.

“Then you will forbid his coming home, as he can now, I suppose?”

“I have no right to do so, but if he does, I—”

The rest of her sentence was left to the imagination, for at that moment the door opened, and Ermine, followed by Ella, made her appearance.

Ermine gave no one time to feel awkward.

“It is too bad of you, Philip, and of you, Ella, too,” she said laughing, “to have balked me of my fun. It would have been too lovely to see you both looking so astonished.”

“I am not very fond of looking ridiculous for the amusement of my friends, though I would do a good deal to oblige you, Ermine,” said Sir Philip dryly.

Ella’s eyes sparkled with satisfaction. She would not like Sir Philip Cheynes to speak to her in that tone, she said to herself. But Ermine did not seem to mind in the least.

“I can stand your withering speeches, my dear boy,” she said coolly. “It was great fun all the same, and Aunt Anna enjoyed it as much as I did. You can have it out with her, if you like, when you go home.”

“I intend to do so,” he replied.

Ella stood glancing from one to the other with a rather comical look of perplexity on her pretty face. They seemed on very free and easy terms, these sisters of hers with their cousin. Somehow she had not quite realised it, and it surprised her a little. She had never seen anything quite of the same kind before. It was not flirtation, and yet—she was not by any means sure but that the brother and sisterly love covered some deeper and tenderer feeling, and she watched and listened with peculiar curiosity. Madelene, she observed, looked up with some anxiety when she heard the bandying of words between Ermine and her cousin.

“Philip,” she said half reproachfully in a low voice—he was standing near her—“you promised me?”

Sir Philip turned, with the smile which was one of his charms.

“Don’t be afraid, Maddie,” he said almost tenderly, it seemed to Ella. “Ermine, my dear, we must not even play at quarrelling; it troubles dear old Mad.”

“Shall we kiss and be friends then—eh, Phil?” said Ermine saucily; and when Sir Philip began something about taking her at her word, and she ensconced herself defiantly behind her elder sister’s chair, Madelene laughed with hearty pleasure, her whole face lighted up with satisfaction at seeing that there was no real danger of misunderstanding between the two.

“I have it,” said Ella to herself. “It isn’t Ermine herself so much. It is Madelene who wants Philip for her; that explains the keeping me out of his way when I first came, and all the rest of is. I wonder if my godmother wishes it too? Yet the trick the other night can hardly have been on that account. I don’t see any object in it. I suppose it was just a freak of Ermine’s, and that Madelene and my godmother too gave in to her. Ermine is so spoilt.”

But she was interrupted in these wise and profound cogitations. Ermine suddenly gave an exclamation.

“Oh dear,” she said. “I am forgetting to give you this note from Mrs Belvoir. I met James with it as I was crossing the hall.”

“A note only—no parcel,” said Madelene in a tone of disappointment. “I am so sorry, Ella,” she went on after running her eyes down the two or three hurried lines which the envelope contained. “I am so sorry. Mrs Belvoir knows nothing of the—of your lost property. I am so sorry for you, dear.”

A pleasant light spread over her cousin’s face as he caught the last words. They seemed to assure him of Madelene’s kindliness and sympathy. Ella too was touched by them.

“About the shoe, you mean,” she said. “Oh, Madelene, I was just going to tell you. I am not surprised or disappointed for,”—here she glanced at Philip—“won’t you tell them how it was?” she went on, half shyly; “I don’t think I heard quite exactly how or when you happened to find it.”

“You found it! Phil found it! oh, how lovely!” cried Ermine. “Have you got it in your pocket, Philip, or were you afraid of sitting down upon it and smashing it?”

Philip frowned a little.

“Out with it,” said Ermine, “then—what should you do then?—we’ll have to skip the herald part of the business. Go down on your knees—isn’t that it?—and present it first to Maddie and then to me. Of course we can’t get it on, and then you summon—”

Philip began to look distinctly annoyed; Ella, notwithstanding her usual quickness, seemed merely bewildered.

“I have not got it,” said Sir Philip; “of course I returned it at once to its rightful owner.”

“I have got it,” said Ella. “It is up stairs with its fellow. Sir Philip gave it to me when we met. Would you mind telling where you found it?”

“It was just outside the hall door at the Manor,” the young man replied. “I was standing there not long after my last dance with—with Miss Wyndham,” he added with a little smile, “and saw it lying—the buckle gleaming in the moonlight.”

“Like glass” interrupted Ermine; “dear me, you are quite poetical, Philip. It must have been that time you went to catch some friends of yours whom you wanted to say good-night to before they left.”

“Yes,” said Philip, simply, “it was.”

And Ella fixed her brown eyes on him as he spoke.

Chapter Fourteen.

Differences of Opinion.

As Philip was leaving that afternoon, Ella, whom he had not seen since luncheon, met him in the hall.

“Will you be so kind,” she began, “if it is not too much trouble—would you mind taking this little parcel to my godmother?” and she held up a small packet just twice the size of the one that had been transferred from his keeping to hers that same morning.

“Is it the shoes?” he said; “ah, I supposed so. Certainly I will give them to her. Shall I say you forgot them before?”

“No,” said Ella, colouring a little, “for that would not be true. Still I would rather she did not know of my having so nearly lost one; it would distress her and seem as if I had been careless. I don’t think you need say anything; just give her them from me.”

“Without telling her of their adventures?—very well. But, Ella,”—she looked a little surprised at his thus addressing her—“I must call you Ella; anything else would be absurd,”—he interpolated.

“Well, yes; I suppose so,” she said rather stiffly.

“You must warn Madelene—your sisters—that you don’t want my lady to know of the accident, otherwise she might very likely allude to it, especially with my having had the good luck to find it.”

Ella’s face fell.

“Oh, then,” she said, “you had better tell my godmother all about it yourself. It would be enough for me—I mean, Madelene would very probably make a matter of conscience of telling it, if I asked her not. She—my sisters do not give me credit for much good as it is,” she added with a slight smile, more bitter than playful, “However, it doesn’t matter. I will write by to-night’s post and confess all my sins myself to my godmother.”

“I think it would be both foolish and unnecessary to tell her anything about it,” said Sir Philip, who had his own reasons for not wishing anything more to be said about the episode of the shoe. “I can, if you like, say a word of warning myself to Maddie,” he went on, turning back as he spoke to the library. “At the same time,” as Ella made an eager gesture of assent, “I don’t agree with you about Madelene being so—so ill-natured and unfeeling and indeed, worse—hypocritical—as you seem to think her.”

His tone was quiet, but very grave. Ella started a little. It was not so much that he convinced her by what he said, as that she was shocked at hearing her opinion of her sister translated into the words of others.

“I—I did not exactly mean that,” she said confusedly.

“No,” Philip returned. “I am sure of that. Besides, of course anything you may say to me—in a moment of thoughtlessness or irritation, and we are all subject to such moments—about your sisters, cannot possibly do any harm.”

He smiled at her a little as he spoke—and Philip’s smile was very sweet—and then disappeared again into the library. Ella went slowly up stairs to her own room; a bright fire was blazing there.

“That speech may tell two ways,” she said to herself; “if he is such a very privileged and neutral sort of person, I suppose he will listen to all they say against me. What a fool I was to think he would sympathise with me!” and her cheeks glowed with annoyance. “Yet he might really have been a friend, for I know dear old godmother cares for me. I just wish I had chanced to meet them both elsewhere, quite independently of all the associations and influences here, for I am sure,” and a little smile flickered over her face, “I am sure Sir Philip did like me the other night—and now,” the smile quite fading away, “he will just look upon me as they all do—as a tiresome, spoilt little fool that needs any amount of sitting upon. Indeed, but for meeting me incognito, I don’t suppose he would ever have been nice to me at all. And the very thing they took advantage of to prevent our getting to know each other well and naturally, had just the opposite effect, my dear sisters! But why did godmother join in it?” and Ella’s brows contracted in perplexity. “I suppose Ermine can get her to do whatever she likes,” she decided, though the conclusion was not a thoroughly satisfactory one.

Just then Hester knocked at the door. She had come “to see to the fire,” she said, Miss St Quentin having given orders that during this very severe weather a good one was to be kept up in Miss Ella’s room all day.

“Did you go telling tales about my sitting up here in the cold then?” asked Ella, ungraciously enough.

“Not I, Miss Ella,” said Hester, calmly. “If you had gone for to do it again I’d have spoke up to the young ladies likely enough; but you’d have known of it, Miss Ella—I’m not one as goes aught but straightforrard.”

“Am I not one of the young ladies then?” said Ella.

“You’re just a contrary baby, Missie; sweet enough, I’ll not deny, when it suits you.”

Ella laughed, but her laugh was rather contemptuous.

“So you’ve had Sir Philip here, Miss Ella,” the old servant went on. “Wasn’t I right about him—he is a nice gentleman, isn’t he?” And Hester looked rather scrutinisingly as she spoke. Hester was not without a little harmless love of gossip.

“I’m sure I don’t remember what you said,” Ella replied indifferently. “If you mean that he’s nice-looking, yes; he’s not bad.”

But while she spoke she congratulated herself that she had not told Hester more particulars of the dance at the Manor.

“Not much chance of his ever being my prince,” she thought with a sigh, realising now the place which for the last day or two she had allowed “the stranger,” as they say in the old romances, to occupy in her vague, pretty day-dreams. For the girlish imagination at eighteen “gallops apace.”

Down stairs in the library meanwhile Ella’s two sisters were sitting together. Philip had left, after giving, as if of himself, the suggestion as to not mentioning to Lady Cheynes the narrow escape of the slipper—a suggestion at once appreciated and accepted. Madelene was writing; Ermine, under cover of a book and some work at hand on a little table beside her, was in reality doing nothing, except from time to time glancing at her sister.

“Maddie,” she said at last.

Miss St Quentin stopped writing and looked round with a slight touch of impatience.

“What is it, Ermine?” she said. “If it is anything very particular I’ll leave off, but I do want to finish this letter. It must go to-morrow, and you know I can never count upon doing anything in the evening.”

“It is a letter for the Indian mail then, I suppose?” said Ermine.

“Yes.”

“I—I wish you’d tell me what you are saying, Maddie,” said Ermine hesitatingly. “You know I don’t ask out of officiousness or curiosity.”

“I don’t suppose you do; all the same I wish you would leave the subject. It doesn’t do any good and it only makes it harder for me.”

“Tell me at least what you have said,” urged Ermine.

“You know the only thing I can say—the old story—while papa lives it is impossible.”

“And that is all Bernard Omar has won by five—six years’ waiting!” exclaimed Ermine indignantly.

“My dear Ermine, be just to me,” said her sister sadly. “I have never wished him to wait, nor encouraged him in the least to do so. And now—you must see for yourself that it is less possible than ever.”

“Because of Ella?”

“Yes, of course. I can’t leave this place. It would be wrong, considering it is mine, though eventually I feel sure it will be yours. But it would be too much, far too much to put on you alone, Ermine—the care of this place and papa, as he now is, and, in addition, Ella! No blessing would follow me if I acted so selfishly.”

“But if Bernard agreed to give up his profession and come and live here?” said Ermine. “He would not do so six years ago, and I think he was right then. But now—Heaven knows he has gained his laurels if ever a man did; and as for being idle, he would have plenty to do here in looking after the place and with his own writing.”

“Stop, Ermine,” said Madelene decidedly. “Such an arrangement is absolutely out of the question. Bernard would never feel he had a wife, nor I that I had a husband: coming into the midst of a family like ours would certainly not be the kind of thing he would like, and every existing difficulty would be increased.”

“You mean Ella, I suppose?” said Ermine; “and yet you are indignant with me for wanting Philip to fall in love with her and marry her. That would make everything easier. It would leave me at liberty to go hopping about a little, and perhaps somebody decent might take a fancy to poor me at last. Nobody ever has, you know, hitherto.”

“Nonsense, Ermie. Lots have, but you’ve snubbed them all, you know. Why don’t you go about more as it is?”

“And leave you alone for all the home worries? No, indeed—if you had a husband to help you, now.”

“Oh, Ermine, do leave the subject,” said Madelene wearily. “Of course, as far as we are concerned it would be delightful for Ella to marry Philip—it would make a different man of papa, I do believe; but neither papa nor we are the chief people to be considered. And I will not do anything to help on a marriage in that way—above all, with the grave doubts I have as to how it would turn out.”

“Well then, it’s to be hoped nobody ever will take pity on me,” said Ermine, dryly, “for assuredly I will never leave you here as things are.”

“It is fortunate then that the contingency in question, according to you, has not yet arisen,” said Madelene calmly, turning again to her letter.

Yes—Ermine had spoken truly. It was really six years since Madelene St Quentin had agreed to consider herself engaged to Bernard Omar, with the understanding that no one but her sister and Bernard’s old friend, Philip Cheynes, were to be taken into their confidence. For it was at that time that Colonel St Quentin’s health had begun to fail, and any additional anxiety or excitement was forbidden for him. Besides this, the engagement could not have been but an indefinite one; for Madelene, though but nineteen, had many responsibilities on her hands, and Bernard, three years her senior, was on the point of starting with his regiment for India. It had been due to an accident that an understanding, even between the two themselves had ever been come to, for Mr Omar was poor and Madelene was rich, and both were proud. But they had known each other since Madelene’s childhood; their mutual trust and confidence were entire; and trying though the long delay had been, it had yet been the great happiness of both lives.

Once only during those six years had Bernard, now Captain Omar, returned to England on a few months’ leave. He and Madelene had not seen very much of each other, for during some part of the time the St. Quentins had been abroad. But little as they were together, the two separated more deeply attached to each other, if that were possible, than before, and with fervent, if vague, hopes for the future. These hopes, however, were rendered vaguer still by Colonel St Quentin’s increased illness, aggravated, if not caused, by his money troubles, which made Madelene entirely renounce all idea of ever leaving him even for a few years’ sojourn in India. For some time she looked forward to Captain Omar’s retirement as the goal which was to see all difficulties set straight; but with the advent of Ella on the scene, her father’s morbid irritability, and her own ever-increasing duties, she began to despair. Breaking off the engagement seemed to her the only alternative, and she wrote to India to this effect, entreating Bernard not to dream of renouncing his profession for her sake, but to try to forget her and the weary years which had but led to ever-repeated disappointment. To this letter she had just received an answer. Captain Omar refused to come to any decision till they should again have met and discussed matters; in order to do this he had applied for leave and expected to be in England in the course of the next six mouths. But the tone of his letter seemed to Madelene cold, and her heart was very sore.

“He is getting tired of it at last,” she thought.

The situation was a complicated one, for though Captain Omar had distinguished himself both as an officer and a writer, in the eyes of the world his marriage with Miss St Quentin would be looked upon as greatly to his advantage; furthermore, he felt keenly that in offering to renounce his profession for Madelene’s sake he was giving the strongest possible proof of his devotion—devotion which it now seemed to him, or would have done so had he known her character less perfectly, was but faintly appreciated.

The letter was completed, folded, and directed. Ermine made a face at it when she saw it lying ready for the post on the side-table of their little sitting-room up stairs.

“I suppose Maddie has written to say that he need not give himself the trouble of coming here at all, or something of that kind. I do think it’s too bad. She is sacrificing any—ah, well, it’s no use thinking of that. I don’t believe the Marchants are going to ask me after all—and negatively, so to say, sacrificing Ella, too. I’m sure Philip admires her more than he has ever admired anybody before, but Madelene has such influence over him—a cold look or glance of hers would prejudice him—even without her meaning it in the least. And if I were Bernard I wouldn’t stand it, no I wouldn’t, and in one side of my heart I hope he won’t.”

Ermine stamped her foot—there was no one to see—with an energy which would have gone far to prove her relationship to fiery little Ella. “I won’t tell Madelene of the Marchants’ invitation, if it does come, till too late. If she is so obstinate I have no choice—I must follow suit, I suppose.”

The next day or two passed uneventfully enough. The weather continued bitterly cold, and Colonel St Quentin scarcely ventured to leave his room. One or other of his elder daughters was almost constantly in request to read or talk to him or write his letters. Ella paid him little duty visits and was always kindly received, but the sort of affectionate and almost familiar tone which had begun between the father and daughter while they were alone, seemed to have disappeared. Again there came over the girl the cold mortifying sensation of being but an outsider in her own home, and the vague scheme for her future which had momentarily, in the excitement of her visit to the Manor and the appearance of Philip on the scene, been half-forgotten, began again to haunt her restless little brain.

“This life is too dreary,” she said to herself, “day after day the same. No one to sympathise with me—no one to care what I do or feel or anything. It is becoming unendurable.”

But on the third morning of this unendurable existence—the fourth that is after Sir Philip’s visit to Coombesthorpe—something did happen. The post brought an invitation from Lady Cheynes to Madelene and Ella, to drive over the following afternoon to dine and stay the night with her.

“Ella!” exclaimed Miss St Quentin, involuntarily. “Not you, Ermine?”

“Why not, Ella?” said Ermine, and had she been speaking to any one but her adored Madelene, one would have been inclined to call her tone testy, if not snappish; “why shouldn’t it be Ella? You don’t want to set off like the graces, or the ‘three old maids of Lea,’ or any unfortunate trio of spinsters you like to name, whenever we go a visiting, do you? And I was spending the whole day at Cheynesacre yesterday.”

“Well, then, why didn’t you bring the invitation verbally, or at least you might have told me of it,” said Madelene. “You know Ella is not—”

“Madelene would have liked to hear of it privately, so that I should never have known of it,” thought Ella, while aloud Ermine exclaimed impatiently.

“Not out, are you going to say, Maddie? You can’t give that as an excuse to Aunt Anna, for she certainly thinks she has a right to a voice in Ella’s concerns. And late events show she means to claim her rights too! As for my not bringing the invitation or telling you of it, I was not told to do so by Aunt Anna—you know she has her own ways of doing things.”

Madelene looked,—not annoyed,—but dissatisfied still.

“Did you know she was going to invite us?” she said again to Ermine.

But Ermine was at that moment busily reading a letter of her own, and either did not, or wished to seem as if she did not, hear the question. Be that as it may, Madelene got no answer. Ella, secretly enjoying her elder sister’s discomfiture, happened just then to catch sight of her face. It looked more than anxious; pale and weary and almost worn. Something in its expression touched Ella’s impressionable feelings.

“Poor Madelene,” she thought, with a rush of a kind of generous pity which she would have found it difficult to explain to herself. “I am sure she means to do right. And after all—if she does want Sir Philip to—to care for Ermine, why shouldn’t she? Ermine is her very own sister. Only—I wish it had all been settled and Ermine married to him before I came here.”

The softened feeling—as most feelings did with Ella—expressed itself.

“Madelene,” she said half timidly. “I am of course quite willing to do as you like—I mean as you think best—about going out at all or not. I know—I quite understood at the time that my godmother’s taking me to the Manor dance was an exception—a sort of extra thing altogether. And I am sure she couldn’t be vexed if you said it was best for me not to go out any more just yet, and if Ermine went instead. I do believe Ermine,” with a grateful glance in her second sister’s direction, “I do believe Ermine planned it to please me, and asked godmother to invite me instead of her.” Madelene looked relieved at this—some diplomacy had been exerted by Ermine the day before at Cheynesacre, she felt sure, and she was glad to think it had been thus simple—but Ermine, though she reddened a little, replied rather abruptly.

“No, Ella. I did not really. The inviting you was Aunt Anna’s own idea.”

“I will tell papa about it, Ella, and see what he thinks,” Madelene said. “But thank you, dear, for what you say. I shall be so glad for you to believe that interfering with any pleasure for you is my very last wish.”

Chapter Fifteen.

Sir Philip Burns his Fingers.

“Of course she must go; it would seem like dictating to my lady to make any difficulty about it,” Colonel St Quentin replied, when the subject of the Cheynesacre invitation was mentioned to him by Madelene. “What conceivable reason is there why she should not go?”

“I am very glad indeed for her to go,” said Madelene gently. “I only—was not sure, papa, how you might feel about it, because you know you would not let her go to the Manor dance at first, not till—”

“Not till my aunt made a point of it and then I gave in, for which I suppose you think me very inconsistent—well, well, I am not going to defend myself, my dear. I dare say I am inconsistent and weak and foolish and in my dotage—what you like,” he replied irritably. “But one thing, Madelene, is certain, I am not going to quarrel with my aunt. She seems to have taken a fancy to Ella and she may be a good friend yet to the poor child. And Heaven only knows how soon she may need a friend.”

Colonel St Quentin sighed or groaned—his daughter knew the peculiar sound and it was inexpressibly trying to her.

“Papa,” she said, “you don’t know how you pain me when you take that tone about Ella. Of course I am delighted for her to go—but really sometimes I don’t know how to please you.”

“Well—well—never mind. I didn’t want to vex you. But I have something more important to consult you about. I have a letter from Mrs Marchant—did you know they had asked Ermine to stay there and that she had refused?”

“No,” said Madelene in surprise. “I know something was said about it at the Manor when we met them there—both Mr and Mrs Marchant and a brother of his were there, and they were speaking of gaieties they are going to have. But it was not definite. And why should Ermine have refused, without even telling me?”

Madelene’s voice sounded aggrieved.

“Nor me,” said her father. “But it is very sensible of Mrs Marchant to have written to me. She says she is sure Ermine would enjoy it, and that she only gave some vague reason of being wanted at home, or something of that kind. There is no reason why she should not go, is there?”

“None whatever, and every reason why she should,” said Madelene eagerly. “Papa, will you speak to her yourself, and say you wish it? She has only refused out of some exaggerated idea that we can’t get on without her here, and it is such a pity for Ermine to get in the way of shutting herself up. She enjoys society and shines in it; she is quite different from me.”

Colonel St Quentin glanced up at his daughter as she spoke. Her face was a little flushed with the interest of what she was saying, but still she looked ill and less serene than her wont.

“I don’t see why you should speak so of yourself, Maddie,” he said kindly. “When I get round again—when the weather’s a little better, perhaps, couldn’t we ask a few people? It might cheer us up—and little Ella would enjoy it.”

Miss St Quentin listened in surprise, not wholly unmingled with a less innocent sensation. For Madelene was not perfect.

“He would do for Ella already what he has never dreamt of doing for me,” she thought with a passing flash of bitterness. But she quickly overcame it. “If you felt able for it, certainly, papa. We might think of some nice people. That would be when Ermine comes back. Let me see—when do the Marchants want her?”

She took up the letter which her father held out to her, and some discussion as to the journey and other details followed. And then Madelene, with a brighter face than she had had for some time, went off to summon Ermine to an interview with her father.

At luncheon that day Ella was struck with the increased cheerfulness of the family party, and for some little time her powers of discernment were baffled as to the cause.

“Can papa have decided I am not to go, and can they be looking so pleased on that account?” she said to herself. “Can they—Madelene at least, for after all it is she that is looking the cheeriest, can she be so horrid?”

But as no allusion was made to the Cheynesacre invitation—which in point of fact had for the moment been forgotten by the elders of the party in the greater excitement of Ermine’s projected visit—she could not or would not not approach the subject, till her elder sister and she happened to be by themselves. Then said Ella in a voice which though sounding timid and even meek was in reality soft with restrained indignation.

“Have you asked papa, Madelene? Is—is Ermine to go, then?”

“Of course,” Miss St Quentin replied. “He decided at once and he has told her so. In her heart I am sure she is pleased though she is pretending to grumble a little. But I am so pleased—and I am sure Philip will be too to see her there, though he won’t be there the first part of the time.”

Ella scarcely attended to the latter part of this speech, so almost boiling over with indignation did she feel.

“Oh indeed,” she said icily. “Then of course you will explain it all to my godmother. I should like to have thanked her for thinking of me, but for the future I hope she will not go through the mockery of inviting me.”

Madelene stared at her.

“What do you mean, Ella? What has Aunt Anna got to do with it? And, by the by,” as the first hazy perception of some element of cross-purposes began to penetrate to her brain, “how did you know about Ermine’s going at all? She couldn’t have told you about it when she hadn’t told me?” and there was an accent of pain in the last words.

Ella stared in turn.

“You told me yourself—this morning at breakfast when Lady Cheynes’ invitation came,” said she.

Madelene stood still and began to laugh.

“My dear child,” she exclaimed, “I am so sorry. I had forgotten all about to-morrow. Yes, certainly you are to go—you and I. Papa is quite, pleased, and of course if he is, I am. What I was talking about was quite another matter,” and she went on to tell Ella all about the invitation Ermine had received and her pleasure that it was to be accepted. Never had Madelene been so confiding and companionable to her before; she seemed a different creature.

“She is very unselfish,” thought Ella, and she felt ashamed of her own suspicions, as she heartily joined in Madelene’s pleasure.

“You see,” Miss St Quentin went on, “we have lived rather a shut-up life—for even travelling is often shut-up, though it sounds absurd to say so, and Ermine is still young—I don’t want her to begin fancying she is not. I should like her to go about more.”

“You would like her to marry, wouldn’t you?” said Ella, calmly, though softly. But the calmness rather took Madelene’s breath away.

“Yes,” she said honestly, though the colour deepened a little in her fair face. “I should. But,” she went on rather confusedly, for to her there seemed something slightly coarse in the bald connection of the two ideas, “it isn’t exactly that—girls often marry just as happily who stay at home.”

Ah, thought Ella, I understand. “Is it far from here where Ermine is going?” she asked.

“Not very; still it is a new part of the country to her, which will make it all the nicer. Philip will be there part of the time, too. They are old friends of his. Mr Marchant’s half-brother (his mother married twice; her second husband is Lord Farrance) Guildford West, was at school and college with him. He was at the Manor. I dare say you danced with him. A small thin man, much smaller than Philip and not nearly so good-looking.”

“I don’t remember,” said Ella indifferently. “Then you are quite sure you wish me to go to-morrow to Cheynesacre?” she added.

“Of course,” Madelene repeated bewildered by the change in Ella’s tone, which had lost all its sympathetic softness again. “I am delighted that papa seems relaxing a little about you, and by degrees I hope it will be rather livelier for you here. If—” and here Madelene, cold, stately Madelene for the second time that afternoon blushed a little—“if Ermine were married, it would make everything seem brighter, I think.”

“Yes,” said Ella, “to you I suppose it would do so, if she married somebody you thoroughly liked. And—if she were to live near you, too.”

She spoke with a kind of clear cold precision which would have caught Madelene’s attention had she been less pre-occupied. But she was full of pleasureable excitement about Ermine’s plans, and it was almost with an effort that she listened to Ella.

“Yes, of course,” she replied half absently, “that would make it much nicer.”

And Ella drew her own conclusions.

It was with curiously mingled feelings that she looked forward to the visit to her godmother’s the next day.

“Very likely,” she thought, “Sir Philip will not be there. As Ermine isn’t going Madelene and his grandmother won’t mind whether he is or not. No,” she went on, “no, it isn’t my godmother’s doing. I won’t think it. It is only Madelene—I don’t even feel sure that Ermine herself wants it. She, I must say, always seems pleased to put me forward. I’ll never forget Madelene’s face when she saw whom I was dancing with that evening at the Manor.” Madelene however did not seem as devoid of interest in her young sister, as Ella in her present mood would have liked to imagine. One of the prettiest of the frocks she had brought with her from her aunt’s, was looked out and revived by Mélanie’s skilful hands, under Miss St Quentin’s own supervision, and Ermine herself assisted at Ella’s toilet.

“You look lovely,—doesn’t she now, Maddie?” she exclaimed, when Madelene glanced in to say that the carriage was round. “Now don’t look forbidding—let me spoil the child a bit for once. That shade of pink does suit her—almost better than white. It’s the shade Philip likes so—now, Ella, don’t forget to ask him from me if it isn’t his favourite colour.”

“Do you often wear it?” said Ella, meaningly.

“Bless the child, what does Philip care what I wear?” exclaimed Ermine.

But Madelene’s displeasure was not to be mistaken this time.

“Ermine,” she said coldly, “you really must not run on so heedlessly. Of course Philip cares. Even if he were really our brother, as you like to say he seems—he would care. And he will care about Ella too because she is our sister. But you shouldn’t talk such nonsense—I mean send silly messages like that. It would make Ella feel and look quite foolish.”

And she turned back for an instant as she and Ella were going down stairs, to reprimand Ermine still more sharply.

“Do you want to teach the child to flirt?” she asked. “You have agreed with me that there was quite enough tendency of the kind about her already. You will be getting into trouble, Ermine, if you don’t take care—making her fancy Philip is in love with her, and preparing great unhappiness for her, poor child, perhaps.”

But Ermine only laughed.

“Nonsense, Maddie,” she said. “Why must you always be so gloomy about everything? You really needn’t be so cross to me when I’ve given in so sweetly about going to the Marchants—all to please you, you know.”

And Madelene could not resist her kiss, nor resent the whispered warning at the last moment—not to spoil Ella’s evening by looking severe.

Ella was scarcely in a humour to have been much depressed or impressed by her sister’s looks. Her spirits rose with every yard that separated them from Coombesthorpe, and when they arrived at Cheynesacre and were received in the drawing-room by her godmother the girl flew into her arms as if she had been a caged bird escaping at last from its gloomy prison into sunshine and brightness.

“Oh, dear godmother, dear, dear godmother,” she whispered, “I am so pleased to be with you again.” It was impossible not to be touched; she was so genuinely sweet, and she looked so pretty. There were tears in the old lady’s eyes, as she kissed her god-daughter.

“My dear little Ella,” she said. “Then you have forgiven me?”

“Forgiven you?” Ella repeated; “what for, dear godmother?”

“For the trick I played you, or helped to play you and Philip here the other evening? Philip has forgiven me—it really was very funny.”

Sir Philip came forward from the other side of the screen where he had been talking to Madelene. “Ella has done better than I, granny,” he said, as he shook hands with her. “She has not only forgiven but forgotten, it appears.”

Ella started a little when he spoke of her by name. It was still difficult to disassociate him from the attractive “stranger” of the Manor ball.

“I think it was rather too bad of them all,” she said, “but I couldn’t have been vexed with godmother when it was all her doing—all the deliciousness of going to the dance at all.”

She had no time to say more, barely to catch sight of the grave expression with which Madelene was listening to her, when she was interrupted by the arrival of other guests.

There was a party of fourteen, all strangers to Ella, though several among them recognised her as the lovely “Miss Wyndham” who had so puzzled everybody at the Manor. Ella’s squire was a man who declared he had not yet recovered from the disappointment of her not having given him a dance on the occasion in question. He was evidently an adept at flirting and seemed very disappointed when a few words from his charming companion proved that that was “not her style.” Not so, Sir Philip, whose dark eyes spoke satisfaction when he overheard the ladylike little snub, for he had arranged with his grandmother that Ella should be his neighbour on the left.

“She will be so much of a stranger; it is really the first time she has dined here properly,” he said, and Lady Cheynes made no difficulty.

That dinner was a very pleasant experience to Ella. Philip’s manner was perfect. He made her feel quite at home, even while taking care that no one present could have suspected such care was required.

“It is the first time I have really felt as if I had not been brought up a stranger to them all,” thought she to herself, and the only thing that in the least marred her complete satisfaction was the catching sight now and then of Madelene’s eyes fixed upon her with an anxious, almost, Ella could have imagined, pitying expression.

“She thinks I am having my head turned,” thought Ella, with a slight involuntary toss of the said head. “And she is pitying me too for imagining that Sir Philip could possibly care about me, when all his devoirs are, or should be, consecrated to Ermine.” And it was with increased determination to resist any attempt at restraint which Madelene might try, that Ella responded in her sweetest and most charming manner to her “step”-cousin’s attentions.

Her godmother was not displeased, thus much was certain. For she called the girl to her in the drawing-room after dinner, to introduce her to her old friend Lady Beltravers, who with her husband made two of the guests, and made her sit beside her while she fondled and petted her.

“I must make much of her, you see,” she said half apologetically to Lady Beltravers. “She has been away from us for so long! It is not like having a godchild of one’s own, never to see her, is it? Did Philip take good care of you at dinner, my dear child?” she went on, turning to Ella. “He would not give you up to any one else, I assure you, though by rights Mrs Monkerton should have been at his left side.”

Lady Beltravers smiled kindly at Ella.

“I wish we had any young people about us,” she said with a little sigh. “My son has no children, you know—and then he is always so busy. Won’t you bring Miss St Quentin—”

“Call me ‘Ella,’ please,” interrupted the girl. “I’m not Miss St Quentin, and besides—any friend of dear godmother’s—”

“Ella, then,” went on the old lady, completely subjuguée—“won’t you bring Ella over to see me, while she is with you? We might make up a little party—it is so near Christmas and there are a few young people in the neighbourhood just now—let me see, the day after to-morrow—”

“But I am not staying here after to-morrow,” said Ella gently, “my sister and I are going back to Coombesthorpe to-morrow morning.”

“Yes,” said Madelene, who at that moment joined the group, “we must be off early, too. There are such a lot of things to do just at Christmas time. We have to settle about Christmas day too, Aunt Anna. Papa does so hope you and Philip will come to us.”

“On one condition,” said Lady Cheynes quickly, “and that is that you will leave me Ella till then. I will bring her back to you on Christmas eve, that is next Monday, without fail. Ermine leaves—let me see, when is it?”

“The day after Christmas,” Madelene replied.

“Ah, well then, it would of course be selfish to take Ella from you when you are alone. But till then—you and Ermine will have lots of preparations to make for her visit; this child here would only be in the way.”

Madelene murmured something about “papa.” Her face was a curious study, so mingled were its expressions—of pleasure and even excitement, of almost wistful anxiety and misgiving. Ella watched her closely; the misgiving she was quick to see, not so the pleasure.

“Of course she will find some reason against it,” thought the girl.

Lady Cheynes tapped Miss St Quentin on the arm.

“Come, Maddie, my dear,” she said, “you are keeping us all waiting. Lady Beltravers too.”

Madelene coloured.

“I don’t really think it is for me to decide, Aunt Anna,” she replied. “You have quite as much—more—voice in it than I. I should be delighted for Ella to stay—and I am almost sure papa would be so too.”

“Then put it upon me,” said the old lady decidedly. “Tell your father I kept Ella—subject to his approval of course—if he doesn’t like it, he may send over to fetch her home to-morrow afternoon.”

Ella crept to her godmother’s side and threw her arms round Lady Cheynes ecstatically.

“Oh, godmother, how sweet you are! Oh, Madelene, you will make papa let me stay, won’t you?”

Madelene smiled: it was impossible to resist Ella sometimes.

“I do hope it will do no harm,” thought the elder sister to herself.

Just then Sir Philip and the other men came in; Madelene was asked to play, and Ella to sing, her sister accompanying her. It was the first time Philip had heard her.

“I had no idea you sang so beautifully,” he said to her when the little performance was over, and Miss St Quentin was engaged in accompanying another member of the party.

Ella’s eyes sparkled.

“Do you really think I sing well? I am so pleased,” she said simply. “I know you are a good judge. Ermine told me so. She and Madelene like my singing, I think. It—it is one of the few things Madelene seems to approve of in me,” she added with bitterness that was real though she tried to say it lightly as if in jest.

Philip looked at her with grave concern in his eyes.

“Are you in earnest, Ella?” he said; “real earnest, as the children say?”

Ella gave what in a less elegant and perfectly well-bred young person might have been called “a wriggle.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“About your sisters you mean?” he went on. “I certainly don’t want to do so either if, as I fear, you are unfairly prejudiced against them. At least I should be sorry to hear you say anything unfair, which—which might,” but here he hesitated. “Don’t think I am setting myself up as a judge,” he went on, “but it is possible I might be able to make you see things differently. I know my cousins so well, so thoroughly, and yet I think I can see that the position of things is difficult for you all.”

“I have nothing to say against Ermine,” said Ella quickly, with a sudden access of generosity. “Ermine is very good to me—”

She glanced at Philip as she spoke: a pleased look had stolen into his eyes.

“Ah,” thought Ella.

“I am glad to hear you say that,” he said eagerly; “but Mad—”

“Oh, for that matter,” Ella went on, “I don’t mean to say that practically Madelene is not good to me too. But—it is she who is prejudiced it seems to me,” she added with rather a wintry smile; “she does not judge me fairly. I don’t understand her, nor she me—that is the truth of it, I suppose. I don’t think she has ever been young, or had young feelings. She is so frightfully cold and measured, and she thinks every one should see things precisely as she does.”

Philip smiled too, but in his smile there was little more mirth than in Ella’s.

“Madelene cold and unfeeling!” he exclaimed. “My dear child, how little you know her! I allow,” he went on hastily, noticing an expression on her face which irresistibly reminded him of the days when she used to stamp her feet at “big Phil” if he refused to gallop about with her as much as she wanted, “I allow that Madelene’s manner is often against her. Very often the very extent and depth of her feeling makes her seem colder from the effort she puts on herself to be self-controlled.”

“That’s what is always said of cold, stiff, reserved people,” Ella answered. “Just because you can’t see or feel their feelings you are told to believe in them doubly! I hate reserved people.”

Philip was a little taken aback.

“I think they are rather to be pitied,” he said quietly.

The words were not without their effect on Ella, but she would not show it.

“You—” she began, but a little quaver in her voice made her hesitate, “you won’t make me like Madelene any better for taking her part against me,” she said with a sort of incipient sob.

Philip laid his hand on her pretty white arm. “Dear Ella,” he said with genuine distress in his voice, “how can you mistake me so? If you only understood better! My only wish is that you should not make yourself unhappy when there is no need for it.”

Ella swallowed down one or two tears before replying.

“I am happy here,” she said. “I am always happy with dear godmother. I wish, Sir Philip, you would let me forget about home troubles for a little. I think you might—you are going away soon to amuse yourself; you needn’t grudge me my little bit of holiday.”

Philip grew more and more annoyed.

“I have done no good, I see,” he said in a tone of vexation. “Indeed I have done harm—for I have made you indignant with me for meddling. I wish to goodness—” but here he stopped.

“What?” said Ella, gently.

“I wish you were Miss Wyndham, or Miss Anybody except what you are,” he said petulantly. “You will now always be thinking I am ‘taking parts,’ or some nonsense of that kind.”

“No—I don’t want to think that,” she replied glancing up at him half shyly with a sort of deprecation in her lovely eyes.

“Thank you—thank you for saying that,” he replied eagerly. “Indeed you would be doing me the greatest injustice if you—” but at that moment as he was bending towards Ella, speaking though earnestly, in a lower tone than usual, a voice interrupted them. It was that of Miss St Quentin, who had risen from the piano.

“Ella,” she said in her quiet, impassive way, “I want you to take Ermine’s part in that duet that she and I have just got. I am sure you can manage it.”

Ella rose at once, though without speaking.

“Upon my word,” said Sir Philip to himself, “Madelene is strangely deficient in tact. She might trust me to do the child no harm—she knows how anxious I am to bring about a more cordial state of feeling.”

And his manner towards his cousin for the rest of the evening was decidedly a shade less cordial than it was wont to be.

Chapter Sixteen.

Out in the Cold.

Ella woke the next morning with that most delightful of all delightful feelings—the vague consciousness of something nice having happened ere she fell asleep. She slowly, half reluctantly opened her eyes—

“I do hope it wasn’t only a dream,” she murmured, but as she caught sight of the objects around her, the large bow-window with its curtains of richer material than the old faded chintz of the Coombesthorpe “nursery,” the toilet table with its marble top and large mirror, and the wardrobe of beautiful inlaid wood—for Lady Cheynes made a point of installing her little god-daughter in one of the “best” rooms—a smile crept over her face, and she closed her sleepy eyes again with a sensation of vivid satisfaction.

No, it was no dream—she was to stay a whole week at Cheynesacre, with her dear godmother. Papa would never be so cruel as to send for her back again, whatever Madelene said, and Madelene had as good as promised to plead her cause, and after all she, Ella, had no real reason for thinking her elder sister actually insincere. Then her mind reverted to what Sir Philip had said the night before.

“He thinks so very highly of Madelene,” thought Ella, “and he must know her well. He speaks more of her than of Ermine, but—” and a slight frown clouded her brow, “that might mean that he cares most for Ermine, really. How I wonder if he does! He shouldn’t be—quite like what he is to—to other girls, if he does. Perhaps he’s one of those men that can’t help being charming to everybody,” and at this point in her cogitations poor Ella gave a deep sigh. “But any way,” she went on, “Ermine doesn’t care for him, not that way, though of course she might if it was put in her head.”

And then the quicksilver of her eighteen years refused to let her ponder any more.

“I’m going to be happy—for a week at least, come what may,” she said aloud as she sprang out of bed. “And as I’m his guest it’s Sir Philip’s business to make me enjoy myself, and it would be very surly of me not to.”

Certainly it looked as if the host’s task was not to be a very arduous one—never, in Madelene’s sight at least—had the girl been so sweet and bright and happy.

“Dear child, she seems in love with all the world,” said her godmother when she and Madelene were alone that morning for a few minutes before Miss St Quentin took her departure. “How I wish poor Ellen could see her! It must make you feel happy, dear Maddie, to see her so bright and blooming.” But Madelene did not respond as heartily as she really wished she could do.

“She is so different at home, Aunt Anna,” she said. “She seems as if she could not trust us, me especially. It seems unnatural in one so young and impressionable,” and she sighed.

“It will all come right,” said the old lady cheerily; “you are too gloomy, Maddie.”

She did not understand the new direction of Madelene’s anxieties; had she overheard a word or two that passed between the cousins as Philip stood at the carriage door saying good-bye, she might have been enlightened.

“Philip,” Miss St Quentin whispered, “I must say one word to you at the risk of offending you. I hope I am doing right in leaving Ella—Phil dear, don’t be angry with me—remember she is very, very young and—you know you can be so very charming.”

The blood mounted to the young man’s forehead.

“Madelene,” he said, “I really sometimes cannot understand you. Do you want me to be actually unkind to your half-sister? Do you think that would mend matters?”

And he turned coldly away.

“I wish I had not gone,” said Madelene to Ermine when the sisters were together again at Coombesthorpe. “It has only made Philip angry with me, and done no good to Ella. I wish Aunt Anna would adopt her altogether.”

“Papa would never consent to that,” said Ermine, “at least not in the sense you mean, though in my sense, nothing could be more delightful. I am enchanted that she is staying there—it would have been too stupid of you to oppose it.”

“I would have done so if I could,” Madelene replied. “I am so unhappy about Ella for her own sake, Ermine. I can see that she is already very much attracted by Philip and—”

“Well? What could you possibly have to say against it? It won’t be your doing.”

“I am afraid Philip is only amusing himself. You know how charming he can be. And that would be dreadful for her, poor child. It has all come of that absurd comedy at the beginning of their acquaintance.”

“Yes,” said Ermine, “I hope it has.”

Colonel St Quentin made not the smallest objections to Ella’s remaining at Cheynesacre, and once satisfied as to this, the girl gave herself up to full enjoyment of the present.

“I have never been so happy before,” she said to her godmother on the last day of her stay. And she said truly. Sir Philip who was in the room at the time glanced at her as she spoke.

“We must have a jolly Christmas at Coombesthorpe,” he said. “Poor Maddie and Ermine have had plenty of dull ones there.”

“Have they?” said Ella quickly. “Well it must have been their own fault.”

“No, indeed it wasn’t,” Philip replied rather coldly, “unless you call their unselfishness and patience their ‘fault.’”

Ella made no reply, but her bright face clouded over. An hour or two later when Sir Philip and she were on their way to the pond for “a last skate” as she said, he reverted to what had passed.

“Ella,” he began, “since I saw that it vexed you the other night I have said nothing more about your—well I can only call it prejudice against your sisters. But I see it is still there. I wish I could disabuse you of it—you don’t know how earnestly I wish it. You are so sweet and affectionate to every one else—I cannot really understand it.”

“It is often the case that near relations don’t get on as well with each other as with—strangers,” said Ella somewhat primly.

“But you don’t count granny and me strangers, I hope?” he asked eagerly. “And granny is not a person that every one gets on with.”

“Perhaps not, but she loves me—I feel that she does. And I shouldn’t mind anything she said, not even if she scolded me badly—just because of that. And I never can feel that way to Madelene. But I do get on very well now with Ermine,” she added though with a shade of reluctance.

“Dear Ermine,” said Philip. “I can scarcely imagine the possibility of not ‘getting on’ with her. Everybody takes to her wherever she goes. I am so delighted she is going to the Marchants,” he added.

“You are going too?” asked Ella, though she knew it already.

“Yes. I hope to be there the first week of Ermine’s visit, at least,” he replied.

“Oh,” said Ella, “that will be very pleasant.”

“Delightful,” replied Philip absently.

This time Ella made no observation.

Suddenly Philip turned to her again.

“Ella,” he said, “do forgive me for harping on the subject, but don’t you think all this might be put right? If you could show a little more confidence in Madelene, a little more affection in your manner, she would, I feel certain, be quick to respond. I can’t—” and here he hesitated, “I can’t just yet tell you all I should like you to know—I wish I could—but some day you will understand better.”

Ella felt choking. “Understand”—did she not understand? But pride and some better feeling than pride, for after all she had no real grounds of complaint against Sir Philip, came to the rescue.

“I will try to be gentler and pleasanter at Coombesthorpe, if you think it would do any good,” she said bravely. “And changes come—it may not be for very long. I should like you and my godmother to know I had done my best, for—for the time we must be all together there.”

The tears trembled on her eyelashes, but she turned away to hide them: she did not see the expression on Philip’s face as he heard her words. She only heard his answer.

“Thank you, dear Ella,” he said. “I know you will do what you say, and you have made me very happy by speaking so, for I have been terribly afraid of making things worse instead of better, by my interfering. No—it may not be for long as you say. But you are so young, Ella,” and there was a half regretful intonation in his voice, “you will see things differently afterwards, and you will like to look back and feel that you have done your best.”

Ella glanced up at him. There was a look in his eyes which made her cheeks flush.

“Dear Ella,” he added softly.

“I will do my best,” she repeated. And to herself she said, believing that she fully realised her words, that come what would she would deserve his approval. “Even if he is only to be—a sort of brother to me,” she thought, “I would like him to see that I try to be good.”

And she believed it was as a reward for her heroism that the world all about her looked so bright again, and some faint rays of wintry sunshine that lighted up the frost-besprinkled fields and palely gilded the tops of the dark fir-trees, seemed to her to glow with the warmth and brilliance of a midsummer sky.

Christmas passed with cheerfulness, if not exactly with “jollity,” at Coombesthorpe. Colonel St Quentin was still too much of an invalid to stand a large party, but a few old friends and neighbours joined the family circle. Madelene was quiet as ever, but gentle and almost affectionate to Ella, who, true to her promise, received her elder sister’s advances in good part and refrained from all sharp or icy retorts, even when, as must happen, however good the will on both sides, perfect unanimity of opinion was not the case. And Ermine was in such tremendously good spirits that the infection of them was to some extent irresistible. She was so gracious to Philip that he, in his own mind, was a little puzzled by it, for a coldness, slight but yet to themselves tangible enough, still seemed to hang between Madelene and himself. His cousins for once seemed to be at issue, he fancied, and he was small enough to try to punish Madelene by a show of even extra responsiveness to Ermine.

And Ella watched and wondered; sometimes feeling certain that her misgivings as to the state of things between Philip and Ermine were founded on fact; sometimes rising to a flutter of delight and hopefulness at some slight incident which seemed to prove to her conclusively that there was “nothing in it.”

“If there were,” she said to herself more than once, “would Madelene be vexed with him; as I am almost sure she is?”

And yet—that there was perfect good feeling between him and Ermine she could not doubt, and what that might not mean in reality she could not bear to think!

Wednesday—for Christmas day had been a Tuesday—saw the whole party scattered. Lady Cheynes returned home; Ermine started on her journey to Shenewood Park, whither Philip was to follow her the next day from Cheynesacre. And Ella, as she stood at the window watching the last carriage disappear, felt that now was the real test of her promise to Philip. The prospect of a whole fortnight alone with Madelene; Madelene quieter and “duller,” as Ella expressed it, than she had yet known her, was not inspiriting. For curiously enough, though it was Ermine whom the girl’s fancy had erected into a rival, it was not on her, but entirely on her elder sister that she resented the fact.

“I could never dislike Ermine. She is so bright and open,” thought Ella, while a tear or two trickled unbidden down her face. “Even as Philip’s wife I don’t think I could ever be jealous of her. But it is so different with Madelene; everything is calculation with her. She has settled that it would be a good thing for them to marry, and she is determined to carry it out—whether they care enough for each other or not. She has never cared for any one—that’s certain.”

The mood was not a very propitious one, for some vague warnings which Miss St Quentin unluckily thought it her duty to give her younger sister. It was when they were sitting together in the already fading light that afternoon—Ella after fidgeting about restlessly the whole day, having at last taken a book and settled herself in the library where Madelene was already installed with what the younger girl mentally dubbed “that everlasting knitting of hers.”

But the book did not prove very interesting. Ella yawned, then gave a sort of groan, and ended by flinging it aside.

“Do you not care for that book?” asked Madelene calmly. “I think I like it. But the other new Mudie books are in the drawing-room.”

“I don’t think I should like any book to-day,” said Ella frankly. “I do feel so stupid. Do you never feel that sort of way, Madelene?” she went on with a sudden irresistible craving for sympathy. “As if—as if you didn’t care for anything.”

Madelene glanced at her half curiously. Was this mere childishness—or—were her fears for poor little Ella’s peace of mind already beginning to be realised? Was this the first taste of the weary pain—the sickness of heart which she herself had not yet grown innured to?

“And in her case it would be ever so much worse,” she said to herself, “if Philip does not really care for her. I at least have always been sure of Bernard, though even thus, heaven knows it has been hard to bear!”

Her heart ached for the young creature looking up at her with troubled eyes. But she must ignore what she still hoped was but superficial.

“Everybody knows that kind of feeling at times, I suppose,” she said placidly. “It generally is a sort of reaction. We have had a little more excitement than usual, you see, and you enjoyed yourself very much at Cheynesacre.”

“I never was so happy in my life,” Ella replied impulsively.

“I am glad you liked it. Philip is certainly a model host—he is a favourite everywhere, and deservedly, for he is very kind-hearted. And it says a good deal for him that his being such a favourite—especially with women—has not quite spoilt him.”

Ella looked up sharply.

“Do you mean that he is a flirt?” she asked abruptly.

Madelene hesitated.

“Not exactly that,” she said. “He may flirt a little sometimes but there is no harm in that. But he would never consciously, intentionally go further than that. Still his very kind-heartedness has its weak point; he cannot bear to see any one unhappy. And he is impressionable and impulsive in some ways—I should be a little anxious about throwing any—very inexperienced girl much in his society.”

“But you and Ermine have always been thrown with him,” said Ella.

Miss St Quentin drew herself up a little.

“That is quite different,” she said. “I am, to all intents and purposes, older than Philip.”

“But Ermine is not,” thought Ella bitterly, though aloud she only replied, “Oh yes, of course.”

Ermine’s letters came nearly every day, bright and sunny, overflowing with fun and enjoyment. Now and then Madelene gave one, or a part of one to Ella to read, which the girl did eagerly, especially when Sir Philip’s name was mentioned, as was constantly the case.

“How much Ermine seems to be enjoying herself,” said Ella one morning. “When I am what you consider quite ‘out,’ Madelene, I may pay visits like this of hers, mayn’t I?”

They were at the breakfast-table. Colonel St Quentin, who by this time was as well as usual, overheard the remark.

“I hope so,” Madelene was beginning with an ill-assured glance at her father, when he suddenly interrupted her.

“I hope not, Ella,” he said. “That sort of thing would only put nonsense in your head. It is quite different for Ermine.”

Ella gazed at him in astonishment. His tone was not unkind, but very decided. To his last words she could give one interpretation—it was different for Ermine because she was already tacitly engaged to Philip, and but for this her father evidently would not have approved of her visiting by herself. Ella felt herself grow pale, but she did not speak.

“Oh, papa,” Madelene interposed, “that is too sweeping. Some day I hope Ella may see something of country-house society—with me you would trust her?”

Colonel St Quentin murmured something, of which Ella only caught the words—“Plenty of time—rational life for a girl.”

But she felt now as if she did not care.

The next morning brought no letter from Ermine, the day after came one which Madelene read to herself with somewhat clouded brow.

“Ermine is so tiresome, papa,” she said. “For some reason or other she seems to have got a fit of homesickness. Just when I was so delighted to think she was enjoying herself. She actually talks of coming home the day after to-morrow.”

“Umph,” said Colonel St Quentin, “that will be Friday. Tell her I can’t send to the station that day—Brown is going to look at that new pair, and I won’t trust Parker’s driving in this weather; she must stay any way till Monday. Is Philip still there?”

“No,” said Madelene, going on with her letter. “At least he is leaving to-day.”

“Ah, well, that settles it. She might have arranged to come back with him had he been staying till Friday, if she is really home-sick, poor child. But as it is she must wait till Monday.”

“I can’t make her out quite,” said Madelene, “But I will tell her what you say. Perhaps—if she is dull, I suppose she had better come home.”

Ella went up stairs to her own room and stood gazing out at the cold, wintry landscape. It was a grey, sunless day. It seemed to her like an image of her own life.

“Why did I ever come here?” she said. “It would have been better, yes far better, to have borne old Barton’s impertinence. Only—poor aunty—it might have made her unhappy! It would not now—I am so changed. I should be meek enough. What a fool I have been—to dream that Philip Cheynes had fallen in love with me! He was only amusing himself and thinking of Ermine all the time. But why did he? He must have seen I was a fool;” and her cheeks burnt as she recalled the little trifles—trifles at least, if put into words—looks and tones more than actual speech or action, which had seemed to her so significative.

“And Madelene suspects it. Yes, I know she does. Perhaps after all she has meant to do her duty by me. If she had only been a little more loving at the first I might have confided more in her; I might have been guided by her. But it is too late now. I won’t stay here, where no one cares for me. They may keep my share of the money and everything. I don’t want anything where I am not loved.”

What should she do? She could not decide. For the next day or two her head felt confused and dreamy—she longed to do something, to go somewhere, but lacked the energy to determine upon anything, and a vague, not unpleasing feeling came over her that perhaps she was going to be ill, to have a brain fever and die possibly, and that in this case it was not worth while planning to go away or anything.

She must be looking very ill, she said to herself with some complacency, for more than once she caught Madelene’s eyes fixed upon her with an anxiety that was almost tender.

“Are you feeling ill, Ella?” she said.

But Ella smiled and shook her head, and replied that she supposed it was the cold; she had never liked cold weather.

So passed two or three days; then came the goad to sting her into action.

Nothing further had been heard or said about Ermine’s return, but on Monday morning Miss St Quentin exclaimed eagerly, as she opened the letter-bag, which she was accustomed to do if she was down before her father.

“Ah, a letter from Ermine at last! That’s right. Ella, dear, please put these letters on papa’s plate. Dear me—there is one with a Shenewood envelope for him—whom can that be from? And—that’s Philip’s writing. I wonder why he has not been over to see us?”

Almost as she spoke her father entered the room. He kissed his daughters, making some slight remark as he did so on the extreme coldness of the morning.

“Is that what is making you look so pale, Ella?” he added as he caught sight of her face.

Again Ella forced a smile and murmured something vaguely about disliking cold. But her father scarcely heard her reply. He had opened his letters and was immersed in them, unsuspicious of the keen attention with which his youngest daughter was observing him. His face grew grave, very grave indeed as he read the one from Shenewood Park which Madelene had remarked upon: a slight look of relief overspread it as he glanced at the shorter letter from Sir Philip Cheynes.

“Madelene,” he said hastily, handing both to her across the table, “did you know anything of this?” and Ella saw that the fingers which held out the letters trembled.

Miss St Quentin read both quickly. Then she looked at her father.

“No,” she said, “nothing at all.”

Her voice was grave and she had grown rather pale, still to Ella it seemed that her evident emotion was not caused by distress.

“Philip is coming over himself, I see,” Madelene said. “I am glad of that. Talking is so much better than writing.”

Colonel St Quentin pushed back his chair from the table where stood his untasted breakfast.

“I suppose so,” he said; “but—you will think me very foolish Maddie, but this has completely unhinged me. I can’t eat—I will go to my own room, I think.”

“Oh, papa,” Miss St Quentin was beginning in a tone of remonstrance, when Ella interrupted her.

“Is anything the matter?” she exclaimed. “You—you seem so strange, Madelene, you and papa. If it is anything I am not to hear about, I would rather go away: I have nearly finished my breakfast.”

Her little pale face looked almost as if she were going to cry. Madelene seemed as if she did not know what to say or do.

“It—it is nothing wrong,” she said hastily, “but still not anything I can quite explain to you just yet.”

“It is something about Ermine. I know that,” said Ella. “But if you don’t mind I would rather go, and then you and papa can talk freely.”

And almost before they quite understood what she was saying, she had gone.

“Has she had her breakfast really?” said her father, glancing at Ella’s plate. “Yes, I suppose so. But she isn’t looking well, Madelene. I think we must have Felton to look at her. However—just for the moment I can only think of Ermine. Give me that letter again. Philip will be able to tell us more. What crotchet has Ermine got in her head about anything of the kind being ‘impossible’? I’m not such a selfish old tyrant as all that, surely! And if I were—while I have you, Maddie—”

“Yes, papa,” Miss St Quentin replied, though her own lip quivered a little. “Yes, with me, I hope you would never feel deserted. And this is what we must impress upon Ermine, if—as seems the case—everything else is favourable and desirable.”

Then they read the letter over again more than once indeed, with eager anxiety to discover from the written lines all they possibly could as to the writer.

“It is a nice manly letter,” said Madelene at last. “But Ermine will be angry, I fear.”

And Ella meanwhile had flown up stairs to her “nursery,” the scene of her mature as well as of her childish trials. It had come at last, the certainty of the event she had so dreaded. Ermine and Philip were to be openly engaged. Must she stay to see it? Could she bear it? Pride said yes; her hot, undisciplined girl’s heart said no. And in this conflict she passed the morning, till suddenly a sort of compromise suggested itself. She would write to her Aunt Phillis—surely she could trust her? “I will tell her that I am very unhappy here and ask her to write at once inviting me to go to her. She will do it, I am sure. I will promise her to be as nice as possible to Mr Burton. Oh, if only I can get away I shall not care about him or anything!”

Chapter Seventeen.

Ella Overhears.

The letter was soon written. But then came the question of how to post it. Ella would not send it openly with the rest of the letters as usual, for she was afraid of Madelene’s catching sight of it.

“I will take it to the post-office in the village myself,” she decided. “They won’t miss me. They are far too busy and absorbed about Ermine. And Sir Philip will very likely be coming over to luncheon. How I wish I could say I was ill and keep out of the way! It is too hard to feel myself a complete stranger and alien in my own home—and it will cut me off from dear godmother too. I can never see much of her now.”

A few minutes saw her wrapped up and making her way down the drive. It reminded her of that other morning only a very few weeks ago when she had found little Hetty in distress at the lodge and had stopped to help her, and when, all unconscious of her smutty face, she had met Philip at the gate. She had not even known his name then, and now—if only he had not been Philip Cheynes, but a stranger as she had imagined him! He had once wished she were really “Miss Wyndham.”