otherday, but you were out. They are nice people, and they give nice dances.When--when you are out I shall like you to go there."
"Then they didn't invite me this time?" asked Ella drily.
"They invited `the Misses St Quentin,'" Madelene replied. "That meantwhat we liked to decide ourselves of course. It does not rest withoutsiders to determine if a girl is out or not."
"Of course not," said Ella. "Then," she went on, "will you tell me whatyou wish me to do while you are away? Am I to be quite alone with MrsGreen (the housekeeper) as chaperon?"
"No," her sister replied, irritated by the scarcely veiled impertinenceof Ella's tone, though a moment before she had been longing to expressto her some of her own feeling on the matter, "no, certainly not. I amwriting to ask Miss Harter, Mrs Hewitt's sister, whom you have seen atWaire, to come to stay with you."
"Oh, indeed," said Ella. Miss Harter was a pleasant, intelligent womanof thirty, whom Ella had found amusing and agreeable enough once ortwice when she had met her, though it now suited her to describe her toherself as "a fusty old maid."
Things both great and small but _very_ rarely turn out as we expect.Two days before that on which Colonel St Quentin and his two daughterswere to leave home he fell ill. His illness was not very serious, butsufficiently so to put his going out of the question. And as he saidthat the presence of a stranger in the house would be an annoyance tohim, Miss Harter's visit was put off, Ella manifesting liveliersatisfaction at this than she had condescended for long to show aboutanything.
"What an incomprehensible girl she is," said Madelene, as she and Erminedrove away. "I think I must give up trying to make her out."
"I think her present phase is comprehensible enough," Ermine replied."She is violently in love with the idea of being a martyr, a sufferingsaint--no, neither of those expresses it quite. I have it--aCinderella."
A smile broke slowly over Madelene's face.
"Yes," she said, "that does express it. And we are the two cruelsisters--step-sisters, not half-sisters--a little poetic licence musthere be allowed--going off in triumph to the ball! What a pity we havenot got black corkscrew curls, Ermine, and an aigrette of three plumesapiece to appear in to-morrow evening!"
CHAPTER EIGHT.
LEFT BEHIND.
Ella spent the afternoon of her sisters' departure in praiseworthyfashion. She acted up that is to say to the _role_, she had chosen toadopt. She prepared her lessons perfectly, she practised the mostuninteresting of her piano exercises for an hour and a half; then shewent up to her own room and looked out her oldest and shabbiest clothes,to see if she could not find anything in want of repair among them. Itwas not easy to do so. Stevens, who was an excellent needlewoman, keptElla's things by Madelene's directions in perfect order, and it tooksome hunting on the girl's part, before she succeeded in finding astocking or two with incipient holes, or a skirt which looked as if itwould not be the worse for a new braid round the edge.
On these she set to work, huddling herself up in shawl, for it was verycold, and sitting on the straightest-backed and hardest chair in herroom.
"I wish they would give me an allowance for my clothes, however small,"she said to herself. "I could save out of it, I am sure, for I coulddress much more plainly than I do even, which would certainly notdistress my sisters. And I would have a right to what I saved in thatway, surely. Every child can claim food and clothing from its parentstill it is of age," and she smiled bitterly. "Perhaps if I can makeMadelene see that it would cost less to give me a small allowance, I maypersuade her to make papa agree to it."
Just then her meditations were interrupted by a knock at the door, andold Hester, the head housemaid, who had been deputed by Madelene to takecare of Ella, so far as her material comforts were concerned, came in.
"Miss Ella," she exclaimed, "whatever are you about? Sitting up herewithout a fire when it's as cold as cold. Wouldn't the Colonel be in ataking if he knew! You could have had a fire lighted if you'd only saidthe word. And there's the library, and the little drawing-room asbright and cheery as can be, at your service."
"I am busy working, thank you, Hester," Ella replied primly. "I couldnot take work like this down stairs."
She did not resent Hester's reproaches, for the housemaid was an oldservant, who had been at Coombesthorpe during the life of Ella's mother,and was much attached to her.
Hester looked at what Ella was sewing.
"Darning stockings," she exclaimed. "Now upon my word, I do call thattoo bad of Stevens. Not but what it's a very right thing for a younglady, be she who she may, to know how to turn her hand to darning astocking, but you've your studies, my dear, and other things to see to,and--"
"It's--it's not exactly Stevens' fault, Hester," said Ella, too honestto leave Hester under such a mistaken idea. "She does mend all mythings; it is not often she overlooks a hole. But I prefer to do moremyself, and I want to accustom myself to going without fires and littlethings like that, for there is no knowing how I may be placed some day,and I want to be independent."
Hester looked at her in surprise and perplexity. She knew that thesecond wife had been portionless, and she knew too, though vaguely, thatCoombesthorpe and the bulk of the family revenues had come from themother of the two elder daughters--but she could not believe that theywould ever allow their half-sister to realise this practically in anypainful way.
"We none of us know how we may be placed any day for that matter, MissElla, my dear. The best of us is in God's hands and subject to Hiswill, and even if it seems hard we must bow to it. But--you've a goodhome and kind friends--it's a sort of tempting of Providence like, foryou to speak that way."
She looked at Ella half-inquiringly as she spoke; she wondered how much"the child," as she mentally called her, knew. "They might have lefther in her innocence a bit," she said to herself half indignantly. Onher side Ella was struck by Hester's tone.
"She speaks almost as she might if I had been an _adopted_ child, withno real right here," she said to herself. "It just shows--"
"And of course, Hester," she replied haughtily, "it must _seem_ as if Iwere one of the last women in the world ever to have to think ofmanaging for myself or earning my own livelihood, but there are thingsthat it is better not to explain. I may have my own feelings."
"To be sure," Hester replied, more and more perplexed. "But any way,Miss Ella, you'll let me light a fire for you. It'd be far fromindependent if you was to fall ill of a bad cold, and your papa illalready, and just for this day or two with no one but you to see tohim."
Ella started.
"I forgot," she said. "I forgot about papa. Perhaps I had better goand see if there is anything I can do for him."
She was not exactly to blame for this thoughtlessness. Since her comingto Coombesthorpe her relations with her father had continued uncertainand constrained, and Madelene had judged it better to trust to time tobring about a better state of things, for the least effort on her partto force this would have been at once perceived and resented by ColonelSt Quentin.
"Don't tell that child to look after me while you and Ermine are away,"had been almost his last words to Madelene before she left. "If shethinks of it of herself that would be a different matter."
And in ordinary circumstances the chances are that Ella would not havegone near her father. But Hester's words reminded her that he was ill,and her conscience struck her.
"I'll go to papa now," she said. "He is in the study, isn't he, Hester?He was to get up after luncheon."
"Yes, Miss Ella, you'll find him in the study. But maybe he's asleep.Tap gently at the door."
Ella's tap revealed the fact that her father was awake.
"Come in," he said, his voice sounding rather sharp and irritable.
"Cross old thing," muttered Ella to herself, "I wish I hadn't come down.Can I do anything for you, papa?" she asked aloud as she entered theroom. "Would you like me to read to you, perhaps?"
Colonel St Quentin was lying
on a couch by the fire; his books andnewspapers on a little stand beside him. He glanced at Ellahesitatingly. He was feeling very lost and dull without his two elderdaughters, and his eyes were tired.
"No, thank you," he began to say, but his tone was not very decided.
"I--I think I read aloud pretty well," the girl went on. Her quickimpressionable nature was touched by her father's looks: he was verypale, and she knew that he had suffered a good deal. "How selfish ofthem to have left him," was her next