“And so – and so, you and your aunt thought it best for you to come away,” he said. “Well, well, it is a pity things could not have gone on smoothly a little longer, considering how many years you have been with her and how good she has always shown herself to you. In any case she surely might have written or telegraphed – I certainly think she might have considered us a little as well as old Burton. Of course she sent a servant with you.”

“No, no,” said Ella, hesitatingly. “I came alone.”

Colonel St Quentin’s face darkened.

“She let you – a child like you, travel here alone!” he exclaimed. “Upon my word, Madelene – you knew this?” he added, turning to her.

Madelene looked very uneasy.

“Papa,” she said, “you don’t quite understand. Mrs Robertson is not so much to blame as you think. Ella – ” and she looked at her sister, “Tell papa yourself. It is no use concealing anything. Mrs Robertson will of course be writing herself, and then – ”

“I have no wish to conceal anything,” said Ella, haughtily. “I never dreamt of such a thing. Yes, what Madelene says is quite true, papa. Aunt Phillis did not send me away. She did not know of my leaving. She will only have heard it by a telegram I sent her from Weevilscoombe.”

“Do you mean to say,” said Colonel St Quentin slowly, “that you left your aunt’s house without her sanction or even knowledge, as well as without writing to consult me – in short, that you ran away?”

“Something very like it,” said Ella defiantly. Madelene looked grievously distressed.

“Oh, Ella,” she said, “do not speak like that. She does not mean it really, papa – she has explained more about it to me. Ella, tell papa you are sorry if you have vexed him. It was natural for her to come to us, papa – even if she has acted hastily.”

But Ella would say nothing. She stood there proudly obstinate, and Miss St Quentin’s appeal in her favour fell on unheeding ears. One glance at her, and her father turned away and began walking up and down the room in a way which as Madelene well knew betokened extreme irritation.

“Little something,” she heard him murmur, and she hoped Ella did not suspect that the half inaudible word was “fool” – “nothing, no conjunction of things could have been more annoying.”

Then he stopped short and stood facing his youngest daughter.

“Ella,” he said quietly, but there was something in his tone which made the girl inwardly tremble a little in spite of her determination, “you have acted very wrongly. You have placed me in a most disagreeable position – obliging me to apologise for your rudeness to your aunt, to whom already I was under heavy obligations for you,” here Ella glanced up in surprise, and seemed as if about to speak, but her father would not listen, “and you have certainly given this Mr Burton a victory. The more vulgar he is, if he really is vulgar – I don’t know that I feel inclined to take your word for it – the more he will enjoy it.” Ella compressed her lips tightly. “And,” Colonel St Quentin went on, his hard tone softening as he glanced at Madelene, “there are other reasons why I extremely regret the way you have chosen to behave. You have shown no sort of consideration for our – for your sisters’ convenience.”

Ella started up. This time she would be heard.

“That part of it I cannot in the least understand,” she said. “It seems extraordinary to talk of inconveniencing one’s own nearest relations by coming home when – when one had nowhere else to go,” and her voice faltered a very little.

Her father looked at her with a sort of expression as if he were mentally taking her measure.

“Ah, well,” he said, “I did not say I expected you fully to understand. You have shown yourself too childish. But you are not too childish to understand that when one does a distinctly wrong thing one may expect undesirable results in more directions than one. And this – the inconvenience to your sisters I lay stress upon, and I shall expect you to remember this. What room are you intending Ella to have?” he went on, turning rather abruptly to Madelene. “Those you meant for her of course are not ready.”

“No,” Miss St Quentin replied. “They are not yet begun, and what should be done will take some weeks. I wanted them to be so nice,” she said regretfully.

“I know you did,” said her father, and the sympathy in his tone made Ella unreasonably angry.

“In the meantime,” Madelene continued, “I was thinking of giving Ella one of the rooms in the north wing. Indeed they are the only – ”

“No,” said Colonel St Quentin, “that will not do. We may need those rooms for visitors any day. It is much better for her to have the nursery on the south side. You can easily have what additional furniture is needed moved in, and, as it is Ella’s own doing, she cannot object to less comfortable quarters than you had intended for her for a time.”

Ella reared her little head, but said nothing.

“You must be tired,” said Madelene, glad to suggest any change, “and I am sure you would like to take your hat and jacket off. Come with me to my room; and I will see about getting the nursery ready, papa.”

Ella’s head rose, if possible, still higher as she turned to leave the room. Madelene was leading the way, but as they got to the door her father called her back.

“I don’t want to give her a room with a north exposure,” he said to his eldest daughter in a low voice, “you know we cannot be sure of her health yet, and she has hitherto been always in such mild places. But of course we must not make her fanciful.”

“No, papa. I quite understand,” said Madelene, gently.

But this little incident did not tend to smooth down the ruffled wings of the small personage who followed her sister up the wide staircase with the gait of a dethroned queen.

“For to-night, Ella,” said Madelene, “I think you had better sleep in my dressing-room. There is a nice little sofa-bed there that Ermine sometimes uses when we have a fancy for being quite close together. Sometimes when papa is away this big house seems so lonely.”

“Is there no bed in the – the nursery?” she inquired icily.

“Oh, yes,” said Madelene, “there has always been a bed there. It is a comfortable little room; it is not what used to be the night nursery; that has been turned into a large linen room. But this is what was your day nursery when you were a tiny child. You can’t remember the house in the least of course?”

“Not in the least.”

“We have used the nursery, as we still call it, now and then for visitors when the house was very full,” Madelene went on.

“Oh, yes; for ladies’-maids, I suppose,” said Ella pleasantly.

“No,” said Madelene, “not for ladies’-maids. We would not put our sister in a room used for servants. And I do not wish you to sleep there till it has been made quite comfortable. It is perfectly clean and aired, but I shall change some of the furniture to make it look nicer, even though you are only to have it temporarily, and, to-night, as I said, you can sleep in my dressing-room. Here it is.” She threw open a door as she spoke and passed quickly through the large bedroom it opened into to a smaller one beyond. Both rooms were very pretty and handsomely furnished, with all sorts of girlish “household gods” about, telling of simple but refined tastes, and long association. For in the bookcase, side by side with the favourites of Madelene’s grown-up years, were old childish story-books in covers that had once been brighter than now, and behind the glass of the cabinets were many trifling ornaments of little value save for the memory of those by whom, or the occasions on which, they had been given.

Ella glanced around with a peculiar expression. The fresh admiration which had escaped her at sight of the garden was wanting. She said nothing, but stood looking in at the dressing-room door.

“Thank you,” she said, “if I may leave my hat and jacket here just now; I will fetch them again as soon as I know where to put them. But I should prefer not to sleep here – I suppose there is no actual objection – it is not particularly inconvenient,” with a slight accent on the two last words, “that I should sleep at once in what is going to be my room. I should very much prefer doing so.”

“No,” said Madelene in a rather perplexed tone, “it can be got ready at once if you really wish it.” She was anxious not to oppose Ella when not actually obliged to do so, and she determinedly swallowed her own not unnatural disappointment that the young girl should seem so reluctant to meet her in any direction “half-way.”

“Thank you,” said Ella, more heartily than she had yet spoken, “yes, I should like it very much better. Perhaps you would not mind showing me my room now,” she went on, “then when it is ready I can find my way to it alone without troubling you again.”

Miss St Quentin did not speak, but she turned to leave the room, followed as before by Ella. They crossed the landing and passed down another corridor.

“Down there,” said Madelene, pointing to the end of the passage, “are your real rooms – those that Ermine and I have been planning about for you. The nurseries are down this way,” and she descended a few steps leading on to another smaller landing, from which a flight of back stairs ran down to the ground floor. “I warn you that the room will not seem very attractive, but there is a nice look-out at this side. Our mother and – and yours – both liked these nurseries. They get all the sun going, in winter.”

It was a plain room certainly, old-fashioned-looking, for it was less lofty than the other side of the house, and the furniture, such as there was, was simple and seemed to have seen good service. The carpet was rolled up, and the small bed was packed into a corner; the window-curtains were pinned up to keep them clean, though enough was left visible to show that they were of faded chintz.

Ella in her turn was silent, but she at once deposited the little hand-bag she carried, and her parasol on the only available place, namely the top of the chest of drawers, with an air of taking possession.

“I suppose my little box – I only brought one quite small one with me – may be brought up here?” she said.

“Yes, certainly, but you must leave the room to the housemaids for an hour or two,” Madelene replied. “Will you dress in Ermine’s room, in preference to mine? It is nearer – just up the little flight of stairs.”

“I don’t mind in the least,” said Ella. “I must say I had no idea, not the very slightest, that my coming would have caused such a fuss. Perhaps I should apologise, but – I begin to see I have been very foolish. I have been allowing myself to forget the real state of the case, I suppose.”

“What do you mean by the real state of the case?” asked Madelene, calmly resting her eyes on her sister’s face.

“Why – ” began Ella, a little discomfited though she would not show it, “I mean that you and Ermine are not, after all, my own sisters. I seem to be a sort of nobody’s sister – or nobody’s anything, and yet this is my own father’s house. I do not see why everybody should be so down upon me.”

“Nobody wishes to be down upon you, Ella,” said Madelene gently. “And I know that I have done and will do all I can to prevent papa being vexed with you. But it has not been a good beginning – there is no use in concealing it, and Ermine and I had wished to welcome you heartily. And won’t you come to my dressing-room after all, Ella, and let me feel that things are not uncomfortable for you?”

But Ella stood firm. She shook her little head, though a slight smile quivered about her mouth too.

“No thank you,” she said, “I like much better to begin as I am going to be. I hope you don’t think me such a donkey as to mind what kind of a room I have.”

“I mind,” said Madelene, as she turned away. The housekeeper and hostess instincts were very strongly developed in Miss St Quentin and Ella had succeeded in wounding her in a tender place.

A few minutes later, when Ermine had come up stairs and was standing in her own room, thinking about getting ready for dinner, there came a knock at the door, and in answer to her “come in” Ella appeared. She was carrying a dress on her arm.

“Would you mind – ?” she began. “Oh I am afraid I am disturbing you – I thought Madelene said something about – that I might dress in here.”

“So you may if you like,” said Ermine, not too graciously it must be allowed, for she suspected Ella had been annoying her elder sister. “There is plenty of time. I will go to Madelene till you are ready. You can ring for Stevens, the second housemaid, to help you.”

If Ella had had any idea of making friends with Ermine in preference to Madelene it was speedily discarded.

“I detest them both,” she exclaimed, as soon as the door had closed on her sister, “nasty, cold, stuck-up things. I almost think I’d rather be back with aunt, if it wasn’t for that horrid old Burton. But I’ll never let auntie know – no never, that I’m not happy here. It would be such a triumph to that old wretch.”

And this lively reflection stopped Ella’s seeking relief for her outraged feelings in tears, which she had been very nearly doing.

“Nobody shall be able to say I’m a cry-baby who doesn’t know her own mind,” she said resolutely, as she dressed herself quickly but carefully, for Ella had no love of making a fright of herself!