that's not where you're going now,' he said with a delicious
assumption of authority; 'you're coming with me to see a certain house
on Campden Hill you may have heard of.'

'That will be delightful. I do want to see our dear little house again
very much. And, George, we will go carefully over all the rooms, and
settle what can be done with each of them. Then we can begin directly;
we haven't too much time.'

'Perhaps,' he said with a conscious laugh, 'it won't take so much time
as you think.'

'Oh, but it _must_--to do properly. And while I've been away I've had
some splendid ideas for some of the rooms--I've planned them out so
beautifully. You know that delightful little room at the back?--the one
I said should be your own den, with the window all festooned with
creepers and looking out on the garden--well----?'

'Take my advice,' he said, 'and don't make any plans till you see it.
And as for plans, these furnishing fellows do all that--they don't care
to be bothered with plans.'

'They will have to carry out ours, though. I shall love settling how it
is all to be--it will be such fun.'

'You wouldn't call it fun if you knew what it was like, I can tell you.'

'But I _do_ know. Mother and I rearranged most of the rooms at home only
last year--so you see I have some experience. And what experience can
_you_ have had, if you please?'

Ella had a mental vision as she spoke of the house in Dawson Place when
George lived with his mother and sisters--a house in which furniture and
everything else were commonplace and _bourgeois_ to the last degree,
and where nothing could have been altered since his boyhood; indeed she
had often secretly pitied him for having to live in such surroundings,
and admired the filial patience that had made him endure them so long.

'I've had my share, Ella, and I should be very sorry for you to have all
the worry and bother I've been through over it!'

'But when, George? How? I don't understand.'

'Ah, that's my secret!' he said provokingly; 'and you know, Ella, if we
began furnishing now, it would take no end of a time, with all these
wonderful plans of yours, and--and I couldn't stand having to wait till
next November for you--I couldn't do it!'

'Mother thinks the marriage need not be put off now,' said Ella simply,
'and we shall have six weeks till then; the house can be quite ready for
us by the time we want it.'

'Six weeks!' he said impatiently, 'what's six weeks? You've no