eet
and strange; she was frightened by it, ashamed of it, but she could not
help herself. She made no answer, nor did Mrs. Hylton again refer to the
subject.

But Ella's worst tribulations had yet to come. That afternoon, as she
and her mother and Flossie were sitting in the drawing-room, 'Mrs. and
the Miss Chapmans' were announced. Evidently they had deemed it
incumbent on them to pay a state visit as soon as possible after Ella's
return.

Ella returned their effusive greetings as dutifully as she could. She
had never succeeded in cultivating a very lively affection for them;
to-day she found them barely endurable.

Mrs. Chapman was a stout, dewlapped old lady, with dull eyes and
pachydermatous folds in her face. She had a husky voice and a funereal
manner. Jessie, her eldest daughter, was not altogether uncomely in a
commonplace way: she was dark-haired, high-coloured,
loud-voiced--generally sprightly and voluble and overpowering; she was
in such a hurry to speak that her words tripped one another up, and she
had a meaningless and, to Ella, highly irritating little laugh.

Carrie was plain and colourless, content to admire and echo her sister.

After some conversation on Ella's Continental experiences, Jessie
suddenly, as Ella's uneasy instinct foresaw, turned to Mrs. Hylton. 'Of
course, Ella told you what a surprise she had at Campden Hill yesterday?
Weren't you electrified?'

'No doubt I should have been,' said Mrs. Hylton, who detested Jessie,
'only Ella did not think fit to mention it.'

'Oh, I wonder at that! I hope I wasn't going to betray the secrets of
the prison-house?' Jessie was fond of using stock phrases to give
lightness and sparkle to her conversation. 'Ella, the idea of your
keeping it all to yourself, you sly puss! But tell me--would you ever
have believed Tumps'--his sisters called George 'Tumps'--'could be
capable of such independent behaviour?'

'No,' said Ella, 'I--indeed I never should!'

'Ha, ha! nor should we! You would have screamed to see him fussing
about--wasn't he killing over it, Carrie?'

'Oh, he was, Jessie!'

'My son,' explained Mrs. Chapman to Mrs. Hylton, 'is so wonderfully
energetic and practical. I have never known him fail to carry through
anything he has once undertaken--he inherits that from his poor dear
father.'

'I don't quite gather what your brother George has been doing, even
now?' said Mrs. Hylton to Jessie.

'Oh, but my lips are sealed. Wild horses sha'