“No indeed,” Ella replied. “Hester looks after me a little, and Stevens, the second housemaid, mends my things. Mélanie never does a thing for me; she’s always busy for my sisters.”
“Never mind, Miss. It’ll be different when you come to be counted quite a grown-up young lady, which will be soon now, you’ll see. And you did enjoy yourself last night?”
“Oh indeed I did. It was—heavenly,” said Ella with fervour. “And I do thank you so much for getting my frock ready so beautifully, Jones. Now I must run off, I suppose.”
There was only one thing on her mind as she flew down stairs to her godmother, but it was rather a big thing! A most extraordinary accident had befallen her on leaving the Manor the night before. She had lost a shoe! One of the shoes. Clarice’s shoes—which Lady Cheynes had kept enveloped in silver paper for more years than twice Ella’s whole life could count, and only with much thought and hesitation had confided to her little god-daughter for one evening. It was really dreadful. Yet Ella could scarcely take blame to herself.
“They were much too big—especially that left foot one,” she said to herself. “I shall always think myself wonderfully clever for keeping them on while I was dancing. And the buckles are not real. I am glad of it, though I am afraid godmother will mind quite as much as if they were.”
Should she tell of the loss at once? She hesitated. She was not cowardly, but she was very reluctant to cause pain to the old lady, and it was perhaps needless to do so, as there seemed every probability that the slipper would be found. If her godmother did not ask about them, Ella decided that she would not speak of the shoes, and as soon as possible she would find some way of making inquiry at the Manor.
“If Madelene and Ermine are not cross about my having been there,” she thought, “I’ll get them to help me. They can’t blame me when I tell them exactly how it happened—it must have been just as I was getting into the carriage. I remember one of the horses started a little and godmother told me to be quick.”
Lady Cheynes seemed to have forgotten all about the precious loan. She was in a fidget to be off, congratulating herself on her cleverness in having prevented her grandson and god-daughter meeting, or indeed having any suspicion of each other’s vicinity. For she had entered into the spirit of the mystification thoroughly, as Ermine had said, and quite agreed with her that it would be most amusing to witness Sir Philip’s astonishment when he should be presented to the little lady, of whom he had so mistaken an idea.
“Don’t let them meet, if you can possibly help it, auntie, till Phil comes over to us,” Ermine had said, to which Lady Cheynes had agreed.
“He is very prejudiced against her, I warn you,” she had added. “I doubt if he would ever have let himself even admire her if they had met first in an ordinary way.”