It was not till some time afterwards that she understood what he had meant.
“I can show you the fellow to it, if you like,” she added.
“Well—perhaps that would do as well,” he agreed, looking much amused.
“And as for trying it on, that wouldn’t convince you,” she said after a moment’s reflection, “for they’re too big for me. They weren’t made for me—”
“Scarcely, unless—you are even more of a fairy personage than I have suspected. The slippers must be thirty years old at least. If you were grown-up thirty years ago, you look young for your age,” he said.
Ella laughed.
“Yes, I see,” she answered. “But, by the by, I wonder you never saw them before. They belonged to your sis—no, she couldn’t have been your sister—what was she to you, then, Clarice Cheynes?” and she glanced up in his face with a little frown of perplexity on her own.
A light broke over Philip’s.
“They were hers!” he exclaimed, “and poor granny disinterred them for you to dance in!”
“I am her godchild,” Ella replied, rearing her head a little as she spoke.