“Of course. I only meant, what I am sure you think too, that it was very good of her. People are sometimes more selfish about feelings of that kind than about anything else. No—I never saw the slippers before, but I know that granny has a room where she treasures up all the little possessions of my aunt—who never was my aunt—Clarice.”
“Did she die before you were born then?” asked Ella.
“Yes—she died the year my father and mother were married, and I was not their eldest child,” said Sir Philip, “though all the others died as babies.”
They were near the house by this time. Ella looked up dubiously.
“Perhaps you will get on your horse again now,” she said, “and ride up to the door. My sisters are expecting you, I know—perhaps you will tell them of having met me, and found out who I was.”
“Will you not tell them yourself?” he said.
“No, I am going round the other way, behind the house. I have no longer any interest in watching for the groom,” Ella replied, “and I would rather you told my sisters, please.” She hesitated a little—“They, Madelene, might be a little annoyed, at—at my having been at the lodge, and all that.”
Philip looked surprised.
“I don’t think that is at all the sort of thing to vex Maddie,” he said. “Indeed it is rather in Ermine’s own line, I should say.”
But Ella still looked doubtful, and hurried off, half smiling, but with a gesture that implied her preference for not making one at the forthcoming interview.