A pleasant light spread over her cousin’s face as he caught the last words. They seemed to assure him of Madelene’s kindliness and sympathy. Ella too was touched by them.
“About the shoe, you mean,” she said. “Oh, Madelene, I was just going to tell you. I am not surprised or disappointed for,”—here she glanced at Philip—“won’t you tell them how it was?” she went on, half shyly; “I don’t think I heard quite exactly how or when you happened to find it.”
“You found it! Phil found it! oh, how lovely!” cried Ermine. “Have you got it in your pocket, Philip, or were you afraid of sitting down upon it and smashing it?”
Philip frowned a little.
“Out with it,” said Ermine, “then—what should you do then?—we’ll have to skip the herald part of the business. Go down on your knees—isn’t that it?—and present it first to Maddie and then to me. Of course we can’t get it on, and then you summon—”
Philip began to look distinctly annoyed; Ella, notwithstanding her usual quickness, seemed merely bewildered.
“I have not got it,” said Sir Philip; “of course I returned it at once to its rightful owner.”
“I have got it,” said Ella. “It is up stairs with its fellow. Sir Philip gave it to me when we met. Would you mind telling where you found it?”
“It was just outside the hall door at the Manor,” the young man replied. “I was standing there not long after my last dance with—with Miss Wyndham,” he added with a little smile, “and saw it lying—the buckle gleaming in the moonlight.”
“Like glass” interrupted Ermine; “dear me, you are quite poetical, Philip. It must have been that time you went to catch some friends of yours whom you wanted to say good-night to before they left.”