“Come, Maddie, my dear,” she said, “you are keeping us all waiting. Lady Beltravers too.”
Madelene coloured.
“I don’t really think it is for me to decide, Aunt Anna,” she replied. “You have quite as much—more—voice in it than I. I should be delighted for Ella to stay—and I am almost sure papa would be so too.”
“Then put it upon me,” said the old lady decidedly. “Tell your father I kept Ella—subject to his approval of course—if he doesn’t like it, he may send over to fetch her home to-morrow afternoon.”
Ella crept to her godmother’s side and threw her arms round Lady Cheynes ecstatically.
“Oh, godmother, how sweet you are! Oh, Madelene, you will make papa let me stay, won’t you?”
Madelene smiled: it was impossible to resist Ella sometimes.
“I do hope it will do no harm,” thought the elder sister to herself.
Just then Sir Philip and the other men came in; Madelene was asked to play, and Ella to sing, her sister accompanying her. It was the first time Philip had heard her.
“I had no idea you sang so beautifully,” he said to her when the little performance was over, and Miss St Quentin was engaged in accompanying another member of the party.