“Have they?” said Ella quickly. “Well it must have been their own fault.”
“No, indeed it wasn’t,” Philip replied rather coldly, “unless you call their unselfishness and patience their ‘fault.’”
Ella made no reply, but her bright face clouded over. An hour or two later when Sir Philip and she were on their way to the pond for “a last skate” as she said, he reverted to what had passed.
“Ella,” he began, “since I saw that it vexed you the other night I have said nothing more about your—well I can only call it prejudice against your sisters. But I see it is still there. I wish I could disabuse you of it—you don’t know how earnestly I wish it. You are so sweet and affectionate to every one else—I cannot really understand it.”
“It is often the case that near relations don’t get on as well with each other as with—strangers,” said Ella somewhat primly.
“But you don’t count granny and me strangers, I hope?” he asked eagerly. “And granny is not a person that every one gets on with.”
“Perhaps not, but she loves me—I feel that she does. And I shouldn’t mind anything she said, not even if she scolded me badly—just because of that. And I never can feel that way to Madelene. But I do get on very well now with Ermine,” she added though with a shade of reluctance.
“Dear Ermine,” said Philip. “I can scarcely imagine the possibility of not ‘getting on’ with her. Everybody takes to her wherever she goes. I am so delighted she is going to the Marchants,” he added.
“You are going too?” asked Ella, though she knew it already.
“Yes. I hope to be there the first week of Ermine’s visit, at least,” he replied.