Fräulein Braune gave an exclamation.
“My dear Miss Ella!” she said.
“Things of this kind are not settled quite so quickly, my dear young lady,” said Mrs Ward with a smile. “However I will write about it at once, and you can stay here till I get an answer. But—you in the meantime must get your parents’ leave. You are not of age and I could not take the responsibility of sending you away anywhere unauthorised by them.”
Ella looked very blank.
“I mean to tell them when I am settled,” she said. “I—I did not want to do so before.”
“You must think it over,” said Mrs Ward. “In the meantime I will write the letter. Now, Fräulein Braune, you know the house. Tea will be ready in a few minutes. Will you take Miss St Quentin up stairs to Number 5: it is the only unoccupied room, and when you hear the bell ring please come down to the dining-room for tea.”
Ella followed Fräulein Braune up stairs in silence; she looked grave and perplexed and the kind woman’s heart was touched. But she thought it best and wisest to leave the girl to her own reflections. It was not till the next morning, when her friend was about to leave, that anything was said.
“I have been thinking it all over,” Ella began.
“I see it is no use trying to keep my plans a secret, and after all it will not make much difference, as I always meant to write home eventually. But I don’t want to write myself, just yet. If it is not asking too much, Fräulein, will you be so kind as to see my father or my sister as soon as you go back to Coombe and tell them where I am, what I intend, so that they can write to Mrs Ward and satisfy her? I don’t think there will be any difficulty; certainly not with my sister, and my father will probably be so angry, that he won’t care what I do. You can see for yourself that they are not anxious about me, or they would have done something.”
Fräulein Braune could scarcely gainsay this. She was too experienced not to know that nothing would have been easier than to trace Ella by this time had her friends cared to do so.