“Then did they not send you? How did you know? I don’t understand,” she said in a dull, bewildered way. “I am tired, I think, aunty, and the not expecting to see you, you know. Please tell me all about it; I will sit here quietly and listen.”
“My darling,” Mrs Burton repeated, possessing herself of Ella’s hand as she spoke. It lay passive in her grasp for a minute or two, but before long the girl managed to draw it away.
“Tell me, aunt, please,” she repeated. “I have got out of those petting sort of ways, I suppose,” she said to herself. “I wish aunt Phillis wasn’t quite so caressing.”
Chapter Nineteen.
“A Marriage is Arranged.”
This was what Mrs Burton had to tell. On the evening her niece had left Coombesthorpe she had been startled by a telegram from Madelene, inquiring if Ella were with her, to which of course she was obliged to reply in the negative.
“I was not so very frightened as I would have been had I not that very morning got your letter asking me to invite you for a visit. Fortunately Mr Burton was out when the telegram came,” she went on, “so I did not need to tell him about it—it is just as well—I don’t think he need hear more than that you are coming on a visit—oh, but I am running on without explaining,” seeing Ella raise her eyebrows with a look of surprise. “I must tell you that all the next day and the day after, I kept thinking you would walk in, my dear, and when you did not come and there was no letter I began to be really frightened. I was just making up my mind to tell Mr Burton all about it and start for Coombesthorpe when last night to my astonishment there came a message—”
“A telegram?” Ella interrupted.