Ella did not answer.
“Will you come out for a little?” Madelene went on. “We have been having tea—Ermine and I and—and our cousin—on the lawn. You would like a cup of tea, would you not? I am afraid your room will not be ready yet. We have been making some changes, and the rooms we intend for you are to be papered and painted next week. In the meantime we must consider how best to arrange.”
“I am sorry to give you so much trouble,” said Ella coldly. “I should have thought—it surely cannot be difficult for the third daughter to have a room just as you and Ermine have. But of course you are right—I am a stranger, and it is no good pretending I am not.”
“That was not what I meant at all,” said Madelene. But again Ella made no reply.
“I must take care what I say,” she was thinking to herself, “or I shall be called ‘exaggerated’ and ‘theatrical,’ again.”
Madelene opened the window and stepped out. “Shall we go this way?” she said. “It is nearer than round by the front door.”
Ella followed her.
“I am to be a younger sister when it comes to questions of precedence and that kind of thing, it appears,” she thought. “But a stranger when it suits the rest of the family to consider me so.”
There was something soothing however to her impressionable feelings in the beauty all around her; it was a really exquisite evening and the girl was quick to respond to all such influences.
“How lovely!” she said impulsively.