“Oh, no,” said Ella. “The ball—the dance at the Belvoirs’ is only this evening. They are staying, I think, till to-morrow.”
“Humph,” said Lady Cheynes. “You don’t care for dancing, I suppose?”
This was too much. Ella’s face was a study. “Me” she exclaimed, “not care for dancing. Who ever said so?”
The old lady laughed a little.
“I don’t know—nobody perhaps. I was judging by circumstantial evidence. A girl of your age, who did care for it, would have managed by hook or by crook to get leave to go.”
Ella gasped.
“Do you really think so?” she exclaimed. “Why, godmother, the question was never raised in the least; the possibility of such a thing was never alluded to. If I had thought there was the faintest chance of it I should have nearly gone out of my mind.”
“Did you never tell your sisters how much you would have liked to go?” asked Lady Cheynes.
“No,” said Ella. “They may have guessed it, but we hardly alluded to it at all. But oh, godmother, please don’t say now there might have been any chance of my going. It is—it is more than I can bear to think of it.”
She clasped her hands together and looked up in the old lady’s face, her lovely brown eyes brimming over with tears.