Mr. Charles Plackett looked at her earnestly. "It will be a great sacrifice on your part, my dear young lady."
"Yes, it will; I do not deny that," acknowledged Ella, involuntary tears starting to her eyes. "But I have no choice in the matter: none. All I would ask of Mr. Denison is, that he will allow me to remain in the house for a short while longer: a very few weeks at the most."
Mr. Charles Plackett smiled amiably. "That small request will be granted as a matter of course, my dear Miss Winter. I remember some words spoken by my client in this very room; not long ago, either. Though it were proved that Heron Dyke did belong to him, he said, he would like that charming young lady to retain it."
Ella smiled faintly, and shook her head. "That cannot be," she answered. "But I do not feel the less indebted to Mr. Denison for the kindness that prompted the thought."
[CHAPTER XII.]
MORE SURPRISES THAN ONE
Miss Winter remained in London with her aunt three or four days. She had some purchases to make preparatory to her nuptials, and consultations to hold with her dressmaker. Neither did Mrs. Carlyon care to quit her house again without giving a few days to it.
On the morning preceding that on which they were to travel down to Heron Dyke, they were surprised, not knowing he was in London, to see Conroy. He had been somewhere in the country.
"And my visit was a failure," he said to Ella: "the friend whom I went to see was absent from home. I waited a day or two; but as he did not return, I came up here.--Have you been house-hunting?" he carelessly asked.
"House-hunting!" she repeated. "No."