Ella smiled charmingly. Somehow she had taken a great and sudden fancy to him.
"I had always thought of you as being so different," she said.
"As an ogre, no doubt," he rejoined, with a comical nod. "I know. Poor Gilbert! he had his curious fancies, and one of them was to abuse me: I'm as sure of that as if I'd heard him. My dear, I cannot tell you how pleased I am to meet you. Confess now, that you had expected to see some dangerous kind of fellow in me: one that bites, eh?"
"No, indeed," returned Ella. "I am surprised because I had no expectation of seeing you."
"And you find me a worse hobgoblin than you imagined?"
"I do not find you one at all," she said, taking the place beside him.
"Well, well; a certain personage is said not to be so black as he is painted; let us hope that it will prove so in the present case. Ah! what a pity it is that Frank's not here to-night!" he added, abruptly.
"Your son, Mr. Denison?" asked Ella, her serious dark-blue eyes bent full upon him.
"Yes, my son; my will-o'-the-wisp, my ne'er-do-weel, the plague of my life," answered Mr. Denison. In his short, sharp sentences, and abrupt turns, Ella was put strongly in mind of her uncle.
"I should have been greatly pleased to meet him," she said. "Is he away from home?"