"Are we going to have company?"
"Company? Well, yes—I don't know but it might be called company—a sort of dumb companion—well, no—you couldn't call it dumb either."
"Walter Taylor! is it something father and mother do not want me to know?"
"I don't know how they will help your knowing."
"I believe you are letting out a secret and I will not listen! I should think folks would learn not to tell you any secrets."
"They didn't tell me. I heard a man tell father that it had come."
Ella Taylor failed in her recitations that morning for the first time during the quarter. Her thoughts were at home, in the parlor; she knew exactly where it ought to stand and wondered if they would put it in the right place. She tried to study, but Walter's hints which were too plain to be misunderstood insisted upon crowding themselves into her mind.
"Come in, Ella!" her mother called from the parlor as Ella was hanging her hat and wraps in the hall. Ella obeyed the call with flushed cheeks. She could not feign a surprise which she did not feel, and she stood embarrassed and uncertain what to do for a moment, then burst into tears.
"Poor child! the surprise is too much for her," said her father.
"It isn't that," said Ella; "I tried to be surprised and I couldn't, that is why I cried."