Ella Bedford's help and kindness were only called for during a few months; and then it fell to her lot to seek for some situation where the accomplishments, for the most part taught by her father, might be the means of providing her with a home and some small pittance. By means of advertising, she had succeeded in obtaining the post of governess at the Elms, and it was while on her way to fill that post that she had encountered the hopeful scion of the house of Bray. It was, then, with a feeling almost of horror that she met him again at the Elms, and her first thought was that she must flee directly--leave the house at once; her next that she ought to relate her adventure to some one. But who would sympathise with her, and rightly view it all? She shrank from harsh loud-voiced Mrs Bray; and, almost from the first meeting, Laura had seemed to take a dislike to her--one which she made no scruple of displaying--while, as a rule, she tried all she could to how the immeasurable distance she considered that there existed between her and the dependent. On the day of the sheep encounter, agitated, wounded, and with great difficulty keeping back her tears, Ella hurried on; and had Max Bray's position been one of danger, it is very doubtful whether any assistance would have been rendered him through Ella, so thoroughly was she taken up with her own position. She felt that she must be questioned respecting her charges reaching home alone; they would certainly talk about her staying behind with their brother, and the culminating point would be reached when Miss Nelly declared what she had seen. Well might the poor girl's heart beat as she hastened on; for it seemed as if, through the persecution of a fop, her prospects in life were to be blighted at the outset. But there's a silver lining to every cloud, it is said; and before Ella had gone half a mile, to her great joy she saw Nelly seated with her sisters by a bank, gathering wild flowers, and then tossing them away. Fortune favoured her too when they reached the Elms: luncheon--the children's dinner--had been put back for half an hour because Mr Maximilian had not returned. "Mr Maximilian" did not show himself at all at table that day, and, glad of the respite, Ella sought her bedroom directly after, to think over the past, and try and decide what ought to be her course under the circumstances. What would she not have given for the loving counsel of some gentle, true-hearted woman! But she felt that she was quite alone--alone in the vast weary world; and as such thoughts sprang up came the recollection of the happy bygone, sweeping all before it; and at last, unable to bear up any longer, she sank upon her knees by the bedside, weeping and sobbing as if her poor torn heart would break.