To-day some ten or a dozen friends were dining with Mrs. Carlyon. One of them was little Freddy Bootle, with his little fluffy moustache, his eye-glass, and his short-cut flaxen hair parted down the middle. Freddy was universally acknowledged to be one of the best-hearted fellows in the world, and one of the most easily imposed upon. He was well connected, and was a junior partner in the great East-end brewery firm of Fownes, Bootle and Bootle. He was in love with Miss Winter, and had proposed to her a year ago. Although unsuccessful in his suit, his feelings remained unchanged, and he was not without hope that Ella would one day look on him with more favourable eyes. Ella and he remained the best of friends. That little episode of the declaration in the conservatory, which to him had been so momentous an affair, had been to her no more than a passing vexation. Another of the gentlemen whom it may be as well to introduce is Philip Cleeve, son of Lady Cleeve, of Homedale, near Nullington. He and Miss Winter are great friends. Philip is in love with Maria Kettle, the only daughter of the Vicar of Nullington. What a handsome fellow he is, with his brown curling hair, his laughing hazel eyes, and his ever-ready smile. Ella sometimes wonders how Maria Kettle can resist his pleasant manners and fascinating ways. There is no more general favourite anywhere than Philip Cleeve. The worst his friends could say of him was that he was given to be a little careless in money matters--and his purse was a very slender one. Between ourselves, Philip was sometimes hard up for pocket-money: though, perhaps, these same friends suspected it not. Dinner was over, and the ladies had returned to the drawing-room, when Mrs. Carlyon was called downstairs, and a couple of minutes later Ella was sent for. A gentleman had called, Captain Lennox, bringing with him a birthday gift for Ella, from Mr. Denison, of Heron Dyke. The Captain had accidentally met Mr. Denison the day previously, and happening to mention that he was about to run up to London on a flying visit, the latter had asked him to take charge of and deliver to his niece a certain little parcel which he did not feel quite easy about entrusting to the post. This parcel the Captain now delivered into Ella's hands. On being opened, the contents proved to be a pair of diamond and pearl ear-rings.