"Well, well; I might have had the sense to know that some young fellow would not fail to secure such a treasure. I was foolish enough to dream that you and my boy might perhaps in time meet and learn to like each other, and then--but all that is at an end now. Well, well." Ella was gazing sadly out of the window. There was silence for a little while. "I hope the husband you have chosen will take you to as good a home as this, my dear. Is he rich?" "No. He has four hundred a-year certain, and----" "Four hundred a-year!" interrupted Mr. Denison, in a tone of contempt. "Why I allow my scapegrace son as much as that. Tut, tut! you can't marry a man who has but four hundred a-year." "And I have as much, or nearly as much," continued Ella. "Dear Mr. Denison, we shall do very well." "Very well! After Heron Dyke!" Mr. Denison gave an emphatic sniff. "My dear, I have taken a great liking to you, as much as if you were my daughter, and I don't care to hear of this. I don't approve of it. Four hundred a-year!" "Is your son come home from abroad?" inquired Ella, to change the conversation, after a pause of silence. "Oh yes, he has come home, the graceless dog! Came down to eat his Christmas dinner with me at Nunham Priors. Stayed but a day or two, though." "Is he so very graceless?" "That's as may be. He thinks himself a model of a son for duty. Reminded me once, when I was blowing him up, that he had never given me a moment's care in his life. Oh, Master Frank's one that won't be sat upon--even by me." "And has he never given you any care?" "Care, yes; plenty of it: does he not go roving off by the year together pretty near, leaving me to my china and my things? Is that dutiful? I don't say Frank has vexed me in other ways. He has good parts and principles; he does not play up old Gooseberry, as some young men do. Ah, my dear, if he and you could but have made it out together! You would not have scrupled to stay at Heron Dyke then." "No, not with him," smiled Ella. "It would have been his own--so to say. We must not think of that." "No use to think of it, My young gentleman gave me to understand, in an obscure hint or two, that he had been setting up a sweetheart on his own account; hoped to marry her sometime. When I asked who it was, he drew in, and said no more: save that I should know all in good time." "Then he would not have had me," laughed Ella. "Was it at Christmas he told you this?" "No, the next time. It was another flying visit that he chose to pay me since then. 'Why don't you see if you can't make up to that young kinswoman of ours at Heron Dyke?' I said to him, and he had the impertinence to laugh in my face. 'Very well, young sir,' said I, 'understand this much: that if you take up with any black foreign woman, let her be a princess if you like, I'll not countenance your marriage.' It was not a black princess, he assured me; so I make no doubt it is some silly native doll."