‘It is all quite true,’ says the girl distinctly. ‘I don’t want to see people—not everyone, you know. But sometimes when I hear your voices over there’—pointing towards the Rectory garden—‘laughing and talking, I have felt a little lonely.’ She is looking at Susan, and Susan can see that her eyes now are a little misty. ‘To-day’—wistfully—‘you were laughing a great deal.’ ‘Yes, yes; I wish we hadn’t been,’ says Susan, who is beginning to feel distinctly contrite, until she remembers that, after all, some tears were mingled with her mirth. ‘But now that we have met, you will come and join us sometimes, won’t you?—and, indeed, to-day? I wish you had come to-day. We should all have been glad to see you—shouldn’t we, Carew?’ ‘I am sure you know that,’ says Carew to Ella. A warm colour is dyeing his handsome young face, and there is the tenderest, most reverential expression in his voice. Carew is of that age when ‘the light that lies in a lady’s eyes’ can mean heaven to him. ‘I shall never leave this place,’ says Ella quickly. ‘All I want is to stay here, in this lovely garden, by myself.’ ‘Yet you said you felt lonely,’ says Susan anxiously. ‘Yes—I know.’ She looks down, as if puzzled, uncertain how to go on. ‘Still, I would rather be lonely than go out into the world again.’ ‘Poor thing!’ thinks Susan. ‘I was right; no doubt she has just lost everyone that was dear to her.’ She glances at Ella, as if in search of crape, but Ella’s navy-blue skirt and pretty pale-blue linen blouse seem miles away from woe; and, yes, Betty had seen that blue bow near her neck. ‘I know this garden so well,’ says Susan, with a view to changing the sad subject. ‘We used to come here often before you came. Mr. Wyndham sometimes stayed here for weeks at a time, but now, of course, that is all changed. Oh, I see you have planted out some asters in the round bed. They will be lovely later on. I suppose’—thoughtfully—‘you like gardening?’ ‘I love it!’ says Ella, with enthusiasm. ‘Only I don’t know anything about it. Mrs. Denis gives me hints.’ ‘I love it, too,’ says Susan, ‘but for all that’—as if a little ashamed of herself—‘I like to see people sometimes. I couldn’t live on gardening alone, and you’ll find you can’t, either. In fact’—gaily—‘you have found it out already. That’s why you called us in. Oh, you’ll have to come over to our place. Do you like tennis?’ ‘I have never played it.’ ‘Golf, then?’ ‘No.’ Her tone is very sad, and Carew turns sharply upon poor Susan, who had only meant to do her best. ‘There are other things in the world besides golf and tennis,’ says he. ‘Oh, of course—of course,’ says Susan hastily. ‘It is only people who live in the country who ever really care about things like that, and no doubt you—’ ‘I don’t believe I know anything at all,’ says Ella, very gently.