'I suppose so,' was the reply, so listlessly given that Mrs. Hylton glanced keenly at her daughter. 'What do you feel about it yourself, Ella?' 'I? oh, I--I've no feeling. Perhaps, if we waited--no, it doesn't matter--let it be when you and George wish, mother, please!' Mrs. Hylton gave a sharp, annoyed little laugh: 'Really, my dear, if you can't get up any more interest in it than that, I think it would certainly be wiser to wait!' It was more than indifference that Ella felt--a wild aversion to beginning the new life that but lately had seemed so mysteriously sweet and strange; she was frightened by it, ashamed of it, but she could not help herself. She made no answer, nor did Mrs. Hylton again refer to the subject. But Ella's worst tribulations had yet to come. That afternoon, as she and her mother and Flossie were sitting in the drawing-room, 'Mrs. and the Miss Chapmans' were announced. Evidently they had deemed it incumbent on them to pay a state visit as soon as possible after Ella's return. Ella returned their effusive greetings as dutifully as she could. She had never succeeded in cultivating a very lively affection for them; to-day she found them barely endurable. Mrs. Chapman was a stout, dewlapped old lady, with dull eyes and pachydermatous folds in her face. She had a husky voice and a funereal manner. Jessie, her eldest daughter, was not altogether uncomely in a commonplace way: she was dark-haired, high-coloured, loud-voiced--generally sprightly and voluble and overpowering; she was in such a hurry to speak that her words tripped one another up, and she had a meaningless and, to Ella, highly irritating little laugh. Carrie was plain and colourless, content to admire and echo her sister. After some conversation on Ella's Continental experiences, Jessie suddenly, as Ella's uneasy instinct foresaw, turned to Mrs. Hylton. 'Of course, Ella told you what a surprise she had at Campden Hill yesterday? Weren't you electrified?' 'No doubt I should have been,' said Mrs. Hylton, who detested Jessie, 'only Ella did not think fit to mention it.' 'Oh, I wonder at that! I hope I wasn't going to betray the secrets of the prison-house?' Jessie was fond of using stock phrases to give lightness and sparkle to her conversation. 'Ella, the idea of your keeping it all to yourself, you sly puss! But tell me--would you ever have believed Tumps'--his sisters called George 'Tumps'--'could be capable of such independent behaviour?' 'No,' said Ella, 'I--indeed I never should!' 'Ha, ha! nor should we! You would have screamed to see him fussing about--wasn't he killing over it, Carrie?' 'Oh, he was, Jessie!' 'My son,' explained Mrs. Chapman to Mrs. Hylton, 'is so wonderfully energetic and practical. I have never known him fail to carry through anything he has once undertaken--he inherits that from his poor dear father.' 'I don't quite gather what your brother George has been doing, even now?' said Mrs. Hylton to Jessie.