“So glad you think so,” said Ella.  “I haven’t aged much during the eight months we have been apart.  I have had a very good time on the whole, and so had Stephen, though he was with me for close upon a month, poor little man!  But it is you, Phyllis, it is you who are the girl of the hour.  Heavens! you were farsighted!  Who could have imagined that he would become so famous all in a moment?  I must confess that when you wrote to me that letter telling me of your engagement, and how happy you were, I was a little cross.  I could not clearly see you the wife of a parson, even so presentable a parson as Mr. Holland.  Oh, of course I wrote you the usual exuberant letter—­what would be the good of doing anything else?  But now that he has become famous—­Oh, I want you to bring him with you to my first At Home—­Tuesday week.  It’s very short notice, I know, but you must come, and bring him.  You are both certain to be in great demand.  Why do you shake your head that way?  You need not say that you are engaged for Tuesday week.”

“I will not say that I am engaged at all, in any sense,” said Phyllis, with a very shallow laugh, at laugh that sounded like a ripple among pebbles; her usual laugh was like a ripple upon a silver sand.

“In any sense—­for Tuesday week?”

Ella raised her eyebrows to the extent of the eighth of an inch.  She lowered them in a moment, however, for the tea was being brought in.  It required two able-bodied men (in plush) to carry in a dainty little silver tray, with a little silver tea-pot of a pattern that silversmiths, for reasons which have never been fully explained, call “Queen Anne.”  One of the men, however, devoted himself to the care of the hot cakes of various subtle types which were inclosed in silver covered dishes.

With the lowering of her eyebrows Mrs. Linton’s voice lost its previous inflection.

“I have been fortunate enough to hit upon something distinctly new in that way”—­she indicated the muffin dishes.  “A cake that may be eaten hot without removing one’s gloves.”

“What a boon!” cried Phyllis.  “You got it at Vienna, of course.”

“Of course.  You will learn all about it when you come.”

The able-bodied men withdrew, and before the door was quite closed behind them, Ella was gazing at her friend, her face alight with inquiry.

“Now pray explain yourself,” she whispered.  “Not engaged in any sense—­those were your words.  What do they mean?”

“Take them literally, my Ella,” said Phyllis.

“Literally?  But you wrote to me that you had engaged yourself to marry Mr. Holland?”

“And now I tell you by word of mouth that I have disengaged myself.”

“Good Heavens!  You, I fancied, would be the last girl in the world to promise to marry a man and then back out of it.”

“That was what I myself fancied up till Monday last.”

“But how can you have changed your mind?  Isn’t it very unfortunate—­just when the man has become famous?”