Ella was slightly acquainted with the editor’s brother.  The next morning down she sat and wrote, inviting him to stay at her house for a short time on his way back, and requesting him to bring with him, if practicable, his companion Mr. Trewe, whose acquaintance she was anxious to make.  The answer arrived after some few days.  Her correspondent and his friend Trewe would have much satisfaction in accepting her invitation on their way southward, which would be on such and such a day in the following week.

Ella was blithe and buoyant.  Her scheme had succeeded; her beloved though as yet unseen one was coming.  “Behold, he standeth behind our wall; he looked forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice,” she thought ecstatically.  “And, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”

But it was necessary to consider the details of lodging and feeding him.  This she did most solicitously, and awaited the pregnant day and hour.

It was about five in the afternoon when she heard a ring at the door and the editor’s brother’s voice in the hall.  Poetess as she was, or as she thought herself, she had not been too sublime that day to dress with infinite trouble in a fashionable robe of rich material, having a faint resemblance to the chiton of the Greeks, a style just then in vogue among ladies of an artistic and romantic turn, which had been obtained by Ella of her Bond Street dressmaker when she was last in London.  Her visitor entered the drawing-room.  She looked towards his rear; nobody else came through the door.  Where, in the name of the God of Love, was Robert Trewe?

‘O, I’m sorry,’ said the painter, after their introductory words had been spoken.  ’Trewe is a curious fellow, you know, Mrs. Marchmill.  He said he’d come; then he said he couldn’t.  He’s rather dusty.  We’ve been doing a few miles with knapsacks, you know; and he wanted to get on home.’

‘He—­he’s not coming?’

‘He’s not; and he asked me to make his apologies.’

‘When did you p-p-part from him?’ she asked, her nether lip starting off quivering so much that it was like a tremolo-stop opened in her speech.  She longed to run away from this dreadful bore and cry her eyes out.

‘Just now, in the turnpike road yonder there.’

‘What! he has actually gone past my gates?’

’Yes.  When we got to them—­handsome gates they are, too, the finest bit of modern wrought-iron work I have seen—­when we came to them we stopped, talking there a little while, and then he wished me good-bye and went on.  The truth is, he’s a little bit depressed just now, and doesn’t want to see anybody.  He’s a very good fellow, and a warm friend, but a little uncertain and gloomy sometimes; he thinks too much of things.  His poetry is rather too erotic and passionate, you know, for some tastes; and he has just come in for a terrible slating from the —–­ Review that was published yesterday; he saw a copy of it at the station by accident.  Perhaps you’ve read it?’