"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?"

"How could it be otherwise, Ella, when the man wrote so horrible a book
as that?"

"Horrible? Is it horrible? I had no idea. I'm no judge of what is