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?