Carley and his daughter to
spend New-year's-day at Wyncomb; a display of hospitality so foreign to
his character, that it was scarcely strange that Mrs. Tadman opened her
eyes and stared aghast as she heard the invitation given. It had been
accepted too, much to Ellen's disgust; and her father told her more than
once in the course of the ensuing week that she was to put on her best
gown, and smarten herself up a bit, on New-year's-day.
"And if you want a new gown, Nell, I don't mind giving it you," said the
bailiff, in a burst of generosity, and with the prevailing masculine idea
that a new gown was a panacea for all feminine griefs. "You can walk over
to Malsham and buy it any afternoon you like."
But Ellen did not care for a new gown, and told her father so, with a
word or two of thanks for his offer. She did not desire fine dresses; she
had indeed been looking over and furbishing up her wardrobe of late, with
a view to that possible flight of hers, and it was to her cotton working
gowns that she had paid most attention: looking forward to begin a harder
life in some stranger's service--ready to endure anything rather than to
marry Stephen Whitelaw. And of late the conviction had grown upon her
that her father was very much in earnest, and that before long it would
be a question whether she should obey him, or be turned out of doors.
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