CHAPTER III
The Home-coming
First of all, when she had gone up to her own room she found to her dismay that somebody else had been using it. All her pictures had been taken down from the walls and replaced by ugly steel engravings. The cupboard containing her toys was nowhere to be seen, and in its place stood a tall swinging mirror. The window-seat, where she used to sit curled up on wet days reading a story-book or looking out into the garden, was not there either, nor were the pretty chintz curtains. Instead of the latter, the window was draped with an ugly red brocade, so dark and heavy that it made the entire room seem dull. Facing the window was a queerly shaped flat table with a sort of well in it, and in the well were little pots of white powder and some soft stuff that looked like cream, and sticks of red paint. There was also a small porcelain box containing little patches cut out of black plaster, which Ella knew ladies stuck on their cheeks when they were going out visiting or to a ball. Besides these, there was a hare’s foot for dabbing powder on, and several powder-puffs, and half a dozen bottles of scent and a pair of curling-tongs, and— strangest of all—a bundle of red hair that looked like the front part of a wig, all frizzled up into curls. The room was very untidy, too. Skirts and other articles of clothing were scattered about on the floor, and a hat with a big feather in it was lying on the back of one of the chairs. The cushions on the divan were all creased and crumpled, and a book lay face down on the carpet just where it had been thrown when its owner had done with it.
Ella stood and gazed at all this for some time ; then she heard a step on the stairs, and going to the door saw Belinda, the maid, who had come to help her unpack.
“ Oh, Belinda,” said Ella, “what has happened to my room?”
“It’s not your room any longer, miss,” answered Belinda. “Miss Euphronia took such a fancy to it, because it was pleasant and had an outlook on the garden, that she has turned it into a dressing-room. That’s her table over there, where she titivates herself. She has taken your bedroom, too, and put your things up into the attic.”
“I shall complain to father,” said Ella. “It cannot be his will that I should be so slighted, and he will put matters right.”
“I shouldn’t count too much on that if I were you, miss,” said Belinda. “There’s changes in your father, too. He’s no longer master in his own house, and he’s nagged at day and night. Why, the only peace the poor man can get is to shut himself up in his library, and even then the Baroness,” here Belinda gave a mighty scornful 
So it was a very miserable Ella who went upstairs to the dark attic, which smelt of dust and spiders’ webs, and unpacked her trunk beneath the sloping roof. Belinda had made the place look as comfortable as she
Her eyes were so full of tears that she could hardly see to unpack, but she wiped them away presently, and took out her prettiest dress, a white muslin, with blue embroidery on the front and a wide sash of blue silk. She put this on, because she thought she might as well look her best, and went down to the drawing-room to wait for her stepmother’s return.
In a little while she heard the crunching of wheels on the drive outside, and then the banging of the front door, and the sound of high-pitched voices. It seemed as though a quarrel were going on, for the voices were very loud and very bad-tempered.
“I tell you, he bowed to me.”
“Stuff and nonsense! I’ll warrant he never even noticed you. He looked straight at me as he walked by the carriage, and I smiled in return.”
“Forward creature!— when you had never been introduced.”
“Minx!”
“Cat!”
And so the two went on, snapping and snarling, until a deeper voice put in, “For goodness’ sake stop your bickering, you two; do now, and help me off with this turban. I don’t expect he bowed to either of you; and if he did, it doesn’t matter, for he’s nothing but a country squire’s son with not a penny in his pocket. I wonder whether that brat of the Baron’s has come home?”
“That’s my stepmother,” thought Ella, “and the Baron’s brat is me ! Oh dear. I wish I ’d stayed at school!” She had half a thought of escaping through the French windows into the garden and running away; but before she could move a step the drawing-room door flew open, and in came the Baroness with her two daughters.