"How beautiful a place this is," she said aloud. "And how peaceful
and how quiet."
"Don't like these quiet places myself," grumbled Allen. "Don't like
'em, don't trust 'em. Give me lots of traffic; when everything's so
awful quiet you've only got to kick your foot against a stone or drop
a tool, and likely as not you'll wake the whole blessed place."
"Wake," repeated Ella, noticing the word, and she repeated it with
emphasis. "Why do you say 'wake'?"
CHAPTER XX
ELLA'S WARNING
Ella did not say anything more, and in their character of tourists
visiting the place, they were admitted to the Abbey and passed on
though its magnificent rooms, where was stored a collection rich
and rare even for one of the stateliest homes of England.
"What a wonderful place!" Ella sighed wistfully. Yet she could not
enjoy the spectacle of all these treasures as she would have done
at another time, for she was always watching Allen, who hung about
a good deal, and seemed to look more at the locks of the cases that
held some of the more valuable of the objects shown than at the
things themselves, and generally spent fully half the time in each
room at the window, admiring, the view, he said; but for quite
another reason, Ella suspected.
"I shall speak when I get back," she said to herself, pale and
resolute. "I don't care what happens; I don't care if I have to
tell mother--perhaps she knows already.
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