The Black Box

"Munich? Paris?" Ella put in breathlessly.

"All wrong," Lord Ashleigh declared. "New York!"

There was a momentary silence. Ella's eyes were sparkling. Her mother's face had fallen.

"New York!" Ella murmured. "There is wonderful music there, and Mr. Delarey knows it so well."

Lord Ashleigh nodded portentously.

"I have not finished yet. Mr. Delarey wound up his letter by promising to cable me his final decision in the course of a few days. This cablegram," he went on, drawing a little slip of blue paper from his pocket, "was brought to me this morning whilst I was shaving. I found it a most inconvenient time, as the lather--"

"Oh, bother the lather, father!" Ella exclaimed. "Read the cablegram, or let me."

Her father smoothed it out before him and read--

"To Lord Ashleigh, Hamblin House, Dorset, England.