"N.B.—One word more to my dear Fulvia. I am sorry to hear that your faithful knight has not yet regained the use of his hand. But never mind! He will count it worth his while. What brave knight ever yet shrank from fire or water for the sake of his faire ladye? Well, I must not joke you; but it is easy to guess how he feels—good boy!"
The four letters with their ill-fitting postscripts reached Newton Bury that same evening, being faithfully delivered according to their several addresses; three at the Grange, one at the Rectory.
"A perfect cartload from Mr. Carden-Cox," Nigel remarked. He read his own sheet quickly through, wondering how any sensible and intellectual man could manage to say so little, in so many words. If it had been a woman, or even a brainless man—but Mr. Carden-Cox was not a woman, nor was he brainless. Nigel then turned to the postscript, with a preliminary laugh at the N.B., and a final pause at the sixth word.
"Hallo! This is not for me? Here, Daisy," folding the half-sheet and tossing it towards her, "it is Fulvia's, not mine!"
Daisy was screwing up her big childish forehead in perplexity. "How funny!" she commented aloud, over her half-sheet. "He doesn't write like that to me generally. Why, I declare—if it isn't to Ethel!"
"What?"
"Mr. Carden-Cox has sent me a wrong piece. It's to Ethel, not to me. A sort of postscript. How stupid!—And I never guessed till I got to the end. Yes, I read it, of course. How could I tell? It might have been all in answer to my letter, only it's not exactly how he always writes. Speaking of padre as 'Browning' and—"
"Stop you've no business to repeat a word. It was not meant for your eyes."
"No; to be sure. Well, we must send it on to Ethel, I suppose."
"Put it up in an envelope. I'll take it at once, and explain."