“Miss Baldwin,” puffed the footman, gloomily.
“Oh!” gasped Maude, taken aback. Then her venomous tongue came to her rescue: “Of course! She has heard that one of the girls of Rivercliff goes out to service, I presume,” and she went away, laughing scornfully.
But Miss Small sent Mrs. Severn’s card up to Beth’s room. However, Maude wrote home that day and told about the ridiculous way in which Miss Hammersly was allowing “a pauper girl named Beth Baldwin to go out to work by the day like a common servant.”
As it chanced, Maude’s equally light-headed mother read this part of her foolish daughter’s letter to a caller. That caller made inquiries and learned that Beth came from Hudsonvale. She knew Mrs. Euphemia Haven of Hudsonvale—had recently met her at Old Point Comfort.
Immediately, this mutual friend wrote Mrs. Haven what Maude had written to her mother. And something came of that!
CHAPTER XIX
MR. DENNIS MONTAGUE
Molly Granger had not left Number Eighty-one when the maid knocked at her chum’s door with Mrs. Severn’s card and the message. Beth was not only surprised, but uncertain as to what she should do.
“What is it?” whispered Molly, very curious. “A visitor?”
“Who is Mrs. Ricardo Severn?”
“Oh! I know who she is,” cried Molly. “Such fun! Doesn’t she want you to come down to the carriage?”