“Not for millions! I’ll take it to my lady, if you like. She could not scold if she tried ever so.”
“He won’t say a word to you either, Mary Jane. He is just his father all over. There never was a quieter nor a kinder master; and, besides, how could anyone scold you for what was an accident?”
“I tell you, Mrs. Morris, I’m afraid of my life of him. I see him every morning coming down before seven. He passes me just as if I was a sweeping brush. Now if it was Mr. Geoffrey—he always has a word and a joke—I’m not a bit afraid of him!”
“Mr. Geoffrey is a good deal too fond of joking and jesting with servants and keeping them from their work; and you will just take that letter and give it to Sir Reginald before you sleep to-night,” concluded Mrs. Morris authoritatively.
“But he looks so stern and severe, I shall just sink into the ground if he gives me one of those sharp looks of his.”
“Don’t you talk rubbish, Mary Jane; go and give up that letter after dinner, and be off to your rooms now.”
Dinner over, the laundry-maid came into the servants’ hall, and whispered to her reluctant friend:
“Now is your time, Polly. They are all in the pleasure-ground except Sir Reginald, and he’s writing in the library, Thomas says. Just you go and give a knock at the door, and hand in the letter; he can’t eat you. I’ll go with you as far as the swing-door,” she added generously, “and wait.”
With loudly-beating heart, Mary Jane arrived at the library-door, knocked, and entered. Her master was writing at a table by the light of a reading-lamp. He looked up, and gazed into the shadow for some seconds before he exactly made her out.