Then, laying down his pen, he said:
“Well, what is your business? One of the servants, are you not?”
There was more of the “orderly-room” in his manner than was altogether pleasant. His dealings with soldiers’ wives were short, sharp, and decisive; the very unruly women of the Seventeenth Hussars were more afraid of three words from the Major than a hundred from the Colonel.
He imagined that Mary Jane had come to lodge some complaint, so he repeated:
“What can I do for you? what do you want?”
“Please sir, I’m Foster, the upper housemaid, and it’s about this letter,” said she, timidly approaching, and laying down the yellow, crumpled missive.
“A letter,” he repeated carelessly, taking it up; but seeing the superscription, he changed colour. “And where, may I ask, did you get this?”
“Please sir, Lady Fairfax gave it to me to post more than three years ago. It must have slipped down between the lining of my dress and the pocket. I found it just now when I was ripping up the skirt. I’m very sorry indeed, sir, for I remember now that Lady Fairfax was very particular about it. I made sure I had posted it with the others.”
“Well, at any rate it was not your fault,” he exclaimed, after some reflection, turning over the long looked for letter in his hand. “It was honest of you to bring it to me; you might have burnt it, and said nothing about it; and it happens to be a letter of the very greatest consequence. Here,” said he, unlocking a drawer, “is a note instead,” handing her ten pounds; “and see that your pockets have no holes in them in future.”
Mary Jane received the gift with profuse and voluble thanks, as she backed and curtseyed out of the room; and from that time forward declared that her master was the nicest, pleasantest, most generous gentleman in England.