"Are there any letters, Baxter? Are there any letters?" But she had already caught sight of a foreign postcard on her plate, a postcard with an unfamiliar stamp. She scurried round the table, her heart thumping.
But the big, adventurous handwriting was hatefully familiar. The postcard was from Miss Durand.
She waited a moment, her lips parted vacantly, as was her fashion when controlling emotion; waited till the maid had gone.
Then she crumpled and tore the thin cardboard in her hand and flung it at last on the floor, in a passion of disappointment.
"She might have written!" cried Louise. "Oh, she might have written! It wouldn't have hurt her—a postcard."
Presently a thought struck her. She groped under the table for the torn scraps of paper and spread them in her lap, piecing them eagerly, laboriously. Miss Hartill might have written on Miss Durand's postcard.
She had the oblong fitted together at last and read the scrawl with impatient eagerness. Miss Durand was just sending her a line to wish her all imaginable luck. She and Miss Hartill were having a glorious time. They were sitting at that moment where she had made a cross on the picture postcard. She wished Louise could be with them to see the wonderful view over the valley and with good wishes from them both, was her Alwynne Durand....
Louise's eyes softened—"from them both." That was something! Miss Hartill had sent her a message. She sighed as she wrapped the scraps carefully in her handkerchief. Life was queer.... Here was Miss Durand, so kind, so friendly always—yet her kindness brought no pleasure.... And Miss Hartill, who could open heaven with a word—was not half so kind as Miss Durand. Louise marvelled that Miss Hartill could be so miserly. She was sure that if she, Louise, could make people utterly happy by kind looks and kind words, stray messages and occasional postcards, that she would be only too glad to be allowed to do it. To possess the power of giving happiness.... And with no more trouble to yourself than the writing of a postcard! Queer that Miss Hartill did not realise what her mere existence meant to people.... She couldn't realise it, of course ... that was it.... She thought so little about herself.... It was her own beautiful selflessness that made her seem, occasionally, hard—unkind even.... She didn't realise what she meant to people.... If she had, she would have written.... Of course she would have written ... just a word ... on Daffy's postcard....
Louise sighed again. One didn't ask much.... But it seemed the more humble one grew—the less one asked—the more unlikely people were to throw one even that little.... At any rate there was the examination to tackle.... If she did well—! She lost herself again in speculations as to the form Miss Hartill's approval might take.
The family trooped in to breakfast as the brisk maid dumped a steaming dishful of liver and bacon upon the table.