At this moment the noise of the door-handle being turned makes him drop her hand, and they all fall simultaneously into what they hope is an easy attitude. And then Sarah appears upon the threshold with a letter and a small packet between her first finger and thumb. She is a very genteel girl, is Sarah, and would scorn to take a firm grasp of anything.
"This 'ere is for you, sir," she says, delivering the packet to Luttrell, who consigns it hastily to his coat-pocket; "and this for you, Miss Molly," giving the letter. "The postman says, sir, as 'ow they only come by the afternoon, but I am of the rooted opinion that he forgot 'm this morning."
Thus Sarah, who is loquacious though trustworthy, and bears an undying grudge to the postman, in that he has expressed himself less enamored of her waning charms than of those of the more buxom Jane, who queens it over the stewpans and the cold joints.
"Most improper of the postman," replies Mr. Massereene, soothingly.
Meantime, Molly is standing staring curiously at her missive.
"I don't know the writing," she says in a vague tone. "I do hope it isn't a bill."
"A bill, with that monogram!" exclaims Luttrell. "Not likely. I would swear to a dunning epistle at twenty yards' distance."
"Who can it be from?" wonders Molly, still dallying with one finger inserted beneath the flap of the envelope.
"Perhaps, if you look within you may find out," suggests John, meekly; and thus encouraged she opens the letter and reads.
At first her face betrays mere indifference, then surprise, then a sudden awakening to intense interest, and lastly unmitigated astonishment.