That would come, no doubt, when he had had time to look about and get his bearings. She counted up the days that must elapse before she received his next letter, and stole down early to peep at the papers, and learn when the next American mail was due. At length the happy date arrived, and she hurried distractedly through the day’s work, trying to conceal her impatience by the endearments she bestowed upon her pupils. It was easier, in her present mood, to kiss them than to keep them at their grammars.
That evening, on Mme. Clopin’s threshold, her heart beat so wildly that she had to lean a moment against the door-post before entering. But on the hall table, where the letters lay, there was none for her.
She went over them with a feverish hand, her heart dropping down and down, as she had sometimes fallen down an endless stairway in a dream—the very same stairway up which she had seemed to fly when she climbed the long hill to Deering’s door. Then it suddenly struck her that Andora might have found and secreted her letter, and with a spring she was on the actual stairs and rattling Miss Macy’s door-handle.
“You’ve a letter for me, haven’t you?” she panted.
Miss Macy, turning from the toilet-table, inclosed her in attenuated arms. “Oh, darling, did you expect one to-day?”
“Do give it to me!” Lizzie pleaded with burning eyes.
“But I haven’t any! There hasn’t been a sign of a letter for you.”
“I know there is. There must be,” Lizzie persisted, stamping her foot.
“But, dearest, I’ve watched for you, and there’s been nothing, absolutely nothing.”
Day after day, for the ensuing weeks, the same scene reenacted itself with endless variations. Lizzie, after the first sharp spasm of disappointment, made no effort to conceal her anxiety from Miss Macy, and the fond Andora was charged to keep a vigilant eye upon the postman’s coming, and to spy on the bonne for possible negligence or perfidy. But these elaborate precautions remained fruitless, and no letter from Deering came.