The same mail brought a letter from the housekeeper at Mondreer, who was ever a very punctual correspondent.
She informed Mrs. Force that such internal improvements as might be made in bad weather were already progressing at Mondreer—that all the bedsteads were down, and all the carpets up, the floors had been scrubbed, and the windows and painting washed, and the kalsominers were at work.
But she wanted to know immediately, if Mrs. Force pleased, what that news was that she was saving for a personal interview. If it concerned her own “beat,” she would like to know it at once.
“Why, I thought you had told her, mamma,” said Odalite, when she had read this letter.
“No, my dear. I did not wish to excite any new talk of Angus Anglesea until you and Le should be married and off to Europe. I shrink from the subject, Odalite. I am sorry now that I hinted to the woman having anything to tell her.”
“But, mamma, ought she not be told that he is dead?”
“He has been dead to her since he left her. In good time she shall know that he is dead to us also. And, my dear, remember that he was not her husband, after all, but——”
“Oh! don’t finish the sentence, mamma! What will Le say?” sighed Odalite.
“Nothing. This will make no difference to you or to Le. That ceremony performed at All Faith, three years ago, whether legal or illegal, was certainly incomplete—the marriage rites arrested before the registry was made. You have never seen or spoken to the would-be bridegroom since that hour; and now the man is dead, and you are free, even if you were ever bound. Let us hear no more on that subject, my dear. Now I shall have to answer this letter, and—as I have been so unlucky as to have raised the woman’s suspicions and set her to talking—I must tell her the facts, I suppose. And—as for her sake as well as for our own, I choose to consider her the widow of Angus Anglesea—I shall send with the letter a widow’s outfit,” concluded the lady, as she left the room.
The whole remainder of that day was spent by Mrs. Force in driving along Pennsylvania Avenue and up Seventh Street, selecting from the best stores an appropriate outfit in mourning goods for the colonel’s widow.