October came, and then,—
“When hope was coldest, and despair most deep,”
a letter arrived from Alexander. She was that evening sitting and shivering, not from cold, but from nervousness, over a bright little fire in her dressing-room, when Pina ran in, without the ceremony of rapping, and exclaimed, breathlessly:
“It’s Leo, ma’am, which he’s just brung a letter from the post-office, as he says must be from master, because it’s got Richmond printed onto it, and he can read print, though not writing. And he says how he’ll bring the letter in and put it into your hands himself, and here he is—”
Before Pina had finished half her speech, Drusilla had jumped up and run to meet Leo.
As he entered the room, with his face beaming with pleasure, she snatched the letter from his grasp, tore it open and devoured its contents.
Ah! poor child! little comfort that long-looked for letter brought her. It was shorter, drier and colder than any that had gone before it. Alexander vouchsafed not one word of excuse for his long silence. He announced his arrival at Richmond; and told her that he could not with propriety pay her a visit that autumn, for reasons that he would explain to her in a subsequent letter; he hoped that she was in as good health and spirits as he begged to assure her that he himself was; and he subscribed himself her friend and well-wisher, “A.”
Drusilla dropped the letter, and burst into a passion of sobs and tears, that much alarmed her loving servants.
They thought no less than that their master had met with a fatal accident, or was smitten with a deathly disorder, if he was not already dead and buried.
They tried to help and comfort her.