—Shakespeare.
It was on the evening of the very same day that saw the departure of Laura Lytton for Lytton Lodge that Peter, the post-office messenger of Blue Cliffs, returned from Wendover, bringing with him a well-filled mail-bag.
He took it into the drawing-room, where Miss Cavendish and her guests, the Rev. Dr. Jones, Miss Electra, and Mrs. Grey, were gathered around the center-table, under the light of the chandelier.
Emma Cavendish unlocked the mail-bag and turned its contents out upon the table.
"Newspapers and magazines only, I believe. No letters. Help yourselves, friends. There are paper-knives on the pen-tray. And in the absence of letters, there is a real pleasure in unfolding a fresh newspaper and cutting the leaves of a new magazine," said the young lady, as she returned the empty bag to the messenger.
But her companions tumbled over the mail still in the vain hope of finding letters.
"None for me; yet I did hope to get one from my new manager at Beresford Manors," muttered Dr. Jones, in a tone of disappointment.
"And none for me either, though I do think the girls at Mount Ascension might write to me," pouted Electra.
"And of course there are none for me! There never are! No one ever writes to me. The poor have no correspondents. I did not expect a letter, and I am not disappointed," murmured Mary Grey, with that charming expression, between a smile and a sigh, that she had always found so effective.
"Well, there is no letter for any one, it seems, so none of us have cause to feel slighted by fortune more than others," added Emma Cavendish, cheerfully.