"Don't tell me the address, please," said the other, "for I want to be able to say, 'I don't know,' if we have any more visitors like the last, for I did not like his manner at all."
A day or two later a letter came to Miss Russell, saying that the Old Manor House, Firdale, was a very select gentleman's boarding-school; which so far relieved the teacher's fears, that it was agreed that Miss Russell should write and tell Herbert where a letter would find Mrs. Winn. It also added the information that it was feared she might be in straightened circumstances, as her son had caught scarlet fever a few months after his father's death, and that had compelled them to remove to another neighbourhood; and she enclosed the address which she had received from an intimate friend of Mrs. Winn's.
"There, I should think that would do," said Miss Russell, as she read over what she had written. "You see I have told him I am writing for you, as you don't know her address."
"No, it will be better altogether for me not to know it," said Elsie's former governess. "People are less likely to come to you for it, and I am sadly afraid the poor things will go down hill very fast through that boy catching the fever."
The lady said "that boy" as though she would like to shake him, for everybody knew it was through Tom's disobedience that his mother had lost her business, and been obliged to go away.
"But if this is really a cousin who writes, there may be better times in, store for the poor woman," said Miss Russell. However, her friend could not feel quite sure that they had not done more harm than good by replying to the schoolboy's letter.
Meanwhile Herbert Milner was delighted at the result of his application to the school, when, after waiting for a week, he received Miss Russell's letter. He did not know how dubious the ladies had been about writing to him; but he felt sure, from the wording of the letter, that this Mrs. Winn, whoever she might be, greatly needed help just now. And his mother, herself a widow, was well provided for, and therefore would be able to help and sympathise with Mrs. Winn. And if it should prove to be her long lost sister, how glad she would be to help her, and the brave girl who had given up the scholarship a year before.
This was how Herbert reasoned, as he sat down and wrote a rather incoherent letter to his mother, telling her he had written to the schoolmistress, and asked for Elsie Winn's address, and how they had sent it to him, though Capon's man could not find out anything about the people.
Now it must be confessed that Mrs. Milner was not too well pleased when she received her son's letter, vaunting his cleverness over "Capon's man." She was not without natural affection, and she often wished in a vague way for the little sister she had not seen for so long; but she was also a fashionable lady, and she was afraid now that she might feel ashamed to own the relationship with Elsie among the people she was now constantly meeting.
She wanted to do her duty, as she told herself, and Herbert too. But having done "all that people could expect of her—" having sent Capon's man in search of her lost sister—she thought she might settle down and make herself comfortable about the matter. But she did not feel really and truly sorry that the enquiries had failed, as Herbert did, but she was rather relieved, especially when Mrs. Stone called upon her, and talked about her new carriage, and diamonds, and the court that was paid to her husband by noblemen and other great people.