Chapter [20]: How It Fared With Cherry.
"Gramercy! what next, I wonder! Here's a pretty kettle of fish! I always did say that no good came of letters. I wish folks had more sense than to spend their time writing! I never get a letter but what it brings a peck of bother with it."
Mistress Susan Holt was the speaker. She held in her hand a piece of paper which she was eying with many a scornful sniff. It had been left at the bridge house by a courier riding through to Westminster from the south country, and Martin Holt had called his sister down to his business parlour to open and read the missive.
He now looked up from his books with a pardonable curiosity to say:
"Well, sister Susan, letters do not trouble thee oft. And what may be the news in this one? and from whom comes it?"
"From Prudence Dyson."
"Prudence at the Cross Way House? And what says she? it is long since we had news of her."
"So long that I had almost forgot where she was: and I marvel she should trouble us thus. Thy daughters are not serving wenches, Martin. What can Prudence be thinking of?"
Martin smiled slightly. It seemed to him that beneath his sister's iron rule his daughters did little but toil after the fashion of serving wenches from morning to night. As for Susan herself, she worked harder than any servant she had ever had beneath her sway.
"What says the letter?" he asked briefly; "what is the matter that angers thee?"