Therefore, since a fortnight had elapsed, there was a table in the living-room already heaped with the mail which had accumulated during that time. Each man’s portion of it was carefully sorted and placed by itself; but this morning Auntie Lu, upon whom that duty devolved, did not augment her brother’s heap by the three envelopes she had taken from the pouch. She sat long with them in her lap, pondering the course she should follow, for two bore a Richmond postmark and one that of Annapolis, and each was marked according to direction: “Important.”
Miss Greatorex and Dorothy had both received a letter and were eagerly perusing them upon a low window seat, and Mrs. Hungerford left her own mail unopened to glance toward them, still considering what she should do. Her gaze rested longest upon the girl, whose face was radiant over a long, many-paged epistle from Father John. The young lips were parted in a smile, the brown eyes were smiling too, and Dolly looked such a picture of innocent delight that a pang shot through the observer’s tender heart. For she knew that those “Important” letters concerned the child. They were addressed in Ephraim Cook’s familiar, crabbed hand, and the man would never have ventured to disturb the peace of his absent employer except by that employer’s command. Also, she knew that the only business of “Importance” the Judge had entrusted to Mr. Cook was that concerning Dorothy C. All law matters were attended to by other, more experienced persons. She longed to break the seals and read the contents for herself and wished now that she had asked permission so to do, but she could not open another person’s letter without that one’s desire.
Presently, she glanced through her own letters and sought Mrs. Grimm in her kitchen, busy among her maids at preparing the mid-day meal, always an early one since the farm-hands so preferred it; and it had been among their arrangements that, although her “boarders” should have a separate table in an inner room, the food for all the household should be the same. Nobody could complain of this for the housemistress was a notable cook and her supplies generous.
“Beg pardon, Mrs. Grimm, for interrupting you, but I want to ask if there’s a ‘hand’ not busy who could ride out to camp and carry some letters to my brother. I am anxious he should have them for they may require immediate replies.” She did not add, as she might, that an intense but kindly curiosity of her own was another reason for the request.
“Why, I can hardly tell, Mrs. Hungerford. They’re all busy in the fields, and my husband with them. There are some who need a constant supervision and my man believes that there’s nothing so good for any job as the ‘eye of the master.’ Else, he’d ride into the woods himself and think naught of it. Let me consider who—”
At that moment Anton came into the kitchen and threw an armful of hewn wood beside the great fireplace, where kettles hung upon cranes and “Dutch ovens” were ranged before the coals, each filled with savory food for hungry people. It was a spot Mrs. Hungerford found vastly interesting, but where she rarely lingered; for her presence seemed to disconcert the shy French maids who served their mistress there and whose own homes were isolated cottages here and there. So she was even now leaving the kitchen when she chanced to notice Anton and asked:
“Couldn’t this lad go? I know that he heaped the boxes in the living-room and our bedrooms with more wood than we can use to-night, and surely one kitchen-fire can scarcely require more than that pile yonder. I will pay him, or you, well, if he can be spared to do my errand.”
This guest was rarely so insistent and her hostess saw that to deny her the favor would be a great disappointment; so she answered that:
“Anton can be spared if—Anton can be trusted. And please, understand, dear madam, that no payment for such trivial service would be accepted.”
“But it is a long ride there and back, longer than into Halifax isn’t it? Yet the man who goes there makes but the one trip a day.”