She then rose to go in search of it herself, but opened the door upon Mr. Dubster.
A ghost, could she have persuaded herself she had seen one, could not more have astonished, though it would more have dismayed her. She drew haughtily back, saying: 'Is there nobody else come?'
The servant answered in the negative, and she retreated to her chair.
Camilla alone was not perplext by this sight; she had, already, from the description, suggested whom she might expect, according to the intimation given by the ever mischievous Lionel.
Miss Margland, concluding he would turn out to be some broken tradesman, prepared herself to expect that the letter was a petition, and watched for an opportunity to steal out of the room.
Mr. Dubster made two or three low bows, while he had his hand upon the door, and two or three more when he had shut it. He then cast his eyes round the room, and espying Camilla, with a leering sort of smile, said: 'O, you're there, ma'am! I should find you out in a hundred. I've got a letter for you, ma'am, and another for the gentlewoman I took for your mamma; and I was not much out in my guess, for there's no great difference, as one may say, between a mamma and a governess; only the mother's the more natural, like.'
He then presented her a letter, which she hastily put up, not daring to venture at a public perusal, lest it might contain not merely something ludicrous concerning Mr. Dubster, to which she was wholly indifferent, but allusions to Sir Sedley Clarendel, which, in the actual situation of things, might be fatally unseasonable.
'And now,' said Mr. Dubster, 'I must give up my t'other letter, asking the gentlewoman's pardon for not giving it before; only I was willing to give the young lady her's first, young ladies being apt to be more in a hurry than people a little in years.'
This address did not much add to the benevolent eagerness of Miss Margland to read the epistle, and endeavouring to decline accepting it: 'Really,' she said, 'unless I know what it's about, I'm not much used to receiving letters in that manner.'
'As to what it's about,' cried he, with a half suppressed simper, and nodding his head on one side; 'that's a bit of a secret, as you'll see when you've read it.'