The envelope had come put of its hiding-place again during this speech, and Peggy was turning it over and over as if to attract attention to it; but she failed, and had to resort to more direct methods.
"I canna think why they pit sic'can a big seal to a letter. Will there be something on it that shoudna be broken?"
"Not that I can see," replied Mrs. Vane, taking it up carelessly. "Only the name, 'Scriven and Plead'--lawyers, Peggy--for there below is W. S. Glasgow. It is what people call a lawyer's letter, I expect."
"An' what will that be about?"
"Heaps of things. I couldn't say without reading it; shall I?" But Peggy's claw-like hand shot forth in quick negation.
"I'll no be troubling you. I thocht, maybe, ye micht hae had experience o' such things."
"So I have, Peggy. Sometimes they are wills, and sometimes they are money."
"Aye!" interrupted the old woman, with a sinister chuckle, "but when they're written to bit pauper bodies like me?"
"Then they are generally questions," replied Mrs. Vane, and though she spoke easily she was conscious of a certain agitation of mind. "Agreeable or disagreeable. Something to help a lawyer in tracing somebody, or finding out some secret."
Peggy lay back on her pillows with a sort of groan. "'Tis only the pain, ma'am," she explained, then paused awhile; "I was thinkin' maybe 'twas that. An' if you coudna answer them, what then?"