The sight, therefore, of her good Dora was now pleasant to her; and she did not even try to wipe away the tears that she was shedding when she entered, but, holding out her arms to her, leaned her head upon her shoulder, and wept there.
"There, there, my dear child," said the good woman, "you have been sorry enough; and don't you be afraid of all that the old lord says. He'll not do half that he thinks. It's poor, powerless work when old men begin to swagger. I heard him going on when you were in the withdrawing-room with him; but he'll do nothing; and I dare to say that Master Ralph will easily show that he was driven to do what he did. And now, my bird, wipe your eyes, there's a dear child. Here's a little saucy boy down stairs wants to see you; he has been out there over the way for an hour, till the old lord went out, and then he came over and asked for you. Harrison sent for me, but the lad won't talk to any one but you, for he has got a letter to deliver into your own hand, he says--a love-letter, I don't doubt;" and the old woman laughed a little. "I don't doubt that it's a love-letter, for it isn't in Master Ralph's hand--that was my hope at first--but it's a great, sprawling, twisting hand, and the boy's all decked out as fine as a groat--a sort of page-looking lad, with a band of feathers round his hat, quite fantastical."
"Send him away," said Margaret, sadly; "I will not see him; I have naught to do with love-letters, Dora."
"But you can not tell it is a love-letter," replied the waiting-woman; "that was only my fancy; and, indeed, my dear child, you should see him, for he won't give it to any body but you; and you can not tell what it may be about, and it's always right to look at a letter; and it is but civil."
"Well, bring him up," replied Margaret; "but stay you here, Dora, till he is gone."
The boy was brought up so rapidly, that, had Margaret been in a very observing mood, she might have suspected he had not been very far from the door while the conversation just detailed was passing between her and her woman; but she only noticed that he came; that he was a gay-looking boy of some thirteen or fourteen years of age, very much like what Dora had described; that he asked her carefully, ere he gave the letter, whether she was Mistress Margaret Woodhall. Her mind was too much occupied with other thoughts to notice or attend to any thing more.
She answered his question in the affirmative, took the letter, and then, gently bowing her head, dismissed the boy, saying, "I will send my reply, if this should require one."
"Well, I do think," said Dora, "seeing he is so smart a youth, I would have tried to find out where he came from. Letters do not always tell who sent them, and--"
"Nonsense--nonsense, Dora!" said Margaret. "I care not whom it comes from, nor whence it comes;" and, much to the good woman's inconvenience, she continued to hold the letter unopened in her hand, gazing upon the ground, and falling gradually into thought.
"Well, really!" exclaimed Dora Vernon, after she had waited some five minutes; and Margaret, rather startled by the sharpness of the sounds than clearly understanding their meaning, languidly opened the letter, and fixed her eye upon the page.