"Shelley!" I cried. "Here's your letter! Everything is all right! He's coming, Shelley! Look quick, and see when! Mother will want to begin baking right away!"
Shelley looked at me, and said coolly: "Paddy Ryan! What's the matter?"
"Your letter!" I cried, shoving it right against her hands. "Your letter from Robert! From the Paget man, you know! I told you he was coming! Hurry, and see when!"
She took it, and sat there staring at it, so much like father, that it made me think of him, so I saw that she was going to have to come around to it as we did, and that one couldn't hurry her. She just had to take her time to sense it.
"Shall I open it for you?" I asked, merely to make her see that it was time she was doing it herself.
Blest if she didn't reach it toward me!—sort of woodenlike. I stuck my finger under the flap, gave it a rip across and emptied what was inside into her lap. Bet there were six or seven letters in queer yellow envelopes I never before had seen any like, and on them was the name, Robert Paget, while in one corner it said, "Returned Dead Letter"; also there was a loose folded white sheet. She sat staring at the heap, touching one, another, and repeating "Robert Paget?" as she picked each up in turn.
"What do you suppose it means?" she asked May. May examined them.
"You must read the loose sheet," she advised. "No doubt that will explain."
But Shelley never touched it. She handled those letters and stared at them. Father and mother came through the orchard and stood together behind us, so father knelt down at last, reached across Shelley's shoulder, picked one up and looked at it.
"Have you good word, dear?" asked mother of Shelley.