“No, sir, I ain’t, plee, sir. I can feel it quite plain, but it’s slithered down to my waist.”
“You tiresome girl!” cried the vicar impatiently, for it was an awkward dilemma, and he was beginning to think of the penknife in his vest pocket, and the possibility of cutting the note free without injury to the young lady’s skin, when she solved the difficulty herself by running off to where she saw a little girl standing, and the result of the companion’s efforts was so successful that Ann Straggalls came running back beaming with pleasure, the letter in her hand.
“Good girl!” exclaimed the vicar, thrusting a sixpence into her palm, as he eagerly snatched the letter, devoured the address with his eyes, and the flush died out of his cheeks.
“Why, the letter is for Mr Burge,” he said excitedly.
“Yes, sir; for Mr William Forth Burge, plee, sir.”
“Take it,” exclaimed the vicar huskily, and thrusting the note hastily into the girl’s hands, he turned sharply round and walked back into the house, thoroughly unnerved by the incident, trifling as it may seem.
“He’s give me sixpence!” said Ann Straggalls wonderingly; and then—“Didn’t he seem cross!”
At last, after these interruptions, which duly published the fact that Hazel Thorne openly wrote to Mr William Forth Burge, the note came to that gentleman’s hand, for Ann Straggalls reached the gate, pushed it wide open, and knowing from experience what a splendid gate it was, she passed through, and stopped to watch it as it swung back past the post, with the latch giving a loud click, and away ever so far in the other direction; then back again with another click; away again with another, and then to and fro, quicker and quicker, click—click—click—click—clack, when the latch caught in its proper notch, and Ann Straggalls smiled with satisfaction, and wished that she had such a gate for her own.
The clicking of the gate took the attention of Mr William Forth Burge, who was busy amongst his standard rose-trees, with a quill-pen and a saucer, using the former to brush off the abundant aphides from the buds into the latter. He smiled with satisfaction as he released from its insect burden some favourite rose, whose name was hanging from it upon a label like that used for the old-fashioned medicine bottles—“one tablespoonful every four hours”—but, all the same, it was undoubtedly unpleasant for the aphides that were being slaughtered by the thousand.
Miss Burge had her work and a garden-seat, and she was looking up from time to time, and smiling her satisfaction at seeing her brother so happy, for of late he had been dull and overclouded, and did not take to his dinners and his cigars so heartily as of old.