Before she slept that night all six letters were in the post. She wished them good luck one by one as she dropped them into the letter-box, the six sprats that had been flung into the sea of fortune. Would one of them catch for her a mackerel? She wondered.
“You’d best take back that notice,” Slotman said to her the next morning. “You won’t find it so precious easy to find a job, my girl; and, after all, what have I done?”
“Annoyed me, insulted me ever since I came here,” she said quietly. “And of course I shall not stay!”
“Insulted you! Is it an insult to ask you to be my wife?”
“It seems so to me,” she said quietly. “If you had meant that—at first—it would have been different; now it is only an insult!”
Three days passed, and there came answers. She had been right, Mrs. Ransome was dead, and there was no one who could do anything for Miss Meredyth.
General Bartholomew was at Harrogate, and her letter had been sent on to him there, wrote a polite secretary. And then there came a letter that warmed the girl’s heart and brought back all her belief and faith in human nature.
“MY DEAREST CHILD,
“Your letter came as a welcome surprise—to think that you are looking for employment! Well, we must see to this—I promise you, you will not have far to look. Come here to me at once, and be sure that everything will be put right and all misunderstandings wiped out. I am keeping your letter a secret from everyone, even from Marjorie, that your coming shall be the more unexpected, and the greater surprise and pleasure. But come without delay, and believe me to be,
“Your very affectionate friend,
“HARRIET LINDEN.”
“P.S.—I suggest that you wire me the day and the train, so that I can meet you. Don’t lose any time, and be sure that all past unhappiness can be ended, and the future faced with the certainty of brighter and happier days.”
Over this letter Joan Meredyth pondered a great deal. It was a warm-hearted and affectionate response to her somewhat stilted little appeal. Yet what did the old lady mean, to what did the veiled reference apply?