“Good morning, my dear! I get up with the birds myself and find that you’re up before me!”
Trude laughed, to cover her anxiety. “I told Jonathan I’d inspect his new beds this morning.”
“There, didn’t I say you were supplanting me in Jonathan’s esteem? But he only wants you to admire them and smile at him. He knows you know nothing about gardens, even though you are a very wise young woman! Ah, the mail—is there anything there worth looking at before breakfast?”
“Two cards, three advertising envelopes and—and two personal letters.” Trude held out the two letters, her heart beating in her throat.
Mrs. White glanced at them indifferently. She turned one as though to tear open the envelope, then stopped to play with Mitie. Next she gave her attention to Pepper who appeared in the door to summon her to breakfast. And all the time Trude’s eyes were beseeching her to open them—to open one of them quickly.
Trude followed her into the breakfast room and sat down across from her. After she had eaten her fruit Mrs. White took up the envelope that was postmarked Provincetown and studied it while Trude waited.
“Why, that’s from Laura Craig—a cousin of mine. I remember now she said she was going to study in a summer school on Cape Cod. I hope the girl’s getting on. She’s dependent upon her own labor.” As she spoke she spread out the sheet. A sketch dropped to the table.
Trude drew a long breath. She had not known how worried she was. She wanted to laugh aloud now from sheer relief. Because she had to do something she took up the sketch with a murmured: “May I?”
“Laura writes it’s a little sketch she made in class. ‘This will show you I am improving. It’s from life. It will give you an idea of the delightful types we find around here, types that you will not find anywhere else. These are two little vagabonds whom you see almost anytime on the beach or around the wharves—as wild and free and beautiful as the seagulls—’”
Mrs. White looked up from the letter to take the sketch and exclaimed aloud at Trude’s face. It had gone deathly white.