However, by Maggie's advice, she resolved to write as though nothing unpleasant had passed between herself and Gracie, and she finally produced the following simply-worded note, ignoring all that was disagreeable.
"DEAR GRACIE,
"Aunt Marion has said that I may have the 'Cheeryble Sisters,' Club here to-morrow, and she says she will make it a little celebration for us because it is so long since I have been with you girls. Please come, for I want to have all of you here.
"Your schoolmate,
"LENA H. NEVILLE."
She hesitated over the manner of closing it, for she could not put "affectionately yours," as, although she was striving to put from her all hard thoughts of Gracie, she certainly did not regard her with any affection, nor would she pretend to do so; for Lena was a most determinately honest child and would never express, even in a conventional way, that which she did not feel. She even shocked Maggie and Bessie now and then, truthful and sincere as they were, by her extreme and uncompromising plain-speaking; and perhaps it was as well that she was a child of so few words, or she would often have given offence. Maggie had suggested "truly yours," as being a common form even between strangers; but Lena rejected that also as expressing a sentiment she did not feel, and Bessie finally proposed "your schoolmate," which satisfied the requirements of both truth and civility.
Maggie and Bessie posted the note on the way home, so that it might be sure to reach Gracie early in the morning, and that, as Bessie said, she might have "time to get over the shock of Lena's forgiveness before she came to school."
Lena had been carried upstairs and safely deposited in her own room by Starr; and Hannah, the nurse of the young Nevilles, had gone down-stairs to seek the food which it was still considered necessary for the little invalid to take before going to rest, when Lena bethought herself of her brother Percy's letter, still unopened in the excitement which had attended the receipt of the two from her father and Russell.
With a half-remorseful feeling that she had so long left it unnoticed, she broke the seal of Percy's letter. But the first words on which her eyes lighted sent a pang to her heart, and as she heard Hannah's heavy step returning, she thrust the letter hurriedly out of sight.
"Dear, dear, child!" said the old nurse, as she saw that Lena's hand shook so that she could hardly hold the bowl of broth, or carry the spoon to her lips, and with some triumph in, as she believed, the fulfilment of her own prophecies, "dear, dear, you're hall hupset, Miss Lena. I told the mistress and I told the doctor you wasn't in no state to go downstairs yet, or worse still, to be 'avin' company, not if it was Miss Maggie and Miss Bessie, leastways not hout of your hown room. 'Ere, let me 'old the basin; you're not fit to do it. There now, here, child,—why, bless your 'eart, Miss Lena, what is it?"