Then calling her little sister Elsie, who was playing about the nursery, she sent her into her own room, bidding her open the table drawer and bring her the letter she would find there.
Elsie, a demure, sedate little damsel, who always did as she was told and was a pattern child after Mrs. Neville's own heart, discharged her commission and came back with the letter, which she handed to her sister without asking any inconvenient questions, and returned to her dolls in the corner.
Lena ventured to open the letter, knowing that Hannah, at least, was sure to be absent for some moments yet, and sure that Letitia, who was a dull, unobserving girl, would take no notice. She felt that she could wait no longer.
There was a few moments' silence in the room; Elsie, absorbed in her quiet play, took no heed to her sister; Letitia did not return, having stopped on her way back to the nursery to gossip with one of Mrs. Rush's maids; and Lena read on undisturbed, read to the very end of the letter.
Then she spoke to Elsie again, spoke in a voice so changed from its natural tone that the little one looked up in surprise.
"What's the matter, Lena?" she asked, coming to her sister's side; "is your throat sore? Oh!" scanning her curiously, "did something frighten you?"
Lena did not heed either question.
"Elsie," she said, still in that strained voice, as if it were an effort to speak, "put this in the fire, away far back in the fire."
"Why, Lena!" answered the child, "I'm forbidden to go near the fire.
Did you forget that?"
Lena thought a moment, then said, with a strong effort for self-control, and still in that same measured tone: