“My darling, every pledge is kept. Wealth is gained. Let me come to you!”
There was no signature—not a clew. The handwriting was elegant, but even the sex of the writer could not be determined by that.
If ever a woman was madly disappointed, that woman was Miss Scrimp.
Literally she had run all her risk for nothing. And her curiosity now was excited a thousandfold. What pledges had been kept by the one who dare call Hattie Butler darling? Wealth had been gained, but whose was it? That the writer wanted to come to Hattie was certain. But who was that writer? Miss Scrimp would have given her false hair and teeth to know. Yes, or she would have fed her boarders on turkey for a week if she could have gotten old and tough ones at half price.
If she had only known who to write to, or even to telegraph to, an answer would have gone back, signed: “Come along soon as you can—Hattie Butler.”
But Hattie would not have known it. Miss Scrimp, mean as she was, would have spent five dollars for telegraphing in a moment if she could by that have got to the bottom of the mystery which so terribly worried her.
Little did she dream, while in this turmoil of disappointment, that a pair of gleeful eyes were fairly dancing over her too evident annoyance; for Jessie Albemarle, after going noisily up stairs, as if to her work, had crept down as slyly as a mouse, and peeping through the key-hole, had been a witness to the opening of the letter.
And when she saw Miss Scrimp put the letter under a book on a shelf near her bed, the brave little friend of Hattie Butler determined that, even though the seal was broken, the letter should reach its proper owner.
“She’ll go down to cut their slices of bread and meat for supper, and then I’ll get it,” said Jessie to herself. “She will never let me cut the bread or meat for fear I’ll cut too thick, or maybe eat a bite or two while I’m cutting ’em. But Miss Hattie is so good to me that I will help her, and she shall have her letter whether I get whipped for it or not.”
And the little heroine went back to her work as silently as she had left it, with her little plan fully arranged.