Cyril carried his porridge plate to the verandah that he might watch if Betty was lurking around in the hopes of breakfast.
And Mr. Bruce read the paper and sipped a cup of abominably made coffee serenely.
They were such a scattered family at breakfast time usually, that one away made little difference. No one but Cyril missed Betty at the table. Her services in the house were missed—so many duties had almost unnoticeably slipped upon her small shoulders, and now it was found there was no one to do them but slip-shod overworked Mary.
Just as Cyril was setting off to school Mary ran after him with a newspaper parcel of clumsy bread and jam sandwiches.
"I'm not sending Miss Betty's," she said—"it'll teach her not to clear out of the way again."
Mrs. Bruce put her head out of the kitchen window—she had not had "time" for any breakfast yet beyond a cup of tea.
"Send Betty home again," she said; "she shan't go to school till her work's done."
But even at eleven o'clock no Betty had arrived. Mary, who had done all the washing-up—and done some of it very badly—was sent by her mistress to strip Betty's bed and leave it to air. And she found the note on the pincushion, and after reading it through twice, carried it in open-eyed amazement to her mistress, who was eating a peach as she sat on the verandah edge, and merely said, "Very well, give it to your master."
So Mr. Bruce took it, and opened it very leisurely, and then started and said: "Ye gods!" and read it through to himself first and then out aloud.
"Dear Father and Mother" (it said)—