“I wish he would write to me,” said Arthur, pausing before he began his breakfast.
“Perhaps he may be ill,” his aunt suggested.
“Perhaps he may be, auntie,” said Arthur thoughtfully. “I wish I knew. Poor Edgar! fancy his being ill all alone.”
“Alone, dear! Why, is he not with his uncle and his aunt?”
“Yes; but then, you know, all aunts are not nice. And there are a lot of cousins. Perhaps you might not want to have me, if you had ever so many children, Aunt Daisy.”
Mrs. Estcourt smiled, and perhaps she thought that Arthur was not so very far from right. Arthur still wondered why no letter came, and at last he had almost made up his mind to write again; but this would be a task not at all to his taste, and one which he would very much rather avoid.
One morning when he came down to breakfast, he saw that there was something on his plate. It really was a letter at last! and, of course, Arthur concluded that it could be from no one but his friend in London.
“A letter for me at last! Well, it is quite time. Now I shall have to answer it, I suppose. Oh! I forgot. Good morning, auntie!”
But when Arthur had gone back to his place, and had examined his letter more closely, he saw that it was not Edgar’s round, plain hand that had directed the envelope.
“Why, aunt,” he said, “I don’t believe it is from Edgar at all. Who can it be from? Edgar does not write that way. That is a lady’s writing. What lady could be writing to me? Mamma is the only one, and her letter could not be from London.”