"Stamping ... in a frenzy"
"Perhaps," said her brother, suppressed rage vibrating in his voice, "it may be a change for you to read letters. Read that!" He threw the page on the desk before her, banging his knuckles upon it in an excess of fury.
She took up the letter, a pretty rosy pink dyeing her cheeks (she was one of those old maids whose exquisitely delicate complexions retain a babylike freshness) as her eyes met the expression:
Anne was always a sot where her pen was concerned. The habit's growing on her; she can evidently no more resist it than Miles could the bottle.
"It must be from Nora Madigan," she exclaimed, recognizing the touch.
"Yes, it is from Nora, and it incloses one of your own. There it is."
He threw down before the ready letter-writer a composition which had cost her much labor, the thought of many days, upon which she had based unnumbered hopes and built air-castles galore, none of which, to do the poor lady justice, was intended directly for her own habitation.
She took the letter and spread it out carefully before her; these epistolary children of hers were tenderly dear to Miss Madigan. Her eye caught a phrase here and there that appeared to be singularly felicitous. This one, for instance:
Poor Francis, of course, knows nothing about this letter. I am writing to you, my dear cousin, relying as much upon your discretion as upon your generosity.
Or this one: