"I don't know what your grim old butler will say to me, but I have forestalled him with the postman," she began, without any other greeting. "Unless I take a turn for ten minutes in the open air of a morning, I feel stifled for the day: the postman came up while I was in the broad walk, and I took the letters from him. Only two," she continued, regarding the addresses in a free and easy sort of manner scarcely becoming her position. "Both foreign letters," she went on in a running comment. "One is for Harry Chandos, Esquire; the other for Miss Hereford. That is yourself, I think."
"I am Miss Hereford."
"It is a pretty name," she observed, looking at me: "almost as pretty as you are. Do you remember in the school history of England we are told of the banishment of Lord Hereford by his sovereign, and how it broke his heart? Is your Christian name as pretty?"
"It is Anne."
"Anne Hereford! A nice name altogether. Where do your friends live?"
Instead of answering, I rose and rang the bell for the butler; who came in.
"The letters are here, Hickens," I said, putting the one for Mr. Chandos in his hand, while I kept mine. Hickens, with a dubious air, looked alternately at me, and the letters, as if wondering how they came there. I explained.
"Mrs. Penn brought them in. She tells me she met the postman in the broad walk, and took them from him."
"Please to let the man bring the letters to the house, ma'am, should you meet him again," Hickens respectfully observed, turning to Mrs. Penn. "My lady never allows any one to take them from the postman: he brings them into the hall, and delivers them into my hand. Once when Miss Emily was at home, she took them from the man in the grounds, and my lady was very much displeased with her. Her ladyship is exceedingly strict in the matter."
"How particular they seem about their letters!" exclaimed Mrs. Penn in an undertone, as Hickens departed with his master's.