“A pretty time o’ day this is to deliver the letters. It’s eleven o’clock!”
“I can’t help it. The train broke down, and was three hours behind its time.”
“I dare say! You letter-men want looking up: that’s what it is. Coming to folks’s houses at eleven o’clock, when they have been waiting and looking ever since breakfast-time!”
“It’s not my fault, I say. Take the letter.”
Judith received it with a grunt, for it was between her and the postman that the colloquy had taken place. A delay had occurred that morning in the delivery, and Judith was resenting it, feeling half inclined to reject the letter, now that it had come. The letters from Germany arrived irregularly; sometimes by the afternoon post at four, sometimes by the morning; the only two deliveries in Helstonleigh. A letter had been fully expected this morning, and when the time passed over, they supposed there was none.
It was directed to Miss Channing. Judith, who was quite as anxious about her master’s health as the children were, went off at once with it to Lady Augusta Yorke’s, just as she was, without the ceremony of putting on a bonnet. Though she did wear a mob-cap and a check apron, she looked what she was—a respectable servant in a respectable family; and the Boundaries so regarded her, as she passed through them, letter in hand. Martha, Lady Augusta’s housemaid, answered the door, presenting a contrast to Judith. Martha wore a crinoline as big as her lady’s, and a starched-out muslin gown over it, with flounces and frillings, for Martha was “dressed” for the day. Her arms, red and large, were displayed beneath her open sleeves, and something that looked like a bit of twisted lace was stuck on the back of her head. Martha called it a “cap.” Judith was a plain servant, and Martha was a fashionable one; but I know which looked the better of the two.
Judith would not give in the letter. She asked for the young mistress, and Constance came to her in the hall. “Just open it, please, Miss Constance, and tell me how he is,” said she anxiously; and Constance broke the seal of the letter.
“Borcette. Hotel Rosenbad, September, 18—.”
“My Dear Child,—Still better and better! The improvement, which I told you in my last week’s letter had begun to take place so rapidly as to make us fear it was only a deceitful one, turns out to have been real. Will you believe it, when I tell you that your papa can walk! With the help of my arm, he can walk across the room and along the passage; and to-morrow he is going to try to get down the first flight of stairs. None but God can know how thankful I am; not even my children. If this change has taken place in the first month (and it is not yet quite that), what may we not expect in the next—and the next? Your papa is writing to Hamish, and will confirm what I say.”
This much Constance read aloud. Judith gave a glad laugh. “It’s just as everybody told the master,” said she. “A fine, strong, handsome man, like him, wasn’t likely to be laid down for life like a baby, when he was hardly middle-aged. These doctors here be just so many muffs. When I get too old for work, I’ll go to Germany myself, Miss Constance, and ask ‘em to make me young again.”