“I wanted to catch you, sir, before you went in to dinner,” replied Isaac, holding out a letter to George. “It came for you this afternoon,” he continued, “and I put it, as I thought, into the rack; and one for myself, which also came, I put into my pocket. Just now I found I had brought yours away, and left mine.”
“Yours is in the rack now,” said George. “I wondered what brought it there.”
He took the letter, glanced at its superscription, and retired to the window to read it. There appeared to be but a very few lines. George read it twice over, and then lifted his flushed face: flushed, as it seemed, with pain—with a perplexed, hopeless sort of expression. Maria could see his face reflected in the glass. She turned to him:
“George, what is it? You have had bad news!”
He crushed the letter in his hand. “Bad news! Nothing of the sort. Why should you think that? It is a business letter that I ought to have had yesterday, though, and I am vexed at the delay.”
He left the room again. Isaac prepared to depart.
“Will you stay and take tea with me, Isaac?” asked Maria. “I have dined. I am expecting Rose.”
“I am taking tea already,” answered Isaac, with a laugh. “I was at Grace’s. We were beginning tea, when I put my hand into my pocket to take out my letter, and found it was George Godolphin’s.”
“You were not in haste to read your own letter,” returned Maria.
“No. I knew who it was from. There was no hurry. I ran all the way from Grace’s here, and now I must run back again. Good-bye, Maria.”