She had not a capital letter in its proper place from first to last, and it was many a day, in fact, before Bessie fully mastered the contents of that epistle.
But she gathered enough, almost in a first perusal, to convince her something was very wrong at the Hollow; and, although she had no invitation from Heather to do so, still she instantly resolved to start for Berrie Down.
With Bessie, as a rule, to resolve was to perform; and, accordingly, that very same evening, she astonished the Dudley household by walking coolly in amongst her cousins as they were sitting down to tea.
“Well, and what is this about Lally?” she asked, after she had kissed the girls, and inquired for Heather; “what is the matter with her?”
“Did Alick not tell you?” answered the assembled Dudleys in chorus.
“Alick,” repeated Miss Ormson. “I have not seen Alick. I only heard a vague rumour this morning about something wonderful having occurred, and so I thought that I would come down and learn the certainties of the matter for myself. One of you girls, I think, might have written to tell me; but I suppose it is with you as with the rest of the world—out of sight, out of mind.”
“Heather would not let us write to any one,” said Agnes.
“Then Heather ought not to have had her own way,” retorted Bessie; “and then, I suppose, she has been up with that child night after night, taking no rest, eating nothing, fretting herself to death.”
“We all wanted to sit up,” exclaimed Lucy Dudley, “but she would trust no person.”
“Precisely what I expected,” said Bessie, who had by this time divested herself of cloak and bonnet, and now stood beside the fire looking as trim and pretty as though she had just stepped out of her dressing-room. “And so Lally is very bad?”