“It is from Mrs Lilford, Sir Adam Nigel’s niece,” she said; “and, fancy, Blanchie—I am so delighted—he is not dead. Dear old Sir Adam, I mean. Listen. I may be hearing from him before very long.”
And she went on to read aloud from the letter.
“I am glad to say that you have been misinformed about my uncle. Though he left Alderwood several years ago, at which time he gave it up to me, he is still living. His health would not stand English winters, and he spends eight or nine months of the year in Algeria. When I write to him next, I will tell him of your return to England. In the meantime I have asked my friend and tenant, Lady Harriot Dunstan, to call upon you, and I have no doubt she will be glad to be of any little neighbourly service in her power.” Then followed Sir Adam Nigel’s address, and a few sufficiently cordial words. But the tone of the whole was barely “friendly,” though ladylike and courteous.
Mrs Derwent, however, was too pleased with the news of Sir Adam to think much of anything else.
“I am so delighted,” she repeated—“so glad to think I shall see him again.”
Blanche took up the letter, and toyed with it in her fingers. The distant Sir Adam seemed to her and Stasy of less importance than matters nearer at hand. Her silence caught her mother’s attention.
“It is a nice letter,” Mrs Derwent said.
“Oh yes,” said Blanche; “but she doesn’t seem very interested in us, mamma. And then, of course, as she has let Alderwood, she is not going to live here; so perhaps it doesn’t very much matter. But I wish that Lady Harriot had been nicer.”
Mrs Derwent’s face lost its joyous expression.
“I wish Sir Adam were going to be at Alderwood again,” she said with a little sigh. “That would have made all the difference. Mrs Lilford did not know me well. She was four or five years older, and she married and went to India before I was grown up. She only remembers me as a child more or less. But now I can write to Sir Adam himself, and he will be sure to ask some old friends to come to see us.”