"Did you?" I said. "That's a good thing. Let's wait a little, and perhaps there'll come some chance of getting out. I should think we could get a stamp at some shop—there were shops round the corner too."
It was a great satisfaction to have got the letter written. I looked at it with a good deal of pride—the address I was sure was right, I had copied it so exactly from the one at the end of Pierson's letter. Though the boys did not know exactly what I had written to Pierson, they seemed to feel happier since knowing I had written something, and they had a vague idea that somehow or other brighter days would come for us in consequence.
Uncle Geoff had not been up to see us this morning—nor had he sent for us to go down. I was very glad, and yet I did not think it was at all kind. I did not know till a good while afterwards that he had not been at home since the day before, as he had been sent for to a distance to see somebody who was very ill.
At one o'clock we had had our dinner—it was not as nice a one as we had had the other days, and we said to each other it was because Mrs. Partridge was angry still about the toast. We said so to Sarah too, and though she made no reply we could see she thought the same.
"And we shall have no strawberry jam for tea to-night," said Tom, sadly.
"No 'tawberry dam," said Racey, and the corners of his mouth went down as if he were going to cry. He had been thinking of the strawberry jam, I dare say, as a sort of make up for the dry rice pudding at dinner—quite dry and hard it was, not milky at all, and Mrs. Partridge knew we liked milky puddings.
"Don't be so sure of that," said Sarah, who was taking away the things. "If you are all very good this afternoon I dare say you will have strawberry jam for tea. Mrs. Partridge is going out at three o'clock, and she won't be back till six, so the tea will be my business."
The boys were quite pleased to have something to look forward to, and I, for my own reasons, was glad to hear Mrs. Partridge was going out.
It was, for November, a bright afternoon, much brighter than we had had yet. Tom, who was standing at the window looking out, gave a great sigh.
"What's the matter, Master Tom?" said Sarah.