“I should like to see her,” Mrs Maryon repeated. And then she added, with a sigh: “Winifred has accepted this post for January. She will not be much longer at home.”
Chapter Eight.
An Invitation and a Journey.
Hertha Norreys stood staring at a letter—or letters rather—which she held in her hand, with an air of perplexity and surprise.
“I can’t make it out,” she said to herself. “It seems so odd and inconsistent. And—I have not done so very much for her after all. They write as if I were her dearest friend, and in a sense responsible for her! I like her. There is a great deal of good in her, but the only real service I have done her since she came to London was getting Mr Montague to beg her in again, that time she was given notice of dismissal for defiance of the society’s rules.”
A smile came over Miss Norreys’s face at the recollection of the circumstances, and with the letters still in her hand, she sat down at her neat breakfast-table. And when she had poured out her coffee and begun to eat, she glanced through them again. They had both come together, one from Winifred enclosing the other, which was from Mrs Maryon, simply inscribed to Miss Norreys, but without any address.
This was Winifred’s:
“Dearest friend,” and the words again drew forth a smile from the reader—
“I have just received the enclosed from my mother. It was left open for me to read the contents. I hope you will not mind their asking you in this unceremonious way, though I confess I think they should have left the invitation to me. I am afraid you would find it dreadfully dull down there. I am not at all sure if I shall get down myself for Easter, as I scarcely see how I am to be spared here. If I go, it will be principally for poor little Celia’s sake; though now it would, of course, be for yours too, should you possibly care to go. It certainly is very pretty in our part of the country in the spring. You will let me know what you decide!—Ever yours devotedly,—
“Winifred R.V. Maryon.”