“Here’s a letter that came last night, and you have never opened it,” said the maid, half reproachfully. She, at least, she was anxious to note, had not been to blame.
Betty took it with great sang froid. She saw by the writing it was only Bee’s—and Bee’s news was never imperative. There could not be much to disclose to her of the state of affairs at Kingswarden that was new, since the night before last.
But the result was that Betty went downstairs in her hat and gloves, and that Mr. Lyon and Gerald, who were both sitting down to that substantial breakfast which is the first symbol of good health and a good conscience in England, had much ado to detain her long enough to share that meal.
Mrs. Lyon did not come downstairs in the morning, so that they used the argument of helplessness, professing themselves unable to pour out their own tea.
“And what business can Betty have of such importance that she must run out without her breakfast?” said the old gentleman.
“Oh, it is news I have heard which I must take at once to papa!”
The two gentlemen looked at each other, and Mr. Lyon shook his big, old head.
“I would not trouble your papa, my dear, with anything you may have heard. Depend upon it, he will let you know anything he wishes you to know—in his own time.”
“But it is news—news,” said Betty; “news about Charlie!”
Then she remembered that very little had been said even to the Lyons about Charlie, and stopped with embarrassment, and her friends could not but believe that this was a hasty expedient to conceal from them that she had heard something—some flying rumour which had set her little impetuous being on fire. When she had escaped from their sympathetic looks and Gerald’s magnanimous proposal to accompany her—without so much as an egg to fortify him for the labours of the day!—Betty set out, crossing the Park in the early glory of the morning, which feels at nine o’clock what six o’clock feels in the country, to carry the news to her father.