"Aye, frae the police!" added the table-maid from the doorway. She was plain, and Cleaver's boy never stopped to gossip with her. Not that she cared or would have stood talking with the likes of him.
The cook banged the top of the range, like Tubal-cain when Naamah vexed him in that original stithy, near by the city of Enoch in the land of Nod.
Janet of Inverness opened the letter. Scarcely could she believe her eyes. It was a formal invitation upon a beautifully written card, and contained a wish on the part of Mr. Greg Tennant and Miss Tennant that Miss Janet Urquhart would favour them with her company at Aurelia Villa on the evening of Friday the 17th, at eight o'clock. R.S.V.P.
Janet sank into a seat speechless, still holding the invitation. The table-maid came and looked over her shoulder.
"Goodness me!" she exclaimed, as she read the card.
"She's been tellin' the truth after a'," said the housemaid, who, having some claims to beauty, was glad of Janet's good fortune, and hoped that the like might happen to herself.
"I dinna believe a word o't!" said the cook indignantly. "I'se warrant she wrote it hersel'!"
But Janet had not written it herself. She could not even bring herself to write the answer, though she had received a sound School Board education. But the three R's do not contemplate the answering of invitations upon thick cardboard, ending "R.S.V.P." They stop at the spelling of "trigonometry" and the solving of vulgar fractions.
In spite of her silks and satins and her vaunted experience, Janet did not know the meaning of "R.S.V.P." But the housemaid had not brushed clothes ten years for nothing.
"It means 'Reply shortly, very pleased'!" said she. Which, being substantially correct, settled the question.