CHAPTER II.
GILBERT'S GOOD FORTUNE.
Lord Wilton had been absent in London for several weeks. The Rushmeres had received no tidings of Gilbert, and the time would have passed drearily enough for Dorothy, but for her lessons and the increasing work at the school.
One bright March morning, Dorothy was alone in the big room at the Farm spinning, and, as usual, pondering over the fate of her absent lover, when her day-dream was disturbed by a sharp rap at the door from the butt end of a riding-whip.
The whirr of the wheel ceased, and Dorothy opened the door. It was Lord Wilton himself, looking thinner and paler than when she had before seen him. He raised his hat with a melancholy smile, as Dorothy stood blushing and awe-struck on the threshold.
"I bring you good news of your lover, Dorothy, and here is a letter from the youth himself to his father, which came enclosed in one I have just received from my son."
Dorothy's colour went and came, as she took the letter from the nobleman's outstretched hand.
"Will your lordship be pleased to alight?"
"Not to-day. My presence would spoil the delight of reading that letter, which you will be sure to do the moment I am out of sight. But I must tell you," he continued, bending down kindly from his horse, and addressing Dorothy in a most earnest manner, "what, perhaps, Gilbert Rushmere may omit to do in that letter, and which I know will please you all."