CHAPTER IV
To return now to the moment at which Anna, at Melchester, had received Raye’s letter.
It had been put into her own hand by the postman on his morning rounds. She flushed down to her neck on receipt of it, and turned it over and over. ‘It is mine?’ she said.
‘Why, yes, can’t you see it is?’ said the postman, smiling as he guessed the nature of the document and the cause of the confusion.
‘O yes, of course!’ replied Anna, looking at the letter, forcedly tittering, and blushing still more.
Her look of embarrassment did not leave her with the postman’s departure. She opened the envelope, kissed its contents, put away the letter in her pocket, and remained musing till her eyes filled with tears.
A few minutes later she carried up a cup of tea to Mrs. Harnham in her bed-chamber. Anna’s mistress looked at her, and said: ‘How dismal you seem this morning, Anna. What’s the matter?’
‘I’m not dismal, I’m glad; only I—’ She stopped to stifle a sob.
‘Well?’
‘I’ve got a letter—and what good is it to me, if I can’t read a word in it!’