“Surely you don’t mean that Miss Maitland?” he said.
“Of course I mean that Miss Maitland. Who else should I be referring to?”
He pressed the palm of a hand against his forehead.
“Let us get this straight,” he urged. “We seem to be in a muddle. Your name is Maitland, isn’t it?”
“My name is Barnes. Up to the present.”
“Then that confounded new messenger boy took my shilling and mixed up the information, and”—he stopped and fanned himself—“and you received the letter I intended for her.”
“I wish to goodness,” I said forcibly, “that some of you men had got a little more common sense.”
* * * * *
Mother says everything in this world happens for the best, and in all probability there’s some one else waiting for me somewhere. Mother says I have plenty of time in front of me; mother herself was twenty-eight before she married. Mother says there is no need for me to feel nervous until I get past that age.