A LOVE LETTER.
Liane's little sewing chair was vacant the next day, and there was
grief and surprise among the five girls present when Miss Bray
explained the reason.
Liane had sent her a little note the night before, she said, telling
her that her grandmother was taking her to Boston to see a dying
relative, and she did not know when she should be back, but hoped Miss
Bray would have work for her on her return. She left her dear love for
all the girls, and hoped she should see them soon again.
Every one expressed sorrow but Dolly Dorr, who from spite and envy had
suddenly changed from a friend to an enemy of Liane.
Dolly tossed her pretty, flaxen head scornfully and insinuated ugly
things about Liane following Jesse Devereaux to Boston. A dying
relative was a good excuse, but it could not fool Dolly Dorr, she said
significantly.
The other girls took the part of the absent one, and even Miss Bray
gently reproved Dolly for her slanderous words. The upshot of the
matter was that she grew red and angry, and developed the rage of a
little termagant. Taking offense at Miss Bray's rebuke, she angrily
resigned her position, tossed her jaunty cap on her fluffy, yellow
head, and flew home.
The ambition to captivate Jesse Devereaux had quite turned the silly
little noddle, and she was passionately angry at Liane for what she
denominated "her unfair rivalry."
But on reaching home and finding that her father had just been thrown
out of work, Dolly was a little flustrated at her own precipitancy in
leaving her place, especially as Mrs. Dorr, a weak, hard-worked woman,
bewailed their misfortunes in copious tears.
"Don't cry like that, mamma, I know of a better place than Miss Bray's,
where I can find work. Miss Clarke wants a maid," cried Dolly eagerly.
Mrs. Dorr's pride rebelled at first from her pretty daughter going into
service like that, but the notion had quite taken hold of Dolly, and in
the end the worried mother yielded to her persuasions, especially as
the wages were liberal, and would help them so much in their present
strait.
Dolly hurried off to Cliffdene, and asked for Miss Clarke, offering
her services for the vacant place, as Liane Lester had gone away.
Roma's red-brown eyes flashed with joyful fire as she cried:
"Where has she gone?"
"Her grandmother took her to Boston to see a dying relative, miss."
"Ah!" exclaimed Roma, and her heart leaped with joy as she realized
that granny had kept her promise to take Liane far away.
"Now I may have some chance of winning Jesse back again," she thought.
But Dolly's next words threw a damper on her springing hopes.
"Liane can't fool me with a tale of a dying relative! I believe she had
an understanding with Jesse Devereaux to follow him down to Boston,"
she exclaimed spitefully.
Roma started violently, her rich color paling to ashen gray.
"Jesse Devereaux gone!" she cried, in uncontrollable agitation that
betrayed her jealous heart to Dolly's keen eyes.
The girl thought shrewdly:
"She loves him even if he did tell me he was not engaged. Whew! won't
she hate Liane when she knows all!"
And, taking advantage of Roma's mood, she added:
"Liane has been flirting for some time with Mr. Devereaux, and the
night she got the beauty prize he sent her roses to wear, and voted
for her, and offered to walk home with her that night, only he was
disappointed, because Mr. Malcolm Dean had asked her first."
Roma, inwardly furious with jealous rage, tossed her proud head
carelessly, and answered:
"Mr. Devereaux cares nothing for the girl! He is engaged to me, but
we had a little tiff, and he was just flirting with her to pique me
because I would not make up with him just yet!"
Although she regarded Dolly as greatly her inferior, she was placing
herself on a level with her by these confidences, encouraging Dolly to
reply:
"Of course, I know he wouldn't marry Liane, but she was foolish enough
to think so, and I feel certain she's down to Boston with him now."
Roma knew better, but she only smiled significantly, giving Dolly the
impression that she agreed with her entirely, and then she said:
"I will agree to give you a week's trial, and mamma's maid can
instruct you as to your duties. When can you come?"
"To-morrow, if you wish."
"Very well. I shall expect you," returned Roma, abruptly ending the
interview.
When Dolly was going back the next day, she stopped in at the post
office for her mail, and the smiling little clerk in the window, as he
handed it out, exclaimed:
"Don't Miss Liane Lester work with you at Miss Bray's, Miss Dolly?
There's a letter for her this morning, the first letter, I believe,
that ever came for her, and now that I come to think about it, she
never calls here for mail, anyhow!"
Dolly's cheeks flushed guiltily, and her heart gave a strangling thump
of surprise, but she said, quite coolly:
"Yes, Liane works at Miss Bray's with me, and I'm going down there now,
so I'll take her letter, if you please, and save her the trouble of
calling for it."
The unsuspecting clerk readily handed it out, and Dolly clutched it
with a trembling hand, hurrying out so as to read the superscription
and gratify her curiosity.
"What a beautiful handwriting! A man's, too, and postmarked Boston.
Now, it must be Devereaux or Dean writing to her!" she muttered,
longing to open it, yet not quite daring to commit the crime.
She placed it at last in her pocket, thinking curiously:
"As I don't know where Liane is, of course I cannot forward this letter
to her, and--I would give anything in the world to know what is in it,
and who wrote it! Perhaps Miss Clarke would know the writing."
That evening, when she was brushing out the long tresses of Roma's
hair, she ventured on the subject:
"To-day the postmaster gave me a letter from Boston to Liane Lester,
but I don't know where to send it, and I am wondering who wrote it!"
She felt Roma give a quick start as she cried:
"Let me see it!"
Dolly giggled, and brought it out of her pocket.
"Oh! It is Mr. Devereaux's writing," cried Roma excitedly.
"So I thought, miss. Now I wonder what he wrote to her about? I must be
mistaken thinking he knew she had gone to Boston," cried Dolly.
Roma turned the letter over and over in her hand, her eyes blazing,
her cheeks crimson, her heart throbbing with jealous rage.
How dared he write to Liane? How dared he forget her, Roma, so
insolently, and so soon? She would have liked to see them both
stretched dead at her feet!
They looked guiltily at each other, the mistress and maid, one thought
in either mind. Dare they open the letter?
Dolly twittered:
"I shouldn't think you would allow him to write to her! He belongs to
you!"
She felt like making common cause with Roma against Liane, in her
bitter envy forgetting how often she had inveighed against Roma's pride
and cruelty. She continued artfully:
"The letter can never do her any good, because we don't know where to
send it. And--and would it be any harm for us to take a peep at it?"
"I think I have a right," Roma answered, her bosom heaving stormily,
then she clutched Dolly's arm:
"Girl, girl, if we do this thing--you and I--will you swear never to
betray me?" she breathed hoarsely.
"I swear!" Dolly muttered fiercely, in her anger at Liane, and then
Roma's impatience burst all bounds. She quickly broke the seal of the
letter, her angry eyes running over the scented sheets, while Dolly
coolly read it over her shoulder.
And if ever two cruel hearts were punished for their curiosity, they
were Roma's, the mistress, and Dolly's, the maid.
It was an impassioned love letter that Devereaux had written to Liane,
and it ended with the offer of his hand, as she already possessed his
heart.
The young lover had chosen the sweetest words and phrases to declare
his passion, and he explained everything that she might have
misunderstood.
He had fallen in love with her at first sight, but he was bound by
a promise to one he no longer even admired. In honor he could not
speak to Liane, but his betrothed had herself broken the fetters that
bound him, and he was free now to woo his darling. He had intended to
tell her so that night of the beauty contest, but Malcolm Dean had
rivaled him. Then had come the summons to his sick father, tearing
him away from Stonecliff. He must remain some time in Boston with his
sinking father, and his impatience prompted this letter. Would Liane
correspond with him? Would she be his beloved wife, the treasure of his
heart and home? He should wait with burning impatience for her reply.
Roma threw the letter on the floor and stamped on it with her angry
foot.
Not in such tender, passionate phrases had he wooed her when she
promised him her hand, but in light, airy words, born of the flirtation
through which she had successfully steered him to a proposal so quickly
regretted, so gladly taken back. Oh, how she loved and hated him in a
breath!
As for the girl, thank Heaven, granny had promised to keep her out of
the way. Ay, even to kill her, if she commanded it. It was strange
how the old woman had fallen so slavishly under her sway, but she was
thankful for it, though she shuddered still with disgust at remembrance
of granny's fond caress.
She said to herself that it were better for Liane Lester that she never
had been born than to cross her path again, and to take from her the
love of the man she had worked so hard to win, and then so rashly lost.