en she heard the postman's knock she was
not even curious; so few letters came to her, she thought this must be
Maggy Ann's monthly one from Aberdeen, and went on placidly dusting.
At last she lifted it from the floor, for it had been slipped beneath
the door, and then Grizel was standing in her little lobby, panting as
if at the end of a race. The letter lay in both her hands, and they
rose slowly until they were pressed against her breast.

She uttered some faint cries (it was the only moment in which I have
known Grizel to be hysterical), and then she ran to her room and
locked herself in--herself and it. Do you know why that look of
elation had come suddenly to her face? It was because he had not even
written the address in a disguised hand to deceive the postmistress.
So much of the old Grizel was gone that the pathos of her elation over
this was lost to her.

Several times she almost opened it. Why did she pause? why had that
frightened look come into her eyes? She put the letter on her table
and drew away from it. If she took a step nearer, her hands went
behind her back as if saying, "Grizel, don't ask us to open it; we are
afraid."

Perhaps it really did say the dear things that love writes. Perhaps it
was aghast at the way she was treating it. Dear letter! Her mouth
smiled to it, but her hands remained afraid. As she stood irresolute,
smiling, and afraid, she was a little like her mother. I have put off
as long as possible saying that Grizel was ever like her mother. The
Painted Lady had never got any letters while she was in Thrums, but
she looked wistfully at those of other people. "They are so pretty,"
she had said; "but don't open them: when you open them they break your
heart." Grizel remembered what her mother had said.

Had the old Grizel feared what might be inside, it would have made her
open the letter more quickly. Two minds to one person were unendurable
to her. But she seemed to be a coward now. It was pitiable.

Perhaps it was quite a common little letter, beginning "Dear Grizel,"
and saying nothing more delicious or more terrible than that he wanted
her to lend him one of the doctor's books. She thought of a score of
trivialities it might be about; but the letter was still unopened when
David Gemmell called to talk over some cases in which he required her
counsel. He found her sitting listlessly, something in her lap which
she at once concealed. She failed to follow his arguments, and he we