She had felt as if she were about to thrust herself into Tom’s secrets--and lo! Tom had no secrets at all. These thoughts were in her mind, filling her with a kind of angry shame, when she picked up, out of a corner, a letter, badly folded and badly written; but put away, it was evident, with some care. It had no envelope or address. The paper was very finely glazed and gilt-edged; but it was folded awry, and the handwriting was quite unformed. “No doubt a letter from his groom,” Marjory said to herself, with a painful sense of the unsatisfactory character of Tom’s correspondences; but when she had read the first few lines, her countenance changed. She paused--she looked at the signature. A momentary look of haughty displeasure and disgust crossed her face, and she let the letter drop, as if with the intention of tossing it from her; but on second thoughts she changed her mind. She lifted it once more gingerly, as if it were something which might stain the white fingers in which she held it, and with a deep and painful blush began again to read. I do not think there was anything in the letter to call that blush to Marjory’s cheek; but she had the same prejudices as other women, and was deeply susceptible to everything that felt like shame. The writing was not absolutely coarse--it was like the writing of a child, unformed and uncertain, written upon ruled lines, which had been partially rubbed out; but the sentiments were not those of a child. This was what, with a proud sense of humiliation, keen disgust and indignation, Marjory read--all her natural prejudices starting into warmest life.