“Most certainly she did. My son made her an offer in my presence, and she rejected him.--But here we are at Dalwynch. Tell Wiggins to stop at the post-office. Thank Heaven, there is plenty of time to spare. How my heart does beat!” The waiting-maid pulled the check-string, and delivered her mistress's orders, but quite mechanically, without knowing what she said. In spite of the importance of what she had now so immediately to do, her mind was entirely occupied with the wonder of what she had just heard, and she kept repeating to herself: “And she rejected him? and she rejected him?” while her heightened eyebrows almost amalgamated with her hair. Perhaps some of this excessive astonishment was due to poor Mistress Forest's peculiar position; she thought it so strange that one of her own sex should reject any man--who was not already married to somebody else. “Here is the post-office, Mary. Mind you speak very civilly to the woman, and make haste; I shall be in a perfect fever till I see you come back with that dreadful letter safe in your hand.” One minute, two minutes, three minutes--each seeming an hour to my Lady, shrinking in a corner of the chariot, while the omnibus to the station passed and repassed, picking up she knew not what passengers, and bearing Derrick himself, for all she knew, within it. At last Lady Lisgard could endure the suspense no longer. “John,” said she to the footman standing beside the door, “what is Forest about? Why does she not return?” “She is talking to Mrs Rudd, my Lady. I think there is some dispute about a letter; for they are both in the post-office department.” “Let me out, John,” exclaimed my Lady impatiently; and the next instant she had entered Mrs Rudd's establishment. This was, for the most part, a grocer's shop; one-fifth of it only being reserved for the reception and despatch of Her Majesty's mails. There were no customers at that still early hour; a young man who was sanding the floor with some ostentation, as though to imply that _all_ the sand went that way, and none into the sugar, made a respectable pause as my Lady's silk swept by; and another, who appeared to be washing his hands in tea, assumed that sickly smile which is supposed by persons of his class to conciliate people of quality; but Mrs Rudd herself, intrenched behind her little post-office palisade, gave no sign of gracious welcome, and from out the pigeon-hole through which she distributed her stamps, her words poured forth in an undiminished stream of denial and severity; nay, I doubt whether the presence of my Lady did not intensify the bitterness of its tone.