Daisy was screwing up her big childish forehead in perplexity. "How funny!" she commented aloud, over her half-sheet. "He doesn't write like that to me generally. Why, I declare—if it isn't to Ethel!" "What?" "Mr. Carden-Cox has sent me a wrong piece. It's to Ethel, not to me. A sort of postscript. How stupid!—And I never guessed till I got to the end. Yes, I read it, of course. How could I tell? It might have been all in answer to my letter, only it's not exactly how he always writes. Speaking of padre as 'Browning' and—" "Stop you've no business to repeat a word. It was not meant for your eyes." "No; to be sure. Well, we must send it on to Ethel, I suppose." "Put it up in an envelope. I'll take it at once, and explain." Daisy obeyed with promptitude. Nobody else was present to remonstrate. Mr. and Mrs. Browning were in the study, and Anice was with Fulvia. Dinner would not be until eight o'clock; and it was now only a few minutes after seven. "That is Fulvia's. You had better carry it upstairs. Don't forget," Nigel said, indicating the folded half-sheet, as Daisy handed to him a closed envelope, addressed "Miss Elvey." "Yes, I will—I mean, I won't forget. Tell Ethel I'm very sorry I read hers. How odd of Mr. Carden-Cox! Why didn't he take more care? Perhaps there's a half-sheet to you, sent to Fulvia by mistake." "No; Anice would have brought it down by this time." Nigel was pulling on his greatcoat, when the study door opened, and Mrs. Browning glided out. "It is raining fast. Where are you going?" she asked. "To rectify a blunder." "Mother—Mr. Carden-Cox has made such a mistake," exclaimed Daisy, hanging over the balusters. "He has sent part of a letter to me which ought to have gone to Ethel, and another part to Nigel which is meant for Fulvia. Isn't it queer? Just as if he had got all the letters mixed up in a jumble. I'm taking Fulvia hers, and Nigel is taking Ethel's." A shadow fell upon Mrs. Browning's face. "Always the Rectory!" she said. "I shall not be long, mother." She retreated into the study, and Nigel went off—something of the shadow falling on him; he could hardly have defined how or why. Fulvia's letter had gone straight to her, on its first arrival. She was seated in her bedroom, by the fire, wearing a pale blue dressing-gown. The reddish hair, knotted lightly behind, fell low in masses. Though not ill enough to stay in bed all day, she was by no means well enough to be about the house. She looked thin and flushed. Anice was leaving the room to get a book, at the moment of the maid's entry with the letter, and Fulvia said, "Don't hurry, I am all right." "I don't mean to be long," Anice replied. But Fulvia was alone when she opened the envelope. Out of it dropped the sheet and also the half-sheet, both closely covered by Mr. Carden-Cox's minute and precise handwriting.