“Go, go, to save your ship from wreck!” cried Proteus, incensed at the fellow’s impertinence. “It cannot perish when you are aboard, for you are certainly destined for a drier death on shore!--I must find some better messenger to send,” he added to himself, when the saucy serving-man had taken himself off. “I am afraid my Julia would not deign to accept my lines, receiving them from such a worthless envoy.” * * * * * But, as it happened, the letter had so far not reached the hands of the lady for whom it was intended, for it was only her waiting-maid Lucetta whom Speed had seen, and to whom he had given the letter in mistake for Julia. Lucetta went in search of her mistress, and found her in the garden, musing over many things, for by this time Julia really loved Proteus, although she would not acknowledge it even to herself. When Lucetta handed her the letter, saying she thought it had been sent by Proteus, Julia pretended to be angry, and scolded her maid for daring to receive it. “There, take the paper again,” she said, “and see that it is returned, or never again come into my presence.” “To plead for love deserves a better reward than to be scolded,” muttered Lucetta. From being so much with her young mistress, the maid was treated more as a companion than as a servant, and was accustomed to speak out her mind frankly on every occasion. “Go!” said Julia severely; but no sooner had Lucetta disappeared than she was seized with remorse. “How churlishly I sent her away, when all the time I wanted her here!” she thought. “How angrily I tried to frown, when really my heart was smiling with secret joy! To punish myself I must call Lucetta back, and ask her pardon for my folly.... What ho, Lucetta!” “What does you ladyship want?” asked Lucetta, reappearing. But at the sight of her maid Julia suddenly became shy again. “Is it near dinner-time?” she asked, with an air of pretended indifference. “I would it were, madam, so that you might spend your anger on your meat, and not on your maid,” replied Lucetta rather flippantly; and at that moment she let the letter fall, and picked it up ostentatiously. “What is it you took up so gingerly?” inquired Julia. “Nothing.” “Why did you stoop, then?” “To pick up a paper I let fall.” “And is that paper nothing?” “Nothing that concerns me.” “Then let it lie there for whom it does concern.” But Lucetta had no intention that the letter should lie unheeded on the ground, for her only purpose in dropping it was to bring it again to Julia’s notice. She little knew how her mistress longed at that moment to have it in her own possession, but was too proud to acknowledge it. Lucetta could not refrain from some pert speeches, and her jesting words irritated Julia, especially when Lucetta declared she was taking the part of Proteus.