shoulder. "Why, there's another, Renny, with an American stamp. It's addressed to Lady Buckley, isn't it?"
"Take her what I gave you," said his brother, curtly, and Wakefield trotted off to tell Augusta that Renny was holding back some of her mail.
When time enough had passed for her to read the two letters from England, she appeared in the doorway.
"Are you sure you have not overlooked one of my letters, Renny?" she asked. "I was expecting another."
He patted the seat of the sofa beside him. "Come and read it here," he said.
Lady Buckley looked annoyed, but she came and placed herself beside him, very upright, with eyebrows almost touching her Queen Alexandra fringe.
"I'll open it for you," he said, and with a large paper knife, the handle of which was formed of the foot of a fawn, he carefully slit the envelope, taking time with the business, as though he liked to touch this particular letter. She divined whom the letter was from.
She perched her eyeglasses on her nose and took the letter with an impassive face, but she had barely read a line when she exclaimed on a deep note: "Thank heaven, he is safe!"
Renny hitched his body nearer to her and peered at the letter. "Well, I'll be shot!" he muttered.
"Read," she commanded, in a whisper, and they perused the letter together.
When they reached the line, "You may tell Renny that I absolutely refuse to send his address," she pointed to it with a dramatic forefinger, and Renny's teeth showed in a smile that was an odd mingling of chagrin and gratification.
Wakefield, behind the sofa, intruded his head between theirs and asked: "Is it about Finch? Has anything happened to Finch?"
Hearing the name, Ernest looked up quickly from his beads. "Is anything wrong?" he asked. "Any bad news of the boy?"
"He is found," announced Augusta. "He is in New York. He is well."
