Lily had in these days come to preside at the breakfast table; and then there would be an examination of the outsides before the envelopes were violated, and as each party knew pretty well the circumstances of the correspondence of the other, there would be some guessing as to what this or that epistle might contain; and after that a reading out loud of passages, and not unfrequently the entire letter.  But now, at the time of which I am speaking, Grace Crawley was at the Small House, and therefore the common practice was somewhat in abeyance.

On one of the first days of the new year Jane brought in the letters as usual, and handed them to Mrs Dale.  Lily was at the time occupied with the teapot, but still she saw the letters, and had not her hands so full as to be debarred from the expression of her usual anxiety.  ’Mamma, I’m sure I see two there for me,’ she said.  ‘Only one for you, Lily,’ said Mrs Dale.  Lily instantly knew from the tone of the voice that some letter had come, which by the very aspect of the handwriting had disturbing her mother.  ‘There is one for you, my dear,’ said Mrs Dale, throwing a letter across the table to Grace.  ’And one for you, Lily, from Bell.  The others are for me.’  ‘And whom are you yours from, mamma?’ asked Lily.  ’One is from Mrs Jones; and the other, I think, is a letter on business.’  Then Lily said nothing further, but she observed that her mother only opened one of her letters at the breakfast-table.  Lily was very patient;—­not by nature, I think, but by exercise and practice.  She had, once in her life, been too much in a hurry; and having then burned herself grievously, she now feared the fire.  She did not therefore follow her mother after breakfast, but sat with Grace over the fire, hemming diligently at certain articles of clothing which were intended for use in the Hogglestock parsonage.  The two girls were making a set of new shirts for Mr Crawley.  ’But I know he will ask where they come from,’ said Grace; ‘and then mamma will be scolded.’  ’But I hope he’ll wear them,’ said Lily.  ‘Sooner of later he will,’ said Grace; ’because mamma manages generally to have her way at last.’  Then they went on for an hour or so, talking about the home affairs at Hogglestock.  But during the whole time Lily’s mind was intent upon her mother’s letter.

Nothing was said about it at lunch, and nothing when they walked out after lunch, for Lily was very patient.  But during the walk Mrs Dale became aware that her daughter was uneasy.  These two watched each other unconsciously with a closeness which hardly allowed a glance of the eye, certainly not a tone of the voice, to pass unobserved.  To Mrs Dale it was everything in the world that her daughter should be, if not happy at heart, at least tranquil; and to Lily, who knew that her mother was always thinking of her, and of her alone, her mother was the only human divinity now worthy of adoration.  But nothing was said about the letter during the walk.