One hot summer day, a few months after the marriage, Juliet, returning to the consulate after a morning spent in very active exercise upon a tennis court, was met on the doorstep by Dora, the youngest of the Clarency Butchers, who was awaiting her approach in a high state of excitement.
"Hurry up, Juliet," she cried, as soon as she could make herself heard. "You'll never guess what there is for you. Something you don't often get!"
"What is it?" said Juliet, coming up the steps.
"Guess!"
"A present?"
"No; at least I suppose not; but there may be one inside."
"Inside? Oh, then it's a parcel?" asked Juliet good-humouredly.
She felt a mild curiosity, tempered by the knowledge that many things provided a thrill for the ten-year-old Dora, which she, from the advanced age of twenty-three, could not look upon as particularly exciting.
"No, not a parcel," cried Dora, dancing round her. "It's a letter. There now!"
"Then why do you say it's something I don't often get?" asked Juliet suspiciously; "I often get letters. It's an invitation to the Gertignés' dance, I expect."
"No, no, it isn't. It's a letter from England. You don't often get one from there, now, do you? You never did before since we've been here. I always examine your letters, you know," said Dora, "to see if they look as if they came from young men. So does Margaret. We think it's time you got engaged."
Margaret was the next sister.
"It's very good of you to take such an interest in my fate," Juliet replied, as she pulled off her gloves and went to the side-table for the letter. As a matter of fact she was a good deal excited now; for what the child said was true enough. She might even have gone further, and said that she had never had a letter from England, except while Sir Arthur was there on leave.
It was a large envelope, addressed in a clerk's handwriting, and she came to the conclusion, as she tore it open, that it must be an advertisement from some shop.
"DEAR MADAM,
--We shall esteem it a favour if you can make it convenient to call upon us one day next week, upon a matter of business connected with a member of your family. It is impossible to give you further details in a letter; but if you will grant us the interview we venture to ask, we may go so far as to say that there appears to us to be a reasonable probability of the result being of advantage to yourself. Trusting that you will let us have an immediate reply, in which you will kindly name the day and hour when we may expect to see you.
--We are, yours faithfully,
"FINDLAY & INGE, Solicitors."