As Griselda sat that evening with the light of two tall candles in their massive brass candlesticks, shining on her beautiful face, there was no shadow over it.
What if Lady Betty renounced her, and turned her out of the house?--well, if the whole world were against her, she was no longer _alone_. She was his, who loved her, and was ready at any moment to take her to his heart and home. "I must write to him," she was saying as she stroked her cheek with the soft feather at the end of her quill; "I must write to him and tell him all--everything! and then he will know what to do."
Soon the pen began to move over the paper, and she smiled as she put it through the "sir," which had been written after "dear," and substituted "Leslie."
How strange and yet how sweet it was to look at it! And then she went on:
"I said you must wait till I called you by your name! You have not had to wait long."
She wrote on till she heard a bustle on the pavement below her window. She went to it, and looking down saw the link-boys with their torches and the chair in which Lady Betty was being carried off to the Assembly, and the chair was followed by another, and several dark figures shrouded in long cloaks were in attendance.
It was a clear frosty evening. The sky was studded with countless stars, and the fields and meadows then lying before North Parade, made a blank space of sombre hue where no distant forms of tree or dwelling could be traced; while beyond was the dim outline of the hills, which stand round about that City of the West. Lonely heights then!--now crowned by many stately terraces and houses, where a thousand lamps shine, and define the outline of the crescents and upward-reaching streets and roads. But gas was not known in that winter of 1780! It lay hidden in those strangely-mysterious places, with electricity and the power of steam, waiting to be called out into activity; for those hidden forces are old as the eternal hills, only waiting the magic touch of some master's hand, to be of service to men, who are but slow to recognise whence every good and perfect gift comes.
When the house was quiet, Griselda returned to her desk, and slowly and deliberately finished her letter. It was not long, and covered only one side of the sheet. Then it was folded with care to make the edges fit in nicely, and nothing remained but to seal it; and she was about to light the little taper, and get the old seal from the corner of her desk, when a tap at the door was followed by Graves's entrance with a tray.