Roma knew better, but she only smiled significantly, giving Dolly the impression that she agreed with her entirely, and then she said:
"I will agree to give you a week's trial, and mamma's maid can instruct you as to your duties. When can you come?"
"Very well. I shall expect you," returned Roma, abruptly ending the interview.
When Dolly was going back the next day, she stopped in at the post office for her mail, and the smiling little clerk in the window, as he handed it out, exclaimed:
"Don't Miss Liane Lester work with you at Miss Bray's, Miss Dolly? There's a letter for her this morning, the first letter, I believe, that ever came for her, and now that I come to think about it, she never calls here for mail, anyhow!"
Dolly's cheeks flushed guiltily, and her heart gave a strangling thump of surprise, but she said, quite coolly:
"Yes, Liane works at Miss Bray's with me, and I'm going down there now, so I'll take her letter, if you please, and save her the trouble of calling for it."
The unsuspecting clerk readily handed it out, and Dolly clutched it with a trembling hand, hurrying out so as to read the superscription and gratify her curiosity.
"What a beautiful handwriting! A man's, too, and postmarked Boston. Now, it must be Devereaux or Dean writing to her!" she muttered, longing to open it, yet not quite daring to commit the crime.
She placed it at last in her pocket, thinking curiously:
"As I don't know where Liane is, of course I cannot forward this letter to her, and--I would give anything in the world to know what is in it, and who wrote it! Perhaps Miss Clarke would know the writing."
That evening, when she was brushing out the long tresses of Roma's hair, she ventured on the subject:
"To-day the postmaster gave me a letter from Boston to Liane Lester, but I don't know where to send it, and I am wondering who wrote it!"
She felt Roma give a quick start as she cried:
Dolly giggled, and brought it out of her pocket.
"Oh! It is Mr. Devereaux's writing," cried Roma excitedly.
"So I thought, miss. Now I wonder what he wrote to her about? I must be mistaken thinking he knew she had gone to Boston," cried Dolly.
Roma turned the letter over and over in her hand, her eyes blazing, her cheeks crimson, her heart throbbing with jealous rage.