Ah, Grizel, why do you sit there in the cold?
The day of the letter! It began in dread, but ended so joyfully, do you think Grizel grudged the dread?
It became dear to her; she loved to return to it and gaze at the joy it glorified, as one sees the sunshine from a murky room.

When she heard the postman's knock she was not even curious; so few letters came to her, she thought this must be Maggy Ann's monthly one from Aberdeen, and went on placidly dusting.
At last she lifted it from the floor, for it had been slipped beneath the door, and then Grizel was standing in her little lobby, panting as if at the end of a race.

The letter lay in both her hands, and they rose slowly until they were pressed against her breast.
She uttered some faint cries (it was the only moment in which I have known Grizel to be hysterical), and then she ran to her room and locked herself in--herself and it.

Do you know why that look of elation had come suddenly to her face?
It was because he had not even written the address in a disguised hand to deceive the postmistress.
So much of the old Grizel was gone that the pathos of her elation over this was lost to her.
Several times she almost opened it.

Why did she pause?
why had that frightened look come into her eyes?
She put the letter on her table and drew away from it.