The remittance would be more than usually welcome, for she was a little in debt--a mere trifle, fifty or sixty francs; but Elfrida hated being in debt.

She tore the end of the envelope across with absolute satisfaction, which was only half chilled when she opened out each of the four closely written sheets of foreign letter-paper in turn and saw that the usual postal order was not there.
Having ascertained this however, she went back to her egg; in another ten seconds it would have been hard-boiled, a thing she detested.

There was the, egg, and there was some apricot-jam--the egg in a slender-stemmed Arabian silver cup, the jam golden in a little round dish of wonderful old blue.

She set it forth, with the milk-bread and the butter and the coffee, on a bit of much mended damask with a pattern of rosebuds and a coronet in one corner.

Her breakfast gave her several sorts of pleasure.
Half an hour after it was over she was still sitting with the letter in her lap.