"Whatever may befall you to do, Mr. Denis, 'twill be less than he hath the right to exact of you; although I believe that the least you will do he will give you thanks for it."
'Twas my father's nature just, and none could have bettered the character.
"What can you do?" she demanded briefly, and bade me sit (for we had both stood this while); she sitting too, on a bundle of folded sails that lay by the wall.
I hesitated to reply, for leaving the few scraps of Latin and logick that Master Jordan had been at such pains to drive into me and I had as easy let slip again, my studies had been woefully neglected, or rather I had profited by them so little, that there was nothing I knew anyways whole. I stammered out at last that what I could do, I doubted would scarce earn me a scavenger's wages, and looked (I suppose) so glum, that Idonia laughed outright.
"Come, there be books of account," said she, "can you not make shift to cast moneys in figure?"
I told her I thought I might compass that if I were given time enough; though for that matter I did not see how I was like greatly to profit the merchant that should employ me.
But without replying by so much as a word, Idonia went over to an oaken press by the stair, presently returning with a soiled leathern volume clasped with a deal of brass and so heavy as to be hardly portable. This she set open before me saying it was a record of trade done, and had belonged to one Mr. Enos Procter, whom she knew, and bade me read in it.
"Lord!" said I, very grave, for I had never seen so intricate and mysterious a labyrinth of words and cyphers as she then discovered. "If Dives the rich man got his wealth that way, I suppose his life to have been something less easy than our divines would have us believe."
"It is a ledger-book," said Idonia.
"Let it be what it will," said I, "it is more than I bargained for."