'I'm afraid you don't look very chaperonish,' said Felix, contemplating the fair exquisitely-moulded face, the more Grecian for the youthful severity that curved the lip and fixed the eye. 'If we could only turn her inside out, Cherry, she would be a dozen duennas in one!'
'And then the Pursuivant. You would not like to desert poor Pur,' added Cherry.
'I could do that better in town in some ways.'
'Mr. Underwood would think that as bad as Edgar's drawing,' said Wilmet. 'No, no, Felix, you have learnt one business thoroughly, and it would be foolish to begin a fresh one now. Besides, how about Mr. Froggatt?'
'Of course I should do nothing in such haste as to inconvenience Mr. Froggatt,' said Felix; 'and no one is more anxious for our real benefit, if this were possible.'
'But you see it won't do,' reiterated Wilmet.
'Perhaps not,' he answered, with more of a sigh than his sisters expected.
Rather nettled, Wilmet set to work with pencil and paper to calculate expenses; Geraldine looked up at Felix, who had taken up a book, and began to whistle, 'For a' that, an' a' that.'
Presently Wilmet, by way of making assurance sure, went off for her account-book; when he looked up and said,' How should you have liked this, Cherry?'
'I don't know. I've not thought. Did you?'