“Are you nervous?” Rosie Graham asked Lydia with a quick look, when they were in the basement dressing-room.
“Oh, no, not really,” Lydia replied, with more spirit than accuracy.
Miss Graham burst into an impish laugh.
“Oh, you lovely little liar!” said she.
Lydia was not sure whether to admit the truth of the apostrophe or not.
She used all her intelligence during the next three hours, but Madame Elena’s method of instruction was slap-dash and sketchy, and Lydia learnt most during the frequent intervals when her teacher was called away, and she was left alone with the great ledgers and invoice-books.
The technical terms, and the abbreviations especially, puzzled her greatly, but much of the work reminded her of the old problems at Miss Glover’s, when she had been told to “show the working” on the black-board for the benefit of the other girls.
The stock appeared to consist of evening gowns, millinery and an occasional scarf or veil. Nothing was made on the premises except hats, but Madame Elena sometimes undertook commissions, for very favoured customers, during her trips to Paris.
Some of the papers relating to wholesale purchases were in French, and Lydia regretfully felt that her old deficiency would find her out again.
In spite of the French, however, she thought that the book-keeping would prove to be well within her capacity, and felt cheered.