Next morning, at about eleven o'clock, my good sister Josephine came to me in my study, and said, “She is awake now and wishes to see you.”
“I am at her service,” I replied. “Will she join me here?”
“She is eager to have you operate. She asked me where you would do so. I told her I supposed there, in her bed. Then she said she would not waste time by getting up, and wished me to tell you that she is waiting to have it done. I suspect that she is partly influenced by a reluctance to put on her prison uniform again. I should have offered her the use of my wardrobe, but she is so much taller and larger than I, that that would be absurd.”
“Yes, to be sure, so it would. Very well. I will go to her directly. If she is in a favourable condition of mind and body, it will, perhaps, be as well not to delay. But first tell me—you have held some conversation with her?”
“Yes, a little.”
“And what impression do you form of her character?”
“She is very pretty. She is even beautiful.”
I laughed. “What has that to do with her character?99
“I infer her character as much from her appearance as from her behaviour, as much from her physiognomy as from her speech.”
“Oh, I see. And your inference is?”