"Well, my dear, after a bit I shall be very pleased if you will take the correspondence, which is sure to be a large item, but just at first I believe that I can put things on a more business-like footing."
"Thank you very much," I said in a relieved tone.
"That letter goes to-night," said Jane. She took a Swan fountain pen from its place by her waist, scribbled a word or two on the envelope of Mrs. Armstrong's letter, and laid it aside.
"Now I have inquiries from a most genteel party, a Captain and Mrs. Furlong: he is a retired army man, and they are willing to pay five guineas a week between them for a comfortable bedroom."
"But surely that is very little," I said again.
"It is a very fair sum out of their pockets, Miss Wickham, and I think we can afford to give them a nice room looking south on the third floor, not on the second floor, and, of course, not on the first; but on the third floor we can give them that large room which is decorated with the sickly green. It will turn them bilious, poor things, if they are of my way of thinking."
Accordingly Captain and Mrs. Furlong were also written to that evening, to the effect that they might enter the sacred precincts of 17 Graham Square as soon as they pleased.
Two or three other people had also made inquiries, and having talked their letters over and arranged what replies were to be sent, Miss Mullins, after a certain hesitation which caused me some small astonishment, took up her final letter.
"A gentleman has written who wishes to come," she said, "and I think he would be a desirable inmate."
"A gentleman!" cried mother, "a gentleman alone?"