If the "receiver for the estate" could find any of the papers that Felicia had signed for Mr. Burrel of course her signature would help, (he called a stenographer and wrote for a letter from the country doctor,) he explained regretfully that until she could prove that she was the person she claimed to be she could not actually take possession of the house.
"Then you can't 'actually' make me pay anything—those fines or taxes, until you prove that I'm the person who owes them—" She came back at him so quickly that she took his breath away.
"Again Miss Daniel comes to judgment!" he teased her. She put him in an extraordinary good humor with her alertness. Her persistence and her indomitable courage were such futile weapons against the armor of the law that they seemed pathetic, but her droll faith in herself and her absurd comments about the persons with whom she had been talking made him want to laugh as one laughs at a precocious child.
She left as abruptly as she had come, tucking Babiche under her arm in a deliciously matter-of-fact way.
"Good morning, Miss Day," he called after her.
She paused, she blushed furiously, she had forgotten Mademoiselle's manners. But she made up for it. She dropped him the most amusing curtsy with an upward glance like that of the one-eyed scrub woman who had been cleaning the corridor.
"Good marnin', yer Honor!" she groaned exactly like that rheumatic soul. He laughed silently, his head thrown back on his shoulders. How could he know that she couldn't help "pretending" that she was everybody she listened to!
"And she looks like a little old tramp," he recounted at luncheon to a friend, "Most extraordinary person, one minute she puts a lump in your throat—you're so sorry for her you could curse, and the next—Lordy! the next minute you wonder at her impertinence—it's not exactly impertinence either,—it's absolute frankness."
"No manners, eh?" suggested his friend.
"No manners at all. A manner," said the Justice neatly.