Frederica opened a great many papers and read patiently through long household accounts, and in a little while became utterly bewildered. Nothing but the grave looks of her mother and Selina prevented her from bursting into childish laughter, so comical did the going over and over the same thing seem to her. The grocer’s bill was the most amusing. “Tea, sugar, coffee, soap, candles, salt,” and so on, over again.
“Dear me, mama, how many things people need?”
Then there were other bills, the butcher’s, the baker’s, and then a wine merchant’s bill. There was one which had “paid M. Leroy” at the end of it, and Frederica said—
“Madame Ascot did not intend you should have this, mama. However, we may as well put it with the rest.”
Selina listened earnestly, but said nothing. Indeed, when they had all wearied themselves, they were no wiser, and no nearer the end of their trouble.
“Mama, ought people to have bills?” said Frederica; “ought not people to pay when they buy things? It would save a great deal of trouble.”
“I think they ought; but Mrs Ascot seems to have fallen into this way. It was not done when I was well. Oh, if I were only able to attend to these things myself! It is quite wrong that things should have fallen into such a state. I do not believe there is any need that it should be so. Everything is wrong, and I can do nothing. I do not trust Madame Ascot: and your father,—there is no use speaking to him.”
She was getting excited, and would be ill soon, her daughters knew, unless this could be put out of her mind.
“I will tell you what we must do, mama. We will take all these papers to Mr St. Cyr—not to ask more money. But he will understand them, and he will help us. Mama, he was quite nice to-day, not at all cross, though we nearly knocked him down; and he said I was to come to him when I was in trouble, and I am sure this is dreadful trouble. Selina, don’t you think we might go to Mr St. Cyr?”
Selina waited for her mother to speak.