But the Countess drew out of the pretty box a thick wad of paper money.
Lily felt much taken aback. In this wad of bank notes which the Countess was holding in her hand there must be some hundreds of pounds—that is, supposing each note was worth five pounds.
“It is not necessary to count them,” said the Countess quietly. “There are here—I have reckoned it all out—a hundred thousand francs, my child. That is—let me see?”—she waited a moment—“four thousand pounds of English money.”
“Four thousand pounds?” repeated Lily. She was thoroughly startled. “What a tremendous lot of money, Aunt Cosy!”
“Yet I should be sorry if I thought that Miss Rosa had only left you that tremendous amount of money?” exclaimed the older woman drily.
“Each of these notes must be worth a great deal,” said the girl slowly.
“They are fifty-pound notes,” said the Countess quietly, “and there are here eighty of them.”
“The bank manager will be very much surprised,” said Lily hesitatingly. Somehow she did not at all like the thought of doing this job for Aunt Cosy. “He will think it so extraordinarily that I should want so much French money. Mayn’t I say it is for Uncle Angelo?”
“On no account do that, Lily.” The Countess looked much disturbed. “The money, as a matter of fact, belongs to a friend of mine, and Beppo is going to invest it.”
She waited a moment. “Just now English people are sending their money to France because of the good rate of exchange. The banker will not be as surprised as you expect him to be.”