“But I don’t, papa; so please dictate to me,” she said, opening her desk, and taking out a quantity of delicately tinted and perfumed note-paper and envelopes bearing her monogram.
“Very well.”
“But if you would write them for me, papa, that would be better still; I’m afraid I don’t write well enough.”
“I think you write a very neat hand when you try,” he said, dipping her pen into the ink and giving it to her.
“I shall try my very best now, papa,” she answered. “I’ll write Isabel Carleton’s first, if you will please tell me how.”
Half an hour later she wiped and laid away the pen with a sigh of relief, then glanced with complacency at the little pile of dainty-looking notes on the table beside her desk.
“Thank you, papa, for your kind help,” she said, turning to him.
“You are entirely welcome, my darling,” he answered; “and I am well pleased with your part of the work; the writing is very neat and legible. I shall send a servant with them in the morning. Now let us go back to the parlor, for your mamma and cousins are probably there again. And I suppose you would like to tell Annis what you have been doing.”
“Oh, yes, sir; and I think she’ll be pleased.”
They met Mrs. Dinsmore in the hall.