His sister took it up.
"Oh! I see—pray Miss Watson can you read that name?" and she held it out to Elizabeth, who, with Emma, looked at it with great curiosity.
"Is that writing!" cried Emma, "and can any one expect it to be read; I do not understand a word, except the three first."
"Yes," said Elizabeth, "one can read that, 'my dear Mr. Howard,' but the rest appears as if the writer had dipped a stick in an ink bottle, and scribbled over the paper at random—you do not mean to say, you have read it, Mr. Howard?"
"I made out its meaning," said he, looking up from a writing-table, at a little distance, "and I am answering it at this moment."
"Well, you must be much more clever than I am," said Elizabeth, simply, "they are all hieroglyphics to me."
"It is a note from Lady Osborne," said Mrs. Willis, "I know her signature; but I am not sure that I could decipher more."
"Lady Osborne!" cried Elizabeth, looking at it again, but this time with great respect, "do peeresses write in that way."
"Not all, I trust, for the credit of the peerage," replied Mr. Howard, "or, at least, for the comfort of their correspondents."
"It is certainly a great misapplication of abilities," observed Emma, coolly, "for I am sure it must cost a person more trouble to produce such a scrawl than it would to write three legible letters."