"HERCULES MORRIS."
In order to gain time, I read this letter twice over; then, diplomatically, as I thought, I said:
"What are you going to do, Miss Blake?"
"What are you going to do, is much nearer the point, I am thinking!" retorted that lady. "Do you imagine there is so much pleasure or profit in keeping a lawyer, that people want to do lawyer's work for themselves?"
Which really was hard upon us all, considering that so long as she could do her work for herself, Miss Blake ignored both Mr. Craven and his clerks.
Not a shilling of money would she ever, if she could help it, permit to pass through our hands—not the slightest chance did she ever voluntarily give Mr. Craven of recouping himself those costs or loans in which her acquaintance involved her sister's former suitor.
Had he felt any inclination—which I am quite certain he never did—to deduct Miss Helena's indebtedness, as represented by her aunt, out of Miss Helena's income, he could not have done it. The tenant's money usually went straight into Miss Blake's hands.
What she did with it, Heaven only knows. I know she did not buy herself gloves!
Twirling the Colonel's letter about, I thought the position over.
"What, then," I asked, "do you wish us to do?"