Stasy looked up eagerly.
“What is it? Oh, do tell me! Do read it quickly, Blanchie.” And when she had got the letter in her own hands, and mastered its contents, she turned round triumphantly. “There now,” she said, “I hope you’ll allow in the future that I’m not a silly child. When a wise old lawyer of nearly a hundred proposes the very same thing, I should say it’s worth listening to.”
“I never thought it was not worth listening to, practically speaking,” said Mrs Derwent. “My hesitation was simply that I didn’t like the idea, and one of my reasons for disliking it is, that it would be so entirely you two, my darlings, working for me, for I am not at all clever at millinery.”
“And I am not a genius at it, mamma,” said Blanche. “Nothing like Stasy. It is she who has the ideas.”
“But I am not nearly so neat as you, Blanche,” said Stasy. “I would never have done so well without you to fasten off my threads, and that sort of thing.”
Blanche smiled.
“What I was going to say, mamma,” said Blanche, “is that there would be a great deal to do besides the actual millinery. All the business part of it—ordering things and keeping accounts, the sort of thing you’re so clever at. You know grandpapa used always to say that you were as good as a head-clerk or private secretary any day. And if the business were extended, as Miss Halliday hopes, there would be a great deal more of that side of it.”
“Yes,” said Stasy. “She told me the last time I saw her that that is one of her difficulties. She’s not very well educated, you know, poor little woman, and her accounts, such as they are, are rather a trouble to her. Indeed,” she went on, looking preternaturally wise, “I’ve a great idea that she is cheated sometimes.”
“I can quite believe that she cheats herself,” said Mrs Derwent. “I was always finding out things she had forgotten to put down in our weekly account. That reminds me, Blanche, of some things that came into my mind in the night—I didn’t sleep very well—about the arrangements we should have to make with Miss Halliday, if—if,” with a little hesitation—“this idea really goes farther. We should have to guarantee Miss Halliday against any risk to a certain extent; for, you see, she would have to give up ever having any lodgers if we went to live there.”
“Yes,” said Blanche thoughtfully; “and yet we could not now afford to pay as much as when we were her lodgers.”