“I think—you won’t think me presumptuous for saying so, I hope,” said Cicely “I think I could help you with these, if you like. I have had a great deal of copying out to do long ago for my father, and I can write a very clerkly hand when I try. Do you think Mr.—, your brother, would be afraid to trust me with these papers? I can easily have them ready for to-morrow’s post, if that will do.”
Mrs. Crichton’s face beamed with delight. “How kind of you—how very kind of you!” she exclaimed. “I am sure you could do them beautifully. You look so clever—no, I don’t mean clever. Clever people are ugly; but you look so wise—dear me!—what can I say?—that sounds like an owl.”
“Never mind,” said Cicely, laughing. “Will you ask your brother if he will try me?”
“Of course I will, this very moment,” said the little lady, and off she went. Within five minutes she returned in triumph. “He is delighted,” she said. “I knew he would be. He is coming to thank you himself, and to point out one or two things. He does not like seeing any one now; his eyes make him feel nervous, poor fellow. He would not come in to see Monsieur and Madame Casalis yesterday, but he is so pleased about his papers, he proposed himself to come and thank you.”
“I hope it will not annoy him,” said Cicely, a little uneasy at the idea of the learned man’s personal injunctions. But “Oh! no, he didn’t mind a bit,” answered Mrs. Crichton in so well assured a tone that Cicely dismissed her misgivings.
There had certainly been nothing in his sister’s explanation to make him “mind a bit.”
“There’s a young lady here who would like to do your copying, Edmond,” had been her very lucid account of Cicely’s offer. “She’s English, though she’s a niece of that nice old French clergyman who called yesterday. She looks clever. I am sure she would do it nicely. She says she is quite accustomed to it.”
“Do you mean that she would do it for nothing?” inquired Mr. Guildford. “I could not put myself under such an obligation to a stranger. But perhaps she would let me pay for it. Many poor ladies make money by copying; and I dare say if she be longs to the family of a French pasteur, she is not rich. Do you think that she meant that she would take payment for it?”
“No,” said Bessie doubtfully. “She doesn’t look like that.”
“What does she look like? Is she a governess, or anything of that kind? What did she say?”