"You are quite right. After all, there is nothing despicable in being a messenger; you're not a servant, as the girls in our workroom are so fond of calling you. Oh! they say that to make me furious, because I always stand up for you."
"Stand up for me? You say that you sometimes talk about me in your workroom?"
Mademoiselle Elina blushed as she replied:
"Oh!—that is to say—we talk about messengers in general—and as we have employed you several times—— But I stand chattering here, when I came down to buy something at the linen draper's, and I haven't told you yet what I wanted to ask you. My aunt says that I talk too much. As far as that goes, perhaps she is right; it's such fun to talk—not with everybody, of course, but with people who—listen to you—and—that is to say—— Mon Dieu! it seems to me that I am getting all mixed up, and don't know what I am saying."
Paul ventured to glance at the pretty dressmaker once more. Her face wore such a comical expression, as she twisted a corner of her apron in her hands, that the young man smiled involuntarily, and his smile was reflected on Elina's lips; for between two persons who are sympathetic a smile is like a train of powder: the spark is hardly applied at one end before it reaches the other.
"I wanted to ask you, Monsieur Paul, if you could come and help me move to-morrow morning?"
"Yes, mademoiselle; with great pleasure."
"You must come very early, so that it can be all done before it is time for me to go to my work."
"I will come as early as you wish, mademoiselle. Where are you going to move?"
"Oh! in the same house. We live on Rue Taitbout, you know—for you have sometimes been kind enough to carry my bundles home for me, because, you said, they were too heavy for a young girl."