"Which you are going to read to me?"
"Oh, no—no!" she answers, hastily, putting her hand in involuntary protection over her pocket; "it—it—wouldn't interest you." (It would have interested him rather too much.) "He seems to be missing me a good deal."
"Be honest," says St. John, stretching out his hand and taking hers captive, pencil and all. "Does he miss you as much as I shall?"
"More, a good deal, I should say," she replies, looking up with an arch smile; "I don't make your tea, and order your dinner, and darn your socks. One, two, three, four weeks," continues she, marking each number with her slender fingers on the table. "I have actually been here nearly a month, and" (with a half-absent sigh), "do you know, the very day I left home I told them——"
"Who's them?"
She blushes furiously. "Them—did I say them? Oh! I meant him, of course—Jack."
"Does he always speak of himself in the plural, like a king, or a reviewer?"
"Nonsense!" cries Esther, pulling away her hand rather impatiently. "Do you never make slips of the tongue?"
"Frequently. Well, you must write and tell them" (with a laughing emphasis on the them) "that they must get some one else to darn their socks, for that you have found something better to do."
"I could not have anything better," she answers, reddening with indignation. "You don't understand about Jack, or you would not make jokes!"