"I see little good in it for us, even if it be so," said he; "but let me read." And, leaning over her as she unfolded the paper, he put an arm round her waist. But Prue twisted sinuously from his grasp.
"Nay, Mr. Mar-all," she cried, "I will read it myself. I can read a bold hand o' write near as well as print." And then, after peering closely for a while at the crabbed, slanting, and unfamiliar characters upon the paper, she said dolefully: "Alack-aday! 't is an outlandish thing, and will not be read. I vow 't is French lingo!"
M. de Rondiniacque snatched the paper from her hand.
"I will read it for you, my pretty one," he said.
"I am not that, thank Heaven!" says Prue, bridling, as he hastily scanned the writing.
"What! not pretty?" he asked, toying with her as it were by rote of habit, while eyes and mind were both upon his reading.
"That I hope I am," replied Prue, "but not yours. Your love is unlucky." Then, as she saw that she was like to get little sport while he still would read: "Can you read French, sir?" she asked.
"What else?" he answered. "Do I not speak it since I was weaned?"
"Ay, to speak it," said she; "that I can understand, being natural-like to a poor thing hearing no better from a child. But to read it—'t is wonderful indeed. Come, do it into English for me." Then, hearing a footstep without, she cried: "Have you mastered it? For I think he returns," and as M. de Rondiniacque looked up from reading the last words, she snatched from him the paper and hid it in her bosom.
The next moment Mr. William Bentinck entered the hall, walking slowly and casting his eyes from side to side in anxious search of the floor for the very thing she had hidden. When he perceived that he was not alone, he asked with some eagerness whether by chance Lieutenant de Rondiniacque had seen him drop a paper. That gentleman replying that he had seen no paper fall, and proceeding with great appearance of innocent good nature to peer about in the same search, Mr. Bentinck turned his regard upon Prudence, who was about leaving the room.