Mr Freyne made some jesting reply, and seeing that the gentlemen were well embarked on one of their political talks, I slipped away to dress. Marianna was waiting in my chamber, and asked me which necklace I would wear with my yellow gown. Coming to the dressing-table, where she had laid out the ribbons, I remarked something white under the edge of my hand-mirror, and lifting it pulled out a small billet wrote on gilt-edged paper and very finely scented. “A la très-belle et très-excellente Clarisse” was on the flap.
“Why, what’s this chitt, Marianna?” I said.
“Me not know, missy. Never see it before.”
I opened the letter. It was all in French, and signed “Clarissa’s slave till death,” while at the top stood these words, “Let the amiable goddess of my heart deign to read these lines in secret, and to keep them concealed from all the world.” Had the writer been there to watch me, he had questionless been chagrined by the effects of his words, for I did not stop even to read the billet, but ran back to the varanda in a prodigious hurry, and thrust the paper into my papa’s hands.
“Why, what’s this, miss?” he said, just as I had done.
“A chitt, sir—from the Unknown, I’m sure—he begs me to keep it secret, but I haven’t read a word of it. Oh, sir, who can he be?”
“Calm yourself, madam,” says Captain Colquhoun. “The billet may only be a jest on the part of one of our young gentlemen.”
This notion had not occurred to me, and I waited, something calmer, while Mr Freyne spread out the paper and pored over it, which was not long.
“I’ll be hanged if I can make head or tail of the gibberish!” he cried. “Here, miss,” throwing it back to me, “make a translate of the Mounseer’s love-letter for us, and see you don’t miss out none of the hearts and darts, nor abate the poor gentleman’s ardours. Read it out, pray; don’t wait to write the stuff down.”
Now was it not an odd business, my dear, to have to read aloud in the presence of two gentlemen a love-letter of whose contents I had not the slightest knowledge? nevertheless I began boldly enough: “‘To the coldest and most charming of ladies, the humblest of her worshippers indites with his heart’s blood these lines——’”