“Don’t think too much, dear, just now,” said I. “It is best for you to be happy and calm and contented. Otherwise I’ll have to tell the doctor, and he’ll give you the blackest and nastiest physic you have ever tasted.”
“To cure me of a what-you-call-it problem?”
“Yes,” said I, emphatically.
“Hou!” laughed Carlotta in a superior way, “physic can’t cure that.”
“You are relying on an exploded fallacy immortalised in a hackneyed Shakespearian quotation,” I remarked.
“Go on,” said Carlotta, encouragingly.
“What do you mean?” I asked, taken aback.
“Oh, you darling Seer Marcous,” cried Carlotta. “It is so lovely to hear you talk!”
So I went on talking, and the distress occasioned by the “Scarlet Letter” was forgotten.
I have mentioned Carlotta’s needlework. This was undertaken at the sapient instigation of Antoinette, who in her turn, I am sure, neglected the ladle for the scissors, and cast many of her duties upon the silent but sympathetic Stenson. Carlotta herself delighted in these preparations. She was never happier than when curled up on the sofa, a box of chocolates by her side, her work-basket frothing over, like a great dish of oeufs a la neige, with lawn or mull or what-not, and (I verily believe to complete her content) my ungainly figure and hatchet-face within her purview. She would eat and sew industriously. Sometimes she would press too hard on a sweetmeat and with a little cry would hold up a sticky finger and thumb.