With great plainness always, but with
an equally happy choice of time and manner, he either said or
looked what he wished her to understand. This happened,
indeed, only about comparative trifles; to have seriously
displeased him Ellen would have thought the last great evil
that could fall upon her in the world.
One day Margery came into the room with a paper in her hand.
"Miss Ellen," said she in a low tone — "here is Anthony Fox
again — he has brought another of his curious letters, that he
wants to know if Miss Ellen will be so good as to write out
for him once more. He says he is ashamed to trouble you so
much."
Ellen was reading, comfortably ensconced in the corner of the
wide sofa. She gave a glance, a most ungratified one, at the
very original document in Margery's hand. Unpromising it
certainly looked.
"Another! Dear me! — I wonder if there isn't somebody else he
could get to do it for him, Margery? I think I have had my
share. You don't know what a piece of work it is to copy out
one of those scrawls. It takes me ever so long, in the first
place, to find out what he has written, and then to put it so
that any one else can make sense of it — I've got about enough
of it. Don't you suppose he could find plenty of other people
to do it for him?"
"I don't know, Miss Ellen; I suppose he could."
"Then ask him, do; won't you, Margery? I'm so tired of it! and
this is the third one; and I've got something else to do.
Pages:
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778