More than glad to have an opportunity of being of use to the Doctor, the girls set to work early the next morning writing industriously. Julie, after a few smirched and blotted copies, got well under way; she had considerable precision in her character, which made a task like this simple. But Hester during the first day or two spoiled so many sheets that she viewed her rapidly filling waste-basket with dismay. Finally, in supreme disgust she threw down her pen.
“I believe I could build a house easier!” was her impatient exclamation. “Who ever saw such daubs as I’m making!”
Julie looked up and smiled. Her wrist ached, and she shook her hand to limber the muscles. “If you did not dig your pen in the ink with such a high-tragedy, Scott-Siddons air, maybe you’d get on better,” she suggested.
“High-tragedy fiddlesticks! I _like_ a lot of ink. I am sure you’re a sight,” she commented, with sisterly frankness; “all doubled up and your forehead screwed into knots. How many have you done?”
“I don’t know; there they are,” pointing to a box-cover piled high.
Hester surveyed them with lofty scorn. “Mercy! That is nothing! I’ve done heaps!”
“Go to work, you ridiculous infant, or you will be stuck to that chair the rest of your natural days.”
When Dr. Ware attempted to pay them for the work they remonstrated, telling him in the most convincing language at their command that it was a pleasure to feel they could do even so small a thing for him. To this he refused to agree, finally persuading them to take the money if on no other ground than to convince him of their business principles; while he refrained from mentioning that he had himself deviated somewhat from business methods when he ordered the circulars written instead of printed in the usual way.
A week later the almond cake for Miss Ware was baked successfully and an admiring group stood about the kitchen table taking a last look at it before Hester did it up in a box preparatory to setting forth.
“Faith, it’s a beauty,” cried Bridget, arms akimbo. “Any lady’d be proud to eat it. Shure it’s your mother’s own fingers ye’ve got, the both of yez. Ther’ warn’t nothin’ she couldn’t make when she put her hand to it, before she got so ailin’, an’ the Major, God bless him, got so well off she didn’t have ter.”