He made no answer.
— “You write uncommonly fast.”
— “You are mistaken.
I write rather slowly.”
— “How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a year!
Letters of business too!
How odious I should think them!”
— “It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of yours.”
— “Pray tell your sister that I long to see her.”
— “I have already told her so once, by your desire.”
— “I am afraid you do not like your pen.
— Let me mend it for you.
I mend pens remarkably
well I mend pens remarkably well.”
— “Thank you — but I always mend my own.”
— “How can you contrive to write so even?”
He was silent.
— “Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp,
and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful little design for a table,
and I think it infinitely superior to Miss Grantley's.”