"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."

     "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."

     "Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At present I have not room to do them justice."