than on
the occasion of his former visit; she did not help him; and more and
more did it seem to the young man as if the words he had gone about
hugging to him, had never been spoken. After a desperate quarter of an
hour, he rose to take leave. But simultaneously, she, too, got up from
the rocking-chair, and, standing pale and uncertain before him, asked
him if she might trouble him to do something for her. A box had been
sent to her from England, she told him, while she tumbled over the
dusty letters and papers accumulated on the writing-table, and had been
lying unclaimed at the custom-house for several weeks now--how many she
did not know, and she spread out her fingers, with a funny little
movement, to show her ignorance. She had only remembered it a day or
two ago; the dues would no doubt be considerable. If it were not too
much trouble ... she would be so grateful; she would rather ask him
than Mr. Eggis.

"I should be delighted," said Maurice.

He went the next morning, at nine o'clock, spent a trying hour with
uncivil officials, and, in the afternoon, called to report to Louise.
As he was saying good-bye to her, he inquired if there were nothing
else of a similar nature he could do for her; he was glad to be of use.
Smiling, Louise admitted that there were other things, many of them,
more than he would have patience for. She should try him and see, said
Maurice, and laid his hat down again, to hear what they were.

As a consequence of this, the following days saw him on various
commissions in different quarters of the town, scanning the names of
shops, searching for streets he did not know. But matters did not
always run smoothly; complications arose, for instance, over a paid
bill that had been sent in a second time, and over an earlier one that
had not been paid at all; and Maurice was forced to confess his
ignorance of the circumstances. When this had happened more than once,
he sat down, with her consent, at the writing-table, to work through
the mass of papers, and the contents of a couple of drawers.

In doing this, he became acquainted with some of the more intimate
details of her life--minute and troublesome details, for which she had
no aptitude. From her scat at the stove, Louise watched him sorting and
reckoning, and she was as grateful to him as it was possible for her to
be, in her present mood. No one had ever done a thing of the kind for
her before; and she was callous to the fact of its bein