So saying I handed over my forgery to Lady Mervyn, who perused it carefully, and then returned it to me. "I always prefer a personal reference if possible," she said; "but perhaps I might consent to dispense with it for once, in an exceptional case like this, where it evidently cannot be had. Certainly Sir Bartholomew speaks of you in very high terms. I do not want you for myself, but for one of my daughters, who is going abroad with my sister, Mrs. Rollin. You would have to attend partly on Mrs. Rollin also; but she will not want much done for her, as she does not care about a maid's assistance in most things. As they do not intend taking a courier, they must have a really efficient travelling-maid, who can see to their luggage, take tickets, and all that sort of thing. I suppose you have had plenty of experience in that way with Lady Brown? Can you talk French and German pretty easily?" I replied in the affirmative, that I also knew Italian, Spanish, a little Dutch, and a few words of Greek, and that I could keep accounts in some foreign coins. "En verité, vous ne vous vantez pas mal!" she returned, looking insultingly sceptical as to my accomplishments being as extensive as I claimed them to be. "Voyons d'abord pour le français." And she then continued the conversation in French, whilst I replied in the same tongue. The question of wages was propounded next. I had no intention of depreciating my value by demanding too little for my services, and I knew that courier-maids were always paid very high, so I said that I should not like to take less than what I had received from Lady Brown, which was £35 and all found. That was very high Lady Mervyn said; still, she would not object to give it to a maid who was really worth it. After a few more questions she observed that my French was satisfactory, at all events; and that, as she was not herself a very good German scholar, she would get her eldest daughter to test my proficiency in that line. Ringing the bell she told the footman, who answered it, to request Miss Mervyn to come to her. When that young lady arrived her mother desired her to find out how I talked German. As I came triumphantly out of her examination, and also translated accurately an Italian quotation which happened to be in one of the newspapers lying on the table, Lady Mervyn's incredulity as to my accomplishments evidently diminished. I could see that she began to think my pretensions to knowledge were better founded than she had at first supposed them to be, and that she was now inclined to take upon trust the skill in foreign moneys, and in Spanish, Dutch, and Greek, to which I laid claim.