[Penelope’s English Experiences by Kate Douglas Wiggin]@TWC D-Link book
Penelope’s English Experiences

CHAPTER I
7/11

Francesca impulsively presses two shillings into his honest hand and remembers afterwards that only one breakfast was served in our bedrooms during that particular week, and that it was mine, not hers.
The Paid Out column is another source of great anxiety.

Francesca is a person who is always buying things unexpectedly and sending them home C.O.D.; always taking a cab and having it paid at the house; always sending telegrams and messages by hansom, and notes by the Boots.
I should think, were England on the brink of a war, that the Prime Minister might expect in his office something of the same hubbub, uproar, and excitement that Francesca manages to evolve in this private hotel.

Naturally she cannot remember her expenditures, or extravagances, or complications of movement for a period of seven days; and when she attacks the Paid Out column she exclaims in a frenzy, 'Just look at this! On the 11th they say they paid out three shillings in telegrams, and I was at Maidenhead!' Then because we love her and cannot bear to see her charming forehead wrinkled, we approach from our respective corners, and the conversation is something like this:-- Salemina.

"You were not at Maidenhead on the 11th, Francesca; it was the 12th." Francesca.

"Oh! so it was; but I sent no telegrams on the 11th." Penelope.


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