"It was my fault, Miss Grant.

I was reaching for the ink, to bring it nearer his lordship, when my sleeve or something caught the corner of the desk here and, before you could say 'Jack Robinson,' the mischief was done." He seemed so greatly distressed and upset by the accident, that Celia quite felt for him.
"Oh, it is not a very great matter," she said, soothingly.

"There has been no harm done." Indeed, it did seem to her a very trivial affair, compared with the awful tragedy in which they were moving.

"I will get a cloth and wipe up the ink; fortunately, it hasn't run on to the carpet." As she spoke, she took up the sheets of writing-paper and blotting paper between her finger and thumb, intending to put them in the waste-paper basket; but, with a kind of apologetic laugh, Mr.Jacobs laid his hand on her arm, and said: "No, don't throw them away! Give them to me, if you will.

I should like to keep them as a kind of memento, as a sort of warning for the future not to be so clumsy." With a shadow of a smile, she gave the two pieces of paper to him, and as he took them he said, "I've got my own fingers inked.