Still the Count took a kind of interest in his former pupil; and made some sort of arrangement by which Pierre was to be taught reading and writing, and accounts, and Heaven knows what besides,--Latin, I dare say.

So Pierre, instead of being an innocent messenger, as he ought to have been--( as Mr.Horner's little lad Gregson ought to have been this morning)--could read writing as well as either you or I.

So what does he do, on obtaining the nosegay, but examine it well.

The stalks of the flowers were tied up with slips of matting in wet moss.
Pierre undid the strings, unwrapped the moss, and out fell a piece of wet paper, with the writing all blurred with moisture.

It was but a torn piece of writing-paper, apparently, but Pierre's wicked mischievous eyes read what was written on it,--written so as to look like a fragment,--'Ready, every and any night at nine.