"I heard you asking for my young ladies, sir, but it ain't no use, for they're gone. Flowers of beauty they was--beautiful in manner and in face--but they ain't to be found here no more. The Mansion didn't suit them, and the people in the Mansion didn't suit them, and that isn't to be wondered at. I suppose they has gone to a more congenial place, but the address is hid from me; no, sir, I know nothing at all about them. Yes, sir, it's quite true--I misses them most bitter!"

Here poor Poppy, covering her face with her hands, burst into tears and disappeared down the back staircase.

Noel wrote to Mrs. Ellsworthy, and Mrs. Ellsworthy wrote back to him, and between them they made many inquiries, and took many steps, which they felt quite sure must lead to discovery, but notwithstanding all their efforts they obtained no clue to the whereabouts of the Mainwaring girls.

CHAPTER XXIII.

DARK DAYS.

"How bitterly cold it is, Primrose!"

The speaker was Jasmine; she sat huddled up to a small, but bright fire, which burned in the sitting-room grate.

The girls had now been several months in Eden Street, and all the summer weather and the summer flowers had departed, and the evening in question was a very dull and foggy one in late November.

The little sitting-room still wore its rose-tinted paper, but the white curtains at the windows had a.s.sumed a decided and permanent tint of yellow, and the fog found its way in through the badly-fitting attic windows, and made the whole room look cloudy. The girls' faces, too, had altered with the months. Jasmine had lost a good deal of her vivacity, her expression was slightly fretful, and she no longer looked the spruce and sparkling little la.s.s who had gone away from Rosebury in the summer. Primrose had lost the faint color which used to tinge her cheeks; they were now almost too white for beauty, but her eyes were still clear, calm, and sweet; her dress was still the essence of simplicity and neatness, and her bearing was gentle and dignified as of old. The alteration in Daisy was less apparent at this moment, for she was stretched on two cushions in one corner of the sitting-room, and with a warm rug thrown over her, and with the Pink curled up in her arms, was fast asleep.

"How cold it is, Primrose," repeated Jasmine; then, as her sister made no reply, but went on calmly darning some stockings, she continued, "I think you have really grown stingy. Why can't we have some more coal?

this is much too small a fire for weather with snow on the ground, and a horrid, odious fog filling every corner."

"Hush!" said Primrose, laying down her work, and stooping towards her younger sister, who sat on the hearthrug, "I am keeping the coal to put on until Daisy wakes. You know, Jasmine, we resolved not to run up any bills, and I cannot get in any coal until Mr. Danesfield sends us our next quarter's allowance--wrap my fur cloak round you, darling, and then you will be quite warm."

Jasmine shivered, but rising slowly, she went into the bedroom, and returned in a moment, not with the fur cloak, but with a white woolly shawl. "The day for Mr. Danesfield's money will arrive in less than a week," she said. "Oh, Primrose! I thought you were going to be a good manager; I did not think you were going to bring us to this."

Primrose smiled.

"Jasmine, dear," she said, "you are not quite brave to-night, or you would not speak to me in that tone. You forget that we should not have been short of money had not that five-pound note been stolen from us.

When Mr. Danesfield's allowance comes in we shall be able to go on as usual, and then you need not suffer from a short allowance of fire.

Jasmine, I know what is the matter with you; you did not eat half enough dinner to-day. When I was out this afternoon I called to see Miss Egerton, and she gave me three delicious new-laid eggs--really new-laid--we'll have them for supper."

"No, we won't," said Jasmine, her eyes suddenly filling with tears, and her pettish mood changing to a tender and very sad one--"those eggs were given for Daisy, and no one else shall eat them. Do you know, Primrose, that Miss Egerton does not think Daisy at all strong?"

"Oh, she is mistaken," said Primrose. "No one who does not know her thinks Daisy strong; she has a fragile look, but it is only her look.

All my courage would go if I thought Daisy were ill--she is not ill; look at her now, what a sweet color she has on her cheeks."

"Miss Egerton says she is like a little sister of her own," continued Jasmine. Then she stopped suddenly. "Oh! Primrose, you are not going to cry? oh, don't; it would be dreadful if you gave way! No, Primrose, she is not like little Constance Egerton; she is just our own Daisy, who never looks strong, but who is very strong--she shall never be cold, and she shall have all the nourishment--you and I don't mind how plainly we live, do we, Queen Rose?"

Primrose had quickly wiped away her sudden tears. She rose to her feet, and, going up to Jasmine, gave her a hasty kiss.

"We'll remember our good old resolution," she said brightly, "not to grumble, not to fret, not to cry. Ah! here is our dear little birdie waking from her sleep. Now, Jasmine on with the coals, and let us have a merry blaze while I see to the supper--porridge for you and me, and a nice fresh egg and a cup of warm milk for the Daisy-flower."

"The Pink must have some milk too," said Daisy, as she tumbled lazily out of her soft nest of cushions; "the Pink isn't half as fat as she used to be--I can feel all the bones down her spine--I know she wants cream. Oh, Primrose! I had such a darling dream--I thought the Prince came and found us!"

"The Prince, Daisy?"

"Yes; and he had the look of the gentleman we met long, long, long ago at St. Paul's Cathedral! Oh, Primrose, I'm so tired of London!"

"Never mind, darling," answered Primrose; "I'm always telling you you are only seeing the shady side at present. Only wait till Christmas comes, and Mr. Danesfield sends us our money."

"I wrote another poem last night," said Jasmine; "I called it 'The Uses of Adversity.' It was very mournful indeed; it was a sort of story in blank verse of people who were cold and hungry, and I mixed up London fogs, and attic rooms, and curtains that were once white, and had now turned yellow, and sloppy streets covered with snow, with the story. It was really very sad, and I cried a great deal over it. I am looking out now for a journal which likes melancholy things to send it to. I have not ventured to submit it to Miss Egerton, for she is so dreadfully severe, and I don't think much of her taste. She will never praise anything I do unless it is so simple as to be almost babyish.

Now 'The Uses of Adversity' is as far as possible formed on the model of Milton's 'Paradise Lost'--it is strong, but gloomy. Shall I read it to you after supper, Primrose?"

"If you like, dear," answered Primrose; "but why do you try to write such very sad things, Jasmine?"

"Oh, I don't know; they suit me. Primrose, do you know of a very, very melancholy periodical?"

"Several of the periodicals seem to me rather melancholy," answered Primrose; "there is one I sometimes see on Mrs. Dove's table--it is called _The Watch_. I glanced at it one day, and I thought it seemed very morbid."

"Oh, I know," answered Jasmine; "but there is a worse one than that--Mrs. Dove showed it to me. Mrs. Dove is very fond of reading, and she told me that she would not give a farthing for any literature that could not draw forth the salt and bitter tear; she says the magazine she likes best at present is a new one called _The Downfall_.

She says it is very little known, but its melancholy is profound.

Shall I send my verses to _The Downfall_, Primrose?"

"If you like, dear; but I don't at all admire the name, and I really do not think Mrs. Dove ought to be your guide in such matters, Jasmine."

"Oh, she has very good taste," answered Jasmine; "she says that only real talent is admitted on the staff of _The Downfall_. Of course I'd rather write for one of the shilling magazines. Well, if you like, I'll send my poem to one of them first."

Before Primrose could answer Jasmine on this weighty point there came a knock on the sitting-room door, and Mrs. Dove, with her face wrapped up in a thick woollen shawl, entered the room.

"Very sorry to disturb you, young ladies," she said, "but could you oblige me with the loan of three and tenpence-halfpenny. Dove has put in no appearance, and unless I can pay three and tenpence-halfpenny on account to the baker he refuses positive to allow me sufficient bread to see Sunday through."

When Mrs. Dove made this request Primrose's face became intensely pale. She was silent for half a minute, then she said--

"I will lend you the money this time, Mrs. Dove, but please don't ask me again; you know that at this present moment you owe me very nearly two pounds."

"Thank you, my dear Miss Mainwaring," answered Mrs. Dove, in a very suave voice, as she hastily pocketed poor Primrose's few shillings.

"You are always obliging, and this, with the other trifle due, shall be returned the moment Dove comes in--Dove is on a very good piece of work just at present, and the money is as safe as safe. Oh, Miss Jasmine, I have brought you this week's copy of _The Downfall_--the serial in it is really of the most powerful order. I have shed a deluge of tears over it. The lowest person of rank in the pages is a marquess; but the story mostly deals in ducal families. It was a terrible blow to come down to the baker from the duke's ancestral halls--you read it, Miss Jasmine; you'll be very much overcome."

CHAPTER XXIV.

DOVE'S JOKE.

Primrose had always been considered a very good manager. Her talents for contriving, for buying, and, in short, for making a shilling do the utmost that a shilling was capable of, had been observable from her earliest days. In the last years of her mother's life Primrose had been entrusted with the family purse, and the shopkeepers at Rosebury had known better than not to offer this bright-looking young lady the best that they had at the lowest price. Primrose, therefore, when she came to London, had felt pretty confident that the talents which she knew she possessed would stand her in good stead. She still hoped to find the cheapest shops and to get the best for her money. She laid her plans with accuracy and common sense, she divided the little sum which the three had to live on into weekly instalments--she resolved not to go beyond these. But, alas! Primrose had never reckoned on a certain grave difficulty which here confronted her. Hitherto her dealings had been with honest tradespeople; now it was her misfortune, and her sisters', to get into a house where honesty was far from practised. In a thousand little ways Mrs. Dove could pilfer from the girls--she would not for the world have acknowledged to herself that she would really steal; oh, no--but she did not consider it stealing to use their coal instead of her own--of course, by mistake; she by no means considered it stealing when she baked a little joint for them in her oven on Sunday to boil it first, and in this way secure a very good soup for various hungry young Doves; she did not consider it stealing to so confuse the baker's account that some of the loaves consumed by her children were paid for by Primrose; nor did she consider it stealing to add water to the milk with which she supplied the Mainwarings; above all things, and on this point she was most emphatic, she thought it the reverse of stealing to borrow.

Primrose had not been a fortnight in her house before she began to ask first for the loan of an odd sixpence, then for half-a-crown, for a shilling here, and two shillings there. When she returned the half-crown it was generally done in this fashion--

"Oh, if you please, miss, I want to settle my little account. Oh, dear, dear! I was certain I had half-a-crown in my purse. Well, to be sure, I forgot that Dove took it with him when he went out to his work this morning. Please, Miss Mainwaring, will you accept one and sixpence on account, and we'll settle the rest in an hour or two.

There, miss, that's quite comfortable."

Yes, the arrangement was certainly quite comfortable for Mrs. Dove, who could score out the half-crown debt from her slate, and quite stare when Primrose ventured to ask her for the odd shilling still owing.

Still, incredible as it may sound, Mrs. Dove considered herself a strictly honest woman. Perhaps, had the girls only to deal with her they might have struggled on, badly, it is true, but still after a fashion. But, alas and alas! if Mrs. Dove considered herself honest, Mr. Dove did not pretend to lay claim to this very excellent quality.