"Now, dear Primrose, I want to talk with you very seriously on another matter. You must own, dear, that though you have tried bravely you have not yet, any of you, succeeded in earning your living. It is almost a year since you began to try, and you have made, I fear, but small headway. You, Primrose, have done best, and have made fewer mistakes than your sisters, but even you would not care to spend all your life in continual reading to Mrs. Mortlock. Jasmine can only earn a precarious and uncertain living by dressing dinner-tables. Of course, no one even expects dear little Daisy to contribute to the family purse at present, but at the same time she need not put us into terrible frights, nor be in the power of wicked and designing people.

My dear girls have had a trial of their own way; and now I think they ought to take the advice of those older and wiser than themselves.

"If, dear Primrose, you want to earn your living well--and nothing makes a woman braver and better than being able to support herself--you must be educated to take up some one profession in an efficient manner. Money must be spent for this purpose, and you must not be too proud to accept money from those who really love you. I have been to see Mrs. Ellsworthy, and she and I had a long, long talk about you girls. She is full of kindness, and she really and truly loves you. It would be worse than folly, it would be wicked, to throw such friendship away. Mrs. Ellsworthy tells me that she has been consulting your old friend Mr. Danesfield about you. Both he and Mrs.

Ellsworthy are arranging plans which they trust you will all listen to with patience. These plans shall be fully disclosed to you on your return to town, but I may as well mention here that it will be absolutely necessary that you should give up your present lives, and should enter seriously on the great work of education. Money must be spent for this object; but when you are able to earn well, bye-and-bye it will be in your power to repay the money to the kind friends whose happiness it is now to lend it to you.

"Dear Primrose, "I am, yours affectionately, "AGNES EGERTON."

There was much in this letter to pain Primrose, and a year before she might have torn it up and determined in no way to be guided by it; but a year had brought her some very strange and some very sad experiences. She was troubled and shocked to think that Jasmine should have taken poor Poppy's hard earnings. She was deeply distressed at owing herself so much to Miss Egerton, and now also so large a debt to Arthur Noel. She had worked hard, and had done wonderfully well considering, but nevertheless at the present moment, owing to adverse circ.u.mstances, she was plunged in debt in many directions, and saw little hope of repaying what she owed. Life seemed very difficult to Primrose just then, and hot tears rose to her eyes.

Should she go still farther in debt, and give up the great struggle to be independent? Oh, no, she could not--she could not. Her pride rose up in rebellion; her pa.s.sionate longing to be free and her own mistress, to be beholden to no one for the necessaries of life, was too strong to be easily crushed. Better the dullest life, better be a "continual reader" all her days than take the money of strangers. This was her feeling, and it grew so strong moment by moment, that she might have sat down to answer Miss Egerton's letter there and then but for a rather innocent little remark made by Daisy.

"Dear Primrose, I forgot it in all the other great trouble, but I do want to send fifteen shillings as soon as possible to dear good Poppy.

She lent me fifteen shillings to buy a single third to come to Rosebury, and I forgot all about it. Please, Primrose, try and spare me fifteen shillings to send to Poppy."

"So you too are in debt, Daisy," said Primrose. "Oh, dear, what shall I do? Daisy, dear, forgive me, I ought not to mind anything now you are growing better, but my heart is heavy, and I feel almost crushed.

Yes, Daisy, dear Poppy must have her money. I won't write to Miss Egerton until to-morrow."

Here Primrose wiped some tears from her sweet brown eyes, but she took good care not to allow Daisy to see that she was crying.

CHAPTER LII.

"I LOVE MRS. ELLSWORTHY."

The next afternoon, to the surprise of both Primrose and Daisy, Noel arrived. Daisy greeted her Prince with rapture, but refused to hear any particulars of Dove's trial.

"I want to forget him," she said. "You say he is in the dungeon now. I don't want to think of it. If I think of it long I shall begin to be so sorry for him."

"We will talk of something better and pleasanter," said Noel. "How soon are you coming back to your Palace Beautiful, little Princess?"

Daisy looked anxiously across the room at Primrose. Primrose was bending over some needlework, and a ray of sunlight was shining on her fair head. She did not raise her eyes or respond in any way to the little sister's glance.

"We did think of coming back to Miss Egerton's in the autumn," said Daisy, "but last night Primrose--May I tell, Primrose?"

Primrose put down her work suddenly and came up to where Noel and Daisy were sitting.

"It is just this," she said; "Daisy did not know she had such a proud and obstinate sister. We had made our plans for the autumn--at least we simply intended to struggle on, and hope and watch for brighter days--but yesterday I had a letter from Miss Egerton, and some of its contents troubled me a good deal. Daisy saw that I was unhappy, and I told her what Miss Egerton wanted. I thought the dear little one would object, but she only said, 'Oh, let us be brave, Primrose; our Palace Beautiful will be all the brighter if we really earn it.' Then she added, 'I am beginning to wish to earn a little money myself, for I want to give a very kind person back what he gave me.'"

Noel gave Daisy's thin little hand a squeeze. Primrose looked at the two, and stopped speaking. After a moment's pause she said suddenly--

"I don't like the plan; I never can like it. Mrs. Ellsworthy is all that is kind, but she is no relation of ours. She lived in the same place with us for years, and she never even called on our mother. Oh, I don't blame her; she naturally thought that people who lived in an humble little cottage at Rosebury were not ladies, but you see we are ladies, and we cannot help feeling sore. I may agree to the plan--I may be forced to agree to it for Jasmine's and Daisy's sakes--but I can never, never like it."

Here Primrose went out of the room.

"She was crying for a long time last night," whispered Daisy; "it hurts her dreadfully to take Mrs. Ellsworthy's money. I don't suppose I mind it so much, because I was coming to Mrs. Ellsworthy to ask her for some money. I did not find her, and I was miserable until you found me and helped me, Prince. Then I love Mrs. Ellsworthy, and so does Jasmine."

"That is it, Eyebright," answered Noel; "we do not mind receiving kindnesses and favors from those we love. Yes, I am very sorry for Primrose; I wish matters could be differently arranged for her."

While Noel was speaking Hannah came into the room with a cup of beef-tea for the little invalid.

"You have done her a sight of good already, sir," she said, peering with her short-sighted eyes into the young man's face. "I don't know what we'd have done for her if you hadn't come that day, and talked to her, and got her to tell you what that most villainous person in London was after."

"Oh, don't, Hannah," said Daisy, "he's in a dungeon now--poor, poor Mr. Dove; I must not think about him if I mean to get well."

Here Daisy shivered, and added under her breath, with her little pale face working--

"I did promise it very faithfully that I would never tell about the sweetmeats."

"He was a bad man, Daisy, and he richly deserves his punishment," said Noel, in an almost stern voice, for he wished to check any unhealthy sentimentality on the part of the delicate child. "You must think of what you and your sisters have suffered, and be glad he has been prevented doing any more mischief."

"Drink up your beef-tea, missy," said Hannah. "Please, Mr. Noel, sir, will you hold the cup for little miss? Oh, my heart alive, what--what is that?"

"I don't see anything," said Noel, "what has frightened you, Hannah?"

But Hannah had grown white, and looked very queer, and a moment after she hurried out of the room.

"I never knew your servant was nervous," said Noel to Daisy.

"Nervous?" she repeated, laughing merrily. "Is it Hannah? why she always says she hasn't a nerve in her whole body. She's sometimes almost cross with me for being nervous, Mr. Prince."

Noel stayed some little time longer with the sisters, and then returned to Rosebury in time to catch the evening train to London.

When he got there he went straight to Mrs. Ellsworthy's house. That little lady was anxiously expecting him, and plied him with many questions on the spot.

"How is she taking it, Arthur?" she asked. "I have been forming and maturing my plans, and I now think a resident governess at Shortlands would be the nicest arrangement for the girls. They cannot be parted, that is very evident, and as Primrose must be more than eighteen she would not care to go to school. Yes, a resident governess seems the plan of plans. I would take them up to London early in the spring, and give them the advantage of the very best masters."

"Primrose seems very unhappy about it," replied Noel. "She may in the end consent to some scheme for perfecting her education, but I'm quite sure she will not go, nor allow her sisters to go to Shortlands to live a life of simple luxury. I am sorry for you, Mrs. Ellsworthy, but I know Primrose will never consent to that."

"I don't think you are sorry for me, Arthur," answered the pretty little lady. "In your heart of hearts you quite agree with that naughty, bad Primrose. You had rather the girls lived in their attic, and encountered another dreadful Mr. Dove, and fell into the hands of another designing publisher, than have them safe and happy at Shortlands. Oh, it is a plot between you all to deprive me of my great pleasure. Oh, why will girls, and young men, too, be so perverse?"

Noel smiled.

"I am sorry for both you and Primrose," he said. "I am convinced she will never agree to your present scheme, although she may allow you to help her to perfect her education."

CHAPTER LIII.

TELEGRAPH WIRES.

Daisy was quite right when she said that Hannah was not subject to nervous attacks. Hannah scorned nerves, and did not believe in them.

When she was told that the human body was as full of nerves as an electric battery was full of electricity, that nerves, in short, were like numberless telegraphic-wires, prevailing the whole human frame, she stared at the speakers, and p.r.o.nounced them slightly daft.

Yet Hannah went out of her own little sitting-room on that summer afternoon with, as she expressed it, trembling sensations running down her back, and causing her fingers to shake when she handled her cups and saucers.