AN INVITATION FOR THE LADIES OF PENELOPE MANSION.

"There are limits to all things," said Mrs. Mortlock; "there's a time, as the blessed Bible says, to sorrow, and a time to rejoice, and what I say too is, that there is a time when a woman's patience may be exhausted. Yes, Mrs. Dredge, you may look at me with as round eyes as you please--I know they are round though I can't see them, but I will say, if it's my last dying breath, that the moment for my 'continual reader' to return has arrived. Miss Slowc.u.m, no doubt you'll corroborate what I say, ma'am."

"It's hot weather for young bright flowers to shed their fragrance on the London streets," replied Miss Slowc.u.m; "it's the kind of weather when flowers fade. I should imagine, Mrs. Mortlock, that your 'continual reader' was doing better for herself in the country."

Mrs. Mortlock's face became very red.

"Better for herself, is she?" she said, "and is that all the thanks I get for keeping my post vacant, and living through days the weariness of which none may know. If Miss Primrose Mainwaring is doing better for herself in the country she is welcome to stay there. The post is a good one, a light and an easy one, and I can get many another la.s.s to fill it."

"I think, ma'am," said Mrs. Dredge, whose face had grown wonderfully smooth and pleasant of late, "that the dear girls will all be in town this week, and most likely Miss Primrose will come to pay you a visit.

Oh, they are nice girls, pretty, elegant girls, just the kind of girls my good man would like to have been papa to. I can't help shivering, even now when I think of that wicked man Dove, and what a state he put dear little Daisy into."

"If praises of the Mainwarings is to begin," answered Mrs. Mortlock in her tartest voice, "what I say is, let me retire. It's all very well for them as has right to talk well of the absent, but when one of the absent ones is neglecting her duty the lady who has weak eyes feels it. Miss Slowc.u.m, ma'am, have you any objection to moving with me into the drawing-room? I can lend you that pattern you admired so much for tatting if you read me the latest gossip from the evening papers, ma'am."

Mrs. Mortlock rose from her chair, and, accompanied by Miss Slowc.u.m, left the room. Miss Slowc.u.m took a ladylike interest in all kinds of needlework, and the desire to possess the tatting pattern overcame her great reluctance to read aloud to the very tart old lady.

Mrs. Mortlock placed herself in the most comfortable arm-chair the room afforded, and having secured her victim, began instantly to tyrannize over her.

"Now, Miss Slowc.u.m, read up chirrupy and cheerful please. None of your drawling, by way of genteel voice, for me--I like my gossip crisp. I will say this of that dear girl Primrose Mainwaring, that she did her gossip crisp."

"You really are a very unaccountable person, Mrs. Mortlock," replied Miss Slowc.u.m. "You begin by abusing Primrose Mainwaring, and then you praise her in the most absurd manner. I hope the refined reading of a cultivated lady is not to be compared to the immature utterances of a school-girl. If that is so, Mrs. Mortlock, even for the sake of the tatting pattern, I cannot consent to waste my words on you."

"Oh, my good creature," said Mrs. Mortlock, who by no means wished to be left to solitude and herself, "you read in a very pretty style of your own--obsolete it may be--h'm--I suppose we must expect that--mature it certainly is; yes, my dear, quite mature. If I praise Primrose Mainwaring, and a good girl she was when she was with me--yes, a good, painstaking girl, thankful for her mercies--it's no disparagement to you, Miss Slowc.u.m. You're mellow, my dear, and you can't help being mellow, and Primrose Mainwaring is crisp, and she can't help being crisp. Oh, goodness gracious me! what sound is that falls on my ear?"

"An old friend's voice, I hope, Mrs. Mortlock," said a pleasant girlish tone, and Primrose Mainwaring herself bent down over the old lady and kissed her.

Notwithstanding all her grumbling Mrs. Mortlock had taken an immense fancy to Primrose. She returned her embrace warmly, and even took her hand and squeezed it.

"I'd like to see you, dear," she said, "but I'm getting blinder and blinder. Have you come back to your continual reading, dear? I hope so, for you do the gossip in a very chirruping style."

While Mrs. Mortlock was speaking to Primrose Miss Slowc.u.m had taken Daisy in her arms, and covered her sweet little face with kisses, for Miss Slowc.u.m was not all sour and affected, and she had shed some bitter tears in secret over the child's unaccountable disappearance.

Mrs. Dredge and Mrs. Flint had both surrounded Jasmine, who, in a white summer frock, was looking extremely pretty, and was entertaining them with some animated conversation.

"Yes," said Primrose to Mrs. Mortlock, "I will come to read to you as often as ever I can. I shall know my plans better after to-morrow. We three girls returned to London a couple of days ago, and we received a letter from our kind friend Mrs. Ellsworthy. You don't know her, perhaps, but she is a very kind friend of ours. She is making some plans for us, but we don't quite know what they are. She has written us a letter, however, and it is on account of that letter that we have all come to you to-night. She has invited us to come to her to-morrow, and she wants all the friends who were kind to us, and who helped us in every way during our year in London, to come in the evening to hear what the plans are. Even if you can't see, Mrs. Mortlock, it will amuse you to come, and I hope so much you will do so. I will try to stay close to you myself when you do come, so you need not feel lonely."

"My dear, you are very kind," said Mrs. Mortlock, and the other ladies also said the Mainwarings were kind, and they sent their dutiful respects to Mrs. Ellsworthy and were pleased to accept. Accordingly, Primrose gave them full directions with regard to the right address, and the hour at which they were to be present; and finally the girls left Mrs. Flint and her three lady boarders in a state of considerable excitement and so deeply interested in what was about to occur that they forgot to grumble at each other.

CHAPTER LVI.

A PALACE BEAUTIFUL.

Hannah Martin had come up with her young ladies to London, and she also was invited by Mrs. Ellsworthy to come to her house. The girls all thought Hannah very much altered; they could not understand her queer illusions, or her mysterious little nods, or in particular the way she used to stare at Jasmine, and say under her breath, "Yes, yes, as like as two peas. What a blind old woman I was not to see it when I clapped eyes on him."

"I cannot make out what Hannah is always muttering," Jasmine said to her sisters. "Who is it I am so remarkably like. To judge from the way Hannah frowns and shakes her head, and then smiles, the fact of this accidental likeness seems to have a very disturbing effect upon her."

"I know whom you are like, Jasmine," said little Daisy. "I've seen it for a long time. You are the very image of my dear Prince. You have got just the same colored eyes, and just the same curly hair, and both your foreheads are broad and white. It's perfectly natural,"

continued Daisy, "for you are both geniuses, and all geniuses must have a look of each other."

Hannah had old-fashioned ideas on many subjects. One of these was that people could not remain too long in mourning. She liked very deep black, and wished those who had lost relations to wear it for a long, long time. The girls, therefore, were quite amazed when she suggested that they should all go to Mrs. Ellsworthy in white. They began to consider her quite an altered Hannah; but Jasmine took her advice, and bought many yards of soft flowing muslin, which the old servant helped her dear young ladies to make up.

At last the day and hour arrived when, as Primrose said sorrowfully, "Our fate is to be sealed and we are to bid 'Good-bye' to dear independence."

The girls, looking as sweet as girls could look, arrived at Mrs.

Ellsworthy's at a fairly early hour in the afternoon. The good little lady received them with marked tenderness, but said, in an almost confused manner, and by no means with her usual self-possession that a slight change had been found necessary in the afternoon's programme, and that the meeting of friends and acquaintances to hear their future plans was not to take place at her house after all.

"We are to go to another house not far from this," she said, "indeed, only a stone's throw away. It is so close that we will walk it. Come, Daisy, I see a number of questions in your eyes, but they shall all be answered presently. Take my hand now, and let us lead the way. The other house is very pretty, but it is smaller than mine."

The other house was quite close to Mrs. Ellsworthy's luxurious mansion. It was built more in the cottage shape, was much smaller, and had a charming little garden and grounds round it. The hall door opened into a porch, which was covered with roses, so that though the house was really in London, the effect was quite that of the country.

Standing in the porch, and looking extremely pretty in its flickering light and shade, stood Poppy Jenkins, in the neatest of handmaiden's attire, and as the girls all came into the shade of the cool porch, Noel himself, looking somewhat pale, and with a curious agitation in his manner, came out to meet them.

"This is my house," he said, "and Poppy is engaged as one of the servants. I thought we might all meet here to discuss the new plans.

Poppy, will you take the young ladies to their room? I've had a room prepared," he continued, blushing slightly, "for I thought Daisy might like to rest a little."

Poppy instantly tripped forward, and in quite a demure manner took the girls up some broad stairs, and into a long, rather low-ceilinged room on the first floor. There were three little white beds in the room, and three toilet tables, and, in short, three sets of everything. It was the prettiest, the brightest, the most lovely room the girls had ever seen. It contained luxury, and neatness, and comfort, and refinement, for beautiful pictures were placed on the walls, and flowers peeped in at the windows, and the furniture was of that sort which can best accommodate girls' pretty dresses and knick-knacks.

"What a room!" said Jasmine. "Why, it's just like a girls' room! Any one would suppose Mr. Noel had sisters."

Daisy began to skip about, and to poke her little fingers amongst the curiosities and treasures which were scattered broadcast. Primrose became silent, and walked over to one of the windows, and Poppy, suddenly dropping her demure air, said in a voice of ecstasy--

"He's a lovely young man, and I'm engaged here permanent, and it's no more Sarah Ann, nor Sarah Jane, but Poppy I'm to be from this time and for ever. Oh, Miss Primrose, don't it make you real happy even to take off your bonnet in a room like this?"

"I do feel happy," said Primrose, in that slow voice of hers. "I feel happy, and I can't tell why. I am just going to give up my independence, and I ought to be miserable, but at the present moment I have a peculiar sense of rejoicing."

"And so have I," said Jasmine, "I could skip all day long; and as to Eyebright, she looks fit to dance this very moment."

"I'm happy because I'm with the Prince," said Daisy; "that's always quite enough for me."

Then the three sisters linked their arms round one another, and went downstairs.

In Noel's very lovely drawing-room many friends were a.s.sembled. Mr.

and Mrs. Ellsworthy, of course, were present; also Mr. Danesfield, Miss Martineau, and Miss Egerton. Old Hannah stood in the background and when the three pretty sisters came into the room they were surrounded by eager and loving faces, and were most warmly welcomed.

Mrs. Ellsworthy, it is true, still appeared much agitated; she had an intense longing to take Jasmine in her arms and cry over her, but she had, of course, too much sense to do anything so unsuitable and silly.

The girls were asked to sit down, and Mr. Ellsworthy, who had been elected spokesman, stood up, cleared his throat, and looked at his wife. Twice he made an attempt at utterance; finally he said in a voice which trembled--"My dear, I can't manage it--you had better do it yourself."

"I presume you are addressing me, Joseph," said Mrs. Ellsworthy.

"I--I--this is unexpected; but anything to get it over. My dear girls, you have come here to-day to hear what we have arranged for you. We felt you could not go on as you have been doing."

"Impossible," here interrupted Mr. Danesfield. "They were the victims of thieves and rogues. The thing could not have gone on a day longer."

"So we made plans--very nice plans," continued Mrs. Ellsworthy. "It never occurred to us that they would be knocked on the head, crushed, obliterated. Oh, I am very happy, of course, but I could cry at having my plans spoiled a second time."

"I don't think they are really spoiled," said Primrose who had grown very white, and now rose to her feet. "I know I was proud about accepting help. I had such a longing to be independent. Perhaps I feel sore about accepting help still, but I have made up my mind; for all our sakes it is best. I submit--I give in--I am very grateful."

"Perhaps, Primrose," said Mrs. Ellsworthy, whose bright eyes were now full of tears, "I may convince you yet that you have no cause to feel sore, and that proud heart of yours will not be pained. I believe the help you need is coming to you three sisters in such a guise that you cannot fail but to accept it gladly, and as your natural right."