or
any other post she would certainly not devote her life to teaching.

"It behooves me to be sensible now," she thought; "I must look around me
and see what is the best thing to do."

That evening, after the departure of Kitty and her father, she retired
to her bed-room. She had bought a little tea, sugar, bread, and butter,
and she made herself a small meal. The prices at the restaurant were
very moderate, but Florence made a calculation that she could live for a
little less by buying her own food.

"I will dine at the restaurant," she thought, "and make my own breakfast
and get my own supper. I must make this twenty pounds go as far as
possible, as I do not mean to take the first thing that offers. I am
determined to get a secretaryship if I can."

That evening she wrote a long letter to her mother, and another to Sir
John Wallis. She told Sir John that she was preparing to fight the
battle in London, and gave him her address.

"I am determined," she said in the letter, "not to eat the bread of
dependence. I am firmly resolved to fight my own way, and the money you
have given me is, I consider, a stepping-stone to my fortunes."

She wrote frankly and gratefully, and when Sir John read the letter he
determined to keep her in mind, but not to give her any further help for
the present.

"She has a good deal of character," he said to himself, "although she
did fall so terribly six years ago."

Mrs. Aylmer the less also received a long letter from Florence. It was
written in a very different vein from the one she had sent to Sir John.
Mrs. Aylmer delighted in small news, and Florence tried to satisfy her
to her heart's content. She told her about Kitty's dresses and Kitty's
handsome bonnets and all the different things she was taking for her
foreign tour.

She described her own life with the Sharstons during the few days she
had spent with them at a London hotel, and finally she spoke of her
little attic up in the clouds, and how economical she meant to be, and
how far she would make her money go, and how confident she was that in
the future she could help her mother; and finally she sent the little
Mummy her warmest love, and folded up the letter and put it into its
envelope and posted it.

That letter brought great delight to Mrs. Aylmer. It was indeed what she
considered a red-letter day to her when it arrived, for by parcel post
that very same day there came a large packet for her from Bertha Keys,
sent s