nds, for I
know they are our friends, but let us be firm and keep together. These
people want to divide us; I say, let us keep together."

"Of course," said Jasmine; "is that really what the letter
means--separation? Here, give it to me--" She snatched it from her
sister, and flung it with energy to the other end of the apartment.
Daisy nestled her soft little face up close to her eldest
sister's--Daisy was still feeling things incomprehensible, and was
also a little frightened.

"Go on," continued Jasmine, "go on talking, Primrose--we are quite
with you, Daisy and I--what nonsense the people must have in their
heads if they think we three are going to part!"

"But we are in a very painful and difficult position," continued
Primrose. "We have certainly got to earn our bread, and we don't at
all know how to earn it. We are not educated enough to go anywhere as
governesses, although Miss Martineau did say that I might perhaps get
a little place in the nursery; but in any case people would not want
three governesses in one family, and, of course, Daisy is too young to
earn anything for many a long day. Jasmine, I have been thinking over
all this most seriously--I have been thinking over it for some hours,
and it seems to me there is nothing at all for us to do but to go to
London."

"Where Poppy is going?" interrupted Jasmine; "delicious--lovely--my
dream of dreams! Go on, Primrose darling; I could listen to you all
night."

"But we mustn't go only for pleasure," continued Primrose; "indeed, we
must not go at all for pleasure. We must go to work hard, and to
learn, so that bye-and-bye we may be really able to support
ourselves. Now, there is only one way in which we can do that. We must
take that two hundred pounds which Mr. Danesfield has in the bank, and
we must live on it while we are being educated. We can go to a cheap
part of London, and find poor lodgings--we won't mind how poor they
are, if only they are very clean, with white curtains, and dimity
round the beds. We'll be quite happy there, and we'll make our two
hundred pounds go very far. With great care, and with our thirty
pounds a year, it might last for four or five years, and by that time
Daisy will have grown big, and you, Jasmine, will have grown up,
and--and--perhaps you will have found a magazine to take your poems."

"Oh! oh! I never heard of anything so delicious!" exclaimed Jasmine.
"Long before the five years are out I'll be on the pinnacle o