slin
curtains were really put up to the now clean windows--the walls,
covered with a delicate paper, had a soft, rosy glow about them--some
of the pretty home ornaments were judiciously scattered about, and the
rather small bedroom had three very small, but very white, little
beds in it.

"We'll go in for lots of flowers, you know," said Jasmine. "I don't
suppose even in London flowers are very dear."

At last there came a morning when the girls went away from Penelope
Mansion as usual, and only Mrs. Flint and Poppy knew that they were
not returning in the evening. Mrs. Flint felt rather indignant with
the young ladies for deserting her--not that she said anything for she
always made it a rule not to wear herself out with unnecessary words,
or with fretting, or with undue excitement; nevertheless, on this
occasion she was a little indignant, for surely, what place could
compare with the Mansion? Poor Poppy bade the young ladies, whom she
loved, good-bye with an almost breaking heart.

"It's all one, Miss Jasmine," she exclaimed; "if it was my dying
breath, I'd have to own that London is not what we pictered
it--vanities there is, and troubles there is, and disappointments most
numerous and most biting. But for the one happy day I spent out with
you dear young ladies, I hasn't known no happiness in London. Oh, Miss
Jasmine," drawing up short and looking her young lady full in the
face--"what dreadful lies them novels tells! I read them afore I came,
and I made up such wonderful picters; but I will own that what with
the ladies in this mansion, as worrit me almost past bearing, and what
with you going away all secret like, and what with me being no longer
Poppy the tare, but Sarah Jane the drudge, even if I was to get one of
the bonnets that they show in the shop windows in Bond Street, why, it
wouldn't draw a smile from me Miss Jasmine!"

CHAPTER XXI.

HOW TO PAINT CHINA AND HOW TO FORM STYLE.

Mrs. Dove had a great many lodgers--she let rooms on each of her
floors, and she called her lodgers by the name of the floor they
occupied--first floor, second floor, third floor came and went to 10,
Eden Street. The girls were known as "the attics," and Jasmine felt
very indignant at the name.

"It's almost as bad as being a tare," she said to Primrose. "Dear,
dear! I never thought I should turn into an attic! What an unpleasant
place London is! I begin to think Poppy is quite right in what she
says of it."

"