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 Slowcum. "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 Slowcum. 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 Slowcum had taken
Daisy in her arms, and covered her sweet little face with kisses, for
Miss Slowcum 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 v