United States or Haiti ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"But there is the money in the bank," said Jasmine speaking in a more interested tone. "You remember Primrose dear, how whenever mother wanted some money she just wrote a cheque, and we took it down to Mr. Danesfield, and he gave us nice shining gold for it. Sometimes it was ten pounds, sometimes it was five pounds, and sometimes it was only two pounds; but whenever we went to Mr.
Danesfield drove up on his trap at the last moment in a violent hurry, and pushed an envelope, which he said contained a business communication, into Primrose's hand. Last of all, just at the very end, Mrs.
Of all their friends, he was the one who had opposed Primrose's scheme the least, and perhaps for that reason she was more willing to take his advice, and to be guided by him, than by either Mrs. Ellsworthy or Miss Martineau. Mr. Danesfield had said to her: "My dear, you and your sisters are in some particulars in a very unique and unfortunate position.
Danesfield must decide that but all the money you can certainly reckon on for your expenses is thirty pounds per annum, and on that you cannot live." Here Miss Martineau threw down her knitting, and began with some agitation to pace up and down her tiny room. "What was to be done with these lonely and defenceless girls? how were they to meet the world? how were they to earn their living?"
Danesfield sends us our money." "I wrote another poem last night," said Jasmine; "I called it 'The Uses of Adversity. It was very mournful indeed; it was a sort of story in blank verse of people who were cold and hungry, and I mixed up London fogs, and attic rooms, and curtains that were once white, and had now turned yellow, and sloppy streets covered with snow, with the story.
"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.
Danesfield was generally to be found in his private room at the bank by ten o'clock in the morning. Very soon after that hour on the following day a clerk came to say that one of the young ladies from Woodbine Cottage wanted to see him. "The eldest young lady, and she says her business is very pressing," continued the man.
Miss Martineau's face had become extremely lined and anxious. "My dears," she said, "I fear I've done a rude thing; I fear I've taken a liberty; but the fact is, you are so alone, poor darlings, and Mr. Danesfield is an old friend of mine and and I took the liberty of asking him what your mother's balance was. He said, my dears my poor dears that it was not quite two hundred pounds."
Danesfield again knit his brows, and this time he fidgeted uneasily on his chair. "Look here, Primrose," he said: "I am an old bachelor, and I don't know half nor a quarter the ways in which a woman may earn her living. I have always been told that a woman is a creature of resources. Now it is a well-known fact that an old bachelor has no resources.
At this moment Primrose came into the room, and Miss Martineau, judging that she might best serve her cause by retiring from the scene of action, went away. Mr. Danesfield did not pay a long visit. He had known the Mainwarings, although not very intimately, for years. He was a good-hearted, kind, and very busy man, and during their mother's lifetime he had taken but little notice of the girls.
Word Of The Day