a morning or two after this, when daisy had greatly advanced towards convalescence, and was sitting up in hannah's tiny little sitting-room to partake of a very dainty little breakfast, primrose received a long letter from miss egerton. this was what it contained:—
"my dear primrose,
"you of course know that that wicked man dove has received the sentence which he so richly deserves. alas, we cannot get back all the stolen money, but we must manage without it, dear, and you are never even to talk of repaying me for the furnishing of dear little daisy's palace beautiful. it has been a joy to me to have you, dear, and i hope you will be able to bring daisy back with you, and to live here in peace and comfort next winter. dear primrose, it is more and more evident to me that young girls should not venture to come to london alone. you showed much bravery in your undertaking; but, my dear girl, the pitfalls you exposed yourselves to were awful to contemplate. i don't want to make you unhappy, dear, after all you have suffered with regard to daisy, but i must now tell you of a little adventure which our poor dear jasmine has had. you know how very anxious she has been to see herself in print. of course, i could not conscientiously encourage her, for although she may have talent (this i am not prepared to say), yet she is a great deal too young to have anything printed. all books worth anything should teach, and surely our dear little girl is only at the age to be taught herself.
"well, primrose, the little maid was fired with the strongest ambition. she wrote her novel in secret, and one day, accompanied by that good-natured poppy jenkins and sweet little daisy, went citywards, and simply plunged—for i can use no other word—into the unknown and to me rather awful realm of publishers.
"poor child, of course none of the good houses would even look at her immature productions; but she was taken in by a man who professed himself to be the editor of a monthly paper—the joy-bell was its silly title. on an understanding that her story was to be printed in the pages of the joy-bell—of course i've never seen the paper, and should not dream of reading anything so rubbishy—poor jasmine was induced to subscribe two pounds five shillings, or, in other words, to undertake to buy one hundred copies of the joy-bell. of course she imagined that her printed words would immediately bring her fame. she paid her money, and looked out for her story."
"where did she get the money from?" thought the anxious reader.
"primrose, how wrinkled up your brows are;" called out little daisy.
primrose sighed, and resumed her perusal of the closely-written sheets.
"on the very evening our little daisy ran away jasmine received her first proofs. they were barbarously printed on wretched paper, but the poor child was in such trouble then that she scarcely noticed them. afterwards she did read them with care, and was surprised to find what a very small portion of her story had been printed.
"you know that i was unexpectedly detained in the country by the serious illness and death of my poor cousin. jasmine was not doing as well as we supposed by her profession of dressing dinner-tables. the dear child was determined not to ask help from any one, not even from you, primrose, and she made a valiant effort to support herself on her tiny earnings. alas, her purse was all too soon emptied, and she had also upon her the awful load of debt, for poppy jenkins it seems, lent her the money to get that rubbishy story published. in her despair she thought of the joy-bell, and went off to see the editor.
"she was met at the office (poor child, how she could venture there alone is a mystery to me) with the intelligence that the joy-bell had ceased to exist, and the editor had decamped with poor poppy's wages.
"luckily i came home that evening, and found your poor little sister in sad trouble. i am thankful to say i have been able to relieve her present necessities without the slightest inconvenience to myself. jasmine has been greatly shaken, but she is better again now, and is most anxious that you should not be troubled. i only tell you this much, dear primrose, because i consider it my bounden duty that you should know how matters really stand. rest happy about poppy; her money has been returned to her, and jasmine has sufficient for her present necessities. on second thoughts, i had better perhaps let you into my little secret. i have borrowed ten pounds for jasmine on that valuable spanish lace of her mother's. do not imagine that the lace is gone; it will be returned to jasmine whenever she can refund the money. it was necessary, dear primrose, to take it, and i acted as i am sure you would think right in the matter. poppy had to be paid her wages.
"now, dear primrose, i want to talk with you very seriously on another matter. you must own, dear, that though you have tried bravely you have not yet, any of you, succeeded in earning your living. it is almost a year since you began to try, and you have made, i fear, but small headway. you, primrose, have done best, and have made fewer mistakes than your sisters, but even you would not care to spend all your life in continual reading to mrs. mortlock. jasmine can only earn a precarious and uncertain living by dressing dinner-tables. of course, no one even expects dear little daisy to contribute to the family purse at present, but at the same time she need not put us into terrible frights, nor be in the power of wicked and designing people. my dear girls have had a trial of their own way; and now i think they ought to take the advice of those older and wiser than themselves.
"if, dear primrose, you want to earn your living well—and nothing makes a woman braver and better than being able to support herself—you must be educated to take up some one profession in an efficient manner. money must be spent for this purpose, and you must not be too proud to accept money from those who really love you. i have been to see mrs. ellsworthy, and she and i had a long, long talk about you girls. she is full of kindness, and she really and truly loves you. it would be worse than folly, it would be wicked, to throw such friendship away. mrs. ellsworthy tells me that she has been consulting your old friend mr. danesfield about you. both he and mrs. ellsworthy are arranging plans which they trust you will all listen to with patience. these plans shall be fully disclosed to you on your return to town, but i may as well mention here that it will be absolutely necessary that you should give up your present lives, and should enter seriously on the great work of education. money must be spent for this object; but when you are able to earn well, bye-and-bye it will be in your power to repay the money to the kind friends whose happiness it is now to lend it to you.
"dear primrose,
"i am, yours affectionately,
"agnes egerton."
there was much in this letter to pain primrose, and a year before she might have torn it up and determined in no way to be guided by it; but a year had brought her some very strange and some very sad experiences. she was troubled and shocked to think that jasmine should have taken poor poppy's hard earnings. she was deeply distressed at owing herself so much to miss egerton, and now also so large a debt to arthur noel. she had worked hard, and had done wonderfully well considering, but nevertheless at the present moment, owing to adverse circumstances, she was plunged in debt in many directions, and saw little hope of repaying what she owed. life seemed very difficult to primrose just then, and hot tears rose to her eyes.
should she go still farther in debt, and give up the great struggle to be independent? oh, no, she could not—she could not. her pride rose up in rebellion; her passionate longing to be free and her own mistress, to be beholden to no one for the necessaries of life, was too strong to be easily crushed. better the dullest life, better be a "continual reader" all her days than take the money of strangers. this was her feeling, and it grew so strong moment by moment, that she might have sat down to answer miss egerton's letter there and then but for a rather innocent little remark made by daisy.
"dear primrose, i forgot it in all the other great trouble, but i do want to send fifteen shillings as soon as possible to dear good poppy. she lent me fifteen shillings to buy a single third to come to rosebury, and i forgot all about it. please, primrose, try and spare me fifteen shillings to send to poppy."
"so you too are in debt, daisy," said primrose. "oh, dear, what shall i do? daisy, dear, forgive me, i ought not to mind anything now you are growing better, but my heart is heavy, and i feel almost crushed. yes, daisy, dear poppy must have her money. i won't write to miss egerton until to-morrow."
here primrose wiped some tears from her sweet brown eyes, but she took good care not to allow daisy to see that she was crying.
