A prudent investment of the eight hundred pounds might, by this arrangement, feed, clothe, and in some sort educate Martha, Isabel, and Monica.

To see thus far ahead sufficed for the present; fresh circumstances could be dealt with as they arose.
Alice obtained a situation as nursery-governess at sixteen pounds a year.

Virginia was fortunate enough to be accepted as companion by a gentlewoman at Weston-super-Mare; her payment, twelve pounds.

Gertrude, fourteen years old, also went to Weston, where she was offered employment in a fancy-goods shop--her payment nothing at all, but lodging, board, and dress assured to her.
Ten years went by, and saw many changes.
Gertrude and Martha were dead; the former of consumption, the other drowned by the overturning of a pleasure-boat.

Mr.Hungerford also was dead, and a new guardian administered the fund which was still a common property of the four surviving daughters.