"They can't make fortunes immediately, of course; but they can earn a living by giving lessons.

I will try to open a way for them, and the sooner you prepare them for it the better." Madame dreaded the task of disclosing their poverty, but she found it less painful than she had feared.

They had no realizing sense of what it meant, and rather thought that giving lessons would be a pleasant mode of making time pass less heavily.

Madame, who fully understood the condition of things, kept a watchful lookout for their interests.
Before an inventory was taken, she gathered up and hid away many trifling articles which would be useful to them, though of little or no value to the creditors.

Portfolios of music, patterns for drawings, boxes of paint and crayons, baskets of chenille for embroidery, and a variety of other things, were safely packed away out of sight, without the girls' taking any notice of her proceedings.
During her father's lifetime, Floracita was so continually whirling round in fragmentary dances, that he often told her she rested on her feet less than a humming-bird.