On this occasion Mrs.Dove herself brought up Primrose's letter.

Letters came so seldom to the girls that Mrs.Dove felt it quite excusable to gaze very hard at the inscription, to study the name of the post town which had left its mark on the envelope, and lingering a little in the room, under cover of talking to Jasmine, to watch Primrose's face as she opened the cover.
"It is from Mr.Danesfield, is it not, Primrose ?" exclaimed Jasmine--"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs.Dove; no I didn't much care for that new story which is begun in _The Downfall_." Mrs.Dove had a habit of dropping little curtseys when she meant to be particularly deferential--she now dropped three in succession, and said in a high-pitched, and rather biting voice-- "It isn't to be expected that the opinions of young ladies and of women who have gone through their world of experience, and therefore know what's what, should coincide.

I leave you ladies three to read your refreshing news from absent friends." Mrs.Dove then turned her back, and meekly shutting the door behind her, left the girls to themselves.
"Them attics have become rather too uppish for my taste," she said to Dove when she got downstairs.

"I took them a letter just now, and, my word! they had not eyes nor ears for me, though I toiled up all the weary stairs, which my shortness of breath don't agree to.

It wasn't even 'Thank you very much, Mrs.Dove,' but all three of them, their eyes was fixed on the letter as if they'd eat it.