Oh, I shall be happy over my work! I will forget that we are poor, and forget that we live in attics.

I will work with Miss Egerton in the daytime, and I will help Primrose in her house-keeping, and take Daisy for a walk, but morning and evening I will get into my Palace Beautiful, and write away, and forget the sordid cares of life." The little maid had really a certain amount of genius to guide her, and although all her ideas were crude and unpractised, she managed to be happy in the castle which she built, and her dark eyes grew bright once more, and her pretty face resumed its animated and contented expression.
Primrose, who worked very steadily at her china-painting, was much cheered at this time with one or two small, but _bona-fide_ orders for work.

They came not through Mr.Jones, who pocketed her money and exhibited her wares in a dusty and uncertain fashion, but through Miss Egerton, who was proving herself a real friend to the girls.

Primrose was immensely cheered by these little orders, and, in consequence, Christmas Day--the girls' first Christmas Day without a home and a mother--passed not uncheerfully.

Things might have gone well with the three but for an incident which occurred just at the beginning of the New Year.
One morning Daisy awoke shivering, and complaining of fresh cold.