I am glad you have found some objects of interest close to your own gates." Here Mrs.Ellsworthy dropped her slightly frivolous tone, and rising from her seat, went up to her husband.
"Joseph," she said, "I want you to contrive to be at home for lunch to-morrow.

I want you to see my girls, and to advise me how best to help them.

Primrose is so proud and so inexperienced; the two younger ones, of course, know nothing of either poverty or riches; they live as the flowers live, and are happy for the same reason.

Do you know, Joseph, that the eldest of these sisters is not seventeen, and the youngest only ten; that they seem to be absolutely without relations, almost without friends, and that between them they have only a Government grant of thirty pounds a year." Here Mrs.Ellsworthy's pretty bright blue eyes filled with tears, and her husband, stooping down, kissed her.
"I will make a point of seeing those girls to-morrow Kate," he said.
"I am glad you have come across them." Then he went off to his library, where he sat, and read, and lost himself in great thoughts far into the night.

It is to be feared that during these hours he forgot the Mainwarings and their troubles.
Mrs.Ellsworthy had appointed noon the next day to receive her young guests, and punctual to the moment the three walked into her drawing-room.
Daisy instantly commented on this fact.