Without this, the two girls might have found it difficult to weather the profitless intervals which punctuated their professional engagements.

But with this addition to their income they rubbed along pretty well, and contrived to find a fair amount of amusement in life through the medium of their many friends in London.
Penelope, the elder of the two by five years, was the daughter of a country rector, long since dead.

She had known the significance of the words "small means" all her life, and managed the financial affairs of the little menage in Edenhall Mansions with creditable success.

Whereas Nan Davenant, flung at her parents' death from the shelter of a home where wealth and reckless expenditure had prevailed, knew less than nothing of the elaborate art of cutting one's coat according to the cloth.

Nor could she ever be brought to understand that there are only twenty shillings in a pound--and that at the present moment even twenty shillings were worth considerably less than they appeared to be.
There are certain people in the world who seem cast for the part of onlooker.