A Plucky Girl

me early in

n to any more of our friends. I will describe my interview presently, but I must talk on another matter now. Our undertaking will be greatly pros

mean?" aske

very roomy, and the landlord must be willing to make certain improvements which I will suggest to him. Our boarding-house will be a sort of U

clasped

e will come to us. Neither you nor I have the faintest idea how to manage. We shall not only lose all the money we have,

live with her as a sort of companion and amanuensis, and influence would be brought to bear to get you rooms in Hampton Court; but would y

with the idea of Hampton Court. The ladies who lived in those suites of apartments were more or less aristocratic, they were at least all well connect

e you, moth

ree," she

y-one. Do you think for a single moment that able-bodied women, like ourselves, are to do nothing in the future; for if I did go to the Duchess my post would be merely a sinecure, and you at Hampton Court

chemes, Westenra, you

like my father's, some of that spirit which had carried him with a forlorn hope into the thickest of the fight, and which enabled him

r Bloomsbury mansion, but as I did not quite succeed to-day in knowing exactly how we stood with our friends, I propose that next week w

w, in the height of the se

ty. We will invite them for this day fortnight. I don't know any special one of our friends who

g list of our acquaintances, proclaimed that I thought

early in the afternoon, so that those who do want to

we are parting with them all, for if I go to Hampton Court, or the country, or to t

ic in these days, and there is no saying, but that I may be more the fashion than ever; but I don'

speak, but I held her in control as it were. I stood before her

the same materials we ever had to give a proper and fashionable 'At Home,' but when they are all assembled, instead of a recitation, or music, I

ad? I can never, nev

asmine will come, and-and many other people, and we will put the thing to the test. Yes, mother, this day fortnight they shall come, and I will write the invitations to-night, and to-morrow you and I will go to Bloomsbury and look for a suitable house, for by the time they come, mother, the ho

she answered, half proudly, half sad

tation, for on second thoughts I resolved not to prepare our many acqua

made a sort of queen of by the other girls, I had the sensation very strongly, and I felt like it also when a terrible illness which mother had a few years ago came to a crisis, and her precious life lay in the balance. Here was another crisis in my career, almost the most important which had come to me yet, and I felt the old verve and the ol

ts. I had put on my very prettiest white dress, an

dressed alread

Mummy. Oh, there is Paul. Paul, we s

the soft things of life no more. We were dragging out our last delicious days in the Land of Luxury; we were soon to enter the Land of Hard Living, the Land of Endeavour, the Land of

ppetite, and soon afterwards we were

ost turned up his nose when we told him to stop at the house of a well-known agent in Bloomsbury. He could not, like the Duchess of Wilmot, co

our destination, it w

other?" I asked as I

y, dear child?"

am too young to receive the respect which I really merit, but with

ear g

, you will,

a firm grip, and we went in