“To come on a visit?” asked Florence.
“Well, yes,” said the old lady. “I do not want a companion. You see, I have my maid Pearson, who has been with me for many long years, and who understands all my requirements. But I will do far you what I do for your sister, and it is only a matter of three months. At the end of that time you must, of course, both of you find some means of earning your living.”
Florence rose proudly to her feet.
“Very well,” she said. “I do not think I will trouble you.”
There was a distressed look on her face, and Brenda never felt nearer crying in the whole course of her life.
“Oh, Florence,” she said, “I would give all the wide world to be going back with you to Langdale to-day!” Then she turned to Lady Marian. “I know well,” she said, “that you mean to be kind, but you cannot possibly tell what this means to homeless girls who have never been parted before in the whole course of their lives.”
“I can quite understand what you are suffering, dear,” said Lady Marian; “but we all have to go through pain; it is part of our great purgatory, but it draws out the good in us and develops qualities which without it might perish. Now I know you have plenty to say to each other, and Mr Timmins will come back for Florence in less than an hour. I will leave you here to talk to each other until he arrives.”
As Lady Marian spoke, she left the room. The moment they were alone, Florence flung herself into Brenda’s arms and burst out crying.
“I never felt so wretched in all my life!” she said. “I almost hate Michael! But for him I should be staying with you here; and yet how could I stay just on a visit with that old lady? It is all very well for her to say that she was a friend of our mother’s, but she is no friend of ours.”
“She seems very kind, very kind indeed,” said Brenda; “and I know she will be good to me. I will write to you every day, Florence.”