"Very well," she said, in a tone of some slight offence; "I came here with a heart brimful of sympathy; it is repulsed; it goes back as it came, but I bear no offence."
"Shall we discuss your second subject, dear Miss Martineau?" continued Primrose. "I know that you have a great deal of sense and experience, and I know that you have a knack of making money go very far indeed. You ask us what our plans are—well, I really don't think we have got any, have we, Jasmine?"
"No," said Jasmine, in her shortest tones. "We mean to live as we always did. Why can't people leave us in peace?"
Miss Martineau cleared her throat, looked with some compassion at Jasmine, whom she thought it best to treat as a spoilt child, and then turned her attention to Primrose.
"My dear," she said, "I am willing to waive my first head, to cast it aside, to pass it over, and consider my second. My dear Primrose, the first thing to consider in making your plans—I take no notice of Jasmine's somewhat childish remarks—is on what you have to live."
Primrose knit her brows.
"I suppose," she said slowly, "we shall have what we always had—we spent very little money in the past, and, of course, we shall require still less now. We are fond of Rosebury; I think we shall do for the present at least just what Jasmine says, and stay on quietly here."
Miss Martineau cleared her throat again.
"My dear girl," she said, "even to live here you must have something to live on. Now, are you aware that your mother's annuity as a captain's widow ceases with her death? I believe something very trifling will still be allowed to you, as his orphans, but on that point I'm rather in the dark."
"Mother always did get ten pounds a year apiece for us," said Primrose.