Soon after making her communication Miss Martineau took her leave; she hurried home, and sitting down in her dingy little parlor, began to think.
"No, thank you, Susan," she said to her little maid-of-all-work, "I shan't want any supper to-night. I have been at tea with my dear pupils, the Misses Mainwaring. You may bring the lamp presently, Susan, but not quite yet; it is a pity to waste the daylight, and there is quite another quarter of an hour in which I can see to knit. Yes, give me my knitting-basket; I can get on with Widow Joseph's mittens."
"And, if you please, ma'am," asked Susan, lingering for a moment at the door, "may I ask how, all things considering, the dear young ladies is?"
"On the whole, tranquil, Susan—yes, I may say it with confidence; my dear pupils may be considered in a resigned state of mind."
Susan closed the door after her, and Miss Martineau took up her knitting. Knitting woollen mittens is an occupation which harmonizes very well with reflection and while the old lady's active fingers moved her thoughts were busy.
"Thirty pounds a year," she said softly to herself, "thirty pounds certain, and a lump sum of two hundred in the bank. Doubtless they owe some of that for their mother's funeral and their own mourning. They probably owe quite thirty pounds of that, and to make it safe, I had better say forty. That leaves a balance of one hundred and sixty; just enough to put away for emergencies, illness, and so forth. My dear girls, my dear Primrose, and Jasmine, and my pretty little pet Daisy, you cannot touch your little capital; you may get a few pounds a year for it, or you may not—Mr. Danesfield must decide that—but all the money you can certainly reckon on for your expenses is thirty pounds per annum, and on that you cannot live."
Here Miss Martineau threw down her knitting, and began with some agitation to pace up and down her tiny room.
"What was to be done with these lonely and defenceless girls? how were they to meet the world? how were they to earn their living?"
Miss Martineau had never before found herself propounding so painful and interesting a problem; her mind worked round it, and tried to grapple with it, but though she stayed up far into the night, and even had recourse to figures, and marked down on paper the very lowest sum a girl could possibly exist on, she went to bed, having found no solution to this vexed question.
Even Miss Martineau, ignorant and narrow-minded as she was, could scarcely pronounce Primrose fit to do much in the educational world; Jasmine's, of course, was only a little giddy pate, and she required a vast amount of teaching herself; and pretty Daisy was still but a young child.