Mrs. Ellsworthy took the girls all round the Park, and then to a place of amusement, and finally she presented Poppy with a very neat brown dress and jacket, and hat to match, saying, as she did so, that really Jasmine, even though she forbade her to offer her any presents, could not lay a like embargo with regard to her friends.
"It's of all the dazzlings, the most blindingly beautiful," was Poppy's oft-reiterated comment. "Oh! won't I have something to tell them ladies about bye-and-bye! Oh, my! Miss Jasmine, what a neat hat, miss! I don't mind denuding this one now, for I has got a 'at from a West End shop what beats anything that Miss Slowcum wears for gentility."
Finally, Jasmine and Poppy both returned to their respective homes, tired, but wonderfully happy little girls.
Mrs. Ellsworthy also laid her head that night on her pillow with a wonderful sense of satisfaction.
"Even if they do not come to me—although they must come," she soliloquized, "I am glad—I shall all my life be glad that I gave Jasmine a happy day."
CHAPTER LI.
A LETTER.
A morning or two after this, when Daisy had greatly advanced towards convalescence, and was sitting up in Hannah's tiny little sitting-room to partake of a very dainty little breakfast, Primrose received a long letter from Miss Egerton. This was what it contained:—
"MY DEAR PRIMROSE,