"Primrose," she said upstairs to her sister, "we mustn't ask advice about our lodgings; we must take the map with us, and go and look for them all by ourselves. Mrs. Dredge says that clean lodgings are very, very dear, and it is only dirty lodgings that are cheap."
When Jasmine ran into the room Primrose was standing by the dressing-table, and in her usual methodical fashion was putting tidily away her own things and her sisters'; now she faced Jasmine with a little smile on her face.
"There is just one thing," she said, "that we can do—we can with our own hands make the dirty lodgings clean. Never mind, Jasmine darling, we won't ask anybody's advice; we'll go out and look round us to-morrow."
Early the next morning the three sisters set out—Daisy having first locked the Pink in their room. It may be remarked in parenthesis that the Pink did not like her new quarters, and had already made herself notorious by breaking two saucers and a cup, by upsetting a basin of milk, and by disappearing with the leg of a chicken. In consequence, she was in great disgrace, and Mrs. Flint had been heard to speak of her as "that odious cat!" The Pink, however, was safe for the present, and the girls set out on their little pilgrimage of discovery.
"London," said Primrose, in a somewhat sententious voice, has "points of the compass, like any other place. It has its north and its south, its east and its west. The west, I have been told, is the aristocratic and expensive quarter, so of course we won't go there. In the east, the miserably poor and dirty people live—we won't trouble them—therefore our choice must lie between the south and the north. On the whole, I am inclined to try the north side of London."
"For dark and true and tender is the North,"
quoted Jasmine with enthusiasm. "By all means, Rose, we will go northwards, but how shall we go?"
"We'll inquire at the post-office just round this corner," answered Primrose, with decision.
Accordingly, having received some rather lucid instructions the girls found themselves in a few moments in an omnibus going towards Holloway. About noon they were landed there, and then their search began. Oh, the weariness of that long day! Oh, the painful experience of the three! They knew nothing about London prices—they had not an idea whether they were being imposed upon or not.
"On one point we have quite made up our minds," said Jasmine, sturdily; "we won't go back to the Mansion until we have found rooms."