"I will dine at the restaurant," she thought, "and make my own breakfast and get my own supper. I must make this twenty pounds go as far as possible, as I do not mean to take the first thing that offers. I am determined to get a secretaryship if I can."
That evening she wrote a long letter to her mother, and another to Sir John Wallis. She told Sir John that she was preparing to fight the battle in London, and gave him her address.
"I am determined," she said in the letter, "not to eat the bread of dependence. I am firmly resolved to fight my own way, and the money you have given me is, I consider, a stepping-stone to my fortunes."
She wrote frankly and gratefully, and when Sir John read the letter he determined to keep her in mind, but not to give her any further help for the present.
"She has a good deal of character," he said to himself, "although she did fall so terribly six years ago."
Mrs. Aylmer the less also received a long letter from Florence. It was written in a very different vein from the one she had sent to Sir John. Mrs. Aylmer delighted in small news, and Florence tried to satisfy her to her heart's content. She told her about Kitty's dresses and Kitty's handsome bonnets and all the different things she was taking for her foreign tour.
She described her own life with the Sharstons during the few days she had spent with them at a London hotel, and finally she spoke of her little attic up in the clouds, and how economical she meant to be, and how far she would make her money go, and how confident she was that in the future she could help her mother; and finally she sent the little Mummy her warmest love, and folded up the letter and put it into its envelope and posted it.
That letter brought great delight to Mrs. Aylmer. It was indeed what she considered a red-letter day to her when it arrived, for by parcel post that very same day there came a large packet for her from Bertha Keys, sent straight from Aylmer's Court. This packet contained a wardrobe which set the little widow's ears tingling, and flushed her cheeks, brightened her eyes, and caused her heart, as she expressed it, to bound with joy.
"Oh, Sukey, come and look; come and look!" she cried, and Sukey ran from the kitchen and held up her hands and uttered sundry ejaculations as she helped her mistress to turn over the tempting array of garments.
"There's the silk dress. What a dear girl!" cried Mrs. Aylmer. "Isn't it a perfectly splendid dress, Sukey? We must get it cut down, of course; and the extra breadths will do to renovate it when it gets a little shabby. I shall give a tea-party, I really will, Sukey, when this dress is made as good as new. I am quite certain that I can spare you my old black silk, which you know, Sukey, has been turned four times."