'Mamma,' she said, 'are you busy? May I talk to you a little?'
Mrs Mildmay laid down her pen.
'I was writing to Marmy,' she said, 'but I have plenty of time. What is it, dear? I am glad to have a little quiet talk together. I have been wishing for it, too.'
But Jacinth scarcely seemed to listen.
'Mamma,' she began again, somewhat irrelevantly it might have seemed. 'Brook Street isn't a very grand part of London, is it? At least all the houses in it are not tremendously grand, are they? I was thinking about Lady Myrtle's house. Couldn't it be arranged for us to be her tenants? I'm sure she would like it if she thought we would. Mightn't I say something about it to her? She likes me to say whatever I think of, but I thought—for such a thing as a house, perhaps I had better ask you first.'
'But, my dearest child, we don't want any house in London,' said Mrs Mildmay with a smile which she strove to make unconstrained. 'You forget, dear, the choice was never between Barmettle and London, but between Barmettle and India again, and'——
'But mamma,' interrupted Jacinth, 'please answer my question first. Is Brook Street very grand? Would a house there be out of the question for us, even if we—if we had one there for nothing?'
'Yes; unless we had another thousand a year at least, we could not possibly live there on our income with any comfort or consistency,' Mrs Mildmay replied quietly.
The girl's face fell.
'A thousand a year! that's a good deal,' she said. 'I had thought'——