"I want to ask you two questions," began Primrose. "The questions are short. They are about money; and you understand all about that." "Not all, my dear girl--money is far too great a theme to be wholly comprehended by one single individual." Primrose tapped her foot impatiently--then, after a brief pause, she raised her clear brown eyes, and looked full at the banker. "How much money have we in the bank, Mr. Danesfield?" "My dear child, not much--very little, scarcely anything. 'Pon my word, I am sorry for you, but your entire capital does not amount to quite two hundred pounds." Primrose received this information calmly. "Thank you," she said--"I just wanted to know from yourself. Now, I have one other question to ask you, and then I will go. My sisters and I have thirty pounds a year to live on. By drawing a little on our capital, say, taking ten or fifteen pounds a year from it, can we live, Mr. Danesfield?" Mr. Danesfield rose from his seat, and coming over to Primrose, laid his hand on her shoulder-- "Live! my poor, dear child; you and your sisters would starve. No, Miss Mainwaring, there is nothing for you three girls to do but to turn to and earn your living. Your friends, I doubt not, will help, and you must take their help. I shall be delighted to give advice. Now, my dear child, my trap is at the door, and I must go. Good morning--good morning." CHAPTER IX. A STRANGE LETTER AND A PROPOSED VISIT TO LONDON. Primrose was always direct in her movements--she made up her mind quickly; from her earliest childhood she was in the habit of acting with decision. After her short interview with Mr. Danesfield she went straight home, and without paying any attention to the clear voice of her pet Daisy, who called to her from the garden, or to Jasmine's little impatient--"Sister, I want you to help me to arrange the trimming on my new black skirt," she ran upstairs, and locked herself into her mother's room. There she once more opened the old davenport, and took from it the thick packet, which contained a shabby little desk, inside of which lay a letter directed to herself. Now at last she opened the letter, and in her own great perplexity read the message from the grave. The letter was dated about three months back, and was in her mother's neatest and most easily read writing. "My dear daughter," it began, "I have no present reason to suppose that my life will be cut short, therefore I cannot tell whether this letter will be read by you now, while you are young, or years hence, when your youth is over. "One thing I have resolved--you shall not know the little secret it contains during my lifetime. I keep it from you, my darling, because I could not bear you to speak of it to me, because at the time it gave me such agony that I have locked it up in my heart, and no one, not even my own child, must open the doors where my dead secret lies.