Mrs. Dove had a habit of dropping little curtseys when she meant to be particularly deferential--she now dropped three in succession, and said in a high-pitched, and rather biting voice-- "It isn't to be expected that the opinions of young ladies and of women who have gone through their world of experience, and therefore know what's what, should coincide. I leave you ladies three to read your refreshing news from absent friends." Mrs. Dove then turned her back, and meekly shutting the door behind her, left the girls to themselves. "Them attics have become rather too uppish for my taste," she said to Dove when she got downstairs. "I took them a letter just now, and, my word! they had not eyes nor ears for me, though I toiled up all the weary stairs, which my shortness of breath don't agree to. It wasn't even 'Thank you very much, Mrs. Dove,' but all three of them, their eyes was fixed on the letter as if they'd eat it. It's my belief, Dove, that they're short of funds, for when I went yesterday to ask for the trifling loan of tenpence three-farthings to pay the cobbler for Tommy's boots, Miss Mainwaring said, as pretty as you please, but very prim and firm--'I haven't really got the money, Mrs. Dove.' Well, well, I've done a deal for those girls--elbow grease I've given them, and thought I've given them, and books for the improving of their intellecs I've lent them, and that's all the return I get, that when I bring up a letter it isn't even 'Thank you, Mrs. Dove.' What I say is this, Dove, shall I give the attics notice to quit?" "By no manner of means," answered Dove--"you mark my words, Mrs. Dove, my only love, that why they were so flurried over the letter just received was because there was money in it. Don't you turn away nice, genteel, quiet-spoken young ladies from this house. There's most likely a postal order in that letter, and my name ain't Dove if I don't get my gleanings from it." "Oh, fie, Dove! you will have your joke," answered his wife; but she said nothing further about giving the Mainwarings notice to quit. CHAPTER XXV. DAISY'S PROMISE. Mr. Danesfield always forwarded the girls' allowance in such a way that Primrose could easily obtain it--he did not trouble her with cheques or bank notes, but sent a money-order, which she could cash at the nearest post-office.