entrance to the girls' rooms. By the time Jasmine, Daisy, and Poppy
were joyously driving towards the city Dove had taken possession of
their nice bright rooms. When he got in he locked the outer door, and
then he felt quite comfortable, and at leisure to look around him.

The first thing he saw was the letter directed to Primrose on the
sitting-room table. He took it up, and examined it closely. He could
spell out--for he was by no means a proficient reader--the word
Rosebury on one of the post-marks; that was enough for him; the letter
was tucked neatly into his pocket, and then he went round the room in
search of fresh spoil.

He found very little, for the Palace Beautiful showed none of its
charms to his eyes; in Dove's opinion it was a poor sort of
place--clean, certainly, but what of that? Dove considered that
cleanliness meant poverty. Dove's tastes lay in the direction of rooms
thickly carpeted; he liked two or three carpets, one on the top of the
other, on a floor; he liked the rooms to be well crowded with
furniture--furniture of the good old mahogany type, heavy and
dark--and the windows draped with thick merino. A room so furnished
would, as Dove expressed it, look solid, and mean a heavy purse, and
perhaps a nice little nest-egg laid by tidily in one of the drawers or
bureaus. Such a room would be very interesting to examine, but this
sitting-room, with its crimson drugget, and its white flooring, its
one or two choice engravings on the walls, and its little book-case
filled with good and valuable books, was, Dove considered, very shabby
indeed. He found nothing more worth taking, and having given the Pink
a kick by way of a parting blessing, he left the room, made his exit
again by the roof, and so departed unperceived. He had Primrose's
letter in his pocket, and he thought himself very lucky to have so