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The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls by L. T. Meade
page 261 of 366 (71%)
Poppy's last money for nothing. Oh, now there was no doubt at all that
God was very angry with her, and that she had been both wicked and
selfish. She had still twopence in her pocket--for the good-natured
omnibus conductor had paid her fare himself. She would go to the
nearest cottage and ask for some milk for the Pink, and then she
wondered--poor, little, lonely, unhappy child--how long it would take
her to die.




CHAPTER XLI.

MRS. DREDGE TO THE RESCUE.


High tea at Penelope Mansion was an institution. Mrs. Flint said in
confidence to her boarders that she preferred high tea to late dinner.
She said that late dinner savored too distinctly of the mannish
element for her to tolerate. It reminded her, she said, of clerks
returning home dead-beat after a day's hard toil; it reminded her of
sordid labor, and of all kinds of unpleasant things; whereas high tea
was in itself womanly, and was in all respects suited to the gentle
appetites of ladies who were living genteelly on their means. Mrs.
Flint's boarders were as a rule impressed by her words, and high tea
was, in short, a recognized institution of the establishment.

On the evening of the day when poor little Daisy had disappeared from
her Palace Beautiful Mrs. Flint's boarders were enjoying their genteel
repast in the cool shades of her parlor. They had shrimps for tea, and
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