"Keep together--impossible!" replied Miss Martineau. "There is nothing
whatever before you, Primrose, but to face the inevitable. The
inevitable means that you must break up your home--that you obtain,
through the kind patronage of the Ellsworthys, a situation as
governess, or companion, or something of that sort--and that the
little girls, Jasmine and Daisy, are put into a good school for the
orphan daughters of military men. The Ellsworthys will use their
influence toward this end. They are very kind--they have taken up your
cause warmly. Primrose, my dear, it sounds hard, but plain speaking is
best. You must be parted from your sisters. This is inevitable. You
have got to face it."

"It is not inevitable," answered Primrose--then she paused, and her
face turned very white.

"It is not inevitable," she repeated, "for this reason because neither
you nor Mrs. Ellsworthy have the smallest control over my sisters or
myself. I asked for your advice, but if this is the best you can give,
it is useless. Mrs. Ellsworthy never cared to know my mother, and she
is not going to part my mother's children now. Good-bye, Miss
Martineau--no, I am not hungry, I have a headache. Oh, I am not
offended--people mean to be kind, but there are things which one
cannot bear. No, Miss Martineau, the inevitable course you and Mrs.
Ellsworthy have been kind enough to sketch out, my sisters and I will
certainly not adopt."




CHAPTER XII.