ugh it with
system. I approve of your sending Daisy into the garden, Primrose. She
is too young to listen to all that we must go into. I purpose dears,
after the manner of our school-hours, to divide our discourse into
heads--two heads will probably be sufficient for this evening. First,
the severe loss you have just sustained--that we will talk over, and
no doubt mingle our tears together over; take courage, my dear
children, such an unburdening will relieve your young hearts.
Second--Jasmine, you need not get so very red, my dear--second, we
will discuss something also of importance; how are you three dear
girls going to live?"

Here Miss Martineau paused, took off her spectacles, wiped them, and
put them on again. She felt really very kindly, and would have worked
herself to a skeleton, if need be, for the sake of the Mainwarings,
whom she sincerely loved. Jasmine's red face, however, grew still
redder.

"Please, Miss Martineau--yes, Primrose, I will speak--please, Miss
Martineau, we cannot discuss dear mamma with you. There is nothing to
discuss, and nothing to tell--I won't--I can't--Primrose, I won't
listen, and I won't talk."

Miss Martineau shook her head, and looked really angrily at Jasmine.

"Nothing to tell," she said, sorrowfully. "Is your poor dear mother
then so soon forgotten? I could not have believed it. Alas! alas! how
little children appreciate their parents."

"You are not a parent yourself, and you know nothing about it," said
Jasmine, now feeling very angry, and speaking in her rudest tone.

Primrose's quiet voice interposed.

"I think, Miss Martineau," she began, "that the first subject will be
more than Jasmine and I can quite bear--you must forgive us, even if
you fail quite to understand us. It is no question of forgetting--our
mother will never be forgotten--it is just that we would rather not.
You must allow us to judge for ourselves on this point," concluded
Primrose, with that dignity that suited her so well. Primrose, for all
her extreme quietness and simplicity of manner and bearing, could look
like a young princess when she chose, and Miss Martineau, who would
have quarrelled fiercely with Jasmine, submitted.

"Very well," she said, in a tone of some slight offence; "I came here
with a heart brimful of sympathy; it is repulsed; it goes back as it
came, but I bear no offence."

"Shall we discuss your second subject, dear Miss Martineau?" continued
Primrose. "I know that you h