Kensington is a nice, quiet, respectable
neighborhood; you might take the drawing-room floor of a very quiet,
nice house, and ask the landlady to offer it to the girls for five
shillings a week, or something nominal of that sort. Primrose is so
innocent at present that she will think five shillings quite a large
sum; but tell the lady of the house to let it include all extras--I
mean such as gas and firing. I suppose you could not get a house with
the electric light?--no, of course not; it is not used yet in private
dwellings--gas is so unwholesome, but the girls might use candles.
Tell the landlady to provide them with the best candles, and tell her
I'll pay her something handsome if she'll go out with them. And, my
dear Arthur, _don't_ let them go in omnibuses. Do your best, and,
above all things, take them away from that awful mansion as soon as
possible.
"Your affectionate Mother-Friend,
"KATE ELLSWORTHY."
But alas! when Arthur Noel, in accordance with Mrs. Ellsworthy's
instructions, went to see the girls, he was confronted first by Mrs.
Flint, who assured him in her soft and cushion-like style that the
young ladies had left, and as they had been undutiful enough not to
confide in her she could furnish him with no address.
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