If I cannot adopt all three, why at
least can I not have Jasmine?--Jasmine is my favorite, although I love
that little pet Daisy too. Arthur, you may talk to me from morning to
night, but you will never persuade me but that Jasmine is the sort of
girl who would shine better in prosperity than in adversity."
"You cannot take her from her sisters," said Noel; "I do not believe
you would get her to leave them--but if you were to try and were to
succeed, you would certainly lower her character, and having done
this, you could not say she would be a better girl in prosperity than
in adversity."
"You are so particular, Arthur," half grumbled Mrs. Ellsworthy; "you
must have forgotten your own very poor days, or you would not speak so
warmly for adversity."
"I don't quite forget them," said Arthur, a cloud coming over his
face, which was a particularly bright one. "I have a dim memory about
them, and a very, very dim memory about a mother and an old nurse, who
loved me very much. I can just recall crying night after night for my
mother, and being beaten, and silenced, and half starved. Then I
suppose I was ill, for I know there is a blank which I never can fill
up; but I shall always remember that day when I stood in the snowy
street, and cried so bitterly, and tried to ask for pennies, and how
my hat blew off, and I ran to catch it, and then--"
"Oh, it was horrible!" said Mrs.
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