The Palace Beautiful: A Story for Girls

With the weight of her secret removed Daisy began slowly, very slowly, to mend. The strain she had undergone had been too great for her quickly to recover her strength; but litt...

Hannah was doing well in her little shop at Teckford. She had always been a most saving body, and although Mrs. Mainwaring had never been able to pay her high wages, she had man...

But although Mrs. Ellsworthy wept and lamented, although she tried both persuasions and scoldings, and finally left the cottage in a state of deep offence, vowing within herself...

Primrose's scheme had, of course, been considered most wild and most foolish by all her friends at Rosebury but even they were not prepared for her crowning act of folly. She, J...

Miss Martineau's plans had been full of directness. Having made up her mind, she wasted no precious moments. The girls must be helped; she could only give them counsel, but othe...

Daisy felt quite certain that the Prince had come. Jasmine greeted her old friend of St. Paul's Cathedral with sparkling eyes and effusive words of welcome. Primrose, too, was v...

Primrose was so anxious to soothe Daisy that she allowed her without a moment's hesitation to have her way. The moment the child felt her hot little fingers clasping the letter...

She walked quickly down the street, hoping every moment to overtake Jasmine. Miss Egerton had old-fashioned ideas about many things, and nothing could exceed her horror at the t...

"A most extraordinary thing has happened," said Mrs. Ellsworthy that evening to her husband. "We have lived for several years at Shortlands, and except when we have people in th...

Neither Primrose nor Jasmine could quite understand their little sister that night--her cold was worse, but that fact Primrose accounted for by Jasmine's imprudence in taking he...

Primrose was the soul of hospitality; having decided that Miss Martineau was to be admitted that evening, it occurred to her that she might as well make things pleasant for this...

"I have done it, my dear Joseph," said Mrs. Ellsworthy. "I went to see the children, and I wrote to that little proud princess Primrose. It will be really very nice if they all...

It is to be feared that Poppy stole away from her work that morning. Poor Poppy was getting into a sadly defiant mood. She was getting thoroughly tired of her aunt, Mrs. Flint,...

Hannah Martin had come up with her young ladies to London, and she also was invited by Mrs. Ellsworthy to come to her house. The girls all thought Hannah very much altered; they...

Mrs. Dredge's remarks had by no means been lost on Noel. When he left Miss Egerton's house he consulted his watch, and found that he had still an hour to spare before he need tr...

Last times are always sad to write about and think about, but first times are generally pleasant. Notwithstanding a certain sense of disappointment which certainly did assail th...

Mr. Danesfield always forwarded the girls' allowance in such a way that Primrose could easily obtain it--he did not trouble her with cheques or bank notes, but sent a money-orde...

Jasmine had begged of Daisy to keep her secret from Primrose's ears. She said that half her pleasure in bringing home money for her contributions would be destroyed if Primrose...

Mrs. Dove had a great many lodgers--she let rooms on each of her floors, and she called her lodgers by the name of the floor they occupied--first floor, second floor, third floo...

The next morning early Primrose opened her trunk, and unlocking a certain little morocco case, which contained her mother's letter about her lost brother, one or two trinkets wh...

"I must see you, Poppy--I must see you, and I can't come into the house. I could not face Mrs. Mortlock, nor Mrs. Dredge, nor Miss Slowcum. I am a dreadful failure, Poppy, a dre...

The girls had finished tea, and Hannah had removed all traces of the evening meal before Primrose would even glance at the thick letter which was addressed to her. She did so at...

Primrose had always been considered a very good manager. Her talents for contriving, for buying, and, in short, for making a shilling do the utmost that a shilling was capable o...

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...

"To be continual reader to Mrs. Mortlock!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Primrose, it is an act of self-denial to you--it is, isn't it? Own at once that you were very brave to do it, darl...

A few days after the girls were comfortably settled in their new quarters Primrose went out. She went out all alone, for by this time London streets and London ways were familia...

At an early hour the next morning Mrs. Dredge and Primrose started for Rosebury, and poor Jasmine and Poppy prepared to have a long and lonely time by themselves. Poppy hoped th...

The uneasiness Miss Martineau felt was by no means shared by the girls. Primrose had in reality a very practical nature; she could housekeep well, and no baker or butcher who ve...

A morning or two after this, when Daisy had greatly advanced towards convalescence, and was sitting up in Hannah's tiny little sitting-room to partake of a very dainty little br...

Miss Slowcum was right in saying that she was very particular with regard to her company. She prided herself on having select taste. She thought it well to assume distant airs t...

The girls had now been several months in Eden Street, and all the summer weather and the summer flowers had departed, and the evening in question was a very dull and foggy one i...

"Once, when you were a little child of only six years old, I came into the room where you slept, and I heard her saying to you, as she tucked you up for the night--

"Two letters," said Daisy, holding them up in her hand; "actually two letters; one for Primrose--oh, yes! of course that must be from Mr. Danesfield; and one for Jasmine--oh! Ja...

There are mothers and mothers. Mrs. Mainwaring was the kind of mother who could not possibly say a harsh word to her children--she could not be severe to them, she could never d...

All through her dreams that night Daisy sobbed and moaned. Primrose, lying awake by her side, felt more and more alarmed and concerned. What was the matter with her little siste...

Mrs. Ellsworthy felt very much excited when Miss Egerton left her. She paced up and down her pretty boudoir, her cheeks were flushed and her pretty eyes bore traces of tears. Mi...

She was standing the next morning in the room where the three sisters had slept--it was early, only five o'clock in the morning, but this was Poppy's London hour for rising. Jas...

Hannah Martin had never been much of a traveller. It was years since she set her foot inside a railway carriage. She often boasted of her abnormal lack of nerves, but she was al...

The last time in the funny little old-fashioned garden, the last loving look at Jasmine's carnations, the last eager chase of the Pink across the little grass-plot, the last far...

Miss Egerton took Arthur Noel--for it was he--straight back into her little sitting-room, and sitting down on her worn little horse-hair sofa, and raising her eyes anxiously to...

Poor little Daisy, very faint and tired, and with a feeling of almost despair in her little heart, presently crept through a gap in one of the hedges, and sat down on the grass...

"There are limits to all things," said Mrs. Mortlock; "there's a time, as the blessed Bible says, to sorrow, and a time to rejoice, and what I say too is, that there is a time w...

"I want to forget him," she said. "You say he is in the dungeon now. I don't want to think of it. If I think of it long I shall begin to be so sorry for him."

There are little girls of ten years old who in the present day are possessed of a large amount of self-possession. Some of these little maids are, in their own way, quite womanl...

Primrose, her head a little more erect than usual, her step firm, and a proud bright light in her eyes, went quickly down the little rambling village street. The plain black dre...

Mrs. Mainwaring had gone through a terrible trouble--a trouble so dark and mysterious, so impossible to feel reconciled to, that her health had been almost shattered, and she ha...

"The most curious thing has happened. I came accidentally to-day across the three girls about whom you were so interested. I met them at St. Paul's, and could not help speaking...

That night, after her sisters were in bed, Primrose again sat up late--once again she read her mother's letter; then burying her face in her hands, she sat for a long, long time...

"I'll take the Pink with me," she said to herself. "I'll empty all the things out of my little work-basket, and my darling Pink can sleep in it quite snugly, and she'll be great...

Daisy was quite right when she said that Hannah was not subject to nervous attacks. Hannah scorned nerves, and did not believe in them. When she was told that the human body was...

Mrs. Ellsworthy had by no means forgotten the girls--they had all three taken her fancy, and, as she said to her husband, she could not get them out of her head. Arthur Noel, wh...

Primrose's life was very busy at this time. Certainly nothing could be more irksome than the daily task of reading to poor Mrs. Mortlock, but the fifteen shillings a week which...

"Here's the money, Primrose--here's all the money," said little Daisy, in a weak, weak voice, when her sister came up to her bedside, and bent over her. "It was lost and the Pri...

Primrose walked down the street, passing by the little cottage which for so many years had been her home. Her sisters did not expect her to return to dinner, and her heart was t...

Miss Martineau's solemn looks, Mr. Danesfield's emphatic injunctions to make the most of their visit to Shortlands, and, above all, the expression of deep distress on Mrs. Ellsw...

Miss Martineau told her news with considerable agitation. She considered it a terrible revelation. It seemed to her a very fearful and disastrous thing that three girls brought...

After her short interview with Mr. Danesfield she went straight home, and without paying any attention to the clear voice of her pet Daisy, who called to her from the garden, or...