“All right, Miss Daisy,” said Poppy, returning the child’s embrace; “here’s the fifteen shilling, and welcome.  Only I never would have called sweet Miss Primrose an ogre, Miss Daisy.”

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE JOURNEY.

Poppy went away presently, and the moment she was gone Daisy began to make some hasty little preparations.

“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 company to me, for I cannot help feeling very shaky, and I do start so when I see any one the least like Mr. Dove in the distance.  I mustn’t think about being frightened now—­this is the least I could do, and if I’m terrified all over I must go through with it.”

Then Daisy wrote a tiny note—­a little note on half a sheet of paper—­which she tore out of her copy-book.  It was blotted with tears and almost illegible.  This was what she said:—­

“Primrose, darling, I and the Pink, we have gone away for a little bit.  Your money is lost, Primrose, and I cannot look you in the face until I get it back again.  Don’t be a bit frightened about me—­I and the Pink will come back when we have got the money.

     “Your loving little
     “DAISY.”

This note was left open on the table to greet Primrose when she came in, and then Daisy buttoned on her little jacket, and put on her strongest pair of boots, and the neat little hat which Primrose had trimmed for her the week before, and popping the Pink into her work-basket, she stole softly downstairs and out of the house without old Bridget, who was busily engaged in the back kitchen, hearing her.

The poor little maid got into the street just when the shades of evening were beginning to fall.  She had the Pink in her basket, and fifteen shillings clasped tightly inside one of her gloves.  Fifteen shillings paid for a third single to Rosebury, and she was going to Rosebury—­so far her plans were definite enough; beyond this broad fact, however, all was chaos.

Daisy knew very little more about London than she had known nine months before, when first she and her sisters arrived in the great city.  She had gone out much less than the other two, and she had never gone alone.  Whenever she had walked abroad she had gone with a companion.

Now her only companion was the Pink, and the poor little heart felt very lonely, and the little feet trembled as they walked along the pavement.

She had been so terrified about Poppy finding out what she really wanted to do with the fifteen shillings that she had been afraid to ask her any questions about Rosebury.  She had not an idea from what railway station she was to go, and she feared, as she walked through the streets, that she might have to walk many miles.