Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/84

66 of money come somehow, or else we’re so poor, everything swept away, that we’ve got to be cash girls, at four dollars a week.”

“Too much,” said Win, shaking his head. “Red-haired girls at three-fifty; that’s the rule.”

“They’re coming, anyway, Mr. and Mrs. Moulton are coming,” Florimel called over the banisters as she hurriedly buttoned her waist in the back and pulled it down into place after she had done this. “We’ll soon know what it is. Mother was English, wasn’t she? Maybe we’re earls, I mean dukes, duchesses—oh, noble!”

“We are noble, Mel,” said Win gravely; “very noble. If we weren’t noble, my dear, we should long ago have dealt with you as you deserve.”

Mark was nowhere to be seen, though he was staying this second night in Hollyhock House, having arranged to begin his service to Mr. Moulton on the next day.

“He’s a nice boy to take himself off, but Mr. Moulton can’t have anything to say that any one might not hear,” said Win, going out to meet the visitors. Yet when Win came back, stepping aside to allow the girls’ guardian to precede him into the house, there was an instant perception of something out of the ordinary on the