CHAPTER XXIII.
DARK DAYS.
"How bitterly cold it is, Primrose!" The speaker was Jasmine; she sat huddled up to a small, but bright fire, which burned in the sitting-room grate.
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 in late November.
The little sitting-room still wore its rose-tinted paper, but the white curtains at the windows had assumed a decided and permanent tint of yellow, and the fog found its way in through the badly-fitting attic windows, and made the whole room look cloudy.

The girls' faces, too, had altered with the months.

Jasmine had lost a good deal of her vivacity, her expression was slightly fretful, and she no longer looked the spruce and sparkling little lass who had gone away from Rosebury in the summer.

Primrose had lost the faint color which used to tinge her cheeks; they were now almost too white for beauty, but her eyes were still clear, calm, and sweet; her dress was still the essence of simplicity and neatness, and her bearing was gentle and dignified as of old.

The alteration in Daisy was less apparent at this moment, for she was stretched on two cushions in one corner of the sitting-room, and with a warm rug thrown over her, and with the Pink curled up in her arms, was fast asleep.
"How cold it is, Primrose," repeated Jasmine; then, as her sister made no reply, but went on calmly darning some stockings, she continued, "I think you have really grown stingy.