But the matter had to be settled at once.  The letter had come an hour ago, containing a stamped telegraph form, and Aunt Margaret was not one to be trifled with.

Since breakfast the three had talked of nothing else, and from the very first Mrs. Bunting had said that Daisy ought to go—­that there was no doubt about it, that it did not admit of discussion.  But discuss it they all did, and for once Bunting stood up to his wife.  But that, as was natural, only made his Ellen harder and more set on her own view.

“What the child says is true,” he observed.  “It isn’t as if you was quite well.  You’ve been took bad twice in the last few days —­you can’t deny of it, Ellen.  Why shouldn’t I just take a bus and go over and see Margaret?  I’d tell her just how it is.  She’d understand, bless you!”

“I won’t have you doing nothing of the sort!” cried Mrs. Bunting, speaking almost as passionately as her stepdaughter had done.  “Haven’t I a right to be ill, haven’t I a right to be took bad, aye, and to feel all right again—­same as other people?”

Daisy turned round and clasped her hands.  “Oh, Ellen!” she cried; “do say that you can’t spare me!  I don’t want to go across to that horrid old dungeon of a place.”

“Do as you like,” said Mrs. Bunting sullenly.  “I’m fair tired of you both!  There’ll come a day, Daisy, when you’ll know, like me, that money is the main thing that matters in this world; and when your Aunt Margaret’s left her savings to somebody else just because you wouldn’t spend a few days with her this Christmas, then you’ll know what it’s like to go without—­you’ll know what a fool you were, and that nothing can’t alter it any more!”

And then, with victory actually in her grasp, poor Daisy saw it snatched from her.

“Ellen is right,” Bunting said heavily.  “Money does matter—­a terrible deal—­though I never thought to hear Ellen say ’twas the only thing that mattered.  But ’twould be foolish—­very, very foolish, my girl, to offend your Aunt Margaret.  It’ll only be two days after all—­two days isn’t a very long time.”

But Daisy did not hear her father’s last words.  She had already rushed from the room, and gone down to the kitchen to hide her childish tears of disappointment—­the childish tears which came because she was beginning to be a woman, with a woman’s natural instinct for building her own human nest.

Aunt Margaret was not one to tolerate the comings of any strange young man, and she had a peculiar dislike to the police.

“Who’d ever have thought she’d have minded as much as that!” Bunting looked across at Ellen deprecatingly; already his heart was misgiving him.

“It’s plain enough why she’s become so fond of us all of a sudden,” said Mrs. Bunting sarcastically.  And as her husband stared at her uncomprehendingly, she added, in a tantalising tone, “as plain as the nose on your face, my man.”

“What d’you mean?” he said.  “I daresay I’m a bit slow, Ellen, but I really don’t know what you’d be at?”