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me.’
    ‘Tell him not to pay any extra for it himself though, if that’s not enough,’ said Daisy.
    ‘Let’s choose you a rich husband,’ said Rose. ‘It’s a shame that Great-Aunt Lizzie has given up having magazines delivered. Still I’ve cut lots of society pictures out from The Lady . Wait! I’ll get my scrapbook.’
    By the time the penny stamps were all glued on to the parcel, Rose was back with her cuttings scrapbook.
    ‘What about the Earl of Charleforth?’ she asked.
    ‘He’s bald,’ said Violet, glaring at the picture in Rose’s scrapbook.
    ‘He’s probably even balder now,’ said Rose cheerfully. ‘That picture must have been taken about five years ago. He’s still in uniform. He’s rich though. It talks about him going back to care for his extensive estates. I found that newspaper on a shelf in the linen cupboard.’
    ‘Father’s got extensive estates, but he’s poor,’ pointed out Daisy.
    ‘That’s because of dastardly Denis; the ’orrible heir,’ said Poppy knowledgeably. The shortcomings of the unpleasant heir to the Derrington estate were a popular topic during their father’s more garrulous moods. ‘He won’t allow Father to sell the woodland and so all of the trees are falling down in storms and we’re as poor as church mice. The Penningtons have sold another farm – Morgan told me that.’
    ‘If only you were a boy,’ said Violet irritably to Rose. ‘Then you would be the heir. Everybody was sure you were going to be a boy before you were born. I remember Nanny talking to us about a ‘little brother’. If you were the heir you could agree to Father selling the trees and a couple of farms and then I could have a season in London like all the other girls.’
    ‘Look, here’s the man for you,’ said Rose, ignoring Violet’s constantly repeated lament about the family estate going to a distant cousin who was an unpleasant individual, determined not to help their father in his money troubles. ‘Go on, look! You can’t say he’s bald.’
    Violet surveyed the picture framed by Rose’s cupped hand. A slight smile tugged at the petulant corners of her lovely mouth. ‘I must say that he is rather good-looking. Looks a bit like that Rudolph Valentino in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse . Who is he? I’m sure I’ve seen him before.’
    ‘Prince George,’ said Rose, removing her hand. ‘Just the perfect age for you – three years older. He was born on the twentieth of December, 1902.’ Rose was a great authority on the royal family and knew all their birthdays, the cars they drove, the house parties they attended, the sports that they were good at and even their second, third, fourth and fifth names.
    ‘I’m sure that King George would love me to marry his son,’ said Violet glumly. ‘He would regard it as a very good match – especially if I turned up in darned breeches and a jumper that has been washed ten times too often.’
    ‘Well, Prince George is his fourth son so he’s probably not too fussy,’ said Rose wisely. ‘After all, he has only managed to get one of them engaged so far. And they go to every party in London. There are pages and pages of the royal princes in all the copies of The London Illustrated News .’
    Violet stared moodily at the parcel with its rows of penny stamps. Suddenly she picked it up and kissed it. ‘If only the Duchess will invite me to one of those parties,’ she said. ‘I promise you that I will do my best. I’ll marry someone rich and then I’ll present you all in court and you’ll make splendid marriages too. I swear I’ll do that!’
    And then she put it down and burst into tears. ‘It’s all so silly,’ she said tragically. ‘It’s like Cinderella. I’m too old for fairy stories. Nothing is going to happen. We’re going to go on living in this dreary place year after year, having no fun, being poor, poor, poor.’
    Daisy looked at Poppy and found her twin’s amber eyes fixed on hers. One eyebrow was