A City Schoolgirl and Her Friends

Fifty pounds a year must support Stella Wharton and her younger sister Vava after a family loss leaves their future uncertain. At twenty-one, Stella proposes earning a living in London, drawing on three years of work as her father's secretary and her ability to type and handle French manuscripts. Their lawyer challenges her hopeful estimates of rent and expenses. May Baldwin begins this story for young readers with the practical arithmetic of independence and the sisters' wish to remain together.

Their attachment to their former home at Lomore also makes accepting help complicated. In a later scene, familiar furniture in a new sitting room brings both comfort and unease, as Vava welcomes the kindness and Stella worries about her private possessions. Everyday conversations carry the tension between gratitude, pride and personal boundaries. Readers interested in girls' fiction about work, family loyalty and friendship will find those concerns expressed through household details and sharply differing reactions.