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CHAPTER
A SONG-BIRD
MAVIS AND HER MOTHER
"THERE, I've finished. How the days are drawing in, to be sure! I declare it's getting dark already, though it's only six o'clock."
The scene was an upstairs sitting-room in a dingy London lodging-house, on a September evening. And the speaker--Mrs. Grey--rose from her seat at the table as she spoke, and laid aside her writing materials with an air of relief, afterwards placing the letter, over the composition of which she had spent fully half an hour, on the mantelpiece. She then took an easy-chair by the window, whilst the other occupant of the room--her little daughter, Mavis, who had been watching the passers-by in the street--settled herself on a stool at her feet.
"Now we can have a nice chat, mother," Mavis said. "I've been longing to talk, but I haven't liked to disturb you. You've been writing a very particular letter, haven't you?"
"Yes, dear; but how did you guess that?"
"You looked so grave, and, I thought, sad. There's nothing very much amiss, is there, mother? Are you worrying because you haven't had any nursing to do lately? We've money left to go on with, haven't we?"
Mavis was a pretty little girl of ten years, with beautiful hazel eyes, and a quantity of soft brown hair which curled naturally and could never be kept tidy. Her expression was one of great anxiety, as she looked up into her mother's face and waited for her response.
Mrs. Grey did not answer immediately. She was a tall, handsome woman, with a self-reliant manner, and a countenance which inspired trust. She had been left a widow several years previously, since when she had had a hard battle to fight. For her husband, who had held a curacy in the East End of London, had had no private means, and at his death she had found herself nearly penniless.
Before her marriage, however, she had been fully qualified as a nurse, so she had taken up her old profession again, and had earned sufficient by private nursing to support herself and her child. Of late, she had been out of work, and things had looked dark altogether; but she owned a brave heart and was not easily cast down. So that it had been with awe as well as with surprise, that Mavis had observed her shedding tears over the letter she had been writing.
"As a matter of fact, we've very little money left," Mrs. Grey admitted, at length. "But I'm not troubled about that now, for I have been asked and have engaged to nurse a rich young lady who is threatened with consumption, and--and it is likely to be a long engagement."
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