Although the raucous voices of children playing in the streets assailed her ears, she was scarcely conscious of these, her thoughts being far away.  She was always a lover of nature; wildflowers, especially cowslips, affected her more than she would care to own; the scent of hay brought a longing to her heart; the sight of a roadside stream fascinated her.  Now, she was longing with a passionate desire for the peace of the country.  Upon this July evening, the corn must now be all but ripe for the sickle, making the fields a glory of gold.  She pictured herself wandering alone in a vast expanse of these; gold, gold, everywhere; a lark singing overhead.  Then, in imagination, she found her way to a nook by the Avon at Melkbridge, a spot endeared to her heart by memories that she would never forget.  As a child, she loved to steal there with her picture book; later, as a little girl, she would go there all alone, and, lying on her back, would dream, while her eyes followed the sun.  Her fondness for this place was the only thing which she had kept from her father’s knowledge.  She wondered if this hiding place, where she had loved to take her thoughts, were the same.  She could shut her eyes and recall it:  the pollard willows, the brown river banks, the swift, running river in which the forget-me-nots (so it appeared to her) never seemed to tire in the effort to see their reflection.

Darkness came out of the east.  Mavis’s heart went out to the summer night.  Then, she was aware of a feeling of physical discomfort.  The effort of imagination had exhausted her.  She became wearily conscious of the immediate present.  The last post, this time, knocked at the door of Mrs Ellis’, but it brought no letter for Mavis.  It seemed that the world had no need of her; that no one cared what became of her.  She was disinclined to go out, consequently, the limitations of her surroundings made her quickly surrender to the feeling of desolation which attacked her.  She wondered how many girls in London were, at the present moment, isolated from all congenial human companionship as she was.  She declined the landlady’s kindly offer to partake of cold boiled beef and spring onions in the status of guest; the girl seemed to get satisfaction from her morbid indulgence in self-pity.

As she was about to undress, her eye fell on the Bible which Helen Mee had given her earlier in the day.  Mavis remembered something had been written on the fly-leaf:  more from idle curiosity than from any other motive, she opened the cover of the book, to read in the old lady’s meager, pointed hand: 

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

“Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”—­ St Matthew x. 29, 31.

Mavis’s heart was filled with contrition.  She was not forgotten; there was Someone who cared what became of her.  Although she was now as one of the sparrows, which are never certain of their daily food, she could not fall without the knowledge of One who cared, and He—–­