A song-bird

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...

MRS. GREY received a letter from her brother-in-law by return of post, in which, as she had anticipated would be the case, he expressed his willingness to make a home for Mavis...

IT was a fine afternoon at the end of September, on one of those golden days which frequently come when summer is ended, and the Mill House at W— was looking its best. It was an...

MRS. GREY was to leave the Mill House soon after breakfast on Monday morning. Accordingly, she arose at daybreak, and was fully dressed and had packed her travelling-bag before...

THE morning following Mrs. Grey's departure from the Mill House, Mavis accompanied Rose to school. Their way led past the church and the vicarage, and through the village. And a...

AUTUMN had given place to winter, a wet, depressing winter with rain and westerly gales, and the flat country between W— and Oxford was flooded. There had been almost incessant...

"The ice will bear to-day," remarked Mr. Grey, one morning at breakfast. "I believe we're in for a spell of dry weather. You must look to your skates, children, for, if all's we...

THE miller's thrifty wife was not by any means a hard woman, but she lacked that quick sympathy for others which is generally the outcome of a vivid imagination joined to a kind...

"THERE, now I have all my presents ready," Mavis declared in a satisfied tone, one morning a few days before Christmas, as she dropped great splashes of red sealing-wax on the s...

"OH, Mavis! Oh, Bob! Mother's very ill! Oh, isn't it dreadful? The doctor's going to send a hospital nurse to take care of her, for he says she'll be ill for weeks, if—if she re...

IT was a beautiful afternoon in May. The lilac and laburnum trees were in full bloom in the Mill House garden. And fritillaries—snakes' heads, as some people call them—were plen...