Sparrows: The Story of an Unprotected Girl

Mavis followed her new friend past the pay box, down the carpeted stairs, into the street. She could not help seeing how bedraggled a sparrow she appeared when contrasted with t...

After securing a place in "Dawes'," which Mavis did at her interview with Mr Skeffington Dawes (one of the directors of the firm), her first sensation was one of disappointment,...

Four weeks later, Mavis got out of the train at Melkbridge. She breathed a sigh of relief when her feet touched the platform; her one regret was that she was not leaving London...

Miss Hunter winced; she stared fixedly at Mavis, with eyes in which admiration and envy were expressed. Later, when Mavis was leaving for the day, Miss Hunter fussed about her w...

On the following Sunday fortnight, Mavis left the train at Dippenham quite late in the evening. She purposed driving with her baby and Jill in a fly the seven miles necessary to...

The following Friday morning, Mavis Keeves sprang from bed on waking. It was late when she had gone to sleep the previous night, for she had been kept up by the festivities pert...

A little one was journeying to Mavis. A great fear, not unmixed with a radiant wonder, filled her being. It was now three months since her joyous stay with Perigal at Polperro....

Mavis and Jill stood outside Mrs Gowler's, in the late evening of the Wednesday after the day on which Miss Nippett had commenced her long, long rest. Mavis had left the trunk s...

The Sunday week after Mavis' meeting with Perigal at Dippenham, she left the train at Paddington a few minutes after six in the evening. She got a porter to wheel her luggage to...

Mavis found a resting-place for her tired body in the unattractive district of Pimlico, which is the last halting-place of so many of London's young women before the road to per...

Mrs Bilkins sat on the bed, seemingly inclined to gossip. Mavis did not discourage her; for some reason, the landlady was looking different from when she had seen her the day be...

One night, Mavis went back to "Dawes'" earlier than usual. She was wearing the boots bought with her carefully saved pence; these pinched her feet, making her weary and irritabl...

Mavis scrambled out of the train, just in time to prevent herself from being carried on to the next stopping--place. She smoothed her ruffled plumage and looked about her. She f...

Thus it would seem as if fate wished to make amends for the sorry tricks it had played Mavis. Her first impressions after hearing the news were of such a contradictory nature th...

When Mavis regained a semblance of consciousness, something soft and warm lay on her heart. Jill was watching her with anxious eyes. A queer little female figure stood beside th...

Mavis invested a fraction of her savings in the purchase of rod, fishing tackle, landing net, and bait can; she also bought a yearly ticket from the Avon Conservancy Board, enti...

Mavis was in love, consequently the world was transformed. All her previous hesitations in surrendering to her incipient love for Perigal were forgotten; the full, flowing curre...

Mavis looked at the friend of her youth. As she saw him now, he was, in appearance, but a grown-up replica of the boy she remembered. There were the same steely blue eyes, curly...

Mavis spoke truly. She loved her husband, although with a different love from that which she had known for Perigal. She had adored the father of her child with her soul and with...

Upon a day on which the trees and hedges were again frocked in spring finery in honour of approaching summer, Mrs Devitt was sitting with her sister in the drawing-room of Melkb...

Four days later, Mavis spent the late afternoon with her baby and Jill in the grounds of Chelsea Hospital. She then took a 'bus to Ebury Bridge (Jill running behind), to get out...

"Does the fact of people agreeing to think it wrong make it really wrong?" asked Miss Toombs, to add, "especially when the thinking what you call 'doing wrong' is actuated by se...

The girl was too weary to give explanations, to talk, even to think; the contemplation of the wreck of the castles that she had been building in the air had tired her: she went...

Mavis's ride to Pennington was her last appearance out of doors for many a long day. For weeks she lay at Mrs Trivett's on the borderland of death. For nights on end, it was the...

Mavis' heart seemed to stop. She knew the bag contained her trinkets, her reserve capital of twenty-three pounds, Perigal's letters, her powder-puff, and other feminine odds and...

A day came when Mavis's courage failed. Acting on the advice of kindly Mrs Scatchard, she had bought, for the sum of one guinea, a confinement outfit from a manufacturer of such...

Directly she left the police station with Mr Napper, all her old fears and forebodings for the future resumed sway over her thoughts. As before, she sought to allay them by undi...

"I haven't a soul in the world who cares what becomes of me: not a friend in the world. And all I valued you've soiled. It made me hate you, and nothing will ever alter it. Good...

Mavis was seriously alarmed for Miss Nippett. Her friend was so ill that she insisted upon a doctor being called in. After examining the patient, he told her that Miss Nippett w...

Days passed swiftly for Mavis; weeks glided into months, months into seasons. When the anniversary of the day on which she had commenced work at the boot factory came round, she...

Mavis was alone. She had spoken truly when she had hinted how she was averse to the company of her own thoughts. It was then that clouds seemed disposed to threaten the sun of h...

This was the beginning of a conversation that took place a fortnight after Mavis's first meeting with Harold by the sea. During this time, they had seen each other for the best...

One morning, when Mavis was leaving Harold, she was recalled by one of the nurses. He had signalled that he wished to see her again. Upon Mavis hastening to his side, he tried t...

Mavis never left the still, white body of her little one. She was convinced that they were all mistaken, and that he must soon awaken from the sleep into which he had fallen. Sh...

There followed for Mavis many, many anxious days, spent from the first thing in the morning till late at night in a fruitless search for work. Her experiences were much the same...

Seven weeks passed quickly for Mavis, during which her horizon sensibly widened. She learned many things, the existence of which she would never have thought possible till the k...

Although, as time went on, Mavis became used to her griefs, and although she got pleasure from the opulent, cultured atmosphere with which she was surrounded, she was neither ph...

When, a few moments later, Mr Poulter came into the room, his appearance surprised Mavis. She expected and braced herself to interview a person with greasy, flowing locks and th...

Everyone at Melkbridge knew the Devitts: they lived in the new, pretentious-looking house, standing on the right, a few minutes after one left the town by the Bathminster road....

She disregarded the many questions that several of the girls came upstairs to ask her. She packed up her things as a preliminary to leaving "Dawes'" for good. For many hours she...

Mavis heard him calling her name, first one way, then another; once, he approached and came quite near her, but he changed his direction, to pass immediately out of her ken.

They were now in Piccadilly. The pavement on which they walked was crowded with women of all ages; some walked in pairs, others, singly. Whatever their age and appearance, all t...