Meade L. T. - The Time of Roses стр 12.

"I have had quite an adventure," he said. "Mother, I want to know if you will do something for me."

"You have but to ask, Maurice."

"There is a girl" he hesitated, and a very slight accession of colour came into his bronzed cheeks, "there is a girl I have taken rather a fancy to. Oh, no, I am not the least bit in love with her, so don't imagine it, little mother; but I pity her, and like her also exceedingly. I met her down at Dawlish. I want to know if you will be good to her. I came across her to-day whilst walking in town, and she was looking, oh! so fagged out and tired! I said you would write and invite her to come and see us here, and I promised that you would ask her to spend next Sunday with us."

"Oh, my dear Maurice, your last Sunday with me, God only knows for how long!"

"But you don't mind, do you, mother?"

She looked at him very earnestly. She was a wise woman in her way.

"No, I don't mind," she said; "I will ask her, of course."

"Then that is all right. Her name is Miss Florence Aylmer, and this is her address."

"Aylmer! How strange!"

"It is all very strange, mother. I cannot understand it, and it troubles me a good deal. She is Florence Aylmer, and she is my Mrs. Aylmer's niece by marriage."

"Very queer," said Mrs. Trevor; "I never thought Mrs. Aylmer had any relations. What sort of girl did you say she was?"

"Not exactly handsome, but with a taking face and a good deal of pluck about her and oh, mother, I believe she is starvingly poor, and she has to earn her own living, I made her have a cup to tea and some bread-and-butter to-night, and she ate as if she were famished. It's awfully distressing. I really don't know what ought to be done."

CHAPTER XV. EDITH FRANKS

a room on the third floor, No. 17. What is your number?"

"Oh, I aspire a good bit," said Florence, with the ghost of a smile; "the number of my room is 32."

"May I come and see you?"

"No, thank you."

"What a rude girl! You certainly are fearfully neurotic. Ah! here comes no, it's not my dinner, it is yours."

The soup Florence had ordered was placed before her. How she wished this bright-eyed girl, with the rude manner, as she considered, would resume her German.

"Would you like me to go on reading?" said the girl.

"You can please yourself, of course," answered Florence.

"I won't look at you, if that is what you mean; but I do wish, if I may not come to see you, that you will come to see me. There are so few girls at present in the house, and those who are there ought to make friends, ought they not? See: this is my card Edith Franks."

"And you really mean to be a doctor a doctor?" said Florence, not glancing at the card which her companion pushed towards her.

"It is the dearest dream of my life. I want to follow in the steps of Mrs. Garrett Anderson; is she not noble? I thought you would be pleased."

"I don't know that I am; it does not sound feminine," replied Florence. She was devouring her soup, and hating Edith Franks for staring at her.

Presently Edith's own dinner arrived, and she began to eat. She ate in a leisurely fashion, sipping her soup, and breaking her bread into small portions. She was not very hungry; in fact, she was scarcely hungry at all.

As Florence's own quite large meal proceeded, she began to consider herself the greediest of the greedy.

Miss Franks sat on and chatted. She talked very well, and she had plenty of tact, and soon Florence began to consider her rather agreeable than the reverse. Florence had ordered five distinct dishes for her dinner, and she ate each dish right through. Miss Franks was now even afraid to glance in her direction.

"There is no doubt the poor soul was starving," she said to herself.

At last Florence's meal was over. The two girls left the table together.

"Come to my room, won't you, to-night? It is not seven o'clock yet. I always have cocoa between nine and ten. Come and have a cup of cocoa with me, will you not?"

"Thank you," said Florence; "you are very good. My name is Florence Aylmer."

"And you are studying? What are you doing?"

"I am not studying."

"Aren't you? Then "

"You are full of curiosity, and you want to know why I am here," said Florence. "I am here because I want to earn my bread. I hope to get a situation soon. I am a girl out of a situation you know the kind." She gave a laugh, and ran up the winding stairs to her own attic at the top of the house, without glancing back at Edith Franks.

"Shy, poor, and half-starved," said the medical student to herself; "I thought my work would come to me if I waited long enough. I must look after her a little bit."

Meanwhile, the very first thing Florence found when she entered her room was a letter, or, rather, a packet, lying on her table. She pounced upon it, as the hungry pounce on food. Her appetite was thoroughly satisfied at last, and her mind was just in the humour to require some diversion. She thought that she would rather like having cocoa presently with Miss Franks.

"She shall not patronise me; of that I am resolved," thought the proud girl. But here was a letter a thick, thick letter. She flung herself into the first chair and tore it open. She glanced, a puzzled expression on her face, at pages of closely-written matter, and then picked up a single sheet, which had fallen from the packet. The letter was from Bertha Keys, and ran as follows: