Friendless Felicia

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
CHAPTER
YOU won't be able to see much longer, Felicia, and I'm sure you're trying your eyes dreadfully, now. Put up your work, child. Perhaps to-morrow I shall be strong enough to help a bit.
Felicia, a little girl of about twelve years old, who sat industriously working a sewing machine at a round table close to the window, finished running together the two lengths of print she was in the midst of joining, and then, dropping her hands into her lap with a gesture expressive of weariness, looked at her mother with a smile as she exclaimed in a tone of relief—
There! I've finished for to-night. I've not done such a bad day's work after all.
I'm glad to hear that; and I'm very glad you've finished, for the noise of the machine does make my head ache so badly, it gets on my nerves, so that even in the night I hear the 'whirr-whirr-whirr'—it won't let me sleep.
Poor mother!
The little girl's voice was full of intense sadness and regret, as her soft, blue eyes anxiously scanned the pallid countenance of her mother, who lay—worn almost to a shadow—on the bed which occupied one corner of the room. In this attic of a house let in tenements, situated in a side street in the heart of the city of Bristol, Mrs. Renford and her little daughter had lived for the past two years, supported by the earnings of the former as a blouse and apron maker.
A few days previously, Mrs. Renford, who had been ailing for some time, had fallen ill, and much to Felicia's alarm did not appear to be getting better, though she was lying in bed—to pick up her strength, she herself said. Felicia had desired to call in the parish doctor, but her mother had strenuously opposed this suggestion, declaring every day she would be stronger on the morrow; meanwhile, work had to be done to supply money for daily bread, and the little girl was obliged to do it, labouring from daybreak to dusk at the sewing machine. How thankful she was that it was summer! Though it was intensely hot in their attic home, that was better than having to suffer cold, as they certainly would have done had it been winter, for where would the money have come from to purchase coals?