"I'm in much less pain, miss, and that's a great mercy," Malvina replied, "but I doubt if I'm really better for all that. I asked the house surgeon the other day if he thought I was improving at all, but he put me off—wouldn't say, you know. So, yesterday, I asked Dr. Elizabeth; I was certain she would tell me the truth."
"And what did she say?" asked Ann gently, with a sinking sensation in her heart and anxiety in her face and voice.
"That I was not better yet, and that mine is one of those puzzling cases which baffle doctors, and I must have patience a little longer."
"A little longer?" echoed Violet. "Oh, that sounds hopeful, doesn't it? Are you happy here, Malvina?"
"Happier than I was at first, miss; I felt so lonely for the first few days. Oh, I don't mean lonely in that way," she continued, as her companions glanced along the rows of beds with their sick occupants, "but I felt so strange, and—I daresay it seems absurd—I missed my sparrows, especially of a morning. Lottie tells me she feeds them with crumbs every day on the sill of my bedroom window, just as I used to do. The sweet little creatures! They are so tame—almost as tame as your canaries, Miss Ann!"
"I suppose you often see Lottie?" questioned Ann.
"Oh, yes, miss. You know she's really a good-hearted girl, and she's very fond of me; but I'm so unhappy about her. She goes on betting, and she's a great trouble to mother on account of her flighty ways. She means no harm, I'm sure, but—" and Malvina broke off and shook her head whilst an expression of deep sadness settled on her face.
"Poor Lottie," said Ann, softly, "poor girl!"
There was a brief silence after that. Many of the other patients had visitors, too, and there was a low hum of conversation throughout the ward.
"The summer holidays commence next week," Ann informed Malvina by-and-by, "I am going to spend them with my grandmother at Teymouth."