"This way, please!" cried a feeble voice, which they recognised as Malvina's, "I'm in here."
"In here" proved to be a little back room, not much larger than a good-sized cupboard, with a bed in one corner, on which the sick girl lay. She received her visitors with a bright, welcoming smile, and assured them, in answer to their sympathetic inquiries, that she was really better.
"It's so kind of you to come," she said, gratefully. "Dr. Elizabeth said she thought you would, and your mother, Miss Ann, told me when she was here yesterday that you meant to come. I am so very glad to see you. Please to sit down."
There was but one chair in the room, and that a very ricketty one. Ann motioned to Violet to take it, whilst she perched herself on the edge of the bed and presented Malvina with a bunch of roses which she had brought for her, knowing her love for flowers.
"They came all the way from Devonshire, packed in damp moss," she explained, as Malvina took the nosegay with a cry of mingled admiration and delight, "and they grew in my grandmother's garden. Look at this white rose bud; is it not perfect? Granny will be so pleased when I write and tell her I gave the roses to you—the first roses of summer, I think they must be. I'm glad you like them, I can see that you do. Aren't they wonderfully fresh considering they have made such a long journey? They arrived by parcel post this morning, and, though they were a little drooping then, after they had been in water an hour they had quite revived."
"They are lovely," said Malvina, earnestly, "and their scent—oh, it's delicious! How good of you to give them to me!"
Whilst Ann continued to talk to Malvina, telling her the names of the roses and drawing her a word-picture of old Mrs. Reed's sea-side home, Violet was making good use of her eyes. What a poor room it was! Excepting the bed and the one chair there was no real furniture. An upturned box served for a wash-hand stand; there was no dressing-table, no set of drawers, no looking-glass. A pang of pity shot through Violet's heart mingled with a sense of shame. How often had she grumbled at the bedroom at home which she and Ruth had shared, and yet how comfortable it had been in comparison to this bare room! She was beginning to realise what it really meant to be poor.
By-and-by Violet turned her attention to her companions again. Malvina's eyes were still feasting on the roses, and there was a smile hovering around her lips—yes, actually a happy smile; and yet she had scarcely slept throughout the night on account of the pain which had racked her feeble frame.
"There's not a lady in the land better looked after than I am now I'm ill," she declared; "I've everything I want. Your mother brought me such nice, strengthening things to eat, Miss Ann; I've just had a cup of beef tea, which Grace Jones warmed for me. It's done me a lot of good."
"Is Grace Jones the girl we saw at the door?" inquired Ann.