And his trade was all going or gone,
and he not seeming to care. His wife let lodgings to make up a bit.
Very sad.
Candle-light showed in a window of the house next door to the
saddler's, and Mavis thought of these neighbors--two sisters, old
maids--who had a very, very little money of their own and who
endeavored to add to what was barely enough for necessities by selling
butterfly nets, children's fishing-rods, stamp albums, and picture
post-cards. Two years ago the elder sister tumbled down-stairs and
injured her spine; and since then she had been bedridden, lying in the
upper room at the back of the house, with nothing to amuse her but a
view of the graveyard behind the church. Mavis had been to see her one
day this summer, had sat by the bed, and read her a chapter out of the
New Testament and then the weekly instalment of a novel in the
_Rodhaven District Courier_. Extremely sad.
Then livid-faced, matty-haired Emily Frayne passed by, carrying a
brown-paper parcel. This poor overworked girl was the only daughter
of Frayne the tailor, who was a confirmed drunkard. All day long she
was kept toiling like a slave, cutting out, beginning and finishing
gaiters, breeches, and stable-jackets, doing all the work that was
ever done at Frayne's; and at night she went round trying to get
orders, delivering the goods that she had completed, and being forced
to support the impudence and familiarity of coachmen and grooms, who
chucked her under the chin and said they'd give her a kiss for her
pains because they weren't flush enough to stand her a drink.
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