throwing an aroma and a magic light over the
droning class-room. Daisy was to go, was to have a fortnight with a
cottager in Kent; but towards the expenses the child's parent or
guardian was expected to contribute four shillings. Daisy might have
gone free had she pleaded absolute poverty, but that would have meant
investigation. From such humiliation Natalya shrank. She shrank even
more from frightening the poor child by uncovering the skeleton of
poverty. Most of all she shrank from depriving Daisy of all the rural
delights on which the child's mind dwelt in fascinated anticipation.
Natalya did not think much of the country herself, having been born in
a poor Polish village, amid huts and pigs, but she would not
disillusion Daisy.

By miles of extra trudging in the heat, and miracles of bargaining
with bewildered housewives, Natalya raised the four shillings, and the
unconscious Daisy glided off in the happy, noisy train, while on the
platform Natalya waved her coloured handkerchief wet with tears.

That first night without the little sunshiny presence was terrible for
the old-clo' woman. The last prop against decay and collapse seemed
removed. But the next day a joyous postcard came from Daisy, which the
greengrocer downstairs read to Natalya, and she was able to take up
her sack again and go forth into the sweltering streets.

In the second week the child wrote a letter, saying that she had found
a particular friend in an old lady, very kind and rich, who took her
for drives in a chaise, and asked her many questions. This old lady
seemed to have taken a fancy to her from the moment she saw her
playing outside the cottage.

'Perhaps God has sent her to look after the child when I am gone,'
thought Natalya, for the task of going down and up the stairs to get
this letter read made her feel as if she would never go up and down
them again.

Beaten at last, she took to her bed. Her next-room neighbour, the
cobbler's wife, tended her and sent for the 'penny doctor.' But she
would not have word written to Daisy or her holiday cut short. On the
day Daisy was to come back she insisted, despite all advice and
warning, in being up and dressed. She sent everybody away, and lay on
her bed till she heard Daisy's footsteps, then she started to her
feet, and drew herself up in pretentious good health. But the sound of
other footsteps, and the entry of a spectacled, silver-haired old
gentlewoman with the child, spoilt her inte