"Oh, I don't mean that she's done anything for me, you know," she continued, as she met her aunt's glance of surprise, "but she's spoken to me so nicely about mother that I quite love her. She says she knows what it is to be separated from some one, one loves very dearly, for her only daughter married and went to New Zealand, and her husband's dead, so that now she's all alone. I should like to give her a little present for Christmas, if you do not mind." "Of course I do not mind, child. All these things are your own, to do as you like with." "I want other people to enjoy them too," Mavis said earnestly. "I never had anything to give away before this Christmas." She selected one of the prettiest of the boxes of preserved fruits, and, later in the day, she and her cousins called at Mrs. Long's cottage in the village and presented it to the kind-hearted washerwoman, who, needless to say, was exceedingly pleased. What a happy Christmas that was, and yet how Mavis had dreaded it! It brought her nothing but joy from the moment she opened her eyes on Christmas morning till, wearied out, she closed them at night. Afterwards, she wrote to her mother all about it, and told her how rich she was in presents, for, besides Miss Dawson's Christmas-box, she had received remembrances from every member of the household at the Mill House, and from Miss Tompkins too, as well as Christmas cards from several of her schoolfellows. "I have so many friends now," she wrote, "and last Christmas I had so few. When we meet I shall have such a lot to tell you, dear mother. I can't write everything. I believe Aunt Lizzie has written and told you that I am to sing at a concert on New Year's Eve; I am to sing your favourite psalm. Mr. Moseley says my voice is a great gift. He is a very nice man, and has been very kind to me—I think there are a great many kind people in the world." Mavis had never so much as hinted to her mother that she was not on such cordial terms with her aunt as with her other relations, for she could not explain why that was the case, and, lately, she had got on with her rather better. Mrs. John had been obliged to admit to herself that Mavis was not selfish, that she did not try to put herself before her cousins in any way, and that she was quick to show gratitude for a kindness, and to respond to affection. But what she did not understand in the child, was her capability of laying aside trouble. "She has just the nature of a song-bird," she would think, when Mavis' voice, lilting some simple ditty, would fall upon her ears. "She's such a light-hearted little thing." The concert, which was held in the village schoolroom on New Year's Eve, proved a very great success. The performers were all well-known inhabitants of the parish, in whom the audience—composed mostly of the labouring classes—took great interest.