Holly and Ivy

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864 edition. Excerpt: ...to care for them? One dear child was very ill. I asked her had she any friend we could write to? "I hav'nt got none," she said; "only Mrs. S "(one of the Committee). "And where did she get you?" I asked. "In the Ragged School." Poor child, where would she have been now if there were no " Birds' Nest"? Well, this time of trial passed, and Christmas time was arriving, and the Nestlings were all looking forward to it with joy. No, not quite all. One dear little girl was lying ill in the hospital; she never expected to go back again; and we knew she must die. But I think I must just go back a little and tell you her history. CHAPTER XI. "Ye must not, when beneath the cloud, forget That He--whose love is sunshine--loves you yet." Mary and Bobby were the children of a kind mother, but a drunken father. They used to attend a Ragged School with two little sisters. They were very wretched, naked, hungry children. We pitied them very much, and sometimes gave them a bib or a petticoat, but it never appeared the second time--the wretched father sold it for drink! He did not care what his little children suffered, and so through the long winter they came hungry and barefooted to school. The poor mother was very unhappy, and she tried to think what she could do to comfort her little ones. She determined to go to service, and pay some woman to mind her children; but she found her wages would only pay for two; still she thought it better to do that than all starve together. She took the two little girls and put them to lodge with a clean, tidy woman, and told her husband he must mind Mary and Bobby. He said he would, and the mother went to a place in the country. There was very soon a great improvement in the appearance of the two little girls, but poor...