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Fan : the story of a young girl's life by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson
page 53 of 610 (08%)
"Go home now," she said, "and come again to-morrow at the same hour."

Fan went from the door with a novel sense of happiness filling her heart.
At intervals she took out the half-crown from her pocket to look at it.
What a great broad noble coin it looked to her eyes! It was old--nearly
seventy years old--and the lines on it were blurred, and yet it seemed
wonderfully bright and beautiful to Fan; even the face of George the
Third on it, which had never been called beautiful, now really seemed so
to her. But very soon she ceased thinking about the half-crown and all
that it represented; it was not that which caused the strange happiness
in her heart, but the gentle compassionate words that the proud-looking
lady had spoken to her. Never before had so sweet an experience come to
her; how long it would live in her memory--the strange tender words, the
kindly expression of the eyes, the touch of the soft white hand--to
refresh her like wine in days of hunger and weariness!

It was early still in the day, and many hours before she could return to
Dudley Grove; and so she continued roaming about, and found another
doorstep to clean, and received threepence for cleaning it, to her
surprise. With the threepence she bought all the food she required. The
half-crown she would not break into; that must be shown to the poor
washer-woman just as she had received it. When the woman saw it in the
evening she was very much astonished, and expressed the feeling, if it be
not a contradiction to say so, by observing a long profound silence. But
like the famous parrot she "thought the more," and at length she gave it
as her opinion that the lady intended taking Fan as a servant in her
house.

"Oh, do you really think so?" exclaimed Fan, becoming excited at the
prospect of such happiness. And after a while she added, "Then I'll leave
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