Daybreak | Page 5

the pain is bad."
CHAPTER III.
IN THE HOSPITAL.
At last Mother Agnes stood by Kate's bed side. How pale the poor girl
looked and her dark eyes seemed to have grown larger and more
pathetic than they used to be. A real gleam of pleasure passed over her
face as her eyes rested on Mother Agnes.
"You are good to come to me," said Kate. "I did not think you would
have cared. How did you know I was here?"
"Because, dear child, I took every possible pains to find out what had

become of you; and heard of you at last."
"I was afraid you would send the police after me," said Kate, "and that
is why I did not take the straight road to London, but went a long way
round."
"Then what did you do for food and shelter all that time?"
"I had a shilling of my own," said Kate in a weary voice, "and that
lasted me in bread for some days. And at nights I slept in barns and
outhouses, and once under the open sky. But when I got near London, I
was so weak for want of food that I thought I should have died; and I
lay down by the roadside, and could not get any farther. And then some
poor men who were tramping the country for work passed that way,
and they took pity on me, and gave me some broken meat they had
with them, and something out of a bottle,--it may have been brandy for
aught I know,--but it set me on my feet again, and so I got to London.
"And I tried to think of any one I knew there. I did not dare to go near
our district lady who sent me to the Orphanage, for fear she should
send me back. And I thought of old Sally Blackburn, who used to live
next door to us in Westminster, and made a living with buying and
selling cast-off clothing and she was good to us,--and when father came
in very drunk, she would take us children into her little place to be out
of the way. So I hunted her up; and then, Mother Agnes, I did a very
wrong thing. She is old and stupid, and very poor, and I could not take
food and lodging with her for nothing,--so I gave her my Orphanage
dress. She was pleased with it, and said it was worth quite ten shillings,
and gave me a ragged old dress in exchange,--and something to buy a
bit of print with to run up a dress for going out in the mornings to look
for a place. And oh, ma'am, it was such a wretched, dismal, dark place
she lived in; I didn't know how to abide it after the Orphanage; and yet
I wouldn't have gone back for worlds."
She sighed deeply as she said this. Mother Agnes tried to turn her
thoughts away by talking cheerfully on other subjects for a time, and
made Kate tell all she knew of the little girl in the next bed.

"I shall come up again to town in a day or two, to see you," Mother
Agnes said.
"Will you?" said Kate. "Thank you. I did not think you would have
cared."
"I do care for you," said Mother Agnes, with her eyes full of tears; "but
Kate, there is someone who cares more."
"I don't believe He cares," said Kate sadly. "I don't see why He should
care for me. I know it's all in the Bible; but that was written many
hundred years ago. Please forgive me, ma'am, for speaking so. I don't
wish to be rude, but I really can't believe it."
Just at that moment the patients' tea was carried in, so that no further
talk was possible. Mother Agnes, with an aching heart, said good-bye
to Kate, and hurried off to catch her train.
Next day there was a consultation, for Kate was not doing well; and the
doctors broke to her the news that she would have to lose her leg. It did
not seem to distress her in the least. She took it quite quietly; but a
passion of sobs broke from the next little bed.
"O doctor! doctor!" said a child's voice; "don't go and hurt dear Kate
so."
"Don't be frightened about it," said Kate. "I shall be moved into another
room, and you will know nothing about it till it is all over."
"I am not frightened," said the child; "but oh, sirs, if somebody's leg
must be cut off, please, please let it be my leg instead of Kate's."
Frances in her eagerness had forgotten her own pain; and had raised
herself in bed, and stretched out her arm