The Westminster clock tower.
"I am going to sleep again now," said the little child. "Good-night, dear Kate; God bless you, and mind you wake me if 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 towards the doctors.
The elder of the two men came toward her, and bent over her. "My dear child," he said, "you are doing very well; there is no need to cut off your leg. And try not to distress yourself about your friend, for only what is wisest and best is being done for her."
"I will try and be good, and not mind so much, please sir," said Frances; and then she hid her face in the pillow, and tried to choke down her sobs.
The doctors moved away at last, and Kate turned a pair of wondering eyes upon Frances as she said:
"What made you wish to lose your leg instead?"
"Only Kate, because I love you more than I could tell any one. And if you must lose your leg, please God, I will comfort you for it as much as ever I can."
"Thank you, dear," said Kate, very much touched,—and after that she relapsed into silence.
Easter fell very late that year. Good Friday was kept in the hospital after Kate had lost her leg. There was a service in the ward, and moreover, the nurse came and sat by Kate's side, and read to her the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah.
"She doesn't seem to take much notice of reading," the nurse said later to Mother Agnes, who had come up again to see Kate. They little knew that it was the first "notice" that Kate had ever taken of anything in the Bible.
Kate would not talk to-day to Mother Agnes. She answered gently, but shortly, and could not be drawn into conversation. One of her old fits of reserve seemed to have taken hold of her.
Mother Agnes was going away, deeply disappointed, when the nurse told her the story of little Frances wishing to lose her leg for Kate's sake. And also, how the children had grown to love each other; and what a dear child Frances was, and how she talked to Kate of everything that is good.
And then Mother Agnes was comforted, for she saw that all she had to do was to stand aside, and let a little child do the work. And as she walked along the Thames Embankment in the glory of the setting sun, it came into her mind how Christ had taken all that was sweetest on earth, the love and trust of little children, the love of the father for the child, of the shepherd for the sheep, and made earthly love the stepping-stone to raise us into the thought of the possibility of that greater Love outside ourselves.
