That night Olive heard something; she was sure that she did, and started up in bed for a moment to listen, but everything was perfectly still, so in a moment she lay down again, but could not get to sleep until long after the whistle had blown for the midnight train that went through to the city.
Next morning Ernestine did not come to breakfast, but it was nothing unusual, so Kittie fixed a tempting waiter and took it up stairs.
In a few minutes she called "mama," in a frightened way, and Mrs. Dering instantly sprang up, followed by the girls, and ran up stairs.
Since her sickness, Ernestine had slept alone, and Bea had gone over with Olive; so now, as they hurried in, they saw her untumbled bed, with just the slight pressure made where she had lain down, as though gone to bed for the night; everything else was unchanged. Mrs. Dering sank trembling into a chair, and pointed to a paper lying on the table. Olive reached it, and read aloud in a frightened, awe-struck voice:
"Darling Mama:
"I'm going away; I can't stay, and oh please don't look for me; for I could not come back. It seems as though my heart was broken, and it nearly made me crazy to think that I was all alone in the world, except a wicked, cruel father. Oh, I never knew how much I loved you all, until I found that I was nothing—neither daughter nor sister. I have taken the twenty dollars in gold, and fifteen dollars that I saved from my teaching, and I will go some where and work for my living. I know it will grieve you, and that is all that has kept me from going before; but I could not stand it any longer; something made me go. Oh, please forgive me, and do not look for me. I love you all so much, and it nearly broke my heart to look at the girls, and think they were all sisters, and you their own mama, while I was nothing. Don't grieve for me, please, but do love me.
"ERNESTINE."