THE FLIGHT.
A confirmation was to be held during the spring in the neighbouring village; and the clergyman who prepared the Orphanage children looked upon Kate as a most promising candidate; she was gentle, and attentive, and wrote her papers with so much care.
The Confirmation day dawned as sweetly and as brightly as a Confirmation day should do. The birds were singing their hearts out in the Orphanage garden; primroses and wallflowers were blooming in every corner; the apple-trees were in festive array, and little pink and white petals floated on the breeze, and came in at the open windows.
Then a troop of little girls in grey dresses with white caps assembled, prayer-book in hand, at the door, waiting for Mother Agnes.
What could keep Mother Agnes so long? The bells have been ringing for nearly half-an-hour, and they would certainly be late! No, here she comes, but with a very grave face—much too grave—and oh, where is Kate?
"Children, we must start," said the Mother sternly, "Kate is not coming." Naturally the children wondered, and questioned amongst themselves what had happened, but they little suspected the real facts. Mother Agnes had gone to look for Kate in the dormitory, feeling that she should like to take the child's hand in hers, and say something to comfort and to strengthen her. But Kate was not in the dormitory. Her grey Sunday dress lay, neatly folded on the bed, the Confirmation cap arranged on the top of it, and by its side a note, addressed in a bold, round hand to Mother Agnes.
What on earth could this mean? Mother Agnes stared at the dress, fingered the note, and then unfastened it with a hand that trembled a little. The contents were these—
"DEAR MOTHER AGNES,—You have been good to me, so I will tell you that I am leaving, and not going to come back any more. And it is not because I do not like you, for I do, though I have never loved any one but Frances; but I cannot stay in this place any more. Oh! you do not know what the pain is that I bear. When the birds sing, I seem to hear Frances' voice singing with them as she did last spring, and I see her running amongst the flower-beds, and I cannot look at the apple-tree without seeing her little fair face peeping at me from between the blossoms. Perhaps you will not care whether I go or stay, but I hope you will not mind about me, for I shall go to London to find a place. There's many younger than me in places already. But if I do not find a place, perhaps I will drown myself in the river, for I am sick of life, and I hope you will not think about me, or mind.——KATE DANIELS."
Mother Agnes' face grew very white as she read this letter—but no time was to be lost—she sat down and wrote a little note giving information to the police, and sent it by a servant; and then she went downstairs to join the waiting children. She tried to comfort herself by thinking that Kate could not have got very far in so short a time. At the most she could only have been gone an hour, and surely she would be quickly found? And yet, strange misgivings took possession of Mother Agnes' mind.