w,--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 ro