as as if a trap-door had
opened and let her through. She had simply disappeared. In all that
crowded city her mother could find no trace of her. "It is now thirteen
years, ma'am, since I lost her."

But all through those thirteen years that poor mother had watched and
waited for her. All through those weary years, whenever she read in the
local paper of some poor girl's body being found in the river, some poor
suicide, who had leapt,

"Mad from life's history,
Swift to death's mystery,
Anywhere, anywhere, out of the world,"

that poor mother would get into her head it might be her dear girl that
was lying there alone and unclaimed; and she would pay her fare--if she
could afford it--or if not, trudge the distance on foot, creep,
trembling, into the mortuary or the public-house where the body lay,
blue from drowning, or with the ugly red gash across the throat, take
one look, and then cry with a sigh of relief, "No, it ain't my child,"
and return again to her watching and waiting.

"Once, ma'am," she said, "I had a dream. I saw a beautiful place, all
bright and shiny, and there were lots of angels singing so sweet, when
out of the midst of the glory came my poor girl. She came straight to
me, and said, 'Oh, mother, don't fret; I'm safe and I'm happy!' and with
those words in my ears I awoke. That dream has been a great comfort to
me, ma'am; I feel sure God sent it to me. But oh, ma'am," she exclaimed,
with a new light of hope in her face, and clasping her hands in silent
entreaty, "the thought came into my head whilst you were a-speakin', if
you would be so kind as to ask at the end of every one of your meetin's,
'Has anyone heard or seen anything of a girl of the name of Sarah
Smith?' As you go all about the country, maybe I might get to hear of
her that way."

Ah me! the pathetic forlornness of the suggestion, the last hope of a
broken-hearted mother, that I should go all over the three kingdoms
asking my large audiences, "Have you seen or heard anything of Sarah
Smith?" And I was dumb. I had not a word of comfort to give her. I had
heard the words too often from the lips of outcast girls in answer to my
question, "Does your mother know where you are?" "Oh, no; I couldn't
bear that mother should know about me!"--not to know what the fate of
that young girl had been. She had been trapped, or drugged, or enticed
into that dread under-world into which so many of our working-class
girls disappear and a