Chapter 5

BY THE SEA.

Two little girls were lying out, in two long chairs, by the sea-shore. The younger one was knitting, and, as she knitted, talking and laughing, and often looking up to rest her eyes lovingly on the sea. Her lap was covered with shells and sea-weed, brought to her by some pale-faced fellow-patients who were wandering about the shore.

Mother Agnes had sent both Kate and Frances to a Convalescent Home by the sea, and their delight over this their first sea-side visit was untold. From early morning, when they woke to find themselves in a pink room, in beds with white dimity curtains printed with pink rose-buds, and the smell of the sea coming in at the open window, till the last light had faded away in the long summer evenings, their days were one continued dream of delight.

Kate's face was growing sunburnt and warm in colouring. Her eyes had a soft, surprised look in them, as if she were suddenly waking up to a whole world of unsuspected wonders in heaven and on earth. There was a gladness about her, like the gladness of a little child who has been turned out of a dull, close room into a field of cowslips. She and Frances never tired of each other's company; and Kate, for the first time in her life, was guilty of laughing and talking nonsense from sheer lightheartedness.

And so the days sped by, till Kate began to have a sort of wish to see the Orphanage again, and a feeling that after all the pain might be conquered, and life there be brightest and best.

And, oddly enough, as she and Frances were talking about it one morning, who should make her appearance but Mother Agnes herself, who spoke about Kate's return as if it had been all settled long ago; and then told Frances to her great surprise that she too was to become an inmate of the Orphanage. The poor aunt had had losses, the little shop was given up, and she could no longer provide for Frances, and had entreated Mother Agnes to get the child admitted. And Frances' great love for Kate helped her over the trouble of changing her old home for a new one.

When the two invalids arrived at the Orphanage, they found a great "Welcome" arranged in daisies over the door. Kate was feasted like the prodigal son on his return, and no one thought of reproaching her for having run away. And Kate returned the love and kindness she met with fully and joyously, for now she had entered into that mysterious rest and sweetness existing somewhere at the heart of things, of which so much is written, but which so few set themselves with earnest purpose to find.

It was a surprise to every one, except perhaps to Mother Agnes, who understood the girl's mind, when Kate began to write little poems, and to receive sundry little sums of money from different magazines for them. Kate's first wish, of course, was to give back the value of the Orphanage dress in which she had run away; and then Mother Agnes started a money-box, into which all the earnings were put in the hope that some day enough would be found in it to buy Kate a cork leg. "That day, Kate," said she, "may yet be a long way off. But, meanwhile, dear child, you will remain here, and complete your education, and by-and-by I hope we shall see you mistress of a village school."

The money-box was placed in the Orphanage schoolroom, and the children dropped their pennies in, and sometimes strangers who came to visit the Orphanage were told how Kate had lost her leg, and added something to the fund. And, in course of time, the box got so full that Mother Agnes, for prudence sake, would carry it to her own room to lock it up at night.

* * * * * *

Another frosty Christmas, but it was night now, and all the glories of a starlit sky could be seen from the corridor window, on the broad ledge of which Kate and Frances sat. The years that had passed had changed them much. Kate had a quiet power about her that could be more felt than expressed in words. Her face, quaint and clever, was lighted up by a singularly sweet smile; and nothing reminded one of the old Kate except the large, pathetic eyes. She was Mother Agnes's right hand with the little ones. Her way of managing them was so winning that she seldom or never caused vexation; and she brought sympathy, imagination, and judgment to bear in her work amongst them.

Frances had grown very pretty; she had golden brown hair, and blue eyes that were always laughing; and her face was not only beautiful in form and colour, but sensitive and refined. She had quite recovered her accident; was fleet of foot as a little hare, and full of health and spirits. Frances was always laughing, and it was a laugh so utterly joyous and free from care, that it seemed to have no place in this weary, hard-working, grasping, eager, restless nineteenth century, but to belong to some early age, before the world had lost its freshness, or better still, to be an earnest, with all that is good and true, of the "Restoration of all things."

She was leaning her head against Kate's shoulder, and talking eagerly.

"And then, dear Kate, as you have made up your mind to be a schoolmistress in Westminster, and to teach those poor little sickly children whom no one seems to care for, I have made up my mind to be an hospital nurse, and Mother Agnes has given her consent; and oh Kate, every spare minute they give me shall be spent with you. And you will have some dear little sitting-room looking on the river, I know. And there we shall sit together, and watch the rush of life on the river; and talk of a hundred things--of your school children and my patients, and the beautiful things that happen to us, and the comic ones. And, as we are talking, Mother Agnes will perhaps come in for a cup of tea (having come up to town on some errand), and you will give her the nicest tea possible, and then we three will sit there still when it is dark, and talk of everything in heaven and on earth. And when the girls from here are put out to places in London, they will come and see you, and have tea with you in your little sitting-room."

Voices and rushings of feet were heard on the stairs.

"Kate! where is Kate?"

"Kate, you are wanted in the schoolroom!"

"O Kate, here you are! Now, guess what has come for you from London!"

Little hands seized hold of Kate, and the children's eagerness was so great that she was obliged to remind them that she had only a wooden leg, and couldn't get downstairs quickly.

"Kate, we can't keep it back, we must tell you! It is your cork leg arrived. Mother Agnes has given the last five pounds herself, and ordered the leg to be here by Christmas."

But when Kate was introduced to her new member, with injunctions to treat it with due respect, she was quite overcome. She leaned against the wall and sobbed. She had never cried when she lost her leg; and it was only the love and kindness shown her that made her cry now. But the tears were only for a moment,--and they were followed by a great rush of gladness.

The little ones would not be satisfied without helping Kate upstairs and to bed that night, and placing the cork leg in a prominent position in the room, "so that you will be quite sure to see it, Kate, as soon as you wake up on Christmas morning."