Margaret replied in the affirmative, and retraced her steps, pondering upon how she should secrete herself during the intervening period.

She walked rapidly back to her home, and thought how fortunate it was that her room-mates were absent that night, and good Mrs. Crawford would never suspect that the quiet girl up stairs was planning how she could escape with her clothing.  The darkness of the evening favored her, and the noise within prevented any that might be without, from being noticed.

She enclosed the balance due for her board, in an envelope, sealed, and directed it to Mrs. Crawford, and laid it on the little table at which she had stood so many mornings, weary in body and sick in soul.

She hoped she would not encounter any one on the stairs, and to her relief she did not.  For an instant she paused, as she heard the footsteps of the good housewife walking from the pantry to the dining-room, intent on her useful life, uncouth, illiterate, but kind and well-meaning.  A tear stole over her cheek as she listened for the last time to that firm step, which never seemed to flag in its daily rounds, and one which often, when the day’s work was over, went lightly to the bedside of the sick.  But no time must be lost; the door was opened and closed, and she was once again out in the world, a wanderer.  She knew not what her next step was to be.  Standing there in the silence and darkness of the night, she clasped her hands, and with earnest prayer, implored Divine guidance.

Down through the earthly shadows, through clouds of oppression, swept a mother’s pure, undying love.  Love for her wronged child, and pity for her state; for angel’s missions are not in halls of light, amid scenes of mirth, but far away in desolate homes, with the oppressed and the forsaken, bringing hope to the despairing, comfort to the lonely, joy to the sad, and rest to weary hearts.

A thought darted through her mind, and she rose firm and collected, as though a human hand had been outstretched for her aid.  Who shall question that it was a mother that spoke to her at that moment?

She arose, and as noiselessly as possible wended her way to a small and obscure dwelling, inhabited by a strange old woman, known to all the villagers, as possessing a wondrous power of vision, by which she professed to foretell the future, and decide questions of love and business.

Margaret had often heard the girls in the factory speak of her, and knew that they frequently consulted her; but she had always shrank from the thought of going to her dwelling, though often importuned by them to do so.  Now, how gladly her feet turned that way, as to her only refuge, for she well knew if she was searched for, no one would think of going there to find her.

She reached the place at last, and with beating heart and dizzy brain, raised her hand and rapped very softly at the door.  Then the thought flashed over her, that some one might be there who knew her, and hope fled for an instant.