Disappeared from Her Home by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

While the townspeople and country folks read and wondered at the printed handbills, the father and mother of the missing girl wandered about their now desolate home, listless, aimless, well-nigh brokenhearted. The first sharp pang, it is true, was past, and the sorrow had settled down to a dull leaden weight on heart and brain. The servants walked about the house slowly and silently, speaking in subdued voices. Day and night lay old Presto, Amy's favourite deerhound, at the house door, waiting and listening, and never seeming to eat nor sleep. Her maid carefully each day fed her birds and watered her flowers, and everyone in the household vied with each other in endeavouring to carry out every known wish or fancy the young lady had ever had (and it must be confessed they were not a few) as they would endeavour to carry out the wishes of some dear one dead. On every side, in every room, were traces of the lost darling. Here, the open piano with a roll of new music; there, the uncovered harp. In the little morning room piece after piece of unfinished needlework, and here in a little "studio," as Amy was pleased to call it, numberless pencil sketches, an oil landscape commenced, a watercolour three-parts done, and a crayon head, "all but" finished. A whole tableful of china-painting accessories, and commenced cups, saucers, and plates; and there, in a corner, a cabinet of fretwork tools, with brackets, card trays, and picture frames enough to stock a small shop.

From all this it may be seen that the young lady's tastes and pursuits were numerous and varied -- change, to her, the one great necessity of life. A too great indulgence from her earliest infancy had developed in her character an impatience of restraint, an impetuosity and wilfulness which, unless it had been counterbalanced, as in her case it was, by an unusually loving, playful, tender disposition, would have rendered her imperious and domineering. As it was, everyone in the household, from her father downwards, adored her and bowed to her sway. "I must not be kept waiting an instant" was a remark which might be heard every hour of the day from Miss Amy's lips. And kept waiting she never was, for the simple reason that it was an impossibility to keep her in any posture of tranquillity for five minutes at a time. Every thought or idea that entered into her brain must be executed there and then and, scarcely completed, must be thrown on one side to make way for another.