CHAPTER XX.

THE SEARCH ENDED.

TWO days of incessant inquiry passed by, leading to no result. Hour after hour Leveson wandered from street to street, from house to house, from shop to shop, asking the same questions over and over again, but always with the same result. Nobody could tell him anything of Job Kips, Klips, or Kippers,—and as for motherless and fatherless children, he might find them by the score. But he came upon no little Vi.

Not till the third afternoon did he meet with a clue. Asking an old vegetable vendor, at the corner of a dirty back street, the oft reiterated question, and at the same time making a slight purchase to secure a civil answer, she looked him in the face with a shrill laugh.

"Job Kips,—an' what if I does know a old man, as is named Job Kippis? Mayhap 'tisn't the same."

"Probably it is," said Leveson. "At all events I should be glad to know where Job Kippis lives."

"Ain't a 'tective, eh?" said the old woman. "He's a honest man, he be."

"I am no detective. I am a clergyman," responded Leveson. "You need have no fear that the old man will gain harm from my visit."

"Nay, if yer be a parson, he'd likely be glad to see yer, for they says he be ill."

"Tell me where he lives, and I will give you a shilling," said Leveson. "Or show me the house, and you shall have half-a-crown."

The old creature's eyes twinkled. She left her barrow of vegetables in charge of a girl, and led him off at a brisk pace round the corner,—into a gloomy street, with overhanging houses, blackened and grimy to a degree which even he, in all his city work, had rarely seen surpassed.

"Them—he be up in top front garret there. He 've often dealt wi' me till work failed him, an' spoke many a civil word too, he have. Where be yer half-crown, parson?"

"One moment,—" and Leveson turned to a woman passing by with a baby in her arms. "Is there an old man named Job Kippis living here?"

"Sure enough, up in a top garret," was the answer, and the half-crown was slipped into the old woman's hand, whereupon she went off chuckling. Leveson detained the other woman for a moment.

"Can you tell me anything about Job Kippis? I suppose you know him?"

"He be ill now,—was nigh starved t'other day, an' couldn't hardly be brought round."

"Has he a grandchild?"

"None of his own kith an' kin. He 've took little Ailie Carter for his own, an' nigh come to the work'us. An old man like him weren't fit for the charge."

"Is Ailie ill?"

"Both on 'em was found nigh starved by a neighbour t'other mornin'. Ailie's a-pickin' up now."

"Has any one helped them?" asked Leveson.

"Some gentlefolks gev a basket o' food. But for them, I doubt they wouldn't ha' pulled old Job through. But likely 'tis all gone now."

"That basket—" said Leveson, hardly able to speak steadily. "Ailie, you say, was ill. She could not go to fetch the basket. Who was the little girl that went in her stead?"

"Little girl in her stead—" repeated the woman absently, being occupied in wondering how the gentleman came to know so much about the matter, and deciding that he must have sent the food himself. "I'm a poor widder, sir, and 'ud be glad of help."

"If you will answer my questions, I am willing to give you a shilling for taking up so much of your time," said Leveson, not liking the assumed whine, yet feeling that the poor thing might need assistance.

"Sure, sir, I'll answer aught I can. Little girl sent in Ailie's stead,—why 'twas Lettie Forsyth."

"Lettie Forsyth!" repeated Leveson. "Who are her parents?"

"Well, now I comes to think of it, sir, I've heard as she ain't got none. But she be for all the world like to their own child."

"Will you kindly direct me to the Forsyths' rooms?" said Leveson, and he followed her up the staircase, on which numerous children sat and crawled, played and quarrelled; one and all pausing to stare in amazement at the well-dressed stranger as he passed. Leveson looked pityingly on the little ones,—unwashed, uncombed, untaught, uncared for, unconscious of a Saviour's love, unknowing a Redeemer's story. Oh, this mighty London harvest,—how few the labourers in comparison with the work awaiting them!

"And there is room in the fold for one and all, if we could but call them in!" murmured Leveson to himself.

Reaching the upper floor but one, Leveson's guide opened a door, and called out, "I say, Mrs. Forsyth, here be a parson come to see yer." Thereupon the promised reward was given, and a kind word with it.

The next moment Leveson stood in an ill-furnished room, where two infants sat on the floor, and a woman was busy at a loom. No one else was present. She rose and placed a rickety chair for the gentleman,—then waited, with no lightening up of her tired look.

"May I have a few words with you?" said Leveson, and his gentle manner won her confidence at once. He entered without delay upon the subject in his mind, for suspense was becoming unbearable. "I am anxious to hear something about the little girl under your charge."

"Under our charge—Lettie, ye'd say," returned Esther, as his meaning dawned on her.

"Yes. I believe she is not your own child."

"Seems like as if she was," said Esther. "It don't make no difference. John and I loves her as if she was our own."

"May I ask who were her parents?"

Esther shook her head. "I don't know nothin' about 'em, sir. She were a poor little starvelin' a-wanderin' alone, an' like to drop. An' we took her in out o' pity, an' she were that pretty an' clinging in her ways, we couldn't part with her. John, he did talk o' the work'us, but we couldn't send her,—we couldn't. We wasn't so poor then as we be now."

"How long ago was this?"

"Five years agone, sir,—over that."

"Five—" repeated Leveson.

"An' she were a mite of a child then, an' couldn't speak plain."

"Did you make no effort to discover her home?"

"'Twasn't much we could do, sir. We didn't live in this part then," and Esther sighed. "We'd plenty o' work, an' was well off. But John, he wanted to get on, an' he heard o' higher wages elsewhere, an' he couldn't be content to stay on where he was."

"Where were you then?"

"Some way off o' this, sir—a good hour's walk. We was starting the very next day after we found Lettie, an' we took the child with us. John did ask about her, but nobody couldn't tell nothin', an' he left word with a neighbour to let it be known, if there was any inquiries. But we never heard nothin' more. There's many a little one forsook by its parents, an' that's what we thought with Lettie—only sometimes at first I'd a fancy she wasn't a poor child born, for all her rags an' tatters. But that's all I knows about her, an' she was too young to tell us more. She'd cry for her mammy—not as I think she called her that, she spoke her words so queer—but she was easy comforted, an' Hor an' she took together wonderful. 'Twas only two years ago we came back to London, an' since then we've been goin' down an' down, till I don't know where it's to end."

"What made you call the child 'Lettie'?" inquired Leveson.

"'Twas the best it seemed to us. She couldn't speak plain; but she telled us her name was Wilet, or Wiletta, or somethin' like; but it sounded queer, so we just called her Lettie. 'Twas most times, 'Baby wants this,' when she asked for anythin'; an' sometimes she'd say, 'Wi wants it.' But we couldn't call a child Wi, sir, an' she soon forgot."

"Violetta—little Vi," said Leveson, with pale and trembling lips, at which Mrs. Forsyth gazed in amazement. "Little Wi—the old baby name. How we used to laugh at her for saying it! Little Vi—O God, I thank Thee—found at last!"

And then raising his face, which he had bent in deep and wondering gratitude, he told Esther of the little lost one, over whom they had mourned, and for whom they had vainly sought, these five years past.

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