waking
them to ask if they had fallen in with a strayed child on any of the roads
by which they had severally approached the town. When they had recovered
from their first alarm beneath the gleam of the policeman's bulls-eye,
these waifs of humanity, one and all, declared their inability to supply
the desired information. The officer next conducted his companion into the
courts and bye-ways of the town. Many a den of infamy was filled with a
quiver of alarm, and many a haunt of poverty was made to uncover its
wretchedness before the horrified gaze of "Cobbler" Horn. But the missing
child was not in any of these. Next they went a little way out on one or
two of the country roads. But here all was dark: and they soon retraced
their steps.

Having ascertained that nothing had been heard at the police-station of
his child, "Cobbler" Horn at length turned homeward, in the early morning,
with a weary heart. Miss Jemima was still sitting where he had left her,
and he sadly shook his head in response to the appeal of her dark hollow
eyes. During the hour or so which remained before dawn, "Cobbler" Horn
restlessly paced the house, pausing, now and then, to open the front-door
and step out into the street, that he might listen for the returning
patter of the two little feet that had wandered away.

Before it was fairly light, he left his sister, still distraught and rigid
in her chair, and went into the streets once more. What could he do which
he had not already done? From the first his heart had turned to God in
prayer, and this seemed now his sole remaining resource. Yes, he could
still pray; and, as he did so now, his belief grew stronger and stronger
that, if not now, yet sometime, he would surely find his child again.

Not many streets from his own he met a woman whom he knew. She lived, with
her husband, in a solitary cottage on the London Road--the road into which
"Cobbler" Horn's street directly led, and she was astir thus early, she
explained, to catch the first train to a place some miles away. But what
had brought Mr. Horn out so soon? "Cobbler" Horn told his sorrowful story,
and the woman gave a sudden start.

"Why," she said, "that reminds me. I saw the child yesterday morning. She
passed our house, trotting at a great rate. It was washing day, and,
besides, I had my husband's dinner in the oven, or I think I should have
gone after her."

"Cobbler" Horn regarded the woman with strange, wide-open eyes.

"If you