quiries have been frequent, and carefully
conducted; but you know, such a search takes a long time, and--and
London is a large place."

The unfinished muffin dropped from the old woman's hand, and she turned
with a deep sigh to the window, where the blank prospect was a not inapt
reflection of her own blank despair.

"Never more!" she said, "never more!"

"Hope thou in God, for thou shalt yet praise Him, who is the health of
thy countenance, and thy God," was all that I could say in reply. Then
I turned to the boy, who sat with his eyes cast down as if in deep
thought, and engaged him in conversation on other subjects, by way of
diverting the old woman's mind from the painful theme.

When I rose to go, Slidder said he would call Mrs Jones to mount guard,
and give me a convoy home.

No sooner were we in the street than he seized my hand, and, in a voice
of unusual earnestness, said--

"I've got on 'er tracks!"

"Whose tracks? What do you mean?"

"On Edie's, to be sure--Edie Willis."

Talking eagerly and fast, as we walked along, little Slidder told me how
he had first been put on the scent by his old friend and fellow-waif,
the Slogger. That juvenile burglar, chancing to meet with Slidder,
entertained him with a relation of some of his adventures. Among
others, he mentioned having, many months before, been out one afternoon
with a certain Mr Brassey, rambling about the streets with an eye to
any chance business that might turn up, when they observed a young and
very pretty girl looking in at various shop windows. She was obviously
a lady, but her dress showed that she was very poor. Her manner and
colour seemed to imply that she was fresh from the country. The two
thieves at once resolved to fleece her. Brassey advised the Slogger "to
come the soft dodge over her," and entice her, if possible, into a
neighbouring court. The Slogger, agreeing, immediately ran and placed
himself on a doorstep which the girl was about to pass. Then he covered
his face with his hands, and began to groan dismally, while Mr Brassey,
with native politeness, retired from the scene. The girl, having an
unsuspicious nature, and a tender heart, believed the tale of woe which
the boy unfolded, and went with him to see "his poor mother," who had
just fallen down in a fit, and was dying at that moment for want of
physic and some one to attend to her. She suggested, indeed, that the
Slogger should run to the nearest chemist, but