"Do you think she will remember us?" asked Josie.
"Hardly possible. A little creature only two and a half years old,—but her face was not one likely to change much, and she was the very image of your mother. Do you recollect her?"
"Not much. You see I was so small—only four or five; but I remember us two playing with our dolls, together. And then the day she was lost—I haven't forgotten that. Nurse had dressed her out in that lovely worked frock, which her godmamma gave her. I know that, because nurse told me I didn't look one quarter so nice in mine, and that made me angry with Vi. We were going to tea somewhere, weren't we?—And on the way, I remember a great crowd of people, and I was frightened, and clung to nurse ever so tight, and then nurse missed Vi. And I remember how wild she was, when she hunted and couldn't find her, and no one seemed to have noticed her. And then mother's crying—oh, how dreadfully she used to cry—and nurse's illness and going away, and the new nurse coming, and mother's saying she could never leave London again till Vi was found, and how I used to long for the green fields again. I remember all quite well. Oh, if you really have found her—only think!—won't it be great, great happiness?"
"We shall never be able to thank God enough, if it is so," said Leveson. "But I hardly venture yet to hope, after all this vain searching for years."
"And then we should go into the country, shouldn't we?" said Josie. "I wish I knew. I wish you had seen the little girl."
"Only a few hours to wait, I trust. It was not till I was in the act of starting to come here, that my friend told me about her, and he could not go with me to-night, but to-morrow—early—"
"O Leveson!"
"Hush, that is my mother's step."
And hard as they both found it, they talked naturally and quietly, so that she saw nothing unusual in their faces or voices—nothing to make her suspect what was going on.
