"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.
