But she was almost like one dead. It was hard work to awake her, and still harder to bring her to her senses. She lifted herself up in bed, and struck at him; but Sandy slipped out of her way.
Once again, at a safe distance, where he was quite out of reach, he shouted his question at her.
"Where's Gip?" he cried. "Mother, what have you done with my little Gip?"
"Gip?" repeated his mother, in her thick, drunken voice, "Gip? I lost her; couldn't find her anywheres. She's somewhere."
That was all. Sandy's mother fell back again on the bed, and sank into her deep sleep.
Little Gip was lost.
———◆———
[CHAPTER III.]
LOST IN LONDON.
FOR a minute or two Sandy stood still again, bewildered and motionless, as at first, staring at the place where Gip ought to have been by her mother's side, and hardly able to believe that he should not see her white little face looking up suddenly from among the rags, and hear her cry,—