“Well, we may as well go the length of her and make sure,” said Mr. Simmons, “if the child is very young, she may be afraid to move, or p’raps she doesn’t know that this is where she ought to get out.”

Fresh hope rose in Thomas’s heart as they made their way along the whole length of the train.  The guard and the porter paused in their gossip to turn and look at them, the engine-driver hanging lazily over the side of his box watched them idly.  Thomas, who was filled now with fear that the engine would start off at a wild pace before they had time to search the carriages, was somewhat relieved by the lazy look of them all.

“Do you know if there was any little girl on board booked to Springbrook?” Mr. Simmons asked the guard as they drew near him.

“Why, yes, I b’lieve there was,” answered the man casually.  “Got in at St. Pancras.  Hasn’t she got out?”

“No.”

Thomas hurried on more quickly.  If she was booked for Springbrook, and wasn’t in the train, no one knew what might have happened to her.  She might have fallen out, or been stolen, or she might have got out at the wrong station, and a terrible fear weighed on him as he hurried on.

“Hi!  Mr. Dawson, come here!  Is this of her, do you think?”

Thomas ran along the platform to the carriage where the station-master stood, and both looked in.  The compartment was empty, save for a little figure, huddled up fast asleep in one corner.  Thomas looked at her, and his eyes grew misty.  “Ye—­es, that’s of her,” he answered.  He hesitated, not because he doubted, for, though the little face was flushed and tear-stained, and the dark hair all rumpled about it, it might have been his own little Lizzie again.

The men looked from the child to each other helplessly.  “What had we best do?” said the station-master, in a tone lowered so that it might not waken the little sleeper.  “If she opens her eyes and sees us all here she’ll be frightened.”

“And if I touch her it’ll wake her up with a start,” said her grandfather anxiously.  But before they had settled the knotty point, the engine-driver, growing tired of waiting, let off a shrill whistle from his engine and with the sound the little sleeper stirred, opened her eyes, and sat up suddenly.  The porter hastily disappeared from the doorway, the station-master left the carriage too, but the guard remained, and nodded and smiled at her reassuringly.

“You remember me, don’t you, little one!  I’ve brought you all the way home, and here we are, and here is grandfather come to see you.”

Jessie sat up and looked from one to the other with troubled eyes.  “I want mother,” she said at last, with piteously trembling lips.

“Oh, now, you ain’t going to cry again, are you?” cried the guard, pretending to be shocked.  “Good little girls don’t cry.  ’Tis time to get out, too, the train is going on, and you’ll be carried away, if you don’t mind what you’re about, and then how will mother ever be able to find you?  Come along, get up like a good little maid.”