Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/105

 31, Red Lion Square, August 19th, 1856.

Do you remember a long time ago when you were at Marshals, taking a great interest in all that I told you of a little girl, called Elizabeth. I had not been able to find her house, and so had not seen or heard anything of her for many months—last night, however, as we were sitting expecting Mr. Simpson, some one came up and said, " Miss Ockey a little girl of the name of Elizabeth wants you." I ran down and led up the little girl. She is not much grown, has still a pale but pretty face; and her dark hair and eyelashes make her look quite southern; she speaks in a raised voice, and like a child; she is very small, but is, I believe, thirteen years old. She was so glad to see us. I asked her how she found us out. She had been first to the Guild, and was told, as she said, "That no such name lived there." She then determined to go to the other children's houses, to which she had been once last summer. She went to Clara's. She had moved; she went to Margaret's, she was out; but her mother directed her to Harriet's, and she is one of the girls who now works for us, so she told Elizabeth we now worked in Devonshire Street. "I told her she had better tell me your residence; for that Devonshire Street was such a long way. I thought so because of its name, but I must have come by the end of it, if it leads into Theobald's Road. I said the number of the house all the way for fear I forgot it." She said she has "been at service in a large gentleman's family at King's Cross where I did all the washing; I kep' it (meaning the situation) six months