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He was indeed lost, and more completely so, in the feeling of lonely isolation, perhaps, than he would have been if lost in the backwoods of America. Yet he was not utterly lost, for the tender Shepherd was on his track. Some such thought seemed to cross his mind; for he suddenly began to pray, and thoughts about the old home in Blackby, and of the Grove family, comforted him a little until he fell asleep on his hard bed.

But, for the time being, the poor boy was lost–lost in London! His disreputable face and discreditable coat argued a dissipated character– hence no one would employ him. Ere long necessity compelled him to accept the society of street arabs, and soon he became quite as sharp, though not quite as wicked, as they. But day by day he sank lower and lower, and evil at which he would have shuddered at first became at last familiar.

He did not sink without a struggle, however, and he would have returned to the place where his mother had died, to ask help of the young surgeon who had expressed sympathy with him, but, with the carelessness of boyhood, he had forgotten the name of the hospital, and did not know where, in the great wilderness of bricks and mortar, to search for it. As for the home from which he had fled, the memory of the landlord still kept him carefully clear of that.

But Jack’s mother was not dead! In hospitals–as in the best of well-regulated families–mistakes will sometimes happen. The report which had proved so disastrous to our poor hero referred to another woman who had died. A messenger had been at once sent, by the young surgeon before mentioned, to tell Jack of the error; but when the messenger arrived the boy had flown–as already described. Indeed, it was he whom Jack had passed on the stair.

It was long before Mrs Matterby recovered, for the disappearance of her boy caused a relapse; and when at last she left the hospital, feeble and homeless, she went about for many months, searching at once for work and for her lost treasure.

Christmas came again, and found Jack Matterby at nearly the lowest point in his downward career. It is due to him to say, however, that he had not up to that time, been guilty of any criminal act that could bring him with the grasp of human law; but in word and deed he had begun, more and more, to break the law of God: so that if poor Mrs Matterby had at that time succeeded in finding her son, it is probable that her joy would have been overwhelmed with terrible grief.

It was not exactly Christmas morning, but it was the Christmas season of the year, when our little hero, wearied in spirit and body with the hard struggle for life, sauntered down the now familiar Strand in the hope of finding some odd job to do. He paused before a confectioner’s shop, and, being very hungry, was debating with himself the propriety of giving up the struggle, and coolly helping himself to a pie! You may be sure that bad invisible spirits were at his elbow just then to encourage him. But God sent a good angel also, and she was visible–being in the form of a thin little old lady.

“You’d like a bun, I know,” she said, putting a penny into Jack’s hand.

“God bless you, ma’am–yes,” burst from the astonished boy.

“Go in and buy one. Then, come and tell me all about you.”

The thin little old lady was one of those followers of the Lamb who do not wait for Christmas to unlock their sympathies. The river of her love and pity was always overflowing, so that there was no room for increase to a deluge at Christmas time–though she rejoiced to note the increase in the case of others, and wished that the flood might become perennial. To this lady Jack laid bare his inmost heart, and she led him back to the Saviour.