The vague dream “_disappearance_” began to shape itself into the very distinct idea, “ABDUCTION.” Children had been abducted before now, for less reason and with more difficulty than could be the case with this child; for how great a reason, almost how just a cause, he said to himself, had he for abducting Leonard Lyon; and how easily, in the child’s unguarded walks, might he be snatched up and carried off; and how completely in crowded London might he be concealed. The idea grew and formed itself into a purpose. CHAPTER XXX. THE ABDUCTION. In a jumbled heap of murky building.—KEATS. There was at this time a wretched old hag who, summer and winter, rain and shine, sat under the shadow of St. Mary’s le Strand begging—but not audibly, for to have done so would have broken the municipal laws, and to have drawn the police upon her and consigned her to the work-house. On the contrary, she was ostensively peddling in a small way. In her talon-like hands she held a bundle of matches, which she silently tendered to every passer-by. The matches were worthless and were not really intended for sale, but only for a blind to the police and a cloak for her begging; and everybody understood this as well as she did; for though she never opened her lips to ask for alms, every fluttering rag about her was a tongue, and every look a voice. So occasionally a passer-by would drop a half-penny in the hand that offered the matches and then go on his way. But the great stream of people pouring through that crowded thoroughfare usually passed without noticing her, for the frequency of such sights, and of much worse sights of misery, in the London streets, and the utter impossibility of relieving them all, hardens the hearts of the people. But the poor pity the poor. And our poor gentleman, passing the poor beggar twice every day, pitied her—pitied her, even though she had once picked his pocket of his coarse white linen handkerchief, and he knew the fact beyond a doubt. And almost every day, in passing, he gave her a half-penny; and once a quarter, when he got paid off, he gave her a sixpence. But in all the years in which she had sat there, and in which he had passed twice a day in going and returning to and from his employment, he had never happened to see any one else give her anything. Of course he knew that she must make something by sitting there or she would not stay; but it was so very little and so very seldom, that he never knew it from personal observation. And from all this he concluded that she was deadly poor. He often wondered where she lived, how she slept, what she ate, with whom she kept company, and who were her kinsfolks, if she had any. That she consorted with the lowest thieves and vagrants, with the most desperate men and women ready for any crime, he felt morally certain. Had she not picked the pocket of her benefactor?