But help was nearer than either of them supposed. Just as it was getting dark, and Lizzie stood at the door watching for the doctor's boy to bring the promised medicine, she saw a weary-looking lad trudging along the road with a basket of tools on his back. A second look convinced Lizzie that it was no other than her brother Jack, and she called eagerly:
"Jack, Jack, don't you know me?"
Jack stopped and almost staggered. There was one of the vans he had been so long in search of; but he did not recognize the girl in the fluttering rags, either by voice or appearance.
Lizzie clambered down while her brother was staring at her, and ran up to him.
"Don't you know me, Jack?" she said again, laying her hand on his shoulder.
"Is it Lizzie?" gasped the lad, looking earnestly at her.
"Oh! Jack, how is mother?" was the answer, as she burst into tears and threw herself into his arms. "Will she ever forgive me, do you think, for being such a wicked girl?"
"Yes, that she will," said Jack, as soon as he had recovered a little from his astonishment; and then he looked at the solitary van. Lizzie told him then how it was she had been left behind, and that Tottie had given her some money that she might write and tell her mother where she was.
"I can't leave her, Jack," she whispered, as they walked back to the van together hand in hand. "I promised her I'd stop with her—"
"Lizzie, Lizzie," called a faint but clear voice.
And Lizzie darted into the van, and kneeled down by Tottie's side.
"I'm going, Lizzie; they've sent an angel for me, and I can't stop here no longer. You go home to your mother."
"I'm going, Tottie. My brother has just come for me," said Lizzie, taking the dying girl's hand and pointing to Jack who had followed her into the van.
She turned her eyes upon him for a moment and whispered, "You are her brother?"
"Yes," said Jack; "and I don't mean to leave her again."
"Thank God!" came faintly forth; and then there was a fluttering sigh, and poor Tottie Stanley, the real Tottie who had been shut up in a suffering body so long, went out of that travelling van up to the home God has prepared for girls who have had no chances of knowing him here.
Lizzie burst into tears when she saw what had happened, and Jack turned to the door again.
Just then the doctor's boy came up, and took two bottles of medicine out of his basket and handed them up to Jack.
But instead of taking them he said, "Stop a minute, I want to speak to you;" and then he told him what had happened, and how he had come in search of his sister and just found her. "Now I want you to show me where your master lives," he added. "Come, Lizzie," he called; "I am going to this doctor, and you must go with me."
So Lizzie shut the door of the van and came down to Jack, still crying for the friend who had just left her. The slow-witted boy was amazed, but readily consented to show the brother and sister where his master lived.
The gentleman was a little surprised to hear Tottie had gone so soon, but still more to hear the tale the brother and sister had to tell.
"You had better get away from them as quickly and quietly as possible," he said. "You see you went with them of your own accord," he added, speaking to Lizzie, "and the only thing they could be accused of was stealing this fruit knife."
Lizzie's ragged forlorn appearance touched the gentleman's heart.
"I scarcely knew her when she called me," said Jack, when he made some comment upon this.
"And you say your father is ill from anxiety about her?" said the gentleman meditatively.
Lizzie stood shrinking back, softly crying, for she was so ashamed of her folly now, so sorry for the mischief she had caused, that she hardly liked to look the gentleman in the face while he and Jack were talking about her.
"I tell you what, my lad. You write to your parents to-night, and tell them you have found your sister, but she is not quite well enough to come home at once. I will write an order for her to be admitted to the hospital to be nursed up a bit, and meanwhile my sister shall try and get a few clothes together for her to go home, and look a little more like a respectable servant than she does now."
So Lizzie was taken at once to the hospital, put into a warm bath, and then went to a clean comfortable bed, such as she had scarcely hoped to sleep in again.
A week of comfortable rest and good food did much to restore Lizzie to her old appearance outwardly, but the real Lizzie was greatly changed from the thoughtless, discontented girl who ran away from her home and her duty that summer Sunday morning. By God's providence she had been changed, and henceforth she might be "worth her weight in gold;" but in a different way from that which either she or Mrs. Stanley intended.
The doctor got a few decent clothes, and gave Jack the money for her railway fare home—he had earned enough to pay for himself—and so, at last, the brother and sister returned; and Lizzie was thankful indeed when she heard that Mrs. Spencer was willing to give her another trial, since it had been clearly proved that she had not stolen the fruit knife.
To her mistress in after years, she proved "worth her weight in gold;" for no one could be more steady and reliable, more cheerful and content, than Lizzie was after her three months' sojourn with the gypsies.
THE END.