The Old House in the City by Agnes Giberne

TWO days of incessant inquiry passed by, leading to no result. Hour after hour Leveson wandered from street to street, from house to house, from shop to shop, asking the same questions over and over again, but always with the same result. Nobody could tell him anything of Job Kips, Klips, or Kippers,-and as for motherless and fatherless children, he might find them by the score. But he came upon no little Vi.

Not till the third afternoon did he meet with a clue. Asking an old vegetable vendor, at the corner of a dirty back street, the oft reiterated question, and at the same time making a slight purchase to secure a civil answer, she looked him in the face with a shrill laugh.