A little girl was reunited with her lost teddy bear after a good Samaritan turned detective to help trace the owner.Leanne Graham said yesterday that her four-year-old daughter, Maisie, was “elated” after her best friend, Teddy, was returned safe after he fell out of her stroller during a family walk at the weekend.She added that her daughter, who suffers from developmental problems, and Teddy had been inseparable since.The 41-year-old mother said: “She’s pushed him on the swing today, he sat with her for story time and right now she’s busy with her siblings watching Peppa Pig and he’s right up on the sofa beside her.”Ms Graham, from Devonshire, said that Maisie had lost Teddy on Friday afternoon, but it had not been noticed until bedtime.She explained: “I had noticed briefly during the day that he wasn’t there, but I just presumed he was somewhere in the house or the garden, because she takes him everywhere.“I didn’t really worry about him until bedtime, because he’s an important bedtime friend.”Ms Graham said that she and the rest of the family searched for the bear around her neighbourhood with the help of friends.She added that her biggest fear was that Teddy had been ripped apart by dogs.Mr Graham explained: “We have a large garden that we share with our landlord, so even she was out helping me, because she has three dogs next door and I had a terrible feeling, that maybe Maisie had left him in the garden and the dogs had got a hold of him.”She added: “I was probably more upset than Maisie was because I don’t think she really understood yet.”Ms Graham said that Maisie had been given Teddy at a toy drive on a visit to the Nemours/Alfred I duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware. She added that her daughter, who has speech and physical difficulties, had become very close to her furry friend.Ms Graham said: “He goes everywhere with her and as much as I try not to let him out of the house, she doesn’t negotiate on that. She wasn’t able to tell me that Teddy was lost, but I knew from her actions that she was looking for him.”Ms Graham said that she had almost lost hope before a friend pointed her towards a post on Facebook about a lost bear found on Poinciana Road in Devonshire. She added that the friend knew Angela Bennett, the woman who had posted the picture of Teddy and put the two in touch.Ms Bennett, 42, said that she picked up Teddy after she noticed he had been at the side of the road for several hours.She explained that she took the bear home because she appreciated how her children, a 14-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy, would have felt at that age. Ms Bennett said: “I just kept thinking that if it belonged to my child, I would want to be sure that is was taken care of.”She added that she lost a teddy bear made by her grandmother as a child that had been passed down through her family, so she understood how important toys could be.Ms Bennett said that Maisie and her mother had collected Teddy from her Devonshire home on Sunday. She added: “They were extremely grateful. Maisie does some sign language and she signed ‘thank you’ to me, which was very sweet.”