A little girl stopped at a door and knocked at it. A part of this door was of glass, unprotected by any shutter. When she had knocked twice or thrice, there was a noise as if some person were moving inside. He was an old man with long grey hair, he held the light above his head and looked before him. There was something of that delicate mould which one could notice in the child. Their bright blue eyes were certainly alike, but his face was deeply furrowed.

The place was one of the receptacles for old and curious things. There were suits of mail standing like ghosts in armour, here and there; fantastic carvings from monkish cloisters; rusty weapons of various kinds; figures in china[1], and wood, and iron, and ivory; tapestry, and strange furniture. The old man was wonderfully suited to the place.

“Why bless thee, child,” said the old man pitting the girl on the head, “didn’t you miss your way? What if I had lost you, Nelly[2]?

“I will always find my way back to you, grandfather,” said the child boldly: “never fear.”

The child took a candle and tripped into her little room.

There was a knock at the door; and Nelly, bursting into a hearty laugh, said it was no doubt dear Kit[3] come back at last.

“Oh Nell!” said the old man. “You always laugh at poor Kit.”

The old man took up a candle and went to open the door. When he came back, Kit was at his heels[4]. Kit was a shock-headed shambling awkward lad with an uncommonly wide mouth, very red cheeks, a turned-up nose, and a very comical expression of face. He stopped short at the door, twirled in his hand a perfectly round old hat without any vestige of a brim.

“A long way, wasn’t it, Kit?” said the old man.

“Why then[5], it was a goodish stretch, master,” returned Kit.

“Did you find the house easily?”

“Why then, not over and above easy, master,” said Kit.

“Of course you have come back hungry?”

“Why then, you’re right, master,” was the answer.

The lad had a remarkable manner of standing sideways[6] as he spoke, and thrusting his head forward over his shoulder. Kit carried a large slice of bread and meat, and a mug of beer, into a corner.

“Ah!” said the old man, “Nell, I say, the time is coming when we shall be rich. It must come at last; a very long time, but it surely must come. It has come to other men who do nothing. When will it come to me?”

“I am very happy as I am, grandfather,” said the child.

“Tush, tush!” returned the old man, “The time must come, I am very sure it must.”

The girl cheerfully helped the old man with his cloak, and, when he was ready, took a candle to light him out[7]. The old man folded her in his arms and bade God bless her.

“Sleep soundly, Nell,” he said in a low voice, “and angels guard your bed! Do not forget your prayers, my sweet.”

“No indeed,” answered the child fervently, “they make me feel so happy!”

“That’s well; I know they do; they should,” said the old man. “Bless thee a hundred times! Early in the morning I shall be home.”

With this, they separated. The child opened the door. The old man’s figure was soon beyond her sight.

A young man stood lounging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded the old man with a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty; well made[8], and certainly handsome, though his manner and even his dress had a dissipated, insolent air.

“Here I am,” said the young fellow, “and here I shall stop, I tell you again that I want to see my sister!’’

“Your sister!” said the old man bitterly.

“Ah! You can’t change the relationship,” returned the other. “If you could, you’d have done it long ago. I want to see my sister, that you keep here, poisoning her mind with your sly secrets. I know you had the money you can hardly count. I want to see her; and I will.”

“Here’s a moralist to talk of poisoned minds!” cried the old man. “You are a liar, sir, who knows how dear she is to me, and seeks to wound me.”

“Well,” said the young fellow, “There’s a friend of mine waiting outside, and as it seems that I may have to wait some time, I’ll call him in.”

Saying this, he stepped to the door, and looking down the street beckoned several times to some person.

“There. It’s Dick Swiveller[9],” said the young fellow, pushing him in. “Sit down, Swiveller.”

“But is the old man agreeable?” said Mr. Swiveller in an undertone[10].

“Sit down,” repeated his companion.

Mr. Swiveller complied, and looking about him with a propitiatory smile, observed that last week was a fine week for the ducks, and this week was a fine week for the dust. He furthermore apologized for any negligence that might be perceptible in his dress, on the ground that last night he had been drinking much.

“Fred[11]!” said Mr. Swiveller, “We may be good and happy without riches, Fred. Say not another word.”

Mr. Swiveller was in a state of disorder which strongly induced the idea that he had gone to bed in it. It consisted of a brown body-coat[12] with a great many brass buttons up the front, and only one behind; a bright check neckerchief, a plaid waistcoat, soiled white trousers, and a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The breast of his coat was ornamented with an outside pocket from which there peeped forth the cleanest end of a very large handkerchief. He displayed no gloves, and carried a yellow cane. With all these Mr. Swiveller leaned back in his chair with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

The old man sat himself down in a chair, and, with folded hands, looked sometimes at his grandson and sometimes at his strange companion.

“Fred,” said Mr. Swiveller, speaking in the same audible whisper as before, “is the old man friendly?”

“What does it matter?” returned his friend peevishly.

“No, but is he?” said Dick.

“Yes, of course. What do I care whether he is or not?”

“It’s a devil of a thing, gentlemen,” said Mr. Swiveller, “when relations fall out and disagree. Why should a grandson and grandfather peg away at each other with mutual violence when all might be bliss and concord? Why not join hands and forget it? “

“Hold your tongue,” said his friend.

“Gentlemen,” replied Mr. Swiveller, “Here is a jolly old grandfather who says to his wild young grandson, ‘I have brought you up and educated you, Fred.’ The wild young grandson makes answer to this and says, ‘You’re as rich as rich can be; you’re saving up piles of money for my little sister that lives with you.’ Then the plain question is, isn’t it a pity that this state of things should continue, and how much better would it be for the old gentleman to hand over a reasonable amount of tin, and make it all right and comfortable?”

“Why do you hunt and persecute me, God help me?” said the old man turning to his grandson. “Why do you bring your profligate companions here? How often am I to tell you that I am poor?”

“How often am I to tell you,” returned the other, looking coldly at him, “that I know better?”

“You have chosen your own path,” said the old man. “Follow it. Leave Nell and I to toil and work.”

“Nell will be a woman soon,” returned the other, “and she’ll forget her brother unless he shows himself sometimes.”

“But,” said the old man dropping his voice, “but we are poor; and what a life it is! Nothing goes well with it! Hope and patience, hope and patience!”

These words were uttered in too low a tone to reach the ears of the young men. Mr. Swiveller suggested the propriety of an immediate departure, when the door opened, and the child herself appeared.

The child was followed by an elderly man, quite a dwarf, though his head and face were large enough for the body of a giant. His black eyes were restless, sly, and cunning; his complexion was one of that kind which never looks clean. But the most terrible was his ghastly smile, which revealed the few discoloured fangs that were yet scattered in his mouth, and gave him the aspect of[13] a dog. His dress consisted of a large high-crowned hat, a worn dark suit, a pair of capacious shoes, and a dirty white neckerchief. His hair was black, cut short and straight upon his temples[14]. His hands were very dirty; his finger-nails were crooked, long, and yellow.

“Ah!” said the dwarf, “that should be your grandson, neighbour!”

“He is,” replied the old man.

“And that?” said the dwarf, pointing to Dick Swiveller.

“Some friend of his, as welcome here as he,” said the old man.

“Well, Nelly,” said the young fellow aloud. “Do they teach you to hate me, eh?”

“No, no. Oh, no!” cried the child.

“To love me, perhaps?” pursued her brother with a sneer.

“To do neither. They never speak to me about you. Indeed they never do. But I love you dearly, Fred,” said the child.

“No doubt!”

“I do indeed, and always will,” the child repeated with great emotion, “but if you would leave off vexing him and making him unhappy, then I could love you more.”

“I see!” said the young man: “There get you away now you have said your lesson.”

Fred remained silent, the girl entered her little room and closed the door. Then he turned to the dwarf, and said abruptly:

“Listen, Mr…”

“Meaning me?[15]“ returned the dwarf. “Daniel Quilp[16] is my name. You must remember. It’s not a long one: Daniel Quilp.”

“Listen, Mr. Quilp, then,” pursued the other. “You have some influence with my grandfather there.”

“Some,” said Mr. Quilp emphatically.

“And know about a few of his mysteries and secrets.”

“A few,” replied Quilp, with equal dryness.

“Then let me tell him, through you, that I will come into and go out of this place as often as I like, so long as he keeps Nell here. Let him say so. I will see her when I want. That’s my point. I came here today to see her, and I’ll come here again fifty times with the same object and always with the same success. I have done so, and now my visit’s ended. Come, Dick.”

Fred and Dick left.

The dwarf appeared quite horrible, with his monstrous head and little body, as he rubbed his hands slowly round, and round, and round again with something fantastic, dropping his shaggy brows and cocking his chin in the air.

“Here,” he said, putting his hand into his breast[17]; “I brought it myself, this gold is too large and heavy for Nell to carry in her bag. I would like to know in what good investment all these gold sinks. But you are a deep man, and keep your secret close.”

“My secret!” said the other with a haggard look. “Yes, you’re right I keep it close very close.”

He said no more, but, taking the money, turned away with a slow uncertain step, and pressed his hand upon his head. The dwarf went away.

Nell brought some needle-work[18] to the table, and sat by the old man’s side. The old man laid his hand on hers, and spoke aloud.

“Nell,” he said; “there must be good fortune for you I do not ask it for myself, but for you only. It will come at last!”

The girl looked cheerfully into his face, but made no answer.

Mr. and Mrs. Quilp resided on Tower Hill[19]. Mr. Quilp’s occupations were numerous. He collected the rents of whole colonies of filthy streets and alleys by the water-side, advanced money to the seamen and petty officers of merchant vessels, and made appointments with men in glazed hats and round jackets[20] pretty well every day. On the southern side of the river was a small rat-infested[21] dreary yard called “Quilp’s Wharf,” in which were a little wooden house. There were nearby a few fragments of rusty anchors; several large iron rings; some piles of rotten wood; and two or three heaps of old sheet copper, crumpled, cracked, and battered. On Quilp’s Wharf, Daniel Quilp was a ship-breaker. The dwarfs lodging on Tower Hill had a sleeping-closet for Mrs. Quilp’s mother, who resided with the couple.

That day besides these ladies there were present some half-dozen ladies of the neighbourhood who had come just about tea-time. The ladies felt an inclination to talk and linger.

A stout lady opened the proceedings by inquiring, with an air of great concern and sympathy, how Mr. Quilp was; whereunto Mr. Quilp’s wife’s mother replied sharply,

“Oh! he is well enough, ill weeds are sure to thrive[22].”

All the ladies then sighed in concert, shook their heads gravely, and looked at Mrs. Quilp as at a martyr.

Poor Mrs. Quilp coloured, and smiled. Suddenly Daniel Quilp himself was observed to be in the room, looking on and listening with profound attention.

“Go on, ladies, go on,” said Daniel. “Mrs. Quilp, pray ask the ladies to stop to supper.”

“I didn’t ask them to tea, Quilp,” stammered his wife. “It’s quite an accident.”

“So much the better[23], Mrs. Quilp: these accidental parties are always the pleasantest,” said the dwarf, rubbing his hands very hard. “What? Not going, ladies? You are not going, surely?”

“And why not stop to supper, Quilp,” said the old lady, “if my daughter had a mind? There’s nothing dishonest or wrong in a supper, I hope?”

“Surely not,” returned the dwarf. “Why should there be?”

“My daughter’s your wife, Mr. Quilp, certainly,” said the old lady.

“So she is, certainly. So she is,” observed the dwarf.

“And she has a right to do as she likes, I hope, Quilp,” said the old lady trembling.

“Hope she has! Oh! Don’t you know she has? My dear,” said the dwarf, turning round and addressing his wife, “why don’t you always imitate your mother, my dear? She’s the ornament of her sex, your father said so every day of his life, I am sure he did.”

“Her father was a blessed man, Quilp, and worth twenty thousand of some people, twenty hundred million thousand.”

“I dare say,” remarked the dwarf, “he was a blessed man then; but I’m sure he is now. It was a happy release. I believe he had suffered a long time?”

The guests went down-stairs. Quilp’s wife sat trembling in a corner with her eyes fixed upon the ground, the little man planted himself before her, at some distance, and folding his arms looked steadily at her for a long time without speaking.

“Oh you nice creature!” were the words with which he broke silence. “Oh you precious darling! oh you delicious charmer!”

Mrs. Quilp sobbed, knowing that his compliments are the most extreme demonstrations of violence.

“She’s such,” said the dwarf, with a ghastly grin, “such a jewel, such a diamond, such a pearl, such a ruby, such a golden casket set with gems of all sorts! She’s such a treasure! I’m so fond of her!”

The poor little woman shivered from head to foot; and raising her eyes to his face, sobbed once more.

“The best of her is,” said the dwarf; “the best of her is that she’s so meek, and she’s so mild, and she has such an insinuating mother!”

Mr. Quilp stooped slowly down, and down, and down, until came between his wife’s eyes and the floor.

“Mrs. Quilp!”

“Yes, Quilp.”

“Am I nice to look at? Am I the handsomest creature in the world, Mrs. Quilp?”

Mrs. Quilp dutifully replied, “Yes, Quilp.”

“If ever you listen to these witches, I’ll bite you.”

Mr. Quilp bade her to clear the tea-board away, and bring the rum. Then he ordered cold water and the box of cigars; and after that he settled himself in an arm-chair with his little legs planted on the table.

The next day the dwarf was at the Quilp’s Wharf.

“Here’s somebody for you,” said the boy to Quilp.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ask!” said Quilp. “Ask, you dog.”

A little girl presented herself at the door.

“What, Nelly!” cried Quilp.

“Yes,” said the child; “it’s only me, sir.”

“Come in,” said Quilp. “Now come in and shut the door. What’s your message, Nelly?”

The child handed him a letter; Mr. Quilp began to read it. Little Nell stood timidly by and waited for his reply.

“Nelly!” said Mr. Quilp.

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know what’s inside this letter, Nell?”

“No, sir!”

“Are you sure, quite sure, quite certain?”

“Quite sure, sir.”

“Well!” muttered Quilp. “I believe you. Hm! Gone already? Gone in four-and-twenty hours. What the devil has he done with it? That’s the mystery!”

He began to bite his nails.

“You look very pretty today, Nelly, charmingly pretty. Are you tired, Nelly?”

“No, sir. I’m in a hurry to get back.”

“There’s no hurry, little Nell, no hurry at all,” said Quilp. “How should you like to be my number two, Nelly?”

“To be what, sir?”

“My number two, Nelly; my second; my Mrs. Quilp,” said the dwarf.

The child looked frightened, but seemed not to understand him. Mr. Quilp hastened to explain his meaning more distinctly.

“To be Mrs. Quilp the second, when Mrs. Quilp the first is dead, sweet Nell,” said Quilp, “to be my wife, my little cherry-cheeked, red-lipped wife. Say that Mrs. Quilp lives five years, or only four, you’ll be just the proper age for me. Ha ha! Be a good girl, Nelly, a very good girl, and see one day you will become Mrs. Quilp of Tower Hill.”

The child shrunk from him, and trembled. Mr. Quilp only laughed.

“You will come with me to Tower Hill, and see Mrs. Quilp, that is, directly,” said the dwarf. “She’s very fond of you, Nell, though not so fond as I am. You will come home with me.”

“I must go back indeed,” said the child. “My grandfather told me to return directly when I had the answer.”

“But you haven’t it, Nelly,” retorted the dwarf, “and won’t have it, and can’t have it, until we’re home, so you must go with me. Give me my hat, my dear, and we’ll go directly.”

With that, Mr. Quilp went outside, and saw two boys struggling.

“It’s Kit!” cried Nelly, clasping her hands, “poor Kit who came with me! Oh pray stop them, Mr. Quilp!”

“I’ll stop them,” cried Quilp, going into the little house and returning with a thick stick. “I’ll stop them. Now, my boys, I’ll fight you both. I’ll take both of you[24], both together, both together!”

With this the dwarf began to beat the fighters with his stick.

“I’ll beat you to a pulp, you dogs,” said Quilp. “I’ll bruise you till you’re copper-coloured, I’ll break your faces, I will!”

“Come, you drop that stick or it’ll be worse for you,” said the boy.

“Come a little nearer, and I’ll drop it on your skull, you dog,” said Quilp with gleaming eyes; “a little nearer; nearer yet.”

But the boy declined the invitation: Quilp was as strong as a lion.

“Never mind,” said the boy, nodding his head and rubbing it at the same time; “I will never strike anybody again because they say you’re an uglier dwarf than can be seen anywhere for a penny, that’s all.”

“Do you mean to say, I’m not, you dog?” returned Quilp.

“No!” retorted the boy.

“Then what do you fight on my wharf for, you villain?” said Quilp.

“Because he said so,” replied the boy, pointing to Kit, “not because you aren’t.”

“Then why did he say,” bawled Kit, “that Miss Nelly was ugly, and that she and my master were his servants? Why did he say that?”

“He said what he did because he’s a fool, and you said what you did because you’re very wise and clever, Kit,” said Quilp with great suavity in his manner, but still more of quiet malice about his eyes and mouth. “Here’s sixpence for you, Kit. Always speak the truth. At all times, Kit, speak the truth. Lock the house, you dog, and bring me the key.”

The other boy, to whom this order was addressed, did as he was told. Then Mr. Quilp departed, with the child and Kit in a boat.

The sound of Quilp’s footsteps roused Mrs. Quilp at home. Her husband entered, accompanied by the child; Kit was down-stairs.

“Here’s Nelly Trent, dear Mrs. Quilp,” said her husband. “A glass of wine, my dear, and a biscuit, for she has had a long walk. She’ll sit with you, my soul, while I write a letter.”

Mrs. Quilp followed him into the next room.

“Mind what I say to you,” whispered Quilp. “Get out of her anything about her grandfather, or what they do, or how they live, or what he tells her. You women talk more freely to one another than you do to us. Do you hear?”

“Yes, Quilp.”

“Go, then. What’s the matter now?”

“Dear Quilp.” faltered his wife, “I love this child and I don’t want to deceive her…”

The dwarf muttered a terrible oath.

“Do you hear me?” whispered Quilp, nipping and pinching her arm; “let me know her secrets; I know you can. I’m listening, recollect. If you’re not sharp enough I’ll creak the door. Go!”

Mrs. Quilp departed according to order[25]. Her amiable husband, ensconcing himself behind the partly-opened door, and applying his ear close to it, began to listen with a face of great craftiness and attention.

Poor Mrs. Quilp began.

“How very often you have visited Mr. Quilp lately, my dear.”

“I have said so to grandfather, a hundred times,” returned Nell innocently.

“And what has he said to that?”

“Only sighed, and dropped his head. How that door creaks!”

“It often does,” returned Mrs. Quilp with an uneasy glance towards it. “But your grandfather was different before?”

“Oh yes!” said the child eagerly, “so different! We were once so happy and he so cheerful and contented! You cannot think what a sad change has fallen on us, since.”

“I am very, very sorry, to hear you speak like this, my dear!” said Mrs. Quilp. And she spoke the truth.

“Thank you,” returned the child, kissing her cheek, “you are always kind to me, and it is a pleasure to talk to you. I can speak to no one else about him, but poor Kit. You cannot think how it grieves me sometimes to see him alter so.”

“He’ll alter again, Nelly,” said Mrs. Quilp, “and be what he was before.”

“I thought,” said the child; “I saw that door moving!”

“It’s the wind,” said Mrs. Quilp faintly. “Nelly, Nelly! I can’t bear to see you so sorrowful. Pray don’t cry.”

“I do so very seldom,” said Nell, “The tears come into my eyes and I cannot keep them back. I can tell you my grief, for I know you will not tell it to anyone again.”

Mrs. Quilp turned away her head and made no answer.

“We,” said the child, “we often walked in the fields and among the green trees, and when we came home at night, we said what a happy place it was. But now we never have these walks, and though it is the same house, it is darker and much more gloomy than it used to be. Indeed!”

She paused here, but though the door creaked more than once, Mrs. Quilp said nothing.

“Please don’t suppose,” said the child earnestly, “that grandfather is less kind to me than he was. I think he loves me better every day. You do not know how fond he is of me!”

“I am sure he loves you dearly,” said Mrs. Quilp.

“Indeed, indeed he does!” cried Nell, “as dearly as I love him. But I have not told you the greatest change of all, and this you must never tell anyone. He has no sleep or rest, and every night and nearly all night long, he is away from home.”

“Nelly?”

“Hush!” said the child, laying her finger on her lip and looking round. “When he comes home in the morning, I let him in. Last night he was very late, and it was quite light. I saw that his face was deadly pale, and that his legs trembled as he walked. He said that he could not bear his life much longer. What shall I do? Oh! What shall I do?”

In a few moments Mr. Quilp returned.

“She’s tired, you see, Mrs. Quilp,” said the dwarf. “It’s a long way from her home to the wharf. Poor Nell! But wait, and dine with Mrs. Quilp and me.”

“I have been away too long, sir, already,” returned Nell, drying her eyes.

“Well,” said Mr. Quilp, “if you will go, you will, Nelly. Here’s the note. It’s only to say that I shall see him tomorrow, or maybe next day. Good-bye, Nelly. Here, you sir; take care of her, do you hear?”

Kit made no reply, and turned about and followed his young mistress.

Nelly feebly described the sadness and sorrow of her thoughts. The pressure of some hidden grief burdened her grandfather.

One night, the third after Nelly’s interview with Mrs. Quilp, the old man said he would not leave home.

“Two days,” he said, “two whole, clear, days have passed, and there is no reply. What did he tell thee, Nell?”

“Exactly what I told you, dear grandfather, indeed.”

“True,” said the old man, faintly. “Yes. But tell me again, Nell. What was it that he told you? Nothing more than that he would see me tomorrow or next day? That was in the note.”

“Nothing more,” said the child. “Shall I go to him again tomorrow, dear grandfather? Very early? I will be there and back, before breakfast.”

The old man shook his head, and sighing mournfully, drew her towards him.

“It would be of no use, my dear.”

The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the pillow of the couch on which he lay.

Mr. Daniel Quilp entered unseen when the child first placed herself at the old man’s side, and stood looking on with his accustomed grin. He soon cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped. Here, then, he sat, one leg cocked carelessly over the other, his head turned a little on one side, and his ugly features twisted into a complacent grimace.

At length, the old man pronounced his name, and inquired how he came there.

“Through the door,” said Quilp pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. “I’m not quite small enough to get through key-holes. I wish I was. I want to have some talk with you, particularly, and in private. With nobody present, neighbour. Good-bye, little Nelly.”

Nell looked at the old man, who nodded to her to retire, and kissed her cheek.

“Ah!” said the dwarf, smacking his lips, “what a nice kiss! What a capital kiss!”

Nell went away.

“Tell me,” said the old man, “have you brought me any money?”

“No!” returned Quilp.

“Then,” said the old man, clenching his hands desperately, and looking upward, “the child and I are lost!”

“Neighbour,” said Quilp, “let me be plain with you. You have no secret from me now.”

The old man looked up, trembling.

“You are surprised,” said Quilp. “Well, perhaps that’s natural. You have no secret from me now, I say; no, not one. For now, I know, that all those sums of money, that all those loans, advances, and supplies that you have had from me, have gone… shall I say the word?”

“Yes!” replied the old man, “say it, if you will.”

“To the gaming-table,” rejoined Quilp, “This was your precious plan to become rich; this was the secret certain source of wealth in which I spent my money; this was your inexhaustible mine of gold, your El Dorado[26], eh?”

“Yes,” cried the old man, “it was. It is. It will be, till I die.”

“I have been blinded,” said Quilp looking contemptuously at him, “by a mere shallow gambler!”

“I am no gambler,” cried the old man fiercely. “I never played for gain of mine, or love of play. Every piece I staked, I whispered to myself that orphan’s name and called on Heaven to bless the venture; which it never did. Who were those with whom I played? Men who lived by plunder, profligacy, and riot.”

“When did you first begin this mad career?” asked Quilp.

“When did I first begin?” he rejoined, passing his hand across his brow. “When was it, that I first began? When I began to think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to save at all.”

“You lost your money, first, and then came to me. While I thought you were making your fortune (as you said you were) you were making yourself a beggar, eh? Dear me!” said Quilp. “But did you never win?”

“Never!” groaned the old man. “Never won back my loss.”

“I thought,” sneered the dwarf, “that if a man played long enough he was sure to win.”

“And so he is,” cried the old man, “so he is; I have always known it. Quilp, I have dreamed, three nights, of winning the same large sum, I never could dream that dream before, though I have often tried. Do not desert me, now I have this chance. I have no resource but you, give me some help, let me try this one last hope.”

The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

“See Quilp, good tender-hearted Quilp,” said the old man, drawing some papers from his pocket with a trembling hand, and clasping the dwarfs arm, “only see here. Look at these figures, the result of long calculation, and painful and hard experience. I must win. I only want a little help once more, a few pounds, dear Quilp.”

“The last advance was seventy,” said the dwarf; “and it went in one night.”

“I know it did,” answered the old man, “but that was the worst night of all. Quilp, consider, consider that orphan child! Help me for her sake, I implore you; not for mine; for hers!”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do it really,” said Quilp with unusual politeness. “I’d have advanced you, even now, what you want, on your simple note of hand, if I hadn’t unexpectedly known your secret way of life.”

“Who told you?” retorted the old man desperately, “Come. Let me know the name the person.”

The crafty dwarf said, “Now, who do you think?”

“It was Kit, it is the boy; he is the spy!” said the old man.

“Yes, you’re right” said the dwarf. “Yes, it was Kit. Poor Kit!”

So saying, he nodded in a friendly manner, and left, grinning with extraordinary delight.

“Poor Kit!” muttered Quilp. “I think it was Kit who said I was an uglier dwarf than could be seen anywhere for a penny, wasn’t it? Ha ha ha! Poor Kit!”

Kit lifted the latch of the door and passed in.

“Bless us!” cried a woman turning sharply round, “Who’s that? Oh! It’s you, Kit!”

“Yes, mother, it’s me.”

“Why, how tired you look, my dear!”

“Old master did not go out tonight,” said Kit. With which words, he sat down by the fire and looked very mournful and discontented.

Kit’s room was an extremely poor and homely place. His mother was still hard at work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, was sitting bolt upright in a clothes-basket.

“Ah mother!” said Kit, falling upon[27] a great piece of bread and meat, “what a kind woman you are!”

“I hope there are many better, Kit,” said Mrs. Nubbles[28]; “Did you tell me, just now, that your master hadn’t gone out tonight?”

“Yes,” said Kit, “worse luck!”

“I wonder what Mrs. Nelly’d say, if she knew that every night, when she is sitting alone at the window, you are watching in the open street.”

“Never mind what she’d say,” replied Kit; “she’ll never know it, and consequently, she’ll never say anything.”

Mrs. Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, then she observed:

“I know what some people would say, Kit. Some people would say that you’d fallen in love with her.”

“It’s somebody crossing over here,” said Kit, “and coming very fast too, mother!”

The boy stood. The footsteps drew nearer, the door was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale and breathless, hurried into the room.

“Miss Nelly! What is the matter?” cried mother and son together.

“I must not stay a moment,” she returned, “grandfather is very ill. I found him upon the floor.”

“I’ll run for a doctor” said Kit, seizing his brimless hat. “I’ll be there directly.”

“No, no,” cried Nell, “there is one there, you… you must never come near us any more!”

“What?” roared Kit.

“Never again,” said the child. “Don’t ask me why, for I don’t know. Pray don’t ask me why, pray don’t be sorry! I have nothing to do with it indeed!”

Kit looked at her with his eyes opened wide.

“Grandfather complains and raves of you,” said the child, “I don’t know what you have done, but I hope it’s nothing very bad. He cries that you’re the cause of all his misery. You must not return to us any more. I came to tell you. Oh, Kit, what have you done? You, in whom I trusted so much! You were almost the only friend I had!”

The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress, but was perfectly motionless and silent.

“I have brought his money for the week,” said the child, looking to the woman and laying it on the table “and a little more, for he was always good and kind to me. It grieves me very much to part with him like this, but there is no help[29]. Good-night!”

The child hastened to the door, and disappeared as rapidly as she had come. Kit remained in a state of utter stupefaction[30].

The old man was in a raging fever accompanied with delirium. The child was more alone than she had ever been before. The house was no longer theirs. Mr. Quilp took formal possession of the premises and all upon them. The dwarf proceeded to establish himself and his coadjutor in the house.

First, he put an effectual stop to any further business by shutting up the shop. His coadjutor, Mr. Brass[31], was an attorney of no very good repute. He was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen, a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep red. He wore a long black surtout[32] reaching nearly to his ankles, short black trousers, high shoes, and bluish-grey stockings[33]. He had a cringing manner, but a very harsh voice.

Quilp looked at his legal adviser[34], and was quite overjoyed and rubbed his hands with glee.

“Is it good, Brass, is it nice, is it fragrant?” said Quilp. He smoked a lot. “This is the way to keep off fever, this is the way to keep off every calamity of life!”

“Shall we stop here long, Mr. Quilp?” inquired his legal friend.

“We must stop, I suppose, till the old gentleman upstairs is dead,” returned Quilp.

“He he he!” laughed Mr. Brass, “Oh! Very good!”

“Smoke!” cried Quilp. “Never stop! you can talk as you smoke. Don’t lose time.”

“He he he!” cried Brass faintly. “But if he should get better, Mr. Quilp?”

“Then we shall stop till he does, and no longer,” returned the dwarf.

The sentinel at the door interposed in this place, and without taking his pipe from his lips, growled:

“Here’s the girl coming down.”

“Aha! Nelly! Oh!” said Quilp, “My dear young friend! How is he now, my lady?”

“He’s very bad,” replied the weeping child.

“What a pretty little Nell!” cried Quilp.

“Oh beautiful, sir, beautiful indeed,” said Brass. “Quite charming!”

“Has Nell come to sit upon Quilp’s knee,” said the dwarf, “or is she going to bed in her own little room inside here? What is poor Nelly going to do?”

“What a remarkable pleasant way he has with children!” muttered Brass.

“I’m not going to stay at all,” faltered Nell. “I want a few things out of that room, and then I won’t come down here any more.”

“You’re sure you’re not going to use that little room anymore; you’re sure you’re not coming back, Nelly?’

“No,” replied the child, hurrying away, with the few articles of dress “never again! Never again.”

“She’s very sensitive,” said Quilp, looking after her. “Very sensitive; that’s a pity. The bed is just my size. I think I shall make it my little room.”

The dwarf threw himself on his back upon the child’s bed with his pipe in his mouth. Mr. Brass applauded this picture very much.

At length, the crisis of the old man’s disorder was past, and he began to recover. By very slow and feeble degrees his consciousness came back; but the mind was weakened and its functions were impaired. He sat, for hours, together with Nell’s small hand in his, playing with the fingers.

He was sitting in his easy-chair one day, and Nell upon a stool beside him, when a man outside knocked.

“Yes,” the old man said without emotion, “it is Quilp. Quilp is master there. Come in, of course.”

And so he did.

“I’m glad to see you well again at last, neighbour,” said the dwarf, sitting down opposite to him. “You’re quite strong now?”

“Yes,” said the old man feebly, “yes.”

“I don’t want to hurry you, you know, neighbour,” said the dwarf, raising his voice; “but, as soon as you can find a place to live, the better.”

“Surely,” said the old man. “The better for everybody. I will, certainly, we shall not stay here.”

“You see,” pursued Quilp after a short pause, “I have sold the things. Today’s Tuesday. When will the things be moved? This afternoon?”

“What about Friday morning?” returned the old man.

“Very good,” said the dwarf. “So be it, neighbour.”

“Good,” returned the old man. “I shall remember it.”

Thursday arrived. In a small dull yard below his window, there was a tree green and flourishing enough, it threw a rippling shadow on the white wall. The old man sat watching the shadows, until the sun went down; and when it was night, and the moon was slowly rising, he still sat in the same spot.

He besought Nelly to forgive him.

“Forgive you what?” said Nell. “Oh grandfather, what should I forgive?”

“All that is past, all that has come upon you, Nell, all that was done,” returned the old man.

“Do not talk so,” said the child. “Pray do not. Let us speak of something else.”

“Yes, yes, we will,” he rejoined. “Hush! We will not stay here. We will go far away from here.”

“Yes, let us go,” said the child earnestly. “Let us leave this place, and never turn back or think of it again. Let us wander barefoot through the world, rather than linger here.”

“We will,” answered the old man, “we will travel afoot through the fields and woods, and by the side of rivers, and trust ourselves to God in the places where He dwells. You and I together, Nell.”

“We will be happy,” cried the child. “We never can be here.”

“No,” rejoined the old man. “Let us steal away tomorrow morning early and softly, that we may not be seen or heard. Poor Nell! Your cheek is pale, and your eyes are weeping; but you will be well again, and merry too, when we are far away. Tomorrow morning, dear, we’ll turn our faces from this scene of sorrow, and be as free and happy as the birds.”

And then, the old man clasped his hands above her head, and said that from that time forth they would wander up and down together.

The child’s heart beat high with hope and confidence. She had no thought of hunger, or cold, or thirst, or suffering. The old man had slept, for some hours, in his bed, and she was busily engaged in preparing for their flight. There were a few articles of clothing for herself to carry, and a few for him; old garments; and a staff to support his feeble steps. But this was not all her task; for now she must visit the old rooms for the last time.

She sat down at the window where she had spent so many evenings. There were some trifles in her room that she would like to take away; but that was impossible.

The old man woke up. He wanted to leave the house immediately, and was soon ready. The child then took him by the hand, and they trod lightly and cautiously down the stairs. At last, they reached the passage on the ground-floor, where the snoring of Mr. Quilp and his legal friend sounded more terrible in their ears than the roars of lions.

They opened the door without noise, and passing into the street, stood still.

“Which way?” said the child.

The old man looked, irresolutely and helplessly, first at her, then to the right and left, then at her again, and shook his head. The child put her hand in his, and led him gently away.

Forth from the city went the two poor adventurers, wandering they knew not whither.

Dick Swiveller entered the shop and saw Daniel Quilp.

“You came for some purpose, I suppose,” said Quilp. “What is it you want?”

“I want to know how the old gentleman is,” rejoined Mr. Swiveller, “and to see Nell. I’m a friend of the family, sir, at least I’m the friend of one of the family, and that’s the same thing.”

“You’d better walk in then,” said the dwarf. “Go on, sir, go on.”

“You seem to make yourself at home here,” said Dick, who was unacquainted with Mr. Quilp’s authority.

“I am at home, young gentleman,” returned the dwarf.

Dick was pondering what these words might mean, and still more what the presence of Mr. Brass might mean, when Mrs. Quilp came downstairs, declaring that the rooms above were empty.

“Empty, you fool!” said the dwarf.

“I have been into every room, Quilp,” answered his trembling wife, “and there’s not a soul in any of them.”

Quilp turned to Mr. Brass.

“Indeed,” he said, “we knew that they’d go away today, but not that they’d go so early, or so quietly. But they have their reasons, they have their reasons.”

“Where did they go?” said the wondering Dick.

Swiveller was utterly aghast. The old man and all the money melted away.

“Well,” said Dick, “I suppose it’s of no use, my staying here.”

“Not the least in the world,” rejoined the dwarf.

By this time, certain vans had arrived for the conveyance of the goods. The dwarf observed, that a boy was prying in at the outer door. It was Kit, and Mr. Quilp hailed him by his name.

“Come here, you sir,” said the dwarf. “Well, so your old master and young mistress have gone?”

“Where?” rejoined Kit, looking round.

“Do you mean to say you don’t know where?” answered Quilp sharply. “Where have they gone, eh?”

“I don’t know,” said Kit.

“Oh!” said the dwarf after a little consideration. “Then, I think they’ll come to you.”

“Do you think they will?” cried Kit eagerly.

“Why not?” returned the dwarf. “And when they do, let me know; do you hear? Let me know, and I’ll give you something. I want to do them a kindness, and I can’t do them a kindness unless I know where they are. You hear what I say?”

The child trembled with a mingled sensation of hope and fear. The town was glad with morning light; the flowers that sleep by night, opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day. The two pilgrims, often pressing each other’s hands, or exchanging a smile or cheerful look, pursued their way in silence. They came upon a straggling neighbourhood. At length the streets becoming more straggling yet, dwindled and dwindled away, until there were only small garden patches bordering the road. Then came some houses, one by one, of goodly size with lawns, some even with a lodge where dwelt a porter and his wife. Then came a turnpike; then fields again with trees and hay-stacks; then, a hill. In a pleasant field, the old man and his little guide sat down to rest. Here they made their frugal breakfast.

“Dear grandfather,” said Nelly, “this place is very pretty, and I feel as if laid down on this grass all the cares and troubles we brought with us; never to take them up again.”

“No never to return, never to return” replied the old man, waving his hand towards the city. “You and I are free of it now, Nell.”

“Are you tired?” said the child, “are you sure you don’t feel ill from this long walk?”

“I shall never feel ill again, now that we are once away,” was his reply. “Let us go, Nell. We must be further away; a long, long way further. We are too near to stop[35], and be at rest. Come!”

There was a pool of clear water in the field, in which the child laved her hands and face, and cooled her feet. She refreshed the old man too, cast the water on him with her hands, and dried it with her simple dress.

“I can do nothing for myself, my darling,” said the grandfather; “I don’t know how it is, I could once, but the time’s gone. Don’t leave me, Nell; say that you’ll not leave me. I love you, indeed I do. If I lose you, my dear, I must die!”

He laid his head upon her shoulder and moaned piteously. She soothed him with gentle and tender words. He was soon calmed and fell asleep, singing to himself in a low voice, like a little child.

He awoke refreshed, and they continued their journey. The road was pleasant, lying between beautiful pastures and fields of corn. They were now in the open country; the houses were very few and scattered at long intervals, often miles apart.

The sun was setting when they reached the wicket-gate[36] at which the path began. The church was old and grey, with ivy clinging to the walls, and round the porch. The old man and the child passed behind the church, and they heard voices near.

Two men were seated upon the grass. It was not difficult to divine that they were showmen exhibitors[37] of the freaks of Punch[38]. Upon a tombstone behind them, was a figure of that hero himself.

The men raised their eyes when the old man and his young companion were close upon them, and pausing in their work, returned their looks of curiosity. One of them was a little merry-faced man with a twinkling eye and a red nose. The other that was he who took the money had rather a careful and cautious look.

The merry man was the first to greet the strangers with a nod. He observed that perhaps that was the first time the old man had ever seen a Punch off the stage[39].

“Why did you come here?” said the old man, sitting down beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight.

“You see,” rejoined the little man, “we need to repair our puppets.”

“Good!” said the old man, touching one of the puppets, and drawing away his hand with a shrill laugh. “Are you going to show them tonight? Are you?”

“That is the intention, sir,” replied the other, “and Tommy Codlin[40] is calculating at this minute how much we’re going to get tonight.”

The little man accompanied these latter words with a wink.

To this Mr. Codlin, who had a surly, grumbling manner, replied: “Look here; here’s all this Judy’s[41] clothes falling to pieces again. You haven’t got a needle and thread I suppose?”

The little man shook his head. Seeing that they were at a loss, the child said timidly: “I have a needle, sir, in my basket, and thread too. Will you let me try to mend it for you? I think I could do it neater than you could.”

Mr. Codlin had nothing to urge against this proposal. Nelly, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily engaged in her task. The merry little man looked at her with an interest. When she had finished her work he thanked her, and inquired where they were travelling.

“No further tonight, I think,” said the child, looking towards her grandfather.

“If you’re looking for a place to stop at,” the man remarked, “I can advise you to take up[42] at the same house with us. That’s it. The long, low, white house there. It’s very cheap.”

They all rose and walked away together. The old man was keeping close to the box of puppets in which he was quite absorbed.

The public-house was kept by a fat old landlord and landlady who made no objection to receiving their new guests, but praised Nelly’s beauty. The landlady was very much astonished to learn that they had come all the way from London.

“These two gentlemen have ordered supper in an hour’s time,” she said, taking her into the bar; “and your best plan will be to sup with them.”

The Punch and Judy performance was applauded to the echo, and voluntary contributions showed the general delight. Among the laughter none was more loud and frequent than the old man’s. Nell’s was unheard, for she, poor child, with her head drooping on his shoulder, had fallen asleep.

The supper was very good, but she was too tired to eat, and yet did not want to leave the old man until she had kissed him in his bed. It was but a loft partitioned into two compartments, where they were to rest, but they were well pleased with their lodging and had hoped for none so good[43]. The old man was uneasy when he had lain down, and begged that Nell would come and sit at his bedside as she had done for so many nights. She hastened to him, and sat there till he slept.

She had a little money, but it was very little, and when that was gone, they must begin to beg. There was one piece of gold among it, and it would be best to hide this coin. She sewed the piece of gold into her dress[44], and went to bed with a lighter heart.

Another bright day awoke her. The old man woke up and dressed. They all sat down to eat together.

“And where are you going today?” said the little man.

“Indeed I hardly know, we have not determined yet,” replied the child.

“We’re going on to the races,” said the little man. “If that’s your way and you like to have us for company, let us travel together.”

“We’ll go with you,” said the old man. “Nell, with them, with them.”

The real name of the little man was Harris[45], but everybody called him Trotters[46], which, with the prefatory adjective, Short, showed the small size of his legs. So Short Trotters[47] was used in formal conversations and on occasions of ceremony[48].

The breakfast was over, and Mr. Codlin called the bill. They took farewell of the landlord and landlady and resumed their journey.

Mr. Codlin trudged heavily on[49], exchanging a word or two at intervals with Short, and stopping to rest and growl occasionally. Short led the way; with the box, the private luggage tied up in a bundle, and a brazen trumpet. Nell and her grandfather walked next him, and Thomas Codlin brought up the rear.

When they came to any town or village, or even to a house of good appearance, Short blew a blast upon the brazen trumpet. If people hurried to the windows, Mr. Codlin hastily unfurled the drapery and concealed Short therewith. Then the entertainment began as soon as might be. After that they resumed their load and on they went again. They were generally well received, and seldom left a town without a troop of children shouting at their heels[50].

The Jolly Sandboys[51] was a small roadside inn[52] of pretty ancient date. The travellers arrived, drenched with the rain and presenting a most miserable appearance. The landlord rushed into the kitchen and took the cover off[53]. The effect was magical. They all came in with smiling faces though the wet was dripping from their clothes upon the floor, and Short’s first remark was, “What a delicious smell!”

It is not very difficult to forget rain and mud by the side of a cheerful fire, and in a bright room. They were given slippers and dry garments. Nelly and the old man sat by the fire and fell asleep.

“Who are they?” whispered the landlord.

Short shook his head.

“Don’t you know?” asked the host, turning to Mr. Codlin.

“Not I,” he replied. “They’re no good, I suppose.”

“They’re no harm,” said Short. “And I tell you: the old man isn’t in his right mind[54]. They’re not used to this way of life. Don’t tell me that that handsome child has been in the habit of prowling about[55].”

“Well, who does tell you she has?” growled Mr. Codlin.

“Hear me out, the old man ran away from his relatives and took this delicate young creature to be his guide and companion. Now I’m not a going to stand that[56].”

“You’re not a going to stand that!” cried Mr. Codlin, pulling his hair with both hands.

“I,” repeated Short emphatically and slowly, “am not a going to stand it. I am not a going to see this fair young child in an inappropriate company. Therefore I shall take measures for detaining of them, and restoring them to their relatives.”

“Short,” said Mr. Codlin, “it’s possible that there may be good sense in what you’ve said. If there is, and there can be a reward, Short, remember that we’re partners in everything!”

His companion nodded, and the child awoke at the instant.

The next day, after bidding the old man good-night, Nell retired to her poor garret, but had scarcely closed the door, when it gently opened. She was a little startled by the sight of Mr. Thomas Codlin, whom she had left down-stairs.

“What is the matter?” said the child.

“Nothing’s the matter, my dear,” returned her visitor. “I’m your friend. Perhaps you haven’t thought so, but it’s me that’s your friend not him.”

“Not who?” the child inquired.

“Short, my dear. I tell you what,” said Codlin, “You see, I’m the real, open-hearted man. I don’t look it, but I am indeed. Short’s very well, and seems kind, but he overdoes it[57]. Now I don’t.”

The child was puzzled, and did not know not tell what to say.

“Take my advice,” said Codlin: “don’t ask me why, but take it. As long as you travel with us, keep as near me as you can. Don’t offer to leave us but always stick to me and say that I’m your friend. Will you bear that in mind, my dear, and always say that it was me that was your friend?”

“Say so where, and when?” inquired the child innocently.

“O, nowhere in particular,” replied Codlin; “I’m only worried about you. Why didn’t you tell me your little history that about you and the poor old gentleman? I’m the best adviser that ever was, and so interested in you so much more interested than Short. And you needn’t tell Short, you know, that we’ve had this little talk together. God bless you. Recollect the friend. Codlin’s the friend, not Short. Your real friend is Codlin, not Short.”

Thomas Codlin stole away on tip-toe[58], leaving the child in a state of extreme surprise. And suddenly somebody knocked at hers.

“Yes,” said the child.

“It’s me, Short” a voice called through the key-hole. “I only wanted to say that we must be off early tomorrow morning, my dear. Will you go with us? I’ll call you.”

The child answered “Yes”. She felt some uneasiness at the anxiety of these men.

Very early next morning, Short fulfilled his promise, and knocked softly at her door. Nell started from her bed without delay, and roused the old man.

It was dark before they reached the town. Here all was tumult and confusion; the streets were filled with throngs of people. At length they passed through the town and made for the race-course[59], which was upon an open heath. They saw a big tent.

After a scanty supper, Nell and the old man lay down to rest in a corner of a tent, and slept, despite the busy preparations that were going on around them all night long.

And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread. Soon after sunrise in the morning the child, while the two men lay dozing in another corner, plucked grandfather by the sleeve, and slightly glancing towards them, said, in a low voice.

“Grandfather, these men suspect that we have secretly left our relatives, and I think, they want to sent us back. We must get away from them.”

“How?” muttered the old man. “Dear Nelly, how? They will easily catch me, and never let me see you anymore!”

“You’re trembling,” said the child. “Keep close to me all day. Never mind them, don’t look at them, but me. I shall find a time when we can go away. When I do, come with me, and do not stop or speak a word. Hush! That’s all.”

“Halloa! What are you doing, my dear?” said Mr. Codlin, raising his head, and yawning. Then observing that his companion was asleep, he added in an earnest whisper, “Codlin’s the friend, remember not Short.”

Late in the day, Mr. Codlin pitched the show in a convenient spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph of the scene. That was the very moment. They seized it, and fled.

They made a path through booths and carriages and throngs of people, and never once stopped to look behind. They made for the open fields.

Kit raised his eyes to the window of Nell’s little room, and hoped to see some indication of her presence. His own earnest wish, coupled with the assurance he had received from Quilp, filled him with the belief that she would arrive.

“I think they must certainly come tomorrow, eh mother?” said Kit, laying aside his hat and sighing as he spoke. “They have been gone a week. They surely couldn’t stop away more than a week, could they now?”

The mother shook her head, and reminded him how often he had been disappointed already.

“I consider,” said Kit, “that a week is quite long enough for them to be rambling about; don’t you say so?”

“Quite long enough, Kit, longer than enough, but they may not come back for all that.”

Kit thought she was right.

“Then what do you think, mother, has become of them? You don’t think they’ve gone to sea, anyhow?”

“Not gone for sailors, certainly,” returned the mother with a smile. “But I think that they have gone to some foreign country.”

“I say,” cried Kit with a rueful face, “don’t talk like that, mother.”

“I am afraid they have, and that’s the truth,” she said. “It’s the talk of all the neighbours.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Kit. “Not a word of it. How should they know!”

“They may be wrong of course,” returned the mother, “but the people say that the old gentleman and Miss Nell have gone to live abroad where they will never be disturbed.”

Kit scratched his head mournfully. Suddenly a knock at the door was heard. Kit opened the door and saw a little old gentleman and a little old lady.

“Why, bless me,” cried the old gentleman, “the lad is here! My dear, do you see? This is a very good lad, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure he is,” rejoined the old lady. “A very good lad, and I am sure he is a good son.”

The old gentleman then handed the old lady out, and after looking at him with an approving smile, they went into the house.

“Well, boy,” said the old gentleman, smiling; “We are here before you, you see, Christopher[60].”

“Yes, sir,” said Kit; and as he said it, he looked towards his mother for an explanation of the visit.

“This gentleman, Mr. Garland[61], was kind enough, my dear,” said she, in reply to this mute interrogation, “to ask me yesterday whether you were in a good place, or in any place at all, and when I told him no, you were not in any, he was so good as to say that…”

“That we wanted a good lad in our house,” said the old gentleman and the old lady both together.

“You see, my good woman,” said Mrs. Garland to Kit’s mother, “that it’s necessary to be very careful and particular in such a matter as this, for we’re only three in family, and are very quiet people, and it would be a sad thing if we made any kind of mistake, and found things different from what we hoped and expected.”

To this, Kit’s mother replied, that certainly it was quite true, and quite right, and quite proper and her son was a very good son though she was his mother, in which respect, she was bold to say, he took after his father, who was not only a good son to his mother, but the best of husbands and the best of fathers besides. After this long story she wiped her eyes with her apron, and patted her little son’s head, who was staring at the strange lady and gentleman.

Mr. Garland put some questions to Kit respecting his qualifications and general acquirements. It was settled that Kit would start to work on the next day, and the money is six pound a year. Finally, the little old couple took their leaves; being escorted by their new attendant.

“Well, mother,” said Kit, hurrying back into the house, “I think my fortune’s about made now.”

“I should think it was indeed, Kit,” rejoined his mother. “Six pound a year! Only think!”

“Ah!” said Kit. “There’s a property!”

“Hem!” croaked a strange voice. “What’s that about six pound a year? What about six pound a year?” And as the voice made this inquiry, Daniel Quilp walked in with Richard Swiveller at his heels.

“Who said he would have six pound a year?” said Quilp, looking sharply round. “Did the old man say it, or did little Nell say it? And what’s he to have it for, and where are they, eh?”

The good woman was so much alarmed by the sudden apparition of this unknown ugly dwarf, that she hastily caught the baby from its cradle and retreated into the furthest corner of the room.

“Don’t be frightened, mistress,” said Quilp, after a pause. “Your son knows me; I don’t eat babies; I don’t like them. Now you Kit, why haven’t you come to me as you promised?”

“What should I come for?” retorted Kit. “I hadn’t any business with you, no more than you had with me.”

“Here, mistress,” said Quilp, turning quickly away, and appealing from Kit to his mother. “When did his old master come or send here last? Is he here now? If not, where’s he gone?”

“He has not been here at all,” she replied. “We don’t know where they have gone.”

Quilp glanced at Richard Swiveller, and assumed that he had come in search of some information of the fugitives. He supposed he was right?

“Yes,” said Dick, “that was the object of the present expedition.”

“You seem disappointed,” observed Quilp.

“It baffles description[62], sir, that’s all,” returned Dick.

The dwarf looked at Richard with a sarcastic smile, but Richard continued to deplore his fate with mournful and despondent looks.

“I am disappointed myself,” said Quilp, “I have friendly feeling for them; but you have real reasons, private reasons I have no doubt, for your disappointment, and therefore it comes heavier than mine.”

“Why, of course it does,” Dick observed, testily.

“Upon my word, I’m very sorry, very sorry. But as we are companions in adversity[63], shall we be companions in the surest way of forgetting it? If you had no particular business, now, to lead you in another direction,” urged Quilp, plucking him by the sleeve and looking slyly up into his face out of the corners of his eyes, “there is a house by the water-side where they have excellent gin. The landlord knows me. There’s a little summer-house[64] overlooking the river, where we might take a glass of this delicious liquor, Mr. Swiveller, eh?”

As the dwarf spoke, Dick’s face relaxed into a compliant smile, and his brows slowly unbent. Off they went.

The summer-house of which Mr. Quilp had spoken was a rugged wooden box, rotten and bare to see, which overhung the river’s mud, and threatened to slide down into it. The tavern to which it belonged was a crazy building, undermined by the rats. The rooms were low and damp, the clammy walls were pierced with chinks and holes. To this inviting spot Mr. Quilp led Richard Swiveller.

Roads stretch a long, long way. The old man and the child passed, without stopping, two or three inconsiderable clusters of cottages, a public-house where they had some bread and cheese, and they were very weary and fatigued.

In the evening they arrived at a point where the road made a sharp turn and struck across a common[65]. On the border of this common, and close to the hedge which divided it from the cultivated fields, a caravan was drawn up to rest.

It was not a shabby, dingy, dusty cart, but a smart little house upon wheels, with white dimity curtains festooning the windows. Neither was it a gypsy caravan, for at the open door sat a Christian lady, stout and comfortable to look upon, who wore a large bonnet trembling with bows. This lady was drinking tea. The tea-things, including a bottle and a cold knuckle of ham, were set forth upon a drum, covered with a white napkin.

It happened that at that moment the lady beheld an old man and a young child walking slowly by.

“Hey!” cried the lady of the caravan. “Yes, to be sure, who won the prize, child?”

“Won what, ma’am?” asked Nell.

“The prize, at the races, child.”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“Don’t know!” repeated the lady of the caravan; “why, you were there. I saw you with my own eyes.”

Nell was not a little alarmed to hear this.

“And very sorry I was,” said the lady of the caravan, “to see you in company with a Punch; a low, practical, vulgar wretch.”

“I was there by chance,” returned the child; “we didn’t know our way, and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel with them. Do you know them, ma’am?”

“Know them, child!” cried the lady of the caravan in a sort of shriek. “Know them! But you’re young and inexperienced, and that’s your excuse for asking such a question.”

“Oh ma’am,” said the child, fearing she had committed some grievous fault. “I beg your pardon.”

It was granted immediately. The child then explained that they had left the races, and were travelling to the next town on that road, where they purposed to spend the night.

“Come nearer, nearer still,” said the lady of the caravan, “Are you hungry, child?”

“Not very, but we are tired, and it is a long way.”

“Well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea,” rejoined her new acquaintance. “I suppose you are agreeable to that, old gentleman?”

The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her. She handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread and butter, and the knuckle of ham. So they made a hearty meal and enjoyed it to the utmost.

The lady of the caravan alighted on the earth, and sat down upon the steps and called “George;” whereupon a man in a carter’s frock[66] appeared.

“Yes, ma’am,” said George.

“How did you find the cold pie[67], George?”

“It wasn’t amiss, ma’am.”

“And the beer,” said the lady of the caravan, “is it passable, George?”

“It’s not bad, ma’am” George returned, “not bad at all.”

“We are not a heavy load, George?”

“That’s always what the ladies say,” replied the man. “What is the cause of this here?”

“Would these two travellers make much difference to the horses, if we took them with us?” asked his mistress, pointing to Nell and the old man, who were painfully preparing to resume their journey on foot.

“They’d make a difference in course,” said George doggedly.

“Would they make much difference?” repeated his mistress. “They can’t be very heavy.”

“The weight of the pair, mum!” said George.

After these words of George the lady offered the old man and the child to go forward in the caravan. Nell thanked her with unaffected earnestness. Their patroness then shut the door and sat herself down at an open window. So away they went, with a great noise of flapping and creaking and straining.

The lady of the caravan sat at one window in all the pride, and little Nell and her grandfather sat at the other in all the humility. At first the two travellers spoke little, and only in whispers, but as they grew more familiar with the place they conversed with greater freedom, and talked about the country through which they were passing, until the old man fell asleep. The lady of the caravan invited Nell to come and sit beside her.

“Well, child,” she said, “how do you like this way of travelling?”

Nell replied that she thought it was very pleasant indeed. The lady sat got up and brought out from a corner a large roll of canvas about a yard in width, which she laid upon the floor and spread open with her foot.

“There, child,” she said, “read that.”

Nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the inscription. “JARLEY’S WAX-WORK[68].”

“Read it again,” said the lady, complacently.

“Jarley’s Wax-Work,” repeated Nell.

“That’s me,” said the lady. “I am Mrs. Jarley.”

Mrs. Jarley unfolded another scroll, where was the inscription, “One hundred figures the full size of life[69],” and then another scroll, on which was written, “The only stupendous collection of real wax-work in the world,” and then several smaller scrolls with such inscriptions as “Now exhibiting within”, “The genuine and only Jarley”, “Jarley’s unrivalled collection”, “Jarley is the delight of the Nobility and Gentry[70]“, “The Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley.”

“Never go into the company of a filthy Punch any more,” said Mrs. Jarley, “after this.”

“I never saw any wax-work, ma’am,” said Nell. “Is it funnier than Punch?”

“Funnier!” said Mrs. Jarley in a shrill voice. “It is not funny at all.”

“Oh!” said Nell, with all possible humility.

“It isn’t funny at all,” repeated Mrs. Jarley. “It’s calm and classical. No low beatings, no jokings and squeakings like your precious Punches!”

“Is it here, ma’am?” asked Nell.

“Is what here, child?”

“The wax-work, ma’am.”

“Why, bless you, child, what are you thinking of? How could such a collection be here, where you see everything except the inside of one little cupboard and a few boxes? It’s in the other wans, and there it’ll be exhibited the day after tomorrow. You are going to the same town, and you’ll see it I dare say.”

“I shall not be in the town, I think, ma’am,” said the child.

“Not there?” cried Mrs. Jarley. “Then where will you be?”

“I don’t quite know. I am not certain.”

“You don’t mean to say that you’re travelling about the country without knowing where you’re going to?” said the lady of the caravan. “What curious people you are!”

“We are poor people, ma’am,” returned Nell, “and are only wandering about. We have nothing to do; I wish we had.”

“You amaze me more and more,” said Mrs. Jarley. “Why, what do you call yourselves? Not beggars?”

“Indeed, ma’am, I don’t know what else we are,” returned the child.

“Lord bless me,” said the lady of the caravan. “I never heard of such a thing!”

She remained silent after this exclamation. Then she said:

“And yet you can read. And write too, I wonder?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the child.

“Well, and what a thing that is,” returned Mrs. Jarley. “I can’t!”

Mrs. Jarley relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and remained in that state so long that Nell withdrew to the other window and rejoined her grandfather, who was now awake.

At length the lady of the caravan summoned the driver to come under the window at which she was seated, held a long conversation with him in a low tone of voice, and then beckoned Nell to approach.

“And the old gentleman too,” said Mrs. Jarley; “for I want to have a word with him. Do you want a good situation for your granddaughter, master? If you do, I can make it. What do you say?”

“I can’t leave her,” answered the old man. “We can’t separate. What will become of me without her?”

“I think you can take care of yourself,” retorted Mrs. Jarley sharply.

“Pray do not speak harshly to him,” said the child in an earnest whisper. “We are very thankful to you, but neither of us could part from the other.”

Mrs. Jarley looked at the old man, who tenderly took Nell’s hand and detained it in his own.

“If you want to employ yourself,” said Mrs. Jarley, “there is much work for you, too: to dust the figures, and take the checks, and so forth. What I want your granddaughter for, is to point them out to the people. It’s not a common offer, bear in mind, it’s Jarley’s wax-work, remember. This is an opportunity which may never occur again! Now, child?” cried Mrs. Jarley, as Nell turned towards her.

“We are very much obliged to you, ma’am,” said Nell, “and thankfully accept your offer.”

“And you’ll never be sorry for it,” returned Mrs. Jarley. “I’m pretty sure of that. So let us have a bit of supper.”

The caravan came upon the paved streets of a town which were clear of passengers, and quiet, for it was by this time near midnight. They turned aside into a piece of waste ground that lay just within the old town-gate, and drew up there for the night, near to another caravan, which bore on its panel the great name of Jarley, and was employed in conveying from place to place the wax-work.

Nell decided to walk for a little while in the air. The moon was shining down upon the old gateway of the town; and with a mingled sensation of curiosity and fear, she slowly approached the gate, and stood still to look up at it, wondering to see how dark, and grim, and old, and cold, it looked.

There was an empty niche from which some old statue had fallen or been carried away hundreds of years ago. There suddenly a man emerged from the black shade of the arch. She recognised him: it was ugly misshapen Quilp! The child withdrew into a dark corner, and saw him pass close to her. He had a stick in his hand, and he leant upon it, looked back directly, as it seemed, towards where she stood and beckoned.

To her? Oh no, thank God, not to her; there issued slowly forth from the arch another figure – a boy who carried on his back a trunk.

“Faster, fool!” cried Quilp, looking up at the old gateway, “faster!”

“It’s a dreadful heavy load, sir,” the boy pleaded. “I go very fast, indeed.”

“What?” retorted Quilp; “You creep, you dog, you crawl, like a worm. There are the chimes now, half-past twelve. Come on then, or I shall be too late. Faster, do you hear me? Faster!”

The boy made all the speed he could. Nell did not dare to move until they were out of sight.

Mrs. Jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and the child, and, sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the centre, gave Nell with a willow wand[71] to point out the characters, and began to instruct her in her duty.

“That,” said Mrs. Jarley in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a figure at the beginning of the platform, “is an unfortunate Maid of Honour[72] in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her finger in consequence of working upon a Sunday. Observe the blood which is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle[73], with which she is at work.”

All this Nell repeated twice or thrice: pointing to the finger and the needle at the right times, and then passed on to the next.

“That, ladies and gentlemen,” said Mrs. Jarley, “is Jasper Packlemerton[74], who courted and married fourteen wives, and destroyed them all, by tickling the soles of their feet when they were sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and virtue. When he was brought to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry for what he had done, he replied yes, he was sorry for having let them off so easy[75]. Let this be a warning to all young ladies to be particular in the character of the gentlemen of their choice. Observe that his fingers are curled as if in the act of tickling, and that his face is represented with a wink.”

When Nell knew all about Mr. Packlemerton, and could say it without faltering, Mrs. Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the thin man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of dancing at a hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the woman who poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and other historical characters and interesting but individuals.

Nell was very apt to remember them, and in a couple of hours she was in full possession of the history of the whole establishment, and perfectly competent to the enlightenment of visitors.

Mrs. Jarley had an inventive genius for attracting visitors to the exhibition. Little Nell was not forgotten. Although her duties were sufficiently laborious, Nell found the lady of the caravan a very kind person. Her grandfather too was well-treated and useful, but she had recollection of Quilp, and feared that he might return and one day suddenly encounter them.

Quilp indeed was a perpetual nightmare to the child, who was constantly haunted by a vision of his ugly face and stunted figure. She slept in the room where the wax-work figures were. Sometimes she recalled the old house and the window at which she used to sit alone; and then she thought of poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came into her eyes, and she wept and smiled together.

Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to her grandfather, and she wondered how much he remembered of their former life. He was very patient and willing, happy to execute any little task, and glad to be of use; but he was in the same listless state, with no prospect of improvement. He was a harmless old man, susceptible of tender love and regard for her, and of pleasant and painful impressions.

One evening, Nell and her grandfather went out to walk. They strolled a long distance. They took a footpath which struck through some pleasant fields, finally they reached the track, and stopped to rest.

The sky was dark and lowering, the wind began to moan in hollow murmurs. Large drops of rain soon began to fall. The old man and the child hurried along the high road, hoping to find some house in which they could seek a refuge from the storm. Soon they saw a solitary house. A man was standing at the door, he called lustily to them to enter.

“You had better stand by the fire here, and dry yourselves a bit! This is a public-house, The Valiant Soldier[76].”

“Is this house called the Valiant Soldier, sir?” asked Nell.

“I thought everybody knew that,” replied the landlord. “Where have you come from, if you don’t know the Valiant Soldier well? This is the Valiant Soldier, by Jem Groves[77] honest Jem Groves, a man of unblemished moral character!”

With these words, the speaker tapped himself on the waistcoat to show that he was Jem Groves himself. They entered the house. Some people were playing cards.

“Nell, they’re playing cards,” whispered the old man. “Don’t you see them? Do you hear, Nell, do you hear them?”

The child saw with astonishment and alarm that his whole appearance had undergone a complete change. His face was flushed and eager, his eyes were strained, his teeth set, his breath came short and thick, and the hand he laid upon her arm trembled violently.

“I always said that,” he muttered, looking upward, “I knew it, dreamed of it, felt it was the truth, and that it must be so! What money have we, Nell? Come! I saw you with money yesterday. What money have we? Give it to me.”

“No, no, let me keep it, grandfather,” said the frightened child. “Let us go away from here. Do not mind the rain. Pray let us go.”

“Give it to me, I say,” returned the old man fiercely. “Hush, hush, don’t cry, Nell. If I spoke sharply, dear, I didn’t mean it. It’s for your good. Where is the money?”

“Do not take it,” said the child. “Pray do not take it, dear. Let me keep it, or let me throw it away, better let me throw it away, than you take it now. Let us go; let us go!”

“Give me the money,” returned the old man, “I must have it. Give me the money! Never fear!”

She took from her pocket a little purse. He seized it with rapid impatience, and hastily made his way to the players. It was impossible to restrain him, and the trembling child followed grandfather.

“I had no intention to offend,” said the old man, looking anxiously at the cards. “I thought that…”

“The gentleman wants,” said one of the players with a cunning look, “to ask if he might have the honour to join us?”

“Yes, yes, I mean it,” cried the old man. “That is what I mean. That is what I want now!”

The old man shook the little purse in his eager hand, and then threw it down upon the table, and gathered up the cards.

The landlord approached the table and took his seat. The child, in a perfect agony, drew her grandfather aside, and implored him, even then, to come away.

“Come; and we may be so happy,” said the child.

“We will be happy,” replied the old man hastily. “Let me go, Nell, my darling.”

As he spoke he drew a chair to the table; and the other three closing round it at the same time, the game commenced. He was very excited.

On the contrary, the other three knaves and gamesters[78] were cool and quiet.

At length the play came to an end, and one of the gamesters rose the only winner[79]. The other knaves and the landlord bore their losses with professional fortitude. Nell’s little purse was empty; but although it lay empty by his side, and the other players had now risen from the table, the old man sat poring over the cards. He was quite absorbed in this occupation, when the child drew near and laid her hand upon his shoulder, telling him it was near midnight.

“See the curse of poverty, Nell,” he said. “If I could have played a little longer, only a little longer, the luck would have turned on my side! See here and there and here again.”

“Put them away,” urged the child. “Try to forget them.”

“Try to forget them!” he rejoined, raising his haggard face to hers. “To forget them! How are we ever to grow rich if I forget them?”

The child could only shake her head.

“No, no, Nell,” said the old man, patting her cheek; “they must not be forgotten. We must make amends for this as soon as we can. Patience, patience, and we’ll become rich, I promise you. Lose today, win tomorrow. Come. I am ready.”

“Do you know what the time is?” said the landlord, who was smoking with his friends. “Past twelve o’clock.”

“And a rainy night,” added another man.

“The Valiant Soldier, by James Groves. Good beds. Cheap entertainment for man and beast,” said the landlord, quoting his signboard. “Half-past twelve o’clock.”

“It’s very late,” said the uneasy child. “I wish we had gone before. What will they think of us! It will be two o’clock by the time we get back. What would it cost, sir, if we stopped here?”

“Two good beds, one-and-sixpence; supper and beer one shilling; total two shillings and sixpence,” replied the Valiant Soldier.

Now, Nell had still the piece of gold sewn in her dress. She therefore took her grandfather aside, and telling him that she had money to pay for the beds, proposed that they would stay there for the night.

“If I had had that money before! If I had only known of it a few minutes ago!” muttered the old man.

“We will decide to stop here if you please,” said Nell, turning hastily to the landlord.

“I think that’s prudent,” returned the landlord.

The child was anxious to pay for their entertainment before they retired to bed. She secretly took the piece of gold from its place of concealment, and gave it to the landlord when he went out of the room.

“Will you give me the change here, if you please?” said the child.

Mr. James Groves was evidently surprised, and looked at the money, and looked at the child, and at the money again. The coin was genuine, however, and he thought, like a wise landlord, that it was no business of his. He counted out the change, and gave it her. The child returned to the room where they had passed the evening, when she saw a figure just gliding in at the door. She had been watched[80]!

But by whom? When she re-entered the room, she looked round to see if anyone else were there. No. Then she asked her grandfather in a whisper whether anybody had left the room while she was absent.

“No,” he said, “nobody.”

It was strange, because she saw this figure very distinctly.

The old man took leave of the company, and they went upstairs together. It was a great, rambling house, with dull corridors and wide staircases. She left her grandfather in his chamber, and followed her guide to another, which was at the end of a passage. This was prepared for her.

The child did not feel comfortable when she was left alone. The men were very ill-looking. They might get their living by robbing and murdering travellers. Who could tell?

At last, she was asleep. But soon she woke in great terror. That figure was in her room. She had no voice to cry for help, no power to move, but lay still, watching it.

On it came on, silently and stealthily, to the bed’s head. There it remained, motionless as she. Then it took something from her dress, and she heard the chink of money.

Then it dropped upon its hands and knees, and crawled away. It reached the door at last, and stood upon its feet. The steps creaked, and it was gone.

The first impulse of the child was to run to grandfather. His door was partly open. She staggered forward and looked in. What sight was that which met her view! At a table sat the old man; he was counting the money that he had just stolen.

The child withdrew from the door, and groped her way back to her own chamber. The grey-headed old man gliding like a ghost into her room and stealing her money was dreadful. She sat and listened. She had no fear of the dear old grandfather; but the man she had seen that night, lurking in her room, and counting the money by the glimmering light, seemed like another creature in his shape, a monster. The child sat watching and thinking of these things.

“God bless him!” said the child. “He has only me to help him. God bless us both!”

At last she fell asleep. She was quickly roused by the girl who had shown her up to bed; and, as soon as she was dressed, prepared to go down to her grandfather. But first she searched her pocket, and found that her money was all gone, not a sixpence remained.

The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were on their road.

“Grandfather,” she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked about a mile in silence, “do you think they are honest people at the house yonder?”

“Why?” returned the old man trembling. “Do I think them honest yes, they played honestly.”

“I’ll tell you why I ask,” rejoined Nell. “I lost some money last night out of my bedroom, I am sure. Maybe it was taken by somebody in jest[81], only in jest, dear grandfather.”

“Who would take money in jest?” returned the old man in a hurried manner. “Those who take money, take it for ever. Don’t talk of jest.”

“Then it was stolen out of my room, dear,” said the child, whose last hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply.

“But is there no more, Nell?” said the old man; “No more anywhere? Was it all taken every farthing[82] of it, was there nothing left?”

“Nothing,” replied the child.

“We must get more,” said the old man, “we must earn it, Nell. Never mind this loss. Tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it. Don’t ask how; we may regain it, and a great deal more; but tell nobody, or trouble may come of it. And so the thieves took money out of your room, when you were asleep!” he added in a compassionate tone. “Poor Nell, poor little Nell!”

The child hung down her head and wept.

“Not a word about it to anyone but me,” said the old man, “no, not even to me,” he added hastily, “for it can do no good. All the losses that ever were, are not worth tears from your eyes, darling. Why cry, when we will win the money back?”

“Listen to me,” said the child earnestly, “will you listen to me?”

“Aye, aye, I’ll listen,” returned the old man, still without looking at her; “a pretty voice. It has always a sweet sound to me. It always had when it was her mother’s, poor child.”

“Let me persuade you, then oh, do let me persuade you,” said the child, “to think no more of cards.”

“She speaks the truth,” murmured the old man. “It is the truth; no doubt it is.”

Now we should become acquainted with Mr. Sampson Brass, the solicitor. His clerk, assistant, housekeeper, secretary, confidential plotter[83], adviser, and intriguer was Miss Brass, of whom it may be desirable to offer a brief description.

Miss Sally Brass[84] was a lady of thirty-five or thereabouts, of a gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing[85]. In face she bore a striking resemblance to her brother, Sampson. In complexion Miss Brass was sallow, rather a dirty sallow, her voice was exceedingly impressive deep and rich in quality, and, once heard, not easily forgotten. Her usual dress was a green gown, in colour not unlike the curtain of the office-window.

Such was Miss Brass in person. In mind, she was of a strong and vigorous turn, from her earliest youth she devoted herself to the study of the law. Therefore a great many people had come to the ground[86], with her help.

One morning Mr. Sampson Brass sat upon his stool copying some legal process[87], and Miss Sally Brass sat upon her stool making a new pen preparatory to drawing out a little bill, which was her favourite occupation; and so they sat in silence for a long time, until Miss Brass broke silence.

“Have you nearly done, Sammy[88]?” said Miss Brass; for in her mild and feminine lips, Sampson became Sammy.

“No,” returned her brother. “Can you help me?”

“Oh yes, indeed,” cried Miss Sally; “you want my help, don’t you? you, too, that are going to keep a clerk!”

“Am I going to keep a clerk for my own pleasure, or because of my own wish, you provoking rascal?” said Mr. Brass, putting his pen in his mouth, and grinning spitefully at his sister.

“All I know is,” said Miss Sally, smiling, for she delighted in nothing so much[89] as irritating her brother, “that if every one of your clients is to force us to keep a clerk, whether we want to or not, you had better leave off business.”

“Have we got any other client like him?” said Brass. “Have we got another client like him now, will you answer me that?”

Sampson Brass took take up the bill-book, and fluttered its leaves rapidly.

“Look here: Daniel Quilp, Esquire Daniel Quilp, Esquire Daniel Quilp, Esquire all through. Whether should I take a clerk that he recommends, and says, ‘this is the man for you,’ or lose all this, eh?”

Sampson Brass was afraid of his sister, and sulkily bent over his writing again.

“If I were to decide, of course, that clerk wouldn’t be allowed to come. You know that well enough, so don’t talk nonsense,” she said.

The window was suddenly darkened, as by some person standing close against it. The top sash[90] was nimbly lowered from without, and Quilp thrust in his head.

“Hallo!” he said, standing on tip-toe on the window-sill, and looking down into the room. “Is there anybody at home? Is there any of the Devil’s companions here?”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the lawyer in an affected ecstasy[91]. “Oh, very good, sir! Oh, very good indeed! Quite eccentric! Dear me, what humour he has!”

“Is that my Sally?” croaked the dwarf, ogling Miss Brass. “Is it Justice without the sword and scales? Is it the Strong Arm of the Law?”

“What an amazing flow of spirits!” cried Brass. “Upon my word, it’s quite extraordinary!”

“Open the door,” said Quilp, “I’ve got him here. Such a clerk for you, Brass, such a prize, such a treasure. Be quick and open the door, or if there’s another lawyer near and he will take him before your eyes, he will.”

Mr. Brass rose from his seat, and rushed to the door, returned, introducing his client, who led by the hand no less a person than[92] Mr. Richard Swiveller.

“There she is,” said Quilp, stopping short at the door, and wrinkling up his eye-brows as he looked towards Miss Sally; “ there is our beautiful Sally. Oh Sally, Sally!”

Miss Brass briefly responded “Bother![93]“

“Hard-hearted as the metal from which she takes her name,” said Quilp. “Why don’t she take another name?”

“Hold your nonsense, Mr. Quilp, do,” returned Miss Sally, with a grim smile. “I wonder you’re not ashamed of yourself before a strange young man.”

“The strange young man,” said Quilp, handing Dick Swiveller forward, “understands me well. This is Mr. Swiveller, my intimate friend[94], a gentleman of good family and great expectations, and who ready to work as a clerk. What a delicious atmosphere!”

Mr. Swiveller looked incredulously at the grinning dwarf.

“Mr. Swiveller,” said Quilp, “understands that half a loaf is better than no bread. Therefore he accepts your brother’s offer. Brass, Mr. Swiveller is yours.”

“I am very glad, sir,” said Mr. Brass, “very glad indeed. Mr. Swiveller, sir, is fortunate enough to have your friendship. You may be very proud, sir, to have the friendship of Mr. Quilp.”

“I suppose,” said the dwarf, turning briskly to his legal friend, “that Mr. Swiveller enters upon his duties at once? It’s Monday morning.”

“At once, if you please, sir, by all means,” returned Brass.

“Miss Sally will teach him law, the delightful study of the law,” said Quilp; “she’ll be his guide, his friend, his companion, his Young Lawyer’s Best Companion[95].”

“He is exceedingly eloquent,” said Brass, with his hands in his pockets; “he has an extraordinary flow of language. Beautiful, really.”

“With Miss Sally,” Quilp went on, “and the beautiful fictions of the law, his days will pass like minutes. This will open a new world for the enlargement of his mind and the improvement of his heart.”

“Oh, beautiful, beautiful! Beau-ti-ful indeed!” cried Brass. “I adore him!”

“Where will Mr. Swiveller sit?” said Quilp, looking round.

“Why, we’ll buy another stool, sir,” returned Brass. “We hadn’t any thoughts of having a gentleman with us, sir, until you were kind enough to suggest it, and our accommodation’s not extensive. We’ll look about for a second-hand stool, sir. In the meantime, Mr. Swiveller may take my seat.”

“Walk with me,” said Quilp. “I have a word or two to say to you on points of business. Can you spare the time?”

“Can I spare the time to walk with you, sir? You’re joking, sir, you’re joking with me,” replied the lawyer, putting on his hat. “I’m ready, sir, quite ready. My time must be fully occupied indeed, sir, not to leave me time to walk with you, Mr. Quilp.”

The dwarf glanced sarcastically at his brazen friend, and, with a short dry cough, turned upon his heel, nodded to Dick Swiveller, and withdrew with the attorney.

In course of time, that is to say, after a couple of hours or so, Miss Brass took a pinch of snuff from a little round tin box which she carried in her pocket. Then she arose from her stool, tied her papers into a formal packet with red tape, and taking them under her arm, marched out of the office.

“I am going out,” said Miss Brass.

“Very good, ma’am,” returned Dick.

“If anybody comes on office business, take their messages, and say that Mr. Brass isn’t in at present, will you?” said Miss Brass.

“I will, ma’am,” replied Dick.

“I shan’t be very long,” said Miss Brass, retiring.

“I’m sorry to hear it, ma’am,” rejoined Dick when she had shut the door.

Mr. Swiveller sat down in the client’s chair and pondered; then took a few turns up and down the room and fell into the chair again.

“So I’m Brass’s clerk, am I?” said Dick. “Brass’s clerk, eh? And the clerk of Brass’s sister, clerk to a female Dragon. Very good, very good! What shall I be next? Quilp offers me this place, Fred urges me to take it! My aunt in the country writes an affectionate note to say that she has made a new will. No money; no credit; no support from Fred!”

Suddenly a coach stopped near the door. After the knock, the door was opened, and somebody with went up the stairs and into the room above. Mr. Swiveller was wondering who this might be, when there came knuckles at the office-door.

“Come in!” said Dick. “Come in!”

“Oh, please,” said a little voice, “will you come and show the lodgings? The rent is eighteen shillings a week.”

Dick leant over the table, and descried a small girl in a dirty coarse apron and bib, which left nothing of her visible but her face and feet.

“Why, who are you?” said Dick.

To which the only reply was, “Oh, please will you come and show the lodgings?”

The girl seemed as much afraid of Dick, as Dick was amazed at her.

“Are you a cook?” asked muttered Dick, rising.

“Yes, I do cooking;” replied the child. “I’m housemaid too; I do all the work of the house[96].”

Richard Swiveller, sticking a pen behind each ear, and carrying another in his mouth as a token of his great importance and devotion to business, hurried out to meet the visitor.

He was a little surprised to see a good-looking gentleman upstairs.

“I believe, sir,” said Richard Swiveller, taking his pen out of his mouth, “that you desire to look at these apartments. They are very charming apartments, sir. Their advantages are extraordinary.”

“What’s the rent?” said the single gentleman.

“One pound per week,” replied Dick, improving on the terms.

“I’ll take them. Two years. I shall live here for two years. Here. Ten pounds down.”

The gentleman, took off the shawl which was tied round his neck, and then pulled off his boots.

Then, he pulled down the window-blinds[97], drew the curtains, and, quite leisurely and methodically, got into bed. He seemed to snore immediately.

“This is the most remarkable and supernatural house!” said Mr. Swiveller, as he walked into the office with the bill in his hand.

Mr. Brass on returning home received the report of his clerk with much complacency and satisfaction, and was particularly glad to learn about the ten-pound note, which increased his good-humour considerably.

“Good-morning, Mr. Richard,” said Brass, on the second day of Mr. Swiveller’s clerkship. “Sally found you a second-hand stool, sir, yesterday evening, in Whitechapel[98]. She’s great at a bargain, I can tell you, Mr. Richard. It’s a wonderful stool, sir, take my word for it.”

“Better not to look at it,” said Dick.

“So don’t look, just sit!” returned Mr. Brass. “It was bought in the open street just opposite the hospital, and it has got rather dusty and a little brown from being in the sun, that’s all.”

“I hope it hasn’t got any fevers or anything of that sort in it,” said Dick, sitting himself down discontentedly, between Mr. Sampson and Sally. “One of the legs is longer than the others.”

“Then we have some timber[99], sir,” retorted Brass. “Ha, ha, ha! We get some timber, indeed, and that’s another advantage of my sister’s going to market for us!”

They went on writing for a long time in silence after this, in such a dull silence that Mr. Swiveller (who required excitement) had several times fallen asleep, when Miss Sally at length broke in upon the monotony of the office by taking a noisy pinch of snuff.

The single gentleman who lived upstairs took a most extraordinary and remarkable interest in the exhibition of Punch. If the sound of a Punch’s voice reached his ears, the single gentleman, though in bed and asleep, stood up and hurried to watch the show.

One day lodger summoned the puppet-men upstairs.

“Both of you,” he called from the window; for only a little fat man prepared to obey the summons. “I want to talk to you. Come both of you!”

“Come, Tommy,” said the little man.

The exhibitors hurried to the single gentleman’s apartment.

“Now, my men,” said the single gentleman; “you have done very well. What will you drink? Tell that little man behind, to shut the door.”

“Shut the door, can’t you?” said Mr. Codlin (it was himself).

Mr. Short obeyed. The gentleman pointed to a couple of chairs, and offered them to be seated. “You’re pretty well browned by the sun[100], both of you,” said the gentleman. “Have you been travelling?”

Mr. Short replied in the affirmative with a nod and a smile. Mr. Codlin added a corroborative nod and a short groan.

“To fairs, markets, races, and so forth, I suppose?” pursued the single gentleman.

“Yes, sir,” returned Short, “all over the West of England.”

“You have seen many people, have you?”

“Quite a lot, sir, quite a lot.”

“What about an old man with a girl? Have you met this couple recently? Let me fill your glasses again.”

“Much obliged to you sir” said Mr. Codlin, turning Short’s aside. “An old man with a girl? Yes, we met them one day, they were traveling, pretending to be beggars. We parted at the races.”

“You are the two men I want,” said the gentleman, “the two men I have been looking for, and searching after! Where are that old man and that child now?”

“Sir?” said Short, hesitating, and looking towards his friend.

“The old man and his grandchild who travelled with you, where are they? They left you, you say, at the races, as I understand. They have been traced[101] to that place, and there lost sight of. Have you no clue, can you suggest no clue, to their recovery?”

“Did I always say, Thomas,” cried Short, turning with a look of amazement to his friend, “that there was sure to be an inquiry after those two travellers?”

“You said!” returned Mr. Codlin. “Did I always say that blessed child was the most interesting I had ever seen? Did I always say I loved her? Pretty creature, I think, I hear her now. ‘Codlin’s my friend,’ she says, with a tear of gratitude in her little eye; ‘Codlin’s my friend,’ she says ‘not Short. Short’s very well,’ she says; ‘I’ve no quarrel with Short; he is kind, I dare say; but Codlin is my best friend,’ she says.”

Repeating these words with great emotion, Mr. Codlin rubbed the bridge of his nose[102] with his coat-sleeve.

“Good Heaven!” said the single gentleman, pacing up and down the room, “what can you say about them? Where to find them?”

“Stay a minute,” replied Mr. Short rapidly. “If you want we can bring you the man who knows about them,”

“Then bring him here,” said the single gentleman. “Here’s a sovereign. If I can find these people through your means[103], it is but a prelude to twenty more. Return to me tomorrow. Now, give me your address, and leave me.”

Now let us return to little Nell. Once she was wanderings in the evening time. She raised her eyes to the bright stars, looking down so mildly from the wide worlds of air, found new stars burst upon her view. She bent over the calm river, and saw them shining.

The child sat silently beneath a tree. Every evening her grandfather was absent, and she stayed alone; and she knew well where he went, from the constant drain upon her scanty purse.

She sat meditating sorrowfully, when the distant church-clock bell struck nine. Nell stood up and turned towards the town.

She had gained a little wooden bridge, when she came suddenly upon a ruddy light. Some people had made a fire in one corner at no great distance from the path, and were sitting or lying round it. She was too poor to have any fear of them, and she did not alter her course.

When she approached the spot and glanced towards the fire, noticed her grandfather in a company of Jem Groves and gamesters.

“Well, are you going?” said a man from the ground where he was lying, looking into her grandfather’s face. “You were in a hurry a minute ago. Go, if you like. You’re your own master, I hope?”

“You keep me poor,” said the old man, turning from one to the other. “You drive me mad.”

“What do you mean?” said a stout man rising a little. “Keep you poor! You’d keep us poor if you could, wouldn’t you? You, pitiful players! When you lose, you’re martyrs; but when you win, you’re kings!” cried the fellow, raising his voice.

“If I had some coins more!” cried the old man.

“You’d win, I’m sure, believe me,” said Jem Groves.

The old man stood helplessly among them for a little time, and then said:

“But what to do? Where can I get money to win? Don’t be violent with me. Help me.”

“Listen, sir,” said the gamester. “If you haven’t means enough to try your luck, help yourself. Borrow it, I say, and, when you’re able, pay it back again.”

“Certainly,” said another swindler, “if this good lady who keeps the wax-works has money, and keeps it in a tin box when she goes to bed, and doesn’t lock her door for fear of fire, it seems a easy thing to borrow some coins. Of course, she will have them back when you win, no doubts, we’re not thieves.”

“You see,” said his friend, drawing himself closer to the old man; “you see, I feel you will win for sure. You’re our dearest friend, you know, and I will help you to become a little richer. I act as a friend. It’s foolish, I dare say, to be so thoughtful of the welfare of other people, but that’s my constitution.”

“Why, it’s better to lose other people’s money than one’s own, I hope?”

“Ah!” cried Jem rapturously, “the pleasures of winning! The delight of picking up the money and sweeping them into one’s pocket! But you’re not going, old gentleman?”

“I’ll do it,” said the old man, who had risen and taken two or three hurried steps away, and now returned as hurriedly. “I’ll have it, every penny.”

“Why, that’s brave,” cried the gamester, jumping up and slapping him on the shoulder; “so much young blood! When is the match? Tonight?”

“I must have the money first,” said the old man; “and that I’ll have tomorrow.”

“Why not tonight?”

“It’s late now,” said the old man. “No, tomorrow night.”

“Then tomorrow be it, good luck! You’ll win tomorrow, old gentleman!”

“God be merciful to us!” cried the child within herself, “and help us in this trying hour[104]! What shall I do to save him?”

The old man then shook hands with his tempters, and withdrew.

Nell went back to her own room, and tried to prepare herself for bed. But who could sleep! Who could lie passively down?

Half undressed, and with her hair in wild disorder, she flew to the old man’s bedside, clasped him by the wrist, and roused him from his sleep.

“What’s this?” he cried, fixing his eyes upon her spectral face.

“I have had a dreadful dream,” said the child. “A dreadful, horrible dream. I have had it once before. It is a dream of grey-haired men like you, in darkened rooms by night, robbing sleepers of their gold. Up, up![105]”

The old man folded his hands like one who prays.

“Oh, grandfather, this dream is too real,” said the child, “I cannot sleep, I cannot stay here, I cannot leave you alone under the roof where such dreams come. Up! We must fly. There is no time to lose; I will not lose one minute. Up! And away with me!”

“Tonight?” murmured the old man.

“Yes, tonight,” replied the child. “Tomorrow night will be too late. The dream will have come again. Up!”

The old man rose from his bed: his forehead bedewed with the cold sweat of fear. He was ready to follow her. She took him by the hand and led him on[106]. She took him to her own chamber, and gathered together the things she had, and hung her basket on her arm. The old man took his wallet from her hands, too.

Through the strait streets, and narrow crooked outskirts, their trembling feet passed quickly. Up the hill, crowned by the old grey castle, they toiled with rapid steps, and had not once looked behind[107].

The old man was subdued and abashed, he seemed to crouch before her, as if in the presence of some superior creature. The child herself was inspired with an energy and confidence she had never known.

“I have saved him,” she thought. “I will remember that.”

The moon went down, the stars grew pale and dim, and morning, cold as they, slowly approached. Nell watched grandfather with untiring eyes. At last they slept side by side.

A confused sound of voices awoke her. A man of rough appearance was standing over them, and two of his companions were looking on, from a long heavy boat which had come close to the bank while they were sleeping.

“Holloa!” said the man roughly “What’s the matter here?”

“We were only asleep, sir,” said Nell. “We have been walking all night.”

“Where are you going?”

Nell faltered, and pointed towards the West.

“You may go with us if you like,” replied one of those in the boat. “We’re going to the same place.”

The child hesitated for a moment. The boat came close to the bank, and before she had had any more time for consideration, she and her grandfather were on board, and gliding smoothly down the canal.

The sun shone pleasantly on the bright water, which was sometimes shaded by trees. Their way lay, for the most part, through the low grounds, and open plains.

By this time it was night again, and though the child felt cold, her anxious thoughts were far from her own suffering or uneasiness. Her grandfather lay sleeping safely at her side, and the crime to which his madness urged him, was not committed. That was her comfort.

She saw the face of the man on deck[108], who was the sentimental stage of drunkenness.

“You’ve got a very pretty voice, a very soft eye, and a very strong memory,” said this gentleman; “Let me hear a song this minute.”

“I don’t think I know one, sir,” returned Nell.

“You know a lot of them,” said the man. “Let me hear one of them. Give me a song this minute.”

Trembling with the fear of doing so, poor Nell sang him a song which she had learned in happier times. He began to sing too, and the noise of this vocal performance awakened the other man. A chorus was maintained not only by the two men together, but also by the third man. In this way, the tired and exhausted child was singing all night long.

At length the morning dawned. The water had become thicker and dirtier; other barges passed them frequently. The boat floated into the wharf. The child and her grandfather passed through a dirty lane into a crowded street.

Evening came on. They were still wandering up and down, with fewer people about them, but with the same sense of solitude in their own breasts, and the same indifference from all around. The lights in the streets and shops made them feel yet more desolate, night and darkness seemed to come on faster. Shivering with the cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child walked on.

Why had they ever come to this noisy town? They were but an atom, here, in a mountain heap of misery. Moreover, grandfather began to demand that they should return. Being penniless, they retraced their steps through the deserted streets, and went back to the wharf. But here they were disappointed, for the gate was closed.

“We must sleep in the open air tonight, dear,” said the child in a weak voice; “and tomorrow we will try to earn our bread.”

“Why did you bring me here?” returned the old man fiercely. “I cannot bear these eternal streets. We came from a quiet part. Why did you force me to leave it?”

“Because I don’t want that dream come true,” said the child, with a momentary firmness; “and we must live among poor people, or it will come again. Dear grandfather, you are old and weak, I know; but look at me. I never complain, but I have some suffering indeed.”

“Ah! poor, houseless, wandering, motherless child!” cried the old man, clasping his hands.

“Dear, it was a good thing we came here; for we are lost in the crowd and hurry of this place, and if any cruel people should pursue us, they could surely never trace us. There’s comfort in that. And here’s a deep old doorway very dark, but quite dry, and warm too, for the wind don’t blow in here… What’s that?”

She recoiled from a black figure which came suddenly out of the dark recess in which they were about to take refuge, and stood still, looking at them.

“Speak again,” it said; “do I know you?”

“No,” replied the child timidly; “we are strangers, we have no money for a night’s lodging, we were going to rest here.”

The figure beckoned them. The man was miserably clad and begrimed with smoke.

“Why do you think of resting there?” he said. “Why do you want a place of rest at this time of night?”

“Our misfortunes,” the grandfather answered, “are the cause.”

“Do you know,” said the man, looking still more earnestly at Nell, “how wet she is, and that the damp streets are not a place for her?”

“I know it well, God help me,” grandfather replied. “What can I do?”

The man looked at Nell again, and gently touched her garments, from which the rain was running off in little streams.

“I can give you warmth,” he said, after a pause; “nothing else. It is safer and better there than here. You can pass the night beside a fire. You see that red light yonder?”

They saw a lurid glare; the dull reflection of some distant fire.

“It’s not far,” said the man. “Shall I take you there? You were going to sleep upon cold bricks; I can give you a bed of warm ashes, nothing better.”

He took Nell in his arms. He led the way through the poorest and most wretched quarter of the town.

“This is the place,” he said, pausing at a door to put Nell down and take her hand. “Don’t be afraid. There’s nobody here will harm you.”

In a large and lofty building, supported by pillars of iron, with great black apertures in the upper walls, open to the external air; in this gloomy place, moving like demons, a number of men laboured like giants. They opened the white-hot furnace-doors[109] and cast fuel on the flames.

The man spread Nell’s little cloak upon a heap of ashes, and signed to her and the old man to lie down and sleep.

It was yet night when she awoke. She lay in the state between sleeping and waking. The man looked inquiringly into her face.

“See there,” he said. “That’s my friend.”

“The fire?” said the child.

“Yes,” the man answered. “We talk and think together, all night long.”

The child glanced quickly at him in her surprise.

“It’s like a book to me,” he said, “the only book I ever learned to read. It’s music, for I know its voice. It has its pictures too. You don’t know how many strange faces and different scenes I trace in the red-hot coals. It’s my memory, that fire, and shows me all my life.”

The child bent down to listen to his words.

“Yes,” he said, with a faint smile, “it was the same when I was quite a baby, and crawled about it, till I fell asleep. My father watched it then.”

“Had you no mother?” asked the child.

“No, she was dead. Women work hard here. She worked herself to death, the fire told me. I suppose it was true. I have always believed it. The fire nursed me, the same fire. It’s always the same.”

“You are fond of it?” said the child.

“Of course I am. My father died before it, I remember, why it didn’t help him? When I saw you in the street tonight, you made me wish to bring you to the fire. You should be sleeping now. Lie down again, poor child, lie down again!”

With that, he led her to her rude couch, and covering her with the clothes, returned to his seat. He remained motionless as a statue. The child continued to watch him for a little time, but soon slept on the heap of ashes, slept as peacefully as if the room had been a palace chamber.

When she awoke again, broad day was shining through the lofty openings in the walls. The man parted his breakfast a scanty mess of coffee and some coarse bread with the child and her grandfather, and inquired whether they were going. She told him that they were looking some distant country place remote from towns or even other villages, and inquired what road to take.

“I know little of the country,” he said, shaking his head, “But there are such places yonder.”

“And far from here?” said Nell.

“Surely. How could they be near us, and be green and fresh? The road lies, too, through miles and miles, all lighted up by fires like ours, a strange black road.”

“We are here and must go on,” said the child boldly. “If you can direct us, do. But do not try to stop us.”

The man showed them, then, by which road they must leave the town, and what course they should hold. Pressing her hand, he left in it two old, battered penny-pieces.

And thus they separated; the child lead her grandfather from guilt and shame.

“It is a dreary way,” said grandfather, piteously. “Is there no other road? Will you not let me go some other way than this?”

“We are going to the places,” said the child, firmly, “where we may live in peace, and be tempted to do no harm. We will take this road, and we will not turn out of it, won’t we?”

“Yes,” replied the old man, “Let us go on. I am ready. I am quite ready, Nell.”

The child walked with more difficulty than she expected. The pains racked her joints, and every exertion increased them.

Advancing more and more into the shadow, the dark depressing influence filled them with a dismal gloom. On every side, tall chimneys, crowding on each other, poured out their plague of smoke, obscured the light, and made foul the melancholy air. Dismantled houses here and there appeared, tottering to the earth, propped up by fragments of others that had fallen down, unroofed, windowless, blackened, desolate, but yet inhabited.

Nell lay down, she was very weak. A penny loaf was all they had had that day. It was very little, but even hunger was forgotten in the strange tranquillity that crept over her senses. She lay down, very gently, and, with a quiet smile upon her face, fell into a slumber.

Morning came. Much weaker, diminished powers even of sight and hearing, and yet the child made no complaint. She felt a hopelessness of their life; a dull conviction that she was very ill, perhaps dying; but no fear or anxiety.

She could not eat anymore, when they expended their last penny in the purchase of another loaf. Her grandfather ate greedily, which she was glad to see.

Their way lay through the same scenes as yesterday, with no variety or improvement. There was the same thick air, difficult to breathe; the same blighted ground, the same hopeless prospect, the same misery and distress. Towards the afternoon, her grandfather complained of hunger. She approached one of the wretched hovels, and knocked with her hand upon the door.

“What do you want?” said a gaunt man, opening it.

“Charity. A morsel of bread.”

“Do you see that?” returned the man hoarsely, pointing to a bundle on the ground. “That’s a dead child. I and five hundred other men were thrown out of work, three months ago. That is my third dead child, and last. Do you think I have charity to bestow, or a morsel of bread to spare?”

The child recoiled from the door, and it closed upon her.

Evening was drawing on, when still travelling among the same dismal objects they came to a busy town. Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were insupportable. After humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being repulsed, they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as they could.

They were dragging themselves along through the last street. There appeared before them, going in the same direction as themselves, a traveller on foot, who leaned upon a stout stick as he walked, and read from a book which he held in his other hand. He stopped, to look more attentively at some passage in his book. Animated with a ray of hope, the child went close to the stranger, clapped her hands together, uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.

It was a poor schoolmaster. He threw down his stick and book, and dropping on one knee beside her, endeavoured to restore her to herself[110]; while her grandfather, standing idly by, wrung his hands.

“She is quite exhausted,” said the schoolmaster, glancing upward into his face.

“I never thought how weak and ill she was, till now,” rejoined the old man.

The schoolmaster took the child in his arms. There was a small inn within sight, to which he had been directing his steps. He deposited the child on a chair before the fire. The landlady brought vinegar, smelling-salts, and such other restoratives; which recovered the child. They straightway carried Nelly off to bed; and, having covered her up warm, bathed her cold feet, and wrapped them in flannel, they despatched a messenger for the doctor.

The doctor arrived with all speed, and taking his seat by the bedside of poor Nell, drew out his watch, and felt her pulse. Then he looked at her tongue, then he felt her pulse again.

While her supper was preparing, the child fell into a refreshing sleep.

The report in the morning was, that the child was better, but was extremely weak. The schoolmaster received this communication with perfect cheerfulness. As the patient sat up in the evening, he appointed to visit her in her room.

Nell was weeping all the time when they were left alone.

“How can I ever thank you for this kindness?” said the child, “If I had not met you so far from home, I must have died, and he would have been left alone.”

“We’ll not talk about dying,” said the schoolmaster; “I have been appointed clerk and schoolmaster to a village a long way from here; at five-and-thirty pounds a year. Five-and-thirty pounds!”

“I am very glad,” said the child “so very, very glad.”

“I am on my way there now,” resumed the schoolmaster. “How glad I am! But where you are going? Where are you coming from? What do you do? Now tell me.”

The plain, frank kindness of the honest schoolmaster, the affectionate earnestness of his speech and manner, the truth which was stamped upon his every word and look, gave the child a confidence in him. She told him all: that they had no friend or relative, that she had fled with the old man, to save him from a madhouse and all the miseries, that she was flying now, to save him from himself and that she wanted to find an asylum in some remote and primitive place.

The schoolmaster heard her with astonishment. It was concluded that Nell and her grandfather should accompany him to the village, and that he should endeavour to find them some humble occupation.

“We shall be sure to succeed,” said the schoolmaster, heartily.

They arranged to proceed upon their journey next evening. A wagon came; and in due time it rolled away; with the child comfortably bestowed among the packages. What a delicious journey was that journey in the wagon!

It was a fine, clear morning, when they came to the village, and stopped to contemplate its beauties.

“See here’s the church!” cried the delighted schoolmaster in a low voice; “and that old building close beside it, is the school-house. Five-and-thirty pounds a year in this beautiful place!”

They admired everything: the old grey porch, the mullioned windows[111], the venerable gravestones dotting the green churchyard, the ancient tower, the very weathercock; the brown thatched roofs of cottage, barn, and homestead, peeping from among the trees; the stream that rippled by the distant water-mill; the blue Welsh mountains far away.

“I must leave you somewhere for a few minutes,” said the schoolmaster at length breaking the silence into which they had fallen in their gladness. “I have a letter to present, and inquiries to make, you know. Where shall I take you? To the little inn yonder?”

“Let us wait here,” rejoined Nell. “The gate is open. We will sit in the church porch till you come back.”

“A good place too,” said the schoolmaster, leading the way towards it. “Be sure that I come back with good news!”

Both child and grandfather were seated in the old church porch, patiently awaiting the schoolmaster’s return.

Mr. Quilp went his way, whistling from time to time some songs; and with a face quite tranquil and composed, jogged pleasantly towards home; entertaining himself as he went with visions of the fears and terrors of Mrs. Quilp, who, having received no news of him for three whole days and two nights, was doubtless by that time in a state of distraction, anxiety and grief.

In this happy flow of spirits, Mr. Quilp reached Tower Hill and gazed up at the window of his own sitting-room. Drawing nearer, and listening attentively, he could hear several voices, among which he could distinguish, not only those of his wife and mother-in-law, but the tones of men.

“Ha!” cried the jealous dwarf. “What’s this? Do they entertain visitors while I’m away?”

He searched in his pockets for his key, but had forgotten it. He saw Mr. Brass seated at the table with pen, ink, and paper.

“Ah!” said Mr. Brass, raising his eyes to the ceiling with a sigh, “who knows but he may be looking down upon us now? Who knows but he may be watching us from Heaven? Oh Lord!”

Here Mr. Brass stopped to drink his punch, and then resumed, with a dejected smile.

“When shall we see him alive again? Never, never! One minute we are here – the next we are there, in the silent tomb. It seems like a dream.”

Mr. Brass spoke towards somebody.

“The search has been quite unsuccessful then?”

“Quite, master. If he turns up anywhere, he’ll come ashore somewhere about Greenwich[112] tomorrow.”

“Then we have nothing for it but expectation,” said Mr. Brass; “It would be a comfort to have his body; it would be a dreary comfort.”

“Oh, beyond a doubt,” assented Mrs. Quilp hastily; “if we once had that, we should be quite sure.”

“With regard to the descriptive advertisement,” said Sampson Brass, taking up his pen. “It is a melancholy pleasure to recall his traits. His legs?”

“Crooked, certainly,” said the old lady, Mrs. Quilp’s mother.

“Do you think they were crooked?” said Brass, in an insinuating tone. “I think I see them now coming up the street very wide apart. Ah! Do we say crooked?”

“I think they were a little so,” observed Mrs. Quilp with a sob.

“Legs crooked,” said Brass, writing as he spoke. “Large head, short body, legs crooked”

“Very crooked,” suggested the old lady.

“We’ll not say very crooked, ma’am,” said Brass piously. “Let us not underline the weaknesses of the deceased. He is gone, ma’am, to where his legs will never come in question[113]. We will content ourselves with crooked.”

“I thought you wanted the truth,” said the old lady. “That’s all.”

“Oh,” said the lawyer, laying down his pen, “his coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his trousers, his hat, his wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella, all come before me like visions of my youth… A question now arises, his nose.”

“Flat,” said the old lady.

“Aquiline!” cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the nose with his fist. “Aquiline, you hag. Do you see it? Do you call this flat? Do you? Eh?”

“Oh excellent, excellent!” shouted Brass. “Wonderful! How very good he is! He’s a most remarkable man so extremely whimsical! Such an amazing power of taking people by surprise[114]!”

Keeping his eye fixed on Sampson Brass, Quilp walked up to the table, and surveyed him with a most extraordinary leer.

“Not yet, Sampson,” said Quilp. “Not just yet!”

“Oh very good indeed!” cried Brass. “Ha ha ha! Oh exceedingly good! He has such a flow of good-humour, such an amazing flow!”

“Good-night,” said the dwarf, nodding expressively.

“Good-night, sir, good-night,” cried the lawyer, retreating backwards towards the door. “This is a joyful occasion indeed, extremely joyful. Ha ha ha! Oh very rich, very rich indeed, remarkably so!”

Quilp advanced towards the two men.

“Have you been dragging the river all day, gentlemen?” said the dwarf, holding the door open with great politeness.

“And yesterday too, master.”

“You’ve had a deal of trouble. Consider everything yours[115] that you find upon the upon the body. Good-night!”

The men looked at each other and shuffled out of the room. Quilp locked the doors; and stood looking at his insensible wife like a dismounted nightmare.

Mrs. Quilp sat in a tearful silence, meekly listening to the reproaches of her lord and master.

“So you thought I was dead and gone, did you?” said Quilp. “You thought you were a widow, eh? Ha, ha, ha, you jade!”

“Indeed, Quilp,” returned his wife. “I’m very sorry…”

“Who doubts it?” cried the dwarf. “You very sorry! To be sure you are. Who doubts that you’re very sorry?”

“I don’t mean sorry that you have come home again alive and well,” said his wife, “but sorry that I was deceived. I am glad to see you, Quilp; indeed I am. How could you go away so long, without saying a word to me or letting me hear of you or know anything about you?” asked the poor little woman, sobbing. “How could you be so cruel, Quilp?”

“How could I be so cruel? Cruel?” cried the dwarf. “Because I was in the humour. I’m in the humour now. I shall be cruel when I like. I’m going away again.”

“Not again!”

“Yes, again. I’m going away now. I’m off directly. I mean to go and live wherever I want! I’ll live at the wharf at the counting-house and be a jolly bachelor. You were a widow in your dreams,” screamed the dwarf, “I’ll be a bachelor in real life.”

“You can’t be serious, Quilp,” sobbed his wife.

“I tell you,” said the dwarf, exulting in his project, “that I’ll be a bachelor, a happy bachelor; and don’t approach my counting-house. The boy! Where’s the boy?”

“Here I am, master,” cried the voice of the boy, as Quilp threw up the window.

“Wait there, you dog,” returned the dwarf, “to carry a bachelor’s chest. Pack it up, Mrs. Quilp. Knock up the dear old lady to help; knock her up! Halloa there! Halloa!”

With these exclamations, Mr. Quilp caught up the poker, and hurrying to the door of the lady’s room, beat upon it therewith. After that the eccentric gentleman superintended the packing of his wardrobe, and added to it a plate, knife and fork, spoon, tea-cup and saucer.

Quilp led the way to the wharf, and reached it at between three and four o’clock in the morning.

“Wonderful” said Quilp, when he had opened the door of the wooden counting-house. “Beautiful!”

In the morning, Quilp made a fire in the yard of sundry pieces of old timber, and prepared some coffee for breakfast. In a few minutes a meal was smoking on the board. Having this substantial comfort, the dwarf was highly satisfied with this and gipsy mode of life.

“I’ve got a country house like Robinson Crusoe[116],” said the dwarf; “a solitary, sequestered, desolate-island, where I can be quite alone, and be secure from all spies and listeners. Nobody is near me here, but rats!”

The dwarf threw himself into a boat, and crossing to the other side of the river, and then reached Mr. Swiveller’s usual house of entertainment.

“Dick” said the dwarf, thrusting his head in at the door, “my pet, my pupil, the apple of my eye, hey, hey!”

“Oh you’re there, are you?” returned Mr. Swiveller; “How are you?”

“How’s Dick?” retorted Quilp. “How’s the best of clerks?”

“Why, rather sour, sir,” replied Mr. Swiveller.

“What’s the matter?” said the dwarf, advancing. “Is Sally unkind, Dick?”

“Certainly not,” replied Mr. Swiveller, eating his dinner with great gravity, “I don’t like the law, I have been thinking of running away.”

“Bah!” said the dwarf. “Where will you run to, Dick?”

“I don’t know,” returned Mr. Swiveller. “Towards nowhere, I suppose.”

Quilp looked at his companion, and patiently awaited his further words.

“That’s unfortunate,” said the dwarf, “for I came, in fact, to ask you about your friend.”

“Which friend?”

“In the first-floor. Why did I employ you as a clerk? To be near that gentleman, to watch him. To let me know every step of his!”

And they talked about the single gentleman. Dick told Quilp everything he knew about the lodger.

Mr. Quilp once more crossed the Thames, and shut himself up in his counting-house. He amused himself until nearly midnight, when he turned into the hammock with the utmost satisfaction.

The first sound that met his ears in the morning as he half opened his eyes, was that of a stifled sobbing and weeping in the room. Peeping cautiously over the side of his hammock, he saw Mrs. Quilp, to whom he suddenly yelled out:

“Halloa!”

“Oh, Quilp!” cried his poor little wife, looking up. “How you frightened me!”

“Ha ha, you jade,” returned the dwarf. “What do you want here? I’m dead, am not I?”

“Oh, please come home, do come home,” said Mrs. Quilp, sobbing; “after all, it was only a mistake that grew out of our anxiety.”

“Out of your anxiety,” grinned the dwarf. “I shall come home when I please, I tell you. I shall come home when I please, and go when I please. Will you go out?”

“Do forgive me! Do come back!” said his wife, earnestly.

“No-o-o-o-o!” roared Quilp. “You see the door there. Will you go?”

Quilp slept on amidst the congenial accompaniments of rain, mud, dirt, damp, fog, and rats, until late in the day. Then he quitted his couch, and made his toilet, and went to his friend and employer, Mr. Sampson Brass. Both gentlemen however were not at home.

“There’s a servant, I suppose,” said the dwarf, knocking at the house-door. “I’ll talk to her.”

After a sufficiently long interval, the door was opened, and a small voice sounded,

“Oh please will you leave a card or message?”

“Eh?” said the dwarf, looking down (it was something quite new to him) upon the small servant.

To this, the child again replied, “Oh please will you leave a card or message?”

“I’ll write a note,” said the dwarf, pushing past her into the office; “and mind your master has it directly he comes home.”

So Mr. Quilp climbed up to the top of a tall stool to write the note, and the small servant looked on with her eyes wide open, ready to rush into the street and give the alarm to the police[117].

Mr. Quilp looked at the small servant long and earnestly.

“How are you?” said the dwarf.

The small servant, perhaps frightened by his looks, was silent. Quilp looked at her fixedly.

“Where do you come from?” he said, after a long pause, stroking his chin.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s your name?”

“Nothing.”

“Nonsense!” retorted Quilp. “What does your mistress call you when she wants you?”

“A little devil[118],” said the child. She added:

“But please will you leave a card or message?”

Quilp tossed the letter to the child, and hastily withdrew.

In the street, moved by some secret impulse, he laughed, and held his sides, and laughed again.

Mr. and Mrs. Brass read the invitation left by Quilp and came to his counting-house.

“You’re fond of the beauties of nature,” said Quilp with a grin. “Is this charming, Brass? Is it unusual, unsophisticated, primitive?”

“It’s delightful indeed, sir,” replied the lawyer.

“Cool?” said Quilp.

“Not particularly so, I think, sir,” rejoined Brass.

“Perhaps a little damp?” said Quilp.

“Just damp enough to be cheerful, sir,” rejoined Brass. “Nothing more, sir, nothing more.”

“And Sally?” said the delighted dwarf. “Does she like it?”

“She’ll like it better,” returned that strong-minded lady, “when she has tea; so let us have it, and don’t bother[119].”

“Sweet Sally!” cried Quilp, extending his arms as if to embrace her. “Gentle, charming, overwhelming Sally!”

“He’s a very remarkable man indeed!” soliloquised Mr. Brass. “He’s quite a Troubadour[120], you know; quite a Troubadour!”

“A word,” said the dwarf, “before we go farther. Sally, wait a minute.”

Miss Sally drew closer.

“Business,” said the dwarf, glancing from brother to sister. “Very private business.”

“Certainly, sir,” returned Brass, taking out his pocket-book and pencil. “I’ll take down everything, sir.”

“Close your book,” said Quilp. “We don’t want any documents. So. There’s a lad named Kit.”

Miss Sally nodded.

“Kit!” said Mr. Sampson. “Kit! Ha! I’ve heard the name before, but I don’t exactly remember him.”

“I’ve showed you that I know him,” said Miss Sally. “and that’s enough.”

“She’s always foremost!” said the dwarf, patting her on the back and looking contemptuously at Sampson. “I don’t like Kit, Sally.”

“Nor I,” rejoined Miss Brass.

“Nor I,” said Sampson.

“Why, that’s right!” cried Quilp. “Half our work is done already. This Kit is one of the honest people; one of the fair characters; a prowling prying hound; a hypocrite; a double-faced, sneaking spy.”

“Fearfully eloquent!” cried Brass with a sneeze. “Quite appalling!”

“Come to the point,” said Miss Sally, “and don’t talk so much.”

“Right again!” exclaimed Quilp, with another contemptuous look at Sampson, “always foremost! I say, Sally, he is a yelping, insolent dog to all, and most of all, to me.”

“That’s enough, sir,” said Sampson.

“No, it’s not enough, sir,” sneered Quilp; “will you hear me out? He thwarts me at the moment, and stands between me and our business. I hate him. Now, you know the lad, and can guess the rest. Put him out of my way.”

“We will, sir,” said Sampson.

“Then give me your hand,” retorted Quilp. “Sally, girl, yours. I rely as much, or more, on you than him.”

After a long time, the schoolmaster appeared at the wicket-gate of the churchyard, and hurried towards Nell and grandfather, jingling in his hand a bundle of rusty keys.

“You see those two old houses?” he said.

“Yes, surely,” replied Nell. “I have been looking at them nearly all the time you have been away.”

“One of those houses is mine,” said her friend.

Without saying any more, or giving the child time to reply, the schoolmaster took her hand, and led her to the place of which he spoke.

They stopped before the low arched door. The schoolmaster admitted them into the house.

The room into which they entered was a vaulted chamber nobly ornamented by cunning architects.

An open door led to a small room or cell. It had some furniture: a few strange chairs, a table, a great old chest. The child looked around her with solemn feeling. The old man had followed them.

“It is a very beautiful place!” said the child, in a low voice.

“A peaceful place to live in, don’t you think so?” said her friend.

“Oh yes,” rejoined the child, clasping her hands earnestly. “A quiet, happy place a place to live and learn to die[121] in!”

“A place to live, and learn to live, and gather health of mind and body in,” said the schoolmaster; “for this old house is yours.”

“Ours!” cried the child.

“Yes,” returned the schoolmaster gaily, “for many years, I hope. I shall be a close neighbour only next door, but this house is yours.”

The schoolmaster sat down and drew Nell to his side. That ancient tenement had been occupied for a very long time by an old person, nearly a hundred years of age, who kept the keys of the church, opened and closed it for the services, and showed it to strangers. Now the post is vacant.

“The work is not paid very well,” said the schoolmaster. “but still enough to live upon in this retired spot.”

“Heaven bless and prosper you!” sobbed the child.

“Amen[122], my dear,” returned her friend cheerfully; “But we must look at my house now. Come!”

They went to the other house. The worm-eaten door[123] led into a chamber, vaulted and old, like that from which they had come, but not so spacious. Now their pleasant care was to make these dwellings habitable and full of comfort, Nell repaired the tattered window-hangings, the schoolmaster swept and smoothed the ground before the door, trimmed the long grass. The old man helped them and was happy.

They began to live happily and quietly. The neighbours always praised the child, her sense and beauty, and the old man was proud to hear them. But Nelly was sick, terribly sick. Weeks had crept on, and the exhausted child passed whole evenings on a couch beside the fire. At such times, the schoolmaster brought books, and read to her aloud. The old man sat and listened, with little understanding for the words, but with his eyes fixed upon the child. Sometimes she was too weak to rise from her bed.

When Sunday came, Mr. Swiveller was sitting in the client’s chair.

“This is life,” said Mr. Swiveller to himself, “Oh, certainly. Why not? I’m quite satisfied. I do nothing and get paid for that. Ha, ha, ha!”

There came a ring. Opening the door with all speed, he saw Kit.

“Is the gentleman at home?” said Kit. “I mean the gentleman upstairs, is he at home?”

“Why?” rejoined Dick.

“Because if he is, I have a letter for him.”

“From whom?” said Dick.

“From Mr. Garland.”

“Oh!” said Dick with extreme politeness. “Then you may hand it over, sir. And if you’re to wait for an answer, sir, you may wait in the passage, sir.”

“Thank you,” returned Kit. “But I am to give it to himself, if you please.” Kit went upstairs.

Mr. Brass and his lovely companion appeared.

“Well, Mr. Richard,” said Brass. “How are we this morning? Are we pretty fresh and cheerful, sir eh, Mr. Richard? “

“Pretty well, sir,” replied Dick.

“That’s well,” said Brass. “Ha ha! It’s a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers. Ha ha! Any letters by the post this morning, Mr. Richard?”

Mr. Swiveller answered in the negative.

“Ha!” said Brass, “no matter. If there’s little business today, there’ll be more tomorrow. Any visitors, sir?”

“Only somebody to the lodger,” replied Mr. Swiveller,

“Oh indeed!” cried Brass. “Somebody to the lodger, eh? Ha! ha! Somebody to the lodger, eh Mr. Richard?”

“Yes,” said Dick, “With him now.”

“With him now!” cried Brass; “Ha ha! And who is the lodger’s visitor, Mr. Richard?”

“A young man,” returned Richard. “Kit, they call him.”

“Kit, eh!” said Brass. “Ha ha! Kit’s there, is he? Oh! Will you have the goodness, Mr. Richard,” said Brass, taking a letter from his desk, “just to give this letter to our client? The address is written over there. There’s no answer, but it’s rather particular and should go by hand.”

Mr. Swiveller put on his coat, took down his hat from its peg, pocketed the letter, and departed.

As soon as he was gone, Miss Sally Brass rose up, and smiling sweetly at her brother (who nodded and smote his nose in return) withdrew also.

Richard Swiveller, being often alone, began to play cards with a dummy[124]. As these games were very silently conducted, Mr. Swiveller began to think that on those evenings when Mr. and Miss Brass were out (and they often went out now) he heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing sound in the direction of the door. Looking intently that way one night, he plainly distinguished an eye gleaming and glistening at the key-hole; he came softly to the door, and pounced upon the little girl before she was aware of his approach.

“Oh! I didn’t mean any harm indeed, upon my word I didn’t,” cried the small servant. “It’s very dull downstairs. Please don’t you Mrs. Brass, please don’t!”

“How long have you been cooling your eye[125] there?” said Dick.

“Oh ever since you first began to play them cards, and long before.”

“Well, come in,” he said, after a little consideration. “Here sit down, and I’ll teach you how to play. Why, how thin you are! Will you eat any bread and meat? Yes? Ah! I thought so. Why, how old are you?”

“I don’t know.”

The small servant’s plate was soon empty.

“Well,” said Dick, “is it good?”

“Oh! Isn’t it?” said the small servant.

Soon Dick began to teach her the game, which she soon learnt well, because she was both sharp-witted and cunning.

“Now,” said Mr. Swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, “those are the stakes[126]. If you win, you get them all. If I win, I get them. To make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall call you the Marchioness[127], do you hear?”

The small servant nodded.

“Then, Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, “Let’s play!”

Mr. Swiveller and his partner played cards with varying success.

“Could you,” said Dick, “Marchioness, relate what Mr. and Mrs. Brass say of the humble individual who…”

“You?”

“Yes, what do they say about me?” said Dick.

“Miss Sally says you’re a funny chap,” replied his friend.

“Well, Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, “that’s not uncomplimentary. Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad or a degrading quality.”

“But she says,” pursued his companion, “that one can’t trust you.”

“Why, really Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, thoughtfully; “several ladies and gentlemen, ma’am, have made the same remark. It’s a popular prejudice, Marchioness. Mr. Brass is of the same opinion, I suppose?”

His friend nodded, and added imploringly,

“But don’t you ever tell upon me, or I shall be beat to death.”

“Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, rising, “I give you the word of a gentleman. I am your friend, and I hope we shall play more together in this same saloon. But, Marchioness,” added Richard, stopping in his way to the door, and wheeling slowly round upon the small servant, who was following with the candle; “it occurs to me that you must be in the constant habit of airing your eye at key-holes.”

“I only wanted,” replied the trembling Marchioness, “to know where the key of the safe was hid; that was all; just to squench my hunger.”

“You didn’t find it then?” said Dick. “But of course you didn’t, or you’d be plumper. Good-night, Marchioness.”

He awoke in the morning, much refreshed; and went to work; where Sally was already at her post.

“I say,” said Miss Brass, “you haven’t seen a silver pencil-case[128] this morning, have you?”

“I didn’t meet many in the street,” rejoined Mr. Swiveller. “Do you ask me such a question seriously? Haven’t I this moment come?”

“Well, all I know is,” replied Miss Sally, “that I can’t find it, and that it disappeared one day this week, when I left it on the desk.”

Mr. Swiveller involuntarily clapped his hands to the jacket.

“It’s a very unpleasant thing, Dick,” said Miss Brass, pulling out the tin box and refreshing herself with a pinch of snuff; “but between you and me, between friends, you know, some office-money has gone in the same way. In particular, I have missed three half-crowns[129].”

“You don’t mean that?[130]“ cried Dick. “Be careful what you say, for this is a serious matter. Are you quite sure? Is there no mistake?”

“It is so, and there can’t be any mistake at all,” rejoined Miss Brass emphatically.

The more they discussed the subject, the more probable it appeared to Dick that the miserable little servant was the thief.

The voice of Miss Sally’s brother Sampsonwas heard in the passage, and the gentleman himself appeared.

“Mr. Richard sir, good morning! Here we are again sir, entering upon another day. Here we are, Mr. Richard, charming, sir, very charming!”

While he addressed his clerk in these words, Mr. Brass was examining a five-pound bank-note, which he had in his hand. Suddenly he noticed something wrong.

“Dear me!” said Mr. Sampson, “What’s the matter?”

Dick told him about the thieves.

“This is a most extraordinary and painful circumstance, Mr. Richard sir, a most painful circumstance. The fact is, that I myself have missed several small sums from the desk. Sally, Mr. Richard, sir, this is a particularly distressing affair!” said Mr. Brass.

“Why,” said his sister with an air of triumph, “hasn’t there been somebody always coming in and out of this office for the last three or four weeks; hasn’t that somebody been left alone in it; and do you mean to tell me that that somebody isn’t the thief?”

“What somebody?” blustered Brass.

“Why, what do you call him… Kit.”

“Mr. Garland’s young man?”

“To be sure.[131]“

“Never!” cried Brass. “Never. Don’t tell me!”

“I say,” repeated Miss Brass, taking another pinch of snuff, “that he’s the thief.”

“I say,” returned Sampson violently, “that he is not. What do you mean? How dare you? Do you know that he’s the honestest and faithfullest fellow that ever lived? Come in, Come in!”

These last words were not addressed to Miss Sally. They were addressed to some person who had knocked at the office-door; and they had hardly passed the lips of Mr. Brass, when this very Kit himself[132] looked in.

“Is the gentleman upstairs, sir, if you please?”

“Yes, Kit,” said Brass; “Yes Kit, he is. I am glad to see you Kit, I am rejoiced to see you. Look in again, as you come downstairs, Kit. That lad a robber!” cried Brass when Kit had withdrawn, “I’d trust him all my gold. Am I blind, deaf, silly? Kit a robber! Bah!”

When Kit came downstairs from the single gentleman’s apartment, Mr. Sampson Brass was standing by the door. He was not singing as usual, nor was he seated at his desk.

“Is anything the matter, sir?” said Kit.

“Matter!” cried Brass. “No. Why anything the matter?”

“You are so very pale,” said Kit.

“I have been thinking, Kit…” said the lawyer, “You have a mother, I think? If I recollect right, you told me.”

“Oh yes, sir, yes certainly.”

“A widow I think? an industrious widow?”

“A harder-working woman or a better mother never lived sir.”

“Ah!” cried Brass. “That’s affecting, truly affecting. A poor widow struggling to maintain her orphans in decency and comfort, is a delicious picture of human goodness. Put down your hat, Kit.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Put it down while you stay, at any rate,” said Brass, taking Kit’s hat from him. “I was thinking, Kit, that we have often houses to let. And we put people into those houses to take care of them. So why not employ this worthy woman, your mother? Now what do you think of that? Do you see any objection? My only desire is to serve you, Kit; therefore if you do, say so freely.”

As Brass spoke, he moved the hat twice or thrice, and shuffled among the papers.

“How can I see any objection to such a kind offer, sir?” replied Kit. “I don’t know how to thank you, sir.”

“Why then,” said Brass, suddenly turning upon him. “Why then, it’s done[133].”

“Oh!” sneered Sally. “Do you employ Kit, Sammy?”

“Yes!” replied Brass. “An honest fellow, a worthy fellow indeed! He has had my confidence, and he shall continue to have it; he why, where’s the…”

“What have you lost?” inquired Mr. Swiveller.

“Dear me!” said Brass, slapping all his pockets, one after another, and looking into his desk, and under it, and upon it, and wildly tossing the papers about, “the note, Mr. Richard sir, the five-pound note! I laid it clown here!”

“What?” cried Miss Sally, starting up, clapping her hands, and scattering the papers on the floor. “Gone! Now who’s right? Now who’s got it? Never mind five pounds, what’s five pounds? He’s honest, you know, quite honest. It’s mean to suspect him.”

“Kit,” said Sampson, “something of value[134] is missing from the office. I hope you don’t know what.”

“Know what! good Heaven, Mr. Brass!” cried Kit, trembling from head to foot; “you don’t suppose…”

“No, no,” rejoined Brass quickly, “I don’t suppose anything. Don’t say I said you did. Or?”

“I am sure you’ll be sorry for having suspected me, sir,” replied Kit.

“Certainly!” cried Brass, “But we must examine you. It will be a comfortable and pleasant thing for all parties.”

“Search me,” said Kit, proudly holding up his arms. “But mind, sir, I know you’ll be sorry for this, to the last day of your life.”

“It is certainly a very painful occurrence,” said Brass with a sigh, as he dived into one of Kit’s pockets; “very painful. Nothing here, Mr. Richard, sir, all perfectly satisfactory. Nor here, sir. Nor in the waistcoat, Mr. Richard, nor in the coat-tails. So far, I am rejoiced, I am sure.”

Richard Swiveller, holding Kit’s hat in his hand, was watching the proceedings with great interest. Sampson turning hastily to him, bade him search the hat.

“Here’s a handkerchief,” said Dick.

“No harm in that sir,” rejoined Brass. “No harm in a handkerchief sir, whatever. And what is this?!”

Kit turned his head, and saw Dick standing with the bank-note in his hand.

“In the hat?” cried Brass in a sort of shriek.

“Under the handkerchief, and beneath the lining[135],” said Dick, aghast at the discovery.

Mr. Brass looked at him, at his sister, at the walls, at the ceiling, at the floor. Kit stood quite stupefied and motionless.

Kit stood with his eyes opened wide and fixed upon the ground. He remained in this posture, quite unresisting and passive, until Mr. Swiveller brought a policeman.

“But listen to me!” cried Kit, raising his eyes. “I am no more guilty than any one of you. Upon my soul I am not. I am a thief! Oh, Mr. Brass, you know me better. I am sure you know me better. This is not right of you[136], indeed.”

“I give you my oath, constable,” said Brass “that I had confidence in that lad.”

“Ask anybody,” cried Kit, “whether they have ever doubted me; whether I have ever wronged them of a farthing. Was I ever once dishonest when I was poor and hungry, and is it likely I would begin now? Oh consider what you do!”

The voice of the single gentleman was heard, demanding from above-stairs what was the matter, and what was the cause of all that noise and hurry. Sampson Brass ran out to tell the story in his own way.

“And he can hardly believe it, either,” said Sampson, when he returned, “But what to do?..”

The constable thrust Kit into the vehicle and followed himself. Miss Sally entered next; Sampson Brass got upon the box[137], and made the coachman drive on.

Poor Kit was looking out of the window, when all at once he saw the face of Quilp. Mr. Brass immediately stopped the coach. Dwarf pulled off his hat, and saluted the party with a hideous and grotesque politeness.

“Aha!” he cried. “Where now, Brass? where now? Sally with you too? Sweet Sally! And Dick? Pleasant Dick! And Kit? Honest Kit!”

“He’s extremely cheerful!” said Brass to the coachman. “Very much so! Ah sir a sad business! Never believe in honesty any more, sir.”

“Why not?” returned the dwarf. “Why not, why not?”

“Bank-note lost in our office sir,” said Brass, shaking his head. “Found in Kit’s hat, sir, no mistake.”

“What?” cried the dwarf. “Kit is a thief! Kit is a thief! Ha ha ha! Why, he’s an uglier-looking thief than can be seen anywhere for a penny. Eh Kit eh? Eh Kit, eh?” And with that, he burst into a yell of laughter.

“Ha ha ha ha!” cried the dwarf, rubbing his hands violently. “What a disappointment for little Jacob, and for his darling mother! Eh Kit, eh? Bye-bye Kit; all good go with you; keep up your spirits[138]; my love to the Garlands, the dear old lady and gentleman. Blessings on them, on you, and on everybody, Kit. Blessings on all the world!”

When Quilp could see the coach no longer, he rolled upon the ground in an ecstasy of enjoyment.

At the justice-room, they found the single gentleman, who had gone straight there, and was expecting them with desperate impatience. But not fifty single gentlemen could have helped poor Kit.

A faint light, twinkling from the window of the counting-house on Quilp’s wharf, warned Mr. Sampson Brass, as he approached the wooden cabin with a cautious step, that the dwarf was inside. He looked doubtfully towards the light, and over his shoulder.

Brass went up to the wooden house, and knocked at the door.

“Come in!” cried the dwarf.

“How do you do tonight, sir?” said Sampson, peeping in. “Ha ha ha! How do you do, sir?”

“Come in, you fool!” returned the dwarf, “Come in, you false witness, you perjurer[139], you suborner of evidence[140], come in!”

“He has the richest humour!” cried Brass, shutting the door behind him; “the most amazing vein of comicality! But isn’t it rather injudicious sir?”

“What?” demanded Quilp. “What, Judas[141]?”

“Judas!” cried Brass. “He has such extraordinary spirits! His humour is so extremely playful! Judas! Oh yes dear me, how very good! Ha ha ha!”

Sampson was rubbing his hands and staring at Quilp.

“You were asking, sir,” said Brass, “Sally told me, about our lodger. He has not returned sir.”

“No?” said Quilp, heating some rum in a little saucepan. “Why not? The lodger, what about him?”

“He is still, sir,” returned Brass, “stopping with the Garland family. He has only been home once, sir, since the day of the examination of that culprit. He informed Mr. Richard sir, that he couldn’t bear the house after what had taken place. A very excellent lodger sir. I hope we may not lose him.”

“Yah!” cried the dwarf. “But you may lose the clerk.”

“Discharge Mr. Richard sir?” cried Brass.

“Have you more than one clerk, you parrot, that you ask the question? Yes.”

“Upon my word sir,” said Brass, “I wasn’t prepared for this.”

“How could you be?” sneered the dwarf, “I brought him to you that I might always watch your lodger. This clerk and his precious friend believed the old man and grandchild rich, but in reality they were as poor as frozen rats.”

“I quite understood that sir,” rejoined Brass. “Thoroughly.”

“Well sir,” retorted Quilp, “and do you understand now, that they’re not poor that they can’t be, if they have such men as your lodger searching for them?”

“Of course I do, sir,” said Sampson.

“Of course you do,” retorted the dwarf, viciously snapping at his words. “This fellow is pigeon-hearted, and light-headed. I don’t want him any longer. Let him hang or drown, let him go to the devil.”

“By all means, sir,” returned Brass. “When would you wish him, sir, to – ha ha! – to make that little excursion?”

“When this trial’s over,” said Quilp. “As soon as that’s ended, send him away.”

“It will be done, sir,” returned Brass; “by all means, sir.”

“Mr. Richard,” said Brass cheerfully, entering his office, “good-evening!”

Mr. Richard suspected his affable employer of some deep villainy. It was very strong upon him, and he said in few words, what he wanted.

“Money?” cried Brass, taking out his purse. “Ha ha! To be sure, Mr. Richard, to be sure. sir. All men must live. You haven’t change for a five-pound note, have you sir?”

“No,” returned Dick, shortly.

“Oh!” said Brass, “here’s the sum. You’re very welcome, Mr. Richard. You needn’t trouble yourself to come back any more sir.”

“Eh?”

“You see, Mr. Richard,” said Brass, thrusting his hands in his pockets, “the fact is that a man of your abilities is lost here, sir, quite lost, in our company. You’ll find the money quite correct, I think. Mr. Richard, let us part liberally! “

Mr. Swiveller returned for his jacket, rolled it and looked steadily at Brass. When he had closed the door, he re-opened it, stared in and vanished. That very night, Mr. Richard was stricken with a raging fever[142].

Richard awoke. The same room certainly, and still by candlelight; but what do all those bottles, and basins, and articles of linen mean? Everything is very clean and neat, but all quite different from anything he had left there, when he went to bed! The atmosphere, too, filled with a cool smell of herbs and vinegar. And who is that? The Marchioness?

Yes; playing cards with herself at the table. There she sat and feared to disturb him shuffling the cards. Mr. Swiveller contemplated these things for a short time, and laid his head on the pillow again.

“I’m dreaming,” thought Richard, “that’s clear. When I went to bed, my hands were not made of egg-shells; and now I can almost see through them. I have no doubt I’m asleep.”

Here the small servant coughed.

“Very remarkable!” thought Mr. Swiveller. “I never dreamt such a real cough as that, before. I don’t know, indeed, that 1 ever dreamt either a cough or a sneeze. Perhaps it’s part of the philosophy of dreams that one never does. There’s another and another I say! I’m dreaming rather fast!”

For the purpose of testing his real condition, Mr. Swiveller, after some reflection, pinched himself in the arm. The result of his additional inspection was that the objects around him were real, and that he saw them, beyond all question, with his own eyes.

Mr. Swiveller raised the curtain. The Marchioness jumped up quickly, and clapped her hands: “I’m so glad that I don’t know what to do!”

“Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, thoughtfully, “be pleased to draw nearer. First of all, will you have the goodness to inform me where I shall find my voice; and secondly, what has become of my flesh? I begin to think, Marchioness,” said Richard, and smiling with a trembling lip, “that I have been ill.”

“You just have!” replied the small servant, wiping her eyes. “Nearly dead. I never thought you’d get better. Thank Heaven you have!”

Mr. Swiveller was silent for a long while.

“And how long?”

“Three weeks tomorrow,” replied the small servant.

“Three what?” said Dick.

“Weeks,” returned the Marchioness emphatically; “three long, slow weeks.”

The Marchioness felt that his hands and forehead were quite cool, and then prepared some and made some thin dry toast. Mr. Swiveller looked at her with a grateful heart.

“Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, “how’s Sally?”

The small servant shook her head.

“What, haven’t you seen her lately?” said Dick.

“Seen her!” cried the small servant. “Bless you, I’ve run away!”

Mr. Swiveller immediately laid himself down again, and so remained for about five minutes.

“And where do you live, Marchioness?”

“Live!” cried the small servant. “Here!”

“Oh!” said Mr. Swiveller. “And so, you have run away?”

The small servant nodded, and winked. Her eyes were red with waking and crying.

“Tell me,” said Dick, “how it was that you thought of coming here.”

“Why, you see,” returned the Marchioness, “when you were gone, I hadn’t any friend at all, because the lodger never came back, and I didn’t know where to find him or you, you know. But one morning, when I was…”

“Was near a key-hole?” suggested Mr. Swiveller.

“Yes,” said the small servant, nodding; “when I was near the office key-hole, you know, I saw the lady whose house you lodged at, and she was saying that you were very ill, and nobody came to take care of you. Mr. Brass says, ‘It’s no business of mine,’ he says; and Miss Sally, she says, ‘He’s a funny chap, but it’s no business of mine;’ and the lady went away. So I ran away that night, and came here, and told her that you were my brother, and they believed me. So I’ve been here ever since.”

“Oh! I strongly suspect,” said Dick thoughtfully, “I could die, Marchioness, without you.”

At this point, Mr. Swiveller took the small servant’s hand in his.

“The doctor,” she told him, “said you had to lie quite still. Now, take a rest, and then we’ll talk again. I’ll sit by you, you know. If you shut your eyes, perhaps you’ll go to sleep.”

The Marchioness, in saying these words, brought a little table to the bedside, and took her seat at it. Richard Swiveller fell into a slumber, and waking in about half-an-hour, inquired what time it was.

“Half after six,” replied his small friend, helping him to sit up again.

“Marchioness,” said Richard, passing his hand over his forehead, “what has become of Kit?”

“He had been sentenced to transportation[143] for many years,” she said.

“Has he gone?” asked Dick “his mother, how is she, what has become of her?”

His nurse shook her head, and answered that she knew nothing about them.

“But I can tell you something,” said she.

“Yes, do,” said Dick. “It will amuse me.”

“Oh, no!” rejoined the small servant, with a horrified look. “Let’s wait till you’re better and then I’ll tell you.”

Dick looked very earnestly at his little friend.

“Did you hear something through key-hole again?” asked Dick, in a breathless state.

“Yes,” replied the small servant.

“Conversations between Brass and Sally?” pursued Dick hastily.

“Yes,” cried the small servant again.

“Please, go on, darling!” said Dick. “Speak, sister, speak, I beseech you!”

Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, his companion spoke thus:

“Well! Before I ran away, I was sleeping in the kitchen where we played cards, you know. Miss Sally and Mr. Brass were sitting by the fire, and talking softly together. Mr. Brass says to Miss Sally, ‘ Upon my word,’ he says, ‘it’s a dangerous thing, and it might get us into a world of trouble, and I don’t like it.’ She says, ‘You’re the chickenest-hearted, feeblest, faintest man I have ever seen!’ she says, ‘Isn’t Quilp our principal support?’ ‘He certainly is,’ says Mr. Brass. ‘So we must ruin this Kit if Quilp desires it.’ Then they whispered and laughed for a long time, and then Mr. Brass pulls out his pocket-book, and says, ‘Well, here it is Quilp’s own five-pound note. Kit is coming tomorrow morning, I know. I’ll put this money in his hat. Then Mr. Richard will find it there, and that will be the evidence!’ Miss Sally laughed, and said that was a good plan. I was afraid and went downstairs. There!”

Mr. Swiveller hastily demanded whether this story had been told to anybody.

“Never,” replied his nurse. “I was afraid to think about it.”

“Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, “I’ll get up.”

“You mustn’t think of such a thing,” cried his nurse.

“I must indeed,” said the patient, looking round the room. “Where are my clothes?”

“I had to sell them, every one, to get the medicine. But don’t think about that, you’re too weak to stand, indeed.”

Dick fell back upon his pillow.

“I am afraid,” said Richard dolefully, “that you’re right. What to do? Wait. The first step is to communicate with the Garlands. Bring the old Mr. Garland to this apartment.”

Mr. Garland seemed rather astonished to hear the whole story, and took a chair by the bedside.

“I have sent for you, sir,” said Dick “but did the girl tell you on what account?”

“She did. I am quite bewildered by all this. I really don’t know what to say or think,” replied Mr. Garland.

“Marchioness,” retorted Dick. “take a seat on the bed, will you? Now, tell this gentleman all that you told me; and be particular.”

The story was repeated; it was, in effect, exactly the same as before, without any deviation or omission. Richard Swiveller took the word again.

“You have heard it all, and you’ll not forget it. I’m too weak to suggest anything; but you and your friends will know what to do. After this long delay, every minute is an age! “

Mr. Garland was gone in an instant.

“That’s right!” said Dick; “I honour him from this time. But get some supper, for I am sure you must be tired.”

The little girl put everything in neat order, then she wrapped herself in an old coverlet and lay down upon the rug before the fire.

Mr. Swiveller was by that time murmuring in his sleep, “Good-night, Marchioness!”

On awaking in the morning, Richard Swiveller saw Mr. Garland, the notary, and the single gentleman, they gathered round the Marchioness.

“Tell me, please,” said Dick, returning the pressure of Mr. Garland’s hand, “Is it too late?”

“No,” returned the old gentleman. “Set your mind at rest on that point. It is not, I assure you.”

“What can we do for you?” said Mr. Garland, kindly.

Dick looked at the him.

“You see, my good fellow,” said the single gentleman, “While we have no doubt that we can procure the poor Kit’s immediate pardon and liberation, we have a great difficulty in reaching Quilp, the chief agent in this villainy. If somebody must escape, let it be anyone but he[144].”

“Yes,” returned Dick, “certainly. But how can we reach him?”

“We have a plan,” said the single gentleman.

“Oh,” said Dick, “I wish you luck, sirs. Unfortunately I am too weak to join you.”

Meanwhile, the single gentleman, the notary, and Mr. Garland, went to a certain coffee-house, and from that place sent a letter to Miss Sally Brass, requesting her to give a consultation, as speedily as possible. Within ten minutes of the messenger’s return and report of its delivery, Miss Brass herself arrived.

“Pray ma’am,” said the single gentleman, whom she found alone in the room, “take a chair.”

Miss Brass sat herself down, in a very stiff and frigid state, and seemed as indeed she was not a little astonished to find that the lodger and her mysterious correspondent were one and the same person.

“You did not expect to see me?” said the single gentleman.

“I didn’t think much about it,” returned Mrs. Brass. “If it’s about the apartments, of course you’ll give my brother regular notice or money.”

“Certainly,” retorted the single gentleman, “But that is not the subject on which I wish to speak with you.”

“Oh!” said Sally. “I suppose it’s professional business?”

“It is connected with the law, certainly.”

“Very well,” returned Miss Brass. “My brother and I are just the same. I can take any instructions, or give you any advice.”

“As there are other parties interested besides myself,” said the single gentleman, rising and opening the door of an inner room, “we had better talk together. Miss Brass is here, gentlemen.”

Mr. Garland and the notary walked in, looking very grave: and, drawing up two chairs, one on each side of the single gentleman, formed a kind of fence round Sarah. She pulled out the tin box, and calmly took a pinch of snuff.

“Miss Brass,” said the notary, “we professional people understand each other, and can say what we have to say, in very few words. You advertised a runaway servant[145], the other day?”

“Well,” returned Miss Sally, with a sudden flush, “what of that?”

“She is found, ma’am,” said the notary, pulling out his pocket handkerchief. “She is found.”

“Who found her?” demanded Sarah hastily.

“We did, ma’am, we three. Only last night.”

“And what have you got to say?” said Miss Brass, folding her arms, “You have found her, you say. I can tell you (if you don’t know it) that you have found the most artful, lying, pilfering, devilish little minx that was ever born. Have you got her here?” she added, looking sharply round.

“No, she is not here at present,” returned the notary. “But she is quite safe.”

“Ha!” cried Sally, twitching a pinch of snuff out of her box; “she shall be safe enough from this time, I warrant you.”

“I hope so,” replied the notary. “Do you know that she had an opportunity of hearing the conference which you and Mr. Brass held together, on the night before that most unfortunate and innocent young man was accused of robbery?”

Sally took another pinch.

“Come, come, Miss Brass,” said the notary, “Now, you know the pains and penalties you are liable to, but I have a proposal to make to you. You have the honour of being sister to one of the greatest scoundrels; but connected with you two is a third party, a villain of the name of Quilp, the prime mover of the whole diabolical device[146]. Miss Brass, do us the favour to reveal the whole history of this affair. Let me remind you that your doing so will place you in a safe and comfortable position. What is your decision, ma’am?”

With a smile upon her face, Miss Brass took two or three more pinches of snuff, and said “I am to accept or reject at once, am I?”

“Yes.”

She was opening her lips to speak in reply, when the door was hastily opened too, and the head of Sampson Brass was thrust into the room.

“Excuse me,” said Sampson Brass hastily. “Wait a bit!”

So saying, he crept in, shut the door, kissed his greasy glove, and made a most abject bow.

“Sarah,” said Brass, “hold your tongue if you please, and let me speak. Gentlemen! Well! Ah! I saw my sister on her way here, and, wondering where she could be going to, followed her. Since then, I have been listening.”

“If you’re not mad,” interposed Miss Sally, “stop there, and say no more.’

The three gentlemen looked at each other, but said nothing.

“Sarah, my dear,” rejoined Brass, “I thank you kindly, but will still proceed. Sirs, I say, I will answer all these questions. Quilp deludes me into his infernal den, and takes a delight in looking upon my sufferings, Quilp has treated me as a dog, Quilp, whom I have always hated with my whole heart! I can’t trust him. If the truth has come out, gentlemen, I had better turn upon[147] this man than let this man turn upon me! That’s for my own profit.”

With that, Mr. Brass, in a great hurry, revealed the whole story and underlined his human weaknesses. He concluded thus:

“Now, gentlemen, you must do with me what you please, and take me where you please. If you wish to have this in writing, I’ll do it immediately. You will be tender with me, I am sure. I am quite confident you will be tender with me. You are men of honour, and have feeling hearts. Punish Quilp, gentlemen! Grind him down![148] Tread him under foot!”

“And this,” said Miss Brass, raising her head, and surveying him from head to foot with a bitter sneer, “this is my brother, is it? This is my brother, that I have worked and toiled for!”

“Sarah, my dear,” returned Sampson, rubbing his hands feebly; “you disturb our friends. Besides, you’re disappointed, Sarah, and do not know what you say.”

“You pitiful dastard,” retorted Sarah.

“He he!” simpered Brass. “The shame, gentlemen, if there is any, is mine.”

The three gentlemen spoke together apart, for a few moments. At the end of their consultation, which was very brief, the notary pointed to the writing materials on the table, and informed Mr. Brass that if he wished to make any statement in writing, he had the opportunity of doing so.

Sarah paced the room with manly strides, and sometimes stopped to pull out her snuff-box. Then she walked away.

The judge gave Mr. Brass a warm reception and detained him in a secure place. He said that he would liberate Kit without delay.

Their business ended, the three gentlemen hastened back to the lodgings of Mr. Swiveller.

“As you are so much better,” said the notary, sitting down at the bedside, “I may give you a piece of news which has come to me professionally.”

“Certainly, sir. I hope it’s not very disagreeable, though?”, asked Dick.

“If I thought it so, I should choose some better time,” replied the notary. “You are the nephew of Rebecca Swiveller, deceased, of Cheselbourne in Dorsetshire[149]?”

“Deceased! Yes, I am her nephew,” cried Dick.

“Deceased. You have come into possession of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; I think I may congratulate.”

“Sir,” said Dick, sobbing and laughing together, “you may. Please God, we’ll make a scholar of the poor Marchioness!”

Mr. Quilp remained in his hermitage, undisturbed by anybody, and extremely well satisfied with the result of his machinations. The day was damp, dark, cold, and gloomy. In that low and marshy spot, the fog filled every nook and corner with a thick dense cloud. Every object was obscure at one or two yards’ distance.

The dwarf lighted up fresh candles and heaped more fuel on the fire. He ate a beefsteak, which he cooked himself in a savage and cannibal-like manner, lighted his pipe, and sat down to spend the evening.

At this moment, a low knocking at the cabin-door arrested his attention. When it had been twice or thrice repeated, he softly opened the little window, and thrusting his head out, demanded who was there.

“Only me, Quilp,” replied a woman’s voice.

“Only you!” cried the dwarf, stretching his neck to obtain a better view of his visitor. “And what brings you here, you jade? How dare you approach the ogre’s castle, eh?”

“I have come with some news,” rejoined his spouse. “Don’t be angry with me.”

“Is it good news, pleasant news?” said the dwarf. “Is the dear old lady dead?”

“I don’t know what news it is, or whether it’s good or bad,” rejoined his wife.

“Then she’s alive,” said Quilp, “Go home again, you bird of evil, go home!”

“I have brought a letter,” cried the meek little woman.

“Toss it in at the window here, and go your ways,” said Quilp, interrupting her, “or I’ll come out and scratch you.”

Opening the letter, he read;

“Sammy has broken confidence. It has all come out[150]. They want to surprise you. Don’t lose time. I didn’t. I am not to be found anywhere. S. B.”

For a long time Quilp did not utter a word.

“Such a bloodless cur!” said Quilp, rubbing his hands very slowly, and pressing them tight together. “I thought his cowardice and servility were the best guarantee for his keeping silence. I was wrong! It is a good night for travelling anonymously.”

By a great exertion of strength, he closed the two old gates, which were deeply sunken in the mud, and barred them with a heavy lock.

“The fence between this wharf and the next is easily climbed,” said the dwarf, when he had taken these precautions. “There’s a back-lane, too. That shall be my way out. Unwelcome visitors are coming here, I think.”

A knocking at the gate he had closed. A loud and violent knocking. Then, a pause; as if those who knocked had stopped to listen. Then, the noise again, more clamorous and importunate than before.

“So soon!” said the dwarf. “And so eager! I am afraid I shall disappoint you. It’s well I’m quite prepared. Sally, I thank you!”

He left the room in pitchy darkness, and stepped into the open air. At that moment the knocking ceased. It was about eight o’clock. He darted forward for a few paces, then changed the direction of his steps; then, stood still, not knowing where to turn.

Nothing was heard in that deserted place, but, at intervals, the distant barkings of dogs.

“If I could find a wall or fence,” said the dwarf, stretching out his arms, and walking slowly on.

Then he staggered and fell and next moment found himself in the cold dark water. The strong tide filled his throat, and bore him on, upon its rapid current.

They have prepared Kit for this, all day. He is not to be carried off tomorrow with the rest, they tell him first. Then they let him know that doubts have arisen, and perhaps he may be pardoned after all. At last, they brought him to a room where some gentlemen are assembled. Foremost among them is his good old master, who comes and takes him by the hand. He hears that his innocence is established, and that he is pardoned. Mr. Garland thinks, if he feels better, it is time they went away. The gentlemen cluster round him, and shake hands with him. He feels very grateful to them for the interest they have in him, and for the kind promises they make.

“Thank you very much, gentlemen,” says Kit. “It’s a great pleasure to be free again! But let me ask: is there any information about Nell and her grandfather?”

“The place of their retreat is discovered,” said Mr. Garland, “at last. And that is our journey’s end.”

Kit asked, where was it, and how had it been found, and how long since, and was she well and happy?

“Happy she is, beyond all doubt,” said Mr. Garland. “And well, I trust she will be soon. She has been weak and ailing, as I know, but she was better when I heard this morning, and they were full of hope. Sit you down, and you will hear the rest.”

Mr. Garland then related to him, how he had a brother, and how this brother lived a long way off, in a country-place, with an old clergyman who had been his dear friend. The brothers had not met for many years, but had communicated by letter from time to time. Mr. Garland’s brother is very mild and quiet, he seldom told him of his village friends. But in a letter received a few days before he wrote about the child and the old man. They must be the very wanderers for whom so much search had been made, and whom Heaven had directed to his brother’s care.

“So this is the immediate cause of the journey we plan,” said Mr. Garland. “and we leave tomorrow.”

Next morning, Kit began to prepare for the expedition. It had troubled his sleep through the long dark hours, and summoned such uneasy dreams about his pillow that it was rest to rise.

Everybody hurried to do something. The single gentleman overlooked everybody else and was more locomotive than anybody.

It was a bitter day. A keen wind was blowing, and rushed against them fiercely. There was a freedom and freshness in the wind. All day long, it blew without cessation. The night was clear and starlight, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing.

Meantime the two gentlemen inside beguiled the time with conversation. The single gentleman, who had gradually become more and more silent and thoughtful, turned to his companion and said abruptly:

“Are you a good listener?”

“Like most other men, I suppose,” returned Mr. Garland, smiling. “I can be, if I am interested; and if not interested. Why do you ask?”

“I have a short narrative on my lips,” rejoined his friend, “It is very brief.”

He laid his hand on the old gentleman’s sleeve, and proceeded thus:

“There were once two brothers, who loved each other dearly. There was a disparity in their ages some twelve years. But they became rivals too soon: the reason is the girl. The youngest had been a sickly child. His brother was sitting beside his couch, telling him old stories till his pale face lighted up; he carried him in his arms to green spots. The youngest left his brother to be happy, he quitted the country. The elder brother married that girl. She died and left him with an infant daughter. In this daughter the mother lived again. She grew and met a man, she fell in love. All the misery followed this union! She died, leaving to her father’s care two orphans; one a son of ten or twelve years old; the other a girl.

The elder brother, grandfather to these two children, was now a broken man; crushed and borne down. He began to trade curious ancient things. The boy grew like his father in mind and person; the girl so like her mother. The wayward boy soon left him, the old man and the child dwelt alone together.

The younger brother had been a traveller in many countries. The communication between him and the elder was difficult and uncertain, and often failed. The he settled his affairs; converted into money all the goods he had; and, with wealth enough for both, with open heart and hand, arrived one evening at his brother’s door.”

The narrator stopped.

“The rest,” said Mr. Garland, pressing his hand after a pause, “I know.”

“Yes,” rejoined his friend, “You know the poor result of all my search. We found they had been seen with two poor travelling showmen and we discovered the actual place of their retreat; but we were too late. Pray God we are not too late again!”

“We cannot be,” said Mr. Garland. “This time we must succeed!”

Kit descended slowly from his seat, when they arrived at a lone posting-house[151]. They inquired how far they had to go to reach their journey’s end. A voice answered from an upper window, “Ten miles.” After brief delay they were again in motion.

The road wound gently downward. The old church tower rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close beside it. A wicket-gate was close at hand.

Soon they arrived before the parsonage wall. Turning round, among some ruined buildings at a distance, they saw one single solitary light. It shone from an old oriel window.

“What light is that?” said the younger brother.

“It is surely,” said Mr. Garland, “in the ruin where they live. I see no other ruin hereabouts.”

Kit went straight towards the house. He approached as softly as he could and listened. There was no sound inside. A curtain was drawn across the lower portion of the window, and he could not see into the room.

He came to the door and knocked. No answer. But there was a curious noise inside. It was difficult to determine what it was. It was something fearful, chilling, and unearthly.

Kit knocked again. There was no answer, and the sound went on without any interruption. He laid his hand softly upon the latch, and put his knee against the door. Kit saw the glimmering of a fire upon the old walls, and entered.

He saw a figure, seated on the hearth with its back towards him. The heavy door had closed behind Kit on his entrance, with a crash. The figure neither spoke, nor turned to look. It was the old he knew very well!

“Master!” cried Kit, stooping on one knee and catching at his hand. “Dear master. Speak to me!”

The old man turned slowly towards him; and muttered in a hollow voice.

“This is another! How many of these spirits there have been tonight!”

“No spirit, master. No one but your old servant. You know me now, I am sure? Miss Nell, where is she where is she?”

“They all say that!” cried the old man. “They all ask the same question. A spirit!”

“Where is she?” demanded Kit. “Oh tell me that, dear master!”

“She is asleep.”

“Thank God!”

“Aye! Thank God!” returned the old man. “I have prayed to Him, when she has been asleep, He knows. Hark! Did she call?”

“I heard no voice.”

“You did. You hear her now. Do you tell me that you don’t hear that?”

He started up, and listened again.

“Nor that?” he cried, with a triumphant smile. “Can anybody know that voice so well as I! Hush! Hush!”

He went away into another chamber. After a short absence he returned, bearing in his hand a lamp.

“She is still asleep,” he whispered. “You were right. She did not call. She has called to me in her sleep before now, sir; I have seen her lips move, she spoke of me. I feared the light might dazzle her eyes and wake her, so I brought it here.”

He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor, and he had put the lamp upon the table.

“She is sleeping soundly,” he said; “but no wonder. Hush. Even little children, her friends, are silent. She was always gentle with children. Indeed she was!”

Kit had no power to speak. His eyes were filled with tears.

“Who is that? Shut the door. Quick!”

The door was indeed opened, for the entrance of Mr. Garland and his friend, accompanied by the schoolmaster. The former held a light in his hand.

“Another night, and not in bed!” said the schoolmaster softly; “Why do you not take some rest?”

“Sleep has left me,” returned the old man. “It is all with her! She was always cheerful very cheerful, I remember, from the first; but she was of a happy nature.”

“Dear brother!” said the single gentleman, “Do you recognise me?”

The old man looked from face to face, and his lips moved; but no sound came from them in reply. By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner chamber. He pointed there, as he replied, with trembling lips:

“I have no relative or friend but her, I never had I never will have. She is all, in all, to me.”

Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he went, he stole into the room. They who were left behind, drew close together, and followed him.

Nell was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues? All gone. Peace and perfect happiness were born.

She was dead. Along the crowded path they bore her. They carried her to one old nook, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust! All were sincere and truthful in their sorrow.

The service was done, the mourners stood apart.

It was late when the old man came home. The school-master had led him to his own dwelling, on their way back; and he had sunk into a deep sleep by the fireside.

The days went on. One day, with his knapsack on his back, his staff in hand, Nell’s straw hat, and little basket, was gone. Where? A frightened schoolboy who had seen him came and said that the old man was sitting in the church, upon Nell’s grave.

Everybody hastened there, and went softly to the door. Nobody disturbed him then, but kept a watch upon him all that day. When it grew quite dark, he rose and returned home, and went to bed, murmuring to himself, “She will come tomorrow.”

Upon the morrow he was there again from sunrise until night; and at night he murmured, “She will come tomorrow. Lord! Let her come tomorrow!”

The last time was in spring. He did not return at the usual hour, and they went to seek him. The old man was lying dead upon the stone.

The old curiosity shop had been pulled down, and a fine broad road was in its place. Such are the changes which a few years bring about, and so do things pass away, like a tale that is told.