and hid it in the pillow of the couch on which he lay.

"Let us be beggars," said the child, passing an arm round his neck. "I have no fear but we shall have enough; I am sure we shall. Let us walk through country places, and sleep in fields and under trees, and never think of money again, or anything that can make you sad, but rest at nights, and have the sun and wind upon our faces in the day, and thank God together! Let us never set foot in dark rooms or melancholy houses any more, but wander up and down wherever we like to go; and when you are tired, you shall stop to rest in the pleasantest place that we can find, and I will go and beg for both."

The child's voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old man's neck; nor did she weep alone.

These were not words for other ears, nor was it a scene for other eyes. And yet other ears and eyes were there, and greedily taking in all that passed, and, moreover, they were the ears and eyes of no less a person than Mr. Daniel Quilp, who, having entered unseen when the child first placed herself at the old man's side, refrained— actuated, no doubt, by motives of the purest delicacy-from interrupting the conversation, and stood looking on with his accustomed grin. Standing, however, being a tiresome attitude to a gentleman already fatigued with walking, and the dwarf being one of that kind of persons who usually make themselves at home, he soon cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped with uncommon agility, and, perching himself on the back with his feet upon the seat, was thus enabled to look on and listen with greater comfort to himself, besides gratifying at the same time that taste for doing something fantastic and monkey-like, which on all occasions had strong possession of him. Here, then, he sat, one leg cocked carelessly over the other, his chin resting on the palm of his hand, his head turned a little on one side, and his ugly features twisted into a complacent grimace. And in this position the old man, happening in course of time to look that way, at length chanced to see him to his unbounded astonishment.

The child uttered a suppressed shriek on beholding this agreeable figure; in their first surprise both she and the old man, not knowing what to say, and half doubting its reality, looked shrinkingly at it. Not at all disconcerted by this reception, Daniel Quilp preserved the same attitude, merely nodding twice or thrice with great condescension. 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 keyholes. 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 that was-just upon the rosy part! What a capital kiss!"

Nell was none the slower in going away for this remark. Quilp looked after her with an admiring leer, and, when she had closed the door, fell to complimenting the old man upon her charms.

"Such a fresh, blooming, modest little bud, neighbour," said Quilp, nursing his short leg, and making his eyes twinkle very much : "such a chubby, rosy, cosy, little Nell!"

The old man answered by a forced smile, and was plainly struggling with a feeling of the keenest and most exquisite impatience. It was not lost upon Quilp, who delighted in torturing him, or indeed anybody else, when he could.

"She's so," said Quilp, speaking very slowly, and feigning to be quite absorbed in the subject, "so small, so compact, so beautifully modelled, so fair, with such blue veins, and such a transparent skin, and such little feet, and such winning waysBut bless me, you're nervous! Why, neighbour, what's the matter? I swear to you," continued the dwarf, dismounting from the chair and sitting down in it, with a careful slowness of gesture very different from the rapidity with which he had sprung up unheard, “I swear to you that I had no idea old blood ran so fast or kept so warm. I thought it was slaggish in its course, and cool, quite cool. I am pretty sure it ought to be. Yours must be out of order, neighbour."

"I believe it is," groaned the old man, clasping his head with both hands. "There's burning fever here, and something now and then to which I fear to give a name."

The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his seat. Here he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for some time, and then suddenly raising it, said:

ED WITH UNCOMMON AGILITY, AND, WAS THUS ENABLED TO LOOK ON."

it prosper? Who were those with whom I played? Men who lived by plunder, profligacy, and riot; squandering their gold in doing ill, and propagating vice and evil. My winnings would have been from them, my winnings would have been bestowed to the last farthing on a young sinless child whose life they would have sweetened and made happy. What would they have contracted? The means of corruption, wretchedness, and misery. Who would not have hoped in such a cause-tell me that? Who would not have hoped as I did?"

ness.

"When did I first begin?" he rejoinel, passing his hand across his brow. "Wher was it that I first began? When should it be, but when I began to think how little I hal saved, how long a time it took to save at all, low short a time I might have at my age to live and how she would be left to the rough mercies of the world, with barely enough to keep her from the sorrows that wait on poverty? Then it was that I began to think about it."

"After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed off to sea?" said Quilp.

"Shortly after that," replied the old man. "I thought of it a long time, and had it in my sleep for months. Then I began. I found no pleasure in it, I expected none. What has it ever brought to me but anxious days and sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of mind, and gain of feebleness and sorrow?"

"You lost what money you had laid by, 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! And so it comes to pass that I hold every security you could scrape together, and a bill of sale upon the-upon the stock and property," said Quilp, standing up and looking about him, as if to assure himself that none of it had been taken away. "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 at last, or, at the worst, not to come off a loser."

"And so he is," cried the old man, suddenly rousing himself from his state of despondency, and lashed into the most violent excitement, so he is; I have felt that from the first, I have always known it, I've seen it, I never felt it half so strongly as I feel it now. 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 scraps of paper from his pocket with a trembling hand, and clasping the dwarf's arm, "only see here. Look at these figures, the result of long calculation, and painful

and hard experience. a little help once mo score pounds, dear Qu

"The last advance dwarf, “and it went in I know it did," ans that was the very worst time had not come ther sider," the old man crie while, that the papers ir they were shaken by tì child! If I were alone ness-perhaps even antic is dealt out so unequally the proud and happy in tl ning the needy and afflic it in their despair-but v been for her. Help me fo you-not for mine, for her,

"I'm sorry I've got an City," said Quilp, looking fect self-possession, "or I si glad to have spent half an you composed yourself-ver

"Nay, Quilp, good Quil man, catching at his skirtstalked together, more than mother's story. The fear poverty has perhaps been br Do not be hard upon me, but count. You are a great gai spare me the money for this or

"I couldn't do it really," sai usual politeness, "though I tel. this is a circumstance worth bea showing how the sharpest am taken in sometimes-I was so c penurious way in which you liv NellyNelly"

"All done to save money for tune, and to make her triumph į the old man.

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"Yes, yes, I understand that Quilp: "but I was going to say, i ceived by that, your miserly way, tl you had among those who knew y rich, and your repeated assurance would make of my advances treble : ple the interest you paid me, that I vanced you, even now, what you want, on your simple note of hand, if I hadn't unexpectedly become acquainted with your secret way of life."

"Who is it," retorted the old man despe rately, "that, notwithstanding all my caution, told you? Come. Let me know the namethe person."

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QUILP neither entered nor old man's house unobserved. shadow of an archway nearly ite, leading to one of the many ges which diverged from the et, there lingered one who, ken up his position when the rst came on, still maintained it ed patience, and leaning against ne manner of a person who had

wait, and, being well used to it, ned, scarcely changed his attitude gether.

. lounger attracted little attentior ose who passed, and bestowed as hem. His eyes were constantly directed towards one object; the window a which the child was accustomed to sit. If he withdrew them for a moment, it was only to giance at a clock in some neighbouring shop, and then to strain his sight once more in the old quarter with increased earnestness and attention.

It has been remarked that this personage evinced no weariness in his place of concealment; nor did he, long as his waiting was. But, as the time went on, he manifested some anxiety and surprise, glancing at the clock more frequently and at the window less hopefully than before. At length, the clock was hidden from his sight by some envious shutters, then the church steeples proclaimed eleven at night, then

39

and then the conviction seemed on his mind that it was of no e any longer.

viction was an unwelcome one, by no means willing to yield to from his reluctance to quit the tardy steps with which he often ng over his shoulder at the same om the precipitation with which ned, when a fancied noise or the Imperfect light induced him to been softly raised. At length, ter up, as hopeless for that night, reaking into a run as though to ay, scampered off at his utmost e ventured to look behind him, be tempted back again.

xing his pace, or stopping to take ysterious individual dashed on many alleys and narrow ways, ngth arrived in a square paved subsided into a walk, and, makhouse from the window of which ning, lifted the latch of the door

cried a woman, turning sharply that? Oh! It's you, Kit!" er, it's me."

tired you look, my dear!" er ain't gone out to-night," said she hasn't been at the window at hich words, he sat down by the ed very mournful and discontented. n which Kit sat himself down, in was an extremely poor and homely 1 that air of comfort about it, never-or the spot must be a wretched -cleanliness and order can always me degree. Late as the Dutch it to be, the poor woman was still at an ironing-table; a young child in a cradle near the fire; and urdy boy of two or three years old, vake, with a very tight nightcap on

, and a nightgown very much too small for him on his body, was sitting bolt upright in a clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his great round eyes, and looking as if he had thoroughly made up his mind never to go to sleep any more; which, as he had already declined to take his natural rest, and had been brought out of bed in consequence, opened a cheerful prospect for his relations and friends. It was rather a queer-looking family: Kit, his mother, and the children being all strongly alike.

Kit was disposed to be out of temper, as the best of us are too often-but he looked at the

youngest child who was sleeping soundly, and from him to his other brother in the clothesbasket, and from him to their mother, who had been at work without complaint since morning, and thought it would be a better and kinder thing to be good-humoured. So he rocked the cradle with his foot; made a face at the rebel in the clothes-basket, which put him in high goodhumour directly; and stoutly determined to be talkative and make himself agreeable.

"Ah, mother!" said Kit, taking out his claspknife, and falling upon a great piece of bread and meat which she had had ready for him, hours before," what a one you are! There an't many such as you, I know."

"I hope there are many a great deal better, Kit," said Mrs. Nubbles; "and that there are, or ought to be, accordin' to what the parson at chapel says."

"Much he knows about it," returned Kit contemptuously. "Wait till he's a wiader and works like you do, and gets as little, and does as much, and keeps his spirits up the same, and then I'll ask him what's o'clock, and trust him for being right to half a second."

"Well," said Mrs. Nubbles, evading the point, "your beer's down there by the fender, Kit."

66

Yes," said Kit, "worse luck."

"You should say better luck, I think," returned his mother, "because Miss Nelly won't have been left alone."

"Ah!" said Kit, "I forgot that. I said worse luck, because I've been watching ever since eight o'clock, and seen nothing of her."

"I wonder what she'd say," cried his mother, stopping in her work, and looking round, "if she knew that every night when she-poor thing is sitting alone at that window, you are watching in the open street for fear any harm should come to her, and that you never leave the place nor come home to your bed, though you're ever so tired, till such time as you think she's safe in hers."

"Never mind what she'd say," replied Kit with something like a blush on his uncouth face; "she'll never know nothing, and consequently, she'll never say nothing."

Mrs. Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, and coming to the fire-place for

another iron, glanced stealthilyat Kit while she rubbed it on a board and duste it with a duster, but said nothing until she had returned to her table again: when, holding te iron at an alarmingly short distance from he cheek to test its temperature, and looking roun with a smile, she observed:

"I know what some people woul say, Kit—” "Nonsense," interposed Kit, with a perfect apprehension of what was to follow

"No, but they would indeed. Some people would say that you'd fallen in love with her, I know they would."

To this Kit only replied by bashfully bidding his mother "get out," and forming sundry strange figures with his legs and ams, accompanied by sympathetic contortions of his face. Not deriving from these means the relief which he sought, he bit off an immense mouthful from the bread and meat, and took a quick drink of the porter; by which artificial aids he choked himself, and effected a diversion of the subject.

"Speaking seriously, though, Kit,' said his mother, taking up the theme afresh after a time, "for of course I was only in joke just now, it's very good and thoughtful, and like you, to do this, and never let anybody know it though some day I hope she may come to know it, for I'm sure she would be very grateful to you, and feel it very much. It's a cruel thing to keep the dear child shut up there. I don't wonder that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you."

"He don't think it's cruel, bless you" said Kit, "and don't mean it to be so, or he wouldn't do it-I do consider, mother, that he wouldn't do it for all the gold and silver in the world. No, no, that he wouldn't. I know him better than that."

"Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from you?" said Mrs. Nubbles. 166 If

"That I don't know," returned her son. he hadn't tried to keep it so close, though, I should never have found it out, for it was his getting me away at night, and sending me off so much earlier than he used to, that first made me curious to know what was going on. what's that?"

Hark!