sentences,label "Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.",1 "A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern France then, than at any other time, before or since.",1 "Everything in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been stared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there.",3 "Strangers were stared out of countenance by staring white houses, staring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid road, staring hills from which verdure was burnt away.",2 The only things to be seen not fixedly staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their load of grapes.,2 "These did occasionally wink a little, as the hot air barely moved their faint leaves.",2 "There was no wind to make a ripple on the foul water within the harbour, or on the beautiful sea without.",2 "The line of demarcation between the two colours, black and blue, showed the point which the pure sea would not pass; but it lay as quiet as the abominable pool, with which it never mixed.",3 "Boats without awnings were too hot to touch; ships blistered at their moorings; the stones of the quays had not cooled, night or day, for months.",3 "Hindoos, Russians, Chinese, Spaniards, Portuguese, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Genoese, Neapolitans, Venetians, Greeks, Turks, descendants from all the builders of Babel, come to trade at Marseilles, sought the shade alike--taking refuge in any hiding-place from a sea too intensely blue to be looked at, and a sky of purple, set with one great flaming jewel of fire.",3 The universal stare made the eyes ache.,1 "Towards the distant line of Italian coast, indeed, it was a little relieved by light clouds of mist, slowly rising from the evaporation of the sea, but it softened nowhere else.",1 "Far away the staring roads, deep in dust, stared from the hill-side, stared from the hollow, stared from the interminable plain.",1 "Far away the dusty vines overhanging wayside cottages, and the monotonous wayside avenues of parched trees without shade, drooped beneath the stare of earth and sky.",1 "So did the horses with drowsy bells, in long files of carts, creeping slowly towards the interior; so did their recumbent drivers, when they were awake, which rarely happened; so did the exhausted labourers in the fields.",0 "Everything that lived or grew, was oppressed by the glare; except the lizard, passing swiftly over rough stone walls, and the cicala, chirping his dry hot chirp, like a rattle.",1 "The very dust was scorched brown, and something quivered in the atmosphere as if the air itself were panting.",1 "Blinds, shutters, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to keep out the stare.",2 "Grant it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot in like a white-hot arrow.",3 The churches were the freest from it.,2 "To come out of the twilight of pillars and arches--dreamily dotted with winking lamps, dreamily peopled with ugly old shadows piously dozing, spitting, and begging--was to plunge into a fiery river, and swim for life to the nearest strip of shade.",1 "So, with people lounging and lying wherever shade was, with but little hum of tongues or barking of dogs, with occasional jangling of discordant church bells and rattling of vicious drums, Marseilles, a fact to be strongly smelt and tasted, lay broiling in the sun one day.",0 In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison.,1 "In one of its chambers, so repulsive a place that even the obtrusive stare blinked at it, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for itself, were two men.",0 "Besides the two men, a notched and disfigured bench, immovable from the wall, with a draught-board rudely hacked upon it with a knife, a set of draughts, made of old buttons and soup bones, a set of dominoes, two mats, and two or three wine bottles.",1 "That was all the chamber held, exclusive of rats and other unseen vermin, in addition to the seen vermin, the two men.",2 "It received such light as it got through a grating of iron bars fashioned like a pretty large window, by means of which it could be always inspected from the gloomy staircase on which the grating gave.",2 "There was a broad strong ledge of stone to this grating where the bottom of it was let into the masonry, three or four feet above the ground.",2 "Upon it, one of the two men lolled, half sitting and half lying, with his knees drawn up, and his feet and shoulders planted against the opposite sides of the aperture.",1 "The bars were wide enough apart to admit of his thrusting his arm through to the elbow; and so he held on negligently, for his greater ease.",3 A prison taint was on everything there.,1 "The imprisoned air, the imprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were all deteriorated by confinement.",2 "As the captive men were faded and haggard, so the iron was rusty, the stone was slimy, the wood was rotten, the air was faint, the light was dim.",0 "Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb, the prison had no knowledge of the brightness outside, and would have kept its polluted atmosphere intact in one of the spice islands of the Indian ocean.",3 The man who lay on the ledge of the grating was even chilled.,1 "He jerked his great cloak more heavily upon him by an impatient movement of one shoulder, and growled, 'To the devil with this Brigand of a Sun that never shines in here!'",1 "He was waiting to be fed, looking sideways through the bars that he might see the further down the stairs, with much of the expression of a wild beast in similar expectation.",1 "But his eyes, too close together, were not so nobly set in his head as those of the king of beasts are in his, and they were sharp rather than bright--pointed weapons with little surface to betray them.",3 "They had no depth or change; they glittered, and they opened and shut.",2 "So far, and waiving their use to himself, a clockmaker could have made a better pair.",3 "He had a hook nose, handsome after its kind, but too high between the eyes by probably just as much as his eyes were too near to one another.",3 "For the rest, he was large and tall in frame, had thin lips, where his thick moustache showed them at all, and a quantity of dry hair, of no definable colour, in its shaggy state, but shot with red.",2 "The hand with which he held the grating (seamed all over the back with ugly scratches newly healed), was unusually small and plump; would have been unusually white but for the prison grime.",0 "The other man was lying on the stone floor, covered with a coarse brown coat.",1 "'Get up, pig!'",1 growled the first.,2 'Don't sleep when I am hungry.',2 "'It's all one, master,' said the pig, in a submissive manner, and not without cheerfulness; 'I can wake when I will, I can sleep when I will.",1 It's all the same.',2 "As he said it, he rose, shook himself, scratched himself, tied his brown coat loosely round his neck by the sleeves (he had previously used it as a coverlet), and sat down upon the pavement yawning, with his back against the wall opposite to the grating.",1 "'Say what the hour is,' grumbled the first man.",2 'The mid-day bells will ring--in forty minutes.',2 "When he made the little pause, he had looked round the prison-room, as if for certain information.",1 'You are a clock.,2 How is it that you always know?',2 'How can I say?,2 "I always know what the hour is, and where I am.",2 "I was brought in here at night, and out of a boat, but I know where I am.",2 See here!,2 "Marseilles harbour;' on his knees on the pavement, mapping it all out with a swarthy forefinger; 'Toulon (where the galleys are), Spain over there, Algiers over _there_.",2 "Creeping away to the left here, Nice.",2 Round by the Cornice to Genoa.,2 Genoa Mole and Harbour.,2 Quarantine Ground.,2 City there; terrace gardens blushing with the bella donna.,2 "Here, Porto Fino.",2 Stand out for Leghorn.,2 "Out again for Civita Vecchia, so away to--hey!",2 there's no room for Naples;' he had got to the wall by this time; 'but it's all one; it's in there!',2 "He remained on his knees, looking up at his fellow-prisoner with a lively look for a prison.",1 "A sunburnt, quick, lithe, little man, though rather thickset.",2 "Earrings in his brown ears, white teeth lighting up his grotesque brown face, intensely black hair clustering about his brown throat, a ragged red shirt open at his brown breast.",1 "Loose, seaman-like trousers, decent shoes, a long red cap, a red sash round his waist, and a knife in it.",2 'Judge if I come back from Naples as I went!,2 "See here, my master!",3 "Civita Vecchia, Leghorn, Porto Fino, Genoa, Cornice, Off Nice (which is in there), Marseilles, you and me.",3 The apartment of the jailer and his keys is where I put this thumb; and here at my wrist they keep the national razor in its case--the guillotine locked up.',2 "The other man spat suddenly on the pavement, and gurgled in his throat.",2 "Some lock below gurgled in _its_ throat immediately afterwards, and then a door crashed.",1 "Slow steps began ascending the stairs; the prattle of a sweet little voice mingled with the noise they made; and the prison-keeper appeared carrying his daughter, three or four years old, and a basket.",0 "'How goes the world this forenoon, gentlemen?",2 "My little one, you see, going round with me to have a peep at her father's birds.",2 "Fie, then!",2 "Look at the birds, my pretty, look at the birds.'",3 "He looked sharply at the birds himself, as he held the child up at the grate, especially at the little bird, whose activity he seemed to mistrust.",0 "'I have brought your bread, Signor John Baptist,' said he (they all spoke in French, but the little man was an Italian); 'and if I might recommend you not to game--' 'You don't recommend the master!'",3 "said John Baptist, showing his teeth as he smiled.",2 'Oh!,2 "but the master wins,' returned the jailer, with a passing look of no particular liking at the other man, 'and you lose.",3 It's quite another thing.,2 "You get husky bread and sour drink by it; and he gets sausage of Lyons, veal in savoury jelly, white bread, strachino cheese, and good wine by it.",2 "Look at the birds, my pretty!'",3 'Poor birds!',2 said the child.,2 "The fair little face, touched with divine compassion, as it peeped shrinkingly through the grate, was like an angel's in the prison.",3 "John Baptist rose and moved towards it, as if it had a good attraction for him.",3 "The other bird remained as before, except for an impatient glance at the basket.",1 'Stay!',2 "said the jailer, putting his little daughter on the outer ledge of the grate, 'she shall feed the birds.",1 This big loaf is for Signor John Baptist.,2 We must break it to get it through into the cage.,1 "So, there's a tame bird to kiss the little hand!",2 This sausage in a vine leaf is for Monsieur Rigaud.,2 Again--this veal in savoury jelly is for Monsieur Rigaud.,2 Again--these three white little loaves are for Monsieur Rigaud.,2 "Again, this cheese--again, this wine--again, this tobacco--all for Monsieur Rigaud.",2 Lucky bird!',3 "The child put all these things between the bars into the soft, Smooth, well-shaped hand, with evident dread--more than once drawing back her own and looking at the man with her fair brow roughened into an expression half of fright and half of anger.",3 "Whereas she had put the lump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, knotted hands of John Baptist (who had scarcely as much nail on his eight fingers and two thumbs as would have made out one for Monsieur Rigaud), with ready confidence; and, when he kissed her hand, had herself passed it caressingly over his face.",1 "Monsieur Rigaud, indifferent to this distinction, propitiated the father by laughing and nodding at the daughter as often as she gave him anything; and, so soon as he had all his viands about him in convenient nooks of the ledge on which he rested, began to eat with an appetite.",3 "When Monsieur Rigaud laughed, a change took place in his face, that was more remarkable than prepossessing.",3 "His moustache went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache, in a very sinister and cruel manner.",1 'There!',2 "said the jailer, turning his basket upside down to beat the crumbs out, 'I have expended all the money I received; here is the note of it, and _that's_ a thing accomplished.",3 "Monsieur Rigaud, as I expected yesterday, the President will look for the pleasure of your society at an hour after mid-day, to-day.'",3 "'To try me, eh?'",2 "said Rigaud, pausing, knife in hand and morsel in mouth.",1 'You have said it.,2 To try you.',2 'There is no news for me?',2 "asked John Baptist, who had begun, contentedly, to munch his bread.",2 The jailer shrugged his shoulders.,2 'Lady of mine!,2 "Am I to lie here all my life, my father?'",1 'What do I know!',2 "cried the jailer, turning upon him with southern quickness, and gesticulating with both his hands and all his fingers, as if he were threatening to tear him to pieces.",1 "'My friend, how is it possible for me to tell how long you are to lie here?",1 "What do I know, John Baptist Cavalletto?",2 Death of my life!,1 "There are prisoners here sometimes, who are not in such a devil of a hurry to be tried.'",1 "He seemed to glance obliquely at Monsieur Rigaud in this remark; but Monsieur Rigaud had already resumed his meal, though not with quite so quick an appetite as before.",2 "'Adieu, my birds!'",2 "said the keeper of the prison, taking his pretty child in his arms, and dictating the words with a kiss.",2 "'Adieu, my birds!'",2 the pretty child repeated.,3 "Her innocent face looked back so brightly over his shoulder, as he walked away with her, singing her the song of the child's game: 'Who passes by this road so late?",2 Compagnon de la Majolaine!,2 Who passes by this road so late?,2 Always gay!',2 "that John Baptist felt it a point of honour to reply at the grate, and in good time and tune, though a little hoarsely: 'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, Compagnon de la Majolaine!",2 "Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, Always gay!'",2 "Which accompanied them so far down the few steep stairs, that the prison-keeper had to stop at last for his little daughter to hear the song out, and repeat the Refrain while they were yet in sight.",1 "Then the child's head disappeared, and the prison-keeper's head disappeared, but the little voice prolonged the strain until the door clashed.",1 "Monsieur Rigaud, finding the listening John Baptist in his way before the echoes had ceased (even the echoes were the weaker for imprisonment, and seemed to lag), reminded him with a push of his foot that he had better resume his own darker place.",0 "The little man sat down again upon the pavement with the negligent ease of one who was thoroughly accustomed to pavements; and placing three hunks of coarse bread before himself, and falling to upon a fourth, began contentedly to work his way through them as if to clear them off were a sort of game.",2 "Perhaps he glanced at the Lyons sausage, and perhaps he glanced at the veal in savoury jelly, but they were not there long, to make his mouth water; Monsieur Rigaud soon dispatched them, in spite of the president and tribunal, and proceeded to suck his fingers as clean as he could, and to wipe them on his vine leaves.",1 "Then, as he paused in his drink to contemplate his fellow-prisoner, his moustache went up, and his nose came down.",1 'How do you find the bread?',2 "'A little dry, but I have my old sauce here,' returned John Baptist, holding up his knife.",1 'How sauce?',2 'I can cut my bread so--like a melon.,3 Or so--like an omelette.,3 Or so--like a fried fish.,2 "Or so--like Lyons sausage,' said John Baptist, demonstrating the various cuts on the bread he held, and soberly chewing what he had in his mouth.",3 'Here!',2 cried Monsieur Rigaud.,2 'You may drink.,2 You may finish this.',2 "It was no great gift, for there was mighty little wine left; but Signor Cavalletto, jumping to his feet, received the bottle gratefully, turned it upside down at his mouth, and smacked his lips.",4 "'Put the bottle by with the rest,' said Rigaud.",2 "The little man obeyed his orders, and stood ready to give him a lighted match; for he was now rolling his tobacco into cigarettes by the aid of little squares of paper which had been brought in with it.",3 'Here!,2 You may have one.',2 "'A thousand thanks, my master!'",3 "John Baptist said in his own language, and with the quick conciliatory manner of his own countrymen.",3 "Monsieur Rigaud arose, lighted a cigarette, put the rest of his stock into a breast-pocket, and stretched himself out at full length upon the bench.",2 "Cavalletto sat down on the pavement, holding one of his ankles in each hand, and smoking peacefully.",3 There seemed to be some uncomfortable attraction of Monsieur Rigaud's eyes to the immediate neighbourhood of that part of the pavement where the thumb had been in the plan.,2 "They were so drawn in that direction, that the Italian more than once followed them to and back from the pavement in some surprise.",2 'What an infernal hole this is!',1 "said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a long pause.",1 'Look at the light of day.,2 Day?,2 "the light of yesterday week, the light of six months ago, the light of six years ago.",2 So slack and dead!',1 "It came languishing down a square funnel that blinded a window in the staircase wall, through which the sky was never seen--nor anything else.",2 "'Cavalletto,' said Monsieur Rigaud, suddenly withdrawing his gaze from this funnel to which they had both involuntarily turned their eyes, 'you know me for a gentleman?'",1 "'Surely, surely!'",2 'How long have we been here?',2 "'I, eleven weeks, to-morrow night at midnight.",2 "You, nine weeks and three days, at five this afternoon.'",2 'Have I ever done anything here?,2 "Ever touched the broom, or spread the mats, or rolled them up, or found the draughts, or collected the dominoes, or put my hand to any kind of work?'",3 'Never!',2 'Have you ever thought of looking to me to do any kind of work?',3 John Baptist answered with that peculiar back-handed shake of the right forefinger which is the most expressive negative in the Italian language.,1 'No!,2 "You knew from the first moment when you saw me here, that I was a gentleman?'",2 'ALTRO!',2 "returned John Baptist, closing his eyes and giving his head a most vehement toss.",1 "The word being, according to its Genoese emphasis, a confirmation, a contradiction, an assertion, a denial, a taunt, a compliment, a joke, and fifty other things, became in the present instance, with a significance beyond all power of written expression, our familiar English 'I believe you!'",0 'Haha!,2 You are right!,3 A gentleman I am!,2 "And a gentleman I'll live, and a gentleman I'll die!",1 It's my intent to be a gentleman.,2 It's my game.,2 "Death of my soul, I play it out wherever I go!'",1 "He changed his posture to a sitting one, crying with a triumphant air: 'Here I am!",3 See me!,2 "Shaken out of destiny's dice-box into the company of a mere smuggler;--shut up with a poor little contraband trader, whose papers are wrong, and whom the police lay hold of besides, for placing his boat (as a means of getting beyond the frontier) at the disposition of other little people whose papers are wrong; and he instinctively recognises my position, even by this light and in this place.",1 It's well done!,3 By Heaven!,3 "I win, however the game goes.'",3 "Again his moustache went up, and his nose came down.",2 'What's the hour now?',2 "he asked, with a dry hot pallor upon him, rather difficult of association with merriment.",3 'A little half-hour after mid-day.',2 'Good!,2 The President will have a gentleman before him soon.,2 Come!,2 Shall I tell you on what accusation?,1 "It must be now, or never, for I shall not return here.",2 "Either I shall go free, or I shall go to be made ready for shaving.",3 You know where they keep the razor.',2 "Signor Cavalletto took his cigarette from between his parted lips, and showed more momentary discomfiture than might have been expected.",2 'I am a'--Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it--'I am a cosmopolitan gentleman.,2 I own no particular country.,2 My father was Swiss--Canton de Vaud.,2 "My mother was French by blood, English by birth.",2 I myself was born in Belgium.,2 I am a citizen of the world.',2 "His theatrical air, as he stood with one arm on his hip within the folds of his cloak, together with his manner of disregarding his companion and addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to intimate that he was rehearsing for the President, whose examination he was shortly to undergo, rather than troubling himself merely to enlighten so small a person as John Baptist Cavalletto.",3 'Call me five-and-thirty years of age.,2 I have seen the world.,2 "I have lived here, and lived there, and lived like a gentleman everywhere.",3 I have been treated and respected as a gentleman universally.,2 If you try to prejudice me by making out that I have lived by my wits--how do your lawyers live--your politicians--your intriguers--your men of the Exchange?',1 "He kept his small smooth hand in constant requisition, as if it were a witness to his gentility that had often done him good service before.",3 'Two years ago I came to Marseilles.,2 I admit that I was poor; I had been ill.,1 "When your lawyers, your politicians, your intriguers, your men of the Exchange fall ill, and have not scraped money together, _they_ become poor.",1 "I put up at the Cross of Gold,--kept then by Monsieur Henri Barronneau--sixty-five at least, and in a failing state of health.",2 "I had lived in the house some four months when Monsieur Henri Barronneau had the misfortune to die;--at any rate, not a rare misfortune, that.",1 "It happens without any aid of mine, pretty often.'",3 "John Baptist having smoked his cigarette down to his fingers' ends, Monsieur Rigaud had the magnanimity to throw him another.",2 "He lighted the second at the ashes of the first, and smoked on, looking sideways at his companion, who, preoccupied with his own case, hardly looked at him.",2 'Monsieur Barronneau left a widow.,2 She was two-and-twenty.,2 "She had gained a reputation for beauty, and (which is often another thing) was beautiful.",4 I continued to live at the Cross of Gold.,3 I married Madame Barronneau.,2 It is not for me to say whether there was any great disparity in such a match.,3 "Here I stand, with the contamination of a jail upon me; but it is possible that you may think me better suited to her than her former husband was.'",2 He had a certain air of being a handsome man--which he was not; and a certain air of being a well-bred man--which he was not.,3 "It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world.",1 "'Be it as it may, Madame Barronneau approved of me.",2 "_That_ is not to prejudice me, I hope?'",1 "His eye happening to light upon John Baptist with this inquiry, that little man briskly shook his head in the negative, and repeated in an argumentative tone under his breath, altro, altro, altro, altro--an infinite number of times.",1 'Now came the difficulties of our position.,1 I am proud.,3 "I say nothing in defence of pride, but I am proud.",3 It is also my character to govern.,2 I can't submit; I must govern.,2 "Unfortunately, the property of Madame Rigaud was settled upon herself.",1 Such was the insane act of her late husband.,1 "More unfortunately still, she had relations.",1 "When a wife's relations interpose against a husband who is a gentleman, who is proud, and who must govern, the consequences are inimical to peace.",3 There was yet another source of difference between us.,2 Madame Rigaud was unfortunately a little vulgar.,1 I sought to improve her manners and ameliorate her general tone; she (supported in this likewise by her relations) resented my endeavours.,4 "Quarrels began to arise between us; and, propagated and exaggerated by the slanders of the relations of Madame Rigaud, to become notorious to the neighbours.",0 It has been said that I treated Madame Rigaud with cruelty.,1 I may have been seen to slap her face--nothing more.,1 "I have a light hand; and if I have been seen apparently to correct Madame Rigaud in that manner, I have done it almost playfully.'",3 "If the playfulness of Monsieur Rigaud were at all expressed by his smile at this point, the relations of Madame Rigaud might have said that they would have much preferred his correcting that unfortunate woman seriously.",2 'I am sensitive and brave.,3 "I do not advance it as a merit to be sensitive and brave, but it is my character.",4 "If the male relations of Madame Rigaud had put themselves forward openly, I should have known how to deal with them.",3 "They knew that, and their machinations were conducted in secret; consequently, Madame Rigaud and I were brought into frequent and unfortunate collision.",1 "Even when I wanted any little sum of money for my personal expenses, I could not obtain it without collision--and I, too, a man whose character it is to govern!",2 "One night, Madame Rigaud and myself were walking amicably--I may say like lovers--on a height overhanging the sea.",3 "An evil star occasioned Madame Rigaud to advert to her relations; I reasoned with her on that subject, and remonstrated on the want of duty and devotion manifested in her allowing herself to be influenced by their jealous animosity towards her husband.",1 "Madame Rigaud retorted; I retorted; Madame Rigaud grew warm; I grew warm, and provoked her.",3 I admit it.,2 Frankness is a part of my character.,2 "At length, Madame Rigaud, in an access of fury that I must ever deplore, threw herself upon me with screams of passion (no doubt those that were overheard at some distance), tore my clothes, tore my hair, lacerated my hands, trampled and trod the dust, and finally leaped over, dashing herself to death upon the rocks below.",0 "Such is the train of incidents which malice has perverted into my endeavouring to force from Madame Rigaud a relinquishment of her rights; and, on her persistence in a refusal to make the concession I required, struggling with her--assassinating her!'",0 "He stepped aside to the ledge where the vine leaves yet lay strewn about, collected two or three, and stood wiping his hands upon them, with his back to the light.",2 "'Well,' he demanded after a silence, 'have you nothing to say to all that?'",2 "'It's ugly,' returned the little man, who had risen, and was brightening his knife upon his shoe, as he leaned an arm against the wall.",1 'What do you mean?',2 John Baptist polished his knife in silence.,2 'Do you mean that I have not represented the case correctly?',3 'Al-tro!',2 returned John Baptist.,2 "The word was an apology now, and stood for 'Oh, by no means!'",2 'What then?',2 'Presidents and tribunals are so prejudiced.',2 "'Well,' cried the other, uneasily flinging the end of his cloak over his shoulder with an oath, 'let them do their worst!'",1 "'Truly I think they will,' murmured John Baptist to himself, as he bent his head to put his knife in his sash.",1 "Nothing more was said on either side, though they both began walking to and fro, and necessarily crossed at every turn.",2 "Monsieur Rigaud sometimes stopped, as if he were going to put his case in a new light, or make some irate remonstrance; but Signor Cavalletto continuing to go slowly to and fro at a grotesque kind of jog-trot pace with his eyes turned downward, nothing came of these inclinings.",0 By-and-by the noise of the key in the lock arrested them both.,1 "The sound of voices succeeded, and the tread of feet.",3 "The door clashed, the voices and the feet came on, and the prison-keeper slowly ascended the stairs, followed by a guard of soldiers.",1 "'Now, Monsieur Rigaud,' said he, pausing for a moment at the grate, with his keys in his hands, 'have the goodness to come out.'",2 "'I am to depart in state, I see?'",2 "'Why, unless you did,' returned the jailer, 'you might depart in so many pieces that it would be difficult to get you together again.",1 "There's a crowd, Monsieur Rigaud, and it doesn't love you.'",3 "He passed on out of sight, and unlocked and unbarred a low door in the corner of the chamber.",2 "'Now,' said he, as he opened it and appeared within, 'come out.'",2 There is no sort of whiteness in all the hues under the sun at all like the whiteness of Monsieur Rigaud's face as it was then.,3 Neither is there any expression of the human countenance at all like that expression in every little line of which the frightened heart is seen to beat.,3 "Both are conventionally compared with death; but the difference is the whole deep gulf between the struggle done, and the fight at its most desperate extremity.",0 "He lighted another of his paper cigars at his companion's; put it tightly between his teeth; covered his head with a soft slouched hat; threw the end of his cloak over his shoulder again; and walked out into the side gallery on which the door opened, without taking any further notice of Signor Cavalletto.",3 "As to that little man himself, his whole attention had become absorbed in getting near the door and looking out at it.",2 "Precisely as a beast might approach the opened gate of his den and eye the freedom beyond, he passed those few moments in watching and peering, until the door was closed upon him.",3 "There was an officer in command of the soldiers; a stout, serviceable, profoundly calm man, with his drawn sword in his hand, smoking a cigar.",3 "He very briefly directed the placing of Monsieur Rigaud in the midst of the party, put himself with consummate indifference at their head, gave the word 'march!'",2 and so they all went jingling down the staircase.,2 "The door clashed--the key turned--and a ray of unusual light, and a breath of unusual air, seemed to have passed through the jail, vanishing in a tiny wreath of smoke from the cigar.",1 "Still, in his captivity, like a lower animal--like some impatient ape, or roused bear of the smaller species--the prisoner, now left solitary, had jumped upon the ledge, to lose no glimpse of this departure.",1 "As he yet stood clasping the grate with both hands, an uproar broke upon his hearing; yells, shrieks, oaths, threats, execrations, all comprehended in it, though (as in a storm) nothing but a raging swell of sound distinctly heard.",0 "Excited into a still greater resemblance to a caged wild animal by his anxiety to know more, the prisoner leaped nimbly down, ran round the chamber, leaped nimbly up again, clasped the grate and tried to shake it, leaped down and ran, leaped up and listened, and never rested until the noise, becoming more and more distant, had died away.",0 "How many better prisoners have worn their noble hearts out so; no man thinking of it; not even the beloved of their souls realising it; great kings and governors, who had made them captive, careering in the sunlight jauntily, and men cheering them on.",4 "Even the said great personages dying in bed, making exemplary ends and sounding speeches; and polite history, more servile than their instruments, embalming them!",4 "At last, John Baptist, now able to choose his own spot within the compass of those walls for the exercise of his faculty of going to sleep when he would, lay down upon the bench, with his face turned over on his crossed arms, and slumbered.",2 "In his submission, in his lightness, in his good humour, in his short-lived passion, in his easy contentment with hard bread and hard stones, in his ready sleep, in his fits and starts, altogether a true son of the land that gave him birth.",4 "The wide stare stared itself out for one while; the Sun went down in a red, green, golden glory; the stars came out in the heavens, and the fire-flies mimicked them in the lower air, as men may feebly imitate the goodness of a better order of beings; the long dusty roads and the interminable plains were in repose--and so deep a hush was on the sea, that it scarcely whispered of the time when it shall give up its dead.",3 "'No more of yesterday's howling over yonder to-day, Sir; is there?'",2 'I have heard none.',2 'Then you may be sure there _is_ none.,2 "When these people howl, they howl to be heard.'",2 "'Most people do, I suppose.'",2 'Ah!,2 but these people are always howling.,2 Never happy otherwise.',3 'Do you mean the Marseilles people?',2 'I mean the French people.,2 They're always at it.,2 "As to Marseilles, we know what Marseilles is.",2 It sent the most insurrectionary tune into the world that was ever composed.,2 "It couldn't exist without allonging and marshonging to something or other--victory or death, or blazes, or something.'",2 "The speaker, with a whimsical good humour upon him all the time, looked over the parapet-wall with the greatest disparagement of Marseilles; and taking up a determined position by putting his hands in his pockets and rattling his money at it, apostrophised it with a short laugh.",4 "'Allong and marshong, indeed.",2 "It would be more creditable to you, I think, to let other people allong and marshong about their lawful business, instead of shutting 'em up in quarantine!'",3 "'Tiresome enough,' said the other.",3 'But we shall be out to-day.',2 'Out to-day!',2 repeated the first.,2 "'It's almost an aggravation of the enormity, that we shall be out to-day.",1 Out!,2 What have we ever been in for?',2 "'For no very strong reason, I must say.",3 "But as we come from the East, and as the East is the country of the plague--' 'The plague!'",1 repeated the other.,2 'That's my grievance.,1 "I have had the plague continually, ever since I have been here.",1 I am like a sane man shut up in a madhouse; I can't stand the suspicion of the thing.,3 I came here as well as ever I was in my life; but to suspect me of the plague is to give me the plague.,1 And I have had it--and I have got it.',2 "'You bear it very well, Mr Meagles,' said the second speaker, smiling.",3 'No.,2 "If you knew the real state of the case, that's the last observation you would think of making.",2 "I have been waking up night after night, and saying, _now_ I have got it, _now_ it has developed itself, _now_ I am in for it, _now_ these fellows are making out their case for their precautions.",2 "Why, I'd as soon have a spit put through me, and be stuck upon a card in a collection of beetles, as lead the life I have been leading here.'",3 "'Well, Mr Meagles, say no more about it now it's over,' urged a cheerful feminine voice.",3 'Over!',2 "repeated Mr Meagles, who appeared (though without any ill-nature) to be in that peculiar state of mind in which the last word spoken by anybody else is a new injury.",1 'Over!,2 and why should I say no more about it because it's over?',2 "It was Mrs Meagles who had spoken to Mr Meagles; and Mrs Meagles was, like Mr Meagles, comely and healthy, with a pleasant English face which had been looking at homely things for five-and-fifty years or more, and shone with a bright reflection of them.",4 'There!,2 "Never mind, Father, never mind!'",2 said Mrs Meagles.,2 'For goodness sake content yourself with Pet.',3 'With Pet?',2 repeated Mr Meagles in his injured vein.,2 "Pet, however, being close behind him, touched him on the shoulder, and Mr Meagles immediately forgave Marseilles from the bottom of his heart.",2 Pet was about twenty.,2 A fair girl with rich brown hair hanging free in natural ringlets.,4 "A lovely girl, with a frank face, and wonderful eyes; so large, so soft, so bright, set to such perfection in her kind good head.",4 "She was round and fresh and dimpled and spoilt, and there was in Pet an air of timidity and dependence which was the best weakness in the world, and gave her the only crowning charm a girl so pretty and pleasant could have been without.",4 "'Now, I ask you,' said Mr Meagles in the blandest confidence, falling back a step himself, and handing his daughter a step forward to illustrate his question: 'I ask you simply, as between man and man, you know, DID you ever hear of such damned nonsense as putting Pet in quarantine?'",1 'It has had the result of making even quarantine enjoyable.',3 'Come!',2 "said Mr Meagles, 'that's something to be sure.",2 I am obliged to you for that remark.,2 "Now, Pet, my darling, you had better go along with Mother and get ready for the boat.",4 "The officer of health, and a variety of humbugs in cocked hats, are coming off to let us out of this at last: and all we jail-birds are to breakfast together in something approaching to a Christian style again, before we take wing for our different destinations.",3 "Tattycoram, stick you close to your young mistress.'",1 "He spoke to a handsome girl with lustrous dark hair and eyes, and very neatly dressed, who replied with a half curtsey as she passed off in the train of Mrs Meagles and Pet.",3 "They crossed the bare scorched terrace all three together, and disappeared through a staring white archway.",2 "Mr Meagles's companion, a grave dark man of forty, still stood looking towards this archway after they were gone; until Mr Meagles tapped him on the arm.",1 "'I beg your pardon,' said he, starting.",2 "'Not at all,' said Mr Meagles.",2 "They took one silent turn backward and forward in the shade of the wall, getting, at the height on which the quarantine barracks are placed, what cool refreshment of sea breeze there was at seven in the morning.",3 Mr Meagles's companion resumed the conversation.,2 "'May I ask you,' he said, 'what is the name of--' 'Tattycoram?'",2 Mr Meagles struck in.,1 'I have not the least idea.',2 "'I thought,' said the other, 'that--' 'Tattycoram?'",2 suggested Mr Meagles again.,2 'Thank you--that Tattycoram was a name; and I have several times wondered at the oddity of it.',1 "'Why, the fact is,' said Mr Meagles, 'Mrs Meagles and myself are, you see, practical people.'",2 "'That you have frequently mentioned in the course of the agreeable and interesting conversations we have had together, walking up and down on these stones,' said the other, with a half smile breaking through the gravity of his dark face.",3 'Practical people.,2 "So one day, five or six years ago now, when we took Pet to church at the Foundling--you have heard of the Foundling Hospital in London?",2 Similar to the Institution for the Found Children in Paris?',2 'I have seen it.',2 'Well!,2 "One day when we took Pet to church there to hear the music--because, as practical people, it is the business of our lives to show her everything that we think can please her--Mother (my usual name for Mrs Meagles) began to cry so, that it was necessary to take her out.",1 """What's the matter, Mother?""",2 "said I, when we had brought her a little round: ""you are frightening Pet, my dear.""",1 """Yes, I know that, Father,"" says Mother, ""but I think it's through my loving her so much, that it ever came into my head.""",3 """That ever what came into your head, Mother?""",2 """O dear, dear!""",2 "cried Mother, breaking out again, ""when I saw all those children ranged tier above tier, and appealing from the father none of them has ever known on earth, to the great Father of us all in Heaven, I thought, does any wretched mother ever come here, and look among those young faces, wondering which is the poor child she brought into this forlorn world, never through all its life to know her love, her kiss, her face, her voice, even her name!""",2 "Now that was practical in Mother, and I told her so.",2 "I said, ""Mother, that's what I call practical in you, my dear.""",2 "' The other, not unmoved, assented.",1 "'So I said next day: Now, Mother, I have a proposition to make that I think you'll approve of.",3 Let us take one of those same little children to be a little maid to Pet.,2 We are practical people.,2 "So if we should find her temper a little defective, or any of her ways a little wide of ours, we shall know what we have to take into account.",1 "We shall know what an immense deduction must be made from all the influences and experiences that have formed us--no parents, no child-brother or sister, no individuality of home, no Glass Slipper, or Fairy Godmother.",3 And that's the way we came by Tattycoram.',2 'And the name itself--' 'By George!',2 "said Mr Meagles, 'I was forgetting the name itself.",2 "Why, she was called in the Institution, Harriet Beadle--an arbitrary name, of course.",1 "Now, Harriet we changed into Hattey, and then into Tatty, because, as practical people, we thought even a playful name might be a new thing to her, and might have a softening and affectionate kind of effect, don't you see?",3 "As to Beadle, that I needn't say was wholly out of the question.",2 "If there is anything that is not to be tolerated on any terms, anything that is a type of Jack-in-office insolence and absurdity, anything that represents in coats, waistcoats, and big sticks our English holding on by nonsense after every one has found it out, it is a beadle.",0 You haven't seen a beadle lately?',2 "'As an Englishman who has been more than twenty years in China, no.'",2 "'Then,' said Mr Meagles, laying his forefinger on his companion's breast with great animation, 'don't you see a beadle, now, if you can help it.",3 "Whenever I see a beadle in full fig, coming down a street on a Sunday at the head of a charity school, I am obliged to turn and run away, or I should hit him.",2 "The name of Beadle being out of the question, and the originator of the Institution for these poor foundlings having been a blessed creature of the name of Coram, we gave that name to Pet's little maid.",1 "At one time she was Tatty, and at one time she was Coram, until we got into a way of mixing the two names together, and now she is always Tattycoram.'",2 "'Your daughter,' said the other, when they had taken another silent turn to and fro, and, after standing for a moment at the wall glancing down at the sea, had resumed their walk, 'is your only child, I know, Mr Meagles.",3 "May I ask you--in no impertinent curiosity, but because I have had so much pleasure in your society, may never in this labyrinth of a world exchange a quiet word with you again, and wish to preserve an accurate remembrance of you and yours--may I ask you, if I have not gathered from your good wife that you have had other children?'",4 'No.,2 "No,' said Mr Meagles.",2 'Not exactly other children.,2 One other child.',2 'I am afraid I have inadvertently touched upon a tender theme.',2 "'Never mind,' said Mr Meagles.",2 "'If I am grave about it, I am not at all sorrowful.",1 "It quiets me for a moment, but does not make me unhappy.",1 "Pet had a twin sister who died when we could just see her eyes--exactly like Pet's--above the table, as she stood on tiptoe holding by it.'",2 'Ah!,2 "indeed, indeed!'",2 "'Yes, and being practical people, a result has gradually sprung up in the minds of Mrs Meagles and myself which perhaps you may--or perhaps you may not--understand.",2 "Pet and her baby sister were so exactly alike, and so completely one, that in our thoughts we have never been able to separate them since.",2 It would be of no use to tell us that our dead child was a mere infant.,1 We have changed that child according to the changes in the child spared to us and always with us.,2 "As Pet has grown, that child has grown; as Pet has become more sensible and womanly, her sister has become more sensible and womanly by just the same degrees.",3 "It would be as hard to convince me that if I was to pass into the other world to-morrow, I should not, through the mercy of God, be received there by a daughter, just like Pet, as to persuade me that Pet herself is not a reality at my side.'",3 "'I understand you,' said the other, gently.",2 "'As to her,' pursued her father, 'the sudden loss of her little picture and playfellow, and her early association with that mystery in which we all have our equal share, but which is not often so forcibly presented to a child, has necessarily had some influence on her character.",1 "Then, her mother and I were not young when we married, and Pet has always had a sort of grown-up life with us, though we have tried to adapt ourselves to her.",2 "We have been advised more than once when she has been a little ailing, to change climate and air for her as often as we could--especially at about this time of her life--and to keep her amused.",1 "So, as I have no need to stick at a bank-desk now (though I have been poor enough in my time I assure you, or I should have married Mrs Meagles long before), we go trotting about the world.",3 "This is how you found us staring at the Nile, and the Pyramids, and the Sphinxes, and the Desert, and all the rest of it; and this is how Tattycoram will be a greater traveller in course of time than Captain Cook.'",1 "'I thank you,' said the other, 'very heartily for your confidence.'",4 "'Don't mention it,' returned Mr Meagles, 'I am sure you are quite welcome.",3 "And now, Mr Clennam, perhaps I may ask you whether you have yet come to a decision where to go next?'",2 "'Indeed, no.",2 "I am such a waif and stray everywhere, that I am liable to be drifted where any current may set.'",1 "'It's extraordinary to me--if you'll excuse my freedom in saying so--that you don't go straight to London,' said Mr Meagles, in the tone of a confidential adviser.",3 'Perhaps I shall.',2 'Ay!,2 But I mean with a will.',2 'I have no will.,2 "That is to say,'--he coloured a little,--'next to none that I can put in action now.",2 "Trained by main force; broken, not bent; heavily ironed with an object on which I was never consulted and which was never mine; shipped away to the other end of the world before I was of age, and exiled there until my father's death there, a year ago; always grinding in a mill I always hated; what is to be expected from me in middle life?",0 "Will, purpose, hope?",2 All those lights were extinguished before I could sound the words.',2 'Light 'em up again!',2 said Mr Meagles.,2 'Ah!,2 Easily said.,2 "I am the son, Mr Meagles, of a hard father and mother.",1 "I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced, had no existence.",2 "Strict people as the phrase is, professors of a stern religion, their very religion was a gloomy sacrifice of tastes and sympathies that were never their own, offered up as a part of a bargain for the security of their possessions.",1 "Austere faces, inexorable discipline, penance in this world and terror in the next--nothing graceful or gentle anywhere, and the void in my cowed heart everywhere--this was my childhood, if I may so misuse the word as to apply it to such a beginning of life.'",1 'Really though?',2 "said Mr Meagles, made very uncomfortable by the picture offered to his imagination.",1 'That was a tough commencement.,3 But come!,2 "You must now study, and profit by, all that lies beyond it, like a practical man.'",2 "'If the people who are usually called practical, were practical in your direction--' 'Why, so they are!'",2 said Mr Meagles.,2 'Are they indeed?',2 "'Well, I suppose so,' returned Mr Meagles, thinking about it.",2 'Eh?,2 "One can but _be_ practical, and Mrs Meagles and myself are nothing else.'",2 "'My unknown course is easier and more helpful than I had expected to find it, then,' said Clennam, shaking his head with his grave smile.",3 'Enough of me.,2 Here is the boat.',2 "The boat was filled with the cocked hats to which Mr Meagles entertained a national objection; and the wearers of those cocked hats landed and came up the steps, and all the impounded travellers congregated together.",1 "There was then a mighty production of papers on the part of the cocked hats, and a calling over of names, and great work of signing, sealing, stamping, inking, and sanding, with exceedingly blurred, gritty, and undecipherable results.",3 "Finally, everything was done according to rule, and the travellers were at liberty to depart whithersoever they would.",3 "They made little account of stare and glare, in the new pleasure of recovering their freedom, but flitted across the harbour in gay boats, and reassembled at a great hotel, whence the sun was excluded by closed lattices, and where bare paved floors, lofty ceilings, and resounding corridors tempered the intense heat.",3 "There, a great table in a great room was soon profusely covered with a superb repast; and the quarantine quarters became bare indeed, remembered among dainty dishes, southern fruits, cooled wines, flowers from Genoa, snow from the mountain tops, and all the colours of the rainbow flashing in the mirrors.",4 "'But I bear those monotonous walls no ill-will now,' said Mr Meagles.",1 "'One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind; I dare say a prisoner begins to relent towards his prison, after he is let out.'",1 "They were about thirty in company, and all talking; but necessarily in groups.",2 "Father and Mother Meagles sat with their daughter between them, the last three on one side of the table: on the opposite side sat Mr Clennam; a tall French gentleman with raven hair and beard, of a swart and terrible, not to say genteelly diabolical aspect, but who had shown himself the mildest of men; and a handsome young Englishwoman, travelling quite alone, who had a proud observant face, and had either withdrawn herself from the rest or been avoided by the rest--nobody, herself excepted perhaps, could have quite decided which.",2 "The rest of the party were of the usual materials: travellers on business, and travellers for pleasure; officers from India on leave; merchants in the Greek and Turkey trades; a clerical English husband in a meek strait-waistcoat, on a wedding trip with his young wife; a majestic English mama and papa, of the patrician order, with a family of three growing-up daughters, who were keeping a journal for the confusion of their fellow-creatures; and a deaf old English mother, tough in travel, with a very decidedly grown-up daughter indeed, which daughter went sketching about the universe in the expectation of ultimately toning herself off into the married state.",3 The reserved Englishwoman took up Mr Meagles in his last remark.,2 'Do you mean that a prisoner forgives his prison?',1 "said she, slowly and with emphasis.",1 "'That was my speculation, Miss Wade.",1 I don't pretend to know positively how a prisoner might feel.,1 I never was one before.',2 "'Mademoiselle doubts,' said the French gentleman in his own language, 'it's being so easy to forgive?'",2 'I do.',2 "Pet had to translate this passage to Mr Meagles, who never by any accident acquired any knowledge whatever of the language of any country into which he travelled.",2 'Oh!',2 said he.,2 'Dear me!,2 "But that's a pity, isn't it?'",1 'That I am not credulous?',1 said Miss Wade.,1 'Not exactly that.,2 Put it another way.,2 That you can't believe it easy to forgive.',3 "'My experience,' she quietly returned, 'has been correcting my belief in many respects, for some years.",2 "It is our natural progress, I have heard.'",3 "'Well, well!",3 "But it's not natural to bear malice, I hope?'",1 "said Mr Meagles, cheerily.",2 "'If I had been shut up in any place to pine and suffer, I should always hate that place and wish to burn it down, or raze it to the ground.",0 I know no more.',2 "'Strong, sir?'",2 "said Mr Meagles to the Frenchman; it being another of his habits to address individuals of all nations in idiomatic English, with a perfect conviction that they were bound to understand it somehow.",3 "'Rather forcible in our fair friend, you'll agree with me, I think?'",3 "The French gentleman courteously replied, 'Plait-il?'",2 "To which Mr Meagles returned with much satisfaction, 'You are right.",3 My opinion.',2 "The breakfast beginning by-and-by to languish, Mr Meagles made the company a speech.",1 "It was short enough and sensible enough, considering that it was a speech at all, and hearty.",3 "It merely went to the effect that as they had all been thrown together by chance, and had all preserved a good understanding together, and were now about to disperse, and were not likely ever to find themselves all together again, what could they do better than bid farewell to one another, and give one another good-speed in a simultaneous glass of cool champagne all round the table?",4 "It was done, and with a general shaking of hands the assembly broke up for ever.",1 The solitary young lady all this time had said no more.,2 "She rose with the rest, and silently withdrew to a remote corner of the great room, where she sat herself on a couch in a window, seeming to watch the reflection of the water as it made a silver quivering on the bars of the lattice.",3 "She sat, turned away from the whole length of the apartment, as if she were lonely of her own haughty choice.",1 "And yet it would have been as difficult as ever to say, positively, whether she avoided the rest, or was avoided.",2 "The shadow in which she sat, falling like a gloomy veil across her forehead, accorded very well with the character of her beauty.",3 "One could hardly see the face, so still and scornful, set off by the arched dark eyebrows, and the folds of dark hair, without wondering what its expression would be if a change came over it.",1 "That it could soften or relent, appeared next to impossible.",2 "That it could deepen into anger or any extreme of defiance, and that it must change in that direction when it changed at all, would have been its peculiar impression upon most observers.",0 It was dressed and trimmed into no ceremony of expression.,2 "Although not an open face, there was no pretence in it.",1 "'I am self-contained and self-reliant; your opinion is nothing to me; I have no interest in you, care nothing for you, and see and hear you with indifference'--this it said plainly.",2 "It said so in the proud eyes, in the lifted nostril, in the handsome but compressed and even cruel mouth.",3 "Cover either two of those channels of expression, and the third would have said so still.",2 "Mask them all, and the mere turn of the head would have shown an unsubduable nature.",2 "Pet had moved up to her (she had been the subject of remark among her family and Mr Clennam, who were now the only other occupants of the room), and was standing at her side.",2 "'Are you'--she turned her eyes, and Pet faltered--'expecting any one to meet you here, Miss Wade?'",1 'I?,2 No.',2 'Father is sending to the Poste Restante.,2 Shall he have the pleasure of directing the messenger to ask if there are any letters for you?',3 "'I thank him, but I know there can be none.'",3 "'We are afraid,' said Pet, sitting down beside her, shyly and half tenderly, 'that you will feel quite deserted when we are all gone.'",2 'Indeed!',2 "'Not,' said Pet, apologetically and embarrassed by her eyes, 'not, of course, that we are any company to you, or that we have been able to be so, or that we thought you wished it.'",2 'I have not intended to make it understood that I did wish it.',2 'No.,2 Of course.,2 "But--in short,' said Pet, timidly touching her hand as it lay impassive on the sofa between them, 'will you not allow Father to tender you any slight assistance or service?",2 He will be very glad.',3 "'Very glad,' said Mr Meagles, coming forward with his wife and Clennam.",3 "'Anything short of speaking the language, I shall be delighted to undertake, I am sure.'",3 "'I am obliged to you,' she returned, 'but my arrangements are made, and I prefer to go my own way in my own manner.'",3 '_Do_ you?',2 "said Mr Meagles to himself, as he surveyed her with a puzzled look.",1 'Well!,2 "There's character in that, too.'",2 "'I am not much used to the society of young ladies, and I am afraid I may not show my appreciation of it as others might.",1 A pleasant journey to you.,3 Good-bye!',3 "She would not have put out her hand, it seemed, but that Mr Meagles put out his so straight before her that she could not pass it.",2 "She put hers in it, and it lay there just as it had lain upon the couch.",2 'Good-bye!',2 said Mr Meagles.,2 "'This is the last good-bye upon the list, for Mother and I have just said it to Mr Clennam here, and he only waits to say it to Pet.",3 Good-bye!,3 We may never meet again.',2 "'In our course through life we shall meet the people who are coming to meet _us_, from many strange places and by many strange roads,' was the composed reply; 'and what it is set to us to do to them, and what it is set to them to do to us, will all be done.'",1 There was something in the manner of these words that jarred upon Pet's ear.,2 "It implied that what was to be done was necessarily evil, and it caused her to say in a whisper, 'O Father!'",1 "and to shrink childishly, in her spoilt way, a little closer to him.",2 This was not lost on the speaker.,1 "'Your pretty daughter,' she said, 'starts to think of such things.",3 "Yet,' looking full upon her, 'you may be sure that there are men and women already on their road, who have their business to do with _you_, and who will do it.",2 Of a certainty they will do it.,2 "They may be coming hundreds, thousands, of miles over the sea there; they may be close at hand now; they may be coming, for anything you know or anything you can do to prevent it, from the vilest sweepings of this very town.'",2 "With the coldest of farewells, and with a certain worn expression on her beauty that gave it, though scarcely yet in its prime, a wasted look, she left the room.",1 "Now, there were many stairs and passages that she had to traverse in passing from that part of the spacious house to the chamber she had secured for her own occupation.",3 "When she had almost completed the journey, and was passing along the gallery in which her room was, she heard an angry sound of muttering and sobbing.",1 "A door stood open, and within she saw the attendant upon the girl she had just left; the maid with the curious name.",2 "She stood still, to look at this maid.",2 "A sullen, passionate girl!",2 "Her rich black hair was all about her face, her face was flushed and hot, and as she sobbed and raged, she plucked at her lips with an unsparing hand.",3 'Selfish brutes!',2 "said the girl, sobbing and heaving between whiles.",2 'Not caring what becomes of me!,2 "Leaving me here hungry and thirsty and tired, to starve, for anything they care!",1 Beasts!,2 Devils!,2 Wretches!',2 "'My poor girl, what is the matter?'",1 "She looked up suddenly, with reddened eyes, and with her hands suspended, in the act of pinching her neck, freshly disfigured with great scarlet blots.",3 'It's nothing to you what's the matter.,2 It don't signify to any one.',2 'O yes it does; I am sorry to see you so.',1 "'You are not sorry,' said the girl.",1 'You are glad.,3 You know you are glad.,3 I never was like this but twice over in the quarantine yonder; and both times you found me.,3 I am afraid of you.',1 'Afraid of me?',2 'Yes.,2 "You seem to come like my own anger, my own malice, my own--whatever it is--I don't know what it is.",1 "But I am ill-used, I am ill-used, I am ill-used!'",2 "Here the sobs and the tears, and the tearing hand, which had all been suspended together since the first surprise, went on together anew.",2 The visitor stood looking at her with a strange attentive smile.,3 "It was wonderful to see the fury of the contest in the girl, and the bodily struggle she made as if she were rent by the Demons of old.",1 "'I am younger than she is by two or three years, and yet it's me that looks after her, as if I was old, and it's she that's always petted and called Baby!",2 I detest the name.,1 I hate her!,1 "They make a fool of her, they spoil her.",1 "She thinks of nothing but herself, she thinks no more of me than if I was a stock and a stone!'",2 So the girl went on.,2 'You must have patience.',3 'I _won't_ have patience!',3 "'If they take much care of themselves, and little or none of you, you must not mind it.'",2 I _will_ mind it.',2 'Hush!,2 Be more prudent.,3 You forget your dependent position.',2 'I don't care for that.,2 I'll run away.,2 I'll do some mischief.,1 I won't bear it; I can't bear it; I shall die if I try to bear it!',1 "The observer stood with her hand upon her own bosom, looking at the girl, as one afflicted with a diseased part might curiously watch the dissection and exposition of an analogous case.",2 "The girl raged and battled with all the force of her youth and fulness of life, until by little and little her passionate exclamations trailed off into broken murmurs as if she were in pain.",1 "By corresponding degrees she sank into a chair, then upon her knees, then upon the ground beside the bed, drawing the coverlet with her, half to hide her shamed head and wet hair in it, and half, as it seemed, to embrace it, rather than have nothing to take to her repentant breast.",2 "'Go away from me, go away from me!",2 "When my temper comes upon me, I am mad.",1 "I know I might keep it off if I only tried hard enough, and sometimes I do try hard enough, and at other times I don't and won't.",2 What have I said!,2 "I knew when I said it, it was all lies.",1 "They think I am being taken care of somewhere, and have all I want.",2 They are nothing but good to me.,3 I love them dearly; no people could ever be kinder to a thankless creature than they always are to me.,2 "Do, do go away, for I am afraid of you.",1 "I am afraid of myself when I feel my temper coming, and I am as much afraid of you.",1 "Go away from me, and let me pray and cry myself better!'",2 "The day passed on; and again the wide stare stared itself out; and the hot night was on Marseilles; and through it the caravan of the morning, all dispersed, went their appointed ways.",3 "And thus ever by day and night, under the sun and under the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one another, move all we restless travellers through the pilgrimage of life.",0 "It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale.",1 "Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous.",1 "Melancholy streets, in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look at them out of windows, in dire despondency.",0 "In every thoroughfare, up almost every alley, and down almost every turning, some doleful bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling, as if the Plague were in the city and the dead-carts were going round.",0 Everything was bolted and barred that could by possibility furnish relief to an overworked people.,3 "No pictures, no unfamiliar animals, no rare plants or flowers, no natural or artificial wonders of the ancient world--all _taboo_ with that enlightened strictness, that the ugly South Sea gods in the British Museum might have supposed themselves at home again.",1 "Nothing to see but streets, streets, streets.",2 "Nothing to breathe but streets, streets, streets.",2 "Nothing to change the brooding mind, or raise it up.",2 "Nothing for the spent toiler to do, but to compare the monotony of his seventh day with the monotony of his six days, think what a weary life he led, and make the best of it--or the worst, according to the probabilities.",1 "At such a happy time, so propitious to the interests of religion and morality, Mr Arthur Clennam, newly arrived from Marseilles by way of Dover, and by Dover coach the Blue-eyed Maid, sat in the window of a coffee-house on Ludgate Hill.",4 "Ten thousand responsible houses surrounded him, frowning as heavily on the streets they composed, as if they were every one inhabited by the ten young men of the Calender's story, who blackened their faces and bemoaned their miseries every night.",1 "Fifty thousand lairs surrounded him where people lived so unwholesomely that fair water put into their crowded rooms on Saturday night, would be corrupt on Sunday morning; albeit my lord, their county member, was amazed that they failed to sleep in company with their butcher's meat.",1 "Miles of close wells and pits of houses, where the inhabitants gasped for air, stretched far away towards every point of the compass.",2 "Through the heart of the town a deadly sewer ebbed and flowed, in the place of a fine fresh river.",3 "What secular want could the million or so of human beings whose daily labour, six days in the week, lay among these Arcadian objects, from the sweet sameness of which they had no escape between the cradle and the grave--what secular want could they possibly have upon their seventh day?",3 Clearly they could want nothing but a stringent policeman.,2 "Mr Arthur Clennam sat in the window of the coffee-house on Ludgate Hill, counting one of the neighbouring bells, making sentences and burdens of songs out of it in spite of himself, and wondering how many sick people it might be the death of in the course of the year.",0 "As the hour approached, its changes of measure made it more and more exasperating.",1 "At the quarter, it went off into a condition of deadly-lively importunity, urging the populace in a voluble manner to Come to church, Come to church, Come to church!",2 "At the ten minutes, it became aware that the congregation would be scanty, and slowly hammered out in low spirits, They _won't_ come, they _won't_ come, they _won't_ come!",1 "At the five minutes, it abandoned hope, and shook every house in the neighbourhood for three hundred seconds, with one dismal swing per second, as a groan of despair.",1 'Thank Heaven!',3 "said Clennam, when the hour struck, and the bell stopped.",1 "But its sound had revived a long train of miserable Sundays, and the procession would not stop with the bell, but continued to march on.",1 "'Heaven forgive me,' said he, 'and those who trained me.",2 How I have hated this day!',1 "There was the dreary Sunday of his childhood, when he sat with his hands before him, scared out of his senses by a horrible tract which commenced business with the poor child by asking him in its title, why he was going to Perdition?--a piece of curiosity that he really, in a frock and drawers, was not in a condition to satisfy--and which, for the further attraction of his infant mind, had a parenthesis in every other line with some such hiccupping reference as 2 Ep.",1 "Thess.c. iii, v. 6 & 7.",2 "There was the sleepy Sunday of his boyhood, when, like a military deserter, he was marched to chapel by a picquet of teachers three times a day, morally handcuffed to another boy; and when he would willingly have bartered two meals of indigestible sermon for another ounce or two of inferior mutton at his scanty dinner in the flesh.",3 "There was the interminable Sunday of his nonage; when his mother, stern of face and unrelenting of heart, would sit all day behind a Bible--bound, like her own construction of it, in the hardest, barest, and straitest boards, with one dinted ornament on the cover like the drag of a chain, and a wrathful sprinkling of red upon the edges of the leaves--as if it, of all books!",1 "were a fortification against sweetness of temper, natural affection, and gentle intercourse.",3 "There was the resentful Sunday of a little later, when he sat down glowering and glooming through the tardy length of the day, with a sullen sense of injury in his heart, and no more real knowledge of the beneficent history of the New Testament than if he had been bred among idolaters.",0 "There was a legion of Sundays, all days of unserviceable bitterness and mortification, slowly passing before him.",0 "'Beg pardon, sir,' said a brisk waiter, rubbing the table.",3 'Wish see bed-room?',2 'Yes.,2 I have just made up my mind to do it.',2 'Chaymaid!',2 cried the waiter.,2 'Gelen box num seven wish see room!',2 'Stay!',2 "said Clennam, rousing himself.",2 'I was not thinking of what I said; I answered mechanically.,2 I am not going to sleep here.,2 I am going home.',2 "'Deed, sir?",2 Chaymaid!,2 "Gelen box num seven, not go sleep here, gome.'",2 "He sat in the same place as the day died, looking at the dull houses opposite, and thinking, if the disembodied spirits of former inhabitants were ever conscious of them, how they must pity themselves for their old places of imprisonment.",0 "Sometimes a face would appear behind the dingy glass of a window, and would fade away into the gloom as if it had seen enough of life and had vanished out of it.",2 "Presently the rain began to fall in slanting lines between him and those houses, and people began to collect under cover of the public passage opposite, and to look out hopelessly at the sky as the rain dropped thicker and faster.",1 "Then wet umbrellas began to appear, draggled skirts, and mud.",2 "What the mud had been doing with itself, or where it came from, who could say?",2 "But it seemed to collect in a moment, as a crowd will, and in five minutes to have splashed all the sons and daughters of Adam.",2 "The lamplighter was going his rounds now; and as the fiery jets sprang up under his touch, one might have fancied them astonished at being suffered to introduce any show of brightness into such a dismal scene.",2 "Mr Arthur Clennam took up his hat and buttoned his coat, and walked out.",2 "In the country, the rain would have developed a thousand fresh scents, and every drop would have had its bright association with some beautiful form of growth or life.",4 "In the city, it developed only foul stale smells, and was a sickly, lukewarm, dirt-stained, wretched addition to the gutters.",0 "He crossed by St Paul's and went down, at a long angle, almost to the water's edge, through some of the crooked and descending streets which lie (and lay more crookedly and closely then) between the river and Cheapside.",1 "Passing, now the mouldy hall of some obsolete Worshipful Company, now the illuminated windows of a Congregationless Church that seemed to be waiting for some adventurous Belzoni to dig it out and discover its history; passing silent warehouses and wharves, and here and there a narrow alley leading to the river, where a wretched little bill, FOUND DROWNED, was weeping on the wet wall; he came at last to the house he sought.",3 "An old brick house, so dingy as to be all but black, standing by itself within a gateway.",2 "Before it, a square court-yard where a shrub or two and a patch of grass were as rank (which is saying much) as the iron railings enclosing them were rusty; behind it, a jumble of roots.",1 "It was a double house, with long, narrow, heavily-framed windows.",2 "Many years ago, it had had it in its mind to slide down sideways; it had been propped up, however, and was leaning on some half-dozen gigantic crutches: which gymnasium for the neighbouring cats, weather-stained, smoke-blackened, and overgrown with weeds, appeared in these latter days to be no very sure reliance.",1 "'Nothing changed,' said the traveller, stopping to look round.",2 'Dark and miserable as ever.,1 "A light in my mother's window, which seems never to have been extinguished since I came home twice a year from school, and dragged my box over this pavement.",1 "Well, well, well!'",3 "He went up to the door, which had a projecting canopy in carved work of festooned jack-towels and children's heads with water on the brain, designed after a once-popular monumental pattern, and knocked.",4 "A shuffling step was soon heard on the stone floor of the hall, and the door was opened by an old man, bent and dried, but with keen eyes.",2 "He had a candle in his hand, and he held it up for a moment to assist his keen eyes.",3 "'Ah, Mr Arthur?'",2 "he said, without any emotion, 'you are come at last?",2 Step in.',2 Mr Arthur stepped in and shut the door.,2 "'Your figure is filled out, and set,' said the old man, turning to look at him with the light raised again, and shaking his head; 'but you don't come up to your father in my opinion.",2 Nor yet your mother.',2 'How is my mother?',2 'She is as she always is now.,2 "Keeps her room when not actually bedridden, and hasn't been out of it fifteen times in as many years, Arthur.'",2 "They had walked into a spare, meagre dining-room.",2 "The old man had put the candlestick upon the table, and, supporting his right elbow with his left hand, was smoothing his leathern jaws while he looked at the visitor.",3 The visitor offered his hand.,2 "The old man took it coldly enough, and seemed to prefer his jaws, to which he returned as soon as he could.",3 "'I doubt if your mother will approve of your coming home on the Sabbath, Arthur,' he said, shaking his head warily.",1 'You wouldn't have me go away again?',2 'Oh!,2 I?,2 I?,2 I am not the master.,3 It's not what _I_ would have.,2 I have stood between your father and mother for a number of years.,2 I don't pretend to stand between your mother and you.',1 'Will you tell her that I have come home?',2 "'Yes, Arthur, yes.",2 "Oh, to be sure!",2 I'll tell her that you have come home.,2 Please to wait here.,2 You won't find the room changed.',2 "He took another candle from a cupboard, lighted it, left the first on the table, and went upon his errand.",2 "He was a short, bald old man, in a high-shouldered black coat and waistcoat, drab breeches, and long drab gaiters.",1 "He might, from his dress, have been either clerk or servant, and in fact had long been both.",2 "There was nothing about him in the way of decoration but a watch, which was lowered into the depths of its proper pocket by an old black ribbon, and had a tarnished copper key moored above it, to show where it was sunk.",1 "His head was awry, and he had a one-sided, crab-like way with him, as if his foundations had yielded at about the same time as those of the house, and he ought to have been propped up in a similar manner.",3 "'How weak am I,' said Arthur Clennam, when he was gone, 'that I could shed tears at this reception!",1 "I, who have never experienced anything else; who have never expected anything else.'",2 "He not only could, but did.",2 "It was the momentary yielding of a nature that had been disappointed from the dawn of its perceptions, but had not quite given up all its hopeful yearnings yet.",3 "He subdued it, took up the candle, and examined the room.",1 "The old articles of furniture were in their old places; the Plagues of Egypt, much the dimmer for the fly and smoke plagues of London, were framed and glazed upon the walls.",1 "There was the old cellaret with nothing in it, lined with lead, like a sort of coffin in compartments; there was the old dark closet, also with nothing in it, of which he had been many a time the sole contents, in days of punishment, when he had regarded it as the veritable entrance to that bourne to which the tract had found him galloping.",3 "There was the large, hard-featured clock on the sideboard, which he used to see bending its figured brows upon him with a savage joy when he was behind-hand with his lessons, and which, when it was wound up once a week with an iron handle, used to sound as if it were growling in ferocious anticipation of the miseries into which it would bring him.",0 "But here was the old man come back, saying, 'Arthur, I'll go before and light you.'",2 "Arthur followed him up the staircase, which was panelled off into spaces like so many mourning tablets, into a dim bed-chamber, the floor of which had gradually so sunk and settled, that the fire-place was in a dell.",1 "On a black bier-like sofa in this hollow, propped up behind with one great angular black bolster like the block at a state execution in the good old times, sat his mother in a widow's dress.",4 She and his father had been at variance from his earliest remembrance.,2 "To sit speechless himself in the midst of rigid silence, glancing in dread from the one averted face to the other, had been the peacefullest occupation of his childhood.",1 "She gave him one glassy kiss, and four stiff fingers muffled in worsted.",1 "This embrace concluded, he sat down on the opposite side of her little table.",2 "There was a fire in the grate, as there had been night and day for fifteen years.",1 "There was a kettle on the hob, as there had been night and day for fifteen years.",2 "There was a little mound of damped ashes on the top of the fire, and another little mound swept together under the grate, as there had been night and day for fifteen years.",2 "There was a smell of black dye in the airless room, which the fire had been drawing out of the crape and stuff of the widow's dress for fifteen months, and out of the bier-like sofa for fifteen years.",2 "'Mother, this is a change from your old active habits.'",2 "'The world has narrowed to these dimensions, Arthur,' she replied, glancing round the room.",2 'It is well for me that I never set my heart upon its hollow vanities.',2 "The old influence of her presence and her stern strong voice, so gathered about her son, that he felt conscious of a renewal of the timid chill and reserve of his childhood.",1 "'Do you never leave your room, mother?'",2 "'What with my rheumatic affection, and what with its attendant debility or nervous weakness--names are of no matter now--I have lost the use of my limbs.",0 I never leave my room.,2 "I have not been outside this door for--tell him for how long,' she said, speaking over her shoulder.",2 "'A dozen year next Christmas,' returned a cracked voice out of the dimness behind.",1 'Is that Affery?',2 "said Arthur, looking towards it.",2 "The cracked voice replied that it was Affery: and an old woman came forward into what doubtful light there was, and kissed her hand once; then subsided again into the dimness.",1 "'I am able,' said Mrs Clennam, with a slight motion of her worsted-muffled right hand toward a chair on wheels, standing before a tall writing cabinet close shut up, 'I am able to attend to my business duties, and I am thankful for the privilege.",4 It is a great privilege.,3 But no more of business on this day.,2 "It is a bad night, is it not?'",1 "'Yes, mother.'",2 'Does it snow?',2 "'Snow, mother?",2 And we only yet in September?',2 "'All seasons are alike to me,' she returned, with a grim kind of luxuriousness.",1 "'I know nothing of summer and winter, shut up here.",2 The Lord has been pleased to put me beyond all that.',3 "With her cold grey eyes and her cold grey hair, and her immovable face, as stiff as the folds of her stony head-dress,--her being beyond the reach of the seasons seemed but a fit sequence to her being beyond the reach of all changing emotions.",0 "On her little table lay two or three books, her handkerchief, a pair of steel spectacles newly taken off, and an old-fashioned gold watch in a heavy double case.",3 Upon this last object her son's eyes and her own now rested together.,1 "'I see that you received the packet I sent you on my father's death, safely, mother.'",2 'You see.',2 "'I never knew my father to show so much anxiety on any subject, as that his watch should be sent straight to you.'",1 'I keep it here as a remembrance of your father.',2 "'It was not until the last, that he expressed the wish; when he could only put his hand upon it, and very indistinctly say to me ""your mother.""",2 "A moment before, I thought him wandering in his mind, as he had been for many hours--I think he had no consciousness of pain in his short illness--when I saw him turn himself in his bed and try to open it.'",1 "'Was your father, then, not wandering in his mind when he tried to open it?'",2 'No.,2 He was quite sensible at that time.',3 "Mrs Clennam shook her head; whether in dismissal of the deceased or opposing herself to her son's opinion, was not clearly expressed.",3 "'After my father's death I opened it myself, thinking there might be, for anything I knew, some memorandum there.",1 "However, as I need not tell you, mother, there was nothing but the old silk watch-paper worked in beads, which you found (no doubt) in its place between the cases, where I found and left it.'",2 "Mrs Clennam signified assent; then added, 'No more of business on this day,' and then added, 'Affery, it is nine o'clock.'",2 "Upon this, the old woman cleared the little table, went out of the room, and quickly returned with a tray on which was a dish of little rusks and a small precise pat of butter, cool, symmetrical, white, and plump.",4 "The old man who had been standing by the door in one attitude during the whole interview, looking at the mother up-stairs as he had looked at the son down-stairs, went out at the same time, and, after a longer absence, returned with another tray on which was the greater part of a bottle of port wine (which, to judge by his panting, he had brought from the cellar), a lemon, a sugar-basin, and a spice box.",1 "With these materials and the aid of the kettle, he filled a tumbler with a hot and odorous mixture, measured out and compounded with as much nicety as a physician's prescription.",3 "Into this mixture Mrs Clennam dipped certain of the rusks, and ate them; while the old woman buttered certain other of the rusks, which were to be eaten alone.",2 "When the invalid had eaten all the rusks and drunk all the mixture, the two trays were removed; and the books and the candle, watch, handkerchief, and spectacles were replaced upon the table.",1 "She then put on the spectacles and read certain passages aloud from a book--sternly, fiercely, wrathfully--praying that her enemies (she made them by her tone and manner expressly hers) might be put to the edge of the sword, consumed by fire, smitten by plagues and leprosy, that their bones might be ground to dust, and that they might be utterly exterminated.",1 "As she read on, years seemed to fall away from her son like the imaginings of a dream, and all the old dark horrors of his usual preparation for the sleep of an innocent child to overshadow him.",1 She shut the book and remained for a little time with her face shaded by her hand.,2 "So did the old man, otherwise still unchanged in attitude; so, probably, did the old woman in her dimmer part of the room.",1 Then the sick woman was ready for bed.,2 "'Good night, Arthur.",2 Affery will see to your accommodation.,2 "Only touch me, for my hand is tender.'",3 He touched the worsted muffling of her hand--that was nothing; if his mother had been sheathed in brass there would have been no new barrier between them--and followed the old man and woman down-stairs.,2 "The latter asked him, when they were alone together among the heavy shadows of the dining-room, would he have some supper?",2 "'No, Affery, no supper.'",2 "'You shall if you like,' said Affery.",3 'There's her tomorrow's partridge in the larder--her first this year; say the word and I'll cook it.',2 "No, he had not long dined, and could eat nothing.",2 "'Have something to drink, then,' said Affery; 'you shall have some of her bottle of port, if you like.",3 I'll tell Jeremiah that you ordered me to bring it you.',2 "No; nor would he have that, either.",2 "'It's no reason, Arthur,' said the old woman, bending over him to whisper, 'that because I am afeared of my life of 'em, you should be.",2 "You've got half the property, haven't you?'",2 "'Yes, yes.'",2 "'Well then, don't you be cowed.",2 "You're clever, Arthur, an't you?'",3 "He nodded, as she seemed to expect an answer in the affirmative.",3 'Then stand up against them!,2 "She's awful clever, and none but a clever one durst say a word to her.",2 "_He's_ a clever one--oh, he's a clever one!--and he gives it her when he has a mind to't, he does!'",3 'Your husband does?',2 'Does?,2 "It makes me shake from head to foot, to hear him give it her.",1 "My husband, Jeremiah Flintwinch, can conquer even your mother.",2 What can he be but a clever one to do that!',3 His shuffling footstep coming towards them caused her to retreat to the other end of the room.,1 "Though a tall, hard-favoured, sinewy old woman, who in her youth might have enlisted in the Foot Guards without much fear of discovery, she collapsed before the little keen-eyed crab-like old man.",2 "'Now, Affery,' said he, 'now, woman, what are you doing?",2 Can't you find Master Arthur something or another to pick at?',3 Master Arthur repeated his recent refusal to pick at anything.,2 "'Very well, then,' said the old man; 'make his bed.",3 Stir yourself.',2 "His neck was so twisted that the knotted ends of his white cravat usually dangled under one ear; his natural acerbity and energy, always contending with a second nature of habitual repression, gave his features a swollen and suffused look; and altogether, he had a weird appearance of having hanged himself at one time or other, and of having gone about ever since, halter and all, exactly as some timely hand had cut him down.",0 "'You'll have bitter words together to-morrow, Arthur; you and your mother,' said Jeremiah.",1 "'Your having given up the business on your father's death--which she suspects, though we have left it to you to tell her--won't go off smoothly.'",2 "'I have given up everything in life for the business, and the time came for me to give up that.'",2 'Good!',2 "cried Jeremiah, evidently meaning Bad.",1 'Very good!,3 "only don't expect me to stand between your mother and you, Arthur.",2 "I stood between your mother and your father, fending off this, and fending off that, and getting crushed and pounded betwixt em; and I've done with such work.'",2 "'You will never be asked to begin it again for me, Jeremiah.'",2 'Good.,2 "I'm glad to hear it; because I should have had to decline it, if I had been.",2 That's enough--as your mother says--and more than enough of such matters on a Sabbath night.,3 "Affery, woman, have you found what you want yet?'",2 "She had been collecting sheets and blankets from a press, and hastened to gather them up, and to reply, 'Yes, Jeremiah.'",2 "Arthur Clennam helped her by carrying the load himself, wished the old man good night, and went up-stairs with her to the top of the house.",4 "They mounted up and up, through the musty smell of an old close house, little used, to a large garret bed-room.",1 "Meagre and spare, like all the other rooms, it was even uglier and grimmer than the rest, by being the place of banishment for the worn-out furniture.",1 "Its movables were ugly old chairs with worn-out seats, and ugly old chairs without any seats; a threadbare patternless carpet, a maimed table, a crippled wardrobe, a lean set of fire-irons like the skeleton of a set deceased, a washing-stand that looked as if it had stood for ages in a hail of dirty soapsuds, and a bedstead with four bare atomies of posts, each terminating in a spike, as if for the dismal accommodation of lodgers who might prefer to impale themselves.",1 "Arthur opened the long low window, and looked out upon the old blasted and blackened forest of chimneys, and the old red glare in the sky, which had seemed to him once upon a time but a nightly reflection of the fiery environment that was presented to his childish fancy in all directions, let it look where it would.",1 "He drew in his head again, sat down at the bedside, and looked on at Affery Flintwinch making the bed.",2 "'Affery, you were not married when I went away.'",2 "She screwed her mouth into the form of saying 'No,' shook her head, and proceeded to get a pillow into its case.",1 'How did it happen?',2 "'Why, Jeremiah, o' course,' said Affery, with an end of the pillow-case between her teeth.",2 "'Of course he proposed it, but how did it all come about?",2 I should have thought that neither of you would have married; least of all should I have thought of your marrying each other.',2 "'No more should I,' said Mrs Flintwinch, tying the pillow tightly in its case.",2 'That's what I mean.,2 When did you begin to think otherwise?',2 "'Never begun to think otherwise at all,' said Mrs Flintwinch.",2 "Seeing, as she patted the pillow into its place on the bolster, that he was still looking at her as if waiting for the rest of her reply, she gave it a great poke in the middle, and asked, 'How could I help myself?'",3 'How could you help yourself from being married!',2 "'O' course,' said Mrs Flintwinch.",2 'It was no doing o' mine.,2 I'd never thought of it.,2 "I'd got something to do, without thinking, indeed!",2 "She kept me to it (as well as he) when she could go about, and she could go about then.'",3 'Well?',2 'Well?',2 echoed Mrs Flintwinch.,2 'That's what I said myself.,2 Well!,3 What's the use of considering?,2 "If them two clever ones have made up their minds to it, what's left for _me_ to do?",3 Nothing.',2 "'Was it my mother's project, then?'",2 "'The Lord bless you, Arthur, and forgive me the wish!'",3 "cried Affery, speaking always in a low tone.",2 "'If they hadn't been both of a mind in it, how could it ever have been?",2 "Jeremiah never courted me; t'ant likely that he would, after living in the house with me and ordering me about for as many years as he'd done.",2 "He said to me one day, he said, ""Affery,"" he said, ""now I am going to tell you something.",2 "What do you think of the name of Flintwinch?""",2 """What do I think of it?""",2 I says.,2 """Yes,"" he said, ""because you're going to take it,"" he said.",2 """Take it?""",2 I says.,2 """Jere-_mi_-ah?""",2 Oh!,2 he's a clever one!',3 "Mrs Flintwinch went on to spread the upper sheet over the bed, and the blanket over that, and the counterpane over that, as if she had quite concluded her story.",2 'Well?',2 said Arthur again.,2 'Well?',2 echoed Mrs Flintwinch again.,2 'How could I help myself?,2 "He said to me, ""Affery, you and me must be married, and I'll tell you why.",2 "She's failing in health, and she'll want pretty constant attendance up in her room, and we shall have to be much with her, and there'll be nobody about now but ourselves when we're away from her, and altogether it will be more convenient.",3 "She's of my opinion,"" he said, ""so if you'll put your bonnet on next Monday morning at eight, we'll get it over.""",2 ' Mrs Flintwinch tucked up the bed.,2 'Well?',2 'Well?',2 "repeated Mrs Flintwinch, 'I think so!",2 I sits me down and says it.,2 "Well!--Jeremiah then says to me, ""As to banns, next Sunday being the third time of asking (for I've put 'em up a fortnight), is my reason for naming Monday.",3 "She'll speak to you about it herself, and now she'll find you prepared, Affery.""",2 "That same day she spoke to me, and she said, ""So, Affery, I understand that you and Jeremiah are going to be married.",2 "I am glad of it, and so are you, with reason.",3 "It is a very good thing for you, and very welcome under the circumstances to me.",3 "He is a sensible man, and a trustworthy man, and a persevering man, and a pious man.""",3 What could I say when it had come to that?,2 "Why, if it had been--a smothering instead of a wedding,' Mrs Flintwinch cast about in her mind with great pains for this form of expression, 'I couldn't have said a word upon it, against them two clever ones.'",3 "'In good faith, I believe so.'",3 "'And so you may, Arthur.'",2 "'Affery, what girl was that in my mother's room just now?'",2 'Girl?',2 said Mrs Flintwinch in a rather sharp key.,3 "'It was a girl, surely, whom I saw near you--almost hidden in the dark corner?'",1 'Oh!,2 She?,2 Little Dorrit?,2 _She_'s nothing; she's a whim of--hers.',2 It was a peculiarity of Affery Flintwinch that she never spoke of Mrs Clennam by name.,2 'But there's another sort of girls than that about.,2 Have you forgot your old sweetheart?,3 "Long and long ago, I'll be bound.'",2 "'I suffered enough from my mother's separating us, to remember her.",2 I recollect her very well.',3 'Have you got another?',2 'No.',2 "'Here's news for you, then.",2 "She's well to do now, and a widow.",3 "And if you like to have her, why you can.'",3 "'And how do you know that, Affery?'",2 'Them two clever ones have been speaking about it.--There's Jeremiah on the stairs!',3 She was gone in a moment.,2 "Mrs Flintwinch had introduced into the web that his mind was busily weaving, in that old workshop where the loom of his youth had stood, the last thread wanting to the pattern.",2 "The airy folly of a boy's love had found its way even into that house, and he had been as wretched under its hopelessness as if the house had been a castle of romance.",1 "Little more than a week ago at Marseilles, the face of the pretty girl from whom he had parted with regret, had had an unusual interest for him, and a tender hold upon him, because of some resemblance, real or imagined, to this first face that had soared out of his gloomy life into the bright glories of fancy.",3 "He leaned upon the sill of the long low window, and looking out upon the blackened forest of chimneys again, began to dream; for it had been the uniform tendency of this man's life--so much was wanting in it to think about, so much that might have been better directed and happier to speculate upon--to make him a dreamer, after all.",3 "When Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, she usually dreamed, unlike the son of her old mistress, with her eyes shut.",1 "She had a curiously vivid dream that night, and before she had left the son of her old mistress many hours.",2 In fact it was not at all like a dream; it was so very real in every respect.,3 It happened in this wise.,3 The bed-chamber occupied by Mr and Mrs Flintwinch was within a few paces of that to which Mrs Clennam had been so long confined.,1 "It was not on the same floor, for it was a room at the side of the house, which was approached by a steep descent of a few odd steps, diverging from the main staircase nearly opposite to Mrs Clennam's door.",1 "It could scarcely be said to be within call, the walls, doors, and panelling of the old place were so cumbrous; but it was within easy reach, in any undress, at any hour of the night, in any temperature.",2 "At the head of the bed and within a foot of Mrs Flintwinch's ear, was a bell, the line of which hung ready to Mrs Clennam's hand.",2 "Whenever this bell rang, up started Affery, and was in the sick room before she was awake.",1 "Having got her mistress into bed, lighted her lamp, and given her good night, Mrs Flintwinch went to roost as usual, saving that her lord had not yet appeared.",2 "It was her lord himself who became--unlike the last theme in the mind, according to the observation of most philosophers--the subject of Mrs Flintwinch's dream.",2 "It seemed to her that she awoke after sleeping some hours, and found Jeremiah not yet abed.",2 "That she looked at the candle she had left burning, and, measuring the time like King Alfred the Great, was confirmed by its wasted state in her belief that she had been asleep for some considerable period.",2 "That she arose thereupon, muffled herself up in a wrapper, put on her shoes, and went out on the staircase, much surprised, to look for Jeremiah.",2 "The staircase was as wooden and solid as need be, and Affery went straight down it without any of those deviations peculiar to dreams.",2 "She did not skim over it, but walked down it, and guided herself by the banisters on account of her candle having died out.",1 "In one corner of the hall, behind the house-door, there was a little waiting-room, like a well-shaft, with a long narrow window in it as if it had been ripped up.",3 "In this room, which was never used, a light was burning.",1 "Mrs Flintwinch crossed the hall, feeling its pavement cold to her stockingless feet, and peeped in between the rusty hinges on the door, which stood a little open.",1 "She expected to see Jeremiah fast asleep or in a fit, but he was calmly seated in a chair, awake, and in his usual health.",3 "But what--hey?--Lord forgive us!--Mrs Flintwinch muttered some ejaculation to this effect, and turned giddy.",1 "For, Mr Flintwinch awake, was watching Mr Flintwinch asleep.",2 "He sat on one side of the small table, looking keenly at himself on the other side with his chin sunk on his breast, snoring.",2 The waking Flintwinch had his full front face presented to his wife; the sleeping Flintwinch was in profile.,2 "The waking Flintwinch was the old original; the sleeping Flintwinch was the double, just as she might have distinguished between a tangible object and its reflection in a glass, Affery made out this difference with her head going round and round.",2 "If she had had any doubt which was her own Jeremiah, it would have been resolved by his impatience.",1 "He looked about him for an offensive weapon, caught up the snuffers, and, before applying them to the cabbage-headed candle, lunged at the sleeper as though he would have run him through the body.",1 'Who's that?,2 What's the matter?',2 "cried the sleeper, starting.",2 "Mr Flintwinch made a movement with the snuffers, as if he would have enforced silence on his companion by putting them down his throat; the companion, coming to himself, said, rubbing his eyes, 'I forgot where I was.'",2 "'You have been asleep,' snarled Jeremiah, referring to his watch, 'two hours.",2 You said you would be rested enough if you had a short nap.',3 "'I have had a short nap,' said Double.",2 "'Half-past two o'clock in the morning,' muttered Jeremiah.",2 'Where's your hat?,2 Where's your coat?,2 Where's the box?',2 "'All here,' said Double, tying up his throat with sleepy carefulness in a shawl.",2 'Stop a minute.,2 "Now give me the sleeve--not that sleeve, the other one.",2 Ha!,2 I'm not as young as I was.',2 Mr Flintwinch had pulled him into his coat with vehement energy.,1 'You promised me a second glass after I was rested.',3 'Drink it!',2 "returned Jeremiah, 'and--choke yourself, I was going to say--but go, I mean.'",1 "At the same time he produced the identical port-wine bottle, and filled a wine-glass.",2 "'Her port-wine, I believe?'",2 "said Double, tasting it as if he were in the Docks, with hours to spare.",2 'Her health.',2 He took a sip.,2 'Your health!',2 He took another sip.,2 'His health!',2 He took another sip.,2 'And all friends round St Paul's.',2 "He emptied and put down the wine-glass half-way through this ancient civic toast, and took up the box.",2 "It was an iron box some two feet square, which he carried under his arms pretty easily.",3 "Jeremiah watched his manner of adjusting it, with jealous eyes; tried it with his hands, to be sure that he had a firm hold of it; bade him for his life be careful what he was about; and then stole out on tiptoe to open the door for him.",1 "Affery, anticipating the last movement, was on the staircase.",2 "The sequence of things was so ordinary and natural, that, standing there, she could hear the door open, feel the night air, and see the stars outside.",2 But now came the most remarkable part of the dream.,3 "She felt so afraid of her husband, that being on the staircase, she had not the power to retreat to her room (which she might easily have done before he had fastened the door), but stood there staring.",1 "Consequently when he came up the staircase to bed, candle in hand, he came full upon her.",2 "He looked astonished, but said not a word.",3 "He kept his eyes upon her, and kept advancing; and she, completely under his influence, kept retiring before him.",2 "Thus, she walking backward and he walking forward, they came into their own room.",1 "They were no sooner shut in there, than Mr Flintwinch took her by the throat, and shook her until she was black in the face.",2 "'Why, Affery, woman--Affery!'",2 said Mr Flintwinch.,2 'What have you been dreaming of?,2 "Wake up, wake up!",2 What's the matter?',2 "'The--the matter, Jeremiah?'",2 "gasped Mrs Flintwinch, rolling her eyes.",2 "'Why, Affery, woman--Affery!",2 "You have been getting out of bed in your sleep, my dear!",2 "I come up, after having fallen asleep myself, below, and find you in your wrapper here, with the nightmare.",1 "Affery, woman,' said Mr Flintwinch, with a friendly grin on his expressive countenance, 'if you ever have a dream of this sort again, it'll be a sign of your being in want of physic.",3 "And I'll give you such a dose, old woman--such a dose!'",2 Mrs Flintwinch thanked him and crept into bed.,1 "As the city clocks struck nine on Monday morning, Mrs Clennam was wheeled by Jeremiah Flintwinch of the cut-down aspect to her tall cabinet.",1 "When she had unlocked and opened it, and had settled herself at its desk, Jeremiah withdrew--as it might be, to hang himself more effectually--and her son appeared.",1 "'Are you any better this morning, mother?'",3 "She shook her head, with the same austere air of luxuriousness that she had shown over-night when speaking of the weather.",1 'I shall never be better any more.,3 "It is well for me, Arthur, that I know it and can bear it.'",3 "Sitting with her hands laid separately upon the desk, and the tall cabinet towering before her, she looked as if she were performing on a dumb church organ.",1 "Her son thought so (it was an old thought with him), while he took his seat beside it.",2 "She opened a drawer or two, looked over some business papers, and put them back again.",2 "Her severe face had no thread of relaxation in it, by which any explorer could have been guided to the gloomy labyrinth of her thoughts.",1 "'Shall I speak of our affairs, mother?",2 Are you inclined to enter upon business?',2 "'Am I inclined, Arthur?",2 "Rather, are you?",2 Your father has been dead a year and more.,1 "I have been at your disposal, and waiting your pleasure, ever since.'",3 "'There was much to arrange before I could leave; and when I did leave, I travelled a little for rest and relief.'",3 "She turned her face towards him, as not having heard or understood his last words.",2 'For rest and relief.',3 "She glanced round the sombre room, and appeared from the motion of her lips to repeat the words to herself, as calling it to witness how little of either it afforded her.",2 "'Besides, mother, you being sole executrix, and having the direction and management of the estate, there remained little business, or I might say none, that I could transact, until you had had time to arrange matters to your satisfaction.'",2 "'The accounts are made out,' she returned.",2 'I have them here.,2 The vouchers have all been examined and passed.,2 "You can inspect them when you like, Arthur; now, if you please.'",3 "'It is quite enough, mother, to know that the business is completed.",3 Shall I proceed then?',2 'Why not?',2 "she said, in her frozen way.",1 "'Mother, our House has done less and less for some years past, and our dealings have been progressively on the decline.",1 "We have never shown much confidence, or invited much; we have attached no people to us; the track we have kept is not the track of the time; and we have been left far behind.",3 "I need not dwell on this to you, mother.",2 You know it necessarily.',2 "'I know what you mean,' she answered, in a qualified tone.",3 "'Even this old house in which we speak,' pursued her son, 'is an instance of what I say.",2 "In my father's earlier time, and in his uncle's time before him, it was a place of business--really a place of business, and business resort.",2 "Now, it is a mere anomaly and incongruity here, out of date and out of purpose.",1 "All our consignments have long been made to Rovinghams' the commission-merchants; and although, as a check upon them, and in the stewardship of my father's resources, your judgment and watchfulness have been actively exerted, still those qualities would have influenced my father's fortunes equally, if you had lived in any private dwelling: would they not?'",2 "'Do you consider,' she returned, without answering his question, 'that a house serves no purpose, Arthur, in sheltering your infirm and afflicted--justly infirm and righteously afflicted--mother?'",3 'I was speaking only of business purposes.',2 'With what object?',1 'I am coming to it.',2 "'I foresee,' she returned, fixing her eyes upon him, 'what it is.",2 But the Lord forbid that I should repine under any visitation.,1 "In my sinfulness I merit bitter disappointment, and I accept it.'",1 "'Mother, I grieve to hear you speak like this, though I have had my apprehensions that you would--' 'You knew I would.",1 "You knew _me_,' she interrupted.",2 Her son paused for a moment.,2 "He had struck fire out of her, and was surprised.",1 'Well!',2 "she said, relapsing into stone.",2 'Go on.,2 Let me hear.',2 "'You have anticipated, mother, that I decide for my part, to abandon the business.",2 I have done with it.,2 "I will not take upon myself to advise you; you will continue it, I see.",2 "If I had any influence with you, I would simply use it to soften your judgment of me in causing you this disappointment: to represent to you that I have lived the half of a long term of life, and have never before set my own will against yours.",1 "I cannot say that I have been able to conform myself, in heart and spirit, to your rules; I cannot say that I believe my forty years have been profitable or pleasant to myself, or any one; but I have habitually submitted, and I only ask you to remember it.'",3 "Woe to the suppliant, if such a one there were or ever had been, who had any concession to look for in the inexorable face at the cabinet.",0 Woe to the defaulter whose appeal lay to the tribunal where those severe eyes presided.,1 "Great need had the rigid woman of her mystical religion, veiled in gloom and darkness, with lightnings of cursing, vengeance, and destruction, flashing through the sable clouds.",0 "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, was a prayer too poor in spirit for her.",1 "Smite Thou my debtors, Lord, wither them, crush them; do Thou as I would do, and Thou shalt have my worship: this was the impious tower of stone she built up to scale Heaven.",1 "'Have you finished, Arthur, or have you anything more to say to me?",2 I think there can be nothing else.,2 "You have been short, but full of matter!'",2 "'Mother, I have yet something more to say.",2 "It has been upon my mind, night and day, this long time.",2 It is far more difficult to say than what I have said.,1 That concerned myself; this concerns us all.',1 'Us all!,2 Who are us all?',2 "'Yourself, myself, my dead father.'",1 "She took her hands from the desk; folded them in her lap; and sat looking towards the fire, with the impenetrability of an old Egyptian sculpture.",2 'You knew my father infinitely better than I ever knew him; and his reserve with me yielded to you.,3 "You were much the stronger, mother, and directed him.",3 "As a child, I knew it as well as I know it now.",3 "I knew that your ascendancy over him was the cause of his going to China to take care of the business there, while you took care of it here (though I do not even now know whether these were really terms of separation that you agreed upon); and that it was your will that I should remain with you until I was twenty, and then go to him as I did.",2 "You will not be offended by my recalling this, after twenty years?'",2 'I am waiting to hear why you recall it.',2 "He lowered his voice, and said, with manifest reluctance, and against his will: 'I want to ask you, mother, whether it ever occurred to you to suspect--' At the word Suspect, she turned her eyes momentarily upon her son, with a dark frown.",0 "She then suffered them to seek the fire, as before; but with the frown fixed above them, as if the sculptor of old Egypt had indented it in the hard granite face, to frown for ages.",0 '--that he had any secret remembrance which caused him trouble of mind--remorse?,1 "Whether you ever observed anything in his conduct suggesting that; or ever spoke to him upon it, or ever heard him hint at such a thing?'",2 "'I do not understand what kind of secret remembrance you mean to infer that your father was a prey to,' she returned, after a silence.",2 'You speak so mysteriously.',1 "'Is it possible, mother,' her son leaned forward to be the nearer to her while he whispered it, and laid his hand nervously upon her desk, 'is it possible, mother, that he had unhappily wronged any one, and made no reparation?'",1 "Looking at him wrathfully, she bent herself back in her chair to keep him further off, but gave him no reply.",1 "'I am deeply sensible, mother, that if this thought has never at any time flashed upon you, it must seem cruel and unnatural in me, even in this confidence, to breathe it.",2 But I cannot shake it off.,1 Time and change (I have tried both before breaking silence) do nothing to wear it out.,1 "Remember, I was with my father.",2 "Remember, I saw his face when he gave the watch into my keeping, and struggled to express that he sent it as a token you would understand, to you.",1 "Remember, I saw him at the last with the pencil in his failing hand, trying to write some word for you to read, but to which he could give no shape.",1 "The more remote and cruel this vague suspicion that I have, the stronger the circumstances that could give it any semblance of probability to me.",1 "For Heaven's sake, let us examine sacredly whether there is any wrong entrusted to us to set right.",2 "No one can help towards it, mother, but you.'",2 "Still so recoiling in her chair that her overpoised weight moved it, from time to time, a little on its wheels, and gave her the appearance of a phantom of fierce aspect gliding away from him, she interposed her left arm, bent at the elbow with the back of her hand towards her face, between herself and him, and looked at him in a fixed silence.",1 "'In grasping at money and in driving hard bargains--I have begun, and I must speak of such things now, mother--some one may have been grievously deceived, injured, ruined.",0 You were the moving power of all this machinery before my birth; your stronger spirit has been infused into all my father's dealings for more than two score years.,3 "You can set these doubts at rest, I think, if you will really help me to discover the truth.",1 "Will you, mother?'",2 He stopped in the hope that she would speak.,2 "But her grey hair was not more immovable in its two folds, than were her firm lips.",1 "'If reparation can be made to any one, if restitution can be made to any one, let us know it and make it.",2 "Nay, mother, if within my means, let _me_ make it.",2 "I have seen so little happiness come of money; it has brought within my knowledge so little peace to this house, or to any one belonging to it, that it is worth less to me than to another.",4 "It can buy me nothing that will not be a reproach and misery to me, if I am haunted by a suspicion that it darkened my father's last hours with remorse, and that it is not honestly and justly mine.'",0 "There was a bell-rope hanging on the panelled wall, some two or three yards from the cabinet.",2 "By a swift and sudden action of her foot, she drove her wheeled chair rapidly back to it and pulled it violently--still holding her arm up in its shield-like posture, as if he were striking at her, and she warding off the blow.",3 "A girl came hurrying in, frightened.",2 'Send Flintwinch here!',2 "In a moment the girl had withdrawn, and the old man stood within the door.",2 'What!,2 "You're hammer and tongs, already, you two?'",2 "he said, coolly stroking his face.",2 'I thought you would be.,2 I was pretty sure of it.',3 'Flintwinch!',2 "said the mother, 'look at my son.",2 Look at him!',2 "'Well, I _am_ looking at him,' said Flintwinch.",2 "She stretched out the arm with which she had shielded herself, and as she went on, pointed at the object of her anger.",1 'In the very hour of his return almost--before the shoe upon his foot is dry--he asperses his father's memory to his mother!,2 "Asks his mother to become, with him, a spy upon his father's transactions through a lifetime!",2 "Has misgivings that the goods of this world which we have painfully got together early and late, with wear and tear and toil and self-denial, are so much plunder; and asks to whom they shall be given up, as reparation and restitution!'",0 "Although she said this raging, she said it in a voice so far from being beyond her control that it was even lower than her usual tone.",1 She also spoke with great distinctness.,3 'Reparation!',2 said she.,2 "'Yes, truly!",2 "It is easy for him to talk of reparation, fresh from journeying and junketing in foreign lands, and living a life of vanity and pleasure.",3 "But let him look at me, in prison, and in bonds here.",1 "I endure without murmuring, because it is appointed that I shall so make reparation for my sins.",2 Reparation!,2 Is there none in this room?,2 Has there been none here this fifteen years?',2 "Thus was she always balancing her bargains with the Majesty of heaven, posting up the entries to her credit, strictly keeping her set-off, and claiming her due.",3 "She was only remarkable in this, for the force and emphasis with which she did it.",3 "Thousands upon thousands do it, according to their varying manner, every day.",2 "'Flintwinch, give me that book!'",2 The old man handed it to her from the table.,2 "She put two fingers between the leaves, closed the book upon them, and held it up to her son in a threatening way.",1 "'In the days of old, Arthur, treated of in this commentary, there were pious men, beloved of the Lord, who would have cursed their sons for less than this: who would have sent them forth, and sent whole nations forth, if such had supported them, to be avoided of God and man, and perish, down to the baby at the breast.",2 "But I only tell you that if you ever renew that theme with me, I will renounce you; I will so dismiss you through that doorway, that you had better have been motherless from your cradle.",2 I will never see or know you more.,2 "And if, after all, you were to come into this darkened room to look upon me lying dead, my body should bleed, if I could make it, when you came near me.'",0 "In part relieved by the intensity of this threat, and in part (monstrous as the fact is) by a general impression that it was in some sort a religious proceeding, she handed back the book to the old man, and was silent.",1 "'Now,' said Jeremiah; 'premising that I'm not going to stand between you two, will you let me ask (as I _have_ been called in, and made a third) what is all this about?'",2 "'Take your version of it,' returned Arthur, finding it left to him to speak, 'from my mother.",2 Let it rest there.,2 "What I have said, was said to my mother only.'",2 'Oh!',2 returned the old man.,2 'From your mother?,2 Take it from your mother?,2 Well!,3 But your mother mentioned that you had been suspecting your father.,2 "That's not dutiful, Mr Arthur.",2 Who will you be suspecting next?',2 "'Enough,' said Mrs Clennam, turning her face so that it was addressed for the moment to the old man only.",2 'Let no more be said about this.',2 "'Yes, but stop a bit, stop a bit,' the old man persisted.",2 'Let us see how we stand.,2 Have you told Mr Arthur that he mustn't lay offences at his father's door?,2 That he has no right to do it?,3 That he has no ground to go upon?',2 'I tell him so now.',2 'Ah!,2 "Exactly,' said the old man.",2 'You tell him so now.,2 "You hadn't told him so before, and you tell him so now.",2 "Ay, ay!",2 That's right!,3 "You know I stood between you and his father so long, that it seems as if death had made no difference, and I was still standing between you.",1 "So I will, and so in fairness I require to have that plainly put forward.",3 "Arthur, you please to hear that you have no right to mistrust your father, and have no ground to go upon.'",2 "He put his hands to the back of the wheeled chair, and muttering to himself, slowly wheeled his mistress back to her cabinet.",1 "'Now,' he resumed, standing behind her: 'in case I should go away leaving things half done, and so should be wanted again when you come to the other half and get into one of your flights, has Arthur told you what he means to do about the business?'",2 'He has relinquished it.',2 "'In favour of nobody, I suppose?'",3 "Mrs Clennam glanced at her son, leaning against one of the windows.",2 "He observed the look and said, 'To my mother, of course.",2 She does what she pleases.',3 "'And if any pleasure,' she said after a short pause, 'could arise for me out of the disappointment of my expectations that my son, in the prime of his life, would infuse new youth and strength into it, and make it of great profit and power, it would be in advancing an old and faithful servant.",3 "Jeremiah, the captain deserts the ship, but you and I will sink or float with it.'",1 "Jeremiah, whose eyes glistened as if they saw money, darted a sudden look at the son, which seemed to say, 'I owe _you_ no thanks for this; _you_ have done nothing towards it!'",2 "and then told the mother that he thanked her, and that Affery thanked her, and that he would never desert her, and that Affery would never desert her.",1 "Finally, he hauled up his watch from its depths, and said, 'Eleven.",2 Time for your oysters!',2 "and with that change of subject, which involved no change of expression or manner, rang the bell.",2 "But Mrs Clennam, resolved to treat herself with the greater rigour for having been supposed to be unacquainted with reparation, refused to eat her oysters when they were brought.",1 "They looked tempting; eight in number, circularly set out on a white plate on a tray covered with a white napkin, flanked by a slice of buttered French roll, and a little compact glass of cool wine and water; but she resisted all persuasions, and sent them down again--placing the act to her credit, no doubt, in her Eternal Day-Book.",3 "This refection of oysters was not presided over by Affery, but by the girl who had appeared when the bell was rung; the same who had been in the dimly-lighted room last night.",2 "Now that he had an opportunity of observing her, Arthur found that her diminutive figure, small features, and slight spare dress, gave her the appearance of being much younger than she was.",2 "A woman, probably of not less than two-and-twenty, she might have been passed in the street for little more than half that age.",2 "Not that her face was very youthful, for in truth there was more consideration and care in it than naturally belonged to her utmost years; but she was so little and light, so noiseless and shy, and appeared so conscious of being out of place among the three hard elders, that she had all the manner and much of the appearance of a subdued child.",2 "In a hard way, and in an uncertain way that fluctuated between patronage and putting down, the sprinkling from a watering-pot and hydraulic pressure, Mrs Clennam showed an interest in this dependent.",1 "Even in the moment of her entrance, upon the violent ringing of the bell, when the mother shielded herself with that singular action from the son, Mrs Clennam's eyes had had some individual recognition in them, which seemed reserved for her.",1 "As there are degrees of hardness in the hardest metal, and shades of colour in black itself, so, even in the asperity of Mrs Clennam's demeanour towards all the rest of humanity and towards Little Dorrit, there was a fine gradation.",3 Little Dorrit let herself out to do needlework.,2 "At so much a day--or at so little--from eight to eight, Little Dorrit was to be hired.",2 "Punctual to the moment, Little Dorrit appeared; punctual to the moment, Little Dorrit vanished.",3 What became of Little Dorrit between the two eights was a mystery.,1 Another of the moral phenomena of Little Dorrit.,2 "Besides her consideration money, her daily contract included meals.",2 "She had an extraordinary repugnance to dining in company; would never do so, if it were possible to escape.",2 "Would always plead that she had this bit of work to begin first, or that bit of work to finish first; and would, of a certainty, scheme and plan--not very cunningly, it would seem, for she deceived no one--to dine alone.",3 "Successful in this, happy in carrying off her plate anywhere, to make a table of her lap, or a box, or the ground, or even as was supposed, to stand on tip-toe, dining moderately at a mantel-shelf; the great anxiety of Little Dorrit's day was set at rest.",3 "It was not easy to make out Little Dorrit's face; she was so retiring, plied her needle in such removed corners, and started away so scared if encountered on the stairs.",2 "But it seemed to be a pale transparent face, quick in expression, though not beautiful in feature, its soft hazel eyes excepted.",3 "A delicately bent head, a tiny form, a quick little pair of busy hands, and a shabby dress--it must needs have been very shabby to look at all so, being so neat--were Little Dorrit as she sat at work.",2 "For these particulars or generalities concerning Little Dorrit, Mr Arthur was indebted in the course of the day to his own eyes and to Mrs Affery's tongue.",3 "If Mrs Affery had had any will or way of her own, it would probably have been unfavourable to Little Dorrit.",2 "But as 'them two clever ones'--Mrs Affery's perpetual reference, in whom her personality was swallowed up--were agreed to accept Little Dorrit as a matter of course, she had nothing for it but to follow suit.",3 "Similarly, if the two clever ones had agreed to murder Little Dorrit by candlelight, Mrs Affery, being required to hold the candle, would no doubt have done it.",1 "In the intervals of roasting the partridge for the invalid chamber, and preparing a baking-dish of beef and pudding for the dining-room, Mrs Affery made the communications above set forth; invariably putting her head in at the door again after she had taken it out, to enforce resistance to the two clever ones.",1 "It appeared to have become a perfect passion with Mrs Flintwinch, that the only son should be pitted against them.",3 "In the course of the day, too, Arthur looked through the whole house.",2 Dull and dark he found it.,1 "The gaunt rooms, deserted for years upon years, seemed to have settled down into a gloomy lethargy from which nothing could rouse them again.",1 "The furniture, at once spare and lumbering, hid in the rooms rather than furnished them, and there was no colour in all the house; such colour as had ever been there, had long ago started away on lost sunbeams--got itself absorbed, perhaps, into flowers, butterflies, plumage of birds, precious stones, what not.",2 "There was not one straight floor from the foundation to the roof; the ceilings were so fantastically clouded by smoke and dust, that old women might have told fortunes in them better than in grouts of tea; the dead-cold hearths showed no traces of having ever been warmed but in heaps of soot that had tumbled down the chimneys, and eddied about in little dusky whirlwinds when the doors were opened.",0 "In what had once been a drawing-room, there were a pair of meagre mirrors, with dismal processions of black figures carrying black garlands, walking round the frames; but even these were short of heads and legs, and one undertaker-like Cupid had swung round on its own axis and got upside down, and another had fallen off altogether.",1 "The room Arthur Clennam's deceased father had occupied for business purposes, when he first remembered him, was so unaltered that he might have been imagined still to keep it invisibly, as his visible relict kept her room up-stairs; Jeremiah Flintwinch still going between them negotiating.",2 "His picture, dark and gloomy, earnestly speechless on the wall, with the eyes intently looking at his son as they had looked when life departed from them, seemed to urge him awfully to the task he had attempted; but as to any yielding on the part of his mother, he had now no hope, and as to any other means of setting his distrust at rest, he had abandoned hope a long time.",0 "Down in the cellars, as up in the bed-chambers, old objects that he well remembered were changed by age and decay, but were still in their old places; even to empty beer-casks hoary with cobwebs, and empty wine-bottles with fur and fungus choking up their throats.",2 "There, too, among unusual bottle-racks and pale slants of light from the yard above, was the strong room stored with old ledgers, which had as musty and corrupt a smell as if they were regularly balanced, in the dead small hours, by a nightly resurrection of old book-keepers.",0 "The baking-dish was served up in a penitential manner on a shrunken cloth at an end of the dining-table, at two o'clock, when he dined with Mr Flintwinch, the new partner.",2 "Mr Flintwinch informed him that his mother had recovered her equanimity now, and that he need not fear her again alluding to what had passed in the morning.",1 "'And don't you lay offences at your father's door, Mr Arthur,' added Jeremiah, 'once for all, don't do it!",2 "Now, we have done with the subject.'",2 "Mr Flintwinch had been already rearranging and dusting his own particular little office, as if to do honour to his accession to new dignity.",3 "He resumed this occupation when he was replete with beef, had sucked up all the gravy in the baking-dish with the flat of his knife, and had drawn liberally on a barrel of small beer in the scullery.",1 "Thus refreshed, he tucked up his shirt-sleeves and went to work again; and Mr Arthur, watching him as he set about it, plainly saw that his father's picture, or his father's grave, would be as communicative with him as this old man.",3 "'Now, Affery, woman,' said Mr Flintwinch, as she crossed the hall.",2 'You hadn't made Mr Arthur's bed when I was up there last.,2 Stir yourself.,2 Bustle.',2 "But Mr Arthur found the house so blank and dreary, and was so unwilling to assist at another implacable consignment of his mother's enemies (perhaps himself among them) to mortal disfigurement and immortal ruin, that he announced his intention of lodging at the coffee-house where he had left his luggage.",0 "Mr Flintwinch taking kindly to the idea of getting rid of him, and his mother being indifferent, beyond considerations of saving, to most domestic arrangements that were not bounded by the walls of her own chamber, he easily carried this point without new offence.",1 "Daily business hours were agreed upon, which his mother, Mr Flintwinch, and he, were to devote together to a necessary checking of books and papers; and he left the home he had so lately found, with depressed heart.",1 But Little Dorrit?,2 "The business hours, allowing for intervals of invalid regimen of oysters and partridges, during which Clennam refreshed himself with a walk, were from ten to six for about a fortnight.",2 "Sometimes Little Dorrit was employed at her needle, sometimes not, sometimes appeared as a humble visitor: which must have been her character on the occasion of his arrival.",3 "His original curiosity augmented every day, as he watched for her, saw or did not see her, and speculated about her.",2 "Influenced by his predominant idea, he even fell into a habit of discussing with himself the possibility of her being in some way associated with it.",1 At last he resolved to watch Little Dorrit and know more of her story.,2 "Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors short of the church of Saint George, in the borough of Southwark, on the left-hand side of the way going southward, the Marshalsea Prison.",2 "It had stood there many years before, and it remained there some years afterwards; but it is gone now, and the world is none the worse without it.",1 "It was an oblong pile of barrack building, partitioned into squalid houses standing back to back, so that there were no back rooms; environed by a narrow paved yard, hemmed in by high walls duly spiked at top.",3 "Itself a close and confined prison for debtors, it contained within it a much closer and more confined jail for smugglers.",1 "Offenders against the revenue laws, and defaulters to excise or customs who had incurred fines which they were unable to pay, were supposed to be incarcerated behind an iron-plated door closing up a second prison, consisting of a strong cell or two, and a blind alley some yard and a half wide, which formed the mysterious termination of the very limited skittle-ground in which the Marshalsea debtors bowled down their troubles.",0 "Supposed to be incarcerated there, because the time had rather outgrown the strong cells and the blind alley.",2 "In practice they had come to be considered a little too bad, though in theory they were quite as good as ever; which may be observed to be the case at the present day with other cells that are not at all strong, and with other blind alleys that are stone-blind.",2 "Hence the smugglers habitually consorted with the debtors (who received them with open arms), except at certain constitutional moments when somebody came from some Office, to go through some form of overlooking something which neither he nor anybody else knew anything about.",2 "On these truly British occasions, the smugglers, if any, made a feint of walking into the strong cells and the blind alley, while this somebody pretended to do his something: and made a reality of walking out again as soon as he hadn't done it--neatly epitomising the administration of most of the public affairs in our right little, tight little, island.",3 "There had been taken to the Marshalsea Prison, long before the day when the sun shone on Marseilles and on the opening of this narrative, a debtor with whom this narrative has some concern.",1 "He was, at that time, a very amiable and very helpless middle-aged gentleman, who was going out again directly.",2 "Necessarily, he was going out again directly, because the Marshalsea lock never turned upon a debtor who was not.",2 "He brought in a portmanteau with him, which he doubted its being worth while to unpack; he was so perfectly clear--like all the rest of them, the turnkey on the lock said--that he was going out again directly.",4 "He was a shy, retiring man; well-looking, though in an effeminate style; with a mild voice, curling hair, and irresolute hands--rings upon the fingers in those days--which nervously wandered to his trembling lip a hundred times in the first half-hour of his acquaintance with the jail.",1 His principal anxiety was about his wife.,1 "'Do you think, sir,' he asked the turnkey, 'that she will be very much shocked, if she should come to the gate to-morrow morning?'",1 The turnkey gave it as the result of his experience that some of 'em was and some of 'em wasn't.,2 "In general, more no than yes.",2 "'What like is she, you see?'",3 he philosophically asked: 'that's what it hinges on.',2 'She is very delicate and inexperienced indeed.',2 "'That,' said the turnkey, 'is agen her.'",2 "'She is so little used to go out alone,' said the debtor, 'that I am at a loss to think how she will ever make her way here, if she walks.'",1 "'P'raps,' quoth the turnkey, 'she'll take a ackney coach.'",2 'Perhaps.',2 The irresolute fingers went to the trembling lip.,1 'I hope she will.,2 She may not think of it.',2 "'Or p'raps,' said the turnkey, offering his suggestions from the the top of his well-worn wooden stool, as he might have offered them to a child for whose weakness he felt a compassion, 'p'raps she'll get her brother, or her sister, to come along with her.'",3 'She has no brother or sister.',2 "'Niece, nevy, cousin, serwant, young 'ooman, greengrocer.--Dash it!",2 "One or another on 'em,' said the turnkey, repudiating beforehand the refusal of all his suggestions.",1 'I fear--I hope it is not against the rules--that she will bring the children.',1 'The children?',2 said the turnkey.,2 'And the rules?,2 "Why, lord set you up like a corner pin, we've a reg'lar playground o' children here.",3 Children!,2 Why we swarm with 'em.,2 How many a you got?',2 "'Two,' said the debtor, lifting his irresolute hand to his lip again, and turning into the prison.",1 The turnkey followed him with his eyes.,2 "'And you another,' he observed to himself, 'which makes three on you.",2 "And your wife another, I'll lay a crown.",2 Which makes four on you.,2 "And another coming, I'll lay half-a-crown.",2 Which'll make five on you.,2 "And I'll go another seven and sixpence to name which is the helplessest, the unborn baby or you!'",2 He was right in all his particulars.,3 "She came next day with a little boy of three years old, and a little girl of two, and he stood entirely corroborated.",2 'Got a room now; haven't you?',2 the turnkey asked the debtor after a week or two.,2 "'Yes, I have got a very good room.'",3 'Any little sticks a coming to furnish it?',2 said the turnkey.,2 "'I expect a few necessary articles of furniture to be delivered by the carrier, this afternoon.'",2 'Missis and little 'uns a coming to keep you company?',2 asked the turnkey.,2 "'Why, yes, we think it better that we should not be scattered, even for a few weeks.'",3 "'Even for a few weeks, _of_ course,' replied the turnkey.",2 "And he followed him again with his eyes, and nodded his head seven times when he was gone.",2 "The affairs of this debtor were perplexed by a partnership, of which he knew no more than that he had invested money in it; by legal matters of assignment and settlement, conveyance here and conveyance there, suspicion of unlawful preference of creditors in this direction, and of mysterious spiriting away of property in that; and as nobody on the face of the earth could be more incapable of explaining any single item in the heap of confusion than the debtor himself, nothing comprehensible could be made of his case.",0 "To question him in detail, and endeavour to reconcile his answers; to closet him with accountants and sharp practitioners, learned in the wiles of insolvency and bankruptcy; was only to put the case out at compound interest and incomprehensibility.",3 "The irresolute fingers fluttered more and more ineffectually about the trembling lip on every such occasion, and the sharpest practitioners gave him up as a hopeless job.",1 'Out?',2 "said the turnkey, '_he_'ll never get out, unless his creditors take him by the shoulders and shove him out.'",2 "He had been there five or six months, when he came running to this turnkey one forenoon to tell him, breathless and pale, that his wife was ill.",1 "'As anybody might a known she would be,' said the turnkey.",2 "'We intended,' he returned, 'that she should go to a country lodging only to-morrow.",2 What am I to do!,2 "Oh, good heaven, what am I to do!'",3 "'Don't waste your time in clasping your hands and biting your fingers,' responded the practical turnkey, taking him by the elbow, 'but come along with me.'",1 "The turnkey conducted him--trembling from head to foot, and constantly crying under his breath, What was he to do!",2 while his irresolute fingers bedabbled the tears upon his face--up one of the common staircases in the prison to a door on the garret story.,1 Upon which door the turnkey knocked with the handle of his key.,2 'Come in!',2 cried a voice inside.,2 "The turnkey, opening the door, disclosed in a wretched, ill-smelling little room, two hoarse, puffy, red-faced personages seated at a rickety table, playing at all-fours, smoking pipes, and drinking brandy.",1 "'Doctor,' said the turnkey, 'here's a gentleman's wife in want of you without a minute's loss of time!'",1 "The doctor's friend was in the positive degree of hoarseness, puffiness, red-facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, and brandy; the doctor in the comparative--hoarser, puffier, more red-faced, more all-fourey, tobaccoer, dirtier, and brandier.",2 "The doctor was amazingly shabby, in a torn and darned rough-weather sea-jacket, out at elbows and eminently short of buttons (he had been in his time the experienced surgeon carried by a passenger ship), the dirtiest white trousers conceivable by mortal man, carpet slippers, and no visible linen.",1 'Childbed?',2 said the doctor.,2 'I'm the boy!',2 "With that the doctor took a comb from the chimney-piece and stuck his hair upright--which appeared to be his way of washing himself--produced a professional chest or case, of most abject appearance, from the cupboard where his cup and saucer and coals were, settled his chin in the frowsy wrapper round his neck, and became a ghastly medical scarecrow.",1 "The doctor and the debtor ran down-stairs, leaving the turnkey to return to the lock, and made for the debtor's room.",2 "All the ladies in the prison had got hold of the news, and were in the yard.",1 "Some of them had already taken possession of the two children, and were hospitably carrying them off; others were offering loans of little comforts from their own scanty store; others were sympathising with the greatest volubility.",3 "The gentlemen prisoners, feeling themselves at a disadvantage, had for the most part retired, not to say sneaked, to their rooms; from the open windows of which some of them now complimented the doctor with whistles as he passed below, while others, with several stories between them, interchanged sarcastic references to the prevalent excitement.",1 "It was a hot summer day, and the prison rooms were baking between the high walls.",2 "In the debtor's confined chamber, Mrs Bangham, charwoman and messenger, who was not a prisoner (though she had been once), but was the popular medium of communication with the outer world, had volunteered her services as fly-catcher and general attendant.",1 The walls and ceiling were blackened with flies.,2 "Mrs Bangham, expert in sudden device, with one hand fanned the patient with a cabbage leaf, and with the other set traps of vinegar and sugar in gallipots; at the same time enunciating sentiments of an encouraging and congratulatory nature, adapted to the occasion.",4 "'The flies trouble you, don't they, my dear?'",1 said Mrs Bangham.,2 "'But p'raps they'll take your mind off of it, and do you good.",3 "What between the buryin ground, the grocer's, the waggon-stables, and the paunch trade, the Marshalsea flies gets very large.",2 "P'raps they're sent as a consolation, if we only know'd it.",2 "How are you now, my dear?",2 No better?,3 "No, my dear, it ain't to be expected; you'll be worse before you're better, and you know it, don't you?",2 Yes.,2 That's right!,3 And to think of a sweet little cherub being born inside the lock!,3 "Now ain't it pretty, ain't _that_ something to carry you through it pleasant?",3 "Why, we ain't had such a thing happen here, my dear, not for I couldn't name the time when.",2 And you a crying too?',2 "said Mrs Bangham, to rally the patient more and more.",3 'You!,2 Making yourself so famous!,3 With the flies a falling into the gallipots by fifties!,1 And everything a going on so well!,3 "And here if there ain't,' said Mrs Bangham as the door opened, 'if there ain't your dear gentleman along with Dr Haggage!",2 "And now indeed we _are_ complete, I _think_!'",2 "The doctor was scarcely the kind of apparition to inspire a patient with a sense of absolute completeness, but as he presently delivered the opinion, 'We are as right as we can be, Mrs Bangham, and we shall come out of this like a house afire;' and as he and Mrs Bangham took possession of the poor helpless pair, as everybody else and anybody else had always done, the means at hand were as good on the whole as better would have been.",4 "The special feature in Dr Haggage's treatment of the case, was his determination to keep Mrs Bangham up to the mark.",2 "As thus: 'Mrs Bangham,' said the doctor, before he had been there twenty minutes, 'go outside and fetch a little brandy, or we shall have you giving in.'",2 "'Thank you, sir.",2 "But none on my accounts,' said Mrs Bangham.",2 "'Mrs Bangham,' returned the doctor, 'I am in professional attendance on this lady, and don't choose to allow any discussion on your part.",2 "Go outside and fetch a little brandy, or I foresee that you'll break down.'",1 "'You're to be obeyed, sir,' said Mrs Bangham, rising.",2 "'If you was to put your own lips to it, I think you wouldn't be the worse, for you look but poorly, sir.'",1 "'Mrs Bangham,' returned the doctor, 'I am not your business, thank you, but you are mine.",3 "Never you mind _me_, if you please.",2 "What you have got to do, is, to do as you are told, and to go and get what I bid you.'",2 "Mrs Bangham submitted; and the doctor, having administered her potion, took his own.",2 "He repeated the treatment every hour, being very determined with Mrs Bangham.",2 "Three or four hours passed; the flies fell into the traps by hundreds; and at length one little life, hardly stronger than theirs, appeared among the multitude of lesser deaths.",2 "'A very nice little girl indeed,' said the doctor; 'little, but well-formed.",3 "Halloa, Mrs Bangham!",2 You're looking queer!,1 "You be off, ma'am, this minute, and fetch a little more brandy, or we shall have you in hysterics.'",1 "By this time, the rings had begun to fall from the debtor's irresolute hands, like leaves from a wintry tree.",1 "Not one was left upon them that night, when he put something that chinked into the doctor's greasy palm.",1 "In the meantime Mrs Bangham had been out on an errand to a neighbouring establishment decorated with three golden balls, where she was very well known.",3 "'Thank you,' said the doctor, 'thank you.",2 Your good lady is quite composed.,3 Doing charmingly.',3 "'I am very happy and very thankful to know it,' said the debtor, 'though I little thought once, that--' 'That a child would be born to you in a place like this?'",4 said the doctor.,2 "'Bah, bah, sir, what does it signify?",2 A little more elbow-room is all we want here.,2 "We are quiet here; we don't get badgered here; there's no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors and bring a man's heart into his mouth.",3 "Nobody comes here to ask if a man's at home, and to say he'll stand on the door mat till he is.",2 Nobody writes threatening letters about money to this place.,1 "It's freedom, sir, it's freedom!",3 "I have had to-day's practice at home and abroad, on a march, and aboard ship, and I'll tell you this: I don't know that I have ever pursued it under such quiet circumstances as here this day.",3 "Elsewhere, people are restless, worried, hurried about, anxious respecting one thing, anxious respecting another.",0 "Nothing of the kind here, sir.",2 "We have done all that--we know the worst of it; we have got to the bottom, we can't fall, and what have we found?",1 Peace.,3 That's the word for it.,2 Peace.',3 "With this profession of faith, the doctor, who was an old jail-bird, and was more sodden than usual, and had the additional and unusual stimulus of money in his pocket, returned to his associate and chum in hoarseness, puffiness, red-facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, and brandy.",1 "Now, the debtor was a very different man from the doctor, but he had already begun to travel, by his opposite segment of the circle, to the same point.",2 "Crushed at first by his imprisonment, he had soon found a dull relief in it.",1 "He was under lock and key; but the lock and key that kept him in, kept numbers of his troubles out.",1 "If he had been a man with strength of purpose to face those troubles and fight them, he might have broken the net that held him, or broken his heart; but being what he was, he languidly slipped into this smooth descent, and never more took one step upward.",1 "When he was relieved of the perplexed affairs that nothing would make plain, through having them returned upon his hands by a dozen agents in succession who could make neither beginning, middle, nor end of them or him, he found his miserable place of refuge a quieter refuge than it had been before.",1 "He had unpacked the portmanteau long ago; and his elder children now played regularly about the yard, and everybody knew the baby, and claimed a kind of proprietorship in her.",2 "'Why, I'm getting proud of you,' said his friend the turnkey, one day.",3 'You'll be the oldest inhabitant soon.,2 "The Marshalsea wouldn't be like the Marshalsea now, without you and your family.'",3 The turnkey really was proud of him.,3 "He would mention him in laudatory terms to new-comers, when his back was turned.",2 "'You took notice of him,' he would say, 'that went out of the lodge just now?'",2 New-comer would probably answer Yes.,2 "'Brought up as a gentleman, he was, if ever a man was.",2 Ed'cated at no end of expense.,2 Went into the Marshal's house once to try a new piano for him.,2 "Played it, I understand, like one o'clock--beautiful!",3 As to languages--speaks anything.,2 "We've had a Frenchman here in his time, and it's my opinion he knowed more French than the Frenchman did.",2 "We've had an Italian here in his time, and he shut _him_ up in about half a minute.",2 "You'll find some characters behind other locks, I don't say you won't; but if you want the top sawyer in such respects as I've mentioned, you must come to the Marshalsea.'",3 "When his youngest child was eight years old, his wife, who had long been languishing away--of her own inherent weakness, not that she retained any greater sensitiveness as to her place of abode than he did--went upon a visit to a poor friend and old nurse in the country, and died there.",0 "He remained shut up in his room for a fortnight afterwards; and an attorney's clerk, who was going through the Insolvent Court, engrossed an address of condolence to him, which looked like a Lease, and which all the prisoners signed.",2 "When he appeared again he was greyer (he had soon begun to turn grey); and the turnkey noticed that his hands went often to his trembling lips again, as they had used to do when he first came in.",2 "But he got pretty well over it in a month or two; and in the meantime the children played about the yard as regularly as ever, but in black.",3 "Then Mrs Bangham, long popular medium of communication with the outer world, began to be infirm, and to be found oftener than usual comatose on pavements, with her basket of purchases spilt, and the change of her clients ninepence short.",2 "His son began to supersede Mrs Bangham, and to execute commissions in a knowing manner, and to be of the prison prisonous, of the streets streety.",1 "Time went on, and the turnkey began to fail.",1 "His chest swelled, and his legs got weak, and he was short of breath.",1 "The well-worn wooden stool was 'beyond him,' he complained.",1 "He sat in an arm-chair with a cushion, and sometimes wheezed so, for minutes together, that he couldn't turn the key.",2 "When he was overpowered by these fits, the debtor often turned it for him.",2 "'You and me,' said the turnkey, one snowy winter's night when the lodge, with a bright fire in it, was pretty full of company, 'is the oldest inhabitants.",3 I wasn't here myself above seven year before you.,2 I shan't last long.,2 "When I'm off the lock for good and all, you'll be the Father of the Marshalsea.'",3 The turnkey went off the lock of this world next day.,2 "His words were remembered and repeated; and tradition afterwards handed down from generation to generation--a Marshalsea generation might be calculated as about three months--that the shabby old debtor with the soft manner and the white hair, was the Father of the Marshalsea.",2 And he grew to be proud of the title.,3 "If any impostor had arisen to claim it, he would have shed tears in resentment of the attempt to deprive him of his rights.",1 "A disposition began to be perceived in him to exaggerate the number of years he had been there; it was generally understood that you must deduct a few from his account; he was vain, the fleeting generations of debtors said.",0 All new-comers were presented to him.,2 He was punctilious in the exaction of this ceremony.,2 "The wits would perform the office of introduction with overcharged pomp and politeness, but they could not easily overstep his sense of its gravity.",3 "He received them in his poor room (he disliked an introduction in the mere yard, as informal--a thing that might happen to anybody), with a kind of bowed-down beneficence.",1 "They were welcome to the Marshalsea, he would tell them.",3 "Yes, he was the Father of the place.",2 "So the world was kind enough to call him; and so he was, if more than twenty years of residence gave him a claim to the title.",3 "It looked small at first, but there was very good company there--among a mixture--necessarily a mixture--and very good air.",3 "It became a not unusual circumstance for letters to be put under his door at night, enclosing half-a-crown, two half-crowns, now and then at long intervals even half-a-sovereign, for the Father of the Marshalsea.",1 'With the compliments of a collegian taking leave.',2 "He received the gifts as tributes, from admirers, to a public character.",2 "Sometimes these correspondents assumed facetious names, as the Brick, Bellows, Old Gooseberry, Wideawake, Snooks, Mops, Cutaway, the Dogs-meat Man; but he considered this in bad taste, and was always a little hurt by it.",0 "In the fulness of time, this correspondence showing signs of wearing out, and seeming to require an effort on the part of the correspondents to which in the hurried circumstances of departure many of them might not be equal, he established the custom of attending collegians of a certain standing, to the gate, and taking leave of them there.",2 "The collegian under treatment, after shaking hands, would occasionally stop to wrap up something in a bit of paper, and would come back again calling 'Hi!'",2 He would look round surprised.',2 Me?',2 "he would say, with a smile.",3 "By this time the collegian would be up with him, and he would paternally add, VWhat have you forgotten?",2 What can I do for you?',2 "'I forgot to leave this,' the collegian would usually return, 'for the Father of the Marshalsea.'",2 "'My good sir,' he would rejoin, 'he is infinitely obliged to you.'",3 "But, to the last, the irresolute hand of old would remain in the pocket into which he had slipped the money during two or three turns about the yard, lest the transaction should be too conspicuous to the general body of collegians.",1 "One afternoon he had been doing the honours of the place to a rather large party of collegians, who happened to be going out, when, as he was coming back, he encountered one from the poor side who had been taken in execution for a small sum a week before, had 'settled' in the course of that afternoon, and was going out too.",1 "The man was a mere Plasterer in his working dress; had his wife with him, and a bundle; and was in high spirits.",2 "'God bless you, sir,' he said in passing.",3 "'And you,' benignantly returned the Father of the Marshalsea.",2 "They were pretty far divided, going their several ways, when the Plasterer called out, 'I say!--sir!'",3 and came back to him.,2 "'It ain't much,' said the Plasterer, putting a little pile of halfpence in his hand, 'but it's well meant.'",3 The Father of the Marshalsea had never been offered tribute in copper yet.,2 "His children often had, and with his perfect acquiescence it had gone into the common purse to buy meat that he had eaten, and drink that he had drunk; but fustian splashed with white lime, bestowing halfpence on him, front to front, was new.",2 'How dare you!',2 "he said to the man, and feebly burst into tears.",2 "The Plasterer turned him towards the wall, that his face might not be seen; and the action was so delicate, and the man was so penetrated with repentance, and asked pardon so honestly, that he could make him no less acknowledgment than, 'I know you meant it kindly.",4 Say no more.',2 "'Bless your soul, sir,' urged the Plasterer, 'I did indeed.",2 "I'd do more by you than the rest of 'em do, I fancy.'",3 'What would you do?',2 he asked.,2 "'I'd come back to see you, after I was let out.'",2 "'Give me the money again,' said the other, eagerly, 'and I'll keep it, and never spend it.",3 "Thank you for it, thank you!",3 I shall see you again?',2 'If I live a week you shall.',2 They shook hands and parted.,2 "The collegians, assembled in Symposium in the Snuggery that night, marvelled what had happened to their Father; he walked so late in the shadows of the yard, and seemed so downcast.",2 "The baby whose first draught of air had been tinctured with Doctor Haggage's brandy, was handed down among the generations of collegians, like the tradition of their common parent.",3 "In the earlier stages of her existence, she was handed down in a literal and prosaic sense; it being almost a part of the entrance footing of every new collegian to nurse the child who had been born in the college.",2 "'By rights,' remarked the turnkey when she was first shown to him, 'I ought to be her godfather.'",2 "The debtor irresolutely thought of it for a minute, and said, 'Perhaps you wouldn't object to really being her godfather?'",1 'Oh!,2 "_I_ don't object,' replied the turnkey, 'if you don't.'",1 "Thus it came to pass that she was christened one Sunday afternoon, when the turnkey, being relieved, was off the lock; and that the turnkey went up to the font of Saint George's Church, and promised and vowed and renounced on her behalf, as he himself related when he came back, 'like a good 'un.'",4 "This invested the turnkey with a new proprietary share in the child, over and above his former official one.",1 "When she began to walk and talk, he became fond of her; bought a little arm-chair and stood it by the high fender of the lodge fire-place; liked to have her company when he was on the lock; and used to bribe her with cheap toys to come and talk to him.",3 "The child, for her part, soon grew so fond of the turnkey that she would come climbing up the lodge-steps of her own accord at all hours of the day.",3 "When she fell asleep in the little armchair by the high fender, the turnkey would cover her with his pocket-handkerchief; and when she sat in it dressing and undressing a doll which soon came to be unlike dolls on the other side of the lock, and to bear a horrible family resemblance to Mrs Bangham--he would contemplate her from the top of his stool with exceeding gentleness.",2 "Witnessing these things, the collegians would express an opinion that the turnkey, who was a bachelor, had been cut out by nature for a family man.",2 "But the turnkey thanked them, and said, 'No, on the whole it was enough to see other people's children there.'",3 "At what period of her early life the little creature began to perceive that it was not the habit of all the world to live locked up in narrow yards surrounded by high walls with spikes at the top, would be a difficult question to settle.",2 "But she was a very, very little creature indeed, when she had somehow gained the knowledge that her clasp of her father's hand was to be always loosened at the door which the great key opened; and that while her own light steps were free to pass beyond it, his feet must never cross that line.",4 "A pitiful and plaintive look, with which she had begun to regard him when she was still extremely young, was perhaps a part of this discovery.",2 "With a pitiful and plaintive look for everything, indeed, but with something in it for only him that was like protection, this Child of the Marshalsea and the child of the Father of the Marshalsea, sat by her friend the turnkey in the lodge, kept the family room, or wandered about the prison-yard, for the first eight years of her life.",2 "With a pitiful and plaintive look for her wayward sister; for her idle brother; for the high blank walls; for the faded crowd they shut in; for the games of the prison children as they whooped and ran, and played at hide-and-seek, and made the iron bars of the inner gateway 'Home.'",0 "Wistful and wondering, she would sit in summer weather by the high fender in the lodge, looking up at the sky through the barred window, until, when she turned her eyes away, bars of light would arise between her and her friend, and she would see him through a grating, too.",1 "'Thinking of the fields,' the turnkey said once, after watching her, 'ain't you?'",2 'Where are they?',2 she inquired.,2 "'Why, they're--over there, my dear,' said the turnkey, with a vague flourish of his key.",2 'Just about there.',2 "'Does anybody open them, and shut them?",2 Are they locked?',2 The turnkey was discomfited.,2 "'Well,' he said.",2 'Not in general.',2 "'Are they very pretty, Bob?'",3 "She called him Bob, by his own particular request and instruction.",2 'Lovely.,2 Full of flowers.,2 "There's buttercups, and there's daisies, and there's'--the turnkey hesitated, being short of floral nomenclature--'there's dandelions, and all manner of games.'",2 "'Is it very pleasant to be there, Bob?'",3 "'Prime,' said the turnkey.",2 'Was father ever there?',2 'Hem!',2 coughed the turnkey.,2 "'O yes, he was there, sometimes.'",2 'Is he sorry not to be there now?',1 "'N-not particular,' said the turnkey.",2 'Nor any of the people?',2 "she asked, glancing at the listless crowd within.",1 "'O are you quite sure and certain, Bob?'",2 "At this difficult point of the conversation Bob gave in, and changed the subject to hard-bake: always his last resource when he found his little friend getting him into a political, social, or theological corner.",1 But this was the origin of a series of Sunday excursions that these two curious companions made together.,2 "They used to issue from the lodge on alternate Sunday afternoons with great gravity, bound for some meadows or green lanes that had been elaborately appointed by the turnkey in the course of the week; and there she picked grass and flowers to bring home, while he smoked his pipe.",2 "Afterwards, there were tea-gardens, shrimps, ale, and other delicacies; and then they would come back hand in hand, unless she was more than usually tired, and had fallen asleep on his shoulder.",1 "In those early days, the turnkey first began profoundly to consider a question which cost him so much mental labour, that it remained undetermined on the day of his death.",1 "He decided to will and bequeath his little property of savings to his godchild, and the point arose how could it be so 'tied up' as that only she should have the benefit of it?",3 "His experience on the lock gave him such an acute perception of the enormous difficulty of 'tying up' money with any approach to tightness, and contrariwise of the remarkable ease with which it got loose, that through a series of years he regularly propounded this knotty point to every new insolvent agent and other professional gentleman who passed in and out.",1 "'Supposing,' he would say, stating the case with his key on the professional gentleman's waistcoat; 'supposing a man wanted to leave his property to a young female, and wanted to tie it up so that nobody else should ever be able to make a grab at it; how would you tie up that property?'",2 "'Settle it strictly on herself,' the professional gentleman would complacently answer.",1 "'But look here,' quoth the turnkey.",2 "'Supposing she had, say a brother, say a father, say a husband, who would be likely to make a grab at that property when she came into it--how about that?'",2 "'It would be settled on herself, and they would have no more legal claim on it than you,' would be the professional answer.",2 "'Stop a bit,' said the turnkey.",2 "'Supposing she was tender-hearted, and they came over her.",3 Where's your law for tying it up then?',2 "The deepest character whom the turnkey sounded, was unable to produce his law for tying such a knot as that.",1 "So, the turnkey thought about it all his life, and died intestate after all.",1 "But that was long afterwards, when his god-daughter was past sixteen.",2 "The first half of that space of her life was only just accomplished, when her pitiful and plaintive look saw her father a widower.",2 "From that time the protection that her wondering eyes had expressed towards him, became embodied in action, and the Child of the Marshalsea took upon herself a new relation towards the Father.",3 "At first, such a baby could do little more than sit with him, deserting her livelier place by the high fender, and quietly watching him.",2 "But this made her so far necessary to him that he became accustomed to her, and began to be sensible of missing her when she was not there.",3 "Through this little gate, she passed out of childhood into the care-laden world.",2 "What her pitiful look saw, at that early time, in her father, in her sister, in her brother, in the jail; how much, or how little of the wretched truth it pleased God to make visible to her; lies hidden with many mysteries.",1 "It is enough that she was inspired to be something which was not what the rest were, and to be that something, different and laborious, for the sake of the rest.",3 Inspired?,2 Yes.,2 "Shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life!",4 "With no earthly friend to help her, or so much as to see her, but the one so strangely assorted; with no knowledge even of the common daily tone and habits of the common members of the free community who are not shut up in prisons; born and bred in a social condition, false even with a reference to the falsest condition outside the walls; drinking from infancy of a well whose waters had their own peculiar stain, their own unwholesome and unnatural taste; the Child of the Marshalsea began her womanly life.",0 "No matter through what mistakes and discouragements, what ridicule (not unkindly meant, but deeply felt) of her youth and little figure, what humble consciousness of her own babyhood and want of strength, even in the matter of lifting and carrying; through how much weariness and hopelessness, and how many secret tears; she drudged on, until recognised as useful, even indispensable.",0 That time came.,2 "She took the place of eldest of the three, in all things but precedence; was the head of the fallen family; and bore, in her own heart, its anxieties and shames.",0 "At thirteen, she could read and keep accounts, that is, could put down in words and figures how much the bare necessaries that they wanted would cost, and how much less they had to buy them with.",2 "She had been, by snatches of a few weeks at a time, to an evening school outside, and got her sister and brother sent to day-schools by desultory starts, during three or four years.",1 "There was no instruction for any of them at home; but she knew well--no one better--that a man so broken as to be the Father of the Marshalsea, could be no father to his own children.",3 "To these scanty means of improvement, she added another of her own contriving.",3 "Once, among the heterogeneous crowd of inmates there appeared a dancing-master.",3 "Her sister had a great desire to learn the dancing-master's art, and seemed to have a taste that way.",3 "At thirteen years old, the Child of the Marshalsea presented herself to the dancing-master, with a little bag in her hand, and preferred her humble petition.",3 "'If you please, I was born here, sir.'",2 'Oh!,2 "You are the young lady, are you?'",2 "said the dancing-master, surveying the small figure and uplifted face.",3 "'Yes, sir.'",2 'And what can I do for you?',2 said the dancing-master.,3 "'Nothing for me, sir, thank you,' anxiously undrawing the strings of the little bag; 'but if, while you stay here, you could be so kind as to teach my sister cheap--' 'My child, I'll teach her for nothing,' said the dancing-master, shutting up the bag.",2 "He was as good-natured a dancing-master as ever danced to the Insolvent Court, and he kept his word.",3 "The sister was so apt a pupil, and the dancing-master had such abundant leisure to bestow upon her (for it took him a matter of ten weeks to set to his creditors, lead off, turn the Commissioners, and right and left back to his professional pursuits), that wonderful progress was made.",4 "Indeed the dancing-master was so proud of it, and so wishful to display it before he left to a few select friends among the collegians, that at six o'clock on a certain fine morning, a minuet de la cour came off in the yard--the college-rooms being of too confined proportions for the purpose--in which so much ground was covered, and the steps were so conscientiously executed, that the dancing-master, having to play the kit besides, was thoroughly blown.",3 "The success of this beginning, which led to the dancing-master's continuing his instruction after his release, emboldened the poor child to try again.",3 She watched and waited months for a seamstress.,2 "In the fulness of time a milliner came in, and to her she repaired on her own behalf.",2 "'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' she said, looking timidly round the door of the milliner, whom she found in tears and in bed: 'but I was born here.'",1 "Everybody seemed to hear of her as soon as they arrived; for the milliner sat up in bed, drying her eyes, and said, just as the dancing-master had said: 'Oh!",3 "_You_ are the child, are you?'",2 "'Yes, ma'am.'",2 "'I am sorry I haven't got anything for you,' said the milliner, shaking her head.",1 "'It's not that, ma'am.",2 If you please I want to learn needle-work.',3 "'Why should you do that,' returned the milliner, 'with me before you?",2 It has not done me much good.',3 "'Nothing--whatever it is--seems to have done anybody much good who comes here,' she returned in all simplicity; 'but I want to learn just the same.'",3 "'I am afraid you are so weak, you see,' the milliner objected.",1 "'I don't think I am weak, ma'am.'",1 "'And you are so very, very little, you see,' the milliner objected.",2 "'Yes, I am afraid I am very little indeed,' returned the Child of the Marshalsea; and so began to sob over that unfortunate defect of hers, which came so often in her way.",0 "The milliner--who was not morose or hard-hearted, only newly insolvent--was touched, took her in hand with goodwill, found her the most patient and earnest of pupils, and made her a cunning work-woman in course of time.",3 "In course of time, and in the very self-same course of time, the Father of the Marshalsea gradually developed a new flower of character.",2 "The more Fatherly he grew as to the Marshalsea, and the more dependent he became on the contributions of his changing family, the greater stand he made by his forlorn gentility.",1 "With the same hand that he pocketed a collegian's half-crown half an hour ago, he would wipe away the tears that streamed over his cheeks if any reference were made to his daughters' earning their bread.",2 "So, over and above other daily cares, the Child of the Marshalsea had always upon her the care of preserving the genteel fiction that they were all idle beggars together.",1 The sister became a dancer.,2 "There was a ruined uncle in the family group--ruined by his brother, the Father of the Marshalsea, and knowing no more how than his ruiner did, but accepting the fact as an inevitable certainty--on whom her protection devolved.",1 "Naturally a retired and simple man, he had shown no particular sense of being ruined at the time when that calamity fell upon him, further than that he left off washing himself when the shock was announced, and never took to that luxury any more.",0 "He had been a very indifferent musical amateur in his better days; and when he fell with his brother, resorted for support to playing a clarionet as dirty as himself in a small Theatre Orchestra.",1 "It was the theatre in which his niece became a dancer; he had been a fixture there a long time when she took her poor station in it; and he accepted the task of serving as her escort and guardian, just as he would have accepted an illness, a legacy, a feast, starvation--anything but soap.",0 "To enable this girl to earn her few weekly shillings, it was necessary for the Child of the Marshalsea to go through an elaborate form with the Father.",2 "'Fanny is not going to live with us just now, father.",2 "She will be here a good deal in the day, but she is going to live outside with uncle.'",3 'You surprise me.,2 Why?',2 "'I think uncle wants a companion, father.",2 "He should be attended to, and looked after.'",2 'A companion?,2 He passes much of his time here.,2 "And you attend to him and look after him, Amy, a great deal more than ever your sister will.",3 You all go out so much; you all go out so much.',2 This was to keep up the ceremony and pretence of his having no idea that Amy herself went out by the day to work.,2 "'But we are always glad to come home, father; now, are we not?",3 "And as to Fanny, perhaps besides keeping uncle company and taking care of him, it may be as well for her not quite to live here, always.",3 "She was not born here as I was, you know, father.'",2 "'Well, Amy, well.",3 "I don't quite follow you, but it's natural I suppose that Fanny should prefer to be outside, and even that you often should, too.",3 "So, you and Fanny and your uncle, my dear, shall have your own way.",2 "Good, good.",3 I'll not meddle; don't mind me.',1 "To get her brother out of the prison; out of the succession to Mrs Bangham in executing commissions, and out of the slang interchange with very doubtful companions consequent upon both; was her hardest task.",1 "At eighteen he would have dragged on from hand to mouth, from hour to hour, from penny to penny, until eighty.",1 "Nobody got into the prison from whom he derived anything useful or good, and she could find no patron for him but her old friend and godfather.",3 "'Dear Bob,' said she, 'what is to become of poor Tip?'",1 "His name was Edward, and Ted had been transformed into Tip, within the walls.",2 "The turnkey had strong private opinions as to what would become of poor Tip, and had even gone so far with the view of averting their fulfilment, as to sound Tip in reference to the expediency of running away and going to serve his country.",2 "But Tip had thanked him, and said he didn't seem to care for his country.",2 "'Well, my dear,' said the turnkey, 'something ought to be done with him.",2 Suppose I try and get him into the law?',2 "'That would be so good of you, Bob!'",3 The turnkey had now two points to put to the professional gentlemen as they passed in and out.,2 "He put this second one so perseveringly that a stool and twelve shillings a week were at last found for Tip in the office of an attorney in a great National Palladium called the Palace Court; at that time one of a considerable list of everlasting bulwarks to the dignity and safety of Albion, whose places know them no more.",4 "Tip languished in Clifford's Inns for six months, and at the expiration of that term sauntered back one evening with his hands in his pockets, and incidentally observed to his sister that he was not going back again.",2 'Not going back again?',2 "said the poor little anxious Child of the Marshalsea, always calculating and planning for Tip, in the front rank of her charges.",1 "'I am so tired of it,' said Tip, 'that I have cut it.'",1 Tip tired of everything.,1 "With intervals of Marshalsea lounging, and Mrs Bangham succession, his small second mother, aided by her trusty friend, got him into a warehouse, into a market garden, into the hop trade, into the law again, into an auctioneers, into a brewery, into a stockbroker's, into the law again, into a coach office, into a waggon office, into the law again, into a general dealer's, into a distillery, into the law again, into a wool house, into a dry goods house, into the Billingsgate trade, into the foreign fruit trade, and into the docks.",3 "But whatever Tip went into, he came out of tired, announcing that he had cut it.",1 "Wherever he went, this foredoomed Tip appeared to take the prison walls with him, and to set them up in such trade or calling; and to prowl about within their narrow limits in the old slip-shod, purposeless, down-at-heel way; until the real immovable Marshalsea walls asserted their fascination over him, and brought him back.",1 "Nevertheless, the brave little creature did so fix her heart on her brother's rescue, that while he was ringing out these doleful changes, she pinched and scraped enough together to ship him for Canada.",3 "When he was tired of nothing to do, and disposed in its turn to cut even that, he graciously consented to go to Canada.",2 "And there was grief in her bosom over parting with him, and joy in the hope of his being put in a straight course at last.",2 "'God bless you, dear Tip.",3 "Don't be too proud to come and see us, when you have made your fortune.'",3 'All right!',3 "said Tip, and went.",2 "But not all the way to Canada; in fact, not further than Liverpool.",2 "After making the voyage to that port from London, he found himself so strongly impelled to cut the vessel, that he resolved to walk back again.",2 "Carrying out which intention, he presented himself before her at the expiration of a month, in rags, without shoes, and much more tired than ever.",1 "At length, after another interval of successorship to Mrs Bangham, he found a pursuit for himself, and announced it.",2 "'Amy, I have got a situation.'",2 "'Have you really and truly, Tip?'",2 'All right.,3 I shall do now.,2 "You needn't look anxious about me any more, old girl.'",1 "'What is it, Tip?'",2 "'Why, you know Slingo by sight?'",2 'Not the man they call the dealer?',2 'That's the chap.,2 "He'll be out on Monday, and he's going to give me a berth.'",2 "'What is he a dealer in, Tip?'",2 'Horses.,2 All right!,3 "I shall do now, Amy.'",2 "She lost sight of him for months afterwards, and only heard from him once.",1 "A whisper passed among the elder collegians that he had been seen at a mock auction in Moorfields, pretending to buy plated articles for massive silver, and paying for them with the greatest liberality in bank notes; but it never reached her ears.",2 "One evening she was alone at work--standing up at the window, to save the twilight lingering above the wall--when he opened the door and walked in.",3 She kissed and welcomed him; but was afraid to ask him any questions.,1 "He saw how anxious and timid she was, and appeared sorry.",0 "'I am afraid, Amy, you'll be vexed this time.",1 Upon my life I am!',2 "'I am very sorry to hear you say so, Tip.",1 Have you come back?',2 'Why--yes.',2 "'Not expecting this time that what you had found would answer very well, I am less surprised and sorry than I might have been, Tip.'",2 'Ah!,2 But that's not the worst of it.',1 'Not the worst of it?',1 'Don't look so startled.,2 "No, Amy, not the worst of it.",1 "I have come back, you see; but--_don't_ look so startled--I have come back in what I may call a new way.",2 I am off the volunteer list altogether.,2 "I am in now, as one of the regulars.'",2 'Oh!,2 "Don't say you are a prisoner, Tip!",1 "Don't, don't!'",2 "'Well, I don't want to say it,' he returned in a reluctant tone; 'but if you can't understand me without my saying it, what am I to do?",1 I am in for forty pound odd.',1 "For the first time in all those years, she sunk under her cares.",1 "She cried, with her clasped hands lifted above her head, that it would kill their father if he ever knew it; and fell down at Tip's graceless feet.",0 It was easier for Tip to bring her to her senses than for her to bring _him_ to understand that the Father of the Marshalsea would be beside himself if he knew the truth.,3 "The thing was incomprehensible to Tip, and altogether a fanciful notion.",1 "He yielded to it in that light only, when he submitted to her entreaties, backed by those of his uncle and sister.",2 "There was no want of precedent for his return; it was accounted for to the father in the usual way; and the collegians, with a better comprehension of the pious fraud than Tip, supported it loyally.",3 "This was the life, and this the history, of the child of the Marshalsea at twenty-two.",2 "With a still surviving attachment to the one miserable yard and block of houses as her birthplace and home, she passed to and fro in it shrinkingly now, with a womanly consciousness that she was pointed out to every one.",1 "Since she had begun to work beyond the walls, she had found it necessary to conceal where she lived, and to come and go as secretly as she could, between the free city and the iron gates, outside of which she had never slept in her life.",3 "Her original timidity had grown with this concealment, and her light step and her little figure shunned the thronged streets while they passed along them.",1 "Worldly wise in hard and poor necessities, she was innocent in all things else.",1 "Innocent, in the mist through which she saw her father, and the prison, and the turbid living river that flowed through it and flowed on.",1 "This was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit; now going home upon a dull September evening, observed at a distance by Arthur Clennam.",1 "This was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit; turning at the end of London Bridge, recrossing it, going back again, passing on to Saint George's Church, turning back suddenly once more, and flitting in at the open outer gate and little court-yard of the Marshalsea.",3 "Arthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer-by what place that was.",2 "He suffered a few people to pass him in whose face there was no encouragement to make the inquiry, and still stood pausing in the street, when an old man came up and turned into the courtyard.",2 "He stooped a good deal, and plodded along in a slow pre-occupied manner, which made the bustling London thoroughfares no very safe resort for him.",3 "He was dirtily and meanly dressed, in a threadbare coat, once blue, reaching to his ankles and buttoned to his chin, where it vanished in the pale ghost of a velvet collar.",1 "A piece of red cloth with which that phantom had been stiffened in its lifetime was now laid bare, and poked itself up, at the back of the old man's neck, into a confusion of grey hair and rusty stock and buckle which altogether nearly poked his hat off.",0 "A greasy hat it was, and a napless; impending over his eyes, cracked and crumpled at the brim, and with a wisp of pocket-handkerchief dangling out below it.",0 "His trousers were so long and loose, and his shoes so clumsy and large, that he shuffled like an elephant; though how much of this was gait, and how much trailing cloth and leather, no one could have told.",1 "Under one arm he carried a limp and worn-out case, containing some wind instrument; in the same hand he had a pennyworth of snuff in a little packet of whitey-brown paper, from which he slowly comforted his poor blue old nose with a lengthened-out pinch, as Arthur Clennam looked at him.",0 "To this old man crossing the court-yard, he preferred his inquiry, touching him on the shoulder.",2 "The old man stopped and looked round, with the expression in his weak grey eyes of one whose thoughts had been far off, and who was a little dull of hearing also.",1 "'Pray, sir,' said Arthur, repeating his question, 'what is this place?'",2 'Ay!,2 This place?',2 "returned the old man, staying his pinch of snuff on its road, and pointing at the place without looking at it.",1 "'This is the Marshalsea, sir.'",2 'The debtors' prison?',1 "'Sir,' said the old man, with the air of deeming it not quite necessary to insist upon that designation, 'the debtors' prison.'",1 "He turned himself about, and went on.",2 "'I beg your pardon,' said Arthur, stopping him once more, 'but will you allow me to ask you another question?",2 Can any one go in here?',2 "'Any one can _go in_,' replied the old man; plainly adding by the significance of his emphasis, 'but it is not every one who can go out.'",2 'Pardon me once more.,2 Are you familiar with the place?',2 "'Sir,' returned the old man, squeezing his little packet of snuff in his hand, and turning upon his interrogator as if such questions hurt him.",1 'I am.',2 'I beg you to excuse me.,1 "I am not impertinently curious, but have a good object.",2 Do you know the name of Dorrit here?',2 "'My name, sir,' replied the old man most unexpectedly, 'is Dorrit.'",1 Arthur pulled off his hat to him.,2 'Grant me the favour of half-a-dozen words.,3 "I was wholly unprepared for your announcement, and hope that assurance is my sufficient apology for having taken the liberty of addressing you.",3 I have recently come home to England after a long absence.,1 "I have seen at my mother's--Mrs Clennam in the city--a young woman working at her needle, whom I have only heard addressed or spoken of as Little Dorrit.",2 "I have felt sincerely interested in her, and have had a great desire to know something more about her.",3 "I saw her, not a minute before you came up, pass in at that door.'",2 The old man looked at him attentively.,2 "'Are you a sailor, sir?'",2 he asked.,2 He seemed a little disappointed by the shake of the head that replied to him.,1 'Not a sailor?,2 I judged from your sunburnt face that you might be.,2 "Are you in earnest, sir?'",3 "'I do assure you that I am, and do entreat you to believe that I am, in plain earnest.'",3 "'I know very little of the world, sir,' returned the other, who had a weak and quavering voice.",1 "'I am merely passing on, like the shadow over the sun-dial.",3 "It would be worth no man's while to mislead me; it would really be too easy--too poor a success, to yield any satisfaction.",3 The young woman whom you saw go in here is my brother's child.,2 My brother is William Dorrit; I am Frederick.,2 "You say you have seen her at your mother's (I know your mother befriends her), you have felt an interest in her, and you wish to know what she does here.",2 Come and see.',2 "He went on again, and Arthur accompanied him.",2 "'My brother,' said the old man, pausing on the step and slowly facing round again, 'has been here many years; and much that happens even among ourselves, out of doors, is kept from him for reasons that I needn't enter upon now.",1 Be so good as to say nothing of my niece's working at her needle.,3 Be so good as to say nothing that goes beyond what is said among us.,3 "If you keep within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong.",2 Now!,2 Come and see.',2 "Arthur followed him down a narrow entry, at the end of which a key was turned, and a strong door was opened from within.",3 "It admitted them into a lodge or lobby, across which they passed, and so through another door and a grating into the prison.",1 "The old man always plodding on before, turned round, in his slow, stiff, stooping manner, when they came to the turnkey on duty, as if to present his companion.",1 The turnkey nodded; and the companion passed in without being asked whom he wanted.,2 "The night was dark; and the prison lamps in the yard, and the candles in the prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old curtain and blind, had not the air of making it lighter.",1 "A few people loitered about, but the greater part of the population was within doors.",2 "The old man, taking the right-hand side of the yard, turned in at the third or fourth doorway, and began to ascend the stairs.",3 "'They are rather dark, sir, but you will not find anything in the way.'",1 He paused for a moment before opening a door on the second story.,2 "He had no sooner turned the handle than the visitor saw Little Dorrit, and saw the reason of her setting so much store by dining alone.",2 "She had brought the meat home that she should have eaten herself, and was already warming it on a gridiron over the fire for her father, clad in an old grey gown and a black cap, awaiting his supper at the table.",2 "A clean cloth was spread before him, with knife, fork, and spoon, salt-cellar, pepper-box, glass, and pewter ale-pot.",2 "Such zests as his particular little phial of cayenne pepper and his pennyworth of pickles in a saucer, were not wanting.",2 "She started, coloured deeply, and turned white.",2 "The visitor, more with his eyes than by the slight impulsive motion of his hand, entreated her to be reassured and to trust him.",2 "'I found this gentleman,' said the uncle--'Mr Clennam, William, son of Amy's friend--at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going by, of paying his respects, but hesitating whether to come in or not.",2 "This is my brother William, sir.'",2 "'I hope,' said Arthur, very doubtful what to say, 'that my respect for your daughter may explain and justify my desire to be presented to you, sir.'",2 "'Mr Clennam,' returned the other, rising, taking his cap off in the flat of his hand, and so holding it, ready to put on again, 'you do me honour.",3 "You are welcome, sir;' with a low bow.",3 "'Frederick, a chair.",2 "Pray sit down, Mr Clennam.'",2 "He put his black cap on again as he had taken it off, and resumed his own seat.",2 There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his manner.,3 These were the ceremonies with which he received the collegians.,2 "'You are welcome to the Marshalsea, sir.",3 I have welcomed many gentlemen to these walls.,2 Perhaps you are aware--my daughter Amy may have mentioned that I am the Father of this place.',2 "'I--so I have understood,' said Arthur, dashing at the assertion.",3 "'You know, I dare say, that my daughter Amy was born here.",2 "A good girl, sir, a dear girl, and long a comfort and support to me.",4 "Amy, my dear, put this dish on; Mr Clennam will excuse the primitive customs to which we are reduced here.",1 "Is it a compliment to ask you if you would do me the honour, sir, to--' 'Thank you,' returned Arthur.",3 'Not a morsel.',2 "He felt himself quite lost in wonder at the manner of the man, and that the probability of his daughter's having had a reserve as to her family history, should be so far out of his mind.",2 "She filled his glass, put all the little matters on the table ready to his hand, and then sat beside him while he ate his supper.",3 "Evidently in observance of their nightly custom, she put some bread before herself, and touched his glass with her lips; but Arthur saw she was troubled and took nothing.",1 "Her look at her father, half admiring him and proud of him, half ashamed for him, all devoted and loving, went to his inmost heart.",3 "The Father of the Marshalsea condescended towards his brother as an amiable, well-meaning man; a private character, who had not arrived at distinction.",4 "'Frederick,' said he, 'you and Fanny sup at your lodgings to-night, I know.",2 "What have you done with Fanny, Frederick?'",2 'She is walking with Tip.',2 "'Tip--as you may know--is my son, Mr Clennam.",2 "He has been a little wild, and difficult to settle, but his introduction to the world was rather'--he shrugged his shoulders with a faint sigh, and looked round the room--'a little adverse.",0 "Your first visit here, sir?'",2 'My first.',2 'You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my knowledge.,2 It very seldom happens that anybody--of any pretensions--any pretensions--comes here without being presented to me.',2 "'As many as forty or fifty in a day have been introduced to my brother,' said Frederick, faintly lighting up with a ray of pride.",3 'Yes!',2 the Father of the Marshalsea assented.,2 'We have even exceeded that number.,3 "On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a Levee--quite a Levee.",3 "Amy, my dear, I have been trying half the day to remember the name of the gentleman from Camberwell who was introduced to me last Christmas week by that agreeable coal-merchant who was remanded for six months.'",3 "'I don't remember his name, father.'",2 "'Frederick, do _you_ remember his name?'",2 Frederick doubted if he had ever heard it.,2 "No one could doubt that Frederick was the last person upon earth to put such a question to, with any hope of information.",1 "'I mean,' said his brother, 'the gentleman who did that handsome action with so much delicacy.",3 Ha!,2 Tush!,2 The name has quite escaped me.,2 "Mr Clennam, as I have happened to mention handsome and delicate action, you may like, perhaps, to know what it was.'",4 "'Very much,' said Arthur, withdrawing his eyes from the delicate head beginning to droop and the pale face with a new solicitude stealing over it.",0 "'It is so generous, and shows so much fine feeling, that it is almost a duty to mention it.",3 "I said at the time that I always would mention it on every suitable occasion, without regard to personal sensitiveness.",3 "A--well--a--it's of no use to disguise the fact--you must know, Mr Clennam, that it does sometimes occur that people who come here desire to offer some little--Testimonial--to the Father of the place.'",3 "To see her hand upon his arm in mute entreaty half-repressed, and her timid little shrinking figure turning away, was to see a sad, sad sight.",1 "'Sometimes,' he went on in a low, soft voice, agitated, and clearing his throat every now and then; 'sometimes--hem--it takes one shape and sometimes another; but it is generally--ha--Money.",3 "And it is, I cannot but confess it, it is too often--hem--acceptable.",1 "This gentleman that I refer to, was presented to me, Mr Clennam, in a manner highly gratifying to my feelings, and conversed not only with great politeness, but with great--ahem--information.'",4 "All this time, though he had finished his supper, he was nervously going about his plate with his knife and fork, as if some of it were still before him.",1 "'It appeared from his conversation that he had a garden, though he was delicate of mentioning it at first, as gardens are--hem--are not accessible to me.",3 "But it came out, through my admiring a very fine cluster of geranium--beautiful cluster of geranium to be sure--which he had brought from his conservatory.",4 "On my taking notice of its rich colour, he showed me a piece of paper round it, on which was written, ""For the Father of the Marshalsea,"" and presented it to me.",3 But this was--hem--not all.,2 "He made a particular request, on taking leave, that I would remove the paper in half an hour.",2 I--ha--I did so; and I found that it contained--ahem--two guineas.,2 "I assure you, Mr Clennam, I have received--hem--Testimonials in many ways, and of many degrees of value, and they have always been--ha--unfortunately acceptable; but I never was more pleased than with this--ahem--this particular Testimonial.'",3 "Arthur was in the act of saying the little he could say on such a theme, when a bell began to ring, and footsteps approached the door.",2 "A pretty girl of a far better figure and much more developed than Little Dorrit, though looking much younger in the face when the two were observed together, stopped in the doorway on seeing a stranger; and a young man who was with her, stopped too.",3 "'Mr Clennam, Fanny.",2 "My eldest daughter and my son, Mr Clennam.",2 "The bell is a signal for visitors to retire, and so they have come to say good night; but there is plenty of time, plenty of time.",3 "Girls, Mr Clennam will excuse any household business you may have together.",1 "He knows, I dare say, that I have but one room here.'",2 "'I only want my clean dress from Amy, father,' said the second girl.",3 "'And I my clothes,' said Tip.",2 "Amy opened a drawer in an old piece of furniture that was a chest of drawers above and a bedstead below, and produced two little bundles, which she handed to her brother and sister.",2 'Mended and made up?',2 Clennam heard the sister ask in a whisper.,2 To which Amy answered 'Yes.',2 "He had risen now, and took the opportunity of glancing round the room.",2 "The bare walls had been coloured green, evidently by an unskilled hand, and were poorly decorated with a few prints.",1 "The window was curtained, and the floor carpeted; and there were shelves and pegs, and other such conveniences, that had accumulated in the course of years.",2 "It was a close, confined room, poorly furnished; and the chimney smoked to boot, or the tin screen at the top of the fireplace was superfluous; but constant pains and care had made it neat, and even, after its kind, comfortable.",1 "All the while the bell was ringing, and the uncle was anxious to go.",1 "'Come, Fanny, come, Fanny,' he said, with his ragged clarionet case under his arm; 'the lock, child, the lock!'",1 "Fanny bade her father good night, and whisked off airily.",3 Tip had already clattered down-stairs.,2 "'Now, Mr Clennam,' said the uncle, looking back as he shuffled out after them, 'the lock, sir, the lock.'",2 "Mr Clennam had two things to do before he followed; one, to offer his testimonial to the Father of the Marshalsea, without giving pain to his child; the other to say something to that child, though it were but a word, in explanation of his having come there.",1 "'Allow me,' said the Father, 'to see you down-stairs.'",2 "She had slipped out after the rest, and they were alone.",2 "'Not on any account,' said the visitor, hurriedly.",2 "'Pray allow me to--' chink, chink, chink.",2 "'Mr Clennam,' said the Father, 'I am deeply, deeply--' But his visitor had shut up his hand to stop the clinking, and had gone down-stairs with great speed.",3 "He saw no Little Dorrit on his way down, or in the yard.",2 "The last two or three stragglers were hurrying to the lodge, and he was following, when he caught sight of her in the doorway of the first house from the entrance.",2 He turned back hastily.,1 "'Pray forgive me,' he said, 'for speaking to you here; pray forgive me for coming here at all!",2 I followed you to-night.,2 "I did so, that I might endeavour to render you and your family some service.",2 "You know the terms on which I and my mother are, and may not be surprised that I have preserved our distant relations at her house, lest I should unintentionally make her jealous, or resentful, or do you any injury in her estimation.",0 "What I have seen here, in this short time, has greatly increased my heartfelt wish to be a friend to you.",3 It would recompense me for much disappointment if I could hope to gain your confidence.',3 "She was scared at first, but seemed to take courage while he spoke to her.",2 "'You are very good, sir.",3 You speak very earnestly to me.,3 But I--but I wish you had not watched me.',2 "He understood the emotion with which she said it, to arise in her father's behalf; and he respected it, and was silent.",3 "'Mrs Clennam has been of great service to me; I don't know what we should have done without the employment she has given me; I am afraid it may not be a good return to become secret with her; I can say no more to-night, sir.",3 I am sure you mean to be kind to us.,2 "Thank you, thank you.'",3 'Let me ask you one question before I leave.,2 Have you known my mother long?',2 "'I think two years, sir,--The bell has stopped.'",2 'How did you know her first?,2 Did she send here for you?',2 'No.,2 She does not even know that I live here.,2 "We have a friend, father and I--a poor labouring man, but the best of friends--and I wrote out that I wished to do needlework, and gave his address.",2 "And he got what I wrote out displayed at a few places where it cost nothing, and Mrs Clennam found me that way, and sent for me.",2 "The gate will be locked, sir!'",2 "She was so tremulous and agitated, and he was so moved by compassion for her, and by deep interest in her story as it dawned upon him, that he could scarcely tear himself away.",2 "But the stoppage of the bell, and the quiet in the prison, were a warning to depart; and with a few hurried words of kindness he left her gliding back to her father.",2 But he remained too late.,2 "The inner gate was locked, and the lodge closed.",2 "After a little fruitless knocking with his hand, he was standing there with the disagreeable conviction upon him that he had got to get through the night, when a voice accosted him from behind.",1 "'Caught, eh?'",2 said the voice.,2 'You won't go home till morning.,2 Oh!,2 "It's you, is it, Mr Clennam?'",2 "The voice was Tip's; and they stood looking at one another in the prison-yard, as it began to rain.",1 "'You've done it,' observed Tip; 'you must be sharper than that next time.'",3 "'But you are locked in too,' said Arthur.",2 'I believe I am!',2 "said Tip, sarcastically.",1 'About!,2 But not in your way.,2 "I belong to the shop, only my sister has a theory that our governor must never know it.",2 "I don't see why, myself.'",2 'Can I get any shelter?',2 asked Arthur.,2 'What had I better do?',3 "'We had better get hold of Amy first of all,' said Tip, referring any difficulty to her as a matter of course.",2 'I would rather walk about all night--it's not much to do--than give that trouble.',1 "'You needn't do that, if you don't mind paying for a bed.",2 "If you don't mind paying, they'll make you up one on the Snuggery table, under the circumstances.",2 "If you'll come along, I'll introduce you there.'",2 "As they passed down the yard, Arthur looked up at the window of the room he had lately left, where the light was still burning.",1 "'Yes, sir,' said Tip, following his glance.",2 'That's the governor's.,2 "She'll sit with him for another hour reading yesterday's paper to him, or something of that sort; and then she'll come out like a little ghost, and vanish away without a sound.'",3 'I don't understand you.',2 "'The governor sleeps up in the room, and she has a lodging at the turnkey's.",2 "First house there,' said Tip, pointing out the doorway into which she had retired.",2 "'First house, sky parlour.",2 She pays twice as much for it as she would for one twice as good outside.,3 "But she stands by the governor, poor dear girl, day and night.'",1 "This brought them to the tavern-establishment at the upper end of the prison, where the collegians had just vacated their social evening club.",1 "The apartment on the ground-floor in which it was held, was the Snuggery in question; the presidential tribune of the chairman, the pewter-pots, glasses, pipes, tobacco-ashes, and general flavour of members, were still as that convivial institution had left them on its adjournment.",2 "The Snuggery had two of the qualities popularly held to be essential to grog for ladies, in respect that it was hot and strong; but in the third point of analogy, requiring plenty of it, the Snuggery was defective; being but a cooped-up apartment.",3 "The unaccustomed visitor from outside, naturally assumed everybody here to be prisoners--landlord, waiter, barmaid, potboy, and all.",1 "Whether they were or not, did not appear; but they all had a weedy look.",2 "The keeper of a chandler's shop in a front parlour, who took in gentlemen boarders, lent his assistance in making the bed.",2 "He had been a tailor in his time, and had kept a phaeton, he said.",2 "He boasted that he stood up litigiously for the interests of the college; and he had undefined and undefinable ideas that the marshal intercepted a 'Fund,' which ought to come to the collegians.",2 "He liked to believe this, and always impressed the shadowy grievance on new-comers and strangers; though he could not, for his life, have explained what Fund he meant, or how the notion had got rooted in his soul.",2 "He had fully convinced himself, notwithstanding, that his own proper share of the Fund was three and ninepence a week; and that in this amount he, as an individual collegian, was swindled by the marshal, regularly every Monday.",3 "Apparently, he helped to make the bed, that he might not lose an opportunity of stating this case; after which unloading of his mind, and after announcing (as it seemed he always did, without anything coming of it) that he was going to write a letter to the papers and show the marshal up, he fell into miscellaneous conversation with the rest.",1 "It was evident from the general tone of the whole party, that they had come to regard insolvency as the normal state of mankind, and the payment of debts as a disease that occasionally broke out.",1 "In this strange scene, and with these strange spectres flitting about him, Arthur Clennam looked on at the preparations as if they were part of a dream.",1 "Pending which, the long-initiated Tip, with an awful enjoyment of the Snuggery's resources, pointed out the common kitchen fire maintained by subscription of collegians, the boiler for hot water supported in like manner, and other premises generally tending to the deduction that the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, was to come to the Marshalsea.",4 "The two tables put together in a corner, were, at length, converted into a very fair bed; and the stranger was left to the Windsor chairs, the presidential tribune, the beery atmosphere, sawdust, pipe-lights, spittoons and repose.",2 "But the last item was long, long, long, in linking itself to the rest.",2 "The novelty of the place, the coming upon it without preparation, the sense of being locked up, the remembrance of that room up-stairs, of the two brothers, and above all of the retiring childish form, and the face in which he now saw years of insufficient food, if not of want, kept him waking and unhappy.",1 "Speculations, too, bearing the strangest relations towards the prison, but always concerning the prison, ran like nightmares through his mind while he lay awake.",1 "Whether coffins were kept ready for people who might die there, where they were kept, how they were kept, where people who died in the prison were buried, how they were taken out, what forms were observed, whether an implacable creditor could arrest the dead?",0 "As to escaping, what chances there were of escape?",2 "Whether a prisoner could scale the walls with a cord and grapple, how he would descend upon the other side?",1 "whether he could alight on a housetop, steal down a staircase, let himself out at a door, and get lost in the crowd?",1 "As to Fire in the prison, if one were to break out while he lay there?",1 "And these involuntary starts of fancy were, after all, but the setting of a picture in which three people kept before him.",2 "His father, with the steadfast look with which he had died, prophetically darkened forth in the portrait; his mother, with her arm up, warding off his suspicion; Little Dorrit, with her hand on the degraded arm, and her drooping head turned away.",1 What if his mother had an old reason she well knew for softening to this poor girl!,2 What if the prisoner now sleeping quietly--Heaven grant it!--by the light of the great Day of judgment should trace back his fall to her.,2 "What if any act of hers and of his father's, should have even remotely brought the grey heads of those two brothers so low!",2 A swift thought shot into his mind.,3 "In that long imprisonment here, and in her own long confinement to her room, did his mother find a balance to be struck?",1 'I admit that I was accessory to that man's captivity.,2 I have suffered for it in kind.,1 He has decayed in his prison: I in mine.,1 I have paid the penalty.',1 "When all the other thoughts had faded out, this one held possession of him.",2 "When he fell asleep, she came before him in her wheeled chair, warding him off with this justification.",1 "When he awoke, and sprang up causelessly frightened, the words were in his ears, as if her voice had slowly spoken them at his pillow, to break his rest: 'He withers away in his prison; I wither away in mine; inexorable justice is done; what do I owe on this score!'",0 "The morning light was in no hurry to climb the prison wall and look in at the Snuggery windows; and when it did come, it would have been more welcome if it had come alone, instead of bringing a rush of rain with it.",2 "But the equinoctial gales were blowing out at sea, and the impartial south-west wind, in its flight, would not neglect even the narrow Marshalsea.",2 "While it roared through the steeple of St George's Church, and twirled all the cowls in the neighbourhood, it made a swoop to beat the Southwark smoke into the jail; and, plunging down the chimneys of the few early collegians who were yet lighting their fires, half suffocated them.",1 "Arthur Clennam would have been little disposed to linger in bed, though his bed had been in a more private situation, and less affected by the raking out of yesterday's fire, the kindling of to-day's under the collegiate boiler, the filling of that Spartan vessel at the pump, the sweeping and sawdusting of the common room, and other such preparations.",3 "Heartily glad to see the morning, though little rested by the night, he turned out as soon as he could distinguish objects about him, and paced the yard for two heavy hours before the gate was opened.",3 "The walls were so near to one another, and the wild clouds hurried over them so fast, that it gave him a sensation like the beginning of sea-sickness to look up at the gusty sky.",3 "The rain, carried aslant by flaws of wind, blackened that side of the central building which he had visited last night, but left a narrow dry trough under the lee of the wall, where he walked up and down among the waits of straw and dust and paper, the waste droppings of the pump, and the stray leaves of yesterday's greens.",0 It was as haggard a view of life as a man need look upon.,1 Nor was it relieved by any glimpse of the little creature who had brought him there.,2 "Perhaps she glided out of her doorway and in at that where her father lived, while his face was turned from both; but he saw nothing of her.",2 "It was too early for her brother; to have seen him once, was to have seen enough of him to know that he would be sluggish to leave whatever frowsy bed he occupied at night; so, as Arthur Clennam walked up and down, waiting for the gate to open, he cast about in his mind for future rather than for present means of pursuing his discoveries.",2 "At last the lodge-gate turned, and the turnkey, standing on the step, taking an early comb at his hair, was ready to let him out.",3 "With a joyful sense of release he passed through the lodge, and found himself again in the little outer court-yard where he had spoken to the brother last night.",3 "There was a string of people already straggling in, whom it was not difficult to identify as the nondescript messengers, go-betweens, and errand-bearers of the place.",1 "Some of them had been lounging in the rain until the gate should open; others, who had timed their arrival with greater nicety, were coming up now, and passing in with damp whitey-brown paper bags from the grocers, loaves of bread, lumps of butter, eggs, milk, and the like.",3 "The shabbiness of these attendants upon shabbiness, the poverty of these insolvent waiters upon insolvency, was a sight to see.",1 "Such threadbare coats and trousers, such fusty gowns and shawls, such squashed hats and bonnets, such boots and shoes, such umbrellas and walking-sticks, never were seen in Rag Fair.",2 "All of them wore the cast-off clothes of other men and women, were made up of patches and pieces of other people's individuality, and had no sartorial existence of their own proper.",3 Their walk was the walk of a race apart.,2 "They had a peculiar way of doggedly slinking round the corner, as if they were eternally going to the pawnbroker's.",1 "When they coughed, they coughed like people accustomed to be forgotten on doorsteps and in draughty passages, waiting for answers to letters in faded ink, which gave the recipients of those manuscripts great mental disturbance and no satisfaction.",3 "As they eyed the stranger in passing, they eyed him with borrowing eyes--hungry, sharp, speculative as to his softness if they were accredited to him, and the likelihood of his standing something handsome.",3 "Mendicity on commission stooped in their high shoulders, shambled in their unsteady legs, buttoned and pinned and darned and dragged their clothes, frayed their button-holes, leaked out of their figures in dirty little ends of tape, and issued from their mouths in alcoholic breathings.",0 "As these people passed him standing still in the court-yard, and one of them turned back to inquire if he could assist him with his services, it came into Arthur Clennam's mind that he would speak to Little Dorrit again before he went away.",2 "She would have recovered her first surprise, and might feel easier with him.",3 "He asked this member of the fraternity (who had two red herrings in his hand, and a loaf and a blacking brush under his arm), where was the nearest place to get a cup of coffee at.",2 "The nondescript replied in encouraging terms, and brought him to a coffee-shop in the street within a stone's throw.",3 'Do you know Miss Dorrit?',1 asked the new client.,2 The nondescript knew two Miss Dorrits; one who was born inside--That was the one!,1 That was the one?,2 The nondescript had known her many years.,2 "In regard of the other Miss Dorrit, the nondescript lodged in the same house with herself and uncle.",2 This changed the client's half-formed design of remaining at the coffee-shop until the nondescript should bring him word that Dorrit had issued forth into the street.,2 "He entrusted the nondescript with a confidential message to her, importing that the visitor who had waited on her father last night, begged the favour of a few words with her at her uncle's lodging; he obtained from the same source full directions to the house, which was very near; dismissed the nondescript gratified with half-a-crown; and having hastily refreshed himself at the coffee-shop, repaired with all speed to the clarionet-player's dwelling.",3 There were so many lodgers in this house that the doorpost seemed to be as full of bell-handles as a cathedral organ is of stops.,2 "Doubtful which might be the clarionet-stop, he was considering the point, when a shuttlecock flew out of the parlour window, and alighted on his hat.",1 "He then observed that in the parlour window was a blind with the inscription, MR CRIPPLES's ACADEMY; also in another line, EVENING TUITION; and behind the blind was a little white-faced boy, with a slice of bread-and-butter and a battledore.",1 "The window being accessible from the footway, he looked in over the blind, returned the shuttlecock, and put his question.",2 'Dorrit?',2 said the little white-faced boy (Master Cripples in fact).,2 '_Mr_ Dorrit?,2 Third bell and one knock.',1 "The pupils of Mr Cripples appeared to have been making a copy-book of the street-door, it was so extensively scribbled over in pencil.",1 "The frequency of the inscriptions, 'Old Dorrit,' and 'Dirty Dick,' in combination, suggested intentions of personality on the part Of Mr Cripples's pupils.",1 There was ample time to make these observations before the door was opened by the poor old man himself.,2 'Ha!',2 "said he, very slowly remembering Arthur, 'you were shut in last night?'",1 "'Yes, Mr Dorrit.",2 I hope to meet your niece here presently.',2 'Oh!',2 "said he, pondering.",2 'Out of my brother's way?,2 True.,2 Would you come up-stairs and wait for her?',2 'Thank you.',2 "Turning himself as slowly as he turned in his mind whatever he heard or said, he led the way up the narrow stairs.",2 "The house was very close, and had an unwholesome smell.",1 "The little staircase windows looked in at the back windows of other houses as unwholesome as itself, with poles and lines thrust out of them, on which unsightly linen hung; as if the inhabitants were angling for clothes, and had had some wretched bites not worth attending to.",1 "In the back garret--a sickly room, with a turn-up bedstead in it, so hastily and recently turned up that the blankets were boiling over, as it were, and keeping the lid open--a half-finished breakfast of coffee and toast for two persons was jumbled down anyhow on a rickety table.",0 There was no one there.,2 "The old man mumbling to himself, after some consideration, that Fanny had run away, went to the next room to fetch her back.",2 "The visitor, observing that she held the door on the inside, and that, when the uncle tried to open it, there was a sharp adjuration of 'Don't, stupid!'",2 "and an appearance of loose stocking and flannel, concluded that the young lady was in an undress.",1 "The uncle, without appearing to come to any conclusion, shuffled in again, sat down in his chair, and began warming his hands at the fire; not that it was cold, or that he had any waking idea whether it was or not.",1 "'What did you think of my brother, sir?'",2 "he asked, when he by-and-by discovered what he was doing, left off, reached over to the chimney-piece, and took his clarionet case down.",2 "'I was glad,' said Arthur, very much at a loss, for his thoughts were on the brother before him; 'to find him so well and cheerful.'",3 'Ha!',2 "muttered the old man, 'yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!'",2 Arthur wondered what he could possibly want with the clarionet case.,2 He did not want it at all.,2 "He discovered, in due time, that it was not the little paper of snuff (which was also on the chimney-piece), put it back again, took down the snuff instead, and solaced himself with a pinch.",1 "He was as feeble, spare, and slow in his pinches as in everything else, but a certain little trickling of enjoyment of them played in the poor worn nerves about the corners of his eyes and mouth.",0 "'Amy, Mr Clennam.",2 What do you think of her?',2 "'I am much impressed, Mr Dorrit, by all that I have seen of her and thought of her.'",3 "'My brother would have been quite lost without Amy,' he returned.",1 'We should all have been lost without Amy.,1 "She is a very good girl, Amy.",3 She does her duty.',2 "Arthur fancied that he heard in these praises a certain tone of custom, which he had heard from the father last night with an inward protest and feeling of antagonism.",1 "It was not that they stinted her praises, or were insensible to what she did for them; but that they were lazily habituated to her, as they were to all the rest of their condition.",1 "He fancied that although they had before them, every day, the means of comparison between her and one another and themselves, they regarded her as being in her necessary place; as holding a position towards them all which belonged to her, like her name or her age.",3 "He fancied that they viewed her, not as having risen away from the prison atmosphere, but as appertaining to it; as being vaguely what they had a right to expect, and nothing more.",2 "Her uncle resumed his breakfast, and was munching toast sopped in coffee, oblivious of his guest, when the third bell rang.",1 "That was Amy, he said, and went down to let her in; leaving the visitor with as vivid a picture on his mind of his begrimed hands, dirt-worn face, and decayed figure, as if he were still drooping in his chair.",1 "She came up after him, in the usual plain dress, and with the usual timid manner.",1 "Her lips were a little parted, as if her heart beat faster than usual.",3 "'Mr Clennam, Amy,' said her uncle, 'has been expecting you some time.'",2 'I took the liberty of sending you a message.',3 "'I received the message, sir.'",2 'Are you going to my mother's this morning?,2 "I think not, for it is past your usual hour.'",2 "'Not to-day, sir.",2 I am not wanted to-day.',2 'Will you allow Me to walk a little way in whatever direction you may be going?,2 "I can then speak to you as we walk, both without detaining you here, and without intruding longer here myself.'",2 "She looked embarrassed, but said, if he pleased.",3 "He made a pretence of having mislaid his walking-stick, to give her time to set the bedstead right, to answer her sister's impatient knock at the wall, and to say a word softly to her uncle.",1 "Then he found it, and they went down-stairs; she first, he following; the uncle standing at the stair-head, and probably forgetting them before they had reached the ground floor.",2 "Mr Cripples's pupils, who were by this time coming to school, desisted from their morning recreation of cuffing one another with bags and books, to stare with all the eyes they had at a stranger who had been to see Dirty Dick.",0 "They bore the trying spectacle in silence, until the mysterious visitor was at a safe distance; when they burst into pebbles and yells, and likewise into reviling dances, and in all respects buried the pipe of peace with so many savage ceremonies, that, if Mr Cripples had been the chief of the Cripplewayboo tribe with his war-paint on, they could scarcely have done greater justice to their education.",0 "In the midst of this homage, Mr Arthur Clennam offered his arm to Little Dorrit, and Little Dorrit took it.",3 "'Will you go by the Iron Bridge,' said he, 'where there is an escape from the noise of the street?'",1 "Little Dorrit answered, if he pleased, and presently ventured to hope that he would 'not mind' Mr Cripples's boys, for she had herself received her education, such as it was, in Mr Cripples's evening academy.",3 "He returned, with the best will in the world, that Mr Cripples's boys were forgiven out of the bottom of his soul.",3 "Thus did Cripples unconsciously become a master of the ceremonies between them, and bring them more naturally together than Beau Nash might have done if they had lived in his golden days, and he had alighted from his coach and six for the purpose.",3 "The morning remained squally, and the streets were miserably muddy, but no rain fell as they walked towards the Iron Bridge.",0 "The little creature seemed so young in his eyes, that there were moments when he found himself thinking of her, if not speaking to her, as if she were a child.",2 Perhaps he seemed as old in her eyes as she seemed young in his.,2 "'I am sorry to hear you were so inconvenienced last night, sir, as to be locked in.",1 It was very unfortunate.',1 "It was nothing, he returned.",2 He had had a very good bed.,3 'Oh yes!',2 she said quickly; 'she believed there were excellent beds at the coffee-house.',3 "He noticed that the coffee-house was quite a majestic hotel to her, and that she treasured its reputation.",3 "'I believe it is very expensive,' said Little Dorrit, 'but my father has told me that quite beautiful dinners may be got there.",2 "And wine,' she added timidly.",1 'Were you ever there?',2 'Oh no!,2 Only into the kitchen to fetch hot water.',3 "To think of growing up with a kind of awe upon one as to the luxuries of that superb establishment, the Marshalsea Hotel!",3 "'I asked you last night,' said Clennam, 'how you had become acquainted with my mother.",2 Did you ever hear her name before she sent for you?',2 "'No, sir.'",2 'Do you think your father ever did?',2 "'No, sir.'",2 "He met her eyes raised to his with so much wonder in them (she was scared when the encounter took place, and shrunk away again), that he felt it necessary to say: 'I have a reason for asking, which I cannot very well explain; but you must, on no account, suppose it to be of a nature to cause you the least alarm or anxiety.",1 Quite the reverse.,2 And you think that at no time of your father's life was my name of Clennam ever familiar to him?',2 "'No, sir.'",2 "He felt, from the tone in which she spoke, that she was glancing up at him with those parted lips; therefore he looked before him, rather than make her heart beat quicker still by embarrassing her afresh.",2 "Thus they emerged upon the Iron Bridge, which was as quiet after the roaring streets as though it had been open country.",3 "The wind blew roughly, the wet squalls came rattling past them, skimming the pools on the road and pavement, and raining them down into the river.",2 "The clouds raced on furiously in the lead-coloured sky, the smoke and mist raced after them, the dark tide ran fierce and strong in the same direction.",0 "Little Dorrit seemed the least, the quietest, and weakest of Heaven's creatures.",2 "'Let me put you in a coach,' said Clennam, very nearly adding 'my poor child.'",1 "She hurriedly declined, saying that wet or dry made little difference to her; she was used to go about in all weathers.",2 "He knew it to be so, and was touched with more pity; thinking of the slight figure at his side, making its nightly way through the damp dark boisterous streets to such a place of rest.",0 "'You spoke so feelingly to me last night, sir, and I found afterwards that you had been so generous to my father, that I could not resist your message, if it was only to thank you; especially as I wished very much to say to you--' she hesitated and trembled, and tears rose in her eyes, but did not fall.",3 'To say to me--?',2 'That I hope you will not misunderstand my father.,1 "Don't judge him, sir, as you would judge others outside the gates.",2 He has been there so long!,2 "I never saw him outside, but I can understand that he must have grown different in some things since.'",2 "'My thoughts will never be unjust or harsh towards him, believe me.'",1 "'Not,' she said, with a prouder air, as the misgiving evidently crept upon her that she might seem to be abandoning him, 'not that he has anything to be ashamed of for himself, or that I have anything to be ashamed of for him.",0 He only requires to be understood.,2 I only ask for him that his life may be fairly remembered.,3 All that he said was quite true.,2 It all happened just as he related it.,2 He is very much respected.,2 "Everybody who comes in, is glad to know him.",3 He is more courted than anyone else.,2 He is far more thought of than the Marshal is.',2 "If ever pride were innocent, it was innocent in Little Dorrit when she grew boastful of her father.",2 "'It is often said that his manners are a true gentleman's, and quite a study.",2 "I see none like them in that place, but he is admitted to be superior to all the rest.",3 "This is quite as much why they make him presents, as because they know him to be needy.",1 "He is not to be blamed for being in need, poor love.",2 "Who could be in prison a quarter of a century, and be prosperous!'",2 "What affection in her words, what compassion in her repressed tears, what a great soul of fidelity within her, how true the light that shed false brightness round him!",4 "'If I have found it best to conceal where my home is, it is not because I am ashamed of him.",2 God forbid!,1 Nor am I so much ashamed of the place itself as might be supposed.,1 People are not bad because they come there.,1 "I have known numbers of good, persevering, honest people come there through misfortune.",3 They are almost all kind-hearted to one another.,2 "And it would be ungrateful indeed in me, to forget that I have had many quiet, comfortable hours there; that I had an excellent friend there when I was quite a baby, who was very very fond of me; that I have been taught there, and have worked there, and have slept soundly there.",4 "I think it would be almost cowardly and cruel not to have some little attachment for it, after all this.'",1 "She had relieved the faithful fulness of her heart, and modestly said, raising her eyes appealingly to her new friend's, 'I did not mean to say so much, nor have I ever but once spoken about this before.",3 But it seems to set it more right than it was last night.,3 "I said I wished you had not followed me, sir.",2 "I don't wish it so much now, unless you should think--indeed I don't wish it at all, unless I should have spoken so confusedly, that--that you can scarcely understand me, which I am afraid may be the case.'",1 "He told her with perfect truth that it was not the case; and putting himself between her and the sharp wind and rain, sheltered her as well as he could.",4 "'I feel permitted now,' he said, 'to ask you a little more concerning your father.",2 Has he many creditors?',2 'Oh!,2 a great number.',3 "'I mean detaining creditors, who keep him where he is?'",2 'Oh yes!,2 a great number.',3 "'Can you tell me--I can get the information, no doubt, elsewhere, if you cannot--who is the most influential of them?'",2 "Little Dorrit said, after considering a little, that she used to hear long ago of Mr Tite Barnacle as a man of great power.",3 "He was a commissioner, or a board, or a trustee, 'or something.'",2 "He lived in Grosvenor Square, she thought, or very near it.",2 He was under Government--high in the Circumlocution Office.,2 "She appeared to have acquired, in her infancy, some awful impression of the might of this formidable Mr Tite Barnacle of Grosvenor Square, or very near it, and the Circumlocution Office, which quite crushed her when she mentioned him.",1 "'It can do no harm,' thought Arthur, 'if I see this Mr Tite Barnacle.'",1 The thought did not present itself so quietly but that her quickness intercepted it.,2 'Ah!',2 "said Little Dorrit, shaking her head with the mild despair of a lifetime.",1 "'Many people used to think once of getting my poor father out, but you don't know how hopeless it is.'",1 "She forgot to be shy at the moment, in honestly warning him away from the sunken wreck he had a dream of raising; and looked at him with eyes which assuredly, in association with her patient face, her fragile figure, her spare dress, and the wind and rain, did not turn him from his purpose of helping her.",1 "'Even if it could be done,' said she--'and it never can be done now--where could father live, or how could he live?",2 "I have often thought that if such a change could come, it might be anything but a service to him now.",2 People might not think so well of him outside as they do there.,3 He might not be so gently dealt with outside as he is there.,2 He might not be so fit himself for the life outside as he is for that.',2 "Here for the first time she could not restrain her tears from falling; and the little thin hands he had watched when they were so busy, trembled as they clasped each other.",1 "'It would be a new distress to him even to know that I earn a little money, and that Fanny earns a little money.",1 "He is so anxious about us, you see, feeling helplessly shut up there.",1 "Such a good, good father!'",3 He let the little burst of feeling go by before he spoke.,2 It was soon gone.,2 "She was not accustomed to think of herself, or to trouble any one with her emotions.",1 "He had but glanced away at the piles of city roofs and chimneys among which the smoke was rolling heavily, and at the wilderness of masts on the river, and the wilderness of steeples on the shore, indistinctly mixed together in the stormy haze, when she was again as quiet as if she had been plying her needle in his mother's room.",1 'You would be glad to have your brother set at liberty?',3 "'Oh very, very glad, sir!'",3 "'Well, we will hope for him at least.",2 You told me last night of a friend you had?',2 "His name was Plornish, Little Dorrit said.",2 And where did Plornish live?,2 Plornish lived in Bleeding Heart Yard.,1 "He was 'only a plasterer,' Little Dorrit said, as a caution to him not to form high social expectations of Plornish.",2 "He lived at the last house in Bleeding Heart Yard, and his name was over a little gateway.",1 Arthur took down the address and gave her his.,2 "He had now done all he sought to do for the present, except that he wished to leave her with a reliance upon him, and to have something like a promise from her that she would cherish it.",4 'There is one friend!',2 "he said, putting up his pocketbook.",2 'As I take you back--you are going back?',2 'Oh yes!,2 going straight home.',2 "'--As I take you back,' the word home jarred upon him, 'let me ask you to persuade yourself that you have another friend.",2 "I make no professions, and say no more.'",2 "'You are truly kind to me, sir.",2 I am sure I need no more.',2 "They walked back through the miserable muddy streets, and among the poor, mean shops, and were jostled by the crowds of dirty hucksters usual to a poor neighbourhood.",0 "There was nothing, by the short way, that was pleasant to any of the five senses.",3 "Yet it was not a common passage through common rain, and mire, and noise, to Clennam, having this little, slender, careful creature on his arm.",1 "How young she seemed to him, or how old he to her; or what a secret either to the other, in that beginning of the destined interweaving of their stories, matters not here.",2 "He thought of her having been born and bred among these scenes, and shrinking through them now, familiar yet misplaced; he thought of her long acquaintance with the squalid needs of life, and of her innocence; of her solicitude for others, and her few years, and her childish aspect.",1 "They were come into the High Street, where the prison stood, when a voice cried, 'Little mother, little mother!'",1 "Little Dorrit stopping and looking back, an excited figure of a strange kind bounced against them (still crying 'little mother'), fell down, and scattered the contents of a large basket, filled with potatoes, in the mud.",1 "'Oh, Maggy,' said Little Dorrit, 'what a clumsy child you are!'",1 "Maggy was not hurt, but picked herself up immediately, and then began to pick up the potatoes, in which both Little Dorrit and Arthur Clennam helped.",2 "Maggy picked up very few potatoes and a great quantity of mud; but they were all recovered, and deposited in the basket.",3 "Maggy then smeared her muddy face with her shawl, and presenting it to Mr Clennam as a type of purity, enabled him to see what she was like.",2 "She was about eight-and-twenty, with large bones, large features, large feet and hands, large eyes and no hair.",2 "Her large eyes were limpid and almost colourless; they seemed to be very little affected by light, and to stand unnaturally still.",1 "There was also that attentive listening expression in her face, which is seen in the faces of the blind; but she was not blind, having one tolerably serviceable eye.",2 "Her face was not exceedingly ugly, though it was only redeemed from being so by a smile; a good-humoured smile, and pleasant in itself, but rendered pitiable by being constantly there.",3 "A great white cap, with a quantity of opaque frilling that was always flapping about, apologised for Maggy's baldness, and made it so very difficult for her old black bonnet to retain its place upon her head, that it held on round her neck like a gipsy's baby.",3 "A commission of haberdashers could alone have reported what the rest of her poor dress was made of, but it had a strong general resemblance to seaweed, with here and there a gigantic tea-leaf.",2 Her shawl looked particularly like a tea-leaf after long infusion.,3 "Arthur Clennam looked at Little Dorrit with the expression of one saying, 'May I ask who this is?'",2 "Little Dorrit, whose hand this Maggy, still calling her little mother, had begun to fondle, answered in words (they were under a gateway into which the majority of the potatoes had rolled).",2 "'This is Maggy, sir.'",2 "'Maggy, sir,' echoed the personage presented.",2 'Little mother!',2 'She is the grand-daughter--' said Little Dorrit.,3 "'Grand-daughter,' echoed Maggy.",2 "'Of my old nurse, who has been dead a long time.",1 "Maggy, how old are you?'",2 "'Ten, mother,' said Maggy.",2 "'You can't think how good she is, sir,' said Little Dorrit, with infinite tenderness.",2 "'Good _she_ is,' echoed Maggy, transferring the pronoun in a most expressive way from herself to her little mother.",2 "'Or how clever,' said Little Dorrit.",3 'She goes on errands as well as any one.',3 Maggy laughed.,2 'And is as trustworthy as the Bank of England.',3 Maggy laughed.,2 'She earns her own living entirely.,2 "Entirely, sir!'",2 "said Little Dorrit, in a lower and triumphant tone.",3 'Really does!',2 'What is her history?',2 asked Clennam.,2 "'Think of that, Maggy?'",2 "said Little Dorrit, taking her two large hands and clapping them together.",2 "'A gentleman from thousands of miles away, wanting to know your history!'",2 '_My_ history?',2 cried Maggy.,2 'Little mother.',2 "'She means me,' said Little Dorrit, rather confused; 'she is very much attached to me.",1 "Her old grandmother was not so kind to her as she should have been; was she, Maggy?'",2 "Maggy shook her head, made a drinking vessel of her clenched left hand, drank out of it, and said, 'Gin.'",2 "Then beat an imaginary child, and said, 'Broom-handles and pokers.'",1 "'When Maggy was ten years old,' said Little Dorrit, watching her face while she spoke, 'she had a bad fever, sir, and she has never grown any older ever since.'",1 "'Ten years old,' said Maggy, nodding her head.",2 'But what a nice hospital!,3 "So comfortable, wasn't it?",3 Oh so nice it was.,3 Such a Ev'nly place!',2 "'She had never been at peace before, sir,' said Little Dorrit, turning towards Arthur for an instant and speaking low, 'and she always runs off upon that.'",3 'Such beds there is there!',2 cried Maggy.,2 'Such lemonades!,2 Such oranges!,2 Such d'licious broth and wine!,2 Such Chicking!,2 "Oh, AIN'T it a delightful place to go and stop at!'",3 "'So Maggy stopped there as long as she could,' said Little Dorrit, in her former tone of telling a child's story; the tone designed for Maggy's ear, 'and at last, when she could stop there no longer, she came out.",2 "Then, because she was never to be more than ten years old, however long she lived--' 'However long she lived,' echoed Maggy.",2 "'--And because she was very weak; indeed was so weak that when she began to laugh she couldn't stop herself--which was a great pity--' (Maggy mighty grave of a sudden.) '--Her grandmother did not know what to do with her, and for some years was very unkind to her indeed.",1 "At length, in course of time, Maggy began to take pains to improve herself, and to be very attentive and very industrious; and by degrees was allowed to come in and out as often as she liked, and got enough to do to support herself, and does support herself.",4 "And that,' said Little Dorrit, clapping the two great hands together again, 'is Maggy's history, as Maggy knows!'",3 Ah!,2 "But Arthur would have known what was wanting to its completeness, though he had never heard of the words Little mother; though he had never seen the fondling of the small spare hand; though he had had no sight for the tears now standing in the colourless eyes; though he had had no hearing for the sob that checked the clumsy laugh.",1 "The dirty gateway with the wind and rain whistling through it, and the basket of muddy potatoes waiting to be spilt again or taken up, never seemed the common hole it really was, when he looked back to it by these lights.",1 "Never, never!",2 "They were very near the end of their walk, and they now came out of the gateway to finish it.",2 "Nothing would serve Maggy but that they must stop at a grocer's window, short of their destination, for her to show her learning.",2 "She could read after a sort; and picked out the fat figures in the tickets of prices, for the most part correctly.",2 "She also stumbled, with a large balance of success against her failures, through various philanthropic recommendations to Try our Mixture, Try our Family Black, Try our Orange-flavoured Pekoe, challenging competition at the head of Flowery Teas; and various cautions to the public against spurious establishments and adulterated articles.",0 "When he saw how pleasure brought a rosy tint into Little Dorrit's face when Maggy made a hit, he felt that he could have stood there making a library of the grocer's window until the rain and wind were tired.",3 "The court-yard received them at last, and there he said goodbye to Little Dorrit.",2 "Little as she had always looked, she looked less than ever when he saw her going into the Marshalsea lodge passage, the little mother attended by her big child.",2 "The cage door opened, and when the small bird, reared in captivity, had tamely fluttered in, he saw it shut again; and then he came away.",2 The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the most important Department under Government.,3 No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office.,2 "Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart.",2 It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office.,1 "If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part of the Circumlocution Office.",1 "This glorious establishment had been early in the field, when the one sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a country, was first distinctly revealed to statesmen.",3 It had been foremost to study that bright revelation and to carry its shining influence through the whole of the official proceedings.,4 "Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving--HOW NOT TO DO IT.",2 "Through this delicate perception, through the tact with which it invariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always acted on it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to overtop all the public departments; and the public condition had risen to be--what it was.",3 It is true that How not to do it was the great study and object of all public departments and professional politicians all round the Circumlocution Office.,2 "It is true that every new premier and every new government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as necessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied their utmost faculties to discovering How not to do it.",3 "It is true that from the moment when a general election was over, every returned man who had been raving on hustings because it hadn't been done, and who had been asking the friends of the honourable gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn't been done, and who had been asserting that it must be done, and who had been pledging himself that it should be done, began to devise, How it was not to be done.",1 "It is true that the debates of both Houses of Parliament the whole session through, uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to do it.",1 "It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have a considerable stroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your respective chambers, and discuss, How not to do it.",3 "It is true that the royal speech, at the close of such session, virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have through several laborious months been considering with great loyalty and patriotism, How not to do it, and you have found out; and with the blessing of Providence upon the harvest (natural, not political), I now dismiss you.",4 "All this is true, but the Circumlocution Office went beyond it.",2 "Because the Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day, keeping this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How not to do it, in motion.",3 "Because the Circumlocution Office was down upon any ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be by any surprising accident in remote danger of doing it, with a minute, and a memorandum, and a letter of instructions that extinguished him.",1 It was this spirit of national efficiency in the Circumlocution Office that had gradually led to its having something to do with everything.,3 "Mechanicians, natural philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners, memorialists, people with grievances, people who wanted to prevent grievances, people who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people, jobbed people, people who couldn't get rewarded for merit, and people who couldn't get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked up under the foolscap paper of the Circumlocution Office.",1 Numbers of people were lost in the Circumlocution Office.,1 "Unfortunates with wrongs, or with projects for the general welfare (and they had better have had wrongs at first, than have taken that bitter English recipe for certainly getting them), who in slow lapse of time and agony had passed safely through other public departments; who, according to rule, had been bullied in this, over-reached by that, and evaded by the other; got referred at last to the Circumlocution Office, and never reappeared in the light of day.",1 "Boards sat upon them, secretaries minuted upon them, commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered, entered, checked, and ticked them off, and they melted away.",2 "In short, all the business of the country went through the Circumlocution Office, except the business that never came out of it; and _its_ name was Legion.",2 "Sometimes, angry spirits attacked the Circumlocution Office.",1 "Sometimes, parliamentary questions were asked about it, and even parliamentary motions made or threatened about it by demagogues so low and ignorant as to hold that the real recipe of government was, How to do it.",1 "Then would the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, in whose department it was to defend the Circumlocution Office, put an orange in his pocket, and make a regular field-day of the occasion.",3 "Then would he come down to that house with a slap upon the table, and meet the honourable gentleman foot to foot.",1 "Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that the Circumlocution Office not only was blameless in this matter, but was commendable in this matter, was extollable to the skies in this matter.",3 "Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that, although the Circumlocution Office was invariably right and wholly right, it never was so right as in this matter.",3 "Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that it would have been more to his honour, more to his credit, more to his good taste, more to his good sense, more to half the dictionary of commonplaces, if he had left the Circumlocution Office alone, and never approached this matter.",3 "Then would he keep one eye upon a coach or crammer from the Circumlocution Office sitting below the bar, and smash the honourable gentleman with the Circumlocution Office account of this matter.",1 "And although one of two things always happened; namely, either that the Circumlocution Office had nothing to say and said it, or that it had something to say of which the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, blundered one half and forgot the other; the Circumlocution Office was always voted immaculate by an accommodating majority.",4 "Such a nursery of statesmen had the Department become in virtue of a long career of this nature, that several solemn lords had attained the reputation of being quite unearthly prodigies of business, solely from having practised, How not to do it, as the head of the Circumlocution Office.",3 "As to the minor priests and acolytes of that temple, the result of all this was that they stood divided into two classes, and, down to the junior messenger, either believed in the Circumlocution Office as a heaven-born institution that had an absolute right to do whatever it liked; or took refuge in total infidelity, and considered it a flagrant nuisance.",3 The Barnacle family had for some time helped to administer the Circumlocution Office.,3 "The Tite Barnacle Branch, indeed, considered themselves in a general way as having vested rights in that direction, and took it ill if any other family had much to say to it.",2 "The Barnacles were a very high family, and a very large family.",2 "They were dispersed all over the public offices, and held all sorts of public places.",2 "Either the nation was under a load of obligation to the Barnacles, or the Barnacles were under a load of obligation to the nation.",2 "It was not quite unanimously settled which; the Barnacles having their opinion, the nation theirs.",2 "The Mr Tite Barnacle who at the period now in question usually coached or crammed the statesman at the head of the Circumlocution Office, when that noble or right honourable individual sat a little uneasily in his saddle by reason of some vagabond making a tilt at him in a newspaper, was more flush of blood than money.",3 "As a Barnacle he had his place, which was a snug thing enough; and as a Barnacle he had of course put in his son Barnacle Junior in the office.",3 "But he had intermarried with a branch of the Stiltstalkings, who were also better endowed in a sanguineous point of view than with real or personal property, and of this marriage there had been issue, Barnacle junior and three young ladies.",2 "What with the patrician requirements of Barnacle junior, the three young ladies, Mrs Tite Barnacle nee Stiltstalking, and himself, Mr Tite Barnacle found the intervals between quarter day and quarter day rather longer than he could have desired; a circumstance which he always attributed to the country's parsimony.",2 "For Mr Tite Barnacle, Mr Arthur Clennam made his fifth inquiry one day at the Circumlocution Office; having on previous occasions awaited that gentleman successively in a hall, a glass case, a waiting room, and a fire-proof passage where the Department seemed to keep its wind.",2 "On this occasion Mr Barnacle was not engaged, as he had been before, with the noble prodigy at the head of the Department; but was absent.",3 "Barnacle Junior, however, was announced as a lesser star, yet visible above the office horizon.",2 "With Barnacle junior, he signified his desire to confer; and found that young gentleman singeing the calves of his legs at the parental fire, and supporting his spine against the mantel-shelf.",3 "It was a comfortable room, handsomely furnished in the higher official manner; an presenting stately suggestions of the absent Barnacle, in the thick carpet, the leather-covered desk to sit at, the leather-covered desk to stand at, the formidable easy-chair and hearth-rug, the interposed screen, the torn-up papers, the dispatch-boxes with little labels sticking out of them, like medicine bottles or dead game, the pervading smell of leather and mahogany, and a general bamboozling air of How not to do it.",4 "The present Barnacle, holding Mr Clennam's card in his hand, had a youthful aspect, and the fluffiest little whisker, perhaps, that ever was seen.",3 "Such a downy tip was on his callow chin, that he seemed half fledged like a young bird; and a compassionate observer might have urged that, if he had not singed the calves of his legs, he would have died of cold.",2 "He had a superior eye-glass dangling round his neck, but unfortunately had such flat orbits to his eyes and such limp little eyelids that it wouldn't stick in when he put it up, but kept tumbling out against his waistcoat buttons with a click that discomposed him very much.",1 "'Oh, I say.",2 Look here!,2 "My father's not in the way, and won't be in the way to-day,' said Barnacle Junior.",2 'Is this anything that I can do?',2 (Click!,2 Eye-glass down.,2 "Barnacle Junior quite frightened and feeling all round himself, but not able to find it.) 'You are very good,' said Arthur Clennam.",3 'I wish however to see Mr Barnacle.',2 'But I say.,2 Look here!,2 "You haven't got any appointment, you know,' said Barnacle Junior.",2 "(By this time he had found the eye-glass, and put it up again.) 'No,' said Arthur Clennam.",2 'That is what I wish to have.',2 'But I say.,2 Look here!,2 Is this public business?',2 asked Barnacle junior.,2 (Click!,2 Eye-glass down again.,2 "Barnacle Junior in that state of search after it that Mr Clennam felt it useless to reply at present.) 'Is it,' said Barnacle junior, taking heed of his visitor's brown face, 'anything about--Tonnage--or that sort of thing?'",1 "(Pausing for a reply, he opened his right eye with his hand, and stuck his glass in it, in that inflammatory manner that his eye began watering dreadfully.) 'No,' said Arthur, 'it is nothing about tonnage.'",1 'Then look here.,2 Is it private business?',2 'I really am not sure.,2 It relates to a Mr Dorrit.',2 "'Look here, I tell you what!",2 "You had better call at our house, if you are going that way.",3 "Twenty-four, Mews Street, Grosvenor Square.",2 "My father's got a slight touch of the gout, and is kept at home by it.'",2 "(The misguided young Barnacle evidently going blind on his eye-glass side, but ashamed to make any further alteration in his painful arrangements.) 'Thank you.",0 I will call there now.,2 Good morning.',3 "Young Barnacle seemed discomfited at this, as not having at all expected him to go.",2 "'You are quite sure,' said Barnacle junior, calling after him when he got to the door, unwilling wholly to relinquish the bright business idea he had conceived; 'that it's nothing about Tonnage?'",2 'Quite sure.',2 "With such assurance, and rather wondering what might have taken place if it _had_ been anything about tonnage, Mr Clennam withdrew to pursue his inquiries.",3 "Mews Street, Grosvenor Square, was not absolutely Grosvenor Square itself, but it was very near it.",2 "It was a hideous little street of dead wall, stables, and dunghills, with lofts over coach-houses inhabited by coachmen's families, who had a passion for drying clothes and decorating their window-sills with miniature turnpike-gates.",1 The principal chimney-sweep of that fashionable quarter lived at the blind end of Mews Street; and the same corner contained an establishment much frequented about early morning and twilight for the purchase of wine-bottles and kitchen-stuff.,2 "Punch's shows used to lean against the dead wall in Mews Street, while their proprietors were dining elsewhere; and the dogs of the neighbourhood made appointments to meet in the same locality.",2 "Yet there were two or three small airless houses at the entrance end of Mews Street, which went at enormous rents on account of their being abject hangers-on to a fashionable situation; and whenever one of these fearful little coops was to be let (which seldom happened, for they were in great request), the house agent advertised it as a gentlemanly residence in the most aristocratic part of town, inhabited solely by the elite of the beau monde.",3 "If a gentlemanly residence coming strictly within this narrow margin had not been essential to the blood of the Barnacles, this particular branch would have had a pretty wide selection among, let us say, ten thousand houses, offering fifty times the accommodation for a third of the money.",2 "As it was, Mr Barnacle, finding his gentlemanly residence extremely inconvenient and extremely dear, always laid it, as a public servant, at the door of the country, and adduced it as another instance of the country's parsimony.",2 "Arthur Clennam came to a squeezed house, with a ramshackle bowed front, little dingy windows, and a little dark area like a damp waistcoat-pocket, which he found to be number twenty-four, Mews Street, Grosvenor Square.",1 "To the sense of smell the house was like a sort of bottle filled with a strong distillation of Mews; and when the footman opened the door, he seemed to take the stopper out.",3 "The footman was to the Grosvenor Square footmen, what the house was to the Grosvenor Square houses.",2 "Admirable in his way, his way was a back and a bye way.",3 His gorgeousness was not unmixed with dirt; and both in complexion and consistency he had suffered from the closeness of his pantry.,1 "A sallow flabbiness was upon him when he took the stopper out, and presented the bottle to Mr Clennam's nose.",2 "'Be so good as to give that card to Mr Tite Barnacle, and to say that I have just now seen the younger Mr Barnacle, who recommended me to call here.'",3 "The footman (who had as many large buttons with the Barnacle crest upon them on the flaps of his pockets, as if he were the family strong box, and carried the plate and jewels about with him buttoned up) pondered over the card a little; then said, 'Walk in.'",3 "It required some judgment to do it without butting the inner hall-door open, and in the consequent mental confusion and physical darkness slipping down the kitchen stairs.",1 "The visitor, however, brought himself up safely on the door-mat.",3 "Still the footman said 'Walk in,' so the visitor followed him.",2 "At the inner hall-door, another bottle seemed to be presented and another stopper taken out.",2 This second vial appeared to be filled with concentrated provisions and extract of Sink from the pantry.,1 "After a skirmish in the narrow passage, occasioned by the footman's opening the door of the dismal dining-room with confidence, finding some one there with consternation, and backing on the visitor with disorder, the visitor was shut up, pending his announcement, in a close back parlour.",1 "There he had an opportunity of refreshing himself with both the bottles at once, looking out at a low blinding wall three feet off, and speculating on the number of Barnacle families within the bills of mortality who lived in such hutches of their own free flunkey choice.",3 Mr Barnacle would see him.,2 Would he walk up-stairs?,2 "He would, and he did; and in the drawing-room, with his leg on a rest, he found Mr Barnacle himself, the express image and presentment of How not to do it.",2 "Mr Barnacle dated from a better time, when the country was not so parsimonious and the Circumlocution Office was not so badgered.",3 "He wound and wound folds of white cravat round his neck, as he wound and wound folds of tape and paper round the neck of the country.",1 His wristbands and collar were oppressive; his voice and manner were oppressive.,1 "He had a large watch-chain and bunch of seals, a coat buttoned up to inconvenience, a waistcoat buttoned up to inconvenience, an unwrinkled pair of trousers, a stiff pair of boots.",1 "He was altogether splendid, massive, overpowering, and impracticable.",3 He seemed to have been sitting for his portrait to Sir Thomas Lawrence all the days of his life.,2 'Mr Clennam?',2 said Mr Barnacle.,2 'Be seated.',2 Mr Clennam became seated.,2 "'You have called on me, I believe,' said Mr Barnacle, 'at the Circumlocution--' giving it the air of a word of about five-and-twenty syllables--'Office.'",2 'I have taken that liberty.',3 "Mr Barnacle solemnly bent his head as who should say, 'I do not deny that it is a liberty; proceed to take another liberty, and let me know your business.'",1 "'Allow me to observe that I have been for some years in China, am quite a stranger at home, and have no personal motive or interest in the inquiry I am about to make.'",1 "Mr Barnacle tapped his fingers on the table, and, as if he were now sitting for his portrait to a new and strange artist, appeared to say to his visitor, 'If you will be good enough to take me with my present lofty expression, I shall feel obliged.'",3 "'I have found a debtor in the Marshalsea Prison of the name of Dorrit, who has been there many years.",1 "I wish to investigate his confused affairs so far as to ascertain whether it may not be possible, after this lapse of time, to ameliorate his unhappy condition.",1 The name of Mr Tite Barnacle has been mentioned to me as representing some highly influential interest among his creditors.,3 Am I correctly informed?',3 "It being one of the principles of the Circumlocution Office never, on any account whatever, to give a straightforward answer, Mr Barnacle said, 'Possibly.'",3 "'On behalf of the Crown, may I ask, or as private individual?'",2 "'The Circumlocution Department, sir,' Mr Barnacle replied, 'may have possibly recommended--possibly--I cannot say--that some public claim against the insolvent estate of a firm or copartnership to which this person may have belonged, should be enforced.",2 "The question may have been, in the course of official business, referred to the Circumlocution Department for its consideration.",2 "The Department may have either originated, or confirmed, a Minute making that recommendation.'",3 "'I assume this to be the case, then.'",2 "'The Circumlocution Department,' said Mr Barnacle, 'is not responsible for any gentleman's assumptions.'",2 'May I inquire how I can obtain official information as to the real state of the case?',2 "'It is competent,' said Mr Barnacle, 'to any member of the--Public,' mentioning that obscure body with reluctance, as his natural enemy, 'to memorialise the Circumlocution Department.",0 "Such formalities as are required to be observed in so doing, may be known on application to the proper branch of that Department.'",3 'Which is the proper branch?',3 "'I must refer you,' returned Mr Barnacle, ringing the bell, 'to the Department itself for a formal answer to that inquiry.'",2 "'Excuse my mentioning--' 'The Department is accessible to the--Public,' Mr Barnacle was always checked a little by that word of impertinent signification, 'if the--Public approaches it according to the official forms; if the--Public does not approach it according to the official forms, the--Public has itself to blame.'",1 "Mr Barnacle made him a severe bow, as a wounded man of family, a wounded man of place, and a wounded man of a gentlemanly residence, all rolled into one; and he made Mr Barnacle a bow, and was shut out into Mews Street by the flabby footman.",1 "Having got to this pass, he resolved as an exercise in perseverance, to betake himself again to the Circumlocution Office, and try what satisfaction he could get there.",3 "So he went back to the Circumlocution Office, and once more sent up his card to Barnacle junior by a messenger who took it very ill indeed that he should come back again, and who was eating mashed potatoes and gravy behind a partition by the hall fire.",1 "He was readmitted to the presence of Barnacle junior, and found that young gentleman singeing his knees now, and gaping his weary way on to four o'clock.",1 'I say.,2 Look here.,2 "You stick to us in a devil of a manner,' Said Barnacle junior, looking over his shoulder.",1 'I want to know--' 'Look here.,2 "Upon my soul you mustn't come into the place saying you want to know, you know,' remonstrated Barnacle junior, turning about and putting up the eye-glass.",2 "'I want to know,' said Arthur Clennam, who had made up his mind to persistence in one short form of words, 'the precise nature of the claim of the Crown against a prisoner for debt, named Dorrit.'",1 'I say.,2 Look here.,2 "You really are going it at a great pace, you know.",3 "Egad, you haven't got an appointment,' said Barnacle junior, as if the thing were growing serious.",2 "'I want to know,' said Arthur, and repeated his case.",2 "Barnacle junior stared at him until his eye-glass fell out, and then put it in again and stared at him until it fell out again.",1 "'You have no right to come this sort of move,' he then observed with the greatest weakness.",3 'Look here.,2 What do you mean?,2 You told me you didn't know whether it was public business or not.',2 "'I have now ascertained that it is public business,' returned the suitor, 'and I want to know'--and again repeated his monotonous inquiry.",1 "Its effect upon young Barnacle was to make him repeat in a defenceless way, 'Look here!",2 "Upon my SOUL you mustn't come into the place saying you want to know, you know!'",2 The effect of that upon Arthur Clennam was to make him repeat his inquiry in exactly the same words and tone as before.,2 The effect of that upon young Barnacle was to make him a wonderful spectacle of failure and helplessness.,1 "'Well, I tell you what.",2 Look here.,2 "You had better try the Secretarial Department,' he said at last, sidling to the bell and ringing it.",3 "'Jenkinson,' to the mashed potatoes messenger, 'Mr Wobbler!'",1 "Arthur Clennam, who now felt that he had devoted himself to the storming of the Circumlocution Office, and must go through with it, accompanied the messenger to another floor of the building, where that functionary pointed out Mr Wobbler's room.",2 "He entered that apartment, and found two gentlemen sitting face to face at a large and easy desk, one of whom was polishing a gun-barrel on his pocket-handkerchief, while the other was spreading marmalade on bread with a paper-knife.",2 'Mr Wobbler?',2 inquired the suitor.,2 "Both gentlemen glanced at him, and seemed surprised at his assurance.",3 "'So he went,' said the gentleman with the gun-barrel, who was an extremely deliberate speaker, 'down to his cousin's place, and took the Dog with him by rail.",1 Inestimable Dog.,3 "Flew at the porter fellow when he was put into the dog-box, and flew at the guard when he was taken out.",2 "He got half-a-dozen fellows into a Barn, and a good supply of Rats, and timed the Dog.",3 "Finding the Dog able to do it immensely, made the match, and heavily backed the Dog.",2 "When the match came off, some devil of a fellow was bought over, Sir, Dog was made drunk, Dog's master was cleaned out.'",1 'Mr Wobbler?',2 inquired the suitor.,2 "The gentleman who was spreading the marmalade returned, without looking up from that occupation, 'What did he call the Dog?'",2 "'Called him Lovely,' said the other gentleman.",3 'Said the Dog was the perfect picture of the old aunt from whom he had expectations.,3 Found him particularly like her when hocussed.',3 'Mr Wobbler?',2 said the suitor.,2 Both gentlemen laughed for some time.,2 "The gentleman with the gun-barrel, considering it, on inspection, in a satisfactory state, referred it to the other; receiving confirmation of his views, he fitted it into its place in the case before him, and took out the stock and polished that, softly whistling.",3 'Mr Wobbler?',2 said the suitor.,2 'What's the matter?',2 "then said Mr Wobbler, with his mouth full.",2 'I want to know--' and Arthur Clennam again mechanically set forth what he wanted to know.,2 "'Can't inform you,' observed Mr Wobbler, apparently to his lunch.",2 'Never heard of it.,2 Nothing at all to do with it.,2 "Better try Mr Clive, second door on the left in the next passage.'",3 'Perhaps he will give me the same answer.',2 'Very likely.,2 "Don't know anything about it,' said Mr Wobbler.",2 "The suitor turned away and had left the room, when the gentleman with the gun called out 'Mister!",2 Hallo!',2 He looked in again.,2 'Shut the door after you.,2 You're letting in a devil of a draught here!',1 A few steps brought him to the second door on the left in the next passage.,2 "In that room he found three gentlemen; number one doing nothing particular, number two doing nothing particular, number three doing nothing particular.",2 "They seemed, however, to be more directly concerned than the others had been in the effective execution of the great principle of the office, as there was an awful inner apartment with a double door, in which the Circumlocution Sages appeared to be assembled in council, and out of which there was an imposing coming of papers, and into which there was an imposing going of papers, almost constantly; wherein another gentleman, number four, was the active instrument.",1 "'I want to know,' said Arthur Clennam,--and again stated his case in the same barrel-organ way.",2 "As number one referred him to number two, and as number two referred him to number three, he had occasion to state it three times before they all referred him to number four, to whom he stated it again.",2 "Number four was a vivacious, well-looking, well-dressed, agreeable young fellow--he was a Barnacle, but on the more sprightly side of the family--and he said in an easy way, 'Oh!",4 "you had better not bother yourself about it, I think.'",2 'Not bother myself about it?',1 'No!,2 I recommend you not to bother yourself about it.',2 This was such a new point of view that Arthur Clennam found himself at a loss how to receive it.,1 'You can if you like.,3 I can give you plenty of forms to fill up.,2 Lots of 'em here.,2 You can have a dozen if you like.,3 "But you'll never go on with it,' said number four.",2 'Would it be such hopeless work?,2 Excuse me; I am a stranger in England.',1 "'_I_ don't say it would be hopeless,' returned number four, with a frank smile.",2 'I don't express an opinion about that; I only express an opinion about you.,2 _I_ don't think you'd go on with it.,2 "However, of course, you can do as you like.",3 "I suppose there was a failure in the performance of a contract, or something of that kind, was there?'",1 'I really don't know.',2 'Well!,2 That you can find out.,2 "Then you'll find out what Department the contract was in, and then you'll find out all about it there.'",2 'I beg your pardon.,2 How shall I find out?',2 "'Why, you'll--you'll ask till they tell you.",2 Then you'll memorialise that Department (according to regular forms which you'll find out) for leave to memorialise this Department.,2 "If you get it (which you may after a time), that memorial must be entered in that Department, sent to be registered in this Department, sent back to be signed by that Department, sent back to be countersigned by this Department, and then it will begin to be regularly before that Department.",2 You'll find out when the business passes through each of these stages by asking at both Departments till they tell you.',2 "'But surely this is not the way to do the business,' Arthur Clennam could not help saying.",2 This airy young Barnacle was quite entertained by his simplicity in supposing for a moment that it was.,2 This light in hand young Barnacle knew perfectly that it was not.,3 "This touch and go young Barnacle had 'got up' the Department in a private secretaryship, that he might be ready for any little bit of fat that came to hand; and he fully understood the Department to be a politico-diplomatic hocus pocus piece of machinery for the assistance of the nobs in keeping off the snobs.",2 "This dashing young Barnacle, in a word, was likely to become a statesman, and to make a figure.",3 "'When the business is regularly before that Department, whatever it is,' pursued this bright young Barnacle, 'then you can watch it from time to time through that Department.",3 "When it comes regularly before this Department, then you must watch it from time to time through this Department.",2 "We shall have to refer it right and left; and when we refer it anywhere, then you'll have to look it up.",3 "When it comes back to us at any time, then you had better look _us_ up.",3 "When it sticks anywhere, you'll have to try to give it a jog.",2 "When you write to another Department about it, and then to this Department about it, and don't hear anything satisfactory about it, why then you had better--keep on writing.'",3 Arthur Clennam looked very doubtful indeed.,1 "'But I am obliged to you at any rate,' said he, 'for your politeness.'",3 "'Not at all,' replied this engaging young Barnacle.",3 "'Try the thing, and see how you like it.",3 "It will be in your power to give it up at any time, if you don't like it.",3 You had better take a lot of forms away with you.,3 Give him a lot of forms!',2 "With which instruction to number two, this sparkling young Barnacle took a fresh handful of papers from numbers one and three, and carried them into the sanctuary to offer to the presiding Idol of the Circumlocution Office.",4 "Arthur Clennam put his forms in his pocket gloomily enough, and went his way down the long stone passage and the long stone staircase.",3 "He had come to the swing doors leading into the street, and was waiting, not over patiently, for two people who were between him and them to pass out and let him follow, when the voice of one of them struck familiarly on his ear.",3 He looked at the speaker and recognised Mr Meagles.,2 "Mr Meagles was very red in the face--redder than travel could have made him--and collaring a short man who was with him, said, 'come out, you rascal, come Out!'",1 "It was such an unexpected hearing, and it was also such an unexpected sight to see Mr Meagles burst the swing doors open, and emerge into the street with the short man, who was of an unoffending appearance, that Clennam stood still for the moment exchanging looks of surprise with the porter.",1 "He followed, however, quickly; and saw Mr Meagles going down the street with his enemy at his side.",1 "He soon came up with his old travelling companion, and touched him on the back.",2 "The choleric face which Mr Meagles turned upon him smoothed when he saw who it was, and he put out his friendly hand.",2 'How are you?',2 said Mr Meagles.,2 'How d'ye _do?_ I have only just come over from abroad.,2 I am glad to see you.',3 'And I am rejoiced to see you.',2 'Thank'ee.,2 Thank'ee!',2 'Mrs Meagles and your daughter--?',2 "'Are as well as possible,' said Mr Meagles.",3 'I only wish you had come upon me in a more prepossessing condition as to coolness.',2 "Though it was anything but a hot day, Mr Meagles was in a heated state that attracted the attention of the passersby; more particularly as he leaned his back against a railing, took off his hat and cravat, and heartily rubbed his steaming head and face, and his reddened ears and neck, without the least regard for public opinion.",4 'Whew!',2 "said Mr Meagles, dressing again.",2 'That's comfortable.,3 Now I am cooler.',2 "'You have been ruffled, Mr Meagles.",2 What is the matter?',2 "'Wait a bit, and I'll tell you.",2 Have you leisure for a turn in the Park?',2 'As much as you please.',2 'Come along then.,2 Ah!,2 you may well look at him.',3 He happened to have turned his eyes towards the offender whom Mr Meagles had so angrily collared.,1 "'He's something to look at, that fellow is.'",2 "He was not much to look at, either in point of size or in point of dress; being merely a short, square, practical looking man, whose hair had turned grey, and in whose face and forehead there were deep lines of cogitation, which looked as though they were carved in hard wood.",1 "He was dressed in decent black, a little rusty, and had the appearance of a sagacious master in some handicraft.",3 "He had a spectacle-case in his hand, which he turned over and over while he was thus in question, with a certain free use of the thumb that is never seen but in a hand accustomed to tools.",3 "'You keep with us,' said Mr Meagles, in a threatening kind of Way, 'and I'll introduce you presently.",1 Now then!',2 "Clennam wondered within himself, as they took the nearest way to the Park, what this unknown (who complied in the gentlest manner) could have been doing.",2 His appearance did not at all justify the suspicion that he had been detected in designs on Mr Meagles's pocket-handkerchief; nor had he any appearance of being quarrelsome or violent.,0 "He was a quiet, plain, steady man; made no attempt to escape; and seemed a little depressed, but neither ashamed nor repentant.",2 "If he were a criminal offender, he must surely be an incorrigible hypocrite; and if he were no offender, why should Mr Meagles have collared him in the Circumlocution Office?",0 "He perceived that the man was not a difficulty in his own mind alone, but in Mr Meagles's too; for such conversation as they had together on the short way to the Park was by no means well sustained, and Mr Meagles's eye always wandered back to the man, even when he spoke of something very different.",2 "At length they being among the trees, Mr Meagles stopped short, and said: 'Mr Clennam, will you do me the favour to look at this man?",3 "His name is Doyce, Daniel Doyce.",2 You wouldn't suppose this man to be a notorious rascal; would you?',1 'I certainly should not.',2 "It was really a disconcerting question, with the man there.",1 'No.,2 You would not.,2 I know you would not.,2 You wouldn't suppose him to be a public offender; would you?',1 'No.',2 'No.,2 But he is.,2 He is a public offender.,1 What has he been guilty of?,1 "Murder, manslaughter, arson, forgery, swindling, house-breaking, highway robbery, larceny, conspiracy, fraud?",0 "Which should you say, now?'",2 "'I should say,' returned Arthur Clennam, observing a faint smile in Daniel Doyce's face, 'not one of them.'",2 "'You are right,' said Mr Meagles.",3 "'But he has been ingenious, and he has been trying to turn his ingenuity to his country's service.",3 "That makes him a public offender directly, sir.'",1 "Arthur looked at the man himself, who only shook his head.",2 "'This Doyce,' said Mr Meagles, 'is a smith and engineer.",2 "He is not in a large way, but he is well known as a very ingenious man.",3 "A dozen years ago, he perfects an invention (involving a very curious secret process) of great importance to his country and his fellow-creatures.",3 "I won't say how much money it cost him, or how many years of his life he had been about it, but he brought it to perfection a dozen years ago.",3 Wasn't it a dozen?',2 "said Mr Meagles, addressing Doyce.",2 'He is the most exasperating man in the world; he never complains!',1 'Yes.,2 Rather better than twelve years ago.',3 'Rather better?',3 "said Mr Meagles, 'you mean rather worse.",1 "Well, Mr Clennam, he addresses himself to the Government.",3 "The moment he addresses himself to the Government, he becomes a public offender!",1 "Sir,' said Mr Meagles, in danger of making himself excessively hot again, 'he ceases to be an innocent citizen, and becomes a culprit.",1 He is treated from that instant as a man who has done some infernal action.,1 "He is a man to be shirked, put off, brow-beaten, sneered at, handed over by this highly-connected young or old gentleman, to that highly-connected young or old gentleman, and dodged back again; he is a man with no rights in his own time, or his own property; a mere outlaw, whom it is justifiable to get rid of anyhow; a man to be worn out by all possible means.'",1 "It was not so difficult to believe, after the morning's experience, as Mr Meagles supposed.",1 "'Don't stand there, Doyce, turning your spectacle-case over and over,' cried Mr Meagles, 'but tell Mr Clennam what you confessed to me.'",2 "'I undoubtedly was made to feel,' said the inventor, 'as if I had committed an offence.",1 "In dancing attendance at the various offices, I was always treated, more or less, as if it was a very bad offence.",1 "I have frequently found it necessary to reflect, for my own self-support, that I really had not done anything to bring myself into the Newgate Calendar, but only wanted to effect a great saving and a great improvement.'",4 'There!',2 said Mr Meagles.,2 'Judge whether I exaggerate.,1 Now you'll be able to believe me when I tell you the rest of the case.',2 "With this prelude, Mr Meagles went through the narrative; the established narrative, which has become tiresome; the matter-of-course narrative which we all know by heart.",1 "How, after interminable attendance and correspondence, after infinite impertinences, ignorances, and insults, my lords made a Minute, number three thousand four hundred and seventy-two, allowing the culprit to make certain trials of his invention at his own expense.",1 "How the trials were made in the presence of a board of six, of whom two ancient members were too blind to see it, two other ancient members were too deaf to hear it, one other ancient member was too lame to get near it, and the final ancient member was too pig-headed to look at it.",0 "How there were more years; more impertinences, ignorances, and insults.",1 "How my lords then made a Minute, number five thousand one hundred and three, whereby they resigned the business to the Circumlocution Office.",1 "How the Circumlocution Office, in course of time, took up the business as if it were a bran new thing of yesterday, which had never been heard of before; muddled the business, addled the business, tossed the business in a wet blanket.",2 "How the impertinences, ignorances, and insults went through the multiplication table.",1 "How there was a reference of the invention to three Barnacles and a Stiltstalking, who knew nothing about it; into whose heads nothing could be hammered about it; who got bored about it, and reported physical impossibilities about it.",1 "How the Circumlocution Office, in a Minute, number eight thousand seven hundred and forty, 'saw no reason to reverse the decision at which my lords had arrived.'",2 "How the Circumlocution Office, being reminded that my lords had arrived at no decision, shelved the business.",2 "How there had been a final interview with the head of the Circumlocution Office that very morning, and how the Brazen Head had spoken, and had been, upon the whole, and under all the circumstances, and looking at it from the various points of view, of opinion that one of two courses was to be pursued in respect of the business: that was to say, either to leave it alone for evermore, or to begin it all over again.",2 "'Upon which,' said Mr Meagles, 'as a practical man, I then and there, in that presence, took Doyce by the collar, and told him it was plain to me that he was an infamous rascal and treasonable disturber of the government peace, and took him away.",1 "I brought him out of the office door by the collar, that the very porter might know I was a practical man who appreciated the official estimate of such characters; and here we are!'",3 "If that airy young Barnacle had been there, he would have frankly told them perhaps that the Circumlocution Office had achieved its function.",2 "That what the Barnacles had to do, was to stick on to the national ship as long as they could.",2 "That to trim the ship, lighten the ship, clean the ship, would be to knock them off; that they could but be knocked off once; and that if the ship went down with them yet sticking to it, that was the ship's look out, and not theirs.",2 'There!',2 "said Mr Meagles, 'now you know all about Doyce.",2 "Except, which I own does not improve my state of mind, that even now you don't hear him complain.'",2 "'You must have great patience,' said Arthur Clennam, looking at him with some wonder, 'great forbearance.'",4 "'No,' he returned, 'I don't know that I have more than another man.'",2 "'By the Lord, you have more than I have, though!'",2 cried Mr Meagles.,2 "Doyce smiled, as he said to Clennam, 'You see, my experience of these things does not begin with myself.",2 It has been in my way to know a little about them from time to time.,2 Mine is not a particular case.,2 "I am not worse used than a hundred others who have put themselves in the same position--than all the others, I was going to say.'",1 "'I don't know that I should find that a consolation, if it were my case; but I am very glad that you do.'",3 'Understand me!,2 "I don't say,' he replied in his steady, planning way, and looking into the distance before him as if his grey eye were measuring it, 'that it's recompense for a man's toil and hope; but it's a certain sort of relief to know that I might have counted on this.'",3 "He spoke in that quiet deliberate manner, and in that undertone, which is often observable in mechanics who consider and adjust with great nicety.",3 "It belonged to him like his suppleness of thumb, or his peculiar way of tilting up his hat at the back every now and then, as if he were contemplating some half-finished work of his hand and thinking about it.",3 'Disappointed?',2 "he went on, as he walked between them under the trees.",2 'Yes.,2 No doubt I am disappointed.,1 Hurt?,1 Yes.,2 No doubt I am hurt.,1 That's only natural.,2 "But what I mean when I say that people who put themselves in the same position are mostly used in the same way--' 'In England,' said Mr Meagles.",2 'Oh!,2 of course I mean in England.,2 "When they take their inventions into foreign countries, that's quite different.",2 And that's the reason why so many go there.',2 Mr Meagles very hot indeed again.,3 "'What I mean is, that however this comes to be the regular way of our government, it is its regular way.",2 "Have you ever heard of any projector or inventor who failed to find it all but inaccessible, and whom it did not discourage and ill-treat?'",1 'I cannot say that I ever have.',2 'Have you ever known it to be beforehand in the adoption of any useful thing?,3 Ever known it to set an example of any useful kind?',3 "'I am a good deal older than my friend here,' said Mr Meagles, 'and I'll answer that.",3 Never.',2 "'But we all three have known, I expect,' said the inventor, 'a pretty many cases of its fixed determination to be miles upon miles, and years upon years, behind the rest of us; and of its being found out persisting in the use of things long superseded, even after the better things were well known and generally taken up?'",4 They all agreed upon that.,2 "'Well then,' said Doyce, with a sigh, 'as I know what such a metal will do at such a temperature, and such a body under such a pressure, so I may know (if I will only consider), how these great lords and gentlemen will certainly deal with such a matter as mine.",3 "I have no right to be surprised, with a head upon my shoulders, and memory in it, that I fall into the ranks with all who came before me.",2 I ought to have let it alone.,2 "I have had warning enough, I am sure.'",2 "With that he put up his spectacle-case, and said to Arthur, 'If I don't complain, Mr Clennam, I can feel gratitude; and I assure you that I feel it towards our mutual friend.",3 "Many's the day, and many's the way in which he has backed me.'",2 "'Stuff and nonsense,' said Mr Meagles.",1 Arthur could not but glance at Daniel Doyce in the ensuing silence.,2 "Though it was evidently in the grain of his character, and of his respect for his own case, that he should abstain from idle murmuring, it was evident that he had grown the older, the sterner, and the poorer, for his long endeavour.",1 "He could not but think what a blessed thing it would have been for this man, if he had taken a lesson from the gentlemen who were so kind as to take a nation's affairs in charge, and had learnt How not to do it.",2 "Mr Meagles was hot and despondent for about five minutes, and then began to cool and clear up.",3 "'Come, come!'",2 said he.,2 'We shall not make this the better by being grim.,2 "Where do you think of going, Dan?'",2 "'I shall go back to the factory,' said Dan.",2 "'Why then, we'll all go back to the factory, or walk in that direction,' returned Mr Meagles cheerfully.",2 'Mr Clennam won't be deterred by its being in Bleeding Heart Yard.',1 'Bleeding Heart Yard?',2 said Clennam.,2 'I want to go there.',2 "'So much the better,' cried Mr Meagles.",3 'Come along!',2 "As they went along, certainly one of the party, and probably more than one, thought that Bleeding Heart Yard was no inappropriate destination for a man who had been in official correspondence with my lords and the Barnacles--and perhaps had a misgiving also that Britannia herself might come to look for lodgings in Bleeding Heart Yard some ugly day or other, if she over-did the Circumlocution Office.",0 "A late, dull autumn night was closing in upon the river Saone.",1 "The stream, like a sullied looking-glass in a gloomy place, reflected the clouds heavily; and the low banks leaned over here and there, as if they were half curious, and half afraid, to see their darkening pictures in the water.",1 "The flat expanse of country about Chalons lay a long heavy streak, occasionally made a little ragged by a row of poplar trees against the wrathful sunset.",1 "On the banks of the river Saone it was wet, depressing, solitary; and the night deepened fast.",2 One man slowly moving on towards Chalons was the only visible figure in the landscape.,1 Cain might have looked as lonely and avoided.,1 "With an old sheepskin knapsack at his back, and a rough, unbarked stick cut out of some wood in his hand; miry, footsore, his shoes and gaiters trodden out, his hair and beard untrimmed; the cloak he carried over his shoulder, and the clothes he wore, sodden with wet; limping along in pain and difficulty; he looked as if the clouds were hurrying from him, as if the wail of the wind and the shuddering of the grass were directed against him, as if the low mysterious plashing of the water murmured at him, as if the fitful autumn night were disturbed by him.",0 "He glanced here, and he glanced there, sullenly but shrinkingly; and sometimes stopped and turned about, and looked all round him.",2 "Then he limped on again, toiling and muttering.",2 'To the devil with this plain that has no end!,1 To the devil with these stones that cut like knives!,2 "To the devil with this dismal darkness, wrapping itself about one with a chill!",0 I hate you!',1 "And he would have visited his hatred upon it all with the scowl he threw about him, if he could.",1 "He trudged a little further; and looking into the distance before him, stopped again.",2 "'I, hungry, thirsty, weary.",1 "You, imbeciles, where the lights are yonder, eating and drinking, and warming yourselves at fires!",2 "I wish I had the sacking of your town; I would repay you, my children!'",2 "But the teeth he set at the town, and the hand he shook at the town, brought the town no nearer; and the man was yet hungrier, and thirstier, and wearier, when his feet were on its jagged pavement, and he stood looking about him.",1 "There was the hotel with its gateway, and its savoury smell of cooking; there was the cafe with its bright windows, and its rattling of dominoes; there was the dyer's with its strips of red cloth on the doorposts; there was the silversmith's with its earrings, and its offerings for altars; there was the tobacco dealer's with its lively group of soldier customers coming out pipe in mouth; there were the bad odours of the town, and the rain and the refuse in the kennels, and the faint lamps slung across the road, and the huge Diligence, and its mountain of luggage, and its six grey horses with their tails tied up, getting under weigh at the coach office.",1 "But no small cabaret for a straitened traveller being within sight, he had to seek one round the dark corner, where the cabbage leaves lay thickest, trodden about the public cistern at which women had not yet left off drawing water.",1 "There, in the back street he found one, the Break of Day.",1 "The curtained windows clouded the Break of Day, but it seemed light and warm, and it announced in legible inscriptions with appropriate pictorial embellishment of billiard cue and ball, that at the Break of Day one could play billiards; that there one could find meat, drink, and lodgings, whether one came on horseback, or came on foot; and that it kept good wines, liqueurs, and brandy.",3 "The man turned the handle of the Break of Day door, and limped in.",1 "He touched his discoloured slouched hat, as he came in at the door, to a few men who occupied the room.",2 "Two were playing dominoes at one of the little tables; three or four were seated round the stove, conversing as they smoked; the billiard-table in the centre was left alone for the time; the landlady of the Daybreak sat behind her little counter among her cloudy bottles of syrups, baskets of cakes, and leaden drainage for glasses, working at her needle.",1 "Making his way to an empty little table in a corner of the room behind the stove, he put down his knapsack and his cloak upon the ground.",2 "As he raised his head from stooping to do so, he found the landlady beside him.",2 "'One can lodge here to-night, madame?'",2 'Perfectly!',2 "said the landlady in a high, sing-song, cheery voice.",3 'Good.,2 One can dine--sup--what you please to call it?',2 "'Ah, perfectly!'",3 cried the landlady as before.,2 "'Dispatch then, madame, if you please.",2 "Something to eat, as quickly as you can; and some wine at once.",2 I am exhausted.',1 "'It is very bad weather, monsieur,' said the landlady.",1 'Cursed weather.',2 'And a very long road.',2 'A cursed road.',1 "His hoarse voice failed him, and he rested his head upon his hands until a bottle of wine was brought from the counter.",1 "Having filled and emptied his little tumbler twice, and having broken off an end from the great loaf that was set before him with his cloth and napkin, soup-plate, salt, pepper, and oil, he rested his back against the corner of the wall, made a couch of the bench on which he sat, and began to chew crust, until such time as his repast should be ready.",3 "There had been that momentary interruption of the talk about the stove, and that temporary inattention to and distraction from one another, which is usually inseparable in such a company from the arrival of a stranger.",0 "It had passed over by this time; and the men had done glancing at him, and were talking again.",2 "'That's the true reason,' said one of them, bringing a story he had been telling, to a close, 'that's the true reason why they said that the devil was let loose.'",1 "The speaker was the tall Swiss belonging to the church, and he brought something of the authority of the church into the discussion--especially as the devil was in question.",1 "The landlady having given her directions for the new guest's entertainment to her husband, who acted as cook to the Break of Day, had resumed her needlework behind her counter.",1 "She was a smart, neat, bright little woman, with a good deal of cap and a good deal of stocking, and she struck into the conversation with several laughing nods of her head, but without looking up from her work.",4 "'Ah Heaven, then,' said she.",3 "'When the boat came up from Lyons, and brought the news that the devil was actually let loose at Marseilles, some fly-catchers swallowed it.",1 But I?,2 "No, not I.' 'Madame, you are always right,' returned the tall Swiss.",3 "'Doubtless you were enraged against that man, madame?'",1 "'Ay, yes, then!'",2 "cried the landlady, raising her eyes from her work, opening them very wide, and tossing her head on one side.",3 "'Naturally, yes.'",2 'He was a bad subject.',1 "'He was a wicked wretch,' said the landlady, 'and well merited what he had the good fortune to escape.",3 So much the worse.',1 "'Stay, madame!",2 "Let us see,' returned the Swiss, argumentatively turning his cigar between his lips.",2 'It may have been his unfortunate destiny.,2 He may have been the child of circumstances.,2 "It is always possible that he had, and has, good in him if one did but know how to find it out.",3 Philosophical philanthropy teaches--' The rest of the little knot about the stove murmured an objection to the introduction of that threatening expression.,1 "Even the two players at dominoes glanced up from their game, as if to protest against philosophical philanthropy being brought by name into the Break of Day.",1 "'Hold there, you and your philanthropy,' cried the smiling landlady, nodding her head more than ever.",3 'Listen then.,2 "I am a woman, I. I know nothing of philosophical philanthropy.",2 "But I know what I have seen, and what I have looked in the face in this world here, where I find myself.",2 "And I tell you this, my friend, that there are people (men and women both, unfortunately) who have no good in them--none.",2 That there are people whom it is necessary to detest without compromise.,1 That there are people who must be dealt with as enemies of the human race.,1 "That there are people who have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage beasts and cleared out of the way.",2 "They are but few, I hope; but I have seen (in this world here where I find myself, and even at the little Break of Day) that there are such people.",1 "And I do not doubt that this man--whatever they call him, I forget his name--is one of them.'",1 "The landlady's lively speech was received with greater favour at the Break of Day, than it would have elicited from certain amiable whitewashers of the class she so unreasonably objected to, nearer Great Britain.",3 'My faith!,3 "If your philosophical philanthropy,' said the landlady, putting down her work, and rising to take the stranger's soup from her husband, who appeared with it at a side door, 'puts anybody at the mercy of such people by holding terms with them at all, in words or deeds, or both, take it away from the Break of Day, for it isn't worth a sou.'",3 "As she placed the soup before the guest, who changed his attitude to a sitting one, he looked her full in the face, and his moustache went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache.",2 'Well!',2 "said the previous speaker, 'let us come back to our subject.",2 "Leaving all that aside, gentlemen, it was because the man was acquitted on his trial that people said at Marseilles that the devil was let loose.",1 "That was how the phrase began to circulate, and what it meant; nothing more.'",2 'How do they call him?',2 said the landlady.,2 "'Biraud, is it not?'",2 "'Rigaud, madame,' returned the tall Swiss.",2 'Rigaud!,2 To be sure.',2 "The traveller's soup was succeeded by a dish of meat, and that by a dish of vegetables.",3 "He ate all that was placed before him, emptied his bottle of wine, called for a glass of rum, and smoked his cigarette with his cup of coffee.",2 "As he became refreshed, he became overbearing; and patronised the company at the Daybreak in certain small talk at which he assisted, as if his condition were far above his appearance.",2 "The company might have had other engagements, or they might have felt their inferiority, but in any case they dispersed by degrees, and not being replaced by other company, left their new patron in possession of the Break of Day.",1 "The landlord was clinking about in his kitchen; the landlady was quiet at her work; and the refreshed traveller sat smoking by the stove, warming his ragged feet.",3 "'Pardon me, madame--that Biraud.'",2 "'Rigaud, monsieur.'",2 'Rigaud.,2 "Pardon me again--has contracted your displeasure, how?'",2 "The landlady, who had been at one moment thinking within herself that this was a handsome man, at another moment that this was an ill-looking man, observed the nose coming down and the moustache going up, and strongly inclined to the latter decision.",3 "Rigaud was a criminal, she said, who had killed his wife.",1 "'Ay, ay?",2 "Death of my life, that's a criminal indeed.",1 But how do you know it?',2 'All the world knows it.',2 'Hah!,2 And yet he escaped justice?',2 "'Monsieur, the law could not prove it against him to its satisfaction.",2 So the law says.,2 "Nevertheless, all the world knows he did it.",2 "The people knew it so well, that they tried to tear him to pieces.'",3 'Being all in perfect accord with their own wives?',3 said the guest.,2 'Haha!',2 "The landlady of the Break of Day looked at him again, and felt almost confirmed in her last decision.",1 "He had a fine hand, though, and he turned it with a great show.",3 She began once more to think that he was not ill-looking after all.,2 "'Did you mention, madame--or was it mentioned among the gentlemen--what became of him?'",2 "The landlady shook her head; it being the first conversational stage at which her vivacious earnestness had ceased to nod it, keeping time to what she said.",3 "It had been mentioned at the Daybreak, she remarked, on the authority of the journals, that he had been kept in prison for his own safety.",1 "However that might be, he had escaped his deserts; so much the worse.",1 "The guest sat looking at her as he smoked out his final cigarette, and as she sat with her head bent over her work, with an expression that might have resolved her doubts, and brought her to a lasting conclusion on the subject of his good or bad looks if she had seen it.",1 "When she did look up, the expression was not there.",2 The hand was smoothing his shaggy moustache.,2 "'May one ask to be shown to bed, madame?'",2 "Very willingly, monsieur.",3 "Hola, my husband!",2 My husband would conduct him up-stairs.,2 "There was one traveller there, asleep, who had gone to bed very early indeed, being overpowered by fatigue; but it was a large chamber with two beds in it, and space enough for twenty.",2 "This the landlady of the Break of Day chirpingly explained, calling between whiles, 'Hola, my husband!'",1 out at the side door.,2 "My husband answered at length, 'It is I, my wife!'",2 "and presenting himself in his cook's cap, lighted the traveller up a steep and narrow staircase; the traveller carrying his own cloak and knapsack, and bidding the landlady good night with a complimentary reference to the pleasure of seeing her again to-morrow.",3 "It was a large room, with a rough splintery floor, unplastered rafters overhead, and two bedsteads on opposite sides.",1 "Here 'my husband' put down the candle he carried, and with a sidelong look at his guest stooping over his knapsack, gruffly gave him the instruction, 'The bed to the right!'",3 and left him to his repose.,2 "The landlord, whether he was a good or a bad physiognomist, had fully made up his mind that the guest was an ill-looking fellow.",2 "The guest looked contemptuously at the clean coarse bedding prepared for him, and, sitting down on the rush chair at the bedside, drew his money out of his pocket, and told it over in his hand.",1 "'One must eat,' he muttered to himself, 'but by Heaven I must eat at the cost of some other man to-morrow!'",3 "As he sat pondering, and mechanically weighing his money in his palm, the deep breathing of the traveller in the other bed fell so regularly upon his hearing that it attracted his eyes in that direction.",1 "The man was covered up warm, and had drawn the white curtain at his head, so that he could be only heard, not seen.",3 "But the deep regular breathing, still going on while the other was taking off his worn shoes and gaiters, and still continuing when he had laid aside his coat and cravat, became at length a strong provocative to curiosity, and incentive to get a glimpse of the sleeper's face.",1 "The waking traveller, therefore, stole a little nearer, and yet a little nearer, and a little nearer to the sleeping traveller's bed, until he stood close beside it.",1 "Even then he could not see his face, for he had drawn the sheet over it.",2 "The regular breathing still continuing, he put his smooth white hand (such a treacherous hand it looked, as it went creeping from him!) to the sheet, and gently lifted it away.",1 'Death of my soul!',2 "he whispered, falling back, 'here's Cavalletto!'",1 "The little Italian, previously influenced in his sleep, perhaps, by the stealthy presence at his bedside, stopped in his regular breathing, and with a long deep respiration opened his eyes.",2 "At first they were not awake, though open.",2 "He lay for some seconds looking placidly at his old prison companion, and then, all at once, with a cry of surprise and alarm, sprang out of bed.",0 'Hush!,2 What's the matter?,2 Keep quiet!,3 It's I.,2 You know me?',2 "cried the other, in a suppressed voice.",2 "But John Baptist, widely staring, muttering a number of invocations and ejaculations, tremblingly backing into a corner, slipping on his trousers, and tying his coat by the two sleeves round his neck, manifested an unmistakable desire to escape by the door rather than renew the acquaintance.",2 "Seeing this, his old prison comrade fell back upon the door, and set his shoulders against it.",1 'Cavalletto!,2 "Wake, boy!",2 Rub your eyes and look at me.,2 "Not the name you used to call me--don't use that--Lagnier, say Lagnier!'",2 "John Baptist, staring at him with eyes opened to their utmost width, made a number of those national, backhanded shakes of the right forefinger in the air, as if he were resolved on negativing beforehand everything that the other could possibly advance during the whole term of his life.",3 'Cavalletto!,2 Give me your hand.,2 "You know Lagnier, the gentleman.",2 Touch the hand of a gentleman!',2 "Submitting himself to the old tone of condescending authority, John Baptist, not at all steady on his legs as yet, advanced and put his hand in his patron's.",3 "Monsieur Lagnier laughed; and having given it a squeeze, tossed it up and let it go.",2 'Then you were--' faltered John Baptist.,1 'Not shaved?,2 No.,2 See here!',2 "cried Lagnier, giving his head a twirl; 'as tight on as your own.'",2 "John Baptist, with a slight shiver, looked all round the room as if to recall where he was.",1 "His patron took that opportunity of turning the key in the door, and then sat down upon his bed.",2 'Look!',2 "he said, holding up his shoes and gaiters.",2 "'That's a poor trim for a gentleman, you'll say.",1 "No matter, you shall see how soon I'll mend it.",2 Come and sit down.,2 Take your old place!',2 "John Baptist, looking anything but reassured, sat down on the floor at the bedside, keeping his eyes upon his patron all the time.",2 'That's well!',3 cried Lagnier.,2 "'Now we might be in the old infernal hole again, hey?",1 How long have you been out?',2 "'Two days after you, my master.'",3 'How do you come here?',2 "'I was cautioned not to stay there, and so I left the town at once, and since then I have changed about.",2 "I have been doing odds and ends at Avignon, at Pont Esprit, at Lyons; upon the Rhone, upon the Saone.'",2 "As he spoke, he rapidly mapped the places out with his sunburnt hand upon the floor.",2 'And where are you going?',2 "'Going, my master?'",3 'Ay!',2 John Baptist seemed to desire to evade the question without knowing how.,1 'By Bacchus!',2 "he said at last, as if he were forced to the admission, 'I have sometimes had a thought of going to Paris, and perhaps to England.'",2 'Cavalletto.,2 This is in confidence.,3 I also am going to Paris and perhaps to England.,2 We'll go together.',2 "The little man nodded his head, and showed his teeth; and yet seemed not quite convinced that it was a surpassingly desirable arrangement.",3 "'We'll go together,' repeated Lagnier.",2 "'You shall see how soon I will force myself to be recognised as a gentleman, and you shall profit by it.",2 It is agreed?,2 Are we one?',2 "'Oh, surely, surely!'",2 said the little man.,2 "'Then you shall hear before I sleep--and in six words, for I want sleep--how I appear before you, I, Lagnier.",2 Remember that.,2 Not the other.',2 "'Altro, altro!",2 "Not Ri----' Before John Baptist could finish the name, his comrade had got his hand under his chin and fiercely shut up his mouth.",2 'Death!,2 what are you doing?,2 Do you want me to be trampled upon and stoned?,2 Do _you_ want to be trampled upon and stoned?,2 You would be.,2 "You don't imagine that they would set upon me, and let my prison chum go?",1 Don't think it!',2 "There was an expression in his face as he released his grip of his friend's jaw, from which his friend inferred that if the course of events really came to any stoning and trampling, Monsieur Lagnier would so distinguish him with his notice as to ensure his having his full share of it.",2 "He remembered what a cosmopolitan gentleman Monsieur Lagnier was, and how few weak distinctions he made.",1 "'I am a man,' said Monsieur Lagnier, 'whom society has deeply wronged since you last saw me.",2 "You know that I am sensitive and brave, and that it is my character to govern.",3 How has society respected those qualities in me?,2 I have been shrieked at through the streets.,2 "I have been guarded through the streets against men, and especially women, running at me armed with any weapons they could lay their hands on.",2 "I have lain in prison for security, with the place of my confinement kept a secret, lest I should be torn out of it and felled by a hundred blows.",1 "I have been carted out of Marseilles in the dead of night, and carried leagues away from it packed in straw.",1 "It has not been safe for me to go near my house; and, with a beggar's pittance in my pocket, I have walked through vile mud and weather ever since, until my feet are crippled--look at them!",1 "Such are the humiliations that society has inflicted upon me, possessing the qualities I have mentioned, and which you know me to possess.",2 But society shall pay for it.',2 "All this he said in his companion's ear, and with his hand before his lips.",2 "'Even here,' he went on in the same way, 'even in this mean drinking-shop, society pursues me.",2 "Madame defames me, and her guests defame me.",1 "I, too, a gentleman with manners and accomplishments to strike them dead!",1 But the wrongs society has heaped upon me are treasured in this breast.',2 "To all of which John Baptist, listening attentively to the suppressed hoarse voice, said from time to time, 'Surely, surely!'",2 "tossing his head and shutting his eyes, as if there were the clearest case against society that perfect candour could make out.",3 "'Put my shoes there,' continued Lagnier.",2 'Hang my cloak to dry there by the door.,2 Take my hat.',2 "He obeyed each instruction, as it was given.",2 "'And this is the bed to which society consigns me, is it?",2 Hah.,2 _Very_ well!',3 "As he stretched out his length upon it, with a ragged handkerchief bound round his wicked head, and only his wicked head showing above the bedclothes, John Baptist was rather strongly reminded of what had so very nearly happened to prevent the moustache from any more going up as it did, and the nose from any more coming down as it did.",1 "'Shaken out of destiny's dice-box again into your company, eh?",2 By Heaven!,3 So much the better for you.,3 You'll profit by it.,2 I shall need a long rest.,2 Let me sleep in the morning.',2 "John Baptist replied that he should sleep as long as he would, and wishing him a happy night, put out the candle.",3 "One might have supposed that the next proceeding of the Italian would have been to undress; but he did exactly the reverse, and dressed himself from head to foot, saving his shoes.",2 "When he had so done, he lay down upon his bed with some of its coverings over him, and his coat still tied round his neck, to get through the night.",2 "When he started up, the Godfather Break of Day was peeping at its namesake.",1 "He rose, took his shoes in his hand, turned the key in the door with great caution, and crept downstairs.",2 "Nothing was astir there but the smell of coffee, wine, tobacco, and syrups; and madame's little counter looked ghastly enough.",1 "But he had paid madame his little note at it over night, and wanted to see nobody--wanted nothing but to get on his shoes and his knapsack, open the door, and run away.",2 He prospered in his object.,1 No movement or voice was heard when he opened the door; no wicked head tied up in a ragged handkerchief looked out of the upper window.,1 "When the sun had raised his full disc above the flat line of the horizon, and was striking fire out of the long muddy vista of paved road with its weary avenue of little trees, a black speck moved along the road and splashed among the flaming pools of rain-water, which black speck was John Baptist Cavalletto running away from his patron.",1 "In London itself, though in the old rustic road towards a suburb of note where in the days of William Shakespeare, author and stage-player, there were Royal hunting-seats--howbeit no sport is left there now but for hunters of men--Bleeding Heart Yard was to be found; a place much changed in feature and in fortune, yet with some relish of ancient greatness about it.",3 "Two or three mighty stacks of chimneys, and a few large dark rooms which had escaped being walled and subdivided out of the recognition of their old proportions, gave the Yard a character.",2 "It was inhabited by poor people, who set up their rest among its faded glories, as Arabs of the desert pitch their tents among the fallen stones of the Pyramids; but there was a family sentimental feeling prevalent in the Yard, that it had a character.",0 "As if the aspiring city had become puffed up in the very ground on which it stood, the ground had so risen about Bleeding Heart Yard that you got into it down a flight of steps which formed no part of the original approach, and got out of it by a low gateway into a maze of shabby streets, which went about and about, tortuously ascending to the level again.",1 "At this end of the Yard and over the gateway, was the factory of Daniel Doyce, often heavily beating like a bleeding heart of iron, with the clink of metal upon metal.",2 The opinion of the Yard was divided respecting the derivation of its name.,2 "The more practical of its inmates abided by the tradition of a murder; the gentler and more imaginative inhabitants, including the whole of the tender sex, were loyal to the legend of a young lady of former times closely imprisoned in her chamber by a cruel father for remaining true to her own true love, and refusing to marry the suitor he chose for her.",3 "The legend related how that the young lady used to be seen up at her window behind the bars, murmuring a love-lorn song of which the burden was, 'Bleeding Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding away,' until she died.",0 "It was objected by the murderous party that this Refrain was notoriously the invention of a tambour-worker, a spinster and romantic, still lodging in the Yard.",1 "But, forasmuch as all favourite legends must be associated with the affections, and as many more people fall in love than commit murder--which it may be hoped, howsoever bad we are, will continue until the end of the world to be the dispensation under which we shall live--the Bleeding Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding away story, carried the day by a great majority.",1 "Neither party would listen to the antiquaries who delivered learned lectures in the neighbourhood, showing the Bleeding Heart to have been the heraldic cognisance of the old family to whom the property had once belonged.",1 "And, considering that the hour-glass they turned from year to year was filled with the earthiest and coarsest sand, the Bleeding Heart Yarders had reason enough for objecting to be despoiled of the one little golden grain of poetry that sparkled in it.",3 "Down in to the Yard, by way of the steps, came Daniel Doyce, Mr Meagles, and Clennam.",2 "Passing along the Yard, and between the open doors on either hand, all abundantly garnished with light children nursing heavy ones, they arrived at its opposite boundary, the gateway.",2 "Here Arthur Clennam stopped to look about him for the domicile of Plornish, plasterer, whose name, according to the custom of Londoners, Daniel Doyce had never seen or heard of to that hour.",2 "It was plain enough, nevertheless, as Little Dorrit had said; over a lime-splashed gateway in the corner, within which Plornish kept a ladder and a barrel or two.",3 "The last house in Bleeding Heart Yard which she had described as his place of habitation, was a large house, let off to various tenants; but Plornish ingeniously hinted that he lived in the parlour, by means of a painted hand under his name, the forefinger of which hand (on which the artist had depicted a ring and a most elaborate nail of the genteelest form) referred all inquirers to that apartment.",2 "Parting from his companions, after arranging another meeting with Mr Meagles, Clennam went alone into the entry, and knocked with his knuckles at the parlour-door.",2 "It was opened presently by a woman with a child in her arms, whose unoccupied hand was hastily rearranging the upper part of her dress.",1 "This was Mrs Plornish, and this maternal action was the action of Mrs Plornish during a large part of her waking existence.",2 Was Mr Plornish at home?,2 "'Well, sir,' said Mrs Plornish, a civil woman, 'not to deceive you, he's gone to look for a job.'",1 'Not to deceive you' was a method of speech with Mrs Plornish.,1 "She would deceive you, under any circumstances, as little as might be; but she had a trick of answering in this provisional form.",1 "'Do you think he will be back soon, if I wait for him?'",2 "'I have been expecting him,' said Mrs Plornish, 'this half an hour, at any minute of time.",2 "Walk in, sir.'",2 "Arthur entered the rather dark and close parlour (though it was lofty too), and sat down in the chair she placed for him.",1 "'Not to deceive you, sir, I notice it,' said Mrs Plornish, 'and I take it kind of you.'",1 "He was at a loss to understand what she meant; and by expressing as much in his looks, elicited her explanation.",1 "'It ain't many that comes into a poor place, that deems it worth their while to move their hats,' said Mrs Plornish.",2 'But people think more of it than people think.',2 "Clennam returned, with an uncomfortable feeling in so very slight a courtesy being unusual, Was that all!",1 "And stooping down to pinch the cheek of another young child who was sitting on the floor, staring at him, asked Mrs Plornish how old that fine boy was?",2 "'Four year just turned, sir,' said Mrs Plornish.",2 "'He _is_ a fine little fellow, ain't he, sir?",3 But this one is rather sickly.',1 "She tenderly hushed the baby in her arms, as she said it.",3 "'You wouldn't mind my asking if it happened to be a job as you was come about, sir, would you?'",2 asked Mrs Plornish wistfully.,2 "She asked it so anxiously, that if he had been in possession of any kind of tenement, he would have had it plastered a foot deep rather than answer No.",1 "But he was obliged to answer No; and he saw a shade of disappointment on her face, as she checked a sigh, and looked at the low fire.",1 "Then he saw, also, that Mrs Plornish was a young woman, made somewhat slatternly in herself and her belongings by poverty; and so dragged at by poverty and the children together, that their united forces had already dragged her face into wrinkles.",0 "'All such things as jobs,' said Mrs Plornish, 'seems to me to have gone underground, they do indeed.'",2 "(Herein Mrs Plornish limited her remark to the plastering trade, and spoke without reference to the Circumlocution Office and the Barnacle Family.) 'Is it so difficult to get work?'",1 asked Arthur Clennam.,2 "'Plornish finds it so,' she returned.",2 'He is quite unfortunate.,1 Really he is.',2 Really he was.,2 "He was one of those many wayfarers on the road of life, who seem to be afflicted with supernatural corns, rendering it impossible for them to keep up even with their lame competitors.",1 "A willing, working, soft hearted, not hard-headed fellow, Plornish took his fortune as smoothly as could be expected; but it was a rough one.",3 "It so rarely happened that anybody seemed to want him, it was such an exceptional case when his powers were in any request, that his misty mind could not make out how it happened.",3 "He took it as it came, therefore; he tumbled into all kinds of difficulties, and tumbled out of them; and, by tumbling through life, got himself considerably bruised.",0 "'It's not for want of looking after jobs, I am sure,' said Mrs Plornish, lifting up her eyebrows, and searching for a solution of the problem between the bars of the grate; 'nor yet for want of working at them when they are to be got.",1 No one ever heard my husband complain of work.',2 "Somehow or other, this was the general misfortune of Bleeding Heart Yard.",1 "From time to time there were public complaints, pathetically going about, of labour being scarce--which certain people seemed to take extraordinarily ill, as though they had an absolute right to it on their own terms--but Bleeding Heart Yard, though as willing a Yard as any in Britain, was never the better for the demand.",2 "That high old family, the Barnacles, had long been too busy with their great principle to look into the matter; and indeed the matter had nothing to do with their watchfulness in out-generalling all other high old families except the Stiltstalkings.",3 "While Mrs Plornish spoke in these words of her absent lord, her lord returned.",2 "A smooth-cheeked, fresh-coloured, sandy-whiskered man of thirty.",3 "Long in the legs, yielding at the knees, foolish in the face, flannel-jacketed, lime-whitened.",1 "'This is Plornish, sir.'",2 "'I came,' said Clennam, rising, 'to beg the favour of a little conversation with you on the subject of the Dorrit family.'",2 Plornish became suspicious.,1 Seemed to scent a creditor.,2 "Said, 'Ah, yes.",2 Well.,3 "He didn't know what satisfaction _he_ could give any gentleman, respecting that family.",2 "What might it be about, now?'",2 "'I know you better,' said Clennam, smiling, 'than you suppose.'",3 "Plornish observed, not smiling in return, And yet he hadn't the pleasure of being acquainted with the gentleman, neither.",3 "'No,' said Arthur, 'I know your kind offices at second hand, but on the best authority; through Little Dorrit.--I mean,' he explained, 'Miss Dorrit.'",3 "'Mr Clennam, is it?",2 Oh!,2 "I've heard of you, Sir.'",2 "'And I of you,' said Arthur.",2 "'Please to sit down again, Sir, and consider yourself welcome.--Why, yes,' said Plornish, taking a chair, and lifting the elder child upon his knee, that he might have the moral support of speaking to a stranger over his head, 'I have been on the wrong side of the Lock myself, and in that way we come to know Miss Dorrit.",1 "Me and my wife, we are well acquainted with Miss Dorrit.'",2 'Intimate!',2 cried Mrs Plornish.,2 "Indeed, she was so proud of the acquaintance, that she had awakened some bitterness of spirit in the Yard by magnifying to an enormous amount the sum for which Miss Dorrit's father had become insolvent.",1 The Bleeding Hearts resented her claiming to know people of such distinction.,2 'It was her father that I got acquainted with first.,2 "And through getting acquainted with him, you see--why--I got acquainted with her,' said Plornish tautologically.",2 'I see.',2 'Ah!,2 And there's manners!,2 There's polish!,2 There's a gentleman to have run to seed in the Marshalsea jail!,2 "Why, perhaps you are not aware,' said Plornish, lowering his voice, and speaking with a perverse admiration of what he ought to have pitied or despised, 'not aware that Miss Dorrit and her sister dursn't let him know that they work for a living.",1 No!',2 "said Plornish, looking with a ridiculous triumph first at his wife, and then all round the room.",2 "'Dursn't let him know it, they dursn't!'",2 "'Without admiring him for that,' Clennam quietly observed, 'I am very sorry for him.'",2 "The remark appeared to suggest to Plornish, for the first time, that it might not be a very fine trait of character after all.",3 "He pondered about it for a moment, and gave it up.",2 "'As to me,' he resumed, 'certainly Mr Dorrit is as affable with me, I am sure, as I can possibly expect.",3 "Considering the differences and distances betwixt us, more so.",2 But it's Miss Dorrit that we were speaking of.',1 'True.,2 Pray how did you introduce her at my mother's!',2 "Mr Plornish picked a bit of lime out of his whisker, put it between his lips, turned it with his tongue like a sugar-plum, considered, found himself unequal to the task of lucid explanation, and appealing to his wife, said, 'Sally, _you_ may as well mention how it was, old woman.'",4 "'Miss Dorrit,' said Sally, hushing the baby from side to side, and laying her chin upon the little hand as it tried to disarrange the gown again, 'came here one afternoon with a bit of writing, telling that how she wished for needlework, and asked if it would be considered any ill-conwenience in case she was to give her address here.'",2 "(Plornish repeated, her address here, in a low voice, as if he were making responses at church.) 'Me and Plornish says, No, Miss Dorrit, no ill-conwenience,' (Plornish repeated, no ill-conwenience,) 'and she wrote it in, according.",1 "Which then me and Plornish says, Ho Miss Dorrit!'",1 "(Plornish repeated, Ho Miss Dorrit.) 'Have you thought of copying it three or four times, as the way to make it known in more places than one?",1 "No, says Miss Dorrit, I have not, but I will.",1 "She copied it out according, on this table, in a sweet writing, and Plornish, he took it where he worked, having a job just then,' (Plornish repeated job just then,) 'and likewise to the landlord of the Yard; through which it was that Mrs Clennam first happened to employ Miss Dorrit.'",3 "Plornish repeated, employ Miss Dorrit; and Mrs Plornish having come to an end, feigned to bite the fingers of the little hand as she kissed it.",1 "'The landlord of the Yard,' said Arthur Clennam, 'is--' 'He is Mr Casby, by name, he is,' said Plornish, 'and Pancks, he collects the rents.",2 "That,' added Mr Plornish, dwelling on the subject with a slow thoughtfulness that appeared to have no connection with any specific object, and to lead him nowhere, 'that is about what _they_ are, you may believe me or not, as you think proper.'",3 'Ay?',2 "returned Clennam, thoughtful in his turn.",3 "'Mr Casby, too!",2 "An old acquaintance of mine, long ago!'",2 "Mr Plornish did not see his road to any comment on this fact, and made none.",2 "As there truly was no reason why he should have the least interest in it, Arthur Clennam went on to the present purport of his visit; namely, to make Plornish the instrument of effecting Tip's release, with as little detriment as possible to the self-reliance and self-helpfulness of the young man, supposing him to possess any remnant of those qualities: without doubt a very wide stretch of supposition.",1 "Plornish, having been made acquainted with the cause of action from the Defendant's own mouth, gave Arthur to understand that the Plaintiff was a 'Chaunter'--meaning, not a singer of anthems, but a seller of horses--and that he (Plornish) considered that ten shillings in the pound 'would settle handsome,' and that more would be a waste of money.",2 "The Principal and instrument soon drove off together to a stable-yard in High Holborn, where a remarkably fine grey gelding, worth, at the lowest figure, seventy-five guineas (not taking into account the value of the shot he had been made to swallow for the improvement of his form), was to be parted with for a twenty-pound note, in consequence of his having run away last week with Mrs Captain Barbary of Cheltenham, who wasn't up to a horse of his courage, and who, in mere spite, insisted on selling him for that ridiculous sum: or, in other words, on giving him away.",4 "Plornish, going up this yard alone and leaving his Principal outside, found a gentleman with tight drab legs, a rather old hat, a little hooked stick, and a blue neckerchief (Captain Maroon of Gloucestershire, a private friend of Captain Barbary); who happened to be there, in a friendly way, to mention these little circumstances concerning the remarkably fine grey gelding to any real judge of a horse and quick snapper-up of a good thing, who might look in at that address as per advertisement.",4 "This gentleman, happening also to be the Plaintiff in the Tip case, referred Mr Plornish to his solicitor, and declined to treat with Mr Plornish, or even to endure his presence in the yard, unless he appeared there with a twenty-pound note: in which case only, the gentleman would augur from appearances that he meant business, and might be induced to talk to him.",2 "On this hint, Mr Plornish retired to communicate with his Principal, and presently came back with the required credentials.",2 "Then said Captain Maroon, 'Now, how much time do you want to make the other twenty in?",2 "Now, I'll give you a month.'",2 "Then said Captain Maroon, when that wouldn't suit, 'Now, I'll tell what I'll do with you.",2 "You shall get me a good bill at four months, made payable at a banking-house, for the other twenty!'",3 "Then said Captain Maroon, when _that_ wouldn't suit, 'Now, come; Here's the last I've got to say to you.",2 "You shall give me another ten down, and I'll run my pen clean through it.'",3 "Then said Captain Maroon when _that_ wouldn't suit, 'Now, I'll tell you what it is, and this shuts it up; he has used me bad, but I'll let him off for another five down and a bottle of wine; and if you mean done, say done, and if you don't like it, leave it.'",2 "Finally said Captain Maroon, when _that_ wouldn't suit either, 'Hand over, then!'",2 "--And in consideration of the first offer, gave a receipt in full and discharged the prisoner.",1 "'Mr Plornish,' said Arthur, 'I trust to you, if you please, to keep my secret.",3 "If you will undertake to let the young man know that he is free, and to tell him that you were employed to compound for the debt by some one whom you are not at liberty to name, you will not only do me a service, but may do him one, and his sister also.'",3 "'The last reason, sir,' said Plornish, 'would be quite sufficient.",3 Your wishes shall be attended to.',2 "'A Friend has obtained his discharge, you can say if you please.",2 "A Friend who hopes that for his sister's sake, if for no one else's, he will make good use of his liberty.'",3 "'Your wishes, sir, shall be attended to.'",2 "'And if you will be so good, in your better knowledge of the family, as to communicate freely with me, and to point out to me any means by which you think I may be delicately and really useful to Little Dorrit, I shall feel under an obligation to you.'",4 "'Don't name it, sir,' returned Plornish, 'it'll be ekally a pleasure an a--it'l be ekally a pleasure and a--' Finding himself unable to balance his sentence after two efforts, Mr Plornish wisely dropped it.",3 He took Clennam's card and appropriate pecuniary compliment.,3 "He was earnest to finish his commission at once, and his Principal was in the same mind.",3 "So his Principal offered to set him down at the Marshalsea Gate, and they drove in that direction over Blackfriars Bridge.",2 "On the way, Arthur elicited from his new friend a confused summary of the interior life of Bleeding Heart Yard.",1 "They was all hard up there, Mr Plornish said, uncommon hard up, to be sure.",1 "Well, he couldn't say how it was; he didn't know as anybody _could_ say how it was; all he know'd was, that so it was.",3 "When a man felt, on his own back and in his own belly, that poor he was, that man (Mr Plornish gave it as his decided belief) know'd well that he was poor somehow or another, and you couldn't talk it out of him, no more than you could talk Beef into him.",2 "Then you see, some people as was better off said, and a good many such people lived pretty close up to the mark themselves if not beyond it so he'd heerd, that they was 'improvident' (that was the favourite word) down the Yard.",4 "For instance, if they see a man with his wife and children going to Hampton Court in a Wan, perhaps once in a year, they says, 'Hallo!",2 "I thought you was poor, my improvident friend!'",1 "Why, Lord, how hard it was upon a man!",1 What was a man to do?,2 "He couldn't go mollancholy mad, and even if he did, you wouldn't be the better for it.",2 In Mr Plornish's judgment you would be the worse for it.,1 Yet you seemed to want to make a man mollancholy mad.,1 "You was always at it--if not with your right hand, with your left.",3 What was they a doing in the Yard?,2 "Why, take a look at 'em and see.",2 "There was the girls and their mothers a working at their sewing, or their shoe-binding, or their trimming, or their waistcoat making, day and night and night and day, and not more than able to keep body and soul together after all--often not so much.",2 "There was people of pretty well all sorts of trades you could name, all wanting to work, and yet not able to get it.",4 "There was old people, after working all their lives, going and being shut up in the workhouse, much worse fed and lodged and treated altogether, than--Mr Plornish said manufacturers, but appeared to mean malefactors.",1 "Why, a man didn't know where to turn himself for a crumb of comfort.",3 "As to who was to blame for it, Mr Plornish didn't know who was to blame for it.",1 "He could tell you who suffered, but he couldn't tell you whose fault it was.",1 "It wasn't _his_ place to find out, and who'd mind what he said, if he did find out?",2 "He only know'd that it wasn't put right by them what undertook that line of business, and that it didn't come right of itself.",3 "And, in brief, his illogical opinion was, that if you couldn't do nothing for him, you had better take nothing from him for doing of it; so far as he could make out, that was about what it come to.",2 "Thus, in a prolix, gently-growling, foolish way, did Plornish turn the tangled skein of his estate about and about, like a blind man who was trying to find some beginning or end to it; until they reached the prison gate.",0 "There, he left his Principal alone; to wonder, as he rode away, how many thousand Plornishes there might be within a day or two's journey of the Circumlocution Office, playing sundry curious variations on the same tune, which were not known by ear in that glorious institution.",3 The mention of Mr Casby again revived in Clennam's memory the smouldering embers of curiosity and interest which Mrs Flintwinch had fanned on the night of his arrival.,1 "Flora Casby had been the beloved of his boyhood; and Flora was the daughter and only child of wooden-headed old Christopher (so he was still occasionally spoken of by some irreverent spirits who had had dealings with him, and in whom familiarity had bred its proverbial result perhaps), who was reputed to be rich in weekly tenants, and to get a good quantity of blood out of the stones of several unpromising courts and alleys.",4 "After some days of inquiry and research, Arthur Clennam became convinced that the case of the Father of the Marshalsea was indeed a hopeless one, and sorrowfully resigned the idea of helping him to freedom again.",1 "He had no hopeful inquiry to make at present, concerning Little Dorrit either; but he argued with himself that it might--for anything he knew--it might be serviceable to the poor child, if he renewed this acquaintance.",3 "It is hardly necessary to add that beyond all doubt he would have presented himself at Mr Casby's door, if there had been no Little Dorrit in existence; for we all know how we all deceive ourselves--that is to say, how people in general, our profounder selves excepted, deceive themselves--as to motives of action.",1 "With a comfortable impression upon him, and quite an honest one in its way, that he was still patronising Little Dorrit in doing what had no reference to her, he found himself one afternoon at the corner of Mr Casby's street.",3 "Mr Casby lived in a street in the Gray's Inn Road, which had set off from that thoroughfare with the intention of running at one heat down into the valley, and up again to the top of Pentonville Hill; but which had run itself out of breath in twenty yards, and had stood still ever since.",3 "There is no such place in that part now; but it remained there for many years, looking with a baulked countenance at the wilderness patched with unfruitful gardens and pimpled with eruptive summerhouses, that it had meant to run over in no time.",2 "'The house,' thought Clennam, as he crossed to the door, 'is as little changed as my mother's, and looks almost as gloomy.",1 But the likeness ends outside.,2 I know its staid repose within.,1 The smell of its jars of old rose-leaves and lavender seems to come upon me even here.',1 "When his knock at the bright brass knocker of obsolete shape brought a woman-servant to the door, those faded scents in truth saluted him like wintry breath that had a faint remembrance in it of the bygone spring.",1 "He stepped into the sober, silent, air-tight house--one might have fancied it to have been stifled by Mutes in the Eastern manner--and the door, closing again, seemed to shut out sound and motion.",2 "The furniture was formal, grave, and quaker-like, but well-kept; and had as prepossessing an aspect as anything, from a human creature to a wooden stool, that is meant for much use and is preserved for little, can ever wear.",3 "There was a grave clock, ticking somewhere up the staircase; and there was a songless bird in the same direction, pecking at his cage, as if he were ticking too.",2 The parlour-fire ticked in the grate.,1 "There was only one person on the parlour-hearth, and the loud watch in his pocket ticked audibly.",2 "The servant-maid had ticked the two words 'Mr Clennam' so softly that she had not been heard; and he consequently stood, within the door she had closed, unnoticed.",1 "The figure of a man advanced in life, whose smooth grey eyebrows seemed to move to the ticking as the fire-light flickered on them, sat in an arm-chair, with his list shoes on the rug, and his thumbs slowly revolving over one another.",3 This was old Christopher Casby--recognisable at a glance--as unchanged in twenty years and upward as his own solid furniture--as little touched by the influence of the varying seasons as the old rose-leaves and old lavender in his porcelain jars.,3 "Perhaps there never was a man, in this troublesome world, so troublesome for the imagination to picture as a boy.",1 And yet he had changed very little in his progress through life.,3 "Confronting him, in the room in which he sat, was a boy's portrait, which anybody seeing him would have identified as Master Christopher Casby, aged ten: though disguised with a haymaking rake, for which he had had, at any time, as much taste or use as for a diving-bell; and sitting (on one of his own legs) upon a bank of violets, moved to precocious contemplation by the spire of a village church.",3 "There was the same smooth face and forehead, the same calm blue eye, the same placid air.",3 "The shining bald head, which looked so very large because it shone so much; and the long grey hair at its sides and back, like floss silk or spun glass, which looked so very benevolent because it was never cut; were not, of course, to be seen in the boy as in the old man.",3 "Nevertheless, in the Seraphic creature with the haymaking rake, were clearly to be discerned the rudiments of the Patriarch with the list shoes.",3 Patriarch was the name which many people delighted to give him.,3 Various old ladies in the neighbourhood spoke of him as The Last of the Patriarchs.,2 "So grey, so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy in the head, Patriarch was the word for him.",1 "He had been accosted in the streets, and respectfully solicited to become a Patriarch for painters and for sculptors; with so much importunity, in sooth, that it would appear to be beyond the Fine Arts to remember the points of a Patriarch, or to invent one.",3 "Philanthropists of both sexes had asked who he was, and on being informed, 'Old Christopher Casby, formerly Town-agent to Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle,' had cried in a rapture of disappointment, 'Oh!",2 "why, with that head, is he not a benefactor to his species!",3 Oh!,2 "why, with that head, is he not a father to the orphan and a friend to the friendless!'",1 "With that head, however, he remained old Christopher Casby, proclaimed by common report rich in house property; and with that head, he now sat in his silent parlour.",3 Indeed it would be the height of unreason to expect him to be sitting there without that head.,2 "Arthur Clennam moved to attract his attention, and the grey eyebrows turned towards him.",2 "'I beg your pardon,' said Clennam, 'I fear you did not hear me announced?'",1 "'No, sir, I did not.",2 "Did you wish to see me, sir?'",2 'I wished to pay my respects.',2 "Mr Casby seemed a feather's weight disappointed by the last words, having perhaps prepared himself for the visitor's wishing to pay something else.",1 "'Have I the pleasure, sir,' he proceeded--'take a chair, if you please--have I the pleasure of knowing--?",3 Ah!,2 "truly, yes, I think I have!",2 I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that I am acquainted with those features?,1 I think I address a gentleman of whose return to this country I was informed by Mr Flintwinch?',2 'That is your present visitor.',2 'Really!,2 Mr Clennam?',2 "'No other, Mr Casby.'",2 "'Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you.",3 How have you been since we met?',2 "Without thinking it worth while to explain that in the course of some quarter of a century he had experienced occasional slight fluctuations in his health and spirits, Clennam answered generally that he had never been better, or something equally to the purpose; and shook hands with the possessor of 'that head' as it shed its patriarchal light upon him.",3 "'We are older, Mr Clennam,' said Christopher Casby.",2 "'We are--not younger,' said Clennam.",2 "After this wise remark he felt that he was scarcely shining with brilliancy, and became aware that he was nervous.",1 "'And your respected father,' said Mr Casby, 'is no more!",2 "I was grieved to hear it, Mr Clennam, I was grieved.'",2 Arthur replied in the usual way that he felt infinitely obliged to him.,2 "'There was a time,' said Mr Casby, 'when your parents and myself were not on friendly terms.",3 There was a little family misunderstanding among us.,1 "Your respected mother was rather jealous of her son, maybe; when I say her son, I mean your worthy self, your worthy self.'",2 His smooth face had a bloom upon it like ripe wall-fruit.,4 "What with his blooming face, and that head, and his blue eyes, he seemed to be delivering sentiments of rare wisdom and virtue.",3 "In like manner, his physiognomical expression seemed to teem with benignity.",3 "Nobody could have said where the wisdom was, or where the virtue was, or where the benignity was; but they all seemed to be somewhere about him.",3 "'Those times, however,' pursued Mr Casby, 'are past and gone, past and gone.",2 "I do myself the pleasure of making a visit to your respected mother occasionally, and of admiring the fortitude and strength of mind with which she bears her trials, bears her trials.'",4 "When he made one of these little repetitions, sitting with his hands crossed before him, he did it with his head on one side, and a gentle smile, as if he had something in his thoughts too sweetly profound to be put into words.",4 "As if he denied himself the pleasure of uttering it, lest he should soar too high; and his meekness therefore preferred to be unmeaning.",2 "'I have heard that you were kind enough on one of those occasions,' said Arthur, catching at the opportunity as it drifted past him, 'to mention Little Dorrit to my mother.'",3 'Little--?,2 Dorrit?,2 That's the seamstress who was mentioned to me by a small tenant of mine?,2 "Yes, yes.",2 Dorrit?,2 That's the name.,2 "Ah, yes, yes!",2 You call her Little Dorrit?',2 No road in that direction.,2 Nothing came of the cross-cut.,2 It led no further.,3 "'My daughter Flora,' said Mr Casby, 'as you may have heard probably, Mr Clennam, was married and established in life, several years ago.",2 She had the misfortune to lose her husband when she had been married a few months.,1 She resides with me again.,2 "She will be glad to see you, if you will permit me to let her know that you are here.'",3 "'By all means,' returned Clennam.",2 "'I should have preferred the request, if your kindness had not anticipated me.'",3 "Upon this Mr Casby rose up in his list shoes, and with a slow, heavy step (he was of an elephantine build), made for the door.",1 "He had a long wide-skirted bottle-green coat on, and a bottle-green pair of trousers, and a bottle-green waistcoat.",2 "The Patriarchs were not dressed in bottle-green broadcloth, and yet his clothes looked patriarchal.",2 "He had scarcely left the room, and allowed the ticking to become audible again, when a quick hand turned a latchkey in the house-door, opened it, and shut it.",2 "Immediately afterwards, a quick and eager short dark man came into the room with so much way upon him that he was within a foot of Clennam before he could stop.",2 'Halloa!',2 he said.,2 Clennam saw no reason why he should not say 'Halloa!',2 too.,2 'What's the matter?',2 said the short dark man.,1 "'I have not heard that anything is the matter,' returned Clennam.",2 'Where's Mr Casby?',2 "asked the short dark man, looking about.",1 "'He will be here directly, if you want him.'",2 '_I_ want him?',2 said the short dark man.,1 'Don't you?',2 "This elicited a word or two of explanation from Clennam, during the delivery of which the short dark man held his breath and looked at him.",1 "He was dressed in black and rusty iron grey; had jet black beads of eyes; a scrubby little black chin; wiry black hair striking out from his head in prongs, like forks or hair-pins; and a complexion that was very dingy by nature, or very dirty by art, or a compound of nature and art.",2 "He had dirty hands and dirty broken nails, and looked as if he had been in the coals; he was in a perspiration, and snorted and sniffed and puffed and blew, like a little labouring steam-engine.",1 'Oh!',2 "said he, when Arthur told him how he came to be there.",2 'Very well.,3 That's right.,3 "If he should ask for Pancks, will you be so good as to say that Pancks is come in?'",3 "And so, with a snort and a puff, he worked out by another door.",3 "Now, in the old days at home, certain audacious doubts respecting the last of the Patriarchs, which were afloat in the air, had, by some forgotten means, come in contact with Arthur's sensorium.",1 "He was aware of motes and specks of suspicion in the atmosphere of that time; seen through which medium, Christopher Casby was a mere Inn signpost, without any Inn--an invitation to rest and be thankful, when there was no place to put up at, and nothing whatever to be thankful for.",2 "He knew that some of these specks even represented Christopher as capable of harbouring designs in 'that head,' and as being a crafty impostor.",2 "Other motes there were which showed him as a heavy, selfish, drifting Booby, who, having stumbled, in the course of his unwieldy jostlings against other men, on the discovery that to get through life with ease and credit, he had but to hold his tongue, keep the bald part of his head well polished, and leave his hair alone, had had just cunning enough to seize the idea and stick to it.",3 "It was said that his being town-agent to Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle was referable, not to his having the least business capacity, but to his looking so supremely benignant that nobody could suppose the property screwed or jobbed under such a man; also, that for similar reasons he now got more money out of his own wretched lettings, unquestioned, than anybody with a less nobby and less shining crown could possibly have done.",1 "In a word, it was represented (Clennam called to mind, alone in the ticking parlour) that many people select their models, much as the painters, just now mentioned, select theirs; and that, whereas in the Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a Dog-stealer will annually be found embodying all the cardinal virtues, on account of his eyelashes, or his chin, or his legs (thereby planting thorns of confusion in the breasts of the more observant students of nature), so, in the great social Exhibition, accessories are often accepted in lieu of the internal character.",1 "Calling these things to mind, and ranging Mr Pancks in a row with them, Arthur Clennam leaned this day to the opinion, without quite deciding on it, that the last of the Patriarchs was the drifting Booby aforesaid, with the one idea of keeping the bald part of his head highly polished: and that, much as an unwieldy ship in the Thames river may sometimes be seen heavily driving with the tide, broadside on, stern first, in its own way and in the way of everything else, though making a great show of navigation, when all of a sudden, a little coaly steam-tug will bear down upon it, take it in tow, and bustle off with it; similarly the cumbrous Patriarch had been taken in tow by the snorting Pancks, and was now following in the wake of that dingy little craft.",2 "The return of Mr Casby with his daughter Flora, put an end to these meditations.",2 Clennam's eyes no sooner fell upon the subject of his old passion than it shivered and broke to pieces.,1 Most men will be found sufficiently true to themselves to be true to an old idea.,3 "It is no proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly the opposite, when the idea will not bear close comparison with the reality, and the contrast is a fatal shock to it.",0 Such was Clennam's case.,2 "In his youth he had ardently loved this woman, and had heaped upon her all the locked-up wealth of his affection and imagination.",4 "That wealth had been, in his desert home, like Robinson Crusoe's money; exchangeable with no one, lying idle in the dark to rust, until he poured it out for her.",0 "Ever since that memorable time, though he had, until the night of his arrival, as completely dismissed her from any association with his Present or Future as if she had been dead (which she might easily have been for anything he knew), he had kept the old fancy of the Past unchanged, in its old sacred place.",3 "And now, after all, the last of the Patriarchs coolly walked into the parlour, saying in effect, 'Be good enough to throw it down and dance upon it.",3 This is Flora.',2 "Flora, always tall, had grown to be very broad too, and short of breath; but that was not much.",2 "Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a peony; but that was not much.",2 "Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all she said and thought, was diffuse and silly.",2 That was much.,2 "Flora, who had been spoiled and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and artless now.",1 That was a fatal blow.,1 This is Flora!,2 "'I am sure,' giggled Flora, tossing her head with a caricature of her girlish manner, such as a mummer might have presented at her own funeral, if she had lived and died in classical antiquity, 'I am ashamed to see Mr Clennam, I am a mere fright, I know he'll find me fearfully changed, I am actually an old woman, it's shocking to be found out, it's really shocking!'",0 He assured her that she was just what he had expected and that time had not stood still with himself.,2 'Oh!,2 "But with a gentleman it's so different and really you look so amazingly well that you have no right to say anything of the kind, while, as to me, you know--oh!'",4 "cried Flora with a little scream, 'I am dreadful!'",1 "The Patriarch, apparently not yet understanding his own part in the drama under representation, glowed with vacant serenity.",3 "'But if we talk of not having changed,' said Flora, who, whatever she said, never once came to a full stop, 'look at Papa, is not Papa precisely what he was when you went away, isn't it cruel and unnatural of Papa to be such a reproach to his own child, if we go on in this way much longer people who don't know us will begin to suppose that I am Papa's Mama!'",1 "That must be a long time hence, Arthur considered.",2 "'Oh Mr Clennam you insincerest of creatures,' said Flora, 'I perceive already you have not lost your old way of paying compliments, your old way when you used to pretend to be so sentimentally struck you know--at least I don't mean that, I--oh I don't know what I mean!'",0 "Here Flora tittered confusedly, and gave him one of her old glances.",2 "The Patriarch, as if he now began to perceive that his part in the piece was to get off the stage as soon as might be, rose, and went to the door by which Pancks had worked out, hailing that Tug by name.",3 "He received an answer from some little Dock beyond, and was towed out of sight directly.",2 "'You mustn't think of going yet,' said Flora--Arthur had looked at his hat, being in a ludicrous dismay, and not knowing what to do: 'you could never be so unkind as to think of going, Arthur--I mean Mr Arthur--or I suppose Mr Clennam would be far more proper--but I am sure I don't know what I am saying--without a word about the dear old days gone for ever, when I come to think of it I dare say it would be much better not to speak of them and it's highly probable that you have some much more agreeable engagement and pray let Me be the last person in the world to interfere with it though there _was_ a time, but I am running into nonsense again.'",1 Was it possible that Flora could have been such a chatterer in the days she referred to?,2 Could there have been anything like her present disjointed volubility in the fascinations that had captivated him?,3 "'Indeed I have little doubt,' said Flora, running on with astonishing speed, and pointing her conversation with nothing but commas, and very few of them, 'that you are married to some Chinese lady, being in China so long and being in business and naturally desirous to settle and extend your connection nothing was more likely than that you should propose to a Chinese lady and nothing was more natural I am sure than that the Chinese lady should accept you and think herself very well off too, I only hope she's not a Pagodian dissenter.'",3 "'I am not,' returned Arthur, smiling in spite of himself, 'married to any lady, Flora.'",2 'Oh good gracious me I hope you never kept yourself a bachelor so long on my account!',3 "tittered Flora; 'but of course you never did why should you, pray don't answer, I don't know where I'm running to, oh do tell me something about the Chinese ladies whether their eyes are really so long and narrow always putting me in mind of mother-of-pearl fish at cards and do they really wear tails down their back and plaited too or is it only the men, and when they pull their hair so very tight off their foreheads don't they hurt themselves, and why do they stick little bells all over their bridges and temples and hats and things or don't they really do it?'",1 Flora gave him another of her old glances.,2 "Instantly she went on again, as if he had spoken in reply for some time.",3 'Then it's all true and they really do!,2 "good gracious Arthur!--pray excuse me--old habit--Mr Clennam far more proper--what a country to live in for so long a time, and with so many lanterns and umbrellas too how very dark and wet the climate ought to be and no doubt actually is, and the sums of money that must be made by those two trades where everybody carries them and hangs them everywhere, the little shoes too and the feet screwed back in infancy is quite surprising, what a traveller you are!'",1 "In his ridiculous distress, Clennam received another of the old glances without in the least knowing what to do with it.",1 "'Dear dear,' said Flora, 'only to think of the changes at home Arthur--cannot overcome it, and seems so natural, Mr Clennam far more proper--since you became familiar with the Chinese customs and language which I am persuaded you speak like a Native if not better for you were always quick and clever though immensely difficult no doubt, I am sure the tea chests alone would kill me if I tried, such changes Arthur--I am doing it again, seems so natural, most improper--as no one could have believed, who could have ever imagined Mrs Finching when I can't imagine it myself!'",2 'Is that your married name?',2 "asked Arthur, struck, in the midst of all this, by a certain warmth of heart that expressed itself in her tone when she referred, however oddly, to the youthful relation in which they had stood to one another.",2 'Finching?',2 "'Finching oh yes isn't it a dreadful name, but as Mr F. said when he proposed to me which he did seven times and handsomely consented I must say to be what he used to call on liking twelve months, after all, he wasn't answerable for it and couldn't help it could he, Excellent man, not at all like you but excellent man!'",4 Flora had at last talked herself out of breath for one moment.,2 "One moment; for she recovered breath in the act of raising a minute corner of her pocket-handkerchief to her eye, as a tribute to the ghost of the departed Mr F., and began again.",2 "'No one could dispute, Arthur--Mr Clennam--that it's quite right you should be formally friendly to me under the altered circumstances and indeed you couldn't be anything else, at least I suppose not you ought to know, but I can't help recalling that there _was_ a time when things were very different.'",3 "'My dear Mrs Finching,' Arthur began, struck by the good tone again.",2 "'Oh not that nasty ugly name, say Flora!'",1 'Flora.,2 "I assure you, Flora, I am happy in seeing you once more, and in finding that, like me, you have not forgotten the old foolish dreams, when we saw all before us in the light of our youth and hope.'",3 "'You don't seem so,' pouted Flora, 'you take it very coolly, but however I know you are disappointed in me, I suppose the Chinese ladies--Mandarinesses if you call them so--are the cause or perhaps I am the cause myself, it's just as likely.'",1 "'No, no,' Clennam entreated, 'don't say that.'",2 "'Oh I must you know,' said Flora, in a positive tone, 'what nonsense not to, I know I am not what you expected, I know that very well.'",3 "In the midst of her rapidity, she had found that out with the quick perception of a cleverer woman.",2 "The inconsistent and profoundly unreasonable way in which she instantly went on, nevertheless, to interweave their long-abandoned boy and girl relations with their present interview, made Clennam feel as if he were light-headed.",2 "'One remark,' said Flora, giving their conversation, without the slightest notice and to the great terror of Clennam, the tone of a love-quarrel, 'I wish to make, one explanation I wish to offer, when your Mama came and made a scene of it with my Papa and when I was called down into the little breakfast-room where they were looking at one another with your Mama's parasol between them seated on two chairs like mad bulls what was I to do?'",2 "'My dear Mrs Finching,' urged Clennam--'all so long ago and so long concluded, is it worth while seriously to--' 'I can't Arthur,' returned Flora, 'be denounced as heartless by the whole society of China without setting myself right when I have the opportunity of doing so, and you must be very well aware that there was Paul and Virginia which had to be returned and which was returned without note or comment, not that I mean to say you could have written to me watched as I was but if it had only come back with a red wafer on the cover I should have known that it meant Come to Pekin Nankeen and What's the third place, barefoot.'",3 "'My dear Mrs Finching, you were not to blame, and I never blamed you.",1 "We were both too young, too dependent and helpless, to do anything but accept our separation.--Pray think how long ago,' gently remonstrated Arthur.",1 "'One more remark,' proceeded Flora with unslackened volubility, 'I wish to make, one more explanation I wish to offer, for five days I had a cold in the head from crying which I passed entirely in the back drawing-room--there is the back drawing-room still on the first floor and still at the back of the house to confirm my words--when that dreary period had passed a lull succeeded years rolled on and Mr F. became acquainted with us at a mutual friend's, he was all attention he called next day he soon began to call three evenings a week and to send in little things for supper it was not love on Mr F.'s part it was adoration, Mr F. proposed with the full approval of Papa and what could I do?'",2 "'Nothing whatever,' said Arthur, with the cheerfulest readiness, 'but what you did.",2 Let an old friend assure you of his full conviction that you did quite right.',3 "'One last remark,' proceeded Flora, rejecting commonplace life with a wave of her hand, 'I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to offer, there _was_ a time ere Mr F. first paid attentions incapable of being mistaken, but that is past and was not to be, dear Mr Clennam you no longer wear a golden chain you are free I trust you may be happy, here is Papa who is always tiresome and putting in his nose everywhere where he is not wanted.'",1 "With these words, and with a hasty gesture fraught with timid caution--such a gesture had Clennam's eyes been familiar with in the old time--poor Flora left herself at eighteen years of age, a long long way behind again; and came to a full stop at last.",0 "Or rather, she left about half of herself at eighteen years of age behind, and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr F.; thus making a moral mermaid of herself, which her once boy-lover contemplated with feelings wherein his sense of the sorrowful and his sense of the comical were curiously blended.",1 For example.,2 "As if there were a secret understanding between herself and Clennam of the most thrilling nature; as if the first of a train of post-chaises and four, extending all the way to Scotland, were at that moment round the corner; and as if she couldn't (and wouldn't) have walked into the Parish Church with him, under the shade of the family umbrella, with the Patriarchal blessing on her head, and the perfect concurrence of all mankind; Flora comforted her soul with agonies of mysterious signalling, expressing dread of discovery.",2 "With the sensation of becoming more and more light-headed every minute, Clennam saw the relict of the late Mr F. enjoying herself in the most wonderful manner, by putting herself and him in their old places, and going through all the old performances--now, when the stage was dusty, when the scenery was faded, when the youthful actors were dead, when the orchestra was empty, when the lights were out.",3 "And still, through all this grotesque revival of what he remembered as having once been prettily natural to her, he could not but feel that it revived at sight of him, and that there was a tender memory in it.",3 "The Patriarch insisted on his staying to dinner, and Flora signalled 'Yes!'",2 "Clennam so wished he could have done more than stay to dinner--so heartily wished he could have found the Flora that had been, or that never had been--that he thought the least atonement he could make for the disappointment he almost felt ashamed of, was to give himself up to the family desire.",1 "Therefore, he stayed to dinner.",2 Pancks dined with them.,2 "Pancks steamed out of his little dock at a quarter before six, and bore straight down for the Patriarch, who happened to be then driving, in an inane manner, through a stagnant account of Bleeding Heart Yard.",0 Pancks instantly made fast to him and hauled him out.,3 'Bleeding Heart Yard?',2 "said Pancks, with a puff and a snort.",2 'It's a troublesome property.,1 "Don't pay you badly, but rents are very hard to get there.",1 You have more trouble with that one place than with all the places belonging to you.',1 "Just as the big ship in tow gets the credit, with most spectators, of being the powerful object, so the Patriarch usually seemed to have said himself whatever Pancks said for him.",2 'Indeed?',2 "returned Clennam, upon whom this impression was so efficiently made by a mere gleam of the polished head that he spoke the ship instead of the Tug.",3 'The people are so poor there?',1 "'_You_ can't say, you know,' snorted Pancks, taking one of his dirty hands out of his rusty iron-grey pockets to bite his nails, if he could find any, and turning his beads of eyes upon his employer, 'whether they're poor or not.",0 "They say they are, but they all say that.",2 "When a man says he's rich, you're generally sure he isn't.",3 "Besides, if they _are_ poor, you can't help it.",1 You'd be poor yourself if you didn't get your rents.',1 "'True enough,' said Arthur.",3 "'You're not going to keep open house for all the poor of London,' pursued Pancks.",1 'You're not going to lodge 'em for nothing.,2 You're not going to open your gates wide and let 'em come free.,3 "Not if you know it, you ain't.'",2 "Mr Casby shook his head, in Placid and benignant generality.",2 "'If a man takes a room of you at half-a-crown a week, and when the week comes round hasn't got the half-crown, you say to that man, Why have you got the room, then?",2 "If you haven't got the one thing, why have you got the other?",2 What have you been and done with your money?,2 What do you mean by it?,2 What are you up to?,2 "That's what _you_ say to a man of that sort; and if you didn't say it, more shame for you!'",1 "Mr Pancks here made a singular and startling noise, produced by a strong blowing effort in the region of the nose, unattended by any result but that acoustic one.",1 "'You have some extent of such property about the east and north-east here, I believe?'",2 "said Clennam, doubtful which of the two to address.",1 "'Oh, pretty well,' said Pancks.",3 "'You're not particular to east or north-east, any point of the compass will do for you.",2 What you want is a good investment and a quick return.,3 You take it where you can find it.,2 You ain't nice as to situation--not you.',3 "There was a fourth and most original figure in the Patriarchal tent, who also appeared before dinner.",2 "This was an amazing little old woman, with a face like a staring wooden doll too cheap for expression, and a stiff yellow wig perched unevenly on the top of her head, as if the child who owned the doll had driven a tack through it anywhere, so that it only got fastened on.",3 "Another remarkable thing in this little old woman was, that the same child seemed to have damaged her face in two or three places with some blunt instrument in the nature of a spoon; her countenance, and particularly the tip of her nose, presenting the phenomena of several dints, generally answering to the bowl of that article.",1 "A further remarkable thing in this little old woman was, that she had no name but Mr F.'s Aunt.",3 "She broke upon the visitor's view under the following circumstances: Flora said when the first dish was being put on the table, perhaps Mr Clennam might not have heard that Mr F. had left her a legacy?",1 "Clennam in return implied his hope that Mr F. had endowed the wife whom he adored, with the greater part of his worldly substance, if not with all.",3 "Flora said, oh yes, she didn't mean that, Mr F. had made a beautiful will, but he had left her as a separate legacy, his Aunt.",3 "She then went out of the room to fetch the legacy, and, on her return, rather triumphantly presented 'Mr F.'s Aunt.'",3 "The major characteristics discoverable by the stranger in Mr F.'s Aunt, were extreme severity and grim taciturnity; sometimes interrupted by a propensity to offer remarks in a deep warning voice, which, being totally uncalled for by anything said by anybody, and traceable to no association of ideas, confounded and terrified the Mind.",0 "Mr F.'s Aunt may have thrown in these observations on some system of her own, and it may have been ingenious, or even subtle: but the key to it was wanted.",3 "The neatly-served and well-cooked dinner (for everything about the Patriarchal household promoted quiet digestion) began with some soup, some fried soles, a butter-boat of shrimp sauce, and a dish of potatoes.",3 The conversation still turned on the receipt of rents.,2 "Mr F.'s Aunt, after regarding the company for ten minutes with a malevolent gaze, delivered the following fearful remark: 'When we lived at Henley, Barnes's gander was stole by tinkers.'",0 "Mr Pancks courageously nodded his head and said, 'All right, ma'am.'",3 But the effect of this mysterious communication upon Clennam was absolutely to frighten him.,1 And another circumstance invested this old lady with peculiar terrors.,1 "Though she was always staring, she never acknowledged that she saw any individual.",2 "The polite and attentive stranger would desire, say, to consult her inclinations on the subject of potatoes.",3 "His expressive action would be hopelessly lost upon her, and what could he do?",1 "No man could say, 'Mr F.'s Aunt, will you permit me?'",2 "Every man retired from the spoon, as Clennam did, cowed and baffled.",1 "There was mutton, a steak, and an apple-pie--nothing in the remotest way connected with ganders--and the dinner went on like a disenchanted feast, as it truly was.",3 "Once upon a time Clennam had sat at that table taking no heed of anything but Flora; now the principal heed he took of Flora was to observe, against his will, that she was very fond of porter, that she combined a great deal of sherry with sentiment, and that if she were a little overgrown, it was upon substantial grounds.",3 "The last of the Patriarchs had always been a mighty eater, and he disposed of an immense quantity of solid food with the benignity of a good soul who was feeding some one else.",4 "Mr Pancks, who was always in a hurry, and who referred at intervals to a little dirty notebook which he kept beside him (perhaps containing the names of the defaulters he meant to look up by way of dessert), took in his victuals much as if he were coaling; with a good deal of noise, a good deal of dropping about, and a puff and a snort occasionally, as if he were nearly ready to steam away.",2 "All through dinner, Flora combined her present appetite for eating and drinking with her past appetite for romantic love, in a way that made Clennam afraid to lift his eyes from his plate; since he could not look towards her without receiving some glance of mysterious meaning or warning, as if they were engaged in a plot.",1 "Mr F.'s Aunt sat silently defying him with an aspect of the greatest bitterness, until the removal of the cloth and the appearance of the decanters, when she originated another observation--struck into the conversation like a clock, without consulting anybody.",2 "Flora had just said, 'Mr Clennam, will you give me a glass of port for Mr F.'s Aunt?'",2 "'The Monument near London Bridge,' that lady instantly proclaimed, 'was put up arter the Great Fire of London; and the Great Fire of London was not the fire in which your uncle George's workshops was burned down.'",3 "Mr Pancks, with his former courage, said, 'Indeed, ma'am?",3 All right!',3 "But appearing to be incensed by imaginary contradiction, or other ill-usage, Mr F.'s Aunt, instead of relapsing into silence, made the following additional proclamation: 'I hate a fool!'",0 "She imparted to this sentiment, in itself almost Solomonic, so extremely injurious and personal a character by levelling it straight at the visitor's head, that it became necessary to lead Mr F.'s Aunt from the room.",2 "This was quietly done by Flora; Mr F.'s Aunt offering no resistance, but inquiring on her way out, 'What he come there for, then?'",1 with implacable animosity.,1 "When Flora returned, she explained that her legacy was a clever old lady, but was sometimes a little singular, and 'took dislikes'--peculiarities of which Flora seemed to be proud rather than otherwise.",3 "As Flora's good nature shone in the case, Clennam had no fault to find with the old lady for eliciting it, now that he was relieved from the terrors of her presence; and they took a glass or two of wine in peace.",3 "Foreseeing then that the Pancks would shortly get under weigh, and that the Patriarch would go to sleep, he pleaded the necessity of visiting his mother, and asked Mr Pancks in which direction he was going?",2 "'Citywards, sir,' said Pancks.",2 'Shall we walk together?',2 said Arthur.,2 "'Quite agreeable,' said Pancks.",3 "Meanwhile Flora was murmuring in rapid snatches for his ear, that there was a time and that the past was a yawning gulf however and that a golden chain no longer bound him and that she revered the memory of the late Mr F. and that she should be at home to-morrow at half-past one and that the decrees of Fate were beyond recall and that she considered nothing so improbable as that he ever walked on the north-west side of Gray's-Inn Gardens at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon.",3 "He tried at parting to give his hand in frankness to the existing Flora--not the vanished Flora, or the mermaid--but Flora wouldn't have it, couldn't have it, was wholly destitute of the power of separating herself and him from their bygone characters.",1 "He left the house miserably enough; and so much more light-headed than ever, that if it had not been his good fortune to be towed away, he might, for the first quarter of an hour, have drifted anywhere.",3 "When he began to come to himself, in the cooler air and the absence of Flora, he found Pancks at full speed, cropping such scanty pasturage of nails as he could find, and snorting at intervals.",1 "These, in conjunction with one hand in his pocket and his roughened hat hind side before, were evidently the conditions under which he reflected.",2 'A fresh night!',3 said Arthur.,2 "'Yes, it's pretty fresh,' assented Pancks.",3 "'As a stranger you feel the climate more than I do, I dare say.",1 Indeed I haven't got time to feel it.',2 'You lead such a busy life?',3 "'Yes, I have always some of 'em to look up, or something to look after.",2 "But I like business,' said Pancks, getting on a little faster.",3 'What's a man made for?',2 'For nothing else?',2 said Clennam.,2 "Pancks put the counter question, 'What else?'",2 "It packed up, in the smallest compass, a weight that had rested on Clennam's life; and he made no answer.",2 "'That's what I ask our weekly tenants,' said Pancks.",2 "'Some of 'em will pull long faces to me, and say, Poor as you see us, master, we're always grinding, drudging, toiling, every minute we're awake.",2 "I say to them, What else are you made for?",2 It shuts them up.,2 They haven't a word to answer.,2 What else are you made for?,2 That clinches it.',2 "'Ah dear, dear, dear!'",2 sighed Clennam.,2 "'Here am I,' said Pancks, pursuing his argument with the weekly tenant.",2 'What else do you suppose I think I am made for?,2 Nothing.,2 "Rattle me out of bed early, set me going, give me as short a time as you like to bolt my meals in, and keep me at it.",2 "Keep me always at it, and I'll keep you always at it, you keep somebody else always at it.",2 There you are with the Whole Duty of Man in a commercial country.',2 "When they had walked a little further in silence, Clennam said: 'Have you no taste for anything, Mr Pancks?'",2 'What's taste?',2 drily retorted Pancks.,2 'Let us say inclination.',2 "'I have an inclination to get money, sir,' said Pancks, 'if you will show me how.'",2 "He blew off that sound again, and it occurred to his companion for the first time that it was his way of laughing.",2 "He was a singular man in all respects; he might not have been quite in earnest, but that the short, hard, rapid manner in which he shot out these cinders of principles, as if it were done by mechanical revolvency, seemed irreconcilable with banter.",2 "'You are no great reader, I suppose?'",3 said Clennam.,2 'Never read anything but letters and accounts.,2 Never collect anything but advertisements relative to next of kin.,2 "If _that's_ a taste, I have got that.",2 "You're not of the Clennams of Cornwall, Mr Clennam?'",2 'Not that I ever heard of.',2 'I know you're not.,2 "I asked your mother, sir.",2 She has too much character to let a chance escape her.',2 'Supposing I had been of the Clennams of Cornwall?',2 'You'd have heard of something to your advantage.',3 'Indeed!,2 I have heard of little enough to my advantage for some time.',3 "'There's a Cornish property going a begging, sir, and not a Cornish Clennam to have it for the asking,' said Pancks, taking his note-book from his breast pocket and putting it in again.",1 'I turn off here.,2 I wish you good night.',3 'Good night!',2 said Clennam.,2 "But the Tug, suddenly lightened, and untrammelled by having any weight in tow, was already puffing away into the distance.",2 "They had crossed Smithfield together, and Clennam was left alone at the corner of Barbican.",2 "He had no intention of presenting himself in his mother's dismal room that night, and could not have felt more depressed and cast away if he had been in a wilderness.",1 "He turned slowly down Aldersgate Street, and was pondering his way along towards Saint Paul's, purposing to come into one of the great thoroughfares for the sake of their light and life, when a crowd of people flocked towards him on the same pavement, and he stood aside against a shop to let them pass.",3 "As they came up, he made out that they were gathered around a something that was carried on men's shoulders.",2 "He soon saw that it was a litter, hastily made of a shutter or some such thing; and a recumbent figure upon it, and the scraps of conversation in the crowd, and a muddy bundle carried by one man, and a muddy hat carried by another, informed him that an accident had occurred.",1 "The litter stopped under a lamp before it had passed him half-a-dozen paces, for some readjustment of the burden; and, the crowd stopping too, he found himself in the midst of the array.",1 'An accident going to the Hospital?',2 "he asked an old man beside him, who stood shaking his head, inviting conversation.",2 "'Yes,' said the man, 'along of them Mails.",2 "They ought to be prosecuted and fined, them Mails.",2 "They come a racing out of Lad Lane and Wood Street at twelve or fourteen mile a hour, them Mails do.",2 "The only wonder is, that people ain't killed oftener by them Mails.'",2 "'This person is not killed, I hope?'",1 'I don't know!',2 "said the man, 'it an't for the want of a will in them Mails, if he an't.'",2 "The speaker having folded his arms, and set in comfortably to address his depreciation of them Mails to any of the bystanders who would listen, several voices, out of pure sympathy with the sufferer, confirmed him; one voice saying to Clennam, 'They're a public nuisance, them Mails, sir;' another, '_I_ see one on 'em pull up within half a inch of a boy, last night;' another, '_I_ see one on 'em go over a cat, sir--and it might have been your own mother;' and all representing, by implication, that if he happened to possess any public influence, he could not use it better than against them Mails.",2 "'Why, a native Englishman is put to it every night of his life, to save his life from them Mails,' argued the first old man; 'and _he_ knows when they're a coming round the corner, to tear him limb from limb.",2 What can you expect from a poor foreigner who don't know nothing about 'em!',1 'Is this a foreigner?',2 "said Clennam, leaning forward to look.",2 "In the midst of such replies as 'Frenchman, sir,' 'Porteghee, sir,' 'Dutchman, sir,' 'Prooshan, sir,' and other conflicting testimony, he now heard a feeble voice asking, both in Italian and in French, for water.",1 "A general remark going round, in reply, of 'Ah, poor fellow, he says he'll never get over it; and no wonder!'",2 "Clennam begged to be allowed to pass, as he understood the poor creature.",1 "He was immediately handed to the front, to speak to him.",2 "'First, he wants some water,' said he, looking round.",2 "(A dozen good fellows dispersed to get it.) 'Are you badly hurt, my friend?'",1 "he asked the man on the litter, in Italian.",2 "'Yes, sir; yes, yes, yes.",2 "It's my leg, it's my leg.",2 "But it pleases me to hear the old music, though I am very bad.'",2 'You are a traveller!,2 Stay!,2 "See, the water!",2 Let me give you some.',2 They had rested the litter on a pile of paving stones.,2 "It was at a convenient height from the ground, and by stooping he could lightly raise the head with one hand and hold the glass to his lips with the other.",3 "A little, muscular, brown man, with black hair and white teeth.",2 "A lively face, apparently.",3 Earrings in his ears.,2 'That's well.,3 You are a traveller?',2 "'Surely, sir.'",2 'A stranger in this city?',1 "'Surely, surely, altogether.",2 I am arrived this unhappy evening.',1 'From what country?',2 'Marseilles.',2 "'Why, see there!",2 I also!,2 "Almost as much a stranger here as you, though born here, I came from Marseilles a little while ago.",1 Don't be cast down.',2 "The face looked up at him imploringly, as he rose from wiping it, and gently replaced the coat that covered the writhing figure.",2 'I won't leave you till you shall be well taken care of.,3 Courage!,3 You will be very much better half an hour hence.',3 'Ah!,2 "Altro, Altro!'",2 "cried the poor little man, in a faintly incredulous tone; and as they took him up, hung out his right hand to give the forefinger a back-handed shake in the air.",0 "Arthur Clennam turned; and walking beside the litter, and saying an encouraging word now and then, accompanied it to the neighbouring hospital of Saint Bartholomew.",3 "None of the crowd but the bearers and he being admitted, the disabled man was soon laid on a table in a cool, methodical way, and carefully examined by a surgeon who was as near at hand, and as ready to appear as Calamity herself.",2 "'He hardly knows an English word,' said Clennam; 'is he badly hurt?'",1 "'Let us know all about it first,' said the surgeon, continuing his examination with a businesslike delight in it, 'before we pronounce.'",3 "After trying the leg with a finger, and two fingers, and one hand and two hands, and over and under, and up and down, and in this direction and in that, and approvingly remarking on the points of interest to another gentleman who joined him, the surgeon at last clapped the patient on the shoulder, and said, 'He won't hurt.",2 He'll do very well.,3 "It's difficult enough, but we shall not want him to part with his leg this time.'",2 "Which Clennam interpreted to the patient, who was full of gratitude, and, in his demonstrative way, kissed both the interpreter's hand and the surgeon's several times.",3 "'It's a serious injury, I suppose?'",1 said Clennam.,2 "'Ye-es,' replied the surgeon, with the thoughtful pleasure of an artist contemplating the work upon his easel.",4 "'Yes, it's enough.",3 "There's a compound fracture above the knee, and a dislocation below.",1 They are both of a beautiful kind.',3 "He gave the patient a friendly clap on the shoulder again, as if he really felt that he was a very good fellow indeed, and worthy of all commendation for having broken his leg in a manner interesting to science.",4 'He speaks French?',2 said the surgeon.,2 "'Oh yes, he speaks French.'",2 "'He'll be at no loss here, then.--You have only to bear a little pain like a brave fellow, my friend, and to be thankful that all goes as well as it does,' he added, in that tongue, 'and you'll walk again to a marvel.",4 "Now, let us see whether there's anything else the matter, and how our ribs are?'",2 "There was nothing else the matter, and our ribs were sound.",2 "Clennam remained until everything possible to be done had been skilfully and promptly done--the poor belated wanderer in a strange land movingly besought that favour of him--and lingered by the bed to which he was in due time removed, until he had fallen into a doze.",1 "Even then he wrote a few words for him on his card, with a promise to return to-morrow, and left it to be given to him when he should awake.",3 All these proceedings occupied so long that it struck eleven o'clock at night as he came out at the Hospital Gate.,1 "He had hired a lodging for the present in Covent Garden, and he took the nearest way to that quarter, by Snow Hill and Holborn.",2 "Left to himself again, after the solicitude and compassion of his last adventure, he was naturally in a thoughtful mood.",3 "As naturally, he could not walk on thinking for ten minutes without recalling Flora.",2 "She necessarily recalled to him his life, with all its misdirection and little happiness.",2 "When he got to his lodging, he sat down before the dying fire, as he had stood at the window of his old room looking out upon the blackened forest of chimneys, and turned his gaze back upon the gloomy vista by which he had come to that stage in his existence.",1 "So long, so bare, so blank.",2 "No childhood; no youth, except for one remembrance; that one remembrance proved, only that day, to be a piece of folly.",2 "It was a misfortune to him, trifle as it might have been to another.",1 "For, while all that was hard and stern in his recollection, remained Reality on being proved--was obdurate to the sight and touch, and relaxed nothing of its old indomitable grimness--the one tender recollection of his experience would not bear the same test, and melted away.",2 "He had foreseen this, on the former night, when he had dreamed with waking eyes, but he had not felt it then; and he had now.",2 "He was a dreamer in such wise, because he was a man who had, deep-rooted in his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things his life had been without.",4 "Bred in meanness and hard dealing, this had rescued him to be a man of honourable mind and open hand.",1 "Bred in coldness and severity, this had rescued him to have a warm and sympathetic heart.",2 "Bred in a creed too darkly audacious to pursue, through its process of reserving the making of man in the image of his Creator to the making of his Creator in the image of an erring man, this had rescued him to judge not, and in humility to be merciful, and have hope and charity.",3 "And this saved him still from the whimpering weakness and cruel selfishness of holding that because such a happiness or such a virtue had not come into his little path, or worked well for him, therefore it was not in the great scheme, but was reducible, when found in appearance, to the basest elements.",3 "A disappointed mind he had, but a mind too firm and healthy for such unwholesome air.",2 "Leaving himself in the dark, it could rise into the light, seeing it shine on others and hailing it.",2 "Therefore, he sat before his dying fire, sorrowful to think upon the way by which he had come to that night, yet not strewing poison on the way by which other men had come to it.",0 "That he should have missed so much, and at his time of life should look so far about him for any staff to bear him company upon his downward journey and cheer it, was a just regret.",1 "He looked at the fire from which the blaze departed, from which the afterglow subsided, in which the ashes turned grey, from which they dropped to dust, and thought, 'How soon I too shall pass through such changes, and be gone!'",1 "To review his life was like descending a green tree in fruit and flower, and seeing all the branches wither and drop off, one by one, as he came down towards them.",3 "'From the unhappy suppression of my youngest days, through the rigid and unloving home that followed them, through my departure, my long exile, my return, my mother's welcome, my intercourse with her since, down to the afternoon of this day with poor Flora,' said Arthur Clennam, 'what have I found!'",0 "His door was softly opened, and these spoken words startled him, and came as if they were an answer: 'Little Dorrit.'",2 "Arthur Clennam rose hastily, and saw her standing at the door.",1 "This history must sometimes see with Little Dorrit's eyes, and shall begin that course by seeing him.",2 "Little Dorrit looked into a dim room, which seemed a spacious one to her, and grandly furnished.",2 "Courtly ideas of Covent Garden, as a place with famous coffee-houses, where gentlemen wearing gold-laced coats and swords had quarrelled and fought duels; costly ideas of Covent Garden, as a place where there were flowers in winter at guineas a-piece, pine-apples at guineas a pound, and peas at guineas a pint; picturesque ideas of Covent Garden, as a place where there was a mighty theatre, showing wonderful and beautiful sights to richly-dressed ladies and gentlemen, and which was for ever far beyond the reach of poor Fanny or poor uncle; desolate ideas of Covent Garden, as having all those arches in it, where the miserable children in rags among whom she had just now passed, like young rats, slunk and hid, fed on offal, huddled together for warmth, and were hunted about (look to the rats young and old, all ye Barnacles, for before God they are eating away our foundations, and will bring the roofs on our heads!); teeming ideas of Covent Garden, as a place of past and present mystery, romance, abundance, want, beauty, ugliness, fair country gardens, and foul street gutters; all confused together,--made the room dimmer than it was in Little Dorrit's eyes, as they timidly saw it from the door.",4 "At first in the chair before the gone-out fire, and then turned round wondering to see her, was the gentleman whom she sought.",2 "The brown, grave gentleman, who smiled so pleasantly, who was so frank and considerate in his manner, and yet in whose earnestness there was something that reminded her of his mother, with the great difference that she was earnest in asperity and he in gentleness.",4 "Now he regarded her with that attentive and inquiring look before which Little Dorrit's eyes had always fallen, and before which they fell still.",1 'My poor child!,1 Here at midnight?',2 "'I said Little Dorrit, sir, on purpose to prepare you.",2 I knew you must be very much surprised.',2 'Are you alone?',2 "'No sir, I have got Maggy with me.'",2 "Considering her entrance sufficiently prepared for by this mention of her name, Maggy appeared from the landing outside, on the broad grin.",3 "She instantly suppressed that manifestation, however, and became fixedly solemn.",2 "'And I have no fire,' said Clennam.",2 "'And you are--' He was going to say so lightly clad, but stopped himself in what would have been a reference to her poverty, saying instead, 'And it is so cold.'",1 "Putting the chair from which he had risen nearer to the grate, he made her sit down in it; and hurriedly bringing wood and coal, heaped them together and got a blaze.",1 "'Your foot is like marble, my child;' he had happened to touch it, while stooping on one knee at his work of kindling the fire; 'put it nearer the warmth.'",4 Little Dorrit thanked him hastily.,1 "It was quite warm, it was very warm!",3 "It smote upon his heart to feel that she hid her thin, worn shoe.",1 Little Dorrit was not ashamed of her poor shoes.,1 "He knew her story, and it was not that.",2 "Little Dorrit had a misgiving that he might blame her father, if he saw them; that he might think, 'why did he dine to-day, and leave this little creature to the mercy of the cold stones!'",1 "She had no belief that it would have been a just reflection; she simply knew, by experience, that such delusions did sometimes present themselves to people.",1 It was a part of her father's misfortunes that they did.,2 "'Before I say anything else,' Little Dorrit began, sitting before the pale fire, and raising her eyes again to the face which in its harmonious look of interest, and pity, and protection, she felt to be a mystery far above her in degree, and almost removed beyond her guessing at; 'may I tell you something, sir?'",1 "'Yes, my child.'",2 "A slight shade of distress fell upon her, at his so often calling her a child.",1 "She was surprised that he should see it, or think of such a slight thing; but he said directly: 'I wanted a tender word, and could think of no other.",3 "As you just now gave yourself the name they give you at my mother's, and as that is the name by which I always think of you, let me call you Little Dorrit.'",2 "'Thank you, sir, I should like it better than any name.'",3 'Little Dorrit.',2 "'Little mother,' Maggy (who had been falling asleep) put in, as a correction.",1 "'It's all the same, Maggy,' returned Little Dorrit, 'all the same.'",2 "'Is it all the same, mother?'",2 'Just the same.',2 "Maggy laughed, and immediately snored.",2 "In Little Dorrit's eyes and ears, the uncouth figure and the uncouth sound were as pleasant as could be.",2 "There was a glow of pride in her big child, overspreading her face, when it again met the eyes of the grave brown gentleman.",3 "She wondered what he was thinking of, as he looked at Maggy and her.",2 She thought what a good father he would be.,3 "How, with some such look, he would counsel and cherish his daughter.",3 "'What I was going to tell you, sir,' said Little Dorrit, 'is, that my brother is at large.'",2 "Arthur was rejoiced to hear it, and hoped he would do well.",3 "'And what I was going to tell you, sir,' said Little Dorrit, trembling in all her little figure and in her voice, 'is, that I am not to know whose generosity released him--am never to ask, and am never to be told, and am never to thank that gentleman with all my grateful heart!'",4 "He would probably need no thanks, Clennam said.",2 "Very likely he would be thankful himself (and with reason), that he had had the means and chance of doing a little service to her, who well deserved a great one.",4 "'And what I was going to say, sir, is,' said Little Dorrit, trembling more and more, 'that if I knew him, and I might, I would tell him that he can never, never know how I feel his goodness, and how my good father would feel it.",3 "And what I was going to say, sir, is, that if I knew him, and I might--but I don't know him and I must not--I know that!--I would tell him that I shall never any more lie down to sleep without having prayed to Heaven to bless him and reward him.",3 "And if I knew him, and I might, I would go down on my knees to him, and take his hand and kiss it and ask him not to draw it away, but to leave it--O to leave it for a moment--and let my thankful tears fall on it; for I have no other thanks to give him!'",2 "Little Dorrit had put his hand to her lips, and would have kneeled to him, but he gently prevented her, and replaced her in her chair.",2 "Her eyes, and the tones of her voice, had thanked him far better than she thought.",3 "He was not able to say, quite as composedly as usual, 'There, Little Dorrit, there, there, there!",2 "We will suppose that you did know this person, and that you might do all this, and that it was all done.",2 "And now tell me, Who am quite another person--who am nothing more than the friend who begged you to trust him--why you are out at midnight, and what it is that brings you so far through the streets at this late hour, my slight, delicate,' child was on his lips again, 'Little Dorrit!'",3 "'Maggy and I have been to-night,' she answered, subduing herself with the quiet effort that had long been natural to her, 'to the theatre where my sister is engaged.'",3 "'And oh ain't it a Ev'nly place,' suddenly interrupted Maggy, who seemed to have the power of going to sleep and waking up whenever she chose.",2 'Almost as good as a hospital.,3 Only there ain't no Chicking in it.',2 "Here she shook herself, and fell asleep again.",1 "'We went there,' said Little Dorrit, glancing at her charge, 'because I like sometimes to know, of my own knowledge, that my sister is doing well; and like to see her there, with my own eyes, when neither she nor Uncle is aware.",3 "It is very seldom indeed that I can do that, because when I am not out at work, I am with my father, and even when I am out at work, I hurry home to him.",3 But I pretend to-night that I am at a party.',1 "As she made the confession, timidly hesitating, she raised her eyes to the face, and read its expression so plainly that she answered it.",1 "'Oh no, certainly!",2 I never was at a party in my life.',2 "She paused a little under his attentive look, and then said, 'I hope there is no harm in it.",2 "I could never have been of any use, if I had not pretended a little.'",2 "She feared that he was blaming her in his mind for so devising to contrive for them, think for them, and watch over them, without their knowledge or gratitude; perhaps even with their reproaches for supposed neglect.",1 "But what was really in his mind, was the weak figure with its strong purpose, the thin worn shoes, the insufficient dress, and the pretence of recreation and enjoyment.",1 He asked where the suppositious party was?,2 "At a place where she worked, answered Little Dorrit, blushing.",3 She had said very little about it; only a few words to make her father easy.,3 Her father did not believe it to be a grand party--indeed he might suppose that.,3 And she glanced for an instant at the shawl she wore.,2 "'It is the first night,' said Little Dorrit, 'that I have ever been away from home.",2 "And London looks so large, so barren, and so wild.'",1 "In Little Dorrit's eyes, its vastness under the black sky was awful; a tremor passed over her as she said the words.",1 "'But this is not,' she added, with the quiet effort again, 'what I have come to trouble you with, sir.",2 "My sister's having found a friend, a lady she has told me of and made me rather anxious about, was the first cause of my coming away from home.",1 "And being away, and coming (on purpose) round by where you lived and seeing a light in the window--' Not for the first time.",2 "No, not for the first time.",2 "In Little Dorrit's eyes, the outside of that window had been a distant star on other nights than this.",2 "She had toiled out of her way, tired and troubled, to look up at it, and wonder about the grave, brown gentleman from so far off, who had spoken to her as a friend and protector.",1 "'There were three things,' said Little Dorrit, 'that I thought I would like to say, if you were alone and I might come up-stairs.",3 "First, what I have tried to say, but never can--never shall--' 'Hush, hush!",2 "That is done with, and disposed of.",2 "Let us pass to the second,' said Clennam, smiling her agitation away, making the blaze shine upon her, and putting wine and cake and fruit towards her on the table.",3 "'I think,' said Little Dorrit--'this is the second thing, sir--I think Mrs Clennam must have found out my secret, and must know where I come from and where I go to.",2 "Where I live, I mean.'",2 'Indeed!',2 returned Clennam quickly.,2 "He asked her, after short consideration, why she supposed so.",2 "'I think,' replied Little Dorrit, 'that Mr Flintwinch must have watched me.'",2 "And why, Clennam asked, as he turned his eyes upon the fire, bent his brows, and considered again; why did she suppose that?",1 'I have met him twice.,2 Both times near home.,2 "Both times at night, when I was going back.",2 "Both times I thought (though that may easily be my mistake), that he hardly looked as if he had met me by accident.'",1 'Did he say anything?',2 'No; he only nodded and put his head on one side.',2 'The devil take his head!',1 "mused Clennam, still looking at the fire; 'it's always on one side.'",2 "He roused himself to persuade her to put some wine to her lips, and to touch something to eat--it was very difficult, she was so timid and shy--and then said, musing again: 'Is my mother at all changed to you?'",1 "'Oh, not at all.",2 She is just the same.,2 I wondered whether I had better tell her my history.,3 "I wondered whether I might--I mean, whether you would like me to tell her.",3 "I wondered,' said Little Dorrit, looking at him in a suppliant way, and gradually withdrawing her eyes as he looked at her, 'whether you would advise me what I ought to do.'",2 "'Little Dorrit,' said Clennam; and the phrase had already begun, between these two, to stand for a hundred gentle phrases, according to the varying tone and connection in which it was used; 'do nothing.",3 "I will have some talk with my old friend, Mrs Affery.",2 "Do nothing, Little Dorrit--except refresh yourself with such means as there are here.",3 I entreat you to do that.',2 "'Thank you, I am not hungry.",2 "Nor,' said Little Dorrit, as he softly put her glass towards her, 'nor thirsty.--I think Maggy might like something, perhaps.'",3 "'We will make her find pockets presently for all there is here,' said Clennam: 'but before we awake her, there was a third thing to say.'",2 'Yes.,2 "You will not be offended, sir?'",2 "'I promise that, unreservedly.'",3 'It will sound strange.,1 I hardly know how to say it.,2 "Don't think it unreasonable or ungrateful in me,' said Little Dorrit, with returning and increasing agitation.",1 "'No, no, no.",2 I am sure it will be natural and right.,3 "I am not afraid that I shall put a wrong construction on it, whatever it is.'",1 'Thank you.,2 You are coming back to see my father again?',2 'Yes.',2 "'You have been so good and thoughtful as to write him a note, saying that you are coming to-morrow?'",3 "'Oh, that was nothing!",2 Yes.',2 "'Can you guess,' said Little Dorrit, folding her small hands tight in one another, and looking at him with all the earnestness of her soul looking steadily out of her eyes, 'what I am going to ask you not to do?'",3 'I think I can.,2 But I may be wrong.',1 "'No, you are not wrong,' said Little Dorrit, shaking her head.",1 "'If we should want it so very, very badly that we cannot do without it, let me ask you for it.'",1 "'I Will,--I Will.'",2 'Don't encourage him to ask.,3 Don't understand him if he does ask.,2 Don't give it to him.,2 "Save him and spare him that, and you will be able to think better of him!'",3 "Clennam said--not very plainly, seeing those tears glistening in her anxious eyes--that her wish should be sacred with him.",2 "'You don't know what he is,' she said; 'you don't know what he really is.",2 "How can you, seeing him there all at once, dear love, and not gradually, as I have done!",3 "You have been so good to us, so delicately and truly good, that I want him to be better in your eyes than in anybody's.",3 "And I cannot bear to think,' cried Little Dorrit, covering her tears with her hands, 'I cannot bear to think that you of all the world should see him in his only moments of degradation.'",1 "'Pray,' said Clennam, 'do not be so distressed.",1 "Pray, pray, Little Dorrit!",2 This is quite understood now.',2 "'Thank you, sir.",2 Thank you!,3 "I have tried very much to keep myself from saying this; I have thought about it, days and nights; but when I knew for certain you were coming again, I made up my mind to speak to you.",2 "Not because I am ashamed of him,' she dried her tears quickly, 'but because I know him better than any one does, and love him, and am proud of him.'",3 "Relieved of this weight, Little Dorrit was nervously anxious to be gone.",1 "Maggy being broad awake, and in the act of distantly gloating over the fruit and cakes with chuckles of anticipation, Clennam made the best diversion in his power by pouring her out a glass of wine, which she drank in a series of loud smacks; putting her hand upon her windpipe after every one, and saying, breathless, with her eyes in a prominent state, 'Oh, ain't it d'licious!",3 Ain't it hospitally!',2 "When she had finished the wine and these encomiums, he charged her to load her basket (she was never without her basket) with every eatable thing upon the table, and to take especial care to leave no scrap behind.",1 "Maggy's pleasure in doing this and her little mother's pleasure in seeing Maggy pleased, was as good a turn as circumstances could have given to the late conversation.",4 "'But the gates will have been locked long ago,' said Clennam, suddenly remembering it.",2 'Where are you going?',2 "'I am going to Maggy's lodging,' answered Little Dorrit.",2 "'I shall be quite safe, quite well taken care of.'",3 "'I must accompany you there,' said Clennam, 'I cannot let you go alone.'",2 "'Yes, pray leave us to go there by ourselves.",2 Pray do!',2 begged Little Dorrit.,2 "She was so earnest in the petition, that Clennam felt a delicacy in obtruding himself upon her: the rather, because he could well understand that Maggy's lodging was of the obscurest sort.",4 "'Come, Maggy,' said Little Dorrit cheerily, 'we shall do very well; we know the way by this time, Maggy?'",3 "'Yes, yes, little mother; we know the way,' chuckled Maggy.",2 And away they went.,2 "Little Dorrit turned at the door to say, 'God bless you!'",3 "She said it very softly, but perhaps she may have been as audible above--who knows!--as a whole cathedral choir.",3 "Arthur Clennam suffered them to pass the corner of the street before he followed at a distance; not with any idea of encroaching a second time on Little Dorrit's privacy, but to satisfy his mind by seeing her secure in the neighbourhood to which she was accustomed.",3 "So diminutive she looked, so fragile and defenceless against the bleak damp weather, flitting along in the shuffling shadow of her charge, that he felt, in his compassion, and in his habit of considering her a child apart from the rest of the rough world, as if he would have been glad to take her up in his arms and carry her to her journey's end.",1 "In course of time she came into the leading thoroughfare where the Marshalsea was, and then he saw them slacken their pace, and soon turn down a by-street.",3 "He stopped, felt that he had no right to go further, and slowly left them.",2 "He had no suspicion that they ran any risk of being houseless until morning; had no idea of the truth until long, long afterwards.",1 "But, said Little Dorrit, when they stopped at a poor dwelling all in darkness, and heard no sound on listening at the door, 'Now, this is a good lodging for you, Maggy, and we must not give offence.",1 "Consequently, we will only knock twice, and not very loud; and if we cannot wake them so, we must walk about till day.'",1 "Once, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened.",2 "Twice, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened.",2 All was close and still.,2 "'Maggy, we must do the best we can, my dear.",3 "We must be patient, and wait for day.'",3 "It was a chill dark night, with a damp wind blowing, when they came out into the leading street again, and heard the clocks strike half-past one.",1 "'In only five hours and a half,' said Little Dorrit, 'we shall be able to go home.'",2 "To speak of home, and to go and look at it, it being so near, was a natural sequence.",2 "They went to the closed gate, and peeped through into the court-yard.",2 "'I hope he is sound asleep,' said Little Dorrit, kissing one of the bars, 'and does not miss me.'",1 "The gate was so familiar, and so like a companion, that they put down Maggy's basket in a corner to serve for a seat, and keeping close together, rested there for some time.",3 "While the street was empty and silent, Little Dorrit was not afraid; but when she heard a footstep at a distance, or saw a moving shadow among the street lamps, she was startled, and whispered, 'Maggy, I see some one.",2 Come away!',2 "Maggy would then wake up more or less fretfully, and they would wander about a little, and come back again.",2 "As long as eating was a novelty and an amusement, Maggy kept up pretty well.",4 "But that period going by, she became querulous about the cold, and shivered and whimpered.",1 "'It will soon be over, dear,' said Little Dorrit patiently.",3 "'Oh it's all very fine for you, little mother,' returned Maggy, 'but I'm a poor thing, only ten years old.'",2 "At last, in the dead of the night, when the street was very still indeed, Little Dorrit laid the heavy head upon her bosom, and soothed her to sleep.",1 "And thus she sat at the gate, as it were alone; looking up at the stars, and seeing the clouds pass over them in their wild flight--which was the dance at Little Dorrit's party.",1 'If it really was a party!',2 "she thought once, as she sat there.",2 "'If it was light and warm and beautiful, and it was our house, and my poor dear was its master, and had never been inside these walls.",3 "And if Mr Clennam was one of our visitors, and we were dancing to delightful music, and were all as gay and light-hearted as ever we could be!",3 "I wonder--' Such a vista of wonder opened out before her, that she sat looking up at the stars, quite lost, until Maggy was querulous again, and wanted to get up and walk.",2 "Three o'clock, and half-past three, and they had passed over London Bridge.",2 "They had heard the rush of the tide against obstacles; and looked down, awed, through the dark vapour on the river; had seen little spots of lighted water where the bridge lamps were reflected, shining like demon eyes, with a terrible fascination in them for guilt and misery.",1 "They had shrunk past homeless people, lying coiled up in nooks.",1 They had run from drunkards.,2 "They had started from slinking men, whistling and signing to one another at bye corners, or running away at full speed.",2 "Though everywhere the leader and the guide, Little Dorrit, happy for once in her youthful appearance, feigned to cling to and rely upon Maggy.",3 "And more than once some voice, from among a knot of brawling or prowling figures in their path, had called out to the rest to 'let the woman and the child go by!'",2 "So, the woman and the child had gone by, and gone on, and five had sounded from the steeples.",2 "They were walking slowly towards the east, already looking for the first pale streak of day, when a woman came after them.",1 'What are you doing with the child?',2 she said to Maggy.,2 "She was young--far too young to be there, Heaven knows!--and neither ugly nor wicked-looking.",1 "She spoke coarsely, but with no naturally coarse voice; there was even something musical in its sound.",1 'What are you doing with yourself?',2 "retorted Maggy, for want of a better answer.",3 "'Can't you see, without my telling you?'",2 "'I don't know as I can,' said Maggy.",2 'Killing myself!,2 "Now I have answered you, answer me.",2 What are you doing with the child?',2 "The supposed child kept her head drooped down, and kept her form close at Maggy's side.",2 'Poor thing!',2 said the woman.,2 "'Have you no feeling, that you keep her out in the cruel streets at such a time as this?",1 "Have you no eyes, that you don't see how delicate and slender she is?",3 Have you no sense (you don't look as if you had much) that you don't take more pity on this cold and trembling little hand?',1 "She had stepped across to that side, and held the hand between her own two, chafing it.",2 "'Kiss a poor lost creature, dear,' she said, bending her face, 'and tell me where's she taking you.'",1 Little Dorrit turned towards her.,2 "'Why, my God!'",2 "she said, recoiling, 'you're a woman!'",2 'Don't mind that!',2 "said Little Dorrit, clasping one of her hands that had suddenly released hers.",2 'I am not afraid of you.',1 "'Then you had better be,' she answered.",3 'Have you no mother?',2 'No.',2 'No father?',2 "'Yes, a very dear one.'",2 "'Go home to him, and be afraid of me.",1 Let me go.,2 Good night!',3 'I must thank you first; let me speak to you as if I really were a child.',3 "'You can't do it,' said the woman.",2 'You are kind and innocent; but you can't look at me out of a child's eyes.,2 "I never should have touched you, but I thought that you were a child.'",2 "And with a strange, wild cry, she went away.",0 "No day yet in the sky, but there was day in the resounding stones of the streets; in the waggons, carts, and coaches; in the workers going to various occupations; in the opening of early shops; in the traffic at markets; in the stir of the riverside.",3 "There was coming day in the flaring lights, with a feebler colour in them than they would have had at another time; coming day in the increased sharpness of the air, and the ghastly dying of the night.",1 "They went back again to the gate, intending to wait there now until it should be opened; but the air was so raw and cold that Little Dorrit, leading Maggy about in her sleep, kept in motion.",2 "Going round by the Church, she saw lights there, and the door open; and went up the steps and looked in.",2 'Who's that?',2 "cried a stout old man, who was putting on a nightcap as if he were going to bed in a vault.",2 "'It's no one particular, sir,' said Little Dorrit.",2 'Stop!',2 cried the man.,2 'Let's have a look at you!',2 "This caused her to turn back again in the act of going out, and to present herself and her charge before him.",2 'I thought so!',2 said he.,2 'I know _you_.',2 "'We have often seen each other,' said Little Dorrit, recognising the sexton, or the beadle, or the verger, or whatever he was, 'when I have been at church here.'",2 "'More than that, we've got your birth in our Register, you know; you're one of our curiosities.'",2 'Indeed!',2 said Little Dorrit.,2 'To be sure.,2 "As the child of the--by-the-bye, how did you get out so early?'",2 "'We were shut out last night, and are waiting to get in.'",2 'You don't mean it?,2 And there's another hour good yet!,3 Come into the vestry.,2 "You'll find a fire in the vestry, on account of the painters.",2 "I'm waiting for the painters, or I shouldn't be here, you may depend upon it.",2 One of our curiosities mustn't be cold when we have it in our power to warm her up comfortable.,3 Come along.',2 "He was a very good old fellow, in his familiar way; and having stirred the vestry fire, he looked round the shelves of registers for a particular volume.",3 "'Here you are, you see,' he said, taking it down and turning the leaves.",2 "'Here you'll find yourself, as large as life.",2 "Amy, daughter of William and Fanny Dorrit.",2 "Born, Marshalsea Prison, Parish of St George.",1 "And we tell people that you have lived there, without so much as a day's or a night's absence, ever since.",1 Is it true?',2 "'Quite true, till last night.'",2 'Lord!',2 "But his surveying her with an admiring gaze suggested Something else to him, to wit: 'I am sorry to see, though, that you are faint and tired.",1 Stay a bit.,2 "I'll get some cushions out of the church, and you and your friend shall lie down before the fire.",1 Don't be afraid of not going in to join your father when the gate opens.,1 _I'll_ call you.',2 "He soon brought in the cushions, and strewed them on the ground.",2 "'There you are, you see.",2 Again as large as life.,2 "Oh, never mind thanking.",2 I've daughters of my own.,2 "And though they weren't born in the Marshalsea Prison, they might have been, if I had been, in my ways of carrying on, of your father's breed.",1 Stop a bit.,2 I must put something under the cushion for your head.,2 "Here's a burial volume, just the thing!",2 We have got Mrs Bangham in this book.,2 "But what makes these books interesting to most people is--not who's in 'em, but who isn't--who's coming, you know, and when.",3 That's the interesting question.',3 "Commendingly looking back at the pillow he had improvised, he left them to their hour's repose.",2 "Maggy was snoring already, and Little Dorrit was soon fast asleep with her head resting on that sealed book of Fate, untroubled by its mysterious blank leaves.",2 This was Little Dorrit's party.,2 "The shame, desertion, wretchedness, and exposure of the great capital; the wet, the cold, the slow hours, and the swift clouds of the dismal night.",0 "This was the party from which Little Dorrit went home, jaded, in the first grey mist of a rainy morning.",1 "The debilitated old house in the city, wrapped in its mantle of soot, and leaning heavily on the crutches that had partaken of its decay and worn out with it, never knew a healthy or a cheerful interval, let what would betide.",2 "If the sun ever touched it, it was but with a ray, and that was gone in half an hour; if the moonlight ever fell upon it, it was only to put a few patches on its doleful cloak, and make it look more wretched.",1 "The stars, to be sure, coldly watched it when the nights and the smoke were clear enough; and all bad weather stood by it with a rare fidelity.",2 "You should alike find rain, hail, frost, and thaw lingering in that dismal enclosure when they had vanished from other places; and as to snow, you should see it there for weeks, long after it had changed from yellow to black, slowly weeping away its grimy life.",1 The place had no other adherents.,2 "As to street noises, the rumbling of wheels in the lane merely rushed in at the gateway in going past, and rushed out again: making the listening Mistress Affery feel as if she were deaf, and recovered the sense of hearing by instantaneous flashes.",0 "So with whistling, singing, talking, laughing, and all pleasant human sounds.",3 "They leaped the gap in a moment, and went upon their way.",2 The varying light of fire and candle in Mrs Clennam's room made the greatest change that ever broke the dead monotony of the spot.,1 "In her two long narrow windows, the fire shone sullenly all day, and sullenly all night.",2 "On rare occasions it flashed up passionately, as she did; but for the most part it was suppressed, like her, and preyed upon itself evenly and slowly.",3 "During many hours of the short winter days, however, when it was dusk there early in the afternoon, changing distortions of herself in her wheeled chair, of Mr Flintwinch with his wry neck, of Mistress Affery coming and going, would be thrown upon the house wall that was over the gateway, and would hover there like shadows from a great magic lantern.",3 "As the room-ridden invalid settled for the night, these would gradually disappear: Mistress Affery's magnified shadow always flitting about, last, until it finally glided away into the air, as though she were off upon a witch excursion.",1 "Then the solitary light would burn unchangingly, until it burned pale before the dawn, and at last died under the breath of Mrs Affery, as her shadow descended on it from the witch-region of sleep.",0 "Strange, if the little sick-room fire were in effect a beacon fire, summoning some one, and that the most unlikely some one in the world, to the spot that _must_ be come to.",0 "Strange, if the little sick-room light were in effect a watch-light, burning in that place every night until an appointed event should be watched out!",0 "Which of the vast multitude of travellers, under the sun and the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one another; which of the host may, with no suspicion of the journey's end, be travelling surely hither?",0 Time shall show us.,2 "The post of honour and the post of shame, the general's station and the drummer's, a peer's statue in Westminster Abbey and a seaman's hammock in the bosom of the deep, the mitre and the workhouse, the woolsack and the gallows, the throne and the guillotine--the travellers to all are on the great high road, but it has wonderful divergencies, and only Time shall show us whither each traveller is bound.",3 "On a wintry afternoon at twilight, Mrs Flintwinch, having been heavy all day, dreamed this dream: She thought she was in the kitchen getting the kettle ready for tea, and was warming herself with her feet upon the fender and the skirt of her gown tucked up, before the collapsed fire in the middle of the grate, bordered on either hand by a deep cold black ravine.",1 "She thought that as she sat thus, musing upon the question whether life was not for some people a rather dull invention, she was frightened by a sudden noise behind her.",1 "She thought that she had been similarly frightened once last week, and that the noise was of a mysterious kind--a sound of rustling and of three or four quick beats like a rapid step; while a shock or tremble was communicated to her heart, as if the step had shaken the floor, or even as if she had been touched by some awful hand.",1 "She thought that this revived within her certain old fears of hers that the house was haunted; and that she flew up the kitchen stairs without knowing how she got up, to be nearer company.",1 "Mistress Affery thought that on reaching the hall, she saw the door of her liege lord's office standing open, and the room empty.",1 "That she went to the ripped-up window in the little room by the street door to connect her palpitating heart, through the glass, with living things beyond and outside the haunted house.",1 "That she then saw, on the wall over the gateway, the shadows of the two clever ones in conversation above.",3 "That she then went upstairs with her shoes in her hand, partly to be near the clever ones as a match for most ghosts, and partly to hear what they were talking about.",3 "'None of your nonsense with me,' said Mr Flintwinch.",1 'I won't take it from you.',2 "Mrs Flintwinch dreamed that she stood behind the door, which was just ajar, and most distinctly heard her husband say these bold words.",2 "'Flintwinch,' returned Mrs Clennam, in her usual strong low voice, 'there is a demon of anger in you.",1 Guard against it.',2 "'I don't care whether there's one or a dozen,' said Mr Flintwinch, forcibly suggesting in his tone that the higher number was nearer the mark.",2 "'If there was fifty, they should all say, None of your nonsense with me, I won't take it from you--I'd make 'em say it, whether they liked it or not.'",2 "'What have I done, you wrathful man?'",2 her strong voice asked.,3 'Done?',2 said Mr Flintwinch.,2 'Dropped down upon me.',2 "'If you mean, remonstrated with you--' 'Don't put words into my mouth that I don't mean,' said Jeremiah, sticking to his figurative expression with tenacious and impenetrable obstinacy: 'I mean dropped down upon me.'",3 "'I remonstrated with you,' she began again, 'because--' 'I won't have it!'",2 cried Jeremiah.,2 'You dropped down upon me.',2 "'I dropped down upon you, then, you ill-conditioned man,' (Jeremiah chuckled at having forced her to adopt his phrase,) 'for having been needlessly significant to Arthur that morning.",2 I have a right to complain of it as almost a breach of confidence.,2 You did not mean it--' 'I won't have it!',2 "interposed the contradictory Jeremiah, flinging back the concession.",1 'I did mean it.',2 "'I suppose I must leave you to speak in soliloquy if you choose,' she replied, after a pause that seemed an angry one.",1 'It is useless my addressing myself to a rash and headstrong old man who has a set purpose not to hear me.',1 "'Now, I won't take that from you either,' said Jeremiah.",2 'I have no such purpose.,2 I have told you I did mean it.,2 "Do you wish to know why I meant it, you rash and headstrong old woman?'",1 "'After all, you only restore me my own words,' she said, struggling with her indignation.",1 'Yes.',2 "'This is why, then.",2 "Because you hadn't cleared his father to him, and you ought to have done it.",3 "Because, before you went into any tantrum about yourself, who are--' 'Hold there, Flintwinch!'",1 she cried out in a changed voice: 'you may go a word too far.',2 The old man seemed to think so.,2 "There was another pause, and he had altered his position in the room, when he spoke again more mildly: 'I was going to tell you why it was.",2 "Because, before you took your own part, I thought you ought to have taken the part of Arthur's father.",2 Arthur's father!,2 I had no particular love for Arthur's father.,3 "I served Arthur's father's uncle, in this house, when Arthur's father was not much above me--was poorer as far as his pocket went--and when his uncle might as soon have left me his heir as have left him.",1 "He starved in the parlour, and I starved in the kitchen; that was the principal difference in our positions; there was not much more than a flight of breakneck stairs between us.",2 I never took to him in those times; I don't know that I ever took to him greatly at any time.,2 "He was an undecided, irresolute chap, who had everything but his orphan life scared out of him when he was young.",0 "And when he brought you home here, the wife his uncle had named for him, I didn't need to look at you twice (you were a good-looking woman at that time) to know who'd be master.",3 You have stood of your own strength ever since.,2 Stand of your own strength now.,2 Don't lean against the dead.',2 'I do _not_--as you call it--lean against the dead.',2 "'But you had a mind to do it, if I had submitted,' growled Jeremiah, 'and that's why you drop down upon me.",2 You can't forget that I didn't submit.,2 I suppose you are astonished that I should consider it worth my while to have justice done to Arthur's father?,3 Hey?,2 "It doesn't matter whether you answer or not, because I know you are, and you know you are.",2 "Come, then, I'll tell you how it is.",2 "I may be a bit of an oddity in point of temper, but this is my temper--I can't let anybody have entirely their own way.",1 "You are a determined woman, and a clever woman; and when you see your purpose before you, nothing will turn you from it.",3 Who knows that better than I do?',3 "'Nothing will turn me from it, Flintwinch, when I have justified it to myself.",2 Add that.',2 'Justified it to yourself?,2 "I said you were the most determined woman on the face of the earth (or I meant to say so), and if you are determined to justify any object you entertain, of course you'll do it.'",2 'Man!,2 "I justify myself by the authority of these Books,' she cried, with stern emphasis, and appearing from the sound that followed to strike the dead-weight of her arm upon the table.",0 "'Never mind that,' returned Jeremiah calmly, 'we won't enter into that question at present.",2 "However that may be, you carry out your purposes, and you make everything go down before them.",2 "Now, I won't go down before them.",2 "I have been faithful to you, and useful to you, and I am attached to you.",3 "But I can't consent, and I won't consent, and I never did consent, and I never will consent to be lost in you.",1 "Swallow up everybody else, and welcome.",3 "The peculiarity of my temper is, ma'am, that I won't be swallowed up alive.'",1 Perhaps this had originally been the mainspring of the understanding between them.,2 "Descrying thus much of force of character in Mr Flintwinch, perhaps Mrs Clennam had deemed alliance with him worth her while.",3 "'Enough and more than enough of the subject,' said she gloomily.",3 "'Unless you drop down upon me again,' returned the persistent Flintwinch, 'and then you must expect to hear of it again.'",2 "Mistress Affery dreamed that the figure of her lord here began walking up and down the room, as if to cool his spleen, and that she ran away; but that, as he did not issue forth when she had stood listening and trembling in the shadowy hall a little time, she crept up-stairs again, impelled as before by ghosts and curiosity, and once more cowered outside the door.",0 "'Please to light the candle, Flintwinch,' Mrs Clennam was saying, apparently wishing to draw him back into their usual tone.",2 'It is nearly time for tea.,2 "Little Dorrit is coming, and will find me in the dark.'",1 "Mr Flintwinch lighted the candle briskly, and said as he put it down upon the table: 'What are you going to do with Little Dorrit?",2 Is she to come to work here for ever?,3 To come to tea here for ever?,2 "To come backwards and forwards here, in the same way, for ever?'",2 "'How can you talk about ""for ever"" to a maimed creature like me?",3 "Are we not all cut down like the grass of the field, and was not I shorn by the scythe many years ago: since when I have been lying here, waiting to be gathered into the barn?'",2 "'Ay, ay!",2 "But since you have been lying here--not near dead--nothing like it--numbers of children and young people, blooming women, strong men, and what not, have been cut down and carried; and still here are you, you see, not much changed after all.",2 Your time and mine may be a long one yet.,2 "When I say for ever, I mean (though I am not poetical) through all our time.'",2 "Mr Flintwinch gave this explanation with great calmness, and calmly waited for an answer.",3 "'So long as Little Dorrit is quiet and industrious, and stands in need of the slight help I can give her, and deserves it; so long, I suppose, unless she withdraws of her own act, she will continue to come here, I being spared.'",3 'Nothing more than that?',2 "said Flintwinch, stroking his mouth and chin.",2 'What should there be more than that!,2 What could there be more than that!',2 she ejaculated in her sternly wondering way.,2 "Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, that, for the space of a minute or two, they remained looking at each other with the candle between them, and that she somehow derived an impression that they looked at each other fixedly.",2 "'Do you happen to know, Mrs Clennam,' Affery's liege lord then demanded in a much lower voice, and with an amount of expression that seemed quite out of proportion to the simple purpose of his words, 'where she lives?'",2 'No.',2 "'Would you--now, would you like to know?'",3 said Jeremiah with a pounce as if he had sprung upon her.,2 "'If I cared to know, I should know already.",2 Could I not have asked her any day?',2 'Then you don't care to know?',2 'I do not.',2 "Mr Flintwinch, having expelled a long significant breath said, with his former emphasis, 'For I have accidentally--mind!--found out.'",3 "'Wherever she lives,' said Mrs Clennam, speaking in one unmodulated hard voice, and separating her words as distinctly as if she were reading them off from separate bits of metal that she took up one by one, 'she has made a secret of it, and she shall always keep her secret from me.'",1 "'After all, perhaps you would rather not have known the fact, any how?'",2 "said Jeremiah; and he said it with a twist, as if his words had come out of him in his own wry shape.",1 "'Flintwinch,' said his mistress and partner, flashing into a sudden energy that made Affery start, 'why do you goad me?",1 Look round this room.,2 "If it is any compensation for my long confinement within these narrow limits--not that I complain of being afflicted; you know I never complain of that--if it is any compensation to me for long confinement to this room, that while I am shut up from all pleasant change I am also shut up from the knowledge of some things that I may prefer to avoid knowing, why should you, of all men, grudge me that belief?'",1 "'I don't grudge it to you,' returned Jeremiah.",1 'Then say no more.,2 Say no more.,2 "Let Little Dorrit keep her secret from me, and do you keep it from me also.",2 "Let her come and go, unobserved and unquestioned.",1 "Let me suffer, and let me have what alleviation belongs to my condition.",1 "Is it so much, that you torment me like an evil spirit?'",1 'I asked you a question.,2 That's all.',2 'I have answered it.,2 "So, say no more.",2 Say no more.',2 "Here the sound of the wheeled chair was heard upon the floor, and Affery's bell rang with a hasty jerk.",1 "More afraid of her husband at the moment than of the mysterious sound in the kitchen, Affery crept away as lightly and as quickly as she could, descended the kitchen stairs almost as rapidly as she had ascended them, resumed her seat before the fire, tucked up her skirt again, and finally threw her apron over her head.",0 "Then the bell rang once more, and then once more, and then kept on ringing; in despite of which importunate summons, Affery still sat behind her apron, recovering her breath.",1 "At last Mr Flintwinch came shuffling down the staircase into the hall, muttering and calling 'Affery woman!'",2 all the way.,2 "Affery still remaining behind her apron, he came stumbling down the kitchen stairs, candle in hand, sidled up to her, twitched her apron off, and roused her.",2 'Oh Jeremiah!',2 "cried Affery, waking.",2 'What a start you gave me!',2 "'What have you been doing, woman?'",2 inquired Jeremiah.,2 'You've been rung for fifty times.',2 "'Oh Jeremiah,' said Mistress Affery, 'I have been a-dreaming!'",1 "Reminded of her former achievement in that way, Mr Flintwinch held the candle to her head, as if he had some idea of lighting her up for the illumination of the kitchen.",3 'Don't you know it's her tea-time?',2 "he demanded with a vicious grin, and giving one of the legs of Mistress Affery's chair a kick.",1 'Jeremiah?,2 Tea-time?,2 I don't know what's come to me.,2 "But I got such a dreadful turn, Jeremiah, before I went--off a-dreaming, that I think it must be that.'",1 'Yoogh!,2 Sleepy-Head!',2 "said Mr Flintwinch, 'what are you talking about?'",2 "'Such a strange noise, Jeremiah, and such a curious movement.",1 In the kitchen here--just here.',2 "Jeremiah held up his light and looked at the blackened ceiling, held down his light and looked at the damp stone floor, turned round with his light and looked about at the spotted and blotched walls.",2 "'Rats, cats, water, drains,' said Jeremiah.",1 Mistress Affery negatived each with a shake of her head.,1 "'No, Jeremiah; I have felt it before.",2 "I have felt it up-stairs, and once on the staircase as I was going from her room to ours in the night--a rustle and a sort of trembling touch behind me.'",2 "'Affery, my woman,' said Mr Flintwinch grimly, after advancing his nose to that lady's lips as a test for the detection of spirituous liquors, 'if you don't get tea pretty quick, old woman, you'll become sensible of a rustle and a touch that'll send you flying to the other end of the kitchen.'",3 "This prediction stimulated Mrs Flintwinch to bestir herself, and to hasten up-stairs to Mrs Clennam's chamber.",2 "But, for all that, she now began to entertain a settled conviction that there was something wrong in the gloomy house.",1 "Henceforth, she was never at peace in it after daylight departed; and never went up or down stairs in the dark without having her apron over her head, lest she should see something.",2 "What with these ghostly apprehensions and her singular dreams, Mrs Flintwinch fell that evening into a haunted state of mind, from which it may be long before this present narrative descries any trace of her recovery.",1 "In the vagueness and indistinctness of all her new experiences and perceptions, as everything about her was mysterious to herself she began to be mysterious to others: and became as difficult to be made out to anybody's satisfaction as she found the house and everything in it difficult to make out to her own.",0 "She had not yet finished preparing Mrs Clennam's tea, when the soft knock came to the door which always announced Little Dorrit.",2 "Mistress Affery looked on at Little Dorrit taking off her homely bonnet in the hall, and at Mr Flintwinch scraping his jaws and contemplating her in silence, as expecting some wonderful consequence to ensue which would frighten her out of her five wits or blow them all three to pieces.",1 "After tea there came another knock at the door, announcing Arthur.",1 "Mistress Affery went down to let him in, and he said on entering, 'Affery, I am glad it's you.",2 I want to ask you a question.',2 "Affery immediately replied, 'For goodness sake don't ask me nothing, Arthur!",3 "I am frightened out of one half of my life, and dreamed out of the other.",2 Don't ask me nothing!,2 "I don't know which is which, or what is what!'",2 "--and immediately started away from him, and came near him no more.",2 "Mistress Affery having no taste for reading, and no sufficient light for needlework in the subdued room, supposing her to have the inclination, now sat every night in the dimness from which she had momentarily emerged on the evening of Arthur Clennam's return, occupied with crowds of wild speculations and suspicions respecting her mistress and her husband and the noises in the house.",0 "When the ferocious devotional exercises were engaged in, these speculations would distract Mistress Affery's eyes towards the door, as if she expected some dark form to appear at those propitious moments, and make the party one too many.",1 "Otherwise, Affery never said or did anything to attract the attention of the two clever ones towards her in any marked degree, except on certain occasions, generally at about the quiet hour towards bed-time, when she would suddenly dart out of her dim corner, and whisper with a face of terror to Mr Flintwinch, reading the paper near Mrs Clennam's little table: 'There, Jeremiah!",2 Now!,2 What's that noise?',1 "Then the noise, if there were any, would have ceased, and Mr Flintwinch would snarl, turning upon her as if she had cut him down that moment against his will, 'Affery, old woman, you shall have a dose, old woman, such a dose!",1 You have been dreaming again!',2 "The time being come for the renewal of his acquaintance with the Meagles family, Clennam, pursuant to contract made between himself and Mr Meagles within the precincts of Bleeding Heart Yard, turned his face on a certain Saturday towards Twickenham, where Mr Meagles had a cottage-residence of his own.",1 "The weather being fine and dry, and any English road abounding in interest for him who had been so long away, he sent his valise on by the coach, and set out to walk.",3 "A walk was in itself a new enjoyment to him, and one that had rarely diversified his life afar off.",3 "He went by Fulham and Putney, for the pleasure of strolling over the heath.",3 "It was bright and shining there; and when he found himself so far on his road to Twickenham, he found himself a long way on his road to a number of airier and less substantial destinations.",3 "They had risen before him fast, in the healthful exercise and the pleasant road.",4 It is not easy to walk alone in the country without musing upon something.,3 "And he had plenty of unsettled subjects to meditate upon, though he had been walking to the Land's End.",1 "First, there was the subject seldom absent from his mind, the question, what he was to do henceforth in life; to what occupation he should devote himself, and in what direction he had best seek it.",3 "He was far from rich, and every day of indecision and inaction made his inheritance a source of greater anxiety to him.",1 "As often as he began to consider how to increase this inheritance, or to lay it by, so often his misgiving that there was some one with an unsatisfied claim upon his justice, returned; and that alone was a subject to outlast the longest walk.",1 "Again, there was the subject of his relations with his mother, which were now upon an equable and peaceful but never confidential footing, and whom he saw several times a week.",3 "Little Dorrit was a leading and a constant subject: for the circumstances of his life, united to those of her own story, presented the little creature to him as the only person between whom and himself there were ties of innocent reliance on one hand, and affectionate protection on the other; ties of compassion, respect, unselfish interest, gratitude, and pity.",4 "Thinking of her, and of the possibility of her father's release from prison by the unbarring hand of death--the only change of circumstance he could foresee that might enable him to be such a friend to her as he wished to be, by altering her whole manner of life, smoothing her rough road, and giving her a home--he regarded her, in that perspective, as his adopted daughter, his poor child of the Marshalsea hushed to rest.",0 "If there were a last subject in his thoughts, and it lay towards Twickenham, its form was so indefinite that it was little more than the pervading atmosphere in which these other subjects floated before him.",2 "He had crossed the heath and was leaving it behind when he gained upon a figure which had been in advance of him for some time, and which, as he gained upon it, he thought he knew.",3 "He derived this impression from something in the turn of the head, and in the figure's action of consideration, as it went on at a sufficiently sturdy walk.",3 "But when the man--for it was a man's figure--pushed his hat up at the back of his head, and stopped to consider some object before him, he knew it to be Daniel Doyce.",1 "'How do you do, Mr Doyce?'",2 "said Clennam, overtaking him.",3 "'I am glad to see you again, and in a healthier place than the Circumlocution Office.'",3 'Ha!,2 Mr Meagles's friend!',2 "exclaimed that public criminal, coming out of some mental combinations he had been making, and offering his hand.",1 "'I am glad to see you, sir.",3 Will you excuse me if I forget your name?',1 'Readily.,2 It's not a celebrated name.,3 It's not Barnacle.',2 "'No, no,' said Daniel, laughing.",2 'And now I know what it is.,2 It's Clennam.,2 "How do you do, Mr Clennam?'",2 "'I have some hope,' said Arthur, as they walked on together, 'that we may be going to the same place, Mr Doyce.'",2 'Meaning Twickenham?',2 returned Daniel.,2 'I am glad to hear it.',3 "They were soon quite intimate, and lightened the way with a variety of conversation.",3 "The ingenious culprit was a man of great modesty and good sense; and, though a plain man, had been too much accustomed to combine what was original and daring in conception with what was patient and minute in execution, to be by any means an ordinary man.",4 "It was at first difficult to lead him to speak about himself, and he put off Arthur's advances in that direction by admitting slightly, oh yes, he had done this, and he had done that, and such a thing was of his making, and such another thing was his discovery, but it was his trade, you see, his trade; until, as he gradually became assured that his companion had a real interest in his account of himself, he frankly yielded to it.",2 "Then it appeared that he was the son of a north-country blacksmith, and had originally been apprenticed by his widowed mother to a lock-maker; that he had 'struck out a few little things' at the lock-maker's, which had led to his being released from his indentures with a present, which present had enabled him to gratify his ardent wish to bind himself to a working engineer, under whom he had laboured hard, learned hard, and lived hard, seven years.",3 "His time being out, he had 'worked in the shop' at weekly wages seven or eight years more; and had then betaken himself to the banks of the Clyde, where he had studied, and filed, and hammered, and improved his knowledge, theoretical and practical, for six or seven years more.",3 "There he had had an offer to go to Lyons, which he had accepted; and from Lyons had been engaged to go to Germany, and in Germany had had an offer to go to St Petersburg, and there had done very well indeed--never better.",3 "However, he had naturally felt a preference for his own country, and a wish to gain distinction there, and to do whatever service he could do, there rather than elsewhere.",3 And so he had come home.,2 "And so at home he had established himself in business, and had invented and executed, and worked his way on, until, after a dozen years of constant suit and service, he had been enrolled in the Great British Legion of Honour, the Legion of the Rebuffed of the Circumlocution Office, and had been decorated with the Great British Order of Merit, the Order of the Disorder of the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings.",3 "'It is much to be regretted,' said Clennam, 'that you ever turned your thoughts that way, Mr Doyce.'",1 "'True, sir, true to a certain extent.",2 But what is a man to do?,2 "if he has the misfortune to strike out something serviceable to the nation, he must follow where it leads him.'",1 'Hadn't he better let it go?',3 said Clennam.,2 "'He can't do it,' said Doyce, shaking his head with a thoughtful smile.",3 'It's not put into his head to be buried.,2 It's put into his head to be made useful.,3 You hold your life on the condition that to the last you shall struggle hard for it.,1 Every man holds a discovery on the same terms.',2 "'That is to say,' said Arthur, with a growing admiration of his quiet companion, 'you are not finally discouraged even now?'",3 "'I have no right to be, if I am,' returned the other.",3 'The thing is as true as it ever was.',2 "When they had walked a little way in silence, Clennam, at once to change the direct point of their conversation and not to change it too abruptly, asked Mr Doyce if he had any partner in his business to relieve him of a portion of its anxieties?",1 "'No,' he returned, 'not at present.",2 "I had when I first entered on it, and a good man he was.",3 "But he has been dead some years; and as I could not easily take to the notion of another when I lost him, I bought his share for myself and have gone on by myself ever since.",1 "And here's another thing,' he said, stopping for a moment with a good-humoured laugh in his eyes, and laying his closed right hand, with its peculiar suppleness of thumb, on Clennam's arm, 'no inventor can be a man of business, you know.'",3 'No?',2 said Clennam.,2 "'Why, so the men of business say,' he answered, resuming the walk and laughing outright.",2 "'I don't know why we unfortunate creatures should be supposed to want common sense, but it is generally taken for granted that we do.",1 "Even the best friend I have in the world, our excellent friend over yonder,' said Doyce, nodding towards Twickenham, 'extends a sort of protection to me, don't you know, as a man not quite able to take care of himself?'",4 "Arthur Clennam could not help joining in the good-humoured laugh, for he recognised the truth of the description.",3 "'So I find that I must have a partner who is a man of business and not guilty of any inventions,' said Daniel Doyce, taking off his hat to pass his hand over his forehead, 'if it's only in deference to the current opinion, and to uphold the credit of the Works.",3 I don't think he'll find that I have been very remiss or confused in my way of conducting them; but that's for him to say--whoever he is--not for me.',1 "'You have not chosen him yet, then?'",2 "'No, sir, no.",2 I have only just come to a decision to take one.,2 "The fact is, there's more to do than there used to be, and the Works are enough for me as I grow older.",3 "What with the books and correspondence, and foreign journeys for which a Principal is necessary, I can't do all.",2 "I am going to talk over the best way of negotiating the matter, if I find a spare half-hour between this and Monday morning, with my--my Nurse and protector,' said Doyce, with laughing eyes again.",3 "'He is a sagacious man in business, and has had a good apprenticeship to it.'",3 "After this, they conversed on different subjects until they arrived at their journey's end.",2 "A composed and unobtrusive self-sustainment was noticeable in Daniel Doyce--a calm knowledge that what was true must remain true, in spite of all the Barnacles in the family ocean, and would be just the truth, and neither more nor less when even that sea had run dry--which had a kind of greatness in it, though not of the official quality.",3 "As he knew the house well, he conducted Arthur to it by the way that showed it to the best advantage.",4 "It was a charming place (none the worse for being a little eccentric), on the road by the river, and just what the residence of the Meagles family ought to be.",1 "It stood in a garden, no doubt as fresh and beautiful in the May of the Year as Pet now was in the May of her life; and it was defended by a goodly show of handsome trees and spreading evergreens, as Pet was by Mr and Mrs Meagles.",4 "It was made out of an old brick house, of which a part had been altogether pulled down, and another part had been changed into the present cottage; so there was a hale elderly portion, to represent Mr and Mrs Meagles, and a young picturesque, very pretty portion to represent Pet.",4 "There was even the later addition of a conservatory sheltering itself against it, uncertain of hue in its deep-stained glass, and in its more transparent portions flashing to the sun's rays, now like fire and now like harmless water drops; which might have stood for Tattycoram.",3 "Within view was the peaceful river and the ferry-boat, to moralise to all the inmates saying: Young or old, passionate or tranquil, chafing or content, you, thus runs the current always.",4 "Let the heart swell into what discord it will, thus plays the rippling water on the prow of the ferry-boat ever the same tune.",1 "Year after year, so much allowance for the drifting of the boat, so many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet, upon this road that steadily runs away; while you, upon your flowing road of time, are so capricious and distracted.",1 The bell at the gate had scarcely sounded when Mr Meagles came out to receive them.,1 "Mr Meagles had scarcely come out, when Mrs Meagles came out.",1 "Mrs Meagles had scarcely come out, when Pet came out.",1 "Pet scarcely had come out, when Tattycoram came out.",1 Never had visitors a more hospitable reception.,3 "'Here we are, you see,' said Mr Meagles, 'boxed up, Mr Clennam, within our own home-limits, as if we were never going to expand--that is, travel--again.",1 "Not like Marseilles, eh?",3 No allonging and marshonging here!',2 "'A different kind of beauty, indeed!'",3 "said Clennam, looking about him.",2 "'But, Lord bless me!'",3 "cried Mr Meagles, rubbing his hands with a relish, 'it was an uncommonly pleasant thing being in quarantine, wasn't it?",3 "Do you know, I have often wished myself back again?",2 We were a capital party.',2 This was Mr Meagles's invariable habit.,2 "Always to object to everything while he was travelling, and always to want to get back to it when he was not travelling.",1 "'If it was summer-time,' said Mr Meagles, 'which I wish it was on your account, and in order that you might see the place at its best, you would hardly be able to hear yourself speak for birds.",3 "Being practical people, we never allow anybody to scare the birds; and the birds, being practical people too, come about us in myriads.",1 "We are delighted to see you, Clennam (if you'll allow me, I shall drop the Mister); I heartily assure you, we are delighted.'",4 "'I have not had so pleasant a greeting,' said Clennam--then he recalled what Little Dorrit had said to him in his own room, and faithfully added 'except once--since we last walked to and fro, looking down at the Mediterranean.'",3 'Ah!',2 returned Mr Meagles.,2 "'Something like a look out, _that_ was, wasn't it?",3 "I don't want a military government, but I shouldn't mind a little allonging and marshonging--just a dash of it--in this neighbourhood sometimes.",2 It's Devilish still.',1 "Bestowing this eulogium on the retired character of his retreat with a dubious shake of the head, Mr Meagles led the way into the house.",1 "It was just large enough, and no more; was as pretty within as it was without, and was perfectly well-arranged and comfortable.",4 "Some traces of the migratory habits of the family were to be observed in the covered frames and furniture, and wrapped-up hangings; but it was easy to see that it was one of Mr Meagles's whims to have the cottage always kept, in their absence, as if they were always coming back the day after to-morrow.",2 "Of articles collected on his various expeditions, there was such a vast miscellany that it was like the dwelling of an amiable Corsair.",3 "There were antiquities from Central Italy, made by the best modern houses in that department of industry; bits of mummy from Egypt (and perhaps Birmingham); model gondolas from Venice; model villages from Switzerland; morsels of tesselated pavement from Herculaneum and Pompeii, like petrified minced veal; ashes out of tombs, and lava out of Vesuvius; Spanish fans, Spezzian straw hats, Moorish slippers, Tuscan hairpins, Carrara sculpture, Trastaverini scarves, Genoese velvets and filigree, Neapolitan coral, Roman cameos, Geneva jewellery, Arab lanterns, rosaries blest all round by the Pope himself, and an infinite variety of lumber.",4 "There were views, like and unlike, of a multitude of places; and there was one little picture-room devoted to a few of the regular sticky old Saints, with sinews like whipcord, hair like Neptune's, wrinkles like tattooing, and such coats of varnish that every holy personage served for a fly-trap, and became what is now called in the vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O.",1 Of these pictorial acquisitions Mr Meagles spoke in the usual manner.,2 "He was no judge, he said, except of what pleased himself; he had picked them up, dirt-cheap, and people _had_ considered them rather fine.",2 "One man, who at any rate ought to know something of the subject, had declared that 'Sage, Reading' (a specially oily old gentleman in a blanket, with a swan's-down tippet for a beard, and a web of cracks all over him like rich pie-crust), to be a fine Guercino.",3 "As for Sebastian del Piombo there, you would judge for yourself; if it were not his later manner, the question was, Who was it?",2 "Titian, that might or might not be--perhaps he had only touched it.",2 "Daniel Doyce said perhaps he hadn't touched it, but Mr Meagles rather declined to overhear the remark.",2 "When he had shown all his spoils, Mr Meagles took them into his own snug room overlooking the lawn, which was fitted up in part like a dressing-room and in part like an office, and in which, upon a kind of counter-desk, were a pair of brass scales for weighing gold, and a scoop for shovelling out money.",3 "'Here they are, you see,' said Mr Meagles.",2 "'I stood behind these two articles five-and-thirty years running, when I no more thought of gadding about than I now think of--staying at home.",2 "When I left the Bank for good, I asked for them, and brought them away with me.",3 "I mention it at once, or you might suppose that I sit in my counting-house (as Pet says I do), like the king in the poem of the four-and-twenty blackbirds, counting out my money.'",3 "Clennam's eyes had strayed to a natural picture on the wall, of two pretty little girls with their arms entwined.",3 "'Yes, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, in a lower voice.",2 'There they both are.,2 It was taken some seventeen years ago.,2 "As I often say to Mother, they were babies then.'",2 'Their names?',2 said Arthur.,2 "'Ah, to be sure!",2 You have never heard any name but Pet.,2 Pet's name is Minnie; her sister's Lillie.',2 "'Should you have known, Mr Clennam, that one of them was meant for me?'",2 "asked Pet herself, now standing in the doorway.",2 "'I might have thought that both of them were meant for you, both are still so like you.",3 "Indeed,' said Clennam, glancing from the fair original to the picture and back, 'I cannot even now say which is not your portrait.'",3 "'D'ye hear that, Mother?'",2 "cried Mr Meagles to his wife, who had followed her daughter.",2 "'It's always the same, Clennam; nobody can decide.",2 The child to your left is Pet.',2 The picture happened to be near a looking-glass.,2 "As Arthur looked at it again, he saw, by the reflection of the mirror, Tattycoram stop in passing outside the door, listen to what was going on, and pass away with an angry and contemptuous frown upon her face, that changed its beauty into ugliness.",0 'But come!',2 said Mr Meagles.,2 "'You have had a long walk, and will be glad to get your boots off.",3 "As to Daniel here, I suppose he'd never think of taking _his_ boots off, unless we showed him a boot-jack.'",2 'Why not?',2 "asked Daniel, with a significant smile at Clennam.",3 'Oh!,2 "You have so many things to think about,' returned Mr Meagles, clapping him on the shoulder, as if his weakness must not be left to itself on any account.",1 "'Figures, and wheels, and cogs, and levers, and screws, and cylinders, and a thousand things.'",2 "'In my calling,' said Daniel, amused, 'the greater usually includes the less.",2 "But never mind, never mind!",2 "Whatever pleases you, pleases me.'",3 "Clennam could not help speculating, as he seated himself in his room by the fire, whether there might be in the breast of this honest, affectionate, and cordial Mr Meagles, any microscopic portion of the mustard-seed that had sprung up into the great tree of the Circumlocution Office.",4 "His curious sense of a general superiority to Daniel Doyce, which seemed to be founded, not so much on anything in Doyce's personal character as on the mere fact of his being an originator and a man out of the beaten track of other men, suggested the idea.",3 "It might have occupied him until he went down to dinner an hour afterwards, if he had not had another question to consider, which had been in his mind so long ago as before he was in quarantine at Marseilles, and which had now returned to it, and was very urgent with it.",1 No less a question than this: Whether he should allow himself to fall in love with Pet?,2 He was twice her age.,2 "(He changed the leg he had crossed over the other, and tried the calculation again, but could not bring out the total at less.) He was twice her age.",2 Well!,3 "He was young in appearance, young in health and strength, young in heart.",2 "A man was certainly not old at forty; and many men were not in circumstances to marry, or did not marry, until they had attained that time of life.",2 "On the other hand, the question was, not what he thought of the point, but what she thought of it.",2 "He believed that Mr Meagles was disposed to entertain a ripe regard for him, and he knew that he had a sincere regard for Mr Meagles and his good wife.",4 "He could foresee that to relinquish this beautiful only child, of whom they were so fond, to any husband, would be a trial of their love which perhaps they never yet had had the fortitude to contemplate.",4 "But the more beautiful and winning and charming she, the nearer they must always be to the necessity of approaching it.",4 "And why not in his favour, as well as in another's?",3 "When he had got so far, it came again into his head that the question was, not what they thought of it, but what she thought of it.",2 "Arthur Clennam was a retiring man, with a sense of many deficiencies; and he so exalted the merits of the beautiful Minnie in his mind, and depressed his own, that when he pinned himself to this point, his hopes began to fail him.",1 "He came to the final resolution, as he made himself ready for dinner, that he would not allow himself to fall in love with Pet.",3 "There were only five, at a round table, and it was very pleasant indeed.",3 "They had so many places and people to recall, and they were all so easy and cheerful together (Daniel Doyce either sitting out like an amused spectator at cards, or coming in with some shrewd little experiences of his own, when it happened to be to the purpose), that they might have been together twenty times, and not have known so much of one another.",4 "'And Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, after they had recalled a number of fellow-travellers.",1 'Has anybody seen Miss Wade?',1 "'I have,' said Tattycoram.",2 "She had brought a little mantle which her young mistress had sent for, and was bending over her, putting it on, when she lifted up her dark eyes and made this unexpected answer.",0 'Tatty!',2 her young mistress exclaimed.,1 'You seen Miss Wade?--where?',1 "'Here, miss,' said Tattycoram.",1 'How?',2 "An impatient glance from Tattycoram seemed, as Clennam saw it, to answer 'With my eyes!'",1 But her only answer in words was: 'I met her near the church.',2 'What was she doing there I wonder!',3 said Mr Meagles.,2 "'Not going to it, I should think.'",2 "'She had written to me first,' said Tattycoram.",2 "'Oh, Tatty!'",2 "murmured her mistress, 'take your hands away.",1 I feel as if some one else was touching me!',2 "She said it in a quick involuntary way, but half playfully, and not more petulantly or disagreeably than a favourite child might have done, who laughed next moment.",1 "Tattycoram set her full red lips together, and crossed her arms upon her bosom.",2 "'Did you wish to know, sir,' she said, looking at Mr Meagles, 'what Miss Wade wrote to me about?'",1 "'Well, Tattycoram,' returned Mr Meagles, 'since you ask the question, and we are all friends here, perhaps you may as well mention it, if you are so inclined.'",3 "'She knew, when we were travelling, where you lived,' said Tattycoram, 'and she had seen me not quite--not quite--' 'Not quite in a good temper, Tattycoram?'",2 "suggested Mr Meagles, shaking his head at the dark eyes with a quiet caution.",2 "'Take a little time--count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.'",2 "She pressed her lips together again, and took a long deep breath.",2 "'So she wrote to me to say that if I ever felt myself hurt,' she looked down at her young mistress, 'or found myself worried,' she looked down at her again, 'I might go to her, and be considerately treated.",0 "I was to think of it, and could speak to her by the church.",2 So I went there to thank her.',3 "'Tatty,' said her young mistress, putting her hand up over her shoulder that the other might take it, 'Miss Wade almost frightened me when we parted, and I scarcely like to think of her just now as having been so near me without my knowing it.",1 Tatty dear!',2 "Tatty stood for a moment, immovable.",1 'Hey?',2 cried Mr Meagles.,2 "'Count another five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.'",2 "She might have counted a dozen, when she bent and put her lips to the caressing hand.",1 "It patted her cheek, as it touched the owner's beautiful curls, and Tattycoram went away.",3 "'Now there,' said Mr Meagles softly, as he gave a turn to the dumb-waiter on his right hand to twirl the sugar towards himself.",2 "'There's a girl who might be lost and ruined, if she wasn't among practical people.",1 "Mother and I know, solely from being practical, that there are times when that girl's whole nature seems to roughen itself against seeing us so bound up in Pet.",2 "No father and mother were bound up in her, poor soul.",1 "I don't like to think of the way in which that unfortunate child, with all that passion and protest in her, feels when she hears the Fifth Commandment on a Sunday.",2 "I am always inclined to call out, Church, Count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.'",2 "Besides his dumb-waiter, Mr Meagles had two other not dumb waiters in the persons of two parlour-maids with rosy faces and bright eyes, who were a highly ornamental part of the table decoration.",3 "'And why not, you see?'",2 said Mr Meagles on this head.,2 "'As I always say to Mother, why not have something pretty to look at, if you have anything at all?'",3 "A certain Mrs Tickit, who was Cook and Housekeeper when the family were at home, and Housekeeper only when the family were away, completed the establishment.",2 "Mr Meagles regretted that the nature of the duties in which she was engaged, rendered Mrs Tickit unpresentable at present, but hoped to introduce her to the new visitor to-morrow.",1 "She was an important part of the Cottage, he said, and all his friends knew her.",3 That was her picture up in the corner.,2 "When they went away, she always put on the silk-gown and the jet-black row of curls represented in that portrait (her hair was reddish-grey in the kitchen), established herself in the breakfast-room, put her spectacles between two particular leaves of Doctor Buchan's Domestic Medicine, and sat looking over the blind all day until they came back again.",1 "It was supposed that no persuasion could be invented which would induce Mrs Tickit to abandon her post at the blind, however long their absence, or to dispense with the attendance of Dr Buchan; the lucubrations of which learned practitioner, Mr Meagles implicitly believed she had never yet consulted to the extent of one word in her life.",1 "In the evening they played an old-fashioned rubber; and Pet sat looking over her father's hand, or singing to herself by fits and starts at the piano.",2 She was a spoilt child; but how could she be otherwise?,2 "Who could be much with so pliable and beautiful a creature, and not yield to her endearing influence?",3 "Who could pass an evening in the house, and not love her for the grace and charm of her very presence in the room?",4 "This was Clennam's reflection, notwithstanding the final conclusion at which he had arrived up-stairs.",2 "In making it, he revoked.",2 "'Why, what are you thinking of, my good sir?'",3 "asked the astonished Mr Meagles, who was his partner.",3 'I beg your pardon.,2 "Nothing,' returned Clennam.",2 "'Think of something, next time; that's a dear fellow,' said Mr Meagles.",2 Pet laughingly believed he had been thinking of Miss Wade.,1 "'Why of Miss Wade, Pet?'",1 asked her father.,2 "'Why, indeed!'",2 said Arthur Clennam.,2 "Pet coloured a little, and went to the piano again.",2 "As they broke up for the night, Arthur overheard Doyce ask his host if he could give him half an hour's conversation before breakfast in the morning?",1 "The host replying willingly, Arthur lingered behind a moment, having his own word to add to that topic.",3 "'Mr Meagles,' he said, on their being left alone, 'do you remember when you advised me to go straight to London?'",2 'Perfectly well.',3 'And when you gave me some other good advice which I needed at that time?',3 "'I won't say what it was worth,' answered Mr Meagles: 'but of course I remember our being very pleasant and confidential together.'",3 "'I have acted on your advice; and having disembarrassed myself of an occupation that was painful to me for many reasons, wish to devote myself and what means I have, to another pursuit.'",1 'Right!,2 "You can't do it too soon,' said Mr Meagles.",2 "'Now, as I came down to-day, I found that your friend, Mr Doyce, is looking for a partner in his business--not a partner in his mechanical knowledge, but in the ways and means of turning the business arising from it to the best account.'",3 "'Just so,' said Mr Meagles, with his hands in his pockets, and with the old business expression of face that had belonged to the scales and scoop.",2 "'Mr Doyce mentioned incidentally, in the course of our conversation, that he was going to take your valuable advice on the subject of finding such a partner.",3 "If you should think our views and opportunities at all likely to coincide, perhaps you will let him know my available position.",3 "I speak, of course, in ignorance of the details, and they may be unsuitable on both sides.'",1 "'No doubt, no doubt,' said Mr Meagles, with the caution belonging to the scales and scoop.",1 "'But they will be a question of figures and accounts--' 'Just so, just so,' said Mr Meagles, with arithmetical solidity belonging to the scales and scoop.",2 "'--And I shall be glad to enter into the subject, provided Mr Doyce responds, and you think well of it.",3 "If you will at present, therefore, allow me to place it in your hands, you will much oblige me.'",2 "'Clennam, I accept the trust with readiness,' said Mr Meagles.",3 "'And without anticipating any of the points which you, as a man of business, have of course reserved, I am free to say to you that I think something may come of this.",3 Of one thing you may be perfectly certain.,3 Daniel is an honest man.',3 'I am so sure of it that I have promptly made up my mind to speak to you.',3 "'You must guide him, you know; you must steer him; you must direct him; he is one of a crotchety sort,' said Mr Meagles, evidently meaning nothing more than that he did new things and went new ways; 'but he is as honest as the sun, and so good night!'",3 "Clennam went back to his room, sat down again before his fire, and made up his mind that he was glad he had resolved not to fall in love with Pet.",3 "She was so beautiful, so amiable, so apt to receive any true impression given to her gentle nature and her innocent heart, and make the man who should be so happy as to communicate it, the most fortunate and enviable of all men, that he was very glad indeed he had come to that conclusion.",4 "But, as this might have been a reason for coming to the opposite conclusion, he followed out the theme again a little way in his mind; to justify himself, perhaps.",2 "'Suppose that a man,' so his thoughts ran, 'who had been of age some twenty years or so; who was a diffident man, from the circumstances of his youth; who was rather a grave man, from the tenor of his life; who knew himself to be deficient in many little engaging qualities which he admired in others, from having been long in a distant region, with nothing softening near him; who had no kind sisters to present to her; who had no congenial home to make her known in; who was a stranger in the land; who had not a fortune to compensate, in any measure, for these defects; who had nothing in his favour but his honest love and his general wish to do right--suppose such a man were to come to this house, and were to yield to the captivation of this charming girl, and were to persuade himself that he could hope to win her; what a weakness it would be!'",4 "He softly opened his window, and looked out upon the serene river.",3 "Year after year so much allowance for the drifting of the ferry-boat, so many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet.",1 Why should he be vexed or sore at heart?,1 It was not his weakness that he had imagined.,1 "It was nobody's, nobody's within his knowledge; why should it trouble him?",1 And yet it did trouble him.,1 "And he thought--who has not thought for a moment, sometimes?--that it might be better to flow away monotonously, like the river, and to compound for its insensibility to happiness with its insensibility to pain.",3 "Before breakfast in the morning, Arthur walked out to look about him.",2 "As the morning was fine and he had an hour on his hands, he crossed the river by the ferry, and strolled along a footpath through some meadows.",3 "When he came back to the towing-path, he found the ferry-boat on the opposite side, and a gentleman hailing it and waiting to be taken over.",2 This gentleman looked barely thirty.,2 "He was well dressed, of a sprightly and gay appearance, a well-knit figure, and a rich dark complexion.",3 "As Arthur came over the stile and down to the water's edge, the lounger glanced at him for a moment, and then resumed his occupation of idly tossing stones into the water with his foot.",2 "There was something in his way of spurning them out of their places with his heel, and getting them into the required position, that Clennam thought had an air of cruelty in it.",1 "Most of us have more or less frequently derived a similar impression from a man's manner of doing some very little thing: plucking a flower, clearing away an obstacle, or even destroying an insentient object.",1 "The gentleman's thoughts were preoccupied, as his face showed, and he took no notice of a fine Newfoundland dog, who watched him attentively, and watched every stone too, in its turn, eager to spring into the river on receiving his master's sign.",3 "The ferry-boat came over, however, without his receiving any sign, and when it grounded his master took him by the collar and walked him into it.",3 "'Not this morning,' he said to the dog.",2 "'You won't do for ladies' company, dripping wet.",1 Lie down.',1 "Clennam followed the man and the dog into the boat, and took his seat.",2 The dog did as he was ordered.,2 "The man remained standing, with his hands in his pockets, and towered between Clennam and the prospect.",2 "Man and dog both jumped lightly out as soon as they touched the other side, and went away.",2 Clennam was glad to be rid of them.,3 The church clock struck the breakfast hour as he walked up the little lane by which the garden-gate was approached.,1 The moment he pulled the bell a deep loud barking assailed him from within the wall.,1 "'I heard no dog last night,' thought Clennam.",2 "The gate was opened by one of the rosy maids, and on the lawn were the Newfoundland dog and the man.",3 "'Miss Minnie is not down yet, gentlemen,' said the blushing portress, as they all came together in the garden.",2 "Then she said to the master of the dog, 'Mr Clennam, sir,' and tripped away.",3 "'Odd enough, Mr Clennam, that we should have met just now,' said the man.",3 Upon which the dog became mute.,2 'Allow me to introduce myself--Henry Gowan.,2 "A pretty place this, and looks wonderfully well this morning!'",4 "The manner was easy, and the voice agreeable; but still Clennam thought, that if he had not made that decided resolution to avoid falling in love with Pet, he would have taken a dislike to this Henry Gowan.",3 "'It's new to you, I believe?'",2 "said this Gowan, when Arthur had extolled the place.",2 'Quite new.,2 I made acquaintance with it only yesterday afternoon.',2 'Ah!,2 Of course this is not its best aspect.,3 "It used to look charming in the spring, before they went away last time.",3 I should like you to have seen it then.',3 "But for that resolution so often recalled, Clennam might have wished him in the crater of Mount Etna, in return for this civility.",3 "'I have had the pleasure of seeing it under many circumstances during the last three years, and it's--a Paradise.'",3 "It was (at least it might have been, always excepting for that wise resolution) like his dexterous impudence to call it a Paradise.",4 "He only called it a Paradise because he first saw her coming, and so made her out within her hearing to be an angel, Confusion to him!",3 And ah!,2 "how beaming she looked, and how glad!",3 "How she caressed the dog, and how the dog knew her!",2 "How expressive that heightened colour in her face, that fluttered manner, her downcast eyes, her irresolute happiness!",1 When had Clennam seen her look like this?,3 "Not that there was any reason why he might, could, would, or should have ever seen her look like this, or that he had ever hoped for himself to see her look like this; but still--when had he ever known her do it!",3 He stood at a little distance from them.,2 "This Gowan when he had talked about a Paradise, had gone up to her and taken her hand.",3 The dog had put his great paws on her arm and laid his head against her dear bosom.,3 "She had laughed and welcomed them, and made far too much of the dog, far, far, too much--that is to say, supposing there had been any third person looking on who loved her.",3 "She disengaged herself now, and came to Clennam, and put her hand in his and wished him good morning, and gracefully made as if she would take his arm and be escorted into the house.",3 To this Gowan had no objection.,1 "No, he knew he was too safe.",3 "There was a passing cloud on Mr Meagles's good-humoured face when they all three (four, counting the dog, and he was the most objectionable but one of the party) came in to breakfast.",1 "Neither it, nor the touch of uneasiness on Mrs Meagles as she directed her eyes towards it, was unobserved by Clennam.",1 "'Well, Gowan,' said Mr Meagles, even suppressing a sigh; 'how goes the world with you this morning?'",2 "'Much as usual, sir.",2 "Lion and I being determined not to waste anything of our weekly visit, turned out early, and came over from Kingston, my present headquarters, where I am making a sketch or two.'",1 "Then he told how he had met Mr Clennam at the ferry, and they had come over together.",2 "'Mrs Gowan is well, Henry?'",3 said Mrs Meagles.,2 "(Clennam became attentive.) 'My mother is quite well, thank you.'",4 "(Clennam became inattentive.) 'I have taken the liberty of making an addition to your family dinner-party to-day, which I hope will not be inconvenient to you or to Mr Meagles.",2 "I couldn't very well get out of it,' he explained, turning to the latter.",3 "'The young fellow wrote to propose himself to me; and as he is well connected, I thought you would not object to my transferring him here.'",2 'Who _is_ the young fellow?',2 asked Mr Meagles with peculiar complacency.,1 'He is one of the Barnacles.,2 "Tite Barnacle's son, Clarence Barnacle, who is in his father's Department.",2 I can at least guarantee that the river shall not suffer from his visit.,2 He won't set it on fire.',2 "'Aye, aye?'",2 said Meagles.,2 'A Barnacle is he?,2 "_We_ know something of that family, eh, Dan?",2 "By George, they are at the top of the tree, though!",3 Let me see.,2 What relation will this young fellow be to Lord Decimus now?,2 "His Lordship married, in seventeen ninety-seven, Lady Jemima Bilberry, who was the second daughter by the third marriage--no!",2 There I am wrong!,1 That was Lady Seraphina--Lady Jemima was the first daughter by the second marriage of the fifteenth Earl of Stiltstalking with the Honourable Clementina Toozellem.,2 Very well.,3 Now this young fellow's father married a Stiltstalking and _his_ father married his cousin who was a Barnacle.,2 "The father of that father who married a Barnacle, married a Joddleby.--I am getting a little too far back, Gowan; I want to make out what relation this young fellow is to Lord Decimus.'",2 'That's easily stated.,2 His father is nephew to Lord Decimus.',2 "'Nephew--to--Lord--Decimus,' Mr Meagles luxuriously repeated with his eyes shut, that he might have nothing to distract him from the full flavour of the genealogical tree.",2 "'By George, you are right, Gowan.",3 So he is.',2 "'Consequently, Lord Decimus is his great uncle.'",3 'But stop a bit!',2 "said Mr Meagles, opening his eyes with a fresh discovery.",3 "'Then on the mother's side, Lady Stiltstalking is his great aunt.'",3 'Of course she is.',2 "'Aye, aye, aye?'",2 said Mr Meagles with much interest.,2 "'Indeed, indeed?",2 We shall be glad to see him.,3 "We'll entertain him as well as we can, in our humble way; and we shall not starve him, I hope, at all events.'",3 "In the beginning of this dialogue, Clennam had expected some great harmless outburst from Mr Meagles, like that which had made him burst out of the Circumlocution Office, holding Doyce by the collar.",3 "But his good friend had a weakness which none of us need go into the next street to find, and which no amount of Circumlocution experience could long subdue in him.",2 "Clennam looked at Doyce; but Doyce knew all about it beforehand, and looked at his plate, and made no sign, and said no word.",2 "'I am much obliged to you,' said Gowan, to conclude the subject.",2 "'Clarence is a great ass, but he is one of the dearest and best fellows that ever lived!'",3 "It appeared, before the breakfast was over, that everybody whom this Gowan knew was either more or less of an ass, or more or less of a knave; but was, notwithstanding, the most lovable, the most engaging, the simplest, truest, kindest, dearest, best fellow that ever lived.",4 "The process by which this unvarying result was attained, whatever the premises, might have been stated by Mr Henry Gowan thus: 'I claim to be always book-keeping, with a peculiar nicety, in every man's case, and posting up a careful little account of Good and Evil with him.",1 "I do this so conscientiously, that I am happy to tell you I find the most worthless of men to be the dearest old fellow too: and am in a condition to make the gratifying report, that there is much less difference than you are inclined to suppose between an honest man and a scoundrel.'",3 "The effect of this cheering discovery happened to be, that while he seemed to be scrupulously finding good in most men, he did in reality lower it where it was, and set it up where it was not; but that was its only disagreeable or dangerous feature.",1 "It scarcely seemed, however, to afford Mr Meagles as much satisfaction as the Barnacle genealogy had done.",2 "The cloud that Clennam had never seen upon his face before that morning, frequently overcast it again; and there was the same shadow of uneasy observation of him on the comely face of his wife.",1 "More than once or twice when Pet caressed the dog, it appeared to Clennam that her father was unhappy in seeing her do it; and, in one particular instance when Gowan stood on the other side of the dog, and bent his head at the same time, Arthur fancied that he saw tears rise to Mr Meagles's eyes as he hurried out of the room.",1 "It was either the fact too, or he fancied further, that Pet herself was not insensible to these little incidents; that she tried, with a more delicate affection than usual, to express to her good father how much she loved him; that it was on this account that she fell behind the rest, both as they went to church and as they returned from it, and took his arm.",3 "He could not have sworn but that as he walked alone in the garden afterwards, he had an instantaneous glimpse of her in her father's room, clinging to both her parents with the greatest tenderness, and weeping on her father's shoulder.",2 "The latter part of the day turning out wet, they were fain to keep the house, look over Mr Meagles's collection, and beguile the time with conversation.",1 "This Gowan had plenty to say for himself, and said it in an off-hand and amusing manner.",3 "He appeared to be an artist by profession, and to have been at Rome some time; yet he had a slight, careless, amateur way with him--a perceptible limp, both in his devotion to art and his attainments--which Clennam could scarcely understand.",0 "He applied to Daniel Doyce for help, as they stood together, looking out of window.",2 'You know Mr Gowan?',2 he said in a low voice.,2 'I have seen him here.,2 Comes here every Sunday when they are at home.',2 "'An artist, I infer from what he says?'",2 "'A sort of a one,' said Daniel Doyce, in a surly tone.",2 'What sort of a one?',2 "asked Clennam, with a smile.",3 "'Why, he has sauntered into the Arts at a leisurely Pall-Mall pace,' said Doyce, 'and I doubt if they care to be taken quite so coolly.'",1 "Pursuing his inquiries, Clennam found that the Gowan family were a very distant ramification of the Barnacles; and that the paternal Gowan, originally attached to a legation abroad, had been pensioned off as a Commissioner of nothing particular somewhere or other, and had died at his post with his drawn salary in his hand, nobly defending it to the last extremity.",2 "In consideration of this eminent public service, the Barnacle then in power had recommended the Crown to bestow a pension of two or three hundred a-year on his widow; to which the next Barnacle in power had added certain shady and sedate apartments in the Palaces at Hampton Court, where the old lady still lived, deploring the degeneracy of the times in company with several other old ladies of both sexes.",2 "Her son, Mr Henry Gowan, inheriting from his father, the Commissioner, that very questionable help in life, a very small independence, had been difficult to settle; the rather, as public appointments chanced to be scarce, and his genius, during his earlier manhood, was of that exclusively agricultural character which applies itself to the cultivation of wild oats.",0 "At last he had declared that he would become a Painter; partly because he had always had an idle knack that way, and partly to grieve the souls of the Barnacles-in-chief who had not provided for him.",1 "So it had come to pass successively, first, that several distinguished ladies had been frightfully shocked; then, that portfolios of his performances had been handed about o' nights, and declared with ecstasy to be perfect Claudes, perfect Cuyps, perfect phaenomena; then, that Lord Decimus had bought his picture, and had asked the President and Council to dinner at a blow, and had said, with his own magnificent gravity, 'Do you know, there appears to me to be really immense merit in that work?'",4 "and, in short, that people of condition had absolutely taken pains to bring him into fashion.",1 "But, somehow, it had all failed.",1 The prejudiced public had stood out against it obstinately.,1 They had determined not to admire Lord Decimus's picture.,3 "They had determined to believe that in every service, except their own, a man must qualify himself, by striving early and late, and by working heart and soul, might and main.",3 "So now Mr Gowan, like that worn-out old coffin which never was Mahomet's nor anybody else's, hung midway between two points: jaundiced and jealous as to the one he had left: jaundiced and jealous as to the other that he couldn't reach.",0 "Such was the substance of Clennam's discoveries concerning him, made that rainy Sunday afternoon and afterwards.",2 "About an hour or so after dinner time, Young Barnacle appeared, attended by his eye-glass; in honour of whose family connections, Mr Meagles had cashiered the pretty parlour-maids for the day, and had placed on duty in their stead two dingy men.",3 "Young Barnacle was in the last degree amazed and disconcerted at sight of Arthur, and had murmured involuntarily, 'Look here!",1 "upon my soul, you know!'",2 before his presence of mind returned.,2 "Even then, he was obliged to embrace the earliest opportunity of taking his friend into a window, and saying, in a nasal way that was a part of his general debility: 'I want to speak to you, Gowan.",1 I say.,2 Look here.,2 Who is that fellow?',2 'A friend of our host's.,2 None of mine.',2 "'He's a most ferocious Radical, you know,' said Young Barnacle.",1 'Is he?,2 How do you know?',2 "'Ecod, sir, he was Pitching into our people the other day in the most tremendous manner.",2 Went up to our place and Pitched into my father to that extent that it was necessary to order him out.,2 "Came back to our Department, and Pitched into me.",2 Look here.,2 You never saw such a fellow.',2 'What did he want?',2 "'Ecod, sir,' returned Young Barnacle, 'he said he wanted to know, you know!",2 Pervaded our Department--without an appointment--and said he wanted to know!',2 "The stare of indignant wonder with which Young Barnacle accompanied this disclosure, would have strained his eyes injuriously but for the opportune relief of dinner.",2 Mr Meagles (who had been extremely solicitous to know how his uncle and aunt were) begged him to conduct Mrs Meagles to the dining-room.,3 "And when he sat on Mrs Meagles's right hand, Mr Meagles looked as gratified as if his whole family were there.",3 All the natural charm of the previous day was gone.,3 "The eaters of the dinner, like the dinner itself, were lukewarm, insipid, overdone--and all owing to this poor little dull Young Barnacle.",0 "Conversationless at any time, he was now the victim of a weakness special to the occasion, and solely referable to Clennam.",1 "He was under a pressing and continual necessity of looking at that gentleman, which occasioned his eye-glass to get into his soup, into his wine-glass, into Mrs Meagles's plate, to hang down his back like a bell-rope, and be several times disgracefully restored to his bosom by one of the dingy men.",2 "Weakened in mind by his frequent losses of this instrument, and its determination not to stick in his eye, and more and more enfeebled in intellect every time he looked at the mysterious Clennam, he applied spoons to his eyes, forks, and other foreign matters connected with the furniture of the dinner-table.",1 "His discovery of these mistakes greatly increased his difficulties, but never released him from the necessity of looking at Clennam.",1 "And whenever Clennam spoke, this ill-starred young man was clearly seized with a dread that he was coming, by some artful device, round to that point of wanting to know, you know.",2 "It may be questioned, therefore, whether any one but Mr Meagles had much enjoyment of the time.",3 "Mr Meagles, however, thoroughly enjoyed Young Barnacle.",3 "As a mere flask of the golden water in the tale became a full fountain when it was poured out, so Mr Meagles seemed to feel that this small spice of Barnacle imparted to his table the flavour of the whole family-tree.",3 "In its presence, his frank, fine, genuine qualities paled; he was not so easy, he was not so natural, he was striving after something that did not belong to him, he was not himself.",4 "What a strange peculiarity on the part of Mr Meagles, and where should we find another such case!",1 "At last the wet Sunday wore itself out in a wet night; and Young Barnacle went home in a cab, feebly smoking; and the objectionable Gowan went away on foot, accompanied by the objectionable dog.",1 "Pet had taken the most amiable pains all day to be friendly with Clennam, but Clennam had been a little reserved since breakfast--that is to say, would have been, if he had loved her.",3 "When he had gone to his own room, and had again thrown himself into the chair by the fire, Mr Doyce knocked at the door, candle in hand, to ask him how and at what hour he proposed returning on the morrow?",2 "After settling this question, he said a word to Mr Doyce about this Gowan--who would have run in his head a good deal, if he had been his rival.",2 "'Those are not good prospects for a painter,' said Clennam.",3 "'No,' returned Doyce.",2 "Mr Doyce stood, chamber-candlestick in hand, the other hand in his pocket, looking hard at the flame of his candle, with a certain quiet perception in his face that they were going to say something more.",2 "'I thought our good friend a little changed, and out of spirits, after he came this morning?'",3 said Clennam.,2 "'Yes,' returned Doyce.",2 'But not his daughter?',2 said Clennam.,2 "'No,' said Doyce.",2 There was a pause on both sides.,2 "Mr Doyce, still looking at the flame of his candle, slowly resumed: 'The truth is, he has twice taken his daughter abroad in the hope of separating her from Mr Gowan.",1 "He rather thinks she is disposed to like him, and he has painful doubts (I quite agree with him, as I dare say you do) of the hopefulness of such a marriage.'",1 "'There--' Clennam choked, and coughed, and stopped.",2 "'Yes, you have taken cold,' said Daniel Doyce.",1 But without looking at him.,2 "'--There is an engagement between them, of course?'",2 said Clennam airily.,2 'No.,2 "As I am told, certainly not.",2 "It has been solicited on the gentleman's part, but none has been made.",2 "Since their recent return, our friend has yielded to a weekly visit, but that is the utmost.",2 Minnie would not deceive her father and mother.,1 "You have travelled with them, and I believe you know what a bond there is among them, extending even beyond this present life.",2 "All that there is between Miss Minnie and Mr Gowan, I have no doubt we see.'",1 'Ah!,2 We see enough!',3 cried Arthur.,2 "Mr Doyce wished him Good Night in the tone of a man who had heard a mournful, not to say despairing, exclamation, and who sought to infuse some encouragement and hope into the mind of the person by whom it had been uttered.",2 "Such tone was probably a part of his oddity, as one of a crotchety band; for how could he have heard anything of that kind, without Clennam's hearing it too?",1 "The rain fell heavily on the roof, and pattered on the ground, and dripped among the evergreens and the leafless branches of the trees.",1 "The rain fell heavily, drearily.",1 It was a night of tears.,2 "If Clennam had not decided against falling in love with Pet; if he had had the weakness to do it; if he had, little by little, persuaded himself to set all the earnestness of his nature, all the might of his hope, and all the wealth of his matured character, on that cast; if he had done this and found that all was lost; he would have been, that night, unutterably miserable.",1 "As it was-- As it was, the rain fell heavily, drearily.",1 Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty-second birthday without finding a lover.,3 "Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young Archer shot off a few featherless arrows now and then from a mouldy bow, and winged a Collegian or two.",1 "Little Dorrit's lover, however, was not a Collegian.",3 He was the sentimental son of a turnkey.,2 "His father hoped, in the fulness of time, to leave him the inheritance of an unstained key; and had from his early youth familiarised him with the duties of his office, and with an ambition to retain the prison-lock in the family.",1 "While the succession was yet in abeyance, he assisted his mother in the conduct of a snug tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane (his father being a non-resident turnkey), which could usually command a neat connection within the College walls.",3 "Years agone, when the object of his affections was wont to sit in her little arm-chair by the high Lodge-fender, Young John (family name, Chivery), a year older than herself, had eyed her with admiring wonder.",3 "When he had played with her in the yard, his favourite game had been to counterfeit locking her up in corners, and to counterfeit letting her out for real kisses.",2 "When he grew tall enough to peep through the keyhole of the great lock of the main door, he had divers times set down his father's dinner, or supper, to get on as it might on the outer side thereof, while he stood taking cold in one eye by dint of peeping at her through that airy perspective.",3 "If Young John had ever slackened in his truth in the less penetrable days of his boyhood, when youth is prone to wear its boots unlaced and is happily unconscious of digestive organs, he had soon strung it up again and screwed it tight.",2 "At nineteen, his hand had inscribed in chalk on that part of the wall which fronted her lodgings, on the occasion of her birthday, 'Welcome sweet nursling of the Fairies!'",3 "At twenty-three, the same hand falteringly presented cigars on Sundays to the Father of the Marshalsea, and Father of the queen of his soul.",2 "Young John was small of stature, with rather weak legs and very weak light hair.",1 "One of his eyes (perhaps the eye that used to peep through the keyhole) was also weak, and looked larger than the other, as if it couldn't collect itself.",1 Young John was gentle likewise.,3 But he was great of soul.,3 "Poetical, expansive, faithful.",3 "Though too humble before the ruler of his heart to be sanguine, Young John had considered the object of his attachment in all its lights and shades.",2 "Following it out to blissful results, he had descried, without self-commendation, a fitness in it.",3 "Say things prospered, and they were united.",2 "She, the child of the Marshalsea; he, the lock-keeper.",2 There was a fitness in that.,2 Say he became a resident turnkey.,2 She would officially succeed to the chamber she had rented so long.,3 There was a beautiful propriety in that.,3 "It looked over the wall, if you stood on tip-toe; and, with a trellis-work of scarlet beans and a canary or so, would become a very Arbour.",3 There was a charming idea in that.,3 "Then, being all in all to one another, there was even an appropriate grace in the lock.",3 "With the world shut out (except that part of it which would be shut in); with its troubles and disturbances only known to them by hearsay, as they would be described by the pilgrims tarrying with them on their way to the Insolvent Shrine; with the Arbour above, and the Lodge below; they would glide down the stream of time, in pastoral domestic happiness.",1 "Young John drew tears from his eyes by finishing the picture with a tombstone in the adjoining churchyard, close against the prison wall, bearing the following touching inscription: 'Sacred to the Memory Of JOHN CHIVERY, Sixty years Turnkey, and fifty years Head Turnkey, Of the neighbouring Marshalsea, Who departed this life, universally respected, on the thirty-first of December, One thousand eight hundred and eighty-six, Aged eighty-three years.",1 "Also of his truly beloved and truly loving wife, AMY, whose maiden name was DORRIT, Who survived his loss not quite forty-eight hours, And who breathed her last in the Marshalsea aforesaid.",3 "There she was born, There she lived, There she died.'",1 "The Chivery parents were not ignorant of their son's attachment--indeed it had, on some exceptional occasions, thrown him into a state of mind that had impelled him to conduct himself with irascibility towards the customers, and damage the business--but they, in their turns, had worked it out to desirable conclusions.",3 "Mrs Chivery, a prudent woman, had desired her husband to take notice that their John's prospects of the Lock would certainly be strengthened by an alliance with Miss Dorrit, who had herself a kind of claim upon the College and was much respected there.",2 "Mrs Chivery had desired her husband to take notice that if, on the one hand, their John had means and a post of trust, on the other hand, Miss Dorrit had family; and that her (Mrs Chivery's) sentiment was, that two halves made a whole.",2 "Mrs Chivery, speaking as a mother and not as a diplomatist, had then, from a different point of view, desired her husband to recollect that their John had never been strong, and that his love had fretted and worrited him enough as it was, without his being driven to do himself a mischief, as nobody couldn't say he wouldn't be if he was crossed.",3 "These arguments had so powerfully influenced the mind of Mr Chivery, who was a man of few words, that he had on sundry Sunday mornings, given his boy what he termed 'a lucky touch,' signifying that he considered such commendation of him to Good Fortune, preparatory to his that day declaring his passion and becoming triumphant.",4 "But Young John had never taken courage to make the declaration; and it was principally on these occasions that he had returned excited to the tobacco shop, and flown at the customers.",3 "In this affair, as in every other, Little Dorrit herself was the last person considered.",2 "Her brother and sister were aware of it, and attained a sort of station by making a peg of it on which to air the miserably ragged old fiction of the family gentility.",0 Her sister asserted the family gentility by flouting the poor swain as he loitered about the prison for glimpses of his dear.,1 "Tip asserted the family gentility, and his own, by coming out in the character of the aristocratic brother, and loftily swaggering in the little skittle ground respecting seizures by the scruff of the neck, which there were looming probabilities of some gentleman unknown executing on some little puppy not mentioned.",1 These were not the only members of the Dorrit family who turned it to account.,2 "No, no.",2 "The Father of the Marshalsea was supposed to know nothing about the matter, of course: his poor dignity could not see so low.",2 "But he took the cigars, on Sundays, and was glad to get them; and sometimes even condescended to walk up and down the yard with the donor (who was proud and hopeful then), and benignantly to smoke one in his society.",3 "With no less readiness and condescension did he receive attentions from Chivery Senior, who always relinquished his arm-chair and newspaper to him, when he came into the Lodge during one of his spells of duty; and who had even mentioned to him, that, if he would like at any time after dusk quietly to step out into the fore-court and take a look at the street, there was not much to prevent him.",2 "If he did not avail himself of this latter civility, it was only because he had lost the relish for it; inasmuch as he took everything else he could get, and would say at times, 'Extremely civil person, Chivery; very attentive man and very respectful.",4 "Young Chivery, too; really almost with a delicate perception of one's position here.",3 "A very well conducted family indeed, the Chiveries.",3 Their behaviour gratifies me.',3 The devoted Young John all this time regarded the family with reverence.,3 "He never dreamed of disputing their pretensions, but did homage to the miserable Mumbo jumbo they paraded.",2 "As to resenting any affront from _her_ brother, he would have felt, even if he had not naturally been of a most pacific disposition, that to wag his tongue or lift his hand against that sacred gentleman would be an unhallowed act.",1 "He was sorry that his noble mind should take offence; still, he felt the fact to be not incompatible with its nobility, and sought to propitiate and conciliate that gallant soul.",2 "Her father, a gentleman in misfortune--a gentleman of a fine spirit and courtly manners, who always bore with him--he deeply honoured.",2 "Her sister he considered somewhat vain and proud, but a young lady of infinite accomplishments, who could not forget the past.",3 "It was an instinctive testimony to Little Dorrit's worth and difference from all the rest, that the poor young fellow honoured and loved her for being simply what she was.",3 "The tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane was carried out in a rural establishment one story high, which had the benefit of the air from the yards of Horsemonger Lane jail, and the advantage of a retired walk under the wall of that pleasant establishment.",4 "The business was of too modest a character to support a life-size Highlander, but it maintained a little one on a bracket on the door-post, who looked like a fallen Cherub that had found it necessary to take to a kilt.",4 "From the portal thus decorated, one Sunday after an early dinner of baked viands, Young John issued forth on his usual Sunday errand; not empty-handed, but with his offering of cigars.",2 "He was neatly attired in a plum-coloured coat, with as large a collar of black velvet as his figure could carry; a silken waistcoat, bedecked with golden sprigs; a chaste neckerchief much in vogue at that day, representing a preserve of lilac pheasants on a buff ground; pantaloons so highly decorated with side-stripes that each leg was a three-stringed lute; and a hat of state very high and hard.",3 "When the prudent Mrs Chivery perceived that in addition to these adornments her John carried a pair of white kid gloves, and a cane like a little finger-post, surmounted by an ivory hand marshalling him the way that he should go; and when she saw him, in this heavy marching order, turn the corner to the right; she remarked to Mr Chivery, who was at home at the time, that she thought she knew which way the wind blew.",4 "The Collegians were entertaining a considerable number of visitors that Sunday afternoon, and their Father kept his room for the purpose of receiving presentations.",3 "After making the tour of the yard, Little Dorrit's lover with a hurried heart went up-stairs, and knocked with his knuckles at the Father's door.",3 "'Come in, come in!'",2 said a gracious voice.,3 "The Father's voice, her father's, the Marshalsea's father's.",2 "He was seated in his black velvet cap, with his newspaper, three-and-sixpence accidentally left on the table, and two chairs arranged.",2 Everything prepared for holding his Court.,2 "'Ah, Young John!",2 "How do you do, how do you do!'",2 "'Pretty well, I thank you, sir.",3 I hope you are the same.',2 "'Yes, John Chivery; yes.",2 Nothing to complain of.',1 "'I have taken the liberty, sir, of--' 'Eh?'",3 "The Father of the Marshalsea always lifted up his eyebrows at this point, and became amiably distraught and smilingly absent in mind.",2 "'--A few cigars, sir.'",2 'Oh!',2 "(For the moment, excessively surprised.) 'Thank you, Young John, thank you.",2 "But really, I am afraid I am too--No?",1 "Well then, I will say no more about it.",3 "Put them on the mantelshelf, if you please, Young John.",2 "And sit down, sit down.",2 "You are not a stranger, John.'",1 "'Thank you, sir, I am sure--Miss;' here Young John turned the great hat round and round upon his left-hand, like a slowly twirling mouse-cage; 'Miss Amy quite well, sir?'",3 "'Yes, John, yes; very well.",3 She is out.',2 "'Indeed, sir?'",2 "'Yes, John.",2 Miss Amy is gone for an airing.,1 My young people all go out a good deal.,3 "But at their time of life, it's natural, John.'",2 "'Very much so, I am sure, sir.'",2 'An airing.,2 An airing.,2 Yes.',2 "He was blandly tapping his fingers on the table, and casting his eyes up at the window.",2 'Amy has gone for an airing on the Iron Bridge.,2 "She has become quite partial to the Iron Bridge of late, and seems to like to walk there better than anywhere.'",3 He returned to conversation.,2 "'Your father is not on duty at present, I think, John?'",2 "'No, sir, he comes on later in the afternoon.'",2 "Another twirl of the great hat, and then Young John said, rising, 'I am afraid I must wish you good day, sir.'",3 'So soon?,2 "Good day, Young John.",3 "Nay, nay,' with the utmost condescension, 'never mind your glove, John.",1 Shake hands with it on.,1 "You are no stranger here, you know.'",1 "Highly gratified by the kindness of his reception, Young John descended the staircase.",3 "On his way down he met some Collegians bringing up visitors to be presented, and at that moment Mr Dorrit happened to call over the banisters with particular distinctness, 'Much obliged to you for your little testimonial, John!'",2 "Little Dorrit's lover very soon laid down his penny on the tollplate of the Iron Bridge, and came upon it looking about him for the well-known and well-beloved figure.",4 "At first he feared she was not there; but as he walked on towards the Middlesex side, he saw her standing still, looking at the water.",2 "She was absorbed in thought, and he wondered what she might be thinking about.",2 "There were the piles of city roofs and chimneys, more free from smoke than on week-days; and there were the distant masts and steeples.",2 Perhaps she was thinking about them.,2 "Little Dorrit mused so long, and was so entirely preoccupied, that although her lover stood quiet for what he thought was a long time, and twice or thrice retired and came back again to the former spot, still she did not move.",3 "So, in the end, he made up his mind to go on, and seem to come upon her casually in passing, and speak to her.",2 "The place was quiet, and now or never was the time to speak to her.",3 "He walked on, and she did not appear to hear his steps until he was close upon her.",2 When he said 'Miss Dorrit!',2 "she started and fell back from him, with an expression in her face of fright and something like dislike that caused him unutterable dismay.",0 "She had often avoided him before--always, indeed, for a long, long while.",2 "She had turned away and glided off so often when she had seen him coming toward her, that the unfortunate Young John could not think it accidental.",1 "But he had hoped that it might be shyness, her retiring character, her foreknowledge of the state of his heart, anything short of aversion.",1 "Now, that momentary look had said, 'You, of all people!",2 I would rather have seen any one on earth than you!',2 "It was but a momentary look, inasmuch as she checked it, and said in her soft little voice, 'Oh, Mr John!",3 Is it you?',2 "But she felt what it had been, as he felt what it had been; and they stood looking at one another equally confused.",1 "'Miss Amy, I am afraid I disturbed you by speaking to you.'",1 "'Yes, rather.",2 "I--I came here to be alone, and I thought I was.'",2 "'Miss Amy, I took the liberty of walking this way, because Mr Dorrit chanced to mention, when I called upon him just now, that you--' She caused him more dismay than before by suddenly murmuring, 'O father, father!'",2 "in a heartrending tone, and turning her face away.",2 "'Miss Amy, I hope I don't give you any uneasiness by naming Mr Dorrit.",1 "I assure you I found him very well and in the best of Spirits, and he showed me even more than his usual kindness; being so very kind as to say that I was not a stranger there, and in all ways gratifying me very much.'",4 "To the inexpressible consternation of her lover, Little Dorrit, with her hands to her averted face, and rocking herself where she stood as if she were in pain, murmured, 'O father, how can you!",1 "O dear, dear father, how can you, can you, do it!'",2 "The poor fellow stood gazing at her, overflowing with sympathy, but not knowing what to make of this, until, having taken out her handkerchief and put it to her still averted face, she hurried away.",1 At first he remained stock still; then hurried after her.,2 "'Miss Amy, pray!",2 Will you have the goodness to stop a moment?,3 "Miss Amy, if it comes to that, let _me_ go.",1 "I shall go out of my senses, if I have to think that I have driven you away like this.'",3 His trembling voice and unfeigned earnestness brought Little Dorrit to a stop.,3 "'Oh, I don't know what to do,' she cried, 'I don't know what to do!'",2 "To Young John, who had never seen her bereft of her quiet self-command, who had seen her from her infancy ever so reliable and self-suppressed, there was a shock in her distress, and in having to associate himself with it as its cause, that shook him from his great hat to the pavement.",2 He felt it necessary to explain himself.,2 "He might be misunderstood--supposed to mean something, or to have done something, that had never entered into his imagination.",1 "He begged her to hear him explain himself, as the greatest favour she could show him.",3 "'Miss Amy, I know very well that your family is far above mine.",3 It were vain to conceal it.,1 "There never was a Chivery a gentleman that ever I heard of, and I will not commit the meanness of making a false representation on a subject so momentous.",1 "Miss Amy, I know very well that your high-souled brother, and likewise your spirited sister, spurn me from a height.",2 "What I have to do is to respect them, to wish to be admitted to their friendship, to look up at the eminence on which they are placed from my lowlier station--for, whether viewed as tobacco or viewed as the lock, I well know it is lowly--and ever wish them well and happy.'",4 "There really was a genuineness in the poor fellow, and a contrast between the hardness of his hat and the softness of his heart (albeit, perhaps, of his head, too), that was moving.",1 "Little Dorrit entreated him to disparage neither himself nor his station, and, above all things, to divest himself of any idea that she supposed hers to be superior.",2 This gave him a little comfort.,3 "'Miss Amy,' he then stammered, 'I have had for a long time--ages they seem to me--Revolving ages--a heart-cherished wish to say something to you.",3 May I say it?',2 "Little Dorrit involuntarily started from his side again, with the faintest shadow of her former look; conquering that, she went on at great speed half across the Bridge without replying!",2 "'May I--Miss Amy, I but ask the question humbly--may I say it?",1 "I have been so unlucky already in giving you pain without having any such intentions, before the holy Heavens!",1 that there is no fear of my saying it unless I have your leave.,1 "I can be miserable alone, I can be cut up by myself, why should I also make miserable and cut up one that I would fling myself off that parapet to give half a moment's joy to!",2 "Not that that's much to do, for I'd do it for twopence.'",2 "The mournfulness of his spirits, and the gorgeousness of his appearance, might have made him ridiculous, but that his delicacy made him respectable.",3 Little Dorrit learnt from it what to do.,2 "'If you please, John Chivery,' she returned, trembling, but in a quiet way, 'since you are so considerate as to ask me whether you shall say any more--if you please, no.'",3 "'Never, Miss Amy?'",1 "'No, if you please.",2 Never.',2 'O Lord!',2 gasped Young John.,2 "'But perhaps you will let me, instead, say something to you.",2 "I want to say it earnestly, and with as plain a meaning as it is possible to express.",3 "When you think of us, John--I mean my brother, and sister, and me--don't think of us as being any different from the rest; for, whatever we once were (which I hardly know) we ceased to be long ago, and never can be any more.",2 "It will be much better for you, and much better for others, if you will do that instead of what you are doing now.'",3 "Young John dolefully protested that he would try to bear it in mind, and would be heartily glad to do anything she wished.",3 "'As to me,' said Little Dorrit, 'think as little of me as you can; the less, the better.",3 "When you think of me at all, John, let it only be as the child you have seen grow up in the prison with one set of duties always occupying her; as a weak, retired, contented, unprotected girl.",1 "I particularly want you to remember, that when I come outside the gate, I am unprotected and solitary.'",2 He would try to do anything she wished.,2 But why did Miss Amy so much want him to remember that?,1 "'Because,' returned Little Dorrit, 'I know I can then quite trust you not to forget to-day, and not to say any more to me.",3 You are so generous that I know I can trust to you for that; and I do and I always will.,3 "I am going to show you, at once, that I fully trust you.",3 "I like this place where we are speaking better than any place I know;' her slight colour had faded, but her lover thought he saw it coming back just then; 'and I may be often here.",4 "I know it is only necessary for me to tell you so, to be quite sure that you will never come here again in search of me.",2 And I am--quite sure!',2 "She might rely upon it, said Young John.",2 "He was a miserable wretch, but her word was more than a law for him.",1 "'And good-bye, John,' said Little Dorrit.",3 "'And I hope you will have a good wife one day, and be a happy man.",3 "I am sure you will deserve to be happy, and you will be, John.'",3 "As she held out her hand to him with these words, the heart that was under the waistcoat of sprigs--mere slop-work, if the truth must be known--swelled to the size of the heart of a gentleman; and the poor common little fellow, having no room to hold it, burst into tears.",1 "'Oh, don't cry,' said Little Dorrit piteously.",1 "'Don't, don't!",2 "Good-bye, John.",3 God bless you!',3 "'Good-bye, Miss Amy.",1 Good-bye!',3 "And so he left her: first observing that she sat down on the corner of a seat, and not only rested her little hand upon the rough wall, but laid her face against it too, as if her head were heavy, and her mind were sad.",1 "It was an affecting illustration of the fallacy of human projects, to behold her lover, with the great hat pulled over his eyes, the velvet collar turned up as if it rained, the plum-coloured coat buttoned to conceal the silken waistcoat of golden sprigs, and the little direction-post pointing inexorably home, creeping along by the worst back-streets, and composing, as he went, the following new inscription for a tombstone in St George's Churchyard: 'Here lie the mortal remains Of JOHN CHIVERY, Never anything worth mentioning, Who died about the end of the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six, Of a broken heart, Requesting with his last breath that the word AMY might be inscribed over his ashes, which was accordingly directed to be done, By his afflicted Parents.'",0 "The brothers William and Frederick Dorrit, walking up and down the College-yard--of course on the aristocratic or Pump side, for the Father made it a point of his state to be chary of going among his children on the Poor side, except on Sunday mornings, Christmas Days, and other occasions of ceremony, in the observance whereof he was very punctual, and at which times he laid his hand upon the heads of their infants, and blessed those young insolvents with a benignity that was highly edifying--the brothers, walking up and down the College-yard together, were a memorable sight.",3 "Frederick the free, was so humbled, bowed, withered, and faded; William the bond, was so courtly, condescending, and benevolently conscious of a position; that in this regard only, if in no other, the brothers were a spectacle to wonder at.",4 They walked up and down the yard on the evening of Little Dorrit's Sunday interview with her lover on the Iron Bridge.,3 "The cares of state were over for that day, the Drawing Room had been well attended, several new presentations had taken place, the three-and-sixpence accidentally left on the table had accidentally increased to twelve shillings, and the Father of the Marshalsea refreshed himself with a whiff of cigar.",3 "As he walked up and down, affably accommodating his step to the shuffle of his brother, not proud in his superiority, but considerate of that poor creature, bearing with him, and breathing toleration of his infirmities in every little puff of smoke that issued from his lips and aspired to get over the spiked wall, he was a sight to wonder at.",4 "His brother Frederick of the dim eye, palsied hand, bent form, and groping mind, submissively shuffled at his side, accepting his patronage as he accepted every incident of the labyrinthian world in which he had got lost.",0 "He held the usual screwed bit of whitey-brown paper in his hand, from which he ever and again unscrewed a spare pinch of snuff.",1 "That falteringly taken, he would glance at his brother not unadmiringly, put his hands behind him, and shuffle on so at his side until he took another pinch, or stood still to look about him--perchance suddenly missing his clarionet.",1 "The College visitors were melting away as the shades of night drew on, but the yard was still pretty full, the Collegians being mostly out, seeing their friends to the Lodge.",3 "As the brothers paced the yard, William the bond looked about him to receive salutes, returned them by graciously lifting off his hat, and, with an engaging air, prevented Frederick the free from running against the company, or being jostled against the wall.",4 "The Collegians as a body were not easily impressible, but even they, according to their various ways of wondering, appeared to find in the two brothers a sight to wonder at.",3 "'You are a little low this evening, Frederick,' said the Father of the Marshalsea.",2 'Anything the matter?',2 'The matter?',2 "He stared for a moment, and then dropped his head and eyes again.",2 "'No, William, no.",2 Nothing is the matter.',2 "'If you could be persuaded to smarten yourself up a little, Frederick--' 'Aye, aye!'",2 said the old man hurriedly.,2 'But I can't be.,2 I can't be.,2 Don't talk so.,2 That's all over.',2 "The Father of the Marshalsea glanced at a passing Collegian with whom he was on friendly terms, as who should say, 'An enfeebled old man, this; but he is my brother, sir, my brother, and the voice of Nature is potent!'",3 and steered his brother clear of the handle of the pump by the threadbare sleeve.,3 "Nothing would have been wanting to the perfection of his character as a fraternal guide, philosopher and friend, if he had only steered his brother clear of ruin, instead of bringing it upon him.",3 "'I think, William,' said the object of his affectionate consideration, 'that I am tired, and will go home to bed.'",1 "'My dear Frederick,' returned the other, 'don't let me detain you; don't sacrifice your inclination to me.'",2 "'Late hours, and a heated atmosphere, and years, I suppose,' said Frederick, 'weaken me.'",2 "'My dear Frederick,' returned the Father of the Marshalsea, 'do you think you are sufficiently careful of yourself?",3 Do you think your habits are as precise and methodical as--shall I say as mine are?,3 "Not to revert again to that little eccentricity which I mentioned just now, I doubt if you take air and exercise enough, Frederick.",1 "Here is the parade, always at your service.",2 Why not use it more regularly than you do?',2 'Hah!',2 sighed the other.,2 "'Yes, yes, yes, yes.'",2 "'But it is of no use saying yes, yes, my dear Frederick,' the Father of the Marshalsea in his mild wisdom persisted, 'unless you act on that assent.",3 "Consider my case, Frederick.",2 I am a kind of example.,2 Necessity and time have taught me what to do.,2 "At certain stated hours of the day, you will find me on the parade, in my room, in the Lodge, reading the paper, receiving company, eating and drinking.",2 "I have impressed upon Amy during many years, that I must have my meals (for instance) punctually.",3 "Amy has grown up in a sense of the importance of these arrangements, and you know what a good girl she is.'",3 "The brother only sighed again, as he plodded dreamily along, 'Hah!",2 "Yes, yes, yes, yes.'",2 "'My dear fellow,' said the Father of the Marshalsea, laying his hand upon his shoulder, and mildly rallying him--mildly, because of his weakness, poor dear soul; 'you said that before, and it does not express much, Frederick, even if it means much.",1 "I wish I could rouse you, my good Frederick; you want to be roused.'",3 "'Yes, William, yes.",2 "No doubt,' returned the other, lifting his dim eyes to his face.",1 'But I am not like you.',3 "The Father of the Marshalsea said, with a shrug of modest self-depreciation, 'Oh!",2 "You might be like me, my dear Frederick; you might be, if you chose!'",3 "and forbore, in the magnanimity of his strength, to press his fallen brother further.",1 "There was a great deal of leave-taking going on in corners, as was usual on Sunday nights; and here and there in the dark, some poor woman, wife or mother, was weeping with a new Collegian.",1 "The time had been when the Father himself had wept, in the shades of that yard, as his own poor wife had wept.",1 "But it was many years ago; and now he was like a passenger aboard ship in a long voyage, who has recovered from sea-sickness, and is impatient of that weakness in the fresher passengers taken aboard at the last port.",1 "He was inclined to remonstrate, and to express his opinion that people who couldn't get on without crying, had no business there.",2 "In manner, if not in words, he always testified his displeasure at these interruptions of the general harmony; and it was so well understood, that delinquents usually withdrew if they were aware of him.",2 "On this Sunday evening, he accompanied his brother to the gate with an air of endurance and clemency; being in a bland temper and graciously disposed to overlook the tears.",1 "In the flaring gaslight of the Lodge, several Collegians were basking; some taking leave of visitors, and some who had no visitors, watching the frequent turning of the key, and conversing with one another and with Mr Chivery.",2 "The paternal entrance made a sensation of course; and Mr Chivery, touching his hat (in a short manner though) with his key, hoped he found himself tolerable.",3 "'Thank you, Chivery, quite well.",3 And you?',2 "Mr Chivery said in a low growl, 'Oh!",1 _he_ was all right.',3 Which was his general way of acknowledging inquiries after his health when a little sullen.,1 "'I had a visit from Young John to-day, Chivery.",2 "And very smart he looked, I assure you.'",3 So Mr Chivery had heard.,2 "Mr Chivery must confess, however, that his wish was that the boy didn't lay out so much money upon it.",1 For what did it bring him in?,2 It only brought him in wexation.,2 And he could get that anywhere for nothing.,2 "'How vexation, Chivery?'",1 asked the benignant father.,2 "'No odds,' returned Mr Chivery.",2 'Never mind.,2 Mr Frederick going out?',2 "'Yes, Chivery, my brother is going home to bed.",2 "He is tired, and not quite well.",2 "Take care, Frederick, take care.",2 "Good night, my dear Frederick!'",3 "Shaking hands with his brother, and touching his greasy hat to the company in the Lodge, Frederick slowly shuffled out of the door which Mr Chivery unlocked for him.",1 The Father of the Marshalsea showed the amiable solicitude of a superior being that he should come to no harm.,2 "'Be so kind as to keep the door open a moment, Chivery, that I may see him go along the passage and down the steps.",2 "Take care, Frederick!",2 (He is very infirm.) Mind the steps!,1 "(He is so very absent.) Be careful how you cross, Frederick.",2 "(I really don't like the notion of his going wandering at large, he is so extremely liable to be run over.)' With these words, and with a face expressive of many uneasy doubts and much anxious guardianship, he turned his regards upon the assembled company in the Lodge: so plainly indicating that his brother was to be pitied for not being under lock and key, that an opinion to that effect went round among the Collegians assembled.",0 "But he did not receive it with unqualified assent; on the contrary, he said, No, gentlemen, no; let them not misunderstand him.",1 "His brother Frederick was much broken, no doubt, and it might be more comfortable to himself (the Father of the Marshalsea) to know that he was safe within the walls.",2 "Still, it must be remembered that to support an existence there during many years, required a certain combination of qualities--he did not say high qualities, but qualities--moral qualities.",3 "Now, had his brother Frederick that peculiar union of qualities?",1 "Gentlemen, he was a most excellent man, a most gentle, tender, and estimable man, with the simplicity of a child; but would he, though unsuited for most other places, do for that place?",4 "No; he said confidently, no!",2 "And, he said, Heaven forbid that Frederick should be there in any other character than in his present voluntary character!",2 "Gentlemen, whoever came to that College, to remain there a length of time, must have strength of character to go through a good deal and to come out of a good deal.",3 Was his beloved brother Frederick that man?,3 No.,2 "They saw him, even as it was, crushed.",1 Misfortune crushed him.,1 "He had not power of recoil enough, not elasticity enough, to be a long time in such a place, and yet preserve his self-respect and feel conscious that he was a gentleman.",3 "Frederick had not (if he might use the expression) Power enough to see in any delicate little attentions and--and--Testimonials that he might under such circumstances receive, the goodness of human nature, the fine spirit animating the Collegians as a community, and at the same time no degradation to himself, and no depreciation of his claims as a gentleman.",4 "Gentlemen, God bless you!",3 "Such was the homily with which he improved and pointed the occasion to the company in the Lodge before turning into the sallow yard again, and going with his own poor shabby dignity past the Collegian in the dressing-gown who had no coat, and past the Collegian in the sea-side slippers who had no shoes, and past the stout greengrocer Collegian in the corduroy knee-breeches who had no cares, and past the lean clerk Collegian in buttonless black who had no hopes, up his own poor shabby staircase to his own poor shabby room.",3 "There, the table was laid for his supper, and his old grey gown was ready for him on his chair-back at the fire.",3 His daughter put her little prayer-book in her pocket--had she been praying for pity on all prisoners and captives!--and rose to welcome him.,2 "Uncle had gone home, then?",2 "she asked him, as she changed his coat and gave him his black velvet cap.",2 "Yes, uncle had gone home.",2 Had her father enjoyed his walk?,3 "Why, not much, Amy; not much.",2 No!,2 Did he not feel quite well?,3 "As she stood behind him, leaning over his chair so lovingly, he looked with downcast eyes at the fire.",1 "An uneasiness stole over him that was like a touch of shame; and when he spoke, as he presently did, it was in an unconnected and embarrassed manner.",1 "'Something, I--hem!--I don't know what, has gone wrong with Chivery.",1 He is not--ha!--not nearly so obliging and attentive as usual to-night.,3 "It--hem!--it's a little thing, but it puts me out, my love.",3 "It's impossible to forget,' turning his hands over and over and looking closely at them, 'that--hem!--that in such a life as mine, I am unfortunately dependent on these men for something every hour in the day.'",1 "Her arm was on his shoulder, but she did not look in his face while he spoke.",2 Bending her head she looked another way.,2 "'I--hem!--I can't think, Amy, what has given Chivery offence.",1 He is generally so--so very attentive and respectful.,3 And to-night he was quite--quite short with me.,2 Other people there too!,2 "Why, good Heaven!",3 "if I was to lose the support and recognition of Chivery and his brother officers, I might starve to death here.'",1 "While he spoke, he was opening and shutting his hands like valves; so conscious all the time of that touch of shame, that he shrunk before his own knowledge of his meaning.",2 'I--ha!--I can't think what it's owing to.,2 I am sure I cannot imagine what the cause of it is.,2 "There was a certain Jackson here once, a turnkey of the name of Jackson (I don't think you can remember him, my dear, you were very young), and--hem!--and he had a--brother, and this--young brother paid his addresses to--at least, did not go so far as to pay his addresses to--but admired--respectfully admired--the--not daughter, the sister--of one of us; a rather distinguished Collegian; I may say, very much so.",3 His name was Captain Martin; and he consulted me on the question whether it was necessary that his daughter--sister--should hazard offending the turnkey brother by being too--ha!--too plain with the other brother.,1 "Captain Martin was a gentleman and a man of honour, and I put it to him first to give me his--his own opinion.",2 "Captain Martin (highly respected in the army) then unhesitatingly said that it appeared to him that his--hem!--sister was not called upon to understand the young man too distinctly, and that she might lead him on--I am doubtful whether ""lead him on"" was Captain Martin's exact expression: indeed I think he said tolerate him--on her father's--I should say, brother's--account.",2 I hardly know how I have strayed into this story.,2 "I suppose it has been through being unable to account for Chivery; but as to the connection between the two, I don't see--' His voice died away, as if she could not bear the pain of hearing him, and her hand had gradually crept to his lips.",0 "For a little while there was a dead silence and stillness; and he remained shrunk in his chair, and she remained with her arm round his neck and her head bowed down upon his shoulder.",1 "His supper was cooking in a saucepan on the fire, and, when she moved, it was to make it ready for him on the table.",3 "He took his usual seat, she took hers, and he began his meal.",2 "They did not, as yet, look at one another.",2 "By little and little he began; laying down his knife and fork with a noise, taking things up sharply, biting at his bread as if he were offended with it, and in other similar ways showing that he was out of sorts.",0 "At length he pushed his plate from him, and spoke aloud; with the strangest inconsistency.",1 'What does it matter whether I eat or starve?,1 "What does it matter whether such a blighted life as mine comes to an end, now, next week, or next year?",2 What am I worth to anyone?,3 "A poor prisoner, fed on alms and broken victuals; a squalid, disgraced wretch!'",0 "'Father, father!'",2 "As he rose she went on her knees to him, and held up her hands to him.",2 "'Amy,' he went on in a suppressed voice, trembling violently, and looking at her as wildly as if he had gone mad.",0 "'I tell you, if you could see me as your mother saw me, you wouldn't believe it to be the creature you have only looked at through the bars of this cage.",2 "I was young, I was accomplished, I was good-looking, I was independent--by God I was, child!--and people sought me out, and envied me.",3 Envied me!',2 'Dear father!',2 "She tried to take down the shaking arm that he flourished in the air, but he resisted, and put her hand away.",2 "'If I had but a picture of myself in those days, though it was ever so ill done, you would be proud of it, you would be proud of it.",3 But I have no such thing.,2 "Now, let me be a warning!",1 "Let no man,' he cried, looking haggardly about, 'fail to preserve at least that little of the times of his prosperity and respect.",3 Let his children have that clue to what he was.,2 "Unless my face, when I am dead, subsides into the long departed look--they say such things happen, I don't know--my children will have never seen me.'",1 "'Father, father!'",2 "'O despise me, despise me!",1 "Look away from me, don't listen to me, stop me, blush for me, cry for me--even you, Amy!",1 "Do it, do it!",2 I do it to myself!,2 "I am hardened now, I have sunk too low to care long even for that.'",1 "'Dear father, loved father, darling of my heart!'",3 "She was clinging to him with her arms, and she got him to drop into his chair again, and caught at the raised arm, and tried to put it round her neck.",2 "'Let it lie there, father.",1 "Look at me, father, kiss me, father!",2 "Only think of me, father, for one little moment!'",2 "Still he went on in the same wild way, though it was gradually breaking down into a miserable whining.",0 'And yet I have some respect here.,3 I have made some stand against it.,2 I am not quite trodden down.,2 Go out and ask who is the chief person in the place.,2 They'll tell you it's your father.,2 "Go out and ask who is never trifled with, and who is always treated with some delicacy.",3 "They'll say, your father.",2 "Go out and ask what funeral here (it must be here, I know it can be nowhere else) will make more talk, and perhaps more grief, than any that has ever gone out at the gate.",1 They'll say your father's.,2 Well then.,3 Amy!,2 Amy!,2 Is your father so universally despised?,1 Is there nothing to redeem him?,3 Will you have nothing to remember him by but his ruin and decay?,1 "Will you be able to have no affection for him when he is gone, poor castaway, gone?'",2 "He burst into tears of maudlin pity for himself, and at length suffering her to embrace him and take charge of him, let his grey head rest against her cheek, and bewailed his wretchedness.",0 "Presently he changed the subject of his lamentations, and clasping his hands about her as she embraced him, cried, O Amy, his motherless, forlorn child!",1 O the days that he had seen her careful and laborious for him!,2 "Then he reverted to himself, and weakly told her how much better she would have loved him if she had known him in his vanished character, and how he would have married her to a gentleman who should have been proud of her as his daughter, and how (at which he cried again) she should first have ridden at his fatherly side on her own horse, and how the crowd (by which he meant in effect the people who had given him the twelve shillings he then had in his pocket) should have trudged the dusty roads respectfully.",4 "Thus, now boasting, now despairing, in either fit a captive with the jail-rot upon him, and the impurity of his prison worn into the grain of his soul, he revealed his degenerate state to his affectionate child.",0 No one else ever beheld him in the details of his humiliation.,1 "Little recked the Collegians who were laughing in their rooms over his late address in the Lodge, what a serious picture they had in their obscure gallery of the Marshalsea that Sunday night.",1 There was a classical daughter once--perhaps--who ministered to her father in his prison as her mother had ministered to her.,1 "Little Dorrit, though of the unheroic modern stock and mere English, did much more, in comforting her father's wasted heart upon her innocent breast, and turning to it a fountain of love and fidelity that never ran dry or waned through all his years of famine.",3 "She soothed him; asked him for his forgiveness if she had been, or seemed to have been, undutiful; told him, Heaven knows truly, that she could not honour him more if he were the favourite of Fortune and the whole world acknowledged him.",3 "When his tears were dried, and he sobbed in his weakness no longer, and was free from that touch of shame, and had recovered his usual bearing, she prepared the remains of his supper afresh, and, sitting by his side, rejoiced to see him eat and drink.",1 "For now he sat in his black velvet cap and old grey gown, magnanimous again; and would have comported himself towards any Collegian who might have looked in to ask his advice, like a great moral Lord Chesterfield, or Master of the ethical ceremonies of the Marshalsea.",4 "To keep his attention engaged, she talked with him about his wardrobe; when he was pleased to say, that Yes, indeed, those shirts she proposed would be exceedingly acceptable, for those he had were worn out, and, being ready-made, had never fitted him.",3 "Being conversational, and in a reasonable flow of spirits, he then invited her attention to his coat as it hung behind the door: remarking that the Father of the place would set an indifferent example to his children, already disposed to be slovenly, if he went among them out at elbows.",1 "He was jocular, too, as to the heeling of his shoes; but became grave on the subject of his cravat, and promised her that, when she could afford it, she should buy him a new one.",3 "While he smoked out his cigar in peace, she made his bed, and put the small room in order for his repose.",3 "Being weary then, owing to the advanced hour and his emotions, he came out of his chair to bless her and wish her Good night.",3 "All this time he had never once thought of _her_ dress, her shoes, her need of anything.",2 "No other person upon earth, save herself, could have been so unmindful of her wants.",2 "He kissed her many times with 'Bless you, my love.",3 "Good night, my dear!'",3 "But her gentle breast had been so deeply wounded by what she had seen of him that she was unwilling to leave him alone, lest he should lament and despair again.",1 "'Father, dear, I am not tired; let me come back presently, when you are in bed, and sit by you.'",1 "He asked her, with an air of protection, if she felt solitary?",3 "'Yes, father.'",2 "'Then come back by all means, my love.'",3 "'I shall be very quiet, father.'",3 "'Don't think of me, my dear,' he said, giving her his kind permission fully.",2 'Come back by all means.',2 "He seemed to be dozing when she returned, and she put the low fire together very softly lest she should awake him.",2 "But he overheard her, and called out who was that?",2 "'Only Amy, father.'",2 "'Amy, my child, come here.",2 I want to say a word to you.',2 "He raised himself a little in his low bed, as she kneeled beside it to bring her face near him; and put his hand between hers.",2 O!,2 Both the private father and the Father of the Marshalsea were strong within him then.,3 "'My love, you have had a life of hardship here.",2 "No companions, no recreations, many cares I am afraid?'",1 "'Don't think of that, dear.",2 I never do.',2 "'You know my position, Amy.",2 "I have not been able to do much for you; but all I have been able to do, I have done.'",2 "'Yes, my dear father,' she rejoined, kissing him.",2 "'I know, I know.'",2 "'I am in the twenty-third year of my life here,' he said, with a catch in his breath that was not so much a sob as an irrepressible sound of self-approval, the momentary outburst of a noble consciousness.",1 'It is all I could do for my children--I have done it.,2 "Amy, my love, you are by far the best loved of the three; I have had you principally in my mind--whatever I have done for your sake, my dear child, I have done freely and without murmuring.'",4 "Only the wisdom that holds the clue to all hearts and all mysteries, can surely know to what extent a man, especially a man brought down as this man had been, can impose upon himself.",2 "Enough, for the present place, that he lay down with wet eyelashes, serene, in a manner majestic, after bestowing his life of degradation as a sort of portion on the devoted child upon whom its miseries had fallen so heavily, and whose love alone had saved him to be even what he was.",3 "That child had no doubts, asked herself no question, for she was but too content to see him with a lustre round his head.",1 "Poor dear, good dear, truest, kindest, dearest, were the only words she had for him, as she hushed him to rest.",2 She never left him all that night.,2 "As if she had done him a wrong which her tenderness could hardly repair, she sat by him in his sleep, at times softly kissing him with suspended breath, and calling him in a whisper by some endearing name.",1 "At times she stood aside so as not to intercept the low fire-light, and, watching him when it fell upon his sleeping face, wondered did he look now at all as he had looked when he was prosperous and happy; as he had so touched her by imagining that he might look once more in that awful time.",2 "At the thought of that time, she kneeled beside his bed again, and prayed, 'O spare his life!",2 O save him to me!,2 "O look down upon my dear, long-suffering, unfortunate, much-changed, dear dear father!'",1 "Not until the morning came to protect him and encourage him, did she give him a last kiss and leave the small room.",3 "When she had stolen down-stairs, and along the empty yard, and had crept up to her own high garret, the smokeless housetops and the distant country hills were discernible over the wall in the clear morning.",1 "As she gently opened the window, and looked eastward down the prison yard, the spikes upon the wall were tipped with red, then made a sullen purple pattern on the sun as it came flaming up into the heavens.",1 "The spikes had never looked so sharp and cruel, nor the bars so heavy, nor the prison space so gloomy and contracted.",1 "She thought of the sunrise on rolling rivers, of the sunrise on wide seas, of the sunrise on rich landscapes, of the sunrise on great forests where the birds were waking and the trees were rustling; and she looked down into the living grave on which the sun had risen, with her father in it three-and-twenty years, and said, in a burst of sorrow and compassion, 'No, no, I have never seen him in my life!'",3 "If Young John Chivery had had the inclination and the power to write a satire on family pride, he would have had no need to go for an avenging illustration out of the family of his beloved.",3 "He would have found it amply in that gallant brother and that dainty sister, so steeped in mean experiences, and so loftily conscious of the family name; so ready to beg or borrow from the poorest, to eat of anybody's bread, spend anybody's money, drink from anybody's cup and break it afterwards.",2 "To have painted the sordid facts of their lives, and they throughout invoking the death's head apparition of the family gentility to come and scare their benefactors, would have made Young John a satirist of the first water.",1 Tip had turned his liberty to hopeful account by becoming a billiard-marker.,3 "He had troubled himself so little as to the means of his release, that Clennam scarcely needed to have been at the pains of impressing the mind of Mr Plornish on that subject.",0 "Whoever had paid him the compliment, he very readily accepted the compliment with _his_ compliments, and there was an end of it.",3 "Issuing forth from the gate on these easy terms, he became a billiard-marker; and now occasionally looked in at the little skittle-ground in a green Newmarket coat (second-hand), with a shining collar and bright buttons (new), and drank the beer of the Collegians.",3 "One solid stationary point in the looseness of this gentleman's character was, that he respected and admired his sister Amy.",3 "The feeling had never induced him to spare her a moment's uneasiness, or to put himself to any restraint or inconvenience on her account; but with that Marshalsea taint upon his love, he loved her.",1 "The same rank Marshalsea flavour was to be recognised in his distinctly perceiving that she sacrificed her life to her father, and in his having no idea that she had done anything for himself.",1 "When this spirited young man and his sister had begun systematically to produce the family skeleton for the overawing of the College, this narrative cannot precisely state.",3 Probably at about the period when they began to dine on the College charity.,2 "It is certain that the more reduced and necessitous they were, the more pompously the skeleton emerged from its tomb; and that when there was anything particularly shabby in the wind, the skeleton always came out with the ghastliest flourish.",2 "Little Dorrit was late on the Monday morning, for her father slept late, and afterwards there was his breakfast to prepare and his room to arrange.",2 "She had no engagement to go out to work, however, and therefore stayed with him until, with Maggy's help, she had put everything right about him, and had seen him off upon his morning walk (of twenty yards or so) to the coffee-house to read the paper.",3 "She then got on her bonnet and went out, having been anxious to get out much sooner.",1 "There was, as usual, a cessation of the small-talk in the Lodge as she passed through it; and a Collegian who had come in on Saturday night, received the intimation from the elbow of a more seasoned Collegian, 'Look out.",3 Here she is!',2 "She wanted to see her sister, but when she got round to Mr Cripples's, she found that both her sister and her uncle had gone to the theatre where they were engaged.",2 "Having taken thought of this probability by the way, and having settled that in such case she would follow them, she set off afresh for the theatre, which was on that side of the river, and not very far away.",2 "Little Dorrit was almost as ignorant of the ways of theatres as of the ways of gold mines, and when she was directed to a furtive sort of door, with a curious up-all-night air about it, that appeared to be ashamed of itself and to be hiding in an alley, she hesitated to approach it; being further deterred by the sight of some half-dozen close-shaved gentlemen with their hats very strangely on, who were lounging about the door, looking not at all unlike Collegians.",1 "On her applying to them, reassured by this resemblance, for a direction to Miss Dorrit, they made way for her to enter a dark hall--it was more like a great grim lamp gone out than anything else--where she could hear the distant playing of music and the sound of dancing feet.",1 "A man so much in want of airing that he had a blue mould upon him, sat watching this dark place from a hole in a corner, like a spider; and he told her that he would send a message up to Miss Dorrit by the first lady or gentleman who went through.",1 "The first lady who went through had a roll of music, half in her muff and half out of it, and was in such a tumbled condition altogether, that it seemed as if it would be an act of kindness to iron her.",2 "But as she was very good-natured, and said, 'Come with me; I'll soon find Miss Dorrit for you,' Miss Dorrit's sister went with her, drawing nearer and nearer at every step she took in the darkness to the sound of music and the sound of dancing feet.",1 "At last they came into a maze of dust, where a quantity of people were tumbling over one another, and where there was such a confusion of unaccountable shapes of beams, bulkheads, brick walls, ropes, and rollers, and such a mixing of gaslight and daylight, that they seemed to have got on the wrong side of the pattern of the universe.",0 "Little Dorrit, left to herself, and knocked against by somebody every moment, was quite bewildered, when she heard her sister's voice.",1 "'Why, good gracious, Amy, what ever brought you here?'",3 "'I wanted to see you, Fanny dear; and as I am going out all day to-morrow, and knew you might be engaged all day to-day, I thought--' 'But the idea, Amy, of _you_ coming behind!",2 I never did!',2 "As her sister said this in no very cordial tone of welcome, she conducted her to a more open part of the maze, where various golden chairs and tables were heaped together, and where a number of young ladies were sitting on anything they could find, chattering.",3 "All these young ladies wanted ironing, and all had a curious way of looking everywhere while they chattered.",2 "Just as the sisters arrived here, a monotonous boy in a Scotch cap put his head round a beam on the left, and said, 'Less noise there, ladies!'",1 and disappeared.,2 "Immediately after which, a sprightly gentleman with a quantity of long black hair looked round a beam on the right, and said, 'Less noise there, darlings!'",3 and also disappeared.,2 "'The notion of you among professionals, Amy, is really the last thing I could have conceived!'",2 said her sister.,2 "'Why, how did you ever get here?'",2 'I don't know.,2 "The lady who told you I was here, was so good as to bring me in.'",3 'Like you quiet little things!,3 "You can make your way anywhere, I believe.",2 "_I_ couldn't have managed it, Amy, though I know so much more of the world.'",2 "It was the family custom to lay it down as family law, that she was a plain domestic little creature, without the great and sage experience of the rest.",3 This family fiction was the family assertion of itself against her services.,1 Not to make too much of them.,2 'Well!,2 "And what have you got on your mind, Amy?",2 Of course you have got something on your mind about me?',2 said Fanny.,2 "She spoke as if her sister, between two and three years her junior, were her prejudiced grandmother.",2 "'It is not much; but since you told me of the lady who gave you the bracelet, Fanny--' The monotonous boy put his head round the beam on the left, and said, 'Look out there, ladies!'",1 and disappeared.,2 "The sprightly gentleman with the black hair as suddenly put his head round the beam on the right, and said, 'Look out there, darlings!'",3 and also disappeared.,2 Thereupon all the young ladies rose and began shaking their skirts out behind.,2 "'Well, Amy?'",2 "said Fanny, doing as the rest did; 'what were you going to say?'",2 "'Since you told me a lady had given you the bracelet you showed me, Fanny, I have not been quite easy on your account, and indeed want to know a little more if you will confide more to me.'",3 "'Now, ladies!'",2 said the boy in the Scotch cap.,2 "'Now, darlings!'",2 said the gentleman with the black hair.,2 "They were every one gone in a moment, and the music and the dancing feet were heard again.",2 "Little Dorrit sat down in a golden chair, made quite giddy by these rapid interruptions.",2 "Her sister and the rest were a long time gone; and during their absence a voice (it appeared to be that of the gentleman with the black hair) was continually calling out through the music, 'One, two, three, four, five, six--go!",1 "One, two, three, four, five, six--go!",2 "Steady, darlings!",3 "One, two, three, four, five, six--go!'",2 "Ultimately the voice stopped, and they all came back again, more or less out of breath, folding themselves in their shawls, and making ready for the streets.",3 "'Stop a moment, Amy, and let them get away before us,' whispered Fanny.",2 "They were soon left alone; nothing more important happening, in the meantime, than the boy looking round his old beam, and saying, 'Everybody at eleven to-morrow, ladies!'",3 "and the gentleman with the black hair looking round his old beam, and saying, 'Everybody at eleven to-morrow, darlings!'",2 each in his own accustomed manner.,2 "When they were alone, something was rolled up or by other means got out of the way, and there was a great empty well before them, looking down into the depths of which Fanny said, 'Now, uncle!'",3 "Little Dorrit, as her eyes became used to the darkness, faintly made him out at the bottom of the well, in an obscure corner by himself, with his instrument in its ragged case under his arm.",1 "The old man looked as if the remote high gallery windows, with their little strip of sky, might have been the point of his better fortunes, from which he had descended, until he had gradually sunk down below there to the bottom.",2 "He had been in that place six nights a week for many years, but had never been observed to raise his eyes above his music-book, and was confidently believed to have never seen a play.",2 "There were legends in the place that he did not so much as know the popular heroes and heroines by sight, and that the low comedian had 'mugged' at him in his richest manner fifty nights for a wager, and he had shown no trace of consciousness.",3 "The carpenters had a joke to the effect that he was dead without being aware of it; and the frequenters of the pit supposed him to pass his whole life, night and day, and Sunday and all, in the orchestra.",1 "They had tried him a few times with pinches of snuff offered over the rails, and he had always responded to this attention with a momentary waking up of manner that had the pale phantom of a gentleman in it: beyond this he never, on any occasion, had any other part in what was going on than the part written out for the clarionet; in private life, where there was no part for the clarionet, he had no part at all.",1 "Some said he was poor, some said he was a wealthy miser; but he said nothing, never lifted up his bowed head, never varied his shuffling gait by getting his springless foot from the ground.",1 "Though expecting now to be summoned by his niece, he did not hear her until she had spoken to him three or four times; nor was he at all surprised by the presence of two nieces instead of one, but merely said in his tremulous voice, 'I am coming, I am coming!'",2 and crept forth by some underground way which emitted a cellarous smell.,1 "'And so, Amy,' said her sister, when the three together passed out at the door that had such a shame-faced consciousness of being different from other doors: the uncle instinctively taking Amy's arm as the arm to be relied on: 'so, Amy, you are curious about me?'",1 "She was pretty, and conscious, and rather flaunting; and the condescension with which she put aside the superiority of her charms, and of her worldly experience, and addressed her sister on almost equal terms, had a vast deal of the family in it.",3 "'I am interested, Fanny, and concerned in anything that concerns you.'",1 "'So you are, so you are, and you are the best of Amys.",3 "If I am ever a little provoking, I am sure you'll consider what a thing it is to occupy my position and feel a consciousness of being superior to it.",3 "I shouldn't care,' said the Daughter of the Father of the Marshalsea, 'if the others were not so common.",2 None of them have come down in the world as we have.,2 They are all on their own level.,2 Common.',2 "Little Dorrit mildly looked at the speaker, but did not interrupt her.",1 "Fanny took out her handkerchief, and rather angrily wiped her eyes.",1 "'I was not born where you were, you know, Amy, and perhaps that makes a difference.",2 "My dear child, when we get rid of Uncle, you shall know all about it.",2 We'll drop him at the cook's shop where he is going to dine.',2 "They walked on with him until they came to a dirty shop window in a dirty street, which was made almost opaque by the steam of hot meats, vegetables, and puddings.",2 "But glimpses were to be caught of a roast leg of pork bursting into tears of sage and onion in a metal reservoir full of gravy, of an unctuous piece of roast beef and blisterous Yorkshire pudding, bubbling hot in a similar receptacle, of a stuffed fillet of veal in rapid cut, of a ham in a perspiration with the pace it was going at, of a shallow tank of baked potatoes glued together by their own richness, of a truss or two of boiled greens, and other substantial delicacies.",3 "Within, were a few wooden partitions, behind which such customers as found it more convenient to take away their dinners in stomachs than in their hands, Packed their purchases in solitude.",3 "Fanny opening her reticule, as they surveyed these things, produced from that repository a shilling and handed it to Uncle.",2 "Uncle, after not looking at it a little while, divined its object, and muttering 'Dinner?",1 Ha!,2 "Yes, yes, yes!'",2 slowly vanished from them into the mist.,1 "'Now, Amy,' said her sister, 'come with me, if you are not too tired to walk to Harley Street, Cavendish Square.'",1 "The air with which she threw off this distinguished address and the toss she gave to her new bonnet (which was more gauzy than serviceable), made her sister wonder; however, she expressed her readiness to go to Harley Street, and thither they directed their steps.",3 "Arrived at that grand destination, Fanny singled out the handsomest house, and knocking at the door, inquired for Mrs Merdle.",3 "The footman who opened the door, although he had powder on his head and was backed up by two other footmen likewise powdered, not only admitted Mrs Merdle to be at home, but asked Fanny to walk in.",2 "Fanny walked in, taking her sister with her; and they went up-stairs with powder going before and powder stopping behind, and were left in a spacious semicircular drawing-room, one of several drawing-rooms, where there was a parrot on the outside of a golden cage holding on by its beak, with its scaly legs in the air, and putting itself into many strange upside-down postures.",2 "This peculiarity has been observed in birds of quite another feather, climbing upon golden wires.",3 "The room was far more splendid than anything Little Dorrit had ever imagined, and would have been splendid and costly in any eyes.",2 "She looked in amazement at her sister and would have asked a question, but that Fanny with a warning frown pointed to a curtained doorway of communication with another room.",1 "The curtain shook next moment, and a lady, raising it with a heavily ringed hand, dropped it behind her again as she entered.",2 "The lady was not young and fresh from the hand of Nature, but was young and fresh from the hand of her maid.",3 "She had large unfeeling handsome eyes, and dark unfeeling handsome hair, and a broad unfeeling handsome bosom, and was made the most of in every particular.",1 "Either because she had a cold, or because it suited her face, she wore a rich white fillet tied over her head and under her chin.",2 "And if ever there were an unfeeling handsome chin that looked as if, for certain, it had never been, in familiar parlance, 'chucked' by the hand of man, it was the chin curbed up so tight and close by that laced bridle.",2 "'Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny.",2 "'My sister, ma'am.'",2 "'I am glad to see your sister, Miss Dorrit.",2 I did not remember that you had a sister.',2 "'I did not mention that I had,' said Fanny.",2 'Ah!',2 "Mrs Merdle curled the little finger of her left hand as who should say, 'I have caught you.",2 I know you didn't!',2 All her action was usually with her left hand because her hands were not a pair; and left being much the whiter and plumper of the two.,2 "Then she added: 'Sit down,' and composed herself voluptuously, in a nest of crimson and gold cushions, on an ottoman near the parrot.",3 'Also professional?',2 "said Mrs Merdle, looking at Little Dorrit through an eye-glass.",2 Fanny answered No.,2 "'No,' said Mrs Merdle, dropping her glass.",2 'Has not a professional air.,2 Very pleasant; but not professional.',3 "'My sister, ma'am,' said Fanny, in whom there was a singular mixture of deference and hardihood, 'has been asking me to tell her, as between sisters, how I came to have the honour of knowing you.",3 "And as I had engaged to call upon you once more, I thought I might take the liberty of bringing her with me, when perhaps you would tell her.",3 "I wish her to know, and perhaps you will tell her?'",2 "'Do you think, at your sister's age--' hinted Mrs Merdle.",2 "'She is much older than she looks,' said Fanny; 'almost as old as I am.'",2 "'Society,' said Mrs Merdle, with another curve of her little finger, 'is so difficult to explain to young persons (indeed is so difficult to explain to most persons), that I am glad to hear that.",2 "I wish Society was not so arbitrary, I wish it was not so exacting--Bird, be quiet!'",2 "The parrot had given a most piercing shriek, as if its name were Society and it asserted its right to its exactions.",2 "'But,' resumed Mrs Merdle, 'we must take it as we find it.",2 "We know it is hollow and conventional and worldly and very shocking, but unless we are Savages in the Tropical seas (I should have been charmed to be one myself--most delightful life and perfect climate, I am told), we must consult it.",1 It is the common lot.,2 "Mr Merdle is a most extensive merchant, his transactions are on the vastest scale, his wealth and influence are very great, but even he--Bird, be quiet!'",3 The parrot had shrieked another shriek; and it filled up the sentence so expressively that Mrs Merdle was under no necessity to end it.,1 "'Since your sister begs that I would terminate our personal acquaintance,' she began again, addressing Little Dorrit, 'by relating the circumstances that are much to her credit, I cannot object to comply with her request, I am sure.",1 I have a son (I was first married extremely young) of two or three-and-twenty.',2 "Fanny set her lips, and her eyes looked half triumphantly at her sister.",3 'A son of two or three-and-twenty.,2 "He is a little gay, a thing Society is accustomed to in young men, and he is very impressible.",2 Perhaps he inherits that misfortune.,1 "I am very impressible myself, by nature.",2 The weakest of creatures--my feelings are touched in a moment.',2 "She said all this, and everything else, as coldly as a woman of snow; quite forgetting the sisters except at odd times, and apparently addressing some abstraction of Society; for whose behoof, too, she occasionally arranged her dress, or the composition of her figure upon the ottoman.",1 'So he is very impressible.,2 "Not a misfortune in our natural state I dare say, but we are not in a natural state.",1 "Much to be lamented, no doubt, particularly by myself, who am a child of nature if I could but show it; but so it is.",1 "Society suppresses us and dominates us--Bird, be quiet!'",3 "The parrot had broken into a violent fit of laughter, after twisting divers bars of his cage with his crooked bill, and licking them with his black tongue.",0 "'It is quite unnecessary to say to a person of your good sense, wide range of experience, and cultivated feeling,' said Mrs Merdle from her nest of crimson and gold--and there put up her glass to refresh her memory as to whom she was addressing,--'that the stage sometimes has a fascination for young men of that class of character.",4 "In saying the stage, I mean the people on it of the female sex.",2 "Therefore, when I heard that my son was supposed to be fascinated by a dancer, I knew what that usually meant in Society, and confided in her being a dancer at the Opera, where young men moving in Society are usually fascinated.'",2 "She passed her white hands over one another, observant of the sisters now; and the rings upon her fingers grated against each other with a hard sound.",1 "'As your sister will tell you, when I found what the theatre was I was much surprised and much distressed.",1 "But when I found that your sister, by rejecting my son's advances (I must add, in an unexpected manner), had brought him to the point of proposing marriage, my feelings were of the profoundest anguish--acute.'",0 "She traced the outline of her left eyebrow, and put it right.",3 "'In a distracted condition, which only a mother--moving in Society--can be susceptible of, I determined to go myself to the theatre, and represent my state of mind to the dancer.",1 I made myself known to your sister.,2 "I found her, to my surprise, in many respects different from my expectations; and certainly in none more so, than in meeting me with--what shall I say--a sort of family assertion on her own part?'",2 Mrs Merdle smiled.,2 "'I told you, ma'am,' said Fanny, with a heightening colour, 'that although you found me in that situation, I was so far above the rest, that I considered my family as good as your son's; and that I had a brother who, knowing the circumstances, would be of the same opinion, and would not consider such a connection any honour.'",3 "'Miss Dorrit,' said Mrs Merdle, after frostily looking at her through her glass, 'precisely what I was on the point of telling your sister, in pursuance of your request.",2 Much obliged to you for recalling it so accurately and anticipating me.,3 "I immediately,' addressing Little Dorrit, '(for I am the creature of impulse), took a bracelet from my arm, and begged your sister to let me clasp it on hers, in token of the delight I had in our being able to approach the subject so far on a common footing.'",3 "(This was perfectly true, the lady having bought a cheap and showy article on her way to the interview, with a general eye to bribery.) 'And I told you, Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny, 'that we might be unfortunate, but we are not common.'",1 "'I think, the very words, Miss Dorrit,' assented Mrs Merdle.",1 "'And I told you, Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny, 'that if you spoke to me of the superiority of your son's standing in Society, it was barely possible that you rather deceived yourself in your suppositions about my origin; and that my father's standing, even in the Society in which he now moved (what that was, was best known to myself), was eminently superior, and was acknowledged by every one.'",4 "'Quite accurate,' rejoined Mrs Merdle.",3 'A most admirable memory.',3 "'Thank you, ma'am.",2 Perhaps you will be so kind as to tell my sister the rest.',2 "'There is very little to tell,' said Mrs Merdle, reviewing the breadth of bosom which seemed essential to her having room enough to be unfeeling in, 'but it is to your sister's credit.",2 "I pointed out to your sister the plain state of the case; the impossibility of the Society in which we moved recognising the Society in which she moved--though charming, I have no doubt; the immense disadvantage at which she would consequently place the family she had so high an opinion of, upon which we should find ourselves compelled to look down with contempt, and from which (socially speaking) we should feel obliged to recoil with abhorrence.",1 "In short, I made an appeal to that laudable pride in your sister.'",4 "'Let my sister know, if you please, Mrs Merdle,' Fanny pouted, with a toss of her gauzy bonnet, 'that I had already had the honour of telling your son that I wished to have nothing whatever to say to him.'",2 "'Well, Miss Dorrit,' assented Mrs Merdle, 'perhaps I might have mentioned that before.",1 "If I did not think of it, perhaps it was because my mind reverted to the apprehensions I had at the time that he might persevere and you might have something to say to him.",2 "I also mentioned to your sister--I again address the non-professional Miss Dorrit--that my son would have nothing in the event of such a marriage, and would be an absolute beggar.",1 "(I mention that merely as a fact which is part of the narrative, and not as supposing it to have influenced your sister, except in the prudent and legitimate way in which, constituted as our artificial system is, we must all be influenced by such considerations.) Finally, after some high words and high spirit on the part of your sister, we came to the complete understanding that there was no danger; and your sister was so obliging as to allow me to present her with a mark or two of my appreciation at my dressmaker's.'",2 "Little Dorrit looked sorry, and glanced at Fanny with a troubled face.",1 "'Also,' said Mrs Merdle, 'as to promise to give me the present pleasure of a closing interview, and of parting with her on the best of terms.",4 "On which occasion,' added Mrs Merdle, quitting her nest, and putting something in Fanny's hand, 'Miss Dorrit will permit me to say Farewell with best wishes in my own dull manner.'",2 "The sisters rose at the same time, and they all stood near the cage of the parrot, as he tore at a claw-full of biscuit and spat it out, seemed to mock them with a pompous dance of his body without moving his feet, and suddenly turned himself upside down and trailed himself all over the outside of his golden cage, with the aid of his cruel beak and black tongue.",1 "'Adieu, Miss Dorrit, with best wishes,' said Mrs Merdle.",2 "'If we could only come to a Millennium, or something of that sort, I for one might have the pleasure of knowing a number of charming and talented persons from whom I am at present excluded.",4 A more primitive state of society would be delicious to me.,2 "There used to be a poem when I learnt lessons, something about Lo the poor Indians whose something mind!",1 "If a few thousand persons moving in Society, could only go and be Indians, I would put my name down directly; but as, moving in Society, we can't be Indians, unfortunately--Good morning!'",2 "They came down-stairs with powder before them and powder behind, the elder sister haughty and the younger sister humbled, and were shut out into unpowdered Harley Street, Cavendish Square.",1 'Well?',2 "said Fanny, when they had gone a little way without speaking.",2 "'Have you nothing to say, Amy?'",2 "'Oh, I don't know what to say!'",2 "she answered, distressed.",1 "'You didn't like this young man, Fanny?'",3 'Like him?,2 He is almost an idiot.',1 "'I am so sorry--don't be hurt--but, since you ask me what I have to say, I am so very sorry, Fanny, that you suffered this lady to give you anything.'",0 'You little Fool!',1 "returned her sister, shaking her with the sharp pull she gave her arm.",3 'Have you no spirit at all?,2 But that's just the way!,2 "You have no self-respect, you have no becoming pride, just as you allow yourself to be followed about by a contemptible little Chivery of a thing,' with the scornfullest emphasis, 'you would let your family be trodden on, and never turn.'",3 "'Don't say that, dear Fanny.",2 I do what I can for them.',2 'You do what you can for them!',2 "repeated Fanny, walking her on very fast.",3 "'Would you let a woman like this, whom you could see, if you had any experience of anything, to be as false and insolent as a woman can be--would you let her put her foot upon your family, and thank her for it?'",2 "'No, Fanny, I am sure.'",2 "'Then make her pay for it, you mean little thing.",2 What else can you make her do?,2 "Make her pay for it, you stupid child; and do your family some credit with the money!'",1 They spoke no more all the way back to the lodging where Fanny and her uncle lived.,2 "When they arrived there, they found the old man practising his clarionet in the dolefullest manner in a corner of the room.",2 "Fanny had a composite meal to make, of chops, and porter, and tea; and indignantly pretended to prepare it for herself, though her sister did all that in quiet reality.",2 "When at last Fanny sat down to eat and drink, she threw the table implements about and was angry with her bread, much as her father had been last night.",1 "'If you despise me,' she said, bursting into vehement tears, 'because I am a dancer, why did you put me in the way of being one?",1 It was your doing.,2 "You would have me stoop as low as the ground before this Mrs Merdle, and let her say what she liked and do what she liked, and hold us all in contempt, and tell me so to my face.",2 Because I am a dancer!',2 'O Fanny!',2 "'And Tip, too, poor fellow.",1 "She is to disparage him just as much as she likes, without any check--I suppose because he has been in the law, and the docks, and different things.",2 "Why, it was your doing, Amy.",2 You might at least approve of his being defended.',3 "All this time the uncle was dolefully blowing his clarionet in the corner, sometimes taking it an inch or so from his mouth for a moment while he stopped to gaze at them, with a vague impression that somebody had said something.",1 "'And your father, your poor father, Amy.",1 "Because he is not free to show himself and to speak for himself, you would let such people insult him with impunity.",1 "If you don't feel for yourself because you go out to work, you might at least feel for him, I should think, knowing what he has undergone so long.'",3 Poor Little Dorrit felt the injustice of this taunt rather sharply.,0 The remembrance of last night added a barbed point to it.,2 "She said nothing in reply, but turned her chair from the table towards the fire.",2 "Uncle, after making one more pause, blew a dismal wail and went on again.",1 "Fanny was passionate with the tea-cups and the bread as long as her passion lasted, and then protested that she was the wretchedest girl in the world, and she wished she was dead.",2 "After that, her crying became remorseful, and she got up and put her arms round her sister.",1 "Little Dorrit tried to stop her from saying anything, but she answered that she would, she must!",2 "Thereupon she said again, and again, 'I beg your pardon, Amy,' and 'Forgive me, Amy,' almost as passionately as she had said what she regretted.",2 "'But indeed, indeed, Amy,' she resumed when they were seated in sisterly accord side by side, 'I hope and I think you would have seen this differently, if you had known a little more of Society.'",2 "'Perhaps I might, Fanny,' said the mild Little Dorrit.",2 "'You see, while you have been domestic and resignedly shut up there, Amy,' pursued her sister, gradually beginning to patronise, 'I have been out, moving more in Society, and may have been getting proud and spirited--more than I ought to be, perhaps?'",3 Little Dorrit answered 'Yes.,2 O yes!',2 "'And while you have been thinking of the dinner or the clothes, I may have been thinking, you know, of the family.",2 "Now, may it not be so, Amy?'",2 "Little Dorrit again nodded 'Yes,' with a more cheerful face than heart.",3 "'Especially as we know,' said Fanny, 'that there certainly is a tone in the place to which you have been so true, which does belong to it, and which does make it different from other aspects of Society.",2 "So kiss me once again, Amy dear, and we will agree that we may both be right, and that you are a tranquil, domestic, home-loving, good girl.'",4 "The clarionet had been lamenting most pathetically during this dialogue, but was cut short now by Fanny's announcement that it was time to go; which she conveyed to her uncle by shutting up his scrap of music, and taking the clarionet out of his mouth.",1 "Little Dorrit parted from them at the door, and hastened back to the Marshalsea.",2 "It fell dark there sooner than elsewhere, and going into it that evening was like going into a deep trench.",1 The shadow of the wall was on every object.,1 "Not least upon the figure in the old grey gown and the black velvet cap, as it turned towards her when she opened the door of the dim room.",1 'Why not upon me too!',2 "thought Little Dorrit, with the door yet in her hand.",2 'It was not unreasonable in Fanny.',1 "Upon that establishment of state, the Merdle establishment in Harley Street, Cavendish Square, there was the shadow of no more common wall than the fronts of other establishments of state on the opposite side of the street.",2 "Like unexceptionable Society, the opposing rows of houses in Harley Street were very grim with one another.",2 "Indeed, the mansions and their inhabitants were so much alike in that respect, that the people were often to be found drawn up on opposite sides of dinner-tables, in the shade of their own loftiness, staring at the other side of the way with the dullness of the houses.",3 Everybody knows how like the street the two dinner-rows of people who take their stand by the street will be.,3 "The expressionless uniform twenty houses, all to be knocked at and rung at in the same form, all approachable by the same dull steps, all fended off by the same pattern of railing, all with the same impracticable fire-escapes, the same inconvenient fixtures in their heads, and everything without exception to be taken at a high valuation--who has not dined with these?",1 "The house so drearily out of repair, the occasional bow-window, the stuccoed house, the newly-fronted house, the corner house with nothing but angular rooms, the house with the blinds always down, the house with the hatchment always up, the house where the collector has called for one quarter of an Idea, and found nobody at home--who has not dined with these?",2 "The house that nobody will take, and is to be had a bargain--who does not know her?",3 "The showy house that was taken for life by the disappointed gentleman, and which does not suit him at all--who is unacquainted with that haunted habitation?",1 "Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was more than aware of Mr and Mrs Merdle.",2 "Intruders there were in Harley Street, of whom it was not aware; but Mr and Mrs Merdle it delighted to honour.",3 Society was aware of Mr and Mrs Merdle.,2 Society had said 'Let us license them; let us know them.',2 "Mr Merdle was immensely rich; a man of prodigious enterprise; a Midas without the ears, who turned all he touched to gold.",4 "He was in everything good, from banking to building.",3 "He was in Parliament, of course.",2 "He was in the City, necessarily.",2 "He was Chairman of this, Trustee of that, President of the other.",2 "The weightiest of men had said to projectors, 'Now, what name have you got?",2 Have you got Merdle?',2 "And, the reply being in the negative, had said, 'Then I won't look at you.'",1 "This great and fortunate man had provided that extensive bosom which required so much room to be unfeeling enough in, with a nest of crimson and gold some fifteen years before.",4 "It was not a bosom to repose upon, but it was a capital bosom to hang jewels upon.",1 "Mr Merdle wanted something to hang jewels upon, and he bought it for the purpose.",1 Storr and Mortimer might have married on the same speculation.,2 "Like all his other speculations, it was sound and successful.",3 The jewels showed to the richest advantage.,3 "The bosom moving in Society with the jewels displayed upon it, attracted general admiration.",3 "Society approving, Mr Merdle was satisfied.",3 "He was the most disinterested of men,--did everything for Society, and got as little for himself out of all his gain and care, as a man might.",2 "That is to say, it may be supposed that he got all he wanted, otherwise with unlimited wealth he would have got it.",3 "But his desire was to the utmost to satisfy Society (whatever that was), and take up all its drafts upon him for tribute.",3 "He did not shine in company; he had not very much to say for himself; he was a reserved man, with a broad, overhanging, watchful head, that particular kind of dull red colour in his cheeks which is rather stale than fresh, and a somewhat uneasy expression about his coat-cuffs, as if they were in his confidence, and had reasons for being anxious to hide his hands.",1 "In the little he said, he was a pleasant man enough; plain, emphatic about public and private confidence, and tenacious of the utmost deference being shown by every one, in all things, to Society.",4 "In this same Society (if that were it which came to his dinners, and to Mrs Merdle's receptions and concerts), he hardly seemed to enjoy himself much, and was mostly to be found against walls and behind doors.",3 "Also when he went out to it, instead of its coming home to him, he seemed a little fatigued, and upon the whole rather more disposed for bed; but he was always cultivating it nevertheless, and always moving in it--and always laying out money on it with the greatest liberality.",2 "Mrs Merdle's first husband had been a colonel, under whose auspices the bosom had entered into competition with the snows of North America, and had come off at little disadvantage in point of whiteness, and at none in point of coldness.",1 The colonel's son was Mrs Merdle's only child.,2 "He was of a chuckle-headed, high-shouldered make, with a general appearance of being, not so much a young man as a swelled boy.",1 "He had given so few signs of reason, that a by-word went among his companions that his brain had been frozen up in a mighty frost which prevailed at St John's, New Brunswick, at the period of his birth there, and had never thawed from that hour.",1 "Another by-word represented him as having in his infancy, through the negligence of a nurse, fallen out of a high window on his head, which had been heard by responsible witnesses to crack.",0 "It is probable that both these representations were of ex post facto origin; the young gentleman (whose expressive name was Sparkler) being monomaniacal in offering marriage to all manner of undesirable young ladies, and in remarking of every successive young lady to whom he tendered a matrimonial proposal that she was 'a doosed fine gal--well educated too--with no biggodd nonsense about her.'",3 "A son-in-law with these limited talents, might have been a clog upon another man; but Mr Merdle did not want a son-in-law for himself; he wanted a son-in-law for Society.",1 "Mr Sparkler having been in the Guards, and being in the habit of frequenting all the races, and all the lounges, and all the parties, and being well known, Society was satisfied with its son-in-law.",3 "This happy result Mr Merdle would have considered well attained, though Mr Sparkler had been a more expensive article.",3 "And he did not get Mr Sparkler by any means cheap for Society, even as it was.",1 "There was a dinner giving in the Harley Street establishment, while Little Dorrit was stitching at her father's new shirts by his side that night; and there were magnates from the Court and magnates from the City, magnates from the Commons and magnates from the Lords, magnates from the bench and magnates from the bar, Bishop magnates, Treasury magnates, Horse Guard magnates, Admiralty magnates,--all the magnates that keep us going, and sometimes trip us up.",2 "'I am told,' said Bishop magnate to Horse Guards, 'that Mr Merdle has made another enormous hit.",2 They say a hundred thousand pounds.',2 Horse Guards had heard two.,2 Treasury had heard three.,2 "Bar, handling his persuasive double eye-glass, was by no means clear but that it might be four.",3 "It was one of those happy strokes of calculation and combination, the result of which it was difficult to estimate.",2 "It was one of those instances of a comprehensive grasp, associated with habitual luck and characteristic boldness, of which an age presented us but few.",3 "But here was Brother Bellows, who had been in the great Bank case, and who could probably tell us more.",3 What did Brother Bellows put this new success at?,3 "Brother Bellows was on his way to make his bow to the bosom, and could only tell them in passing that he had heard it stated, with great appearance of truth, as being worth, from first to last, half-a-million of money.",3 "Admiralty said Mr Merdle was a wonderful man, Treasury said he was a new power in the country, and would be able to buy up the whole House of Commons.",3 Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed into the coffers of a gentleman who was always disposed to maintain the best interests of Society.,4 "Mr Merdle himself was usually late on these occasions, as a man still detained in the clutch of giant enterprises when other men had shaken off their dwarfs for the day.",2 "On this occasion, he was the last arrival.",2 Treasury said Merdle's work punished him a little.,3 Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed into the coffers of a gentleman who accepted it with meekness.,3 Powder!,2 "There was so much Powder in waiting, that it flavoured the dinner.",2 "Pulverous particles got into the dishes, and Society's meats had a seasoning of first-rate footmen.",2 "Mr Merdle took down a countess who was secluded somewhere in the core of an immense dress, to which she was in the proportion of the heart to the overgrown cabbage.",3 "If so low a simile may be admitted, the dress went down the staircase like a richly brocaded Jack in the Green, and nobody knew what sort of small person carried it.",3 "Society had everything it could want, and could not want, for dinner.",2 "It had everything to look at, and everything to eat, and everything to drink.",2 It is to be hoped it enjoyed itself; for Mr Merdle's own share of the repast might have been paid for with eighteenpence.,3 Mrs Merdle was magnificent.,3 The chief butler was the next magnificent institution of the day.,3 He was the stateliest man in the company.,2 "He did nothing, but he looked on as few other men could have done.",2 He was Mr Merdle's last gift to Society.,2 "Mr Merdle didn't want him, and was put out of countenance when the great creature looked at him; but inappeasable Society would have him--and had got him.",3 "The invisible countess carried out the Green at the usual stage of the entertainment, and the file of beauty was closed up by the bosom.",2 "Treasury said, Juno.",2 "Bishop said, Judith.",2 Bar fell into discussion with Horse Guards concerning courts-martial.,1 Brothers Bellows and Bench struck in.,1 Other magnates paired off.,2 "Mr Merdle sat silent, and looked at the table-cloth.",3 "Sometimes a magnate addressed him, to turn the stream of his own particular discussion towards him; but Mr Merdle seldom gave much attention to it, or did more than rouse himself from his calculations and pass the wine.",2 "When they rose, so many of the magnates had something to say to Mr Merdle individually that he held little levees by the sideboard, and checked them off as they went out at the door.",2 "Treasury hoped he might venture to congratulate one of England's world-famed capitalists and merchant-princes (he had turned that original sentiment in the house a few times, and it came easy to him) on a new achievement.",4 To extend the triumphs of such men was to extend the triumphs and resources of the nation; and Treasury felt--he gave Mr Merdle to understand--patriotic on the subject.,3 "'Thank you, my lord,' said Mr Merdle; 'thank you.",2 "I accept your congratulations with pride, and I am glad you approve.'",4 "'Why, I don't unreservedly approve, my dear Mr Merdle.",3 "Because,' smiling Treasury turned him by the arm towards the sideboard and spoke banteringly, 'it never can be worth your while to come among us and help us.'",3 "Mr Merdle felt honoured by the-- 'No, no,' said Treasury, 'that is not the light in which one so distinguished for practical knowledge and great foresight, can be expected to regard it.",4 "If we should ever be happily enabled, by accidentally possessing the control over circumstances, to propose to one so eminent to--to come among us, and give us the weight of his influence, knowledge, and character, we could only propose it to him as a duty.",3 "In fact, as a duty that he owed to Society.'",2 "Mr Merdle intimated that Society was the apple of his eye, and that its claims were paramount to every other consideration.",3 "Treasury moved on, and Bar came up.",2 "Bar, with his little insinuating jury droop, and fingering his persuasive double eye-glass, hoped he might be excused if he mentioned to one of the greatest converters of the root of all evil into the root of all good, who had for a long time reflected a shining lustre on the annals even of our commercial country--if he mentioned, disinterestedly, and as, what we lawyers called in our pedantic way, amicus curiae, a fact that had come by accident within his knowledge.",1 "He had been required to look over the title of a very considerable estate in one of the eastern counties--lying, in fact, for Mr Merdle knew we lawyers loved to be particular, on the borders of two of the eastern counties.",2 "Now, the title was perfectly sound, and the estate was to be purchased by one who had the command of--Money (jury droop and persuasive eye-glass), on remarkably advantageous terms.",3 "This had come to Bar's knowledge only that day, and it had occurred to him, 'I shall have the honour of dining with my esteemed friend Mr Merdle this evening, and, strictly between ourselves, I will mention the opportunity.'",1 "Such a purchase would involve not only a great legitimate political influence, but some half-dozen church presentations of considerable annual value.",3 "Now, that Mr Merdle was already at no loss to discover means of occupying even his capital, and of fully employing even his active and vigorous intellect, Bar well knew: but he would venture to suggest that the question arose in his mind, whether one who had deservedly gained so high a position and so European a reputation did not owe it--we would not say to himself, but we would say to Society, to possess himself of such influences as these; and to exercise them--we would not say for his own, or for his party's, but we would say for Society's--benefit.",4 "Mr Merdle again expressed himself as wholly devoted to that object of his constant consideration, and Bar took his persuasive eye-glass up the grand staircase.",2 Bishop then came undesignedly sidling in the direction of the sideboard.,2 "Surely the goods of this world, it occurred in an accidental way to Bishop to remark, could scarcely be directed into happier channels than when they accumulated under the magic touch of the wise and sagacious, who, while they knew the just value of riches (Bishop tried here to look as if he were rather poor himself), were aware of their importance, judiciously governed and rightly distributed, to the welfare of our brethren at large.",3 "Mr Merdle with humility expressed his conviction that Bishop couldn't mean him, and with inconsistency expressed his high gratification in Bishop's good opinion.",3 "Bishop then--jauntily stepping out a little with his well-shaped right leg, as though he said to Mr Merdle 'don't mind the apron; a mere form!'",3 "put this case to his good friend: Whether it had occurred to his good friend, that Society might not unreasonably hope that one so blest in his undertakings, and whose example on his pedestal was so influential with it, would shed a little money in the direction of a mission or so to Africa?",3 "Mr Merdle signifying that the idea should have his best attention, Bishop put another case: Whether his good friend had at all interested himself in the proceedings of our Combined Additional Endowed Dignitaries Committee, and whether it had occurred to him that to shed a little money in _that_ direction might be a great conception finely executed?",4 "Mr Merdle made a similar reply, and Bishop explained his reason for inquiring.",2 Society looked to such men as his good friend to do such things.,3 "It was not that _he_ looked to them, but that Society looked to them.",2 "Just as it was not Our Committee who wanted the Additional Endowed Dignitaries, but it was Society that was in a state of the most agonising uneasiness of mind until it got them.",1 "He begged to assure his good friend that he was extremely sensible of his good friend's regard on all occasions for the best interests of Society; and he considered that he was at once consulting those interests and expressing the feeling of Society, when he wished him continued prosperity, continued increase of riches, and continued things in general.",4 "Bishop then betook himself up-stairs, and the other magnates gradually floated up after him until there was no one left below but Mr Merdle.",2 "That gentleman, after looking at the table-cloth until the soul of the chief butler glowed with a noble resentment, went slowly up after the rest, and became of no account in the stream of people on the grand staircase.",2 "Mrs Merdle was at home, the best of the jewels were hung out to be seen, Society got what it came for, Mr Merdle drank twopennyworth of tea in a corner and got more than he wanted.",2 "Among the evening magnates was a famous physician, who knew everybody, and whom everybody knew.",3 "On entering at the door, he came upon Mr Merdle drinking his tea in a corner, and touched him on the arm.",2 Mr Merdle started.,2 'Oh!,2 It's you!',2 'Any better to-day?',3 "'No,' said Mr Merdle, 'I am no better.'",3 'A pity I didn't see you this morning.,1 "Pray come to me to-morrow, or let me come to you.'",2 'Well!',2 he replied.,2 'I will come to-morrow as I drive by.',2 "Bar and Bishop had both been bystanders during this short dialogue, and as Mr Merdle was swept away by the crowd, they made their remarks upon it to the Physician.",2 "Bar said, there was a certain point of mental strain beyond which no man could go; that the point varied with various textures of brain and peculiarities of constitution, as he had had occasion to notice in several of his learned brothers; but the point of endurance passed by a line's breadth, depression and dyspepsia ensued.",1 "Not to intrude on the sacred mysteries of medicine, he took it, now (with the jury droop and persuasive eye-glass), that this was Merdle's case?",1 "Bishop said that when he was a young man, and had fallen for a brief space into the habit of writing sermons on Saturdays, a habit which all young sons of the church should sedulously avoid, he had frequently been sensible of a depression, arising as he supposed from an over-taxed intellect, upon which the yolk of a new-laid egg, beaten up by the good woman in whose house he at that time lodged, with a glass of sound sherry, nutmeg, and powdered sugar acted like a charm.",3 "Without presuming to offer so simple a remedy to the consideration of so profound a professor of the great healing art, he would venture to inquire whether the strain, being by way of intricate calculations, the spirits might not (humanly speaking) be restored to their tone by a gentle and yet generous stimulant?",4 "'Yes,' said the physician, 'yes, you are both right.",3 But I may as well tell you that I can find nothing the matter with Mr Merdle.,3 "He has the constitution of a rhinoceros, the digestion of an ostrich, and the concentration of an oyster.",2 "As to nerves, Mr Merdle is of a cool temperament, and not a sensitive man: is about as invulnerable, I should say, as Achilles.",4 "How such a man should suppose himself unwell without reason, you may think strange.",1 But I have found nothing the matter with him.,2 He may have some deep-seated recondite complaint.,1 I can't say.,2 "I only say, that at present I have not found it out.'",2 "There was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on the bosom now displaying precious stones in rivalry with many similar superb jewel-stands; there was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on young Sparkler hovering about the rooms, monomaniacally seeking any sufficiently ineligible young lady with no nonsense about her; there was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, of whom whole colonies were present; or on any of the company.",1 "Even on himself, its shadow was faint enough as he moved about among the throng, receiving homage.",3 Mr Merdle's complaint.,1 "Society and he had so much to do with one another in all things else, that it is hard to imagine his complaint, if he had one, being solely his own affair.",1 "Had he that deep-seated recondite complaint, and did any doctor find it out?",1 "Patience, in the meantime, the shadow of the Marshalsea wall was a real darkening influence, and could be seen on the Dorrit Family at any stage of the sun's course.",3 Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the Marshalsea in the ratio of his increasing visits.,3 "His obtuseness on the great Testimonial question was not calculated to awaken admiration in the paternal breast, but had rather a tendency to give offence in that sensitive quarter, and to be regarded as a positive shortcoming in point of gentlemanly feeling.",3 "An impression of disappointment, occasioned by the discovery that Mr Clennam scarcely possessed that delicacy for which, in the confidence of his nature, he had been inclined to give him credit, began to darken the fatherly mind in connection with that gentleman.",1 "The father went so far as to say, in his private family circle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts.",2 "He was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as leader and representative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he called to pay his respects; but he didn't find that he got on with him personally.",3 There appeared to be something (he didn't know what it was) wanting in him.,2 "Howbeit, the father did not fail in any outward show of politeness, but, on the contrary, honoured him with much attention; perhaps cherishing the hope that, although not a man of a sufficiently brilliant and spontaneous turn of mind to repeat his former testimonial unsolicited, it might still be within the compass of his nature to bear the part of a responsive gentleman, in any correspondence that way tending.",4 "In the threefold capacity, of the gentleman from outside who had been accidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance, of the gentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of the Father of the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting him out, and of the gentleman from outside who took an interest in the child of the Marshalsea, Clennam soon became a visitor of mark.",3 "He was not surprised by the attentions he received from Mr Chivery when that officer was on the lock, for he made little distinction between Mr Chivery's politeness and that of the other turnkeys.",3 "It was on one particular afternoon that Mr Chivery surprised him all at once, and stood forth from his companions in bold relief.",3 "Mr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the Lodge, had contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so that Clennam, coming out of the prison, should find him on duty alone.",1 "'(Private) I ask your pardon, sir,' said Mr Chivery in a secret manner; 'but which way might you be going?'",3 'I am going over the Bridge.',2 "He saw in Mr Chivery, with some astonishment, quite an Allegory of Silence, as he stood with his key on his lips.",3 "'(Private) I ask your pardon again,' said Mr Chivery, 'but could you go round by Horsemonger Lane?",3 Could you by any means find time to look in at that address?',2 "handing him a little card, printed for circulation among the connection of Chivery and Co., Tobacconists, Importers of pure Havannah Cigars, Bengal Cheroots, and fine-flavoured Cubas, Dealers in Fancy Snuffs, &c.",4 &c.,2 "'(Private) It an't tobacco business,' said Mr Chivery.",2 "'The truth is, it's my wife.",2 "She's wishful to say a word to you, sir, upon a point respecting--yes,' said Mr Chivery, answering Clennam's look of apprehension with a nod, 'respecting _her_.'",1 'I will make a point of seeing your wife directly.',2 "'Thank you, sir.",2 Much obliged.,2 It an't above ten minutes out of your way.,2 Please to ask for _Mrs_ Chivery!',2 "These instructions, Mr Chivery, who had already let him out, cautiously called through a little slide in the outer door, which he could draw back from within for the inspection of visitors when it pleased him.",3 "Arthur Clennam, with the card in his hand, betook himself to the address set forth upon it, and speedily arrived there.",3 "It was a very small establishment, wherein a decent woman sat behind the counter working at her needle.",3 "Little jars of tobacco, little boxes of cigars, a little assortment of pipes, a little jar or two of snuff, and a little instrument like a shoeing horn for serving it out, composed the retail stock in trade.",3 "Arthur mentioned his name, and his having promised to call, on the solicitation of Mr Chivery.",3 "About something relating to Miss Dorrit, he believed.",1 "Mrs Chivery at once laid aside her work, rose up from her seat behind the counter, and deploringly shook her head.",2 "'You may see him now,' said she, 'if you'll condescend to take a peep.'",1 "With these mysterious words, she preceded the visitor into a little parlour behind the shop, with a little window in it commanding a very little dull back-yard.",1 "In this yard a wash of sheets and table-cloths tried (in vain, for want of air) to get itself dried on a line or two; and among those flapping articles was sitting in a chair, like the last mariner left alive on the deck of a damp ship without the power of furling the sails, a little woe-begone young man.",1 "'Our John,' said Mrs Chivery.",2 "Not to be deficient in interest, Clennam asked what he might be doing there?",1 "'It's the only change he takes,' said Mrs Chivery, shaking her head afresh.",2 "'He won't go out, even in the back-yard, when there's no linen; but when there's linen to keep the neighbours' eyes off, he'll sit there, hours.",2 Hours he will.,2 Says he feels as if it was groves!',2 "Mrs Chivery shook her head again, put her apron in a motherly way to her eyes, and reconducted her visitor into the regions of the business.",2 "'Please to take a seat, sir,' said Mrs Chivery.",2 "'Miss Dorrit is the matter with Our John, sir; he's a breaking his heart for her, and I would wish to take the liberty to ask how it's to be made good to his parents when bust?'",2 "Mrs Chivery, who was a comfortable-looking woman much respected about Horsemonger Lane for her feelings and her conversation, uttered this speech with fell composure, and immediately afterwards began again to shake her head and dry her eyes.",1 "'Sir,' said she in continuation, 'you are acquainted with the family, and have interested yourself with the family, and are influential with the family.",3 "If you can promote views calculated to make two young people happy, let me, for Our John's sake, and for both their sakes, implore you so to do!'",3 "'I have been so habituated,' returned Arthur, at a loss, 'during the short time I have known her, to consider Little--I have been so habituated to consider Miss Dorrit in a light altogether removed from that in which you present her to me, that you quite take me by surprise.",1 Does she know your son?',2 "'Brought up together, sir,' said Mrs Chivery.",2 'Played together.',2 'Does she know your son as her admirer?',3 'Oh!,2 "bless you, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, with a sort of triumphant shiver, 'she never could have seen him on a Sunday without knowing he was that.",3 "His cane alone would have told it long ago, if nothing else had.",2 "Young men like John don't take to ivory hands a pinting, for nothing.",3 How did I first know it myself?,2 Similarly.',2 "'Perhaps Miss Dorrit may not be so ready as you, you see.'",2 "'Then she knows it, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'by word of mouth.'",2 'Are you sure?',2 "'Sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'sure and certain as in this house I am.",2 "I see my son go out with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I see my son come in with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I know he done it!'",2 Mrs Chivery derived a surprising force of emphasis from the foregoing circumstantiality and repetition.,2 'May I ask you how he came to fall into the desponding state which causes you so much uneasiness?',1 "'That,' said Mrs Chivery, 'took place on that same day when to this house I see that John with these eyes return.",2 Never been himself in this house since.,2 "Never was like what he has been since, not from the hour when to this house seven year ago me and his father, as tenants by the quarter, came!'",3 An effect in the nature of an affidavit was gained from this speech by Mrs Chivery's peculiar power of construction.,2 'May I venture to inquire what is your version of the matter?',2 "'You may,' said Mrs Chivery, 'and I will give it to you in honour and in word as true as in this shop I stand.",2 Our John has every one's good word and every one's good wish.,3 He played with her as a child when in that yard a child she played.,2 He has known her ever since.,2 "He went out upon the Sunday afternoon when in this very parlour he had dined, and met her, with appointment or without appointment; which, I do not pretend to say.",1 He made his offer to her.,2 "Her brother and sister is high in their views, and against Our John.",2 Her father is all for himself in his views and against sharing her with any one.,2 "Under which circumstances she has answered Our John, ""No, John, I cannot have you, I cannot have any husband, it is not my intentions ever to become a wife, it is my intentions to be always a sacrifice, farewell, find another worthy of you, and forget me!""",3 This is the way in which she is doomed to be a constant slave to them that are not worthy that a constant slave she unto them should be.,1 "This is the way in which Our John has come to find no pleasure but in taking cold among the linen, and in showing in that yard, as in that yard I have myself shown you, a broken-down ruin that goes home to his mother's heart!'",1 "Here the good woman pointed to the little window, whence her son might be seen sitting disconsolate in the tuneless groves; and again shook her head and wiped her eyes, and besought him, for the united sakes of both the young people, to exercise his influence towards the bright reversal of these dismal events.",2 "She was so confident in her exposition of the case, and it was so undeniably founded on correct premises in so far as the relative positions of Little Dorrit and her family were concerned, that Clennam could not feel positive on the other side.",3 "He had come to attach to Little Dorrit an interest so peculiar--an interest that removed her from, while it grew out of, the common and coarse things surrounding her--that he found it disappointing, disagreeable, almost painful, to suppose her in love with young Mr Chivery in the back-yard, or any such person.",0 "On the other hand, he reasoned with himself that she was just as good and just as true in love with him, as not in love with him; and that to make a kind of domesticated fairy of her, on the penalty of isolation at heart from the only people she knew, would be but a weakness of his own fancy, and not a kind one.",3 "Still, her youthful and ethereal appearance, her timid manner, the charm of her sensitive voice and eyes, the very many respects in which she had interested him out of her own individuality, and the strong difference between herself and those about her, were not in unison, and were determined not to be in unison, with this newly presented idea.",4 "He told the worthy Mrs Chivery, after turning these things over in his mind--he did that, indeed, while she was yet speaking--that he might be relied upon to do his utmost at all times to promote the happiness of Miss Dorrit, and to further the wishes of her heart if it were in his power to do so, and if he could discover what they were.",3 "At the same time he cautioned her against assumptions and appearances; enjoined strict silence and secrecy, lest Miss Dorrit should be made unhappy; and particularly advised her to endeavour to win her son's confidence and so to make quite sure of the state of the case.",1 "Mrs Chivery considered the latter precaution superfluous, but said she would try.",1 "She shook her head as if she had not derived all the comfort she had fondly expected from this interview, but thanked him nevertheless for the trouble he had kindly taken.",3 "They then parted good friends, and Arthur walked away.",3 "The crowd in the street jostling the crowd in his mind, and the two crowds making a confusion, he avoided London Bridge, and turned off in the quieter direction of the Iron Bridge.",2 "He had scarcely set foot upon it, when he saw Little Dorrit walking on before him.",1 "It was a pleasant day, with a light breeze blowing, and she seemed to have that minute come there for air.",3 He had left her in her father's room within an hour.,2 "It was a timely chance, favourable to his wish of observing her face and manner when no one else was by.",3 "He quickened his pace; but before he reached her, she turned her head.",2 'Have I startled you?',2 he asked.,2 "'I thought I knew the step,' she answered, hesitating.",2 "'And did you know it, Little Dorrit?",2 You could hardly have expected mine.',2 'I did not expect any.,2 "But when I heard a step, I thought it--sounded like yours.'",3 'Are you going further?',2 "'No, sir, I am only walking here for a little change.'",2 "They walked together, and she recovered her confiding manner with him, and looked up in his face as she said, after glancing around: 'It is so strange.",1 Perhaps you can hardly understand it.,2 I sometimes have a sensation as if it was almost unfeeling to walk here.',2 'Unfeeling?',2 "'To see the river, and so much sky, and so many objects, and such change and motion.",2 "Then to go back, you know, and find him in the same cramped place.'",1 'Ah yes!,2 "But going back, you must remember that you take with you the spirit and influence of such things to cheer him.'",3 'Do I?,2 I hope I may!,2 "I am afraid you fancy too much, sir, and make me out too powerful.",3 "If you were in prison, could I bring such comfort to you?'",2 "'Yes, Little Dorrit, I am sure of it.'",2 "He gathered from a tremor on her lip, and a passing shadow of great agitation on her face, that her mind was with her father.",3 "He remained silent for a few moments, that she might regain her composure.",3 "The Little Dorrit, trembling on his arm, was less in unison than ever with Mrs Chivery's theory, and yet was not irreconcilable with a new fancy which sprung up within him, that there might be some one else in the hopeless--newer fancy still--in the hopeless unattainable distance.",1 "They turned, and Clennam said, Here was Maggy coming!",2 "Little Dorrit looked up, surprised, and they confronted Maggy, who brought herself at sight of them to a dead stop.",1 "She had been trotting along, so preoccupied and busy that she had not recognised them until they turned upon her.",2 She was now in a moment so conscience-stricken that her very basket partook of the change.,1 "'Maggy, you promised me to stop near father.'",3 "'So I would, Little Mother, only he wouldn't let me.",2 If he takes and sends me out I must go.,2 "If he takes and says, ""Maggy, you hurry away and back with that letter, and you shall have a sixpence if the answer's a good 'un,"" I must take it.",3 "Lor, Little Mother, what's a poor thing of ten year old to do?",1 "And if Mr Tip--if he happens to be a coming in as I come out, and if he says ""Where are you going, Maggy?""",2 "and if I says, ""I'm a going So and So,"" and if he says, ""I'll have a Try too,"" and if he goes into the George and writes a letter and if he gives it me and says, ""Take that one to the same place, and if the answer's a good 'un I'll give you a shilling,"" it ain't my fault, mother!'",2 "Arthur read, in Little Dorrit's downcast eyes, to whom she foresaw that the letters were addressed.",1 'I'm a going So and So.,2 There!,2 "That's where I am a going to,' said Maggy.",2 'I'm a going So and So.,2 "It ain't you, Little Mother, that's got anything to do with it--it's you, you know,' said Maggy, addressing Arthur.",2 "'You'd better come, So and So, and let me take and give 'em to you.'",3 "'We will not be so particular as that, Maggy.",2 "Give them me here,' said Clennam in a low voice.",2 "'Well, then, come across the road,' answered Maggy in a very loud whisper.",1 "'Little Mother wasn't to know nothing of it, and she would never have known nothing of it if you had only gone So and So, instead of bothering and loitering about.",1 It ain't my fault.,1 I must do what I am told.,2 They ought to be ashamed of themselves for telling me.',1 "Clennam crossed to the other side, and hurriedly opened the letters.",2 "That from the father mentioned that most unexpectedly finding himself in the novel position of having been disappointed of a remittance from the City on which he had confidently counted, he took up his pen, being restrained by the unhappy circumstance of his incarceration during three-and-twenty years (doubly underlined), from coming himself, as he would otherwise certainly have done--took up his pen to entreat Mr Clennam to advance him the sum of Three Pounds Ten Shillings upon his I.O.U., which he begged to enclose.",0 "That from the son set forth that Mr Clennam would, he knew, be gratified to hear that he had at length obtained permanent employment of a highly satisfactory nature, accompanied with every prospect of complete success in life; but that the temporary inability of his employer to pay him his arrears of salary to that date (in which condition said employer had appealed to that generous forbearance in which he trusted he should never be wanting towards a fellow-creature), combined with the fraudulent conduct of a false friend and the present high price of provisions, had reduced him to the verge of ruin, unless he could by a quarter before six that evening raise the sum of eight pounds.",3 "This sum, Mr Clennam would be happy to learn, he had, through the promptitude of several friends who had a lively confidence in his probity, already raised, with the exception of a trifling balance of one pound seventeen and fourpence; the loan of which balance, for the period of one month, would be fraught with the usual beneficent consequences.",4 "These letters Clennam answered with the aid of his pencil and pocket-book, on the spot; sending the father what he asked for, and excusing himself from compliance with the demand of the son.",2 "He then commissioned Maggy to return with his replies, and gave her the shilling of which the failure of her supplemental enterprise would have disappointed her otherwise.",1 "When he rejoined Little Dorrit, and they had begun walking as before, she said all at once: 'I think I had better go.",3 I had better go home.',3 "'Don't be distressed,' said Clennam, 'I have answered the letters.",1 They were nothing.,2 You know what they were.,2 They were nothing.',2 "'But I am afraid,' she returned, 'to leave him, I am afraid to leave any of them.",1 "When I am gone, they pervert--but they don't mean it--even Maggy.'",1 "'It was a very innocent commission that she undertook, poor thing.",1 "And in keeping it secret from you, she supposed, no doubt, that she was only saving you uneasiness.'",1 "'Yes, I hope so, I hope so.",2 But I had better go home!,3 It was but the other day that my sister told me I had become so used to the prison that I had its tone and character.,1 It must be so.,2 I am sure it must be when I see these things.,2 My place is there.,2 "I am better there, it is unfeeling in me to be here, when I can do the least thing there.",2 Good-bye.,3 I had far better stay at home!',3 "The agonised way in which she poured this out, as if it burst of itself from her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to keep the tears from his eyes as he saw and heard her.",1 "'Don't call it home, my child!'",2 he entreated.,2 'It is always painful to me to hear you call it home.',1 'But it is home!,2 What else can I call home?,2 Why should I ever forget it for a single moment?',2 "'You never do, dear Little Dorrit, in any good and true service.'",3 "'I hope not, O I hope not!",2 "But it is better for me to stay there; much better, much more dutiful, much happier.",3 "Please don't go with me, let me go by myself.",2 "Good-bye, God bless you.",3 "Thank you, thank you.'",3 "He felt that it was better to respect her entreaty, and did not move while her slight form went quickly away from him.",3 "When it had fluttered out of sight, he turned his face towards the water and stood thinking.",2 "She would have been distressed at any time by this discovery of the letters; but so much so, and in that unrestrainable way?",1 No.,2 "When she had seen her father begging with his threadbare disguise on, when she had entreated him not to give her father money, she had been distressed, but not like this.",1 Something had made her keenly and additionally sensitive just now.,3 "Now, was there some one in the hopeless unattainable distance?",1 "Or had the suspicion been brought into his mind, by his own associations of the troubled river running beneath the bridge with the same river higher up, its changeless tune upon the prow of the ferry-boat, so many miles an hour the peaceful flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet?",1 "He thought of his poor child, Little Dorrit, for a long time there; he thought of her going home; he thought of her in the night; he thought of her when the day came round again.",1 "And the poor child Little Dorrit thought of him--too faithfully, ah, too faithfully!--in the shadow of the Marshalsea wall.",2 "Mr Meagles bestirred himself with such prompt activity in the matter of the negotiation with Daniel Doyce which Clennam had entrusted to him, that he soon brought it into business train, and called on Clennam at nine o'clock one morning to make his report.",3 "'Doyce is highly gratified by your good opinion,' he opened the business by saying, 'and desires nothing so much as that you should examine the affairs of the Works for yourself, and entirely understand them.",4 "He has handed me the keys of all his books and papers--here they are jingling in this pocket--and the only charge he has given me is ""Let Mr Clennam have the means of putting himself on a perfect equality with me as to knowing whatever I know.",3 "If it should come to nothing after all, he will respect my confidence.",3 "Unless I was sure of that to begin with, I should have nothing to do with him.""",2 "And there, you see,' said Mr Meagles, 'you have Daniel Doyce all over.'",2 'A very honourable character.',2 "'Oh, yes, to be sure.",2 Not a doubt of it.,1 "Odd, but very honourable.",1 Very odd though.,1 "Now, would you believe, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, with a hearty enjoyment of his friend's eccentricity, 'that I had a whole morning in What's-his-name Yard--' 'Bleeding Heart?'",2 "'A whole morning in Bleeding Heart Yard, before I could induce him to pursue the subject at all?'",1 'How was that?',2 "'How was that, my friend?",2 I no sooner mentioned your name in connection with it than he declared off.',2 'Declared off on my account?',2 "'I no sooner mentioned your name, Clennam, than he said, ""That will never do!""",2 What did he mean by that?,2 I asked him.,2 "No matter, Meagles; that would never do.",2 Why would it never do?,2 "You'll hardly believe it, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, laughing within himself, 'but it came out that it would never do, because you and he, walking down to Twickenham together, had glided into a friendly conversation in the course of which he had referred to his intention of taking a partner, supposing at the time that you were as firmly and finally settled as St Paul's Cathedral.",3 """Whereas,"" says he, ""Mr Clennam might now believe, if I entertained his proposition, that I had a sinister and designing motive in what was open free speech.",2 "Which I can't bear,"" says he, ""which I really am too proud to bear.""",3 "' 'I should as soon suspect--' 'Of course you would,' interrupted Mr Meagles, 'and so I told him.",1 But it took a morning to scale that wall; and I doubt if any other man than myself (he likes me of old) could have got his leg over it.,2 "Well, Clennam.",3 "This business-like obstacle surmounted, he then stipulated that before resuming with you I should look over the books and form my own opinion.",2 "I looked over the books, and formed my own opinion.",2 """Is it, on the whole, for, or against?""",2 says he.,2 """For,"" says I. ""Then,"" says he, ""you may now, my good friend, give Mr Clennam the means of forming his opinion.",3 "To enable him to do which, without bias and with perfect freedom, I shall go out of town for a week.""",3 "And he's gone,' said Mr Meagles; 'that's the rich conclusion of the thing.'",3 "'Leaving me,' said Clennam, 'with a high sense, I must say, of his candour and his--' 'Oddity,' Mr Meagles struck in.",1 'I should think so!',2 "It was not exactly the word on Clennam's lips, but he forbore to interrupt his good-humoured friend.",2 "'And now,' added Mr Meagles, 'you can begin to look into matters as soon as you think proper.",3 "I have undertaken to explain where you may want explanation, but to be strictly impartial, and to do nothing more.'",2 They began their perquisitions in Bleeding Heart Yard that same forenoon.,1 "Little peculiarities were easily to be detected by experienced eyes in Mr Doyce's way of managing his affairs, but they almost always involved some ingenious simplification of a difficulty, and some plain road to the desired end.",2 "That his papers were in arrear, and that he stood in need of assistance to develop the capacity of his business, was clear enough; but all the results of his undertakings during many years were distinctly set forth, and were ascertainable with ease.",4 "Nothing had been done for the purposes of the pending investigation; everything was in its genuine working dress, and in a certain honest rugged order.",3 "The calculations and entries, in his own hand, of which there were many, were bluntly written, and with no very neat precision; but were always plain and directed straight to the purpose.",3 "It occurred to Arthur that a far more elaborate and taking show of business--such as the records of the Circumlocution Office made perhaps--might be far less serviceable, as being meant to be far less intelligible.",3 Three or four days of steady application tendered him master of all the facts it was essential to become acquainted with.,3 "Mr Meagles was at hand the whole time, always ready to illuminate any dim place with the bright little safety-lamp belonging to the scales and scoop.",3 "Between them they agreed upon the sum it would be fair to offer for the purchase of a half-share in the business, and then Mr Meagles unsealed a paper in which Daniel Doyce had noted the amount at which he valued it; which was even something less.",3 "Thus, when Daniel came back, he found the affair as good as concluded.",3 "'And I may now avow, Mr Clennam,' said he, with a cordial shake of the hand, 'that if I had looked high and low for a partner, I believe I could not have found one more to my mind.'",1 "'I say the same,' said Clennam.",2 "'And I say of both of you,' added Mr Meagles, 'that you are well matched.",3 "You keep him in check, Clennam, with your common sense, and you stick to the Works, Dan, with your--' 'Uncommon sense?'",3 "suggested Daniel, with his quiet smile.",3 "'You may call it so, if you like--and each of you will be a right hand to the other.",3 "Here's my own right hand upon it, as a practical man, to both of you.'",3 The purchase was completed within a month.,2 It left Arthur in possession of private personal means not exceeding a few hundred pounds; but it opened to him an active and promising career.,3 The three friends dined together on the auspicious occasion; the factory and the factory wives and children made holiday and dined too; even Bleeding Heart Yard dined and was full of meat.,2 "Two months had barely gone by in all, when Bleeding Heart Yard had become so familiar with short-commons again, that the treat was forgotten there; when nothing seemed new in the partnership but the paint of the inscription on the door-posts, DOYCE AND CLENNAM; when it appeared even to Clennam himself, that he had had the affairs of the firm in his mind for years.",1 "The little counting-house reserved for his own occupation, was a room of wood and glass at the end of a long low workshop, filled with benches, and vices, and tools, and straps, and wheels; which, when they were in gear with the steam-engine, went tearing round as though they had a suicidal mission to grind the business to dust and tear the factory to pieces.",0 "A communication of great trap-doors in the floor and roof with the workshop above and the workshop below, made a shaft of light in this perspective, which brought to Clennam's mind the child's old picture-book, where similar rays were the witnesses of Abel's murder.",1 "The noises were sufficiently removed and shut out from the counting-house to blend into a busy hum, interspersed with periodical clinks and thumps.",1 The patient figures at work were swarthy with the filings of iron and steel that danced on every bench and bubbled up through every chink in the planking.,3 "The workshop was arrived at by a step-ladder from the outer yard below, where it served as a shelter for the large grindstone where tools were sharpened.",2 "The whole had at once a fanciful and practical air in Clennam's eyes, which was a welcome change; and, as often as he raised them from his first work of getting the array of business documents into perfect order, he glanced at these things with a feeling of pleasure in his pursuit that was new to him.",4 "Raising his eyes thus one day, he was surprised to see a bonnet labouring up the step-ladder.",2 The unusual apparition was followed by another bonnet.,1 "He then perceived that the first bonnet was on the head of Mr F.'s Aunt, and that the second bonnet was on the head of Flora, who seemed to have propelled her legacy up the steep ascent with considerable difficulty.",1 "Though not altogether enraptured at the sight of these visitors, Clennam lost no time in opening the counting-house door, and extricating them from the workshop; a rescue which was rendered the more necessary by Mr F.'s Aunt already stumbling over some impediment, and menacing steam power as an Institution with a stony reticule she carried.",1 "'Good gracious, Arthur,--I should say Mr Clennam, far more proper--the climb we have had to get up here and how ever to get down again without a fire-escape and Mr F.'s Aunt slipping through the steps and bruised all over and you in the machinery and foundry way too only think, and never told us!'",3 "Thus, Flora, out of breath.",2 "Meanwhile, Mr F.'s Aunt rubbed her esteemed insteps with her umbrella, and vindictively glared.",1 "'Most unkind never to have come back to see us since that day, though naturally it was not to be expected that there should be any attraction at _our_ house and you were much more pleasantly engaged, that's pretty certain, and is she fair or dark blue eyes or black I wonder, not that I expect that she should be anything but a perfect contrast to me in all particulars for I am a disappointment as I very well know and you are quite right to be devoted no doubt though what I am saying Arthur never mind I hardly know myself Good gracious!'",4 By this time he had placed chairs for them in the counting-house.,2 "As Flora dropped into hers, she bestowed the old look upon him.",2 "'And to think of Doyce and Clennam, and who Doyce can be,' said Flora; 'delightful man no doubt and married perhaps or perhaps a daughter, now has he really?",1 "then one understands the partnership and sees it all, don't tell me anything about it for I know I have no claim to ask the question the golden chain that once was forged being snapped and very proper.'",3 "Flora put her hand tenderly on his, and gave him another of the youthful glances.",3 "'Dear Arthur--force of habit, Mr Clennam every way more delicate and adapted to existing circumstances--I must beg to be excused for taking the liberty of this intrusion but I thought I might so far presume upon old times for ever faded never more to bloom as to call with Mr F.'s Aunt to congratulate and offer best wishes, A great deal superior to China not to be denied and much nearer though higher up!'",4 "'I am very happy to see you,' said Clennam, 'and I thank you, Flora, very much for your kind remembrance.'",3 "'More than I can say myself at any rate,' returned Flora, 'for I might have been dead and buried twenty distinct times over and no doubt whatever should have been before you had genuinely remembered Me or anything like it in spite of which one last remark I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to offer--' 'My dear Mrs Finching,' Arthur remonstrated in alarm.",0 "'Oh not that disagreeable name, say Flora!'",1 "'Flora, is it worth troubling yourself afresh to enter into explanations?",2 I assure you none are needed.,3 I am satisfied--I am perfectly satisfied.',4 "A diversion was occasioned here, by Mr F.'s Aunt making the following inexorable and awful statement: 'There's mile-stones on the Dover road!'",1 "With such mortal hostility towards the human race did she discharge this missile, that Clennam was quite at a loss how to defend himself; the rather as he had been already perplexed in his mind by the honour of a visit from this venerable lady, when it was plain she held him in the utmost abhorrence.",0 "He could not but look at her with disconcertment, as she sat breathing bitterness and scorn, and staring leagues away.",1 "Flora, however, received the remark as if it had been of a most apposite and agreeable nature; approvingly observing aloud that Mr F.'s Aunt had a great deal of spirit.",3 "Stimulated either by this compliment, or by her burning indignation, that illustrious woman then added, 'Let him meet it if he can!'",2 "And, with a rigid movement of her stony reticule (an appendage of great size and of a fossil appearance), indicated that Clennam was the unfortunate person at whom the challenge was hurled.",1 "'One last remark,' resumed Flora, 'I was going to say I wish to make one last explanation I wish to offer, Mr F.'s Aunt and myself would not have intruded on business hours Mr F. having been in business and though the wine trade still business is equally business call it what you will and business habits are just the same as witness Mr F. himself who had his slippers always on the mat at ten minutes before six in the afternoon and his boots inside the fender at ten minutes before eight in the morning to the moment in all weathers light or dark--would not therefore have intruded without a motive which being kindly meant it may be hoped will be kindly taken Arthur, Mr Clennam far more proper, even Doyce and Clennam probably more business-like.'",3 "'Pray say nothing in the way of apology,' Arthur entreated.",2 'You are always welcome.',3 "'Very polite of you to say so Arthur--cannot remember Mr Clennam until the word is out, such is the habit of times for ever fled, and so true it is that oft in the stilly night ere slumber's chain has bound people, fond memory brings the light of other days around people--very polite but more polite than true I am afraid, for to go into the machinery business without so much as sending a line or a card to papa--I don't say me though there was a time but that is past and stern reality has now my gracious never mind--does not look like it you must confess.'",3 Even Flora's commas seemed to have fled on this occasion; she was so much more disjointed and voluble than in the preceding interview.,2 "'Though indeed,' she hurried on, 'nothing else is to be expected and why should it be expected and if it's not to be expected why should it be, and I am far from blaming you or any one, When your mama and my papa worried us to death and severed the golden bowl--I mean bond but I dare say you know what I mean and if you don't you don't lose much and care just as little I will venture to add--when they severed the golden bond that bound us and threw us into fits of crying on the sofa nearly choked at least myself everything was changed and in giving my hand to Mr F. I know I did so with my eyes open but he was so very unsettled and in such low spirits that he had distractedly alluded to the river if not oil of something from the chemist's and I did it for the best.'",1 "'My good Flora, we settled that before.",3 It was all quite right.',3 "'It's perfectly clear you think so,' returned Flora, 'for you take it very coolly, if I hadn't known it to be China I should have guessed myself the Polar regions, dear Mr Clennam you are right however and I cannot blame you but as to Doyce and Clennam papa's property being about here we heard it from Pancks and but for him we never should have heard one word about it I am satisfied.'",4 "'No, no, don't say that.'",2 'What nonsense not to say it Arthur--Doyce and Clennam--easier and less trying to me than Mr Clennam--when I know it and you know it too and can't deny it.',1 "'But I do deny it, Flora.",1 I should soon have made you a friendly visit.',3 'Ah!',2 "said Flora, tossing her head.",2 'I dare say!',2 and she gave him another of the old looks.,2 'However when Pancks told us I made up my mind that Mr F.'s Aunt and I would come and call because when papa--which was before that--happened to mention her name to me and to say that you were interested in her I said at the moment Good gracious why not have her here then when there's anything to do instead of putting it out.',3 "'When you say Her,' observed Clennam, by this time pretty well bewildered, 'do you mean Mr F.'s--' 'My goodness, Arthur--Doyce and Clennam really easier to me with old remembrances--who ever heard of Mr F.'s Aunt doing needlework and going out by the day?'",4 'Going out by the day!,2 Do you speak of Little Dorrit?',2 "'Why yes of course,' returned Flora; 'and of all the strangest names I ever heard the strangest, like a place down in the country with a turnpike, or a favourite pony or a puppy or a bird or something from a seed-shop to be put in a garden or a flower-pot and come up speckled.'",2 "'Then, Flora,' said Arthur, with a sudden interest in the conversation, 'Mr Casby was so kind as to mention Little Dorrit to you, was he?",2 What did he say?',2 "'Oh you know what papa is,' rejoined Flora, 'and how aggravatingly he sits looking beautiful and turning his thumbs over and over one another till he makes one giddy if one keeps one's eyes upon him, he said when we were talking of you--I don't know who began the subject Arthur (Doyce and Clennam) but I am sure it wasn't me, at least I hope not but you really must excuse my confessing more on that point.'",1 "'Certainly,' said Arthur.",2 'By all means.',2 "'You are very ready,' pouted Flora, coming to a sudden stop in a captivating bashfulness, 'that I must admit, Papa said you had spoken of her in an earnest way and I said what I have told you and that's all.'",4 'That's all?',2 "said Arthur, a little disappointed.",1 'Except that when Pancks told us of your having embarked in this business and with difficulty persuaded us that it was really you I said to Mr F.'s Aunt then we would come and ask you if it would be agreeable to all parties that she should be engaged at our house when required for I know she often goes to your mama's and I know that your mama has a very touchy temper Arthur--Doyce and Clennam--or I never might have married Mr F. and might have been at this hour but I am running into nonsense.',0 "'It was very kind of you, Flora, to think of this.'",2 "Poor Flora rejoined with a plain sincerity which became her better than her youngest glances, that she was glad he thought so.",3 "She said it with so much heart that Clennam would have given a great deal to buy his old character of her on the spot, and throw it and the mermaid away for ever.",3 "'I think, Flora,' he said, 'that the employment you can give Little Dorrit, and the kindness you can show her--' 'Yes and I will,' said Flora, quickly.",3 'I am sure of it--will be a great assistance and support to her.,3 "I do not feel that I have the right to tell you what I know of her, for I acquired the knowledge confidentially, and under circumstances that bind me to silence.",3 "But I have an interest in the little creature, and a respect for her that I cannot express to you.",3 "Her life has been one of such trial and devotion, and such quiet goodness, as you can scarcely imagine.",3 "I can hardly think of her, far less speak of her, without feeling moved.",2 "Let that feeling represent what I could tell you, and commit her to your friendliness with my thanks.'",3 "Once more he put out his hand frankly to poor Flora; once more poor Flora couldn't accept it frankly, found it worth nothing openly, must make the old intrigue and mystery of it.",3 "As much to her own enjoyment as to his dismay, she covered it with a corner of her shawl as she took it.",2 "Then, looking towards the glass front of the counting-house, and seeing two figures approaching, she cried with infinite relish, 'Papa!",3 "Hush, Arthur, for Mercy's sake!'",2 "and tottered back to her chair with an amazing imitation of being in danger of swooning, in the dread surprise and maidenly flutter of her spirits.",2 "The Patriarch, meanwhile, came inanely beaming towards the counting-house in the wake of Pancks.",1 "Pancks opened the door for him, towed him in, and retired to his own moorings in a corner.",2 "'I heard from Flora,' said the Patriarch with his benevolent smile, 'that she was coming to call, coming to call.",3 "And being out, I thought I'd come also, thought I'd come also.'",2 "The benign wisdom he infused into this declaration (not of itself profound), by means of his blue eyes, his shining head, and his long white hair, was most impressive.",4 It seemed worth putting down among the noblest sentiments enunciated by the best of men.,3 "Also, when he said to Clennam, seating himself in the proffered chair, 'And you are in a new business, Mr Clennam?",2 "I wish you well, sir, I wish you well!'",3 he seemed to have done benevolent wonders.,3 "'Mrs Finching has been telling me, sir,' said Arthur, after making his acknowledgments; the relict of the late Mr F. meanwhile protesting, with a gesture, against his use of that respectable name; 'that she hopes occasionally to employ the young needlewoman you recommended to my mother.",3 For which I have been thanking her.',2 "The Patriarch turning his head in a lumbering way towards Pancks, that assistant put up the note-book in which he had been absorbed, and took him in tow.",2 "'You didn't recommend her, you know,' said Pancks; 'how could you?",3 "You knew nothing about her, you didn't.",2 "The name was mentioned to you, and you passed it on.",2 That's what _you_ did.',2 'Well!',2 said Clennam.,2 "'As she justifies any recommendation, it is much the same thing.'",3 "'You are glad she turns out well,' said Pancks, 'but it wouldn't have been your fault if she had turned out ill.",3 "The credit's not yours as it is, and the blame wouldn't have been yours as it might have been.",1 You gave no guarantee.,3 You knew nothing about her.',2 "'You are not acquainted, then,' said Arthur, hazarding a random question, 'with any of her family?'",2 'Acquainted with any of her family?',2 returned Pancks.,2 'How should you be acquainted with any of her family?,2 You never heard of 'em.,2 "You can't be acquainted with people you never heard of, can you?",2 You should think not!',2 "All this time the Patriarch sat serenely smiling; nodding or shaking his head benevolently, as the case required.",3 "'As to being a reference,' said Pancks, 'you know, in a general way, what being a reference means.",2 "It's all your eye, that is!",2 Look at your tenants down the Yard here.,2 "They'd all be references for one another, if you'd let 'em.",2 What would be the good of letting 'em?,3 It's no satisfaction to be done by two men instead of one.,2 One's enough.,3 "A person who can't pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay.",3 "Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural legs.",3 It don't make either of them able to do a walking match.,2 "And four wooden legs are more troublesome to you than two, when you don't want any.'",1 Mr Pancks concluded by blowing off that steam of his.,2 "A momentary silence that ensued was broken by Mr F.'s Aunt, who had been sitting upright in a cataleptic state since her last public remark.",1 "She now underwent a violent twitch, calculated to produce a startling effect on the nerves of the uninitiated, and with the deadliest animosity observed: 'You can't make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing in it.",0 You couldn't do it when your Uncle George was living; much less when he's dead.',1 "Mr Pancks was not slow to reply, with his usual calmness, 'Indeed, ma'am!",2 Bless my soul!,3 I'm surprised to hear it.',2 "Despite his presence of mind, however, the speech of Mr F.'s Aunt produced a depressing effect on the little assembly; firstly, because it was impossible to disguise that Clennam's unoffending head was the particular temple of reason depreciated; and secondly, because nobody ever knew on these occasions whose Uncle George was referred to, or what spectral presence might be invoked under that appellation.",1 "Therefore Flora said, though still not without a certain boastfulness and triumph in her legacy, that Mr F.'s Aunt was 'very lively to-day, and she thought they had better go.'",4 "But Mr F.'s Aunt proved so lively as to take the suggestion in unexpected dudgeon and declare that she would not go; adding, with several injurious expressions, that if 'He'--too evidently meaning Clennam--wanted to get rid of her, 'let him chuck her out of winder;' and urgently expressing her desire to see 'Him' perform that ceremony.",1 "In this dilemma, Mr Pancks, whose resources appeared equal to any emergency in the Patriarchal waters, slipped on his hat, slipped out at the counting-house door, and slipped in again a moment afterwards with an artificial freshness upon him, as if he had been in the country for some weeks.",1 "'Why, bless my heart, ma'am!'",3 "said Mr Pancks, rubbing up his hair in great astonishment, 'is that you?",3 "How do you _do_, ma'am?",2 You are looking charming to-day!,3 I am delighted to see you.,3 "Favour me with your arm, ma'am; we'll have a little walk together, you and me, if you'll honour me with your company.'",3 And so escorted Mr F.'s Aunt down the private staircase of the counting-house with great gallantry and success.,3 "The patriarchal Mr Casby then rose with the air of having done it himself, and blandly followed: leaving his daughter, as she followed in her turn, to remark to her former lover in a distracted whisper (which she very much enjoyed), that they had drained the cup of life to the dregs; and further to hint mysteriously that the late Mr F. was at the bottom of it.",2 "Alone again, Clennam became a prey to his old doubts in reference to his mother and Little Dorrit, and revolved the old thoughts and suspicions.",1 "They were all in his mind, blending themselves with the duties he was mechanically discharging, when a shadow on his papers caused him to look up for the cause.",2 The cause was Mr Pancks.,2 "With his hat thrown back upon his ears as if his wiry prongs of hair had darted up like springs and cast it off, with his jet-black beads of eyes inquisitively sharp, with the fingers of his right hand in his mouth that he might bite the nails, and with the fingers of his left hand in reserve in his pocket for another course, Mr Pancks cast his shadow through the glass upon the books and papers.",4 "Mr Pancks asked, with a little inquiring twist of his head, if he might come in again?",1 Clennam replied with a nod of his head in the affirmative.,3 "Mr Pancks worked his way in, came alongside the desk, made himself fast by leaning his arms upon it, and started conversation with a puff and a snort.",3 "'Mr F.'s Aunt is appeased, I hope?'",2 said Clennam.,2 "'All right, sir,' said Pancks.",3 "'I am so unfortunate as to have awakened a strong animosity in the breast of that lady,' said Clennam.",1 'Do you know why?',2 'Does she know why?',2 said Pancks.,2 'I suppose not.',2 " 'I suppose not,' said Pancks.",2 "He took out his note-book, opened it, shut it, dropped it into his hat, which was beside him on the desk, and looked in at it as it lay at the bottom of the hat: all with a great appearance of consideration.",3 "'Mr Clennam,' he then began, 'I am in want of information, sir.'",2 'Connected with this firm?',2 asked Clennam.,2 "'No,' said Pancks.",2 "'With what then, Mr Pancks?",2 "That is to say, assuming that you want it of me.'",2 "'Yes, sir; yes, I want it of you,' said Pancks, 'if I can persuade you to furnish it.",2 "A, B, C, D.",2 "DA, DE, DI, DO.",2 Dictionary order.,2 Dorrit.,2 "That's the name, sir?'",2 "Mr Pancks blew off his peculiar noise again, and fell to at his right-hand nails.",1 Arthur looked searchingly at him; he returned the look.,2 "'I don't understand you, Mr Pancks.'",2 'That's the name that I want to know about.',2 'And what do you want to know?',2 'Whatever you can and will tell me.',2 This comprehensive summary of his desires was not discharged without some heavy labouring on the part of Mr Pancks's machinery.,3 "'This is a singular visit, Mr Pancks.",2 "It strikes me as rather extraordinary that you should come, with such an object, to me.'",2 "'It may be all extraordinary together,' returned Pancks.",3 "'It may be out of the ordinary course, and yet be business.",2 "In short, it is business.",2 I am a man of business.,2 "What business have I in this present world, except to stick to business?",2 No business.',2 "With his former doubt whether this dry hard personage were quite in earnest, Clennam again turned his eyes attentively upon his face.",1 "It was as scrubby and dingy as ever, and as eager and quick as ever, and he could see nothing lurking in it that was at all expressive of a latent mockery that had seemed to strike upon his ear in the voice.",1 "'Now,' said Pancks, 'to put this business on its own footing, it's not my proprietor's.'",2 'Do you refer to Mr Casby as your proprietor?',2 Pancks nodded.,2 'My proprietor.,2 Put a case.,2 "Say, at my proprietor's I hear name--name of young person Mr Clennam wants to serve.",2 "Say, name first mentioned to my proprietor by Plornish in the Yard.",2 "Say, I go to Plornish.",2 "Say, I ask Plornish as a matter of business for information.",2 "Say, Plornish, though six weeks in arrear to my proprietor, declines.",1 "Say, Mrs Plornish declines.",1 "Say, both refer to Mr Clennam.",2 Put the case.',2 'Well?',2 "'Well, sir,' returned Pancks, 'say, I come to him.",2 "Say, here I am.'",2 "With those prongs of hair sticking up all over his head, and his breath coming and going very hard and short, the busy Pancks fell back a step (in Tug metaphor, took half a turn astern) as if to show his dingy hull complete, then forged a-head again, and directed his quick glance by turns into his hat where his note-book was, and into Clennam's face.",0 "'Mr Pancks, not to trespass on your grounds of mystery, I will be as plain with you as I can.",1 Let me ask two questions.,2 First--' 'All right!',3 "said Pancks, holding up his dirty forefinger with his broken nail.",1 I see!,2 """What's your motive?""",2 Exactly.',2 "'Motive,' said Pancks, 'good.",2 "Nothing to do with my proprietor; not stateable at present, ridiculous to state at present; but good.",2 "Desiring to serve young person, name of Dorrit,' said Pancks, with his forefinger still up as a caution.",3 'Better admit motive to be good.',3 "'Secondly, and lastly, what do you want to know?'",2 "Mr Pancks fished up his note-book before the question was put, and buttoning it with care in an inner breast-pocket, and looking straight at Clennam all the time, replied with a pause and a puff, 'I want supplementary information of any sort.'",2 "Clennam could not withhold a smile, as the panting little steam-tug, so useful to that unwieldy ship, the Casby, waited on and watched him as if it were seeking an opportunity of running in and rifling him of all he wanted before he could resist its manoeuvres; though there was that in Mr Pancks's eagerness, too, which awakened many wondering speculations in his mind.",3 "After a little consideration, he resolved to supply Mr Pancks with such leading information as it was in his power to impart him; well knowing that Mr Pancks, if he failed in his present research, was pretty sure to find other means of getting it.",3 "He, therefore, first requesting Mr Pancks to remember his voluntary declaration that his proprietor had no part in the disclosure, and that his own intentions were good (two declarations which that coaly little gentleman with the greatest ardour repeated), openly told him that as to the Dorrit lineage or former place of habitation, he had no information to communicate, and that his knowledge of the family did not extend beyond the fact that it appeared to be now reduced to five members; namely, to two brothers, of whom one was single, and one a widower with three children.",4 "The ages of the whole family he made known to Mr Pancks, as nearly as he could guess at them; and finally he described to him the position of the Father of the Marshalsea, and the course of time and events through which he had become invested with that character.",2 "To all this, Mr Pancks, snorting and blowing in a more and more portentous manner as he became more interested, listened with great attention; appearing to derive the most agreeable sensations from the painfullest parts of the narrative, and particularly to be quite charmed by the account of William Dorrit's long imprisonment.",3 "'In conclusion, Mr Pancks,' said Arthur, 'I have but to say this.",2 "I have reasons beyond a personal regard for speaking as little as I can of the Dorrit family, particularly at my mother's house' (Mr Pancks nodded), 'and for knowing as much as I can.",3 So devoted a man of business as you are--eh?',2 For Mr Pancks had suddenly made that blowing effort with unusual force.,1 "'It's nothing,' said Pancks.",2 'So devoted a man of business as yourself has a perfect understanding of a fair bargain.,4 "I wish to make a fair bargain with you, that you shall enlighten me concerning the Dorrit family when you have it in your power, as I have enlightened you.",4 "It may not give you a very flattering idea of my business habits, that I failed to make my terms beforehand,' continued Clennam; 'but I prefer to make them a point of honour.",3 "I have seen so much business done on sharp principles that, to tell you the truth, Mr Pancks, I am tired of them.'",2 Mr Pancks laughed.,2 "'It's a bargain, sir,' said he.",3 'You shall find me stick to it.',2 "After that, he stood a little while looking at Clennam, and biting his ten nails all round; evidently while he fixed in his mind what he had been told, and went over it carefully, before the means of supplying a gap in his memory should be no longer at hand.",1 "'It's all right,' he said at last, 'and now I'll wish you good day, as it's collecting day in the Yard.",3 "By-the-bye, though.",2 A lame foreigner with a stick.',1 "'Ay, ay.",2 "You do take a reference sometimes, I see?'",2 said Clennam.,2 "'When he can pay, sir,' replied Pancks.",2 "'Take all you can get, and keep back all you can't be forced to give up.",2 That's business.,2 The lame foreigner with the stick wants a top room down the Yard.,2 Is he good for it?',3 "'I am,' said Clennam, 'and I will answer for him.'",2 'That's enough.,3 "What I must have of Bleeding Heart Yard,' said Pancks, making a note of the case in his book, 'is my bond.",1 "I want my bond, you see.",2 "Pay up, or produce your property!",2 That's the watchword down the Yard.,2 The lame foreigner with the stick represented that you sent him; but he could represent (as far as that goes) that the Great Mogul sent him.,2 "He has been in the hospital, I believe?'",2 'Yes.,2 Through having met with an accident.,2 He is only just now discharged.',2 "'It's pauperising a man, sir, I have been shown, to let him into a hospital?'",2 said Pancks.,2 And again blew off that remarkable sound.,3 "'I have been shown so too,' said Clennam, coldly.",1 "Mr Pancks, being by that time quite ready for a start, got under steam in a moment, and, without any other signal or ceremony, was snorting down the step-ladder and working into Bleeding Heart Yard, before he seemed to be well out of the counting-house.",3 "Throughout the remainder of the day, Bleeding Heart Yard was in consternation, as the grim Pancks cruised in it; haranguing the inhabitants on their backslidings in respect of payment, demanding his bond, breathing notices to quit and executions, running down defaulters, sending a swell of terror on before him, and leaving it in his wake.",0 "Knots of people, impelled by a fatal attraction, lurked outside any house in which he was known to be, listening for fragments of his discourses to the inmates; and, when he was rumoured to be coming down the stairs, often could not disperse so quickly but that he would be prematurely in among them, demanding their own arrears, and rooting them to the spot.",2 "Throughout the remainder of the day, Mr Pancks's What were they up to?",2 and What did they mean by it?,2 sounded all over the Yard.,2 "Mr Pancks wouldn't hear of excuses, wouldn't hear of complaints, wouldn't hear of repairs, wouldn't hear of anything but unconditional money down.",1 "Perspiring and puffing and darting about in eccentric directions, and becoming hotter and dingier every moment, he lashed the tide of the yard into a most agitated and turbid state.",1 It had not settled down into calm water again full two hours after he had been seen fuming away on the horizon at the top of the steps.,3 "There were several small assemblages of the Bleeding Hearts at the popular points of meeting in the Yard that night, among whom it was universally agreed that Mr Pancks was a hard man to have to do with; and that it was much to be regretted, so it was, that a gentleman like Mr Casby should put his rents in his hands, and never know him in his true light.",1 "For (said the Bleeding Hearts), if a gentleman with that head of hair and them eyes took his rents into his own hands, ma'am, there would be none of this worriting and wearing, and things would be very different.",1 "At which identical evening hour and minute, the Patriarch--who had floated serenely through the Yard in the forenoon before the harrying began, with the express design of getting up this trustfulness in his shining bumps and silken locks--at which identical hour and minute, that first-rate humbug of a thousand guns was heavily floundering in the little Dock of his exhausted Tug at home, and was saying, as he turned his thumbs: 'A very bad day's work, Pancks, very bad day's work.",0 "It seems to me, sir, and I must insist on making this observation forcibly in justice to myself, that you ought to have got much more money, much more money.'",2 "Little Dorrit received a call that same evening from Mr Plornish, who, having intimated that he wished to speak to her privately, in a series of coughs so very noticeable as to favour the idea that her father, as regarded her seamstress occupation, was an illustration of the axiom that there are no such stone-blind men as those who will not see, obtained an audience with her on the common staircase outside the door.",2 "'There's been a lady at our place to-day, Miss Dorrit,' Plornish growled, 'and another one along with her as is a old wixen if ever I met with such.",1 "The way she snapped a person's head off, dear me!'",2 The mild Plornish was at first quite unable to get his mind away from Mr F.'s Aunt.,1 "'For,' said he, to excuse himself, 'she is, I do assure you, the winegariest party.'",2 "At length, by a great effort, he detached himself from the subject sufficiently to observe: 'But she's neither here nor there just at present.",3 "The other lady, she's Mr Casby's daughter; and if Mr Casby an't well off, none better, it an't through any fault of Pancks.",3 "For, as to Pancks, he does, he really does, he does indeed!'",2 "Mr Plornish, after his usual manner, was a little obscure, but conscientiously emphatic.",1 "'And what she come to our place for,' he pursued, 'was to leave word that if Miss Dorrit would step up to that card--which it's Mr Casby's house that is, and Pancks he has a office at the back, where he really does, beyond belief--she would be glad for to engage her.",2 "She was a old and a dear friend, she said particular, of Mr Clennam, and hoped for to prove herself a useful friend to _his_ friend.",3 Them was her words.,2 "Wishing to know whether Miss Dorrit could come to-morrow morning, I said I would see you, Miss, and inquire, and look round there to-night, to say yes, or, if you was engaged to-morrow, when?'",1 "'I can go to-morrow, thank you,' said Little Dorrit.",3 "'This is very kind of you, but you are always kind.'",2 "Mr Plornish, with a modest disavowal of his merits, opened the room door for her readmission, and followed her in with such an exceedingly bald pretence of not having been out at all, that her father might have observed it without being very suspicious.",1 "In his affable unconsciousness, however, he took no heed.",3 "Plornish, after a little conversation, in which he blended his former duty as a Collegian with his present privilege as a humble outside friend, qualified again by his low estate as a plasterer, took his leave; making the tour of the prison before he left, and looking on at a game of skittles with the mixed feelings of an old inhabitant who had his private reasons for believing that it might be his destiny to come back again.",4 "Early in the morning, Little Dorrit, leaving Maggy in high domestic trust, set off for the Patriarchal tent.",3 "She went by the Iron Bridge, though it cost her a penny, and walked more slowly in that part of her journey than in any other.",1 "At five minutes before eight her hand was on the Patriarchal knocker, which was quite as high as she could reach.",2 "She gave Mrs Finching's card to the young woman who opened the door, and the young woman told her that 'Miss Flora'--Flora having, on her return to the parental roof, reinvested herself with the title under which she had lived there--was not yet out of her bedroom, but she was to please to walk up into Miss Flora's sitting-room.",1 "She walked up into Miss Flora's sitting-room, as in duty bound, and there found a breakfast-table comfortably laid for two, with a supplementary tray upon it laid for one.",2 "The young woman, disappearing for a few moments, returned to say that she was to please to take a chair by the fire, and to take off her bonnet and make herself at home.",2 "But Little Dorrit, being bashful, and not used to make herself at home on such occasions, felt at a loss how to do it; so she was still sitting near the door with her bonnet on, when Flora came in in a hurry half an hour afterwards.",1 "Flora was so sorry to have kept her waiting, and good gracious why did she sit out there in the cold when she had expected to find her by the fire reading the paper, and hadn't that heedless girl given her the message then, and had she really been in her bonnet all this time, and pray for goodness sake let Flora take it off!",2 "Flora taking it off in the best-natured manner in the world, was so struck with the face disclosed, that she said, 'Why, what a good little thing you are, my dear!'",3 and pressed her face between her hands like the gentlest of women.,3 It was the word and the action of a moment.,2 "Little Dorrit had hardly time to think how kind it was, when Flora dashed at the breakfast-table full of business, and plunged over head and ears into loquacity.",2 "'Really so sorry that I should happen to be late on this morning of all mornings because my intention and my wish was to be ready to meet you when you came in and to say that any one that interested Arthur Clennam half so much must interest me and that I gave you the heartiest welcome and was so glad, instead of which they never called me and there I still am snoring I dare say if the truth was known and if you don't like either cold fowl or hot boiled ham which many people don't I dare say besides Jews and theirs are scruples of conscience which we must all respect though I must say I wish they had them equally strong when they sell us false articles for real that certainly ain't worth the money I shall be quite vexed,' said Flora.",4 "Little Dorrit thanked her, and said, shyly, bread-and-butter and tea was all she usually-- 'Oh nonsense my dear child I can never hear of that,' said Flora, turning on the urn in the most reckless manner, and making herself wink by splashing hot water into her eyes as she bent down to look into the teapot.",1 "'You are coming here on the footing of a friend and companion you know if you will let me take that liberty and I should be ashamed of myself indeed if you could come here upon any other, besides which Arthur Clennam spoke in such terms--you are tired my dear.'",1 "'No, ma'am.'",2 "'You turn so pale you have walked too far before breakfast and I dare say live a great way off and ought to have had a ride,' said Flora, 'dear dear is there anything that would do you good?'",3 "'Indeed I am quite well, ma'am.",3 "I thank you again and again, but I am quite well.'",3 "'Then take your tea at once I beg,' said Flora, 'and this wing of fowl and bit of ham, don't mind me or wait for me, because I always carry in this tray myself to Mr F.'s Aunt who breakfasts in bed and a charming old lady too and very clever, Portrait of Mr F. behind the door and very like though too much forehead and as to a pillar with a marble pavement and balustrades and a mountain, I never saw him near it nor not likely in the wine trade, excellent man but not at all in that way.'",4 "Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait, very imperfectly following the references to that work of art.",2 "'Mr F. was so devoted to me that he never could bear me out of his sight,' said Flora, 'though of course I am unable to say how long that might have lasted if he hadn't been cut short while I was a new broom, worthy man but not poetical manly prose but not romance.'",2 Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait again.,2 "The artist had given it a head that would have been, in an intellectual point of view, top-heavy for Shakespeare.",3 "'Romance, however,' Flora went on, busily arranging Mr F.'s Aunt's toast, 'as I openly said to Mr F. when he proposed to me and you will be surprised to hear that he proposed seven times once in a hackney-coach once in a boat once in a pew once on a donkey at Tunbridge Wells and the rest on his knees, Romance was fled with the early days of Arthur Clennam, our parents tore us asunder we became marble and stern reality usurped the throne, Mr F. said very much to his credit that he was perfectly aware of it and even preferred that state of things accordingly the word was spoken the fiat went forth and such is life you see my dear and yet we do not break but bend, pray make a good breakfast while I go in with the tray.'",2 "She disappeared, leaving Little Dorrit to ponder over the meaning of her scattered words.",2 "She soon came back again; and at last began to take her own breakfast, talking all the while.",2 "'You see, my dear,' said Flora, measuring out a spoonful or two of some brown liquid that smelt like brandy, and putting it into her tea, 'I am obliged to be careful to follow the directions of my medical man though the flavour is anything but agreeable being a poor creature and it may be have never recovered the shock received in youth from too much giving way to crying in the next room when separated from Arthur, have you known him long?'",1 "As soon as Little Dorrit comprehended that she had been asked this question--for which time was necessary, the galloping pace of her new patroness having left her far behind--she answered that she had known Mr Clennam ever since his return.",2 "'To be sure you couldn't have known him before unless you had been in China or had corresponded neither of which is likely,' returned Flora, 'for travelling-people usually get more or less mahogany and you are not at all so and as to corresponding what about?",2 "that's very true unless tea, so it was at his mother's was it really that you knew him first, highly sensible and firm but dreadfully severe--ought to be the mother of the man in the iron mask.'",1 "'Mrs Clennam has been kind to me,' said Little Dorrit.",2 'Really?,2 "I am sure I am glad to hear it because as Arthur's mother it's naturally pleasant to my feelings to have a better opinion of her than I had before, though what she thinks of me when I run on as I am certain to do and she sits glowering at me like Fate in a go-cart--shocking comparison really--invalid and not her fault--I never know or can imagine.'",3 "'Shall I find my work anywhere, ma'am?'",3 "asked Little Dorrit, looking timidly about; 'can I get it?'",1 "'You industrious little fairy,' returned Flora, taking, in another cup of tea, another of the doses prescribed by her medical man, 'there's not the slightest hurry and it's better that we should begin by being confidential about our mutual friend--too cold a word for me at least I don't mean that, very proper expression mutual friend--than become through mere formalities not you but me like the Spartan boy with the fox biting him, which I hope you'll excuse my bringing up for of all the tiresome boys that will go tumbling into every sort of company that boy's the tiresomest.'",2 "Little Dorrit, her face very pale, sat down again to listen.",1 'Hadn't I better work the while?',3 she asked.,2 'I can work and attend too.,3 "I would rather, if I may.' Her earnestness was so expressive of her being uneasy without her work, that Flora answered, 'Well my dear whatever you like best,' and produced a basket of white handkerchiefs.",4 "Little Dorrit gladly put it by her side, took out her little pocket-housewife, threaded the needle, and began to hem.",3 "'What nimble fingers you have,' said Flora, 'but are you sure you are well?'",3 "'Oh yes, indeed!'",2 "Flora put her feet upon the fender, and settled herself for a thorough good romantic disclosure.",3 "She started off at score, tossing her head, sighing in the most demonstrative manner, making a great deal of use of her eyebrows, and occasionally, but not often, glancing at the quiet face that bent over the work.",3 "'You must know my dear,' said Flora, 'but that I have no doubt you know already not only because I have already thrown it out in a general way but because I feel I carry it stamped in burning what's his names upon my brow that before I was introduced to the late Mr F. I had been engaged to Arthur Clennam--Mr Clennam in public where reserve is necessary Arthur here--we were all in all to one another it was the morning of life it was bliss it was frenzy it was everything else of that sort in the highest degree, when rent asunder we turned to stone in which capacity Arthur went to China and I became the statue bride of the late Mr F.' Flora, uttering these words in a deep voice, enjoyed herself immensely.",1 "'To paint,' said she, 'the emotions of that morning when all was marble within and Mr F.'s Aunt followed in a glass-coach which it stands to reason must have been in shameful repair or it never could have broken down two streets from the house and Mr F.'s Aunt brought home like the fifth of November in a rush-bottomed chair I will not attempt, suffice it to say that the hollow form of breakfast took place in the dining-room downstairs that papa partaking too freely of pickled salmon was ill for weeks and that Mr F. and myself went upon a continental tour to Calais where the people fought for us on the pier until they separated us though not for ever that was not yet to be.'",1 "The statue bride, hardly pausing for breath, went on, with the greatest complacency, in a rambling manner sometimes incidental to flesh and blood.",3 "'I will draw a veil over that dreamy life, Mr F. was in good spirits his appetite was good he liked the cookery he considered the wine weak but palatable and all was well, we returned to the immediate neighbourhood of Number Thirty Little Gosling Street London Docks and settled down, ere we had yet fully detected the housemaid in selling the feathers out of the spare bed Gout flying upwards soared with Mr F. to another sphere.'",3 "His relict, with a glance at his portrait, shook her head and wiped her eyes.",2 "'I revere the memory of Mr F. as an estimable man and most indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint bottle it was not ecstasy but it was comfort, I returned to papa's roof and lived secluded if not happy during some years until one day papa came smoothly blundering in and said that Arthur Clennam awaited me below, I went below and found him ask me not what I found him except that he was still unmarried still unchanged!'",4 The dark mystery with which Flora now enshrouded herself might have stopped other fingers than the nimble fingers that worked near her.,2 "They worked on without pause, and the busy head bent over them watching the stitches.",2 "'Ask me not,' said Flora, 'if I love him still or if he still loves me or what the end is to be or when, we are surrounded by watchful eyes and it may be that we are destined to pine asunder it may be never more to be reunited not a word not a breath not a look to betray us all must be secret as the tomb wonder not therefore that even if I should seem comparatively cold to Arthur or Arthur should seem comparatively cold to me we have fatal reasons it is enough if we understand them hush!'",2 All of which Flora said with so much headlong vehemence as if she really believed it.,2 "There is not much doubt that when she worked herself into full mermaid condition, she did actually believe whatever she said in it.",2 'Hush!',2 "repeated Flora, 'I have now told you all, confidence is established between us hush, for Arthur's sake I will always be a friend to you my dear girl and in Arthur's name you may always rely upon me.'",3 "The nimble fingers laid aside the work, and the little figure rose and kissed her hand.",3 "'You are very cold,' said Flora, changing to her own natural kind-hearted manner, and gaining greatly by the change.",2 'Don't work to-day.,3 I am sure you are not well I am sure you are not strong.',3 "'It is only that I feel a little overcome by your kindness, and by Mr Clennam's kindness in confiding me to one he has known and loved so long.'",3 "'Well really my dear,' said Flora, who had a decided tendency to be always honest when she gave herself time to think about it, 'it's as well to leave that alone now, for I couldn't undertake to say after all, but it doesn't signify lie down a little!'",3 "'I have always been strong enough to do what I want to do, and I shall be quite well directly,' returned Little Dorrit, with a faint smile.",4 "'You have overpowered me with gratitude, that's all.",3 If I keep near the window for a moment I shall be quite myself.',2 "Flora opened a window, sat her in a chair by it, and considerately retired to her former place.",2 "It was a windy day, and the air stirring on Little Dorrit's face soon brightened it.",2 "In a very few minutes she returned to her basket of work, and her nimble fingers were as nimble as ever.",3 "Quietly pursuing her task, she asked Flora if Mr Clennam had told her where she lived?",2 "When Flora replied in the negative, Little Dorrit said that she understood why he had been so delicate, but that she felt sure he would approve of her confiding her secret to Flora, and that she would therefore do so now with Flora's permission.",3 "Receiving an encouraging answer, she condensed the narrative of her life into a few scanty words about herself and a glowing eulogy upon her father; and Flora took it all in with a natural tenderness that quite understood it, and in which there was no incoherence.",2 "When dinner-time came, Flora drew the arm of her new charge through hers, and led her down-stairs, and presented her to the Patriarch and Mr Pancks, who were already in the dining-room waiting to begin.",3 "(Mr F.'s Aunt was, for the time, laid up in ordinary in her chamber.) By those gentlemen she was received according to their characters; the Patriarch appearing to do her some inestimable service in saying that he was glad to see her, glad to see her; and Mr Pancks blowing off his favourite sound as a salute.",4 "In that new presence she would have been bashful enough under any circumstances, and particularly under Flora's insisting on her drinking a glass of wine and eating of the best that was there; but her constraint was greatly increased by Mr Pancks.",3 "The demeanour of that gentleman at first suggested to her mind that he might be a taker of likenesses, so intently did he look at her, and so frequently did he glance at the little note-book by his side.",2 "Observing that he made no sketch, however, and that he talked about business only, she began to have suspicions that he represented some creditor of her father's, the balance due to whom was noted in that pocket volume.",1 "Regarded from this point of view Mr Pancks's puffings expressed injury and impatience, and each of his louder snorts became a demand for payment.",0 But here again she was undeceived by anomalous and incongruous conduct on the part of Mr Pancks himself.,1 "She had left the table half an hour, and was at work alone.",3 "Flora had 'gone to lie down' in the next room, concurrently with which retirement a smell of something to drink had broken out in the house.",0 "The Patriarch was fast asleep, with his philanthropic mouth open under a yellow pocket-handkerchief in the dining-room.",3 "At this quiet time, Mr Pancks softly appeared before her, urbanely nodding.",3 "'Find it a little dull, Miss Dorrit?'",1 inquired Pancks in a low voice.,2 "'No, thank you, sir,' said Little Dorrit.",3 "'Busy, I see,' observed Mr Pancks, stealing into the room by inches.",1 "'What are those now, Miss Dorrit?'",1 'Handkerchiefs.',2 "'Are they, though!'",2 said Pancks.,2 'I shouldn't have thought it.',2 "Not in the least looking at them, but looking at Little Dorrit.",2 'Perhaps you wonder who I am.,3 Shall I tell you?,2 I am a fortune-teller.',3 Little Dorrit now began to think he was mad.,1 "'I belong body and soul to my proprietor,' said Pancks; 'you saw my proprietor having his dinner below.",2 "But I do a little in the other way, sometimes; privately, very privately, Miss Dorrit.'",1 "Little Dorrit looked at him doubtfully, and not without alarm.",1 "'I wish you'd show me the palm of your hand,' said Pancks.",2 'I should like to have a look at it.,3 Don't let me be troublesome.',1 "He was so far troublesome that he was not at all wanted there, but she laid her work in her lap for a moment, and held out her left hand with her thimble on it.",2 "'Years of toil, eh?'",1 "said Pancks, softly, touching it with his blunt forefinger.",1 'But what else are we made for?,2 Nothing.,2 Hallo!',2 looking into the lines.,2 'What's this with bars?,2 It's a College!,2 And what's this with a grey gown and a black velvet cap?,2 it's a father!,2 And what's this with a clarionet?,2 It's an uncle!,2 And what's this in dancing-shoes?,2 It's a sister!,2 And what's this straggling about in an idle sort of a way?,1 It's a brother!,2 And what's this thinking for 'em all?,2 "Why, this is you, Miss Dorrit!'",1 "Her eyes met his as she looked up wonderingly into his face, and she thought that although his were sharp eyes, he was a brighter and gentler-looking man than she had supposed at dinner.",3 "His eyes were on her hand again directly, and her opportunity of confirming or correcting the impression was gone.",2 "'Now, the deuce is in it,' muttered Pancks, tracing out a line in her hand with his clumsy finger, 'if this isn't me in the corner here!",1 What do I want here?,2 What's behind me?',2 "He carried his finger slowly down to the wrist, and round the wrist, and affected to look at the back of the hand for what was behind him.",1 'Is it any harm?',1 "asked Little Dorrit, smiling.",3 'Deuce a bit!',2 said Pancks.,2 'What do you think it's worth?',3 'I ought to ask you that.,2 I am not the fortune-teller.',3 "'True,' said Pancks.",2 'What's it worth?,3 "You shall live to see, Miss Dorrit.'",1 "Releasing the hand by slow degrees, he drew all his fingers through his prongs of hair, so that they stood up in their most portentous manner; and repeated slowly, 'Remember what I say, Miss Dorrit.",0 You shall live to see.',2 "She could not help showing that she was much surprised, if it were only by his knowing so much about her.",2 'Ah!,2 That's it!',2 "said Pancks, pointing at her.",2 "'Miss Dorrit, not that, ever!'",2 "More surprised than before, and a little more frightened, she looked to him for an explanation of his last words.",2 "'Not that,' said Pancks, making, with great seriousness, an imitation of a surprised look and manner that appeared to be unintentionally grotesque.",1 'Don't do that.,2 "Never on seeing me, no matter when, no matter where.",2 I am nobody.,2 Don't take on to mind me.,2 Don't mention me.,2 Take no notice.,2 "Will you agree, Miss Dorrit?'",1 "'I hardly know what to say,' returned Little Dorrit, quite astounded.",3 'Why?',2 'Because I am a fortune-teller.,3 Pancks the gipsy.,2 "I haven't told you so much of your fortune yet, Miss Dorrit, as to tell you what's behind me on that little hand.",2 I have told you you shall live to see.,2 "Is it agreed, Miss Dorrit?'",1 "'Agreed that I--am--to--' 'To take no notice of me away from here, unless I take on first.",2 Not to mind me when I come and go.,2 It's very easy.,3 "I am no loss, I am not handsome, I am not good company, I am only my proprietors grubber.",3 "You need do no more than think, ""Ah!",2 "Pancks the gipsy at his fortune-telling--he'll tell the rest of my fortune one day--I shall live to know it.""",3 "Is it agreed, Miss Dorrit?'",1 "'Ye-es,' faltered Little Dorrit, whom he greatly confused, 'I suppose so, while you do no harm.'",0 'Good!',2 "Mr Pancks glanced at the wall of the adjoining room, and stooped forward.",2 "'Honest creature, woman of capital points, but heedless and a loose talker, Miss Dorrit.'",0 "With that he rubbed his hands as if the interview had been very satisfactory to him, panted away to the door, and urbanely nodded himself out again.",3 "If Little Dorrit were beyond measure perplexed by this curious conduct on the part of her new acquaintance, and by finding herself involved in this singular treaty, her perplexity was not diminished by ensuing circumstances.",1 "Besides that Mr Pancks took every opportunity afforded him in Mr Casby's house of significantly glancing at her and snorting at her--which was not much, after what he had done already--he began to pervade her daily life.",2 "She saw him in the street, constantly.",2 "When she went to Mr Casby's, he was always there.",2 "When she went to Mrs Clennam's, he came there on any pretence, as if to keep her in his sight.",1 "A week had not gone by, when she found him to her astonishment in the Lodge one night, conversing with the turnkey on duty, and to all appearance one of his familiar companions.",3 "Her next surprise was to find him equally at his ease within the prison; to hear of his presenting himself among the visitors at her father's Sunday levee; to see him arm in arm with a Collegiate friend about the yard; to learn, from Fame, that he had greatly distinguished himself one evening at the social club that held its meetings in the Snuggery, by addressing a speech to the members of the institution, singing a song, and treating the company to five gallons of ale--report madly added a bushel of shrimps.",3 "The effect on Mr Plornish of such of these phenomena as he became an eye-witness of in his faithful visits, made an impression on Little Dorrit only second to that produced by the phenomena themselves.",3 They seemed to gag and bind him.,2 "He could only stare, and sometimes weakly mutter that it wouldn't be believed down Bleeding Heart Yard that this was Pancks; but he never said a word more, or made a sign more, even to Little Dorrit.",1 "Mr Pancks crowned his mysteries by making himself acquainted with Tip in some unknown manner, and taking a Sunday saunter into the College on that gentleman's arm.",1 "Throughout he never took any notice of Little Dorrit, save once or twice when he happened to come close to her and there was no one very near; on which occasions, he said in passing, with a friendly look and a puff of encouragement, 'Pancks the gipsy--fortune-telling.'",4 "Little Dorrit worked and strove as usual, wondering at all this, but keeping her wonder, as she had from her earliest years kept many heavier loads, in her own breast.",3 "A change had stolen, and was stealing yet, over the patient heart.",1 Every day found her something more retiring than the day before.,2 "To pass in and out of the prison unnoticed, and elsewhere to be overlooked and forgotten, were, for herself, her chief desires.",1 "To her own room too, strangely assorted room for her delicate youth and character, she was glad to retreat as often as she could without desertion of any duty.",1 "There were afternoon times when she was unemployed, when visitors dropped in to play a hand at cards with her father, when she could be spared and was better away.",2 "Then she would flit along the yard, climb the scores of stairs that led to her room, and take her seat at the window.",3 "Many combinations did those spikes upon the wall assume, many light shapes did the strong iron weave itself into, many golden touches fell upon the rust, while Little Dorrit sat there musing.",2 "New zig-zags sprung into the cruel pattern sometimes, when she saw it through a burst of tears; but beautified or hardened still, always over it and under it and through it, she was fain to look in her solitude, seeing everything with that ineffaceable brand.",1 "A garret, and a Marshalsea garret without compromise, was Little Dorrit's room.",2 "Beautifully kept, it was ugly in itself, and had little but cleanliness and air to set it off; for what embellishment she had ever been able to buy, had gone to her father's room.",3 "Howbeit, for this poor place she showed an increasing love; and to sit in it alone became her favourite rest.",2 "Insomuch, that on a certain afternoon during the Pancks mysteries, when she was seated at her window, and heard Maggy's well-known step coming up the stairs, she was very much disturbed by the apprehension of being summoned away.",1 "As Maggy's step came higher up and nearer, she trembled and faltered; and it was as much as she could do to speak, when Maggy at length appeared.",1 "'Please, Little Mother,' said Maggy, panting for breath, 'you must come down and see him.",2 He's here.',2 "'Who, Maggy?'",2 "'Who, o' course Mr Clennam.",2 "He's in your father's room, and he says to me, Maggy, will you be so kind and go and say it's only me.'",2 "'I am not very well, Maggy.",3 I had better not go.,3 I am going to lie down.,1 See!,2 "I lie down now, to ease my head.",2 "Say, with my grateful regard, that you left me so, or I would have come.'",3 "'Well, it an't very polite though, Little Mother,' said the staring Maggy, 'to turn your face away, neither!'",3 "Maggy was very susceptible to personal slights, and very ingenious in inventing them.",2 'Putting both your hands afore your face too!',2 she went on.,2 "'If you can't bear the looks of a poor thing, it would be better to tell her so at once, and not go and shut her out like that, hurting her feelings and breaking her heart at ten year old, poor thing!'",1 "'It's to ease my head, Maggy.'",3 "'Well, and if you cry to ease your head, Little Mother, let me cry too.",2 "Don't go and have all the crying to yourself,' expostulated Maggy, 'that an't not being greedy.'",1 And immediately began to blubber.,2 "It was with some difficulty that she could be induced to go back with the excuse; but the promise of being told a story--of old her great delight--on condition that she concentrated her faculties upon the errand and left her little mistress to herself for an hour longer, combined with a misgiving on Maggy's part that she had left her good temper at the bottom of the staircase, prevailed.",1 "So away she went, muttering her message all the way to keep it in her mind, and, at the appointed time, came back.",2 "'He was very sorry, I can tell you,' she announced, 'and wanted to send a doctor.",1 "And he's coming again to-morrow he is and I don't think he'll have a good sleep to-night along o' hearing about your head, Little Mother.",3 Oh my!,2 Ain't you been a-crying!',2 "'I think I have, a little, Maggy.'",2 'A little!,2 Oh!',2 "'But it's all over now--all over for good, Maggy.",3 "And my head is much better and cooler, and I am quite comfortable.",3 I am very glad I did not go down.',3 "Her great staring child tenderly embraced her; and having smoothed her hair, and bathed her forehead and eyes with cold water (offices in which her awkward hands became skilful), hugged her again, exulted in her brighter looks, and stationed her in her chair by the window.",3 "Over against this chair, Maggy, with apoplectic exertions that were not at all required, dragged the box which was her seat on story-telling occasions, sat down upon it, hugged her own knees, and said, with a voracious appetite for stories, and with widely-opened eyes: 'Now, Little Mother, let's have a good 'un!'",2 "'What shall it be about, Maggy?'",2 "'Oh, let's have a princess,' said Maggy, 'and let her be a reg'lar one.",2 "Beyond all belief, you know!'",2 "Little Dorrit considered for a moment; and with a rather sad smile upon her face, which was flushed by the sunset, began: 'Maggy, there was once upon a time a fine King, and he had everything he could wish for, and a great deal more.",3 "He had gold and silver, diamonds and rubies, riches of every kind.",3 "He had palaces, and he had--' 'Hospitals,' interposed Maggy, still nursing her knees.",2 "'Let him have hospitals, because they're so comfortable.",3 Hospitals with lots of Chicking.',2 "'Yes, he had plenty of them, and he had plenty of everything.'",2 "'Plenty of baked potatoes, for instance?'",2 said Maggy.,2 'Plenty of everything.',2 'Lor!',2 "chuckled Maggy, giving her knees a hug.",3 'Wasn't it prime!',2 "'This King had a daughter, who was the wisest and most beautiful Princess that ever was seen.",3 "When she was a child she understood all her lessons before her masters taught them to her; and when she was grown up, she was the wonder of the world.",3 "Now, near the Palace where this Princess lived, there was a cottage in which there was a poor little tiny woman, who lived all alone by herself.'",1 "'An old woman,' said Maggy, with an unctuous smack of her lips.",1 "'No, not an old woman.",2 Quite a young one.',2 "'I wonder she warn't afraid,' said Maggy.",2 "'Go on, please.'",2 "'The Princess passed the cottage nearly every day, and whenever she went by in her beautiful carriage, she saw the poor tiny woman spinning at her wheel, and she looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman looked at her.",2 "So, one day she stopped the coachman a little way from the cottage, and got out and walked on and peeped in at the door, and there, as usual, was the tiny woman spinning at her wheel, and she looked at the Princess, and the Princess looked at her.'",2 "'Like trying to stare one another out,' said Maggy.",2 "'Please go on, Little Mother.'",2 "'The Princess was such a wonderful Princess that she had the power of knowing secrets, and she said to the tiny woman, Why do you keep it there?",3 "This showed her directly that the Princess knew why she lived all alone by herself spinning at her wheel, and she kneeled down at the Princess's feet, and asked her never to betray her.",1 "So the Princess said, I never will betray you.",1 Let me see it.,2 "So the tiny woman closed the shutter of the cottage window and fastened the door, and trembling from head to foot for fear that any one should suspect her, opened a very secret place and showed the Princess a shadow.'",1 'Lor!',2 said Maggy.,2 "'It was the shadow of Some one who had gone by long before: of Some one who had gone on far away quite out of reach, never, never to come back.",2 "It was bright to look at; and when the tiny woman showed it to the Princess, she was proud of it with all her heart, as a great, great treasure.",4 "When the Princess had considered it a little while, she said to the tiny woman, And you keep watch over this every day?",2 "And she cast down her eyes, and whispered, Yes.",2 "Then the Princess said, Remind me why.",2 "To which the other replied, that no one so good and kind had ever passed that way, and that was why in the beginning.",3 "She said, too, that nobody missed it, that nobody was the worse for it, that Some one had gone on, to those who were expecting him--' 'Some one was a man then?'",1 interposed Maggy.,2 "Little Dorrit timidly said Yes, she believed so; and resumed: '--Had gone on to those who were expecting him, and that this remembrance was stolen or kept back from nobody.",1 "The Princess made answer, Ah!",2 But when the cottager died it would be discovered there.,1 "The tiny woman told her No; when that time came, it would sink quietly into her own grave, and would never be found.'",1 "'Well, to be sure!'",2 said Maggy.,2 "'Go on, please.'",2 "'The Princess was very much astonished to hear this, as you may suppose, Maggy.'",3 " 'And well she might be,' said Maggy. 'So she resolved to watch the tiny woman, and see what came of it.",3 "Every day she drove in her beautiful carriage by the cottage-door, and there she saw the tiny woman always alone by herself spinning at her wheel, and she looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman looked at her.",3 "At last one day the wheel was still, and the tiny woman was not to be seen.",2 "When the Princess made inquiries why the wheel had stopped, and where the tiny woman was, she was informed that the wheel had stopped because there was nobody to turn it, the tiny woman being dead.'",1 " 'They ought to have took her to the Hospital,' said Maggy, and then she'd have got over it.'",2 " 'The Princess, after crying a very little for the loss of the tiny woman, dried her eyes and got out of her carriage at the place where she had stopped it before, and went to the cottage and peeped in at the door.",1 "There was nobody to look at her now, and nobody for her to look at, so she went in at once to search for the treasured shadow.",2 "But there was no sign of it to be found anywhere; and then she knew that the tiny woman had told her the truth, and that it would never give anybody any trouble, and that it had sunk quietly into her own grave, and that she and it were at rest together.",1 "'That's all, Maggy.'",2 "The sunset flush was so bright on Little Dorrit's face when she came thus to the end of her story, that she interposed her hand to shade it.",3 'Had she got to be old?',2 Maggy asked.,2 'The tiny woman?',2 'Ah!',2 "'I don't know,' said Little Dorrit.",2 'But it would have been just the same if she had been ever so old.',2 'Would it raly!',2 said Maggy.,2 "'Well, I suppose it would though.'",2 And sat staring and ruminating.,2 "She sat so long with her eyes wide open, that at length Little Dorrit, to entice her from her box, rose and looked out of window.",3 "As she glanced down into the yard, she saw Pancks come in and leer up with the corner of his eye as he went by.",1 "'Who's he, Little Mother?'",2 said Maggy.,2 She had joined her at the window and was leaning on her shoulder.,2 'I see him come in and out often.',2 "'I have heard him called a fortune-teller,' said Little Dorrit.",3 'But I doubt if he could tell many people even their past or present fortunes.',1 'Couldn't have told the Princess hers?',2 said Maggy.,2 "Little Dorrit, looking musingly down into the dark valley of the prison, shook her head.",1 'Nor the tiny woman hers?',2 said Maggy.,2 "'No,' said Little Dorrit, with the sunset very bright upon her.",3 'But let us come away from the window.',2 "The private residence of Mr Pancks was in Pentonville, where he lodged on the second-floor of a professional gentleman in an extremely small way, who had an inner-door within the street door, poised on a spring and starting open with a click like a trap; and who wrote up in the fan-light, RUGG, GENERAL AGENT, ACCOUNTANT, DEBTS RECOVERED.",2 "This scroll, majestic in its severe simplicity, illuminated a little slip of front garden abutting on the thirsty high-road, where a few of the dustiest of leaves hung their dismal heads and led a life of choking.",1 "A professor of writing occupied the first-floor, and enlivened the garden railings with glass-cases containing choice examples of what his pupils had been before six lessons and while the whole of his young family shook the table, and what they had become after six lessons when the young family was under restraint.",2 "The tenancy of Mr Pancks was limited to one airy bedroom; he covenanting and agreeing with Mr Rugg his landlord, that in consideration of a certain scale of payments accurately defined, and on certain verbal notice duly given, he should be at liberty to elect to share the Sunday breakfast, dinner, tea, or supper, or each or any or all of those repasts or meals of Mr and Miss Rugg (his daughter) in the back-parlour.",2 "Miss Rugg was a lady of a little property which she had acquired, together with much distinction in the neighbourhood, by having her heart severely lacerated and her feelings mangled by a middle-aged baker resident in the vicinity, against whom she had, by the agency of Mr Rugg, found it necessary to proceed at law to recover damages for a breach of promise of marriage.",1 "The baker having been, by the counsel for Miss Rugg, witheringly denounced on that occasion up to the full amount of twenty guineas, at the rate of about eighteen-pence an epithet, and having been cast in corresponding damages, still suffered occasional persecution from the youth of Pentonville.",0 "But Miss Rugg, environed by the majesty of the law, and having her damages invested in the public securities, was regarded with consideration.",1 "In the society of Mr Rugg, who had a round white visage, as if all his blushes had been drawn out of him long ago, and who had a ragged yellow head like a worn-out hearth broom; and in the society of Miss Rugg, who had little nankeen spots, like shirt buttons, all over her face, and whose own yellow tresses were rather scrubby than luxuriant; Mr Pancks had usually dined on Sundays for some few years, and had twice a week, or so, enjoyed an evening collation of bread, Dutch cheese, and porter.",2 "Mr Pancks was one of the very few marriageable men for whom Miss Rugg had no terrors, the argument with which he reassured himself being twofold; that is to say, firstly, 'that it wouldn't do twice,' and secondly, 'that he wasn't worth it.'",2 "Fortified within this double armour, Mr Pancks snorted at Miss Rugg on easy terms.",2 "Up to this time, Mr Pancks had transacted little or no business at his quarters in Pentonville, except in the sleeping line; but now that he had become a fortune-teller, he was often closeted after midnight with Mr Rugg in his little front-parlour office, and even after those untimely hours, burnt tallow in his bed-room.",2 Though his duties as his proprietor's grubber were in no wise lessened; and though that service bore no greater resemblance to a bed of roses than was to be discovered in its many thorns; some new branch of industry made a constant demand upon him.,2 "When he cast off the Patriarch at night, it was only to take an anonymous craft in tow, and labour away afresh in other waters.",2 "The advance from a personal acquaintance with the elder Mr Chivery to an introduction to his amiable wife and disconsolate son, may have been easy; but easy or not, Mr Pancks soon made it.",3 "He nestled in the bosom of the tobacco business within a week or two after his first appearance in the College, and particularly addressed himself to the cultivation of a good understanding with Young John.",3 "In this endeavour he so prospered as to lure that pining shepherd forth from the groves, and tempt him to undertake mysterious missions; on which he began to disappear at uncertain intervals for as long a space as two or three days together.",1 "The prudent Mrs Chivery, who wondered greatly at this change, would have protested against it as detrimental to the Highland typification on the doorpost but for two forcible reasons; one, that her John was roused to take strong interest in the business which these starts were supposed to advance--and this she held to be good for his drooping spirits; the other, that Mr Pancks confidentially agreed to pay her, for the occupation of her son's time, at the handsome rate of seven and sixpence per day.",3 "The proposal originated with himself, and was couched in the pithy terms, 'If your John is weak enough, ma'am, not to take it, that is no reason why you should be, don't you see?",2 "So, quite between ourselves, ma'am, business being business, here it is!'",2 "What Mr Chivery thought of these things, or how much or how little he knew about them, was never gathered from himself.",2 It has been already remarked that he was a man of few words; and it may be here observed that he had imbibed a professional habit of locking everything up.,2 He locked himself up as carefully as he locked up the Marshalsea debtors.,2 "Even his custom of bolting his meals may have been a part of an uniform whole; but there is no question, that, as to all other purposes, he kept his mouth as he kept the Marshalsea door.",2 He never opened it without occasion.,2 "When it was necessary to let anything out, he opened it a little way, held it open just as long as sufficed for the purpose, and locked it again.",3 "Even as he would be sparing of his trouble at the Marshalsea door, and would keep a visitor who wanted to go out, waiting for a few moments if he saw another visitor coming down the yard, so that one turn of the key should suffice for both, similarly he would often reserve a remark if he perceived another on its way to his lips, and would deliver himself of the two together.",2 "As to any key to his inner knowledge being to be found in his face, the Marshalsea key was as legible as an index to the individual characters and histories upon which it was turned.",2 "That Mr Pancks should be moved to invite any one to dinner at Pentonville, was an unprecedented fact in his calendar.",2 "But he invited Young John to dinner, and even brought him within range of the dangerous (because expensive) fascinations of Miss Rugg.",0 "The banquet was appointed for a Sunday, and Miss Rugg with her own hands stuffed a leg of mutton with oysters on the occasion, and sent it to the baker's--not _the_ baker's but an opposition establishment.",1 "Provision of oranges, apples, and nuts was also made.",2 "And rum was brought home by Mr Pancks on Saturday night, to gladden the visitor's heart.",3 The store of creature comforts was not the chief part of the visitor's reception.,2 Its special feature was a foregone family confidence and sympathy.,3 "When Young John appeared at half-past one without the ivory hand and waistcoat of golden sprigs, the sun shorn of his beams by disastrous clouds, Mr Pancks presented him to the yellow-haired Ruggs as the young man he had so often mentioned who loved Miss Dorrit.",2 "'I am glad,' said Mr Rugg, challenging him specially in that character, 'to have the distinguished gratification of making your acquaintance, sir.",3 Your feelings do you honour.,2 You are young; may you never outlive your feelings!,2 "If I was to outlive my own feelings, sir,' said Mr Rugg, who was a man of many words, and was considered to possess a remarkably good address; 'if I was to outlive my own feelings, I'd leave fifty pound in my will to the man who would put me out of existence.'",3 Miss Rugg heaved a sigh.,1 "'My daughter, sir,' said Mr Rugg.",2 "'Anastatia, you are no stranger to the state of this young man's affections.",1 "My daughter has had her trials, sir'--Mr Rugg might have used the word more pointedly in the singular number--'and she can feel for you.'",2 "Young John, almost overwhelmed by the touching nature of this greeting, professed himself to that effect.",1 "'What I envy you, sir, is,' said Mr Rugg, 'allow me to take your hat--we are rather short of pegs--I'll put it in the corner, nobody will tread on it there--What I envy you, sir, is the luxury of your own feelings.",3 I belong to a profession in which that luxury is sometimes denied us.',2 "Young John replied, with acknowledgments, that he only hoped he did what was right, and what showed how entirely he was devoted to Miss Dorrit.",2 He wished to be unselfish; and he hoped he was.,3 "He wished to do anything as laid in his power to serve Miss Dorrit, altogether putting himself out of sight; and he hoped he did.",1 "It was but little that he could do, but he hoped he did it.",2 "'Sir,' said Mr Rugg, taking him by the hand, 'you are a young man that it does one good to come across.",3 "You are a young man that I should like to put in the witness-box, to humanise the minds of the legal profession.",3 "I hope you have brought your appetite with you, and intend to play a good knife and fork?'",2 "'Thank you, sir,' returned Young John, 'I don't eat much at present.'",2 Mr Rugg drew him a little apart.,2 "'My daughter's case, sir,' said he, 'at the time when, in vindication of her outraged feelings and her sex, she became the plaintiff in Rugg and Bawkins.",1 "I suppose I could have put it in evidence, Mr Chivery, if I had thought it worth my while, that the amount of solid sustenance my daughter consumed at that period did not exceed ten ounces per week.'",4 "'I think I go a little beyond that, sir,' returned the other, hesitating, as if he confessed it with some shame.",1 "'But in your case there's no fiend in human form,' said Mr Rugg, with argumentative smile and action of hand.",1 "'Observe, Mr Chivery!",2 No fiend in human form!',1 "'No, sir, certainly,' Young John added with simplicity, 'I should be very sorry if there was.'",1 "'The sentiment,' said Mr Rugg, 'is what I should have expected from your known principles.",2 "It would affect my daughter greatly, sir, if she heard it.",2 "As I perceive the mutton, I am glad she didn't hear it.",3 "Mr Pancks, on this occasion, pray face me.",2 "My dear, face Mr Chivery.",2 "For what we are going to receive, may we (and Miss Dorrit) be truly thankful!'",2 "But for a grave waggishness in Mr Rugg's manner of delivering this introduction to the feast, it might have appeared that Miss Dorrit was expected to be one of the company.",1 "Pancks recognised the sally in his usual way, and took in his provender in his usual way.",2 "Miss Rugg, perhaps making up some of her arrears, likewise took very kindly to the mutton, and it rapidly diminished to the bone.",2 "A bread-and-butter pudding entirely disappeared, and a considerable amount of cheese and radishes vanished by the same means.",2 Then came the dessert.,2 "Then also, and before the broaching of the rum and water, came Mr Pancks's note-book.",2 "The ensuing business proceedings were brief but curious, and rather in the nature of a conspiracy.",1 "Mr Pancks looked over his note-book, which was now getting full, studiously; and picked out little extracts, which he wrote on separate slips of paper on the table; Mr Rugg, in the meanwhile, looking at him with close attention, and Young John losing his uncollected eye in mists of meditation.",1 "When Mr Pancks, who supported the character of chief conspirator, had completed his extracts, he looked them over, corrected them, put up his note-book, and held them like a hand at cards.",3 "'Now, there's a churchyard in Bedfordshire,' said Pancks.",2 'Who takes it?',2 "'I'll take it, sir,' returned Mr Rugg, 'if no one bids.'",2 "Mr Pancks dealt him his card, and looked at his hand again.",2 "'Now, there's an Enquiry in York,' said Pancks.",2 'Who takes it?',2 "'I'm not good for York,' said Mr Rugg.",3 "'Then perhaps,' pursued Pancks, 'you'll be so obliging, John Chivery?'",2 "Young John assenting, Pancks dealt him his card, and consulted his hand again.",2 'There's a Church in London; I may as well take that.,3 "And a Family Bible; I may as well take that, too.",3 That's two to me.,2 "Two to me,' repeated Pancks, breathing hard over his cards.",1 "'Here's a Clerk at Durham for you, John, and an old seafaring gentleman at Dunstable for you, Mr Rugg.",2 "Two to me, was it?",2 "Yes, two to me.",2 Here's a Stone; three to me.,2 And a Still-born Baby; four to me.,2 "And all, for the present, told.'",2 "When he had thus disposed of his cards, all being done very quietly and in a suppressed tone, Mr Pancks puffed his way into his own breast-pocket and tugged out a canvas bag; from which, with a sparing hand, he told forth money for travelling expenses in two little portions.",2 "'Cash goes out fast,' he said anxiously, as he pushed a portion to each of his male companions, 'very fast.'",2 "'I can only assure you, Mr Pancks,' said Young John, 'that I deeply regret my circumstances being such that I can't afford to pay my own charges, or that it's not advisable to allow me the time necessary for my doing the distances on foot; because nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to walk myself off my legs without fee or reward.'",3 "This young man's disinterestedness appeared so very ludicrous in the eyes of Miss Rugg, that she was obliged to effect a precipitate retirement from the company, and to sit upon the stairs until she had had her laugh out.",0 "Meanwhile Mr Pancks, looking, not without some pity, at Young John, slowly and thoughtfully twisted up his canvas bag as if he were wringing its neck.",1 "The lady, returning as he restored it to his pocket, mixed rum and water for the party, not forgetting her fair self, and handed to every one his glass.",3 "When all were supplied, Mr Rugg rose, and silently holding out his glass at arm's length above the centre of the table, by that gesture invited the other three to add theirs, and to unite in a general conspiratorial clink.",1 "The ceremony was effective up to a certain point, and would have been wholly so throughout, if Miss Rugg, as she raised her glass to her lips in completion of it, had not happened to look at Young John; when she was again so overcome by the contemptible comicality of his disinterestedness as to splutter some ambrosial drops of rum and water around, and withdraw in confusion.",1 "Such was the dinner without precedent, given by Pancks at Pentonville; and such was the busy and strange life Pancks led.",2 "The only waking moments at which he appeared to relax from his cares, and to recreate himself by going anywhere or saying anything without a pervading object, were when he showed a dawning interest in the lame foreigner with the stick, down Bleeding Heart Yard.",0 "The foreigner, by name John Baptist Cavalletto--they called him Mr Baptist in the Yard--was such a chirping, easy, hopeful little fellow, that his attraction for Pancks was probably in the force of contrast.",4 "Solitary, weak, and scantily acquainted with the most necessary words of the only language in which he could communicate with the people about him, he went with the stream of his fortunes, in a brisk way that was new in those parts.",2 "With little to eat, and less to drink, and nothing to wear but what he wore upon him, or had brought tied up in one of the smallest bundles that ever were seen, he put as bright a face upon it as if he were in the most flourishing circumstances when he first hobbled up and down the Yard, humbly propitiating the general good-will with his white teeth.",4 "It was uphill work for a foreigner, lame or sound, to make his way with the Bleeding Hearts.",1 "In the first place, they were vaguely persuaded that every foreigner had a knife about him; in the second, they held it to be a sound constitutional national axiom that he ought to go home to his own country.",1 "They never thought of inquiring how many of their own countrymen would be returned upon their hands from divers parts of the world, if the principle were generally recognised; they considered it particularly and peculiarly British.",1 "In the third place, they had a notion that it was a sort of Divine visitation upon a foreigner that he was not an Englishman, and that all kinds of calamities happened to his country because it did things that England did not, and did not do things that England did.",2 "In this belief, to be sure, they had long been carefully trained by the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, who were always proclaiming to them, officially, that no country which failed to submit itself to those two large families could possibly hope to be under the protection of Providence; and who, when they believed it, disparaged them in private as the most prejudiced people under the sun.",3 "This, therefore, might be called a political position of the Bleeding Hearts; but they entertained other objections to having foreigners in the Yard.",1 "They believed that foreigners were always badly off; and though they were as ill off themselves as they could desire to be, that did not diminish the force of the objection.",1 "They believed that foreigners were dragooned and bayoneted; and though they certainly got their own skulls promptly fractured if they showed any ill-humour, still it was with a blunt instrument, and that didn't count.",3 "They believed that foreigners were always immoral; and though they had an occasional assize at home, and now and then a divorce case or so, that had nothing to do with it.",1 "They believed that foreigners had no independent spirit, as never being escorted to the poll in droves by Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, with colours flying and the tune of Rule Britannia playing.",2 "Not to be tedious, they had many other beliefs of a similar kind.",1 "Against these obstacles, the lame foreigner with the stick had to make head as well as he could; not absolutely single-handed, because Mr Arthur Clennam had recommended him to the Plornishes (he lived at the top of the same house), but still at heavy odds.",3 "However, the Bleeding Hearts were kind hearts; and when they saw the little fellow cheerily limping about with a good-humoured face, doing no harm, drawing no knives, committing no outrageous immoralities, living chiefly on farinaceous and milk diet, and playing with Mrs Plornish's children of an evening, they began to think that although he could never hope to be an Englishman, still it would be hard to visit that affliction on his head.",0 "They began to accommodate themselves to his level, calling him 'Mr Baptist,' but treating him like a baby, and laughing immoderately at his lively gestures and his childish English--more, because he didn't mind it, and laughed too.",2 They spoke to him in very loud voices as if he were stone deaf.,1 "They constructed sentences, by way of teaching him the language in its purity, such as were addressed by the savages to Captain Cook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe.",1 "Mrs Plornish was particularly ingenious in this art; and attained so much celebrity for saying 'Me ope you leg well soon,' that it was considered in the Yard but a very short remove indeed from speaking Italian.",3 Even Mrs Plornish herself began to think that she had a natural call towards that language.,2 "As he became more popular, household objects were brought into requisition for his instruction in a copious vocabulary; and whenever he appeared in the Yard ladies would fly out at their doors crying 'Mr Baptist--tea-pot!'",3 'Mr Baptist--dust-pan!',1 'Mr Baptist--flour-dredger!',2 'Mr Baptist--coffee-biggin!',2 "At the same time exhibiting those articles, and penetrating him with a sense of the appalling difficulties of the Anglo-Saxon tongue.",1 "It was in this stage of his progress, and in about the third week of his occupation, that Mr Pancks's fancy became attracted by the little man.",3 "Mounting to his attic, attended by Mrs Plornish as interpreter, he found Mr Baptist with no furniture but his bed on the ground, a table, and a chair, carving with the aid of a few simple tools, in the blithest way possible.",2 "'Now, old chap,' said Mr Pancks, 'pay up!'",2 "He had his money ready, folded in a scrap of paper, and laughingly handed it in; then with a free action, threw out as many fingers of his right hand as there were shillings, and made a cut crosswise in the air for an odd sixpence.",3 'Oh!',2 "said Mr Pancks, watching him, wonderingly.",2 "'That's it, is it?",2 You're a quick customer.,2 It's all right.,3 "I didn't expect to receive it, though.'",2 "Mrs Plornish here interposed with great condescension, and explained to Mr Baptist.",2 'E please.,2 E glad get money.',3 The little man smiled and nodded.,2 His bright face seemed uncommonly attractive to Mr Pancks.,3 'How's he getting on in his limb?',2 he asked Mrs Plornish.,2 "'Oh, he's a deal better, sir,' said Mrs Plornish.",3 'We expect next week he'll be able to leave off his stick entirely.',2 "The opportunity being too favourable to be lost, Mrs Plornish displayed her great accomplishment by explaining with pardonable pride to Mr Baptist, 'E ope you leg well soon.'",4 " 'He's a merry fellow, too,' said Mr Pancks, admiring him as if he were a mechanical toy.",3 'How does he live?',2 "'Why, sir,' rejoined Mrs Plornish, 'he turns out to have quite a power of carving them flowers that you see him at now.'",2 "Mr Baptist, watching their faces as they spoke, held up his work.",3 "Mrs Plornish interpreted in her Italian manner, on behalf of Mr Pancks, 'E please.",2 Double good!',3 'Can he live by that?' asked Mr Pancks.,2 "'He can live on very little, sir, and it is expected as he will be able, in time, to make a very good living.",3 "Mr Clennam got it him to do, and gives him odd jobs besides in at the Works next door--makes 'em for him, in short, when he knows he wants 'em.'",2 "'And what does he do with himself, now, when he ain't hard at it?'",1 said Mr Pancks.,2 "'Why, not much as yet, sir, on accounts I suppose of not being able to walk much; but he goes about the Yard, and he chats without particular understanding or being understood, and he plays with the children, and he sits in the sun--he'll sit down anywhere, as if it was an arm-chair--and he'll sing, and he'll laugh!'",2 'Laugh!',2 echoed Mr Pancks.,2 'He looks to me as if every tooth in his head was always laughing.',2 "'But whenever he gets to the top of the steps at t'other end of the Yard,' said Mrs Plornish, 'he'll peep out in the curiousest way!",3 "So that some of us thinks he's peeping out towards where his own country is, and some of us thinks he's looking for somebody he don't want to see, and some of us don't know what to think.'",2 Mr Baptist seemed to have a general understanding of what she said; or perhaps his quickness caught and applied her slight action of peeping.,2 "In any case he closed his eyes and tossed his head with the air of a man who had sufficient reasons for what he did, and said in his own tongue, it didn't matter.",3 Altro!,2 'What's Altro?',2 said Pancks.,2 'Hem!,2 "It's a sort of a general kind of expression, sir,' said Mrs Plornish.",2 'Is it?',2 said Pancks.,2 "'Why, then Altro to you, old chap.",2 Good afternoon.,3 Altro!',2 "Mr Baptist in his vivacious way repeating the word several times, Mr Pancks in his duller way gave it him back once.",3 "From that time it became a frequent custom with Pancks the gipsy, as he went home jaded at night, to pass round by Bleeding Heart Yard, go quietly up the stairs, look in at Mr Baptist's door, and, finding him in his room, to say, 'Hallo, old chap!",1 Altro!',2 "To which Mr Baptist would reply with innumerable bright nods and smiles, 'Altro, signore, altro, altro, altro!'",3 "After this highly condensed conversation, Mr Pancks would go his way with an appearance of being lightened and refreshed.",3 "If Arthur Clennam had not arrived at that wise decision firmly to restrain himself from loving Pet, he would have lived on in a state of much perplexity, involving difficult struggles with his own heart.",1 "Not the least of these would have been a contention, always waging within it, between a tendency to dislike Mr Henry Gowan, if not to regard him with positive repugnance, and a whisper that the inclination was unworthy.",1 "A generous nature is not prone to strong aversions, and is slow to admit them even dispassionately; but when it finds ill-will gaining upon it, and can discern between-whiles that its origin is not dispassionate, such a nature becomes distressed.",3 "Therefore Mr Henry Gowan would have clouded Clennam's mind, and would have been far oftener present to it than more agreeable persons and subjects but for the great prudence of his decision aforesaid.",4 "As it was, Mr Gowan seemed transferred to Daniel Doyce's mind; at all events, it so happened that it usually fell to Mr Doyce's turn, rather than to Clennam's, to speak of him in the friendly conversations they held together.",2 "These were of frequent occurrence now; as the two partners shared a portion of a roomy house in one of the grave old-fashioned City streets, lying not far from the Bank of England, by London Wall.",2 Mr Doyce had been to Twickenham to pass the day.,2 Clennam had excused himself.,2 Mr Doyce was just come home.,2 He put in his head at the door of Clennam's sitting-room to say Good night.,3 "Come in, come in!' said Clennam.",2 "'I saw you were reading,' returned Doyce, as he entered, 'and thought you might not care to be disturbed.'",1 "But for the notable resolution he had made, Clennam really might not have known what he had been reading; really might not have had his eyes upon the book for an hour past, though it lay open before him.",2 "He shut it up, rather quickly.",2 Are they well?' he asked.,3 "'Yes,' said Doyce; 'they are well.",3 They are all well.',3 Daniel had an old workmanlike habit of carrying his pocket-handkerchief in his hat.,2 "He took it out and wiped his forehead with it, slowly repeating, 'They are all well.",2 "Miss Minnie looking particularly well, I thought.'",2 'Any company at the cottage?',2 "'No, no company.'",2 "'And how did you get on, you four?'",2 asked Clennam gaily.,3 "'There were five of us,' returned his partner.",2 'There was What's-his-name.,2 He was there.',2 Who is he?' said Clennam.,2 'Mr Henry Gowan.',2 "'Ah, to be sure!'",2 "cried Clennam with unusual vivacity, 'Yes!--I forgot him.'",1 "'As I mentioned, you may remember,' said Daniel Doyce, 'he is always there on Sunday.'",2 "'Yes, yes,' returned Clennam; 'I remember now.'",2 "Daniel Doyce, still wiping his forehead, ploddingly repeated.",2 "Yes. He was there, he was there. Oh yes, he was there. And his dog. He was there too.'",2 "'Miss Meagles is quite attached to--the--dog,' observed Clennam.",2 "'Quite so,' assented his partner.",2 'More attached to the dog than I am to the man.',2 'You mean Mr--?',2 "'I mean Mr Gowan, most decidedly,' said Daniel Doyce.",2 "There was a gap in the conversation, which Clennam devoted to winding up his watch.",2 "'Perhaps you are a little hasty in your judgment,' he said.",1 "'Our judgments--I am supposing a general case--' 'Of course,' said Doyce.",2 "'Are so liable to be influenced by many considerations, which, almost without our knowing it, are unfair, that it is necessary to keep a guard upon them.",1 "For instance, Mr--' 'Gowan,' quietly said Doyce, upon whom the utterance of the name almost always devolved.",2 "'Is young and handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a good deal of various kinds of life.",4 It might be difficult to give an unselfish reason for being prepossessed against him.',2 "'Not difficult for me, I think, Clennam,' returned his partner.",1 "'I see him bringing present anxiety, and, I fear, future sorrow, into my old friend's house.",0 "I see him wearing deeper lines into my old friend's face, the nearer he draws to, and the oftener he looks at, the face of his daughter.",2 "In short, I see him with a net about the pretty and affectionate creature whom he will never make happy.'",4 "'We don't know,' said Clennam, almost in the tone of a man in pain, 'that he will not make her happy.'",2 "'We don't know,' returned his partner, 'that the earth will last another hundred years, but we think it highly probable.'",2 "'Well, well!'",3 "said Clennam, 'we must be hopeful, and we must at least try to be, if not generous (which, in this case, we have no opportunity of being), just.",3 "We will not disparage this gentleman, because he is successful in his addresses to the beautiful object of his ambition; and we will not question her natural right to bestow her love on one whom she finds worthy of it.'",4 "'Maybe, my friend,' said Doyce.",2 "'Maybe also, that she is too young and petted, too confiding and inexperienced, to discriminate well.'",1 "'That,' said Clennam, 'would be far beyond our power of correction.'",2 "Daniel Doyce shook his head gravely, and rejoined, 'I fear so.'",1 "'Therefore, in a word,' said Clennam, 'we should make up our minds that it is not worthy of us to say any ill of Mr Gowan.",3 It would be a poor thing to gratify a prejudice against him.,1 "And I resolve, for my part, not to depreciate him.'",2 "'I am not quite so sure of myself, and therefore I reserve my privilege of objecting to him,' returned the other.",3 "'But, if I am not sure of myself, I am sure of you, Clennam, and I know what an upright man you are, and how much to be respected.",2 "Good night, _my_ friend and partner!'",3 "He shook his hand in saying this, as if there had been something serious at the bottom of their conversation; and they separated.",2 "By this time they had visited the family on several occasions, and had always observed that even a passing allusion to Mr Henry Gowan when he was not among them, brought back the cloud which had obscured Mr Meagles's sunshine on the morning of the chance encounter at the Ferry.",1 "If Clennam had ever admitted the forbidden passion into his breast, this period might have been a period of real trial; under the actual circumstances, doubtless it was nothing--nothing.",3 "Equally, if his heart had given entertainment to that prohibited guest, his silent fighting of his way through the mental condition of this period might have been a little meritorious.",3 "In the constant effort not to be betrayed into a new phase of the besetting sin of his experience, the pursuit of selfish objects by low and small means, and to hold instead to some high principle of honour and generosity, there might have been a little merit.",2 "In the resolution not even to avoid Mr Meagles's house, lest, in the selfish sparing of himself, he should bring any slight distress upon the daughter through making her the cause of an estrangement which he believed the father would regret, there might have been a little merit.",1 "In the modest truthfulness of always keeping in view the greater equality of Mr Gowan's years and the greater attractions of his person and manner, there might have been a little merit.",4 "In doing all this and much more, in a perfectly unaffected way and with a manful and composed constancy, while the pain within him (peculiar as his life and history) was very sharp, there might have been some quiet strength of character.",3 "But, after the resolution he had made, of course he could have no such merits as these; and such a state of mind was nobody's--nobody's.",2 Mr Gowan made it no concern of his whether it was nobody's or somebody's.,1 "He preserved his perfect serenity of manner on all occasions, as if the possibility of Clennam's presuming to have debated the great question were too distant and ridiculous to be imagined.",3 "He had always an affability to bestow on Clennam and an ease to treat him with, which might of itself (in the supposititious case of his not having taken that sagacious course) have been a very uncomfortable element in his state of mind.",3 "'I quite regret you were not with us yesterday,' said Mr Henry Gowan, calling on Clennam the next morning.",1 'We had an agreeable day up the river there.',3 "So he had heard, Arthur said.",2 'From your partner?',2 returned Henry Gowan.,2 'What a dear old fellow he is!',2 'I have a great regard for him.',3 "'By Jove, he is the finest creature!'",3 said Gowan.,2 "'So fresh, so green, trusts in such wonderful things!'",3 Here was one of the many little rough points that had a tendency to grate on Clennam's hearing.,1 He put it aside by merely repeating that he had a high regard for Mr Doyce.,3 'He is charming!,3 "To see him mooning along to that time of life, laying down nothing by the way and picking up nothing by the way, is delightful.",3 It warms a man.,2 "So unspoilt, so simple, such a good soul!",3 "Upon my life Mr Clennam, one feels desperately worldly and wicked in comparison with such an innocent creature.",1 "I speak for myself, let me add, without including you.",2 You are genuine also.',3 "'Thank you for the compliment,' said Clennam, ill at ease; 'you are too, I hope?'",3 "'So so,' rejoined the other.",2 "'To be candid with you, tolerably.",2 I am not a great impostor.,3 "Buy one of my pictures, and I assure you, in confidence, it will not be worth the money.",4 "Buy one of another man's--any great professor who beats me hollow--and the chances are that the more you give him, the more he'll impose upon you.",1 They all do it.',2 'All painters?',2 "'Painters, writers, patriots, all the rest who have stands in the market.",2 "Give almost any man I know ten pounds, and he will impose upon you to a corresponding extent; a thousand pounds--to a corresponding extent; ten thousand pounds--to a corresponding extent.",1 "So great the success, so great the imposition.",3 But what a capital world it is!',2 cried Gowan with warm enthusiasm.,3 "'What a jolly, excellent, lovable world it is!'",4 "'I had rather thought,' said Clennam, 'that the principle you mention was chiefly acted on by--' 'By the Barnacles?'",2 "interrupted Gowan, laughing.",2 'By the political gentlemen who condescend to keep the Circumlocution Office.',1 'Ah!,2 "Don't be hard upon the Barnacles,' said Gowan, laughing afresh, 'they are darling fellows!",2 "Even poor little Clarence, the born idiot of the family, is the most agreeable and most endearing blockhead!",1 "And by Jupiter, with a kind of cleverness in him too that would astonish you!'",3 'It would.,2 "Very much,' said Clennam, drily.",2 "'And after all,' cried Gowan, with that characteristic balancing of his which reduced everything in the wide world to the same light weight, 'though I can't deny that the Circumlocution Office may ultimately shipwreck everybody and everything, still, that will probably not be in our time--and it's a school for gentlemen.'",1 "'It's a very dangerous, unsatisfactory, and expensive school to the people who pay to keep the pupils there, I am afraid,' said Clennam, shaking his head.",0 'Ah!,2 "You are a terrible fellow,' returned Gowan, airily.",1 "'I can understand how you have frightened that little donkey, Clarence, the most estimable of moon-calves (I really love him) nearly out of his wits.",3 "But enough of him, and of all the rest of them.",3 "I want to present you to my mother, Mr Clennam.",2 Pray do me the favour to give me the opportunity.',3 "In nobody's state of mind, there was nothing Clennam would have desired less, or would have been more at a loss how to avoid.",1 "'My mother lives in a most primitive manner down in that dreary red-brick dungeon at Hampton Court,' said Gowan.",0 "'If you would make your own appointment, suggest your own day for permitting me to take you there to dinner, you would be bored and she would be charmed.",1 Really that's the state of the case.',2 What could Clennam say after this?,2 "His retiring character included a great deal that was simple in the best sense, because unpractised and unused; and in his simplicity and modesty, he could only say that he was happy to place himself at Mr Gowan's disposal.",4 "Accordingly he said it, and the day was fixed.",2 "And a dreaded day it was on his part, and a very unwelcome day when it came and they went down to Hampton Court together.",1 "The venerable inhabitants of that venerable pile seemed, in those times, to be encamped there like a sort of civilised gipsies.",3 "There was a temporary air about their establishments, as if they were going away the moment they could get anything better; there was also a dissatisfied air about themselves, as if they took it very ill that they had not already got something much better.",2 "Genteel blinds and makeshifts were more or less observable as soon as their doors were opened; screens not half high enough, which made dining-rooms out of arched passages, and warded off obscure corners where footboys slept at nights with their heads among the knives and forks; curtains which called upon you to believe that they didn't hide anything; panes of glass which requested you not to see them; many objects of various forms, feigning to have no connection with their guilty secret, a bed; disguised traps in walls, which were clearly coal-cellars; affectations of no thoroughfares, which were evidently doors to little kitchens.",2 Mental reservations and artful mysteries grew out of these things.,2 "Callers looking steadily into the eyes of their receivers, pretended not to smell cooking three feet off; people, confronting closets accidentally left open, pretended not to see bottles; visitors with their heads against a partition of thin canvas, and a page and a young female at high words on the other side, made believe to be sitting in a primeval silence.",1 "There was no end to the small social accommodation-bills of this nature which the gipsies of gentility were constantly drawing upon, and accepting for, one another.",2 "Some of these Bohemians were of an irritable temperament, as constantly soured and vexed by two mental trials: the first, the consciousness that they had never got enough out of the public; the second, the consciousness that the public were admitted into the building.",2 "Under the latter great wrong, a few suffered dreadfully--particularly on Sundays, when they had for some time expected the earth to open and swallow the public up; but which desirable event had not yet occurred, in consequence of some reprehensible laxity in the arrangements of the Universe.",1 "Mrs Gowan's door was attended by a family servant of several years' standing, who had his own crow to pluck with the public concerning a situation in the Post-Office which he had been for some time expecting, and to which he was not yet appointed.",2 "He perfectly knew that the public could never have got him in, but he grimly gratified himself with the idea that the public kept him out.",3 "Under the influence of this injury (and perhaps of some little straitness and irregularity in the matter of wages), he had grown neglectful of his person and morose in mind; and now beholding in Clennam one of the degraded body of his oppressors, received him with ignominy.",0 "Mrs Gowan, however, received him with condescension.",1 "He found her a courtly old lady, formerly a Beauty, and still sufficiently well-favoured to have dispensed with the powder on her nose and a certain impossible bloom under each eye.",4 "She was a little lofty with him; so was another old lady, dark-browed and high-nosed, and who must have had something real about her or she could not have existed, but it was certainly not her hair or her teeth or her figure or her complexion; so was a grey old gentleman of dignified and sullen appearance; both of whom had come to dinner.",1 "But, as they had all been in the British Embassy way in sundry parts of the earth, and as a British Embassy cannot better establish a character with the Circumlocution Office than by treating its compatriots with illimitable contempt (else it would become like the Embassies of other countries), Clennam felt that on the whole they let him off lightly.",3 "The dignified old gentleman turned out to be Lord Lancaster Stiltstalking, who had been maintained by the Circumlocution Office for many years as a representative of the Britannic Majesty abroad.",3 "This noble Refrigerator had iced several European courts in his time, and had done it with such complete success that the very name of Englishman yet struck cold to the stomachs of foreigners who had the distinguished honour of remembering him at a distance of a quarter of a century.",3 "He was now in retirement, and hence (in a ponderous white cravat, like a stiff snow-drift) was so obliging as to shade the dinner.",2 "There was a whisper of the pervading Bohemian character in the nomadic nature of the service and its curious races of plates and dishes; but the noble Refrigerator, infinitely better than plate or porcelain, made it superb.",4 "He shaded the dinner, cooled the wines, chilled the gravy, and blighted the vegetables.",2 "There was only one other person in the room: a microscopically small footboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn't got into the Post-Office.",1 "Even this youth, if his jacket could have been unbuttoned and his heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a distant adherent of the Barnacle family, already to aspire to a situation under Government.",3 "Mrs Gowan with a gentle melancholy upon her, occasioned by her son's being reduced to court the swinish public as a follower of the low Arts, instead of asserting his birthright and putting a ring through its nose as an acknowledged Barnacle, headed the conversation at dinner on the evil days.",1 It was then that Clennam learned for the first time what little pivots this great world goes round upon.,3 "'If John Barnacle,' said Mrs Gowan, after the degeneracy of the times had been fully ascertained, 'if John Barnacle had but abandoned his most unfortunate idea of conciliating the mob, all would have been well, and I think the country would have been preserved.'",2 "The old lady with the high nose assented; but added that if Augustus Stiltstalking had in a general way ordered the cavalry out with instructions to charge, she thought the country would have been preserved.",2 "The noble Refrigerator assented; but added that if William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, when they came over to one another and formed their ever-memorable coalition, had boldly muzzled the newspapers, and rendered it penal for any Editor-person to presume to discuss the conduct of any appointed authority abroad or at home, he thought the country would have been preserved.",3 "It was agreed that the country (another word for the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings) wanted preserving, but how it came to want preserving was not so clear.",3 "It was only clear that the question was all about John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, because there was nobody else but mob.",2 "And this was the feature of the conversation which impressed Clennam, as a man not used to it, very disagreeably: making him doubt if it were quite right to sit there, silently hearing a great nation narrowed to such little bounds.",3 "Remembering, however, that in the Parliamentary debates, whether on the life of that nation's body or the life of its soul, the question was usually all about and between John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, and nobody else; he said nothing on the part of mob, bethinking himself that mob was used to it.",1 "Mr Henry Gowan seemed to have a malicious pleasure in playing off the three talkers against each other, and in seeing Clennam startled by what they said.",2 "Having as supreme a contempt for the class that had thrown him off as for the class that had not taken him on, he had no personal disquiet in anything that passed.",1 "His healthy state of mind appeared even to derive a gratification from Clennam's position of embarrassment and isolation among the good company; and if Clennam had been in that condition with which Nobody was incessantly contending, he would have suspected it, and would have struggled with the suspicion as a meanness, even while he sat at the table.",0 "In the course of a couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no time less than a hundred years behind the period, got about five centuries in arrears, and delivered solemn political oracles appropriate to that epoch.",3 "He finished by freezing a cup of tea for his own drinking, and retiring at his lowest temperature.",1 "Then Mrs Gowan, who had been accustomed in her days of a vacant arm-chair beside her to which to summon state to retain her devoted slaves, one by one, for short audiences as marks of her especial favour, invited Clennam with a turn of her fan to approach the presence.",2 "He obeyed, and took the tripod recently vacated by Lord Lancaster Stiltstalking.",2 "'Mr Clennam,' said Mrs Gowan, 'apart from the happiness I have in becoming known to you, though in this odiously inconvenient place--a mere barrack--there is a subject on which I am dying to speak to you.",2 "It is the subject in connection with which my son first had, I believe, the pleasure of cultivating your acquaintance.'",3 "Clennam inclined his head, as a generally suitable reply to what he did not yet quite understand.",3 "'First,' said Mrs Gowan, 'now, is she really pretty?'",3 "In nobody's difficulties, he would have found it very difficult to answer; very difficult indeed to smile, and say 'Who?'",1 'Oh!,2 You know!',2 she returned.,2 'This flame of Henry's.,2 This unfortunate fancy.,2 There!,2 If it is a point of honour that I should originate the name--Miss Mickles--Miggles.',1 "'Miss Meagles,' said Clennam, 'is very beautiful.'",3 "'Men are so often mistaken on those points,' returned Mrs Gowan, shaking her head, 'that I candidly confess to you I feel anything but sure of it, even now; though it is something to have Henry corroborated with so much gravity and emphasis.",1 "He picked the people up at Rome, I think?'",2 The phrase would have given nobody mortal offence.,1 "Clennam replied, 'Excuse me, I doubt if I understand your expression.'",1 "'Picked the people up,' said Mrs Gowan, tapping the sticks of her closed fan (a large green one, which she used as a hand-screen) on her little table.",2 'Came upon them.,2 Found them out.,2 Stumbled against them.',1 'The people?',2 'Yes.,2 The Miggles people.',2 "'I really cannot say,' said Clennam, 'where my friend Mr Meagles first presented Mr Henry Gowan to his daughter.'",2 'I am pretty sure he picked her up at Rome; but never mind where--somewhere.,3 "Now (this is entirely between ourselves), is she very plebeian?'",1 "'Really, ma'am,' returned Clennam, 'I am so undoubtedly plebeian myself, that I do not feel qualified to judge.'",2 'Very neat!',3 "said Mrs Gowan, coolly unfurling her screen.",2 'Very happy!,3 From which I infer that you secretly think her manner equal to her looks?',2 "Clennam, after a moment's stiffness, bowed.",1 "'That's comforting, and I hope you may be right.",3 Did Henry tell me you had travelled with them?',2 "'I travelled with my friend Mr Meagles, and his wife and daughter, during some months.'",2 "(Nobody's heart might have been wrung by the remembrance.) 'Really comforting, because you must have had a large experience of them.",3 "You see, Mr Clennam, this thing has been going on for a long time, and I find no improvement in it.",3 "Therefore to have the opportunity of speaking to one so well informed about it as yourself, is an immense relief to me.",4 Quite a boon.,2 "Quite a blessing, I am sure.'",3 "'Pardon me,' returned Clennam, 'but I am not in Mr Henry Gowan's confidence.",3 I am far from being so well informed as you suppose me to be.,3 Your mistake makes my position a very delicate one.,2 No word on this topic has ever passed between Mr Henry Gowan and myself.',2 "Mrs Gowan glanced at the other end of the room, where her son was playing ecarte on a sofa, with the old lady who was for a charge of cavalry.",2 'Not in his confidence?,3 "No,' said Mrs Gowan.",2 'No word has passed between you?,2 No.,2 That I can imagine.,2 "But there are unexpressed confidences, Mr Clennam; and as you have been together intimately among these people, I cannot doubt that a confidence of that sort exists in the present case.",2 Perhaps you have heard that I have suffered the keenest distress of mind from Henry's having taken to a pursuit which--well!',1 "shrugging her shoulders, 'a very respectable pursuit, I dare say, and some artists are, as artists, quite superior persons; still, we never yet in our family have gone beyond an Amateur, and it is a pardonable weakness to feel a little--' As Mrs Gowan broke off to heave a sigh, Clennam, however resolute to be magnanimous, could not keep down the thought that there was mighty little danger of the family's ever going beyond an Amateur, even as it was.",3 "'Henry,' the mother resumed, 'is self-willed and resolute; and as these people naturally strain every nerve to catch him, I can entertain very little hope, Mr Clennam, that the thing will be broken off.",2 "I apprehend the girl's fortune will be very small; Henry might have done much better; there is scarcely anything to compensate for the connection: still, he acts for himself; and if I find no improvement within a short time, I see no other course than to resign myself and make the best of these people.",4 I am infinitely obliged to you for what you have told me.',2 "As she shrugged her shoulders, Clennam stiffly bowed again.",2 "With an uneasy flush upon his face, and hesitation in his manner, he then said in a still lower tone than he had adopted yet: 'Mrs Gowan, I scarcely know how to acquit myself of what I feel to be a duty, and yet I must ask you for your kind consideration in attempting to discharge it.",1 "A misconception on your part, a very great misconception if I may venture to call it so, seems to require setting right.",3 "You have supposed Mr Meagles and his family to strain every nerve, I think you said--' 'Every nerve,' repeated Mrs Gowan, looking at him in calm obstinacy, with her green fan between her face and the fire.",2 'To secure Mr Henry Gowan?',3 The lady placidly assented.,2 "'Now that is so far,' said Arthur, 'from being the case, that I know Mr Meagles to be unhappy in this matter; and to have interposed all reasonable obstacles with the hope of putting an end to it.'",2 "Mrs Gowan shut up her great green fan, tapped him on the arm with it, and tapped her smiling lips.",3 "'Why, of course,' said she.",2 'Just what I mean.',2 Arthur watched her face for some explanation of what she did mean.,2 "'Are you really serious, Mr Clennam?",2 Don't you see?',2 Arthur did not see; and said so.,2 "'Why, don't I know my son, and don't I know that this is exactly the way to hold him?'",2 "said Mrs Gowan, contemptuously; 'and do not these Miggles people know it, at least as well as I?",2 "Oh, shrewd people, Mr Clennam: evidently people of business!",2 I believe Miggles belonged to a Bank.,2 "It ought to have been a very profitable Bank, if he had much to do with its management.",2 "This is very well done, indeed.'",3 "'I beg and entreat you, ma'am--' Arthur interposed.",1 "'Oh, Mr Clennam, can you really be so credulous?'",1 "It made such a painful impression upon him to hear her talking in this haughty tone, and to see her patting her contemptuous lips with her fan, that he said very earnestly, 'Believe me, ma'am, this is unjust, a perfectly groundless suspicion.'",0 'Suspicion?',2 repeated Mrs Gowan.,2 "'Not suspicion, Mr Clennam, Certainty.",1 "It is very knowingly done indeed, and seems to have taken _you_ in completely.'",2 "She laughed; and again sat tapping her lips with her fan, and tossing her head, as if she added, 'Don't tell me.",2 I know such people will do anything for the honour of such an alliance.',2 "At this opportune moment, the cards were thrown up, and Mr Henry Gowan came across the room saying, 'Mother, if you can spare Mr Clennam for this time, we have a long way to go, and it's getting late.'",2 "Mr Clennam thereupon rose, as he had no choice but to do; and Mrs Gowan showed him, to the last, the same look and the same tapped contemptuous lips.",1 "'You have had a portentously long audience of my mother,' said Gowan, as the door closed upon them.",2 'I fervently hope she has not bored you?',2 "'Not at all,' said Clennam.",2 "They had a little open phaeton for the journey, and were soon in it on the road home.",2 "Gowan, driving, lighted a cigar; Clennam declined one.",2 "Do what he would, he fell into such a mood of abstraction that Gowan said again, 'I am very much afraid my mother has bored you?'",0 "To which he roused himself to answer, 'Not at all!'",2 and soon relapsed again.,2 "In that state of mind which rendered nobody uneasy, his thoughtfulness would have turned principally on the man at his side.",2 "He would have thought of the morning when he first saw him rooting out the stones with his heel, and would have asked himself, 'Does he jerk me out of the path in the same careless, cruel way?'",0 "He would have thought, had this introduction to his mother been brought about by him because he knew what she would say, and that he could thus place his position before a rival and loftily warn him off, without himself reposing a word of confidence in him?",2 "He would have thought, even if there were no such design as that, had he brought him there to play with his repressed emotions, and torment him?",1 "The current of these meditations would have been stayed sometimes by a rush of shame, bearing a remonstrance to himself from his own open nature, representing that to shelter such suspicions, even for the passing moment, was not to hold the high, unenvious course he had resolved to keep.",1 "At those times, the striving within him would have been hardest; and looking up and catching Gowan's eyes, he would have started as if he had done him an injury.",2 "Then, looking at the dark road and its uncertain objects, he would have gradually trailed off again into thinking, 'Where are we driving, he and I, I wonder, on the darker road of life?",1 "How will it be with us, and with her, in the obscure distance?'",1 "Thinking of her, he would have been troubled anew with a reproachful misgiving that it was not even loyal to her to dislike him, and that in being so easily prejudiced against him he was less deserving of her than at first.",1 "'You are evidently out of spirits,' said Gowan; 'I am very much afraid my mother must have bored you dreadfully.'",0 "'Believe me, not at all,' said Clennam.",2 'It's nothing--nothing!',2 "A frequently recurring doubt, whether Mr Pancks's desire to collect information relative to the Dorrit family could have any possible bearing on the misgivings he had imparted to his mother on his return from his long exile, caused Arthur Clennam much uneasiness at this period.",0 "What Mr Pancks already knew about the Dorrit family, what more he really wanted to find out, and why he should trouble his busy head about them at all, were questions that often perplexed him.",1 Mr Pancks was not a man to waste his time and trouble in researches prompted by idle curiosity.,0 That he had a specific object Clennam could not doubt.,1 "And whether the attainment of that object by Mr Pancks's industry might bring to light, in some untimely way, secret reasons which had induced his mother to take Little Dorrit by the hand, was a serious speculation.",1 "Not that he ever wavered either in his desire or his determination to repair a wrong that had been done in his father's time, should a wrong come to light, and be reparable.",1 "The shadow of a supposed act of injustice, which had hung over him since his father's death, was so vague and formless that it might be the result of a reality widely remote from his idea of it.",0 "But, if his apprehensions should prove to be well founded, he was ready at any moment to lay down all he had, and begin the world anew.",3 "As the fierce dark teaching of his childhood had never sunk into his heart, so that first article in his code of morals was, that he must begin, in practical humility, with looking well to his feet on Earth, and that he could never mount on wings of words to Heaven.",2 "Duty on earth, restitution on earth, action on earth; these first, as the first steep steps upward.",1 "Strait was the gate and narrow was the way; far straiter and narrower than the broad high road paved with vain professions and vain repetitions, motes from other men's eyes and liberal delivery of others to the judgment--all cheap materials costing absolutely nothing.",0 No.,2 "It was not a selfish fear or hesitation that rendered him uneasy, but a mistrust lest Pancks might not observe his part of the understanding between them, and, making any discovery, might take some course upon it without imparting it to him.",0 "On the other hand, when he recalled his conversation with Pancks, and the little reason he had to suppose that there was any likelihood of that strange personage being on that track at all, there were times when he wondered that he made so much of it.",1 "Labouring in this sea, as all barks labour in cross seas, he tossed about and came to no haven.",2 "The removal of Little Dorrit herself from their customary association, did not mend the matter.",2 "She was so much out, and so much in her own room, that he began to miss her and to find a blank in her place.",1 "He had written to her to inquire if she were better, and she had written back, very gratefully and earnestly telling him not to be uneasy on her behalf, for she was quite well; but he had not seen her, for what, in their intercourse, was a long time.",4 "He returned home one evening from an interview with her father, who had mentioned that she was out visiting--which was what he always said when she was hard at work to buy his supper--and found Mr Meagles in an excited state walking up and down his room.",3 "On his opening the door, Mr Meagles stopped, faced round, and said: 'Clennam!--Tattycoram!'",2 'What's the matter?',2 'Lost!',2 "'Why, bless my heart alive!'",3 cried Clennam in amazement.,3 'What do you mean?',2 "'Wouldn't count five-and-twenty, sir; couldn't be got to do it; stopped at eight, and took herself off.'",2 'Left your house?',2 "'Never to come back,' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head.",2 'You don't know that girl's passionate and proud character.,3 A team of horses couldn't draw her back now; the bolts and bars of the old Bastille couldn't keep her.',2 'How did it happen?,2 Pray sit down and tell me.',2 "'As to how it happened, it's not so easy to relate: because you must have the unfortunate temperament of the poor impetuous girl herself, before you can fully understand it.",1 But it came about in this way.,2 Pet and Mother and I have been having a good deal of talk together of late.,3 "I'll not disguise from you, Clennam, that those conversations have not been of as bright a kind as I could wish; they have referred to our going away again.",3 "In proposing to do which, I have had, in fact, an object.'",1 Nobody's heart beat quickly.,2 "'An object,' said Mr Meagles, after a moment's pause, 'that I will not disguise from you, either, Clennam.",1 There's an inclination on the part of my dear child which I am sorry for.,1 Perhaps you guess the person.,2 Henry Gowan.',2 'I was not unprepared to hear it.',1 'Well!',2 "said Mr Meagles, with a heavy sigh, 'I wish to God you had never had to hear it.",2 "However, so it is.",2 "Mother and I have done all we could to get the better of it, Clennam.",3 "We have tried tender advice, we have tried time, we have tried absence.",2 "As yet, of no use.",2 "Our late conversations have been upon the subject of going away for another year at least, in order that there might be an entire separation and breaking off for that term.",1 "Upon that question, Pet has been unhappy, and therefore Mother and I have been unhappy.'",1 Clennam said that he could easily believe it.,2 'Well!',2 "continued Mr Meagles in an apologetic way, 'I admit as a practical man, and I am sure Mother would admit as a practical woman, that we do, in families, magnify our troubles and make mountains of our molehills in a way that is calculated to be rather trying to people who look on--to mere outsiders, you know, Clennam.",1 "Still, Pet's happiness or unhappiness is quite a life or death question with us; and we may be excused, I hope, for making much of it.",1 "At all events, it might have been borne by Tattycoram.",2 "Now, don't you think so?'",2 "'I do indeed think so,' returned Clennam, in most emphatic recognition of this very moderate expectation.",1 "'No, sir,' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head ruefully.",2 'She couldn't stand it.,2 "The chafing and firing of that girl, the wearing and tearing of that girl within her own breast, has been such that I have softly said to her again and again in passing her, ""Five-and-twenty, Tattycoram, five-and-twenty!""",2 "I heartily wish she could have gone on counting five-and-twenty day and night, and then it wouldn't have happened.'",3 "Mr Meagles with a despondent countenance in which the goodness of his heart was even more expressed than in his times of cheerfulness and gaiety, stroked his face down from his forehead to his chin, and shook his head again.",3 "'I said to Mother (not that it was necessary, for she would have thought it all for herself), we are practical people, my dear, and we know her story; we see in this unhappy girl some reflection of what was raging in her mother's heart before ever such a creature as this poor thing was in the world; we'll gloss her temper over, Mother, we won't notice it at present, my dear, we'll take advantage of some better disposition in her another time.",1 So we said nothing.,2 "But, do what we would, it seems as if it was to be; she broke out violently one night.'",1 "'How, and why?'",2 "'If you ask me Why,' said Mr Meagles, a little disturbed by the question, for he was far more intent on softening her case than the family's, 'I can only refer you to what I have just repeated as having been pretty near my words to Mother.",2 "As to How, we had said Good night to Pet in her presence (very affectionately, I must allow), and she had attended Pet up-stairs--you remember she was her maid.",3 "Perhaps Pet, having been out of sorts, may have been a little more inconsiderate than usual in requiring services of her: but I don't know that I have any right to say so; she was always thoughtful and gentle.'",3 'The gentlest mistress in the world.',2 "'Thank you, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, shaking him by the hand; 'you have often seen them together.",2 Well!,3 "We presently heard this unfortunate Tattycoram loud and angry, and before we could ask what was the matter, Pet came back in a tremble, saying she was frightened of her.",0 Close after her came Tattycoram in a flaming rage.,1 """I hate you all three,"" says she, stamping her foot at us.",1 """I am bursting with hate of the whole house.""",1 ' 'Upon which you--?',2 'I?',2 "said Mr Meagles, with a plain good faith that might have commanded the belief of Mrs Gowan herself.",3 "'I said, count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.'",2 "Mr Meagles again stroked his face and shook his head, with an air of profound regret.",2 "'She was so used to do it, Clennam, that even then, such a picture of passion as you never saw, she stopped short, looked me full in the face, and counted (as I made out) to eight.",3 But she couldn't control herself to go any further.,2 "There she broke down, poor thing, and gave the other seventeen to the four winds.",1 Then it all burst out.,2 "She detested us, she was miserable with us, she couldn't bear it, she wouldn't bear it, she was determined to go away.",1 "She was younger than her young mistress, and would she remain to see her always held up as the only creature who was young and interesting, and to be cherished and loved?",3 No.,2 "She wouldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't!",2 "What did we think she, Tattycoram, might have been if she had been caressed and cared for in her childhood, like her young mistress?",2 As good as her?,3 Ah!,2 Perhaps fifty times as good.,3 "When we pretended to be so fond of one another, we exulted over her; that was what we did; we exulted over her and shamed her.",3 And all in the house did the same.,2 "They talked about their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters; they liked to drag them up before her face.",2 "There was Mrs Tickit, only yesterday, when her little grandchild was with her, had been amused by the child's trying to call her (Tattycoram) by the wretched name we gave her; and had laughed at the name.",1 "Why, who didn't; and who were we that we should have a right to name her like a dog or a cat?",3 But she didn't care.,2 "She would take no more benefits from us; she would fling us her name back again, and she would go.",3 "She would leave us that minute, nobody should stop her, and we should never hear of her again.'",2 "Mr Meagles had recited all this with such a vivid remembrance of his original, that he was almost as flushed and hot by this time as he described her to have been.",3 "'Ah, well!'",3 "he said, wiping his face.",2 "'It was of no use trying reason then, with that vehement panting creature (Heaven knows what her mother's story must have been); so I quietly told her that she should not go at that late hour of night, and I gave her my hand and took her to her room, and locked the house doors.",2 But she was gone this morning.',2 'And you know no more of her?',2 "'No more,' returned Mr Meagles.",2 'I have been hunting about all day.,2 She must have gone very early and very silently.,2 I have found no trace of her down about us.',2 'Stay!,2 "You want,' said Clennam, after a moment's reflection, 'to see her?",2 I assume that?',2 "'Yes, assuredly; I want to give her another chance; Mother and Pet want to give her another chance; come!",3 "You yourself,' said Mr Meagles, persuasively, as if the provocation to be angry were not his own at all, 'want to give the poor passionate girl another chance, I know, Clennam.'",1 "'It would be strange and hard indeed if I did not,' said Clennam, 'when you are all so forgiving.",1 "What I was going to ask you was, have you thought of that Miss Wade?'",1 'I have.,2 "I did not think of her until I had pervaded the whole of our neighbourhood, and I don't know that I should have done so then but for finding Mother and Pet, when I went home, full of the idea that Tattycoram must have gone to her.",2 "Then, of course, I recalled what she said that day at dinner when you were first with us.'",2 'Have you any idea where Miss Wade is to be found?',1 "'To tell you the truth,' returned Mr Meagles, 'it's because I have an addled jumble of a notion on that subject that you found me waiting here.",2 "There is one of those odd impressions in my house, which do mysteriously get into houses sometimes, which nobody seems to have picked up in a distinct form from anybody, and yet which everybody seems to have got hold of loosely from somebody and let go again, that she lives, or was living, thereabouts.'",1 "Mr Meagles handed him a slip of paper, on which was written the name of one of the dull by-streets in the Grosvenor region, near Park Lane.",1 "'Here is no number,' said Arthur looking over it.",2 "'No number, my dear Clennam?'",2 returned his friend.,2 'No anything!,2 "The very name of the street may have been floating in the air; for, as I tell you, none of my people can say where they got it from.",2 "However, it's worth an inquiry; and as I would rather make it in company than alone, and as you too were a fellow-traveller of that immovable woman's, I thought perhaps--' Clennam finished the sentence for him by taking up his hat again, and saying he was ready.",3 "It was now summer-time; a grey, hot, dusty evening.",2 "They rode to the top of Oxford Street, and there alighting, dived in among the great streets of melancholy stateliness, and the little streets that try to be as stately and succeed in being more melancholy, of which there is a labyrinth near Park Lane.",4 "Wildernesses of corner houses, with barbarous old porticoes and appurtenances; horrors that came into existence under some wrong-headed person in some wrong-headed time, still demanding the blind admiration of all ensuing generations and determined to do so until they tumbled down; frowned upon the twilight.",0 "Parasite little tenements, with the cramp in their whole frame, from the dwarf hall-door on the giant model of His Grace's in the Square to the squeezed window of the boudoir commanding the dunghills in the Mews, made the evening doleful.",1 "Rickety dwellings of undoubted fashion, but of a capacity to hold nothing comfortably except a dismal smell, looked like the last result of the great mansions' breeding in-and-in; and, where their little supplementary bows and balconies were supported on thin iron columns, seemed to be scrofulously resting upon crutches.",3 "Here and there a Hatchment, with the whole science of Heraldry in it, loomed down upon the street, like an Archbishop discoursing on Vanity.",2 "The shops, few in number, made no show; for popular opinion was as nothing to them.",3 "The pastrycook knew who was on his books, and in that knowledge could be calm, with a few glass cylinders of dowager peppermint-drops in his window, and half-a-dozen ancient specimens of currant-jelly.",3 A few oranges formed the greengrocer's whole concession to the vulgar mind.,1 "A single basket made of moss, once containing plovers' eggs, held all that the poulterer had to say to the rabble.",2 "Everybody in those streets seemed (which is always the case at that hour and season) to be gone out to dinner, and nobody seemed to be giving the dinners they had gone to.",2 "On the doorsteps there were lounging footmen with bright parti-coloured plumage and white polls, like an extinct race of monstrous birds; and butlers, solitary men of recluse demeanour, each of whom appeared distrustful of all other butlers.",2 "The roll of carriages in the Park was done for the day; the street lamps were lighting; and wicked little grooms in the tightest fitting garments, with twists in their legs answering to the twists in their minds, hung about in pairs, chewing straws and exchanging fraudulent secrets.",0 "The spotted dogs who went out with the carriages, and who were so associated with splendid equipages that it looked like a condescension in those animals to come out without them, accompanied helpers to and fro on messages.",3 "Here and there was a retiring public-house which did not require to be supported on the shoulders of the people, and where gentlemen out of livery were not much wanted.",3 This last discovery was made by the two friends in pursuing their inquiries.,2 "Nothing was there, or anywhere, known of such a person as Miss Wade, in connection with the street they sought.",1 "It was one of the parasite streets; long, regular, narrow, dull and gloomy; like a brick and mortar funeral.",1 "They inquired at several little area gates, where a dejected youth stood spiking his chin on the summit of a precipitous little shoot of wooden steps, but could gain no information.",1 "They walked up the street on one side of the way, and down it on the other, what time two vociferous news-sellers, announcing an extraordinary event that had never happened and never would happen, pitched their hoarse voices into the secret chambers; but nothing came of it.",2 "At length they stood at the corner from which they had begun, and it had fallen quite dark, and they were no wiser.",1 "It happened that in the street they had several times passed a dingy house, apparently empty, with bills in the windows, announcing that it was to let.",2 "The bills, as a variety in the funeral procession, almost amounted to a decoration.",3 "Perhaps because they kept the house separated in his mind, or perhaps because Mr Meagles and himself had twice agreed in passing, 'It is clear she don't live there,' Clennam now proposed that they should go back and try that house before finally going away.",3 "Mr Meagles agreed, and back they went.",2 "They knocked once, and they rang once, without any response.",2 "'Empty,' said Mr Meagles, listening.",2 "'Once more,' said Clennam, and knocked again.",2 "After that knock they heard a movement below, and somebody shuffling up towards the door.",1 The confined entrance was so dark that it was impossible to make out distinctly what kind of person opened the door; but it appeared to be an old woman.,0 "'Excuse our troubling you,' said Clennam.",1 'Pray can you tell us where Miss Wade lives?',1 "The voice in the darkness unexpectedly replied, 'Lives here.'",1 'Is she at home?',2 "No answer coming, Mr Meagles asked again.",2 'Pray is she at home?',2 "After another delay, 'I suppose she is,' said the voice abruptly; 'you had better come in, and I'll ask.'",1 "They were summarily shut into the close black house; and the figure rustling away, and speaking from a higher level, said, 'Come up, if you please; you can't tumble over anything.'",1 "They groped their way up-stairs towards a faint light, which proved to be the light of the street shining through a window; and the figure left them shut in an airless room.",1 "'This is odd, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, softly.",1 "'Odd enough,' assented Clennam in the same tone, 'but we have succeeded; that's the main point.",3 Here's a light coming!',2 "The light was a lamp, and the bearer was an old woman: very dirty, very wrinkled and dry.",1 "'She's at home,' she said (and the voice was the same that had spoken before); 'she'll come directly.'",2 "Having set the lamp down on the table, the old woman dusted her hands on her apron, which she might have done for ever without cleaning them, looked at the visitors with a dim pair of eyes, and backed out.",1 "The lady whom they had come to see, if she were the present occupant of the house, appeared to have taken up her quarters there as she might have established herself in an Eastern caravanserai.",2 "A small square of carpet in the middle of the room, a few articles of furniture that evidently did not belong to the room, and a disorder of trunks and travelling articles, formed the whole of her surroundings.",1 "Under some former regular inhabitant, the stifling little apartment had broken out into a pier-glass and a gilt table; but the gilding was as faded as last year's flowers, and the glass was so clouded that it seemed to hold in magic preservation all the fogs and bad weather it had ever reflected.",1 "The visitors had had a minute or two to look about them, when the door opened and Miss Wade came in.",1 "She was exactly the same as when they had parted, just as handsome, just as scornful, just as repressed.",2 "She manifested no surprise in seeing them, nor any other emotion.",2 "She requested them to be seated; and declining to take a seat herself, at once anticipated any introduction of their business.",1 "'I apprehend,' she said, 'that I know the cause of your favouring me with this visit.",2 We may come to it at once.',2 "'The cause then, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'is Tattycoram.'",2 'So I supposed.',2 "'Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, 'will you be so kind as to say whether you know anything of her?'",2 'Surely.,2 I know she is here with me.',2 "'Then, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'allow me to make known to you that I shall be happy to have her back, and that my wife and daughter will be happy to have her back.",3 "She has been with us a long time: we don't forget her claims upon us, and I hope we know how to make allowances.'",2 'You hope to know how to make allowances?',2 "she returned, in a level, measured voice.",2 'For what?',2 "'I think my friend would say, Miss Wade,' Arthur Clennam interposed, seeing Mr Meagles rather at a loss, 'for the passionate sense that sometimes comes upon the poor girl, of being at a disadvantage.",0 Which occasionally gets the better of better remembrances.',3 The lady broke into a smile as she turned her eyes upon him.,2 'Indeed?',2 was all she answered.,2 "She stood by the table so perfectly composed and still after this acknowledgment of his remark that Mr Meagles stared at her under a sort of fascination, and could not even look to Clennam to make another move.",3 "After waiting, awkwardly enough, for some moments, Arthur said: 'Perhaps it would be well if Mr Meagles could see her, Miss Wade?'",3 "'That is easily done,' said she.",2 "'Come here, child.'",2 "She had opened a door while saying this, and now led the girl in by the hand.",3 "It was very curious to see them standing together: the girl with her disengaged fingers plaiting the bosom of her dress, half irresolutely, half passionately; Miss Wade with her composed face attentively regarding her, and suggesting to an observer, with extraordinary force, in her composure itself (as a veil will suggest the form it covers), the unquenchable passion of her own nature.",3 "'See here,' she said, in the same level way as before.",2 "'Here is your patron, your master.",3 "He is willing to take you back, my dear, if you are sensible of the favour and choose to go.",4 "You can be, again, a foil to his pretty daughter, a slave to her pleasant wilfulness, and a toy in the house showing the goodness of the family.",3 "You can have your droll name again, playfully pointing you out and setting you apart, as it is right that you should be pointed out and set apart.",3 "(Your birth, you know; you must not forget your birth.) You can again be shown to this gentleman's daughter, Harriet, and kept before her, as a living reminder of her own superiority and her gracious condescension.",3 "You can recover all these advantages and many more of the same kind which I dare say start up in your memory while I speak, and which you lose in taking refuge with me--you can recover them all by telling these gentlemen how humbled and penitent you are, and by going back to them to be forgiven.",3 "What do you say, Harriet?",2 Will you go?',2 "The girl who, under the influence of these words, had gradually risen in anger and heightened in colour, answered, raising her lustrous black eyes for the moment, and clenching her hand upon the folds it had been puckering up, 'I'd die sooner!'",1 "Miss Wade, still standing at her side holding her hand, looked quietly round and said with a smile, 'Gentlemen!",2 What do you do upon that?',2 "Poor Mr Meagles's inexpressible consternation in hearing his motives and actions so perverted, had prevented him from interposing any word until now; but now he regained the power of speech.",0 "'Tattycoram,' said he, 'for I'll call you by that name still, my good girl, conscious that I meant nothing but kindness when I gave it to you, and conscious that you know it--' 'I don't!'",3 "said she, looking up again, and almost rending herself with the same busy hand.",2 "'No, not now, perhaps,' said Mr Meagles; 'not with that lady's eyes so intent upon you, Tattycoram,' she glanced at them for a moment, 'and that power over you, which we see she exercises; not now, perhaps, but at another time.",2 "Tattycoram, I'll not ask that lady whether she believes what she has said, even in the anger and ill blood in which I and my friend here equally know she has spoken, though she subdues herself, with a determination that any one who has once seen her is not likely to forget.",1 "I'll not ask you, with your remembrance of my house and all belonging to it, whether you believe it.",2 "I'll only say that you have no profession to make to me or mine, and no forgiveness to entreat; and that all in the world that I ask you to do, is, to count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.'",2 "She looked at him for an instant, and then said frowningly, 'I won't.",2 "Miss Wade, take me away, please.'",1 The contention that raged within her had no softening in it now; it was wholly between passionate defiance and stubborn defiance.,1 "Her rich colour, her quick blood, her rapid breath, were all setting themselves against the opportunity of retracing their steps.",3 'I won't.,2 I won't.,2 I won't!',2 "she repeated in a low, thick voice.",2 'I'd be torn to pieces first.,2 I'd tear myself to pieces first!',2 "Miss Wade, who had released her hold, laid her hand protectingly on the girl's neck for a moment, and then said, looking round with her former smile and speaking exactly in her former tone, 'Gentlemen!",2 What do you do upon that?',2 "'Oh, Tattycoram, Tattycoram!'",2 "cried Mr Meagles, adjuring her besides with an earnest hand.",3 "'Hear that lady's voice, look at that lady's face, consider what is in that lady's heart, and think what a future lies before you.",1 "My child, whatever you may think, that lady's influence over you--astonishing to us, and I should hardly go too far in saying terrible to us to see--is founded in passion fiercer than yours, and temper more violent than yours.",1 What can you two be together?,2 What can come of it?',2 "'I am alone here, gentlemen,' observed Miss Wade, with no change of voice or manner.",1 'Say anything you will.',2 "'Politeness must yield to this misguided girl, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'at her present pass; though I hope not altogether to dismiss it, even with the injury you do her so strongly before me.",1 "Excuse me for reminding you in her hearing--I must say it--that you were a mystery to all of us, and had nothing in common with any of us when she unfortunately fell in your way.",0 "I don't know what you are, but you don't hide, can't hide, what a dark spirit you have within you.",1 "If it should happen that you are a woman, who, from whatever cause, has a perverted delight in making a sister-woman as wretched as she is (I am old enough to have heard of such), I warn her against you, and I warn you against yourself.'",2 'Gentlemen!',2 "said Miss Wade, calmly.",1 "'When you have concluded--Mr Clennam, perhaps you will induce your friend--' 'Not without another effort,' said Mr Meagles, stoutly.",2 "'Tattycoram, my poor dear girl, count five-and-twenty.'",1 "'Do not reject the hope, the certainty, this kind man offers you,' said Clennam in a low emphatic voice.",1 'Turn to the friends you have not forgotten.,2 Think once more!',2 'I won't!,2 "Miss Wade,' said the girl, with her bosom swelling high, and speaking with her hand held to her throat, 'take me away!'",1 "'Tattycoram,' said Mr Meagles.",2 'Once more yet!,2 "The only thing I ask of you in the world, my child!",2 Count five-and-twenty!',2 "She put her hands tightly over her ears, confusedly tumbling down her bright black hair in the vehemence of the action, and turned her face resolutely to the wall.",3 "Miss Wade, who had watched her under this final appeal with that strange attentive smile, and that repressing hand upon her own bosom with which she had watched her in her struggle at Marseilles, then put her arm about her waist as if she took possession of her for evermore.",2 And there was a visible triumph in her face when she turned it to dismiss the visitors.,3 "'As it is the last time I shall have the honour,' she said, 'and as you have spoken of not knowing what I am, and also of the foundation of my influence here, you may now know that it is founded in a common cause.",2 "What your broken plaything is as to birth, I am.",1 "She has no name, I have no name.",2 Her wrong is my wrong.,1 I have nothing more to say to you.',2 "This was addressed to Mr Meagles, who sorrowfully went out.",1 "As Clennam followed, she said to him, with the same external composure and in the same level voice, but with a smile that is only seen on cruel faces: a very faint smile, lifting the nostril, scarcely touching the lips, and not breaking away gradually, but instantly dismissed when done with: 'I hope the wife of your dear friend Mr Gowan, may be happy in the contrast of her extraction to this girl's and mine, and in the high good fortune that awaits her.'",3 "Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover his lost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance, breathing nothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade too.",3 "No answer coming to these epistles, or to another written to the stubborn girl by the hand of her late young mistress, which might have melted her if anything could (all three letters were returned weeks afterwards as having been refused at the house-door), he deputed Mrs Meagles to make the experiment of a personal interview.",0 "That worthy lady being unable to obtain one, and being steadfastly denied admission, Mr Meagles besought Arthur to essay once more what he could do.",2 "All that came of his compliance was, his discovery that the empty house was left in charge of the old woman, that Miss Wade was gone, that the waifs and strays of furniture were gone, and that the old woman would accept any number of half-crowns and thank the donor kindly, but had no information whatever to exchange for those coins, beyond constantly offering for perusal a memorandum relative to fixtures, which the house-agent's young man had left in the hall.",3 "Unwilling, even under this discomfiture, to resign the ingrate and leave her hopeless, in case of her better dispositions obtaining the mastery over the darker side of her character, Mr Meagles, for six successive days, published a discreetly covert advertisement in the morning papers, to the effect that if a certain young person who had lately left home without reflection, would at any time apply to his address at Twickenham, everything would be as it had been before, and no reproaches need be apprehended.",1 "The unexpected consequences of this notification suggested to the dismayed Mr Meagles for the first time that some hundreds of young persons must be leaving their homes without reflection every day; for shoals of wrong young people came down to Twickenham, who, not finding themselves received with enthusiasm, generally demanded compensation by way of damages, in addition to coach-hire there and back.",0 Nor were these the only uninvited clients whom the advertisement produced.,2 "The swarm of begging-letter writers, who would seem to be always watching eagerly for any hook, however small, to hang a letter upon, wrote to say that having seen the advertisement, they were induced to apply with confidence for various sums, ranging from ten shillings to fifty pounds: not because they knew anything about the young person, but because they felt that to part with those donations would greatly relieve the advertiser's mind.",2 "Several projectors, likewise, availed themselves of the same opportunity to correspond with Mr Meagles; as, for example, to apprise him that their attention having been called to the advertisement by a friend, they begged to state that if they should ever hear anything of the young person, they would not fail to make it known to him immediately, and that in the meantime if he would oblige them with the funds necessary for bringing to perfection a certain entirely novel description of Pump, the happiest results would ensue to mankind.",2 "Mr Meagles and his family, under these combined discouragements, had begun reluctantly to give up Tattycoram as irrecoverable, when the new and active firm of Doyce and Clennam, in their private capacities, went down on a Saturday to stay at the cottage until Monday.",1 "The senior partner took the coach, and the junior partner took his walking-stick.",2 "A tranquil summer sunset shone upon him as he approached the end of his walk, and passed through the meadows by the river side.",3 "He had that sense of peace, and of being lightened of a weight of care, which country quiet awakens in the breasts of dwellers in towns.",3 Everything within his view was lovely and placid.,3 "The rich foliage of the trees, the luxuriant grass diversified with wild flowers, the little green islands in the river, the beds of rushes, the water-lilies floating on the surface of the stream, the distant voices in boats borne musically towards him on the ripple of the water and the evening air, were all expressive of rest.",3 "In the occasional leap of a fish, or dip of an oar, or twittering of a bird not yet at roost, or distant barking of a dog, or lowing of a cow--in all such sounds, there was the prevailing breath of rest, which seemed to encompass him in every scent that sweetened the fragrant air.",3 "The long lines of red and gold in the sky, and the glorious track of the descending sun, were all divinely calm.",4 "Upon the purple tree-tops far away, and on the green height near at hand up which the shades were slowly creeping, there was an equal hush.",1 "Between the real landscape and its shadow in the water, there was no division; both were so untroubled and clear, and, while so fraught with solemn mystery of life and death, so hopefully reassuring to the gazer's soothed heart, because so tenderly and mercifully beautiful.",2 "Clennam had stopped, not for the first time by many times, to look about him and suffer what he saw to sink into his soul, as the shadows, looked at, seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the water.",1 "He was slowly resuming his way, when he saw a figure in the path before him which he had, perhaps, already associated with the evening and its impressions.",1 "Minnie was there, alone.",2 "She had some roses in her hand, and seemed to have stood still on seeing him, waiting for him.",2 "Her face was towards him, and she appeared to have been coming from the opposite direction.",2 "There was a flutter in her manner, which Clennam had never seen in it before; and as he came near her, it entered his mind all at once that she was there of a set purpose to speak to him.",3 "She gave him her hand, and said, 'You wonder to see me here by myself?",3 "But the evening is so lovely, I have strolled further than I meant at first.",3 "I thought it likely I might meet you, and that made me more confident.",3 "You always come this way, do you not?'",2 "As Clennam said that it was his favourite way, he felt her hand falter on his arm, and saw the roses shake.",1 "'Will you let me give you one, Mr Clennam?",2 I gathered them as I came out of the garden.,2 "Indeed, I almost gathered them for you, thinking it so likely I might meet you.",2 "Mr Doyce arrived more than an hour ago, and told us you were walking down.'",2 "His own hand shook, as he accepted a rose or two from hers and thanked her.",2 They were now by an avenue of trees.,2 Whether they turned into it on his movement or on hers matters little.,2 He never knew how that was.,2 "'It is very grave here,' said Clennam, 'but very pleasant at this hour.",3 "Passing along this deep shade, and out at that arch of light at the other end, we come upon the ferry and the cottage by the best approach, I think.'",3 "In her simple garden-hat and her light summer dress, with her rich brown hair naturally clustering about her, and her wonderful eyes raised to his for a moment with a look in which regard for him and trustfulness in him were strikingly blended with a kind of timid sorrow for him, she was so beautiful that it was well for his peace--or ill for his peace, he did not quite know which--that he had made that vigorous resolution he had so often thought about.",4 She broke a momentary silence by inquiring if he knew that papa had been thinking of another tour abroad?,1 He said he had heard it mentioned.,2 "She broke another momentary silence by adding, with some hesitation, that papa had abandoned the idea.",1 "At this, he thought directly, 'they are to be married.'",2 "'Mr Clennam,' she said, hesitating more timidly yet, and speaking so low that he bent his head to hear her.",1 "'I should very much like to give you my confidence, if you would not mind having the goodness to receive it.",4 "I should have very much liked to have given it to you long ago, because--I felt that you were becoming so much our friend.'",3 'How can I be otherwise than proud of it at any time!,3 Pray give it to me.,2 Pray trust me.',3 "'I could never have been afraid of trusting you,' she returned, raising her eyes frankly to his face.",2 "'I think I would have done so some time ago, if I had known how.",2 "But I scarcely know how, even now.'",1 "'Mr Gowan,' said Arthur Clennam, 'has reason to be very happy.",3 God bless his wife and him!',3 "She wept, as she tried to thank him.",3 "He reassured her, took her hand as it lay with the trembling roses in it on his arm, took the remaining roses from it, and put it to his lips.",2 "At that time, it seemed to him, he first finally resigned the dying hope that had flickered in nobody's heart so much to its pain and trouble; and from that time he became in his own eyes, as to any similar hope or prospect, a very much older man who had done with that part of life.",0 "He put the roses in his breast and they walked on for a little while, slowly and silently, under the umbrageous trees.",1 "Then he asked her, in a voice of cheerful kindness, was there anything else that she would say to him as her friend and her father's friend, many years older than herself; was there any trust she would repose in him, any service she would ask of him, any little aid to her happiness that she could give him the lasting gratification of believing it was in his power to render?",4 "She was going to answer, when she was so touched by some little hidden sorrow or sympathy--what could it have been?--that she said, bursting into tears again: 'O Mr Clennam!",1 "Good, generous, Mr Clennam, pray tell me you do not blame me.'",3 'I blame you?',1 said Clennam.,2 'My dearest girl!,2 I blame you?,1 No!',2 "After clasping both her hands upon his arm, and looking confidentially up into his face, with some hurried words to the effect that she thanked him from her heart (as she did, if it be the source of earnestness), she gradually composed herself, with now and then a word of encouragement from him, as they walked on slowly and almost silently under the darkening trees.",3 "'And, now, Minnie Gowan,' at length said Clennam, smiling; 'will you ask me nothing?'",3 'Oh!,2 I have very much to ask of you.',2 'That's well!,3 I hope so; I am not disappointed.',1 "'You know how I am loved at home, and how I love home.",3 "You can hardly think it perhaps, dear Mr Clennam,' she spoke with great agitation, 'seeing me going from it of my own free will and choice, but I do so dearly love it!'",4 "'I am sure of that,' said Clennam.",2 'Can you suppose I doubt it?',1 "'No, no.",2 "But it is strange, even to me, that loving it so much and being so much beloved in it, I can bear to cast it away.",3 "It seems so neglectful of it, so unthankful.'",2 "'My dear girl,' said Clennam, 'it is in the natural progress and change of time.",3 All homes are left so.',2 "'Yes, I know; but all homes are not left with such a blank in them as there will be in mine when I am gone.",2 "Not that there is any scarcity of far better and more endearing and more accomplished girls than I am; not that I am much, but that they have made so much of me!'",3 "Pet's affectionate heart was overcharged, and she sobbed while she pictured what would happen.",3 "'I know what a change papa will feel at first, and I know that at first I cannot be to him anything like what I have been these many years.",3 "And it is then, Mr Clennam, then more than at any time, that I beg and entreat you to remember him, and sometimes to keep him company when you can spare a little while; and to tell him that you know I was fonder of him when I left him, than I ever was in all my life.",1 "For there is nobody--he told me so himself when he talked to me this very day--there is nobody he likes so well as you, or trusts so much.'",3 "A clue to what had passed between the father and daughter dropped like a heavy stone into the well of Clennam's heart, and swelled the water to his eyes.",3 "He said, cheerily, but not quite so cheerily as he tried to say, that it should be done--that he gave her his faithful promise.",3 "'If I do not speak of mama,' said Pet, more moved by, and more pretty in, her innocent grief, than Clennam could trust himself even to consider--for which reason he counted the trees between them and the fading light as they slowly diminished in number--'it is because mama will understand me better in this action, and will feel my loss in a different way, and will look forward in a different manner.",2 "But you know what a dear, devoted mother she is, and you will remember her too; will you not?'",2 "Let Minnie trust him, Clennam said, let Minnie trust him to do all she wished.",3 "'And, dear Mr Clennam,' said Minnie, 'because papa and one whom I need not name, do not fully appreciate and understand one another yet, as they will by-and-by; and because it will be the duty, and the pride, and pleasure of my new life, to draw them to a better knowledge of one another, and to be a happiness to one another, and to be proud of one another, and to love one another, both loving me so dearly; oh, as you are a kind, true man!",4 "when I am first separated from home (I am going a long distance away), try to reconcile papa to him a little more, and use your great influence to keep him before papa's mind free from prejudice and in his real form.",3 "Will you do this for me, as you are a noble-hearted friend?'",3 Poor Pet!,1 "Self-deceived, mistaken child!",1 When were such changes ever made in men's natural relations to one another: when was such reconcilement of ingrain differences ever effected!,2 "It has been tried many times by other daughters, Minnie; it has never succeeded; nothing has ever come of it but failure.",2 So Clennam thought.,2 So he did not say; it was too late.,2 "He bound himself to do all she asked, and she knew full well that he would do it.",3 They were now at the last tree in the avenue.,2 "She stopped, and withdrew her arm.",2 "Speaking to him with her eyes lifted up to his, and with the hand that had lately rested on his sleeve trembling by touching one of the roses in his breast as an additional appeal to him, she said: 'Dear Mr Clennam, in my happiness--for I am happy, though you have seen me crying--I cannot bear to leave any cloud between us.",3 "If you have anything to forgive me (not anything that I have wilfully done, but any trouble I may have caused you without meaning it, or having it in my power to help it), forgive me to-night out of your noble heart!'",2 He stooped to meet the guileless face that met his without shrinking.,2 "He kissed it, and answered, Heaven knew that he had nothing to forgive.",3 "As he stooped to meet the innocent face once again, she whispered, 'Good-bye!'",2 and he repeated it.,2 It was taking leave of all his old hopes--all nobody's old restless doubts.,1 "They came out of the avenue next moment, arm-in-arm as they had entered it: and the trees seemed to close up behind them in the darkness, like their own perspective of the past.",2 "The voices of Mr and Mrs Meagles and Doyce were audible directly, speaking near the garden gate.",3 "Hearing Pet's name among them, Clennam called out, 'She is here, with me.'",2 "There was some little wondering and laughing until they came up; but as soon as they had all come together, it ceased, and Pet glided away.",2 "Mr Meagles, Doyce, and Clennam, without speaking, walked up and down on the brink of the river, in the light of the rising moon, for a few minutes; and then Doyce lingered behind, and went into the house.",2 "Mr Meagles and Clennam walked up and down together for a few minutes more without speaking, until at length the former broke silence.",1 "'Arthur,' said he, using that familiar address for the first time in their communication, 'do you remember my telling you, as we walked up and down one hot morning, looking over the harbour at Marseilles, that Pet's baby sister who was dead seemed to Mother and me to have grown as she had grown, and changed as she had changed?'",2 'Very well.',3 "'You remember my saying that our thoughts had never been able to separate those twin sisters, and that, in our fancy, whatever Pet was, the other was?'",3 "'Yes, very well.'",3 "'Arthur,' said Mr Meagles, much subdued, 'I carry that fancy further to-night.",2 "I feel to-night, my dear fellow, as if you had loved my dead child very tenderly, and had lost her when she was like what Pet is now.'",3 'Thank you!',2 "murmured Clennam, 'thank you!'",2 And pressed his hand.,2 'Will you come in?',2 "said Mr Meagles, presently.",2 'In a little while.',2 "Mr Meagles fell away, and he was left alone.",1 "When he had walked on the river's brink in the peaceful moonlight for some half an hour, he put his hand in his breast and tenderly took out the handful of roses.",3 "Perhaps he put them to his heart, perhaps he put them to his lips, but certainly he bent down on the shore and gently launched them on the flowing river.",1 "Pale and unreal in the moonlight, the river floated them away.",2 "The lights were bright within doors when he entered, and the faces on which they shone, his own face not excepted, were soon quietly cheerful.",3 "They talked of many subjects (his partner never had had such a ready store to draw upon for the beguiling of the time), and so to bed, and to sleep.",3 "While the flowers, pale and unreal in the moonlight, floated away upon the river; and thus do greater things that once were in our breasts, and near our hearts, flow from us to the eternal seas.",2 "The house in the city preserved its heavy dulness through all these transactions, and the invalid within it turned the same unvarying round of life.",1 "Morning, noon, and night, morning, noon, and night, each recurring with its accompanying monotony, always the same reluctant return of the same sequences of machinery, like a dragging piece of clockwork.",1 "The wheeled chair had its associated remembrances and reveries, one may suppose, as every place that is made the station of a human being has.",2 "Pictures of demolished streets and altered houses, as they formerly were when the occupant of the chair was familiar with them, images of people as they too used to be, with little or no allowance made for the lapse of time since they were seen; of these, there must have been many in the long routine of gloomy days.",1 "To stop the clock of busy existence at the hour when we were personally sequestered from it, to suppose mankind stricken motionless when we were brought to a stand-still, to be unable to measure the changes beyond our view by any larger standard than the shrunken one of our own uniform and contracted existence, is the infirmity of many invalids, and the mental unhealthiness of almost all recluses.",0 "What scenes and actors the stern woman most reviewed, as she sat from season to season in her one dark room, none knew but herself.",1 "Mr Flintwinch, with his wry presence brought to bear upon her daily like some eccentric mechanical force, would perhaps have screwed it out of her, if there had been less resistance in her; but she was too strong for him.",1 "So far as Mistress Affery was concerned, to regard her liege-lord and her disabled mistress with a face of blank wonder, to go about the house after dark with her apron over her head, always to listen for the strange noises and sometimes to hear them, and never to emerge from her ghostly, dreamy, sleep-waking state, was occupation enough for her.",0 "There was a fair stroke of business doing, as Mistress Affery made out, for her husband had abundant occupation in his little office, and saw more people than had been used to come there for some years.",3 "This might easily be, the house having been long deserted; but he did receive letters, and comers, and keep books, and correspond.",2 "Moreover, he went about to other counting-houses, and to wharves, and docks, and to the Custom House, and to Garraway's Coffee House, and the Jerusalem Coffee House, and on 'Change; so that he was much in and out.",2 "He began, too, sometimes of an evening, when Mrs Clennam expressed no particular wish for his society, to resort to a tavern in the neighbourhood to look at the shipping news and closing prices in the evening paper, and even to exchange small socialities with mercantile Sea Captains who frequented that establishment.",2 "At some period of every day, he and Mrs Clennam held a council on matters of business; and it appeared to Affery, who was always groping about, listening and watching, that the two clever ones were making money.",3 "The state of mind into which Mr Flintwinch's dazed lady had fallen, had now begun to be so expressed in all her looks and actions that she was held in very low account by the two clever ones, as a person, never of strong intellect, who was becoming foolish.",1 "Perhaps because her appearance was not of a commercial cast, or perhaps because it occurred to him that his having taken her to wife might expose his judgment to doubt in the minds of customers, Mr Flintwinch laid his commands upon her that she should hold her peace on the subject of her conjugal relations, and should no longer call him Jeremiah out of the domestic trio.",2 "Her frequent forgetfulness of this admonition intensified her startled manner, since Mr Flintwinch's habit of avenging himself on her remissness by making springs after her on the staircase, and shaking her, occasioned her to be always nervously uncertain when she might be thus waylaid next.",0 "Little Dorrit had finished a long day's work in Mrs Clennam's room, and was neatly gathering up her shreds and odds and ends before going home.",3 "Mr Pancks, whom Affery had just shown in, was addressing an inquiry to Mrs Clennam on the subject of her health, coupled with the remark that, 'happening to find himself in that direction,' he had looked in to inquire, on behalf of his proprietor, how she found herself.",2 "Mrs Clennam, with a deep contraction of her brows, was looking at him.",2 "'Mr Casby knows,' said she, 'that I am not subject to changes.",2 The change that I await here is the great change.',3 "'Indeed, ma'am?'",2 "returned Mr Pancks, with a wandering eye towards the figure of the little seamstress on her knee picking threads and fraying of her work from the carpet.",3 "'You look nicely, ma'am.'",3 "'I bear what I have to bear,' she answered.",2 'Do you what you have to do.',2 "'Thank you, ma'am,' said Mr Pancks, 'such is my endeavour.'",2 "'You are often in this direction, are you not?'",2 asked Mrs Clennam.,2 "'Why, yes, ma'am,' said Pancks, 'rather so lately; I have lately been round this way a good deal, owing to one thing and another.'",3 "'Beg Mr Casby and his daughter not to trouble themselves, by deputy, about me.",1 "When they wish to see me, they know I am here to see them.",2 They have no need to trouble themselves to send.,1 You have no need to trouble yourself to come.',1 "'Not the least trouble, ma'am,' said Mr Pancks.",1 "'You really are looking uncommonly nicely, ma'am.'",3 'Thank you.,2 Good evening.',3 "The dismissal, and its accompanying finger pointed straight at the door, was so curt and direct that Mr Pancks did not see his way to prolong his visit.",1 "He stirred up his hair with his sprightliest expression, glanced at the little figure again, said 'Good evening, ma 'am; don't come down, Mrs Affery, I know the road to the door,' and steamed out.",2 "Mrs Clennam, her chin resting on her hand, followed him with attentive and darkly distrustful eyes; and Affery stood looking at her as if she were spell-bound.",2 "Slowly and thoughtfully, Mrs Clennam's eyes turned from the door by which Pancks had gone out, to Little Dorrit, rising from the carpet.",2 "With her chin drooping more heavily on her hand, and her eyes vigilant and lowering, the sick woman sat looking at her until she attracted her attention.",2 "Little Dorrit coloured under such a gaze, and looked down.",2 Mrs Clennam still sat intent.,2 "'Little Dorrit,' she said, when she at last broke silence, 'what do you know of that man?'",1 "'I don't know anything of him, ma'am, except that I have seen him about, and that he has spoken to me.'",2 'What has he said to you?',2 "'I don't understand what he has said, he is so strange.",1 But nothing rough or disagreeable.',1 'Why does he come here to see you?',2 "'I don't know, ma'am,' said Little Dorrit, with perfect frankness.",3 'You know that he does come here to see you?',2 "'I have fancied so,' said Little Dorrit.",2 "'But why he should come here or anywhere for that, ma'am, I can't think.'",2 "Mrs Clennam cast her eyes towards the ground, and with her strong, set face, as intent upon a subject in her mind as it had lately been upon the form that seemed to pass out of her view, sat absorbed.",3 "Some minutes elapsed before she came out of this thoughtfulness, and resumed her hard composure.",2 "Little Dorrit in the meanwhile had been waiting to go, but afraid to disturb her by moving.",1 "She now ventured to leave the spot where she had been standing since she had risen, and to pass gently round by the wheeled chair.",2 "She stopped at its side to say 'Good night, ma'am.'",2 "Mrs Clennam put out her hand, and laid it on her arm.",2 "Little Dorrit, confused under the touch, stood faltering.",1 Perhaps some momentary recollection of the story of the Princess may have been in her mind.,2 "'Tell me, Little Dorrit,' said Mrs Clennam, 'have you many friends now?'",2 "'Very few, ma'am.",2 "Besides you, only Miss Flora and--one more.'",1 "'Meaning,' said Mrs Clennam, with her unbent finger again pointing to the door, 'that man?'",2 "'Oh no, ma'am!'",2 "'Some friend of his, perhaps?'",2 'No ma'am.',2 Little Dorrit earnestly shook her head.,3 'Oh no!,2 "No one at all like him, or belonging to him.'",3 'Well!',2 "said Mrs Clennam, almost smiling.",3 'It is no affair of mine.,2 "I ask, because I take an interest in you; and because I believe I was your friend when you had no other who could serve you.",2 Is that so?',2 "'Yes, ma'am; indeed it is.",2 "I have been here many a time when, but for you and the work you gave me, we should have wanted everything.'",3 "'We,' repeated Mrs Clennam, looking towards the watch, once her dead husband's, which always lay upon her table.",1 'Are there many of you?',2 "'Only father and I, now.",2 "I mean, only father and I to keep regularly out of what we get.'",2 'Have you undergone many privations?,2 You and your father and who else there may be of you?',2 "asked Mrs Clennam, speaking deliberately, and meditatively turning the watch over and over.",2 "'Sometimes it has been rather hard to live,' said Little Dorrit, in her soft voice, and timid uncomplaining way; 'but I think not harder--as to that--than many people find it.'",1 'That's well said!',3 Mrs Clennam quickly returned.,2 'That's the truth!,2 "You are a good, thoughtful girl.",3 "You are a grateful girl too, or I much mistake you.'",2 'It is only natural to be that.,2 "There is no merit in being that,' said Little Dorrit.",3 'I am indeed.',2 "Mrs Clennam, with a gentleness of which the dreaming Affery had never dreamed her to be capable, drew down the face of her little seamstress, and kissed her on the forehead.",3 "'Now go, Little Dorrit,' said she, 'or you will be late, poor child!'",1 "In all the dreams Mistress Affery had been piling up since she first became devoted to the pursuit, she had dreamed nothing more astonishing than this.",2 "Her head ached with the idea that she would find the other clever one kissing Little Dorrit next, and then the two clever ones embracing each other and dissolving into tears of tenderness for all mankind.",1 "The idea quite stunned her, as she attended the light footsteps down the stairs, that the house door might be safely shut.",3 "On opening it to let Little Dorrit out, she found Mr Pancks, instead of having gone his way, as in any less wonderful place and among less wonderful phenomena he might have been reasonably expected to do, fluttering up and down the court outside the house.",3 "The moment he saw Little Dorrit, he passed her briskly, said with his finger to his nose (as Mrs Affery distinctly heard), 'Pancks the gipsy, fortune-telling,' and went away.",3 "'Lord save us, here's a gipsy and a fortune-teller in it now!'",3 cried Mistress Affery.,1 'What next!',2 "She stood at the open door, staggering herself with this enigma, on a rainy, thundery evening.",2 "The clouds were flying fast, and the wind was coming up in gusts, banging some neighbouring shutters that had broken loose, twirling the rusty chimney-cowls and weather-cocks, and rushing round and round a confined adjacent churchyard as if it had a mind to blow the dead citizens out of their graves.",0 "The low thunder, muttering in all quarters of the sky at once, seemed to threaten vengeance for this attempted desecration, and to mutter, 'Let them rest!",1 Let them rest!',2 "Mistress Affery, whose fear of thunder and lightning was only to be equalled by her dread of the haunted house with a premature and preternatural darkness in it, stood undecided whether to go in or not, until the question was settled for her by the door blowing upon her in a violent gust of wind and shutting her out.",0 "'What's to be done now, what's to be done now!'",2 "cried Mistress Affery, wringing her hands in this last uneasy dream of all; 'when she's all alone by herself inside, and can no more come down to open it than the churchyard dead themselves!'",0 "In this dilemma, Mistress Affery, with her apron as a hood to keep the rain off, ran crying up and down the solitary paved enclosure several times.",1 "Why she should then stoop down and look in at the keyhole of the door as if an eye would open it, it would be difficult to say; but it is none the less what most people would have done in the same situation, and it is what she did.",1 "From this posture she started up suddenly, with a half scream, feeling something on her shoulder.",1 It was the touch of a hand; of a man's hand.,2 "The man was dressed like a traveller, in a foraging cap with fur about it, and a heap of cloak.",3 He looked like a foreigner.,3 "He had a quantity of hair and moustache--jet black, except at the shaggy ends, where it had a tinge of red--and a high hook nose.",2 "He laughed at Mistress Affery's start and cry; and as he laughed, his moustache went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache.",1 'What's the matter?',2 he asked in plain English.,2 'What are you frightened at?',2 "'At you,' panted Affery.",2 "'Me, madam?'",2 "'And the dismal evening, and--and everything,' said Affery.",1 'And here!,2 "The wind has been and blown the door to, and I can't get in.'",2 'Hah!',2 "said the gentleman, who took that very coolly.",2 'Indeed!,2 Do you know such a name as Clennam about here?',2 "'Lord bless us, I should think I did, I should think I did!'",3 "cried Affery, exasperated into a new wringing of hands by the inquiry.",1 'Where about here?',2 'Where!',2 "cried Affery, goaded into another inspection of the keyhole.",2 'Where but here in this house?,2 "And she's all alone in her room, and lost the use of her limbs and can't stir to help herself or me, and t'other clever one's out, and Lord forgive me!'",2 "cried Affery, driven into a frantic dance by these accumulated considerations, 'if I ain't a-going headlong out of my mind!'",1 "Taking a warmer view of the matter now that it concerned himself, the gentleman stepped back to glance at the house, and his eye soon rested on the long narrow window of the little room near the hall-door.",2 "'Where may the lady be who has lost the use of her limbs, madam?'",1 "he inquired, with that peculiar smile which Mistress Affery could not choose but keep her eyes upon.",1 'Up there!',2 said Affery.,2 'Them two windows.',2 'Hah!,2 "I am of a fair size, but could not have the honour of presenting myself in that room without a ladder.",3 "Now, madam, frankly--frankness is a part of my character--shall I open the door for you?'",2 "'Yes, bless you, sir, for a dear creetur, and do it at once,' cried Affery, 'for she may be a-calling to me at this very present minute, or may be setting herself a fire and burning herself to death, or there's no knowing what may be happening to her, and me a-going out of my mind at thinking of it!'",1 "'Stay, my good madam!'",3 He restrained her impatience with a smooth white hand.,2 "'Business-hours, I apprehend, are over for the day?'",2 "'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Affery.",2 'Long ago.',2 "'Let me make, then, a fair proposal.",3 Fairness is a part of my character.,3 "I am just landed from the packet-boat, as you may see.'",2 "He showed her that his cloak was very wet, and that his boots were saturated with water; she had previously observed that he was dishevelled and sallow, as if from a rough voyage, and so chilled that he could not keep his teeth from chattering.",1 "'I am just landed from the packet-boat, madam, and have been delayed by the weather: the infernal weather!",1 "In consequence of this, madam, some necessary business that I should otherwise have transacted here within the regular hours (necessary business because money-business), still remains to be done.",2 "Now, if you will fetch any authorised neighbouring somebody to do it in return for my opening the door, I'll open the door.",2 "If this arrangement should be objectionable, I'll--' and with the same smile he made a significant feint of backing away.",2 "Mistress Affery, heartily glad to effect the proposed compromise, gave in her willing adhesion to it.",3 "The gentleman at once requested her to do him the favour of holding his cloak, took a short run at the narrow window, made a leap at the sill, clung his way up the bricks, and in a moment had his hand at the sash, raising it.",3 "His eyes looked so very sinister, as he put his leg into the room and glanced round at Mistress Affery, that she thought with a sudden coldness, if he were to go straight up-stairs to murder the invalid, what could she do to prevent him?",0 "Happily he had no such purpose; for he reappeared, in a moment, at the house door.",3 "'Now, my dear madam,' he said, as he took back his cloak and threw it on, 'if you have the goodness to--what the Devil's that!'",3 The strangest of sounds.,1 "Evidently close at hand from the peculiar shock it communicated to the air, yet subdued as if it were far off.",0 "A tremble, a rumble, and a fall of some light dry matter.",1 'What the Devil is it?',1 "'I don't know what it is, but I've heard the like of it over and over again,' said Affery, who had caught his arm.",3 "He could hardly be a very brave man, even she thought in her dreamy start and fright, for his trembling lips had turned colourless.",2 "After listening a few moments, he made light of it.",2 'Bah!,2 Nothing!,2 "Now, my dear madam, I think you spoke of some clever personage.",3 Will you be so good as to confront me with that genius?',3 "He held the door in his hand, as though he were quite ready to shut her out again if she failed.",2 "'Don't you say anything about the door and me, then,' whispered Affery.",2 'Not a word.',2 "'And don't you stir from here, or speak if she calls, while I run round the corner.'",2 "'Madam, I am a statue.'",2 "Affery had so vivid a fear of his going stealthily up-stairs the moment her back was turned, that after hurrying out of sight, she returned to the gateway to peep at him.",2 "Seeing him still on the threshold, more out of the house than in it, as if he had no love for darkness and no desire to probe its mysteries, she flew into the next street, and sent a message into the tavern to Mr Flintwinch, who came out directly.",2 "The two returning together--the lady in advance, and Mr Flintwinch coming up briskly behind, animated with the hope of shaking her before she could get housed--saw the gentleman standing in the same place in the dark, and heard the strong voice of Mrs Clennam calling from her room, 'Who is it?",2 What is it?,2 Why does no one answer?,2 "Who _is_ that, down there?'",2 "When Mr and Mrs Flintwinch panted up to the door of the old house in the twilight, Jeremiah within a second of Affery, the stranger started back.",1 'Death of my soul!',2 he exclaimed.,2 "'Why, how did you get here?'",2 "Mr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid the stranger's wonder in full.",3 "He gazed at him with blank astonishment; he looked over his own shoulder, as expecting to see some one he had not been aware of standing behind him; he gazed at the stranger again, speechlessly, at a loss to know what he meant; he looked to his wife for explanation; receiving none, he pounced upon her, and shook her with such heartiness that he shook her cap off her head, saying between his teeth, with grim raillery, as he did it, 'Affery, my woman, you must have a dose, my woman!",1 This is some of your tricks!,2 "You have been dreaming again, mistress.",1 What's it about?,2 Who is it?,2 What does it mean!,2 Speak out or be choked!,2 It's the only choice I'll give you.',2 "Supposing Mistress Affery to have any power of election at the moment, her choice was decidedly to be choked; for she answered not a syllable to this adjuration, but, with her bare head wagging violently backwards and forwards, resigned herself to her punishment.",0 "The stranger, however, picking up her cap with an air of gallantry, interposed.",1 "'Permit me,' said he, laying his hand on the shoulder of Jeremiah, who stopped and released his victim.",2 'Thank you.,2 Excuse me.,1 "Husband and wife I know, from this playfulness.",2 Haha!,2 Always agreeable to see that relation playfully maintained.,3 Listen!,2 "May I suggest that somebody up-stairs, in the dark, is becoming energetically curious to know what is going on here?'",1 This reference to Mrs Clennam's voice reminded Mr Flintwinch to step into the hall and call up the staircase.,2 "'It's all right, I am here, Affery is coming with your light.'",3 "Then he said to the latter flustered woman, who was putting her cap on, 'Get out with you, and get up-stairs!'",2 "and then turned to the stranger and said to him, 'Now, sir, what might you please to want?'",1 "'I am afraid,' said the stranger, 'I must be so troublesome as to propose a candle.'",0 "'True,' assented Jeremiah.",2 'I was going to do so.,2 Please to stand where you are while I get one.',2 "The visitor was standing in the doorway, but turned a little into the gloom of the house as Mr Flintwinch turned, and pursued him with his eyes into the little room, where he groped about for a phosphorus box.",1 "When he found it, it was damp, or otherwise out of order; and match after match that he struck into it lighted sufficiently to throw a dull glare about his groping face, and to sprinkle his hands with pale little spots of fire, but not sufficiently to light the candle.",0 "The stranger, taking advantage of this fitful illumination of his visage, looked intently and wonderingly at him.",2 "Jeremiah, when he at last lighted the candle, knew he had been doing this, by seeing the last shade of a lowering watchfulness clear away from his face, as it broke into the doubtful smile that was a large ingredient in its expression.",2 "'Be so good,' said Jeremiah, closing the house door, and taking a pretty sharp survey of the smiling visitor in his turn, 'as to step into my counting-house.--It's all right, I tell you!'",4 "petulantly breaking off to answer the voice up-stairs, still unsatisfied, though Affery was there, speaking in persuasive tones.",1 'Don't I tell you it's all right?,3 "Preserve the woman, has she no reason at all in her!'",2 "'Timorous,' remarked the stranger.",1 'Timorous?',2 "said Mr Flintwinch, turning his head to retort, as he went before with the candle.",2 "'More courageous than ninety men in a hundred, sir, let me tell you.'",3 'Though an invalid?',1 'Many years an invalid.,1 Mrs Clennam.,2 The only one of that name left in the House now.,2 My partner.',2 "Saying something apologetically as he crossed the hall, to the effect that at that time of night they were not in the habit of receiving any one, and were always shut up, Mr Flintwinch led the way into his own office, which presented a sufficiently business-like appearance.",4 "Here he put the light on his desk, and said to the stranger, with his wryest twist upon him, 'Your commands.'",1 'My name is Blandois.',2 'Blandois.,2 "I don't know it,' said Jeremiah.",2 "'I thought it possible,' resumed the other, 'that you might have been advised from Paris--' 'We have had no advice from Paris respecting anybody of the name of Blandois,' said Jeremiah.",2 'No?',2 'No.',2 Jeremiah stood in his favourite attitude.,2 "The smiling Mr Blandois, opening his cloak to get his hand to a breast-pocket, paused to say, with a laugh in his glittering eyes, which it occurred to Mr Flintwinch were too near together: 'You are so like a friend of mine!",3 "Not so identically the same as I supposed when I really did for the moment take you to be the same in the dusk--for which I ought to apologise; permit me to do so; a readiness to confess my errors is, I hope, a part of the frankness of my character--still, however, uncommonly like.'",1 'Indeed?',2 "said Jeremiah, perversely.",1 'But I have not received any letter of advice from anywhere respecting anybody of the name of Blandois.',2 "'Just so,' said the stranger.",1 "'_Just_ so,' said Jeremiah.",2 "Mr Blandois, not at all put out by this omission on the part of the correspondents of the house of Clennam and Co., took his pocket-book from his breast-pocket, selected a letter from that receptacle, and handed it to Mr Flintwinch.",1 'No doubt you are well acquainted with the writing.,2 "Perhaps the letter speaks for itself, and requires no advice.",2 You are a far more competent judge of such affairs than I am.,2 "It is my misfortune to be, not so much a man of business, as what the world calls (arbitrarily) a gentleman.'",1 "Mr Flintwinch took the letter, and read, under date of Paris, 'We have to present to you, on behalf of a highly esteemed correspondent of our Firm, M.",2 "Blandois, of this city,' &c. &c.",2 "Such facilities as he may require and such attentions as may lie in your power,' &c. &c.",1 'Also have to add that if you will honour M.,2 "Blandois' drafts at sight to the extent of, say Fifty Pounds sterling (50l.),' &c. &c.",2 "'Very good, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch.",3 'Take a chair.,2 "To the extent of anything that our House can do--we are in a retired, old-fashioned, steady way of business, sir--we shall be happy to render you our best assistance.",4 "I observe, from the date of this, that we could not yet be advised of it.",2 Probably you came over with the delayed mail that brings the advice.',1 "'That I came over with the delayed mail, sir,' returned Mr Blandois, passing his white hand down his high-hooked nose, 'I know to the cost of my head and stomach: the detestable and intolerable weather having racked them both.",0 You see me in the plight in which I came out of the packet within this half-hour.,1 "I ought to have been here hours ago, and then I should not have to apologise--permit me to apologise--for presenting myself so unreasonably, and frightening--no, by-the-bye, you said not frightening; permit me to apologise again--the esteemed lady, Mrs Clennam, in her invalid chamber above stairs.'",0 "Swagger and an air of authorised condescension do so much, that Mr Flintwinch had already begun to think this a highly gentlemanly personage.",1 "Not the less unyielding with him on that account, he scraped his chin and said, what could he have the honour of doing for Mr Blandois to-night, out of business hours?",1 'Faith!',2 "returned that gentleman, shrugging his cloaked shoulders, 'I must change, and eat and drink, and be lodged somewhere.",2 "Have the kindness to advise me, a total stranger, where, and money is a matter of perfect indifference until to-morrow.",2 "The nearer the place, the better.",3 "Next door, if that's all.'",2 "Mr Flintwinch was slowly beginning, 'For a gentleman of your habits, there is not in this immediate neighbourhood any hotel--' when Mr Blandois took him up.",1 'So much for my habits!,2 "my dear sir,' snapping his fingers.",2 'A citizen of the world has no habits.,2 "That I am, in my poor way, a gentleman, by Heaven!",2 "I will not deny, but I have no unaccommodating prejudiced habits.",1 "A clean room, a hot dish for dinner, and a bottle of not absolutely poisonous wine, are all I want tonight.",3 But I want that much without the trouble of going one unnecessary inch to get it.',1 "'There is,' said Mr Flintwinch, with more than his usual deliberation, as he met, for a moment, Mr Blandois' shining eyes, which were restless; 'there is a coffee-house and tavern close here, which, so far, I can recommend; but there's no style about it.'",2 'I dispense with style!',2 "said Mr Blandois, waving his hand.",2 "'Do me the honour to show me the house, and introduce me there (if I am not too troublesome), and I shall be infinitely obliged.'",1 "Mr Flintwinch, upon this, looked up his hat, and lighted Mr Blandois across the hall again.",2 "As he put the candle on a bracket, where the dark old panelling almost served as an extinguisher for it, he bethought himself of going up to tell the invalid that he would not be absent five minutes.",1 "'Oblige me,' said the visitor, on his saying so, 'by presenting my card of visit.",2 "Do me the favour to add that I shall be happy to wait on Mrs Clennam, to offer my personal compliments, and to apologise for having occasioned any agitation in this tranquil corner, if it should suit her convenience to endure the presence of a stranger for a few minutes, after he shall have changed his wet clothes and fortified himself with something to eat and drink.'",4 "Jeremiah made all despatch, and said, on his return, 'She'll be glad to see you, sir; but, being conscious that her sick room has no attractions, wishes me to say that she won't hold you to your offer, in case you should think better of it.'",3 "'To think better of it,' returned the gallant Blandois, 'would be to slight a lady; to slight a lady would be to be deficient in chivalry towards the sex; and chivalry towards the sex is a part of my character!'",3 "Thus expressing himself, he threw the draggled skirt of his cloak over his shoulder, and accompanied Mr Flintwinch to the tavern; taking up on the road a porter who was waiting with his portmanteau on the outer side of the gateway.",2 "The house was kept in a homely manner, and the condescension of Mr Blandois was infinite.",1 "It seemed to fill to inconvenience the little bar in which the widow landlady and her two daughters received him; it was much too big for the narrow wainscoted room with a bagatelle-board in it, that was first proposed for his reception; it perfectly swamped the little private holiday sitting-room of the family, which was finally given up to him.",1 "Here, in dry clothes and scented linen, with sleeked hair, a great ring on each forefinger and a massive show of watch-chain, Mr Blandois waiting for his dinner, lolling on a window-seat with his knees drawn up, looked (for all the difference in the setting of the jewel) fearfully and wonderfully like a certain Monsieur Rigaud who had once so waited for his breakfast, lying on the stone ledge of the iron grating of a cell in a villainous dungeon at Marseilles.",1 "His greed at dinner, too, was closely in keeping with the greed of Monsieur Rigaud at breakfast.",1 "His avaricious manner of collecting all the eatables about him, and devouring some with his eyes while devouring others with his jaws, was the same manner.",1 "His utter disregard of other people, as shown in his way of tossing the little womanly toys of furniture about, flinging favourite cushions under his boots for a softer rest, and crushing delicate coverings with his big body and his great black head, had the same brute selfishness at the bottom of it.",1 The softly moving hands that were so busy among the dishes had the old wicked facility of the hands that had clung to the bars.,1 "And when he could eat no more, and sat sucking his delicate fingers one by one and wiping them on a cloth, there wanted nothing but the substitution of vine-leaves to finish the picture.",3 "On this man, with his moustache going up and his nose coming down in that most evil of smiles, and with his surface eyes looking as if they belonged to his dyed hair, and had had their natural power of reflecting light stopped by some similar process, Nature, always true, and never working in vain, had set the mark, Beware!",1 "It was not her fault, if the warning were fruitless.",0 She is never to blame in any such instance.,1 "Mr Blandois, having finished his repast and cleaned his fingers, took a cigar from his pocket, and, lying on the window-seat again, smoked it out at his leisure, occasionally apostrophising the smoke as it parted from his thin lips in a thin stream: 'Blandois, you shall turn the tables on society, my little child.",1 Haha!,2 "Holy blue, you have begun well, Blandois!",3 "At a pinch, an excellent master in English or French; a man for the bosom of families!",3 "You have a quick perception, you have humour, you have ease, you have insinuating manners, you have a good appearance; in effect, you are a gentleman!",3 "A gentleman you shall live, my small boy, and a gentleman you shall die.",1 "You shall win, however the game goes.",3 "They shall all confess your merit, Blandois.",2 "You shall subdue the society which has grievously wronged you, to your own high spirit.",1 Death of my soul!,1 "You are high spirited by right and by nature, my Blandois!'",3 To such soothing murmurs did this gentleman smoke out his cigar and drink out his bottle of wine.,1 "Both being finished, he shook himself into a sitting attitude; and with the concluding serious apostrophe, 'Hold, then!",2 "Blandois, you ingenious one, have all your wits about you!'",3 arose and went back to the house of Clennam and Co.,2 "He was received at the door by Mistress Affery, who, under instructions from her lord, had lighted up two candles in the hall and a third on the staircase, and who conducted him to Mrs Clennam's room.",1 "Tea was prepared there, and such little company arrangements had been made as usually attended the reception of expected visitors.",2 "They were slight on the greatest occasion, never extending beyond the production of the China tea-service, and the covering of the bed with a sober and sad drapery.",1 "For the rest, there was the bier-like sofa with the block upon it, and the figure in the widow's dress, as if attired for execution; the fire topped by the mound of damped ashes; the grate with its second little mound of ashes; the kettle and the smell of black dye; all as they had been for fifteen years.",1 Mr Flintwinch presented the gentleman commended to the consideration of Clennam and Co.,2 "Mrs Clennam, who had the letter lying before her, bent her head and requested him to sit.",1 They looked very closely at one another.,2 That was but natural curiosity.,2 "'I thank you, sir, for thinking of a disabled woman like me.",3 Few who come here on business have any remembrance to bestow on one so removed from observation.,2 It would be idle to expect that they should have.,1 "Out of sight, out of mind.",2 "While I am grateful for the exception, I don't complain of the rule.'",2 "Mr Blandois, in his most gentlemanly manner, was afraid he had disturbed her by unhappily presenting himself at such an unconscionable time.",0 For which he had already offered his best apologies to Mr--he begged pardon--but by name had not the distinguished honour-- 'Mr Flintwinch has been connected with the House many years.',4 Mr Blandois was Mr Flintwinch's most obedient humble servant.,3 He entreated Mr Flintwinch to receive the assurance of his profoundest consideration.,3 "'My husband being dead,' said Mrs Clennam, 'and my son preferring another pursuit, our old House has no other representative in these days than Mr Flintwinch.'",2 'What do you call yourself?',2 was the surly demand of that gentleman.,2 'You have the head of two men.',2 "'My sex disqualifies me,' she proceeded with merely a slight turn of her eyes in Jeremiah's direction, 'from taking a responsible part in the business, even if I had the ability; and therefore Mr Flintwinch combines my interest with his own, and conducts it.",2 "It is not what it used to be; but some of our old friends (principally the writers of this letter) have the kindness not to forget us, and we retain the power of doing what they entrust to us as efficiently as we ever did.",4 This however is not interesting to you.,3 "You are English, sir?'",2 "'Faith, madam, no; I am neither born nor bred in England.",2 "In effect, I am of no country,' said Mr Blandois, stretching out his leg and smiting it: 'I descend from half-a-dozen countries.'",2 'You have been much about the world?',2 'It is true.,2 "By Heaven, madam, I have been here and there and everywhere!'",3 "'You have no ties, probably.",2 Are not married?',2 "'Madam,' said Mr Blandois, with an ugly fall of his eyebrows, 'I adore your sex, but I am not married--never was.'",1 "Mistress Affery, who stood at the table near him, pouring out the tea, happened in her dreamy state to look at him as he said these words, and to fancy that she caught an expression in his eyes which attracted her own eyes so that she could not get them away.",2 "The effect of this fancy was to keep her staring at him with the tea-pot in her hand, not only to her own great uneasiness, but manifestly to his, too; and, through them both, to Mrs Clennam's and Mr Flintwinch's.",3 "Thus a few ghostly moments supervened, when they were all confusedly staring without knowing why.",2 "'Affery,' her mistress was the first to say, 'what is the matter with you?'",1 "'I don't know,' said Mistress Affery, with her disengaged left hand extended towards the visitor.",1 'It ain't me.,2 It's him!',2 'What does this good woman mean?',3 "cried Mr Blandois, turning white, hot, and slowly rising with a look of such deadly wrath that it contrasted surprisingly with the slight force of his words.",1 'How is it possible to understand this good creature?',3 "'It's _not_ possible,' said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself rapidly in that direction.",2 'She don't know what she means.,2 "She's an idiot, a wanderer in her mind.",1 "She shall have a dose, she shall have such a dose!",2 "Get along with you, my woman,' he added in her ear, 'get along with you, while you know you're Affery, and before you're shaken to yeast.'",2 "Mistress Affery, sensible of the danger in which her identity stood, relinquished the tea-pot as her husband seized it, put her apron over her head, and in a twinkling vanished.",1 "The visitor gradually broke into a smile, and sat down again.",2 "'You'll excuse her, Mr Blandois,' said Jeremiah, pouring out the tea himself, 'she's failing and breaking up; that's what she's about.",0 "Do you take sugar, sir?'",2 "'Thank you, no tea for me.--Pardon my observing it, but that's a very remarkable watch!'",3 "The tea-table was drawn up near the sofa, with a small interval between it and Mrs Clennam's own particular table.",2 "Mr Blandois in his gallantry had risen to hand that lady her tea (her dish of toast was already there), and it was in placing the cup conveniently within her reach that the watch, lying before her as it always did, attracted his attention.",2 Mrs Clennam looked suddenly up at him.,2 'May I be permitted?,2 Thank you.,3 "A fine old-fashioned watch,' he said, taking it in his hand.",3 "'Heavy for use, but massive and genuine.",3 I have a partiality for everything genuine.,2 "Such as I am, I am genuine myself.",3 Hah!,2 A gentleman's watch with two cases in the old fashion.,2 May I remove it from the outer case?,2 Thank you.,3 Aye?,2 "An old silk watch-lining, worked with beads!",3 I have often seen these among old Dutch people and Belgians.,2 Quaint things!',3 "'They are old-fashioned, too,' said Mrs Clennam.",2 'Very.,2 "But this is not so old as the watch, I think?'",2 'I think not.',2 'Extraordinary how they used to complicate these cyphers!',2 "remarked Mr Blandois, glancing up with his own smile again.",3 'Now is this D. N. F.?,2 It might be almost anything.',2 'Those are the letters.',2 "Mr Flintwinch, who had been observantly pausing all this time with a cup of tea in his hand, and his mouth open ready to swallow the contents, began to do so: always entirely filling his mouth before he emptied it at a gulp; and always deliberating again before he refilled it.",3 "'D. N. F. was some tender, lovely, fascinating fair-creature, I make no doubt,' observed Mr Blandois, as he snapped on the case again.",4 'I adore her memory on the assumption.,3 "Unfortunately for my peace of mind, I adore but too readily.",3 "It may be a vice, it may be a virtue, but adoration of female beauty and merit constitutes three parts of my character, madam.'",3 "Mr Flintwinch had by this time poured himself out another cup of tea, which he was swallowing in gulps as before, with his eyes directed to the invalid.",1 "'You may be heart-free here, sir,' she returned to Mr Blandois.",3 "'Those letters are not intended, I believe, for the initials of any name.'",2 "'Of a motto, perhaps,' said Mr Blandois, casually.",2 'Of a sentence.,2 "They have always stood, I believe, for Do Not Forget!'",2 "'And naturally,' said Mr Blandois, replacing the watch and stepping backward to his former chair, 'you do _not_ forget.'",1 "Mr Flintwinch, finishing his tea, not only took a longer gulp than he had taken yet, but made his succeeding pause under new circumstances: that is to say, with his head thrown back and his cup held still at his lips, while his eyes were still directed at the invalid.",2 "She had that force of face, and that concentrated air of collecting her firmness or obstinacy, which represented in her case what would have been gesture and action in another, as she replied with her deliberate strength of speech: 'No, sir, I do not forget.",2 "To lead a life as monotonous as mine has been during many years, is not the way to forget.",2 To lead a life of self-correction is not the way to forget.,3 "To be sensible of having (as we all have, every one of us, all the children of Adam!) offences to expiate and peace to make, does not justify the desire to forget.",3 "Therefore I have long dismissed it, and I neither forget nor wish to forget.'",2 "Mr Flintwinch, who had latterly been shaking the sediment at the bottom of his tea-cup, round and round, here gulped it down, and putting the cup in the tea-tray, as done with, turned his eyes upon Mr Blandois as if to ask him what he thought of that?",2 "'All expressed, madam,' said Mr Blandois, with his smoothest bow and his white hand on his breast, 'by the word ""naturally,"" which I am proud to have had sufficient apprehension and appreciation (but without appreciation I could not be Blandois) to employ.'",3 "'Pardon me, sir,' she returned, 'if I doubt the likelihood of a gentleman of pleasure, and change, and politeness, accustomed to court and to be courted--' 'Oh madam!",3 By Heaven!',3 '--If I doubt the likelihood of such a character quite comprehending what belongs to mine in my circumstances.,1 "Not to obtrude doctrine upon you,' she looked at the rigid pile of hard pale books before her, '(for you go your own way, and the consequences are on your own head), I will say this much: that I shape my course by pilots, strictly by proved and tried pilots, under whom I cannot be shipwrecked--can not be--and that if I were unmindful of the admonition conveyed in those three letters, I should not be half as chastened as I am.'",0 It was curious how she seized the occasion to argue with some invisible opponent.,1 "Perhaps with her own better sense, always turning upon herself and her own deception.",2 "'If I forgot my ignorances in my life of health and freedom, I might complain of the life to which I am now condemned.",1 I never do; I never have done.,2 "If I forgot that this scene, the Earth, is expressly meant to be a scene of gloom, and hardship, and dark trial, for the creatures who are made out of its dust, I might have some tenderness for its vanities.",0 But I have no such tenderness.,1 "If I did not know that we are, every one, the subject (most justly the subject) of a wrath that must be satisfied, and against which mere actions are nothing, I might repine at the difference between me, imprisoned here, and the people who pass that gateway yonder.",3 "But I take it as a grace and favour to be elected to make the satisfaction I am making here, to know what I know for certain here, and to work out what I have worked out here.",4 My affliction might otherwise have had no meaning to me.,1 "Hence I would forget, and I do forget, nothing.",2 "Hence I am contented, and say it is better with me than with millions.'",3 "As she spoke these words, she put her hand upon the watch, and restored it to the precise spot on her little table which it always occupied.",3 "With her touch lingering upon it, she sat for some moments afterwards, looking at it steadily and half-defiantly.",1 "Mr Blandois, during this exposition, had been strictly attentive, keeping his eyes fastened on the lady, and thoughtfully stroking his moustache with his two hands.",3 "Mr Flintwinch had been a little fidgety, and now struck in.",1 "'There, there, there!'",2 said he.,2 "'That is quite understood, Mrs Clennam, and you have spoken piously and well.",3 "Mr Blandois, I suspect, is not of a pious cast.'",1 "'On the contrary, sir!'",2 "that gentleman protested, snapping his fingers.",1 'Your pardon!,3 It's a part of my character.,2 "I am sensitive, ardent, conscientious, and imaginative.",4 "A sensitive, ardent, conscientious, and imaginative man, Mr Flintwinch, must be that, or nothing!'",4 "There was an inkling of suspicion in Mr Flintwinch's face that he might be nothing, as he swaggered out of his chair (it was characteristic of this man, as it is of all men similarly marked, that whatever he did, he overdid, though it were sometimes by only a hairsbreadth), and approached to take his leave of Mrs Clennam.",1 "'With what will appear to you the egotism of a sick old woman, sir,' she then said, 'though really through your accidental allusion, I have been led away into the subject of myself and my infirmities.",1 "Being so considerate as to visit me, I hope you will be likewise so considerate as to overlook that.",2 "Don't compliment me, if you please.'",3 For he was evidently going to do it.,2 "'Mr Flintwinch will be happy to render you any service, and I hope your stay in this city may prove agreeable.'",3 "Mr Blandois thanked her, and kissed his hand several times.",2 "'This is an old room,' he remarked, with a sudden sprightliness of manner, looking round when he got near the door, 'I have been so interested that I have not observed it.",2 But it's a genuine old room.',3 "'It is a genuine old house,' said Mrs Clennam, with her frozen smile.",3 "'A place of no pretensions, but a piece of antiquity.'",2 'Faith!',2 cried the visitor.,2 "'If Mr Flintwinch would do me the favour to take me through the rooms on my way out, he could hardly oblige me more.",3 An old house is a weakness with me.,1 "I have many weaknesses, but none greater.",1 I love and study the picturesque in all its varieties.,3 I have been called picturesque myself.,3 "It is no merit to be picturesque--I have greater merits, perhaps--but I may be, by an accident.",3 "Sympathy, sympathy!'",2 "'I tell you beforehand, Mr Blandois, that you'll find it very dingy and very bare,' said Jeremiah, taking up the candle.",2 'It's not worth your looking at.',3 "But Mr Blandois, smiting him in a friendly manner on the back, only laughed; so the said Blandois kissed his hand again to Mrs Clennam, and they went out of the room together.",3 'You don't care to go up-stairs?',2 "said Jeremiah, on the landing.",2 "'On the contrary, Mr Flintwinch; if not tiresome to you, I shall be ravished!'",1 "Mr Flintwinch, therefore, wormed himself up the staircase, and Mr Blandois followed close.",2 They ascended to the great garret bed-room which Arthur had occupied on the night of his return.,3 "'There, Mr Blandois!'",2 "said Jeremiah, showing it, 'I hope you may think that worth coming so high to see.",3 I confess I don't.',1 "Mr Blandois being enraptured, they walked through other garrets and passages, and came down the staircase again.",3 "By this time Mr Flintwinch had remarked that he never found the visitor looking at any room, after throwing one quick glance around, but always found the visitor looking at him, Mr Flintwinch.",2 "With this discovery in his thoughts, he turned about on the staircase for another experiment.",2 "He met his eyes directly; and on the instant of their fixing one another, the visitor, with that ugly play of nose and moustache, laughed (as he had done at every similar moment since they left Mrs Clennam's chamber) a diabolically silent laugh.",1 "As a much shorter man than the visitor, Mr Flintwinch was at the physical disadvantage of being thus disagreeably leered at from a height; and as he went first down the staircase, and was usually a step or two lower than the other, this disadvantage was at the time increased.",1 He postponed looking at Mr Blandois again until this accidental inequality was removed by their having entered the late Mr Clennam's room.,1 "But, then twisting himself suddenly round upon him, he found his look unchanged.",2 "'A most admirable old house,' smiled Mr Blandois.",3 'So mysterious.,1 Do you never hear any haunted noises here?',1 "'Noises,' returned Mr Flintwinch.",2 'No.',2 'Nor see any devils?',2 "'Not,' said Mr Flintwinch, grimly screwing himself at his questioner, 'not any that introduce themselves under that name and in that capacity.'",2 'Haha!,2 "A portrait here, I see.'",2 "(Still looking at Mr Flintwinch, as if he were the portrait.) 'It's a portrait, sir, as you observe.'",2 "'May I ask the subject, Mr Flintwinch?'",2 "'Mr Clennam, deceased.",2 Her husband.',2 "'Former owner of the remarkable watch, perhaps?'",3 said the visitor.,2 "Mr Flintwinch, who had cast his eyes towards the portrait, twisted himself about again, and again found himself the subject of the same look and smile.",2 "'Yes, Mr Blandois,' he replied tartly.",2 "'It was his, and his uncle's before him, and Lord knows who before him; and that's all I can tell you of its pedigree.'",2 "'That's a strongly marked character, Mr Flintwinch, our friend up-stairs.'",2 "'Yes, sir,' said Jeremiah, twisting himself at the visitor again, as he did during the whole of this dialogue, like some screw-machine that fell short of its grip; for the other never changed, and he always felt obliged to retreat a little.",1 'She is a remarkable woman.,3 Great fortitude--great strength of mind.',3 "'They must have been very happy,' said Blandois.",3 'Who?',2 "demanded Mr Flintwinch, with another screw at him.",2 "Mr Blandois shook his right forefinger towards the sick room, and his left forefinger towards the portrait, and then, putting his arms akimbo and striding his legs wide apart, stood smiling down at Mr Flintwinch with the advancing nose and the retreating moustache.",3 "'As happy as most other married people, I suppose,' returned Mr Flintwinch.",3 'I can't say.,2 I don't know.,2 There are secrets in all families.',2 'Secrets!',2 "cried Mr Blandois, quickly.",2 "'Say it again, my son.'",2 "'I say,' replied Mr Flintwinch, upon whom he had swelled himself so suddenly that Mr Flintwinch found his face almost brushed by the dilated chest.",1 'I say there are secrets in all families.',2 "'So there are,' cried the other, clapping him on both shoulders, and rolling him backwards and forwards.",2 'Haha!,2 you are right.,3 So there are!,2 Secrets!,2 Holy Blue!,3 "There are the devil's own secrets in some families, Mr Flintwinch!'",2 "With that, after clapping Mr Flintwinch on both shoulders several times, as if in a friendly and humorous way he were rallying him on a joke he had made, he threw up his arms, threw back his head, hooked his hands together behind it, and burst into a roar of laughter.",3 It was in vain for Mr Flintwinch to try another screw at him.,1 He had his laugh out.,2 "'But, favour me with the candle a moment,' he said, when he had done.",3 'Let us have a look at the husband of the remarkable lady.,3 Hah!',2 holding up the light at arm's length.,2 "'A decided expression of face here too, though not of the same character.",2 "Looks as if he were saying, what is it--Do Not Forget--does he not, Mr Flintwinch?",2 "By Heaven, sir, he does!'",3 "As he returned the candle, he looked at him once more; and then, leisurely strolling out with him into the hall, declared it to be a charming old house indeed, and one which had so greatly pleased him that he would not have missed inspecting it for a hundred pounds.",3 "Throughout these singular freedoms on the part of Mr Blandois, which involved a general alteration in his demeanour, making it much coarser and rougher, much more violent and audacious than before, Mr Flintwinch, whose leathern face was not liable to many changes, preserved its immobility intact.",1 "Beyond now appearing perhaps, to have been left hanging a trifle too long before that friendly operation of cutting down, he outwardly maintained an equable composure.",3 "They had brought their survey to a close in the little room at the side of the hall, and he stood there, eyeing Mr Blandois.",2 "'I am glad you are so well satisfied, sir,' was his calm remark.",4 'I didn't expect it.,2 You seem to be quite in good spirits.',3 "'In admirable spirits,' returned Blandois.",3 'Word of honour!,2 never more refreshed in spirits.,3 "Do you ever have presentiments, Mr Flintwinch?'",2 "'I am not sure that I know what you mean by the term, sir,' replied that gentleman.",2 "'Say, in this case, Mr Flintwinch, undefined anticipations of pleasure to come.'",2 "'I can't say I'm sensible of such a sensation at present,' returned Mr Flintwinch with the utmost gravity.",3 "'If I should find it coming on, I'll mention it.'",2 "'Now I,' said Blandois, 'I, my son, have a presentiment to-night that we shall be well acquainted.",3 Do you find it coming on?',2 "'N-no,' returned Mr Flintwinch, deliberately inquiring of himself.",2 'I can't say I do.',2 'I have a strong presentiment that we shall become intimately acquainted.--You have no feeling of that sort yet?',3 "'Not yet,' said Mr Flintwinch.",2 "Mr Blandois, taking him by both shoulders again, rolled him about a little in his former merry way, then drew his arm through his own, and invited him to come off and drink a bottle of wine like a dear deep old dog as he was.",3 "Without a moment's indecision, Mr Flintwinch accepted the invitation, and they went out to the quarters where the traveller was lodged, through a heavy rain which had rattled on the windows, roofs, and pavements, ever since nightfall.",1 "The thunder and lightning had long ago passed over, but the rain was furious.",1 "On their arrival at Mr Blandois' room, a bottle of port wine was ordered by that gallant gentleman; who (crushing every pretty thing he could collect, in the soft disposition of his dainty figure) coiled himself upon the window-seat, while Mr Flintwinch took a chair opposite to him, with the table between them.",3 "Mr Blandois proposed having the largest glasses in the house, to which Mr Flintwinch assented.",2 "The bumpers filled, Mr Blandois, with a roystering gaiety, clinked the top of his glass against the bottom of Mr Flintwinch's, and the bottom of his glass against the top of Mr Flintwinch's, and drank to the intimate acquaintance he foresaw.",4 "Mr Flintwinch gravely pledged him, and drank all the wine he could get, and said nothing.",1 "As often as Mr Blandois clinked glasses (which was at every replenishment), Mr Flintwinch stolidly did his part of the clinking, and would have stolidly done his companion's part of the wine as well as his own: being, except in the article of palate, a mere cask.",3 "In short, Mr Blandois found that to pour port wine into the reticent Flintwinch was, not to open him but to shut him up.",1 "Moreover, he had the appearance of a perfect ability to go on all night; or, if occasion were, all next day and all next night; whereas Mr Blandois soon grew indistinctly conscious of swaggering too fiercely and boastfully.",3 He therefore terminated the entertainment at the end of the third bottle.,2 "'You will draw upon us to-morrow, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch, with a business-like face at parting.",3 "'My Cabbage,' returned the other, taking him by the collar with both hands, 'I'll draw upon you; have no fear.",1 "Adieu, my Flintwinch.",2 "Receive at parting;' here he gave him a southern embrace, and kissed him soundly on both cheeks; 'the word of a gentleman!",3 "By a thousand Thunders, you shall see me again!'",2 "He did not present himself next day, though the letter of advice came duly to hand.",2 "Inquiring after him at night, Mr Flintwinch found, with surprise, that he had paid his bill and gone back to the Continent by way of Calais.",2 "Nevertheless, Jeremiah scraped out of his cogitating face a lively conviction that Mr Blandois would keep his word on this occasion, and would be seen again.",3 "Anybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the metropolis, some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be supposed to have dropped from the stars, if there were any star in the Heavens dull enough to be suspected of casting off so feeble a spark), creeping along with a scared air, as though bewildered and a little frightened by the noise and bustle.",0 This old man is always a little old man.,2 "If he were ever a big old man, he has shrunk into a little old man; if he were always a little old man, he has dwindled into a less old man.",2 "His coat is a colour, and cut, that never was the mode anywhere, at any period.",2 "Clearly, it was not made for him, or for any individual mortal.",3 "Some wholesale contractor measured Fate for five thousand coats of such quality, and Fate has lent this old coat to this old man, as one of a long unfinished line of many old men.",1 "It has always large dull metal buttons, similar to no other buttons.",1 "This old man wears a hat, a thumbed and napless and yet an obdurate hat, which has never adapted itself to the shape of his poor head.",1 His coarse shirt and his coarse neckcloth have no more individuality than his coat and hat; they have the same character of not being his--of not being anybody's.,1 Yet this old man wears these clothes with a certain unaccustomed air of being dressed and elaborated for the public ways; as though he passed the greater part of his time in a nightcap and gown.,1 "And so, like the country mouse in the second year of a famine, come to see the town mouse, and timidly threading his way to the town-mouse's lodging through a city of cats, this old man passes in the streets.",1 "Sometimes, on holidays towards evening, he will be seen to walk with a slightly increased infirmity, and his old eyes will glimmer with a moist and marshy light.",3 Then the little old man is drunk.,1 A very small measure will overset him; he may be bowled off his unsteady legs with a half-pint pot.,1 "Some pitying acquaintance--chance acquaintance very often--has warmed up his weakness with a treat of beer, and the consequence will be the lapse of a longer time than usual before he shall pass again.",1 "For the little old man is going home to the Workhouse; and on his good behaviour they do not let him out often (though methinks they might, considering the few years he has before him to go out in, under the sun); and on his bad behaviour they shut him up closer than ever in a grove of two score and nineteen more old men, every one of whom smells of all the others.",1 "Mrs Plornish's father,--a poor little reedy piping old gentleman, like a worn-out bird; who had been in what he called the music-binding business, and met with great misfortunes, and who had seldom been able to make his way, or to see it or to pay it, or to do anything at all with it but find it no thoroughfare,--had retired of his own accord to the Workhouse which was appointed by law to be the Good Samaritan of his district (without the twopence, which was bad political economy), on the settlement of that execution which had carried Mr Plornish to the Marshalsea College.",2 "Previous to his son-in-law's difficulties coming to that head, Old Nandy (he was always so called in his legal Retreat, but he was Old Mr Nandy among the Bleeding Hearts) had sat in a corner of the Plornish fireside, and taken his bite and sup out of the Plornish cupboard.",0 "He still hoped to resume that domestic position when Fortune should smile upon his son-in-law; in the meantime, while she preserved an immovable countenance, he was, and resolved to remain, one of these little old men in a grove of little old men with a community of flavour.",3 "But no poverty in him, and no coat on him that never was the mode, and no Old Men's Ward for his dwelling-place, could quench his daughter's admiration.",2 Mrs Plornish was as proud of her father's talents as she could possibly have been if they had made him Lord Chancellor.,3 She had as firm a belief in the sweetness and propriety of his manners as she could possibly have had if he had been Lord Chamberlain.,3 "The poor little old man knew some pale and vapid little songs, long out of date, about Chloe, and Phyllis, and Strephon being wounded by the son of Venus; and for Mrs Plornish there was no such music at the Opera as the small internal flutterings and chirpings wherein he would discharge himself of these ditties, like a weak, little, broken barrel-organ, ground by a baby.",0 "On his 'days out,' those flecks of light in his flat vista of pollard old men,' it was at once Mrs Plornish's delight and sorrow, when he was strong with meat, and had taken his full halfpenny-worth of porter, to say, 'Sing us a song, Father.'",3 "Then he would give them Chloe, and if he were in pretty good spirits, Phyllis also--Strephon he had hardly been up to since he went into retirement--and then would Mrs Plornish declare she did believe there never was such a singer as Father, and wipe her eyes.",3 "If he had come from Court on these occasions, nay, if he had been the noble Refrigerator come home triumphantly from a foreign court to be presented and promoted on his last tremendous failure, Mrs Plornish could not have handed him with greater elevation about Bleeding Heart Yard.",2 "'Here's Father,' she would say, presenting him to a neighbour.",2 "'Father will soon be home with us for good, now.",3 Ain't Father looking well?,3 "Father's a sweeter singer than ever; you'd never have forgotten it, if you'd aheard him just now.'",2 "As to Mr Plornish, he had married these articles of belief in marrying Mr Nandy's daughter, and only wondered how it was that so gifted an old gentleman had not made a fortune.",3 "This he attributed, after much reflection, to his musical genius not having been scientifically developed in his youth.",3 "'For why,' argued Mr Plornish, 'why go a-binding music when you've got it in yourself?",2 "That's where it is, I consider.'",2 Old Nandy had a patron: one patron.,2 "He had a patron who in a certain sumptuous way--an apologetic way, as if he constantly took an admiring audience to witness that he really could not help being more free with this old fellow than they might have expected, on account of his simplicity and poverty--was mightily good to him.",4 "Old Nandy had been several times to the Marshalsea College, communicating with his son-in-law during his short durance there; and had happily acquired to himself, and had by degrees and in course of time much improved, the patronage of the Father of that national institution.",3 Mr Dorrit was in the habit of receiving this old man as if the old man held of him in vassalage under some feudal tenure.,2 "He made little treats and teas for him, as if he came in with his homage from some outlying district where the tenantry were in a primitive state.",2 "It seemed as if there were moments when he could by no means have sworn but that the old man was an ancient retainer of his, who had been meritoriously faithful.",3 "When he mentioned him, he spoke of him casually as his old pensioner.",2 "He had a wonderful satisfaction in seeing him, and in commenting on his decayed condition after he was gone.",2 "It appeared to him amazing that he could hold up his head at all, poor creature.",2 "'In the Workhouse, sir, the Union; no privacy, no visitors, no station, no respect, no speciality.",3 Most deplorable!',1 "It was Old Nandy's birthday, and they let him out.",2 "He said nothing about its being his birthday, or they might have kept him in; for such old men should not be born.",2 "He passed along the streets as usual to Bleeding Heart Yard, and had his dinner with his daughter and son-in-law, and gave them Phyllis.",1 "He had hardly concluded, when Little Dorrit looked in to see how they all were.",2 "'Miss Dorrit,' said Mrs Plornish, 'here's Father!",2 Ain't he looking nice?,3 And such voice he's in!',2 "Little Dorrit gave him her hand, and smilingly said she had not seen him this long time.",3 "'No, they're rather hard on poor Father,' said Mrs Plornish with a lengthening face, 'and don't let him have half as much change and fresh air as would benefit him.",2 "But he'll soon be home for good, now.",3 "Won't you, Father?'",2 "'Yes, my dear, I hope so.",2 "In good time, please God.'",3 "Here Mr Plornish delivered himself of an oration which he invariably made, word for word the same, on all such opportunities.",2 It was couched in the following terms: 'John Edward Nandy. Sir.,2 "While there's a ounce of wittles or drink of any sort in this present roof, you're fully welcome to your share on it.",3 "While there's a handful of fire or a mouthful of bed in this present roof, you're fully welcome to your share on it.",3 "If so be as there should be nothing in this present roof, you should be as welcome to your share on it as if it was something, much or little.",3 "And this is what I mean and so I don't deceive you, and consequently which is to stand out is to entreat of you, and therefore why not do it?'",1 "To this lucid address, which Mr Plornish always delivered as if he had composed it (as no doubt he had) with enormous labour, Mrs Plornish's father pipingly replied: 'I thank you kindly, Thomas, and I know your intentions well, which is the same I thank you kindly for.",4 "But no, Thomas.",2 "Until such times as it's not to take it out of your children's mouths, which take it is, and call it by what name you will it do remain and equally deprive, though may they come, and too soon they can not come, no Thomas, no!'",1 "Mrs Plornish, who had been turning her face a little away with a corner of her apron in her hand, brought herself back to the conversation again by telling Miss Dorrit that Father was going over the water to pay his respects, unless she knew of any reason why it might not be agreeable.",2 "Her answer was, 'I am going straight home, and if he will come with me I shall be so glad to take care of him--so glad,' said Little Dorrit, always thoughtful of the feelings of the weak, 'of his company.'",3 "'There, Father!'",2 cried Mrs Plornish.,2 'Ain't you a gay young man to be going for a walk along with Miss Dorrit!,1 "Let me tie your neck-handkerchief into a regular good bow, for you're a regular beau yourself, Father, if ever there was one.'",3 "With this filial joke his daughter smartened him up, and gave him a loving hug, and stood at the door with her weak child in her arms, and her strong child tumbling down the steps, looking after her little old father as he toddled away with his arm under Little Dorrit's.",3 "They walked at a slow pace, and Little Dorrit took him by the Iron Bridge and sat him down there for a rest, and they looked over at the water and talked about the shipping, and the old man mentioned what he would do if he had a ship full of gold coming home to him (his plan was to take a noble lodging for the Plornishes and himself at a Tea Gardens, and live there all the rest of their lives, attended on by the waiter), and it was a special birthday of the old man.",3 "They were within five minutes of their destination, when, at the corner of her own street, they came upon Fanny in her new bonnet bound for the same port.",2 "'Why, good gracious me, Amy!'",3 cried that young lady starting.,2 'You never mean it!',2 "'Mean what, Fanny dear?'",2 'Well!,2 "I could have believed a great deal of you,' returned the young lady with burning indignation, 'but I don't think even I could have believed this, of even you!'",1 'Fanny!',2 "cried Little Dorrit, wounded and astonished.",3 "Oh! Don't Fanny me, you mean little thing, don't!",2 "The idea of coming along the open streets, in the broad light of day, with a Pauper!'",1 (firing off the last word as if it were a ball from an air-gun).,2 'O Fanny!',2 "'I tell you not to Fanny me, for I'll not submit to it!",2 I never knew such a thing.,2 "The way in which you are resolved and determined to disgrace us on all occasions, is really infamous.",1 You bad little thing!',1 "'Does it disgrace anybody,' said Little Dorrit, very gently, 'to take care of this poor old man?'",1 "'Yes, miss,' returned her sister, 'and you ought to know it does.",1 "And you do know it does, and you do it because you know it does.",2 The principal pleasure of your life is to remind your family of their misfortunes.,3 And the next great pleasure of your existence is to keep low company.,3 "But, however, if you have no sense of decency, I have.",3 "You'll please to allow me to go on the other side of the way, unmolested.'",2 "With this, she bounced across to the opposite pavement.",2 "The old disgrace, who had been deferentially bowing a pace or two off (for Little Dorrit had let his arm go in her wonder, when Fanny began), and who had been hustled and cursed by impatient passengers for stopping the way, rejoined his companion, rather giddy, and said, 'I hope nothing's wrong with your honoured father, Miss?",0 I hope there's nothing the matter in the honoured family?',2 "'No, no,' returned Little Dorrit.",2 "'No, thank you.",3 "Give me your arm again, Mr Nandy.",2 We shall soon be there now.',2 "So she talked to him as she had talked before, and they came to the Lodge and found Mr Chivery on the lock, and went in.",2 "Now, it happened that the Father of the Marshalsea was sauntering towards the Lodge at the moment when they were coming out of it, entering the prison arm in arm.",1 "As the spectacle of their approach met his view, he displayed the utmost agitation and despondency of mind; and--altogether regardless of Old Nandy, who, making his reverence, stood with his hat in his hand, as he always did in that gracious presence--turned about, and hurried in at his own doorway and up the staircase.",3 "Leaving the old unfortunate, whom in an evil hour she had taken under her protection, with a hurried promise to return to him directly, Little Dorrit hastened after her father, and, on the staircase, found Fanny following her, and flouncing up with offended dignity.",3 "The three came into the room almost together; and the Father sat down in his chair, buried his face in his hands, and uttered a groan.",2 "'Of course,' said Fanny.",2 'Very proper.,3 "Poor, afflicted Pa!",1 "Now, I hope you believe me, Miss?'",1 "'What is it, father?'",2 "cried Little Dorrit, bending over him.",2 "'Have I made you unhappy, father?",1 "Not I, I hope!'",2 "'You hope, indeed!",2 I dare say!,2 "Oh, you'--Fanny paused for a sufficiently strong expression--'you Common-minded little Amy!",3 You complete prison-child!',1 "He stopped these angry reproaches with a wave of his hand, and sobbed out, raising his face and shaking his melancholy head at his younger daughter, 'Amy, I know that you are innocent in intention.",1 But you have cut me to the soul.',2 'Innocent in intention!',2 the implacable Fanny struck in.,1 'Stuff in intention!,2 Low in intention!,2 Lowering of the family in intention!',2 'Father!',2 "cried Little Dorrit, pale and trembling.",1 'I am very sorry.,1 Pray forgive me.,2 "Tell me how it is, that I may not do it again!'",2 "'How it is, you prevaricating little piece of goods!'",2 cried Fanny.,2 'You know how it is.,2 "I have told you already, so don't fly in the face of Providence by attempting to deny it!'",2 'Hush!,2 "Amy,' said the father, passing his pocket-handkerchief several times across his face, and then grasping it convulsively in the hand that dropped across his knee, 'I have done what I could to keep you select here; I have done what I could to retain you a position here.",2 I may have succeeded; I may not.,3 You may know it; you may not.,2 I give no opinion.,2 I have endured everything here but humiliation.,1 That I have happily been spared--until this day.',3 "Here his convulsive grasp unclosed itself, and he put his pocket-handkerchief to his eyes again.",2 "Little Dorrit, on the ground beside him, with her imploring hand upon his arm, watched him remorsefully.",1 "Coming out of his fit of grief, he clenched his pocket-handkerchief once more.",1 'Humiliation I have happily been spared until this day.,3 "Through all my troubles there has been that--Spirit in myself, and that--that submission to it, if I may use the term, in those about me, which has spared me--ha--humiliation.",1 "But this day, this minute, I have keenly felt it.'",3 'Of course!,2 How could it be otherwise?',2 exclaimed the irrepressible Fanny.,1 'Careering and prancing about with a Pauper!',1 (air-gun again).,2 "'But, dear father,' cried Little Dorrit, 'I don't justify myself for having wounded your dear heart--no!",2 Heaven knows I don't!',3 She clasped her hands in quite an agony of distress.,1 'I do nothing but beg and pray you to be comforted and overlook it.,1 "But if I had not known that you were kind to the old man yourself, and took much notice of him, and were always glad to see him, I would not have come here with him, father, I would not, indeed.",3 "What I have been so unhappy as to do, I have done in mistake.",1 "I would not wilfully bring a tear to your eyes, dear love!'",3 "said Little Dorrit, her heart well-nigh broken, 'for anything the world could give me, or anything it could take away.'",2 "Fanny, with a partly angry and partly repentant sob, began to cry herself, and to say--as this young lady always said when she was half in passion and half out of it, half spiteful with herself and half spiteful with everybody else--that she wished she were dead.",0 "The Father of the Marshalsea in the meantime took his younger daughter to his breast, and patted her head.",2 "'There, there!",2 "Say no more, Amy, say no more, my child.",2 I will forget it as soon as I can.,2 "I,' with hysterical cheerfulness, 'I--shall soon be able to dismiss it.",1 "It is perfectly true, my dear, that I am always glad to see my old pensioner--as such, as such--and that I do--ha--extend as much protection and kindness to the--hum--the bruised reed--I trust I may so call him without impropriety--as in my circumstances, I can.",3 "It is quite true that this is the case, my dear child.",2 "At the same time, I preserve in doing this, if I may--ha--if I may use the expression--Spirit.",2 Becoming Spirit.,2 "And there are some things which are,' he stopped to sob, 'irreconcilable with that, and wound that--wound it deeply.",1 "It is not that I have seen my good Amy attentive, and--ha--condescending to my old pensioner--it is not _that_ that hurts me.",2 "It is, if I am to close the painful subject by being explicit, that I have seen my child, my own child, my own daughter, coming into this College out of the public streets--smiling!",2 "smiling!--arm in arm with--O my God, a livery!'",3 "This reference to the coat of no cut and no time, the unfortunate gentleman gasped forth, in a scarcely audible voice, and with his clenched pocket-handkerchief raised in the air.",1 "His excited feelings might have found some further painful utterance, but for a knock at the door, which had been already twice repeated, and to which Fanny (still wishing herself dead, and indeed now going so far as to add, buried) cried 'Come in!'",1 "'Ah, Young John!'",2 "said the Father, in an altered and calmed voice.",2 "'What is it, Young John?'",2 "'A letter for you, sir, being left in the Lodge just this minute, and a message with it, I thought, happening to be there myself, sir, I would bring it to your room.'",2 "The speaker's attention was much distracted by the piteous spectacle of Little Dorrit at her father's feet, with her head turned away.",2 "'Indeed, John?",2 Thank you.',3 "'The letter is from Mr Clennam, sir--it's the answer--and the message was, sir, that Mr Clennam also sent his compliments, and word that he would do himself the pleasure of calling this afternoon, hoping to see you, and likewise,' attention more distracted than before, 'Miss Amy.'",3 'Oh!',2 "As the Father glanced into the letter (there was a bank-note in it), he reddened a little, and patted Amy on the head afresh.",2 "'Thank you, Young John.",2 Quite right.,3 Much obliged to you for your attention.,2 No one waiting?',2 "'No, sir, no one waiting.'",2 "'Thank you, John.",2 "How is your mother, Young John?'",2 "'Thank you, sir, she's not quite as well as we could wish--in fact, we none of us are, except father--but she's pretty well, sir.'",3 "'Say we sent our remembrances, will you?",2 "Say kind remembrances, if you please, Young John.'",2 "'Thank you, sir, I will.'",2 "And Mr Chivery junior went his way, having spontaneously composed on the spot an entirely new epitaph for himself, to the effect that Here lay the body of John Chivery, Who, Having at such a date, Beheld the idol of his life, In grief and tears, And feeling unable to bear the harrowing spectacle, Immediately repaired to the abode of his inconsolable parents, And terminated his existence by his own rash act.",0 "'There, there, Amy!'",2 "said the Father, when Young John had closed the door, 'let us say no more about it.'",2 "The last few minutes had improved his spirits remarkably, and he was quite lightsome.",3 'Where is my old pensioner all this while?,2 "We must not leave him by himself any longer, or he will begin to suppose he is not welcome, and that would pain me.",2 "Will you fetch him, my child, or shall I?'",2 "'If you wouldn't mind, father,' said Little Dorrit, trying to bring her sobbing to a close.",2 "'Certainly I will go, my dear.",2 I forgot; your eyes are rather red.,2 There!,2 "Cheer up, Amy.",3 Don't be uneasy about me.,1 "I am quite myself again, my love, quite myself.",3 "Go to your room, Amy, and make yourself look comfortable and pleasant to receive Mr Clennam.'",3 "'I would rather stay in my own room, Father,' returned Little Dorrit, finding it more difficult than before to regain her composure.",1 'I would far rather not see Mr Clennam.',2 "'Oh, fie, fie, my dear, that's folly.",2 Mr Clennam is a very gentlemanly man--very gentlemanly.,2 A little reserved at times; but I will say extremely gentlemanly.,2 "I couldn't think of your not being here to receive Mr Clennam, my dear, especially this afternoon.",2 "So go and freshen yourself up, Amy; go and freshen yourself up, like a good girl.'",3 "Thus directed, Little Dorrit dutifully rose and obeyed: only pausing for a moment as she went out of the room, to give her sister a kiss of reconciliation.",3 "Upon which, that young lady, feeling much harassed in her mind, and having for the time worn out the wish with which she generally relieved it, conceived and executed the brilliant idea of wishing Old Nandy dead, rather than that he should come bothering there like a disgusting, tiresome, wicked wretch, and making mischief between two sisters.",0 "The Father of the Marshalsea, even humming a tune, and wearing his black velvet cap a little on one side, so much improved were his spirits, went down into the yard, and found his old pensioner standing there hat in hand just within the gate, as he had stood all this time.",2 "'Come, Nandy!'",2 "said he, with great suavity.",3 "'Come up-stairs, Nandy; you know the way; why don't you come up-stairs?'",2 "He went the length, on this occasion, of giving him his hand and saying, 'How are you, Nandy?",2 Are you pretty well?',3 "To which that vocalist returned, 'I thank you, honoured sir, I am all the better for seeing your honour.'",3 "As they went along the yard, the Father of the Marshalsea presented him to a Collegian of recent date.",2 "'An old acquaintance of mine, sir, an old pensioner.'",2 "And then said, 'Be covered, my good Nandy; put your hat on,' with great consideration.",3 "His patronage did not stop here; for he charged Maggy to get the tea ready, and instructed her to buy certain tea-cakes, fresh butter, eggs, cold ham, and shrimps: to purchase which collation he gave her a bank-note for ten pounds, laying strict injunctions on her to be careful of the change.",2 "These preparations were in an advanced stage of progress, and his daughter Amy had come back with her work, when Clennam presented himself; whom he most graciously received, and besought to join their meal.",4 "'Amy, my love, you know Mr Clennam even better than I have the happiness of doing.",4 "Fanny, my dear, you are acquainted with Mr Clennam.'",2 "Fanny acknowledged him haughtily; the position she tacitly took up in all such cases being that there was a vast conspiracy to insult the family by not understanding it, or sufficiently deferring to it, and here was one of the conspirators.",1 "'This, Mr Clennam, you must know, is an old pensioner of mine, Old Nandy, a very faithful old man.'",3 "(He always spoke of him as an object of great antiquity, but he was two or three years younger than himself.) 'Let me see.",2 "You know Plornish, I think?",2 I think my daughter Amy has mentioned to me that you know poor Plornish?',1 'O yes!',2 said Arthur Clennam.,2 "'Well, sir, this is Mrs Plornish's father.'",2 'Indeed?,2 I am glad to see him.',3 "'You would be more glad if you knew his many good qualities, Mr Clennam.'",3 "'I hope I shall come to know them through knowing him,' said Arthur, secretly pitying the bowed and submissive figure.",1 "'It is a holiday with him, and he comes to see his old friends, who are always glad to see him,' observed the Father of the Marshalsea.",3 "Then he added behind his hand, ['Union, poor old fellow.",1 Out for the day.',2 ") By this time Maggy, quietly assisted by her Little Mother, had spread the board, and the repast was ready.",3 "It being hot weather and the prison very close, the window was as wide open as it could be pushed.",2 "'If Maggy will spread that newspaper on the window-sill, my dear,' remarked the Father complacently and in a half whisper to Little Dorrit, 'my old pensioner can have his tea there, while we are having ours.'",2 "So, with a gulf between him and the good company of about a foot in width, standard measure, Mrs Plornish's father was handsomely regaled.",3 "Clennam had never seen anything like his magnanimous protection by that other Father, he of the Marshalsea; and was lost in the contemplation of its many wonders.",4 "The most striking of these was perhaps the relishing manner in which he remarked on the pensioner's infirmities and failings, as if he were a gracious Keeper making a running commentary on the decline of the harmless animal he exhibited.",3 "'Not ready for more ham yet, Nandy?",3 "Why, how slow you are!",1 "His last teeth,' he explained to the company, 'are going, poor old boy.'",1 " At another time, he said, 'No shrimps, Nandy?'",2 "and on his not instantly replying, observed, 'His hearing is becoming very defective.",2 He'll be deaf directly.',1 " At another time he asked him, 'Do you walk much, Nandy, about the yard within the walls of that place of yours?'",2 "'No, sir; no.",2 I haven't any great liking for that.',3 "'No, to be sure,' he assented.",2 'Very natural.',2 Then he privately informed the circle 'Legs going.',2 " Once he asked the pensioner, in that general clemency which asked him anything to keep him afloat, how old his younger grandchild was?",2 "'John Edward,' said the pensioner, slowly laying down his knife and fork to consider.",1 "'How old, sir?",2 Let me think now.',2 The Father of the Marshalsea tapped his forehead 'Memory weak.',1 " 'John Edward, sir?",2 "Well, I really forget.",3 "I couldn't say at this minute, sir, whether it's two and two months, or whether it's two and five months.",2 It's one or the other.',2 "'Don't distress yourself by worrying your mind about it,' he returned, with infinite forbearance.",1 Faculties evidently decaying--old man rusts in the life he leads!',2 "The more of these discoveries that he persuaded himself he made in the pensioner, the better he appeared to like him; and when he got out of his chair after tea to bid the pensioner good-bye, on his intimating that he feared, honoured sir, his time was running out, he made himself look as erect and strong as possible.",4 "'We don't call this a shilling, Nandy, you know,' he said, putting one in his hand.",2 'We call it tobacco.',2 "'Honoured sir, I thank you.",3 It shall buy tobacco.,2 My thanks and duty to Miss Amy and Miss Fanny.,1 "I wish you good night, Mr Clennam.'",3 "'And mind you don't forget us, you know, Nandy,' said the Father.",2 "'You must come again, mind, whenever you have an afternoon.",2 "You must not come out without seeing us, or we shall be jealous.",1 "Good night, Nandy.",3 "Be very careful how you descend the stairs, Nandy; they are rather uneven and worn.'",1 "With that he stood on the landing, watching the old man down: and when he came into the room again, said, with a solemn satisfaction on him, 'A melancholy sight that, Mr Clennam, though one has the consolation of knowing that he doesn't feel it himself.",1 The poor old fellow is a dismal wreck.,0 "Spirit broken and gone--pulverised--crushed out of him, sir, completely!'",1 "As Clennam had a purpose in remaining, he said what he could responsive to these sentiments, and stood at the window with their enunciator, while Maggy and her Little Mother washed the tea-service and cleared it away.",3 "He noticed that his companion stood at the window with the air of an affable and accessible Sovereign, and that, when any of his people in the yard below looked up, his recognition of their salutes just stopped short of a blessing.",4 "When Little Dorrit had her work on the table, and Maggy hers on the bedstead, Fanny fell to tying her bonnet as a preliminary to her departure.",2 "Arthur, still having his purpose, still remained.",2 "At this time the door opened, without any notice, and Mr Tip came in.",2 "He kissed Amy as she started up to meet him, nodded to Fanny, nodded to his father, gloomed on the visitor without further recognition, and sat down.",2 "'Tip, dear,' said Little Dorrit, mildly, shocked by this, 'don't you see--' 'Yes, I see, Amy.",1 "If you refer to the presence of any visitor you have here--I say, if you refer to that,' answered Tip, jerking his head with emphasis towards his shoulder nearest Clennam, 'I see!'",2 'Is that all you say?',2 'That's all I say.,2 "And I suppose,' added the lofty young man, after a moment's pause, 'that visitor will understand me, when I say that's all I say.",2 "In short, I suppose the visitor will understand that he hasn't used me like a gentleman.'",3 "'I do not understand that,' observed the obnoxious personage referred to with tranquillity.",1 'No?,2 "Why, then, to make it clearer to you, sir, I beg to let you know that when I address what I call a properly-worded appeal, and an urgent appeal, and a delicate appeal, to an individual, for a small temporary accommodation, easily within his power--easily within his power, mind!--and when that individual writes back word to me that he begs to be excused, I consider that he doesn't treat me like a gentleman.'",4 "The Father of the Marshalsea, who had surveyed his son in silence, no sooner heard this sentiment, than he began in angry voice:-- 'How dare you--' But his son stopped him.",1 "'Now, don't ask me how I dare, father, because that's bosh.",2 "As to the fact of the line of conduct I choose to adopt towards the individual present, you ought to be proud of my showing a proper spirit.'",3 'I should think so!',2 cried Fanny.,2 'A proper spirit?',3 said the Father.,2 "'Yes, a proper spirit; a becoming spirit.",3 Is it come to this that my son teaches me--_me_--spirit!',2 "'Now, don't let us bother about it, father, or have any row on the subject.",1 I have fully made up my mind that the individual present has not treated me like a gentleman.,3 And there's an end of it.',2 "'But there is not an end of it, sir,' returned the Father.",2 'But there shall not be an end of it.,2 You have made up your mind?,2 You have made up your mind?',2 "'Yes, _I_ have.",2 What's the good of keeping on like that?',3 "'Because,' returned the Father, in a great heat, 'you had no right to make up your mind to what is monstrous, to what is--ha--immoral, to what is--hum--parricidal.",1 "No, Mr Clennam, I beg, sir.",1 "Don't ask me to desist; there is a--hum--a general principle involved here, which rises even above considerations of--ha--hospitality.",1 I object to the assertion made by my son.,1 I--ha--I personally repel it.',1 "'Why, what is it to you, father?'",2 "returned the son, over his shoulder.",2 "'What is it to me, sir?",2 "I have a--hum--a spirit, sir, that will not endure it.",1 "I,' he took out his pocket-handkerchief again and dabbed his face.",2 'I am outraged and insulted by it.,1 "Let me suppose the case that I myself may at a certain time--ha--or times, have made a--hum--an appeal, and a properly-worded appeal, and a delicate appeal, and an urgent appeal to some individual for a small temporary accommodation.",3 "Let me suppose that that accommodation could have been easily extended, and was not extended, and that that individual informed me that he begged to be excused.",2 "Am I to be told by my own son, that I therefore received treatment not due to a gentleman, and that I--ha--I submitted to it?'",2 "His daughter Amy gently tried to calm him, but he would not on any account be calmed.",3 "He said his spirit was up, and wouldn't endure this.",2 "Was he to be told that, he wished to know again, by his own son on his own hearth, to his own face?",2 Was that humiliation to be put upon him by his own blood?,1 "'You are putting it on yourself, father, and getting into all this injury of your own accord!'",1 said the young gentleman morosely.,2 'What I have made up my mind about has nothing to do with you.,2 What I said had nothing to do with you.,2 Why need you go trying on other people's hats?',2 "'I reply it has everything to do with me,' returned the Father.",2 "'I point out to you, sir, with indignation, that--hum--the--ha--delicacy and peculiarity of your father's position should strike you dumb, sir, if nothing else should, in laying down such--ha--such unnatural principles.",0 "Besides; if you are not filial, sir, if you discard that duty, you are at least--hum--not a Christian?",1 Are you--ha--an Atheist?,2 "And is it Christian, let me ask you, to stigmatise and denounce an individual for begging to be excused this time, when the same individual may--ha--respond with the required accommodation next time?",1 Is it the part of a Christian not to--hum--not to try him again?',1 He had worked himself into quite a religious glow and fervour.,3 "'I see precious well,' said Mr Tip, rising, 'that I shall get no sensible or fair argument here to-night, and so the best thing I can do is to cut.",4 "Good night, Amy.",3 Don't be vexed.,2 "I am very sorry it happens here, and you here, upon my soul I am; but I can't altogether part with my spirit, even for your sake, old girl.'",1 "With those words he put on his hat and went out, accompanied by Miss Fanny; who did not consider it spirited on her part to take leave of Clennam with any less opposing demonstration than a stare, importing that she had always known him for one of the large body of conspirators.",2 "When they were gone, the Father of the Marshalsea was at first inclined to sink into despondency again, and would have done so, but that a gentleman opportunely came up within a minute or two to attend him to the Snuggery.",1 "It was the gentleman Clennam had seen on the night of his own accidental detention there, who had that impalpable grievance about the misappropriated Fund on which the Marshal was supposed to batten.",1 "He presented himself as deputation to escort the Father to the Chair, it being an occasion on which he had promised to preside over the assembled Collegians in the enjoyment of a little Harmony.",4 "'Such, you see, Mr Clennam,' said the Father, 'are the incongruities of my position here.",2 But a public duty!,2 "No man, I am sure, would more readily recognise a public duty than yourself.'",3 Clennam besought him not to delay a moment.,1 "'Amy, my dear, if you can persuade Mr Clennam to stay longer, I can leave the honours of our poor apology for an establishment with confidence in your hands, and perhaps you may do something towards erasing from Mr Clennam's mind the--ha--untoward and unpleasant circumstance which has occurred since tea-time.'",1 "Clennam assured him that it had made no impression on his mind, and therefore required no erasure.",2 "'My dear sir,' said the Father, with a removal of his black cap and a grasp of Clennam's hand, combining to express the safe receipt of his note and enclosure that afternoon, 'Heaven ever bless you!'",3 "So, at last, Clennam's purpose in remaining was attained, and he could speak to Little Dorrit with nobody by.",2 "Maggy counted as nobody, and she was by.",2 "Maggy sat at her work in her great white cap with its quantity of opaque frilling hiding what profile she had (she had none to spare), and her serviceable eye brought to bear upon her occupation, on the window side of the room.",3 "What with her flapping cap, and what with her unserviceable eye, she was quite partitioned off from her Little Mother, whose seat was opposite the window.",2 "The tread and shuffle of feet on the pavement of the yard had much diminished since the taking of the Chair, the tide of Collegians having set strongly in the direction of Harmony.",3 "Some few who had no music in their souls, or no money in their pockets, dawdled about; and the old spectacle of the visitor-wife and the depressed unseasoned prisoner still lingered in corners, as broken cobwebs and such unsightly discomforts draggle in corners of other places.",0 "It was the quietest time the College knew, saving the night hours when the Collegians took the benefit of the act of sleep.",3 "The occasional rattle of applause upon the tables of the Snuggery, denoted the successful termination of a morsel of Harmony; or the responsive acceptance, by the united children, of some toast or sentiment offered to them by their Father.",3 "Occasionally, a vocal strain more sonorous than the generality informed the listener that some boastful bass was in blue water, or in the hunting field, or with the reindeer, or on the mountain, or among the heather; but the Marshal of the Marshalsea knew better, and had got him hard and fast.",1 "As Arthur Clennam moved to sit down by the side of Little Dorrit, she trembled so that she had much ado to hold her needle.",2 "Clennam gently put his hand upon her work, and said, 'Dear Little Dorrit, let me lay it down.'",3 "She yielded it to him, and he put it aside.",2 "Her hands were then nervously clasping together, but he took one of them.",1 "'How seldom I have seen you lately, Little Dorrit!'",2 "'I have been busy, sir.'",2 "'But I heard only to-day,' said Clennam, 'by mere accident, of your having been with those good people close by me.",3 "Why not come to me, then?'",2 'I--I don't know.,2 "Or rather, I thought you might be busy too.",2 "You generally are now, are you not?'",2 "He saw her trembling little form and her downcast face, and the eyes that drooped the moment they were raised to his--he saw them almost with as much concern as tenderness.",0 "'My child, your manner is so changed!'",2 The trembling was now quite beyond her control.,2 "Softly withdrawing her hand, and laying it in her other hand, she sat before him with her head bent and her whole form trembling.",1 "'My own Little Dorrit,' said Clennam, compassionately.",2 She burst into tears.,2 "Maggy looked round of a sudden, and stared for at least a minute; but did not interpose.",2 Clennam waited some little while before he spoke again.,2 "'I cannot bear,' he said then, 'to see you weep; but I hope this is a relief to an overcharged heart.'",2 "'Yes it is, sir.",2 Nothing but that.',2 "'Well, well!",3 I feared you would think too much of what passed here just now.,2 It is of no moment; not the least.,2 I am only unfortunate to have come in the way.,1 Let it go by with these tears.,2 It is not worth one of them.,3 One of them?,2 "Such an idle thing should be repeated, with my glad consent, fifty times a day, to save you a moment's heart-ache, Little Dorrit.'",1 "She had taken courage now, and answered, far more in her usual manner, 'You are so good!",3 "But even if there was nothing else in it to be sorry for and ashamed of, it is such a bad return to you--' 'Hush!'",0 "said Clennam, smiling and touching her lips with his hand.",3 "'Forgetfulness in you who remember so many and so much, would be new indeed.",2 "Shall I remind you that I am not, and that I never was, anything but the friend whom you agreed to trust?",3 No.,2 "You remember it, don't you?'",2 "'I try to do so, or I should have broken the promise just now, when my mistaken brother was here.",1 "You will consider his bringing-up in this place, and will not judge him hardly, poor fellow, I know!'",1 "In raising her eyes with these words, she observed his face more nearly than she had done yet, and said, with a quick change of tone, 'You have not been ill, Mr Clennam?'",2 'No.',2 'Nor tried?,2 Nor hurt?',1 "she asked him, anxiously.",1 "It fell to Clennam now, to be not quite certain how to answer.",1 "He said in reply: 'To speak the truth, I have been a little troubled, but it is over.",1 Do I show it so plainly?,2 I ought to have more fortitude and self-command than that.,3 I thought I had.,2 I must learn them of you.,2 Who could teach me better!',3 He never thought that she saw in him what no one else could see.,2 He never thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes that looked upon him with the same light and strength as hers.,2 "'But it brings me to something that I wish to say,' he continued, 'and therefore I will not quarrel even with my own face for telling tales and being unfaithful to me.",1 "Besides, it is a privilege and pleasure to confide in my Little Dorrit.",3 "Let me confess then, that, forgetting how grave I was, and how old I was, and how the time for such things had gone by me with the many years of sameness and little happiness that made up my long life far away, without marking it--that, forgetting all this, I fancied I loved some one.'",3 "'Do I know her, sir?'",2 asked Little Dorrit.,2 "'No, my child.'",2 'Not the lady who has been kind to me for your sake?',2 'Flora.,2 "No, no.",2 "Do you think--' 'I never quite thought so,' said Little Dorrit, more to herself than him.",2 'I did wonder at it a little.',3 'Well!',2 "said Clennam, abiding by the feeling that had fallen on him in the avenue on the night of the roses, the feeling that he was an older man, who had done with that tender part of life, 'I found out my mistake, and I thought about it a little--in short, a good deal--and got wiser.",2 "Being wiser, I counted up my years and considered what I am, and looked back, and looked forward, and found that I should soon be grey.",2 "I found that I had climbed the hill, and passed the level ground upon the top, and was descending quickly.'",3 "If he had known the sharpness of the pain he caused the patient heart, in speaking thus!",2 "While doing it, too, with the purpose of easing and serving her.",3 "'I found that the day when any such thing would have been graceful in me, or good in me, or hopeful or happy for me or any one in connection with me, was gone, and would never shine again.'",4 O!,2 "If he had known, if he had known!",2 "If he could have seen the dagger in his hand, and the cruel wounds it struck in the faithful bleeding breast of his Little Dorrit!",0 "'All that is over, and I have turned my face from it.",2 Why do I speak of this to Little Dorrit?,2 "Why do I show you, my child, the space of years that there is between us, and recall to you that I have passed, by the amount of your whole life, the time that is present to you?'",2 "'Because you trust me, I hope.",3 "Because you know that nothing can touch you without touching me; that nothing can make you happy or unhappy, but it must make me, who am so grateful to you, the same.'",3 "He heard the thrill in her voice, he saw her earnest face, he saw her clear true eyes, he saw the quickened bosom that would have joyfully thrown itself before him to receive a mortal wound directed at his breast, with the dying cry, 'I love him!'",3 and the remotest suspicion of the truth never dawned upon his mind.,1 No.,2 "He saw the devoted little creature with her worn shoes, in her common dress, in her jail-home; a slender child in body, a strong heroine in soul; and the light of her domestic story made all else dark to him.",2 "'For those reasons assuredly, Little Dorrit, but for another too.",3 "So far removed, so different, and so much older, I am the better fitted for your friend and adviser.",3 "I mean, I am the more easily to be trusted; and any little constraint that you might feel with another, may vanish before me.",3 Why have you kept so retired from me?,2 Tell me.',2 'I am better here.,3 My place and use are here.,2 "I am much better here,' said Little Dorrit, faintly.",3 'So you said that day upon the bridge.,2 I thought of it much afterwards.,2 "Have you no secret you could entrust to me, with hope and comfort, if you would!'",3 'Secret?,2 "No, I have no secret,' said Little Dorrit in some trouble.",1 "They had been speaking in low voices; more because it was natural to what they said to adopt that tone, than with any care to reserve it from Maggy at her work.",3 "All of a sudden Maggy stared again, and this time spoke: 'I say!",2 Little Mother!',2 "'Yes, Maggy.'",2 "'If you an't got no secret of your own to tell him, tell him that about the Princess.",2 "She had a secret, you know.'",2 'The Princess had a secret?',2 "said Clennam, in some surprise.",2 "'What Princess was that, Maggy?'",2 'Lor!,2 "How you do go and bother a gal of ten,' said Maggy, 'catching the poor thing up in that way.",1 Whoever said the Princess had a secret?,2 I never said so.',2 'I beg your pardon.,2 I thought you did.',2 "'No, I didn't.",2 "How could I, when it was her as wanted to find it out?",2 "It was the little woman as had the secret, and she was always a spinning at her wheel.",2 "And so she says to her, why do you keep it there?",2 "And so the t'other one says to her, no I don't; and so the t'other one says to her, yes you do; and then they both goes to the cupboard, and there it is.",2 "And she wouldn't go into the Hospital, and so she died.",1 "You know, Little Mother; tell him that.",2 "For it was a reg'lar good secret, that was!'",3 "cried Maggy, hugging herself.",2 "Arthur looked at Little Dorrit for help to comprehend this, and was struck by seeing her so timid and red.",1 "But, when she told him that it was only a Fairy Tale she had one day made up for Maggy, and that there was nothing in it which she wouldn't be ashamed to tell again to anybody else, even if she could remember it, he left the subject where it was.",1 "However, he returned to his own subject by first entreating her to see him oftener, and to remember that it was impossible to have a stronger interest in her welfare than he had, or to be more set upon promoting it than he was.",2 "When she answered fervently, she well knew that, she never forgot it, he touched upon his second and more delicate point--the suspicion he had formed.",3 "'Little Dorrit,' he said, taking her hand again, and speaking lower than he had spoken yet, so that even Maggy in the small room could not hear him, 'another word.",2 I have wanted very much to say this to you; I have tried for opportunities.,2 "Don't mind me, who, for the matter of years, might be your father or your uncle.",2 Always think of me as quite an old man.,2 "I know that all your devotion centres in this room, and that nothing to the last will ever tempt you away from the duties you discharge here.",3 "If I were not sure of it, I should, before now, have implored you, and implored your father, to let me make some provision for you in a more suitable place.",3 "But you may have an interest--I will not say, now, though even that might be--may have, at another time, an interest in some one else; an interest not incompatible with your affection here.'",2 "She was very, very pale, and silently shook her head.",1 "'It may be, dear Little Dorrit.'",2 'No.,2 No.,2 No.',2 "She shook her head, after each slow repetition of the word, with an air of quiet desolation that he remembered long afterwards.",1 "The time came when he remembered it well, long afterwards, within those prison walls; within that very room.",2 "'But, if it ever should be, tell me so, my dear child.",2 "Entrust the truth to me, point out the object of such an interest to me, and I will try with all the zeal, and honour, and friendship and respect that I feel for you, good Little Dorrit of my heart, to do you a lasting service.'",4 "'O thank you, thank you!",3 "But, O no, O no, O no!'",2 "She said this, looking at him with her work-worn hands folded together, and in the same resigned accents as before.",1 'I press for no confidence now.,3 I only ask you to repose unhesitating trust in me.',3 "'Can I do less than that, when you are so good!'",3 'Then you will trust me fully?,3 "Will have no secret unhappiness, or anxiety, concealed from me?'",1 'Almost none.',2 'And you have none now?',2 She shook her head.,2 But she was very pale.,1 "'When I lie down to-night, and my thoughts come back--as they will, for they do every night, even when I have not seen you--to this sad place, I may believe that there is no grief beyond this room, now, and its usual occupants, which preys on Little Dorrit's mind?'",0 "She seemed to catch at these words--that he remembered, too, long afterwards--and said, more brightly, 'Yes, Mr Clennam; yes, you may!'",2 "The crazy staircase, usually not slow to give notice when any one was coming up or down, here creaked under a quick tread, and a further sound was heard upon it, as if a little steam-engine with more steam than it knew what to do with, were working towards the room.",1 "As it approached, which it did very rapidly, it laboured with increased energy; and, after knocking at the door, it sounded as if it were stooping down and snorting in at the keyhole.",2 "Before Maggy could open the door, Mr Pancks, opening it from without, stood without a hat and with his bare head in the wildest condition, looking at Clennam and Little Dorrit, over her shoulder.",2 "He had a lighted cigar in his hand, and brought with him airs of ale and tobacco smoke.",1 "'Pancks the gipsy,' he observed out of breath, 'fortune-telling.'",2 "He stood dingily smiling, and breathing hard at them, with a most curious air; as if, instead of being his proprietor's grubber, he were the triumphant proprietor of the Marshalsea, the Marshal, all the turnkeys, and all the Collegians.",3 "In his great self-satisfaction he put his cigar to his lips (being evidently no smoker), and took such a pull at it, with his right eye shut up tight for the purpose, that he underwent a convulsion of shuddering and choking.",3 "But even in the midst of that paroxysm, he still essayed to repeat his favourite introduction of himself, 'Pa-ancks the gi-ipsy, fortune-telling.'",3 "'I am spending the evening with the rest of 'em,' said Pancks.",2 'I've been singing.,2 I've been taking a part in White sand and grey sand.,2 I don't know anything about it.,2 Never mind.,2 I'll take any part in anything.,2 "It's all the same, if you're loud enough.'",2 At first Clennam supposed him to be intoxicated.,2 "But he soon perceived that though he might be a little the worse (or better) for ale, the staple of his excitement was not brewed from malt, or distilled from any grain or berry.",3 "'How d'ye do, Miss Dorrit?'",1 said Pancks.,2 "'I thought you wouldn't mind my running round, and looking in for a moment.",2 "Mr Clennam I heard was here, from Mr Dorrit.",2 "How are you, Sir?'",2 "Clennam thanked him, and said he was glad to see him so gay.",3 'Gay!',2 said Pancks.,2 "'I'm in wonderful feather, sir.",3 "I can't stop a minute, or I shall be missed, and I don't want 'em to miss me.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'",1 "He seemed to have an insatiate delight in appealing to her and looking at her; excitedly sticking his hair up at the same moment, like a dark species of cockatoo.",4 'I haven't been here half an hour.,2 "I knew Mr Dorrit was in the chair, and I said, ""I'll go and support him!""",3 "I ought to be down in Bleeding Heart Yard by rights; but I can worry them to-morrow.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'",0 His little black eyes sparkled electrically.,2 His very hair seemed to sparkle as he roughened it.,3 He was in that highly-charged state that one might have expected to draw sparks and snaps from him by presenting a knuckle to any part of his figure.,2 "'Capital company here,' said Pancks.--'Eh, Miss Dorrit?'",1 "She was half afraid of him, and irresolute what to say.",1 "He laughed, with a nod towards Clennam.",2 "'Don't mind him, Miss Dorrit.",1 He's one of us.,2 "We agreed that you shouldn't take on to mind me before people, but we didn't mean Mr Clennam.",2 He's one of us.,2 He's in it.,2 "An't you, Mr Clennam?--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'",1 The excitement of this strange creature was fast communicating itself to Clennam.,3 "Little Dorrit with amazement, saw this, and observed that they exchanged quick looks.",3 "'I was making a remark,' said Pancks, 'but I declare I forget what it was.",2 "Oh, I know!",2 Capital company here.,2 "I've been treating 'em all round.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'",1 "'Very generous of you,' she returned, noticing another of the quick looks between the two.",3 "'Not at all,' said Pancks.",2 'Don't mention it.,2 "I'm coming into my property, that's the fact.",2 I can afford to be liberal.,3 I think I'll give 'em a treat here.,2 Tables laid in the yard.,2 Bread in stacks.,2 Pipes in faggots.,2 Tobacco in hayloads.,2 Roast beef and plum-pudding for every one.,2 Quart of double stout a head.,2 "Pint of wine too, if they like it, and the authorities give permission.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'",2 "She was thrown into such a confusion by his manner, or rather by Clennam's growing understanding of his manner (for she looked to him after every fresh appeal and cockatoo demonstration on the part of Mr Pancks), that she only moved her lips in answer, without forming any word.",3 "'And oh, by-the-bye!'",2 "said Pancks, 'you were to live to know what was behind us on that little hand of yours.",2 "And so you shall, you shall, my darling.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'",2 He had suddenly checked himself.,2 "Where he got all the additional black prongs from, that now flew up all over his head like the myriads of points that break out in the large change of a great firework, was a wonderful mystery.",3 'But I shall be missed;' he came back to that; 'and I don't want 'em to miss me.,1 "Mr Clennam, you and I made a bargain.",3 I said you should find me stick to it.,2 "You shall find me stick to it now, sir, if you'll step out of the room a moment.",2 "Miss Dorrit, I wish you good night.",2 "Miss Dorrit, I wish you good fortune.'",3 "He rapidly shook her by both hands, and puffed down stairs.",2 "Arthur followed him with such a hurried step, that he had very nearly tumbled over him on the last landing, and rolled him down into the yard.",1 "'What is it, for Heaven's sake!'",2 "Arthur demanded, when they burst out there both together.",2 "'Stop a moment, sir.",2 Mr Rugg.,2 Let me introduce him.',2 "With those words he presented another man without a hat, and also with a cigar, and also surrounded with a halo of ale and tobacco smoke, which man, though not so excited as himself, was in a state which would have been akin to lunacy but for its fading into sober method when compared with the rampancy of Mr Pancks.",1 "'Mr Clennam, Mr Rugg,' said Pancks.",2 'Stop a moment.,2 Come to the pump.',2 They adjourned to the pump.,2 "Mr Pancks, instantly putting his head under the spout, requested Mr Rugg to take a good strong turn at the handle.",4 "Mr Rugg complying to the letter, Mr Pancks came forth snorting and blowing to some purpose, and dried himself on his handkerchief.",2 "'I am the clearer for that,' he gasped to Clennam standing astonished.",3 "'But upon my soul, to hear her father making speeches in that chair, knowing what we know, and to see her up in that room in that dress, knowing what we know, is enough to--give me a back, Mr Rugg--a little higher, sir,--that'll do!'",3 "Then and there, on that Marshalsea pavement, in the shades of evening, did Mr Pancks, of all mankind, fly over the head and shoulders of Mr Rugg of Pentonville, General Agent, Accountant, and Recoverer of Debts.",1 "Alighting on his feet, he took Clennam by the button-hole, led him behind the pump, and pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of papers.",3 "Mr Rugg, also, pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of papers.",2 'Stay!',2 said Clennam in a whisper.',2 You have made a discovery.',2 "Mr Pancks answered, with an unction which there is no language to convey, 'We rather think so.'",2 'Does it implicate any one?',1 "'How implicate, sir?'",1 'In any suppression or wrong dealing of any kind?',1 'Not a bit of it.',2 'Thank God!',2 said Clennam to himself.,2 'Now show me.',2 "'You are to understand'--snorted Pancks, feverishly unfolding papers, and speaking in short high-pressure blasts of sentences, 'Where's the Pedigree?",2 "Where's Schedule number four, Mr Rugg?",2 Oh!,2 all right!,3 Here we are.--You are to understand that we are this very day virtually complete.,2 We shan't be legally for a day or two.,2 Call it at the outside a week.,2 We've been at it night and day for I don't know how long.,2 "Mr Rugg, you know how long?",2 Never mind.,2 Don't say.,2 You'll only confuse me.,1 "You shall tell her, Mr Clennam.",2 Not till we give you leave.,2 "Where's that rough total, Mr Rugg?",1 Oh! Here we are! There sir!,2 That's what you'll have to break to her.,1 That man's your Father of the Marshalsea!',2 "Resigning herself to inevitable fate by making the best of those people, the Miggleses, and submitting her philosophy to the draught upon it, of which she had foreseen the likelihood in her interview with Arthur, Mrs Gowan handsomely resolved not to oppose her son's marriage.",2 "In her progress to, and happy arrival at, this resolution, she was possibly influenced, not only by her maternal affections but by three politic considerations.",3 "Of these, the first may have been that her son had never signified the smallest intention to ask her consent, or any mistrust of his ability to dispense with it; the second, that the pension bestowed upon her by a grateful country (and a Barnacle) would be freed from any little filial inroads, when her Henry should be married to the darling only child of a man in very easy circumstances; the third, that Henry's debts must clearly be paid down upon the altar-railing by his father-in-law.",4 "When, to these three-fold points of prudence there is added the fact that Mrs Gowan yielded her consent the moment she knew of Mr Meagles having yielded his, and that Mr Meagles's objection to the marriage had been the sole obstacle in its way all along, it becomes the height of probability that the relict of the deceased Commissioner of nothing particular, turned these ideas in her sagacious mind.",1 "Among her connections and acquaintances, however, she maintained her individual dignity and the dignity of the blood of the Barnacles, by diligently nursing the pretence that it was a most unfortunate business; that she was sadly cut up by it; that this was a perfect fascination under which Henry laboured; that she had opposed it for a long time, but what could a mother do; and the like.",3 "She had already called Arthur Clennam to bear witness to this fable, as a friend of the Meagles family; and she followed up the move by now impounding the family itself for the same purpose.",2 "In the first interview she accorded to Mr Meagles, she slided herself into the position of disconsolately but gracefully yielding to irresistible pressure.",3 "With the utmost politeness and good-breeding, she feigned that it was she--not he--who had made the difficulty, and who at length gave way; and that the sacrifice was hers--not his.",3 "The same feint, with the same polite dexterity, she foisted on Mrs Meagles, as a conjuror might have forced a card on that innocent lady; and, when her future daughter-in-law was presented to her by her son, she said on embracing her, 'My dear, what have you done to Henry that has bewitched him so!'",2 "at the same time allowing a few tears to carry before them, in little pills, the cosmetic powder on her nose; as a delicate but touching signal that she suffered much inwardly for the show of composure with which she bore her misfortune.",1 "Among the friends of Mrs Gowan (who piqued herself at once on being Society, and on maintaining intimate and easy relations with that Power), Mrs Merdle occupied a front row.",3 "True, the Hampton Court Bohemians, without exception, turned up their noses at Merdle as an upstart; but they turned them down again, by falling flat on their faces to worship his wealth.",1 "In which compensating adjustment of their noses, they were pretty much like Treasury, Bar, and Bishop, and all the rest of them.",3 "To Mrs Merdle, Mrs Gowan repaired on a visit of self-condolence, after having given the gracious consent aforesaid.",3 "She drove into town for the purpose in a one-horse carriage irreverently called at that period of English history, a pill-box.",2 "It belonged to a job-master in a small way, who drove it himself, and who jobbed it by the day, or hour, to most of the old ladies in Hampton Court Palace; but it was a point of ceremony, in that encampment, that the whole equipage should be tacitly regarded as the private property of the jobber for the time being, and that the job-master should betray personal knowledge of nobody but the jobber in possession.",2 "So the Circumlocution Barnacles, who were the largest job-masters in the universe, always pretended to know of no other job but the job immediately in hand.",3 "Mrs Merdle was at home, and was in her nest of crimson and gold, with the parrot on a neighbouring stem watching her with his head on one side, as if he took her for another splendid parrot of a larger species.",3 "To whom entered Mrs Gowan, with her favourite green fan, which softened the light on the spots of bloom.",3 "'My dear soul,' said Mrs Gowan, tapping the back of her friend's hand with this fan after a little indifferent conversation, 'you are my only comfort.",2 "That affair of Henry's that I told you of, is to take place.",2 "Now, how does it strike you?",1 "I am dying to know, because you represent and express Society so well.'",2 "Mrs Merdle reviewed the bosom which Society was accustomed to review; and having ascertained that show-window of Mr Merdle's and the London jewellers' to be in good order, replied: 'As to marriage on the part of a man, my dear, Society requires that he should retrieve his fortunes by marriage.",3 Society requires that he should gain by marriage.,3 Society requires that he should found a handsome establishment by marriage.,3 "Society does not see, otherwise, what he has to do with marriage.",2 "Bird, be quiet!'",3 "For the parrot on his cage above them, presiding over the conference as if he were a judge (and indeed he looked rather like one), had wound up the exposition with a shriek.",1 "'Cases there are,' said Mrs Merdle, delicately crooking the little finger of her favourite hand, and making her remarks neater by that neat action; 'cases there are where a man is not young or elegant, and is rich, and has a handsome establishment already.",4 Those are of a different kind.,2 "In such cases--' Mrs Merdle shrugged her snowy shoulders and put her hand upon the jewel-stand, checking a little cough, as though to add, 'why, a man looks out for this sort of thing, my dear.'",2 "Then the parrot shrieked again, and she put up her glass to look at him, and said, 'Bird!",2 Do be quiet!',3 "'But, young men,' resumed Mrs Merdle, 'and by young men you know what I mean, my love--I mean people's sons who have the world before them--they must place themselves in a better position towards Society by marriage, or Society really will not have any patience with their making fools of themselves.",4 "Dreadfully worldly all this sounds,' said Mrs Merdle, leaning back in her nest and putting up her glass again, 'does it not?'",1 "'But it is true,' said Mrs Gowan, with a highly moral air.",2 "'My dear, it is not to be disputed for a moment,' returned Mrs Merdle; 'because Society has made up its mind on the subject, and there is nothing more to be said.",1 "If we were in a more primitive state, if we lived under roofs of leaves, and kept cows and sheep and creatures instead of banker's accounts (which would be delicious; my dear, I am pastoral to a degree, by nature), well and good.",3 "But we don't live under leaves, and keep cows and sheep and creatures.",2 "I perfectly exhaust myself sometimes, in pointing out the distinction to Edmund Sparkler.'",3 "Mrs Gowan, looking over her green fan when this young gentleman's name was mentioned, replied as follows: 'My love, you know the wretched state of the country--those unfortunate concessions of John Barnacle's!--and you therefore know the reasons for my being as poor as Thingummy.'",0 'A church mouse?',2 Mrs Merdle suggested with a smile.,3 "'I was thinking of the other proverbial church person--Job,' said Mrs Gowan.",2 'Either will do.,2 "It would be idle to disguise, consequently, that there is a wide difference between the position of your son and mine.",1 "I may add, too, that Henry has talent--' 'Which Edmund certainly has not,' said Mrs Merdle, with the greatest suavity.",3 "'--and that his talent, combined with disappointment,' Mrs Gowan went on, 'has led him into a pursuit which--ah dear me!",3 "You know, my dear.",2 "Such being Henry's different position, the question is what is the most inferior class of marriage to which I can reconcile myself.'",2 "Mrs Merdle was so much engaged with the contemplation of her arms (beautiful-formed arms, and the very thing for bracelets), that she omitted to reply for a while.",3 "Roused at length by the silence, she folded the arms, and with admirable presence of mind looked her friend full in the face, and said interrogatively, 'Ye-es?",3 And then?',2 "'And then, my dear,' said Mrs Gowan not quite so sweetly as before, 'I should be glad to hear what you have to say to it.'",3 "Here the parrot, who had been standing on one leg since he screamed last, burst into a fit of laughter, bobbed himself derisively up and down on both legs, and finished by standing on one leg again, and pausing for a reply, with his head as much awry as he could possibly twist it.",1 "'Sounds mercenary to ask what the gentleman is to get with the lady,' said Mrs Merdle; 'but Society is perhaps a little mercenary, you know, my dear.'",2 "'From what I can make out,' said Mrs Gowan, 'I believe I may say that Henry will be relieved from debt--' 'Much in debt?'",1 asked Mrs Merdle through her eyeglass.,2 "'Why tolerably, I should think,' said Mrs Gowan.",2 "'Meaning the usual thing; I understand; just so,' Mrs Merdle observed in a comfortable sort of way.",3 "'And that the father will make them an allowance of three hundred a-year, or perhaps altogether something more, which, in Italy-' 'Oh!",2 Going to Italy?',2 said Mrs Merdle.,2 'For Henry to study.,2 "You need be at no loss to guess why, my dear.",1 That dreadful Art--' True.,1 Mrs Merdle hastened to spare the feelings of her afflicted friend.,2 She understood.,2 Say no more!,2 "'And that,' said Mrs Gowan, shaking her despondent head, 'that's all.",1 "That,' repeated Mrs Gowan, furling her green fan for the moment, and tapping her chin with it (it was on the way to being a double chin; might be called a chin and a half at present), 'that's all!",2 "On the death of the old people, I suppose there will be more to come; but how it may be restricted or locked up, I don't know.",1 "And as to that, they may live for ever.",2 "My dear, they are just the kind of people to do it.'",2 "Now, Mrs Merdle, who really knew her friend Society pretty well, and who knew what Society's mothers were, and what Society's daughters were, and what Society's matrimonial market was, and how prices ruled in it, and what scheming and counter-scheming took place for the high buyers, and what bargaining and huckstering went on, thought in the depths of her capacious bosom that this was a sufficiently good catch.",4 "Knowing, however, what was expected of her, and perceiving the exact nature of the fiction to be nursed, she took it delicately in her arms, and put her required contribution of gloss upon it.",2 "'And that is all, my dear?'",2 "said she, heaving a friendly sigh.",3 "'Well, well!",3 The fault is not yours.,1 You have nothing to reproach yourself with.,1 "You must exercise the strength of mind for which you are renowned, and make the best of it.'",3 "'The girl's family have made,' said Mrs Gowan, 'of course, the most strenuous endeavours to--as the lawyers say--to have and to hold Henry.'",1 "'Of course they have, my dear,' said Mrs Merdle.",2 "'I have persisted in every possible objection, and have worried myself morning, noon, and night, for means to detach Henry from the connection.'",1 "'No doubt you have, my dear,' said Mrs Merdle.",1 'And all of no use.,2 All has broken down beneath me.,1 "Now tell me, my love.",3 "Am I justified in at last yielding my most reluctant consent to Henry's marrying among people not in Society; or, have I acted with inexcusable weakness?'",0 "In answer to this direct appeal, Mrs Merdle assured Mrs Gowan (speaking as a Priestess of Society) that she was highly to be commended, that she was much to be sympathised with, that she had taken the highest of parts, and had come out of the furnace refined.",3 "And Mrs Gowan, who of course saw through her own threadbare blind perfectly, and who knew that Mrs Merdle saw through it perfectly, and who knew that Society would see through it perfectly, came out of this form, notwithstanding, as she had gone into it, with immense complacency and gravity.",3 "The conference was held at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, when all the region of Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was resonant of carriage-wheels and double-knocks.",2 It had reached this point when Mr Merdle came home from his daily occupation of causing the British name to be more and more respected in all parts of the civilised globe capable of the appreciation of world-wide commercial enterprise and gigantic combinations of skill and capital.,3 "For, though nobody knew with the least precision what Mr Merdle's business was, except that it was to coin money, these were the terms in which everybody defined it on all ceremonious occasions, and which it was the last new polite reading of the parable of the camel and the needle's eye to accept without inquiry.",3 "For a gentleman who had this splendid work cut out for him, Mr Merdle looked a little common, and rather as if, in the course of his vast transactions, he had accidentally made an interchange of heads with some inferior spirit.",3 "He presented himself before the two ladies in the course of a dismal stroll through his mansion, which had no apparent object but escape from the presence of the chief butler.",1 "'I beg your pardon,' he said, stopping short in confusion; 'I didn't know there was anybody here but the parrot.'",1 "However, as Mrs Merdle said, 'You can come in!'",2 "and as Mrs Gowan said she was just going, and had already risen to take her leave, he came in, and stood looking out at a distant window, with his hands crossed under his uneasy coat-cuffs, clasping his wrists as if he were taking himself into custody.",1 "In this attitude he fell directly into a reverie from which he was only aroused by his wife's calling to him from her ottoman, when they had been for some quarter of an hour alone.",1 "Eh? Yes?' said Mr Merdle, turning towards her.",2 'What is it?',2 What is it?' repeated Mrs Merdle.,2 "'It is, I suppose, that you have not heard a word of my complaint.'",1 "'Your complaint, Mrs Merdle?'",1 said Mr Merdle.,2 'I didn't know that you were suffering from a complaint.,1 What complaint?',1 "'A complaint of you,' said Mrs Merdle.",1 'Oh!,2 "A complaint of me,' said Mr Merdle.",1 "'What is the--what have I--what may you have to complain of in me, Mrs Merdle?'",1 "In his withdrawing, abstracted, pondering way, it took him some time to shape this question.",2 "As a kind of faint attempt to convince himself that he was the master of the house, he concluded by presenting his forefinger to the parrot, who expressed his opinion on that subject by instantly driving his bill into it.",3 "'You were saying, Mrs Merdle,' said Mr Merdle, with his wounded finger in his mouth, 'that you had a complaint against me?'",1 "'A complaint which I could scarcely show the justice of more emphatically, than by having to repeat it,' said Mrs Merdle.",0 'I might as well have stated it to the wall.,3 I had far better have stated it to the bird.,3 He would at least have screamed.',2 "'You don't want me to scream, Mrs Merdle, I suppose,' said Mr Merdle, taking a chair.",1 "'Indeed I don't know,' retorted Mrs Merdle, 'but that you had better do that, than be so moody and distraught.",1 One would at least know that you were sensible of what was going on around you.',3 "'A man might scream, and yet not be that, Mrs Merdle,' said Mr Merdle, heavily.",1 "'And might be dogged, as you are at present, without screaming,' returned Mrs Merdle.",1 'That's very true.,2 "If you wish to know the complaint I make against you, it is, in so many plain words, that you really ought not to go into Society unless you can accommodate yourself to Society.'",1 "Mr Merdle, so twisting his hands into what hair he had upon his head that he seemed to lift himself up by it as he started out of his chair, cried: 'Why, in the name of all the infernal powers, Mrs Merdle, who does more for Society than I do?",1 "Do you see these premises, Mrs Merdle?",2 "Do you see this furniture, Mrs Merdle?",2 "Do you look in the glass and see yourself, Mrs Merdle?",2 "Do you know the cost of all this, and who it's all provided for?",2 And yet will you tell me that I oughtn't to go into Society?,2 "I, who shower money upon it in this way?",2 "I, who might always be said--to--to--to harness myself to a watering-cart full of money, and go about saturating Society every day of my life.'",2 "'Pray, don't be violent, Mr Merdle,' said Mrs Merdle.",1 Violent?' said Mr Merdle.,2 'You are enough to make me desperate.,2 You don't know half of what I do to accommodate Society.,2 You don't know anything of the sacrifices I make for it.',2 "'I know,' returned Mrs Merdle, 'that you receive the best in the land.",3 I know that you move in the whole Society of the country.,2 "And I believe I know (indeed, not to make any ridiculous pretence about it, I know I know) who sustains you in it, Mr Merdle.'",1 "'Mrs Merdle,' retorted that gentleman, wiping his dull red and yellow face, 'I know that as well as you do.",2 "If you were not an ornament to Society, and if I was not a benefactor to Society, you and I would never have come together.",3 "When I say a benefactor to it, I mean a person who provides it with all sorts of expensive things to eat and drink and look at.",2 "But, to tell me that I am not fit for it after all I have done for it--after all I have done for it,' repeated Mr Merdle, with a wild emphasis that made his wife lift up her eyelids, 'after all--all!--to tell me I have no right to mix with it after all, is a pretty reward.'",3 "'I say,' answered Mrs Merdle composedly, 'that you ought to make yourself fit for it by being more degage, and less preoccupied.",2 There is a positive vulgarity in carrying your business affairs about with you as you do.',3 "'How do I carry them about, Mrs Merdle?'",2 asked Mr Merdle.,2 'How do you carry them about?',2 said Mrs Merdle.,2 'Look at yourself in the glass.',2 "Mr Merdle involuntarily turned his eyes in the direction of the nearest mirror, and asked, with a slow determination of his turbid blood to his temples, whether a man was to be called to account for his digestion?",1 "'You have a physician,' said Mrs Merdle.",2 "'He does me no good,' said Mr Merdle.",3 Mrs Merdle changed her ground.,2 "'Besides,' said she, 'your digestion is nonsense.",1 I don't speak of your digestion.,2 I speak of your manner.',2 "'Mrs Merdle,' returned her husband, 'I look to you for that.",2 "You supply manner, and I supply money.'",2 "'I don't expect you,' said Mrs Merdle, reposing easily among her cushions, 'to captivate people.",3 "I don't want you to take any trouble upon yourself, or to try to be fascinating.",2 I simply request you to care about nothing--or seem to care about nothing--as everybody else does.',2 'Do I ever say I care about anything?',2 asked Mr Merdle.,2 'Say?,2 No!,2 Nobody would attend to you if you did.,2 But you show it.',2 'Show what?,2 What do I show?',2 demanded Mr Merdle hurriedly.,2 'I have already told you.,2 "You show that you carry your business cares an projects about, instead of leaving them in the City, or wherever else they belong to,' said Mrs Merdle.",2 'Or seeming to.,2 Seeming would be quite enough: I ask no more.,3 "Whereas you couldn't be more occupied with your day's calculations and combinations than you habitually show yourself to be, if you were a carpenter.'",2 'A carpenter!',2 "repeated Mr Merdle, checking something like a groan.",3 "'I shouldn't so much mind being a carpenter, Mrs Merdle.'",2 "'And my complaint is,' pursued the lady, disregarding the low remark, 'that it is not the tone of Society, and that you ought to correct it, Mr Merdle.",2 "If you have any doubt of my judgment, ask even Edmund Sparkler.'",1 "The door of the room had opened, and Mrs Merdle now surveyed the head of her son through her glass.",2 'Edmund; we want you here.',2 "Mr Sparkler, who had merely put in his head and looked round the room without entering (as if he were searching the house for that young lady with no nonsense about her), upon this followed up his head with his body, and stood before them.",1 "To whom, in a few easy words adapted to his capacity, Mrs Merdle stated the question at issue.",2 "The young gentleman, after anxiously feeling his shirt-collar as if it were his pulse and he were hypochondriacal, observed, 'That he had heard it noticed by fellers.'",1 "'Edmund Sparkler has heard it noticed,' said Mrs Merdle, with languid triumph.",2 "'Why, no doubt everybody has heard it noticed!'",1 "Which in truth was no unreasonable inference; seeing that Mr Sparkler would probably be the last person, in any assemblage of the human species, to receive an impression from anything that passed in his presence.",1 "'And Edmund Sparkler will tell you, I dare say,' said Mrs Merdle, waving her favourite hand towards her husband, 'how he has heard it noticed.'",2 "'I couldn't,' said Mr Sparkler, after feeling his pulse as before, 'couldn't undertake to say what led to it--'cause memory desperate loose.",1 But being in company with the brother of a doosed fine gal--well educated too--with no biggodd nonsense about her--at the period alluded to--' 'There!,3 "Never mind the sister,' remarked Mrs Merdle, a little impatiently.",1 'What did the brother say?',2 "'Didn't say a word, ma'am,' answered Mr Sparkler.",2 'As silent a feller as myself.,3 Equally hard up for a remark.',1 "'Somebody said something,' returned Mrs Merdle.",2 'Never mind who it was.',2 "['Assure you I don't in the least,' said Mr Sparkler.) 'But tell us what it was.'",2 "Mr Sparkler referred to his pulse again, and put himself through some severe mental discipline before he replied: 'Fellers referring to my Governor--expression not my own--occasionally compliment my Governor in a very handsome way on being immensely rich and knowing--perfect phenomenon of Buyer and Banker and that--but say the Shop sits heavily on him.",4 "Say he carried the Shop about, on his back rather--like Jew clothesmen with too much business.'",3 "'Which,' said Mrs Merdle, rising, with her floating drapery about her, 'is exactly my complaint.",1 "Edmund, give me your arm up-stairs.'",2 "Mr Merdle, left alone to meditate on a better conformation of himself to Society, looked out of nine windows in succession, and appeared to see nine wastes of space.",3 "When he had thus entertained himself he went down-stairs, and looked intently at all the carpets on the ground-floor; and then came up-stairs again, and looked intently at all the carpets on the first-floor; as if they were gloomy depths, in unison with his oppressed soul.",1 "Through all the rooms he wandered, as he always did, like the last person on earth who had any business to approach them.",3 "Let Mrs Merdle announce, with all her might, that she was at Home ever so many nights in a season, she could not announce more widely and unmistakably than Mr Merdle did that he was never at home.",2 "At last he met the chief butler, the sight of which splendid retainer always finished him.",3 "Extinguished by this great creature, he sneaked to his dressing-room, and there remained shut up until he rode out to dinner, with Mrs Merdle, in her own handsome chariot.",3 "At dinner, he was envied and flattered as a being of might, was Treasuried, Barred, and Bishoped, as much as he would; and an hour after midnight came home alone, and being instantly put out again in his own hall, like a rushlight, by the chief butler, went sighing to bed.",3 "Mr Henry Gowan and the dog were established frequenters of the cottage, and the day was fixed for the wedding.",2 "There was to be a convocation of Barnacles on the occasion, in order that that very high and very large family might shed as much lustre on the marriage as so dim an event was capable of receiving.",2 To have got the whole Barnacle family together would have been impossible for two reasons.,1 "Firstly, because no building could have held all the members and connections of that illustrious house.",3 "Secondly, because wherever there was a square yard of ground in British occupation under the sun or moon, with a public post upon it, sticking to that post was a Barnacle.",2 "No intrepid navigator could plant a flag-staff upon any spot of earth, and take possession of it in the British name, but to that spot of earth, so soon as the discovery was known, the Circumlocution Office sent out a Barnacle and a despatch-box.",2 "Thus the Barnacles were all over the world, in every direction--despatch-boxing the compass.",2 "But, while the so-potent art of Prospero himself would have failed in summoning the Barnacles from every speck of ocean and dry land on which there was nothing (except mischief) to be done and anything to be pocketed, it was perfectly feasible to assemble a good many Barnacles.",3 "This Mrs Gowan applied herself to do; calling on Mr Meagles frequently with new additions to the list, and holding conferences with that gentleman when he was not engaged (as he generally was at this period) in examining and paying the debts of his future son-in-law, in the apartment of scales and scoop.",1 "One marriage guest there was, in reference to whose presence Mr Meagles felt a nearer interest and concern than in the attendance of the most elevated Barnacle expected; though he was far from insensible of the honour of having such company.",1 This guest was Clennam.,2 "But Clennam had made a promise he held sacred, among the trees that summer night, and, in the chivalry of his heart, regarded it as binding him to many implied obligations.",3 "In forgetfulness of himself, and delicate service to her on all occasions, he was never to fail; to begin it, he answered Mr Meagles cheerfully, 'I shall come, of course.'",1 "His partner, Daniel Doyce, was something of a stumbling-block in Mr Meagles's way, the worthy gentleman being not at all clear in his own anxious mind but that the mingling of Daniel with official Barnacleism might produce some explosive combination, even at a marriage breakfast.",2 "The national offender, however, lightened him of his uneasiness by coming down to Twickenham to represent that he begged, with the freedom of an old friend, and as a favour to one, that he might not be invited.",2 "'For,' said he, 'as my business with this set of gentlemen was to do a public duty and a public service, and as their business with me was to prevent it by wearing my soul out, I think we had better not eat and drink together with a show of being of one mind.'",3 "Mr Meagles was much amused by his friend's oddity; and patronised him with a more protecting air of allowance than usual, when he rejoined: 'Well, well, Dan, you shall have your own crotchety way.'",2 "To Mr Henry Gowan, as the time approached, Clennam tried to convey by all quiet and unpretending means, that he was frankly and disinterestedly desirous of tendering him any friendship he would accept.",3 "Mr Gowan treated him in return with his usual ease, and with his usual show of confidence, which was no confidence at all.",3 "'You see, Clennam,' he happened to remark in the course of conversation one day, when they were walking near the Cottage within a week of the marriage, 'I am a disappointed man.",1 That you know already.',2 "'Upon my word,' said Clennam, a little embarrassed, 'I scarcely know how.'",1 "'Why,' returned Gowan, 'I belong to a clan, or a clique, or a family, or a connection, or whatever you like to call it, that might have provided for me in any one of fifty ways, and that took it into its head not to do it at all.",2 "So here I am, a poor devil of an artist.'",1 "Clennam was beginning, 'But on the other hand--' when Gowan took him up.",2 "'Yes, yes, I know.",2 I have the good fortune of being beloved by a beautiful and charming girl whom I love with all my heart.',4 Is there much of it?',2 Clennam thought.,2 "And as he thought it, felt ashamed of himself. 'And of finding a father-in-law who is a capital fellow and a liberal good old boy.",2 "Still, I had other prospects washed and combed into my childish head when it was washed and combed for me, and I took them to a public school when I washed and combed it for myself, and I am here without them, and thus I am a disappointed man.'",1 "Clennam thought (and as he thought it, again felt ashamed of himself), was this notion of being disappointed in life, an assertion of station which the bridegroom brought into the family as his property, having already carried it detrimentally into his pursuit?",1 And was it a hopeful or a promising thing anywhere?,3 "'Not bitterly disappointed, I think,' he said aloud.",1 "'Hang it, no; not bitterly,' laughed Gowan.",1 "'My people are not worth that--though they are charming fellows, and I have the greatest affection for them.",4 "Besides, it's pleasant to show them that I can do without them, and that they may all go to the Devil.",2 "And besides, again, most men are disappointed in life, somehow or other, and influenced by their disappointment.",1 "But it's a dear good world, and I love it!'",3 "'It lies fair before you now,' said Arthur.",2 "'Fair as this summer river,' cried the other, with enthusiasm, 'and by Jove I glow with admiration of it, and with ardour to run a race in it.",4 It's the best of old worlds!,3 And my calling!,2 "The best of old callings, isn't it?'",3 "'Full of interest and ambition, I conceive,' said Clennam.",2 "'And imposition,' added Gowan, laughing; 'we won't leave out the imposition.",1 "I hope I may not break down in that; but there, my being a disappointed man may show itself.",1 I may not be able to face it out gravely enough.,2 "Between you and me, I think there is some danger of my being just enough soured not to be able to do that.'",2 'To do what?',2 asked Clennam.,2 'To keep it up.,2 "To help myself in my turn, as the man before me helps himself in his, and pass the bottle of smoke.",1 "To keep up the pretence as to labour, and study, and patience, and being devoted to my art, and giving up many solitary days to it, and abandoning many pleasures for it, and living in it, and all the rest of it--in short, to pass the bottle of smoke according to rule.'",1 "'But it is well for a man to respect his own vocation, whatever it is; and to think himself bound to uphold it, and to claim for it the respect it deserves; is it not?'",4 Arthur reasoned.,3 "'And your vocation, Gowan, may really demand this suit and service.",2 I confess I should have thought that all Art did.',1 "'What a good fellow you are, Clennam!'",3 "exclaimed the other, stopping to look at him, as if with irrepressible admiration.",2 'What a capital fellow!,2 You have never been disappointed.,1 That's easy to see.',3 "It would have been so cruel if he had meant it, that Clennam firmly resolved to believe he did not mean it.",1 "Gowan, without pausing, laid his hand upon his shoulder, and laughingly and lightly went on: 'Clennam, I don't like to dispel your generous visions, and I would give any money (if I had any), to live in such a rose-coloured mist.",3 "But what I do in my trade, I do to sell.",2 "What all we fellows do, we do to sell.",2 "If we didn't want to sell it for the most we can get for it, we shouldn't do it.",2 "Being work, it has to be done; but it's easily enough done.",3 All the rest is hocus-pocus.,2 "Now here's one of the advantages, or disadvantages, of knowing a disappointed man.",1 You hear the truth.',2 "Whatever he had heard, and whether it deserved that name or another, it sank into Clennam's mind.",2 "It so took root there, that he began to fear Henry Gowan would always be a trouble to him, and that so far he had gained little or nothing from the dismissal of Nobody, with all his inconsistencies, anxieties, and contradictions.",0 "He found a contest still always going on in his breast between his promise to keep Gowan in none but good aspects before the mind of Mr Meagles, and his enforced observation of Gowan in aspects that had no good in them.",3 "Nor could he quite support his own conscientious nature against misgivings that he distorted and discoloured himself, by reminding himself that he never sought those discoveries, and that he would have avoided them with willingness and great relief.",4 For he never could forget what he had been; and he knew that he had once disliked Gowan for no better reason than that he had come in his way.,2 "Harassed by these thoughts, he now began to wish the marriage over, Gowan and his young wife gone, and himself left to fulfil his promise, and discharge the generous function he had accepted.",3 "This last week was, in truth, an uneasy interval for the whole house.",1 "Before Pet, or before Gowan, Mr Meagles was radiant; but Clennam had more than once found him alone, with his view of the scales and scoop much blurred, and had often seen him look after the lovers, in the garden or elsewhere when he was not seen by them, with the old clouded face on which Gowan had fallen like a shadow.",2 "In the arrangement of the house for the great occasion, many little reminders of the old travels of the father and mother and daughter had to be disturbed and passed from hand to hand; and sometimes, in the midst of these mute witnesses, to the life they had had together, even Pet herself would yield to lamenting and weeping.",2 "Mrs Meagles, the blithest and busiest of mothers, went about singing and cheering everybody; but she, honest soul, had her flights into store rooms, where she would cry until her eyes were red, and would then come out, attributing that appearance to pickled onions and pepper, and singing clearer than ever.",3 "Mrs Tickit, finding no balsam for a wounded mind in Buchan's Domestic Medicine, suffered greatly from low spirits, and from moving recollections of Minnie's infancy.",1 "When the latter was powerful with her, she usually sent up secret messages importing that she was not in parlour condition as to her attire, and that she solicited a sight of 'her child' in the kitchen; there, she would bless her child's face, and bless her child's heart, and hug her child, in a medley of tears and congratulations, chopping-boards, rolling-pins, and pie-crust, with the tenderness of an old attached servant, which is a very pretty tenderness indeed.",4 "But all days come that are to be; and the marriage-day was to be, and it came; and with it came all the Barnacles who were bidden to the feast.",2 "There was Mr Tite Barnacle, from the Circumlocution Office, and Mews Street, Grosvenor Square, with the expensive Mrs Tite Barnacle _nee_ Stiltstalking, who made the Quarter Days so long in coming, and the three expensive Miss Tite Barnacles, double-loaded with accomplishments and ready to go off, and yet not going off with the sharpness of flash and bang that might have been expected, but rather hanging fire.",2 "There was Barnacle junior, also from the Circumlocution Office, leaving the Tonnage of the country, which he was somehow supposed to take under his protection, to look after itself, and, sooth to say, not at all impairing the efficiency of its protection by leaving it alone.",3 "There was the engaging Young Barnacle, deriving from the sprightly side of the family, also from the Circumlocution Office, gaily and agreeably helping the occasion along, and treating it, in his sparkling way, as one of the official forms and fees of the Church Department of How not to do it.",4 "There were three other Young Barnacles from three other offices, insipid to all the senses, and terribly in want of seasoning, doing the marriage as they would have 'done' the Nile, Old Rome, the new singer, or Jerusalem.",1 But there was greater game than this.,2 "There was Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle himself, in the odour of Circumlocution--with the very smell of Despatch-Boxes upon him.",1 "Yes, there was Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, who had risen to official heights on the wings of one indignant idea, and that was, My Lords, that I am yet to be told that it behoves a Minister of this free country to set bounds to the philanthropy, to cramp the charity, to fetter the public spirit, to contract the enterprise, to damp the independent self-reliance, of its people.",1 "That was, in other words, that this great statesman was always yet to be told that it behoved the Pilot of the ship to do anything but prosper in the private loaf and fish trade ashore, the crew being able, by dint of hard pumping, to keep the ship above water without him.",3 "On this sublime discovery in the great art How not to do it, Lord Decimus had long sustained the highest glory of the Barnacle family; and let any ill-advised member of either House but try How to do it by bringing in a Bill to do it, that Bill was as good as dead and buried when Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle rose up in his place and solemnly said, soaring into indignant majesty as the Circumlocution cheering soared around him, that he was yet to be told, My Lords, that it behoved him as the Minister of this free country, to set bounds to the philanthropy, to cramp the charity, to fetter the public spirit, to contract the enterprise, to damp the independent self-reliance, of its people.",4 The discovery of this Behoving Machine was the discovery of the political perpetual motion.,2 "It never wore out, though it was always going round and round in all the State Departments.",2 "And there, with his noble friend and relative Lord Decimus, was William Barnacle, who had made the ever-famous coalition with Tudor Stiltstalking, and who always kept ready his own particular recipe for How not to do it; sometimes tapping the Speaker, and drawing it fresh out of him, with a 'First, I will beg you, sir, to inform the House what Precedent we have for the course into which the honourable gentleman would precipitate us;' sometimes asking the honourable gentleman to favour him with his own version of the Precedent; sometimes telling the honourable gentleman that he (William Barnacle) would search for a Precedent; and oftentimes crushing the honourable gentleman flat on the spot by telling him there was no Precedent.",3 "But Precedent and Precipitate were, under all circumstances, the well-matched pair of battle-horses of this able Circumlocutionist.",2 "No matter that the unhappy honourable gentleman had been trying in vain, for twenty-five years, to precipitate William Barnacle into this--William Barnacle still put it to the House, and (at second-hand or so) to the country, whether he was to be precipitated into this.",0 "No matter that it was utterly irreconcilable with the nature of things and course of events that the wretched honourable gentleman could possibly produce a Precedent for this--William Barnacle would nevertheless thank the honourable gentleman for that ironical cheer, and would close with him upon that issue, and would tell him to his teeth that there Was NO Precedent for this.",0 "It might perhaps have been objected that the William Barnacle wisdom was not high wisdom or the earth it bamboozled would never have been made, or, if made in a rash mistake, would have remained blank mud.",1 But Precedent and Precipitate together frightened all objection out of most people.,1 "And there, too, was another Barnacle, a lively one, who had leaped through twenty places in quick succession, and was always in two or three at once, and who was the much-respected inventor of an art which he practised with great success and admiration in all Barnacle Governments.",4 "This was, when he was asked a Parliamentary question on any one topic, to return an answer on any other.",2 "It had done immense service, and brought him into high esteem with the Circumlocution Office.",3 "And there, too, was a sprinkling of less distinguished Parliamentary Barnacles, who had not as yet got anything snug, and were going through their probation to prove their worthiness.",3 "These Barnacles perched upon staircases and hid in passages, waiting their orders to make houses or not to make houses; and they did all their hearing, and ohing, and cheering, and barking, under directions from the heads of the family; and they put dummy motions on the paper in the way of other men's motions; and they stalled disagreeable subjects off until late in the night and late in the session, and then with virtuous patriotism cried out that it was too late; and they went down into the country, whenever they were sent, and swore that Lord Decimus had revived trade from a swoon, and commerce from a fit, and had doubled the harvest of corn, quadrupled the harvest of hay, and prevented no end of gold from flying out of the Bank.",3 "Also these Barnacles were dealt, by the heads of the family, like so many cards below the court-cards, to public meetings and dinners; where they bore testimony to all sorts of services on the part of their noble and honourable relatives, and buttered the Barnacles on all sorts of toasts.",3 "And they stood, under similar orders, at all sorts of elections; and they turned out of their own seats, on the shortest notice and the most unreasonable terms, to let in other men; and they fetched and carried, and toadied and jobbed, and corrupted, and ate heaps of dirt, and were indefatigable in the public service.",0 "And there was not a list, in all the Circumlocution Office, of places that might fall vacant anywhere within half a century, from a lord of the Treasury to a Chinese consul, and up again to a governor-general of India, but as applicants for such places, the names of some or of every one of these hungry and adhesive Barnacles were down.",1 "It was necessarily but a sprinkling of any class of Barnacles that attended the marriage, for there were not two score in all, and what is that subtracted from Legion!",2 "But the sprinkling was a swarm in the Twickenham cottage, and filled it.",2 "A Barnacle (assisted by a Barnacle) married the happy pair, and it behoved Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle himself to conduct Mrs Meagles to breakfast.",3 The entertainment was not as agreeable and natural as it might have been.,3 "Mr Meagles, hove down by his good company while he highly appreciated it, was not himself.",3 "Mrs Gowan was herself, and that did not improve him.",3 "The fiction that it was not Mr Meagles who had stood in the way, but that it was the Family greatness, and that the Family greatness had made a concession, and there was now a soothing unanimity, pervaded the affair, though it was never openly expressed.",2 Then the Barnacles felt that they for their parts would have done with the Meagleses when the present patronising occasion was over; and the Meagleses felt the same for their parts.,2 "Then Gowan asserting his rights as a disappointed man who had his grudge against the family, and who, perhaps, had allowed his mother to have them there, as much in the hope it might give them some annoyance as with any other benevolent object, aired his pencil and his poverty ostentatiously before them, and told them he hoped in time to settle a crust of bread and cheese on his wife, and that he begged such of them as (more fortunate than himself) came in for any good thing, and could buy a picture, to please to remember the poor painter.",0 "Then Lord Decimus, who was a wonder on his own Parliamentary pedestal, turned out to be the windiest creature here: proposing happiness to the bride and bridegroom in a series of platitudes that would have made the hair of any sincere disciple and believer stand on end; and trotting, with the complacency of an idiotic elephant, among howling labyrinths of sentences which he seemed to take for high roads, and never so much as wanted to get out of.",3 "Then Mr Tite Barnacle could not but feel that there was a person in company, who would have disturbed his life-long sitting to Sir Thomas Lawrence in full official character, if such disturbance had been possible: while Barnacle junior did, with indignation, communicate to two vapid gentlemen, his relatives, that there was a feller here, look here, who had come to our Department without an appointment and said he wanted to know, you know; and that, look here, if he was to break out now, as he might you know (for you never could tell what an ungentlemanly Radical of that sort would be up to next), and was to say, look here, that he wanted to know this moment, you know, that would be jolly; wouldn't it?",0 "The pleasantest part of the occasion by far, to Clennam, was the painfullest.",2 "When Mr and Mrs Meagles at last hung about Pet in the room with the two pictures (where the company were not), before going with her to the threshold which she could never recross to be the old Pet and the old delight, nothing could be more natural and simple than the three were.",2 "Gowan himself was touched, and answered Mr Meagles's 'O Gowan, take care of her, take care of her!'",2 "with an earnest 'Don't be so broken-hearted, sir.",2 By Heaven I will!',3 "And so, with the last sobs and last loving words, and a last look to Clennam of confidence in his promise, Pet fell back in the carriage, and her husband waved his hand, and they were away for Dover; though not until the faithful Mrs Tickit, in her silk gown and jet black curls, had rushed out from some hiding-place, and thrown both her shoes after the carriage: an apparition which occasioned great surprise to the distinguished company at the windows.",4 "The said company being now relieved from further attendance, and the chief Barnacles being rather hurried (for they had it in hand just then to send a mail or two which was in danger of going straight to its destination, beating about the seas like the Flying Dutchman, and to arrange with complexity for the stoppage of a good deal of important business otherwise in peril of being done), went their several ways; with all affability conveying to Mr and Mrs Meagles that general assurance that what they had been doing there, they had been doing at a sacrifice for Mr and Mrs Meagles's good, which they always conveyed to Mr John Bull in their official condescension to that most unfortunate creature.",3 A miserable blank remained in the house and in the hearts of the father and mother and Clennam.,1 "Mr Meagles called only one remembrance to his aid, that really did him good.",3 "'It's very gratifying, Arthur,' he said, 'after all, to look back upon.'",3 'The past?',2 said Clennam.,2 'Yes--but I mean the company.',2 "It had made him much more low and unhappy at the time, but now it really did him good.",2 "'It's very gratifying,' he said, often repeating the remark in the course of the evening.",3 'Such high company!',2 "It was at this time that Mr Pancks, in discharge of his compact with Clennam, revealed to him the whole of his gipsy story, and told him Little Dorrit's fortune.",3 "Her father was heir-at-law to a great estate that had long lain unknown of, unclaimed, and accumulating.",2 "His right was now clear, nothing interposed in his way, the Marshalsea gates stood open, the Marshalsea walls were down, a few flourishes of his pen, and he was extremely rich.",4 "In his tracking out of the claim to its complete establishment, Mr Pancks had shown a sagacity that nothing could baffle, and a patience and secrecy that nothing could tire.",3 "'I little thought, sir,' said Pancks, 'when you and I crossed Smithfield that night, and I told you what sort of a Collector I was, that this would come of it.",2 "I little thought, sir, when I told you you were not of the Clennams of Cornwall, that I was ever going to tell you who were of the Dorrits of Dorsetshire.'",2 He then went on to detail.,2 "How, having that name recorded in his note-book, he was first attracted by the name alone.",2 "How, having often found two exactly similar names, even belonging to the same place, to involve no traceable consanguinity, near or distant, he did not at first give much heed to this, except in the way of speculation as to what a surprising change would be made in the condition of a little seamstress, if she could be shown to have any interest in so large a property.",2 "How he rather supposed himself to have pursued the idea into its next degree, because there was something uncommon in the quiet little seamstress, which pleased him and provoked his curiosity.",3 "How he had felt his way inch by inch, and 'Moled it out, sir' (that was Mr Pancks's expression), grain by grain.",2 "How, in the beginning of the labour described by this new verb, and to render which the more expressive Mr Pancks shut his eyes in pronouncing it and shook his hair over them, he had alternated from sudden lights and hopes to sudden darkness and no hopes, and back again, and back again.",1 "How he had made acquaintances in the Prison, expressly that he might come and go there as all other comers and goers did; and how his first ray of light was unconsciously given him by Mr Dorrit himself and by his son; to both of whom he easily became known; with both of whom he talked much, casually ['but always Moleing you'll observe,' said Mr Pancks): and from whom he derived, without being at all suspected, two or three little points of family history which, as he began to hold clues of his own, suggested others.",1 "How it had at length become plain to Mr Pancks that he had made a real discovery of the heir-at-law to a great fortune, and that his discovery had but to be ripened to legal fulness and perfection.",4 "How he had, thereupon, sworn his landlord, Mr Rugg, to secrecy in a solemn manner, and taken him into Moleing partnership.",1 "How they had employed John Chivery as their sole clerk and agent, seeing to whom he was devoted.",2 "And how, until the present hour, when authorities mighty in the Bank and learned in the law declared their successful labours ended, they had confided in no other human being.",3 "'So if the whole thing had broken down, sir,' concluded Pancks, 'at the very last, say the day before the other day when I showed you our papers in the Prison yard, or say that very day, nobody but ourselves would have been cruelly disappointed, or a penny the worse.'",0 "Clennam, who had been almost incessantly shaking hands with him throughout the narrative, was reminded by this to say, in an amazement which even the preparation he had had for the main disclosure smoothed down, 'My dear Mr Pancks, this must have cost you a great sum of money.'",3 "'Pretty well, sir,' said the triumphant Pancks.",3 "'No trifle, though we did it as cheap as it could be done.",1 "And the outlay was a difficulty, let me tell you.'",1 'A difficulty!',1 repeated Clennam.,2 'But the difficulties you have so wonderfully conquered in the whole business!',2 shaking his hand again.,2 "'I'll tell you how I did it,' said the delighted Pancks, putting his hair into a condition as elevated as himself.",3 "'First, I spent all I had of my own.",2 That wasn't much.',2 "'I am sorry for it,' said Clennam: 'not that it matters now, though.",1 "Then, what did you do?'",2 "'Then,' answered Pancks, 'I borrowed a sum of my proprietor.'",2 'Of Mr Casby?',2 said Clennam.,2 'He's a fine old fellow.',3 'Noble old boy; an't he?',2 "said Mr Pancks, entering on a series of the dryest snorts.",2 'Generous old buck.,2 Confiding old boy.,2 Philanthropic old buck.,2 Benevolent old boy!,3 Twenty per cent.,2 "I engaged to pay him, sir.",2 But we never do business for less at our shop.',2 "Arthur felt an awkward consciousness of having, in his exultant condition, been a little premature.",2 "'I said to that boiling-over old Christian,' Mr Pancks pursued, appearing greatly to relish this descriptive epithet, 'that I had got a little project on hand; a hopeful one; I told him a hopeful one; which wanted a certain small capital.",3 I proposed to him to lend me the money on my note.,2 "Which he did, at twenty; sticking the twenty on in a business-like way, and putting it into the note, to look like a part of the principal.",3 "If I had broken down after that, I should have been his grubber for the next seven years at half wages and double grind.",1 But he's a perfect Patriarch; and it would do a man good to serve him on such terms--on any terms.',3 Arthur for his life could not have said with confidence whether Pancks really thought so or not.,3 "'When that was gone, sir,' resumed Pancks, 'and it did go, though I dribbled it out like so much blood, I had taken Mr Rugg into the secret.",3 I proposed to borrow of Mr Rugg (or of Miss Rugg; it's the same thing; she made a little money by a speculation in the Common Pleas once).,1 "He lent it at ten, and thought that pretty high.",3 "But Mr Rugg's a red-haired man, sir, and gets his hair cut.",2 "And as to the crown of his hat, it's high.",2 "And as to the brim of his hat, it's narrow.",2 "And there's no more benevolence bubbling out of him, than out of a ninepin.'",3 "'Your own recompense for all this, Mr Pancks,' said Clennam, 'ought to be a large one.'",2 "'I don't mistrust getting it, sir,' said Pancks.",1 'I have made no bargain.,3 I owed you one on that score; now I have paid it.,2 "Money out of pocket made good, time fairly allowed for, and Mr Rugg's bill settled, a thousand pounds would be a fortune to me.",4 That matter I place in your hands.,2 I authorize you now to break all this to the family in any way you think best.,2 Miss Amy Dorrit will be with Mrs Finching this morning.,1 The sooner done the better.,3 Can't be done too soon.',2 "This conversation took place in Clennam's bed-room, while he was yet in bed.",2 "For Mr Pancks had knocked up the house and made his way in, very early in the morning; and, without once sitting down or standing still, had delivered himself of the whole of his details (illustrated with a variety of documents) at the bedside.",3 "He now said he would 'go and look up Mr Rugg', from whom his excited state of mind appeared to require another back; and bundling up his papers, and exchanging one more hearty shake of the hand with Clennam, he went at full speed down-stairs, and steamed off.",2 "Clennam, of course, resolved to go direct to Mr Casby's.",2 He dressed and got out so quickly that he found himself at the corner of the patriarchal street nearly an hour before her time; but he was not sorry to have the opportunity of calming himself with a leisurely walk.,2 "When he returned to the street, and had knocked at the bright brass knocker, he was informed that she had come, and was shown up-stairs to Flora's breakfast-room.",3 "Little Dorrit was not there herself, but Flora was, and testified the greatest amazement at seeing him.",3 "'Good gracious, Arthur--Doyce and Clennam!'",3 "cried that lady, 'who would have ever thought of seeing such a sight as this and pray excuse a wrapper for upon my word I really never and a faded check too which is worse but our little friend is making me, not that I need mind mentioning it to you for you must know that there are such things a skirt, and having arranged that a trying on should take place after breakfast is the reason though I wish not so badly starched.'",0 "'I ought to make an apology,' said Arthur, 'for so early and abrupt a visit; but you will excuse it when I tell you the cause.'",1 "'In times for ever fled Arthur,' returned Mrs Finching, 'pray excuse me Doyce and Clennam infinitely more correct and though unquestionably distant still 'tis distance lends enchantment to the view, at least I don't mean that and if I did I suppose it would depend considerably on the nature of the view, but I'm running on again and you put it all out of my head.'",3 "She glanced at him tenderly, and resumed: 'In times for ever fled I was going to say it would have sounded strange indeed for Arthur Clennam--Doyce and Clennam naturally quite different--to make apologies for coming here at any time, but that is past and what is past can never be recalled except in his own case as poor Mr F. said when he was in spirits Cucumber and therefore never ate it.'",1 "She was making the tea when Arthur came in, and now hastily finished that operation.",1 "'Papa,' she said, all mystery and whisper, as she shut down the tea-pot lid, 'is sitting prosingly breaking his new laid egg in the back parlour over the City article exactly like the Woodpecker Tapping and need never know that you are here, and our little friend you are well aware may be fully trusted when she comes down from cutting out on the large table overhead.'",3 "Arthur then told her, in the fewest words, that it was their little friend he came to see; and what he had to announce to their little friend.",2 "At which astounding intelligence, Flora clasped her hands, fell into a tremble, and shed tears of sympathy and pleasure, like the good-natured creature she really was.",4 "'For gracious sake let me get out of the way first,' said Flora, putting her hands to her ears and moving towards the door, 'or I know I shall go off dead and screaming and make everybody worse, and the dear little thing only this morning looking so nice and neat and good and yet so poor and now a fortune is she really and deserves it too!",3 and might I mention it to Mr F.'s Aunt Arthur not Doyce and Clennam for this once or if objectionable not on any account.',1 "Arthur nodded his free permission, since Flora shut out all verbal communication.",3 "Flora nodded in return to thank him, and hurried out of the room.",3 "Little Dorrit's step was already on the stairs, and in another moment she was at the door.",2 "Do what he could to compose his face, he could not convey so much of an ordinary expression into it, but that the moment she saw it she dropped her work, and cried, 'Mr Clennam!",3 What's the matter?',2 "'Nothing, nothing.",2 "That is, no misfortune has happened.",1 "I have come to tell you something, but it is a piece of great good-fortune.'",4 'Good-fortune?',3 'Wonderful fortune!',3 "They stood in a window, and her eyes, full of light, were fixed upon his face.",2 "He put an arm about her, seeing her likely to sink down.",1 "She put a hand upon that arm, partly to rest upon it, and partly so to preserve their relative positions as that her intent look at him should be shaken by no change of attitude in either of them.",2 Her lips seemed to repeat 'Wonderful fortune?',3 "He repeated it again, aloud.",2 'Dear Little Dorrit!,2 Your father.',2 "The ice of the pale face broke at the word, and little lights and shoots of expression passed all over it.",1 They were all expressions of pain.,1 Her breath was faint and hurried.,1 Her heart beat fast.,3 "He would have clasped the little figure closer, but he saw that the eyes appealed to him not to be moved.",2 'Your father can be free within this week.,3 "He does not know it; we must go to him from here, to tell him of it.",2 Your father will be free within a few days.,3 Your father will be free within a few hours.,3 "Remember we must go to him from here, to tell him of it!'",2 That brought her back.,2 "Her eyes were closing, but they opened again.",2 'This is not all the good-fortune.,3 "This is not all the wonderful good-fortune, my dear Little Dorrit.",4 Shall I tell you more?',2 Her lips shaped 'Yes.',2 'Your father will be no beggar when he is free.,2 He will want for nothing.,2 Shall I tell you more?,2 Remember!,2 "He knows nothing of it; we must go to him, from here, to tell him of it!'",2 She seemed to entreat him for a little time.,2 "He held her in his arm, and, after a pause, bent down his ear to listen.",1 'Did you ask me to go on?',2 'Yes.',2 'He will be a rich man.,3 He is a rich man.,3 A great sum of money is waiting to be paid over to him as his inheritance; you are all henceforth very wealthy.,3 "Bravest and best of children, I thank Heaven that you are rewarded!'",4 "As he kissed her, she turned her head towards his shoulder, and raised her arm towards his neck; cried out 'Father!",2 Father!,2 Father!',2 and swooned away.,2 "Upon which Flora returned to take care of her, and hovered about her on a sofa, intermingling kind offices and incoherent scraps of conversation in a manner so confounding, that whether she pressed the Marshalsea to take a spoonful of unclaimed dividends, for it would do her good; or whether she congratulated Little Dorrit's father on coming into possession of a hundred thousand smelling-bottles; or whether she explained that she put seventy-five thousand drops of spirits of lavender on fifty thousand pounds of lump sugar, and that she entreated Little Dorrit to take that gentle restorative; or whether she bathed the foreheads of Doyce and Clennam in vinegar, and gave the late Mr F. more air; no one with any sense of responsibility could have undertaken to decide.",1 "A tributary stream of confusion, moreover, poured in from an adjoining bedroom, where Mr F.'s Aunt appeared, from the sound of her voice, to be in a horizontal posture, awaiting her breakfast; and from which bower that inexorable lady snapped off short taunts, whenever she could get a hearing, as, 'Don't believe it's his doing!'",0 and 'He needn't take no credit to himself for it!',2 "and 'It'll be long enough, I expect, afore he'll give up any of his own money!'",3 "all designed to disparage Clennam's share in the discovery, and to relieve those inveterate feelings with which Mr F.'s Aunt regarded him.",1 "But Little Dorrit's solicitude to get to her father, and to carry the joyful tidings to him, and not to leave him in his jail a moment with this happiness in store for him and still unknown to him, did more for her speedy restoration than all the skill and attention on earth could have done.",3 'Come with me to my dear father.,2 Pray come and tell my dear father!',2 were the first words she said.,2 "Her father, her father.",2 "She spoke of nothing but him, thought of nothing but him.",2 "Kneeling down and pouring out her thankfulness with uplifted hands, her thanks were for her father.",2 "Flora's tenderness was quite overcome by this, and she launched out among the cups and saucers into a wonderful flow of tears and speech.",2 "'I declare,' she sobbed, 'I never was so cut up since your mama and my papa not Doyce and Clennam for this once but give the precious little thing a cup of tea and make her put it to her lips at least pray Arthur do, not even Mr F.'s last illness for that was of another kind and gout is not a child's affection though very painful for all parties and Mr F. a martyr with his leg upon a rest and the wine trade in itself inflammatory for they will do it more or less among themselves and who can wonder, it seems like a dream I am sure to think of nothing at all this morning and now Mines of money is it really, but you must know my darling love because you never will be strong enough to tell him all about it upon teaspoons, mightn't it be even best to try the directions of my own medical man for though the flavour is anything but agreeable still I force myself to do it as a prescription and find the benefit, you'd rather not why no my dear I'd rather not but still I do it as a duty, everybody will congratulate you some in earnest and some not and many will congratulate you with all their hearts but none more so I do assure you from the bottom of my own I do myself though sensible of blundering and being stupid, and will be judged by Arthur not Doyce and Clennam for this once so good-bye darling and God bless you and may you be very happy and excuse the liberty, vowing that the dress shall never be finished by anybody else but shall be laid by for a keepsake just as it is and called Little Dorrit though why that strangest of denominations at any time I never did myself and now I never shall!'",4 "Thus Flora, in taking leave of her favourite.",2 "Little Dorrit thanked her, and embraced her, over and over again; and finally came out of the house with Clennam, and took coach for the Marshalsea.",2 "It was a strangely unreal ride through the old squalid streets, with a sensation of being raised out of them into an airy world of wealth and grandeur.",3 "When Arthur told her that she would soon ride in her own carriage through very different scenes, when all the familiar experiences would have vanished away, she looked frightened.",2 "But when he substituted her father for herself, and told her how he would ride in his carriage, and how great and grand he would be, her tears of joy and innocent pride fell fast.",4 "Seeing that the happiness her mind could realise was all shining upon him, Arthur kept that single figure before her; and so they rode brightly through the poor streets in the prison neighbourhood to carry him the great news.",2 "When Mr Chivery, who was on duty, admitted them into the Lodge, he saw something in their faces which filled him with astonishment.",3 "He stood looking after them, when they hurried into the prison, as though he perceived that they had come back accompanied by a ghost a-piece.",1 "Two or three Collegians whom they passed, looked after them too, and presently joining Mr Chivery, formed a little group on the Lodge steps, in the midst of which there spontaneously originated a whisper that the Father was going to get his discharge.",2 "Within a few minutes, it was heard in the remotest room in the College.",2 "Little Dorrit opened the door from without, and they both entered.",2 "He was sitting in his old grey gown and his old black cap, in the sunlight by the window, reading his newspaper.",2 "His glasses were in his hand, and he had just looked round; surprised at first, no doubt, by her step upon the stairs, not expecting her until night; surprised again, by seeing Arthur Clennam in her company.",1 "As they came in, the same unwonted look in both of them which had already caught attention in the yard below, struck him.",1 "He did not rise or speak, but laid down his glasses and his newspaper on the table beside him, and looked at them with his mouth a little open and his lips trembling.",2 "When Arthur put out his hand, he touched it, but not with his usual state; and then he turned to his daughter, who had sat down close beside him with her hands upon his shoulder, and looked attentively in her face.",2 'Father!,2 I have been made so happy this morning!',3 "'You have been made so happy, my dear?'",3 "'By Mr Clennam, father.",2 He brought me such joyful and wonderful intelligence about you!,4 "If he had not with his great kindness and gentleness, prepared me for it, father--prepared me for it, father--I think I could not have borne it.'",3 "Her agitation was exceedingly great, and the tears rolled down her face.",3 "He put his hand suddenly to his heart, and looked at Clennam.",2 "'Compose yourself, sir,' said Clennam, 'and take a little time to think.",2 To think of the brightest and most fortunate accidents of life.,3 We have all heard of great surprises of joy.,3 "They are not at an end, sir.",2 "They are rare, but not at an end.'",2 'Mr Clennam?,2 Not at an end?,2 "Not at an end for--' He touched himself upon the breast, instead of saying 'me.'",2 "'No,' returned Clennam.",2 "'What surprise,' he asked, keeping his left hand over his heart, and there stopping in his speech, while with his right hand he put his glasses exactly level on the table: 'what such surprise can be in store for me?'",3 'Let me answer with another question.,2 "Tell me, Mr Dorrit, what surprise would be the most unlooked for and the most acceptable to you.",2 "Do not be afraid to imagine it, or to say what it would be.'",1 "He looked steadfastly at Clennam, and, so looking at him, seemed to change into a very old haggard man.",2 "The sun was bright upon the wall beyond the window, and on the spikes at top.",3 "He slowly stretched out the hand that had been upon his heart, and pointed at the wall.",1 "'It is down,' said Clennam.",2 'Gone!',2 "He remained in the same attitude, looking steadfastly at him.",3 "'And in its place,' said Clennam, slowly and distinctly, 'are the means to possess and enjoy the utmost that they have so long shut out.",2 "Mr Dorrit, there is not the smallest doubt that within a few days you will be free, and highly prosperous.",3 "I congratulate you with all my soul on this change of fortune, and on the happy future into which you are soon to carry the treasure you have been blest with here--the best of all the riches you can have elsewhere--the treasure at your side.'",4 "With those words, he pressed his hand and released it; and his daughter, laying her face against his, encircled him in the hour of his prosperity with her arms, as she had in the long years of his adversity encircled him with her love and toil and truth; and poured out her full heart in gratitude, hope, joy, blissful ecstasy, and all for him.",4 'I shall see him as I never saw him yet.,2 "I shall see my dear love, with the dark cloud cleared away.",2 "I shall see him, as my poor mother saw him long ago.",1 "O my dear, my dear!",2 "O father, father!",2 "O thank God, thank God!'",3 "He yielded himself to her kisses and caresses, but did not return them, except that he put an arm about her.",2 Neither did he say one word.,2 "His steadfast look was now divided between her and Clennam, and he began to shake as if he were very cold.",1 "Explaining to Little Dorrit that he would run to the coffee-house for a bottle of wine, Arthur fetched it with all the haste he could use.",1 "While it was being brought from the cellar to the bar, a number of excited people asked him what had happened; when he hurriedly informed them that Mr Dorrit had succeeded to a fortune.",4 "On coming back with the wine in his hand, he found that she had placed her father in his easy chair, and had loosened his shirt and neckcloth.",3 "They filled a tumbler with wine, and held it to his lips.",2 "When he had swallowed a little, he took the glass himself and emptied it.",2 "Soon after that, he leaned back in his chair and cried, with his handkerchief before his face.",2 "After this had lasted a while Clennam thought it a good season for diverting his attention from the main surprise, by relating its details.",3 "Slowly, therefore, and in a quiet tone of voice, he explained them as best he could, and enlarged on the nature of Pancks's service.",3 "'He shall be--ha--he shall be handsomely recompensed, sir,' said the Father, starting up and moving hurriedly about the room.",3 "'Assure yourself, Mr Clennam, that everybody concerned shall be--ha--shall be nobly rewarded.",2 "No one, my dear sir, shall say that he has an unsatisfied claim against me.",2 "I shall repay the--hum--the advances I have had from you, sir, with peculiar pleasure.",1 "I beg to be informed at your earliest convenience, what advances you have made my son.'",2 "He had no purpose in going about the room, but he was not still a moment.",2 "'Everybody,' he said, 'shall be remembered.",2 I will not go away from here in anybody's debt.,1 "All the people who have been--ha--well behaved towards myself and my family, shall be rewarded.",3 Chivery shall be rewarded.,2 Young John shall be rewarded.,2 "I particularly wish, and intend, to act munificently, Mr Clennam.'",2 "'Will you allow me,' said Arthur, laying his purse on the table, 'to supply any present contingencies, Mr Dorrit?",2 I thought it best to bring a sum of money for the purpose.',3 "'Thank you, sir, thank you.",3 "I accept with readiness, at the present moment, what I could not an hour ago have conscientiously taken.",2 I am obliged to you for the temporary accommodation.,2 "Exceedingly temporary, but well timed--well timed.'",3 "His hand had closed upon the money, and he carried it about with him.",2 "'Be so kind, sir, as to add the amount to those former advances to which I have already referred; being careful, if you please, not to omit advances made to my son.",1 A mere verbal statement of the gross amount is all I shall--ha--all I shall require.',1 "His eye fell upon his daughter at this point, and he stopped for a moment to kiss her, and to pat her head.",1 "'It will be necessary to find a milliner, my love, and to make a speedy and complete change in your very plain dress.",3 "Something must be done with Maggy too, who at present is--ha--barely respectable, barely respectable.",3 "And your sister, Amy, and your brother.",2 "And _my_ brother, your uncle--poor soul, I trust this will rouse him--messengers must be despatched to fetch them.",2 They must be informed of this.,2 "We must break it to them cautiously, but they must be informed directly.",1 "We owe it as a duty to them and to ourselves, from this moment, not to let them--hum--not to let them do anything.'",1 "This was the first intimation he had ever given, that he was privy to the fact that they did something for a livelihood.",2 "He was still jogging about the room, with the purse clutched in his hand, when a great cheering arose in the yard.",3 "'The news has spread already,' said Clennam, looking down from the window.",2 "'Will you show yourself to them, Mr Dorrit?",2 "They are very earnest, and they evidently wish it.'",3 "'I--hum--ha--I confess I could have desired, Amy my dear,' he said, jogging about in a more feverish flutter than before, 'to have made some change in my dress first, and to have bought a--hum--a watch and chain.",1 "But if it must be done as it is, it--ha--it must be done.",2 "Fasten the collar of my shirt, my dear.",2 "Mr Clennam, would you oblige me--hum--with a blue neckcloth you will find in that drawer at your elbow.",1 "Button my coat across at the chest, my love.",3 "It looks--ha--it looks broader, buttoned.'",2 "With his trembling hand he pushed his grey hair up, and then, taking Clennam and his daughter for supporters, appeared at the window leaning on an arm of each.",2 "The Collegians cheered him very heartily, and he kissed his hand to them with great urbanity and protection.",4 "When he withdrew into the room again, he said 'Poor creatures!'",2 in a tone of much pity for their miserable condition.,1 Little Dorrit was deeply anxious that he should lie down to compose himself.,1 "On Arthur's speaking to her of his going to inform Pancks that he might now appear as soon as he would, and pursue the joyful business to its close, she entreated him in a whisper to stay with her until her father should be quite calm and at rest.",3 "He needed no second entreaty; and she prepared her father's bed, and begged him to lie down.",1 "For another half-hour or more he would be persuaded to do nothing but go about the room, discussing with himself the probabilities for and against the Marshal's allowing the whole of the prisoners to go to the windows of the official residence which commanded the street, to see himself and family depart for ever in a carriage--which, he said, he thought would be a Sight for them.",2 "But gradually he began to droop and tire, and at last stretched himself upon the bed.",1 "She took her faithful place beside him, fanning him and cooling his forehead; and he seemed to be falling asleep (always with the money in his hand), when he unexpectedly sat up and said: 'Mr Clennam, I beg your pardon.",1 "Am I to understand, my dear sir, that I could--ha--could pass through the Lodge at this moment, and--hum--take a walk?'",1 "'I think not, Mr Dorrit,' was the unwilling reply.",1 "'There are certain forms to be completed; and although your detention here is now in itself a form, I fear it is one that for a little longer has to be observed too.'",1 At this he shed tears again.,2 "'It is but a few hours, sir,' Clennam cheerfully urged upon him.",2 "'A few hours, sir,' he returned in a sudden passion.",3 "'You talk very easily of hours, sir!",2 "How long do you suppose, sir, that an hour is to a man who is choking for want of air?'",2 "It was his last demonstration for that time; as, after shedding some more tears and querulously complaining that he couldn't breathe, he slowly fell into a slumber.",0 "Clennam had abundant occupation for his thoughts, as he sat in the quiet room watching the father on his bed, and the daughter fanning his face.",3 Little Dorrit had been thinking too.,2 "After softly putting his grey hair aside, and touching his forehead with her lips, she looked towards Arthur, who came nearer to her, and pursued in a low whisper the subject of her thoughts.",2 "'Mr Clennam, will he pay all his debts before he leaves here?'",1 'No doubt.,1 All.',2 "'All the debts for which he had been imprisoned here, all my life and longer?'",1 'No doubt.',1 There was something of uncertainty and remonstrance in her look; something that was not all satisfaction.,2 "He wondered to detect it, and said: 'You are glad that he should do so?'",3 'Are you?',2 "asked Little Dorrit, wistfully.",2 'Am I?,2 Most heartily glad!',3 'Then I know I ought to be.',2 'And are you not?',2 "'It seems to me hard,' said Little Dorrit, 'that he should have lost so many years and suffered so much, and at last pay all the debts as well.",0 It seems to me hard that he should pay in life and money both.',1 'My dear child--' Clennam was beginning.,2 "'Yes, I know I am wrong,' she pleaded timidly, 'don't think any worse of me; it has grown up with me here.'",0 "The prison, which could spoil so many things, had tainted Little Dorrit's mind no more than this.",0 "Engendered as the confusion was, in compassion for the poor prisoner, her father, it was the first speck Clennam had ever seen, it was the last speck Clennam ever saw, of the prison atmosphere upon her.",0 "He thought this, and forbore to say another word.",2 "With the thought, her purity and goodness came before him in their brightest light.",3 The little spot made them the more beautiful.,3 "Worn out with her own emotions, and yielding to the silence of the room, her hand slowly slackened and failed in its fanning movement, and her head dropped down on the pillow at her father's side.",0 "Clennam rose softly, opened and closed the door without a sound, and passed from the prison, carrying the quiet with him into the turbulent streets.",1 "And now the day arrived when Mr Dorrit and his family were to leave the prison for ever, and the stones of its much-trodden pavement were to know them no more.",1 "The interval had been short, but he had greatly complained of its length, and had been imperious with Mr Rugg touching the delay.",0 "He had been high with Mr Rugg, and had threatened to employ some one else.",2 "He had requested Mr Rugg not to presume upon the place in which he found him, but to do his duty, sir, and to do it with promptitude.",2 "He had told Mr Rugg that he knew what lawyers and agents were, and that he would not submit to imposition.",1 "On that gentleman's humbly representing that he exerted himself to the utmost, Miss Fanny was very short with him; desiring to know what less he could do, when he had been told a dozen times that money was no object, and expressing her suspicion that he forgot whom he talked to.",1 "Towards the Marshal, who was a Marshal of many years' standing, and with whom he had never had any previous difference, Mr Dorrit comported himself with severity.",1 "That officer, on personally tendering his congratulations, offered the free use of two rooms in his house for Mr Dorrit's occupation until his departure.",3 "Mr Dorrit thanked him at the moment, and replied that he would think of it; but the Marshal was no sooner gone than he sat down and wrote him a cutting note, in which he remarked that he had never on any former occasion had the honour of receiving his congratulations (which was true, though indeed there had not been anything particular to congratulate him upon), and that he begged, on behalf of himself and family, to repudiate the Marshal's offer, with all those thanks which its disinterested character and its perfect independence of all worldly considerations demanded.",3 "Although his brother showed so dim a glimmering of interest in their altered fortunes that it was very doubtful whether he understood them, Mr Dorrit caused him to be measured for new raiment by the hosiers, tailors, hatters, and bootmakers whom he called in for himself; and ordered that his old clothes should be taken from him and burned.",1 "Miss Fanny and Mr Tip required no direction in making an appearance of great fashion and elegance; and the three passed this interval together at the best hotel in the neighbourhood--though truly, as Miss Fanny said, the best was very indifferent.",3 "In connection with that establishment, Mr Tip hired a cabriolet, horse, and groom, a very neat turn out, which was usually to be observed for two or three hours at a time gracing the Borough High Street, outside the Marshalsea court-yard.",3 "A modest little hired chariot and pair was also frequently to be seen there; in alighting from and entering which vehicle, Miss Fanny fluttered the Marshal's daughters by the display of inaccessible bonnets.",2 A great deal of business was transacted in this short period.,3 "Among other items, Messrs Peddle and Pool, solicitors, of Monument Yard, were instructed by their client Edward Dorrit, Esquire, to address a letter to Mr Arthur Clennam, enclosing the sum of twenty-four pounds nine shillings and eightpence, being the amount of principal and interest computed at the rate of five per cent.",2 "per annum, in which their client believed himself to be indebted to Mr Clennam.",3 "In making this communication and remittance, Messrs Peddle and Pool were further instructed by their client to remind Mr Clennam that the favour of the advance now repaid (including gate-fees) had not been asked of him, and to inform him that it would not have been accepted if it had been openly proffered in his name.",3 "With which they requested a stamped receipt, and remained his obedient servants.",2 "A great deal of business had likewise to be done, within the so-soon-to-be-orphaned Marshalsea, by Mr Dorrit so long its Father, chiefly arising out of applications made to him by Collegians for small sums of money.",3 "To these he responded with the greatest liberality, and with no lack of formality; always first writing to appoint a time at which the applicant might wait upon him in his room, and then receiving him in the midst of a vast accumulation of documents, and accompanying his donation (for he said in every such case, 'it is a donation, not a loan') with a great deal of good counsel: to the effect that he, the expiring Father of the Marshalsea, hoped to be long remembered, as an example that a man might preserve his own and the general respect even there.",4 The Collegians were not envious.,2 "Besides that they had a personal and traditional regard for a Collegian of so many years' standing, the event was creditable to the College, and made it famous in the newspapers.",3 "Perhaps more of them thought, too, than were quite aware of it, that the thing might in the lottery of chances have happened to themselves, or that something of the sort might yet happen to themselves some day or other.",2 They took it very well.,3 "A few were low at the thought of being left behind, and being left poor; but even these did not grudge the family their brilliant reverse.",1 There might have been much more envy in politer places.,3 "It seems probable that mediocrity of fortune would have been disposed to be less magnanimous than the Collegians, who lived from hand to mouth--from the pawnbroker's hand to the day's dinner.",3 "They got up an address to him, which they presented in a neat frame and glass (though it was not afterwards displayed in the family mansion or preserved among the family papers); and to which he returned a gracious answer.",3 "In that document he assured them, in a Royal manner, that he received the profession of their attachment with a full conviction of its sincerity; and again generally exhorted them to follow his example--which, at least in so far as coming into a great property was concerned, there is no doubt they would have gladly imitated.",3 "He took the same occasion of inviting them to a comprehensive entertainment, to be given to the whole College in the yard, and at which he signified he would have the honour of taking a parting glass to the health and happiness of all those whom he was about to leave behind.",3 "He did not in person dine at this public repast (it took place at two in the afternoon, and his dinners now came in from the hotel at six), but his son was so good as to take the head of the principal table, and to be very free and engaging.",4 "He himself went about among the company, and took notice of individuals, and saw that the viands were of the quality he had ordered, and that all were served.",2 "On the whole, he was like a baron of the olden time in a rare good humour.",4 "At the conclusion of the repast, he pledged his guests in a bumper of old Madeira; and told them that he hoped they had enjoyed themselves, and what was more, that they would enjoy themselves for the rest of the evening; that he wished them well; and that he bade them welcome.",4 "His health being drunk with acclamations, he was not so baronial after all but that in trying to return thanks he broke down, in the manner of a mere serf with a heart in his breast, and wept before them all.",1 "After this great success, which he supposed to be a failure, he gave them 'Mr Chivery and his brother officers;' whom he had beforehand presented with ten pounds each, and who were all in attendance.",3 "Mr Chivery spoke to the toast, saying, What you undertake to lock up, lock up; but remember that you are, in the words of the fettered African, a man and a brother ever.",2 "The list of toasts disposed of, Mr Dorrit urbanely went through the motions of playing a game of skittles with the Collegian who was the next oldest inhabitant to himself; and left the tenantry to their diversions.",2 But all these occurrences preceded the final day.,2 "And now the day arrived when he and his family were to leave the prison for ever, and when the stones of its much-trodden pavement were to know them no more.",1 Noon was the hour appointed for the departure.,2 "As it approached, there was not a Collegian within doors, nor a turnkey absent.",2 "The latter class of gentlemen appeared in their Sunday clothes, and the greater part of the Collegians were brightened up as much as circumstances allowed.",2 "Two or three flags were even displayed, and the children put on odds and ends of ribbon.",2 "Mr Dorrit himself, at this trying time, preserved a serious but graceful dignity.",3 "Much of his great attention was given to his brother, as to whose bearing on the great occasion he felt anxious.",2 "'My dear Frederick,' said he, 'if you will give me your arm we will pass among our friends together.",2 "I think it is right that we should go out arm in arm, my dear Frederick.'",3 'Hah!',2 said Frederick.,2 "'Yes, yes, yes, yes.'",2 "'And if, my dear Frederick--if you could, without putting any great constraint upon yourself, throw a little (pray excuse me, Frederick), a little polish into your usual demeanour--' 'William, William,' said the other, shaking his head, 'it's for you to do all that.",2 I don't know how.,2 "All forgotten, forgotten!'",2 "'But, my dear fellow,' returned William, 'for that very reason, if for no other, you must positively try to rouse yourself.",3 "What you have forgotten you must now begin to recall, my dear Frederick.",2 Your position--' 'Eh?',2 said Frederick.,2 "'Your position, my dear Frederick.'",2 'Mine?',2 "He looked first at his own figure, and then at his brother's, and then, drawing a long breath, cried, 'Hah, to be sure!",2 "Yes, yes, yes.'",2 "'Your position, my dear Frederick, is now a fine one.",3 "Your position, as my brother, is a very fine one.",3 "And I know that it belongs to your conscientious nature to try to become worthy of it, my dear Frederick, and to try to adorn it.",3 "To be no discredit to it, but to adorn it.'",1 "'William,' said the other weakly, and with a sigh, 'I will do anything you wish, my brother, provided it lies in my power.",1 Pray be so kind as to recollect what a limited power mine is.,1 "What would you wish me to do to-day, brother?",2 "Say what it is, only say what it is.'",2 "'My dearest Frederick, nothing.",2 It is not worth troubling so good a heart as yours with.',3 "'Pray trouble it,' returned the other.",1 "'It finds it no trouble, William, to do anything it can for you.'",1 "William passed his hand across his eyes, and murmured with august satisfaction, 'Blessings on your attachment, my poor dear fellow!'",1 "Then he said aloud, 'Well, my dear Frederick, if you will only try, as we walk out, to show that you are alive to the occasion--that you think about it--' 'What would you advise me to think about it?'",2 returned his submissive brother.,1 'Oh!,2 "my dear Frederick, how can I answer you?",2 "I can only say what, in leaving these good people, I think myself.'",3 'That's it!',2 cried his brother.,2 'That will help me.',2 "'I find that I think, my dear Frederick, and with mixed emotions in which a softened compassion predominates, What will they do without me!'",3 "'True,' returned his brother.",2 "'Yes, yes, yes, yes.",2 "I'll think that as we go, What will they do without my brother!",2 Poor things!,1 What will they do without him!',2 "Twelve o'clock having just struck, and the carriage being reported ready in the outer court-yard, the brothers proceeded down-stairs arm-in-arm.",2 "Edward Dorrit, Esquire (once Tip), and his sister Fanny followed, also arm-in-arm; Mr Plornish and Maggy, to whom had been entrusted the removal of such of the family effects as were considered worth removing, followed, bearing bundles and burdens to be packed in a cart.",3 "In the yard, were the Collegians and turnkeys.",2 "In the yard, were Mr Pancks and Mr Rugg, come to see the last touch given to their work.",3 "In the yard, was Young John making a new epitaph for himself, on the occasion of his dying of a broken heart.",1 "In the yard, was the Patriarchal Casby, looking so tremendously benevolent that many enthusiastic Collegians grasped him fervently by the hand, and the wives and female relatives of many more Collegians kissed his hand, nothing doubting that he had done it all.",4 "In the yard, was the man with the shadowy grievance respecting the Fund which the Marshal embezzled, who had got up at five in the morning to complete the copying of a perfectly unintelligible history of that transaction, which he had committed to Mr Dorrit's care, as a document of the last importance, calculated to stun the Government and effect the Marshal's downfall.",0 "In the yard, was the insolvent whose utmost energies were always set on getting into debt, who broke into prison with as much pains as other men have broken out of it, and who was always being cleared and complimented; while the insolvent at his elbow--a mere little, snivelling, striving tradesman, half dead of anxious efforts to keep out of debt--found it a hard matter, indeed, to get a Commissioner to release him with much reproof and reproach.",0 "In the yard, was the man of many children and many burdens, whose failure astonished everybody; in the yard, was the man of no children and large resources, whose failure astonished nobody.",2 "There, were the people who were always going out to-morrow, and always putting it off; there, were the people who had come in yesterday, and who were much more jealous and resentful of this freak of fortune than the seasoned birds.",1 "There, were some who, in pure meanness of spirit, cringed and bowed before the enriched Collegian and his family; there, were others who did so really because their eyes, accustomed to the gloom of their imprisonment and poverty, could not support the light of such bright sunshine.",1 "There, were many whose shillings had gone into his pocket to buy him meat and drink; but none who were now obtrusively Hail fellow well met!",3 "with him, on the strength of that assistance.",2 "It was rather to be remarked of the caged birds, that they were a little shy of the bird about to be so grandly free, and that they had a tendency to withdraw themselves towards the bars, and seem a little fluttered as he passed.",3 "Through these spectators the little procession, headed by the two brothers, moved slowly to the gate.",1 "Mr Dorrit, yielding to the vast speculation how the poor creatures were to get on without him, was great, and sad, but not absorbed.",1 "He patted children on the head like Sir Roger de Coverley going to church, he spoke to people in the background by their Christian names, he condescended to all present, and seemed for their consolation to walk encircled by the legend in golden characters, 'Be comforted, my people!",3 Bear it!',2 "At last three honest cheers announced that he had passed the gate, and that the Marshalsea was an orphan.",2 "Before they had ceased to ring in the echoes of the prison walls, the family had got into their carriage, and the attendant had the steps in his hand.",1 "Then, and not before, 'Good Gracious!'",3 "cried Miss Fanny all at once, 'Where's Amy!'",1 Her father had thought she was with her sister.,2 Her sister had thought she was 'somewhere or other.',2 "They had all trusted to finding her, as they had always done, quietly in the right place at the right moment.",3 This going away was perhaps the very first action of their joint lives that they had got through without her.,2 "A minute might have been consumed in the ascertaining of these points, when Miss Fanny, who, from her seat in the carriage, commanded the long narrow passage leading to the Lodge, flushed indignantly.",1 "'Now I do say, Pa,' cried she, 'that this is disgraceful!'",1 "'What is disgraceful, Fanny?'",1 "'I do say,' she repeated, 'this is perfectly infamous!",2 "Really almost enough, even at such a time as this, to make one wish one was dead!",2 "Here is that child Amy, in her ugly old shabby dress, which she was so obstinate about, Pa, which I over and over again begged and prayed her to change, and which she over and over again objected to, and promised to change to-day, saying she wished to wear it as long as ever she remained in there with you--which was absolutely romantic nonsense of the lowest kind--here is that child Amy disgracing us to the last moment and at the last moment, by being carried out in that dress after all.",1 And by that Mr Clennam too!',2 "The offence was proved, as she delivered the indictment.",1 "Clennam appeared at the carriage-door, bearing the little insensible figure in his arms.",1 "'She has been forgotten,' he said, in a tone of pity not free from reproach.",1 "'I ran up to her room (which Mr Chivery showed me) and found the door open, and that she had fainted on the floor, dear child.",2 "She appeared to have gone to change her dress, and to have sunk down overpowered.",1 "It may have been the cheering, or it may have happened sooner.",2 "Take care of this poor cold hand, Miss Dorrit.",0 Don't let it fall.',1 "'Thank you, sir,' returned Miss Dorrit, bursting into tears.",1 "'I believe I know what to do, if you will give me leave.",2 "Dear Amy, open your eyes, that's a love!",3 "Oh, Amy, Amy, I really am so vexed and ashamed!",1 "Do rouse yourself, darling!",3 "Oh, why are they not driving on!",2 "Pray, Pa, do drive on!'",2 "The attendant, getting between Clennam and the carriage-door, with a sharp 'By your leave, sir!'",3 "bundled up the steps, and they drove away.",2 "In the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to the highest ridges of the Alps.",1 "It was vintage time in the valleys on the Swiss side of the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard, and along the banks of the Lake of Geneva.",3 The air there was charged with the scent of gathered grapes.,2 "Baskets, troughs, and tubs of grapes stood in the dim village doorways, stopped the steep and narrow village streets, and had been carrying all day along the roads and lanes.",1 "Grapes, split and crushed under foot, lay about everywhere.",1 "The child carried in a sling by the laden peasant woman toiling home, was quieted with picked-up grapes; the idiot sunning his big goitre under the leaves of the wooden chalet by the way to the Waterfall, sat munching grapes; the breath of the cows and goats was redolent of leaves and stalks of grapes; the company in every little cabaret were eating, drinking, talking grapes.",1 "A pity that no ripe touch of this generous abundance could be given to the thin, hard, stony wine, which after all was made from the grapes!",2 The air had been warm and transparent through the whole of the bright day.,4 "Shining metal spires and church-roofs, distant and rarely seen, had sparkled in the view; and the snowy mountain-tops had been so clear that unaccustomed eyes, cancelling the intervening country, and slighting their rugged heights for something fabulous, would have measured them as within a few hours easy reach.",4 "Mountain-peaks of great celebrity in the valleys, whence no trace of their existence was visible sometimes for months together, had been since morning plain and near in the blue sky.",3 "And now, when it was dark below, though they seemed solemnly to recede, like spectres who were going to vanish, as the red dye of the sunset faded out of them and left them coldly white, they were yet distinctly defined in their loneliness above the mists and shadows.",0 "Seen from these solitudes, and from the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard, which was one of them, the ascending Night came up the mountain like a rising water.",4 "When it at last rose to the walls of the convent of the Great Saint Bernard, it was as if that weather-beaten structure were another Ark, and floated on the shadowy waves.",3 "Darkness, outstripping some visitors on mules, had risen thus to the rough convent walls, when those travellers were yet climbing the mountain.",1 "As the heat of the glowing day when they had stopped to drink at the streams of melted ice and snow, was changed to the searching cold of the frosty rarefied night air at a great height, so the fresh beauty of the lower journey had yielded to barrenness and desolation.",3 "A craggy track, up which the mules in single file scrambled and turned from block to block, as though they were ascending the broken staircase of a gigantic ruin, was their way now.",0 "No trees were to be seen, nor any vegetable growth save a poor brown scrubby moss, freezing in the chinks of rock.",1 Blackened skeleton arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward to the convent as if the ghosts of former travellers overwhelmed by the snow haunted the scene of their distress.,1 "Icicle-hung caves and cellars built for refuges from sudden storms, were like so many whispers of the perils of the place; never-resting wreaths and mazes of mist wandered about, hunted by a moaning wind; and snow, the besetting danger of the mountain, against which all its defences were taken, drifted sharply down.",0 "The file of mules, jaded by their day's work, turned and wound slowly up the deep ascent; the foremost led by a guide on foot, in his broad-brimmed hat and round jacket, carrying a mountain staff or two upon his shoulder, with whom another guide conversed.",2 There was no speaking among the string of riders.,2 "The sharp cold, the fatigue of the journey, and a new sensation of a catching in the breath, partly as if they had just emerged from very clear crisp water, and partly as if they had been sobbing, kept them silent.",4 "At length, a light on the summit of the rocky staircase gleamed through the snow and mist.",1 "The guides called to the mules, the mules pricked up their drooping heads, the travellers' tongues were loosened, and in a sudden burst of slipping, climbing, jingling, clinking, and talking, they arrived at the convent door.",2 "Other mules had arrived not long before, some with peasant riders and some with goods, and had trodden the snow about the door into a pool of mud.",2 "Riding-saddles and bridles, pack-saddles and strings of bells, mules and men, lanterns, torches, sacks, provender, barrels, cheeses, kegs of honey and butter, straw bundles and packages of many shapes, were crowded confusedly together in this thawed quagmire and about the steps.",1 "Up here in the clouds, everything was seen through cloud, and seemed dissolving into cloud.",1 "The breath of the men was cloud, the breath of the mules was cloud, the lights were encircled by cloud, speakers close at hand were not seen for cloud, though their voices and all other sounds were surprisingly clear.",2 "Of the cloudy line of mules hastily tied to rings in the wall, one would bite another, or kick another, and then the whole mist would be disturbed: with men diving into it, and cries of men and beasts coming out of it, and no bystander discerning what was wrong.",0 "In the midst of this, the great stable of the convent, occupying the basement story and entered by the basement door, outside which all the disorder was, poured forth its contribution of cloud, as if the whole rugged edifice were filled with nothing else, and would collapse as soon as it had emptied itself, leaving the snow to fall upon the bare mountain summit.",1 "While all this noise and hurry were rife among the living travellers, there, too, silently assembled in a grated house half-a-dozen paces removed, with the same cloud enfolding them and the same snow flakes drifting in upon them, were the dead travellers found upon the mountain.",0 "The mother, storm-belated many winters ago, still standing in the corner with her baby at her breast; the man who had frozen with his arm raised to his mouth in fear or hunger, still pressing it with his dry lips after years and years.",0 "An awful company, mysteriously come together!",1 A wild destiny for that mother to have foreseen!,2 "'Surrounded by so many and such companions upon whom I never looked, and never shall look, I and my child will dwell together inseparable, on the Great Saint Bernard, outlasting generations who will come to see us, and will never know our name, or one word of our story but the end.'",3 The living travellers thought little or nothing of the dead just then.,1 "They thought much more of alighting at the convent door, and warming themselves at the convent fire.",2 "Disengaged from the turmoil, which was already calming down as the crowd of mules began to be bestowed in the stable, they hurried shivering up the steps and into the building.",3 "There was a smell within, coming up from the floor, of tethered beasts, like the smell of a menagerie of wild animals.",1 "There were strong arched galleries within, huge stone piers, great staircases, and thick walls pierced with small sunken windows--fortifications against the mountain storms, as if they had been human enemies.",2 "There were gloomy vaulted sleeping-rooms within, intensely cold, but clean and hospitably prepared for guests.",1 "Finally, there was a parlour for guests to sit in and sup in, where a table was already laid, and where a blazing fire shone red and high.",2 "In this room, after having had their quarters for the night allotted to them by two young Fathers, the travellers presently drew round the hearth.",2 "They were in three parties; of whom the first, as the most numerous and important, was the slowest, and had been overtaken by one of the others on the way up.",3 "It consisted of an elderly lady, two grey-haired gentlemen, two young ladies, and their brother.",2 "These were attended (not to mention four guides), by a courier, two footmen, and two waiting-maids: which strong body of inconvenience was accommodated elsewhere under the same roof.",2 "The party that had overtaken them, and followed in their train, consisted of only three members: one lady and two gentlemen.",3 "The third party, which had ascended from the valley on the Italian side of the Pass, and had arrived first, were four in number: a plethoric, hungry, and silent German tutor in spectacles, on a tour with three young men, his pupils, all plethoric, hungry, and silent, and all in spectacles.",3 "These three groups sat round the fire eyeing each other drily, and waiting for supper.",2 "Only one among them, one of the gentlemen belonging to the party of three, made advances towards conversation.",2 "Throwing out his lines for the Chief of the important tribe, while addressing himself to his own companions, he remarked, in a tone of voice which included all the company if they chose to be included, that it had been a long day, and that he felt for the ladies.",3 "That he feared one of the young ladies was not a strong or accustomed traveller, and had been over-fatigued two or three hours ago.",2 "That he had observed, from his station in the rear, that she sat her mule as if she were exhausted.",1 "That he had, twice or thrice afterwards, done himself the honour of inquiring of one of the guides, when he fell behind, how the lady did.",1 "That he had been enchanted to learn that she had recovered her spirits, and that it had been but a passing discomfort.",2 "That he trusted (by this time he had secured the eyes of the Chief, and addressed him) he might be permitted to express his hope that she was now none the worse, and that she would not regret having made the journey.",1 "'My daughter, I am obliged to you, sir,' returned the Chief, 'is quite restored, and has been greatly interested.'",3 "'New to mountains, perhaps?'",2 said the insinuating traveller.,1 "'New to--ha--to mountains,' said the Chief.",2 "'But you are familiar with them, sir?'",2 the insinuating traveller assumed.,1 'I am--hum--tolerably familiar.,1 Not of late years.,2 "Not of late years,' replied the Chief, with a flourish of his hand.",3 "The insinuating traveller, acknowledging the flourish with an inclination of his head, passed from the Chief to the second young lady, who had not yet been referred to otherwise than as one of the ladies in whose behalf he felt so sensitive an interest.",3 He hoped she was not incommoded by the fatigues of the day.,2 "'Incommoded, certainly,' returned the young lady, 'but not tired.'",1 The insinuating traveller complimented her on the justice of the distinction.,2 It was what he had meant to say.,2 "Every lady must doubtless be incommoded by having to do with that proverbially unaccommodating animal, the mule.",3 "'We have had, of course,' said the young lady, who was rather reserved and haughty, 'to leave the carriages and fourgon at Martigny.",1 "And the impossibility of bringing anything that one wants to this inaccessible place, and the necessity of leaving every comfort behind, is not convenient.'",3 "'A savage place indeed,' said the insinuating traveller.",1 "The elderly lady, who was a model of accurate dressing, and whose manner was perfect, considered as a piece of machinery, here interposed a remark in a low soft voice.",4 "'But, like other inconvenient places,' she observed, 'it must be seen.",3 "As a place much spoken of, it is necessary to see it.'",2 "O! I have not the least objection to seeing it, I assure you, Mrs General,' returned the other, carelessly.",2 "'You, madam,' said the insinuating traveller, 'have visited this spot before?'",1 "'Yes,' returned Mrs General.",2 'I have been here before.,2 "Let me commend you, my dear,' to the former young lady, 'to shade your face from the hot wood, after exposure to the mountain air and snow.",3 "You, too, my dear,' to the other and younger lady, who immediately did so; while the former merely said, 'Thank you, Mrs General, I am Perfectly comfortable, and prefer remaining as I am.'",4 "The brother, who had left his chair to open a piano that stood in the room, and who had whistled into it and shut it up again, now came strolling back to the fire with his glass in his eye.",2 He was dressed in the very fullest and completest travelling trim.,2 The world seemed hardly large enough to yield him an amount of travel proportionate to his equipment.,3 "'These fellows are an immense time with supper,' he drawled.",3 'I wonder what they'll give us!,3 Has anybody any idea?',2 "'Not roast man, I believe,' replied the voice of the second gentleman of the party of three.",2 'I suppose not.,2 What d'ye mean?' he inquired.,2 "'That, as you are not to be served for the general supper, perhaps you will do us the favour of not cooking yourself at the general fire,' returned the other.",3 "The young gentleman who was standing in an easy attitude on the hearth, cocking his glass at the company, with his back to the blaze and his coat tucked under his arms, something as if he were Of the Poultry species and were trussed for roasting, lost countenance at this reply; he seemed about to demand further explanation, when it was discovered--through all eyes turning on the speaker--that the lady with him, who was young and beautiful, had not heard what had passed through having fainted with her head upon his shoulder.",3 "'I think,' said the gentleman in a subdued tone, 'I had best carry her straight to her room.",2 Will you call to some one to bring a light?',2 "addressing his companion, 'and to show the way?",2 In this strange rambling place I don't know that I could find it.',1 "'Pray, let me call my maid,' cried the taller of the young ladies.",2 "'Pray, let me put this water to her lips,' said the shorter, who had not spoken yet.",2 "Each doing what she suggested, there was no want of assistance.",2 "Indeed, when the two maids came in (escorted by the courier, lest any one should strike them dumb by addressing a foreign language to them on the road), there was a prospect of too much assistance.",1 "Seeing this, and saying as much in a few words to the slighter and younger of the two ladies, the gentleman put his wife's arm over his shoulder, lifted her up, and carried her away.",2 "His friend, being left alone with the other visitors, walked slowly up and down the room without coming to the fire again, pulling his black moustache in a contemplative manner, as if he felt himself committed to the late retort.",1 "While the subject of it was breathing injury in a corner, the Chief loftily addressed this gentleman.",1 "'Your friend, sir,' said he, 'is--ha--is a little impatient; and, in his impatience, is not perhaps fully sensible of what he owes to--hum--to--but we will waive that, we will waive that.",1 "Your friend is a little impatient, sir.'",1 "'It may be so, sir,' returned the other.",2 "'But having had the honour of making that gentleman's acquaintance at the hotel at Geneva, where we and much good company met some time ago, and having had the honour of exchanging company and conversation with that gentleman on several subsequent excursions, I can hear nothing--no, not even from one of your appearance and station, sir--detrimental to that gentleman.'",2 "'You are in no danger, sir, of hearing any such thing from me.",1 "In remarking that your friend has shown impatience, I say no such thing.",1 "I make that remark, because it is not to be doubted that my son, being by birth and by--ha--by education a--hum--a gentleman, would have readily adapted himself to any obligingly expressed wish on the subject of the fire being equally accessible to the whole of the present circle.",3 "Which, in principle, I--ha--for all are--hum--equal on these occasions--I consider right.'",2 "'Good,' was the reply.",2 'And there it ends!,2 I am your son's obedient servant.,2 I beg your son to receive the assurance of my profound consideration.,3 "And now, sir, I may admit, freely admit, that my friend is sometimes of a sarcastic temper.'",1 "'The lady is your friend's wife, sir?'",2 "'The lady is my friend's wife, sir.'",2 'She is very handsome.',3 "'Sir, she is peerless.",3 They are still in the first year of their marriage.,2 "They are still partly on a marriage, and partly on an artistic, tour.'",2 "'Your friend is an artist, sir?'",2 "The gentleman replied by kissing the fingers of his right hand, and wafting the kiss the length of his arm towards Heaven.",3 "As who should say, I devote him to the celestial Powers as an immortal artist!",2 "'But he is a man of family,' he added.",2 'His connections are of the best.,3 He is more than an artist: he is highly connected.,2 "He may, in effect, have repudiated his connections, proudly, impatiently, sarcastically (I make the concession of both words); but he has them.",0 Sparks that have been struck out during our intercourse have shown me this.',1 'Well!,2 "I hope,' said the lofty gentleman, with the air of finally disposing of the subject, 'that the lady's indisposition may be only temporary.'",2 "'Sir, I hope so.'",2 "'Mere fatigue, I dare say.'",1 "'Not altogether mere fatigue, sir, for her mule stumbled to-day, and she fell from the saddle.",0 "She fell lightly, and was up again without assistance, and rode from us laughing; but she complained towards evening of a slight bruise in the side.",0 "She spoke of it more than once, as we followed your party up the mountain.'",2 "The head of the large retinue, who was gracious but not familiar, appeared by this time to think that he had condescended more than enough.",3 "He said no more, and there was silence for some quarter of an hour until supper appeared.",2 With the supper came one of the young Fathers (there seemed to be no old Fathers) to take the head of the table.,2 "It was like the supper of an ordinary Swiss hotel, and good red wine grown by the convent in more genial air was not wanting.",4 "The artist traveller calmly came and took his place at table when the rest sat down, with no apparent sense upon him of his late skirmish with the completely dressed traveller.",2 "'Pray,' he inquired of the host, over his soup, 'has your convent many of its famous dogs now?'",3 "'Monsieur, it has three.'",2 'I saw three in the gallery below.,2 Doubtless the three in question.',3 "The host, a slender, bright-eyed, dark young man of polite manners, whose garment was a black gown with strips of white crossed over it like braces, and who no more resembled the conventional breed of Saint Bernard monks than he resembled the conventional breed of Saint Bernard dogs, replied, doubtless those were the three in question.",4 "'And I think,' said the artist traveller, 'I have seen one of them before.'",2 It was possible.,2 He was a dog sufficiently well known.,3 "Monsieur might have easily seen him in the valley or somewhere on the lake, when he (the dog) had gone down with one of the order to solicit aid for the convent.",2 "'Which is done in its regular season of the year, I think?'",2 Monsieur was right.,3 'And never without a dog.,2 The dog is very important.',3 Again Monsieur was right.,3 The dog was very important.,3 People were justly interested in the dog.,3 "As one of the dogs celebrated everywhere, Ma'amselle would observe.",3 "Ma'amselle was a little slow to observe it, as though she were not yet well accustomed to the French tongue.",2 "Mrs General, however, observed it for her.",2 'Ask him if he has saved many lives?',2 "said, in his native English, the young man who had been put out of countenance.",2 The host needed no translation of the question.,2 "He promptly replied in French, 'No.",3 Not this one.',2 'Why not?',2 the same gentleman asked.,2 "'Pardon,' returned the host composedly, 'give him the opportunity and he will do it without doubt.",1 "For example, I am well convinced,' smiling sedately, as he cut up the dish of veal to be handed round, on the young man who had been put out of countenance, 'that if you, Monsieur, would give him the opportunity, he would hasten with great ardour to fulfil his duty.'",4 The artist traveller laughed.,2 "The insinuating traveller (who evinced a provident anxiety to get his full share of the supper), wiping some drops of wine from his moustache with a piece of bread, joined the conversation.",1 "'It is becoming late in the year, my Father,' said he, 'for tourist-travellers, is it not?'",2 "'Yes, it is late.",2 "Yet two or three weeks, at most, and we shall be left to the winter snows.'",2 "'And then,' said the insinuating traveller, 'for the scratching dogs and the buried children, according to the pictures!'",1 "'Pardon,' said the host, not quite understanding the allusion.",2 "'How, then the scratching dogs and the buried children according to the pictures?'",2 The artist traveller struck in again before an answer could be given.,1 "'Don't you know,' he coldly inquired across the table of his companion, 'that none but smugglers come this way in the winter or can have any possible business this way?'",1 'Holy blue!,2 No; never heard of it.',2 "'So it is, I believe.",2 "And as they know the signs of the weather tolerably well, they don't give much employment to the dogs--who have consequently died out rather--though this house of entertainment is conveniently situated for themselves.",3 "Their young families, I am told, they usually leave at home.",2 But it's a grand idea!',3 "cried the artist traveller, unexpectedly rising into a tone of enthusiasm.",2 'It's a sublime idea.,3 "It's the finest idea in the world, and brings tears into a man's eyes, by Jupiter!'",3 He then went on eating his veal with great composure.,3 "There was enough of mocking inconsistency at the bottom of this speech to make it rather discordant, though the manner was refined and the person well-favoured, and though the depreciatory part of it was so skilfully thrown off as to be very difficult for one not perfectly acquainted with the English language to understand, or, even understanding, to take offence at: so simple and dispassionate was its tone.",1 "After finishing his veal in the midst of silence, the speaker again addressed his friend.",2 "'Look,' said he, in his former tone, 'at this gentleman our host, not yet in the prime of life, who in so graceful a way and with such courtly urbanity and modesty presides over us!",4 Manners fit for a crown!,2 Dine with the Lord Mayor of London (if you can get an invitation) and observe the contrast.,2 "This dear fellow, with the finest cut face I ever saw, a face in perfect drawing, leaves some laborious life and comes up here I don't know how many feet above the level of the sea, for no other purpose on earth (except enjoying himself, I hope, in a capital refectory) than to keep an hotel for idle poor devils like you and me, and leave the bill to our consciences!",3 "Why, isn't it a beautiful sacrifice?",3 What do we want more to touch us?,2 "Because rescued people of interesting appearance are not, for eight or nine months out of every twelve, holding on here round the necks of the most sagacious of dogs carrying wooden bottles, shall we disparage the place?",2 No!,2 Bless the place.,3 "It's a great place, a glorious place!'",3 "The chest of the grey-haired gentleman who was the Chief of the important party, had swelled as if with a protest against his being numbered among poor devils.",1 "No sooner had the artist traveller ceased speaking than he himself spoke with great dignity, as having it incumbent on him to take the lead in most places, and having deserted that duty for a little while.",4 "He weightily communicated his opinion to their host, that his life must be a very dreary life here in the winter.",1 The host allowed to Monsieur that it was a little monotonous.,1 The air was difficult to breathe for a length of time consecutively.,1 The cold was very severe.,1 One needed youth and strength to bear it.,2 "However, having them and the blessing of Heaven-- Yes, that was very good.",4 "'But the confinement,' said the grey-haired gentleman.",2 "There were many days, even in bad weather, when it was possible to walk about outside.",1 "It was the custom to beat a little track, and take exercise there.",2 "'But the space,' urged the grey-haired gentleman.",2 'So small.,2 So--ha--very limited.',1 "Monsieur would recall to himself that there were the refuges to visit, and that tracks had to be made to them also.",2 "Monsieur still urged, on the other hand, that the space was so--ha--hum--so very contracted.",1 "More than that, it was always the same, always the same.",2 "With a deprecating smile, the host gently raised and gently lowered his shoulders.",3 "That was true, he remarked, but permit him to say that almost all objects had their various points of view.",2 Monsieur and he did not see this poor life of his from the same point of view.,1 Monsieur was not used to confinement.,2 "'I--ha--yes, very true,' said the grey-haired gentleman.",2 He seemed to receive quite a shock from the force of the argument.,1 "Monsieur, as an English traveller, surrounded by all means of travelling pleasantly; doubtless possessing fortune, carriages, and servants-- 'Perfectly, perfectly.",4 "Without doubt,' said the gentleman.",1 "Monsieur could not easily place himself in the position of a person who had not the power to choose, I will go here to-morrow, or there next day; I will pass these barriers, I will enlarge those bounds.",2 "Monsieur could not realise, perhaps, how the mind accommodated itself in such things to the force of necessity.",2 "'It is true,' said Monsieur.",2 'We will--ha--not pursue the subject.,2 "You are--hum--quite accurate, I have no doubt.",1 We will say no more.',2 "The supper having come to a close, he drew his chair away as he spoke, and moved back to his former place by the fire.",2 "As it was very cold at the greater part of the table, the other guests also resumed their former seats by the fire, designing to toast themselves well before going to bed.",2 "The host, when they rose from the table, bowed to all present, wished them good night, and withdrew.",3 "But first the insinuating traveller had asked him if they could have some wine made hot; and as he had answered Yes, and had presently afterwards sent it in, that traveller, seated in the centre of the group, and in the full heat of the fire, was soon engaged in serving it out to the rest.",2 "At this time, the younger of the two young ladies, who had been silently attentive in her dark corner (the fire-light was the chief light in the sombre room, the lamp being smoky and dull) to what had been said of the absent lady, glided out.",1 "She was at a loss which way to turn when she had softly closed the door; but, after a little hesitation among the sounding passages and the many ways, came to a room in a corner of the main gallery, where the servants were at their supper.",1 "From these she obtained a lamp, and a direction to the lady's room.",2 It was up the great staircase on the story above.,3 "Here and there, the bare white walls were broken by an iron grate, and she thought as she went along that the place was something like a prison.",1 "The arched door of the lady's room, or cell, was not quite shut.",2 "After knocking at it two or three times without receiving an answer, she pushed it gently open, and looked in.",2 "The lady lay with closed eyes on the outside of the bed, protected from the cold by the blankets and wrappers with which she had been covered when she revived from her fainting fit.",1 "A dull light placed in the deep recess of the window, made little impression on the arched room.",1 "The visitor timidly stepped to the bed, and said, in a soft whisper, 'Are you better?'",3 "The lady had fallen into a slumber, and the whisper was too low to awake her.",1 "Her visitor, standing quite still, looked at her attentively.",2 "'She is very pretty,' she said to herself.",3 'I never saw so beautiful a face.,3 O how unlike me!',2 "It was a curious thing to say, but it had some hidden meaning, for it filled her eyes with tears.",2 'I know I must be right.,3 I know he spoke of her that evening.,2 "I could very easily be wrong on any other subject, but not on this, not on this!'",1 "With a quiet and tender hand she put aside a straying fold of the sleeper's hair, and then touched the hand that lay outside the covering.",3 "'I like to look at her,' she breathed to herself.",3 'I like to see what has affected him so much.',3 "She had not withdrawn her hand, when the sleeper opened her eyes and started.",2 'Pray don't be alarmed.,1 I am only one of the travellers from down-stairs.,2 "I came to ask if you were better, and if I could do anything for you.'",3 'I think you have already been so kind as to send your servants to my assistance?',2 "'No, not I; that was my sister.",2 Are you better?',3 'Much better.,3 "It is only a slight bruise, and has been well looked to, and is almost easy now.",3 It made me giddy and faint in a moment.,1 It had hurt me before; but at last it overpowered me all at once.',1 'May I stay with you until some one comes?,2 Would you like it?',3 "'I should like it, for it is lonely here; but I am afraid you will feel the cold too much.'",1 'I don't mind cold.,1 "I am not delicate, if I look so.'",3 "She quickly moved one of the two rough chairs to the bedside, and sat down.",1 "The other as quickly moved a part of some travelling wrapper from herself, and drew it over her, so that her arm, in keeping it about her, rested on her shoulder.",2 "'You have so much the air of a kind nurse,' said the lady, smiling on her, 'that you seem as if you had come to me from home.'",3 'I am very glad of it.',3 'I was dreaming of home when I woke just now.,2 "Of my old home, I mean, before I was married.'",2 'And before you were so far away from it.',2 "'I have been much farther away from it than this; but then I took the best part of it with me, and missed nothing.",2 "I felt solitary as I dropped asleep here, and, missing it a little, wandered back to it.'",2 "There was a sorrowfully affectionate and regretful sound in her voice, which made her visitor refrain from looking at her for the moment.",1 "'It is a curious chance which at last brings us together, under this covering in which you have wrapped me,' said the visitor after a pause; 'for do you know, I think I have been looking for you some time.'",2 'Looking for me?',2 "'I believe I have a little note here, which I was to give to you whenever I found you.",2 This is it.,2 "Unless I greatly mistake, it is addressed to you?",1 Is it not?',2 "The lady took it, and said yes, and read it.",2 Her visitor watched her as she did so.,2 It was very short.,2 "She flushed a little as she put her lips to her visitor's cheek, and pressed her hand.",2 "'The dear young friend to whom he presents me, may be a comfort to me at some time, he says.",3 She is truly a comfort to me the first time I see her.',3 "'Perhaps you don't,' said the visitor, hesitating--'perhaps you don't know my story?",2 Perhaps he never told you my story?',2 'No.',2 "'Oh no, why should he!",2 "I have scarcely the right to tell it myself at present, because I have been entreated not to do so.",2 "There is not much in it, but it might account to you for my asking you not to say anything about the letter here.",2 "You saw my family with me, perhaps?",2 "Some of them--I only say this to you--are a little proud, a little prejudiced.'",3 "'You shall take it back again,' said the other; 'and then my husband is sure not to see it.",2 "He might see it and speak of it, otherwise, by some accident.",2 "Will you put it in your bosom again, to be certain?'",2 She did so with great care.,3 "Her small, slight hand was still upon the letter, when they heard some one in the gallery outside.",2 "'I promised,' said the visitor, rising, 'that I would write to him after seeing you (I could hardly fail to see you sooner or later), and tell him if you were well and happy.",3 I had better say you were well and happy.',4 "'Yes, yes, yes!",2 Say I was very well and very happy.,3 "And that I thanked him affectionately, and would never forget him.'",2 'I shall see you in the morning.,2 After that we are sure to meet again before very long.,2 Good night!',3 'Good night.,2 "Thank you, thank you.",3 "Good night, my dear!'",3 "Both of them were hurried and fluttered as they exchanged this parting, and as the visitor came out of the door.",2 She had expected to meet the lady's husband approaching it; but the person in the gallery was not he: it was the traveller who had wiped the wine-drops from his moustache with the piece of bread.,2 "When he heard the step behind him, he turned round--for he was walking away in the dark.",1 "His politeness, which was extreme, would not allow of the young lady's lighting herself down-stairs, or going down alone.",3 "He took her lamp, held it so as to throw the best light on the stone steps, and followed her all the way to the supper-room.",3 "She went down, not easily hiding how much she was inclined to shrink and tremble; for the appearance of this traveller was particularly disagreeable to her.",1 "She had sat in her quiet corner before supper imagining what he would have been in the scenes and places within her experience, until he inspired her with an aversion that made him little less than terrific.",3 "He followed her down with his smiling politeness, followed her in, and resumed his seat in the best place in the hearth.",4 "There with the wood-fire, which was beginning to burn low, rising and falling upon him in the dark room, he sat with his legs thrust out to warm, drinking the hot wine down to the lees, with a monstrous shadow imitating him on the wall and ceiling.",1 "The tired company had broken up, and all the rest were gone to bed except the young lady's father, who dozed in his chair by the fire.",1 The traveller had been at the pains of going a long way up-stairs to his sleeping-room to fetch his pocket-flask of brandy.,1 "He told them so, as he poured its contents into what was left of the wine, and drank with a new relish.",3 "'May I ask, sir, if you are on your way to Italy?'",2 "The grey-haired gentleman had roused himself, and was preparing to withdraw.",2 He answered in the affirmative.,3 'I also!',2 said the traveller.,2 "'I shall hope to have the honour of offering my compliments in fairer scenes, and under softer circumstances, than on this dismal mountain.'",2 "The gentleman bowed, distantly enough, and said he was obliged to him.",3 "'We poor gentlemen, sir,' said the traveller, pulling his moustache dry with his hand, for he had dipped it in the wine and brandy; 'we poor gentlemen do not travel like princes, but the courtesies and graces of life are precious to us.",3 "To your health, sir!'",2 "'Sir, I thank you.'",3 "'To the health of your distinguished family--of the fair ladies, your daughters!'",3 "'Sir, I thank you again, I wish you good night.",3 "My dear, are our--ha--our people in attendance?'",2 "'They are close by, father.'",2 'Permit me!',2 "said the traveller, rising and holding the door open, as the gentleman crossed the room towards it with his arm drawn through his daughter's.",2 'Good repose!,2 To the pleasure of seeing you once more!,3 To to-morrow!',2 "As he kissed his hand, with his best manner and his daintiest smile, the young lady drew a little nearer to her father, and passed him with a dread of touching him.",3 'Humph!',2 "said the insinuating traveller, whose manner shrunk, and whose voice dropped when he was left alone.",1 "'If they all go to bed, why I must go.",2 They are in a devil of a hurry.,1 "One would think the night would be long enough, in this freezing silence and solitude, if one went to bed two hours hence.'",2 "Throwing back his head in emptying his glass, he cast his eyes upon the travellers' book, which lay on the piano, open, with pens and ink beside it, as if the night's names had been registered when he was absent.",2 "Taking it in his hand, he read these entries.",2 "William Dorrit, Esquire Frederick Dorrit, Esquire Edward Dorrit, Esquire Miss Dorrit Miss Amy Dorrit Mrs General and Suite.",1 From France to Italy.,2 Mr and Mrs Henry Gowan.,2 From France to Italy.,2 "To which he added, in a small complicated hand, ending with a long lean flourish, not unlike a lasso thrown at all the rest of the names: Blandois.",3 Paris.,2 From France to Italy.,2 "And then, with his nose coming down over his moustache and his moustache going up and under his nose, repaired to his allotted cell.",2 It is indispensable to present the accomplished lady who was of sufficient importance in the suite of the Dorrit Family to have a line to herself in the Travellers' Book.,3 "Mrs General was the daughter of a clerical dignitary in a cathedral town, where she had led the fashion until she was as near forty-five as a single lady can be.",3 "A stiff commissariat officer of sixty, famous as a martinet, had then become enamoured of the gravity with which she drove the proprieties four-in-hand through the cathedral town society, and had solicited to be taken beside her on the box of the cool coach of ceremony to which that team was harnessed.",3 "His proposal of marriage being accepted by the lady, the commissary took his seat behind the proprieties with great decorum, and Mrs General drove until the commissary died.",2 "In the course of their united journey, they ran over several people who came in the way of the proprieties; but always in a high style and with composure.",2 "The commissary having been buried with all the decorations suitable to the service (the whole team of proprieties were harnessed to his hearse, and they all had feathers and black velvet housings with his coat of arms in the corner), Mrs General began to inquire what quantity of dust and ashes was deposited at the bankers'.",2 "It then transpired that the commissary had so far stolen a march on Mrs General as to have bought himself an annuity some years before his marriage, and to have reserved that circumstance in mentioning, at the period of his proposal, that his income was derived from the interest of his money.",1 "Mrs General consequently found her means so much diminished, that, but for the perfect regulation of her mind, she might have felt disposed to question the accuracy of that portion of the late service which had declared that the commissary could take nothing away with him.",3 "In this state of affairs it occurred to Mrs General, that she might 'form the mind,' and eke the manners of some young lady of distinction.",3 "Or, that she might harness the proprieties to the carriage of some rich young heiress or widow, and become at once the driver and guard of such vehicle through the social mazes.",3 "Mrs General's communication of this idea to her clerical and commissariat connection was so warmly applauded that, but for the lady's undoubted merit, it might have appeared as though they wanted to get rid of her.",3 "Testimonials representing Mrs General as a prodigy of piety, learning, virtue, and gentility, were lavishly contributed from influential quarters; and one venerable archdeacon even shed tears in recording his testimony to her perfections (described to him by persons on whom he could rely), though he had never had the honour and moral gratification of setting eyes on Mrs General in all his life.",4 "Thus delegated on her mission, as it were by Church and State, Mrs General, who had always occupied high ground, felt in a condition to keep it, and began by putting herself up at a very high figure.",2 "An interval of some duration elapsed, in which there was no bid for Mrs General.",2 "At length a county-widower, with a daughter of fourteen, opened negotiations with the lady; and as it was a part either of the native dignity or of the artificial policy of Mrs General (but certainly one or the other) to comport herself as if she were much more sought than seeking, the widower pursued Mrs General until he prevailed upon her to form his daughter's mind and manners.",3 "The execution of this trust occupied Mrs General about seven years, in the course of which time she made the tour of Europe, and saw most of that extensive miscellany of objects which it is essential that all persons of polite cultivation should see with other people's eyes, and never with their own.",3 "When her charge was at length formed, the marriage, not only of the young lady, but likewise of her father, the widower, was resolved on.",2 "The widower then finding Mrs General both inconvenient and expensive, became of a sudden almost as much affected by her merits as the archdeacon had been, and circulated such praises of her surpassing worth, in all quarters where he thought an opportunity might arise of transferring the blessing to somebody else, that Mrs General was a name more honourable than ever.",3 "The phoenix was to let, on this elevated perch, when Mr Dorrit, who had lately succeeded to his property, mentioned to his bankers that he wished to discover a lady, well-bred, accomplished, well connected, well accustomed to good society, who was qualified at once to complete the education of his daughters, and to be their matron or chaperon.",4 "Mr Dorrit's bankers, as bankers of the county-widower, instantly said, 'Mrs General.'",3 "Pursuing the light so fortunately hit upon, and finding the concurrent testimony of the whole of Mrs General's acquaintance to be of the pathetic nature already recorded, Mr Dorrit took the trouble of going down to the county of the county-widower to see Mrs General, in whom he found a lady of a quality superior to his highest expectations.",2 "'Might I be excused,' said Mr Dorrit, 'if I inquired--ha--what remune--' 'Why, indeed,' returned Mrs General, stopping the word, 'it is a subject on which I prefer to avoid entering.",3 "I have never entered on it with my friends here; and I cannot overcome the delicacy, Mr Dorrit, with which I have always regarded it.",3 "I am not, as I hope you are aware, a governess--' 'O dear no!'",2 said Mr Dorrit.,2 "'Pray, madam, do not imagine for a moment that I think so.'",2 He really blushed to be suspected of it.,2 Mrs General gravely inclined her head.,1 "'I cannot, therefore, put a price upon services which it is a pleasure to me to render if I can render them spontaneously, but which I could not render in mere return for any consideration.",3 "Neither do I know how, or where, to find a case parallel to my own.",2 It is peculiar.',1 No doubt.,1 But how then (Mr Dorrit not unnaturally hinted) could the subject be approached?,1 "'I cannot object,' said Mrs General--'though even that is disagreeable to me--to Mr Dorrit's inquiring, in confidence of my friends here, what amount they have been accustomed, at quarterly intervals, to pay to my credit at my bankers'.'",1 Mr Dorrit bowed his acknowledgements.,2 "'Permit me to add,' said Mrs General, 'that beyond this, I can never resume the topic.",2 Also that I can accept no second or inferior position.,1 If the honour were proposed to me of becoming known to Mr Dorrit's family--I think two daughters were mentioned?--' 'Two daughters.',2 "'I could only accept it on terms of perfect equality, as a companion, protector, Mentor, and friend.'",3 "Mr Dorrit, in spite of his sense of his importance, felt as if it would be quite a kindness in her to accept it on any conditions.",2 He almost said as much.,2 "'I think,' repeated Mrs General, 'two daughters were mentioned?'",2 "'Two daughters,' said Mr Dorrit again.",2 "'It would therefore,' said Mrs General, 'be necessary to add a third more to the payment (whatever its amount may prove to be), which my friends here have been accustomed to make to my bankers'.'",2 "Mr Dorrit lost no time in referring the delicate question to the county-widower, and finding that he had been accustomed to pay three hundred pounds a-year to the credit of Mrs General, arrived, without any severe strain on his arithmetic, at the conclusion that he himself must pay four.",1 "Mrs General being an article of that lustrous surface which suggests that it is worth any money, he made a formal proposal to be allowed to have the honour and pleasure of regarding her as a member of his family.",4 "Mrs General conceded that high privilege, and here she was.",2 "In person, Mrs General, including her skirts which had much to do with it, was of a dignified and imposing appearance; ample, rustling, gravely voluminous; always upright behind the proprieties.",2 "She might have been taken--had been taken--to the top of the Alps and the bottom of Herculaneum, without disarranging a fold in her dress, or displacing a pin.",3 "If her countenance and hair had rather a floury appearance, as though from living in some transcendently genteel Mill, it was rather because she was a chalky creation altogether, than because she mended her complexion with violet powder, or had turned grey.",2 "If her eyes had no expression, it was probably because they had nothing to express.",2 "If she had few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name or any other inscription on her face.",1 "A cool, waxy, blown-out woman, who had never lighted well.",3 Mrs General had no opinions.,2 Her way of forming a mind was to prevent it from forming opinions.,2 "She had a little circular set of mental grooves or rails on which she started little trains of other people's opinions, which never overtook one another, and never got anywhere.",3 "Even her propriety could not dispute that there was impropriety in the world; but Mrs General's way of getting rid of it was to put it out of sight, and make believe that there was no such thing.",1 "This was another of her ways of forming a mind--to cram all articles of difficulty into cupboards, lock them up, and say they had no existence.",1 "It was the easiest way, and, beyond all comparison, the properest.",3 Mrs General was not to be told of anything shocking.,1 "Accidents, miseries, and offences, were never to be mentioned before her.",1 "Passion was to go to sleep in the presence of Mrs General, and blood was to change to milk and water.",3 "The little that was left in the world, when all these deductions were made, it was Mrs General's province to varnish.",2 "In that formation process of hers, she dipped the smallest of brushes into the largest of pots, and varnished the surface of every object that came under consideration.",1 "The more cracked it was, the more Mrs General varnished it.",1 "There was varnish in Mrs General's voice, varnish in Mrs General's touch, an atmosphere of varnish round Mrs General's figure.",2 "Mrs General's dreams ought to have been varnished--if she had any--lying asleep in the arms of the good Saint Bernard, with the feathery snow falling on his house-top.",3 "The bright morning sun dazzled the eyes, the snow had ceased, the mists had vanished, the mountain air was so clear and light that the new sensation of breathing it was like the having entered on a new existence.",4 "To help the delusion, the solid ground itself seemed gone, and the mountain, a shining waste of immense white heaps and masses, to be a region of cloud floating between the blue sky above and the earth far below.",1 "Some dark specks in the snow, like knots upon a little thread, beginning at the convent door and winding away down the descent in broken lengths which were not yet pieced together, showed where the Brethren were at work in several places clearing the track.",2 Already the snow had begun to be foot-thawed again about the door.,2 "Mules were busily brought out, tied to the rings in the wall, and laden; strings of bells were buckled on, burdens were adjusted, the voices of drivers and riders sounded musically.",2 "Some of the earliest had even already resumed their journey; and, both on the level summit by the dark water near the convent, and on the downward way of yesterday's ascent, little moving figures of men and mules, reduced to miniatures by the immensity around, went with a clear tinkling of bells and a pleasant harmony of tongues.",3 "In the supper-room of last night, a new fire, piled upon the feathery ashes of the old one, shone upon a homely breakfast of loaves, butter, and milk.",2 "It also shone on the courier of the Dorrit family, making tea for his party from a supply he had brought up with him, together with several other small stores which were chiefly laid in for the use of the strong body of inconvenience.",2 "Mr Gowan and Blandois of Paris had already breakfasted, and were walking up and down by the lake, smoking their cigars.",2 "'Gowan, eh?'",2 "muttered Tip, otherwise Edward Dorrit, Esquire, turning over the leaves of the book, when the courier had left them to breakfast.",2 "'Then Gowan is the name of a puppy, that's all I have got to say!",2 "If it was worth my while, I'd pull his nose.",3 But it isn't worth my while--fortunately for him.,3 "How's his wife, Amy?",2 I suppose you know.,2 You generally know things of that sort.',2 "'She is better, Edward.",3 But they are not going to-day.',2 'Oh!,2 They are not going to-day!,2 "Fortunately for that fellow too,' said Tip, 'or he and I might have come into collision.'",3 "'It is thought better here that she should lie quiet to-day, and not be fatigued and shaken by the ride down until to-morrow.'",2 'With all my heart.,2 But you talk as if you had been nursing her.,2 "You haven't been relapsing into (Mrs General is not here) into old habits, have you, Amy?'",2 "He asked her the question with a sly glance of observation at Miss Fanny, and at his father too.",1 "'I have only been in to ask her if I could do anything for her, Tip,' said Little Dorrit.",2 "'You needn't call me Tip, Amy child,' returned that young gentleman with a frown; 'because that's an old habit, and one you may as well lay aside.'",2 "'I didn't mean to say so, Edward dear.",2 I forgot.,2 "It was so natural once, that it seemed at the moment the right word.'",3 'Oh yes!',2 Miss Fanny struck in.,1 "'Natural, and right word, and once, and all the rest of it!",3 "Nonsense, you little thing!",1 I know perfectly well why you have been taking such an interest in this Mrs Gowan.,3 You can't blind _me_.',1 "'I will not try to, Fanny.",2 Don't be angry.',1 'Oh!,2 angry!',1 returned that young lady with a flounce.,2 'I have no patience' (which indeed was the truth).,2 "'Pray, Fanny,' said Mr Dorrit, raising his eyebrows, 'what do you mean?",2 Explain yourself.',2 'Oh!,2 "Never mind, Pa,' replied Miss Fanny, 'it's no great matter.",2 Amy will understand me.,2 "She knew, or knew of, this Mrs Gowan before yesterday, and she may as well admit that she did.'",3 "'My child,' said Mr Dorrit, turning to his younger daughter, 'has your sister--any--ha--authority for this curious statement?'",2 "'However meek we are,' Miss Fanny struck in before she could answer, 'we don't go creeping into people's rooms on the tops of cold mountains, and sitting perishing in the frost with people, unless we know something about them beforehand.",0 It's not very hard to divine whose friend Mrs Gowan is.',2 'Whose friend?',2 inquired her father.,2 "'Pa, I am sorry to say,' returned Miss Fanny, who had by this time succeeded in goading herself into a state of much ill-usage and grievance, which she was often at great pains to do: 'that I believe her to be a friend of that very objectionable and unpleasant person, who, with a total absence of all delicacy, which our experience might have led us to expect from him, insulted us and outraged our feelings in so public and wilful a manner on an occasion to which it is understood among us that we will not more pointedly allude.'",0 "'Amy, my child,' said Mr Dorrit, tempering a bland severity with a dignified affection, 'is this the case?'",2 "Little Dorrit mildly answered, yes it was.",2 'Yes it is!',2 cried Miss Fanny.,1 'Of course!,2 I said so!,2 "And now, Pa, I do declare once for all'--this young lady was in the habit of declaring the same thing once for all every day of her life, and even several times in a day--'that this is shameful!",1 I do declare once for all that it ought to be put a stop to.,2 "Is it not enough that we have gone through what is only known to ourselves, but are we to have it thrown in our faces, perseveringly and systematically, by the very person who should spare our feelings most?",3 Are we to be exposed to this unnatural conduct every moment of our lives?,1 Are we never to be permitted to forget?,2 "I say again, it is absolutely infamous!'",1 "'Well, Amy,' observed her brother, shaking his head, 'you know I stand by you whenever I can, and on most occasions.",2 "But I must say, that, upon my soul, I do consider it rather an unaccountable mode of showing your sisterly affection, that you should back up a man who treated me in the most ungentlemanly way in which one man can treat another.",3 "And who,' he added convincingly, 'must be a low-minded thief, you know, or he never could have conducted himself as he did.'",3 "'And see,' said Miss Fanny, 'see what is involved in this!",1 Can we ever hope to be respected by our servants?,2 Never.,2 "Here are our two women, and Pa's valet, and a footman, and a courier, and all sorts of dependents, and yet in the midst of these, we are to have one of ourselves rushing about with tumblers of cold water, like a menial!",1 "Why, a policeman,' said Miss Fanny, 'if a beggar had a fit in the street, could but go plunging about with tumblers, as this very Amy did in this very room before our very eyes last night!'",1 "'I don't so much mind that, once in a way,' remarked Mr Edward; 'but your Clennam, as he thinks proper to call himself, is another thing.'",3 "'He is part of the same thing,' returned Miss Fanny, 'and of a piece with all the rest.",1 He obtruded himself upon us in the first instance.,2 We never wanted him.,2 "I always showed him, for one, that I could have dispensed with his company with the greatest pleasure.",3 "He then commits that gross outrage upon our feelings, which he never could or would have committed but for the delight he took in exposing us; and then we are to be demeaned for the service of his friends!",1 "Why, I don't wonder at this Mr Gowan's conduct towards you.",3 What else was to be expected when he was enjoying our past misfortunes--gloating over them at the moment!',3 'Father--Edward--no indeed!',2 pleaded Little Dorrit.,2 'Neither Mr nor Mrs Gowan had ever heard our name.,2 "They were, and they are, quite ignorant of our history.'",1 "'So much the worse,' retorted Fanny, determined not to admit anything in extenuation, 'for then you have no excuse.",1 "If they had known about us, you might have felt yourself called upon to conciliate them.",3 "That would have been a weak and ridiculous mistake, but I can respect a mistake, whereas I can't respect a wilful and deliberate abasing of those who should be nearest and dearest to us.",1 No.,2 I can't respect that.,3 I can do nothing but denounce that.',1 "'I never offend you wilfully, Fanny,' said Little Dorrit, 'though you are so hard with me.'",1 "'Then you should be more careful, Amy,' returned her sister.",2 "'If you do such things by accident, you should be more careful.",2 "If I happened to have been born in a peculiar place, and under peculiar circumstances that blunted my knowledge of propriety, I fancy I should think myself bound to consider at every step, ""Am I going, ignorantly, to compromise any near and dear relations?""",2 "That is what I fancy _I_ should do, if it was _my_ case.'",3 "Mr Dorrit now interposed, at once to stop these painful subjects by his authority, and to point their moral by his wisdom.",2 "'My dear,' said he to his younger daughter, 'I beg you to--ha--to say no more.",1 "Your sister Fanny expresses herself strongly, but not without considerable reason.",2 You have now a--hum--a great position to support.,3 "That great position is not occupied by yourself alone, but by--ha--by me, and--ha hum--by us.",2 Us.,2 "Now, it is incumbent upon all people in an exalted position, but it is particularly so on this family, for reasons which I--ha--will not dwell upon, to make themselves respected.",3 To be vigilant in making themselves respected.,3 "Dependants, to respect us, must be--ha--kept at a distance and--hum--kept down.",2 Down.,2 "Therefore, your not exposing yourself to the remarks of our attendants by appearing to have at any time dispensed with their services and performed them for yourself, is--ha--highly important.'",3 "'Why, who can doubt it?'",1 cried Miss Fanny.,1 'It's the essence of everything.',2 "'Fanny,' returned her father, grandiloquently, 'give me leave, my dear.",2 We then come to--ha--to Mr Clennam.,2 "I am free to say that I do not, Amy, share your sister's sentiments--that is to say altogether--hum-- altogether--in reference to Mr Clennam.",2 I am content to regard that individual in the light of--ha--generally--a well-behaved person.,3 Hum.,1 A well-behaved person.,3 "Nor will I inquire whether Mr Clennam did, at any time, obtrude himself on--ha--my society.",2 "He knew my society to be--hum--sought, and his plea might be that he regarded me in the light of a public character.",1 "But there were circumstances attending my--ha--slight knowledge of Mr Clennam (it was very slight), which,' here Mr Dorrit became extremely grave and impressive, 'would render it highly indelicate in Mr Clennam to--ha--to seek to renew communication with me or with any member of my family under existing circumstances.",2 "If Mr Clennam has sufficient delicacy to perceive the impropriety of any such attempt, I am bound as a responsible gentleman to--ha--defer to that delicacy on his part.",3 "If, on the other hand, Mr Clennam has not that delicacy, I cannot for a moment--ha--hold any correspondence with so--hum--coarse a mind.",1 "In either case, it would appear that Mr Clennam is put altogether out of the question, and that we have nothing to do with him or he with us.",2 Ha--Mrs General!',2 "The entrance of the lady whom he announced, to take her place at the breakfast-table, terminated the discussion.",2 "Shortly afterwards, the courier announced that the valet, and the footman, and the two maids, and the four guides, and the fourteen mules, were in readiness; so the breakfast party went out to the convent door to join the cavalcade.",2 "Mr Gowan stood aloof with his cigar and pencil, but Mr Blandois was on the spot to pay his respects to the ladies.",1 "When he gallantly pulled off his slouched hat to Little Dorrit, she thought he had even a more sinister look, standing swart and cloaked in the snow, than he had in the fire-light over-night.",2 "But, as both her father and her sister received his homage with some favour, she refrained from expressing any distrust of him, lest it should prove to be a new blemish derived from her prison birth.",1 "Nevertheless, as they wound down the rugged way while the convent was yet in sight, she more than once looked round, and descried Mr Blandois, backed by the convent smoke which rose straight and high from the chimneys in a golden film, always standing on one jutting point looking down after them.",1 "Long after he was a mere black stick in the snow, she felt as though she could yet see that smile of his, that high nose, and those eyes that were too near it.",3 "And even after that, when the convent was gone and some light morning clouds veiled the pass below it, the ghastly skeleton arms by the wayside seemed to be all pointing up at him.",1 "More treacherous than snow, perhaps, colder at heart, and harder to melt, Blandois of Paris by degrees passed out of her mind, as they came down into the softer regions.",2 "Again the sun was warm, again the streams descending from glaciers and snowy caverns were refreshing to drink at, again they came among the pine-trees, the rocky rivulets, the verdant heights and dales, the wooden chalets and rough zigzag fences of Swiss country.",2 Sometimes the way so widened that she and her father could ride abreast.,2 "And then to look at him, handsomely clothed in his fur and broadcloths, rich, free, numerously served and attended, his eyes roving far away among the glories of the landscape, no miserable screen before them to darken his sight and cast its shadow on him, was enough.",3 "Her uncle was so far rescued from that shadow of old, that he wore the clothes they gave him, and performed some ablutions as a sacrifice to the family credit, and went where he was taken, with a certain patient animal enjoyment, which seemed to express that the air and change did him good.",4 "In all other respects, save one, he shone with no light but such as was reflected from his brother.",2 "His brother's greatness, wealth, freedom, and grandeur, pleased him without any reference to himself.",4 "Silent and retiring, he had no use for speech when he could hear his brother speak; no desire to be waited on, so that the servants devoted themselves to his brother.",3 "The only noticeable change he originated in himself, was an alteration in his manner to his younger niece.",2 "Every day it refined more and more into a marked respect, very rarely shown by age to youth, and still more rarely susceptible, one would have said, of the fitness with which he invested it.",3 "On those occasions when Miss Fanny did declare once for all, he would take the next opportunity of baring his grey head before his younger niece, and of helping her to alight, or handing her to the carriage, or showing her any other attention, with the profoundest deference.",3 "Yet it never appeared misplaced or forced, being always heartily simple, spontaneous, and genuine.",4 "Neither would he ever consent, even at his brother's request, to be helped to any place before her, or to take precedence of her in anything.",3 "So jealous was he of her being respected, that, on this very journey down from the Great Saint Bernard, he took sudden and violent umbrage at the footman's being remiss to hold her stirrup, though standing near when she dismounted; and unspeakably astonished the whole retinue by charging at him on a hard-headed mule, riding him into a corner, and threatening to trample him to death.",0 "They were a goodly company, and the Innkeepers all but worshipped them.",3 "Wherever they went, their importance preceded them in the person of the courier riding before, to see that the rooms of state were ready.",3 He was the herald of the family procession.,2 "The great travelling-carriage came next: containing, inside, Mr Dorrit, Miss Dorrit, Miss Amy Dorrit, and Mrs General; outside, some of the retainers, and (in fine weather) Edward Dorrit, Esquire, for whom the box was reserved.",3 "Then came the chariot containing Frederick Dorrit, Esquire, and an empty place occupied by Edward Dorrit, Esquire, in wet weather.",2 "Then came the fourgon with the rest of the retainers, the heavy baggage, and as much as it could carry of the mud and dust which the other vehicles left behind.",1 "These equipages adorned the yard of the hotel at Martigny, on the return of the family from their mountain excursion.",2 "Other vehicles were there, much company being on the road, from the patched Italian Vettura--like the body of a swing from an English fair put upon a wooden tray on wheels, and having another wooden tray without wheels put atop of it--to the trim English carriage.",3 But there was another adornment of the hotel which Mr Dorrit had not bargained for.,2 Two strange travellers embellished one of his rooms.,1 "The Innkeeper, hat in hand in the yard, swore to the courier that he was blighted, that he was desolated, that he was profoundly afflicted, that he was the most miserable and unfortunate of beasts, that he had the head of a wooden pig.",1 "He ought never to have made the concession, he said, but the very genteel lady had so passionately prayed him for the accommodation of that room to dine in, only for a little half-hour, that he had been vanquished.",2 "The little half-hour was expired, the lady and gentleman were taking their little dessert and half-cup of coffee, the note was paid, the horses were ordered, they would depart immediately; but, owing to an unhappy destiny and the curse of Heaven, they were not yet gone.",1 "Nothing could exceed Mr Dorrit's indignation, as he turned at the foot of the staircase on hearing these apologies.",2 He felt that the family dignity was struck at by an assassin's hand.,2 "He had a sense of his dignity, which was of the most exquisite nature.",3 He could detect a design upon it when nobody else had any perception of the fact.,2 His life was made an agony by the number of fine scalpels that he felt to be incessantly engaged in dissecting his dignity.,2 "'Is it possible, sir,' said Mr Dorrit, reddening excessively, 'that you have--ha--had the audacity to place one of my rooms at the disposition of any other person?'",1 Thousands of pardons!,2 It was the host's profound misfortune to have been overcome by that too genteel lady.,2 He besought Monseigneur not to enrage himself.,1 He threw himself on Monseigneur for clemency.,2 "If Monseigneur would have the distinguished goodness to occupy the other salon especially reserved for him, for but five minutes, all would go well.",4 "'No, sir,' said Mr Dorrit.",2 'I will not occupy any salon.,2 "I will leave your house without eating or drinking, or setting foot in it.",2 How do you dare to act like this?,3 Who am I that you--ha--separate me from other gentlemen?',2 Alas!,2 "The host called all the universe to witness that Monseigneur was the most amiable of the whole body of nobility, the most important, the most estimable, the most honoured.",3 "If he separated Monseigneur from others, it was only because he was more distinguished, more cherished, more generous, more renowned.",4 "'Don't tell me so, sir,' returned Mr Dorrit, in a mighty heat.",3 'You have affronted me.,2 You have heaped insults upon me.,1 How dare you?,2 Explain yourself.',2 "Ah, just Heaven, then, how could the host explain himself when he had nothing more to explain; when he had only to apologise, and confide himself to the so well-known magnanimity of Monseigneur!",3 "'I tell you, sir,' said Mr Dorrit, panting with anger, 'that you separate me--ha--from other gentlemen; that you make distinctions between me and other gentlemen of fortune and station.",2 "I demand of you, why?",2 "I wish to know on--ha--what authority, on whose authority.",2 Reply sir.,2 Explain.,2 Answer why.',2 "Permit the landlord humbly to submit to Monsieur the Courier then, that Monseigneur, ordinarily so gracious, enraged himself without cause.",2 There was no why.,2 "Monsieur the Courier would represent to Monseigneur, that he deceived himself in suspecting that there was any why, but the why his devoted servant had already had the honour to present to him.",2 The very genteel lady-- 'Silence!',2 cried Mr Dorrit.,2 'Hold your tongue!,2 I will hear no more of the very genteel lady; I will hear no more of you.,2 Look at this family--my family--a family more genteel than any lady.,2 You have treated this family with disrespect; you have been insolent to this family.,1 I'll ruin you.,1 "Ha--send for the horses, pack the carriages, I'll not set foot in this man's house again!'",2 "No one had interfered in the dispute, which was beyond the French colloquial powers of Edward Dorrit, Esquire, and scarcely within the province of the ladies.",1 "Miss Fanny, however, now supported her father with great bitterness; declaring, in her native tongue, that it was quite clear there was something special in this man's impertinence; and that she considered it important that he should be, by some means, forced to give up his authority for making distinctions between that family and other wealthy families.",4 "What the reasons of his presumption could be, she was at a loss to imagine; but reasons he must have, and they ought to be torn from him.",1 "All the guides, mule-drivers, and idlers in the yard, had made themselves parties to the angry conference, and were much impressed by the courier's now bestirring himself to get the carriages out.",2 "With the aid of some dozen people to each wheel, this was done at a great cost of noise; and then the loading was proceeded with, pending the arrival of the horses from the post-house.",2 "But the very genteel lady's English chariot being already horsed and at the inn-door, the landlord had slipped up-stairs to represent his hard case.",1 "This was notified to the yard by his now coming down the staircase in attendance on the gentleman and the lady, and by his pointing out the offended majesty of Mr Dorrit to them with a significant motion of his hand.",3 "'Beg your pardon,' said the gentleman, detaching himself from the lady, and coming forward.",3 'I am a man of few words and a bad hand at an explanation--but lady here is extremely anxious that there should be no Row.,1 "Lady--a mother of mine, in point of fact--wishes me to say that she hopes no Row.'",2 "Mr Dorrit, still panting under his injury, saluted the gentleman, and saluted the lady, in a distant, final, and invincible manner.",2 "'No, but really--here, old feller; you!'",2 "This was the gentleman's way of appealing to Edward Dorrit, Esquire, on whom he pounced as a great and providential relief.",4 'Let you and I try to make this all right.,3 Lady so very much wishes no Row.',2 "Edward Dorrit, Esquire, led a little apart by the button, assumed a diplomatic expression of countenance in replying, 'Why you must confess, that when you bespeak a lot of rooms beforehand, and they belong to you, it's not pleasant to find other people in 'em.'",3 "'No,' said the other, 'I know it isn't.",2 I admit it.,2 "Still, let you and I try to make it all right, and avoid Row.",3 "The fault is not this chap's at all, but my mother's.",1 "Being a remarkably fine woman with no bigodd nonsense about her--well educated, too--she was too many for this chap.",4 Regularly pocketed him.',2 "'If that's the case--' Edward Dorrit, Esquire, began.",2 'Assure you 'pon my soul 'tis the case.,2 "Consequently,' said the other gentleman, retiring on his main position, 'why Row?'",2 "'Edmund,' said the lady from the doorway, 'I hope you have explained, or are explaining, to the satisfaction of this gentleman and his family that the civil landlord is not to blame?'",1 "'Assure you, ma'am,' returned Edmund, 'perfectly paralysing myself with trying it on.'",2 "He then looked steadfastly at Edward Dorrit, Esquire, for some seconds, and suddenly added, in a burst of confidence, 'Old feller!",3 Is it all right?',3 "'I don't know, after all,' said the lady, gracefully advancing a step or two towards Mr Dorrit, 'but that I had better say myself, at once, that I assured this good man I took all the consequences on myself of occupying one of a stranger's suite of rooms during his absence, for just as much (or as little) time as I could dine in.",3 "I had no idea the rightful owner would come back so soon, nor had I any idea that he had come back, or I should have hastened to make restoration of my ill-gotten chamber, and to have offered my explanation and apology.",3 "I trust in saying this--' For a moment the lady, with a glass at her eye, stood transfixed and speechless before the two Miss Dorrits.",2 "At the same moment, Miss Fanny, in the foreground of a grand pictorial composition, formed by the family, the family equipages, and the family servants, held her sister tight under one arm to detain her on the spot, and with the other arm fanned herself with a distinguished air, and negligently surveyed the lady from head to foot.",3 "The lady, recovering herself quickly--for it was Mrs Merdle and she was not easily dashed--went on to add that she trusted in saying this, she apologised for her boldness, and restored this well-behaved landlord to the favour that was so very valuable to him.",4 "Mr Dorrit, on the altar of whose dignity all this was incense, made a gracious reply; and said that his people should--ha--countermand his horses, and he would--hum--overlook what he had at first supposed to be an affront, but now regarded as an honour.",1 "Upon this the bosom bent to him; and its owner, with a wonderful command of feature, addressed a winning smile of adieu to the two sisters, as young ladies of fortune in whose favour she was much prepossessed, and whom she had never had the gratification of seeing before.",4 "Not so, however, Mr Sparkler.",2 "This gentleman, becoming transfixed at the same moment as his lady-mother, could not by any means unfix himself again, but stood stiffly staring at the whole composition with Miss Fanny in the Foreground.",1 "On his mother saying, 'Edmund, we are quite ready; will you give me your arm?'",3 "he seemed, by the motion of his lips, to reply with some remark comprehending the form of words in which his shining talents found the most frequent utterance, but he relaxed no muscle.",3 "So fixed was his figure, that it would have been matter of some difficulty to bend him sufficiently to get him in the carriage-door, if he had not received the timely assistance of a maternal pull from within.",3 "He was no sooner within than the pad of the little window in the back of the chariot disappeared, and his eye usurped its place.",2 "There it remained as long as so small an object was discernible, and probably much longer, staring (as though something inexpressibly surprising should happen to a codfish) like an ill-executed eye in a large locket.",2 "This encounter was so highly agreeable to Miss Fanny, and gave her so much to think of with triumph afterwards, that it softened her asperities exceedingly.",3 "When the procession was again in motion next day, she occupied her place in it with a new gaiety; and showed such a flow of spirits indeed, that Mrs General looked rather surprised.",3 "Little Dorrit was glad to be found no fault with, and to see that Fanny was pleased; but her part in the procession was a musing part, and a quiet one.",3 "Sitting opposite her father in the travelling-carriage, and recalling the old Marshalsea room, her present existence was a dream.",2 "All that she saw was new and wonderful, but it was not real; it seemed to her as if those visions of mountains and picturesque countries might melt away at any moment, and the carriage, turning some abrupt corner, bring up with a jolt at the old Marshalsea gate.",2 "To have no work to do was strange, but not half so strange as having glided into a corner where she had no one to think for, nothing to plan and contrive, no cares of others to load herself with.",1 "Strange as that was, it was far stranger yet to find a space between herself and her father, where others occupied themselves in taking care of him, and where she was never expected to be.",1 "At first, this was so much more unlike her old experience than even the mountains themselves, that she had been unable to resign herself to it, and had tried to retain her old place about him.",1 "But he had spoken to her alone, and had said that people--ha--people in an exalted position, my dear, must scrupulously exact respect from their dependents; and that for her, his daughter, Miss Amy Dorrit, of the sole remaining branch of the Dorrits of Dorsetshire, to be known to--hum--to occupy herself in fulfilling the functions of--ha hum--a valet, would be incompatible with that respect.",1 "Therefore, my dear, he--ha--he laid his parental injunctions upon her, to remember that she was a lady, who had now to conduct herself with--hum--a proper pride, and to preserve the rank of a lady; and consequently he requested her to abstain from doing what would occasion--ha--unpleasant and derogatory remarks.",1 She had obeyed without a murmur.,2 "Thus it had been brought about that she now sat in her corner of the luxurious carriage with her little patient hands folded before her, quite displaced even from the last point of the old standing ground in life on which her feet had lingered.",3 "It was from this position that all she saw appeared unreal; the more surprising the scenes, the more they resembled the unreality of her own inner life as she went through its vacant places all day long.",3 "The gorges of the Simplon, its enormous depths and thundering waterfalls, the wonderful road, the points of danger where a loose wheel or a faltering horse would have been destruction, the descent into Italy, the opening of that beautiful land as the rugged mountain-chasm widened and let them out from a gloomy and dark imprisonment--all a dream--only the old mean Marshalsea a reality.",0 "Nay, even the old mean Marshalsea was shaken to its foundations when she pictured it without her father.",2 "She could scarcely believe that the prisoners were still lingering in the close yard, that the mean rooms were still every one tenanted, and that the turnkey still stood in the Lodge letting people in and out, all just as she well knew it to be.",2 "With a remembrance of her father's old life in prison hanging about her like the burden of a sorrowful tune, Little Dorrit would wake from a dream of her birth-place into a whole day's dream.",1 "The painted room in which she awoke, often a humbled state-chamber in a dilapidated palace, would begin it; with its wild red autumnal vine-leaves overhanging the glass, its orange-trees on the cracked white terrace outside the window, a group of monks and peasants in the little street below, misery and magnificence wrestling with each other upon every rood of ground in the prospect, no matter how widely diversified, and misery throwing magnificence with the strength of fate.",1 "To this would succeed a labyrinth of bare passages and pillared galleries, with the family procession already preparing in the quadrangle below, through the carriages and luggage being brought together by the servants for the day's journey.",3 "Then breakfast in another painted chamber, damp-stained and of desolate proportions; and then the departure, which, to her timidity and sense of not being grand enough for her place in the ceremonies, was always an uneasy thing.",1 "For then the courier (who himself would have been a foreign gentleman of high mark in the Marshalsea) would present himself to report that all was ready; and then her father's valet would pompously induct him into his travelling-cloak; and then Fanny's maid, and her own maid (who was a weight on Little Dorrit's mind--absolutely made her cry at first, she knew so little what to do with her), would be in attendance; and then her brother's man would complete his master's equipment; and then her father would give his arm to Mrs General, and her uncle would give his to her, and, escorted by the landlord and Inn servants, they would swoop down-stairs.",2 "There, a crowd would be collected to see them enter their carriages, which, amidst much bowing, and begging, and prancing, and lashing, and clattering, they would do; and so they would be driven madly through narrow unsavoury streets, and jerked out at the town gate.",1 "Among the day's unrealities would be roads where the bright red vines were looped and garlanded together on trees for many miles; woods of olives; white villages and towns on hill-sides, lovely without, but frightful in their dirt and poverty within; crosses by the way; deep blue lakes with fairy islands, and clustering boats with awnings of bright colours and sails of beautiful forms; vast piles of building mouldering to dust; hanging-gardens where the weeds had grown so strong that their stems, like wedges driven home, had split the arch and rent the wall; stone-terraced lanes, with the lizards running into and out of every chink; beggars of all sorts everywhere: pitiful, picturesque, hungry, merry; children beggars and aged beggars.",3 "Often at posting-houses and other halting places, these miserable creatures would appear to her the only realities of the day; and many a time, when the money she had brought to give them was all given away, she would sit with her folded hands, thoughtfully looking after some diminutive girl leading her grey father, as if the sight reminded her of something in the days that were gone.",3 "Again, there would be places where they stayed the week together in splendid rooms, had banquets every day, rode out among heaps of wonders, walked through miles of palaces, and rested in dark corners of great churches; where there were winking lamps of gold and silver among pillars and arches, kneeling figures dotted about at confessionals and on the pavements; where there was the mist and scent of incense; where there were pictures, fantastic images, gaudy altars, great heights and distances, all softly lighted through stained glass, and the massive curtains that hung in the doorways.",2 "From these cities they would go on again, by the roads of vines and olives, through squalid villages, where there was not a hovel without a gap in its filthy walls, not a window with a whole inch of glass or paper; where there seemed to be nothing to support life, nothing to eat, nothing to make, nothing to grow, nothing to hope, nothing to do but die.",1 "Again they would come to whole towns of palaces, whose proper inmates were all banished, and which were all changed into barracks: troops of idle soldiers leaning out of the state windows, where their accoutrements hung drying on the marble architecture, and showing to the mind like hosts of rats who were (happily) eating away the props of the edifices that supported them, and must soon, with them, be smashed on the heads of the other swarms of soldiers and the swarms of priests, and the swarms of spies, who were all the ill-looking population left to be ruined, in the streets below.",3 "Through such scenes, the family procession moved on to Venice.",2 "And here it dispersed for a time, as they were to live in Venice some few months in a palace (itself six times as big as the whole Marshalsea) on the Grand Canal.",3 "In this crowning unreality, where all the streets were paved with water, and where the deathlike stillness of the days and nights was broken by no sound but the softened ringing of church-bells, the rippling of the current, and the cry of the gondoliers turning the corners of the flowing streets, Little Dorrit, quite lost by her task being done, sat down to muse.",0 "The family began a gay life, went here and there, and turned night into day; but she was timid of joining in their gaieties, and only asked leave to be left alone.",1 "Sometimes she would step into one of the gondolas that were always kept in waiting, moored to painted posts at the door--when she could escape from the attendance of that oppressive maid, who was her mistress, and a very hard one--and would be taken all over the strange city.",0 "Social people in other gondolas began to ask each other who the little solitary girl was whom they passed, sitting in her boat with folded hands, looking so pensively and wonderingly about her.",2 "Never thinking that it would be worth anybody's while to notice her or her doings, Little Dorrit, in her quiet, scared, lost manner, went about the city none the less.",2 "But her favourite station was the balcony of her own room, overhanging the canal, with other balconies below, and none above.",2 "It was of massive stone darkened by ages, built in a wild fancy which came from the East to that collection of wild fancies; and Little Dorrit was little indeed, leaning on the broad-cushioned ledge, and looking over.",1 "As she liked no place of an evening half so well, she soon began to be watched for, and many eyes in passing gondolas were raised, and many people said, There was the little figure of the English girl who was always alone.",3 Such people were not realities to the little figure of the English girl; such people were all unknown to her.,1 "She would watch the sunset, in its long low lines of purple and red, and its burning flush high up into the sky: so glowing on the buildings, and so lightening their structure, that it made them look as if their strong walls were transparent, and they shone from within.",3 "She would watch those glories expire; and then, after looking at the black gondolas underneath, taking guests to music and dancing, would raise her eyes to the shining stars.",1 "Was there no party of her own, in other times, on which the stars had shone?",2 To think of that old gate now!,2 "She would think of that old gate, and of herself sitting at it in the dead of the night, pillowing Maggy's head; and of other places and of other scenes associated with those different times.",1 "And then she would lean upon her balcony, and look over at the water, as though they all lay underneath it.",3 "When she got to that, she would musingly watch its running, as if, in the general vision, it might run dry, and show her the prison again, and herself, and the old room, and the old inmates, and the old visitors: all lasting realities that had never changed.",1 "Dear Mr Clennam, I write to you from my own room at Venice, thinking you will be glad to hear from me.",3 "But I know you cannot be so glad to hear from me as I am to write to you; for everything about you is as you have been accustomed to see it, and you miss nothing--unless it should be me, which can only be for a very little while together and very seldom--while everything in my life is so strange, and I miss so much.",1 "When we were in Switzerland, which appears to have been years ago, though it was only weeks, I met young Mrs Gowan, who was on a mountain excursion like ourselves.",3 She told me she was very well and very happy.,3 "She sent you the message, by me, that she thanked you affectionately and would never forget you.",2 "She was quite confiding with me, and I loved her almost as soon as I spoke to her.",3 But there is nothing singular in that; who could help loving so beautiful and winning a creature!,4 I could not wonder at any one loving her.,3 No indeed.,2 "It will not make you uneasy on Mrs Gowan's account, I hope--for I remember that you said you had the interest of a true friend in her--if I tell you that I wish she could have married some one better suited to her.",2 "Mr Gowan seems fond of her, and of course she is very fond of him, but I thought he was not earnest enough--I don't mean in that respect--I mean in anything.",4 "I could not keep it out of my mind that if I was Mrs Gowan (what a change that would be, and how I must alter to become like her!) I should feel that I was rather lonely and lost, for the want of some one who was steadfast and firm in purpose.",2 "I even thought she felt this want a little, almost without knowing it.",2 "But mind you are not made uneasy by this, for she was 'very well and very happy.'",3 And she looked most beautiful.,3 "I expect to meet her again before long, and indeed have been expecting for some days past to see her here.",2 I will ever be as good a friend to her as I can for your sake.,3 "Dear Mr Clennam, I dare say you think little of having been a friend to me when I had no other (not that I have any other now, for I have made no new friends), but I think much of it, and I never can forget it.",2 "I wish I knew--but it is best for no one to write to me--how Mr and Mrs Plornish prosper in the business which my dear father bought for them, and that old Mr Nandy lives happily with them and his two grandchildren, and sings all his songs over and over again.",4 "I cannot quite keep back the tears from my eyes when I think of my poor Maggy, and of the blank she must have felt at first, however kind they all are to her, without her Little Mother.",1 "Will you go and tell her, as a strict secret, with my love, that she never can have regretted our separation more than I have regretted it?",1 "And will you tell them all that I have thought of them every day, and that my heart is faithful to them everywhere?",3 "O, if you could know how faithful, you would almost pity me for being so far away and being so grand!",3 "You will be glad, I am sure, to know that my dear father is very well in health, and that all these changes are highly beneficial to him, and that he is very different indeed from what he used to be when you used to see him.",4 "There is an improvement in my uncle too, I think, though he never complained of old, and never exults now.",2 "Fanny is very graceful, quick, and clever.",3 It is natural to her to be a lady; she has adapted herself to our new fortunes with wonderful ease.,3 "This reminds me that I have not been able to do so, and that I sometimes almost despair of ever being able to do so.",1 I find that I cannot learn.,2 "Mrs General is always with us, and we speak French and speak Italian, and she takes pains to form us in many ways.",1 "When I say we speak French and Italian, I mean they do.",2 "As for me, I am so slow that I scarcely get on at all.",1 "As soon as I begin to plan, and think, and try, all my planning, thinking, and trying go in old directions, and I begin to feel careful again about the expenses of the day, and about my dear father, and about my work, and then I remember with a start that there are no such cares left, and that in itself is so new and improbable that it sets me wandering again.",2 I should not have the courage to mention this to any one but you.,3 It is the same with all these new countries and wonderful sights.,3 "They are very beautiful, and they astonish me, but I am not collected enough--not familiar enough with myself, if you can quite understand what I mean--to have all the pleasure in them that I might have.",4 "What I knew before them, blends with them, too, so curiously.",2 "For instance, when we were among the mountains, I often felt (I hesitate to tell such an idle thing, dear Mr Clennam, even to you) as if the Marshalsea must be behind that great rock; or as if Mrs Clennam's room where I have worked so many days, and where I first saw you, must be just beyond that snow.",3 Do you remember one night when I came with Maggy to your lodging in Covent Garden?,2 "That room I have often and often fancied I have seen before me, travelling along for miles by the side of our carriage, when I have looked out of the carriage-window after dark.",1 "We were shut out that night, and sat at the iron gate, and walked about till morning.",2 "I often look up at the stars, even from the balcony of this room, and believe that I am in the street again, shut out with Maggy.",2 It is the same with people that I left in England.,2 "When I go about here in a gondola, I surprise myself looking into other gondolas as if I hoped to see them.",2 "It would overcome me with joy to see them, but I don't think it would surprise me much, at first.",3 "In my fanciful times, I fancy that they might be anywhere; and I almost expect to see their dear faces on the bridges or the quays.",2 Another difficulty that I have will seem very strange to you.,1 "It must seem very strange to any one but me, and does even to me: I often feel the old sad pity for--I need not write the word--for him.",0 "Changed as he is, and inexpressibly blest and thankful as I always am to know it, the old sorrowful feeling of compassion comes upon me sometimes with such strength that I want to put my arms round his neck, tell him how I love him, and cry a little on his breast.",3 "I should be glad after that, and proud and happy.",4 "But I know that I must not do this; that he would not like it, that Fanny would be angry, that Mrs General would be amazed; and so I quiet myself.",3 "Yet in doing so, I struggle with the feeling that I have come to be at a distance from him; and that even in the midst of all the servants and attendants, he is deserted, and in want of me.",1 "Dear Mr Clennam, I have written a great deal about myself, but I must write a little more still, or what I wanted most of all to say in this weak letter would be left out of it.",2 "In all these foolish thoughts of mine, which I have been so hardy as to confess to you because I know you will understand me if anybody can, and will make more allowance for me than anybody else would if you cannot--in all these thoughts, there is one thought scarcely ever--never--out of my memory, and that is that I hope you sometimes, in a quiet moment, have a thought for me.",1 "I must tell you that as to this, I have felt, ever since I have been away, an anxiety which I am very anxious to relieve.",1 "I have been afraid that you may think of me in a new light, or a new character.",1 "Don't do that, I could not bear that--it would make me more unhappy than you can suppose.",1 It would break my heart to believe that you thought of me in any way that would make me stranger to you than I was when you were so good to me.,1 "What I have to pray and entreat of you is, that you will never think of me as the daughter of a rich person; that you will never think of me as dressing any better, or living any better, than when you first knew me.",3 "That you will remember me only as the little shabby girl you protected with so much tenderness, from whose threadbare dress you have kept away the rain, and whose wet feet you have dried at your fire.",1 "That you will think of me (when you think of me at all), and of my true affection and devoted gratitude, always without change, as of Your poor child, LITTLE DORRIT. P.S.--Particularly remember that you are not to be uneasy about Mrs Gowan.",2 "Her words were, 'Very well and very happy.'",3 And she looked most beautiful.,3 "The family had been a month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who was much among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set an hour of one day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding some conference with Mrs General.",1 "The time he had reserved in his mind arriving, he sent Mr Tinkler, his valet, to Mrs General's apartment (which would have absorbed about a third of the area of the Marshalsea), to present his compliments to that lady, and represent him as desiring the favour of an interview.",3 "It being that period of the forenoon when the various members of the family had coffee in their own chambers, some couple of hours before assembling at breakfast in a faded hall which had once been sumptuous, but was now the prey of watery vapours and a settled melancholy, Mrs General was accessible to the valet.",3 "That envoy found her on a little square of carpet, so extremely diminutive in reference to the size of her stone and marble floor that she looked as if she might have had it spread for the trying on of a ready-made pair of shoes; or as if she had come into possession of the enchanted piece of carpet, bought for forty purses by one of the three princes in the Arabian Nights, and had that moment been transported on it, at a wish, into a palatial saloon with which it had no connection.",4 "Mrs General, replying to the envoy, as she set down her empty coffee-cup, that she was willing at once to proceed to Mr Dorrit's apartment, and spare him the trouble of coming to her (which, in his gallantry, he had proposed), the envoy threw open the door, and escorted Mrs General to the presence.",2 "It was quite a walk, by mysterious staircases and corridors, from Mrs General's apartment,--hoodwinked by a narrow side street with a low gloomy bridge in it, and dungeon-like opposite tenements, their walls besmeared with a thousand downward stains and streaks, as if every crazy aperture in them had been weeping tears of rust into the Adriatic for centuries--to Mr Dorrit's apartment: with a whole English house-front of window, a prospect of beautiful church-domes rising into the blue sky sheer out of the water which reflected them, and a hushed murmur of the Grand Canal laving the doorways below, where his gondolas and gondoliers attended his pleasure, drowsily swinging in a little forest of piles.",1 "Mr Dorrit, in a resplendent dressing-gown and cap--the dormant grub that had so long bided its time among the Collegians had burst into a rare butterfly--rose to receive Mrs General.",3 A chair to Mrs General.,2 "An easier chair, sir; what are you doing, what are you about, what do you mean?",3 "Now, leave us!",2 "'Mrs General,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I took the liberty--' 'By no means,' Mrs General interposed.",3 'I was quite at your disposition.,2 I had had my coffee.',2 "'--I took the liberty,' said Mr Dorrit again, with the magnificent placidity of one who was above correction, 'to solicit the favour of a little private conversation with you, because I feel rather worried respecting my--ha--my younger daughter.",3 "You will have observed a great difference of temperament, madam, between my two daughters?'",3 "Said Mrs General in response, crossing her gloved hands (she was never without gloves, and they never creased and always fitted), 'There is a great difference.'",3 'May I ask to be favoured with your view of it?',2 "said Mr Dorrit, with a deference not incompatible with majestic serenity.",3 "'Fanny,' returned Mrs General, 'has force of character and self-reliance.",2 "Amy, none.'",2 None?,2 "O Mrs General, ask the Marshalsea stones and bars.",2 "O Mrs General, ask the milliner who taught her to work, and the dancing-master who taught her sister to dance.",3 "O Mrs General, Mrs General, ask me, her father, what I owe her; and hear my testimony touching the life of this slighted little creature from her childhood up!",2 No such adjuration entered Mr. Dorrit's head.,2 "He looked at Mrs General, seated in her usual erect attitude on her coach-box behind the proprieties, and he said in a thoughtful manner, 'True, madam.'",3 "'I would not,' said Mrs General, 'be understood to say, observe, that there is nothing to improve in Fanny.",3 "But there is material there--perhaps, indeed, a little too much.'",2 "'Will you be kind enough, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'to be--ha--more explicit?",3 I do not quite understand my elder daughter's having--hum--too much material.,1 What material?',2 "'Fanny,' returned Mrs General, 'at present forms too many opinions.",2 "Perfect breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative.'",3 "Lest he himself should be found deficient in perfect breeding, Mr Dorrit hastened to reply, 'Unquestionably, madam, you are right.'",3 "Mrs General returned, in her emotionless and expressionless manner, 'I believe so.'",2 "'But you are aware, my dear madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'that my daughters had the misfortune to lose their lamented mother when they were very young; and that, in consequence of my not having been until lately the recognised heir to my property, they have lived with me as a comparatively poor, though always proud, gentleman, in--ha hum--retirement!'",0 "'I do not,' said Mrs General, 'lose sight of the circumstance.'",2 "'Madam,' pursued Mr Dorrit, 'of my daughter Fanny, under her present guidance and with such an example constantly before her--' (Mrs General shut her eyes.) --'I have no misgivings.",2 There is adaptability of character in Fanny.,2 "But my younger daughter, Mrs General, rather worries and vexes my thoughts.",1 I must inform you that she has always been my favourite.',2 "'There is no accounting,' said Mrs General, 'for these partialities.'",2 "'Ha--no,' assented Mr Dorrit.",2 'No.,2 "Now, madam, I am troubled by noticing that Amy is not, so to speak, one of ourselves.",1 She does not care to go about with us; she is lost in the society we have here; our tastes are evidently not her tastes.,1 "Which,' said Mr Dorrit, summing up with judicial gravity, 'is to say, in other words, that there is something wrong in--ha--Amy.'",1 "'May we incline to the supposition,' said Mrs General, with a little touch of varnish, 'that something is referable to the novelty of the position?'",3 "'Excuse me, madam,' observed Mr Dorrit, rather quickly.",2 "'The daughter of a gentleman, though--ha--himself at one time comparatively far from affluent--comparatively--and herself reared in--hum--retirement, need not of necessity find this position so very novel.'",2 "'True,' said Mrs General, 'true.'",2 "'Therefore, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I took the liberty' (he laid an emphasis on the phrase and repeated it, as though he stipulated, with urbane firmness, that he must not be contradicted again), 'I took the liberty of requesting this interview, in order that I might mention the topic to you, and inquire how you would advise me?'",3 "'Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, 'I have conversed with Amy several times since we have been residing here, on the general subject of the formation of a demeanour.",2 She has expressed herself to me as wondering exceedingly at Venice.,3 I have mentioned to her that it is better not to wonder.,3 "I have pointed out to her that the celebrated Mr Eustace, the classical tourist, did not think much of it; and that he compared the Rialto, greatly to its disadvantage, with Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges.",2 "I need not add, after what you have said, that I have not yet found my arguments successful.",3 You do me the honour to ask me what to advise.,2 "It always appears to me (if this should prove to be a baseless assumption, I shall be pardoned), that Mr Dorrit has been accustomed to exercise influence over the minds of others.'",1 "'Hum--madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I have been at the head of--ha of a considerable community.",2 You are right in supposing that I am not unaccustomed to--an influential position.',3 "'I am happy,' returned Mrs General, 'to be so corroborated.",3 "I would therefore the more confidently recommend that Mr Dorrit should speak to Amy himself, and make his observations and wishes known to her.",3 "Being his favourite, besides, and no doubt attached to him, she is all the more likely to yield to his influence.'",1 "'I had anticipated your suggestion, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'but--ha--was not sure that I might--hum--not encroach on--' 'On my province, Mr Dorrit?'",1 "said Mrs General, graciously.",3 'Do not mention it.',2 "'Then, with your leave, madam,' resumed Mr Dorrit, ringing his little bell to summon his valet, 'I will send for her at once.'",2 'Does Mr Dorrit wish me to remain?',2 "'Perhaps, if you have no other engagement, you would not object for a minute or two--' 'Not at all.'",1 "So, Tinkler the valet was instructed to find Miss Amy's maid, and to request that subordinate to inform Miss Amy that Mr Dorrit wished to see her in his own room.",1 "In delivering this charge to Tinkler, Mr Dorrit looked severely at him, and also kept a jealous eye upon him until he went out at the door, mistrusting that he might have something in his mind prejudicial to the family dignity; that he might have even got wind of some Collegiate joke before he came into the service, and might be derisively reviving its remembrance at the present moment.",0 "If Tinkler had happened to smile, however faintly and innocently, nothing would have persuaded Mr Dorrit, to the hour of his death, but that this was the case.",2 "As Tinkler happened, however, very fortunately for himself, to be of a serious and composed countenance, he escaped the secret danger that threatened him.",2 "And as on his return--when Mr Dorrit eyed him again--he announced Miss Amy as if she had come to a funeral, he left a vague impression on Mr Dorrit's mind that he was a well-conducted young fellow, who had been brought up in the study of his Catechism by a widowed mother.",1 "'Amy,' said Mr Dorrit, 'you have just now been the subject of some conversation between myself and Mrs General.",2 We agree that you scarcely seem at home here.,1 Ha--how is this?',2 A pause.,2 "'I think, father, I require a little time.'",2 "'Papa is a preferable mode of address,' observed Mrs General.",3 "'Father is rather vulgar, my dear.",1 "The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips.",3 "Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very good words for the lips: especially prunes and prism.",3 "You will find it serviceable, in the formation of a demeanour, if you sometimes say to yourself in company--on entering a room, for instance--Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, prunes and prism.'",2 "'Pray, my child,' said Mr Dorrit, 'attend to the--hum--precepts of Mrs General.'",1 "Poor Little Dorrit, with a rather forlorn glance at that eminent varnisher, promised to try.",2 "'You say, Amy,' pursued Mr Dorrit, 'that you think you require time.",2 Time for what?',2 Another pause.,2 "'To become accustomed to the novelty of my life, was all I meant,' said Little Dorrit, with her loving eyes upon her father; whom she had very nearly addressed as poultry, if not prunes and prism too, in her desire to submit herself to Mrs General and please him.",3 "Mr Dorrit frowned, and looked anything but pleased.",3 "'Amy,' he returned, 'it appears to me, I must say, that you have had abundance of time for that.",3 Ha--you surprise me.,2 You disappoint me.,1 "Fanny has conquered any such little difficulties, and--hum--why not you?'",1 "'I hope I shall do better soon,' said Little Dorrit.",3 "'I hope so,' returned her father.",2 "'I--ha--I most devoutly hope so, Amy.",2 "I sent for you, in order that I might say--hum--impressively say, in the presence of Mrs General, to whom we are all so much indebted for obligingly being present among us, on--ha--on this or any other occasion,' Mrs General shut her eyes, 'that I--ha hum--am not pleased with you.",3 You make Mrs General's a thankless task.,1 You--ha--embarrass me very much.,1 "You have always (as I have informed Mrs General) been my favourite child; I have always made you a--hum--a friend and companion; in return, I beg--I--ha--I _do_ beg, that you accommodate yourself better to--hum--circumstances, and dutifully do what becomes your--your station.'",1 "Mr Dorrit was even a little more fragmentary than usual, being excited on the subject and anxious to make himself particularly emphatic.",1 "'I do beg,' he repeated, 'that this may be attended to, and that you will seriously take pains and try to conduct yourself in a manner both becoming your position as--ha--Miss Amy Dorrit, and satisfactory to myself and Mrs General.'",1 "That lady shut her eyes again, on being again referred to; then, slowly opening them and rising, added these words: 'If Miss Amy Dorrit will direct her own attention to, and will accept of my poor assistance in, the formation of a surface, Mr. Dorrit will have no further cause of anxiety.",0 "May I take this opportunity of remarking, as an instance in point, that it is scarcely delicate to look at vagrants with the attention which I have seen bestowed upon them by a very dear young friend of mine?",2 They should not be looked at.,2 Nothing disagreeable should ever be looked at.,1 "Apart from such a habit standing in the way of that graceful equanimity of surface which is so expressive of good breeding, it hardly seems compatible with refinement of mind.",4 "A truly refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of anything that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.'",4 "Having delivered this exalted sentiment, Mrs General made a sweeping obeisance, and retired with an expression of mouth indicative of Prunes and Prism.",3 "Little Dorrit, whether speaking or silent, had preserved her quiet earnestness and her loving look.",4 "It had not been clouded, except for a passing moment, until now.",2 "But now that she was left alone with him the fingers of her lightly folded hands were agitated, and there was repressed emotion in her face.",2 Not for herself.,2 "She might feel a little wounded, but her care was not for herself.",2 "Her thoughts still turned, as they always had turned, to him.",2 "A faint misgiving, which had hung about her since their accession to fortune, that even now she could never see him as he used to be before the prison days, had gradually begun to assume form in her mind.",0 "She felt that, in what he had just now said to her and in his whole bearing towards her, there was the well-known shadow of the Marshalsea wall.",3 "It took a new shape, but it was the old sad shadow.",1 She began with sorrowful unwillingness to acknowledge to herself that she was not strong enough to keep off the fear that no space in the life of man could overcome that quarter of a century behind the prison bars.,1 "She had no blame to bestow upon him, therefore: nothing to reproach him with, no emotions in her faithful heart but great compassion and unbounded tenderness.",2 "This is why it was, that, even as he sat before her on his sofa, in the brilliant light of a bright Italian day, the wonderful city without and the splendours of an old palace within, she saw him at the moment in the long-familiar gloom of his Marshalsea lodging, and wished to take her seat beside him, and comfort him, and be again full of confidence with him, and of usefulness to him.",4 "If he divined what was in her thoughts, his own were not in tune with it.",2 "After some uneasy moving in his seat, he got up and walked about, looking very much dissatisfied.",1 "'Is there anything else you wish to say to me, dear father?'",2 "'No, no.",2 Nothing else.',2 "'I am sorry you have not been pleased with me, dear.",2 I hope you will not think of me with displeasure now.,1 "I am going to try, more than ever, to adapt myself as you wish to what surrounds me--for indeed I have tried all along, though I have failed, I know.'",1 "'Amy,' he returned, turning short upon her.",2 'You--ha--habitually hurt me.',1 "'Hurt you, father!",2 I!',2 "'There is a--hum--a topic,' said Mr Dorrit, looking all about the ceiling of the room, and never at the attentive, uncomplainingly shocked face, 'a painful topic, a series of events which I wish--ha--altogether to obliterate.",0 "This is understood by your sister, who has already remonstrated with you in my presence; it is understood by your brother; it is understood by--ha hum--by every one of delicacy and sensitiveness except yourself--ha--I am sorry to say, except yourself.",1 "You, Amy--hum--you alone and only you--constantly revive the topic, though not in words.'",2 She laid her hand on his arm.,2 She did nothing more.,2 She gently touched him.,2 "The trembling hand may have said, with some expression, 'Think of me, think how I have worked, think of my many cares!'",3 But she said not a syllable herself.,2 "There was a reproach in the touch so addressed to him that she had not foreseen, or she would have withheld her hand.",1 "He began to justify himself in a heated, stumbling, angry manner, which made nothing of it.",1 'I was there all those years.,2 I was--ha--universally acknowledged as the head of the place.,2 "I--hum--I caused you to be respected there, Amy.",1 I--ha hum--I gave my family a position there.,1 I deserve a return.,2 I claim a return.,2 "I say, sweep it off the face of the earth and begin afresh.",2 Is that much?,2 "I ask, is _that_ much?'",2 "He did not once look at her, as he rambled on in this way; but gesticulated at, and appealed to, the empty air.",2 'I have suffered.,1 Probably I know how much I have suffered better than any one--ha--I say than any one!,2 "If I can put that aside, if I can eradicate the marks of what I have endured, and can emerge before the world--a--ha--gentleman unspoiled, unspotted--is it a great deal to expect--I say again, is it a great deal to expect--that my children should--hum--do the same and sweep that accursed experience off the face of the earth?'",1 "In spite of his flustered state, he made all these exclamations in a carefully suppressed voice, lest the valet should overhear anything.",1 "'Accordingly, they do it.",2 Your sister does it.,2 Your brother does it.,2 "You alone, my favourite child, whom I made the friend and companion of my life when you were a mere--hum--Baby, do not do it.",1 You alone say you can't do it.,2 I provide you with valuable assistance to do it.,3 "I attach an accomplished and highly bred lady--ha--Mrs General, to you, for the purpose of doing it.",3 Is it surprising that I should be displeased?,1 Is it necessary that I should defend myself for expressing my displeasure?,1 No!',2 "Notwithstanding which, he continued to defend himself, without any abatement of his flushed mood.",2 "'I am careful to appeal to that lady for confirmation, before I express any displeasure at all.",2 "I--hum--I necessarily make that appeal within limited bounds, or I--ha--should render legible, by that lady, what I desire to be blotted out.",1 Am I selfish?,1 Do I complain for my own sake?,1 No.,2 No.,2 "Principally for--ha hum--your sake, Amy.'",1 "This last consideration plainly appeared, from his manner of pursuing it, to have just that instant come into his head.",2 'I said I was hurt.,1 So I am.,2 "So I--ha--am determined to be, whatever is advanced to the contrary.",3 "I am hurt that my daughter, seated in the--hum--lap of fortune, should mope and retire and proclaim herself unequal to her destiny.",1 I am hurt that she should--ha--systematically reproduce what the rest of us blot out; and seem--hum--I had almost said positively anxious--to announce to wealthy and distinguished society that she was born and bred in--ha hum--a place that I myself decline to name.,1 "But there is no inconsistency--ha--not the least, in my feeling hurt, and yet complaining principally for your sake, Amy.",0 "I do; I say again, I do.",2 "It is for your sake that I wish you, under the auspices of Mrs General, to form a--hum--a surface.",1 "It is for your sake that I wish you to have a--ha--truly refined mind, and (in the striking words of Mrs General) to be ignorant of everything that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.'",4 "He had been running down by jerks, during his last speech, like a sort of ill-adjusted alarum.",3 The touch was still upon his arm.,2 "He fell silent; and after looking about the ceiling again for a little while, looked down at her.",2 "Her head drooped, and he could not see her face; but her touch was tender and quiet, and in the expression of her dejected figure there was no blame--nothing but love.",3 "He began to whimper, just as he had done that night in the prison when she afterwards sat at his bedside till morning; exclaimed that he was a poor ruin and a poor wretch in the midst of his wealth; and clasped her in his arms.",0 "'Hush, hush, my own dear!",2 Kiss me!',2 was all she said to him.,2 "His tears were soon dried, much sooner than on the former occasion; and he was presently afterwards very high with his valet, as a way of righting himself for having shed any.",2 "With one remarkable exception, to be recorded in its place, this was the only time, in his life of freedom and fortune, when he spoke to his daughter Amy of the old days.",4 "But, now, the breakfast hour arrived; and with it Miss Fanny from her apartment, and Mr Edward from his apartment.",1 Both these young persons of distinction were something the worse for late hours.,2 "As to Miss Fanny, she had become the victim of an insatiate mania for what she called 'going into society;' and would have gone into it head-foremost fifty times between sunset and sunrise, if so many opportunities had been at her disposal.",1 "As to Mr Edward, he, too, had a large acquaintance, and was generally engaged (for the most part, in diceing circles, or others of a kindred nature), during the greater part of every night.",2 "For this gentleman, when his fortunes changed, had stood at the great advantage of being already prepared for the highest associates, and having little to learn: so much was he indebted to the happy accidents which had made him acquainted with horse-dealing and billiard-marking.",4 "At breakfast, Mr Frederick Dorrit likewise appeared.",2 "As the old gentleman inhabited the highest story of the palace, where he might have practised pistol-shooting without much chance of discovery by the other inmates, his younger niece had taken courage to propose the restoration to him of his clarionet, which Mr Dorrit had ordered to be confiscated, but which she had ventured to preserve.",3 "Notwithstanding some objections from Miss Fanny, that it was a low instrument, and that she detested the sound of it, the concession had been made.",0 "But it was then discovered that he had had enough of it, and never played it, now that it was no longer his means of getting bread.",3 "He had insensibly acquired a new habit of shuffling into the picture-galleries, always with his twisted paper of snuff in his hand (much to the indignation of Miss Fanny, who had proposed the purchase of a gold box for him that the family might not be discredited, which he had absolutely refused to carry when it was bought); and of passing hours and hours before the portraits of renowned Venetians.",1 "It was never made out what his dazed eyes saw in them; whether he had an interest in them merely as pictures, or whether he confusedly identified them with a glory that was departed, like the strength of his own mind.",3 "But he paid his court to them with great exactness, and clearly derived pleasure from the pursuit.",4 "After the first few days, Little Dorrit happened one morning to assist at these attentions.",2 "It so evidently heightened his gratification that she often accompanied him afterwards, and the greatest delight of which the old man had shown himself susceptible since his ruin, arose out of these excursions, when he would carry a chair about for her from picture to picture, and stand behind it, in spite of all her remonstrances, silently presenting her to the noble Venetians.",3 "It fell out that, at this family breakfast, he referred to their having seen in a gallery, on the previous day, the lady and gentleman whom they had encountered on the Great Saint Bernard, 'I forget the name,' said he.",3 "'I dare say you remember them, William?",2 "I dare say you do, Edward?'",2 "'_I_ remember 'em well enough,' said the latter.",3 "'I should think so,' observed Miss Fanny, with a toss of her head and a glance at her sister.",1 "'But they would not have been recalled to our remembrance, I suspect, if Uncle hadn't tumbled over the subject.'",1 "'My dear, what a curious phrase,' said Mrs General.",2 "'Would not inadvertently lighted upon, or accidentally referred to, be better?'",3 "'Thank you very much, Mrs General,' returned the young lady, 'no, I think not.",2 On the whole I prefer my own expression.',3 This was always Miss Fanny's way of receiving a suggestion from Mrs General.,1 "But she always stored it up in her mind, and adopted it at another time.",2 "'I should have mentioned our having met Mr and Mrs Gowan, Fanny,' said Little Dorrit, 'even if Uncle had not.",2 "I have scarcely seen you since, you know.",1 "I meant to have spoken of it at breakfast; because I should like to pay a visit to Mrs Gowan, and to become better acquainted with her, if Papa and Mrs General do not object.'",3 "'Well, Amy,' said Fanny, 'I am sure I am glad to find you at last expressing a wish to become better acquainted with anybody in Venice.",3 "Though whether Mr and Mrs Gowan are desirable acquaintances, remains to be determined.'",3 "'Mrs Gowan I spoke of, dear.'",2 "'No doubt,' said Fanny.",1 "'But you can't separate her from her husband, I believe, without an Act of Parliament.'",2 "'Do you think, Papa,' inquired Little Dorrit, with diffidence and hesitation, 'there is any objection to my making this visit?'",1 "'Really,' he replied, 'I--ha--what is Mrs General's view?'",2 "Mrs General's view was, that not having the honour of any acquaintance with the lady and gentleman referred to, she was not in a position to varnish the present article.",2 "She could only remark, as a general principle observed in the varnishing trade, that much depended on the quarter from which the lady under consideration was accredited to a family so conspicuously niched in the social temple as the family of Dorrit.",1 At this remark the face of Mr Dorrit gloomed considerably.,2 "He was about (connecting the accrediting with an obtrusive person of the name of Clennam, whom he imperfectly remembered in some former state of existence) to black-ball the name of Gowan finally, when Edward Dorrit, Esquire, came into the conversation, with his glass in his eye, and the preliminary remark of 'I say--you there!",1 "Go out, will you!'",2 "--which was addressed to a couple of men who were handing the dishes round, as a courteous intimation that their services could be temporarily dispensed with.",3 "Those menials having obeyed the mandate, Edward Dorrit, Esquire, proceeded.",2 "'Perhaps it's a matter of policy to let you all know that these Gowans--in whose favour, or at least the gentleman's, I can't be supposed to be much prepossessed myself--are known to people of importance, if that makes any difference.'",3 "'That, I would say,' observed the fair varnisher, 'Makes the greatest difference.",3 "The connection in question, being really people of importance and consideration--' 'As to that,' said Edward Dorrit, Esquire, 'I'll give you the means of judging for yourself.",2 "You are acquainted, perhaps, with the famous name of Merdle?'",3 'The great Merdle!',3 exclaimed Mrs General.,2 "The Merdle,' said Edward Dorrit, Esquire.",2 'They are known to him.,2 "Mrs Gowan--I mean the dowager, my polite friend's mother--is intimate with Mrs Merdle, and I know these two to be on their visiting list.'",3 "'If so, a more undeniable guarantee could not be given,' said Mrs General to Mr Dorrit, raising her gloves and bowing her head, as if she were doing homage to some visible graven image.",3 "'I beg to ask my son, from motives of--ah--curiosity,' Mr Dorrit observed, with a decided change in his manner, 'how he becomes possessed of this--hum--timely information?'",1 "'It's not a long story, sir,' returned Edward Dorrit, Esquire, 'and you shall have it out of hand.",2 "To begin with, Mrs Merdle is the lady you had the parley with at what's-his-name place.'",2 "'Martigny,' interposed Miss Fanny with an air of infinite languor.",1 "'Martigny,' assented her brother, with a slight nod and a slight wink; in acknowledgment of which, Miss Fanny looked surprised, and laughed and reddened.",1 "How can that be, Edward?' said Mr Dorrit.",2 'You informed me that the name of the gentleman with whom you conferred was--ha--Sparkler.,2 "Indeed, you showed me his card.",2 Hum.,1 Sparkler.',2 "'No doubt of it, father; but it doesn't follow that his mother's name must be the same.",1 "Mrs Merdle was married before, and he is her son.",2 "She is in Rome now; where probably we shall know more of her, as you decide to winter there.",2 Sparkler is just come here.,2 I passed last evening in company with Sparkler.,2 "Sparkler is a very good fellow on the whole, though rather a bore on one subject, in consequence of being tremendously smitten with a certain young lady.'",3 "Here Edward Dorrit, Esquire, eyed Miss Fanny through his glass across the table.",1 "'We happened last night to compare notes about our travels, and I had the information I have given you from Sparkler himself.'",2 "Here he ceased; continuing to eye Miss Fanny through his glass, with a face much twisted, and not ornamentally so, in part by the action of keeping his glass in his eye, and in part by the great subtlety of his smile.",2 "'Under these circumstances,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I believe I express the sentiments of--ha--Mrs General, no less than my own, when I say that there is no objection, but--ha hum--quite the contrary--to your gratifying your desire, Amy.",1 "I trust I may--ha--hail--this desire,' said Mr Dorrit, in an encouraging and forgiving manner, 'as an auspicious omen.",4 It is quite right to know these people.,3 It is a very proper thing.,3 Mr Merdle's is a name of--ha--world-wide repute.,2 Mr Merdle's undertakings are immense.,3 They bring him in such vast sums of money that they are regarded as--hum--national benefits.,2 Mr Merdle is the man of this time.,2 The name of Merdle is the name of the age.,2 "Pray do everything on my behalf that is civil to Mr and Mrs Gowan, for we will--ha--we will certainly notice them.'",2 This magnificent accordance of Mr Dorrit's recognition settled the matter.,3 "It was not observed that Uncle had pushed away his plate, and forgotten his breakfast; but he was not much observed at any time, except by Little Dorrit.",2 "The servants were recalled, and the meal proceeded to its conclusion.",2 Mrs General rose and left the table.,2 Little Dorrit rose and left the table.,2 "When Edward and Fanny remained whispering together across it, and when Mr Dorrit remained eating figs and reading a French newspaper, Uncle suddenly fixed the attention of all three by rising out of his chair, striking his hand upon the table, and saying, 'Brother!",3 I protest against it!',1 "If he had made a proclamation in an unknown tongue, and given up the ghost immediately afterwards, he could not have astounded his audience more.",2 "The paper fell from Mr Dorrit's hand, and he sat petrified, with a fig half way to his mouth.",1 'Brother!',2 "said the old man, conveying a surprising energy into his trembling voice, 'I protest against it!",1 I love you; you know I love you dearly.,3 In these many years I have never been untrue to you in a single thought.,1 "Weak as I am, I would at any time have struck any man who spoke ill of you.",1 "But, brother, brother, brother, I protest against it!'",1 It was extraordinary to see of what a burst of earnestness such a decrepit man was capable.,3 "His eyes became bright, his grey hair rose on his head, markings of purpose on his brow and face which had faded from them for five-and-twenty years, started out again, and there was an energy in his hand that made its action nervous once more.",2 'My dear Frederick!',2 exclaimed Mr Dorrit faintly.,2 'What is wrong?,1 What is the matter?',2 "'How dare you,' said the old man, turning round on Fanny, 'how dare you do it?",2 Have you no memory?,2 Have you no heart?',2 'Uncle?',2 "cried Fanny, affrighted and bursting into tears, 'why do you attack me in this cruel manner?",1 What have I done?',2 'Done?',2 "returned the old man, pointing to her sister's place, 'where's your affectionate invaluable friend?",3 Where's your devoted guardian?,2 Where's your more than mother?,2 How dare you set up superiorities against all these characters combined in your sister?,2 "For shame, you false girl, for shame!'",1 "'I love Amy,' cried Miss Fanny, sobbing and weeping, 'as well as I love my life--better than I love my life.",3 I don't deserve to be so treated.,2 "I am as grateful to Amy, and as fond of Amy, as it's possible for any human being to be.",3 I wish I was dead.,1 I never was so wickedly wronged.,1 And only because I am anxious for the family credit.',1 'To the winds with the family credit!',2 "cried the old man, with great scorn and indignation.",1 "'Brother, I protest against pride.",2 I protest against ingratitude.,1 "I protest against any one of us here who have known what we have known, and have seen what we have seen, setting up any pretension that puts Amy at a moment's disadvantage, or to the cost of a moment's pain.",0 We may know that it's a base pretension by its having that effect.,2 It ought to bring a judgment on us.,2 "Brother, I protest against it in the sight of God!'",1 "As his hand went up above his head and came down on the table, it might have been a blacksmith's.",2 "After a few moments' silence, it had relaxed into its usual weak condition.",2 "He went round to his brother with his ordinary shuffling step, put the hand on his shoulder, and said, in a softened voice, 'William, my dear, I felt obliged to say it; forgive me, for I felt obliged to say it!'",2 "and then went, in his bowed way, out of the palace hall, just as he might have gone out of the Marshalsea room.",2 "All this time Fanny had been sobbing and crying, and still continued to do so.",2 "Edward, beyond opening his mouth in amazement, had not opened his lips, and had done nothing but stare.",3 "Mr Dorrit also had been utterly discomfited, and quite unable to assert himself in any way.",1 Fanny was now the first to speak.,2 "'I never, never, never was so used!'",2 she sobbed.,2 "'There never was anything so harsh and unjustifiable, so disgracefully violent and cruel!",0 "Dear, kind, quiet little Amy, too, what would she feel if she could know that she had been innocently the means of exposing me to such treatment!",3 But I'll never tell her!,2 "No, good darling, I'll never tell her!'",3 This helped Mr Dorrit to break his silence.,2 "'My dear,' said he, 'I--ha--approve of your resolution.",3 It will be--ha hum--much better not to speak of this to Amy.,2 It might--hum--it might distress her.,1 Ha.,2 No doubt it would distress her greatly.,1 It is considerate and right to avoid doing so.,3 We will--ha--keep this to ourselves.',2 'But the cruelty of Uncle!',1 cried Miss Fanny.,1 "'O, I never can forgive the wanton cruelty of Uncle!'",1 "'My dear,' said Mr Dorrit, recovering his tone, though he remained unusually pale, 'I must request you not to say so.",1 You must remember that your uncle is--ha--not what he formerly was.,2 "You must remember that your uncle's state requires--hum--great forbearance from us, great forbearance.'",2 "'I am sure,' cried Fanny, piteously, 'it is only charitable to suppose that there must be something wrong in him somewhere, or he never could have so attacked Me, of all the people in the world.'",2 "'Fanny,' returned Mr Dorrit in a deeply fraternal tone, 'you know, with his innumerable good points, what a--hum--wreck your uncle is; and, I entreat you by the fondness that I have for him, and by the fidelity that you know I have always shown him, to--ha--to draw your own conclusions, and to spare my brotherly feelings.'",3 "This ended the scene; Edward Dorrit, Esquire, saying nothing throughout, but looking, to the last, perplexed and doubtful.",1 "Miss Fanny awakened much affectionate uneasiness in her sister's mind that day by passing the greater part of it in violent fits of embracing her, and in alternately giving her brooches, and wishing herself dead.",0 "To be in the halting state of Mr Henry Gowan; to have left one of two powers in disgust; to want the necessary qualifications for finding promotion with another, and to be loitering moodily about on neutral ground, cursing both; is to be in a situation unwholesome for the mind, which time is not likely to improve.",2 "The worst class of sum worked in the every-day world is cyphered by the diseased arithmeticians who are always in the rule of Subtraction as to the merits and successes of others, and never in Addition as to their own.",3 "The habit, too, of seeking some sort of recompense in the discontented boast of being disappointed, is a habit fraught with degeneracy.",0 A certain idle carelessness and recklessness of consistency soon comes of it.,0 "To bring deserving things down by setting undeserving things up is one of its perverted delights; and there is no playing fast and loose with the truth, in any game, without growing the worse for it.",1 "In his expressed opinions of all performances in the Art of painting that were completely destitute of merit, Gowan was the most liberal fellow on earth.",2 "He would declare such a man to have more power in his little finger (provided he had none), than such another had (provided he had much) in his whole mind and body.",2 "If the objection were taken that the thing commended was trash, he would reply, on behalf of his art, 'My good fellow, what do we all turn out but trash?",1 "_I_ turn out nothing else, and I make you a present of the confession.'",1 "To make a vaunt of being poor was another of the incidents of his splenetic state, though this may have had the design in it of showing that he ought to be rich; just as he would publicly laud and decry the Barnacles, lest it should be forgotten that he belonged to the family.",2 "Howbeit, these two subjects were very often on his lips; and he managed them so well that he might have praised himself by the month together, and not have made himself out half so important a man as he did by his light disparagement of his claims on anybody's consideration.",3 "Out of this same airy talk of his, it always soon came to be understood, wherever he and his wife went, that he had married against the wishes of his exalted relations, and had had much ado to prevail on them to countenance her.",3 "He never made the representation, on the contrary seemed to laugh the idea to scorn; but it did happen that, with all his pains to depreciate himself, he was always in the superior position.",1 "From the days of their honeymoon, Minnie Gowan felt sensible of being usually regarded as the wife of a man who had made a descent in marrying her, but whose chivalrous love for her had cancelled that inequality.",3 "To Venice they had been accompanied by Monsieur Blandois of Paris, and at Venice Monsieur Blandois of Paris was very much in the society of Gowan.",2 "When they had first met this gallant gentleman at Geneva, Gowan had been undecided whether to kick him or encourage him; and had remained for about four-and-twenty hours, so troubled to settle the point to his satisfaction, that he had thought of tossing up a five-franc piece on the terms, 'Tails, kick; heads, encourage,' and abiding by the voice of the oracle.",2 "It chanced, however, that his wife expressed a dislike to the engaging Blandois, and that the balance of feeling in the hotel was against him.",2 "Upon it, Gowan resolved to encourage him.",3 "Why this perversity, if it were not in a generous fit?--which it was not.",2 "Why should Gowan, very much the superior of Blandois of Paris, and very well able to pull that prepossessing gentleman to pieces and find out the stuff he was made of, take up with such a man?",3 "In the first place, he opposed the first separate wish he observed in his wife, because her father had paid his debts and it was desirable to take an early opportunity of asserting his independence.",2 "In the second place, he opposed the prevalent feeling, because with many capacities of being otherwise, he was an ill-conditioned man.",2 He found a pleasure in declaring that a courtier with the refined manners of Blandois ought to rise to the greatest distinction in any polished country.,4 "He found a pleasure in setting up Blandois as the type of elegance, and making him a satire upon others who piqued themselves on personal graces.",3 "He seriously protested that the bow of Blandois was perfect, that the address of Blandois was irresistible, and that the picturesque ease of Blandois would be cheaply purchased (if it were not a gift, and unpurchasable) for a hundred thousand francs.",3 "That exaggeration in the manner of the man which has been noticed as appertaining to him and to every such man, whatever his original breeding, as certainly as the sun belongs to this system, was acceptable to Gowan as a caricature, which he found it a humorous resource to have at hand for the ridiculing of numbers of people who necessarily did more or less of what Blandois overdid.",1 "Thus he had taken up with him; and thus, negligently strengthening these inclinations with habit, and idly deriving some amusement from his talk, he had glided into a way of having him for a companion.",2 "This, though he supposed him to live by his wits at play-tables and the like; though he suspected him to be a coward, while he himself was daring and courageous; though he thoroughly knew him to be disliked by Minnie; and though he cared so little for him, after all, that if he had given her any tangible personal cause to regard him with aversion, he would have had no compunction whatever in flinging him out of the highest window in Venice into the deepest water of the city.",3 "Little Dorrit would have been glad to make her visit to Mrs Gowan, alone; but as Fanny, who had not yet recovered from her Uncle's protest, though it was four-and-twenty hours of age, pressingly offered her company, the two sisters stepped together into one of the gondolas under Mr Dorrit's window, and, with the courier in attendance, were taken in high state to Mrs Gowan's lodging.",2 "In truth, their state was rather too high for the lodging, which was, as Fanny complained, 'fearfully out of the way,' and which took them through a complexity of narrow streets of water, which the same lady disparaged as 'mere ditches.'",1 "The house, on a little desert island, looked as if it had broken away from somewhere else, and had floated by chance into its present anchorage in company with a vine almost as much in want of training as the poor wretches who were lying under its leaves.",0 "The features of the surrounding picture were, a church with hoarding and scaffolding about it, which had been under suppositious repair so long that the means of repair looked a hundred years old, and had themselves fallen into decay; a quantity of washed linen, spread to dry in the sun; a number of houses at odds with one another and grotesquely out of the perpendicular, like rotten pre-Adamite cheeses cut into fantastic shapes and full of mites; and a feverish bewilderment of windows, with their lattice-blinds all hanging askew, and something draggled and dirty dangling out of most of them.",0 "On the first-floor of the house was a Bank--a surprising experience for any gentleman of commercial pursuits bringing laws for all mankind from a British city--where two spare clerks, like dried dragoons, in green velvet caps adorned with golden tassels, stood, bearded, behind a small counter in a small room, containing no other visible objects than an empty iron-safe with the door open, a jug of water, and a papering of garland of roses; but who, on lawful requisition, by merely dipping their hands out of sight, could produce exhaustless mounds of five-franc pieces.",4 "Below the Bank was a suite of three or four rooms with barred windows, which had the appearance of a jail for criminal rats.",1 Above the Bank was Mrs Gowan's residence.,2 "Notwithstanding that its walls were blotched, as if missionary maps were bursting out of them to impart geographical knowledge; notwithstanding that its weird furniture was forlornly faded and musty, and that the prevailing Venetian odour of bilge water and an ebb tide on a weedy shore was very strong; the place was better within, than it promised.",2 "The door was opened by a smiling man like a reformed assassin--a temporary servant--who ushered them into the room where Mrs Gowan sat, with the announcement that two beautiful English ladies were come to see the mistress.",3 "Mrs Gowan, who was engaged in needlework, put her work aside in a covered basket, and rose, a little hurriedly.",3 "Miss Fanny was excessively courteous to her, and said the usual nothings with the skill of a veteran.",2 "'Papa was extremely sorry,' proceeded Fanny, 'to be engaged to-day (he is so much engaged here, our acquaintance being so wretchedly large!); and particularly requested me to bring his card for Mr Gowan.",1 "That I may be sure to acquit myself of a commission which he impressed upon me at least a dozen times, allow me to relieve my conscience by placing it on the table at once.'",3 Which she did with veteran ease.,3 "'We have been,' said Fanny, 'charmed to understand that you know the Merdles.",2 We hope it may be another means of bringing us together.',2 "'They are friends,' said Mrs Gowan, 'of Mr Gowan's family.",2 "I have not yet had the pleasure of a personal introduction to Mrs Merdle, but I suppose I shall be presented to her at Rome.'",3 'Indeed?',2 "returned Fanny, with an appearance of amiably quenching her own superiority.",3 'I think you'll like her.',3 'You know her very well?',3 "'Why, you see,' said Fanny, with a frank action of her pretty shoulders, 'in London one knows every one.",3 "We met her on our way here, and, to say the truth, papa was at first rather cross with her for taking one of the rooms that our people had ordered for us.",2 "However, of course, that soon blew over, and we were all good friends again.'",3 "Although the visit had as yet given Little Dorrit no opportunity of conversing with Mrs Gowan, there was a silent understanding between them, which did as well.",3 "She looked at Mrs Gowan with keen and unabated interest; the sound of her voice was thrilling to her; nothing that was near her, or about her, or at all concerned her, escaped Little Dorrit.",3 "She was quicker to perceive the slightest matter here, than in any other case--but one.",3 "'You have been quite well,' she now said, 'since that night?'",3 "'Quite, my dear.",2 And you?',2 'Oh!,2 "I am always well,' said Little Dorrit, timidly.",2 "'I--yes, thank you.'",3 "There was no reason for her faltering and breaking off, other than that Mrs Gowan had touched her hand in speaking to her, and their looks had met.",2 "Something thoughtfully apprehensive in the large, soft eyes, had checked Little Dorrit in an instant.",3 "'You don't know that you are a favourite of my husband's, and that I am almost bound to be jealous of you?'",1 said Mrs Gowan.,2 "Little Dorrit, blushing, shook her head.",2 "'He will tell you, if he tells you what he tells me, that you are quieter and quicker of resource than any one he ever saw.'",3 "'He speaks far too well of me,' said Little Dorrit.",3 'I doubt that; but I don't at all doubt that I must tell him you are here.,1 "I should never be forgiven, if I were to let you--and Miss Dorrit--go, without doing so.",1 May I?,2 You can excuse the disorder and discomfort of a painter's studio?',0 "The inquiries were addressed to Miss Fanny, who graciously replied that she would be beyond anything interested and enchanted.",3 "Mrs Gowan went to a door, looked in beyond it, and came back.",2 "'Do Henry the favour to come in,' said she, 'I knew he would be pleased!'",3 "The first object that confronted Little Dorrit, entering first, was Blandois of Paris in a great cloak and a furtive slouched hat, standing on a throne platform in a corner, as he had stood on the Great Saint Bernard, when the warning arms seemed to be all pointing up at him.",2 "She recoiled from this figure, as it smiled at her.",2 "'Don't be alarmed,' said Gowan, coming from his easel behind the door.",1 'It's only Blandois.,2 He is doing duty as a model to-day.,2 I am making a study of him.,2 It saves me money to turn him to some use.,2 We poor painters have none to spare.',1 "Blandois of Paris pulled off his slouched hat, and saluted the ladies without coming out of his corner.",2 'A thousand pardons!',2 said he.,2 "'But the Professore here is so inexorable with me, that I am afraid to stir.'",1 "'Don't stir, then,' said Gowan coolly, as the sisters approached the easel.",2 "'Let the ladies at least see the original of the daub, that they may know what it's meant for.",2 "There he stands, you see.",2 "A bravo waiting for his prey, a distinguished noble waiting to save his country, the common enemy waiting to do somebody a bad turn, an angelic messenger waiting to do somebody a good turn--whatever you think he looks most like!'",4 "'Say, Professore Mio, a poor gentleman waiting to do homage to elegance and beauty,' remarked Blandois.",3 "'Or say, Cattivo Soggetto Mio,' returned Gowan, touching the painted face with his brush in the part where the real face had moved, 'a murderer after the fact.",1 "Show that white hand of yours, Blandois.",2 Put it outside the cloak.,2 Keep it still.',2 "Blandois' hand was unsteady; but he laughed, and that would naturally shake it.",1 "'He was formerly in some scuffle with another murderer, or with a victim, you observe,' said Gowan, putting in the markings of the hand with a quick, impatient, unskilful touch, 'and these are the tokens of it.",1 "Outside the cloak, man!--Corpo di San Marco, what are you thinking of?'",2 "Blandois of Paris shook with a laugh again, so that his hand shook more; now he raised it to twist his moustache, which had a damp appearance; and now he stood in the required position, with a little new swagger.",1 "His face was so directed in reference to the spot where Little Dorrit stood by the easel, that throughout he looked at her.",2 "Once attracted by his peculiar eyes, she could not remove her own, and they had looked at each other all the time.",1 "She trembled now; Gowan, feeling it, and supposing her to be alarmed by the large dog beside him, whose head she caressed in her hand, and who had just uttered a low growl, glanced at her to say, 'He won't hurt you, Miss Dorrit.'",0 "'I am not afraid of him,' she returned in the same breath; 'but will you look at him?'",1 "In a moment Gowan had thrown down his brush, and seized the dog with both hands by the collar.",2 'Blandois!,2 How can you be such a fool as to provoke him!,1 "By Heaven, and the other place too, he'll tear you to bits!",3 Lie down!,1 Lion!,2 "Do you hear my voice, you rebel!'",2 "The great dog, regardless of being half-choked by his collar, was obdurately pulling with his dead weight against his master, resolved to get across the room.",3 He had been crouching for a spring at the moment when his master caught him.,3 'Lion!,2 Lion!',2 "He was up on his hind legs, and it was a wrestle between master and dog.",2 'Get back!,2 "Down, Lion!",2 "Get out of his sight, Blandois!",2 What devil have you conjured into the dog?',1 'I have done nothing to him.',2 'Get out of his sight or I can't hold the wild beast!,1 Get out of the room!,2 "By my soul, he'll kill you!'",1 "The dog, with a ferocious bark, made one other struggle as Blandois vanished; then, in the moment of the dog's submission, the master, little less angry than the dog, felled him with a blow on the head, and standing over him, struck him many times severely with the heel of his boot, so that his mouth was presently bloody.",0 "'Now get you into that corner and lie down,' said Gowan, 'or I'll take you out and shoot you.'",1 "Lion did as he was ordered, and lay down licking his mouth and chest.",2 "Lion's master stopped for a moment to take breath, and then, recovering his usual coolness of manner, turned to speak to his frightened wife and her visitors.",3 Probably the whole occurrence had not occupied two minutes.,2 "'Come, come, Minnie!",2 You know he is always good-humoured and tractable.,3 "Blandois must have irritated him,--made faces at him.",1 "The dog has his likings and dislikings, and Blandois is no great favourite of his; but I am sure you will give him a character, Minnie, for never having been like this before.'",3 "Minnie was too much disturbed to say anything connected in reply; Little Dorrit was already occupied in soothing her; Fanny, who had cried out twice or thrice, held Gowan's arm for protection; Lion, deeply ashamed of having caused them this alarm, came trailing himself along the ground to the feet of his mistress.",0 "'You furious brute,' said Gowan, striking him with his foot again.",1 'You shall do penance for this.',2 "And he struck him again, and yet again.",1 "'O, pray don't punish him any more,' cried Little Dorrit.",1 'Don't hurt him.,1 See how gentle he is!',3 "At her entreaty, Gowan spared him; and he deserved her intercession, for truly he was as submissive, and as sorry, and as wretched as a dog could be.",0 "It was not easy to recover this shock and make the visit unrestrained, even though Fanny had not been, under the best of circumstances, the least trifle in the way.",3 "In such further communication as passed among them before the sisters took their departure, Little Dorrit fancied it was revealed to her that Mr Gowan treated his wife, even in his very fondness, too much like a beautiful child.",4 "He seemed so unsuspicious of the depths of feeling which she knew must lie below that surface, that she doubted if there could be any such depths in himself.",1 "She wondered whether his want of earnestness might be the natural result of his want of such qualities, and whether it was with people as with ships, that, in too shallow and rocky waters, their anchors had no hold, and they drifted anywhere.",1 "He attended them down the staircase, jocosely apologising for the poor quarters to which such poor fellows as himself were limited, and remarking that when the high and mighty Barnacles, his relatives, who would be dreadfully ashamed of them, presented him with better, he would live in better to oblige them.",1 "At the water's edge they were saluted by Blandois, who looked white enough after his late adventure, but who made very light of it notwithstanding,--laughing at the mention of Lion.",3 "Leaving the two together under the scrap of vine upon the causeway, Gowan idly scattering the leaves from it into the water, and Blandois lighting a cigarette, the sisters were paddled away in state as they had come.",1 "They had not glided on for many minutes, when Little Dorrit became aware that Fanny was more showy in manner than the occasion appeared to require, and, looking about for the cause through the window and through the open door, saw another gondola evidently in waiting on them.",2 "As this gondola attended their progress in various artful ways; sometimes shooting on a-head, and stopping to let them pass; sometimes, when the way was broad enough, skimming along side by side with them; and sometimes following close astern; and as Fanny gradually made no disguise that she was playing off graces upon somebody within it, of whom she at the same time feigned to be unconscious; Little Dorrit at length asked who it was?",3 "To which Fanny made the short answer, 'That gaby.'",2 'Who?',2 said Little Dorrit.,2 "'My dear child,' returned Fanny (in a tone suggesting that before her Uncle's protest she might have said, You little fool, instead), 'how slow you are!",0 Young Sparkler.',2 "She lowered the window on her side, and, leaning back and resting her elbow on it negligently, fanned herself with a rich Spanish fan of black and gold.",3 "The attendant gondola, having skimmed forward again, with some swift trace of an eye in the window, Fanny laughed coquettishly and said, 'Did you ever see such a fool, my love?'",3 'Do you think he means to follow you all the way?',2 asked Little Dorrit.,2 "'My precious child,' returned Fanny, 'I can't possibly answer for what an idiot in a state of desperation may do, but I should think it highly probable.",1 It's not such an enormous distance.,2 "All Venice would scarcely be that, I imagine, if he's dying for a glimpse of me.'",1 'And is he?',2 asked Little Dorrit in perfect simplicity.,3 "'Well, my love, that really is an awkward question for me to answer,' said her sister.",2 'I believe he is.,2 You had better ask Edward.,3 "He tells Edward he is, I believe.",2 "I understand he makes a perfect spectacle of himself at the Casino, and that sort of places, by going on about me.",3 But you had better ask Edward if you want to know.',3 "'I wonder he doesn't call,' said Little Dorrit after thinking a moment.",3 "'My dear Amy, your wonder will soon cease, if I am rightly informed.",3 I should not be at all surprised if he called to-day.,2 "The creature has only been waiting to get his courage up, I suspect.'",2 'Will you see him?',2 "'Indeed, my darling,' said Fanny, 'that's just as it may happen.",3 Here he is again.,2 Look at him.,2 "O, you simpleton!'",2 "Mr Sparkler had, undeniably, a weak appearance; with his eye in the window like a knot in the glass, and no reason on earth for stopping his bark suddenly, except the real reason.",2 "'When you asked me if I will see him, my dear,' said Fanny, almost as well composed in the graceful indifference of her attitude as Mrs Merdle herself, 'what do you mean?'",3 "'I mean,' said Little Dorrit--'I think I rather mean what do you mean, dear Fanny?'",2 "Fanny laughed again, in a manner at once condescending, arch, and affable; and said, putting her arm round her sister in a playfully affectionate way: 'Now tell me, my little pet.",3 "When we saw that woman at Martigny, how did you think she carried it off?",2 Did you see what she decided on in a moment?',2 "'No, Fanny.'",2 "'Then I'll tell you, Amy.",2 "She settled with herself, now I'll never refer to that meeting under such different circumstances, and I'll never pretend to have any idea that these are the same girls.",1 That's _her_ way out of a difficulty.,1 What did I tell you when we came away from Harley Street that time?,2 She is as insolent and false as any woman in the world.,1 "But in the first capacity, my love, she may find people who can match her.'",3 "A significant turn of the Spanish fan towards Fanny's bosom, indicated with great expression where one of these people was to be found.",3 "'Not only that,' pursued Fanny, 'but she gives the same charge to Young Sparkler; and doesn't let him come after me until she has got it thoroughly into his most ridiculous of all ridiculous noddles (for one really can't call it a head), that he is to pretend to have been first struck with me in that Inn Yard.'",0 'Why?',2 asked Little Dorrit.,2 'Why?,2 "Good gracious, my love!'",4 (again very much in the tone of You stupid little creature) 'how can you ask?,1 Don't you see that I may have become a rather desirable match for a noddle?,3 "And don't you see that she puts the deception upon us, and makes a pretence, while she shifts it from her own shoulders (very good shoulders they are too, I must say),' observed Miss Fanny, glancing complacently at herself, 'of considering our feelings?'",1 'But we can always go back to the plain truth.',2 "'Yes, but if you please we won't,' retorted Fanny.",2 "'No; I am not going to have that done, Amy.",2 "The pretext is none of mine; it's hers, and she shall have enough of it.'",3 "In the triumphant exaltation of her feelings, Miss Fanny, using her Spanish fan with one hand, squeezed her sister's waist with the other, as if she were crushing Mrs Merdle.",2 "'No,' repeated Fanny.",2 'She shall find me go her way.,2 "She took it, and I'll follow it.",2 "And, with the blessing of fate and fortune, I'll go on improving that woman's acquaintance until I have given her maid, before her eyes, things from my dressmaker's ten times as handsome and expensive as she once gave me from hers!'",4 "Little Dorrit was silent; sensible that she was not to be heard on any question affecting the family dignity, and unwilling to lose to no purpose her sister's newly and unexpectedly restored favour.",3 "She could not concur, but she was silent.",3 "Fanny well knew what she was thinking of; so well, that she soon asked her.",3 "Her reply was, 'Do you mean to encourage Mr Sparkler, Fanny?'",3 "'Encourage him, my dear?'",2 "said her sister, smiling contemptuously, 'that depends upon what you call encourage.",3 "No, I don't mean to encourage him.",3 But I'll make a slave of him.',1 "Little Dorrit glanced seriously and doubtfully in her face, but Fanny was not to be so brought to a check.",1 "She furled her fan of black and gold, and used it to tap her sister's nose; with the air of a proud beauty and a great spirit, who toyed with and playfully instructed a homely companion.",4 "'I shall make him fetch and carry, my dear, and I shall make him subject to me.",2 "And if I don't make his mother subject to me, too, it shall not be my fault.'",1 "'Do you think--dear Fanny, don't be offended, we are so comfortable together now--that you can quite see the end of that course?'",3 "'I can't say I have so much as looked for it yet, my dear,' answered Fanny, with supreme indifference; 'all in good time.",3 Such are my intentions.,2 "And really they have taken me so long to develop, that here we are at home.",2 "And Young Sparkler at the door, inquiring who is within.",2 "By the merest accident, of course!'",2 "In effect, the swain was standing up in his gondola, card-case in hand, affecting to put the question to a servant.",2 "This conjunction of circumstances led to his immediately afterwards presenting himself before the young ladies in a posture, which in ancient times would not have been considered one of favourable augury for his suit; since the gondoliers of the young ladies, having been put to some inconvenience by the chase, so neatly brought their own boat in the gentlest collision with the bark of Mr Sparkler, as to tip that gentleman over like a larger species of ninepin, and cause him to exhibit the soles of his shoes to the object of his dearest wishes: while the nobler portions of his anatomy struggled at the bottom of his boat in the arms of one of his men.",3 "However, as Miss Fanny called out with much concern, Was the gentleman hurt, Mr Sparkler rose more restored than might have been expected, and stammered for himself with blushes, 'Not at all so.'",1 "Miss Fanny had no recollection of having ever seen him before, and was passing on, with a distant inclination of her head, when he announced himself by name.",1 "Even then she was in a difficulty from being unable to call it to mind, until he explained that he had had the honour of seeing her at Martigny.",1 "Then she remembered him, and hoped his lady-mother was well.",3 "'Thank you,' stammered Mr Sparkler, 'she's uncommonly well--at least, poorly.'",2 'In Venice?',2 said Miss Fanny.,1 "'In Rome,' Mr Sparkler answered.",2 "'I am here by myself, myself.",2 I came to call upon Mr Edward Dorrit myself.,2 "Indeed, upon Mr Dorrit likewise.",2 "In fact, upon the family.'",2 "Turning graciously to the attendants, Miss Fanny inquired whether her papa or brother was within?",2 "The reply being that they were both within, Mr Sparkler humbly offered his arm.",2 "Miss Fanny accepting it, was squired up the great staircase by Mr Sparkler, who, if he still believed (which there is not any reason to doubt) that she had no nonsense about her, rather deceived himself.",1 "Arrived in a mouldering reception-room, where the faded hangings, of a sad sea-green, had worn and withered until they looked as if they might have claimed kindred with the waifs of seaweed drifting under the windows, or clinging to the walls and weeping for their imprisoned relations, Miss Fanny despatched emissaries for her father and brother.",0 "Pending whose appearance, she showed to great advantage on a sofa, completing Mr Sparkler's conquest with some remarks upon Dante--known to that gentleman as an eccentric man in the nature of an Old File, who used to put leaves round his head, and sit upon a stool for some unaccountable purpose, outside the cathedral at Florence.",3 "Mr Dorrit welcomed the visitor with the highest urbanity, and most courtly manners.",3 He inquired particularly after Mrs Merdle.,2 He inquired particularly after Mr Merdle.,2 "Mr Sparkler said, or rather twitched out of himself in small pieces by the shirt-collar, that Mrs Merdle having completely used up her place in the country, and also her house at Brighton, and being, of course, unable, don't you see, to remain in London when there wasn't a soul there, and not feeling herself this year quite up to visiting about at people's places, had resolved to have a touch at Rome, where a woman like herself, with a proverbially fine appearance, and with no nonsense about her, couldn't fail to be a great acquisition.",2 "As to Mr Merdle, he was so much wanted by the men in the City and the rest of those places, and was such a doosed extraordinary phenomenon in Buying and Banking and that, that Mr Sparkler doubted if the monetary system of the country would be able to spare him; though that his work was occasionally one too many for him, and that he would be all the better for a temporary shy at an entirely new scene and climate, Mr Sparkler did not conceal.",4 "As to himself, Mr Sparkler conveyed to the Dorrit family that he was going, on rather particular business, wherever they were going.",2 "This immense conversational achievement required time, but was effected.",3 "Being effected, Mr Dorrit expressed his hope that Mr Sparkler would shortly dine with them.",2 "Mr Sparkler received the idea so kindly that Mr Dorrit asked what he was going to do that day, for instance?",3 "As he was going to do nothing that day (his usual occupation, and one for which he was particularly qualified), he was secured without postponement; being further bound over to accompany the ladies to the Opera in the evening.",3 "At dinner-time Mr Sparkler rose out of the sea, like Venus's son taking after his mother, and made a splendid appearance ascending the great staircase.",4 "If Fanny had been charming in the morning, she was now thrice charming, very becomingly dressed in her most suitable colours, and with an air of negligence upon her that doubled Mr Sparkler's fetters, and riveted them.",3 "'I hear you are acquainted, Mr Sparkler,' said his host at dinner, 'with--ha--Mr Gowan.",2 Mr Henry Gowan?',2 "'Perfectly, sir,' returned Mr Sparkler.",2 'His mother and my mother are cronies in fact.',2 "'If I had thought of it, Amy,' said Mr Dorrit, with a patronage as magnificent as that of Lord Decimus himself, 'you should have despatched a note to them, asking them to dine to-day.",3 "Some of our people could have--ha--fetched them, and taken them home.",2 We could have spared a--hum--gondola for that purpose.,1 I am sorry to have forgotten this.,1 Pray remind me of them to-morrow.',2 Little Dorrit was not without doubts how Mr Henry Gowan might take their patronage; but she promised not to fail in the reminder.,1 "'Pray, does Mr Henry Gowan paint--ha--Portraits?'",2 inquired Mr Dorrit.,2 "Mr Sparkler opined that he painted anything, if he could get the job.",2 'He has no particular walk?',2 said Mr Dorrit.,2 "Mr Sparkler, stimulated by Love to brilliancy, replied that for a particular walk a man ought to have a particular pair of shoes; as, for example, shooting, shooting-shoes; cricket, cricket-shoes.",3 "Whereas, he believed that Henry Gowan had no particular pair of shoes.",2 'No speciality?',2 said Mr Dorrit.,2 "This being a very long word for Mr Sparkler, and his mind being exhausted by his late effort, he replied, 'No, thank you.",2 I seldom take it.',2 'Well!',2 said Mr Dorrit.,2 "'It would be very agreeable to me to present a gentleman so connected, with some--ha--Testimonial of my desire to further his interests, and develop the--hum--germs of his genius.",3 I think I must engage Mr Gowan to paint my picture.,2 "If the result should be--ha--mutually satisfactory, I might afterwards engage him to try his hand upon my family.'",3 "The exquisitely bold and original thought presented itself to Mr Sparkler, that there was an opening here for saying there were some of the family (emphasising 'some' in a marked manner) to whom no painter could render justice.",3 "But, for want of a form of words in which to express the idea, it returned to the skies.",2 "This was the more to be regretted as Miss Fanny greatly applauded the notion of the portrait, and urged her papa to act upon it.",1 "She surmised, she said, that Mr Gowan had lost better and higher opportunities by marrying his pretty wife; and Love in a cottage, painting pictures for dinner, was so delightfully interesting, that she begged her papa to give him the commission whether he could paint a likeness or not: though indeed both she and Amy knew he could, from having seen a speaking likeness on his easel that day, and having had the opportunity of comparing it with the original.",4 "These remarks made Mr Sparkler (as perhaps they were intended to do) nearly distracted; for while on the one hand they expressed Miss Fanny's susceptibility of the tender passion, she herself showed such an innocent unconsciousness of his admiration that his eyes goggled in his head with jealousy of an unknown rival.",1 "Descending into the sea again after dinner, and ascending out of it at the Opera staircase, preceded by one of their gondoliers, like an attendant Merman, with a great linen lantern, they entered their box, and Mr Sparkler entered on an evening of agony.",3 "The theatre being dark, and the box light, several visitors lounged in during the representation; in whom Fanny was so interested, and in conversation with whom she fell into such charming attitudes, as she had little confidences with them, and little disputes concerning the identity of people in distant boxes, that the wretched Sparkler hated all mankind.",0 But he had two consolations at the close of the performance.,2 "She gave him her fan to hold while she adjusted her cloak, and it was his blessed privilege to give her his arm down-stairs again.",3 "These crumbs of encouragement, Mr Sparkler thought, would just keep him going; and it is not impossible that Miss Dorrit thought so too.",1 "The Merman with his light was ready at the box-door, and other Mermen with other lights were ready at many of the doors.",3 "The Dorrit Merman held his lantern low, to show the steps, and Mr Sparkler put on another heavy set of fetters over his former set, as he watched her radiant feet twinkling down the stairs beside him.",3 "Among the loiterers here, was Blandois of Paris.",2 "He spoke, and moved forward beside Fanny.",2 "Little Dorrit was in front with her brother and Mrs General (Mr Dorrit had remained at home), but on the brink of the quay they all came together.",2 "She started again to find Blandois close to her, handing Fanny into the boat.",2 "'Gowan has had a loss,' he said, 'since he was made happy to-day by a visit from fair ladies.'",3 'A loss?',1 "repeated Fanny, relinquished by the bereaved Sparkler, and taking her seat.",2 "'A loss,' said Blandois.",1 'His dog Lion.',2 "Little Dorrit's hand was in his, as he spoke.",2 "'He is dead,' said Blandois.",1 'Dead?',2 echoed Little Dorrit.,2 'That noble dog?',3 "'Faith, dear ladies!'",2 "said Blandois, smiling and shrugging his shoulders, 'somebody has poisoned that noble dog.",3 He is as dead as the Doges!',1 "Mrs General, always on her coach-box keeping the proprieties well together, took pains to form a surface on her very dear young friend, and Mrs General's very dear young friend tried hard to receive it.",1 "Hard as she had tried in her laborious life to attain many ends, she had never tried harder than she did now, to be varnished by Mrs General.",1 "It made her anxious and ill at ease to be operated upon by that smoothing hand, it is true; but she submitted herself to the family want in its greatness as she had submitted herself to the family want in its littleness, and yielded to her own inclinations in this thing no more than she had yielded to her hunger itself, in the days when she had saved her dinner that her father might have his supper.",3 "One comfort that she had under the Ordeal by General was more sustaining to her, and made her more grateful than to a less devoted and affectionate spirit, not habituated to her struggles and sacrifices, might appear quite reasonable; and, indeed, it may often be observed in life, that spirits like Little Dorrit do not appear to reason half as carefully as the folks who get the better of them.",4 The continued kindness of her sister was this comfort to Little Dorrit.,3 It was nothing to her that the kindness took the form of tolerant patronage; she was used to that.,3 "It was nothing to her that it kept her in a tributary position, and showed her in attendance on the flaming car in which Miss Fanny sat on an elevated seat, exacting homage; she sought no better place.",3 "Always admiring Fanny's beauty, and grace, and readiness, and not now asking herself how much of her disposition to be strongly attached to Fanny was due to her own heart, and how much to Fanny's, she gave her all the sisterly fondness her great heart contained.",4 "The wholesale amount of Prunes and Prism which Mrs General infused into the family life, combined with the perpetual plunges made by Fanny into society, left but a very small residue of any natural deposit at the bottom of the mixture.",2 "This rendered confidences with Fanny doubly precious to Little Dorrit, and heightened the relief they afforded her.",3 "'Amy,' said Fanny to her one night when they were alone, after a day so tiring that Little Dorrit was quite worn out, though Fanny would have taken another dip into society with the greatest pleasure in life, 'I am going to put something into your little head.",2 "You won't guess what it is, I suspect.'",1 "'I don't think that's likely, dear,' said Little Dorrit.",2 "'Come, I'll give you a clue, child,' said Fanny.",2 'Mrs General.',2 "Prunes and Prism, in a thousand combinations, having been wearily in the ascendant all day--everything having been surface and varnish and show without substance--Little Dorrit looked as if she had hoped that Mrs General was safely tucked up in bed for some hours.",3 "'_Now_, can you guess, Amy?'",2 said Fanny.,2 "'No, dear.",2 "Unless I have done anything,' said Little Dorrit, rather alarmed, and meaning anything calculated to crack varnish and ruffle surface.",0 "Fanny was so very much amused by the misgiving, that she took up her favourite fan (being then seated at her dressing-table with her armoury of cruel instruments about her, most of them reeking from the heart of Sparkler), and tapped her sister frequently on the nose with it, laughing all the time.",1 "'Oh, our Amy, our Amy!'",2 said Fanny.,2 'What a timid little goose our Amy is!,1 But this is nothing to laugh at.,2 "On the contrary, I am very cross, my dear.'",2 "'As it is not with me, Fanny, I don't mind,' returned her sister, smiling.",3 'Ah!,2 "But I do mind,' said Fanny, 'and so will you, Pet, when I enlighten you.",3 "Amy, has it never struck you that somebody is monstrously polite to Mrs General?'",1 "'Everybody is polite to Mrs General,' said Little Dorrit.",3 'Because--' 'Because she freezes them into it?',1 interrupted Fanny.,2 'I don't mean that; quite different from that.,2 Come!,2 "Has it never struck you, Amy, that Pa is monstrously polite to Mrs General.'",1 "Amy, murmuring 'No,' looked quite confounded.",1 'No; I dare say not.,2 "But he is,' said Fanny.",2 "'He is, Amy.",2 And remember my words.,2 Mrs General has designs on Pa!',2 "'Dear Fanny, do you think it possible that Mrs General has designs on any one?'",2 'Do I think it possible?',2 retorted Fanny.,2 "'My love, I know it.",3 I tell you she has designs on Pa.,2 "And more than that, I tell you Pa considers her such a wonder, such a paragon of accomplishment, and such an acquisition to our family, that he is ready to get himself into a state of perfect infatuation with her at any moment.",4 "And that opens a pretty picture of things, I hope?",3 Think of me with Mrs General for a Mama!',2 "Little Dorrit did not reply, 'Think of me with Mrs General for a Mama;' but she looked anxious, and seriously inquired what had led Fanny to these conclusions.",2 "'Lord, my darling,' said Fanny, tartly.",3 'You might as well ask me how I know when a man is struck with myself!,2 "But, of course I do know.",2 It happens pretty often: but I always know it.,3 "I know this in much the same way, I suppose.",2 "At all events, I know it.'",2 'You never heard Papa say anything?',2 'Say anything?',2 repeated Fanny.,2 "'My dearest, darling child, what necessity has he had, yet awhile, to say anything?'",3 'And you have never heard Mrs General say anything?',2 "'My goodness me, Amy,' returned Fanny, 'is she the sort of woman to say anything?",3 "Isn't it perfectly plain and clear that she has nothing to do at present but to hold herself upright, keep her aggravating gloves on, and go sweeping about?",3 Say anything!,2 "If she had the ace of trumps in her hand at whist, she wouldn't say anything, child.",2 It would come out when she played it.',2 "'At least, you may be mistaken, Fanny.",1 "Now, may you not?'",2 "'O yes, I _may_ be,' said Fanny, 'but I am not.",2 "However, I am glad you can contemplate such an escape, my dear, and I am glad that you can take this for the present with sufficient coolness to think of such a chance.",3 It makes me hope that you may be able to bear the connection.,2 "I should not be able to bear it, and I should not try.",2 I'd marry young Sparkler first.',2 "'O, you would never marry him, Fanny, under any circumstances.'",2 "'Upon my word, my dear,' rejoined that young lady with exceeding indifference, 'I wouldn't positively answer even for that.",3 There's no knowing what might happen.,2 "Especially as I should have many opportunities, afterwards, of treating that woman, his mother, in her own style.",2 "Which I most decidedly should not be slow to avail myself of, Amy.'",1 "No more passed between the sisters then; but what had passed gave the two subjects of Mrs General and Mr Sparkler great prominence in Little Dorrit's mind, and thenceforth she thought very much of both.",3 "Mrs General, having long ago formed her own surface to such perfection that it hid whatever was below it (if anything), no observation was to be made in that quarter.",3 "Mr Dorrit was undeniably very polite to her and had a high opinion of her; but Fanny, impetuous at most times, might easily be wrong for all that.",1 "Whereas, the Sparkler question was on the different footing that any one could see what was going on there, and Little Dorrit saw it and pondered on it with many doubts and wonderings.",1 The devotion of Mr Sparkler was only to be equalled by the caprice and cruelty of his enslaver.,1 "Sometimes she would prefer him to such distinction of notice, that he would chuckle aloud with joy; next day, or next hour, she would overlook him so completely, and drop him into such an abyss of obscurity, that he would groan under a weak pretence of coughing.",1 "The constancy of his attendance never touched Fanny: though he was so inseparable from Edward, that, when that gentleman wished for a change of society, he was under the irksome necessity of gliding out like a conspirator in disguised boats and by secret doors and back ways; though he was so solicitous to know how Mr Dorrit was, that he called every other day to inquire, as if Mr Dorrit were the prey of an intermittent fever; though he was so constantly being paddled up and down before the principal windows, that he might have been supposed to have made a wager for a large stake to be paddled a thousand miles in a thousand hours; though whenever the gondola of his mistress left the gate, the gondola of Mr Sparkler shot out from some watery ambush and gave chase, as if she were a fair smuggler and he a custom-house officer.",0 "It was probably owing to this fortification of the natural strength of his constitution with so much exposure to the air, and the salt sea, that Mr Sparkler did not pine outwardly; but, whatever the cause, he was so far from having any prospect of moving his mistress by a languishing state of health, that he grew bluffer every day, and that peculiarity in his appearance of seeming rather a swelled boy than a young man, became developed to an extraordinary degree of ruddy puffiness.",1 "Blandois calling to pay his respects, Mr Dorrit received him with affability as the friend of Mr Gowan, and mentioned to him his idea of commissioning Mr Gowan to transmit him to posterity.",3 "Blandois highly extolling it, it occurred to Mr Dorrit that it might be agreeable to Blandois to communicate to his friend the great opportunity reserved for him.",3 "Blandois accepted the commission with his own free elegance of manner, and swore he would discharge it before he was an hour older.",3 "On his imparting the news to Gowan, that Master gave Mr Dorrit to the Devil with great liberality some round dozen of times (for he resented patronage almost as much as he resented the want of it), and was inclined to quarrel with his friend for bringing him the message.",2 "'It may be a defect in my mental vision, Blandois,' said he, 'but may I die if I see what you have to do with this.'",1 "'Death of my life,' replied Blandois, 'nor I neither, except that I thought I was serving my friend.'",2 'By putting an upstart's hire in his pocket?',2 "said Gowan, frowning.",2 'Do you mean that?,2 "Tell your other friend to get his head painted for the sign of some public-house, and to get it done by a sign-painter.",2 "Who am I, and who is he?'",2 "'Professore,' returned the ambassador, 'and who is Blandois?'",2 "Without appearing at all interested in the latter question, Gowan angrily whistled Mr Dorrit away.",1 "But, next day, he resumed the subject by saying in his off-hand manner and with a slighting laugh, 'Well, Blandois, when shall we go to this Maecenas of yours?",2 We journeymen must take jobs when we can get them.,2 When shall we go and look after this job?',2 "'When you will,' said the injured Blandois, 'as you please.",2 What have I to do with it?,2 What is it to me?',2 "'I can tell you what it is to me,' said Gowan.",2 'Bread and cheese.,2 One must eat!,2 "So come along, my Blandois.'",2 "Mr Dorrit received them in the presence of his daughters and of Mr Sparkler, who happened, by some surprising accident, to be calling there.",2 "'How are you, Sparkler?'",2 said Gowan carelessly.,2 "'When you have to live by your mother wit, old boy, I hope you may get on better than I do.'",3 Mr Dorrit then mentioned his proposal.,2 "'Sir,' said Gowan, laughing, after receiving it gracefully enough, 'I am new to the trade, and not expert at its mysteries.",3 "I believe I ought to look at you in various lights, tell you you are a capital subject, and consider when I shall be sufficiently disengaged to devote myself with the necessary enthusiasm to the fine picture I mean to make of you.",4 "I assure you,' and he laughed again, 'I feel quite a traitor in the camp of those dear, gifted, good, noble fellows, my brother artists, by not doing the hocus-pocus better.",4 "But I have not been brought up to it, and it's too late to learn it.",2 "Now, the fact is, I am a very bad painter, but not much worse than the generality.",1 "If you are going to throw away a hundred guineas or so, I am as poor as a poor relation of great people usually is, and I shall be very much obliged to you, if you'll throw them away upon me.",2 "I'll do the best I can for the money; and if the best should be bad, why even then, you may probably have a bad picture with a small name to it, instead of a bad picture with a large name to it.'",2 "This tone, though not what he had expected, on the whole suited Mr Dorrit remarkably well.",3 "It showed that the gentleman, highly connected, and not a mere workman, would be under an obligation to him.",2 "He expressed his satisfaction in placing himself in Mr Gowan's hands, and trusted that he would have the pleasure, in their characters of private gentlemen, of improving his acquaintance.",4 "'You are very good,' said Gowan.",3 "'I have not forsworn society since I joined the brotherhood of the brush (the most delightful fellows on the face of the earth), and am glad enough to smell the old fine gunpowder now and then, though it did blow me into mid-air and my present calling.",3 "You'll not think, Mr Dorrit,' and here he laughed again in the easiest way, 'that I am lapsing into the freemasonry of the craft--for it's not so; upon my life I can't help betraying it wherever I go, though, by Jupiter, I love and honour the craft with all my might--if I propose a stipulation as to time and place?'",3 Ha!,2 Mr Dorrit could erect no--hum--suspicion of that kind on Mr Gowan's frankness.,1 "'Again you are very good,' said Gowan.",3 "'Mr Dorrit, I hear you are going to Rome.",2 "I am going to Rome, having friends there.",2 "Let me begin to do you the injustice I have conspired to do you, there--not here.",1 "We shall all be hurried during the rest of our stay here; and though there's not a poorer man with whole elbows in Venice, than myself, I have not quite got all the Amateur out of me yet--comprising the trade again, you see!--and can't fall on to order, in a hurry, for the mere sake of the sixpences.'",1 These remarks were not less favourably received by Mr Dorrit than their predecessors.,2 "They were the prelude to the first reception of Mr and Mrs Gowan at dinner, and they skilfully placed Gowan on his usual ground in the new family.",2 "His wife, too, they placed on her usual ground.",2 "Miss Fanny understood, with particular distinctness, that Mrs Gowan's good looks had cost her husband very dear; that there had been a great disturbance about her in the Barnacle family; and that the Dowager Mrs Gowan, nearly heart-broken, had resolutely set her face against the marriage until overpowered by her maternal feelings.",1 Mrs General likewise clearly understood that the attachment had occasioned much family grief and dissension.,1 "Of honest Mr Meagles no mention was made; except that it was natural enough that a person of that sort should wish to raise his daughter out of his own obscurity, and that no one could blame him for trying his best to do so.",3 Little Dorrit's interest in the fair subject of this easily accepted belief was too earnest and watchful to fail in accurate observation.,3 "She could see that it had its part in throwing upon Mrs Gowan the touch of a shadow under which she lived, and she even had an instinctive knowledge that there was not the least truth in it.",2 "But it had an influence in placing obstacles in the way of her association with Mrs Gowan by making the Prunes and Prism school excessively polite to her, but not very intimate with her; and Little Dorrit, as an enforced sizar of that college, was obliged to submit herself humbly to its ordinances.",3 "Nevertheless, there was a sympathetic understanding already established between the two, which would have carried them over greater difficulties, and made a friendship out of a more restricted intercourse.",1 "As though accidents were determined to be favourable to it, they had a new assurance of congeniality in the aversion which each perceived that the other felt towards Blandois of Paris; an aversion amounting to the repugnance and horror of a natural antipathy towards an odious creature of the reptile kind.",1 "And there was a passive congeniality between them, besides this active one.",1 "To both of them, Blandois behaved in exactly the same manner; and to both of them his manner had uniformly something in it, which they both knew to be different from his bearing towards others.",2 "The difference was too minute in its expression to be perceived by others, but they knew it to be there.",2 "A mere trick of his evil eyes, a mere turn of his smooth white hand, a mere hair's-breadth of addition to the fall of his nose and the rise of the moustache in the most frequent movement of his face, conveyed to both of them, equally, a swagger personal to themselves.",0 "It was as if he had said, 'I have a secret power in this quarter.",2 I know what I know.',2 "This had never been felt by them both in so great a degree, and never by each so perfectly to the knowledge of the other, as on a day when he came to Mr Dorrit's to take his leave before quitting Venice.",3 "Mrs Gowan was herself there for the same purpose, and he came upon the two together; the rest of the family being out.",2 "The two had not been together five minutes, and the peculiar manner seemed to convey to them, 'You were going to talk about me.",1 Ha!,2 Behold me here to prevent it!',2 'Gowan is coming here?',2 "said Blandois, with a smile.",3 Mrs Gowan replied he was not coming.,2 'Not coming!',2 said Blandois.,2 "'Permit your devoted servant, when you leave here, to escort you home.'",2 'Thank you: I am not going home.',2 'Not going home!',2 said Blandois.,2 'Then I am forlorn.',1 That he might be; but he was not so forlorn as to roam away and leave them together.,1 "He sat entertaining them with his finest compliments, and his choicest conversation; but he conveyed to them, all the time, 'No, no, no, dear ladies.",3 Behold me here expressly to prevent it!',2 "He conveyed it to them with so much meaning, and he had such a diabolical persistency in him, that at length, Mrs Gowan rose to depart.",1 "On his offering his hand to Mrs Gowan to lead her down the staircase, she retained Little Dorrit's hand in hers, with a cautious pressure, and said, 'No, thank you.",3 "But, if you will please to see if my boatman is there, I shall be obliged to you.'",2 It left him no choice but to go down before them.,2 "As he did so, hat in hand, Mrs Gowan whispered: 'He killed the dog.'",1 'Does Mr Gowan know it?',2 Little Dorrit whispered.,2 'No one knows it.,2 Don't look towards me; look towards him.,2 He will turn his face in a moment.,2 "No one knows it, but I am sure he did.",2 You are?',2 "'I--I think so,' Little Dorrit answered.",2 "'Henry likes him, and he will not think ill of him; he is so generous and open himself.",3 But you and I feel sure that we think of him as he deserves.,2 "He argued with Henry that the dog had been already poisoned when he changed so, and sprang at him.",2 "Henry believes it, but we do not.",2 "I see he is listening, but can't hear.",2 "Good-bye, my love!",3 Good-bye!',3 "The last words were spoken aloud, as the vigilant Blandois stopped, turned his head, and looked at them from the bottom of the staircase.",3 "Assuredly he did look then, though he looked his politest, as if any real philanthropist could have desired no better employment than to lash a great stone to his neck, and drop him into the water flowing beyond the dark arched gateway in which he stood.",3 "No such benefactor to mankind being on the spot, he handed Mrs Gowan to her boat, and stood there until it had shot out of the narrow view; when he handed himself into his own boat and followed.",3 "Little Dorrit had sometimes thought, and now thought again as she retraced her steps up the staircase, that he had made his way too easily into her father's house.",2 "But so many and such varieties of people did the same, through Mr Dorrit's participation in his elder daughter's society mania, that it was hardly an exceptional case.",2 "A perfect fury for making acquaintances on whom to impress their riches and importance, had seized the House of Dorrit.",3 "It appeared on the whole, to Little Dorrit herself, that this same society in which they lived, greatly resembled a superior sort of Marshalsea.",3 "Numbers of people seemed to come abroad, pretty much as people had come into the prison; through debt, through idleness, relationship, curiosity, and general unfitness for getting on at home.",1 "They were brought into these foreign towns in the custody of couriers and local followers, just as the debtors had been brought into the prison.",1 "They prowled about the churches and picture-galleries, much in the old, dreary, prison-yard manner.",1 "They were usually going away again to-morrow or next week, and rarely knew their own minds, and seldom did what they said they would do, or went where they said they would go: in all this again, very like the prison debtors.",2 "They paid high for poor accommodation, and disparaged a place while they pretended to like it: which was exactly the Marshalsea custom.",2 "They were envied when they went away by people left behind, feigning not to want to go: and that again was the Marshalsea habit invariably.",2 "A certain set of words and phrases, as much belonging to tourists as the College and the Snuggery belonged to the jail, was always in their mouths.",2 "They had precisely the same incapacity for settling down to anything, as the prisoners used to have; they rather deteriorated one another, as the prisoners used to do; and they wore untidy dresses, and fell into a slouching way of life: still, always like the people in the Marshalsea.",3 "The period of the family's stay at Venice came, in its course, to an end, and they moved, with their retinue, to Rome.",2 "Through a repetition of the former Italian scenes, growing more dirty and more haggard as they went on, and bringing them at length to where the very air was diseased, they passed to their destination.",1 "A fine residence had been taken for them on the Corso, and there they took up their abode, in a city where everything seemed to be trying to stand still for ever on the ruins of something else--except the water, which, following eternal laws, tumbled and rolled from its glorious multitude of fountains.",2 "Here it seemed to Little Dorrit that a change came over the Marshalsea spirit of their society, and that Prunes and Prism got the upper hand.",2 "Everybody was walking about St Peter's and the Vatican on somebody else's cork legs, and straining every visible object through somebody else's sieve.",1 "Nobody said what anything was, but everybody said what the Mrs Generals, Mr Eustace, or somebody else said it was.",2 "The whole body of travellers seemed to be a collection of voluntary human sacrifices, bound hand and foot, and delivered over to Mr Eustace and his attendants, to have the entrails of their intellects arranged according to the taste of that sacred priesthood.",2 "Through the rugged remains of temples and tombs and palaces and senate halls and theatres and amphitheatres of ancient days, hosts of tongue-tied and blindfolded moderns were carefully feeling their way, incessantly repeating Prunes and Prism in the endeavour to set their lips according to the received form.",1 Mrs General was in her pure element.,3 Nobody had an opinion.,2 "There was a formation of surface going on around her on an amazing scale, and it had not a flaw of courage or honest free speech in it.",4 Another modification of Prunes and Prism insinuated itself on Little Dorrit's notice very shortly after their arrival.,2 "They received an early visit from Mrs Merdle, who led that extensive department of life in the Eternal City that winter; and the skilful manner in which she and Fanny fenced with one another on the occasion, almost made her quiet sister wink, like the glittering of small-swords.",4 "'So delighted,' said Mrs Merdle, 'to resume an acquaintance so inauspiciously begun at Martigny.'",3 "'At Martigny, of course,' said Fanny.",2 "'Charmed, I am sure!'",2 "'I understand,' said Mrs Merdle, 'from my son Edmund Sparkler, that he has already improved that chance occasion.",3 He has returned quite transported with Venice.',2 'Indeed?',2 returned the careless Fanny.,1 'Was he there long?',2 "'I might refer that question to Mr Dorrit,' said Mrs Merdle, turning the bosom towards that gentleman; 'Edmund having been so much indebted to him for rendering his stay agreeable.'",3 "'Oh, pray don't speak of it,' returned Fanny.",2 "'I believe Papa had the pleasure of inviting Mr Sparkler twice or thrice,--but it was nothing.",3 "We had so many people about us, and kept such open house, that if he had that pleasure, it was less than nothing.'",3 "'Except, my dear,' said Mr Dorrit, 'except--ha--as it afforded me unusual gratification to--hum--show by any means, however slight and worthless, the--ha, hum--high estimation in which, in--ha--common with the rest of the world, I hold so distinguished and princely a character as Mr Merdle's.'",1 The bosom received this tribute in its most engaging manner.,3 "'Mr Merdle,' observed Fanny, as a means of dismissing Mr Sparkler into the background, 'is quite a theme of Papa's, you must know, Mrs Merdle.'",2 "'I have been--ha--disappointed, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'to understand from Mr Sparkler that there is no great--hum--probability of Mr Merdle's coming abroad.'",1 "'Why, indeed,' said Mrs Merdle, 'he is so much engaged and in such request, that I fear not.",1 He has not been able to get abroad for years.,2 "You, Miss Dorrit, I believe have been almost continually abroad for a long time.'",1 "'Oh dear yes,' drawled Fanny, with the greatest hardihood.",3 'An immense number of years.',3 "'So I should have inferred,' said Mrs Merdle.",2 "'Exactly,' said Fanny.",2 "'I trust, however,' resumed Mr Dorrit, 'that if I have not the--hum--great advantage of becoming known to Mr Merdle on this side of the Alps or Mediterranean, I shall have that honour on returning to England.",3 It is an honour I particularly desire and shall particularly esteem.',2 "'Mr Merdle,' said Mrs Merdle, who had been looking admiringly at Fanny through her eye-glass, 'will esteem it, I am sure, no less.'",3 "Little Dorrit, still habitually thoughtful and solitary though no longer alone, at first supposed this to be mere Prunes and Prism.",3 "But as her father when they had been to a brilliant reception at Mrs Merdle's, harped at their own family breakfast-table on his wish to know Mr Merdle, with the contingent view of benefiting by the advice of that wonderful man in the disposal of his fortune, she began to think it had a real meaning, and to entertain a curiosity on her own part to see the shining light of the time.",4 "While the waters of Venice and the ruins of Rome were sunning themselves for the pleasure of the Dorrit family, and were daily being sketched out of all earthly proportion, lineament, and likeness, by travelling pencils innumerable, the firm of Doyce and Clennam hammered away in Bleeding Heart Yard, and the vigorous clink of iron upon iron was heard there through the working hours.",1 "The younger partner had, by this time, brought the business into sound trim; and the elder, left free to follow his own ingenious devices, had done much to enhance the character of the factory.",4 "As an ingenious man, he had necessarily to encounter every discouragement that the ruling powers for a length of time had been able by any means to put in the way of this class of culprits; but that was only reasonable self-defence in the powers, since How to do it must obviously be regarded as the natural and mortal enemy of How not to do it.",2 "In this was to be found the basis of the wise system, by tooth and nail upheld by the Circumlocution Office, of warning every ingenious British subject to be ingenious at his peril: of harassing him, obstructing him, inviting robbers (by making his remedy uncertain, and expensive) to plunder him, and at the best of confiscating his property after a short term of enjoyment, as though invention were on a par with felony.",2 "The system had uniformly found great favour with the Barnacles, and that was only reasonable, too; for one who worthily invents must be in earnest, and the Barnacles abhorred and dreaded nothing half so much.",4 "That again was very reasonable; since in a country suffering under the affliction of a great amount of earnestness, there might, in an exceeding short space of time, be not a single Barnacle left sticking to a post.",3 "Daniel Doyce faced his condition with its pains and penalties attached to it, and soberly worked on for the work's sake.",2 "Clennam cheering him with a hearty co-operation, was a moral support to him, besides doing good service in his business relation.",3 "The concern prospered, and the partners were fast friends.",2 But Daniel could not forget the old design of so many years.,2 "It was not in reason to be expected that he should; if he could have lightly forgotten it, he could never have conceived it, or had the patience and perseverance to work it out.",4 "So Clennam thought, when he sometimes observed him of an evening looking over the models and drawings, and consoling himself by muttering with a sigh as he put them away again, that the thing was as true as it ever was.",2 "To show no sympathy with so much endeavour, and so much disappointment, would have been to fail in what Clennam regarded as among the implied obligations of his partnership.",1 "A revival of the passing interest in the subject which had been by chance awakened at the door of the Circumlocution Office, originated in this feeling.",3 "He asked his partner to explain the invention to him; 'having a lenient consideration,' he stipulated, 'for my being no workman, Doyce.'",2 'No workman?',2 said Doyce.,2 'You would have been a thorough workman if you had given yourself to it.,2 You have as good a head for understanding such things as I have met with.',3 "'A totally uneducated one, I am sorry to add,' said Clennam.",1 "'I don't know that,' returned Doyce, 'and I wouldn't have you say that.",2 "No man of sense who has been generally improved, and has improved himself, can be called quite uneducated as to anything.",3 I don't particularly favour mysteries.,3 "I would as soon, on a fair and clear explanation, be judged by one class of man as another, provided he had the qualification I have named.'",3 "'At all events,' said Clennam--'this sounds as if we were exchanging compliments, but we know we are not--I shall have the advantage of as plain an explanation as can be given.'",3 'Well!',2 "said Daniel, in his steady even way, 'I'll try to make it so.'",3 "He had the power, often to be found in union with such a character, of explaining what he himself perceived, and meant, with the direct force and distinctness with which it struck his own mind.",1 "His manner of demonstration was so orderly and neat and simple, that it was not easy to mistake him.",3 "There was something almost ludicrous in the complete irreconcilability of a vague conventional notion that he must be a visionary man, with the precise, sagacious travelling of his eye and thumb over the plans, their patient stoppages at particular points, their careful returns to other points whence little channels of explanation had to be traced up, and his steady manner of making everything good and everything sound at each important stage, before taking his hearer on a line's-breadth further.",4 "His dismissal of himself from his description, was hardly less remarkable.",3 "He never said, I discovered this adaptation or invented that combination; but showed the whole thing as if the Divine artificer had made it, and he had happened to find it; so modest he was about it, such a pleasant touch of respect was mingled with his quiet admiration of it, and so calmly convinced he was that it was established on irrefragable laws.",4 "Not only that evening, but for several succeeding evenings, Clennam was quite charmed by this investigation.",3 "The more he pursued it, and the oftener he glanced at the grey head bending over it, and the shrewd eye kindling with pleasure in it and love of it--instrument for probing his heart though it had been made for twelve long years--the less he could reconcile it to his younger energy to let it go without one effort more.",4 "At length he said: 'Doyce, it came to this at last--that the business was to be sunk with Heaven knows how many more wrecks, or begun all over again?'",2 "'Yes,' returned Doyce, 'that's what the noblemen and gentlemen made of it after a dozen years.'",2 'And pretty fellows too!',3 "said Clennam, bitterly.",1 'The usual thing!',2 observed Doyce.,2 "'I must not make a martyr of myself, when I am one of so large a company.'",2 "'Relinquish it, or begin it all over again?'",2 mused Clennam.,2 "'That was exactly the long and the short of it,' said Doyce.",2 "'Then, my friend,' cried Clennam, starting up and taking his work-roughened hand, 'it shall be begun all over again!'",3 "Doyce looked alarmed, and replied in a hurry--for him, 'No, no.",1 Better put it by.,3 Far better put it by.,3 "It will be heard of, one day.",2 I can put it by.,2 "You forget, my good Clennam; I _have_ put it by.",3 It's all at an end.',2 "'Yes, Doyce,' returned Clennam, 'at an end as far as your efforts and rebuffs are concerned, I admit, but not as far as mine are.",1 "I am younger than you: I have only once set foot in that precious office, and I am fresh game for them.",3 Come!,2 I'll try them.,2 You shall do exactly as you have been doing since we have been together.,2 "I will add (as I easily can) to what I have been doing, the attempt to get public justice done to you; and, unless I have some success to report, you shall hear no more of it.'",3 "Daniel Doyce was still reluctant to consent, and again and again urged that they had better put it by.",2 "But it was natural that he should gradually allow himself to be over-persuaded by Clennam, and should yield.",2 Yield he did.,2 So Arthur resumed the long and hopeless labour of striving to make way with the Circumlocution Office.,2 "The waiting-rooms of that Department soon began to be familiar with his presence, and he was generally ushered into them by its janitors much as a pickpocket might be shown into a police-office; the principal difference being that the object of the latter class of public business is to keep the pickpocket, while the Circumlocution object was to get rid of Clennam.",1 "However, he was resolved to stick to the Great Department; and so the work of form-filling, corresponding, minuting, memorandum-making, signing, counter-signing, counter-counter-signing, referring backwards and forwards, and referring sideways, crosswise, and zig-zag, recommenced.",3 "Here arises a feature of the Circumlocution Office, not previously mentioned in the present record.",2 "When that admirable Department got into trouble, and was, by some infuriated members of Parliament whom the smaller Barnacles almost suspected of labouring under diabolic possession, attacked on the merits of no individual case, but as an Institution wholly abominable and Bedlamite; then the noble or right honourable Barnacle who represented it in the House, would smite that member and cleave him asunder, with a statement of the quantity of business (for the prevention of business) done by the Circumlocution Office.",0 "Then would that noble or right honourable Barnacle hold in his hand a paper containing a few figures, to which, with the permission of the House, he would entreat its attention.",3 "Then would the inferior Barnacles exclaim, obeying orders, 'Hear, Hear, Hear!'",1 and 'Read!',2 "Then would the noble or right honourable Barnacle perceive, sir, from this little document, which he thought might carry conviction even to the perversest mind (Derisive laughter and cheering from the Barnacle fry), that within the short compass of the last financial half-year, this much-maligned Department (Cheers) had written and received fifteen thousand letters (Loud cheers), had written twenty-four thousand minutes (Louder cheers), and thirty-two thousand five hundred and seventeen memoranda (Vehement cheering).",1 "Nay, an ingenious gentleman connected with the Department, and himself a valuable public servant, had done him the favour to make a curious calculation of the amount of stationery consumed in it during the same period.",4 "It formed a part of this same short document; and he derived from it the remarkable fact that the sheets of foolscap paper it had devoted to the public service would pave the footways on both sides of Oxford Street from end to end, and leave nearly a quarter of a mile to spare for the park (Immense cheering and laughter); while of tape--red tape--it had used enough to stretch, in graceful festoons, from Hyde Park Corner to the General Post Office.",4 "Then, amidst a burst of official exultation, would the noble or right honourable Barnacle sit down, leaving the mutilated fragments of the Member on the field.",4 "No one, after that exemplary demolition of him, would have the hardihood to hint that the more the Circumlocution Office did, the less was done, and that the greatest blessing it could confer on an unhappy public would be to do nothing.",3 "With sufficient occupation on his hands, now that he had this additional task--such a task had many and many a serviceable man died of before his day--Arthur Clennam led a life of slight variety.",3 "Regular visits to his mother's dull sick room, and visits scarcely less regular to Mr Meagles at Twickenham, were its only changes during many months.",0 He sadly and sorely missed Little Dorrit.,0 "He had been prepared to miss her very much, but not so much.",1 "He knew to the full extent only through experience, what a large place in his life was left blank when her familiar little figure went out of it.",2 "He felt, too, that he must relinquish the hope of its return, understanding the family character sufficiently well to be assured that he and she were divided by a broad ground of separation.",3 "The old interest he had had in her, and her old trusting reliance on him, were tinged with melancholy in his mind: so soon had change stolen over them, and so soon had they glided into the past with other secret tendernesses.",1 "When he received her letter he was greatly moved, but did not the less sensibly feel that she was far divided from him by more than distance.",3 It helped him to a clearer and keener perception of the place assigned him by the family.,3 "He saw that he was cherished in her grateful remembrance secretly, and that they resented him with the jail and the rest of its belongings.",3 "Through all these meditations which every day of his life crowded about her, he thought of her otherwise in the old way.",1 "She was his innocent friend, his delicate child, his dear Little Dorrit.",3 "This very change of circumstances fitted curiously in with the habit, begun on the night when the roses floated away, of considering himself as a much older man than his years really made him.",2 "He regarded her from a point of view which in its remoteness, tender as it was, he little thought would have been unspeakable agony to her.",1 "He speculated about her future destiny, and about the husband she might have, with an affection for her which would have drained her heart of its dearest drop of hope, and broken it.",2 "Everything about him tended to confirm him in the custom of looking on himself as an elderly man, from whom such aspirations as he had combated in the case of Minnie Gowan (though that was not so long ago either, reckoning by months and seasons), were finally departed.",3 His relations with her father and mother were like those on which a widower son-in-law might have stood.,3 "If the twin sister who was dead had lived to pass away in the bloom of womanhood, and he had been her husband, the nature of his intercourse with Mr and Mrs Meagles would probably have been just what it was.",2 "This imperceptibly helped to render habitual the impression within him, that he had done with, and dismissed that part of life.",3 "He invariably heard of Minnie from them, as telling them in her letters how happy she was, and how she loved her husband; but inseparable from that subject, he invariably saw the old cloud on Mr Meagles's face.",3 Mr Meagles had never been quite so radiant since the marriage as before.,3 He had never quite recovered the separation from Pet.,2 "He was the same good-humoured, open creature; but as if his face, from being much turned towards the pictures of his two children which could show him only one look, unconsciously adopted a characteristic from them, it always had now, through all its changes of expression, a look of loss in it.",2 "One wintry Saturday when Clennam was at the cottage, the Dowager Mrs Gowan drove up, in the Hampton Court equipage which pretended to be the exclusive equipage of so many individual proprietors.",2 "She descended, in her shady ambuscade of green fan, to favour Mr and Mrs Meagles with a call.",2 "'And how do you both do, Papa and Mama Meagles?'",2 "said she, encouraging her humble connections.",3 'And when did you last hear from or about my poor fellow?',1 "My poor fellow was her son; and this mode of speaking of him politely kept alive, without any offence in the world, the pretence that he had fallen a victim to the Meagles' wiles.",0 'And the dear pretty one?',3 said Mrs Gowan.,2 'Have you later news of her than I have?',2 "Which also delicately implied that her son had been captured by mere beauty, and under its fascination had forgone all sorts of worldly advantages.",4 "'I am sure,' said Mrs Gowan, without straining her attention on the answers she received, 'it's an unspeakable comfort to know they continue happy.",2 "My poor fellow is of such a restless disposition, and has been so used to roving about, and to being inconstant and popular among all manner of people, that it's the greatest comfort in life.",2 "I suppose they're as poor as mice, Papa Meagles?'",1 "Mr Meagles, fidgety under the question, replied, 'I hope not, ma'am.",1 I hope they will manage their little income.',2 'Oh!,2 my dearest Meagles!',2 "returned the lady, tapping him on the arm with the green fan and then adroitly interposing it between a yawn and the company, 'how can you, as a man of the world and one of the most business-like of human beings--for you know you are business-like, and a great deal too much for us who are not--' (Which went to the former purpose, by making Mr Meagles out to be an artful schemer.) '--How can you talk about their managing their little means?",3 My poor dear fellow!,1 The idea of his managing hundreds!,2 And the sweet pretty creature too.,3 The notion of her managing!,2 Papa Meagles!,2 Don't!',2 "'Well, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, gravely, 'I am sorry to admit, then, that Henry certainly does anticipate his means.'",1 "'My dear good man--I use no ceremony with you, because we are a kind of relations;--positively, Mama Meagles,' exclaimed Mrs Gowan cheerfully, as if the absurd coincidence then flashed upon her for the first time, 'a kind of relations!",3 "My dear good man, in this world none of us can have _everything_ our own way.'",3 "This again went to the former point, and showed Mr Meagles with all good breeding that, so far, he had been brilliantly successful in his deep designs.",4 "Mrs Gowan thought the hit so good a one, that she dwelt upon it; repeating 'Not _everything_.",3 "No, no; in this world we must not expect _everything_, Papa Meagles.'",2 "'And may I ask, ma'am,' retorted Mr Meagles, a little heightened in colour, 'who does expect everything?'",2 "'Oh, nobody, nobody!'",2 said Mrs Gowan.,2 'I was going to say--but you put me out.,2 "You interrupting Papa, what was I going to say?'",2 "Drooping her large green fan, she looked musingly at Mr Meagles while she thought about it; a performance not tending to the cooling of that gentleman's rather heated spirits.",2 'Ah!,2 "Yes, to be sure!'",2 said Mrs Gowan.,2 'You must remember that my poor fellow has always been accustomed to expectations.,1 "They may have been realised, or they may not have been realised--' 'Let us say, then, may not have been realised,' observed Mr Meagles.",2 "The Dowager for a moment gave him an angry look; but tossed it off with her head and her fan, and pursued the tenor of her way in her former manner.",1 'It makes no difference.,2 "My poor fellow has been accustomed to that sort of thing, and of course you knew it, and were prepared for the consequences.",1 "I myself always clearly foresaw the consequences, and am not surprised.",3 And you must not be surprised.,2 "In fact, can't be surprised.",2 Must have been prepared for it.',2 Mr Meagles looked at his wife and at Clennam; bit his lip; and coughed.,2 "'And now here's my poor fellow,' Mrs Gowan pursued, 'receiving notice that he is to hold himself in expectation of a baby, and all the expenses attendant on such an addition to his family!",1 Poor Henry!,1 But it can't be helped now; it's too late to help it now.,3 "Only don't talk of anticipating means, Papa Meagles, as a discovery; because that would be too much.'",2 "'Too much, ma'am?'",2 "said Mr Meagles, as seeking an explanation.",2 "'There, there!'",2 "said Mrs Gowan, putting him in his inferior place with an expressive action of her hand.",1 'Too much for my poor fellow's mother to bear at this time of day.,1 "They are fast married, and can't be unmarried.",3 "There, there!",2 I know that!,2 "You needn't tell me that, Papa Meagles.",2 I know it very well.,3 What was it I said just now?,2 That it was a great comfort they continued happy.,4 It is to be hoped they will still continue happy.,3 "It is to be hoped Pretty One will do everything she can to make my poor fellow happy, and keep him contented.",3 "Papa and Mama Meagles, we had better say no more about it.",3 "We never did look at this subject from the same side, and we never shall.",2 "There, there!",2 Now I am good.',3 "Truly, having by this time said everything she could say in maintenance of her wonderfully mythical position, and in admonition to Mr Meagles that he must not expect to bear his honours of alliance too cheaply, Mrs Gowan was disposed to forgo the rest.",1 "If Mr Meagles had submitted to a glance of entreaty from Mrs Meagles, and an expressive gesture from Clennam, he would have left her in the undisturbed enjoyment of this state of mind.",3 "But Pet was the darling and pride of his heart; and if he could ever have championed her more devotedly, or loved her better, than in the days when she was the sunlight of his house, it would have been now, when, as its daily grace and delight, she was lost to it.",4 "'Mrs Gowan, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'I have been a plain man all my life.",2 "If I was to try--no matter whether on myself, on somebody else, or both--any genteel mystifications, I should probably not succeed in them.'",3 "'Papa Meagles,' returned the Dowager, with an affable smile, but with the bloom on her cheeks standing out a little more vividly than usual as the neighbouring surface became paler, 'probably not.'",4 "'Therefore, my good madam,' said Mr Meagles, at great pains to restrain himself, 'I hope I may, without offence, ask to have no such mystification played off upon me.'",2 "'Mama Meagles,' observed Mrs Gowan, 'your good man is incomprehensible.'",2 "Her turning to that worthy lady was an artifice to bring her into the discussion, quarrel with her, and vanquish her.",2 Mr Meagles interposed to prevent that consummation.,2 "'Mother,' said he, 'you are inexpert, my dear, and it is not a fair match.",2 Let me beg of you to remain quiet.,2 "Come, Mrs Gowan, come!",2 Let us try to be sensible; let us try to be good-natured; let us try to be fair.,4 "Don't you pity Henry, and I won't pity Pet.",1 "And don't be one-sided, my dear madam; it's not considerate, it's not kind.",3 "Don't let us say that we hope Pet will make Henry happy, or even that we hope Henry will make Pet happy,' (Mr Meagles himself did not look happy as he spoke the words,) 'but let us hope they will make each other happy.'",3 "'Yes, sure, and there leave it, father,' said Mrs Meagles the kind-hearted and comfortable.",3 "'Why, mother, no,' returned Mr Meagles, 'not exactly there.",2 I can't quite leave it there; I must say just half-a-dozen words more.,2 "Mrs Gowan, I hope I am not over-sensitive.",3 I believe I don't look it.',2 "'Indeed you do not,' said Mrs Gowan, shaking her head and the great green fan together, for emphasis.",3 "'Thank you, ma'am; that's well.",3 "Notwithstanding which, I feel a little--I don't want to use a strong word--now shall I say hurt?'",2 "asked Mr Meagles at once with frankness and moderation, and with a conciliatory appeal in his tone.",3 "'Say what you like,' answered Mrs Gowan.",3 'It is perfectly indifferent to me.',2 "'No, no, don't say that,' urged Mr Meagles, 'because that's not responding amiably.",2 "I feel a little hurt when I hear references made to consequences having been foreseen, and to its being too late now, and so forth.'",1 "'_Do_ you, Papa Meagles?'",2 said Mrs Gowan.,2 'I am not surprised.',2 "'Well, ma'am,' reasoned Mr Meagles, 'I was in hopes you would have been at least surprised, because to hurt me wilfully on so tender a subject is surely not generous.'",3 "'I am not responsible,' said Mrs Gowan, 'for your conscience, you know.'",2 Poor Mr Meagles looked aghast with astonishment.,1 "'If I am unluckily obliged to carry a cap about with me, which is yours and fits you,' pursued Mrs Gowan, 'don't blame me for its pattern, Papa Meagles, I beg!'",1 "'Why, good Lord, ma'am!'",3 "Mr Meagles broke out, 'that's as much as to state--' 'Now, Papa Meagles, Papa Meagles,' said Mrs Gowan, who became extremely deliberate and prepossessing in manner whenever that gentleman became at all warm, 'perhaps to prevent confusion, I had better speak for myself than trouble your kindness to speak for me.",2 "It's as much as to state, you begin.",2 "If you please, I will finish the sentence.",2 "It is as much as to state--not that I wish to press it or even recall it, for it is of no use now, and my only wish is to make the best of existing circumstances--that from the first to the last I always objected to this match of yours, and at a very late period yielded a most unwilling consent to it.'",2 'Mother!',2 cried Mr Meagles.,2 'Do you hear this!,2 Arthur!,2 Do you hear this!',2 "'The room being of a convenient size,' said Mrs Gowan, looking about as she fanned herself, 'and quite charmingly adapted in all respects to conversation, I should imagine I am audible in any part of it.'",4 "Some moments passed in silence, before Mr Meagles could hold himself in his chair with sufficient security to prevent his breaking out of it at the next word he spoke.",2 "At last he said: 'Ma'am, I am very unwilling to revive them, but I must remind you what my opinions and my course were, all along, on that unfortunate subject.'",1 "'O, my dear sir!'",2 "said Mrs Gowan, smiling and shaking her head with accusatory intelligence, 'they were well understood by me, I assure you.'",4 "'I never, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'knew unhappiness before that time, I never knew anxiety before that time.",1 "It was a time of such distress to me that--' That Mr Meagles could really say no more about it, in short, but passed his handkerchief before his face.",1 "'I understood the whole affair,' said Mrs Gowan, composedly looking over her fan.",2 "'As you have appealed to Mr Clennam, I may appeal to Mr Clennam, too.",3 He knows whether I did or not.',2 "'I am very unwilling,' said Clennam, looked to by all parties, 'to take any share in this discussion, more especially because I wish to preserve the best understanding and the clearest relations with Mr Henry Gowan.",2 "I have very strong reasons indeed, for entertaining that wish.",3 "Mrs Gowan attributed certain views of furthering the marriage to my friend here, in conversation with me before it took place; and I endeavoured to undeceive her.",2 "I represented that I knew him (as I did and do) to be strenuously opposed to it, both in opinion and action.'",2 'You see?',2 "said Mrs Gowan, turning the palms of her hands towards Mr Meagles, as if she were Justice herself, representing to him that he had better confess, for he had not a leg to stand on.",2 'You see?,2 Very good!,3 Now Papa and Mama Meagles both!',2 here she rose; 'allow me to take the liberty of putting an end to this rather formidable controversy.,3 I will not say another word upon its merits.,2 "I will only say that it is an additional proof of what one knows from all experience; that this kind of thing never answers--as my poor fellow himself would say, that it never pays--in one word, that it never does.'",1 "Mr Meagles asked, What kind of thing?",2 "'It is in vain,' said Mrs Gowan, 'for people to attempt to get on together who have such extremely different antecedents; who are jumbled against each other in this accidental, matrimonial sort of way; and who cannot look at the untoward circumstance which has shaken them together in the same light.",1 It never does.',2 "Mr Meagles was beginning, 'Permit me to say, ma'am--' 'No, don't,' returned Mrs Gowan.",2 'Why should you!,2 It is an ascertained fact.,2 It never does.,2 "I will therefore, if you please, go my way, leaving you to yours.",2 "I shall at all times be happy to receive my poor fellow's pretty wife, and I shall always make a point of being on the most affectionate terms with her.",3 "But as to these terms, semi-family and semi-stranger, semi-goring and semi-boring, they form a state of things quite amusing in its impracticability.",1 I assure you it never does.',3 "The Dowager here made a smiling obeisance, rather to the room than to any one in it, and therewith took a final farewell of Papa and Mama Meagles.",3 "Clennam stepped forward to hand her to the Pill-Box which was at the service of all the Pills in Hampton Court Palace; and she got into that vehicle with distinguished serenity, and was driven away.",3 "Thenceforth the Dowager, with a light and careless humour, often recounted to her particular acquaintance how, after a hard trial, she had found it impossible to know those people who belonged to Henry's wife, and who had made that desperate set to catch him.",0 "Whether she had come to the conclusion beforehand, that to get rid of them would give her favourite pretence a better air, might save her some occasional inconvenience, and could risk no loss (the pretty creature being fast married, and her father devoted to her), was best known to herself.",2 "Though this history has its opinion on that point too, and decidedly in the affirmative.",3 "'Arthur, my dear boy,' said Mr Meagles, on the evening of the following day, 'Mother and I have been talking this over, and we don't feel comfortable in remaining as we are.",3 "That elegant connection of ours--that dear lady who was here yesterday--' 'I understand,' said Arthur.",3 "'Even that affable and condescending ornament of society,' pursued Mr Meagles, 'may misrepresent us, we are afraid.",1 "We could bear a great deal, Arthur, for her sake; but we think we would rather not bear that, if it was all the same to her.'",3 "'Good,' said Arthur.",2 'Go on.',2 "'You see,' proceeded Mr Meagles 'it might put us wrong with our son-in-law, it might even put us wrong with our daughter, and it might lead to a great deal of domestic trouble.",2 "You see, don't you?'",2 "'Yes, indeed,' returned Arthur, 'there is much reason in what you say.'",2 "He had glanced at Mrs Meagles, who was always on the good and sensible side; and a petition had shone out of her honest face that he would support Mr Meagles in his present inclinings.",4 "'So we are very much disposed, are Mother and I,' said Mr Meagles, 'to pack up bags and baggage and go among the Allongers and Marshongers once more.",2 "I mean, we are very much disposed to be off, strike right through France into Italy, and see our Pet.'",2 "'And I don't think,' replied Arthur, touched by the motherly anticipation in the bright face of Mrs Meagles (she must have been very like her daughter, once), 'that you could do better.",4 "And if you ask me for my advice, it is that you set off to-morrow.'",2 "'Is it really, though?'",2 said Mr Meagles.,2 "'Mother, this is being backed in an idea!'",2 "Mother, with a look which thanked Clennam in a manner very agreeable to him, answered that it was indeed.",3 "'The fact is, besides, Arthur,' said Mr Meagles, the old cloud coming over his face, 'that my son-in-law is already in debt again, and that I suppose I must clear him again.",1 "It may be as well, even on this account, that I should step over there, and look him up in a friendly way.",3 "Then again, here's Mother foolishly anxious (and yet naturally too) about Pet's state of health, and that she should not be left to feel lonesome at the present time.",0 "It's undeniably a long way off, Arthur, and a strange place for the poor love under all the circumstances.",1 "Let her be as well cared for as any lady in that land, still it is a long way off.",3 "just as Home is Home though it's never so Homely, why you see,' said Mr Meagles, adding a new version to the proverb, 'Rome is Rome, though it's never so Romely.'",2 "'All perfectly true,' observed Arthur, 'and all sufficient reasons for going.'",3 'I am glad you think so; it decides me.,3 "Mother, my dear, you may get ready.",3 "We have lost our pleasant interpreter (she spoke three foreign languages beautifully, Arthur; you have heard her many a time), and you must pull me through it, Mother, as well as you can.",3 "I require a deal of pulling through, Arthur,' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head, 'a deal of pulling through.",2 "I stick at everything beyond a noun-substantive--and I stick at him, if he's at all a tight one.'",3 "'Now I think of it,' returned Clennam, 'there's Cavalletto.",2 "He shall go with you, if you like.",3 "I could not afford to lose him, but you will bring him safe back.'",3 'Well!,2 "I am much obliged to you, my boy,' said Mr Meagles, turning it over, 'but I think not.",2 "No, I think I'll be pulled through by Mother.",2 "Cavallooro (I stick at his very name to start with, and it sounds like the chorus to a comic song) is so necessary to you, that I don't like the thought of taking him away.",3 "More than that, there's no saying when we may come home again; and it would never do to take him away for an indefinite time.",2 The cottage is not what it was.,2 "It only holds two little people less than it ever did, Pet, and her poor unfortunate maid Tattycoram; but it seems empty now.",1 "Once out of it, there's no knowing when we may come back to it.",2 "No, Arthur, I'll be pulled through by Mother.'",2 "They would do best by themselves perhaps, after all, Clennam thought; therefore did not press his proposal.",3 "'If you would come down and stay here for a change, when it wouldn't trouble you,' Mr Meagles resumed, 'I should be glad to think--and so would Mother too, I know--that you were brightening up the old place with a bit of life it was used to when it was full, and that the Babies on the wall there had a kind eye upon them sometimes.",2 "You so belong to the spot, and to them, Arthur, and we should every one of us have been so happy if it had fallen out--but, let us see--how's the weather for travelling now?'",2 "Mr Meagles broke off, cleared his throat, and got up to look out of the window.",2 "They agreed that the weather was of high promise; and Clennam kept the talk in that safe direction until it had become easy again, when he gently diverted it to Henry Gowan and his quick sense and agreeable qualities when he was delicately dealt with; he likewise dwelt on the indisputable affection he entertained for his wife.",4 "Clennam did not fail of his effect upon good Mr Meagles, whom these commendations greatly cheered; and who took Mother to witness that the single and cordial desire of his heart in reference to their daughter's husband, was harmoniously to exchange friendship for friendship, and confidence for confidence.",3 "Within a few hours the cottage furniture began to be wrapped up for preservation in the family absence--or, as Mr Meagles expressed it, the house began to put its hair in papers--and within a few days Father and Mother were gone, Mrs Tickit and Dr Buchan were posted, as of yore, behind the parlour blind, and Arthur's solitary feet were rustling among the dry fallen leaves in the garden walks.",0 "As he had a liking for the spot, he seldom let a week pass without paying a visit.",3 "Sometimes, he went down alone from Saturday to Monday; sometimes his partner accompanied him; sometimes, he merely strolled for an hour or two about the house and garden, saw that all was right, and returned to London again.",3 "At all times, and under all circumstances, Mrs Tickit, with her dark row of curls, and Dr Buchan, sat in the parlour window, looking out for the family return.",1 "On one of his visits Mrs Tickit received him with the words, 'I have something to tell you, Mr Clennam, that will surprise you.'",2 "So surprising was the something in question, that it actually brought Mrs Tickit out of the parlour window and produced her in the garden walk, when Clennam went in at the gate on its being opened for him.",2 "'What is it, Mrs Tickit?'",2 said he.,2 "'Sir,' returned that faithful housekeeper, having taken him into the parlour and closed the door; 'if ever I saw the led away and deluded child in my life, I saw her identically in the dusk of yesterday evening.'",3 'You don't mean Tatty--' 'Coram yes I do!',2 "quoth Mrs Tickit, clearing the disclosure at a leap.",2 'Where?',2 "'Mr Clennam,' returned Mrs Tickit, 'I was a little heavy in my eyes, being that I was waiting longer than customary for my cup of tea which was then preparing by Mary Jane.",2 "I was not sleeping, nor what a person would term correctly, dozing.",3 I was more what a person would strictly call watching with my eyes closed.',1 "Without entering upon an inquiry into this curious abnormal condition, Clennam said, 'Exactly.",1 Well?',3 "'Well, sir,' proceeded Mrs Tickit, 'I was thinking of one thing and thinking of another, just as you yourself might.",2 Just as anybody might.',2 "'Precisely so,' said Clennam.",2 'Well?',2 "'And when I do think of one thing and do think of another,' pursued Mrs Tickit, 'I hardly need to tell you, Mr Clennam, that I think of the family.",2 "Because, dear me!",2 "a person's thoughts,' Mrs Tickit said this with an argumentative and philosophic air, 'however they may stray, will go more or less on what is uppermost in their minds.",1 "They will do it, sir, and a person can't prevent them.'",2 Arthur subscribed to this discovery with a nod.,2 "'You find it so yourself, sir, I'll be bold to say,' said Mrs Tickit, 'and we all find it so.",2 "It an't our stations in life that changes us, Mr Clennam; thoughts is free!--As I was saying, I was thinking of one thing and thinking of another, and thinking very much of the family.",3 "Not of the family in the present times only, but in the past times too.",2 "For when a person does begin thinking of one thing and thinking of another in that manner, as it's getting dark, what I say is, that all times seem to be present, and a person must get out of that state and consider before they can say which is which.'",1 "He nodded again; afraid to utter a word, lest it should present any new opening to Mrs Tickit's conversational powers.",1 "'In consequence of which,' said Mrs Tickit, 'when I quivered my eyes and saw her actual form and figure looking in at the gate, I let them close again without so much as starting, for that actual form and figure came so pat to the time when it belonged to the house as much as mine or your own, that I never thought at the moment of its having gone away.",2 "But, sir, when I quivered my eyes again, and saw that it wasn't there, then it all flooded upon me with a fright, and I jumped up.'",1 You ran out directly?' said Clennam.,2 "'I ran out,' assented Mrs Tickit, 'as fast as ever my feet would carry me; and if you'll credit it, Mr Clennam, there wasn't in the whole shining Heavens, no not so much as a finger of that young woman.'",3 "Passing over the absence from the firmament of this novel constellation, Arthur inquired of Mrs Tickit if she herself went beyond the gate?",1 "'Went to and fro, and high and low,' said Mrs Tickit, 'and saw no sign of her!'",2 He then asked Mrs Tickit how long a space of time she supposed there might have been between the two sets of ocular quiverings she had experienced?,2 "Mrs Tickit, though minutely circumstantial in her reply, had no settled opinion between five seconds and ten minutes.",2 "She was so plainly at sea on this part of the case, and had so clearly been startled out of slumber, that Clennam was much disposed to regard the appearance as a dream.",3 "Without hurting Mrs Tickit's feelings with that infidel solution of her mystery, he took it away from the cottage with him; and probably would have retained it ever afterwards if a circumstance had not soon happened to change his opinion.",0 "He was passing at nightfall along the Strand, and the lamp-lighter was going on before him, under whose hand the street-lamps, blurred by the foggy air, burst out one after another, like so many blazing sunflowers coming into full-blow all at once,--when a stoppage on the pavement, caused by a train of coal-waggons toiling up from the wharves at the river-side, brought him to a stand-still.",2 "He had been walking quickly, and going with some current of thought, and the sudden check given to both operations caused him to look freshly about him, as people under such circumstances usually do.",2 "Immediately, he saw in advance--a few people intervening, but still so near to him that he could have touched them by stretching out his arm--Tattycoram and a strange man of a remarkable appearance: a swaggering man, with a high nose, and a black moustache as false in its colour as his eyes were false in their expression, who wore his heavy cloak with the air of a foreigner.",1 "His dress and general appearance were those of a man on travel, and he seemed to have very recently joined the girl.",2 "In bending down (being much taller than she was), listening to whatever she said to him, he looked over his shoulder with the suspicious glance of one who was not unused to be mistrustful that his footsteps might be dogged.",0 "It was then that Clennam saw his face; as his eyes lowered on the people behind him in the aggregate, without particularly resting upon Clennam's face or any other.",2 "He had scarcely turned his head about again, and it was still bent down, listening to the girl, when the stoppage ceased, and the obstructed stream of people flowed on.",0 "Still bending his head and listening to the girl, he went on at her side, and Clennam followed them, resolved to play this unexpected play out, and see where they went.",1 "He had hardly made the determination (though he was not long about it), when he was again as suddenly brought up as he had been by the stoppage.",2 "They turned short into the Adelphi,--the girl evidently leading,--and went straight on, as if they were going to the Terrace which overhangs the river.",3 "There is always, to this day, a sudden pause in that place to the roar of the great thoroughfare.",3 "The many sounds become so deadened that the change is like putting cotton in the ears, or having the head thickly muffled.",3 "At that time the contrast was far greater; there being no small steam-boats on the river, no landing places but slippery wooden stairs and foot-causeways, no railroad on the opposite bank, no hanging bridge or fish-market near at hand, no traffic on the nearest bridge of stone, nothing moving on the stream but watermen's wherries and coal-lighters.",2 "Long and broad black tiers of the latter, moored fast in the mud as if they were never to move again, made the shore funereal and silent after dark; and kept what little water-movement there was, far out towards mid-stream.",3 "At any hour later than sunset, and not least at that hour when most of the people who have anything to eat at home are going home to eat it, and when most of those who have nothing have hardly yet slunk out to beg or steal, it was a deserted place and looked on a deserted scene.",1 "Such was the hour when Clennam stopped at the corner, observing the girl and the strange man as they went down the street.",1 The man's footsteps were so noisy on the echoing stones that he was unwilling to add the sound of his own.,1 "But when they had passed the turning and were in the darkness of the dark corner leading to the terrace, he made after them with such indifferent appearance of being a casual passenger on his way, as he could assume.",1 "When he rounded the dark corner, they were walking along the terrace towards a figure which was coming towards them.",1 "If he had seen it by itself, under such conditions of gas-lamp, mist, and distance, he might not have known it at first sight, but with the figure of the girl to prompt him, he at once recognised Miss Wade.",1 "He stopped at the corner, seeming to look back expectantly up the street as if he had made an appointment with some one to meet him there; but he kept a careful eye on the three.",2 "When they came together, the man took off his hat, and made Miss Wade a bow.",1 "The girl appeared to say a few words as though she presented him, or accounted for his being late, or early, or what not; and then fell a pace or so behind, by herself.",1 Miss Wade and the man then began to walk up and down; the man having the appearance of being extremely courteous and complimentary in manner; Miss Wade having the appearance of being extremely haughty.,2 "When they came down to the corner and turned, she was saying, 'If I pinch myself for it, sir, that is my business.",1 "Confine yourself to yours, and ask me no question.'",2 "'By Heaven, ma'am!'",3 "he replied, making her another bow.",2 "'It was my profound respect for the strength of your character, and my admiration of your beauty.'",4 "'I want neither the one nor the other from any one,' said she, 'and certainly not from you of all creatures.",2 Go on with your report.',2 'Am I pardoned?',2 "he asked, with an air of half abashed gallantry.",2 "'You are paid,' she said, 'and that is all you want.'",2 "Whether the girl hung behind because she was not to hear the business, or as already knowing enough about it, Clennam could not determine.",2 They turned and she turned.,2 "She looked away at the river, as she walked with her hands folded before her; and that was all he could make of her without showing his face.",2 "There happened, by good fortune, to be a lounger really waiting for some one; and he sometimes looked over the railing at the water, and sometimes came to the dark corner and looked up the street, rendering Arthur less conspicuous.",2 "When Miss Wade and the man came back again, she was saying, 'You must wait until to-morrow.'",1 'A thousand pardons?',2 he returned.,2 'My faith!,3 Then it's not convenient to-night?',3 'No.,2 I tell you I must get it before I can give it to you.',2 "She stopped in the roadway, as if to put an end to the conference.",2 He of course stopped too.,2 And the girl stopped.,2 "'It's a little inconvenient,' said the man.",2 'A little.,2 "But, Holy Blue!",3 that's nothing in such a service.,2 "I am without money to-night, by chance.",1 "I have a good banker in this city, but I would not wish to draw upon the house until the time when I shall draw for a round sum.'",3 "'Harriet,' said Miss Wade, 'arrange with him--this gentleman here--for sending him some money to-morrow.'",1 "She said it with a slur of the word gentleman which was more contemptuous than any emphasis, and walked slowly on.",0 "The man bent his head again, and the girl spoke to him as they both followed her.",1 Clennam ventured to look at the girl as they moved away.,2 "He could note that her rich black eyes were fastened upon the man with a scrutinising expression, and that she kept at a little distance from him, as they walked side by side to the further end of the terrace.",3 "A loud and altered clank upon the pavement warned him, before he could discern what was passing there, that the man was coming back alone.",1 "Clennam lounged into the road, towards the railing; and the man passed at a quick swing, with the end of his cloak thrown over his shoulder, singing a scrap of a French song.",1 The whole vista had no one in it now but himself.,2 "The lounger had lounged out of view, and Miss Wade and Tattycoram were gone.",1 "More than ever bent on seeing what became of them, and on having some information to give his good friend, Mr Meagles, he went out at the further end of the terrace, looking cautiously about him.",2 "He rightly judged that, at first at all events, they would go in a contrary direction from their late companion.",3 "He soon saw them in a neighbouring bye-street, which was not a thoroughfare, evidently allowing time for the man to get well out of their way.",3 "They walked leisurely arm-in-arm down one side of the street, and returned on the opposite side.",2 "When they came back to the street-corner, they changed their pace for the pace of people with an object and a distance before them, and walked steadily away.",1 "Clennam, no less steadily, kept them in sight.",2 "They crossed the Strand, and passed through Covent Garden (under the windows of his old lodging where dear Little Dorrit had come that night), and slanted away north-east, until they passed the great building whence Tattycoram derived her name, and turned into the Gray's Inn Road.",3 "Clennam was quite at home here, in right of Flora, not to mention the Patriarch and Pancks, and kept them in view with ease.",3 "He was beginning to wonder where they might be going next, when that wonder was lost in the greater wonder with which he saw them turn into the Patriarchal street.",2 That wonder was in its turn swallowed up on the greater wonder with which he saw them stop at the Patriarchal door.,3 "A low double knock at the bright brass knocker, a gleam of light into the road from the opened door, a brief pause for inquiry and answer and the door was shut, and they were housed.",2 "After looking at the surrounding objects for assurance that he was not in an odd dream, and after pacing a little while before the house, Arthur knocked at the door.",2 "It was opened by the usual maid-servant, and she showed him up at once, with her usual alacrity, to Flora's sitting-room.",2 "There was no one with Flora but Mr F.'s Aunt, which respectable gentlewoman, basking in a balmy atmosphere of tea and toast, was ensconced in an easy-chair by the fireside, with a little table at her elbow, and a clean white handkerchief spread over her lap on which two pieces of toast at that moment awaited consumption.",4 "Bending over a steaming vessel of tea, and looking through the steam, and breathing forth the steam, like a malignant Chinese enchantress engaged in the performance of unholy rites, Mr F.'s Aunt put down her great teacup and exclaimed, 'Drat him, if he an't come back again!'",3 "It would seem from the foregoing exclamation that this uncompromising relative of the lamented Mr F., measuring time by the acuteness of her sensations and not by the clock, supposed Clennam to have lately gone away; whereas at least a quarter of a year had elapsed since he had had the temerity to present himself before her.",1 'My goodness Arthur!',3 "cried Flora, rising to give him a cordial reception, 'Doyce and Clennam what a start and a surprise for though not far from the machinery and foundry business and surely might be taken sometimes if at no other time about mid-day when a glass of sherry and a humble sandwich of whatever cold meat in the larder might not come amiss nor taste the worse for being friendly for you know you buy it somewhere and wherever bought a profit must be made or they would never keep the place it stands to reason without a motive still never seen and learnt now not to be expected, for as Mr F. himself said if seeing is believing not seeing is believing too and when you don't see you may fully believe you're not remembered not that I expect you Arthur Doyce and Clennam to remember me why should I for the days are gone but bring another teacup here directly and tell her fresh toast and pray sit near the fire.'",2 "Arthur was in the greatest anxiety to explain the object of his visit; but was put off for the moment, in spite of himself, by what he understood of the reproachful purport of these words, and by the genuine pleasure she testified in seeing him.",1 "'And now pray tell me something all you know,' said Flora, drawing her chair near to his, 'about the good dear quiet little thing and all the changes of her fortunes carriage people now no doubt and horses without number most romantic, a coat of arms of course and wild beasts on their hind legs showing it as if it was a copy they had done with mouths from ear to ear good gracious, and has she her health which is the first consideration after all for what is wealth without it Mr F. himself so often saying when his twinges came that sixpence a day and find yourself and no gout so much preferable, not that he could have lived on anything like it being the last man or that the previous little thing though far too familiar an expression now had any tendency of that sort much too slight and small but looked so fragile bless her?'",4 "Mr F.'s Aunt, who had eaten a piece of toast down to the crust, here solemnly handed the crust to Flora, who ate it for her as a matter of business.",2 "Mr F.'s Aunt then moistened her ten fingers in slow succession at her lips, and wiped them in exactly the same order on the white handkerchief; then took the other piece of toast, and fell to work upon it.",1 "While pursuing this routine, she looked at Clennam with an expression of such intense severity that he felt obliged to look at her in return, against his personal inclinations.",1 "'She is in Italy, with all her family, Flora,' he said, when the dreaded lady was occupied again.",2 'In Italy is she really?',2 "said Flora, 'with the grapes growing everywhere and lava necklaces and bracelets too that land of poetry with burning mountains picturesque beyond belief though if the organ-boys come away from the neighbourhood not to be scorched nobody can wonder being so young and bringing their white mice with them most humane, and is she really in that favoured land with nothing but blue about her and dying gladiators and Belvederes though Mr F. himself did not believe for his objection when in spirits was that the images could not be true there being no medium between expensive quantities of linen badly got up and all in creases and none whatever, which certainly does not seem probable though perhaps in consequence of the extremes of rich and poor which may account for it.'",1 "Arthur tried to edge a word in, but Flora hurried on again.",2 "'Venice Preserved too,' said she, 'I think you have been there is it well or ill preserved for people differ so and Maccaroni if they really eat it like the conjurors why not cut it shorter, you are acquainted Arthur--dear Doyce and Clennam at least not dear and most assuredly not Doyce for I have not the pleasure but pray excuse me--acquainted I believe with Mantua what _has_ it got to do with Mantua-making for I never have been able to conceive?'",4 "'I believe there is no connection, Flora, between the two,' Arthur was beginning, when she caught him up again.",2 "'Upon your word no isn't there I never did but that's like me I run away with an idea and having none to spare I keep it, alas there was a time dear Arthur that is to say decidedly not dear nor Arthur neither but you understand me when one bright idea gilded the what's-his-name horizon of et cetera but it is darkly clouded now and all is over.'",3 "Arthur's increasing wish to speak of something very different was by this time so plainly written on his face, that Flora stopped in a tender look, and asked him what it was?",3 "'I have the greatest desire, Flora, to speak to some one who is now in this house--with Mr Casby no doubt.",2 "Some one whom I saw come in, and who, in a misguided and deplorable way, has deserted the house of a friend of mine.'",1 "'Papa sees so many and such odd people,' said Flora, rising, 'that I shouldn't venture to go down for any one but you Arthur but for you I would willingly go down in a diving-bell much more a dining-room and will come back directly if you'll mind and at the same time not mind Mr F.'s Aunt while I'm gone.'",2 "With those words and a parting glance, Flora bustled out, leaving Clennam under dreadful apprehension of this terrible charge.",0 "The first variation which manifested itself in Mr F.'s Aunt's demeanour when she had finished her piece of toast, was a loud and prolonged sniff.",1 "Finding it impossible to avoid construing this demonstration into a defiance of himself, its gloomy significance being unmistakable, Clennam looked plaintively at the excellent though prejudiced lady from whom it emanated, in the hope that she might be disarmed by a meek submission.",1 "'None of your eyes at me,' said Mr F.'s Aunt, shivering with hostility.",1 'Take that.',2 'That' was the crust of the piece of toast.,2 "Clennam accepted the boon with a look of gratitude, and held it in his hand under the pressure of a little embarrassment, which was not relieved when Mr F.'s Aunt, elevating her voice into a cry of considerable power, exclaimed, 'He has a proud stomach, this chap!",2 He's too proud a chap to eat it!',3 "and, coming out of her chair, shook her venerable fist so very close to his nose as to tickle the surface.",2 "But for the timely return of Flora, to find him in this difficult situation, further consequences might have ensued.",2 "Flora, without the least discomposure or surprise, but congratulating the old lady in an approving manner on being 'very lively to-night', handed her back to her chair.",3 "'He has a proud stomach, this chap,' said Mr F.'s relation, on being reseated.",3 'Give him a meal of chaff!',1 'Oh!,2 "I don't think he would like that, aunt,' returned Flora.",3 "'Give him a meal of chaff, I tell you,' said Mr F.'s Aunt, glaring round Flora on her enemy.",1 'It's the only thing for a proud stomach.,3 Let him eat up every morsel.,2 "Drat him, give him a meal of chaff!'",1 "Under a general pretence of helping him to this refreshment, Flora got him out on the staircase; Mr F.'s Aunt even then constantly reiterating, with inexpressible bitterness, that he was 'a chap,' and had a 'proud stomach,' and over and over again insisting on that equine provision being made for him which she had already so strongly prescribed.",1 "'Such an inconvenient staircase and so many corner-stairs Arthur,' whispered Flora, 'would you object to putting your arm round me under my pelerine?'",1 "With a sense of going down-stairs in a highly-ridiculous manner, Clennam descended in the required attitude, and only released his fair burden at the dining-room door; indeed, even there she was rather difficult to be got rid of, remaining in his embrace to murmur, 'Arthur, for mercy's sake, don't breathe it to papa!'",1 "She accompanied Arthur into the room, where the Patriarch sat alone, with his list shoes on the fender, twirling his thumbs as if he had never left off.",2 "The youthful Patriarch, aged ten, looked out of his picture-frame above him with no calmer air than he.",3 "Both smooth heads were alike beaming, blundering, and bumpy.",1 "'Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you.",3 "I hope you are well, sir, I hope you are well.",3 "Please to sit down, please to sit down.'",2 "'I had hoped, sir,' said Clennam, doing so, and looking round with a face of blank disappointment, 'not to find you alone.'",1 "'Ah, indeed?'",2 "said the Patriarch, sweetly.",3 "'Ah, indeed?'",2 "'I told you so you know papa,' cried Flora.",2 "'Ah, to be sure!'",2 returned the Patriarch.,2 "'Yes, just so.",2 "Ah, to be sure!'",2 "'Pray, sir,' demanded Clennam, anxiously, 'is Miss Wade gone?'",1 'Miss--?,2 "Oh, you call her Wade,' returned Mr Casby.",2 'Highly proper.',3 "Arthur quickly returned, 'What do you call her?'",2 "'Wade,' said Mr Casby.",2 "'Oh, always Wade.'",2 "After looking at the philanthropic visage and the long silky white hair for a few seconds, during which Mr Casby twirled his thumbs, and smiled at the fire as if he were benevolently wishing it to burn him that he might forgive it, Arthur began: 'I beg your pardon, Mr Casby--' 'Not so, not so,' said the Patriarch, 'not so.'",1 "'--But, Miss Wade had an attendant with her--a young woman brought up by friends of mine, over whom her influence is not considered very salutary, and to whom I should be glad to have the opportunity of giving the assurance that she has not yet forfeited the interest of those protectors.'",3 "'Really, really?'",2 returned the Patriarch.,2 'Will you therefore be so good as to give me the address of Miss Wade?',2 "'Dear, dear, dear!'",2 "said the Patriarch, 'how very unfortunate!",1 If you had only sent in to me when they were here!,2 "I observed the young woman, Mr Clennam.",2 "A fine full-coloured young woman, Mr Clennam, with very dark hair and very dark eyes.",2 "If I mistake not, if I mistake not?'",1 "Arthur assented, and said once more with new expression, 'If you would be so good as to give me the address.'",3 "'Dear, dear, dear!'",2 exclaimed the Patriarch in sweet regret.,2 "'Tut, tut, tut!",2 "what a pity, what a pity!",1 "I have no address, sir.",2 "Miss Wade mostly lives abroad, Mr Clennam.",1 "She has done so for some years, and she is (if I may say so of a fellow-creature and a lady) fitful and uncertain to a fault, Mr Clennam.",1 "I may not see her again for a long, long time.",2 I may never see her again.,2 "What a pity, what a pity!'",1 "Clennam saw now, that he had as much hope of getting assistance out of the Portrait as out of the Patriarch; but he said nevertheless: 'Mr Casby, could you, for the satisfaction of the friends I have mentioned, and under any obligation of secrecy that you may consider it your duty to impose, give me any information at all touching Miss Wade?",1 "I have seen her abroad, and I have seen her at home, but I know nothing of her.",2 Could you give me any account of her whatever?',2 "'None,' returned the Patriarch, shaking his big head with his utmost benevolence.",3 'None at all.,2 "Dear, dear, dear!",2 "What a real pity that she stayed so short a time, and you delayed!",1 "As confidential agency business, agency business, I have occasionally paid this lady money; but what satisfaction is it to you, sir, to know that?'",2 "'Truly, none at all,' said Clennam.",2 "'Truly,' assented the Patriarch, with a shining face as he philanthropically smiled at the fire, 'none at all, sir.",2 "You hit the wise answer, Mr Clennam.",3 "Truly, none at all, sir.'",2 "His turning of his smooth thumbs over one another as he sat there, was so typical to Clennam of the way in which he would make the subject revolve if it were pursued, never showing any new part of it nor allowing it to make the smallest advance, that it did much to help to convince him of his labour having been in vain.",2 "He might have taken any time to think about it, for Mr Casby, well accustomed to get on anywhere by leaving everything to his bumps and his white hair, knew his strength to lie in silence.",1 "So there Casby sat, twirling and twirling, and making his polished head and forehead look largely benevolent in every knob.",3 "With this spectacle before him, Arthur had risen to go, when from the inner Dock where the good ship Pancks was hove down when out in no cruising ground, the noise was heard of that steamer labouring towards him.",2 "It struck Arthur that the noise began demonstratively far off, as though Mr Pancks sought to impress on any one who might happen to think about it, that he was working on from out of hearing.",1 "Mr Pancks and he shook hands, and the former brought his employer a letter or two to sign.",2 "Mr Pancks in shaking hands merely scratched his eyebrow with his left forefinger and snorted once, but Clennam, who understood him better now than of old, comprehended that he had almost done for the evening and wished to say a word to him outside.",2 "Therefore, when he had taken his leave of Mr Casby, and (which was a more difficult process) of Flora, he sauntered in the neighbourhood on Mr Pancks's line of road.",1 He had waited but a short time when Mr Pancks appeared.,2 "Mr Pancks shaking hands again with another expressive snort, and taking off his hat to put his hair up, Arthur thought he received his cue to speak to him as one who knew pretty well what had just now passed.",3 "Therefore he said, without any preface: 'I suppose they were really gone, Pancks?'",2 "'Yes,' replied Pancks.",2 'They were really gone.',2 'Does he know where to find that lady?',2 'Can't say.,2 I should think so.',2 Mr Pancks did not?,2 "No, Mr Pancks did not.",2 Did Mr Pancks know anything about her?,2 "'I expect,' rejoined that worthy, 'I know as much about her as she knows about herself.",3 "She is somebody's child--anybody's, nobody's.",2 "Put her in a room in London here with any six people old enough to be her parents, and her parents may be there for anything she knows.",3 "They may be in any house she sees, they may be in any churchyard she passes, she may run against 'em in any street, she may make chance acquaintance of 'em at any time; and never know it.",2 She knows nothing about 'em.,2 She knows nothing about any relative whatever.,2 Never did.,2 Never will.',2 "'Mr Casby could enlighten her, perhaps?'",3 "'May be,' said Pancks.",2 "'I expect so, but don't know.",2 He has long had money (not overmuch as I make out) in trust to dole out to her when she can't do without it.,3 Sometimes she's proud and won't touch it for a length of time; sometimes she's so poor that she must have it.,2 She writhes under her life.,2 "A woman more angry, passionate, reckless, and revengeful never lived.",1 She came for money to-night.,2 Said she had peculiar occasion for it.',1 "'I think,' observed Clennam musing, 'I by chance know what occasion--I mean into whose pocket the money is to go.'",2 'Indeed?',2 said Pancks.,2 "'If it's a compact, I recommend that party to be exact in it.",3 "I wouldn't trust myself to that woman, young and handsome as she is, if I had wronged her; no, not for twice my proprietor's money!",3 "Unless,' Pancks added as a saving clause, 'I had a lingering illness on me, and wanted to get it over.'",1 "Arthur, hurriedly reviewing his own observation of her, found it to tally pretty nearly with Mr Pancks's view.",3 "'The wonder is to me,' pursued Pancks, 'that she has never done for my proprietor, as the only person connected with her story she can lay hold of.",3 "Mentioning that, I may tell you, between ourselves, that I am sometimes tempted to do for him myself.'",2 "Arthur started and said, 'Dear me, Pancks, don't say that!'",2 "'Understand me,' said Pancks, extending five cropped coaly finger-nails on Arthur's arm; 'I don't mean, cut his throat.",2 "But by all that's precious, if he goes too far, I'll cut his hair!'",3 "Having exhibited himself in the new light of enunciating this tremendous threat, Mr Pancks, with a countenance of grave import, snorted several times and steamed away.",1 "The shady waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office, where he passed a good deal of time in company with various troublesome Convicts who were under sentence to be broken alive on that wheel, had afforded Arthur Clennam ample leisure, in three or four successive days, to exhaust the subject of his late glimpse of Miss Wade and Tattycoram.",0 "He had been able to make no more of it and no less of it, and in this unsatisfactory condition he was fain to leave it.",1 During this space he had not been to his mother's dismal old house.,1 "One of his customary evenings for repairing thither now coming round, he left his dwelling and his partner at nearly nine o'clock, and slowly walked in the direction of that grim home of his youth.",1 "It always affected his imagination as wrathful, mysterious, and sad; and his imagination was sufficiently impressible to see the whole neighbourhood under some tinge of its dark shadow.",1 "As he went along, upon a dreary night, the dim streets by which he went, seemed all depositories of oppressive secrets.",0 "The deserted counting-houses, with their secrets of books and papers locked up in chests and safes; the banking-houses, with their secrets of strong rooms and wells, the keys of which were in a very few secret pockets and a very few secret breasts; the secrets of all the dispersed grinders in the vast mill, among whom there were doubtless plunderers, forgers, and trust-betrayers of many sorts, whom the light of any day that dawned might reveal; he could have fancied that these things, in hiding, imparted a heaviness to the air.",4 "The shadow thickening and thickening as he approached its source, he thought of the secrets of the lonely church-vaults, where the people who had hoarded and secreted in iron coffers were in their turn similarly hoarded, not yet at rest from doing harm; and then of the secrets of the river, as it rolled its turbid tide between two frowning wildernesses of secrets, extending, thick and dense, for many miles, and warding off the free air and the free country swept by winds and wings of birds.",1 "The shadow still darkening as he drew near the house, the melancholy room which his father had once occupied, haunted by the appealing face he had himself seen fade away with him when there was no other watcher by the bed, arose before his mind.",2 Its close air was secret.,2 "The gloom, and must, and dust of the whole tenement, were secret.",1 "At the heart of it his mother presided, inflexible of face, indomitable of will, firmly holding all the secrets of her own and his father's life, and austerely opposing herself, front to front, to the great final secret of all life.",2 "He had turned into the narrow and steep street from which the court of enclosure wherein the house stood opened, when another footstep turned into it behind him, and so close upon his own that he was jostled to the wall.",1 "As his mind was teeming with these thoughts, the encounter took him altogether unprepared, so that the other passenger had had time to say, boisterously, 'Pardon!",1 Not my fault!',1 and to pass on before the instant had elapsed which was requisite to his recovery of the realities about him.,3 "When that moment had flashed away, he saw that the man striding on before him was the man who had been so much in his mind during the last few days.",2 "It was no casual resemblance, helped out by the force of the impression the man made upon him.",3 "It was the man; the man he had followed in company with the girl, and whom he had overheard talking to Miss Wade.",1 "The street was a sharp descent and was crooked too, and the man (who although not drunk had the air of being flushed with some strong drink) went down it so fast that Clennam lost him as he looked at him.",2 "With no defined intention of following him, but with an impulse to keep the figure in view a little longer, Clennam quickened his pace to pass the twist in the street which hid him from his sight.",1 "On turning it, he saw the man no more.",2 "Standing now, close to the gateway of his mother's house, he looked down the street: but it was empty.",2 There was no projecting shadow large enough to obscure the man; there was no turning near that he could have taken; nor had there been any audible sound of the opening and closing of a door.,3 "Nevertheless, he concluded that the man must have had a key in his hand, and must have opened one of the many house-doors and gone in.",2 "Ruminating on this strange chance and strange glimpse, he turned into the court-yard.",1 "As he looked, by mere habit, towards the feebly lighted windows of his mother's room, his eyes encountered the figure he had just lost, standing against the iron railings of the little waste enclosure looking up at those windows and laughing to himself.",1 "Some of the many vagrant cats who were always prowling about there by night, and who had taken fright at him, appeared to have stopped when he had stopped, and were looking at him with eyes by no means unlike his own from tops of walls and porches, and other safe points of pause.",2 "He had only halted for a moment to entertain himself thus; he immediately went forward, throwing the end of his cloak off his shoulder as he went, ascended the unevenly sunken steps, and knocked a sounding knock at the door.",1 Clennam's surprise was not so absorbing but that he took his resolution without any incertitude.,2 "He went up to the door too, and ascended the steps too.",2 "His friend looked at him with a braggart air, and sang to himself.",1 'Who passes by this road so late?,2 Compagnon de la Majolaine; Who passes by this road so late?,2 Always gay!',2 After which he knocked again.,2 "'You are impatient, sir,' said Arthur.",1 "'I am, sir.",2 "Death of my life, sir,' returned the stranger, 'it's my character to be impatient!'",0 "The sound of Mistress Affery cautiously chaining the door before she opened it, caused them both to look that way.",1 "Affery opened it a very little, with a flaring candle in her hands and asked who was that, at that time of night, with that knock!",1 "'Why, Arthur!'",2 "she added with astonishment, seeing him first.",3 'Not you sure?,2 "Ah, Lord save us!",2 "No,' she cried out, seeing the other.",2 'Him again!',2 'It's true!,2 "Him again, dear Mrs Flintwinch,' cried the stranger.",1 "'Open the door, and let me take my dear friend Jeremiah to my arms!",2 "Open the door, and let me hasten myself to embrace my Flintwinch!'",2 "'He's not at home,' cried Affery.",2 'Fetch him!',2 cried the stranger.,1 'Fetch my Flintwinch!,2 "Tell him that it is his old Blandois, who comes from arriving in England; tell him that it is his little boy who is here, his cabbage, his well-beloved!",3 "Open the door, beautiful Mrs Flintwinch, and in the meantime let me to pass upstairs, to present my compliments--homage of Blandois--to my lady!",3 My lady lives always?,2 It is well.,3 Open then!',2 "To Arthur's increased surprise, Mistress Affery, stretching her eyes wide at himself, as if in warning that this was not a gentleman for him to interfere with, drew back the chain, and opened the door.",0 "The stranger, without ceremony, walked into the hall, leaving Arthur to follow him.",1 'Despatch then!,2 Achieve then!,2 Bring my Flintwinch!,2 Announce me to my lady!',2 "cried the stranger, clanking about the stone floor.",1 "'Pray tell me, Affery,' said Arthur aloud and sternly, as he surveyed him from head to foot with indignation; 'who is this gentleman?'",1 "'Pray tell me, Affery,' the stranger repeated in his turn, 'who--ha, ha, ha!--who is this gentleman?'",1 "The voice of Mrs Clennam opportunely called from her chamber above, 'Affery, let them both come up.",2 "Arthur, come straight to me!'",2 'Arthur?',2 "exclaimed Blandois, taking off his hat at arm's length, and bringing his heels together from a great stride in making him a flourishing bow.",3 'The son of my lady?,2 I am the all-devoted of the son of my lady!',2 "Arthur looked at him again in no more flattering manner than before, and, turning on his heel without acknowledgment, went up-stairs.",3 The visitor followed him up-stairs.,2 "Mistress Affery took the key from behind the door, and deftly slipped out to fetch her lord.",1 "A bystander, informed of the previous appearance of Monsieur Blandois in that room, would have observed a difference in Mrs Clennam's present reception of him.",2 "Her face was not one to betray it; and her suppressed manner, and her set voice, were equally under her control.",1 "It wholly consisted in her never taking her eyes off his face from the moment of his entrance, and in her twice or thrice, when he was becoming noisy, swaying herself a very little forward in the chair in which she sat upright, with her hands immovable upon its elbows; as if she gave him the assurance that he should be presently heard at any length he would.",1 Arthur did not fail to observe this; though the difference between the present occasion and the former was not within his power of observation.,1 "'Madame,' said Blandois, 'do me the honour to present me to Monsieur, your son.",2 "It appears to me, madame, that Monsieur, your son, is disposed to complain of me.",1 He is not polite.',3 "'Sir,' said Arthur, striking in expeditiously, 'whoever you are, and however you come to be here, if I were the master of this house I would lose no time in placing you on the outside of it.'",3 "'But you are not,' said his mother, without looking at him.",2 "'Unfortunately for the gratification of your unreasonable temper, you are not the master, Arthur.'",2 "'I make no claim to be, mother.",2 "If I object to this person's manner of conducting himself here, and object to it so much, that if I had any authority here I certainly would not suffer him to remain a minute, I object on your account.'",1 "'In the case of objection being necessary,' she returned, 'I could object for myself.",1 And of course I should.',2 "The subject of their dispute, who had seated himself, laughed aloud, and rapped his legs with his hand.",1 "'You have no right,' said Mrs Clennam, always intent on Blandois, however directly she addressed her son, 'to speak to the prejudice of any gentleman (least of all a gentleman from another country), because he does not conform to your standard, or square his behaviour by your rules.",2 "It is possible that the gentleman may, on similar grounds, object to you.'",1 "'I hope so,' returned Arthur.",2 "'The gentleman,' pursued Mrs Clennam, 'on a former occasion brought a letter of recommendation to us from highly esteemed and responsible correspondents.",3 I am perfectly unacquainted with the gentleman's object in coming here at present.,2 "I am entirely ignorant of it, and cannot be supposed likely to be able to form the remotest guess at its nature;' her habitual frown became stronger, as she very slowly and weightily emphasised those words; 'but, when the gentleman proceeds to explain his object, as I shall beg him to have the goodness to do to myself and Flintwinch, when Flintwinch returns, it will prove, no doubt, to be one more or less in the usual way of our business, which it will be both our business and our pleasure to advance.",0 It can be nothing else.',2 "'We shall see, madame!'",2 said the man of business.,2 "'We shall see,' she assented.",2 "'The gentleman is acquainted with Flintwinch; and when the gentleman was in London last, I remember to have heard that he and Flintwinch had some entertainment or good-fellowship together.",3 "I am not in the way of knowing much that passes outside this room, and the jingle of little worldly things beyond it does not much interest me; but I remember to have heard that.'",2 "'Right, madame.",2 It is true.',2 "He laughed again, and whistled the burden of the tune he had sung at the door.",1 "'Therefore, Arthur,' said his mother, 'the gentleman comes here as an acquaintance, and no stranger; and it is much to be regretted that your unreasonable temper should have found offence in him.",0 I regret it.,1 I say so to the gentleman.,2 "You will not say so, I know; therefore I say it for myself and Flintwinch, since with us two the gentleman's business lies.'",1 "The key of the door below was now heard in the lock, and the door was heard to open and close.",2 "In due sequence Mr Flintwinch appeared; on whose entrance the visitor rose from his chair, laughing loud, and folded him in a close embrace.",1 "'How goes it, my cherished friend!'",3 said he.,2 "'How goes the world, my Flintwinch?",2 Rose-coloured?,2 "So much the better, so much the better!",3 "Ah, but you look charming!",3 "Ah, but you look young and fresh as the flowers of Spring!",3 "Ah, good little boy!",3 "Brave child, brave child!'",3 "While heaping these compliments on Mr Flintwinch, he rolled him about with a hand on each of his shoulders, until the staggerings of that gentleman, who under the circumstances was dryer and more twisted than ever, were like those of a teetotum nearly spent.",2 "'I had a presentiment, last time, that we should be better and more intimately acquainted.",3 "Is it coming on you, Flintwinch?",2 Is it yet coming on?',2 "'Why, no, sir,' retorted Mr Flintwinch.",2 'Not unusually.,1 Hadn't you better be seated?,3 "You have been calling for some more of that port, sir, I guess?'",2 "'Ah, Little joker!",1 Little pig!',1 cried the visitor.,2 'Ha ha ha ha!',2 "And throwing Mr Flintwinch away, as a closing piece of raillery, he sat down again.",2 "The amazement, suspicion, resentment, and shame, with which Arthur looked on at all this, struck him dumb.",0 "Mr Flintwinch, who had spun backward some two or three yards under the impetus last given to him, brought himself up with a face completely unchanged in its stolidity except as it was affected by shortness of breath, and looked hard at Arthur.",0 "Not a whit less reticent and wooden was Mr Flintwinch outwardly, than in the usual course of things: the only perceptible difference in him being that the knot of cravat which was generally under his ear, had worked round to the back of his head: where it formed an ornamental appendage not unlike a bagwig, and gave him something of a courtly appearance.",3 "As Mrs Clennam never removed her eyes from Blandois (on whom they had some effect, as a steady look has on a lower sort of dog), so Jeremiah never removed his from Arthur.",3 It was as if they had tacitly agreed to take their different provinces.,2 "Thus, in the ensuing silence, Jeremiah stood scraping his chin and looking at Arthur as though he were trying to screw his thoughts out of him with an instrument.",2 "After a little, the visitor, as if he felt the silence irksome, rose, and impatiently put himself with his back to the sacred fire which had burned through so many years.",0 "Thereupon Mrs Clennam said, moving one of her hands for the first time, and moving it very slightly with an action of dismissal: 'Please to leave us to our business, Arthur.'",2 "'Mother, I do so with reluctance.'",1 "'Never mind with what,' she returned, 'or with what not.",2 Please to leave us.,2 Come back at any other time when you may consider it a duty to bury half an hour wearily here.,2 Good night.',3 "She held up her muffled fingers that he might touch them with his, according to their usual custom, and he stood over her wheeled chair to touch her face with his lips.",2 "He thought, then, that her cheek was more strained than usual, and that it was colder.",1 "As he followed the direction of her eyes, in rising again, towards Mr Flintwinch's good friend, Mr Blandois, Mr Blandois snapped his finger and thumb with one loud contemptuous snap.",1 "'I leave your--your business acquaintance in my mother's room, Mr Flintwinch,' said Clennam, 'with a great deal of surprise and a great deal of unwillingness.'",2 The person referred to snapped his finger and thumb again.,2 "'Good night, mother.'",2 'Good night.',2 "'I had a friend once, my good comrade Flintwinch,' said Blandois, standing astride before the fire, and so evidently saying it to arrest Clennam's retreating steps, that he lingered near the door; 'I had a friend once, who had heard so much of the dark side of this city and its ways, that he wouldn't have confided himself alone by night with two people who had an interest in getting him under the ground--my faith!",3 not even in a respectable house like this--unless he was bodily too strong for them.,4 Bah!,2 "What a poltroon, my Flintwinch!",2 Eh?',2 "'A cur, sir.'",2 'Agreed!,2 A cur.,2 "But he wouldn't have done it, my Flintwinch, unless he had known them to have the will to silence him, without the power.",2 "He wouldn't have drunk from a glass of water under such circumstances--not even in a respectable house like this, my Flintwinch--unless he had seen one of them drink first, and swallow too!'",3 "Disdaining to speak, and indeed not very well able, for he was half-choking, Clennam only glanced at the visitor as he passed out.",3 "The visitor saluted him with another parting snap, and his nose came down over his moustache and his moustache went up under his nose, in an ominous and ugly smile.",1 "'For Heaven's sake, Affery,' whispered Clennam, as she opened the door for him in the dark hall, and he groped his way to the sight of the night-sky, 'what is going on here?'",1 "Her own appearance was sufficiently ghastly, standing in the dark with her apron thrown over her head, and speaking behind it in a low, deadened voice.",1 "'Don't ask me anything, Arthur.",2 I've been in a dream for ever so long.,2 Go away!',2 "He went out, and she shut the door upon him.",2 "He looked up at the windows of his mother's room, and the dim light, deadened by the yellow blinds, seemed to say a response after Affery, and to mutter, 'Don't ask me anything.",1 Go away!',2 "Dear Mr Clennam, As I said in my last that it was best for nobody to write to me, and as my sending you another little letter can therefore give you no other trouble than the trouble of reading it (perhaps you may not find leisure for even that, though I hope you will some day), I am now going to devote an hour to writing to you again.",2 "This time, I write from Rome.",2 "We left Venice before Mr and Mrs Gowan did, but they were not so long upon the road as we were, and did not travel by the same way, and so when we arrived we found them in a lodging here, in a place called the Via Gregoriana.",2 I dare say you know it.,2 "Now I am going to tell you all I can about them, because I know that is what you most want to hear.",2 "Theirs is not a very comfortable lodging, but perhaps I thought it less so when I first saw it than you would have done, because you have been in many different countries and have seen many different customs.",3 "Of course it is a far, far better place--millions of times--than any I have ever been used to until lately; and I fancy I don't look at it with my own eyes, but with hers.",3 "For it would be easy to see that she has always been brought up in a tender and happy home, even if she had not told me so with great love for it.",4 "Well, it is a rather bare lodging up a rather dark common staircase, and it is nearly all a large dull room, where Mr Gowan paints.",1 "The windows are blocked up where any one could look out, and the walls have been all drawn over with chalk and charcoal by others who have lived there before--oh,--I should think, for years!",2 "There is a curtain more dust-coloured than red, which divides it, and the part behind the curtain makes the private sitting-room.",1 "When I first saw her there she was alone, and her work had fallen out of her hand, and she was looking up at the sky shining through the tops of the windows.",3 "Pray do not be uneasy when I tell you, but it was not quite so airy, nor so bright, nor so cheerful, nor so happy and youthful altogether as I should have liked it to be.",4 "On account of Mr Gowan's painting Papa's picture (which I am not quite convinced I should have known from the likeness if I had not seen him doing it), I have had more opportunities of being with her since then than I might have had without this fortunate chance.",3 She is very much alone.,2 Very much alone indeed.,2 Shall I tell you about the second time I saw her?,2 "I went one day, when it happened that I could run round by myself, at four or five o'clock in the afternoon.",2 "She was then dining alone, and her solitary dinner had been brought in from somewhere, over a kind of brazier with a fire in it, and she had no company or prospect of company, that I could see, but the old man who had brought it.",2 "He was telling her a long story (of robbers outside the walls being taken up by a stone statue of a Saint), to entertain her--as he said to me when I came out, 'because he had a daughter of his own, though she was not so pretty.'",4 "I ought now to mention Mr Gowan, before I say what little more I have to say about her.",2 "He must admire her beauty, and he must be proud of her, for everybody praises it, and he must be fond of her, and I do not doubt that he is--but in his way.",4 "You know his way, and if it appears as careless and discontented in your eyes as it does in mine, I am not wrong in thinking that it might be better suited to her.",1 "If it does not seem so to you, I am quite sure I am wholly mistaken; for your unchanged poor child confides in your knowledge and goodness more than she could ever tell you if she was to try.",1 "But don't be frightened, I am not going to try.",2 "Owing (as I think, if you think so too) to Mr Gowan's unsettled and dissatisfied way, he applies himself to his profession very little.",1 "He does nothing steadily or patiently; but equally takes things up and throws them down, and does them, or leaves them undone, without caring about them.",2 "When I have heard him talking to Papa during the sittings for the picture, I have sat wondering whether it could be that he has no belief in anybody else, because he has no belief in himself.",2 Is it so?,2 I wonder what you will say when you come to this!,3 "I know how you will look, and I can almost hear the voice in which you would tell me on the Iron Bridge.",2 "Mr Gowan goes out a good deal among what is considered the best company here--though he does not look as if he enjoyed it or liked it when he is with it--and she sometimes accompanies him, but lately she has gone out very little.",4 "I think I have noticed that they have an inconsistent way of speaking about her, as if she had made some great self-interested success in marrying Mr Gowan, though, at the same time, the very same people, would not have dreamed of taking him for themselves or their daughters.",3 "Then he goes into the country besides, to think about making sketches; and in all places where there are visitors, he has a large acquaintance and is very well known.",3 "Besides all this, he has a friend who is much in his society both at home and away from home, though he treats this friend very coolly and is very uncertain in his behaviour to him.",1 "I am quite sure (because she has told me so), that she does not like this friend.",3 "He is so revolting to me, too, that his being away from here, at present, is quite a relief to my mind.",2 How much more to hers!,2 "But what I particularly want you to know, and why I have resolved to tell you so much while I am afraid it may make you a little uncomfortable without occasion, is this.",1 "She is so true and so devoted, and knows so completely that all her love and duty are his for ever, that you may be certain she will love him, admire him, praise him, and conceal all his faults, until she dies.",3 "I believe she conceals them, and always will conceal them, even from herself.",2 "She has given him a heart that can never be taken back; and however much he may try it, he will never wear out its affection.",3 "You know the truth of this, as you know everything, far far better than I; but I cannot help telling you what a nature she shows, and that you can never think too well of her.",3 "I have not yet called her by her name in this letter, but we are such friends now that I do so when we are quietly together, and she speaks to me by my name--I mean, not my Christian name, but the name you gave me.",2 "When she began to call me Amy, I told her my short story, and that you had always called me Little Dorrit.",2 "I told her that the name was much dearer to me than any other, and so she calls me Little Dorrit too.",2 "Perhaps you have not heard from her father or mother yet, and may not know that she has a baby son.",2 "He was born only two days ago, and just a week after they came.",2 It has made them very happy.,3 "However, I must tell you, as I am to tell you all, that I fancy they are under a constraint with Mr Gowan, and that they feel as if his mocking way with them was sometimes a slight given to their love for her.",3 "It was but yesterday, when I was there, that I saw Mr Meagles change colour, and get up and go out, as if he was afraid that he might say so, unless he prevented himself by that means.",1 "Yet I am sure they are both so considerate, good-humoured, and reasonable, that he might spare them.",4 It is hard in him not to think of them a little more.,1 I stopped at the last full stop to read all this over.,2 "It looked at first as if I was taking on myself to understand and explain so much, that I was half inclined not to send it.",2 "But when I thought it over a little, I felt more hopeful for your knowing at once that I had only been watchful for you, and had only noticed what I think I have noticed, because I was quickened by your interest in it.",3 "Indeed, you may be sure that is the truth.",2 "And now I have done with the subject in the present letter, and have little left to say.",2 "We are all quite well, and Fanny improves every day.",3 "You can hardly think how kind she is to me, and what pains she takes with me.",1 "She has a lover, who has followed her, first all the way from Switzerland, and then all the way from Venice, and who has just confided to me that he means to follow her everywhere.",3 "I was much confused by his speaking to me about it, but he would.",1 "I did not know what to say, but at last I told him that I thought he had better not.",3 For Fanny (but I did not tell him this) is much too spirited and clever to suit him.,3 "Still, he said he would, all the same.",2 "I have no lover, of course.",3 "If you should ever get so far as this in this long letter, you will perhaps say, Surely Little Dorrit will not leave off without telling me something about her travels, and surely it is time she did.",2 "I think it is indeed, but I don't know what to tell you.",2 "Since we left Venice we have been in a great many wonderful places, Genoa and Florence among them, and have seen so many wonderful sights, that I am almost giddy when I think what a crowd they make.",3 "But you can tell me so much more about them than I can tell you, that why should I tire you with my accounts and descriptions?",2 "Dear Mr Clennam, as I had the courage to tell you what the familiar difficulties in my travelling mind were before, I will not be a coward now.",1 "One of my frequent thoughts is this:--Old as these cities are, their age itself is hardly so curious, to my reflections, as that they should have been in their places all through those days when I did not even know of the existence of more than two or three of them, and when I scarcely knew of anything outside our old walls.",1 "There is something melancholy in it, and I don't know why.",1 "When we went to see the famous leaning tower at Pisa, it was a bright sunny day, and it and the buildings near it looked so old, and the earth and the sky looked so young, and its shadow on the ground was so soft and retired!",4 "I could not at first think how beautiful it was, or how curious, but I thought, 'O how many times when the shadow of the wall was falling on our room, and when that weary tread of feet was going up and down the yard--O how many times this place was just as quiet and lovely as it is to-day!'",3 It quite overpowered me.,2 "My heart was so full that tears burst out of my eyes, though I did what I could to restrain them.",2 And I have the same feeling often--often.,2 "Do you know that since the change in our fortunes, though I appear to myself to have dreamed more than before, I have always dreamed of myself as very young indeed!",2 "I am not very old, you may say.",2 "No, but that is not what I mean.",2 I have always dreamed of myself as a child learning to do needlework.,2 "I have often dreamed of myself as back there, seeing faces in the yard little known, and which I should have thought I had quite forgotten; but, as often as not, I have been abroad here--in Switzerland, or France, or Italy--somewhere where we have been--yet always as that little child.",2 "I have dreamed of going down to Mrs General, with the patches on my clothes in which I can first remember myself.",2 "I have over and over again dreamed of taking my place at dinner at Venice when we have had a large company, in the mourning for my poor mother which I wore when I was eight years old, and wore long after it was threadbare and would mend no more.",1 "It has been a great distress to me to think how irreconcilable the company would consider it with my father's wealth, and how I should displease and disgrace him and Fanny and Edward by so plainly disclosing what they wished to keep secret.",0 "But I have not grown out of the little child in thinking of it; and at the self-same moment I have dreamed that I have sat with the heart-ache at table, calculating the expenses of the dinner, and quite distracting myself with thinking how they were ever to be made good.",1 I have never dreamed of the change in our fortunes itself; I have never dreamed of your coming back with me that memorable morning to break it; I have never even dreamed of you.,2 "Dear Mr Clennam, it is possible that I have thought of you--and others--so much by day, that I have no thoughts left to wander round you by night.",2 "For I must now confess to you that I suffer from home-sickness--that I long so ardently and earnestly for home, as sometimes, when no one sees me, to pine for it.",1 I cannot bear to turn my face further away from it.,2 "My heart is a little lightened when we turn towards it, even for a few miles, and with the knowledge that we are soon to turn away again.",2 So dearly do I love the scene of my poverty and your kindness.,3 "O so dearly, O so dearly!",2 Heaven knows when your poor child will see England again.,2 "We are all fond of the life here (except me), and there are no plans for our return.",3 "My dear father talks of a visit to London late in this next spring, on some affairs connected with the property, but I have no hope that he will bring me with him.",2 "I have tried to get on a little better under Mrs General's instruction, and I hope I am not quite so dull as I used to be.",2 "I have begun to speak and understand, almost easily, the hard languages I told you about.",1 "I did not remember, at the moment when I wrote last, that you knew them both; but I remembered it afterwards, and it helped me on.",3 "God bless you, dear Mr Clennam.",3 Do not forget Your ever grateful and affectionate LITTLE DORRIT. P.S.--Particularly remember that Minnie Gowan deserves the best remembrance in which you can hold her.,4 You cannot think too generously or too highly of her.,3 I forgot Mr Pancks last time.,2 "Please, if you should see him, give him your Little Dorrit's kind regard.",3 He was very good to Little D.,3 "The famous name of Merdle became, every day, more famous in the land.",3 "Nobody knew that the Merdle of such high renown had ever done any good to any one, alive or dead, or to any earthly thing; nobody knew that he had any capacity or utterance of any sort in him, which had ever thrown, for any creature, the feeblest farthing-candle ray of light on any path of duty or diversion, pain or pleasure, toil or rest, fact or fancy, among the multiplicity of paths in the labyrinth trodden by the sons of Adam; nobody had the smallest reason for supposing the clay of which this object of worship was made, to be other than the commonest clay, with as clogged a wick smouldering inside of it as ever kept an image of humanity from tumbling to pieces.",1 "All people knew (or thought they knew) that he had made himself immensely rich; and, for that reason alone, prostrated themselves before him, more degradedly and less excusably than the darkest savage creeps out of his hole in the ground to propitiate, in some log or reptile, the Deity of his benighted soul.",1 "Nay, the high priests of this worship had the man before them as a protest against their meanness.",1 The multitude worshipped on trust--though always distinctly knowing why--but the officiators at the altar had the man habitually in their view.,3 "They sat at his feasts, and he sat at theirs.",2 "There was a spectre always attendant on him, saying to these high priests, 'Are such the signs you trust, and love to honour; this head, these eyes, this mode of speech, the tone and manner of this man?",3 "You are the levers of the Circumlocution Office, and the rulers of men.",2 "When half-a-dozen of you fall out by the ears, it seems that mother earth can give birth to no other rulers.",1 "Does your qualification lie in the superior knowledge of men which accepts, courts, and puffs this man?",2 "Or, if you are competent to judge aright the signs I never fail to show you when he appears among you, is your superior honesty your qualification?'",3 "Two rather ugly questions these, always going about town with Mr Merdle; and there was a tacit agreement that they must be stifled.",1 "In Mrs Merdle's absence abroad, Mr Merdle still kept the great house open for the passage through it of a stream Of visitors.",2 A few of these took affable possession of the establishment.,3 "Three or four ladies of distinction and liveliness used to say to one another, 'Let us dine at our dear Merdle's next Thursday.",3 Whom shall we have?',2 "Our dear Merdle would then receive his instructions; and would sit heavily among the company at table and wander lumpishly about his drawing-rooms afterwards, only remarkable for appearing to have nothing to do with the entertainment beyond being in its way.",3 "The Chief Butler, the Avenging Spirit of this great man's life, relaxed nothing of his severity.",3 "He looked on at these dinners when the bosom was not there, as he looked on at other dinners when the bosom was there; and his eye was a basilisk to Mr Merdle.",2 "He was a hard man, and would never bate an ounce of plate or a bottle of wine.",1 "He would not allow a dinner to be given, unless it was up to his mark.",2 He set forth the table for his own dignity.,3 "If the guests chose to partake of what was served, he saw no objection; but it was served for the maintenance of his rank.",1 "As he stood by the sideboard he seemed to announce, 'I have accepted office to look at this which is now before me, and to look at nothing less than this.'",2 "If he missed the presiding bosom, it was as a part of his own state of which he was, from unavoidable circumstances, temporarily deprived, just as he might have missed a centre-piece, or a choice wine-cooler, which had been sent to the Banker's.",1 Mr Merdle issued invitations for a Barnacle dinner.,2 "Lord Decimus was to be there, Mr Tite Barnacle was to be there, the pleasant young Barnacle was to be there; and the Chorus of Parliamentary Barnacles who went about the provinces when the House was up, warbling the praises of their Chief, were to be represented there.",3 It was understood to be a great occasion.,3 Mr Merdle was going to take up the Barnacles.,2 Some delicate little negotiations had occurred between him and the noble Decimus--the young Barnacle of engaging manners acting as negotiator--and Mr Merdle had decided to cast the weight of his great probity and great riches into the Barnacle scale.,4 "Jobbery was suspected by the malicious; perhaps because it was indisputable that if the adherence of the immortal Enemy of Mankind could have been secured by a job, the Barnacles would have jobbed him--for the good of the country, for the good of the country.",1 "Mrs Merdle had written to this magnificent spouse of hers, whom it was heresy to regard as anything less than all the British Merchants since the days of Whittington rolled into one, and gilded three feet deep all over--had written to this spouse of hers, several letters from Rome, in quick succession, urging upon him with importunity that now or never was the time to provide for Edmund Sparkler.",3 "Mrs Merdle had shown him that the case of Edmund was urgent, and that infinite advantages might result from his having some good thing directly.",3 "In the grammar of Mrs Merdle's verbs on this momentous subject, there was only one mood, the Imperative; and that Mood had only one Tense, the Present.",2 "Mrs Merdle's verbs were so pressingly presented to Mr Merdle to conjugate, that his sluggish blood and his long coat-cuffs became quite agitated.",1 "In which state of agitation, Mr Merdle, evasively rolling his eyes round the Chief Butler's shoes without raising them to the index of that stupendous creature's thoughts, had signified to him his intention of giving a special dinner: not a very large dinner, but a very special dinner.",3 "The Chief Butler had signified, in return, that he had no objection to look on at the most expensive thing in that way that could be done; and the day of the dinner was now come.",1 "Mr Merdle stood in one of his drawing-rooms, with his back to the fire, waiting for the arrival of his important guests.",3 He seldom or never took the liberty of standing with his back to the fire unless he was quite alone.,3 "In the presence of the Chief Butler, he could not have done such a deed.",2 "He would have clasped himself by the wrists in that constabulary manner of his, and have paced up and down the hearthrug, or gone creeping about among the rich objects of furniture, if his oppressive retainer had appeared in the room at that very moment.",1 "The sly shadows which seemed to dart out of hiding when the fire rose, and to dart back into it when the fire fell, were sufficient witnesses of his making himself so easy.",2 "They were even more than sufficient, if his uncomfortable glances at them might be taken to mean anything.",2 "Mr Merdle's right hand was filled with the evening paper, and the evening paper was full of Mr Merdle.",3 "His wonderful enterprise, his wonderful wealth, his wonderful Bank, were the fattening food of the evening paper that night.",3 "The wonderful Bank, of which he was the chief projector, establisher, and manager, was the latest of the many Merdle wonders.",3 "So modest was Mr Merdle withal, in the midst of these splendid achievements, that he looked far more like a man in possession of his house under a distraint, than a commercial Colossus bestriding his own hearthrug, while the little ships were sailing into dinner.",4 Behold the vessels coming into port!,2 The engaging young Barnacle was the first arrival; but Bar overtook him on the staircase.,3 "Bar, strengthened as usual with his double eye-glass and his little jury droop, was overjoyed to see the engaging young Barnacle; and opined that we were going to sit in Banco, as we lawyers called it, to take a special argument?",3 "'Indeed,' said the sprightly young Barnacle, whose name was Ferdinand; 'how so?'",3 "'Nay,' smiled Bar.",2 "'If you don't know, how can I know?",2 You are in the innermost sanctuary of the temple; I am one of the admiring concourse on the plain without.',3 "Bar could be light in hand, or heavy in hand, according to the customer he had to deal with.",2 With Ferdinand Barnacle he was gossamer.,2 Bar was likewise always modest and self-depreciatory--in his way.,3 Bar was a man of great variety; but one leading thread ran through the woof of all his patterns.,4 "Every man with whom he had to do was in his eyes a jury-man; and he must get that jury-man over, if he could.",2 "'Our illustrious host and friend,' said Bar; 'our shining mercantile star;--going into politics?'",3 'Going?,2 "He has been in Parliament some time, you know,' returned the engaging young Barnacle.",3 "'True,' said Bar, with his light-comedy laugh for special jury-men, which was a very different thing from his low-comedy laugh for comic tradesmen on common juries: 'he has been in Parliament for some time.",2 Yet hitherto our star has been a vacillating and wavering star?,2 Humph?',2 An average witness would have been seduced by the Humph?,2 "into an affirmative answer, But Ferdinand Barnacle looked knowingly at Bar as he strolled up-stairs, and gave him no answer at all.",3 "'Just so, just so,' said Bar, nodding his head, for he was not to be put off in that way, 'and therefore I spoke of our sitting _in Banco_ to take a special argument--meaning this to be a high and solemn occasion, when, as Captain Macheath says, ""the judges are met: a terrible show!""",1 "We lawyers are sufficiently liberal, you see, to quote the Captain, though the Captain is severe upon us.",2 "Nevertheless, I think I could put in evidence an admission of the Captain's,' said Bar, with a little jocose roll of his head; for, in his legal current of speech, he always assumed the air of rallying himself with the best grace in the world; 'an admission of the Captain's that Law, in the gross, is at least intended to be impartial.",3 "For what says the Captain, if I quote him correctly--and if not,' with a light-comedy touch of his double eye-glass on his companion's shoulder, 'my learned friend will set me right: ""Since laws were made for every degree, To curb vice in others as well as in me, I wonder we ha'n't better company Upon Tyburn Tree!""",4 "' These words brought them to the drawing-room, where Mr Merdle stood before the fire.",2 "So immensely astounded was Mr Merdle by the entrance of Bar with such a reference in his mouth, that Bar explained himself to have been quoting Gay.",3 "'Assuredly not one of our Westminster Hall authorities,' said he, 'but still no despicable one to a man possessing the largely-practical Mr Merdle's knowledge of the world.'",1 "Mr Merdle looked as if he thought he would say something, but subsequently looked as if he thought he wouldn't.",2 The interval afforded time for Bishop to be announced.,2 "Bishop came in with meekness, and yet with a strong and rapid step as if he wanted to get his seven-league dress-shoes on, and go round the world to see that everybody was in a satisfactory state.",4 Bishop had no idea that there was anything significant in the occasion.,3 That was the most remarkable trait in his demeanour.,3 "He was crisp, fresh, cheerful, affable, bland; but so surprisingly innocent.",4 Bar sidled up to prefer his politest inquiries in reference to the health of Mrs Bishop.,3 "Mrs Bishop had been a little unfortunate in the article of taking cold at a Confirmation, but otherwise was well.",1 Young Mr Bishop was also well.,3 "He was down, with his young wife and little family, at his Cure of Souls.",3 "The representatives of the Barnacle Chorus dropped in next, and Mr Merdle's physician dropped in next.",2 "Bar, who had a bit of one eye and a bit of his double eye-glass for every one who came in at the door, no matter with whom he was conversing or what he was talking about, got among them all by some skilful means, without being seen to get at them, and touched each individual gentleman of the jury on his own individual favourite spot.",2 "With some of the Chorus, he laughed about the sleepy member who had gone out into the lobby the other night, and voted the wrong way: with others, he deplored that innovating spirit in the time which could not even be prevented from taking an unnatural interest in the public service and the public money: with the physician he had a word to say about the general health; he had also a little information to ask him for, concerning a professional man of unquestioned erudition and polished manners--but those credentials in their highest development he believed were the possession of other professors of the healing art (jury droop)--whom he had happened to have in the witness-box the day before yesterday, and from whom he had elicited in cross-examination that he claimed to be one of the exponents of this new mode of treatment which appeared to Bar to--eh?--well, Bar thought so; Bar had thought, and hoped, Physician would tell him so.",1 "Without presuming to decide where doctors disagreed, it did appear to Bar, viewing it as a question of common sense and not of so-called legal penetration, that this new system was--might be, in the presence of so great an authority--say, Humbug?",2 Ah!,2 "Fortified by such encouragement, he could venture to say Humbug; and now Bar's mind was relieved.",3 "Mr Tite Barnacle, who, like Dr Johnson's celebrated acquaintance, had only one idea in his head and that was a wrong one, had appeared by this time.",3 "This eminent gentleman and Mr Merdle, seated diverse ways and with ruminating aspects on a yellow ottoman in the light of the fire, holding no verbal communication with each other, bore a strong general resemblance to the two cows in the Cuyp picture over against them.",3 "But now, Lord Decimus arrived.",2 "The Chief Butler, who up to this time had limited himself to a branch of his usual function by looking at the company as they entered (and that, with more of defiance than favour), put himself so far out of his way as to come up-stairs with him and announce him.",1 "Lord Decimus being an overpowering peer, a bashful young member of the Lower House who was the last fish but one caught by the Barnacles, and who had been invited on this occasion to commemorate his capture, shut his eyes when his Lordship came in.",1 "Lord Decimus, nevertheless, was glad to see the Member.",3 "He was also glad to see Mr Merdle, glad to see Bishop, glad to see Bar, glad to see Physician, glad to see Tite Barnacle, glad to see Chorus, glad to see Ferdinand his private secretary.",3 "Lord Decimus, though one of the greatest of the earth, was not remarkable for ingratiatory manners, and Ferdinand had coached him up to the point of noticing all the fellows he might find there, and saying he was glad to see them.",4 "When he had achieved this rush of vivacity and condescension, his Lordship composed himself into the picture after Cuyp, and made a third cow in the group.",1 "Bar, who felt that he had got all the rest of the jury and must now lay hold of the Foreman, soon came sidling up, double eye-glass in hand.",2 "Bar tendered the weather, as a subject neatly aloof from official reserve, for the Foreman's consideration.",2 "Bar said that he was told (as everybody always is told, though who tells them, and why, will ever remain a mystery), that there was to be no wall-fruit this year.",1 "Lord Decimus had not heard anything amiss of his peaches, but rather believed, if his people were correct, he was to have no apples.",2 No apples?,2 Bar was lost in astonishment and concern.,1 "It would have been all one to him, in reality, if there had not been a pippin on the surface of the earth, but his show of interest in this apple question was positively painful.",2 "Now, to what, Lord Decimus--for we troublesome lawyers loved to gather information, and could never tell how useful it might prove to us--to what, Lord Decimus, was this to be attributed?",3 Lord Decimus could not undertake to propound any theory about it.,2 "This might have stopped another man; but Bar, sticking to him fresh as ever, said, 'As to pears, now?'",3 "Long after Bar got made Attorney-General, this was told of him as a master-stroke.",3 "Lord Decimus had a reminiscence about a pear-tree formerly growing in a garden near the back of his dame's house at Eton, upon which pear-tree the only joke of his life perennially bloomed.",1 "It was a joke of a compact and portable nature, turning on the difference between Eton pears and Parliamentary pairs; but it was a joke, a refined relish of which would seem to have appeared to Lord Decimus impossible to be had without a thorough and intimate acquaintance with the tree.",4 "Therefore, the story at first had no idea of such a tree, sir, then gradually found it in winter, carried it through the changing season, saw it bud, saw it blossom, saw it bear fruit, saw the fruit ripen; in short, cultivated the tree in that diligent and minute manner before it got out of the bed-room window to steal the fruit, that many thanks had been offered up by belated listeners for the trees having been planted and grafted prior to Lord Decimus's time.",2 "Bar's interest in apples was so overtopped by the wrapt suspense in which he pursued the changes of these pears, from the moment when Lord Decimus solemnly opened with 'Your mentioning pears recalls to my remembrance a pear-tree,' down to the rich conclusion, 'And so we pass, through the various changes of life, from Eton pears to Parliamentary pairs,' that he had to go down-stairs with Lord Decimus, and even then to be seated next to him at table in order that he might hear the anecdote out.",3 "By that time, Bar felt that he had secured the Foreman, and might go to dinner with a good appetite.",3 "It was a dinner to provoke an appetite, though he had not had one.",1 "The rarest dishes, sumptuously cooked and sumptuously served; the choicest fruits; the most exquisite wines; marvels of workmanship in gold and silver, china and glass; innumerable things delicious to the senses of taste, smell, and sight, were insinuated into its composition.",4 "O, what a wonderful man this Merdle, what a great man, what a master man, how blessedly and enviably endowed--in one word, what a rich man!",4 "He took his usual poor eighteenpennyworth of food in his usual indigestive way, and had as little to say for himself as ever a wonderful man had.",2 "Fortunately Lord Decimus was one of those sublimities who have no occasion to be talked to, for they can be at any time sufficiently occupied with the contemplation of their own greatness.",4 This enabled the bashful young Member to keep his eyes open long enough at a time to see his dinner.,2 "But, whenever Lord Decimus spoke, he shut them again.",2 "The agreeable young Barnacle, and Bar, were the talkers of the party.",3 "Bishop would have been exceedingly agreeable also, but that his innocence stood in his way.",3 He was so soon left behind.,2 "When there was any little hint of anything being in the wind, he got lost directly.",1 Worldly affairs were too much for him; he couldn't make them out at all.,2 "This was observable when Bar said, incidentally, that he was happy to have heard that we were soon to have the advantage of enlisting on the good side, the sound and plain sagacity--not demonstrative or ostentatious, but thoroughly sound and practical--of our friend Mr Sparkler.",4 "Ferdinand Barnacle laughed, and said oh yes, he believed so.",2 "A vote was a vote, and always acceptable.",2 "Bar was sorry to miss our good friend Mr Sparkler to-day, Mr Merdle.",1 "'He is away with Mrs Merdle,' returned that gentleman, slowly coming out of a long abstraction, in the course of which he had been fitting a tablespoon up his sleeve.",1 'It is not indispensable for him to be on the spot.',2 "'The magic name of Merdle,' said Bar, with the jury droop, 'no doubt will suffice for all.'",2 "'Why--yes--I believe so,' assented Mr Merdle, putting the spoon aside, and clumsily hiding each of his hands in the coat-cuff of the other hand.",2 'I believe the people in my interest down there will not make any difficulty.',1 'Model people!',2 said Bar.,2 "'I am glad you approve of them,' said Mr Merdle.",3 "'And the people of those other two places, now,' pursued Bar, with a bright twinkle in his keen eye, as it slightly turned in the direction of his magnificent neighbour; 'we lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some corner;--the people of those other two places now?",4 "Do they yield so laudably to the vast and cumulative influence of such enterprise and such renown; do those little rills become absorbed so quietly and easily, and, as it were by the influence of natural laws, so beautifully, in the swoop of the majestic stream as it flows upon its wondrous way enriching the surrounding lands; that their course is perfectly to be calculated, and distinctly to be predicated?'",4 "Mr Merdle, a little troubled by Bar's eloquence, looked fitfully about the nearest salt-cellar for some moments, and then said hesitating: 'They are perfectly aware, sir, of their duty to Society.",3 They will return anybody I send to them for that purpose.',2 "'Cheering to know,' said Bar.",2 'Cheering to know.',2 "The three places in question were three little rotten holes in this Island, containing three little ignorant, drunken, guzzling, dirty, out-of-the-way constituencies, that had reeled into Mr Merdle's pocket.",0 "Ferdinand Barnacle laughed in his easy way, and airily said they were a nice set of fellows.",3 "Bishop, mentally perambulating among paths of peace, was altogether swallowed up in absence of mind.",2 "'Pray,' asked Lord Decimus, casting his eyes around the table, 'what is this story I have heard of a gentleman long confined in a debtors' prison proving to be of a wealthy family, and having come into the inheritance of a large sum of money?",2 I have met with a variety of allusions to it.,3 "Do you know anything of it, Ferdinand?'",2 "'I only know this much,' said Ferdinand, 'that he has given the Department with which I have the honour to be associated;' this sparkling young Barnacle threw off the phrase sportively, as who should say, We know all about these forms of speech, but we must keep it up, we must keep the game alive; 'no end of trouble, and has put us into innumerable fixes.'",2 'Fixes?',2 "repeated Lord Decimus, with a majestic pausing and pondering on the word that made the bashful Member shut his eyes quite tight.",2 'Fixes?',2 "'A very perplexing business indeed,' observed Mr Tite Barnacle, with an air of grave resentment.",1 "'What,' said Lord Decimus, 'was the character of his business; what was the nature of these--a--Fixes, Ferdinand?'",2 "'Oh, it's a good story, as a story,' returned that gentleman; 'as good a thing of its kind as need be.",3 "This Mr Dorrit (his name is Dorrit) had incurred a responsibility to us, ages before the fairy came out of the Bank and gave him his fortune, under a bond he had signed for the performance of a contract which was not at all performed.",3 "He was a partner in a house in some large way--spirits, or buttons, or wine, or blacking, or oatmeal, or woollen, or pork, or hooks and eyes, or iron, or treacle, or shoes, or something or other that was wanted for troops, or seamen, or somebody--and the house burst, and we being among the creditors, detainees were lodged on the part of the Crown in a scientific manner, and all the rest of it.",2 "When the fairy had appeared and he wanted to pay us off, Egad we had got into such an exemplary state of checking and counter-checking, signing and counter-signing, that it was six months before we knew how to take the money, or how to give a receipt for it.",3 "It was a triumph of public business,' said this handsome young Barnacle, laughing heartily, 'You never saw such a lot of forms in your life.",4 """Why,"" the attorney said to me one day, ""if I wanted this office to give me two or three thousand pounds instead of take it, I couldn't have more trouble about it.""",1 """You are right, old fellow,"" I told him, ""and in future you'll know that we have something to do here.""",3 ' The pleasant young Barnacle finished by once more laughing heartily.,3 "He was a very easy, pleasant fellow indeed, and his manners were exceedingly winning.",4 Mr Tite Barnacle's view of the business was of a less airy character.,2 "He took it ill that Mr Dorrit had troubled the Department by wanting to pay the money, and considered it a grossly informal thing to do after so many years.",1 "But Mr Tite Barnacle was a buttoned-up man, and consequently a weighty one.",2 All buttoned-up men are weighty.,2 All buttoned-up men are believed in.,2 "Whether or no the reserved and never-exercised power of unbuttoning, fascinates mankind; whether or no wisdom is supposed to condense and augment when buttoned up, and to evaporate when unbuttoned; it is certain that the man to whom importance is accorded is the buttoned-up man.",3 "Mr Tite Barnacle never would have passed for half his current value, unless his coat had been always buttoned-up to his white cravat.",2 "'May I ask,' said Lord Decimus, 'if Mr Darrit--or Dorrit--has any family?'",2 "Nobody else replying, the host said, 'He has two daughters, my lord.'",2 'Oh!,2 you are acquainted with him?',2 asked Lord Decimus.,2 'Mrs Merdle is.,2 "Mr Sparkler is, too.",2 "In fact,' said Mr Merdle, 'I rather believe that one of the young ladies has made an impression on Edmund Sparkler.",2 "He is susceptible, and--I--think--the conquest--' Here Mr Merdle stopped, and looked at the table-cloth, as he usually did when he found himself observed or listened to.",1 "Bar was uncommonly pleased to find that the Merdle family, and this family, had already been brought into contact.",3 "He submitted, in a low voice across the table to Bishop, that it was a kind of analogical illustration of those physical laws, in virtue of which Like flies to Like.",3 "He regarded this power of attraction in wealth to draw wealth to it, as something remarkably interesting and curious--something indefinably allied to the loadstone and gravitation.",4 "Bishop, who had ambled back to earth again when the present theme was broached, acquiesced.",2 "He said it was indeed highly important to Society that one in the trying situation of unexpectedly finding himself invested with a power for good or for evil in Society, should become, as it were, merged in the superior power of a more legitimate and more gigantic growth, the influence of which (as in the case of our friend at whose board we sat) was habitually exercised in harmony with the best interests of Society.",4 "Thus, instead of two rival and contending flames, a larger and a lesser, each burning with a lurid and uncertain glare, we had a blended and a softened light whose genial ray diffused an equable warmth throughout the land.",0 "Bishop seemed to like his own way of putting the case very much, and rather dwelt upon it; Bar, meanwhile (not to throw away a jury-man), making a show of sitting at his feet and feeding on his precepts.",3 "The dinner and dessert being three hours long, the bashful Member cooled in the shadow of Lord Decimus faster than he warmed with food and drink, and had but a chilly time of it.",1 "Lord Decimus, like a tall tower in a flat country, seemed to project himself across the table-cloth, hide the light from the honourable Member, cool the honourable Member's marrow, and give him a woeful idea of distance.",3 "When he asked this unfortunate traveller to take wine, he encompassed his faltering steps with the gloomiest of shades; and when he said, 'Your health sir!'",1 all around him was barrenness and desolation.,1 "At length Lord Decimus, with a coffee-cup in his hand, began to hover about among the pictures, and to cause an interesting speculation to arise in all minds as to the probabilities of his ceasing to hover, and enabling the smaller birds to flutter up-stairs; which could not be done until he had urged his noble pinions in that direction.",4 "After some delay, and several stretches of his wings which came to nothing, he soared to the drawing-rooms.",1 "And here a difficulty arose, which always does arise when two people are specially brought together at a dinner to confer with one another.",1 "Everybody (except Bishop, who had no suspicion of it) knew perfectly well that this dinner had been eaten and drunk, specifically to the end that Lord Decimus and Mr Merdle should have five minutes' conversation together.",2 "The opportunity so elaborately prepared was now arrived, and it seemed from that moment that no mere human ingenuity could so much as get the two chieftains into the same room.",3 Mr Merdle and his noble guest persisted in prowling about at opposite ends of the perspective.,3 It was in vain for the engaging Ferdinand to bring Lord Decimus to look at the bronze horses near Mr Merdle.,2 "Then Mr Merdle evaded, and wandered away.",2 It was in vain for him to bring Mr Merdle to Lord Decimus to tell him the history of the unique Dresden vases.,1 "Then Lord Decimus evaded and wandered away, while he was getting his man up to the mark.",2 'Did you ever see such a thing as this?',2 said Ferdinand to Bar when he had been baffled twenty times.,1 "'Often,' returned Bar.",2 "'Unless I butt one of them into an appointed corner, and you butt the other,' said Ferdinand, 'it will not come off after all.'",2 "'Very good,' said Bar.",3 "'I'll butt Merdle, if you like; but not my lord.'",3 "Ferdinand laughed, in the midst of his vexation.",1 'Confound them both!',2 "said he, looking at his watch.",2 'I want to get away.,2 Why the deuce can't they come together!,2 They both know what they want and mean to do.,2 Look at them!',2 "They were still looming at opposite ends of the perspective, each with an absurd pretence of not having the other on his mind, which could not have been more transparently ridiculous though his real mind had been chalked on his back.",0 "Bishop, who had just now made a third with Bar and Ferdinand, but whose innocence had again cut him out of the subject and washed him in sweet oil, was seen to approach Lord Decimus and glide into conversation.",3 "'I must get Merdle's doctor to catch and secure him, I suppose,' said Ferdinand; 'and then I must lay hold of my illustrious kinsman, and decoy him if I can--drag him if I can't--to the conference.'",3 "'Since you do me the honour,' said Bar, with his slyest smile, to ask for my poor aid, it shall be yours with the greatest pleasure.",3 I don't think this is to be done by one man.,2 "But if you will undertake to pen my lord into that furthest drawing-room where he is now so profoundly engaged, I will undertake to bring our dear Merdle into the presence, without the possibility of getting away.'",3 'Done!',2 said Ferdinand.,2 'Done!',2 said Bar.,2 "Bar was a sight wondrous to behold, and full of matter, when, jauntily waving his double eye-glass by its ribbon, and jauntily drooping to an Universe of Jurymen, he, in the most accidental manner ever seen, found himself at Mr Merdle's shoulder, and embraced that opportunity of mentioning a little point to him, on which he particularly wished to be guided by the light of his practical knowledge.",2 "(Here he took Mr Merdle's arm and walked him gently away.) A banker, whom we would call A. B., advanced a considerable sum of money, which we would call fifteen thousand pounds, to a client or customer of his, whom he would call P. Q. (Here, as they were getting towards Lord Decimus, he held Mr Merdle tight.) As a security for the repayment of this advance to P. Q. whom we would call a widow lady, there were placed in A. B.'s hands the title-deeds of a freehold estate, which we would call Blinkiter Doddles.",3 "Now, the point was this.",2 "A limited right of felling and lopping in the woods of Blinkiter Doddles, lay in the son of P. Q. then past his majority, and whom we would call X. Y.--but really this was too bad!",1 "In the presence of Lord Decimus, to detain the host with chopping our dry chaff of law, was really too bad!",1 Another time!,2 "Bar was truly repentant, and would not say another syllable.",2 Would Bishop favour him with half-a-dozen words?,3 "(He had now set Mr Merdle down on a couch, side by side with Lord Decimus, and to it they must go, now or never.) And now the rest of the company, highly excited and interested, always excepting Bishop, who had not the slightest idea that anything was going on, formed in one group round the fire in the next drawing-room, and pretended to be chatting easily on the infinite variety of small topics, while everybody's thoughts and eyes were secretly straying towards the secluded pair.",3 "The Chorus were excessively nervous, perhaps as labouring under the dreadful apprehension that some good thing was going to be diverted from them!",0 Bishop alone talked steadily and evenly.,3 "He conversed with the great Physician on that relaxation of the throat with which young curates were too frequently afflicted, and on the means of lessening the great prevalence of that disorder in the church.",2 "Physician, as a general rule, was of opinion that the best way to avoid it was to know how to read, before you made a profession of reading.",3 "Bishop said dubiously, did he really think so?",1 "And Physician said, decidedly, yes he did.",2 "Ferdinand, meanwhile, was the only one of the party who skirmished on the outside of the circle; he kept about mid-way between it and the two, as if some sort of surgical operation were being performed by Lord Decimus on Mr Merdle, or by Mr Merdle on Lord Decimus, and his services might at any moment be required as Dresser.",2 "In fact, within a quarter of an hour Lord Decimus called to him 'Ferdinand!'",2 "and he went, and took his place in the conference for some five minutes more.",2 Then a half-suppressed gasp broke out among the Chorus; for Lord Decimus rose to take his leave.,1 "Again coached up by Ferdinand to the point of making himself popular, he shook hands in the most brilliant manner with the whole company, and even said to Bar, 'I hope you were not bored by my pears?'",3 "To which Bar retorted, 'Eton, my lord, or Parliamentary?'",2 "neatly showing that he had mastered the joke, and delicately insinuating that he could never forget it while his life remained.",1 "All the grave importance that was buttoned up in Mr Tite Barnacle, took itself away next; and Ferdinand took himself away next, to the opera.",2 "Some of the rest lingered a little, marrying golden liqueur glasses to Buhl tables with sticky rings; on the desperate chance of Mr Merdle's saying something.",1 "But Merdle, as usual, oozed sluggishly and muddily about his drawing-room, saying never a word.",2 "In a day or two it was announced to all the town, that Edmund Sparkler, Esquire, son-in-law of the eminent Mr Merdle of worldwide renown, was made one of the Lords of the Circumlocution Office; and proclamation was issued, to all true believers, that this admirable appointment was to be hailed as a graceful and gracious mark of homage, rendered by the graceful and gracious Decimus, to that commercial interest which must ever in a great commercial country--and all the rest of it, with blast of trumpet.",4 "So, bolstered by this mark of Government homage, the wonderful Bank and all the other wonderful undertakings went on and went up; and gapers came to Harley Street, Cavendish Square, only to look at the house where the golden wonder lived.",4 "And when they saw the Chief Butler looking out at the hall-door in his moments of condescension, the gapers said how rich he looked, and wondered how much money he had in the wonderful Bank.",3 "But, if they had known that respectable Nemesis better, they would not have wondered about it, and might have stated the amount with the utmost precision.",3 "That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a physical one; that such a disease will spread with the malignity and rapidity of the Plague; that the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare no pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on people in the soundest health, and become developed in the most unlikely constitutions: is a fact as firmly established by experience as that we human creatures breathe an atmosphere.",0 "A blessing beyond appreciation would be conferred upon mankind, if the tainted, in whose weakness or wickedness these virulent disorders are bred, could be instantly seized and placed in close confinement (not to say summarily smothered) before the poison is communicable.",0 "As a vast fire will fill the air to a great distance with its roar, so the sacred flame which the mighty Barnacles had fanned caused the air to resound more and more with the name of Merdle.",4 "It was deposited on every lip, and carried into every ear.",2 "There never was, there never had been, there never again should be, such a man as Mr Merdle.",2 "Nobody, as aforesaid, knew what he had done; but everybody knew him to be the greatest that had appeared.",3 "Down in Bleeding Heart Yard, where there was not one unappropriated halfpenny, as lively an interest was taken in this paragon of men as on the Stock Exchange.",2 "Mrs Plornish, now established in the small grocery and general trade in a snug little shop at the crack end of the Yard, at the top of the steps, with her little old father and Maggy acting as assistants, habitually held forth about him over the counter in conversation with her customers.",2 "Mr Plornish, who had a small share in a small builder's business in the neighbourhood, said, trowel in hand, on the tops of scaffolds and on the tiles of houses, that people did tell him as Mr Merdle was _the_ one, mind you, to put us all to rights in respects of that which all on us looked to, and to bring us all safe home as much as we needed, mind you, fur toe be brought.",3 "Mr Baptist, sole lodger of Mr and Mrs Plornish was reputed in whispers to lay by the savings which were the result of his simple and moderate life, for investment in one of Mr Merdle's certain enterprises.",3 "The female Bleeding Hearts, when they came for ounces of tea, and hundredweights of talk, gave Mrs Plornish to understand, That how, ma'am, they had heard from their cousin Mary Anne, which worked in the line, that his lady's dresses would fill three waggons.",2 "That how she was as handsome a lady, ma'am, as lived, no matter wheres, and a busk like marble itself.",3 "That how, according to what they was told, ma'am, it was her son by a former husband as was took into the Government; and a General he had been, and armies he had marched again and victory crowned, if all you heard was to be believed.",3 "That how it was reported that Mr Merdle's words had been, that if they could have made it worth his while to take the whole Government he would have took it without a profit, but that take it he could not and stand a loss.",2 "That how it was not to be expected, ma'am, that he should lose by it, his ways being, as you might say and utter no falsehood, paved with gold; but that how it was much to be regretted that something handsome hadn't been got up to make it worth his while; for it was such and only such that knowed the heighth to which the bread and butchers' meat had rose, and it was such and only such that both could and would bring that heighth down.",2 "So rife and potent was the fever in Bleeding Heart Yard, that Mr Pancks's rent-days caused no interval in the patients.",0 "The disease took the singular form, on those occasions, of causing the infected to find an unfathomable excuse and consolation in allusions to the magic name.",1 "'Now, then!'",2 "Mr Pancks would say, to a defaulting lodger.",2 'Pay up!,2 Come on!',2 "'I haven't got it, Mr Pancks,' Defaulter would reply.",2 "'I tell you the truth, sir, when I say I haven't got so much as a single sixpence of it to bless myself with.'",3 "'This won't do, you know,' Mr Pancks would retort.",2 'You don't expect it _will_ do; do you?',2 "Defaulter would admit, with a low-spirited 'No, sir,' having no such expectation.",3 "'My proprietor isn't going to stand this, you know,' Mr Pancks would proceed.",2 'He don't send me here for this.,2 Pay up!,2 Come!',2 "The Defaulter would make answer, 'Ah, Mr Pancks.",2 "If I was the rich gentleman whose name is in everybody's mouth--if my name was Merdle, sir--I'd soon pay up, and be glad to do it.'",3 "Dialogues on the rent-question usually took place at the house-doors or in the entries, and in the presence of several deeply interested Bleeding Hearts.",1 "They always received a reference of this kind with a low murmur of response, as if it were convincing; and the Defaulter, however black and discomfited before, always cheered up a little in making it.",3 "'If I was Mr Merdle, sir, you wouldn't have cause to complain of me then.",1 "No, believe me!'",2 the Defaulter would proceed with a shake of the head.,1 "'I'd pay up so quick then, Mr Pancks, that you shouldn't have to ask me.'",2 "The response would be heard again here, implying that it was impossible to say anything fairer, and that this was the next thing to paying the money down.",1 "Mr Pancks would be now reduced to saying as he booked the case, 'Well!",2 "You'll have the broker in, and be turned out; that's what'll happen to you.",2 It's no use talking to me about Mr Merdle.,2 "You are not Mr Merdle, any more than I am.'",2 "'No, sir,' the Defaulter would reply.",2 "'I only wish you _were_ him, sir.'",2 "The response would take this up quickly; replying with great feeling, 'Only wish you _were_ him, sir.'",3 "'You'd be easier with us if you were Mr Merdle, sir,' the Defaulter would go on with rising spirits, 'and it would be better for all parties.",3 "Better for our sakes, and better for yours, too.",3 "You wouldn't have to worry no one, then, sir.",1 "You wouldn't have to worry us, and you wouldn't have to worry yourself.",1 "You'd be easier in your own mind, sir, and you'd leave others easier, too, you would, if you were Mr Merdle.'",3 "Mr Pancks, in whom these impersonal compliments produced an irresistible sheepishness, never rallied after such a charge.",2 He could only bite his nails and puff away to the next Defaulter.,2 "The responsive Bleeding Hearts would then gather round the Defaulter whom he had just abandoned, and the most extravagant rumours would circulate among them, to their great comfort, touching the amount of Mr Merdle's ready money.",3 "From one of the many such defeats of one of many rent-days, Mr Pancks, having finished his day's collection, repaired with his note-book under his arm to Mrs Plornish's corner.",3 "Mr Pancks's object was not professional, but social.",1 "He had had a trying day, and wanted a little brightening.",2 "By this time he was on friendly terms with the Plornish family, having often looked in upon them at similar seasons, and borne his part in recollections of Miss Dorrit.",2 "Mrs Plornish's shop-parlour had been decorated under her own eye, and presented, on the side towards the shop, a little fiction in which Mrs Plornish unspeakably rejoiced.",1 This poetical heightening of the parlour consisted in the wall being painted to represent the exterior of a thatched cottage; the artist having introduced (in as effective a manner as he found compatible with their highly disproportionate dimensions) the real door and window.,3 "The modest sunflower and hollyhock were depicted as flourishing with great luxuriance on this rustic dwelling, while a quantity of dense smoke issuing from the chimney indicated good cheer within, and also, perhaps, that it had not been lately swept.",4 "A faithful dog was represented as flying at the legs of the friendly visitor, from the threshold; and a circular pigeon-house, enveloped in a cloud of pigeons, arose from behind the garden-paling.",3 "On the door (when it was shut), appeared the semblance of a brass-plate, presenting the inscription, Happy Cottage, T. and M.",3 Plornish; the partnership expressing man and wife.,2 No Poetry and no Art ever charmed the imagination more than the union of the two in this counterfeit cottage charmed Mrs Plornish.,2 "It was nothing to her that Plornish had a habit of leaning against it as he smoked his pipe after work, when his hat blotted out the pigeon-house and all the pigeons, when his back swallowed up the dwelling, when his hands in his pockets uprooted the blooming garden and laid waste the adjacent country.",2 "To Mrs Plornish, it was still a most beautiful cottage, a most wonderful deception; and it made no difference that Mr Plornish's eye was some inches above the level of the gable bed-room in the thatch.",3 "To come out into the shop after it was shut, and hear her father sing a song inside this cottage, was a perfect Pastoral to Mrs Plornish, the Golden Age revived.",3 "And truly if that famous period had been revived, or had ever been at all, it may be doubted whether it would have produced many more heartily admiring daughters than the poor woman.",3 "Warned of a visitor by the tinkling bell at the shop-door, Mrs Plornish came out of Happy Cottage to see who it might be.",2 "'I guessed it was you, Mr Pancks,' said she, 'for it's quite your regular night; ain't it?",2 "Here's father, you see, come out to serve at the sound of the bell, like a brisk young shopman.",3 Ain't he looking well?,3 "Father's more pleased to see you than if you was a customer, for he dearly loves a gossip; and when it turns upon Miss Dorrit, he loves it all the more.",2 "You never heard father in such voice as he is at present,' said Mrs Plornish, her own voice quavering, she was so proud and pleased.",3 'He gave us Strephon last night to that degree that Plornish gets up and makes him this speech across the table.,2 """John Edward Nandy,"" says Plornish to father, ""I never heard you come the warbles as I have heard you come the warbles this night.""",2 "An't it gratifying, Mr Pancks, though; really?'",3 "Mr Pancks, who had snorted at the old man in his friendliest manner, replied in the affirmative, and casually asked whether that lively Altro chap had come in yet?",3 "Mrs Plornish answered no, not yet, though he had gone to the West-End with some work, and had said he should be back by tea-time.",3 "Mr Pancks was then hospitably pressed into Happy Cottage, where he encountered the elder Master Plornish just come home from school.",3 "Examining that young student, lightly, on the educational proceedings of the day, he found that the more advanced pupils who were in the large text and the letter M, had been set the copy 'Merdle, Millions.'",3 "'And how are _you_ getting on, Mrs Plornish,' said Pancks, 'since we're mentioning millions?'",2 "'Very steady, indeed, sir,' returned Mrs Plornish.",3 "'Father, dear, would you go into the shop and tidy the window a little bit before tea, your taste being so beautiful?'",3 "John Edward Nandy trotted away, much gratified, to comply with his daughter's request.",3 "Mrs Plornish, who was always in mortal terror of mentioning pecuniary affairs before the old gentleman, lest any disclosure she made might rouse his spirit and induce him to run away to the workhouse, was thus left free to be confidential with Mr Pancks.",2 "'It's quite true that the business is very steady indeed,' said Mrs Plornish, lowering her voice; 'and has a excellent connection.",3 "The only thing that stands in its way, sir, is the Credit.'",2 "This drawback, rather severely felt by most people who engaged in commercial transactions with the inhabitants of Bleeding Heart Yard, was a large stumbling-block in Mrs Plornish's trade.",1 "When Mr Dorrit had established her in the business, the Bleeding Hearts had shown an amount of emotion and a determination to support her in it, that did honour to human nature.",2 "Recognising her claim upon their generous feelings as one who had long been a member of their community, they pledged themselves, with great feeling, to deal with Mrs Plornish, come what would and bestow their patronage on no other establishment.",3 "Influenced by these noble sentiments, they had even gone out of their way to purchase little luxuries in the grocery and butter line to which they were unaccustomed; saying to one another, that if they did stretch a point, was it not for a neighbour and a friend, and for whom ought a point to be stretched if not for such?",2 "So stimulated, the business was extremely brisk, and the articles in stock went off with the greatest celerity.",3 "In short, if the Bleeding Hearts had but paid, the undertaking would have been a complete success; whereas, by reason of their exclusively confining themselves to owing, the profits actually realised had not yet begun to appear in the books.",2 "Mr Pancks was making a very porcupine of himself by sticking his hair up in the contemplation of this state of accounts, when old Mr Nandy, re-entering the cottage with an air of mystery, entreated them to come and look at the strange behaviour of Mr Baptist, who seemed to have met with something that had scared him.",0 "All three going into the shop, and watching through the window, then saw Mr Baptist, pale and agitated, go through the following extraordinary performances.",2 "First, he was observed hiding at the top of the steps leading down into the Yard, and peeping up and down the street with his head cautiously thrust out close to the side of the shop-door.",3 "After very anxious scrutiny, he came out of his retreat, and went briskly down the street as if he were going away altogether; then, suddenly turned about, and went, at the same pace, and with the same feint, up the street.",0 "He had gone no further up the street than he had gone down, when he crossed the road and disappeared.",2 "The object of this last manoeuvre was only apparent, when his entering the shop with a sudden twist, from the steps again, explained that he had made a wide and obscure circuit round to the other, or Doyce and Clennam, end of the Yard, and had come through the Yard and bolted in.",0 "He was out of breath by that time, as he might well be, and his heart seemed to jerk faster than the little shop-bell, as it quivered and jingled behind him with his hasty shutting of the door.",2 "'Hallo, old chap!'",2 said Mr Pancks.,2 "'Altro, old boy!",2 What's the matter?',2 "Mr Baptist, or Signor Cavalletto, understood English now almost as well as Mr Pancks himself, and could speak it very well too.",3 "Nevertheless, Mrs Plornish, with a pardonable vanity in that accomplishment of hers which made her all but Italian, stepped in as interpreter.",2 "'E ask know,' said Mrs Plornish, 'what go wrong?'",1 "'Come into the happy little cottage, Padrona,' returned Mr Baptist, imparting great stealthiness to his flurried back-handed shake of his right forefinger.",3 'Come there!',2 "Mrs Plornish was proud of the title Padrona, which she regarded as signifying: not so much Mistress of the house, as Mistress of the Italian tongue.",2 "She immediately complied with Mr Baptist's request, and they all went into the cottage.",2 "'E ope you no fright,' said Mrs Plornish then, interpreting Mr Pancks in a new way with her usual fertility of resource.",1 'What appen?,2 Peaka Padrona!',2 "'I have seen some one,' returned Baptist.",2 'I have rincontrato him.',2 'Im?,2 Oo him?',2 asked Mrs Plornish.,2 'A bad man.,1 A baddest man.,2 I have hoped that I should never see him again.',2 'Ow you know him bad?',1 asked Mrs Plornish.,2 "'It does not matter, Padrona.",2 I know it too well.',3 'E see you?',2 asked Mrs Plornish.,2 'No.,2 I hope not.,2 I believe not.',2 "'He says,' Mrs Plornish then interpreted, addressing her father and Pancks with mild condescension, 'that he has met a bad man, but he hopes the bad man didn't see him--Why,' inquired Mrs Plornish, reverting to the Italian language, 'why ope bad man no see?'",1 "'Padrona, dearest,' returned the little foreigner whom she so considerately protected, 'do not ask, I pray.",2 Once again I say it matters not.,2 I have fear of this man.,1 "I do not wish to see him, I do not wish to be known of him--never again!",2 "Enough, most beautiful.",3 Leave it.',2 "The topic was so disagreeable to him, and so put his usual liveliness to the rout, that Mrs Plornish forbore to press him further: the rather as the tea had been drawing for some time on the hob.",1 "But she was not the less surprised and curious for asking no more questions; neither was Mr Pancks, whose expressive breathing had been labouring hard since the entrance of the little man, like a locomotive engine with a great load getting up a steep incline.",2 "Maggy, now better dressed than of yore, though still faithful to the monstrous character of her cap, had been in the background from the first with open mouth and eyes, which staring and gaping features were not diminished in breadth by the untimely suppression of the subject.",1 "However, no more was said about it, though much appeared to be thought on all sides: by no means excepting the two young Plornishes, who partook of the evening meal as if their eating the bread and butter were rendered almost superfluous by the painful probability of the worst of men shortly presenting himself for the purpose of eating them.",0 "Mr Baptist, by degrees began to chirp a little; but never stirred from the seat he had taken behind the door and close to the window, though it was not his usual place.",2 "As often as the little bell rang, he started and peeped out secretly, with the end of the little curtain in his hand and the rest before his face; evidently not at all satisfied but that the man he dreaded had tracked him through all his doublings and turnings, with the certainty of a terrible bloodhound.",2 "The entrance, at various times, of two or three customers and of Mr Plornish, gave Mr Baptist just enough of this employment to keep the attention of the company fixed upon him.",3 "Tea was over, and the children were abed, and Mrs Plornish was feeling her way to the dutiful proposal that her father should favour them with Chloe, when the bell rang again, and Mr Clennam came in.",3 Clennam had been poring late over his books and letters; for the waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office ravaged his time sorely.,1 "Over and above that, he was depressed and made uneasy by the late occurrence at his mother's.",1 He looked worn and solitary.,1 "He felt so, too; but, nevertheless, was returning home from his counting-house by that end of the Yard to give them the intelligence that he had received another letter from Miss Dorrit.",2 The news made a sensation in the cottage which drew off the general attention from Mr Baptist.,3 "Maggy, who pushed her way into the foreground immediately, would have seemed to draw in the tidings of her Little Mother equally at her ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, but that the last were obstructed by tears.",1 "She was particularly delighted when Clennam assured her that there were hospitals, and very kindly conducted hospitals, in Rome.",3 Mr Pancks rose into new distinction in virtue of being specially remembered in the letter.,3 "Everybody was pleased and interested, and Clennam was well repaid for his trouble.",3 "'But you are tired, sir.",1 "Let me make you a cup of tea,' said Mrs Plornish, 'if you'd condescend to take such a thing in the cottage; and many thanks to you, too, I am sure, for bearing us in mind so kindly.'",2 "Mr Plornish deeming it incumbent on him, as host, to add his personal acknowledgments, tendered them in the form which always expressed his highest ideal of a combination of ceremony with sincerity.",3 "'John Edward Nandy,' said Mr Plornish, addressing the old gentleman.",2 'Sir.,2 "It's not too often that you see unpretending actions without a spark of pride, and therefore when you see them give grateful honour unto the same, being that if you don't, and live to want 'em, it follows serve you right.'",4 "To which Mr Nandy replied: 'I am heartily of your opinion, Thomas, and which your opinion is the same as mine, and therefore no more words and not being backwards with that opinion, which opinion giving it as yes, Thomas, yes, is the opinion in which yourself and me must ever be unanimously jined by all, and where there is not difference of opinion there can be none but one opinion, which fully no, Thomas, Thomas, no!'",3 "Arthur, with less formality, expressed himself gratified by their high appreciation of so very slight an attention on his part; and explained as to the tea that he had not yet dined, and was going straight home to refresh after a long day's labour, or he would have readily accepted the hospitable offer.",4 "As Mr Pancks was somewhat noisily getting his steam up for departure, he concluded by asking that gentleman if he would walk with him?",2 "Mr Pancks said he desired no better engagement, and the two took leave of Happy Cottage.",3 "'If you will come home with me, Pancks,' said Arthur, when they got into the street, 'and will share what dinner or supper there is, it will be next door to an act of charity; for I am weary and out of sorts to-night.'",1 "'Ask me to do a greater thing than that,' said Pancks, 'when you want it done, and I'll do it.'",2 "Between this eccentric personage and Clennam, a tacit understanding and accord had been always improving since Mr Pancks flew over Mr Rugg's back in the Marshalsea Yard.",2 "When the carriage drove away on the memorable day of the family's departure, these two had looked after it together, and had walked slowly away together.",2 "When the first letter came from little Dorrit, nobody was more interested in hearing of her than Mr Pancks.",2 "The second letter, at that moment in Clennam's breast-pocket, particularly remembered him by name.",2 "Though he had never before made any profession or protestation to Clennam, and though what he had just said was little enough as to the words in which it was expressed, Clennam had long had a growing belief that Mr Pancks, in his own odd way, was becoming attached to him.",2 All these strings intertwining made Pancks a very cable of anchorage that night.,2 "'I am quite alone,' Arthur explained as they walked on.",2 "'My partner is away, busily engaged at a distance on his branch of our business, and you shall do just as you like.'",3 'Thank you.,2 You didn't take particular notice of little Altro just now; did you?',2 said Pancks.,2 'No.,2 Why?',2 "'He's a bright fellow, and I like him,' said Pancks.",3 'Something has gone amiss with him to-day.,1 Have you any idea of any cause that can have overset him?',2 'You surprise me!,2 None whatever.',2 Mr Pancks gave his reasons for the inquiry.,2 "Arthur was quite unprepared for them, and quite unable to suggest an explanation of them.",1 "'Perhaps you'll ask him,' said Pancks, 'as he's a stranger?'",1 'Ask him what?',2 returned Clennam.,2 'What he has on his mind.',2 "'I ought first to see for myself that he has something on his mind, I think,' said Clennam.",2 "'I have found him in every way so diligent, so grateful (for little enough), and so trustworthy, that it might look like suspecting him.",4 And that would be very unjust.',1 "'True,' said Pancks.",2 "'But, I say!",2 "You oughtn't to be anybody's proprietor, Mr Clennam.",2 You're much too delicate.',3 "'For the matter of that,' returned Clennam laughing, 'I have not a large proprietary share in Cavalletto.",1 His carving is his livelihood.,2 "He keeps the keys of the Factory, watches it every alternate night, and acts as a sort of housekeeper to it generally; but we have little work in the way of his ingenuity, though we give him what we have.",3 No!,2 I am rather his adviser than his proprietor.,2 To call me his standing counsel and his banker would be nearer the fact.,2 "Speaking of being his banker, is it not curious, Pancks, that the ventures which run just now in so many people's heads, should run even in little Cavalletto's?'",2 'Ventures?',2 "retorted Pancks, with a snort.",2 'What ventures?',2 'These Merdle enterprises.',2 'Oh!,2 "Investments,' said Pancks.",2 "'Ay, ay!",2 I didn't know you were speaking of investments.',2 "His quick way of replying caused Clennam to look at him, with a doubt whether he meant more than he said.",1 "As it was accompanied, however, with a quickening of his pace and a corresponding increase in the labouring of his machinery, Arthur did not pursue the matter, and they soon arrived at his house.",2 "A dinner of soup and a pigeon-pie, served on a little round table before the fire, and flavoured with a bottle of good wine, oiled Mr Pancks's works in a highly effective manner; so that when Clennam produced his Eastern pipe, and handed Mr Pancks another Eastern pipe, the latter gentleman was perfectly comfortable.",4 "They puffed for a while in silence, Mr Pancks like a steam-vessel with wind, tide, calm water, and all other sea-going conditions in her favour.",4 "He was the first to speak, and he spoke thus: 'Yes.",2 Investments is the word.',2 "Clennam, with his former look, said 'Ah!'",2 "'I am going back to it, you see,' said Pancks.",2 'Yes.,2 "I see you are going back to it,' returned Clennam, wondering why.",2 'Wasn't it a curious thing that they should run in little Altro's head?,2 Eh?',2 said Pancks as he smoked.,2 'Wasn't that how you put it?',2 'That was what I said.',2 'Ay!,2 But think of the whole Yard having got it.,2 "Think of their all meeting me with it, on my collecting days, here and there and everywhere.",2 "Whether they pay, or whether they don't pay.",2 "Merdle, Merdle, Merdle.",2 Always Merdle.',2 "'Very strange how these runs on an infatuation prevail,' said Arthur.",1 'An't it?',2 returned Pancks.,2 "After smoking for a minute or so, more drily than comported with his recent oiling, he added: 'Because you see these people don't understand the subject.'",2 "'Not a bit,' assented Clennam.",2 "'Not a bit,' cried Pancks.",2 'Know nothing of figures.,2 Know nothing of money questions.,2 Never made a calculation.,2 "Never worked it, sir!'",3 "'If they had--' Clennam was going on to say; when Mr Pancks, without change of countenance, produced a sound so far surpassing all his usual efforts, nasal or bronchial, that he stopped.",2 'If they had?',2 repeated Pancks in an inquiring tone.,2 "'I thought you--spoke,' said Arthur, hesitating what name to give the interruption.",1 "'Not at all,' said Pancks.",2 'Not yet.,2 I may in a minute.,2 If they had?',2 "'If they had,' observed Clennam, who was a little at a loss how to take his friend, 'why, I suppose they would have known better.'",2 "'How so, Mr Clennam?'",2 "Pancks asked quickly, and with an odd effect of having been from the commencement of the conversation loaded with the heavy charge he now fired off.",1 "'They're right, you know.",3 "They don't mean to be, but they're right.'",3 'Right in sharing Cavalletto's inclination to speculate with Mr Merdle?',2 "'Per-fectly, sir,' said Pancks.",2 'I've gone into it.,2 I've made the calculations.,2 I've worked it.,3 They're safe and genuine.',3 "Relieved by having got to this, Mr Pancks took as long a pull as his lungs would permit at his Eastern pipe, and looked sagaciously and steadily at Clennam while inhaling and exhaling too.",2 "In those moments, Mr Pancks began to give out the dangerous infection with which he was laden.",1 It is the manner of communicating these diseases; it is the subtle way in which they go about.,2 "'Do you mean, my good Pancks,' asked Clennam emphatically, 'that you would put that thousand pounds of yours, let us say, for instance, out at this kind of interest?'",2 "'Certainly,' said Pancks.",2 "'Already done it, sir.'",2 "Mr Pancks took another long inhalation, another long exhalation, another long sagacious look at Clennam.",2 "'I tell you, Mr Clennam, I've gone into it,' said Pancks.",2 'He's a man of immense resources--enormous capital--government influence.,3 They're the best schemes afloat.,3 They're safe.,3 They're certain.',2 'Well!',2 "returned Clennam, looking first at him gravely and then at the fire gravely.",1 'You surprise me!',2 'Bah!',2 Pancks retorted.,2 "'Don't say that, sir.",2 It's what you ought to do yourself!,2 Why don't you do as I do?',2 "Of whom Mr Pancks had taken the prevalent disease, he could no more have told than if he had unconsciously taken a fever.",1 "Bred at first, as many physical diseases are, in the wickedness of men, and then disseminated in their ignorance, these epidemics, after a period, get communicated to many sufferers who are neither ignorant nor wicked.",0 "Mr Pancks might, or might not, have caught the illness himself from a subject of this class; but in this category he appeared before Clennam, and the infection he threw off was all the more virulent.",0 "'And you have really invested,' Clennam had already passed to that word, 'your thousand pounds, Pancks?'",2 "'To be sure, sir!'",2 "replied Pancks boldly, with a puff of smoke.",1 'And only wish it ten!',2 "Now, Clennam had two subjects lying heavy on his lonely mind that night; the one, his partner's long-deferred hope; the other, what he had seen and heard at his mother's.",1 "In the relief of having this companion, and of feeling that he could trust him, he passed on to both, and both brought him round again, with an increase and acceleration of force, to his point of departure.",3 It came about in the simplest manner.,3 "Quitting the investment subject, after an interval of silent looking at the fire through the smoke of his pipe, he told Pancks how and why he was occupied with the great National Department.",3 "'A hard case it has been, and a hard case it is on Doyce,' he finished by saying, with all the honest feeling the topic roused in him.",2 "'Hard indeed,' Pancks acquiesced.",2 "'But you manage for him, Mr Clennam?'",2 'How do you mean?',2 'Manage the money part of the business?',2 'Yes.,2 As well as I can.',3 "'Manage it better, sir,' said Pancks.",3 'Recompense him for his toils and disappointments.,1 Give him the chances of the time.,2 "He'll never benefit himself in that way, patient and preoccupied workman.",3 "He looks to you, sir.'",2 "'I do my best, Pancks,' returned Clennam, uneasily.",2 "'As to duly weighing and considering these new enterprises of which I have had no experience, I doubt if I am fit for it, I am growing old.'",1 'Growing old?',2 cried Pancks.,2 "'Ha, ha!'",2 "There was something so indubitably genuine in the wonderful laugh, and series of snorts and puffs, engendered in Mr Pancks's astonishment at, and utter rejection of, the idea, that his being quite in earnest could not be questioned.",4 'Growing old?',2 cried Pancks.,2 "'Hear, hear, hear!",2 Old?,2 "Hear him, hear him!'",2 "The positive refusal expressed in Mr Pancks's continued snorts, no less than in these exclamations, to entertain the sentiment for a single instant, drove Arthur away from it.",3 "Indeed, he was fearful of something happening to Mr Pancks in the violent conflict that took place between the breath he jerked out of himself and the smoke he jerked into himself.",0 This abandonment of the second topic threw him on the third.,2 "'Young, old, or middle-aged, Pancks,' he said, when there was a favourable pause, 'I am in a very anxious and uncertain state; a state that even leads me to doubt whether anything now seeming to belong to me, may be really mine.",1 Shall I tell you how this is?,2 Shall I put a great trust in you?',3 "'You shall, sir,' said Pancks, 'if you believe me worthy of it.'",3 'I do.',2 'You may!',2 "Mr Pancks's short and sharp rejoinder, confirmed by the sudden outstretching of his coaly hand, was most expressive and convincing.",3 Arthur shook the hand warmly.,3 "He then, softening the nature of his old apprehensions as much as was possible consistently with their being made intelligible and never alluding to his mother by name, but speaking vaguely of a relation of his, confided to Mr Pancks a broad outline of the misgivings he entertained, and of the interview he had witnessed.",2 "Mr Pancks listened with such interest that, regardless of the charms of the Eastern pipe, he put it in the grate among the fire-irons, and occupied his hands during the whole recital in so erecting the loops and hooks of hair all over his head, that he looked, when it came to a conclusion, like a journeyman Hamlet in conversation with his father's spirit.",2 "'Brings me back, sir,' was his exclamation then, with a startling touch on Clennam's knee, 'brings me back, sir, to the Investments!",1 I don't say anything of your making yourself poor to repair a wrong you never committed.,1 That's you.,2 A man must be himself.,2 "But I say this, fearing you may want money to save your own blood from exposure and disgrace--make as much as you can!'",1 "Arthur shook his head, but looked at him thoughtfully too.",3 "'Be as rich as you can, sir,' Pancks adjured him with a powerful concentration of all his energies on the advice.",3 'Be as rich as you honestly can.,3 It's your duty.,2 "Not for your sake, but for the sake of others.",2 Take time by the forelock.,2 Poor Mr Doyce (who really _is_ growing old) depends upon you.,1 Your relative depends upon you.,2 You don't know what depends upon you.',2 "'Well, well, well!'",3 returned Arthur.,2 'Enough for to-night.',2 "'One word more, Mr Clennam,' retorted Pancks, 'and then enough for to-night.",3 "Why should you leave all the gains to the gluttons, knaves, and impostors?",3 Why should you leave all the gains that are to be got to my proprietor and the like of him?,3 Yet you're always doing it.,2 "When I say you, I mean such men as you.",2 You know you are.,2 "Why, I see it every day of my life.",2 I see nothing else.,2 It's my business to see it.,2 "Therefore I say,' urged Pancks, 'Go in and win!'",3 'But what of Go in and lose?',1 said Arthur.,2 "'Can't be done, sir,' returned Pancks.",2 'I have looked into it.,2 Name up everywhere--immense resources--enormous capital--great position--high connection--government influence.,3 Can't be done!',2 "Gradually, after this closing exposition, Mr Pancks subsided; allowed his hair to droop as much as it ever would droop on the utmost persuasion; reclaimed the pipe from the fire-irons, filled it anew, and smoked it out.",1 "They said little more; but were company to one another in silently pursuing the same subjects, and did not part until midnight.",2 "On taking his leave, Mr Pancks, when he had shaken hands with Clennam, worked completely round him before he steamed out at the door.",3 "This, Arthur received as an assurance that he might implicitly rely on Pancks, if he ever should come to need assistance; either in any of the matters of which they had spoken that night, or any other subject that could in any way affect himself.",3 "At intervals all next day, and even while his attention was fixed on other things, he thought of Mr Pancks's investment of his thousand pounds, and of his having 'looked into it.'",2 "He thought of Mr Pancks's being so sanguine in this matter, and of his not being usually of a sanguine character.",2 "He thought of the great National Department, and of the delight it would be to him to see Doyce better off.",4 "He thought of the darkly threatening place that went by the name of Home in his remembrance, and of the gathering shadows which made it yet more darkly threatening than of old.",1 "He observed anew that wherever he went, he saw, or heard, or touched, the celebrated name of Merdle; he found it difficult even to remain at his desk a couple of hours, without having it presented to one of his bodily senses through some agency or other.",2 "He began to think it was curious too that it should be everywhere, and that nobody but he should seem to have any mistrust of it.",1 "Though indeed he began to remember, when he got to this, even _he_ did not mistrust it; he had only happened to keep aloof from it.",1 "Such symptoms, when a disease of the kind is rife, are usually the signs of sickening.",0 "When it became known to the Britons on the shore of the yellow Tiber that their intelligent compatriot, Mr Sparkler, was made one of the Lords of their Circumlocution Office, they took it as a piece of news with which they had no nearer concern than with any other piece of news--any other Accident or Offence--in the English papers.",1 "Some laughed; some said, by way of complete excuse, that the post was virtually a sinecure, and any fool who could spell his name was good enough for it; some, and these the more solemn political oracles, said that Decimus did wisely to strengthen himself, and that the sole constitutional purpose of all places within the gift of Decimus, was, that Decimus _should_ strengthen himself.",2 A few bilious Britons there were who would not subscribe to this article of faith; but their objection was purely theoretical.,2 "In a practical point of view, they listlessly abandoned the matter, as being the business of some other Britons unknown, somewhere, or nowhere.",1 "In like manner, at home, great numbers of Britons maintained, for as long as four-and-twenty consecutive hours, that those invisible and anonymous Britons 'ought to take it up;' and that if they quietly acquiesced in it, they deserved it.",3 "But of what class the remiss Britons were composed, and where the unlucky creatures hid themselves, and why they hid themselves, and how it constantly happened that they neglected their interests, when so many other Britons were quite at a loss to account for their not looking after those interests, was not, either upon the shore of the yellow Tiber or the shore of the black Thames, made apparent to men.",1 "Mrs Merdle circulated the news, as she received congratulations on it, with a careless grace that displayed it to advantage, as the setting displays the jewel.",3 "Yes, she said, Edmund had taken the place.",2 "Mr Merdle wished him to take it, and he had taken it.",2 "She hoped Edmund might like it, but really she didn't know.",3 "It would keep him in town a good deal, and he preferred the country.",3 "Still, it was not a disagreeable position--and it was a position.",1 "There was no denying that the thing was a compliment to Mr Merdle, and was not a bad thing for Edmund if he liked it.",2 "It was just as well that he should have something to do, and it was just as well that he should have something for doing it.",3 "Whether it would be more agreeable to Edmund than the army, remained to be seen.",3 "Thus the Bosom; accomplished in the art of seeming to make things of small account, and really enhancing them in the process.",3 "While Henry Gowan, whom Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole round of his acquaintance between the Gate of the People and the town of Albano, vowing, almost (but not quite) with tears in his eyes, that Sparkler was the sweetest-tempered, simplest-hearted, altogether most lovable jackass that ever grazed on the public common; and that only one circumstance could have delighted him (Gowan) more, than his (the beloved jackass's) getting this post, and that would have been his (Gowan's) getting it himself.",4 He said it was the very thing for Sparkler.,2 "There was nothing to do, and he would do it charmingly; there was a handsome salary to draw, and he would draw it charmingly; it was a delightful, appropriate, capital appointment; and he almost forgave the donor his slight of himself, in his joy that the dear donkey for whom he had so great an affection was so admirably stabled.",4 Nor did his benevolence stop here.,3 "He took pains, on all social occasions, to draw Mr Sparkler out, and make him conspicuous before the company; and, although the considerate action always resulted in that young gentleman's making a dreary and forlorn mental spectacle of himself, the friendly intention was not to be doubted.",1 "Unless, indeed, it chanced to be doubted by the object of Mr Sparkler's affections.",1 "Miss Fanny was now in the difficult situation of being universally known in that light, and of not having dismissed Mr Sparkler, however capriciously she used him.",0 "Hence, she was sufficiently identified with the gentleman to feel compromised by his being more than usually ridiculous; and hence, being by no means deficient in quickness, she sometimes came to his rescue against Gowan, and did him very good service.",2 "But, while doing this, she was ashamed of him, undetermined whether to get rid of him or more decidedly encourage him, distracted with apprehensions that she was every day becoming more and more immeshed in her uncertainties, and tortured by misgivings that Mrs Merdle triumphed in her distress.",0 "With this tumult in her mind, it is no subject for surprise that Miss Fanny came home one night in a state of agitation from a concert and ball at Mrs Merdle's house, and on her sister affectionately trying to soothe her, pushed that sister away from the toilette-table at which she sat angrily trying to cry, and declared with a heaving bosom that she detested everybody, and she wished she was dead.",0 "'Dear Fanny, what is the matter?",2 Tell me.',2 "'Matter, you little Mole,' said Fanny.",2 "'If you were not the blindest of the blind, you would have no occasion to ask me.",1 "The idea of daring to pretend to assert that you have eyes in your head, and yet ask me what's the matter!'",2 "'Is it Mr Sparkler, dear?'",2 'Mis-ter Spark-ler!',2 "repeated Fanny, with unbounded scorn, as if he were the last subject in the Solar system that could possibly be near her mind.",1 "'No, Miss Bat, it is not.'",1 "Immediately afterwards, she became remorseful for having called her sister names; declaring with sobs that she knew she made herself hateful, but that everybody drove her to it.",1 "'I don't think you are well to-night, dear Fanny.'",3 'Stuff and nonsense!',1 "replied the young lady, turning angry again; 'I am as well as you are.",2 "Perhaps I might say better, and yet make no boast of it.'",3 "Poor Little Dorrit, not seeing her way to the offering of any soothing words that would escape repudiation, deemed it best to remain quiet.",2 "At first, Fanny took this ill, too; protesting to her looking-glass, that of all the trying sisters a girl could have, she did think the most trying sister was a flat sister.",1 "That she knew she was at times a wretched temper; that she knew she made herself hateful; that when she made herself hateful, nothing would do her half the good as being told so; but that, being afflicted with a flat sister, she never _was_ told so, and the consequence resulted that she was absolutely tempted and goaded into making herself disagreeable.",0 "Besides (she angrily told her looking-glass), she didn't want to be forgiven.",1 "It was not a right example, that she should be constantly stooping to be forgiven by a younger sister.",3 "And this was the Art of it--that she was always being placed in the position of being forgiven, whether she liked it or not.",3 "Finally she burst into violent weeping, and, when her sister came and sat close at her side to comfort her, said, 'Amy, you're an Angel!'",3 "'But, I tell you what, my Pet,' said Fanny, when her sister's gentleness had calmed her, 'it now comes to this; that things cannot and shall not go on as they are at present going on, and that there must be an end of this, one way or another.'",2 "As the announcement was vague, though very peremptory, Little Dorrit returned, 'Let us talk about it.'",1 "'Quite so, my dear,' assented Fanny, as she dried her eyes.",2 'Let us talk about it.,2 "I am rational again now, and you shall advise me.",3 "_Will_ you advise me, my sweet child?'",3 "Even Amy smiled at this notion, but she said, 'I will, Fanny, as well as I can.'",3 "'Thank you, dearest Amy,' returned Fanny, kissing her.",2 'You are my anchor.',2 "Having embraced her Anchor with great affection, Fanny took a bottle of sweet toilette water from the table, and called to her maid for a fine handkerchief.",4 "She then dismissed that attendant for the night, and went on to be advised; dabbing her eyes and forehead from time to time to cool them.",3 "'My love,' Fanny began, 'our characters and points of view are sufficiently different (kiss me again, my darling), to make it very probable that I shall surprise you by what I am going to say.",4 "What I am going to say, my dear, is, that notwithstanding our property, we labour, socially speaking, under disadvantages.",1 "You don't quite understand what I mean, Amy?'",2 "'I have no doubt I shall,' said Amy, mildly, 'after a few words more.'",1 "'Well, my dear, what I mean is, that we are, after all, newcomers into fashionable life.'",3 "'I am sure, Fanny,' Little Dorrit interposed in her zealous admiration, 'no one need find that out in you.'",2 "'Well, my dear child, perhaps not,' said Fanny, 'though it's most kind and most affectionate in you, you precious girl, to say so.'",3 "Here she dabbed her sister's forehead, and blew upon it a little.",2 "'But you are,' resumed Fanny, 'as is well known, the dearest little thing that ever was!",3 "To resume, my child.",2 "Pa is extremely gentlemanly and extremely well informed, but he is, in some trifling respects, a little different from other gentlemen of his fortune: partly on account of what he has gone through, poor dear: partly, I fancy, on account of its often running in his mind that other people are thinking about that, while he is talking to them.",3 "Uncle, my love, is altogether unpresentable.",3 "Though a dear creature to whom I am tenderly attached, he is, socially speaking, shocking.",2 Edward is frightfully expensive and dissipated.,1 "I don't mean that there is anything ungenteel in that itself--far from it--but I do mean that he doesn't do it well, and that he doesn't, if I may so express myself, get the money's-worth in the sort of dissipated reputation that attaches to him.'",4 'Poor Edward!',2 "sighed Little Dorrit, with the whole family history in the sigh.",2 'Yes.,2 "And poor you and me, too,' returned Fanny, rather sharply.",1 'Very true!,2 "Then, my dear, we have no mother, and we have a Mrs General.",2 "And I tell you again, darling, that Mrs General, if I may reverse a common proverb and adapt it to her, is a cat in gloves who _will_ catch mice.",3 "That woman, I am quite sure and confident, will be our mother-in-law.'",3 "'I can hardly think, Fanny--' Fanny stopped her.",2 "'Now, don't argue with me about it, Amy,' said she, 'because I know better.'",3 "Feeling that she had been sharp again, she dabbed her sister's forehead again, and blew upon it again.",3 "'To resume once more, my dear.",2 "It then becomes a question with me (I am proud and spirited, Amy, as you very well know: too much so, I dare say) whether I shall make up my mind to take it upon myself to carry the family through.'",4 'How?',2 "asked her sister, anxiously.",1 "'I will not,' said Fanny, without answering the question, 'submit to be mother-in-lawed by Mrs General; and I will not submit to be, in any respect whatever, either patronised or tormented by Mrs Merdle.'",2 "Little Dorrit laid her hand upon the hand that held the bottle of sweet water, with a still more anxious look.",2 "Fanny, quite punishing her own forehead with the vehement dabs she now began to give it, fitfully went on.",1 "'That he has somehow or other, and how is of no consequence, attained a very good position, no one can deny.",2 "That it is a very good connection, no one can deny.",2 "And as to the question of clever or not clever, I doubt very much whether a clever husband would be suitable to me.",3 I cannot submit.,2 I should not be able to defer to him enough.',3 "'O, my dear Fanny!'",2 "expostulated Little Dorrit, upon whom a kind of terror had been stealing as she perceived what her sister meant.",1 "'If you loved any one, all this feeling would change.",3 "If you loved any one, you would no more be yourself, but you would quite lose and forget yourself in your devotion to him.",2 "If you loved him, Fanny--' Fanny had stopped the dabbing hand, and was looking at her fixedly.",3 "O, indeed!' cried Fanny.",2 'Really?,2 "Bless me, how much some people know of some subjects!",3 "They say every one has a subject, and I certainly seem to have hit upon yours, Amy.",2 "There, you little thing, I was only in fun,' dabbing her sister's forehead; 'but don't you be a silly puss, and don't you think flightily and eloquently about degenerate impossibilities.",2 There!,2 "Now, I'll go back to myself.'",2 "'Dear Fanny, let me say first, that I would far rather we worked for a scanty living again than I would see you rich and married to Mr Sparkler.'",3 " 'Let you say, my dear?'",2 retorted Fanny.,2 "Why, of course, I will let you say anything.",2 "There is no constraint upon you, I hope.",2 We are together to talk it over.,2 "And as to marrying Mr Sparkler, I have not the slightest intention of doing so to-night, my dear, or to-morrow morning either.'",2 'But at some time?',2 "'At no time, for anything I know at present,' answered Fanny, with indifference.",1 "Then, suddenly changing her indifference into a burning restlessness, she added, 'You talk about the clever men, you little thing!",1 It's all very fine and easy to talk about the clever men; but where are they?,4 I don't see them anywhere near me!',2 "'My dear Fanny, so short a time--' 'Short time or long time,' interrupted Fanny.",2 'I am impatient of our situation.,1 "I don't like our situation, and very little would induce me to change it.",3 "Other girls, differently reared and differently circumstanced altogether, might wonder at what I say or may do.",3 Let them.,2 They are driven by their lives and characters; I am driven by mine.',2 "'Fanny, my dear Fanny, you know that you have qualities to make you the wife of one very superior to Mr Sparkler.'",3 "'Amy, my dear Amy,' retorted Fanny, parodying her words, 'I know that I wish to have a more defined and distinct position, in which I can assert myself with greater effect against that insolent woman.'",1 "'Would you therefore--forgive my asking, Fanny--therefore marry her son?'",2 "'Why, perhaps,' said Fanny, with a triumphant smile.",3 "'There may be many less promising ways of arriving at an end than that, my dear.",3 "That piece of insolence may think, now, that it would be a great success to get her son off upon me, and shelve me.",3 "But, perhaps, she little thinks how I would retort upon her if I married her son.",2 "I would oppose her in everything, and compete with her.",1 I would make it the business of my life.',2 "Fanny set down the bottle when she came to this, and walked about the room; always stopping and standing still while she spoke.",2 "'One thing I could certainly do, my child: I could make her older.",2 And I would!',2 This was followed by another walk.,2 'I would talk of her as an old woman.,2 "I would pretend to know--if I didn't, but I should from her son--all about her age.",1 "And she should hear me say, Amy: affectionately, quite dutifully and affectionately: how well she looked, considering her time of life.",3 "I could make her seem older at once, by being myself so much younger.",2 "I may not be as handsome as she is; I am not a fair judge of that question, I suppose; but I know I am handsome enough to be a thorn in her side.",4 And I would be!',2 "'My dear sister, would you condemn yourself to an unhappy life for this?'",1 "'It wouldn't be an unhappy life, Amy.",1 It would be the life I am fitted for.,2 "Whether by disposition, or whether by circumstances, is no matter; I am better fitted for such a life than for almost any other.'",3 "There was something of a desolate tone in those words; but, with a short proud laugh she took another walk, and after passing a great looking-glass came to another stop.",3 'Figure!,2 "Figure, Amy!",2 Well.,3 The woman has a good figure.,3 "I will give her her due, and not deny it.",1 But is it so far beyond all others that it is altogether unapproachable?,2 "Upon my word, I am not so sure of it.",2 "Give some much younger woman the latitude as to dress that she has, being married; and we would see about that, my dear!'",2 "Something in the thought that was agreeable and flattering, brought her back to her seat in a gayer temper.",3 "She took her sister's hands in hers, and clapped all four hands above her head as she looked in her sister's face laughing: 'And the dancer, Amy, that she has quite forgotten--the dancer who bore no sort of resemblance to me, and of whom I never remind her, oh dear no!--should dance through her life, and dance in her way, to such a tune as would disturb her insolent placidity a little.",0 "Just a little, my dear Amy, just a little!'",2 "Meeting an earnest and imploring look in Amy's face, she brought the four hands down, and laid only one on Amy's lips.",3 "'Now, don't argue with me, child,' she said in a sterner way, 'because it is of no use.",2 I understand these subjects much better than you do.,3 "I have not nearly made up my mind, but it may be.",2 "Now we have talked this over comfortably, and may go to bed.",3 "You best and dearest little mouse, Good night!'",3 "With those words Fanny weighed her Anchor, and--having taken so much advice--left off being advised for that occasion.",2 "Thenceforward, Amy observed Mr Sparkler's treatment by his enslaver, with new reasons for attaching importance to all that passed between them.",2 "There were times when Fanny appeared quite unable to endure his mental feebleness, and when she became so sharply impatient of it that she would all but dismiss him for good.",1 "There were other times when she got on much better with him; when he amused her, and when her sense of superiority seemed to counterbalance that opposite side of the scale.",3 "If Mr Sparkler had been other than the faithfullest and most submissive of swains, he was sufficiently hard pressed to have fled from the scene of his trials, and have set at least the whole distance from Rome to London between himself and his enchantress.",1 "But he had no greater will of his own than a boat has when it is towed by a steam-ship; and he followed his cruel mistress through rough and smooth, on equally strong compulsion.",1 "Mrs Merdle, during these passages, said little to Fanny, but said more about her.",2 "She was, as it were, forced to look at her through her eye-glass, and in general conversation to allow commendations of her beauty to be wrung from her by its irresistible demands.",3 "The defiant character it assumed when Fanny heard these extollings (as it generally happened that she did), was not expressive of concessions to the impartial bosom; but the utmost revenge the bosom took was, to say audibly, 'A spoilt beauty--but with that face and shape, who could wonder?'",3 "It might have been about a month or six weeks after the night of the new advice, when Little Dorrit began to think she detected some new understanding between Mr Sparkler and Fanny.",2 "Mr Sparkler, as if in attendance to some compact, scarcely ever spoke without first looking towards Fanny for leave.",2 "That young lady was too discreet ever to look back again; but, if Mr Sparkler had permission to speak, she remained silent; if he had not, she herself spoke.",3 "Moreover, it became plain whenever Henry Gowan attempted to perform the friendly office of drawing him out, that he was not to be drawn.",3 "And not only that, but Fanny would presently, without any pointed application in the world, chance to say something with such a sting in it that Gowan would draw back as if he had put his hand into a bee-hive.",1 "There was yet another circumstance which went a long way to confirm Little Dorrit in her fears, though it was not a great circumstance in itself.",2 Mr Sparkler's demeanour towards herself changed.,2 It became fraternal.,2 "Sometimes, when she was in the outer circle of assemblies--at their own residence, at Mrs Merdle's, or elsewhere--she would find herself stealthily supported round the waist by Mr Sparkler's arm.",3 "Mr Sparkler never offered the slightest explanation of this attention; but merely smiled with an air of blundering, contented, good-natured proprietorship, which, in so heavy a gentleman, was ominously expressive.",1 "Little Dorrit was at home one day, thinking about Fanny with a heavy heart.",2 "They had a room at one end of their drawing-room suite, nearly all irregular bay-window, projecting over the street, and commanding all the picturesque life and variety of the Corso, both up and down.",3 "At three or four o'clock in the afternoon, English time, the view from this window was very bright and peculiar; and Little Dorrit used to sit and muse here, much as she had been used to while away the time in her balcony at Venice.",2 "Seated thus one day, she was softly touched on the shoulder, and Fanny said, 'Well, Amy dear,' and took her seat at her side.",2 "Their seat was a part of the window; when there was anything in the way of a procession going on, they used to have bright draperies hung out of the window, and used to kneel or sit on this seat, and look out at it, leaning on the brilliant colour.",3 "But there was no procession that day, and Little Dorrit was rather surprised by Fanny's being at home at that hour, as she was generally out on horseback then.",2 "'Well, Amy,' said Fanny, 'what are you thinking of, little one?'",2 "'I was thinking of you, Fanny.'",2 No? What a coincidence!,2 I declare here's some one else.,2 "You were not thinking of this some one else too; were you, Amy?'",2 Amy had been thinking of this some one else too; for it was Mr Sparkler.,2 "She did not say so, however, as she gave him her hand.",2 "Mr Sparkler came and sat down on the other side of her, and she felt the fraternal railing come behind her, and apparently stretch on to include Fanny.",2 "'Well, my little sister,' said Fanny with a sigh, 'I suppose you know what this means?'",2 "'She's as beautiful as she's doated on,' stammered Mr Sparkler--'and there's no nonsense about her--it's arranged--' 'You needn't explain, Edmund,' said Fanny.",2 "'No, my love,' said Mr Sparkler.",3 "'In short, pet,' proceeded Fanny, 'on the whole, we are engaged.",2 "We must tell papa about it either to-night or to-morrow, according to the opportunities.",2 "Then it's done, and very little more need be said.'",2 "'My dear Fanny,' said Mr Sparkler, with deference, 'I should like to say a word to Amy.'",3 "'Well, well!",3 "Say it for goodness' sake,' returned the young lady.",2 "'I am convinced, my dear Amy,' said Mr Sparkler, 'that if ever there was a girl, next to your highly endowed and beautiful sister, who had no nonsense about her--' 'We know all about that, Edmund,' interposed Miss Fanny.",1 'Never mind that.,2 Pray go on to something else besides our having no nonsense about us.',1 "'Yes, my love,' said Mr Sparkler.",3 "'And I assure you, Amy, that nothing can be a greater happiness to myself, myself--next to the happiness of being so highly honoured with the choice of a glorious girl who hasn't an atom of--' 'Pray, Edmund, pray!'",4 "interrupted Fanny, with a slight pat of her pretty foot upon the floor.",3 "'My love, you're quite right,' said Mr Sparkler, 'and I know I have a habit of it.",3 "What I wished to declare was, that nothing can be a greater happiness to myself, myself-next to the happiness of being united to pre-eminently the most glorious of girls--than to have the happiness of cultivating the affectionate acquaintance of Amy.",4 "I may not myself,' said Mr Sparkler manfully, 'be up to the mark on some other subjects at a short notice, and I am aware that if you were to poll Society the general opinion would be that I am not; but on the subject of Amy I AM up to the mark!'",2 "Mr Sparkler kissed her, in witness thereof.",2 "'A knife and fork and an apartment,' proceeded Mr Sparkler, growing, in comparison with his oratorical antecedents, quite diffuse, 'will ever be at Amy's disposal.",1 "My Governor, I am sure, will always be proud to entertain one whom I so much esteem.",3 "And regarding my mother,' said Mr Sparkler, 'who is a remarkably fine woman, with--' 'Edmund, Edmund!'",3 "cried Miss Fanny, as before.",1 "'With submission, my soul,' pleaded Mr Sparkler.",2 "'I know I have a habit of it, and I thank you very much, my adorable girl, for taking the trouble to correct it; but my mother is admitted on all sides to be a remarkably fine woman, and she really hasn't any.'",4 "'That may be, or may not be,' returned Fanny, 'but pray don't mention it any more.'",2 "'I will not, my love,' said Mr Sparkler.",3 "Then, in fact, you have nothing more to say, Edmund; have you?' inquired Fanny.",2 "'So far from it, my adorable girl,' answered Mr Sparkler, 'I apologise for having said so much.'",3 "Mr Sparkler perceived, by a kind of inspiration, that the question implied had he not better go?",3 "He therefore withdrew the fraternal railing, and neatly said that he thought he would, with submission, take his leave.",3 "He did not go without being congratulated by Amy, as well as she could discharge that office in the flutter and distress of her spirits.",3 "When he was gone, she said, 'O Fanny, Fanny!'",2 "and turned to her sister in the bright window, and fell upon her bosom and cried there.",2 Fanny laughed at first; but soon laid her face against her sister's and cried too--a little.,2 "It was the last time Fanny ever showed that there was any hidden, suppressed, or conquered feeling in her on the matter.",2 "From that hour the way she had chosen lay before her, and she trod it with her own imperious self-willed step.",1 "Mr Dorrit, on being informed by his elder daughter that she had accepted matrimonial overtures from Mr Sparkler, to whom she had plighted her troth, received the communication at once with great dignity and with a large display of parental pride; his dignity dilating with the widened prospect of advantageous ground from which to make acquaintances, and his parental pride being developed by Miss Fanny's ready sympathy with that great object of his existence.",4 "He gave her to understand that her noble ambition found harmonious echoes in his heart; and bestowed his blessing on her, as a child brimful of duty and good principle, self-devoted to the aggrandisement of the family name.",4 "To Mr Sparkler, when Miss Fanny permitted him to appear, Mr Dorrit said, he would not disguise that the alliance Mr Sparkler did him the honour to propose was highly congenial to his feelings; both as being in unison with the spontaneous affections of his daughter Fanny, and as opening a family connection of a gratifying nature with Mr Merdle, the master spirit of the age.",4 "Mrs Merdle also, as a leading lady rich in distinction, elegance, grace, and beauty, he mentioned in very laudatory terms.",4 "He felt it his duty to remark (he was sure a gentleman of Mr Sparkler's fine sense would interpret him with all delicacy), that he could not consider this proposal definitely determined on, until he should have had the privilege of holding some correspondence with Mr Merdle; and of ascertaining it to be so far accordant with the views of that eminent gentleman as that his (Mr Dorrit's) daughter would be received on that footing which her station in life and her dowry and expectations warranted him in requiring that she should maintain in what he trusted he might be allowed, without the appearance of being mercenary, to call the Eye of the Great World.",4 "While saying this, which his character as a gentleman of some little station, and his character as a father, equally demanded of him, he would not be so diplomatic as to conceal that the proposal remained in hopeful abeyance and under conditional acceptance, and that he thanked Mr Sparkler for the compliment rendered to himself and to his family.",4 "He concluded with some further and more general observations on the--ha--character of an independent gentleman, and the--hum--character of a possibly too partial and admiring parent.",2 "To sum the whole up shortly, he received Mr Sparkler's offer very much as he would have received three or four half-crowns from him in the days that were gone.",2 "Mr Sparkler, finding himself stunned by the words thus heaped upon his inoffensive head, made a brief though pertinent rejoinder; the same being neither more nor less than that he had long perceived Miss Fanny to have no nonsense about her, and that he had no doubt of its being all right with his Governor.",1 "At that point the object of his affections shut him up like a box with a spring lid, and sent him away.",2 "Proceeding shortly afterwards to pay his respects to the Bosom, Mr Dorrit was received by it with great consideration.",3 Mrs Merdle had heard of this affair from Edmund.,2 "She had been surprised at first, because she had not thought Edmund a marrying man.",2 Society had not thought Edmund a marrying man.,2 "Still, of course she had seen, as a woman (we women did instinctively see these things, Mr Dorrit!), that Edmund had been immensely captivated by Miss Dorrit, and she had openly said that Mr Dorrit had much to answer for in bringing so charming a girl abroad to turn the heads of his countrymen.",3 "'Have I the honour to conclude, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'that the direction which Mr Sparkler's affections have taken, is--ha-approved of by you?'",2 "'I assure you, Mr Dorrit,' returned the lady, 'that, personally, I am charmed.'",3 That was very gratifying to Mr Dorrit.,3 "'Personally,' repeated Mrs Merdle, 'charmed.'",2 "This casual repetition of the word 'personally,' moved Mr Dorrit to express his hope that Mr Merdle's approval, too, would not be wanting?",3 "'I cannot,' said Mrs Merdle, 'take upon myself to answer positively for Mr Merdle; gentlemen, especially gentlemen who are what Society calls capitalists, having their own ideas of these matters.",3 "But I should think--merely giving an opinion, Mr Dorrit--I should think Mr Merdle would be upon the whole,' here she held a review of herself before adding at her leisure, 'quite charmed.'",2 "At the mention of gentlemen whom Society called capitalists, Mr Dorrit had coughed, as if some internal demur were breaking out of him.",1 "Mrs Merdle had observed it, and went on to take up the cue.",2 "'Though, indeed, Mr Dorrit, it is scarcely necessary for me to make that remark, except in the mere openness of saying what is uppermost to one whom I so highly regard, and with whom I hope I may have the pleasure of being brought into still more agreeable relations.",4 "For one cannot but see the great probability of your considering such things from Mr Merdle's own point of view, except indeed that circumstances have made it Mr Merdle's accidental fortune, or misfortune, to be engaged in business transactions, and that they, however vast, may a little cramp his horizons.",1 "I am a very child as to having any notion of business,' said Mrs Merdle; 'but I am afraid, Mr Dorrit, it may have that tendency.'",1 "This skilful see-saw of Mr Dorrit and Mrs Merdle, so that each of them sent the other up, and each of them sent the other down, and neither had the advantage, acted as a sedative on Mr Dorrit's cough.",3 "He remarked with his utmost politeness, that he must beg to protest against its being supposed, even by Mrs Merdle, the accomplished and graceful (to which compliment she bent herself), that such enterprises as Mr Merdle's, apart as they were from the puny undertakings of the rest of men, had any lower tendency than to enlarge and expand the genius in which they were conceived.",3 "'You are generosity itself,' said Mrs Merdle in return, smiling her best smile; 'let us hope so.",4 But I confess I am almost superstitious in my ideas about business.',1 "Mr Dorrit threw in another compliment here, to the effect that business, like the time which was precious in it, was made for slaves; and that it was not for Mrs Merdle, who ruled all hearts at her supreme pleasure, to have anything to do with it.",4 "Mrs Merdle laughed, and conveyed to Mr Dorrit an idea that the Bosom flushed--which was one of her best effects.",3 "'I say so much,' she then explained, 'merely because Mr Merdle has always taken the greatest interest in Edmund, and has always expressed the strongest desire to advance his prospects.",3 "Edmund's public position, I think you know.",2 His private position rests solely with Mr Merdle.,2 "In my foolish incapacity for business, I assure you I know no more.'",2 "Mr Dorrit again expressed, in his own way, the sentiment that business was below the ken of enslavers and enchantresses.",2 "He then mentioned his intention, as a gentleman and a parent, of writing to Mr Merdle.",2 "Mrs Merdle concurred with all her heart--or with all her art, which was exactly the same thing--and herself despatched a preparatory letter by the next post to the eighth wonder of the world.",3 "In his epistolary communication, as in his dialogues and discourses on the great question to which it related, Mr Dorrit surrounded the subject with flourishes, as writing-masters embellish copy-books and ciphering-books: where the titles of the elementary rules of arithmetic diverge into swans, eagles, griffins, and other calligraphic recreations, and where the capital letters go out of their minds and bodies into ecstasies of pen and ink.",4 "Nevertheless, he did render the purport of his letter sufficiently clear, to enable Mr Merdle to make a decent pretence of having learnt it from that source.",3 Mr Merdle replied to it accordingly.,2 Mr Dorrit replied to Mr Merdle; Mr Merdle replied to Mr Dorrit; and it was soon announced that the corresponding powers had come to a satisfactory understanding.,3 "Now, and not before, Miss Fanny burst upon the scene, completely arrayed for her new part.",1 "Now and not before, she wholly absorbed Mr Sparkler in her light, and shone for both, and twenty more.",2 "No longer feeling that want of a defined place and character which had caused her so much trouble, this fair ship began to steer steadily on a shaped course, and to swim with a weight and balance that developed her sailing qualities.",2 "'The preliminaries being so satisfactorily arranged, I think I will now, my dear,' said Mr Dorrit, 'announce--ha--formally, to Mrs General--' 'Papa,' returned Fanny, taking him up short upon that name, 'I don't see what Mrs General has got to do with it.'",3 "'My dear,' said Mr Dorrit, 'it will be an act of courtesy to--hum--a lady, well bred and refined--' 'Oh!",3 "I am sick of Mrs General's good breeding and refinement, papa,' said Fanny.",3 'I am tired of Mrs General.',1 "'Tired,' repeated Mr Dorrit in reproachful astonishment, 'of--ha--Mrs General.'",2 "'Quite disgusted with her, papa,' said Fanny.",1 'I really don't see what she has to do with my marriage.,2 Let her keep to her own matrimonial projects--if she has any.',2 "'Fanny,' returned Mr Dorrit, with a grave and weighty slowness upon him, contrasting strongly with his daughter's levity: 'I beg the favour of your explaining--ha--what it is you mean.'",3 "'I mean, papa,' said Fanny, 'that if Mrs General should happen to have any matrimonial projects of her own, I dare say they are quite enough to occupy her spare time.",3 "And that if she has not, so much the better; but still I don't wish to have the honour of making announcements to her.'",3 "'Permit me to ask you, Fanny,' said Mr Dorrit, 'why not?'",2 "'Because she can find my engagement out for herself, papa,' retorted Fanny.",2 "'She is watchful enough, I dare say.",3 I think I have seen her so.,2 Let her find it out for herself.,2 "If she should not find it out for herself, she will know it when I am married.",2 "And I hope you will not consider me wanting in affection for you, papa, if I say it strikes me that will be quite enough for Mrs General.'",3 "'Fanny,' returned Mr Dorrit, 'I am amazed, I am displeased by this--hum--this capricious and unintelligible display of animosity towards--ha--Mrs General.'",0 "'Do not, if you please, papa,' urged Fanny, 'call it animosity, because I assure you I do not consider Mrs General worth my animosity.'",3 "At this, Mr Dorrit rose from his chair with a fixed look of severe reproof, and remained standing in his dignity before his daughter.",2 "His daughter, turning the bracelet on her arm, and now looking at him, and now looking from him, said, 'Very well, papa.",3 I am truly sorry if you don't like it; but I can't help it.,2 "I am not a child, and I am not Amy, and I must speak.'",2 "'Fanny,' gasped Mr Dorrit, after a majestic silence, 'if I request you to remain here, while I formally announce to Mrs General, as an exemplary lady, who is--hum--a trusted member of this family, the--ha--the change that is contemplated among us; if I--ha--not only request it, but--hum--insist upon it--' 'Oh, papa,' Fanny broke in with pointed significance, 'if you make so much of it as that, I have in duty nothing to do but comply.",3 "I hope I may have my thoughts upon the subject, however, for I really cannot help it under the circumstances.'",2 "So, Fanny sat down with a meekness which, in the junction of extremes, became defiance; and her father, either not deigning to answer, or not knowing what to answer, summoned Mr Tinkler into his presence.",1 'Mrs General.',2 "Mr Tinkler, unused to receive such short orders in connection with the fair varnisher, paused.",3 "Mr Dorrit, seeing the whole Marshalsea and all its testimonials in the pause, instantly flew at him with, 'How dare you, sir?",3 What do you mean?',2 "'I beg your pardon, sir,' pleaded Mr Tinkler, 'I was wishful to know--' 'You wished to know nothing, sir,' cried Mr Dorrit, highly flushed.",2 'Don't tell me you did.,2 Ha.,2 You didn't.,2 "You are guilty of mockery, sir.'",1 "'I assure you, sir--' Mr Tinkler began.",3 'Don't assure me!',3 said Mr Dorrit.,2 'I will not be assured by a domestic.,2 You are guilty of mockery.,1 You shall leave me--hum--the whole establishment shall leave me.,1 What are you waiting for?',2 "'Only for my orders, sir.'",2 "'It's false,' said Mr Dorrit, 'you have your orders.",1 Ha--hum.,1 "My compliments to Mrs General, and I beg the favour of her coming to me, if quite convenient, for a few minutes.",3 Those are your orders.',2 "In his execution of this mission, Mr Tinkler perhaps expressed that Mr Dorrit was in a raging fume.",1 "However that was, Mrs General's skirts were very speedily heard outside, coming along--one might almost have said bouncing along--with unusual expedition.",2 "Albeit, they settled down at the door and swept into the room with their customary coolness.",2 "'Mrs General,' said Mr Dorrit, 'take a chair.'",2 "Mrs General, with a graceful curve of acknowledgment, descended into the chair which Mr Dorrit offered.",3 "'Madam,' pursued that gentleman, 'as you have had the kindness to undertake the--hum--formation of my daughters, and as I am persuaded that nothing nearly affecting them can--ha--be indifferent to you--' 'Wholly impossible,' said Mrs General in the calmest of ways.",1 "'--I therefore wish to announce to you, madam, that my daughter now present--' Mrs General made a slight inclination of her head to Fanny, who made a very low inclination of her head to Mrs General, and came loftily upright again.",2 "'--That my daughter Fanny is--ha--contracted to be married to Mr Sparkler, with whom you are acquainted.",2 "Hence, madam, you will be relieved of half your difficult charge--ha--difficult charge.'",1 Mr Dorrit repeated it with his angry eye on Fanny.,1 "'But not, I hope, to the--hum--diminution of any other portion, direct or indirect, of the footing you have at present the kindness to occupy in my family.'",2 "'Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, with her gloved hands resting on one another in exemplary repose, 'is ever considerate, and ever but too appreciative of my friendly services.'",4 "(Miss Fanny coughed, as much as to say, 'You are right.')",2 " 'Miss Dorrit has no doubt exercised the soundest discretion of which the circumstances admitted, and I trust will allow me to offer her my sincere congratulations.",3 "When free from the trammels of passion,' Mrs General closed her eyes at the word, as if she could not utter it, and see anybody; 'when occurring with the approbation of near relatives; and when cementing the proud structure of a family edifice; these are usually auspicious events.",4 I trust Miss Dorrit will allow me to offer her my best congratulations.',3 "Here Mrs General stopped, and added internally, for the setting of her face, 'Papa, potatoes, poultry, Prunes, and prism.'",2 "'Mr Dorrit,' she superadded aloud, 'is ever most obliging; and for the attention, and I will add distinction, of having this confidence imparted to me by himself and Miss Dorrit at this early time, I beg to offer the tribute of my thanks.",2 "My thanks, and my congratulations, are equally the meed of Mr Dorrit and of Miss Dorrit.'",2 "'To me,' observed Miss Fanny, 'they are excessively gratifying--inexpressibly so.",1 "The relief of finding that you have no objection to make, Mrs General, quite takes a load off my mind, I am sure.",2 "I hardly know what I should have done,' said Fanny, 'if you had interposed any objection, Mrs General.'",1 "Mrs General changed her gloves, as to the right glove being uppermost and the left undermost, with a Prunes and Prism smile.",3 "'To preserve your approbation, Mrs General,' said Fanny, returning the smile with one in which there was no trace of those ingredients, 'will of course be the highest object of my married life; to lose it, would of course be perfect wretchedness.",1 "I am sure your great kindness will not object, and I hope papa will not object, to my correcting a small mistake you have made, however.",2 "The best of us are so liable to mistakes, that even you, Mrs General, have fallen into a little error.",0 "The attention and distinction you have so impressively mentioned, Mrs General, as attaching to this confidence, are, I have no doubt, of the most complimentary and gratifying description; but they don't at all proceed from me.",4 "The merit of having consulted you on the subject would have been so great in me, that I feel I must not lay claim to it when it really is not mine.",3 It is wholly papa's.,2 "I am deeply obliged to you for your encouragement and patronage, but it was papa who asked for it.",3 "I have to thank you, Mrs General, for relieving my breast of a great weight by so handsomely giving your consent to my engagement, but you have really nothing to thank me for.",4 "I hope you will always approve of my proceedings after I have left home and that my sister also may long remain the favoured object of your condescension, Mrs General.'",1 "With this address, which was delivered in her politest manner, Fanny left the room with an elegant and cheerful air--to tear up-stairs with a flushed face as soon as she was out of hearing, pounce in upon her sister, call her a little Dormouse, shake her for the better opening of her eyes, tell her what had passed below, and ask her what she thought of Pa now?",3 "Towards Mrs Merdle, the young lady comported herself with great independence and self-possession; but not as yet with any more decided opening of hostilities.",2 "Occasionally they had a slight skirmish, as when Fanny considered herself patted on the back by that lady, or as when Mrs Merdle looked particularly young and well; but Mrs Merdle always soon terminated those passages of arms by sinking among her cushions with the gracefullest indifference, and finding her attention otherwise engaged.",1 Society (for that mysterious creature sat upon the Seven Hills too) found Miss Fanny vastly improved by her engagement.,1 "She was much more accessible, much more free and engaging, much less exacting; insomuch that she now entertained a host of followers and admirers, to the bitter indignation of ladies with daughters to marry, who were to be regarded as Having revolted from Society on the Miss Dorrit grievance, and erected a rebellious standard.",1 Enjoying the flutter she caused.,3 "Miss Dorrit not only haughtily moved through it in her own proper person, but haughtily, even Ostentatiously, led Mr Sparkler through it too: seeming to say to them all, 'If I think proper to march among you in triumphal procession attended by this weak captive in bonds, rather than a stronger one, that is my business.",3 Enough that I choose to do it!',3 "Mr Sparkler for his part, questioned nothing; but went wherever he was taken, did whatever he was told, felt that for his bride-elect to be distinguished was for him to be distinguished on the easiest terms, and was truly grateful for being so openly acknowledged.",4 "The winter passing on towards the spring while this condition of affairs prevailed, it became necessary for Mr Sparkler to repair to England, and take his appointed part in the expression and direction of its genius, learning, commerce, spirit, and sense.",3 "The land of Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Newton, Watt, the land of a host of past and present abstract philosophers, natural philosophers, and subduers of Nature and Art in their myriad forms, called to Mr Sparkler to come and take care of it, lest it should perish.",1 "Mr Sparkler, unable to resist the agonised cry from the depths of his country's soul, declared that he must go.",1 "It followed that the question was rendered pressing when, where, and how Mr Sparkler should be married to the foremost girl in all this world with no nonsense about her.",2 "Its solution, after some little mystery and secrecy, Miss Fanny herself announced to her sister.",1 "'Now, my child,' said she, seeking her out one day, 'I am going to tell you something.",2 It is only this moment broached; and naturally I hurry to you the moment it _is_ broached.',2 "'Your marriage, Fanny?'",2 "'My precious child,' said Fanny, 'don't anticipate me.",3 "Let me impart my confidence to you, you flurried little thing, in my own way.",3 "As to your guess, if I answered it literally, I should answer no.",2 "For really it is not my marriage that is in question, half as much as it is Edmund's.'",2 "Little Dorrit looked, and perhaps not altogether without cause, somewhat at a loss to understand this fine distinction.",3 "'I am in no difficulty,' exclaimed Fanny, 'and in no hurry.",1 "I am not wanted at any public office, or to give any vote anywhere else.",2 But Edmund is.,2 "And Edmund is deeply dejected at the idea of going away by himself, and, indeed, I don't like that he should be trusted by himself.",3 "For, if it's possible--and it generally is--to do a foolish thing, he is sure to do it.'",1 "As she concluded this impartial summary of the reliance that might be safely placed upon her future husband, she took off, with an air of business, the bonnet she wore, and dangled it by its strings upon the ground.",3 "'It is far more Edmund's question, therefore, than mine.",2 "However, we need say no more about that.",2 That is self-evident on the face of it.,2 "Well, my dearest Amy!",3 "The point arising, is he to go by himself, or is he not to go by himself, this other point arises, are we to be married here and shortly, or are we to be married at home months hence?'",2 "'I see I am going to lose you, Fanny.'",1 "'What a little thing you are,' cried Fanny, half tolerant and half impatient, 'for anticipating one!",1 "Pray, my darling, hear me out.",3 "That woman,' she spoke of Mrs Merdle, of course, 'remains here until after Easter; so, in the case of my being married here and going to London with Edmund, I should have the start of her.",2 That is something.,2 "Further, Amy.",2 "That woman being out of the way, I don't know that I greatly object to Mr Merdle's proposal to Pa that Edmund and I should take up our abode in that house--_you_ know--where you once went with a dancer, my dear, until our own house can be chosen and fitted up.",1 "Further still, Amy.",2 "Papa having always intended to go to town himself, in the spring,--you see, if Edmund and I were married here, we might go off to Florence, where papa might join us, and we might all three travel home together.",2 "Mr Merdle has entreated Pa to stay with him in that same mansion I have mentioned, and I suppose he will.",2 But he is master of his own actions; and upon that point (which is not at all material) I can't speak positively.',3 "The difference between papa's being master of his own actions and Mr Sparkler's being nothing of the sort, was forcibly expressed by Fanny in her manner of stating the case.",3 "Not that her sister noticed it; for she was divided between regret at the coming separation, and a lingering wish that she had been included in the plans for visiting England.",1 "'And these are the arrangements, Fanny dear?'",2 'Arrangements!',2 repeated Fanny.,2 "'Now, really, child, you are a little trying.",2 You know I particularly guarded myself against laying my words open to any such construction.,2 "What I said was, that certain questions present themselves; and these are the questions.'",2 "Little Dorrit's thoughtful eyes met hers, tenderly and quietly.",3 "'Now, my own sweet girl,' said Fanny, weighing her bonnet by the strings with considerable impatience, 'it's no use staring.",2 A little owl could stare.,2 "I look to you for advice, Amy.",2 What do you advise me to do?',2 "'Do you think,' asked Little Dorrit, persuasively, after a short hesitation, 'do you think, Fanny, that if you were to put it off for a few months, it might be, considering all things, best?'",3 "'No, little Tortoise,' retorted Fanny, with exceeding sharpness.",3 'I don't think anything of the kind.',2 "Here, she threw her bonnet from her altogether, and flounced into a chair.",2 "But, becoming affectionate almost immediately, she flounced out of it again, and kneeled down on the floor to take her sister, chair and all, in her arms.",3 "'Don't suppose I am hasty or unkind, darling, because I really am not.",1 But you are such a little oddity!,1 "You make one bite your head off, when one wants to be soothing beyond everything.",2 "Didn't I tell you, you dearest baby, that Edmund can't be trusted by himself?",3 And don't you know that he can't?',2 "'Yes, yes, Fanny.",2 "You said so, I know.'",2 "'And you know it, I know,' retorted Fanny.",2 "'Well, my precious child!",3 "If he is not to be trusted by himself, it follows, I suppose, that I should go with him?'",3 "'It--seems so, love,' said Little Dorrit.",3 "'Therefore, having heard the arrangements that are feasible to carry out that object, am I to understand, dearest Amy, that on the whole you advise me to make them?'",2 "'It--seems so, love,' said Little Dorrit again.",3 "'Very well,' cried Fanny with an air of resignation, 'then I suppose it must be done!",2 "I came to you, my sweet, the moment I saw the doubt, and the necessity of deciding.",2 I have now decided.,2 So let it be.',2 "After yielding herself up, in this pattern manner, to sisterly advice and the force of circumstances, Fanny became quite benignant: as one who had laid her own inclinations at the feet of her dearest friend, and felt a glow of conscience in having made the sacrifice.",3 "'After all, my Amy,' she said to her sister, 'you are the best of small creatures, and full of good sense; and I don't know what I shall ever do without you!'",3 "With which words she folded her in a closer embrace, and a really fond one.",3 "'Not that I contemplate doing without You, Amy, by any means, for I hope we shall ever be next to inseparable.",2 "And now, my pet, I am going to give you a word of advice.",2 When you are left alone here with Mrs General--' 'I am to be left alone here with Mrs General?',2 "said Little Dorrit, quietly.",2 "'Why, of course, my precious, till papa comes back!",3 "Unless you call Edward company, which he certainly is not, even when he is here, and still more certainly is not when he is away at Naples or in Sicily.",2 "I was going to say--but you are such a beloved little Marplot for putting one out--when you are left alone here with Mrs General, Amy, don't you let her slide into any sort of artful understanding with you that she is looking after Pa, or that Pa is looking after her.",3 She will if she can.,2 I know her sly manner of feeling her way with those gloves of hers.,1 But don't you comprehend her on any account.,2 "And if Pa should tell you when he comes back, that he has it in contemplation to make Mrs General your mama (which is not the less likely because I am going away), my advice to you is, that you say at once, ""Papa, I beg to object most strongly.",1 "Fanny cautioned me about this, and she objected, and I object.""",1 "I don't mean to say that any objection from you, Amy, is likely to be of the smallest effect, or that I think you likely to make it with any degree of firmness.",1 "But there is a principle involved--a filial principle--and I implore you not to submit to be mother-in-lawed by Mrs General, without asserting it in making every one about you as uncomfortable as possible.",1 "I don't expect you to stand by it--indeed, I know you won't, Pa being concerned--but I wish to rouse you to a sense of duty.",1 "As to any help from me, or as to any opposition that I can offer to such a match, you shall not be left in the lurch, my love.",1 "Whatever weight I may derive from my position as a married girl not wholly devoid of attractions--used, as that position always shall be, to oppose that woman--I will bring to bear, you May depend upon it, on the head and false hair (for I am confident it's not all real, ugly as it is and unlikely as it appears that any One in their Senses would go to the expense of buying it) of Mrs General!'",0 Little Dorrit received this counsel without venturing to oppose it but without giving Fanny any reason to believe that she intended to act upon it.,1 "Having now, as it were, formally wound up her single life and arranged her worldly affairs, Fanny proceeded with characteristic ardour to prepare for the serious change in her condition.",1 "The preparation consisted in the despatch of her maid to Paris under the protection of the Courier, for the purchase of that outfit for a bride on which it would be extremely low, in the present narrative, to bestow an English name, but to which (on a vulgar principle it observes of adhering to the language in which it professes to be written) it declines to give a French one.",1 "The rich and beautiful wardrobe purchased by these agents, in the course of a few weeks made its way through the intervening country, bristling with custom-houses, garrisoned by an immense army of shabby mendicants in uniform who incessantly repeated the Beggar's Petition over it, as if every individual warrior among them were the ancient Belisarius: and of whom there were so many Legions, that unless the Courier had expended just one bushel and a half of silver money relieving their distresses, they would have worn the wardrobe out before it got to Rome, by turning it over and over.",2 "Through all such dangers, however, it was triumphantly brought, inch by inch, and arrived at its journey's end in fine condition.",3 "There it was exhibited to select companies of female viewers, in whose gentle bosoms it awakened implacable feelings.",2 "Concurrently, active preparations were made for the day on which some of its treasures were to be publicly displayed.",2 "Cards of breakfast-invitation were sent out to half the English in the city of Romulus; the other half made arrangements to be under arms, as criticising volunteers, at various outer points of the solemnity.",2 "The most high and illustrious English Signor Edgardo Dorrit, came post through the deep mud and ruts (from forming a surface under the improving Neapolitan nobility), to grace the occasion.",3 "The best hotel and all its culinary myrmidons, were set to work to prepare the feast.",3 The drafts of Mr Dorrit almost constituted a run on the Torlonia Bank.,2 The British Consul hadn't had such a marriage in the whole of his Consularity.,2 "The day came, and the She-Wolf in the Capitol might have snarled with envy to see how the Island Savages contrived these things now-a-days.",1 "The murderous-headed statues of the wicked Emperors of the Soldiery, whom sculptors had not been able to flatter out of their villainous hideousness, might have come off their pedestals to run away with the Bride.",0 "The choked old fountain, where erst the gladiators washed, might have leaped into life again to honour the ceremony.",2 "The Temple of Vesta might have sprung up anew from its ruins, expressly to lend its countenance to the occasion.",1 Might have done; but did not.,2 "Like sentient things--even like the lords and ladies of creation sometimes--might have done much, but did nothing.",3 "The celebration went off with admirable pomp; monks in black robes, white robes, and russet robes stopped to look after the carriages; wandering peasants in fleeces of sheep, begged and piped under the house-windows; the English volunteers defiled; the day wore on to the hour of vespers; the festival wore away; the thousand churches rang their bells without any reference to it; and St Peter denied that he had anything to do with it.",3 But by that time the Bride was near the end of the first day's journey towards Florence.,2 It was the peculiarity of the nuptials that they were all Bride.,2 Nobody noticed the Bridegroom.,2 Nobody noticed the first Bridesmaid.,2 "Few could have seen Little Dorrit (who held that post) for the glare, even supposing many to have sought her.",1 "So, the Bride had mounted into her handsome chariot, incidentally accompanied by the Bridegroom; and after rolling for a few minutes smoothly over a fair pavement, had begun to jolt through a Slough of Despond, and through a long, long avenue of wrack and ruin.",3 "Other nuptial carriages are said to have gone the same road, before and since.",2 "If Little Dorrit found herself left a little lonely and a little low that night, nothing would have done so much against her feeling of depression as the being able to sit at work by her father, as in the old time, and help him to his supper and his rest.",1 "But that was not to be thought of now, when they sat in the state-equipage with Mrs General on the coach-box.",2 And as to supper!,2 "If Mr Dorrit had wanted supper, there was an Italian cook and there was a Swiss confectioner, who must have put on caps as high as the Pope's Mitre, and have performed the mysteries of Alchemists in a copper-saucepaned laboratory below, before he could have got it.",2 He was sententious and didactic that night.,2 "If he had been simply loving, he would have done Little Dorrit more good; but she accepted him as he was--when had she not accepted him as he was!--and made the most and best of him.",4 Mrs General at length retired.,2 "Her retirement for the night was always her frostiest ceremony, as if she felt it necessary that the human imagination should be chilled into stone to prevent its following her.",2 "When she had gone through her rigid preliminaries, amounting to a sort of genteel platoon-exercise, she withdrew.",1 "Little Dorrit then put her arm round her father's neck, to bid him good night.",3 "'Amy, my dear,' said Mr Dorrit, taking her by the hand, 'this is the close of a day, that has--ha--greatly impressed and gratified me.'",3 "'A little tired you, dear, too?'",1 "'No,' said Mr Dorrit, 'no: I am not sensible of fatigue when it arises from an occasion so--hum--replete with gratification of the purest kind.'",2 "Little Dorrit was glad to find him in such heart, and smiled from her own heart.",3 "'My dear,' he continued, 'this is an occasion--ha--teeming with a good example.",3 "With a good example, my favourite and attached child--hum--to you.'",2 "Little Dorrit, fluttered by his words, did not know what to say, though he stopped as if he expected her to say something.",2 "'Amy,' he resumed; 'your dear sister, our Fanny, has contracted ha hum--a marriage, eminently calculated to extend the basis of our--ha--connection, and to--hum--consolidate our social relations.",1 "My love, I trust that the time is not far distant when some--ha--eligible partner may be found for you.'",3 'Oh no!,2 Let me stay with you.,2 I beg and pray that I may stay with you!,1 I want nothing but to stay and take care of you!',2 She said it like one in sudden alarm.,2 "'Nay, Amy, Amy,' said Mr Dorrit.",2 "'This is weak and foolish, weak and foolish.",1 You have a--ha--responsibility imposed upon you by your position.,2 "It is to develop that position, and be--hum--worthy of that position.",2 As to taking care of me; I can--ha--take care of myself.,2 "Or,' he added after a moment, 'if I should need to be taken care of, I--hum--can, with the--ha--blessing of Providence, be taken care of, I--ha hum--I cannot, my dear child, think of engrossing, and--ha--as it were, sacrificing you.'",3 "O what a time of day at which to begin that profession of self-denial; at which to make it, with an air of taking credit for it; at which to believe it, if such a thing could be!",1 "'Don't speak, Amy.",2 I positively say I cannot do it.,3 I--ha--must not do it.,2 My--hum--conscience would not allow it.,1 "I therefore, my love, take the opportunity afforded by this gratifying and impressive occasion of--ha--solemnly remarking, that it is now a cherished wish and purpose of mine to see you--ha--eligibly (I repeat eligibly) married.'",4 "'Oh no, dear!",2 Pray!',2 "'Amy,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I am well persuaded that if the topic were referred to any person of superior social knowledge, of superior delicacy and sense--let us say, for instance, to--ha--Mrs General--that there would not be two opinions as to the--hum--affectionate character and propriety of my sentiments.",4 "But, as I know your loving and dutiful nature from--hum--from experience, I am quite satisfied that it is necessary to say no more.",3 "I have--hum--no husband to propose at present, my dear: I have not even one in view.",1 I merely wish that we should--ha--understand each other.,2 Hum.,1 "Good night, my dear and sole remaining daughter.",3 Good night.,3 God bless you!',3 "If the thought ever entered Little Dorrit's head that night, that he could give her up lightly now in his prosperity, and when he had it in his mind to replace her with a second wife, she drove it away.",3 "Faithful to him still, as in the worst times through which she had borne him single-handed, she drove the thought away; and entertained no harder reflection, in her tearful unrest, than that he now saw everything through their wealth, and through the care he always had upon him that they should continue rich, and grow richer.",3 "They sat in their equipage of state, with Mrs General on the box, for three weeks longer, and then he started for Florence to join Fanny.",2 "Little Dorrit would have been glad to bear him company so far, only for the sake of her own love, and then to have turned back alone, thinking of dear England.",3 "But, though the Courier had gone on with the Bride, the Valet was next in the line; and the succession would not have come to her, as long as any one could be got for money.",2 "Mrs General took life easily--as easily, that is, as she could take anything--when the Roman establishment remained in their sole occupation; and Little Dorrit would often ride out in a hired carriage that was left them, and alight alone and wander among the ruins of old Rome.",1 "The ruins of the vast old Amphitheatre, of the old Temples, of the old commemorative Arches, of the old trodden highways, of the old tombs, besides being what they were, to her were ruins of the old Marshalsea--ruins of her own old life--ruins of the faces and forms that of old peopled it--ruins of its loves, hopes, cares, and joys.",2 "Two ruined spheres of action and suffering were before the solitary girl often sitting on some broken fragment; and in the lonely places, under the blue sky, she saw them both together.",0 "Up, then, would come Mrs General; taking all the colour out of everything, as Nature and Art had taken it out of herself; writing Prunes and Prism, in Mr Eustace's text, wherever she could lay a hand; looking everywhere for Mr Eustace and company, and seeing nothing else; scratching up the driest little bones of antiquity, and bolting them whole without any human visitings--like a Ghoule in gloves.",3 "The newly married pair, on their arrival in Harley Street, Cavendish Square, London, were received by the Chief Butler.",2 "That great man was not interested in them, but on the whole endured them.",3 "People must continue to be married and given in marriage, or Chief Butlers would not be wanted.",2 "As nations are made to be taxed, so families are made to be butlered.",2 "The Chief Butler, no doubt, reflected that the course of nature required the wealthy population to be kept up, on his account.",2 "He therefore condescended to look at the carriage from the Hall-door without frowning at it, and said, in a very handsome way, to one of his men, 'Thomas, help with the luggage.'",3 "He even escorted the Bride up-stairs into Mr Merdle's presence; but this must be considered as an act of homage to the sex (of which he was an admirer, being notoriously captivated by the charms of a certain Duchess), and not as a committal of himself with the family.",3 "Mr Merdle was slinking about the hearthrug, waiting to welcome Mrs Sparkler.",3 "His hand seemed to retreat up his sleeve as he advanced to do so, and he gave her such a superfluity of coat-cuff that it was like being received by the popular conception of Guy Fawkes.",3 "When he put his lips to hers, besides, he took himself into custody by the wrists, and backed himself among the ottomans and chairs and tables as if he were his own Police officer, saying to himself, 'Now, none of that!",2 Come!,2 "I've got you, you know, and you go quietly along with me!'",2 "Mrs Sparkler, installed in the rooms of state--the innermost sanctuary of down, silk, chintz, and fine linen--felt that so far her triumph was good, and her way made, step by step.",4 "On the day before her marriage, she had bestowed on Mrs Merdle's maid with an air of gracious indifference, in Mrs Merdle's presence, a trifling little keepsake (bracelet, bonnet, and two dresses, all new) about four times as valuable as the present formerly made by Mrs Merdle to her.",3 "She was now established in Mrs Merdle's own rooms, to which some extra touches had been given to render them more worthy of her occupation.",3 "In her mind's eye, as she lounged there, surrounded by every luxurious accessory that wealth could obtain or invention devise, she saw the fair bosom that beat in unison with the exultation of her thoughts, competing with the bosom that had been famous so long, outshining it, and deposing it.",4 Happy?,3 Fanny must have been happy.,3 No more wishing one's self dead now.,1 "The Courier had not approved of Mr Dorrit's staying in the house of a friend, and had preferred to take him to an hotel in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square.",2 Mr Merdle ordered his carriage to be ready early in the morning that he might wait upon Mr Dorrit immediately after breakfast.,3 "Bright the carriage looked, sleek the horses looked, gleaming the harness looked, luscious and lasting the liveries looked.",3 "A rich, responsible turn-out.",3 An equipage for a Merdle.,2 "Early people looked after it as it rattled along the streets, and said, with awe in their breath, 'There he goes!'",2 "There he went, until Brook Street stopped him.",2 "Then, forth from its magnificent case came the jewel; not lustrous in itself, but quite the contrary.",3 Commotion in the office of the hotel.,1 Merdle!,2 "The landlord, though a gentleman of a haughty spirit who had just driven a pair of thorough-bred horses into town, turned out to show him up-stairs.",1 "The clerks and servants cut him off by back-passages, and were found accidentally hovering in doorways and angles, that they might look upon him.",2 Merdle!,2 "O ye sun, moon, and stars, the great man!",3 "The rich man, who had in a manner revised the New Testament, and already entered into the kingdom of Heaven.",3 "The man who could have any one he chose to dine with him, and who had made the money!",2 "As he went up the stairs, people were already posted on the lower stairs, that his shadow might fall upon them when he came down.",1 "So were the sick brought out and laid in the track of the Apostle--who had _not_ got into the good society, and had _not_ made the money.",2 "Mr Dorrit, dressing-gowned and newspapered, was at his breakfast.",2 "The Courier, with agitation in his voice, announced 'Miss Mairdale!'",2 Mr Dorrit's overwrought heart bounded as he leaped up.,2 "'Mr Merdle, this is--ha--indeed an honour.",2 "Permit me to express the--hum--sense, the high sense, I entertain of this--ha hum--highly gratifying act of attention.",3 "I am well aware, sir, of the many demands upon your time, and its--ha--enormous value,' Mr Dorrit could not say enormous roundly enough for his own satisfaction.",3 "'That you should--ha--at this early hour, bestow any of your priceless time upon me, is--ha--a compliment that I acknowledge with the greatest esteem.'",4 Mr Dorrit positively trembled in addressing the great man.,3 "Mr Merdle uttered, in his subdued, inward, hesitating voice, a few sounds that were to no purpose whatever; and finally said, 'I am glad to see you, sir.'",2 "'You are very kind,' said Mr Dorrit.",2 'Truly kind.',2 "By this time the visitor was seated, and was passing his great hand over his exhausted forehead.",2 "'You are well, I hope, Mr Merdle?'",3 "'I am as well as I--yes, I am as well as I usually am,' said Mr Merdle.",3 'Your occupations must be immense.',3 'Tolerably so.,2 "But--Oh dear no, there's not much the matter with _me_,' said Mr Merdle, looking round the room.",2 'A little dyspeptic?',2 Mr Dorrit hinted.,2 'Very likely.,2 "But I--Oh, I am well enough,' said Mr Merdle.",3 "There were black traces on his lips where they met, as if a little train of gunpowder had been fired there; and he looked like a man who, if his natural temperament had been quicker, would have been very feverish that morning.",3 "This, and his heavy way of passing his hand over his forehead, had prompted Mr Dorrit's solicitous inquiries.",3 "'Mrs Merdle,' Mr Dorrit insinuatingly pursued, 'I left, as you will be prepared to hear, the--ha--observed of all observers, the--hum--admired of all admirers, the leading fascination and charm of Society in Rome.",3 She was looking wonderfully well when I quitted it.',3 "'Mrs Merdle,' said Mr Merdle, 'is generally considered a very attractive woman.",3 "And she is, no doubt.",1 I am sensible of her being so.',3 'Who can be otherwise?',2 responded Mr Dorrit.,2 "Mr Merdle turned his tongue in his closed mouth--it seemed rather a stiff and unmanageable tongue--moistened his lips, passed his hand over his forehead again, and looked all round the room again, principally under the chairs.",1 "'But,' he said, looking Mr Dorrit in the face for the first time, and immediately afterwards dropping his eyes to the buttons of Mr Dorrit's waistcoat; 'if we speak of attractions, your daughter ought to be the subject of our conversation.",2 She is extremely beautiful.,3 "Both in face and figure, she is quite uncommon.",2 "When the young people arrived last night, I was really surprised to see such charms.'",2 "Mr Dorrit's gratification was such that he said--ha--he could not refrain from telling Mr Merdle verbally, as he had already done by letter, what honour and happiness he felt in this union of their families.",3 And he offered his hand.,2 "Mr Merdle looked at the hand for a little while, took it on his for a moment as if his were a yellow salver or fish-slice, and then returned it to Mr Dorrit.",2 "'I thought I would drive round the first thing,' said Mr Merdle, 'to offer my services, in case I can do anything for you; and to say that I hope you will at least do me the honour of dining with me to-day, and every day when you are not better engaged during your stay in town.'",3 Mr Dorrit was enraptured by these attentions.,3 "'Do you stay long, sir?'",2 "'I have not at present the intention,' said Mr Dorrit, 'of--ha--exceeding a fortnight.'",3 "'That's a very short stay, after so long a journey,' returned Mr Merdle.",2 'Hum.,2 "Yes,' said Mr Dorrit.",2 "'But the truth is--ha--my dear Mr Merdle, that I find a foreign life so well suited to my health and taste, that I--hum--have but two objects in my present visit to London.",2 "First, the--ha--the distinguished happiness and--ha--privilege which I now enjoy and appreciate; secondly, the arrangement--hum--the laying out, that is to say, in the best way, of--ha, hum--my money.'",4 "'Well, sir,' said Mr Merdle, after turning his tongue again, 'if I can be of any use to you in that respect, you may command me.'",3 "Mr Dorrit's speech had had more hesitation in it than usual, as he approached the ticklish topic, for he was not perfectly clear how so exalted a potentate might take it.",4 "He had doubts whether reference to any individual capital, or fortune, might not seem a wretchedly retail affair to so wholesale a dealer.",1 "Greatly relieved by Mr Merdle's affable offer of assistance, he caught at it directly, and heaped acknowledgments upon him.",3 "'I scarcely--ha--dared,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I assure you, to hope for so--hum--vast an advantage as your direct advice and assistance.",2 "Though of course I should, under any circumstances, like the--ha, hum--rest of the civilised world, have followed in Mr Merdle's train.'",2 "'You know we may almost say we are related, sir,' said Mr Merdle, curiously interested in the pattern of the carpet, 'and, therefore, you may consider me at your service.'",2 'Ha.,2 "Very handsome, indeed!'",3 cried Mr Dorrit.,2 'Ha.,2 Most handsome!',3 "'It would not,' said Mr Merdle, 'be at the present moment easy for what I may call a mere outsider to come into any of the good things--of course I speak of my own good things--' 'Of course, of course!'",3 "cried Mr Dorrit, in a tone implying that there were no other good things.",3 '--Unless at a high price.,2 At what we are accustomed to term a very long figure.',2 Mr Dorrit laughed in the buoyancy of his spirit.,2 "Ha, ha, ha!",2 Long figure.,2 Good.,3 Ha.,2 Very expressive to be sure!,2 "'However,' said Mr Merdle, 'I do generally retain in my own hands the power of exercising some preference--people in general would be pleased to call it favour--as a sort of compliment for my care and trouble.'",3 "'And public spirit and genius,' Mr Dorrit suggested.",3 "Mr Merdle, with a dry, swallowing action, seemed to dispose of those qualities like a bolus; then added, 'As a sort of return for it.",3 "I will see, if you please, how I can exert this limited power (for people are jealous, and it is limited), to your advantage.'",1 "'You are very good,' replied Mr Dorrit.",3 'You are _very_ good.',3 "'Of course,' said Mr Merdle, 'there must be the strictest integrity and uprightness in these transactions; there must be the purest faith between man and man; there must be unimpeached and unimpeachable confidence; or business could not be carried on.'",3 Mr Dorrit hailed these generous sentiments with fervour.,3 "'Therefore,' said Mr Merdle, 'I can only give you a preference to a certain extent.'",2 'I perceive.,2 "To a defined extent,' observed Mr Dorrit.",2 'Defined extent.,2 And perfectly above-board.,3 "As to my advice, however,' said Mr Merdle, 'that is another matter.",2 "That, such as it is--' Oh!",2 Such as it was!,2 "(Mr Dorrit could not bear the faintest appearance of its being depreciated, even by Mr Merdle himself.) '--That, there is nothing in the bonds of spotless honour between myself and my fellow-man to prevent my parting with, if I choose.",3 "And that,' said Mr Merdle, now deeply intent upon a dust-cart that was passing the windows, 'shall be at your command whenever you think proper.'",2 New acknowledgments from Mr Dorrit.,2 New passages of Mr Merdle's hand over his forehead.,2 Calm and silence.,3 Contemplation of Mr Dorrit's waistcoat buttons by Mr Merdle.,2 "'My time being rather precious,' said Mr Merdle, suddenly getting up, as if he had been waiting in the interval for his legs and they had just come, 'I must be moving towards the City.",3 "Can I take you anywhere, sir?",2 "I shall be happy to set you down, or send you on.",3 My carriage is at your disposal.',2 Mr Dorrit bethought himself that he had business at his banker's.,2 His banker's was in the City.,2 That was fortunate; Mr Merdle would take him into the City.,3 "But, surely, he might not detain Mr Merdle while he assumed his coat?",2 "Yes, he might and must; Mr Merdle insisted on it.",2 "So Mr Dorrit, retiring into the next room, put himself under the hands of his valet, and in five minutes came back glorious.",3 "Then said Mr Merdle, 'Allow me, sir.",2 Take my arm!',2 "Then leaning on Mr Merdle's arm, did Mr Dorrit descend the staircase, seeing the worshippers on the steps, and feeling that the light of Mr Merdle shone by reflection in himself.",2 "Then the carriage, and the ride into the City; and the people who looked at them; and the hats that flew off grey heads; and the general bowing and crouching before this wonderful mortal the like of which prostration of spirit was not to be seen--no, by high Heaven, no!",4 "It may be worth thinking of by Fawners of all denominations--in Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul's Cathedral put together, on any Sunday in the year.",3 "It was a rapturous dream to Mr Dorrit to find himself set aloft in this public car of triumph, making a magnificent progress to that befitting destination, the golden Street of the Lombards.",4 "There Mr Merdle insisted on alighting and going his way a-foot, and leaving his poor equipage at Mr Dorrit's disposition.",1 "So the dream increased in rapture when Mr Dorrit came out of the bank alone, and people looked at _him_ in default of Mr Merdle, and when, with the ears of his mind, he heard the frequent exclamation as he rolled glibly along, 'A wonderful man to be Mr Merdle's friend!'",3 "At dinner that day, although the occasion was not foreseen and provided for, a brilliant company of such as are not made of the dust of the earth, but of some superior article for the present unknown, shed their lustrous benediction upon Mr Dorrit's daughter's marriage.",3 "And Mr Dorrit's daughter that day began, in earnest, her competition with that woman not present; and began it so well that Mr Dorrit could all but have taken his affidavit, if required, that Mrs Sparkler had all her life been lying at full length in the lap of luxury, and had never heard of such a rough word in the English tongue as Marshalsea.",3 "Next day, and the day after, and every day, all graced by more dinner company, cards descended on Mr Dorrit like theatrical snow.",3 "As the friend and relative by marriage of the illustrious Merdle, Bar, Bishop, Treasury, Chorus, Everybody, wanted to make or improve Mr Dorrit's acquaintance.",3 "In Mr Merdle's heap of offices in the City, when Mr Dorrit appeared at any of them on his business taking him Eastward (which it frequently did, for it throve amazingly), the name of Dorrit was always a passport to the great presence of Merdle.",3 "So the dream increased in rapture every hour, as Mr Dorrit felt increasingly sensible that this connection had brought him forward indeed.",3 "Only one thing sat otherwise than auriferously, and at the same time lightly, on Mr Dorrit's mind.",2 It was the Chief Butler.,2 "That stupendous character looked at him, in the course of his official looking at the dinners, in a manner that Mr Dorrit considered questionable.",2 "He looked at him, as he passed through the hall and up the staircase, going to dinner, with a glazed fixedness that Mr Dorrit did not like.",3 "Seated at table in the act of drinking, Mr Dorrit still saw him through his wine-glass, regarding him with a cold and ghostly eye.",1 "It misgave him that the Chief Butler must have known a Collegian, and must have seen him in the College--perhaps had been presented to him.",2 "He looked as closely at the Chief Butler as such a man could be looked at, and yet he did not recall that he had ever seen him elsewhere.",2 "Ultimately he was inclined to think that there was no reverence in the man, no sentiment in the great creature.",3 "But he was not relieved by that; for, let him think what he would, the Chief Butler had him in his supercilious eye, even when that eye was on the plate and other table-garniture; and he never let him out of it.",2 "To hint to him that this confinement in his eye was disagreeable, or to ask him what he meant, was an act too daring to venture upon; his severity with his employers and their visitors being terrific, and he never permitting himself to be approached with the slightest liberty.",3 "The term of Mr Dorrit's visit was within two days of being out, and he was about to dress for another inspection by the Chief Butler (whose victims were always dressed expressly for him), when one of the servants of the hotel presented himself bearing a card.",2 "Mr Dorrit, taking it, read: 'Mrs Finching.'",2 The servant waited in speechless deference.,3 "'Man, man,' said Mr Dorrit, turning upon him with grievous indignation, 'explain your motive in bringing me this ridiculous name.",0 I am wholly unacquainted with it.,2 "Finching, sir?'",2 "said Mr Dorrit, perhaps avenging himself on the Chief Butler by Substitute.",2 'Ha!,2 What do you mean by Finching?',2 "The man, man, seemed to mean Flinching as much as anything else, for he backed away from Mr Dorrit's severe regard, as he replied, 'A lady, sir.'",2 "'I know no such lady, sir,' said Mr Dorrit.",2 'Take this card away.,2 I know no Finching of either sex.',2 "'Ask your pardon, sir.",3 The lady said she was aware she might be unknown by name.,1 "But she begged me to say, sir, that she had formerly the honour of being acquainted with Miss Dorrit.",1 "The lady said, sir, the youngest Miss Dorrit.'",1 "Mr Dorrit knitted his brows and rejoined, after a moment or two, 'Inform Mrs Finching, sir,' emphasising the name as if the innocent man were solely responsible for it, 'that she can come up.'",2 "He had reflected, in his momentary pause, that unless she were admitted she might leave some message, or might say something below, having a disgraceful reference to that former state of existence.",1 "Hence the concession, and hence the appearance of Flora, piloted in by the man, man.",1 "'I have not the pleasure,' said Mr Dorrit, standing with the card in his hand, and with an air which imported that it would scarcely have been a first-class pleasure if he had had it, 'of knowing either this name, or yourself, madam.",2 "Place a chair, sir.'",2 "The responsible man, with a start, obeyed, and went out on tiptoe.",2 "Flora, putting aside her veil with a bashful tremor upon her, proceeded to introduce herself.",1 "At the same time a singular combination of perfumes was diffused through the room, as if some brandy had been put by mistake in a lavender-water bottle, or as if some lavender-water had been put by mistake in a brandy-bottle.",1 "'I beg Mr Dorrit to offer a thousand apologies and indeed they would be far too few for such an intrusion which I know must appear extremely bold in a lady and alone too, but I thought it best upon the whole however difficult and even apparently improper though Mr F.'s Aunt would have willingly accompanied me and as a character of great force and spirit would probably have struck one possessed of such a knowledge of life as no doubt with so many changes must have been acquired, for Mr F. himself said frequently that although well educated in the neighbourhood of Blackheath at as high as eighty guineas which is a good deal for parents and the plate kept back too on going away but that is more a meanness than its value that he had learnt more in his first years as a commercial traveller with a large commission on the sale of an article that nobody would hear of much less buy which preceded the wine trade a long time than in the whole six years in that academy conducted by a college Bachelor, though why a Bachelor more clever than a married man I do not see and never did but pray excuse me that is not the point.'",1 "Mr Dorrit stood rooted to the carpet, a statue of mystification.",2 "'I must openly admit that I have no pretensions,' said Flora, 'but having known the dear little thing which under altered circumstances appears a liberty but is not so intended and Goodness knows there was no favour in half-a-crown a-day to such a needle as herself but quite the other way and as to anything lowering in it far from it the labourer is worthy of his hire and I am sure I only wish he got it oftener and more animal food and less rheumatism in the back and legs poor soul.'",4 "'Madam,' said Mr Dorrit, recovering his breath by a great effort, as the relict of the late Mr Finching stopped to take hers; 'madam,' said Mr Dorrit, very red in the face, 'if I understand you to refer to--ha--to anything in the antecedents of--hum--a daughter of mine, involving--ha hum--daily compensation, madam, I beg to observe that the--ha--fact, assuming it--ha--to be fact, never was within my knowledge.",1 Hum.,1 I should not have permitted it.,2 Ha.,2 Never!,2 Never!',2 "'Unnecessary to pursue the subject,' returned Flora, 'and would not have mentioned it on any account except as supposing it a favourable and only letter of introduction but as to being fact no doubt whatever and you may set your mind at rest for the very dress I have on now can prove it and sweetly made though there is no denying that it would tell better on a better figure for my own is much too fat though how to bring it down I know not, pray excuse me I am roving off again.'",1 "Mr Dorrit backed to his chair in a stony way, and seated himself, as Flora gave him a softening look and played with her parasol.",2 "'The dear little thing,' said Flora, 'having gone off perfectly limp and white and cold in my own house or at least papa's for though not a freehold still a long lease at a peppercorn on the morning when Arthur--foolish habit of our youthful days and Mr Clennam far more adapted to existing circumstances particularly addressing a stranger and that stranger a gentleman in an elevated station--communicated the glad tidings imparted by a person of name of Pancks emboldens me.'",1 "At the mention of these two names, Mr Dorrit frowned, stared, frowned again, hesitated with his fingers at his lips, as he had hesitated long ago, and said, 'Do me the favour to--ha--state your pleasure, madam.'",3 "'Mr Dorrit,' said Flora, 'you are very kind in giving me permission and highly natural it seems to me that you should be kind for though more stately I perceive a likeness filled out of course but a likeness still, the object of my intruding is my own without the slightest consultation with any human being and most decidedly not with Arthur--pray excuse me Doyce and Clennam I don't know what I am saying Mr Clennam solus--for to put that individual linked by a golden chain to a purple time when all was ethereal out of any anxiety would be worth to me the ransom of a monarch not that I have the least idea how much that would come to but using it as the total of all I have in the world and more.'",2 "Mr Dorrit, without greatly regarding the earnestness of these latter words, repeated, 'State your pleasure, madam.'",3 "'It's not likely I well know,' said Flora, 'but it's possible and being possible when I had the gratification of reading in the papers that you had arrived from Italy and were going back I made up my mind to try it for you might come across him or hear something of him and if so what a blessing and relief to all!'",4 "'Allow me to ask, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, with his ideas in wild confusion, 'to whom--ha--TO WHOM,' he repeated it with a raised voice in mere desperation, 'you at present allude?'",0 "'To the foreigner from Italy who disappeared in the City as no doubt you have read in the papers equally with myself,' said Flora, 'not referring to private sources by the name of Pancks from which one gathers what dreadfully ill-natured things some people are wicked enough to whisper most likely judging others by themselves and what the uneasiness and indignation of Arthur--quite unable to overcome it Doyce and Clennam--cannot fail to be.'",0 "It happened, fortunately for the elucidation of any intelligible result, that Mr Dorrit had heard or read nothing about the matter.",3 "This caused Mrs Finching, with many apologies for being in great practical difficulties as to finding the way to her pocket among the stripes of her dress at length to produce a police handbill, setting forth that a foreign gentleman of the name of Blandois, last from Venice, had unaccountably disappeared on such a night in such a part of the city of London; that he was known to have entered such a house, at such an hour; that he was stated by the inmates of that house to have left it, about so many minutes before midnight; and that he had never been beheld since.",2 "This, with exact particulars of time and locality, and with a good detailed description of the foreign gentleman who had so mysteriously vanished, Mr Dorrit read at large.",2 'Blandois!',2 said Mr Dorrit.,2 'Venice!,2 And this description!,2 I know this gentleman.,2 He has been in my house.,2 "He is intimately acquainted with a gentleman of good family (but in indifferent circumstances), of whom I am a--hum--patron.'",1 "'Then my humble and pressing entreaty is the more,' said Flora, 'that in travelling back you will have the kindness to look for this foreign gentleman along all the roads and up and down all the turnings and to make inquiries for him at all the hotels and orange-trees and vineyards and volcanoes and places for he must be somewhere and why doesn't he come forward and say he's there and clear all parties up?'",4 "'Pray, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, referring to the handbill again, 'who is Clennam and Co.?",2 Ha.,2 "I see the name mentioned here, in connection with the occupation of the house which Monsieur Blandois was seen to enter: who is Clennam and Co.?",2 "Is it the individual of whom I had formerly--hum--some--ha--slight transitory knowledge, and to whom I believe you have referred?",1 Is it--ha--that person?',2 "'It's a very different person indeed,' replied Flora, 'with no limbs and wheels instead and the grimmest of women though his mother.'",2 'Clennam and Co. a--hum--a mother!',1 exclaimed Mr Dorrit.,2 "'And an old man besides,' said Flora.",2 Mr Dorrit looked as if he must immediately be driven out of his mind by this account.,2 "Neither was it rendered more favourable to sanity by Flora's dashing into a rapid analysis of Mr Flintwinch's cravat, and describing him, without the lightest boundary line of separation between his identity and Mrs Clennam's, as a rusty screw in gaiters.",3 "Which compound of man and woman, no limbs, wheels, rusty screw, grimness, and gaiters, so completely stupefied Mr Dorrit, that he was a spectacle to be pitied.",1 "'But I would not detain you one moment longer,' said Flora, upon whom his condition wrought its effect, though she was quite unconscious of having produced it, 'if you would have the goodness to give your promise as a gentleman that both in going back to Italy and in Italy too you would look for this Mr Blandois high and low and if you found or heard of him make him come forward for the clearing of all parties.'",3 "By that time Mr Dorrit had so far recovered from his bewilderment, as to be able to say, in a tolerably connected manner, that he should consider that his duty.",1 "Flora was delighted with her success, and rose to take her leave.",3 "'With a million thanks,' said she, 'and my address upon my card in case of anything to be communicated personally, I will not send my love to the dear little thing for it might not be acceptable, and indeed there is no dear little thing left in the transformation so why do it but both myself and Mr F.'s Aunt ever wish her well and lay no claim to any favour on our side you may be sure of that but quite the other way for what she undertook to do she did and that is more than a great many of us do, not to say anything of her doing it as well as it could be done and I myself am one of them for I have said ever since I began to recover the blow of Mr F's death that I would learn the Organ of which I am extremely fond but of which I am ashamed to say I do not yet know a note, good evening!'",4 "When Mr Dorrit, who attended her to the room-door, had had a little time to collect his senses, he found that the interview had summoned back discarded reminiscences which jarred with the Merdle dinner-table.",2 "He wrote and sent off a brief note excusing himself for that day, and ordered dinner presently in his own rooms at the hotel.",2 He had another reason for this.,2 "His time in London was very nearly out, and was anticipated by engagements; his plans were made for returning; and he thought it behoved his importance to pursue some direct inquiry into the Blandois disappearance, and be in a condition to carry back to Mr Henry Gowan the result of his own personal investigation.",2 "He therefore resolved that he would take advantage of that evening's freedom to go down to Clennam and Co.'s, easily to be found by the direction set forth in the handbill; and see the place, and ask a question or two there himself.",3 "Having dined as plainly as the establishment and the Courier would let him, and having taken a short sleep by the fire for his better recovery from Mrs Finching, he set out in a hackney-cabriolet alone.",3 "The deep bell of St Paul's was striking nine as he passed under the shadow of Temple Bar, headless and forlorn in these degenerate days.",1 "As he approached his destination through the by-streets and water-side ways, that part of London seemed to him an uglier spot at such an hour than he had ever supposed it to be.",1 Many long years had passed since he had seen it; he had never known much of it; and it wore a mysterious and dismal aspect in his eyes.,1 "So powerfully was his imagination impressed by it, that when his driver stopped, after having asked the way more than once, and said to the best of his belief this was the gateway they wanted, Mr Dorrit stood hesitating, with the coach-door in his hand, half afraid of the dark look of the place.",3 "Truly, it looked as gloomy that night as even it had ever looked.",1 "Two of the handbills were posted on the entrance wall, one on either side, and as the lamp flickered in the night air, shadows passed over them, not unlike the shadows of fingers following the lines.",2 A watch was evidently kept upon the place.,2 "As Mr Dorrit paused, a man passed in from over the way, and another man passed out from some dark corner within; and both looked at him in passing, and both remained standing about.",1 "As there was only one house in the enclosure, there was no room for uncertainty, so he went up the steps of that house and knocked.",2 There was a dim light in two windows on the first-floor.,1 "The door gave back a dreary, vacant sound, as though the house were empty; but it was not, for a light was visible, and a step was audible, almost directly.",2 "They both came to the door, and a chain grated, and a woman with her apron thrown over her face and head stood in the aperture.",2 'Who is it?',2 said the woman.,2 "Mr Dorrit, much amazed by this appearance, replied that he was from Italy, and that he wished to ask a question relative to the missing person, whom he knew.",3 'Hi!',2 "cried the woman, raising a cracked voice.",1 'Jeremiah!',2 "Upon this, a dry old man appeared, whom Mr Dorrit thought he identified by his gaiters, as the rusty screw.",1 "The woman was under apprehensions of the dry old man, for she whisked her apron away as he approached, and disclosed a pale affrighted face.",1 "'Open the door, you fool,' said the old man; 'and let the gentleman in.'",1 "Mr Dorrit, not without a glance over his shoulder towards his driver and the cabriolet, walked into the dim hall.",1 "'Now, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch, 'you can ask anything here you think proper; there are no secrets here, sir.'",3 "Before a reply could be made, a strong stern voice, though a woman's, called from above, 'Who is it?'",2 'Who is it?',2 returned Jeremiah.,2 'More inquiries.,2 A gentleman from Italy.',2 'Bring him up here!',2 "Mr Flintwinch muttered, as if he deemed that unnecessary; but, turning to Mr Dorrit, said, 'Mrs Clennam.",1 She _will_ do as she likes.,3 I'll show you the way.',2 "He then preceded Mr Dorrit up the blackened staircase; that gentleman, not unnaturally looking behind him on the road, saw the woman following, with her apron thrown over her head again in her former ghastly manner.",1 Mrs Clennam had her books open on her little table.,2 'Oh!',2 "said she abruptly, as she eyed her visitor with a steady look.",2 "'You are from Italy, sir, are you.",2 Well?',3 Mr Dorrit was at a loss for any more distinct rejoinder at the moment than 'Ha--well?',2 'Where is this missing man?,2 Have you come to give us information where he is?,2 I hope you have?',2 "'So far from it, I--hum--have come to seek information.'",1 "'Unfortunately for us, there is none to be got here.",2 "Flintwinch, show the gentleman the handbill.",2 Give him several to take away.,2 Hold the light for him to read it.',2 "Mr Flintwinch did as he was directed, and Mr Dorrit read it through, as if he had not previously seen it; glad enough of the opportunity of collecting his presence of mind, which the air of the house and of the people in it had a little disturbed.",3 "While his eyes were on the paper, he felt that the eyes of Mr Flintwinch and of Mrs Clennam were on him.",2 "He found, when he looked up, that this sensation was not a fanciful one.",2 "'Now you know as much,' said Mrs Clennam, 'as we know, sir.",2 Is Mr Blandois a friend of yours?',2 "'No--a--hum--an acquaintance,' answered Mr Dorrit.",1 "'You have no commission from him, perhaps?'",2 'I?,2 Ha.,2 Certainly not.',2 "The searching look turned gradually to the floor, after taking Mr Flintwinch's face in its way.",2 "Mr Dorrit, discomfited by finding that he was the questioned instead of the questioner, applied himself to the reversal of that unexpected order of things.",1 "'I am--ha--a gentleman of property, at present residing in Italy with my family, my servants, and--hum--my rather large establishment.",1 "Being in London for a short time on affairs connected with--ha--my estate, and hearing of this strange disappearance, I wished to make myself acquainted with the circumstances at first-hand, because there is--ha hum--an English gentleman in Italy whom I shall no doubt see on my return, who has been in habits of close and daily intimacy with Monsieur Blandois.",1 Mr Henry Gowan.,2 You may know the name.',2 'Never heard of it.',2 "Mrs Clennam said it, and Mr Flintwinch echoed it.",2 "'Wishing to--ha--make the narrative coherent and consecutive to him,' said Mr Dorrit, 'may I ask--say, three questions?'",3 "'Thirty, if you choose.'",2 'Have you known Monsieur Blandois long?',2 'Not a twelvemonth.,2 "Mr Flintwinch here, will refer to the books and tell you when, and by whom at Paris he was introduced to us.",2 "If that,' Mrs Clennam added, 'should be any satisfaction to you.",2 It is poor satisfaction to us.',1 'Have you seen him often?',2 'No.,2 Twice.,2 "Once before, and--' 'That once,' suggested Mr Flintwinch.",2 'And that once.',2 "'Pray, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, with a growing fancy upon him as he recovered his importance, that he was in some superior way in the Commission of the Peace; 'pray, madam, may I inquire, for the greater satisfaction of the gentleman whom I have the honour to--ha--retain, or protect or let me say to--hum--know--to know--Was Monsieur Blandois here on business on the night indicated in this present sheet?'",4 "'On what he called business,' returned Mrs Clennam.",2 'Is--ha--excuse me--is its nature to be communicated?',1 'No.',2 It was evidently impracticable to pass the barrier of that reply.,2 "'The question has been asked before,' said Mrs Clennam, 'and the answer has been, No.",2 "We don't choose to publish our transactions, however unimportant, to all the town.",1 "We say, No.'",2 "'I mean, he took away no money with him, for example,' said Mr Dorrit.",2 "'He took away none of ours, sir, and got none here.'",2 "'I suppose,' observed Mr Dorrit, glancing from Mrs Clennam to Mr Flintwinch, and from Mr Flintwinch to Mrs Clennam, 'you have no way of accounting to yourself for this mystery?'",1 'Why do you suppose so?',2 rejoined Mrs Clennam.,2 "Disconcerted by the cold and hard inquiry, Mr Dorrit was unable to assign any reason for his supposing so.",0 "'I account for it, sir,' she pursued after an awkward silence on Mr Dorrit's part, 'by having no doubt that he is travelling somewhere, or hiding somewhere.'",1 'Do you know--ha--why he should hide anywhere?',2 'No.',2 "It was exactly the same No as before, and put another barrier up.",2 "'You asked me if I accounted for the disappearance to myself,' Mrs Clennam sternly reminded him, 'not if I accounted for it to you.",2 "I do not pretend to account for it to you, sir.",1 "I understand it to be no more my business to do that, than it is yours to require that.'",2 Mr Dorrit answered with an apologetic bend of his head.,2 "As he stepped back, preparatory to saying he had no more to ask, he could not but observe how gloomily and fixedly she sat with her eyes fastened on the ground, and a certain air upon her of resolute waiting; also, how exactly the self-same expression was reflected in Mr Flintwinch, standing at a little distance from her chair, with his eyes also on the ground, and his right hand softly rubbing his chin.",3 "At that moment, Mistress Affery (of course, the woman with the apron) dropped the candlestick she held, and cried out, 'There!",1 O good Lord!,3 there it is again.,2 "Hark, Jeremiah!",2 Now!',2 "If there were any sound at all, it was so slight that she must have fallen into a confirmed habit of listening for sounds; but Mr Dorrit believed he did hear a something, like the falling of dry leaves.",1 "The woman's terror, for a very short space, seemed to touch the three; and they all listened.",1 Mr Flintwinch was the first to stir.,2 "'Affery, my woman,' said he, sidling at her with his fists clenched, and his elbows quivering with impatience to shake her, 'you are at your old tricks.",1 "You'll be walking in your sleep next, my woman, and playing the whole round of your distempered antics.",2 You must have some physic.,2 "When I have shown this gentleman out, I'll make you up such a comfortable dose, my woman; such a comfortable dose!'",3 "It did not appear altogether comfortable in expectation to Mistress Affery; but Jeremiah, without further reference to his healing medicine, took another candle from Mrs Clennam's table, and said, 'Now, sir; shall I light you down?'",2 "Mr Dorrit professed himself obliged, and went down.",2 "Mr Flintwinch shut him out, and chained him out, without a moment's loss of time.",1 "He was again passed by the two men, one going out and the other coming in; got into the vehicle he had left waiting, and was driven away.",2 "Before he had gone far, the driver stopped to let him know that he had given his name, number, and address to the two men, on their joint requisition; and also the address at which he had taken Mr Dorrit up, the hour at which he had been called from his stand and the way by which he had come.",2 "This did not make the night's adventure run any less hotly in Mr Dorrit's mind, either when he sat down by his fire again, or when he went to bed.",2 "All night he haunted the dismal house, saw the two people resolutely waiting, heard the woman with her apron over her face cry out about the noise, and found the body of the missing Blandois, now buried in the cellar, and now bricked up in a wall.",0 Manifold are the cares of wealth and state.,2 "Mr Dorrit's satisfaction in remembering that it had not been necessary for him to announce himself to Clennam and Co., or to make an allusion to his having had any knowledge of the intrusive person of that name, had been damped over-night, while it was still fresh, by a debate that arose within him whether or no he should take the Marshalsea in his way back, and look at the old gate.",2 He had decided not to do so; and had astonished the coachman by being very fierce with him for proposing to go over London Bridge and recross the river by Waterloo Bridge--a course which would have taken him almost within sight of his old quarters.,2 "Still, for all that, the question had raised a conflict in his breast; and, for some odd reason or no reason, he was vaguely dissatisfied.",0 "Even at the Merdle dinner-table next day, he was so out of sorts about it that he continued at intervals to turn it over and over, in a manner frightfully inconsistent with the good society surrounding him.",1 "It made him hot to think what the Chief Butler's opinion of him would have been, if that illustrious personage could have plumbed with that heavy eye of his the stream of his meditations.",3 "The farewell banquet was of a gorgeous nature, and wound up his visit in a most brilliant manner.",3 "Fanny combined with the attractions of her youth and beauty, a certain weight of self-sustainment as if she had been married twenty years.",3 "He felt that he could leave her with a quiet mind to tread the paths of distinction, and wished--but without abatement of patronage, and without prejudice to the retiring virtues of his favourite child--that he had such another daughter.",3 "'My dear,' he told her at parting, 'our family looks to you to--ha--assert its dignity and--hum--maintain its importance.",2 I know you will never disappoint it.',1 "'No, papa,' said Fanny, 'you may rely upon that, I think.",2 "My best love to dearest Amy, and I will write to her very soon.'",3 'Shall I convey any message to--ha--anybody else?',2 "asked Mr Dorrit, in an insinuating manner.",1 "'Papa,' said Fanny, before whom Mrs General instantly loomed, 'no, I thank you.",3 "You are very kind, Pa, but I must beg to be excused.",1 "There is no other message to send, I thank you, dear papa, that it would be at all agreeable to you to take.'",3 "They parted in an outer drawing-room, where only Mr Sparkler waited on his lady, and dutifully bided his time for shaking hands.",2 "When Mr Sparkler was admitted to this closing audience, Mr Merdle came creeping in with not much more appearance of arms in his sleeves than if he had been the twin brother of Miss Biffin, and insisted on escorting Mr Dorrit down-stairs.",1 "All Mr Dorrit's protestations being in vain, he enjoyed the honour of being accompanied to the hall-door by this distinguished man, who (as Mr Dorrit told him in shaking hands on the step) had really overwhelmed him with attentions and services during this memorable visit.",3 "Thus they parted; Mr Dorrit entering his carriage with a swelling breast, not at all sorry that his Courier, who had come to take leave in the lower regions, should have an opportunity of beholding the grandeur of his departure.",1 The aforesaid grandeur was yet full upon Mr Dorrit when he alighted at his hotel.,3 "Helped out by the Courier and some half-dozen of the hotel servants, he was passing through the hall with a serene magnificence, when lo!",4 a sight presented itself that struck him dumb and motionless.,0 "John Chivery, in his best clothes, with his tall hat under his arm, his ivory-handled cane genteelly embarrassing his deportment, and a bundle of cigars in his hand!",2 "'Now, young man,' said the porter.",2 'This is the gentleman.,2 "This young man has persisted in waiting, sir, saying you would be glad to see him.'",3 "Mr Dorrit glared on the young man, choked, and said, in the mildest of tones, 'Ah!",2 Young John!,2 "It is Young John, I think; is it not?'",2 "'Yes, sir,' returned Young John.",2 'I--ha--thought it was Young John!',2 said Mr Dorrit.,2 "'The young man may come up,' turning to the attendants, as he passed on: 'oh yes, he may come up.",2 Let Young John follow.,2 I will speak to him above.',2 "Young John followed, smiling and much gratified.",3 Mr Dorrit's rooms were reached.,2 Candles were lighted.,2 The attendants withdrew.,2 "'Now, sir,' said Mr Dorrit, turning round upon him and seizing him by the collar when they were safely alone.",3 'What do you mean by this?',2 The amazement and horror depicted in the unfortunate John's face--for he had rather expected to be embraced next--were of that powerfully expressive nature that Mr Dorrit withdrew his hand and merely glared at him.,3 'How dare you do this?',2 said Mr Dorrit.,2 'How do you presume to come here?,2 How dare you insult me?',1 "'I insult you, sir?'",1 cried Young John.,2 'Oh!',2 "'Yes, sir,' returned Mr Dorrit.",2 'Insult me.,2 "Your coming here is an affront, an impertinence, an audacity.",1 You are not wanted here.,2 Who sent you here?,2 What--ha--the Devil do you do here?',1 "'I thought, sir,' said Young John, with as pale and shocked a face as ever had been turned to Mr Dorrit's in his life--even in his College life: 'I thought, sir, you mightn't object to have the goodness to accept a bundle--' 'Damn your bundle, sir!'",1 "cried Mr Dorrit, in irrepressible rage.",1 'I--hum--don't smoke.',1 "'I humbly beg your pardon, sir.",2 You used to.',2 "'Tell me that again,' cried Mr Dorrit, quite beside himself, 'and I'll take the poker to you!'",2 John Chivery backed to the door.,2 "'Stop, sir!'",2 cried Mr Dorrit.,2 'Stop!,2 Sit down.,2 Confound you sit down!',1 "John Chivery dropped into the chair nearest the door, and Mr Dorrit walked up and down the room; rapidly at first; then, more slowly.",1 "Once, he went to the window, and stood there with his forehead against the glass.",2 "All of a sudden, he turned and said: 'What else did you come for, Sir?'",2 "'Nothing else in the world, sir.",2 Oh dear me!,2 "Only to say, Sir, that I hoped you was well, and only to ask if Miss Amy was Well?'",2 "'What's that to you, sir?'",2 retorted Mr Dorrit.,2 "'It's nothing to me, sir, by rights.",2 "I never thought of lessening the distance betwixt us, I am sure.",2 "I know it's a liberty, sir, but I never thought you'd have taken it ill.",3 "Upon my word and honour, sir,' said Young John, with emotion, 'in my poor way, I am too proud to have come, I assure you, if I had thought so.'",3 Mr Dorrit was ashamed.,1 "He went back to the window, and leaned his forehead against the glass for some time.",2 "When he turned, he had his handkerchief in his hand, and he had been wiping his eyes with it, and he looked tired and ill.",1 "'Young John, I am very sorry to have been hasty with you, but--ha--some remembrances are not happy remembrances, and--hum--you shouldn't have come.'",1 "'I feel that now, sir,' returned John Chivery; 'but I didn't before, and Heaven knows I meant no harm, sir.'",2 'No.,2 "No,' said Mr Dorrit.",2 'I am--hum--sure of that.,1 Ha.,2 "Give me your hand, Young John, give me your hand.'",2 "Young John gave it; but Mr Dorrit had driven his heart out of it, and nothing could change his face now, from its white, shocked look.",1 'There!',2 "said Mr Dorrit, slowly shaking hands with him.",1 "'Sit down again, Young John.'",2 "'Thank you, sir--but I'd rather stand.'",2 Mr Dorrit sat down instead.,2 "After painfully holding his head a little while, he turned it to his visitor, and said, with an effort to be easy: 'And how is your father, Young John?",2 "How--ha--how are they all, Young John?'",2 "'Thank you, sir, They're all pretty well, sir.",3 They're not any ways complaining.',1 'Hum.,2 "You are in your--ha--old business I see, John?'",2 "said Mr Dorrit, with a glance at the offending bundle he had anathematised.",1 "'Partly, sir.",2 I am in my'--John hesitated a little--'father's business likewise.',2 'Oh indeed!',2 said Mr Dorrit.,2 "'Do you--ha hum--go upon the ha--' 'Lock, sir?",1 "Yes, sir.'",2 "'Much to do, John?'",2 "'Yes, sir; we're pretty heavy at present.",3 "I don't know how it is, but we generally _are_ pretty heavy.'",3 "'At this time of the year, Young John?'",2 "'Mostly at all times of the year, sir.",2 I don't know the time that makes much difference to us.,2 "I wish you good night, sir.'",3 "'Stay a moment, John--ha--stay a moment.",2 Hum.,1 "Leave me the cigars, John, I--ha--beg.'",1 "'Certainly, sir.'",2 "John put them, with a trembling hand, on the table.",2 "'Stay a moment, Young John; stay another moment.",2 "It would be a--ha--a gratification to me to send a little--hum--Testimonial, by such a trusty messenger, to be divided among--ha hum--them--_them_--according to their wants.",3 "Would you object to take it, John?'",1 "'Not in any ways, sir.",2 "There's many of them, I'm sure, that would be the better for it.'",3 "'Thank you, John.",2 "I--ha--I'll write it, John.'",2 "His hand shook so that he was a long time writing it, and wrote it in a tremulous scrawl at last.",2 It was a cheque for one hundred pounds.,2 "He folded it up, put it in Young John's hand, and pressed the hand in his.",2 "'I hope you'll--ha--overlook--hum--what has passed, John.'",1 "'Don't speak of it, sir, on any accounts.",2 "I don't in any ways bear malice, I'm sure.'",1 "But nothing while John was there could change John's face to its natural colour and expression, or restore John's natural manner.",2 "'And, John,' said Mr Dorrit, giving his hand a final pressure, and releasing it, 'I hope we--ha--agree that we have spoken together in confidence; and that you will abstain, in going out, from saying anything to any one that might--hum--suggest that--ha--once I--' 'Oh!",2 "I assure you, sir,' returned John Chivery, 'in my poor humble way, sir, I'm too proud and honourable to do it, sir.'",3 "Mr Dorrit was not too proud and honourable to listen at the door that he might ascertain for himself whether John really went straight out, or lingered to have any talk with any one.",3 "There was no doubt that he went direct out at the door, and away down the street with a quick step.",1 "After remaining alone for an hour, Mr Dorrit rang for the Courier, who found him with his chair on the hearth-rug, sitting with his back towards him and his face to the fire.",2 "'You can take that bundle of cigars to smoke on the journey, if you like,' said Mr Dorrit, with a careless wave of his hand.",1 'Ha--brought by--hum--little offering from--ha--son of old tenant of mine.',1 "Next morning's sun saw Mr Dorrit's equipage upon the Dover road, where every red-jacketed postilion was the sign of a cruel house, established for the unmerciful plundering of travellers.",1 "The whole business of the human race, between London and Dover, being spoliation, Mr Dorrit was waylaid at Dartford, pillaged at Gravesend, rifled at Rochester, fleeced at Sittingbourne, and sacked at Canterbury.",2 "However, it being the Courier's business to get him out of the hands of the banditti, the Courier brought him off at every stage; and so the red-jackets went gleaming merrily along the spring landscape, rising and falling to a regular measure, between Mr Dorrit in his snug corner and the next chalky rise in the dusty highway.",1 Another day's sun saw him at Calais.,2 "And having now got the Channel between himself and John Chivery, he began to feel safe, and to find that the foreign air was lighter to breathe than the air of England.",3 On again by the heavy French roads for Paris.,2 "Having now quite recovered his equanimity, Mr Dorrit, in his snug corner, fell to castle-building as he rode along.",1 It was evident that he had a very large castle in hand.,2 "All day long he was running towers up, taking towers down, adding a wing here, putting on a battlement there, looking to the walls, strengthening the defences, giving ornamental touches to the interior, making in all respects a superb castle of it.",3 "His preoccupied face so clearly denoted the pursuit in which he was engaged, that every cripple at the post-houses, not blind, who shoved his little battered tin-box in at the carriage window for Charity in the name of Heaven, Charity in the name of our Lady, Charity in the name of all the Saints, knew as well what work he was at, as their countryman Le Brun could have known it himself, though he had made that English traveller the subject of a special physiognomical treatise.",3 "Arrived at Paris, and resting there three days, Mr Dorrit strolled much about the streets alone, looking in at the shop-windows, and particularly the jewellers' windows.",2 "Ultimately, he went into the most famous jeweller's, and said he wanted to buy a little gift for a lady.",3 "It was a charming little woman to whom he said it--a sprightly little woman, dressed in perfect taste, who came out of a green velvet bower to attend upon him, from posting up some dainty little books of account which one could hardly suppose to be ruled for the entry of any articles more commercial than kisses, at a dainty little shining desk which looked in itself like a sweetmeat.",4 "For example, then, said the little woman, what species of gift did Monsieur desire?",2 A love-gift?,3 "Mr Dorrit smiled, and said, Eh, well!",3 Perhaps.,2 What did he know?,2 It was always possible; the sex being so charming.,3 Would she show him some?,2 "Most willingly, said the little woman.",3 Flattered and enchanted to show him many.,3 But pardon!,3 "To begin with, he would have the great goodness to observe that there were love-gifts, and there were nuptial gifts.",4 "For example, these ravishing ear-rings and this necklace so superb to correspond, were what one called a love-gift.",3 "These brooches and these rings, of a beauty so gracious and celestial, were what one called, with the permission of Monsieur, nuptial gifts.",3 "Perhaps it would be a good arrangement, Mr Dorrit hinted, smiling, to purchase both, and to present the love-gift first, and to finish with the nuptial offering?",4 Ah Heaven!,3 "said the little woman, laying the tips of the fingers of her two little hands against each other, that would be generous indeed, that would be a special gallantry!",3 And without doubt the lady so crushed with gifts would find them irresistible.,1 Mr Dorrit was not sure of that.,2 "But, for example, the sprightly little woman was very sure of it, she said.",3 "So Mr Dorrit bought a gift of each sort, and paid handsomely for it.",3 "As he strolled back to his hotel afterwards, he carried his head high: having plainly got up his castle now to a much loftier altitude than the two square towers of Notre Dame.",2 "Building away with all his might, but reserving the plans of his castle exclusively for his own eye, Mr Dorrit posted away for Marseilles.",2 "Building on, building on, busily, busily, from morning to night.",2 "Falling asleep, and leaving great blocks of building materials dangling in the air; waking again, to resume work and get them into their places.",3 "What time the Courier in the rumble, smoking Young John's best cigars, left a little thread of thin light smoke behind--perhaps as _he_ built a castle or two with stray pieces of Mr Dorrit's money.",2 "Not a fortified town that they passed in all their journey was as strong, not a Cathedral summit was as high, as Mr Dorrit's castle.",3 "Neither the Saone nor the Rhone sped with the swiftness of that peerless building; nor was the Mediterranean deeper than its foundations; nor were the distant landscapes on the Cornice road, nor the hills and bay of Genoa the Superb, more beautiful.",4 "Mr Dorrit and his matchless castle were disembarked among the dirty white houses and dirtier felons of Civita Vecchia, and thence scrambled on to Rome as they could, through the filth that festered on the way.",1 "The sun had gone down full four hours, and it was later than most travellers would like it to be for finding themselves outside the walls of Rome, when Mr Dorrit's carriage, still on its last wearisome stage, rattled over the solitary Campagna.",1 "The savage herdsmen and the fierce-looking peasants who had chequered the way while the light lasted, had all gone down with the sun, and left the wilderness blank.",1 "At some turns of the road, a pale flare on the horizon, like an exhalation from the ruin-sown land, showed that the city was yet far off; but this poor relief was rare and short-lived.",1 "The carriage dipped down again into a hollow of the black dry sea, and for a long time there was nothing visible save its petrified swell and the gloomy sky.",0 "Mr Dorrit, though he had his castle-building to engage his mind, could not be quite easy in that desolate place.",2 "He was far more curious, in every swerve of the carriage, and every cry of the postilions, than he had been since he quitted London.",1 The valet on the box evidently quaked.,2 The Courier in the rumble was not altogether comfortable in his mind.,3 "As often as Mr Dorrit let down the glass and looked back at him (which was very often), he saw him smoking John Chivery out, it is true, but still generally standing up the while and looking about him, like a man who had his suspicions, and kept upon his guard.",2 "Then would Mr Dorrit, pulling up the glass again, reflect that those postilions were cut-throat looking fellows, and that he would have done better to have slept at Civita Vecchia, and have started betimes in the morning.",3 "But, for all this, he worked at his castle in the intervals.",3 "And now, fragments of ruinous enclosure, yawning window-gap and crazy wall, deserted houses, leaking wells, broken water-tanks, spectral cypress-trees, patches of tangled vine, and the changing of the track to a long, irregular, disordered lane where everything was crumbling away, from the unsightly buildings to the jolting road--now, these objects showed that they were nearing Rome.",0 "And now, a sudden twist and stoppage of the carriage inspired Mr Dorrit with the mistrust that the brigand moment was come for twisting him into a ditch and robbing him; until, letting down the glass again and looking out, he perceived himself assailed by nothing worse than a funeral procession, which came mechanically chaunting by, with an indistinct show of dirty vestments, lurid torches, swinging censers, and a great cross borne before a priest.",0 "He was an ugly priest by torchlight; of a lowering aspect, with an overhanging brow; and as his eyes met those of Mr Dorrit, looking bareheaded out of the carriage, his lips, moving as they chaunted, seemed to threaten that important traveller; likewise the action of his hand, which was in fact his manner of returning the traveller's salutation, seemed to come in aid of that menace.",1 "So thought Mr Dorrit, made fanciful by the weariness of building and travelling, as the priest drifted past him, and the procession straggled away, taking its dead along with it.",0 "Upon their so-different way went Mr Dorrit's company too; and soon, with their coach load of luxuries from the two great capitals of Europe, they were (like the Goths reversed) beating at the gates of Rome.",3 Mr Dorrit was not expected by his own people that night.,2 "He had been; but they had given him up until to-morrow, not doubting that it was later than he would care, in those parts, to be out.",2 "Thus, when his equipage stopped at his own gate, no one but the porter appeared to receive him.",2 Was Miss Dorrit from home?,1 he asked.,2 No.,2 She was within.,2 "Good, said Mr Dorrit to the assembling servants; let them keep where they were; let them help to unload the carriage; he would find Miss Dorrit for himself.",2 "So he went up his grand staircase, slowly, and tired, and looked into various chambers which were empty, until he saw a light in a small ante-room.",1 "It was a curtained nook, like a tent, within two other rooms; and it looked warm and bright in colour, as he approached it through the dark avenue they made.",3 "There was a draped doorway, but no door; and as he stopped here, looking in unseen, he felt a pang.",2 Surely not like jealousy?,2 For why like jealousy?,2 "There was only his daughter and his brother there: he, with his chair drawn to the hearth, enjoying the warmth of the evening wood fire; she seated at a little table, busied with some embroidery work.",4 "Allowing for the great difference in the still-life of the picture, the figures were much the same as of old; his brother being sufficiently like himself to represent himself, for a moment, in the composition.",4 "So had he sat many a night, over a coal fire far away; so had she sat, devoted to him.",2 Yet surely there was nothing to be jealous of in the old miserable poverty.,0 "Whence, then, the pang in his heart?",2 "'Do you know, uncle, I think you are growing young again?'",2 "Her uncle shook his head and said, 'Since when, my dear; since when?'",2 "'I think,' returned Little Dorrit, plying her needle, 'that you have been growing younger for weeks past.",2 "So cheerful, uncle, and so ready, and so interested.'",3 'My dear child--all you.',2 "'All me, uncle!'",2 "'Yes, yes.",2 You have done me a world of good.,3 "You have been so considerate of me, and so tender with me, and so delicate in trying to hide your attentions from me, that I--well, well, well!",4 "It's treasured up, my darling, treasured up.'",3 "'There is nothing in it but your own fresh fancy, uncle,' said Little Dorrit, cheerfully.",3 "'Well, well, well!'",3 murmured the old man.,2 'Thank God!',2 "She paused for an instant in her work to look at him, and her look revived that former pain in her father's breast; in his poor weak breast, so full of contradictions, vacillations, inconsistencies, the little peevish perplexities of this ignorant life, mists which the morning without a night only can clear away.",0 "'I have been freer with you, you see, my dove,' said the old man, 'since we have been alone.",2 "I say, alone, for I don't count Mrs General; I don't care for her; she has nothing to do with me.",2 But I know Fanny was impatient of me.,1 "And I don't wonder at it, or complain of it, for I am sensible that I must be in the way, though I try to keep out of it as well as I can.",3 I know I am not fit company for our company.,2 "My brother William,' said the old man admiringly, 'is fit company for monarchs; but not so your uncle, my dear.",3 "Frederick Dorrit is no credit to William Dorrit, and he knows it quite well.",3 Ah!,2 "Why, here's your father, Amy!",2 "My dear William, welcome back!",3 "My beloved brother, I am rejoiced to see you!'",3 "(Turning his head in speaking, he had caught sight of him as he stood in the doorway.) Little Dorrit with a cry of pleasure put her arms about her father's neck, and kissed him again and again.",2 "Her father was a little impatient, and a little querulous.",1 "'I am glad to find you at last, Amy,' he said.",3 'Ha.,2 Really I am glad to find--hum--any one to receive me at last.,2 "I appear to have been--ha--so little expected, that upon my word I began--ha hum--to think it might be right to offer an apology for--ha--taking the liberty of coming back at all.'",3 "'It was so late, my dear William,' said his brother, 'that we had given you up for to-night.'",2 "'I am stronger than you, dear Frederick,' returned his brother with an elaboration of fraternity in which there was severity; 'and I hope I can travel without detriment at--ha--any hour I choose.'",1 "'Surely, surely,' returned the other, with a misgiving that he had given offence.",1 "'Surely, William.'",2 "'Thank you, Amy,' pursued Mr Dorrit, as she helped him to put off his wrappers.",3 'I can do it without assistance.,2 "I--ha--need not trouble you, Amy.",1 "Could I have a morsel of bread and a glass of wine, or--hum--would it cause too much inconvenience?'",1 "'Dear father, you shall have supper in a very few minutes.'",2 "'Thank you, my love,' said Mr Dorrit, with a reproachful frost upon him; 'I--ha--am afraid I am causing inconvenience.",0 Hum.,1 Mrs General pretty well?',3 "'Mrs General complained of a headache, and of being fatigued; and so, when we gave you up, she went to bed, dear.'",0 Perhaps Mr Dorrit thought that Mrs General had done well in being overcome by the disappointment of his not arriving.,2 "At any rate, his face relaxed, and he said with obvious satisfaction, 'Extremely sorry to hear that Mrs General is not well.'",3 "During this short dialogue, his daughter had been observant of him, with something more than her usual interest.",2 "It would seem as though he had a changed or worn appearance in her eyes, and he perceived and resented it; for he said with renewed peevishness, when he had divested himself of his travelling-cloak, and had come to the fire: 'Amy, what are you looking at?",2 What do you see in me that causes you to--ha--concentrate your solicitude on me in that--hum--very particular manner?',1 "'I did not know it, father; I beg your pardon.",2 It gladdens my eyes to see you again; that's all.',2 "'Don't say that's all, because--ha--that's not all.",2 "You--hum--you think,' said Mr Dorrit, with an accusatory emphasis, 'that I am not looking well.'",2 "'I thought you looked a little tired, love.'",2 "'Then you are mistaken,' said Mr Dorrit.",1 "'Ha, I am _not_ tired.",1 "Ha, hum.",1 I am very much fresher than I was when I went away.',3 "He was so inclined to be angry that she said nothing more in her justification, but remained quietly beside him embracing his arm.",1 "As he stood thus, with his brother on the other side, he fell into a heavy doze, of not a minute's duration, and awoke with a start.",1 "'Frederick,' he said, turning to his brother: 'I recommend you to go to bed immediately.'",3 "'No, William.",2 I'll wait and see you sup.',2 "'Frederick,' he retorted, 'I beg you to go to bed.",1 I--ha--make it a personal request that you go to bed.,2 You ought to have been in bed long ago.,2 You are very feeble.',1 'Hah!',2 "said the old man, who had no wish but to please him.",2 "'Well, well, well!",3 I dare say I am.',2 "'My dear Frederick,' returned Mr Dorrit, with an astonishing superiority to his brother's failing powers, 'there can be no doubt of it.",2 It is painful to me to see you so weak.,1 Ha.,2 It distresses me.,2 Hum.,1 I don't find you looking at all well.,3 You are not fit for this sort of thing.,2 "You should be more careful, you should be very careful.'",2 'Shall I go to bed?',2 asked Frederick.,2 "'Dear Frederick,' said Mr Dorrit, 'do, I adjure you!",2 "Good night, brother.",3 I hope you will be stronger to-morrow.,3 I am not at all pleased with your looks.,3 "Good night, dear fellow.'",3 "After dismissing his brother in this gracious way, he fell into a doze again before the old man was well out of the room: and he would have stumbled forward upon the logs, but for his daughter's restraining hold.",2 "'Your uncle wanders very much, Amy,' he said, when he was thus roused.",2 "'He is less--ha--coherent, and his conversation is more--hum--broken, than I have--ha, hum--ever known.",1 Has he had any illness since I have been gone?',1 "'No, father.'",2 "'You--ha--see a great change in him, Amy?'",3 "'I have not observed it, dear.'",2 "'Greatly broken,' said Mr Dorrit.",1 'Greatly broken.,1 "My poor, affectionate, failing Frederick!",1 Ha.,2 "Even taking into account what he was before, he is--hum--sadly broken!'",0 "His supper, which was brought to him there, and spread upon the little table where he had seen her working, diverted his attention.",2 "She sat at his side as in the days that were gone, for the first time since those days ended.",2 "They were alone, and she helped him to his meat and poured out his drink for him, as she had been used to do in the prison.",2 "All this happened now, for the first time since their accession to wealth.",2 "She was afraid to look at him much, after the offence he had taken; but she noticed two occasions in the course of his meal, when he all of a sudden looked at her, and looked about him, as if the association were so strong that he needed assurance from his sense of sight that they were not in the old prison-room.",1 "Both times, he put his hand to his head as if he missed his old black cap--though it had been ignominiously given away in the Marshalsea, and had never got free to that hour, but still hovered about the yards on the head of his successor.",1 "He took very little supper, but was a long time over it, and often reverted to his brother's declining state.",1 "Though he expressed the greatest pity for him, he was almost bitter upon him.",1 He said that poor Frederick--ha hum--drivelled.,1 There was no other word to express it; drivelled.,2 Poor fellow!,1 "It was melancholy to reflect what Amy must have undergone from the excessive tediousness of his Society--wandering and babbling on, poor dear estimable creature, wandering and babbling on--if it had not been for the relief she had had in Mrs General.",1 "Extremely sorry, he then repeated with his former satisfaction, that that--ha--superior woman was poorly.",1 "Little Dorrit, in her watchful love, would have remembered the lightest thing he said or did that night, though she had had no subsequent reason to recall that night.",3 "She always remembered that, when he looked about him under the strong influence of the old association, he tried to keep it out of her mind, and perhaps out of his own too, by immediately expatiating on the great riches and great company that had encompassed him in his absence, and on the lofty position he and his family had to sustain.",3 "Nor did she fail to recall that there were two under-currents, side by side, pervading all his discourse and all his manner; one showing her how well he had got on without her, and how independent he was of her; the other, in a fitful and unintelligible way almost complaining of her, as if it had been possible that she had neglected him while he was away.",0 "His telling her of the glorious state that Mr Merdle kept, and of the court that bowed before him, naturally brought him to Mrs Merdle.",3 "So naturally indeed, that although there was an unusual want of sequence in the greater part of his remarks, he passed to her at once, and asked how she was.",1 'She is very well.,3 She is going away next week.',2 'Home?',2 asked Mr Dorrit.,2 'After a few weeks' stay upon the road.',2 "'She will be a vast loss here,' said Mr Dorrit.",1 'A vast--ha--acquisition at home.,2 "To Fanny, and to--hum--the rest of the--ha--great world.'",2 "Little Dorrit thought of the competition that was to be entered upon, and assented very softly.",2 "'Mrs Merdle is going to have a great farewell Assembly, dear, and a dinner before it.",3 She has been expressing her anxiety that you should return in time.,1 She has invited both you and me to her dinner.',2 'She is--ha--very kind.,2 When is the day?',2 'The day after to-morrow.',2 "'Write round in the morning, and say that I have returned, and shall--hum--be delighted.'",2 "'May I walk with you up the stairs to your room, dear?'",2 'No!',2 "he answered, looking angrily round; for he was moving away, as if forgetful of leave-taking.",1 "'You may not, Amy.",2 I want no help.,2 "I am your father, not your infirm uncle!'",1 "He checked himself, as abruptly as he had broken into this reply, and said, 'You have not kissed me, Amy.",1 "Good night, my dear!",3 "We must marry--ha--we must marry _you_, now.'",2 "With that he went, more slowly and more tired, up the staircase to his rooms, and, almost as soon as he got there, dismissed his valet.",1 "His next care was to look about him for his Paris purchases, and, after opening their cases and carefully surveying them, to put them away under lock and key.",2 "After that, what with dozing and what with castle-building, he lost himself for a long time, so that there was a touch of morning on the eastward rim of the desolate Campagna when he crept to bed.",0 "Mrs General sent up her compliments in good time next day, and hoped he had rested well after this fatiguing journey.",3 "He sent down his compliments, and begged to inform Mrs General that he had rested very well indeed, and was in high condition.",3 "Nevertheless, he did not come forth from his own rooms until late in the afternoon; and, although he then caused himself to be magnificently arrayed for a drive with Mrs General and his daughter, his appearance was scarcely up to his description of himself.",2 "As the family had no visitors that day, its four members dined alone together.",2 "He conducted Mrs General to the seat at his right hand with immense ceremony; and Little Dorrit could not but notice as she followed with her uncle, both that he was again elaborately dressed, and that his manner towards Mrs General was very particular.",3 "The perfect formation of that accomplished lady's surface rendered it difficult to displace an atom of its genteel glaze, but Little Dorrit thought she descried a slight thaw of triumph in a corner of her frosty eye.",3 "Notwithstanding what may be called in these pages the Pruney and Prismatic nature of the family banquet, Mr Dorrit several times fell asleep while it was in progress.",2 "His fits of dozing were as sudden as they had been overnight, and were as short and profound.",3 "When the first of these slumberings seized him, Mrs General looked almost amazed: but, on each recurrence of the symptoms, she told her polite beads, Papa, Potatoes, Poultry, Prunes, and Prism; and, by dint of going through that infallible performance very slowly, appeared to finish her rosary at about the same time as Mr Dorrit started from his sleep.",3 "He was again painfully aware of a somnolent tendency in Frederick (which had no existence out of his own imagination), and after dinner, when Frederick had withdrawn, privately apologised to Mrs General for the poor man.",1 "'The most estimable and affectionate of brothers,' he said, 'but--ha, hum--broken up altogether.",1 "Unhappily, declining fast.'",1 "'Mr Frederick, sir,' quoth Mrs General, 'is habitually absent and drooping, but let us hope it is not so bad as that.'",1 "Mr Dorrit, however, was determined not to let him off.",2 "'Fast declining, madam.",1 A wreck.,1 A ruin.,1 Mouldering away before our eyes.,2 Hum.,1 Good Frederick!',3 "'You left Mrs Sparkler quite well and happy, I trust?'",4 "said Mrs General, after heaving a cool sigh for Frederick.",3 "'Surrounded,' replied Mr Dorrit, 'by--ha--all that can charm the taste, and--hum--elevate the mind.",3 "Happy, my dear madam, in a--hum--husband.'",2 "Mrs General was a little fluttered; seeming delicately to put the word away with her gloves, as if there were no knowing what it might lead to.",3 "'Fanny,' Mr Dorrit continued.",2 "'Fanny, Mrs General, has high qualities.",2 Ha.,2 "Ambition--hum--purpose, consciousness of--ha--position, determination to support that position--ha, hum--grace, beauty, and native nobility.'",3 "'No doubt,' said Mrs General (with a little extra stiffness).",1 "'Combined with these qualities, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'Fanny has--ha--manifested one blemish which has made me--hum--made me uneasy, and--ha--I must add, angry; but which I trust may now be considered at an end, even as to herself, and which is undoubtedly at an end as to--ha--others.'",0 "'To what, Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, with her gloves again somewhat excited, 'can you allude?",3 "I am at a loss to--' 'Do not say that, my dear madam,' interrupted Mr Dorrit.",1 "Mrs General's voice, as it died away, pronounced the words, 'at a loss to imagine.'",1 "After which Mr Dorrit was seized with a doze for about a minute, out of which he sprang with spasmodic nimbleness.",2 "'I refer, Mrs General, to that--ha--strong spirit of opposition, or--hum--I might say--ha--jealousy in Fanny, which has occasionally risen against the--ha--sense I entertain of--hum--the claims of--ha--the lady with whom I have now the honour of communing.'",1 "'Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, 'is ever but too obliging, ever but too appreciative.",3 "If there have been moments when I have imagined that Miss Dorrit has indeed resented the favourable opinion Mr Dorrit has formed of my services, I have found, in that only too high opinion, my consolation and recompense.'",1 "'Opinion of your services, madam?'",2 said Mr Dorrit.,2 "'Of,' Mrs General repeated, in an elegantly impressive manner, 'my services.'",3 "'Of your services alone, dear madam?'",2 said Mr Dorrit.,2 "'I presume,' retorted Mrs General, in her former impressive manner, 'of my services alone.",3 "For, to what else,' said Mrs General, with a slightly interrogative action of her gloves, 'could I impute--' 'To--ha--yourself, Mrs General.",2 "Ha, hum.",1 "To yourself and your merits,' was Mr Dorrit's rejoinder.",2 "'Mr Dorrit will pardon me,' said Mrs General, 'if I remark that this is not a time or place for the pursuit of the present conversation.",3 "Mr Dorrit will excuse me if I remind him that Miss Dorrit is in the adjoining room, and is visible to myself while I utter her name.",1 "Mr Dorrit will forgive me if I observe that I am agitated, and that I find there are moments when weaknesses I supposed myself to have subdued, return with redoubled power.",1 Mr Dorrit will allow me to withdraw.',2 'Hum.,2 "Perhaps we may resume this--ha--interesting conversation,' said Mr Dorrit, 'at another time; unless it should be, what I hope it is not--hum--in any way disagreeable to--ah--Mrs General.'",1 "'Mr Dorrit,' said Mrs General, casting down her eyes as she rose with a bend, 'must ever claim my homage and obedience.'",3 "Mrs General then took herself off in a stately way, and not with that amount of trepidation upon her which might have been expected in a less remarkable woman.",3 "Mr Dorrit, who had conducted his part of the dialogue with a certain majestic and admiring condescension--much as some people may be seen to conduct themselves in Church, and to perform their part in the service--appeared, on the whole, very well satisfied with himself and with Mrs General too.",4 "On the return of that lady to tea, she had touched herself up with a little powder and pomatum, and was not without moral enchantment likewise: the latter showing itself in much sweet patronage of manner towards Miss Dorrit, and in an air of as tender interest in Mr Dorrit as was consistent with rigid propriety.",3 "At the close of the evening, when she rose to retire, Mr Dorrit took her by the hand as if he were going to lead her out into the Piazza of the people to walk a minuet by moonlight, and with great solemnity conducted her to the room door, where he raised her knuckles to his lips.",3 "Having parted from her with what may be conjectured to have been a rather bony kiss of a cosmetic flavour, he gave his daughter his blessing, graciously.",3 "And having thus hinted that there was something remarkable in the wind, he again went to bed.",3 "He remained in the seclusion of his own chamber next morning; but, early in the afternoon, sent down his best compliments to Mrs General, by Mr Tinkler, and begged she would accompany Miss Dorrit on an airing without him.",2 His daughter was dressed for Mrs Merdle's dinner before he appeared.,2 "He then presented himself in a refulgent condition as to his attire, but looking indefinably shrunken and old.",2 "However, as he was plainly determined to be angry with her if she so much as asked him how he was, she only ventured to kiss his cheek, before accompanying him to Mrs Merdle's with an anxious heart.",1 "The distance that they had to go was very short, but he was at his building work again before the carriage had half traversed it.",3 "Mrs Merdle received him with great distinction; the bosom was in admirable preservation, and on the best terms with itself; the dinner was very choice; and the company was very select.",4 "It was principally English; saving that it comprised the usual French Count and the usual Italian Marchese--decorative social milestones, always to be found in certain places, and varying very little in appearance.",2 "The table was long, and the dinner was long; and Little Dorrit, overshadowed by a large pair of black whiskers and a large white cravat, lost sight of her father altogether, until a servant put a scrap of paper in her hand, with a whispered request from Mrs Merdle that she would read it directly.",1 "Mrs Merdle had written on it in pencil, 'Pray come and speak to Mr Dorrit, I doubt if he is well.'",2 "She was hurrying to him, unobserved, when he got up out of his chair, and leaning over the table called to her, supposing her to be still in her place: 'Amy, Amy, my child!'",1 "The action was so unusual, to say nothing of his strange eager appearance and strange eager voice, that it instantaneously caused a profound silence.",2 "'Amy, my dear,' he repeated.",2 'Will you go and see if Bob is on the lock?',2 "She was at his side, and touching him, but he still perversely supposed her to be in her seat, and called out, still leaning over the table, 'Amy, Amy.",1 I don't feel quite myself.,2 Ha.,2 I don't know what's the matter with me.,2 I particularly wish to see Bob.,2 Ha.,2 "Of all the turnkeys, he's as much my friend as yours.",2 "See if Bob is in the lodge, and beg him to come to me.'",1 "All the guests were now in consternation, and everybody rose.",1 "'Dear father, I am not there; I am here, by you.'",2 'Oh!,2 "You are here, Amy!",2 Good.,3 Hum.,1 Good.,3 Ha.,2 Call Bob.,2 "If he has been relieved, and is not on the lock, tell Mrs Bangham to go and fetch him.'",2 "She was gently trying to get him away; but he resisted, and would not go.",2 "'I tell you, child,' he said petulantly, 'I can't be got up the narrow stairs without Bob.",2 Ha.,2 Send for Bob.,2 Hum.,1 Send for Bob--best of all the turnkeys--send for Bob!',3 "He looked confusedly about him, and, becoming conscious of the number of faces by which he was surrounded, addressed them: 'Ladies and gentlemen, the duty--ha--devolves upon me of--hum--welcoming you to the Marshalsea!",1 Welcome to the Marshalsea!,3 "The space is--ha--limited--limited--the parade might be wider; but you will find it apparently grow larger after a time--a time, ladies and gentlemen--and the air is, all things considered, very good.",2 It blows over the--ha--Surrey hills.,2 Blows over the Surrey hills.,2 This is the Snuggery.,2 Hum.,1 Supported by a small subscription of the--ha--Collegiate body.,3 In return for which--hot water--general kitchen--and little domestic advantages.,3 "Those who are habituated to the--ha--Marshalsea, are pleased to call me its father.",3 I am accustomed to be complimented by strangers as the--ha--Father of the Marshalsea.,2 "Certainly, if years of residence may establish a claim to so--ha--honourable a title, I may accept the--hum--conferred distinction.",2 "My child, ladies and gentlemen.",2 My daughter.,2 Born here!',2 "She was not ashamed of it, or ashamed of him.",1 "She was pale and frightened; but she had no other care than to soothe him and get him away, for his own dear sake.",2 "She was between him and the wondering faces, turned round upon his breast with her own face raised to his.",2 "He held her clasped in his left arm, and between whiles her low voice was heard tenderly imploring him to go away with her.",3 "'Born here,' he repeated, shedding tears.",2 'Bred here.,2 "Ladies and gentlemen, my daughter.",2 "Child of an unfortunate father, but--ha--always a gentleman.",1 "Poor, no doubt, but--hum--proud.",1 Always proud.,3 "It has become a--hum--not infrequent custom for my--ha--personal admirers--personal admirers solely--to be pleased to express their desire to acknowledge my semi-official position here, by offering--ha--little tributes, which usually take the form of--ha--voluntary recognitions of my humble endeavours to--hum--to uphold a Tone here--a Tone--I beg it to be understood that I do not consider myself compromised.",3 Ha.,2 Not compromised.,2 Ha.,2 Not a beggar.,1 No; I repudiate the title!,1 "At the same time far be it from me to--hum--to put upon the fine feelings by which my partial friends are actuated, the slight of scrupling to admit that those offerings are--hum--highly acceptable.",2 "On the contrary, they are most acceptable.",2 "In my child's name, if not in my own, I make the admission in the fullest manner, at the same time reserving--ha--shall I say my personal dignity?",3 "Ladies and gentlemen, God bless you all!'",3 "By this time, the exceeding mortification undergone by the Bosom had occasioned the withdrawal of the greater part of the company into other rooms.",2 "The few who had lingered thus long followed the rest, and Little Dorrit and her father were left to the servants and themselves.",2 "Dearest and most precious to her, he would come with her now, would he not?",3 "He replied to her fervid entreaties, that he would never be able to get up the narrow stairs without Bob; where was Bob, would nobody fetch Bob?",3 "Under pretence of looking for Bob, she got him out against the stream of gay company now pouring in for the evening assembly, and got him into a coach that had just set down its load, and got him home.",1 "The broad stairs of his Roman palace were contracted in his failing sight to the narrow stairs of his London prison; and he would suffer no one but her to touch him, his brother excepted.",0 "They got him up to his room without help, and laid him down on his bed.",2 "And from that hour his poor maimed spirit, only remembering the place where it had broken its wings, cancelled the dream through which it had since groped, and knew of nothing beyond the Marshalsea.",1 "When he heard footsteps in the street, he took them for the old weary tread in the yards.",1 "When the hour came for locking up, he supposed all strangers to be excluded for the night.",2 "When the time for opening came again, he was so anxious to see Bob, that they were fain to patch up a narrative how that Bob--many a year dead then, gentle turnkey--had taken cold, but hoped to be out to-morrow, or the next day, or the next at furthest.",1 He fell away into a weakness so extreme that he could not raise his hand.,1 "But he still protected his brother according to his long usage; and would say with some complacency, fifty times a day, when he saw him standing by his bed, 'My good Frederick, sit down.",3 You are very feeble indeed.',1 "They tried him with Mrs General, but he had not the faintest knowledge of her.",2 "Some injurious suspicion lodged itself in his brain, that she wanted to supplant Mrs Bangham, and that she was given to drinking.",1 "He charged her with it in no measured terms; and was so urgent with his daughter to go round to the Marshal and entreat him to turn her out, that she was never reproduced after the first failure.",1 Saving that he once asked 'if Tip had gone outside?',2 the remembrance of his two children not present seemed to have departed from him.,2 "But the child who had done so much for him and had been so poorly repaid, was never out of his mind.",1 "Not that he spared her, or was fearful of her being spent by watching and fatigue; he was not more troubled on that score than he had usually been.",0 No; he loved her in his old way.,3 "They were in the jail again, and she tended him, and he had constant need of her, and could not turn without her; and he even told her, sometimes, that he was content to have undergone a great deal for her sake.",3 "As to her, she bent over his bed with her quiet face against his, and would have laid down her own life to restore him.",2 "When he had been sinking in this painless way for two or three days, she observed him to be troubled by the ticking of his watch--a pompous gold watch that made as great a to-do about its going as if nothing else went but itself and Time.",2 "She suffered it to run down; but he was still uneasy, and showed that was not what he wanted.",1 At length he roused himself to explain that he wanted money to be raised on this watch.,2 "He was quite pleased when she pretended to take it away for the purpose, and afterwards had a relish for his little tastes of wine and jelly, that he had not had before.",3 "He soon made it plain that this was so; for, in another day or two he sent off his sleeve-buttons and finger-rings.",2 "He had an amazing satisfaction in entrusting her with these errands, and appeared to consider it equivalent to making the most methodical and provident arrangements.",3 "After his trinkets, or such of them as he had been able to see about him, were gone, his clothes engaged his attention; and it is as likely as not that he was kept alive for some days by the satisfaction of sending them, piece by piece, to an imaginary pawnbroker's.",1 "Thus for ten days Little Dorrit bent over his pillow, laying her cheek against his.",1 Sometimes she was so worn out that for a few minutes they would slumber together.,1 "Then she would awake; to recollect with fast-flowing silent tears what it was that touched her face, and to see, stealing over the cherished face upon the pillow, a deeper shadow than the shadow of the Marshalsea Wall.",3 "Quietly, quietly, all the lines of the plan of the great Castle melted one after another.",3 "Quietly, quietly, the ruled and cross-ruled countenance on which they were traced, became fair and blank.",3 "Quietly, quietly, the reflected marks of the prison bars and of the zig-zag iron on the wall-top, faded away.",2 "Quietly, quietly, the face subsided into a far younger likeness of her own than she had ever seen under the grey hair, and sank to rest.",2 At first her uncle was stark distracted.,1 'O my brother!,2 "O William, William!",2 "You to go before me; you to go alone; you to go, and I to remain!",2 "You, so far superior, so distinguished, so noble; I, a poor useless creature fit for nothing, and whom no one would have missed!'",2 "It did her, for the time, the good of having him to think of and to succour.",3 "'Uncle, dear uncle, spare yourself, spare me!'",2 The old man was not deaf to the last words.,1 "When he did begin to restrain himself, it was that he might spare her.",2 "He had no care for himself; but, with all the remaining power of the honest heart, stunned so long and now awaking to be broken, he honoured and blessed her.",3 "'O God,' he cried, before they left the room, with his wrinkled hands clasped over her.",1 'Thou seest this daughter of my dear dead brother!,1 "All that I have looked upon, with my half-blind and sinful eyes, Thou hast discerned clearly, brightly.",1 Not a hair of her head shall be harmed before Thee.,1 Thou wilt uphold her here to her last hour.,2 And I know Thou wilt reward her hereafter!',2 "They remained in a dim room near, until it was almost midnight, quiet and sad together.",1 "At times his grief would seek relief in a burst like that in which it had found its earliest expression; but, besides that his little strength would soon have been unequal to such strains, he never failed to recall her words, and to reproach himself and calm himself.",1 "The only utterance with which he indulged his sorrow, was the frequent exclamation that his brother was gone, alone; that they had been together in the outset of their lives, that they had fallen into misfortune together, that they had kept together through their many years of poverty, that they had remained together to that day; and that his brother was gone alone, alone!",0 "They parted, heavy and sorrowful.",1 "She would not consent to leave him anywhere but in his own room, and she saw him lie down in his clothes upon his bed, and covered him with her own hands.",1 "Then she sank upon her own bed, and fell into a deep sleep: the sleep of exhaustion and rest, though not of complete release from a pervading consciousness of affliction.",0 "Sleep, good Little Dorrit.",3 Sleep through the night!,2 "It was a moonlight night; but the moon rose late, being long past the full.",2 "When it was high in the peaceful firmament, it shone through half-closed lattice blinds into the solemn room where the stumblings and wanderings of a life had so lately ended.",2 "Two quiet figures were within the room; two figures, equally still and impassive, equally removed by an untraversable distance from the teeming earth and all that it contains, though soon to lie in it.",2 One figure reposed upon the bed.,2 "The other, kneeling on the floor, drooped over it; the arms easily and peacefully resting on the coverlet; the face bowed down, so that the lips touched the hand over which with its last breath it had bent.",2 The two brothers were before their Father; far beyond the twilight judgment of this world; high above its mists and obscurities.,1 The passengers were landing from the packet on the pier at Calais.,2 "A low-lying place and a low-spirited place Calais was, with the tide ebbing out towards low water-mark.",2 "There had been no more water on the bar than had sufficed to float the packet in; and now the bar itself, with a shallow break of sea over it, looked like a lazy marine monster just risen to the surface, whose form was indistinctly shown as it lay asleep.",1 "The meagre lighthouse all in white, haunting the seaboard as if it were the ghost of an edifice that had once had colour and rotundity, dropped melancholy tears after its late buffeting by the waves.",1 "The long rows of gaunt black piles, slimy and wet and weather-worn, with funeral garlands of seaweed twisted about them by the late tide, might have represented an unsightly marine cemetery.",1 "Every wave-dashed, storm-beaten object, was so low and so little, under the broad grey sky, in the noise of the wind and sea, and before the curling lines of surf, making at it ferociously, that the wonder was there was any Calais left, and that its low gates and low wall and low roofs and low ditches and low sand-hills and low ramparts and flat streets, had not yielded long ago to the undermining and besieging sea, like the fortifications children make on the sea-shore.",1 "After slipping among oozy piles and planks, stumbling up wet steps and encountering many salt difficulties, the passengers entered on their comfortless peregrination along the pier; where all the French vagabonds and English outlaws in the town (half the population) attended to prevent their recovery from bewilderment.",1 "After being minutely inspected by all the English, and claimed and reclaimed and counter-claimed as prizes by all the French in a hand-to-hand scuffle three quarters of a mile long, they were at last free to enter the streets, and to make off in their various directions, hotly pursued.",3 "Clennam, harassed by more anxieties than one, was among this devoted band.",1 "Having rescued the most defenceless of his compatriots from situations of great extremity, he now went his way alone, or as nearly alone as he could be, with a native gentleman in a suit of grease and a cap of the same material, giving chase at a distance of some fifty yards, and continually calling after him, 'Hi!",3 Ice-say!,2 You!,2 Seer!,2 Ice-say!,2 Nice Oatel!',3 "Even this hospitable person, however, was left behind at last, and Clennam pursued his way, unmolested.",3 "There was a tranquil air in the town after the turbulence of the Channel and the beach, and its dulness in that comparison was agreeable.",3 "He met new groups of his countrymen, who had all a straggling air of having at one time overblown themselves, like certain uncomfortable kinds of flowers, and of being now mere weeds.",1 "They had all an air, too, of lounging out a limited round, day after day, which strongly reminded him of the Marshalsea.",1 "But, taking no further note of them than was sufficient to give birth to the reflection, he sought out a certain street and number which he kept in his mind.",3 "'So Pancks said,' he murmured to himself, as he stopped before a dull house answering to the address.",1 "'I suppose his information to be correct and his discovery, among Mr Casby's loose papers, indisputable; but, without it, I should hardly have supposed this to be a likely place.'",2 "A dead sort of house, with a dead wall over the way and a dead gateway at the side, where a pendant bell-handle produced two dead tinkles, and a knocker produced a dead, flat, surface-tapping, that seemed not to have depth enough in it to penetrate even the cracked door.",1 "However, the door jarred open on a dead sort of spring; and he closed it behind him as he entered a dull yard, soon brought to a close by another dead wall, where an attempt had been made to train some creeping shrubs, which were dead; and to make a little fountain in a grotto, which was dry; and to decorate that with a little statue, which was gone.",0 "The entry to the house was on the left, and it was garnished as the outer gateway was, with two printed bills in French and English, announcing Furnished Apartments to let, with immediate possession.",2 "A strong cheerful peasant woman, all stocking, petticoat, white cap, and ear-ring, stood here in a dark doorway, and said with a pleasant show of teeth, 'Ice-say!",3 Seer!,2 Who?',2 "Clennam, replying in French, said the English lady; he wished to see the English lady.",2 "'Enter then and ascend, if you please,' returned the peasant woman, in French likewise.",2 "He did both, and followed her up a dark bare staircase to a back room on the first-floor.",1 "Hence, there was a gloomy view of the yard that was dull, and of the shrubs that were dead, and of the fountain that was dry, and of the pedestal of the statue that was gone.",0 "'Monsieur Blandois,' said Clennam.",2 "'With pleasure, Monsieur.'",3 Thereupon the woman withdrew and left him to look at the room.,2 It was the pattern of room always to be found in such a house.,2 "Cool, dull, and dark.",1 Waxed floor very slippery.,2 A room not large enough to skate in; nor adapted to the easy pursuit of any other occupation.,3 "Red and white curtained windows, little straw mat, little round table with a tumultuous assemblage of legs underneath, clumsy rush-bottomed chairs, two great red velvet arm-chairs affording plenty of space to be uncomfortable in, bureau, chimney-glass in several pieces pretending to be in one piece, pair of gaudy vases of very artificial flowers; between them a Greek warrior with his helmet off, sacrificing a clock to the Genius of France.",1 "After some pause, a door of communication with another room was opened, and a lady entered.",2 "She manifested great surprise on seeing Clennam, and her glance went round the room in search of some one else.",3 "'Pardon me, Miss Wade.",1 I am alone.',2 'It was not your name that was brought to me.',2 'No; I know that.,2 Excuse me.,1 I have already had experience that my name does not predispose you to an interview; and I ventured to mention the name of one I am in search of.',2 "'Pray,' she returned, motioning him to a chair so coldly that he remained standing, 'what name was it that you gave?'",1 'I mentioned the name of Blandois.',2 'Blandois?',2 'A name you are acquainted with.',2 "'It is strange,' she said, frowning, 'that you should still press an undesired interest in me and my acquaintances, in me and my affairs, Mr Clennam.",1 I don't know what you mean.',2 'Pardon me.,2 You know the name?',2 'What can you have to do with the name?,2 What can I have to do with the name?,2 What can you have to do with my knowing or not knowing any name?,2 I know many names and I have forgotten many more.,2 "This may be in the one class, or it may be in the other, or I may never have heard it.",2 "I am acquainted with no reason for examining myself, or for being examined, about it.'",2 "'If you will allow me,' said Clennam, 'I will tell you my reason for pressing the subject.",2 "I admit that I do press it, and I must beg you to forgive me if I do so, very earnestly.",2 "The reason is all mine, I do not insinuate that it is in any way yours.'",1 "'Well, sir,' she returned, repeating a little less haughtily than before her former invitation to him to be seated: to which he now deferred, as she seated herself.",1 "'I am at least glad to know that this is not another bondswoman of some friend of yours, who is bereft of free choice, and whom I have spirited away.",3 "I will hear your reason, if you please.'",2 "'First, to identify the person of whom we speak,' said Clennam, 'let me observe that it is the person you met in London some time back.",2 You will remember meeting him near the river--in the Adelphi!',2 "'You mix yourself most unaccountably with my business,' she replied, looking full at him with stern displeasure.",1 'How do you know that?',2 'I entreat you not to take it ill.,2 By mere accident.',2 'What accident?',2 'Solely the accident of coming upon you in the street and seeing the meeting.',2 "'Do you speak of yourself, or of some one else?'",2 'Of myself.,2 I saw it.',2 "'To be sure it was in the open street,' she observed, after a few moments of less and less angry reflection.",1 'Fifty people might have seen it.,2 It would have signified nothing if they had.',2 "'Nor do I make my having seen it of any moment, nor (otherwise than as an explanation of my coming here) do I connect my visit with it or the favour that I have to ask.'",3 'Oh!,2 You have to ask a favour!,3 "It occurred to me,' and the handsome face looked bitterly at him, 'that your manner was softened, Mr Clennam.'",2 He was content to protest against this by a slight action without contesting it in words.,1 "He then referred to Blandois' disappearance, of which it was probable she had heard?",2 "However probable it was to him, she had heard of no such thing.",2 "Let him look round him (she said) and judge for himself what general intelligence was likely to reach the ears of a woman who had been shut up there while it was rife, devouring her own heart.",2 "When she had uttered this denial, which he believed to be true, she asked him what he meant by disappearance?",1 "That led to his narrating the circumstances in detail, and expressing something of his anxiety to discover what had really become of the man, and to repel the dark suspicions that clouded about his mother's house.",0 "She heard him with evident surprise, and with more marks of suppressed interest than he had seen in her; still they did not overcome her distant, proud, and self-secluded manner.",3 "When he had finished, she said nothing but these words: 'You have not yet told me, sir, what I have to do with it, or what the favour is?",3 Will you be so good as come to that?',3 "'I assume,' said Arthur, persevering, in his endeavour to soften her scornful demeanour, 'that being in communication--may I say, confidential communication?--with this person--' 'You may say, of course, whatever you like,' she remarked; 'but I do not subscribe to your assumptions, Mr Clennam, or to any one's.'",2 "'--that being, at least in personal communication with him,' said Clennam, changing the form of his position in the hope of making it unobjectionable, 'you can tell me something of his antecedents, pursuits, habits, usual place of residence.",2 "Can give me some little clue by which to seek him out in the likeliest manner, and either produce him, or establish what has become of him.",2 "This is the favour I ask, and I ask it in a distress of mind for which I hope you will feel some consideration.",2 "If you should have any reason for imposing conditions upon me, I will respect it without asking what it is.'",2 "'You chanced to see me in the street with the man,' she observed, after being, to his mortification, evidently more occupied with her own reflections on the matter than with his appeal.",2 'Then you knew the man before?',2 'Not before; afterwards.,2 "I never saw him before, but I saw him again on this very night of his disappearance.",2 "In my mother's room, in fact.",2 I left him there.,2 You will read in this paper all that is known of him.',2 "He handed her one of the printed bills, which she read with a steady and attentive face.",3 "'This is more than _I_ knew of him,' she said, giving it back.",2 "Clennam's looks expressed his heavy disappointment, perhaps his incredulity; for she added in the same unsympathetic tone: 'You don't believe it.",1 "Still, it is so.",2 As to personal communication: it seems that there was personal communication between him and your mother.,2 And yet you say you believe _her_ declaration that she knows no more of him!',2 "A sufficiently expressive hint of suspicion was conveyed in these words, and in the smile by which they were accompanied, to bring the blood into Clennam's cheeks.",3 "'Come, sir,' she said, with a cruel pleasure in repeating the stab, 'I will be as open with you as you can desire.",1 "I will confess that if I cared for my credit (which I do not), or had a good name to preserve (which I have not, for I am utterly indifferent to its being considered good or bad), I should regard myself as heavily compromised by having had anything to do with this fellow.",1 Yet he never passed in at _my_ door--never sat in colloquy with _me_ until midnight.',2 She took her revenge for her old grudge in thus turning his subject against him.,1 "Hers was not the nature to spare him, and she had no compunction.",2 "'That he is a low, mercenary wretch; that I first saw him prowling about Italy (where I was, not long ago), and that I hired him there, as the suitable instrument of a purpose I happened to have; I have no objection to tell you.",1 "In short, it was worth my while, for my own pleasure--the gratification of a strong feeling--to pay a spy who would fetch and carry for money.",4 I paid this creature.,2 "And I dare say that if I had wanted to make such a bargain, and if I could have paid him enough, and if he could have done it in the dark, free from all risk, he would have taken any life with as little scruple as he took my money.",3 "That, at least, is my opinion of him; and I see it is not very far removed from yours.",2 "Your mother's opinion of him, I am to assume (following your example of assuming this and that), was vastly different.'",2 "'My mother, let me remind you,' said Clennam, 'was first brought into communication with him in the unlucky course of business.'",1 "'It appears to have been an unlucky course of business that last brought her into communication with him,' returned Miss Wade; 'and business hours on that occasion were late.'",1 "'You imply,' said Arthur, smarting under these cool-handed thrusts, of which he had deeply felt the force already, 'that there was something--' 'Mr Clennam,' she composedly interrupted, 'recollect that I do not speak by implication about the man.",2 "He is, I say again without disguise, a low mercenary wretch.",1 I suppose such a creature goes where there is occasion for him.,2 "If I had not had occasion for him, you would not have seen him and me together.'",2 "Wrung by her persistence in keeping that dark side of the case before him, of which there was a half-hidden shadow in his own breast, Clennam was silent.",2 "'I have spoken of him as still living,' she added, 'but he may have been put out of the way for anything I know.",2 "For anything I care, also.",2 I have no further occasion for him.',2 "With a heavy sigh and a despondent air, Arthur Clennam slowly rose.",1 "She did not rise also, but said, having looked at him in the meanwhile with a fixed look of suspicion, and lips angrily compressed: 'He was the chosen associate of your dear friend, Mr Gowan, was he not?",1 Why don't you ask your dear friend to help you?',2 "The denial that he was a dear friend rose to Arthur's lips; but he repressed it, remembering his old struggles and resolutions, and said: 'Further than that he has never seen Blandois since Blandois set out for England, Mr Gowan knows nothing additional about him.",1 "He was a chance acquaintance, made abroad.'",2 'A chance acquaintance made abroad!',2 she repeated.,2 'Yes.,2 "Your dear friend has need to divert himself with all the acquaintances he can make, seeing what a wife he has.",2 "I hate his wife, sir.'",1 "The anger with which she said it, the more remarkable for being so much under her restraint, fixed Clennam's attention, and kept him on the spot.",2 "It flashed out of her dark eyes as they regarded him, quivered in her nostrils, and fired the very breath she exhaled; but her face was otherwise composed into a disdainful serenity; and her attitude was as calmly and haughtily graceful as if she had been in a mood of complete indifference.",1 "'All I will say is, Miss Wade,' he remarked, 'that you can have received no provocation to a feeling in which I believe you have no sharer.'",1 "'You may ask your dear friend, if you choose,' she returned, 'for his opinion upon that subject.'",2 "'I am scarcely on those intimate terms with my dear friend,' said Arthur, in spite of his resolutions, 'that would render my approaching the subject very probable, Miss Wade.'",1 "'I hate him,' she returned.",1 "'Worse than his wife, because I was once dupe enough, and false enough to myself, almost to love him.",2 "You have seen me, sir, only on common-place occasions, when I dare say you have thought me a common-place woman, a little more self-willed than the generality.",2 "You don't know what I mean by hating, if you know me no better than that; you can't know, without knowing with what care I have studied myself and people about me.",2 "For this reason I have for some time inclined to tell you what my life has been--not to propitiate your opinion, for I set no value on it; but that you may comprehend, when you think of your dear friend and his dear wife, what I mean by hating.",1 "Shall I give you something I have written and put by for your perusal, or shall I hold my hand?'",2 Arthur begged her to give it to him.,2 "She went to the bureau, unlocked it, and took from an inner drawer a few folded sheets of paper.",2 "Without any conciliation of him, scarcely addressing him, rather speaking as if she were speaking to her own looking-glass for the justification of her own stubbornness, she said, as she gave them to him: 'Now you may know what I mean by hating!",0 No more of that.,2 "Sir, whether you find me temporarily and cheaply lodging in an empty London house, or in a Calais apartment, you find Harriet with me.",1 You may like to see her before you leave.,3 "Harriet, come in!'",2 She called Harriet again.,2 "The second call produced Harriet, once Tattycoram.",2 "'Here is Mr Clennam,' said Miss Wade; 'not come for you; he has given you up,--I suppose you have, by this time?'",1 "'Having no authority, or influence--yes,' assented Clennam.",2 "'Not come in search of you, you see; but still seeking some one.",2 He wants that Blandois man.',2 "'With whom I saw you in the Strand in London,' hinted Arthur.",2 "'If you know anything of him, Harriet, except that he came from Venice--which we all know--tell it to Mr Clennam freely.'",2 "'I know nothing more about him,' said the girl.",2 'Are you satisfied?',3 Miss Wade inquired of Arthur.,1 "He had no reason to disbelieve them; the girl's manner being so natural as to be almost convincing, if he had had any previous doubts.",1 "He replied, 'I must seek for intelligence elsewhere.'",3 "He was not going in the same breath; but he had risen before the girl entered, and she evidently thought he was.",2 "She looked quickly at him, and said: 'Are they well, sir?'",3 'Who?',2 She stopped herself in saying what would have been 'all of them;' glanced at Miss Wade; and said 'Mr and Mrs Meagles.',1 "'They were, when I last heard of them.",2 They are not at home.,2 "By the way, let me ask you.",2 Is it true that you were seen there?',2 'Where?,2 Where does any one say I was seen?',2 "returned the girl, sullenly casting down her eyes.",2 'Looking in at the garden gate of the cottage.',2 "'No,' said Miss Wade.",1 'She has never been near it.',2 "'You are wrong, then,' said the girl.",1 'I went down there the last time we were in London.,2 I went one afternoon when you left me alone.,2 And I did look in.',2 "'You poor-spirited girl,' returned Miss Wade with infinite contempt; 'does all our companionship, do all our conversations, do all your old complainings, tell for so little as that?'",1 "'There was no harm in looking in at the gate for an instant,' said the girl.",1 'I saw by the windows that the family were not there.',2 'Why should you go near the place?',2 'Because I wanted to see it.,2 Because I felt that I should like to look at it again.',3 "As each of the two handsome faces looked at the other, Clennam felt how each of the two natures must be constantly tearing the other to pieces.",3 'Oh!',2 "said Miss Wade, coldly subduing and removing her glance; 'if you had any desire to see the place where you led the life from which I rescued you because you had found out what it was, that is another thing.",1 But is that your truth to me?,2 Is that your fidelity to me?,3 Is that the common cause I make with you?,2 You are not worth the confidence I have placed in you.,3 You are not worth the favour I have shown you.,3 "You are no higher than a spaniel, and had better go back to the people who did worse than whip you.'",2 "'If you speak so of them with any one else by to hear, you'll provoke me to take their part,' said the girl.",1 "'Go back to them,' Miss Wade retorted.",1 'Go back to them.',2 "'You know very well,' retorted Harriet in her turn, 'that I won't go back to them.",3 "You know very well that I have thrown them off, and never can, never shall, never will, go back to them.",3 "Let them alone, then, Miss Wade.'",1 "'You prefer their plenty to your less fat living here,' she rejoined.",2 "'You exalt them, and slight me.",3 What else should I have expected?,2 I ought to have known it.',2 "'It's not so,' said the girl, flushing high, 'and you don't say what you mean.",2 I know what you mean.,2 "You are reproaching me, underhanded, with having nobody but you to look to.",2 "And because I have nobody but you to look to, you think you are to make me do, or not do, everything you please, and are to put any affront upon me.",1 "You are as bad as they were, every bit.",1 "But I will not be quite tamed, and made submissive.",1 "I will say again that I went to look at the house, because I had often thought that I should like to see it once more.",3 "I will ask again how they are, because I once liked them and at times thought they were kind to me.'",3 "Hereupon Clennam said that he was sure they would still receive her kindly, if she should ever desire to return.",3 'Never!',2 said the girl passionately.,3 'I shall never do that.,2 "Nobody knows that better than Miss Wade, though she taunts me because she has made me her dependent.",1 And I know I am so; and I know she is overjoyed when she can bring it to my mind.',3 'A good pretence!',2 "said Miss Wade, with no less anger, haughtiness, and bitterness; 'but too threadbare to cover what I plainly see in this.",0 My poverty will not bear competition with their money.,1 "Better go back at once, better go back at once, and have done with it!'",3 "Arthur Clennam looked at them, standing a little distance asunder in the dull confined room, each proudly cherishing her own anger; each, with a fixed determination, torturing her own breast, and torturing the other's.",0 "He said a word or two of leave-taking; but Miss Wade barely inclined her head, and Harriet, with the assumed humiliation of an abject dependent and serf (but not without defiance for all that), made as if she were too low to notice or to be noticed.",0 "He came down the dark winding stairs into the yard with an increased sense upon him of the gloom of the wall that was dead, and of the shrubs that were dead, and of the fountain that was dry, and of the statue that was gone.",0 "Pondering much on what he had seen and heard in that house, as well as on the failure of all his efforts to trace the suspicious character who was lost, he returned to London and to England by the packet that had taken him over.",1 "On the way he unfolded the sheets of paper, and read in them what is reproduced in the next chapter.",2 I have the misfortune of not being a fool.,1 From a very early age I have detected what those about me thought they hid from me.,2 "If I could have been habitually imposed upon, instead of habitually discerning the truth, I might have lived as smoothly as most fools do.",3 "My childhood was passed with a grandmother; that is to say, with a lady who represented that relative to me, and who took that title on herself.",2 "She had no claim to it, but I--being to that extent a little fool--had no suspicion of her.",1 "She had some children of her own family in her house, and some children of other people.",2 "All girls; ten in number, including me.",2 We all lived together and were educated together.,3 I must have been about twelve years old when I began to see how determinedly those girls patronised me.,2 I was told I was an orphan.,1 "There was no other orphan among us; and I perceived (here was the first disadvantage of not being a fool) that they conciliated me in an insolent pity, and in a sense of superiority.",0 "I did not set this down as a discovery, rashly.",2 I tried them often.,2 I could hardly make them quarrel with me.,1 "When I succeeded with any of them, they were sure to come after an hour or two, and begin a reconciliation.",3 "I tried them over and over again, and I never knew them wait for me to begin.",2 "They were always forgiving me, in their vanity and condescension.",1 Little images of grown people!,2 One of them was my chosen friend.,2 "I loved that stupid mite in a passionate way that she could no more deserve than I can remember without feeling ashamed of, though I was but a child.",2 "She had what they called an amiable temper, an affectionate temper.",3 "She could distribute, and did distribute pretty looks and smiles to every one among them.",3 "I believe there was not a soul in the place, except myself, who knew that she did it purposely to wound and gall me!",1 "Nevertheless, I so loved that unworthy girl that my life was made stormy by my fondness for her.",2 I was constantly lectured and disgraced for what was called 'trying her;' in other words charging her with her little perfidy and throwing her into tears by showing her that I read her heart.,1 "However, I loved her faithfully; and one time I went home with her for the holidays.",3 She was worse at home than she had been at school.,1 "She had a crowd of cousins and acquaintances, and we had dances at her house, and went out to dances at other houses, and, both at home and out, she tormented my love beyond endurance.",2 "Her plan was, to make them all fond of her--and so drive me wild with jealousy.",1 To be familiar and endearing with them all--and so make me mad with envying them.,2 "When we were left alone in our bedroom at night, I would reproach her with my perfect knowledge of her baseness; and then she would cry and cry and say I was cruel, and then I would hold her in my arms till morning: loving her as much as ever, and often feeling as if, rather than suffer so, I could so hold her in my arms and plunge to the bottom of a river--where I would still hold her after we were both dead.",0 "It came to an end, and I was relieved.",2 In the family there was an aunt who was not fond of me.,3 "I doubt if any of the family liked me much; but I never wanted them to like me, being altogether bound up in the one girl.",3 "The aunt was a young woman, and she had a serious way with her eyes of watching me.",2 "She was an audacious woman, and openly looked compassionately at me.",2 "After one of the nights that I have spoken of, I came down into a greenhouse before breakfast.",2 "Charlotte (the name of my false young friend) had gone down before me, and I heard this aunt speaking to her about me as I entered.",1 "I stopped where I was, among the leaves, and listened.",2 "The aunt said, 'Charlotte, Miss Wade is wearing you to death, and this must not continue.'",1 I repeat the very words I heard.,2 "Now, what did she answer?",2 "Did she say, 'It is I who am wearing her to death, I who am keeping her on a rack and am the executioner, yet she tells me every night that she loves me devotedly, though she knows what I make her undergo?'",2 "No; my first memorable experience was true to what I knew her to be, and to all my experience.",3 "She began sobbing and weeping (to secure the aunt's sympathy to herself), and said, 'Dear aunt, she has an unhappy temper; other girls at school, besides I, try hard to make it better; we all try hard.'",1 "Upon that the aunt fondled her, as if she had said something noble instead of despicable and false, and kept up the infamous pretence by replying, 'But there are reasonable limits, my dear love, to everything, and I see that this poor miserable girl causes you more constant and useless distress than even so good an effort justifies.'",0 "The poor miserable girl came out of her concealment, as you may be prepared to hear, and said, 'Send me home.'",1 "I never said another word to either of them, or to any of them, but 'Send me home, or I will walk home alone, night and day!'",2 "When I got home, I told my supposed grandmother that, unless I was sent away to finish my education somewhere else before that girl came back, or before any one of them came back, I would burn my sight away by throwing myself into the fire, rather than I would endure to look at their plotting faces.",1 "I went among young women next, and I found them no better.",3 "Fair words and fair pretences; but I penetrated below those assertions of themselves and depreciations of me, and they were no better.",3 "Before I left them, I learned that I had no grandmother and no recognised relation.",2 I carried the light of that information both into my past and into my future.,2 "It showed me many new occasions on which people triumphed over me, when they made a pretence of treating me with consideration, or doing me a service.",1 A man of business had a small property in trust for me.,3 "I was to be a governess; I became a governess; and went into the family of a poor nobleman, where there were two daughters--little children, but the parents wished them to grow up, if possible, under one instructress.",1 The mother was young and pretty.,3 "From the first, she made a show of behaving to me with great delicacy.",3 "I kept my resentment to myself; but I knew very well that it was her way of petting the knowledge that she was my Mistress, and might have behaved differently to her servant if it had been her fancy.",2 "I say I did not resent it, nor did I; but I showed her, by not gratifying her, that I understood her.",2 "When she pressed me to take wine, I took water.",2 "If there happened to be anything choice at table, she always sent it to me: but I always declined it, and ate of the rejected dishes.",1 "These disappointments of her patronage were a sharp retort, and made me feel independent.",2 I liked the children.,3 "They were timid, but on the whole disposed to attach themselves to me.",1 "There was a nurse, however, in the house, a rosy-faced woman always making an obtrusive pretence of being gay and good-humoured, who had nursed them both, and who had secured their affections before I saw them.",2 I could almost have settled down to my fate but for this woman.,2 "Her artful devices for keeping herself before the children in constant competition with me, might have blinded many in my place; but I saw through them from the first.",2 "On the pretext of arranging my rooms and waiting on me and taking care of my wardrobe (all of which she did busily), she was never absent.",2 The most crafty of her many subtleties was her feint of seeking to make the children fonder of me.,1 She would lead them to me and coax them to me.,3 "'Come to good Miss Wade, come to dear Miss Wade, come to pretty Miss Wade.",3 She loves you very much.,3 "Miss Wade is a clever lady, who has read heaps of books, and can tell you far better and more interesting stories than I know.",3 Come and hear Miss Wade!',1 "How could I engage their attentions, when my heart was burning against these ignorant designs?",1 "How could I wonder, when I saw their innocent faces shrinking away, and their arms twining round her neck, instead of mine?",3 "Then she would look up at me, shaking their curls from her face, and say, 'They'll come round soon, Miss Wade; they're very simple and loving, ma'am; don't be at all cast down about it, ma'am'--exulting over me!",2 There was another thing the woman did.,2 "At times, when she saw that she had safely plunged me into a black despondent brooding by these means, she would call the attention of the children to it, and would show them the difference between herself and me.",2 'Hush!,2 Poor Miss Wade is not well.,1 "Don't make a noise, my dears, her head aches.",1 Come and comfort her.,3 Come and ask her if she is better; come and ask her to lie down.,2 "I hope you have nothing on your mind, ma'am.",2 "Don't take on, ma'am, and be sorry!'",1 It became intolerable.,1 "Her ladyship, my Mistress, coming in one day when I was alone, and at the height of feeling that I could support it no longer, I told her I must go.",2 I could not bear the presence of that woman Dawes.,2 'Miss Wade!,2 Poor Dawes is devoted to you; would do anything for you!',1 "I knew beforehand she would say so; I was quite prepared for it; I only answered, it was not for me to contradict my Mistress; I must go.",1 "'I hope, Miss Wade,' she returned, instantly assuming the tone of superiority she had always so thinly concealed, 'that nothing I have ever said or done since we have been together, has justified your use of that disagreeable word, ""Mistress.""",1 It must have been wholly inadvertent on my part.,2 Pray tell me what it is.',2 "I replied that I had no complaint to make, either of my Mistress or to my Mistress; but I must go.",1 "She hesitated a moment, and then sat down beside me, and laid her hand on mine.",2 As if that honour would obliterate any remembrance!,1 "'Miss Wade, I fear you are unhappy, through causes over which I have no influence.'",1 "I smiled, thinking of the experience the word awakened, and said, 'I have an unhappy temper, I suppose.'",1 'I did not say that.',2 "'It is an easy way of accounting for anything,' said I. 'It may be; but I did not say so.",3 What I wish to approach is something very different.,2 "My husband and I have exchanged some remarks upon the subject, when we have observed with pain that you have not been easy with us.'",2 'Easy?,2 Oh!,2 "You are such great people, my lady,' said I. 'I am unfortunate in using a word which may convey a meaning--and evidently does--quite opposite to my intention.'",2 "(She had not expected my reply, and it shamed her.) 'I only mean, not happy with us.",3 "It is a difficult topic to enter on; but, from one young woman to another, perhaps--in short, we have been apprehensive that you may allow some family circumstances of which no one can be more innocent than yourself, to prey upon your spirits.",1 "If so, let us entreat you not to make them a cause of grief.",1 "My husband himself, as is well known, formerly had a very dear sister who was not in law his sister, but who was universally beloved and respected--' I saw directly that they had taken me in for the sake of the dead woman, whoever she was, and to have that boast of me and advantage of me; I saw, in the nurse's knowledge of it, an encouragement to goad me as she had done; and I saw, in the children's shrinking away, a vague impression, that I was not like other people.",3 I left that house that night.,2 "After one or two short and very similar experiences, which are not to the present purpose, I entered another family where I had but one pupil: a girl of fifteen, who was the only daughter.",2 "The parents here were elderly people: people of station, and rich.",3 "A nephew whom they had brought up was a frequent visitor at the house, among many other visitors; and he began to pay me attention.",2 "I was resolute in repulsing him; for I had determined when I went there, that no one should pity me or condescend to me.",1 But he wrote me a letter.,2 It led to our being engaged to be married.,3 "He was a year younger than I, and young-looking even when that allowance was made.",2 "He was on absence from India, where he had a post that was soon to grow into a very good one.",2 "In six months we were to be married, and were to go to India.",2 "I was to stay in the house, and was to be married from the house.",2 Nobody objected to any part of the plan.,2 "I cannot avoid saying he admired me; but, if I could, I would.",2 "Vanity has nothing to do with the declaration, for his admiration worried me.",1 "He took no pains to hide it; and caused me to feel among the rich people as if he had bought me for my looks, and made a show of his purchase to justify himself.",2 "They appraised me in their own minds, I saw, and were curious to ascertain what my full value was.",2 I resolved that they should not know.,2 I was immovable and silent before them; and would have suffered any one of them to kill me sooner than I would have laid myself out to bespeak their approval.,1 He told me I did not do myself justice.,2 "I told him I did, and it was because I did and meant to do so to the last, that I would not stoop to propitiate any of them.",2 "He was concerned and even shocked, when I added that I wished he would not parade his attachment before them; but he said he would sacrifice even the honest impulses of his affection to my peace.",3 Under that pretence he began to retort upon me.,1 "By the hour together, he would keep at a distance from me, talking to any one rather than to me.",2 "I have sat alone and unnoticed, half an evening, while he conversed with his young cousin, my pupil.",1 "I have seen all the while, in people's eyes, that they thought the two looked nearer on an equality than he and I. I have sat, divining their thoughts, until I have felt that his young appearance made me ridiculous, and have raged against myself for ever loving him.",2 For I did love him once.,3 "Undeserving as he was, and little as he thought of all these agonies that it cost me--agonies which should have made him wholly and gratefully mine to his life's end--I loved him.",3 "I bore with his cousin's praising him to my face, and with her pretending to think that it pleased me, but full well knowing that it rankled in my breast; for his sake.",3 "While I have sat in his presence recalling all my slights and wrongs, and deliberating whether I should not fly from the house at once and never see him again--I have loved him.",3 "His aunt (my Mistress you will please to remember) deliberately, wilfully, added to my trials and vexations.",1 "It was her delight to expatiate on the style in which we were to live in India, and on the establishment we should keep, and the company we should entertain when he got his advancement.",3 My pride rose against this barefaced way of pointing out the contrast my married life was to present to my then dependent and inferior position.,2 "I suppressed my indignation; but I showed her that her intention was not lost upon me, and I repaid her annoyance by affecting humility.",1 "What she described would surely be a great deal too much honour for me, I would tell her.",3 I was afraid I might not be able to support so great a change.,3 "Think of a mere governess, her daughter's governess, coming to that high distinction!",3 "It made her uneasy, and made them all uneasy, when I answered in this way.",1 They knew that I fully understood her.,2 "It was at the time when my troubles were at their highest, and when I was most incensed against my lover for his ingratitude in caring as little as he did for the innumerable distresses and mortifications I underwent on his account, that your dear friend, Mr Gowan, appeared at the house.",1 "He had been intimate there for a long time, but had been abroad.",3 "He understood the state of things at a glance, and he understood me.",2 He was the first person I had ever seen in my life who had understood me.,2 He was not in the house three times before I knew that he accompanied every movement of my mind.,2 "In his coldly easy way with all of them, and with me, and with the whole subject, I saw it clearly.",3 "In his light protestations of admiration of my future husband, in his enthusiasm regarding our engagement and our prospects, in his hopeful congratulations on our future wealth and his despondent references to his own poverty--all equally hollow, and jesting, and full of mockery--I saw it clearly.",3 "He made me feel more and more resentful, and more and more contemptible, by always presenting to me everything that surrounded me with some new hateful light upon it, while he pretended to exhibit it in its best aspect for my admiration and his own.",1 "He was like the dressed-up Death in the Dutch series; whatever figure he took upon his arm, whether it was youth or age, beauty or ugliness, whether he danced with it, sang with it, played with it, or prayed with it, he made it ghastly.",1 "You will understand, then, that when your dear friend complimented me, he really condoled with me; that when he soothed me under my vexations, he laid bare every smarting wound I had; that when he declared my 'faithful swain' to be 'the most loving young fellow in the world, with the tenderest heart that ever beat,' he touched my old misgiving that I was made ridiculous.",1 "These were not great services, you may say.",3 "They were acceptable to me, because they echoed my own mind, and confirmed my own knowledge.",2 I soon began to like the society of your dear friend better than any other.,3 "When I perceived (which I did, almost as soon) that jealousy was growing out of this, I liked this society still better.",3 "Had I not been subject to jealousy, and were the endurances to be all mine?",1 No.,2 Let him know what it was!,2 "I was delighted that he should know it; I was delighted that he should feel keenly, and I hoped he did.",3 More than that.,2 "He was tame in comparison with Mr Gowan, who knew how to address me on equal terms, and how to anatomise the wretched people around us.",1 "This went on, until the aunt, my Mistress, took it upon herself to speak to me.",1 "It was scarcely worth alluding to; she knew I meant nothing; but she suggested from herself, knowing it was only necessary to suggest, that it might be better if I were a little less companionable with Mr Gowan.",3 I asked her how she could answer for what I meant?,2 "She could always answer, she replied, for my meaning nothing wrong.",1 "I thanked her, but said I would prefer to answer for myself and to myself.",3 "Her other servants would probably be grateful for good characters, but I wanted none.",3 "Other conversation followed, and induced me to ask her how she knew that it was only necessary for her to make a suggestion to me, to have it obeyed?",2 "Did she presume on my birth, or on my hire?",2 "I was not bought, body and soul.",2 She seemed to think that her distinguished nephew had gone into a slave-market and purchased a wife.,2 "It would probably have come, sooner or later, to the end to which it did come, but she brought it to its issue at once.",1 "She told me, with assumed commiseration, that I had an unhappy temper.",1 "On this repetition of the old wicked injury, I withheld no longer, but exposed to her all I had known of her and seen in her, and all I had undergone within myself since I had occupied the despicable position of being engaged to her nephew.",0 "I told her that Mr Gowan was the only relief I had had in my degradation; that I had borne it too long, and that I shook it off too late; but that I would see none of them more.",2 And I never did.,2 "Your dear friend followed me to my retreat, and was very droll on the severance of the connection; though he was sorry, too, for the excellent people (in their way the best he had ever met), and deplored the necessity of breaking mere house-flies on the wheel.",1 "He protested before long, and far more truly than I then supposed, that he was not worth acceptance by a woman of such endowments, and such power of character; but--well, well--!",3 "Your dear friend amused me and amused himself as long as it suited his inclinations; and then reminded me that we were both people of the world, that we both understood mankind, that we both knew there was no such thing as romance, that we were both prepared for going different ways to seek our fortunes like people of sense, and that we both foresaw that whenever we encountered one another again we should meet as the best friends on earth.",3 "So he said, and I did not contradict him.",1 "It was not very long before I found that he was courting his present wife, and that she had been taken away to be out of his reach.",2 "I hated her then, quite as much as I hate her now; and naturally, therefore, could desire nothing better than that she should marry him.",1 But I was restlessly curious to look at her--so curious that I felt it to be one of the few sources of entertainment left to me.,2 "I travelled a little: travelled until I found myself in her society, and in yours.",2 "Your dear friend, I think, was not known to you then, and had not given you any of those signal marks of his friendship which he has bestowed upon you.",2 "In that company I found a girl, in various circumstances of whose position there was a singular likeness to my own, and in whose character I was interested and pleased to see much of the rising against swollen patronage and selfishness, calling themselves kindness, protection, benevolence, and other fine names, which I have described as inherent in my nature.",4 "I often heard it said, too, that she had 'an unhappy temper.'",1 "Well understanding what was meant by the convenient phrase, and wanting a companion with a knowledge of what I knew, I thought I would try to release the girl from her bondage and sense of injustice.",2 I have no occasion to relate that I succeeded.,3 "We have been together ever since, sharing my small means.",2 Arthur Clennam had made his unavailing expedition to Calais in the midst of a great pressure of business.,3 "A certain barbaric Power with valuable possessions on the map of the world, had occasion for the services of one or two engineers, quick in invention and determined in execution: practical men, who could make the men and means their ingenuity perceived to be wanted out of the best materials they could find at hand; and who were as bold and fertile in the adaptation of such materials to their purpose, as in the conception of their purpose itself.",4 "This Power, being a barbaric one, had no idea of stowing away a great national object in a Circumlocution Office, as strong wine is hidden from the light in a cellar until its fire and youth are gone, and the labourers who worked in the vineyard and pressed the grapes are dust.",2 "With characteristic ignorance, it acted on the most decided and energetic notions of How to do it; and never showed the least respect for, or gave any quarter to, the great political science, How not to do it.",3 "Indeed it had a barbarous way of striking the latter art and mystery dead, in the person of any enlightened subject who practised it.",1 "Accordingly, the men who were wanted were sought out and found; which was in itself a most uncivilised and irregular way of proceeding.",1 "Being found, they were treated with great confidence and honour (which again showed dense political ignorance), and were invited to come at once and do what they had to do.",2 "In short, they were regarded as men who meant to do it, engaging with other men who meant it to be done.",3 Daniel Doyce was one of the chosen.,2 There was no foreseeing at that time whether he would be absent months or years.,2 "The preparations for his departure, and the conscientious arrangement for him of all the details and results of their joint business, had necessitated labour within a short compass of time, which had occupied Clennam day and night.",3 "He had slipped across the water in his first leisure, and had slipped as quickly back again for his farewell interview with Doyce.",2 "Him Arthur now showed, with pains and care, the state of their gains and losses, responsibilities and prospects.",1 "Daniel went through it all in his patient manner, and admired it all exceedingly.",3 "He audited the accounts, as if they were a far more ingenious piece of mechanism than he had ever constructed, and afterwards stood looking at them, weighing his hat over his head by the brims, as if he were absorbed in the contemplation of some wonderful engine.",3 "'It's all beautiful, Clennam, in its regularity and order.",3 Nothing can be plainer.,2 Nothing can be better.',3 "'I am glad you approve, Doyce.",3 "Now, as to the management of your capital while you are away, and as to the conversion of so much of it as the business may need from time to time--' His partner stopped him.",2 "'As to that, and as to everything else of that kind, all rests with you.",2 "You will continue in all such matters to act for both of us, as you have done hitherto, and to lighten my mind of a load it is much relieved from.'",2 "'Though, as I often tell you,' returned Clennam, 'you unreasonably depreciate your business qualities.'",1 "'Perhaps so,' said Doyce, smiling.",3 'And perhaps not.,2 "Anyhow, I have a calling that I have studied more than such matters, and that I am better fitted for.",3 "I have perfect confidence in my partner, and I am satisfied that he will do what is best.",4 "If I have a prejudice connected with money and money figures,' continued Doyce, laying that plastic workman's thumb of his on the lapel of his partner's coat, 'it is against speculating.",1 I don't think I have any other.,2 "I dare say I entertain that prejudice, only because I have never given my mind fully to the subject.'",2 "'But you shouldn't call it a prejudice,' said Clennam.",1 "'My dear Doyce, it is the soundest sense.'",2 "'I am glad you think so,' returned Doyce, with his grey eye looking kind and bright.",3 "'It so happens,' said Clennam, 'that just now, not half an hour before you came down, I was saying the same thing to Pancks, who looked in here.",2 "We both agreed that to travel out of safe investments is one of the most dangerous, as it is one of the most common, of those follies which often deserve the name of vices.'",2 'Pancks?',2 "said Doyce, tilting up his hat at the back, and nodding with an air of confidence.",3 "'Aye, aye, aye!",2 That's a cautious fellow.',2 "'He is a very cautious fellow indeed,' returned Arthur.",2 'Quite a specimen of caution.',2 "They both appeared to derive a larger amount of satisfaction from the cautious character of Mr Pancks, than was quite intelligible, judged by the surface of their conversation.",3 "'And now,' said Daniel, looking at his watch, 'as time and tide wait for no man, my trusty partner, and as I am ready for starting, bag and baggage, at the gate below, let me say a last word.",3 I want you to grant a request of mine.',2 "'Any request you can make--Except,' Clennam was quick with his exception, for his partner's face was quick in suggesting it, 'except that I will abandon your invention.'",2 "'That's the request, and you know it is,' said Doyce.",2 "'I say, No, then.",2 "I say positively, No.",3 "Now that I have begun, I will have some definite reason, some responsible statement, something in the nature of a real answer, from those people.'",2 "'You will not,' returned Doyce, shaking his head.",2 "'Take my word for it, you never will.'",2 "'At least, I'll try,' said Clennam.",2 'It will do me no harm to try.',1 "'I am not certain of that,' rejoined Doyce, laying his hand persuasively on his shoulder.",2 "'It has done me harm, my friend.",1 "It has aged me, tired me, vexed me, disappointed me.",1 "It does no man any good to have his patience worn out, and to think himself ill-used.",3 "I fancy, even already, that unavailing attendance on delays and evasions has made you something less elastic than you used to be.'",2 "'Private anxieties may have done that for the moment,' said Clennam, 'but not official harrying.",1 Not yet.,2 I am not hurt yet.',1 'Then you won't grant my request?',2 "'Decidedly, No,' said Clennam.",2 "'I should be ashamed if I submitted to be so soon driven out of the field, where a much older and a much more sensitively interested man contended with fortitude so long.'",2 "As there was no moving him, Daniel Doyce returned the grasp of his hand, and, casting a farewell look round the counting-house, went down-stairs with him.",2 "Doyce was to go to Southampton to join the small staff of his fellow-travellers; and a coach was at the gate, well furnished and packed, and ready to take him there.",3 "The workmen were at the gate to see him off, and were mightily proud of him.",3 "'Good luck to you, Mr Doyce!'",3 said one of the number.,2 "'Wherever you go, they'll find as they've got a man among 'em, a man as knows his tools and as his tools knows, a man as is willing and a man as is able, and if that's not a man, where is a man!'",3 "This oration from a gruff volunteer in the back-ground, not previously suspected of any powers in that way, was received with three loud cheers; and the speaker became a distinguished character for ever afterwards.",1 "In the midst of the three loud cheers, Daniel gave them all a hearty 'Good Bye, Men!'",1 "and the coach disappeared from sight, as if the concussion of the air had blown it out of Bleeding Heart Yard.",1 "Mr Baptist, as a grateful little fellow in a position of trust, was among the workmen, and had done as much towards the cheering as a mere foreigner could.",3 "In truth, no men on earth can cheer like Englishmen, who do so rally one another's blood and spirit when they cheer in earnest, that the stir is like the rush of their whole history, with all its standards waving at once, from Saxon Alfred's downwards.",4 "Mr Baptist had been in a manner whirled away before the onset, and was taking his breath in quite a scared condition when Clennam beckoned him to follow up-stairs, and return the books and papers to their places.",2 "In the lull consequent on the departure--in that first vacuity which ensues on every separation, foreshadowing the great separation that is always overhanging all mankind--Arthur stood at his desk, looking dreamily out at a gleam of sun.",2 "But his liberated attention soon reverted to the theme that was foremost in his thoughts, and began, for the hundredth time, to dwell upon every circumstance that had impressed itself upon his mind on the mysterious night when he had seen the man at his mother's.",3 "Again the man jostled him in the crooked street, again he followed the man and lost him, again he came upon the man in the court-yard looking at the house, again he followed the man and stood beside him on the door-steps.",1 'Who passes by this road so late?,2 Compagnon de la Majolaine; Who passes by this road so late?,2 Always gay!',2 "It was not the first time, by many, that he had recalled the song of the child's game, of which the fellow had hummed this verse while they stood side by side; but he was so unconscious of having repeated it audibly, that he started to hear the next verse.",3 "'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, Compagnon de la Majolaine; Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, Always gay!'",2 "Cavalletto had deferentially suggested the words and tune, supposing him to have stopped short for want of more.",2 'Ah!,2 "You know the song, Cavalletto?'",2 "'By Bacchus, yes, sir!",2 They all know it in France.,2 "I have heard it many times, sung by the little children.",2 "The last time when it I have heard,' said Mr Baptist, formerly Cavalletto, who usually went back to his native construction of sentences when his memory went near home, 'is from a sweet little voice.",3 "A little voice, very pretty, very innocent.",3 Altro!',2 "'The last time I heard it,' returned Arthur, 'was in a voice quite the reverse of pretty, and quite the reverse of innocent.'",3 "He said it more to himself than to his companion, and added to himself, repeating the man's next words.",2 "'Death of my life, sir, it's my character to be impatient!'",1 'EH!',2 "cried Cavalletto, astounded, and with all his colour gone in a moment.",3 'What is the matter?',2 'Sir!,2 You know where I have heard that song the last time?',2 "With his rapid native action, his hands made the outline of a high hook nose, pushed his eyes near together, dishevelled his hair, puffed out his upper lip to represent a thick moustache, and threw the heavy end of an ideal cloak over his shoulder.",3 "While doing this, with a swiftness incredible to one who has not watched an Italian peasant, he indicated a very remarkable and sinister smile.",4 "The whole change passed over him like a flash of light, and he stood in the same instant, pale and astonished, before his patron.",3 "'In the name of Fate and wonder,' said Clennam, 'what do you mean?",3 Do you know a man of the name of Blandois?',2 'No!',2 "said Mr Baptist, shaking his head.",2 'You have just now described a man who was by when you heard that song; have you not?',2 'Yes!',2 "said Mr Baptist, nodding fifty times.",2 'And was he not called Blandois?',2 'No!',2 said Mr Baptist.,2 "'Altro, Altro, Altro, Altro!'",2 "He could not reject the name sufficiently, with his head and his right forefinger going at once.",3 'Stay!',2 "cried Clennam, spreading out the handbill on his desk.",2 'Was this the man?,2 You can understand what I read aloud?',2 'Altogether.,2 Perfectly.',3 "'But look at it, too.",2 "Come here and look over me, while I read.'",2 "Mr Baptist approached, followed every word with his quick eyes, saw and heard it all out with the greatest impatience, then clapped his two hands flat upon the bill as if he had fiercely caught some noxious creature, and cried, looking eagerly at Clennam, 'It is the man!",2 Behold him!',2 "'This is of far greater moment to me' said Clennam, in great agitation, 'than you can imagine.",3 Tell me where you knew the man.',2 "Mr Baptist, releasing the paper very slowly and with much discomfiture, and drawing himself back two or three paces, and making as though he dusted his hands, returned, very much against his will: 'At Marsiglia--Marseilles.'",1 'What was he?',2 "'A prisoner, and--Altro!",1 "I believe yes!--an,' Mr Baptist crept closer again to whisper it, 'Assassin!'",1 Clennam fell back as if the word had struck him a blow: so terrible did it make his mother's communication with the man appear.,0 "Cavalletto dropped on one knee, and implored him, with a redundancy of gesticulation, to hear what had brought himself into such foul company.",1 "He told with perfect truth how it had come of a little contraband trading, and how he had in time been released from prison, and how he had gone away from those antecedents.",2 "How, at the house of entertainment called the Break of Day at Chalons on the Saone, he had been awakened in his bed at night by the same assassin, then assuming the name of Lagnier, though his name had formerly been Rigaud; how the assassin had proposed that they should join their fortunes together; how he held the assassin in such dread and aversion that he had fled from him at daylight, and how he had ever since been haunted by the fear of seeing the assassin again and being claimed by him as an acquaintance.",0 "When he had related this, with an emphasis and poise on the word, 'assassin,' peculiarly belonging to his own language, and which did not serve to render it less terrible to Clennam, he suddenly sprang to his feet, pounced upon the bill again, and with a vehemence that would have been absolute madness in any man of Northern origin, cried 'Behold the same assassin!",0 Here he is!',2 "In his passionate raptures, he at first forgot the fact that he had lately seen the assassin in London.",2 "On his remembering it, it suggested hope to Clennam that the recognition might be of later date than the night of the visit at his mother's; but Cavalletto was too exact and clear about time and place, to leave any opening for doubt that it had preceded that occasion.",2 "'Listen,' said Arthur, very seriously.",2 "'This man, as we have read here, has wholly disappeared.'",2 'Of it I am well content!',3 "said Cavalletto, raising his eyes piously.",2 'A thousand thanks to Heaven!,3 Accursed assassin!',1 "'Not so,' returned Clennam; 'for until something more is heard of him, I can never know an hour's peace.'",3 "'Enough, Benefactor; that is quite another thing.",3 A million of excuses!',1 "'Now, Cavalletto,' said Clennam, gently turning him by the arm, so that they looked into each other's eyes.",2 "'I am certain that for the little I have been able to do for you, you are the most sincerely grateful of men.'",3 'I swear it!',2 cried the other.,2 'I know it.,2 "If you could find this man, or discover what has become of him, or gain any later intelligence whatever of him, you would render me a service above any other service I could receive in the world, and would make me (with far greater reason) as grateful to you as you are to me.'",4 "'I know not where to look,' cried the little man, kissing Arthur's hand in a transport.",2 'I know not where to begin.,2 I know not where to go.,2 "But, courage!",3 Enough!,3 It matters not!,2 "I go, in this instant of time!'",2 "'Not a word to any one but me, Cavalletto.'",2 'Al-tro!',2 cried Cavalletto.,2 And was gone with great speed.,3 "Left alone, with the expressive looks and gestures of Mr Baptist, otherwise Giovanni Baptista Cavalletto, vividly before him, Clennam entered on a weary day.",1 "It was in vain that he tried to control his attention by directing it to any business occupation or train of thought; it rode at anchor by the haunting topic, and would hold to no other idea.",1 "As though a criminal should be chained in a stationary boat on a deep clear river, condemned, whatever countless leagues of water flowed past him, always to see the body of the fellow-creature he had drowned lying at the bottom, immovable, and unchangeable, except as the eddies made it broad or long, now expanding, now contracting its terrible lineaments; so Arthur, below the shifting current of transparent thoughts and fancies which were gone and succeeded by others as soon as come, saw, steady and dark, and not to be stirred from its place, the one subject that he endeavoured with all his might to rid himself of, and that he could not fly from.",1 "The assurance he now had, that Blandois, whatever his right name, was one of the worst of characters, greatly augmented the burden of his anxieties.",1 "Though the disappearance should be accounted for to-morrow, the fact that his mother had been in communication with such a man, would remain unalterable.",2 "That the communication had been of a secret kind, and that she had been submissive to him and afraid of him, he hoped might be known to no one beyond himself; yet, knowing it, how could he separate it from his old vague fears, and how believe that there was nothing evil in such relations?",0 "Her resolution not to enter on the question with him, and his knowledge of her indomitable character, enhanced his sense of helplessness.",2 "It was like the oppression of a dream to believe that shame and exposure were impending over her and his father's memory, and to be shut out, as by a brazen wall, from the possibility of coming to their aid.",0 "The purpose he had brought home to his native country, and had ever since kept in view, was, with her greatest determination, defeated by his mother herself, at the time of all others when he feared that it pressed most.",3 "His advice, energy, activity, money, credit, all his resources whatsoever, were all made useless.",1 "If she had been possessed of the old fabled influence, and had turned those who looked upon her into stone, she could not have rendered him more completely powerless (so it seemed to him in his distress of mind) than she did, when she turned her unyielding face to his in her gloomy room.",0 "But the light of that day's discovery, shining on these considerations, roused him to take a more decided course of action.",2 "Confident in the rectitude of his purpose, and impelled by a sense of overhanging danger closing in around, he resolved, if his mother would still admit of no approach, to make a desperate appeal to Affery.",2 "If she could be brought to become communicative, and to do what lay in her to break the spell of secrecy that enshrouded the house, he might shake off the paralysis of which every hour that passed over his head made him more acutely sensible.",1 "This was the result of his day's anxiety, and this was the decision he put in practice when the day closed in.",1 "His first disappointment, on arriving at the house, was to find the door open, and Mr Flintwinch smoking a pipe on the steps.",1 "If circumstances had been commonly favourable, Mistress Affery would have opened the door to his knock.",1 "Circumstances being uncommonly unfavourable, the door stood open, and Mr Flintwinch was smoking his pipe on the steps.",2 "'Good evening,' said Arthur.",2 "'Good evening,' said Mr Flintwinch.",2 "The smoke came crookedly out of Mr Flintwinch's mouth, as if it circulated through the whole of his wry figure and came back by his wry throat, before coming forth to mingle with the smoke from the crooked chimneys and the mists from the crooked river.",0 'Have you any news?',2 said Arthur.,2 "'We have no news,' said Jeremiah.",2 "'I mean of the foreign man,' Arthur explained.",2 "'_I_ mean of the foreign man,' said Jeremiah.",2 "He looked so grim, as he stood askew, with the knot of his cravat under his ear, that the thought passed into Clennam's mind, and not for the first time by many, could Flintwinch for a purpose of his own have got rid of Blandois?",1 "Could it have been his secret, and his safety, that were at issue?",1 "He was small and bent, and perhaps not actively strong; yet he was as tough as an old yew-tree, and as crusty as an old jackdaw.",3 "Such a man, coming behind a much younger and more vigorous man, and having the will to put an end to him and no relenting, might do it pretty surely in that solitary place at a late hour.",3 "While, in the morbid condition of his thoughts, these thoughts drifted over the main one that was always in Clennam's mind, Mr Flintwinch, regarding the opposite house over the gateway with his neck twisted and one eye shut up, stood smoking with a vicious expression upon him; more as if he were trying to bite off the stem of his pipe, than as if he were enjoying it.",1 Yet he was enjoying it in his own way.,3 "'You'll be able to take my likeness, the next time you call, Arthur, I should think,' said Mr Flintwinch, drily, as he stooped to knock the ashes out.",1 "Rather conscious and confused, Arthur asked his pardon, if he had stared at him unpolitely.",2 "'But my mind runs so much upon this matter,' he said, 'that I lose myself.'",1 'Hah!,2 "Yet I don't see,' returned Mr Flintwinch, quite at his leisure, 'why it should trouble _you_, Arthur.'",1 'No?',2 "'No,' said Mr Flintwinch, very shortly and decidedly: much as if he were of the canine race, and snapped at Arthur's hand.",2 'Is it nothing to see those placards about?,2 Is it nothing to me to see my mother's name and residence hawked up and down in such an association?',2 "'I don't see,' returned Mr Flintwinch, scraping his horny cheek, 'that it need signify much to you.",2 "But I'll tell you what I do see, Arthur,' glancing up at the windows; 'I see the light of fire and candle in your mother's room!'",2 'And what has that to do with it?',2 "'Why, sir, I read by it,' said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself at him, 'that if it's advisable (as the proverb says it is) to let sleeping dogs lie, it's just as advisable, perhaps, to let missing dogs lie.",1 Let 'em be.,2 They generally turn up soon enough.',3 "Mr Flintwinch turned short round when he had made this remark, and went into the dark hall.",1 "Clennam stood there, following him with his eyes, as he dipped for a light in the phosphorus-box in the little room at the side, got one after three or four dips, and lighted the dim lamp against the wall.",1 "All the while, Clennam was pursuing the probabilities--rather as if they were being shown to him by an invisible hand than as if he himself were conjuring them up--of Mr Flintwinch's ways and means of doing that darker deed, and removing its traces by any of the black avenues of shadow that lay around them.",1 "'Now, sir,' said the testy Jeremiah; 'will it be agreeable to walk up-stairs?'",2 "'My mother is alone, I suppose?'",2 "'Not alone,' said Mr Flintwinch.",2 'Mr Casby and his daughter are with her.,2 "They came in while I was smoking, and I stayed behind to have my smoke out.'",1 This was the second disappointment.,1 "Arthur made no remark upon it, and repaired to his mother's room, where Mr Casby and Flora had been taking tea, anchovy paste, and hot buttered toast.",3 "The relics of those delicacies were not yet removed, either from the table or from the scorched countenance of Affery, who, with the kitchen toasting-fork still in her hand, looked like a sort of allegorical personage; except that she had a considerable advantage over the general run of such personages in point of significant emblematical purpose.",4 "Flora had spread her bonnet and shawl upon the bed, with a care indicative of an intention to stay some time.",2 "Mr Casby, too, was beaming near the hob, with his benevolent knobs shining as if the warm butter of the toast were exuding through the patriarchal skull, and with his face as ruddy as if the colouring matter of the anchovy paste were mantling in the patriarchal visage.",3 "Seeing this, as he exchanged the usual salutations, Clennam decided to speak to his mother without postponement.",2 "It had long been customary, as she never changed her room, for those who had anything to say to her apart, to wheel her to her desk; where she sat, usually with the back of her chair turned towards the rest of the room, and the person who talked with her seated in a corner, on a stool which was always set in that place for that purpose.",2 "Except that it was long since the mother and son had spoken together without the intervention of a third person, it was an ordinary matter of course within the experience of visitors for Mrs Clennam to be asked, with a word of apology for the interruption, if she could be spoken with on a matter of business, and, on her replying in the affirmative, to be wheeled into the position described.",2 "Therefore, when Arthur now made such an apology, and such a request, and moved her to her desk and seated himself on the stool, Mrs Finching merely began to talk louder and faster, as a delicate hint that she could overhear nothing, and Mr Casby stroked his long white locks with sleepy calmness.",3 "'Mother, I have heard something to-day which I feel persuaded you don't know, and which I think you should know, of the antecedents of that man I saw here.'",2 "'I know nothing of the antecedents of the man you saw here, Arthur.'",2 She spoke aloud.,2 "He had lowered his own voice; but she rejected that advance towards confidence as she rejected every other, and spoke in her usual key and in her usual stern voice.",1 'I have received it on no circuitous information; it has come to me direct.',2 "She asked him, exactly as before, if he were there to tell her what it was?",2 'I thought it right that you should know it.',3 'And what is it?',2 'He has been a prisoner in a French gaol.',1 "She answered with composure, 'I should think that very likely.'",2 "'But in a gaol for criminals, mother.",2 On an accusation of murder.',1 "She started at the word, and her looks expressed her natural horror.",2 "Yet she still spoke aloud, when she demanded:-- 'Who told you so?'",2 'A man who was his fellow-prisoner.',1 "'That man's antecedents, I suppose, were not known to you, before he told you?'",2 'No.',2 'Though the man himself was?',2 'Yes.',2 "'My case and Flintwinch's, in respect of this other man!",3 "I dare say the resemblance is not so exact, though, as that your informant became known to you through a letter from a correspondent with whom he had deposited money?",2 How does that part of the parallel stand?',2 "Arthur had no choice but to say that his informant had not become known to him through the agency of any such credentials, or indeed of any credentials at all.",2 "Mrs Clennam's attentive frown expanded by degrees into a severe look of triumph, and she retorted with emphasis, 'Take care how you judge others, then.",2 "I say to you, Arthur, for your good, take care how you judge!'",3 Her emphasis had been derived from her eyes quite as much as from the stress she laid upon her words.,1 "She continued to look at him; and if, when he entered the house, he had had any latent hope of prevailing in the least with her, she now looked it out of his heart.",2 "'Mother, shall I do nothing to assist you?'",2 'Nothing.',2 "'Will you entrust me with no confidence, no charge, no explanation?",3 Will you take no counsel with me?,2 Will you not let me come near you?',2 'How can you ask me?,2 You separated yourself from my affairs.,2 It was not my act; it was yours.,2 How can you consistently ask me such a question?,3 "You know that you left me to Flintwinch, and that he occupies your place.'",2 "Glancing at Jeremiah, Clennam saw in his very gaiters that his attention was closely directed to them, though he stood leaning against the wall scraping his jaw, and pretended to listen to Flora as she held forth in a most distracting manner on a chaos of subjects, in which mackerel, and Mr F.'s Aunt in a swing, had become entangled with cockchafers and the wine trade.",1 "'A prisoner, in a French gaol, on an accusation of murder,' repeated Mrs Clennam, steadily going over what her son had said.",0 'That is all you know of him from the fellow-prisoner?',1 "'In substance, all.'",2 "'And was the fellow-prisoner his accomplice and a murderer, too?",1 "But, of course, he gives a better account of himself than of his friend; it is needless to ask.",2 This will supply the rest of them here with something new to talk about.,2 "Casby, Arthur tells me--' 'Stay, mother!",2 "Stay, stay!'",2 "He interrupted her hastily, for it had not entered his imagination that she would openly proclaim what he had told her.",2 'What now?',2 she said with displeasure.,1 'What more?',2 "'I beg you to excuse me, Mr Casby--and you, too, Mrs Finching--for one other moment with my mother--' He had laid his hand upon her chair, or she would otherwise have wheeled it round with the touch of her foot upon the ground.",1 They were still face to face.,2 "She looked at him, as he ran over the possibilities of some result he had not intended, and could not foresee, being influenced by Cavalletto's disclosure becoming a matter of notoriety, and hurriedly arrived at the conclusion that it had best not be talked about; though perhaps he was guided by no more distinct reason than that he had taken it for granted that his mother would reserve it to herself and her partner.",2 'What now?',2 "she said again, impatiently.",1 'What is it?',2 "'I did not mean, mother, that you should repeat what I have communicated.",2 I think you had better not repeat it.',3 'Do you make that a condition with me?',2 'Well!,2 Yes.',2 "'Observe, then!",2 "It is you who make this a secret,' said she, holding up her hand, 'and not I.",2 "It is you, Arthur, who bring here doubts and suspicions and entreaties for explanations, and it is you, Arthur, who bring secrets here.",1 "What is it to me, do you think, where the man has been, or what he has been?",2 What can it be to me?,2 "The whole world may know it, if they care to know it; it is nothing to me.",2 "Now, let me go.'",2 "He yielded to her imperious but elated look, and turned her chair back to the place from which he had wheeled it.",2 "In doing so he saw elation in the face of Mr Flintwinch, which most assuredly was not inspired by Flora.",3 "This turning of his intelligence and of his whole attempt and design against himself, did even more than his mother's fixedness and firmness to convince him that his efforts with her were idle.",2 Nothing remained but the appeal to his old friend Affery.,3 "But even to get the very doubtful and preliminary stage of making the appeal, seemed one of the least promising of human undertakings.",3 "She was so completely under the thrall of the two clever ones, was so systematically kept in sight by one or other of them, and was so afraid to go about the house besides, that every opportunity of speaking to her alone appeared to be forestalled.",2 "Over and above that, Mistress Affery, by some means (it was not very difficult to guess, through the sharp arguments of her liege lord), had acquired such a lively conviction of the hazard of saying anything under any circumstances, that she had remained all this time in a corner guarding herself from approach with that symbolical instrument of hers; so that, when a word or two had been addressed to her by Flora, or even by the bottle-green patriarch himself, she had warded off conversation with the toasting-fork like a dumb woman.",1 "After several abortive attempts to get Affery to look at him while she cleared the table and washed the tea-service, Arthur thought of an expedient which Flora might originate.",3 "To whom he therefore whispered, 'Could you say you would like to go through the house?'",3 "Now, poor Flora, being always in fluctuating expectation of the time when Clennam would renew his boyhood and be madly in love with her again, received the whisper with the utmost delight; not only as rendered precious by its mysterious character, but as preparing the way for a tender interview in which he would declare the state of his affections.",3 She immediately began to work out the hint.,3 "'Ah dear me the poor old room,' said Flora, glancing round, 'looks just as ever Mrs Clennam I am touched to see except for being smokier which was to be expected with time and which we must all expect and reconcile ourselves to being whether we like it or not as I am sure I have had to do myself if not exactly smokier dreadfully stouter which is the same or worse, to think of the days when papa used to bring me here the least of girls a perfect mass of chilblains to be stuck upon a chair with my feet on the rails and stare at Arthur--pray excuse me--Mr Clennam--the least of boys in the frightfullest of frills and jackets ere yet Mr F. appeared a misty shadow on the horizon paying attentions like the well-known spectre of some place in Germany beginning with a B is a moral lesson inculcating that all the paths in life are similar to the paths down in the North of England where they get the coals and make the iron and things gravelled with ashes!'",1 "Having paid the tribute of a sigh to the instability of human existence, Flora hurried on with her purpose.",1 "'Not that at any time,' she proceeded, 'its worst enemy could have said it was a cheerful house for that it was never made to be but always highly impressive, fond memory recalls an occasion in youth ere yet the judgment was mature when Arthur--confirmed habit--Mr Clennam--took me down into an unused kitchen eminent for mouldiness and proposed to secrete me there for life and feed me on what he could hide from his meals when he was not at home for the holidays and on dry bread in disgrace which at that halcyon period too frequently occurred, would it be inconvenient or asking too much to beg to be permitted to revive those scenes and walk through the house?'",4 "Mrs Clennam, who responded with a constrained grace to Mrs Finching's good nature in being there at all, though her visit (before Arthur's unexpected arrival) was undoubtedly an act of pure good nature and no self-gratification, intimated that all the house was open to her.",4 Flora rose and looked to Arthur for his escort.,2 "'Certainly,' said he, aloud; 'and Affery will light us, I dare say.'",2 "Affery was excusing herself with 'Don't ask nothing of me, Arthur!'",2 when Mr Flintwinch stopped her with 'Why not?,2 "Affery, what's the matter with you, woman?",2 "Why not, jade!'",2 "Thus expostulated with, she came unwillingly out of her corner, resigned the toasting-fork into one of her husband's hands, and took the candlestick he offered from the other.",1 "'Go before, you fool!'",1 said Jeremiah.,2 "'Are you going up, or down, Mrs Finching?'",2 "Flora answered, 'Down.'",2 "'Then go before, and down, you Affery,' said Jeremiah.",2 "'And do it properly, or I'll come rolling down the banisters, and tumbling over you!'",3 Affery headed the exploring party; Jeremiah closed it.,2 He had no intention of leaving them.,2 "Clennam looking back, and seeing him following three stairs behind, in the coolest and most methodical manner exclaimed in a low voice, 'Is there no getting rid of him!'",3 "Flora reassured his mind by replying promptly, 'Why though not exactly proper Arthur and a thing I couldn't think of before a younger man or a stranger still I don't mind him if you so particularly wish it and provided you'll have the goodness not to take me too tight.'",3 "Wanting the heart to explain that this was not at all what he meant, Arthur extended his supporting arm round Flora's figure.",3 "'Oh my goodness me,' said she.",3 'You are very obedient indeed really and it's extremely honourable and gentlemanly in you I am sure but still at the same time if you would like to be a little tighter than that I shouldn't consider it intruding.',3 "In this preposterous attitude, unspeakably at variance with his anxious mind, Clennam descended to the basement of the house; finding that wherever it became darker than elsewhere, Flora became heavier, and that when the house was lightest she was too.",0 "Returning from the dismal kitchen regions, which were as dreary as they could be, Mistress Affery passed with the light into his father's old room, and then into the old dining-room; always passing on before like a phantom that was not to be overtaken, and neither turning nor answering when he whispered, 'Affery!",1 I want to speak to you!',2 "In the dining-room, a sentimental desire came over Flora to look into the dragon closet which had so often swallowed Arthur in the days of his boyhood--not improbably because, as a very dark closet, it was a likely place to be heavy in.",1 "Arthur, fast subsiding into despair, had opened it, when a knock was heard at the outer door.",1 "Mistress Affery, with a suppressed cry, threw her apron over her head.",1 'What?,2 You want another dose!',2 said Mr Flintwinch.,2 "'You shall have it, my woman, you shall have a good one!",3 Oh!,2 "You shall have a sneezer, you shall have a teaser!'",2 'In the meantime is anybody going to the door?',2 said Arthur.,2 "'In the meantime, _I_ am going to the door, sir,' returned the old man so savagely, as to render it clear that in a choice of difficulties he felt he must go, though he would have preferred not to go.",2 "'Stay here the while, all!",2 "Affery, my woman, move an inch, or speak a word in your foolishness, and I'll treble your dose!'",1 "The moment he was gone, Arthur released Mrs Finching: with some difficulty, by reason of that lady misunderstanding his intentions, and making arrangements with a view to tightening instead of slackening.",1 "'Affery, speak to me now!'",2 "'Don't touch me, Arthur!'",2 "she cried, shrinking from him.",2 'Don't come near me.,2 He'll see you.,2 Jeremiah will.,2 Don't.',2 "'He can't see me,' returned Arthur, suiting the action to the word, 'if I blow the candle out.'",1 "'He'll hear you,' cried Affery.",2 "'He can't hear me,' returned Arthur, suiting the action to the words again, 'if I draw you into this black closet, and speak here.",2 Why do you hide your face?',2 'Because I am afraid of seeing something.',1 "'You can't be afraid of seeing anything in this darkness, Affery.'",1 'Yes I am.,2 Much more than if it was light.',2 'Why are you afraid?',1 'Because the house is full of mysteries and secrets; because it's full of whisperings and counsellings; because it's full of noises.,1 There never was such a house for noises.,1 "I shall die of 'em, if Jeremiah don't strangle me first.",1 As I expect he will.',2 "'I have never heard any noises here, worth speaking of.'",2 'Ah!,2 "But you would, though, if you lived in the house, and was obliged to go about it as I am,' said Affery; 'and you'd feel that they was so well worth speaking of, that you'd feel you was nigh bursting through not being allowed to speak of 'em.",3 Here's Jeremiah!,2 You'll get me killed.',1 "'My good Affery, I solemnly declare to you that I can see the light of the open door on the pavement of the hall, and so could you if you would uncover your face and look.'",3 "'I durstn't do it,' said Affery, 'I durstn't never, Arthur.",2 "I'm always blind-folded when Jeremiah an't a looking, and sometimes even when he is.'",1 "'He cannot shut the door without my seeing him,' said Arthur.",2 'You are as safe with me as if he was fifty miles away.',3 ['I wish he was!',2 "cried Affery.) 'Affery, I want to know what is amiss here; I want some light thrown on the secrets of this house.'",1 "'I tell you, Arthur,' she interrupted, 'noises is the secrets, rustlings and stealings about, tremblings, treads overhead and treads underneath.'",2 'But those are not all the secrets.',2 "'I don't know,' said Affery.",2 'Don't ask me no more.,2 "Your old sweetheart an't far off, and she's a blabber.'",2 "His old sweetheart, being in fact so near at hand that she was then reclining against him in a flutter, a very substantial angle of forty-five degrees, here interposed to assure Mistress Affery with greater earnestness than directness of asseveration, that what she heard should go no further, but should be kept inviolate, 'if on no other account on Arthur's--sensible of intruding in being too familiar Doyce and Clennam's.'",4 "'I make an imploring appeal to you, Affery, to you, one of the few agreeable early remembrances I have, for my mother's sake, for your husband's sake, for my own, for all our sakes.",3 "I am sure you can tell me something connected with the coming here of this man, if you will.'",2 "'Why, then I'll tell you, Arthur,' returned Affery--'Jeremiah's coming!'",2 "'No, indeed he is not.",2 "The door is open, and he is standing outside, talking.'",2 "'I'll tell you then,' said Affery, after listening, 'that the first time he ever come he heard the noises his own self.",1 """What's that?""",2 he said to me.,2 """I don't know what it is,"" I says to him, catching hold of him, ""but I have heard it over and over again.""",2 "While I says it, he stands a looking at me, all of a shake, he do.'",1 'Has he been here often?',2 "'Only that night, and the last night.'",2 "'What did you see of him on the last night, after I was gone?'",2 'Them two clever ones had him all alone to themselves.,3 "Jeremiah come a dancing at me sideways, after I had let you out (he always comes a dancing at me sideways when he's going to hurt me), and he said to me, ""Now, Affery,"" he said, ""I am a coming behind you, my woman, and a going to run you up.""",1 "So he took and squeezed the back of my neck in his hand, till it made me open my mouth, and then he pushed me before him to bed, squeezing all the way.",2 "That's what he calls running me up, he do.",2 "Oh, he's a wicked one!'",1 "'And did you hear or see no more, Affery?'",2 "'Don't I tell you I was sent to bed, Arthur!",2 Here he is!',2 'I assure you he is still at the door.,3 "Those whisperings and counsellings, Affery, that you have spoken of.",2 What are they?',2 'How should I know?,2 "Don't ask me nothing about 'em, Arthur.",2 Get away!',2 "'But my dear Affery; unless I can gain some insight into these hidden things, in spite of your husband and in spite of my mother, ruin will come of it.'",1 "'Don't ask me nothing,' repeated Affery.",2 'I have been in a dream for ever so long.,2 "Go away, go away!'",2 "'You said that before,' returned Arthur.",2 "'You used the same expression that night, at the door, when I asked you what was going on here.",2 What do you mean by being in a dream?',2 'I an't a going to tell you.,2 Get away!,2 "I shouldn't tell you, if you was by yourself; much less with your old sweetheart here.'",3 "It was equally vain for Arthur to entreat, and for Flora to protest.",1 "Affery, who had been trembling and struggling the whole time, turned a deaf ear to all adjuration, and was bent on forcing herself out of the closet.",0 'I'd sooner scream to Jeremiah than say another word!,1 "I'll call out to him, Arthur, if you don't give over speaking to me.",2 "Now here's the very last word I'll say afore I call to him--If ever you begin to get the better of them two clever ones your own self (you ought to it, as I told you when you first come home, for you haven't been a living here long years, to be made afeared of your life as I have), then do you get the better of 'em afore my face; and then do you say to me, Affery tell your dreams!",3 "Maybe, then I'll tell 'em!'",2 The shutting of the door stopped Arthur from replying.,2 "They glided into the places where Jeremiah had left them; and Clennam, stepping forward as that old gentleman returned, informed him that he had accidentally extinguished the candle.",2 "Mr Flintwinch looked on as he re-lighted it at the lamp in the hall, and preserved a profound taciturnity respecting the person who had been holding him in conversation.",3 "Perhaps his irascibility demanded compensation for some tediousness that the visitor had expended on him; however that was, he took such umbrage at seeing his wife with her apron over her head, that he charged at her, and taking her veiled nose between his thumb and finger, appeared to throw the whole screw-power of his person into the wring he gave it.",2 "Flora, now permanently heavy, did not release Arthur from the survey of the house, until it had extended even to his old garret bedchamber.",2 "His thoughts were otherwise occupied than with the tour of inspection; yet he took particular notice at the time, as he afterwards had occasion to remember, of the airlessness and closeness of the house; that they left the track of their footsteps in the dust on the upper floors; and that there was a resistance to the opening of one room door, which occasioned Affery to cry out that somebody was hiding inside, and to continue to believe so, though somebody was sought and not discovered.",0 "When they at last returned to his mother's room, they found her shading her face with her muffled hand, and talking in a low voice to the Patriarch as he stood before the fire, whose blue eyes, polished head, and silken locks, turning towards them as they came in, imparted an inestimable value and inexhaustible love of his species to his remark: 'So you have been seeing the premises, seeing the premises--premises-- seeing the premises!'",4 "It was not in itself a jewel of benevolence or wisdom, yet he made it an exemplar of both that one would have liked to have a copy of.",4 "That illustrious man and great national ornament, Mr Merdle, continued his shining course.",3 "It began to be widely understood that one who had done society the admirable service of making so much money out of it, could not be suffered to remain a commoner.",2 A baronetcy was spoken of with confidence; a peerage was frequently mentioned.,3 "Rumour had it that Mr Merdle had set his golden face against a baronetcy; that he had plainly intimated to Lord Decimus that a baronetcy was not enough for him; that he had said, 'No--a Peerage, or plain Merdle.'",3 This was reported to have plunged Lord Decimus as nigh to his noble chin in a slough of doubts as so lofty a person could be sunk.,1 "For the Barnacles, as a group of themselves in creation, had an idea that such distinctions belonged to them; and that when a soldier, sailor, or lawyer became ennobled, they let him in, as it were, by an act of condescension, at the family door, and immediately shut it again.",1 "Not only (said Rumour) had the troubled Decimus his own hereditary part in this impression, but he also knew of several Barnacle claims already on the file, which came into collision with that of the master spirit.",2 "Right or wrong, Rumour was very busy; and Lord Decimus, while he was, or was supposed to be, in stately excogitation of the difficulty, lent her some countenance by taking, on several public occasions, one of those elephantine trots of his through a jungle of overgrown sentences, waving Mr Merdle about on his trunk as Gigantic Enterprise, The Wealth of England, Elasticity, Credit, Capital, Prosperity, and all manner of blessings.",3 "So quietly did the mowing of the old scythe go on, that fully three months had passed unnoticed since the two English brothers had been laid in one tomb in the strangers' cemetery at Rome.",1 "Mr and Mrs Sparkler were established in their own house: a little mansion, rather of the Tite Barnacle class, quite a triumph of inconvenience, with a perpetual smell in it of the day before yesterday's soup and coach-horses, but extremely dear, as being exactly in the centre of the habitable globe.",1 "In this enviable abode (and envied it really was by many people), Mrs Sparkler had intended to proceed at once to the demolition of the Bosom, when active hostilities had been suspended by the arrival of the Courier with his tidings of death.",1 "Mrs Sparkler, who was not unfeeling, had received them with a violent burst of grief, which had lasted twelve hours; after which, she had arisen to see about her mourning, and to take every precaution that could ensure its being as becoming as Mrs Merdle's.",0 "A gloom was then cast over more than one distinguished family (according to the politest sources of intelligence), and the Courier went back again.",3 "Mr and Mrs Sparkler had been dining alone, with their gloom cast over them, and Mrs Sparkler reclined on a drawing-room sofa.",1 It was a hot summer Sunday evening.,3 "The residence in the centre of the habitable globe, at all times stuffed and close as if it had an incurable cold in its head, was that evening particularly stifling.",1 "The bells of the churches had done their worst in the way of clanging among the unmelodious echoes of the streets, and the lighted windows of the churches had ceased to be yellow in the grey dusk, and had died out opaque black.",1 "Mrs Sparkler, lying on her sofa, looking through an open window at the opposite side of a narrow street over boxes of mignonette and flowers, was tired of the view.",1 "Mrs Sparkler, looking at another window where her husband stood in the balcony, was tired of that view.",1 "Mrs Sparkler, looking at herself in her mourning, was even tired of that view: though, naturally, not so tired of that as of the other two.",1 "'It's like lying in a well,' said Mrs Sparkler, changing her position fretfully.",3 "'Dear me, Edmund, if you have anything to say, why don't you say it?'",2 "Mr Sparkler might have replied with ingenuousness, 'My life, I have nothing to say.'",2 "But, as the repartee did not occur to him, he contented himself with coming in from the balcony and standing at the side of his wife's couch.",2 "'Good gracious, Edmund!'",3 "said Mrs Sparkler more fretfully still, 'you are absolutely putting mignonette up your nose!",2 Pray don't!',2 "Mr Sparkler, in absence of mind--perhaps in a more literal absence of mind than is usually understood by the phrase--had smelt so hard at a sprig in his hand as to be on the verge of the offence in question.",0 "He smiled, said, 'I ask your pardon, my dear,' and threw it out of window.",3 "'You make my head ache by remaining in that position, Edmund,' said Mrs Sparkler, raising her eyes to him after another minute; 'you look so aggravatingly large by this light.",1 Do sit down.',2 "'Certainly, my dear,' said Mr Sparkler, and took a chair on the same spot.",2 "'If I didn't know that the longest day was past,' said Fanny, yawning in a dreary manner, 'I should have felt certain this was the longest day.",1 I never did experience such a day.',2 "'Is that your fan, my love?'",3 "asked Mr Sparkler, picking up one and presenting it.",2 "'Edmund,' returned his wife, more wearily yet, 'don't ask weak questions, I entreat you not.",1 Whose can it be but mine?',2 "'Yes, I thought it was yours,' said Mr Sparkler.",2 "'Then you shouldn't ask,' retorted Fanny.",2 "After a little while she turned on her sofa and exclaimed, 'Dear me, dear me, there never was such a long day as this!'",2 "After another little while, she got up slowly, walked about, and came back again.",1 "'My dear,' said Mr Sparkler, flashing with an original conception, 'I think you must have got the fidgets.'",2 "'Oh, Fidgets!'",2 repeated Mrs Sparkler.,2 'Don't.',2 "'My adorable girl,' urged Mr Sparkler, 'try your aromatic vinegar.",3 "I have often seen my mother try it, and it seemingly refreshed her.",3 "And she is, as I believe you are aware, a remarkably fine woman, with no non--' 'Good Gracious!'",4 "exclaimed Fanny, starting up again.",2 'It's beyond all patience!,3 "This is the most wearisome day that ever did dawn upon the world, I am certain.'",2 "Mr Sparkler looked meekly after her as she lounged about the room, and he appeared to be a little frightened.",2 "When she had tossed a few trifles about, and had looked down into the darkening street out of all the three windows, she returned to her sofa, and threw herself among its pillows.",2 "'Now Edmund, come here!",2 "Come a little nearer, because I want to be able to touch you with my fan, that I may impress you very much with what I am going to say.",3 That will do.,2 Quite close enough.,3 "Oh, you _do_ look so big!'",2 "Mr Sparkler apologised for the circumstance, pleaded that he couldn't help it, and said that 'our fellows,' without more particularly indicating whose fellows, used to call him by the name of Quinbus Flestrin, Junior, or the Young Man Mountain.",2 "'You ought to have told me so before,' Fanny complained.",1 "'My dear,' returned Mr Sparkler, rather gratified, 'I didn't know It would interest you, or I would have made a point of telling you.'",3 'There!,2 "For goodness sake, don't talk,' said Fanny; 'I want to talk, myself.",3 "Edmund, we must not be alone any more.",2 I must take such precautions as will prevent my being ever again reduced to the state of dreadful depression in which I am this evening.',1 "'My dear,' answered Mr Sparkler; 'being as you are well known to be, a remarkably fine woman with no--' 'Oh, good GRACIOUS!'",4 cried Fanny.,2 "Mr Sparkler was so discomposed by the energy of this exclamation, accompanied with a flouncing up from the sofa and a flouncing down again, that a minute or two elapsed before he felt himself equal to saying in explanation: 'I mean, my dear, that everybody knows you are calculated to shine in society.'",3 "'Calculated to shine in society,' retorted Fanny with great irritability; 'yes, indeed!",3 And then what happens?,2 "I no sooner recover, in a visiting point of view, the shock of poor dear papa's death, and my poor uncle's--though I do not disguise from myself that the last was a happy release, for, if you are not presentable you had much better die--' 'You are not referring to me, my love, I hope?'",2 Mr Sparkler humbly interrupted.,2 "'Edmund, Edmund, you would wear out a Saint.",3 Am I not expressly speaking of my poor uncle?',1 "'You looked with so much expression at myself, my dear girl,' said Mr Sparkler, 'that I felt a little uncomfortable.",1 "Thank you, my love.'",3 "'Now you have put me out,' observed Fanny with a resigned toss of her fan, 'and I had better go to bed.'",2 "'Don't do that, my love,' urged Mr Sparkler.",3 'Take time.',2 "Fanny took a good deal of time: lying back with her eyes shut, and her eyebrows raised with a hopeless expression as if she had utterly given up all terrestrial affairs.",1 "At length, without the slightest notice, she opened her eyes again, and recommenced in a short, sharp manner: 'What happens then, I ask!",3 What happens?,2 "Why, I find myself at the very period when I might shine most in society, and should most like for very momentous reasons to shine in society--I find myself in a situation which to a certain extent disqualifies me for going into society.",4 "It's too bad, really!'",1 "'My dear,' said Mr Sparkler.",2 'I don't think it need keep you at home.',2 "'Edmund, you ridiculous creature,' returned Fanny, with great indignation; 'do you suppose that a woman in the bloom of youth and not wholly devoid of personal attractions, can put herself, at such a time, in competition as to figure with a woman in every other way her inferior?",1 "If you do suppose such a thing, your folly is boundless.'",3 Mr Sparkler submitted that he had thought 'it might be got over.',2 'Got over!',2 "repeated Fanny, with immeasurable scorn.",1 "'For a time,' Mr Sparkler submitted.",2 "Honouring the last feeble suggestion with no notice, Mrs Sparkler declared with bitterness that it really was too bad, and that positively it was enough to make one wish one was dead!",1 "'However,' she said, when she had in some measure recovered from her sense of personal ill-usage; 'provoking as it is, and cruel as it seems, I suppose it must be submitted to.'",1 "'Especially as it was to be expected,' said Mr Sparkler.",2 "'Edmund,' returned his wife, 'if you have nothing more becoming to do than to attempt to insult the woman who has honoured you with her hand, when she finds herself in adversity, I think _you_ had better go to bed!'",1 "Mr Sparkler was much afflicted by the charge, and offered a most tender and earnest apology.",3 "His apology was accepted; but Mrs Sparkler requested him to go round to the other side of the sofa and sit in the window-curtain, to tone himself down.",2 "'Now, Edmund,' she said, stretching out her fan, and touching him with it at arm's length, 'what I was going to say to you when you began as usual to prose and worry, is, that I shall guard against our being alone any more, and that when circumstances prevent my going out to my own satisfaction, I must arrange to have some people or other always here; for I really cannot, and will not, have another such day as this has been.'",1 "Mr Sparkler's sentiments as to the plan were, in brief, that it had no nonsense about it.",1 "He added, 'And besides, you know it's likely that you'll soon have your sister--' 'Dearest Amy, yes!'",2 cried Mrs Sparkler with a sigh of affection.,3 'Darling little thing!,2 "Not, however, that Amy would do here alone.'",2 Mr Sparkler was going to say 'No?',2 "interrogatively, but he saw his danger and said it assentingly, 'No, Oh dear no; she wouldn't do here alone.'",1 "'No, Edmund.",2 "For not only are the virtues of the precious child of that still character that they require a contrast--require life and movement around them to bring them out in their right colours and make one love them of all things; but she will require to be roused, on more accounts than one.'",4 "'That's it,' said Mr Sparkler.",2 'Roused.',2 "'Pray don't, Edmund!",2 "Your habit of interrupting without having the least thing in the world to say, distracts one.",2 You must be broken of it.,1 "Speaking of Amy;--my poor little pet was devotedly attached to poor papa, and no doubt will have lamented his loss exceedingly, and grieved very much.",1 I have done so myself.,2 I have felt it dreadfully.,1 "But Amy will no doubt have felt it even more, from having been on the spot the whole time, and having been with poor dear papa at the last; which I unhappily was not.'",0 "Here Fanny stopped to weep, and to say, 'Dear, dear, beloved papa!",2 How truly gentlemanly he was!,2 What a contrast to poor uncle!',1 "'From the effects of that trying time,' she pursued, 'my good little Mouse will have to be roused.",3 "Also, from the effects of this long attendance upon Edward in his illness; an attendance which is not yet over, which may even go on for some time longer, and which in the meanwhile unsettles us all by keeping poor dear papa's affairs from being wound up.",0 "Fortunately, however, the papers with his agents here being all sealed up and locked up, as he left them when he providentially came to England, the affairs are in that state of order that they can wait until my brother Edward recovers his health in Sicily, sufficiently to come over, and administer, or execute, or whatever it may be that will have to be done.'",3 "'He couldn't have a better nurse to bring him round,' Mr Sparkler made bold to opine.",3 "'For a wonder, I can agree with you,' returned his wife, languidly turning her eyelids a little in his direction (she held forth, in general, as if to the drawing-room furniture), 'and can adopt your words.",3 He couldn't have a better nurse to bring him round.,3 "There are times when my dear child is a little wearing to an active mind; but, as a nurse, she is Perfection.",3 Best of Amys!',3 "Mr Sparkler, growing rash on his late success, observed that Edward had had, biggodd, a long bout of it, my dear girl.",2 "'If Bout, Edmund,' returned Mrs Sparkler, 'is the slang term for indisposition, he has.",2 "If it is not, I am unable to give an opinion on the barbarous language you address to Edward's sister.",1 "That he contracted Malaria Fever somewhere, either by travelling day and night to Rome, where, after all, he arrived too late to see poor dear papa before his death--or under some other unwholesome circumstances--is indubitable, if that is what you mean.",0 Likewise that his extremely careless life has made him a very bad subject for it indeed.',1 Mr Sparkler considered it a parallel case to that of some of our fellows in the West Indies with Yellow Jack.,2 "Mrs Sparkler closed her eyes again, and refused to have any consciousness of our fellows of the West Indies, or of Yellow Jack.",1 "'So, Amy,' she pursued, when she reopened her eyelids, 'will require to be roused from the effects of many tedious and anxious weeks.",1 "And lastly, she will require to be roused from a low tendency which I know very well to be at the bottom of her heart.",3 "Don't ask me what it is, Edmund, because I must decline to tell you.'",1 "'I am not going to, my dear,' said Mr Sparkler.",2 "'I shall thus have much improvement to effect in my sweet child,' Mrs Sparkler continued, 'and cannot have her near me too soon.",3 Amiable and dear little Twoshoes!,3 "As to the settlement of poor papa's affairs, my interest in that is not very selfish.",1 "Papa behaved very generously to me when I was married, and I have little or nothing to expect.",3 "Provided he had made no will that can come into force, leaving a legacy to Mrs General, I am contented.",2 "Dear papa, dear papa.'",2 "She wept again, but Mrs General was the best of restoratives.",3 "The name soon stimulated her to dry her eyes and say: 'It is a highly encouraging circumstance in Edward's illness, I am thankful to think, and gives one the greatest confidence in his sense not being impaired, or his proper spirit weakened--down to the time of poor dear papa's death at all events--that he paid off Mrs General instantly, and sent her out of the house.",3 I applaud him for it.,3 "I could forgive him a great deal for doing, with such promptitude, so exactly what I would have done myself!'",3 "Mrs Sparkler was in the full glow of her gratification, when a double knock was heard at the door.",3 A very odd knock.,1 "Low, as if to avoid making a noise and attracting attention.",1 "Long, as if the person knocking were preoccupied in mind, and forgot to leave off.",2 'Halloa!',2 said Mr Sparkler.,2 'Who's this?',2 'Not Amy and Edward without notice and without a carriage!',2 said Mrs Sparkler.,2 'Look out.',2 "The room was dark, but the street was lighter, because of its lamps.",2 Mr Sparkler's head peeping over the balcony looked so very bulky and heavy that it seemed on the point of overbalancing him and flattening the unknown below.,1 "'It's one fellow,' said Mr Sparkler.",2 'I can't see who--stop though!',2 On this second thought he went out into the balcony again and had another look.,2 "He came back as the door was opened, and announced that he believed he had identified 'his governor's tile.'",2 "He was not mistaken, for his governor, with his tile in his hand, was introduced immediately afterwards.",1 'Candles!',2 "said Mrs Sparkler, with a word of excuse for the darkness.",1 "'It's light enough for me,' said Mr Merdle.",3 "When the candles were brought in, Mr Merdle was discovered standing behind the door, picking his lips.",2 "'I thought I'd give you a call,' he said.",2 "'I am rather particularly occupied just now; and, as I happened to be out for a stroll, I thought I'd give you a call.'",2 "As he was in dinner dress, Fanny asked him where he had been dining?",2 "'Well,' said Mr Merdle, 'I haven't been dining anywhere, particularly.'",2 'Of course you have dined?',2 said Fanny.,2 "'Why--no, I haven't exactly dined,' said Mr Merdle.",2 "He had passed his hand over his yellow forehead and considered, as if he were not sure about it.",2 Something to eat was proposed.,2 "'No, thank you,' said Mr Merdle, 'I don't feel inclined for it.",3 I was to have dined out along with Mrs Merdle.,2 "But as I didn't feel inclined for dinner, I let Mrs Merdle go by herself just as we were getting into the carriage, and thought I'd take a stroll instead.'",2 Would he have tea or coffee?,2 "'No, thank you,' said Mr Merdle.",3 "'I looked in at the Club, and got a bottle of wine.'",2 "At this period of his visit, Mr Merdle took the chair which Edmund Sparkler had offered him, and which he had hitherto been pushing slowly about before him, like a dull man with a pair of skates on for the first time, who could not make up his mind to start.",1 "He now put his hat upon another chair beside him, and, looking down into it as if it were some twenty feet deep, said again: 'You see I thought I'd give you a call.'",2 "'Flattering to us,' said Fanny, 'for you are not a calling man.'",2 "'No--no,' returned Mr Merdle, who was by this time taking himself into custody under both coat-sleeves.",2 "'No, I am not a calling man.'",2 "'You have too much to do for that,' said Fanny.",2 "'Having so much to do, Mr Merdle, loss of appetite is a serious thing with you, and you must have it seen to.",1 You must not be ill.',2 'Oh!,2 "I am very well,' replied Mr Merdle, after deliberating about it.",3 'I am as well as I usually am.,3 I am well enough.,3 I am as well as I want to be.',3 "The master-mind of the age, true to its characteristic of being at all times a mind that had as little as possible to say for itself and great difficulty in saying it, became mute again.",3 Mrs Sparkler began to wonder how long the master-mind meant to stay.,3 "'I was speaking of poor papa when you came in, sir.'",1 'Aye!,2 "Quite a coincidence,' said Mr Merdle.",2 Fanny did not see that; but felt it incumbent on her to continue talking.,2 "'I was saying,' she pursued, 'that my brother's illness has occasioned a delay in examining and arranging papa's property.'",1 "'Yes,' said Mr Merdle; 'yes.",2 There has been a delay.',1 "'Not that it is of consequence,' said Fanny.",2 "'Not,' assented Mr Merdle, after having examined the cornice of all that part of the room which was within his range: 'not that it is of any consequence.'",2 "'My only anxiety is,' said Fanny, 'that Mrs General should not get anything.'",1 "'_She_ won't get anything,' said Mr Merdle.",2 Fanny was delighted to hear him express the opinion.,3 "Mr Merdle, after taking another gaze into the depths of his hat as if he thought he saw something at the bottom, rubbed his hair and slowly appended to his last remark the confirmatory words, 'Oh dear no.",1 No.,2 Not she.,2 Not likely.',2 "As the topic seemed exhausted, and Mr Merdle too, Fanny inquired if he were going to take up Mrs Merdle and the carriage in his way home?",1 "'No,' he answered; 'I shall go by the shortest way, and leave Mrs Merdle to--' here he looked all over the palms of both his hands as if he were telling his own fortune--'to take care of herself.",3 I dare say she'll manage to do it.',2 "'Probably,' said Fanny.",2 "There was then a long silence; during which, Mrs Sparkler, lying back on her sofa again, shut her eyes and raised her eyebrows in her former retirement from mundane affairs.",1 "'But, however,' said Mr Merdle, 'I am equally detaining you and myself.",2 "I thought I'd give you a call, you know.'",2 "'Charmed, I am sure,' said Fanny.",2 "'So I am off,' added Mr Merdle, getting up.",2 'Could you lend me a penknife?',2 "It was an odd thing, Fanny smilingly observed, for her who could seldom prevail upon herself even to write a letter, to lend to a man of such vast business as Mr Merdle.",2 'Isn't it?',2 "Mr Merdle acquiesced; 'but I want one; and I know you have got several little wedding keepsakes about, with scissors and tweezers and such things in them.",2 You shall have it back to-morrow.',2 "'Edmund,' said Mrs Sparkler, 'open (now, very carefully, I beg and beseech, for you are so very awkward) the mother of pearl box on my little table there, and give Mr Merdle the mother of pearl penknife.'",0 "'Thank you,' said Mr Merdle; 'but if you have got one with a darker handle, I think I should prefer one with a darker handle.'",2 'Tortoise-shell?',2 "'Thank you,' said Mr Merdle; 'yes.",2 I think I should prefer tortoise-shell.',3 "Edmund accordingly received instructions to open the tortoise-shell box, and give Mr Merdle the tortoise-shell knife.",1 "On his doing so, his wife said to the master-spirit graciously: 'I will forgive you, if you ink it.'",3 "'I'll undertake not to ink it,' said Mr Merdle.",2 "The illustrious visitor then put out his coat-cuff, and for a moment entombed Mrs Sparkler's hand: wrist, bracelet, and all.",3 "Where his own hand had shrunk to, was not made manifest, but it was as remote from Mrs Sparkler's sense of touch as if he had been a highly meritorious Chelsea Veteran or Greenwich Pensioner.",3 "Thoroughly convinced, as he went out of the room, that it was the longest day that ever did come to an end at last, and that there never was a woman, not wholly devoid of personal attractions, so worn out by idiotic and lumpish people, Fanny passed into the balcony for a breath of air.",0 "Waters of vexation filled her eyes; and they had the effect of making the famous Mr Merdle, in going down the street, appear to leap, and waltz, and gyrate, as if he were possessed of several Devils.",2 The dinner-party was at the great Physician's.,3 "Bar was there, and in full force.",2 "Ferdinand Barnacle was there, and in his most engaging state.",3 "Few ways of life were hidden from Physician, and he was oftener in its darkest places than even Bishop.",2 "There were brilliant ladies about London who perfectly doted on him, my dear, as the most charming creature and the most delightful person, who would have been shocked to find themselves so close to him if they could have known on what sights those thoughtful eyes of his had rested within an hour or two, and near to whose beds, and under what roofs, his composed figure had stood.",4 "But Physician was a composed man, who performed neither on his own trumpet, nor on the trumpets of other people.",3 "Many wonderful things did he see and hear, and much irreconcilable moral contradiction did he pass his life among; yet his equality of compassion was no more disturbed than the Divine Master's of all healing was.",2 "He went, like the rain, among the just and unjust, doing all the good he could, and neither proclaiming it in the synagogues nor at the corner of streets.",3 "As no man of large experience of humanity, however quietly carried it may be, can fail to be invested with an interest peculiar to the possession of such knowledge, Physician was an attractive man.",1 "Even the daintier gentlemen and ladies who had no idea of his secret, and who would have been startled out of more wits than they had, by the monstrous impropriety of his proposing to them 'Come and see what I see!'",1 confessed his attraction.,3 "Where he was, something real was.",2 "And half a grain of reality, like the smallest portion of some other scarce natural productions, will flavour an enormous quantity of diluent.",2 "It came to pass, therefore, that Physician's little dinners always presented people in their least conventional lights.",2 "The guests said to themselves, whether they were conscious of it or no, 'Here is a man who really has an acquaintance with us as we are, who is admitted to some of us every day with our wigs and paint off, who hears the wanderings of our minds, and sees the undisguised expression of our faces, when both are past our control; we may as well make an approach to reality with him, for the man has got the better of us and is too strong for us.'",4 "Therefore, Physician's guests came out so surprisingly at his round table that they were almost natural.",2 "Bar's knowledge of that agglomeration of jurymen which is called humanity was as sharp as a razor; yet a razor is not a generally convenient instrument, and Physician's plain bright scalpel, though far less keen, was adaptable to far wider purposes.",4 "Bar knew all about the gullibility and knavery of people; but Physician could have given him a better insight into their tendernesses and affections, in one week of his rounds, than Westminster Hall and all the circuits put together, in threescore years and ten.",3 "Bar always had a suspicion of this, and perhaps was glad to encourage it (for, if the world were really a great Law Court, one would think that the last day of Term could not too soon arrive); and so he liked and respected Physician quite as much as any other kind of man did.",4 "Mr Merdle's default left a Banquo's chair at the table; but, if he had been there, he would have merely made the difference of Banquo in it, and consequently he was no loss.",1 "Bar, who picked up all sorts of odds and ends about Westminster Hall, much as a raven would have done if he had passed as much of his time there, had been picking up a great many straws lately and tossing them about, to try which way the Merdle wind blew.",3 "He now had a little talk on the subject with Mrs Merdle herself; sidling up to that lady, of course, with his double eye-glass and his jury droop.",1 "'A certain bird,' said Bar; and he looked as if it could have been no other bird than a magpie; 'has been whispering among us lawyers lately, that there is to be an addition to the titled personages of this realm.'",3 'Really?',2 said Mrs Merdle.,2 "'Yes,' said Bar.",2 'Has not the bird been whispering in very different ears from ours--in lovely ears?',3 He looked expressively at Mrs Merdle's nearest ear-ring.,2 'Do you mean mine?',2 asked Mrs Merdle.,2 "'When I say lovely,' said Bar, 'I always mean you.'",3 "'You never mean anything, I think,' returned Mrs Merdle (not displeased).",1 "'Oh, cruelly unjust!'",1 said Bar.,2 "'But, the bird.'",2 "'I am the last person in the world to hear news,' observed Mrs Merdle, carelessly arranging her stronghold.",2 'Who is it?',2 'What an admirable witness you would make!',3 said Bar.,2 "'No jury (unless we could empanel one of blind men) could resist you, if you were ever so bad a one; but you would be such a good one!'",1 "'Why, you ridiculous man?'",1 "asked Mrs Merdle, laughing.",2 "Bar waved his double eye-glass three or four times between himself and the Bosom, as a rallying answer, and inquired in his most insinuating accents: 'What am I to call the most elegant, accomplished and charming of women, a few weeks, or it may be a few days, hence?'",3 'Didn't your bird tell you what to call her?',2 answered Mrs Merdle.,2 "'Do ask it to-morrow, and tell me the next time you see me what it says.'",2 "This led to further passages of similar pleasantry between the two; but Bar, with all his sharpness, got nothing out of them.",3 "Physician, on the other hand, taking Mrs Merdle down to her carriage and attending on her as she put on her cloak, inquired into the symptoms with his usual calm directness.",2 "'May I ask,' he said, 'is this true about Merdle?'",2 "'My dear doctor,' she returned, 'you ask me the very question that I was half disposed to ask you.'",2 'To ask me!,2 Why me?',2 "'Upon my honour, I think Mr Merdle reposes greater confidence in you than in any one.'",3 "'On the contrary, he tells me absolutely nothing, even professionally.",2 "You have heard the talk, of course?'",2 'Of course I have.,2 But you know what Mr Merdle is; you know how taciturn and reserved he is.,2 I assure you I have no idea what foundation for it there may be.,3 I should like it to be true; why should I deny that to you?,2 "You would know better, if I did!'",3 "'Just so,' said Physician.",2 "'But whether it is all true, or partly true, or entirely false, I am wholly unable to say.",1 "It is a most provoking situation, a most absurd situation; but you know Mr Merdle, and are not surprised.'",1 "Physician was not surprised, handed her into her carriage, and bade her Good Night.",3 "He stood for a moment at his own hall door, looking sedately at the elegant equipage as it rattled away.",2 "On his return up-stairs, the rest of the guests soon dispersed, and he was left alone.",2 "Being a great reader of all kinds of literature (and never at all apologetic for that weakness), he sat down comfortably to read.",3 "The clock upon his study table pointed to a few minutes short of twelve, when his attention was called to it by a ringing at the door bell.",2 "A man of plain habits, he had sent his servants to bed and must needs go down to open the door.",2 "He went down, and there found a man without hat or coat, whose shirt sleeves were rolled up tight to his shoulders.",2 "For a moment, he thought the man had been fighting: the rather, as he was much agitated and out of breath.",2 "A second look, however, showed him that the man was particularly clean, and not otherwise discomposed as to his dress than as it answered this description.",3 "'I come from the warm-baths, sir, round in the neighbouring street.'",3 'And what is the matter at the warm-baths?',3 "'Would you please to come directly, sir.",2 "We found that, lying on the table.'",1 He put into the physician's hand a scrap of paper.,1 "Physician looked at it, and read his own name and address written in pencil; nothing more.",2 "He looked closer at the writing, looked at the man, took his hat from its peg, put the key of his door in his pocket, and they hurried away together.",2 "When they came to the warm-baths, all the other people belonging to that establishment were looking out for them at the door, and running up and down the passages.",3 "'Request everybody else to keep back, if you please,' said the physician aloud to the master; 'and do you take me straight to the place, my friend,' to the messenger.",3 "The messenger hurried before him, along a grove of little rooms, and turning into one at the end of the grove, looked round the door.",2 "Physician was close upon him, and looked round the door too.",2 "There was a bath in that corner, from which the water had been hastily drained off.",1 "Lying in it, as in a grave or sarcophagus, with a hurried drapery of sheet and blanket thrown across it, was the body of a heavily-made man, with an obtuse head, and coarse, mean, common features.",0 "A sky-light had been opened to release the steam with which the room had been filled; but it hung, condensed into water-drops, heavily upon the walls, and heavily upon the face and figure in the bath.",1 "The room was still hot, and the marble of the bath still warm; but the face and figure were clammy to the touch.",3 The white marble at the bottom of the bath was veined with a dreadful red.,1 "On the ledge at the side, were an empty laudanum-bottle and a tortoise-shell handled penknife--soiled, but not with ink.",2 'Separation of jugular vein--death rapid--been dead at least half an hour.',1 "This echo of the physician's words ran through the passages and little rooms, and through the house while he was yet straightening himself from having bent down to reach to the bottom of the bath, and while he was yet dabbling his hands in water; redly veining it as the marble was veined, before it mingled into one tint.",1 "He turned his eyes to the dress upon the sofa, and to the watch, money, and pocket-book on the table.",2 "A folded note half buckled up in the pocket-book, and half protruding from it, caught his observant glance.",2 "He looked at it, touched it, pulled it a little further out from among the leaves, said quietly, 'This is addressed to me,' and opened and read it.",2 There were no directions for him to give.,2 "The people of the house knew what to do; the proper authorities were soon brought; and they took an equable business-like possession of the deceased, and of what had been his property, with no greater disturbance of manner or countenance than usually attends the winding-up of a clock.",3 "Physician was glad to walk out into the night air--was even glad, in spite of his great experience, to sit down upon a door-step for a little while: feeling sick and faint.",1 "Bar was a near neighbour of his, and, when he came to the house, he saw a light in the room where he knew his friend often sat late getting up his work.",3 "As the light was never there when Bar was not, it gave him assurance that Bar was not yet in bed.",3 "In fact, this busy bee had a verdict to get to-morrow, against evidence, and was improving the shining hours in setting snares for the gentlemen of the jury.",3 "Physician's knock astonished Bar; but, as he immediately suspected that somebody had come to tell him that somebody else was robbing him, or otherwise trying to get the better of him, he came down promptly and softly.",3 "He had been clearing his head with a lotion of cold water, as a good preparative to providing hot water for the heads of the jury, and had been reading with the neck of his shirt thrown wide open that he might the more freely choke the opposite witnesses.",2 "In consequence, he came down, looking rather wild.",1 "Seeing Physician, the least expected of men, he looked wilder and said, 'What's the matter?'",2 'You asked me once what Merdle's complaint was.',1 'Extraordinary answer!,2 I know I did.',2 'I told you I had not found out.',2 'Yes.,2 I know you did.',2 'I have found it out.',2 'My God!',2 "said Bar, starting back, and clapping his hand upon the other's breast.",2 'And so have I!,2 I see it in your face.',2 "They went into the nearest room, where Physician gave him the letter to read.",2 He read it through half-a-dozen times.,2 There was not much in it as to quantity; but it made a great demand on his close and continuous attention.,3 He could not sufficiently give utterance to his regret that he had not himself found a clue to this.,2 "The smallest clue, he said, would have made him master of the case, and what a case it would have been to have got to the bottom of!",3 Physician had engaged to break the intelligence in Harley Street.,2 "Bar could not at once return to his inveiglements of the most enlightened and remarkable jury he had ever seen in that box, with whom, he could tell his learned friend, no shallow sophistry would go down, and no unhappily abused professional tact and skill prevail (this was the way he meant to begin with them); so he said he would go too, and would loiter to and fro near the house while his friend was inside.",1 "They walked there, the better to recover self-possession in the air; and the wings of day were fluttering the night when Physician knocked at the door.",3 "A footman of rainbow hues, in the public eye, was sitting up for his master--that is to say, was fast asleep in the kitchen over a couple of candles and a newspaper, demonstrating the great accumulation of mathematical odds against the probabilities of a house being set on fire by accident When this serving man was roused, Physician had still to await the rousing of the Chief Butler.",4 "At last that noble creature came into the dining-room in a flannel gown and list shoes; but with his cravat on, and a Chief Butler all over.",3 It was morning now.,2 "Physician had opened the shutters of one window while waiting, that he might see the light.",2 "'Mrs Merdle's maid must be called, and told to get Mrs Merdle up, and prepare her as gently as she can to see me.",2 I have dreadful news to break to her.',1 Thus Physician to the Chief Butler.,2 "The latter, who had a candle in his hand, called his man to take it away.",2 Then he approached the window with dignity; looking on at Physician's news exactly as he had looked on at the dinners in that very room.,3 'Mr Merdle is dead.',1 "'I should wish,' said the Chief Butler, 'to give a month's notice.'",2 'Mr Merdle has destroyed himself.',2 "'Sir,' said the Chief Butler, 'that is very unpleasant to the feelings of one in my position, as calculated to awaken prejudice; and I should wish to leave immediately.'",1 "'If you are not shocked, are you not surprised, man?'",1 "demanded the Physician, warmly.",3 "The Chief Butler, erect and calm, replied in these memorable words.",3 "'Sir, Mr Merdle never was the gentleman, and no ungentlemanly act on Mr Merdle's part would surprise me.",2 "Is there anybody else I can send to you, or any other directions I can give before I leave, respecting what you would wish to be done?'",2 "When Physician, after discharging himself of his trust up-stairs, rejoined Bar in the street, he said no more of his interview with Mrs Merdle than that he had not yet told her all, but that what he had told her she had borne pretty well.",4 "Bar had devoted his leisure in the street to the construction of a most ingenious man-trap for catching the whole of his jury at a blow; having got that matter settled in his mind, it was lucid on the late catastrophe, and they walked home slowly, discussing it in every bearing.",1 "Before parting at the Physician's door, they both looked up at the sunny morning sky, into which the smoke of a few early fires and the breath and voices of a few early stirrers were peacefully rising, and then looked round upon the immense city, and said, if all those hundreds and thousands of beggared people who were yet asleep could only know, as they two spoke, the ruin that impended over them, what a fearful cry against one miserable soul would go up to Heaven!",1 "The report that the great man was dead, got about with astonishing rapidity.",3 "At first, he was dead of all the diseases that ever were known, and of several bran-new maladies invented with the speed of Light to meet the demand of the occasion.",1 "He had concealed a dropsy from infancy, he had inherited a large estate of water on the chest from his grandfather, he had had an operation performed upon him every morning of his life for eighteen years, he had been subject to the explosion of important veins in his body after the manner of fireworks, he had had something the matter with his lungs, he had had something the matter with his heart, he had had something the matter with his brain.",3 "Five hundred people who sat down to breakfast entirely uninformed on the whole subject, believed before they had done breakfast, that they privately and personally knew Physician to have said to Mr Merdle, 'You must expect to go out, some day, like the snuff of a candle;' and that they knew Mr Merdle to have said to Physician, 'A man can die but once.'",1 "By about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, something the matter with the brain, became the favourite theory against the field; and by twelve the something had been distinctly ascertained to be 'Pressure.'",2 "Pressure was so entirely satisfactory to the public mind, and seemed to make everybody so comfortable, that it might have lasted all day but for Bar's having taken the real state of the case into Court at half-past nine.",3 "This led to its beginning to be currently whispered all over London by about one, that Mr Merdle had killed himself.",2 "Pressure, however, so far from being overthrown by the discovery, became a greater favourite than ever.",2 "There was a general moralising upon Pressure, in every street.",2 "All the people who had tried to make money and had not been able to do it, said, There you were!",2 You no sooner began to devote yourself to the pursuit of wealth than you got Pressure.,2 The idle people improved the occasion in a similar manner.,2 "See, said they, what you brought yourself to by work, work, work!",3 "You persisted in working, you overdid it.",2 "Pressure came on, and you were done for!",2 "This consideration was very potent in many quarters, but nowhere more so than among the young clerks and partners who had never been in the slightest danger of overdoing it.",1 "These, one and all, declared, quite piously, that they hoped they would never forget the warning as long as they lived, and that their conduct might be so regulated as to keep off Pressure, and preserve them, a comfort to their friends, for many years.",2 "But, at about the time of High 'Change, Pressure began to wane, and appalling whispers to circulate, east, west, north, and south.",1 "At first they were faint, and went no further than a doubt whether Mr Merdle's wealth would be found to be as vast as had been supposed; whether there might not be a temporary difficulty in 'realising' it; whether there might not even be a temporary suspension (say a month or so), on the part of the wonderful Bank.",1 "As the whispers became louder, which they did from that time every minute, they became more threatening.",1 "He had sprung from nothing, by no natural growth or process that any one could account for; he had been, after all, a low, ignorant fellow; he had been a down-looking man, and no one had ever been able to catch his eye; he had been taken up by all sorts of people in quite an unaccountable manner; he had never had any money of his own, his ventures had been utterly reckless, and his expenditure had been most enormous.",0 "In steady progression, as the day declined, the talk rose in sound and purpose.",3 "He had left a letter at the Baths addressed to his physician, and his physician had got the letter, and the letter would be produced at the Inquest on the morrow, and it would fall like a thunderbolt upon the multitude he had deluded.",1 Numbers of men in every profession and trade would be blighted by his insolvency; old people who had been in easy circumstances all their lives would have no place of repentance for their trust in him but the workhouse; legions of women and children would have their whole future desolated by the hand of this mighty scoundrel.,3 "Every partaker of his magnificent feasts would be seen to have been a sharer in the plunder of innumerable homes; every servile worshipper of riches who had helped to set him on his pedestal, would have done better to worship the Devil point-blank.",3 "So, the talk, lashed louder and higher by confirmation on confirmation, and by edition after edition of the evening papers, swelled into such a roar when night came, as might have brought one to believe that a solitary watcher on the gallery above the Dome of St Paul's would have perceived the night air to be laden with a heavy muttering of the name of Merdle, coupled with every form of execration.",1 For by that time it was known that the late Mr Merdle's complaint had been simply Forgery and Robbery.,1 "He, the uncouth object of such wide-spread adulation, the sitter at great men's feasts, the roc's egg of great ladies' assemblies, the subduer of exclusiveness, the leveller of pride, the patron of patrons, the bargain-driver with a Minister for Lordships of the Circumlocution Office, the recipient of more acknowledgment within some ten or fifteen years, at most, than had been bestowed in England upon all peaceful public benefactors, and upon all the leaders of all the Arts and Sciences, with all their works to testify for them, during two centuries at least--he, the shining wonder, the new constellation to be followed by the wise men bringing gifts, until it stopped over a certain carrion at the bottom of a bath and disappeared--was simply the greatest Forger and the greatest Thief that ever cheated the gallows.",4 "With a precursory sound of hurried breath and hurried feet, Mr Pancks rushed into Arthur Clennam's Counting-house.",2 "The Inquest was over, the letter was public, the Bank was broken, the other model structures of straw had taken fire and were turned to smoke.",1 "The admired piratical ship had blown up, in the midst of a vast fleet of ships of all rates, and boats of all sizes; and on the deep was nothing but ruin; nothing but burning hulls, bursting magazines, great guns self-exploded tearing friends and neighbours to pieces, drowning men clinging to unseaworthy spars and going down every minute, spent swimmers, floating dead, and sharks.",0 The usual diligence and order of the Counting-house at the Works were overthrown.,3 Unopened letters and unsorted papers lay strewn about the desk.,2 "In the midst of these tokens of prostrated energy and dismissed hope, the master of the Counting-house stood idle in his usual place, with his arms crossed on the desk, and his head bowed down upon them.",2 "Mr Pancks rushed in and saw him, and stood still.",2 "In another minute, Mr Pancks's arms were on the desk, and Mr Pancks's head was bowed down upon them; and for some time they remained in these attitudes, idle and silent, with the width of the little room between them.",2 Mr Pancks was the first to lift up his head and speak.,2 "'I persuaded you to it, Mr Clennam.",2 I know it.,2 Say what you will.,2 You can't say more to me than I say to myself.,2 You can't say more than I deserve.',2 "'O, Pancks, Pancks!'",2 "returned Clennam, 'don't speak of deserving.",3 What do I myself deserve!',2 "'Better luck,' said Pancks.",3 "'I,' pursued Clennam, without attending to him, 'who have ruined my partner!",1 "Pancks, Pancks, I have ruined Doyce!",1 "The honest, self-helpful, indefatigable old man who has worked his way all through his life; the man who has contended against so much disappointment, and who has brought out of it such a good and hopeful nature; the man I have felt so much for, and meant to be so true and useful to; I have ruined him--brought him to shame and disgrace--ruined him, ruined him!'",3 "The agony into which the reflection wrought his mind was so distressing to see, that Mr Pancks took hold of himself by the hair of his head, and tore it in desperation at the spectacle.",0 'Reproach me!',2 cried Pancks.,2 "'Reproach me, sir, or I'll do myself an injury.",1 "Say,--You fool, you villain.",1 "Say,--Ass, how could you do it; Beast, what did you mean by it!",2 Catch hold of me somewhere.,2 Say something abusive to me!',1 "All the time, Mr Pancks was tearing at his tough hair in a most pitiless and cruel manner.",1 "'If you had never yielded to this fatal mania, Pancks,' said Clennam, more in commiseration than retaliation, 'it would have been how much better for you, and how much better for me!'",1 "'At me again, sir!'",2 "cried Pancks, grinding his teeth in remorse.",1 'At me again!',2 "'If you had never gone into those accursed calculations, and brought out your results with such abominable clearness,' groaned Clennam, 'it would have been how much better for you, Pancks, and how much better for me!'",1 "'At me again, sir!'",2 "exclaimed Pancks, loosening his hold of his hair; 'at me again, and again!'",2 "Clennam, however, finding him already beginning to be pacified, had said all he wanted to say, and more.",2 "He wrung his hand, only adding, 'Blind leaders of the blind, Pancks!",1 Blind leaders of the blind!,1 "But Doyce, Doyce, Doyce; my injured partner!'",2 That brought his head down on the desk once more.,2 Their former attitudes and their former silence were once more first encroached upon by Pancks.,2 "'Not been to bed, sir, since it began to get about.",2 "Been high and low, on the chance of finding some hope of saving any cinders from the fire.",2 All in vain.,1 All gone.,2 All vanished.',2 "'I know it,' returned Clennam, 'too well.'",3 Mr Pancks filled up a pause with a groan that came out of the very depths of his soul.,2 "'Only yesterday, Pancks,' said Arthur; 'only yesterday, Monday, I had the fixed intention of selling, realising, and making an end of it.'",2 "'I can't say as much for myself, sir,' returned Pancks.",2 "'Though it's wonderful how many people I've heard of, who were going to realise yesterday, of all days in the three hundred and sixty-five, if it hadn't been too late!'",3 "His steam-like breathings, usually droll in their effect, were more tragic than so many groans: while from head to foot, he was in that begrimed, besmeared, neglected state, that he might have been an authentic portrait of Misfortune which could scarcely be discerned through its want of cleaning.",1 "'Mr Clennam, had you laid out--everything?'",2 "He got over the break before the last word, and also brought out the last word itself with great difficulty.",1 'Everything.',2 "Mr Pancks took hold of his tough hair again, and gave it such a wrench that he pulled out several prongs of it.",3 "After looking at these with an eye of wild hatred, he put them in his pocket.",1 "'My course,' said Clennam, brushing away some tears that had been silently dropping down his face, 'must be taken at once.",2 What wretched amends I can make must be made.,1 I must clear my unfortunate partner's reputation.,3 I must retain nothing for myself.,2 "I must resign to our creditors the power of management I have so much abused, and I must work out as much of my fault--or crime--as is susceptible of being worked out in the rest of my days.'",1 "'Is it impossible, sir, to tide over the present?'",1 'Out of the question.,2 "Nothing can be tided over now, Pancks.",2 "The sooner the business can pass out of my hands, the better for it.",3 "There are engagements to be met, this week, which would bring the catastrophe before many days were over, even if I would postpone it for a single day by going on for that space, secretly knowing what I know.",1 All last night I thought of what I would do; what remains is to do it.',2 'Not entirely of yourself?',2 "said Pancks, whose face was as damp as if his steam were turning into water as fast as he dismally blew it off.",2 'Have some legal help.',2 'Perhaps I had better.',3 'Have Rugg.',2 'There is not much to do.,2 He will do it as well as another.',3 "'Shall I fetch Rugg, Mr Clennam?'",2 "'If you could spare the time, I should be much obliged to you.'",2 "Mr Pancks put on his hat that moment, and steamed away to Pentonville.",2 "While he was gone Arthur never raised his head from the desk, but remained in that one position.",2 "Mr Pancks brought his friend and professional adviser, Mr Rugg, back with him.",2 "Mr Rugg had had such ample experience, on the road, of Mr Pancks's being at that present in an irrational state of mind, that he opened his professional mediation by requesting that gentleman to take himself out of the way.",2 "Mr Pancks, crushed and submissive, obeyed.",1 "'He is not unlike what my daughter was, sir, when we began the Breach of Promise action of Rugg and Bawkins, in which she was Plaintiff,' said Mr Rugg.",2 'He takes too strong and direct an interest in the case.,3 His feelings are worked upon.,3 "There is no getting on, in our profession, with feelings worked upon, sir.'",3 "As he pulled off his gloves and put them in his hat, he saw, in a side glance or two, that a great change had come over his client.",3 "'I am sorry to perceive, sir,' said Mr Rugg, 'that you have been allowing your own feelings to be worked upon.",2 "Now, pray don't, pray don't.",2 "These losses are much to be deplored, sir, but we must look 'em in the face.'",1 "'If the money I have sacrificed had been all my own, Mr Rugg,' sighed Mr Clennam, 'I should have cared far less.'",1 "'Indeed, sir?'",2 "said Mr Rugg, rubbing his hands with a cheerful air.",3 'You surprise me.,2 "That's singular, sir.",2 "I have generally found, in my experience, that it's their own money people are most particular about.",2 "I have seen people get rid of a good deal of other people's money, and bear it very well: very well indeed.'",3 "With these comforting remarks, Mr Rugg seated himself on an office-stool at the desk and proceeded to business.",3 "'Now, Mr Clennam, by your leave, let us go into the matter.",2 Let us see the state of the case.,2 The question is simple.,2 "The question is the usual plain, straightforward, common-sense question.",3 What can we do for ourself?,2 What can we do for ourself?',2 "'This is not the question with me, Mr Rugg,' said Arthur.",2 'You mistake it in the beginning.,1 "It is, what can I do for my partner, how can I best make reparation to him?'",3 "'I am afraid, sir, do you know,' argued Mr Rugg persuasively, 'that you are still allowing your feeling to be worked upon.",2 "I _don't_ like the term ""reparation,"" sir, except as a lever in the hands of counsel.",3 "Will you excuse my saying that I feel it my duty to offer you the caution, that you really must not allow your feelings to be worked upon?'",2 "'Mr Rugg,' said Clennam, nerving himself to go through with what he had resolved upon, and surprising that gentleman by appearing, in his despondency, to have a settled determination of purpose; 'you give me the impression that you will not be much disposed to adopt the course I have made up my mind to take.",1 "If your disapproval of it should render you unwilling to discharge such business as it necessitates, I am sorry for it, and must seek other aid.",0 "But I will represent to you at once, that to argue against it with me is useless.'",1 "'Good, sir,' answered Mr Rugg, shrugging his shoulders.",2 "'Good, sir.",2 "Since the business is to be done by some hands, let it be done by mine.",2 Such was my principle in the case of Rugg and Bawkins.,2 Such is my principle in most cases.',2 Clennam then proceeded to state to Mr Rugg his fixed resolution.,2 "He told Mr Rugg that his partner was a man of great simplicity and integrity, and that in all he meant to do, he was guided above all things by a knowledge of his partner's character, and a respect for his feelings.",3 "He explained that his partner was then absent on an enterprise of importance, and that it particularly behoved himself publicly to accept the blame of what he had rashly done, and publicly to exonerate his partner from all participation in the responsibility of it, lest the successful conduct of that enterprise should be endangered by the slightest suspicion wrongly attaching to his partner's honour and credit in another country.",1 "He told Mr Rugg that to clear his partner morally, to the fullest extent, and publicly and unreservedly to declare that he, Arthur Clennam, of that Firm, had of his own sole act, and even expressly against his partner's caution, embarked its resources in the swindles that had lately perished, was the only real atonement within his power; was a better atonement to the particular man than it would be to many men; and was therefore the atonement he had first to make.",3 "With this view, his intention was to print a declaration to the foregoing effect, which he had already drawn up; and, besides circulating it among all who had dealings with the House, to advertise it in the public papers.",2 "Concurrently with this measure (the description of which cost Mr Rugg innumerable wry faces and great uneasiness in his limbs), he would address a letter to all the creditors, exonerating his partner in a solemn manner, informing them of the stoppage of the House until their pleasure could be known and his partner communicated with, and humbly submitting himself to their direction.",2 "If, through their consideration for his partner's innocence, the affairs could ever be got into such train as that the business could be profitably resumed, and its present downfall overcome, then his own share in it should revert to his partner, as the only reparation he could make to him in money value for the distress and loss he had unhappily brought upon him, and he himself, at as small a salary as he could live upon, would ask to be allowed to serve the business as a faithful clerk.",0 "Though Mr Rugg saw plainly there was no preventing this from being done, still the wryness of his face and the uneasiness of his limbs so sorely required the propitiation of a Protest, that he made one.",0 "'I offer no objection, sir,' said he, 'I argue no point with you.",1 "I will carry out your views, sir; but, under protest.'",1 "Mr Rugg then stated, not without prolixity, the heads of his protest.",1 "These were, in effect, because the whole town, or he might say the whole country, was in the first madness of the late discovery, and the resentment against the victims would be very strong: those who had not been deluded being certain to wax exceedingly wroth with them for not having been as wise as they were: and those who had been deluded being certain to find excuses and reasons for themselves, of which they were equally certain to see that other sufferers were wholly devoid: not to mention the great probability of every individual sufferer persuading himself, to his violent indignation, that but for the example of all the other sufferers he never would have put himself in the way of suffering.",0 "Because such a declaration as Clennam's, made at such a time, would certainly draw down upon him a storm of animosity, rendering it impossible to calculate on forbearance in the creditors, or on unanimity among them; and exposing him a solitary target to a straggling cross-fire, which might bring him down from half-a-dozen quarters at once.",1 "To all this Clennam merely replied that, granting the whole protest, nothing in it lessened the force, or could lessen the force, of the voluntary and public exoneration of his partner.",1 "He therefore, once and for all, requested Mr Rugg's immediate aid in getting the business despatched.",2 "Upon that, Mr Rugg fell to work; and Arthur, retaining no property to himself but his clothes and books, and a little loose money, placed his small private banker's-account with the papers of the business.",1 "The disclosure was made, and the storm raged fearfully.",1 "Thousands of people were wildly staring about for somebody alive to heap reproaches on; and this notable case, courting publicity, set the living somebody so much wanted, on a scaffold.",1 "When people who had nothing to do with the case were so sensible of its flagrancy, people who lost money by it could scarcely be expected to deal mildly with it.",1 "Letters of reproach and invective showered in from the creditors; and Mr Rugg, who sat upon the high stool every day and read them all, informed his client within a week that he feared there were writs out.",1 "'I must take the consequences of what I have done,' said Clennam.",2 'The writs will find me here.',2 "On the very next morning, as he was turning in Bleeding Heart Yard by Mrs Plornish's corner, Mrs Plornish stood at the door waiting for him, and mysteriously besought him to step into Happy Cottage.",1 There he found Mr Rugg.,2 'I thought I'd wait for you here.,2 "I wouldn't go on to the Counting-house this morning if I was you, sir.'",2 "'Why not, Mr Rugg?'",2 "'There are as many as five out, to my knowledge.'",2 "'It cannot be too soon over,' said Clennam.",2 'Let them take me at once.',2 "'Yes, but,' said Mr Rugg, getting between him and the door, 'hear reason, hear reason.",2 "They'll take you soon enough, Mr Clennam, I don't doubt; but, hear reason.",2 "It almost always happens, in these cases, that some insignificant matter pushes itself in front and makes much of itself.",1 "Now, I find there's a little one out--a mere Palace Court jurisdiction--and I have reason to believe that a caption may be made upon that.",2 I wouldn't be taken upon that.',2 'Why not?',2 asked Clennam.,2 "'I'd be taken on a full-grown one, sir,' said Mr Rugg.",2 'It's as well to keep up appearances.,3 "As your professional adviser, I should prefer your being taken on a writ from one of the Superior Courts, if you have no objection to do me that favour.",3 It looks better.',3 "'Mr Rugg,' said Arthur, in his dejection, 'my only wish is, that it should be over.",1 "I will go on, and take my chance.'",2 "'Another word of reason, sir!'",2 cried Mr Rugg.,2 "'Now, this _is_ reason.",2 The other may be taste; but this is reason.,2 "If you should be taken on a little one, sir, you would go to the Marshalsea.",2 "Now, you know what the Marshalsea is.",2 Very close.,2 Excessively confined.,1 "Whereas in the King's Bench--' Mr Rugg waved his right hand freely, as expressing abundance of space.",3 "'I would rather,' said Clennam, 'be taken to the Marshalsea than to any other prison.'",1 "'Do you say so indeed, sir?'",2 returned Mr Rugg.,2 "'Then this is taste, too, and we may be walking.'",2 "He was a little offended at first, but he soon overlooked it.",2 They walked through the Yard to the other end.,2 The Bleeding Hearts were more interested in Arthur since his reverses than formerly; now regarding him as one who was true to the place and had taken up his freedom.,2 "Many of them came out to look after him, and to observe to one another, with great unctuousness, that he was 'pulled down by it.'",3 "Mrs Plornish and her father stood at the top of the steps at their own end, much depressed and shaking their heads.",2 There was nobody visibly in waiting when Arthur and Mr Rugg arrived at the Counting-house.,2 "But an elderly member of the Jewish persuasion, preserved in rum, followed them close, and looked in at the glass before Mr Rugg had opened one of the day's letters.",2 'Oh!',2 "said Mr Rugg, looking up.",2 'How do you do?,2 "Step in--Mr Clennam, I think this is the gentleman I was mentioning.'",2 "This gentleman explained the object of his visit to be 'a tyfling madder ob bithznithz,' and executed his legal function.",1 "'Shall I accompany you, Mr Clennam?'",2 "asked Mr Rugg politely, rubbing his hands.",2 "'I would rather go alone, thank you.",3 Be so good as send me my clothes.',3 "Mr Rugg in a light airy way replied in the affirmative, and shook hands with him.",3 "He and his attendant then went down-stairs, got into the first conveyance they found, and drove to the old gates.",2 "'Where I little thought, Heaven forgive me,' said Clennam to himself, 'that I should ever enter thus!'",3 "Mr Chivery was on the Lock, and Young John was in the Lodge: either newly released from it, or waiting to take his own spell of duty.",2 "Both were more astonished on seeing who the prisoner was, than one might have thought turnkeys would have been.",2 "The elder Mr Chivery shook hands with him in a shame-faced kind of way, and said, 'I don't call to mind, sir, as I was ever less glad to see you.'",2 "The younger Mr Chivery, more distant, did not shake hands with him at all; he stood looking at him in a state of indecision so observable that it even came within the observation of Clennam with his heavy eyes and heavy heart.",1 "Presently afterwards, Young John disappeared into the jail.",2 "As Clennam knew enough of the place to know that he was required to remain in the Lodge a certain time, he took a seat in a corner, and feigned to be occupied with the perusal of letters from his pocket.",3 "They did not so engross his attention, but that he saw, with gratitude, how the elder Mr Chivery kept the Lodge clear of prisoners; how he signed to some, with his keys, not to come in, how he nudged others with his elbows to go out, and how he made his misery as easy to him as he could.",3 "Arthur was sitting with his eyes fixed on the floor, recalling the past, brooding over the present, and not attending to either, when he felt himself touched upon the shoulder.",2 "It was by Young John; and he said, 'You can come now.'",2 He got up and followed Young John.,2 "When they had gone a step or two within the inner iron-gate, Young John turned and said to him: 'You want a room.",2 I have got you one.',2 'I thank you heartily.',3 "Young John turned again, and took him in at the old doorway, up the old staircase, into the old room.",2 Arthur stretched out his hand.,2 "Young John looked at it, looked at him--sternly--swelled, choked, and said: 'I don't know as I can.",1 "No, I find I can't.",2 "But I thought you'd like the room, and here it is for you.'",3 "Surprise at this inconsistent behaviour yielded when he was gone (he went away directly) to the feelings which the empty room awakened in Clennam's wounded breast, and to the crowding associations with the one good and gentle creature who had sanctified it.",3 "Her absence in his altered fortunes made it, and him in it, so very desolate and so much in need of such a face of love and truth, that he turned against the wall to weep, sobbing out, as his heart relieved itself, 'O my Little Dorrit!'",1 "The day was sunny, and the Marshalsea, with the hot noon striking upon it, was unwontedly quiet.",4 "Arthur Clennam dropped into a solitary arm-chair, itself as faded as any debtor in the jail, and yielded himself to his thoughts.",2 "In the unnatural peace of having gone through the dreaded arrest, and got there,--the first change of feeling which the prison most commonly induced, and from which dangerous resting-place so many men had slipped down to the depths of degradation and disgrace by so many ways,--he could think of some passages in his life, almost as if he were removed from them into another state of existence.",0 "Taking into account where he was, the interest that had first brought him there when he had been free to keep away, and the gentle presence that was equally inseparable from the walls and bars about him and from the impalpable remembrances of his later life which no walls or bars could imprison, it was not remarkable that everything his memory turned upon should bring him round again to Little Dorrit.",3 "Yet it was remarkable to him; not because of the fact itself, but because of the reminder it brought with it, how much the dear little creature had influenced his better resolutions.",3 "None of us clearly know to whom or to what we are indebted in this wise, until some marked stop in the whirling wheel of life brings the right perception with it.",4 "It comes with sickness, it comes with sorrow, it comes with the loss of the dearly loved, it is one of the most frequent uses of adversity.",0 "It came to Clennam in his adversity, strongly and tenderly.",2 "'When I first gathered myself together,' he thought, 'and set something like purpose before my jaded eyes, whom had I before me, toiling on, for a good object's sake, without encouragement, without notice, against ignoble obstacles that would have turned an army of received heroes and heroines?",3 One weak girl!,1 "When I tried to conquer my misplaced love, and to be generous to the man who was more fortunate than I, though he should never know it or repay me with a gracious word, in whom had I watched patience, self-denial, self-subdual, charitable construction, the noblest generosity of the affections?",4 In the same poor girl!,1 "If I, a man, with a man's advantages and means and energies, had slighted the whisper in my heart, that if my father had erred, it was my first duty to conceal the fault and to repair it, what youthful figure with tender feet going almost bare on the damp ground, with spare hands ever working, with its slight shape but half protected from the sharp weather, would have stood before me to put me to shame?",3 Little Dorrit's.',2 "So always as he sat alone in the faded chair, thinking.",2 "Always, Little Dorrit.",2 "Until it seemed to him as if he met the reward of having wandered away from her, and suffered anything to pass between him and his remembrance of her virtues.",2 "His door was opened, and the head of the elder Chivery was put in a very little way, without being turned towards him.",2 "'I am off the Lock, Mr Clennam, and going out.",2 Can I do anything for you?',2 'Many thanks.,2 Nothing.',2 "'You'll excuse me opening the door,' said Mr Chivery; 'but I couldn't make you hear.'",1 'Did you knock?',1 'Half-a-dozen times.',2 "Rousing himself, Clennam observed that the prison had awakened from its noontide doze, that the inmates were loitering about the shady yard, and that it was late in the afternoon.",1 He had been thinking for hours.,2 "'Your things is come,' said Mr Chivery, 'and my son is going to carry 'em up.",2 I should have sent 'em up but for his wishing to carry 'em himself.,2 "Indeed he would have 'em himself, and so I couldn't send 'em up.",2 "Mr Clennam, could I say a word to you?'",2 "'Pray come in,' said Arthur; for Mr Chivery's head was still put in at the door a very little way, and Mr Chivery had but one ear upon him, instead of both eyes.",2 "This was native delicacy in Mr Chivery--true politeness; though his exterior had very much of a turnkey about it, and not the least of a gentleman.",3 "'Thank you, sir,' said Mr Chivery, without advancing; 'it's no odds me coming in.",2 "Mr Clennam, don't you take no notice of my son (if you'll be so good) in case you find him cut up anyways difficult.",2 "My son has a 'art, and my son's 'art is in the right place.",3 "Me and his mother knows where to find it, and we find it sitiwated correct.'",3 "With this mysterious speech, Mr Chivery took his ear away and shut the door.",1 "He might have been gone ten minutes, when his son succeeded him.",3 "'Here's your portmanteau,' he said to Arthur, putting it carefully down.",2 'It's very kind of you.,2 I am ashamed that you should have the trouble.',1 "He was gone before it came to that; but soon returned, saying exactly as before, 'Here's your black box:' which he also put down with care.",2 'I am very sensible of this attention.,3 "I hope we may shake hands now, Mr John.'",1 "Young John, however, drew back, turning his right wrist in a socket made of his left thumb and middle-finger and said as he had said at first, 'I don't know as I can.",3 No; I find I can't!',2 "He then stood regarding the prisoner sternly, though with a swelling humour in his eyes that looked like pity.",1 "'Why are you angry with me,' said Clennam, 'and yet so ready to do me these kind services?",2 There must be some mistake between us.,1 If I have done anything to occasion it I am sorry.',1 "'No mistake, sir,' returned John, turning the wrist backwards and forwards in the socket, for which it was rather tight.",1 "'No mistake, sir, in the feelings with which my eyes behold you at the present moment!",1 "If I was at all fairly equal to your weight, Mr Clennam--which I am not; and if you weren't under a cloud--which you are; and if it wasn't against all rules of the Marshalsea--which it is; those feelings are such, that they would stimulate me, more to having it out with you in a Round on the present spot than to anything else I could name.'",3 "Arthur looked at him for a moment in some wonder, and some little anger.",2 "'Well, well!'",3 he said.,2 "'A mistake, a mistake!'",1 "Turning away, he sat down with a heavy sigh in the faded chair again.",2 "Young John followed him with his eyes, and, after a short pause, cried out, 'I beg your pardon!'",2 "'Freely granted,' said Clennam, waving his hand without raising his sunken head.",1 'Say no more.,2 I am not worth it.',3 "'This furniture, sir,' said Young John in a voice of mild and soft explanation, 'belongs to me.",3 "I am in the habit of letting it out to parties without furniture, that have the room.",2 "It an't much, but it's at your service.",2 "Free, I mean.",3 I could not think of letting you have it on any other terms.,2 You're welcome to it for nothing.',3 "Arthur raised his head again to thank him, and to say he could not accept the favour.",3 "John was still turning his wrist, and still contending with himself in his former divided manner.",2 'What is the matter between us?',2 said Arthur.,2 "'I decline to name it, sir,' returned Young John, suddenly turning loud and sharp.",1 'Nothing's the matter.',2 "Arthur looked at him again, in vain, for an explanation of his behaviour.",1 "After a while, Arthur turned away his head again.",2 "Young John said, presently afterwards, with the utmost mildness: 'The little round table, sir, that's nigh your elbow, was--you know whose--I needn't mention him--he died a great gentleman.",2 "I bought it of an individual that he gave it to, and that lived here after him.",2 But the individual wasn't any ways equal to him.,2 Most individuals would find it hard to come up to his level.',1 "Arthur drew the little table nearer, rested his arm upon it, and kept it there.",2 "'Perhaps you may not be aware, sir,' said Young John, 'that I intruded upon him when he was over here in London.",2 "On the whole he was of opinion that it _was_ an intrusion, though he was so good as to ask me to sit down and to inquire after father and all other old friends.",2 Leastways humblest acquaintances.,2 "He looked, to me, a good deal changed, and I said so when I came back.",3 I asked him if Miss Amy was well--' 'And she was?',2 "'I should have thought you would have known without putting the question to such as me,' returned Young John, after appearing to take a large invisible pill.",1 "'Since you do put me the question, I am sorry I can't answer it.",1 "But the truth is, he looked upon the inquiry as a liberty, and said, ""What was that to me?""",3 It was then I became quite aware I was intruding: of which I had been fearful before.,1 "However, he spoke very handsome afterwards; very handsome.'",3 "They were both silent for several minutes: except that Young John remarked, at about the middle of the pause, 'He both spoke and acted very handsome.'",3 "It was again Young John who broke the silence by inquiring: 'If it's not a liberty, how long may it be your intentions, sir, to go without eating and drinking?'",2 "'I have not felt the want of anything yet,' returned Clennam.",2 'I have no appetite just now.',2 "'The more reason why you should take some support, sir,' urged Young John.",3 "'If you find yourself going on sitting here for hours and hours partaking of no refreshment because you have no appetite, why then you should and must partake of refreshment without an appetite.",2 I'm going to have tea in my own apartment.,2 "If it's not a liberty, please to come and take a cup.",3 Or I can bring a tray here in two minutes.',2 "Feeling that Young John would impose that trouble on himself if he refused, and also feeling anxious to show that he bore in mind both the elder Mr Chivery's entreaty, and the younger Mr Chivery's apology, Arthur rose and expressed his willingness to take a cup of tea in Mr John's apartment.",0 "Young John locked his door for him as they went out, slided the key into his pocket with great dexterity, and led the way to his own residence.",3 It was at the top of the house nearest to the gateway.,3 "It was the room to which Clennam had hurried on the day when the enriched family had left the prison for ever, and where he had lifted her insensible from the floor.",1 He foresaw where they were going as soon as their feet touched the staircase.,2 "The room was so far changed that it was papered now, and had been repainted, and was far more comfortably furnished; but he could recall it just as he had seen it in that single glance, when he raised her from the ground and carried her down to the carriage.",3 "Young John looked hard at him, biting his fingers.",1 "'I see you recollect the room, Mr Clennam?'",2 "'I recollect it well, Heaven bless her!'",4 "Oblivious of the tea, Young John continued to bite his fingers and to look at his visitor, as long as his visitor continued to glance about the room.",1 "Finally, he made a start at the teapot, gustily rattled a quantity of tea into it from a canister, and set off for the common kitchen to fill it with hot water.",2 "The room was so eloquent to Clennam in the changed circumstances of his return to the miserable Marshalsea; it spoke to him so mournfully of her, and of his loss of her; that it would have gone hard with him to resist it, even though he had not been alone.",0 "Alone, he did not try.",2 "He had his hand on the insensible wall as tenderly as if it had been herself that he touched, and pronounced her name in a low voice.",2 "He stood at the window, looking over the prison-parapet with its grim spiked border, and breathed a benediction through the summer haze towards the distant land where she was rich and prosperous.",1 "Young John was some time absent, and, when he came back, showed that he had been outside by bringing with him fresh butter in a cabbage leaf, some thin slices of boiled ham in another cabbage leaf, and a little basket of water-cresses and salad herbs.",3 "When these were arranged upon the table to his satisfaction, they sat down to tea.",2 "Clennam tried to do honour to the meal, but unavailingly.",2 "The ham sickened him, the bread seemed to turn to sand in his mouth.",2 He could force nothing upon himself but a cup of tea.,2 "'Try a little something green,' said Young John, handing him the basket.",2 "He took a sprig or so of water-cress, and tried again; but the bread turned to a heavier sand than before, and the ham (though it was good enough of itself) seemed to blow a faint simoom of ham through the whole Marshalsea.",2 "'Try a little more something green, sir,' said Young John; and again handed the basket.",2 "It was so like handing green meat into the cage of a dull imprisoned bird, and John had so evidently brought the little basket as a handful of fresh relief from the stale hot paving-stones and bricks of the jail, that Clennam said, with a smile, 'It was very kind of you to think of putting this between the wires; but I cannot even get this down to-day.'",4 "As if the difficulty were contagious, Young John soon pushed away his own plate, and fell to folding the cabbage-leaf that had contained the ham.",0 "When he had folded it into a number of layers, one over another, so that it was small in the palm of his hand, he began to flatten it between both his hands, and to eye Clennam attentively.",2 "'I wonder,' he at length said, compressing his green packet with some force, 'that if it's not worth your while to take care of yourself for your own sake, it's not worth doing for some one else's.'",3 "'Truly,' returned Arthur, with a sigh and a smile, 'I don't know for whose.'",3 "'Mr Clennam,' said John, warmly, 'I am surprised that a gentleman who is capable of the straightforwardness that you are capable of, should be capable of the mean action of making me such an answer.",3 "Mr Clennam, I am surprised that a gentleman who is capable of having a heart of his own, should be capable of the heartlessness of treating mine in that way.",3 "I am astonished at it, sir.",3 Really and truly I am astonished!',3 "Having got upon his feet to emphasise his concluding words, Young John sat down again, and fell to rolling his green packet on his right leg; never taking his eyes off Clennam, but surveying him with a fixed look of indignant reproach.",1 "'I had got over it, sir,' said John.",2 "'I had conquered it, knowing that it _must_ be conquered, and had come to the resolution to think no more about it.",2 "I shouldn't have given my mind to it again, I hope, if to this prison you had not been brought, and in an hour unfortunate for me, this day!'",1 "(In his agitation Young John adopted his mother's powerful construction of sentences.) 'When you first came upon me, sir, in the Lodge, this day, more as if a Upas tree had been made a capture of than a private defendant, such mingled streams of feelings broke loose again within me, that everything was for the first few minutes swept away before them, and I was going round and round in a vortex.",1 I got out of it.,2 "I struggled, and got out of it.",1 "If it was the last word I had to speak, against that vortex with my utmost powers I strove, and out of it I came.",2 "I argued that if I had been rude, apologies was due, and those apologies without a question of demeaning, I did make.",1 "And now, when I've been so wishful to show that one thought is next to being a holy one with me and goes before all others--now, after all, you dodge me when I ever so gently hint at it, and throw me back upon myself.",3 "For, do not, sir,' said Young John, 'do not be so base as to deny that dodge you do, and thrown me back upon myself you have!'",1 "All amazement, Arthur gazed at him like one lost, only saying, 'What is it?",3 "What do you mean, John?'",2 "But, John, being in that state of mind in which nothing would seem to be more impossible to a certain class of people than the giving of an answer, went ahead blindly.",1 "'I hadn't,' John declared, 'no, I hadn't, and I never had the audaciousness to think, I am sure, that all was anything but lost.",1 "I hadn't, no, why should I say I hadn't if I ever had, any hope that it was possible to be so blest, not after the words that passed, not even if barriers insurmountable had not been raised!",1 "But is that a reason why I am to have no memory, why I am to have no thoughts, why I am to have no sacred spots, nor anything?'",2 'What can you mean?',2 cried Arthur.,2 "'It's all very well to trample on it, sir,' John went on, scouring a very prairie of wild words, 'if a person can make up his mind to be guilty of the action.",1 "It's all very well to trample on it, but it's there.",2 It may be that it couldn't be trampled upon if it wasn't there.,2 "But that doesn't make it gentlemanly, that doesn't make it honourable, that doesn't justify throwing a person back upon himself after he has struggled and strived out of himself like a butterfly.",2 "The world may sneer at a turnkey, but he's a man--when he isn't a woman, which among female criminals he's expected to be.'",1 "Ridiculous as the incoherence of his talk was, there was yet a truthfulness in Young John's simple, sentimental character, and a sense of being wounded in some very tender respect, expressed in his burning face and in the agitation of his voice and manner, which Arthur must have been cruel to disregard.",1 "He turned his thoughts back to the starting-point of this unknown injury; and in the meantime Young John, having rolled his green packet pretty round, cut it carefully into three pieces, and laid it on a plate as if it were some particular delicacy.",2 "'It seems to me just possible,' said Arthur, when he had retraced the conversation to the water-cresses and back again, 'that you have made some reference to Miss Dorrit.'",1 "'It is just possible, sir,' returned John Chivery.",2 'I don't understand it.,2 "I hope I may not be so unlucky as to make you think I mean to offend you again, for I never have meant to offend you yet, when I say I don't understand it.'",1 "'Sir,' said Young John, 'will you have the perfidy to deny that you know and long have known that I felt towards Miss Dorrit, call it not the presumption of love, but adoration and sacrifice?'",1 "'Indeed, John, I will not have any perfidy if I know it; why you should suspect me of it I am at a loss to think.",1 "Did you ever hear from Mrs Chivery, your mother, that I went to see her once?'",2 "'No, sir,' returned John, shortly.",2 'Never heard of such a thing.',2 'But I did.,2 Can you imagine why?',2 "'No, sir,' returned John, shortly.",2 'I can't imagine why.',2 'I will tell you.,2 I was solicitous to promote Miss Dorrit's happiness; and if I could have supposed that Miss Dorrit returned your affection--' Poor John Chivery turned crimson to the tips of his ears.,3 "'Miss Dorrit never did, sir.",2 "I wish to be honourable and true, so far as in my humble way I can, and I would scorn to pretend for a moment that she ever did, or that she ever led me to believe she did; no, nor even that it was ever to be expected in any cool reason that she would or could.",3 She was far above me in all respects at all times.,2 "As likewise,' added John, 'similarly was her gen-teel family.'",2 "His chivalrous feeling towards all that belonged to her made him so very respectable, in spite of his small stature and his rather weak legs, and his very weak hair, and his poetical temperament, that a Goliath might have sat in his place demanding less consideration at Arthur's hands.",2 "'You speak, John,' he said, with cordial admiration, 'like a Man.'",3 "'Well, sir,' returned John, brushing his hand across his eyes, 'then I wish you'd do the same.'",2 "He was quick with this unexpected retort, and it again made Arthur regard him with a wondering expression of face.",2 "'Leastways,' said John, stretching his hand across the tea-tray, 'if too strong a remark, withdrawn!",3 "But, why not, why not?",2 "When I say to you, Mr Clennam, take care of yourself for some one else's sake, why not be open, though a turnkey?",2 Why did I get you the room which I knew you'd like best?,3 Why did I carry up your things?,2 Not that I found 'em heavy; I don't mention 'em on that accounts; far from it.,2 Why have I cultivated you in the manner I have done since the morning?,2 On the ground of your own merits?,2 No.,2 "They're very great, I've no doubt at all; but not on the ground of them.",2 "Another's merits have had their weight, and have had far more weight with Me.",2 Then why not speak free?',3 "'Unaffectedly, John,' said Clennam, 'you are so good a fellow and I have so true a respect for your character, that if I have appeared to be less sensible than I really am of the fact that the kind services you have rendered me to-day are attributable to my having been trusted by Miss Dorrit as her friend--I confess it to be a fault, and I ask your forgiveness.'",3 'Oh!,2 "why not,' John repeated with returning scorn, 'why not speak free!'",2 "'I declare to you,' returned Arthur, 'that I do not understand you.",2 Look at me.,2 Consider the trouble I have been in.,1 "Is it likely that I would wilfully add to my other self-reproaches, that of being ungrateful or treacherous to you.",1 I do not understand you.',2 John's incredulous face slowly softened into a face of doubt.,0 "He rose, backed into the garret-window of the room, beckoned Arthur to come there, and stood looking at him thoughtfully.",3 "'Mr Clennam, do you mean to say that you don't know?'",2 "'What, John?'",2 "'Lord,' said Young John, appealing with a gasp to the spikes on the wall.",2 "'He says, What!'",2 "Clennam looked at the spikes, and looked at John; and looked at the spikes, and looked at John.",2 'He says What!,2 "And what is more,' exclaimed Young John, surveying him in a doleful maze, 'he appears to mean it!",2 "Do you see this window, sir?'",2 'Of course I see this window.',2 'See this room?',2 "'Why, of course I see this room.'",2 "'That wall opposite, and that yard down below?",2 "They have all been witnesses of it, from day to day, from night to night, from week to week, from month to month.",2 For how often have I seen Miss Dorrit here when she has not seen me!',1 'Witnesses of what?',2 said Clennam.,2 'Of Miss Dorrit's love.',2 'For whom?',2 "'You,' said John.",2 "And touched him with the back of his hand upon the breast, and backed to his chair, and sat down on it with a pale face, holding the arms, and shaking his head at him.",1 "If he had dealt Clennam a heavy blow, instead of laying that light touch upon him, its effect could not have been to shake him more.",1 "He stood amazed; his eyes looking at John; his lips parted, and seeming now and then to form the word 'Me!'",3 "without uttering it; his hands dropped at his sides; his whole appearance that of a man who has been awakened from sleep, and stupefied by intelligence beyond his full comprehension.",3 'Me!',2 he at length said aloud.,2 'Ah!',2 groaned Young John.,2 'You!',2 "He did what he could to muster a smile, and returned, 'Your fancy.",3 You are completely mistaken.',1 "'I mistaken, sir!'",1 said Young John.,2 '_I_ completely mistaken on that subject!,1 "No, Mr Clennam, don't tell me so.",2 "On any other, if you like, for I don't set up to be a penetrating character, and am well aware of my own deficiencies.",3 "But, _I_ mistaken on a point that has caused me more smart in my breast than a flight of savages' arrows could have done!",2 "_I_ mistaken on a point that almost sent me into my grave, as I sometimes wished it would, if the grave could only have been made compatible with the tobacco-business and father and mother's feelings!",2 "I mistaken on a point that, even at the present moment, makes me take out my pocket-handkerchief like a great girl, as people say: though I am sure I don't know why a great girl should be a term of reproach, for every rightly constituted male mind loves 'em great and small.",3 "Don't tell me so, don't tell me so!'",2 "Still highly respectable at bottom, though absurd enough upon the surface, Young John took out his pocket-handkerchief with a genuine absence both of display and concealment, which is only to be seen in a man with a great deal of good in him, when he takes out his pocket-handkerchief for the purpose of wiping his eyes.",4 "Having dried them, and indulged in the harmless luxury of a sob and a sniff, he put it up again.",3 The touch was still in its influence so like a blow that Arthur could not get many words together to close the subject with.,2 "He assured John Chivery when he had returned his handkerchief to his pocket, that he did all honour to his disinterestedness and to the fidelity of his remembrance of Miss Dorrit.",2 "As to the impression on his mind, of which he had just relieved it--here John interposed, and said, 'No impression!",2 Certainty!',2 "--as to that, they might perhaps speak of it at another time, but would say no more now.",2 "Feeling low-spirited and weary, he would go back to his room, with John's leave, and come out no more that night.",2 "John assented, and he crept back in the shadow of the wall to his own lodging.",1 "The feeling of the blow was still so strong upon him that, when the dirty old woman was gone whom he found sitting on the stairs outside his door, waiting to make his bed, and who gave him to understand while doing it, that she had received her instructions from Mr Chivery, 'not the old 'un but the young 'un,' he sat down in the faded arm-chair, pressing his head between his hands, as if he had been stunned.",2 Little Dorrit love him!,3 "More bewildering to him than his misery, far.",1 Consider the improbability.,1 "He had been accustomed to call her his child, and his dear child, and to invite her confidence by dwelling upon the difference in their respective ages, and to speak of himself as one who was turning old.",3 Yet she might not have thought him old.,2 "Something reminded him that he had not thought himself so, until the roses had floated away upon the river.",2 "He had her two letters among other papers in his box, and he took them out and read them.",2 There seemed to be a sound in them like the sound of her sweet voice.,3 "It fell upon his ear with many tones of tenderness, that were not insusceptible of the new meaning.",1 "Now it was that the quiet desolation of her answer, 'No, No, No,' made to him that night in that very room--that night when he had been shown the dawn of her altered fortune, and when other words had passed between them which he had been destined to remember in humiliation and a prisoner, rushed into his mind.",2 Consider the improbability.,1 "But it had a preponderating tendency, when considered, to become fainter.",2 There was another and a curious inquiry of his own heart's that concurrently became stronger.,3 "In the reluctance he had felt to believe that she loved any one; in his desire to set that question at rest; in a half-formed consciousness he had had that there would be a kind of nobleness in his helping her love for any one, was there no suppressed something on his own side that he had hushed as it arose?",3 "Had he ever whispered to himself that he must not think of such a thing as her loving him, that he must not take advantage of her gratitude, that he must keep his experience in remembrance as a warning and reproof; that he must regard such youthful hopes as having passed away, as his friend's dead daughter had passed away; that he must be steady in saying to himself that the time had gone by him, and he was too saddened and old?",4 He had kissed her when he raised her from the ground on the day when she had been so consistently and expressively forgotten.,3 "Quite as he might have kissed her, if she had been conscious?",2 No difference?,2 The darkness found him occupied with these thoughts.,1 The darkness also found Mr and Mrs Plornish knocking at his door.,1 "They brought with them a basket, filled with choice selections from that stock in trade which met with such a quick sale and produced such a slow return.",1 Mrs Plornish was affected to tears.,2 "Mr Plornish amiably growled, in his philosophical but not lucid manner, that there was ups you see, and there was downs.",3 "It was in vain to ask why ups, why downs; there they was, you know.",1 "He had heerd it given for a truth that accordin' as the world went round, which round it did rewolve undoubted, even the best of gentlemen must take his turn of standing with his ed upside down and all his air a flying the wrong way into what you might call Space.",2 Wery well then.,3 "What Mr Plornish said was, wery well then.",3 "That gentleman's ed would come up-ards when his turn come, that gentleman's air would be a pleasure to look upon being all smooth again, and wery well then!",4 "It has been already stated that Mrs Plornish, not being philosophical, wept.",2 "It further happened that Mrs Plornish, not being philosophical, was intelligible.",3 "It may have arisen out of her softened state of mind, out of her sex's wit, out of a woman's quick association of ideas, or out of a woman's no association of ideas, but it further happened somehow that Mrs Plornish's intelligibility displayed itself upon the very subject of Arthur's meditations.",2 "'The way father has been talking about you, Mr Clennam,' said Mrs Plornish, 'you hardly would believe.",2 It's made him quite poorly.,1 "As to his voice, this misfortune has took it away.",1 "You know what a sweet singer father is; but he couldn't get a note out for the children at tea, if you'll credit what I tell you.'",3 "While speaking, Mrs Plornish shook her head, and wiped her eyes, and looked retrospectively about the room.",2 "'As to Mr Baptist,' pursued Mrs Plornish, 'whatever he'll do when he comes to know of it, I can't conceive nor yet imagine.",2 "He'd have been here before now, you may be sure, but that he's away on confidential business of your own.",2 "The persevering manner in which he follows up that business, and gives himself no rest from it--it really do,' said Mrs Plornish, winding up in the Italian manner, 'as I say to him, Mooshattonisha padrona.'",2 "Though not conceited, Mrs Plornish felt that she had turned this Tuscan sentence with peculiar elegance.",1 Mr Plornish could not conceal his exultation in her accomplishments as a linguist.,3 "'But what I say is, Mr Clennam,' the good woman went on, 'there's always something to be thankful for, as I am sure you will yourself admit.",3 "Speaking in this room, it's not hard to think what the present something is.",1 "It's a thing to be thankful for, indeed, that Miss Dorrit is not here to know it.'",2 Arthur thought she looked at him with particular expression.,2 "'It's a thing,' reiterated Mrs Plornish, 'to be thankful for, indeed, that Miss Dorrit is far away.",2 It's to be hoped she is not likely to hear of it.,2 "If she had been here to see it, sir, it's not to be doubted that the sight of you,' Mrs Plornish repeated those words--'not to be doubted, that the sight of you--in misfortune and trouble, would have been almost too much for her affectionate heart.",1 "There's nothing I can think of, that would have touched Miss Dorrit so bad as that.'",1 "Of a certainty Mrs Plornish did look at him now, with a sort of quivering defiance in her friendly emotion.",2 'Yes!',2 said she.,2 "'And it shows what notice father takes, though at his time of life, that he says to me this afternoon, which Happy Cottage knows I neither make it up nor any ways enlarge, ""Mary, it's much to be rejoiced in that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot to behold it.""",2 Those were father's words.,2 "Father's own words was, ""Much to be rejoiced in, Mary, that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot to behold it.""",1 "I says to father then, I says to him, ""Father, you are right!""",3 "That,' Mrs Plornish concluded, with the air of a very precise legal witness, 'is what passed betwixt father and me.",3 And I tell you nothing but what did pass betwixt me and father.',2 "Mr Plornish, as being of a more laconic temperament, embraced this opportunity of interposing with the suggestion that she should now leave Mr Clennam to himself.",1 "'For, you see,' said Mr Plornish, gravely, 'I know what it is, old gal;' repeating that valuable remark several times, as if it appeared to him to include some great moral secret.",3 "Finally, the worthy couple went away arm in arm.",3 "Little Dorrit, Little Dorrit.",2 "Again, for hours.",2 Always Little Dorrit!,2 "Happily, if it ever had been so, it was over, and better over.",3 "Granted that she had loved him, and he had known it and had suffered himself to love her, what a road to have led her away upon--the road that would have brought her back to this miserable place!",3 "He ought to be much comforted by the reflection that she was quit of it forever; that she was, or would soon be, married (vague rumours of her father's projects in that direction had reached Bleeding Heart Yard, with the news of her sister's marriage); and that the Marshalsea gate had shut for ever on all those perplexed possibilities of a time that was gone.",0 Dear Little Dorrit.,2 "Looking back upon his own poor story, she was its vanishing-point.",1 Every thing in its perspective led to her innocent figure.,3 "He had travelled thousands of miles towards it; previous unquiet hopes and doubts had worked themselves out before it; it was the centre of the interest of his life; it was the termination of everything that was good and pleasant in it; beyond, there was nothing but mere waste and darkened sky.",2 "As ill at ease as on the first night of his lying down to sleep within those dreary walls, he wore the night out with such thoughts.",1 "What time Young John lay wrapt in peaceful slumber, after composing and arranging the following monumental inscription on his pillow-- STRANGER!",3 "RESPECT THE TOMB OF JOHN CHIVERY, JUNIOR, WHO DIED AT AN ADVANCED AGE NOT NECESSARY TO MENTION.",3 "HE ENCOUNTERED HIS RIVAL IN A DISTRESSED STATE, AND FELT INCLINED TO HAVE A ROUND WITH HIM; BUT, FOR THE SAKE OF THE LOVED ONE, CONQUERED THOSE FEELINGS OF BITTERNESS, AND BECAME MAGNANIMOUS.",1 "The opinion of the community outside the prison gates bore hard on Clennam as time went on, and he made no friends among the community within.",0 "Too depressed to associate with the herd in the yard, who got together to forget their cares; too retiring and too unhappy to join in the poor socialities of the tavern; he kept his own room, and was held in distrust.",0 "Some said he was proud; some objected that he was sullen and reserved; some were contemptuous of him, for that he was a poor-spirited dog who pined under his debts.",1 "The whole population were shy of him on these various counts of indictment, but especially the last, which involved a species of domestic treason; and he soon became so confirmed in his seclusion, that his only time for walking up and down was when the evening Club were assembled at their songs and toasts and sentiments, and when the yard was nearly left to the women and children.",1 Imprisonment began to tell upon him.,1 He knew that he idled and moped.,2 "After what he had known of the influences of imprisonment within the four small walls of the very room he occupied, this consciousness made him afraid of himself.",1 "Shrinking from the observation of other men, and shrinking from his own, he began to change very sensibly.",3 Anybody might see that the shadow of the wall was dark upon him.,1 "One day when he might have been some ten or twelve weeks in jail, and when he had been trying to read and had not been able to release even the imaginary people of the book from the Marshalsea, a footstep stopped at his door, and a hand tapped at it.",1 "He arose and opened it, and an agreeable voice accosted him with 'How do you do, Mr Clennam?",3 I hope I am not unwelcome in calling to see you.',1 "It was the sprightly young Barnacle, Ferdinand.",3 "He looked very good-natured and prepossessing, though overpoweringly gay and free, in contrast with the squalid prison.",3 "'You are surprised to see me, Mr Clennam,' he said, taking the seat which Clennam offered him.",2 'I must confess to being much surprised.',1 "'Not disagreeably, I hope?'",1 'By no means.',2 'Thank you.,2 "Frankly,' said the engaging young Barnacle, 'I have been excessively sorry to hear that you were under the necessity of a temporary retirement here, and I hope (of course as between two private gentlemen) that our place has had nothing to do with it?'",1 'Your office?',2 'Our Circumlocution place.',2 'I cannot charge any part of my reverses upon that remarkable establishment.',3 "'Upon my life,' said the vivacious young Barnacle, 'I am heartily glad to know it.",4 It is quite a relief to me to hear you say it.,3 I should have so exceedingly regretted our place having had anything to do with your difficulties.',1 Clennam again assured him that he absolved it of the responsibility.,2 "'That's right,' said Ferdinand.",3 'I am very happy to hear it.,3 "I was rather afraid in my own mind that we might have helped to floor you, because there is no doubt that it is our misfortune to do that kind of thing now and then.",1 "We don't want to do it; but if men will be gravelled, why--we can't help it.'",2 "'Without giving an unqualified assent to what you say,' returned Arthur, gloomily, 'I am much obliged to you for your interest in me.'",1 "'No, but really!",2 "Our place is,' said the easy young Barnacle, 'the most inoffensive place possible.",3 You'll say we are a humbug.,2 "I won't say we are not; but all that sort of thing is intended to be, and must be.",2 Don't you see?',2 "'I do not,' said Clennam.",2 'You don't regard it from the right point of view.,3 It is the point of view that is the essential thing.,2 "Regard our place from the point of view that we only ask you to leave us alone, and we are as capital a Department as you'll find anywhere.'",3 'Is your place there to be left alone?',2 asked Clennam.,2 "'You exactly hit it,' returned Ferdinand.",2 'It is there with the express intention that everything shall be left alone.,2 That is what it means.,2 That is what it's for.,2 "No doubt there's a certain form to be kept up that it's for something else, but it's only a form.",1 "Why, good Heaven, we are nothing but forms!",3 Think what a lot of our forms you have gone through.,2 And you have never got any nearer to an end?',2 "'Never,' said Clennam.",2 "'Look at it from the right point of view, and there you have us--official and effectual.",3 It's like a limited game of cricket.,2 "A field of outsiders are always going in to bowl at the Public Service, and we block the balls.'",2 Clennam asked what became of the bowlers?,2 "The airy young Barnacle replied that they grew tired, got dead beat, got lamed, got their backs broken, died off, gave it up, went in for other games.",0 "'And this occasions me to congratulate myself again,' he pursued, 'on the circumstance that our place has had nothing to do with your temporary retirement.",3 "It very easily might have had a hand in it; because it is undeniable that we are sometimes a most unlucky place, in our effects upon people who will not leave us alone.",1 "Mr Clennam, I am quite unreserved with you.",2 "As between yourself and myself, I know I may be.",2 "I was so, when I first saw you making the mistake of not leaving us alone; because I perceived that you were inexperienced and sanguine, and had--I hope you'll not object to my saying--some simplicity?'",0 'Not at all.',2 'Some simplicity.,2 "Therefore I felt what a pity it was, and I went out of my way to hint to you (which really was not official, but I never am official when I can help it) something to the effect that if I were you, I wouldn't bother myself.",1 "However, you did bother yourself, and you have since bothered yourself.",1 "Now, don't do it any more.'",2 "'I am not likely to have the opportunity,' said Clennam.",2 "'Oh yes, you are!",2 You'll leave here.,2 Everybody leaves here.,2 There are no ends of ways of leaving here.,2 "Now, don't come back to us.",2 That entreaty is the second object of my call.,1 "Pray, don't come back to us.",2 "Upon my honour,' said Ferdinand in a very friendly and confiding way, 'I shall be greatly vexed if you don't take warning by the past and keep away from us.'",2 'And the invention?',2 said Clennam.,2 "'My good fellow,' returned Ferdinand, 'if you'll excuse the freedom of that form of address, nobody wants to know of the invention, and nobody cares twopence-halfpenny about it.'",3 "'Nobody in the Office, that is to say?'",2 'Nor out of it.,2 Everybody is ready to dislike and ridicule any invention.,1 You have no idea how many people want to be left alone.,2 "You have no idea how the Genius of the country (overlook the Parliamentary nature of the phrase, and don't be bored by it) tends to being left alone.",1 "Believe me, Mr Clennam,' said the sprightly young Barnacle in his pleasantest manner, 'our place is not a wicked Giant to be charged at full tilt; but only a windmill showing you, as it grinds immense quantities of chaff, which way the country wind blows.'",2 "'If I could believe that,' said Clennam, 'it would be a dismal prospect for all of us.'",1 'Oh!,2 Don't say so!',2 returned Ferdinand.,2 'It's all right.,3 "We must have humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn't get on without humbug.",3 "A little humbug, and a groove, and everything goes on admirably, if you leave it alone.'",3 "With this hopeful confession of his faith as the head of the rising Barnacles who were born of woman, to be followed under a variety of watchwords which they utterly repudiated and disbelieved, Ferdinand rose.",3 "Nothing could be more agreeable than his frank and courteous bearing, or adapted with a more gentlemanly instinct to the circumstances of his visit.",3 "'Is it fair to ask,' he said, as Clennam gave him his hand with a real feeling of thankfulness for his candour and good-humour, 'whether it is true that our late lamented Merdle is the cause of this passing inconvenience?'",3 'I am one of the many he has ruined.,1 Yes.',2 "'He must have been an exceedingly clever fellow,' said Ferdinand Barnacle.",3 "Arthur, not being in the mood to extol the memory of the deceased, was silent.",3 "'A consummate rascal, of course,' said Ferdinand, 'but remarkably clever!",3 One cannot help admiring the fellow.,3 Must have been such a master of humbug.,3 Knew people so well--got over them so completely--did so much with them!',3 "In his easy way, he was really moved to genuine admiration.",4 "'I hope,' said Arthur, 'that he and his dupes may be a warning to people not to have so much done with them again.'",1 "'My dear Mr Clennam,' returned Ferdinand, laughing, 'have you really such a verdant hope?",2 "The next man who has as large a capacity and as genuine a taste for swindling, will succeed as well.",4 "Pardon me, but I think you really have no idea how the human bees will swarm to the beating of any old tin kettle; in that fact lies the complete manual of governing them.",2 "When they can be got to believe that the kettle is made of the precious metals, in that fact lies the whole power of men like our late lamented.",3 "No doubt there are here and there,' said Ferdinand politely, 'exceptional cases, where people have been taken in for what appeared to them to be much better reasons; and I need not go far to find such a case; but they don't invalidate the rule.",1 Good day!,3 "I hope that when I have the pleasure of seeing you, next, this passing cloud will have given place to sunshine.",2 Don't come a step beyond the door.,2 I know the way out perfectly.,3 Good day!',3 "With those words, the best and brightest of the Barnacles went down-stairs, hummed his way through the Lodge, mounted his horse in the front court-yard, and rode off to keep an appointment with his noble kinsman, who wanted a little coaching before he could triumphantly answer certain infidel Snobs who were going to question the Nobs about their statesmanship.",3 "He must have passed Mr Rugg on his way out, for, a minute or two afterwards, that ruddy-headed gentleman shone in at the door, like an elderly Phoebus.",3 "'How do you do to-day, sir?'",2 said Mr Rugg.,2 "'Is there any little thing I can do for you to-day, sir?'",2 "'No, I thank you.'",3 "Mr Rugg's enjoyment of embarrassed affairs was like a housekeeper's enjoyment in pickling and preserving, or a washerwoman's enjoyment of a heavy wash, or a dustman's enjoyment of an overflowing dust-bin, or any other professional enjoyment of a mess in the way of business.",2 "'I still look round, from time to time, sir,' said Mr Rugg, cheerfully, 'to see whether any lingering Detainers are accumulating at the gate.",2 "They have fallen in pretty thick, sir; as thick as we could have expected.'",2 "He remarked upon the circumstance as if it were matter of congratulation: rubbing his hands briskly, and rolling his head a little.",3 "'As thick,' repeated Mr Rugg, 'as we could reasonably have expected.",3 Quite a shower-bath of 'em.,2 "I don't often intrude upon you now, when I look round, because I know you are not inclined for company, and that if you wished to see me, you would leave word in the Lodge.",1 "But I am here pretty well every day, sir.",3 "Would this be an unseasonable time, sir,' asked Mr Rugg, coaxingly, 'for me to offer an observation?'",2 'As seasonable a time as any other.',2 'Hum!,2 "Public opinion, sir,' said Mr Rugg, 'has been busy with you.'",2 'I don't doubt it.',1 "'Might it not be advisable, sir,' said Mr Rugg, more coaxingly yet, 'now to make, at last and after all, a trifling concession to public opinion?",1 We all do it in one way or another.,2 "The fact is, we must do it.'",2 "'I cannot set myself right with it, Mr Rugg, and have no business to expect that I ever shall.'",3 "'Don't say that, sir, don't say that.",2 "The cost of being moved to the Bench is almost insignificant, and if the general feeling is strong that you ought to be there, why--really--' 'I thought you had settled, Mr Rugg,' said Arthur, 'that my determination to remain here was a matter of taste.'",2 "'Well, sir, well!",3 "But is it good taste, is it good taste?",3 That's the Question.',2 Mr Rugg was so soothingly persuasive as to be quite pathetic.,2 "'I was almost going to say, is it good feeling?",3 "This is an extensive affair of yours; and your remaining here where a man can come for a pound or two, is remarked upon as not in keeping.",2 It is not in keeping.,2 "I can't tell you, sir, in how many quarters I heard it mentioned.",2 "I heard comments made upon it last night in a Parlour frequented by what I should call, if I did not look in there now and then myself, the best legal company--I heard, there, comments on it that I was sorry to hear.",2 They hurt me on your account.,1 "Again, only this morning at breakfast.",2 "My daughter (but a woman, you'll say: yet still with a feeling for these things, and even with some little personal experience, as the plaintiff in Rugg and Bawkins) was expressing her great surprise; her great surprise.",3 "Now under these circumstances, and considering that none of us can quite set ourselves above public opinion, wouldn't a trifling concession to that opinion be--Come, sir,' said Rugg, 'I will put it on the lowest ground of argument, and say, Amiable?'",2 "Arthur's thoughts had once more wandered away to Little Dorrit, and the question remained unanswered.",2 "'As to myself, sir,' said Mr Rugg, hoping that his eloquence had reduced him to a state of indecision, 'it is a principle of mine not to consider myself when a client's inclinations are in the scale.",2 "But, knowing your considerate character and general wish to oblige, I will repeat that I should prefer your being in the Bench.",3 "Your case has made a noise; it is a creditable case to be professionally concerned in; I should feel on a better standing with my connection, if you went to the Bench.",1 "Don't let that influence you, sir.",2 I merely state the fact.',2 "So errant had the prisoner's attention already grown in solitude and dejection, and so accustomed had it become to commune with only one silent figure within the ever-frowning walls, that Clennam had to shake off a kind of stupor before he could look at Mr Rugg, recall the thread of his talk, and hurriedly say, 'I am unchanged, and unchangeable, in my decision.",0 "Pray, let it be; let it be!'",2 "Mr Rugg, without concealing that he was nettled and mortified, replied: 'Oh!",1 "Beyond a doubt, sir.",1 "I have travelled out of the record, sir, I am aware, in putting the point to you.",2 "But really, when I hear it remarked in several companies, and in very good company, that however worthy of a foreigner, it is not worthy of the spirit of an Englishman to remain in the Marshalsea when the glorious liberties of his island home admit of his removal to the Bench, I thought I would depart from the narrow professional line marked out to me, and mention it.",4 "Personally,' said Mr Rugg, 'I have no opinion on the topic.'",2 "'That's well,' returned Arthur.",3 'Oh!,2 "None at all, sir!'",2 said Mr Rugg.,2 "'If I had, I should have been unwilling, some minutes ago, to see a client of mine visited in this place by a gentleman of a high family riding a saddle-horse.",1 But it was not my business.,2 "If I had, I might have wished to be now empowered to mention to another gentleman, a gentleman of military exterior at present waiting in the Lodge, that my client had never intended to remain here, and was on the eve of removal to a superior abode.",3 But my course as a professional machine is clear; I have nothing to do with it.,3 "Is it your good pleasure to see the gentleman, sir?'",3 "'Who is waiting to see me, did you say?'",2 "'I did take that unprofessional liberty, sir.",3 "Hearing that I was your professional adviser, he declined to interpose before my very limited function was performed.",1 "Happily,' said Mr Rugg, with sarcasm, 'I did not so far travel out of the record as to ask the gentleman for his name.'",2 "'I suppose I have no resource but to see him,' sighed Clennam, wearily.",2 "'Then it _is_ your good pleasure, sir?'",3 retorted Rugg.,2 "'Am I honoured by your instructions to mention as much to the gentleman, as I pass out?",2 I am?,2 "Thank you, sir.",3 I take my leave.',2 "His leave he took accordingly, in dudgeon.",2 "The gentleman of military exterior had so imperfectly awakened Clennam's curiosity, in the existing state of his mind, that a half-forgetfulness of such a visitor's having been referred to, was already creeping over it as a part of the sombre veil which almost always dimmed it now, when a heavy footstep on the stairs aroused him.",0 "It appeared to ascend them, not very promptly or spontaneously, yet with a display of stride and clatter meant to be insulting.",2 "As it paused for a moment on the landing outside his door, he could not recall his association with the peculiarity of its sound, though he thought he had one.",2 Only a moment was given him for consideration.,2 "His door was immediately swung open by a thump, and in the doorway stood the missing Blandois, the cause of many anxieties.",1 "'Salve, fellow jail-bird!'",2 said he.,2 "'You want me, it seems.",2 Here I am!',2 "Before Arthur could speak to him in his indignant wonder, Cavalletto followed him into the room.",2 Mr Pancks followed Cavalletto.,2 Neither of the two had been there since its present occupant had had possession of it.,2 "Mr Pancks, breathing hard, sidled near the window, put his hat on the ground, stirred his hair up with both hands, and folded his arms, like a man who had come to a pause in a hard day's work.",3 "Mr Baptist, never taking his eyes from his dreaded chum of old, softly sat down on the floor with his back against the door and one of his ankles in each hand: resuming the attitude (except that it was now expressive of unwinking watchfulness) in which he had sat before the same man in the deeper shade of another prison, one hot morning at Marseilles.",2 "'I have it on the witnessing of these two madmen,' said Monsieur Blandois, otherwise Lagnier, otherwise Rigaud, 'that you want me, brother-bird.",2 Here I am!',2 "Glancing round contemptuously at the bedstead, which was turned up by day, he leaned his back against it as a resting-place, without removing his hat from his head, and stood defiantly lounging with his hands in his pockets.",1 'You villain of ill-omen!',2 said Arthur.,2 'You have purposely cast a dreadful suspicion upon my mother's house.,1 Why have you done it?,2 What prompted you to the devilish invention?',1 "Monsieur Rigaud, after frowning at him for a moment, laughed.",2 'Hear this noble gentleman!,3 "Listen, all the world, to this creature of Virtue!",3 "But take care, take care.",2 "It is possible, my friend, that your ardour is a little compromising.",2 Holy Blue!,3 It is possible.',2 'Signore!',2 "interposed Cavalletto, also addressing Arthur: 'for to commence, hear me!",2 "I received your instructions to find him, Rigaud; is it not?'",2 'It is the truth.',2 "'I go, consequentementally,'--it would have given Mrs Plornish great concern if she could have been persuaded that his occasional lengthening of an adverb in this way, was the chief fault of his English,--'first among my countrymen.",1 "I ask them what news in Londra, of foreigners arrived.",2 Then I go among the French.,2 Then I go among the Germans.,2 They all tell me.,2 "The great part of us know well the other, and they all tell me.",3 "But!--no person can tell me nothing of him, Rigaud.",2 "Fifteen times,' said Cavalletto, thrice throwing out his left hand with all its fingers spread, and doing it so rapidly that the sense of sight could hardly follow the action, 'I ask of him in every place where go the foreigners; and fifteen times,' repeating the same swift performance, 'they know nothing.",3 "But!--' At this significant Italian rest on the word 'But,' his backhanded shake of his right forefinger came into play; a very little, and very cautiously.",3 "'But!--After a long time when I have not been able to find that he is here in Londra, some one tells me of a soldier with white hair--hey?--not hair like this that he carries--white--who lives retired secrettementally, in a certain place.",3 "But!--' with another rest upon the word, 'who sometimes in the after-dinner, walks, and smokes.",2 "It is necessary, as they say in Italy (and as they know, poor people), to have patience.",2 I have patience.,3 I ask where is this certain place.,2 One.,2 "believes it is here, one believes it is there.",2 Eh well!,3 "It is not here, it is not there.",2 I wait patientissamentally.,2 At last I find it.,2 "Then I watch; then I hide, until he walks and smokes.",2 "He is a soldier with grey hair--But!--' a very decided rest indeed, and a very vigorous play from side to side of the back-handed forefinger--'he is also this man that you see.'",2 "It was noticeable, that, in his old habit of submission to one who had been at the trouble of asserting superiority over him, he even then bestowed upon Rigaud a confused bend of his head, after thus pointing him out.",1 "'Eh well, Signore!'",3 "he cried in conclusion, addressing Arthur again.",2 'I waited for a good opportunity.,3 "I writed some words to Signor Panco,' an air of novelty came over Mr Pancks with this designation, 'to come and help.",3 "I showed him, Rigaud, at his window, to Signor Panco, who was often the spy in the day.",2 I slept at night near the door of the house.,2 "At last we entered, only this to-day, and now you see him!",2 "As he would not come up in presence of the illustrious Advocate,' such was Mr Baptist's honourable mention of Mr Rugg, 'we waited down below there, together, and Signor Panco guarded the street.'",3 "At the close of this recital, Arthur turned his eyes upon the impudent and wicked face.",1 "As it met his, the nose came down over the moustache and the moustache went up under the nose.",2 "When nose and moustache had settled into their places again, Monsieur Rigaud loudly snapped his fingers half-a-dozen times; bending forward to jerk the snaps at Arthur, as if they were palpable missiles which he jerked into his face.",1 "'Now, Philosopher!'",2 said Rigaud.,2 'What do you want with me?',2 "'I want to know,' returned Arthur, without disguising his abhorrence, 'how you dare direct a suspicion of murder against my mother's house?'",1 'Dare!',2 cried Rigaud.,2 "'Ho, ho!",2 Hear him!,2 Dare?,2 Is it dare?,2 "By Heaven, my small boy, but you are a little imprudent!'",2 "'I want that suspicion to be cleared away,' said Arthur.",2 "'You shall be taken there, and be publicly seen.",2 "I want to know, moreover, what business you had there when I had a burning desire to fling you down-stairs.",1 "Don't frown at me, man!",1 I have seen enough of you to know that you are a bully and coward.,1 "I need no revival of my spirits from the effects of this wretched place to tell you so plain a fact, and one that you know so well.'",3 "White to the lips, Rigaud stroked his moustache, muttering, 'By Heaven, my small boy, but you are a little compromising of my lady, your respectable mother'--and seemed for a minute undecided how to act.",3 His indecision was soon gone.,1 "He sat himself down with a threatening swagger, and said: 'Give me a bottle of wine.",1 You can buy wine here.,2 Send one of your madmen to get me a bottle of wine.,2 I won't talk to you without wine.,2 Come!,2 Yes or no?',2 "'Fetch him what he wants, Cavalletto,' said Arthur, scornfully, producing the money.",1 "'Contraband beast,' added Rigaud, 'bring Port wine!",2 I'll drink nothing but Porto-Porto.',2 "The contraband beast, however, assuring all present, with his significant finger, that he peremptorily declined to leave his post at the door, Signor Panco offered his services.",3 "He soon returned with the bottle of wine: which, according to the custom of the place, originating in a scarcity of corkscrews among the Collegians (in common with a scarcity of much else), was already opened for use.",1 'Madman!,2 "A large glass,' said Rigaud.",2 Signor Panco put a tumbler before him; not without a visible conflict of feeling on the question of throwing it at his head.,1 'Haha!',2 boasted Rigaud.,2 "'Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman.",2 "A gentleman from the beginning, and a gentleman to the end.",2 What the Devil!,1 "A gentleman must be waited on, I hope?",2 It's a part of my character to be waited on!',2 "He half filled the tumbler as he said it, and drank off the contents when he had done saying it.",2 'Hah!',2 smacking his lips.,2 'Not a very old prisoner _that_!,1 "I judge by your looks, brave sir, that imprisonment will subdue your blood much sooner than it softens this hot wine.",3 You are mellowing--losing body and colour already.,1 I salute you!',3 "He tossed off another half glass: holding it up both before and afterwards, so as to display his small, white hand.",2 "'To business,' he then continued.",2 'To conversation.,2 "You have shown yourself more free of speech than body, sir.'",3 'I have used the freedom of telling you what you know yourself to be.,3 "You know yourself, as we all know you, to be far worse than that.'",1 "'Add, always a gentleman, and it's no matter.",2 "Except in that regard, we are all alike.",3 For example: you couldn't for your life be a gentleman; I couldn't for my life be otherwise.,2 How great the difference!,3 Let us go on.,2 "Words, sir, never influence the course of the cards, or the course of the dice.",2 Do you know that?,2 You do?,2 "I also play a game, and words are without power over it.'",2 "Now that he was confronted with Cavalletto, and knew that his story was known--whatever thin disguise he had worn, he dropped; and faced it out, with a bare face, as the infamous wretch he was.",0 "'No, my son,' he resumed, with a snap of his fingers.",2 'I play my game to the end in spite of words; and Death of my Body and Death of my Soul!,1 I'll win it.,3 You want to know why I played this little trick that you have interrupted?,1 "Know then that I had, and that I have--do you understand me?",2 have--a commodity to sell to my lady your respectable mother.,3 "I described my precious commodity, and fixed my price.",3 "Touching the bargain, your admirable mother was a little too calm, too stolid, too immovable and statue-like.",4 "In fine, your admirable mother vexed me.",3 "To make variety in my position, and to amuse myself--what!",3 a gentleman must be amused at somebody's expense!--I conceived the happy idea of disappearing.,3 "An idea, see you, that your characteristic mother and my Flintwinch would have been well enough pleased to execute.",4 Ah!,2 "Bah, bah, bah, don't look as from high to low at me!",2 I repeat it.,2 "Well enough pleased, excessively enchanted, and with all their hearts ravished.",4 How strongly will you have it?',2 "He threw out the lees of his glass on the ground, so that they nearly spattered Cavalletto.",2 This seemed to draw his attention to him anew.,2 He set down his glass and said: 'I'll not fill it.,2 What!,2 I am born to be served.,2 "Come then, you Cavalletto, and fill!'",2 "The little man looked at Clennam, whose eyes were occupied with Rigaud, and, seeing no prohibition, got up from the ground, and poured out from the bottle into the glass.",2 "The blending, as he did so, of his old submission with a sense of something humorous; the striving of that with a certain smouldering ferocity, which might have flashed fire in an instant (as the born gentleman seemed to think, for he had a wary eye upon him); and the easy yielding of all to a good-natured, careless, predominant propensity to sit down on the ground again: formed a very remarkable combination of character.",3 "'This happy idea, brave sir,' Rigaud resumed after drinking, 'was a happy idea for several reasons.",3 "It amused me, it worried your dear mama and my Flintwinch, it caused you agonies (my terms for a lesson in politeness towards a gentleman), and it suggested to all the amiable persons interested that your entirely devoted is a man to fear.",1 "By Heaven, he is a man to fear!",2 "Beyond this; it might have restored her wit to my lady your mother--might, under the pressing little suspicion your wisdom has recognised, have persuaded her at last to announce, covertly, in the journals, that the difficulties of a certain contract would be removed by the appearance of a certain important party to it.",3 "Perhaps yes, perhaps no.",2 "But that, you have interrupted.",2 "Now, what is it you say?",2 What is it you want?',2 "Never had Clennam felt more acutely that he was a prisoner in bonds, than when he saw this man before him, and could not accompany him to his mother's house.",1 "All the undiscernible difficulties and dangers he had ever feared were closing in, when he could not stir hand or foot.",1 "'Perhaps, my friend, philosopher, man of virtue, Imbecile, what you will; perhaps,' said Rigaud, pausing in his drink to look out of his glass with his horrible smile, 'you would have done better to leave me alone?'",3 'No!,2 "At least,' said Clennam, 'you are known to be alive and unharmed.",2 "At least you cannot escape from these two witnesses; and they can produce you before any public authorities, or before hundreds of people!'",2 "'But will not produce me before one,' said Rigaud, snapping his fingers again with an air of triumphant menace.",2 'To the Devil with your witnesses!,1 To the Devil with your produced!,1 To the Devil with yourself!,1 What!,2 "Do I know what I know, for that?",2 "Have I my commodity on sale, for that?",2 "Bah, poor debtor!",1 You have interrupted my little project.,2 Let it pass.,2 How then?,2 What remains?,2 "To you, nothing; to me, all.",2 Produce _me_!,2 Is that what you want?,2 "I will produce myself, only too quickly.",2 Contrabandist!,2 "Give me pen, ink, and paper.'",2 "Cavalletto got up again as before, and laid them before him in his former manner.",2 "Rigaud, after some villainous thinking and smiling, wrote, and read aloud, as follows: 'To MRS CLENNAM. 'Wait answer.",2 'Prison of the Marshalsea.,2 'At the apartment of your son.,2 "'Dear Madam, 'I am in despair to be informed to-day by our prisoner here (who has had the goodness to employ spies to seek me, living for politic reasons in retirement), that you have had fears for my safety.",1 "'Reassure yourself, dear madam.",2 "I am well, I am strong and constant.",3 "'With the greatest impatience I should fly to your house, but that I foresee it to be possible, under the circumstances, that you will not yet have quite definitively arranged the little proposition I have had the honour to submit to you.",2 "I name one week from this day, for a last final visit on my part; when you will unconditionally accept it or reject it, with its train of consequences.",1 "'I suppress my ardour to embrace you and achieve this interesting business, in order that you may have leisure to adjust its details to our perfect mutual satisfaction.",3 "'In the meanwhile, it is not too much to propose (our prisoner having deranged my housekeeping), that my expenses of lodging and nourishment at an hotel shall be paid by you.",2 "'Receive, dear madam, the assurance of my highest and most distinguished consideration, 'RIGAUD BLANDOIS. 'A thousand friendships to that dear Flintwinch.",3 "'I kiss the hands of Madame F.' When he had finished this epistle, Rigaud folded it and tossed it with a flourish at Clennam's feet.",3 'Hola you!,2 "Apropos of producing, let somebody produce that at its address, and produce the answer here.'",2 "'Cavalletto,' said Arthur.",2 'Will you take this fellow's letter?',2 "But, Cavalletto's significant finger again expressing that his post was at the door to keep watch over Rigaud, now he had found him with so much trouble, and that the duty of his post was to sit on the floor backed up by the door, looking at Rigaud and holding his own ankles,--Signor Panco once more volunteered.",2 "His services being accepted, Cavalletto suffered the door to open barely wide enough to admit of his squeezing himself out, and immediately shut it on him.",2 "'Touch me with a finger, touch me with an epithet, question my superiority as I sit here drinking my wine at my pleasure,' said Rigaud, 'and I follow the letter and cancel my week's grace.",4 _You_ wanted me?,2 You have got me!,2 How do you like me?',3 "'You know,' returned Clennam, with a bitter sense of his helplessness, 'that when I sought you, I was not a prisoner.'",0 "'To the Devil with you and your prison,' retorted Rigaud, leisurely, as he took from his pocket a case containing the materials for making cigarettes, and employed his facile hands in folding a few for present use; 'I care for neither of you.",1 Contrabandist!,2 A light.',2 "Again Cavalletto got up, and gave him what he wanted.",2 "There had been something dreadful in the noiseless skill of his cold, white hands, with the fingers lithely twisting about and twining one over another like serpents.",3 "Clennam could not prevent himself from shuddering inwardly, as if he had been looking on at a nest of those creatures.",2 "'Hola, Pig!'",1 "cried Rigaud, with a noisy stimulating cry, as if Cavalletto were an Italian horse or mule.",1 'What!,2 The infernal old jail was a respectable one to this.,2 There was dignity in the bars and stones of that place.,3 It was a prison for men.,1 But this?,2 Bah!,2 A hospital for imbeciles!',2 "He smoked his cigarette out, with his ugly smile so fixed upon his face that he looked as though he were smoking with his drooping beak of a nose, rather than with his mouth; like a fancy in a weird picture.",3 "When he had lighted a second cigarette at the still burning end of the first, he said to Clennam: 'One must pass the time in the madman's absence.",1 One must talk.,2 "One can't drink strong wine all day long, or I would have another bottle.",3 "She's handsome, sir.",3 "Though not exactly to my taste, still, by the Thunder and the Lightning!",2 handsome.,3 I felicitate you on your admiration.',3 "'I neither know nor ask,' said Clennam, 'of whom you speak.'",2 "'Della bella Gowana, sir, as they say in Italy.",2 "Of the Gowan, the fair Gowan.'",3 "'Of whose husband you were the--follower, I think?'",2 'Sir?,2 Follower?,2 You are insolent.,1 The friend.',2 'Do you sell all your friends?',2 "Rigaud took his cigarette from his mouth, and eyed him with a momentary revelation of surprise.",3 "But he put it between his lips again, as he answered with coolness: 'I sell anything that commands a price.",2 "How do your lawyers live, your politicians, your intriguers, your men of the Exchange?",2 How do you live?,2 How do you come here?,2 Have you sold no friend?,2 Lady of mine!,2 "I rather think, yes!'",2 "Clennam turned away from him towards the window, and sat looking out at the wall.",2 "'Effectively, sir,' said Rigaud, 'Society sells itself and sells me: and I sell Society.",2 I perceive you have acquaintance with another lady.,2 Also handsome.,3 A strong spirit.,3 Let us see.,2 How do they call her?,2 Wade.',2 "He received no answer, but could easily discern that he had hit the mark.",2 "'Yes,' he went on, 'that handsome lady and strong spirit addresses me in the street, and I am not insensible.",3 I respond.,2 "That handsome lady and strong spirit does me the favour to remark, in full confidence, ""I have my curiosity, and I have my chagrins.",4 "You are not more than ordinarily honourable, perhaps?""",2 "I announce myself, ""Madame, a gentleman from the birth, and a gentleman to the death; but _not_ more than ordinarily honourable.",1 "I despise such a weak fantasy.""",1 Thereupon she is pleased to compliment.,3 """The difference between you and the rest is,"" she answers, ""that you say so.""",2 For she knows Society.,2 I accept her congratulations with gallantry and politeness.,3 Politeness and little gallantries are inseparable from my character.,3 "She then makes a proposition, which is, in effect, that she has seen us much together; that it appears to her that I am for the passing time the cat of the house, the friend of the family; that her curiosity and her chagrins awaken the fancy to be acquainted with their movements, to know the manner of their life, how the fair Gowana is beloved, how the fair Gowana is cherished, and so on.",4 "She is not rich, but offers such and such little recompenses for the little cares and derangements of such services; and I graciously--to do everything graciously is a part of my character--consent to accept them.",3 O yes!,2 So goes the world.,2 It is the mode.',2 "Though Clennam's back was turned while he spoke, and thenceforth to the end of the interview, he kept those glittering eyes of his that were too near together, upon him, and evidently saw in the very carriage of the head, as he passed with his braggart recklessness from clause to clause of what he said, that he was saying nothing which Clennam did not already know.",1 'Whoof!,2 The fair Gowana!',3 "he said, lighting a third cigarette with a sound as if his lightest breath could blow her away.",1 "'Charming, but imprudent!",1 "For it was not well of the fair Gowana to make mysteries of letters from old lovers, in her bedchamber on the mountain, that her husband might not see them.",3 "No, no.",2 That was not well.,3 Whoof!,2 The Gowana was mistaken there.',1 "'I earnestly hope,' cried Arthur aloud, 'that Pancks may not be long gone, for this man's presence pollutes the room.'",3 'Ah!,2 "But he'll flourish here, and everywhere,' said Rigaud, with an exulting look and snap of his fingers.",3 'He always has; he always will!',2 "Stretching his body out on the only three chairs in the room besides that on which Clennam sat, he sang, smiting himself on the breast as the gallant personage of the song.",3 'Who passes by this road so late?,2 Compagnon de la Majolaine!,2 Who passes by this road so late?,2 Always gay!,2 "'Sing the Refrain, pig!",1 "You could sing it once, in another jail.",2 Sing it!,2 "Or, by every Saint who was stoned to death, I'll be affronted and compromising; and then some people who are not dead yet, had better have been stoned along with them!'",2 "'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, Compagnon de la Majolaine!",2 "Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, Always gay!'",2 "Partly in his old habit of submission, partly because his not doing it might injure his benefactor, and partly because he would as soon do it as anything else, Cavalletto took up the Refrain this time.",2 "Rigaud laughed, and fell to smoking with his eyes shut.",1 "Possibly another quarter of an hour elapsed before Mr Pancks's step was heard upon the stairs, but the interval seemed to Clennam insupportably long.",1 "His step was attended by another step; and when Cavalletto opened the door, he admitted Mr Pancks and Mr Flintwinch.",2 "The latter was no sooner visible, than Rigaud rushed at him and embraced him boisterously.",2 "'How do you find yourself, sir?'",2 "said Mr Flintwinch, as soon as he could disengage himself, which he struggled to do with very little ceremony.",1 "'Thank you, no; I don't want any more.'",2 This was in reference to another menace of attention from his recovered friend.,1 "'Well, Arthur.",2 You remember what I said to you about sleeping dogs and missing ones.,2 "It's come true, you see.'",2 "He was as imperturbable as ever, to all appearance, and nodded his head in a moralising way as he looked round the room.",2 'And this is the Marshalsea prison for debt!',1 said Mr Flintwinch.,2 'Hah!,2 "you have brought your pigs to a very indifferent market, Arthur.'",1 "If Arthur had patience, Rigaud had not.",3 "He took his little Flintwinch, with fierce playfulness, by the two lapels of his coat, and cried: 'To the Devil with the Market, to the Devil with the Pigs, and to the Devil with the Pig-Driver!",0 Now!,2 Give me the answer to my letter.',2 "'If you can make it convenient to let go a moment, sir,' returned Mr Flintwinch, 'I'll first hand Mr Arthur a little note that I have for him.'",3 He did so.,2 "It was in his mother's maimed writing, on a slip of paper, and contained only these words: 'I hope it is enough that you have ruined yourself.",2 Rest contented without more ruin.,1 Jeremiah Flintwinch is my messenger and representative.,2 "Your affectionate M. C.' Clennam read this twice, in silence, and then tore it to pieces.",3 "Rigaud in the meanwhile stepped into a chair, and sat himself on the back with his feet upon the seat.",2 "'Now, Beau Flintwinch,' he said, when he had closely watched the note to its destruction, 'the answer to my letter?'",1 "'Mrs Clennam did not write, Mr Blandois, her hands being cramped, and she thinking it as well to send it verbally by me.'",2 "Mr Flintwinch screwed this out of himself, unwillingly and rustily.",1 "'She sends her compliments, and says she doesn't on the whole wish to term you unreasonable, and that she agrees.",1 But without prejudicing the appointment that stands for this day week.',2 "Monsieur Rigaud, after indulging in a fit of laughter, descended from his throne, saying, 'Good!",2 I go to seek an hotel!',2 "But, there his eyes encountered Cavalletto, who was still at his post.",2 "'Come, Pig,' he added, 'I have had you for a follower against my will; now, I'll have you against yours.",1 "I tell you, my little reptiles, I am born to be served.",2 I demand the service of this contrabandist as my domestic until this day week.',2 "In answer to Cavalletto's look of inquiry, Clennam made him a sign to go; but he added aloud, 'unless you are afraid of him.'",1 Cavalletto replied with a very emphatic finger-negative.',1 "No, master, I am not afraid of him, when I no more keep it secrettementally that he was once my comrade.'",2 Rigaud took no notice of either remark until he had lighted his last cigarette and was quite ready for walking.,3 "'Afraid of him,' he said then, looking round upon them all.",2 'Whoof!,2 "My children, my babies, my little dolls, you are all afraid of him.",1 "You give him his bottle of wine here; you give him meat, drink, and lodging there; you dare not touch him with a finger or an epithet.",2 No.,2 It is his character to triumph!,3 Whoof!,2 "'Of all the king's knights he's the flower, And he's always gay!'",2 "With this adaptation of the Refrain to himself, he stalked out of the room closely followed by Cavalletto, whom perhaps he had pressed into his service because he tolerably well knew it would not be easy to get rid of him.",3 "Mr Flintwinch, after scraping his chin, and looking about with caustic disparagement of the Pig-Market, nodded to Arthur, and followed.",1 "Mr Pancks, still penitent and depressed, followed too; after receiving with great attention a secret word or two of instructions from Arthur, and whispering back that he would see this affair out, and stand by it to the end.",2 "The prisoner, with the feeling that he was more despised, more scorned and repudiated, more helpless, altogether more miserable and fallen than before, was left alone again.",0 Haggard anxiety and remorse are bad companions to be barred up with.,0 "Brooding all day, and resting very little indeed at night, will not arm a man against misery.",1 "Next morning, Clennam felt that his health was sinking, as his spirits had already sunk and that the weight under which he bent was bearing him down.",0 "Night after night he had risen from his bed of wretchedness at twelve or one o'clock, and had sat at his window watching the sickly lamps in the yard, and looking upward for the first wan trace of day, hours before it was possible that the sky could show it to him.",1 "Now when the night came, he could not even persuade himself to undress.",2 "For a burning restlessness set in, an agonised impatience of the prison, and a conviction that he was going to break his heart and die there, which caused him indescribable suffering.",0 His dread and hatred of the place became so intense that he felt it a labour to draw his breath in it.,0 "The sensation of being stifled sometimes so overpowered him, that he would stand at the window holding his throat and gasping.",3 "At the same time a longing for other air, and a yearning to be beyond the blind blank wall, made him feel as if he must go mad with the ardour of the desire.",0 "Many other prisoners had had experience of this condition before him, and its violence and continuity had worn themselves out in their cases, as they did in his.",2 Two nights and a day exhausted it.,1 "It came back by fits, but those grew fainter and returned at lengthening intervals.",2 "A desolate calm succeeded; and the middle of the week found him settled down in the despondency of low, slow fever.",1 "With Cavalletto and Pancks away, he had no visitors to fear but Mr and Mrs Plornish.",1 "His anxiety, in reference to that worthy pair, was that they should not come near him; for, in the morbid state of his nerves, he sought to be left alone, and spared the being seen so subdued and weak.",0 "He wrote a note to Mrs Plornish representing himself as occupied with his affairs, and bound by the necessity of devoting himself to them, to remain for a time even without the pleasant interruption of a sight of her kind face.",2 "As to Young John, who looked in daily at a certain hour, when the turnkeys were relieved, to ask if he could do anything for him; he always made a pretence of being engaged in writing, and to answer cheerfully in the negative.",1 The subject of their only long conversation had never been revived between them.,2 "Through all these changes of unhappiness, however, it had never lost its hold on Clennam's mind.",1 "The sixth day of the appointed week was a moist, hot, misty day.",3 "It seemed as though the prison's poverty, and shabbiness, and dirt, were growing in the sultry atmosphere.",1 "With an aching head and a weary heart, Clennam had watched the miserable night out, listening to the fall of rain on the yard pavement, thinking of its softer fall upon the country earth.",0 "A blurred circle of yellow haze had risen up in the sky in lieu of sun, and he had watched the patch it put upon his wall, like a bit of the prison's raggedness.",1 "He had heard the gates open; and the badly shod feet that waited outside shuffle in; and the sweeping, and pumping, and moving about, begin, which commenced the prison morning.",1 "So ill and faint that he was obliged to rest many times in the process of getting himself washed, he had at length crept to his chair by the open window.",1 "In it he sat dozing, while the old woman who arranged his room went through her morning's work.",3 "Light of head with want of sleep and want of food (his appetite, and even his sense of taste, having forsaken him), he had been two or three times conscious, in the night, of going astray.",1 "He had heard fragments of tunes and songs in the warm wind, which he knew had no existence.",3 "Now that he began to doze in exhaustion, he heard them again; and voices seemed to address him, and he answered, and started.",1 "Dozing and dreaming, without the power of reckoning time, so that a minute might have been an hour and an hour a minute, some abiding impression of a garden stole over him--a garden of flowers, with a damp warm wind gently stirring their scents.",2 "It required such a painful effort to lift his head for the purpose of inquiring into this, or inquiring into anything, that the impression appeared to have become quite an old and importunate one when he looked round.",1 "Beside the tea-cup on his table he saw, then, a blooming nosegay: a wonderful handful of the choicest and most lovely flowers.",3 Nothing had ever appeared so beautiful in his sight.,3 "He took them up and inhaled their fragrance, and he lifted them to his hot head, and he put them down and opened his parched hands to them, as cold hands are opened to receive the cheering of a fire.",2 "It was not until he had delighted in them for some time, that he wondered who had sent them; and opened his door to ask the woman who must have put them there, how they had come into her hands.",3 "But she was gone, and seemed to have been long gone; for the tea she had left for him on the table was cold.",1 "He tried to drink some, but could not bear the odour of it: so he crept back to his chair by the open window, and put the flowers on the little round table of old.",1 "When the first faintness consequent on having moved about had left him, he subsided into his former state.",2 "One of the night-tunes was playing in the wind, when the door of his room seemed to open to a light touch, and, after a moment's pause, a quiet figure seemed to stand there, with a black mantle on it.",3 "It seemed to draw the mantle off and drop it on the ground, and then it seemed to be his Little Dorrit in her old, worn dress.",1 "It seemed to tremble, and to clasp its hands, and to smile, and to burst into tears.",3 "He roused himself, and cried out.",2 "And then he saw, in the loving, pitying, sorrowing, dear face, as in a mirror, how changed he was; and she came towards him; and with her hands laid on his breast to keep him in his chair, and with her knees upon the floor at his feet, and with her lips raised up to kiss him, and with her tears dropping on him as the rain from Heaven had dropped upon the flowers, Little Dorrit, a living presence, called him by his name.",3 "'O, my best friend!",3 "Dear Mr Clennam, don't let me see you weep!",1 Unless you weep with pleasure to see me.,2 I hope you do.,2 Your own poor child come back!',1 "So faithful, tender, and unspoiled by Fortune.",4 "In the sound of her voice, in the light of her eyes, in the touch of her hands, so Angelically comforting and true!",3 "As he embraced her, she said to him, 'They never told me you were ill,' and drawing an arm softly round his neck, laid his head upon her bosom, put a hand upon his head, and resting her cheek upon that hand, nursed him as lovingly, and GOD knows as innocently, as she had nursed her father in that room when she had been but a baby, needing all the care from others that she took of them.",2 "When he could speak, he said, 'Is it possible that you have come to me?",2 And in this dress?',2 'I hoped you would like me better in this dress than any other.,3 "I have always kept it by me, to remind me: though I wanted no reminding.",2 "I am not alone, you see.",2 I have brought an old friend with me.',2 "Looking round, he saw Maggy in her big cap which had been long abandoned, with a basket on her arm as in the bygone days, chuckling rapturously.",3 'It was only yesterday evening that I came to London with my brother.,2 "I sent round to Mrs Plornish almost as soon as we arrived, that I might hear of you and let you know I had come.",2 Then I heard that you were here.,2 Did you happen to think of me in the night?,2 I almost believe you must have thought of me a little.,2 "I thought of you so anxiously, and it appeared so long to morning.'",1 'I have thought of you--' he hesitated what to call her.,2 She perceived it in an instant.,2 'You have not spoken to me by my right name yet.,3 You know what my right name always is with you.',3 "'I have thought of you, Little Dorrit, every day, every hour, every minute, since I have been here.'",2 'Have you?,2 Have you?',2 "He saw the bright delight of her face, and the flush that kindled in it, with a feeling of shame.",3 "He, a broken, bankrupt, sick, dishonoured prisoner.",0 "'I was here before the gates were opened, but I was afraid to come straight to you.",1 "I should have done you more harm than good, at first; for the prison was so familiar and yet so strange, and it brought back so many remembrances of my poor father, and of you too, that at first it overpowered me.",0 "But we went to Mr Chivery before we came to the gate, and he brought us in, and got John's room for us--my poor old room, you know--and we waited there a little.",1 "I brought the flowers to the door, but you didn't hear me.'",2 "She looked something more womanly than when she had gone away, and the ripening touch of the Italian sun was visible upon her face.",2 "But, otherwise, she was quite unchanged.",2 "The same deep, timid earnestness that he had always seen in her, and never without emotion, he saw still.",2 "If it had a new meaning that smote him to the heart, the change was in his perception, not in her.",2 "She took off her old bonnet, hung it in the old place, and noiselessly began, with Maggy's help, to make his room as fresh and neat as it could be made, and to sprinkle it with a pleasant-smelling water.",3 "When that was done, the basket, which was filled with grapes and other fruit, was unpacked, and all its contents were quietly put away.",2 "When that was done, a moment's whisper despatched Maggy to despatch somebody else to fill the basket again; which soon came back replenished with new stores, from which a present provision of cooling drink and jelly, and a prospective supply of roast chicken and wine and water, were the first extracts.",2 "These various arrangements completed, she took out her old needle-case to make him a curtain for his window; and thus, with a quiet reigning in the room, that seemed to diffuse itself through the else noisy prison, he found himself composed in his chair, with Little Dorrit working at his side.",1 "To see the modest head again bent down over its task, and the nimble fingers busy at their old work--though she was not so absorbed in it, but that her compassionate eyes were often raised to his face, and, when they drooped again had tears in them--to be so consoled and comforted, and to believe that all the devotion of this great nature was turned to him in his adversity to pour out its inexhaustible wealth of goodness upon him, did not steady Clennam's trembling voice or hand, or strengthen him in his weakness.",4 "Yet it inspired him with an inward fortitude, that rose with his love.",3 "And how dearly he loved her now, what words can tell!",3 "As they sat side by side in the shadow of the wall, the shadow fell like light upon him.",2 "She would not let him speak much, and he lay back in his chair, looking at her.",2 "Now and again she would rise and give him the glass that he might drink, or would smooth the resting-place of his head; then she would gently resume her seat by him, and bend over her work again.",3 "The shadow moved with the sun, but she never moved from his side, except to wait upon him.",2 The sun went down and she was still there.,2 "She had done her work now, and her hand, faltering on the arm of his chair since its last tending of him, was hesitating there yet.",3 "He laid his hand upon it, and it clasped him with a trembling supplication.",2 "'Dear Mr Clennam, I must say something to you before I go.",2 "I have put it off from hour to hour, but I must say it.'",2 "'I too, dear Little Dorrit.",2 I have put off what I must say.',2 "She nervously moved her hand towards his lips as if to stop him; then it dropped, trembling, into its former place.",1 'I am not going abroad again.,2 "My brother is, but I am not.",2 "He was always attached to me, and he is so grateful to me now--so much too grateful, for it is only because I happened to be with him in his illness--that he says I shall be free to stay where I like best, and to do what I like best.",4 "He only wishes me to be happy, he says.'",3 There was one bright star shining in the sky.,3 "She looked up at it while she spoke, as if it were the fervent purpose of her own heart shining above her.",3 "'You will understand, I dare say, without my telling you, that my brother has come home to find my dear father's will, and to take possession of his property.",2 "He says, if there is a will, he is sure I shall be left rich; and if there is none, that he will make me so.'",3 "He would have spoken; but she put up her trembling hand again, and he stopped.",2 "'I have no use for money, I have no wish for it.",2 It would be of no value at all to me but for your sake.,2 "I could not be rich, and you here.",3 "I must always be much worse than poor, with you distressed.",0 Will you let me lend you all I have?,2 Will you let me give it you?,2 "Will you let me show you that I have never forgotten, that I never can forget, your protection of me when this was my home?",3 "Dear Mr Clennam, make me of all the world the happiest, by saying Yes?",2 "Make me as happy as I can be in leaving you here, by saying nothing to-night, and letting me go away with the hope that you will think of it kindly; and that for my sake--not for yours, for mine, for nobody's but mine!--you will give me the greatest joy I can experience on earth, the joy of knowing that I have been serviceable to you, and that I have paid some little of the great debt of my affection and gratitude.",4 I can't say what I wish to say.,2 "I can't visit you here where I have lived so long, I can't think of you here where I have seen so much, and be as calm and comforting as I ought.",3 My tears will make their way.,2 I cannot keep them back.,2 "But pray, pray, pray, do not turn from your Little Dorrit, now, in your affliction!",1 "Pray, pray, pray, I beg you and implore you with all my grieving heart, my friend--my dear!--take all I have, and make it a Blessing to me!'",1 "The star had shone on her face until now, when her face sank upon his hand and her own.",2 "It had grown darker when he raised her in his encircling arm, and softly answered her.",1 "'No, darling Little Dorrit.",3 "No, my child.",2 I must not hear of such a sacrifice.,2 "Liberty and hope would be so dear, bought at such a price, that I could never support their weight, never bear the reproach of possessing them.",3 "But with what ardent thankfulness and love I say this, I may call Heaven to witness!'",4 'And yet you will not let me be faithful to you in your affliction?',2 "'Say, dearest Little Dorrit, and yet I will try to be faithful to you.",3 "If, in the bygone days when this was your home and when this was your dress, I had understood myself (I speak only of myself) better, and had read the secrets of my own breast more distinctly; if, through my reserve and self-mistrust, I had discerned a light that I see brightly now when it has passed far away, and my weak footsteps can never overtake it; if I had then known, and told you that I loved and honoured you, not as the poor child I used to call you, but as a woman whose true hand would raise me high above myself and make me a far happier and better man; if I had so used the opportunity there is no recalling--as I wish I had, O I wish I had!--and if something had kept us apart then, when I was moderately thriving, and when you were poor; I might have met your noble offer of your fortune, dearest girl, with other words than these, and still have blushed to touch it.",4 "But, as it is, I must never touch it, never!'",2 "She besought him, more pathetically and earnestly, with her little supplicatory hand, than she could have done in any words.",2 "'I am disgraced enough, my Little Dorrit.",2 "I must not descend so low as that, and carry you--so dear, so generous, so good--down with me.",3 "GOD bless you, GOD reward you!",3 It is past.',2 "He took her in his arms, as if she had been his daughter.",2 "'Always so much older, so much rougher, and so much less worthy, even what I was must be dismissed by both of us, and you must see me only as I am.",3 "I put this parting kiss upon your cheek, my child--who might have been more near to me, who never could have been more dear--a ruined man far removed from you, for ever separated from you, whose course is run while yours is but beginning.",1 I have not the courage to ask to be forgotten by you in my humiliation; but I ask to be remembered only as I am.',2 "The bell began to ring, warning visitors to depart.",1 "He took her mantle from the wall, and tenderly wrapped it round her.",3 "'One other word, my Little Dorrit.",2 "A hard one to me, but it is a necessary one.",1 The time when you and this prison had anything in common has long gone by.,1 Do you understand?',2 'O!,2 "you will never say to me,' she cried, weeping bitterly, and holding up her clasped hands in entreaty, 'that I am not to come back any more!",1 You will surely not desert me so!',1 "'I would say it, if I could; but I have not the courage quite to shut out this dear face, and abandon all hope of its return.",3 "But do not come soon, do not come often!",2 "This is now a tainted place, and I well know the taint of it clings to me.",1 You belong to much brighter and better scenes.,3 "You are not to look back here, my Little Dorrit; you are to look away to very different and much happier paths.",3 "Again, GOD bless you in them!",3 GOD reward you!',3 "Maggy, who had fallen into very low spirits, here cried, 'Oh get him into a hospital; do get him into a hospital, Mother!",1 "He'll never look like hisself again, if he an't got into a hospital.",3 "And then the little woman as was always a spinning at her wheel, she can go to the cupboard with the Princess, and say, what do you keep the Chicking there for?",2 "and then they can take it out and give it to him, and then all be happy!'",3 "The interruption was seasonable, for the bell had nearly rung itself out.",1 "Again tenderly wrapping her mantle about her, and taking her on his arm (though, but for her visit, he was almost too weak to walk), Arthur led Little Dorrit down-stairs.",3 "She was the last visitor to pass out at the Lodge, and the gate jarred heavily and hopelessly upon her.",1 "With the funeral clang that it sounded into Arthur's heart, his sense of weakness returned.",1 "It was a toilsome journey up-stairs to his room, and he re-entered its dark solitary precincts in unutterable misery.",1 "When it was almost midnight, and the prison had long been quiet, a cautious creak came up the stairs, and a cautious tap of a key was given at his door.",1 It was Young John.,2 "He glided in, in his stockings, and held the door closed, while he spoke in a whisper.",2 "'It's against all rules, but I don't mind.",2 "I was determined to come through, and come to you.'",2 'What is the matter?',2 "'Nothing's the matter, sir.",2 I was waiting in the court-yard for Miss Dorrit when she came out.,1 I thought you'd like some one to see that she was safe.',3 "'Thank you, thank you!",3 "You took her home, John?'",2 'I saw her to her hotel.,2 The same that Mr Dorrit was at.,2 "Miss Dorrit walked all the way, and talked to me so kind, it quite knocked me over.",1 Why do you think she walked instead of riding?',2 "'I don't know, John.'",2 'To talk about you.,2 "She said to me, ""John, you was always honourable, and if you'll promise me that you will take care of him, and never let him want for help and comfort when I am not there, my mind will be at rest so far.""",3 I promised her.,3 "And I'll stand by you,' said John Chivery, 'for ever!'",2 "Clennam, much affected, stretched out his hand to this honest spirit.",3 "'Before I take it,' said John, looking at it, without coming from the door, 'guess what message Miss Dorrit gave me.'",1 Clennam shook his head.,2 "'""Tell him,""' repeated John, in a distinct, though quavering voice, '""that his Little Dorrit sent him her undying love.""",3 Now it's delivered.,2 "Have I been honourable, sir?'",2 "'Very, very!'",2 "'Will you tell Miss Dorrit I've been honourable, sir?'",1 'I will indeed.',2 "'There's my hand, sir,' said John, 'and I'll stand by you forever!'",2 "After a hearty squeeze, he disappeared with the same cautious creak upon the stair, crept shoeless over the pavement of the yard, and, locking the gates behind him, passed out into the front where he had left his shoes.",1 "If the same way had been paved with burning ploughshares, it is not at all improbable that John would have traversed it with the same devotion, for the same purpose.",1 The last day of the appointed week touched the bars of the Marshalsea gate.,2 "Black, all night, since the gate had clashed upon Little Dorrit, its iron stripes were turned by the early-glowing sun into stripes of gold.",3 "Far aslant across the city, over its jumbled roofs, and through the open tracery of its church towers, struck the long bright rays, bars of the prison of this lower world.",1 Throughout the day the old house within the gateway remained untroubled by any visitors.,2 "But, when the sun was low, three men turned in at the gateway and made for the dilapidated house.",1 "Rigaud was the first, and walked by himself smoking.",2 "Mr Baptist was the second, and jogged close after him, looking at no other object.",1 "Mr Pancks was the third, and carried his hat under his arm for the liberation of his restive hair; the weather being extremely hot.",3 They all came together at the door-steps.,2 'You pair of madmen!',2 "said Rigaud, facing about.",2 'Don't go yet!',2 "'We don't mean to,' said Mr Pancks.",2 "Giving him a dark glance in acknowledgment of his answer, Rigaud knocked loudly.",1 "He had charged himself with drink, for the playing out of his game, and was impatient to begin.",1 "He had hardly finished one long resounding knock, when he turned to the knocker again and began another.",2 "That was not yet finished when Jeremiah Flintwinch opened the door, and they all clanked into the stone hall.",2 "Rigaud, thrusting Mr Flintwinch aside, proceeded straight up-stairs.",2 "His two attendants followed him, Mr Flintwinch followed them, and they all came trooping into Mrs Clennam's quiet room.",3 "It was in its usual state; except that one of the windows was wide open, and Affery sat on its old-fashioned window-seat, mending a stocking.",2 "The usual articles were on the little table; the usual deadened fire was in the grate; the bed had its usual pall upon it; and the mistress of all sat on her black bier-like sofa, propped up by her black angular bolster that was like the headsman's block.",2 "Yet there was a nameless air of preparation in the room, as if it were strung up for an occasion.",2 "From what the room derived it--every one of its small variety of objects being in the fixed spot it had occupied for years--no one could have said without looking attentively at its mistress, and that, too, with a previous knowledge of her face.",2 "Although her unchanging black dress was in every plait precisely as of old, and her unchanging attitude was rigidly preserved, a very slight additional setting of her features and contraction of her gloomy forehead was so powerfully marked, that it marked everything about her.",3 'Who are these?',2 "she said, wonderingly, as the two attendants entered.",2 'What do these people want here?',2 "'Who are these, dear madame, is it?'",2 returned Rigaud.,2 "'Faith, they are friends of your son the prisoner.",1 "And what do they want here, is it?",2 "Death, madame, I don't know.",1 You will do well to ask them.',3 "'You know you told us at the door, not to go yet,' said Pancks.",2 "'And you know you told me at the door, you didn't mean to go,' retorted Rigaud.",2 "'In a word, madame, permit me to present two spies of the prisoner's--madmen, but spies.",2 "If you wish them to remain here during our little conversation, say the word.",2 It is nothing to me.',2 'Why should I wish them to remain here?',2 said Mrs Clennam.,2 'What have I to do with them?',2 "'Then, dearest madame,' said Rigaud, throwing himself into an arm-chair so heavily that the old room trembled, 'you will do well to dismiss them.",3 It is your affair.,2 "They are not my spies, not my rascals.'",1 'Hark!,2 "You Pancks,' said Mrs Clennam, bending her brows upon him angrily, 'you Casby's clerk!",1 Attend to your employer's business and your own.,2 Go.,2 And take that other man with you.',2 "'Thank you, ma'am,' returned Mr Pancks, 'I am glad to say I see no objection to our both retiring.",2 We have done all we undertook to do for Mr Clennam.,2 "His constant anxiety has been (and it grew worse upon him when he became a prisoner), that this agreeable gentleman should be brought back here to the place from which he slipped away.",1 Here he is--brought back.,2 "And I will say,' added Mr Pancks, 'to his ill-looking face, that in my opinion the world would be no worse for his slipping out of it altogether.'",1 "'Your opinion is not asked,' answered Mrs Clennam.",2 'Go.',2 "'I am sorry not to leave you in better company, ma'am,' said Pancks; 'and sorry, too, that Mr Clennam can't be present.",2 "It's my fault, that is.'",1 "'You mean his own,' she returned.",2 "'No, I mean mine, ma'am,' said Pancks, 'for it was my misfortune to lead him into a ruinous investment.'",1 "(Mr Pancks still clung to that word, and never said speculation.) 'Though I can prove by figures,' added Mr Pancks, with an anxious countenance, 'that it ought to have been a good investment.",2 "I have gone over it since it failed, every day of my life, and it comes out--regarded as a question of figures--triumphant.",2 "The present is not a time or place,' Mr Pancks pursued, with a longing glance into his hat, where he kept his calculations, 'for entering upon the figures; but the figures are not to be disputed.",1 "Mr Clennam ought to have been at this moment in his carriage and pair, and I ought to have been worth from three to five thousand pound.'",3 "Mr Pancks put his hair erect with a general aspect of confidence that could hardly have been surpassed, if he had had the amount in his pocket.",3 "These incontrovertible figures had been the occupation of every moment of his leisure since he had lost his money, and were destined to afford him consolation to the end of his days.",2 "'However,' said Mr Pancks, 'enough of that.",2 "Altro, old boy, you have seen the figures, and you know how they come out.'",2 "Mr Baptist, who had not the slightest arithmetical power of compensating himself in this way, nodded, with a fine display of bright teeth.",3 "At whom Mr Flintwinch had been looking, and to whom he then said: 'Oh!",2 "it's you, is it?",2 "I thought I remembered your face, but I wasn't certain till I saw your teeth.",2 Ah!,2 "yes, to be sure.",2 "It was this officious refugee,' said Jeremiah to Mrs Clennam, 'who came knocking at the door on the night when Arthur and Chatterbox were here, and who asked me a whole Catechism of questions about Mr Blandois.'",1 "'It is true,' Mr Baptist cheerfully admitted.",2 "'And behold him, padrone!",2 I have found him consequentementally.',2 "'I shouldn't have objected,' returned Mr Flintwinch, 'to your having broken your neck consequentementally.'",1 "'And now,' said Mr Pancks, whose eye had often stealthily wandered to the window-seat and the stocking that was being mended there, 'I've only one other word to say before I go.",2 "If Mr Clennam was here--but unfortunately, though he has so far got the better of this fine gentleman as to return him to this place against his will, he is ill and in prison--ill and in prison, poor fellow--if he was here,' said Mr Pancks, taking one step aside towards the window-seat, and laying his right hand upon the stocking; 'he would say, ""Affery, tell your dreams!""",2 "' Mr Pancks held up his right forefinger between his nose and the stocking with a ghostly air of warning, turned, steamed out and towed Mr Baptist after him.",2 "The house-door was heard to close upon them, their steps were heard passing over the dull pavement of the echoing court-yard, and still nobody had added a word.",1 "Mrs Clennam and Jeremiah had exchanged a look; and had then looked, and looked still, at Affery, who sat mending the stocking with great assiduity.",3 'Come!',2 "said Mr Flintwinch at length, screwing himself a curve or two in the direction of the window-seat, and rubbing the palms of his hands on his coat-tail as if he were preparing them to do something: 'Whatever has to be said among us had better be begun to be said without more loss of time.--So, Affery, my woman, take yourself away!'",2 "In a moment Affery had thrown the stocking down, started up, caught hold of the windowsill with her right hand, lodged herself upon the window-seat with her right knee, and was flourishing her left hand, beating expected assailants off.",3 "'No, I won't, Jeremiah--no, I won't--no, I won't!",2 I won't go!,2 I'll stay here.,2 "I'll hear all I don't know, and say all I know.",2 "I will, at last, if I die for it.",1 "I will, I will, I will, I will!'",2 "Mr Flintwinch, stiffening with indignation and amazement, moistened the fingers of one hand at his lips, softly described a circle with them in the palm of the other hand, and continued with a menacing grin to screw himself in the direction of his wife; gasping some remark as he advanced, of which, in his choking anger, only the words, 'Such a dose!'",2 were audible.,3 "'Not a bit nearer, Jeremiah!'",2 "cried Affery, never ceasing to beat the air.",2 "'Don't come a bit nearer to me, or I'll rouse the neighbourhood!",2 I'll throw myself out of window.,2 I'll scream Fire and Murder!,1 I'll wake the dead!,1 "Stop where you are, or I'll make shrieks enough to wake the dead!'",2 The determined voice of Mrs Clennam echoed 'Stop!',2 Jeremiah had stopped already.,2 "'It is closing in, Flintwinch.",2 Let her alone.,2 "Affery, do you turn against me after these many years?'",2 "'I do, if it's turning against you to hear what I don't know, and say what I know.",2 "I have broke out now, and I can't go back.",1 I am determined to do it.,2 "I will do it, I will, I will, I will!",2 "If that's turning against you, yes, I turn against both of you two clever ones.",3 I told Arthur when he first come home to stand up against you.,2 "I told him it was no reason, because I was afeard of my life of you, that he should be.",2 "All manner of things have been a-going on since then, and I won't be run up by Jeremiah, nor yet I won't be dazed and scared, nor made a party to I don't know what, no more.",1 "I won't, I won't, I won't!",2 "I'll up for Arthur when he has nothing left, and is ill, and in prison, and can't up for himself.",1 "I will, I will, I will, I will!'",2 "'How do you know, you heap of confusion,' asked Mrs Clennam sternly, 'that in doing what you are doing now, you are even serving Arthur?'",1 "'I don't know nothing rightly about anything,' said Affery; 'and if ever you said a true word in your life, it's when you call me a heap of confusion, for you two clever ones have done your most to make me such.",3 "You married me whether I liked it or not, and you've led me, pretty well ever since, such a life of dreaming and frightening as never was known, and what do you expect me to be but a heap of confusion?",3 "You wanted to make me such, and I am such; but I won't submit no longer; no, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't!'",2 She was still beating the air against all comers.,2 "After gazing at her in silence, Mrs Clennam turned to Rigaud.",2 'You see and hear this foolish creature.,1 Do you object to such a piece of distraction remaining where she is?',1 "'I, madame,' he replied, 'do I?",2 That's a question for you.',2 "'I do not,' she said, gloomily.",2 'There is little left to choose now.,2 "Flintwinch, it is closing in.'",2 "Mr Flintwinch replied by directing a look of red vengeance at his wife, and then, as if to pinion himself from falling upon her, screwed his crossed arms into the breast of his waistcoat, and with his chin very near one of his elbows stood in a corner, watching Rigaud in the oddest attitude.",0 "Rigaud, for his part, arose from his chair, and seated himself on the table with his legs dangling.",2 "In this easy attitude, he met Mrs Clennam's set face, with his moustache going up and his nose coming down.",3 "'Madame, I am a gentleman--' 'Of whom,' she interrupted in her steady tones, 'I have heard disparagement, in connection with a French jail and an accusation of murder.'",1 He kissed his hand to her with his exaggerated gallantry.,2 'Perfectly.,2 Exactly.,2 Of a lady too!,2 What absurdity!,1 How incredible!,3 I had the honour of making a great success then; I hope to have the honour of making a great success now.,3 I kiss your hands.,2 "Madame, I am a gentleman (I was going to observe), who when he says, ""I will definitely finish this or that affair at the present sitting,"" does definitely finish it.",2 I announce to you that we are arrived at our last sitting on our little business.,2 "You do me the favour to follow, and to comprehend?'",3 She kept her eyes fixed upon him with a frown.,1 'Yes.',2 "'Further, I am a gentleman to whom mere mercenary trade-bargains are unknown, but to whom money is always acceptable as the means of pursuing his pleasures.",1 "You do me the favour to follow, and to comprehend?'",3 "'Scarcely necessary to ask, one would say.",2 Yes.',2 "'Further, I am a gentleman of the softest and sweetest disposition, but who, if trifled with, becomes enraged.",1 Noble natures under such circumstances become enraged.,2 I possess a noble nature.,3 "When the lion is awakened--that is to say, when I enrage--the satisfaction of my animosity is as acceptable to me as money.",1 "You always do me the favour to follow, and to comprehend?'",3 "'Yes,' she answered, somewhat louder than before.",1 'Do not let me derange you; pray be tranquil.,3 I have said we are now arrived at our last sitting.,2 Allow me to recall the two sittings we have held.',2 'It is not necessary.',2 "'Death, madame,' he burst out, 'it's my fancy!",3 "Besides, it clears the way.",3 The first sitting was limited.,1 "I had the honour of making your acquaintance--of presenting my letter; I am a Knight of Industry, at your service, madame, but my polished manners had won me so much of success, as a master of languages, among your compatriots who are as stiff as their own starch is to one another, but are ready to relax to a foreign gentleman of polished manners--and of observing one or two little things,' he glanced around the room and smiled, 'about this honourable house, to know which was necessary to assure me, and to convince me that I had the distinguished pleasure of making the acquaintance of the lady I sought.",4 I achieved this.,2 I gave my word of honour to our dear Flintwinch that I would return.,2 I gracefully departed.',3 Her face neither acquiesced nor demurred.,2 "The same when he paused, and when he spoke, it as yet showed him always the one attentive frown, and the dark revelation before mentioned of her being nerved for the occasion.",2 "'I say, gracefully departed, because it was graceful to retire without alarming a lady.",3 "To be morally graceful, not less than physically, is a part of the character of Rigaud Blandois.",3 "It was also politic, as leaving you with something overhanging you, to expect me again with a little anxiety on a day not named.",1 But your slave is politic.,1 "By Heaven, madame, politic!",3 Let us return.,2 "On the day not named, I have again the honour to render myself at your house.",2 "I intimate that I have something to sell, which, if not bought, will compromise madame whom I highly esteem.",3 I explain myself generally.,2 I demand--I think it was a thousand pounds.,2 Will you correct me?',3 "Thus forced to speak, she replied with constraint, 'You demanded as much as a thousand pounds.'",2 "'I demand at present, Two.",2 Such are the evils of delay.,1 But to return once more.,2 We are not accordant; we differ on that occasion.,2 I am playful; playfulness is a part of my amiable character.,3 "Playfully, I become as one slain and hidden.",3 "For, it may alone be worth half the sum to madame, to be freed from the suspicions that my droll idea awakens.",3 "Accident and spies intermix themselves against my playfulness, and spoil the fruit, perhaps--who knows?",1 only you and Flintwinch--when it is just ripe.,2 "Thus, madame, I am here for the last time.",2 Listen!,2 Definitely the last.',2 "As he struck his straggling boot-heels against the flap of the table, meeting her frown with an insolent gaze, he began to change his tone for a fierce one.",0 'Bah!,2 Stop an instant!,2 Let us advance by steps.,2 "Here is my Hotel-note to be paid, according to contract.",2 Five minutes hence we may be at daggers' points.,2 "I'll not leave it till then, or you'll cheat me.",1 Pay it!,2 Count me the money!',2 "'Take it from his hand and pay it, Flintwinch,' said Mrs Clennam.",2 "He spirted it into Mr Flintwinch's face when the old man advanced to take it, and held forth his hand, repeating noisily, 'Pay it!",3 Count it out!,2 Good money!',3 "Jeremiah picked the bill up, looked at the total with a bloodshot eye, took a small canvas bag from his pocket, and told the amount into his hand.",2 "Rigaud chinked the money, weighed it in his hand, threw it up a little way and caught it, chinked it again.",2 "'The sound of it, to the bold Rigaud Blandois, is like the taste of fresh meat to the tiger.",3 "Say, then, madame.",2 How much?',2 "He turned upon her suddenly with a menacing gesture of the weighted hand that clenched the money, as if he were going to strike her with it.",1 "'I tell you again, as I told you before, that we are not rich here, as you suppose us to be, and that your demand is excessive.",2 "I have not the present means of complying with such a demand, if I had ever so great an inclination.'",3 'If!',2 cried Rigaud.,2 'Hear this lady with her If!,2 Will you say that you have not the inclination?',2 "'I will say what presents itself to me, and not what presents itself to you.'",2 'Say it then.,2 As to the inclination.,2 Quick!,2 "Come to the inclination, and I know what to do.'",2 "She was no quicker, and no slower, in her reply.",2 'It would seem that you have obtained possession of a paper--or of papers--which I assuredly have the inclination to recover.',3 "Rigaud, with a loud laugh, drummed his heels against the table, and chinked his money.",1 'I think so!,2 I believe you there!',2 "'The paper might be worth, to me, a sum of money.",3 "I cannot say how much, or how little.'",2 'What the Devil!',1 he asked savagely.,2 'Not after a week's grace to consider?',3 'No!,2 "I will not out of my scanty means--for I tell you again, we are poor here, and not rich--I will not offer any price for a power that I do not know the worst and the fullest extent of.",1 This is the third time of your hinting and threatening.,1 "You must speak explicitly, or you may go where you will, and do what you will.",2 "It is better to be torn to pieces at a spring, than to be a mouse at the caprice of such a cat.'",3 "He looked at her so hard with those eyes too near together that the sinister sight of each, crossing that of the other, seemed to make the bridge of his hooked nose crooked.",0 "After a long survey, he said, with the further setting off of his internal smile: 'You are a bold woman!'",3 'I am a resolved woman.',2 'You always were.,2 What?,2 "She always was; is it not so, my little Flintwinch?'",2 "'Flintwinch, say nothing to him.",2 "It is for him to say, here and now, all he can; or to go hence, and do all he can.",2 You know this to be our determination.,2 Leave him to his action on it.',2 "She did not shrink under his evil leer, or avoid it.",1 "He turned it upon her again, but she remained steady at the point to which she had fixed herself.",3 "He got off the table, placed a chair near the sofa, sat down in it, and leaned an arm upon the sofa close to her own, which he touched with his hand.",2 "Her face was ever frowning, attentive, and settled.",3 "'It is your pleasure then, madame, that I shall relate a morsel of family history in this little family society,' said Rigaud, with a warning play of his lithe fingers on her arm.",2 'I am something of a doctor.,2 Let me touch your pulse.',2 She suffered him to take her wrist in his hand.,1 "Holding it, he proceeded to say: 'A history of a strange marriage, and a strange mother, and a revenge, and a suppression.--Aye, aye, aye?",0 this pulse is beating curiously!,2 It appears to me that it doubles while I touch it.,2 "Are these the usual changes of your malady, madame?'",1 "There was a struggle in her maimed arm as she twisted it away, but there was none in her face.",1 On his face there was his own smile.,3 'I have lived an adventurous life.,3 I am an adventurous character.,3 I have known many adventurers; interesting spirits--amiable society!,3 "To one of them I owe my knowledge and my proofs--I repeat it, estimable lady--proofs--of the ravishing little family history I go to commence.",2 You will be charmed with it.,2 "But, bah!",2 I forget.,2 One should name a history.,2 Shall I name it the history of a house?,2 "But, bah, again.",2 There are so many houses.,2 Shall I name it the history of this house?',2 "Leaning over the sofa, poised on two legs of his chair and his left elbow; that hand often tapping her arm to beat his words home; his legs crossed; his right hand sometimes arranging his hair, sometimes smoothing his moustache, sometimes striking his nose, always threatening her whatever it did; coarse, insolent, rapacious, cruel, and powerful, he pursued his narrative at his ease.",3 "'In fine, then, I name it the history of this house.",3 I commence it.,2 "There live here, let us suppose, an uncle and nephew.",2 "The uncle, a rigid old gentleman of strong force of character; the nephew, habitually timid, repressed, and under constraint.'",1 "Mistress Affery, fixedly attentive in the window-seat, biting the rolled up end of her apron, and trembling from head to foot, here cried out, 'Jeremiah, keep off from me!",1 "I've heerd, in my dreams, of Arthur's father and his uncle.",2 He's a talking of them.,2 "It was before my time here; but I've heerd in my dreams that Arthur's father was a poor, irresolute, frightened chap, who had had everything but his orphan life scared out of him when he was young, and that he had no voice in the choice of his wife even, but his uncle chose her.",0 There she sits!,2 "I heerd it in my dreams, and you said it to her own self.'",2 "As Mr Flintwinch shook his fist at her, and as Mrs Clennam gazed upon her, Rigaud kissed his hand to her.",1 "'Perfectly right, dear Madame Flintwinch.",3 You have a genius for dreaming.',3 "'I don't want none of your praises,' returned Affery.",2 'I don't want to have nothing at all to say to you.,2 "But Jeremiah said they was dreams, and I'll tell 'em as such!'",2 "Here she put her apron in her mouth again, as if she were stopping somebody else's mouth--perhaps Jeremiah's, which was chattering with threats as if he were grimly cold.",1 "'Our beloved Madame Flintwinch,' said Rigaud, 'developing all of a sudden a fine susceptibility and spirituality, is right to a marvel.",4 Yes.,2 So runs the history.,2 "Monsieur, the uncle, commands the nephew to marry.",2 "Monsieur says to him in effect, ""My nephew, I introduce to you a lady of strong force of character, like myself--a resolved lady, a stern lady, a lady who has a will that can break the weak to powder: a lady without pity, without love, implacable, revengeful, cold as the stone, but raging as the fire.""",0 Ah!,2 what fortitude!,3 "Ah, what superiority of intellectual strength!",3 "Truly, a proud and noble character that I describe in the supposed words of Monsieur, the uncle.",3 "Ha, ha, ha!",2 "Death of my soul, I love the sweet lady!'",3 Mrs Clennam's face had changed.,2 "There was a remarkable darkness of colour on it, and the brow was more contracted.",2 "'Madame, madame,' said Rigaud, tapping her on the arm, as if his cruel hand were sounding a musical instrument, 'I perceive I interest you.",1 I perceive I awaken your sympathy.,2 Let us go on.',2 "The drooping nose and the ascending moustache had, however, to be hidden for a moment with the white hand, before he could go on; he enjoyed the effect he made so much.",3 "'The nephew, being, as the lucid Madame Flintwinch has remarked, a poor devil who has had everything but his orphan life frightened and famished out of him--the nephew abases his head, and makes response: ""My uncle, it is to you to command.",0 "Do as you will!""",2 "Monsieur, the uncle, does as he will.",2 It is what he always does.,2 "The auspicious nuptials take place; the newly married come home to this charming mansion; the lady is received, let us suppose, by Flintwinch.",3 "Hey, old intriguer?'",2 "Jeremiah, with his eyes upon his mistress, made no reply.",1 "Rigaud looked from one to the other, struck his ugly nose, and made a clucking with his tongue.",1 'Soon the lady makes a singular and exciting discovery.,3 "Thereupon, full of anger, full of jealousy, full of vengeance, she forms--see you, madame!--a scheme of retribution, the weight of which she ingeniously forces her crushed husband to bear himself, as well as execute upon her enemy.",0 What superior intelligence!',3 "'Keep off, Jeremiah!'",2 "cried the palpitating Affery, taking her apron from her mouth again.",2 "'But it was one of my dreams, that you told her, when you quarrelled with her one winter evening at dusk--there she sits and you looking at her--that she oughtn't to have let Arthur when he come home, suspect his father only; that she had always had the strength and the power; and that she ought to have stood up more to Arthur, for his father.",1 "It was in the same dream where you said to her that she was not--not something, but I don't know what, for she burst out tremendous and stopped you.",2 You know the dream as well as I do.,3 "When you come down-stairs into the kitchen with the candle in your hand, and hitched my apron off my head.",2 When you told me I had been dreaming.,2 When you wouldn't believe the noises.',1 "After this explosion Affery put her apron into her mouth again; always keeping her hand on the window-sill and her knee on the window-seat, ready to cry out or jump out if her lord and master approached.",3 Rigaud had not lost a word of this.,1 'Haha!',2 "he cried, lifting his eyebrows, folding his arms, and leaning back in his chair.",2 "'Assuredly, Madame Flintwinch is an oracle!",2 "How shall we interpret the oracle, you and I and the old intriguer?",2 He said that you were not--?,2 And you burst out and stopped him!,2 What was it you were not?,2 What is it you are not?,2 "Say then, madame!'",2 "Under this ferocious banter, she sat breathing harder, and her mouth was disturbed.",1 "Her lips quivered and opened, in spite of her utmost efforts to keep them still.",1 "'Come then, madame!",2 "Speak, then!",2 Our old intriguer said that you were not--and you stopped him.,2 He was going to say that you were not--what?,2 "I know already, but I want a little confidence from you.",3 "How, then?",2 You are not what?',2 "She tried again to repress herself, but broke out vehemently, 'Not Arthur's mother!'",0 "'Good,' said Rigaud.",2 'You are amenable.',3 "With the set expression of her face all torn away by the explosion of her passion, and with a bursting, from every rent feature, of the smouldering fire so long pent up, she cried out: 'I will tell it myself!",2 "I will not hear it from your lips, and with the taint of your wickedness upon it.",1 "Since it must be seen, I will have it seen by the light I stood in.",2 Not another word.,2 Hear me!',2 "'Unless you are a more obstinate and more persisting woman than even I know you to be,' Mr Flintwinch interposed, 'you had better leave Mr Rigaud, Mr Blandois, Mr Beelzebub, to tell it in his own way.",2 What does it signify when he knows all about it?',2 'He does not know all about it.',2 "'He knows all he cares about it,' Mr Flintwinch testily urged.",1 'He does not know _me_.',2 "'What do you suppose he cares for you, you conceited woman?'",1 said Mr Flintwinch.,2 "'I tell you, Flintwinch, I will speak.",2 "I tell you when it has come to this, I will tell it with my own lips, and will express myself throughout it.",2 What!,2 "Have I suffered nothing in this room, no deprivation, no imprisonment, that I should condescend at last to contemplate myself in such a glass as _that_.",0 Can you see him?,2 Can you hear him?,2 "If your wife were a hundred times the ingrate that she is, and if I were a thousand times more hopeless than I am of inducing her to be silent if this man is silenced, I would tell it myself, before I would bear the torment of the hearing it from him.'",1 Rigaud pushed his chair a little back; pushed his legs out straight before him; and sat with his arms folded over against her.,2 "'You do not know what it is,' she went on addressing him, 'to be brought up strictly and straitly.",1 I was so brought up.,2 Mine was no light youth of sinful gaiety and pleasure.,3 "Mine were days of wholesome repression, punishment, and fear.",1 "The corruption of our hearts, the evil of our ways, the curse that is upon us, the terrors that surround us--these were the themes of my childhood.",0 "They formed my character, and filled me with an abhorrence of evil-doers.",1 "When old Mr Gilbert Clennam proposed his orphan nephew to my father for my husband, my father impressed upon me that his bringing-up had been, like mine, one of severe restraint.",2 "He told me, that besides the discipline his spirit had undergone, he had lived in a starved house, where rioting and gaiety were unknown, and where every day was a day of toil and trial like the last.",2 "He told me that he had been a man in years long before his uncle had acknowledged him as one; and that from his school-days to that hour, his uncle's roof has been a sanctuary to him from the contagion of the irreligious and dissolute.",1 "When, within a twelvemonth of our marriage, I found my husband, at that time when my father spoke of him, to have sinned against the Lord and outraged me by holding a guilty creature in my place, was I to doubt that it had been appointed to me to make the discovery, and that it was appointed to me to lay the hand of punishment upon that creature of perdition?",0 Was I to dismiss in a moment--not my own wrongs--what was I!,2 "but all the rejection of sin, and all the war against it, in which I had been bred?'",1 She laid her wrathful hand upon the watch on the table.,2 'No!,2 """Do not forget.""",2 "The initials of those words are within here now, and were within here then.",2 "I was appointed to find the old letter that referred to them, and that told me what they meant, and whose work they were, and why they were worked, lying with this watch in his secret drawer.",3 But for that appointment there would have been no discovery.,2 """Do not forget.""",2 It spoke to me like a voice from an angry cloud.,1 "Do not forget the deadly sin, do not forget the appointed discovery, do not forget the appointed suffering.",0 I did not forget.,2 Was it my own wrong I remembered?,1 Mine!,2 I was but a servant and a minister.,2 "What power could I have over them, but that they were bound in the bonds of their sin, and delivered to me!'",1 "More than forty years had passed over the grey head of this determined woman, since the time she recalled.",2 "More than forty years of strife and struggle with the whisper that, by whatever name she called her vindictive pride and rage, nothing through all eternity could change their nature.",0 "Yet, gone those more than forty years, and come this Nemesis now looking her in the face, she still abided by her old impiety--still reversed the order of Creation, and breathed her own breath into a clay image of her Creator.",1 "Verily, verily, travellers have seen many monstrous idols in many countries; but no human eyes have ever seen more daring, gross, and shocking images of the Divine nature than we creatures of the dust make in our own likenesses, of our own bad passions.",0 "'When I forced him to give her up to me, by her name and place of abode,' she went on in her torrent of indignation and defence; 'when I accused her, and she fell hiding her face at my feet, was it my injury that I asserted, were they my reproaches that I poured upon her?",0 Those who were appointed of old to go to wicked kings and accuse them--were they not ministers and servants?,1 "And had not I, unworthy and far-removed from them, sin to denounce?",0 "When she pleaded to me her youth, and his wretched and hard life (that was her phrase for the virtuous training he had belied), and the desecrated ceremony of marriage there had secretly been between them, and the terrors of want and shame that had overwhelmed them both when I was first appointed to be the instrument of their punishment, and the love (for she said the word to me, down at my feet) in which she had abandoned him and left him to me, was it _my_ enemy that became my footstool, were they the words of my wrath that made her shrink and quiver!",0 Not unto me the strength be ascribed; not unto me the wringing of the expiation!',2 "Many years had come and gone since she had had the free use even of her fingers; but it was noticeable that she had already more than once struck her clenched hand vigorously upon the table, and that when she said these words she raised her whole arm in the air, as though it had been a common action with her.",2 'And what was the repentance that was extorted from the hardness of her heart and the blackness of her depravity?,2 "I, vindictive and implacable?",1 "It may be so, to such as you who know no righteousness, and no appointment except Satan's.",3 "Laugh; but I will be known as I know myself, and as Flintwinch knows me, though it is only to you and this half-witted woman.'",2 "'Add, to yourself, madame,' said Rigaud.",2 'I have my little suspicions that madame is rather solicitous to be justified to herself.',2 'It is false.,1 It is not so.,2 "I have no need to be,' she said, with great energy and anger.",2 'Truly?',2 retorted Rigaud.,2 'Hah!',2 "'I ask, what was the penitence, in works, that was demanded of her?",3 """You have a child; I have none.",2 You love that child.,3 Give him to me.,2 "He shall believe himself to be my son, and he shall be believed by every one to be my son.",2 "To save you from exposure, his father shall swear never to see or communicate with you more; equally to save him from being stripped by his uncle, and to save your child from being a beggar, you shall swear never to see or communicate with either of them more.",1 "That done, and your present means, derived from my husband, renounced, I charge myself with your support.",3 "You may, with your place of retreat unknown, then leave, if you please, uncontradicted by me, the lie that when you passed out of all knowledge but mine, you merited a good name.""",1 That was all.,2 She had to sacrifice her sinful and shameful affections; no more.,1 "She was then free to bear her load of guilt in secret, and to break her heart in secret; and through such present misery (light enough for her, I think!) to purchase her redemption from endless misery, if she could.",2 "If, in this, I punished her here, did I not open to her a way hereafter?",2 "If she knew herself to be surrounded by insatiable vengeance and unquenchable fires, were they mine?",1 "If I threatened her, then and afterwards, with the terrors that encompassed her, did I hold them in my right hand?'",3 "She turned the watch upon the table, and opened it, and, with an unsoftening face, looked at the worked letters within.",3 'They did _not_ forget.,2 It is appointed against such offences that the offenders shall not be able to forget.,2 "If the presence of Arthur was a daily reproach to his father, and if the absence of Arthur was a daily agony to his mother, that was the just dispensation of Jehovah.",0 "As well might it be charged upon me, that the stings of an awakened conscience drove her mad, and that it was the will of the Disposer of all things that she should live so, many years.",2 "I devoted myself to reclaim the otherwise predestined and lost boy; to give him the reputation of an honest origin; to bring him up in fear and trembling, and in a life of practical contrition for the sins that were heavy on his head before his entrance into this condemned world.",2 Was that a cruelty?,1 "Was I, too, not visited with consequences of the original offence in which I had no complicity?",1 "Arthur's father and I lived no further apart, with half the globe between us, than when we were together in this house.",2 "He died, and sent this watch back to me, with its Do not forget.",1 "I do NOT forget, though I do not read it as he did.",2 "I read in it, that I was appointed to do these things.",2 "I have so read these three letters since I have had them lying on this table, and I did so read them, with equal distinctness, when they were thousands of miles away.'",1 "As she took the watch-case in her hand, with that new freedom in the use of her hand of which she showed no consciousness whatever, bending her eyes upon it as if she were defying it to move her, Rigaud cried with a loud and contemptuous snapping of his fingers.",1 "'Come, madame!",2 Time runs out.,2 "Come, lady of piety, it must be!",3 You can tell nothing I don't know.,2 "Come to the money stolen, or I will!",1 "Death of my soul, I have had enough of your other jargon.",2 Come straight to the stolen money!',1 "'Wretch that you are,' she answered, and now her hands clasped her head: 'through what fatal error of Flintwinch's, through what incompleteness on his part, who was the only other person helping in these things and trusted with them, through whose and what bringing together of the ashes of a burnt paper, you have become possessed of that codicil, I know no more than how you acquired the rest of your power here--' 'And yet,' interrupted Rigaud, 'it is my odd fortune to have by me, in a convenient place that I know of, that same short little addition to the will of Monsieur Gilbert Clennam, written by a lady and witnessed by the same lady and our old intriguer!",3 "Ah, bah, old intriguer, crooked little puppet!",1 "Madame, let us go on.",2 Time presses.,2 You or I to finish?',2 'I!',2 "she answered, with increased determination, if it were possible.",2 "'I, because I will not endure to be shown myself, and have myself shown to any one, with your horrible distortion upon me.",1 "You, with your practices of infamous foreign prisons and galleys would make it the money that impelled me.",1 It was not the money.',2 "'Bah, bah, bah!",2 "I repudiate, for the moment, my politeness, and say, Lies, lies, lies.",1 You know you suppressed the deed and kept the money.',2 "'Not for the money's sake, wretch!'",1 "She made a struggle as if she were starting up; even as if, in her vehemence, she had almost risen on her disabled feet.",1 "'If Gilbert Clennam, reduced to imbecility, at the point of death, and labouring under the delusion of some imaginary relenting towards a girl of whom he had heard that his nephew had once had a fancy for her which he had crushed out of him, and that she afterwards drooped away into melancholy and withdrawal from all who knew her--if, in that state of weakness, he dictated to me, whose life she had darkened with her sin, and who had been appointed to know her wickedness from her own hand and her own lips, a bequest meant as a recompense to her for supposed unmerited suffering; was there no difference between my spurning that injustice, and coveting mere money--a thing which you, and your comrades in the prisons, may steal from anyone?'",0 "'Time presses, madame.",2 Take care!',2 "'If this house was blazing from the roof to the ground,' she returned, 'I would stay in it to justify myself against my righteous motives being classed with those of stabbers and thieves.'",3 Rigaud snapped his fingers tauntingly in her face.,1 'One thousand guineas to the little beauty you slowly hunted to death.,1 "One thousand guineas to the youngest daughter her patron might have at fifty, or (if he had none) brother's youngest daughter, on her coming of age, ""as the remembrance his disinterestedness may like best, of his protection of a friendless young orphan girl.""",3 Two thousand guineas.,2 What!,2 You will never come to the money?',2 "'That patron,' she was vehemently proceeding, when he checked her.",1 'Names!,2 Call him Mr Frederick Dorrit.,2 No more evasions.',2 'That Frederick Dorrit was the beginning of it all.,2 "If he had not been a player of music, and had not kept, in those days of his youth and prosperity, an idle house where singers, and players, and such-like children of Evil turned their backs on the Light and their faces to the Darkness, she might have remained in her lowly station, and might not have been raised out of it to be cast down.",1 "But, no.",2 "Satan entered into that Frederick Dorrit, and counselled him that he was a man of innocent and laudable tastes who did kind actions, and that here was a poor girl with a voice for singing music with.",2 Then he is to have her taught.,2 "Then Arthur's father, who has all along been secretly pining in the ways of virtuous ruggedness for those accursed snares which are called the Arts, becomes acquainted with her.",2 "And so, a graceless orphan, training to be a singing girl, carries it, by that Frederick Dorrit's agency, against me, and I am humbled and deceived!--Not I, that is to say,' she added quickly, as colour flushed into her face; 'a greater than I.",1 What am I?',2 "Jeremiah Flintwinch, who had been gradually screwing himself towards her, and who was now very near her elbow without her knowing it, made a specially wry face of objection when she said these words, and moreover twitched his gaiters, as if such pretensions were equivalent to little barbs in his legs.",1 "'Lastly,' she continued, 'for I am at the end of these things, and I will say no more of them, and you shall say no more of them, and all that remains will be to determine whether the knowledge of them can be kept among us who are here present; lastly, when I suppressed that paper, with the knowledge of Arthur's father--' 'But not with his consent, you know,' said Mr Flintwinch.",2 'Who said with his consent?',2 "She started to find Jeremiah so near her, and drew back her head, looking at him with some rising distrust.",1 "'You were often enough between us when he would have had me produce it and I would not, to have contradicted me if I had said, with his consent.",3 "I say, when I suppressed that paper, I made no effort to destroy it, but kept it by me, here in this house, many years.",1 "The rest of the Gilbert property being left to Arthur's father, I could at any time, without unsettling more than the two sums, have made a pretence of finding it.",1 "But, besides that I must have supported such pretence by a direct falsehood (a great responsibility), I have seen no new reason, in all the time I have been tried here, to bring it to light.",2 It was a rewarding of sin; the wrong result of a delusion.,1 "I did what I was appointed to do, and I have undergone, within these four walls, what I was appointed to undergo.",2 "When the paper was at last destroyed--as I thought--in my presence, she had long been dead, and her patron, Frederick Dorrit, had long been deservedly ruined and imbecile.",1 He had no daughter.,2 "I had found the niece before then; and what I did for her, was better for her far than the money of which she would have had no good.'",3 "She added, after a moment, as though she addressed the watch: 'She herself was innocent, and I might not have forgotten to relinquish it to her at my death:' and sat looking at it.",1 "'Shall I recall something to you, worthy madame?'",3 said Rigaud.,2 'The little paper was in this house on the night when our friend the prisoner--jail-comrade of my soul--came home from foreign countries.,1 Shall I recall yet something more to you?,2 "The little singing-bird that never was fledged, was long kept in a cage by a guardian of your appointing, well enough known to our old intriguer here.",3 Shall we coax our old intriguer to tell us when he saw him last?',2 'I'll tell you!',2 "cried Affery, unstopping her mouth.",2 "'I dreamed it, first of all my dreams.",2 "Jeremiah, if you come a-nigh me now, I'll scream to be heard at St Paul's!",1 "The person as this man has spoken of, was Jeremiah's own twin brother; and he was here in the dead of the night, on the night when Arthur come home, and Jeremiah with his own hands give him this paper, along with I don't know what more, and he took it away in an iron box--Help!",1 Murder!,1 Save me from Jere-_mi_-ah!',2 "Mr Flintwinch had made a run at her, but Rigaud had caught him in his arms midway.",2 "After a moment's wrestle with him, Flintwinch gave up, and put his hands in his pockets.",1 'What!',2 "cried Rigaud, rallying him as he poked and jerked him back with his elbows, 'assault a lady with such a genius for dreaming!",3 "Ha, ha, ha!",2 "Why, she'll be a fortune to you as an exhibition.",3 All that she dreams comes true.,2 "Ha, ha, ha!",2 "You're so like him, Little Flintwinch.",3 "So like him, as I knew him (when I first spoke English for him to the host) in the Cabaret of the Three Billiard Tables, in the little street of the high roofs, by the wharf at Antwerp!",3 "Ah, but he was a brave boy to drink.",3 "Ah, but he was a brave boy to smoke!",2 "Ah, but he lived in a sweet bachelor-apartment--furnished, on the fifth floor, above the wood and charcoal merchant's, and the dress-maker's, and the chair-maker's, and the maker of tubs--where I knew him too, and wherewith his cognac and tobacco, he had twelve sleeps a day and one fit, until he had a fit too much, and ascended to the skies.",3 "Ha, ha, ha!",2 What does it matter how I took possession of the papers in his iron box?,2 "Perhaps he confided it to my hands for you, perhaps it was locked and my curiosity was piqued, perhaps I suppressed it.",2 "Ha, ha, ha!",2 "What does it matter, so that I have it safe?",3 "We are not particular here; hey, Flintwinch?",2 "We are not particular here; is it not so, madame?'",2 "Retiring before him with vicious counter-jerks of his own elbows, Mr Flintwinch had got back into his corner, where he now stood with his hands in his pockets, taking breath, and returning Mrs Clennam's stare.",1 "'Ha, ha, ha!",2 But what's this?',2 cried Rigaud.,2 "'It appears as if you don't know, one the other.",2 "Permit me, Madame Clennam who suppresses, to present Monsieur Flintwinch who intrigues.'",2 "Mr Flintwinch, unpocketing one of his hands to scrape his jaw, advanced a step or so in that attitude, still returning Mrs Clennam's look, and thus addressed her: 'Now, I know what you mean by opening your eyes so wide at me, but you needn't take the trouble, because I don't care for it.",2 I've been telling you for how many years that you're one of the most opinionated and obstinate of women.,1 That's what _you_ are.,2 "You call yourself humble and sinful, but you are the most Bumptious of your sex.",2 That's what _you_ are.,2 "I have told you, over and over again when we have had a tiff, that you wanted to make everything go down before you, but I wouldn't go down before you--that you wanted to swallow up everybody alive, but I wouldn't be swallowed up alive.",2 Why didn't you destroy the paper when you first laid hands upon it?,1 "I advised you to; but no, it's not your way to take advice.",2 You must keep it forsooth.,2 "Perhaps you may carry it out at some other time, forsooth.",2 As if I didn't know better than that!,3 "I think I see your pride carrying it out, with a chance of being suspected of having kept it by you.",3 But that's the way you cheat yourself.,1 "Just as you cheat yourself into making out that you didn't do all this business because you were a rigorous woman, all slight, and spite, and power, and unforgiveness, but because you were a servant and a minister, and were appointed to do it.",1 "Who are you, that you should be appointed to do it?",2 "That may be your religion, but it's my gammon.",2 "And to tell you all the truth while I am about it,' said Mr Flintwinch, crossing his arms, and becoming the express image of irascible doggedness, 'I have been rasped--rasped these forty years--by your taking such high ground even with me, who knows better; the effect of it being coolly to put me on low ground.",2 "I admire you very much; you are a woman of strong head and great talent; but the strongest head, and the greatest talent, can't rasp a man for forty years without making him sore.",4 So I don't care for your present eyes.,2 "Now, I am coming to the paper, and mark what I say.",2 "You put it away somewhere, and you kept your own counsel where.",2 "You're an active woman at that time, and if you want to get that paper, you can get it.",2 "But, mark.",2 "There comes a time when you are struck into what you are now, and then if you want to get that paper, you can't get it.",1 "So it lies, long years, in its hiding-place.",1 "At last, when we are expecting Arthur home every day, and when any day may bring him home, and it's impossible to say what rummaging he may make about the house, I recommend you five thousand times, if you can't get at it, to let me get at it, that it may be put in the fire.",2 "But no--no one but you knows where it is, and that's power; and, call yourself whatever humble names you will, I call you a female Lucifer in appetite for power!",3 "On a Sunday night, Arthur comes home.",2 "He has not been in this room ten minutes, when he speaks of his father's watch.",2 "You know very well that the Do Not Forget, at the time when his father sent that watch to you, could only mean, the rest of the story being then all dead and over, Do Not Forget the suppression.",1 Make restitution!,2 "Arthur's ways have frightened you a bit, and the paper shall be burnt after all.",2 "So, before that jumping jade and Jezebel,' Mr Flintwinch grinned at his wife, 'has got you into bed, you at last tell me where you have put the paper, among the old ledgers in the cellars, where Arthur himself went prowling the very next morning.",2 But it's not to be burnt on a Sunday night.,2 "No; you are strict, you are; we must wait over twelve o'clock, and get into Monday.",1 "Now, all this is a swallowing of me up alive that rasps me; so, feeling a little out of temper, and not being as strict as yourself, I take a look at the document before twelve o'clock to refresh my memory as to its appearance--fold up one of the many yellow old papers in the cellars like it--and afterwards, when we have got into Monday morning, and I have, by the light of your lamp, to walk from you, lying on that bed, to this grate, make a little exchange like the conjuror, and burn accordingly.",0 "My brother Ephraim, the lunatic-keeper (I wish he had had himself to keep in a strait-waistcoat), had had many jobs since the close of the long job he got from you, but had not done well.",2 "His wife died (not that that was much; mine might have died instead, and welcome), he speculated unsuccessfully in lunatics, he got into difficulty about over-roasting a patient to bring him to reason, and he got into debt.",1 "He was going out of the way, on what he had been able to scrape up, and a trifle from me.",2 "He was here that early Monday morning, waiting for the tide; in short, he was going to Antwerp, where (I am afraid you'll be shocked at my saying, And be damned to him!) he made the acquaintance of this gentleman.",0 "He had come a long way, and, I thought then, was only sleepy; but, I suppose now, was drunk.",1 "When Arthur's mother had been under the care of him and his wife, she had been always writing, incessantly writing,--mostly letters of confession to you, and Prayers for forgiveness.",1 "My brother had handed, from time to time, lots of these sheets to me.",2 "I thought I might as well keep them to myself as have them swallowed up alive too; so I kept them in a box, looking over them when I felt in the humour.",3 "Convinced that it was advisable to get the paper out of the place, with Arthur coming about it, I put it into this same box, and I locked the whole up with two locks, and I trusted it to my brother to take away and keep, till I should write about it.",3 "I did write about it, and never got an answer.",2 "I didn't know what to make of it, till this gentleman favoured us with his first visit.",2 "Of course, I began to suspect how it was, then; and I don't want his word for it now to understand how he gets his knowledge from my papers, and your paper, and my brother's cognac and tobacco talk (I wish he'd had to gag himself).",1 "Now, I have only one thing more to say, you hammer-headed woman, and that is, that I haven't altogether made up my mind whether I might, or might not, have ever given you any trouble about the codicil.",1 "I think not; and that I should have been quite satisfied with knowing I had got the better of you, and that I held the power over you.",3 "In the present state of circumstances, I have no more explanation to give you till this time to-morrow night.",2 "So you may as well,' said Mr Flintwinch, terminating his oration with a screw, 'keep your eyes open at somebody else, for it's no use keeping 'em open at me.'",3 "She slowly withdrew them when he had ceased, and dropped her forehead on her hand.",1 "Her other hand pressed hard upon the table, and again the curious stir was observable in her, as if she were going to rise.",1 "'This box can never bring, elsewhere, the price it will bring here.",2 "This knowledge can never be of the same profit to you, sold to any other person, as sold to me.",2 But I have not the present means of raising the sum you have demanded.,2 I have not prospered.,2 "What will you take now, and what at another time, and how am I to be assured of your silence?'",2 "'My angel,' said Rigaud, 'I have said what I will take, and time presses.",3 "Before coming here, I placed copies of the most important of these papers in another hand.",3 "Put off the time till the Marshalsea gate shall be shut for the night, and it will be too late to treat.",2 The prisoner will have read them.',1 "She put her two hands to her head again, uttered a loud exclamation, and started to her feet.",1 "She staggered for a moment, as if she would have fallen; then stood firm.",1 'Say what you mean.,2 "Say what you mean, man!'",2 "Before her ghostly figure, so long unused to its erect attitude, and so stiffened in it, Rigaud fell back and dropped his voice.",1 "It was, to all the three, almost as if a dead woman had risen.",1 "'Miss Dorrit,' answered Rigaud, 'the little niece of Monsieur Frederick, whom I have known across the water, is attached to the prisoner.",1 "Miss Dorrit, little niece of Monsieur Frederick, watches at this moment over the prisoner, who is ill.",1 "For her I with my own hands left a packet at the prison, on my way here, with a letter of instructions, ""_for his sake_""--she will do anything for his sake--to keep it without breaking the seal, in case of its being reclaimed before the hour of shutting up to-night--if it should not be reclaimed before the ringing of the prison bell, to give it to him; and it encloses a second copy for herself, which he must give to her.",1 What!,2 "I don't trust myself among you, now we have got so far, without giving my secret a second life.",3 "And as to its not bringing me, elsewhere, the price it will bring here, say then, madame, have you limited and settled the price the little niece will give--for his sake--to hush it up?",1 "Once more I say, time presses.",2 "The packet not reclaimed before the ringing of the bell to-night, you cannot buy.",2 "I sell, then, to the little girl!'",2 "Once more the stir and struggle in her, and she ran to a closet, tore the door open, took down a hood or shawl, and wrapped it over her head.",1 "Affery, who had watched her in terror, darted to her in the middle of the room, caught hold of her dress, and went on her knees to her.",1 "'Don't, don't, don't!",2 What are you doing?,2 Where are you going?,2 "You're a fearful woman, but I don't bear you no ill-will.",1 "I can do poor Arthur no good now, that I see; and you needn't be afraid of me.",1 I'll keep your secret.,2 "Don't go out, you'll fall dead in the street.",1 "Only promise me, that, if it's the poor thing that's kept here secretly, you'll let me take charge of her and be her nurse.",2 "Only promise me that, and never be afraid of me.'",2 "Mrs Clennam stood still for an instant, at the height of her rapid haste, saying in stern amazement: 'Kept here?",2 She has been dead a score of years or more.,1 Ask Flintwinch--ask _him_.,2 They can both tell you that she died when Arthur went abroad.',1 "'So much the worse,' said Affery, with a shiver, 'for she haunts the house, then.",1 "Who else rustles about it, making signals by dropping dust so softly?",1 "Who else comes and goes, and marks the walls with long crooked touches when we are all a-bed?",1 Who else holds the door sometimes?,2 But don't go out--don't go out!,2 "Mistress, you'll die in the street!'",1 "Her mistress only disengaged her dress from the beseeching hands, said to Rigaud, 'Wait here till I come back!'",1 and ran out of the room.,2 "They saw her, from the window, run wildly through the court-yard and out at the gateway.",1 For a few moments they stood motionless.,1 "Affery was the first to move, and she, wringing her hands, pursued her mistress.",1 "Next, Jeremiah Flintwinch, slowly backing to the door, with one hand in a pocket, and the other rubbing his chin, twisted himself out in his reticent way, speechlessly.",0 "Rigaud, left alone, composed himself upon the window-seat of the open window, in the old Marseilles-jail attitude.",2 "He laid his cigarettes and fire-box ready to his hand, and fell to smoking.",2 'Whoof!,2 Almost as dull as the infernal old jail.,1 "Warmer, but almost as dismal.",2 Wait till she comes back?,2 "Yes, certainly; but where is she gone, and how long will she be gone?",2 No matter!,2 "Rigaud Lagnier Blandois, my amiable subject, you will get your money.",3 You will enrich yourself.,3 You have lived a gentleman; you will die a gentleman.,1 "You triumph, my little boy; but it is your character to triumph.",3 Whoof!',2 "In the hour of his triumph, his moustache went up and his nose came down, as he ogled a great beam over his head with particular satisfaction.",3 "The sun had set, and the streets were dim in the dusty twilight, when the figure so long unused to them hurried on its way.",1 "In the immediate neighbourhood of the old house it attracted little attention, for there were only a few straggling people to notice it; but, ascending from the river by the crooked ways that led to London Bridge, and passing into the great main road, it became surrounded by astonishment.",3 "Resolute and wild of look, rapid of foot and yet weak and uncertain, conspicuously dressed in its black garments and with its hurried head-covering, gaunt and of an unearthly paleness, it pressed forward, taking no more heed of the throng than a sleep-walker.",1 "More remarkable by being so removed from the crowd it was among than if it had been lifted on a pedestal to be seen, the figure attracted all eyes.",3 "Saunterers pricked up their attention to observe it; busy people, crossing it, slackened their pace and turned their heads; companions pausing and standing aside, whispered one another to look at this spectral woman who was coming by; and the sweep of the figure as it passed seemed to create a vortex, drawing the most idle and most curious after it.",1 "Made giddy by the turbulent irruption of this multitude of staring faces into her cell of years, by the confusing sensation of being in the air, and the yet more confusing sensation of being afoot, by the unexpected changes in half-remembered objects, and the want of likeness between the controllable pictures her imagination had often drawn of the life from which she was secluded and the overwhelming rush of the reality, she held her way as if she were environed by distracting thoughts, rather than by external humanity and observation.",0 "But, having crossed the bridge and gone some distance straight onward, she remembered that she must ask for a direction; and it was only then, when she stopped and turned to look about her for a promising place of inquiry, that she found herself surrounded by an eager glare of faces.",3 'Why are you encircling me?',2 "she asked, trembling.",2 None of those who were nearest answered; but from the outer ring there arose a shrill cry of ''Cause you're mad!',0 'I am sure as sane as any one here.,3 I want to find the Marshalsea prison.',1 "The shrill outer circle again retorted, 'Then that 'ud show you was mad if nothing else did, 'cause it's right opposite!'",1 "A short, mild, quiet-looking young man made his way through to her, as a whooping ensued on this reply, and said: 'Was it the Marshalsea you wanted?",3 I'm going on duty there.,2 Come across with me.',2 "She laid her hand upon his arm, and he took her over the way; the crowd, rather injured by the near prospect of losing her, pressing before and behind and on either side, and recommending an adjournment to Bedlam.",1 "After a momentary whirl in the outer court-yard, the prison-door opened, and shut upon them.",1 "In the Lodge, which seemed by contrast with the outer noise a place of refuge and peace, a yellow lamp was already striving with the prison shadows.",2 "'Why, John!'",2 said the turnkey who admitted them.,2 'What is it?',2 "'Nothing, father; only this lady not knowing her way, and being badgered by the boys.",2 "Who did you want, ma'am?'",2 'Miss Dorrit.,2 Is she here?',2 The young man became more interested.,2 "'Yes, she is here.",2 What might your name be?',2 'Mrs Clennam.',2 'Mr Clennam's mother?',2 asked the young man.,2 "She pressed her lips together, and hesitated.",2 'Yes.,2 She had better be told it is his mother.',3 "'You see,' said the young man, 'the Marshal's family living in the country at present, the Marshal has given Miss Dorrit one of the rooms in his house to use when she likes.",2 "Don't you think you had better come up there, and let me bring Miss Dorrit?'",2 "She signified her assent, and he unlocked a door and conducted her up a side staircase into a dwelling-house above.",2 "He showed her into a darkening room, and left her.",2 "The room looked down into the darkening prison-yard, with its inmates strolling here and there, leaning out of windows communing as much apart as they could with friends who were going away, and generally wearing out their imprisonment as they best might that summer evening.",1 "The air was heavy and hot; the closeness of the place, oppressive; and from without there arose a rush of free sounds, like the jarring memory of such things in a headache and heartache.",2 "She stood at the window, bewildered, looking down into this prison as it were out of her own different prison, when a soft word or two of surprise made her start, and Little Dorrit stood before her.",1 "'Is it possible, Mrs Clennam, that you are so happily recovered as--' Little Dorrit stopped, for there was neither happiness nor health in the face that turned to her.",3 'This is not recovery; it is not strength; I don't know what it is.',3 "With an agitated wave of her hand, she put all that aside.",2 "'You have a packet left with you which you were to give to Arthur, if it was not reclaimed before this place closed to-night.'",2 'Yes.',2 'I reclaim it.',3 "Little Dorrit took it from her bosom, and gave it into her hand, which remained stretched out after receiving it.",2 'Have you any idea of its contents?',2 "Frightened by her being there with that new power Of Movement in her, which, as she said herself, was not strength, and which was unreal to look upon, as though a picture or statue had been animated, Little Dorrit answered 'No.'",3 'Read them.',2 "Little Dorrit took the packet from the still outstretched hand, and broke the seal.",1 "Mrs Clennam then gave her the inner packet that was addressed to herself, and held the other.",2 "The shadow of the wall and of the prison buildings, which made the room sombre at noon, made it too dark to read there, with the dusk deepening apace, save in the window.",1 "In the window, where a little of the bright summer evening sky could shine upon her, Little Dorrit stood, and read.",3 "After a broken exclamation or so of wonder and of terror, she read in silence.",1 "When she had finished, she looked round, and her old mistress bowed herself before her.",1 "'You know, now, what I have done.'",2 'I think so.,2 "I am afraid so; though my mind is so hurried, and so sorry, and has so much to pity that it has not been able to follow all I have read,' said Little Dorrit tremulously.",0 'I will restore to you what I have withheld from you.,2 Forgive me.,2 Can you forgive me?',2 "'I can, and Heaven knows I do!",3 Do not kiss my dress and kneel to me; you are too old to kneel to me; I forgive you freely without that.',2 'I have more yet to ask.',2 "'Not in that posture,' said Little Dorrit.",2 'It is unnatural to see your grey hair lower than mine.,1 Pray rise; let me help you.',2 "With that she raised her up, and stood rather shrinking from her, but looking at her earnestly.",3 "'The great petition that I make to you (there is another which grows out of it), the great supplication that I address to your merciful and gentle heart, is, that you will not disclose this to Arthur until I am dead.",3 "If you think, when you have had time for consideration, that it can do him any good to know it while I am yet alive, then tell him.",3 "But you will not think that; and in such case, will you promise me to spare me until I am dead?'",2 "'I am so sorry, and what I have read has so confused my thoughts,' returned Little Dorrit, 'that I can scarcely give you a steady answer.",1 "If I should be quite sure that to be acquainted with it will do Mr Clennam no good--' 'I know you are attached to him, and will make him the first consideration.",3 It is right that he should be the first consideration.,3 I ask that.,2 "But, having regarded him, and still finding that you may spare me for the little time I shall remain on earth, will you do it?'",2 'I will.',2 'GOD bless you!',3 "She stood in the shadow so that she was only a veiled form to Little Dorrit in the light; but the sound of her voice, in saying those three grateful words, was at once fervent and broken--broken by emotion as unfamiliar to her frozen eyes as action to her frozen limbs.",1 "'You will wonder, perhaps,' she said in a stronger tone, 'that I can better bear to be known to you whom I have wronged, than to the son of my enemy who wronged me.--For she did wrong me!",3 "She not only sinned grievously against the Lord, but she wronged me.",1 "What Arthur's father was to me, she made him.",2 "From our marriage day I was his dread, and that she made me.",1 "I was the scourge of both, and that is referable to her.",1 "You love Arthur (I can see the blush upon your face; may it be the dawn of happier days to both of you!), and you will have thought already that he is as merciful and kind as you, and why do I not trust myself to him as soon as to you.",4 Have you not thought so?',2 "'No thought,' said Little Dorrit, 'can be quite a stranger to my heart, that springs out of the knowledge that Mr Clennam is always to be relied upon for being kind and generous and good.'",3 'I do not doubt it.,1 "Yet Arthur is, of the whole world, the one person from whom I would conceal this, while I am in it.",2 "I kept over him as a child, in the days of his first remembrance, my restraining and correcting hand.",2 "I was stern with him, knowing that the transgressions of the parents are visited on their offspring, and that there was an angry mark upon him at his birth.",1 "I have sat with him and his father, seeing the weakness of his father yearning to unbend to him; and forcing it back, that the child might work out his release in bondage and hardship.",1 "I have seen him, with his mother's face, looking up at me in awe from his little books, and trying to soften me with his mother's ways that hardened me.'",2 "The shrinking of her auditress stopped her for a moment in her flow of words, delivered in a retrospective gloomy voice.",1 'For his good.,3 Not for the satisfaction of my injury.,1 "What was I, and what was the worth of that, before the curse of Heaven!",3 "I have seen that child grow up; not to be pious in a chosen way (his mother's influence lay too heavy on him for that), but still to be just and upright, and to be submissive to me.",1 "He never loved me, as I once half-hoped he might--so frail we are, and so do the corrupt affections of the flesh war with our trusts and tasks; but he always respected me and ordered himself dutifully to me.",1 He does to this hour.,2 "With an empty place in his heart that he has never known the meaning of, he has turned away from me and gone his separate road; but even that he has done considerately and with deference.",3 These have been his relations towards me.,2 "Yours have been of a much slighter kind, spread over a much shorter time.",2 "When you have sat at your needle in my room, you have been in fear of me, but you have supposed me to have been doing you a kindness; you are better informed now, and know me to have done you an injury.",2 "Your misconstruction and misunderstanding of the cause in which, and the motives with which, I have worked out this work, is lighter to endure than his would be.",3 "I would not, for any worldly recompense I can imagine, have him in a moment, however blindly, throw me down from the station I have held before him all his life, and change me altogether into something he would cast out of his respect, and think detected and exposed.",3 "Let him do it, if it must be done, when I am not here to see it.",2 "Let me never feel, while I am still alive, that I die before his face, and utterly perish away from him, like one consumed by lightning and swallowed by an earthquake.'",1 "Her pride was very strong in her, the pain of it and of her old passions was very sharp with her, when she thus expressed herself.",3 "Not less so, when she added: 'Even now, I see _you_ shrink from me, as if I had been cruel.'",1 Little Dorrit could not gainsay it.,1 "She tried not to show it, but she recoiled with dread from the state of mind that had burnt so fiercely and lasted so long.",1 "It presented itself to her, with no sophistry upon it, in its own plain nature.",2 "'I have done,' said Mrs Clennam, 'what it was given to me to do.",2 I have set myself against evil; not against good.,2 I have been an instrument of severity against sin.,1 Have not mere sinners like myself been commissioned to lay it low in all time?',3 'In all time?',2 repeated Little Dorrit.,2 "'Even if my own wrong had prevailed with me, and my own vengeance had moved me, could I have found no justification?",1 "None in the old days when the innocent perished with the guilty, a thousand to one?",1 "When the wrath of the hater of the unrighteous was not slaked even in blood, and yet found favour?'",1 "'O, Mrs Clennam, Mrs Clennam,' said Little Dorrit, 'angry feelings and unforgiving deeds are no comfort and no guide to you and me.",2 "My life has been passed in this poor prison, and my teaching has been very defective; but let me implore you to remember later and better days.",1 "Be guided only by the healer of the sick, the raiser of the dead, the friend of all who were afflicted and forlorn, the patient Master who shed tears of compassion for our infirmities.",2 "We cannot but be right if we put all the rest away, and do everything in remembrance of Him.",3 "There is no vengeance and no infliction of suffering in His life, I am sure.",1 "There can be no confusion in following Him, and seeking for no other footsteps, I am certain.'",1 "In the softened light of the window, looking from the scene of her early trials to the shining sky, she was not in stronger opposition to the black figure in the shade than the life and doctrine on which she rested were to that figure's history.",2 "It bent its head low again, and said not a word.",1 "It remained thus, until the first warning bell began to ring.",1 'Hark!',2 "cried Mrs Clennam starting, 'I said I had another petition.",2 It is one that does not admit of delay.,1 "The man who brought you this packet and possesses these proofs, is now waiting at my house to be bought off.",2 "I can keep this from Arthur, only by buying him off.",2 He asks a large sum; more than I can get together to pay him without having time.,2 "He refuses to make any abatement, because his threat is, that if he fails with me, he will come to you.",0 Will you return with me and show him that you already know it?,2 Will you return with me and try to prevail with him?,2 Will you come and help me with him?,2 "Do not refuse what I ask in Arthur's name, though I dare not ask it for Arthur's sake!'",1 Little Dorrit yielded willingly.,3 "She glided away into the prison for a few moments, returned, and said she was ready to go.",2 "They went out by another staircase, avoiding the lodge; and coming into the front court-yard, now all quiet and deserted, gained the street.",3 It was one of those summer evenings when there is no greater darkness than a long twilight.,1 "The vista of street and bridge was plain to see, and the sky was serene and beautiful.",3 "People stood and sat at their doors, playing with children and enjoying the evening; numbers were walking for air; the worry of the day had almost worried itself out, and few but themselves were hurried.",1 "As they crossed the bridge, the clear steeples of the many churches looked as if they had advanced out of the murk that usually enshrouded them, and come much nearer.",3 The smoke that rose into the sky had lost its dingy hue and taken a brightness upon it.,1 The beauties of the sunset had not faded from the long light films of cloud that lay at peace in the horizon.,2 "From a radiant centre, over the whole length and breadth of the tranquil firmament, great shoots of light streamed among the early stars, like signs of the blessed later covenant of peace and hope that changed the crown of thorns into a glory.",4 "Less remarkable, now that she was not alone and it was darker, Mrs Clennam hurried on at Little Dorrit's side, unmolested.",2 "They left the great thoroughfare at the turning by which she had entered it, and wound their way down among the silent, empty, cross-streets.",3 "Their feet were at the gateway, when there was a sudden noise like thunder.",2 'What was that!,2 "Let us make haste in,' cried Mrs Clennam.",1 They were in the gateway.,2 "Little Dorrit, with a piercing cry, held her back.",1 "In one swift instant the old house was before them, with the man lying smoking in the window; another thundering sound, and it heaved, surged outward, opened asunder in fifty places, collapsed, and fell.",1 "Deafened by the noise, stifled, choked, and blinded by the dust, they hid their faces and stood rooted to the spot.",1 "The dust storm, driving between them and the placid sky, parted for a moment and showed them the stars.",1 "As they looked up, wildly crying for help, the great pile of chimneys, which was then alone left standing like a tower in a whirlwind, rocked, broke, and hailed itself down upon the heap of ruin, as if every tumbling fragment were intent on burying the crushed wretch deeper.",0 "So blackened by the flying particles of rubbish as to be unrecognisable, they ran back from the gateway into the street, crying and shrieking.",1 "There, Mrs Clennam dropped upon the stones; and she never from that hour moved so much as a finger again, or had the power to speak one word.",2 "For upwards of three years she reclined in a wheeled chair, looking attentively at those about her and appearing to understand what they said; but the rigid silence she had so long held was evermore enforced upon her, and except that she could move her eyes and faintly express a negative and affirmative with her head, she lived and died a statue.",1 "Affery had been looking for them at the prison, and had caught sight of them at a distance on the bridge.",1 "She came up to receive her old mistress in her arms, to help to carry her into a neighbouring house, and to be faithful to her.",2 "The mystery of the noises was out now; Affery, like greater people, had always been right in her facts, and always wrong in the theories she deduced from them.",1 "When the storm of dust had cleared away and the summer night was calm again, numbers of people choked up every avenue of access, and parties of diggers were formed to relieve one another in digging among the ruins.",2 "There had been a hundred people in the house at the time of its fall, there had been fifty, there had been fifteen, there had been two.",1 Rumour finally settled the number at two; the foreigner and Mr Flintwinch.,2 "The diggers dug all through the short night by flaring pipes of gas, and on a level with the early sun, and deeper and deeper below it as it rose into its zenith, and aslant of it as it declined, and on a level with it again as it departed.",3 "Sturdy digging, and shovelling, and carrying away, in carts, barrows, and baskets, went on without intermission, by night and by day; but it was night for the second time when they found the dirty heap of rubbish that had been the foreigner before his head had been shivered to atoms, like so much glass, by the great beam that lay upon him, crushing him.",2 "Still, they had not come upon Flintwinch yet; so the sturdy digging and shovelling and carrying away went on without intermission by night and by day.",3 "It got about that the old house had had famous cellarage (which indeed was true), and that Flintwinch had been in a cellar at the moment, or had had time to escape into one, and that he was safe under its strong arch, and even that he had been heard to cry, in hollow, subterranean, suffocated notes, 'Here I am!'",3 "At the opposite extremity of the town it was even known that the excavators had been able to open a communication with him through a pipe, and that he had received both soup and brandy by that channel, and that he had said with admirable fortitude that he was All right, my lads, with the exception of his collar-bone.",4 "But the digging and shovelling and carrying away went on without intermission, until the ruins were all dug out, and the cellars opened to the light; and still no Flintwinch, living or dead, all right or all wrong, had been turned up by pick or spade.",0 "It began then to be perceived that Flintwinch had not been there at the time of the fall; and it began then to be perceived that he had been rather busy elsewhere, converting securities into as much money as could be got for them on the shortest notice, and turning to his own exclusive account his authority to act for the Firm.",1 "Affery, remembering that the clever one had said he would explain himself further in four-and-twenty hours' time, determined for her part that his taking himself off within that period with all he could get, was the final satisfactory sum and substance of his promised explanation; but she held her peace, devoutly thankful to be quit of him.",4 "As it seemed reasonable to conclude that a man who had never been buried could not be unburied, the diggers gave him up when their task was done, and did not dig down for him into the depths of the earth.",3 "This was taken in ill part by a great many people, who persisted in believing that Flintwinch was lying somewhere among the London geological formation.",2 "Nor was their belief much shaken by repeated intelligence which came over in course of time, that an old man who wore the tie of his neckcloth under one ear, and who was very well known to be an Englishman, consorted with the Dutchmen on the quaint banks of the canals of the Hague and in the drinking-shops of Amsterdam, under the style and designation of Mynheer von Flyntevynge.",4 "Arthur continuing to lie very ill in the Marshalsea, and Mr Rugg descrying no break in the legal sky affording a hope of his enlargement, Mr Pancks suffered desperately from self-reproaches.",0 "If it had not been for those infallible figures which proved that Arthur, instead of pining in imprisonment, ought to be promenading in a carriage and pair, and that Mr Pancks, instead of being restricted to his clerkly wages, ought to have from three to five thousand pounds of his own at his immediate disposal, that unhappy arithmetician would probably have taken to his bed, and there have made one of the many obscure persons who turned their faces to the wall and died, as a last sacrifice to the late Mr Merdle's greatness.",0 "Solely supported by his unimpugnable calculations, Mr Pancks led an unhappy and restless life; constantly carrying his figures about with him in his hat, and not only going over them himself on every possible occasion, but entreating every human being he could lay hold of to go over them with him, and observe what a clear case it was.",3 "Down in Bleeding Heart Yard there was scarcely an inhabitant of note to whom Mr Pancks had not imparted his demonstration, and, as figures are catching, a kind of cyphering measles broke out in that locality, under the influence of which the whole Yard was light-headed.",0 "The more restless Mr Pancks grew in his mind, the more impatient he became of the Patriarch.",1 "In their later conferences his snorting assumed an irritable sound which boded the Patriarch no good; likewise, Mr Pancks had on several occasions looked harder at the Patriarchal bumps than was quite reconcilable with the fact of his not being a painter, or a peruke-maker in search of the living model.",1 "However, he steamed in and out of his little back Dock according as he was wanted or not wanted in the Patriarchal presence, and business had gone on in its customary course.",2 "Bleeding Heart Yard had been harrowed by Mr Pancks, and cropped by Mr Casby, at the regular seasons; Mr Pancks had taken all the drudgery and all the dirt of the business as _his_ share; Mr Casby had taken all the profits, all the ethereal vapour, and all the moonshine, as his share; and, in the form of words which that benevolent beamer generally employed on Saturday evenings, when he twirled his fat thumbs after striking the week's balance, 'everything had been satisfactory to all parties--all parties--satisfactory, sir, to all parties.'",2 "The Dock of the Steam-Tug, Pancks, had a leaden roof, which, frying in the very hot sunshine, may have heated the vessel.",3 "Be that as it may, one glowing Saturday evening, on being hailed by the lumbering bottle-green ship, the Tug instantly came working out of the Dock in a highly heated condition.",3 "'Mr Pancks,' was the Patriarchal remark, 'you have been remiss, you have been remiss, sir.'",2 'What do you mean by that?',2 was the short rejoinder.,2 "The Patriarchal state, always a state of calmness and composure, was so particularly serene that evening as to be provoking.",3 Everybody else within the bills of mortality was hot; but the Patriarch was perfectly cool.,4 "Everybody was thirsty, and the Patriarch was drinking.",2 "There was a fragrance of limes or lemons about him; and he made a drink of golden sherry, which shone in a large tumbler as if he were drinking the evening sunshine.",3 "This was bad, but not the worst.",1 "The worst was, that with his big blue eyes, and his polished head, and his long white hair, and his bottle-green legs stretched out before him, terminating in his easy shoes easily crossed at the instep, he had a radiant appearance of having in his extensive benevolence made the drink for the human species, while he himself wanted nothing but his own milk of human kindness.",4 "Wherefore, Mr Pancks said, 'What do you mean by that?'",2 "and put his hair up with both hands, in a highly portentous manner.",2 "'I mean, Mr Pancks, that you must be sharper with the people, sharper with the people, much sharper with the people, sir.",3 You don't squeeze them.,2 You don't squeeze them.,2 Your receipts are not up to the mark.,2 "You must squeeze them, sir, or our connection will not continue to be as satisfactory as I could wish it to be to all parties.",3 All parties.',2 '_Don't_ I squeeze 'em?',2 retorted Mr Pancks.,2 'What else am I made for?',2 "'You are made for nothing else, Mr Pancks.",2 "You are made to do your duty, but you don't do your duty.",2 "You are paid to squeeze, and you must squeeze to pay.'",2 "The Patriarch so much surprised himself by this brilliant turn, after Dr Johnson, which he had not in the least expected or intended, that he laughed aloud; and repeated with great satisfaction, as he twirled his thumbs and nodded at his youthful portrait, 'Paid to squeeze, sir, and must squeeze to pay.'",4 "'Oh,' said Pancks.",2 'Anything more?',2 "'Yes, sir, yes, sir.",2 Something more.,2 "You will please, Mr Pancks, to squeeze the Yard again, the first thing on Monday morning.'",2 'Oh!',2 said Pancks.,2 'Ain't that too soon?,2 I squeezed it dry to-day.',2 "'Nonsense, sir.",2 "Not near the mark, not near the mark.'",2 'Oh!',2 "said Pancks, watching him as he benevolently gulped down a good draught of his mixture.",3 'Anything more?',2 "'Yes, sir, yes, sir, something more.",2 "I am not at all pleased, Mr Pancks, with my daughter; not at all pleased.",3 "Besides calling much too often to inquire for Mrs Clennam, Mrs Clennam, who is not just now in circumstances that are by any means calculated to--to be satisfactory to all parties, she goes, Mr Pancks, unless I am much deceived, to inquire for Mr Clennam in jail.",3 In jail.',2 "'He's laid up, you know,' said Pancks.",2 'Perhaps it's kind.',2 "'Pooh, pooh, Mr Pancks.",2 "She has nothing to do with that, nothing to do with that.",2 I can't allow it.,2 "Let him pay his debts and come out, come out; pay his debts, and come out.'",1 "Although Mr Pancks's hair was standing up like strong wire, he gave it another double-handed impulse in the perpendicular direction, and smiled at his proprietor in a most hideous manner.",3 "'You will please to mention to my daughter, Mr Pancks, that I can't allow it, can't allow it,' said the Patriarch blandly.",2 'Oh!',2 said Pancks.,2 'You couldn't mention it yourself?',2 "'No, sir, no; you are paid to mention it,' the blundering old booby could not resist the temptation of trying it again, 'and you must mention it to pay, mention it to pay.'",1 'Oh!',2 said Pancks.,2 'Anything more?',2 "'Yes, sir.",2 "It appears to me, Mr Pancks, that you yourself are too often and too much in that direction, that direction.",2 "I recommend you, Mr Pancks, to dismiss from your attention both your own losses and other people's losses, and to mind your business, mind your business.'",2 "Mr Pancks acknowledged this recommendation with such an extraordinarily abrupt, short, and loud utterance of the monosyllable 'Oh!'",2 "that even the unwieldy Patriarch moved his blue eyes in something of a hurry, to look at him.",1 "Mr Pancks, with a sniff of corresponding intensity, then added, 'Anything more?'",2 "'Not at present, sir, not at present.",2 "I am going,' said the Patriarch, finishing his mixture, and rising with an amiable air, 'to take a little stroll, a little stroll.",3 Perhaps I shall find you here when I come back.,2 "If not, sir, duty, duty; squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, on Monday; squeeze on Monday!'",2 "Mr Pancks, after another stiffening of his hair, looked on at the Patriarchal assumption of the broad-brimmed hat, with a momentary appearance of indecision contending with a sense of injury.",1 "He was also hotter than at first, and breathed harder.",2 "But he suffered Mr Casby to go out, without offering any further remark, and then took a peep at him over the little green window-blinds.",1 "'I thought so,' he observed.",2 'I knew where you were bound to.,2 Good!',3 "He then steamed back to his Dock, put it carefully in order, took down his hat, looked round the Dock, said 'Good-bye!'",2 and puffed away on his own account.,2 "He steered straight for Mrs Plornish's end of Bleeding Heart Yard, and arrived there, at the top of the steps, hotter than ever.",2 "At the top of the steps, resisting Mrs Plornish's invitations to come and sit along with father in Happy Cottage--which to his relief were not so numerous as they would have been on any other night than Saturday, when the connection who so gallantly supported the business with everything but money gave their orders freely--at the top of the steps Mr Pancks remained until he beheld the Patriarch, who always entered the Yard at the other end, slowly advancing, beaming, and surrounded by suitors.",4 "Then Mr Pancks descended and bore down upon him, with his utmost pressure of steam on.",1 "The Patriarch, approaching with his usual benignity, was surprised to see Mr Pancks, but supposed him to have been stimulated to an immediate squeeze instead of postponing that operation until Monday.",2 "The population of the Yard were astonished at the meeting, for the two powers had never been seen there together, within the memory of the oldest Bleeding Heart.",2 "But they were overcome by unutterable amazement when Mr Pancks, going close up to the most venerable of men and halting in front of the bottle-green waistcoat, made a trigger of his right thumb and forefinger, applied the same to the brim of the broad-brimmed hat, and, with singular smartness and precision, shot it off the polished head as if it had been a large marble.",4 "Having taken this little liberty with the Patriarchal person, Mr Pancks further astounded and attracted the Bleeding Hearts by saying in an audible voice, 'Now, you sugary swindler, I mean to have it out with you!'",3 "Mr Pancks and the Patriarch were instantly the centre of a press, all eyes and ears; windows were thrown open, and door-steps were thronged.",3 'What do you pretend to be?',1 said Mr Pancks.,2 'What's your moral game?,2 What do you go in for?,2 "Benevolence, an't it?",3 You benevolent!',3 "Here Mr Pancks, apparently without the intention of hitting him, but merely to relieve his mind and expend his superfluous power in wholesome exercise, aimed a blow at the bumpy head, which the bumpy head ducked to avoid.",1 "This singular performance was repeated, to the ever-increasing admiration of the spectators, at the end of every succeeding article of Mr Pancks's oration.",3 "'I have discharged myself from your service,' said Pancks, 'that I may tell you what you are.",2 You're one of a lot of impostors that are the worst lot of all the lots to be met with.,1 "Speaking as a sufferer by both, I don't know that I wouldn't as soon have the Merdle lot as your lot.",1 "You're a driver in disguise, a screwer by deputy, a wringer, and squeezer, and shaver by substitute.",2 You're a philanthropic sneak.,1 You're a shabby deceiver!',1 (The repetition of the performance at this point was received with a burst of laughter.) 'Ask these good people who's the hard man here.,2 "They'll tell you Pancks, I believe.'",2 "This was confirmed with cries of 'Certainly,' and 'Hear!'",2 "'But I tell you, good people--Casby!",3 "This mound of meekness, this lump of love, this bottle-green smiler, this is your driver!'",3 said Pancks.,2 'If you want to see the man who would flay you alive--here he is!,2 "Don't look for him in me, at thirty shillings a week, but look for him in Casby, at I don't know how much a year!'",2 'Good!',2 cried several voices.,2 'Hear Mr Pancks!',2 'Hear Mr Pancks?',2 cried that gentleman (after repeating the popular performance).,3 "'Yes, I should think so!",2 It's almost time to hear Mr Pancks.,2 Mr Pancks has come down into the Yard to-night on purpose that you should hear him.,2 Pancks is only the Works; but here's the Winder!',3 "The audience would have gone over to Mr Pancks, as one man, woman, and child, but for the long, grey, silken locks, and the broad-brimmed hat.",2 "'Here's the Stop,' said Pancks, 'that sets the tune to be ground.",2 "And there is but one tune, and its name is Grind, Grind, Grind!",1 "Here's the Proprietor, and here's his Grubber.",2 "Why, good people, when he comes smoothly spinning through the Yard to-night, like a slow-going benevolent Humming-Top, and when you come about him with your complaints of the Grubber, you don't know what a cheat the Proprietor is!",3 "What do you think of his showing himself to-night, that I may have all the blame on Monday?",1 "What do you think of his having had me over the coals this very evening, because I don't squeeze you enough?",3 "What do you think of my being, at the present moment, under special orders to squeeze you dry on Monday?'",2 The reply was given in a murmur of 'Shame!',2 and 'Shabby!',2 'Shabby?',2 snorted Pancks.,2 "'Yes, I should think so!",2 "The lot that your Casby belongs to, is the shabbiest of all the lots.",2 "Setting their Grubbers on, at a wretched pittance, to do what they're ashamed and afraid to do and pretend not to do, but what they will have done, or give a man no rest!",0 "Imposing on you to give their Grubbers nothing but blame, and to give them nothing but credit!",1 "Why, the worst-looking cheat in all this town who gets the value of eighteenpence under false pretences, an't half such a cheat as this sign-post of The Casby's Head here!'",0 Cries of 'That's true!',2 and 'No more he an't!',2 "'And see what you get of these fellows, besides,' said Pancks.",2 "'See what more you get of these precious Humming-Tops, revolving among you with such smoothness that you've no idea of the pattern painted on 'em, or the little window in 'em.",3 I wish to call your attention to myself for a moment.,2 "I an't an agreeable style of chap, I know that very well.'",3 "The auditory were divided on this point; its more uncompromising members crying, 'No, you are not,' and its politer materials, 'Yes, you are.'",1 "'I am, in general,' said Mr Pancks, 'a dry, uncomfortable, dreary Plodder and Grubber.",1 That's your humble servant.,3 "There's his full-length portrait, painted by himself and presented to you, warranted a likeness!",2 "But what's a man to be, with such a man as this for his Proprietor?",2 What can be expected of him?,2 Did anybody ever find boiled mutton and caper-sauce growing in a cocoa-nut?',2 "None of the Bleeding Hearts ever had, it was clear from the alacrity of their response.",2 "'Well,' said Mr Pancks, 'and neither will you find in Grubbers like myself, under Proprietors like this, pleasant qualities.",3 I've been a Grubber from a boy.,2 What has my life been?,2 "Fag and grind, fag and grind, turn the wheel, turn the wheel!",1 "I haven't been agreeable to myself, and I haven't been likely to be agreeable to anybody else.",3 "If I was a shilling a week less useful in ten years' time, this impostor would give me a shilling a week less; if as useful a man could be got at sixpence cheaper, he would be taken in my place at sixpence cheaper.",3 "Bargain and sale, bless you!",3 Fixed principles!,2 "It's a mighty fine sign-post, is The Casby's Head,' said Mr Pancks, surveying it with anything rather than admiration; 'but the real name of the House is the Sham's Arms.",4 "Its motto is, Keep the Grubber always at it.",2 "Is any gentleman present,' said Mr Pancks, breaking off and looking round, 'acquainted with the English Grammar?'",1 Bleeding Heart Yard was shy of claiming that acquaintance.,1 "'It's no matter,' said Mr Pancks, 'I merely wish to remark that the task this Proprietor has set me, has been never to leave off conjugating the Imperative Mood Present Tense of the verb To keep always at it.",1 Keep thou always at it.,2 Let him keep always at it.,2 Keep we or do we keep always at it.,2 Keep ye or do ye or you keep always at it.,2 Let them keep always at it.,2 "Here is your benevolent Patriarch of a Casby, and there is his golden rule.",3 "He is uncommonly improving to look at, and I am not at all so.",3 "He is as sweet as honey, and I am as dull as ditch-water.",2 "He provides the pitch, and I handle it, and it sticks to me.",2 "Now,' said Mr Pancks, closing upon his late Proprietor again, from whom he had withdrawn a little for the better display of him to the Yard; 'as I am not accustomed to speak in public, and as I have made a rather lengthy speech, all circumstances considered, I shall bring my observations to a close by requesting you to get out of this.'",2 "The Last of the Patriarchs had been so seized by assault, and required so much room to catch an idea in, an so much more room to turn it in, that he had not a word to offer in reply.",1 "He appeared to be meditating some Patriarchal way out of his delicate position, when Mr Pancks, once more suddenly applying the trigger to his hat, shot it off again with his former dexterity.",3 "On the preceding occasion, one or two of the Bleeding Heart Yarders had obsequiously picked it up and handed it to its owner; but Mr Pancks had now so far impressed his audience, that the Patriarch had to turn and stoop for it himself.",2 "Quick as lightning, Mr Pancks, who, for some moments, had had his right hand in his coat pocket, whipped out a pair of shears, swooped upon the Patriarch behind, and snipped off short the sacred locks that flowed upon his shoulders.",3 "In a paroxysm of animosity and rapidity, Mr Pancks then caught the broad-brimmed hat out of the astounded Patriarch's hand, cut it down into a mere stewpan, and fixed it on the Patriarch's head.",2 "Before the frightful results of this desperate action, Mr Pancks himself recoiled in consternation.",0 "A bare-polled, goggle-eyed, big-headed lumbering personage stood staring at him, not in the least impressive, not in the least venerable, who seemed to have started out of the earth to ask what was become of Casby.",3 "After staring at this phantom in return, in silent awe, Mr Pancks threw down his shears, and fled for a place of hiding, where he might lie sheltered from the consequences of his crime.",2 "Mr Pancks deemed it prudent to use all possible despatch in making off, though he was pursued by nothing but the sound of laughter in Bleeding Heart Yard, rippling through the air and making it ring again.",2 The changes of a fevered room are slow and fluctuating; but the changes of the fevered world are rapid and irrevocable.,2 It was Little Dorrit's lot to wait upon both kinds of change.,2 "The Marshalsea walls, during a portion of every day, again embraced her in their shadows as their child, while she thought for Clennam, worked for him, watched him, and only left him, still to devote her utmost love and care to him.",3 "Her part in the life outside the gate urged its pressing claims upon her too, and her patience untiringly responded to them.",3 "Here was Fanny, proud, fitful, whimsical, further advanced in that disqualified state for going into society which had so much fretted her on the evening of the tortoise-shell knife, resolved always to want comfort, resolved not to be comforted, resolved to be deeply wronged, and resolved that nobody should have the audacity to think her so.",3 "Here was her brother, a weak, proud, tipsy, young old man, shaking from head to foot, talking as indistinctly as if some of the money he plumed himself upon had got into his mouth and couldn't be got out, unable to walk alone in any act of his life, and patronising the sister whom he selfishly loved (he always had that negative merit, ill-starred and ill-launched Tip!) because he suffered her to lead him.",1 "Here was Mrs Merdle in gauzy mourning--the original cap whereof had possibly been rent to pieces in a fit of grief, but had certainly yielded to a highly becoming article from the Parisian market--warring with Fanny foot to foot, and breasting her with her desolate bosom every hour in the day.",1 "Here was poor Mr Sparkler, not knowing how to keep the peace between them, but humbly inclining to the opinion that they could do no better than agree that they were both remarkably fine women, and that there was no nonsense about either of them--for which gentle recommendation they united in falling upon him frightfully.",3 "Then, too, here was Mrs General, got home from foreign parts, sending a Prune and a Prism by post every other day, demanding a new Testimonial by way of recommendation to some vacant appointment or other.",3 "Of which remarkable gentlewoman it may be finally observed, that there surely never was a gentlewoman of whose transcendent fitness for any vacant appointment on the face of this earth, so many people were (as the warmth of her Testimonials evinced) so perfectly satisfied--or who was so very unfortunate in having a large circle of ardent and distinguished admirers, who never themselves happened to want her in any capacity.",4 "On the first crash of the eminent Mr Merdle's decease, many important persons had been unable to determine whether they should cut Mrs Merdle, or comfort her.",3 "As it seemed, however, essential to the strength of their own case that they should admit her to have been cruelly deceived, they graciously made the admission, and continued to know her.",2 "It followed that Mrs Merdle, as a woman of fashion and good breeding who had been sacrificed to the wiles of a vulgar barbarian (for Mr Merdle was found out from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, the moment he was found out in his pocket), must be actively championed by her order for her order's sake.",0 "She returned this fealty by causing it to be understood that she was even more incensed against the felonious shade of the deceased than anybody else was; thus, on the whole, she came out of her furnace like a wise woman, and did exceedingly well.",4 "Mr Sparkler's lordship was fortunately one of those shelves on which a gentleman is considered to be put away for life, unless there should be reasons for hoisting him up with the Barnacle crane to a more lucrative height.",3 "That patriotic servant accordingly stuck to his colours (the Standard of four Quarterings), and was a perfect Nelson in respect of nailing them to the mast.",3 "On the profits of his intrepidity, Mrs Sparkler and Mrs Merdle, inhabiting different floors of the genteel little temple of inconvenience to which the smell of the day before yesterday's soup and coach-horses was as constant as Death to man, arrayed themselves to fight it out in the lists of Society, sworn rivals.",0 "And Little Dorrit, seeing all these things as they developed themselves, could not but wonder, anxiously, into what back corner of the genteel establishment Fanny's children would be poked by-and-by, and who would take care of those unborn little victims.",2 "Arthur being far too ill to be spoken with on subjects of emotion or anxiety, and his recovery greatly depending on the repose into which his weakness could be hushed, Little Dorrit's sole reliance during this heavy period was on Mr Meagles.",1 "He was still abroad; but she had written to him through his daughter, immediately after first seeing Arthur in the Marshalsea and since, confiding her uneasiness to him on the points on which she was most anxious, but especially on one.",1 "To that one, the continued absence of Mr Meagles abroad, instead of his comforting presence in the Marshalsea, was referable.",2 "Without disclosing the precise nature of the documents that had fallen into Rigaud's hands, Little Dorrit had confided the general outline of that story to Mr Meagles, to whom she had also recounted his fate.",2 "The old cautious habits of the scales and scoop at once showed Mr Meagles the importance of recovering the original papers; wherefore he wrote back to Little Dorrit, strongly confirming her in the solicitude she expressed on that head, and adding that he would not come over to England 'without making some attempt to trace them out.'",1 By this time Mr Henry Gowan had made up his mind that it would be agreeable to him not to know the Meagleses.,3 "He was so considerate as to lay no injunctions on his wife in that particular; but he mentioned to Mr Meagles that personally they did not appear to him to get on together, and that he thought it would be a good thing if--politely, and without any scene, or anything of that sort--they agreed that they were the best fellows in the world, but were best apart.",4 "Poor Mr Meagles, who was already sensible that he did not advance his daughter's happiness by being constantly slighted in her presence, said 'Good, Henry!",3 "You are my Pet's husband; you have displaced me, in the course of nature; if you wish it, good!'",2 "This arrangement involved the contingent advantage, which perhaps Henry Gowan had not foreseen, that both Mr and Mrs Meagles were more liberal than before to their daughter, when their communication was only with her and her young child: and that his high spirit found itself better provided with money, without being under the degrading necessity of knowing whence it came.",3 "Mr Meagles, at such a period, naturally seized an occupation with great ardour.",3 "He knew from his daughter the various towns which Rigaud had been haunting, and the various hotels at which he had been living for some time back.",1 "The occupation he set himself was to visit these with all discretion and speed, and, in the event of finding anywhere that he had left a bill unpaid, and a box or parcel behind, to pay such bill, and bring away such box or parcel.",2 "With no other attendant than Mother, Mr Meagles went upon his pilgrimage, and encountered a number of adventures.",2 "Not the least of his difficulties was, that he never knew what was said to him, and that he pursued his inquiries among people who never knew what he said to them.",1 "Still, with an unshaken confidence that the English tongue was somehow the mother tongue of the whole world, only the people were too stupid to know it, Mr Meagles harangued innkeepers in the most voluble manner, entered into loud explanations of the most complicated sort, and utterly renounced replies in the native language of the respondents, on the ground that they were 'all bosh.'",0 "Sometimes interpreters were called in; whom Mr Meagles addressed in such idiomatic terms of speech, as instantly to extinguish and shut up--which made the matter worse.",1 "On a balance of the account, however, it may be doubted whether he lost much; for, although he found no property, he found so many debts and various associations of discredit with the proper name, which was the only word he made intelligible, that he was almost everywhere overwhelmed with injurious accusations.",0 "On no fewer than four occasions the police were called in to receive denunciations of Mr Meagles as a Knight of Industry, a good-for-nothing, and a thief, all of which opprobrious language he bore with the best temper (having no idea what it meant), and was in the most ignominious manner escorted to steam-boats and public carriages, to be got rid of, talking all the while, like a cheerful and fluent Briton as he was, with Mother under his arm.",3 "But, in his own tongue, and in his own head, Mr Meagles was a clear, shrewd, persevering man.",3 "When he had 'worked round,' as he called it, to Paris in his pilgrimage, and had wholly failed in it so far, he was not disheartened.",1 "'The nearer to England I follow him, you see, Mother,' argued Mr Meagles, 'the nearer I am likely to come to the papers, whether they turn up or no.",2 "Because it is only reasonable to conclude that he would deposit them somewhere where they would be safe from people over in England, and where they would yet be accessible to himself, don't you see?'",4 "At Paris Mr Meagles found a letter from Little Dorrit, lying waiting for him; in which she mentioned that she had been able to talk for a minute or two with Mr Clennam about this man who was no more; and that when she told Mr Clennam that his friend Mr Meagles, who was on his way to see him, had an interest in ascertaining something about the man if he could, he had asked her to tell Mr Meagles that he had been known to Miss Wade, then living in such a street at Calais.",1 'Oho!',2 said Mr Meagles.,2 "As soon afterwards as might be in those Diligence days, Mr Meagles rang the cracked bell at the cracked gate, and it jarred open, and the peasant-woman stood in the dark doorway, saying, 'Ice-say!",1 Seer!,2 Who?',2 "In acknowledgment of whose address, Mr Meagles murmured to himself that there was some sense about these Calais people, who really did know something of what you and themselves were up to; and returned, 'Miss Wade, my dear.'",2 He was then shown into the presence of Miss Wade.,1 "'It's some time since we met,' said Mr Meagles, clearing his throat; 'I hope you have been pretty well, Miss Wade?'",3 "Without hoping that he or anybody else had been pretty well, Miss Wade asked him to what she was indebted for the honour of seeing him again?",3 "Mr Meagles, in the meanwhile, glanced all round the room without observing anything in the shape of a box.",2 "'Why, the truth is, Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, in a comfortable, managing, not to say coaxing voice, 'it is possible that you may be able to throw a light upon a little something that is at present dark.",1 "Any unpleasant bygones between us are bygones, I hope.",1 Can't be helped now.,3 You recollect my daughter?,2 Time changes so!,2 A mother!',2 "In his innocence, Mr Meagles could not have struck a worse key-note.",1 "He paused for any expression of interest, but paused in vain.",1 'That is not the subject you wished to enter on?',2 "she said, after a cold silence.",1 "'No, no,' returned Mr Meagles.",2 'No.,2 "I thought your good nature might--' 'I thought you knew,' she interrupted, with a smile, 'that my good nature is not to be calculated upon?'",3 "'Don't say so,' said Mr Meagles; 'you do yourself an injustice.",1 "However, to come to the point.'",2 For he was sensible of having gained nothing by approaching it in a roundabout way.,3 "'I have heard from my friend Clennam, who, you will be sorry to hear, has been and still is very ill--' He paused again, and again she was silent.",2 "'--that you had some knowledge of one Blandois, lately killed in London by a violent accident.",1 "Now, don't mistake me!",1 "I know it was a slight knowledge,' said Mr Meagles, dexterously forestalling an angry interruption which he saw about to break.",1 'I am fully aware of that.,2 "It was a slight knowledge, I know.",2 "But the question is,' Mr Meagles's voice here became comfortable again, 'did he, on his way to England last time, leave a box of papers, or a bundle of papers, or some papers or other in some receptacle or other--any papers--with you: begging you to allow him to leave them here for a short time, until he wanted them?'",2 'The question is?',2 she repeated.,2 'Whose question is?',2 "'Mine,' said Mr Meagles.",2 "'And not only mine but Clennam's question, and other people's question.",2 "Now, I am sure,' continued Mr Meagles, whose heart was overflowing with Pet, 'that you can't have any unkind feeling towards my daughter; it's impossible.",1 Well!,3 "It's her question, too; being one in which a particular friend of hers is nearly interested.",2 "So here I am, frankly to say that is the question, and to ask, Now, did he?'",2 "'Upon my word,' she returned, 'I seem to be a mark for everybody who knew anything of a man I once in my life hired, and paid, and dismissed, to aim their questions at!'",2 "'Now, don't,' remonstrated Mr Meagles, 'don't!",2 "Don't take offence, because it's the plainest question in the world, and might be asked of any one.",1 "The documents I refer to were not his own, were wrongfully obtained, might at some time or other be troublesome to an innocent person to have in keeping, and are sought by the people to whom they really belong.",1 "He passed through Calais going to London, and there were reasons why he should not take them with him then, why he should wish to be able to put his hand upon them readily, and why he should distrust leaving them with people of his own sort.",2 Did he leave them here?,2 "I declare if I knew how to avoid giving you offence, I would take any pains to do it.",1 "I put the question personally, but there's nothing personal in it.",2 I might put it to any one; I have put it already to many people.,2 Did he leave them here?,2 Did he leave anything here?',2 'No.',2 "'Then unfortunately, Miss Wade, you know nothing about them?'",1 'I know nothing about them.,2 I have now answered your unaccountable question.,2 "He did not leave them here, and I know nothing about them.'",2 'There!',2 said Mr Meagles rising.,2 "'I am sorry for it; that's over; and I hope there is not much harm done.--Tattycoram well, Miss Wade?'",1 'Harriet well?,3 O yes!',2 "'I have put my foot in it again,' said Mr Meagles, thus corrected.",2 "'I can't keep my foot out of it here, it seems.",2 "Perhaps, if I had thought twice about it, I might never have given her the jingling name.",2 "But, when one means to be good-natured and sportive with young people, one doesn't think twice.",3 "Her old friend leaves a kind word for her, Miss Wade, if you should think proper to deliver it.'",2 "She said nothing as to that; and Mr Meagles, taking his honest face out of the dull room, where it shone like a sun, took it to the Hotel where he had left Mrs Meagles, and where he made the Report: 'Beaten, Mother; no effects!'",3 "He took it next to the London Steam Packet, which sailed in the night; and next to the Marshalsea.",2 The faithful John was on duty when Father and Mother Meagles presented themselves at the wicket towards nightfall.,3 "Miss Dorrit was not there then, he said; but she had been there in the morning, and invariably came in the evening.",1 Mr Clennam was slowly mending; and Maggy and Mrs Plornish and Mr Baptist took care of him by turns.,1 Miss Dorrit was sure to come back that evening before the bell rang.,1 "There was the room the Marshal had lent her, up-stairs, in which they could wait for her, if they pleased.",3 "Mistrustful that it might be hazardous to Arthur to see him without preparation, Mr Meagles accepted the offer; and they were left shut up in the room, looking down through its barred window into the jail.",1 "The cramped area of the prison had such an effect on Mrs Meagles that she began to weep, and such an effect on Mr Meagles that he began to gasp for air.",0 "He was walking up and down the room, panting, and making himself worse by laboriously fanning himself with her handkerchief, when he turned towards the opening door.",1 'Eh?,2 Good gracious!',3 "said Mr Meagles, 'this is not Miss Dorrit!",1 "Why, Mother, look!",2 Tattycoram!',2 No other.,2 And in Tattycoram's arms was an iron box some two feet square.,2 "Such a box had Affery Flintwinch seen, in the first of her dreams, going out of the old house in the dead of the night under Double's arm.",1 "This, Tattycoram put on the ground at her old master's feet: this, Tattycoram fell on her knees by, and beat her hands upon, crying half in exultation and half in despair, half in laughter and half in tears, 'Pardon, dear Master; take me back, dear Mistress; here it is!'",1 'Tatty!',2 exclaimed Mr Meagles.,2 'What you wanted!',2 said Tattycoram.,2 'Here it is!,2 I was put in the next room not to see you.,2 "I heard you ask her about it, I heard her say she hadn't got it, I was there when he left it, and I took it at bedtime and brought it away.",2 Here it is!',2 "'Why, my girl,' cried Mr Meagles, more breathless than before, 'how did you come over?'",2 'I came in the boat with you.,2 I was sitting wrapped up at the other end.,2 "When you took a coach at the wharf, I took another coach and followed you here.",2 "She never would have given it up after what you had said to her about its being wanted; she would sooner have sunk it in the sea, or burnt it.",1 "But, here it is!'",2 "The glow and rapture that the girl was in, with her 'Here it is!'",3 "'She never wanted it to be left, I must say that for her; but he left it, and I knew well that after what you said, and after her denying it, she never would have given it up.",2 But here it is!,2 "Dear Master, dear Mistress, take me back again, and give me back the dear old name!",2 Let this intercede for me.,2 Here it is!',2 Father and Mother Meagles never deserved their names better than when they took the headstrong foundling-girl into their protection again.,3 'Oh!,2 "I have been so wretched,' cried Tattycoram, weeping much more, 'always so unhappy, and so repentant!",1 I was afraid of her from the first time I saw her.,1 I knew she had got a power over me through understanding what was bad in me so well.,2 "It was a madness in me, and she could raise it whenever she liked.",2 "I used to think, when I got into that state, that people were all against me because of my first beginning; and the kinder they were to me, the worse fault I found in them.",1 "I made it out that they triumphed above me, and that they wanted to make me envy them, when I know--when I even knew then--that they never thought of such a thing.",3 "And my beautiful young mistress not so happy as she ought to have been, and I gone away from her!",3 Such a brute and a wretch as she must think me!,1 "But you'll say a word to her for me, and ask her to be as forgiving as you two are?",2 "For I am not so bad as I was,' pleaded Tattycoram; 'I am bad enough, but not so bad as I was, indeed.",2 "I have had Miss Wade before me all this time, as if it was my own self grown ripe--turning everything the wrong way, and twisting all good into evil.",1 "I have had her before me all this time, finding no pleasure in anything but keeping me as miserable, suspicious, and tormenting as herself.",1 "Not that she had much to do, to do that,' cried Tattycoram, in a closing great burst of distress, 'for I was as bad as bad could be.",1 "I only mean to say, that, after what I have gone through, I hope I shall never be quite so bad again, and that I shall get better by very slow degrees.",1 I'll try very hard.,1 "I won't stop at five-and-twenty, sir, I'll count five-and-twenty hundred, five-and-twenty thousand!'",2 "Another opening of the door, and Tattycoram subsided, and Little Dorrit came in, and Mr Meagles with pride and joy produced the box, and her gentle face was lighted up with grateful happiness and joy.",4 The secret was safe now!,3 She could keep her own part of it from him; he should never know of her loss; in time to come he should know all that was of import to himself; but he should never know what concerned her only.,1 "That was all passed, all forgiven, all forgotten.",2 "'Now, my dear Miss Dorrit,' said Mr Meagles; 'I am a man of business--or at least was--and I am going to take my measures promptly, in that character.",2 Had I better see Arthur to-night?',3 'I think not to-night.,2 I will go to his room and ascertain how he is.,2 But I think it will be better not to see him to-night.',3 "'I am much of your opinion, my dear,' said Mr Meagles, 'and therefore I have not been any nearer to him than this dismal room.",1 Then I shall probably not see him for some little time to come.,2 But I'll explain what I mean when you come back.',2 She left the room.,2 "Mr Meagles, looking through the bars of the window, saw her pass out of the Lodge below him into the prison-yard.",1 "He said gently, 'Tattycoram, come to me a moment, my good girl.'",3 She went up to the window.,2 "'You see that young lady who was here just now--that little, quiet, fragile figure passing along there, Tatty?",2 Look.,2 The people stand out of the way to let her go by.,2 "The men--see the poor, shabby fellows--pull off their hats to her quite politely, and now she glides in at that doorway.",1 "See her, Tattycoram?'",2 "'Yes, sir.'",2 "'I have heard tell, Tatty, that she was once regularly called the child of this place.",2 "She was born here, and lived here many years.",2 I can't breathe here.,2 "A doleful place to be born and bred in, Tattycoram?'",2 "'Yes indeed, sir!'",2 "'If she had constantly thought of herself, and settled with herself that everybody visited this place upon her, turned it against her, and cast it at her, she would have led an irritable and probably an useless existence.",1 "Yet I have heard tell, Tattycoram, that her young life has been one of active resignation, goodness, and noble service.",3 "Shall I tell you what I consider those eyes of hers, that were here just now, to have always looked at, to get that expression?'",2 "'Yes, if you please, sir.'",2 "'Duty, Tattycoram.",2 "Begin it early, and do it well; and there is no antecedent to it, in any origin or station, that will tell against us with the Almighty, or with ourselves.'",3 "They remained at the window, Mother joining them and pitying the prisoners, until she was seen coming back.",2 "She was soon in the room, and recommended that Arthur, whom she had left calm and composed, should not be visited that night.",3 'Good!',2 "said Mr Meagles, cheerily.",2 'I have not a doubt that's best.,2 "I shall trust my remembrances then, my sweet nurse, in your hands, and I well know they couldn't be in better.",4 I am off again to-morrow morning.',2 "Little Dorrit, surprised, asked him where?",2 "'My dear,' said Mr Meagles, 'I can't live without breathing.",2 "This place has taken my breath away, and I shall never get it back again until Arthur is out of this place.'",2 'How is that a reason for going off again to-morrow morning?',2 "'You shall understand,' said Mr Meagles.",2 'To-night we three will put up at a City Hotel.,2 "To-morrow morning, Mother and Tattycoram will go down to Twickenham, where Mrs Tickit, sitting attended by Dr Buchan in the parlour-window, will think them a couple of ghosts; and I shall go abroad again for Doyce.",2 We must have Dan here.,2 "Now, I tell you, my love, it's of no use writing and planning and conditionally speculating upon this and that and the other, at uncertain intervals and distances; we must have Doyce here.",2 "I devote myself at daybreak to-morrow morning, to bringing Doyce here.",2 It's nothing to me to go and find him.,2 "I'm an old traveller, and all foreign languages and customs are alike to me--I never understand anything about any of 'em.",2 Therefore I can't be put to any inconvenience.,1 "Go at once I must, it stands to reason; because I can't live without breathing freely; and I can't breathe freely until Arthur is out of this Marshalsea.",2 "I am stifled at the present moment, and have scarcely breath enough to say this much, and to carry this precious box down-stairs for you.'",3 "They got into the street as the bell began to ring, Mr Meagles carrying the box.",2 Little Dorrit had no conveyance there: which rather surprised him.,2 "He called a coach for her and she got into it, and he placed the box beside her when she was seated.",2 In her joy and gratitude she kissed his hand.,3 "'I don't like that, my dear,' said Mr Meagles.",3 "'It goes against my feeling of what's right, that _you_ should do homage to _me_--at the Marshalsea Gate.'",3 "She bent forward, and kissed his cheek.",1 "'You remind me of the days,' said Mr Meagles, suddenly drooping--'but she's very fond of him, and hides his faults, and thinks that no one sees them--and he certainly is well connected and of a very good family!'",3 "It was the only comfort he had in the loss of his daughter, and if he made the most of it, who could blame him?",1 "On a healthy autumn day, the Marshalsea prisoner, weak but otherwise restored, sat listening to a voice that read to him.",2 "On a healthy autumn day; when the golden fields had been reaped and ploughed again, when the summer fruits had ripened and waned, when the green perspectives of hops had been laid low by the busy pickers, when the apples clustering in the orchards were russet, and the berries of the mountain ash were crimson among the yellowing foliage.",3 "Already in the woods, glimpses of the hardy winter that was coming were to be caught through unaccustomed openings among the boughs where the prospect shone defined and clear, free from the bloom of the drowsy summer weather, which had rested on it as the bloom lies on the plum.",3 "So, from the seashore the ocean was no longer to be seen lying asleep in the heat, but its thousand sparkling eyes were open, and its whole breadth was in joyful animation, from the cool sand on the beach to the little sails on the horizon, drifting away like autumn-tinted leaves that had drifted from the trees.",4 "Changeless and barren, looking ignorantly at all the seasons with its fixed, pinched face of poverty and care, the prison had not a touch of any of these beauties on it.",0 "Blossom what would, its bricks and bars bore uniformly the same dead crop.",1 "Yet Clennam, listening to the voice as it read to him, heard in it all that great Nature was doing, heard in it all the soothing songs she sings to man.",3 "At no Mother's knee but hers had he ever dwelt in his youth on hopeful promises, on playful fancies, on the harvests of tenderness and humility that lie hidden in the early-fostered seeds of the imagination; on the oaks of retreat from blighting winds, that have the germs of their strong roots in nursery acorns.",3 "But, in the tones of the voice that read to him, there were memories of an old feeling of such things, and echoes of every merciful and loving whisper that had ever stolen to him in his life.",3 "When the voice stopped, he put his hand over his eyes, murmuring that the light was strong upon them.",3 "Little Dorrit put the book by, and presently arose quietly to shade the window.",2 Maggy sat at her needlework in her old place.,2 "The light softened, Little Dorrit brought her chair closer to his side.",2 "'This will soon be over now, dear Mr Clennam.",2 "Not only are Mr Doyce's letters to you so full of friendship and encouragement, but Mr Rugg says his letters to him are so full of help, and that everybody (now a little anger is past) is so considerate, and speaks so well of you, that it will soon be over now.'",3 'Dear girl.,2 Dear heart.,2 Good angel!',3 'You praise me far too much.,3 "And yet it is such an exquisite pleasure to me to hear you speak so feelingly, and to--and to see,' said Little Dorrit, raising her eyes to his, 'how deeply you mean it, that I cannot say Don't.'",3 He lifted her hand to his lips.,2 "'You have been here many, many times, when I have not seen you, Little Dorrit?'",2 "'Yes, I have been here sometimes when I have not come into the room.'",2 'Very often?',2 "'Rather often,' said Little Dorrit, timidly.",1 'Every day?',2 "'I think,' said Little Dorrit, after hesitating, 'that I have been here at least twice every day.'",2 "He might have released the little light hand after fervently kissing it again; but that, with a very gentle lingering where it was, it seemed to court being retained.",3 "He took it in both of his, and it lay softly on his breast.",2 "'Dear Little Dorrit, it is not my imprisonment only that will soon be over.",1 This sacrifice of you must be ended.,2 "We must learn to part again, and to take our different ways so wide asunder.",1 "You have not forgotten what we said together, when you came back?'",2 "'O no, I have not forgotten it.",2 "But something has been--You feel quite strong to-day, don't you?'",3 'Quite strong.',3 The hand he held crept up a little nearer his face.,1 'Do you feel quite strong enough to know what a great fortune I have got?',4 'I shall be very glad to be told.,3 No fortune can be too great or good for Little Dorrit.',4 'I have been anxiously waiting to tell you.,1 I have been longing and longing to tell you.,1 You are sure you will not take it?',2 'Never!',2 'You are quite sure you will not take half of it?',2 "'Never, dear Little Dorrit!'",2 "As she looked at him silently, there was something in her affectionate face that he did not quite comprehend: something that could have broken into tears in a moment, and yet that was happy and proud.",3 'You will be sorry to hear what I have to tell you about Fanny.,1 Poor Fanny has lost everything.,1 She has nothing left but her husband's income.,2 All that papa gave her when she married was lost as your money was lost.,1 "It was in the same hands, and it is all gone.'",2 Arthur was more shocked than surprised to hear it.,1 "'I had hoped it might not be so bad,' he said: 'but I had feared a heavy loss there, knowing the connection between her husband and the defaulter.'",1 'Yes.,2 It is all gone.,2 "I am very sorry for Fanny; very, very, very sorry for poor Fanny.",1 My poor brother too!',1 'Had _he_ property in the same hands?',2 'Yes!,2 And it's all gone.--How much do you think my own great fortune is?',3 "As Arthur looked at her inquiringly, with a new apprehension on him, she withdrew her hand, and laid her face down on the spot where it had rested.",1 'I have nothing in the world.,2 I am as poor as when I lived here.,1 "When papa came over to England, he confided everything he had to the same hands, and it is all swept away.",2 "O my dearest and best, are you quite sure you will not share my fortune with me now?'",3 "Locked in his arms, held to his heart, with his manly tears upon her own cheek, she drew the slight hand round his neck, and clasped it in its fellow-hand.",2 "'Never to part, my dearest Arthur; never any more, until the last!",2 "I never was rich before, I never was proud before, I never was happy before, I am rich in being taken by you, I am proud in having been resigned by you, I am happy in being with you in this prison, as I should be happy in coming back to it with you, if it should be the will of GOD, and comforting and serving you with all my love and truth.",4 "I am yours anywhere, everywhere!",2 I love you dearly!,3 "I would rather pass my life here with you, and go out daily, working for our bread, than I would have the greatest fortune that ever was told, and be the greatest lady that ever was honoured.",3 "O, if poor papa may only know how blest at last my heart is, in this room where he suffered for so many years!'",1 "Maggy had of course been staring from the first, and had of course been crying her eyes out long before this.",2 "Maggy was now so overjoyed that, after hugging her little mother with all her might, she went down-stairs like a clog-hornpipe to find somebody or other to whom to impart her gladness.",3 Whom should Maggy meet but Flora and Mr F.'s Aunt opportunely coming in?,2 "And whom else, as a consequence of that meeting, should Little Dorrit find waiting for herself, when, a good two or three hours afterwards, she went out?",3 "Flora's eyes were a little red, and she seemed rather out of spirits.",2 Mr F.'s Aunt was so stiffened that she had the appearance of being past bending by any means short of powerful mechanical pressure.,3 "Her bonnet was cocked up behind in a terrific manner; and her stony reticule was as rigid as if it had been petrified by the Gorgon's head, and had got it at that moment inside.",1 "With these imposing attributes, Mr F.'s Aunt, publicly seated on the steps of the Marshal's official residence, had been for the two or three hours in question a great boon to the younger inhabitants of the Borough, whose sallies of humour she had considerably flushed herself by resenting at the point of her umbrella, from time to time.",3 "'Painfully aware, Miss Dorrit, I am sure,' said Flora, 'that to propose an adjournment to any place to one so far removed by fortune and so courted and caressed by the best society must ever appear intruding even if not a pie-shop far below your present sphere and a back-parlour though a civil man but if for the sake of Arthur--cannot overcome it more improper now than ever late Doyce and Clennam--one last remark I might wish to make one last explanation I might wish to offer perhaps your good nature might excuse under pretence of three kidney ones the humble place of conversation.'",2 "Rightly interpreting this rather obscure speech, Little Dorrit returned that she was quite at Flora's disposition.",2 "Flora accordingly led the way across the road to the pie-shop in question: Mr F.'s Aunt stalking across in the rear, and putting herself in the way of being run over, with a perseverance worthy of a better cause.",4 "When the 'three kidney ones,' which were to be a blind to the conversation, were set before them on three little tin platters, each kidney one ornamented with a hole at the top, into which the civil man poured hot gravy out of a spouted can as if he were feeding three lamps, Flora took out her pocket-handkerchief.",3 "'If Fancy's fair dreams,' she began, 'have ever pictured that when Arthur--cannot overcome it pray excuse me--was restored to freedom even a pie as far from flaky as the present and so deficient in kidney as to be in that respect like a minced nutmeg might not prove unacceptable if offered by the hand of true regard such visions have for ever fled and all is cancelled but being aware that tender relations are in contemplation beg to state that I heartily wish well to both and find no fault with either not the least, it may be withering to know that ere the hand of Time had made me much less slim than formerly and dreadfully red on the slightest exertion particularly after eating I well know when it takes the form of a rash, it might have been and was not through the interruption of parents and mental torpor succeeded until the mysterious clue was held by Mr F. still I would not be ungenerous to either and I heartily wish well to both.'",2 "Little Dorrit took her hand, and thanked her for all her old kindness.",3 "'Call it not kindness,' returned Flora, giving her an honest kiss, 'for you always were the best and dearest little thing that ever was if I may take the liberty and even in a money point of view a saving being Conscience itself though I must add much more agreeable than mine ever was to me for though not I hope more burdened than other people's yet I have always found it far readier to make one uncomfortable than comfortable and evidently taking a greater pleasure in doing it but I am wandering, one hope I wish to express ere yet the closing scene draws in and it is that I do trust for the sake of old times and old sincerity that Arthur will know that I didn't desert him in his misfortunes but that I came backwards and forwards constantly to ask if I could do anything for him and that I sat in the pie-shop where they very civilly fetched something warm in a tumbler from the hotel and really very nice hours after hours to keep him company over the way without his knowing it.'",4 "Flora really had tears in her eyes now, and they showed her to great advantage.",3 "'Over and above which,' said Flora, 'I earnestly beg you as the dearest thing that ever was if you'll still excuse the familiarity from one who moves in very different circles to let Arthur understand that I don't know after all whether it wasn't all nonsense between us though pleasant at the time and trying too and certainly Mr F. did work a change and the spell being broken nothing could be expected to take place without weaving it afresh which various circumstances have combined to prevent of which perhaps not the least powerful was that it was not to be, I am not prepared to say that if it had been agreeable to Arthur and had brought itself about naturally in the first instance I should not have been very glad being of a lively disposition and moped at home where papa undoubtedly is the most aggravating of his sex and not improved since having been cut down by the hand of the Incendiary into something of which I never saw the counterpart in all my life but jealousy is not my character nor ill-will though many faults.'",2 "Without having been able closely to follow Mrs Finching through this labyrinth, Little Dorrit understood its purpose, and cordially accepted the trust.",3 "'The withered chaplet my dear,' said Flora, with great enjoyment, 'is then perished the column is crumbled and the pyramid is standing upside down upon its what's-his-name call it not giddiness call it not weakness call it not folly I must now retire into privacy and look upon the ashes of departed joys no more but taking a further liberty of paying for the pastry which has formed the humble pretext of our interview will for ever say Adieu!'",4 "Mr F.'s Aunt, who had eaten her pie with great solemnity, and who had been elaborating some grievous scheme of injury in her mind since her first assumption of that public position on the Marshal's steps, took the present opportunity of addressing the following Sibyllic apostrophe to the relict of her late nephew.",1 "'Bring him for'ard, and I'll chuck him out o' winder!'",2 Flora tried in vain to soothe the excellent woman by explaining that they were going home to dinner.,3 "Mr F.'s Aunt persisted in replying, 'Bring him for'ard and I'll chuck him out o' winder!'",2 "Having reiterated this demand an immense number of times, with a sustained glare of defiance at Little Dorrit, Mr F.'s Aunt folded her arms, and sat down in the corner of the pie-shop parlour; steadfastly refusing to budge until such time as 'he' should have been 'brought for'ard,' and the chucking portion of his destiny accomplished.",3 "In this condition of things, Flora confided to Little Dorrit that she had not seen Mr F.'s Aunt so full of life and character for weeks; that she would find it necessary to remain there 'hours perhaps,' until the inexorable old lady could be softened; and that she could manage her best alone.",2 "They parted, therefore, in the friendliest manner, and with the kindest feeling on both sides.",2 "Mr F.'s Aunt holding out like a grim fortress, and Flora becoming in need of refreshment, a messenger was despatched to the hotel for the tumbler already glanced at, which was afterwards replenished.",2 "With the aid of its content, a newspaper, and some skimming of the cream of the pie-stock, Flora got through the remainder of the day in perfect good humour; though occasionally embarrassed by the consequences of an idle rumour which circulated among the credulous infants of the neighbourhood, to the effect that an old lady had sold herself to the pie-shop to be made up, and was then sitting in the pie-shop parlour, declining to complete her contract.",2 "This attracted so many young persons of both sexes, and, when the shades of evening began to fall, occasioned so much interruption to the business, that the merchant became very pressing in his proposals that Mr F.'s Aunt should be removed.",1 "A conveyance was accordingly brought to the door, which, by the joint efforts of the merchant and Flora, this remarkable woman was at last induced to enter; though not without even then putting her head out of the window, and demanding to have him 'brought for'ard' for the purpose originally mentioned.",3 "As she was observed at this time to direct baleful glances towards the Marshalsea, it has been supposed that this admirably consistent female intended by 'him,' Arthur Clennam.",3 "This, however, is mere speculation; who the person was, who, for the satisfaction of Mr F.'s Aunt's mind, ought to have been brought forward and never was brought forward, will never be positively known.",3 "The autumn days went on, and Little Dorrit never came to the Marshalsea now and went away without seeing him.",2 "No, no, no.",2 "One morning, as Arthur listened for the light feet that every morning ascended winged to his heart, bringing the heavenly brightness of a new love into the room where the old love had wrought so hard and been so true; one morning, as he listened, he heard her coming, not alone.",2 "'Dear Arthur,' said her delighted voice outside the door, 'I have some one here.",3 May I bring some one in?',2 He had thought from the tread there were two with her.,2 "He answered 'Yes,' and she came in with Mr Meagles.",2 "Sun-browned and jolly Mr Meagles looked, and he opened his arms and folded Arthur in them, like a sun-browned and jolly father.",3 "'Now I am all right,' said Mr Meagles, after a minute or so.",3 'Now it's over.,2 "Arthur, my dear fellow, confess at once that you expected me before.'",1 "'I did,' said Arthur; 'but Amy told me--' 'Little Dorrit.",2 Never any other name.',2 "(It was she who whispered it.) '--But my Little Dorrit told me that, without asking for any further explanation, I was not to expect you until I saw you.'",2 "'And now you see me, my boy,' said Mr Meagles, shaking him by the hand stoutly; 'and now you shall have any explanation and every explanation.",2 "The fact is, I _was_ here--came straight to you from the Allongers and Marshongers, or I should be ashamed to look you in the face this day,--but you were not in company trim at the moment, and I had to start off again to catch Doyce.'",1 'Poor Doyce!',2 sighed Arthur.,2 "'Don't call him names that he don't deserve,' said Mr Meagles.",2 '_He's_ not poor; _he's_ doing well enough.,3 Doyce is a wonderful fellow over there.,3 I assure you he is making out his case like a house a-fire.,3 "He has fallen on his legs, has Dan.",1 "Where they don't want things done and find a man to do 'em, that man's off his legs; but where they do want things done and find a man to do 'em, that man's on his legs.",2 You won't have occasion to trouble the Circumlocution Office any more.,1 "Let me tell you, Dan has done without 'em!'",2 'What a load you take from my mind!',2 cried Arthur.,2 'What happiness you give me!',3 'Happiness?',2 retorted Mr Meagles.,2 'Don't talk about happiness till you see Dan.,3 "I assure you Dan is directing works and executing labours over yonder, that it would make your hair stand on end to look at.",3 "He's no public offender, bless you, now!",2 "He's medalled and ribboned, and starred and crossed, and I don't-know-what all'd, like a born nobleman.",3 But we mustn't talk about that over here.',2 'Why not?',2 "'Oh, egad!'",2 "said Mr Meagles, shaking his head very seriously, 'he must hide all those things under lock and key when he comes over here.",2 They won't do over here.,2 "In that particular, Britannia is a Britannia in the Manger--won't give her children such distinctions herself, and won't allow them to be seen when they are given by other countries.",2 "No, no, Dan!'",2 "said Mr Meagles, shaking his head again.",2 'That won't do here!',2 "'If you had brought me (except for Doyce's sake) twice what I have lost,' cried Arthur, 'you would not have given me the pleasure that you give me in this news.'",2 "'Why, of course, of course,' assented Mr Meagles.",2 "'Of course I know that, my good fellow, and therefore I come out with it in the first burst.",3 "Now, to go back, about catching Doyce.",2 I caught Doyce.,2 "Ran against him among a lot of those dirty brown dogs in women's nightcaps a great deal too big for 'em, calling themselves Arabs and all sorts of incoherent races.",1 _You_ know 'em!,2 Well!,3 "He was coming straight to me, and I was going to him, and so we came back together.'",2 'Doyce in England!',2 exclaimed Arthur.,2 'There!',2 "said Mr Meagles, throwing open his arms.",2 'I am the worst man in the world to manage a thing of this sort.,1 "I don't know what I should have done if I had been in the diplomatic line--right, perhaps!",3 "The long and short of it is, Arthur, we have both been in England this fortnight.",2 "And if you go on to ask where Doyce is at the present moment, why, my plain answer is--here he is!",2 And now I can breathe again at last!',2 "Doyce darted in from behind the door, caught Arthur by both hands, and said the rest for himself.",2 "'There are only three branches of my subject, my dear Clennam,' said Doyce, proceeding to mould them severally, with his plastic thumb, on the palm of his hand, 'and they're soon disposed of.",2 "First, not a word more from you about the past.",2 There was an error in your calculations.,1 I know what that is.,2 "It affects the whole machine, and failure is the consequence.",1 "You will profit by the failure, and will avoid it another time.",1 "I have done a similar thing myself, in construction, often.",2 "Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn; and you are too sensible a man not to learn from this failure.",2 So much for firstly.,2 Secondly.,2 "I was sorry you should have taken it so heavily to heart, and reproached yourself so severely; I was travelling home night and day to put matters right, with the assistance of our friend, when I fell in with our friend as he has informed you.",1 Thirdly.,2 "We two agreed, that, after what you had undergone, after your distress of mind, and after your illness, it would be a pleasant surprise if we could so far keep quiet as to get things perfectly arranged without your knowledge, and then come and say that all the affairs were smooth, that everything was right, that the business stood in greater want of you than ever it did, and that a new and prosperous career was opened before you and me as partners.",4 That's thirdly.,2 "But you know we always make an allowance for friction, and so I have reserved space to close in.",1 "My dear Clennam, I thoroughly confide in you; you have it in your power to be quite as useful to me as I have, or have had, it in my power to be useful to you; your old place awaits you, and wants you very much; there is nothing to detain you here one half-hour longer.'",3 "There was silence, which was not broken until Arthur had stood for some time at the window with his back towards them, and until his little wife that was to be had gone to him and stayed by him.",1 "'I made a remark a little while ago,' said Daniel Doyce then, 'which I am inclined to think was an incorrect one.",1 "I said there was nothing to detain you here, Clennam, half an hour longer.",2 Am I mistaken in supposing that you would rather not leave here till to-morrow morning?,1 "Do I know, without being very wise, where you would like to go, direct from these walls and from this room?'",3 "'You do,' returned Arthur.",2 'It has been our cherished purpose.',3 'Very well!',3 said Doyce.,2 "'Then, if this young lady will do me the honour of regarding me for four-and-twenty hours in the light of a father, and will take a ride with me now towards Saint Paul's Churchyard, I dare say I know what we want to get there.'",3 "Little Dorrit and he went out together soon afterwards, and Mr Meagles lingered behind to say a word to his friend.",2 "'I think, Arthur, you will not want Mother and me in the morning and we will keep away.",2 It might set Mother thinking about Pet; she's a soft-hearted woman.,3 "She's best at the Cottage, and I'll stay there and keep her company.'",3 With that they parted for the time.,2 "And the day ended, and the night ended, and the morning came, and Little Dorrit, simply dressed as usual and having no one with her but Maggy, came into the prison with the sunshine.",1 The poor room was a happy room that morning.,2 Where in the world was there a room so full of quiet joy!,3 "'My dear love,' said Arthur.",3 'Why does Maggy light the fire?,2 We shall be gone directly.',2 'I asked her to do it.,2 I have taken such an odd fancy.,2 I want you to burn something for me.',1 'What?',2 'Only this folded paper.,2 "If you will put it in the fire with your own hand, just as it is, my fancy will be gratified.'",3 "'Superstitious, darling Little Dorrit?",3 Is it a charm?',3 "'It is anything you like best, my own,' she answered, laughing with glistening eyes and standing on tiptoe to kiss him, 'if you will only humour me when the fire burns up.'",4 "So they stood before the fire, waiting: Clennam with his arm about her waist, and the fire shining, as fire in that same place had often shone, in Little Dorrit's eyes.",2 'Is it bright enough now?',3 said Arthur.,2 "'Quite bright enough now,' said Little Dorrit.",3 'Does the charm want any words to be said?',3 "asked Arthur, as he held the paper over the flame.",2 "'You can say (if you don't mind) ""I love you!""",3 ' answered Little Dorrit.,2 "So he said it, and the paper burned away.",1 "They passed very quietly along the yard; for no one was there, though many heads were stealthily peeping from the windows.",2 "Only one face, familiar of old, was in the Lodge.",2 "When they had both accosted it, and spoken many kind words, Little Dorrit turned back one last time with her hand stretched out, saying, 'Good-bye, good John!",3 "I hope you will live very happy, dear!'",3 "Then they went up the steps of the neighbouring Saint George's Church, and went up to the altar, where Daniel Doyce was waiting in his paternal character.",3 "And there was Little Dorrit's old friend who had given her the Burial Register for a pillow; full of admiration that she should come back to them to be married, after all.",3 And they were married with the sun shining on them through the painted figure of Our Saviour on the window.,2 "And they went into the very room where Little Dorrit had slumbered after her party, to sign the Marriage Register.",2 "And there, Mr Pancks, (destined to be chief clerk to Doyce and Clennam, and afterwards partner in the house), sinking the Incendiary in the peaceful friend, looked in at the door to see it done, with Flora gallantly supported on one arm and Maggy on the other, and a back-ground of John Chivery and father and other turnkeys who had run round for the moment, deserting the parent Marshalsea for its happy child.",3 "Nor had Flora the least signs of seclusion upon her, notwithstanding her recent declaration; but, on the contrary, was wonderfully smart, and enjoyed the ceremonies mightily, though in a fluttered way.",4 "Little Dorrit's old friend held the inkstand as she signed her name, and the clerk paused in taking off the good clergyman's surplice, and all the witnesses looked on with special interest.",3 "'For, you see,' said Little Dorrit's old friend, 'this young lady is one of our curiosities, and has come now to the third volume of our Registers.",2 "Her birth is in what I call the first volume; she lay asleep, on this very floor, with her pretty head on what I call the second volume; and she's now a-writing her little name as a bride in what I call the third volume.'",3 "They all gave place when the signing was done, and Little Dorrit and her husband walked out of the church alone.",2 "They paused for a moment on the steps of the portico, looking at the fresh perspective of the street in the autumn morning sun's bright rays, and then went down.",3 Went down into a modest life of usefulness and happiness.,3 "Went down to give a mother's care, in the fulness of time, to Fanny's neglected children no less than to their own, and to leave that lady going into Society for ever and a day.",1 "Went down to give a tender nurse and friend to Tip for some few years, who was never vexed by the great exactions he made of her in return for the riches he might have given her if he had ever had them, and who lovingly closed his eyes upon the Marshalsea and all its blighted fruits.",3 "They went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine and shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain, fretted and chafed, and made their usual uproar.",0 "Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.",2 "For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared; or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography, extant in the literature of any age or country.",3 "Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse, is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befall a human being, I do mean to say that in this particular instance, it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could by possibility have occurred.",3 "The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration,--a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence; and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next: the balance being decidedly in favour of the latter.",3 "Now, if, during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time.",1 "There being nobody by, however, but a pauper old woman, who was rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer; and a parish surgeon who did such matters by contract; Oliver and Nature fought out the point between them.",1 "The result was, that, after a few struggles, Oliver breathed, sneezed, and proceeded to advertise to the inmates of the workhouse the fact of a new burden having been imposed upon the parish, by setting up as loud a cry as could reasonably have been expected from a male infant who had not been possessed of that very useful appendage, a voice, for a much longer space of time than three minutes and a quarter.",1 "As Oliver gave this first proof of the free and proper action of his lungs, the patchwork coverlet which was carelessly flung over the iron bedstead, rustled; the pale face of a young woman was raised feebly from the pillow; and a faint voice imperfectly articulated the words, 'Let me see the child, and die.'",1 The surgeon had been sitting with his face turned towards the fire: giving the palms of his hands a warm and a rub alternately.,3 "As the young woman spoke, he rose, and advancing to the bed's head, said, with more kindness than might have been expected of him: 'Oh, you must not talk about dying yet.'",2 "'Lor bless her dear heart, no!'",3 "interposed the nurse, hastily depositing in her pocket a green glass bottle, the contents of which she had been tasting in a corner with evident satisfaction.",1 "'Lor bless her dear heart, when she has lived as long as I have, sir, and had thirteen children of her own, and all on 'em dead except two, and them in the wurkus with me, she'll know better than to take on in that way, bless her dear heart!",3 "Think what it is to be a mother, there's a dear young lamb do.'",2 Apparently this consolatory perspective of a mother's prospects failed in producing its due effect.,1 "The patient shook her head, and stretched out her hand towards the child.",3 The surgeon deposited it in her arms.,2 She imprinted her cold white lips passionately on its forehead; passed her hands over her face; gazed wildly round; shuddered; fell back--and died.,0 "They chafed her breast, hands, and temples; but the blood had stopped forever.",2 They talked of hope and comfort.,3 They had been strangers too long.,2 "'It's all over, Mrs. Thingummy!'",2 said the surgeon at last.,2 "'Ah, poor dear, so it is!'",1 "said the nurse, picking up the cork of the green bottle, which had fallen out on the pillow, as she stooped to take up the child.",1 'Poor dear!',2 "'You needn't mind sending up to me, if the child cries, nurse,' said the surgeon, putting on his gloves with great deliberation.",3 'It's very likely it _will_ be troublesome.,1 Give it a little gruel if it is.',2 "He put on his hat, and, pausing by the bed-side on his way to the door, added, 'She was a good-looking girl, too; where did she come from?'",3 "'She was brought here last night,' replied the old woman, 'by the overseer's order.",2 She was found lying in the street.,1 "She had walked some distance, for her shoes were worn to pieces; but where she came from, or where she was going to, nobody knows.'",1 "The surgeon leaned over the body, and raised the left hand.",2 "'The old story,' he said, shaking his head: 'no wedding-ring, I see.",2 Ah!,2 Good-night!',3 "The medical gentleman walked away to dinner; and the nurse, having once more applied herself to the green bottle, sat down on a low chair before the fire, and proceeded to dress the infant.",2 "What an excellent example of the power of dress, young Oliver Twist was!",2 "Wrapped in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only covering, he might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar; it would have been hard for the haughtiest stranger to have assigned him his proper station in society.",1 "But now that he was enveloped in the old calico robes which had grown yellow in the same service, he was badged and ticketed, and fell into his place at once--a parish child--the orphan of a workhouse--the humble, half-starved drudge--to be cuffed and buffeted through the world--despised by all, and pitied by none.",1 Oliver cried lustily.,2 "If he could have known that he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of church-wardens and overseers, perhaps he would have cried the louder.",1 "For the next eight or ten months, Oliver was the victim of a systematic course of treachery and deception.",1 He was brought up by hand.,2 The hungry and destitute situation of the infant orphan was duly reported by the workhouse authorities to the parish authorities.,1 "The parish authorities inquired with dignity of the workhouse authorities, whether there was no female then domiciled in 'the house' who was in a situation to impart to Oliver Twist, the consolation and nourishment of which he stood in need.",3 "The workhouse authorities replied with humility, that there was not.",3 "Upon this, the parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved, that Oliver should be 'farmed,' or, in other words, that he should be dispatched to a branch-workhouse some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders against the poor-laws, rolled about the floor all day, without the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under the parental superintendence of an elderly female, who received the culprits at and for the consideration of sevenpence-halfpenny per small head per week.",1 "Sevenpence-halfpenny's worth per week is a good round diet for a child; a great deal may be got for sevenpence-halfpenny, quite enough to overload its stomach, and make it uncomfortable.",4 The elderly female was a woman of wisdom and experience; she knew what was good for children; and she had a very accurate perception of what was good for herself.,4 "So, she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own use, and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter allowance than was originally provided for them.",2 Thereby finding in the lowest depth a deeper still; and proving herself a very great experimental philosopher.,3 "Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher who had a great theory about a horse being able to live without eating, and who demonstrated it so well, that he had got his own horse down to a straw a day, and would unquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and rampacious animal on nothing at all, if he had not died, four-and-twenty hours before he was to have had his first comfortable bait of air.",4 "Unfortunately for, the experimental philosophy of the female to whose protecting care Oliver Twist was delivered over, a similar result usually attended the operation of _her_ system; for at the very moment when the child had contrived to exist upon the smallest possible portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen in eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from want and cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by accident; in any one of which cases, the miserable little being was usually summoned into another world, and there gathered to the fathers it had never known in this.",0 "Occasionally, when there was some more than usually interesting inquest upon a parish child who had been overlooked in turning up a bedstead, or inadvertently scalded to death when there happened to be a washing--though the latter accident was very scarce, anything approaching to a washing being of rare occurrence in the farm--the jury would take it into their heads to ask troublesome questions, or the parishioners would rebelliously affix their signatures to a remonstrance.",1 "But these impertinences were speedily checked by the evidence of the surgeon, and the testimony of the beadle; the former of whom had always opened the body and found nothing inside (which was very probable indeed), and the latter of whom invariably swore whatever the parish wanted; which was very self-devotional.",3 "Besides, the board made periodical pilgrimages to the farm, and always sent the beadle the day before, to say they were going.",2 "The children were neat and clean to behold, when _they_ went; and what more would the people have!",3 It cannot be expected that this system of farming would produce any very extraordinary or luxuriant crop.,3 "Oliver Twist's ninth birthday found him a pale thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and decidedly small in circumference.",1 But nature or inheritance had implanted a good sturdy spirit in Oliver's breast.,3 "It had had plenty of room to expand, thanks to the spare diet of the establishment; and perhaps to this circumstance may be attributed his having any ninth birth-day at all.",2 "Be this as it may, however, it was his ninth birthday; and he was keeping it in the coal-cellar with a select party of two other young gentleman, who, after participating with him in a sound thrashing, had been locked up for atrociously presuming to be hungry, when Mrs. Mann, the good lady of the house, was unexpectedly startled by the apparition of Mr. Bumble, the beadle, striving to undo the wicket of the garden-gate.",3 'Goodness gracious!,3 "Is that you, Mr. Bumble, sir?'",2 "said Mrs. Mann, thrusting her head out of the window in well-affected ecstasies of joy.",4 "'(Susan, take Oliver and them two brats upstairs, and wash 'em directly.)--My heart alive!",2 "Mr. Bumble, how glad I am to see you, sure-ly!'",3 "Now, Mr. Bumble was a fat man, and a choleric; so, instead of responding to this open-hearted salutation in a kindred spirit, he gave the little wicket a tremendous shake, and then bestowed upon it a kick which could have emanated from no leg but a beadle's.",0 "'Lor, only think,' said Mrs. Mann, running out,--for the three boys had been removed by this time,--'only think of that!",2 "That I should have forgotten that the gate was bolted on the inside, on account of them dear children!",2 "Walk in sir; walk in, pray, Mr. Bumble, do, sir.'",2 "Although this invitation was accompanied with a curtsey that might have softened the heart of a church-warden, it by no means mollified the beadle.",2 "'Do you think this respectful or proper conduct, Mrs. Mann,' inquired Mr. Bumble, grasping his cane, 'to keep the parish officers a waiting at your garden-gate, when they come here upon porochial business with the porochial orphans?",3 "Are you aweer, Mrs. Mann, that you are, as I may say, a porochial delegate, and a stipendiary?'",2 "'I'm sure Mr. Bumble, that I was only a telling one or two of the dear children as is so fond of you, that it was you a coming,' replied Mrs. Mann with great humility.",4 Mr. Bumble had a great idea of his oratorical powers and his importance.,3 "He had displayed the one, and vindicated the other.",2 He relaxed.,3 "'Well, well, Mrs. Mann,' he replied in a calmer tone; 'it may be as you say; it may be.",3 "Lead the way in, Mrs. Mann, for I come on business, and have something to say.'",3 Mrs. Mann ushered the beadle into a small parlour with a brick floor; placed a seat for him; and officiously deposited his cocked hat and cane on the table before him.,2 "Mr. Bumble wiped from his forehead the perspiration which his walk had engendered, glanced complacently at the cocked hat, and smiled.",2 "Yes, he smiled.",2 Beadles are but men: and Mr. Bumble smiled.,2 "'Now don't you be offended at what I'm a going to say,' observed Mrs. Mann, with captivating sweetness.",3 "'You've had a long walk, you know, or I wouldn't mention it.",2 "Now, will you take a little drop of somethink, Mr. Bumble?'",2 'Not a drop.,2 "Nor a drop,' said Mr. Bumble, waving his right hand in a dignified, but placid manner.",3 "'I think you will,' said Mrs. Mann, who had noticed the tone of the refusal, and the gesture that had accompanied it.",1 "'Just a leetle drop, with a little cold water, and a lump of sugar.'",1 Mr. Bumble coughed.,2 "'Now, just a leetle drop,' said Mrs. Mann persuasively.",2 'What is it?',2 inquired the beadle.,2 "'Why, it's what I'm obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put into the blessed infants' Daffy, when they ain't well, Mr. Bumble,' replied Mrs. Mann as she opened a corner cupboard, and took down a bottle and glass.",3 'It's gin.,2 "I'll not deceive you, Mr. B.",1 It's gin.',2 "'Do you give the children Daffy, Mrs. Mann?'",2 "inquired Bumble, following with his eyes the interesting process of mixing.",3 "'Ah, bless 'em, that I do, dear as it is,' replied the nurse.",3 "'I couldn't see 'em suffer before my very eyes, you know sir.'",1 "'No'; said Mr. Bumble approvingly; 'no, you could not.",2 "You are a humane woman, Mrs. Mann.'",3 "(Here she set down the glass.) 'I shall take a early opportunity of mentioning it to the board, Mrs. Mann.'",2 "(He drew it towards him.) 'You feel as a mother, Mrs. Mann.'",2 "(He stirred the gin-and-water.) 'I--I drink your health with cheerfulness, Mrs. Mann'; and he swallowed half of it.",2 "'And now about business,' said the beadle, taking out a leathern pocket-book.",2 "'The child that was half-baptized Oliver Twist, is nine year old to-day.'",1 'Bless him!',2 "interposed Mrs. Mann, inflaming her left eye with the corner of her apron.",2 "'And notwithstanding a offered reward of ten pound, which was afterwards increased to twenty pound.",3 "Notwithstanding the most superlative, and, I may say, supernat'ral exertions on the part of this parish,' said Bumble, 'we have never been able to discover who is his father, or what was his mother's settlement, name, or condition.'",2 "Mrs. Mann raised her hands in astonishment; but added, after a moment's reflection, 'How comes he to have any name at all, then?'",3 "The beadle drew himself up with great pride, and said, 'I inwented it.'",3 "'You, Mr. Bumble!'",2 "'I, Mrs. Mann.",2 We name our fondlings in alphabetical order.,2 "The last was a S,--Swubble, I named him.",2 "This was a T,--Twist, I named _him_.",1 "The next one comes will be Unwin, and the next Vilkins.",2 "I have got names ready made to the end of the alphabet, and all the way through it again, when we come to Z.' 'Why, you're quite a literary character, sir!'",3 said Mrs. Mann.,2 "'Well, well,' said the beadle, evidently gratified with the compliment; 'perhaps I may be.",4 "Perhaps I may be, Mrs. Mann.'",2 "He finished the gin-and-water, and added, 'Oliver being now too old to remain here, the board have determined to have him back into the house.",2 I have come out myself to take him there.,2 So let me see him at once.',2 "'I'll fetch him directly,' said Mrs. Mann, leaving the room for that purpose.",2 "Oliver, having had by this time as much of the outer coat of dirt which encrusted his face and hands, removed, as could be scrubbed off in one washing, was led into the room by his benevolent protectress.",3 "'Make a bow to the gentleman, Oliver,' said Mrs. Mann.",2 "Oliver made a bow, which was divided between the beadle on the chair, and the cocked hat on the table.",2 "'Will you go along with me, Oliver?'",2 "said Mr. Bumble, in a majestic voice.",3 "Oliver was about to say that he would go along with anybody with great readiness, when, glancing upward, he caught sight of Mrs. Mann, who had got behind the beadle's chair, and was shaking her fist at him with a furious countenance.",1 "He took the hint at once, for the fist had been too often impressed upon his body not to be deeply impressed upon his recollection.",2 'Will she go with me?',2 inquired poor Oliver.,1 "'No, she can't,' replied Mr. Bumble.",2 'But she'll come and see you sometimes.',2 This was no very great consolation to the child.,3 "Young as he was, however, he had sense enough to make a feint of feeling great regret at going away.",2 It was no very difficult matter for the boy to call tears into his eyes.,1 Hunger and recent ill-usage are great assistants if you want to cry; and Oliver cried very naturally indeed.,2 "Mrs. Mann gave him a thousand embraces, and what Oliver wanted a great deal more, a piece of bread and butter, less he should seem too hungry when he got to the workhouse.",3 "With the slice of bread in his hand, and the little brown-cloth parish cap on his head, Oliver was then led away by Mr. Bumble from the wretched home where one kind word or look had never lighted the gloom of his infant years.",1 "And yet he burst into an agony of childish grief, as the cottage-gate closed after him.",0 "Wretched as were the little companions in misery he was leaving behind, they were the only friends he had ever known; and a sense of his loneliness in the great wide world, sank into the child's heart for the first time.",1 "Mr. Bumble walked on with long strides; little Oliver, firmly grasping his gold-laced cuff, trotted beside him, inquiring at the end of every quarter of a mile whether they were 'nearly there.'",3 To these interrogations Mr. Bumble returned very brief and snappish replies; for the temporary blandness which gin-and-water awakens in some bosoms had by this time evaporated; and he was once again a beadle.,1 "Oliver had not been within the walls of the workhouse a quarter of an hour, and had scarcely completed the demolition of a second slice of bread, when Mr. Bumble, who had handed him over to the care of an old woman, returned; and, telling him it was a board night, informed him that the board had said he was to appear before it forthwith.",1 "Not having a very clearly defined notion of what a live board was, Oliver was rather astounded by this intelligence, and was not quite certain whether he ought to laugh or cry.",3 "He had no time to think about the matter, however; for Mr. Bumble gave him a tap on the head, with his cane, to wake him up: and another on the back to make him lively: and bidding him to follow, conducted him into a large white-washed room, where eight or ten fat gentlemen were sitting round a table.",2 "At the top of the table, seated in an arm-chair rather higher than the rest, was a particularly fat gentleman with a very round, red face.",2 "'Bow to the board,' said Bumble.",2 "Oliver brushed away two or three tears that were lingering in his eyes; and seeing no board but the table, fortunately bowed to that.",3 "'What's your name, boy?'",2 said the gentleman in the high chair.,2 "Oliver was frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen, which made him tremble: and the beadle gave him another tap behind, which made him cry.",1 These two causes made him answer in a very low and hesitating voice; whereupon a gentleman in a white waistcoat said he was a fool.,1 "Which was a capital way of raising his spirits, and putting him quite at his ease.",3 "'Boy,' said the gentleman in the high chair, 'listen to me.",2 "You know you're an orphan, I suppose?'",1 "'What's that, sir?'",2 inquired poor Oliver.,1 "'The boy _is_ a fool--I thought he was,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.",1 'Hush!',2 said the gentleman who had spoken first.,2 "'You know you've got no father or mother, and that you were brought up by the parish, don't you?'",2 "'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, weeping bitterly.",1 'What are you crying for?',2 inquired the gentleman in the white waistcoat.,2 And to be sure it was very extraordinary.,3 What _could_ the boy be crying for?,2 "'I hope you say your prayers every night,' said another gentleman in a gruff voice; 'and pray for the people who feed you, and take care of you--like a Christian.'",2 "'Yes, sir,' stammered the boy.",2 The gentleman who spoke last was unconsciously right.,3 "It would have been very like a Christian, and a marvellously good Christian too, if Oliver had prayed for the people who fed and took care of _him_.",3 "But he hadn't, because nobody had taught him.",2 'Well!,2 "You have come here to be educated, and taught a useful trade,' said the red-faced gentleman in the high chair.",3 "'So you'll begin to pick oakum to-morrow morning at six o'clock,' added the surly one in the white waistcoat.",2 "For the combination of both these blessings in the one simple process of picking oakum, Oliver bowed low by the direction of the beadle, and was then hurried away to a large ward; where, on a rough, hard bed, he sobbed himself to sleep.",1 What a novel illustration of the tender laws of England!,3 They let the paupers go to sleep!,1 Poor Oliver!,1 "He little thought, as he lay sleeping in happy unconsciousness of all around him, that the board had that very day arrived at a decision which would exercise the most material influence over all his future fortunes.",3 But they had.,2 "And this was it: The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered--the poor people liked it!",2 "It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round; a brick and mortar elysium, where it was all play and no work.",2 'Oho!',2 "said the board, looking very knowing; 'we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop it all, in no time.'",2 "So, they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they), of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it.",1 "With this view, they contracted with the water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll of Sundays.",3 "They made a great many other wise and humane regulations, having reference to the ladies, which it is not necessary to repeat; kindly undertook to divorce poor married people, in consequence of the great expense of a suit in Doctors' Commons; and, instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a bachelor!",4 "There is no saying how many applicants for relief, under these last two heads, might have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been coupled with the workhouse; but the board were long-headed men, and had provided for this difficulty.",2 The relief was inseparable from the workhouse and the gruel; and that frightened people.,3 "For the first six months after Oliver Twist was removed, the system was in full operation.",1 "It was rather expensive at first, in consequence of the increase in the undertaker's bill, and the necessity of taking in the clothes of all the paupers, which fluttered loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms, after a week or two's gruel.",0 But the number of workhouse inmates got thin as well as the paupers; and the board were in ecstasies.,3 "The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a copper at one end: out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at mealtimes.",3 "Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more--except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides.",4 The bowls never wanted washing.,2 "The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon.",3 Boys have generally excellent appetites.,3 "Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cook-shop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age.",0 "He had a wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly believed him.",1 "A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to Oliver Twist.",1 The evening arrived; the boys took their places.,2 "The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons.",3 "The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbors nudged him.",2 "Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery.",0 "He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: 'Please, sir, I want some more.'",1 "The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale.",2 "He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper.",3 The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.,2 'What!',2 "said the master at length, in a faint voice.",2 "'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'",2 The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.,2 "The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said, 'Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir!",3 Oliver Twist has asked for more!',1 There was a general start.,2 Horror was depicted on every countenance.,2 'For _more_!',2 said Mr. Limbkins.,2 "'Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly.",2 "Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?'",2 "'He did, sir,' replied Bumble.",2 "'That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.",1 'I know that boy will be hung.',1 Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion.,2 An animated discussion took place.,2 "Oliver was ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish.",2 "In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling.",1 "'I never was more convinced of anything in my life,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill next morning: 'I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be hung.'",1 "As I purpose to show in the sequel whether the white waistcoated gentleman was right or not, I should perhaps mar the interest of this narrative (supposing it to possess any at all), if I ventured to hint just yet, whether the life of Oliver Twist had this violent termination or no.",1 "For a week after the commission of the impious and profane offence of asking for more, Oliver remained a close prisoner in the dark and solitary room to which he had been consigned by the wisdom and mercy of the board.",0 "It appears, at first sight not unreasonable to suppose, that, if he had entertained a becoming feeling of respect for the prediction of the gentleman in the white waistcoat, he would have established that sage individual's prophetic character, once and for ever, by tying one end of his pocket-handkerchief to a hook in the wall, and attaching himself to the other.",2 "To the performance of this feat, however, there was one obstacle: namely, that pocket-handkerchiefs being decided articles of luxury, had been, for all future times and ages, removed from the noses of paupers by the express order of the board, in council assembled: solemnly given and pronounced under their hands and seals.",2 There was a still greater obstacle in Oliver's youth and childishness.,1 "He only cried bitterly all day; and, when the long, dismal night came on, spread his little hands before his eyes to shut out the darkness, and crouching in the corner, tried to sleep: ever and anon waking with a start and tremble, and drawing himself closer and closer to the wall, as if to feel even its cold hard surface were a protection in the gloom and loneliness which surrounded him.",0 "Let it not be supposed by the enemies of 'the system,' that, during the period of his solitary incarceration, Oliver was denied the benefit of exercise, the pleasure of society, or the advantages of religious consolation.",3 "As for exercise, it was nice cold weather, and he was allowed to perform his ablutions every morning under the pump, in a stone yard, in the presence of Mr. Bumble, who prevented his catching cold, and caused a tingling sensation to pervade his frame, by repeated applications of the cane.",2 "As for society, he was carried every other day into the hall where the boys dined, and there sociably flogged as a public warning and example.",1 "And so far from being denied the advantages of religious consolation, he was kicked into the same apartment every evening at prayer-time, and there permitted to listen to, and console his mind with, a general supplication of the boys, containing a special clause, therein inserted by authority of the board, in which they entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented, and obedient, and to be guarded from the sins and vices of Oliver Twist: whom the supplication distinctly set forth to be under the exclusive patronage and protection of the powers of wickedness, and an article direct from the manufactory of the very Devil himself.",2 "It chanced one morning, while Oliver's affairs were in this auspicious and comfortable state, that Mr. Gamfield, chimney-sweep, went his way down the High Street, deeply cogitating in his mind his ways and means of paying certain arrears of rent, for which his landlord had become rather pressing.",3 "Mr. Gamfield's most sanguine estimate of his finances could not raise them within full five pounds of the desired amount; and, in a species of arithmetical desperation, he was alternately cudgelling his brains and his donkey, when passing the workhouse, his eyes encountered the bill on the gate.",1 'Wo--o!',2 said Mr. Gamfield to the donkey.,2 "The donkey was in a state of profound abstraction: wondering, probably, whether he was destined to be regaled with a cabbage-stalk or two when he had disposed of the two sacks of soot with which the little cart was laden; so, without noticing the word of command, he jogged onward.",3 "Mr. Gamfield growled a fierce imprecation on the donkey generally, but more particularly on his eyes; and, running after him, bestowed a blow on his head, which would inevitably have beaten in any skull but a donkey's.",0 "Then, catching hold of the bridle, he gave his jaw a sharp wrench, by way of gentle reminder that he was not his own master; and by these means turned him round.",4 "He then gave him another blow on the head, just to stun him till he came back again.",1 "Having completed these arrangements, he walked up to the gate, to read the bill.",2 "The gentleman with the white waistcoat was standing at the gate with his hands behind him, after having delivered himself of some profound sentiments in the board-room.",3 "Having witnessed the little dispute between Mr. Gamfield and the donkey, he smiled joyously when that person came up to read the bill, for he saw at once that Mr. Gamfield was exactly the sort of master Oliver Twist wanted.",2 "Mr. Gamfield smiled, too, as he perused the document; for five pounds was just the sum he had been wishing for; and, as to the boy with which it was encumbered, Mr. Gamfield, knowing what the dietary of the workhouse was, well knew he would be a nice small pattern, just the very thing for register stoves.",3 "So, he spelt the bill through again, from beginning to end; and then, touching his fur cap in token of humility, accosted the gentleman in the white waistcoat.",3 "'This here boy, sir, wot the parish wants to 'prentis,' said Mr. Gamfield.",2 "'Ay, my man,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, with a condescending smile.",2 'What of him?',2 "'If the parish vould like him to learn a right pleasant trade, in a good 'spectable chimbley-sweepin' bisness,' said Mr. Gamfield, 'I wants a 'prentis, and I am ready to take him.'",4 "'Walk in,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.",2 "Mr. Gamfield having lingered behind, to give the donkey another blow on the head, and another wrench of the jaw, as a caution not to run away in his absence, followed the gentleman with the white waistcoat into the room where Oliver had first seen him.",1 "'It's a nasty trade,' said Mr. Limbkins, when Gamfield had again stated his wish.",1 "'Young boys have been smothered in chimneys before now,' said another gentleman.",2 "'That's acause they damped the straw afore they lit it in the chimbley to make 'em come down again,' said Gamfield; 'that's all smoke, and no blaze; vereas smoke ain't o' no use at all in making a boy come down, for it only sinds him to sleep, and that's wot he likes.",2 "Boys is wery obstinit, and wery lazy, Gen'l'men, and there's nothink like a good hot blaze to make 'em come down vith a run.",3 "It's humane too, gen'l'men, acause, even if they've stuck in the chimbley, roasting their feet makes 'em struggle to hextricate theirselves.'",1 The gentleman in the white waistcoat appeared very much amused by this explanation; but his mirth was speedily checked by a look from Mr. Limbkins.,3 "The board then proceeded to converse among themselves for a few minutes, but in so low a tone, that the words 'saving of expenditure,' 'looked well in the accounts,' 'have a printed report published,' were alone audible.",3 "These only chanced to be heard, indeed, or account of their being very frequently repeated with great emphasis.",3 "At length the whispering ceased; and the members of the board, having resumed their seats and their solemnity, Mr. Limbkins said: 'We have considered your proposition, and we don't approve of it.'",3 "'Not at all,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.",2 "'Decidedly not,' added the other members.",2 "As Mr. Gamfield did happen to labour under the slight imputation of having bruised three or four boys to death already, it occurred to him that the board had, perhaps, in some unaccountable freak, taken it into their heads that this extraneous circumstance ought to influence their proceedings.",0 "It was very unlike their general mode of doing business, if they had; but still, as he had no particular wish to revive the rumour, he twisted his cap in his hands, and walked slowly from the table.",1 "'So you won't let me have him, gen'l'men?'",2 "said Mr. Gamfield, pausing near the door.",2 "'No,' replied Mr. Limbkins; 'at least, as it's a nasty business, we think you ought to take something less than the premium we offered.'",1 "Mr. Gamfield's countenance brightened, as, with a quick step, he returned to the table, and said, 'What'll you give, gen'l'men?",2 Come!,2 Don't be too hard on a poor man.,1 What'll you give?',2 "'I should say, three pound ten was plenty,' said Mr. Limbkins.",2 "'Ten shillings too much,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.",2 'Come!',2 "said Gamfield; 'say four pound, gen'l'men.",2 "Say four pound, and you've got rid of him for good and all.",3 There!',2 "'Three pound ten,' repeated Mr. Limbkins, firmly.",2 'Come!,2 "I'll split the diff'erence, gen'l'men,' urged Gamfield.",1 'Three pound fifteen.',2 "'Not a farthing more,' was the firm reply of Mr. Limbkins.",2 "'You're desperate hard upon me, gen'l'men,' said Gamfield, wavering.",1 'Pooh!,2 pooh!,2 nonsense!',1 said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.,2 "'He'd be cheap with nothing at all, as a premium.",1 "Take him, you silly fellow!",1 He's just the boy for you.,2 "He wants the stick, now and then: it'll do him good; and his board needn't come very expensive, for he hasn't been overfed since he was born.",2 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!',2 "Mr. Gamfield gave an arch look at the faces round the table, and, observing a smile on all of them, gradually broke into a smile himself.",2 The bargain was made.,3 "Mr. Bumble, was at once instructed that Oliver Twist and his indentures were to be conveyed before the magistrate, for signature and approval, that very afternoon.",2 "In pursuance of this determination, little Oliver, to his excessive astonishment, was released from bondage, and ordered to put himself into a clean shirt.",2 "He had hardly achieved this very unusual gymnastic performance, when Mr. Bumble brought him, with his own hands, a basin of gruel, and the holiday allowance of two ounces and a quarter of bread.",1 "At this tremendous sight, Oliver began to cry very piteously: thinking, not unnaturally, that the board must have determined to kill him for some useful purpose, or they never would have begun to fatten him up in that way.",1 "'Don't make your eyes red, Oliver, but eat your food and be thankful,' said Mr. Bumble, in a tone of impressive pomposity.",3 "'You're a going to be made a 'prentice of, Oliver.'",2 "'A prentice, sir!'",2 "said the child, trembling.",2 "'Yes, Oliver,' said Mr. Bumble.",2 "'The kind and blessed gentleman which is so many parents to you, Oliver, when you have none of your own: are a going to 'prentice' you: and to set you up in life, and make a man of you: although the expense to the parish is three pound ten!--three pound ten, Oliver!--seventy shillins--one hundred and forty sixpences!--and all for a naughty orphan which nobody can't love.'",1 "As Mr. Bumble paused to take breath, after delivering this address in an awful voice, the tears rolled down the poor child's face, and he sobbed bitterly.",0 "'Come,' said Mr. Bumble, somewhat less pompously, for it was gratifying to his feelings to observe the effect his eloquence had produced; 'Come, Oliver!",3 "Wipe your eyes with the cuffs of your jacket, and don't cry into your gruel; that's a very foolish action, Oliver.'",1 "It certainly was, for there was quite enough water in it already.",3 "On their way to the magistrate, Mr. Bumble instructed Oliver that all he would have to do, would be to look very happy, and say, when the gentleman asked him if he wanted to be apprenticed, that he should like it very much indeed; both of which injunctions Oliver promised to obey: the rather as Mr. Bumble threw in a gentle hint, that if he failed in either particular, there was no telling what would be done to him.",4 "When they arrived at the office, he was shut up in a little room by himself, and admonished by Mr. Bumble to stay there, until he came back to fetch him.",2 "There the boy remained, with a palpitating heart, for half an hour.",2 "At the expiration of which time Mr. Bumble thrust in his head, unadorned with the cocked hat, and said aloud: 'Now, Oliver, my dear, come to the gentleman.'",2 "As Mr. Bumble said this, he put on a grim and threatening look, and added, in a low voice, 'Mind what I told you, you young rascal!'",0 "Oliver stared innocently in Mr. Bumble's face at this somewhat contradictory style of address; but that gentleman prevented his offering any remark thereupon, by leading him at once into an adjoining room: the door of which was open.",2 "It was a large room, with a great window.",3 "Behind a desk, sat two old gentleman with powdered heads: one of whom was reading the newspaper; while the other was perusing, with the aid of a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles, a small piece of parchment which lay before him.",2 "Mr. Limbkins was standing in front of the desk on one side; and Mr. Gamfield, with a partially washed face, on the other; while two or three bluff-looking men, in top-boots, were lounging about.",3 "The old gentleman with the spectacles gradually dozed off, over the little bit of parchment; and there was a short pause, after Oliver had been stationed by Mr. Bumble in front of the desk.",2 "'This is the boy, your worship,' said Mr. Bumble.",2 "The old gentleman who was reading the newspaper raised his head for a moment, and pulled the other old gentleman by the sleeve; whereupon, the last-mentioned old gentleman woke up.",2 "'Oh, is this the boy?'",2 said the old gentleman.,2 "'This is him, sir,' replied Mr. Bumble.",2 "'Bow to the magistrate, my dear.'",2 "Oliver roused himself, and made his best obeisance.",3 "He had been wondering, with his eyes fixed on the magistrates' powder, whether all boards were born with that white stuff on their heads, and were boards from thenceforth on that account.",2 "'Well,' said the old gentleman, 'I suppose he's fond of chimney-sweeping?'",3 "'He doats on it, your worship,' replied Bumble; giving Oliver a sly pinch, to intimate that he had better not say he didn't.",2 "'And he _will_ be a sweep, will he?'",2 inquired the old gentleman.,2 "'If we was to bind him to any other trade to-morrow, he'd run away simultaneous, your worship,' replied Bumble.",2 "'And this man that's to be his master--you, sir--you'll treat him well, and feed him, and do all that sort of thing, will you?'",3 said the old gentleman.,2 "'When I says I will, I means I will,' replied Mr. Gamfield doggedly.",1 "'You're a rough speaker, my friend, but you look an honest, open-hearted man,' said the old gentleman: turning his spectacles in the direction of the candidate for Oliver's premium, whose villainous countenance was a regular stamped receipt for cruelty.",1 "But the magistrate was half blind and half childish, so he couldn't reasonably be expected to discern what other people did.",1 "'I hope I am, sir,' said Mr. Gamfield, with an ugly leer.",1 "'I have no doubt you are, my friend,' replied the old gentleman: fixing his spectacles more firmly on his nose, and looking about him for the inkstand.",1 It was the critical moment of Oliver's fate.,1 "If the inkstand had been where the old gentleman thought it was, he would have dipped his pen into it, and signed the indentures, and Oliver would have been straightway hurried off.",2 "But, as it chanced to be immediately under his nose, it followed, as a matter of course, that he looked all over his desk for it, without finding it; and happening in the course of his search to look straight before him, his gaze encountered the pale and terrified face of Oliver Twist: who, despite all the admonitory looks and pinches of Bumble, was regarding the repulsive countenance of his future master, with a mingled expression of horror and fear, too palpable to be mistaken, even by a half-blind magistrate.",0 "The old gentleman stopped, laid down his pen, and looked from Oliver to Mr. Limbkins; who attempted to take snuff with a cheerful and unconcerned aspect.",3 'My boy!',2 "said the old gentleman, 'you look pale and alarmed.",1 What is the matter?',2 "'Stand a little away from him, Beadle,' said the other magistrate: laying aside the paper, and leaning forward with an expression of interest.",2 "'Now, boy, tell us what's the matter: don't be afraid.'",1 "Oliver fell on his knees, and clasping his hands together, prayed that they would order him back to the dark room--that they would starve him--beat him--kill him if they pleased--rather than send him away with that dreadful man.",0 'Well!',2 "said Mr. Bumble, raising his hands and eyes with most impressive solemnity.",3 'Well!,2 "of all the artful and designing orphans that ever I see, Oliver, you are one of the most bare-facedest.'",2 "'Hold your tongue, Beadle,' said the second old gentleman, when Mr. Bumble had given vent to this compound adjective.",1 "'I beg your worship's pardon,' said Mr. Bumble, incredulous of having heard aright.",1 'Did your worship speak to me?',2 'Yes.,2 Hold your tongue.',2 Mr. Bumble was stupefied with astonishment.,3 A beadle ordered to hold his tongue!,2 A moral revolution!,2 "The old gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles looked at his companion, he nodded significantly.",2 "'We refuse to sanction these indentures,' said the old gentleman: tossing aside the piece of parchment as he spoke.",1 "'I hope,' stammered Mr. Limbkins: 'I hope the magistrates will not form the opinion that the authorities have been guilty of any improper conduct, on the unsupported testimony of a child.'",0 "'The magistrates are not called upon to pronounce any opinion on the matter,' said the second old gentleman sharply.",1 "'Take the boy back to the workhouse, and treat him kindly.",3 He seems to want it.',2 "That same evening, the gentleman in the white waistcoat most positively and decidedly affirmed, not only that Oliver would be hung, but that he would be drawn and quartered into the bargain.",3 "Mr. Bumble shook his head with gloomy mystery, and said he wished he might come to good; whereunto Mr. Gamfield replied, that he wished he might come to him; which, although he agreed with the beadle in most matters, would seem to be a wish of a totally opposite description.",1 "The next morning, the public were once informed that Oliver Twist was again To Let, and that five pounds would be paid to anybody who would take possession of him.",1 "In great families, when an advantageous place cannot be obtained, either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom to send him to sea.",3 "The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary an example, took counsel together on the expediency of shipping off Oliver Twist, in some small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port.",3 "This suggested itself as the very best thing that could possibly be done with him: the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to death, in a playful mood, some day after dinner, or would knock his brains out with an iron bar; both pastimes being, as is pretty generally known, very favourite and common recreations among gentleman of that class.",3 "The more the case presented itself to the board, in this point of view, the more manifold the advantages of the step appeared; so, they came to the conclusion that the only way of providing for Oliver effectually, was to send him to sea without delay.",2 "Mr. Bumble had been despatched to make various preliminary inquiries, with the view of finding out some captain or other who wanted a cabin-boy without any friends; and was returning to the workhouse to communicate the result of his mission; when he encountered at the gate, no less a person than Mr. Sowerberry, the parochial undertaker.",2 "Mr. Sowerberry was a tall gaunt, large-jointed man, attired in a suit of threadbare black, with darned cotton stockings of the same colour, and shoes to answer.",2 "His features were not naturally intended to wear a smiling aspect, but he was in general rather given to professional jocosity.",3 "His step was elastic, and his face betokened inward pleasantry, as he advanced to Mr. Bumble, and shook him cordially by the hand.",3 "'I have taken the measure of the two women that died last night, Mr. Bumble,' said the undertaker.",1 "'You'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' said the beadle, as he thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box of the undertaker: which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin.",3 "'I say you'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' repeated Mr. Bumble, tapping the undertaker on the shoulder, in a friendly manner, with his cane.",3 'Think so?',2 said the undertaker in a tone which half admitted and half disputed the probability of the event.,1 "'The prices allowed by the board are very small, Mr. Bumble.'",2 "'So are the coffins,' replied the beadle: with precisely as near an approach to a laugh as a great official ought to indulge in.",3 Mr. Sowerberry was much tickled at this: as of course he ought to be; and laughed a long time without cessation.,2 "'Well, well, Mr. Bumble,' he said at length, 'there's no denying that, since the new system of feeding has come in, the coffins are something narrower and more shallow than they used to be; but we must have some profit, Mr. Bumble.",1 "Well-seasoned timber is an expensive article, sir; and all the iron handles come, by canal, from Birmingham.'",3 "'Well, well,' said Mr. Bumble, 'every trade has its drawbacks.",2 "A fair profit is, of course, allowable.'",3 "'Of course, of course,' replied the undertaker; 'and if I don't get a profit upon this or that particular article, why, I make it up in the long-run, you see--he!",2 he!,2 he!',2 "'Just so,' said Mr. Bumble.",2 "'Though I must say,' continued the undertaker, resuming the current of observations which the beadle had interrupted: 'though I must say, Mr. Bumble, that I have to contend against one very great disadvantage: which is, that all the stout people go off the quickest.",1 "The people who have been better off, and have paid rates for many years, are the first to sink when they come into the house; and let me tell you, Mr. Bumble, that three or four inches over one's calculation makes a great hole in one's profits: especially when one has a family to provide for, sir.'",3 "As Mr. Sowerberry said this, with the becoming indignation of an ill-used man; and as Mr. Bumble felt that it rather tended to convey a reflection on the honour of the parish; the latter gentleman thought it advisable to change the subject.",1 "Oliver Twist being uppermost in his mind, he made him his theme.",1 "'By the bye,' said Mr. Bumble, 'you don't know anybody who wants a boy, do you?",2 "A porochial 'prentis, who is at present a dead-weight; a millstone, as I may say, round the porochial throat?",1 "Liberal terms, Mr. Sowerberry, liberal terms?'",2 "As Mr. Bumble spoke, he raised his cane to the bill above him, and gave three distinct raps upon the words 'five pounds': which were printed thereon in Roman capitals of gigantic size.",2 'Gadso!',2 said the undertaker: taking Mr. Bumble by the gilt-edged lappel of his official coat; 'that's just the very thing I wanted to speak to you about.,2 "You know--dear me, what a very elegant button this is, Mr. Bumble!",3 I never noticed it before.',2 "'Yes, I think it rather pretty,' said the beadle, glancing proudly downwards at the large brass buttons which embellished his coat.",3 'The die is the same as the porochial seal--the Good Samaritan healing the sick and bruised man.,1 "The board presented it to me on Newyear's morning, Mr. Sowerberry.",2 "I put it on, I remember, for the first time, to attend the inquest on that reduced tradesman, who died in a doorway at midnight.'",1 "'I recollect,' said the undertaker.",2 "'The jury brought it in, ""Died from exposure to the cold, and want of the common necessaries of life,"" didn't they?'",1 Mr. Bumble nodded.,2 "'And they made it a special verdict, I think,' said the undertaker, 'by adding some words to the effect, that if the relieving officer had--' 'Tush!",2 Foolery!',2 interposed the beadle.,2 "'If the board attended to all the nonsense that ignorant jurymen talk, they'd have enough to do.'",1 "'Very true,' said the undertaker; 'they would indeed.'",2 "'Juries,' said Mr. Bumble, grasping his cane tightly, as was his wont when working into a passion: 'juries is ineddicated, vulgar, grovelling wretches.'",2 "'So they are,' said the undertaker.",2 "'They haven't no more philosophy nor political economy about 'em than that,' said the beadle, snapping his fingers contemptuously.",1 "'No more they have,' acquiesced the undertaker.",2 "'I despise 'em,' said the beadle, growing very red in the face.",1 "'So do I,' rejoined the undertaker.",2 "'And I only wish we'd a jury of the independent sort, in the house for a week or two,' said the beadle; 'the rules and regulations of the board would soon bring their spirit down for 'em.'",2 "'Let 'em alone for that,' replied the undertaker.",2 "So saying, he smiled, approvingly: to calm the rising wrath of the indignant parish officer.",1 "Mr Bumble lifted off his cocked hat; took a handkerchief from the inside of the crown; wiped from his forehead the perspiration which his rage had engendered; fixed the cocked hat on again; and, turning to the undertaker, said in a calmer voice: 'Well; what about the boy?'",1 'Oh!',2 "replied the undertaker; 'why, you know, Mr. Bumble, I pay a good deal towards the poor's rates.'",3 'Hem!',2 said Mr. Bumble.,2 'Well?',2 "'Well,' replied the undertaker, 'I was thinking that if I pay so much towards 'em, I've a right to get as much out of 'em as I can, Mr. Bumble; and so--I think I'll take the boy myself.'",3 "Mr. Bumble grasped the undertaker by the arm, and led him into the building.",3 "Mr. Sowerberry was closeted with the board for five minutes; and it was arranged that Oliver should go to him that evening 'upon liking'--a phrase which means, in the case of a parish apprentice, that if the master find, upon a short trial, that he can get enough work out of a boy without putting too much food into him, he shall have him for a term of years, to do what he likes with.",4 "When little Oliver was taken before 'the gentlemen' that evening; and informed that he was to go, that night, as general house-lad to a coffin-maker's; and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned, or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little emotion, that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith.",0 "Now, although it was very natural that the board, of all people in the world, should feel in a great state of virtuous astonishment and horror at the smallest tokens of want of feeling on the part of anybody, they were rather out, in this particular instance.",4 "The simple fact was, that Oliver, instead of possessing too little feeling, possessed rather too much; and was in a fair way of being reduced, for life, to a state of brutal stupidity and sullenness by the ill usage he had received.",1 "He heard the news of his destination, in perfect silence; and, having had his luggage put into his hand--which was not very difficult to carry, inasmuch as it was all comprised within the limits of a brown paper parcel, about half a foot square by three inches deep--he pulled his cap over his eyes; and once more attaching himself to Mr. Bumble's coat cuff, was led away by that dignitary to a new scene of suffering.",1 "For some time, Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along, without notice or remark; for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should: and, it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by the skirts of Mr. Bumble's coat as they blew open, and disclosed to great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee-breeches.",3 "As they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it expedient to look down, and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage.",4 'Oliver!',2 said Mr. Bumble.,2 "'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, in a low, tremulous voice.",2 "'Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir.'",2 "Although Oliver did as he was desired, at once; and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor.",2 "As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolled down his cheek.",2 "It was followed by another, and another.",2 "The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one.",2 Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble's he covered his face with both; and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and bony fingers.,2 'Well!',2 "exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity.",1 'Well!,2 "Of _all_ the ungratefullest, and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are the--' 'No, no, sir,' sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; 'no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I will, sir!",3 "I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so--so--' 'So what?'",2 inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement.,3 "'So lonely, sir!",1 So very lonely!',1 cried the child.,2 'Everybody hates me.,1 Oh!,2 "sir, don't, don't pray be cross to me!'",2 "The child beat his hand upon his heart; and looked in his companion's face, with tears of real agony.",1 "Mr. Bumble regarded Oliver's piteous and helpless look, with some astonishment, for a few seconds; hemmed three or four times in a husky manner; and after muttering something about 'that troublesome cough,' bade Oliver dry his eyes and be a good boy.",2 "Then once more taking his hand, he walked on with him in silence.",2 "The undertaker, who had just put up the shutters of his shop, was making some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriate dismal candle, when Mr. Bumble entered.",2 'Aha!',2 "said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in the middle of a word; 'is that you, Bumble?'",2 "'No one else, Mr. Sowerberry,' replied the beadle.",2 'Here!,2 I've brought the boy.',2 Oliver made a bow.,2 'Oh!,2 "that's the boy, is it?'",2 "said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver.",3 "'Mrs. Sowerberry, will you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?'",3 "Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and presented the form of a short, then, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance.",2 "'My dear,' said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, 'this is the boy from the workhouse that I told you of.'",2 Oliver bowed again.,2 'Dear me!',2 "said the undertaker's wife, 'he's very small.'",2 "'Why, he _is_ rather small,' replied Mr. Bumble: looking at Oliver as if it were his fault that he was no bigger; 'he is small.",1 There's no denying it.,1 "But he'll grow, Mrs. Sowerberry--he'll grow.'",2 'Ah!,2 "I dare say he will,' replied the lady pettishly, 'on our victuals and our drink.",2 "I see no saving in parish children, not I; for they always cost more to keep, than they're worth.",3 "However, men always think they know best.",3 There!,2 "Get downstairs, little bag o' bones.'",2 "With this, the undertaker's wife opened a side door, and pushed Oliver down a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark: forming the ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated 'kitchen'; wherein sat a slatternly girl, in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very much out of repair.",1 "'Here, Charlotte,' said Mr. Sowerberry, who had followed Oliver down, 'give this boy some of the cold bits that were put by for Trip.",1 "He hasn't come home since the morning, so he may go without 'em.",2 "I dare say the boy isn't too dainty to eat 'em--are you, boy?'",2 "Oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative; and a plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him.",1 "I wish some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall within him; whose blood is ice, whose heart is iron; could have seen Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected.",1 I wish he could have witnessed the horrible avidity with which Oliver tore the bits asunder with all the ferocity of famine.,0 "There is only one thing I should like better; and that would be to see the Philosopher making the same sort of meal himself, with the same relish.",4 "'Well,' said the undertaker's wife, when Oliver had finished his supper: which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful auguries of his future appetite: 'have you done?'",2 "There being nothing eatable within his reach, Oliver replied in the affirmative.",3 "'Then come with me,' said Mrs. Sowerberry: taking up a dim and dirty lamp, and leading the way upstairs; 'your bed's under the counter.",1 "You don't mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose?",2 "But it doesn't much matter whether you do or don't, for you can't sleep anywhere else.",2 Come; don't keep me here all night!',2 "Oliver lingered no longer, but meekly followed his new mistress.",1 "Oliver, being left to himself in the undertaker's shop, set the lamp down on a workman's bench, and gazed timidly about him with a feeling of awe and dread, which many people a good deal older than he will be at no loss to understand.",1 "An unfinished coffin on black tressels, which stood in the middle of the shop, looked so gloomy and death-like that a cold tremble came over him, every time his eyes wandered in the direction of the dismal object: from which he almost expected to see some frightful form slowly rear its head, to drive him mad with terror.",0 "Against the wall were ranged, in regular array, a long row of elm boards cut in the same shape: looking in the dim light, like high-shouldered ghosts with their hands in their breeches pockets.",2 "Coffin-plates, elm-chips, bright-headed nails, and shreds of black cloth, lay scattered on the floor; and the wall behind the counter was ornamented with a lively representation of two mutes in very stiff neckcloths, on duty at a large private door, with a hearse drawn by four black steeds, approaching in the distance.",3 The shop was close and hot.,3 The atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins.,1 "The recess beneath the counter in which his flock mattress was thrust, looked like a grave.",3 Nor were these the only dismal feelings which depressed Oliver.,1 He was alone in a strange place; and we all know how chilled and desolate the best of us will sometimes feel in such a situation.,1 "The boy had no friends to care for, or to care for him.",2 The regret of no recent separation was fresh in his mind; the absence of no loved and well-remembered face sank heavily into his heart.,3 "But his heart was heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept into his narrow bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be lain in a calm and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the tall grass waving gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep bell to soothe him in his sleep.",3 "Oliver was awakened in the morning, by a loud kicking at the outside of the shop-door: which, before he could huddle on his clothes, was repeated, in an angry and impetuous manner, about twenty-five times.",0 "When he began to undo the chain, the legs desisted, and a voice began.",2 "'Open the door, will yer?'",2 cried the voice which belonged to the legs which had kicked at the door.,2 "'I will, directly, sir,' replied Oliver: undoing the chain, and turning the key.",2 "'I suppose yer the new boy, ain't yer?'",2 said the voice through the key-hole.,2 "'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 'How old are yer?',2 inquired the voice.,2 "'Ten, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 "'Then I'll whop yer when I get in,' said the voice; 'you just see if I don't, that's all, my work'us brat!'",1 "and having made this obliging promise, the voice began to whistle.",3 "Oliver had been too often subjected to the process to which the very expressive monosyllable just recorded bears reference, to entertain the smallest doubt that the owner of the voice, whoever he might be, would redeem his pledge, most honourably.",2 "He drew back the bolts with a trembling hand, and opened the door.",2 "For a second or two, Oliver glanced up the street, and down the street, and over the way: impressed with the belief that the unknown, who had addressed him through the key-hole, had walked a few paces off, to warm himself; for nobody did he see but a big charity-boy, sitting on a post in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter: which he cut into wedges, the size of his mouth, with a clasp-knife, and then consumed with great dexterity.",3 "'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Oliver at length: seeing that no other visitor made his appearance; 'did you knock?'",1 "'I kicked,' replied the charity-boy.",2 "'Did you want a coffin, sir?'",2 "inquired Oliver, innocently.",2 "At this, the charity-boy looked monstrous fierce; and said that Oliver would want one before long, if he cut jokes with his superiors in that way.",1 "'Yer don't know who I am, I suppose, Work'us?'",2 "said the charity-boy, in continuation: descending from the top of the post, meanwhile, with edifying gravity.",3 "'No, sir,' rejoined Oliver.",2 "'I'm Mister Noah Claypole,' said the charity-boy, 'and you're under me.",2 "Take down the shutters, yer idle young ruffian!'",1 "With this, Mr. Claypole administered a kick to Oliver, and entered the shop with a dignified air, which did him great credit.",3 "It is difficult for a large-headed, small-eyed youth, of lumbering make and heavy countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances; but it is more especially so, when superadded to these personal attractions are a red nose and yellow smalls.",2 "Oliver, having taken down the shutters, and broken a pane of glass in his effort to stagger away beneath the weight of the first one to a small court at the side of the house in which they were kept during the day, was graciously assisted by Noah: who having consoled him with the assurance that 'he'd catch it,' condescended to help him.",3 Mr. Sowerberry came down soon after.,2 "Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Sowerberry appeared.",2 "Oliver having 'caught it,' in fulfilment of Noah's prediction, followed that young gentleman down the stairs to breakfast.",2 "'Come near the fire, Noah,' said Charlotte.",2 'I saved a nice little bit of bacon for you from master's breakfast.,3 "Oliver, shut that door at Mister Noah's back, and take them bits that I've put out on the cover of the bread-pan.",1 "There's your tea; take it away to that box, and drink it there, and make haste, for they'll want you to mind the shop.",1 D'ye hear?',2 "'D'ye hear, Work'us?'",2 said Noah Claypole.,2 "'Lor, Noah!'",2 "said Charlotte, 'what a rum creature you are!",2 Why don't you let the boy alone?',2 'Let him alone!',2 said Noah.,2 "'Why everybody lets him alone enough, for the matter of that.",3 Neither his father nor his mother will ever interfere with him.,1 All his relations let him have his own way pretty well.,3 "Eh, Charlotte?",2 He!,2 he!,2 he!',2 "'Oh, you queer soul!'",1 "said Charlotte, bursting into a hearty laugh, in which she was joined by Noah; after which they both looked scornfully at poor Oliver Twist, as he sat shivering on the box in the coldest corner of the room, and ate the stale pieces which had been specially reserved for him.",0 "Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan.",1 "No chance-child was he, for he could trace his genealogy all the way back to his parents, who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his father a drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg, and a diurnal pension of twopence-halfpenny and an unstateable fraction.",1 "The shop-boys in the neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah in the public streets, with the ignominious epithets of 'leathers,' 'charity,' and the like; and Noah had bourne them without reply.",2 "But, now that fortune had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest.",1 This affords charming food for contemplation.,3 It shows us what a beautiful thing human nature may be made to be; and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy.,4 Oliver had been sojourning at the undertaker's some three weeks or a month.,2 "Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry--the shop being shut up--were taking their supper in the little back-parlour, when Mr. Sowerberry, after several deferential glances at his wife, said, 'My dear--' He was going to say more; but, Mrs. Sowerberry looking up, with a peculiarly unpropitious aspect, he stopped short.",1 "'Well,' said Mrs. Sowerberry, sharply.",1 "'Nothing, my dear, nothing,' said Mr. Sowerberry.",2 "'Ugh, you brute!'",1 said Mrs. Sowerberry.,2 "'Not at all, my dear,' said Mr. Sowerberry humbly.",2 "'I thought you didn't want to hear, my dear.",2 "I was only going to say--' 'Oh, don't tell me what you were going to say,' interposed Mrs. Sowerberry.",2 "'I am nobody; don't consult me, pray.",2 _I_ don't want to intrude upon your secrets.',1 "As Mrs. Sowerberry said this, she gave an hysterical laugh, which threatened violent consequences.",1 "'But, my dear,' said Sowerberry, 'I want to ask your advice.'",2 "'No, no, don't ask mine,' replied Mrs. Sowerberry, in an affecting manner: 'ask somebody else's.'",2 "Here, there was another hysterical laugh, which frightened Mr. Sowerberry very much.",1 "This is a very common and much-approved matrimonial course of treatment, which is often very effective.",3 "It at once reduced Mr. Sowerberry to begging, as a special favour, to be allowed to say what Mrs. Sowerberry was most curious to hear.",2 "After a short duration, the permission was most graciously conceded.",2 "'It's only about young Twist, my dear,' said Mr. Sowerberry.",1 "'A very good-looking boy, that, my dear.'",3 "'He need be, for he eats enough,' observed the lady.",3 "'There's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear,' resumed Mr. Sowerberry, 'which is very interesting.",2 "He would make a delightful mute, my love.'",3 Mrs. Sowerberry looked up with an expression of considerable wonderment.,2 "Mr. Sowerberry remarked it and, without allowing time for any observation on the good lady's part, proceeded.",3 "'I don't mean a regular mute to attend grown-up people, my dear, but only for children's practice.",2 "It would be very new to have a mute in proportion, my dear.",2 "You may depend upon it, it would have a superb effect.'",3 "Mrs. Sowerberry, who had a good deal of taste in the undertaking way, was much struck by the novelty of this idea; but, as it would have been compromising her dignity to have said so, under existing circumstances, she merely inquired, with much sharpness, why such an obvious suggestion had not presented itself to her husband's mind before?",3 "Mr. Sowerberry rightly construed this, as an acquiescence in his proposition; it was speedily determined, therefore, that Oliver should be at once initiated into the mysteries of the trade; and, with this view, that he should accompany his master on the very next occasion of his services being required.",4 The occasion was not long in coming.,2 "Half an hour after breakfast next morning, Mr. Bumble entered the shop; and supporting his cane against the counter, drew forth his large leathern pocket-book: from which he selected a small scrap of paper, which he handed over to Sowerberry.",2 'Aha!',2 "said the undertaker, glancing over it with a lively countenance; 'an order for a coffin, eh?'",3 "'For a coffin first, and a porochial funeral afterwards,' replied Mr. Bumble, fastening the strap of the leathern pocket-book: which, like himself, was very corpulent.",3 "'Bayton,' said the undertaker, looking from the scrap of paper to Mr. Bumble.",1 'I never heard the name before.',2 "Bumble shook his head, as he replied, 'Obstinate people, Mr. Sowerberry; very obstinate.",1 "Proud, too, I'm afraid, sir.'",2 "'Proud, eh?'",2 exclaimed Mr. Sowerberry with a sneer.,1 "'Come, that's too much.'",2 "'Oh, it's sickening,' replied the beadle.",1 "'Antimonial, Mr. Sowerberry!'",2 "'So it is,' acquiesced the undertaker.",2 "'We only heard of the family the night before last,' said the beadle; 'and we shouldn't have known anything about them, then, only a woman who lodges in the same house made an application to the porochial committee for them to send the porochial surgeon to see a woman as was very bad.",1 "He had gone out to dinner; but his 'prentice (which is a very clever lad) sent 'em some medicine in a blacking-bottle, offhand.'",3 "'Ah, there's promptness,' said the undertaker.",2 "'Promptness, indeed!'",2 replied the beadle.,2 "'But what's the consequence; what's the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir?",1 "Why, the husband sends back word that the medicine won't suit his wife's complaint, and so she shan't take it--says she shan't take it, sir!",1 "Good, strong, wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two Irish labourers and a coal-heaver, only a week before--sent 'em for nothing, with a blackin'-bottle in,--and he sends back word that she shan't take it, sir!'",4 "As the atrocity presented itself to Mr. Bumble's mind in full force, he struck the counter sharply with his cane, and became flushed with indignation.",0 "'Well,' said the undertaker, 'I ne--ver--did--' 'Never did, sir!'",2 ejaculated the beadle.,2 "'No, nor nobody never did; but now she's dead, we've got to bury her; and that's the direction; and the sooner it's done, the better.'",2 "Thus saying, Mr. Bumble put on his cocked hat wrong side first, in a fever of parochial excitement; and flounced out of the shop.",1 "'Why, he was so angry, Oliver, that he forgot even to ask after you!'",1 "said Mr. Sowerberry, looking after the beadle as he strode down the street.",2 "'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, who had carefully kept himself out of sight, during the interview; and who was shaking from head to foot at the mere recollection of the sound of Mr. Bumble's voice.",2 "He needn't haven taken the trouble to shrink from Mr. Bumble's glance, however; for that functionary, on whom the prediction of the gentleman in the white waistcoat had made a very strong impression, thought that now the undertaker had got Oliver upon trial the subject was better avoided, until such time as he should be firmly bound for seven years, and all danger of his being returned upon the hands of the parish should be thus effectually and legally overcome.",2 "'Well,' said Mr. Sowerberry, taking up his hat, 'the sooner this job is done, the better.",3 "Noah, look after the shop.",2 "Oliver, put on your cap, and come with me.'",2 "Oliver obeyed, and followed his master on his professional mission.",3 "They walked on, for some time, through the most crowded and densely inhabited part of the town; and then, striking down a narrow street more dirty and miserable than any they had yet passed through, paused to look for the house which was the object of their search.",0 "The houses on either side were high and large, but very old, and tenanted by people of the poorest class: as their neglected appearance would have sufficiently denoted, without the concurrent testimony afforded by the squalid looks of the few men and women who, with folded arms and bodies half doubled, occasionally skulked along.",1 "A great many of the tenements had shop-fronts; but these were fast closed, and mouldering away; only the upper rooms being inhabited.",3 "Some houses which had become insecure from age and decay, were prevented from falling into the street, by huge beams of wood reared against the walls, and firmly planted in the road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have been selected as the nightly haunts of some houseless wretches, for many of the rough boards which supplied the place of door and window, were wrenched from their positions, to afford an aperture wide enough for the passage of a human body.",0 The kennel was stagnant and filthy.,1 "The very rats, which here and there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were hideous with famine.",1 "There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door where Oliver and his master stopped; so, groping his way cautiously through the dark passage, and bidding Oliver keep close to him and not be afraid the undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs.",2 "Stumbling against a door on the landing, he rapped at it with his knuckles.",2 It was opened by a young girl of thirteen or fourteen.,2 "The undertaker at once saw enough of what the room contained, to know it was the apartment to which he had been directed.",3 He stepped in; Oliver followed him.,2 "There was no fire in the room; but a man was crouching, mechanically, over the empty stove.",2 "An old woman, too, had drawn a low stool to the cold hearth, and was sitting beside him.",1 "There were some ragged children in another corner; and in a small recess, opposite the door, there lay upon the ground, something covered with an old blanket.",1 "Oliver shuddered as he cast his eyes toward the place, and crept involuntarily closer to his master; for though it was covered up, the boy felt that it was a corpse.",1 The man's face was thin and very pale; his hair and beard were grizzly; his eyes were bloodshot.,1 The old woman's face was wrinkled; her two remaining teeth protruded over her under lip; and her eyes were bright and piercing.,2 Oliver was afraid to look at either her or the man.,1 They seemed so like the rats he had seen outside.,3 "'Nobody shall go near her,' said the man, starting fiercely up, as the undertaker approached the recess.",2 'Keep back!,2 "Damn you, keep back, if you've a life to lose!'",1 "'Nonsense, my good man,' said the undertaker, who was pretty well used to misery in all its shapes.",3 'Nonsense!',2 "'I tell you,' said the man: clenching his hands, and stamping furiously on the floor,--'I tell you I won't have her put into the ground.",1 She couldn't rest there.,2 The worms would worry her--not eat her--she is so worn away.',1 "The undertaker offered no reply to this raving; but producing a tape from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body.",1 'Ah!',2 "said the man: bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at the feet of the dead woman; 'kneel down, kneel down--kneel round her, every one of you, and mark my words!",1 I say she was starved to death.,1 "I never knew how bad she was, till the fever came upon her; and then her bones were starting through the skin.",1 There was neither fire nor candle; she died in the dark--in the dark!,1 "She couldn't even see her children's faces, though we heard her gasping out their names.",2 I begged for her in the streets: and they sent me to prison.,1 "When I came back, she was dying; and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they starved her to death.",1 I swear it before the God that saw it!,2 They starved her!',2 "He twined his hands in his hair; and, with a loud scream, rolled grovelling upon the floor: his eyes fixed, and the foam covering his lips.",1 "The terrified children cried bitterly; but the old woman, who had hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that passed, menaced them into silence.",1 "Having unloosened the cravat of the man who still remained extended on the ground, she tottered towards the undertaker.",2 "'She was my daughter,' said the old woman, nodding her head in the direction of the corpse; and speaking with an idiotic leer, more ghastly than even the presence of death in such a place.",0 "'Lord, Lord!",2 "Well, it _is_ strange that I who gave birth to her, and was a woman then, should be alive and merry now, and she lying there: so cold and stiff!",1 "Lord, Lord!--to think of it; it's as good as a play--as good as a play!'",3 "As the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merriment, the undertaker turned to go away.",1 "'Stop, stop!'",2 said the old woman in a loud whisper.,1 "'Will she be buried to-morrow, or next day, or to-night?",2 "I laid her out; and I must walk, you know.",2 Send me a large cloak: a good warm one: for it is bitter cold.,2 "We should have cake and wine, too, before we go!",2 Never mind; send some bread--only a loaf of bread and a cup of water.,2 "Shall we have some bread, dear?'",2 "she said eagerly: catching at the undertaker's coat, as he once more moved towards the door.",3 "'Yes, yes,' said the undertaker,'of course.",2 Anything you like!',3 "He disengaged himself from the old woman's grasp; and, drawing Oliver after him, hurried away.",2 "The next day, (the family having been meanwhile relieved with a half-quartern loaf and a piece of cheese, left with them by Mr. Bumble himself,) Oliver and his master returned to the miserable abode; where Mr. Bumble had already arrived, accompanied by four men from the workhouse, who were to act as bearers.",2 "An old black cloak had been thrown over the rags of the old woman and the man; and the bare coffin having been screwed down, was hoisted on the shoulders of the bearers, and carried into the street.",1 "'Now, you must put your best leg foremost, old lady!'",3 "whispered Sowerberry in the old woman's ear; 'we are rather late; and it won't do, to keep the clergyman waiting.",2 "Move on, my men,--as quick as you like!'",3 "Thus directed, the bearers trotted on under their light burden; and the two mourners kept as near them, as they could.",1 "Mr. Bumble and Sowerberry walked at a good smart pace in front; and Oliver, whose legs were not so long as his master's, ran by the side.",3 "There was not so great a necessity for hurrying as Mr. Sowerberry had anticipated, however; for when they reached the obscure corner of the churchyard in which the nettles grew, and where the parish graves were made, the clergyman had not arrived; and the clerk, who was sitting by the vestry-room fire, seemed to think it by no means improbable that it might be an hour or so, before he came.",1 "So, they put the bier on the brink of the grave; and the two mourners waited patiently in the damp clay, with a cold rain drizzling down, while the ragged boys whom the spectacle had attracted into the churchyard played a noisy game at hide-and-seek among the tombstones, or varied their amusements by jumping backwards and forwards over the coffin.",1 "Mr. Sowerberry and Bumble, being personal friends of the clerk, sat by the fire with him, and read the paper.",2 "At length, after a lapse of something more than an hour, Mr. Bumble, and Sowerberry, and the clerk, were seen running towards the grave.",1 "Immediately afterwards, the clergyman appeared: putting on his surplice as he came along.",2 "Mr. Bumble then thrashed a boy or two, to keep up appearances; and the reverend gentleman, having read as much of the burial service as could be compressed into four minutes, gave his surplice to the clerk, and walked away again.",2 "'Now, Bill!'",2 said Sowerberry to the grave-digger.,2 'Fill up!',2 "It was no very difficult task, for the grave was so full, that the uppermost coffin was within a few feet of the surface.",1 "The grave-digger shovelled in the earth; stamped it loosely down with his feet: shouldered his spade; and walked off, followed by the boys, who murmured very loud complaints at the fun being over so soon.",1 "'Come, my good fellow!'",3 "said Bumble, tapping the man on the back.",2 'They want to shut up the yard.',2 "The man who had never once moved, since he had taken his station by the grave side, started, raised his head, stared at the person who had addressed him, walked forward for a few paces; and fell down in a swoon.",1 "The crazy old woman was too much occupied in bewailing the loss of her cloak (which the undertaker had taken off), to pay him any attention; so they threw a can of cold water over him; and when he came to, saw him safely out of the churchyard, locked the gate, and departed on their different ways.",1 "'Well, Oliver,' said Sowerberry, as they walked home, 'how do you like it?'",3 "'Pretty well, thank you, sir' replied Oliver, with considerable hesitation.",3 "'Not very much, sir.'",2 "'Ah, you'll get used to it in time, Oliver,' said Sowerberry.",2 "'Nothing when you _are_ used to it, my boy.'",2 "Oliver wondered, in his own mind, whether it had taken a very long time to get Mr. Sowerberry used to it.",2 But he thought it better not to ask the question; and walked back to the shop: thinking over all he had seen and heard.,3 "The month's trial over, Oliver was formally apprenticed.",2 It was a nice sickly season just at this time.,2 "In commercial phrase, coffins were looking up; and, in the course of a few weeks, Oliver acquired a great deal of experience.",3 "The success of Mr. Sowerberry's ingenious speculation, exceeded even his most sanguine hopes.",4 "The oldest inhabitants recollected no period at which measles had been so prevalent, or so fatal to infant existence; and many were the mournful processions which little Oliver headed, in a hat-band reaching down to his knees, to the indescribable admiration and emotion of all the mothers in the town.",1 "As Oliver accompanied his master in most of his adult expeditions too, in order that he might acquire that equanimity of demeanour and full command of nerve which was essential to a finished undertaker, he had many opportunities of observing the beautiful resignation and fortitude with which some strong-minded people bear their trials and losses.",3 "For instance; when Sowerberry had an order for the burial of some rich old lady or gentleman, who was surrounded by a great number of nephews and nieces, who had been perfectly inconsolable during the previous illness, and whose grief had been wholly irrepressible even on the most public occasions, they would be as happy among themselves as need be--quite cheerful and contented--conversing together with as much freedom and gaiety, as if nothing whatever had happened to disturb them.",3 "Husbands, too, bore the loss of their wives with the most heroic calmness.",2 "Wives, again, put on weeds for their husbands, as if, so far from grieving in the garb of sorrow, they had made up their minds to render it as becoming and attractive as possible.",1 "It was observable, too, that ladies and gentlemen who were in passions of anguish during the ceremony of interment, recovered almost as soon as they reached home, and became quite composed before the tea-drinking was over.",1 All this was very pleasant and improving to see; and Oliver beheld it with great admiration.,4 "That Oliver Twist was moved to resignation by the example of these good people, I cannot, although I am his biographer, undertake to affirm with any degree of confidence; but I can most distinctly say, that for many months he continued meekly to submit to the domination and ill-treatment of Noah Claypole: who used him far worse than before, now that his jealousy was roused by seeing the new boy promoted to the black stick and hatband, while he, the old one, remained stationary in the muffin-cap and leathers.",1 "Charlotte treated him ill, because Noah did; and Mrs. Sowerberry was his decided enemy, because Mr. Sowerberry was disposed to be his friend; so, between these three on one side, and a glut of funerals on the other, Oliver was not altogether as comfortable as the hungry pig was, when he was shut up, by mistake, in the grain department of a brewery.",0 "And now, I come to a very important passage in Oliver's history; for I have to record an act, slight and unimportant perhaps in appearance, but which indirectly produced a material change in all his future prospects and proceedings.",2 "One day, Oliver and Noah had descended into the kitchen at the usual dinner-hour, to banquet upon a small joint of mutton--a pound and a half of the worst end of the neck--when Charlotte being called out of the way, there ensued a brief interval of time, which Noah Claypole, being hungry and vicious, considered he could not possibly devote to a worthier purpose than aggravating and tantalising young Oliver Twist.",0 "Intent upon this innocent amusement, Noah put his feet on the table-cloth; and pulled Oliver's hair; and twitched his ears; and expressed his opinion that he was a 'sneak'; and furthermore announced his intention of coming to see him hanged, whenever that desirable event should take place; and entered upon various topics of petty annoyance, like a malicious and ill-conditioned charity-boy as he was.",1 "But, making Oliver cry, Noah attempted to be more facetious still; and in his attempt, did what many sometimes do to this day, when they want to be funny.",0 He got rather personal.,2 "'Work'us,' said Noah, 'how's your mother?'",2 "'She's dead,' replied Oliver; 'don't you say anything about her to me!'",1 "Oliver's colour rose as he said this; he breathed quickly; and there was a curious working of the mouth and nostrils, which Mr. Claypole thought must be the immediate precursor of a violent fit of crying.",1 Under this impression he returned to the charge.,2 "'What did she die of, Work'us?'",1 said Noah.,2 "'Of a broken heart, some of our old nurses told me,' replied Oliver: more as if he were talking to himself, than answering Noah.",1 'I think I know what it must be to die of that!',1 "'Tol de rol lol lol, right fol lairy, Work'us,' said Noah, as a tear rolled down Oliver's cheek.",3 'What's set you a snivelling now?',2 "'Not _you_,' replied Oliver, sharply.",1 'There; that's enough.,3 Don't say anything more to me about her; you'd better not!',3 'Better not!',2 exclaimed Noah.,2 'Well!,2 Better not!,3 "Work'us, don't be impudent.",1 "_Your_ mother, too!",2 She was a nice 'un she was.,3 "Oh, Lor!'",2 "And here, Noah nodded his head expressively; and curled up as much of his small red nose as muscular action could collect together, for the occasion.",2 "'Yer know, Work'us,' continued Noah, emboldened by Oliver's silence, and speaking in a jeering tone of affected pity: of all tones the most annoying: 'Yer know, Work'us, it can't be helped now; and of course yer couldn't help it then; and I am very sorry for it; and I'm sure we all are, and pity yer very much.",0 "But yer must know, Work'us, yer mother was a regular right-down bad 'un.'",2 'What did you say?',2 "inquired Oliver, looking up very quickly.",2 "'A regular right-down bad 'un, Work'us,' replied Noah, coolly.",2 "'And it's a great deal better, Work'us, that she died when she did, or else she'd have been hard labouring in Bridewell, or transported, or hung; which is more likely than either, isn't it?'",1 "Crimson with fury, Oliver started up; overthrew the chair and table; seized Noah by the throat; shook him, in the violence of his rage, till his teeth chattered in his head; and collecting his whole force into one heavy blow, felled him to the ground.",0 "A minute ago, the boy had looked the quiet child, mild, dejected creature that harsh treatment had made him.",1 But his spirit was roused at last; the cruel insult to his dead mother had set his blood on fire.,0 "His breast heaved; his attitude was erect; his eye bright and vivid; his whole person changed, as he stood glaring over the cowardly tormentor who now lay crouching at his feet; and defied him with an energy he had never known before.",3 'He'll murder me!',1 blubbered Noah.,2 'Charlotte!,2 missis!,2 Here's the new boy a murdering of me!,2 Help!,2 help!,2 Oliver's gone mad!,1 Char--lotte!',2 "Noah's shouts were responded to, by a loud scream from Charlotte, and a louder from Mrs. Sowerberry; the former of whom rushed into the kitchen by a side-door, while the latter paused on the staircase till she was quite certain that it was consistent with the preservation of human life, to come further down.",1 "'Oh, you little wretch!'",1 "screamed Charlotte: seizing Oliver with her utmost force, which was about equal to that of a moderately strong man in particularly good training.",3 "'Oh, you little un-grate-ful, mur-de-rous, hor-rid villain!'",1 "And between every syllable, Charlotte gave Oliver a blow with all her might: accompanying it with a scream, for the benefit of society.",1 "Charlotte's fist was by no means a light one; but, lest it should not be effectual in calming Oliver's wrath, Mrs. Sowerberry plunged into the kitchen, and assisted to hold him with one hand, while she scratched his face with the other.",1 "In this favourable position of affairs, Noah rose from the ground, and pommelled him behind.",2 This was rather too violent exercise to last long.,1 "When they were all wearied out, and could tear and beat no longer, they dragged Oliver, struggling and shouting, but nothing daunted, into the dust-cellar, and there locked him up.",0 "This being done, Mrs. Sowerberry sunk into a chair, and burst into tears.",1 "'Bless her, she's going off!'",2 said Charlotte.,2 "'A glass of water, Noah, dear.",2 Make haste!',1 'Oh!,2 "Charlotte,' said Mrs. Sowerberry: speaking as well as she could, through a deficiency of breath, and a sufficiency of cold water, which Noah had poured over her head and shoulders.",1 'Oh!,2 "Charlotte, what a mercy we have not all been murdered in our beds!'",3 'Ah!,2 "mercy indeed, ma'am,' was the reply.",3 "I only hope this'll teach master not to have any more of these dreadful creatures, that are born to be murderers and robbers from their very cradle.",2 Poor Noah!,1 "He was all but killed, ma'am, when I come in.'",1 'Poor fellow!',2 said Mrs. Sowerberry: looking piteously on the charity-boy.,2 "Noah, whose top waistcoat-button might have been somewhere on a level with the crown of Oliver's head, rubbed his eyes with the inside of his wrists while this commiseration was bestowed upon him, and performed some affecting tears and sniffs.",3 'What's to be done!',2 exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry.,2 "'Your master's not at home; there's not a man in the house, and he'll kick that door down in ten minutes.'",2 "Oliver's vigorous plunges against the bit of timber in question, rendered this occurance highly probable.",2 "'Dear, dear!",2 "I don't know, ma'am,' said Charlotte, 'unless we send for the police-officers.'",2 "'Or the millingtary,' suggested Mr. Claypole.",2 "'No, no,' said Mrs. Sowerberry: bethinking herself of Oliver's old friend.",2 "'Run to Mr. Bumble, Noah, and tell him to come here directly, and not to lose a minute; never mind your cap!",1 Make haste!,1 "You can hold a knife to that black eye, as you run along.",1 It'll keep the swelling down.',1 "Noah stopped to make no reply, but started off at his fullest speed; and very much it astonished the people who were out walking, to see a charity-boy tearing through the streets pell-mell, with no cap on his head, and a clasp-knife at his eye.",2 "Noah Claypole ran along the streets at his swiftest pace, and paused not once for breath, until he reached the workhouse-gate.",2 "Having rested here, for a minute or so, to collect a good burst of sobs and an imposing show of tears and terror, he knocked loudly at the wicket; and presented such a rueful face to the aged pauper who opened it, that even he, who saw nothing but rueful faces about him at the best of times, started back in astonishment.",2 "'Why, what's the matter with the boy!'",2 said the old pauper.,1 'Mr. Bumble!,2 Mr. Bumble!',2 "cried Noah, with well-affected dismay: and in tones so loud and agitated, that they not only caught the ear of Mr. Bumble himself, who happened to be hard by, but alarmed him so much that he rushed into the yard without his cocked hat,--which is a very curious and remarkable circumstance: as showing that even a beadle, acted upon a sudden and powerful impulse, may be afflicted with a momentary visitation of loss of self-possession, and forgetfulness of personal dignity.",1 "'Oh, Mr. Bumble, sir!'",2 "said Noah: 'Oliver, sir,--Oliver has--' 'What?",2 What?',2 interposed Mr. Bumble: with a gleam of pleasure in his metallic eyes.,3 "'Not run away; he hasn't run away, has he, Noah?'",2 "'No, sir, no.",2 "Not run away, sir, but he's turned wicious,' replied Noah.",2 "'He tried to murder me, sir; and then he tried to murder Charlotte; and then missis.",1 Oh!,2 what dreadful pain it is!,1 "Such agony, please, sir!'",1 "And here, Noah writhed and twisted his body into an extensive variety of eel-like positions; thereby giving Mr. Bumble to understand that, from the violent and sanguinary onset of Oliver Twist, he had sustained severe internal injury and damage, from which he was at that moment suffering the acutest torture.",0 "When Noah saw that the intelligence he communicated perfectly paralysed Mr. Bumble, he imparted additional effect thereunto, by bewailing his dreadful wounds ten times louder than before; and when he observed a gentleman in a white waistcoat crossing the yard, he was more tragic in his lamentations than ever: rightly conceiving it highly expedient to attract the notice, and rouse the indignation, of the gentleman aforesaid.",1 "The gentleman's notice was very soon attracted; for he had not walked three paces, when he turned angrily round, and inquired what that young cur was howling for, and why Mr. Bumble did not favour him with something which would render the series of vocular exclamations so designated, an involuntary process?",1 "'It's a poor boy from the free-school, sir,' replied Mr. Bumble, 'who has been nearly murdered--all but murdered, sir,--by young Twist.'",1 'By Jove!',2 "exclaimed the gentleman in the white waistcoat, stopping short.",2 'I knew it!,2 "I felt a strange presentiment from the very first, that that audacious young savage would come to be hung!'",0 "'He has likewise attempted, sir, to murder the female servant,' said Mr. Bumble, with a face of ashy paleness.",1 "'And his missis,' interposed Mr. Claypole.",2 "'And his master, too, I think you said, Noah?'",3 added Mr. Bumble.,2 'No!,2 "he's out, or he would have murdered him,' replied Noah.",2 'He said he wanted to.',2 'Ah!,2 "Said he wanted to, did he, my boy?'",2 inquired the gentleman in the white waistcoat.,2 "'Yes, sir,' replied Noah.",2 "'And please, sir, missis wants to know whether Mr. Bumble can spare time to step up there, directly, and flog him--'cause master's out.'",2 "'Certainly, my boy; certainly,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat: smiling benignly, and patting Noah's head, which was about three inches higher than his own.",3 'You're a good boy--a very good boy.,3 Here's a penny for you.,2 "Bumble, just step up to Sowerberry's with your cane, and see what's best to be done.",3 "Don't spare him, Bumble.'",2 "'No, I will not, sir,' replied the beadle.",2 "And the cocked hat and cane having been, by this time, adjusted to their owner's satisfaction, Mr. Bumble and Noah Claypole betook themselves with all speed to the undertaker's shop.",2 Here the position of affairs had not at all improved.,3 "Sowerberry had not yet returned, and Oliver continued to kick, with undiminished vigour, at the cellar-door.",2 "The accounts of his ferocity as related by Mrs. Sowerberry and Charlotte, were of so startling a nature, that Mr. Bumble judged it prudent to parley, before opening the door.",1 "With this view he gave a kick at the outside, by way of prelude; and, then, applying his mouth to the keyhole, said, in a deep and impressive tone: 'Oliver!'",3 'Come; you let me out!',2 "replied Oliver, from the inside.",2 "'Do you know this here voice, Oliver?'",2 said Mr. Bumble.,2 "'Yes,' replied Oliver.",2 "'Ain't you afraid of it, sir?",1 "Ain't you a-trembling while I speak, sir?'",2 said Mr. Bumble.,2 'No!',2 "replied Oliver, boldly.",2 "An answer so different from the one he had expected to elicit, and was in the habit of receiving, staggered Mr. Bumble not a little.",2 "He stepped back from the keyhole; drew himself up to his full height; and looked from one to another of the three bystanders, in mute astonishment.",3 "'Oh, you know, Mr. Bumble, he must be mad,' said Mrs. Sowerberry.",1 'No boy in half his senses could venture to speak so to you.',2 "'It's not Madness, ma'am,' replied Mr. Bumble, after a few moments of deep meditation.",1 'It's Meat.',2 'What?',2 exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry.,2 "'Meat, ma'am, meat,' replied Bumble, with stern emphasis.",1 "'You've over-fed him, ma'am.",2 "You've raised a artificial soul and spirit in him, ma'am unbecoming a person of his condition: as the board, Mrs. Sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell you.",2 What have paupers to do with soul or spirit?,1 It's quite enough that we let 'em have live bodies.,3 "If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma'am, this would never have happened.'",2 "'Dear, dear!'",2 "ejaculated Mrs. Sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to the kitchen ceiling: 'this comes of being liberal!'",2 "The liberality of Mrs. Sowerberry to Oliver, had consisted of a profuse bestowal upon him of all the dirty odds and ends which nobody else would eat; so there was a great deal of meekness and self-devotion in her voluntarily remaining under Mr. Bumble's heavy accusation.",2 "Of which, to do her justice, she was wholly innocent, in thought, word, or deed.",2 'Ah!',2 "said Mr. Bumble, when the lady brought her eyes down to earth again; 'the only thing that can be done now, that I know of, is to leave him in the cellar for a day or so, till he's a little starved down; and then to take him out, and keep him on gruel all through the apprenticeship.",2 He comes of a bad family.,1 "Excitable natures, Mrs. Sowerberry!",2 "Both the nurse and doctor said, that that mother of his made her way here, against difficulties and pain that would have killed any well-disposed woman, weeks before.'",1 "At this point of Mr. Bumble's discourse, Oliver, just hearing enough to know that some allusion was being made to his mother, recommenced kicking, with a violence that rendered every other sound inaudible.",2 Sowerberry returned at this juncture.,2 "Oliver's offence having been explained to him, with such exaggerations as the ladies thought best calculated to rouse his ire, he unlocked the cellar-door in a twinkling, and dragged his rebellious apprentice out, by the collar.",0 Oliver's clothes had been torn in the beating he had received; his face was bruised and scratched; and his hair scattered over his forehead.,1 "The angry flush had not disappeared, however; and when he was pulled out of his prison, he scowled boldly on Noah, and looked quite undismayed.",1 "'Now, you are a nice young fellow, ain't you?'",3 "said Sowerberry; giving Oliver a shake, and a box on the ear.",1 "'He called my mother names,' replied Oliver.",2 "'Well, and what if he did, you little ungrateful wretch?'",1 said Mrs. Sowerberry.,2 "'She deserved what he said, and worse.'",1 'She didn't' said Oliver.,2 "'She did,' said Mrs. Sowerberry.",2 'It's a lie!',1 said Oliver.,2 Mrs. Sowerberry burst into a flood of tears.,2 This flood of tears left Mr. Sowerberry no alternative.,2 "If he had hesitated for one instant to punish Oliver most severely, it must be quite clear to every experienced reader that he would have been, according to all precedents in disputes of matrimony established, a brute, an unnatural husband, an insulting creature, a base imitation of a man, and various other agreeable characters too numerous for recital within the limits of this chapter.",0 "To do him justice, he was, as far as his power went--it was not very extensive--kindly disposed towards the boy; perhaps, because it was his interest to be so; perhaps, because his wife disliked him.",2 "The flood of tears, however, left him no resource; so he at once gave him a drubbing, which satisfied even Mrs. Sowerberry herself, and rendered Mr. Bumble's subsequent application of the parochial cane, rather unnecessary.",2 "For the rest of the day, he was shut up in the back kitchen, in company with a pump and a slice of bread; and at night, Mrs. Sowerberry, after making various remarks outside the door, by no means complimentary to the memory of his mother, looked into the room, and, amidst the jeers and pointings of Noah and Charlotte, ordered him upstairs to his dismal bed.",1 "It was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness of the gloomy workshop of the undertaker, that Oliver gave way to the feelings which the day's treatment may be supposed likely to have awakened in a mere child.",1 "He had listened to their taunts with a look of contempt; he had borne the lash without a cry: for he felt that pride swelling in his heart which would have kept down a shriek to the last, though they had roasted him alive.",0 "But now, when there were none to see or hear him, he fell upon his knees on the floor; and, hiding his face in his hands, wept such tears as, God send for the credit of our nature, few so young may ever have cause to pour out before him!",1 "For a long time, Oliver remained motionless in this attitude.",1 The candle was burning low in the socket when he rose to his feet.,1 "Having gazed cautiously round him, and listened intently, he gently undid the fastenings of the door, and looked abroad.",1 "It was a cold, dark night.",1 "The stars seemed, to the boy's eyes, farther from the earth than he had ever seen them before; there was no wind; and the sombre shadows thrown by the trees upon the ground, looked sepulchral and death-like, from being so still.",2 He softly reclosed the door.,2 "Having availed himself of the expiring light of the candle to tie up in a handkerchief the few articles of wearing apparel he had, sat himself down upon a bench, to wait for morning.",2 "With the first ray of light that struggled through the crevices in the shutters, Oliver arose, and again unbarred the door.",1 "One timid look around--one moment's pause of hesitation--he had closed it behind him, and was in the open street.",1 "He looked to the right and to the left, uncertain whither to fly.",2 "He remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up the hill.",2 "He took the same route; and arriving at a footpath across the fields: which he knew, after some distance, led out again into the road; struck into it, and walked quickly on.",2 "Along this same footpath, Oliver well-remembered he had trotted beside Mr. Bumble, when he first carried him to the workhouse from the farm.",3 His way lay directly in front of the cottage.,2 His heart beat quickly when he bethought himself of this; and he half resolved to turn back.,2 "He had come a long way though, and should lose a great deal of time by doing so.",2 "Besides, it was so early that there was very little fear of his being seen; so he walked on.",1 He reached the house.,2 There was no appearance of its inmates stirring at that early hour.,2 "Oliver stopped, and peeped into the garden.",2 "A child was weeding one of the little beds; as he stopped, he raised his pale face and disclosed the features of one of his former companions.",1 "Oliver felt glad to see him, before he went; for, though younger than himself, he had been his little friend and playmate.",3 "They had been beaten, and starved, and shut up together, many and many a time.",2 "'Hush, Dick!'",1 "said Oliver, as the boy ran to the gate, and thrust his thin arm between the rails to greet him.",2 'Is any one up?',2 "'Nobody but me,' replied the child.",2 "'You musn't say you saw me, Dick,' said Oliver.",1 'I am running away.,2 "They beat and ill-use me, Dick; and I am going to seek my fortune, some long way off.",2 I don't know where.,2 How pale you are!',1 "'I heard the doctor tell them I was dying,' replied the child with a faint smile.",1 "'I am very glad to see you, dear; but don't stop, don't stop!'",3 "'Yes, yes, I will, to say good-b'ye to you,' replied Oliver.",3 "'I shall see you again, Dick.",1 I know I shall!,2 You will be well and happy!',3 "'I hope so,' replied the child.",2 "'After I am dead, but not before.",1 "I know the doctor must be right, Oliver, because I dream so much of Heaven, and Angels, and kind faces that I never see when I am awake.",3 "Kiss me,' said the child, climbing up the low gate, and flinging his little arms round Oliver's neck.",2 "'Good-b'ye, dear!",2 God bless you!',3 "The blessing was from a young child's lips, but it was the first that Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles and sufferings, and troubles and changes, of his after life, he never once forgot it.",1 Oliver reached the stile at which the by-path terminated; and once more gained the high-road.,3 It was eight o'clock now.,2 "Though he was nearly five miles away from the town, he ran, and hid behind the hedges, by turns, till noon: fearing that he might be pursued and overtaken.",3 "Then he sat down to rest by the side of the milestone, and began to think, for the first time, where he had better go and try to live.",3 "The stone by which he was seated, bore, in large characters, an intimation that it was just seventy miles from that spot to London.",1 The name awakened a new train of ideas in the boy's mind.,2 London!--that great place!--nobody--not even Mr. Bumble--could ever find him there!,3 "He had often heard the old men in the workhouse, too, say that no lad of spirit need want in London; and that there were ways of living in that vast city, which those who had been bred up in country parts had no idea of.",2 "It was the very place for a homeless boy, who must die in the streets unless some one helped him.",2 "As these things passed through his thoughts, he jumped upon his feet, and again walked forward.",2 "He had diminished the distance between himself and London by full four miles more, before he recollected how much he must undergo ere he could hope to reach his place of destination.",2 "As this consideration forced itself upon him, he slackened his pace a little, and meditated upon his means of getting there.",2 "He had a crust of bread, a coarse shirt, and two pairs of stockings, in his bundle.",1 He had a penny too--a gift of Sowerberry's after some funeral in which he had acquitted himself more than ordinarily well--in his pocket.,3 "'A clean shirt,' thought Oliver, 'is a very comfortable thing; and so are two pairs of darned stockings; and so is a penny; but they are small helps to a sixty-five miles' walk in winter time.'",3 "But Oliver's thoughts, like those of most other people, although they were extremely ready and active to point out his difficulties, were wholly at a loss to suggest any feasible mode of surmounting them; so, after a good deal of thinking to no particular purpose, he changed his little bundle over to the other shoulder, and trudged on.",3 "Oliver walked twenty miles that day; and all that time tasted nothing but the crust of dry bread, and a few draughts of water, which he begged at the cottage-doors by the road-side.",2 "When the night came, he turned into a meadow; and, creeping close under a hay-rick, determined to lie there, till morning.",1 "He felt frightened at first, for the wind moaned dismally over the empty fields: and he was cold and hungry, and more alone than he had ever felt before.",1 "Being very tired with his walk, however, he soon fell asleep and forgot his troubles.",0 "He felt cold and stiff, when he got up next morning, and so hungry that he was obliged to exchange the penny for a small loaf, in the very first village through which he passed.",1 "He had walked no more than twelve miles, when night closed in again.",2 "His feet were sore, and his legs so weak that they trembled beneath him.",1 "Another night passed in the bleak damp air, made him worse; when he set forward on his journey next morning he could hardly crawl along.",1 "He waited at the bottom of a steep hill till a stage-coach came up, and then begged of the outside passengers; but there were very few who took any notice of him: and even those told him to wait till they got to the top of the hill, and then let them see how far he could run for a halfpenny.",2 "Poor Oliver tried to keep up with the coach a little way, but was unable to do it, by reason of his fatigue and sore feet.",0 "When the outsides saw this, they put their halfpence back into their pockets again, declaring that he was an idle young dog, and didn't deserve anything; and the coach rattled away and left only a cloud of dust behind.",0 "In some villages, large painted boards were fixed up: warning all persons who begged within the district, that they would be sent to jail.",1 "This frightened Oliver very much, and made him glad to get out of those villages with all possible expedition.",3 "In others, he would stand about the inn-yards, and look mournfully at every one who passed: a proceeding which generally terminated in the landlady's ordering one of the post-boys who were lounging about, to drive that strange boy out of the place, for she was sure he had come to steal something.",0 "If he begged at a farmer's house, ten to one but they threatened to set the dog on him; and when he showed his nose in a shop, they talked about the beadle--which brought Oliver's heart into his mouth,--very often the only thing he had there, for many hours together.",2 "In fact, if it had not been for a good-hearted turnpike-man, and a benevolent old lady, Oliver's troubles would have been shortened by the very same process which had put an end to his mother's; in other words, he would most assuredly have fallen dead upon the king's highway.",2 "But the turnpike-man gave him a meal of bread and cheese; and the old lady, who had a shipwrecked grandson wandering barefoot in some distant part of the earth, took pity upon the poor orphan, and gave him what little she could afford--and more--with such kind and gentle words, and such tears of sympathy and compassion, that they sank deeper into Oliver's soul, than all the sufferings he had ever undergone.",2 "Early on the seventh morning after he had left his native place, Oliver limped slowly into the little town of Barnet.",1 The window-shutters were closed; the street was empty; not a soul had awakened to the business of the day.,2 "The sun was rising in all its splendid beauty; but the light only served to show the boy his own lonesomeness and desolation, as he sat, with bleeding feet and covered with dust, upon a door-step.",1 "By degrees, the shutters were opened; the window-blinds were drawn up; and people began passing to and fro.",2 "Some few stopped to gaze at Oliver for a moment or two, or turned round to stare at him as they hurried by; but none relieved him, or troubled themselves to inquire how he came there.",1 He had no heart to beg.,1 And there he sat.,2 "He had been crouching on the step for some time: wondering at the great number of public-houses (every other house in Barnet was a tavern, large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches as they passed through, and thinking how strange it seemed that they could do, with ease, in a few hours, what it had taken him a whole week of courage and determination beyond his years to accomplish: when he was roused by observing that a boy, who had passed him carelessly some minutes before, had returned, and was now surveying him most earnestly from the opposite side of the way.",4 "He took little heed of this at first; but the boy remained in the same attitude of close observation so long, that Oliver raised his head, and returned his steady look.",3 "Upon this, the boy crossed over; and walking close up to Oliver, said, 'Hullo, my covey!",2 What's the row?',2 "The boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer, was about his own age: but one of the queerest looking boys that Oliver had even seen.",2 "He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough; and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man.",1 "He was short of his age: with rather bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes.",2 "His hat was stuck on the top of his head so lightly, that it threatened to fall off every moment--and would have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it back to its old place again.",1 "He wore a man's coat, which reached nearly to his heels.",2 "He had turned the cuffs back, half-way up his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves: apparently with the ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers; for there he kept them.",2 "He was, altogether, as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in the bluchers.",2 "'Hullo, my covey!",2 What's the row?',2 said this strange young gentleman to Oliver.,1 "'I am very hungry and tired,' replied Oliver: the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke.",1 'I have walked a long way.,2 I have been walking these seven days.',2 'Walking for sivin days!',2 said the young gentleman.,2 "'Oh, I see.",2 "Beak's order, eh?",2 "But,' he added, noticing Oliver's look of surprise, 'I suppose you don't know what a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on.'",1 "Oliver mildly replied, that he had always heard a bird's mouth described by the term in question.",2 "'My eyes, how green!'",2 exclaimed the young gentleman.,2 "'Why, a beak's a madgst'rate; and when you walk by a beak's order, it's not straight forerd, but always agoing up, and niver a coming down agin.",2 Was you never on the mill?',2 'What mill?',2 inquired Oliver.,2 'What mill!,2 "Why, _the_ mill--the mill as takes up so little room that it'll work inside a Stone Jug; and always goes better when the wind's low with people, than when it's high; acos then they can't get workmen.",3 "But come,' said the young gentleman; 'you want grub, and you shall have it.",2 "I'm at low-water-mark myself--only one bob and a magpie; but, as far as it goes, I'll fork out and stump.",1 Up with you on your pins.,2 There!,2 Now then!,2 'Morrice!',2 "Assisting Oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to an adjacent chandler's shop, where he purchased a sufficiency of ready-dressed ham and a half-quartern loaf, or, as he himself expressed it, 'a fourpenny bran!'",3 "the ham being kept clean and preserved from dust, by the ingenious expedient of making a hole in the loaf by pulling out a portion of the crumb, and stuffing it therein.",3 "Taking the bread under his arm, the young gentlman turned into a small public-house, and led the way to a tap-room in the rear of the premises.",3 "Here, a pot of beer was brought in, by direction of the mysterious youth; and Oliver, falling to, at his new friend's bidding, made a long and hearty meal, during the progress of which the strange boy eyed him from time to time with great attention.",1 'Going to London?',2 "said the strange boy, when Oliver had at length concluded.",1 'Yes.',2 'Got any lodgings?',2 'No.',2 'Money?',2 'No.',2 "The strange boy whistled; and put his arms into his pockets, as far as the big coat-sleeves would let them go.",1 'Do you live in London?',2 inquired Oliver.,2 'Yes.,2 "I do, when I'm at home,' replied the boy.",2 "'I suppose you want some place to sleep in to-night, don't you?'",2 "'I do, indeed,' answered Oliver.",2 'I have not slept under a roof since I left the country.',2 "'Don't fret your eyelids on that score,' said the young gentleman.",1 "'I've got to be in London to-night; and I know a 'spectable old gentleman as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for the change--that is, if any genelman he knows interduces you.",2 And don't he know me?,2 "Oh, no!",2 Not in the least!,2 By no means.,2 Certainly not!',2 "The young gentleman smiled, as if to intimate that the latter fragments of discourse were playfully ironical; and finished the beer as he did so.",3 "This unexpected offer of shelter was too tempting to be resisted; especially as it was immediately followed up, by the assurance that the old gentleman referred to, would doubtless provide Oliver with a comfortable place, without loss of time.",3 "This led to a more friendly and confidential dialogue; from which Oliver discovered that his friend's name was Jack Dawkins, and that he was a peculiar pet and protege of the elderly gentleman before mentioned.",3 "Mr. Dawkin's appearance did not say a vast deal in favour of the comforts which his patron's interest obtained for those whom he took under his protection; but, as he had a rather flightly and dissolute mode of conversing, and furthermore avowed that among his intimate friends he was better known by the sobriquet of 'The Artful Dodger,' Oliver concluded that, being of a dissipated and careless turn, the moral precepts of his benefactor had hitherto been thrown away upon him.",4 "Under this impression, he secretly resolved to cultivate the good opinion of the old gentleman as quickly as possible; and, if he found the Dodger incorrigible, as he more than half suspected he should, to decline the honour of his farther acquaintance.",1 "As John Dawkins objected to their entering London before nightfall, it was nearly eleven o'clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington.",2 "They crossed from the Angel into St. John's Road; struck down the small street which terminates at Sadler's Wells Theatre; through Exmouth Street and Coppice Row; down the little court by the side of the workhouse; across the classic ground which once bore the name of Hockley-in-the-Hole; thence into Little Saffron Hill; and so into Saffron Hill the Great: along which the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace, directing Oliver to follow close at his heels.",3 "Although Oliver had enough to occupy his attention in keeping sight of his leader, he could not help bestowing a few hasty glances on either side of the way, as he passed along.",2 A dirtier or more wretched place he had never seen.,1 "The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours.",1 "There were a good many small shops; but the only stock in trade appeared to be heaps of children, who, even at that time of night, were crawling in and out at the doors, or screaming from the inside.",3 "The sole places that seemed to prosper amid the general blight of the place, were the public-houses; and in them, the lowest orders of Irish were wrangling with might and main.",3 "Covered ways and yards, which here and there diverged from the main street, disclosed little knots of houses, where drunken men and women were positively wallowing in filth; and from several of the door-ways, great ill-looking fellows were cautiously emerging, bound, to all appearance, on no very well-disposed or harmless errands.",3 "Oliver was just considering whether he hadn't better run away, when they reached the bottom of the hill.",3 "His conductor, catching him by the arm, pushed open the door of a house near Field Lane; and drawing him into the passage, closed it behind them.",2 "'Now, then!'",2 "cried a voice from below, in reply to a whistle from the Dodger.",2 'Plummy and slam!',2 was the reply.,2 "This seemed to be some watchword or signal that all was right; for the light of a feeble candle gleamed on the wall at the remote end of the passage; and a man's face peeped out, from where a balustrade of the old kitchen staircase had been broken away.",1 "'There's two on you,' said the man, thrusting the candle farther out, and shielding his eyes with his hand.",2 'Who's the t'other one?',2 "'A new pal,' replied Jack Dawkins, pulling Oliver forward.",2 'Where did he come from?',2 'Greenland.,2 Is Fagin upstairs?',2 "'Yes, he's a sortin' the wipes.",2 Up with you!',2 "The candle was drawn back, and the face disappeared.",2 "Oliver, groping his way with one hand, and having the other firmly grasped by his companion, ascended with much difficulty the dark and broken stairs: which his conductor mounted with an ease and expedition that showed he was well acquainted with them.",1 "He threw open the door of a back-room, and drew Oliver in after him.",2 The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt.,2 "There was a deal table before the fire: upon which were a candle, stuck in a ginger-beer bottle, two or three pewter pots, a loaf and butter, and a plate.",1 "In a frying-pan, which was on the fire, and which was secured to the mantelshelf by a string, some sausages were cooking; and standing over them, with a toasting-fork in his hand, was a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair.",0 "He was dressed in a greasy flannel gown, with his throat bare; and seemed to be dividing his attention between the frying-pan and the clothes-horse, over which a great number of silk handkerchiefs were hanging.",1 "Several rough beds made of old sacks, were huddled side by side on the floor.",1 "Seated round the table were four or five boys, none older than the Dodger, smoking long clay pipes, and drinking spirits with the air of middle-aged men.",2 These all crowded about their associate as he whispered a few words to the Jew; and then turned round and grinned at Oliver.,1 "So did the Jew himself, toasting-fork in hand.",2 "'This is him, Fagin,' said Jack Dawkins;'my friend Oliver Twist.'",1 "The Jew grinned; and, making a low obeisance to Oliver, took him by the hand, and hoped he should have the honour of his intimate acquaintance.",3 "Upon this, the young gentleman with the pipes came round him, and shook both his hands very hard--especially the one in which he held his little bundle.",1 "One young gentleman was very anxious to hang up his cap for him; and another was so obliging as to put his hands in his pockets, in order that, as he was very tired, he might not have the trouble of emptying them, himself, when he went to bed.",0 "These civilities would probably be extended much farther, but for a liberal exercise of the Jew's toasting-fork on the heads and shoulders of the affectionate youths who offered them.",3 "'We are very glad to see you, Oliver, very,' said the Jew.",3 "'Dodger, take off the sausages; and draw a tub near the fire for Oliver.",2 "Ah, you're a-staring at the pocket-handkerchiefs!",2 "eh, my dear.",2 "There are a good many of 'em, ain't there?",3 "We've just looked 'em out, ready for the wash; that's all, Oliver; that's all.",3 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!',2 "The latter part of this speech, was hailed by a boisterous shout from all the hopeful pupils of the merry old gentleman.",3 In the midst of which they went to supper.,2 "Oliver ate his share, and the Jew then mixed him a glass of hot gin-and-water: telling him he must drink it off directly, because another gentleman wanted the tumbler.",3 Oliver did as he was desired.,2 Immediately afterwards he felt himself gently lifted on to one of the sacks; and then he sunk into a deep sleep.,1 "It was late next morning when Oliver awoke, from a sound, long sleep.",2 "There was no other person in the room but the old Jew, who was boiling some coffee in a saucepan for breakfast, and whistling softly to himself as he stirred it round and round, with an iron spoon.",1 "He would stop every now and then to listen when there was the least noise below: and when he had satisfied himself, he would go on whistling and stirring again, as before.",2 "Although Oliver had roused himself from sleep, he was not thoroughly awake.",2 "There is a drowsy state, between sleeping and waking, when you dream more in five minutes with your eyes half open, and yourself half conscious of everything that is passing around you, than you would in five nights with your eyes fast closed, and your senses wrapt in perfect unconsciousness.",3 "At such time, a mortal knows just enough of what his mind is doing, to form some glimmering conception of its mighty powers, its bounding from earth and spurning time and space, when freed from the restraint of its corporeal associate.",4 Oliver was precisely in this condition.,3 "He saw the Jew with his half-closed eyes; heard his low whistling; and recognised the sound of the spoon grating against the saucepan's sides: and yet the self-same senses were mentally engaged, at the same time, in busy action with almost everybody he had ever known.",1 "When the coffee was done, the Jew drew the saucepan to the hob.",2 "Standing, then in an irresolute attitude for a few minutes, as if he did not well know how to employ himself, he turned round and looked at Oliver, and called him by his name.",2 "He did not answer, and was to all appearances asleep.",2 "After satisfying himself upon this head, the Jew stepped gently to the door: which he fastened.",3 "He then drew forth: as it seemed to Oliver, from some trap in the floor: a small box, which he placed carefully on the table.",1 "His eyes glistened as he raised the lid, and looked in.",2 "Dragging an old chair to the table, he sat down; and took from it a magnificent gold watch, sparkling with jewels.",3 'Aha!',2 "said the Jew, shrugging up his shoulders, and distorting every feature with a hideous grin.",2 'Clever dogs!,2 Clever dogs!,3 Staunch to the last!,3 Never told the old parson where they were.,2 Never poached upon old Fagin!,2 And why should they?,2 "It wouldn't have loosened the knot, or kept the drop up, a minute longer.",2 "No, no, no!",2 Fine fellows!,3 Fine fellows!',3 "With these, and other muttered reflections of the like nature, the Jew once more deposited the watch in its place of safety.",3 "At least half a dozen more were severally drawn forth from the same box, and surveyed with equal pleasure; besides rings, brooches, bracelets, and other articles of jewellery, of such magnificent materials, and costly workmanship, that Oliver had no idea, even of their names.",3 "Having replaced these trinkets, the Jew took out another: so small that it lay in the palm of his hand.",2 "There seemed to be some very minute inscription on it; for the Jew laid it flat upon the table, and shading it with his hand, pored over it, long and earnestly.",3 "At length he put it down, as if despairing of success; and, leaning back in his chair, muttered: 'What a fine thing capital punishment is!",3 Dead men never repent; dead men never bring awkward stories to light.,1 "Ah, it's a fine thing for the trade!",3 "Five of 'em strung up in a row, and none left to play booty, or turn white-livered!'",2 "As the Jew uttered these words, his bright dark eyes, which had been staring vacantly before him, fell on Oliver's face; the boy's eyes were fixed on his in mute curiousity; and although the recognition was only for an instant--for the briefest space of time that can possibly be conceived--it was enough to show the old man that he had been observed.",2 "He closed the lid of the box with a loud crash; and, laying his hand on a bread knife which was on the table, started furiously up.",0 "He trembled very much though; for, even in his terror, Oliver could see that the knife quivered in the air.",1 'What's that?',2 said the Jew.,2 'What do you watch me for?,2 Why are you awake?,2 What have you seen?,2 "Speak out, boy!",2 Quick--quick!,2 for your life.,2 "'I wasn't able to sleep any longer, sir,' replied Oliver, meekly.",2 "'I am very sorry if I have disturbed you, sir.'",1 'You were not awake an hour ago?',2 "said the Jew, scowling fiercely on the boy.",2 'No!,2 "No, indeed!'",2 replied Oliver.,2 'Are you sure?',2 cried the Jew: with a still fiercer look than before: and a threatening attitude.,1 "'Upon my word I was not, sir,' replied Oliver, earnestly.",3 "'I was not, indeed, sir.'",2 "'Tush, tush, my dear!'",2 "said the Jew, abruptly resuming his old manner, and playing with the knife a little, before he laid it down; as if to induce the belief that he had caught it up, in mere sport.",1 "'Of course I know that, my dear.",2 I only tried to frighten you.,1 You're a brave boy.,3 Ha!,2 ha!,2 "you're a brave boy, Oliver.'",3 "The Jew rubbed his hands with a chuckle, but glanced uneasily at the box, notwithstanding.",1 "'Did you see any of these pretty things, my dear?'",3 "said the Jew, laying his hand upon it after a short pause.",2 "'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 'Ah!',2 "said the Jew, turning rather pale.",1 "'They--they're mine, Oliver; my little property.",2 "All I have to live upon, in my old age.",2 "The folks call me a miser, my dear.",1 Only a miser; that's all.',1 "Oliver thought the old gentleman must be a decided miser to live in such a dirty place, with so many watches; but, thinking that perhaps his fondness for the Dodger and the other boys, cost him a good deal of money, he only cast a deferential look at the Jew, and asked if he might get up.",2 "'Certainly, my dear, certainly,' replied the old gentleman.",2 'Stay.,2 There's a pitcher of water in the corner by the door.,2 "Bring it here; and I'll give you a basin to wash in, my dear.'",2 Oliver got up; walked across the room; and stooped for an instant to raise the pitcher.,2 "When he turned his head, the box was gone.",2 "He had scarcely washed himself, and made everything tidy, by emptying the basin out of the window, agreeably to the Jew's directions, when the Dodger returned: accompanied by a very sprightly young friend, whom Oliver had seen smoking on the previous night, and who was now formally introduced to him as Charley Bates.",3 "The four sat down, to breakfast, on the coffee, and some hot rolls and ham which the Dodger had brought home in the crown of his hat.",3 "'Well,' said the Jew, glancing slyly at Oliver, and addressing himself to the Dodger, 'I hope you've been at work this morning, my dears?'",3 "'Hard,' replied the Dodger.",2 "'As nails,' added Charley Bates.",2 "'Good boys, good boys!'",3 said the Jew.,2 "'What have you got, Dodger?'",2 "'A couple of pocket-books,' replied that young gentlman.",2 'Lined?',2 "inquired the Jew, with eagerness.",3 "'Pretty well,' replied the Dodger, producing two pocket-books; one green, and the other red.",3 "'Not so heavy as they might be,' said the Jew, after looking at the insides carefully; 'but very neat and nicely made.",3 "Ingenious workman, ain't he, Oliver?'",3 "'Very indeed, sir,' said Oliver.",2 "At which Mr. Charles Bates laughed uproariously; very much to the amazement of Oliver, who saw nothing to laugh at, in anything that had passed.",2 "'And what have you got, my dear?'",2 said Fagin to Charley Bates.,2 "'Wipes,' replied Master Bates; at the same time producing four pocket-handkerchiefs.",3 "'Well,' said the Jew, inspecting them closely; 'they're very good ones, very.",3 "You haven't marked them well, though, Charley; so the marks shall be picked out with a needle, and we'll teach Oliver how to do it.",3 "Shall us, Oliver, eh?",2 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!',2 "'If you please, sir,' said Oliver.",2 "'You'd like to be able to make pocket-handkerchiefs as easy as Charley Bates, wouldn't you, my dear?'",3 said the Jew.,2 "'Very much, indeed, if you'll teach me, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 "Master Bates saw something so exquisitely ludicrous in this reply, that he burst into another laugh; which laugh, meeting the coffee he was drinking, and carrying it down some wrong channel, very nearly terminated in his premature suffocation.",2 'He is so jolly green!',3 "said Charley when he recovered, as an apology to the company for his unpolite behaviour.",2 "The Dodger said nothing, but he smoothed Oliver's hair over his eyes, and said he'd know better, by and by; upon which the old gentleman, observing Oliver's colour mounting, changed the subject by asking whether there had been much of a crowd at the execution that morning?",3 This made him wonder more and more; for it was plain from the replies of the two boys that they had both been there; and Oliver naturally wondered how they could possibly have found time to be so very industrious.,3 "When the breakfast was cleared away; the merry old gentlman and the two boys played at a very curious and uncommon game, which was performed in this way.",3 "The merry old gentleman, placing a snuff-box in one pocket of his trousers, a note-case in the other, and a watch in his waistcoat pocket, with a guard-chain round his neck, and sticking a mock diamond pin in his shirt: buttoned his coat tight round him, and putting his spectacle-case and handkerchief in his pockets, trotted up and down the room with a stick, in imitation of the manner in which old gentlemen walk about the streets any hour in the day.",2 "Sometimes he stopped at the fire-place, and sometimes at the door, making believe that he was staring with all his might into shop-windows.",2 "At such times, he would look constantly round him, for fear of thieves, and would keep slapping all his pockets in turn, to see that he hadn't lost anything, in such a very funny and natural manner, that Oliver laughed till the tears ran down his face.",0 "All this time, the two boys followed him closely about: getting out of his sight, so nimbly, every time he turned round, that it was impossible to follow their motions.",1 "At last, the Dodger trod upon his toes, or ran upon his boot accidently, while Charley Bates stumbled up against him behind; and in that one moment they took from him, with the most extraordinary rapidity, snuff-box, note-case, watch-guard, chain, shirt-pin, pocket-handkerchief, even the spectacle-case.",2 "If the old gentlman felt a hand in any one of his pockets, he cried out where it was; and then the game began all over again.",2 "When this game had been played a great many times, a couple of young ladies called to see the young gentleman; one of whom was named Bet, and the other Nancy.",3 "They wore a good deal of hair, not very neatly turned up behind, and were rather untidy about the shoes and stockings.",3 "They were not exactly pretty, perhaps; but they had a great deal of colour in their faces, and looked quite stout and hearty.",3 "Being remarkably free and agreeable in their manners, Oliver thought them very nice girls indeed.",4 As there is no doubt they were.,1 The visitors stopped a long time.,2 "Spirits were produced, in consequence of one of the young ladies complaining of a coldness in her inside; and the conversation took a very convivial and improving turn.",2 "At length, Charley Bates expressed his opinion that it was time to pad the hoof.",2 "This, it occurred to Oliver, must be French for going out; for directly afterwards, the Dodger, and Charley, and the two young ladies, went away together, having been kindly furnished by the amiable old Jew with money to spend.",3 "'There, my dear,' said Fagin.",2 "'That's a pleasant life, isn't it?",3 They have gone out for the day.',2 "'Have they done work, sir?'",3 inquired Oliver.,2 "'Yes,' said the Jew; 'that is, unless they should unexpectedly come across any, when they are out; and they won't neglect it, if they do, my dear, depend upon it.",1 "Make 'em your models, my dear.",2 "Make 'em your models,' tapping the fire-shovel on the hearth to add force to his words; 'do everything they bid you, and take their advice in all matters--especially the Dodger's, my dear.",2 "He'll be a great man himself, and will make you one too, if you take pattern by him.--Is my handkerchief hanging out of my pocket, my dear?'",3 "said the Jew, stopping short.",2 "'Yes, sir,' said Oliver.",2 "'See if you can take it out, without my feeling it; as you saw them do, when we were at play this morning.'",2 "Oliver held up the bottom of the pocket with one hand, as he had seen the Dodger hold it, and drew the handkerchief lightly out of it with the other.",2 'Is it gone?',2 cried the Jew.,2 "'Here it is, sir,' said Oliver, showing it in his hand.",2 "'You're a clever boy, my dear,' said the playful old gentleman, patting Oliver on the head approvingly.",3 'I never saw a sharper lad.,3 Here's a shilling for you.,2 "If you go on, in this way, you'll be the greatest man of the time.",3 "And now come here, and I'll show you how to take the marks out of the handkerchiefs.'",2 "Oliver wondered what picking the old gentleman's pocket in play, had to do with his chances of being a great man.",3 "But, thinking that the Jew, being so much his senior, must know best, he followed him quietly to the table, and was soon deeply involved in his new study.",3 "For many days, Oliver remained in the Jew's room, picking the marks out of the pocket-handkerchief, (of which a great number were brought home,) and sometimes taking part in the game already described: which the two boys and the Jew played, regularly, every morning.",3 "At length, he began to languish for fresh air, and took many occasions of earnestly entreating the old gentleman to allow him to go out to work with his two companions.",3 "Oliver was rendered the more anxious to be actively employed, by what he had seen of the stern morality of the old gentleman's character.",1 "Whenever the Dodger or Charley Bates came home at night, empty-handed, he would expatiate with great vehemence on the misery of idle and lazy habits; and would enforce upon them the necessity of an active life, by sending them supperless to bed.",1 "On one occasion, indeed, he even went so far as to knock them both down a flight of stairs; but this was carrying out his virtuous precepts to an unusual extent.",1 "At length, one morning, Oliver obtained the permission he had so eagerly sought.",3 "There had been no handkerchiefs to work upon, for two or three days, and the dinners had been rather meagre.",3 "Perhaps these were reasons for the old gentleman's giving his assent; but, whether they were or no, he told Oliver he might go, and placed him under the joint guardianship of Charley Bates, and his friend the Dodger.",2 "The three boys sallied out; the Dodger with his coat-sleeves tucked up, and his hat cocked, as usual; Master Bates sauntering along with his hands in his pockets; and Oliver between them, wondering where they were going, and what branch of manufacture he would be instructed in, first.",3 "The pace at which they went, was such a very lazy, ill-looking saunter, that Oliver soon began to think his companions were going to deceive the old gentleman, by not going to work at all.",1 "The Dodger had a vicious propensity, too, of pulling the caps from the heads of small boys and tossing them down areas; while Charley Bates exhibited some very loose notions concerning the rights of property, by pilfering divers apples and onions from the stalls at the kennel sides, and thrusting them into pockets which were so surprisingly capacious, that they seemed to undermine his whole suit of clothes in every direction.",0 "These things looked so bad, that Oliver was on the point of declaring his intention of seeking his way back, in the best way he could; when his thoughts were suddenly directed into another channel, by a very mysterious change of behaviour on the part of the Dodger.",1 "They were just emerging from a narrow court not far from the open square in Clerkenwell, which is yet called, by some strange perversion of terms, 'The Green': when the Dodger made a sudden stop; and, laying his finger on his lip, drew his companions back again, with the greatest caution and circumspection.",1 'What's the matter?',2 demanded Oliver.,2 'Hush!',2 replied the Dodger.,2 'Do you see that old cove at the book-stall?',1 'The old gentleman over the way?',2 said Oliver.,2 "'Yes, I see him.'",2 "'He'll do,' said the Dodger.",2 "'A prime plant,' observed Master Charley Bates.",3 "Oliver looked from one to the other, with the greatest surprise; but he was not permitted to make any inquiries; for the two boys walked stealthily across the road, and slunk close behind the old gentleman towards whom his attention had been directed.",3 "Oliver walked a few paces after them; and, not knowing whether to advance or retire, stood looking on in silent amazement.",3 "The old gentleman was a very respectable-looking personage, with a powdered head and gold spectacles.",3 He was dressed in a bottle-green coat with a black velvet collar; wore white trousers; and carried a smart bamboo cane under his arm.,3 "He had taken up a book from the stall, and there he stood, reading away, as hard as if he were in his elbow-chair, in his own study.",1 "It is very possible that he fancied himself there, indeed; for it was plain, from his abstraction, that he saw not the book-stall, nor the street, nor the boys, nor, in short, anything but the book itself: which he was reading straight through: turning over the leaf when he got to the bottom of a page, beginning at the top line of the next one, and going regularly on, with the greatest interest and eagerness.",3 "What was Oliver's horror and alarm as he stood a few paces off, looking on with his eyelids as wide open as they would possibly go, to see the Dodger plunge his hand into the old gentleman's pocket, and draw from thence a handkerchief!",1 "To see him hand the same to Charley Bates; and finally to behold them, both running away round the corner at full speed!",2 "In an instant the whole mystery of the hankerchiefs, and the watches, and the jewels, and the Jew, rushed upon the boy's mind.",1 "He stood, for a moment, with the blood so tingling through all his veins from terror, that he felt as if he were in a burning fire; then, confused and frightened, he took to his heels; and, not knowing what he did, made off as fast as he could lay his feet to the ground.",0 This was all done in a minute's space.,2 "In the very instant when Oliver began to run, the old gentleman, putting his hand to his pocket, and missing his handkerchief, turned sharp round.",3 "Seeing the boy scudding away at such a rapid pace, he very naturally concluded him to be the depredator; and shouting 'Stop thief!'",3 "with all his might, made off after him, book in hand.",2 But the old gentleman was not the only person who raised the hue-and-cry.,1 "The Dodger and Master Bates, unwilling to attract public attention by running down the open street, had merely retired into the very first doorway round the corner.",2 "They no sooner heard the cry, and saw Oliver running, than, guessing exactly how the matter stood, they issued forth with great promptitude; and, shouting 'Stop thief!'",2 "too, joined in the pursuit like good citizens.",3 "Although Oliver had been brought up by philosophers, he was not theoretically acquainted with the beautiful axiom that self-preservation is the first law of nature.",3 "If he had been, perhaps he would have been prepared for this.",2 "Not being prepared, however, it alarmed him the more; so away he went like the wind, with the old gentleman and the two boys roaring and shouting behind him.",2 'Stop thief!,2 Stop thief!',2 There is a magic in the sound.,3 "The tradesman leaves his counter, and the car-man his waggon; the butcher throws down his tray; the baker his basket; the milkman his pail; the errand-boy his parcels; the school-boy his marbles; the paviour his pickaxe; the child his battledore.",1 "Away they run, pell-mell, helter-skelter, slap-dash: tearing, yelling, screaming, knocking down the passengers as they turn the corners, rousing up the dogs, and astonishing the fowls: and streets, squares, and courts, re-echo with the sound.",2 'Stop thief!,2 Stop thief!',2 "The cry is taken up by a hundred voices, and the crowd accumulate at every turning.",1 "Away they fly, splashing through the mud, and rattling along the pavements: up go the windows, out run the people, onward bear the mob, a whole audience desert Punch in the very thickest of the plot, and, joining the rushing throng, swell the shout, and lend fresh vigour to the cry, 'Stop thief!",0 Stop thief!',2 'Stop thief!,2 Stop thief!',2 There is a passion FOR _hunting_ _something_ deeply implanted in the human breast.,3 "One wretched breathless child, panting with exhaustion; terror in his looks; agony in his eyes; large drops of perspiration streaming down his face; strains every nerve to make head upon his pursuers; and as they follow on his track, and gain upon him every instant, they hail his decreasing strength with joy.",1 'Stop thief!',2 "Ay, stop him for God's sake, were it only in mercy!",3 Stopped at last!,2 A clever blow.,2 "He is down upon the pavement; and the crowd eagerly gather round him: each new comer, jostling and struggling with the others to catch a glimpse.",2 'Stand aside!',2 'Give him a little air!',2 'Nonsense!,2 he don't deserve it.',2 'Where's the gentleman?',2 "'Here his is, coming down the street.'",2 'Make room there for the gentleman!',2 "'Is this the boy, sir!'",2 'Yes.',2 "Oliver lay, covered with mud and dust, and bleeding from the mouth, looking wildly round upon the heap of faces that surrounded him, when the old gentleman was officiously dragged and pushed into the circle by the foremost of the pursuers.",0 "'Yes,' said the gentleman, 'I am afraid it is the boy.'",1 'Afraid!',2 murmured the crowd.,2 'That's a good 'un!',3 'Poor fellow!',2 "said the gentleman, 'he has hurt himself.'",1 "'_I_ did that, sir,' said a great lubberly fellow, stepping forward; 'and preciously I cut my knuckle agin' his mouth.",3 "I stopped him, sir.'",2 "The fellow touched his hat with a grin, expecting something for his pains; but, the old gentleman, eyeing him with an expression of dislike, look anxiously round, as if he contemplated running away himself: which it is very possible he might have attempted to do, and thus have afforded another chase, had not a police officer (who is generally the last person to arrive in such cases) at that moment made his way through the crowd, and seized Oliver by the collar.",1 "'Come, get up,' said the man, roughly.",2 "'It wasn't me indeed, sir.",2 "Indeed, indeed, it was two other boys,' said Oliver, clasping his hands passionately, and looking round.",3 'They are here somewhere.',2 "'Oh no, they ain't,' said the officer.",2 "He meant this to be ironical, but it was true besides; for the Dodger and Charley Bates had filed off down the first convenient court they came to.",2 "'Come, get up!'",2 "'Don't hurt him,' said the old gentleman, compassionately.",1 "'Oh no, I won't hurt him,' replied the officer, tearing his jacket half off his back, in proof thereof.",1 "'Come, I know you; it won't do.",2 "Will you stand upon your legs, you young devil?'",1 "Oliver, who could hardly stand, made a shift to raise himself on his feet, and was at once lugged along the streets by the jacket-collar, at a rapid pace.",3 "The gentleman walked on with them by the officer's side; and as many of the crowd as could achieve the feat, got a little ahead, and stared back at Oliver from time to time.",3 The boys shouted in triumph; and on they went.,3 "The offence had been committed within the district, and indeed in the immediate neighborhood of, a very notorious metropolitan police office.",1 "The crowd had only the satisfaction of accompanying Oliver through two or three streets, and down a place called Mutton Hill, when he was led beneath a low archway, and up a dirty court, into this dispensary of summary justice, by the back way.",2 "It was a small paved yard into which they turned; and here they encountered a stout man with a bunch of whiskers on his face, and a bunch of keys in his hand.",2 'What's the matter now?',2 said the man carelessly.,2 "'A young fogle-hunter,' replied the man who had Oliver in charge.",2 "'Are you the party that's been robbed, sir?'",2 inquired the man with the keys.,2 "'Yes, I am,' replied the old gentleman; 'but I am not sure that this boy actually took the handkerchief.",2 I--I would rather not press the case.',2 "'Must go before the magistrate now, sir,' replied the man.",2 'His worship will be disengaged in half a minute.,2 "Now, young gallows!'",2 "This was an invitation for Oliver to enter through a door which he unlocked as he spoke, and which led into a stone cell.",3 "Here he was searched; and nothing being found upon him, locked up.",2 "This cell was in shape and size something like an area cellar, only not so light.",3 "It was most intolerably dirty; for it was Monday morning; and it had been tenanted by six drunken people, who had been locked up, elsewhere, since Saturday night.",1 But this is little.,2 "In our station-houses, men and women are every night confined on the most trivial charges--the word is worth noting--in dungeons, compared with which, those in Newgate, occupied by the most atrocious felons, tried, found guilty, and under sentence of death, are palaces.",0 "Let any one who doubts this, compare the two.",1 The old gentleman looked almost as rueful as Oliver when the key grated in the lock.,2 "He turned with a sigh to the book, which had been the innocent cause of all this disturbance.",1 "'There is something in that boy's face,' said the old gentleman to himself as he walked slowly away, tapping his chin with the cover of the book, in a thoughtful manner; 'something that touches and interests me.",3 _Can_ he be innocent?,2 "He looked like--Bye the bye,' exclaimed the old gentleman, halting very abruptly, and staring up into the sky, 'Bless my soul!--where have I seen something like that look before?'",2 "After musing for some minutes, the old gentleman walked, with the same meditative face, into a back anteroom opening from the yard; and there, retiring into a corner, called up before his mind's eye a vast amphitheatre of faces over which a dusky curtain had hung for many years.",1 "'No,' said the old gentleman, shaking his head; 'it must be imagination.'",2 He wandered over them again.,2 "He had called them into view, and it was not easy to replace the shroud that had so long concealed them.",2 "There were the faces of friends, and foes, and of many that had been almost strangers peering intrusively from the crowd; there were the faces of young and blooming girls that were now old women; there were faces that the grave had changed and closed upon, but which the mind, superior to its power, still dressed in their old freshness and beauty, calling back the lustre of the eyes, the brightness of the smile, the beaming of the soul through its mask of clay, and whispering of beauty beyond the tomb, changed but to be heightened, and taken from earth only to be set up as a light, to shed a soft and gentle glow upon the path to Heaven.",4 But the old gentleman could recall no one countenance of which Oliver's features bore a trace.,1 "So, he heaved a sigh over the recollections he awakened; and being, happily for himself, an absent old gentleman, buried them again in the pages of the musty book.",2 "He was roused by a touch on the shoulder, and a request from the man with the keys to follow him into the office.",2 He closed his book hastily; and was at once ushered into the imposing presence of the renowned Mr. Fang.,1 "The office was a front parlour, with a panelled wall.",2 "Mr. Fang sat behind a bar, at the upper end; and on one side the door was a sort of wooden pen in which poor little Oliver was already deposited; trembling very much at the awfulness of the scene.",1 "Mr. Fang was a lean, long-backed, stiff-necked, middle-sized man, with no great quantity of hair, and what he had, growing on the back and sides of his head.",3 "His face was stern, and much flushed.",1 "If he were really not in the habit of drinking rather more than was exactly good for him, he might have brought action against his countenance for libel, and have recovered heavy damages.",2 "The old gentleman bowed respectfully; and advancing to the magistrate's desk, said, suiting the action to the word, 'That is my name and address, sir.'",3 "He then withdrew a pace or two; and, with another polite and gentlemanly inclination of the head, waited to be questioned.",3 "Now, it so happened that Mr. Fang was at that moment perusing a leading article in a newspaper of the morning, adverting to some recent decision of his, and commending him, for the three hundred and fiftieth time, to the special and particular notice of the Secretary of State for the Home Department.",3 He was out of temper; and he looked up with an angry scowl.,0 'Who are you?',2 said Mr. Fang.,2 "The old gentleman pointed, with some surprise, to his card.",2 'Officer!',2 "said Mr. Fang, tossing the card contemptuously away with the newspaper.",1 'Who is this fellow?',2 "'My name, sir,' said the old gentleman, speaking _like_ a gentleman, 'my name, sir, is Brownlow.",3 "Permit me to inquire the name of the magistrate who offers a gratuitous and unprovoked insult to a respectable person, under the protection of the bench.'",3 "Saying this, Mr. Brownlow looked around the office as if in search of some person who would afford him the required information.",3 'Officer!',2 "said Mr. Fang, throwing the paper on one side, 'what's this fellow charged with?'",2 "'He's not charged at all, your worship,' replied the officer.",2 "'He appears against this boy, your worship.'",2 "His worship knew this perfectly well; but it was a good annoyance, and a safe one.",4 "'Appears against the boy, does he?'",2 "said Mr. Fang, surveying Mr. Brownlow contemptuously from head to foot.",1 'Swear him!',2 "'Before I am sworn, I must beg to say one word,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'and that is, that I really never, without actual experience, could have believed--' 'Hold your tongue, sir!'",1 "said Mr. Fang, peremptorily.",2 "'I will not, sir!'",2 replied the old gentleman.,2 "'Hold your tongue this instant, or I'll have you turned out of the office!'",2 said Mr. Fang.,2 'You're an insolent impertinent fellow.,1 How dare you bully a magistrate!',1 'What!',2 "exclaimed the old gentleman, reddening.",2 'Swear this person!',2 said Fang to the clerk.,2 'I'll not hear another word.,2 Swear him.',2 "Mr. Brownlow's indignation was greatly roused; but reflecting perhaps, that he might only injure the boy by giving vent to it, he suppressed his feelings and submitted to be sworn at once.",0 "'Now,' said Fang, 'what's the charge against this boy?",2 "What have you got to say, sir?'",2 'I was standing at a bookstall--' Mr. Brownlow began.,2 "'Hold your tongue, sir,' said Mr. Fang.",2 'Policeman!,2 Where's the policeman?,2 "Here, swear this policeman.",2 "Now, policeman, what is this?'",2 "The policeman, with becoming humility, related how he had taken the charge; how he had searched Oliver, and found nothing on his person; and how that was all he knew about it.",3 'Are there any witnesses?',2 inquired Mr. Fang.,2 "'None, your worship,' replied the policeman.",2 "Mr. Fang sat silent for some minutes, and then, turning round to the prosecutor, said in a towering passion.",3 "'Do you mean to state what your complaint against this boy is, man, or do you not?",1 You have been sworn.,2 "Now, if you stand there, refusing to give evidence, I'll punish you for disrespect to the bench; I will, by--' By what, or by whom, nobody knows, for the clerk and jailor coughed very loud, just at the right moment; and the former dropped a heavy book upon the floor, thus preventing the word from being heard--accidently, of course.",0 "With many interruptions, and repeated insults, Mr. Brownlow contrived to state his case; observing that, in the surprise of the moment, he had run after the boy because he had saw him running away; and expressing his hope that, if the magistrate should believe him, although not actually the thief, to be connected with the thieves, he would deal as leniently with him as justice would allow.",0 "'He has been hurt already,' said the old gentleman in conclusion.",1 "'And I fear,' he added, with great energy, looking towards the bar, 'I really fear that he is ill.'",2 'Oh!,2 "yes, I dare say!'",2 "said Mr. Fang, with a sneer.",1 "'Come, none of your tricks here, you young vagabond; they won't do.",2 What's your name?',2 Oliver tried to reply but his tongue failed him.,1 He was deadly pale; and the whole place seemed turning round and round.,1 "'What's your name, you hardened scoundrel?'",1 demanded Mr. Fang.,2 "'Officer, what's his name?'",2 "This was addressed to a bluff old fellow, in a striped waistcoat, who was standing by the bar.",2 "He bent over Oliver, and repeated the inquiry; but finding him really incapable of understanding the question; and knowing that his not replying would only infuriate the magistrate the more, and add to the severity of his sentence; he hazarded a guess.",0 "'He says his name's Tom White, your worship,' said the kind-hearted thief-taker.",2 "'Oh, he won't speak out, won't he?'",2 said Fang.,2 "'Very well, very well.",3 Where does he live?',2 "'Where he can, your worship,' replied the officer; again pretending to receive Oliver's answer.",2 'Has he any parents?',2 inquired Mr. Fang.,2 "'He says they died in his infancy, your worship,' replied the officer: hazarding the usual reply.",1 "At this point of the inquiry, Oliver raised his head; and, looking round with imploring eyes, murmured a feeble prayer for a draught of water.",1 'Stuff and nonsense!',1 said Mr. Fang: 'don't try to make a fool of me.',1 "'I think he really is ill, your worship,' remonstrated the officer.",2 "'I know better,' said Mr. Fang.",3 "'Take care of him, officer,' said the old gentleman, raising his hands instinctively; 'he'll fall down.'",1 "'Stand away, officer,' cried Fang; 'let him, if he likes.'",3 "Oliver availed himself of the kind permission, and fell to the floor in a fainting fit.",1 "The men in the office looked at each other, but no one dared to stir.",2 "'I knew he was shamming,' said Fang, as if this were incontestable proof of the fact.",2 'Let him lie there; he'll soon be tired of that.',1 "'How do you propose to deal with the case, sir?'",2 inquired the clerk in a low voice.,2 "'Summarily,' replied Mr. Fang.",2 'He stands committed for three months--hard labour of course.,1 Clear the office.',3 "The door was opened for this purpose, and a couple of men were preparing to carry the insensible boy to his cell; when an elderly man of decent but poor appearance, clad in an old suit of black, rushed hastily into the office, and advanced towards the bench.",1 "'Stop, stop!",2 don't take him away!,2 For Heaven's sake stop a moment!',2 "cried the new comer, breathless with haste.",1 "Although the presiding Genii in such an office as this, exercise a summary and arbitrary power over the liberties, the good name, the character, almost the lives, of Her Majesty's subjects, expecially of the poorer class; and although, within such walls, enough fantastic tricks are daily played to make the angels blind with weeping; they are closed to the public, save through the medium of the daily press.[Footnote: Or were virtually, then.] Mr. Fang was consequently not a little indignant to see an unbidden guest enter in such irreverent disorder.",1 'What is this?,2 Who is this?,2 Turn this man out.,2 Clear the office!',3 cried Mr. Fang.,2 "'I _will_ speak,' cried the man; 'I will not be turned out.",2 I saw it all.,2 I keep the book-stall.,1 I demand to be sworn.,2 I will not be put down.,2 "Mr. Fang, you must hear me.",2 "You must not refuse, sir.'",1 The man was right.,3 His manner was determined; and the matter was growing rather too serious to be hushed up.,2 "'Swear the man,' growled Mr. Fang, with a very ill grace.",3 "'Now, man, what have you got to say?'",2 "'This,' said the man: 'I saw three boys: two others and the prisoner here: loitering on the opposite side of the way, when this gentleman was reading.",1 The robbery was committed by another boy.,2 I saw it done; and I saw that this boy was perfectly amazed and stupified by it.',3 "Having by this time recovered a little breath, the worthy book-stall keeper proceeded to relate, in a more coherent manner the exact circumstances of the robbery.",3 'Why didn't you come here before?',2 "said Fang, after a pause.",2 "'I hadn't a soul to mind the shop,' replied the man.",2 "'Everybody who could have helped me, had joined in the pursuit.",3 I could get nobody till five minutes ago; and I've run here all the way.',2 "'The prosecutor was reading, was he?'",2 "inquired Fang, after another pause.",2 "'Yes,' replied the man.",2 'The very book he has in his hand.',2 "'Oh, that book, eh?'",2 said Fang.,2 'Is it paid for?',2 "'No, it is not,' replied the man, with a smile.",3 "'Dear me, I forgot all about it!'",2 "exclaimed the absent old gentleman, innocently.",2 'A nice person to prefer a charge against a poor boy!',3 "said Fang, with a comical effort to look humane.",2 "'I consider, sir, that you have obtained possession of that book, under very suspicious and disreputable circumstances; and you may think yourself very fortunate that the owner of the property declines to prosecute.",0 "Let this be a lesson to you, my man, or the law will overtake you yet.",3 The boy is discharged.,2 Clear the office!',3 'D--n me!',2 "cried the old gentleman, bursting out with the rage he had kept down so long, 'd--n me!",1 I'll--' 'Clear the office!',2 said the magistrate.,2 "'Officers, do you hear?",2 Clear the office!',3 "The mandate was obeyed; and the indignant Mr. Brownlow was conveyed out, with the book in one hand, and the bamboo cane in the other: in a perfect phrenzy of rage and defiance.",1 He reached the yard; and his passion vanished in a moment.,3 "Little Oliver Twist lay on his back on the pavement, with his shirt unbuttoned, and his temples bathed with water; his face a deadly white; and a cold tremble convulsing his whole frame.",0 "'Poor boy, poor boy!'",1 "said Mr. Brownlow, bending over him.",2 "'Call a coach, somebody, pray.",2 Directly!',2 "A coach was obtained, and Oliver having been carefully laid on the seat, the old gentleman got in and sat himself on the other.",2 'May I accompany you?',2 "said the book-stall keeper, looking in.",1 "'Bless me, yes, my dear sir,' said Mr. Brownlow quickly.",2 'I forgot you.,2 "Dear, dear!",2 I have this unhappy book still!,1 Jump in.,2 Poor fellow!,1 There's no time to lose.',1 The book-stall keeper got into the coach; and away they drove.,1 "The coach rattled away, over nearly the same ground as that which Oliver had traversed when he first entered London in company with the Dodger; and, turning a different way when it reached the Angel at Islington, stopped at length before a neat house, in a quiet shady street near Pentonville.",3 "Here, a bed was prepared, without loss of time, in which Mr. Brownlow saw his young charge carefully and comfortably deposited; and here, he was tended with a kindness and solicitude that knew no bounds.",2 "But, for many days, Oliver remained insensible to all the goodness of his new friends.",2 "The sun rose and sank, and rose and sank again, and many times after that; and still the boy lay stretched on his uneasy bed, dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever.",0 "The worm does not work more surely on the dead body, than does this slow creeping fire upon the living frame.",1 "Weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke at last from what seemed to have been a long and troubled dream.",1 "Feebly raising himself in the bed, with his head resting on his trembling arm, he looked anxiously around.",1 'What room is this?,2 Where have I been brought to?',2 said Oliver.,2 'This is not the place I went to sleep in.',2 "He uttered these words in a feeble voice, being very faint and weak; but they were overheard at once.",0 "The curtain at the bed's head was hastily drawn back, and a motherly old lady, very neatly and precisely dressed, rose as she undrew it, from an arm-chair close by, in which she had been sitting at needle-work.",3 "'Hush, my dear,' said the old lady softly.",2 "'You must be very quiet, or you will be ill again; and you have been very bad,--as bad as bad could be, pretty nigh.",3 Lie down again; there's a dear!',1 "With those words, the old lady very gently placed Oliver's head upon the pillow; and, smoothing back his hair from his forehead, looked so kindly and loving in his face, that he could not help placing his little withered hand in hers, and drawing it round his neck.",3 'Save us!',2 "said the old lady, with tears in her eyes.",2 'What a grateful little dear it is.,3 Pretty creetur!,3 "What would his mother feel if she had sat by him as I have, and could see him now!'",2 "'Perhaps she does see me,' whispered Oliver, folding his hands together; 'perhaps she has sat by me.",2 I almost feel as if she had.',2 "'That was the fever, my dear,' said the old lady mildly.",1 "'I suppose it was,' replied Oliver, 'because heaven is a long way off; and they are too happy there, to come down to the bedside of a poor boy.",3 "But if she knew I was ill, she must have pitied me, even there; for she was very ill herself before she died.",1 "She can't know anything about me though,' added Oliver after a moment's silence.",2 "'If she had seen me hurt, it would have made her sorrowful; and her face has always looked sweet and happy, when I have dreamed of her.'",2 "The old lady made no reply to this; but wiping her eyes first, and her spectacles, which lay on the counterpane, afterwards, as if they were part and parcel of those features, brought some cool stuff for Oliver to drink; and then, patting him on the cheek, told him he must lie very quiet, or he would be ill again.",3 "So, Oliver kept very still; partly because he was anxious to obey the kind old lady in all things; and partly, to tell the truth, because he was completely exhausted with what he had already said.",1 "He soon fell into a gentle doze, from which he was awakened by the light of a candle: which, being brought near the bed, showed him a gentleman with a very large and loud-ticking gold watch in his hand, who felt his pulse, and said he was a great deal better.",3 "'You _are_ a great deal better, are you not, my dear?'",3 said the gentleman.,2 "'Yes, thank you, sir,' replied Oliver.",3 "'Yes, I know you are,' said the gentleman: 'You're hungry too, an't you?'",2 "'No, sir,' answered Oliver.",2 'Hem!',2 said the gentleman.,2 "'No, I know you're not.",2 "He is not hungry, Mrs. Bedwin,' said the gentleman: looking very wise.",3 "The old lady made a respectful inclination of the head, which seemed to say that she thought the doctor was a very clever man.",3 The doctor appeared much of the same opinion himself.,2 "'You feel sleepy, don't you, my dear?'",2 said the doctor.,2 "'No, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 "'No,' said the doctor, with a very shrewd and satisfied look.",3 'You're not sleepy.,2 Nor thirsty.,2 Are you?',2 "'Yes, sir, rather thirsty,' answered Oliver.",2 "'Just as I expected, Mrs. Bedwin,' said the doctor.",2 'It's very natural that he should be thirsty.,2 "You may give him a little tea, ma'am, and some dry toast without any butter.",2 "Don't keep him too warm, ma'am; but be careful that you don't let him be too cold; will you have the goodness?'",3 The old lady dropped a curtsey.,2 "The doctor, after tasting the cool stuff, and expressing a qualified approval of it, hurried away: his boots creaking in a very important and wealthy manner as he went downstairs.",4 "Oliver dozed off again, soon after this; when he awoke, it was nearly twelve o'clock.",2 "The old lady tenderly bade him good-night shortly afterwards, and left him in charge of a fat old woman who had just come: bringing with her, in a little bundle, a small Prayer Book and a large nightcap.",3 "Putting the latter on her head and the former on the table, the old woman, after telling Oliver that she had come to sit up with him, drew her chair close to the fire and went off into a series of short naps, chequered at frequent intervals with sundry tumblings forward, and divers moans and chokings.",2 "These, however, had no worse effect than causing her to rub her nose very hard, and then fall asleep again.",0 And thus the night crept slowly on.,1 "Oliver lay awake for some time, counting the little circles of light which the reflection of the rushlight-shade threw upon the ceiling; or tracing with his languid eyes the intricate pattern of the paper on the wall.",2 "The darkness and the deep stillness of the room were very solemn; as they brought into the boy's mind the thought that death had been hovering there, for many days and nights, and might yet fill it with the gloom and dread of his awful presence, he turned his face upon the pillow, and fervently prayed to Heaven.",0 "Gradually, he fell into that deep tranquil sleep which ease from recent suffering alone imparts; that calm and peaceful rest which it is pain to wake from.",3 "Who, if this were death, would be roused again to all the struggles and turmoils of life; to all its cares for the present; its anxieties for the future; more than all, its weary recollections of the past!",0 "It had been bright day, for hours, when Oliver opened his eyes; he felt cheerful and happy.",4 The crisis of the disease was safely past.,2 He belonged to the world again.,2 "In three days' time he was able to sit in an easy-chair, well propped up with pillows; and, as he was still too weak to walk, Mrs. Bedwin had him carried downstairs into the little housekeeper's room, which belonged to her.",3 "Having him set, here, by the fire-side, the good old lady sat herself down too; and, being in a state of considerable delight at seeing him so much better, forthwith began to cry most violently.",3 "'Never mind me, my dear,' said the old lady; 'I'm only having a regular good cry.",2 There; it's all over now; and I'm quite comfortable.',3 "'You're very, very kind to me, ma'am,' said Oliver.",2 "'Well, never you mind that, my dear,' said the old lady; 'that's got nothing to do with your broth; and it's full time you had it; for the doctor says Mr. Brownlow may come in to see you this morning; and we must get up our best looks, because the better we look, the more he'll be pleased.'",4 "And with this, the old lady applied herself to warming up, in a little saucepan, a basin full of broth: strong enough, Oliver thought, to furnish an ample dinner, when reduced to the regulation strength, for three hundred and fifty paupers, at the lowest computation.",3 "'Are you fond of pictures, dear?'",3 "inquired the old lady, seeing that Oliver had fixed his eyes, most intently, on a portrait which hung against the wall; just opposite his chair.",1 "'I don't quite know, ma'am,' said Oliver, without taking his eyes from the canvas; 'I have seen so few that I hardly know.",2 "What a beautiful, mild face that lady's is!'",3 'Ah!',2 "said the old lady, 'painters always make ladies out prettier than they are, or they wouldn't get any custom, child.",2 The man that invented the machine for taking likenesses might have known that would never succeed; it's a deal too honest.,3 "A deal,' said the old lady, laughing very heartily at her own acuteness.",3 "'Is--is that a likeness, ma'am?'",2 said Oliver.,2 "'Yes,' said the old lady, looking up for a moment from the broth; 'that's a portrait.'",2 "'Whose, ma'am?'",2 asked Oliver.,2 "'Why, really, my dear, I don't know,' answered the old lady in a good-humoured manner.",3 "'It's not a likeness of anybody that you or I know, I expect.",2 "It seems to strike your fancy, dear.'",2 "'It is so pretty,' replied Oliver.",3 "'Why, sure you're not afraid of it?'",1 "said the old lady: observing in great surprise, the look of awe with which the child regarded the painting.",3 "'Oh no, no,' returned Oliver quickly; 'but the eyes look so sorrowful; and where I sit, they seem fixed upon me.",1 "It makes my heart beat,' added Oliver in a low voice, 'as if it was alive, and wanted to speak to me, but couldn't.'",2 'Lord save us!',2 "exclaimed the old lady, starting; 'don't talk in that way, child.",2 You're weak and nervous after your illness.,0 Let me wheel your chair round to the other side; and then you won't see it.,2 There!',2 "said the old lady, suiting the action to the word; 'you don't see it now, at all events.'",2 "Oliver _did_ see it in his mind's eye as distinctly as if he had not altered his position; but he thought it better not to worry the kind old lady; so he smiled gently when she looked at him; and Mrs. Bedwin, satisfied that he felt more comfortable, salted and broke bits of toasted bread into the broth, with all the bustle befitting so solemn a preparation.",2 Oliver got through it with extraordinary expedition.,3 "He had scarcely swallowed the last spoonful, when there came a soft rap at the door.",2 "'Come in,' said the old lady; and in walked Mr. Brownlow.",2 "Now, the old gentleman came in as brisk as need be; but, he had no sooner raised his spectacles on his forehead, and thrust his hands behind the skirts of his dressing-gown to take a good long look at Oliver, than his countenance underwent a very great variety of odd contortions.",3 "Oliver looked very worn and shadowy from sickness, and made an ineffectual attempt to stand up, out of respect to his benefactor, which terminated in his sinking back into the chair again; and the fact is, if the truth must be told, that Mr. Brownlow's heart, being large enough for any six ordinary old gentlemen of humane disposition, forced a supply of tears into his eyes, by some hydraulic process which we are not sufficiently philosophical to be in a condition to explain.",2 "'Poor boy, poor boy!'",1 "said Mr. Brownlow, clearing his throat.",2 "'I'm rather hoarse this morning, Mrs. Bedwin.",2 I'm afraid I have caught cold.',1 "'I hope not, sir,' said Mrs. Bedwin.",2 "'Everything you have had, has been well aired, sir.'",3 "'I don't know, Bedwin.",2 "I don't know,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'I rather think I had a damp napkin at dinner-time yesterday; but never mind that.",2 "How do you feel, my dear?'",2 "'Very happy, sir,' replied Oliver.",3 "'And very grateful indeed, sir, for your goodness to me.'",3 "'Good by,' said Mr. Brownlow, stoutly.",2 "'Have you given him any nourishment, Bedwin?",3 "Any slops, eh?'",2 "'He has just had a basin of beautiful strong broth, sir,' replied Mrs. Bedwin: drawing herself up slightly, and laying strong emphasis on the last word: to intimate that between slops, and broth will compounded, there existed no affinity or connection whatsoever.",4 'Ugh!',2 "said Mr. Brownlow, with a slight shudder; 'a couple of glasses of port wine would have done him a great deal more good.",3 "Wouldn't they, Tom White, eh?'",2 "'My name is Oliver, sir,' replied the little invalid: with a look of great astonishment.",3 "'Oliver,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'Oliver what?",2 "Oliver White, eh?'",2 "'No, sir, Twist, Oliver Twist.'",1 'Queer name!',2 said the old gentleman.,2 'What made you tell the magistrate your name was White?',2 "'I never told him so, sir,' returned Oliver in amazement.",3 "This sounded so like a falsehood, that the old gentleman looked somewhat sternly in Oliver's face.",2 It was impossible to doubt him; there was truth in every one of its thin and sharpened lineaments.,1 "'Some mistake,' said Mr. Brownlow.",1 "But, although his motive for looking steadily at Oliver no longer existed, the old idea of the resemblance between his features and some familiar face came upon him so strongly, that he could not withdraw his gaze.",2 "'I hope you are not angry with me, sir?'",1 "said Oliver, raising his eyes beseechingly.",2 "'No, no,' replied the old gentleman.",2 'Why!,2 what's this?,2 "Bedwin, look there!'",2 "As he spoke, he pointed hastily to the picture over Oliver's head, and then to the boy's face.",1 There was its living copy.,2 "The eyes, the head, the mouth; every feature was the same.",2 "The expression was, for the instant, so precisely alike, that the minutest line seemed copied with startling accuracy!",2 "Oliver knew not the cause of this sudden exclamation; for, not being strong enough to bear the start it gave him, he fainted away.",3 "A weakness on his part, which affords the narrative an opportunity of relieving the reader from suspense, in behalf of the two young pupils of the Merry Old Gentleman; and of recording-- That when the Dodger, and his accomplished friend Master Bates, joined in the hue-and-cry which was raised at Oliver's heels, in consequence of their executing an illegal conveyance of Mr. Brownlow's personal property, as has been already described, they were actuated by a very laudable and becoming regard for themselves; and forasmuch as the freedom of the subject and the liberty of the individual are among the first and proudest boasts of a true-hearted Englishman, so, I need hardly beg the reader to observe, that this action should tend to exalt them in the opinion of all public and patriotic men, in almost as great a degree as this strong proof of their anxiety for their own preservation and safety goes to corroborate and confirm the little code of laws which certain profound and sound-judging philosophers have laid down as the main-springs of all Nature's deeds and actions: the said philosophers very wisely reducing the good lady's proceedings to matters of maxim and theory: and, by a very neat and pretty compliment to her exalted wisdom and understanding, putting entirely out of sight any considerations of heart, or generous impulse and feeling.",4 "For, these are matters totally beneath a female who is acknowledged by universal admission to be far above the numerous little foibles and weaknesses of her sex.",1 "If I wanted any further proof of the strictly philosophical nature of the conduct of these young gentlemen in their very delicate predicament, I should at once find it in the fact (also recorded in a foregoing part of this narrative), of their quitting the pursuit, when the general attention was fixed upon Oliver; and making immediately for their home by the shortest possible cut.",1 "Although I do not mean to assert that it is usually the practice of renowned and learned sages, to shorten the road to any great conclusion (their course indeed being rather to lengthen the distance, by various circumlocutions and discursive staggerings, like unto those in which drunken men under the pressure of a too mighty flow of ideas, are prone to indulge); still, I do mean to say, and do say distinctly, that it is the invariable practice of many mighty philosophers, in carrying out their theories, to evince great wisdom and foresight in providing against every possible contingency which can be supposed at all likely to affect themselves.",4 "Thus, to do a great right, you may do a little wrong; and you may take any means which the end to be attained, will justify; the amount of the right, or the amount of the wrong, or indeed the distinction between the two, being left entirely to the philosopher concerned, to be settled and determined by his clear, comprehensive, and impartial view of his own particular case.",4 "It was not until the two boys had scoured, with great rapidity, through a most intricate maze of narrow streets and courts, that they ventured to halt beneath a low and dark archway.",3 "Having remained silent here, just long enough to recover breath to speak, Master Bates uttered an exclamation of amusement and delight; and, bursting into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, flung himself upon a doorstep, and rolled thereon in a transport of mirth.",4 'What's the matter?',2 inquired the Dodger.,2 'Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!',2 roared Charley Bates.,2 "'Hold your noise,' remonstrated the Dodger, looking cautiously round.",1 "'Do you want to be grabbed, stupid?'",1 "'I can't help it,' said Charley, 'I can't help it!",2 "To see him splitting away at that pace, and cutting round the corners, and knocking up again' the posts, and starting on again as if he was made of iron as well as them, and me with the wipe in my pocket, singing out arter him--oh, my eye!'",2 The vivid imagination of Master Bates presented the scene before him in too strong colours.,4 "As he arrived at this apostrophe, he again rolled upon the door-step, and laughed louder than before.",1 'What'll Fagin say?',2 inquired the Dodger; taking advantage of the next interval of breathlessness on the part of his friend to propound the question.,3 'What?',2 repeated Charley Bates.,2 "'Ah, what?'",2 said the Dodger.,2 "'Why, what should he say?'",2 inquired Charley: stopping rather suddenly in his merriment; for the Dodger's manner was impressive.,3 'What should he say?',2 "Mr. Dawkins whistled for a couple of minutes; then, taking off his hat, scratched his head, and nodded thrice.",1 'What do you mean?',2 said Charley.,2 "'Toor rul lol loo, gammon and spinnage, the frog he wouldn't, and high cockolorum,' said the Dodger: with a slight sneer on his intellectual countenance.",1 "This was explanatory, but not satisfactory.",3 "Master Bates felt it so; and again said, 'What do you mean?'",3 "The Dodger made no reply; but putting his hat on again, and gathering the skirts of his long-tailed coat under his arm, thrust his tongue into his cheek, slapped the bridge of his nose some half-dozen times in a familiar but expressive manner, and turning on his heel, slunk down the court.",2 "Master Bates followed, with a thoughtful countenance.",3 "The noise of footsteps on the creaking stairs, a few minutes after the occurrence of this conversation, roused the merry old gentleman as he sat over the fire with a saveloy and a small loaf in his hand; a pocket-knife in his right; and a pewter pot on the trivet.",1 "There was a rascally smile on his white face as he turned round, and looking sharply out from under his thick red eyebrows, bent his ear towards the door, and listened.",1 "'Why, how's this?'",2 muttered the Jew: changing countenance; 'only two of 'em?,2 Where's the third?,2 They can't have got into trouble.,1 Hark!',2 The footsteps approached nearer; they reached the landing.,2 "The door was slowly opened; and the Dodger and Charley Bates entered, closing it behind them.",1 'Where's Oliver?',2 "said the Jew, rising with a menacing look.",1 'Where's the boy?',2 The young thieves eyed their preceptor as if they were alarmed at his violence; and looked uneasily at each other.,1 But they made no reply.,2 'What's become of the boy?',2 "said the Jew, seizing the Dodger tightly by the collar, and threatening him with horrid imprecations.",1 "'Speak out, or I'll throttle you!'",1 "Mr. Fagin looked so very much in earnest, that Charley Bates, who deemed it prudent in all cases to be on the safe side, and who conceived it by no means improbable that it might be his turn to be throttled second, dropped upon his knees, and raised a loud, well-sustained, and continuous roar--something between a mad bull and a speaking trumpet.",3 'Will you speak?',2 "thundered the Jew: shaking the Dodger so much that his keeping in the big coat at all, seemed perfectly miraculous.",3 "'Why, the traps have got him, and that's all about it,' said the Dodger, sullenly.",2 "'Come, let go o' me, will you!'",2 "And, swinging himself, at one jerk, clean out of the big coat, which he left in the Jew's hands, the Dodger snatched up the toasting fork, and made a pass at the merry old gentleman's waistcoat; which, if it had taken effect, would have let a little more merriment out than could have been easily replaced.",3 "The Jew stepped back in this emergency, with more agility than could have been anticipated in a man of his apparent decrepitude; and, seizing up the pot, prepared to hurl it at his assailant's head.",1 "But Charley Bates, at this moment, calling his attention by a perfectly terrific howl, he suddenly altered its destination, and flung it full at that young gentleman.",3 "'Why, what the blazes is in the wind now!'",2 growled a deep voice.,2 'Who pitched that 'ere at me?,2 "It's well it's the beer, and not the pot, as hit me, or I'd have settled somebody.",3 "I might have know'd, as nobody but an infernal, rich, plundering, thundering old Jew could afford to throw away any drink but water--and not that, unless he done the River Company every quarter.",3 "Wot's it all about, Fagin?",2 "D--me, if my neck-handkercher an't lined with beer!",2 "Come in, you sneaking warmint; wot are you stopping outside for, as if you was ashamed of your master!",2 Come in!',2 "The man who growled out these words, was a stoutly-built fellow of about five-and-thirty, in a black velveteen coat, very soiled drab breeches, lace-up half boots, and grey cotton stockings which inclosed a bulky pair of legs, with large swelling calves;--the kind of legs, which in such costume, always look in an unfinished and incomplete state without a set of fetters to garnish them.",0 "He had a brown hat on his head, and a dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck: with the long frayed ends of which he smeared the beer from his face as he spoke.",1 "He disclosed, when he had done so, a broad heavy countenance with a beard of three days' growth, and two scowling eyes; one of which displayed various parti-coloured symptoms of having been recently damaged by a blow.",0 "'Come in, d'ye hear?'",2 growled this engaging ruffian.,2 "A white shaggy dog, with his face scratched and torn in twenty different places, skulked into the room.",1 'Why didn't you come in afore?',2 said the man.,2 "'You're getting too proud to own me afore company, are you?",3 Lie down!',1 "This command was accompanied with a kick, which sent the animal to the other end of the room.",2 "He appeared well used to it, however; for he coiled himself up in a corner very quietly, without uttering a sound, and winking his very ill-looking eyes twenty times in a minute, appeared to occupy himself in taking a survey of the apartment.",3 'What are you up to?,2 "Ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious, in-sa-ti-a-ble old fence?'",1 "said the man, seating himself deliberately.",2 'I wonder they don't murder you!,2 I would if I was them.,2 "If I'd been your 'prentice, I'd have done it long ago, and--no, I couldn't have sold you afterwards, for you're fit for nothing but keeping as a curiousity of ugliness in a glass bottle, and I suppose they don't blow glass bottles large enough.'",1 'Hush!,2 hush!,2 "Mr. Sikes,' said the Jew, trembling; 'don't speak so loud!'",1 "'None of your mistering,' replied the ruffian; 'you always mean mischief when you come that.",1 You know my name: out with it!,2 I shan't disgrace it when the time comes.',1 "'Well, well, then--Bill Sikes,' said the Jew, with abject humility.",3 "'You seem out of humour, Bill.'",3 "'Perhaps I am,' replied Sikes; 'I should think you was rather out of sorts too, unless you mean as little harm when you throw pewter pots about, as you do when you blab and--' 'Are you mad?'",0 "said the Jew, catching the man by the sleeve, and pointing towards the boys.",2 "Mr. Sikes contented himself with tying an imaginary knot under his left ear, and jerking his head over on the right shoulder; a piece of dumb show which the Jew appeared to understand perfectly.",2 "He then, in cant terms, with which his whole conversation was plentifully besprinkled, but which would be quite unintelligible if they were recorded here, demanded a glass of liquor.",1 "'And mind you don't poison it,' said Mr. Sikes, laying his hat upon the table.",1 "This was said in jest; but if the speaker could have seen the evil leer with which the Jew bit his pale lip as he turned round to the cupboard, he might have thought the caution not wholly unnecessary, or the wish (at all events) to improve upon the distiller's ingenuity not very far from the old gentleman's merry heart.",1 "After swallowing two of three glasses of spirits, Mr. Sikes condescended to take some notice of the young gentlemen; which gracious act led to a conversation, in which the cause and manner of Oliver's capture were circumstantially detailed, with such alterations and improvements on the truth, as to the Dodger appeared most advisable under the circumstances.",4 "'I'm afraid,' said the Jew, 'that he may say something which will get us into trouble.'",1 "'That's very likely,' returned Sikes with a malicious grin.",2 "'You're blowed upon, Fagin.'",2 "'And I'm afraid, you see,' added the Jew, speaking as if he had not noticed the interruption; and regarding the other closely as he did so,--'I'm afraid that, if the game was up with us, it might be up with a good many more, and that it would come out rather worse for you than it would for me, my dear.'",1 "The man started, and turned round upon the Jew.",2 But the old gentleman's shoulders were shrugged up to his ears; and his eyes were vacantly staring on the opposite wall.,2 There was a long pause.,2 "Every member of the respectable coterie appeared plunged in his own reflections; not excepting the dog, who by a certain malicious licking of his lips seemed to be meditating an attack upon the legs of the first gentleman or lady he might encounter in the streets when he went out.",1 "'Somebody must find out wot's been done at the office,' said Mr. Sikes in a much lower tone than he had taken since he came in.",2 The Jew nodded assent.,2 "'If he hasn't peached, and is committed, there's no fear till he comes out again,' said Mr. Sikes, 'and then he must be taken care on.",1 You must get hold of him somehow.',2 Again the Jew nodded.,2 "The prudence of this line of action, indeed, was obvious; but, unfortunately, there was one very strong objection to its being adopted.",2 "This was, that the Dodger, and Charley Bates, and Fagin, and Mr. William Sikes, happened, one and all, to entertain a violent and deeply-rooted antipathy to going near a police-office on any ground or pretext whatever.",1 "How long they might have sat and looked at each other, in a state of uncertainty not the most pleasant of its kind, it is difficult to guess.",2 "It is not necessary to make any guesses on the subject, however; for the sudden entrance of the two young ladies whom Oliver had seen on a former occasion, caused the conversation to flow afresh.",2 'The very thing!',2 said the Jew.,2 "'Bet will go; won't you, my dear?'",2 'Wheres?',2 inquired the young lady.,2 "'Only just up to the office, my dear,' said the Jew coaxingly.",2 "It is due to the young lady to say that she did not positively affirm that she would not, but that she merely expressed an emphatic and earnest desire to be 'blessed' if she would; a polite and delicate evasion of the request, which shows the young lady to have been possessed of that natural good breeding which cannot bear to inflict upon a fellow-creature, the pain of a direct and pointed refusal.",3 The Jew's countenance fell.,1 "He turned from this young lady, who was gaily, not to say gorgeously attired, in a red gown, green boots, and yellow curl-papers, to the other female.",3 "'Nancy, my dear,' said the Jew in a soothing manner, 'what do YOU say?'",2 "'That it won't do; so it's no use a-trying it on, Fagin,' replied Nancy.",2 'What do you mean by that?',2 "said Mr. Sikes, looking up in a surly manner.",2 "'What I say, Bill,' replied the lady collectedly.",2 "'Why, you're just the very person for it,' reasoned Mr. Sikes: 'nobody about here knows anything of you.'",3 "'And as I don't want 'em to, neither,' replied Nancy in the same composed manner, 'it's rather more no than yes with me, Bill.'",2 "'She'll go, Fagin,' said Sikes.",2 "'No, she won't, Fagin,' said Nancy.",2 "'Yes, she will, Fagin,' said Sikes.",2 And Mr. Sikes was right.,3 "By dint of alternate threats, promises, and bribes, the lady in question was ultimately prevailed upon to undertake the commission.",2 "She was not, indeed, withheld by the same considerations as her agreeable friend; for, having recently removed into the neighborhood of Field Lane from the remote but genteel suburb of Ratcliffe, she was not under the same apprehension of being recognised by any of her numerous acquaintances.",2 "Accordingly, with a clean white apron tied over her gown, and her curl-papers tucked up under a straw bonnet,--both articles of dress being provided from the Jew's inexhaustible stock,--Miss Nancy prepared to issue forth on her errand.",1 "'Stop a minute, my dear,' said the Jew, producing, a little covered basket.",2 'Carry that in one hand.,2 "It looks more respectable, my dear.'",3 "'Give her a door-key to carry in her t'other one, Fagin,' said Sikes; 'it looks real and genivine like.'",3 "'Yes, yes, my dear, so it does,' said the Jew, hanging a large street-door key on the forefinger of the young lady's right hand.",3 'There; very good!,3 "Very good indeed, my dear!'",3 "said the Jew, rubbing his hands.",2 "'Oh, my brother!",2 "My poor, dear, sweet, innocent little brother!'",2 "exclaimed Nancy, bursting into tears, and wringing the little basket and the street-door key in an agony of distress.",1 'What has become of him!,2 Where have they taken him to!,2 "Oh, do have pity, and tell me what's been done with the dear boy, gentlemen; do, gentlemen, if you please, gentlemen!'",1 "Having uttered those words in a most lamentable and heart-broken tone: to the immeasurable delight of her hearers: Miss Nancy paused, winked to the company, nodded smilingly round, and disappeared.",1 "'Ah, she's a clever girl, my dears,' said the Jew, turning round to his young friends, and shaking his head gravely, as if in mute admonition to them to follow the bright example they had just beheld.",2 "'She's a honour to her sex,' said Mr. Sikes, filling his glass, and smiting the table with his enormous fist.",1 "'Here's her health, and wishing they was all like her!'",3 "While these, and many other encomiums, were being passed on the accomplished Nancy, that young lady made the best of her way to the police-office; whither, notwithstanding a little natural timidity consequent upon walking through the streets alone and unprotected, she arrived in perfect safety shortly afterwards.",3 "Entering by the back way, she tapped softly with the key at one of the cell-doors, and listened.",2 There was no sound within: so she coughed and listened again.,2 Still there was no reply: so she spoke.,2 "'Nolly, dear?'",2 murmured Nancy in a gentle voice; 'Nolly?',3 "There was nobody inside but a miserable shoeless criminal, who had been taken up for playing the flute, and who, the offence against society having been clearly proved, had been very properly committed by Mr. Fang to the House of Correction for one month; with the appropriate and amusing remark that since he had so much breath to spare, it would be more wholesomely expended on the treadmill than in a musical instrument.",3 "He made no answer: being occupied mentally bewailing the loss of the flute, which had been confiscated for the use of the county: so Nancy passed on to the next cell, and knocked there.",1 'Well!',2 cried a faint and feeble voice.,1 'Is there a little boy here?',2 "inquired Nancy, with a preliminary sob.",1 "'No,' replied the voice; 'God forbid.'",1 "This was a vagrant of sixty-five, who was going to prison for _not_ playing the flute; or, in other words, for begging in the streets, and doing nothing for his livelihood.",0 "In the next cell was another man, who was going to the same prison for hawking tin saucepans without license; thereby doing something for his living, in defiance of the Stamp-office.",1 "But, as neither of these criminals answered to the name of Oliver, or knew anything about him, Nancy made straight up to the bluff officer in the striped waistcoat; and with the most piteous wailings and lamentations, rendered more piteous by a prompt and efficient use of the street-door key and the little basket, demanded her own dear brother.",3 "'I haven't got him, my dear,' said the old man.",2 'Where is he?',2 "screamed Nancy, in a distracted manner.",2 "'Why, the gentleman's got him,' replied the officer.",2 'What gentleman!,2 "Oh, gracious heavens!",3 What gentleman?',2 exclaimed Nancy.,2 "In reply to this incoherent questioning, the old man informed the deeply affected sister that Oliver had been taken ill in the office, and discharged in consequence of a witness having proved the robbery to have been committed by another boy, not in custody; and that the prosecutor had carried him away, in an insensible condition, to his own residence: of and concerning which, all the informant knew was, that it was somewhere in Pentonville, he having heard that word mentioned in the directions to the coachman.",1 "In a dreadful state of doubt and uncertainty, the agonised young woman staggered to the gate, and then, exchanging her faltering walk for a swift run, returned by the most devious and complicated route she could think of, to the domicile of the Jew.",0 "Mr. Bill Sikes no sooner heard the account of the expedition delivered, than he very hastily called up the white dog, and, putting on his hat, expeditiously departed: without devoting any time to the formality of wishing the company good-morning.",3 "'We must know where he is, my dears; he must be found,' said the Jew greatly excited.",3 "'Charley, do nothing but skulk about, till you bring home some news of him!",1 "Nancy, my dear, I must have him found.",2 "I trust to you, my dear,--to you and the Artful for everything!",3 "Stay, stay,' added the Jew, unlocking a drawer with a shaking hand; 'there's money, my dears.",2 I shall shut up this shop to-night.,2 You'll know where to find me!,2 Don't stop here a minute.,2 "Not an instant, my dears!'",2 "With these words, he pushed them from the room: and carefully double-locking and barring the door behind them, drew from its place of concealment the box which he had unintentionally disclosed to Oliver.",2 "Then, he hastily proceeded to dispose the watches and jewellery beneath his clothing.",1 A rap at the door startled him in this occupation.,2 'Who's there?',2 he cried in a shrill tone.,1 'Me!',2 "replied the voice of the Dodger, through the key-hole.",2 'What now?',2 cried the Jew impatiently.,1 "'Is he to be kidnapped to the other ken, Nancy says?'",2 inquired the Dodger.,2 "'Yes,' replied the Jew, 'wherever she lays hands on him.",2 "Find him, find him out, that's all.",2 I shall know what to do next; never fear.',1 The boy murmured a reply of intelligence: and hurried downstairs after his companions.,3 "'He has not peached so far,' said the Jew as he pursued his occupation.",2 "'If he means to blab us among his new friends, we may stop his mouth yet.'",1 "Oliver soon recovering from the fainting-fit into which Mr. Brownlow's abrupt exclamation had thrown him, the subject of the picture was carefully avoided, both by the old gentleman and Mrs. Bedwin, in the conversation that ensued: which indeed bore no reference to Oliver's history or prospects, but was confined to such topics as might amuse without exciting him.",1 "He was still too weak to get up to breakfast; but, when he came down into the housekeeper's room next day, his first act was to cast an eager glance at the wall, in the hope of again looking on the face of the beautiful lady.",3 "His expectations were disappointed, however, for the picture had been removed.",1 'Ah!',2 "said the housekeeper, watching the direction of Oliver's eyes.",2 "'It is gone, you see.'",2 "'I see it is ma'am,' replied Oliver.",2 'Why have they taken it away?',2 "'It has been taken down, child, because Mr. Brownlow said, that as it seemed to worry you, perhaps it might prevent your getting well, you know,' rejoined the old lady.",2 "'Oh, no, indeed.",2 "It didn't worry me, ma'am,' said Oliver.",1 'I liked to see it.,3 I quite loved it.',3 "'Well, well!'",3 "said the old lady, good-humouredly; 'you get well as fast as ever you can, dear, and it shall be hung up again.",3 There!,2 I promise you that!,3 "Now, let us talk about something else.'",2 This was all the information Oliver could obtain about the picture at that time.,2 "As the old lady had been so kind to him in his illness, he endeavoured to think no more of the subject just then; so he listened attentively to a great many stories she told him, about an amiable and handsome daughter of hers, who was married to an amiable and handsome man, and lived in the country; and about a son, who was clerk to a merchant in the West Indies; and who was, also, such a good young man, and wrote such dutiful letters home four times a-year, that it brought the tears into her eyes to talk about them.",4 "When the old lady had expatiated, a long time, on the excellences of her children, and the merits of her kind good husband besides, who had been dead and gone, poor dear soul!",1 "just six-and-twenty years, it was time to have tea.",2 "After tea she began to teach Oliver cribbage: which he learnt as quickly as she could teach: and at which game they played, with great interest and gravity, until it was time for the invalid to have some warm wine and water, with a slice of dry toast, and then to go cosily to bed.",3 "They were happy days, those of Oliver's recovery.",3 "Everything was so quiet, and neat, and orderly; everybody so kind and gentle; that after the noise and turbulence in the midst of which he had always lived, it seemed like Heaven itself.",4 "He was no sooner strong enough to put his clothes on, properly, than Mr. Brownlow caused a complete new suit, and a new cap, and a new pair of shoes, to be provided for him.",4 "As Oliver was told that he might do what he liked with the old clothes, he gave them to a servant who had been very kind to him, and asked her to sell them to a Jew, and keep the money for herself.",3 "This she very readily did; and, as Oliver looked out of the parlour window, and saw the Jew roll them up in his bag and walk away, he felt quite delighted to think that they were safely gone, and that there was now no possible danger of his ever being able to wear them again.",3 "They were sad rags, to tell the truth; and Oliver had never had a new suit before.",1 "One evening, about a week after the affair of the picture, as he was sitting talking to Mrs. Bedwin, there came a message down from Mr. Brownlow, that if Oliver Twist felt pretty well, he should like to see him in his study, and talk to him a little while.",3 "'Bless us, and save us!",2 "Wash your hands, and let me part your hair nicely for you, child,' said Mrs. Bedwin.",3 'Dear heart alive!,2 "If we had known he would have asked for you, we would have put you a clean collar on, and made you as smart as sixpence!'",3 "Oliver did as the old lady bade him; and, although she lamented grievously, meanwhile, that there was not even time to crimp the little frill that bordered his shirt-collar; he looked so delicate and handsome, despite that important personal advantage, that she went so far as to say: looking at him with great complacency from head to foot, that she really didn't think it would have been possible, on the longest notice, to have made much difference in him for the better.",4 "Thus encouraged, Oliver tapped at the study door.",2 "On Mr. Brownlow calling to him to come in, he found himself in a little back room, quite full of books, with a window, looking into some pleasant little gardens.",3 "There was a table drawn up before the window, at which Mr. Brownlow was seated reading.",2 "When he saw Oliver, he pushed the book away from him, and told him to come near the table, and sit down.",2 Oliver complied; marvelling where the people could be found to read such a great number of books as seemed to be written to make the world wiser.,3 "Which is still a marvel to more experienced people than Oliver Twist, every day of their lives.",2 "'There are a good many books, are there not, my boy?'",3 "said Mr. Brownlow, observing the curiosity with which Oliver surveyed the shelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling.",2 "'A great number, sir,' replied Oliver.",3 'I never saw so many.',2 "'You shall read them, if you behave well,' said the old gentleman kindly; 'and you will like that, better than looking at the outsides,--that is, some cases; because there are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.'",4 "'I suppose they are those heavy ones, sir,' said Oliver, pointing to some large quartos, with a good deal of gilding about the binding.",3 "'Not always those,' said the old gentleman, patting Oliver on the head, and smiling as he did so; 'there are other equally heavy ones, though of a much smaller size.",3 "How should you like to grow up a clever man, and write books, eh?'",3 "'I think I would rather read them, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 'What!,2 wouldn't you like to be a book-writer?',3 said the old gentleman.,2 "Oliver considered a little while; and at last said, he should think it would be a much better thing to be a book-seller; upon which the old gentleman laughed heartily, and declared he had said a very good thing.",4 "Which Oliver felt glad to have done, though he by no means knew what it was.",3 "'Well, well,' said the old gentleman, composing his features.",3 'Don't be afraid!,1 "We won't make an author of you, while there's an honest trade to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.'",3 "'Thank you, sir,' said Oliver.",2 "At the earnest manner of his reply, the old gentleman laughed again; and said something about a curious instinct, which Oliver, not understanding, paid no very great attention to.",3 "'Now,' said Mr. Brownlow, speaking if possible in a kinder, but at the same time in a much more serious manner, than Oliver had ever known him assume yet, 'I want you to pay great attention, my boy, to what I am going to say.",3 "I shall talk to you without any reserve; because I am sure you are well able to understand me, as many older persons would be.'",3 "'Oh, don't tell you are going to send me away, sir, pray!'",2 "exclaimed Oliver, alarmed at the serious tone of the old gentleman's commencement!",1 'Don't turn me out of doors to wander in the streets again.,2 "Let me stay here, and be a servant.",2 Don't send me back to the wretched place I came from.,1 "Have mercy upon a poor boy, sir!'",2 "'My dear child,' said the old gentleman, moved by the warmth of Oliver's sudden appeal; 'you need not be afraid of my deserting you, unless you give me cause.'",3 "'I never, never will, sir,' interposed Oliver.",2 "'I hope not,' rejoined the old gentleman.",2 'I do not think you ever will.,2 "I have been deceived, before, in the objects whom I have endeavoured to benefit; but I feel strongly disposed to trust you, nevertheless; and I am more interested in your behalf than I can well account for, even to myself.",4 "The persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love, lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up, forever, on my best affections.",4 Deep affliction has but strengthened and refined them.',2 As the old gentleman said this in a low voice: more to himself than to his companion: and as he remained silent for a short time afterwards: Oliver sat quite still.,3 "'Well, well!'",3 "said the old gentleman at length, in a more cheerful tone, 'I only say this, because you have a young heart; and knowing that I have suffered great pain and sorrow, you will be more careful, perhaps, not to wound me again.",1 "You say you are an orphan, without a friend in the world; all the inquiries I have been able to make, confirm the statement.",1 Let me hear your story; where you come from; who brought you up; and how you got into the company in which I found you.,2 "Speak the truth, and you shall not be friendless while I live.'",2 "Oliver's sobs checked his utterance for some minutes; when he was on the point of beginning to relate how he had been brought up at the farm, and carried to the workhouse by Mr. Bumble, a peculiarly impatient little double-knock was heard at the street-door: and the servant, running upstairs, announced Mr. Grimwig.",0 'Is he coming up?',2 inquired Mr. Brownlow.,2 "'Yes, sir,' replied the servant.",2 "'He asked if there were any muffins in the house; and, when I told him yes, he said he had come to tea.'",2 "Mr. Brownlow smiled; and, turning to Oliver, said that Mr. Grimwig was an old friend of his, and he must not mind his being a little rough in his manners; for he was a worthy creature at bottom, as he had reason to know.",2 "'Shall I go downstairs, sir?'",2 inquired Oliver.,2 "'No,' replied Mr. Brownlow, 'I would rather you remained here.'",2 "At this moment, there walked into the room: supporting himself by a thick stick: a stout old gentleman, rather lame in one leg, who was dressed in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, nankeen breeches and gaiters, and a broad-brimmed white hat, with the sides turned up with green.",2 "A very small-plaited shirt frill stuck out from his waistcoat; and a very long steel watch-chain, with nothing but a key at the end, dangled loosely below it.",1 "The ends of his white neckerchief were twisted into a ball about the size of an orange; the variety of shapes into which his countenance was twisted, defy description.",1 He had a manner of screwing his head on one side when he spoke; and of looking out of the corners of his eyes at the same time: which irresistibly reminded the beholder of a parrot.,3 "In this attitude, he fixed himself, the moment he made his appearance; and, holding out a small piece of orange-peel at arm's length, exclaimed, in a growling, discontented voice.",1 'Look here!,2 do you see this!,2 Isn't it a most wonderful and extraordinary thing that I can't call at a man's house but I find a piece of this poor surgeon's friend on the staircase?,3 "I've been lamed with orange-peel once, and I know orange-peel will be my death, or I'll be content to eat my own head, sir!'",1 "This was the handsome offer with which Mr. Grimwig backed and confirmed nearly every assertion he made; and it was the more singular in his case, because, even admitting for the sake of argument, the possibility of scientific improvements being brought to that pass which will enable a gentleman to eat his own head in the event of his being so disposed, Mr. Grimwig's head was such a particularly large one, that the most sanguine man alive could hardly entertain a hope of being able to get through it at a sitting--to put entirely out of the question, a very thick coating of powder.",4 "'I'll eat my head, sir,' repeated Mr. Grimwig, striking his stick upon the ground.",3 'Hallo!,2 what's that!',2 "looking at Oliver, and retreating a pace or two.",2 "'This is young Oliver Twist, whom we were speaking about,' said Mr. Brownlow.",1 Oliver bowed.,2 "'You don't mean to say that's the boy who had the fever, I hope?'",1 "said Mr. Grimwig, recoiling a little more.",2 'Wait a minute!,2 Don't speak!,2 "Stop--' continued Mr. Grimwig, abruptly, losing all dread of the fever in his triumph at the discovery; 'that's the boy who had the orange!",0 "If that's not the boy, sir, who had the orange, and threw this bit of peel upon the staircase, I'll eat my head, and his too.'",2 "'No, no, he has not had one,' said Mr. Brownlow, laughing.",2 'Come!,2 Put down your hat; and speak to my young friend.',2 "'I feel strongly on this subject, sir,' said the irritable old gentleman, drawing off his gloves.",1 'There's always more or less orange-peel on the pavement in our street; and I _know_ it's put there by the surgeon's boy at the corner.,2 "A young woman stumbled over a bit last night, and fell against my garden-railings; directly she got up I saw her look towards his infernal red lamp with the pantomime-light.",0 """Don't go to him,"" I called out of the window, ""he's an assassin!",1 "A man-trap!""",1 So he is.,2 "If he is not--' Here the irascible old gentleman gave a great knock on the ground with his stick; which was always understood, by his friends, to imply the customary offer, whenever it was not expressed in words.",1 "Then, still keeping his stick in his hand, he sat down; and, opening a double eye-glass, which he wore attached to a broad black riband, took a view of Oliver: who, seeing that he was the object of inspection, coloured, and bowed again.",1 "'That's the boy, is it?'",2 "said Mr. Grimwig, at length.",2 "'That's the boy,' replied Mr. Brownlow.",2 "'How are you, boy?'",2 said Mr. Grimwig.,2 "'A great deal better, thank you, sir,' replied Oliver.",4 "Mr. Brownlow, seeming to apprehend that his singular friend was about to say something disagreeable, asked Oliver to step downstairs and tell Mrs. Bedwin they were ready for tea; which, as he did not half like the visitor's manner, he was very happy to do.",3 "'He is a nice-looking boy, is he not?'",3 inquired Mr. Brownlow.,2 "'I don't know,' replied Mr. Grimwig, pettishly.",2 'Don't know?',2 'No.,2 I don't know.,2 I never see any difference in boys.,2 I only knew two sort of boys.,2 "Mealy boys, and beef-faced boys.'",2 'And which is Oliver?',2 'Mealy.,2 "I know a friend who has a beef-faced boy; a fine boy, they call him; with a round head, and red cheeks, and glaring eyes; a horrid boy; with a body and limbs that appear to be swelling out of the seams of his blue clothes; with the voice of a pilot, and the appetite of a wolf.",1 I know him!,2 The wretch!',1 "'Come,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'these are not the characteristics of young Oliver Twist; so he needn't excite your wrath.'",1 "'They are not,' replied Mr. Grimwig.",2 'He may have worse.',1 "Here, Mr. Brownlow coughed impatiently; which appeared to afford Mr. Grimwig the most exquisite delight.",3 "'He may have worse, I say,' repeated Mr. Grimwig.",1 'Where does he come from!,2 Who is he?,2 What is he?,2 He has had a fever.,1 What of that?,2 Fevers are not peculiar to good people; are they?,1 "Bad people have fevers sometimes; haven't they, eh?",1 I knew a man who was hung in Jamaica for murdering his master.,2 He had had a fever six times; he wasn't recommended to mercy on that account.,3 Pooh!,2 nonsense!',1 "Now, the fact was, that in the inmost recesses of his own heart, Mr. Grimwig was strongly disposed to admit that Oliver's appearance and manner were unusually prepossessing; but he had a strong appetite for contradiction, sharpened on this occasion by the finding of the orange-peel; and, inwardly determining that no man should dictate to him whether a boy was well-looking or not, he had resolved, from the first, to oppose his friend.",1 When Mr. Brownlow admitted that on no one point of inquiry could he yet return a satisfactory answer; and that he had postponed any investigation into Oliver's previous history until he thought the boy was strong enough to hear it; Mr. Grimwig chuckled maliciously.,3 "And he demanded, with a sneer, whether the housekeeper was in the habit of counting the plate at night; because if she didn't find a table-spoon or two missing some sunshiny morning, why, he would be content to--and so forth.",1 "All this, Mr. Brownlow, although himself somewhat of an impetuous gentleman: knowing his friend's peculiarities, bore with great good humour; as Mr. Grimwig, at tea, was graciously pleased to express his entire approval of the muffins, matters went on very smoothly; and Oliver, who made one of the party, began to feel more at his ease than he had yet done in the fierce old gentleman's presence.",4 "'And when are you going to hear a full, true, and particular account of the life and adventures of Oliver Twist?'",1 "asked Grimwig of Mr. Brownlow, at the conclusion of the meal; looking sideways at Oliver, as he resumed his subject.",2 "'To-morrow morning,' replied Mr. Brownlow.",2 'I would rather he was alone with me at the time.,2 "Come up to me to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, my dear.'",2 "'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 "He answered with some hesitation, because he was confused by Mr. Grimwig's looking so hard at him.",1 "'I'll tell you what,' whispered that gentleman to Mr. Brownlow; 'he won't come up to you to-morrow morning.",2 I saw him hesitate.,2 "He is deceiving you, my good friend.'",2 "'I'll swear he is not,' replied Mr. Brownlow, warmly.",3 "'If he is not,' said Mr. Grimwig, 'I'll--' and down went the stick.",2 'I'll answer for that boy's truth with my life!',2 "said Mr. Brownlow, knocking the table.",2 'And I for his falsehood with my head!',1 "rejoined Mr. Grimwig, knocking the table also.",2 "'We shall see,' said Mr. Brownlow, checking his rising anger.",1 "'We will,' replied Mr. Grimwig, with a provoking smile; 'we will.'",3 "As fate would have it, Mrs. Bedwin chanced to bring in, at this moment, a small parcel of books, which Mr. Brownlow had that morning purchased of the identical bookstall-keeper, who has already figured in this history; having laid them on the table, she prepared to leave the room.",2 "'Stop the boy, Mrs. Bedwin!'",2 said Mr. Brownlow; 'there is something to go back.',2 "'He has gone, sir,' replied Mrs. Bedwin.",2 "'Call after him,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'it's particular.",2 "He is a poor man, and they are not paid for.",1 "There are some books to be taken back, too.'",2 The street-door was opened.,2 Oliver ran one way; and the girl ran another; and Mrs. Bedwin stood on the step and screamed for the boy; but there was no boy in sight.,2 "Oliver and the girl returned, in a breathless state, to report that there were no tidings of him.",2 "'Dear me, I am very sorry for that,' exclaimed Mr. Brownlow; 'I particularly wished those books to be returned to-night.'",1 "'Send Oliver with them,' said Mr. Grimwig, with an ironical smile; 'he will be sure to deliver them safely, you know.'",3 "'Yes; do let me take them, if you please, sir,' said Oliver.",2 "'I'll run all the way, sir.'",2 "The old gentleman was just going to say that Oliver should not go out on any account; when a most malicious cough from Mr. Grimwig determined him that he should; and that, by his prompt discharge of the commission, he should prove to him the injustice of his suspicions: on this head at least: at once.",1 "'You _shall_ go, my dear,' said the old gentleman.",2 'The books are on a chair by my table.,2 Fetch them down.',2 "Oliver, delighted to be of use, brought down the books under his arm in a great bustle; and waited, cap in hand, to hear what message he was to take.",3 "'You are to say,' said Mr. Brownlow, glancing steadily at Grimwig; 'you are to say that you have brought those books back; and that you have come to pay the four pound ten I owe him.",2 "This is a five-pound note, so you will have to bring me back, ten shillings change.'",2 "'I won't be ten minutes, sir,' said Oliver, eagerly.",3 "Having buttoned up the bank-note in his jacket pocket, and placed the books carefully under his arm, he made a respectful bow, and left the room.",3 "Mrs. Bedwin followed him to the street-door, giving him many directions about the nearest way, and the name of the bookseller, and the name of the street: all of which Oliver said he clearly understood.",3 "Having superadded many injunctions to be sure and not take cold, the old lady at length permitted him to depart.",1 'Bless his sweet face!',3 "said the old lady, looking after him.",2 "'I can't bear, somehow, to let him go out of my sight.'",2 "At this moment, Oliver looked gaily round, and nodded before he turned the corner.",3 "The old lady smilingly returned his salutation, and, closing the door, went back to her own room.",3 "'Let me see; he'll be back in twenty minutes, at the longest,' said Mr. Brownlow, pulling out his watch, and placing it on the table.",2 'It will be dark by that time.',1 'Oh!,2 "you really expect him to come back, do you?'",2 inquired Mr. Grimwig.,2 'Don't you?',2 "asked Mr. Brownlow, smiling.",3 "The spirit of contradiction was strong in Mr. Grimwig's breast, at the moment; and it was rendered stronger by his friend's confident smile.",4 "'No,' he said, smiting the table with his fist, 'I do not.",1 "The boy has a new suit of clothes on his back, a set of valuable books under his arm, and a five-pound note in his pocket.",3 "He'll join his old friends the thieves, and laugh at you.",2 "If ever that boy returns to this house, sir, I'll eat my head.'",2 "With these words he drew his chair closer to the table; and there the two friends sat, in silent expectation, with the watch between them.",3 "It is worthy of remark, as illustrating the importance we attach to our own judgments, and the pride with which we put forth our most rash and hasty conclusions, that, although Mr. Grimwig was not by any means a bad-hearted man, and though he would have been unfeignedly sorry to see his respected friend duped and deceived, he really did most earnestly and strongly hope at that moment, that Oliver Twist might not come back.",1 "It grew so dark, that the figures on the dial-plate were scarcely discernible; but there the two old gentlemen continued to sit, in silence, with the watch between them.",1 "In the obscure parlour of a low public-house, in the filthiest part of Little Saffron Hill; a dark and gloomy den, where a flaring gas-light burnt all day in the winter-time; and where no ray of sun ever shone in the summer: there sat, brooding over a little pewter measure and a small glass, strongly impregnated with the smell of liquor, a man in a velveteen coat, drab shorts, half-boots and stockings, whom even by that dim light no experienced agent of the police would have hesitated to recognise as Mr. William Sikes.",0 "At his feet, sat a white-coated, red-eyed dog; who occupied himself, alternately, in winking at his master with both eyes at the same time; and in licking a large, fresh cut on one side of his mouth, which appeared to be the result of some recent conflict.",3 "'Keep quiet, you warmint!",3 Keep quiet!',3 "said Mr. Sikes, suddenly breaking silence.",1 "Whether his meditations were so intense as to be disturbed by the dog's winking, or whether his feelings were so wrought upon by his reflections that they required all the relief derivable from kicking an unoffending animal to allay them, is matter for argument and consideration.",1 "Whatever was the cause, the effect was a kick and a curse, bestowed upon the dog simultaneously.",1 "Dogs are not generally apt to revenge injuries inflicted upon them by their masters; but Mr. Sikes's dog, having faults of temper in common with his owner, and labouring, perhaps, at this moment, under a powerful sense of injury, made no more ado but at once fixed his teeth in one of the half-boots.",1 "Having given in a hearty shake, he retired, growling, under a form; just escaping the pewter measure which Mr. Sikes levelled at his head.",1 "'You would, would you?'",2 "said Sikes, seizing the poker in one hand, and deliberately opening with the other a large clasp-knife, which he drew from his pocket.",1 "'Come here, you born devil!",1 Come here!,2 D'ye hear?',2 "The dog no doubt heard; because Mr. Sikes spoke in the very harshest key of a very harsh voice; but, appearing to entertain some unaccountable objection to having his throat cut, he remained where he was, and growled more fiercely than before: at the same time grasping the end of the poker between his teeth, and biting at it like a wild beast.",0 "This resistance only infuriated Mr. Sikes the more; who, dropping on his knees, began to assail the animal most furiously.",0 "The dog jumped from right to left, and from left to right; snapping, growling, and barking; the man thrust and swore, and struck and blasphemed; and the struggle was reaching a most critical point for one or other; when, the door suddenly opening, the dog darted out: leaving Bill Sikes with the poker and the clasp-knife in his hands.",0 "There must always be two parties to a quarrel, says the old adage.",1 "Mr. Sikes, being disappointed of the dog's participation, at once transferred his share in the quarrel to the new comer.",1 'What the devil do you come in between me and my dog for?',1 "said Sikes, with a fierce gesture.",1 "'I didn't know, my dear, I didn't know,' replied Fagin, humbly; for the Jew was the new comer.",2 "'Didn't know, you white-livered thief!'",2 growled Sikes.,2 'Couldn't you hear the noise?',1 "'Not a sound of it, as I'm a living man, Bill,' replied the Jew.",2 'Oh no!,2 "You hear nothing, you don't,' retorted Sikes with a fierce sneer.",1 "'Sneaking in and out, so as nobody hears how you come or go!",2 "I wish you had been the dog, Fagin, half a minute ago.'",2 'Why?',2 inquired the Jew with a forced smile.,3 "'Cause the government, as cares for the lives of such men as you, as haven't half the pluck of curs, lets a man kill a dog how he likes,' replied Sikes, shutting up the knife with a very expressive look; 'that's why.'",1 "The Jew rubbed his hands; and, sitting down at the table, affected to laugh at the pleasantry of his friend.",2 "He was obviously very ill at ease, however.",3 "'Grin away,' said Sikes, replacing the poker, and surveying him with savage contempt; 'grin away.",1 "You'll never have the laugh at me, though, unless it's behind a nightcap.",2 "I've got the upper hand over you, Fagin; and, d--me, I'll keep it.",2 There!,2 "If I go, you go; so take care of me.'",2 "'Well, well, my dear,' said the Jew, 'I know all that; we--we--have a mutual interest, Bill,--a mutual interest.'",3 "'Humph,' said Sikes, as if he thought the interest lay rather more on the Jew's side than on his.",2 "'Well, what have you got to say to me?'",2 "'It's all passed safe through the melting-pot,' replied Fagin, 'and this is your share.",3 "It's rather more than it ought to be, my dear; but as I know you'll do me a good turn another time, and--' 'Stow that gammon,' interposed the robber, impatiently.",2 'Where is it?,2 Hand over!',2 "'Yes, yes, Bill; give me time, give me time,' replied the Jew, soothingly.",3 'Here it is!,2 All safe!',3 "As he spoke, he drew forth an old cotton handkerchief from his breast; and untying a large knot in one corner, produced a small brown-paper packet.",2 "Sikes, snatching it from him, hastily opened it; and proceeded to count the sovereigns it contained.",1 "'This is all, is it?'",2 inquired Sikes.,2 "'All,' replied the Jew.",2 "'You haven't opened the parcel and swallowed one or two as you come along, have you?'",2 "inquired Sikes, suspiciously.",1 'Don't put on an injured look at the question; you've done it many a time.,2 Jerk the tinkler.',1 "These words, in plain English, conveyed an injunction to ring the bell.",2 "It was answered by another Jew: younger than Fagin, but nearly as vile and repulsive in appearance.",1 Bill Sikes merely pointed to the empty measure.,2 "The Jew, perfectly understanding the hint, retired to fill it: previously exchanging a remarkable look with Fagin, who raised his eyes for an instant, as if in expectation of it, and shook his head in reply; so slightly that the action would have been almost imperceptible to an observant third person.",3 "It was lost upon Sikes, who was stooping at the moment to tie the boot-lace which the dog had torn.",1 "Possibly, if he had observed the brief interchange of signals, he might have thought that it boded no good to him.",3 "'Is anybody here, Barney?'",2 "inquired Fagin; speaking, now that that Sikes was looking on, without raising his eyes from the ground.",2 "'Dot a shoul,' replied Barney; whose words: whether they came from the heart or not: made their way through the nose.",2 'Nobody?',2 "inquired Fagin, in a tone of surprise: which perhaps might mean that Barney was at liberty to tell the truth.",3 "'Dobody but Biss Dadsy,' replied Barney.",2 'Nancy!',2 exclaimed Sikes.,2 'Where?,2 "Strike me blind, if I don't honour that 'ere girl, for her native talents.'",1 "'She's bid havid a plate of boiled beef id the bar,' replied Barney.",2 "'Send her here,' said Sikes, pouring out a glass of liquor.",2 'Send her here.',2 "Barney looked timidly at Fagin, as if for permission; the Jew remaining silent, and not lifting his eyes from the ground, he retired; and presently returned, ushering in Nancy; who was decorated with the bonnet, apron, basket, and street-door key, complete.",2 "'You are on the scent, are you, Nancy?'",2 "inquired Sikes, proffering the glass.",2 "'Yes, I am, Bill,' replied the young lady, disposing of its contents; 'and tired enough of it I am, too.",2 "The young brat's been ill and confined to the crib; and--' 'Ah, Nancy, dear!'",1 "said Fagin, looking up.",2 "Now, whether a peculiar contraction of the Jew's red eye-brows, and a half closing of his deeply-set eyes, warned Miss Nancy that she was disposed to be too communicative, is not a matter of much importance.",0 "The fact is all we need care for here; and the fact is, that she suddenly checked herself, and with several gracious smiles upon Mr. Sikes, turned the conversation to other matters.",3 "In about ten minutes' time, Mr. Fagin was seized with a fit of coughing; upon which Nancy pulled her shawl over her shoulders, and declared it was time to go.",2 "Mr. Sikes, finding that he was walking a short part of her way himself, expressed his intention of accompanying her; they went away together, followed, at a little distant, by the dog, who slunk out of a back-yard as soon as his master was out of sight.",3 "The Jew thrust his head out of the room door when Sikes had left it; looked after him as he walked up the dark passage; shook his clenched fist; muttered a deep curse; and then, with a horrible grin, reseated himself at the table; where he was soon deeply absorbed in the interesting pages of the Hue-and-Cry.",0 "Meanwhile, Oliver Twist, little dreaming that he was within so very short a distance of the merry old gentleman, was on his way to the book-stall.",1 "When he got into Clerkenwell, he accidently turned down a by-street which was not exactly in his way; but not discovering his mistake until he had got half-way down it, and knowing it must lead in the right direction, he did not think it worth while to turn back; and so marched on, as quickly as he could, with the books under his arm.",3 "He was walking along, thinking how happy and contented he ought to feel; and how much he would give for only one look at poor little Dick, who, starved and beaten, might be weeping bitterly at that very moment; when he was startled by a young woman screaming out very loud.",0 "'Oh, my dear brother!'",2 "And he had hardly looked up, to see what the matter was, when he was stopped by having a pair of arms thrown tight round his neck.",2 "'Don't,' cried Oliver, struggling.",1 'Let go of me.,2 Who is it?,2 What are you stopping me for?',2 "The only reply to this, was a great number of loud lamentations from the young woman who had embraced him; and who had a little basket and a street-door key in her hand.",2 'Oh my gracious!',3 "said the young woman, 'I have found him!",2 Oh!,2 Oliver!,2 Oliver!,2 "Oh you naughty boy, to make me suffer such distress on your account!",0 "Come home, dear, come.",2 "Oh, I've found him.",2 "Thank gracious goodness heavins, I've found him!'",4 "With these incoherent exclamations, the young woman burst into another fit of crying, and got so dreadfully hysterical, that a couple of women who came up at the moment asked a butcher's boy with a shiny head of hair anointed with suet, who was also looking on, whether he didn't think he had better run for the doctor.",1 "To which, the butcher's boy: who appeared of a lounging, not to say indolent disposition: replied, that he thought not.",1 "'Oh, no, no, never mind,' said the young woman, grasping Oliver's hand; 'I'm better now.",3 "Come home directly, you cruel boy!",1 Come!',2 "'Oh, ma'am,' replied the young woman, 'he ran away, near a month ago, from his parents, who are hard-working and respectable people; and went and joined a set of thieves and bad characters; and almost broke his mother's heart.'",1 'Young wretch!',1 said one woman.,2 "'Go home, do, you little brute,' said the other.",1 "'I am not,' replied Oliver, greatly alarmed.",1 'I don't know her.,2 "I haven't any sister, or father and mother either.",2 I'm an orphan; I live at Pentonville.',1 "'Only hear him, how he braves it out!'",2 cried the young woman.,2 "'Why, it's Nancy!'",2 "exclaimed Oliver; who now saw her face for the first time; and started back, in irrepressible astonishment.",2 'You see he knows me!',2 "cried Nancy, appealing to the bystanders.",3 'He can't help himself.,2 "Make him come home, there's good people, or he'll kill his dear mother and father, and break my heart!'",1 'What the devil's this?',2 "said a man, bursting out of a beer-shop, with a white dog at his heels; 'young Oliver!",2 "Come home to your poor mother, you young dog!",1 Come home directly.',2 'I don't belong to them.,2 I don't know them.,2 Help!,2 help!',2 "cried Oliver, struggling in the man's powerful grasp.",2 'Help!',2 repeated the man.,2 "'Yes; I'll help you, you young rascal!",1 What books are these?,2 "You've been a stealing 'em, have you?",1 Give 'em here.',2 "With these words, the man tore the volumes from his grasp, and struck him on the head.",1 'That's right!',3 "cried a looker-on, from a garret-window.",2 'That's the only way of bringing him to his senses!',2 'To be sure!',2 "cried a sleepy-faced carpenter, casting an approving look at the garret-window.",2 'It'll do him good!',3 said the two women.,2 "'And he shall have it, too!'",2 "rejoined the man, administering another blow, and seizing Oliver by the collar.",1 "'Come on, you young villain!",2 "Here, Bull's-eye, mind him, boy!",2 Mind him!',2 "Weak with recent illness; stupified by the blows and the suddenness of the attack; terrified by the fierce growling of the dog, and the brutality of the man; overpowered by the conviction of the bystanders that he really was the hardened little wretch he was described to be; what could one poor child do!",0 Darkness had set in; it was a low neighborhood; no help was near; resistance was useless.,0 "In another moment he was dragged into a labyrinth of dark narrow courts, and was forced along them at a pace which rendered the few cries he dared to give utterance to, unintelligible.",0 "It was of little moment, indeed, whether they were intelligible or no; for there was nobody to care for them, had they been ever so plain.",3 "The gas-lamps were lighted; Mrs. Bedwin was waiting anxiously at the open door; the servant had run up the street twenty times to see if there were any traces of Oliver; and still the two old gentlemen sat, perseveringly, in the dark parlour, with the watch between them.",1 "The narrow streets and courts, at length, terminated in a large open space; scattered about which, were pens for beasts, and other indications of a cattle-market.",2 "Sikes slackened his pace when they reached this spot: the girl being quite unable to support any longer, the rapid rate at which they had hitherto walked.",3 "Turning to Oliver, he roughly commanded him to take hold of Nancy's hand.",2 'Do you hear?',2 "growled Sikes, as Oliver hesitated, and looked round.",2 "They were in a dark corner, quite out of the track of passengers.",1 "Oliver saw, but too plainly, that resistance would be of no avail.",1 "He held out his hand, which Nancy clasped tight in hers.",2 "'Give me the other,' said Sikes, seizing Oliver's unoccupied hand.",2 "'Here, Bull's-Eye!'",2 "The dog looked up, and growled.",2 "'See here, boy!'",2 "said Sikes, putting his other hand to Oliver's throat; 'if he speaks ever so soft a word, hold him!",3 D'ye mind!',2 "The dog growled again; and licking his lips, eyed Oliver as if he were anxious to attach himself to his windpipe without delay.",1 "'He's as willing as a Christian, strike me blind if he isn't!'",1 "said Sikes, regarding the animal with a kind of grim and ferocious approval.",2 "'Now, you know what you've got to expect, master, so call away as quick as you like; the dog will soon stop that game.",3 "Get on, young'un!'",2 "Bull's-eye wagged his tail in acknowledgment of this unusually endearing form of speech; and, giving vent to another admonitory growl for the benefit of Oliver, led the way onward.",2 "It was Smithfield that they were crossing, although it might have been Grosvenor Square, for anything Oliver knew to the contrary.",2 The night was dark and foggy.,1 "The lights in the shops could scarecely struggle through the heavy mist, which thickened every moment and shrouded the streets and houses in gloom; rendering the strange place still stranger in Oliver's eyes; and making his uncertainty the more dismal and depressing.",0 "They had hurried on a few paces, when a deep church-bell struck the hour.",1 "With its first stroke, his two conductors stopped, and turned their heads in the direction whence the sound proceeded.",2 "'Eight o' clock, Bill,' said Nancy, when the bell ceased.",2 "'What's the good of telling me that; I can hear it, can't I!'",3 replied Sikes.,2 "'I wonder whether THEY can hear it,' said Nancy.",3 "'Of course they can,' replied Sikes.",2 "'It was Bartlemy time when I was shopped; and there warn't a penny trumpet in the fair, as I couldn't hear the squeaking on.",3 "Arter I was locked up for the night, the row and din outside made the thundering old jail so silent, that I could almost have beat my brains out against the iron plates of the door.'",2 'Poor fellow!',2 "said Nancy, who still had her face turned towards the quarter in which the bell had sounded.",2 "'Oh, Bill, such fine young chaps as them!'",3 "'Yes; that's all you women think of,' answered Sikes.",2 'Fine young chaps!,2 "Well, they're as good as dead, so it don't much matter.'",3 "With this consolation, Mr. Sikes appeared to repress a rising tendency to jealousy, and, clasping Oliver's wrist more firmly, told him to step out again.",1 'Wait a minute!',2 "said the girl: 'I wouldn't hurry by, if it was you that was coming out to be hung, the next time eight o'clock struck, Bill.",1 "I'd walk round and round the place till I dropped, if the snow was on the ground, and I hadn't a shawl to cover me.'",2 'And what good would that do?',3 inquired the unsentimental Mr. Sikes.,2 "'Unless you could pitch over a file and twenty yards of good stout rope, you might as well be walking fifty mile off, or not walking at all, for all the good it would do me.",3 "Come on, and don't stand preaching there.'",2 The girl burst into a laugh; drew her shawl more closely round her; and they walked away.,2 "But Oliver felt her hand tremble, and, looking up in her face as they passed a gas-lamp, saw that it had turned a deadly white.",1 "They walked on, by little-frequented and dirty ways, for a full half-hour: meeting very few people, and those appearing from their looks to hold much the same position in society as Mr. Sikes himself.",1 "At length they turned into a very filthy narrow street, nearly full of old-clothes shops; the dog running forward, as if conscious that there was no further occasion for his keeping on guard, stopped before the door of a shop that was closed and apparently untenanted; the house was in a ruinous condition, and on the door was nailed a board, intimating that it was to let: which looked as if it had hung there for many years.",0 "'All right,' cried Sikes, glancing cautiously about.",3 "Nancy stooped below the shutters, and Oliver heard the sound of a bell.",2 "They crossed to the opposite side of the street, and stood for a few moments under a lamp.",2 "A noise, as if a sash window were gently raised, was heard; and soon afterwards the door softly opened.",1 Mr. Sikes then seized the terrified boy by the collar with very little ceremony; and all three were quickly inside the house.,2 The passage was perfectly dark.,2 "They waited, while the person who had let them in, chained and barred the door.",2 'Anybody here?',2 inquired Sikes.,2 "'No,' replied a voice, which Oliver thought he had heard before.",2 'Is the old 'un here?',2 asked the robber.,2 "'Yes,' replied the voice, 'and precious down in the mouth he has been.",3 Won't he be glad to see you?,3 "Oh, no!'",2 "The style of this reply, as well as the voice which delivered it, seemed familiar to Oliver's ears: but it was impossible to distinguish even the form of the speaker in the darkness.",1 "'Let's have a glim,' said Sikes, 'or we shall go breaking our necks, or treading on the dog.",1 Look after your legs if you do!',2 "'Stand still a moment, and I'll get you one,' replied the voice.",2 "The receding footsteps of the speaker were heard; and, in another minute, the form of Mr. John Dawkins, otherwise the Artful Dodger, appeared.",2 He bore in his right hand a tallow candle stuck in the end of a cleft stick.,1 "The young gentleman did not stop to bestow any other mark of recognition upon Oliver than a humourous grin; but, turning away, beckoned the visitors to follow him down a flight of stairs.",4 "They crossed an empty kitchen; and, opening the door of a low earthy-smelling room, which seemed to have been built in a small back-yard, were received with a shout of laughter.",1 "'Oh, my wig, my wig!'",2 "cried Master Charles Bates, from whose lungs the laughter had proceeded: 'here he is!",3 "oh, cry, here he is!",1 "Oh, Fagin, look at him!",2 "Fagin, do look at him!",2 "I can't bear it; it is such a jolly game, I cant' bear it.",3 "Hold me, somebody, while I laugh it out.'",2 "With this irrepressible ebullition of mirth, Master Bates laid himself flat on the floor: and kicked convulsively for five minutes, in an ectasy of facetious joy.",2 "Then jumping to his feet, he snatched the cleft stick from the Dodger; and, advancing to Oliver, viewed him round and round; while the Jew, taking off his nightcap, made a great number of low bows to the bewildered boy.",2 "The Artful, meantime, who was of a rather saturnine disposition, and seldom gave way to merriment when it interfered with business, rifled Oliver's pockets with steady assiduity.",3 "'Look at his togs, Fagin!'",2 "said Charley, putting the light so close to his new jacket as nearly to set him on fire.",2 'Look at his togs!,2 "Superfine cloth, and the heavy swell cut!",2 "Oh, my eye, what a game!",2 "And his books, too!",2 "Nothing but a gentleman, Fagin!'",2 "'Delighted to see you looking so well, my dear,' said the Jew, bowing with mock humility.",3 "'The Artful shall give you another suit, my dear, for fear you should spoil that Sunday one.",1 "Why didn't you write, my dear, and say you were coming?",2 We'd have got something warm for supper.',3 "At his, Master Bates roared again: so loud, that Fagin himself relaxed, and even the Dodger smiled; but as the Artful drew forth the five-pound note at that instant, it is doubtful whether the sally of the discovery awakened his merriment.",3 "'Hallo, what's that?'",2 "inquired Sikes, stepping forward as the Jew seized the note.",2 "'That's mine, Fagin.'",2 "'No, no, my dear,' said the Jew.",2 "'Mine, Bill, mine.",2 You shall have the books.',2 'If that ain't mine!',2 "said Bill Sikes, putting on his hat with a determined air; 'mine and Nancy's that is; I'll take the boy back again.'",2 The Jew started.,2 "Oliver started too, though from a very different cause; for he hoped that the dispute might really end in his being taken back.",1 'Come!,2 "Hand over, will you?'",2 said Sikes.,2 "'This is hardly fair, Bill; hardly fair, is it, Nancy?'",3 inquired the Jew.,2 "'Fair, or not fair,' retorted Sikes, 'hand over, I tell you!",3 "Do you think Nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precious time but to spend it in scouting arter, and kidnapping, every young boy as gets grabbed through you?",3 "Give it here, you avaricious old skeleton, give it here!'",1 "With this gentle remonstrance, Mr. Sikes plucked the note from between the Jew's finger and thumb; and looking the old man coolly in the face, folded it up small, and tied it in his neckerchief.",3 "'That's for our share of the trouble,' said Sikes; 'and not half enough, neither.",2 "You may keep the books, if you're fond of reading.",3 "If you ain't, sell 'em.'",2 "'They're very pretty,' said Charley Bates: who, with sundry grimaces, had been affecting to read one of the volumes in question; 'beautiful writing, isn't is, Oliver?'",3 "At sight of the dismayed look with which Oliver regarded his tormentors, Master Bates, who was blessed with a lively sense of the ludicrous, fell into another ectasy, more boisterous than the first.",1 "'They belong to the old gentleman,' said Oliver, wringing his hands; 'to the good, kind, old gentleman who took me into his house, and had me nursed, when I was near dying of the fever.",1 "Oh, pray send them back; send him back the books and money.",2 "Keep me here all my life long; but pray, pray send them back.",2 He'll think I stole them; the old lady: all of them who were so kind to me: will think I stole them.,1 "Oh, do have mercy upon me, and send them back!'",3 "With these words, which were uttered with all the energy of passionate grief, Oliver fell upon his knees at the Jew's feet; and beat his hands together, in perfect desperation.",1 "'The boy's right,' remarked Fagin, looking covertly round, and knitting his shaggy eyebrows into a hard knot.",2 "'You're right, Oliver, you're right; they WILL think you have stolen 'em.",2 Ha!,2 ha!',2 "chuckled the Jew, rubbing his hands, 'it couldn't have happened better, if we had chosen our time!'",3 "'Of course it couldn't,' replied Sikes; 'I know'd that, directly I see him coming through Clerkenwell, with the books under his arm.",2 It's all right enough.,3 "They're soft-hearted psalm-singers, or they wouldn't have taken him in at all; and they'll ask no questions after him, fear they should be obliged to prosecute, and so get him lagged.",1 He's safe enough.',3 "Oliver had looked from one to the other, while these words were being spoken, as if he were bewildered, and could scarecely understand what passed; but when Bill Sikes concluded, he jumped suddenly to his feet, and tore wildly from the room: uttering shrieks for help, which made the bare old house echo to the roof.",1 "'Keep back the dog, Bill!'",2 "cried Nancy, springing before the door, and closing it, as the Jew and his two pupils darted out in pursuit.",2 'Keep back the dog; he'll tear the boy to pieces.',2 'Serve him right!',3 "cried Sikes, struggling to disengage himself from the girl's grasp.",1 "'Stand off from me, or I'll split your head against the wall.'",1 "'I don't care for that, Bill, I don't care for that,' screamed the girl, struggling violently with the man, 'the child shan't be torn down by the dog, unless you kill me first.'",0 'Shan't he!',2 "said Sikes, setting his teeth.",2 "'I'll soon do that, if you don't keep off.'",2 "The housebreaker flung the girl from him to the further end of the room, just as the Jew and the two boys returned, dragging Oliver among them.",1 'What's the matter here!',2 "said Fagin, looking round.",2 "'The girl's gone mad, I think,' replied Sikes, savagely.",1 "'No, she hasn't,' said Nancy, pale and breathless from the scuffle; 'no, she hasn't, Fagin; don't think it.'",1 "'Then keep quiet, will you?'",3 "said the Jew, with a threatening look.",1 "'No, I won't do that, neither,' replied Nancy, speaking very loud.",1 'Come!,2 What do you think of that?',2 "Mr. Fagin was sufficiently well acquainted with the manners and customs of that particular species of humanity to which Nancy belonged, to feel tolerably certain that it would be rather unsafe to prolong any conversation with her, at present.",3 "With the view of diverting the attention of the company, he turned to Oliver.",2 "'So you wanted to get away, my dear, did you?'",2 "said the Jew, taking up a jagged and knotted club which law in a corner of the fireplace; 'eh?'",1 Oliver made no reply.,2 "But he watched the Jew's motions, and breathed quickly.",2 'Wanted to get assistance; called for the police; did you?',2 "sneered the Jew, catching the boy by the arm.",2 "'We'll cure you of that, my young master.'",3 "The Jew inflicted a smart blow on Oliver's shoulders with the club; and was raising it for a second, when the girl, rushing forward, wrested it from his hand.",2 "She flung it into the fire, with a force that brought some of the glowing coals whirling out into the room.",3 "'I won't stand by and see it done, Fagin,' cried the girl.",2 "'You've got the boy, and what more would you have?--Let him be--let him be--or I shall put that mark on some of you, that will bring me to the gallows before my time.'",2 "The girl stamped her foot violently on the floor as she vented this threat; and with her lips compressed, and her hands clenched, looked alternately at the Jew and the other robber: her face quite colourless from the passion of rage into which she had gradually worked herself.",1 "'Why, Nancy!'",2 "said the Jew, in a soothing tone; after a pause, during which he and Mr. Sikes had stared at one another in a disconcerted manner; 'you,--you're more clever than ever to-night.",2 Ha!,2 ha!,2 "my dear, you are acting beautifully.'",3 'Am I!',2 said the girl.,2 'Take care I don't overdo it.,1 "You will be the worse for it, Fagin, if I do; and so I tell you in good time to keep clear of me.'",3 "There is something about a roused woman: especially if she add to all her other strong passions, the fierce impulses of recklessness and despair; which few men like to provoke.",1 "The Jew saw that it would be hopeless to affect any further mistake regarding the reality of Miss Nancy's rage; and, shrinking involuntarily back a few paces, cast a glance, half imploring and half cowardly, at Sikes: as if to hint that he was the fittest person to pursue the dialogue.",0 "Mr. Sikes, thus mutely appealed to; and possibly feeling his personal pride and influence interested in the immediate reduction of Miss Nancy to reason; gave utterance to about a couple of score of curses and threats, the rapid production of which reflected great credit on the fertility of his invention.",2 "As they produced no visible effect on the object against whom they were discharged, however, he resorted to more tangible arguments.",1 'What do you mean by this?',2 "said Sikes; backing the inquiry with a very common imprecation concerning the most beautiful of human features: which, if it were heard above, only once out of every fifty thousand times that it is uttered below, would render blindness as common a disorder as measles: 'what do you mean by it?",2 Burn my body!,1 "Do you know who you are, and what you are?'",2 "'Oh, yes, I know all about it,' replied the girl, laughing hysterically; and shaking her head from side to side, with a poor assumption of indifference.",0 "'Well, then, keep quiet,' rejoined Sikes, with a growl like that he was accustomed to use when addressing his dog, 'or I'll quiet you for a good long time to come.'",3 "The girl laughed again: even less composedly than before; and, darting a hasty look at Sikes, turned her face aside, and bit her lip till the blood came.",1 "'You're a nice one,' added Sikes, as he surveyed her with a contemptuous air, 'to take up the humane and gen--teel side!",3 "A pretty subject for the child, as you call him, to make a friend of!'",3 "'God Almighty help me, I am!'",2 "cried the girl passionately; 'and I wish I had been struck dead in the street, or had changed places with them we passed so near to-night, before I had lent a hand in bringing him here.",1 "He's a thief, a liar, a devil, all that's bad, from this night forth.",0 "Isn't that enough for the old wretch, without blows?'",2 "'Come, come, Sikes,' said the Jew appealing to him in a remonstratory tone, and motioning towards the boys, who were eagerly attentive to all that passed; 'we must have civil words; civil words, Bill.'",4 'Civil words!',2 "cried the girl, whose passion was frightful to see.",2 "'Civil words, you villain!",2 "Yes, you deserve 'em from me.",2 I thieved for you when I was a child not half as old as this!',2 pointing to Oliver.,2 "'I have been in the same trade, and in the same service, for twelve years since.",2 Don't you know it?,2 Speak out!,2 Don't you know it?',2 "'Well, well,' replied the Jew, with an attempt at pacification; 'and, if you have, it's your living!'",3 "'Aye, it is!'",2 "returned the girl; not speaking, but pouring out the words in one continuous and vehement scream.",1 "'It is my living; and the cold, wet, dirty streets are my home; and you're the wretch that drove me to them long ago, and that'll keep me there, day and night, day and night, till I die!'",0 'I shall do you a mischief!',1 "interposed the Jew, goaded by these reproaches; 'a mischief worse than that, if you say much more!'",1 "The girl said nothing more; but, tearing her hair and dress in a transport of passion, made such a rush at the Jew as would probably have left signal marks of her revenge upon him, had not her wrists been seized by Sikes at the right moment; upon which, she made a few ineffectual struggles, and fainted.",1 "'She's all right now,' said Sikes, laying her down in a corner.",3 "'She's uncommon strong in the arms, when she's up in this way.'",3 "The Jew wiped his forehead: and smiled, as if it were a relief to have the disturbance over; but neither he, nor Sikes, nor the dog, nor the boys, seemed to consider it in any other light than a common occurance incidental to business.",2 "'It's the worst of having to do with women,' said the Jew, replacing his club; 'but they're clever, and we can't get on, in our line, without 'em.",2 "Charley, show Oliver to bed.'",2 "'I suppose he'd better not wear his best clothes tomorrow, Fagin, had he?'",3 inquired Charley Bates.,2 "'Certainly not,' replied the Jew, reciprocating the grin with which Charley put the question.",3 "Master Bates, apparently much delighted with his commission, took the cleft stick: and led Oliver into an adjacent kitchen, where there were two or three of the beds on which he had slept before; and here, with many uncontrollable bursts of laughter, he produced the identical old suit of clothes which Oliver had so much congratulated himself upon leaving off at Mr. Brownlow's; and the accidental display of which, to Fagin, by the Jew who purchased them, had been the very first clue received, of his whereabout.",3 "'Put off the smart ones,' said Charley, 'and I'll give 'em to Fagin to take care of.",3 What fun it is!',3 Poor Oliver unwillingly complied.,1 "Master Bates rolling up the new clothes under his arm, departed from the room, leaving Oliver in the dark, and locking the door behind him.",2 "The noise of Charley's laughter, and the voice of Miss Betsy, who opportunely arrived to throw water over her friend, and perform other feminine offices for the promotion of her recovery, might have kept many people awake under more happy circumstances than those in which Oliver was placed.",2 But he was sick and weary; and he soon fell sound asleep.,0 "It is the custom on the stage, in all good murderous melodramas, to present the tragic and the comic scenes, in as regular alternation, as the layers of red and white in a side of streaky bacon.",1 "The hero sinks upon his straw bed, weighed down by fetters and misfortunes; in the next scene, his faithful but unconscious squire regales the audience with a comic song.",3 "We behold, with throbbing bosoms, the heroine in the grasp of a proud and ruthless baron: her virtue and her life alike in danger, drawing forth her dagger to preserve the one at the cost of the other; and just as our expectations are wrought up to the highest pitch, a whistle is heard, and we are straightway transported to the great hall of the castle; where a grey-headed seneschal sings a funny chorus with a funnier body of vassals, who are free of all sorts of places, from church vaults to palaces, and roam about in company, carolling perpetually.",2 Such changes appear absurd; but they are not so unnatural as they would seem at first sight.,1 "The transitions in real life from well-spread boards to death-beds, and from mourning-weeds to holiday garments, are not a whit less startling; only, there, we are busy actors, instead of passive lookers-on, which makes a vast difference.",1 "The actors in the mimic life of the theatre, are blind to violent transitions and abrupt impulses of passion or feeling, which, presented before the eyes of mere spectators, are at once condemned as outrageous and preposterous.",0 "As sudden shiftings of the scene, and rapid changes of time and place, are not only sanctioned in books by long usage, but are by many considered as the great art of authorship: an author's skill in his craft being, by such critics, chiefly estimated with relation to the dilemmas in which he leaves his characters at the end of every chapter: this brief introduction to the present one may perhaps be deemed unnecessary.",3 "If so, let it be considered a delicate intimation on the part of the historian that he is going back to the town in which Oliver Twist was born; the reader taking it for granted that there are good and substantial reasons for making the journey, or he would not be invited to proceed upon such an expedition.",3 "Mr. Bumble emerged at early morning from the workhouse-gate, and walked with portly carriage and commanding steps, up the High Street.",2 He was in the full bloom and pride of beadlehood; his cocked hat and coat were dazzling in the morning sun; he clutched his cane with the vigorous tenacity of health and power.,4 Mr. Bumble always carried his head high; but this morning it was higher than usual.,2 "There was an abstraction in his eye, an elevation in his air, which might have warned an observant stranger that thoughts were passing in the beadle's mind, too great for utterance.",1 "Mr. Bumble stopped not to converse with the small shopkeepers and others who spoke to him, deferentially, as he passed along.",2 "He merely returned their salutations with a wave of his hand, and relaxed not in his dignified pace, until he reached the farm where Mrs. Mann tended the infant paupers with parochial care.",3 'Drat that beadle!',2 "said Mrs. Mann, hearing the well-known shaking at the garden-gate.",3 'If it isn't him at this time in the morning!,2 "Lauk, Mr. Bumble, only think of its being you!",2 "Well, dear me, it IS a pleasure, this is!",3 "Come into the parlour, sir, please.'",2 "The first sentence was addressed to Susan; and the exclamations of delight were uttered to Mr. Bumble: as the good lady unlocked the garden-gate: and showed him, with great attention and respect, into the house.",4 "'Mrs. Mann,' said Mr. Bumble; not sitting upon, or dropping himself into a seat, as any common jackanapes would: but letting himself gradually and slowly down into a chair; 'Mrs. Mann, ma'am, good morning.'",2 "'Well, and good morning to _you_, sir,' replied Mrs. Mann, with many smiles; 'and hoping you find yourself well, sir!'",4 "'So-so, Mrs. Mann,' replied the beadle.",2 "'A porochial life is not a bed of roses, Mrs. Mann.'",2 "'Ah, that it isn't indeed, Mr. Bumble,' rejoined the lady.",2 "And all the infant paupers might have chorussed the rejoinder with great propriety, if they had heard it.",2 "'A porochial life, ma'am,' continued Mr. Bumble, striking the table with his cane, 'is a life of worrit, and vexation, and hardihood; but all public characters, as I may say, must suffer prosecution.'",1 "Mrs. Mann, not very well knowing what the beadle meant, raised her hands with a look of sympathy, and sighed.",3 'Ah!,2 "You may well sigh, Mrs. Mann!'",3 said the beadle.,2 "Finding she had done right, Mrs. Mann sighed again: evidently to the satisfaction of the public character: who, repressing a complacent smile by looking sternly at his cocked hat, said, 'Mrs. Mann, I am going to London.'",3 "'Lauk, Mr. Bumble!'",2 "cried Mrs. Mann, starting back.",2 "'To London, ma'am,' resumed the inflexible beadle, 'by coach.",1 "I and two paupers, Mrs. Mann!",1 "A legal action is a coming on, about a settlement; and the board has appointed me--me, Mrs. Mann--to dispose to the matter before the quarter-sessions at Clerkinwell.",2 "And I very much question,' added Mr. Bumble, drawing himself up, 'whether the Clerkinwell Sessions will not find themselves in the wrong box before they have done with me.'",1 'Oh!,2 "you mustn't be too hard upon them, sir,' said Mrs. Mann, coaxingly.",1 "'The Clerkinwell Sessions have brought it upon themselves, ma'am,' replied Mr. Bumble; 'and if the Clerkinwell Sessions find that they come off rather worse than they expected, the Clerkinwell Sessions have only themselves to thank.'",2 "There was so much determination and depth of purpose about the menacing manner in which Mr. Bumble delivered himself of these words, that Mrs. Mann appeared quite awed by them.",2 "At length she said, 'You're going by coach, sir?",2 I thought it was always usual to send them paupers in carts.',1 "'That's when they're ill, Mrs. Mann,' said the beadle.",2 "'We put the sick paupers into open carts in the rainy weather, to prevent their taking cold.'",0 'Oh!',2 said Mrs. Mann.,2 "'The opposition coach contracts for these two; and takes them cheap,' said Mr. Bumble.",1 "'They are both in a very low state, and we find it would come two pound cheaper to move 'em than to bury 'em--that is, if we can throw 'em upon another parish, which I think we shall be able to do, if they don't die upon the road to spite us.",1 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!',2 "When Mr. Bumble had laughed a little while, his eyes again encountered the cocked hat; and he became grave.",2 "'We are forgetting business, ma'am,' said the beadle; 'here is your porochial stipend for the month.'",2 "Mr. Bumble produced some silver money rolled up in paper, from his pocket-book; and requested a receipt: which Mrs. Mann wrote.",2 "'It's very much blotted, sir,' said the farmer of infants; 'but it's formal enough, I dare say.",3 "Thank you, Mr. Bumble, sir, I am very much obliged to you, I'm sure.'",3 "Mr. Bumble nodded, blandly, in acknowledgment of Mrs. Mann's curtsey; and inquired how the children were.",2 'Bless their dear little hearts!',2 "said Mrs. Mann with emotion, 'they're as well as can be, the dears!",3 "Of course, except the two that died last week.",1 And little Dick.',1 'Isn't that boy no better?',3 inquired Mr. Bumble.,2 Mrs. Mann shook her head.,2 "'He's a ill-conditioned, wicious, bad-disposed porochial child that,' said Mr. Bumble angrily.",1 'Where is he?',2 "'I'll bring him to you in one minute, sir,' replied Mrs. Mann.",2 "'Here, you Dick!'",1 "After some calling, Dick was discovered.",1 "Having had his face put under the pump, and dried upon Mrs. Mann's gown, he was led into the awful presence of Mr. Bumble, the beadle.",2 The child was pale and thin; his cheeks were sunken; and his eyes large and bright.,1 "The scanty parish dress, the livery of his misery, hung loosely on his feeble body; and his young limbs had wasted away, like those of an old man.",0 Such was the little being who stood trembling beneath Mr. Bumble's glance; not daring to lift his eyes from the floor; and dreading even to hear the beadle's voice.,3 "'Can't you look at the gentleman, you obstinate boy?'",1 said Mrs. Mann.,2 "The child meekly raised his eyes, and encountered those of Mr. Bumble.",2 "'What's the matter with you, porochial Dick?'",1 "inquired Mr. Bumble, with well-timed jocularity.",3 "'Nothing, sir,' replied the child faintly.",2 "'I should think not,' said Mrs. Mann, who had of course laughed very much at Mr. Bumble's humour.",3 "'You want for nothing, I'm sure.'",2 'I should like--' faltered the child.,2 'Hey-day!',2 "interposed Mr. Mann, 'I suppose you're going to say that you DO want for something, now?",2 "Why, you little wretch--' 'Stop, Mrs. Mann, stop!'",1 "said the beadle, raising his hand with a show of authority.",2 "'Like what, sir, eh?'",2 "'I should like,' faltered the child, 'if somebody that can write, would put a few words down for me on a piece of paper, and fold it up and seal it, and keep it for me, after I am laid in the ground.'",2 "'Why, what does the boy mean?'",2 "exclaimed Mr. Bumble, on whom the earnest manner and wan aspect of the child had made some impression: accustomed as he was to such things.",3 "'What do you mean, sir?'",2 "'I should like,' said the child, 'to leave my dear love to poor Oliver Twist; and to let him know how often I have sat by myself and cried to think of his wandering about in the dark nights with nobody to help him.",1 "And I should like to tell him,' said the child pressing his small hands together, and speaking with great fervour, 'that I was glad to die when I was very young; for, perhaps, if I had lived to be a man, and had grown old, my little sister who is in Heaven, might forget me, or be unlike me; and it would be so much happier if we were both children there together.'",4 "Mr. Bumble surveyed the little speaker, from head to foot, with indescribable astonishment; and, turning to his companion, said, 'They're all in one story, Mrs. Mann.",3 That out-dacious Oliver had demogalized them all!',2 "'I couldn't have believed it, sir' said Mrs Mann, holding up her hands, and looking malignantly at Dick.",1 'I never see such a hardened little wretch!',1 "'Take him away, ma'am!'",2 said Mr. Bumble imperiously.,1 "'This must be stated to the board, Mrs. Mann.",2 "'I hope the gentleman will understand that it isn't my fault, sir?'",1 "said Mrs. Mann, whimpering pathetically.",1 "'They shall understand that, ma'am; they shall be acquainted with the true state of the case,' said Mr. Bumble.",2 "'There; take him away, I can't bear the sight on him.'",2 "Dick was immediately taken away, and locked up in the coal-cellar.",1 "Mr. Bumble shortly afterwards took himself off, to prepare for his journey.",2 "At six o'clock next morning, Mr. Bumble: having exchanged his cocked hat for a round one, and encased his person in a blue great-coat with a cape to it: took his place on the outside of the coach, accompanied by the criminals whose settlement was disputed; with whom, in due course of time, he arrived in London.",2 "He experienced no other crosses on the way, than those which originated in the perverse behaviour of the two paupers, who persisted in shivering, and complaining of the cold, in a manner which, Mr. Bumble declared, caused his teeth to chatter in his head, and made him feel quite uncomfortable; although he had a great-coat on.",0 "Having disposed of these evil-minded persons for the night, Mr. Bumble sat himself down in the house at which the coach stopped; and took a temperate dinner of steaks, oyster sauce, and porter.",1 "Putting a glass of hot gin-and-water on the chimney-piece, he drew his chair to the fire; and, with sundry moral reflections on the too-prevalent sin of discontent and complaining, composed himself to read the paper.",1 "The very first paragraph upon which Mr. Bumble's eye rested, was the following advertisement.",2 "'FIVE GUINEAS REWARD 'Whereas a young boy, named Oliver Twist, absconded, or was enticed, on Thursday evening last, from his home, at Pentonville; and has not since been heard of.",3 "The above reward will be paid to any person who will give such information as will lead to the discovery of the said Oliver Twist, or tend to throw any light upon his previous history, in which the advertiser is, for many reasons, warmly interested.'",3 "And then followed a full description of Oliver's dress, person, appearance, and disappearance: with the name and address of Mr. Brownlow at full length.",2 "Mr. Bumble opened his eyes; read the advertisement, slowly and carefully, three several times; and in something more than five minutes was on his way to Pentonville: having actually, in his excitement, left the glass of hot gin-and-water, untasted.",3 'Is Mr. Brownlow at home?',2 inquired Mr. Bumble of the girl who opened the door.,2 "To this inquiry the girl returned the not uncommon, but rather evasive reply of 'I don't know; where do you come from?'",1 "Mr. Bumble no sooner uttered Oliver's name, in explanation of his errand, than Mrs. Bedwin, who had been listening at the parlour door, hastened into the passage in a breathless state.",2 "'Come in, come in,' said the old lady: 'I knew we should hear of him.",2 Poor dear!,1 I knew we should!,2 I was certain of it.,2 Bless his heart!,3 I said so all along.',2 "Having heard this, the worthy old lady hurried back into the parlour again; and seating herself on a sofa, burst into tears.",3 "The girl, who was not quite so susceptible, had run upstairs meanwhile; and now returned with a request that Mr. Bumble would follow her immediately: which he did.",1 "He was shown into the little back study, where sat Mr. Brownlow and his friend Mr. Grimwig, with decanters and glasses before them.",2 The latter gentleman at once burst into the exclamation: 'A beadle.,2 "A parish beadle, or I'll eat my head.'",2 "'Pray don't interrupt just now,' said Mr. Brownlow.",1 "'Take a seat, will you?'",2 Mr. Bumble sat himself down; quite confounded by the oddity of Mr. Grimwig's manner.,1 "Mr. Brownlow moved the lamp, so as to obtain an uninterrupted view of the beadle's countenance; and said, with a little impatience, 'Now, sir, you come in consequence of having seen the advertisement?'",1 "'Yes, sir,' said Mr. Bumble.",2 "'And you ARE a beadle, are you not?'",2 inquired Mr. Grimwig.,2 "'I am a porochial beadle, gentlemen,' rejoined Mr. Bumble proudly.",2 "'Of course,' observed Mr. Grimwig aside to his friend, 'I knew he was.",2 A beadle all over!',2 "Mr. Brownlow gently shook his head to impose silence on his friend, and resumed: 'Do you know where this poor boy is now?'",1 "'No more than nobody,' replied Mr. Bumble.",2 "'Well, what DO you know of him?'",2 inquired the old gentleman.,2 "'Speak out, my friend, if you have anything to say.",2 What DO you know of him?',2 "'You don't happen to know any good of him, do you?'",3 "said Mr. Grimwig, caustically; after an attentive perusal of Mr. Bumble's features.",2 "Mr. Bumble, catching at the inquiry very quickly, shook his head with portentous solemnity.",2 'You see?',2 "said Mr. Grimwig, looking triumphantly at Mr. Brownlow.",3 "Mr. Brownlow looked apprehensively at Mr. Bumble's pursed-up countenance; and requested him to communicate what he knew regarding Oliver, in as few words as possible.",1 "Mr. Bumble put down his hat; unbuttoned his coat; folded his arms; inclined his head in a retrospective manner; and, after a few moments' reflection, commenced his story.",2 "It would be tedious if given in the beadle's words: occupying, as it did, some twenty minutes in the telling; but the sum and substance of it was, that Oliver was a foundling, born of low and vicious parents.",1 "That he had, from his birth, displayed no better qualities than treachery, ingratitude, and malice.",1 "That he had terminated his brief career in the place of his birth, by making a sanguinary and cowardly attack on an unoffending lad, and running away in the night-time from his master's house.",1 "In proof of his really being the person he represented himself, Mr. Bumble laid upon the table the papers he had brought to town.",2 "Folding his arms again, he then awaited Mr. Brownlow's observations.",2 "'I fear it is all too true,' said the old gentleman sorrowfully, after looking over the papers.",1 "'This is not much for your intelligence; but I would gladly have given you treble the money, if it had been favourable to the boy.'",3 "It is not improbable that if Mr. Bumble had been possessed of this information at an earlier period of the interview, he might have imparted a very different colouring to his little history.",1 "It was too late to do it now, however; so he shook his head gravely, and, pocketing the five guineas, withdrew.",1 "Mr. Brownlow paced the room to and fro for some minutes; evidently so much disturbed by the beadle's tale, that even Mr. Grimwig forbore to vex him further.",1 "At length he stopped, and rang the bell violently.",1 "'Mrs. Bedwin,' said Mr. Brownlow, when the housekeeper appeared; 'that boy, Oliver, is an imposter.'",2 "'It can't be, sir.",2 "It cannot be,' said the old lady energetically.",2 "'I tell you he is,' retorted the old gentleman.",2 'What do you mean by can't be?,2 "We have just heard a full account of him from his birth; and he has been a thorough-paced little villain, all his life.'",2 "'I never will believe it, sir,' replied the old lady, firmly.",2 'Never!',2 "'You old women never believe anything but quack-doctors, and lying story-books,' growled Mr. Grimwig.",1 'I knew it all along.,2 "Why didn't you take my advise in the beginning; you would if he hadn't had a fever, I suppose, eh?",1 "He was interesting, wasn't he?",3 Interesting!,3 Bah!',2 And Mr. Grimwig poked the fire with a flourish.,3 "'He was a dear, grateful, gentle child, sir,' retorted Mrs. Bedwin, indignantly.",3 "'I know what children are, sir; and have done these forty years; and people who can't say the same, shouldn't say anything about them.",2 That's my opinion!',2 "This was a hard hit at Mr. Grimwig, who was a bachelor.",1 "As it extorted nothing from that gentleman but a smile, the old lady tossed her head, and smoothed down her apron preparatory to another speech, when she was stopped by Mr. Brownlow.",3 'Silence!',2 "said the old gentleman, feigning an anger he was far from feeling.",1 'Never let me hear the boy's name again.,2 I rang to tell you that.,2 Never.,2 "Never, on any pretence, mind!",1 "You may leave the room, Mrs. Bedwin.",2 Remember!,2 I am in earnest.',3 There were sad hearts at Mr. Brownlow's that night.,1 "Oliver's heart sank within him, when he thought of his good friends; it was well for him that he could not know what they had heard, or it might have broken outright.",3 "About noon next day, when the Dodger and Master Bates had gone out to pursue their customary avocations, Mr. Fagin took the opportunity of reading Oliver a long lecture on the crying sin of ingratitude; of which he clearly demonstrated he had been guilty, to no ordinary extent, in wilfully absenting himself from the society of his anxious friends; and, still more, in endeavouring to escape from them after so much trouble and expense had been incurred in his recovery.",1 "Mr. Fagin laid great stress on the fact of his having taken Oliver in, and cherished him, when, without his timely aid, he might have perished with hunger; and he related the dismal and affecting history of a young lad whom, in his philanthropy, he had succoured under parallel circumstances, but who, proving unworthy of his confidence and evincing a desire to communicate with the police, had unfortunately come to be hanged at the Old Bailey one morning.",3 "Mr. Fagin did not seek to conceal his share in the catastrophe, but lamented with tears in his eyes that the wrong-headed and treacherous behaviour of the young person in question, had rendered it necessary that he should become the victim of certain evidence for the crown: which, if it were not precisely true, was indispensably necessary for the safety of him (Mr. Fagin) and a few select friends.",1 "Mr. Fagin concluded by drawing a rather disagreeable picture of the discomforts of hanging; and, with great friendliness and politeness of manner, expressed his anxious hopes that he might never be obliged to submit Oliver Twist to that unpleasant operation.",1 "Little Oliver's blood ran cold, as he listened to the Jew's words, and imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them.",0 "That it was possible even for justice itself to confound the innocent with the guilty when they were in accidental companionship, he knew already; and that deeply-laid plans for the destruction of inconveniently knowing or over-communicative persons, had been really devised and carried out by the Jew on more occasions than one, he thought by no means unlikely, when he recollected the general nature of the altercations between that gentleman and Mr. Sikes: which seemed to bear reference to some foregone conspiracy of the kind.",0 "As he glanced timidly up, and met the Jew's searching look, he felt that his pale face and trembling limbs were neither unnoticed nor unrelished by that wary old gentleman.",0 "The Jew, smiling hideously, patted Oliver on the head, and said, that if he kept himself quiet, and applied himself to business, he saw they would be very good friends yet.",3 "Then, taking his hat, and covering himself with an old patched great-coat, he went out, and locked the room-door behind him.",3 "And so Oliver remained all that day, and for the greater part of many subsequent days, seeing nobody, between early morning and midnight, and left during the long hours to commune with his own thoughts.",2 "Which, never failing to revert to his kind friends, and the opinion they must long ago have formed of him, were sad indeed.",0 "After the lapse of a week or so, the Jew left the room-door unlocked; and he was at liberty to wander about the house.",2 It was a very dirty place.,1 "The rooms upstairs had great high wooden chimney-pieces and large doors, with panelled walls and cornices to the ceiling; which, although they were black with neglect and dust, were ornamented in various ways.",1 "From all of these tokens Oliver concluded that a long time ago, before the old Jew was born, it had belonged to better people, and had perhaps been quite gay and handsome: dismal and dreary as it looked now.",2 "Spiders had built their webs in the angles of the walls and ceilings; and sometimes, when Oliver walked softly into a room, the mice would scamper across the floor, and run back terrified to their holes.",2 "With these exceptions, there was neither sight nor sound of any living thing; and often, when it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from room to room, he would crouch in the corner of the passage by the street-door, to be as near living people as he could; and would remain there, listening and counting the hours, until the Jew or the boys returned.",1 "In all the rooms, the mouldering shutters were fast closed: the bars which held them were screwed tight into the wood; the only light which was admitted, stealing its way through round holes at the top: which made the rooms more gloomy, and filled them with strange shadows.",1 "There was a back-garret window with rusty bars outside, which had no shutter; and out of this, Oliver often gazed with a melancholy face for hours together; but nothing was to be descried from it but a confused and crowded mass of housetops, blackened chimneys, and gable-ends.",0 "Sometimes, indeed, a grizzly head might be seen, peering over the parapet-wall of a distant house; but it was quickly withdrawn again; and as the window of Oliver's observatory was nailed down, and dimmed with the rain and smoke of years, it was as much as he could do to make out the forms of the different objects beyond, without making any attempt to be seen or heard,--which he had as much chance of being, as if he had lived inside the ball of St. Paul's Cathedral.",1 "One afternoon, the Dodger and Master Bates being engaged out that evening, the first-named young gentleman took it into his head to evince some anxiety regarding the decoration of his person (to do him justice, this was by no means an habitual weakness with him); and, with this end and aim, he condescendingly commanded Oliver to assist him in his toilet, straightway.",1 "Oliver was but too glad to make himself useful; too happy to have some faces, however bad, to look upon; too desirous to conciliate those about him when he could honestly do so; to throw any objection in the way of this proposal.",4 "So he at once expressed his readiness; and, kneeling on the floor, while the Dodger sat upon the table so that he could take his foot in his laps, he applied himself to a process which Mr. Dawkins designated as 'japanning his trotter-cases.'",2 "The phrase, rendered into plain English, signifieth, cleaning his boots.",2 "Whether it was the sense of freedom and independence which a rational animal may be supposed to feel when he sits on a table in an easy attitude smoking a pipe, swinging one leg carelessly to and fro, and having his boots cleaned all the time, without even the past trouble of having taken them off, or the prospective misery of putting them on, to disturb his reflections; or whether it was the goodness of the tobacco that soothed the feelings of the Dodger, or the mildness of the beer that mollified his thoughts; he was evidently tinctured, for the nonce, with a spice of romance and enthusiasm, foreign to his general nature.",3 "He looked down on Oliver, with a thoughtful countenance, for a brief space; and then, raising his head, and heaving a gentle sign, said, half in abstraction, and half to Master Bates: 'What a pity it is he isn't a prig!'",3 'Ah!',2 said Master Charles Bates; 'he don't know what's good for him.',3 "The Dodger sighed again, and resumed his pipe: as did Charley Bates.",2 "They both smoked, for some seconds, in silence.",2 'I suppose you don't even know what a prig is?',2 said the Dodger mournfully.,1 "'I think I know that,' replied Oliver, looking up.",2 "'It's a the--; you're one, are you not?'",2 "inquired Oliver, checking himself.",2 "'I am,' replied the Dodger.",2 'I'd scorn to be anything else.',1 "Mr. Dawkins gave his hat a ferocious cock, after delivering this sentiment, and looked at Master Bates, as if to denote that he would feel obliged by his saying anything to the contrary.",3 "'I am,' repeated the Dodger.",2 'So's Charley.,2 So's Fagin.,2 So's Sikes.,2 So's Nancy.,2 So's Bet.,2 "So we all are, down to the dog.",2 And he's the downiest one of the lot!',2 "'And the least given to peaching,' added Charley Bates.",2 "'He wouldn't so much as bark in a witness-box, for fear of committing himself; no, not if you tied him up in one, and left him there without wittles for a fortnight,' said the Dodger.",1 "'Not a bit of it,' observed Charley.",2 'He's a rum dog.,2 Don't he look fierce at any strange cove that laughs or sings when he's in company!',1 pursued the Dodger.,2 "'Won't he growl at all, when he hears a fiddle playing!",1 And don't he hate other dogs as ain't of his breed!,1 "Oh, no!'",2 "'He's an out-and-out Christian,' said Charley.",2 "This was merely intended as a tribute to the animal's abilities, but it was an appropriate remark in another sense, if Master Bates had only known it; for there are a good many ladies and gentlemen, claiming to be out-and-out Christians, between whom, and Mr. Sikes' dog, there exist strong and singular points of resemblance.",4 "'Well, well,' said the Dodger, recurring to the point from which they had strayed: with that mindfulness of his profession which influenced all his proceedings.",3 'This hasn't go anything to do with young Green here.',2 "'No more it has,' said Charley.",2 "'Why don't you put yourself under Fagin, Oliver?'",2 'And make your fortun' out of hand?',2 "added the Dodger, with a grin.",3 "'And so be able to retire on your property, and do the gen-teel: as I mean to, in the very next leap-year but four that ever comes, and the forty-second Tuesday in Trinity-week,' said Charley Bates.",2 "'I don't like it,' rejoined Oliver, timidly; 'I wish they would let me go.",2 I--I--would rather go.',2 'And Fagin would RATHER not!',2 rejoined Charley.,2 "Oliver knew this too well; but thinking it might be dangerous to express his feelings more openly, he only sighed, and went on with his boot-cleaning.",3 'Go!',2 exclaimed the Dodger.,2 "'Why, where's your spirit?'",2 Don't you take any pride out of yourself?,3 Would you go and be dependent on your friends?',2 "'Oh, blow that!'",1 "said Master Bates: drawing two or three silk handkerchiefs from his pocket, and tossing them into a cupboard, 'that's too mean; that is.'",3 "'_I_ couldn't do it,' said the Dodger, with an air of haughty disgust.",1 "'You can leave your friends, though,' said Oliver with a half smile; 'and let them be punished for what you did.'",3 "'That,' rejoined the Dodger, with a wave of his pipe, 'That was all out of consideration for Fagin, 'cause the traps know that we work together, and he might have got into trouble if we hadn't made our lucky; that was the move, wasn't it, Charley?'",3 "Master Bates nodded assent, and would have spoken, but the recollection of Oliver's flight came so suddenly upon him, that the smoke he was inhaling got entangled with a laugh, and went up into his head, and down into his throat: and brought on a fit of coughing and stamping, about five minutes long.",2 'Look here!',2 "said the Dodger, drawing forth a handful of shillings and halfpence.",2 'Here's a jolly life!,3 What's the odds where it comes from?,2 "Here, catch hold; there's plenty more where they were took from.",2 "You won't, won't you?",2 "Oh, you precious flat!'",3 "'It's naughty, ain't it, Oliver?'",1 inquired Charley Bates.,2 "'He'll come to be scragged, won't he?'",2 "'I don't know what that means,' replied Oliver.",2 "'Something in this way, old feller,' said Charly.",2 "As he said it, Master Bates caught up an end of his neckerchief; and, holding it erect in the air, dropped his head on his shoulder, and jerked a curious sound through his teeth; thereby indicating, by a lively pantomimic representation, that scragging and hanging were one and the same thing.",3 "'That's what it means,' said Charley.",2 "'Look how he stares, Jack!",2 "I never did see such prime company as that 'ere boy; he'll be the death of me, I know he will.'",1 "Master Charley Bates, having laughed heartily again, resumed his pipe with tears in his eyes.",3 "'You've been brought up bad,' said the Dodger, surveying his boots with much satisfaction when Oliver had polished them.",2 "'Fagin will make something of you, though, or you'll be the first he ever had that turned out unprofitable.",1 "You'd better begin at once; for you'll come to the trade long before you think of it; and you're only losing time, Oliver.'",2 "Master Bates backed this advice with sundry moral admonitions of his own: which, being exhausted, he and his friend Mr. Dawkins launched into a glowing description of the numerous pleasures incidental to the life they led, interspersed with a variety of hints to Oliver that the best thing he could do, would be to secure Fagin's favour without more delay, by the means which they themselves had employed to gain it.",4 "'And always put this in your pipe, Nolly,' said the Dodger, as the Jew was heard unlocking the door above, 'if you don't take fogels and tickers--' 'What's the good of talking in that way?'",3 interposed Master Bates; 'he don't know what you mean.',3 "'If you don't take pocket-handkechers and watches,' said the Dodger, reducing his conversation to the level of Oliver's capacity, 'some other cove will; so that the coves that lose 'em will be all the worse, and you'll be all the worse, too, and nobody half a ha'p'orth the better, except the chaps wot gets them--and you've just as good a right to them as they have.'",3 "'To be sure, to be sure!'",2 "said the Jew, who had entered unseen by Oliver.",2 "'It all lies in a nutshell my dear; in a nutshell, take the Dodger's word for it.",1 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!,2 He understands the catechism of his trade.',2 "The old man rubbed his hands gleefully together, as he corroborated the Dodger's reasoning in these terms; and chuckled with delight at his pupil's proficiency.",3 "The conversation proceeded no farther at this time, for the Jew had returned home accompanied by Miss Betsy, and a gentleman whom Oliver had never seen before, but who was accosted by the Dodger as Tom Chitling; and who, having lingered on the stairs to exchange a few gallantries with the lady, now made his appearance.",1 Mr. Chitling was older in years than the Dodger: having perhaps numbered eighteen winters; but there was a degree of deference in his deportment towards that young gentleman which seemed to indicate that he felt himself conscious of a slight inferiority in point of genius and professional aquirements.,3 "He had small twinkling eyes, and a pock-marked face; wore a fur cap, a dark corduroy jacket, greasy fustian trousers, and an apron.",1 "His wardrobe was, in truth, rather out of repair; but he excused himself to the company by stating that his 'time' was only out an hour before; and that, in consequence of having worn the regimentals for six weeks past, he had not been able to bestow any attention on his private clothes.",1 "Mr. Chitling added, with strong marks of irritation, that the new way of fumigating clothes up yonder was infernal unconstitutional, for it burnt holes in them, and there was no remedy against the County.",1 The same remark he considered to apply to the regulation mode of cutting the hair: which he held to be decidedly unlawful.,1 Mr. Chitling wound up his observations by stating that he had not touched a drop of anything for forty-two moral long hard-working days; and that he 'wished he might be busted if he warn't as dry as a lime-basket.',1 "'Where do you think the gentleman has come from, Oliver?'",2 "inquired the Jew, with a grin, as the other boys put a bottle of spirits on the table.",3 "'I--I--don't know, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 'Who's that?',2 "inquired Tom Chitling, casting a contemptuous look at Oliver.",1 "'A young friend of mine, my dear,' replied the Jew.",2 "'He's in luck, then,' said the young man, with a meaning look at Fagin.",3 "'Never mind where I came from, young 'un; you'll find your way there, soon enough, I'll bet a crown!'",3 "At this sally, the boys laughed.",2 "After some more jokes on the same subject, they exchanged a few short whispers with Fagin; and withdrew.",2 "After some words apart between the last comer and Fagin, they drew their chairs towards the fire; and the Jew, telling Oliver to come and sit by him, led the conversation to the topics most calculated to interest his hearers.",3 "These were, the great advantages of the trade, the proficiency of the Dodger, the amiability of Charley Bates, and the liberality of the Jew himself.",4 At length these subjects displayed signs of being thoroughly exhausted; and Mr. Chitling did the same: for the house of correction becomes fatiguing after a week or two.,1 Miss Betsy accordingly withdrew; and left the party to their repose.,1 "From this day, Oliver was seldom left alone; but was placed in almost constant communication with the two boys, who played the old game with the Jew every day: whether for their own improvement or Oliver's, Mr. Fagin best knew.",3 "At other times the old man would tell them stories of robberies he had committed in his younger days: mixed up with so much that was droll and curious, that Oliver could not help laughing heartily, and showing that he was amused in spite of all his better feelings.",3 "In short, the wily old Jew had the boy in his toils.",1 "Having prepared his mind, by solitude and gloom, to prefer any society to the companionship of his own sad thoughts in such a dreary place, he was now slowly instilling into his soul the poison which he hoped would blacken it, and change its hue for ever.",0 "It was a chill, damp, windy night, when the Jew: buttoning his great-coat tight round his shrivelled body, and pulling the collar up over his ears so as completely to obscure the lower part of his face: emerged from his den.",1 "He paused on the step as the door was locked and chained behind him; and having listened while the boys made all secure, and until their retreating footsteps were no longer audible, slunk down the street as quickly as he could.",3 "The house to which Oliver had been conveyed, was in the neighborhood of Whitechapel.",2 "The Jew stopped for an instant at the corner of the street; and, glancing suspiciously round, crossed the road, and struck off in the direction of the Spitalfields.",1 "The mud lay thick upon the stones, and a black mist hung over the streets; the rain fell sluggishly down, and everything felt cold and clammy to the touch.",0 It seemed just the night when it befitted such a being as the Jew to be abroad.,2 "As he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved: crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal for a meal.",0 "He kept on his course, through many winding and narrow ways, until he reached Bethnal Green; then, turning suddenly off to the left, he soon became involved in a maze of the mean and dirty streets which abound in that close and densely-populated quarter.",2 "The Jew was evidently too familiar with the ground he traversed to be at all bewildered, either by the darkness of the night, or the intricacies of the way.",1 "He hurried through several alleys and streets, and at length turned into one, lighted only by a single lamp at the farther end.",2 "At the door of a house in this street, he knocked; having exchanged a few muttered words with the person who opened it, he walked upstairs.",2 A dog growled as he touched the handle of a room-door; and a man's voice demanded who was there.,2 "'Only me, Bill; only me, my dear,' said the Jew looking in.",2 "'Bring in your body then,' said Sikes.",2 "'Lie down, you stupid brute!",1 Don't you know the devil when he's got a great-coat on?',2 "Apparently, the dog had been somewhat deceived by Mr. Fagin's outer garment; for as the Jew unbuttoned it, and threw it over the back of a chair, he retired to the corner from which he had risen: wagging his tail as he went, to show that he was as well satisfied as it was in his nature to be.",3 'Well!',2 said Sikes.,2 "'Well, my dear,' replied the Jew.--'Ah!",2 Nancy.',2 "The latter recognition was uttered with just enough of embarrassment to imply a doubt of its reception; for Mr. Fagin and his young friend had not met, since she had interfered in behalf of Oliver.",1 "All doubts upon the subject, if he had any, were speedily removed by the young lady's behaviour.",2 "She took her feet off the fender, pushed back her chair, and bade Fagin draw up his, without saying more about it: for it was a cold night, and no mistake.",1 "'It is cold, Nancy dear,' said the Jew, as he warmed his skinny hands over the fire.",1 "'It seems to go right through one,' added the old man, touching his side.",3 "'It must be a piercer, if it finds its way through your heart,' said Mr. Sikes.",2 "'Give him something to drink, Nancy.",2 "Burn my body, make haste!",1 "It's enough to turn a man ill, to see his lean old carcase shivering in that way, like a ugly ghost just rose from the grave.'",3 "Nancy quickly brought a bottle from a cupboard, in which there were many: which, to judge from the diversity of their appearance, were filled with several kinds of liquids.",2 "Sikes pouring out a glass of brandy, bade the Jew drink it off.",2 "'Quite enough, quite, thankye, Bill,' replied the Jew, putting down the glass after just setting his lips to it.",3 'What!,2 "You're afraid of our getting the better of you, are you?'",2 "inquired Sikes, fixing his eyes on the Jew.",2 'Ugh!',2 "With a hoarse grunt of contempt, Mr. Sikes seized the glass, and threw the remainder of its contents into the ashes: as a preparatory ceremony to filling it again for himself: which he did at once.",1 "The Jew glanced round the room, as his companion tossed down the second glassful; not in curiousity, for he had seen it often before; but in a restless and suspicious manner habitual to him.",1 "It was a meanly furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a working man; and with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner, and a 'life-preserver' that hung over the chimney-piece.",1 "'There,' said Sikes, smacking his lips.",2 'Now I'm ready.',3 'For business?',2 inquired the Jew.,2 "'For business,' replied Sikes; 'so say what you've got to say.'",2 "'About the crib at Chertsey, Bill?'",2 "said the Jew, drawing his chair forward, and speaking in a very low voice.",2 'Yes.,2 Wot about it?',2 inquired Sikes.,2 'Ah!,2 "you know what I mean, my dear,' said the Jew.",2 "'He knows what I mean, Nancy; don't he?'",2 "'No, he don't,' sneered Mr. Sikes.",2 "'Or he won't, and that's the same thing.",2 "Speak out, and call things by their right names; don't sit there, winking and blinking, and talking to me in hints, as if you warn't the very first that thought about the robbery.",3 Wot d'ye mean?',2 "'Hush, Bill, hush!'",2 "said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of indignation; 'somebody will hear us, my dear.",1 Somebody will hear us.',2 'Let 'em hear!',2 said Sikes; 'I don't care.',2 "But as Mr. Sikes DID care, on reflection, he dropped his voice as he said the words, and grew calmer.",2 "'There, there,' said the Jew, coaxingly.",2 "'It was only my caution, nothing more.",2 "Now, my dear, about that crib at Chertsey; when is it to be done, Bill, eh?",2 When is it to be done?,2 "Such plate, my dear, such plate!'",2 "said the Jew: rubbing his hands, and elevating his eyebrows in a rapture of anticipation.",3 "'Not at all,' replied Sikes coldly.",1 'Not to be done at all!',2 "echoed the Jew, leaning back in his chair.",2 "'No, not at all,' rejoined Sikes.",2 "'At least it can't be a put-up job, as we expected.'",2 "'Then it hasn't been properly gone about,' said the Jew, turning pale with anger.",1 'Don't tell me!',2 "'But I will tell you,' retorted Sikes.",2 'Who are you that's not to be told?,2 "I tell you that Toby Crackit has been hanging about the place for a fortnight, and he can't get one of the servants in line.'",2 "'Do you mean to tell me, Bill,' said the Jew: softening as the other grew heated: 'that neither of the two men in the house can be got over?'",2 "'Yes, I do mean to tell you so,' replied Sikes.",2 "'The old lady has had 'em these twenty years; and if you were to give 'em five hundred pound, they wouldn't be in it.'",2 "'But do you mean to say, my dear,' remonstrated the Jew, 'that the women can't be got over?'",2 "'Not a bit of it,' replied Sikes.",2 'Not by flash Toby Crackit?',2 said the Jew incredulously.,1 "'Think what women are, Bill,' 'No; not even by flash Toby Crackit,' replied Sikes.",2 "'He says he's worn sham whiskers, and a canary waistcoat, the whole blessed time he's been loitering down there, and it's all of no use.'",1 "'He should have tried mustachios and a pair of military trousers, my dear,' said the Jew.",2 "'So he did,' rejoined Sikes, 'and they warn't of no more use than the other plant.'",2 The Jew looked blank at this information.,2 "After ruminating for some minutes with his chin sunk on his breast, he raised his head and said, with a deep sigh, that if flash Toby Crackit reported aright, he feared the game was up.",1 "'And yet,' said the old man, dropping his hands on his knees, 'it's a sad thing, my dear, to lose so much when we had set our hearts upon it.'",1 "'So it is,' said Mr. Sikes.",2 'Worse luck!',3 "A long silence ensued; during which the Jew was plunged in deep thought, with his face wrinkled into an expression of villainy perfectly demoniacal.",2 Sikes eyed him furtively from time to time.,2 "Nancy, apparently fearful of irritating the housebreaker, sat with her eyes fixed upon the fire, as if she had been deaf to all that passed.",0 "'Fagin,' said Sikes, abruptly breaking the stillness that prevailed; 'is it worth fifty shiners extra, if it's safely done from the outside?'",2 "'Yes,' said the Jew, as suddenly rousing himself.",2 'Is it a bargain?',3 inquired Sikes.,2 "'Yes, my dear, yes,' rejoined the Jew; his eyes glistening, and every muscle in his face working, with the excitement that the inquiry had awakened.",3 "'Then,' said Sikes, thrusting aside the Jew's hand, with some disdain, 'let it come off as soon as you like.",2 "Toby and me were over the garden-wall the night afore last, sounding the panels of the door and shutters.",2 "The crib's barred up at night like a jail; but there's one part we can crack, safe and softly.'",3 "'Which is that, Bill?'",2 asked the Jew eagerly.,3 "'Why,' whispered Sikes, 'as you cross the lawn--' 'Yes?'",2 "said the Jew, bending his head forward, with his eyes almost starting out of it.",2 'Umph!',2 "cried Sikes, stopping short, as the girl, scarcely moving her head, looked suddenly round, and pointed for an instant to the Jew's face.",1 'Never mind which part it is.,2 "You can't do it without me, I know; but it's best to be on the safe side when one deals with you.'",3 "'As you like, my dear, as you like' replied the Jew.",3 "'Is there no help wanted, but yours and Toby's?'",2 "'None,' said Sikes.",2 'Cept a centre-bit and a boy.,2 The first we've both got; the second you must find us.',2 'A boy!',2 exclaimed the Jew.,2 'Oh!,2 "then it's a panel, eh?'",2 'Never mind wot it is!',2 replied Sikes.,2 "'I want a boy, and he musn't be a big 'un.",2 Lord!',2 "said Mr. Sikes, reflectively, 'if I'd only got that young boy of Ned, the chimbley-sweeper's!",2 "He kept him small on purpose, and let him out by the job.",2 "But the father gets lagged; and then the Juvenile Delinquent Society comes, and takes the boy away from a trade where he was earning money, teaches him to read and write, and in time makes a 'prentice of him.",1 "And so they go on,' said Mr. Sikes, his wrath rising with the recollection of his wrongs, 'so they go on; and, if they'd got money enough (which it's a Providence they haven't,) we shouldn't have half a dozen boys left in the whole trade, in a year or two.'",3 "'No more we should,' acquiesced the Jew, who had been considering during this speech, and had only caught the last sentence.",2 'Bill!',2 'What now?',2 inquired Sikes.,2 "The Jew nodded his head towards Nancy, who was still gazing at the fire; and intimated, by a sign, that he would have her told to leave the room.",2 "Sikes shrugged his shoulders impatiently, as if he thought the precaution unnecessary; but complied, nevertheless, by requesting Miss Nancy to fetch him a jug of beer.",0 "'You don't want any beer,' said Nancy, folding her arms, and retaining her seat very composedly.",2 'I tell you I do!',2 replied Sikes.,2 "'Nonsense,' rejoined the girl coolly, 'Go on, Fagin.",2 "I know what he's going to say, Bill; he needn't mind me.'",2 The Jew still hesitated.,2 Sikes looked from one to the other in some surprise.,2 "'Why, you don't mind the old girl, do you, Fagin?'",2 he asked at length.,2 "'You've known her long enough to trust her, or the Devil's in it.",3 She ain't one to blab.,1 Are you Nancy?',2 '_I_ should think not!',2 "replied the young lady: drawing her chair up to the table, and putting her elbows upon it.",2 "'No, no, my dear, I know you're not,' said the Jew; 'but--' and again the old man paused.",2 'But wot?',2 inquired Sikes.,2 "'I didn't know whether she mightn't p'r'aps be out of sorts, you know, my dear, as she was the other night,' replied the Jew.",2 "At this confession, Miss Nancy burst into a loud laugh; and, swallowing a glass of brandy, shook her head with an air of defiance, and burst into sundry exclamations of 'Keep the game a-going!'",0 'Never say die!',1 and the like.,3 "These seemed to have the effect of re-assuring both gentlemen; for the Jew nodded his head with a satisfied air, and resumed his seat: as did Mr. Sikes likewise.",3 "'Now, Fagin,' said Nancy with a laugh.",2 "'Tell Bill at once, about Oliver!'",2 'Ha!,2 "you're a clever one, my dear: the sharpest girl I ever saw!'",3 "said the Jew, patting her on the neck.",2 "'It WAS about Oliver I was going to speak, sure enough.",3 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!',2 'What about him?',2 demanded Sikes.,2 "'He's the boy for you, my dear,' replied the Jew in a hoarse whisper; laying his finger on the side of his nose, and grinning frightfully.",1 'He!',2 exclaimed Sikes.,2 "'Have him, Bill!'",2 said Nancy.,2 "'I would, if I was in your place.",2 "He mayn't be so much up, as any of the others; but that's not what you want, if he's only to open a door for you.",2 "Depend upon it he's a safe one, Bill.'",3 "'I know he is,' rejoined Fagin.",2 "'He's been in good training these last few weeks, and it's time he began to work for his bread.",3 "Besides, the others are all too big.'",2 "'Well, he is just the size I want,' said Mr. Sikes, ruminating.",2 "'And will do everything you want, Bill, my dear,' interposed the Jew; 'he can't help himself.",2 "That is, if you frighten him enough.'",2 'Frighten him!',2 echoed Sikes.,2 "'It'll be no sham frightening, mind you.",1 "If there's anything queer about him when we once get into the work; in for a penny, in for a pound.",2 "You won't see him alive again, Fagin.",2 "Think of that, before you send him.",2 Mark my words!',2 "said the robber, poising a crowbar, which he had drawn from under the bedstead.",2 "'I've thought of it all,' said the Jew with energy.",2 "'I've--I've had my eye upon him, my dears, close--close.",2 Once let him feel that he is one of us; once fill his mind with the idea that he has been a thief; and he's ours!,2 Ours for his life.,2 Oho!,2 It couldn't have come about better!,3 "The old man crossed his arms upon his breast; and, drawing his head and shoulders into a heap, literally hugged himself for joy.",3 'Ours!',2 said Sikes.,2 "'Yours, you mean.'",2 "'Perhaps I do, my dear,' said the Jew, with a shrill chuckle.",1 "'Mine, if you like, Bill.'",3 "'And wot,' said Sikes, scowling fiercely on his agreeable friend, 'wot makes you take so much pains about one chalk-faced kid, when you know there are fifty boys snoozing about Common Garden every night, as you might pick and choose from?'",2 "'Because they're of no use to me, my dear,' replied the Jew, with some confusion, 'not worth the taking.",2 "Their looks convict 'em when they get into trouble, and I lose 'em all.",1 "With this boy, properly managed, my dears, I could do what I couldn't with twenty of them.",3 "Besides,' said the Jew, recovering his self-possession, 'he has us now if he could only give us leg-bail again; and he must be in the same boat with us.",2 Never mind how he came there; it's quite enough for my power over him that he was in a robbery; that's all I want.,3 "Now, how much better this is, than being obliged to put the poor leetle boy out of the way--which would be dangerous, and we should lose by it besides.'",1 'When is it to be done?',2 "asked Nancy, stopping some turbulent exclamation on the part of Mr. Sikes, expressive of the disgust with which he received Fagin's affectation of humanity.",1 "'Ah, to be sure,' said the Jew; 'when is it to be done, Bill?'",2 "'I planned with Toby, the night arter to-morrow,' rejoined Sikes in a surly voice, 'if he heerd nothing from me to the contrairy.'",2 "'Good,' said the Jew; 'there's no moon.'",2 "'No,' rejoined Sikes.",2 "'It's all arranged about bringing off the swag, is it?'",2 asked the Jew.,2 Sikes nodded.,2 "'And about--' 'Oh, ah, it's all planned,' rejoined Sikes, interrupting him.",2 'Never mind particulars.,2 You'd better bring the boy here to-morrow night.,3 I shall get off the stone an hour arter daybreak.,2 "Then you hold your tongue, and keep the melting-pot ready, and that's all you'll have to do.'",3 "After some discussion, in which all three took an active part, it was decided that Nancy should repair to the Jew's next evening when the night had set in, and bring Oliver away with her; Fagin craftily observing, that, if he evinced any disinclination to the task, he would be more willing to accompany the girl who had so recently interfered in his behalf, than anybody else.",1 "It was also solemnly arranged that poor Oliver should, for the purposes of the contemplated expedition, be unreservedly consigned to the care and custody of Mr. William Sikes; and further, that the said Sikes should deal with him as he thought fit; and should not be held responsible by the Jew for any mischance or evil that might be necessary to visit him: it being understood that, to render the compact in this respect binding, any representations made by Mr. Sikes on his return should be required to be confirmed and corroborated, in all important particulars, by the testimony of flash Toby Crackit.",3 "These preliminaries adjusted, Mr. Sikes proceeded to drink brandy at a furious rate, and to flourish the crowbar in an alarming manner; yelling forth, at the same time, most unmusical snatches of song, mingled with wild execrations.",1 "At length, in a fit of professional enthusiasm, he insisted upon producing his box of housebreaking tools: which he had no sooner stumbled in with, and opened for the purpose of explaining the nature and properties of the various implements it contained, and the peculiar beauties of their construction, than he fell over the box upon the floor, and went to sleep where he fell.",1 "'Good-night, Nancy,' said the Jew, muffling himself up as before.",2 'Good-night.',2 "Their eyes met, and the Jew scrutinised her, narrowly.",2 There was no flinching about the girl.,2 She was as true and earnest in the matter as Toby Crackit himself could be.,3 "The Jew again bade her good-night, and, bestowing a sly kick upon the prostrate form of Mr. Sikes while her back was turned, groped downstairs.",2 'Always the way!',2 muttered the Jew to himself as he turned homeward.,2 "'The worst of these women is, that a very little thing serves to call up some long-forgotten feeling; and, the best of them is, that it never lasts.",2 Ha!,2 ha!,2 "The man against the child, for a bag of gold!'",3 "Beguiling the time with these pleasant reflections, Mr. Fagin wended his way, through mud and mire, to his gloomy abode: where the Dodger was sitting up, impatiently awaiting his return.",1 'Is Oliver a-bed?,2 "I want to speak to him,' was his first remark as they descended the stairs.",2 "'Hours ago,' replied the Dodger, throwing open a door.",2 'Here he is!',2 "The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shows in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven, and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.",0 "'Not now,' said the Jew, turning softly away.",2 'To-morrow.,2 To-morrow.',2 "When Oliver awoke in the morning, he was a good deal surprised to find that a new pair of shoes, with strong thick soles, had been placed at his bedside; and that his old shoes had been removed.",3 "At first, he was pleased with the discovery: hoping that it might be the forerunner of his release; but such thoughts were quickly dispelled, on his sitting down to breakfast along with the Jew, who told him, in a tone and manner which increased his alarm, that he was to be taken to the residence of Bill Sikes that night.",2 "'To--to--stop there, sir?'",2 "asked Oliver, anxiously.",1 "'No, no, my dear.",2 "Not to stop there,' replied the Jew.",2 'We shouldn't like to lose you.,2 "Don't be afraid, Oliver, you shall come back to us again.",1 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!,2 "We won't be so cruel as to send you away, my dear.",1 "Oh no, no!'",2 "The old man, who was stooping over the fire toasting a piece of bread, looked round as he bantered Oliver thus; and chuckled as if to show that he knew he would still be very glad to get away if he could.",3 "'I suppose,' said the Jew, fixing his eyes on Oliver, 'you want to know what you're going to Bill's for---eh, my dear?'",2 "Oliver coloured, involuntarily, to find that the old thief had been reading his thoughts; but boldly said, Yes, he did want to know.",1 "'Why, do you think?'",2 "inquired Fagin, parrying the question.",2 "'Indeed I don't know, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 'Bah!',2 "said the Jew, turning away with a disappointed countenance from a close perusal of the boy's face.",1 "'Wait till Bill tells you, then.'",2 "The Jew seemed much vexed by Oliver's not expressing any greater curiosity on the subject; but the truth is, that, although Oliver felt very anxious, he was too much confused by the earnest cunning of Fagin's looks, and his own speculations, to make any further inquiries just then.",1 He had no other opportunity: for the Jew remained very surly and silent till night: when he prepared to go abroad.,3 "'You may burn a candle,' said the Jew, putting one upon the table.",1 "'And here's a book for you to read, till they come to fetch you.",2 Good-night!',3 'Good-night!',2 "replied Oliver, softly.",2 The Jew walked to the door: looking over his shoulder at the boy as he went.,2 "Suddenly stopping, he called him by his name.",2 "Oliver looked up; the Jew, pointing to the candle, motioned him to light it.",2 "He did so; and, as he placed the candlestick upon the table, saw that the Jew was gazing fixedly at him, with lowering and contracted brows, from the dark end of the room.",1 "'Take heed, Oliver!",2 take heed!',2 "said the old man, shaking his right hand before him in a warning manner.",2 "'He's a rough man, and thinks nothing of blood when his own is up.",1 "Whatever falls out, say nothing; and do what he bids you.",1 Mind!',2 "Placing a strong emphasis on the last word, he suffered his features gradually to resolve themselves into a ghastly grin, and, nodding his head, left the room.",2 "Oliver leaned his head upon his hand when the old man disappeared, and pondered, with a trembling heart, on the words he had just heard.",2 "The more he thought of the Jew's admonition, the more he was at a loss to divine its real purpose and meaning.",1 "He could think of no bad object to be attained by sending him to Sikes, which would not be equally well answered by his remaining with Fagin; and after meditating for a long time, concluded that he had been selected to perform some ordinary menial offices for the housebreaker, until another boy, better suited for his purpose could be engaged.",1 "He was too well accustomed to suffering, and had suffered too much where he was, to bewail the prospect of change very severely.",1 "He remained lost in thought for some minutes; and then, with a heavy sigh, snuffed the candle, and, taking up the book which the Jew had left with him, began to read.",1 He turned over the leaves.,2 "Carelessly at first; but, lighting on a passage which attracted his attention, he soon became intent upon the volume.",2 It was a history of the lives and trials of great criminals; and the pages were soiled and thumbed with use.,3 "Here, he read of dreadful crimes that made the blood run cold; of secret murders that had been committed by the lonely wayside; of bodies hidden from the eye of man in deep pits and wells: which would not keep them down, deep as they were, but had yielded them up at last, after many years, and so maddened the murderers with the sight, that in their horror they had confessed their guilt, and yelled for the gibbet to end their agony.",0 "Here, too, he read of men who, lying in their beds at dead of night, had been tempted (so they said) and led on, by their own bad thoughts, to such dreadful bloodshed as it made the flesh creep, and the limbs quail, to think of.",0 "The terrible descriptions were so real and vivid, that the sallow pages seemed to turn red with gore; and the words upon them, to be sounded in his ears, as if they were whispered, in hollow murmurs, by the spirits of the dead.",1 "In a paroxysm of fear, the boy closed the book, and thrust it from him.",1 "Then, falling upon his knees, he prayed Heaven to spare him from such deeds; and rather to will that he should die at once, than be reserved for crimes, so fearful and appalling.",0 "By degrees, he grew more calm, and besought, in a low and broken voice, that he might be rescued from his present dangers; and that if any aid were to be raised up for a poor outcast boy who had never known the love of friends or kindred, it might come to him now, when, desolate and deserted, he stood alone in the midst of wickedness and guilt.",0 "He had concluded his prayer, but still remained with his head buried in his hands, when a rustling noise aroused him.",1 'What's that!',2 "he cried, starting up, and catching sight of a figure standing by the door.",2 'Who's there?',2 'Me.,2 "Only me,' replied a tremulous voice.",2 Oliver raised the candle above his head: and looked towards the door.,2 It was Nancy.,2 "'Put down the light,' said the girl, turning away her head.",2 'It hurts my eyes.',1 "Oliver saw that she was very pale, and gently inquired if she were ill.",1 "The girl threw herself into a chair, with her back towards him: and wrung her hands; but made no reply.",2 'God forgive me!',2 "she cried after a while, 'I never thought of this.'",2 'Has anything happened?',2 asked Oliver.,2 'Can I help you?,2 I will if I can.,2 "I will, indeed.'",2 "She rocked herself to and fro; caught her throat; and, uttering a gurgling sound, gasped for breath.",2 'Nancy!',2 "cried Oliver, 'What is it?'",2 "The girl beat her hands upon her knees, and her feet upon the ground; and, suddenly stopping, drew her shawl close round her: and shivered with cold.",1 Oliver stirred the fire.,2 "Drawing her chair close to it, she sat there, for a little time, without speaking; but at length she raised her head, and looked round.",2 "'I don't know what comes over me sometimes,' said she, affecting to busy herself in arranging her dress; 'it's this damp dirty room, I think.",1 "Now, Nolly, dear, are you ready?'",3 'Am I to go with you?',2 asked Oliver.,2 'Yes.,2 "I have come from Bill,' replied the girl.",2 'You are to go with me.',2 'What for?',2 "asked Oliver, recoiling.",2 'What for?',2 "echoed the girl, raising her eyes, and averting them again, the moment they encountered the boy's face.",2 'Oh!,2 For no harm.',1 "'I don't believe it,' said Oliver: who had watched her closely.",2 "'Have it your own way,' rejoined the girl, affecting to laugh.",2 "'For no good, then.'",3 "Oliver could see that he had some power over the girl's better feelings, and, for an instant, thought of appealing to her compassion for his helpless state.",3 "But, then, the thought darted across his mind that it was barely eleven o'clock; and that many people were still in the streets: of whom surely some might be found to give credence to his tale.",3 "As the reflection occured to him, he stepped forward: and said, somewhat hastily, that he was ready.",2 "Neither his brief consideration, nor its purport, was lost on his companion.",1 "She eyed him narrowly, while he spoke; and cast upon him a look of intelligence which sufficiently showed that she guessed what had been passing in his thoughts.",3 'Hush!',2 "said the girl, stooping over him, and pointing to the door as she looked cautiously round.",2 'You can't help yourself.,2 "I have tried hard for you, but all to no purpose.",1 You are hedged round and round.,2 "If ever you are to get loose from here, this is not the time.'",1 "Struck by the energy of her manner, Oliver looked up in her face with great surprise.",2 She seemed to speak the truth; her countenance was white and agitated; and she trembled with very earnestness.,3 "'I have saved you from being ill-used once, and I will again, and I do now,' continued the girl aloud; 'for those who would have fetched you, if I had not, would have been far more rough than me.",1 "I have promised for your being quiet and silent; if you are not, you will only do harm to yourself and me too, and perhaps be my death.",3 See here!,2 "I have borne all this for you already, as true as God sees me show it.'",2 "She pointed, hastily, to some livid bruises on her neck and arms; and continued, with great rapidity: 'Remember this!",1 "And don't let me suffer more for you, just now.",1 "If I could help you, I would; but I have not the power.",2 "They don't mean to harm you; whatever they make you do, is no fault of yours.",1 Hush!,2 Every word from you is a blow for me.,1 Give me your hand.,2 Make haste!,1 Your hand!',2 "She caught the hand which Oliver instinctively placed in hers, and, blowing out the light, drew him after her up the stairs.",2 "The door was opened, quickly, by some one shrouded in the darkness, and was as quickly closed, when they had passed out.",1 "A hackney-cabriolet was in waiting; with the same vehemence which she had exhibited in addressing Oliver, the girl pulled him in with her, and drew the curtains close.",2 "The driver wanted no directions, but lashed his horse into full speed, without the delay of an instant.",1 "The girl still held Oliver fast by the hand, and continued to pour into his ear, the warnings and assurances she had already imparted.",3 "All was so quick and hurried, that he had scarcely time to recollect where he was, or how he came there, when the carriage stopped at the house to which the Jew's steps had been directed on the previous evening.",1 "For one brief moment, Oliver cast a hurried glance along the empty street, and a cry for help hung upon his lips.",1 "But the girl's voice was in his ear, beseeching him in such tones of agony to remember her, that he had not the heart to utter it.",1 "While he hesitated, the opportunity was gone; he was already in the house, and the door was shut.",2 "'This way,' said the girl, releasing her hold for the first time.",2 'Bill!',2 'Hallo!',2 "replied Sikes: appearing at the head of the stairs, with a candle.",2 'Oh!,2 That's the time of day.,2 Come on!',2 "This was a very strong expression of approbation, an uncommonly hearty welcome, from a person of Mr. Sikes' temperament.",3 "Nancy, appearing much gratified thereby, saluted him cordially.",3 "'Bull's-eye's gone home with Tom,' observed Sikes, as he lighted them up.",2 'He'd have been in the way.',2 "'That's right,' rejoined Nancy.",3 "'So you've got the kid,' said Sikes when they had all reached the room: closing the door as he spoke.",2 "'Yes, here he is,' replied Nancy.",2 'Did he come quiet?',3 inquired Sikes.,2 "'Like a lamb,' rejoined Nancy.",2 "'I'm glad to hear it,' said Sikes, looking grimly at Oliver; 'for the sake of his young carcase: as would otherways have suffered for it.",2 "Come here, young 'un; and let me read you a lectur', which is as well got over at once.'",3 "Thus addressing his new pupil, Mr. Sikes pulled off Oliver's cap and threw it into a corner; and then, taking him by the shoulder, sat himself down by the table, and stood the boy in front of him.",2 "'Now, first: do you know wot this is?'",2 "inquired Sikes, taking up a pocket-pistol which lay on the table.",2 Oliver replied in the affirmative.,3 "'Well, then, look here,' continued Sikes.",2 'This is powder; that 'ere's a bullet; and this is a little bit of a old hat for waddin'.',2 "Oliver murmured his comprehension of the different bodies referred to; and Mr. Sikes proceeded to load the pistol, with great nicety and deliberation.",3 "'Now it's loaded,' said Mr. Sikes, when he had finished.",2 "'Yes, I see it is, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 "'Well,' said the robber, grasping Oliver's wrist, and putting the barrel so close to his temple that they touched; at which moment the boy could not repress a start; 'if you speak a word when you're out o'doors with me, except when I speak to you, that loading will be in your head without notice.",1 "So, if you _do_ make up your mind to speak without leave, say your prayers first.'",2 "Having bestowed a scowl upon the object of this warning, to increase its effect, Mr. Sikes continued.",0 "'As near as I know, there isn't anybody as would be asking very partickler arter you, if you _was_ disposed of; so I needn't take this devil-and-all of trouble to explain matters to you, if it warn't for your own good.",1 D'ye hear me?',2 "'The short and the long of what you mean,' said Nancy: speaking very emphatically, and slightly frowning at Oliver as if to bespeak his serious attention to her words: 'is, that if you're crossed by him in this job you have on hand, you'll prevent his ever telling tales afterwards, by shooting him through the head, and will take your chance of swinging for it, as you do for a great many other things in the way of business, every month of your life.'",2 'That's it!',2 "observed Mr. Sikes, approvingly; 'women can always put things in fewest words.--Except when it's blowing up; and then they lengthens it out.",2 "And now that he's thoroughly up to it, let's have some supper, and get a snooze before starting.'",2 "In pursuance of this request, Nancy quickly laid the cloth; disappearing for a few minutes, she presently returned with a pot of porter and a dish of sheep's heads: which gave occasion to several pleasant witticisms on the part of Mr. Sikes, founded upon the singular coincidence of 'jemmies' being a can name, common to them, and also to an ingenious implement much used in his profession.",3 "Indeed, the worthy gentleman, stimulated perhaps by the immediate prospect of being on active service, was in great spirits and good humour; in proof whereof, it may be here remarked, that he humourously drank all the beer at a draught, and did not utter, on a rough calculation, more than four-score oaths during the whole progress of the meal.",4 "Supper being ended--it may be easily conceived that Oliver had no great appetite for it--Mr. Sikes disposed of a couple of glasses of spirits and water, and threw himself on the bed; ordering Nancy, with many imprecations in case of failure, to call him at five precisely.",3 "Oliver stretched himself in his clothes, by command of the same authority, on a mattress upon the floor; and the girl, mending the fire, sat before it, in readiness to rouse them at the appointed time.",2 "For a long time Oliver lay awake, thinking it not impossible that Nancy might seek that opportunity of whispering some further advice; but the girl sat brooding over the fire, without moving, save now and then to trim the light.",1 "Weary with watching and anxiety, he at length fell asleep.",0 "When he awoke, the table was covered with tea-things, and Sikes was thrusting various articles into the pockets of his great-coat, which hung over the back of a chair.",2 Nancy was busily engaged in preparing breakfast.,2 "It was not yet daylight; for the candle was still burning, and it was quite dark outside.",1 "A sharp rain, too, was beating against the window-panes; and the sky looked black and cloudy.",2 "'Now, then!'",2 "growled Sikes, as Oliver started up; 'half-past five!",2 "Look sharp, or you'll get no breakfast; for it's late as it is.'",3 "Oliver was not long in making his toilet; having taken some breakfast, he replied to a surly inquiry from Sikes, by saying that he was quite ready.",3 "Nancy, scarcely looking at the boy, threw him a handkerchief to tie round his throat; Sikes gave him a large rough cape to button over his shoulders.",1 "Thus attired, he gave his hand to the robber, who, merely pausing to show him with a menacing gesture that he had that same pistol in a side-pocket of his great-coat, clasped it firmly in his, and, exchanging a farewell with Nancy, led him away.",3 "Oliver turned, for an instant, when they reached the door, in the hope of meeting a look from the girl.",2 "But she had resumed her old seat in front of the fire, and sat, perfectly motionless before it.",2 It was a cheerless morning when they got into the street; blowing and raining hard; and the clouds looking dull and stormy.,0 The night had been very wet: large pools of water had collected in the road: and the kennels were overflowing.,2 "There was a faint glimmering of the coming day in the sky; but it rather aggravated than relieved the gloom of the scene: the sombre light only serving to pale that which the street lamps afforded, without shedding any warmer or brighter tints upon the wet house-tops, and dreary streets.",2 "There appeared to be nobody stirring in that quarter of the town; the windows of the houses were all closely shut; and the streets through which they passed, were noiseless and empty.",3 "By the time they had turned into the Bethnal Green Road, the day had fairly begun to break.",2 "Many of the lamps were already extinguished; a few country waggons were slowly toiling on, towards London; now and then, a stage-coach, covered with mud, rattled briskly by: the driver bestowing, as he passed, an admonitory lash upon the heavy waggoner who, by keeping on the wrong side of the road, had endangered his arriving at the office, a quarter of a minute after his time.",0 "The public-houses, with gas-lights burning inside, were already open.",1 "By degrees, other shops began to be unclosed, and a few scattered people were met with.",2 "Then, came straggling groups of labourers going to their work; then, men and women with fish-baskets on their heads; donkey-carts laden with vegetables; chaise-carts filled with live-stock or whole carcasses of meat; milk-women with pails; an unbroken concourse of people, trudging out with various supplies to the eastern suburbs of the town.",3 "As they approached the City, the noise and traffic gradually increased; when they threaded the streets between Shoreditch and Smithfield, it had swelled into a roar of sound and bustle.",1 "It was as light as it was likely to be, till night came on again, and the busy morning of half the London population had begun.",2 "Turning down Sun Street and Crown Street, and crossing Finsbury square, Mr. Sikes struck, by way of Chiswell Street, into Barbican: thence into Long Lane, and so into Smithfield; from which latter place arose a tumult of discordant sounds that filled Oliver Twist with amazement.",1 It was market-morning.,2 "The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above.",1 "All the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary pens as could be crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep.",1 "Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass; the whistling of drovers, the barking dogs, the bellowing and plunging of the oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling; the hideous and discordant dim that resounded from every corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite confounded the senses.",0 "Mr. Sikes, dragging Oliver after him, elbowed his way through the thickest of the crowd, and bestowed very little attention on the numerous sights and sounds, which so astonished the boy.",2 "He nodded, twice or thrice, to a passing friend; and, resisting as many invitations to take a morning dram, pressed steadily onward, until they were clear of the turmoil, and had made their way through Hosier Lane into Holborn.",2 "'Now, young 'un!'",2 "said Sikes, looking up at the clock of St. Andrew's Church, 'hard upon seven!",2 you must step out.,2 "Come, don't lag behind already, Lazy-legs!'",1 "Mr. Sikes accompanied this speech with a jerk at his little companion's wrist; Oliver, quickening his pace into a kind of trot between a fast walk and a run, kept up with the rapid strides of the house-breaker as well as he could.",3 "They held their course at this rate, until they had passed Hyde Park corner, and were on their way to Kensington: when Sikes relaxed his pace, until an empty cart which was at some little distance behind, came up.",3 "Seeing 'Hounslow' written on it, he asked the driver with as much civility as he could assume, if he would give them a lift as far as Isleworth.",3 "'Jump up,' said the man.",2 'Is that your boy?',2 "'Yes; he's my boy,' replied Sikes, looking hard at Oliver, and putting his hand abstractedly into the pocket where the pistol was.",1 "'Your father walks rather too quick for you, don't he, my man?'",2 inquired the driver: seeing that Oliver was out of breath.,2 "'Not a bit of it,' replied Sikes, interposing.",2 'He's used to it.,2 "Here, take hold of my hand, Ned.",2 In with you!',2 "Thus addressing Oliver, he helped him into the cart; and the driver, pointing to a heap of sacks, told him to lie down there, and rest himself.",2 "As they passed the different mile-stones, Oliver wondered, more and more, where his companion meant to take him.",2 "Kensington, Hammersmith, Chiswick, Kew Bridge, Brentford, were all passed; and yet they went on as steadily as if they had only just begun their journey.",2 "At length, they came to a public-house called the Coach and Horses; a little way beyond which, another road appeared to run off.",2 "And here, the cart stopped.",2 "Sikes dismounted with great precipitation, holding Oliver by the hand all the while; and lifting him down directly, bestowed a furious look upon him, and rapped the side-pocket with his fist, in a significant manner.",2 "'Good-bye, boy,' said the man.",2 "'He's sulky,' replied Sikes, giving him a shake; 'he's sulky.",1 A young dog!,2 Don't mind him.',2 'Not I!',2 "rejoined the other, getting into his cart.",2 "'It's a fine day, after all.'",3 And he drove away.,2 "Sikes waited until he had fairly gone; and then, telling Oliver he might look about him if he wanted, once again led him onward on his journey.",3 "They turned round to the left, a short way past the public-house; and then, taking a right-hand road, walked on for a long time: passing many large gardens and gentlemen's houses on both sides of the way, and stopping for nothing but a little beer, until they reached a town.",3 "Here against the wall of a house, Oliver saw written up in pretty large letters, 'Hampton.'",3 "They lingered about, in the fields, for some hours.",2 "At length they came back into the town; and, turning into an old public-house with a defaced sign-board, ordered some dinner by the kitchen fire.",2 "The kitchen was an old, low-roofed room; with a great beam across the middle of the ceiling, and benches, with high backs to them, by the fire; on which were seated several rough men in smock-frocks, drinking and smoking.",2 "They took no notice of Oliver; and very little of Sikes; and, as Sikes took very little notice of them, he and his young comrade sat in a corner by themselves, without being much troubled by their company.",1 "They had some cold meat for dinner, and sat so long after it, while Mr. Sikes indulged himself with three or four pipes, that Oliver began to feel quite certain they were not going any further.",1 "Being much tired with the walk, and getting up so early, he dozed a little at first; then, quite overpowered by fatigue and the fumes of the tobacco, fell asleep.",0 It was quite dark when he was awakened by a push from Sikes.,1 "Rousing himself sufficiently to sit up and look about him, he found that worthy in close fellowship and communication with a labouring man, over a pint of ale.",3 "'So, you're going on to Lower Halliford, are you?'",2 inquired Sikes.,2 "'Yes, I am,' replied the man, who seemed a little the worse--or better, as the case might be--for drinking; 'and not slow about it neither.",1 "My horse hasn't got a load behind him going back, as he had coming up in the mornin'; and he won't be long a-doing of it.",2 Here's luck to him.,3 Ecod!,2 he's a good 'un!',3 'Could you give my boy and me a lift as far as there?',2 "demanded Sikes, pushing the ale towards his new friend.",2 "'If you're going directly, I can,' replied the man, looking out of the pot.",2 'Are you going to Halliford?',2 "'Going on to Shepperton,' replied Sikes.",2 "'I'm your man, as far as I go,' replied the other.",2 "'Is all paid, Becky?'",2 "'Yes, the other gentleman's paid,' replied the girl.",2 'I say!',2 "said the man, with tipsy gravity; 'that won't do, you know.'",2 'Why not?',2 rejoined Sikes.,2 "'You're a-going to accommodate us, and wot's to prevent my standing treat for a pint or so, in return?'",2 "The stranger reflected upon this argument, with a very profound face; having done so, he seized Sikes by the hand: and declared he was a real good fellow.",3 "To which Mr. Sikes replied, he was joking; as, if he had been sober, there would have been strong reason to suppose he was.",2 "After the exchange of a few more compliments, they bade the company good-night, and went out; the girl gathering up the pots and glasses as they did so, and lounging out to the door, with her hands full, to see the party start.",3 "The horse, whose health had been drunk in his absence, was standing outside: ready harnessed to the cart.",1 "Oliver and Sikes got in without any further ceremony; and the man to whom he belonged, having lingered for a minute or two 'to bear him up,' and to defy the hostler and the world to produce his equal, mounted also.",1 "Then, the hostler was told to give the horse his head; and, his head being given him, he made a very unpleasant use of it: tossing it into the air with great disdain, and running into the parlour windows over the way; after performing those feats, and supporting himself for a short time on his hind-legs, he started off at great speed, and rattled out of the town right gallantly.",3 The night was very dark.,1 "A damp mist rose from the river, and the marshy ground about; and spread itself over the dreary fields.",1 "It was piercing cold, too; all was gloomy and black.",1 Not a word was spoken; for the driver had grown sleepy; and Sikes was in no mood to lead him into conversation.,3 "Oliver sat huddled together, in a corner of the cart; bewildered with alarm and apprehension; and figuring strange objects in the gaunt trees, whose branches waved grimly to and fro, as if in some fantastic joy at the desolation of the scene.",0 "As they passed Sunbury Church, the clock struck seven.",1 "There was a light in the ferry-house window opposite: which streamed across the road, and threw into more sombre shadow a dark yew-tree with graves beneath it.",1 There was a dull sound of falling water not far off; and the leaves of the old tree stirred gently in the night wind.,1 It seemed like quiet music for the repose of the dead.,3 "Sunbury was passed through, and they came again into the lonely road.",1 "Two or three miles more, and the cart stopped.",2 "Sikes alighted, took Oliver by the hand, and they once again walked on.",2 "They turned into no house at Shepperton, as the weary boy had expected; but still kept walking on, in mud and darkness, through gloomy lanes and over cold open wastes, until they came within sight of the lights of a town at no great distance.",0 "On looking intently forward, Oliver saw that the water was just below them, and that they were coming to the foot of a bridge.",2 "Sikes kept straight on, until they were close upon the bridge; then turned suddenly down a bank upon the left.",2 'The water!',2 "thought Oliver, turning sick with fear.",1 'He has brought me to this lonely place to murder me!',1 "He was about to throw himself on the ground, and make one struggle for his young life, when he saw that they stood before a solitary house: all ruinous and decayed.",0 There was a window on each side of the dilapidated entrance; and one story above; but no light was visible.,1 "The house was dark, dismantled: and the all appearance, uninhabited.",1 "Sikes, with Oliver's hand still in his, softly approached the low porch, and raised the latch.",2 "The door yielded to the pressure, and they passed in together.",2 'Hallo!',2 "cried a loud, hoarse voice, as soon as they set foot in the passage.",1 "'Don't make such a row,' said Sikes, bolting the door.",2 "'Show a glim, Toby.'",2 'Aha!,2 my pal!',2 cried the same voice.,2 "'A glim, Barney, a glim!",2 "Show the gentleman in, Barney; wake up first, if convenient.'",3 "The speaker appeared to throw a boot-jack, or some such article, at the person he addressed, to rouse him from his slumbers: for the noise of a wooden body, falling violently, was heard; and then an indistinct muttering, as of a man between sleep and awake.",0 'Do you hear?',2 cried the same voice.,2 "'There's Bill Sikes in the passage with nobody to do the civil to him; and you sleeping there, as if you took laudanum with your meals, and nothing stronger.",3 "Are you any fresher now, or do you want the iron candlestick to wake you thoroughly?'",3 "A pair of slipshod feet shuffled, hastily, across the bare floor of the room, as this interrogatory was put; and there issued, from a door on the right hand; first, a feeble candle: and next, the form of the same individual who has been heretofore described as labouring under the infirmity of speaking through his nose, and officiating as waiter at the public-house on Saffron Hill.",1 'Bister Sikes!',2 "exclaimed Barney, with real or counterfeit joy; 'cub id, sir; cub id.'",3 'Here!,2 "you get on first,' said Sikes, putting Oliver in front of him.",2 'Quicker!,2 or I shall tread upon your heels.',2 "Muttering a curse upon his tardiness, Sikes pushed Oliver before him; and they entered a low dark room with a smoky fire, two or three broken chairs, a table, and a very old couch: on which, with his legs much higher than his head, a man was reposing at full length, smoking a long clay pipe.",0 "He was dressed in a smartly-cut snuff-coloured coat, with large brass buttons; an orange neckerchief; a coarse, staring, shawl-pattern waistcoat; and drab breeches.",1 "Mr. Crackit (for he it was) had no very great quantity of hair, either upon his head or face; but what he had, was of a reddish dye, and tortured into long corkscrew curls, through which he occasionally thrust some very dirty fingers, ornamented with large common rings.",1 "He was a trifle above the middle size, and apparently rather weak in the legs; but this circumstance by no means detracted from his own admiration of his top-boots, which he contemplated, in their elevated situation, with lively satisfaction.",3 "'Bill, my boy!'",2 "said this figure, turning his head towards the door, 'I'm glad to see you.",3 I was almost afraid you'd given it up: in which case I should have made a personal wentur.,1 Hallo!',2 "Uttering this exclamation in a tone of great surprise, as his eyes rested on Oliver, Mr. Toby Crackit brought himself into a sitting posture, and demanded who that was.",3 'The boy.,2 Only the boy!',2 "replied Sikes, drawing a chair towards the fire.",2 "'Wud of Bister Fagid's lads,' exclaimed Barney, with a grin.",3 "'Fagin's, eh!'",2 "exclaimed Toby, looking at Oliver.",2 "'Wot an inwalable boy that'll make, for the old ladies' pockets in chapels!",2 His mug is a fortin' to him.',2 "'There--there's enough of that,' interposed Sikes, impatiently; and stooping over his recumbant friend, he whispered a few words in his ear: at which Mr. Crackit laughed immensely, and honoured Oliver with a long stare of astonishment.",3 "'Now,' said Sikes, as he resumed his seat, 'if you'll give us something to eat and drink while we're waiting, you'll put some heart in us; or in me, at all events.",2 "Sit down by the fire, younker, and rest yourself; for you'll have to go out with us again to-night, though not very far off.'",2 "Oliver looked at Sikes, in mute and timid wonder; and drawing a stool to the fire, sat with his aching head upon his hands, scarecely knowing where he was, or what was passing around him.",1 "'Here,' said Toby, as the young Jew placed some fragments of food, and a bottle upon the table, 'Success to the crack!'",1 "He rose to honour the toast; and, carefully depositing his empty pipe in a corner, advanced to the table, filled a glass with spirits, and drank off its contents.",3 Mr. Sikes did the same.,2 "'A drain for the boy,' said Toby, half-filling a wine-glass.",1 "'Down with it, innocence.'",2 "'Indeed,' said Oliver, looking piteously up into the man's face; 'indeed, I--' 'Down with it!'",2 echoed Toby.,2 'Do you think I don't know what's good for you?,3 "Tell him to drink it, Bill.'",2 'He had better!',3 said Sikes clapping his hand upon his pocket.,2 "'Burn my body, if he isn't more trouble than a whole family of Dodgers.",1 "Drink it, you perwerse imp; drink it!'",2 "Frightened by the menacing gestures of the two men, Oliver hastily swallowed the contents of the glass, and immediately fell into a violent fit of coughing: which delighted Toby Crackit and Barney, and even drew a smile from the surly Mr. Sikes.",1 "This done, and Sikes having satisfied his appetite (Oliver could eat nothing but a small crust of bread which they made him swallow), the two men laid themselves down on chairs for a short nap.",3 "Oliver retained his stool by the fire; Barney wrapped in a blanket, stretched himself on the floor: close outside the fender.",2 "They slept, or appeared to sleep, for some time; nobody stirring but Barney, who rose once or twice to throw coals on the fire.",2 "Oliver fell into a heavy doze: imagining himself straying along the gloomy lanes, or wandering about the dark churchyard, or retracing some one or other of the scenes of the past day: when he was roused by Toby Crackit jumping up and declaring it was half-past one.",0 "In an instant, the other two were on their legs, and all were actively engaged in busy preparation.",2 "Sikes and his companion enveloped their necks and chins in large dark shawls, and drew on their great-coats; Barney, opening a cupboard, brought forth several articles, which he hastily crammed into the pockets.",1 "'Barkers for me, Barney,' said Toby Crackit.",2 "'Here they are,' replied Barney, producing a pair of pistols.",2 'You loaded them yourself.',2 'All right!',3 "replied Toby, stowing them away.",2 'The persuaders?',2 "'I've got 'em,' replied Sikes.",2 "'Crape, keys, centre-bits, darkies--nothing forgotten?'",2 inquired Toby: fastening a small crowbar to a loop inside the skirt of his coat.,2 "'All right,' rejoined his companion.",3 "'Bring them bits of timber, Barney.",2 That's the time of day.',2 "With these words, he took a thick stick from Barney's hands, who, having delivered another to Toby, busied himself in fastening on Oliver's cape.",2 'Now then!',2 "said Sikes, holding out his hand.",2 "Oliver: who was completely stupified by the unwonted exercise, and the air, and the drink which had been forced upon him: put his hand mechanically into that which Sikes extended for the purpose.",1 "'Take his other hand, Toby,' said Sikes.",2 "'Look out, Barney.'",2 "The man went to the door, and returned to announce that all was quiet.",3 The two robbers issued forth with Oliver between them.,2 "Barney, having made all fast, rolled himself up as before, and was soon asleep again.",3 It was now intensely dark.,1 "The fog was much heavier than it had been in the early part of the night; and the atmosphere was so damp, that, although no rain fell, Oliver's hair and eyebrows, within a few minutes after leaving the house, had become stiff with the half-frozen moisture that was floating about.",0 "They crossed the bridge, and kept on towards the lights which he had seen before.",2 "They were at no great distance off; and, as they walked pretty briskly, they soon arrived at Chertsey.",3 "'Slap through the town,' whispered Sikes; 'there'll be nobody in the way, to-night, to see us.'",2 "Toby acquiesced; and they hurried through the main street of the little town, which at that late hour was wholly deserted.",2 A dim light shone at intervals from some bed-room window; and the hoarse barking of dogs occasionally broke the silence of the night.,1 But there was nobody abroad.,2 "They had cleared the town, as the church-bell struck two.",2 "Quickening their pace, they turned up a road upon the left hand.",2 "After walking about a quarter of a mile, they stopped before a detached house surrounded by a wall: to the top of which, Toby Crackit, scarcely pausing to take breath, climbed in a twinkling.",2 "'The boy next,' said Toby.",2 'Hoist him up; I'll catch hold of him.',2 "Before Oliver had time to look round, Sikes had caught him under the arms; and in three or four seconds he and Toby were lying on the grass on the other side.",1 Sikes followed directly.,2 And they stole cautiously towards the house.,1 "And now, for the first time, Oliver, well-nigh mad with grief and terror, saw that housebreaking and robbery, if not murder, were the objects of the expedition.",0 "He clasped his hands together, and involuntarily uttered a subdued exclamation of horror.",1 A mist came before his eyes; the cold sweat stood upon his ashy face; his limbs failed him; and he sank upon his knees.,0 'Get up!',2 "murmured Sikes, trembling with rage, and drawing the pistol from his pocket; 'Get up, or I'll strew your brains upon the grass.'",1 'Oh!,2 for God's sake let me go!',2 cried Oliver; 'let me run away and die in the fields.,1 "I will never come near London; never, never!",2 Oh!,2 "pray have mercy on me, and do not make me steal.",2 "For the love of all the bright Angels that rest in Heaven, have mercy upon me!'",4 "The man to whom this appeal was made, swore a dreadful oath, and had cocked the pistol, when Toby, striking it from his grasp, placed his hand upon the boy's mouth, and dragged him to the house.",2 'Hush!',2 cried the man; 'it won't answer here.,2 "Say another word, and I'll do your business myself with a crack on the head.",1 "That makes no noise, and is quite as certain, and more genteel.",1 "Here, Bill, wrench the shutter open.",2 "He's game enough now, I'll engage.",3 "I've seen older hands of his age took the same way, for a minute or two, on a cold night.'",1 "Sikes, invoking terrific imprecations upon Fagin's head for sending Oliver on such an errand, plied the crowbar vigorously, but with little noise.",2 "After some delay, and some assistance from Toby, the shutter to which he had referred, swung open on its hinges.",1 "It was a little lattice window, about five feet and a half above the ground, at the back of the house: which belonged to a scullery, or small brewing-place, at the end of the passage.",2 "The aperture was so small, that the inmates had probably not thought it worth while to defend it more securely; but it was large enough to admit a boy of Oliver's size, nevertheless.",4 "A very brief exercise of Mr. Sike's art, sufficed to overcome the fastening of the lattice; and it soon stood wide open also.",3 "'Now listen, you young limb,' whispered Sikes, drawing a dark lantern from his pocket, and throwing the glare full on Oliver's face; 'I'm a going to put you through there.",1 "Take this light; go softly up the steps straight afore you, and along the little hall, to the street door; unfasten it, and let us in.'",2 "'There's a bolt at the top, you won't be able to reach,' interposed Toby.",3 'Stand upon one of the hall chairs.,2 "There are three there, Bill, with a jolly large blue unicorn and gold pitchfork on 'em: which is the old lady's arms.'",3 "'Keep quiet, can't you?'",3 "replied Sikes, with a threatening look.",1 "'The room-door is open, is it?'",2 "'Wide,' replied Toby, after peeping in to satisfy himself.",3 "'The game of that is, that they always leave it open with a catch, so that the dog, who's got a bed in here, may walk up and down the passage when he feels wakeful.",2 Ha!,2 ha!,2 Barney 'ticed him away to-night.,2 So neat!',3 "Although Mr. Crackit spoke in a scarcely audible whisper, and laughed without noise, Sikes imperiously commanded him to be silent, and to get to work.",2 "Toby complied, by first producing his lantern, and placing it on the ground; then by planting himself firmly with his head against the wall beneath the window, and his hands upon his knees, so as to make a step of his back.",2 "This was no sooner done, than Sikes, mounting upon him, put Oliver gently through the window with his feet first; and, without leaving hold of his collar, planted him safely on the floor inside.",3 "'Take this lantern,' said Sikes, looking into the room.",2 'You see the stairs afore you?',2 "Oliver, more dead than alive, gasped out, 'Yes.'",1 "Sikes, pointing to the street-door with the pistol-barrel, briefly advised him to take notice that he was within shot all the way; and that if he faltered, he would fall dead that instant.",0 "'It's done in a minute,' said Sikes, in the same low whisper.",2 "'Directly I leave go of you, do your work.",3 Hark!',2 'What's that?',2 whispered the other man.,2 They listened intently.,2 "'Nothing,' said Sikes, releasing his hold of Oliver.",2 'Now!',2 "In the short time he had had to collect his senses, the boy had firmly resolved that, whether he died in the attempt or not, he would make one effort to dart upstairs from the hall, and alarm the family.",1 "Filled with this idea, he advanced at once, but stealthily.",3 'Come back!',2 suddenly cried Sikes aloud.,2 'Back!,2 back!',2 "Scared by the sudden breaking of the dead stillness of the place, and by a loud cry which followed it, Oliver let his lantern fall, and knew not whether to advance or fly.",0 "The cry was repeated--a light appeared--a vision of two terrified half-dressed men at the top of the stairs swam before his eyes--a flash--a loud noise--a smoke--a crash somewhere, but where he knew not,--and he staggered back.",0 "Sikes had disappeared for an instant; but he was up again, and had him by the collar before the smoke had cleared away.",2 "He fired his own pistol after the men, who were already retreating; and dragged the boy up.",1 "'Clasp your arm tighter,' said Sikes, as he drew him through the window.",2 'Give me a shawl here.,2 They've hit him.,2 Quick!,2 How the boy bleeds!',1 "Then came the loud ringing of a bell, mingled with the noise of fire-arms, and the shouts of men, and the sensation of being carried over uneven ground at a rapid pace.",1 "And then, the noises grew confused in the distance; and a cold deadly feeling crept over the boy's heart; and he saw or heard no more.",0 The night was bitter cold.,1 "The snow lay on the ground, frozen into a hard thick crust, so that only the heaps that had drifted into byways and corners were affected by the sharp wind that howled abroad: which, as if expending increased fury on such prey as it found, caught it savagely up in clouds, and, whirling it into a thousand misty eddies, scattered it in air.",1 "Bleak, dark, and piercing cold, it was a night for the well-housed and fed to draw round the bright fire and thank God they were at home; and for the homeless, starving wretch to lay him down and die.",1 "Many hunger-worn outcasts close their eyes in our bare streets, at such times, who, let their crimes have been what they may, can hardly open them in a more bitter world.",1 "Such was the aspect of out-of-doors affairs, when Mrs. Corney, the matron of the workhouse to which our readers have been already introduced as the birthplace of Oliver Twist, sat herself down before a cheerful fire in her own little room, and glanced, with no small degree of complacency, at a small round table: on which stood a tray of corresponding size, furnished with all necessary materials for the most grateful meal that matrons enjoy.",3 "In fact, Mrs. Corney was about to solace herself with a cup of tea.",3 "As she glanced from the table to the fireplace, where the smallest of all possible kettles was singing a small song in a small voice, her inward satisfaction evidently increased,--so much so, indeed, that Mrs. Corney smiled.",2 'Well!',2 "said the matron, leaning her elbow on the table, and looking reflectively at the fire; 'I'm sure we have all on us a great deal to be grateful for!",3 "A great deal, if we did but know it.",3 Ah!',2 "Mrs. Corney shook her head mournfully, as if deploring the mental blindness of those paupers who did not know it; and thrusting a silver spoon (private property) into the inmost recesses of a two-ounce tin tea-caddy, proceeded to make the tea.",0 How slight a thing will disturb the equanimity of our frail minds!,1 "The black teapot, being very small and easily filled, ran over while Mrs. Corney was moralising; and the water slightly scalded Mrs. Corney's hand.",2 'Drat the pot!',2 "said the worthy matron, setting it down very hastily on the hob; 'a little stupid thing, that only holds a couple of cups!",1 "What use is it of, to anybody!",2 "Except,' said Mrs. Corney, pausing, 'except to a poor desolate creature like me.",1 Oh dear!',2 "With these words, the matron dropped into her chair, and, once more resting her elbow on the table, thought of her solitary fate.",2 "The small teapot, and the single cup, had awakened in her mind sad recollections of Mr. Corney (who had not been dead more than five-and-twenty years); and she was overpowered.",1 'I shall never get another!',2 "said Mrs. Corney, pettishly; 'I shall never get another--like him.'",3 "Whether this remark bore reference to the husband, or the teapot, is uncertain.",1 It might have been the latter; for Mrs. Corney looked at it as she spoke; and took it up afterwards.,2 "She had just tasted her first cup, when she was disturbed by a soft tap at the room-door.",2 "'Oh, come in with you!'",2 "said Mrs. Corney, sharply.",1 "'Some of the old women dying, I suppose.",1 They always die when I'm at meals.,1 "Don't stand there, letting the cold air in, don't.",1 "What's amiss now, eh?'",1 "'Nothing, ma'am, nothing,' replied a man's voice.",2 'Dear me!',2 "exclaimed the matron, in a much sweeter tone, 'is that Mr. Bumble?'",2 "'At your service, ma'am,' said Mr. Bumble, who had been stopping outside to rub his shoes clean, and to shake the snow off his coat; and who now made his appearance, bearing the cocked hat in one hand and a bundle in the other.",2 "'Shall I shut the door, ma'am?'",2 "The lady modestly hesitated to reply, lest there should be any impropriety in holding an interview with Mr. Bumble, with closed doors.",1 "Mr. Bumble taking advantage of the hesitation, and being very cold himself, shut it without permission.",2 "'Hard weather, Mr. Bumble,' said the matron.",2 "'Hard, indeed, ma'am,' replied the beadle.",2 "'Anti-porochial weather this, ma'am.",2 "We have given away, Mrs. Corney, we have given away a matter of twenty quartern loaves and a cheese and a half, this very blessed afternoon; and yet them paupers are not contented.'",1 'Of course not.,2 "When would they be, Mr. Bumble?'",2 "said the matron, sipping her tea.",2 "'When, indeed, ma'am!'",2 rejoined Mr. Bumble.,2 "'Why here's one man that, in consideration of his wife and large family, has a quartern loaf and a good pound of cheese, full weight.",3 "Is he grateful, ma'am?",3 Is he grateful?,3 Not a copper farthing's worth of it!,3 "What does he do, ma'am, but ask for a few coals; if it's only a pocket handkerchief full, he says!",2 Coals!,2 What would he do with coals?,2 Toast his cheese with 'em and then come back for more.,2 "That's the way with these people, ma'am; give 'em a apron full of coals to-day, and they'll come back for another, the day after to-morrow, as brazen as alabaster.'",1 The matron expressed her entire concurrence in this intelligible simile; and the beadle went on.,3 "'I never,' said Mr. Bumble, 'see anything like the pitch it's got to.",3 "The day afore yesterday, a man--you have been a married woman, ma'am, and I may mention it to you--a man, with hardly a rag upon his back (here Mrs. Corney looked at the floor), goes to our overseer's door when he has got company coming to dinner; and says, he must be relieved, Mrs. Corney.",2 "As he wouldn't go away, and shocked the company very much, our overseer sent him out a pound of potatoes and half a pint of oatmeal.",1 """My heart!""",2 "says the ungrateful villain, ""what's the use of _this_ to me?",1 "You might as well give me a pair of iron spectacles!""",3 """Very good,"" says our overseer, taking 'em away again, ""you won't get anything else here.""",3 """Then I'll die in the streets!""",1 says the vagrant.,1 """Oh no, you won't,"" says our overseer.'",2 'Ha!,2 ha!,2 That was very good!,3 "So like Mr. Grannett, wasn't it?'",3 interposed the matron.,2 "'Well, Mr. Bumble?'",2 "'Well, ma'am,' rejoined the beadle, 'he went away; and he _did_ die in the streets.",1 There's a obstinate pauper for you!',1 "'It beats anything I could have believed,' observed the matron emphatically.",1 "'But don't you think out-of-door relief a very bad thing, any way, Mr. Bumble?",2 "You're a gentleman of experience, and ought to know.",2 Come.',2 "'Mrs. Corney,' said the beadle, smiling as men smile who are conscious of superior information, 'out-of-door relief, properly managed: properly managed, ma'am: is the porochial safeguard.",4 "The great principle of out-of-door relief is, to give the paupers exactly what they don't want; and then they get tired of coming.'",2 'Dear me!',2 exclaimed Mrs. Corney.,2 "'Well, that is a good one, too!'",3 'Yes.,2 "Betwixt you and me, ma'am,' returned Mr. Bumble, 'that's the great principle; and that's the reason why, if you look at any cases that get into them owdacious newspapers, you'll always observe that sick families have been relieved with slices of cheese.",2 "That's the rule now, Mrs. Corney, all over the country.",2 "But, however,' said the beadle, stopping to unpack his bundle, 'these are official secrets, ma'am; not to be spoken of; except, as I may say, among the porochial officers, such as ourselves.",2 "This is the port wine, ma'am, that the board ordered for the infirmary; real, fresh, genuine port wine; only out of the cask this forenoon; clear as a bell, and no sediment!'",4 "Having held the first bottle up to the light, and shaken it well to test its excellence, Mr. Bumble placed them both on top of a chest of drawers; folded the handkerchief in which they had been wrapped; put it carefully in his pocket; and took up his hat, as if to go.",4 "'You'll have a very cold walk, Mr. Bumble,' said the matron.",1 "'It blows, ma'am,' replied Mr. Bumble, turning up his coat-collar, 'enough to cut one's ears off.'",2 "The matron looked, from the little kettle, to the beadle, who was moving towards the door; and as the beadle coughed, preparatory to bidding her good-night, bashfully inquired whether--whether he wouldn't take a cup of tea?",3 Mr. Bumble instantaneously turned back his collar again; laid his hat and stick upon a chair; and drew another chair up to the table.,2 "As he slowly seated himself, he looked at the lady.",1 She fixed her eyes upon the little teapot.,2 "Mr. Bumble coughed again, and slightly smiled.",2 Mrs. Corney rose to get another cup and saucer from the closet.,2 "As she sat down, her eyes once again encountered those of the gallant beadle; she coloured, and applied herself to the task of making his tea.",3 Again Mr. Bumble coughed--louder this time than he had coughed yet.,1 'Sweet?,2 Mr. Bumble?',2 "inquired the matron, taking up the sugar-basin.",2 "'Very sweet, indeed, ma'am,' replied Mr. Bumble.",3 "He fixed his eyes on Mrs. Corney as he said this; and if ever a beadle looked tender, Mr. Bumble was that beadle at that moment.",3 "The tea was made, and handed in silence.",2 "Mr. Bumble, having spread a handkerchief over his knees to prevent the crumbs from sullying the splendour of his shorts, began to eat and drink; varying these amusements, occasionally, by fetching a deep sigh; which, however, had no injurious effect upon his appetite, but, on the contrary, rather seemed to facilitate his operations in the tea and toast department.",2 "'You have a cat, ma'am, I see,' said Mr. Bumble, glancing at one who, in the centre of her family, was basking before the fire; 'and kittens too, I declare!'",2 "'I am so fond of them, Mr. Bumble, you can't think,' replied the matron.",3 "'They're _so_ happy, _so_ frolicsome, and _so_ cheerful, that they are quite companions for me.'",3 "'Very nice animals, ma'am,' replied Mr. Bumble, approvingly; 'so very domestic.'",3 "'Oh, yes!'",2 "rejoined the matron with enthusiasm; 'so fond of their home too, that it's quite a pleasure, I'm sure.'",4 "'Mrs. Corney, ma'am,' said Mr. Bumble, slowly, and marking the time with his teaspoon, 'I mean to say this, ma'am; that any cat, or kitten, that could live with you, ma'am, and _not_ be fond of its home, must be a ass, ma'am.'",2 "'Oh, Mr. Bumble!'",2 remonstrated Mrs. Corney.,2 "'It's of no use disguising facts, ma'am,' said Mr. Bumble, slowly flourishing the teaspoon with a kind of amorous dignity which made him doubly impressive; 'I would drown it myself, with pleasure.'",4 "'Then you're a cruel man,' said the matron vivaciously, as she held out her hand for the beadle's cup; 'and a very hard-hearted man besides.'",1 "'Hard-hearted, ma'am?'",2 said Mr. Bumble.,2 'Hard?',2 "Mr. Bumble resigned his cup without another word; squeezed Mrs. Corney's little finger as she took it; and inflicting two open-handed slaps upon his laced waistcoat, gave a mighty sigh, and hitched his chair a very little morsel farther from the fire.",2 "It was a round table; and as Mrs. Corney and Mr. Bumble had been sitting opposite each other, with no great space between them, and fronting the fire, it will be seen that Mr. Bumble, in receding from the fire, and still keeping at the table, increased the distance between himself and Mrs. Corney; which proceeding, some prudent readers will doubtless be disposed to admire, and to consider an act of great heroism on Mr. Bumble's part: he being in some sort tempted by time, place, and opportunity, to give utterance to certain soft nothings, which however well they may become the lips of the light and thoughtless, do seem immeasurably beneath the dignity of judges of the land, members of parliament, ministers of state, lord mayors, and other great public functionaries, but more particularly beneath the stateliness and gravity of a beadle: who (as is well known) should be the sternest and most inflexible among them all.",4 "Whatever were Mr. Bumble's intentions, however (and no doubt they were of the best): it unfortunately happened, as has been twice before remarked, that the table was a round one; consequently Mr. Bumble, moving his chair by little and little, soon began to diminish the distance between himself and the matron; and, continuing to travel round the outer edge of the circle, brought his chair, in time, close to that in which the matron was seated.",1 "Indeed, the two chairs touched; and when they did so, Mr. Bumble stopped.",2 "Now, if the matron had moved her chair to the right, she would have been scorched by the fire; and if to the left, she must have fallen into Mr. Bumble's arms; so (being a discreet matron, and no doubt foreseeing these consequences at a glance) she remained where she was, and handed Mr. Bumble another cup of tea.",1 "'Hard-hearted, Mrs. Corney?'",2 "said Mr. Bumble, stirring his tea, and looking up into the matron's face; 'are _you_ hard-hearted, Mrs. Corney?'",1 'Dear me!',2 "exclaimed the matron, 'what a very curious question from a single man.",2 "What can you want to know for, Mr. Bumble?'",2 The beadle drank his tea to the last drop; finished a piece of toast; whisked the crumbs off his knees; wiped his lips; and deliberately kissed the matron.,2 'Mr. Bumble!',2 "cried that discreet lady in a whisper; for the fright was so great, that she had quite lost her voice, 'Mr. Bumble, I shall scream!'",1 "Mr. Bumble made no reply; but in a slow and dignified manner, put his arm round the matron's waist.",2 "As the lady had stated her intention of screaming, of course she would have screamed at this additional boldness, but that the exertion was rendered unnecessary by a hasty knocking at the door: which was no sooner heard, than Mr. Bumble darted, with much agility, to the wine bottles, and began dusting them with great violence: while the matron sharply demanded who was there.",1 "It is worthy of remark, as a curious physical instance of the efficacy of a sudden surprise in counteracting the effects of extreme fear, that her voice had quite recovered all its official asperity.",2 "'If you please, mistress,' said a withered old female pauper, hideously ugly: putting her head in at the door, 'Old Sally is a-going fast.'",0 "'Well, what's that to me?'",2 angrily demanded the matron.,1 "'I can't keep her alive, can I?'",2 "'No, no, mistress,' replied the old woman, 'nobody can; she's far beyond the reach of help.",1 "I've seen a many people die; little babes and great strong men; and I know when death's a-coming, well enough.",4 "But she's troubled in her mind: and when the fits are not on her,--and that's not often, for she is dying very hard,--she says she has got something to tell, which you must hear.",0 "She'll never die quiet till you come, mistress.'",1 "At this intelligence, the worthy Mrs. Corney muttered a variety of invectives against old women who couldn't even die without purposely annoying their betters; and, muffling herself in a thick shawl which she hastily caught up, briefly requested Mr. Bumble to stay till she came back, lest anything particular should occur.",2 "Bidding the messenger walk fast, and not be all night hobbling up the stairs, she followed her from the room with a very ill grace, scolding all the way.",3 "Mr. Bumble's conduct on being left to himself, was rather inexplicable.",2 "He opened the closet, counted the teaspoons, weighed the sugar-tongs, closely inspected a silver milk-pot to ascertain that it was of the genuine metal, and, having satisfied his curiosity on these points, put on his cocked hat corner-wise, and danced with much gravity four distinct times round the table.",4 "Having gone through this very extraordinary performance, he took off the cocked hat again, and, spreading himself before the fire with his back towards it, seemed to be mentally engaged in taking an exact inventory of the furniture.",3 "It was no unfit messenger of death, who had disturbed the quiet of the matron's room.",1 "Her body was bent by age; her limbs trembled with palsy; her face, distorted into a mumbling leer, resembled more the grotesque shaping of some wild pencil, than the work of Nature's hand.",0 Alas!,2 How few of Nature's faces are left alone to gladden us with their beauty!,3 "The cares, and sorrows, and hungerings, of the world, change them as they change hearts; and it is only when those passions sleep, and have lost their hold for ever, that the troubled clouds pass off, and leave Heaven's surface clear.",1 "It is a common thing for the countenances of the dead, even in that fixed and rigid state, to subside into the long-forgotten expression of sleeping infancy, and settle into the very look of early life; so calm, so peaceful, do they grow again, that those who knew them in their happy childhood, kneel by the coffin's side in awe, and see the Angel even upon earth.",4 "The old crone tottered along the passages, and up the stairs, muttering some indistinct answers to the chidings of her companion; being at length compelled to pause for breath, she gave the light into her hand, and remained behind to follow as she might: while the more nimble superior made her way to the room where the sick woman lay.",3 "It was a bare garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther end.",1 "There was another old woman watching by the bed; the parish apothecary's apprentice was standing by the fire, making a toothpick out of a quill.",2 "'Cold night, Mrs. Corney,' said this young gentleman, as the matron entered.",2 "'Very cold, indeed, sir,' replied the mistress, in her most civil tones, and dropping a curtsey as she spoke.",1 "'You should get better coals out of your contractors,' said the apothecary's deputy, breaking a lump on the top of the fire with the rusty poker; 'these are not at all the sort of thing for a cold night.'",1 "'They're the board's choosing, sir,' returned the matron.",2 "'The least they could do, would be to keep us pretty warm: for our places are hard enough.'",3 The conversation was here interrupted by a moan from the sick woman.,1 'Oh!',2 "said the young mag, turning his face towards the bed, as if he had previously quite forgotten the patient, 'it's all U.P. there, Mrs. Corney.'",3 "'It is, is it, sir?'",2 asked the matron.,2 "'If she lasts a couple of hours, I shall be surprised,' said the apothecary's apprentice, intent upon the toothpick's point.",2 'It's a break-up of the system altogether.,1 "Is she dozing, old lady?'",2 "The attendant stooped over the bed, to ascertain; and nodded in the affirmative.",3 "'Then perhaps she'll go off in that way, if you don't make a row,' said the young man.",2 'Put the light on the floor.,2 She won't see it there.',2 "The attendant did as she was told: shaking her head meanwhile, to intimate that the woman would not die so easily; having done so, she resumed her seat by the side of the other nurse, who had by this time returned.",2 "The mistress, with an expression of impatience, wrapped herself in her shawl, and sat at the foot of the bed.",1 "The apothecary's apprentice, having completed the manufacture of the toothpick, planted himself in front of the fire and made good use of it for ten minutes or so: when apparently growing rather dull, he wished Mrs. Corney joy of her job, and took himself off on tiptoe.",3 "When they had sat in silence for some time, the two old women rose from the bed, and crouching over the fire, held out their withered hands to catch the heat.",2 "The flame threw a ghastly light on their shrivelled faces, and made their ugliness appear terrible, as, in this position, they began to converse in a low voice.",0 "'Did she say any more, Anny dear, while I was gone?'",2 inquired the messenger.,2 "'Not a word,' replied the other.",2 "'She plucked and tore at her arms for a little time; but I held her hands, and she soon dropped off.",2 "She hasn't much strength in her, so I easily kept her quiet.",3 "I ain't so weak for an old woman, although I am on parish allowance; no, no!'",1 'Did she drink the hot wine the doctor said she was to have?',3 demanded the first.,2 "'I tried to get it down,' rejoined the other.",2 "'But her teeth were tight set, and she clenched the mug so hard that it was as much as I could do to get it back again.",1 So I drank it; and it did me good!',3 "Looking cautiously round, to ascertain that they were not overheard, the two hags cowered nearer to the fire, and chuckled heartily.",3 "'I mind the time,' said the first speaker, 'when she would have done the same, and made rare fun of it afterwards.'",3 "'Ay, that she would,' rejoined the other; 'she had a merry heart.",3 "'A many, many, beautiful corpses she laid out, as nice and neat as waxwork.",4 "My old eyes have seen them--ay, and those old hands touched them too; for I have helped her, scores of times.'",3 "Stretching forth her trembling fingers as she spoke, the old creature shook them exultingly before her face, and fumbling in her pocket, brought out an old time-discoloured tin snuff-box, from which she shook a few grains into the outstretched palm of her companion, and a few more into her own.",3 "While they were thus employed, the matron, who had been impatiently watching until the dying woman should awaken from her stupor, joined them by the fire, and sharply asked how long she was to wait?",0 "'Not long, mistress,' replied the second woman, looking up into her face.",1 'We have none of us long to wait for Death.,1 "Patience, patience!",3 He'll be here soon enough for us all.',3 "'Hold your tongue, you doting idiot!'",1 said the matron sternly.,2 "'You, Martha, tell me; has she been in this way before?'",2 "'Often,' answered the first woman.",2 "'But will never be again,' added the second one; 'that is, she'll never wake again but once--and mind, mistress, that won't be for long!'",1 "'Long or short,' said the matron, snappishly, 'she won't find me here when she does wake; take care, both of you, how you worry me again for nothing.",1 "It's no part of my duty to see all the old women in the house die, and I won't--that's more.",1 "Mind that, you impudent old harridans.",1 "If you make a fool of me again, I'll soon cure you, I warrant you!'",2 "She was bouncing away, when a cry from the two women, who had turned towards the bed, caused her to look round.",1 "The patient had raised herself upright, and was stretching her arms towards them.",3 'Who's that?',2 "she cried, in a hollow voice.",1 "'Hush, hush!'",2 "said one of the women, stooping over her.",2 "'Lie down, lie down!'",1 'I'll never lie down again alive!',1 "said the woman, struggling.",1 'I _will_ tell her!,2 Come here!,2 Nearer!,2 Let me whisper in your ear.',2 "She clutched the matron by the arm, and forcing her into a chair by the bedside, was about to speak, when looking round, she caught sight of the two old women bending forward in the attitude of eager listeners.",3 "'Turn them away,' said the woman, drowsily; 'make haste!",1 make haste!',1 "The two old crones, chiming in together, began pouring out many piteous lamentations that the poor dear was too far gone to know her best friends; and were uttering sundry protestations that they would never leave her, when the superior pushed them from the room, closed the door, and returned to the bedside.",3 "On being excluded, the old ladies changed their tone, and cried through the keyhole that old Sally was drunk; which, indeed, was not unlikely; since, in addition to a moderate dose of opium prescribed by the apothecary, she was labouring under the effects of a final taste of gin-and-water which had been privily administered, in the openness of their hearts, by the worthy old ladies themselves.",2 "'Now listen to me,' said the dying woman aloud, as if making a great effort to revive one latent spark of energy.",3 "'In this very room--in this very bed--I once nursed a pretty young creetur', that was brought into the house with her feet cut and bruised with walking, and all soiled with dust and blood.",1 "She gave birth to a boy, and died.",1 Let me think--what was the year again!',2 "'Never mind the year,' said the impatient auditor; 'what about her?'",1 "'Ay,' murmured the sick woman, relapsing into her former drowsy state, 'what about her?--what about--I know!'",1 "she cried, jumping fiercely up: her face flushed, and her eyes starting from her head--'I robbed her, so I did!",2 "She wasn't cold--I tell you she wasn't cold, when I stole it!'",1 "'Stole what, for God's sake?'",2 "cried the matron, with a gesture as if she would call for help.",2 '_It_!',2 "replied the woman, laying her hand over the other's mouth.",2 'The only thing she had.,2 "She wanted clothes to keep her warm, and food to eat; but she had kept it safe, and had it in her bosom.",3 "It was gold, I tell you!",3 "Rich gold, that might have saved her life!'",3 'Gold!',2 "echoed the matron, bending eagerly over the woman as she fell back.",2 "'Go on, go on--yes--what of it?",2 Who was the mother?,2 When was it?',2 "'She charged me to keep it safe,' replied the woman with a groan, 'and trusted me as the only woman about her.",3 "I stole it in my heart when she first showed it me hanging round her neck; and the child's death, perhaps, is on me besides!",1 "They would have treated him better, if they had known it all!'",3 'Known what?',2 asked the other.,2 'Speak!',2 "'The boy grew so like his mother,' said the woman, rambling on, and not heeding the question, 'that I could never forget it when I saw his face.",3 Poor girl!,1 poor girl!,1 "She was so young, too!",2 Such a gentle lamb!,3 Wait; there's more to tell.,2 "I have not told you all, have I?'",2 "'No, no,' replied the matron, inclining her head to catch the words, as they came more faintly from the dying woman.",1 "'Be quick, or it may be too late!'",2 "'The mother,' said the woman, making a more violent effort than before; 'the mother, when the pains of death first came upon her, whispered in my ear that if her baby was born alive, and thrived, the day might come when it would not feel so much disgraced to hear its poor young mother named.",0 """And oh, kind Heaven!""",3 "she said, folding her thin hands together, ""whether it be boy or girl, raise up some friends for it in this troubled world, and take pity upon a lonely desolate child, abandoned to its mercy!""",0 ' 'The boy's name?',2 demanded the matron.,2 "'They _called_ him Oliver,' replied the woman, feebly.",2 "'The gold I stole was--' 'Yes, yes--what?'",2 cried the other.,2 "She was bending eagerly over the woman to hear her reply; but drew back, instinctively, as she once again rose, slowly and stiffly, into a sitting posture; then, clutching the coverlid with both hands, muttered some indistinct sounds in her throat, and fell lifeless on the bed.",1 * * * * * 'Stone dead!',1 "said one of the old women, hurrying in as soon as the door was opened.",2 "'And nothing to tell, after all,' rejoined the matron, walking carelessly away.",2 "The two crones, to all appearance, too busily occupied in the preparations for their dreadful duties to make any reply, were left alone, hovering about the body.",1 "While these things were passing in the country workhouse, Mr. Fagin sat in the old den--the same from which Oliver had been removed by the girl--brooding over a dull, smoky fire.",1 "He held a pair of bellows upon his knee, with which he had apparently been endeavouring to rouse it into more cheerful action; but he had fallen into deep thought; and with his arms folded on them, and his chin resting on his thumbs, fixed his eyes, abstractedly, on the rusty bars.",1 "At a table behind him sat the Artful Dodger, Master Charles Bates, and Mr. Chitling: all intent upon a game of whist; the Artful taking dummy against Master Bates and Mr. Chitling.",3 "The countenance of the first-named gentleman, peculiarly intelligent at all times, acquired great additional interest from his close observance of the game, and his attentive perusal of Mr. Chitling's hand; upon which, from time to time, as occasion served, he bestowed a variety of earnest glances: wisely regulating his own play by the result of his observations upon his neighbour's cards.",4 "It being a cold night, the Dodger wore his hat, as, indeed, was often his custom within doors.",1 "He also sustained a clay pipe between his teeth, which he only removed for a brief space when he deemed it necessary to apply for refreshment to a quart pot upon the table, which stood ready filled with gin-and-water for the accommodation of the company.",3 "Master Bates was also attentive to the play; but being of a more excitable nature than his accomplished friend, it was observable that he more frequently applied himself to the gin-and-water, and moreover indulged in many jests and irrelevant remarks, all highly unbecoming a scientific rubber.",3 "Indeed, the Artful, presuming upon their close attachment, more than once took occasion to reason gravely with his companion upon these improprieties; all of which remonstrances, Master Bates received in extremely good part; merely requesting his friend to be 'blowed,' or to insert his head in a sack, or replying with some other neatly-turned witticism of a similar kind, the happy application of which, excited considerable admiration in the mind of Mr. Chitling.",4 "It was remarkable that the latter gentleman and his partner invariably lost; and that the circumstance, so far from angering Master Bates, appeared to afford him the highest amusement, inasmuch as he laughed most uproariously at the end of every deal, and protested that he had never seen such a jolly game in all his born days.",3 "'That's two doubles and the rub,' said Mr. Chitling, with a very long face, as he drew half-a-crown from his waistcoat-pocket.",2 "'I never see such a feller as you, Jack; you win everything.",3 "Even when we've good cards, Charley and I can't make nothing of 'em.'",3 "Either the master or the manner of this remark, which was made very ruefully, delighted Charley Bates so much, that his consequent shout of laughter roused the Jew from his reverie, and induced him to inquire what was the matter.",3 "'Matter, Fagin!'",2 cried Charley.,2 'I wish you had watched the play.,2 Tommy Chitling hasn't won a point; and I went partners with him against the Artfull and dumb.',2 "'Ay, ay!'",2 "said the Jew, with a grin, which sufficiently demonstrated that he was at no loss to understand the reason.",3 "'Try 'em again, Tom; try 'em again.'",2 "'No more of it for me, thank 'ee, Fagin,' replied Mr. Chitling; 'I've had enough.",3 That 'ere Dodger has such a run of luck that there's no standing again' him.',3 'Ha!,2 ha!,2 "my dear,' replied the Jew, 'you must get up very early in the morning, to win against the Dodger.'",3 'Morning!',2 "said Charley Bates; 'you must put your boots on over-night, and have a telescope at each eye, and a opera-glass between your shoulders, if you want to come over him.'",2 "Mr. Dawkins received these handsome compliments with much philosophy, and offered to cut any gentleman in company, for the first picture-card, at a shilling at a time.",3 "Nobody accepting the challenge, and his pipe being by this time smoked out, he proceeded to amuse himself by sketching a ground-plan of Newgate on the table with the piece of chalk which had served him in lieu of counters; whistling, meantime, with peculiar shrillness.",2 "'How precious dull you are, Tommy!'",2 "said the Dodger, stopping short when there had been a long silence; and addressing Mr. Chitling.",2 "'What do you think he's thinking of, Fagin?'",2 "'How should I know, my dear?'",2 "replied the Jew, looking round as he plied the bellows.",2 "'About his losses, maybe; or the little retirement in the country that he's just left, eh?",1 Ha!,2 ha!,2 "Is that it, my dear?'",2 "'Not a bit of it,' replied the Dodger, stopping the subject of discourse as Mr. Chitling was about to reply.",2 "'What do _you_ say, Charley?'",2 "'_I_ should say,' replied Master Bates, with a grin, 'that he was uncommon sweet upon Betsy.",4 See how he's a-blushing!,2 "Oh, my eye!",2 here's a merry-go-rounder!,3 Tommy Chitling's in love!,3 "Oh, Fagin, Fagin!",2 what a spree!',2 "Thoroughly overpowered with the notion of Mr. Chitling being the victim of the tender passion, Master Bates threw himself back in his chair with such violence, that he lost his balance, and pitched over upon the floor; where (the accident abating nothing of his merriment) he lay at full length until his laugh was over, when he resumed his former position, and began another laugh.",4 "'Never mind him, my dear,' said the Jew, winking at Mr. Dawkins, and giving Master Bates a reproving tap with the nozzle of the bellows.",3 'Betsy's a fine girl.,3 "Stick up to her, Tom.",2 Stick up to her.',2 "'What I mean to say, Fagin,' replied Mr. Chitling, very red in the face, 'is, that that isn't anything to anybody here.'",2 "'No more it is,' replied the Jew; 'Charley will talk.",2 "Don't mind him, my dear; don't mind him.",2 Betsy's a fine girl.,3 "Do as she bids you, Tom, and you will make your fortune.'",3 "'So I _do_ do as she bids me,' replied Mr. Chitling; 'I shouldn't have been milled, if it hadn't been for her advice.",2 "But it turned out a good job for you; didn't it, Fagin!",3 And what's six weeks of it?,2 "It must come, some time or another, and why not in the winter time when you don't want to go out a-walking so much; eh, Fagin?'",2 "'Ah, to be sure, my dear,' replied the Jew.",2 "'You wouldn't mind it again, Tom, would you,' asked the Dodger, winking upon Charley and the Jew, 'if Bet was all right?'",3 "'I mean to say that I shouldn't,' replied Tom, angrily.",1 "'There, now.",2 Ah!,2 "Who'll say as much as that, I should like to know; eh, Fagin?'",3 "'Nobody, my dear,' replied the Jew; 'not a soul, Tom.",2 "I don't know one of 'em that would do it besides you; not one of 'em, my dear.'",2 "'I might have got clear off, if I'd split upon her; mightn't I, Fagin?'",2 angrily pursued the poor half-witted dupe.,0 "'A word from me would have done it; wouldn't it, Fagin?'",2 "'To be sure it would, my dear,' replied the Jew.",2 "'But I didn't blab it; did I, Fagin?'",1 "demanded Tom, pouring question upon question with great volubility.",3 "'No, no, to be sure,' replied the Jew; 'you were too stout-hearted for that.",2 "A deal too stout, my dear!'",2 "'Perhaps I was,' rejoined Tom, looking round; 'and if I was, what's to laugh at, in that; eh, Fagin?'",2 "The Jew, perceiving that Mr. Chitling was considerably roused, hastened to assure him that nobody was laughing; and to prove the gravity of the company, appealed to Master Bates, the principal offender.",3 "But, unfortunately, Charley, in opening his mouth to reply that he was never more serious in his life, was unable to prevent the escape of such a violent roar, that the abused Mr. Chitling, without any preliminary ceremonies, rushed across the room and aimed a blow at the offender; who, being skilful in evading pursuit, ducked to avoid it, and chose his time so well that it lighted on the chest of the merry old gentleman, and caused him to stagger to the wall, where he stood panting for breath, while Mr. Chitling looked on in intense dismay.",0 'Hark!',2 "cried the Dodger at this moment, 'I heard the tinkler.'",2 "Catching up the light, he crept softly upstairs.",1 "The bell was rung again, with some impatience, while the party were in darkness.",1 "After a short pause, the Dodger reappeared, and whispered Fagin mysteriously.",1 'What!',2 "cried the Jew, 'alone?'",2 "The Dodger nodded in the affirmative, and, shading the flame of the candle with his hand, gave Charley Bates a private intimation, in dumb show, that he had better not be funny just then.",2 "Having performed this friendly office, he fixed his eyes on the Jew's face, and awaited his directions.",3 "The old man bit his yellow fingers, and meditated for some seconds; his face working with agitation the while, as if he dreaded something, and feared to know the worst.",1 At length he raised his head.,2 'Where is he?',2 he asked.,2 "The Dodger pointed to the floor above, and made a gesture, as if to leave the room.",2 "'Yes,' said the Jew, answering the mute inquiry; 'bring him down.",2 Hush!,2 "Quiet, Charley!",3 "Gently, Tom!",2 "Scarce, scarce!'",1 "This brief direction to Charley Bates, and his recent antagonist, was softly and immediately obeyed.",1 "There was no sound of their whereabout, when the Dodger descended the stairs, bearing the light in his hand, and followed by a man in a coarse smock-frock; who, after casting a hurried glance round the room, pulled off a large wrapper which had concealed the lower portion of his face, and disclosed: all haggard, unwashed, and unshorn: the features of flash Toby Crackit.",1 "'How are you, Faguey?'",2 "said this worthy, nodding to the Jew.",3 "'Pop that shawl away in my castor, Dodger, so that I may know where to find it when I cut; that's the time of day!",2 You'll be a fine young cracksman afore the old file now.',3 "With these words he pulled up the smock-frock; and, winding it round his middle, drew a chair to the fire, and placed his feet upon the hob.",2 "'See there, Faguey,' he said, pointing disconsolately to his top boots; 'not a drop of Day and Martin since you know when; not a bubble of blacking, by Jove!",2 "But don't look at me in that way, man.",2 All in good time.,3 "I can't talk about business till I've eat and drank; so produce the sustainance, and let's have a quiet fill-out for the first time these three days!'",3 "The Jew motioned to the Dodger to place what eatables there were, upon the table; and, seating himself opposite the housebreaker, waited his leisure.",2 "To judge from appearances, Toby was by no means in a hurry to open the conversation.",2 "At first, the Jew contented himself with patiently watching his countenance, as if to gain from its expression some clue to the intelligence he brought; but in vain.",3 "He looked tired and worn, but there was the same complacent repose upon his features that they always wore: and through dirt, and beard, and whisker, there still shone, unimpaired, the self-satisfied smirk of flash Toby Crackit.",0 "Then the Jew, in an agony of impatience, watched every morsel he put into his mouth; pacing up and down the room, meanwhile, in irrepressible excitement.",1 It was all of no use.,2 "Toby continued to eat with the utmost outward indifference, until he could eat no more; then, ordering the Dodger out, he closed the door, mixed a glass of spirits and water, and composed himself for talking.",1 "'First and foremost, Faguey,' said Toby.",3 "'Yes, yes!'",2 "interposed the Jew, drawing up his chair.",2 "Mr. Crackit stopped to take a draught of spirits and water, and to declare that the gin was excellent; then placing his feet against the low mantelpiece, so as to bring his boots to about the level of his eye, he quietly resumed.",3 "'First and foremost, Faguey,' said the housebreaker, 'how's Bill?'",3 'What!',2 "screamed the Jew, starting from his seat.",2 "'Why, you don't mean to say--' began Toby, turning pale.",1 'Mean!',2 "cried the Jew, stamping furiously on the ground.",1 'Where are they?,2 Sikes and the boy!,2 Where are they?,2 Where have they been?,2 Where are they hiding?,2 Why have they not been here?',2 "'The crack failed,' said Toby faintly.",1 "'I know it,' replied the Jew, tearing a newspaper from his pocket and pointing to it.",2 'What more?',2 'They fired and hit the boy.,2 "We cut over the fields at the back, with him between us--straight as the crow flies--through hedge and ditch.",1 They gave chase.,2 Damme!,2 "the whole country was awake, and the dogs upon us.'",2 'The boy!',2 "'Bill had him on his back, and scudded like the wind.",3 "We stopped to take him between us; his head hung down, and he was cold.",1 "They were close upon our heels; every man for himself, and each from the gallows!",2 "We parted company, and left the youngster lying in a ditch.",1 "Alive or dead, that's all I know about him.'",1 "The Jew stopped to hear no more; but uttering a loud yell, and twining his hands in his hair, rushed from the room, and from the house.",1 "The old man had gained the street corner, before he began to recover the effect of Toby Crackit's intelligence.",4 "He had relaxed nothing of his unusual speed; but was still pressing onward, in the same wild and disordered manner, when the sudden dashing past of a carriage: and a boisterous cry from the foot passengers, who saw his danger: drove him back upon the pavement.",0 "Avoiding, as much as was possible, all the main streets, and skulking only through the by-ways and alleys, he at length emerged on Snow Hill.",2 "Here he walked even faster than before; nor did he linger until he had again turned into a court; when, as if conscious that he was now in his proper element, he fell into his usual shuffling pace, and seemed to breathe more freely.",3 "Near to the spot on which Snow Hill and Holborn Hill meet, opens, upon the right hand as you come out of the City, a narrow and dismal alley, leading to Saffron Hill.",3 "In its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of second-hand silk handkerchiefs, of all sizes and patterns; for here reside the traders who purchase them from pick-pockets.",1 "Hundreds of these handkerchiefs hang dangling from pegs outside the windows or flaunting from the door-posts; and the shelves, within, are piled with them.",1 "Confined as the limits of Field Lane are, it has its barber, its coffee-shop, its beer-shop, and its fried-fish warehouse.",0 "It is a commercial colony of itself: the emporium of petty larceny: visited at early morning, and setting-in of dusk, by silent merchants, who traffic in dark back-parlours, and who go as strangely as they come.",1 "Here, the clothesman, the shoe-vamper, and the rag-merchant, display their goods, as sign-boards to the petty thief; here, stores of old iron and bones, and heaps of mildewy fragments of woollen-stuff and linen, rust and rot in the grimy cellars.",0 It was into this place that the Jew turned.,2 "He was well known to the sallow denizens of the lane; for such of them as were on the look-out to buy or sell, nodded, familiarly, as he passed along.",3 "He replied to their salutations in the same way; but bestowed no closer recognition until he reached the further end of the alley; when he stopped, to address a salesman of small stature, who had squeezed as much of his person into a child's chair as the chair would hold, and was smoking a pipe at his warehouse door.",2 "'Why, the sight of you, Mr. Fagin, would cure the hoptalmy!'",3 "said this respectable trader, in acknowledgment of the Jew's inquiry after his health.",3 "'The neighbourhood was a little too hot, Lively,' said Fagin, elevating his eyebrows, and crossing his hands upon his shoulders.",3 "'Well, I've heerd that complaint of it, once or twice before,' replied the trader; 'but it soon cools down again; don't you find it so?'",1 Fagin nodded in the affirmative.,3 "Pointing in the direction of Saffron Hill, he inquired whether any one was up yonder to-night.",2 'At the Cripples?',1 inquired the man.,2 The Jew nodded.,2 "'Let me see,' pursued the merchant, reflecting.",2 "'Yes, there's some half-dozen of 'em gone in, that I knows.",2 I don't think your friend's there.',2 "'Sikes is not, I suppose?'",2 "inquired the Jew, with a disappointed countenance.",1 "'_Non istwentus_, as the lawyers say,' replied the little man, shaking his head, and looking amazingly sly.",2 'Have you got anything in my line to-night?',2 "'Nothing to-night,' said the Jew, turning away.",2 "'Are you going up to the Cripples, Fagin?'",1 "cried the little man, calling after him.",2 'Stop!,2 I don't mind if I have a drop there with you!',2 "But as the Jew, looking back, waved his hand to intimate that he preferred being alone; and, moreover, as the little man could not very easily disengage himself from the chair; the sign of the Cripples was, for a time, bereft of the advantage of Mr. Lively's presence.",2 "By the time he had got upon his legs, the Jew had disappeared; so Mr. Lively, after ineffectually standing on tiptoe, in the hope of catching sight of him, again forced himself into the little chair, and, exchanging a shake of the head with a lady in the opposite shop, in which doubt and mistrust were plainly mingled, resumed his pipe with a grave demeanour.",0 "The Three Cripples, or rather the Cripples; which was the sign by which the establishment was familiarly known to its patrons: was the public-house in which Mr. Sikes and his dog have already figured.",1 "Merely making a sign to a man at the bar, Fagin walked straight upstairs, and opening the door of a room, and softly insinuating himself into the chamber, looked anxiously about: shading his eyes with his hand, as if in search of some particular person.",1 "The room was illuminated by two gas-lights; the glare of which was prevented by the barred shutters, and closely-drawn curtains of faded red, from being visible outside.",1 "The ceiling was blackened, to prevent its colour from being injured by the flaring of the lamps; and the place was so full of dense tobacco smoke, that at first it was scarcely possible to discern anything more.",0 "By degrees, however, as some of it cleared away through the open door, an assemblage of heads, as confused as the noises that greeted the ear, might be made out; and as the eye grew more accustomed to the scene, the spectator gradually became aware of the presence of a numerous company, male and female, crowded round a long table: at the upper end of which, sat a chairman with a hammer of office in his hand; while a professional gentleman with a bluish nose, and his face tied up for the benefit of a toothache, presided at a jingling piano in a remote corner.",1 "As Fagin stepped softly in, the professional gentleman, running over the keys by way of prelude, occasioned a general cry of order for a song; which having subsided, a young lady proceeded to entertain the company with a ballad in four verses, between each of which the accompanyist played the melody all through, as loud as he could.",1 "When this was over, the chairman gave a sentiment, after which, the professional gentleman on the chairman's right and left volunteered a duet, and sang it, with great applause.",3 It was curious to observe some faces which stood out prominently from among the group.,2 "There was the chairman himself, (the landlord of the house,) a coarse, rough, heavy built fellow, who, while the songs were proceeding, rolled his eyes hither and thither, and, seeming to give himself up to joviality, had an eye for everything that was done, and an ear for everything that was said--and sharp ones, too.",1 "Near him were the singers: receiving, with professional indifference, the compliments of the company, and applying themselves, in turn, to a dozen proffered glasses of spirits and water, tendered by their more boisterous admirers; whose countenances, expressive of almost every vice in almost every grade, irresistibly attracted the attention, by their very repulsiveness.",0 "Cunning, ferocity, and drunkeness in all its stages, were there, in their strongest aspect; and women: some with the last lingering tinge of their early freshness almost fading as you looked: others with every mark and stamp of their sex utterly beaten out, and presenting but one loathsome blank of profligacy and crime; some mere girls, others but young women, and none past the prime of life; formed the darkest and saddest portion of this dreary picture.",0 "Fagin, troubled by no grave emotions, looked eagerly from face to face while these proceedings were in progress; but apparently without meeting that of which he was in search.",3 "Succeeding, at length, in catching the eye of the man who occupied the chair, he beckoned to him slightly, and left the room, as quietly as he had entered it.",3 "'What can I do for you, Mr. Fagin?'",2 "inquired the man, as he followed him out to the landing.",2 'Won't you join us?,2 "They'll be delighted, every one of 'em.'",3 "The Jew shook his head impatiently, and said in a whisper, 'Is _he_ here?'",1 "'No,' replied the man.",2 'And no news of Barney?',2 inquired Fagin.,2 "'None,' replied the landlord of the Cripples; for it was he.",1 'He won't stir till it's all safe.,3 "Depend on it, they're on the scent down there; and that if he moved, he'd blow upon the thing at once.",1 "He's all right enough, Barney is, else I should have heard of him.",3 "I'll pound it, that Barney's managing properly.",3 Let him alone for that.',2 'Will _he_ be here to-night?',2 "asked the Jew, laying the same emphasis on the pronoun as before.",2 "'Monks, do you mean?'",2 "inquired the landlord, hesitating.",2 'Hush!',2 said the Jew.,2 'Yes.',2 "'Certain,' replied the man, drawing a gold watch from his fob; 'I expected him here before now.",3 "If you'll wait ten minutes, he'll be--' 'No, no,' said the Jew, hastily; as though, however desirous he might be to see the person in question, he was nevertheless relieved by his absence.",1 'Tell him I came here to see him; and that he must come to me to-night.,2 "No, say to-morrow.",2 "As he is not here, to-morrow will be time enough.'",3 'Good!',2 said the man.,2 'Nothing more?',2 "'Not a word now,' said the Jew, descending the stairs.",2 "'I say,' said the other, looking over the rails, and speaking in a hoarse whisper; 'what a time this would be for a sell!",2 "I've got Phil Barker here: so drunk, that a boy might take him!'",1 'Ah!,2 "But it's not Phil Barker's time,' said the Jew, looking up.",2 "'Phil has something more to do, before we can afford to part with him; so go back to the company, my dear, and tell them to lead merry lives--_while they last_.",4 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!',2 The landlord reciprocated the old man's laugh; and returned to his guests.,2 "The Jew was no sooner alone, than his countenance resumed its former expression of anxiety and thought.",1 "After a brief reflection, he called a hack-cabriolet, and bade the man drive towards Bethnal Green.",1 "He dismissed him within some quarter of a mile of Mr. Sikes's residence, and performed the short remainder of the distance, on foot.",2 "'Now,' muttered the Jew, as he knocked at the door, 'if there is any deep play here, I shall have it out of you, my girl, cunning as you are.'",2 "She was in her room, the woman said.",2 "Fagin crept softly upstairs, and entered it without any previous ceremony.",1 "The girl was alone; lying with her head upon the table, and her hair straggling over it.",1 "'She has been drinking,' thought the Jew, cooly, 'or perhaps she is only miserable.'",1 "The old man turned to close the door, as he made this reflection; the noise thus occasioned, roused the girl.",1 "She eyed his crafty face narrowly, as she inquired to his recital of Toby Crackit's story.",1 "When it was concluded, she sank into her former attitude, but spoke not a word.",2 "She pushed the candle impatiently away; and once or twice as she feverishly changed her position, shuffled her feet upon the ground; but this was all.",1 "During the silence, the Jew looked restlessly about the room, as if to assure himself that there were no appearances of Sikes having covertly returned.",3 "Apparently satisfied with his inspection, he coughed twice or thrice, and made as many efforts to open a conversation; but the girl heeded him no more than if he had been made of stone.",3 "At length he made another attempt; and rubbing his hands together, said, in his most conciliatory tone, 'And where should you think Bill was now, my dear?'",3 "The girl moaned out some half intelligible reply, that she could not tell; and seemed, from the smothered noise that escaped her, to be crying.",2 "'And the boy, too,' said the Jew, straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of her face.",1 'Poor leetle child!,2 "Left in a ditch, Nance; only think!'",2 "'The child,' said the girl, suddenly looking up, 'is better where he is, than among us; and if no harm comes to Bill from it, I hope he lies dead in the ditch and that his young bones may rot there.'",0 'What!',2 "cried the Jew, in amazement.",3 "'Ay, I do,' returned the girl, meeting his gaze.",2 "'I shall be glad to have him away from my eyes, and to know that the worst is over.",2 I can't bear to have him about me.,2 "The sight of him turns me against myself, and all of you.'",2 'Pooh!',2 "said the Jew, scornfully.",1 'You're drunk.',1 'Am I?',2 cried the girl bitterly.,1 "'It's no fault of yours, if I am not!",1 "You'd never have me anything else, if you had your will, except now;--the humour doesn't suit you, doesn't it?'",3 'No!',2 "rejoined the Jew, furiously.",1 'It does not.',2 "'Change it, then!'",2 "responded the girl, with a laugh.",2 'Change it!',2 "exclaimed the Jew, exasperated beyond all bounds by his companion's unexpected obstinacy, and the vexation of the night, 'I _will_ change it!",0 "Listen to me, you drab.",1 "Listen to me, who with six words, can strangle Sikes as surely as if I had his bull's throat between my fingers now.",1 "If he comes back, and leaves the boy behind him; if he gets off free, and dead or alive, fails to restore him to me; murder him yourself if you would have him escape Jack Ketch.",1 "And do it the moment he sets foot in this room, or mind me, it will be too late!'",2 'What is all this?',2 cried the girl involuntarily.,1 'What is it?',2 "pursued Fagin, mad with rage.",1 "'When the boy's worth hundreds of pounds to me, am I to lose what chance threw me in the way of getting safely, through the whims of a drunken gang that I could whistle away the lives of!",2 "And me bound, too, to a born devil that only wants the will, and has the power to, to--' Panting for breath, the old man stammered for a word; and in that instant checked the torrent of his wrath, and changed his whole demeanour.",0 "A moment before, his clenched hands had grasped the air; his eyes had dilated; and his face grown livid with passion; but now, he shrunk into a chair, and, cowering together, trembled with the apprehension of having himself disclosed some hidden villainy.",1 "After a short silence, he ventured to look round at his companion.",2 "He appeared somewhat reassured, on beholding her in the same listless attitude from which he had first roused her.",1 "'Nancy, dear!'",2 "croaked the Jew, in his usual voice.",2 "'Did you mind me, dear?'",2 "'Don't worry me now, Fagin!'",1 "replied the girl, raising her head languidly.",2 "'If Bill has not done it this time, he will another.",2 "He has done many a good job for you, and will do many more when he can; and when he can't he won't; so no more about that.'",3 "'Regarding this boy, my dear?'",2 "said the Jew, rubbing the palms of his hands nervously together.",1 "'The boy must take his chance with the rest,' interrupted Nancy, hastily; 'and I say again, I hope he is dead, and out of harm's way, and out of yours,--that is, if Bill comes to no harm.",0 "And if Toby got clear off, Bill's pretty sure to be safe; for Bill's worth two of Toby any time.'",4 "'And about what I was saying, my dear?'",2 "observed the Jew, keeping his glistening eye steadily upon her.",3 "'You must say it all over again, if it's anything you want me to do,' rejoined Nancy; 'and if it is, you had better wait till to-morrow.",3 You put me up for a minute; but now I'm stupid again.',1 "Fagin put several other questions: all with the same drift of ascertaining whether the girl had profited by his unguarded hints; but, she answered them so readily, and was withal so utterly unmoved by his searching looks, that his original impression of her being more than a trifle in liquor, was confirmed.",1 "Nancy, indeed, was not exempt from a failing which was very common among the Jew's female pupils; and in which, in their tenderer years, they were rather encouraged than checked.",1 "Her disordered appearance, and a wholesale perfume of Geneva which pervaded the apartment, afforded strong confirmatory evidence of the justice of the Jew's supposition; and when, after indulging in the temporary display of violence above described, she subsided, first into dullness, and afterwards into a compound of feelings: under the influence of which she shed tears one minute, and in the next gave utterance to various exclamations of 'Never say die!'",1 "and divers calculations as to what might be the amount of the odds so long as a lady or gentleman was happy, Mr. Fagin, who had had considerable experience of such matters in his time, saw, with great satisfaction, that she was very far gone indeed.",3 "Having eased his mind by this discovery; and having accomplished his twofold object of imparting to the girl what he had, that night, heard, and of ascertaining, with his own eyes, that Sikes had not returned, Mr. Fagin again turned his face homeward: leaving his young friend asleep, with her head upon the table.",3 It was within an hour of midnight.,2 "The weather being dark, and piercing cold, he had no great temptation to loiter.",1 "The sharp wind that scoured the streets, seemed to have cleared them of passengers, as of dust and mud, for few people were abroad, and they were to all appearance hastening fast home.",3 "It blew from the right quarter for the Jew, however, and straight before it he went: trembling, and shivering, as every fresh gust drove him rudely on his way.",3 "He had reached the corner of his own street, and was already fumbling in his pocket for the door-key, when a dark figure emerged from a projecting entrance which lay in deep shadow, and, crossing the road, glided up to him unperceived.",1 'Fagin!',2 whispered a voice close to his ear.,2 'Ah!',2 "said the Jew, turning quickly round, 'is that--' 'Yes!'",2 interrupted the stranger.,1 'I have been lingering here these two hours.,2 Where the devil have you been?',1 "'On your business, my dear,' replied the Jew, glancing uneasily at his companion, and slackening his pace as he spoke.",1 'On your business all night.',2 "'Oh, of course!'",2 "said the stranger, with a sneer.",1 'Well; and what's come of it?',2 "'Nothing good,' said the Jew.",3 "'Nothing bad, I hope?'",1 "said the stranger, stopping short, and turning a startled look on his companion.",1 "The Jew shook his head, and was about to reply, when the stranger, interrupting him, motioned to the house, before which they had by this time arrived: remarking, that he had better say what he had got to say, under cover: for his blood was chilled with standing about so long, and the wind blew through him.",2 "Fagin looked as if he could have willingly excused himself from taking home a visitor at that unseasonable hour; and, indeed, muttered something about having no fire; but his companion repeating his request in a peremptory manner, he unlocked the door, and requested him to close it softly, while he got a light.",3 "'It's as dark as the grave,' said the man, groping forward a few steps.",1 'Make haste!',1 "'Shut the door,' whispered Fagin from the end of the passage.",2 "As he spoke, it closed with a loud noise.",1 "'That wasn't my doing,' said the other man, feeling his way.",2 "'The wind blew it to, or it shut of its own accord: one or the other.",2 "Look sharp with the light, or I shall knock my brains out against something in this confounded hole.'",1 Fagin stealthily descended the kitchen stairs.,2 "After a short absence, he returned with a lighted candle, and the intelligence that Toby Crackit was asleep in the back room below, and that the boys were in the front one.",2 "Beckoning the man to follow him, he led the way upstairs.",3 "'We can say the few words we've got to say in here, my dear,' said the Jew, throwing open a door on the first floor; 'and as there are holes in the shutters, and we never show lights to our neighbours, we'll set the candle on the stairs.",2 There!',2 "With those words, the Jew, stooping down, placed the candle on an upper flight of stairs, exactly opposite to the room door.",2 "This done, he led the way into the apartment; which was destitute of all movables save a broken arm-chair, and an old couch or sofa without covering, which stood behind the door.",1 "Upon this piece of furniture, the stranger sat himself with the air of a weary man; and the Jew, drawing up the arm-chair opposite, they sat face to face.",1 "It was not quite dark; the door was partially open; and the candle outside, threw a feeble reflection on the opposite wall.",1 They conversed for some time in whispers.,2 "Though nothing of the conversation was distinguishable beyond a few disjointed words here and there, a listener might easily have perceived that Fagin appeared to be defending himself against some remarks of the stranger; and that the latter was in a state of considerable irritation.",1 "They might have been talking, thus, for a quarter of an hour or more, when Monks--by which name the Jew had designated the strange man several times in the course of their colloquy--said, raising his voice a little, 'I tell you again, it was badly planned.",1 "Why not have kept him here among the rest, and made a sneaking, snivelling pickpocket of him at once?'",2 'Only hear him!',2 "exclaimed the Jew, shrugging his shoulders.",2 "'Why, do you mean to say you couldn't have done it, if you had chosen?'",2 "demanded Monks, sternly.",2 "'Haven't you done it, with other boys, scores of times?",2 "If you had had patience for a twelvemonth, at most, couldn't you have got him convicted, and sent safely out of the kingdom; perhaps for life?'",3 "'Whose turn would that have served, my dear?'",2 inquired the Jew humbly.,2 "'Mine,' replied Monks.",2 "'But not mine,' said the Jew, submissively.",2 'He might have become of use to me.,2 "When there are two parties to a bargain, it is only reasonable that the interests of both should be consulted; is it, my good friend?'",4 'What then?',2 demanded Monks.,2 "'I saw it was not easy to train him to the business,' replied the Jew; 'he was not like other boys in the same circumstances.'",3 "'Curse him, no!'",2 "muttered the man, 'or he would have been a thief, long ago.'",2 "'I had no hold upon him to make him worse,' pursued the Jew, anxiously watching the countenance of his companion.",1 'His hand was not in.,2 "I had nothing to frighten him with; which we always must have in the beginning, or we labour in vain.",1 What could I do?,2 Send him out with the Dodger and Charley?,2 "We had enough of that, at first, my dear; I trembled for us all.'",3 "'_That_ was not my doing,' observed Monks.",2 "'No, no, my dear!'",2 renewed the Jew.,3 "'And I don't quarrel with it now; because, if it had never happened, you might never have clapped eyes on the boy to notice him, and so led to the discovery that it was him you were looking for.",2 Well!,3 I got him back for you by means of the girl; and then _she_ begins to favour him.',3 'Throttle the girl!',2 "said Monks, impatiently.",1 "'Why, we can't afford to do that just now, my dear,' replied the Jew, smiling; 'and, besides, that sort of thing is not in our way; or, one of these days, I might be glad to have it done.",4 "I know what these girls are, Monks, well.",3 "As soon as the boy begins to harden, she'll care no more for him, than for a block of wood.",1 You want him made a thief.,2 "If he is alive, I can make him one from this time; and, if--if--' said the Jew, drawing nearer to the other,--'it's not likely, mind,--but if the worst comes to the worst, and he is dead--' 'It's no fault of mine if he is!'",0 "interposed the other man, with a look of terror, and clasping the Jew's arm with trembling hands.",1 'Mind that.,2 Fagin!,2 I had no hand in it.,2 "Anything but his death, I told you from the first.",1 "I won't shed blood; it's always found out, and haunts a man besides.",2 "If they shot him dead, I was not the cause; do you hear me?",1 Fire this infernal den!,1 What's that?',2 'What!',2 "cried the Jew, grasping the coward round the body, with both arms, as he sprung to his feet.",1 'Where?',2 'Yonder!,2 "replied the man, glaring at the opposite wall.",2 'The shadow!,2 "I saw the shadow of a woman, in a cloak and bonnet, pass along the wainscot like a breath!'",3 "The Jew released his hold, and they rushed tumultuously from the room.",2 "The candle, wasted by the draught, was standing where it had been placed.",1 "It showed them only the empty staircase, and their own white faces.",2 They listened intently: a profound silence reigned throughout the house.,3 "'It's your fancy,' said the Jew, taking up the light and turning to his companion.",3 'I'll swear I saw it!',2 "replied Monks, trembling.",2 "'It was bending forward when I saw it first; and when I spoke, it darted away.'",2 "The Jew glanced contemptuously at the pale face of his associate, and, telling him he could follow, if he pleased, ascended the stairs.",1 "They looked into all the rooms; they were cold, bare, and empty.",1 "They descended into the passage, and thence into the cellars below.",2 The green damp hung upon the low walls; the tracks of the snail and slug glistened in the light of the candle; but all was still as death.,0 'What do you think now?',2 "said the Jew, when they had regained the passage.",2 "'Besides ourselves, there's not a creature in the house except Toby and the boys; and they're safe enough.",3 See here!',2 "As a proof of the fact, the Jew drew forth two keys from his pocket; and explained, that when he first went downstairs, he had locked them in, to prevent any intrusion on the conference.",1 This accumulated testimony effectually staggered Mr. Monks.,2 "His protestations had gradually become less and less vehement as they proceeded in their search without making any discovery; and, now, he gave vent to several very grim laughs, and confessed it could only have been his excited imagination.",1 "He declined any renewal of the conversation, however, for that night: suddenly remembering that it was past one o'clock.",2 And so the amiable couple parted.,3 "As it would be, by no means, seemly in a humble author to keep so mighty a personage as a beadle waiting, with his back to the fire, and the skirts of his coat gathered up under his arms, until such time as it might suit his pleasure to relieve him; and as it would still less become his station, or his gallantry to involve in the same neglect a lady on whom that beadle had looked with an eye of tenderness and affection, and in whose ear he had whispered sweet words, which, coming from such a quarter, might well thrill the bosom of maid or matron of whatsoever degree; the historian whose pen traces these words--trusting that he knows his place, and that he entertains a becoming reverence for those upon earth to whom high and important authority is delegated--hastens to pay them that respect which their position demands, and to treat them with all that duteous ceremony which their exalted rank, and (by consequence) great virtues, imperatively claim at his hands.",4 "Towards this end, indeed, he had purposed to introduce, in this place, a dissertation touching the divine right of beadles, and elucidative of the position, that a beadle can do no wrong: which could not fail to have been both pleasurable and profitable to the right-minded reader but which he is unfortunately compelled, by want of time and space, to postpone to some more convenient and fitting opportunity; on the arrival of which, he will be prepared to show, that a beadle properly constituted: that is to say, a parochial beadle, attached to a parochial workhouse, and attending in his official capacity the parochial church: is, in right and virtue of his office, possessed of all the excellences and best qualities of humanity; and that to none of those excellences, can mere companies' beadles, or court-of-law beadles, or even chapel-of-ease beadles (save the last, and they in a very lowly and inferior degree), lay the remotest sustainable claim.",4 "Mr. Bumble had re-counted the teaspoons, re-weighed the sugar-tongs, made a closer inspection of the milk-pot, and ascertained to a nicety the exact condition of the furniture, down to the very horse-hair seats of the chairs; and had repeated each process full half a dozen times; before he began to think that it was time for Mrs. Corney to return.",2 "Thinking begets thinking; as there were no sounds of Mrs. Corney's approach, it occured to Mr. Bumble that it would be an innocent and virtuous way of spending the time, if he were further to allay his curiousity by a cursory glance at the interior of Mrs. Corney's chest of drawers.",3 "Having listened at the keyhole, to assure himself that nobody was approaching the chamber, Mr. Bumble, beginning at the bottom, proceeded to make himself acquainted with the contents of the three long drawers: which, being filled with various garments of good fashion and texture, carefully preserved between two layers of old newspapers, speckled with dried lavender: seemed to yield him exceeding satisfaction.",4 "Arriving, in course of time, at the right-hand corner drawer (in which was the key), and beholding therein a small padlocked box, which, being shaken, gave forth a pleasant sound, as of the chinking of coin, Mr. Bumble returned with a stately walk to the fireplace; and, resuming his old attitude, said, with a grave and determined air, 'I'll do it!'",4 "He followed up this remarkable declaration, by shaking his head in a waggish manner for ten minutes, as though he were remonstrating with himself for being such a pleasant dog; and then, he took a view of his legs in profile, with much seeming pleasure and interest.",4 "He was still placidly engaged in this latter survey, when Mrs. Corney, hurrying into the room, threw herself, in a breathless state, on a chair by the fireside, and covering her eyes with one hand, placed the other over her heart, and gasped for breath.",2 "'Mrs. Corney,' said Mr. Bumble, stooping over the matron, 'what is this, ma'am?",2 "Has anything happened, ma'am?",2 "Pray answer me: I'm on--on--' Mr. Bumble, in his alarm, could not immediately think of the word 'tenterhooks,' so he said 'broken bottles.'",1 "'Oh, Mr. Bumble!'",2 "cried the lady, 'I have been so dreadfully put out!'",1 "'Put out, ma'am!'",2 exclaimed Mr. Bumble; 'who has dared to--?,2 I know!',2 "said Mr. Bumble, checking himself, with native majesty, 'this is them wicious paupers!'",2 'It's dreadful to think of!',1 "said the lady, shuddering.",2 "'Then _don't_ think of it, ma'am,' rejoined Mr. Bumble.",2 "'I can't help it,' whimpered the lady.",2 "'Then take something, ma'am,' said Mr. Bumble soothingly.",3 'A little of the wine?',2 'Not for the world!',2 replied Mrs. Corney.,2 "'I couldn't,--oh!",2 The top shelf in the right-hand corner--oh!',3 "Uttering these words, the good lady pointed, distractedly, to the cupboard, and underwent a convulsion from internal spasms.",3 "Mr. Bumble rushed to the closet; and, snatching a pint green-glass bottle from the shelf thus incoherently indicated, filled a tea-cup with its contents, and held it to the lady's lips.",1 "'I'm better now,' said Mrs. Corney, falling back, after drinking half of it.",2 "Mr. Bumble raised his eyes piously to the ceiling in thankfulness; and, bringing them down again to the brim of the cup, lifted it to his nose.",2 "'Peppermint,' exclaimed Mrs. Corney, in a faint voice, smiling gently on the beadle as she spoke.",2 'Try it!,2 There's a little--a little something else in it.',2 Mr. Bumble tasted the medicine with a doubtful look; smacked his lips; took another taste; and put the cup down empty.,1 "'It's very comforting,' said Mrs. Corney.",3 "'Very much so indeed, ma'am,' said the beadle.",2 "As he spoke, he drew a chair beside the matron, and tenderly inquired what had happened to distress her.",2 "'Nothing,' replied Mrs. Corney.",2 "'I am a foolish, excitable, weak creetur.'",1 "'Not weak, ma'am,' retorted Mr. Bumble, drawing his chair a little closer.",1 "'Are you a weak creetur, Mrs. Corney?'",1 "'We are all weak creeturs,' said Mrs. Corney, laying down a general principle.",1 "'So we are,' said the beadle.",2 "Nothing was said on either side, for a minute or two afterwards.",2 "By the expiration of that time, Mr. Bumble had illustrated the position by removing his left arm from the back of Mrs. Corney's chair, where it had previously rested, to Mrs. Corney's apron-string, round which it gradually became entwined.",2 "'We are all weak creeturs,' said Mr. Bumble.",1 Mrs. Corney sighed.,2 "'Don't sigh, Mrs. Corney,' said Mr. Bumble.",2 "'I can't help it,' said Mrs. Corney.",2 And she sighed again.,2 "'This is a very comfortable room, ma'am,' said Mr. Bumble looking round.",3 "'Another room, and this, ma'am, would be a complete thing.'",2 "'It would be too much for one,' murmured the lady.",2 "'But not for two, ma'am,' rejoined Mr. Bumble, in soft accents.",3 "'Eh, Mrs. Corney?'",2 "Mrs. Corney drooped her head, when the beadle said this; the beadle drooped his, to get a view of Mrs. Corney's face.",2 "Mrs. Corney, with great propriety, turned her head away, and released her hand to get at her pocket-handkerchief; but insensibly replaced it in that of Mr. Bumble.",3 "'The board allows you coals, don't they, Mrs. Corney?'",2 "inquired the beadle, affectionately pressing her hand.",2 "'And candles,' replied Mrs. Corney, slightly returning the pressure.",2 "'Coals, candles, and house-rent free,' said Mr. Bumble.",3 "'Oh, Mrs. Corney, what an Angel you are!'",3 The lady was not proof against this burst of feeling.,2 "She sank into Mr. Bumble's arms; and that gentleman in his agitation, imprinted a passionate kiss upon her chaste nose.",3 'Such porochial perfection!',3 "exclaimed Mr. Bumble, rapturously.",3 "'You know that Mr. Slout is worse to-night, my fascinator?'",1 "'Yes,' replied Mrs. Corney, bashfully.",2 "'He can't live a week, the doctor says,' pursued Mr. Bumble.",2 'He is the master of this establishment; his death will cause a wacancy; that wacancy must be filled up.,2 "Oh, Mrs. Corney, what a prospect this opens!",2 What a opportunity for a jining of hearts and housekeepings!',2 Mrs. Corney sobbed.,2 'The little word?',2 "said Mr. Bumble, bending over the bashful beauty.",2 "'The one little, little, little word, my blessed Corney?'",2 'Ye--ye--yes!',2 sighed out the matron.,2 "'One more,' pursued the beadle; 'compose your darling feelings for only one more.",3 When is it to come off?',2 Mrs. Corney twice essayed to speak: and twice failed.,1 "At length summoning up courage, she threw her arms around Mr. Bumble's neck, and said, it might be as soon as ever he pleased, and that he was 'a irresistible duck.'",4 "Matters being thus amicably and satisfactorily arranged, the contract was solemnly ratified in another teacupful of the peppermint mixture; which was rendered the more necessary, by the flutter and agitation of the lady's spirits.",4 "While it was being disposed of, she acquainted Mr. Bumble with the old woman's decease.",2 "'Very good,' said that gentleman, sipping his peppermint; 'I'll call at Sowerberry's as I go home, and tell him to send to-morrow morning.",3 "Was it that as frightened you, love?'",3 "'It wasn't anything particular, dear,' said the lady evasively.",2 "'It must have been something, love,' urged Mr. Bumble.",3 'Won't you tell your own B.?',2 "'Not now,' rejoined the lady; 'one of these days.",2 "After we're married, dear.'",2 'After we're married!',2 exclaimed Mr. Bumble.,2 "'It wasn't any impudence from any of them male paupers as--' 'No, no, love!'",1 "interposed the lady, hastily.",1 "'If I thought it was,' continued Mr. Bumble; 'if I thought as any one of 'em had dared to lift his wulgar eyes to that lovely countenance--' 'They wouldn't have dared to do it, love,' responded the lady.",3 'They had better not!',3 "said Mr. Bumble, clenching his fist.",1 "'Let me see any man, porochial or extra-porochial, as would presume to do it; and I can tell him that he wouldn't do it a second time!'",2 "Unembellished by any violence of gesticulation, this might have seemed no very high compliment to the lady's charms; but, as Mr. Bumble accompanied the threat with many warlike gestures, she was much touched with this proof of his devotion, and protested, with great admiration, that he was indeed a dove.",2 "The dove then turned up his coat-collar, and put on his cocked hat; and, having exchanged a long and affectionate embrace with his future partner, once again braved the cold wind of the night: merely pausing, for a few minutes, in the male paupers' ward, to abuse them a little, with the view of satisfying himself that he could fill the office of workhouse-master with needful acerbity.",3 "Assured of his qualifications, Mr. Bumble left the building with a light heart, and bright visions of his future promotion: which served to occupy his mind until he reached the shop of the undertaker.",3 "Now, Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry having gone out to tea and supper: and Noah Claypole not being at any time disposed to take upon himself a greater amount of physical exertion than is necessary to a convenient performance of the two functions of eating and drinking, the shop was not closed, although it was past the usual hour of shutting-up.",3 "Mr. Bumble tapped with his cane on the counter several times; but, attracting no attention, and beholding a light shining through the glass-window of the little parlour at the back of the shop, he made bold to peep in and see what was going forward; and when he saw what was going forward, he was not a little surprised.",2 "The cloth was laid for supper; the table was covered with bread and butter, plates and glasses; a porter-pot and a wine-bottle.",2 "At the upper end of the table, Mr. Noah Claypole lolled negligently in an easy-chair, with his legs thrown over one of the arms: an open clasp-knife in one hand, and a mass of buttered bread in the other.",2 "Close beside him stood Charlotte, opening oysters from a barrel: which Mr. Claypole condescended to swallow, with remarkable avidity.",3 "A more than ordinary redness in the region of the young gentleman's nose, and a kind of fixed wink in his right eye, denoted that he was in a slight degree intoxicated; these symptoms were confirmed by the intense relish with which he took his oysters, for which nothing but a strong appreciation of their cooling properties, in cases of internal fever, could have sufficiently accounted.",3 "'Here's a delicious fat one, Noah, dear!'",2 "said Charlotte; 'try him, do; only this one.'",2 'What a delicious thing is a oyster!',3 "remarked Mr. Claypole, after he had swallowed it.",2 "'What a pity it is, a number of 'em should ever make you feel uncomfortable; isn't it, Charlotte?'",1 "'It's quite a cruelty,' said Charlotte.",1 "'So it is,' acquiesced Mr. Claypole.",2 'An't yer fond of oysters?',3 "'Not overmuch,' replied Charlotte.",2 "'I like to see you eat 'em, Noah dear, better than eating 'em myself.'",3 'Lor!',2 "said Noah, reflectively; 'how queer!'",1 "'Have another,' said Charlotte.",2 "'Here's one with such a beautiful, delicate beard!'",3 "'I can't manage any more,' said Noah.",2 'I'm very sorry.,1 "Come here, Charlotte, and I'll kiss yer.'",2 'What!',2 "said Mr. Bumble, bursting into the room.",2 "'Say that again, sir.'",2 "Charlotte uttered a scream, and hid her face in her apron.",1 "Mr. Claypole, without making any further change in his position than suffering his legs to reach the ground, gazed at the beadle in drunken terror.",0 "'Say it again, you wile, owdacious fellow!'",2 said Mr. Bumble.,2 "'How dare you mention such a thing, sir?",2 "And how dare you encourage him, you insolent minx?",2 Kiss her!',2 "exclaimed Mr. Bumble, in strong indignation.",2 'Faugh!',2 'I didn't mean to do it!',2 "said Noah, blubbering.",2 "'She's always a-kissing of me, whether I like it, or not.'",3 "'Oh, Noah,' cried Charlotte, reproachfully.",2 'Yer are; yer know yer are!',2 retorted Noah.,2 "'She's always a-doin' of it, Mr. Bumble, sir; she chucks me under the chin, please, sir; and makes all manner of love!'",3 'Silence!',2 "cried Mr. Bumble, sternly.",2 "'Take yourself downstairs, ma'am.",2 "Noah, you shut up the shop; say another word till your master comes home, at your peril; and, when he does come home, tell him that Mr. Bumble said he was to send a old woman's shell after breakfast to-morrow morning.",2 Do you hear sir?,2 Kissing!',2 "cried Mr. Bumble, holding up his hands.",2 'The sin and wickedness of the lower orders in this porochial district is frightful!,0 "If Parliament don't take their abominable courses under consideration, this country's ruined, and the character of the peasantry gone for ever!'",1 "With these words, the beadle strode, with a lofty and gloomy air, from the undertaker's premises.",1 "And now that we have accompanied him so far on his road home, and have made all necessary preparations for the old woman's funeral, let us set on foot a few inquires after young Oliver Twist, and ascertain whether he be still lying in the ditch where Toby Crackit left him.",1 'Wolves tear your throats!',2 "muttered Sikes, grinding his teeth.",2 'I wish I was among some of you; you'd howl the hoarser for it.',2 "As Sikes growled forth this imprecation, with the most desperate ferocity that his desperate nature was capable of, he rested the body of the wounded boy across his bended knee; and turned his head, for an instant, to look back at his pursuers.",1 "There was little to be made out, in the mist and darkness; but the loud shouting of men vibrated through the air, and the barking of the neighbouring dogs, roused by the sound of the alarm bell, resounded in every direction.",0 "'Stop, you white-livered hound!'",2 "cried the robber, shouting after Toby Crackit, who, making the best use of his long legs, was already ahead.",3 'Stop!',2 "The repetition of the word, brought Toby to a dead stand-still.",1 For he was not quite satisfied that he was beyond the range of pistol-shot; and Sikes was in no mood to be played with.,3 "'Bear a hand with the boy,' cried Sikes, beckoning furiously to his confederate.",2 'Come back!',2 "Toby made a show of returning; but ventured, in a low voice, broken for want of breath, to intimate considerable reluctance as he came slowly along.",1 'Quicker!',2 "cried Sikes, laying the boy in a dry ditch at his feet, and drawing a pistol from his pocket.",2 'Don't play booty with me.',2 At this moment the noise grew louder.,1 "Sikes, again looking round, could discern that the men who had given chase were already climbing the gate of the field in which he stood; and that a couple of dogs were some paces in advance of them.",2 "'It's all up, Bill!'",2 "cried Toby; 'drop the kid, and show 'em your heels.'",2 "With this parting advice, Mr. Crackit, preferring the chance of being shot by his friend, to the certainty of being taken by his enemies, fairly turned tail, and darted off at full speed.",3 "Sikes clenched his teeth; took one look around; threw over the prostrate form of Oliver, the cape in which he had been hurriedly muffled; ran along the front of the hedge, as if to distract the attention of those behind, from the spot where the boy lay; paused, for a second, before another hedge which met it at right angles; and whirling his pistol high into the air, cleared it at a bound, and was gone.",2 "'Ho, ho, there!'",2 cried a tremulous voice in the rear.,2 'Pincher!,2 Neptune!,2 "Come here, come here!'",2 "The dogs, who, in common with their masters, seemed to have no particular relish for the sport in which they were engaged, readily answered to the command.",4 "Three men, who had by this time advanced some distance into the field, stopped to take counsel together.",3 "'My advice, or, leastways, I should say, my _orders_, is,' said the fattest man of the party, 'that we 'mediately go home again.'",2 "'I am agreeable to anything which is agreeable to Mr. Giles,' said a shorter man; who was by no means of a slim figure, and who was very pale in the face, and very polite: as frightened men frequently are.",3 "'I shouldn't wish to appear ill-mannered, gentlemen,' said the third, who had called the dogs back, 'Mr. Giles ought to know.'",2 "'Certainly,' replied the shorter man; 'and whatever Mr. Giles says, it isn't our place to contradict him.",1 "No, no, I know my sitiwation!",2 "Thank my stars, I know my sitiwation.'",3 "To tell the truth, the little man _did_ seem to know his situation, and to know perfectly well that it was by no means a desirable one; for his teeth chattered in his head as he spoke.",4 "'You are afraid, Brittles,' said Mr. Giles.",1 "'I an't,' said Brittles.",2 "'You are,' said Giles.",2 "'You're a falsehood, Mr. Giles,' said Brittles.",1 "'You're a lie, Brittles,' said Mr. Giles.",1 "Now, these four retorts arose from Mr. Giles's taunt; and Mr. Giles's taunt had arisen from his indignation at having the responsibility of going home again, imposed upon himself under cover of a compliment.",1 "The third man brought the dispute to a close, most philosophically.",1 "'I'll tell you what it is, gentlemen,' said he, 'we're all afraid.'",1 "'Speak for yourself, sir,' said Mr. Giles, who was the palest of the party.",2 "'So I do,' replied the man.",2 "'It's natural and proper to be afraid, under such circumstances.",2 I am.',2 "'So am I,' said Brittles; 'only there's no call to tell a man he is, so bounceably.'",2 "These frank admissions softened Mr. Giles, who at once owned that _he_ was afraid; upon which, they all three faced about, and ran back again with the completest unanimity, until Mr. Giles (who had the shortest wind of the party, as was encumbered with a pitchfork) most handsomely insisted on stopping, to make an apology for his hastiness of speech.",2 "'But it's wonderful,' said Mr. Giles, when he had explained, 'what a man will do, when his blood is up.",3 I should have committed murder--I know I should--if we'd caught one of them rascals.',1 "As the other two were impressed with a similar presentiment; and as their blood, like his, had all gone down again; some speculation ensued upon the cause of this sudden change in their temperament.",3 "'I know what it was,' said Mr. Giles; 'it was the gate.'",2 "'I shouldn't wonder if it was,' exclaimed Brittles, catching at the idea.",3 "'You may depend upon it,' said Giles, 'that that gate stopped the flow of the excitement.",3 "I felt all mine suddenly going away, as I was climbing over it.'",2 "By a remarkable coincidence, the other two had been visited with the same unpleasant sensation at that precise moment.",3 "It was quite obvious, therefore, that it was the gate; especially as there was no doubt regarding the time at which the change had taken place, because all three remembered that they had come in sight of the robbers at the instant of its occurance.",1 "This dialogue was held between the two men who had surprised the burglars, and a travelling tinker who had been sleeping in an outhouse, and who had been roused, together with his two mongrel curs, to join in the pursuit.",2 "Mr. Giles acted in the double capacity of butler and steward to the old lady of the mansion; Brittles was a lad of all-work: who, having entered her service a mere child, was treated as a promising young boy still, though he was something past thirty.",3 "Encouraging each other with such converse as this; but, keeping very close together, notwithstanding, and looking apprehensively round, whenever a fresh gust rattled through the boughs; the three men hurried back to a tree, behind which they had left their lantern, lest its light should inform the thieves in what direction to fire.",2 "Catching up the light, they made the best of their way home, at a good round trot; and long after their dusky forms had ceased to be discernible, the light might have been seen twinkling and dancing in the distance, like some exhalation of the damp and gloomy atmosphere through which it was swiftly borne.",3 "The air grew colder, as day came slowly on; and the mist rolled along the ground like a dense cloud of smoke.",0 "The grass was wet; the pathways, and low places, were all mire and water; the damp breath of an unwholesome wind went languidly by, with a hollow moaning.",1 "Still, Oliver lay motionless and insensible on the spot where Sikes had left him.",1 Morning drew on apace.,2 "The air become more sharp and piercing, as its first dull hue--the death of night, rather than the birth of day--glimmered faintly in the sky.",1 "The objects which had looked dim and terrible in the darkness, grew more and more defined, and gradually resolved into their familiar shapes.",0 "The rain came down, thick and fast, and pattered noisily among the leafless bushes.",3 "But, Oliver felt it not, as it beat against him; for he still lay stretched, helpless and unconscious, on his bed of clay.",1 "At length, a low cry of pain broke the stillness that prevailed; and uttering it, the boy awoke.",0 "His left arm, rudely bandaged in a shawl, hung heavy and useless at his side; the bandage was saturated with blood.",1 "He was so weak, that he could scarcely raise himself into a sitting posture; when he had done so, he looked feebly round for help, and groaned with pain.",0 "Trembling in every joint, from cold and exhaustion, he made an effort to stand upright; but, shuddering from head to foot, fell prostrate on the ground.",0 "After a short return of the stupor in which he had been so long plunged, Oliver: urged by a creeping sickness at his heart, which seemed to warn him that if he lay there, he must surely die: got upon his feet, and essayed to walk.",0 "His head was dizzy, and he staggered to and fro like a drunken man.",1 "But he kept up, nevertheless, and, with his head drooping languidly on his breast, went stumbling onward, he knew not whither.",2 "And now, hosts of bewildering and confused ideas came crowding on his mind.",1 "He seemed to be still walking between Sikes and Crackit, who were angrily disputing--for the very words they said, sounded in his ears; and when he caught his own attention, as it were, by making some violent effort to save himself from falling, he found that he was talking to them.",0 "Then, he was alone with Sikes, plodding on as on the previous day; and as shadowy people passed them, he felt the robber's grasp upon his wrist.",1 "Suddenly, he started back at the report of firearms; there rose into the air, loud cries and shouts; lights gleamed before his eyes; all was noise and tumult, as some unseen hand bore him hurriedly away.",0 "Through all these rapid visions, there ran an undefined, uneasy consciousness of pain, which wearied and tormented him incessantly.",0 "Thus he staggered on, creeping, almost mechanically, between the bars of gates, or through hedge-gaps as they came in his way, until he reached a road.",1 "Here the rain began to fall so heavily, that it roused him.",1 "He looked about, and saw that at no great distance there was a house, which perhaps he could reach.",3 "Pitying his condition, they might have compassion on him; and if they did not, it would be better, he thought, to die near human beings, than in the lonely open fields.",2 "He summoned up all his strength for one last trial, and bent his faltering steps towards it.",1 "As he drew nearer to this house, a feeling come over him that he had seen it before.",2 He remembered nothing of its details; but the shape and aspect of the building seemed familiar to him.,2 That garden wall!,2 "On the grass inside, he had fallen on his knees last night, and prayed the two men's mercy.",2 It was the very house they had attempted to rob.,2 "Oliver felt such fear come over him when he recognised the place, that, for the instant, he forgot the agony of his wound, and thought only of flight.",0 Flight!,2 "He could scarcely stand: and if he were in full possession of all the best powers of his slight and youthful frame, whither could he fly?",3 "He pushed against the garden-gate; it was unlocked, and swung open on its hinges.",2 "He tottered across the lawn; climbed the steps; knocked faintly at the door; and, his whole strength failing him, sunk down against one of the pillars of the little portico.",1 "It happened that about this time, Mr. Giles, Brittles, and the tinker, were recruiting themselves, after the fatigues and terrors of the night, with tea and sundries, in the kitchen.",2 "Not that it was Mr. Giles's habit to admit to too great familiarity the humbler servants: towards whom it was rather his wont to deport himself with a lofty affability, which, while it gratified, could not fail to remind them of his superior position in society.",4 "But, death, fires, and burglary, make all men equals; so Mr. Giles sat with his legs stretched out before the kitchen fender, leaning his left arm on the table, while, with his right, he illustrated a circumstantial and minute account of the robbery, to which his bearers (but especially the cook and housemaid, who were of the party) listened with breathless interest.",2 "'It was about half-past two,' said Mr. Giles, 'or I wouldn't swear that it mightn't have been a little nearer three, when I woke up, and, turning round in my bed, as it might be so, (here Mr. Giles turned round in his chair, and pulled the corner of the table-cloth over him to imitate bed-clothes,) I fancied I heerd a noise.'",1 "At this point of the narrative the cook turned pale, and asked the housemaid to shut the door: who asked Brittles, who asked the tinker, who pretended not to hear.",1 "'--Heerd a noise,' continued Mr. Giles.",1 "'I says, at first, ""This is illusion""; and was composing myself off to sleep, when I heerd the noise again, distinct.'",1 'What sort of a noise?',1 asked the cook.,2 "'A kind of a busting noise,' replied Mr. Giles, looking round him.",1 "'More like the noise of powdering a iron bar on a nutmeg-grater,' suggested Brittles.",2 "'It was, when _you_ heerd it, sir,' rejoined Mr. Giles; 'but, at this time, it had a busting sound.",2 "I turned down the clothes'; continued Giles, rolling back the table-cloth, 'sat up in bed; and listened.'",2 The cook and housemaid simultaneously ejaculated 'Lor!',2 and drew their chairs closer together.,2 "'I heerd it now, quite apparent,' resumed Mr. Giles.",2 "'""Somebody,"" I says, ""is forcing of a door, or window; what's to be done?",2 "I'll call up that poor lad, Brittles, and save him from being murdered in his bed; or his throat,"" I says, ""may be cut from his right ear to his left, without his ever knowing it.""",2 "' Here, all eyes were turned upon Brittles, who fixed his upon the speaker, and stared at him, with his mouth wide open, and his face expressive of the most unmitigated horror.",2 "'I tossed off the clothes,' said Giles, throwing away the table-cloth, and looking very hard at the cook and housemaid, 'got softly out of bed; drew on a pair of--' 'Ladies present, Mr. Giles,' murmured the tinker.",1 "'--Of _shoes_, sir,' said Giles, turning upon him, and laying great emphasis on the word; 'seized the loaded pistol that always goes upstairs with the plate-basket; and walked on tiptoes to his room.",3 """Brittles,"" I says, when I had woke him, ""don't be frightened!""",2 "' 'So you did,' observed Brittles, in a low voice.",2 "'""We're dead men, I think, Brittles,"" I says,' continued Giles; '""but don't be frightened.""",1 ' '_Was_ he frightened?',2 asked the cook.,2 "'Not a bit of it,' replied Mr. Giles.",2 'He was as firm--ah!,2 pretty near as firm as I was.',3 "'I should have died at once, I'm sure, if it had been me,' observed the housemaid.",1 "'You're a woman,' retorted Brittles, plucking up a little.",2 "'Brittles is right,' said Mr. Giles, nodding his head, approvingly; 'from a woman, nothing else was to be expected.",3 "We, being men, took a dark lantern that was standing on Brittle's hob, and groped our way downstairs in the pitch dark,--as it might be so.'",1 "Mr. Giles had risen from his seat, and taken two steps with his eyes shut, to accompany his description with appropriate action, when he started violently, in common with the rest of the company, and hurried back to his chair.",2 The cook and housemaid screamed.,2 "'It was a knock,' said Mr. Giles, assuming perfect serenity.",3 "'Open the door, somebody.'",2 Nobody moved.,2 "'It seems a strange sort of a thing, a knock coming at such a time in the morning,' said Mr. Giles, surveying the pale faces which surrounded him, and looking very blank himself; 'but the door must be opened.",0 "Do you hear, somebody?'",2 "Mr. Giles, as he spoke, looked at Brittles; but that young man, being naturally modest, probably considered himself nobody, and so held that the inquiry could not have any application to him; at all events, he tendered no reply.",3 Mr. Giles directed an appealing glance at the tinker; but he had suddenly fallen asleep.,2 The women were out of the question.,2 "'If Brittles would rather open the door, in the presence of witnesses,' said Mr. Giles, after a short silence, 'I am ready to make one.'",3 "'So am I,' said the tinker, waking up, as suddenly as he had fallen asleep.",1 "Brittles capitulated on these terms; and the party being somewhat re-assured by the discovery (made on throwing open the shutters) that it was now broad day, took their way upstairs; with the dogs in front.",2 "The two women, who were afraid to stay below, brought up the rear.",1 "By the advice of Mr. Giles, they all talked very loud, to warn any evil-disposed person outside, that they were strong in numbers; and by a master-stoke of policy, originating in the brain of the same ingenious gentleman, the dogs' tails were well pinched, in the hall, to make them bark savagely.",3 "These precautions having been taken, Mr. Giles held on fast by the tinker's arm (to prevent his running away, as he pleasantly said), and gave the word of command to open the door.",3 "Brittles obeyed; the group, peeping timorously over each other's shoulders, beheld no more formidable object than poor little Oliver Twist, speechless and exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes, and mutely solicited their compassion.",1 'A boy!',2 "exclaimed Mr. Giles, valiantly, pushing the tinker into the background.",3 'What's the matter with the--eh?--Why--Brittles--look here--don't you know?',2 "Brittles, who had got behind the door to open it, no sooner saw Oliver, than he uttered a loud cry.",1 "Mr. Giles, seizing the boy by one leg and one arm (fortunately not the broken limb) lugged him straight into the hall, and deposited him at full length on the floor thereof.",2 'Here he is!',2 "bawled Giles, calling in a state of great excitement, up the staircase; 'here's one of the thieves, ma'am!",3 "Here's a thief, miss!",1 "Wounded, miss!",1 "I shot him, miss; and Brittles held the light.'",1 "'--In a lantern, miss,' cried Brittles, applying one hand to the side of his mouth, so that his voice might travel the better.",2 "The two women-servants ran upstairs to carry the intelligence that Mr. Giles had captured a robber; and the tinker busied himself in endeavouring to restore Oliver, lest he should die before he could be hanged.",2 "In the midst of all this noise and commotion, there was heard a sweet female voice, which quelled it in an instant.",1 'Giles!',2 whispered the voice from the stair-head.,2 "'I'm here, miss,' replied Mr. Giles.",1 "'Don't be frightened, miss; I ain't much injured.",1 "He didn't make a very desperate resistance, miss!",0 I was soon too many for him.',2 'Hush!',2 replied the young lady; 'you frighten my aunt as much as the thieves did.,1 Is the poor creature much hurt?',1 "'Wounded desperate, miss,' replied Giles, with indescribable complacency.",1 "'He looks as if he was a-going, miss,' bawled Brittles, in the same manner as before.",1 "'Wouldn't you like to come and look at him, miss, in case he should?'",2 "'Hush, pray; there's a good man!'",3 rejoined the lady.,2 "'Wait quietly only one instant, while I speak to aunt.'",2 "With a footstep as soft and gentle as the voice, the speaker tripped away.",3 "She soon returned, with the direction that the wounded person was to be carried, carefully, upstairs to Mr. Giles's room; and that Brittles was to saddle the pony and betake himself instantly to Chertsey: from which place, he was to despatch, with all speed, a constable and doctor.",3 "'But won't you take one look at him, first, miss?'",1 "asked Mr. Giles, with as much pride as if Oliver were some bird of rare plumage, that he had skilfully brought down.",3 "'Not one little peep, miss?'",1 "'Not now, for the world,' replied the young lady.",2 'Poor fellow!,2 Oh!,2 "treat him kindly, Giles for my sake!'",3 "The old servant looked up at the speaker, as she turned away, with a glance as proud and admiring as if she had been his own child.",3 "Then, bending over Oliver, he helped to carry him upstairs, with the care and solicitude of a woman.",2 "In a handsome room: though its furniture had rather the air of old-fashioned comfort, than of modern elegance: there sat two ladies at a well-spread breakfast-table.",4 "Mr. Giles, dressed with scrupulous care in a full suit of black, was in attendance upon them.",2 "He had taken his station some half-way between the side-board and the breakfast-table; and, with his body drawn up to its full height, his head thrown back, and inclined the merest trifle on one side, his left leg advanced, and his right hand thrust into his waist-coat, while his left hung down by his side, grasping a waiter, looked like one who laboured under a very agreeable sense of his own merits and importance.",4 "Of the two ladies, one was well advanced in years; but the high-backed oaken chair in which she sat, was not more upright than she.",3 "Dressed with the utmost nicety and precision, in a quaint mixture of by-gone costume, with some slight concessions to the prevailing taste, which rather served to point the old style pleasantly than to impair its effect, she sat, in a stately manner, with her hands folded on the table before her.",3 Her eyes (and age had dimmed but little of their brightness) were attentively upon her young companion.,2 "The younger lady was in the lovely bloom and spring-time of womanhood; at that age, when, if ever angels be for God's good purposes enthroned in mortal forms, they may be, without impiety, supposed to abide in such as hers.",3 She was not past seventeen.,2 "Cast in so slight and exquisite a mould; so mild and gentle; so pure and beautiful; that earth seemed not her element, nor its rough creatures her fit companions.",4 "The very intelligence that shone in her deep blue eye, and was stamped upon her noble head, seemed scarcely of her age, or of the world; and yet the changing expression of sweetness and good humour, the thousand lights that played about the face, and left no shadow there; above all, the smile, the cheerful, happy smile, were made for Home, and fireside peace and happiness.",4 She was busily engaged in the little offices of the table.,2 "Chancing to raise her eyes as the elder lady was regarding her, she playfully put back her hair, which was simply braided on her forehead; and threw into her beaming look, such an expression of affection and artless loveliness, that blessed spirits might have smiled to look upon her.",4 "'And Brittles has been gone upwards of an hour, has he?'",2 "asked the old lady, after a pause.",2 "'An hour and twelve minutes, ma'am,' replied Mr. Giles, referring to a silver watch, which he drew forth by a black ribbon.",2 "'He is always slow,' remarked the old lady.",1 "'Brittles always was a slow boy, ma'am,' replied the attendant.",1 "And seeing, by the bye, that Brittles had been a slow boy for upwards of thirty years, there appeared no great probability of his ever being a fast one.",3 "'He gets worse instead of better, I think,' said the elder lady.",2 "'It is very inexcusable in him if he stops to play with any other boys,' said the young lady, smiling.",2 "Mr. Giles was apparently considering the propriety of indulging in a respectful smile himself, when a gig drove up to the garden-gate: out of which there jumped a fat gentleman, who ran straight up to the door: and who, getting quickly into the house by some mysterious process, burst into the room, and nearly overturned Mr. Giles and the breakfast-table together.",2 'I never heard of such a thing!',2 exclaimed the fat gentleman.,1 "'My dear Mrs. Maylie--bless my soul--in the silence of the night, too--I _never_ heard of such a thing!'",3 "With these expressions of condolence, the fat gentleman shook hands with both ladies, and drawing up a chair, inquired how they found themselves.",1 "'You ought to be dead; positively dead with the fright,' said the fat gentleman.",1 'Why didn't you send?,2 "Bless me, my man should have come in a minute; and so would I; and my assistant would have been delighted; or anybody, I'm sure, under such circumstances.",3 "Dear, dear!",2 So unexpected!,1 "In the silence of the night, too!'",2 "The doctor seemed expecially troubled by the fact of the robbery having been unexpected, and attempted in the night-time; as if it were the established custom of gentlemen in the housebreaking way to transact business at noon, and to make an appointment, by post, a day or two previous.",1 "'And you, Miss Rose,' said the doctor, turning to the young lady, 'I--' 'Oh!",1 "very much so, indeed,' said Rose, interrupting him; 'but there is a poor creature upstairs, whom aunt wishes you to see.'",1 'Ah!,2 "to be sure,' replied the doctor, 'so there is.",2 "That was your handiwork, Giles, I understand.'",2 "Mr. Giles, who had been feverishly putting the tea-cups to rights, blushed very red, and said that he had had that honour.",2 "'Honour, eh?'",2 "said the doctor; 'well, I don't know; perhaps it's as honourable to hit a thief in a back kitchen, as to hit your man at twelve paces.",2 "Fancy that he fired in the air, and you've fought a duel, Giles.'",3 "Mr. Giles, who thought this light treatment of the matter an unjust attempt at diminishing his glory, answered respectfully, that it was not for the like of him to judge about that; but he rather thought it was no joke to the opposite party.",3 "'Gad, that's true!'",2 said the doctor.,2 'Where is he?,2 Show me the way.,2 "I'll look in again, as I come down, Mrs. Maylie.",2 "That's the little window that he got in at, eh?",2 "Well, I couldn't have believed it!'",3 "Talking all the way, he followed Mr. Giles upstairs; and while he is going upstairs, the reader may be informed, that Mr. Losberne, a surgeon in the neighbourhood, known through a circuit of ten miles round as 'the doctor,' had grown fat, more from good-humour than from good living: and was as kind and hearty, and withal as eccentric an old bachelor, as will be found in five times that space, by any explorer alive.",2 "The doctor was absent, much longer than either he or the ladies had anticipated.",2 A large flat box was fetched out of the gig; and a bedroom bell was rung very often; and the servants ran up and down stairs perpetually; from which tokens it was justly concluded that something important was going on above.,3 "At length he returned; and in reply to an anxious inquiry after his patient; looked very mysterious, and closed the door, carefully.",1 "'This is a very extraordinary thing, Mrs. Maylie,' said the doctor, standing with his back to the door, as if to keep it shut.",3 "'He is not in danger, I hope?'",1 said the old lady.,2 "'Why, that would _not_ be an extraordinary thing, under the circumstances,' replied the doctor; 'though I don't think he is.",3 Have you seen the thief?',2 "'No,' rejoined the old lady.",2 'Nor heard anything about him?',2 'No.',2 "'I beg your pardon, ma'am, interposed Mr. Giles; 'but I was going to tell you about him when Doctor Losberne came in.'",2 "The fact was, that Mr. Giles had not, at first, been able to bring his mind to the avowal, that he had only shot a boy.",2 "Such commendations had been bestowed upon his bravery, that he could not, for the life of him, help postponing the explanation for a few delicious minutes; during which he had flourished, in the very zenith of a brief reputation for undaunted courage.",4 "'Rose wished to see the man,' said Mrs. Maylie, 'but I wouldn't hear of it.'",2 'Humph!',2 rejoined the doctor.,2 'There is nothing very alarming in his appearance.,1 Have you any objection to see him in my presence?',1 "'If it be necessary,' replied the old lady, 'certainly not.'",2 "'Then I think it is necessary,' said the doctor; 'at all events, I am quite sure that you would deeply regret not having done so, if you postponed it.",1 He is perfectly quiet and comfortable now.,4 "Allow me--Miss Rose, will you permit me?",1 "Not the slightest fear, I pledge you my honour!'",1 "With many loquacious assurances that they would be agreeably surprised in the aspect of the criminal, the doctor drew the young lady's arm through one of his; and offering his disengaged hand to Mrs. Maylie, led them, with much ceremony and stateliness, upstairs.",3 "'Now,' said the doctor, in a whisper, as he softly turned the handle of a bedroom-door, 'let us hear what you think of him.",2 "He has not been shaved very recently, but he don't look at all ferocious notwithstanding.",2 "Stop, though!",2 Let me first see that he is in visiting order.',2 "Stepping before them, he looked into the room.",2 "Motioning them to advance, he closed the door when they had entered; and gently drew back the curtains of the bed.",2 "Upon it, in lieu of the dogged, black-visaged ruffian they had expected to behold, there lay a mere child: worn with pain and exhaustion, and sunk into a deep sleep.",0 "His wounded arm, bound and splintered up, was crossed upon his breast; his head reclined upon the other arm, which was half hidden by his long hair, as it streamed over the pillow.",2 "The honest gentleman held the curtain in his hand, and looked on, for a minute or so, in silence.",3 "Whilst he was watching the patient thus, the younger lady glided softly past, and seating herself in a chair by the bedside, gathered Oliver's hair from his face.",3 "As she stooped over him, her tears fell upon his forehead.",1 "The boy stirred, and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known.",4 "Thus, a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or the mention of a familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes that never were, in this life; which vanish like a breath; which some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have awakened; which no voluntary exertion of the mind can ever recall.",3 'What can this mean?',2 exclaimed the elder lady.,2 'This poor child can never have been the pupil of robbers!',1 "'Vice,' said the surgeon, replacing the curtain, 'takes up her abode in many temples; and who can say that a fair outside shell not enshrine her?'",3 'But at so early an age!',2 urged Rose.,2 "'My dear young lady,' rejoined the surgeon, mournfully shaking his head; 'crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered alone.",1 The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims.',2 "'But, can you--oh!",2 can you really believe that this delicate boy has been the voluntary associate of the worst outcasts of society?',2 said Rose.,2 "The surgeon shook his head, in a manner which intimated that he feared it was very possible; and observing that they might disturb the patient, led the way into an adjoining apartment.",3 "'But even if he has been wicked,' pursued Rose, 'think how young he is; think that he may never have known a mother's love, or the comfort of a home; that ill-usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have driven him to herd with men who have forced him to guilt.",2 "Aunt, dear aunt, for mercy's sake, think of this, before you let them drag this sick child to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his chances of amendment.",0 Oh!,2 "as you love me, and know that I have never felt the want of parents in your goodness and affection, but that I might have done so, and might have been equally helpless and unprotected with this poor child, have pity upon him before it is too late!'",2 "'My dear love,' said the elder lady, as she folded the weeping girl to her bosom, 'do you think I would harm a hair of his head?'",2 "'Oh, no!'",2 "replied Rose, eagerly.",3 "'No, surely,' said the old lady; 'my days are drawing to their close: and may mercy be shown to me as I show it to others!",3 "What can I do to save him, sir?'",2 "'Let me think, ma'am,' said the doctor; 'let me think.'",2 "Mr. Losberne thrust his hands into his pockets, and took several turns up and down the room; often stopping, and balancing himself on his toes, and frowning frightfully.",1 "After various exclamations of 'I've got it now' and 'no, I haven't,' and as many renewals of the walking and frowning, he at length made a dead halt, and spoke as follows: 'I think if you give me a full and unlimited commission to bully Giles, and that little boy, Brittles, I can manage it.",1 "Giles is a faithful fellow and an old servant, I know; but you can make it up to him in a thousand ways, and reward him for being such a good shot besides.",4 You don't object to that?',1 "'Unless there is some other way of preserving the child,' replied Mrs. Maylie.",2 "'There is no other,' said the doctor.",2 "'No other, take my word for it.'",2 "'Then my aunt invests you with full power,' said Rose, smiling through her tears; 'but pray don't be harder upon the poor fellows than is indispensably necessary.'",2 "'You seem to think,' retorted the doctor, 'that everybody is disposed to be hard-hearted to-day, except yourself, Miss Rose.",1 "I only hope, for the sake of the rising male sex generally, that you may be found in as vulnerable and soft-hearted a mood by the first eligible young fellow who appeals to your compassion; and I wish I were a young fellow, that I might avail myself, on the spot, of such a favourable opportunity for doing so, as the present.'",3 "'You are as great a boy as poor Brittles himself,' returned Rose, blushing.",2 "'Well,' said the doctor, laughing heartily, 'that is no very difficult matter.",2 But to return to this boy.,2 The great point of our agreement is yet to come.,3 "He will wake in an hour or so, I dare say; and although I have told that thick-headed constable-fellow downstairs that he musn't be moved or spoken to, on peril of his life, I think we may converse with him without danger.",1 "Now I make this stipulation--that I shall examine him in your presence, and that, if, from what he says, we judge, and I can show to the satisfaction of your cool reason, that he is a real and thorough bad one (which is more than possible), he shall be left to his fate, without any farther interference on my part, at all events.'",1 "'Oh no, aunt!'",2 entreated Rose.,2 "'Oh yes, aunt!'",2 said the doctor.,2 'Is is a bargain?',3 "'He cannot be hardened in vice,' said Rose; 'It is impossible.'",0 "'Very good,' retorted the doctor; 'then so much the more reason for acceding to my proposition.'",3 "Finally the treaty was entered into; and the parties thereunto sat down to wait, with some impatience, until Oliver should awake.",1 "The patience of the two ladies was destined to undergo a longer trial than Mr. Losberne had led them to expect; for hour after hour passed on, and still Oliver slumbered heavily.",3 "It was evening, indeed, before the kind-hearted doctor brought them the intelligence, that he was at length sufficiently restored to be spoken to.",4 "The boy was very ill, he said, and weak from the loss of blood; but his mind was so troubled with anxiety to disclose something, that he deemed it better to give him the opportunity, than to insist upon his remaining quiet until next morning: which he should otherwise have done.",1 The conference was a long one.,2 "Oliver told them all his simple history, and was often compelled to stop, by pain and want of strength.",1 "It was a solemn thing, to hear, in the darkened room, the feeble voice of the sick child recounting a weary catalogue of evils and calamities which hard men had brought upon him.",0 Oh!,2 "if when we oppress and grind our fellow-creatures, we bestowed but one thought on the dark evidences of human error, which, like dense and heavy clouds, are rising, slowly it is true, but not less surely, to Heaven, to pour their after-vengeance on our heads; if we heard but one instant, in imagination, the deep testimony of dead men's voices, which no power can stifle, and no pride shut out; where would be the injury and injustice, the suffering, misery, cruelty, and wrong, that each day's life brings with it!",0 Oliver's pillow was smoothed by gentle hands that night; and loveliness and virtue watched him as he slept.,4 "He felt calm and happy, and could have died without a murmur.",3 "The momentous interview was no sooner concluded, and Oliver composed to rest again, than the doctor, after wiping his eyes, and condemning them for being weak all at once, betook himself downstairs to open upon Mr. Giles.",2 "And finding nobody about the parlours, it occurred to him, that he could perhaps originate the proceedings with better effect in the kitchen; so into the kitchen he went.",3 "There were assembled, in that lower house of the domestic parliament, the women-servants, Mr. Brittles, Mr. Giles, the tinker (who had received a special invitation to regale himself for the remainder of the day, in consideration of his services), and the constable.",2 "The latter gentleman had a large staff, a large head, large features, and large half-boots; and he looked as if he had been taking a proportionate allowance of ale--as indeed he had.",2 "The adventures of the previous night were still under discussion; for Mr. Giles was expatiating upon his presence of mind, when the doctor entered; Mr. Brittles, with a mug of ale in his hand, was corroborating everything, before his superior said it.",3 'Sit still!',2 "said the doctor, waving his hand.",2 "'Thank you, sir, said Mr. Giles.",2 "'Misses wished some ale to be given out, sir; and as I felt no ways inclined for my own little room, sir, and was disposed for company, I am taking mine among 'em here.'",2 "Brittles headed a low murmur, by which the ladies and gentlemen generally were understood to express the gratification they derived from Mr. Giles's condescension.",2 "Mr. Giles looked round with a patronising air, as much as to say that so long as they behaved properly, he would never desert them.",2 "'How is the patient to-night, sir?'",3 asked Giles.,2 'So-so'; returned the doctor.,2 "'I am afraid you have got yourself into a scrape there, Mr. Giles.'",1 "'I hope you don't mean to say, sir,' said Mr. Giles, trembling, 'that he's going to die.",1 "If I thought it, I should never be happy again.",3 "I wouldn't cut a boy off: no, not even Brittles here; not for all the plate in the county, sir.'",2 "'That's not the point,' said the doctor, mysteriously.",1 "'Mr. Giles, are you a Protestant?'",2 "'Yes, sir, I hope so,' faltered Mr. Giles, who had turned very pale.",1 "'And what are _you_, boy?'",2 "said the doctor, turning sharply upon Brittles.",1 "'Lord bless me, sir!'",3 "replied Brittles, starting violently; 'I'm the same as Mr. Giles, sir.'",1 "'Then tell me this,' said the doctor, 'both of you, both of you!",2 "Are you going to take upon yourselves to swear, that that boy upstairs is the boy that was put through the little window last night?",2 Out with it!,2 Come!,2 We are prepared for you!',2 "The doctor, who was universally considered one of the best-tempered creatures on earth, made this demand in such a dreadful tone of anger, that Giles and Brittles, who were considerably muddled by ale and excitement, stared at each other in a state of stupefaction.",2 "'Pay attention to the reply, constable, will you?'",2 "said the doctor, shaking his forefinger with great solemnity of manner, and tapping the bridge of his nose with it, to bespeak the exercise of that worthy's utmost acuteness.",3 'Something may come of this before long.',2 "The constable looked as wise as he could, and took up his staff of office: which had been reclining indolently in the chimney-corner.",3 "'It's a simple question of identity, you will observe,' said the doctor.",2 "'That's what it is, sir,' replied the constable, coughing with great violence; for he had finished his ale in a hurry, and some of it had gone the wrong way.",2 "'Here's the house broken into,' said the doctor, 'and a couple of men catch one moment's glimpse of a boy, in the midst of gunpowder smoke, and in all the distraction of alarm and darkness.",0 "Here's a boy comes to that very same house, next morning, and because he happens to have his arm tied up, these men lay violent hands upon him--by doing which, they place his life in great danger--and swear he is the thief.",1 "Now, the question is, whether these men are justified by the fact; if not, in what situation do they place themselves?'",2 The constable nodded profoundly.,3 "He said, if that wasn't law, he would be glad to know what was.",3 "'I ask you again,' thundered the doctor, 'are you, on your solemn oaths, able to identify that boy?'",1 "Brittles looked doubtfully at Mr. Giles; Mr. Giles looked doubtfully at Brittles; the constable put his hand behind his ear, to catch the reply; the two women and the tinker leaned forward to listen; the doctor glanced keenly round; when a ring was heard at the gate, and at the same moment, the sound of wheels.",2 'It's the runners!',2 "cried Brittles, to all appearance much relieved.",2 'The what?',2 "exclaimed the doctor, aghast in his turn.",1 "'The Bow Street officers, sir,' replied Brittles, taking up a candle; 'me and Mr. Giles sent for 'em this morning.'",2 'What?',2 cried the doctor.,2 "'Yes,' replied Brittles; 'I sent a message up by the coachman, and I only wonder they weren't here before, sir.'",3 "'You did, did you?",2 "Then confound your--slow coaches down here; that's all,' said the doctor, walking away.",1 'Who's that?',2 "inquired Brittles, opening the door a little way, with the chain up, and peeping out, shading the candle with his hand.",2 "'Open the door,' replied a man outside; 'it's the officers from Bow Street, as was sent to to-day.'",2 "Much comforted by this assurance, Brittles opened the door to its full width, and confronted a portly man in a great-coat; who walked in, without saying anything more, and wiped his shoes on the mat, as coolly as if he lived there.",3 "'Just send somebody out to relieve my mate, will you, young man?'",2 "said the officer; 'he's in the gig, a-minding the prad.",2 "Have you got a coach 'us here, that you could put it up in, for five or ten minutes?'",2 "Brittles replying in the affirmative, and pointing out the building, the portly man stepped back to the garden-gate, and helped his companion to put up the gig: while Brittles lighted them, in a state of great admiration.",4 "This done, they returned to the house, and, being shown into a parlour, took off their great-coats and hats, and showed like what they were.",3 "The man who had knocked at the door, was a stout personage of middle height, aged about fifty: with shiny black hair, cropped pretty close; half-whiskers, a round face, and sharp eyes.",4 "The other was a red-headed, bony man, in top-boots; with a rather ill-favoured countenance, and a turned-up sinister-looking nose.",2 "'Tell your governor that Blathers and Duff is here, will you?'",2 "said the stouter man, smoothing down his hair, and laying a pair of handcuffs on the table.",2 'Oh!,2 "Good-evening, master.",3 "Can I have a word or two with you in private, if you please?'",2 "This was addressed to Mr. Losberne, who now made his appearance; that gentleman, motioning Brittles to retire, brought in the two ladies, and shut the door.",2 "'This is the lady of the house,' said Mr. Losberne, motioning towards Mrs. Maylie.",2 Mr. Blathers made a bow.,2 "Being desired to sit down, he put his hat on the floor, and taking a chair, motioned to Duff to do the same.",2 "The latter gentleman, who did not appear quite so much accustomed to good society, or quite so much at his ease in it--one of the two--seated himself, after undergoing several muscular affections of the limbs, and the head of his stick into his mouth, with some embarrassment.",3 "'Now, with regard to this here robbery, master,' said Blathers.",3 'What are the circumstances?',2 "Mr. Losberne, who appeared desirous of gaining time, recounted them at great length, and with much circumlocution.",4 Messrs.,2 "Blathers and Duff looked very knowing meanwhile, and occasionally exchanged a nod.",2 "'I can't say, for certain, till I see the work, of course,' said Blathers; 'but my opinion at once is,--I don't mind committing myself to that extent,--that this wasn't done by a yokel; eh, Duff?'",3 "'Certainly not,' replied Duff.",2 "'And, translating the word yokel for the benefit of the ladies, I apprehend your meaning to be, that this attempt was not made by a countryman?'",3 "said Mr. Losberne, with a smile.",3 "'That's it, master,' replied Blathers.",3 "'This is all about the robbery, is it?'",2 "'All,' replied the doctor.",2 "'Now, what is this, about this here boy that the servants are a-talking on?'",2 said Blathers.,2 "'Nothing at all,' replied the doctor.",2 "'One of the frightened servants chose to take it into his head, that he had something to do with this attempt to break into the house; but it's nonsense: sheer absurdity.'",0 "'Wery easy disposed of, if it is,' remarked Duff.",3 "'What he says is quite correct,' observed Blathers, nodding his head in a confirmatory way, and playing carelessly with the handcuffs, as if they were a pair of castanets.",3 'Who is the boy?,2 What account does he give of himself?,2 Where did he come from?,2 "He didn't drop out of the clouds, did he, master?'",3 "'Of course not,' replied the doctor, with a nervous glance at the two ladies.",1 'I know his whole history: but we can talk about that presently.,2 "You would like, first, to see the place where the thieves made their attempt, I suppose?'",3 "'Certainly,' rejoined Mr. Blathers.",2 "'We had better inspect the premises first, and examine the servants afterwards.",3 That's the usual way of doing business.',2 Lights were then procured; and Messrs.,2 "Blathers and Duff, attended by the native constable, Brittles, Giles, and everybody else in short, went into the little room at the end of the passage and looked out at the window; and afterwards went round by way of the lawn, and looked in at the window; and after that, had a candle handed out to inspect the shutter with; and after that, a lantern to trace the footsteps with; and after that, a pitchfork to poke the bushes with.",2 "This done, amidst the breathless interest of all beholders, they came in again; and Mr. Giles and Brittles were put through a melodramatic representation of their share in the previous night's adventures: which they performed some six times over: contradicting each other, in not more than one important respect, the first time, and in not more than a dozen the last.",3 "This consummation being arrived at, Blathers and Duff cleared the room, and held a long council together, compared with which, for secrecy and solemnity, a consultation of great doctors on the knottiest point in medicine, would be mere child's play.",3 "Meanwhile, the doctor walked up and down the next room in a very uneasy state; and Mrs. Maylie and Rose looked on, with anxious faces.",1 "'Upon my word,' he said, making a halt, after a great number of very rapid turns, 'I hardly know what to do.'",3 "'Surely,' said Rose, 'the poor child's story, faithfully repeated to these men, will be sufficient to exonerate him.'",3 "'I doubt it, my dear young lady,' said the doctor, shaking his head.",1 "'I don't think it would exonerate him, either with them, or with legal functionaries of a higher grade.",3 "What is he, after all, they would say?",2 A runaway.,1 "Judged by mere worldly considerations and probabilities, his story is a very doubtful one.'",1 "'You believe it, surely?'",2 interrupted Rose.,2 "'_I_ believe it, strange as it is; and perhaps I may be an old fool for doing so,' rejoined the doctor; 'but I don't think it is exactly the tale for a practical police-officer, nevertheless.'",1 'Why not?',2 demanded Rose.,2 "'Because, my pretty cross-examiner,' replied the doctor: 'because, viewed with their eyes, there are many ugly points about it; he can only prove the parts that look ill, and none of those that look well.",3 "Confound the fellows, they _will_ have the why and the wherefore, and will take nothing for granted.",1 "On his own showing, you see, he has been the companion of thieves for some time past; he has been carried to a police-officer, on a charge of picking a gentleman's pocket; he has been taken away, forcibly, from that gentleman's house, to a place which he cannot describe or point out, and of the situation of which he has not the remotest idea.",2 "He is brought down to Chertsey, by men who seem to have taken a violent fancy to him, whether he will or no; and is put through a window to rob a house; and then, just at the very moment when he is going to alarm the inmates, and so do the very thing that would set him all to rights, there rushes into the way, a blundering dog of a half-bred butler, and shoots him!",1 As if on purpose to prevent his doing any good for himself!,3 Don't you see all this?',2 "'I see it, of course,' replied Rose, smiling at the doctor's impetuosity; 'but still I do not see anything in it, to criminate the poor child.'",2 "'No,' replied the doctor; 'of course not!",2 Bless the bright eyes of your sex!,3 "They never see, whether for good or bad, more than one side of any question; and that is, always, the one which first presents itself to them.'",2 "Having given vent to this result of experience, the doctor put his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the room with even greater rapidity than before.",1 "'The more I think of it,' said the doctor, 'the more I see that it will occasion endless trouble and difficulty if we put these men in possession of the boy's real story.",1 "I am certain it will not be believed; and even if they can do nothing to him in the end, still the dragging it forward, and giving publicity to all the doubts that will be cast upon it, must interfere, materially, with your benevolent plan of rescuing him from misery.'",0 'Oh!,2 what is to be done?',2 cried Rose.,2 "'Dear, dear!",2 why did they send for these people?',2 "'Why, indeed!'",2 exclaimed Mrs. Maylie.,2 "'I would not have had them here, for the world.'",2 "'All I know is,' said Mr. Losberne, at last: sitting down with a kind of desperate calmness, 'that we must try and carry it off with a bold face.",2 "The object is a good one, and that must be our excuse.",1 "The boy has strong symptoms of fever upon him, and is in no condition to be talked to any more; that's one comfort.",2 "We must make the best of it; and if bad be the best, it is no fault of ours.",1 Come in!',2 "'Well, master,' said Blathers, entering the room followed by his colleague, and making the door fast, before he said any more.",3 'This warn't a put-up thing.',2 'And what the devil's a put-up thing?',2 "demanded the doctor, impatiently.",1 "'We call it a put-up robbery, ladies,' said Blathers, turning to them, as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the doctor's, 'when the servants is in it.'",1 "'Nobody suspected them, in this case,' said Mrs. Maylie.",2 "'Wery likely not, ma'am,' replied Blathers; 'but they might have been in it, for all that.'",2 "'More likely on that wery account,' said Duff.",2 "'We find it was a town hand,' said Blathers, continuing his report; 'for the style of work is first-rate.'",3 "'Wery pretty indeed it is,' remarked Duff, in an undertone.",3 "'There was two of 'em in it,' continued Blathers; 'and they had a boy with 'em; that's plain from the size of the window.",2 That's all to be said at present.,2 "We'll see this lad that you've got upstairs at once, if you please.'",2 "'Perhaps they will take something to drink first, Mrs. Maylie?'",2 "said the doctor: his face brightening, as if some new thought had occurred to him.",2 'Oh!,2 to be sure!',2 "exclaimed Rose, eagerly.",3 "'You shall have it immediately, if you will.'",2 "'Why, thank you, miss!'",2 "said Blathers, drawing his coat-sleeve across his mouth; 'it's dry work, this sort of duty.",3 "Anythink that's handy, miss; don't put yourself out of the way, on our accounts.'",2 'What shall it be?',2 "asked the doctor, following the young lady to the sideboard.",2 "'A little drop of spirits, master, if it's all the same,' replied Blathers.",3 "'It's a cold ride from London, ma'am; and I always find that spirits comes home warmer to the feelings.'",2 "This interesting communication was addressed to Mrs. Maylie, who received it very graciously.",3 "While it was being conveyed to her, the doctor slipped out of the room.",2 'Ah!',2 "said Mr. Blathers: not holding his wine-glass by the stem, but grasping the bottom between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand: and placing it in front of his chest; 'I have seen a good many pieces of business like this, in my time, ladies.'",3 "'That crack down in the back lane at Edmonton, Blathers,' said Mr. Duff, assisting his colleague's memory.",1 "'That was something in this way, warn't it?'",2 "rejoined Mr. Blathers; 'that was done by Conkey Chickweed, that was.'",2 'You always gave that to him' replied Duff.,2 "'It was the Family Pet, I tell you.",2 Conkey hadn't any more to do with it than I had.',2 'Get out!',2 retorted Mr. Blathers; 'I know better.,3 "Do you mind that time when Conkey was robbed of his money, though?",2 What a start that was!,2 Better than any novel-book _I_ ever see!',3 'What was that?',2 inquired Rose: anxious to encourage any symptoms of good-humour in the unwelcome visitors.,2 "'It was a robbery, miss, that hardly anybody would have been down upon,' said Blathers.",1 "'This here Conkey Chickweed--' 'Conkey means Nosey, ma'am,' interposed Duff.",1 "'Of course the lady knows that, don't she?'",2 demanded Mr. Blathers.,2 "'Always interrupting, you are, partner!",2 "This here Conkey Chickweed, miss, kept a public-house over Battlebridge way, and he had a cellar, where a good many young lords went to see cock-fighting, and badger-drawing, and that; and a wery intellectual manner the sports was conducted in, for I've seen 'em off'en.",2 "He warn't one of the family, at that time; and one night he was robbed of three hundred and twenty-seven guineas in a canvas bag, that was stole out of his bedroom in the dead of night, by a tall man with a black patch over his eye, who had concealed himself under the bed, and after committing the robbery, jumped slap out of window: which was only a story high.",0 He was wery quick about it.,2 "But Conkey was quick, too; for he fired a blunderbuss arter him, and roused the neighbourhood.",2 "They set up a hue-and-cry, directly, and when they came to look about 'em, found that Conkey had hit the robber; for there was traces of blood, all the way to some palings a good distance off; and there they lost 'em.",1 "However, he had made off with the blunt; and, consequently, the name of Mr. Chickweed, licensed witler, appeared in the Gazette among the other bankrupts; and all manner of benefits and subscriptions, and I don't know what all, was got up for the poor man, who was in a wery low state of mind about his loss, and went up and down the streets, for three or four days, a pulling his hair off in such a desperate manner that many people was afraid he might be going to make away with himself.",0 "One day he came up to the office, all in a hurry, and had a private interview with the magistrate, who, after a deal of talk, rings the bell, and orders Jem Spyers in (Jem was a active officer), and tells him to go and assist Mr. Chickweed in apprehending the man as robbed his house.",2 """I see him, Spyers,"" said Chickweed, ""pass my house yesterday morning,"" ""Why didn't you up, and collar him!""",2 says Spyers.,2 """I was so struck all of a heap, that you might have fractured my skull with a toothpick,"" says the poor man; ""but we're sure to have him; for between ten and eleven o'clock at night he passed again.""",1 "Spyers no sooner heard this, than he put some clean linen and a comb, in his pocket, in case he should have to stop a day or two; and away he goes, and sets himself down at one of the public-house windows behind the little red curtain, with his hat on, all ready to bolt out, at a moment's notice.",3 "He was smoking his pipe here, late at night, when all of a sudden Chickweed roars out, ""Here he is!",2 Stop thief!,2 "Murder!""",1 "Jem Spyers dashes out; and there he sees Chickweed, a-tearing down the street full cry.",1 "Away goes Spyers; on goes Chickweed; round turns the people; everybody roars out, ""Thieves!""",2 "and Chickweed himself keeps on shouting, all the time, like mad.",2 "Spyers loses sight of him a minute as he turns a corner; shoots round; sees a little crowd; dives in; ""Which is the man?""",1 """D--me!""",2 "says Chickweed, ""I've lost him again!""",1 "It was a remarkable occurrence, but he warn't to be seen nowhere, so they went back to the public-house.",3 "Next morning, Spyers took his old place, and looked out, from behind the curtain, for a tall man with a black patch over his eye, till his own two eyes ached again.",1 "At last, he couldn't help shutting 'em, to ease 'em a minute; and the very moment he did so, he hears Chickweed a-roaring out, ""Here he is!""",3 "Off he starts once more, with Chickweed half-way down the street ahead of him; and after twice as long a run as the yesterday's one, the man's lost again!",1 "This was done, once or twice more, till one-half the neighbours gave out that Mr. Chickweed had been robbed by the devil, who was playing tricks with him arterwards; and the other half, that poor Mr. Chickweed had gone mad with grief.'",0 'What did Jem Spyers say?',2 inquired the doctor; who had returned to the room shortly after the commencement of the story.,2 "'Jem Spyers,' resumed the officer, 'for a long time said nothing at all, and listened to everything without seeming to, which showed he understood his business.",2 "But, one morning, he walked into the bar, and taking out his snuffbox, says ""Chickweed, I've found out who done this here robbery.""",2 """Have you?""",2 said Chickweed.,2 """Oh, my dear Spyers, only let me have wengeance, and I shall die contented!",1 "Oh, my dear Spyers, where is the villain!""",2 """Come!""",2 "said Spyers, offering him a pinch of snuff, ""none of that gammon!",1 "You did it yourself.""",2 "So he had; and a good bit of money he had made by it, too; and nobody would never have found it out, if he hadn't been so precious anxious to keep up appearances!'",3 "said Mr. Blathers, putting down his wine-glass, and clinking the handcuffs together.",2 "'Very curious, indeed,' observed the doctor.",2 "'Now, if you please, you can walk upstairs.'",2 "'If _you_ please, sir,' returned Mr. Blathers.",2 "Closely following Mr. Losberne, the two officers ascended to Oliver's bedroom; Mr. Giles preceding the party, with a lighted candle.",2 "Oliver had been dozing; but looked worse, and was more feverish than he had appeared yet.",1 "Being assisted by the doctor, he managed to sit up in bed for a minute or so; and looked at the strangers without at all understanding what was going forward--in fact, without seeming to recollect where he was, or what had been passing.",2 "'This,' said Mr. Losberne, speaking softly, but with great vehemence notwithstanding, 'this is the lad, who, being accidently wounded by a spring-gun in some boyish trespass on Mr. What-d' ye-call-him's grounds, at the back here, comes to the house for assistance this morning, and is immediately laid hold of and maltreated, by that ingenious gentleman with the candle in his hand: who has placed his life in considerable danger, as I can professionally certify.'",3 Messrs.,2 "Blathers and Duff looked at Mr. Giles, as he was thus recommended to their notice.",3 "The bewildered butler gazed from them towards Oliver, and from Oliver towards Mr. Losberne, with a most ludicrous mixture of fear and perplexity.",0 "'You don't mean to deny that, I suppose?'",1 "said the doctor, laying Oliver gently down again.",2 "'It was all done for the--for the best, sir,' answered Giles.",3 "'I am sure I thought it was the boy, or I wouldn't have meddled with him.",2 "I am not of an inhuman disposition, sir.'",1 'Thought it was what boy?',2 inquired the senior officer.,2 "'The housebreaker's boy, sir!'",2 replied Giles.,2 'They--they certainly had a boy.',2 'Well?,2 Do you think so now?',2 inquired Blathers.,2 "'Think what, now?'",2 "replied Giles, looking vacantly at his questioner.",2 "'Think it's the same boy, Stupid-head?'",1 "rejoined Blathers, impatiently.",1 "'I don't know; I really don't know,' said Giles, with a rueful countenance.",2 'I couldn't swear to him.',2 'What do you think?',2 asked Mr. Blathers.,2 "'I don't know what to think,' replied poor Giles.",1 "'I don't think it is the boy; indeed, I'm almost certain that it isn't.",2 You know it can't be.',2 "'Has this man been a-drinking, sir?'",2 "inquired Blathers, turning to the doctor.",2 'What a precious muddle-headed chap you are!',2 "said Duff, addressing Mr. Giles, with supreme contempt.",2 "Mr. Losberne had been feeling the patient's pulse during this short dialogue; but he now rose from the chair by the bedside, and remarked, that if the officers had any doubts upon the subject, they would perhaps like to step into the next room, and have Brittles before them.",2 "Acting upon this suggestion, they adjourned to a neighbouring apartment, where Mr. Brittles, being called in, involved himself and his respected superior in such a wonderful maze of fresh contradictions and impossibilities, as tended to throw no particular light on anything, but the fact of his own strong mystification; except, indeed, his declarations that he shouldn't know the real boy, if he were put before him that instant; that he had only taken Oliver to be he, because Mr. Giles had said he was; and that Mr. Giles had, five minutes previously, admitted in the kitchen, that he began to be very much afraid he had been a little too hasty.",3 "Among other ingenious surmises, the question was then raised, whether Mr. Giles had really hit anybody; and upon examination of the fellow pistol to that which he had fired, it turned out to have no more destructive loading than gunpowder and brown paper: a discovery which made a considerable impression on everybody but the doctor, who had drawn the ball about ten minutes before.",2 "Upon no one, however, did it make a greater impression than on Mr. Giles himself; who, after labouring, for some hours, under the fear of having mortally wounded a fellow-creature, eagerly caught at this new idea, and favoured it to the utmost.",2 "Finally, the officers, without troubling themselves very much about Oliver, left the Chertsey constable in the house, and took up their rest for that night in the town; promising to return the next morning.",2 "With the next morning, there came a rumour, that two men and a boy were in the cage at Kingston, who had been apprehended over night under suspicious circumstances; and to Kingston Messrs.",1 Blathers and Duff journeyed accordingly.,2 "The suspicious circumstances, however, resolving themselves, on investigation, into the one fact, that they had been discovered sleeping under a haystack; which, although a great crime, is only punishable by imprisonment, and is, in the merciful eye of the English law, and its comprehensive love of all the King's subjects, held to be no satisfactory proof, in the absence of all other evidence, that the sleeper, or sleepers, have committed burglary accompanied with violence, and have therefore rendered themselves liable to the punishment of death; Messrs.",1 "Blathers and Duff came back again, as wise as they went.",3 "In short, after some more examination, and a great deal more conversation, a neighbouring magistrate was readily induced to take the joint bail of Mrs. Maylie and Mr. Losberne for Oliver's appearance if he should ever be called upon; and Blathers and Duff, being rewarded with a couple of guineas, returned to town with divided opinions on the subject of their expedition: the latter gentleman on a mature consideration of all the circumstances, inclining to the belief that the burglarious attempt had originated with the Family Pet; and the former being equally disposed to concede the full merit of it to the great Mr. Conkey Chickweed.",4 "Meanwhile, Oliver gradually throve and prospered under the united care of Mrs. Maylie, Rose, and the kind-hearted Mr. Losberne.",2 "If fervent prayers, gushing from hearts overcharged with gratitude, be heard in heaven--and if they be not, what prayers are!--the blessings which the orphan child called down upon them, sunk into their souls, diffusing peace and happiness.",4 Oliver's ailings were neither slight nor few.,2 "In addition to the pain and delay attendant on a broken limb, his exposure to the wet and cold had brought on fever and ague: which hung about him for many weeks, and reduced him sadly.",0 "But, at length, he began, by slow degrees, to get better, and to be able to say sometimes, in a few tearful words, how deeply he felt the goodness of the two sweet ladies, and how ardently he hoped that when he grew strong and well again, he could do something to show his gratitude; only something, which would let them see the love and duty with which his breast was full; something, however slight, which would prove to them that their gentle kindness had not been cast away; but that the poor boy whom their charity had rescued from misery, or death, was eager to serve them with his whole heart and soul.",4 'Poor fellow!',2 "said Rose, when Oliver had been one day feebly endeavouring to utter the words of thankfulness that rose to his pale lips; 'you shall have many opportunities of serving us, if you will.",1 "We are going into the country, and my aunt intends that you shall accompany us.",2 "The quiet place, the pure air, and all the pleasure and beauties of spring, will restore you in a few days.",4 "We will employ you in a hundred ways, when you can bear the trouble.'",1 'The trouble!',1 cried Oliver.,2 'Oh!,2 "dear lady, if I could but work for you; if I could only give you pleasure by watering your flowers, or watching your birds, or running up and down the whole day long, to make you happy; what would I give to do it!'",4 "'You shall give nothing at all,' said Miss Maylie, smiling; 'for, as I told you before, we shall employ you in a hundred ways; and if you only take half the trouble to please us, that you promise now, you will make me very happy indeed.'",3 "'Happy, ma'am!'",2 cried Oliver; 'how kind of you to say so!',2 "'You will make me happier than I can tell you,' replied the young lady.",3 "'To think that my dear good aunt should have been the means of rescuing any one from such sad misery as you have described to us, would be an unspeakable pleasure to me; but to know that the object of her goodness and compassion was sincerely grateful and attached, in consequence, would delight me, more than you can well imagine.",4 Do you understand me?',2 "she inquired, watching Oliver's thoughtful face.",3 "'Oh yes, ma'am, yes!'",2 replied Oliver eagerly; 'but I was thinking that I am ungrateful now.',2 'To whom?',2 inquired the young lady.,2 "'To the kind gentleman, and the dear old nurse, who took so much care of me before,' rejoined Oliver.",2 "'If they knew how happy I am, they would be pleased, I am sure.'",3 "'I am sure they would,' rejoined Oliver's benefactress; 'and Mr. Losberne has already been kind enough to promise that when you are well enough to bear the journey, he will carry you to see them.'",4 "'Has he, ma'am?'",2 "cried Oliver, his face brightening with pleasure.",3 'I don't know what I shall do for joy when I see their kind faces once again!',3 In a short time Oliver was sufficiently recovered to undergo the fatigue of this expedition.,2 "One morning he and Mr. Losberne set out, accordingly, in a little carriage which belonged to Mrs. Maylie.",2 "When they came to Chertsey Bridge, Oliver turned very pale, and uttered a loud exclamation.",1 'What's the matter with the boy?',2 "cried the doctor, as usual, all in a bustle.",2 'Do you see anything--hear anything--feel anything--eh?',2 "'That, sir,' cried Oliver, pointing out of the carriage window.",2 'That house!',2 "'Yes; well, what of it?",3 Stop coachman.,2 "Pull up here,' cried the doctor.",2 "'What of the house, my man; eh?'",2 'The thieves--the house they took me to!',2 whispered Oliver.,2 'The devil it is!',1 cried the doctor.,2 "'Hallo, there!",2 let me out!',2 "But, before the coachman could dismount from his box, he had tumbled out of the coach, by some means or other; and, running down to the deserted tenement, began kicking at the door like a madman.",1 'Halloa?',2 "said a little ugly hump-backed man: opening the door so suddenly, that the doctor, from the very impetus of his last kick, nearly fell forward into the passage.",1 'What's the matter here?',2 'Matter!',2 "exclaimed the other, collaring him, without a moment's reflection.",2 'A good deal.,3 Robbery is the matter.',2 "'There'll be Murder the matter, too,' replied the hump-backed man, coolly, 'if you don't take your hands off.",1 Do you hear me?',2 "'I hear you,' said the doctor, giving his captive a hearty shake.",1 "'Where's--confound the fellow, what's his rascally name--Sikes; that's it.",1 "Where's Sikes, you thief?'",2 "The hump-backed man stared, as if in excess of amazement and indignation; then, twisting himself, dexterously, from the doctor's grasp, growled forth a volley of horrid oaths, and retired into the house.",2 "Before he could shut the door, however, the doctor had passed into the parlour, without a word of parley.",2 "He looked anxiously round; not an article of furniture; not a vestige of anything, animate or inanimate; not even the position of the cupboards; answered Oliver's description!",1 'Now!',2 "said the hump-backed man, who had watched him keenly, 'what do you mean by coming into my house, in this violent way?",2 "Do you want to rob me, or to murder me?",1 Which is it?',2 "'Did you ever know a man come out to do either, in a chariot and pair, you ridiculous old vampire?'",1 said the irritable doctor.,1 "'What do you want, then?'",2 demanded the hunchback.,2 "'Will you take yourself off, before I do you a mischief?",1 Curse you!',1 "'As soon as I think proper,' said Mr. Losberne, looking into the other parlour; which, like the first, bore no resemblance whatever to Oliver's account of it.",3 "'I shall find you out, some day, my friend.'",2 'Will you?',2 sneered the ill-favoured cripple.,1 "'If you ever want me, I'm here.",2 "I haven't lived here mad and all alone, for five-and-twenty years, to be scared by you.",1 You shall pay for this; you shall pay for this.',2 "And so saying, the mis-shapen little demon set up a yell, and danced upon the ground, as if wild with rage.",0 "'Stupid enough, this,' muttered the doctor to himself; 'the boy must have made a mistake.",2 Here!,2 "Put that in your pocket, and shut yourself up again.'",2 "With these words he flung the hunchback a piece of money, and returned to the carriage.",2 "The man followed to the chariot door, uttering the wildest imprecations and curses all the way; but as Mr. Losberne turned to speak to the driver, he looked into the carriage, and eyed Oliver for an instant with a glance so sharp and fierce and at the same time so furious and vindictive, that, waking or sleeping, he could not forget it for months afterwards.",0 "He continued to utter the most fearful imprecations, until the driver had resumed his seat; and when they were once more on their way, they could see him some distance behind: beating his feet upon the ground, and tearing his hair, in transports of real or pretended rage.",1 'I am an ass!',2 "said the doctor, after a long silence.",2 "'Did you know that before, Oliver?'",2 "'No, sir.'",2 'Then don't forget it another time.',2 "'An ass,' said the doctor again, after a further silence of some minutes.",2 "'Even if it had been the right place, and the right fellows had been there, what could I have done, single-handed?",3 "And if I had had assistance, I see no good that I should have done, except leading to my own exposure, and an unavoidable statement of the manner in which I have hushed up this business.",3 "That would have served me right, though.",3 "I am always involving myself in some scrape or other, by acting on impulse.",2 It might have done me good.',3 "Now, the fact was that the excellent doctor had never acted upon anything but impulse all through his life, and it was no bad compliment to the nature of the impulses which governed him, that so far from being involved in any peculiar troubles or misfortunes, he had the warmest respect and esteem of all who knew him.",2 "If the truth must be told, he was a little out of temper, for a minute or two, at being disappointed in procuring corroborative evidence of Oliver's story on the very first occasion on which he had a chance of obtaining any.",1 "He soon came round again, however; and finding that Oliver's replies to his questions, were still as straightforward and consistent, and still delivered with as much apparent sincerity and truth, as they had ever been, he made up his mind to attach full credence to them, from that time forth.",4 "As Oliver knew the name of the street in which Mr. Brownlow resided, they were enabled to drive straight thither.",2 "When the coach turned into it, his heart beat so violently, that he could scarcely draw his breath.",1 "'Now, my boy, which house is it?'",2 inquired Mr. Losberne.,2 'That!,2 That!',2 "replied Oliver, pointing eagerly out of the window.",3 'The white house.,2 Oh!,2 make haste!,1 Pray make haste!,1 I feel as if I should die: it makes me tremble so.',1 "'Come, come!'",2 "said the good doctor, patting him on the shoulder.",3 "'You will see them directly, and they will be overjoyed to find you safe and well.'",4 'Oh!,2 I hope so!',2 cried Oliver.,2 "'They were so good to me; so very, very good to me.'",3 The coach rolled on.,2 It stopped.,2 No; that was the wrong house; the next door.,1 "It went on a few paces, and stopped again.",2 "Oliver looked up at the windows, with tears of happy expectation coursing down his face.",3 Alas!,2 "the white house was empty, and there was a bill in the window.",2 'To Let.',2 "'Knock at the next door,' cried Mr. Losberne, taking Oliver's arm in his.",2 "'What has become of Mr. Brownlow, who used to live in the adjoining house, do you know?'",2 The servant did not know; but would go and inquire.,2 "She presently returned, and said, that Mr. Brownlow had sold off his goods, and gone to the West Indies, six weeks before.",2 "Oliver clasped his hands, and sank feebly backward.",1 'Has his housekeeper gone too?',2 "inquired Mr. Losberne, after a moment's pause.",2 "'Yes, sir'; replied the servant.",2 "'The old gentleman, the housekeeper, and a gentleman who was a friend of Mr. Brownlow's, all went together.'",2 "'Then turn towards home again,' said Mr. Losberne to the driver; 'and don't stop to bait the horses, till you get out of this confounded London!'",1 "'The book-stall keeper, sir?'",1 said Oliver.,2 'I know the way there.,2 "See him, pray, sir!",2 Do see him!',2 "'My poor boy, this is disappointment enough for one day,' said the doctor.",1 'Quite enough for both of us.,3 "If we go to the book-stall keeper's, we shall certainly find that he is dead, or has set his house on fire, or run away.",1 No; home again straight!',2 "And in obedience to the doctor's impulse, home they went.",2 "This bitter disappointment caused Oliver much sorrow and grief, even in the midst of his happiness; for he had pleased himself, many times during his illness, with thinking of all that Mr. Brownlow and Mrs. Bedwin would say to him: and what delight it would be to tell them how many long days and nights he had passed in reflecting on what they had done for him, and in bewailing his cruel separation from them.",0 "The hope of eventually clearing himself with them, too, and explaining how he had been forced away, had buoyed him up, and sustained him, under many of his recent trials; and now, the idea that they should have gone so far, and carried with them the belief that he was an impostor and a robber--a belief which might remain uncontradicted to his dying day--was almost more than he could bear.",1 "The circumstance occasioned no alteration, however, in the behaviour of his benefactors.",2 "After another fortnight, when the fine warm weather had fairly begun, and every tree and flower was putting forth its young leaves and rich blossoms, they made preparations for quitting the house at Chertsey, for some months.",4 "Sending the plate, which had so excited Fagin's cupidity, to the banker's; and leaving Giles and another servant in care of the house, they departed to a cottage at some distance in the country, and took Oliver with them.",3 "Who can describe the pleasure and delight, the peace of mind and soft tranquillity, the sickly boy felt in the balmy air, and among the green hills and rich woods, of an inland village!",4 "Who can tell how scenes of peace and quietude sink into the minds of pain-worn dwellers in close and noisy places, and carry their own freshness, deep into their jaded hearts!",0 "Men who have lived in crowded, pent-up streets, through lives of toil, and who have never wished for change; men, to whom custom has indeed been second nature, and who have come almost to love each brick and stone that formed the narrow boundaries of their daily walks; even they, with the hand of death upon them, have been known to yearn at last for one short glimpse of Nature's face; and, carried far from the scenes of their old pains and pleasures, have seemed to pass at once into a new state of being.",0 "Crawling forth, from day to day, to some green sunny spot, they have had such memories wakened up within them by the sight of the sky, and hill and plain, and glistening water, that a foretaste of heaven itself has soothed their quick decline, and they have sunk into their tombs, as peacefully as the sun whose setting they watched from their lonely chamber window but a few hours before, faded from their dim and feeble sight!",1 "The memories which peaceful country scenes call up, are not of this world, nor of its thoughts and hopes.",3 "Their gentle influence may teach us how to weave fresh garlands for the graves of those we loved: may purify our thoughts, and bear down before it old enmity and hatred; but beneath all this, there lingers, in the least reflective mind, a vague and half-formed consciousness of having held such feelings long before, in some remote and distant time, which calls up solemn thoughts of distant times to come, and bends down pride and worldliness beneath it.",3 It was a lovely spot to which they repaired.,3 "Oliver, whose days had been spent among squalid crowds, and in the midst of noise and brawling, seemed to enter on a new existence there.",1 The rose and honeysuckle clung to the cottage walls; the ivy crept round the trunks of the trees; and the garden-flowers perfumed the air with delicious odours.,2 "Hard by, was a little churchyard; not crowded with tall unsightly gravestones, but full of humble mounds, covered with fresh turf and moss: beneath which, the old people of the village lay at rest.",2 "Oliver often wandered here; and, thinking of the wretched grave in which his mother lay, would sometimes sit him down and sob unseen; but, when he raised his eyes to the deep sky overhead, he would cease to think of her as lying in the ground, and would weep for her, sadly, but without pain.",0 It was a happy time.,3 "The days were peaceful and serene; the nights brought with them neither fear nor care; no languishing in a wretched prison, or associating with wretched men; nothing but pleasant and happy thoughts.",3 "Every morning he went to a white-headed old gentleman, who lived near the little church: who taught him to read better, and to write: and who spoke so kindly, and took such pains, that Oliver could never try enough to please him.",3 "Then, he would walk with Mrs. Maylie and Rose, and hear them talk of books; or perhaps sit near them, in some shady place, and listen whilst the young lady read: which he could have done, until it grew too dark to see the letters.",1 "Then, he had his own lesson for the next day to prepare; and at this, he would work hard, in a little room which looked into the garden, till evening came slowly on, when the ladies would walk out again, and he with them: listening with such pleasure to all they said: and so happy if they wanted a flower that he could climb to reach, or had forgotten anything he could run to fetch: that he could never be quick enough about it.",3 "When it became quite dark, and they returned home, the young lady would sit down to the piano, and play some pleasant air, or sing, in a low and gentle voice, some old song which it pleased her aunt to hear.",3 "There would be no candles lighted at such times as these; and Oliver would sit by one of the windows, listening to the sweet music, in a perfect rapture.",4 "And when Sunday came, how differently the day was spent, from any way in which he had ever spent it yet!",2 and how happily too; like all the other days in that most happy time!,4 "There was the little church, in the morning, with the green leaves fluttering at the windows: the birds singing without: and the sweet-smelling air stealing in at the low porch, and filling the homely building with its fragrance.",1 "The poor people were so neat and clean, and knelt so reverently in prayer, that it seemed a pleasure, not a tedious duty, their assembling there together; and though the singing might be rude, it was real, and sounded more musical (to Oliver's ears at least) than any he had ever heard in church before.",3 "Then, there were the walks as usual, and many calls at the clean houses of the labouring men; and at night, Oliver read a chapter or two from the Bible, which he had been studying all the week, and in the performance of which duty he felt more proud and pleased, than if he had been the clergyman himself.",4 "In the morning, Oliver would be a-foot by six o'clock, roaming the fields, and plundering the hedges, far and wide, for nosegays of wild flowers, with which he would return laden, home; and which it took great care and consideration to arrange, to the best advantage, for the embellishment of the breakfast-table.",3 "There was fresh groundsel, too, for Miss Maylie's birds, with which Oliver, who had been studying the subject under the able tuition of the village clerk, would decorate the cages, in the most approved taste.",2 "When the birds were made all spruce and smart for the day, there was usually some little commission of charity to execute in the village; or, failing that, there was rare cricket-playing, sometimes, on the green; or, failing that, there was always something to do in the garden, or about the plants, to which Oliver (who had studied this science also, under the same master, who was a gardener by trade,) applied himself with hearty good-will, until Miss Rose made her appearance: when there were a thousand commendations to be bestowed on all he had done.",3 "So three months glided away; three months which, in the life of the most blessed and favoured of mortals, might have been unmingled happiness, and which, in Oliver's were true felicity.",3 "With the purest and most amiable generosity on one side; and the truest, warmest, soul-felt gratitude on the other; it is no wonder that, by the end of that short time, Oliver Twist had become completely domesticated with the old lady and her niece, and that the fervent attachment of his young and sensitive heart, was repaid by their pride in, and attachment to, himself.",4 "Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came.",2 If the village had been beautiful at first it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its richness.,4 "The great trees, which had looked shrunken and bare in the earlier months, had now burst into strong life and health; and stretching forth their green arms over the thirsty ground, converted open and naked spots into choice nooks, where was a deep and pleasant shade from which to look upon the wide prospect, steeped in sunshine, which lay stretched beyond.",4 The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad.,3 It was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing.,3 "Still, the same quiet life went on at the little cottage, and the same cheerful serenity prevailed among its inmates.",4 Oliver had long since grown stout and healthy; but health or sickness made no difference in his warm feelings of a great many people.,3 "He was still the same gentle, attached, affectionate creature that he had been when pain and suffering had wasted his strength, and when he was dependent for every slight attention, and comfort on those who tended him.",2 "One beautiful night, when they had taken a longer walk than was customary with them: for the day had been unusually warm, and there was a brilliant moon, and a light wind had sprung up, which was unusually refreshing.",4 "Rose had been in high spirits, too, and they had walked on, in merry conversation, until they had far exceeded their ordinary bounds.",3 "Mrs. Maylie being fatigued, they returned more slowly home.",1 "The young lady merely throwing off her simple bonnet, sat down to the piano as usual.",2 "After running abstractedly over the keys for a few minutes, she fell into a low and very solemn air; and as she played it, they heard a sound as if she were weeping.",1 "'Rose, my dear!'",2 said the elder lady.,2 "Rose made no reply, but played a little quicker, as though the words had roused her from some painful thoughts.",2 "'Rose, my love!'",3 "cried Mrs. Maylie, rising hastily, and bending over her.",1 'What is this?,2 In tears!,2 "My dear child, what distresses you?'",2 "'Nothing, aunt; nothing,' replied the young lady.",2 "'I don't know what it is; I can't describe it; but I feel--' 'Not ill, my love?'",3 interposed Mrs. Maylie.,2 "'No, no!",2 "Oh, not ill!'",2 "replied Rose: shuddering as though some deadly chillness were passing over her, while she spoke; 'I shall be better presently.",2 "Close the window, pray!'",2 Oliver hastened to comply with her request.,2 "The young lady, making an effort to recover her cheerfulness, strove to play some livelier tune; but her fingers dropped powerless over the keys.",2 "Covering her face with her hands, she sank upon a sofa, and gave vent to the tears which she was now unable to repress.",0 'My child!',2 "said the elderly lady, folding her arms about her, 'I never saw you so before.'",2 "'I would not alarm you if I could avoid it,' rejoined Rose; 'but indeed I have tried very hard, and cannot help this.",1 "I fear I _am_ ill, aunt.'",1 "She was, indeed; for, when candles were brought, they saw that in the very short time which had elapsed since their return home, the hue of her countenance had changed to a marble whiteness.",2 "Its expression had lost nothing of its beauty; but it was changed; and there was an anxious haggard look about the gentle face, which it had never worn before.",1 "Another minute, and it was suffused with a crimson flush: and a heavy wildness came over the soft blue eye.",3 "Again this disappeared, like the shadow thrown by a passing cloud; and she was once more deadly pale.",1 "Oliver, who watched the old lady anxiously, observed that she was alarmed by these appearances; and so in truth, was he; but seeing that she affected to make light of them, he endeavoured to do the same, and they so far succeeded, that when Rose was persuaded by her aunt to retire for the night, she was in better spirits; and appeared even in better health: assuring them that she felt certain she should rise in the morning, quite well.",3 "'I hope,' said Oliver, when Mrs. Maylie returned, 'that nothing is the matter?",2 "She don't look well to-night, but--' The old lady motioned to him not to speak; and sitting herself down in a dark corner of the room, remained silent for some time.",3 "At length, she said, in a trembling voice: 'I hope not, Oliver.",2 "I have been very happy with her for some years: too happy, perhaps.",3 It may be time that I should meet with some misfortune; but I hope it is not this.',1 'What?',2 inquired Oliver.,2 "'The heavy blow,' said the old lady, 'of losing the dear girl who has so long been my comfort and happiness.'",2 'Oh!,2 God forbid!',1 "exclaimed Oliver, hastily.",1 "'Amen to that, my child!'",2 "said the old lady, wringing her hands.",2 'Surely there is no danger of anything so dreadful?',1 said Oliver.,2 "'Two hours ago, she was quite well.'",3 "'She is very ill now,' rejoined Mrs. Maylies; 'and will be worse, I am sure.",1 "My dear, dear Rose!",2 "Oh, what shall I do without her!'",2 "She gave way to such great grief, that Oliver, suppressing his own emotion, ventured to remonstrate with her; and to beg, earnestly, that, for the sake of the dear young lady herself, she would be more calm.",3 "'And consider, ma'am,' said Oliver, as the tears forced themselves into his eyes, despite of his efforts to the contrary.",2 'Oh!,2 "consider how young and good she is, and what pleasure and comfort she gives to all about her.",4 "I am sure--certain--quite certain--that, for your sake, who are so good yourself; and for her own; and for the sake of all she makes so happy; she will not die.",3 Heaven will never let her die so young.',2 'Hush!',2 "said Mrs. Maylie, laying her hand on Oliver's head.",2 "'You think like a child, poor boy.",2 "But you teach me my duty, notwithstanding.",2 "I had forgotten it for a moment, Oliver, but I hope I may be pardoned, for I am old, and have seen enough of illness and death to know the agony of separation from the objects of our love.",1 "I have seen enough, too, to know that it is not always the youngest and best who are spared to those that love them; but this should give us comfort in our sorrow; for Heaven is just; and such things teach us, impressively, that there is a brighter world than this; and that the passage to it is speedy.",4 God's will be done!,2 I love her; and He knows how well!',3 "Oliver was surprised to see that as Mrs. Maylie said these words, she checked her lamentations as though by one effort; and drawing herself up as she spoke, became composed and firm.",2 "He was still more astonished to find that this firmness lasted; and that, under all the care and watching which ensued, Mrs. Maylie was ever ready and collected: performing all the duties which had devolved upon her, steadily, and, to all external appearances, even cheerfully.",3 "But he was young, and did not know what strong minds are capable of, under trying circumstances.",3 "How should he, when their possessors so seldom know themselves?",2 An anxious night ensued.,1 "When morning came, Mrs. Maylie's predictions were but too well verified.",3 Rose was in the first stage of a high and dangerous fever.,1 "'We must be active, Oliver, and not give way to useless grief,' said Mrs. Maylie, laying her finger on her lip, as she looked steadily into his face; 'this letter must be sent, with all possible expedition, to Mr. Losberne.",1 "It must be carried to the market-town: which is not more than four miles off, by the footpath across the field: and thence dispatched, by an express on horseback, straight to Chertsey.",2 "The people at the inn will undertake to do this: and I can trust to you to see it done, I know.'",3 "Oliver could make no reply, but looked his anxiety to be gone at once.",1 "'Here is another letter,' said Mrs. Maylie, pausing to reflect; 'but whether to send it now, or wait until I see how Rose goes on, I scarcely know.",1 "I would not forward it, unless I feared the worst.'",1 "'Is it for Chertsey, too, ma'am?'",2 "inquired Oliver; impatient to execute his commission, and holding out his trembling hand for the letter.",1 "'No,' replied the old lady, giving it to him mechanically.",2 "Oliver glanced at it, and saw that it was directed to Harry Maylie, Esquire, at some great lord's house in the country; where, he could not make out.",3 "'Shall it go, ma'am?'",2 "asked Oliver, looking up, impatiently.",1 "'I think not,' replied Mrs. Maylie, taking it back.",2 'I will wait until to-morrow.',2 "With these words, she gave Oliver her purse, and he started off, without more delay, at the greatest speed he could muster.",2 "Swiftly he ran across the fields, and down the little lanes which sometimes divided them: now almost hidden by the high corn on either side, and now emerging on an open field, where the mowers and haymakers were busy at their work: nor did he stop once, save now and then, for a few seconds, to recover breath, until he came, in a great heat, and covered with dust, on the little market-place of the market-town.",3 "Here he paused, and looked about for the inn.",2 "There were a white bank, and a red brewery, and a yellow town-hall; and in one corner there was a large house, with all the wood about it painted green: before which was the sign of 'The George.'",2 "To this he hastened, as soon as it caught his eye.",2 "He spoke to a postboy who was dozing under the gateway; and who, after hearing what he wanted, referred him to the ostler; who after hearing all he had to say again, referred him to the landlord; who was a tall gentleman in a blue neckcloth, a white hat, drab breeches, and boots with tops to match, leaning against a pump by the stable-door, picking his teeth with a silver toothpick.",3 "This gentleman walked with much deliberation into the bar to make out the bill: which took a long time making out: and after it was ready, and paid, a horse had to be saddled, and a man to be dressed, which took up ten good minutes more.",3 "Meanwhile Oliver was in such a desperate state of impatience and anxiety, that he felt as if he could have jumped upon the horse himself, and galloped away, full tear, to the next stage.",0 "At length, all was ready; and the little parcel having been handed up, with many injunctions and entreaties for its speedy delivery, the man set spurs to his horse, and rattling over the uneven paving of the market-place, was out of the town, and galloping along the turnpike-road, in a couple of minutes.",3 "As it was something to feel certain that assistance was sent for, and that no time had been lost, Oliver hurried up the inn-yard, with a somewhat lighter heart.",2 "He was turning out of the gateway when he accidently stumbled against a tall man wrapped in a cloak, who was at that moment coming out of the inn door.",1 'Hah!',2 "cried the man, fixing his eyes on Oliver, and suddenly recoiling.",2 'What the devil's this?',2 "'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Oliver; 'I was in a great hurry to get home, and didn't see you were coming.'",3 'Death!',2 "muttered the man to himself, glaring at the boy with his large dark eyes.",1 'Who would have thought it!,2 Grind him to ashes!,1 "He'd start up from a stone coffin, to come in my way!'",2 "'I am sorry,' stammered Oliver, confused by the strange man's wild look.",0 'I hope I have not hurt you!',1 'Rot you!',2 "murmured the man, in a horrible passion; between his clenched teeth; 'if I had only had the courage to say the word, I might have been free of you in a night.",3 "Curses on your head, and black death on your heart, you imp!",1 What are you doing here?',2 "The man shook his fist, as he uttered these words incoherently.",1 "He advanced towards Oliver, as if with the intention of aiming a blow at him, but fell violently on the ground: writhing and foaming, in a fit.",1 "Oliver gazed, for a moment, at the struggles of the madman (for such he supposed him to be); and then darted into the house for help.",1 "Having seen him safely carried into the hotel, he turned his face homewards, running as fast as he could, to make up for lost time: and recalling with a great deal of astonishment and some fear, the extraordinary behaviour of the person from whom he had just parted.",4 "The circumstance did not dwell in his recollection long, however: for when he reached the cottage, there was enough to occupy his mind, and to drive all considerations of self completely from his memory.",3 Rose Maylie had rapidly grown worse; before mid-night she was delirious.,1 "A medical practitioner, who resided on the spot, was in constant attendance upon her; and after first seeing the patient, he had taken Mrs. Maylie aside, and pronounced her disorder to be one of a most alarming nature.",1 "'In fact,' he said, 'it would be little short of a miracle, if she recovered.'",3 "How often did Oliver start from his bed that night, and stealing out, with noiseless footstep, to the staircase, listen for the slightest sound from the sick chamber!",1 "How often did a tremble shake his frame, and cold drops of terror start upon his brow, when a sudden trampling of feet caused him to fear that something too dreadful to think of, had even then occurred!",0 "And what had been the fervency of all the prayers he had ever muttered, compared with those he poured forth, now, in the agony and passion of his supplication for the life and health of the gentle creature, who was tottering on the deep grave's verge!",3 Oh!,2 "the suspense, the fearful, acute suspense, of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, is trembling in the balance!",2 Oh!,2 "the racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind, and make the heart beat violently, and the breath come thick, by the force of the images they conjure up before it; the desperate anxiety _to be doing something_ to relieve the pain, or lessen the danger, which we have no power to alleviate; the sinking of soul and spirit, which the sad remembrance of our helplessness produces; what tortures can equal these; what reflections or endeavours can, in the full tide and fever of the time, allay them!",0 Morning came; and the little cottage was lonely and still.,1 "People spoke in whispers; anxious faces appeared at the gate, from time to time; women and children went away in tears.",1 "All the livelong day, and for hours after it had grown dark, Oliver paced softly up and down the garden, raising his eyes every instant to the sick chamber, and shuddering to see the darkened window, looking as if death lay stretched inside.",0 "Late that night, Mr. Losberne arrived.",2 "'It is hard,' said the good doctor, turning away as he spoke; 'so young; so much beloved; but there is very little hope.'",3 Another morning.,2 "The sun shone brightly; as brightly as if it looked upon no misery or care; and, with every leaf and flower in full bloom about her; with life, and health, and sounds and sights of joy, surrounding her on every side: the fair young creature lay, wasting fast.",3 "Oliver crept away to the old churchyard, and sitting down on one of the green mounds, wept and prayed for her, in silence.",1 "There was such peace and beauty in the scene; so much of brightness and mirth in the sunny landscape; such blithesome music in the songs of the summer birds; such freedom in the rapid flight of the rook, careering overhead; so much of life and joyousness in all; that, when the boy raised his aching eyes, and looked about, the thought instinctively occurred to him, that this was not a time for death; that Rose could surely never die when humbler things were all so glad and gay; that graves were for cold and cheerless winter: not for sunlight and fragrance.",2 He almost thought that shrouds were for the old and shrunken; and that they never wrapped the young and graceful form in their ghastly folds.,2 A knell from the church bell broke harshly on these youthful thoughts.,1 Another!,2 Again!,2 It was tolling for the funeral service.,2 A group of humble mourners entered the gate: wearing white favours; for the corpse was young.,3 They stood uncovered by a grave; and there was a mother--a mother once--among the weeping train.,2 "But the sun shone brightly, and the birds sang on.",2 "Oliver turned homeward, thinking on the many kindnesses he had received from the young lady, and wishing that the time could come again, that he might never cease showing her how grateful and attached he was.",3 "He had no cause for self-reproach on the score of neglect, or want of thought, for he had been devoted to her service; and yet a hundred little occasions rose up before him, on which he fancied he might have been more zealous, and more earnest, and wished he had been.",1 "We need be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done--of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired!",1 "There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time.",1 When he reached home Mrs. Maylie was sitting in the little parlour.,2 Oliver's heart sank at sight of her; for she had never left the bedside of her niece; and he trembled to think what change could have driven her away.,2 "He learnt that she had fallen into a deep sleep, from which she would waken, either to recovery and life, or to bid them farewell, and die.",1 "They sat, listening, and afraid to speak, for hours.",1 "The untasted meal was removed, with looks which showed that their thoughts were elsewhere, they watched the sun as he sank lower and lower, and, at length, cast over sky and earth those brilliant hues which herald his departure.",3 Their quick ears caught the sound of an approaching footstep.,2 "They both involuntarily darted to the door, as Mr. Losberne entered.",1 'What of Rose?',2 cried the old lady.,2 'Tell me at once!,2 I can bear it; anything but suspense!,2 "Oh, tell me!",2 in the name of Heaven!',3 "'You must compose yourself,' said the doctor supporting her.",3 "'Be calm, my dear ma'am, pray.'",3 "'Let me go, in God's name!",2 My dear child!,2 She is dead!,1 She is dying!',1 'No!',2 "cried the doctor, passionately.",3 "'As He is good and merciful, she will live to bless us all, for years to come.'",4 "The lady fell upon her knees, and tried to fold her hands together; but the energy which had supported her so long, fled up to Heaven with her first thanksgiving; and she sank into the friendly arms which were extended to receive her.",3 It was almost too much happiness to bear.,3 "Oliver felt stunned and stupefied by the unexpected intelligence; he could not weep, or speak, or rest.",2 "He had scarcely the power of understanding anything that had passed, until, after a long ramble in the quiet evening air, a burst of tears came to his relief, and he seemed to awaken, all at once, to a full sense of the joyful change that had occurred, and the almost insupportable load of anguish which had been taken from his breast.",2 "The night was fast closing in, when he returned homeward: laden with flowers which he had culled, with peculiar care, for the adornment of the sick chamber.",1 "As he walked briskly along the road, he heard behind him, the noise of some vehicle, approaching at a furious pace.",1 "Looking round, he saw that it was a post-chaise, driven at great speed; and as the horses were galloping, and the road was narrow, he stood leaning against a gate until it should have passed him.",3 "As it dashed on, Oliver caught a glimpse of a man in a white nightcap, whose face seemed familiar to him, although his view was so brief that he could not identify the person.",2 "In another second or two, the nightcap was thrust out of the chaise-window, and a stentorian voice bellowed to the driver to stop: which he did, as soon as he could pull up his horses.",2 "Then, the nightcap once again appeared: and the same voice called Oliver by his name.",2 'Here!',2 cried the voice.,2 "'Oliver, what's the news?",2 Miss Rose!,1 Master O-li-ver!',3 "'Is it you, Giles?'",2 "cried Oliver, running up to the chaise-door.",2 "Giles popped out his nightcap again, preparatory to making some reply, when he was suddenly pulled back by a young gentleman who occupied the other corner of the chaise, and who eagerly demanded what was the news.",3 'In a word!',2 "cried the gentleman, 'Better or worse?'",1 'Better--much better!',3 "replied Oliver, hastily.",1 'Thank Heaven!',3 exclaimed the gentleman.,2 'You are sure?',2 "'Quite, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 "'The change took place only a few hours ago; and Mr. Losberne says, that all danger is at an end.'",1 "The gentleman said not another word, but, opening the chaise-door, leaped out, and taking Oliver hurriedly by the arm, led him aside.",3 'You are quite certain?,2 "There is no possibility of any mistake on your part, my boy, is there?'",1 demanded the gentleman in a tremulous voice.,2 "'Do not deceive me, by awakening hopes that are not to be fulfilled.'",1 "'I would not for the world, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 'Indeed you may believe me.,2 "Mr. Losberne's words were, that she would live to bless us all for many years to come.",3 I heard him say so.',2 "The tears stood in Oliver's eyes as he recalled the scene which was the beginning of so much happiness; and the gentleman turned his face away, and remained silent, for some minutes.",3 "Oliver thought he heard him sob, more than once; but he feared to interrupt him by any fresh remark--for he could well guess what his feelings were--and so stood apart, feigning to be occupied with his nosegay.",2 "All this time, Mr. Giles, with the white nightcap on, had been sitting on the steps of the chaise, supporting an elbow on each knee, and wiping his eyes with a blue cotton pocket-handkerchief dotted with white spots.",3 "That the honest fellow had not been feigning emotion, was abundantly demonstrated by the very red eyes with which he regarded the young gentleman, when he turned round and addressed him.",3 "'I think you had better go on to my mother's in the chaise, Giles,' said he.",3 "'I would rather walk slowly on, so as to gain a little time before I see her.",2 You can say I am coming.',2 "'I beg your pardon, Mr. Harry,' said Giles: giving a final polish to his ruffled countenance with the handkerchief; 'but if you would leave the postboy to say that, I should be very much obliged to you.",2 "It wouldn't be proper for the maids to see me in this state, sir; I should never have any more authority with them if they did.'",3 "'Well,' rejoined Harry Maylie, smiling, 'you can do as you like.",3 "Let him go on with the luggage, if you wish it, and do you follow with us.",2 "Only first exchange that nightcap for some more appropriate covering, or we shall be taken for madmen.'",3 "Mr. Giles, reminded of his unbecoming costume, snatched off and pocketed his nightcap; and substituted a hat, of grave and sober shape, which he took out of the chaise.",1 "This done, the postboy drove off; Giles, Mr. Maylie, and Oliver, followed at their leisure.",2 "As they walked along, Oliver glanced from time to time with much interest and curiosity at the new comer.",2 "He seemed about five-and-twenty years of age, and was of the middle height; his countenance was frank and handsome; and his demeanor easy and prepossessing.",3 "Notwithstanding the difference between youth and age, he bore so strong a likeness to the old lady, that Oliver would have had no great difficulty in imagining their relationship, if he had not already spoken of her as his mother.",2 Mrs. Maylie was anxiously waiting to receive her son when he reached the cottage.,1 The meeting did not take place without great emotion on both sides.,3 'Mother!',2 whispered the young man; 'why did you not write before?',2 "'I did,' replied Mrs. Maylie; 'but, on reflection, I determined to keep back the letter until I had heard Mr. Losberne's opinion.'",2 "'But why,' said the young man, 'why run the chance of that occurring which so nearly happened?",2 "If Rose had--I cannot utter that word now--if this illness had terminated differently, how could you ever have forgiven yourself!",1 How could I ever have know happiness again!',3 "'If that _had_ been the case, Harry,' said Mrs. Maylie, 'I fear your happiness would have been effectually blighted, and that your arrival here, a day sooner or a day later, would have been of very, very little import.'",2 "'And who can wonder if it be so, mother?'",3 "rejoined the young man; 'or why should I say, _if_?--It is--it is--you know it, mother--you must know it!'",2 "'I know that she deserves the best and purest love the heart of man can offer,' said Mrs. Maylie; 'I know that the devotion and affection of her nature require no ordinary return, but one that shall be deep and lasting.",4 "If I did not feel this, and know, besides, that a changed behaviour in one she loved would break her heart, I should not feel my task so difficult of performance, or have to encounter so many struggles in my own bosom, when I take what seems to me to be the strict line of duty.'",0 "'This is unkind, mother,' said Harry.",1 "'Do you still suppose that I am a boy ignorant of my own mind, and mistaking the impulses of my own soul?'",1 "'I think, my dear son,' returned Mrs. Maylie, laying her hand upon his shoulder, 'that youth has many generous impulses which do not last; and that among them are some, which, being gratified, become only the more fleeting.",3 "Above all, I think' said the lady, fixing her eyes on her son's face, 'that if an enthusiastic, ardent, and ambitious man marry a wife on whose name there is a stain, which, though it originate in no fault of hers, may be visited by cold and sordid people upon her, and upon his children also: and, in exact proportion to his success in the world, be cast in his teeth, and made the subject of sneers against him: he may, no matter how generous and good his nature, one day repent of the connection he formed in early life.",4 And she may have the pain of knowing that he does so.',1 "'Mother,' said the young man, impatiently, 'he would be a selfish brute, unworthy alike of the name of man and of the woman you describe, who acted thus.'",0 "'You think so now, Harry,' replied his mother.",2 'And ever will!',2 said the young man.,2 "'The mental agony I have suffered, during the last two days, wrings from me the avowal to you of a passion which, as you well know, is not one of yesterday, nor one I have lightly formed.",2 "On Rose, sweet, gentle girl!",3 "my heart is set, as firmly as ever heart of man was set on woman.",2 "I have no thought, no view, no hope in life, beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you take my peace and happiness in your hands, and cast them to the wind.",3 "Mother, think better of this, and of me, and do not disregard the happiness of which you seem to think so little.'",3 "'Harry,' said Mrs. Maylie, 'it is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded.",3 "But we have said enough, and more than enough, on this matter, just now.'",3 "'Let it rest with Rose, then,' interposed Harry.",2 "'You will not press these overstrained opinions of yours, so far, as to throw any obstacle in my way?'",1 "'I will not,' rejoined Mrs. Maylie; 'but I would have you consider--' 'I _have_ considered!'",2 "was the impatient reply; 'Mother, I have considered, years and years.",1 "I have considered, ever since I have been capable of serious reflection.",3 "My feelings remain unchanged, as they ever will; and why should I suffer the pain of a delay in giving them vent, which can be productive of no earthly good?",1 No!,2 "Before I leave this place, Rose shall hear me.'",2 "'She shall,' said Mrs. Maylie.",2 "'There is something in your manner, which would almost imply that she will hear me coldly, mother,' said the young man.",1 "'Not coldly,' rejoined the old lady; 'far from it.'",1 'How then?',2 urged the young man.,2 'She has formed no other attachment?',2 "'No, indeed,' replied his mother; 'you have, or I mistake, too strong a hold on her affections already.",2 "What I would say,' resumed the old lady, stopping her son as he was about to speak, 'is this.",2 "Before you stake your all on this chance; before you suffer yourself to be carried to the highest point of hope; reflect for a few moments, my dear child, on Rose's history, and consider what effect the knowledge of her doubtful birth may have on her decision: devoted as she is to us, with all the intensity of her noble mind, and with that perfect sacrifice of self which, in all matters, great or trifling, has always been her characteristic.'",3 'What do you mean?',2 "'That I leave you to discover,' replied Mrs. Maylie.",2 'I must go back to her.,2 God bless you!',3 'I shall see you again to-night?',2 "said the young man, eagerly.",3 "'By and by,' replied the lady; 'when I leave Rose.'",2 'You will tell her I am here?',2 said Harry.,2 "'Of course,' replied Mrs. Maylie.",2 "'And say how anxious I have been, and how much I have suffered, and how I long to see her.",1 "You will not refuse to do this, mother?'",1 "'No,' said the old lady; 'I will tell her all.'",2 "And pressing her son's hand, affectionately, she hastened from the room.",2 Mr. Losberne and Oliver had remained at another end of the apartment while this hurried conversation was proceeding.,2 The former now held out his hand to Harry Maylie; and hearty salutations were exchanged between them.,2 "The doctor then communicated, in reply to multifarious questions from his young friend, a precise account of his patient's situation; which was quite as consolatory and full of promise, as Oliver's statement had encouraged him to hope; and to the whole of which, Mr. Giles, who affected to be busy about the luggage, listened with greedy ears.",3 "'Have you shot anything particular, lately, Giles?'",2 "inquired the doctor, when he had concluded.",2 "'Nothing particular, sir,' replied Mr. Giles, colouring up to the eyes.",2 "'Nor catching any thieves, nor identifying any house-breakers?'",2 said the doctor.,2 "'None at all, sir,' replied Mr. Giles, with much gravity.",2 "'Well,' said the doctor, 'I am sorry to hear it, because you do that sort of thing admirably.",2 "Pray, how is Brittles?'",2 "'The boy is very well, sir,' said Mr. Giles, recovering his usual tone of patronage; 'and sends his respectful duty, sir.'",3 "'That's well,' said the doctor.",3 "'Seeing you here, reminds me, Mr. Giles, that on the day before that on which I was called away so hurriedly, I executed, at the request of your good mistress, a small commission in your favour.",3 "Just step into this corner a moment, will you?'",2 "Mr. Giles walked into the corner with much importance, and some wonder, and was honoured with a short whispering conference with the doctor, on the termination of which, he made a great many bows, and retired with steps of unusual stateliness.",3 "The subject matter of this conference was not disclosed in the parlour, but the kitchen was speedily enlightened concerning it; for Mr. Giles walked straight thither, and having called for a mug of ale, announced, with an air of majesty, which was highly effective, that it had pleased his mistress, in consideration of his gallant behaviour on the occasion of that attempted robbery, to deposit, in the local savings-bank, the sum of five-and-twenty pounds, for his sole use and benefit.",4 "At this, the two women-servants lifted up their hands and eyes, and supposed that Mr. Giles, pulling out his shirt-frill, replied, 'No, no'; and that if they observed that he was at all haughty to his inferiors, he would thank them to tell him so.",2 "And then he made a great many other remarks, no less illustrative of his humility, which were received with equal favour and applause, and were, withal, as original and as much to the purpose, as the remarks of great men commonly are.",4 "Above stairs, the remainder of the evening passed cheerfully away; for the doctor was in high spirits; and however fatigued or thoughtful Harry Maylie might have been at first, he was not proof against the worthy gentleman's good humour, which displayed itself in a great variety of sallies and professional recollections, and an abundance of small jokes, which struck Oliver as being the drollest things he had ever heard, and caused him to laugh proportionately; to the evident satisfaction of the doctor, who laughed immoderately at himself, and made Harry laugh almost as heartily, by the very force of sympathy.",4 "So, they were as pleasant a party as, under the circumstances, they could well have been; and it was late before they retired, with light and thankful hearts, to take that rest of which, after the doubt and suspense they had recently undergone, they stood much in need.",3 "Oliver rose next morning, in better heart, and went about his usual occupations, with more hope and pleasure than he had known for many days.",3 "The birds were once more hung out, to sing, in their old places; and the sweetest wild flowers that could be found, were once more gathered to gladden Rose with their beauty.",2 "The melancholy which had seemed to the sad eyes of the anxious boy to hang, for days past, over every object, beautiful as all were, was dispelled by magic.",0 The dew seemed to sparkle more brightly on the green leaves; the air to rustle among them with a sweeter music; and the sky itself to look more blue and bright.,3 "Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercise, even over the appearance of external objects.",2 "Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts.",0 "The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.",3 "It is worthy of remark, and Oliver did not fail to note it at the time, that his morning expeditions were no longer made alone.",2 "Harry Maylie, after the very first morning when he met Oliver coming laden home, was seized with such a passion for flowers, and displayed such a taste in their arrangement, as left his young companion far behind.",3 "If Oliver were behindhand in these respects, he knew where the best were to be found; and morning after morning they scoured the country together, and brought home the fairest that blossomed.",3 "The window of the young lady's chamber was opened now; for she loved to feel the rich summer air stream in, and revive her with its freshness; but there always stood in water, just inside the lattice, one particular little bunch, which was made up with great care, every morning.",4 "Oliver could not help noticing that the withered flowers were never thrown away, although the little vase was regularly replenished; nor, could he help observing, that whenever the doctor came into the garden, he invariably cast his eyes up to that particular corner, and nodded his head most expressively, as he set forth on his morning's walk.",2 "Pending these observations, the days were flying by; and Rose was rapidly recovering.",2 "Nor did Oliver's time hang heavy on his hands, although the young lady had not yet left her chamber, and there were no evening walks, save now and then, for a short distance, with Mrs. Maylie.",1 "He applied himself, with redoubled assiduity, to the instructions of the white-headed old gentleman, and laboured so hard that his quick progress surprised even himself.",2 "It was while he was engaged in this pursuit, that he was greatly startled and distressed by a most unexpected occurrence.",1 "The little room in which he was accustomed to sit, when busy at his books, was on the ground-floor, at the back of the house.",2 "It was quite a cottage-room, with a lattice-window: around which were clusters of jessamine and honeysuckle, that crept over the casement, and filled the place with their delicious perfume.",2 "It looked into a garden, whence a wicket-gate opened into a small paddock; all beyond, was fine meadow-land and wood.",3 "There was no other dwelling near, in that direction; and the prospect it commanded was very extensive.",2 "One beautiful evening, when the first shades of twilight were beginning to settle upon the earth, Oliver sat at this window, intent upon his books.",3 "He had been poring over them for some time; and, as the day had been uncommonly sultry, and he had exerted himself a great deal, it is no disparagement to the authors, whoever they may have been, to say, that gradually and by slow degrees, he fell asleep.",1 "There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble at its pleasure.",2 "So far as an overpowering heaviness, a prostration of strength, and an utter inability to control our thoughts or power of motion, can be called sleep, this is it; and yet, we have a consciousness of all that is going on about us, and, if we dream at such a time, words which are really spoken, or sounds which really exist at the moment, accommodate themselves with surprising readiness to our visions, until reality and imagination become so strangely blended that it is afterwards almost matter of impossibility to separate the two.",1 "Nor is this, the most striking phenomenon incidental to such a state.",3 "It is an undoubted fact, that although our senses of touch and sight be for the time dead, yet our sleeping thoughts, and the visionary scenes that pass before us, will be influenced and materially influenced, by the _mere silent presence_ of some external object; which may not have been near us when we closed our eyes: and of whose vicinity we have had no waking consciousness.",2 "Oliver knew, perfectly well, that he was in his own little room; that his books were lying on the table before him; that the sweet air was stirring among the creeping plants outside.",3 And yet he was asleep.,2 "Suddenly, the scene changed; the air became close and confined; and he thought, with a glow of terror, that he was in the Jew's house again.",1 "There sat the hideous old man, in his accustomed corner, pointing at him, and whispering to another man, with his face averted, who sat beside him.",1 "'Hush, my dear!'",2 "he thought he heard the Jew say; 'it is he, sure enough.",3 Come away.',2 'He!',2 "the other man seemed to answer; 'could I mistake him, think you?",1 "If a crowd of ghosts were to put themselves into his exact shape, and he stood amongst them, there is something that would tell me how to point him out.",2 "If you buried him fifty feet deep, and took me across his grave, I fancy I should know, if there wasn't a mark above it, that he lay buried there?'",3 "The man seemed to say this, with such dreadful hatred, that Oliver awoke with the fear, and started up.",0 Good Heaven!,3 "what was that, which sent the blood tingling to his heart, and deprived him of his voice, and of power to move!",1 "There--there--at the window--close before him--so close, that he could have almost touched him before he started back: with his eyes peering into the room, and meeting his: there stood the Jew!",2 "And beside him, white with rage or fear, or both, were the scowling features of the man who had accosted him in the inn-yard.",1 "It was but an instant, a glance, a flash, before his eyes; and they were gone.",2 "But they had recognised him, and he them; and their look was as firmly impressed upon his memory, as if it had been deeply carved in stone, and set before him from his birth.",3 "He stood transfixed for a moment; then, leaping from the window into the garden, called loudly for help.",2 "When the inmates of the house, attracted by Oliver's cries, hurried to the spot from which they proceeded, they found him, pale and agitated, pointing in the direction of the meadows behind the house, and scarcely able to articulate the words, 'The Jew!",1 the Jew!',2 "Mr. Giles was at a loss to comprehend what this outcry meant; but Harry Maylie, whose perceptions were something quicker, and who had heard Oliver's history from his mother, understood it at once.",1 'What direction did he take?',2 "he asked, catching up a heavy stick which was standing in a corner.",2 "'That,' replied Oliver, pointing out the course the man had taken; 'I missed them in an instant.'",1 "'Then, they are in the ditch!'",2 said Harry.,2 'Follow!,2 "And keep as near me, as you can.'",2 "So saying, he sprang over the hedge, and darted off with a speed which rendered it matter of exceeding difficulty for the others to keep near him.",1 "Giles followed as well as he could; and Oliver followed too; and in the course of a minute or two, Mr. Losberne, who had been out walking, and just then returned, tumbled over the hedge after them, and picking himself up with more agility than he could have been supposed to possess, struck into the same course at no contemptible speed, shouting all the while, most prodigiously, to know what was the matter.",1 "On they all went; nor stopped they once to breathe, until the leader, striking off into an angle of the field indicated by Oliver, began to search, narrowly, the ditch and hedge adjoining; which afforded time for the remainder of the party to come up; and for Oliver to communicate to Mr. Losberne the circumstances that had led to so vigorous a pursuit.",3 The search was all in vain.,1 "There were not even the traces of recent footsteps, to be seen.",2 "They stood now, on the summit of a little hill, commanding the open fields in every direction for three or four miles.",2 "There was the village in the hollow on the left; but, in order to gain that, after pursuing the track Oliver had pointed out, the men must have made a circuit of open ground, which it was impossible they could have accomplished in so short a time.",2 A thick wood skirted the meadow-land in another direction; but they could not have gained that covert for the same reason.,3 "'It must have been a dream, Oliver,' said Harry Maylie.",2 "'Oh no, indeed, sir,' replied Oliver, shuddering at the very recollection of the old wretch's countenance; 'I saw him too plainly for that.",2 "I saw them both, as plainly as I see you now.'",2 'Who was the other?',2 "inquired Harry and Mr. Losberne, together.",2 "'The very same man I told you of, who came so suddenly upon me at the inn,' said Oliver.",2 'We had our eyes fixed full upon each other; and I could swear to him.',2 'They took this way?',2 demanded Harry: 'are you sure?',2 "'As I am that the men were at the window,' replied Oliver, pointing down, as he spoke, to the hedge which divided the cottage-garden from the meadow.",1 "'The tall man leaped over, just there; and the Jew, running a few paces to the right, crept through that gap.'",2 "The two gentlemen watched Oliver's earnest face, as he spoke, and looking from him to each other, seemed to feel satisfied of the accuracy of what he said.",3 "Still, in no direction were there any appearances of the trampling of men in hurried flight.",2 "The grass was long; but it was trodden down nowhere, save where their own feet had crushed it.",1 "The sides and brinks of the ditches were of damp clay; but in no one place could they discern the print of men's shoes, or the slightest mark which would indicate that any feet had pressed the ground for hours before.",2 'This is strange!',1 said Harry.,2 'Strange?',2 echoed the doctor.,2 "'Blathers and Duff, themselves, could make nothing of it.'",2 "Notwithstanding the evidently useless nature of their search, they did not desist until the coming on of night rendered its further prosecution hopeless; and even then, they gave it up with reluctance.",0 "Giles was dispatched to the different ale-houses in the village, furnished with the best description Oliver could give of the appearance and dress of the strangers.",3 "Of these, the Jew was, at all events, sufficiently remarkable to be remembered, supposing he had been seen drinking, or loitering about; but Giles returned without any intelligence, calculated to dispel or lessen the mystery.",3 "On the next day, fresh search was made, and the inquiries renewed; but with no better success.",4 "On the day following, Oliver and Mr. Maylie repaired to the market-town, in the hope of seeing or hearing something of the men there; but this effort was equally fruitless.",1 "After a few days, the affair began to be forgotten, as most affairs are, when wonder, having no fresh food to support it, dies away of itself.",3 "Meanwhile, Rose was rapidly recovering.",2 "She had left her room: was able to go out; and mixing once more with the family, carried joy into the hearts of all.",3 "But, although this happy change had a visible effect on the little circle; and although cheerful voices and merry laughter were once more heard in the cottage; there was at times, an unwonted restraint upon some there: even upon Rose herself: which Oliver could not fail to remark.",3 Mrs. Maylie and her son were often closeted together for a long time; and more than once Rose appeared with traces of tears upon her face.,2 "After Mr. Losberne had fixed a day for his departure to Chertsey, these symptoms increased; and it became evident that something was in progress which affected the peace of the young lady, and of somebody else besides.",3 "At length, one morning, when Rose was alone in the breakfast-parlour, Harry Maylie entered; and, with some hesitation, begged permission to speak with her for a few moments.",2 "'A few--a very few--will suffice, Rose,' said the young man, drawing his chair towards her.",3 "'What I shall have to say, has already presented itself to your mind; the most cherished hopes of my heart are not unknown to you, though from my lips you have not heard them stated.'",2 Rose had been very pale from the moment of his entrance; but that might have been the effect of her recent illness.,1 "She merely bowed; and bending over some plants that stood near, waited in silence for him to proceed.",2 "'I--I--ought to have left here, before,' said Harry.",2 "'You should, indeed,' replied Rose.",2 "'Forgive me for saying so, but I wish you had.'",2 "'I was brought here, by the most dreadful and agonising of all apprehensions,' said the young man; 'the fear of losing the one dear being on whom my every wish and hope are fixed.",0 You had been dying; trembling between earth and heaven.,2 "We know that when the young, the beautiful, and good, are visited with sickness, their pure spirits insensibly turn towards their bright home of lasting rest; we know, Heaven help us!",4 "that the best and fairest of our kind, too often fade in blooming.'",3 "There were tears in the eyes of the gentle girl, as these words were spoken; and when one fell upon the flower over which she bent, and glistened brightly in its cup, making it more beautiful, it seemed as though the outpouring of her fresh young heart, claimed kindred naturally, with the loveliest things in nature.",3 "'A creature,' continued the young man, passionately, 'a creature as fair and innocent of guile as one of God's own angels, fluttered between life and death.",2 Oh!,2 "who could hope, when the distant world to which she was akin, half opened to her view, that she would return to the sorrow and calamity of this!",1 "Rose, Rose, to know that you were passing away like some soft shadow, which a light from above, casts upon the earth; to have no hope that you would be spared to those who linger here; hardly to know a reason why you should be; to feel that you belonged to that bright sphere whither so many of the fairest and the best have winged their early flight; and yet to pray, amid all these consolations, that you might be restored to those who loved you--these were distractions almost too great to bear.",4 "They were mine, by day and night; and with them, came such a rushing torrent of fears, and apprehensions, and selfish regrets, lest you should die, and never know how devotedly I loved you, as almost bore down sense and reason in its course.",0 You recovered.,2 "Day by day, and almost hour by hour, some drop of health came back, and mingling with the spent and feeble stream of life which circulated languidly within you, swelled it again to a high and rushing tide.",1 "I have watched you change almost from death, to life, with eyes that turned blind with their eagerness and deep affection.",2 Do not tell me that you wish I had lost this; for it has softened my heart to all mankind.',1 "'I did not mean that,' said Rose, weeping; 'I only wish you had left here, that you might have turned to high and noble pursuits again; to pursuits well worthy of you.'",4 "'There is no pursuit more worthy of me: more worthy of the highest nature that exists: than the struggle to win such a heart as yours,' said the young man, taking her hand.",3 "'Rose, my own dear Rose!",2 "For years--for years--I have loved you; hoping to win my way to fame, and then come proudly home and tell you it had been pursued only for you to share; thinking, in my daydreams, how I would remind you, in that happy moment, of the many silent tokens I had given of a boy's attachment, and claim your hand, as in redemption of some old mute contract that had been sealed between us!",4 "That time has not arrived; but here, with not fame won, and no young vision realised, I offer you the heart so long your own, and stake my all upon the words with which you greet the offer.'",3 'Your behaviour has ever been kind and noble.',3 "said Rose, mastering the emotions by which she was agitated.",2 "'As you believe that I am not insensible or ungrateful, so hear my answer.'",1 "'It is, that I may endeavour to deserve you; it is, dear Rose?'",2 "'It is,' replied Rose, 'that you must endeavour to forget me; not as your old and dearly-attached companion, for that would wound me deeply; but, as the object of your love.",1 "Look into the world; think how many hearts you would be proud to gain, are there.",3 "Confide some other passion to me, if you will; I will be the truest, warmest, and most faithful friend you have.'",3 "There was a pause, during which, Rose, who had covered her face with one hand, gave free vent to her tears.",2 Harry still retained the other.,2 "'And your reasons, Rose,' he said, at length, in a low voice; 'your reasons for this decision?'",2 "'You have a right to know them,' rejoined Rose.",3 'You can say nothing to alter my resolution.,2 It is a duty that I must perform.,2 "I owe it, alike to others, and to myself.'",2 'To yourself?',2 "'Yes, Harry.",2 "I owe it to myself, that I, a friendless, portionless, girl, with a blight upon my name, should not give your friends reason to suspect that I had sordidly yielded to your first passion, and fastened myself, a clog, on all your hopes and projects.",1 "I owe it to you and yours, to prevent you from opposing, in the warmth of your generous nature, this great obstacle to your progress in the world.'",4 'If your inclinations chime with your sense of duty--' Harry began.,2 "'They do not,' replied Rose, colouring deeply.",2 'Then you return my love?',3 said Harry.,2 "'Say but that, dear Rose; say but that; and soften the bitterness of this hard disappointment!'",0 "'If I could have done so, without doing heavy wrong to him I loved,' rejoined Rose, 'I could have--' 'Have received this declaration very differently?'",2 said Harry.,2 "'Do not conceal that from me, at least, Rose.'",2 "'I could,' said Rose.",2 'Stay!',2 "she added, disengaging her hand, 'why should we prolong this painful interview?",1 "Most painful to me, and yet productive of lasting happiness, notwithstanding; for it _will_ be happiness to know that I once held the high place in your regard which I now occupy, and every triumph you achieve in life will animate me with new fortitude and firmness.",4 "Farewell, Harry!",2 "As we have met to-day, we meet no more; but in other relations than those in which this conversation have placed us, we may be long and happily entwined; and may every blessing that the prayers of a true and earnest heart can call down from the source of all truth and sincerity, cheer and prosper you!'",4 "'Another word, Rose,' said Harry.",2 'Your reason in your own words.,2 "From your own lips, let me hear it!'",2 "'The prospect before you,' answered Rose, firmly, 'is a brilliant one.",3 "All the honours to which great talents and powerful connections can help men in public life, are in store for you.",4 But those connections are proud; and I will neither mingle with such as may hold in scorn the mother who gave me life; nor bring disgrace or failure on the son of her who has so well supplied that mother's place.,1 "In a word,' said the young lady, turning away, as her temporary firmness forsook her, 'there is a stain upon my name, which the world visits on innocent heads.",1 I will carry it into no blood but my own; and the reproach shall rest alone on me.',1 "'One word more, Rose.",2 Dearest Rose!,2 one more!',2 "cried Harry, throwing himself before her.",2 "'If I had been less--less fortunate, the world would call it--if some obscure and peaceful life had been my destiny--if I had been poor, sick, helpless--would you have turned from me then?",1 "Or has my probable advancement to riches and honour, given this scruple birth?'",2 "'Do not press me to reply,' answered Rose.",2 "'The question does not arise, and never will.",2 "It is unfair, almost unkind, to urge it.'",1 "'If your answer be what I almost dare to hope it is,' retorted Harry, 'it will shed a gleam of happiness upon my lonely way, and light the path before me.",2 "It is not an idle thing to do so much, by the utterance of a few brief words, for one who loves you beyond all else.",2 "Oh, Rose: in the name of my ardent and enduring attachment; in the name of all I have suffered for you, and all you doom me to undergo; answer me this one question!'",1 "'Then, if your lot had been differently cast,' rejoined Rose; 'if you had been even a little, but not so far, above me; if I could have been a help and comfort to you in any humble scene of peace and retirement, and not a blot and drawback in ambitious and distinguished crowds; I should have been spared this trial.",4 "I have every reason to be happy, very happy, now; but then, Harry, I own I should have been happier.'",3 "Busy recollections of old hopes, cherished as a girl, long ago, crowded into the mind of Rose, while making this avowal; but they brought tears with them, as old hopes will when they come back withered; and they relieved her.",2 "'I cannot help this weakness, and it makes my purpose stronger,' said Rose, extending her hand.",2 "'I must leave you now, indeed.'",2 "'I ask one promise,' said Harry.",3 "'Once, and only once more,--say within a year, but it may be much sooner,--I may speak to you again on this subject, for the last time.'",2 "'Not to press me to alter my right determination,' replied Rose, with a melancholy smile; 'it will be useless.'",2 "'No,' said Harry; 'to hear you repeat it, if you will--finally repeat it!",2 "I will lay at your feet, whatever of station of fortune I may possess; and if you still adhere to your present resolution, will not seek, by word or act, to change it.'",3 "'Then let it be so,' rejoined Rose; 'it is but one pang the more, and by that time I may be enabled to bear it better.'",3 She extended her hand again.,2 "But the young man caught her to his bosom; and imprinting one kiss on her beautiful forehead, hurried from the room.",3 'And so you are resolved to be my travelling companion this morning; eh?',2 "said the doctor, as Harry Maylie joined him and Oliver at the breakfast-table.",2 "'Why, you are not in the same mind or intention two half-hours together!'",2 "'You will tell me a different tale one of these days,' said Harry, colouring without any perceptible reason.",2 "'I hope I may have good cause to do so,' replied Mr. Losberne; 'though I confess I don't think I shall.",2 "But yesterday morning you had made up your mind, in a great hurry, to stay here, and to accompany your mother, like a dutiful son, to the sea-side.",3 "Before noon, you announce that you are going to do me the honour of accompanying me as far as I go, on your road to London.",2 "And at night, you urge me, with great mystery, to start before the ladies are stirring; the consequence of which is, that young Oliver here is pinned down to his breakfast when he ought to be ranging the meadows after botanical phenomena of all kinds.",2 "Too bad, isn't it, Oliver?'",1 "'I should have been very sorry not to have been at home when you and Mr. Maylie went away, sir,' rejoined Oliver.",1 "'That's a fine fellow,' said the doctor; 'you shall come and see me when you return.",3 "But, to speak seriously, Harry; has any communication from the great nobs produced this sudden anxiety on your part to be gone?'",2 "'The great nobs,' replied Harry, 'under which designation, I presume, you include my most stately uncle, have not communicated with me at all, since I have been here; nor, at this time of the year, is it likely that anything would occur to render necessary my immediate attendance among them.'",3 "'Well,' said the doctor, 'you are a queer fellow.",1 "But of course they will get you into parliament at the election before Christmas, and these sudden shiftings and changes are no bad preparation for political life.",1 There's something in that.,2 "Good training is always desirable, whether the race be for place, cup, or sweepstakes.'",3 "Harry Maylie looked as if he could have followed up this short dialogue by one or two remarks that would have staggered the doctor not a little; but he contented himself with saying, 'We shall see,' and pursued the subject no farther.",2 "The post-chaise drove up to the door shortly afterwards; and Giles coming in for the luggage, the good doctor bustled out, to see it packed.",3 "'Oliver,' said Harry Maylie, in a low voice, 'let me speak a word with you.'",2 "Oliver walked into the window-recess to which Mr. Maylie beckoned him; much surprised at the mixture of sadness and boisterous spirits, which his whole behaviour displayed.",1 'You can write well now?',3 "said Harry, laying his hand upon his arm.",2 "'I hope so, sir,' replied Oliver.",2 "'I shall not be at home again, perhaps for some time; I wish you would write to me--say once a fort-night: every alternate Monday: to the General Post Office in London.",2 Will you?',2 'Oh!,2 "certainly, sir; I shall be proud to do it,' exclaimed Oliver, greatly delighted with the commission.",3 "'I should like to know how--how my mother and Miss Maylie are,' said the young man; 'and you can fill up a sheet by telling me what walks you take, and what you talk about, and whether she--they, I mean--seem happy and quite well.",3 You understand me?',2 'Oh!,2 "quite, sir, quite,' replied Oliver.",2 "'I would rather you did not mention it to them,' said Harry, hurrying over his words; 'because it might make my mother anxious to write to me oftener, and it is a trouble and worry to her.",0 Let it be a secret between you and me; and mind you tell me everything!,2 I depend upon you.',2 "Oliver, quite elated and honoured by a sense of his importance, faithfully promised to be secret and explicit in his communications.",4 "Mr. Maylie took leave of him, with many assurances of his regard and protection.",4 "The doctor was in the chaise; Giles (who, it had been arranged, should be left behind) held the door open in his hand; and the women-servants were in the garden, looking on.",2 "Harry cast one slight glance at the latticed window, and jumped into the carriage.",2 'Drive on!',2 "he cried, 'hard, fast, full gallop!",3 "Nothing short of flying will keep pace with me, to-day.'",2 'Halloa!',2 "cried the doctor, letting down the front glass in a great hurry, and shouting to the postillion; 'something very short of flying will keep pace with _me_.",3 Do you hear?',2 "Jingling and clattering, till distance rendered its noise inaudible, and its rapid progress only perceptible to the eye, the vehicle wound its way along the road, almost hidden in a cloud of dust: now wholly disappearing, and now becoming visible again, as intervening objects, or the intricacies of the way, permitted.",0 "It was not until even the dusty cloud was no longer to be seen, that the gazers dispersed.",1 "And there was one looker-on, who remained with eyes fixed upon the spot where the carriage had disappeared, long after it was many miles away; for, behind the white curtain which had shrouded her from view when Harry raised his eyes towards the window, sat Rose herself.",1 "'He seems in high spirits and happy,' she said, at length.",3 'I feared for a time he might be otherwise.,2 I was mistaken.,1 "I am very, very glad.'",3 "Tears are signs of gladness as well as grief; but those which coursed down Rose's face, as she sat pensively at the window, still gazing in the same direction, seemed to tell more of sorrow than of joy.",3 "Mr. Bumble sat in the workhouse parlour, with his eyes moodily fixed on the cheerless grate, whence, as it was summer time, no brighter gleam proceeded, than the reflection of certain sickly rays of the sun, which were sent back from its cold and shining surface.",0 "A paper fly-cage dangled from the ceiling, to which he occasionally raised his eyes in gloomy thought; and, as the heedless insects hovered round the gaudy net-work, Mr. Bumble would heave a deep sigh, while a more gloomy shadow overspread his countenance.",1 "Mr. Bumble was meditating; it might be that the insects brought to mind, some painful passage in his own past life.",1 Nor was Mr. Bumble's gloom the only thing calculated to awaken a pleasing melancholy in the bosom of a spectator.,1 "There were not wanting other appearances, and those closely connected with his own person, which announced that a great change had taken place in the position of his affairs.",3 "The laced coat, and the cocked hat; where were they?",2 "He still wore knee-breeches, and dark cotton stockings on his nether limbs; but they were not _the_ breeches.",1 "The coat was wide-skirted; and in that respect like _the_ coat, but, oh how different!",3 The mighty cocked hat was replaced by a modest round one.,3 Mr. Bumble was no longer a beadle.,2 "There are some promotions in life, which, independent of the more substantial rewards they offer, require peculiar value and dignity from the coats and waistcoats connected with them.",2 A field-marshal has his uniform; a bishop his silk apron; a counsellor his silk gown; a beadle his cocked hat.,2 "Strip the bishop of his apron, or the beadle of his hat and lace; what are they?",2 Men.,2 Mere men.,2 "Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.",3 "Mr. Bumble had married Mrs. Corney, and was master of the workhouse.",3 Another beadle had come into power.,2 "On him the cocked hat, gold-laced coat, and staff, had all three descended.",3 'And to-morrow two months it was done!',2 "said Mr. Bumble, with a sigh.",2 'It seems a age.',2 Mr. Bumble might have meant that he had concentrated a whole existence of happiness into the short space of eight weeks; but the sigh--there was a vast deal of meaning in the sigh.,3 "'I sold myself,' said Mr. Bumble, pursuing the same train of relection, 'for six teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a milk-pot; with a small quantity of second-hand furniture, and twenty pound in money.",2 I went very reasonable.,3 "Cheap, dirt cheap!'",1 'Cheap!',2 "cried a shrill voice in Mr. Bumble's ear: 'you would have been dear at any price; and dear enough I paid for you, Lord above knows that!'",2 "Mr. Bumble turned, and encountered the face of his interesting consort, who, imperfectly comprehending the few words she had overheard of his complaint, had hazarded the foregoing remark at a venture.",1 "'Mrs. Bumble, ma'am!'",2 "said Mr. Bumble, with a sentimental sternness.",2 'Well!',2 cried the lady.,2 "'Have the goodness to look at me,' said Mr. Bumble, fixing his eyes upon her.",3 "(If she stands such a eye as that,' said Mr. Bumble to himself, 'she can stand anything.",2 It is a eye I never knew to fail with paupers.,1 "If it fails with her, my power is gone.'",1 ") Whether an exceedingly small expansion of eye be sufficient to quell paupers, who, being lightly fed, are in no very high condition; or whether the late Mrs. Corney was particularly proof against eagle glances; are matters of opinion.",3 "The matter of fact, is, that the matron was in no way overpowered by Mr. Bumble's scowl, but, on the contrary, treated it with great disdain, and even raised a laugh thereat, which sounded as though it were genuine.",2 "On hearing this most unexpected sound, Mr. Bumble looked, first incredulous, and afterwards amazed.",1 He then relapsed into his former state; nor did he rouse himself until his attention was again awakened by the voice of his partner.,2 "'Are you going to sit snoring there, all day?'",2 inquired Mrs. Bumble.,2 "'I am going to sit here, as long as I think proper, ma'am,' rejoined Mr. Bumble; 'and although I was _not_ snoring, I shall snore, gape, sneeze, laugh, or cry, as the humour strikes me; such being my prerogative.'",2 '_Your_ prerogative!',2 "sneered Mrs. Bumble, with ineffable contempt.",1 "'I said the word, ma'am,' said Mr. Bumble.",2 'The prerogative of a man is to command.',2 "'And what's the prerogative of a woman, in the name of Goodness?'",3 cried the relict of Mr. Corney deceased.,2 "'To obey, ma'am,' thundered Mr. Bumble.",2 "'Your late unfortunate husband should have taught it you; and then, perhaps, he might have been alive now.",1 "I wish he was, poor man!'",1 "Mrs. Bumble, seeing at a glance, that the decisive moment had now arrived, and that a blow struck for the mastership on one side or other, must necessarily be final and conclusive, no sooner heard this allusion to the dead and gone, than she dropped into a chair, and with a loud scream that Mr. Bumble was a hard-hearted brute, fell into a paroxysm of tears.",0 "But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble's soul; his heart was waterproof.",2 "Like washable beaver hats that improve with rain, his nerves were rendered stouter and more vigorous, by showers of tears, which, being tokens of weakness, and so far tacit admissions of his own power, pleased and exalted him.",4 "He eyed his good lady with looks of great satisfaction, and begged, in an encouraging manner, that she should cry her hardest: the exercise being looked upon, by the faculty, as strongly conducive to health.",3 "'It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper,' said Mr. Bumble.",1 'So cry away.',1 "As he discharged himself of this pleasantry, Mr. Bumble took his hat from a peg, and putting it on, rather rakishly, on one side, as a man might, who felt he had asserted his superiority in a becoming manner, thrust his hands into his pockets, and sauntered towards the door, with much ease and waggishness depicted in his whole appearance.",3 "Now, Mrs. Corney that was, had tried the tears, because they were less troublesome than a manual assault; but, she was quite prepared to make trial of the latter mode of proceeding, as Mr. Bumble was not long in discovering.",1 "The first proof he experienced of the fact, was conveyed in a hollow sound, immediately succeeded by the sudden flying off of his hat to the opposite end of the room.",2 "This preliminary proceeding laying bare his head, the expert lady, clasping him tightly round the throat with one hand, inflicted a shower of blows (dealt with singular vigour and dexterity) upon it with the other.",2 "This done, she created a little variety by scratching his face, and tearing his hair; and, having, by this time, inflicted as much punishment as she deemed necessary for the offence, she pushed him over a chair, which was luckily well situated for the purpose: and defied him to talk about his prerogative again, if he dared.",3 'Get up!',2 "said Mrs. Bumble, in a voice of command.",2 "'And take yourself away from here, unless you want me to do something desperate.'",1 Mr. Bumble rose with a very rueful countenance: wondering much what something desperate might be.,1 "Picking up his hat, he looked towards the door.",2 'Are you going?',2 demanded Mrs. Bumble.,2 "'Certainly, my dear, certainly,' rejoined Mr. Bumble, making a quicker motion towards the door.",3 "'I didn't intend to--I'm going, my dear!",2 "You are so very violent, that really I--' At this instant, Mrs. Bumble stepped hastily forward to replace the carpet, which had been kicked up in the scuffle.",1 "Mr. Bumble immediately darted out of the room, without bestowing another thought on his unfinished sentence: leaving the late Mrs. Corney in full possession of the field.",1 "Mr. Bumble was fairly taken by surprise, and fairly beaten.",3 "He had a decided propensity for bullying: derived no inconsiderable pleasure from the exercise of petty cruelty; and, consequently, was (it is needless to say) a coward.",0 "This is by no means a disparagement to his character; for many official personages, who are held in high respect and admiration, are the victims of similar infirmities.",4 "The remark is made, indeed, rather in his favour than otherwise, and with a view of impressing the reader with a just sense of his qualifications for office.",3 "But, the measure of his degradation was not yet full.",1 "After making a tour of the house, and thinking, for the first time, that the poor-laws really were too hard on people; and that men who ran away from their wives, leaving them chargeable to the parish, ought, in justice to be visited with no punishment at all, but rather rewarded as meritorious individuals who had suffered much; Mr. Bumble came to a room where some of the female paupers were usually employed in washing the parish linen: when the sound of voices in conversation, now proceeded.",0 'Hem!',2 "said Mr. Bumble, summoning up all his native dignity.",3 'These women at least shall continue to respect the prerogative.,3 Hallo!,2 hallo there!,2 "What do you mean by this noise, you hussies?'",1 "With these words, Mr. Bumble opened the door, and walked in with a very fierce and angry manner: which was at once exchanged for a most humiliated and cowering air, as his eyes unexpectedly rested on the form of his lady wife.",0 "'My dear,' said Mr. Bumble, 'I didn't know you were here.'",2 'Didn't know I was here!',2 repeated Mrs. Bumble.,2 'What do _you_ do here?',2 "'I thought they were talking rather too much to be doing their work properly, my dear,' replied Mr. Bumble: glancing distractedly at a couple of old women at the wash-tub, who were comparing notes of admiration at the workhouse-master's humility.",4 '_You_ thought they were talking too much?',2 said Mrs. Bumble.,2 'What business is it of yours?',2 "'Why, my dear--' urged Mr. Bumble submissively.",2 'What business is it of yours?',2 "demanded Mrs. Bumble, again.",2 "'It's very true, you're matron here, my dear,' submitted Mr. Bumble; 'but I thought you mightn't be in the way just then.'",2 "'I'll tell you what, Mr. Bumble,' returned his lady.",2 'We don't want any of your interference.,1 "You're a great deal too fond of poking your nose into things that don't concern you, making everybody in the house laugh, the moment your back is turned, and making yourself look like a fool every hour in the day.",3 Be off; come!',2 "Mr. Bumble, seeing with excruciating feelings, the delight of the two old paupers, who were tittering together most rapturously, hesitated for an instant.",2 "Mrs. Bumble, whose patience brooked no delay, caught up a bowl of soap-suds, and motioning him towards the door, ordered him instantly to depart, on pain of receiving the contents upon his portly person.",2 What could Mr. Bumble do?,2 "He looked dejectedly round, and slunk away; and, as he reached the door, the titterings of the paupers broke into a shrill chuckle of irrepressible delight.",0 It wanted but this.,2 "He was degraded in their eyes; he had lost caste and station before the very paupers; he had fallen from all the height and pomp of beadleship, to the lowest depth of the most snubbed hen-peckery.",0 'All in two months!',2 "said Mr. Bumble, filled with dismal thoughts.",1 'Two months!,2 "No more than two months ago, I was not only my own master, but everybody else's, so far as the porochial workhouse was concerned, and now!--' It was too much.",2 "Mr. Bumble boxed the ears of the boy who opened the gate for him (for he had reached the portal in his reverie); and walked, distractedly, into the street.",2 "He walked up one street, and down another, until exercise had abated the first passion of his grief; and then the revulsion of feeling made him thirsty.",1 "He passed a great many public-houses; but, at length paused before one in a by-way, whose parlour, as he gathered from a hasty peep over the blinds, was deserted, save by one solitary customer.",2 "It began to rain, heavily, at the moment.",2 This determined him.,2 "Mr. Bumble stepped in; and ordering something to drink, as he passed the bar, entered the apartment into which he had looked from the street.",2 "The man who was seated there, was tall and dark, and wore a large cloak.",1 "He had the air of a stranger; and seemed, by a certain haggardness in his look, as well as by the dusty soils on his dress, to have travelled some distance.",1 "He eyed Bumble askance, as he entered, but scarcely deigned to nod his head in acknowledgment of his salutation.",1 "Mr. Bumble had quite dignity enough for two; supposing even that the stranger had been more familiar: so he drank his gin-and-water in silence, and read the paper with great show of pomp and circumstance.",3 "It so happened, however: as it will happen very often, when men fall into company under such circumstances: that Mr. Bumble felt, every now and then, a powerful inducement, which he could not resist, to steal a look at the stranger: and that whenever he did so, he withdrew his eyes, in some confusion, to find that the stranger was at that moment stealing a look at him.",0 "Mr. Bumble's awkwardness was enhanced by the very remarkable expression of the stranger's eye, which was keen and bright, but shadowed by a scowl of distrust and suspicion, unlike anything he had ever observed before, and repulsive to behold.",1 "When they had encountered each other's glance several times in this way, the stranger, in a harsh, deep voice, broke silence.",0 "'Were you looking for me,' he said, 'when you peered in at the window?'",2 "'Not that I am aware of, unless you're Mr.--' Here Mr. Bumble stopped short; for he was curious to know the stranger's name, and thought in his impatience, he might supply the blank.",1 "'I see you were not,' said the stranger; an expression of quiet sarcasm playing about his mouth; 'or you have known my name.",1 You don't know it.,2 I would recommend you not to ask for it.',3 "'I meant no harm, young man,' observed Mr. Bumble, majestically.",1 "'And have done none,' said the stranger.",1 Another silence succeeded this short dialogue: which was again broken by the stranger.,1 "'I have seen you before, I think?'",2 said he.,2 "'You were differently dressed at that time, and I only passed you in the street, but I should know you again.",2 "You were beadle here, once; were you not?'",2 "'I was,' said Mr. Bumble, in some surprise; 'porochial beadle.'",2 "'Just so,' rejoined the other, nodding his head.",2 'It was in that character I saw you.,2 What are you now?',2 "'Master of the workhouse,' rejoined Mr. Bumble, slowly and impressively, to check any undue familiarity the stranger might otherwise assume.",1 "'Master of the workhouse, young man!'",2 "'You have the same eye to your own interest, that you always had, I doubt not?'",1 "resumed the stranger, looking keenly into Mr. Bumble's eyes, as he raised them in astonishment at the question.",3 "'Don't scruple to answer freely, man.",2 "I know you pretty well, you see.'",3 "'I suppose, a married man,' replied Mr. Bumble, shading his eyes with his hand, and surveying the stranger, from head to foot, in evident perplexity, 'is not more averse to turning an honest penny when he can, than a single one.",1 "Porochial officers are not so well paid that they can afford to refuse any little extra fee, when it comes to them in a civil and proper manner.'",3 "The stranger smiled, and nodded his head again: as much to say, he had not mistaken his man; then rang the bell.",1 "'Fill this glass again,' he said, handing Mr. Bumble's empty tumbler to the landlord.",2 'Let it be strong and hot.,3 "You like it so, I suppose?'",3 "'Not too strong,' replied Mr. Bumble, with a delicate cough.",3 "'You understand what that means, landlord!'",2 "said the stranger, drily.",1 "The host smiled, disappeared, and shortly afterwards returned with a steaming jorum: of which, the first gulp brought the water into Mr. Bumble's eyes.",2 "'Now listen to me,' said the stranger, after closing the door and window.",1 "'I came down to this place, to-day, to find you out; and, by one of those chances which the devil throws in the way of his friends sometimes, you walked into the very room I was sitting in, while you were uppermost in my mind.",1 I want some information from you.,2 "I don't ask you to give it for nothing, slight as it is.",2 "Put up that, to begin with.'",2 "As he spoke, he pushed a couple of sovereigns across the table to his companion, carefully, as though unwilling that the chinking of money should be heard without.",1 "When Mr. Bumble had scrupulously examined the coins, to see that they were genuine, and had put them up, with much satisfaction, in his waistcoat-pocket, he went on: 'Carry your memory back--let me see--twelve years, last winter.'",3 "'It's a long time,' said Mr. Bumble.",2 'Very good.,3 I've done it.',2 "'The scene, the workhouse.'",2 'Good!',2 "'And the time, night.'",2 'Yes.',2 "'And the place, the crazy hole, wherever it was, in which miserable drabs brought forth the life and health so often denied to themselves--gave birth to puling children for the parish to rear; and hid their shame, rot 'em in the grave!'",0 "'The lying-in room, I suppose?'",1 "said Mr. Bumble, not quite following the stranger's excited description.",3 "'Yes,' said the stranger.",1 'A boy was born there.',2 "'A many boys,' observed Mr. Bumble, shaking his head, despondingly.",2 'A murrain on the young devils!',2 "cried the stranger; 'I speak of one; a meek-looking, pale-faced boy, who was apprenticed down here, to a coffin-maker--I wish he had made his coffin, and screwed his body in it--and who afterwards ran away to London, as it was supposed.",0 "'Why, you mean Oliver!",2 Young Twist!',1 "said Mr. Bumble; 'I remember him, of course.",2 "There wasn't a obstinater young rascal--' 'It's not of him I want to hear; I've heard enough of him,' said the stranger, stopping Mr. Bumble in the outset of a tirade on the subject of poor Oliver's vices.",1 'It's of a woman; the hag that nursed his mother.,2 Where is she?',2 'Where is she?',2 "said Mr. Bumble, whom the gin-and-water had rendered facetious.",1 'It would be hard to tell.,1 "There's no midwifery there, whichever place she's gone to; so I suppose she's out of employment, anyway.'",2 'What do you mean?',2 "demanded the stranger, sternly.",1 "'That she died last winter,' rejoined Mr. Bumble.",1 "The man looked fixedly at him when he had given this information, and although he did not withdraw his eyes for some time afterwards, his gaze gradually became vacant and abstracted, and he seemed lost in thought.",1 "For some time, he appeared doubtful whether he ought to be relieved or disappointed by the intelligence; but at length he breathed more freely; and withdrawing his eyes, observed that it was no great matter.",2 "With that he rose, as if to depart.",2 "But Mr. Bumble was cunning enough; and he at once saw that an opportunity was opened, for the lucrative disposal of some secret in the possession of his better half.",4 "He well remembered the night of old Sally's death, which the occurrences of that day had given him good reason to recollect, as the occasion on which he had proposed to Mrs. Corney; and although that lady had never confided to him the disclosure of which she had been the solitary witness, he had heard enough to know that it related to something that had occurred in the old woman's attendance, as workhouse nurse, upon the young mother of Oliver Twist.",3 "Hastily calling this circumstance to mind, he informed the stranger, with an air of mystery, that one woman had been closeted with the old harridan shortly before she died; and that she could, as he had reason to believe, throw some light on the subject of his inquiry.",0 'How can I find her?',2 "said the stranger, thrown off his guard; and plainly showing that all his fears (whatever they were) were aroused afresh by the intelligence.",1 "'Only through me,' rejoined Mr. Bumble.",2 'When?',2 "cried the stranger, hastily.",1 "'To-morrow,' rejoined Bumble.",2 "'At nine in the evening,' said the stranger, producing a scrap of paper, and writing down upon it, an obscure address by the water-side, in characters that betrayed his agitation; 'at nine in the evening, bring her to me there.",0 I needn't tell you to be secret.,2 It's your interest.',2 "With these words, he led the way to the door, after stopping to pay for the liquor that had been drunk.",2 "Shortly remarking that their roads were different, he departed, without more ceremony than an emphatic repetition of the hour of appointment for the following night.",1 "On glancing at the address, the parochial functionary observed that it contained no name.",2 "The stranger had not gone far, so he made after him to ask it.",1 'What do you want?',2 "cried the man, turning quickly round, as Bumble touched him on the arm.",2 'Following me?',2 "'Only to ask a question,' said the other, pointing to the scrap of paper.",1 'What name am I to ask for?',2 'Monks!',2 "rejoined the man; and strode hastily, away.",1 "It was a dull, close, overcast summer evening.",1 "The clouds, which had been threatening all day, spread out in a dense and sluggish mass of vapour, already yielded large drops of rain, and seemed to presage a violent thunder-storm, when Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, turning out of the main street of the town, directed their course towards a scattered little colony of ruinous houses, distant from it some mile and a-half, or thereabouts, and erected on a low unwholesome swamp, bordering upon the river.",0 "They were both wrapped in old and shabby outer garments, which might, perhaps, serve the double purpose of protecting their persons from the rain, and sheltering them from observation.",1 "The husband carried a lantern, from which, however, no light yet shone; and trudged on, a few paces in front, as though--the way being dirty--to give his wife the benefit of treading in his heavy footprints.",2 "They went on, in profound silence; every now and then, Mr. Bumble relaxed his pace, and turned his head as if to make sure that his helpmate was following; then, discovering that she was close at his heels, he mended his rate of walking, and proceeded, at a considerable increase of speed, towards their place of destination.",3 "This was far from being a place of doubtful character; for it had long been known as the residence of none but low ruffians, who, under various pretences of living by their labour, subsisted chiefly on plunder and crime.",0 "It was a collection of mere hovels: some, hastily built with loose bricks: others, of old worm-eaten ship-timber: jumbled together without any attempt at order or arrangement, and planted, for the most part, within a few feet of the river's bank.",1 "A few leaky boats drawn up on the mud, and made fast to the dwarf wall which skirted it: and here and there an oar or coil of rope: appeared, at first, to indicate that the inhabitants of these miserable cottages pursued some avocation on the river; but a glance at the shattered and useless condition of the articles thus displayed, would have led a passer-by, without much difficulty, to the conjecture that they were disposed there, rather for the preservation of appearances, than with any view to their being actually employed.",1 "In the heart of this cluster of huts; and skirting the river, which its upper stories overhung; stood a large building, formerly used as a manufactory of some kind.",2 "It had, in its day, probably furnished employment to the inhabitants of the surrounding tenements.",2 But it had long since gone to ruin.,1 "The rat, the worm, and the action of the damp, had weakened and rotted the piles on which it stood; and a considerable portion of the building had already sunk down into the water; while the remainder, tottering and bending over the dark stream, seemed to wait a favourable opportunity of following its old companion, and involving itself in the same fate.",1 "It was before this ruinous building that the worthy couple paused, as the first peal of distant thunder reverberated in the air, and the rain commenced pouring violently down.",1 "'The place should be somewhere here,' said Bumble, consulting a scrap of paper he held in his hand.",1 'Halloa there!',2 cried a voice from above.,2 "Following the sound, Mr. Bumble raised his head and descried a man looking out of a door, breast-high, on the second story.",2 "'Stand still, a minute,' cried the voice; 'I'll be with you directly.'",2 "With which the head disappeared, and the door closed.",2 'Is that the man?',2 asked Mr. Bumble's good lady.,3 Mr. Bumble nodded in the affirmative.,3 "'Then, mind what I told you,' said the matron: 'and be careful to say as little as you can, or you'll betray us at once.'",1 "Mr. Bumble, who had eyed the building with very rueful looks, was apparently about to express some doubts relative to the advisability of proceeding any further with the enterprise just then, when he was prevented by the appearance of Monks: who opened a small door, near which they stood, and beckoned them inwards.",2 'Come in!',2 "he cried impatiently, stamping his foot upon the ground.",1 'Don't keep me here!',2 "The woman, who had hesitated at first, walked boldly in, without any other invitation.",2 "Mr. Bumble, who was ashamed or afraid to lag behind, followed: obviously very ill at ease and with scarcely any of that remarkable dignity which was usually his chief characteristic.",1 "'What the devil made you stand lingering there, in the wet?'",1 "said Monks, turning round, and addressing Bumble, after he had bolted the door behind them.",2 "'We--we were only cooling ourselves,' stammered Bumble, looking apprehensively about him.",1 'Cooling yourselves!',2 retorted Monks.,2 "'Not all the rain that ever fell, or ever will fall, will put as much of hell's fire out, as a man can carry about with him.",1 You won't cool yourself so easily; don't think it!',3 "With this agreeable speech, Monks turned short upon the matron, and bent his gaze upon her, till even she, who was not easily cowed, was fain to withdraw her eyes, and turn them towards the ground.",2 "'This is the woman, is it?'",2 demanded Monks.,2 'Hem!,2 "That is the woman,' replied Mr. Bumble, mindful of his wife's caution.",2 "'You think women never can keep secrets, I suppose?'",2 "said the matron, interposing, and returning, as she spoke, the searching look of Monks.",2 "'I know they will always keep _one_ till it's found out,' said Monks.",2 'And what may that be?',2 asked the matron.,2 "'The loss of their own good name,' replied Monks.",2 "'So, by the same rule, if a woman's a party to a secret that might hang or transport her, I'm not afraid of her telling it to anybody; not I!",1 "Do you understand, mistress?'",1 "'No,' rejoined the matron, slightly colouring as she spoke.",2 'Of course you don't!',2 said Monks.,2 'How should you?',2 "Bestowing something half-way between a smile and a frown upon his two companions, and again beckoning them to follow him, the man hastened across the apartment, which was of considerable extent, but low in the roof.",3 "He was preparing to ascend a steep staircase, or rather ladder, leading to another floor of warehouses above: when a bright flash of lightning streamed down the aperture, and a peal of thunder followed, which shook the crazy building to its centre.",2 'Hear it!',2 "he cried, shrinking back.",2 'Hear it!,2 Rolling and crashing on as if it echoed through a thousand caverns where the devils were hiding from it.,1 I hate the sound!',1 "He remained silent for a few moments; and then, removing his hands suddenly from his face, showed, to the unspeakable discomposure of Mr. Bumble, that it was much distorted and discoloured.",1 "'These fits come over me, now and then,' said Monks, observing his alarm; 'and thunder sometimes brings them on.",1 Don't mind me now; it's all over for this once.',2 "Thus speaking, he led the way up the ladder; and hastily closing the window-shutter of the room into which it led, lowered a lantern which hung at the end of a rope and pulley passed through one of the heavy beams in the ceiling: and which cast a dim light upon an old table and three chairs that were placed beneath it.",1 "'Now,' said Monks, when they had all three seated themselves, 'the sooner we come to our business, the better for all.",3 "The woman know what it is, does she?'",2 "The question was addressed to Bumble; but his wife anticipated the reply, by intimating that she was perfectly acquainted with it.",3 "'He is right in saying that you were with this hag the night she died; and that she told you something--' 'About the mother of the boy you named,' replied the matron interrupting him.",2 'Yes.',2 "'The first question is, of what nature was her communication?'",2 said Monks.,2 "'That's the second,' observed the woman with much deliberation.",2 "'The first is, what may the communication be worth?'",3 "'Who the devil can tell that, without knowing of what kind it is?'",1 asked Monks.,2 "'Nobody better than you, I am persuaded,' answered Mrs. Bumble: who did not want for spirit, as her yoke-fellow could abundantly testify.",3 'Humph!',2 "said Monks significantly, and with a look of eager inquiry; 'there may be money's worth to get, eh?'",3 "'Perhaps there may,' was the composed reply.",2 "'Something that was taken from her,' said Monks.",2 'Something that she wore.,2 "Something that--' 'You had better bid,' interrupted Mrs. Bumble.",3 "'I have heard enough, already, to assure me that you are the man I ought to talk to.'",3 "Mr. Bumble, who had not yet been admitted by his better half into any greater share of the secret than he had originally possessed, listened to this dialogue with outstretched neck and distended eyes: which he directed towards his wife and Monks, by turns, in undisguised astonishment; increased, if possible, when the latter sternly demanded, what sum was required for the disclosure.",3 'What's it worth to you?',3 "asked the woman, as collectedly as before.",2 "'It may be nothing; it may be twenty pounds,' replied Monks.",2 "'Speak out, and let me know which.'",2 "'Add five pounds to the sum you have named; give me five-and-twenty pounds in gold,' said the woman; 'and I'll tell you all I know.",3 Not before.',2 'Five-and-twenty pounds!',2 "exclaimed Monks, drawing back.",2 "'I spoke as plainly as I could,' replied Mrs. Bumble.",2 "'It's not a large sum, either.'",2 "'Not a large sum for a paltry secret, that may be nothing when it's told!'",1 cried Monks impatiently; 'and which has been lying dead for twelve years past or more!',0 "'Such matters keep well, and, like good wine, often double their value in course of time,' answered the matron, still preserving the resolute indifference she had assumed.",4 "'As to lying dead, there are those who will lie dead for twelve thousand years to come, or twelve million, for anything you or I know, who will tell strange tales at last!'",0 'What if I pay it for nothing?',2 "asked Monks, hesitating.",2 "'You can easily take it away again,' replied the matron.",2 'I am but a woman; alone here; and unprotected.',2 "'Not alone, my dear, nor unprotected, neither,' submitted Mr. Bumble, in a voice tremulous with fear: '_I_ am here, my dear.",1 "And besides,' said Mr. Bumble, his teeth chattering as he spoke, 'Mr. Monks is too much of a gentleman to attempt any violence on porochial persons.",2 "Mr. Monks is aware that I am not a young man, my dear, and also that I am a little run to seed, as I may say; bu he has heerd: I say I have no doubt Mr. Monks has heerd, my dear: that I am a very determined officer, with very uncommon strength, if I'm once roused.",1 I only want a little rousing; that's all.',2 "As Mr. Bumble spoke, he made a melancholy feint of grasping his lantern with fierce determination; and plainly showed, by the alarmed expression of every feature, that he _did_ want a little rousing, and not a little, prior to making any very warlike demonstration: unless, indeed, against paupers, or other person or persons trained down for the purpose.",0 "'You are a fool,' said Mrs. Bumble, in reply; 'and had better hold your tongue.'",2 "'He had better have cut it out, before he came, if he can't speak in a lower tone,' said Monks, grimly.",3 'So!,2 "He's your husband, eh?'",2 'He my husband!',2 "tittered the matron, parrying the question.",2 "'I thought as much, when you came in,' rejoined Monks, marking the angry glance which the lady darted at her spouse as she spoke.",1 "'So much the better; I have less hesitation in dealing with two people, when I find that there's only one will between them.",3 I'm in earnest.,3 See here!',2 "He thrust his hand into a side-pocket; and producing a canvas bag, told out twenty-five sovereigns on the table, and pushed them over to the woman.",2 "'Now,' he said, 'gather them up; and when this cursed peal of thunder, which I feel is coming up to break over the house-top, is gone, let's hear your story.'",1 "The thunder, which seemed in fact much nearer, and to shiver and break almost over their heads, having subsided, Monks, raising his face from the table, bent forward to listen to what the woman should say.",0 "The faces of the three nearly touched, as the two men leant over the small table in their eagerness to hear, and the woman also leant forward to render her whisper audible.",3 "The sickly rays of the suspended lantern falling directly upon them, aggravated the paleness and anxiety of their countenances: which, encircled by the deepest gloom and darkness, looked ghastly in the extreme.",0 "'When this woman, that we called old Sally, died,' the matron began, 'she and I were alone.'",1 'Was there no one by?',2 "asked Monks, in the same hollow whisper; 'No sick wretch or idiot in some other bed?",0 "No one who could hear, and might, by possibility, understand?'",2 "'Not a soul,' replied the woman; 'we were alone.",2 _I_ stood alone beside the body when death came over it.',1 "'Good,' said Monks, regarding her attentively.",2 'Go on.',2 "'She spoke of a young creature,' resumed the matron, 'who had brought a child into the world some years before; not merely in the same room, but in the same bed, in which she then lay dying.'",1 'Ay?',2 "said Monks, with quivering lip, and glancing over his shoulder, 'Blood!",2 How things come about!',2 "'The child was the one you named to him last night,' said the matron, nodding carelessly towards her husband; 'the mother this nurse had robbed.'",2 'In life?',2 asked Monks.,2 "'In death,' replied the woman, with something like a shudder.",2 "'She stole from the corpse, when it had hardly turned to one, that which the dead mother had prayed her, with her last breath, to keep for the infant's sake.'",1 "'She sold it,' cried Monks, with desperate eagerness; 'did she sell it?",2 Where?,2 When?,2 To whom?,2 How long before?',2 "'As she told me, with great difficulty, that she had done this,' said the matron, 'she fell back and died.'",1 'Without saying more?',2 "cried Monks, in a voice which, from its very suppression, seemed only the more furious.",1 'It's a lie!,1 I'll not be played with.,2 She said more.,2 "I'll tear the life out of you both, but I'll know what it was.'",2 "'She didn't utter another word,' said the woman, to all appearance unmoved (as Mr. Bumble was very far from being) by the strange man's violence; 'but she clutched my gown, violently, with one hand, which was partly closed; and when I saw that she was dead, and so removed the hand by force, I found it clasped a scrap of dirty paper.'",0 "'Which contained--' interposed Monks, stretching forward.",2 "'Nothing,' replied the woman; 'it was a pawnbroker's duplicate.'",2 'For what?',2 demanded Monks.,2 'In good time I'll tell you.',3 said the woman.,2 "'I judge that she had kept the trinket, for some time, in the hope of turning it to better account; and then had pawned it; and had saved or scraped together money to pay the pawnbroker's interest year by year, and prevent its running out; so that if anything came of it, it could still be redeemed.",3 "Nothing had come of it; and, as I tell you, she died with the scrap of paper, all worn and tattered, in her hand.",0 The time was out in two days; I thought something might one day come of it too; and so redeemed the pledge.',2 'Where is it now?',2 asked Monks quickly.,2 "'_There_,' replied the woman.",2 "And, as if glad to be relieved of it, she hastily threw upon the table a small kid bag scarcely large enough for a French watch, which Monks pouncing upon, tore open with trembling hands.",2 "It contained a little gold locket: in which were two locks of hair, and a plain gold wedding-ring.",3 "'It has the word ""Agnes"" engraved on the inside,' said the woman.",2 'There is a blank left for the surname; and then follows the date; which is within a year before the child was born.,2 I found out that.',2 'And this is all?',2 "said Monks, after a close and eager scrutiny of the contents of the little packet.",3 "'All,' replied the woman.",2 "Mr. Bumble drew a long breath, as if he were glad to find that the story was over, and no mention made of taking the five-and-twenty pounds back again; and now he took courage to wipe the perspiration which had been trickling over his nose, unchecked, during the whole of the previous dialogue.",3 "'I know nothing of the story, beyond what I can guess at,' said his wife addressing Monks, after a short silence; 'and I want to know nothing; for it's safer not.",2 "But I may ask you two questions, may I?'",2 "'You may ask,' said Monks, with some show of surprise; 'but whether I answer or not is another question.'",2 "'--Which makes three,' observed Mr. Bumble, essaying a stroke of facetiousness.",2 'Is that what you expected to get from me?',2 demanded the matron.,2 "'It is,' replied Monks.",2 'The other question?',2 'What do you propose to do with it?,2 Can it be used against me?',2 "'Never,' rejoined Monks; 'nor against me either.",2 See here!,2 "But don't move a step forward, or your life is not worth a bulrush.'",3 "With these words, he suddenly wheeled the table aside, and pulling an iron ring in the boarding, threw back a large trap-door which opened close at Mr. Bumble's feet, and caused that gentleman to retire several paces backward, with great precipitation.",1 "'Look down,' said Monks, lowering the lantern into the gulf.",2 'Don't fear me.,1 "I could have let you down, quietly enough, when you were seated over it, if that had been my game.'",3 "Thus encouraged, the matron drew near to the brink; and even Mr. Bumble himself, impelled by curiousity, ventured to do the same.",2 "The turbid water, swollen by the heavy rain, was rushing rapidly on below; and all other sounds were lost in the noise of its plashing and eddying against the green and slimy piles.",0 "There had once been a water-mill beneath; the tide foaming and chafing round the few rotten stakes, and fragments of machinery that yet remained, seemed to dart onward, with a new impulse, when freed from the obstacles which had unavailingly attempted to stem its headlong course.",2 "'If you flung a man's body down there, where would it be to-morrow morning?'",2 "said Monks, swinging the lantern to and fro in the dark well.",2 "'Twelve miles down the river, and cut to pieces besides,' replied Bumble, recoiling at the thought.",2 "Monks drew the little packet from his breast, where he had hurriedly thrust it; and tying it to a leaden weight, which had formed a part of some pulley, and was lying on the floor, dropped it into the stream.",1 "It fell straight, and true as a die; clove the water with a scarcely audible splash; and was gone.",1 "The three looking into each other's faces, seemed to breathe more freely.",2 'There!',2 "said Monks, closing the trap-door, which fell heavily back into its former position.",1 "'If the sea ever gives up its dead, as books say it will, it will keep its gold and silver to itself, and that trash among it.",1 "We have nothing more to say, and may break up our pleasant party.'",2 "'By all means,' observed Mr. Bumble, with great alacrity.",3 "'You'll keep a quiet tongue in your head, will you?'",3 "said Monks, with a threatening look.",1 'I am not afraid of your wife.',1 "'You may depend upon me, young man,' answered Mr. Bumble, bowing himself gradually towards the ladder, with excessive politeness.",2 "'On everybody's account, young man; on my own, you know, Mr. Monks.'",2 "'I am glad, for your sake, to hear it,' remarked Monks.",3 'Light your lantern!,2 And get away from here as fast as you can.',3 "It was fortunate that the conversation terminated at this point, or Mr. Bumble, who had bowed himself to within six inches of the ladder, would infallibly have pitched headlong into the room below.",3 "He lighted his lantern from that which Monks had detached from the rope, and now carried in his hand; and making no effort to prolong the discourse, descended in silence, followed by his wife.",2 "Monks brought up the rear, after pausing on the steps to satisfy himself that there were no other sounds to be heard than the beating of the rain without, and the rushing of the water.",3 "They traversed the lower room, slowly, and with caution; for Monks started at every shadow; and Mr. Bumble, holding his lantern a foot above the ground, walked not only with remarkable care, but with a marvellously light step for a gentleman of his figure: looking nervously about him for hidden trap-doors.",1 "The gate at which they had entered, was softly unfastened and opened by Monks; merely exchanging a nod with their mysterious acquaintance, the married couple emerged into the wet and darkness outside.",1 "They were no sooner gone, than Monks, who appeared to entertain an invincible repugnance to being left alone, called to a boy who had been hidden somewhere below.",3 "Bidding him go first, and bear the light, he returned to the chamber he had just quitted.",2 "On the evening following that upon which the three worthies mentioned in the last chapter, disposed of their little matter of business as therein narrated, Mr. William Sikes, awakening from a nap, drowsily growled forth an inquiry what time of night it was.",2 "The room in which Mr. Sikes propounded this question, was not one of those he had tenanted, previous to the Chertsey expedition, although it was in the same quarter of the town, and was situated at no great distance from his former lodgings.",3 "It was not, in appearance, so desirable a habitation as his old quarters: being a mean and badly-furnished apartment, of very limited size; lighted only by one small window in the shelving roof, and abutting on a close and dirty lane.",1 "Nor were there wanting other indications of the good gentleman's having gone down in the world of late: for a great scarcity of furniture, and total absence of comfort, together with the disappearance of all such small moveables as spare clothes and linen, bespoke a state of extreme poverty; while the meagre and attenuated condition of Mr. Sikes himself would have fully confirmed these symptoms, if they had stood in any need of corroboration.",1 "The housebreaker was lying on the bed, wrapped in his white great-coat, by way of dressing-gown, and displaying a set of features in no degree improved by the cadaverous hue of illness, and the addition of a soiled nightcap, and a stiff, black beard of a week's growth.",1 "The dog sat at the bedside: now eyeing his master with a wistful look, and now pricking his ears, and uttering a low growl as some noise in the street, or in the lower part of the house, attracted his attention.",1 "Seated by the window, busily engaged in patching an old waistcoat which formed a portion of the robber's ordinary dress, was a female: so pale and reduced with watching and privation, that there would have been considerable difficulty in recognising her as the same Nancy who has already figured in this tale, but for the voice in which she replied to Mr. Sikes's question.",1 "'Not long gone seven,' said the girl.",2 "'How do you feel to-night, Bill?'",2 "'As weak as water,' replied Mr. Sikes, with an imprecation on his eyes and limbs.",1 "'Here; lend us a hand, and let me get off this thundering bed anyhow.'",2 "Illness had not improved Mr. Sikes's temper; for, as the girl raised him up and led him to a chair, he muttered various curses on her awkwardness, and struck her.",0 'Whining are you?',2 said Sikes.,2 'Come!,2 Don't stand snivelling there.,2 "If you can't do anything better than that, cut off altogether.",3 D'ye hear me?',2 "'I hear you,' replied the girl, turning her face aside, and forcing a laugh.",2 'What fancy have you got in your head now?',3 'Oh!,2 "you've thought better of it, have you?'",3 "growled Sikes, marking the tear which trembled in her eye.",2 "'All the better for you, you have.'",3 "'Why, you don't mean to say, you'd be hard upon me to-night, Bill,' said the girl, laying her hand upon his shoulder.",1 'No!',2 cried Mr. Sikes.,2 'Why not?',2 "'Such a number of nights,' said the girl, with a touch of woman's tenderness, which communicated something like sweetness of tone, even to her voice: 'such a number of nights as I've been patient with you, nursing and caring for you, as if you had been a child: and this the first that I've seen you like yourself; you wouldn't have served me as you did just now, if you'd thought of that, would you?",3 "Come, come; say you wouldn't.'",2 "'Well, then,' rejoined Mr. Sikes, 'I wouldn't.",2 "Why, damme, now, the girls's whining again!'",1 "'It's nothing,' said the girl, throwing herself into a chair.",2 'Don't you seem to mind me.,2 It'll soon be over.',2 'What'll be over?',2 demanded Mr. Sikes in a savage voice.,1 "'What foolery are you up to, now, again?",2 "Get up and bustle about, and don't come over me with your woman's nonsense.'",1 "At any other time, this remonstrance, and the tone in which it was delivered, would have had the desired effect; but the girl being really weak and exhausted, dropped her head over the back of the chair, and fainted, before Mr. Sikes could get out a few of the appropriate oaths with which, on similar occasions, he was accustomed to garnish his threats.",1 "Not knowing, very well, what to do, in this uncommon emergency; for Miss Nancy's hysterics were usually of that violent kind which the patient fights and struggles out of, without much assistance; Mr. Sikes tried a little blasphemy: and finding that mode of treatment wholly ineffectual, called for assistance.",0 "'What's the matter here, my dear?'",2 "said Fagin, looking in.",2 "'Lend a hand to the girl, can't you?'",2 replied Sikes impatiently.,1 'Don't stand chattering and grinning at me!',2 "With an exclamation of surprise, Fagin hastened to the girl's assistance, while Mr. John Dawkins (otherwise the Artful Dodger), who had followed his venerable friend into the room, hastily deposited on the floor a bundle with which he was laden; and snatching a bottle from the grasp of Master Charles Bates who came close at his heels, uncorked it in a twinkling with his teeth, and poured a portion of its contents down the patient's throat: previously taking a taste, himself, to prevent mistakes.",1 "'Give her a whiff of fresh air with the bellows, Charley,' said Mr. Dawkins; 'and you slap her hands, Fagin, while Bill undoes the petticuts.'",2 "These united restoratives, administered with great energy: especially that department consigned to Master Bates, who appeared to consider his share in the proceedings, a piece of unexampled pleasantry: were not long in producing the desired effect.",3 "The girl gradually recovered her senses; and, staggering to a chair by the bedside, hid her face upon the pillow: leaving Mr. Sikes to confront the new comers, in some astonishment at their unlooked-for appearance.",2 "'Why, what evil wind has blowed you here?'",1 he asked Fagin.,2 "'No evil wind at all, my dear, for evil winds blow nobody any good; and I've brought something good with me, that you'll be glad to see.",2 "Dodger, my dear, open the bundle; and give Bill the little trifles that we spent all our money on, this morning.'",2 "In compliance with Mr. Fagin's request, the Artful untied this bundle, which was of large size, and formed of an old table-cloth; and handed the articles it contained, one by one, to Charley Bates: who placed them on the table, with various encomiums on their rarity and excellence.",3 "'Sitch a rabbit pie, Bill,' exclaimed that young gentleman, disclosing to view a huge pasty; 'sitch delicate creeturs, with sitch tender limbs, Bill, that the wery bones melt in your mouth, and there's no occasion to pick 'em; half a pound of seven and six-penny green, so precious strong that if you mix it with biling water, it'll go nigh to blow the lid of the tea-pot off; a pound and a half of moist sugar that the niggers didn't work at all at, afore they got it up to sitch a pitch of goodness,--oh no!",4 "Two half-quartern brans; pound of best fresh; piece of double Glo'ster; and, to wind up all, some of the richest sort you ever lushed!'",3 "Uttering this last panegyric, Master Bates produced, from one of his extensive pockets, a full-sized wine-bottle, carefully corked; while Mr. Dawkins, at the same instant, poured out a wine-glassful of raw spirits from the bottle he carried: which the invalid tossed down his throat without a moment's hesitation.",2 'Ah!',2 "said Fagin, rubbing his hands with great satisfaction.",3 "'You'll do, Bill; you'll do now.'",2 'Do!',2 "exclaimed Mr. Sikes; 'I might have been done for, twenty times over, afore you'd have done anything to help me.",2 "What do you mean by leaving a man in this state, three weeks and more, you false-hearted wagabond?'",1 "'Only hear him, boys!'",2 "said Fagin, shrugging his shoulders.",2 'And us come to bring him all these beau-ti-ful things.',2 "'The things is well enough in their way,' observed Mr. Sikes: a little soothed as he glanced over the table; 'but what have you got to say for yourself, why you should leave me here, down in the mouth, health, blunt, and everything else; and take no more notice of me, all this mortal time, than if I was that 'ere dog.--Drive him down, Charley!'",3 "'I never see such a jolly dog as that,' cried Master Bates, doing as he was desired.",3 'Smelling the grub like a old lady a going to market!,3 "He'd make his fortun' on the stage that dog would, and rewive the drayma besides.'",2 "'Hold your din,' cried Sikes, as the dog retreated under the bed: still growling angrily.",0 "'What have you got to say for yourself, you withered old fence, eh?'",2 "'I was away from London, a week and more, my dear, on a plant,' replied the Jew.",2 'And what about the other fortnight?',2 demanded Sikes.,2 "'What about the other fortnight that you've left me lying here, like a sick rat in his hole?'",1 "'I couldn't help it, Bill.",2 "I can't go into a long explanation before company; but I couldn't help it, upon my honour.'",2 'Upon your what?',2 "growled Sikes, with excessive disgust.",1 'Here!,2 "Cut me off a piece of that pie, one of you boys, to take the taste of that out of my mouth, or it'll choke me dead.'",1 "'Don't be out of temper, my dear,' urged Fagin, submissively.",1 "'I have never forgot you, Bill; never once.'",2 'No!,2 "I'll pound it that you han't,' replied Sikes, with a bitter grin.",2 "'You've been scheming and plotting away, every hour that I have laid shivering and burning here; and Bill was to do this; and Bill was to do that; and Bill was to do it all, dirt cheap, as soon as he got well: and was quite poor enough for your work.",1 "If it hadn't been for the girl, I might have died.'",1 "'There now, Bill,' remonstrated Fagin, eagerly catching at the word.",3 'If it hadn't been for the girl!,2 Who but poor ould Fagin was the means of your having such a handy girl about you?',2 'He says true enough there!',3 "said Nancy, coming hastily forward.",1 'Let him be; let him be.',2 "Nancy's appearance gave a new turn to the conversation; for the boys, receiving a sly wink from the wary old Jew, began to ply her with liquor: of which, however, she took very sparingly; while Fagin, assuming an unusual flow of spirits, gradually brought Mr. Sikes into a better temper, by affecting to regard his threats as a little pleasant banter; and, moreover, by laughing very heartily at one or two rough jokes, which, after repeated applications to the spirit-bottle, he condescended to make.",1 "'It's all very well,' said Mr. Sikes; 'but I must have some blunt from you to-night.'",2 "'I haven't a piece of coin about me,' replied the Jew.",2 "'Then you've got lots at home,' retorted Sikes; 'and I must have some from there.'",2 'Lots!',2 "cried Fagin, holding up is hands.",2 "'I haven't so much as would--' 'I don't know how much you've got, and I dare say you hardly know yourself, as it would take a pretty long time to count it,' said Sikes; 'but I must have some to-night; and that's flat.'",3 "'Well, well,' said Fagin, with a sigh, 'I'll send the Artful round presently.'",3 "'You won't do nothing of the kind,' rejoined Mr. Sikes.",2 "'The Artful's a deal too artful, and would forget to come, or lose his way, or get dodged by traps and so be perwented, or anything for an excuse, if you put him up to it.",1 "Nancy shall go to the ken and fetch it, to make all sure; and I'll lie down and have a snooze while she's gone.'",1 "After a great deal of haggling and squabbling, Fagin beat down the amount of the required advance from five pounds to three pounds four and sixpence: protesting with many solemn asseverations that that would only leave him eighteen-pence to keep house with; Mr. Sikes sullenly remarking that if he couldn't get any more he must accompany him home; with the Dodger and Master Bates put the eatables in the cupboard.",1 "The Jew then, taking leave of his affectionate friend, returned homeward, attended by Nancy and the boys: Mr. Sikes, meanwhile, flinging himself on the bed, and composing himself to sleep away the time until the young lady's return.",3 "In due course, they arrived at Fagin's abode, where they found Toby Crackit and Mr. Chitling intent upon their fifteenth game at cribbage, which it is scarcely necessary to say the latter gentleman lost, and with it, his fifteenth and last sixpence: much to the amusement of his young friends.",1 "Mr. Crackit, apparently somewhat ashamed at being found relaxing himself with a gentleman so much his inferior in station and mental endowments, yawned, and inquiring after Sikes, took up his hat to go.",1 "'Has nobody been, Toby?'",2 asked Fagin.,2 "'Not a living leg,' answered Mr. Crackit, pulling up his collar; 'it's been as dull as swipes.",1 "You ought to stand something handsome, Fagin, to recompense me for keeping house so long.",3 "Damme, I'm as flat as a juryman; and should have gone to sleep, as fast as Newgate, if I hadn't had the good natur' to amuse this youngster.",4 "Horrid dull, I'm blessed if I an't!'",1 "With these and other ejaculations of the same kind, Mr. Toby Crackit swept up his winnings, and crammed them into his waistcoat pocket with a haughty air, as though such small pieces of silver were wholly beneath the consideration of a man of his figure; this done, he swaggered out of the room, with so much elegance and gentility, that Mr. Chitling, bestowing numerous admiring glances on his legs and boots till they were out of sight, assured the company that he considered his acquaintance cheap at fifteen sixpences an interview, and that he didn't value his losses the snap of his little finger.",1 "'Wot a rum chap you are, Tom!'",2 "said Master Bates, highly amused by this declaration.",3 "'Not a bit of it,' replied Mr. Chitling.",2 "'Am I, Fagin?'",2 "'A very clever fellow, my dear,' said Fagin, patting him on the shoulder, and winking to his other pupils.",3 "'And Mr. Crackit is a heavy swell; an't he, Fagin?'",2 asked Tom.,2 "'No doubt at all of that, my dear.'",1 "'And it is a creditable thing to have his acquaintance; an't it, Fagin?'",2 pursued Tom.,2 "'Very much so, indeed, my dear.",2 "They're only jealous, Tom, because he won't give it to them.'",1 'Ah!',2 "cried Tom, triumphantly, 'that's where it is!",3 He has cleaned me out.,2 "But I can go and earn some more, when I like; can't I, Fagin?'",3 "'To be sure you can, and the sooner you go the better, Tom; so make up your loss at once, and don't lose any more time.",1 Dodger!,2 Charley!,2 It's time you were on the lay.,2 Come!,2 "It's near ten, and nothing done yet.'",2 "In obedience to this hint, the boys, nodding to Nancy, took up their hats, and left the room; the Dodger and his vivacious friend indulging, as they went, in many witticisms at the expense of Mr. Chitling; in whose conduct, it is but justice to say, there was nothing very conspicuous or peculiar: inasmuch as there are a great number of spirited young bloods upon town, who pay a much higher price than Mr. Chitling for being seen in good society: and a great number of fine gentlemen (composing the good society aforesaid) who established their reputation upon very much the same footing as flash Toby Crackit.",4 "'Now,' said Fagin, when they had left the room, 'I'll go and get you that cash, Nancy.",2 "This is only the key of a little cupboard where I keep a few odd things the boys get, my dear.",1 "I never lock up my money, for I've got none to lock up, my dear--ha!",2 ha!,2 ha!--none to lock up.,2 "It's a poor trade, Nancy, and no thanks; but I'm fond of seeing the young people about me; and I bear it all, I bear it all.",2 Hush!',2 "he said, hastily concealing the key in his breast; 'who's that?",1 Listen!',2 "The girl, who was sitting at the table with her arms folded, appeared in no way interested in the arrival: or to care whether the person, whoever he was, came or went: until the murmur of a man's voice reached her ears.",2 "The instant she caught the sound, she tore off her bonnet and shawl, with the rapidity of lightning, and thrust them under the table.",2 "The Jew, turning round immediately afterwards, she muttered a complaint of the heat: in a tone of languor that contrasted, very remarkably, with the extreme haste and violence of this action: which, however, had been unobserved by Fagin, who had his back towards her at the time.",0 'Bah!',2 "he whispered, as though nettled by the interruption; 'it's the man I expected before; he's coming downstairs.",1 "Not a word about the money while he's here, Nance.",2 He won't stop long.,2 "Not ten minutes, my dear.'",2 "Laying his skinny forefinger upon his lip, the Jew carried a candle to the door, as a man's step was heard upon the stairs without.",1 "He reached it, at the same moment as the visitor, who, coming hastily into the room, was close upon the girl before he observed her.",1 It was Monks.,2 "'Only one of my young people,' said Fagin, observing that Monks drew back, on beholding a stranger.",1 "'Don't move, Nancy.'",2 "The girl drew closer to the table, and glancing at Monks with an air of careless levity, withdrew her eyes; but as he turned towards Fagin, she stole another look; so keen and searching, and full of purpose, that if there had been any bystander to observe the change, he could hardly have believed the two looks to have proceeded from the same person.",2 'Any news?',2 inquired Fagin.,2 'Great.',2 'And--and--good?',3 "asked Fagin, hesitating as though he feared to vex the other man by being too sanguine.",1 "'Not bad, any way,' replied Monks with a smile.",2 'I have been prompt enough this time.,3 Let me have a word with you.',2 "The girl drew closer to the table, and made no offer to leave the room, although she could see that Monks was pointing to her.",2 "The Jew: perhaps fearing she might say something aloud about the money, if he endeavoured to get rid of her: pointed upward, and took Monks out of the room.",2 "'Not that infernal hole we were in before,' she could hear the man say as they went upstairs.",1 "Fagin laughed; and making some reply which did not reach her, seemed, by the creaking of the boards, to lead his companion to the second story.",2 "Before the sound of their footsteps had ceased to echo through the house, the girl had slipped off her shoes; and drawing her gown loosely over her head, and muffling her arms in it, stood at the door, listening with breathless interest.",2 "The moment the noise ceased, she glided from the room; ascended the stairs with incredible softness and silence; and was lost in the gloom above.",1 "The room remained deserted for a quarter of an hour or more; the girl glided back with the same unearthly tread; and, immediately afterwards, the two men were heard descending.",2 Monks went at once into the street; and the Jew crawled upstairs again for the money.,2 "When he returned, the girl was adjusting her shawl and bonnet, as if preparing to be gone.",2 "'Why, Nance!'",2 "exclaimed the Jew, starting back as he put down the candle, 'how pale you are!'",1 'Pale!',2 "echoed the girl, shading her eyes with her hands, as if to look steadily at him.",2 'Quite horrible.,1 What have you been doing to yourself?',2 "'Nothing that I know of, except sitting in this close place for I don't know how long and all,' replied the girl carelessly.",2 'Come!,2 Let me get back; that's a dear.',2 "With a sigh for every piece of money, Fagin told the amount into her hand.",2 "They parted without more conversation, merely interchanging a 'good-night.'",2 "When the girl got into the open street, she sat down upon a doorstep; and seemed, for a few moments, wholly bewildered and unable to pursue her way.",1 "Suddenly she arose; and hurrying on, in a direction quite opposite to that in which Sikes was awaiting her returned, quickened her pace, until it gradually resolved into a violent run.",1 "After completely exhausting herself, she stopped to take breath: and, as if suddenly recollecting herself, and deploring her inability to do something she was bent upon, wrung her hands, and burst into tears.",0 "It might be that her tears relieved her, or that she felt the full hopelessness of her condition; but she turned back; and hurrying with nearly as great rapidity in the contrary direction; partly to recover lost time, and partly to keep pace with the violent current of her own thoughts: soon reached the dwelling where she had left the housebreaker.",1 "If she betrayed any agitation, when she presented herself to Mr. Sikes, he did not observe it; for merely inquiring if she had brought the money, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, he uttered a growl of satisfaction, and replacing his head upon the pillow, resumed the slumbers which her arrival had interrupted.",2 It was fortunate for her that the possession of money occasioned him so much employment next day in the way of eating and drinking; and withal had so beneficial an effect in smoothing down the asperities of his temper; that he had neither time nor inclination to be very critical upon her behaviour and deportment.,2 "That she had all the abstracted and nervous manner of one who is on the eve of some bold and hazardous step, which it has required no common struggle to resolve upon, would have been obvious to the lynx-eyed Fagin, who would most probably have taken the alarm at once; but Mr. Sikes lacking the niceties of discrimination, and being troubled with no more subtle misgivings than those which resolve themselves into a dogged roughness of behaviour towards everybody; and being, furthermore, in an unusually amiable condition, as has been already observed; saw nothing unusual in her demeanor, and indeed, troubled himself so little about her, that, had her agitation been far more perceptible than it was, it would have been very unlikely to have awakened his suspicions.",0 "As that day closed in, the girl's excitement increased; and, when night came on, and she sat by, watching until the housebreaker should drink himself asleep, there was an unusual paleness in her cheek, and a fire in her eye, that even Sikes observed with astonishment.",3 "Mr. Sikes being weak from the fever, was lying in bed, taking hot water with his gin to render it less inflammatory; and had pushed his glass towards Nancy to be replenished for the third or fourth time, when these symptoms first struck him.",0 "'Why, burn my body!'",1 "said the man, raising himself on his hands as he stared the girl in the face.",2 'You look like a corpse come to life again.,3 What's the matter?',2 'Matter!',2 replied the girl.,2 'Nothing.,2 What do you look at me so hard for?',1 'What foolery is this?',2 "demanded Sikes, grasping her by the arm, and shaking her roughly.",2 'What is it?,2 What do you mean?,2 What are you thinking of?',2 "'Of many things, Bill,' replied the girl, shivering, and as she did so, pressing her hands upon her eyes.",2 "'But, Lord!",2 What odds in that?',2 "The tone of forced gaiety in which the last words were spoken, seemed to produce a deeper impression on Sikes than the wild and rigid look which had preceded them.",1 "'I tell you wot it is,' said Sikes; 'if you haven't caught the fever, and got it comin' on, now, there's something more than usual in the wind, and something dangerous too.",1 You're not a-going to--.,2 "No, damme!",2 you wouldn't do that!',2 'Do what?',2 asked the girl.,2 "'There ain't,' said Sikes, fixing his eyes upon her, and muttering the words to himself; 'there ain't a stauncher-hearted gal going, or I'd have cut her throat three months ago.",2 She's got the fever coming on; that's it.',1 "Fortifying himself with this assurance, Sikes drained the glass to the bottom, and then, with many grumbling oaths, called for his physic.",2 "The girl jumped up, with great alacrity; poured it quickly out, but with her back towards him; and held the vessel to his lips, while he drank off the contents.",3 "'Now,' said the robber, 'come and sit aside of me, and put on your own face; or I'll alter it so, that you won't know it agin when you do want it.'",2 The girl obeyed.,2 "Sikes, locking her hand in his, fell back upon the pillow: turning his eyes upon her face.",1 They closed; opened again; closed once more; again opened.,2 "He shifted his position restlessly; and, after dozing again, and again, for two or three minutes, and as often springing up with a look of terror, and gazing vacantly about him, was suddenly stricken, as it were, while in the very attitude of rising, into a deep and heavy sleep.",1 The grasp of his hand relaxed; the upraised arm fell languidly by his side; and he lay like one in a profound trance.,3 "'The laudanum has taken effect at last,' murmured the girl, as she rose from the bedside.",2 "'I may be too late, even now.'",2 "She hastily dressed herself in her bonnet and shawl: looking fearfully round, from time to time, as if, despite the sleeping draught, she expected every moment to feel the pressure of Sikes's heavy hand upon her shoulder; then, stooping softly over the bed, she kissed the robber's lips; and then opening and closing the room-door with noiseless touch, hurried from the house.",1 "A watchman was crying half-past nine, down a dark passage through which she had to pass, in gaining the main thoroughfare.",2 'Has it long gone the half-hour?',2 asked the girl.,2 "'It'll strike the hour in another quarter,' said the man: raising his lantern to her face.",1 "'And I cannot get there in less than an hour or more,' muttered Nancy: brushing swiftly past him, and gliding rapidly down the street.",2 "Many of the shops were already closing in the back lanes and avenues through which she tracked her way, in making from Spitalfields towards the West-End of London.",2 "The clock struck ten, increasing her impatience.",1 "She tore along the narrow pavement: elbowing the passengers from side to side; and darting almost under the horses' heads, crossed crowded streets, where clusters of persons were eagerly watching their opportunity to do the like.",3 'The woman is mad!',1 "said the people, turning to look after her as she rushed away.",2 "When she reached the more wealthy quarter of the town, the streets were comparatively deserted; and here her headlong progress excited a still greater curiosity in the stragglers whom she hurried past.",4 "Some quickened their pace behind, as though to see whither she was hastening at such an unusual rate; and a few made head upon her, and looked back, surprised at her undiminished speed; but they fell off one by one; and when she neared her place of destination, she was alone.",1 It was a family hotel in a quiet but handsome street near Hyde Park.,3 "As the brilliant light of the lamp which burnt before its door, guided her to the spot, the clock struck eleven.",2 "She had loitered for a few paces as though irresolute, and making up her mind to advance; but the sound determined her, and she stepped into the hall.",1 The porter's seat was vacant.,2 "She looked round with an air of incertitude, and advanced towards the stairs.",3 "'Now, young woman!'",2 "said a smartly-dressed female, looking out from a door behind her, 'who do you want here?'",3 "'A lady who is stopping in this house,' answered the girl.",2 'A lady!',2 "was the reply, accompanied with a scornful look.",1 'What lady?',2 "'Miss Maylie,' said Nancy.",2 "The young woman, who had by this time, noted her appearance, replied only by a look of virtuous disdain; and summoned a man to answer her.",2 "To him, Nancy repeated her request.",2 'What name am I to say?',2 asked the waiter.,2 "'It's of no use saying any,' replied Nancy.",2 'Nor business?',2 said the man.,2 "'No, nor that neither,' rejoined the girl.",2 'I must see the lady.',2 'Come!',2 "said the man, pushing her towards the door.",2 'None of this.,2 Take yourself off.',2 'I shall be carried out if I go!',2 said the girl violently; 'and I can make that a job that two of you won't like to do.,2 "Isn't there anybody here,' she said, looking round, 'that will see a simple message carried for a poor wretch like me?'",1 "This appeal produced an effect on a good-tempered-faced man-cook, who with some of the other servants was looking on, and who stepped forward to interfere.",3 "'Take it up for her, Joe; can't you?'",2 said this person.,2 'What's the good?',3 replied the man.,2 'You don't suppose the young lady will see such as her; do you?',2 "This allusion to Nancy's doubtful character, raised a vast quantity of chaste wrath in the bosoms of four housemaids, who remarked, with great fervour, that the creature was a disgrace to her sex; and strongly advocated her being thrown, ruthlessly, into the kennel.",1 "'Do what you like with me,' said the girl, turning to the men again; 'but do what I ask you first, and I ask you to give this message for God Almighty's sake.'",3 "The soft-hearted cook added his intercession, and the result was that the man who had first appeared undertook its delivery.",3 'What's it to be?',2 "said the man, with one foot on the stairs.",2 "'That a young woman earnestly asks to speak to Miss Maylie alone,' said Nancy; 'and that if the lady will only hear the first word she has to say, she will know whether to hear her business, or to have her turned out of doors as an impostor.'",2 "'I say,' said the man, 'you're coming it strong!'",3 "'You give the message,' said the girl firmly; 'and let me hear the answer.'",2 The man ran upstairs.,2 "Nancy remained, pale and almost breathless, listening with quivering lip to the very audible expressions of scorn, of which the chaste housemaids were very prolific; and of which they became still more so, when the man returned, and said the young woman was to walk upstairs.",3 "'It's no good being proper in this world,' said the first housemaid.",3 "'Brass can do better than the gold what has stood the fire,' said the second.",3 The third contented herself with wondering 'what ladies was made of'; and the fourth took the first in a quartette of 'Shameful!',2 with which the Dianas concluded.,2 "Regardless of all this: for she had weightier matters at heart: Nancy followed the man, with trembling limbs, to a small ante-chamber, lighted by a lamp from the ceiling.",2 "Here he left her, and retired.",2 "The girl's life had been squandered in the streets, and among the most noisome of the stews and dens of London, but there was something of the woman's original nature left in her still; and when she heard a light step approaching the door opposite to that by which she had entered, and thought of the wide contrast which the small room would in another moment contain, she felt burdened with the sense of her own deep shame, and shrunk as though she could scarcely bear the presence of her with whom she had sought this interview.",1 "But struggling with these better feelings was pride,--the vice of the lowest and most debased creatures no less than of the high and self-assured.",2 "The miserable companion of thieves and ruffians, the fallen outcast of low haunts, the associate of the scourings of the jails and hulks, living within the shadow of the gallows itself,--even this degraded being felt too proud to betray a feeble gleam of the womanly feeling which she thought a weakness, but which alone connected her with that humanity, of which her wasting life had obliterated so many, many traces when a very child.",0 "She raised her eyes sufficiently to observe that the figure which presented itself was that of a slight and beautiful girl; then, bending them on the ground, she tossed her head with affected carelessness as she said: 'It's a hard matter to get to see you, lady.",2 "If I had taken offence, and gone away, as many would have done, you'd have been sorry for it one day, and not without reason either.'",1 "'I am very sorry if any one has behaved harshly to you,' replied Rose.",1 'Do not think of that.,2 Tell me why you wished to see me.,2 I am the person you inquired for.',2 "The kind tone of this answer, the sweet voice, the gentle manner, the absence of any accent of haughtiness or displeasure, took the girl completely by surprise, and she burst into tears.",2 "'Oh, lady, lady!'",2 "she said, clasping her hands passionately before her face, 'if there was more like you, there would be fewer like me,--there would--there would!'",3 "'Sit down,' said Rose, earnestly.",3 "'If you are in poverty or affliction I shall be truly glad to relieve you if I can,--I shall indeed.",1 Sit down.',2 "'Let me stand, lady,' said the girl, still weeping, 'and do not speak to me so kindly till you know me better.",3 It is growing late.,2 Is--is--that door shut?',2 "'Yes,' said Rose, recoiling a few steps, as if to be nearer assistance in case she should require it.",2 'Why?',2 "'Because,' said the girl, 'I am about to put my life and the lives of others in your hands.",2 I am the girl that dragged little Oliver back to old Fagin's on the night he went out from the house in Pentonville.',1 'You!',2 said Rose Maylie.,2 "'I, lady!'",2 replied the girl.,2 "'I am the infamous creature you have heard of, that lives among the thieves, and that never from the first moment I can recollect my eyes and senses opening on London streets have known any better life, or kinder words than they have given me, so help me God!",2 "Do not mind shrinking openly from me, lady.",3 "I am younger than you would think, to look at me, but I am well used to it.",3 "The poorest women fall back, as I make my way along the crowded pavement.'",0 'What dreadful things are these!',1 "said Rose, involuntarily falling from her strange companion.",0 "'Thank Heaven upon your knees, dear lady,' cried the girl, 'that you had friends to care for and keep you in your childhood, and that you were never in the midst of cold and hunger, and riot and drunkenness, and--and--something worse than all--as I have been from my cradle.",1 "I may use the word, for the alley and the gutter were mine, as they will be my deathbed.'",1 'I pity you!',1 "said Rose, in a broken voice.",1 'It wrings my heart to hear you!',2 'Heaven bless you for your goodness!',3 rejoined the girl.,2 "'If you knew what I am sometimes, you would pity me, indeed.",1 "But I have stolen away from those who would surely murder me, if they knew I had been here, to tell you what I have overheard.",1 Do you know a man named Monks?',2 "'No,' said Rose.",2 "'He knows you,' replied the girl; 'and knew you were here, for it was by hearing him tell the place that I found you out.'",2 "'I never heard the name,' said Rose.",2 "'Then he goes by some other amongst us,' rejoined the girl, 'which I more than thought before.",2 "Some time ago, and soon after Oliver was put into your house on the night of the robbery, I--suspecting this man--listened to a conversation held between him and Fagin in the dark.",1 "I found out, from what I heard, that Monks--the man I asked you about, you know--' 'Yes,' said Rose, 'I understand.'",2 "'--That Monks,' pursued the girl, 'had seen him accidently with two of our boys on the day we first lost him, and had known him directly to be the same child that he was watching for, though I couldn't make out why.",1 "A bargain was struck with Fagin, that if Oliver was got back he should have a certain sum; and he was to have more for making him a thief, which this Monks wanted for some purpose of his own.'",2 'For what purpose?',2 asked Rose.,2 "'He caught sight of my shadow on the wall as I listened, in the hope of finding out,' said the girl; 'and there are not many people besides me that could have got out of their way in time to escape discovery.",2 But I did; and I saw him no more till last night.',2 'And what occurred then?',2 "'I'll tell you, lady.",2 Last night he came again.,2 "Again they went upstairs, and I, wrapping myself up so that my shadow would not betray me, again listened at the door.",1 "The first words I heard Monks say were these: ""So the only proofs of the boy's identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin.""",1 "They laughed, and talked of his success in doing this; and Monks, talking on about the boy, and getting very wild, said that though he had got the young devil's money safely now, he'd rather have had it the other way; for, what a game it would have been to have brought down the boast of the father's will, by driving him through every jail in town, and then hauling him up for some capital felony which Fagin could easily manage, after having made a good profit of him besides.'",3 'What is all this!',2 said Rose.,2 "'The truth, lady, though it comes from my lips,' replied the girl.",2 "'Then, he said, with oaths common enough in my ears, but strange to yours, that if he could gratify his hatred by taking the boy's life without bringing his own neck in danger, he would; but, as he couldn't, he'd be upon the watch to meet him at every turn in life; and if he took advantage of his birth and history, he might harm him yet.",1 """In short, Fagin,"" he says, ""Jew as you are, you never laid such snares as I'll contrive for my young brother, Oliver.""",1 ' 'His brother!',2 exclaimed Rose.,2 "'Those were his words,' said Nancy, glancing uneasily round, as she had scarcely ceased to do, since she began to speak, for a vision of Sikes haunted her perpetually.",1 'And more.,2 "When he spoke of you and the other lady, and said it seemed contrived by Heaven, or the devil, against him, that Oliver should come into your hands, he laughed, and said there was some comfort in that too, for how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds would you not give, if you had them, to know who your two-legged spaniel was.'",2 "'You do not mean,' said Rose, turning very pale, 'to tell me that this was said in earnest?'",2 "'He spoke in hard and angry earnest, if a man ever did,' replied the girl, shaking her head.",1 'He is an earnest man when his hatred is up.,2 "I know many who do worse things; but I'd rather listen to them all a dozen times, than to that Monks once.",1 "It is growing late, and I have to reach home without suspicion of having been on such an errand as this.",1 I must get back quickly.',2 'But what can I do?',2 said Rose.,2 'To what use can I turn this communication without you?,2 Back!,2 Why do you wish to return to companions you paint in such terrible colors?,1 "If you repeat this information to a gentleman whom I can summon in an instant from the next room, you can be consigned to some place of safety without half an hour's delay.'",1 "'I wish to go back,' said the girl.",2 "'I must go back, because--how can I tell such things to an innocent lady like you?--because among the men I have told you of, there is one: the most desperate among them all; that I can't leave: no, not even to be saved from the life I am leading now.'",3 "'Your having interfered in this dear boy's behalf before,' said Rose; 'your coming here, at so great a risk, to tell me what you have heard; your manner, which convinces me of the truth of what you say; your evident contrition, and sense of shame; all lead me to believe that you might yet be reclaimed.",2 Oh!',2 "said the earnest girl, folding her hands as the tears coursed down her face, 'do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex; the first--the first, I do believe, who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion.",2 "Do hear my words, and let me save you yet, for better things.'",3 "'Lady,' cried the girl, sinking on her knees, 'dear, sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!'",1 "'It is never too late,' said Rose, 'for penitence and atonement.'",2 "'It is,' cried the girl, writhing in agony of her mind; 'I cannot leave him now!",1 I could not be his death.',1 'Why should you be?',2 asked Rose.,2 "'Nothing could save him,' cried the girl.",2 "'If I told others what I have told you, and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die.",2 "He is the boldest, and has been so cruel!'",1 "'Is it possible,' cried Rose, 'that for such a man as this, you can resign every future hope, and the certainty of immediate rescue?",2 It is madness.',1 "'I don't know what it is,' answered the girl; 'I only know that it is so, and not with me alone, but with hundreds of others as bad and wretched as myself.",1 I must go back.,2 "Whether it is God's wrath for the wrong I have done, I do not know; but I am drawn back to him through every suffering and ill usage; and I should be, I believe, if I knew that I was to die by his hand at last.'",0 'What am I to do?',2 said Rose.,2 'I should not let you depart from me thus.',2 "'You should, lady, and I know you will,' rejoined the girl, rising.",2 "'You will not stop my going because I have trusted in your goodness, and forced no promise from you, as I might have done.'",4 "'Of what use, then, is the communication you have made?'",2 said Rose.,2 "'This mystery must be investigated, or how will its disclosure to me, benefit Oliver, whom you are anxious to serve?'",1 "'You must have some kind gentleman about you that will hear it as a secret, and advise you what to do,' rejoined the girl.",2 'But where can I find you again when it is necessary?',2 asked Rose.,2 "'I do not seek to know where these dreadful people live, but where will you be walking or passing at any settled period from this time?'",1 "'Will you promise me that you will have my secret strictly kept, and come alone, or with the only other person that knows it; and that I shall not be watched or followed?'",2 asked the girl.,2 "'I promise you solemnly,' answered Rose.",3 "'Every Sunday night, from eleven until the clock strikes twelve,' said the girl without hesitation, 'I will walk on London Bridge if I am alive.'",2 "'Stay another moment,' interposed Rose, as the girl moved hurriedly towards the door.",2 "'Think once again on your own condition, and the opportunity you have of escaping from it.",2 "You have a claim on me: not only as the voluntary bearer of this intelligence, but as a woman lost almost beyond redemption.",3 "Will you return to this gang of robbers, and to this man, when a word can save you?",2 "What fascination is it that can take you back, and make you cling to wickedness and misery?",1 Oh!,2 is there no chord in your heart that I can touch!,2 "Is there nothing left, to which I can appeal against this terrible infatuation!'",2 "'When ladies as young, and good, and beautiful as you are,' replied the girl steadily, 'give away your hearts, love will carry you all lengths--even such as you, who have home, friends, other admirers, everything, to fill them.",4 "When such as I, who have no certain roof but the coffinlid, and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital nurse, set our rotten hearts on any man, and let him fill the place that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to cure us?",0 "Pity us, lady--pity us for having only one feeling of the woman left, and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment, from a comfort and a pride, into a new means of violence and suffering.'",2 "'You will,' said Rose, after a pause, 'take some money from me, which may enable you to live without dishonesty--at all events until we meet again?'",1 "'Not a penny,' replied the girl, waving her hand.",2 "'Do not close your heart against all my efforts to help you,' said Rose, stepping gently forward.",2 'I wish to serve you indeed.',2 "'You would serve me best, lady,' replied the girl, wringing her hands, 'if you could take my life at once; for I have felt more grief to think of what I am, to-night, than I ever did before, and it would be something not to die in the hell in which I have lived.",1 "God bless you, sweet lady, and send as much happiness on your head as I have brought shame on mine!'",3 "Thus speaking, and sobbing aloud, the unhappy creature turned away; while Rose Maylie, overpowered by this extraordinary interview, which had more the semblance of a rapid dream than an actual occurrence, sank into a chair, and endeavoured to collect her wandering thoughts.",3 "Her situation was, indeed, one of no common trial and difficulty.",1 "While she felt the most eager and burning desire to penetrate the mystery in which Oliver's history was enveloped, she could not but hold sacred the confidence which the miserable woman with whom she had just conversed, had reposed in her, as a young and guileless girl.",1 "Her words and manner had touched Rose Maylie's heart; and, mingled with her love for her young charge, and scarcely less intense in its truth and fervour, was her fond wish to win the outcast back to repentance and hope.",2 "They purposed remaining in London only three days, prior to departing for some weeks to a distant part of the coast.",2 It was now midnight of the first day.,2 "What course of action could she determine upon, which could be adopted in eight-and-forty hours?",2 Or how could she postpone the journey without exciting suspicion?,2 "Mr. Losberne was with them, and would be for the next two days; but Rose was too well acquainted with the excellent gentleman's impetuosity, and foresaw too clearly the wrath with which, in the first explosion of his indignation, he would regard the instrument of Oliver's recapture, to trust him with the secret, when her representations in the girl's behalf could be seconded by no experienced person.",4 "These were all reasons for the greatest caution and most circumspect behaviour in communicating it to Mrs. Maylie, whose first impulse would infallibly be to hold a conference with the worthy doctor on the subject.",4 "As to resorting to any legal adviser, even if she had known how to do so, it was scarcely to be thought of, for the same reason.",1 "Once the thought occurred to her of seeking assistance from Harry; but this awakened the recollection of their last parting, and it seemed unworthy of her to call him back, when--the tears rose to her eyes as she pursued this train of reflection--he might have by this time learnt to forget her, and to be happier away.",2 "Disturbed by these different reflections; inclining now to one course and then to another, and again recoiling from all, as each successive consideration presented itself to her mind; Rose passed a sleepless and anxious night.",1 "After more communing with herself next day, she arrived at the desperate conclusion of consulting Harry.",1 "'If it be painful to him,' she thought, 'to come back here, how painful it will be to me!",1 "But perhaps he will not come; he may write, or he may come himself, and studiously abstain from meeting me--he did when he went away.",2 I hardly thought he would; but it was better for us both.',3 "And here Rose dropped the pen, and turned away, as though the very paper which was to be her messenger should not see her weep.",1 "She had taken up the same pen, and laid it down again fifty times, and had considered and reconsidered the first line of her letter without writing the first word, when Oliver, who had been walking in the streets, with Mr. Giles for a body-guard, entered the room in such breathless haste and violent agitation, as seemed to betoken some new cause of alarm.",0 'What makes you look so flurried?',2 "asked Rose, advancing to meet him.",2 "'I hardly know how; I feel as if I should be choked,' replied the boy.",2 'Oh dear!,2 "To think that I should see him at last, and you should be able to know that I have told you the truth!'",2 "'I never thought you had told us anything but the truth,' said Rose, soothing him.",2 'But what is this?--of whom do you speak?',2 "'I have seen the gentleman,' replied Oliver, scarcely able to articulate, 'the gentleman who was so good to me--Mr. Brownlow, that we have so often talked about.'",3 'Where?',2 asked Rose.,2 "'Getting out of a coach,' replied Oliver, shedding tears of delight, 'and going into a house.",3 "I didn't speak to him--I couldn't speak to him, for he didn't see me, and I trembled so, that I was not able to go up to him.",2 "But Giles asked, for me, whether he lived there, and they said he did.",2 "Look here,' said Oliver, opening a scrap of paper, 'here it is; here's where he lives--I'm going there directly!",1 "Oh, dear me, dear me!",2 What shall I do when I come to see him and hear him speak again!',2 "With her attention not a little distracted by these and a great many other incoherent exclamations of joy, Rose read the address, which was Craven Street, in the Strand.",2 She very soon determined upon turning the discovery to account.,2 'Quick!',2 she said.,2 "'Tell them to fetch a hackney-coach, and be ready to go with me.",3 "I will take you there directly, without a minute's loss of time.",1 "I will only tell my aunt that we are going out for an hour, and be ready as soon as you are.'",3 "Oliver needed no prompting to despatch, and in little more than five minutes they were on their way to Craven Street.",1 "When they arrived there, Rose left Oliver in the coach, under pretence of preparing the old gentleman to receive him; and sending up her card by the servant, requested to see Mr. Brownlow on very pressing business.",1 "The servant soon returned, to beg that she would walk upstairs; and following him into an upper room, Miss Maylie was presented to an elderly gentleman of benevolent appearance, in a bottle-green coat.",1 "At no great distance from whom, was seated another old gentleman, in nankeen breeches and gaiters; who did not look particularly benevolent, and who was sitting with his hands clasped on the top of a thick stick, and his chin propped thereupon.",4 "'Dear me,' said the gentleman, in the bottle-green coat, hastily rising with great politeness, 'I beg your pardon, young lady--I imagined it was some importunate person who--I beg you will excuse me.",1 "Be seated, pray.'",2 "'Mr. Brownlow, I believe, sir?'",2 "said Rose, glancing from the other gentleman to the one who had spoken.",2 "'That is my name,' said the old gentleman.",2 "'This is my friend, Mr. Grimwig.",2 "Grimwig, will you leave us for a few minutes?'",2 "'I believe,' interposed Miss Maylie, 'that at this period of our interview, I need not give that gentleman the trouble of going away.",1 "If I am correctly informed, he is cognizant of the business on which I wish to speak to you.'",3 Mr. Brownlow inclined his head.,2 "Mr. Grimwig, who had made one very stiff bow, and risen from his chair, made another very stiff bow, and dropped into it again.",1 "'I shall surprise you very much, I have no doubt,' said Rose, naturally embarrassed; 'but you once showed great benevolence and goodness to a very dear young friend of mine, and I am sure you will take an interest in hearing of him again.'",3 'Indeed!',2 said Mr. Brownlow.,2 "'Oliver Twist you knew him as,' replied Rose.",1 "The words no sooner escaped her lips, than Mr. Grimwig, who had been affecting to dip into a large book that lay on the table, upset it with a great crash, and falling back in his chair, discharged from his features every expression but one of unmitigated wonder, and indulged in a prolonged and vacant stare; then, as if ashamed of having betrayed so much emotion, he jerked himself, as it were, by a convulsion into his former attitude, and looking out straight before him emitted a long deep whistle, which seemed, at last, not to be discharged on empty air, but to die away in the innermost recesses of his stomach.",0 "Mr. Browlow was no less surprised, although his astonishment was not expressed in the same eccentric manner.",2 "He drew his chair nearer to Miss Maylie's, and said, 'Do me the favour, my dear young lady, to leave entirely out of the question that goodness and benevolence of which you speak, and of which nobody else knows anything; and if you have it in your power to produce any evidence which will alter the unfavourable opinion I was once induced to entertain of that poor child, in Heaven's name put me in possession of it.'",3 'A bad one!,1 "I'll eat my head if he is not a bad one,' growled Mr. Grimwig, speaking by some ventriloquial power, without moving a muscle of his face.",1 "'He is a child of a noble nature and a warm heart,' said Rose, colouring; 'and that Power which has thought fit to try him beyond his years, has planted in his breast affections and feelings which would do honour to many who have numbered his days six times over.'",3 "'I'm only sixty-one,' said Mr. Grimwig, with the same rigid face.",1 "'And, as the devil's in it if this Oliver is not twelve years old at least, I don't see the application of that remark.'",2 "'Do not heed my friend, Miss Maylie,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'he does not mean what he says.'",1 "'Yes, he does,' growled Mr. Grimwig.",2 "'No, he does not,' said Mr. Brownlow, obviously rising in wrath as he spoke.",1 "'He'll eat his head, if he doesn't,' growled Mr. Grimwig.",2 "'He would deserve to have it knocked off, if he does,' said Mr. Brownlow.",2 "'And he'd uncommonly like to see any man offer to do it,' responded Mr. Grimwig, knocking his stick upon the floor.",3 "Having gone thus far, the two old gentlemen severally took snuff, and afterwards shook hands, according to their invariable custom.",2 "'Now, Miss Maylie,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'to return to the subject in which your humanity is so much interested.",1 "Will you let me know what intelligence you have of this poor child: allowing me to promise that I exhausted every means in my power of discovering him, and that since I have been absent from this country, my first impression that he had imposed upon me, and had been persuaded by his former associates to rob me, has been considerably shaken.'",2 "Rose, who had had time to collect her thoughts, at once related, in a few natural words, all that had befallen Oliver since he left Mr. Brownlow's house; reserving Nancy's information for that gentleman's private ear, and concluding with the assurance that his only sorrow, for some months past, had been not being able to meet with his former benefactor and friend.",3 'Thank God!',2 said the old gentleman.,2 "'This is great happiness to me, great happiness.",3 "But you have not told me where he is now, Miss Maylie.",1 "You must pardon my finding fault with you,--but why not have brought him?'",2 "'He is waiting in a coach at the door,' replied Rose.",2 'At this door!',2 cried the old gentleman.,2 "With which he hurried out of the room, down the stairs, up the coachsteps, and into the coach, without another word.",2 "When the room-door closed behind him, Mr. Grimwig lifted up his head, and converting one of the hind legs of his chair into a pivot, described three distinct circles with the assistance of his stick and the table; sitting in it all the time.",2 "After performing this evolution, he rose and limped as fast as he could up and down the room at least a dozen times, and then stopping suddenly before Rose, kissed her without the slightest preface.",3 'Hush!',2 "he said, as the young lady rose in some alarm at this unusual proceeding.",1 'Don't be afraid.,1 I'm old enough to be your grandfather.,3 You're a sweet girl.,3 I like you.,3 Here they are!',2 "In fact, as he threw himself at one dexterous dive into his former seat, Mr. Brownlow returned, accompanied by Oliver, whom Mr. Grimwig received very graciously; and if the gratification of that moment had been the only reward for all her anxiety and care in Oliver's behalf, Rose Maylie would have been well repaid.",4 "'There is somebody else who should not be forgotten, by the bye,' said Mr. Brownlow, ringing the bell.",2 "'Send Mrs. Bedwin here, if you please.'",2 "The old housekeeper answered the summons with all dispatch; and dropping a curtsey at the door, waited for orders.",2 "'Why, you get blinder every day, Bedwin,' said Mr. Brownlow, rather testily.",1 "'Well, that I do, sir,' replied the old lady.",2 "'People's eyes, at my time of life, don't improve with age, sir.'",3 "'I could have told you that,' rejoined Mr. Brownlow; 'but put on your glasses, and see if you can't find out what you were wanted for, will you?'",2 The old lady began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles.,2 "But Oliver's patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to his first impulse, he sprang into her arms.",3 'God be good to me!',3 "cried the old lady, embracing him; 'it is my innocent boy!'",2 'My dear old nurse!',2 cried Oliver.,2 "'He would come back--I knew he would,' said the old lady, holding him in her arms.",2 "'How well he looks, and how like a gentleman's son he is dressed again!",3 "Where have you been, this long, long while?",2 Ah!,2 "the same sweet face, but not so pale; the same soft eye, but not so sad.",2 "I have never forgotten them or his quiet smile, but have seen them every day, side by side with those of my own dear children, dead and gone since I was a lightsome young creature.'",3 "Running on thus, and now holding Oliver from her to mark how he had grown, now clasping him to her and passing her fingers fondly through his hair, the good soul laughed and wept upon his neck by turns.",3 "Leaving her and Oliver to compare notes at leisure, Mr. Brownlow led the way into another room; and there, heard from Rose a full narration of her interview with Nancy, which occasioned him no little surprise and perplexity.",2 Rose also explained her reasons for not confiding in her friend Mr. Losberne in the first instance.,2 "The old gentleman considered that she had acted prudently, and readily undertook to hold solemn conference with the worthy doctor himself.",3 "To afford him an early opportunity for the execution of this design, it was arranged that he should call at the hotel at eight o'clock that evening, and that in the meantime Mrs. Maylie should be cautiously informed of all that had occurred.",3 "These preliminaries adjusted, Rose and Oliver returned home.",2 Rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good doctor's wrath.,1 "Nancy's history was no sooner unfolded to him, than he poured forth a shower of mingled threats and execrations; threatened to make her the first victim of the combined ingenuity of Messrs.",2 Blathers and Duff; and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the assistance of those worthies.,2 "And, doubtless, he would, in this first outbreak, have carried the intention into effect without a moment's consideration of the consequences, if he had not been restrained, in part, by corresponding violence on the side of Mr. Brownlow, who was himself of an irascible temperament, and party by such arguments and representations as seemed best calculated to dissuade him from his hotbrained purpose.",1 'Then what the devil is to be done?',1 "said the impetuous doctor, when they had rejoined the two ladies.",1 "'Are we to pass a vote of thanks to all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to accept a hundred pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?'",2 "'Not exactly that,' rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; 'but we must proceed gently and with great care.'",3 "'Gentleness and care,' exclaimed the doctor.",2 "'I'd send them one and all to--' 'Never mind where,' interposed Mr. Brownlow.",2 'But reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view.',1 'What object?',1 asked the doctor.,2 "'Simply, the discovery of Oliver's parentage, and regaining for him the inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently deprived.'",1 'Ah!',2 "said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief; 'I almost forgot that.'",2 "'You see,' pursued Mr. Brownlow; 'placing this poor girl entirely out of the question, and supposing it were possible to bring these scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should we bring about?'",2 "'Hanging a few of them at least, in all probability,' suggested the doctor, 'and transporting the rest.'",2 "'Very good,' replied Mr. Brownlow, smiling; 'but no doubt they will bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time, and if we step in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be performing a very Quixotic act, in direct opposition to our own interest--or at least to Oliver's, which is the same thing.'",2 'How?',2 inquired the doctor.,2 'Thus.,2 "It is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in getting to the bottom of this mystery, unless we can bring this man, Monks, upon his knees.",1 "That can only be done by stratagem, and by catching him when he is not surrounded by these people.",2 "For, suppose he were apprehended, we have no proof against him.",2 "He is not even (so far as we know, or as the facts appear to us) concerned with the gang in any of their robberies.",1 "If he were not discharged, it is very unlikely that he could receive any further punishment than being committed to prison as a rogue and vagabond; and of course ever afterwards his mouth would be so obstinately closed that he might as well, for our purposes, be deaf, dumb, blind, and an idiot.'",0 "'Then,' said the doctor impetuously, 'I put it to you again, whether you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl should be considered binding; a promise made with the best and kindest intentions, but really--' 'Do not discuss the point, my dear young lady, pray,' said Mr. Brownlow, interrupting Rose as she was about to speak.",3 'The promise shall be kept.,3 "I don't think it will, in the slightest degree, interfere with our proceedings.",1 "But, before we can resolve upon any precise course of action, it will be necessary to see the girl; to ascertain from her whether she will point out this Monks, on the understanding that he is to be dealt with by us, and not by the law; or, if she will not, or cannot do that, to procure from her such an account of his haunts and description of his person, as will enable us to identify him.",3 She cannot be seen until next Sunday night; this is Tuesday.,2 "I would suggest that in the meantime, we remain perfectly quiet, and keep these matters secret even from Oliver himself.'",3 "Although Mr. Losberne received with many wry faces a proposal involving a delay of five whole days, he was fain to admit that no better course occurred to him just then; and as both Rose and Mrs. Maylie sided very strongly with Mr. Brownlow, that gentleman's proposition was carried unanimously.",2 "'I should like,' he said, 'to call in the aid of my friend Grimwig.",3 "He is a strange creature, but a shrewd one, and might prove of material assistance to us; I should say that he was bred a lawyer, and quitted the Bar in disgust because he had only one brief and a motion of course, in twenty years, though whether that is recommendation or not, you must determine for yourselves.'",1 "'I have no objection to your calling in your friend if I may call in mine,' said the doctor.",1 "'We must put it to the vote,' replied Mr. Brownlow, 'who may he be?'",2 "'That lady's son, and this young lady's--very old friend,' said the doctor, motioning towards Mrs. Maylie, and concluding with an expressive glance at her niece.",2 "Rose blushed deeply, but she did not make any audible objection to this motion (possibly she felt in a hopeless minority); and Harry Maylie and Mr. Grimwig were accordingly added to the committee.",1 "'We stay in town, of course,' said Mrs. Maylie, 'while there remains the slightest prospect of prosecuting this inquiry with a chance of success.",3 "I will spare neither trouble nor expense in behalf of the object in which we are all so deeply interested, and I am content to remain here, if it be for twelve months, so long as you assure me that any hope remains.'",1 'Good!',2 rejoined Mr. Brownlow.,2 "'And as I see on the faces about me, a disposition to inquire how it happened that I was not in the way to corroborate Oliver's tale, and had so suddenly left the kingdom, let me stipulate that I shall be asked no questions until such time as I may deem it expedient to forestall them by telling my own story.",2 "Believe me, I make this request with good reason, for I might otherwise excite hopes destined never to be realised, and only increase difficulties and disappointments already quite numerous enough.",3 Come!,2 "Supper has been announced, and young Oliver, who is all alone in the next room, will have begun to think, by this time, that we have wearied of his company, and entered into some dark conspiracy to thrust him forth upon the world.'",1 "With these words, the old gentleman gave his hand to Mrs. Maylie, and escorted her into the supper-room.",2 "Mr. Losberne followed, leading Rose; and the council was, for the present, effectually broken up.",2 "Upon the night when Nancy, having lulled Mr. Sikes to sleep, hurried on her self-imposed mission to Rose Maylie, there advanced towards London, by the Great North Road, two persons, upon whom it is expedient that this history should bestow some attention.",3 "They were a man and woman; or perhaps they would be better described as a male and female: for the former was one of those long-limbed, knock-kneed, shambling, bony people, to whom it is difficult to assign any precise age,--looking as they do, when they are yet boys, like undergrown men, and when they are almost men, like overgrown boys.",3 "The woman was young, but of a robust and hardy make, as she need have been to bear the weight of the heavy bundle which was strapped to her back.",3 "Her companion was not encumbered with much luggage, as there merely dangled from a stick which he carried over his shoulder, a small parcel wrapped in a common handkerchief, and apparently light enough.",3 "This circumstance, added to the length of his legs, which were of unusual extent, enabled him with much ease to keep some half-dozen paces in advance of his companion, to whom he occasionally turned with an impatient jerk of the head: as if reproaching her tardiness, and urging her to greater exertion.",1 "Thus, they had toiled along the dusty road, taking little heed of any object within sight, save when they stepped aside to allow a wider passage for the mail-coaches which were whirling out of town, until they passed through Highgate archway; when the foremost traveller stopped and called impatiently to his companion, 'Come on, can't yer?",1 "What a lazybones yer are, Charlotte.'",2 "'It's a heavy load, I can tell you,' said the female, coming up, almost breathless with fatigue.",1 'Heavy!,2 What are yer talking about?,2 What are yer made for?',2 "rejoined the male traveller, changing his own little bundle as he spoke, to the other shoulder.",2 "'Oh, there yer are, resting again!",2 "Well, if yer ain't enough to tire anybody's patience out, I don't know what is!'",4 'Is it much farther?',2 "asked the woman, resting herself against a bank, and looking up with the perspiration streaming from her face.",2 'Much farther!,2 "Yer as good as there,' said the long-legged tramper, pointing out before him.",3 'Look there!,2 Those are the lights of London.',2 "'They're a good two mile off, at least,' said the woman despondingly.",3 "'Never mind whether they're two mile off, or twenty,' said Noah Claypole; for he it was; 'but get up and come on, or I'll kick yer, and so I give yer notice.'",2 "As Noah's red nose grew redder with anger, and as he crossed the road while speaking, as if fully prepared to put his threat into execution, the woman rose without any further remark, and trudged onward by his side.",1 "'Where do you mean to stop for the night, Noah?'",2 "she asked, after they had walked a few hundred yards.",2 'How should I know?',2 "replied Noah, whose temper had been considerably impaired by walking.",1 "'Near, I hope,' said Charlotte.",2 "'No, not near,' replied Mr. Claypole.",2 'There!,2 Not near; so don't think it.',2 'Why not?',2 "'When I tell yer that I don't mean to do a thing, that's enough, without any why or because either,' replied Mr. Claypole with dignity.",3 "'Well, you needn't be so cross,' said his companion.",2 "'A pretty thing it would be, wouldn't it to go and stop at the very first public-house outside the town, so that Sowerberry, if he come up after us, might poke in his old nose, and have us taken back in a cart with handcuffs on,' said Mr. Claypole in a jeering tone.",2 'No!,2 "I shall go and lose myself among the narrowest streets I can find, and not stop till we come to the very out-of-the-wayest house I can set eyes on.",1 "'Cod, yer may thanks yer stars I've got a head; for if we hadn't gone, at first, the wrong road a purpose, and come back across country, yer'd have been locked up hard and fast a week ago, my lady.",1 And serve yer right for being a fool.',2 "'I know I ain't as cunning as you are,' replied Charlotte; 'but don't put all the blame on me, and say I should have been locked up.",1 "You would have been if I had been, any way.'",2 "'Yer took the money from the till, yer know yer did,' said Mr. Claypole.",2 "'I took it for you, Noah, dear,' rejoined Charlotte.",2 'Did I keep it?',2 asked Mr. Claypole.,2 "'No; you trusted in me, and let me carry it like a dear, and so you are,' said the lady, chucking him under the chin, and drawing her arm through his.",3 "This was indeed the case; but as it was not Mr. Claypole's habit to repose a blind and foolish confidence in anybody, it should be observed, in justice to that gentleman, that he had trusted Charlotte to this extent, in order that, if they were pursued, the money might be found on her: which would leave him an opportunity of asserting his innocence of any theft, and would greatly facilitate his chances of escape.",3 "Of course, he entered at this juncture, into no explanation of his motives, and they walked on very lovingly together.",2 "In pursuance of this cautious plan, Mr. Claypole went on, without halting, until he arrived at the Angel at Islington, where he wisely judged, from the crowd of passengers and numbers of vehicles, that London began in earnest.",4 "Just pausing to observe which appeared the most crowded streets, and consequently the most to be avoided, he crossed into Saint John's Road, and was soon deep in the obscurity of the intricate and dirty ways, which, lying between Gray's Inn Lane and Smithfield, render that part of the town one of the lowest and worst that improvement has left in the midst of London.",1 "Through these streets, Noah Claypole walked, dragging Charlotte after him; now stepping into the kennel to embrace at a glance the whole external character of some small public-house; now jogging on again, as some fancied appearance induced him to believe it too public for his purpose.",1 "At length, he stopped in front of one, more humble in appearance and more dirty than any he had yet seen; and, having crossed over and surveyed it from the opposite pavement, graciously announced his intention of putting up there, for the night.",3 "'So give us the bundle,' said Noah, unstrapping it from the woman's shoulders, and slinging it over his own; 'and don't yer speak, except when yer spoke to.",2 What's the name of the house--t-h-r--three what?',2 "'Cripples,' said Charlotte.",2 "'Three Cripples,' repeated Noah, 'and a very good sign too.",2 "Now, then!",2 "Keep close at my heels, and come along.'",2 "With these injunctions, he pushed the rattling door with his shoulder, and entered the house, followed by his companion.",2 "There was nobody in the bar but a young Jew, who, with his two elbows on the counter, was reading a dirty newspaper.",1 "He stared very hard at Noah, and Noah stared very hard at him.",1 "If Noah had been attired in his charity-boy's dress, there might have been some reason for the Jew opening his eyes so wide; but as he had discarded the coat and badge, and wore a short smock-frock over his leathers, there seemed no particular reason for his appearance exciting so much attention in a public-house.",3 'Is this the Three Cripples?',1 asked Noah.,2 "'That is the dabe of this 'ouse,' replied the Jew.",2 "'A gentleman we met on the road, coming up from the country, recommended us here,' said Noah, nudging Charlotte, perhaps to call her attention to this most ingenious device for attracting respect, and perhaps to warn her to betray no surprise.",3 'We want to sleep here to-night.',2 "'I'b dot certaid you cad,' said Barney, who was the attendant sprite; 'but I'll idquire.'",2 "'Show us the tap, and give us a bit of cold meat and a drop of beer while yer inquiring, will yer?'",1 said Noah.,2 "Barney complied by ushering them into a small back-room, and setting the required viands before them; having done which, he informed the travellers that they could be lodged that night, and left the amiable couple to their refreshment.",3 "Now, this back-room was immediately behind the bar, and some steps lower, so that any person connected with the house, undrawing a small curtain which concealed a single pane of glass fixed in the wall of the last-named apartment, about five feet from its flooring, could not only look down upon any guests in the back-room without any great hazard of being observed (the glass being in a dark angle of the wall, between which and a large upright beam the observer had to thrust himself), but could, by applying his ear to the partition, ascertain with tolerable distinctness, their subject of conversation.",2 "The landlord of the house had not withdrawn his eye from this place of espial for five minutes, and Barney had only just returned from making the communication above related, when Fagin, in the course of his evening's business, came into the bar to inquire after some of his young pupils.",2 'Hush!',2 said Barney: 'stradegers id the next roob.',2 'Strangers!',2 repeated the old man in a whisper.,2 'Ah!,2 "Ad rub uds too,' added Barney.",2 "'Frob the cuttry, but subthig in your way, or I'b bistaked.'",2 Fagin appeared to receive this communication with great interest.,3 "Mounting a stool, he cautiously applied his eye to the pane of glass, from which secret post he could see Mr. Claypole taking cold beef from the dish, and porter from the pot, and administering homeopathic doses of both to Charlotte, who sat patiently by, eating and drinking at his pleasure.",3 'Aha!',2 "he whispered, looking round to Barney, 'I like that fellow's looks.",3 He'd be of use to us; he knows how to train the girl already.,2 "Don't make as much noise as a mouse, my dear, and let me hear 'em talk--let me hear 'em.'",1 "He again applied his eye to the glass, and turning his ear to the partition, listened attentively: with a subtle and eager look upon his face, that might have appertained to some old goblin.",3 "'So I mean to be a gentleman,' said Mr. Claypole, kicking out his legs, and continuing a conversation, the commencement of which Fagin had arrived too late to hear.",2 "'No more jolly old coffins, Charlotte, but a gentleman's life for me: and, if yer like, yer shall be a lady.'",3 "'I should like that well enough, dear,' replied Charlotte; 'but tills ain't to be emptied every day, and people to get clear off after it.'",4 'Tills be blowed!',2 said Mr. Claypole; 'there's more things besides tills to be emptied.',2 'What do you mean?',2 asked his companion.,2 "'Pockets, women's ridicules, houses, mail-coaches, banks!'",1 "said Mr. Claypole, rising with the porter.",2 "'But you can't do all that, dear,' said Charlotte.",2 "'I shall look out to get into company with them as can,' replied Noah.",2 'They'll be able to make us useful some way or another.,3 "Why, you yourself are worth fifty women; I never see such a precious sly and deceitful creetur as yer can be when I let yer.'",2 "'Lor, how nice it is to hear yer say so!'",3 "exclaimed Charlotte, imprinting a kiss upon his ugly face.",1 "'There, that'll do: don't yer be too affectionate, in case I'm cross with yer,' said Noah, disengaging himself with great gravity.",3 "'I should like to be the captain of some band, and have the whopping of 'em, and follering 'em about, unbeknown to themselves.",3 "That would suit me, if there was good profit; and if we could only get in with some gentleman of this sort, I say it would be cheap at that twenty-pound note you've got,--especially as we don't very well know how to get rid of it ourselves.'",3 "After expressing this opinion, Mr. Claypole looked into the porter-pot with an aspect of deep wisdom; and having well shaken its contents, nodded condescendingly to Charlotte, and took a draught, wherewith he appeared greatly refreshed.",3 "He was meditating another, when the sudden opening of the door, and the appearance of a stranger, interrupted him.",1 The stranger was Mr. Fagin.,1 "And very amiable he looked, and a very low bow he made, as he advanced, and setting himself down at the nearest table, ordered something to drink of the grinning Barney.",3 "'A pleasant night, sir, but cool for the time of year,' said Fagin, rubbing his hands.",3 "'From the country, I see, sir?'",2 'How do yer see that?',2 asked Noah Claypole.,2 "'We have not so much dust as that in London,' replied Fagin, pointing from Noah's shoes to those of his companion, and from them to the two bundles.",1 "'Yer a sharp feller,' said Noah.",3 'Ha!,2 ha!,2 "only hear that, Charlotte!'",2 "'Why, one need be sharp in this town, my dear,' replied the Jew, sinking his voice to a confidential whisper; 'and that's the truth.'",2 "Fagin followed up this remark by striking the side of his nose with his right forefinger,--a gesture which Noah attempted to imitate, though not with complete success, in consequence of his own nose not being large enough for the purpose.",4 "However, Mr. Fagin seemed to interpret the endeavour as expressing a perfect coincidence with his opinion, and put about the liquor which Barney reappeared with, in a very friendly manner.",3 "'Good stuff that,' observed Mr. Claypole, smacking his lips.",2 'Dear!',2 said Fagin.,2 "'A man need be always emptying a till, or a pocket, or a woman's reticule, or a house, or a mail-coach, or a bank, if he drinks it regularly.'",2 "Mr. Claypole no sooner heard this extract from his own remarks than he fell back in his chair, and looked from the Jew to Charlotte with a countenance of ashy paleness and excessive terror.",0 "'Don't mind me, my dear,' said Fagin, drawing his chair closer.",2 'Ha!,2 ha!,2 it was lucky it was only me that heard you by chance.,3 It was very lucky it was only me.',3 "'I didn't take it,' stammered Noah, no longer stretching out his legs like an independent gentleman, but coiling them up as well as he could under his chair; 'it was all her doing; yer've got it now, Charlotte, yer know yer have.'",3 "'No matter who's got it, or who did it, my dear,' replied Fagin, glancing, nevertheless, with a hawk's eye at the girl and the two bundles.",2 "'I'm in that way myself, and I like you for it.'",3 'In what way?',2 "asked Mr. Claypole, a little recovering.",2 "'In that way of business,' rejoined Fagin; 'and so are the people of the house.",2 "You've hit the right nail upon the head, and are as safe here as you could be.",3 "There is not a safer place in all this town than is the Cripples; that is, when I like to make it so.",2 "And I have taken a fancy to you and the young woman; so I've said the word, and you may make your minds easy.'",3 "Noah Claypole's mind might have been at ease after this assurance, but his body certainly was not; for he shuffled and writhed about, into various uncouth positions: eyeing his new friend meanwhile with mingled fear and suspicion.",1 "'I'll tell you more,' said Fagin, after he had reassured the girl, by dint of friendly nods and muttered encouragements.",3 "'I have got a friend that I think can gratify your darling wish, and put you in the right way, where you can take whatever department of the business you think will suit you best at first, and be taught all the others.'",4 "'Yer speak as if yer were in earnest,' replied Noah.",3 'What advantage would it be to me to be anything else?',3 "inquired Fagin, shrugging his shoulders.",2 'Here!,2 Let me have a word with you outside.',2 "'There's no occasion to trouble ourselves to move,' said Noah, getting his legs by gradual degrees abroad again.",1 'She'll take the luggage upstairs the while.,2 "Charlotte, see to them bundles.'",2 "This mandate, which had been delivered with great majesty, was obeyed without the slightest demur; and Charlotte made the best of her way off with the packages while Noah held the door open and watched her out.",4 "'She's kept tolerably well under, ain't she?'",3 he asked as he resumed his seat: in the tone of a keeper who had tamed some wild animal.,1 "'Quite perfect,' rejoined Fagin, clapping him on the shoulder.",3 "'You're a genius, my dear.'",3 "'Why, I suppose if I wasn't, I shouldn't be here,' replied Noah.",2 "'But, I say, she'll be back if yer lose time.'",1 "'Now, what do you think?'",2 said Fagin.,2 "'If you was to like my friend, could you do better than join him?'",3 'Is he in a good way of business; that's where it is!',3 "responded Noah, winking one of his little eyes.",2 'The top of the tree; employs a power of hands; has the very best society in the profession.',3 'Regular town-maders?',2 asked Mr. Claypole.,2 "'Not a countryman among 'em; and I don't think he'd take you, even on my recommendation, if he didn't run rather short of assistants just now,' replied Fagin.",3 'Should I have to hand over?',2 "said Noah, slapping his breeches-pocket.",2 "'It couldn't possibly be done without,' replied Fagin, in a most decided manner.",2 "'Twenty pound, though--it's a lot of money!'",2 "'Not when it's in a note you can't get rid of,' retorted Fagin.",2 "'Number and date taken, I suppose?",2 Payment stopped at the Bank?,2 Ah!,2 It's not worth much to him.,3 "It'll have to go abroad, and he couldn't sell it for a great deal in the market.'",3 'When could I see him?',2 asked Noah doubtfully.,1 'To-morrow morning.',2 'Where?',2 'Here.',2 'Um!',2 said Noah.,2 'What's the wages?',2 "'Live like a gentleman--board and lodging, pipes and spirits free--half of all you earn, and half of all the young woman earns,' replied Mr. Fagin.",3 "Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately (and more unlikely things had come to pass), he gradually relented, and said he thought that would suit him.",3 "'But, yer see,' observed Noah, 'as she will be able to do a good deal, I should like to take something very light.'",3 'A little fancy work?',3 suggested Fagin.,2 'Ah!,2 "something of that sort,' replied Noah.",2 'What do you think would suit me now?,2 "Something not too trying for the strength, and not very dangerous, you know.",1 That's the sort of thing!',2 "'I heard you talk of something in the spy way upon the others, my dear,' said Fagin.",2 "'My friend wants somebody who would do that well, very much.'",3 "'Why, I did mention that, and I shouldn't mind turning my hand to it sometimes,' rejoined Mr. Claypole slowly; 'but it wouldn't pay by itself, you know.'",1 'That's true!',2 "observed the Jew, ruminating or pretending to ruminate.",2 "'No, it might not.'",2 "'What do you think, then?'",2 "asked Noah, anxiously regarding him.",1 "'Something in the sneaking way, where it was pretty sure work, and not much more risk than being at home.'",3 'What do you think of the old ladies?',2 asked Fagin.,2 "'There's a good deal of money made in snatching their bags and parcels, and running round the corner.'",3 "'Don't they holler out a good deal, and scratch sometimes?'",2 "asked Noah, shaking his head.",2 'I don't think that would answer my purpose.,2 Ain't there any other line open?',2 'Stop!',2 "said Fagin, laying his hand on Noah's knee.",2 'The kinchin lay.',2 'What's that?',2 demanded Mr. Claypole.,2 "'The kinchins, my dear,' said Fagin, 'is the young children that's sent on errands by their mothers, with sixpences and shillings; and the lay is just to take their money away--they've always got it ready in their hands,--then knock 'em into the kennel, and walk off very slow, as if there were nothing else the matter but a child fallen down and hurt itself.",0 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!',2 'Ha!,2 ha!',2 "roared Mr. Claypole, kicking up his legs in an ecstasy.",3 "'Lord, that's the very thing!'",2 "'To be sure it is,' replied Fagin; 'and you can have a few good beats chalked out in Camden Town, and Battle Bridge, and neighborhoods like that, where they're always going errands; and you can upset as many kinchins as you want, any hour in the day.",3 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!',2 "With this, Fagin poked Mr. Claypole in the side, and they joined in a burst of laughter both long and loud.",1 "'Well, that's all right!'",3 "said Noah, when he had recovered himself, and Charlotte had returned.",2 'What time to-morrow shall we say?',2 'Will ten do?',2 "asked Fagin, adding, as Mr. Claypole nodded assent, 'What name shall I tell my good friend.'",3 "'Mr. Bolter,' replied Noah, who had prepared himself for such emergency.",1 'Mr. Morris Bolter.,2 This is Mrs. Bolter.',2 "'Mrs. Bolter's humble servant,' said Fagin, bowing with grotesque politeness.",3 'I hope I shall know her better very shortly.',3 "'Do you hear the gentleman, Charlotte?'",2 thundered Mr. Claypole.,2 "'Yes, Noah, dear!'",2 "replied Mrs. Bolter, extending her hand.",2 "'She calls me Noah, as a sort of fond way of talking,' said Mr. Morris Bolter, late Claypole, turning to Fagin.",3 'You understand?',2 "'Oh yes, I understand--perfectly,' replied Fagin, telling the truth for once.",3 'Good-night!,2 Good-night!',3 "With many adieus and good wishes, Mr. Fagin went his way.",3 "Noah Claypole, bespeaking his good lady's attention, proceeded to enlighten her relative to the arrangement he had made, with all that haughtiness and air of superiority, becoming, not only a member of the sterner sex, but a gentleman who appreciated the dignity of a special appointment on the kinchin lay, in London and its vicinity.",4 "'And so it was you that was your own friend, was it?'",2 "asked Mr. Claypole, otherwise Bolter, when, by virtue of the compact entered into between them, he had removed next day to Fagin's house.",3 "''Cod, I thought as much last night!'",2 "'Every man's his own friend, my dear,' replied Fagin, with his most insinuating grin.",2 'He hasn't as good a one as himself anywhere.',3 "'Except sometimes,' replied Morris Bolter, assuming the air of a man of the world.",2 "'Some people are nobody's enemies but their own, yer know.'",1 "'Don't believe that,' said Fagin.",2 "'When a man's his own enemy, it's only because he's too much his own friend; not because he's careful for everybody but himself.",1 Pooh!,2 pooh!,2 There ain't such a thing in nature.',2 "'There oughn't to be, if there is,' replied Mr. Bolter.",2 'That stands to reason.,2 "Some conjurers say that number three is the magic number, and some say number seven.",3 "It's neither, my friend, neither.",2 It's number one.,2 'Ha!,2 ha!',2 cried Mr. Bolter.,2 'Number one for ever.',2 "'In a little community like ours, my dear,' said Fagin, who felt it necessary to qualify this position, 'we have a general number one, without considering me too as the same, and all the other young people.'",3 "'Oh, the devil!'",1 exclaimed Mr. Bolter.,2 "'You see,' pursued Fagin, affecting to disregard this interruption, 'we are so mixed up together, and identified in our interests, that it must be so.",1 "For instance, it's your object to take care of number one--meaning yourself.'",1 "'Certainly,' replied Mr. Bolter.",2 'Yer about right there.',3 'Well!,2 "You can't take care of yourself, number one, without taking care of me, number one.'",2 "'Number two, you mean,' said Mr. Bolter, who was largely endowed with the quality of selfishness.",1 "'No, I don't!'",2 retorted Fagin.,2 "'I'm of the same importance to you, as you are to yourself.'",2 "'I say,' interrupted Mr. Bolter, 'yer a very nice man, and I'm very fond of yer; but we ain't quite so thick together, as all that comes to.'",3 "'Only think,' said Fagin, shrugging his shoulders, and stretching out his hands; 'only consider.",2 "You've done what's a very pretty thing, and what I love you for doing; but what at the same time would put the cravat round your throat, that's so very easily tied and so very difficult to unloose--in plain English, the halter!'",3 "Mr. Bolter put his hand to his neckerchief, as if he felt it inconveniently tight; and murmured an assent, qualified in tone but not in substance.",2 "'The gallows,' continued Fagin, 'the gallows, my dear, is an ugly finger-post, which points out a very short and sharp turning that has stopped many a bold fellow's career on the broad highway.",2 "To keep in the easy road, and keep it at a distance, is object number one with you.'",2 "'Of course it is,' replied Mr. Bolter.",2 'What do yer talk about such things for?',2 "'Only to show you my meaning clearly,' said the Jew, raising his eyebrows.",3 "'To be able to do that, you depend upon me.",2 "To keep my little business all snug, I depend upon you.",2 "The first is your number one, the second my number one.",2 "The more you value your number one, the more careful you must be of mine; so we come at last to what I told you at first--that a regard for number one holds us all together, and must do so, unless we would all go to pieces in company.'",3 "'That's true,' rejoined Mr. Bolter, thoughtfully.",3 'Oh!,2 yer a cunning old codger!',2 "Mr. Fagin saw, with delight, that this tribute to his powers was no mere compliment, but that he had really impressed his recruit with a sense of his wily genius, which it was most important that he should entertain in the outset of their acquaintance.",4 "To strengthen an impression so desirable and useful, he followed up the blow by acquainting him, in some detail, with the magnitude and extent of his operations; blending truth and fiction together, as best served his purpose; and bringing both to bear, with so much art, that Mr. Bolter's respect visibly increased, and became tempered, at the same time, with a degree of wholesome fear, which it was highly desirable to awaken.",3 "'It's this mutual trust we have in each other that consoles me under heavy losses,' said Fagin.",2 "'My best hand was taken from me, yesterday morning.'",3 'You don't mean to say he died?',1 cried Mr. Bolter.,2 "'No, no,' replied Fagin, 'not so bad as that.",1 Not quite so bad.',1 "'What, I suppose he was--' 'Wanted,' interposed Fagin.",2 "'Yes, he was wanted.'",2 'Very particular?',2 inquired Mr. Bolter.,2 "'No,' replied Fagin, 'not very.",2 "He was charged with attempting to pick a pocket, and they found a silver snuff-box on him,--his own, my dear, his own, for he took snuff himself, and was very fond of it.",3 "They remanded him till to-day, for they thought they knew the owner.",2 Ah!,2 "he was worth fifty boxes, and I'd give the price of as many to have him back.",3 "You should have known the Dodger, my dear; you should have known the Dodger.'",2 "'Well, but I shall know him, I hope; don't yer think so?'",2 said Mr. Bolter.,2 "'I'm doubtful about it,' replied Fagin, with a sigh.",1 "'If they don't get any fresh evidence, it'll only be a summary conviction, and we shall have him back again after six weeks or so; but, if they do, it's a case of lagging.",2 They know what a clever lad he is; he'll be a lifer.,3 They'll make the Artful nothing less than a lifer.',2 'What do you mean by lagging and a lifer?',1 demanded Mr. Bolter.,2 'What's the good of talking in that way to me; why don't yer speak so as I can understand yer?',3 "Fagin was about to translate these mysterious expressions into the vulgar tongue; and, being interpreted, Mr. Bolter would have been informed that they represented that combination of words, 'transportation for life,' when the dialogue was cut short by the entry of Master Bates, with his hands in his breeches-pockets, and his face twisted into a look of semi-comical woe.",0 "'It's all up, Fagin,' said Charley, when he and his new companion had been made known to each other.",2 'What do you mean?',2 "'They've found the gentleman as owns the box; two or three more's a coming to 'dentify him; and the Artful's booked for a passage out,' replied Master Bates.",3 "'I must have a full suit of mourning, Fagin, and a hatband, to wisit him in, afore he sets out upon his travels.",2 To think of Jack Dawkins--lummy Jack--the Dodger--the Artful Dodger--going abroad for a common twopenny-halfpenny sneeze-box!,2 "I never thought he'd a done it under a gold watch, chain, and seals, at the lowest.",3 "Oh, why didn't he rob some rich old gentleman of all his walables, and go out as a gentleman, and not like a common prig, without no honour nor glory!'",4 "With this expression of feeling for his unfortunate friend, Master Bates sat himself on the nearest chair with an aspect of chagrin and despondency.",1 'What do you talk about his having neither honour nor glory for!',3 "exclaimed Fagin, darting an angry look at his pupil.",1 'Wasn't he always the top-sawyer among you all!,3 Is there one of you that could touch him or come near him on any scent!,2 Eh?',2 "'Not one,' replied Master Bates, in a voice rendered husky by regret; 'not one.'",2 'Then what do you talk of?',2 replied Fagin angrily; 'what are you blubbering for?',1 "''Cause it isn't on the rec-ord, is it?'",2 "said Charley, chafed into perfect defiance of his venerable friend by the current of his regrets; ''cause it can't come out in the 'dictment; 'cause nobody will never know half of what he was.",1 How will he stand in the Newgate Calendar?,2 P'raps not be there at all.,2 "Oh, my eye, my eye, wot a blow it is!'",1 'Ha!,2 ha!',2 "cried Fagin, extending his right hand, and turning to Mr. Bolter in a fit of chuckling which shook him as though he had the palsy; 'see what a pride they take in their profession, my dear.",3 Ain't it beautiful?',3 "Mr. Bolter nodded assent, and Fagin, after contemplating the grief of Charley Bates for some seconds with evident satisfaction, stepped up to that young gentleman and patted him on the shoulder.",1 "'Never mind, Charley,' said Fagin soothingly; 'it'll come out, it'll be sure to come out.",3 "They'll all know what a clever fellow he was; he'll show it himself, and not disgrace his old pals and teachers.",2 Think how young he is too!,2 "What a distinction, Charley, to be lagged at his time of life!'",2 "'Well, it is a honour that is!'",2 "said Charley, a little consoled.",2 "'He shall have all he wants,' continued the Jew.",2 "'He shall be kept in the Stone Jug, Charley, like a gentleman.",3 Like a gentleman!,3 "With his beer every day, and money in his pocket to pitch and toss with, if he can't spend it.'",2 "'No, shall he though?'",2 cried Charley Bates.,2 "'Ay, that he shall,' replied Fagin, 'and we'll have a big-wig, Charley: one that's got the greatest gift of the gab: to carry on his defence; and he shall make a speech for himself too, if he likes; and we'll read it all in the papers--""Artful Dodger--shrieks of laughter--here the court was convulsed""--eh, Charley, eh?'",3 'Ha!,2 ha!',2 "laughed Master Bates, 'what a lark that would be, wouldn't it, Fagin?",3 "I say, how the Artful would bother 'em wouldn't he?'",1 'Would!',2 cried Fagin.,2 'He shall--he will!',2 "'Ah, to be sure, so he will,' repeated Charley, rubbing his hands.",2 "'I think I see him now,' cried the Jew, bending his eyes upon his pupil.",2 "'So do I,' cried Charley Bates.",2 'Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!,2 "so do I. I see it all afore me, upon my soul I do, Fagin.",2 What a game!,2 What a regular game!,2 "All the big-wigs trying to look solemn, and Jack Dawkins addressing of 'em as intimate and comfortable as if he was the judge's own son making a speech arter dinner--ha!",3 ha!,2 ha!',2 "In fact, Mr. Fagin had so well humoured his young friend's eccentric disposition, that Master Bates, who had at first been disposed to consider the imprisoned Dodger rather in the light of a victim, now looked upon him as the chief actor in a scene of most uncommon and exquisite humour, and felt quite impatient for the arrival of the time when his old companion should have so favourable an opportunity of displaying his abilities.",3 "'We must know how he gets on to-day, by some handy means or other,' said Fagin.",3 'Let me think.',2 'Shall I go?',2 asked Charley.,2 "'Not for the world,' replied Fagin.",2 "'Are you mad, my dear, stark mad, that you'd walk into the very place where--No, Charley, no.",1 One is enough to lose at a time.',2 "'You don't mean to go yourself, I suppose?'",2 said Charley with a humorous leer.,2 "'That wouldn't quite fit,' replied Fagin shaking his head.",2 'Then why don't you send this new cove?',2 "asked Master Bates, laying his hand on Noah's arm.",3 'Nobody knows him.',2 "'Why, if he didn't mind--' observed Fagin.",2 'Mind!',2 interposed Charley.,2 'What should he have to mind?',2 "'Really nothing, my dear,' said Fagin, turning to Mr. Bolter, 'really nothing.'",2 "'Oh, I dare say about that, yer know,' observed Noah, backing towards the door, and shaking his head with a kind of sober alarm.",1 "'No, no--none of that.",2 "It's not in my department, that ain't.'",2 "'Wot department has he got, Fagin?'",2 "inquired Master Bates, surveying Noah's lank form with much disgust.",2 "'The cutting away when there's anything wrong, and the eating all the wittles when there's everything right; is that his branch?'",2 "'Never mind,' retorted Mr. Bolter; 'and don't yer take liberties with yer superiors, little boy, or yer'll find yerself in the wrong shop.'",1 "Master Bates laughed so vehemently at this magnificent threat, that it was some time before Fagin could interpose, and represent to Mr. Bolter that he incurred no possible danger in visiting the police-office; that, inasmuch as no account of the little affair in which he had engaged, nor any description of his person, had yet been forwarded to the metropolis, it was very probable that he was not even suspected of having resorted to it for shelter; and that, if he were properly disguised, it would be as safe a spot for him to visit as any in London, inasmuch as it would be, of all places, the very last, to which he could be supposed likely to resort of his own free will.",3 "Persuaded, in part, by these representations, but overborne in a much greater degree by his fear of Fagin, Mr. Bolter at length consented, with a very bad grace, to undertake the expedition.",1 "By Fagin's directions, he immediately substituted for his own attire, a waggoner's frock, velveteen breeches, and leather leggings: all of which articles the Jew had at hand.",2 He was likewise furnished with a felt hat well garnished with turnpike tickets; and a carter's whip.,3 "Thus equipped, he was to saunter into the office, as some country fellow from Covent Garden market might be supposed to do for the gratification of his curiousity; and as he was as awkward, ungainly, and raw-boned a fellow as need be, Mr. Fagin had no fear but that he would look the part to perfection.",2 "These arrangements completed, he was informed of the necessary signs and tokens by which to recognise the Artful Dodger, and was conveyed by Master Bates through dark and winding ways to within a very short distance of Bow Street.",2 "Having described the precise situation of the office, and accompanied it with copious directions how he was to walk straight up the passage, and when he got into the side, and pull off his hat as he went into the room, Charley Bates bade him hurry on alone, and promised to bide his return on the spot of their parting.",3 "Noah Claypole, or Morris Bolter as the reader pleases, punctually followed the directions he had received, which--Master Bates being pretty well acquainted with the locality--were so exact that he was enabled to gain the magisterial presence without asking any question, or meeting with any interruption by the way.",4 "He found himself jostled among a crowd of people, chiefly women, who were huddled together in a dirty frowsy room, at the upper end of which was a raised platform railed off from the rest, with a dock for the prisoners on the left hand against the wall, a box for the witnesses in the middle, and a desk for the magistrates on the right; the awful locality last named, being screened off by a partition which concealed the bench from the common gaze, and left the vulgar to imagine (if they could) the full majesty of justice.",1 "There were only a couple of women in the dock, who were nodding to their admiring friends, while the clerk read some depositions to a couple of policemen and a man in plain clothes who leant over the table.",3 "A jailer stood reclining against the dock-rail, tapping his nose listlessly with a large key, except when he repressed an undue tendency to conversation among the idlers, by proclaiming silence; or looked sternly up to bid some woman 'Take that baby out,' when the gravity of justice was disturbed by feeble cries, half-smothered in the mother's shawl, from some meagre infant.",0 The room smelt close and unwholesome; the walls were dirt-discoloured; and the ceiling blackened.,1 "There was an old smoky bust over the mantel-shelf, and a dusty clock above the dock--the only thing present, that seemed to go on as it ought; for depravity, or poverty, or an habitual acquaintance with both, had left a taint on all the animate matter, hardly less unpleasant than the thick greasy scum on every inanimate object that frowned upon it.",0 "Noah looked eagerly about him for the Dodger; but although there were several women who would have done very well for that distinguished character's mother or sister, and more than one man who might be supposed to bear a strong resemblance to his father, nobody at all answering the description given him of Mr. Dawkins was to be seen.",4 "He waited in a state of much suspense and uncertainty until the women, being committed for trial, went flaunting out; and then was quickly relieved by the appearance of another prisoner who he felt at once could be no other than the object of his visit.",1 "It was indeed Mr. Dawkins, who, shuffling into the office with the big coat sleeves tucked up as usual, his left hand in his pocket, and his hat in his right hand, preceded the jailer, with a rolling gait altogether indescribable, and, taking his place in the dock, requested in an audible voice to know what he was placed in that 'ere disgraceful sitivation for.",3 "'Hold your tongue, will you?'",2 said the jailer.,2 "'I'm an Englishman, ain't I?'",2 rejoined the Dodger.,2 'Where are my priwileges?',2 "'You'll get your privileges soon enough,' retorted the jailer, 'and pepper with 'em.'",3 "'We'll see wot the Secretary of State for the Home Affairs has got to say to the beaks, if I don't,' replied Mr. Dawkins.",2 'Now then!,2 Wot is this here business?,2 "I shall thank the madg'strates to dispose of this here little affair, and not to keep me while they read the paper, for I've got an appointment with a genelman in the City, and as I am a man of my word and wery punctual in business matters, he'll go away if I ain't there to my time, and then pr'aps ther won't be an action for damage against them as kep me away.",3 "Oh no, certainly not!'",2 "At this point, the Dodger, with a show of being very particular with a view to proceedings to be had thereafter, desired the jailer to communicate 'the names of them two files as was on the bench.'",2 "Which so tickled the spectators, that they laughed almost as heartily as Master Bates could have done if he had heard the request.",3 'Silence there!',2 cried the jailer.,2 'What is this?',2 inquired one of the magistrates.,2 "'A pick-pocketing case, your worship.'",2 'Has the boy ever been here before?',2 "'He ought to have been, a many times,' replied the jailer.",2 'He has been pretty well everywhere else.,3 "_I_ know him well, your worship.'",3 'Oh!,2 "you know me, do you?'",2 "cried the Artful, making a note of the statement.",2 'Wery good.,3 "That's a case of deformation of character, any way.'",2 "Here there was another laugh, and another cry of silence.",1 "'Now then, where are the witnesses?'",2 said the clerk.,2 'Ah!,2 "that's right,' added the Dodger.",3 'Where are they?,2 I should like to see 'em.',3 "This wish was immediately gratified, for a policeman stepped forward who had seen the prisoner attempt the pocket of an unknown gentleman in a crowd, and indeed take a handkerchief therefrom, which, being a very old one, he deliberately put back again, after trying it on his own countenance.",1 "For this reason, he took the Dodger into custody as soon as he could get near him, and the said Dodger, being searched, had upon his person a silver snuff-box, with the owner's name engraved upon the lid.",2 "This gentleman had been discovered on reference to the Court Guide, and being then and there present, swore that the snuff-box was his, and that he had missed it on the previous day, the moment he had disengaged himself from the crowd before referred to.",1 "He had also remarked a young gentleman in the throng, particularly active in making his way about, and that young gentleman was the prisoner before him.",1 "'Have you anything to ask this witness, boy?'",2 said the magistrate.,2 "'I wouldn't abase myself by descending to hold no conversation with him,' replied the Dodger.",2 'Have you anything to say at all?',2 'Do you hear his worship ask if you've anything to say?',2 "inquired the jailer, nudging the silent Dodger with his elbow.",3 "'I beg your pardon,' said the Dodger, looking up with an air of abstraction.",2 "'Did you redress yourself to me, my man?'",2 "'I never see such an out-and-out young wagabond, your worship,' observed the officer with a grin.",3 "'Do you mean to say anything, you young shaver?'",2 "'No,' replied the Dodger, 'not here, for this ain't the shop for justice: besides which, my attorney is a-breakfasting this morning with the Wice President of the House of Commons; but I shall have something to say elsewhere, and so will he, and so will a wery numerous and 'spectable circle of acquaintance as'll make them beaks wish they'd never been born, or that they'd got their footmen to hang 'em up to their own hat-pegs, afore they let 'em come out this morning to try it on upon me.",1 I'll--' 'There!,2 He's fully committed!',2 interposed the clerk.,2 'Take him away.',2 "'Come on,' said the jailer.",2 'Oh ah!,2 "I'll come on,' replied the Dodger, brushing his hat with the palm of his hand.",2 'Ah!,2 "(to the Bench) it's no use your looking frightened; I won't show you no mercy, not a ha'porth of it.",3 "_You'll_ pay for this, my fine fellers.",3 I wouldn't be you for something!,2 "I wouldn't go free, now, if you was to fall down on your knees and ask me.",2 "Here, carry me off to prison!",1 Take me away!',2 "With these last words, the Dodger suffered himself to be led off by the collar; threatening, till he got into the yard, to make a parliamentary business of it; and then grinning in the officer's face, with great glee and self-approval.",3 "Having seen him locked up by himself in a little cell, Noah made the best of his way back to where he had left Master Bates.",3 "After waiting here some time, he was joined by that young gentleman, who had prudently abstained from showing himself until he had looked carefully abroad from a snug retreat, and ascertained that his new friend had not been followed by any impertinent person.",1 "The two hastened back together, to bear to Mr. Fagin the animating news that the Dodger was doing full justice to his bringing-up, and establishing for himself a glorious reputation.",3 "Adept as she was, in all the arts of cunning and dissimulation, the girl Nancy could not wholly conceal the effect which the knowledge of the step she had taken, wrought upon her mind.",1 "She remembered that both the crafty Jew and the brutal Sikes had confided to her schemes, which had been hidden from all others: in the full confidence that she was trustworthy and beyond the reach of their suspicion.",1 "Vile as those schemes were, desperate as were their originators, and bitter as were her feelings towards Fagin, who had led her, step by step, deeper and deeper down into an abyss of crime and misery, whence was no escape; still, there were times when, even towards him, she felt some relenting, lest her disclosure should bring him within the iron grasp he had so long eluded, and he should fall at last--richly as he merited such a fate--by her hand.",0 "But, these were the mere wanderings of a mind unable wholly to detach itself from old companions and associations, though enabled to fix itself steadily on one object, and resolved not to be turned aside by any consideration.",1 "Her fears for Sikes would have been more powerful inducements to recoil while there was yet time; but she had stipulated that her secret should be rigidly kept, she had dropped no clue which could lead to his discovery, she had refused, even for his sake, a refuge from all the guilt and wretchedness that encompasses her--and what more could she do!",0 She was resolved.,2 "Though all her mental struggles terminated in this conclusion, they forced themselves upon her, again and again, and left their traces too.",1 "She grew pale and thin, even within a few days.",1 "At times, she took no heed of what was passing before her, or no part in conversations where once, she would have been the loudest.",2 "At other times, she laughed without merriment, and was noisy without a moment afterwards--she sat silent and dejected, brooding with her head upon her hands, while the very effort by which she roused herself, told, more forcibly than even these indications, that she was ill at ease, and that her thoughts were occupied with matters very different and distant from those in the course of discussion by her companions.",3 "It was Sunday night, and the bell of the nearest church struck the hour.",1 "Sikes and the Jew were talking, but they paused to listen.",2 "The girl looked up from the low seat on which she crouched, and listened too.",2 Eleven.,2 "'An hour this side of midnight,' said Sikes, raising the blind to look out and returning to his seat.",1 'Dark and heavy it is too.,2 A good night for business this.',3 'Ah!',2 replied Fagin.,2 "'What a pity, Bill, my dear, that there's none quite ready to be done.'",2 "'You're right for once,' replied Sikes gruffly.",3 "'It is a pity, for I'm in the humour too.'",2 "Fagin sighed, and shook his head despondingly.",2 'We must make up for lost time when we've got things into a good train.,2 "That's all I know,' said Sikes.",2 "'That's the way to talk, my dear,' replied Fagin, venturing to pat him on the shoulder.",2 'It does me good to hear you.',3 "'Does you good, does it!'",3 cried Sikes.,2 "'Well, so be it.'",2 'Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!',2 "laughed Fagin, as if he were relieved by even this concession.",1 "'You're like yourself to-night, Bill.",3 Quite like yourself.',3 "'I don't feel like myself when you lay that withered old claw on my shoulder, so take it away,' said Sikes, casting off the Jew's hand.",3 "'It make you nervous, Bill,--reminds you of being nabbed, does it?'",1 "said Fagin, determined not to be offended.",2 "'Reminds me of being nabbed by the devil,' returned Sikes.",1 "'There never was another man with such a face as yours, unless it was your father, and I suppose _he_ is singeing his grizzled red beard by this time, unless you came straight from the old 'un without any father at all betwixt you; which I shouldn't wonder at, a bit.'",3 "Fagin offered no reply to this compliment: but, pulling Sikes by the sleeve, pointed his finger towards Nancy, who had taken advantage of the foregoing conversation to put on her bonnet, and was now leaving the room.",3 'Hallo!',2 cried Sikes.,2 'Nance.,2 Where's the gal going to at this time of night?',2 'Not far.',2 'What answer's that?',2 retorted Sikes.,2 'Do you hear me?',2 "'I don't know where,' replied the girl.",2 "'Then I do,' said Sikes, more in the spirit of obstinacy than because he had any real objection to the girl going where she listed.",1 'Nowhere.,2 Sit down.',2 'I'm not well.,3 "I told you that before,' rejoined the girl.",2 'I want a breath of air.',2 "'Put your head out of the winder,' replied Sikes.",2 "'There's not enough there,' said the girl.",3 'I want it in the street.',2 "'Then you won't have it,' replied Sikes.",2 "With which assurance he rose, locked the door, took the key out, and pulling her bonnet from her head, flung it up to the top of an old press.",3 "'There,' said the robber.",2 "'Now stop quietly where you are, will you?'",2 "'It's not such a matter as a bonnet would keep me,' said the girl turning very pale.",1 "'What do you mean, Bill?",2 Do you know what you're doing?',2 'Know what I'm--Oh!',2 "cried Sikes, turning to Fagin, 'she's out of her senses, you know, or she daren't talk to me in that way.'",2 "'You'll drive me on the something desperate,' muttered the girl placing both hands upon her breast, as though to keep down by force some violent outbreak.",0 "'Let me go, will you,--this minute--this instant.'",2 'No!',2 said Sikes.,2 "'Tell him to let me go, Fagin.",2 He had better.,3 It'll be better for him.,3 Do you hear me?',2 cried Nancy stamping her foot upon the ground.,2 'Hear you!',2 repeated Sikes turning round in his chair to confront her.,1 'Aye!,2 "And if I hear you for half a minute longer, the dog shall have such a grip on your throat as'll tear some of that screaming voice out.",2 "Wot has come over you, you jade!",2 Wot is it?',2 "'Let me go,' said the girl with great earnestness; then sitting herself down on the floor, before the door, she said, 'Bill, let me go; you don't know what you are doing.",3 "You don't, indeed.",2 For only one hour--do--do!',2 'Cut my limbs off one by one!',2 "cried Sikes, seizing her roughly by the arm, 'If I don't think the gal's stark raving mad.",0 Get up.',2 'Not till you let me go--not till you let me go--Never--never!',2 screamed the girl.,2 "Sikes looked on, for a minute, watching his opportunity, and suddenly pinioning her hands dragged her, struggling and wrestling with him by the way, into a small room adjoining, where he sat himself on a bench, and thrusting her into a chair, held her down by force.",1 "She struggled and implored by turns until twelve o'clock had struck, and then, wearied and exhausted, ceased to contest the point any further.",0 "With a caution, backed by many oaths, to make no more efforts to go out that night, Sikes left her to recover at leisure and rejoined Fagin.",3 'Whew!',2 said the housebreaker wiping the perspiration from his face.,2 'Wot a precious strange gal that is!',2 "'You may say that, Bill,' replied Fagin thoughtfully.",3 'You may say that.',2 "'Wot did she take it into her head to go out to-night for, do you think?'",2 asked Sikes.,2 'Come; you should know her better than me.,3 Wot does it mean?',2 "'Obstinacy; woman's obstinacy, I suppose, my dear.'",2 "'Well, I suppose it is,' growled Sikes.",2 "'I thought I had tamed her, but she's as bad as ever.'",1 "'Worse,' said Fagin thoughtfully.",3 "'I never knew her like this, for such a little cause.'",3 "'Nor I,' said Sikes.",2 "'I think she's got a touch of that fever in her blood yet, and it won't come out--eh?'",1 'Like enough.',3 "'I'll let her a little blood, without troubling the doctor, if she's took that way again,' said Sikes.",1 Fagin nodded an expressive approval of this mode of treatment.,3 "'She was hanging about me all day, and night too, when I was stretched on my back; and you, like a blackhearted wolf as you are, kept yourself aloof,' said Sikes.",2 "'We was poor too, all the time, and I think, one way or other, it's worried and fretted her; and that being shut up here so long has made her restless--eh?'",0 "'That's it, my dear,' replied the Jew in a whisper.",2 'Hush!',2 "As he uttered these words, the girl herself appeared and resumed her former seat.",2 "Her eyes were swollen and red; she rocked herself to and fro; tossed her head; and, after a little time, burst out laughing.",1 "'Why, now she's on the other tack!'",2 "exclaimed Sikes, turning a look of excessive surprise on his companion.",1 "Fagin nodded to him to take no further notice just then; and, in a few minutes, the girl subsided into her accustomed demeanour.",2 "Whispering Sikes that there was no fear of her relapsing, Fagin took up his hat and bade him good-night.",2 "He paused when he reached the room-door, and looking round, asked if somebody would light him down the dark stairs.",1 "'Light him down,' said Sikes, who was filling his pipe.",2 "'It's a pity he should break his neck himself, and disappoint the sight-seers.",0 Show him a light.',2 "Nancy followed the old man downstairs, with a candle.",2 "When they reached the passage, he laid his finger on his lip, and drawing close to the girl, said, in a whisper.",2 "'What is it, Nancy, dear?'",2 'What do you mean?',2 "replied the girl, in the same tone.",2 "'The reason of all this,' replied Fagin.",2 "'If _he_'--he pointed with his skinny fore-finger up the stairs--'is so hard with you (he's a brute, Nance, a brute-beast), why don't you--' 'Well?'",0 "said the girl, as Fagin paused, with his mouth almost touching her ear, and his eyes looking into hers.",2 'No matter just now.,2 We'll talk of this again.,2 "You have a friend in me, Nance; a staunch friend.",3 "I have the means at hand, quiet and close.",3 If you want revenge on those that treat you like a dog--like a dog!,2 "worse than his dog, for he humours him sometimes--come to me.",1 "I say, come to me.",2 "He is the mere hound of a day, but you know me of old, Nance.'",2 "'I know you well,' replied the girl, without manifesting the least emotion.",3 'Good-night.',2 "She shrank back, as Fagin offered to lay his hand on hers, but said good-night again, in a steady voice, and, answering his parting look with a nod of intelligence, closed the door between them.",4 "Fagin walked towards his home, intent upon the thoughts that were working within his brain.",2 "He had conceived the idea--not from what had just passed though that had tended to confirm him, but slowly and by degrees--that Nancy, wearied of the housebreaker's brutality, had conceived an attachment for some new friend.",1 "Her altered manner, her repeated absences from home alone, her comparative indifference to the interests of the gang for which she had once been so zealous, and, added to these, her desperate impatience to leave home that night at a particular hour, all favoured the supposition, and rendered it, to him at least, almost matter of certainty.",0 The object of this new liking was not among his myrmidons.,2 "He would be a valuable acquisition with such an assistant as Nancy, and must (thus Fagin argued) be secured without delay.",2 "There was another, and a darker object, to be gained.",1 "Sikes knew too much, and his ruffian taunts had not galled Fagin the less, because the wounds were hidden.",0 "The girl must know, well, that if she shook him off, she could never be safe from his fury, and that it would be surely wreaked--to the maiming of limbs, or perhaps the loss of life--on the object of her more recent fancy.",1 "'With a little persuasion,' thought Fagin, 'what more likely than that she would consent to poison him?",1 "Women have done such things, and worse, to secure the same object before now.",1 "There would be the dangerous villain: the man I hate: gone; another secured in his place; and my influence over the girl, with a knowledge of this crime to back it, unlimited.'",1 "These things passed through the mind of Fagin, during the short time he sat alone, in the housebreaker's room; and with them uppermost in his thoughts, he had taken the opportunity afterwards afforded him, of sounding the girl in the broken hints he threw out at parting.",1 "There was no expression of surprise, no assumption of an inability to understand his meaning.",1 The girl clearly comprehended it.,3 Her glance at parting showed _that_.,2 "But perhaps she would recoil from a plot to take the life of Sikes, and that was one of the chief ends to be attained.",1 "'How,' thought Fagin, as he crept homeward, 'can I increase my influence with her?",1 What new power can I acquire?',2 Such brains are fertile in expedients.,3 "If, without extracting a confession from herself, he laid a watch, discovered the object of her altered regard, and threatened to reveal the whole history to Sikes (of whom she stood in no common fear) unless she entered into his designs, could he not secure her compliance?",1 "'I can,' said Fagin, almost aloud.",2 'She durst not refuse me then.,1 "Not for her life, not for her life!",2 I have it all.,2 "The means are ready, and shall be set to work.",3 I shall have you yet!',2 "He cast back a dark look, and a threatening motion of the hand, towards the spot where he had left the bolder villain; and went on his way: busying his bony hands in the folds of his tattered garment, which he wrenched tightly in his grasp, as though there were a hated enemy crushed with every motion of his fingers.",0 "The old man was up, betimes, next morning, and waited impatiently for the appearance of his new associate, who after a delay that seemed interminable, at length presented himself, and commenced a voracious assault on the breakfast.",0 "'Bolter,' said Fagin, drawing up a chair and seating himself opposite Morris Bolter.",2 "'Well, here I am,' returned Noah.",2 'What's the matter?,2 Don't yer ask me to do anything till I have done eating.,2 That's a great fault in this place.,2 Yer never get time enough over yer meals.',3 "'You can talk as you eat, can't you?'",2 "said Fagin, cursing his dear young friend's greediness from the very bottom of his heart.",2 "'Oh yes, I can talk.",2 "I get on better when I talk,' said Noah, cutting a monstrous slice of bread.",2 'Where's Charlotte?',2 "'Out,' said Fagin.",2 "'I sent her out this morning with the other young woman, because I wanted us to be alone.'",2 'Oh!',2 said Noah.,2 'I wish yer'd ordered her to make some buttered toast first.,2 Well.,3 Talk away.,2 Yer won't interrupt me.',1 "There seemed, indeed, no great fear of anything interrupting him, as he had evidently sat down with a determination to do a great deal of business.",2 "'You did well yesterday, my dear,' said Fagin.",3 'Beautiful!,2 Six shillings and ninepence halfpenny on the very first day!,2 The kinchin lay will be a fortune to you.',3 "'Don't you forget to add three pint-pots and a milk-can,' said Mr. Bolter.",2 "'No, no, my dear.",2 The pint-pots were great strokes of genius: but the milk-can was a perfect masterpiece.',4 "'Pretty well, I think, for a beginner,' remarked Mr. Bolter complacently.",3 "'The pots I took off airy railings, and the milk-can was standing by itself outside a public-house.",2 "I thought it might get rusty with the rain, or catch cold, yer know.",1 Eh?,2 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!',2 "Fagin affected to laugh very heartily; and Mr. Bolter having had his laugh out, took a series of large bites, which finished his first hunk of bread and butter, and assisted himself to a second.",3 "'I want you, Bolter,' said Fagin, leaning over the table, 'to do a piece of work for me, my dear, that needs great care and caution.'",3 "'I say,' rejoined Bolter, 'don't yer go shoving me into danger, or sending me any more o' yer police-offices.",1 "That don't suit me, that don't; and so I tell yer.'",2 "'That's not the smallest danger in it--not the very smallest,' said the Jew; 'it's only to dodge a woman.'",1 'An old woman?',2 demanded Mr. Bolter.,2 "'A young one,' replied Fagin.",2 "'I can do that pretty well, I know,' said Bolter.",3 'I was a regular cunning sneak when I was at school.,1 What am I to dodge her for?,2 "Not to--' 'Not to do anything, but to tell me where she goes, who she sees, and, if possible, what she says; to remember the street, if it is a street, or the house, if it is a house; and to bring me back all the information you can.'",2 'What'll yer give me?',2 "asked Noah, setting down his cup, and looking his employer, eagerly, in the face.",3 "'If you do it well, a pound, my dear.",3 "One pound,' said Fagin, wishing to interest him in the scent as much as possible.",2 "'And that's what I never gave yet, for any job of work where there wasn't valuable consideration to be gained.'",4 'Who is she?',2 inquired Noah.,2 'One of us.',2 'Oh Lor!',2 "cried Noah, curling up his nose.",2 "'Yer doubtful of her, are yer?'",1 "'She has found out some new friends, my dear, and I must know who they are,' replied Fagin.",2 "'I see,' said Noah.",2 "'Just to have the pleasure of knowing them, if they're respectable people, eh?",3 Ha!,2 ha!,2 ha!,2 I'm your man.',2 "'I knew you would be,' cried Fagin, elated by the success of his proposal.",3 "'Of course, of course,' replied Noah.",2 'Where is she?,2 Where am I to wait for her?,2 Where am I to go?',2 "'All that, my dear, you shall hear from me.",2 "I'll point her out at the proper time,' said Fagin.",3 "'You keep ready, and leave the rest to me.'",3 "That night, and the next, and the next again, the spy sat booted and equipped in his carter's dress: ready to turn out at a word from Fagin.",3 "Six nights passed--six long weary nights--and on each, Fagin came home with a disappointed face, and briefly intimated that it was not yet time.",1 "On the seventh, he returned earlier, and with an exultation he could not conceal.",3 It was Sunday.,2 "'She goes abroad to-night,' said Fagin, 'and on the right errand, I'm sure; for she has been alone all day, and the man she is afraid of will not be back much before daybreak.",2 Come with me.,2 Quick!',2 Noah started up without saying a word; for the Jew was in a state of such intense excitement that it infected him.,1 "They left the house stealthily, and hurrying through a labyrinth of streets, arrived at length before a public-house, which Noah recognised as the same in which he had slept, on the night of his arrival in London.",2 "It was past eleven o'clock, and the door was closed.",2 It opened softly on its hinges as Fagin gave a low whistle.,2 "They entered, without noise; and the door was closed behind them.",1 "Scarcely venturing to whisper, but substituting dumb show for words, Fagin, and the young Jew who had admitted them, pointed out the pane of glass to Noah, and signed to him to climb up and observe the person in the adjoining room.",1 'Is that the woman?',2 "he asked, scarcely above his breath.",1 Fagin nodded yes.,2 "'I can't see her face well,' whispered Noah.",3 "'She is looking down, and the candle is behind her.",2 "'Stay there,' whispered Fagin.",2 "He signed to Barney, who withdrew.",2 "In an instant, the lad entered the room adjoining, and, under pretence of snuffing the candle, moved it in the required position, and, speaking to the girl, caused her to raise her face.",1 "'I see her now,' cried the spy.",2 'Plainly?',2 'I should know her among a thousand.',2 "He hastily descended, as the room-door opened, and the girl came out.",1 "Fagin drew him behind a small partition which was curtained off, and they held their breaths as she passed within a few feet of their place of concealment, and emerged by the door at which they had entered.",2 'Hist!',2 cried the lad who held the door.,2 'Dow.',2 "Noah exchanged a look with Fagin, and darted out.",2 "'To the left,' whispered the lad; 'take the left had, and keep od the other side.'",2 "He did so; and, by the light of the lamps, saw the girl's retreating figure, already at some distance before him.",2 "He advanced as near as he considered prudent, and kept on the opposite side of the street, the better to observe her motions.",4 "She looked nervously round, twice or thrice, and once stopped to let two men who were following close behind her, pass on.",1 "She seemed to gather courage as she advanced, and to walk with a steadier and firmer step.",4 "The spy preserved the same relative distance between them, and followed: with his eye upon her.",2 "The church clocks chimed three quarters past eleven, as two figures emerged on London Bridge.",2 "One, which advanced with a swift and rapid step, was that of a woman who looked eagerly about her as though in quest of some expected object; the other figure was that of a man, who slunk along in the deepest shadow he could find, and, at some distance, accommodated his pace to hers: stopping when she stopped: and as she moved again, creeping stealthily on: but never allowing himself, in the ardour of his pursuit, to gain upon her footsteps.",4 "Thus, they crossed the bridge, from the Middlesex to the Surrey shore, when the woman, apparently disappointed in her anxious scrutiny of the foot-passengers, turned back.",1 "The movement was sudden; but he who watched her, was not thrown off his guard by it; for, shrinking into one of the recesses which surmount the piers of the bridge, and leaning over the parapet the better to conceal his figure, he suffered her to pass on the opposite pavement.",3 "When she was about the same distance in advance as she had been before, he slipped quietly down, and followed her again.",2 "At nearly the centre of the bridge, she stopped.",2 The man stopped too.,2 It was a very dark night.,1 "The day had been unfavourable, and at that hour and place there were few people stirring.",2 "Such as there were, hurried quickly past: very possibly without seeing, but certainly without noticing, either the woman, or the man who kept her in view.",2 "Their appearance was not calculated to attract the importunate regards of such of London's destitute population, as chanced to take their way over the bridge that night in search of some cold arch or doorless hovel wherein to lay their heads; they stood there in silence: neither speaking nor spoken to, by any one who passed.",0 "A mist hung over the river, deepening the red glare of the fires that burnt upon the small craft moored off the different wharfs, and rendering darker and more indistinct the murky buildings on the banks.",0 "The old smoke-stained storehouses on either side, rose heavy and dull from the dense mass of roofs and gables, and frowned sternly upon water too black to reflect even their lumbering shapes.",0 "The tower of old Saint Saviour's Church, and the spire of Saint Magnus, so long the giant-warders of the ancient bridge, were visible in the gloom; but the forest of shipping below bridge, and the thickly scattered spires of churches above, were nearly all hidden from sight.",2 The girl had taken a few restless turns to and fro--closely watched meanwhile by her hidden observer--when the heavy bell of St. Paul's tolled for the death of another day.,1 Midnight had come upon the crowded city.,1 "The palace, the night-cellar, the jail, the madhouse: the chambers of birth and death, of health and sickness, the rigid face of the corpse and the calm sleep of the child: midnight was upon them all.",1 "The hour had not struck two minutes, when a young lady, accompanied by a grey-haired gentleman, alighted from a hackney-carriage within a short distance of the bridge, and, having dismissed the vehicle, walked straight towards it.",1 "They had scarcely set foot upon its pavement, when the girl started, and immediately made towards them.",1 "They walked onward, looking about them with the air of persons who entertained some very slight expectation which had little chance of being realised, when they were suddenly joined by this new associate.",2 "They halted with an exclamation of surprise, but suppressed it immediately; for a man in the garments of a countryman came close up--brushed against them, indeed--at that precise moment.",3 "'Not here,' said Nancy hurriedly, 'I am afraid to speak to you here.",1 Come away--out of the public road--down the steps yonder!',2 "As she uttered these words, and indicated, with her hand, the direction in which she wished them to proceed, the countryman looked round, and roughly asking what they took up the whole pavement for, passed on.",2 "The steps to which the girl had pointed, were those which, on the Surrey bank, and on the same side of the bridge as Saint Saviour's Church, form a landing-stairs from the river.",3 "To this spot, the man bearing the appearance of a countryman, hastened unobserved; and after a moment's survey of the place, he began to descend.",1 These stairs are a part of the bridge; they consist of three flights.,2 "Just below the end of the second, going down, the stone wall on the left terminates in an ornamental pilaster facing towards the Thames.",2 "At this point the lower steps widen: so that a person turning that angle of the wall, is necessarily unseen by any others on the stairs who chance to be above him, if only a step.",2 "The countryman looked hastily round, when he reached this point; and as there seemed no better place of concealment, and, the tide being out, there was plenty of room, he slipped aside, with his back to the pilaster, and there waited: pretty certain that they would come no lower, and that even if he could not hear what was said, he could follow them again, with safety.",3 "So tardily stole the time in this lonely place, and so eager was the spy to penetrate the motives of an interview so different from what he had been led to expect, that he more than once gave the matter up for lost, and persuaded himself, either that they had stopped far above, or had resorted to some entirely different spot to hold their mysterious conversation.",1 "He was on the point of emerging from his hiding-place, and regaining the road above, when he heard the sound of footsteps, and directly afterwards of voices almost close at his ear.",2 "He drew himself straight upright against the wall, and, scarcely breathing, listened attentively.",1 "'This is far enough,' said a voice, which was evidently that of the gentleman.",3 'I will not suffer the young lady to go any farther.,1 "Many people would have distrusted you too much to have come even so far, but you see I am willing to humour you.'",3 'To humour me!',3 cried the voice of the girl whom he had followed.,2 "'You're considerate, indeed, sir.",3 To humour me!,3 "Well, well, it's no matter.'",3 "'Why, for what,' said the gentleman in a kinder tone, 'for what purpose can you have brought us to this strange place?",1 "Why not have let me speak to you, above there, where it is light, and there is something stirring, instead of bringing us to this dark and dismal hole?'",1 "'I told you before,' replied Nancy, 'that I was afraid to speak to you there.",1 "I don't know why it is,' said the girl, shuddering, 'but I have such a fear and dread upon me to-night that I can hardly stand.'",1 'A fear of what?',1 "asked the gentleman, who seemed to pity her.",1 "'I scarcely know of what,' replied the girl.",1 'I wish I did.,2 "Horrible thoughts of death, and shrouds with blood upon them, and a fear that has made me burn as if I was on fire, have been upon me all day.",0 "I was reading a book to-night, to wile the time away, and the same things came into the print.'",2 "'Imagination,' said the gentleman, soothing her.",2 "'No imagination,' replied the girl in a hoarse voice.",2 "'I'll swear I saw ""coffin"" written in every page of the book in large black letters,--aye, and they carried one close to me, in the streets to-night.'",2 "'There is nothing unusual in that,' said the gentleman.",1 'They have passed me often.',2 "'_Real ones_,' rejoined the girl.",2 'This was not.',2 "There was something so uncommon in her manner, that the flesh of the concealed listener crept as he heard the girl utter these words, and the blood chilled within him.",1 "He had never experienced a greater relief than in hearing the sweet voice of the young lady as she begged her to be calm, and not allow herself to become the prey of such fearful fancies.",3 "'Speak to her kindly,' said the young lady to her companion.",3 'Poor creature!,2 She seems to need it.',2 "'Your haughty religious people would have held their heads up to see me as I am to-night, and preached of flames and vengeance,' cried the girl.",1 "'Oh, dear lady, why ar'n't those who claim to be God's own folks as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you, who, having youth, and beauty, and all that they have lost, might be a little proud instead of so much humbler?'",3 'Ah!',2 said the gentleman.,2 "'A Turk turns his face, after washing it well, to the East, when he says his prayers; these good people, after giving their faces such a rub against the World as to take the smiles off, turn with no less regularity, to the darkest side of Heaven.",4 "Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me to the first!'",3 "These words appeared to be addressed to the young lady, and were perhaps uttered with the view of affording Nancy time to recover herself.",3 "The gentleman, shortly afterwards, addressed himself to her.",2 "'You were not here last Sunday night,' he said.",2 "'I couldn't come,' replied Nancy; 'I was kept by force.'",2 'By whom?',2 'Him that I told the young lady of before.',2 "'You were not suspected of holding any communication with anybody on the subject which has brought us here to-night, I hope?'",2 asked the old gentleman.,2 "'No,' replied the girl, shaking her head.",2 'It's not very easy for me to leave him unless he knows why; I couldn't give him a drink of laudanum before I came away.',3 'Did he awake before you returned?',2 inquired the gentleman.,2 'No; and neither he nor any of them suspect me.',1 "'Good,' said the gentleman.",2 'Now listen to me.',2 "'I am ready,' replied the girl, as he paused for a moment.",3 "'This young lady,' the gentleman began, 'has communicated to me, and to some other friends who can be safely trusted, what you told her nearly a fortnight since.",3 "I confess to you that I had doubts, at first, whether you were to be implicitly relied upon, but now I firmly believe you are.'",1 "'I am,' said the girl earnestly.",3 'I repeat that I firmly believe it.,2 "To prove to you that I am disposed to trust you, I tell you without reserve, that we propose to extort the secret, whatever it may be, from the fear of this man Monks.",1 "But if--if--' said the gentleman, 'he cannot be secured, or, if secured, cannot be acted upon as we wish, you must deliver up the Jew.'",2 "'Fagin,' cried the girl, recoiling.",2 "'That man must be delivered up by you,' said the gentleman.",2 'I will not do it!,2 I will never do it!',2 replied the girl.,2 "'Devil that he is, and worse than devil as he has been to me, I will never do that.'",1 'You will not?',2 "said the gentleman, who seemed fully prepared for this answer.",2 'Never!',2 returned the girl.,2 'Tell me why?',2 "'For one reason,' rejoined the girl firmly, 'for one reason, that the lady knows and will stand by me in, I know she will, for I have her promise: and for this other reason, besides, that, bad life as he has led, I have led a bad life too; there are many of us who have kept the same courses together, and I'll not turn upon them, who might--any of them--have turned upon me, but didn't, bad as they are.'",3 "'Then,' said the gentleman, quickly, as if this had been the point he had been aiming to attain; 'put Monks into my hands, and leave him to me to deal with.'",2 'What if he turns against the others?',2 "'I promise you that in that case, if the truth is forced from him, there the matter will rest; there must be circumstances in Oliver's little history which it would be painful to drag before the public eye, and if the truth is once elicited, they shall go scot free.'",2 'And if it is not?',2 suggested the girl.,2 "'Then,' pursued the gentleman, 'this Fagin shall not be brought to justice without your consent.",2 "In such a case I could show you reasons, I think, which would induce you to yield it.'",2 'Have I the lady's promise for that?',3 asked the girl.,2 "'You have,' replied Rose.",2 'My true and faithful pledge.',3 'Monks would never learn how you knew what you do?',2 "said the girl, after a short pause.",2 "'Never,' replied the gentleman.",2 "'The intelligence should be brought to bear upon him, that he could never even guess.'",3 "'I have been a liar, and among liars from a little child,' said the girl after another interval of silence, 'but I will take your words.'",1 "After receiving an assurance from both, that she might safely do so, she proceeded in a voice so low that it was often difficult for the listener to discover even the purport of what she said, to describe, by name and situation, the public-house whence she had been followed that night.",3 "From the manner in which she occasionally paused, it appeared as if the gentleman were making some hasty notes of the information she communicated.",1 "When she had thoroughly explained the localities of the place, the best position from which to watch it without exciting observation, and the night and hour on which Monks was most in the habit of frequenting it, she seemed to consider for a few moments, for the purpose of recalling his features and appearances more forcibly to her recollection.",3 "'He is tall,' said the girl, 'and a strongly made man, but not stout; he has a lurking walk; and as he walks, constantly looks over his shoulder, first on one side, and then on the other.",1 "Don't forget that, for his eyes are sunk in his head so much deeper than any other man's, that you might almost tell him by that alone.",1 "His face is dark, like his hair and eyes; and, although he can't be more than six or eight and twenty, withered and haggard.",1 "His lips are often discoloured and disfigured with the marks of teeth; for he has desperate fits, and sometimes even bites his hands and covers them with wounds--why did you start?'",1 "said the girl, stopping suddenly.",2 "The gentleman replied, in a hurried manner, that he was not conscious of having done so, and begged her to proceed.",2 "'Part of this,' said the girl, 'I have drawn out from other people at the house I tell you of, for I have only seen him twice, and both times he was covered up in a large cloak.",2 I think that's all I can give you to know him by.,2 "Stay though,' she added.",2 "'Upon his throat: so high that you can see a part of it below his neckerchief when he turns his face: there is--' 'A broad red mark, like a burn or scald?'",2 cried the gentleman.,2 'How's this?',2 said the girl.,2 'You know him!',2 "The young lady uttered a cry of surprise, and for a few moments they were so still that the listener could distinctly hear them breathe.",1 "'I think I do,' said the gentleman, breaking silence.",1 'I should by your description.,2 We shall see.,2 Many people are singularly like each other.,3 It may not be the same.',2 "As he expressed himself to this effect, with assumed carelessness, he took a step or two nearer the concealed spy, as the latter could tell from the distinctness with which he heard him mutter, 'It must be he!'",1 "'Now,' he said, returning: so it seemed by the sound: to the spot where he had stood before, 'you have given us most valuable assistance, young woman, and I wish you to be the better for it.",3 What can I do to serve you?',2 "'Nothing,' replied Nancy.",2 "'You will not persist in saying that,' rejoined the gentleman, with a voice and emphasis of kindness that might have touched a much harder and more obdurate heart.",3 'Think now.,2 Tell me.',2 "'Nothing, sir,' rejoined the girl, weeping.",2 'You can do nothing to help me.,2 "I am past all hope, indeed.'",2 "'You put yourself beyond its pale,' said the gentleman.",1 "'The past has been a dreary waste with you, of youthful energies mis-spent, and such priceless treasures lavished, as the Creator bestows but once and never grants again, but, for the future, you may hope.",2 "I do not say that it is in our power to offer you peace of heart and mind, for that must come as you seek it; but a quiet asylum, either in England, or, if you fear to remain here, in some foreign country, it is not only within the compass of our ability but our most anxious wish to secure you.",3 "Before the dawn of morning, before this river wakes to the first glimpse of day-light, you shall be placed as entirely beyond the reach of your former associates, and leave as utter an absence of all trace behind you, as if you were to disappear from the earth this moment.",2 Come!,2 "I would not have you go back to exchange one word with any old companion, or take one look at any old haunt, or breathe the very air which is pestilence and death to you.",1 "Quit them all, while there is time and opportunity!'",2 "'She will be persuaded now,' cried the young lady.",2 "'She hesitates, I am sure.'",2 "'I fear not, my dear,' said the gentleman.",1 "'No sir, I do not,' replied the girl, after a short struggle.",1 'I am chained to my old life.,2 "I loathe and hate it now, but I cannot leave it.",1 "I must have gone too far to turn back,--and yet I don't know, for if you had spoken to me so, some time ago, I should have laughed it off.",2 "But,' she said, looking hastily round, 'this fear comes over me again.",1 I must go home.',2 'Home!',2 "repeated the young lady, with great stress upon the word.",2 "'Home, lady,' rejoined the girl.",2 'To such a home as I have raised for myself with the work of my whole life.,3 Let us part.,2 I shall be watched or seen.,2 Go!,2 Go!,2 "If I have done you any service all I ask is, that you leave me, and let me go my way alone.'",2 "'It is useless,' said the gentleman, with a sigh.",1 "'We compromise her safety, perhaps, by staying here.",2 We may have detained her longer than she expected already.',2 "'Yes, yes,' urged the girl.",2 'You have.',2 "'What,' cried the young lady, 'can be the end of this poor creature's life!'",1 'What!',2 repeated the girl.,2 "'Look before you, lady.",2 Look at that dark water.,1 "How many times do you read of such as I who spring into the tide, and leave no living thing, to care for, or bewail them.",1 "It may be years hence, or it may be only months, but I shall come to that at last.'",2 "'Do not speak thus, pray,' returned the young lady, sobbing.",2 "'It will never reach your ears, dear lady, and God forbid such horrors should!'",1 replied the girl.,2 "'Good-night, good-night!'",3 The gentleman turned away.,2 "'This purse,' cried the young lady.",2 "'Take it for my sake, that you may have some resource in an hour of need and trouble.'",1 'No!',2 replied the girl.,2 'I have not done this for money.,2 Let me have that to think of.,2 "And yet--give me something that you have worn: I should like to have something--no, no, not a ring--your gloves or handkerchief--anything that I can keep, as having belonged to you, sweet lady.",3 There.,2 Bless you!,3 God bless you.,3 "Good-night, good-night!'",3 "The violent agitation of the girl, and the apprehension of some discovery which would subject her to ill-usage and violence, seemed to determine the gentleman to leave her, as she requested.",1 The sound of retreating footsteps were audible and the voices ceased.,3 The two figures of the young lady and her companion soon afterwards appeared upon the bridge.,2 They stopped at the summit of the stairs.,2 'Hark!',2 "cried the young lady, listening.",2 'Did she call!,2 I thought I heard her voice.',2 "'No, my love,' replied Mr. Brownlow, looking sadly back.",2 "'She has not moved, and will not till we are gone.'",2 "Rose Maylie lingered, but the old gentleman drew her arm through his, and led her, with gentle force, away.",3 "As they disappeared, the girl sunk down nearly at her full length upon one of the stone stairs, and vented the anguish of her heart in bitter tears.",0 "After a time she arose, and with feeble and tottering steps ascended the street.",1 "The astonished listener remained motionless on his post for some minutes afterwards, and having ascertained, with many cautious glances round him, that he was again alone, crept slowly from his hiding-place, and returned, stealthily and in the shade of the wall, in the same manner as he had descended.",1 "Peeping out, more than once, when he reached the top, to make sure that he was unobserved, Noah Claypole darted away at his utmost speed, and made for the Jew's house as fast as his legs would carry him.",3 "It was nearly two hours before day-break; that time which in the autumn of the year, may be truly called the dead of night; when the streets are silent and deserted; when even sounds appear to slumber, and profligacy and riot have staggered home to dream; it was at this still and silent hour, that Fagin sat watching in his old lair, with face so distorted and pale, and eyes so red and blood-shot, that he looked less like a man, than like some hideous phantom, moist from the grave, and worried by an evil spirit.",0 "He sat crouching over a cold hearth, wrapped in an old torn coverlet, with his face turned towards a wasting candle that stood upon a table by his side.",1 "His right hand was raised to his lips, and as, absorbed in thought, he hit his long black nails, he disclosed among his toothless gums a few such fangs as should have been a dog's or rat's.",3 "Stretched upon a mattress on the floor, lay Noah Claypole, fast asleep.",3 "Towards him the old man sometimes directed his eyes for an instant, and then brought them back again to the candle; which with a long-burnt wick drooping almost double, and hot grease falling down in clots upon the table, plainly showed that his thoughts were busy elsewhere.",2 Indeed they were.,2 "Mortification at the overthrow of his notable scheme; hatred of the girl who had dared to palter with strangers; and utter distrust of the sincerity of her refusal to yield him up; bitter disappointment at the loss of his revenge on Sikes; the fear of detection, and ruin, and death; and a fierce and deadly rage kindled by all; these were the passionate considerations which, following close upon each other with rapid and ceaseless whirl, shot through the brain of Fagin, as every evil thought and blackest purpose lay working at his heart.",0 "He sat without changing his attitude in the least, or appearing to take the smallest heed of time, until his quick ear seemed to be attracted by a footstep in the street.",2 "'At last,' he muttered, wiping his dry and fevered mouth.",2 'At last!',2 The bell rang gently as he spoke.,2 "He crept upstairs to the door, and presently returned accompanied by a man muffled to the chin, who carried a bundle under one arm.",1 "Sitting down and throwing back his outer coat, the man displayed the burly frame of Sikes.",2 'There!',2 "he said, laying the bundle on the table.",2 "'Take care of that, and do the most you can with it.",2 "It's been trouble enough to get; I thought I should have been here, three hours ago.'",2 "Fagin laid his hand upon the bundle, and locking it in the cupboard, sat down again without speaking.",2 "But he did not take his eyes off the robber, for an instant, during this action; and now that they sat over against each other, face to face, he looked fixedly at him, with his lips quivering so violently, and his face so altered by the emotions which had mastered him, that the housebreaker involuntarily drew back his chair, and surveyed him with a look of real affright.",1 'Wot now?',2 cried Sikes.,2 'Wot do you look at a man so for?',2 "Fagin raised his right hand, and shook his trembling forefinger in the air; but his passion was so great, that the power of speech was for the moment gone.",4 'Damme!',2 "said Sikes, feeling in his breast with a look of alarm.",1 'He's gone mad.,1 I must look to myself here.',2 "'No, no,' rejoined Fagin, finding his voice.",2 "'It's not--you're not the person, Bill.",2 I've no--no fault to find with you.',1 "'Oh, you haven't, haven't you?'",2 "said Sikes, looking sternly at him, and ostentatiously passing a pistol into a more convenient pocket.",3 'That's lucky--for one of us.,3 "Which one that is, don't matter.'",2 "'I've got that to tell you, Bill,' said Fagin, drawing his chair nearer, 'will make you worse than me.'",1 'Aye?',2 returned the robber with an incredulous air.,1 'Tell away!,2 "Look sharp, or Nance will think I'm lost.'",2 'Lost!',2 cried Fagin.,2 "'She has pretty well settled that, in her own mind, already.'",3 "Sikes looked with an aspect of great perplexity into the Jew's face, and reading no satisfactory explanation of the riddle there, clenched his coat collar in his huge hand and shook him soundly.",3 "'Speak, will you!'",2 "he said; 'or if you don't, it shall be for want of breath.",2 Open your mouth and say wot you've got to say in plain words.,2 "Out with it, you thundering old cur, out with it!'",2 'Suppose that lad that's laying there--' Fagin began.,2 "Sikes turned round to where Noah was sleeping, as if he had not previously observed him.",2 'Well!',2 "he said, resuming his former position.",2 "'Suppose that lad,' pursued Fagin, 'was to peach--to blow upon us all--first seeking out the right folks for the purpose, and then having a meeting with 'em in the street to paint our likenesses, describe every mark that they might know us by, and the crib where we might be most easily taken.",3 "Suppose he was to do all this, and besides to blow upon a plant we've all been in, more or less--of his own fancy; not grabbed, trapped, tried, earwigged by the parson and brought to it on bread and water,--but of his own fancy; to please his own taste; stealing out at nights to find those most interested against us, and peaching to them.",1 Do you hear me?',2 "cried the Jew, his eyes flashing with rage.",1 "'Suppose he did all this, what then?'",2 'What then!',2 replied Sikes; with a tremendous oath.,2 "'If he was left alive till I came, I'd grind his skull under the iron heel of my boot into as many grains as there are hairs upon his head.'",1 'What if I did it!',2 cried Fagin almost in a yell.,2 "'I, that knows so much, and could hang so many besides myself!'",1 "'I don't know,' replied Sikes, clenching his teeth and turning white at the mere suggestion.",2 "'I'd do something in the jail that 'ud get me put in irons; and if I was tried along with you, I'd fall upon you with them in the open court, and beat your brains out afore the people.",1 "I should have such strength,' muttered the robber, poising his brawny arm, 'that I could smash your head as if a loaded waggon had gone over it.'",1 'You would?',2 'Would I!',2 said the housebreaker.,2 'Try me.',2 "'If it was Charley, or the Dodger, or Bet, or--' 'I don't care who,' replied Sikes impatiently.",1 "'Whoever it was, I'd serve them the same.'",2 "Fagin looked hard at the robber; and, motioning him to be silent, stooped over the bed upon the floor, and shook the sleeper to rouse him.",2 "Sikes leant forward in his chair: looking on with his hands upon his knees, as if wondering much what all this questioning and preparation was to end in.",2 "'Bolter, Bolter!",2 Poor lad!',1 "said Fagin, looking up with an expression of devilish anticipation, and speaking slowly and with marked emphasis.",1 "'He's tired--tired with watching for her so long,--watching for _her_, Bill.'",1 'Wot d'ye mean?',2 "asked Sikes, drawing back.",2 "Fagin made no answer, but bending over the sleeper again, hauled him into a sitting posture.",2 "When his assumed name had been repeated several times, Noah rubbed his eyes, and, giving a heavy yawn, looked sleepily about him.",1 "'Tell me that again--once again, just for him to hear,' said the Jew, pointing to Sikes as he spoke.",2 'Tell yer what?',2 "asked the sleepy Noah, shaking himself pettishly.",2 "'That about-- _Nancy_,' said Fagin, clutching Sikes by the wrist, as if to prevent his leaving the house before he had heard enough.",3 'You followed her?',2 'Yes.',2 'To London Bridge?',2 'Yes.',2 'Where she met two people.',2 'So she did.',2 "'A gentleman and a lady that she had gone to of her own accord before, who asked her to give up all her pals, and Monks first, which she did--and to describe him, which she did--and to tell her what house it was that we meet at, and go to, which she did--and where it could be best watched from, which she did--and what time the people went there, which she did.",3 She did all this.,2 "She told it all every word without a threat, without a murmur--she did--did she not?'",1 "cried Fagin, half mad with fury.",1 "'All right,' replied Noah, scratching his head.",3 'That's just what it was!',2 "'What did they say, about last Sunday?'",2 'About last Sunday!',2 "replied Noah, considering.",2 'Why I told yer that before.',2 'Again.,2 Tell it again!',2 "cried Fagin, tightening his grasp on Sikes, and brandishing his other hand aloft, as the foam flew from his lips.",2 "'They asked her,' said Noah, who, as he grew more wakeful, seemed to have a dawning perception who Sikes was, 'they asked her why she didn't come, last Sunday, as she promised.",3 She said she couldn't.',2 'Why--why?,2 Tell him that.',2 "'Because she was forcibly kept at home by Bill, the man she had told them of before,' replied Noah.",2 'What more of him?',2 cried Fagin.,2 'What more of the man she had told them of before?,2 "Tell him that, tell him that.'",2 "'Why, that she couldn't very easily get out of doors unless he knew where she was going to,' said Noah; 'and so the first time she went to see the lady, she--ha!",2 ha!,2 ha!,2 "it made me laugh when she said it, that it did--she gave him a drink of laudanum.'",2 'Hell's fire!',2 "cried Sikes, breaking fiercely from the Jew.",1 'Let me go!',2 "Flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, and darted, wildly and furiously, up the stairs.",1 "'Bill, Bill!'",2 "cried Fagin, following him hastily.",1 'A word.,2 Only a word.',2 "The word would not have been exchanged, but that the housebreaker was unable to open the door: on which he was expending fruitless oaths and violence, when the Jew came panting up.",1 "'Let me out,' said Sikes.",2 'Don't speak to me; it's not safe.,3 "Let me out, I say!'",2 "'Hear me speak a word,' rejoined Fagin, laying his hand upon the lock.",2 "'You won't be--' 'Well,' replied the other.",2 "'You won't be--too--violent, Bill?'",1 "The day was breaking, and there was light enough for the men to see each other's faces.",2 "They exchanged one brief glance; there was a fire in the eyes of both, which could not be mistaken.",1 "'I mean,' said Fagin, showing that he felt all disguise was now useless, 'not too violent for safety.",1 "Be crafty, Bill, and not too bold.'",1 "Sikes made no reply; but, pulling open the door, of which Fagin had turned the lock, dashed into the silent streets.",3 "Without one pause, or moment's consideration; without once turning his head to the right or left, or raising his eyes to the sky, or lowering them to the ground, but looking straight before him with savage resolution: his teeth so tightly compressed that the strained jaw seemed starting through his skin; the robber held on his headlong course, nor muttered a word, nor relaxed a muscle, until he reached his own door.",2 "He opened it, softly, with a key; strode lightly up the stairs; and entering his own room, double-locked the door, and lifting a heavy table against it, drew back the curtain of the bed.",2 "The girl was lying, half-dressed, upon it.",1 "He had roused her from her sleep, for she raised herself with a hurried and startled look.",2 'Get up!',2 said the man.,2 "'It is you, Bill!'",2 "said the girl, with an expression of pleasure at his return.",3 "'It is,' was the reply.",2 'Get up.',2 "There was a candle burning, but the man hastily drew it from the candlestick, and hurled it under the grate.",0 "Seeing the faint light of early day without, the girl rose to undraw the curtain.",1 "'Let it be,' said Sikes, thrusting his hand before her.",2 'There's enough light for wot I've got to do.',3 "'Bill,' said the girl, in the low voice of alarm, 'why do you look like that at me!'",2 "The robber sat regarding her, for a few seconds, with dilated nostrils and heaving breast; and then, grasping her by the head and throat, dragged her into the middle of the room, and looking once towards the door, placed his heavy hand upon her mouth.",1 "'Bill, Bill!'",2 "gasped the girl, wrestling with the strength of mortal fear,--'I--I won't scream or cry--not once--hear me--speak to me--tell me what I have done!'",0 "'You know, you she devil!'",1 "returned the robber, suppressing his breath.",2 'You were watched to-night; every word you said was heard.',2 "'Then spare my life for the love of Heaven, as I spared yours,' rejoined the girl, clinging to him.",3 "'Bill, dear Bill, you cannot have the heart to kill me.",1 Oh!,2 "think of all I have given up, only this one night, for you.",2 "You _shall_ have time to think, and save yourself this crime; I will not loose my hold, you cannot throw me off.",1 "Bill, Bill, for dear God's sake, for your own, for mine, stop before you spill my blood!",2 "I have been true to you, upon my guilty soul I have!'",1 "The man struggled violently, to release his arms; but those of the girl were clasped round his, and tear her as he would, he could not tear them away.",1 "'Bill,' cried the girl, striving to lay her head upon his breast, 'the gentleman and that dear lady, told me to-night of a home in some foreign country where I could end my days in solitude and peace.",3 "Let me see them again, and beg them, on my knees, to show the same mercy and goodness to you; and let us both leave this dreadful place, and far apart lead better lives, and forget how we have lived, except in prayers, and never see each other more.",3 It is never too late to repent.,2 "They told me so--I feel it now--but we must have time--a little, little time!'",2 "The housebreaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol.",3 "The certainty of immediate detection if he fired, flashed across his mind even in the midst of his fury; and he beat it twice with all the force he could summon, upon the upturned face that almost touched his own.",1 "She staggered and fell: nearly blinded with the blood that rained down from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself, with difficulty, on her knees, drew from her bosom a white handkerchief--Rose Maylie's own--and holding it up, in her folded hands, as high towards Heaven as her feeble strength would allow, breathed one prayer for mercy to her Maker.",1 It was a ghastly figure to look upon.,1 "The murderer staggering backward to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy club and struck her down.",0 "Of all bad deeds that, under cover of the darkness, had been committed within wide London's bounds since night hung over it, that was the worst.",0 "Of all the horrors that rose with an ill scent upon the morning air, that was the foulest and most cruel.",1 "The sun--the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man--burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory.",4 "Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.",1 It lighted up the room where the murdered woman lay.,2 It did.,2 "He tried to shut it out, but it would stream in.",2 "If the sight had been a ghastly one in the dull morning, what was it, now, in all that brilliant light!",1 He had not moved; he had been afraid to stir.,1 "There had been a moan and motion of the hand; and, with terror added to rage, he had struck and struck again.",0 "Once he threw a rug over it; but it was worse to fancy the eyes, and imagine them moving towards him, than to see them glaring upward, as if watching the reflection of the pool of gore that quivered and danced in the sunlight on the ceiling.",2 He had plucked it off again.,2 "And there was the body--mere flesh and blood, no more--but such flesh, and so much blood!",2 "He struck a light, kindled a fire, and thrust the club into it.",1 "There was hair upon the end, which blazed and shrunk into a light cinder, and, caught by the air, whirled up the chimney.",2 "Even that frightened him, sturdy as he was; but he held the weapon till it broke, and then piled it on the coals to burn away, and smoulder into ashes.",1 "He washed himself, and rubbed his clothes; there were spots that would not be removed, but he cut the pieces out, and burnt them.",2 How those stains were dispersed about the room!,1 The very feet of the dog were bloody.,1 "All this time he had, never once, turned his back upon the corpse; no, not for a moment.",2 "Such preparations completed, he moved, backward, towards the door: dragging the dog with him, lest he should soil his feet anew and carry out new evidence of the crime into the streets.",0 "He shut the door softly, locked it, took the key, and left the house.",2 "He crossed over, and glanced up at the window, to be sure that nothing was visible from the outside.",2 "There was the curtain still drawn, which she would have opened to admit the light she never saw again.",2 It lay nearly under there.,2 _He_ knew that.,2 "God, how the sun poured down upon the very spot!",2 The glance was instantaneous.,2 It was a relief to have got free of the room.,3 "He whistled on the dog, and walked rapidly away.",2 "He went through Islington; strode up the hill at Highgate on which stands the stone in honour of Whittington; turned down to Highgate Hill, unsteady of purpose, and uncertain where to go; struck off to the right again, almost as soon as he began to descend it; and taking the foot-path across the fields, skirted Caen Wood, and so came on Hampstead Heath.",1 "Traversing the hollow by the Vale of Heath, he mounted the opposite bank, and crossing the road which joins the villages of Hampstead and Highgate, made along the remaining portion of the heath to the fields at North End, in one of which he laid himself down under a hedge, and slept.",1 "Soon he was up again, and away,--not far into the country, but back towards London by the high-road--then back again--then over another part of the same ground as he already traversed--then wandering up and down in fields, and lying on ditches' brinks to rest, and starting up to make for some other spot, and do the same, and ramble on again.",1 "Where could he go, that was near and not too public, to get some meat and drink?",2 Hendon.,2 "That was a good place, not far off, and out of most people's way.",3 "Thither he directed his steps,--running sometimes, and sometimes, with a strange perversity, loitering at a snail's pace, or stopping altogether and idly breaking the hedges with a stick.",0 "But when he got there, all the people he met--the very children at the doors--seemed to view him with suspicion.",1 "Back he turned again, without the courage to purchase bit or drop, though he had tasted no food for many hours; and once more he lingered on the Heath, uncertain where to go.",2 "He wandered over miles and miles of ground, and still came back to the old place.",2 "Morning and noon had passed, and the day was on the wane, and still he rambled to and fro, and up and down, and round and round, and still lingered about the same spot.",1 "At last he got away, and shaped his course for Hatfield.",2 "It was nine o'clock at night, when the man, quite tired out, and the dog, limping and lame from the unaccustomed exercise, turned down the hill by the church of the quiet village, and plodding along the little street, crept into a small public-house, whose scanty light had guided them to the spot.",0 "There was a fire in the tap-room, and some country-labourers were drinking before it.",2 "They made room for the stranger, but he sat down in the furthest corner, and ate and drank alone, or rather with his dog: to whom he cast a morsel of food from time to time.",1 "The conversation of the men assembled here, turned upon the neighbouring land, and farmers; and when those topics were exhausted, upon the age of some old man who had been buried on the previous Sunday; the young men present considering him very old, and the old men present declaring him to have been quite young--not older, one white-haired grandfather said, than he was--with ten or fifteen year of life in him at least--if he had taken care; if he had taken care.",1 "There was nothing to attract attention, or excite alarm in this.",2 "The robber, after paying his reckoning, sat silent and unnoticed in his corner, and had almost dropped asleep, when he was half wakened by the noisy entrance of a new comer.",1 "This was an antic fellow, half pedlar and half mountebank, who travelled about the country on foot to vend hones, strops, razors, washballs, harness-paste, medicine for dogs and horses, cheap perfumery, cosmetics, and such-like wares, which he carried in a case slung to his back.",2 "His entrance was the signal for various homely jokes with the countrymen, which slackened not until he had made his supper, and opened his box of treasures, when he ingeniously contrived to unite business with amusement.",2 'And what be that stoof?,2 "Good to eat, Harry?'",3 "asked a grinning countryman, pointing to some composition-cakes in one corner.",2 "'This,' said the fellow, producing one, 'this is the infallible and invaluable composition for removing all sorts of stain, rust, dirt, mildew, spick, speck, spot, or spatter, from silk, satin, linen, cambric, cloth, crape, stuff, carpet, merino, muslin, bombazeen, or woollen stuff.",1 "Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains, paint-stains, pitch-stains, any stains, all come out at one rub with the infallible and invaluable composition.",3 "If a lady stains her honour, she has only need to swallow one cake and she's cured at once--for it's poison.",1 "If a gentleman wants to prove this, he has only need to bolt one little square, and he has put it beyond question--for it's quite as satisfactory as a pistol-bullet, and a great deal nastier in the flavour, consequently the more credit in taking it.",3 One penny a square.,2 "With all these virtues, one penny a square!'",2 "There were two buyers directly, and more of the listeners plainly hesitated.",2 "The vendor observing this, increased in loquacity.",2 "'It's all bought up as fast as it can be made,' said the fellow.",3 "'There are fourteen water-mills, six steam-engines, and a galvanic battery, always a-working upon it, and they can't make it fast enough, though the men work so hard that they die off, and the widows is pensioned directly, with twenty pound a-year for each of the children, and a premium of fifty for twins.",3 One penny a square!,2 "Two half-pence is all the same, and four farthings is received with joy.",3 One penny a square!,2 "Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains, paint-stains, pitch-stains, mud-stains, blood-stains!",1 "Here is a stain upon the hat of a gentleman in company, that I'll take clean out, before he can order me a pint of ale.'",2 'Hah!',2 cried Sikes starting up.,2 'Give that back.',2 "'I'll take it clean out, sir,' replied the man, winking to the company, 'before you can come across the room to get it.",3 "Gentlemen all, observe the dark stain upon this gentleman's hat, no wider than a shilling, but thicker than a half-crown.",0 "Whether it is a wine-stain, fruit-stain, beer-stain, water-stain, paint-stain, pitch-stain, mud-stain, or blood-stain--' The man got no further, for Sikes with a hideous imprecation overthrew the table, and tearing the hat from him, burst out of the house.",1 "With the same perversity of feeling and irresolution that had fastened upon him, despite himself, all day, the murderer, finding that he was not followed, and that they most probably considered him some drunken sullen fellow, turned back up the town, and getting out of the glare of the lamps of a stage-coach that was standing in the street, was walking past, when he recognised the mail from London, and saw that it was standing at the little post-office.",0 "He almost knew what was to come; but he crossed over, and listened.",2 "The guard was standing at the door, waiting for the letter-bag.",2 "A man, dressed like a game-keeper, came up at the moment, and he handed him a basket which lay ready on the pavement.",3 "'That's for your people,' said the guard.",2 "'Now, look alive in there, will you.",2 "Damn that 'ere bag, it warn't ready night afore last; this won't do, you know!'",2 "'Anything new up in town, Ben?'",2 "asked the game-keeper, drawing back to the window-shutters, the better to admire the horses.",3 "'No, nothing that I knows on,' replied the man, pulling on his gloves.",2 'Corn's up a little.,2 "I heerd talk of a murder, too, down Spitalfields way, but I don't reckon much upon it.'",1 "'Oh, that's quite true,' said a gentleman inside, who was looking out of the window.",2 'And a dreadful murder it was.',1 "'Was it, sir?'",2 "rejoined the guard, touching his hat.",2 "'Man or woman, pray, sir?'",2 "'A woman,' replied the gentleman.",2 "'It is supposed--' 'Now, Ben,' replied the coachman impatiently.",1 "'Damn that 'ere bag,' said the guard; 'are you gone to sleep in there?'",2 'Coming!',2 "cried the office keeper, running out.",2 "'Coming,' growled the guard.",2 "'Ah, and so's the young 'ooman of property that's going to take a fancy to me, but I don't know when.",3 "Here, give hold.",2 All ri--ight!',2 "The horn sounded a few cheerful notes, and the coach was gone.",3 "Sikes remained standing in the street, apparently unmoved by what he had just heard, and agitated by no stronger feeling than a doubt where to go.",1 "At length he went back again, and took the road which leads from Hatfield to St. Albans.",3 "He went on doggedly; but as he left the town behind him, and plunged into the solitude and darkness of the road, he felt a dread and awe creeping upon him which shook him to the core.",0 "Every object before him, substance or shadow, still or moving, took the semblance of some fearful thing; but these fears were nothing compared to the sense that haunted him of that morning's ghastly figure following at his heels.",0 "He could trace its shadow in the gloom, supply the smallest item of the outline, and note how stiff and solemn it seemed to stalk along.",0 "He could hear its garments rustling in the leaves, and every breath of wind came laden with that last low cry.",1 If he stopped it did the same.,2 "If he ran, it followed--not running too: that would have been a relief: but like a corpse endowed with the mere machinery of life, and borne on one slow melancholy wind that never rose or fell.",1 "At times, he turned, with desperate determination, resolved to beat this phantom off, though it should look him dead; but the hair rose on his head, and his blood stood still, for it had turned with him and was behind him then.",1 "He had kept it before him that morning, but it was behind now--always.",2 "He leaned his back against a bank, and felt that it stood above him, visibly out against the cold night-sky.",1 He threw himself upon the road--on his back upon the road.,2 "At his head it stood, silent, erect, and still--a living grave-stone, with its epitaph in blood.",3 "Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that Providence must sleep.",3 There were twenty score of violent deaths in one long minute of that agony of fear.,0 "There was a shed in a field he passed, that offered shelter for the night.",2 "Before the door, were three tall poplar trees, which made it very dark within; and the wind moaned through them with a dismal wail.",0 "He _could not_ walk on, till daylight came again; and here he stretched himself close to the wall--to undergo new torture.",1 "For now, a vision came before him, as constant and more terrible than that from which he had escaped.",1 "Those widely staring eyes, so lustreless and so glassy, that he had better borne to see them than think upon them, appeared in the midst of the darkness: light in themselves, but giving light to nothing.",2 "There were but two, but they were everywhere.",2 "If he shut out the sight, there came the room with every well-known object--some, indeed, that he would have forgotten, if he had gone over its contents from memory--each in its accustomed place.",2 "The body was in _its_ place, and its eyes were as he saw them when he stole away.",1 "He got up, and rushed into the field without.",2 The figure was behind him.,2 "He re-entered the shed, and shrunk down once more.",2 "The eyes were there, before he had laid himself along.",2 "And here he remained in such terror as none but he can know, trembling in every limb, and the cold sweat starting from every pore, when suddenly there arose upon the night-wind the noise of distant shouting, and the roar of voices mingled in alarm and wonder.",0 "Any sound of men in that lonely place, even though it conveyed a real cause of alarm, was something to him.",1 "He regained his strength and energy at the prospect of personal danger; and springing to his feet, rushed into the open air.",1 The broad sky seemed on fire.,2 "Rising into the air with showers of sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame, lighting the atmosphere for miles round, and driving clouds of smoke in the direction where he stood.",1 "The shouts grew louder as new voices swelled the roar, and he could hear the cry of Fire!",0 "mingled with the ringing of an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and the crackling of flames as they twined round some new obstacle, and shot aloft as though refreshed by food.",1 The noise increased as he looked.,1 "There were people there--men and women--light, bustle.",2 It was like new life to him.,3 "He darted onward--straight, headlong--dashing through brier and brake, and leaping gate and fence as madly as his dog, who careered with loud and sounding bark before him.",1 He came upon the spot.,2 "There were half-dressed figures tearing to and fro, some endeavouring to drag the frightened horses from the stables, others driving the cattle from the yard and out-houses, and others coming laden from the burning pile, amidst a shower of falling sparks, and the tumbling down of red-hot beams.",1 "The apertures, where doors and windows stood an hour ago, disclosed a mass of raging fire; walls rocked and crumbled into the burning well; the molten lead and iron poured down, white hot, upon the ground.",3 "Women and children shrieked, and men encouraged each other with noisy shouts and cheers.",1 "The clanking of the engine-pumps, and the spirting and hissing of the water as it fell upon the blazing wood, added to the tremendous roar.",1 "He shouted, too, till he was hoarse; and flying from memory and himself, plunged into the thickest of the throng.",2 "Hither and thither he dived that night: now working at the pumps, and now hurrying through the smoke and flame, but never ceasing to engage himself wherever noise and men were thickest.",1 "Up and down the ladders, upon the roofs of buildings, over floors that quaked and trembled with his weight, under the lee of falling bricks and stones, in every part of that great fire was he; but he bore a charmed life, and had neither scratch nor bruise, nor weariness nor thought, till morning dawned again, and only smoke and blackened ruins remained.",0 "This mad excitement over, there returned, with ten-fold force, the dreadful consciousness of his crime.",1 "He looked suspiciously about him, for the men were conversing in groups, and he feared to be the subject of their talk.",1 "The dog obeyed the significant beck of his finger, and they drew off, stealthily, together.",3 "He passed near an engine where some men were seated, and they called to him to share in their refreshment.",2 "He took some bread and meat; and as he drank a draught of beer, heard the firemen, who were from London, talking about the murder.",1 "'He has gone to Birmingham, they say,' said one: 'but they'll have him yet, for the scouts are out, and by to-morrow night there'll be a cry all through the country.'",1 "He hurried off, and walked till he almost dropped upon the ground; then lay down in a lane, and had a long, but broken and uneasy sleep.",1 "He wandered on again, irresolute and undecided, and oppressed with the fear of another solitary night.",0 "Suddenly, he took the desperate resolution to going back to London.",1 "'There's somebody to speak to there, at all event,' he thought.",2 "'A good hiding-place, too.",3 "They'll never expect to nab me there, after this country scent.",2 "Why can't I lie by for a week or so, and, forcing blunt from Fagin, get abroad to France?",1 "Damme, I'll risk it.'",1 "He acted upon this impulse without delay, and choosing the least frequented roads began his journey back, resolved to lie concealed within a short distance of the metropolis, and, entering it at dusk by a circuitous route, to proceed straight to that part of it which he had fixed on for his destination.",1 "The dog, though.",2 "If any description of him were out, it would not be forgotten that the dog was missing, and had probably gone with him.",2 This might lead to his apprehension as he passed along the streets.,2 "He resolved to drown him, and walked on, looking about for a pond: picking up a heavy stone and tying it to his handkerchief as he went.",2 "The animal looked up into his master's face while these preparations were making; whether his instinct apprehended something of their purpose, or the robber's sidelong look at him was sterner than ordinary, he skulked a little farther in the rear than usual, and cowered as he came more slowly along.",1 "When his master halted at the brink of a pool, and looked round to call him, he stopped outright.",3 'Do you hear me call?,2 Come here!',2 cried Sikes.,2 "The animal came up from the very force of habit; but as Sikes stooped to attach the handkerchief to his throat, he uttered a low growl and started back.",1 'Come back!',2 said the robber.,2 "The dog wagged his tail, but moved not.",2 Sikes made a running noose and called him again.,2 "The dog advanced, retreated, paused an instant, and scoured away at his hardest speed.",2 "The man whistled again and again, and sat down and waited in the expectation that he would return.",2 "But no dog appeared, and at length he resumed his journey.",2 "The twilight was beginning to close in, when Mr. Brownlow alighted from a hackney-coach at his own door, and knocked softly.",2 "The door being opened, a sturdy man got out of the coach and stationed himself on one side of the steps, while another man, who had been seated on the box, dismounted too, and stood upon the other side.",3 "At a sign from Mr. Brownlow, they helped out a third man, and taking him between them, hurried him into the house.",3 This man was Monks.,2 "They walked in the same manner up the stairs without speaking, and Mr. Brownlow, preceding them, led the way into a back-room.",3 "At the door of this apartment, Monks, who had ascended with evident reluctance, stopped.",1 The two men looked at the old gentleman as if for instructions.,2 "'He knows the alternative,' said Mr. Browlow.",2 "'If he hesitates or moves a finger but as you bid him, drag him into the street, call for the aid of the police, and impeach him as a felon in my name.'",0 'How dare you say this of me?',2 asked Monks.,2 "'How dare you urge me to it, young man?'",2 "replied Mr. Brownlow, confronting him with a steady look.",3 'Are you mad enough to leave this house?,2 Unhand him.,2 "There, sir.",2 "You are free to go, and we to follow.",3 "But I warn you, by all I hold most solemn and most sacred, that instant will have you apprehended on a charge of fraud and robbery.",1 I am resolute and immoveable.,3 "If you are determined to be the same, your blood be upon your own head!'",2 "'By what authority am I kidnapped in the street, and brought here by these dogs?'",2 "asked Monks, looking from one to the other of the men who stood beside him.",2 "'By mine,' replied Mr. Brownlow.",2 'Those persons are indemnified by me.,2 "If you complain of being deprived of your liberty--you had power and opportunity to retrieve it as you came along, but you deemed it advisable to remain quiet--I say again, throw yourself for protection on the law.",3 "I will appeal to the law too; but when you have gone too far to recede, do not sue to me for leniency, when the power will have passed into other hands; and do not say I plunged you down the gulf into which you rushed, yourself.'",2 "Monks was plainly disconcerted, and alarmed besides.",1 He hesitated.,2 "'You will decide quickly,' said Mr. Brownlow, with perfect firmness and composure.",3 "'If you wish me to prefer my charges publicly, and consign you to a punishment the extent of which, although I can, with a shudder, foresee, I cannot control, once more, I say, for you know the way.",3 "If not, and you appeal to my forbearance, and the mercy of those you have deeply injured, seat yourself, without a word, in that chair.",3 It has waited for you two whole days.',2 "Monks muttered some unintelligible words, but wavered still.",1 "'You will be prompt,' said Mr. Brownlow.",3 "'A word from me, and the alternative has gone for ever.'",2 Still the man hesitated.,2 "'I have not the inclination to parley,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'and, as I advocate the dearest interests of others, I have not the right.'",4 "'Is there--' demanded Monks with a faltering tongue,--'is there--no middle course?'",2 'None.',2 "Monks looked at the old gentleman, with an anxious eye; but, reading in his countenance nothing but severity and determination, walked into the room, and, shrugging his shoulders, sat down.",1 "'Lock the door on the outside,' said Mr. Brownlow to the attendants, 'and come when I ring.'",2 "The men obeyed, and the two were left alone together.",2 "'This is pretty treatment, sir,' said Monks, throwing down his hat and cloak, 'from my father's oldest friend.'",3 "'It is because I was your father's oldest friend, young man,' returned Mr. Brownlow; 'it is because the hopes and wishes of young and happy years were bound up with him, and that fair creature of his blood and kindred who rejoined her God in youth, and left me here a solitary, lonely man: it is because he knelt with me beside his only sisters's death-bed when he was yet a boy, on the morning that would--but Heaven willed otherwise--have made her my young wife; it is because my seared heart clung to him, from that time forth, through all his trials and errors, till he died; it is because old recollections and associations filled my heart, and even the sight of you brings with it old thoughts of him; it is because of all these things that I am moved to treat you gently now--yes, Edward Leeford, even now--and blush for your unworthiness who bear the name.'",1 'What has the name to do with it?',2 "asked the other, after contemplating, half in silence, and half in dogged wonder, the agitation of his companion.",2 'What is the name to me?',2 "'Nothing,' replied Mr. Brownlow, 'nothing to you.",2 "But it was _hers_, and even at this distance of time brings back to me, an old man, the glow and thrill which I once felt, only to hear it repeated by a stranger.",3 I am very glad you have changed it--very--very.',3 "'This is all mighty fine,' said Monks (to retain his assumed designation) after a long silence, during which he had jerked himself in sullen defiance to and fro, and Mr. Brownlow had sat, shading his face with his hand.",2 'But what do you want with me?',2 "'You have a brother,' said Mr. Brownlow, rousing himself: 'a brother, the whisper of whose name in your ear when I came behind you in the street, was, in itself, almost enough to make you accompany me hither, in wonder and alarm.'",3 "'I have no brother,' replied Monks.",2 'You know I was an only child.,2 Why do you talk to me of brothers?,2 "You know that, as well as I.' 'Attend to what I do know, and you may not,' said Mr. Brownlow.",3 'I shall interest you by and by.,2 "I know that of the wretched marriage, into which family pride, and the most sordid and narrowest of all ambition, forced your unhappy father when a mere boy, you were the sole and most unnatural issue.'",0 "'I don't care for hard names,' interrupted Monks with a jeering laugh.",1 "'You know the fact, and that's enough for me.'",3 "'But I also know,' pursued the old gentleman, 'the misery, the slow torture, the protracted anguish of that ill-assorted union.",0 I know how listlessly and wearily each of that wretched pair dragged on their heavy chain through a world that was poisoned to them both.,1 "I know how cold formalities were succeeded by open taunts; how indifference gave place to dislike, dislike to hate, and hate to loathing, until at last they wrenched the clanking bond asunder, and retiring a wide space apart, carried each a galling fragment, of which nothing but death could break the rivets, to hide it in new society beneath the gayest looks they could assume.",0 Your mother succeeded; she forgot it soon.,3 But it rusted and cankered at your father's heart for years.',2 "'Well, they were separated,' said Monks, 'and what of that?'",2 "'When they had been separated for some time,' returned Mr. Brownlow, 'and your mother, wholly given up to continental frivolities, had utterly forgotten the young husband ten good years her junior, who, with prospects blighted, lingered on at home, he fell among new friends.",1 "This circumstance, at least, you know already.'",2 "'Not I,' said Monks, turning away his eyes and beating his foot upon the ground, as a man who is determined to deny everything.",1 "'Not I.' 'Your manner, no less than your actions, assures me that you have never forgotten it, or ceased to think of it with bitterness,' returned Mr. Brownlow.",1 "'I speak of fifteen years ago, when you were not more than eleven years old, and your father but one-and-thirty--for he was, I repeat, a boy, when _his_ father ordered him to marry.",2 "Must I go back to events which cast a shade upon the memory of your parent, or will you spare it, and disclose to me the truth?'",2 "'I have nothing to disclose,' rejoined Monks.",2 'You must talk on if you will.',2 "'These new friends, then,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'were a naval officer retired from active service, whose wife had died some half-a-year before, and left him with two children--there had been more, but, of all their family, happily but two survived.",2 "They were both daughters; one a beautiful creature of nineteen, and the other a mere child of two or three years old.'",3 'What's this to me?',2 asked Monks.,2 "'They resided,' said Mr. Brownlow, without seeming to hear the interruption, 'in a part of the country to which your father in his wandering had repaired, and where he had taken up his abode.",1 "Acquaintance, intimacy, friendship, fast followed on each other.",3 Your father was gifted as few men are.,3 He had his sister's soul and person.,2 "As the old officer knew him more and more, he grew to love him.",3 I would that it had ended there.,2 His daughter did the same.',2 "The old gentleman paused; Monks was biting his lips, with his eyes fixed upon the floor; seeing this, he immediately resumed: 'The end of a year found him contracted, solemnly contracted, to that daughter; the object of the first, true, ardent, only passion of a guileless girl.'",2 "'Your tale is of the longest,' observed Monks, moving restlessly in his chair.",2 "'It is a true tale of grief and trial, and sorrow, young man,' returned Mr. Brownlow, 'and such tales usually are; if it were one of unmixed joy and happiness, it would be very brief.",2 "At length one of those rich relations to strengthen whose interest and importance your father had been sacrificed, as others are often--it is no uncommon case--died, and to repair the misery he had been instrumental in occasioning, left him his panacea for all griefs--Money.",1 "It was necessary that he should immediately repair to Rome, whither this man had sped for health, and where he had died, leaving his affairs in great confusion.",1 "He went; was seized with mortal illness there; was followed, the moment the intelligence reached Paris, by your mother who carried you with her; he died the day after her arrival, leaving no will--_no will_--so that the whole property fell to her and you.'",1 "At this part of the recital Monks held his breath, and listened with a face of intense eagerness, though his eyes were not directed towards the speaker.",2 "As Mr. Brownlow paused, he changed his position with the air of one who has experienced a sudden relief, and wiped his hot face and hands.",3 "'Before he went abroad, and as he passed through London on his way,' said Mr. Brownlow, slowly, and fixing his eyes upon the other's face, 'he came to me.'",1 "'I never heard of that,' interrupted Monks in a tone intended to appear incredulous, but savouring more of disagreeable surprise.",1 "'He came to me, and left with me, among some other things, a picture--a portrait painted by himself--a likeness of this poor girl--which he did not wish to leave behind, and could not carry forward on his hasty journey.",1 "He was worn by anxiety and remorse almost to a shadow; talked in a wild, distracted way, of ruin and dishonour worked by himself; confided to me his intention to convert his whole property, at any loss, into money, and, having settled on his wife and you a portion of his recent acquisition, to fly the country--I guessed too well he would not fly alone--and never see it more.",0 "Even from me, his old and early friend, whose strong attachment had taken root in the earth that covered one most dear to both--even from me he withheld any more particular confession, promising to write and tell me all, and after that to see me once again, for the last time on earth.",3 Alas!,2 _That_ was the last time.,2 "I had no letter, and I never saw him more.'",2 "'I went,' said Mr. Brownlow, after a short pause, 'I went, when all was over, to the scene of his--I will use the term the world would freely use, for worldly harshness or favour are now alike to him--of his guilty love, resolved that if my fears were realised that erring child should find one heart and home to shelter and compassionate her.",3 "The family had left that part a week before; they had called in such trifling debts as were outstanding, discharged them, and left the place by night.",2 "Why, or whither, none can tell.'",2 "Monks drew his breath yet more freely, and looked round with a smile of triumph.",3 "'When your brother,' said Mr. Brownlow, drawing nearer to the other's chair, 'When your brother: a feeble, ragged, neglected child: was cast in my way by a stronger hand than chance, and rescued by me from a life of vice and infamy--' 'What?'",0 cried Monks.,2 "'By me,' said Mr. Brownlow.",2 'I told you I should interest you before long.,2 "I say by me--I see that your cunning associate suppressed my name, although for ought he knew, it would be quite strange to your ears.",1 "When he was rescued by me, then, and lay recovering from sickness in my house, his strong resemblance to this picture I have spoken of, struck me with astonishment.",2 "Even when I first saw him in all his dirt and misery, there was a lingering expression in his face that came upon me like a glimpse of some old friend flashing on one in a vivid dream.",2 I need not tell you he was snared away before I knew his history--' 'Why not?',2 asked Monks hastily.,1 'Because you know it well.',3 'I!',2 "'Denial to me is vain,' replied Mr. Brownlow.",1 'I shall show you that I know more than that.',2 "'You--you--can't prove anything against me,' stammered Monks.",2 'I defy you to do it!',1 "'We shall see,' returned the old gentleman with a searching glance.",2 "'I lost the boy, and no efforts of mine could recover him.",2 "Your mother being dead, I knew that you alone could solve the mystery if anybody could, and as when I had last heard of you you were on your own estate in the West Indies--whither, as you well know, you retired upon your mother's death to escape the consequences of vicious courses here--I made the voyage.",0 "You had left it, months before, and were supposed to be in London, but no one could tell where.",2 I returned.,2 Your agents had no clue to your residence.,2 "You came and went, they said, as strangely as you had ever done: sometimes for days together and sometimes not for months: keeping to all appearance the same low haunts and mingling with the same infamous herd who had been your associates when a fierce ungovernable boy.",0 I wearied them with new applications.,2 "I paced the streets by night and day, but until two hours ago, all my efforts were fruitless, and I never saw you for an instant.'",1 "'And now you do see me,' said Monks, rising boldly, 'what then?",2 "Fraud and robbery are high-sounding words--justified, you think, by a fancied resemblance in some young imp to an idle daub of a dead man's Brother!",0 You don't even know that a child was born of this maudlin pair; you don't even know that.',2 "'I _did not_,' replied Mr. Brownlow, rising too; 'but within the last fortnight I have learnt it all.",2 "You have a brother; you know it, and him.",2 "There was a will, which your mother destroyed, leaving the secret and the gain to you at her own death.",2 "It contained a reference to some child likely to be the result of this sad connection, which child was born, and accidentally encountered by you, when your suspicions were first awakened by his resemblance to your father.",1 You repaired to the place of his birth.,2 There existed proofs--proofs long suppressed--of his birth and parentage.,2 "Those proofs were destroyed by you, and now, in your own words to your accomplice the Jew, ""_the only proofs of the boy's identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin_.""",1 "Unworthy son, coward, liar,--you, who hold your councils with thieves and murderers in dark rooms at night,--you, whose plots and wiles have brought a violent death upon the head of one worth millions such as you,--you, who from your cradle were gall and bitterness to your own father's heart, and in whom all evil passions, vice, and profligacy, festered, till they found a vent in a hideous disease which had made your face an index even to your mind--you, Edward Leeford, do you still brave me!'",0 "'No, no, no!'",2 "returned the coward, overwhelmed by these accumulated charges.",1 'Every word!',2 "cried the gentleman, 'every word that has passed between you and this detested villain, is known to me.",1 "Shadows on the wall have caught your whispers, and brought them to my ear; the sight of the persecuted child has turned vice itself, and given it the courage and almost the attributes of virtue.",3 "Murder has been done, to which you were morally if not really a party.'",1 "'No, no,' interposed Monks.",2 'I--I knew nothing of that; I was going to inquire the truth of the story when you overtook me.,3 I didn't know the cause.,2 I thought it was a common quarrel.',1 "'It was the partial disclosure of your secrets,' replied Mr. Brownlow.",2 'Will you disclose the whole?',2 "'Yes, I will.'",2 "'Set your hand to a statement of truth and facts, and repeat it before witnesses?'",2 'That I promise too.',3 "'Remain quietly here, until such a document is drawn up, and proceed with me to such a place as I may deem most advisable, for the purpose of attesting it?'",2 "'If you insist upon that, I'll do that also,' replied Monks.",2 "'You must do more than that,' said Mr. Brownlow.",2 "'Make restitution to an innocent and unoffending child, for such he is, although the offspring of a guilty and most miserable love.",1 You have not forgotten the provisions of the will.,2 "Carry them into execution so far as your brother is concerned, and then go where you please.",1 In this world you need meet no more.',2 "While Monks was pacing up and down, meditating with dark and evil looks on this proposal and the possibilities of evading it: torn by his fears on the one hand and his hatred on the other: the door was hurriedly unlocked, and a gentleman (Mr. Losberne) entered the room in violent agitation.",0 "'The man will be taken,' he cried.",2 'He will be taken to-night!',2 'The murderer?',1 asked Mr. Brownlow.,2 "'Yes, yes,' replied the other.",2 "'His dog has been seen lurking about some old haunt, and there seems little doubt that his master either is, or will be, there, under cover of the darkness.",0 Spies are hovering about in every direction.,2 "I have spoken to the men who are charged with his capture, and they tell me he cannot escape.",2 A reward of a hundred pounds is proclaimed by Government to-night.',3 "'I will give fifty more,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'and proclaim it with my own lips upon the spot, if I can reach it.",2 Where is Mr. Maylie?',2 'Harry?,2 "As soon as he had seen your friend here, safe in a coach with you, he hurried off to where he heard this,' replied the doctor, 'and mounting his horse sallied forth to join the first party at some place in the outskirts agreed upon between them.'",3 "'Fagin,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'what of him?'",2 "'When I last heard, he had not been taken, but he will be, or is, by this time.",2 They're sure of him.',2 'Have you made up your mind?',2 "asked Mr. Brownlow, in a low voice, of Monks.",2 "'Yes,' he replied.",2 'You--you--will be secret with me?',2 'I will.,2 Remain here till I return.,2 It is your only hope of safety.',2 "They left the room, and the door was again locked.",2 'What have you done?',2 asked the doctor in a whisper.,2 "'All that I could hope to do, and even more.",2 "Coupling the poor girl's intelligence with my previous knowledge, and the result of our good friend's inquiries on the spot, I left him no loophole of escape, and laid bare the whole villainy which by these lights became plain as day.",2 "Write and appoint the evening after to-morrow, at seven, for the meeting.",2 "We shall be down there, a few hours before, but shall require rest: especially the young lady, who _may_ have greater need of firmness than either you or I can quite foresee just now.",2 But my blood boils to avenge this poor murdered creature.,1 Which way have they taken?',2 "'Drive straight to the office and you will be in time,' replied Mr. Losberne.",2 'I will remain here.',2 The two gentlemen hastily separated; each in a fever of excitement wholly uncontrollable.,1 "Near to that part of the Thames on which the church at Rotherhithe abuts, where the buildings on the banks are dirtiest and the vessels on the river blackest with the dust of colliers and the smoke of close-built low-roofed houses, there exists the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London, wholly unknown, even by name, to the great mass of its inhabitants.",1 "To reach this place, the visitor has to penetrate through a maze of close, narrow, and muddy streets, thronged by the roughest and poorest of waterside people, and devoted to the traffic they may be supposed to occasion.",1 "The cheapest and least delicate provisions are heaped in the shops; the coarsest and commonest articles of wearing apparel dangle at the salesman's door, and stream from the house-parapet and windows.",3 "Jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class, ballast-heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged children, and the raff and refuse of the river, he makes his way with difficulty along, assailed by offensive sights and smells from the narrow alleys which branch off on the right and left, and deafened by the clash of ponderous waggons that bear great piles of merchandise from the stacks of warehouses that rise from every corner.",0 "Arriving, at length, in streets remoter and less-frequented than those through which he has passed, he walks beneath tottering house-fronts projecting over the pavement, dismantled walls that seem to totter as he passes, chimneys half crushed half hesitating to fall, windows guarded by rusty iron bars that time and dirt have almost eaten away, every imaginable sign of desolation and neglect.",0 "In such a neighborhood, beyond Dockhead in the Borough of Southwark, stands Jacob's Island, surrounded by a muddy ditch, six or eight feet deep and fifteen or twenty wide when the tide is in, once called Mill Pond, but known in the days of this story as Folly Ditch.",1 "It is a creek or inlet from the Thames, and can always be filled at high water by opening the sluices at the Lead Mills from which it took its old name.",3 "At such times, a stranger, looking from one of the wooden bridges thrown across it at Mill Lane, will see the inhabitants of the houses on either side lowering from their back doors and windows, buckets, pails, domestic utensils of all kinds, in which to haul the water up; and when his eye is turned from these operations to the houses themselves, his utmost astonishment will be excited by the scene before him.",3 "Crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud, and threatening to fall into it--as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations; every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage; all these ornament the banks of Folly Ditch.",0 "In Jacob's Island, the warehouses are roofless and empty; the walls are crumbling down; the windows are windows no more; the doors are falling into the streets; the chimneys are blackened, but they yield no smoke.",0 "Thirty or forty years ago, before losses and chancery suits came upon it, it was a thriving place; but now it is a desolate island indeed.",1 "The houses have no owners; they are broken open, and entered upon by those who have the courage; and there they live, and there they die.",1 "They must have powerful motives for a secret residence, or be reduced to a destitute condition indeed, who seek a refuge in Jacob's Island.",2 "In an upper room of one of these houses--a detached house of fair size, ruinous in other respects, but strongly defended at door and window: of which house the back commanded the ditch in manner already described--there were assembled three men, who, regarding each other every now and then with looks expressive of perplexity and expectation, sat for some time in profound and gloomy silence.",1 "One of these was Toby Crackit, another Mr. Chitling, and the third a robber of fifty years, whose nose had been almost beaten in, in some old scuffle, and whose face bore a frightful scar which might probably be traced to the same occasion.",0 "This man was a returned transport, and his name was Kags.",2 "'I wish,' said Toby turning to Mr. Chitling, 'that you had picked out some other crib when the two old ones got too warm, and had not come here, my fine feller.'",3 "'Why didn't you, blunder-head!'",1 said Kags.,2 "'Well, I thought you'd have been a little more glad to see me than this,' replied Mr. Chitling, with a melancholy air.",2 "'Why, look'e, young gentleman,' said Toby, 'when a man keeps himself so very ex-clusive as I have done, and by that means has a snug house over his head with nobody a prying and smelling about it, it's rather a startling thing to have the honour of a wisit from a young gentleman (however respectable and pleasant a person he may be to play cards with at conweniency) circumstanced as you are.'",2 "'Especially, when the exclusive young man has got a friend stopping with him, that's arrived sooner than was expected from foreign parts, and is too modest to want to be presented to the Judges on his return,' added Mr. Kags.",3 "There was a short silence, after which Toby Crackit, seeming to abandon as hopeless any further effort to maintain his usual devil-may-care swagger, turned to Chitling and said, 'When was Fagin took then?'",0 'Just at dinner-time--two o'clock this afternoon.,2 "Charley and I made our lucky up the wash-us chimney, and Bolter got into the empty water-butt, head downwards; but his legs were so precious long that they stuck out at the top, and so they took him too.'",3 'And Bet?',2 'Poor Bet!,2 "She went to see the Body, to speak to who it was,' replied Chitling, his countenance falling more and more, 'and went off mad, screaming and raving, and beating her head against the boards; so they put a strait-weskut on her and took her to the hospital--and there she is.'",0 'Wot's come of young Bates?',2 demanded Kags.,2 "'He hung about, not to come over here afore dark, but he'll be here soon,' replied Chitling.",1 "'There's nowhere else to go to now, for the people at the Cripples are all in custody, and the bar of the ken--I went up there and see it with my own eyes--is filled with traps.'",1 "'This is a smash,' observed Toby, biting his lips.",1 'There's more than one will go with this.',2 "'The sessions are on,' said Kags: 'if they get the inquest over, and Bolter turns King's evidence: as of course he will, from what he's said already: they can prove Fagin an accessory before the fact, and get the trial on on Friday, and he'll swing in six days from this, by G--!'",2 "'You should have heard the people groan,' said Chitling; 'the officers fought like devils, or they'd have torn him away.",3 "He was down once, but they made a ring round him, and fought their way along.",2 "You should have seen how he looked about him, all muddy and bleeding, and clung to them as if they were his dearest friends.",1 "I can see 'em now, not able to stand upright with the pressing of the mob, and draggin him along amongst 'em; I can see the people jumping up, one behind another, and snarling with their teeth and making at him; I can see the blood upon his hair and beard, and hear the cries with which the women worked themselves into the centre of the crowd at the street corner, and swore they'd tear his heart out!'",3 "The horror-stricken witness of this scene pressed his hands upon his ears, and with his eyes closed got up and paced violently to and fro, like one distracted.",1 "While he was thus engaged, and the two men sat by in silence with their eyes fixed upon the floor, a pattering noise was heard upon the stairs, and Sikes's dog bounded into the room.",1 "They ran to the window, downstairs, and into the street.",2 "The dog had jumped in at an open window; he made no attempt to follow them, nor was his master to be seen.",3 'What's the meaning of this?',2 said Toby when they had returned.,2 'He can't be coming here.,2 I--I--hope not.',2 "'If he was coming here, he'd have come with the dog,' said Kags, stooping down to examine the animal, who lay panting on the floor.",2 'Here!,2 Give us some water for him; he has run himself faint.',1 "'He's drunk it all up, every drop,' said Chitling after watching the dog some time in silence.",1 'Covered with mud--lame--half blind--he must have come a long way.',1 'Where can he have come from!',2 exclaimed Toby.,2 "'He's been to the other kens of course, and finding them filled with strangers come on here, where he's been many a time and often.",2 "But where can he have come from first, and how comes he here alone without the other!'",2 'He'--(none of them called the murderer by his old name)--'He can't have made away with himself.,1 What do you think?',2 said Chitling.,2 Toby shook his head.,2 "'If he had,' said Kags, 'the dog 'ud want to lead us away to where he did it.",3 No.,2 "I think he's got out of the country, and left the dog behind.",2 "He must have given him the slip somehow, or he wouldn't be so easy.'",3 "This solution, appearing the most probable one, was adopted as the right; the dog, creeping under a chair, coiled himself up to sleep, without more notice from anybody.",2 "It being now dark, the shutter was closed, and a candle lighted and placed upon the table.",1 "The terrible events of the last two days had made a deep impression on all three, increased by the danger and uncertainty of their own position.",1 "They drew their chairs closer together, starting at every sound.",2 "They spoke little, and that in whispers, and were as silent and awe-stricken as if the remains of the murdered woman lay in the next room.",3 "They had sat thus, some time, when suddenly was heard a hurried knocking at the door below.",2 "'Young Bates,' said Kags, looking angrily round, to check the fear he felt himself.",1 The knocking came again.,2 "No, it wasn't he.",2 He never knocked like that.,3 "Crackit went to the window, and shaking all over, drew in his head.",2 There was no need to tell them who it was; his pale face was enough.,2 "The dog too was on the alert in an instant, and ran whining to the door.",1 "'We must let him in,' he said, taking up the candle.",2 'Isn't there any help for it?',2 asked the other man in a hoarse voice.,2 'None.,2 He _must_ come in.',2 "'Don't leave us in the dark,' said Kags, taking down a candle from the chimney-piece, and lighting it, with such a trembling hand that the knocking was twice repeated before he had finished.",1 "Crackit went down to the door, and returned followed by a man with the lower part of his face buried in a handkerchief, and another tied over his head under his hat.",2 He drew them slowly off.,1 "Blanched face, sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, beard of three days' growth, wasted flesh, short thick breath; it was the very ghost of Sikes.",0 "He laid his hand upon a chair which stood in the middle of the room, but shuddering as he was about to drop into it, and seeming to glance over his shoulder, dragged it back close to the wall--as close as it would go--and ground it against it--and sat down.",1 Not a word had been exchanged.,2 He looked from one to another in silence.,2 "If an eye were furtively raised and met his, it was instantly averted.",3 "When his hollow voice broke silence, they all three started.",1 They seemed never to have heard its tones before.,2 'How came that dog here?',2 he asked.,2 'Alone.,2 Three hours ago.',2 'To-night's paper says that Fagin's took.,2 "Is it true, or a lie?'",1 'True.',2 They were silent again.,3 'Damn you all!',2 "said Sikes, passing his hand across his forehead.",2 'Have you nothing to say to me?',2 "There was an uneasy movement among them, but nobody spoke.",1 "'You that keep this house,' said Sikes, turning his face to Crackit, 'do you mean to sell me, or to let me lie here till this hunt is over?'",1 "'You may stop here, if you think it safe,' returned the person addressed, after some hesitation.",3 "Sikes carried his eyes slowly up the wall behind him: rather trying to turn his head than actually doing it: and said, 'Is--it--the body--is it buried?'",1 They shook their heads.,2 'Why isn't it!',2 he retorted with the same glance behind him.,2 'Wot do they keep such ugly things above the ground for?--Who's that knocking?',1 "Crackit intimated, by a motion of his hand as he left the room, that there was nothing to fear; and directly came back with Charley Bates behind him.",1 "Sikes sat opposite the door, so that the moment the boy entered the room he encountered his figure.",2 "'Toby,' said the boy falling back, as Sikes turned his eyes towards him, 'why didn't you tell me this, downstairs?'",1 "There had been something so tremendous in the shrinking off of the three, that the wretched man was willing to propitiate even this lad.",2 "Accordingly he nodded, and made as though he would shake hands with him.",1 "'Let me go into some other room,' said the boy, retreating still farther.",2 'Charley!',2 "said Sikes, stepping forward.",2 'Don't you--don't you know me?',2 "'Don't come nearer me,' answered the boy, still retreating, and looking, with horror in his eyes, upon the murderer's face.",2 'You monster!',1 "The man stopped half-way, and they looked at each other; but Sikes's eyes sunk gradually to the ground.",1 "'Witness you three,' cried the boy shaking his clenched fist, and becoming more and more excited as he spoke.",2 "'Witness you three--I'm not afraid of him--if they come here after him, I'll give him up; I will.",1 I tell you out at once.,2 "He may kill me for it if he likes, or if he dares, but if I am here I'll give him up.",2 I'd give him up if he was to be boiled alive.,2 Murder!,1 Help!,2 "If there's the pluck of a man among you three, you'll help me.",2 Murder!,1 Help!,2 Down with him!',2 "Pouring out these cries, and accompanying them with violent gesticulation, the boy actually threw himself, single-handed, upon the strong man, and in the intensity of his energy and the suddenness of his surprise, brought him heavily to the ground.",2 The three spectators seemed quite stupefied.,2 "They offered no interference, and the boy and man rolled on the ground together; the former, heedless of the blows that showered upon him, wrenching his hands tighter and tighter in the garments about the murderer's breast, and never ceasing to call for help with all his might.",1 "The contest, however, was too unequal to last long.",1 "Sikes had him down, and his knee was on his throat, when Crackit pulled him back with a look of alarm, and pointed to the window.",1 "There were lights gleaming below, voices in loud and earnest conversation, the tramp of hurried footsteps--endless they seemed in number--crossing the nearest wooden bridge.",1 One man on horseback seemed to be among the crowd; for there was the noise of hoofs rattling on the uneven pavement.,1 The gleam of lights increased; the footsteps came more thickly and noisily on.,2 "Then, came a loud knocking at the door, and then a hoarse murmur from such a multitude of angry voices as would have made the boldest quail.",1 'Help!',2 shrieked the boy in a voice that rent the air.,2 'He's here!,2 Break down the door!',1 "'In the King's name,' cried the voices without; and the hoarse cry arose again, but louder.",1 'Break down the door!',2 screamed the boy.,2 'I tell you they'll never open it.,2 Run straight to the room where the light is.,2 Break down the door!',1 "Strokes, thick and heavy, rattled upon the door and lower window-shutters as he ceased to speak, and a loud huzzah burst from the crowd; giving the listener, for the first time, some adequate idea of its immense extent.",2 "'Open the door of some place where I can lock this screeching Hell-babe,' cried Sikes fiercely; running to and fro, and dragging the boy, now, as easily as if he were an empty sack.",0 'That door.,2 Quick!',2 "He flung him in, bolted it, and turned the key.",2 'Is the downstairs door fast?',3 "'Double-locked and chained,' replied Crackit, who, with the other two men, still remained quite helpless and bewildered.",1 'The panels--are they strong?',3 'Lined with sheet-iron.',2 'And the windows too?',2 "'Yes, and the windows.'",2 'Damn you!',2 "cried the desperate ruffian, throwing up the sash and menacing the crowd.",0 'Do your worst!,1 I'll cheat you yet!',1 "Of all the terrific yells that ever fell on mortal ears, none could exceed the cry of the infuriated throng.",1 Some shouted to those who were nearest to set the house on fire; others roared to the officers to shoot him dead.,1 "Among them all, none showed such fury as the man on horseback, who, throwing himself out of the saddle, and bursting through the crowd as if he were parting water, cried, beneath the window, in a voice that rose above all others, 'Twenty guineas to the man who brings a ladder!'",1 "The nearest voices took up the cry, and hundreds echoed it.",1 "Some called for ladders, some for sledge-hammers; some ran with torches to and fro as if to seek them, and still came back and roared again; some spent their breath in impotent curses and execrations; some pressed forward with the ecstasy of madmen, and thus impeded the progress of those below; some among the boldest attempted to climb up by the water-spout and crevices in the wall; and all waved to and fro, in the darkness beneath, like a field of corn moved by an angry wind: and joined from time to time in one loud furious roar.",0 "'The tide,' cried the murderer, as he staggered back into the room, and shut the faces out, 'the tide was in as I came up.",1 "Give me a rope, a long rope.",2 They're all in front.,2 "I may drop into the Folly Ditch, and clear off that way.",3 "Give me a rope, or I shall do three more murders and kill myself.'",1 "The panic-stricken men pointed to where such articles were kept; the murderer, hastily selecting the longest and strongest cord, hurried up to the house-top.",1 "All the window in the rear of the house had been long ago bricked up, except one small trap in the room where the boy was locked, and that was too small even for the passage of his body.",1 "But, from this aperture, he had never ceased to call on those without, to guard the back; and thus, when the murderer emerged at last on the house-top by the door in the roof, a loud shout proclaimed the fact to those in front, who immediately began to pour round, pressing upon each other in an unbroken stream.",1 "He planted a board, which he had carried up with him for the purpose, so firmly against the door that it must be matter of great difficulty to open it from the inside; and creeping over the tiles, looked over the low parapet.",1 "The water was out, and the ditch a bed of mud.",2 "The crowd had been hushed during these few moments, watching his motions and doubtful of his purpose, but the instant they perceived it and knew it was defeated, they raised a cry of triumphant execration to which all their previous shouting had been whispers.",2 Again and again it rose.,2 "Those who were at too great a distance to know its meaning, took up the sound; it echoed and re-echoed; it seemed as though the whole city had poured its population out to curse him.",2 "On pressed the people from the front--on, on, on, in a strong struggling current of angry faces, with here and there a glaring torch to lighten them up, and show them out in all their wrath and passion.",1 "The houses on the opposite side of the ditch had been entered by the mob; sashes were thrown up, or torn bodily out; there were tiers and tiers of faces in every window; cluster upon cluster of people clinging to every house-top.",3 Each little bridge (and there were three in sight) bent beneath the weight of the crowd upon it.,1 "Still the current poured on to find some nook or hole from which to vent their shouts, and only for an instant see the wretch.",1 "'They have him now,' cried a man on the nearest bridge.",2 'Hurrah!',2 The crowd grew light with uncovered heads; and again the shout uprose.,2 "'I will give fifty pounds,' cried an old gentleman from the same quarter, 'to the man who takes him alive.",2 "I will remain here, till he come to ask me for it.'",2 There was another roar.,2 "At this moment the word was passed among the crowd that the door was forced at last, and that he who had first called for the ladder had mounted into the room.",2 "The stream abruptly turned, as this intelligence ran from mouth to mouth; and the people at the windows, seeing those upon the bridges pouring back, quitted their stations, and running into the street, joined the concourse that now thronged pell-mell to the spot they had left: each man crushing and striving with his neighbor, and all panting with impatience to get near the door, and look upon the criminal as the officers brought him out.",1 "The cries and shrieks of those who were pressed almost to suffocation, or trampled down and trodden under foot in the confusion, were dreadful; the narrow ways were completely blocked up; and at this time, between the rush of some to regain the space in front of the house, and the unavailing struggles of others to extricate themselves from the mass, the immediate attention was distracted from the murderer, although the universal eagerness for his capture was, if possible, increased.",0 "The man had shrunk down, thoroughly quelled by the ferocity of the crowd, and the impossibility of escape; but seeing this sudden change with no less rapidity than it had occurred, he sprang upon his feet, determined to make one last effort for his life by dropping into the ditch, and, at the risk of being stifled, endeavouring to creep away in the darkness and confusion.",0 "Roused into new strength and energy, and stimulated by the noise within the house which announced that an entrance had really been effected, he set his foot against the stack of chimneys, fastened one end of the rope tightly and firmly round it, and with the other made a strong running noose by the aid of his hands and teeth almost in a second.",2 "He could let himself down by the cord to within a less distance of the ground than his own height, and had his knife ready in his hand to cut it then and drop.",2 "At the very instant when he brought the loop over his head previous to slipping it beneath his arm-pits, and when the old gentleman before-mentioned (who had clung so tight to the railing of the bridge as to resist the force of the crowd, and retain his position) earnestly warned those about him that the man was about to lower himself down--at that very instant the murderer, looking behind him on the roof, threw his arms above his head, and uttered a yell of terror.",1 'The eyes again!',2 he cried in an unearthly screech.,1 "Staggering as if struck by lightning, he lost his balance and tumbled over the parapet.",0 The noose was on his neck.,2 "It ran up with his weight, tight as a bow-string, and swift as the arrow it speeds.",3 He fell for five-and-thirty feet.,1 "There was a sudden jerk, a terrific convulsion of the limbs; and there he hung, with the open knife clenched in his stiffening hand.",1 "The old chimney quivered with the shock, but stood it bravely.",1 "The murderer swung lifeless against the wall; and the boy, thrusting aside the dangling body which obscured his view, called to the people to come and take him out, for God's sake.",0 "A dog, which had lain concealed till now, ran backwards and forwards on the parapet with a dismal howl, and collecting himself for a spring, jumped for the dead man's shoulders.",1 "Missing his aim, he fell into the ditch, turning completely over as he went; and striking his head against a stone, dashed out his brains.",2 "The events narrated in the last chapter were yet but two days old, when Oliver found himself, at three o'clock in the afternoon, in a travelling-carriage rolling fast towards his native town.",3 "Mrs. Maylie, and Rose, and Mrs. Bedwin, and the good doctor were with him: and Mr. Brownlow followed in a post-chaise, accompanied by one other person whose name had not been mentioned.",3 "They had not talked much upon the way; for Oliver was in a flutter of agitation and uncertainty which deprived him of the power of collecting his thoughts, and almost of speech, and appeared to have scarcely less effect on his companions, who shared it, in at least an equal degree.",1 "He and the two ladies had been very carefully made acquainted by Mr. Brownlow with the nature of the admissions which had been forced from Monks; and although they knew that the object of their present journey was to complete the work which had been so well begun, still the whole matter was enveloped in enough of doubt and mystery to leave them in endurance of the most intense suspense.",1 "The same kind friend had, with Mr. Losberne's assistance, cautiously stopped all channels of communication through which they could receive intelligence of the dreadful occurrences that so recently taken place.",2 "'It was quite true,' he said, 'that they must know them before long, but it might be at a better time than the present, and it could not be at a worse.'",2 "So, they travelled on in silence: each busied with reflections on the object which had brought them together: and no one disposed to give utterance to the thoughts which crowded upon all.",1 "But if Oliver, under these influences, had remained silent while they journeyed towards his birth-place by a road he had never seen, how the whole current of his recollections ran back to old times, and what a crowd of emotions were wakened up in his breast, when they turned into that which he had traversed on foot: a poor houseless, wandering boy, without a friend to help him, or a roof to shelter his head.",2 "'See there, there!'",2 "cried Oliver, eagerly clasping the hand of Rose, and pointing out at the carriage window; 'that's the stile I came over; there are the hedges I crept behind, for fear any one should overtake me and force me back!",2 "Yonder is the path across the fields, leading to the old house where I was a little child!",3 "Oh Dick, Dick, my dear old friend, if I could only see you now!'",1 "'You will see him soon,' replied Rose, gently taking his folded hands between her own.",2 "'You shall tell him how happy you are, and how rich you have grown, and that in all your happiness you have none so great as the coming back to make him happy too.'",4 "'Yes, yes,' said Oliver, 'and we'll--we'll take him away from here, and have him clothed and taught, and send him to some quiet country place where he may grow strong and well,--shall we?'",4 "Rose nodded 'yes,' for the boy was smiling through such happy tears that she could not speak.",3 "'You will be kind and good to him, for you are to every one,' said Oliver.",3 "'It will make you cry, I know, to hear what he can tell; but never mind, never mind, it will be all over, and you will smile again--I know that too--to think how changed he is; you did the same with me.",2 "He said ""God bless you"" to me when I ran away,' cried the boy with a burst of affectionate emotion; 'and I will say ""God bless you"" now, and show him how I love him for it!'",4 "As they approached the town, and at length drove through its narrow streets, it became matter of no small difficulty to restrain the boy within reasonable bounds.",2 "There was Sowerberry's the undertaker's just as it used to be, only smaller and less imposing in appearance than he remembered it--there were all the well-known shops and houses, with almost every one of which he had some slight incident connected--there was Gamfield's cart, the very cart he used to have, standing at the old public-house door--there was the workhouse, the dreary prison of his youthful days, with its dismal windows frowning on the street--there was the same lean porter standing at the gate, at sight of whom Oliver involuntarily shrunk back, and then laughed at himself for being so foolish, then cried, then laughed again--there were scores of faces at the doors and windows that he knew quite well--there was nearly everything as if he had left it but yesterday, and all his recent life had been but a happy dream.",1 "But it was pure, earnest, joyful reality.",4 "They drove straight to the door of the chief hotel (which Oliver used to stare up at, with awe, and think a mighty palace, but which had somehow fallen off in grandeur and size); and here was Mr. Grimwig all ready to receive them, kissing the young lady, and the old one too, when they got out of the coach, as if he were the grandfather of the whole party, all smiles and kindness, and not offering to eat his head--no, not once; not even when he contradicted a very old postboy about the nearest road to London, and maintained he knew it best, though he had only come that way once, and that time fast asleep.",4 "There was dinner prepared, and there were bedrooms ready, and everything was arranged as if by magic.",3 "Notwithstanding all this, when the hurry of the first half-hour was over, the same silence and constraint prevailed that had marked their journey down.",2 "Mr. Brownlow did not join them at dinner, but remained in a separate room.",2 "The two other gentlemen hurried in and out with anxious faces, and, during the short intervals when they were present, conversed apart.",1 "Once, Mrs. Maylie was called away, and after being absent for nearly an hour, returned with eyes swollen with weeping.",1 "All these things made Rose and Oliver, who were not in any new secrets, nervous and uncomfortable.",1 "They sat wondering, in silence; or, if they exchanged a few words, spoke in whispers, as if they were afraid to hear the sound of their own voices.",1 "At length, when nine o'clock had come, and they began to think they were to hear no more that night, Mr. Losberne and Mr. Grimwig entered the room, followed by Mr. Brownlow and a man whom Oliver almost shrieked with surprise to see; for they told him it was his brother, and it was the same man he had met at the market-town, and seen looking in with Fagin at the window of his little room.",2 "Monks cast a look of hate, which, even then, he could not dissemble, at the astonished boy, and sat down near the door.",1 "Mr. Brownlow, who had papers in his hand, walked to a table near which Rose and Oliver were seated.",2 "'This is a painful task,' said he, 'but these declarations, which have been signed in London before many gentlemen, must be in substance repeated here.",1 "I would have spared you the degradation, but we must hear them from your own lips before we part, and you know why.'",1 "'Go on,' said the person addressed, turning away his face.",2 'Quick.,2 "I have almost done enough, I think.",3 Don't keep me here.',2 "'This child,' said Mr. Brownlow, drawing Oliver to him, and laying his hand upon his head, 'is your half-brother; the illegitimate son of your father, my dear friend Edwin Leeford, by poor young Agnes Fleming, who died in giving him birth.'",0 "'Yes,' said Monks, scowling at the trembling boy: the beating of whose heart he might have heard.",2 'That is the bastard child.',1 "'The term you use,' said Mr. Brownlow, sternly, 'is a reproach to those long since passed beyond the feeble censure of the world.",0 "It reflects disgrace on no one living, except you who use it.",1 Let that pass.,2 He was born in this town.',2 "'In the workhouse of this town,' was the sullen reply.",1 'You have the story there.',2 He pointed impatiently to the papers as he spoke.,1 "'I must have it here, too,' said Mr. Brownlow, looking round upon the listeners.",2 'Listen then!,2 You!',2 returned Monks.,2 "'His father being taken ill at Rome, was joined by his wife, my mother, from whom he had been long separated, who went from Paris and took me with her--to look after his property, for what I know, for she had no great affection for him, nor he for her.",3 "He knew nothing of us, for his senses were gone, and he slumbered on till next day, when he died.",1 "Among the papers in his desk, were two, dated on the night his illness first came on, directed to yourself'; he addressed himself to Mr. Brownlow; 'and enclosed in a few short lines to you, with an intimation on the cover of the package that it was not to be forwarded till after he was dead.",1 One of these papers was a letter to this girl Agnes; the other a will.',2 'What of the letter?',2 asked Mr. Brownlow.,2 "'The letter?--A sheet of paper crossed and crossed again, with a penitent confession, and prayers to God to help her.",1 "He had palmed a tale on the girl that some secret mystery--to be explained one day--prevented his marrying her just then; and so she had gone on, trusting patiently to him, until she trusted too far, and lost what none could ever give her back.",3 "She was, at that time, within a few months of her confinement.",2 "He told her all he had meant to do, to hide her shame, if he had lived, and prayed her, if he died, not to curse his memory, or think the consequences of their sin would be visited on her or their young child; for all the guilt was his.",0 "He reminded her of the day he had given her the little locket and the ring with her christian name engraved upon it, and a blank left for that which he hoped one day to have bestowed upon her--prayed her yet to keep it, and wear it next her heart, as she had done before--and then ran on, wildly, in the same words, over and over again, as if he had gone distracted.",1 I believe he had.',2 "'The will,' said Mr. Brownlow, as Oliver's tears fell fast.",2 Monks was silent.,3 "'The will,' said Mr. Brownlow, speaking for him, 'was in the same spirit as the letter.",2 "He talked of miseries which his wife had brought upon him; of the rebellious disposition, vice, malice, and premature bad passions of you his only son, who had been trained to hate him; and left you, and your mother, each an annuity of eight hundred pounds.",0 "The bulk of his property he divided into two equal portions--one for Agnes Fleming, and the other for their child, if it should be born alive, and ever come of age.",2 "If it were a girl, it was to inherit the money unconditionally; but if a boy, only on the stipulation that in his minority he should never have stained his name with any public act of dishonour, meanness, cowardice, or wrong.",1 "He did this, he said, to mark his confidence in the other, and his conviction--only strengthened by approaching death--that the child would share her gentle heart, and noble nature.",3 "If he were disappointed in this expectation, then the money was to come to you: for then, and not till then, when both children were equal, would he recognise your prior claim upon his purse, who had none upon his heart, but had, from an infant, repulsed him with coldness and aversion.'",0 "'My mother,' said Monks, in a louder tone, 'did what a woman should have done.",1 She burnt this will.,2 "The letter never reached its destination; but that, and other proofs, she kept, in case they ever tried to lie away the blot.",1 The girl's father had the truth from her with every aggravation that her violent hate--I love her for it now--could add.,1 "Goaded by shame and dishonour he fled with his children into a remote corner of Wales, changing his very name that his friends might never know of his retreat; and here, no great while afterwards, he was found dead in his bed.",1 "The girl had left her home, in secret, some weeks before; he had searched for her, on foot, in every town and village near; it was on the night when he returned home, assured that she had destroyed herself, to hide her shame and his, that his old heart broke.'",1 "There was a short silence here, until Mr. Brownlow took up the thread of the narrative.",2 "'Years after this,' he said, 'this man's--Edward Leeford's--mother came to me.",2 "He had left her, when only eighteen; robbed her of jewels and money; gambled, squandered, forged, and fled to London: where for two years he had associated with the lowest outcasts.",1 "She was sinking under a painful and incurable disease, and wished to recover him before she died.",1 "Inquiries were set on foot, and strict searches made.",1 "They were unavailing for a long time, but ultimately successful; and he went back with her to France.'",3 "'There she died,' said Monks, 'after a lingering illness; and, on her death-bed, she bequeathed these secrets to me, together with her unquenchable and deadly hatred of all whom they involved--though she need not have left me that, for I had inherited it long before.",0 "She would not believe that the girl had destroyed herself, and the child too, but was filled with the impression that a male child had been born, and was alive.",2 "I swore to her, if ever it crossed my path, to hunt it down; never to let it rest; to pursue it with the bitterest and most unrelenting animosity; to vent upon it the hatred that I deeply felt, and to spit upon the empty vaunt of that insulting will by draggin it, if I could, to the very gallows-foot.",0 She was right.,3 He came in my way at last.,2 "I began well; and, but for babbling drabs, I would have finished as I began!'",3 "As the villain folded his arms tight together, and muttered curses on himself in the impotence of baffled malice, Mr. Brownlow turned to the terrified group beside him, and explained that the Jew, who had been his old accomplice and confidant, had a large reward for keeping Oliver ensnared: of which some part was to be given up, in the event of his being rescued: and that a dispute on this head had led to their visit to the country house for the purpose of identifying him.",1 'The locket and ring?',2 "said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Monks.",2 "'I bought them from the man and woman I told you of, who stole them from the nurse, who stole them from the corpse,' answered Monks without raising his eyes.",1 'You know what became of them.',2 "Mr. Brownlow merely nodded to Mr. Grimwig, who disappearing with great alacrity, shortly returned, pushing in Mrs. Bumble, and dragging her unwilling consort after him.",1 'Do my hi's deceive me!',1 "cried Mr. Bumble, with ill-feigned enthusiasm, 'or is that little Oliver?",3 "Oh O-li-ver, if you know'd how I've been a-grieving for you--' 'Hold your tongue, fool,' murmured Mrs. Bumble.",1 "'Isn't natur, natur, Mrs. Bumble?'",2 remonstrated the workhouse master.,3 'Can't I be supposed to feel--_I_ as brought him up porochially--when I see him a-setting here among ladies and gentlemen of the very affablest description!,2 "I always loved that boy as if he'd been my--my--my own grandfather,' said Mr. Bumble, halting for an appropriate comparison.",3 "'Master Oliver, my dear, you remember the blessed gentleman in the white waistcoat?",2 Ah!,2 "he went to heaven last week, in a oak coffin with plated handles, Oliver.'",3 "'Come, sir,' said Mr. Grimwig, tartly; 'suppress your feelings.'",2 "'I will do my endeavours, sir,' replied Mr. Bumble.",2 "'How do you do, sir?",2 I hope you are very well.',3 "This salutation was addressed to Mr. Brownlow, who had stepped up to within a short distance of the respectable couple.",3 "He inquired, as he pointed to Monks, 'Do you know that person?'",2 "'No,' replied Mrs. Bumble flatly.",2 'Perhaps _you_ don't?',2 "said Mr. Brownlow, addressing her spouse.",2 "'I never saw him in all my life,' said Mr. Bumble.",2 "'Nor sold him anything, perhaps?'",2 "'No,' replied Mrs. Bumble.",2 "'You never had, perhaps, a certain gold locket and ring?'",3 said Mr. Brownlow.,2 "'Certainly not,' replied the matron.",2 'Why are we brought here to answer to such nonsense as this?',1 Again Mr. Brownlow nodded to Mr. Grimwig; and again that gentleman limped away with extraordinary readiness.,3 "But not again did he return with a stout man and wife; for this time, he led in two palsied women, who shook and tottered as they walked.",3 "'You shut the door the night old Sally died,' said the foremost one, raising her shrivelled hand, 'but you couldn't shut out the sound, nor stop the chinks.'",2 "'No, no,' said the other, looking round her and wagging her toothless jaws.",2 "'No, no, no.'",2 "'We heard her try to tell you what she'd done, and saw you take a paper from her hand, and watched you too, next day, to the pawnbroker's shop,' said the first.",2 "'Yes,' added the second, 'and it was a ""locket and gold ring.""",3 "We found out that, and saw it given you.",2 We were by.,2 Oh!,2 we were by.',2 "'And we know more than that,' resumed the first, 'for she told us often, long ago, that the young mother had told her that, feeling she should never get over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was taken ill, to die near the grave of the father of the child.'",1 'Would you like to see the pawnbroker himself?',3 asked Mr. Grimwig with a motion towards the door.,2 "'No,' replied the woman; 'if he'--she pointed to Monks--'has been coward enough to confess, as I see he has, and you have sounded all these hags till you have found the right ones, I have nothing more to say.",2 "I _did_ sell them, and they're where you'll never get them.",2 What then?',2 "'Nothing,' replied Mr. Brownlow, 'except that it remains for us to take care that neither of you is employed in a situation of trust again.",3 You may leave the room.',2 "'I hope,' said Mr. Bumble, looking about him with great ruefulness, as Mr. Grimwig disappeared with the two old women: 'I hope that this unfortunate little circumstance will not deprive me of my porochial office?'",1 "'Indeed it will,' replied Mr. Brownlow.",2 "'You may make up your mind to that, and think yourself well off besides.'",3 'It was all Mrs. Bumble.,2 "She _would_ do it,' urged Mr. Bumble; first looking round to ascertain that his partner had left the room.",2 "'That is no excuse,' replied Mr. Brownlow.",1 "'You were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.'",1 "'If the law supposes that,' said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, 'the law is a ass--a idiot.",1 "If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience--by experience.'",1 "Laying great stress on the repetition of these two words, Mr. Bumble fixed his hat on very tight, and putting his hands in his pockets, followed his helpmate downstairs.",2 "'Young lady,' said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Rose, 'give me your hand.",2 Do not tremble.,2 You need not fear to hear the few remaining words we have to say.',1 "'If they have--I do not know how they can, but if they have--any reference to me,' said Rose, 'pray let me hear them at some other time.",2 I have not strength or spirits now.',2 "'Nay,' returned the old gentlman, drawing her arm through his; 'you have more fortitude than this, I am sure.",3 "Do you know this young lady, sir?'",2 "'Yes,' replied Monks.",2 "'I never saw you before,' said Rose faintly.",2 "'I have seen you often,' returned Monks.",2 "'The father of the unhappy Agnes had _two_ daughters,' said Mr. Brownlow.",1 'What was the fate of the other--the child?',2 "'The child,' replied Monks, 'when her father died in a strange place, in a strange name, without a letter, book, or scrap of paper that yielded the faintest clue by which his friends or relatives could be traced--the child was taken by some wretched cottagers, who reared it as their own.'",0 "'Go on,' said Mr. Brownlow, signing to Mrs. Maylie to approach.",2 'Go on!',2 "'You couldn't find the spot to which these people had repaired,' said Monks, 'but where friendship fails, hatred will often force a way.",1 "My mother found it, after a year of cunning search--ay, and found the child.'",2 "'She took it, did she?'",2 'No.,2 "The people were poor and began to sicken--at least the man did--of their fine humanity; so she left it with them, giving them a small present of money which would not last long, and promised more, which she never meant to send.",2 "She didn't quite rely, however, on their discontent and poverty for the child's unhappiness, but told the history of the sister's shame, with such alterations as suited her; bade them take good heed of the child, for she came of bad blood; and told them she was illegitimate, and sure to go wrong at one time or other.",0 "The circumstances countenanced all this; the people believed it; and there the child dragged on an existence, miserable enough even to satisfy us, until a widow lady, residing, then, at Chester, saw the girl by chance, pitied her, and took her home.",2 "There was some cursed spell, I think, against us; for in spite of all our efforts she remained there and was happy.",1 "I lost sight of her, two or three years ago, and saw her no more until a few months back.'",1 'Do you see her now?',2 'Yes.,2 Leaning on your arm.',2 "'But not the less my niece,' cried Mrs. Maylie, folding the fainting girl in her arms; 'not the less my dearest child.",2 "I would not lose her now, for all the treasures of the world.",1 "My sweet companion, my own dear girl!'",3 "'The only friend I ever had,' cried Rose, clinging to her.",2 "'The kindest, best of friends.",3 My heart will burst.,2 I cannot bear all this.',2 "'You have borne more, and have been, through all, the best and gentlest creature that ever shed happiness on every one she knew,' said Mrs. Maylie, embracing her tenderly.",4 "'Come, come, my love, remember who this is who waits to clasp you in his arms, poor child!",2 "See here--look, look, my dear!'",2 "'Not aunt,' cried Oliver, throwing his arms about her neck; 'I'll never call her aunt--sister, my own dear sister, that something taught my heart to love so dearly from the first!",3 "Rose, dear, darling Rose!'",3 "Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred.",1 "A father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment.",2 "Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief itself arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.",1 "They were a long, long time alone.",2 "A soft tap at the door, at length announced that some one was without.",3 "Oliver opened it, glided away, and gave place to Harry Maylie.",2 "'I know it all,' he said, taking a seat beside the lovely girl.",3 "'Dear Rose, I know it all.'",2 "'I am not here by accident,' he added after a lengthened silence; 'nor have I heard all this to-night, for I knew it yesterday--only yesterday.",2 Do you guess that I have come to remind you of a promise?',3 "'Stay,' said Rose.",2 'You _do_ know all.',2 'All.,2 "You gave me leave, at any time within a year, to renew the subject of our last discourse.'",2 'I did.',2 "'Not to press you to alter your determination,' pursued the young man, 'but to hear you repeat it, if you would.",2 "I was to lay whatever of station or fortune I might possess at your feet, and if you still adhered to your former determination, I pledged myself, by no word or act, to seek to change it.'",3 "'The same reasons which influenced me then, will influence me now,' said Rose firmly.",2 "'If I ever owed a strict and rigid duty to her, whose goodness saved me from a life of indigence and suffering, when should I ever feel it, as I should to-night?",1 "It is a struggle,' said Rose, 'but one I am proud to make; it is a pang, but one my heart shall bear.'",2 "'The disclosure of to-night,'--Harry began.",2 "'The disclosure of to-night,' replied Rose softly, 'leaves me in the same position, with reference to you, as that in which I stood before.'",2 "'You harden your heart against me, Rose,' urged her lover.",2 "'Oh Harry, Harry,' said the young lady, bursting into tears; 'I wish I could, and spare myself this pain.'",1 'Then why inflict it on yourself?',1 "said Harry, taking her hand.",2 "'Think, dear Rose, think what you have heard to-night.'",2 'And what have I heard!,2 What have I heard!',2 cried Rose.,2 "'That a sense of his deep disgrace so worked upon my own father that he shunned all--there, we have said enough, Harry, we have said enough.'",2 "'Not yet, not yet,' said the young man, detaining her as she rose.",2 "'My hopes, my wishes, prospects, feeling: every thought in life except my love for you: have undergone a change.",3 "I offer you, now, no distinction among a bustling crowd; no mingling with a world of malice and detraction, where the blood is called into honest cheeks by aught but real disgrace and shame; but a home--a heart and home--yes, dearest Rose, and those, and those alone, are all I have to offer.'",1 'What do you mean!',2 she faltered.,1 "'I mean but this--that when I left you last, I left you with a firm determination to level all fancied barriers between yourself and me; resolved that if my world could not be yours, I would make yours mine; that no pride of birth should curl the lip at you, for I would turn from it.",3 This I have done.,2 "Those who have shrunk from me because of this, have shrunk from you, and proved you so far right.",3 "Such power and patronage: such relatives of influence and rank: as smiled upon me then, look coldly now; but there are smiling fields and waving trees in England's richest county; and by one village church--mine, Rose, my own!--there stands a rustic dwelling which you can make me prouder of, than all the hopes I have renounced, measured a thousandfold.",2 "This is my rank and station now, and here I lay it down!'",2 "* * * * * 'It's a trying thing waiting supper for lovers,' said Mr. Grimwig, waking up, and pulling his pocket-handkerchief from over his head.",2 "Truth to tell, the supper had been waiting a most unreasonable time.",1 "Neither Mrs. Maylie, nor Harry, nor Rose (who all came in together), could offer a word in extenuation.",2 "'I had serious thoughts of eating my head to-night,' said Mr. Grimwig, 'for I began to think I should get nothing else.",2 "I'll take the liberty, if you'll allow me, of saluting the bride that is to be.'",3 "Mr. Grimwig lost no time in carrying this notice into effect upon the blushing girl; and the example, being contagious, was followed both by the doctor and Mr. Brownlow: some people affirm that Harry Maylie had been observed to set it, originally, in a dark room adjoining; but the best authorities consider this downright scandal: he being young and a clergyman.",1 "'Oliver, my child,' said Mrs. Maylie, 'where have you been, and why do you look so sad?",1 There are tears stealing down your face at this moment.,1 What is the matter?',2 "It is a world of disappointment: often to the hopes we most cherish, and hopes that do our nature the greatest honour.",3 Poor Dick was dead!,0 "The court was paved, from floor to roof, with human faces.",2 Inquisitive and eager eyes peered from every inch of space.,3 "From the rail before the dock, away into the sharpest angle of the smallest corner in the galleries, all looks were fixed upon one man--Fagin.",2 "Before him and behind: above, below, on the right and on the left: he seemed to stand surrounded by a firmament, all bright with gleaming eyes.",3 "He stood there, in all this glare of living light, with one hand resting on the wooden slab before him, the other held to his ear, and his head thrust forward to enable him to catch with greater distinctness every word that fell from the presiding judge, who was delivering his charge to the jury.",1 "At times, he turned his eyes sharply upon them to observe the effect of the slightest featherweight in his favour; and when the points against him were stated with terrible distinctness, looked towards his counsel, in mute appeal that he would, even then, urge something in his behalf.",2 "Beyond these manifestations of anxiety, he stirred not hand or foot.",1 "He had scarcely moved since the trial began; and now that the judge ceased to speak, he still remained in the same strained attitude of close attention, with his gaze bent on him, as though he listened still.",0 "A slight bustle in the court, recalled him to himself.",2 "Looking round, he saw that the juryman had turned together, to consider their verdict.",2 "As his eyes wandered to the gallery, he could see the people rising above each other to see his face: some hastily applying their glasses to their eyes: and others whispering their neighbours with looks expressive of abhorrence.",1 "A few there were, who seemed unmindful of him, and looked only to the jury, in impatient wonder how they could delay.",1 "But in no one face--not even among the women, of whom there were many there--could he read the faintest sympathy with himself, or any feeling but one of all-absorbing interest that he should be condemned.",1 "As he saw all this in one bewildered glance, the deathlike stillness came again, and looking back he saw that the jurymen had turned towards the judge.",1 Hush!,2 They only sought permission to retire.,2 "He looked, wistfully, into their faces, one by one when they passed out, as though to see which way the greater number leant; but that was fruitless.",1 The jailer touched him on the shoulder.,2 "He followed mechanically to the end of the dock, and sat down on a chair.",2 "The man pointed it out, or he would not have seen it.",2 He looked up into the gallery again.,2 "Some of the people were eating, and some fanning themselves with handkerchiefs; for the crowded place was very hot.",2 There was one young man sketching his face in a little note-book.,2 "He wondered whether it was like, and looked on when the artist broke his pencil-point, and made another with his knife, as any idle spectator might have done.",1 "In the same way, when he turned his eyes towards the judge, his mind began to busy itself with the fashion of his dress, and what it cost, and how he put it on.",2 "There was an old fat gentleman on the bench, too, who had gone out, some half an hour before, and now come back.",1 "He wondered within himself whether this man had been to get his dinner, what he had had, and where he had had it; and pursued this train of careless thought until some new object caught his eye and roused another.",1 "Not that, all this time, his mind was, for an instant, free from one oppressive overwhelming sense of the grave that opened at his feet; it was ever present to him, but in a vague and general way, and he could not fix his thoughts upon it.",1 "Thus, even while he trembled, and turned burning hot at the idea of speedy death, he fell to counting the iron spikes before him, and wondering how the head of one had been broken off, and whether they would mend it, or leave it as it was.",1 "Then, he thought of all the horrors of the gallows and the scaffold--and stopped to watch a man sprinkling the floor to cool it--and then went on to think again.",3 "At length there was a cry of silence, and a breathless look from all towards the door.",1 "The jury returned, and passed him close.",2 He could glean nothing from their faces; they might as well have been of stone.,3 Perfect stillness ensued--not a rustle--not a breath--Guilty.,2 "The building rang with a tremendous shout, and another, and another, and then it echoed loud groans, that gathered strength as they swelled out, like angry thunder.",1 "It was a peal of joy from the populace outside, greeting the news that he would die on Monday.",2 "The noise subsided, and he was asked if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him.",1 "He had resumed his listening attitude, and looked intently at his questioner while the demand was made; but it was twice repeated before he seemed to hear it, and then he only muttered that he was an old man--an old man--and so, dropping into a whisper, was silent again.",3 "The judge assumed the black cap, and the prisoner still stood with the same air and gesture.",1 "A woman in the gallery, uttered some exclamation, called forth by this dread solemnity; he looked hastily up as if angry at the interruption, and bent forward yet more attentively.",0 The address was solemn and impressive; the sentence fearful to hear.,1 "But he stood, like a marble figure, without the motion of a nerve.",3 "His haggard face was still thrust forward, his under-jaw hanging down, and his eyes staring out before him, when the jailer put his hand upon his arm, and beckoned him away.",2 "He gazed stupidly about him for an instant, and obeyed.",1 "They led him through a paved room under the court, where some prisoners were waiting till their turns came, and others were talking to their friends, who crowded round a grate which looked into the open yard.",1 "There was nobody there to speak to _him_; but, as he passed, the prisoners fell back to render him more visible to the people who were clinging to the bars: and they assailed him with opprobrious names, and screeched and hissed.",1 "He shook his fist, and would have spat upon them; but his conductors hurried him on, through a gloomy passage lighted by a few dim lamps, into the interior of the prison.",0 "Here, he was searched, that he might not have about him the means of anticipating the law; this ceremony performed, they led him to one of the condemned cells, and left him there--alone.",2 "He sat down on a stone bench opposite the door, which served for seat and bedstead; and casting his blood-shot eyes upon the ground, tried to collect his thoughts.",2 "After awhile, he began to remember a few disjointed fragments of what the judge had said: though it had seemed to him, at the time, that he could not hear a word.",2 "These gradually fell into their proper places, and by degrees suggested more: so that in a little time he had the whole, almost as it was delivered.",2 "To be hanged by the neck, till he was dead--that was the end.",1 To be hanged by the neck till he was dead.,1 "As it came on very dark, he began to think of all the men he had known who had died upon the scaffold; some of them through his means.",1 "They rose up, in such quick succession, that he could hardly count them.",2 "He had seen some of them die,--and had joked too, because they died with prayers upon their lips.",1 "With what a rattling noise the drop went down; and how suddenly they changed, from strong and vigorous men to dangling heaps of clothes!",2 Some of them might have inhabited that very cell--sat upon that very spot.,2 It was very dark; why didn't they bring a light?,1 The cell had been built for many years.,2 Scores of men must have passed their last hours there.,2 "It was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead bodies--the cap, the noose, the pinioned arms, the faces that he knew, even beneath that hideous veil.--Light, light!",1 "At length, when his hands were raw with beating against the heavy door and walls, two men appeared: one bearing a candle, which he thrust into an iron candlestick fixed against the wall: the other dragging in a mattress on which to pass the night; for the prisoner was to be left alone no more.",1 "Then came the night--dark, dismal, silent night.",1 "Other watchers are glad to hear this church-clock strike, for they tell of life and coming day.",2 To him they brought despair.,1 "The boom of every iron bell came laden with the one, deep, hollow sound--Death.",1 "What availed the noise and bustle of cheerful morning, which penetrated even there, to him?",2 "It was another form of knell, with mockery added to the warning.",1 The day passed off.,2 Day?,2 "There was no day; it was gone as soon as come--and night came on again; night so long, and yet so short; long in its dreadful silence, and short in its fleeting hours.",1 At one time he raved and blasphemed; and at another howled and tore his hair.,2 "Venerable men of his own persuasion had come to pray beside him, but he had driven them away with curses.",1 "They renewed their charitable efforts, and he beat them off.",3 Saturday night.,2 He had only one night more to live.,2 "And as he thought of this, the day broke--Sunday.",1 "It was not until the night of this last awful day, that a withering sense of his helpless, desperate state came in its full intensity upon his blighted soul; not that he had ever held any defined or positive hope of mercy, but that he had never been able to consider more than the dim probability of dying so soon.",0 "He had spoken little to either of the two men, who relieved each other in their attendance upon him; and they, for their parts, made no effort to rouse his attention.",2 "He had sat there, awake, but dreaming.",2 "Now, he started up, every minute, and with gasping mouth and burning skin, hurried to and fro, in such a paroxysm of fear and wrath that even they--used to such sights--recoiled from him with horror.",0 "He grew so terrible, at last, in all the tortures of his evil conscience, that one man could not bear to sit there, eyeing him alone; and so the two kept watch together.",0 "He cowered down upon his stone bed, and thought of the past.",2 "He had been wounded with some missiles from the crowd on the day of his capture, and his head was bandaged with a linen cloth.",2 "His red hair hung down upon his bloodless face; his beard was torn, and twisted into knots; his eyes shone with a terrible light; his unwashed flesh crackled with the fever that burnt him up.",0 Eight--nine--then.,2 "If it was not a trick to frighten him, and those were the real hours treading on each other's heels, where would he be, when they came round again!",1 Eleven!,2 "Another struck, before the voice of the previous hour had ceased to vibrate.",1 "At eight, he would be the only mourner in his own funeral train; at eleven-- Those dreadful walls of Newgate, which have hidden so much misery and such unspeakable anguish, not only from the eyes, but, too often, and too long, from the thoughts, of men, never held so dread a spectacle as that.",0 "The few who lingered as they passed, and wondered what the man was doing who was to be hanged to-morrow, would have slept but ill that night, if they could have seen him.",2 "From early in the evening until nearly midnight, little groups of two and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate, and inquired, with anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received.",1 "These being answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built, and, walking with unwilling steps away, turned back to conjure up the scene.",2 "By degrees they fell off, one by one; and, for an hour, in the dead of night, the street was left to solitude and darkness.",0 "The space before the prison was cleared, and a few strong barriers, painted black, had been already thrown across the road to break the pressure of the expected crowd, when Mr. Brownlow and Oliver appeared at the wicket, and presented an order of admission to the prisoner, signed by one of the sheriffs.",1 They were immediately admitted into the lodge.,2 "'Is the young gentleman to come too, sir?'",2 said the man whose duty it was to conduct them.,2 "'It's not a sight for children, sir.'",2 "'It is not indeed, my friend,' rejoined Mr. Brownlow; 'but my business with this man is intimately connected with him; and as this child has seen him in the full career of his success and villainy, I think it as well--even at the cost of some pain and fear--that he should see him now.'",2 "These few words had been said apart, so as to be inaudible to Oliver.",1 "The man touched his hat; and glancing at Oliver with some curiousity, opened another gate, opposite to that by which they had entered, and led them on, through dark and winding ways, towards the cells.",2 "'This,' said the man, stopping in a gloomy passage where a couple of workmen were making some preparations in profound silence--'this is the place he passes through.",2 "If you step this way, you can see the door he goes out at.'",2 "He led them into a stone kitchen, fitted with coppers for dressing the prison food, and pointed to a door.",2 "There was an open grating above it, through which came the sound of men's voices, mingled with the noise of hammering, and the throwing down of boards.",1 They were putting up the scaffold.,2 "From this place, they passed through several strong gates, opened by other turnkeys from the inner side; and, having entered an open yard, ascended a flight of narrow steps, and came into a passage with a row of strong doors on the left hand.",3 "Motioning them to remain where they were, the turnkey knocked at one of these with his bunch of keys.",2 "The two attendants, after a little whispering, came out into the passage, stretching themselves as if glad of the temporary relief, and motioned the visitors to follow the jailer into the cell.",3 They did so.,2 "The condemned criminal was seated on his bed, rocking himself from side to side, with a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the face of a man.",1 "His mind was evidently wandering to his old life, for he continued to mutter, without appearing conscious of their presence otherwise than as a part of his vision.",2 "'Good boy, Charley--well done--' he mumbled.",3 "'Oliver, too, ha!",2 ha!,2 ha!,2 Oliver too--quite the gentleman now--quite the--take that boy away to bed!',2 "The jailer took the disengaged hand of Oliver; and, whispering him not to be alarmed, looked on without speaking.",1 'Take him away to bed!',2 cried Fagin.,2 "'Do you hear me, some of you?",2 He has been the--the--somehow the cause of all this.,2 "It's worth the money to bring him up to it--Bolter's throat, Bill; never mind the girl--Bolter's throat as deep as you can cut.",3 Saw his head off!',2 "'Fagin,' said the jailer.",2 'That's me!',2 "cried the Jew, falling instantly, into the attitude of listening he had assumed upon his trial.",2 "'An old man, my Lord; a very old, old man!'",2 "'Here,' said the turnkey, laying his hand upon his breast to keep him down.",2 "'Here's somebody wants to see you, to ask you some questions, I suppose.",2 "Fagin, Fagin!",2 Are you a man?',2 "'I shan't be one long,' he replied, looking up with a face retaining no human expression but rage and terror.",1 'Strike them all dead!,1 What right have they to butcher me?',2 As he spoke he caught sight of Oliver and Mr. Brownlow.,2 "Shrinking to the furthest corner of the seat, he demanded to know what they wanted there.",2 "'Steady,' said the turnkey, still holding him down.",2 "'Now, sir, tell him what you want.",2 "Quick, if you please, for he grows worse as the time gets on.'",1 "'You have some papers,' said Mr. Brownlow advancing, 'which were placed in your hands, for better security, by a man called Monks.'",3 "'It's all a lie together,' replied Fagin.",1 'I haven't one--not one.',2 "'For the love of God,' said Mr. Brownlow solemnly, 'do not say that now, upon the very verge of death; but tell me where they are.",2 You know that Sikes is dead; that Monks has confessed; that there is no hope of any further gain.,2 Where are those papers?',2 "'Oliver,' cried Fagin, beckoning to him.",3 "'Here, here!",2 Let me whisper to you.',2 "'I am not afraid,' said Oliver in a low voice, as he relinquished Mr. Brownlow's hand.",1 "'The papers,' said Fagin, drawing Oliver towards him, 'are in a canvas bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front-room.",3 "I want to talk to you, my dear.",2 I want to talk to you.',2 "'Yes, yes,' returned Oliver.",2 'Let me say a prayer.,2 Do!,2 Let me say one prayer.,2 "Say only one, upon your knees, with me, and we will talk till morning.'",2 "'Outside, outside,' replied Fagin, pushing the boy before him towards the door, and looking vacantly over his head.",2 'Say I've gone to sleep--they'll believe you.,2 "You can get me out, if you take me so.",2 "Now then, now then!'",2 'Oh!,2 God forgive this wretched man!',1 cried the boy with a burst of tears.,2 "'That's right, that's right,' said Fagin.",3 'That'll help us on.,2 This door first.,2 "If I shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows, don't you mind, but hurry on.",1 "Now, now, now!'",2 "'Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?'",2 inquired the turnkey.,2 "'No other question,' replied Mr. Brownlow.",2 "'If I hoped we could recall him to a sense of his position--' 'Nothing will do that, sir,' replied the man, shaking his head.",2 'You had better leave him.',3 "The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.",2 "'Press on, press on,' cried Fagin.",2 "'Softly, but not so slow.",1 "Faster, faster!'",3 "The men laid hands upon him, and disengaging Oliver from his grasp, held him back.",2 "He struggled with the power of desperation, for an instant; and then sent up cry upon cry that penetrated even those massive walls, and rang in their ears until they reached the open yard.",0 It was some time before they left the prison.,1 "Oliver nearly swooned after this frightful scene, and was so weak that for an hour or more, he had not the strength to walk.",1 Day was dawning when they again emerged.,2 "A great multitude had already assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, joking.",2 "Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in the centre of all--the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death.",0 The fortunes of those who have figured in this tale are nearly closed.,2 "The little that remains to their historian to relate, is told in few and simple words.",2 "Before three months had passed, Rose Fleming and Harry Maylie were married in the village church which was henceforth to be the scene of the young clergyman's labours; on the same day they entered into possession of their new and happy home.",3 "Mrs. Maylie took up her abode with her son and daughter-in-law, to enjoy, during the tranquil remainder of her days, the greatest felicity that age and worth can know--the contemplation of the happiness of those on whom the warmest affections and tenderest cares of a well-spent life, have been unceasingly bestowed.",4 "It appeared, on full and careful investigation, that if the wreck of property remaining in the custody of Monks (which had never prospered either in his hands or in those of his mother) were equally divided between himself and Oliver, it would yield, to each, little more than three thousand pounds.",1 "By the provisions of his father's will, Oliver would have been entitled to the whole; but Mr. Brownlow, unwilling to deprive the elder son of the opportunity of retrieving his former vices and pursuing an honest career, proposed this mode of distribution, to which his young charge joyfully acceded.",2 "Monks, still bearing that assumed name, retired with his portion to a distant part of the New World; where, having quickly squandered it, he once more fell into his old courses, and, after undergoing a long confinement for some fresh act of fraud and knavery, at length sunk under an attack of his old disorder, and died in prison.",0 "As far from home, died the chief remaining members of his friend Fagin's gang.",1 Mr. Brownlow adopted Oliver as his son.,2 "Removing with him and the old housekeeper to within a mile of the parsonage-house, where his dear friends resided, he gratified the only remaining wish of Oliver's warm and earnest heart, and thus linked together a little society, whose condition approached as nearly to one of perfect happiness as can ever be known in this changing world.",4 "Soon after the marriage of the young people, the worthy doctor returned to Chertsey, where, bereft of the presence of his old friends, he would have been discontented if his temperament had admitted of such a feeling; and would have turned quite peevish if he had known how.",1 "For two or three months, he contented himself with hinting that he feared the air began to disagree with him; then, finding that the place really no longer was, to him, what it had been, he settled his business on his assistant, took a bachelor's cottage outside the village of which his young friend was pastor, and instantaneously recovered.",1 "Here he took to gardening, planting, fishing, carpentering, and various other pursuits of a similar kind: all undertaken with his characteristic impetuosity.",2 "In each and all he has since become famous throughout the neighborhood, as a most profound authority.",3 "Before his removal, he had managed to contract a strong friendship for Mr. Grimwig, which that eccentric gentleman cordially reciprocated.",2 He is accordingly visited by Mr. Grimwig a great many times in the course of the year.,3 "On all such occasions, Mr. Grimwig plants, fishes, and carpenters, with great ardour; doing everything in a very singular and unprecedented manner, but always maintaining with his favourite asseveration, that his mode is the right one.",3 "On Sundays, he never fails to criticise the sermon to the young clergyman's face: always informing Mr. Losberne, in strict confidence afterwards, that he considers it an excellent performance, but deems it as well not to say so.",3 "It is a standing and very favourite joke, for Mr. Brownlow to rally him on his old prophecy concerning Oliver, and to remind him of the night on which they sat with the watch between them, waiting his return; but Mr. Grimwig contends that he was right in the main, and, in proof thereof, remarks that Oliver did not come back after all; which always calls forth a laugh on his side, and increases his good humour.",3 "Mr. Noah Claypole: receiving a free pardon from the Crown in consequence of being admitted approver against Fagin: and considering his profession not altogether as safe a one as he could wish: was, for some little time, at a loss for the means of a livelihood, not burdened with too much work.",4 "After some consideration, he went into business as an informer, in which calling he realises a genteel subsistence.",2 "His plan is, to walk out once a week during church time attended by Charlotte in respectable attire.",3 "The lady faints away at the doors of charitable publicans, and the gentleman being accommodated with three-penny worth of brandy to restore her, lays an information next day, and pockets half the penalty.",3 "Sometimes Mr. Claypole faints himself, but the result is the same.",2 "Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, deprived of their situations, were gradually reduced to great indigence and misery, and finally became paupers in that very same workhouse in which they had once lorded it over others.",1 "Mr. Bumble has been heard to say, that in this reverse and degradation, he has not even spirits to be thankful for being separated from his wife.",2 "As to Mr. Giles and Brittles, they still remain in their old posts, although the former is bald, and the last-named boy quite grey.",2 "They sleep at the parsonage, but divide their attentions so equally among its inmates, and Oliver and Mr. Brownlow, and Mr. Losberne, that to this day the villagers have never been able to discover to which establishment they properly belong.",3 "Master Charles Bates, appalled by Sikes's crime, fell into a train of reflection whether an honest life was not, after all, the best.",2 "Arriving at the conclusion that it certainly was, he turned his back upon the scenes of the past, resolved to amend it in some new sphere of action.",2 "He struggled hard, and suffered much, for some time; but, having a contented disposition, and a good purpose, succeeded in the end; and, from being a farmer's drudge, and a carrier's lad, he is now the merriest young grazier in all Northamptonshire.",1 "And now, the hand that traces these words, falters, as it approaches the conclusion of its task; and would weave, for a little longer space, the thread of these adventures.",2 "I would fain linger yet with a few of those among whom I have so long moved, and share their happiness by endeavouring to depict it.",3 "I would show Rose Maylie in all the bloom and grace of early womanhood, shedding on her secluded path in life soft and gentle light, that fell on all who trod it with her, and shone into their hearts.",4 "I would paint her the life and joy of the fire-side circle and the lively summer group; I would follow her through the sultry fields at noon, and hear the low tones of her sweet voice in the moonlit evening walk; I would watch her in all her goodness and charity abroad, and the smiling untiring discharge of domestic duties at home; I would paint her and her dead sister's child happy in their love for one another, and passing whole hours together in picturing the friends whom they had so sadly lost; I would summon before me, once again, those joyous little faces that clustered round her knee, and listen to their merry prattle; I would recall the tones of that clear laugh, and conjure up the sympathising tear that glistened in the soft blue eye.",4 "These, and a thousand looks and smiles, and turns of thought and speech--I would fain recall them every one.",3 "How Mr. Brownlow went on, from day to day, filling the mind of his adopted child with stores of knowledge, and becoming attached to him, more and more, as his nature developed itself, and showed the thriving seeds of all he wished him to become--how he traced in him new traits of his early friend, that awakened in his own bosom old remembrances, melancholy and yet sweet and soothing--how the two orphans, tried by adversity, remembered its lessons in mercy to others, and mutual love, and fervent thanks to Him who had protected and preserved them--these are all matters which need not to be told.",4 "I have said that they were truly happy; and without strong affection and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that Being whose code is Mercy, and whose great attribute is Benevolence to all things that breathe, happiness can never be attained.",4 "Within the altar of the old village church there stands a white marble tablet, which bears as yet but one word: 'AGNES.' There is no coffin in that tomb; and may it be many, many years, before another name is placed above it!",2 "But, if the spirits of the Dead ever come back to earth, to visit spots hallowed by the love--the love beyond the grave--of those whom they knew in life, I believe that the shade of Agnes sometimes hovers round that solemn nook.",2 "I believe it none the less because that nook is in a Church, and she was weak and erring.",1 'Edith!',2 "said Margaret, gently, 'Edith!'",2 "But, as Margaret half suspected, Edith had fallen asleep.",1 "She lay curled up on the sofa in the back drawing-room in Harley Street, looking very lovely in her white muslin and blue ribbons.",3 "If Titania had ever been dressed in white muslin and blue ribbons, and had fallen asleep on a crimson damask sofa in a back drawing-room, Edith might have been taken for her.",1 Margaret was struck afresh by her cousin's beauty.,2 "They had grown up together from childhood, and all along Edith had been remarked upon by every one, except Margaret, for her prettiness; but Margaret had never thought about it until the last few days, when the prospect of soon losing her companion seemed to give force to every sweet quality and charm which Edith possessed.",3 "They had been talking about wedding dresses, and wedding ceremonies; and Captain Lennox, and what he had told Edith about her future life at Corfu, where his regiment was stationed; and the difficulty of keeping a piano in good tune (a difficulty which Edith seemed to consider as one of the most formidable that could befall her in her married life), and what gowns she should want in the visits to Scotland, which would immediately succeed her marriage; but the whispered tone had latterly become more drowsy; and Margaret, after a pause of a few minutes, found, as she fancied, that in spite of the buzz in the next room, Edith had rolled herself up into a soft ball of muslin and ribbon, and silken curls, and gone off into a peaceful little after-dinner nap.",4 "Margaret had been on the point of telling her cousin of some of the plans and visions which she entertained as to her future life in the country parsonage, where her father and mother lived; and where her bright holidays had always been passed, though for the last ten years her aunt Shaw's house had been considered as her home.",3 "But in default of a listener, she had to brood over the change in her life silently as heretofore.",1 "It was a happy brooding, although tinged with regret at being separated for an indefinite time from her gentle aunt and dear cousin.",3 "As she thought of the delight of filling the important post of only daughter in Helstone parsonage, pieces of the conversation out of the next room came upon her ears.",3 "Her aunt Shaw was talking to the five or six ladies who had been dining there, and whose husbands were still in the dining-room.",2 "They were the familiar acquaintances of the house; neighbours whom Mrs. Shaw called friends, because she happened to dine with them more frequently than with any other people, and because if she or Edith wanted anything from them, or they from her, they did not scruple to make a call at each other's houses before luncheon.",2 "These ladies and their husbands were invited, in their capacity of friends, to eat a farewell dinner in honour of Edith's approaching marriage.",2 "Edith had rather objected to this arrangement, for Captain Lennox was expected to arrive by a late train this very evening; but, although she was a spoiled child, she was too careless and idle to have a very strong will of her own, and gave way when she found that her mother had absolutely ordered those extra delicacies of the season which are always supposed to be efficacious against immoderate grief at farewell dinners.",0 "She contented herself by leaning back in her chair, merely playing with the food on her plate, and looking grave and absent; while all around her were enjoying the mots of Mr. Grey, the gentleman who always took the bottom of the table at Mrs. Shaw's dinner parties, and asked Edith to give them some music in the drawing-room.",3 "Mr. Grey was particularly agreeable over this farewell dinner, and the gentlemen staid down stairs longer than usual.",2 It was very well they did--to judge from the fragments of conversation which Margaret overheard.,3 "'I suffered too much myself; not that I was not extremely happy with the poor dear General, but still disparity of age is a drawback; one that I was resolved Edith should not have to encounter.",1 "Of course, without any maternal partiality, I foresaw that the dear child was likely to marry early; indeed, I had often said that I was sure she would be married before she was nineteen.",1 "I had quite a prophetic feeling when Captain Lennox'--and here the voice dropped into a whisper, but Margaret could easily supply the blank.",2 The course of true love in Edith's case had run remarkably smooth.,4 "Mrs. Shaw had given way to the presentiment, as she expressed it; and had rather urged on the marriage, although it was below the expectations which many of Edith's acquaintances had formed for her, a young and pretty heiress.",3 "But Mrs. Shaw said that her only child should marry for love,--and sighed emphatically, as if love had not been her motive for marrying the General.",2 Mrs. Shaw enjoyed the romance of the present engagement rather more than her daughter.,3 "Not but that Edith was very thoroughly and properly in love; still she would certainly have preferred a good house in Belgravia, to all the picturesqueness of the life which Captain Lennox described at Corfu.",4 "The very parts which made Margaret glow as she listened, Edith pretended to shiver and shudder at; partly for the pleasure she had in being coaxed out of her dislike by her fond lover, and partly because anything of a gipsy or make-shift life was really distasteful to her.",3 "Yet had any one come with a fine house, and a fine estate, and a fine title to boot, Edith would still have clung to Captain Lennox while the temptation lasted; when it was over, it is possible she might have had little qualms of ill-concealed regret that Captain Lennox could not have united in his person everything that was desirable.",1 "In this she was but her mother's child; who, after deliberately marrying General Shaw with no warmer feeling than respect for his character and establishment, was constantly, though quietly, bemoaning her hard lot in being united to one whom she could not love.",3 "'I have spared no expense in her trousseau,' were the next words Margaret heard.",2 "'She has all the beautiful Indian shawls and scarfs the General gave to me, but which I shall never wear again.'",3 "'She is a lucky girl,' replied another voice, which Margaret knew to be that of Mrs. Gibson, a lady who was taking a double interest in the conversation, from the fact of one of her daughters having been married within the last few weeks.",3 "'Helen had set her heart upon an Indian shawl, but really when I found what an extravagant price was asked, I was obliged to refuse her.",1 She will be quite envious when she hears of Edith having Indian shawls.,2 What kind are they?,2 Delhi?,2 with the lovely little borders?',3 "Margaret heard her aunt's voice again, but this time it was as if she had raised herself up from her half-recumbent position, and were looking into the more dimly lighted back drawing-room.",2 'Edith!,2 Edith!',2 cried she; and then she sank as if wearied by the exertion.,2 Margaret stepped forward.,2 "'Edith is asleep, Aunt Shaw.",2 Is it anything I can do?',2 All the ladies said 'Poor child!',2 "on receiving this distressing intelligence about Edith; and the minute lap-dog in Mrs. Shaw's arms began to bark, as if excited by the burst of pity.",2 "'Hush, Tiny!",2 you naughty little girl!,1 you will waken your mistress.,1 "It was only to ask Edith if she would tell Newton to bring down her shawls: perhaps you would go, Margaret dear?'",2 "Margaret went up into the old nursery at the very top of the house, where Newton was busy getting up some laces which were required for the wedding.",3 "While Newton went (not without a muttered grumbling) to undo the shawls, which had already been exhibited four or five times that day, Margaret looked round upon the nursery; the first room in that house with which she had become familiar nine years ago, when she was brought, all untamed from the forest, to share the home, the play, and the lessons of her cousin Edith.",2 "She remembered the dark, dim look of the London nursery, presided over by an austere and ceremonious nurse, who was terribly particular about clean hands and torn frocks.",0 "She recollected the first tea up there--separate from her father and aunt, who were dining somewhere down below an infinite depth of stairs; for unless she were up in the sky (the child thought), they must be deep down in the bowels of the earth.",2 "At home--before she came to live in Harley Street--her mother's dressing-room had been her nursery; and, as they kept early hours in the country parsonage, Margaret had always had her meals with her father and mother.",2 Oh!,2 "well did the tall stately girl of eighteen remember the tears shed with such wild passion of grief by the little girl of nine, as she hid her face under the bed-clothes, in that first night; and how she was bidden not to cry by the nurse, because it would disturb Miss Edith; and how she had cried as bitterly, but more quietly, till her newly-seen, grand, pretty aunt had come softly upstairs with Mr. Hale to show him his little sleeping daughter.",2 "Then the little Margaret had hushed her sobs, and tried to lie quiet as if asleep, for fear of making her father unhappy by her grief, which she dared not express before her aunt, and which she rather thought it was wrong to feel at all after the long hoping, and planning, and contriving they had gone through at home, before her wardrobe could be arranged so as to suit her grander circumstances, and before papa could leave his parish to come up to London, even for a few days.",0 "Now she had got to love the old nursery, though it was but a dismantled place; and she looked all round, with a kind of cat-like regret, at the idea of leaving it for ever in three days.",3 'Ah Newton!',2 "said she, 'I think we shall all be sorry to leave this dear old room.'",1 "'Indeed, miss, I shan't for one.",1 "My eyes are not so good as they were, and the light here is so bad that I can't see to mend laces except just at the window, where there's always a shocking draught--enough to give one one's death of cold.'",1 "Well, I dare say you will have both good light and plenty of warmth at Naples.",4 You must keep as much of your darning as you can till then.,2 "Thank you, Newton, I can take them down--you're busy.'",3 "So Margaret went down laden with shawls, and snuffing up their spicy Eastern smell.",1 "Her aunt asked her to stand as a sort of lay figure on which to display them, as Edith was still asleep.",2 "No one thought about it; but Margaret's tall, finely made figure, in the black silk dress which she was wearing as mourning for some distant relative of her father's, set off the long beautiful folds of the gorgeous shawls that would have half-smothered Edith.",4 "Margaret stood right under the chandelier, quite silent and passive, while her aunt adjusted the draperies.",3 "Occasionally, as she was turned round, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the chimney-piece, and smiled at her own appearance there--the familiar features in the usual garb of a princess.",2 "She touched the shawls gently as they hung around her, and took a pleasure in their soft feel and their brilliant colours, and rather liked to be dressed in such splendour--enjoying it much as a child would do, with a quiet pleased smile on her lips.",4 "Just then the door opened, and Mr. Henry Lennox was suddenly announced.",2 "Some of the ladies started back, as if half-ashamed of their feminine interest in dress.",1 "Mrs. Shaw held out her hand to the new-comer; Margaret stood perfectly still, thinking she might be yet wanted as a sort of block for the shawls; but looking at Mr. Lennox with a bright, amused face, as if sure of his sympathy in her sense of the ludicrousness at being thus surprised.",3 "Her aunt was so much absorbed in asking Mr. Henry Lennox--who had not been able to come to dinner--all sorts of questions about his brother the bridegroom, his sister the bridesmaid (coming with the Captain from Scotland for the occasion), and various other members of the Lennox family, that Margaret saw she was no more wanted as shawl-bearer, and devoted herself to the amusement of the other visitors, whom her aunt had for the moment forgotten.",2 "Almost immediately, Edith came in from the back drawing-room, winking and blinking her eyes at the stronger light, shaking back her slightly-ruffled curls, and altogether looking like the Sleeping Beauty just startled from her dreams.",4 "Even in her slumber she had instinctively felt that a Lennox was worth rousing herself for; and she had a multitude of questions to ask about dear Janet, the future, unseen sister-in-law, for whom she professed so much affection, that if Margaret had not been very proud she might have almost felt jealous of the mushroom rival.",3 "As Margaret sank rather more into the background on her aunt's joining the conversation, she saw Henry Lennox directing his look towards a vacant seat near her; and she knew perfectly well that as soon as Edith released him from her questioning, he would take possession of that chair.",3 "She had not been quite sure, from her aunt's rather confused account of his engagements, whether he would come that night; it was almost a surprise to see him; and now she was sure of a pleasant evening.",2 He liked and disliked pretty nearly the same things that she did.,3 "Margaret's face was lightened up into an honest, open brightness.",3 By-and-by he came.,2 She received him with a smile which had not a tinge of shyness or self-consciousness in it.,3 "'Well, I suppose you are all in the depths of business--ladies' business, I mean.",2 "Very different to my business, which is the real true law business.",2 Playing with shawls is very different work to drawing up settlements.,3 "'Ah, I knew how you would be amused to find us all so occupied in admiring finery.",3 But really Indian shawls are very perfect things of their kind.',3 'I have no doubt they are.,1 "Their prices are very perfect, too.",3 Nothing wanting.',2 "The gentlemen came dropping in one by one, and the buzz and noise deepened in tone.",1 "'This is your last dinner-party, is it not?",2 There are no more before Thursday?',2 'No.,2 "I think after this evening we shall feel at rest, which I am sure I have not done for many weeks; at least, that kind of rest when the hands have nothing more to do, and all the arrangements are complete for an event which must occupy one's head and heart.",2 "I shall be glad to have time to think, and I am sure Edith will.'",3 'I am not so sure about her; but I can fancy that you will.,3 "Whenever I have seen you lately, you have been carried away by a whirlwind of some other person's making.'",2 "'Yes,' said Margaret, rather sadly, remembering the never-ending commotion about trifles that had been going on for more than a month past: 'I wonder if a marriage must always be preceded by what you call a whirlwind, or whether in some cases there might not rather be a calm and peaceful time just before it.'",3 "'Cinderella's godmother ordering the trousseau, the wedding-breakfast, writing the notes of invitation, for instance,' said Mr. Lennox, laughing.",2 'But are all these quite necessary troubles?',1 "asked Margaret, looking up straight at him for an answer.",2 "A sense of indescribable weariness of all the arrangements for a pretty effect, in which Edith had been busied as supreme authority for the last six weeks, oppressed her just now; and she really wanted some one to help her to a few pleasant, quiet ideas connected with a marriage.",4 "'Oh, of course,' he replied with a change to gravity in his tone.",2 "'There are forms and ceremonies to be gone through, not so much to satisfy oneself, as to stop the world's mouth, without which stoppage there would be very little satisfaction in life.",3 But how would you have a wedding arranged?',2 "'Oh, I have never thought much about it; only I should like it to be a very fine summer morning; and I should like to walk to church through the shade of trees; and not to have so many bridesmaids, and to have no wedding-breakfast.",3 I dare say I am resolving against the very things that have given me the most trouble just now.',1 "'No, I don't think you are.",2 The idea of stately simplicity accords well with your character.',3 "Margaret did not quite like this speech; she winced away from it more, from remembering former occasions on which he had tried to lead her into a discussion (in which he took the complimentary part) about her own character and ways of going on.",4 "She cut his speech rather short by saying: 'It is natural for me to think of Helstone church, and the walk to it, rather than of driving up to a London church in the middle of a paved street.'",2 'Tell me about Helstone.,2 You have never described it to me.,2 "I should like to have some idea of the place you will be living in, when ninety-six Harley Street will be looking dingy and dirty, and dull, and shut up.",1 "Is Helstone a village, or a town, in the first place?'",2 "'Oh, only a hamlet; I don't think I could call it a village at all.",2 "There is the church and a few houses near it on the green--cottages, rather--with roses growing all over them.'",2 "'And flowering all the year round, especially at Christmas--make your picture complete,' said he.",2 "'No,' replied Margaret, somewhat annoyed, 'I am not making a picture.",1 I am trying to describe Helstone as it really is.,2 You should not have said that.',2 "'I am penitent,' he answered.",2 'Only it really sounded like a village in a tale rather than in real life.',3 "'And so it is,' replied Margaret, eagerly.",3 "'All the other places in England that I have seen seem so hard and prosaic-looking, after the New Forest.",1 Helstone is like a village in a poem--in one of Tennyson's poems.,3 But I won't try and describe it any more.,2 You would only laugh at me if I told you what I think of it--what it really is.',2 "'Indeed, I would not.",2 But I see you are going to be very resolved.,2 "Well, then, tell me that which I should like still better to know what the parsonage is like.'",4 "'Oh, I can't describe my home.",2 "It is home, and I can't put its charm into words.'",3 'I submit.,2 "You are rather severe to-night, Margaret.",1 'How?',2 "said she, turning her large soft eyes round full upon him.",3 'I did not know I was.',2 "'Why, because I made an unlucky remark, you will neither tell me what Helstone is like, nor will you say anything about your home, though I have told you how much I want to hear about both, the latter especially.'",2 'But indeed I cannot tell you about my own home.,2 "I don't quite think it is a thing to be talked about, unless you knew it.'",2 "'Well, then'--pausing for a moment--'tell me what you do there.",2 "Here you read, or have lessons, or otherwise improve your mind, till the middle of the day; take a walk before lunch, go a drive with your aunt after, and have some kind of engagement in the evening.",3 "There, now fill up your day at Helstone.",2 "Shall you ride, drive, or walk?'",2 "'Walk, decidedly.",2 "We have no horse, not even for papa.",2 He walks to the very extremity of his parish.,2 "The walks are so beautiful, it would be a shame to drive--almost a shame to ride.'",2 'Shall you garden much?,2 "That, I believe, is a proper employment for young ladies in the country.'",3 'I don't know.,2 I am afraid I shan't like such hard work.',2 'Archery parties--pic-nics--race-balls--hunt-balls?',2 'Oh no!',2 "said she, laughing.",2 "'Papa's living is very small; and even if we were near such things, I doubt if I should go to them.'",1 "'I see, you won't tell me anything.",2 You will only tell me that you are not going to do this and that.,2 "Before the vacation ends, I think I shall pay you a call, and see what you really do employ yourself in.'",2 'I hope you will.,2 Then you will see for yourself how beautiful Helstone is.,3 Now I must go.,2 "Edith is sitting down to play, and I just know enough of music to turn over the leaves for her; and besides, Aunt Shaw won't like us to talk.'",3 Edith played brilliantly.,3 "In the middle of the piece the door half-opened, and Edith saw Captain Lennox hesitating whether to come in.",2 "She threw down her music, and rushed out of the room, leaving Margaret standing confused and blushing to explain to the astonished guests what vision had shown itself to cause Edith's sudden flight.",2 Captain Lennox had come earlier than was expected; or was it really so late?,2 "They looked at their watches, were duly shocked, and took their leave.",1 "Then Edith came back, glowing with pleasure, half-shyly, half-proudly leading in her tall handsome Captain.",4 "His brother shook hands with him, and Mrs. Shaw welcomed him in her gentle kindly way, which had always something plaintive in it, arising from the long habit of considering herself a victim to an uncongenial marriage.",3 "Now that, the General being gone, she had every good of life, with as few drawbacks as possible, she had been rather perplexed to find an anxiety, if not a sorrow.",0 "She had, however, of late settled upon her own health as a source of apprehension; she had a nervous little cough whenever she thought about it; and some complaisant doctor ordered her just what she desired,--a winter in Italy.",1 "Mrs. Shaw had as strong wishes as most people, but she never liked to do anything from the open and acknowledged motive of her own good will and pleasure; she preferred being compelled to gratify herself by some other person's command or desire.",4 "She really did persuade herself that she was submitting to some hard external necessity; and thus she was able to moan and complain in her soft manner, all the time she was in reality doing just what she liked.",1 "It was in this way she began to speak of her own journey to Captain Lennox, who assented, as in duty bound, to all his future mother-in-law said, while his eyes sought Edith, who was busying herself in rearranging the tea-table, and ordering up all sorts of good things, in spite of his assurances that he had dined within the last two hours.",3 "Mr. Henry Lennox stood leaning against the chimney-piece, amused with the family scene.",2 "He was close by his handsome brother; he was the plain one in a singularly good-looking family; but his face was intelligent, keen, and mobile; and now and then Margaret wondered what it was that he could be thinking about, while he kept silence, but was evidently observing, with an interest that was slightly sarcastic, all that Edith and she were doing.",4 The sarcastic feeling was called out by Mrs. Shaw's conversation with his brother; it was separate from the interest which was excited by what he saw.,2 He thought it a pretty sight to see the two cousins so busy in their little arrangements about the table.,3 Edith chose to do most herself.,2 She was in a humour to enjoy showing her lover how well she could behave as a soldier's wife.,4 "She found out that the water in the urn was cold, and ordered up the great kitchen tea-kettle; the only consequence of which was that when she met it at the door, and tried to carry it in, it was too heavy for her, and she came in pouting, with a black mark on her muslin gown, and a little round white hand indented by the handle, which she took to show to Captain Lennox, just like a hurt child, and, of course, the remedy was the same in both cases.",3 "Margaret's quickly-adjusted spirit-lamp was the most efficacious contrivance, though not so like the gypsy-encampment which Edith, in some of her moods, chose to consider the nearest resemblance to a barrack-life.",3 After this evening all was bustle till the wedding was over.,2 "Margaret was once more in her morning dress, travelling quietly home with her father, who had come up to assist at the wedding.",2 "Her mother had been detained at home by a multitude of half-reasons, none of which anybody fully understood, except Mr. Hale, who was perfectly aware that all his arguments in favour of a grey satin gown, which was midway between oldness and newness, had proved unavailing; and that, as he had not the money to equip his wife afresh, from top to toe, she would not show herself at her only sister's only child's wedding.",4 "If Mrs. Shaw had guessed at the real reason why Mrs. Hale did not accompany her husband, she would have showered down gowns upon her; but it was nearly twenty years since Mrs. Shaw had been the poor, pretty Miss Beresford, and she had really forgotten all grievances except that of the unhappiness arising from disparity of age in married life, on which she could descant by the half-hour.",1 "Dearest Maria had married the man of her heart, only eight years older than herself, with the sweetest temper, and that blue-black hair one so seldom sees.",1 "Mr. Hale was one of the most delightful preachers she had ever heard, and a perfect model of a parish priest.",4 "Perhaps it was not quite a logical deduction from all these premises, but it was still Mrs. Shaw's characteristic conclusion, as she thought over her sister's lot: 'Married for love, what can dearest Maria have to wish for in this world?'",3 "Mrs. Hale, if she spoke truth, might have answered with a ready-made list, 'a silver-grey glace silk, a white chip bonnet, oh!",3 "dozens of things for the wedding, and hundreds of things for the house.'",2 "Margaret only knew that her mother had not found it convenient to come, and she was not sorry to think that their meeting and greeting would take place at Helstone parsonage, rather than, during the confusion of the last two or three days, in the house in Harley Street, where she herself had had to play the part of Figaro, and was wanted everywhere at one and the same time.",1 Her mind and body ached now with the recollection of all she had done and said within the last forty-eight hours.,1 "The farewells so hurriedly taken, amongst all the other good-byes, of those she had lived with so long, oppressed her now with a sad regret for the times that were no more; it did not signify what those times had been, they were gone never to return.",1 "Margaret's heart felt more heavy than she could ever have thought it possible in going to her own dear home, the place and the life she had longed for for years--at that time of all times for yearning and longing, just before the sharp senses lose their outlines in sleep.",1 She took her mind away with a wrench from the recollection of the past to the bright serene contemplation of the hopeful future.,4 "Her eyes began to see, not visions of what had been, but the sight actually before her; her dear father leaning back asleep in the railway carriage.",2 "His blue-black hair was grey now, and lay thinly over his brows.",2 "The bones of his face were plainly to be seen--too plainly for beauty, if his features had been less finely cut; as it was, they had a grace if not a comeliness of their own.",4 "The face was in repose; but it was rather rest after weariness, than the serene calm of the countenance of one who led a placid, contented life.",3 "Margaret was painfully struck by the worn, anxious expression; and she went back over the open and avowed circumstances of her father's life, to find the cause for the lines that spoke so plainly of habitual distress and depression.",0 'Poor Frederick!',2 "thought she, sighing.",2 'Oh!,2 "if Frederick had but been a clergyman, instead of going into the navy, and being lost to us all!",1 I wish I knew all about it.,2 I never understood it from Aunt Shaw; I only knew he could not come back to England because of that terrible affair.,1 Poor dear papa!,1 how sad he looks!,1 "I am so glad I am going home, to be at hand to comfort him and mamma.",3 "She was ready with a bright smile, in which there was not a trace of fatigue, to greet her father when he awakened.",3 "He smiled back again, but faintly, as if it were an unusual exertion.",1 His face returned into its lines of habitual anxiety.,1 "He had a trick of half-opening his mouth as if to speak, which constantly unsettled the form of the lips, and gave the face an undecided expression.",0 "But he had the same large, soft eyes as his daughter,--eyes which moved slowly and almost grandly round in their orbits, and were well veiled by their transparent white eyelids.",3 Margaret was more like him than like her mother.,3 "Sometimes people wondered that parents so handsome should have a daughter who was so far from regularly beautiful; not beautiful at all, was occasionally said.",3 "Her mouth was wide; no rosebud that could only open just enough to let out a 'yes' and 'no,' and 'an't please you, sir.'",3 "But the wide mouth was one soft curve of rich red lips; and the skin, if not white and fair, was of an ivory smoothness and delicacy.",4 "If the look on her face was, in general, too dignified and reserved for one so young, now, talking to her father, it was bright as the morning,--full of dimples, and glances that spoke of childish gladness, and boundless hope in the future.",4 It was the latter part of July when Margaret returned home.,2 "The forest trees were all one dark, full, dusky green; the fern below them caught all the slanting sunbeams; the weather was sultry and broodingly still.",1 "Margaret used to tramp along by her father's side, crushing down the fern with a cruel glee, as she felt it yield under her light foot, and send up the fragrance peculiar to it,--out on the broad commons into the warm scented light, seeing multitudes of wild, free, living creatures, revelling in the sunshine, and the herbs and flowers it called forth.",1 This life--at least these walks--realised all Margaret's anticipations.,2 She took a pride in her forest.,3 Its people were her people.,2 "She made hearty friends with them; learned and delighted in using their peculiar words; took up her freedom amongst them; nursed their babies; talked or read with slow distinctness to their old people; carried dainty messes to their sick; resolved before long to teach at the school, where her father went every day as to an appointed task, but she was continually tempted off to go and see some individual friend--man, woman, or child--in some cottage in the green shade of the forest.",1 Her out-of-doors life was perfect.,3 Her in-doors life had its drawbacks.,1 "With the healthy shame of a child, she blamed herself for her keenness of sight, in perceiving that all was not as it should be there.",3 "Her mother--her mother always so kind and tender towards her--seemed now and then so much discontented with their situation; thought that the bishop strangely neglected his episcopal duties, in not giving Mr. Hale a better living; and almost reproached her husband because he could not bring himself to say that he wished to leave the parish, and undertake the charge of a larger.",2 "He would sigh aloud as he answered, that if he could do what he ought in little Helstone, he should be thankful; but every day he was more overpowered; the world became more bewildering.",2 "At each repeated urgency of his wife, that he would put himself in the way of seeking some preferment, Margaret saw that her father shrank more and more; and she strove at such times to reconcile her mother to Helstone.",3 "Mrs. Hale said that the near neighbourhood of so many trees affected her health; and Margaret would try to tempt her forth on to the beautiful, broad, upland, sun-streaked, cloud-shadowed common; for she was sure that her mother had accustomed herself too much to an in-doors life, seldom extending her walks beyond the church, the school, and the neighbouring cottages.",3 "This did good for a time; but when the autumn drew on, and the weather became more changeable, her mother's idea of the unhealthiness of the place increased; and she repined even more frequently that her husband, who was more learned than Mr. Hume, a better parish priest than Mr. Houldsworth, should not have met with the preferment that these two former neighbours of theirs had done.",3 "This marring of the peace of home, by long hours of discontent, was what Margaret was unprepared for.",1 "She knew, and had rather revelled in the idea, that she should have to give up many luxuries, which had only been troubles and trammels to her freedom in Harley Street.",2 "Her keen enjoyment of every sensuous pleasure, was balanced finely, if not overbalanced, by her conscious pride in being able to do without them all, if need were.",4 But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.,1 "There had been slight complaints and passing regrets on her mother's part, over some trifle connected with Helstone, and her father's position there, when Margaret had been spending her holidays at home before; but in the general happiness of the recollection of those times, she had forgotten the small details which were not so pleasant.",2 "In the latter half of September, the autumnal rains and storms came on, and Margaret was obliged to remain more in the house than she had hitherto done.",2 Helstone was at some distance from any neighbours of their own standard of cultivation.,2 "'It is undoubtedly one of the most out-of-the-way places in England,' said Mrs. Hale, in one of her plaintive moods.",3 'I can't help regretting constantly that papa has really no one to associate with here; he is so thrown away; seeing no one but farmers and labourers from week's end to week's end.,2 "If we only lived at the other side of the parish, it would be something; there we should be almost within walking distance of the Stansfields; certainly the Gormans would be within a walk.'",2 "'Gormans,' said Margaret.",2 'Are those the Gormans who made their fortunes in trade at Southampton?,2 Oh!,2 I'm glad we don't visit them.,3 I don't like shoppy people.,3 "I think we are far better off, knowing only cottagers and labourers, and people without pretence.'",2 "'You must not be so fastidious, Margaret, dear!'",1 "said her mother, secretly thinking of a young and handsome Mr. Gorman whom she had once met at Mr. Hume's.",3 'No!,2 "I call mine a very comprehensive taste; I like all people whose occupations have to do with land; I like soldiers and sailors, and the three learned professions, as they call them.",3 "I'm sure you don't want me to admire butchers and bakers, and candlestick-makers, do you, mamma?'",3 "'But the Gormans were neither butchers nor bakers, but very respectable coach-builders.'",3 'Very well.,3 "Coach-building is a trade all the same, and I think a much more useless one than that of butchers or bakers.",1 Oh!,2 "how tired I used to be of the drives every day in Aunt Shaw's carriage, and how I longed to walk!'",1 "And walk Margaret did, in spite of the weather.",1 "She was so happy out of doors, at her father's side, that she almost danced; and with the soft violence of the west wind behind her, as she crossed some heath, she seemed to be borne onwards, as lightly and easily as the fallen leaf that was wafted along by the autumnal breeze.",3 But the evenings were rather difficult to fill up agreeably.,2 "Immediately after tea her father withdrew into his small library, and she and her mother were left alone.",2 "Mrs. Hale had never cared much for books, and had discouraged her husband, very early in their married life, in his desire of reading aloud to her, while she worked.",3 "At one time they had tried backgammon as a resource; but as Mr. Hale grew to take an increasing interest in his school and his parishioners, he found that the interruptions which arose out of these duties were regarded as hardships by his wife, not to be accepted as the natural conditions of his profession, but to be regretted and struggled against by her as they severally arose.",0 "So he withdrew, while the children were yet young, into his library, to spend his evenings (if he were at home), in reading the speculative and metaphysical books which were his delight.",3 "When Margaret had been here before, she had brought down with her a great box of books, recommended by masters or governess, and had found the summer's day all too short to get through the reading she had to do before her return to town.",4 "Now there were only the well-bound little-read English Classics, which were weeded out of her father's library to fill up the small book-shelves in the drawing-room.",3 "Thomson's Seasons, Hayley's Cowper, Middleton's Cicero, were by far the lightest, newest, and most amusing.",3 The book-shelves did not afford much resource.,3 "Margaret told her mother every particular of her London life, to all of which Mrs. Hale listened with interest, sometimes amused and questioning, at others a little inclined to compare her sister's circumstances of ease and comfort with the narrower means at Helstone vicarage.",3 "On such evenings Margaret was apt to stop talking rather abruptly, and listen to the drip-drip of the rain upon the leads of the little bow-window.",2 "Once or twice Margaret found herself mechanically counting the repetition of the monotonous sound, while she wondered if she might venture to put a question on a subject very near to her heart, and ask where Frederick was now; what he was doing; how long it was since they had heard from him.",1 "But a consciousness that her mother's delicate health, and positive dislike to Helstone, all dated from the time of the mutiny in which Frederick had been engaged,--the full account of which Margaret had never heard, and which now seemed doomed to be buried in sad oblivion,--made her pause and turn away from the subject each time she approached it.",1 "When she was with her mother, her father seemed the best person to apply to for information; and when with him, she thought that she could speak more easily to her mother.",3 Probably there was nothing much to be heard that was new.,2 "In one of the letters she had received before leaving Harley Street, her father had told her that they had heard from Frederick; he was still at Rio, and very well in health, and sent his best love to her; which was dry bones, but not the living intelligence she longed for.",4 "Frederick was always spoken of, in the rare times when his name was mentioned, as 'Poor Frederick.'",2 "His room was kept exactly as he had left it; and was regularly dusted, and put into order by Dixon, Mrs. Hale's maid, who touched no other part of the household work, but always remembered the day when she had been engaged by Lady Beresford as ladies' maid to Sir John's wards, the pretty Miss Beresfords, the belles of Rutlandshire.",3 Dixon had always considered Mr. Hale as the blight which had fallen upon her young lady's prospects in life.,2 "If Miss Beresford had not been in such a hurry to marry a poor country clergyman, there was no knowing what she might not have become.",1 But Dixon was too loyal to desert her in her affliction and downfall (alias her married life).,1 "She remained with her, and was devoted to her interests; always considering herself as the good and protecting fairy, whose duty it was to baffle the malignant giant, Mr. Hale.",3 "Master Frederick had been her favorite and pride; and it was with a little softening of her dignified look and manner, that she went in weekly to arrange the chamber as carefully as if he might be coming home that very evening.",4 "Margaret could not help believing that there had been some late intelligence of Frederick, unknown to her mother, which was making her father anxious and uneasy.",1 Mrs. Hale did not seem to perceive any alteration in her husband's looks or ways.,3 "His spirits were always tender and gentle, readily affected by any small piece of intelligence concerning the welfare of others.",4 "He would be depressed for many days after witnessing a death-bed, or hearing of any crime.",0 "But now Margaret noticed an absence of mind, as if his thoughts were pre-occupied by some subject, the oppression of which could not be relieved by any daily action, such as comforting the survivors, or teaching at the school in hope of lessening the evils in the generation to come.",1 "Mr. Hale did not go out among his parishioners as much as usual; he was more shut up in his study; was anxious for the village postman, whose summons to the house-hold was a rap on the back-kitchen window-shutter--a signal which at one time had often to be repeated before any one was sufficiently alive to the hour of the day to understand what it was, and attend to him.",3 "Now Mr. Hale loitered about the garden if the morning was fine, and if not, stood dreamily by the study window until the postman had called, or gone down the lane, giving a half-respectful, half-confidential shake of the head to the parson, who watched him away beyond the sweet-briar hedge, and past the great arbutus, before he turned into the room to begin his day's work, with all the signs of a heavy heart and an occupied mind.",4 "But Margaret was at an age when any apprehension, not absolutely based on a knowledge of facts, is easily banished for a time by a bright sunny day, or some happy outward circumstance.",3 "And when the brilliant fourteen fine days of October came on, her cares were all blown away as lightly as thistledown, and she thought of nothing but the glories of the forest.",3 "The fern-harvest was over, and now that the rain was gone, many a deep glade was accessible, into which Margaret had only peeped in July and August weather.",3 "She had learnt drawing with Edith; and she had sufficiently regretted, during the gloom of the bad weather, her idle revelling in the beauty of the woodlands while it had yet been fine, to make her determined to sketch what she could before winter fairly set in.",2 "Accordingly, she was busy preparing her board one morning, when Sarah, the housemaid, threw wide open the drawing-room door and announced, 'Mr. Henry Lennox.'",2 'Mr. Henry Lennox.',2 "Margaret had been thinking of him only a moment before, and remembering his inquiry into her probable occupations at home.",2 "It was 'parler du soleil et l'on en voit les rayons;' and the brightness of the sun came over Margaret's face as she put down her board, and went forward to shake hands with him.",1 "'Tell mamma, Sarah,' said she.",2 'Mamma and I want to ask you so many questions about Edith; I am so much obliged to you for coming.',2 'Did not I say that I should?',2 "asked he, in a lower tone than that in which she had spoken.",2 'But I heard of you so far away in the Highlands that I never thought Hampshire could come in.,2 'Oh!',2 "said he, more lightly, 'our young couple were playing such foolish pranks, running all sorts of risks, climbing this mountain, sailing on that lake, that I really thought they needed a Mentor to take care of them.",1 "And indeed they did; they were quite beyond my uncle's management, and kept the old gentleman in a panic for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four.",1 "Indeed, when I once saw how unfit they were to be trusted alone, I thought it my duty not to leave them till I had seen them safely embarked at Plymouth.'",3 'Have you been at Plymouth?,2 Oh!,2 Edith never named that.,2 "To be sure, she has written in such a hurry lately.",2 Did they really sail on Tuesday?',2 "'Really sailed, and relieved me from many responsibilities.",2 Edith gave me all sorts of messages for you.,2 "I believe I have a little diminutive note somewhere; yes, here it is.'",2 'Oh!,2 "thank you,' exclaimed Margaret; and then, half wishing to read it alone and unwatched, she made the excuse of going to tell her mother again (Sarah surely had made some mistake) that Mr. Lennox was there.",1 "When she had left the room, he began in his scrutinising way to look about him.",2 The little drawing-room was looking its best in the streaming light of the morning sun.,3 "The middle window in the bow was opened, and clustering roses and the scarlet honeysuckle came peeping round the corner; the small lawn was gorgeous with verbenas and geraniums of all bright colours.",3 But the very brightness outside made the colours within seem poor and faded.,1 "The carpet was far from new; the chintz had been often washed; the whole apartment was smaller and shabbier than he had expected, as back-ground and frame-work for Margaret, herself so queenly.",3 "He took up one of the books lying on the table; it was the Paradiso of Dante, in the proper old Italian binding of white vellum and gold; by it lay a dictionary, and some words copied out in Margaret's hand-writing.",3 "They were a dull list of words, but somehow he liked looking at them.",2 He put them down with a sigh.,2 'The living is evidently as small as she said.,2 "It seems strange, for the Beresfords belong to a good family.'",2 Margaret meanwhile had found her mother.,2 "It was one of Mrs. Hale's fitful days, when everything was a difficulty and a hardship; and Mr. Lennox's appearance took this shape, although secretly she felt complimented by his thinking it worth while to call.",1 'It is most unfortunate!,1 "We are dining early to-day, and having nothing but cold meat, in order that the servants may get on with their ironing; and yet, of course, we must ask him to dinner--Edith's brother-in-law and all.",1 And your papa is in such low spirits this morning about something--I don't know what.,2 "I went into the study just now, and he had his face on the table, covering it with his hands.",2 "I told him I was sure Helstone air did not agree with him any more than with me, and he suddenly lifted up his head, and begged me not to speak a word more against Helstone, he could not bear it; if there was one place he loved on earth it was Helstone.",3 "But I am sure, for all that, it is the damp and relaxing air.'",2 Margaret felt as if a thin cold cloud had come between her and the sun.,1 "She had listened patiently, in hopes that it might be some relief to her mother to unburden herself; but now it was time to draw her back to Mr. Lennox.",3 'Papa likes Mr. Lennox; they got on together famously at the wedding breakfast.,3 I dare say his coming will do papa good.,3 "And never mind the dinner, dear mamma.",2 "Cold meat will do capitally for a lunch, which is the light in which Mr. Lennox will most likely look upon a two o'clock dinner.'",1 'But what are we to do with him till then?,2 It is only half-past ten now.',2 'I'll ask him to go out sketching with me.,2 "I know he draws, and that will take him out of your way, mamma.",2 Only do come in now; he will think it so strange if you don't.',1 "Mrs. Hale took off her black silk apron, and smoothed her face.",3 "She looked a very pretty lady-like woman, as she greeted Mr. Lennox with the cordiality due to one who was almost a relation.",3 "He evidently expected to be asked to spend the day, and accepted the invitation with a glad readiness that made Mrs. Hale wish she could add something to the cold beef.",3 "He was pleased with everything; delighted with Margaret's idea of going out sketching together; would not have Mr. Hale disturbed for the world, with the prospect of so soon meeting him at dinner.",3 "Margaret brought out her drawing materials for him to choose from; and after the paper and brushes had been duly selected, the two set out in the merriest spirits in the world.",2 "'Now, please, just stop here for a minute or two, said Margaret.",2 "'These are the cottages that haunted me so during the rainy fortnight, reproaching me for not having sketched them.'",2 'Before they tumbled down and were no more seen.,1 "Truly, if they are to be sketched--and they are very picturesque--we had better not put it off till next year.",3 But where shall we sit?',2 'Oh!,2 "You might have come straight from chambers in the Temple,' instead of having been two months in the Highlands!",2 "Look at this beautiful trunk of a tree, which the wood-cutters have left just in the right place for the light.",3 "I will put my plaid over it, and it will be a regular forest throne.'",2 'With your feet in that puddle for a regal footstool!,3 "Stay, I will move, and then you can come nearer this way.",2 Who lives in these cottages?',2 'They were built by squatters fifty or sixty years ago.,2 "One is uninhabited; the foresters are going to take it down, as soon as the old man who lives in the other is dead, poor old fellow!",1 Look--there he is--I must go and speak to him.,2 He is so deaf you will hear all our secrets.',1 "The old man stood bareheaded in the sun, leaning on his stick at the front of his cottage.",2 His stiff features relaxed into a slow smile as Margaret went up and spoke to him.,2 "Mr. Lennox hastily introduced the two figures into his sketch, and finished up the landscape with a subordinate reference to them--as Margaret perceived, when the time came for getting up, putting away water, and scraps of paper, and exhibiting to each other their sketches.",1 She laughed and blushed: Mr. Lennox watched her countenance.,2 "'Now, I call that treacherous,' said she.",1 "'I little thought you were making old Isaac and me into subjects, when you told me to ask him the history of these cottages.'",2 'It was irresistible.,3 You can't know how strong a temptation it was.,2 I hardly dare tell you how much I shall like this sketch.',3 He was not quite sure whether she heard this latter sentence before she went to the brook to wash her palette.,2 "She came back rather flushed, but looking perfectly innocent and unconscious.",3 "He was glad of it, for the speech had slipped from him unawares--a rare thing in the case of a man who premeditated his actions so much as Henry Lennox.",2 The aspect of home was all right and bright when they reached it.,3 "The clouds on her mother's brow had cleared off under the propitious influence of a brace of carp, most opportunely presented by a neighbour.",3 "Mr. Hale had returned from his morning's round, and was awaiting his visitor just outside the wicket gate that led into the garden.",3 He looked a complete gentleman in his rather threadbare coat and well-worn hat.,2 "Margaret was proud of her father; she had always a fresh and tender pride in seeing how favourably he impressed every stranger; still her quick eye sought over his face and found there traces of some unusual disturbance, which was only put aside, not cleared away.",4 Mr. Hale asked to look at their sketches.,3 "'I think you have made the tints on the thatch too dark, have you not?'",1 "as he returned Margaret's to her, and held out his hand for Mr. Lennox's, which was withheld from him one moment, no more.",2 "'No, papa!",2 I don't think I have.,2 The house-leek and stone-crop have grown so much darker in the rain.,1 "Is it not like, papa?'",3 "said she, peeping over his shoulder, as he looked at the figures in Mr. Lennox's drawing.",2 "'Yes, very like.",3 Your figure and way of holding yourself is capital.,2 And it is just poor old Isaac's stiff way of stooping his long rheumatic back.,1 What is this hanging from the branch of the tree?,2 "Not a bird's nest, surely.'",2 'Oh no!,2 that is my bonnet.,2 I never can draw with my bonnet on; it makes my head so hot.,3 I wonder if I could manage figures.,3 There are so many people about here whom I should like to sketch.',3 "'I should say that a likeness you very much wish to take you would always succeed in,' said Mr. Lennox.",3 'I have great faith in the power of will.,3 I think myself I have succeeded pretty well in yours.',4 "Mr. Hale had preceded them into the house, while Margaret was lingering to pluck some roses, with which to adorn her morning gown for dinner.",3 "'A regular London girl would understand the implied meaning of that speech,' thought Mr. Lennox.",2 'She would be up to looking through every speech that a young man made her for the arriere-pensee of a compliment.,3 "But I don't believe Margaret,--Stay!'",2 "exclaimed he, 'Let me help you;' and he gathered for her some velvety cramoisy roses that were above her reach, and then dividing the spoil he placed two in his button-hole, and sent her in, pleased and happy, to arrange her flowers.",3 The conversation at dinner flowed on quietly and agreeably.,3 "There were plenty of questions to be asked on both sides--the latest intelligence which each could give of Mrs. Shaw's movements in Italy to be exchanged; and in the interest of what was said, the unpretending simplicity of the parsonage-ways--above all, in the neighbourhood of Margaret, Mr. Lennox forgot the little feeling of disappointment with which he had at first perceived that she had spoken but the simple truth when she had described her father's living as very small.",2 "'Margaret, my child, you might have gathered us some pears for our dessert,' said Mr. Hale, as the hospitable luxury of a freshly-decanted bottle of wine was placed on the table.",4 Mrs. Hale was hurried.,3 "It seemed as if desserts were impromptu and unusual things at the parsonage; whereas, if Mr. Hale would only have looked behind him, he would have seen biscuits and marmalade, and what not, all arranged in formal order on the sideboard.",2 "But the idea of pears had taken possession of Mr. Hale's mind, and was not to be got rid of.",2 'There are a few brown beurres against the south wall which are worth all foreign fruits and preserves.,3 "Run, Margaret, and gather us some.'",2 "'I propose that we adjourn into the garden, and eat them there' said Mr. Lennox.",2 "'Nothing is so delicious as to set one's teeth into the crisp, juicy fruit, warm and scented by the sun.",4 "The worst is, the wasps are impudent enough to dispute it with one, even at the very crisis and summit of enjoyment.",1 "He rose, as if to follow Margaret, who had disappeared through the window he only awaited Mrs. Hale's permission.",2 "She would rather have wound up the dinner in the proper way, and with all the ceremonies which had gone on so smoothly hitherto, especially as she and Dixon had got out the finger-glasses from the store-room on purpose to be as correct as became General Shaw's widow's sister, but as Mr. Hale got up directly, and prepared to accompany his guest, she could only submit.",4 "'I shall arm myself with a knife,' said Mr. Hale: 'the days of eating fruit so primitively as you describe are over with me.",2 I must pare it and quarter it before I can enjoy it.',3 "Margaret made a plate for the pears out of a beetroot leaf, which threw up their brown gold colour admirably.",3 "Mr. Lennox looked more at her than at the pears; but her father, inclined to cull fastidiously the very zest and perfection of the hour he had stolen from his anxiety, chose daintily the ripest fruit, and sat down on the garden bench to enjoy it at his leisure.",2 "Margaret and Mr. Lennox strolled along the little terrace-walk under the south wall, where the bees still hummed and worked busily in their hives.",3 'What a perfect life you seem to live here!,3 "I have always felt rather contemptuously towards the poets before, with their wishes, ""Mine be a cot beside a hill,"" and that sort of thing: but now I am afraid that the truth is, I have been nothing better than a cockney.",1 Just now I feel as if twenty years' hard study of law would be amply rewarded by one year of such an exquisite serene life as this--such skies!',3 "looking up--'such crimson and amber foliage, so perfectly motionless as that!'",2 pointing to some of the great forest trees which shut in the garden as if it were a nest.,3 'You must please to remember that our skies are not always as deep a blue as they are now.,2 "We have rain, and our leaves do fall, and get sodden: though I think Helstone is about as perfect a place as any in the world.",2 "Recollect how you rather scorned my description of it one evening in Harley Street: ""a village in a tale.""",2 "' 'Scorned, Margaret!",2 That is rather a hard word.',1 'Perhaps it is.,2 "Only I know I should have liked to have talked to you of what I was very full at the time, and you--what must I call it, then?--spoke disrespectfully of Helstone as a mere village in a tale.'",2 "'I will never do so again,' said he, warmly.",3 They turned the corner of the walk.,2 "'I could almost wish, Margaret---- ' he stopped and hesitated.",2 "It was so unusual for the fluent lawyer to hesitate that Margaret looked up at him, in a little state of questioning wonder; but in an instant--from what about him she could not tell--she wished herself back with her mother--her father--anywhere away from him, for she was sure he was going to say something to which she should not know what to reply.",3 "In another moment the strong pride that was in her came to conquer her sudden agitation, which she hoped he had not perceived.",3 "Of course she could answer, and answer the right thing; and it was poor and despicable of her to shrink from hearing any speech, as if she had not power to put an end to it with her high maidenly dignity.",2 "'Margaret,' said he, taking her by surprise, and getting sudden possession of her hand, so that she was forced to stand still and listen, despising herself for the fluttering at her heart all the time; 'Margaret, I wish you did not like Helstone so much--did not seem so perfectly calm and happy here.",4 "I have been hoping for these three months past to find you regretting London--and London friends, a little--enough to make you listen more kindly' (for she was quietly, but firmly, striving to extricate her hand from his grasp) 'to one who has not much to offer, it is true--nothing but prospects in the future--but who does love you, Margaret, almost in spite of himself.",3 "Margaret, have I startled you too much?",2 Speak!',2 For he saw her lips quivering almost as if she were going to cry.,1 "She made a strong effort to be calm; she would not speak till she had succeeded in mastering her voice, and then she said: 'I was startled.",4 I did not know that you cared for me in that way.,2 "I have always thought of you as a friend; and, please, I would rather go on thinking of you so.",2 I don't like to be spoken to as you have been doing.,3 "I cannot answer you as you want me to do, and yet I should feel so sorry if I vexed you.'",1 "'Margaret,' said he, looking into her eyes, which met his with their open, straight look, expressive of the utmost good faith and reluctance to give pain.",2 'Do you'--he was going to say--'love any one else?',2 But it seemed as if this question would be an insult to the pure serenity of those eyes.,3 'Forgive me I have been too abrupt.,1 I am punished.,2 Only let me hope.,2 Give me the poor comfort of telling me you have never seen any one whom you could---- ' Again a pause.,2 He could not end his sentence.,2 Margaret reproached herself acutely as the cause of his distress.,1 'Ah!,2 if you had but never got this fancy into your head!,3 It was such a pleasure to think of you as a friend.',3 "'But I may hope, may I not, Margaret, that some time you will think of me as a lover?",3 "Not yet, I see--there is no hurry--but some time---- ' She was silent for a minute or two, trying to discover the truth as it was in her own heart, before replying; then she said: 'I have never thought of--you, but as a friend.",3 I like to think of you so; but I am sure I could never think of you as anything else.,3 "Pray, let us both forget that all this' ('disagreeable,' she was going to say, but stopped short) 'conversation has taken place.'",2 He paused before he replied.,2 "Then, in his habitual coldness of tone, he answered: 'Of course, as your feelings are so decided, and as this conversation has been so evidently unpleasant to you, it had better not be remembered.",2 "That is all very fine in theory, that plan of forgetting whatever is painful, but it will be somewhat difficult for me, at least, to carry it into execution.'",1 "'You are vexed,' said she, sadly; 'yet how can I help it?'",1 "She looked so truly grieved as she said this, that he struggled for a moment with his real disappointment, and then answered more cheerfully, but still with a little hardness in his tone: 'You should make allowances for the mortification, not only of a lover, Margaret, but of a man not given to romance in general--prudent, worldly, as some people call me--who has been carried out of his usual habits by the force of a passion--well, we will say no more of that; but in the one outlet which he has formed for the deeper and better feelings of his nature, he meets with rejection and repulse.",2 I shall have to console myself with scorning my own folly.,2 A struggling barrister to think of matrimony!',1 Margaret could not answer this.,2 The whole tone of it annoyed her.,1 "It seemed to touch on and call out all the points of difference which had often repelled her in him; while yet he was the pleasantest man, the most sympathising friend, the person of all others who understood her best in Harley Street.",3 She felt a tinge of contempt mingle itself with her pain at having refused him.,0 Her beautiful lip curled in a slight disdain.,2 "It was well that, having made the round of the garden, they came suddenly upon Mr. Hale, whose whereabouts had been quite forgotten by them.",3 "He had not yet finished the pear, which he had delicately peeled in one long strip of silver-paper thinness, and which he was enjoying in a deliberate manner.",2 "It was like the story of the eastern king, who dipped his head into a basin of water, at the magician's command, and ere he instantly took it out went through the experience of a lifetime.",3 "Margaret felt stunned, and unable to recover her self-possession enough to join in the trivial conversation that ensued between her father and Mr. Lennox.",3 "She was grave, and little disposed to speak; full of wonder when Mr. Lennox would go, and allow her to relax into thought on the events of the last quarter of an hour.",3 "He was almost as anxious to take his departure as she was for him to leave; but a few minutes light and careless talking, carried on at whatever effort, was a sacrifice which he owed to his mortified vanity, or his self-respect.",0 He glanced from time to time at her sad and pensive face.,1 "'I am not so indifferent to her as she believes,' thought he to himself.",1 'I do not give up hope.',2 "Before a quarter of an hour was over, he had fallen into a way of conversing with quiet sarcasm; speaking of life in London and life in the country, as if he were conscious of his second mocking self, and afraid of his own satire.",0 Mr. Hale was puzzled.,2 "His visitor was a different man to what he had seen him before at the wedding-breakfast, and at dinner to-day; a lighter, cleverer, more worldly man, and, as such, dissonant to Mr. Hale.",3 It was a relief to all three when Mr. Lennox said that he must go directly if he meant to catch the five o'clock train.,3 "They proceeded to the house to find Mrs. Hale, and wish her good-bye.",3 "At the last moment, Henry Lennox's real self broke through the crust.",1 "'Margaret, don't despise me; I have a heart, notwithstanding all this good-for-nothing way of talking.",2 "As a proof of it, I believe I love you more than ever--if I do not hate you--for the disdain with which you have listened to me during this last half-hour.",1 "Good-bye, Margaret--Margaret!'",3 He was gone.,2 The house was shut up for the evening.,2 No more deep blue skies or crimson and amber tints.,2 "Margaret went up to dress for the early tea, finding Dixon in a pretty temper from the interruption which a visitor had naturally occasioned on a busy day.",1 "She showed it by brushing away viciously at Margaret's hair, under pretence of being in a great hurry to go to Mrs. Hale.",2 "Yet, after all, Margaret had to wait a long time in the drawing-room before her mother came down.",2 "She sat by herself at the fire, with unlighted candles on the table behind her, thinking over the day, the happy walk, happy sketching, cheerful pleasant dinner, and the uncomfortable, miserable walk in the garden.",3 How different men were to women!,2 "Here was she disturbed and unhappy, because her instinct had made anything but a refusal impossible; while he, not many minutes after he had met with a rejection of what ought to have been the deepest, holiest proposal of his life, could speak as if briefs, success, and all its superficial consequences of a good house, clever and agreeable society, were the sole avowed objects of his desires.",1 Oh dear!,2 "how she could have loved him if he had but been different, with a difference which she felt, on reflection, to be one that went low--deep down.",3 "Then she took it into her head that, after all, his lightness might be but assumed, to cover a bitterness of disappointment which would have been stamped on her own heart if she had loved and been rejected.",1 Her mother came into the room before this whirl of thoughts was adjusted into anything like order.,3 "Margaret had to shake off the recollections of what had been done and said through the day, and turn a sympathising listener to the account of how Dixon had complained that the ironing-blanket had been burnt again; and how Susan Lightfoot had been seen with artificial flowers in her bonnet, thereby giving evidence of a vain and giddy character.",0 Mr. Hale sipped his tea in abstracted silence; Margaret had the responses all to herself.,3 "She wondered how her father and mother could be so forgetful, so regardless of their companion through the day, as never to mention his name.",1 She forgot that he had not made them an offer.,2 "After tea Mr. Hale got up, and stood with his elbow on the chimney-piece, leaning his head on his hand, musing over something, and from time to time sighing deeply.",3 Mrs. Hale went out to consult with Dixon about some winter clothing for the poor.,2 "Margaret was preparing her mother's worsted work, and rather shrinking from the thought of the long evening, and wishing bed-time were come that she might go over the events of the day again.",3 'Margaret!',2 "said Mr. Hale, at last, in a sort of sudden desperate way, that made her start.",2 'Is that tapestry thing of immediate consequence?,2 "I mean, can you leave it and come into my study?",2 I want to speak to you about something very serious to us all.',2 'Very serious to us all.',2 "Mr. Lennox had never had the opportunity of having any private conversation with her father after her refusal, or else that would indeed be a very serious affair.",1 "In the first place, Margaret felt guilty and ashamed of having grown so much into a woman as to be thought of in marriage; and secondly, she did not know if her father might not be displeased that she had taken upon herself to decline Mr. Lennox's proposal.",0 "But she soon felt it was not about anything, which having only lately and suddenly occurred, could have given rise to any complicated thoughts, that her father wished to speak to her.",1 "He made her take a chair by him; he stirred the fire, snuffed the candles, and sighed once or twice before he could make up his mind to say--and it came out with a jerk after all--'Margaret!",1 I am going to leave Helstone.',2 "'Leave Helstone, papa!",2 But why?',2 Mr. Hale did not answer for a minute or two.,3 "He played with some papers on the table in a nervous and confused manner, opening his lips to speak several times, but closing them again without having the courage to utter a word.",1 "Margaret could not bear the sight of the suspense, which was even more distressing to her father than to herself.",1 "'But why, dear papa?",2 Do tell me!',2 "He looked up at her suddenly, and then said with a slow and enforced calmness: 'Because I must no longer be a minister in the Church of England.'",2 "Margaret had imagined nothing less than that some of the preferments which her mother so much desired had befallen her father at last--something that would force him to leave beautiful, beloved Helstone, and perhaps compel him to go and live in some of the stately and silent Closes which Margaret had seen from time to time in cathedral towns.",4 "They were grand and imposing places, but if, to go there, it was necessary to leave Helstone as a home for ever, that would have been a sad, long, lingering pain.",1 But nothing to the shock she received from Mr. Hale's last speech.,1 What could he mean?,2 It was all the worse for being so mysterious.,1 "The aspect of piteous distress on his face, almost as imploring a merciful and kind judgment from his child, gave her a sudden sickening.",1 Could he have become implicated in anything Frederick had done?,2 Frederick was an outlaw.,1 "Had her father, out of a natural love for his son, connived at any-- 'Oh!",3 what is it?,2 "do speak, papa!",2 tell me all!,2 Why can you no longer be a clergyman?,2 "Surely, if the bishop were told all we know about Frederick, and the hard, unjust--' 'It is nothing about Frederick; the bishop would have nothing to do with that.",1 It is all myself.,2 "Margaret, I will tell you about it.",2 "I will answer any questions this once, but after to-night let us never speak of it again.",2 "I can meet the consequences of my painful, miserable doubts; but it is an effort beyond me to speak of what has caused me so much suffering.'",0 "'Doubts, papa!",2 Doubts as to religion?',1 "asked Margaret, more shocked than ever.",1 'No!,2 not doubts as to religion; not the slightest injury to that.',1 He paused.,2 "Margaret sighed, as if standing on the verge of some new horror.",2 "He began again, speaking rapidly, as if to get over a set task: 'You could not understand it all, if I told you--my anxiety, for years past, to know whether I had any right to hold my living--my efforts to quench my smouldering doubts by the authority of the Church.",1 Oh!,2 "Margaret, how I love the holy Church from which I am to be shut out!'",3 He could not go on for a moment or two.,2 Margaret could not tell what to say; it seemed to her as terribly mysterious as if her father were about to turn Mahometan.,1 "'I have been reading to-day of the two thousand who were ejected from their churches,'--continued Mr. Hale, smiling faintly,--'trying to steal some of their bravery; but it is of no use--no use--I cannot help feeling it acutely.'",3 "'But, papa, have you well considered?",3 Oh!,2 "it seems so terrible, so shocking,' said Margaret, suddenly bursting into tears.",1 "The one staid foundation of her home, of her idea of her beloved father, seemed reeling and rocking.",2 What could she say?,2 What was to be done?,2 "The sight of her distress made Mr. Hale nerve himself, in order to try and comfort her.",3 "He swallowed down the dry choking sobs which had been heaving up from his heart hitherto, and going to his bookcase he took down a volume, which he had often been reading lately, and from which he thought he had derived strength to enter upon the course in which he was now embarked.",2 "'Listen, dear Margaret,' said he, putting one arm round her waist.",2 "She took his hand in hers and grasped it tight, but she could not lift up her head; nor indeed could she attend to what he read, so great was her internal agitation.",3 "'This is the soliloquy of one who was once a clergyman in a country parish, like me; it was written by a Mr. Oldfield, minister of Carsington, in Derbyshire, a hundred and sixty years ago, or more.",3 His trials are over.,2 He fought the good fight.',3 "These last two sentences he spoke low, as if to himself.",2 "Then he read aloud,-- 'When thou canst no longer continue in thy work without dishonour to God, discredit to religion, foregoing thy integrity, wounding conscience, spoiling thy peace, and hazarding the loss of thy salvation; in a word, when the conditions upon which thou must continue (if thou wilt continue) in thy employments are sinful, and unwarranted by the word of God, thou mayest, yea, thou must believe that God will turn thy very silence, suspension, deprivation, and laying aside, to His glory, and the advancement of the Gospel's interest.",1 "When God will not use thee in one kind, yet He will in another.",2 A soul that desires to serve and honour Him shall never want opportunity to do it; nor must thou so limit the Holy One of Israel as to think He hath but one way in which He can glorify Himself by thee.,3 He can do it by thy silence as well as by thy preaching; thy laying aside as well as thy continuance in thy work.,3 "It is not pretence of doing God the greatest service, or performing the weightiest duty, that will excuse the least sin, though that sin capacitated or gave us the opportunity for doing that duty.",1 "Thou wilt have little thanks, O my soul!",1 "if, when thou art charged with corrupting God's worship, falsifying thy vows, thou pretendest a necessity for it in order to a continuance in the ministry.",1 "As he read this, and glanced at much more which he did not read, he gained resolution for himself, and felt as if he too could be brave and firm in doing what he believed to be right; but as he ceased he heard Margaret's low convulsive sob; and his courage sank down under the keen sense of suffering.",4 "'Margaret, dear!'",2 "said he, drawing her closer, 'think of the early martyrs; think of the thousands who have suffered.'",1 "'But, father,' said she, suddenly lifting up her flushed, tear-wet face, 'the early martyrs suffered for the truth, while you--oh!",1 "dear, dear papa!'",2 "'I suffer for conscience' sake, my child,' said he, with a dignity that was only tremulous from the acute sensitiveness of his character; 'I must do what my conscience bids.",2 I have borne long with self-reproach that would have roused any mind less torpid and cowardly than mine.',1 He shook his head as he went on.,2 "'Your poor mother's fond wish, gratified at last in the mocking way in which over-fond wishes are too often fulfilled--Sodom apples as they are--has brought on this crisis, for which I ought to be, and I hope I am thankful.",2 "It is not a month since the bishop offered me another living; if I had accepted it, I should have had to make a fresh declaration of conformity to the Liturgy at my institution.",3 "Margaret, I tried to do it; I tried to content myself with simply refusing the additional preferment, and stopping quietly here,--strangling my conscience now, as I had strained it before.",1 God forgive me!',2 "He rose and walked up and down the room, speaking low words of self-reproach and humiliation, of which Margaret was thankful to hear but few.",1 "At last he said, 'Margaret, I return to the old sad burden we must leave Helstone.'",1 'Yes!,2 I see.,2 But when?',2 "'I have written to the bishop--I dare say I have told you so, but I forget things just now,' said Mr. Hale, collapsing into his depressed manner as soon as he came to talk of hard matter-of-fact details, 'informing him of my intention to resign this vicarage.",1 "He has been most kind; he has used arguments and expostulations, all in vain--in vain.",1 "They are but what I have tried upon myself, without avail.",2 "I shall have to take my deed of resignation, and wait upon the bishop myself, to bid him farewell.",1 "That will be a trial, but worse, far worse, will be the parting from my dear people.",1 There is a curate appointed to read prayers--a Mr. Brown.,2 He will come to stay with us to-morrow.,2 Next Sunday I preach my farewell sermon.',2 Was it to be so sudden then?,2 thought Margaret; and yet perhaps it was as well.,3 "Lingering would only add stings to the pain; it was better to be stunned into numbness by hearing of all these arrangements, which seemed to be nearly completed before she had been told.",3 'What does mamma say?',2 "asked she, with a deep sigh.",2 "To her surprise, her father began to walk about again before he answered.",2 "At length he stopped and replied: 'Margaret, I am a poor coward after all.",1 I cannot bear to give pain.,1 "I know so well your mother's married life has not been all she hoped--all she had a right to expect--and this will be such a blow to her, that I have never had the heart, the power to tell her.",3 "She must be told though, now,' said he, looking wistfully at his daughter.",2 "Margaret was almost overpowered with the idea that her mother knew nothing of it all, and yet the affair was so far advanced!",3 "'Yes, indeed she must,' said Margaret.",2 "'Perhaps, after all, she may not--Oh yes!",2 "she will, she must be shocked'--as the force of the blow returned upon herself in trying to realise how another would take it.",1 'Where are we to go to?',2 "said she at last, struck with a fresh wonder as to their future plans, if plans indeed her father had.",3 "'To Milton-Northern,' he answered, with a dull indifference, for he had perceived that, although his daughter's love had made her cling to him, and for a moment strive to soothe him with her love, yet the keenness of the pain was as fresh as ever in her mind.",3 'Milton-Northern!,2 The manufacturing town in Darkshire?',2 "'Yes,' said he, in the same despondent, indifferent way.",1 "'Why there, papa?'",2 asked she.,2 'Because there I can earn bread for my family.,2 "Because I know no one there, and no one knows Helstone, or can ever talk to me about it.'",2 'Bread for your family!,2 "I thought you and mamma had'--and then she stopped, checking her natural interest regarding their future life, as she saw the gathering gloom on her father's brow.",1 "But he, with his quick intuitive sympathy, read in her face, as in a mirror, the reflections of his own moody depression, and turned it off with an effort.",1 "'You shall be told all, Margaret.",2 Only help me to tell your mother.,2 I think I could do anything but that: the idea of her distress turns me sick with dread.,0 "If I tell you all, perhaps you could break it to her to-morrow.",1 "I am going out for the day, to bid Farmer Dobson and the poor people on Bracy Common good-bye.",2 "Would you dislike breaking it to her very much, Margaret?'",1 "Margaret did dislike it, did shrink from it more than from anything she had ever had to do in her life before.",1 "She could not speak, all at once.",2 "Her father said, 'You dislike it very much, don't you, Margaret?'",1 "Then she conquered herself, and said, with a bright strong look on her face: 'It is a painful thing, but it must be done, and I will do it as well as ever I can.",3 You must have many painful things to do.',1 Mr. Hale shook his head despondingly: he pressed her hand in token of gratitude.,3 Margaret was nearly upset again into a burst of crying.,1 "To turn her thoughts, she said: 'Now tell me, papa, what our plans are.",2 "You and mamma have some money, independent of the income from the living, have not you?",2 "Aunt Shaw has, I know.'",2 'Yes.,2 I suppose we have about a hundred and seventy pounds a year of our own.,2 "Seventy of that has always gone to Frederick, since he has been abroad.",2 "I don't know if he wants it all,' he continued in a hesitating manner.",2 'He must have some pay for serving with the Spanish army.',2 "'Frederick must not suffer,' said Margaret, decidedly; 'in a foreign country; so unjustly treated by his own.",1 A hundred is left.,2 "Could not you, and I, and mamma live on a hundred a year in some very cheap--very quiet part of England?",2 Oh!,2 I think we could.',2 'No!',2 said Mr. Hale.,3 'That would not answer.,2 I must do something.,2 "I must make myself busy, to keep off morbid thoughts.",1 "Besides, in a country parish I should be so painfully reminded of Helstone, and my duties here.",1 "I could not bear it, Margaret.",2 "And a hundred a year would go a very little way, after the necessary wants of housekeeping are met, towards providing your mother with all the comforts she has been accustomed to, and ought to have.",2 No: we must go to Milton.,2 That is settled.,2 "I can always decide better by myself, and not influenced by those whom I love,' said he, as a half apology for having arranged so much before he had told any one of his family of his intentions.",3 'I cannot stand objections.,1 They make me so undecided.',1 Margaret resolved to keep silence.,2 "After all, what did it signify where they went, compared to the one terrible change?",1 "Mr. Hale continued: 'A few months ago, when my misery of doubt became more than I could bear without speaking, I wrote to Mr. Bell--you remember Mr. Bell, Margaret?'",1 "'No; I never saw him, I think.",2 But I know who he is.,2 "Frederick's godfather--your old tutor at Oxford, don't you mean?'",2 'Yes.,2 He is a Fellow of Plymouth College there.,2 "He is a native of Milton-Northern, I believe.",2 "At any rate, he has property there, which has very much increased in value since Milton has become such a large manufacturing town.",2 "Well, I had reason to suspect--to imagine--I had better say nothing about it, however.",3 But I felt sure of sympathy from Mr. Bell.,2 I don't know that he gave me much strength.,2 He has lived an easy life in his college all his days.,3 But he has been as kind as can be.,2 And it is owing to him we are going to Milton.',2 'How?',2 said Margaret.,2 "'Why he has tenants, and houses, and mills there; so, though he dislikes the place--too bustling for one of his habits--he is obliged to keep up some sort of connection; and he tells me that he hears there is a good opening for a private tutor there.'",2 'A private tutor!',2 "said Margaret, looking scornful: 'What in the world do manufacturers want with the classics, or literature, or the accomplishments of a gentleman?'",2 "'Oh,' said her father, 'some of them really seem to be fine fellows, conscious of their own deficiencies, which is more than many a man at Oxford is.",2 "Some want resolutely to learn, though they have come to man's estate.",2 Some want their children to be better instructed than they themselves have been.,3 "At any rate, there is an opening, as I have said, for a private tutor.",2 "Mr. Bell has recommended me to a Mr. Thornton, a tenant of his, and a very intelligent man, as far as I can judge from his letters.",3 "And in Milton, Margaret, I shall find a busy life, if not a happy one, and people and scenes so different that I shall never be reminded of Helstone.'",3 "There was the secret motive, as Margaret knew from her own feelings.",2 It would be different.,2 "Discordant as it was--with almost a detestation for all she had ever heard of the North of England, the manufacturers, the people, the wild and bleak country--there was this one recommendation--it would be different from Helstone, and could never remind them of that beloved place.",1 'When do we go?',2 "asked Margaret, after a short silence.",2 'I do not know exactly.,2 I wanted to talk it over with you.,2 "You see, your mother knows nothing about it yet: but I think, in a fortnight;--after my deed of resignation is sent in, I shall have no right to remain.",2 Margaret was almost stunned.,3 'In a fortnight!',2 "'No--no, not exactly to a day.",2 "Nothing is fixed,' said her father, with anxious hesitation, as he noticed the filmy sorrow that came over her eyes, and the sudden change in her complexion.",1 But she recovered herself immediately.,2 "'Yes, papa, it had better be fixed soon and decidedly, as you say.",3 Only mamma to know nothing about it!,2 It is that that is the great perplexity.',2 'Poor Maria!',2 "replied Mr. Hale, tenderly.",3 "'Poor, poor Maria!",1 "Oh, if I were not married--if I were but myself in the world, how easy it would be!",3 "As it is--Margaret, I dare not tell her!'",2 "'No,' said Margaret, sadly, 'I will do it.",1 "Give me till to-morrow evening to choose my time Oh, papa,' cried she, with sudden passionate entreaty, 'say--tell me it is a night-mare--a horrid dream--not the real waking truth!",2 "You cannot mean that you are really going to leave the Church--to give up Helstone--to be for ever separate from me, from mamma--led away by some delusion--some temptation!",1 You do not really mean it!',2 Mr. Hale sat in rigid stillness while she spoke.,2 "Then he looked her in the face, and said in a slow, hoarse, measured way--'I do mean it, Margaret.",1 You must not deceive yourself into doubting the reality of my words--my fixed intention and resolve.',1 "He looked at her in the same steady, stony manner, for some moments after he had done speaking.",3 "She, too, gazed back with pleading eyes before she would believe that it was irrevocable.",2 "Then she arose and went, without another word or look, towards the door.",2 As her fingers were on the handle he called her back.,2 "He was standing by the fireplace, shrunk and stooping; but as she came near he drew himself up to his full height, and, placing his hands on her head, he said, solemnly: 'The blessing of God be upon thee, my child!'",3 "'And may He restore you to His Church,' responded she, out of the fulness of her heart.",2 "The next moment she feared lest this answer to his blessing might be irreverent, wrong--might hurt him as coming from his daughter, and she threw her arms round his neck.",1 He held her to him for a minute or two.,2 "She heard him murmur to himself, 'The martyrs and confessors had even more pain to bear--I will not shrink.'",1 They were startled by hearing Mrs. Hale inquiring for her daughter.,3 They started asunder in the full consciousness of all that was before them.,1 "Mr. Hale hurriedly said--'Go, Margaret, go.",3 I shall be out all to-morrow.,2 Before night you will have told your mother.',2 "'Yes,' she replied, and she returned to the drawing-room in a stunned and dizzy state.",2 Margaret made a good listener to all her mother's little plans for adding some small comforts to the lot of the poorer parishioners.,2 "She could not help listening, though each new project was a stab to her heart.",1 "By the time the frost had set in, they should be far away from Helstone.",1 "Old Simon's rheumatism might be bad and his eyesight worse; there would be no one to go and read to him, and comfort him with little porringers of broth and good red flannel: or if there was, it would be a stranger, and the old man would watch in vain for her.",1 Mary Domville's little crippled boy would crawl in vain to the door and look for her coming through the forest.,1 These poor friends would never understand why she had forsaken them; and there were many others besides.,1 'Papa has always spent the income he derived from his living in the parish.,2 "I am, perhaps, encroaching upon the next dues, but the winter is likely to be severe, and our poor old people must be helped.'",1 "'Oh, mamma, let us do all we can,' said Margaret eagerly, not seeing the prudential side of the question, only grasping at the idea that they were rendering such help for the last time; 'we may not be here long.'",3 "'Do you feel ill, my darling?'",3 "asked Mrs. Hale, anxiously, misunderstanding Margaret's hint of the uncertainty of their stay at Helstone.",1 'You look pale and tired.,1 "It is this soft, damp, unhealthy air.'",2 "'No--no, mamma, it is not that: it is delicious air.",3 "It smells of the freshest, purest fragrance, after the smokiness of Harley Street.",2 But I am tired: it surely must be near bedtime.',1 'Not far off--it is half-past nine.,2 You had better go to bed at once dear.,3 Ask Dixon for some gruel.,2 I will come and see you as soon as you are in bed.,2 "I am afraid you have taken cold; or the bad air from some of the stagnant ponds--' 'Oh, mamma,' said Margaret, faintly smiling as she kissed her mother, 'I am quite well--don't alarm yourself about me; I am only tired.'",0 Margaret went upstairs.,2 To soothe her mother's anxiety she submitted to a basin of gruel.,2 She was lying languidly in bed when Mrs. Hale came up to make some last inquiries and kiss her before going to her own room for the night.,2 "But the instant she heard her mother's door locked, she sprang out of bed, and throwing her dressing-gown on, she began to pace up and down the room, until the creaking of one of the boards reminded her that she must make no noise.",1 "She went and curled herself up on the window-seat in the small, deeply-recessed window.",2 "That morning when she had looked out, her heart had danced at seeing the bright clear lights on the church tower, which foretold a fine and sunny day.",4 "This evening--sixteen hours at most had past by--she sat down, too full of sorrow to cry, but with a dull cold pain, which seemed to have pressed the youth and buoyancy out of her heart, never to return.",0 "Mr. Henry Lennox's visit--his offer--was like a dream, a thing beside her actual life.",3 "The hard reality was, that her father had so admitted tempting doubts into his mind as to become a schismatic--an outcast; all the changes consequent upon this grouped themselves around that one great blighting fact.",1 "She looked out upon the dark-gray lines of the church tower, square and straight in the centre of the view, cutting against the deep blue transparent depths beyond, into which she gazed, and felt that she might gaze for ever, seeing at every moment some farther distance, and yet no sign of God!",2 "It seemed to her at the moment, as if the earth was more utterly desolate than if girt in by an iron dome, behind which there might be the ineffaceable peace and glory of the Almighty: those never-ending depths of space, in their still serenity, were more mocking to her than any material bounds could be--shutting in the cries of earth's sufferers, which now might ascend into that infinite splendour of vastness and be lost--lost for ever, before they reached His throne.",1 In this mood her father came in unheard.,2 The moonlight was strong enough to let him see his daughter in her unusual place and attitude.,3 He came to her and touched her shoulder before she was aware that he was there.,2 "'Margaret, I heard you were up.",2 I could not help coming in to ask you to pray with me--to say the Lord's Prayer; that will do good to both of us.',3 "Mr. Hale and Margaret knelt by the window-seat--he looking up, she bowed down in humble shame.",3 "God was there, close around them, hearing her father's whispered words.",2 "Her father might be a heretic; but had not she, in her despairing doubts not five minutes before, shown herself a far more utter sceptic?",0 "She spoke not a word, but stole to bed after her father had left her, like a child ashamed of its fault.",1 "If the world was full of perplexing problems she would trust, and only ask to see the one step needful for the hour.",1 "Mr. Lennox--his visit, his proposal--the remembrance of which had been so rudely pushed aside by the subsequent events of the day--haunted her dreams that night.",2 "He was climbing up some tree of fabulous height to reach the branch whereon was slung her bonnet: he was falling, and she was struggling to save him, but held back by some invisible powerful hand.",1 He was dead.,1 "And yet, with a shifting of the scene, she was once more in the Harley Street drawing-room, talking to him as of old, and still with a consciousness all the time that she had seen him killed by that terrible fall.",0 "Miserable, unresting night!",1 Ill preparation for the coming day!,2 "She awoke with a start, unrefreshed, and conscious of some reality worse even than her feverish dreams.",1 "It all came back upon her; not merely the sorrow, but the terrible discord in the sorrow.",0 "Where, to what distance apart, had her father wandered, led by doubts which were to her temptations of the Evil One?",1 "She longed to ask, and yet would not have heard for all the world.",2 The fine crisp morning made her mother feel particularly well and happy at breakfast-time.,4 "She talked on, planning village kindnesses, unheeding the silence of her husband and the monosyllabic answers of Margaret.",2 "Before the things were cleared away, Mr. Hale got up; he leaned one hand on the table, as if to support himself: 'I shall not be at home till evening.",4 "I am going to Bracy Common, and will ask Farmer Dobson to give me something for dinner.",2 I shall be back to tea at seven.',2 "He did not look at either of them, but Margaret knew what he meant.",2 By seven the announcement must be made to her mother.,2 "Mr. Hale would have delayed making it till half-past six, but Margaret was of different stuff.",2 She could not bear the impending weight on her mind all the day long: better get the worst over; the day would be too short to comfort her mother.,2 "But while she stood by the window, thinking how to begin, and waiting for the servant to have left the room, her mother had gone up-stairs to put on her things to go to the school.",2 "She came down ready equipped, in a brisker mood than usual.",3 "'Mother, come round the garden with me this morning; just one turn,' said Margaret, putting her arm round Mrs. Hale's waist.",2 They passed through the open window.,2 Mrs. Hale spoke--said something--Margaret could not tell what.,3 Her eye caught on a bee entering a deep-belled flower: when that bee flew forth with his spoil she would begin--that should be the sign.,1 Out he came.,2 'Mamma!,2 Papa is going to leave Helstone!',2 she blurted forth.,2 "'He's going to leave the Church, and live in Milton-Northern.'",2 There were the three hard facts hardly spoken.,1 'What makes you say so?',2 "asked Mrs. Hale, in a surprised incredulous voice.",2 'Who has been telling you such nonsense?',1 "'Papa himself,' said Margaret, longing to say something gentle and consoling, but literally not knowing how.",2 They were close to a garden-bench.,2 "Mrs. Hale sat down, and began to cry.",2 "'I don't understand you,' she said.",2 "'Either you have made some great mistake, or I don't quite understand you.'",2 "'No, mother, I have made no mistake.",1 "Papa has written to the bishop, saying that he has such doubts that he cannot conscientiously remain a priest of the Church of England, and that he must give up Helstone.",1 "He has also consulted Mr. Bell--Frederick's godfather, you know, mamma; and it is arranged that we go to live in Milton-Northern.'",2 "Mrs. Hale looked up in Margaret's face all the time she was speaking these words: the shadow on her countenance told that she, at least, believed in the truth of what she said.",3 "'I don't think it can be true,' said Mrs. Hale, at length.",3 'He would surely have told me before it came to this.',2 "It came strongly upon Margaret's mind that her mother ought to have been told: that whatever her faults of discontent and repining might have been, it was an error in her father to have left her to learn his change of opinion, and his approaching change of life, from her better-informed child.",1 "Margaret sat down by her mother, and took her unresisting head on her breast, bending her own soft cheeks down caressingly to touch her face.",3 "'Dear, darling mamma!",3 we were so afraid of giving you pain.,1 "Papa felt so acutely--you know you are not strong, and there must have been such terrible suspense to go through.'",2 "'When did he tell you, Margaret?'",2 "'Yesterday, only yesterday,' replied Margaret, detecting the jealousy which prompted the inquiry.",1 'Poor papa!',2 --trying to divert her mother's thoughts into compassionate sympathy for all her father had gone through.,3 Mrs. Hale raised her head.,3 'What does he mean by having doubts?',1 she asked.,2 "'Surely, he does not mean that he thinks differently--that he knows better than the Church.'",3 "Margaret shook her head, and the tears came into her eyes, as her mother touched the bare nerve of her own regret.",1 'Can't the bishop set him right?',3 "asked Mrs. Hale, half impatiently.",2 "'I'm afraid not,' said Margaret.",1 'But I did not ask.,2 I could not bear to hear what he might answer.,2 It is all settled at any rate.,2 He is going to leave Helstone in a fortnight.,2 I am not sure if he did not say he had sent in his deed of resignation.',1 'In a fortnight!',2 "exclaimed Mrs. Hale, 'I do think this is very strange--not at all right.",3 "I call it very unfeeling,' said she, beginning to take relief in tears.",2 "'He has doubts, you say, and gives up his living, and all without consulting me.",1 "I dare say, if he had told me his doubts at the first I could have nipped them in the bud.'",1 "Mistaken as Margaret felt her father's conduct to have been, she could not bear to hear it blamed by her mother.",1 "She knew that his very reserve had originated in a tenderness for her, which might be cowardly, but was not unfeeling.",0 "'I almost hoped you might have been glad to leave Helstone, mamma,' said she, after a pause.",3 "'You have never been well in this air, you know.'",3 "'You can't think the smoky air of a manufacturing town, all chimneys and dirt like Milton-Northern, would be better than this air, which is pure and sweet, if it is too soft and relaxing.",4 "Fancy living in the middle of factories, and factory people!",3 "Though, of course, if your father leaves the Church, we shall not be admitted into society anywhere.",2 It will be such a disgrace to us!,1 Poor dear Sir John!,1 It is well he is not alive to see what your father has come to!,3 "Every day after dinner, when I was a girl, living with your aunt Shaw, at Beresford Court, Sir John used to give for the first toast--""Church and King, and down with the Rump.""",2 ' Margaret was glad that her mother's thoughts were turned away from the fact of her husband's silence to her on the point which must have been so near his heart.,3 "Next to the serious vital anxiety as to the nature of her father's doubts, this was the one circumstance of the case that gave Margaret the most pain.",0 "'You know, we have very little society here, mamma.",2 "The Gormans, who are our nearest neighbours (to call society--and we hardly ever see them), have been in trade just as much as these Milton-Northern people.'",2 "'Yes,' said Mrs. Hale, almost indignantly, 'but, at any rate, the Gormans made carriages for half the gentry of the county, and were brought into some kind of intercourse with them; but these factory people, who on earth wears cotton that can afford linen?'",3 "'Well, mamma, I give up the cotton-spinners; I am not standing up for them, any more than for any other trades-people.",2 Only we shall have little enough to do with them.',3 'Why on earth has your father fixed on Milton-Northern to live in?',2 "'Partly,' said Margaret, sighing, 'because it is so very different from Helstone--partly because Mr. Bell says there is an opening there for a private tutor.'",2 'Private tutor in Milton!,2 "Why can't he go to Oxford, and be a tutor to gentlemen?'",2 "'You forget, mamma!",2 He is leaving the Church on account of his opinions--his doubts would do him no good at Oxford.',2 "Mrs. Hale was silent for some time, quietly crying.",3 At last she said:-- 'And the furniture--How in the world are we to manage the removal?,2 "I never removed in my life, and only a fortnight to think about it!'",2 "Margaret was inexpressibly relieved to find that her mother's anxiety and distress was lowered to this point, so insignificant to herself, and on which she could do so much to help.",0 "She planned and promised, and led her mother on to arrange fully as much as could be fixed before they knew somewhat more definitively what Mr. Hale intended to do.",4 "Throughout the day Margaret never left her mother; bending her whole soul to sympathise in all the various turns her feelings took; towards evening especially, as she became more and more anxious that her father should find a soothing welcome home awaiting him, after his return from his day of fatigue and distress.",1 "She dwelt upon what he must have borne in secret for long; her mother only replied coldly that he ought to have told her, and that then at any rate he would have had an adviser to give him counsel; and Margaret turned faint at heart when she heard her father's step in the hall.",1 "She dared not go to meet him, and tell him what she had done all day, for fear of her mother's jealous annoyance.",0 "She heard him linger, as if awaiting her, or some sign of her; and she dared not stir; she saw by her mother's twitching lips, and changing colour, that she too was aware that her husband had returned.",2 "Presently he opened the room-door, and stood there uncertain whether to come in.",1 "His face was gray and pale; he had a timid, fearful look in his eyes; something almost pitiful to see in a man's face; but that look of despondent uncertainty, of mental and bodily languor, touched his wife's heart.",0 "She went to him, and threw herself on his breast, crying out-- 'Oh!",2 "Richard, Richard, you should have told me sooner!'",2 "And then, in tears, Margaret left her, as she rushed up-stairs to throw herself on her bed, and hide her face in the pillows to stifle the hysteric sobs that would force their way at last, after the rigid self-control of the whole day.",0 How long she lay thus she could not tell.,2 "She heard no noise, though the housemaid came in to arrange the room.",1 "The affrighted girl stole out again on tip-toe, and went and told Mrs. Dixon that Miss Hale was crying as if her heart would break: she was sure she would make herself deadly ill if she went on at that rate.",0 "In consequence of this, Margaret felt herself touched, and started up into a sitting posture; she saw the accustomed room, the figure of Dixon in shadow, as the latter stood holding the candle a little behind her, for fear of the effect on Miss Hale's startled eyes, swollen and blinded as they were.",0 "'Oh, Dixon!",2 I did not hear you come into the room!',2 "said Margaret, resuming her trembling self-restraint.",2 'Is it very late?',2 "continued she, lifting herself languidly off the bed, yet letting her feet touch the ground without fairly standing down, as she shaded her wet ruffled hair off her face, and tried to look as though nothing were the matter; as if she had only been asleep.",3 "'I hardly can tell what time it is,' replied Dixon, in an aggrieved tone of voice.",1 "'Since your mamma told me this terrible news, when I dressed her for tea, I've lost all count of time.",1 I'm sure I don't know what is to become of us all.,2 "When Charlotte told me just now you were sobbing, Miss Hale, I thought, no wonder, poor thing!",2 "And master thinking of turning Dissenter at his time of life, when, if it is not to be said he's done well in the Church, he's not done badly after all.",2 "I had a cousin, miss, who turned Methodist preacher after he was fifty years of age, and a tailor all his life; but then he had never been able to make a pair of trousers to fit, for as long as he had been in the trade, so it was no wonder; but for master!",3 "as I said to missus, ""What would poor Sir John have said?",1 "he never liked your marrying Mr. Hale, but if he could have known it would have come to this, he would have sworn worse oaths than ever, if that was possible!""",3 "' Dixon had been so much accustomed to comment upon Mr. Hale's proceedings to her mistress (who listened to her, or not, as she was in the humour), that she never noticed Margaret's flashing eye and dilating nostril.",2 To hear her father talked of in this way by a servant to her face!,2 "'Dixon,' she said, in the low tone she always used when much excited, which had a sound in it as of some distant turmoil, or threatening storm breaking far away.",1 'Dixon!,2 you forget to whom you are speaking.',2 "She stood upright and firm on her feet now, confronting the waiting-maid, and fixing her with her steady discerning eye.",3 'I am Mr. Hale's daughter.,2 Go!,2 "You have made a strange mistake, and one that I am sure your own good feeling will make you sorry for when you think about it.'",1 Dixon hung irresolutely about the room for a minute or two.,1 "Margaret repeated, 'You may leave me, Dixon.",2 I wish you to go.',2 "Dixon did not know whether to resent these decided words or to cry; either course would have done with her mistress: but, as she said to herself, 'Miss Margaret has a touch of the old gentleman about her, as well as poor Master Frederick; I wonder where they get it from?'",1 "and she, who would have resented such words from any one less haughty and determined in manner, was subdued enough to say, in a half humble, half injured tone: 'Mayn't I unfasten your gown, miss, and do your hair?'",1 'No!,2 "not to-night, thank you.'",3 "And Margaret gravely lighted her out of the room, and bolted the door.",1 From henceforth Dixon obeyed and admired Margaret.,2 "She said it was because she was so like poor Master Frederick; but the truth was, that Dixon, as do many others, liked to feel herself ruled by a powerful and decided nature.",4 "Margaret needed all Dixon's help in action, and silence in words; for, for some time, the latter thought it her duty to show her sense of affront by saying as little as possible to her young lady; so the energy came out in doing rather than in speaking.",1 "A fortnight was a very short time to make arrangements for so serious a removal; as Dixon said, 'Any one but a gentleman--indeed almost any other gentleman--' but catching a look at Margaret's straight, stern brow just here, she coughed the remainder of the sentence away, and meekly took the horehound drop that Margaret offered her, to stop the 'little tickling at my chest, miss.'",1 "But almost any one but Mr. Hale would have had practical knowledge enough to see, that in so short a time it would be difficult to fix on any house in Milton-Northern, or indeed elsewhere, to which they could remove the furniture that had of necessity to be taken out of Helstone vicarage.",3 "Mrs. Hale, overpowered by all the troubles and necessities for immediate household decisions that seemed to come upon her at once, became really ill, and Margaret almost felt it as a relief when her mother fairly took to her bed, and left the management of affairs to her.",3 "Dixon, true to her post of body-guard, attended most faithfully to her mistress, and only emerged from Mrs. Hale's bed-room to shake her head, and murmur to herself in a manner which Margaret did not choose to hear.",1 "For, the one thing clear and straight before her, was the necessity for leaving Helstone.",3 "Mr. Hale's successor in the living was appointed; and, at any rate, after her father's decision; there must be no lingering now, for his sake, as well as from every other consideration.",3 "For he came home every evening more and more depressed, after the necessary leave-taking which he had resolved to have with every individual parishioner.",1 "Margaret, inexperienced as she was in all the necessary matter-of-fact business to be got through, did not know to whom to apply for advice.",1 "The cook and Charlotte worked away with willing arms and stout hearts at all the moving and packing; and as far as that went, Margaret's admirable sense enabled her to see what was best, and to direct how it should be done.",4 But where were they to go to?,2 In a week they must be gone.,2 "Straight to Milton, or where?",2 "So many arrangements depended on this decision that Margaret resolved to ask her father one evening, in spite of his evident fatigue and low spirits.",1 He answered: 'My dear!,2 I have really had too much to think about to settle this.,2 What does your mother say?,2 What does she wish?,2 Poor Maria!',1 He met with an echo even louder than his sigh.,1 "Dixon had just come into the room for another cup of tea for Mrs. Hale, and catching Mr. Hale's last words, and protected by his presence from Margaret's upbraiding eyes, made bold to say, 'My poor mistress!'",1 "'You don't think her worse to-day,' said Mr. Hale, turning hastily.",1 "'I'm sure I can't say, sir.",2 It's not for me to judge.,2 The illness seems so much more on the mind than on the body.',1 Mr. Hale looked infinitely distressed.,2 "'You had better take mamma her tea while it is hot, Dixon,' said Margaret, in a tone of quiet authority.",4 'Oh!,2 "I beg your pardon, miss!",1 My thoughts was otherwise occupied in thinking of my poor---- of Mrs. Hale.',2 'Papa!',2 "said Margaret, 'it is this suspense that is bad for you both.",1 "Of course, mamma must feel your change of opinions: we can't help that,' she continued, softly; 'but now the course is clear, at least to a certain point.",3 "And I think, papa, that I could get mamma to help me in planning, if you could tell me what to plan for.",2 "She has never expressed any wish in any way, and only thinks of what can't be helped.",3 Are we to go straight to Milton?,2 Have you taken a house there?',2 "'No,' he replied.",2 "'I suppose we must go into lodgings, and look about for a house.",2 "'And pack up the furniture so that it can be left at the railway station, till we have met with one?'",2 'I suppose so.,2 Do what you think best.,3 "Only remember, we shall have much less money to spend.'",2 "They had never had much superfluity, as Margaret knew.",2 She felt that it was a great weight suddenly thrown upon her shoulders.,3 "Four months ago, all the decisions she needed to make were what dress she would wear for dinner, and to help Edith to draw out the lists of who should take down whom in the dinner parties at home.",2 Nor was the household in which she lived one that called for much decision.,2 "Except in the one grand case of Captain Lennox's offer, everything went on with the regularity of clockwork.",3 "Once a year, there was a long discussion between her aunt and Edith as to whether they should go to the Isle of Wight, abroad, or to Scotland; but at such times Margaret herself was secure of drifting, without any exertion of her own, into the quiet harbour of home.",3 "Now, since that day when Mr. Lennox came, and startled her into a decision, every day brought some question, momentous to her, and to those whom she loved, to be settled.",3 Her father went up after tea to sit with his wife.,2 Margaret remained alone in the drawing-room.,2 "Suddenly she took a candle and went into her father's study for a great atlas, and lugging it back into the drawing-room, she began to pore over the map of England.",3 She was ready to look up brightly when her father came down stairs.,3 'I have hit upon such a beautiful plan.,3 "Look here--in Darkshire, hardly the breadth of my finger from Milton, is Heston, which I have often heard of from people living in the north as such a pleasant little bathing-place.",3 "Now, don't you think we could get mamma there with Dixon, while you and I go and look at houses, and get one all ready for her in Milton?",3 "She would get a breath of sea air to set her up for the winter, and be spared all the fatigue, and Dixon would enjoy taking care of her.'",2 'Is Dixon to go with us?',2 "asked Mr. Hale, in a kind of helpless dismay.",1 "'Oh, yes!'",2 said Margaret.,2 "'Dixon quite intends it, and I don't know what mamma would do without her.'",2 "'But we shall have to put up with a very different way of living, I am afraid.",1 Everything is so much dearer in a town.,2 I doubt if Dixon can make herself comfortable.,2 "To tell you the truth Margaret, I sometimes feel as if that woman gave herself airs.'",2 "'To be sure she does, papa,' replied Margaret; 'and if she has to put up with a different style of living, we shall have to put up with her airs, which will be worse.",1 "But she really loves us all, and would be miserable to leave us, I am sure--especially in this change; so, for mamma's sake, and for the sake of her faithfulness, I do think she must go.'",3 "'Very well, my dear.",3 Go on.,2 I am resigned.,1 How far is Heston from Milton?,2 The breadth of one of your fingers does not give me a very clear idea of distance.',3 "'Well, then, I suppose it is thirty miles; that is not much!'",2 "'Not in distance, but in--.",2 Never mind!,2 "If you really think it will do your mother good, let it be fixed so.'",3 This was a great step.,3 "Now Margaret could work, and act, and plan in good earnest.",4 "And now Mrs. Hale could rouse herself from her languor, and forget her real suffering in thinking of the pleasure and the delight of going to the sea-side.",3 "Her only regret was that Mr. Hale could not be with her all the fortnight she was to be there, as he had been for a whole fortnight once, when they were engaged, and she was staying with Sir John and Lady Beresford at Torquay.",2 "The last day came; the house was full of packing-cases, which were being carted off at the front door, to the nearest railway station.",2 Even the pretty lawn at the side of the house was made unsightly and untidy by the straw that had been wafted upon it through the open door and windows.,3 "The rooms had a strange echoing sound in them,--and the light came harshly and strongly in through the uncurtained windows,--seeming already unfamiliar and strange.",0 "Mrs. Hale's dressing-room was left untouched to the last; and there she and Dixon were packing up clothes, and interrupting each other every now and then to exclaim at, and turn over with fond regard, some forgotten treasure, in the shape of some relic of the children while they were yet little.",3 They did not make much progress with their work.,3 "Down-stairs, Margaret stood calm and collected, ready to counsel or advise the men who had been called in to help the cook and Charlotte.",3 "These two last, crying between whiles, wondered how the young lady could keep up so this last day, and settled it between them that she was not likely to care much for Helstone, having been so long in London.",2 "There she stood, very pale and quiet, with her large grave eyes observing everything,--up to every present circumstance, however small.",2 "They could not understand how her heart was aching all the time, with a heavy pressure that no sighs could lift off or relieve, and how constant exertion for her perceptive faculties was the only way to keep herself from crying out with pain.",1 "Moreover, if she gave way, who was to act?",2 "Her father was examining papers, books, registers, what not, in the vestry with the clerk; and when he came in, there were his own books to pack up, which no one but himself could do to his satisfaction.",2 "Besides, was Margaret one to give way before strange men, or even household friends like the cook and Charlotte!",2 Not she.,2 "But at last the four packers went into the kitchen to their tea; and Margaret moved stiffly and slowly away from the place in the hall where she had been standing so long, out through the bare echoing drawing-room, into the twilight of an early November evening.",1 "There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing,--perhaps, Margaret thought, the very robin that her father had so often talked of as his winter pet, and for which he had made, with his own hands, a kind of robin-house by his study-window.",1 The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low on the ground.,2 "Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.",3 Margaret went along the walk under the pear-tree wall.,2 She had never been along it since she paced it at Henry Lennox's side.,2 "Here, at this bed of thyme, he began to speak of what she must not think of now.",2 Her eyes were on that late-blowing rose as she was trying to answer; and she had caught the idea of the vivid beauty of the feathery leaves of the carrots in the very middle of his last sentence.,3 Only a fortnight ago!,2 And all so changed!,2 Where was he now?,2 "In London,--going through the old round; dining with the old Harley Street set, or with gayer young friends of his own.",2 "Even now, while she walked sadly through that damp and drear garden in the dusk, with everything falling and fading, and turning to decay around her, he might be gladly putting away his law-books after a day of satisfactory toil, and freshening himself up, as he had told her he often did, by a run in the Temple Gardens, taking in the while the grand inarticulate mighty roar of tens of thousands of busy men, nigh at hand, but not seen, and catching ever, at his quick turns, glimpses of the lights of the city coming up out of the depths of the river.",1 "He had often spoken to Margaret of these hasty walks, snatched in the intervals between study and dinner.",1 At his best times and in his best moods had he spoken of them; and the thought of them had struck upon her fancy.,3 Here there was no sound.,2 The robin had gone away into the vast stillness of night.,2 "Now and then, a cottage door in the distance was opened and shut, as if to admit the tired labourer to his home; but that sounded very far away.",1 "A stealthy, creeping, cranching sound among the crisp fallen leaves of the forest, beyond the garden, seemed almost close at hand.",1 Margaret knew it was some poacher.,2 "Sitting up in her bed-room this past autumn, with the light of her candle extinguished, and purely revelling in the solemn beauty of the heavens and the earth, she had many a time seen the light noiseless leap of the poachers over the garden-fence, their quick tramp across the dewy moonlit lawn, their disappearance in the black still shadow beyond.",2 The wild adventurous freedom of their life had taken her fancy; she felt inclined to wish them success; she had no fear of them.,3 "But to-night she was afraid, she knew not why.",1 "She heard Charlotte shutting the windows, and fastening up for the night, unconscious that any one had gone out into the garden.",2 "A small branch--it might be of rotten wood, or it might be broken by force--came heavily down in the nearest part of the forest, Margaret ran, swift as Camilla, down to the window, and rapped at it with a hurried tremulousness which startled Charlotte within.",1 'Let me in!,2 Let me in!,2 "It is only me, Charlotte!'",2 "Her heart did not still its fluttering till she was safe in the drawing-room, with the windows fastened and bolted, and the familiar walls hemming her round, and shutting her in.",3 "She had sate down upon a packing case; cheerless, Chill was the dreary and dismantled room--no fire nor other light, but Charlotte's long unsnuffed candle.",0 "Charlotte looked at Margaret with surprise; and Margaret, feeling it rather than seeing it, rose up.",2 "'I was afraid you were shutting me out altogether, Charlotte,' said she, half-smiling.",2 "'And then you would never have heard me in the kitchen, and the doors into the lane and churchyard are locked long ago.'",2 "'Oh, miss, I should have been sure to have missed you soon.",1 The men would have wanted you to tell them how to go on.,2 "And I have put tea in master's study, as being the most comfortable room, so to speak.'",3 "'Thank you, Charlotte.",2 You are a kind girl.,2 I shall be sorry to leave you.,1 "You must try and write to me, if I can ever give you any little help or good advice.",3 "I shall always be glad to get a letter from Helstone, you know.",3 I shall be sure and send you my address when I know it.',2 The study was all ready for tea.,3 "There was a good blazing fire, and unlighted candles on the table.",3 "Margaret sat down on the rug, partly to warm herself, for the dampness of the evening hung about her dress, and over-fatigue had made her chilly.",1 "She kept herself balanced by clasping her hands together round her knees; her head dropped a little towards her chest; the attitude was one of despondency, whatever her frame of mind might be.",2 "But when she heard her father's step on the gravel outside, she started up, and hastily shaking her heavy black hair back, and wiping a few tears away that had come on her cheeks she knew not how, she went out to open the door for him.",1 He showed far more depression than she did.,1 "She could hardly get him to talk, although she tried to speak on subjects that would interest him, at the cost of an effort every time which she thought would be her last.",2 'Have you been a very long walk to-day?',2 "asked she, on seeing his refusal to touch food of any kind.",1 'As far as Fordham Beeches.,2 I went to see Widow Maltby; she is sadly grieved at not having wished you good-bye.,2 "She says little Susan has kept watch down the lane for days past.--Nay, Margaret, what is the matter, dear?'",2 "The thought of the little child watching for her, and continually disappointed--from no forgetfulness on her part, but from sheer inability to leave home--was the last drop in poor Margaret's cup, and she was sobbing away as if her heart would break.",0 Mr. Hale was distressingly perplexed.,1 "He rose, and walked nervously up and down the room.",1 "Margaret tried to check herself, but would not speak until she could do so with firmness.",2 "She heard him talking, as if to himself.",2 'I cannot bear it.,2 I cannot bear to see the sufferings of others.,2 I think I could go through my own with patience.,3 "Oh, is there no going back?'",2 "'No, father,' said Margaret, looking straight at him, and speaking low and steadily.",2 'It is bad to believe you in error.,1 It would be infinitely worse to have known you a hypocrite.',1 "She dropped her voice at the last few words, as if entertaining the idea of hypocrisy for a moment in connection with her father savoured of irreverence.",2 "'Besides,' she went on, 'it is only that I am tired to-night; don't think that I am suffering from what you have done, dear papa.",1 "We can't either of us talk about it to-night, I believe,' said she, finding that tears and sobs would come in spite of herself.",1 'I had better go and take mamma up this cup of tea.,3 "She had hers very early, when I was too busy to go to her, and I am sure she will be glad of another now.'",3 "Railroad time inexorably wrenched them away from lovely, beloved Helstone, the next morning.",3 "They were gone; they had seen the last of the long low parsonage home, half-covered with China-roses and pyracanthus--more homelike than ever in the morning sun that glittered on its windows, each belonging to some well-loved room.",3 "Almost before they had settled themselves into the car, sent from Southampton to fetch them to the station, they were gone away to return no more.",2 "A sting at Margaret's heart made her strive to look out to catch the last glimpse of the old church tower at the turn where she knew it might be seen above a wave of the forest trees; but her father remembered this too, and she silently acknowledged his greater right to the one window from which it could be seen.",2 "She leant back and shut her eyes, and the tears welled forth, and hung glittering for an instant on the shadowing eye-lashes before rolling slowly down her cheeks, and dropping, unheeded, on her dress.",1 They were to stop in London all night at some quiet hotel.,3 "Poor Mrs. Hale had cried in her way nearly all day long; and Dixon showed her sorrow by extreme crossness, and a continual irritable attempt to keep her petticoats from even touching the unconscious Mr. Hale, whom she regarded as the origin of all this suffering.",0 "They went through the well-known streets, past houses which they had often visited, past shops in which she had lounged, impatient, by her aunt's side, while that lady was making some important and interminable decision-nay, absolutely past acquaintances in the streets; for though the morning had been of an incalculable length to them, and they felt as if it ought long ago to have closed in for the repose of darkness, it was the very busiest time of a London afternoon in November when they arrived there.",2 "It was long since Mrs. Hale had been in London; and she roused up, almost like a child, to look about her at the different streets, and to gaze after and exclaim at the shops and carriages.",3 "'Oh, there's Harrison's, where I bought so many of my wedding-things.",2 Dear!,2 how altered!,2 "They've got immense plate-glass windows, larger than Crawford's in Southampton.",3 "Oh, and there, I declare--no, it is not--yes, it is--Margaret, we have just passed Mr. Henry Lennox.",2 "Where can he be going, among all these shops?'",2 "Margaret started forwards, and as quickly fell back, half-smiling at herself for the sudden motion.",2 "They were a hundred yards away by this time; but he seemed like a relic of Helstone--he was associated with a bright morning, an eventful day, and she should have liked to have seen him, without his seeing her,--without the chance of their speaking.",4 "The evening, without employment, passed in a room high up in an hotel, was long and heavy.",2 "Mr. Hale went out to his bookseller's, and to call on a friend or two.",3 "Every one they saw, either in the house or out in the streets, appeared hurrying to some appointment, expected by, or expecting somebody.",2 "They alone seemed strange and friendless, and desolate.",1 "Yet within a mile, Margaret knew of house after house, where she for her own sake, and her mother for her aunt Shaw's, would be welcomed, if they came in gladness, or even in peace of mind.",3 "If they came sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in a complicated trouble like the present, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these houses of intimate acquaintances, not friends.",2 "London life is too whirling and full to admit of even an hour of that deep silence of feeling which the friends of Job showed, when 'they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him; for they saw that his grief was very great.'",2 "The next afternoon, about twenty miles from Milton-Northern, they entered on the little branch railway that led to Heston.",3 "Heston itself was one long straggling street, running parallel to the seashore.",2 "It had a character of its own, as different from the little bathing-places in the south of England as they again from those of the continent.",2 "To use a Scotch word, every thing looked more 'purposelike.'",2 "The country carts had more iron, and less wood and leather about the horse-gear; the people in the streets, although on pleasure bent, had yet a busy mind.",2 "The colours looked grayer--more enduring, not so gay and pretty.",3 "There were no smock-frocks, even among the country folk; they retarded motion, and were apt to catch on machinery, and so the habit of wearing them had died out.",1 "In such towns in the south of England, Margaret had seen the shopmen, when not employed in their business, lounging a little at their doors, enjoying the fresh air, and the look up and down the street.",3 "Here, if they had any leisure from customers, they made themselves business in the shop--even, Margaret fancied, to the unnecessary unrolling and rerolling of ribbons.",1 "All these differences struck upon her mind, as she and her mother went out next morning to look for lodgings.",1 "Their two nights at hotels had cost more than Mr. Hale had anticipated, and they were glad to take the first clean, cheerful rooms they met with that were at liberty to receive them.",4 "There, for the first time for many days, did Margaret feel at rest.",2 "There was a dreaminess in the rest, too, which made it still more perfect and luxurious to repose in.",3 "The distant sea, lapping the sandy shore with measured sound; the nearer cries of the donkey-boys; the unusual scenes moving before her like pictures, which she cared not in her laziness to have fully explained before they passed away; the stroll down to the beach to breathe the sea-air, soft and warm on that sandy shore even to the end of November; the great long misty sea-line touching the tender-coloured sky; the white sail of a distant boat turning silver in some pale sunbeam:--it seemed as if she could dream her life away in such luxury of pensiveness, in which she made her present all in all, from not daring to think of the past, or wishing to contemplate the future.",4 "But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be.",1 "One evening it was arranged that Margaret and her father should go the next day to Milton-Northern, and look out for a house.",2 "Mr. Hale had received several letters from Mr. Bell, and one or two from Mr. Thornton, and he was anxious to ascertain at once a good many particulars respecting his position and chances of success there, which he could only do by an interview with the latter gentleman.",3 "Margaret knew that they ought to be removing; but she had a repugnance to the idea of a manufacturing town, and believed that her mother was receiving benefit from Heston air, so she would willingly have deferred the expedition to Milton.",3 "For several miles before they reached Milton, they saw a deep lead-coloured cloud hanging over the horizon in the direction in which it lay.",2 It was all the darker from contrast with the pale gray-blue of the wintry sky; for in Heston there had been the earliest signs of frost.,0 "Nearer to the town, the air had a faint taste and smell of smoke; perhaps, after all, more a loss of the fragrance of grass and herbage than any positive taste or smell.",0 "Quick they were whirled over long, straight, hopeless streets of regularly-built houses, all small and of brick.",1 "Here and there a great oblong many-windowed factory stood up, like a hen among her chickens, puffing out black 'unparliamentary' smoke, and sufficiently accounting for the cloud which Margaret had taken to foretell rain.",3 "As they drove through the larger and wider streets, from the station to the hotel, they had to stop constantly; great loaded lorries blocked up the not over-wide thoroughfares.",3 Margaret had now and then been into the city in her drives with her aunt.,2 "But there the heavy lumbering vehicles seemed various in their purposes and intent; here every van, every waggon and truck, bore cotton, either in the raw shape in bags, or the woven shape in bales of calico.",1 "People thronged the footpaths, most of them well-dressed as regarded the material, but with a slovenly looseness which struck Margaret as different from the shabby, threadbare smartness of a similar class in London.",1 "'New Street,' said Mr. Hale.",3 "'This, I believe, is the principal street in Milton.",2 Bell has often spoken to me about it.,2 "It was the opening of this street from a lane into a great thoroughfare, thirty years ago, which has caused his property to rise so much in value.",3 "Mr. Thornton's mill must be somewhere not very far off, for he is Mr. Bell's tenant.",2 But I fancy he dates from his warehouse.',3 "'Where is our hotel, papa?'",2 "'Close to the end of this street, I believe.",2 Shall we have lunch before or after we have looked at the houses we marked in the Milton Times?',2 "'Oh, let us get our work done first.'",3 'Very well.,3 "Then I will only see if there is any note or letter for me from Mr. Thornton, who said he would let me know anything he might hear about these houses, and then we will set off.",2 "We will keep the cab; it will be safer than losing ourselves, and being too late for the train this afternoon.'",1 There were no letters awaiting him.,2 They set out on their house-hunting.,2 "Thirty pounds a-year was all they could afford to give, but in Hampshire they could have met with a roomy house and pleasant garden for the money.",4 "Here, even the necessary accommodation of two sitting-rooms and four bed-rooms seemed unattainable.",2 "They went through their list, rejecting each as they visited it.",1 Then they looked at each other in dismay.,1 "'We must go back to the second, I think.",2 "That one,--in Crampton, don't they call the suburb?",2 There were three sitting-rooms; don't you remember how we laughed at the number compared with the three bed-rooms?,2 But I have planned it all.,2 "The front room down-stairs is to be your study and our dining-room (poor papa!), for, you know, we settled mamma is to have as cheerful a sitting-room as we can get; and that front room up-stairs, with the atrocious blue and pink paper and heavy cornice, had really a pretty view over the plain, with a great bend of river, or canal, or whatever it is, down below.",3 "Then I could have the little bed-room behind, in that projection at the head of the first flight of stairs--over the kitchen, you know--and you and mamma the room behind the drawing-room, and that closet in the roof will make you a splendid dressing-room.'",3 "'But Dixon, and the girl we are to have to help?'",2 "'Oh, wait a minute.",2 I am overpowered by the discovery of my own genius for management.,3 "Dixon is to have--let me see, I had it once--the back sitting-room.",2 I think she will like that.,3 She grumbles so much about the stairs at Heston; and the girl is to have that sloping attic over your room and mamma's.,2 Won't that do?',2 'I dare say it will.,2 But the papers.,2 What taste!,2 And the overloading such a house with colour and such heavy cornices!',2 "'Never mind, papa!",2 "Surely, you can charm the landlord into re-papering one or two of the rooms--the drawing-room and your bed-room--for mamma will come most in contact with them; and your book-shelves will hide a great deal of that gaudy pattern in the dining-room.'",3 'Then you think it the best?,3 "If so, I had better go at once and call on this Mr. Donkin, to whom the advertisement refers me.",3 "I will take you back to the hotel, where you can order lunch, and rest, and by the time it is ready, I shall be with you.",3 I hope I shall be able to get new papers.',2 "Margaret hoped so too, though she said nothing.",2 "She had never come fairly in contact with the taste that loves ornament, however bad, more than the plainness and simplicity which are of themselves the framework of elegance.",3 "Her father took her through the entrance of the hotel, and leaving her at the foot of the staircase, went to the address of the landlord of the house they had fixed upon.",2 "Just as Margaret had her hand on the door of their sitting-room, she was followed by a quick-stepping waiter: 'I beg your pardon, ma'am.",2 "The gentleman was gone so quickly, I had no time to tell him.",2 "Mr. Thornton called almost directly after you left; and, as I understood from what the gentleman said, you would be back in an hour, I told him so, and he came again about five minutes ago, and said he would wait for Mr. Hale.",3 "He is in your room now, ma'am.'",2 'Thank you.,2 "My father will return soon, and then you can tell him.'",2 "Margaret opened the door and went in with the straight, fearless, dignified presence habitual to her.",3 She felt no awkwardness; she had too much the habits of society for that.,1 "Here was a person come on business to her father; and, as he was one who had shown himself obliging, she was disposed to treat him with a full measure of civility.",3 Mr. Thornton was a good deal more surprised and discomfited than she.,3 "Instead of a quiet, middle-aged clergyman, a young lady came forward with frank dignity,--a young lady of a different type to most of those he was in the habit of seeing.",3 "Her dress was very plain: a close straw bonnet of the best material and shape, trimmed with white ribbon; a dark silk gown, without any trimming or flounce; a large Indian shawl, which hung about her in long heavy folds, and which she wore as an empress wears her drapery.",1 "He did not understand who she was, as he caught the simple, straight, unabashed look, which showed that his being there was of no concern to the beautiful countenance, and called up no flush of surprise to the pale ivory of the complexion.",2 "He had heard that Mr. Hale had a daughter, but he had imagined that she was a little girl.",3 "'Mr. Thornton, I believe!'",2 "said Margaret, after a half-instant's pause, during which his unready words would not come.",2 'Will you sit down.,2 "My father brought me to the door, not a minute ago, but unfortunately he was not told that you were here, and he has gone away on some business.",1 But he will come back almost directly.,2 I am sorry you have had the trouble of calling twice.',1 "Mr. Thornton was in habits of authority himself, but she seemed to assume some kind of rule over him at once.",2 "He had been getting impatient at the loss of his time on a market-day, the moment before she appeared, yet now he calmly took a seat at her bidding.",1 'Do you know where it is that Mr. Hale has gone to?,3 Perhaps I might be able to find him.',2 'He has gone to a Mr. Donkin's in Canute Street.,2 He is the land-lord of the house my father wishes to take in Crampton.',2 Mr. Thornton knew the house.,2 "He had seen the advertisement, and been to look at it, in compliance with a request of Mr. Bell's that he would assist Mr. Hale to the best of his power: and also instigated by his own interest in the case of a clergyman who had given up his living under circumstances such as those of Mr. Hale.",3 "Mr. Thornton had thought that the house in Crampton was really just the thing; but now that he saw Margaret, with her superb ways of moving and looking, he began to feel ashamed of having imagined that it would do very well for the Hales, in spite of a certain vulgarity in it which had struck him at the time of his looking it over.",1 "Margaret could not help her looks; but the short curled upper lip, the round, massive up-turned chin, the manner of carrying her head, her movements, full of a soft feminine defiance, always gave strangers the impression of haughtiness.",2 "She was tired now, and would rather have remained silent, and taken the rest her father had planned for her; but, of course, she owed it to herself to be a gentlewoman, and to speak courteously from time to time to this stranger; not over-brushed, nor over-polished, it must be confessed, after his rough encounter with Milton streets and crowds.",1 "She wished that he would go, as he had once spoken of doing, instead of sitting there, answering with curt sentences all the remarks she made.",1 "She had taken off her shawl, and hung it over the back of her chair.",1 "She sat facing him and facing the light; her full beauty met his eye; her round white flexile throat rising out of the full, yet lithe figure; her lips, moving so slightly as she spoke, not breaking the cold serene look of her face with any variation from the one lovely haughty curve; her eyes, with their soft gloom, meeting his with quiet maiden freedom.",3 "He almost said to himself that he did not like her, before their conversation ended; he tried so to compensate himself for the mortified feeling, that while he looked upon her with an admiration he could not repress, she looked at him with proud indifference, taking him, he thought, for what, in his irritation, he told himself he was--a great rough fellow, with not a grace or a refinement about him.",3 "Her quiet coldness of demeanour he interpreted into contemptuousness, and resented it in his heart to the pitch of almost inclining him to get up and go away, and have nothing more to do with these Hales, and their superciliousness.",3 "Just as Margaret had exhausted her last subject of conversation--and yet conversation that could hardly be called which consisted of so few and such short speeches--her father came in, and with his pleasant gentlemanly courteousness of apology, reinstated his name and family in Mr. Thornton's good opinion.",3 "Mr. Hale and his visitor had a good deal to say respecting their mutual friend, Mr. Bell; and Margaret, glad that her part of entertaining the visitor was over, went to the window to try and make herself more familiar with the strange aspect of the street.",4 "She got so much absorbed in watching what was going on outside that she hardly heard her father when he spoke to her, and he had to repeat what he said: 'Margaret!",2 "the landlord will persist in admiring that hideous paper, and I am afraid we must let it remain.'",1 'Oh dear!,2 I am sorry!',1 "she replied, and began to turn over in her mind the possibility of hiding part of it, at least, by some of her sketches, but gave up the idea at last, as likely only to make bad worse.",1 "Her father, meanwhile, with his kindly country hospitality, was pressing Mr. Thornton to stay to luncheon with them.",3 "It would have been very inconvenient to him to do so, yet he felt that he should have yielded, if Margaret by word or look had seconded her father's invitation; he was glad she did not, and yet he was irritated at her for not doing it.",2 "She gave him a low, grave bow when he left, and he felt more awkward and self-conscious in every limb than he had ever done in all his life before.",1 "'Well, Margaret, now to luncheon, as fast we can.",3 Have you ordered it?',2 "'No, papa; that man was here when I came home, and I have never had an opportunity.'",2 'Then we must take anything we can get.,2 "He must have been waiting a long time, I'm afraid.'",1 'It seemed exceedingly long to me.,3 I was just at the last gasp when you came in.,1 "He never went on with any subject, but gave little, short, abrupt answers.'",1 "'Very much to the point though, I should think.",2 He is a clearheaded fellow.,2 "He said (did you hear?) that Crampton is on gravelly soil, and by far the most healthy suburb in the neighbourhood of Milton.'",3 "When they returned to Heston, there was the day's account to be given to Mrs. Hale, who was full of questions which they answered in the intervals of tea-drinking.",3 "'And what is your correspondent, Mr. Thornton, like?'",3 "'Ask Margaret,' said her husband.",2 "'She and he had a long attempt at conversation, while I was away speaking to the landlord.'",2 'Oh!,2 "I hardly know what he is like,' said Margaret, lazily; too tired to tax her powers of description much.",2 "And then rousing herself, she said, 'He is a tall, broad-shouldered man, about--how old, papa?'",2 'I should guess about thirty.',2 "'About thirty--with a face that is neither exactly plain, nor yet handsome, nothing remarkable--not quite a gentleman; but that was hardly to be expected.'",3 "'Not vulgar, or common though,' put in her father, rather jealous of any disparagement of the sole friend he had in Milton.",1 'Oh no!',2 said Margaret.,2 "'With such an expression of resolution and power, no face, however plain in feature, could be either vulgar or common.",1 I should not like to have to bargain with him; he looks very inflexible.,3 "Altogether a man who seems made for his niche, mamma; sagacious, and strong, as becomes a great tradesman.'",3 "'Don't call the Milton manufacturers tradesmen, Margaret,' said her father.",2 'They are very different.',2 'Are they?,2 "I apply the word to all who have something tangible to sell; but if you think the term is not correct, papa, I won't use it.",3 "But, oh mamma!",2 "speaking of vulgarity and commonness, you must prepare yourself for our drawing-room paper.",2 "Pink and blue roses, with yellow leaves!",2 And such a heavy cornice round the room!',2 "But when they removed to their new house in Milton, the obnoxious papers were gone.",1 "The landlord received their thanks very composedly; and let them think, if they liked, that he had relented from his expressed determination not to repaper.",3 "There was no particular need to tell them, that what he did not care to do for a Reverend Mr. Hale, unknown in Milton, he was only too glad to do at the one short sharp remonstrance of Mr. Thornton, the wealthy manufacturer.",4 It needed the pretty light papering of the rooms to reconcile them to Milton.,3 It needed more--more that could not be had.,2 "The thick yellow November fogs had come on; and the view of the plain in the valley, made by the sweeping bend of the river, was all shut out when Mrs. Hale arrived at her new home.",3 "Margaret and Dixon had been at work for two days, unpacking and arranging, but everything inside the house still looked in disorder; and outside a thick fog crept up to the very windows, and was driven in to every open door in choking white wreaths of unwholesome mist.",1 "'Oh, Margaret!",2 are we to live here?',2 asked Mrs. Hale in blank dismay.,2 Margaret's heart echoed the dreariness of the tone in which this question was put.,2 "She could scarcely command herself enough to say, 'Oh, the fogs in London are sometimes far worse!'",1 "'But then you knew that London itself, and friends lay behind it.",2 Here--well!,3 we are desolate.,1 "Oh Dixon, what a place this is!'",2 "'Indeed, ma'am, I'm sure it will be your death before long, and then I know who'll--stay!",1 "Miss Hale, that's far too heavy for you to lift.'",2 "'Not at all, thank you, Dixon,' replied Margaret, coldly.",2 "'The best thing we can do for mamma is to get her room quite ready for her to go to bed, while I go and bring her a cup of coffee.'",3 "Mr. Hale was equally out of spirits, and equally came upon Margaret for sympathy.",3 "'Margaret, I do believe this is an unhealthy place.",1 Only suppose that your mother's health or yours should suffer.,1 "I wish I had gone into some country place in Wales; this is really terrible,' said he, going up to the window.",1 There was no comfort to be given.,3 "They were settled in Milton, and must endure smoke and fogs for a season; indeed, all other life seemed shut out from them by as thick a fog of circumstance.",1 "Only the day before, Mr. Hale had been reckoning up with dismay how much their removal and fortnight at Heston had cost, and he found it had absorbed nearly all his little stock of ready money.",3 No!,2 "here they were, and here they must remain.",2 "At night when Margaret realised this, she felt inclined to sit down in a stupor of despair.",1 "The heavy smoky air hung about her bedroom, which occupied the long narrow projection at the back of the house.",1 "The window, placed at the side of the oblong, looked to the blank wall of a similar projection, not above ten feet distant.",2 It loomed through the fog like a great barrier to hope.,3 Inside the room everything was in confusion.,1 All their efforts had been directed to make her mother's room comfortable.,3 "Margaret sat down on a box, the direction card upon which struck her as having been written at Helstone--beautiful, beloved Helstone!",3 She lost herself in dismal thought: but at last she determined to take her mind away from the present; and suddenly remembered that she had a letter from Edith which she had only half read in the bustle of the morning.,1 "It was to tell of their arrival at Corfu; their voyage along the Mediterranean--their music, and dancing on board ship; the gay new life opening upon her; her house with its trellised balcony, and its views over white cliffs and deep blue sea.",2 "Edith wrote fluently and well, if not graphically.",3 "She could not only seize the salient and characteristic points of a scene, but she could enumerate enough of indiscriminate particulars for Margaret to make it out for herself.",2 "Captain Lennox and another lately married officer shared a villa, high up on the beautiful precipitous rocks overhanging the sea.",2 "Their days, late as it was in the year, seemed spent in boating or land pic-nics; all out-of-doors, pleasure-seeking and glad, Edith's life seemed like the deep vault of blue sky above her, free--utterly free from fleck or cloud.",3 "Her husband had to attend drill, and she, the most musical officer's wife there, had to copy the new and popular tunes out of the most recent English music, for the benefit of the bandmaster; those seemed their most severe and arduous duties.",2 "She expressed an affectionate hope that, if the regiment stopped another year at Corfu, Margaret might come out and pay her a long visit.",3 "She asked Margaret if she remembered the day twelve-month on which she, Edith, wrote--how it rained all day long in Harley Street; and how she would not put on her new gown to go to a stupid dinner, and get it all wet and splashed in going to the carriage; and how at that very dinner they had first met Captain Lennox.",1 Yes!,2 Margaret remembered it well.,3 Edith and Mrs. Shaw had gone to dinner.,2 Margaret had joined the party in the evening.,2 "The recollection of the plentiful luxury of all the arrangements, the stately handsomeness of the furniture, the size of the house, the peaceful, untroubled ease of the visitors--all came vividly before her, in strange contrast to the present time.",4 "The smooth sea of that old life closed up, without a mark left to tell where they had all been.",3 "The habitual dinners, the calls, the shopping, the dancing evenings, were all going on, going on for ever, though her Aunt Shaw and Edith were no longer there; and she, of course, was even less missed.",1 "She doubted if any one of that old set ever thought of her, except Henry Lennox.",2 "He too, she knew, would strive to forget her, because of the pain she had caused him.",1 She had heard him often boast of his power of putting any disagreeable thought far away from him.,1 Then she penetrated farther into what might have been.,2 "If she had cared for him as a lover, and had accepted him, and this change in her father's opinions and consequent station had taken place, she could not doubt but that it would have been impatiently received by Mr. Lennox.",1 "It was a bitter mortification to her in one sense; but she could bear it patiently, because she knew her father's purity of purpose, and that strengthened her to endure his errors, grave and serious though in her estimation they were.",1 "But the fact of the world esteeming her father degraded, in its rough wholesale judgment, would have oppressed and irritated Mr. Lennox.",1 "As she realised what might have been, she grew to be thankful for what was.",3 They were at the lowest now; they could not be worse.,1 "Edith's astonishment and her aunt Shaw's dismay would have to be met bravely, when their letters came.",2 "So Margaret rose up and began slowly to undress herself, feeling the full luxury of acting leisurely, late as it was, after all the past hurry of the day.",2 "She fell asleep, hoping for some brightness, either internal or external.",1 "But if she had known how long it would be before the brightness came, her heart would have sunk low down.",1 The time of the year was most unpropitious to health as well as to spirits.,3 "Her mother caught a severe cold, and Dixon herself was evidently not well, although Margaret could not insult her more than by trying to save her, or by taking any care of her.",1 "They could hear of no girl to assist her; all were at work in the factories; at least, those who applied were well scolded by Dixon, for thinking that such as they could ever be trusted to work in a gentleman's house.",3 So they had to keep a charwoman in almost constant employ.,2 "Margaret longed to send for Charlotte; but besides the objection of her being a better servant than they could now afford to keep, the distance was too great.",3 "Mr. Hale met with several pupils, recommended to him by Mr. Bell, or by the more immediate influence of Mr. Thornton.",3 "They were mostly of the age when many boys would be still at school, but, according to the prevalent, and apparently well-founded notions of Milton, to make a lad into a good tradesman he must be caught young, and acclimated to the life of the mill, or office, or warehouse.",3 "If he were sent to even the Scotch Universities, he came back unsettled for commercial pursuits; how much more so if he went to Oxford or Cambridge, where he could not be entered till he was eighteen?",1 "So most of the manufacturers placed their sons in sucking situations' at fourteen or fifteen years of age, unsparingly cutting away all off-shoots in the direction of literature or high mental cultivation, in hopes of throwing the whole strength and vigour of the plant into commerce.",2 "Still there were some wiser parents; and some young men, who had sense enough to perceive their own deficiencies, and strive to remedy them.",3 "Nay, there were a few no longer youths, but men in the prime of life, who had the stern wisdom to acknowledge their own ignorance, and to learn late what they should have learnt early.",1 Mr. Thornton was perhaps the oldest of Mr. Hale's pupils.,2 He was certainly the favourite.,2 "Mr. Hale got into the habit of quoting his opinions so frequently, and with such regard, that it became a little domestic joke to wonder what time, during the hour appointed for instruction, could be given to absolute learning, so much of it appeared to have been spent in conversation.",3 "Margaret rather encouraged this light, merry way of viewing her father's acquaintance with Mr. Thornton, because she felt that her mother was inclined to look upon this new friendship of her husband's with jealous eyes.",2 "As long as his time had been solely occupied with his books and his parishioners, as at Helstone, she had appeared to care little whether she saw much of him or not; but now that he looked eagerly forward to each renewal of his intercourse with Mr. Thornton, she seemed hurt and annoyed, as if he were slighting her companionship for the first time.",1 Mr. Hale's over-praise had the usual effect of over-praise upon his auditors; they were a little inclined to rebel against Aristides being always called the Just.,3 "After a quiet life in a country parsonage for more than twenty years, there was something dazzling to Mr. Hale in the energy which conquered immense difficulties with ease; the power of the machinery of Milton, the power of the men of Milton, impressed him with a sense of grandeur, which he yielded to without caring to inquire into the details of its exercise.",4 "But Margaret went less abroad, among machinery and men; saw less of power in its public effect, and, as it happened, she was thrown with one or two of those who, in all measures affecting masses of people, must be acute sufferers for the good of many.",2 "The question always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these exceptions as small as possible?",2 "Or, in the triumph of the crowded procession, have the helpless been trampled on, instead of being gently lifted aside out of the roadway of the conqueror, whom they have no power to accompany on his march?",1 "It fell to Margaret's share to have to look out for a servant to assist Dixon, who had at first undertaken to find just the person she wanted to do all the rough work of the house.",1 "But Dixon's ideas of helpful girls were founded on the recollection of tidy elder scholars at Helstone school, who were only too proud to be allowed to come to the parsonage on a busy day, and treated Mrs. Dixon with all the respect, and a good deal more of fright, which they paid to Mr. and Mrs. Hale.",4 Dixon was not unconscious of this awed reverence which was given to her; nor did she dislike it; it flattered her much as Louis the Fourteenth was flattered by his courtiers shading their eyes from the dazzling light of his presence.,3 "But nothing short of her faithful love for Mrs. Hale could have made her endure the rough independent way in which all the Milton girls, who made application for the servant's place, replied to her inquiries respecting their qualifications.",3 "They even went the length of questioning her back again; having doubts and fears of their own, as to the solvency of a family who lived in a house of thirty pounds a-year, and yet gave themselves airs, and kept two servants, one of them so very high and mighty.",1 "Mr. Hale was no longer looked upon as Vicar of Helstone, but as a man who only spent at a certain rate.",3 Margaret was weary and impatient of the accounts which Dixon perpetually brought to Mrs. Hale of the behaviour of these would-be servants.,1 "Not but what Margaret was repelled by the rough uncourteous manners of these people; not but what she shrunk with fastidious pride from their hail-fellow accost and severely resented their unconcealed curiosity as to the means and position of any family who lived in Milton, and yet were not engaged in trade of some kind.",1 "But the more Margaret felt impertinence, the more likely she was to be silent on the subject; and, at any rate, if she took upon herself to make inquiry for a servant, she could spare her mother the recital of all her disappointments and fancied or real insults.",1 "Margaret accordingly went up and down to butchers and grocers, seeking for a nonpareil of a girl; and lowering her hopes and expectations every week, as she found the difficulty of meeting with any one in a manufacturing town who did not prefer the better wages and greater independence of working in a mill.",3 It was something of a trial to Margaret to go out by herself in this busy bustling place.,2 "Mrs. Shaw's ideas of propriety and her own helpless dependence on others, had always made her insist that a footman should accompany Edith and Margaret, if they went beyond Harley Street or the immediate neighbourhood.",1 "The limits by which this rule of her aunt's had circumscribed Margaret's independence had been silently rebelled against at the time: and she had doubly enjoyed the free walks and rambles of her forest life, from the contrast which they presented.",3 "She went along there with a bounding fearless step, that occasionally broke out into a run, if she were in a hurry, and occasionally was stilled into perfect repose, as she stood listening to, or watching any of the wild creatures who sang in the leafy courts, or glanced out with their keen bright eyes from the low brushwood or tangled furze.",3 "It was a trial to come down from such motion or such stillness, only guided by her own sweet will, to the even and decorous pace necessary in streets.",3 "But she could have laughed at herself for minding this change, if it had not been accompanied by what was a more serious annoyance.",1 The side of the town on which Crampton lay was especially a thoroughfare for the factory people.,2 "In the back streets around them there were many mills, out of which poured streams of men and women two or three times a day.",2 "Until Margaret had learnt the times of their ingress and egress, she was very unfortunate in constantly falling in with them.",1 "They came rushing along, with bold, fearless faces, and loud laughs and jests, particularly aimed at all those who appeared to be above them in rank or station.",2 "The tones of their unrestrained voices, and their carelessness of all common rules of street politeness, frightened Margaret a little at first.",2 "The girls, with their rough, but not unfriendly freedom, would comment on her dress, even touch her shawl or gown to ascertain the exact material; nay, once or twice she was asked questions relative to some article which they particularly admired.",1 "There was such a simple reliance on her womanly sympathy with their love of dress, and on her kindliness, that she gladly replied to these inquiries, as soon as she understood them; and half smiled back at their remarks.",4 "She did not mind meeting any number of girls, loud spoken and boisterous though they might be.",1 "But she alternately dreaded and fired up against the workmen, who commented not on her dress, but on her looks, in the same open fearless manner.",3 "She, who had hitherto felt that even the most refined remark on her personal appearance was an impertinence, had to endure undisguised admiration from these outspoken men.",3 "But the very out-spokenness marked their innocence of any intention to hurt her delicacy, as she would have perceived if she had been less frightened by the disorderly tumult.",1 "Out of her fright came a flash of indignation which made her face scarlet, and her dark eyes gather flame, as she heard some of their speeches.",0 "Yet there were other sayings of theirs, which, when she reached the quiet safety of home, amused her even while they irritated her.",2 "For instance, one day, after she had passed a number of men, several of whom had paid her the not unusual compliment of wishing she was their sweetheart, one of the lingerers added, 'Your bonny face, my lass, makes the day look brighter.'",4 "And another day, as she was unconsciously smiling at some passing thought, she was addressed by a poorly-dressed, middle-aged workman, with 'You may well smile, my lass; many a one would smile to have such a bonny face.'",4 "This man looked so careworn that Margaret could not help giving him an answering smile, glad to think that her looks, such as they were, should have had the power to call up a pleasant thought.",4 "He seemed to understand her acknowledging glance, and a silent recognition was established between them whenever the chances of the day brought them across each other's paths.",3 They had never exchanged a word; nothing had been said but that first compliment; yet somehow Margaret looked upon this man with more interest than upon any one else in Milton.,3 "Once or twice, on Sundays, she saw him walking with a girl, evidently his daughter, and, if possible, still more unhealthy than he was himself.",1 "One day Margaret and her father had been as far as the fields that lay around the town; it was early spring, and she had gathered some of the hedge and ditch flowers, dog-violets, lesser celandines, and the like, with an unspoken lament in her heart for the sweet profusion of the South.",3 Her father had left her to go into Milton upon some business; and on the road home she met her humble friends.,3 "The girl looked wistfully at the flowers, and, acting on a sudden impulse, Margaret offered them to her.",2 "Her pale blue eyes lightened up as she took them, and her father spoke for her.",1 "'Thank yo, Miss.",1 Bessy'll think a deal o' them flowers; that hoo will; and I shall think a deal o' yor kindness.,3 "Yo're not of this country, I reckon?'",2 'No!',2 "said Margaret, half sighing.",2 "'I come from the South--from Hampshire,' she continued, a little afraid of wounding his consciousness of ignorance, if she used a name which he did not understand.",1 "'That's beyond London, I reckon?",2 "And I come fro' Burnley-ways, and forty mile to th' North.",2 "And yet, yo see, North and South has both met and made kind o' friends in this big smoky place.'",2 "Margaret had slackened her pace to walk alongside of the man and his daughter, whose steps were regulated by the feebleness of the latter.",2 "She now spoke to the girl, and there was a sound of tender pity in the tone of her voice as she did so that went right to the heart of the father.",3 'I'm afraid you are not very strong.',2 "'No,' said the girl, 'nor never will be.'",2 "'Spring is coming,' said Margaret, as if to suggest pleasant, hopeful thoughts.",3 "'Spring nor summer will do me good,' said the girl quietly.",3 "Margaret looked up at the man, almost expecting some contradiction from him, or at least some remark that would modify his daughter's utter hopelessness.",1 "But, instead, he added-- 'I'm afeared hoo speaks truth.",2 I'm afeared hoo's too far gone in a waste.',1 "'I shall have a spring where I'm boun to, and flowers, and amaranths, and shining robes besides.'",2 "'Poor lass, poor lass!'",1 said her father in a low tone.,2 "'I'm none so sure o' that; but it's a comfort to thee, poor lass, poor lass.",2 Poor father!,1 it'll be soon.',2 Margaret was shocked by his words--shocked but not repelled; rather attracted and interested.,1 'Where do you live?,2 "I think we must be neighbours, we meet so often on this road.'",2 "'We put up at nine Frances Street, second turn to th' left at after yo've past th' Goulden Dragon.'",2 'And your name?,2 I must not forget that.',2 'I'm none ashamed o' my name.,1 It's Nicholas Higgins.,2 Hoo's called Bessy Higgins.,2 Whatten yo' asking for?',2 "Margaret was surprised at this last question, for at Helstone it would have been an understood thing, after the inquiries she had made, that she intended to come and call upon any poor neighbour whose name and habitation she had asked for.",1 'I thought--I meant to come and see you.',2 "She suddenly felt rather shy of offering the visit, without having any reason to give for her wish to make it, beyond a kindly interest in a stranger.",2 It seemed all at once to take the shape of an impertinence on her part; she read this meaning too in the man's eyes.,2 'I'm none so fond of having strange folk in my house.',2 "But then relenting, as he saw her heightened colour, he added, 'Yo're a foreigner, as one may say, and maybe don't know many folk here, and yo've given my wench here flowers out of yo'r own hand;--yo may come if yo like.'",3 "Margaret was half-amused, half-nettled at this answer.",2 She was not sure if she would go where permission was given so like a favour conferred.,3 "But when they came to the town into Frances Street, the girl stopped a minute, and said, 'Yo'll not forget yo're to come and see us.'",2 "'Aye, aye,' said the father, impatiently, 'hoo'll come.",1 "Hoo's a bit set up now, because hoo thinks I might ha' spoken more civilly; but hoo'll think better on it, and come.",3 I can read her proud bonny face like a book.,4 "Come along, Bess; there's the mill bell ringing.'",2 "Margaret went home, wondering at her new friends, and smiling at the man's insight into what had been passing in her mind.",3 From that day Milton became a brighter place to her.,3 "It was not the long, bleak sunny days of spring, nor yet was it that time was reconciling her to the town of her habitation.",1 It was that in it she had found a human interest.,2 "The day after this meeting with Higgins and his daughter, Mr. Hale came upstairs into the little drawing-room at an unusual hour.",2 "He went up to different objects in the room, as if examining them, but Margaret saw that it was merely a nervous trick--a way of putting off something he wished, yet feared to say.",1 Out it came at last-- 'My dear!,2 I've asked Mr. Thornton to come to tea to-night.',2 "Mrs. Hale was leaning back in her easy chair, with her eyes shut, and an expression of pain on her face which had become habitual to her of late.",3 But she roused up into querulousness at this speech of her husband's.,2 'Mr. Thornton!--and to-night!,2 What in the world does the man want to come here for?,2 "And Dixon is washing my muslins and laces, and there is no soft water with these horrid east winds, which I suppose we shall have all the year round in Milton.'",2 "'The wind is veering round, my dear,' said Mr. Hale, looking out at the smoke, which drifted right from the east, only he did not yet understand the points of the compass, and rather arranged them ad libitum, according to circumstances.",3 'Don't tell me!',2 "said Mrs. Hale, shuddering up, and wrapping her shawl about her still more closely.",3 "'But, east or west wind, I suppose this man comes.'",2 "'Oh, mamma, that shows you never saw Mr. Thornton.",2 "He looks like a person who would enjoy battling with every adverse thing he could meet with--enemies, winds, or circumstances.",2 "The more it rains and blows, the more certain we are to have him.",2 But I'll go and help Dixon.,2 I'm getting to be a famous clear-starcher.,3 And he won't want any amusement beyond talking to papa.,2 "Papa, I am really longing to see the Pythias to your Damon.",1 "You know I never saw him but once, and then we were so puzzled to know what to say to each other that we did not get on particularly well.'",2 "'I don't know that you would ever like him, or think him agreeable, Margaret.",3 He is not a lady's man.',2 Margaret wreathed her throat in a scornful curve.,1 "'I don't particularly admire ladies' men, papa.",3 "But Mr. Thornton comes here as your friend--as one who has appreciated you'-- 'The only person in Milton,' said Mrs. Hale.",3 "'So we will give him a welcome, and some cocoa-nut cakes.",3 "Dixon will be flattered if we ask her to make some; and I will undertake to iron your caps, mamma.'",2 Many a time that morning did Margaret wish Mr. Thornton far enough away.,3 "She had planned other employments for herself: a letter to Edith, a good piece of Dante, a visit to the Higginses.",3 "But, instead, she ironed away, listening to Dixon's complaints, and only hoping that by an excess of sympathy she might prevent her from carrying the recital of her sorrows to Mrs. Hale.",2 "Every now and then, Margaret had to remind herself of her father's regard for Mr. Thornton, to subdue the irritation of weariness that was stealing over her, and bringing on one of the bad headaches to which she had lately become liable.",0 "She could hardly speak when she sat down at last, and told her mother that she was no longer Peggy the laundry-maid, but Margaret Hale the lady.",3 "She meant this speech for a little joke, and was vexed enough with her busy tongue when she found her mother taking it seriously.",2 'Yes!,2 "if any one had told me, when I was Miss Beresford, and one of the belles of the county, that a child of mine would have to stand half a day, in a little poky kitchen, working away like any servant, that we might prepare properly for the reception of a tradesman, and that this tradesman should be the only'--'Oh, mamma!'",2 "said Margaret, lifting herself up, 'don't punish me so for a careless speech.",1 "I don't mind ironing, or any kind of work, for you and papa.",3 "I am myself a born and bred lady through it all, even though it comes to scouring a floor, or washing dishes.",2 "I am tired now, just for a little while; but in half an hour I shall be ready to do the same over again.",2 "And as to Mr. Thornton's being in trade, why he can't help that now, poor fellow.",1 I don't suppose his education would fit him for much else.',2 "Margaret lifted herself slowly up, and went to her own room; for just now she could not bear much more.",1 "In Mr. Thornton's house, at this very same time, a similar, yet different, scene was going on.",2 "A large-boned lady, long past middle age, sat at work in a grim handsomely-furnished dining-room.",3 "Her features, like her frame, were strong and massive, rather than heavy.",3 Her face moved slowly from one decided expression to another equally decided.,1 "There was no great variety in her countenance; but those who looked at it once, generally looked at it again; even the passers-by in the street, half-turned their heads to gaze an instant longer at the firm, severe, dignified woman, who never gave way in street-courtesy, or paused in her straight-onward course to the clearly-defined end which she proposed to herself.",4 "She was handsomely dressed in stout black silk, of which not a thread was worn or discoloured.",2 "She was mending a large long table-cloth of the finest texture, holding it up against the light occasionally to discover thin places, which required her delicate care.",3 "There was not a book about in the room, with the exception of Matthew Henry's Bible Commentaries, six volumes of which lay in the centre of the massive side-board, flanked by a tea-urn on one side, and a lamp on the other.",2 "In some remote apartment, there was exercise upon the piano going on.",2 "Some one was practising up a morceau de salon, playing it very rapidly; every third note, on an average, being either indistinct, or wholly missed out, and the loud chords at the end being half of them false, but not the less satisfactory to the performer.",1 "Mrs. Thornton heard a step, like her own in its decisive character, pass the dining-room door.",3 'John!,2 Is that you?',2 Her son opened the door and showed himself.,2 'What has brought you home so early?,2 I thought you were going to tea with that friend of Mr. Bell's; that Mr. Hale.',3 "'So I am, mother; I am come home to dress!'",2 'Dress!,2 humph!,2 "When I was a girl, young men were satisfied with dressing once in a day.",3 Why should you dress to go and take a cup of tea with an old parson?',2 "'Mr. Hale is a gentleman, and his wife and daughter are ladies.'",3 'Wife and daughter!,2 Do they teach too?,2 What do they do?,2 You have never mentioned them.',2 'No!,2 "mother, because I have never seen Mrs. Hale; I have only seen Miss Hale for half an hour.'",2 "'Take care you don't get caught by a penniless girl, John.'",2 "'I am not easily caught, mother, as I think you know.",2 "But I must not have Miss Hale spoken of in that way, which, you know, is offensive to me.",1 "I never was aware of any young lady trying to catch me yet, nor do I believe that any one has ever given themselves that useless trouble.'",1 "Mrs. Thornton did not choose to yield the point to her son; or else she had, in general, pride enough for her sex.",3 'Well!,2 "I only say, take care.",2 "Perhaps our Milton girls have too much spirit and good feeling to go angling after husbands; but this Miss Hale comes out of the aristocratic counties, where, if all tales be true, rich husbands are reckoned prizes.'",3 "Mr. Thornton's brow contracted, and he came a step forward into the room.",2 "'Mother' (with a short scornful laugh), 'you will make me confess.",1 "The only time I saw Miss Hale, she treated me with a haughty civility which had a strong flavour of contempt in it.",2 "She held herself aloof from me as if she had been a queen, and I her humble, unwashed vassal.",2 "Be easy, mother.'",3 'No!,2 "I am not easy, nor content either.",3 "What business had she, a renegade clergyman's daughter, to turn up her nose at you!",2 I would dress for none of them--a saucy set!,2 if I were you.',2 "As he was leaving the room, he said:-- 'Mr. Hale is good, and gentle, and learned.",4 He is not saucy.,2 "As for Mrs. Hale, I will tell you what she is like to-night, if you care to hear.'",3 He shut the door and was gone.,2 'Despise my son!,2 "treat him as her vassal, indeed!",2 Humph!,2 I should like to know where she could find such another!,3 "Boy and man, he's the noblest, stoutest heart I ever knew.",2 "I don't care if I am his mother; I can see what's what, and not be blind.",1 I know what Fanny is; and I know what John is.,2 Despise him!,1 I hate her!',1 Mr. Thornton left the house without coming into the dining-room again.,2 "He was rather late, and walked rapidly out to Crampton.",2 He was anxious not to slight his new friend by any disrespectful unpunctuality.,1 The church-clock struck half-past seven as he stood at the door awaiting Dixon's slow movements; always doubly tardy when she had to degrade herself by answering the door-bell.,0 "He was ushered into the little drawing-room, and kindly greeted by Mr. Hale, who led him up to his wife, whose pale face, and shawl-draped figure made a silent excuse for the cold languor of her greeting.",2 "Margaret was lighting the lamp when he entered, for the darkness was coming on.",1 "The lamp threw a pretty light into the centre of the dusky room, from which, with country habits, they did not exclude the night-skies, and the outer darkness of air.",2 "Somehow, that room contrasted itself with the one he had lately left; handsome, ponderous, with no sign of feminine habitation, except in the one spot where his mother sate, and no convenience for any other employment than eating and drinking.",3 "To be sure, it was a dining-room; his mother preferred to sit in it; and her will was a household law.",2 But the drawing-room was not like this.,3 It was twice--twenty times as fine; not one quarter as comfortable.,3 "Here were no mirrors, not even a scrap of glass to reflect the light, and answer the same purpose as water in a landscape; no gilding; a warm, sober breadth of colouring, well relieved by the dear old Helstone chintz-curtains and chair covers.",2 "An open davenport stood in the window opposite the door; in the other there was a stand, with a tall white china vase, from which drooped wreaths of English ivy, pale-green birch, and copper-coloured beech-leaves.",1 "Pretty baskets of work stood about in different places: and books, not cared for on account of their binding solely, lay on one table, as if recently put down.",3 "Behind the door was another table, decked out for tea, with a white tablecloth, on which flourished the cocoa-nut cakes, and a basket piled with oranges and ruddy American apples, heaped on leaves.",2 It appeared to Mr. Thornton that all these graceful cares were habitual to the family; and especially of a piece with Margaret.,3 "She stood by the tea-table in a light-coloured muslin gown, which had a good deal of pink about it.",3 "She looked as if she was not attending to the conversation, but solely busy with the tea-cups, among which her round ivory hands moved with pretty, noiseless, daintiness.",3 "She had a bracelet on one taper arm, which would fall down over her round wrist.",1 Mr. Thornton watched the replacing of this troublesome ornament with far more attention than he listened to her father.,1 "It seemed as if it fascinated him to see her push it up impatiently, until it tightened her soft flesh; and then to mark the loosening--the fall.",1 "He could almost have exclaimed--'There it goes, again!'",2 "There was so little left to be done after he arrived at the preparation for tea, that he was almost sorry the obligation of eating and drinking came so soon to prevent his watching Margaret.",1 "She handed him his cup of tea with the proud air of an unwilling slave; but her eye caught the moment when he was ready for another cup; and he almost longed to ask her to do for him what he saw her compelled to do for her father, who took her little finger and thumb in his masculine hand, and made them serve as sugar-tongs.",2 "Mr. Thornton saw her beautiful eyes lifted to her father, full of light, half-laughter and half-love, as this bit of pantomime went on between the two, unobserved, as they fancied, by any.",3 "Margaret's head still ached, as the paleness of her complexion, and her silence might have testified; but she was resolved to throw herself into the breach, if there was any long untoward pause, rather than that her father's friend, pupil, and guest should have cause to think himself in any way neglected.",0 "But the conversation went on; and Margaret drew into a corner, near her mother, with her work, after the tea-things were taken away; and felt that she might let her thoughts roam, without fear of being suddenly wanted to fill up a gap.",2 Mr. Thornton and Mr. Hale were both absorbed in the continuation of some subject which had been started at their last meeting.,3 "Margaret was recalled to a sense of the present by some trivial, low-spoken remark of her mother's; and on suddenly looking up from her work, her eye was caught by the difference of outward appearance between her father and Mr. Thornton, as betokening such distinctly opposite natures.",2 "Her father was of slight figure, which made him appear taller than he really was, when not contrasted, as at this time, with the tall, massive frame of another.",2 "The lines in her father's face were soft and waving, with a frequent undulating kind of trembling movement passing over them, showing every fluctuating emotion; the eyelids were large and arched, giving to the eyes a peculiar languid beauty which was almost feminine.",2 "The brows were finely arched, but were, by the very size of the dreamy lids, raised to a considerable distance from the eyes.",3 "Now, in Mr. Thornton's face the straight brows fell low over the clear, deep-set earnest eyes, which, without being unpleasantly sharp, seemed intent enough to penetrate into the very heart and core of what he was looking at.",4 "The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they were carved in marble, and lay principally about the lips, which were slightly compressed over a set of teeth so faultless and beautiful as to give the effect of sudden sunlight when the rare bright smile, coming in an instant and shining out of the eyes, changed the whole look from the severe and resolved expression of a man ready to do and dare everything, to the keen honest enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so fearlessly and instantaneously except by children.",4 "Margaret liked this smile; it was the first thing she had admired in this new friend of her father's; and the opposition of character, shown in all these details of appearance she had just been noticing, seemed to explain the attraction they evidently felt towards each other.",3 "She rearranged her mother's worsted-work, and fell back into her own thoughts--as completely forgotten by Mr. Thornton as if she had not been in the room, so thoroughly was he occupied in explaining to Mr. Hale the magnificent power, yet delicate adjustment of the might of the steam-hammer, which was recalling to Mr. Hale some of the wonderful stories of subservient genii in the Arabian Nights--one moment stretching from earth to sky and filling all the width of the horizon, at the next obediently compressed into a vase small enough to be borne in the hand of a child.",4 "'And this imagination of power, this practical realisation of a gigantic thought, came out of one man's brain in our good town.",3 "That very man has it within him to mount, step by step, on each wonder he achieves to higher marvels still.",3 "And I'll be bound to say, we have many among us who, if he were gone, could spring into the breach and carry on the war which compels, and shall compel, all material power to yield to science.'",1 "'Your boast reminds me of the old lines-- ""I've a hundred captains in England,"" he said, ""As good as ever was he.""",3 "' At her father's quotation Margaret looked suddenly up, with inquiring wonder in her eyes.",3 How in the world had they got from cog-wheels to Chevy Chace?,2 "'It is no boast of mine,' replied Mr. Thornton; 'it is plain matter-of-fact.",2 I won't deny that I am proud of belonging to a town--or perhaps I should rather say a district--the necessities of which give birth to such grandeur of conception.,3 "I would rather be a man toiling, suffering--nay, failing and successless--here, than lead a dull prosperous life in the old worn grooves of what you call more aristocratic society down in the South, with their slow days of careless ease.",0 One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly.',1 "'You are mistaken,' said Margaret, roused by the aspersion on her beloved South to a fond vehemence of defence, that brought the colour into her cheeks and the angry tears into her eyes.",1 'You do not know anything about the South.,2 "If there is less adventure or less progress--I suppose I must not say less excitement--from the gambling spirit of trade, which seems requisite to force out these wonderful inventions, there is less suffering also.",3 I see men here going about in the streets who look ground down by some pinching sorrow or care--who are not only sufferers but haters.,0 "Now, in the South we have our poor, but there is not that terrible expression in their countenances of a sullen sense of injustice which I see here.",0 "You do not know the South, Mr. Thornton,' she concluded, collapsing into a determined silence, and angry with herself for having said so much.",1 'And may I say you do not know the North?',2 "asked he, with an inexpressible gentleness in his tone, as he saw that he had really hurt her.",1 "She continued resolutely silent; yearning after the lovely haunts she had left far away in Hampshire, with a passionate longing that made her feel her voice would be unsteady and trembling if she spoke.",3 "'At any rate, Mr. Thornton,' said Mrs. Hale, 'you will allow that Milton is a much more smoky, dirty town than you will ever meet with in the South.'",2 "'I'm afraid I must give up its cleanliness,' said Mr. Thornton, with the quick gleaming smile.",3 "'But we are bidden by parliament to burn our own smoke; so I suppose, like good little children, we shall do as we are bid--some time.'",2 "'But I think you told me you had altered your chimneys so as to consume the smoke, did you not?'",1 asked Mr. Hale.,3 "'Mine were altered by my own will, before parliament meddled with the affair.",2 "It was an immediate outlay, but it repays me in the saving of coal.",2 "I'm not sure whether I should have done it, if I had waited until the act was passed.",2 "At any rate, I should have waited to be informed against and fined, and given all the trouble in yielding that I legally could.",1 "But all laws which depend for their enforcement upon informers and fines, become inert from the odiousness of the machinery.",2 "I doubt if there has been a chimney in Milton informed against for five years past, although some are constantly sending out one-third of their coal in what is called here unparliamentary smoke.'",1 "'I only know it is impossible to keep the muslin blinds clean here above a week together; and at Helstone we have had them up for a month or more, and they have not looked dirty at the end of that time.",1 "And as for hands--Margaret, how many times did you say you had washed your hands this morning before twelve o'clock?",2 "Three times, was it not?'",2 "'Yes, mamma.'",2 "'You seem to have a strong objection to acts of parliament and all legislation affecting your mode of management down here at Milton,' said Mr. Hale.",3 "'Yes, I have; and many others have as well.",3 "And with justice, I think.",2 The whole machinery--I don't mean the wood and iron machinery now--of the cotton trade is so new that it is no wonder if it does not work well in every part all at once.,4 Seventy years ago what was it?,2 And now what is it not?,2 "Raw, crude materials came together; men of the same level, as regarded education and station, took suddenly the different positions of masters and men, owing to the motherwit, as regarded opportunities and probabilities, which distinguished some, and made them far-seeing as to what great future lay concealed in that rude model of Sir Richard Arkwright's.",3 "The rapid development of what might be called a new trade, gave those early masters enormous power of wealth and command.",3 I don't mean merely over the workmen; I mean over purchasers--over the whole world's market.,2 "Why, I may give you, as an instance, an advertisement, inserted not fifty years ago in a Milton paper, that so-and-so (one of the half-dozen calico-printers of the time) would close his warehouse at noon each day; therefore, that all purchasers must come before that hour.",2 Fancy a man dictating in this manner the time when he would sell and when he would not sell.,3 "Now, I believe, if a good customer chose to come at midnight, I should get up, and stand hat in hand to receive his orders.'",3 "Margaret's lip curled, but somehow she was compelled to listen; she could no longer abstract herself in her own thoughts.",2 'I only name such things to show what almost unlimited power the manufacturers had about the beginning of this century.,3 The men were rendered dizzy by it.,1 "Because a man was successful in his ventures, there was no reason that in all other things his mind should be well-balanced.",4 "On the contrary, his sense of justice, and his simplicity, were often utterly smothered under the glut of wealth that came down upon him; and they tell strange tales of the wild extravagance of living indulged in on gala-days by those early cotton-lords.",0 "There can be no doubt, too, of the tyranny they exercised over their work-people.",1 "You know the proverb, Mr. Hale, ""Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the devil,""--well, some of these early manufacturers did ride to the devil in a magnificent style--crushing human bone and flesh under their horses' hoofs without remorse.",1 "But by-and-by came a re-action, there were more factories, more masters; more men were wanted.",3 The power of masters and men became more evenly balanced; and now the battle is pretty fairly waged between us.,4 "We will hardly submit to the decision of an umpire, much less to the interference of a meddler with only a smattering of the knowledge of the real facts of the case, even though that meddler be called the High Court of Parliament.",1 'Is there necessity for calling it a battle between the two classes?',2 asked Mr. Hale.,3 "'I know, from your using the term, it is one which gives a true idea of the real state of things to your mind.'",2 "'It is true; and I believe it to be as much a necessity as that prudent wisdom and good conduct are always opposed to, and doing battle with ignorance and improvidence.",3 "It is one of the great beauties of our system, that a working-man may raise himself into the power and position of a master by his own exertions and behaviour; that, in fact, every one who rules himself to decency and sobriety of conduct, and attention to his duties, comes over to our ranks; it may not be always as a master, but as an over-looker, a cashier, a book-keeper, a clerk, one on the side of authority and order.'",4 "'You consider all who are unsuccessful in raising themselves in the world, from whatever cause, as your enemies, then, if I under-stand you rightly,' said Margaret in a clear, cold voice.",1 "'As their own enemies, certainly,' said he, quickly, not a little piqued by the haughty disapproval her form of expression and tone of speaking implied.",0 "But, in a moment, his straightforward honesty made him feel that his words were but a poor and quibbling answer to what she had said; and, be she as scornful as she liked, it was a duty he owed to himself to explain, as truly as he could, what he did mean.",3 "Yet it was very difficult to separate her interpretation, and keep it distinct from his meaning.",1 He could best have illustrated what he wanted to say by telling them something of his own life; but was it not too personal a subject to speak about to strangers?,3 "Still, it was the simple straightforward way of explaining his meaning; so, putting aside the touch of shyness that brought a momentary flush of colour into his dark cheek, he said: 'I am not speaking without book.",2 "Sixteen years ago, my father died under very miserable circumstances.",1 "I was taken from school, and had to become a man (as well as I could) in a few days.",3 "I had such a mother as few are blest with; a woman of strong power, and firm resolve.",3 "We went into a small country town, where living was cheaper than in Milton, and where I got employment in a draper's shop (a capital place, by the way, for obtaining a knowledge of goods).",3 "Week by week our income came to fifteen shillings, out of which three people had to be kept.",2 My mother managed so that I put by three out of these fifteen shillings regularly.,2 This made the beginning; this taught me self-denial.,1 "Now that I am able to afford my mother such comforts as her age, rather than her own wish, requires, I thank her silently on each occasion for the early training she gave me.",3 "Now when I feel that in my own case it is no good luck, nor merit, nor talent,--but simply the habits of life which taught me to despise indulgences not thoroughly earned,--indeed, never to think twice about them,--I believe that this suffering, which Miss Hale says is impressed on the countenances of the people of Milton, is but the natural punishment of dishonestly-enjoyed pleasure, at some former period of their lives.",4 "I do not look on self-indulgent, sensual people as worthy of my hatred; I simply look upon them with contempt for their poorness of character.'",2 "'But you have had the rudiments of a good education,' remarked Mr. Hale.",3 "'The quick zest with which you are now reading Homer, shows me that you do not come to it as an unknown book; you have read it before, and are only recalling your old knowledge.'",2 "'That is true,--I had blundered along it at school; I dare say, I was even considered a pretty fair classic in those days, though my Latin and Greek have slipt away from me since.",4 "But I ask you, what preparation they were for such a life as I had to lead?",3 None at all.,2 Utterly none at all.,1 "On the point of education, any man who can read and write starts fair with me in the amount of really useful knowledge that I had at that time.'",3 'Well!,2 I don't agree with you.,2 But there I am perhaps somewhat of a pedant.,2 Did not the recollection of the heroic simplicity of the Homeric life nerve you up?',3 'Not one bit!',2 "exclaimed Mr. Thornton, laughing.",2 "'I was too busy to think about any dead people, with the living pressing alongside of me, neck to neck, in the struggle for bread.",1 "Now that I have my mother safe in the quiet peace that becomes her age, and duly rewards her former exertions, I can turn to all that old narration and thoroughly enjoy it.'",4 "'I dare say, my remark came from the professional feeling of there being nothing like leather,' replied Mr. Hale.",3 "When Mr. Thornton rose up to go away, after shaking hands with Mr. and Mrs. Hale, he made an advance to Margaret to wish her good-bye in a similar manner.",3 It was the frank familiar custom of the place; but Margaret was not prepared for it.,2 "She simply bowed her farewell; although the instant she saw the hand, half put out, quickly drawn back, she was sorry she had not been aware of the intention.",1 "Mr. Thornton, however, knew nothing of her sorrow, and, drawing himself up to his full height, walked off, muttering as he left the house-- 'A more proud, disagreeable girl I never saw.",1 Even her great beauty is blotted out of one's memory by her scornful ways.',3 'Margaret!',2 "said Mr. Hale, as he returned from showing his guest downstairs; 'I could not help watching your face with some anxiety, when Mr. Thornton made his confession of having been a shop-boy.",1 I knew it all along from Mr. Bell; so I was aware of what was coming; but I half expected to see you get up and leave the room.',2 "'Oh, papa!",2 you don't mean that you thought me so silly?,1 I really liked that account of himself better than anything else he said.,3 "Everything else revolted me, from its hardness; but he spoke about himself so simply--with so little of the pretence that makes the vulgarity of shop-people, and with such tender respect for his mother, that I was less likely to leave the room then than when he was boasting about Milton, as if there was not such another place in the world; or quietly professing to despise people for careless, wasteful improvidence, without ever seeming to think it his duty to try to make them different,--to give them anything of the training which his mother gave him, and to which he evidently owes his position, whatever that may be.",1 No!,2 his statement of having been a shop-boy was the thing I liked best of all.',3 "'I am surprised at you, Margaret,' said her mother.",2 'You who were always accusing people of being shoppy at Helstone!,1 "I don't think, Mr. Hale, you have done quite right in introducing such a person to us without telling us what he had been.",3 I really was very much afraid of showing him how much shocked I was at some parts of what he said.,1 "His father ""dying in miserable circumstances.""",1 Why it might have been in the workhouse.',2 "'I am not sure if it was not worse than being in the workhouse,' replied her husband.",1 "'I heard a good deal of his previous life from Mr. Bell before we came here; and as he has told you a part, I will fill up what he left out.",3 "His father speculated wildly, failed, and then killed himself, because he could not bear the disgrace.",0 "All his former friends shrunk from the disclosures that had to be made of his dishonest gambling--wild, hopeless struggles, made with other people's money, to regain his own moderate portion of wealth.",0 No one came forwards to help the mother and this boy.,2 "There was another child, I believe, a girl; too young to earn money, but of course she had to be kept.",2 "At least, no friend came forwards immediately, and Mrs. Thornton is not one, I fancy, to wait till tardy kindness comes to find her out.",3 So they left Milton.,2 "I knew he had gone into a shop, and that his earnings, with some fragment of property secured to his mother, had been made to keep them for a long time.",2 "Mr. Bell said they absolutely lived upon water-porridge for years--how, he did not know; but long after the creditors had given up hope of any payment of old Mr. Thornton's debts (if, indeed, they ever had hoped at all about it, after his suicide,) this young man returned to Milton, and went quietly round to each creditor, paying him the first instalment of the money owing to him.",1 "No noise--no gathering together of creditors--it was done very silently and quietly, but all was paid at last; helped on materially by the circumstance of one of the creditors, a crabbed old fellow (Mr. Bell says), taking in Mr. Thornton as a kind of partner.'",2 "'That really is fine,' said Margaret.",3 'What a pity such a nature should be tainted by his position as a Milton manufacturer.',1 'How tainted?',1 asked her father.,2 "'Oh, papa, by that testing everything by the standard of wealth.",2 "When he spoke of the mechanical powers, he evidently looked upon them only as new ways of extending trade and making money.",2 "And the poor men around him--they were poor because they were vicious--out of the pale of his sympathies because they had not his iron nature, and the capabilities that it gives him for being rich.'",1 'Not vicious; he never said that.,1 Improvident and self-indulgent were his words.',3 "Margaret was collecting her mother's working materials, and preparing to go to bed.",2 "Just as she was leaving the room, she hesitated--she was inclined to make an acknowledgment which she thought would please her father, but which to be full and true must include a little annoyance.",1 "However, out it came.",2 "'Papa, I do think Mr. Thornton a very remarkable man; but personally I don't like him at all.'",3 'And I do!',2 said her father laughing.,2 "'Personally, as you call it, and all.",2 "I don't set him up for a hero, or anything of that kind.",3 "But good night, child.",3 "Your mother looks sadly tired to-night, Margaret.'",1 "Margaret had noticed her mother's jaded appearance with anxiety for some time past, and this remark of her father's sent her up to bed with a dim fear lying like a weight on her heart.",0 "The life in Milton was so different from what Mrs. Hale had been accustomed to live in Helstone, in and out perpetually into the fresh and open air; the air itself was so different, deprived of all revivifying principle as it seemed to be here; the domestic worries pressed so very closely, and in so new and sordid a form, upon all the women in the family, that there was good reason to fear that her mother's health might be becoming seriously affected.",2 There were several other signs of something wrong about Mrs. Hale.,2 "She and Dixon held mysterious consultations in her bedroom, from which Dixon would come out crying and cross, as was her custom when any distress of her mistress called upon her sympathy.",0 "Once Margaret had gone into the chamber soon after Dixon left it, and found her mother on her knees, and as Margaret stole out she caught a few words, which were evidently a prayer for strength and patience to endure severe bodily suffering.",1 "Margaret yearned to re-unite the bond of intimate confidence which had been broken by her long residence at her aunt Shaw's, and strove by gentle caresses and softened words to creep into the warmest place in her mother's heart.",3 "But though she received caresses and fond words back again, in such profusion as would have gladdened her formerly, yet she felt that there was a secret withheld from her, and she believed it bore serious reference to her mother's health.",3 "She lay awake very long this night, planning how to lessen the evil influence of their Milton life on her mother.",1 "A servant to give Dixon permanent assistance should be got, if she gave up her whole time to the search; and then, at any rate, her mother might have all the personal attention she required, and had been accustomed to her whole life.",2 "Visiting register offices, seeing all manner of unlikely people, and very few in the least likely, absorbed Margaret's time and thoughts for several days.",1 "One afternoon she met Bessy Higgins in the street, and stopped to speak to her.",2 "'Well, Bessy, how are you?",2 "Better, I hope, now the wind has changed.'",3 "'Better and not better, if yo' know what that means.'",3 "'Not exactly,' replied Margaret, smiling.",3 "'I'm better in not being torn to pieces by coughing o'nights, but I'm weary and tired o' Milton, and longing to get away to the land o' Beulah; and when I think I'm farther and farther off, my heart sinks, and I'm no better; I'm worse.'",0 Margaret turned round to walk alongside of the girl in her feeble progress homeward.,2 But for a minute or two she did not speak.,2 "At last she said in a low voice, 'Bessy, do you wish to die?'",1 "For she shrank from death herself, with all the clinging to life so natural to the young and healthy.",2 Bessy was silent in her turn for a minute or two.,3 "Then she replied, 'If yo'd led the life I have, and getten as weary of it as I have, and thought at times, ""maybe it'll last for fifty or sixty years--it does wi' some,""--and got dizzy and dazed, and sick, as each of them sixty years seemed to spin about me, and mock me with its length of hours and minutes, and endless bits o' time--oh, wench!",0 I tell thee thou'd been glad enough when th' doctor said he feared thou'd never see another winter.',3 "'Why, Bessy, what kind of a life has yours been?'",2 "'Nought worse than many others, I reckon.",1 "Only I fretted again it, and they didn't.'",2 'But what was it?,2 "You know, I'm a stranger here, so perhaps I'm not so quick at understanding what you mean as if I'd lived all my life at Milton.'",1 "'If yo'd ha' come to our house when yo' said yo' would, I could maybe ha' told you.",2 But father says yo're just like th' rest on 'em; it's out o' sight out o' mind wi' you.',3 "'I don't know who the rest are; and I've been very busy; and, to tell the truth, I had forgotten my promise--' 'Yo' offered it!",3 we asked none of it.',2 "'I had forgotten what I said for the time,' continued Margaret quietly.",2 'I should have thought of it again when I was less busy.,2 May I go with you now?',2 "Bessy gave a quick glance at Margaret's face, to see if the wish expressed was really felt.",2 The sharpness in her eye turned to a wistful longing as she met Margaret's soft and friendly gaze.,3 'I ha' none so many to care for me; if yo' care yo' may come.,2 So they walked on together in silence.,2 "As they turned up into a small court, opening out of a squalid street, Bessy said, 'Yo'll not be daunted if father's at home, and speaks a bit gruffish at first.",2 "He took a mind to ye, yo' see, and he thought a deal o' your coming to see us; and just because he liked yo' he were vexed and put about.'",3 "'Don't fear, Bessy.'",1 But Nicholas was not at home when they entered.,2 "A great slatternly girl, not so old as Bessy, but taller and stronger, was busy at the wash-tub, knocking about the furniture in a rough capable way, but altogether making so much noise that Margaret shrunk, out of sympathy with poor Bessy, who had sat down on the first chair, as if completely tired out with her walk.",1 "Margaret asked the sister for a cup of water, and while she ran to fetch it (knocking down the fire-irons, and tumbling over a chair in her way), she unloosed Bessy's bonnet strings, to relieve her catching breath.",2 'Do you think such life as this is worth caring for?',3 "gasped Bessy, at last.",2 "Margaret did not speak, but held the water to her lips.",2 "Bessy took a long and feverish draught, and then fell back and shut her eyes.",1 "Margaret heard her murmur to herself: 'They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.'",1 "Margaret bent over and said, 'Bessy, don't be impatient with your life, whatever it is--or may have been.",1 "Remember who gave it you, and made it what it is!'",2 She was startled by hearing Nicholas speak behind her; he had come in without her noticing him.,2 "'Now, I'll not have my wench preached to.",2 "She's bad enough as it is, with her dreams and her methodee fancies, and her visions of cities with goulden gates and precious stones.",3 "But if it amuses her I let it a be, but I'm none going to have more stuff poured into her.'",2 "'But surely,' said Margaret, facing round, 'you believe in what I said, that God gave her life, and ordered what kind of life it was to be?'",2 "'I believe what I see, and no more.",2 "That's what I believe, young woman.",2 I don't believe all I hear--no!,2 not by a big deal.,2 "I did hear a young lass make an ado about knowing where we lived, and coming to see us.",2 "And my wench here thought a deal about it, and flushed up many a time, when hoo little knew as I was looking at her, at the sound of a strange step.",1 "But hoo's come at last,--and hoo's welcome, as long as hoo'll keep from preaching on what hoo knows nought about.'",3 "Bessy had been watching Margaret's face; she half sate up to speak now, laying her hand on Margaret's arm with a gesture of entreaty.",2 'Don't be vexed wi' him--there's many a one thinks like him; many and many a one here.,3 "If yo' could hear them speak, yo'd not be shocked at him; he's a rare good man, is father--but oh!'",2 "said she, falling back in despair, 'what he says at times makes me long to die more than ever, for I want to know so many things, and am so tossed about wi' wonder.'",1 "'Poor wench--poor old wench,--I'm loth to vex thee, I am; but a man mun speak out for the truth, and when I see the world going all wrong at this time o' day, bothering itself wi' things it knows nought about, and leaving undone all the things that lie in disorder close at its hand--why, I say, leave a' this talk about religion alone, and set to work on what yo' see and know.",0 That's my creed.,2 "It's simple, and not far to fetch, nor hard to work.'",2 But the girl only pleaded the more with Margaret.,2 "'Don't think hardly on him--he's a good man, he is.",3 "I sometimes think I shall be moped wi' sorrow even in the City of God, if father is not there.'",1 "The feverish colour came into her cheek, and the feverish flame into her eye.",1 "'But you will be there, father!",2 you shall!,2 Oh!,2 my heart!',2 "She put her hand to it, and became ghastly pale.",1 "Margaret held her in her arms, and put the weary head to rest upon her bosom.",1 "She lifted the thin soft hair from off the temples, and bathed them with water.",3 "Nicholas understood all her signs for different articles with the quickness of love, and even the round-eyed sister moved with laborious gentleness at Margaret's 'hush!'",3 "Presently the spasm that foreshadowed death had passed away, and Bessy roused herself and said,-- 'I'll go to bed,--it's best place; but,' catching at Margaret's gown, 'yo'll come again,--I know yo' will--but just say it!'",2 "'I will come to-morrow,' said Margaret.",2 "Bessy leant back against her father, who prepared to carry her upstairs; but as Margaret rose to go, he struggled to say something: 'I could wish there were a God, if it were only to ask Him to bless thee.'",2 Margaret went away very sad and thoughtful.,2 She was late for tea at home.,2 "At Helstone unpunctuality at meal-times was a great fault in her mother's eyes; but now this, as well as many other little irregularities, seemed to have lost their power of irritation, and Margaret almost longed for the old complainings.",1 "'Have you met with a servant, dear?'",2 "'No, mamma; that Anne Buckley would never have done.'",2 "'Suppose I try,' said Mr. Hale.",3 'Everybody else has had their turn at this great difficulty.,2 Now let me try.,2 I may be the Cinderella to put on the slipper after all.',2 "Margaret could hardly smile at this little joke, so oppressed was she by her visit to the Higginses.",2 "'What would you do, papa?",2 How would you set about it?',2 "'Why, I would apply to some good house-mother to recommend me one known to herself or her servants.'",3 'Very good.,3 But we must first catch our house-mother.',2 'You have caught her.,2 "Or rather she is coming into the snare, and you will catch her to-morrow, if you're skilful.'",1 "'What do you mean, Mr. Hale?'",3 "asked his wife, her curiosity aroused.",2 "'Why, my paragon pupil (as Margaret calls him), has told me that his mother intends to call on Mrs. and Miss Hale to-morrow.'",2 'Mrs. Thornton!',2 exclaimed Mrs. Hale.,3 'The mother of whom he spoke to us?',2 said Margaret.,2 "'Mrs. Thornton; the only mother he has, I believe,' said Mr. Hale quietly.",3 'I shall like to see her.,3 "She must be an uncommon person,' her mother added.",2 "'Perhaps she may have a relation who might suit us, and be glad of our place.",3 "She sounded to be such a careful economical person, that I should like any one out of the same family.'",3 "'My dear,' said Mr. Hale alarmed.",2 'Pray don't go off on that idea.,2 "I fancy Mrs. Thornton is as haughty and proud in her way, as our little Margaret here is in hers, and that she completely ignores that old time of trial, and poverty, and economy, of which he speaks so openly.",3 "I am sure, at any rate, she would not like strangers to know anything about It.'",3 "'Take notice that is not my kind of haughtiness, papa, if I have any at all; which I don't agree to, though you're always accusing me of it.'",1 "'I don't know positively that it is hers either; but from little things I have gathered from him, I fancy so.'",3 They cared too little to ask in what manner her son had spoken about her.,2 "Margaret only wanted to know if she must stay in to receive this call, as it would prevent her going to see how Bessy was, until late in the day, since the early morning was always occupied in household affairs; and then she recollected that her mother must not be left to have the whole weight of entertaining her visitor.",3 Mr. Thornton had had some difficulty in working up his mother to the desired point of civility.,2 "She did not often make calls; and when she did, it was in heavy state that she went through her duties.",2 "Her son had given her a carriage; but she refused to let him keep horses for it; they were hired for the solemn occasions, when she paid morning or evening visits.",1 "She had had horses for three days, not a fortnight before, and had comfortably 'killed off' all her acquaintances, who might now put themselves to trouble and expense in their turn.",2 Yet Crampton was too far off for her to walk; and she had repeatedly questioned her son as to whether his wish that she should call on the Hales was strong enough to bear the expense of cab-hire.,3 "She would have been thankful if it had not; for, as she said, 'she saw no use in making up friendships and intimacies with all the teachers and masters in Milton; why, he would be wanting her to call on Fanny's dancing-master's wife, the next thing!'",3 "'And so I would, mother, if Mr. Mason and his wife were friendless in a strange place, like the Hales.'",2 'Oh!,2 you need not speak so hastily.,1 I am going to-morrow.,2 I only wanted you exactly to understand about it.',2 "'If you are going to-morrow, I shall order horses.'",2 "'Nonsense, John.",2 One would think you were made of money.',2 "'Not quite, yet.",2 But about the horses I'm determined.,2 "The last time you were out in a cab, you came home with a headache from the jolting.'",1 "'I never complained of it, I'm sure.'",1 'No.,2 "My mother is not given to complaints,' said he, a little proudly.",1 'But so much the more I have to watch over you.,2 "Now as for Fanny there, a little hardship would do her good.'",2 "'She is not made of the same stuff as you are, John.",2 She could not bear it.',2 Mrs. Thornton was silent after this; for her last words bore relation to a subject which mortified her.,1 She had an unconscious contempt for a weak character; and Fanny was weak in the very points in which her mother and brother were strong.,1 "Mrs. Thornton was not a woman much given to reasoning; her quick judgment and firm resolution served her in good stead of any long arguments and discussions with herself; she felt instinctively that nothing could strengthen Fanny to endure hardships patiently, or face difficulties bravely; and though she winced as she made this acknowledgment to herself about her daughter, it only gave her a kind of pitying tenderness of manner towards her; much of the same description of demeanour with which mothers are wont to treat their weak and sickly children.",0 "A stranger, a careless observer might have considered that Mrs. Thornton's manner to her children betokened far more love to Fanny than to John.",1 But such a one would have been deeply mistaken.,1 "The very daringness with which mother and son spoke out unpalatable truths, the one to the other, showed a reliance on the firm centre of each other's souls, which the uneasy tenderness of Mrs. Thornton's manner to her daughter, the shame with which she thought to hide the poverty of her child in all the grand qualities which she herself possessed unconsciously, and which she set so high a value upon in others--this shame, I say, betrayed the want of a secure resting-place for her affection.",1 "She never called her son by any name but John; 'love,' and 'dear,' and such like terms, were reserved for Fanny.",3 But her heart gave thanks for him day and night; and she walked proudly among women for his sake.,2 "'Fanny dear I shall have horses to the carriage to-day, to go and call on these Hales.",2 Should not you go and see nurse?,2 "It's in the same direction, and she's always so glad to see you.",3 You could go on there while I am at Mrs. Hale's.',2 'Oh!,2 "mamma, it's such a long way, and I am so tired.'",1 'With what?',2 "asked Mrs. Thornton, her brow slightly contracting.",2 "'I don't know--the weather, I think.",2 It is so relaxing.,2 "Couldn't you bring nurse here, mamma?",2 "The carriage could fetch her, and she could spend the rest of the day here, which I know she would like.'",3 "Mrs. Thornton did not speak; but she laid her work on the table, and seemed to think.",3 'It will be a long way for her to walk back at night!',2 "she remarked, at last.",2 "'Oh, but I will send her home in a cab.",2 I never thought of her walking.',2 "At this point, Mr. Thornton came in, just before going to the mill.",2 'Mother!,2 "I need hardly say, that if there is any little thing that could serve Mrs. Hale as an invalid, you will offer it, I'm sure.'",2 "'If I can find it out, I will.",2 "But I have never been ill myself, so I am not much up to invalids' fancies.'",2 'Well!,2 "here is Fanny then, who is seldom without an ailment.",1 "She will be able to suggest something, perhaps--won't you, Fan?'",2 "'I have not always an ailment,' said Fanny, pettishly; 'and I am not going with mamma.",1 "I have a headache to-day, and I shan't go out.'",1 Mr. Thornton looked annoyed.,1 "His mother's eyes were bent on her work, at which she was now stitching away busily.",2 'Fanny!,2 "I wish you to go,' said he, authoritatively.",2 "'It will do you good, instead of harm.",2 "You will oblige me by going, without my saying anything more about it.'",2 He went abruptly out of the room after saying this.,1 "If he had staid a minute longer, Fanny would have cried at his tone of command, even when he used the words, 'You will oblige me.'",1 "As it was, she grumbled.",2 "'John always speaks as if I fancied I was ill, and I am sure I never do fancy any such thing.",3 Who are these Hales that he makes such a fuss about?',1 "'Fanny, don't speak so of your brother.",2 "He has good reasons of some kind or other, or he would not wish us to go.",3 Make haste and put your things on.',1 But the little altercation between her son and her daughter did not incline Mrs. Thornton more favourably towards 'these Hales.',1 "Her jealous heart repeated her daughter's question, 'Who are they, that he is so anxious we should pay them all this attention?'",1 "It came up like a burden to a song, long after Fanny had forgotten all about it in the pleasant excitement of seeing the effect of a new bonnet in the looking-glass.",3 Mrs. Thornton was shy.,2 It was only of late years that she had had leisure enough in her life to go into society; and as society she did not enjoy it.,3 "As dinner-giving, and as criticising other people's dinners, she took satisfaction in it.",2 But this going to make acquaintance with strangers was a very different thing.,2 "She was ill at ease, and looked more than usually stern and forbidding as she entered the Hales' little drawing-room.",1 "Margaret was busy embroidering a small piece of cambric for some little article of dress for Edith's expected baby--'Flimsy, useless work,' as Mrs. Thornton observed to herself.",2 She liked Mrs. Hale's double knitting far better; that was sensible of its kind.,4 "The room altogether was full of knick-knacks, which must take a long time to dust; and time to people of limited income was money.",1 "She made all these reflections as she was talking in her stately way to Mrs. Hale, and uttering all the stereotyped commonplaces that most people can find to say with their senses blindfolded.",3 "Mrs. Hale was making rather more exertion in her answers, captivated by some real old lace which Mrs. Thornton wore; 'lace,' as she afterwards observed to Dixon, 'of that old English point which has not been made for this seventy years, and which cannot be bought.",3 "It must have been an heir-loom, and shows that she had ancestors.'",2 "So the owner of the ancestral lace became worthy of something more than the languid exertion to be agreeable to a visitor, by which Mrs. Hale's efforts at conversation would have been otherwise bounded.",3 "And presently, Margaret, racking her brain to talk to Fanny, heard her mother and Mrs. Thornton plunge into the interminable subject of servants.",2 "'I suppose you are not musical,' said Fanny, 'as I see no piano.'",2 'I am fond of hearing good music; I cannot play well myself; and papa and mamma don't care much about it; so we sold our old piano when we came here.',4 'I wonder how you can exist without one.,3 It almost seems to me a necessary of life.',2 "'Fifteen shillings a week, and three saved out of them!'",2 thought Margaret to herself 'But she must have been very young.,2 She probably has forgotten her own personal experience.,2 But she must know of those days.',2 Margaret's manner had an extra tinge of coldness in it when she next spoke.,2 "'You have good concerts here, I believe.'",3 "'Oh, yes!",2 Delicious!,3 "Too crowded, that is the worst.",1 The directors admit so indiscriminately.,1 But one is sure to hear the newest music there.,2 "I always have a large order to give to Johnson's, the day after a concert.'",2 "'Do you like new music simply for its newness, then?'",3 "'Oh; one knows it is the fashion in London, or else the singers would not bring it down here.",2 "You have been in London, of course.'",2 "'Yes,' said Margaret, 'I have lived there for several years.'",2 'Oh!,2 London and the Alhambra are the two places I long to see!',2 'London and the Alhambra!',2 'Yes!,2 ever since I read the Tales of the Alhambra.,2 Don't you know them?',2 'I don't think I do.,2 "But surely, it is a very easy journey to London.'",3 "'Yes; but somehow,' said Fanny, lowering her voice, 'mamma has never been to London herself, and can't understand my longing.",1 "She is very proud of Milton; dirty, smoky place, as I feel it to be.",2 I believe she admires it the more for those very qualities.',2 "'If it has been Mrs. Thornton's home for some years, I can well understand her loving it,' said Margaret, in her clear bell-like voice.",4 "'What are you saying about me, Miss Hale?",2 May I inquire?',2 "Margaret had not the words ready for an answer to this question, which took her a little by surprise, so Miss Thornton replied: 'Oh, mamma!",2 we are only trying to account for your being so fond of Milton.',3 "'Thank you,' said Mrs. Thornton.",2 "'I do not feel that my very natural liking for the place where I was born and brought up,--and which has since been my residence for some years, requires any accounting for.'",3 Margaret was vexed.,2 "As Fanny had put it, it did seem as if they had been impertinently discussing Mrs. Thornton's feelings; but she also rose up against that lady's manner of showing that she was offended.",2 "Mrs. Thornton went on after a moment's pause: 'Do you know anything of Milton, Miss Hale?",2 Have you seen any of our factories?,2 our magnificent warehouses?',3 'No!',2 said Margaret.,2 'I have not seen anything of that description as yet.',2 "Then she felt that, by concealing her utter indifference to all such places, she was hardly speaking with truth; so she went on: 'I dare say, papa would have taken me before now if I had cared.",1 But I really do not find much pleasure in going over manufactories.',3 "'They are very curious places,' said Mrs. Hale, 'but there is so much noise and dirt always.",1 "I remember once going in a lilac silk to see candles made, and my gown was utterly ruined.'",1 "'Very probably,' said Mrs. Thornton, in a short displeased manner.",1 "'I merely thought, that as strangers newly come to reside in a town which has risen to eminence in the country, from the character and progress of its peculiar business, you might have cared to visit some of the places where it is carried on; places unique in the kingdom, I am informed.",3 "If Miss Hale changes her mind and condescends to be curious as to the manufactures of Milton, I can only say I shall be glad to procure her admission to print-works, or reed-making, or the more simple operations of spinning carried on in my son's mill.",3 "Every improvement of machinery is, I believe, to be seen there, in its highest perfection.'",3 "'I am so glad you don't like mills and manufactories, and all those kind of things,' said Fanny, in a half-whisper, as she rose to accompany her mother, who was taking leave of Mrs. Hale with rustling dignity.",4 "'I think I should like to know all about them, if I were you,' replied Margaret quietly.",3 'Fanny!',2 "said her mother, as they drove away, 'we will be civil to these Hales: but don't form one of your hasty friendships with the daughter.",1 "She will do you no good, I see.",3 "The mother looks very ill, and seems a nice, quiet kind of person.'",3 "'I don't want to form any friendship with Miss Hale, mamma,' said Fanny, pouting.",2 "'I thought I was doing my duty by talking to her, and trying to amuse her.'",3 'Well!,2 at any rate John must be satisfied now.',3 "Margaret flew upstairs as soon as their visitors were gone, and put on her bonnet and shawl, to run and inquire how Bessy Higgins was, and sit with her as long as she could before dinner.",2 "As she went along the crowded narrow streets, she felt how much of interest they had gained by the simple fact of her having learnt to care for a dweller in them.",2 "Mary Higgins, the slatternly younger sister, had endeavoured as well as she could to tidy up the house for the expected visit.",3 "There had been rough-stoning done in the middle of the floor, while the flags under the chairs and table and round the walls retained their dark unwashed appearance.",1 "Although the day was hot, there burnt a large fire in the grate, making the whole place feel like an oven.",3 "Margaret did not understand that the lavishness of coals was a sign of hospitable welcome to her on Mary's part, and thought that perhaps the oppressive heat was necessary for Bessy.",3 "Bessy herself lay on a squab, or short sofa, placed under the window.",2 "She was very much more feeble than on the previous day, and tired with raising herself at every step to look out and see if it was Margaret coming.",1 "And now that Margaret was there, and had taken a chair by her, Bessy lay back silent, and content to look at Margaret's face, and touch her articles of dress, with a childish admiration of their fineness of texture.",3 'I never knew why folk in the Bible cared for soft raiment afore.,3 But it must be nice to go dressed as yo' do.,3 It's different fro' common.,2 Most fine folk tire my eyes out wi' their colours; but some how yours rest me.,3 Where did ye get this frock?',2 "'In London,' said Margaret, much amused.",2 'London!,2 Have yo' been in London?',2 'Yes!,2 I lived there for some years.,2 But my home was in a forest; in the country.,2 "'Tell me about it,' said Bessy.",2 "'I like to hear speak of the country and trees, and such like things.'",3 "She leant back, and shut her eye and crossed her hands over her breast, lying at perfect rest, as if to receive all the ideas Margaret could suggest.",2 "Margaret had never spoken of Helstone since she left it, except just naming the place incidentally.",2 "She saw it in dreams more vivid than life, and as she fell away to slumber at nights her memory wandered in all its pleasant places.",3 "But her heart was opened to this girl; 'Oh, Bessy, I loved the home we have left so dearly!",3 I wish you could see it.,2 I cannot tell you half its beauty.,3 "There are great trees standing all about it, with their branches stretching long and level, and making a deep shade of rest even at noonday.",3 "And yet, though every leaf may seem still, there is a continual rushing sound of movement all around--not close at hand.",2 "Then sometimes the turf is as soft and fine as velvet; and sometimes quite lush with the perpetual moisture of a little, hidden, tinkling brook near at hand.",4 And then in other parts there are billowy ferns--whole stretches of fern; some in the green shadow; some with long streaks of golden sunlight lying on them--just like the sea.',3 "'I have never seen the sea,' murmured Bessy.",2 'But go on.',2 "'Then, here and there, there are wide commons, high up as if above the very tops of the trees--' 'I'm glad of that.",3 I felt smothered like down below.,3 "When I have gone for an out, I've always wanted to get high up and see far away, and take a deep breath o' fulness in that air.",2 "I get smothered enough in Milton, and I think the sound yo' speak of among the trees, going on for ever and ever, would send me dazed; it's that made my head ache so in the mill.",1 Now on these commons I reckon there is but little noise?',1 "'No,' said Margaret; 'nothing but here and there a lark high in the air.",2 "Sometimes I used to hear a farmer speaking sharp and loud to his servants; but it was so far away that it only reminded me pleasantly that other people were hard at work in some distant place, while I just sat on the heather and did nothing.'",3 "'I used to think once that if I could have a day of doing nothing, to rest me--a day in some quiet place like that yo' speak on--it would maybe set me up.",3 "But now I've had many days o' idleness, and I'm just as weary o' them as I was o' my work.",2 Sometimes I'm so tired out I think I cannot enjoy heaven without a piece of rest first.,3 I'm rather afeard o' going straight there without getting a good sleep in the grave to set me up.',3 "'Don't be afraid, Bessy,' said Margaret, laying her hand on the girl's; 'God can give you more perfect rest than even idleness on earth, or the dead sleep of the grave can do.'",1 Bessy moved uneasily; then she said: 'I wish father would not speak as he does.,1 "He means well, as I telled yo' yesterday, and tell yo' again and again.",3 "But yo' see, though I don't believe him a bit by day, yet by night--when I'm in a fever, half-asleep and half-awake--it comes back upon me--oh!",1 so bad!,1 "And I think, if this should be th' end of all, and if all I've been born for is just to work my heart and my life away, and to sicken i' this dree place, wi' them mill-noises in my ears for ever, until I could scream out for them to stop, and let me have a little piece o' quiet--and wi' the fluff filling my lungs, until I thirst to death for one long deep breath o' the clear air yo' speak on--and my mother gone, and I never able to tell her again how I loved her, and o' all my troubles--I think if this life is th' end, and that there's no God to wipe away all tears from all eyes--yo' wench, yo'!'",1 "said she, sitting up, and clutching violently, almost fiercely, at Margaret's hand, 'I could go mad, and kill yo', I could.'",0 She fell back completely worn out with her passion.,1 Margaret knelt down by her.,2 'Bessy--we have a Father in Heaven.',3 'I know it!,2 "I know it,' moaned she, turning her head uneasily from side to side.",1 'I'm very wicked.,1 I've spoken very wickedly.,1 Oh!,2 don't be frightened by me and never come again.,2 I would not harm a hair of your head.,1 "And,' opening her eyes, and looking earnestly at Margaret, 'I believe, perhaps, more than yo' do o' what's to come.",3 "I read the book o' Revelations until I know it off by heart, and I never doubt when I'm waking, and in my senses, of all the glory I'm to come to.'",2 'Don't let us talk of what fancies come into your head when you are feverish.,1 I would rather hear something about what you used to do when you were well.',3 "'I think I was well when mother died, but I have never been rightly strong sin' somewhere about that time.",3 "I began to work in a carding-room soon after, and the fluff got into my lungs and poisoned me.'",3 'Fluff?',2 "said Margaret, inquiringly.",2 "'Fluff,' repeated Bessy.",2 "'Little bits, as fly off fro' the cotton, when they're carding it, and fill the air till it looks all fine white dust.",2 "They say it winds round the lungs, and tightens them up.",2 "Anyhow, there's many a one as works in a carding-room, that falls into a waste, coughing and spitting blood, because they're just poisoned by the fluff.'",1 'But can't it be helped?',3 asked Margaret.,2 'I dunno.,2 "Some folk have a great wheel at one end o' their carding-rooms to make a draught, and carry off th' dust; but that wheel costs a deal o' money--five or six hundred pound, maybe, and brings in no profit; so it's but a few of th' masters as will put 'em up; and I've heard tell o' men who didn't like working places where there was a wheel, because they said as how it mad 'em hungry, at after they'd been long used to swallowing fluff, to go without it, and that their wage ought to be raised if they were to work in such places.",3 So between masters and men th' wheels fall through.,2 "I know I wish there'd been a wheel in our place, though.'",2 'Did not your father know about it?',2 asked Margaret.,2 'Yes!,2 And he were sorry.,1 "But our factory were a good one on the whole; and a steady likely set o' people; and father was afeard of letting me go to a strange place, for though yo' would na think it now, many a one then used to call me a gradely lass enough.",3 "And I did na like to be reckoned nesh and soft, and Mary's schooling were to be kept up, mother said, and father he were always liking to buy books, and go to lectures o' one kind or another--all which took money--so I just worked on till I shall ne'er get the whirr out o' my ears, or the fluff out o' my throat i' this world.",4 That's all.',2 'How old are you?',2 asked Margaret.,2 "'Nineteen, come July.'",2 'And I too am nineteen.',2 "She thought, more sorrowfully than Bessy did, of the contrast between them.",1 She could not speak for a moment or two for the emotion she was trying to keep down.,2 "'About Mary,' said Bessy.",2 'I wanted to ask yo' to be a friend to her.,2 "She's seventeen, but she's th' last on us.",2 "And I don't want her to go to th' mill, and yet I dunno what she's fit for.'",2 "'She could not do'--Margaret glanced unconsciously at the uncleaned corners of the room--'She could hardly undertake a servant's place, could she?",2 "We have an old faithful servant, almost a friend, who wants help, but who is very particular; and it would not be right to plague her with giving her any assistance that would really be an annoyance and an irritation.'",1 "'No, I see.",2 I reckon yo're right.,3 Our Mary's a good wench; but who has she had to teach her what to do about a house?,3 "No mother, and me at the mill till I were good for nothing but scolding her for doing badly what I didn't know how to do a bit.",1 "But I wish she could ha' lived wi' yo', for all that.'",2 "'But even though she may not be exactly fitted to come and live with us as a servant--and I don't know about that--I will always try and be a friend to her for your sake, Bessy.",2 And now I must go.,2 "I will come again as soon as I can; but if it should not be to-morrow, or the next day, or even a week or a fortnight hence, don't think I've forgotten you.",2 I may be busy.',2 'I'll know yo' won't forget me again.,2 I'll not mistrust yo' no more.,1 "But remember, in a week or a fortnight I may be dead and buried!'",1 "'I'll come as soon as I can, Bessy,' said Margaret, squeezing her hand tight.",2 'But you'll let me know if you are worse.',1 "'Ay, that will I,' said Bessy, returning the pressure.",2 From that day forwards Mrs. Hale became more and more of a suffering invalid.,1 "It was now drawing near to the anniversary of Edith's marriage, and looking back upon the year's accumulated heap of troubles, Margaret wondered how they had been borne.",1 "If she could have anticipated them, how she would have shrunk away and hid herself from the coming time!",2 "And yet day by day had, of itself, and by itself, been very endurable--small, keen, bright little spots of positive enjoyment having come sparkling into the very middle of sorrows.",4 "A year ago, or when she first went to Helstone, and first became silently conscious of the querulousness in her mother's temper, she would have groaned bitterly over the idea of a long illness to be borne in a strange, desolate, noisy, busy place, with diminished comforts on every side of the home life.",0 "But with the increase of serious and just ground of complaint, a new kind of patience had sprung up in her mother's mind.",2 "She was gentle and quiet in intense bodily suffering, almost in proportion as she had been restless and depressed when there had been no real cause for grief.",0 "Mr. Hale was in exactly that stage of apprehension which, in men of his stamp, takes the shape of wilful blindness.",2 He was more irritated than Margaret had ever known him at his daughter's expressed anxiety.,1 "'Indeed, Margaret, you are growing fanciful!",1 "God knows I should be the first to take the alarm if your mother were really ill; we always saw when she had her headaches at Helstone, even without her telling us.",1 "She looks quite pale and white when she is ill; and now she has a bright healthy colour in her cheeks, just as she used to have when I first knew her.'",3 "'But, papa,' said Margaret, with hesitation, 'do you know, I think that is the flush of pain.'",1 "'Nonsense, Margaret.",2 "I tell you, you are too fanciful.",1 "You are the person not well, I think.",3 "Send for the doctor to-morrow for yourself; and then, if it will make your mind easier, he can see your mother.'",3 "'Thank you, dear papa.",2 "It will make me happier, indeed.'",3 And she went up to him to kiss him.,2 "But he pushed her away--gently enough, but still as if she had suggested unpleasant ideas, which he should be glad to get rid of as readily as he could of her presence.",3 He walked uneasily up and down the room.,1 'Poor Maria!',2 "said he, half soliloquising, 'I wish one could do right without sacrificing others.",3 "I shall hate this town, and myself too, if she---- Pray, Margaret, does your mother often talk to you of the old places of Helstone, I mean?'",1 "'No, papa,' said Margaret, sadly.",1 "'Then, you see, she can't be fretting after them, eh?",2 It has always been a comfort to me to think that your mother was so simple and open that I knew every little grievance she had.,2 "She never would conceal anything seriously affecting her health from me: would she, eh, Margaret?",2 I am quite sure she would not.,2 So don't let me hear of these foolish morbid ideas.,1 "Come, give me a kiss, and run off to bed.'",2 "But she heard him pacing about (racooning, as she and Edith used to call it) long after her slow and languid undressing was finished--long after she began to listen as she lay in bed.",1 "It was a comfort to Margaret about this time, to find that her mother drew more tenderly and intimately towards her than she had ever done since the days of her childhood.",3 "She took her to her heart as a confidential friend--the post Margaret had always longed to fill, and had envied Dixon for being preferred to.",2 "Margaret took pains to respond to every call made upon her for sympathy--and they were many--even when they bore relation to trifles, which she would no more have noticed or regarded herself than the elephant would perceive the little pin at his feet, which yet he lifts carefully up at the bidding of his keeper.",1 All unconsciously Margaret drew near to a reward.,3 "One evening, Mr. Hale being absent, her mother began to talk to her about her brother Frederick, the very subject on which Margaret had longed to ask questions, and almost the only one on which her timidity overcame her natural openness.",3 "The more she wanted to hear about him, the less likely she was to speak.",2 "'Oh, Margaret, it was so windy last night!",2 It came howling down the chimney in our room!,2 I could not sleep.,2 I never can when there is such a terrible wind.,1 "I got into a wakeful habit when poor Frederick was at sea; and now, even if I don't waken all at once, I dream of him in some stormy sea, with great, clear, glass-green walls of waves on either side his ship, but far higher than her very masts, curling over her with that cruel, terrible white foam, like some gigantic crested serpent.",1 "It is an old dream, but it always comes back on windy nights, till I am thankful to waken, sitting straight and stiff up in bed with my terror.",1 Poor Frederick!,1 "He is on land now, so wind can do him no harm.",1 Though I did think it might shake down some of those tall chimneys.',1 "'Where is Frederick now, mamma?",2 Our letters are directed to the care of Messrs.,2 "Barbour, at Cadiz, I know; but where is he himself?'",2 "'I can't remember the name of the place, but he is not called Hale; you must remember that, Margaret.",3 Notice the F. D. in every corner of the letters.,2 He has taken the name of Dickenson.,2 "I wanted him to have been called Beresford, to which he had a kind of right, but your father thought he had better not.",3 "He might be recognised, you know, if he were called by my name.'",2 "'Mamma,' said Margaret, 'I was at Aunt Shaw's when it all happened; and I suppose I was not old enough to be told plainly about it.",3 "But I should like to know now, if I may--if it does not give you too much pain to speak about it.'",2 'Pain!,2 "No,' replied Mrs. Hale, her cheek flushing.",3 'Yet it is pain to think that perhaps I may never see my darling boy again.,2 "Or else he did right, Margaret.",3 "They may say what they like, but I have his own letters to show, and I'll believe him, though he is my son, sooner than any court-martial on earth.",3 "Go to my little japan cabinet, dear, and in the second left-hand drawer you will find a packet of letters.'",2 Margaret went.,2 "There were the yellow, sea-stained letters, with the peculiar fragrance which ocean letters have: Margaret carried them back to her mother, who untied the silken string with trembling fingers, and, examining their dates, she gave them to Margaret to read, making her hurried, anxious remarks on their contents, almost before her daughter could have understood what they were.",1 "'You see, Margaret, how from the very first he disliked Captain Reid.",1 He was second lieutenant in the ship--the Orion--in which Frederick sailed the very first time.,2 "Poor little fellow, how well he looked in his midshipman's dress, with his dirk in his hand, cutting open all the newspapers with it as if it were a paper-knife!",1 "But this Mr. Reid, as he was then, seemed to take a dislike to Frederick from the very beginning.",1 And then--stay!,2 these are the letters he wrote on board the Russell.,2 "When he was appointed to her, and found his old enemy Captain Reid in command, he did mean to bear all his tyranny patiently.",1 Look!,2 this is the letter.,2 "Just read it, Margaret.",2 "Where is it he says--Stop--'my father may rely upon me, that I will bear with all proper patience everything that one officer and gentleman can take from another.",3 "But from my former knowledge of my present captain, I confess I look forward with apprehension to a long course of tyranny on board the Russell.'",0 "You see, he promises to bear patiently, and I am sure he did, for he was the sweetest-tempered boy, when he was not vexed, that could possibly be.",3 "Is that the letter in which he speaks of Captain Reid's impatience with the men, for not going through the ship's manoeuvres as quickly as the Avenger?",1 "You see, he says that they had many new hands on board the Russell, while the Avenger had been nearly three years on the station, with nothing to do but to keep slavers off, and work her men, till they ran up and down the rigging like rats or monkeys.'",3 "Margaret slowly read the letter, half illegible through the fading of the ink.",1 "It might be--it probably was--a statement of Captain Reid's imperiousness in trifles, very much exaggerated by the narrator, who had written it while fresh and warm from the scene of altercation.",3 "Some sailors being aloft in the main-topsail rigging, the captain had ordered them to race down, threatening the hindmost with the cat-of-nine-tails.",1 "He who was the farthest on the spar, feeling the impossibility of passing his companions, and yet passionately dreading the disgrace of the flogging, threw himself desperately down to catch a rope considerably lower, failed, and fell senseless on deck.",0 "He only survived for a few hours afterwards, and the indignation of the ship's crew was at boiling point when young Hale wrote.",1 "'But we did not receive this letter till long, long after we heard of the mutiny.",2 Poor Fred!,1 "I dare say it was a comfort to him to write it even though he could not have known how to send it, poor fellow!",2 "And then we saw a report in the papers--that's to say, long before Fred's letter reached us--of an atrocious mutiny having broken out on board the Russell, and that the mutineers had remained in possession of the ship, which had gone off, it was supposed, to be a pirate; and that Captain Reid was sent adrift in a boat with some men--officers or something--whose names were all given, for they were picked up by a West-Indian steamer.",1 "Oh, Margaret!",2 "how your father and I turned sick over that list, when there was no name of Frederick Hale.",2 "We thought it must be some mistake; for poor Fred was such a fine fellow, only perhaps rather too passionate; and we hoped that the name of Carr, which was in the list, was a misprint for that of Hale--newspapers are so careless.",2 "And towards post-time the next day, papa set off to walk to Southampton to get the papers; and I could not stop at home, so I went to meet him.",2 He was very late--much later than I thought he would have been; and I sat down under the hedge to wait for him.,1 "He came at last, his arms hanging loose down, his head sunk, and walking heavily along, as if every step was a labour and a trouble.",0 "Margaret, I see him now.'",2 "'Don't go on, mamma.",2 "I can understand it all,' said Margaret, leaning up caressingly against her mother's side, and kissing her hand.",2 "'No, you can't, Margaret.",2 No one can who did not see him then.,2 I could hardly lift myself up to go and meet him--everything seemed so to reel around me all at once.,2 "And when I got to him, he did not speak, or seem surprised to see me there, more than three miles from home, beside the Oldham beech-tree; but he put my arm in his, and kept stroking my hand, as if he wanted to soothe me to be very quiet under some great heavy blow; and when I trembled so all over that I could not speak, he took me in his arms, and stooped down his head on mine, and began to shake and to cry in a strange muffled, groaning voice, till I, for very fright, stood quite still, and only begged him to tell me what he had heard.",1 "And then, with his hand jerking, as if some one else moved it against his will, he gave me a wicked newspaper to read, calling our Frederick a ""traitor of the blackest dye,"" ""a base, ungrateful disgrace to his profession.""",0 Oh!,2 I cannot tell what bad words they did not use.,1 I took the paper in my hands as soon as I had read it--I tore it up to little bits--I tore it--oh!,2 "I believe Margaret, I tore it with my teeth.",2 I did not cry.,1 I could not.,2 "My cheeks were as hot as fire, and my very eyes burnt in my head.",3 I saw your father looking grave at me.,2 "I said it was a lie, and so it was.",1 "Months after, this letter came, and you see what provocation Frederick had.",1 "It was not for himself, or his own injuries, he rebelled; but he would speak his mind to Captain Reid, and so it went on from bad to worse; and you see, most of the sailors stuck by Frederick.",0 "'I think, Margaret,' she continued, after a pause, in a weak, trembling, exhausted voice, 'I am glad of it--I am prouder of Frederick standing up against injustice, than if he had been simply a good officer.'",1 "'I am sure I am,' said Margaret, in a firm, decided tone.",2 "'Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used-not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others more helpless.'",1 "'For all that, I wish I could see Frederick once more--just once.",2 "He was my first baby, Margaret.'",2 "Mrs. Hale spoke wistfully, and almost as if apologising for the yearning, craving wish, as though it were a depreciation of her remaining child.",3 But such an idea never crossed Margaret's mind.,2 She was thinking how her mother's desire could be fulfilled.,2 "'It is six or seven years ago--would they still prosecute him, mother?",1 "If he came and stood his trial, what would be the punishment?",2 "Surely, he might bring evidence of his great provocation.'",2 "'It would do no good,' replied Mrs. Hale.",3 "'Some of the sailors who accompanied Frederick were taken, and there was a court-martial held on them on board the Amicia; I believed all they said in their defence, poor fellows, because it just agreed with Frederick's story--but it was of no use,--' and for the first time during the conversation Mrs. Hale began to cry; yet something possessed Margaret to force the information she foresaw, yet dreaded, from her mother.",1 "'What happened to them, mamma?'",2 asked she.,2 "'They were hung at the yard-arm,' said Mrs. Hale, solemnly.",2 "'And the worst was that the court, in condemning them to death, said they had suffered themselves to be led astray from their duty by their superior officers.'",1 They were silent for a long time.,3 "'And Frederick was in South America for several years, was he not?'",2 'Yes.,2 And now he is in Spain.,2 "At Cadiz, or somewhere near it.",2 If he comes to England he will be hung.,1 I shall never see his face again--for if he comes to England he will be hung.',1 There was no comfort to be given.,3 "Mrs. Hale turned her face to the wall, and lay perfectly still in her mother's despair.",3 Nothing could be said to console her.,2 "She took her hand out of Margaret's with a little impatient movement, as if she would fain be left alone with the recollection of her son.",1 "When Mr. Hale came in, Margaret went out, oppressed with gloom, and seeing no promise of brightness on any side of the horizon.",3 "'Margaret,' said her father, the next day, 'we must return Mrs. Thornton's call.",2 "Your mother is not very well, and thinks she cannot walk so far; but you and I will go this afternoon.'",3 "As they went, Mr. Hale began about his wife's health, with a kind of veiled anxiety, which Margaret was glad to see awakened at last.",3 "'Did you consult the doctor, Margaret?",2 Did you send for him?',2 "'No, papa, you spoke of his coming to see me.",2 Now I was well.,3 "But if I only knew of some good doctor, I would go this afternoon, and ask him to come, for I am sure mamma is seriously indisposed.'",3 "She put the truth thus plainly and strongly because her father had so completely shut his mind against the idea, when she had last named her fears.",1 But now the case was changed.,2 He answered in a despondent tone: 'Do you think she has any hidden complaint?,1 Do you think she is really very ill?,2 Has Dixon said anything?,2 "Oh, Margaret!",2 I am haunted by the fear that our coming to Milton has killed her.,1 My poor Maria!',1 "'Oh, papa!",2 "don't imagine such things,' said Margaret, shocked.",1 "'She is not well, that is all.",3 Many a one is not well for a time; and with good advice gets better and stronger than ever.',4 'But has Dixon said anything about her?',2 'No!,2 "You know Dixon enjoys making a mystery out of trifles; and she has been a little mysterious about mamma's health, which has alarmed me rather, that is all.",1 "Without any reason, I dare say.",2 "You know, papa, you said the other day I was getting fanciful.'",1 'I hope and trust you are.,3 But don't think of what I said then.,2 I like you to be fanciful about your mother's health.,2 Don't be afraid of telling me your fancies.,1 "I like to hear them, though, I dare say, I spoke as if I was annoyed.",2 But we will ask Mrs. Thornton if she can tell us of a good doctor.,3 We won't throw away our money on any but some one first-rate.,2 "Stay, we turn up this street.'",2 The street did not look as if it could contain any house large enough for Mrs. Thornton's habitation.,3 "Her son's presence never gave any impression as to the kind of house he lived in; but, unconsciously, Margaret had imagined that tall, massive, handsomely dressed Mrs. Thornton must live in a house of the same character as herself.",3 "Now Marlborough Street consisted of long rows of small houses, with a blank wall here and there; at least that was all they could see from the point at which they entered it.",2 "'He told me he lived in Marlborough Street, I'm sure,' said Mr. Hale, with a much perplexed air.",2 "'Perhaps it is one of the economies he still practises, to live in a very small house.",2 But here are plenty of people about; let me ask.',2 "She accordingly inquired of a passer-by, and was informed that Mr. Thornton lived close to the mill, and had the factory lodge-door pointed out to her, at the end of the long dead wall they had noticed.",1 The lodge-door was like a common garden-door; on one side of it were great closed gates for the ingress and egress of lorries and wagons.,3 "The lodge-keeper admitted them into a great oblong yard, on one side of which were offices for the transaction of business; on the opposite, an immense many-windowed mill, whence proceeded the continual clank of machinery and the long groaning roar of the steam-engine, enough to deafen those who lived within the enclosure.",4 "Opposite to the wall, along which the street ran, on one of the narrow sides of the oblong, was a handsome stone-coped house,--blackened, to be sure, by the smoke, but with paint, windows, and steps kept scrupulously clean.",3 It was evidently a house which had been built some fifty or sixty years.,2 "The stone facings--the long, narrow windows, and the number of them--the flights of steps up to the front door, ascending from either side, and guarded by railing--all witnessed to its age.",2 "Margaret only wondered why people who could afford to live in so good a house, and keep it in such perfect order, did not prefer a much smaller dwelling in the country, or even some suburb; not in the continual whirl and din of the factory.",4 "Her unaccustomed ears could hardly catch her father's voice, as they stood on the steps awaiting the opening of the door.",1 "The yard, too, with the great doors in the dead wall as a boundary, was but a dismal look-out for the sitting-rooms of the house--as Margaret found when they had mounted the old-fashioned stairs, and been ushered into the drawing-room, the three windows of which went over the front door and the room on the right-hand side of the entrance.",2 There was no one in the drawing-room.,2 "It seemed as though no one had been in it since the day when the furniture was bagged up with as much care as if the house was to be overwhelmed with lava, and discovered a thousand years hence.",1 "The walls were pink and gold; the pattern on the carpet represented bunches of flowers on a light ground, but it was carefully covered up in the centre by a linen drugget, glazed and colourless.",3 "The window-curtains were lace; each chair and sofa had its own particular veil of netting, or knitting.",2 "Great alabaster groups occupied every flat surface, safe from dust under their glass shades.",3 "In the middle of the room, right under the bagged-up chandelier, was a large circular table, with smartly-bound books arranged at regular intervals round the circumference of its polished surface, like gaily-coloured spokes of a wheel.",4 "Everything reflected light, nothing absorbed it.",2 "The whole room had a painfully spotted, spangled, speckled look about it, which impressed Margaret so unpleasantly that she was hardly conscious of the peculiar cleanliness required to keep everything so white and pure in such an atmosphere, or of the trouble that must be willingly expended to secure that effect of icy, snowy discomfort.",3 "Wherever she looked there was evidence of care and labour, but not care and labour to procure ease, to help on habits of tranquil home employment; solely to ornament, and then to preserve ornament from dirt or destruction.",2 "They had leisure to observe, and to speak to each other in low voices, before Mrs. Thornton appeared.",2 "They were talking of what all the world might hear; but it is a common effect of such a room as this to make people speak low, as if unwilling to awaken the unused echoes.",1 "At last Mrs. Thornton came in, rustling in handsome black silk, as was her wont; her muslins and laces rivalling, not excelling, the pure whiteness of the muslins and netting of the room.",3 "Margaret explained how it was that her mother could not accompany them to return Mrs. Thornton's call; but in her anxiety not to bring back her father's fears too vividly, she gave but a bungling account, and left the impression on Mrs. Thornton's mind that Mrs. Hale's was some temporary or fanciful fine-ladyish indisposition, which might have been put aside had there been a strong enough motive; or that if it was too severe to allow her to come out that day, the call might have been deferred.",1 "Remembering, too, the horses to her carriage, hired for her own visit to the Hales, and how Fanny had been ordered to go by Mr. Thornton, in order to pay every respect to them, Mrs. Thornton drew up slightly offended, and gave Margaret no sympathy--indeed, hardly any credit for the statement of her mother's indisposition.",3 'How is Mr. Thornton?',2 asked Mr. Hale.,3 "'I was afraid he was not well, from his hurried note yesterday.'",2 "'My son is rarely ill; and when he is, he never speaks about it, or makes it an excuse for not doing anything.",1 "He told me he could not get leisure to read with you last night, sir.",2 "He regretted it, I am sure; he values the hours spent with you.'",1 "'I am sure they are equally agreeable to me,' said Mr. Hale.",3 'It makes me feel young again to see his enjoyment and appreciation of all that is fine in classical literature.',3 'I have no doubt the classics are very desirable for people who have leisure.,2 "But, I confess, it was against my judgment that my son renewed his study of them.",2 "The time and place in which he lives, seem to me to require all his energy and attention.",2 Classics may do very well for men who loiter away their lives in the country or in colleges; but Milton men ought to have their thoughts and powers absorbed in the work of to-day.,3 "At least, that is my opinion.'",2 This last clause she gave out with 'the pride that apes humility.',3 "'But, surely, if the mind is too long directed to one object only, it will get stiff and rigid, and unable to take in many interests,' said Margaret.",0 'I do not quite understand what you mean by a mind getting stiff and rigid.,1 "Nor do I admire those whirligig characters that are full of this thing to-day, to be utterly forgetful of it in their new interest to-morrow.",1 Having many interests does not suit the life of a Milton manufacturer.,3 "It is, or ought to be, enough for him to have one great desire, and to bring all the purposes of his life to bear on the fulfilment of that.'",3 'And that is--?',2 asked Mr. Hale.,3 "Her sallow cheek flushed, and her eye lightened, as she answered: 'To hold and maintain a high, honourable place among the merchants of his country--the men of his town.",2 Such a place my son has earned for himself.,2 "Go where you will--I don't say in England only, but in Europe--the name of John Thornton of Milton is known and respected amongst all men of business.",2 "Of course, it is unknown in the fashionable circles,' she continued, scornfully.",1 "'Idle gentlemen and ladies are not likely to know much of a Milton manufacturer, unless he gets into parliament, or marries a lord's daughter.'",2 "Both Mr. Hale and Margaret had an uneasy, ludicrous consciousness that they had never heard of this great name, until Mr. Bell had written them word that Mr. Thornton would be a good friend to have in Milton.",3 "The proud mother's world was not their world of Harley Street gentilities on the one hand, or country clergymen and Hampshire squires on the other.",3 "Margaret's face, in spite of all her endeavours to keep it simply listening in its expression told the sensitive Mrs. Thornton this feeling of hers.",2 "'You think you never heard of this wonderful son of mine, Miss Hale.",3 "You think I'm an old woman whose ideas are bounded by Milton, and whose own crow is the whitest ever seen.'",2 "'No,' said Margaret, with some spirit.",2 "'It may be true, that I was thinking I had hardly heard Mr. Thornton's name before I came to Milton.",2 "But since I have come here, I have heard enough to make me respect and admire him, and to feel how much justice and truth there is in what you have said of him.'",4 'Who spoke to you of him?',2 "asked Mrs. Thornton, a little mollified, yet jealous lest any one else's words should not have done him full justice.",1 Margaret hesitated before she replied.,2 She did not like this authoritative questioning.,3 "Mr. Hale came in, as he thought, to the rescue.",3 "'It was what Mr. Thornton said himself, that made us know the kind of man he was.",2 "Was it not, Margaret?'",2 "Mrs. Thornton drew herself up, and said-- 'My son is not the one to tell of his own doings.",2 "May I again ask you, Miss Hale, from whose account you formed your favourable opinion of him?",2 "A mother is curious and greedy of commendation of her children, you know.'",1 "Margaret replied, 'It was as much from what Mr. Thornton withheld of that which we had been told of his previous life by Mr. Bell,--it was more that than what he said, that made us all feel what reason you have to be proud of him.'",3 'Mr. Bell!,2 What can he know of John?,2 "He, living a lazy life in a drowsy college.",1 "But I'm obliged to you, Miss Hale.",2 Many a missy young lady would have shrunk from giving an old woman the pleasure of hearing that her son was well spoken of.',3 'Why?',2 "asked Margaret, looking straight at Mrs. Thornton, in bewilderment.",1 'Why!,2 "because I suppose they might have consciences that told them how surely they were making the old mother into an advocate for them, in case they had any plans on the son's heart.'",3 "She smiled a grim smile, for she had been pleased by Margaret's frankness; and perhaps she felt that she had been asking questions too much as if she had a right to catechise.",3 "Margaret laughed outright at the notion presented to her; laughed so merrily that it grated on Mrs. Thornton's ear, as if the words that called forth that laugh, must have been utterly and entirely ludicrous.",1 Margaret stopped her merriment as soon as she saw Mrs. Thornton's annoyed look.,2 "'I beg your pardon, madam.",2 But I really am very much obliged to you for exonerating me from making any plans on Mr. Thornton's heart.',2 "'Young ladies have, before now,' said Mrs. Thornton, stiffly.",2 "'I hope Miss Thornton is well,' put in Mr. Hale, desirous of changing the current of the conversation.",3 'She is as well as she ever is.,3 "She is not strong,' replied Mrs. Thornton, shortly.",3 'And Mr. Thornton?,2 I suppose I may hope to see him on Thursday?',2 'I cannot answer for my son's engagements.,2 There is some uncomfortable work going on in the town; a threatening of a strike.,1 "If so, his experience and judgment will make him much consulted by his friends.",2 But I should think he could come on Thursday.,2 "At any rate, I am sure he will let you know if he cannot.'",2 'A strike!',1 asked Margaret.,2 'What for?,2 What are they going to strike for?',1 "'For the mastership and ownership of other people's property,' said Mrs. Thornton, with a fierce snort.",1 'That is what they always strike for.,1 "If my son's work-people strike, I will only say they are a pack of ungrateful hounds.",1 But I have no doubt they will.',1 "'They are wanting higher wages, I suppose?'",2 asked Mr. Hale.,3 'That is the face of the thing.,2 "But the truth is, they want to be masters, and make the masters into slaves on their own ground.",2 "They are always trying at it; they always have it in their minds and every five or six years, there comes a struggle between masters and men.",2 "They'll find themselves mistaken this time, I fancy,--a little out of their reckoning.",2 "If they turn out, they mayn't find it so easy to go in again.",3 "I believe, the masters have a thing or two in their heads which will teach the men not to strike again in a hurry, if they try it this time.'",2 'Does it not make the town very rough?',1 asked Margaret.,2 'Of course it does.,2 "But surely you are not a coward, are you?",1 Milton is not the place for cowards.,2 "I have known the time when I have had to thread my way through a crowd of white, angry men, all swearing they would have Makinson's blood as soon as he ventured to show his nose out of his factory; and he, knowing nothing of it, some one had to go and tell him, or he was a dead man, and it needed to be a woman,--so I went.",1 "And when I had got in, I could not get out.",2 It was as much as my life was worth.,3 "So I went up to the roof, where there were stones piled ready to drop on the heads of the crowd, if they tried to force the factory doors.",3 "And I would have lifted those heavy stones, and dropped them with as good an aim as the best man there, but that I fainted with the heat I had gone through.",3 "If you live in Milton, you must learn to have a brave heart, Miss Hale.'",3 "'I would do my best,' said Margaret rather pale.",2 'I do not know whether I am brave or not till I am tried; but I am afraid I should be a coward.',1 'South country people are often frightened by what our Darkshire men and women only call living and struggling.,1 "But when you've been ten years among a people who are always owing their betters a grudge, and only waiting for an opportunity to pay it off, you'll know whether you are a coward or not, take my word for it.'",1 Mr. Thornton came that evening to Mr. Hale's.,2 "He was shown up into the drawing-room, where Mr. Hale was reading aloud to his wife and daughter.",3 "'I am come partly to bring you a note from my mother, and partly to apologise for not keeping to my time yesterday.",2 The note contains the address you asked for; Dr. Donaldson.',2 'Thank you!',2 "said Margaret, hastily, holding out her hand to take the note, for she did not wish her mother to hear that they had been making any inquiry about a doctor.",1 She was pleased that Mr. Thornton seemed immediately to understand her feeling; he gave her the note without another word of explanation.,3 Mr. Hale began to talk about the strike.,2 "Mr. Thornton's face assumed a likeness to his mother's worst expression, which immediately repelled the watching Margaret.",1 'Yes; the fools will have a strike.,1 Let them.,2 It suits us well enough.,3 But we gave them a chance.,2 They think trade is flourishing as it was last year.,3 We see the storm on the horizon and draw in our sails.,2 "But because we don't explain our reasons, they won't believe we're acting reasonably.",3 We must give them line and letter for the way we choose to spend or save our money.,2 "Henderson tried a dodge with his men, out at Ashley, and failed.",1 He rather wanted a strike; it would have suited his book well enough.,3 So when the men came to ask for the five per cent.,2 "they are claiming, he told 'em he'd think about it, and give them his answer on the pay day; knowing all the while what his answer would be, of course, but thinking he'd strengthen their conceit of their own way.",1 "However, they were too deep for him, and heard something about the bad prospects of trade.",1 "So in they came on the Friday, and drew back their claim, and now he's obliged to go on working.",2 But we Milton masters have to-day sent in our decision.,3 We won't advance a penny.,2 We tell them we may have to lower wages; but can't afford to raise.,3 "So here we stand, waiting for their next attack.'",1 'And what will that be?',2 asked Mr. Hale.,3 "'I conjecture, a simultaneous strike.",1 "You will see Milton without smoke in a few days, I imagine, Miss Hale.'",1 "'But why,' asked she, 'could you not explain what good reason you have for expecting a bad trade?",2 "I don't know whether I use the right words, but you will understand what I mean.'",3 "'Do you give your servants reasons for your expenditure, or your economy in the use of your own money?",2 "We, the owners of capital, have a right to choose what we will do with it.'",3 "'A human right,' said Margaret, very low.",3 "'I beg your pardon, I did not hear what you said.'",2 "'I would rather not repeat it,' said she; 'it related to a feeling which I do not think you would share.'",2 'Won't you try me?',2 pleaded he; his thoughts suddenly bent upon learning what she had said.,1 "She was displeased with his pertinacity, but did not choose to affix too much importance to her words.",1 'I said you had a human right.,3 "I meant that there seemed no reason but religious ones, why you should not do what you like with your own.",3 "'I know we differ in our religious opinions; but don't you give me credit for having some, though not the same as yours?'",2 "He was speaking in a subdued voice, as if to her alone.",1 She did not wish to be so exclusively addressed.,2 She replied out in her usual tone: 'I do not think that I have any occasion to consider your special religious opinions in the affair.,2 "All I meant to say is, that there is no human law to prevent the employers from utterly wasting or throwing away all their money, if they choose; but that there are passages in the Bible which would rather imply--to me at least--that they neglected their duty as stewards if they did so.",0 "However I know so little about strikes, and rate of wages, and capital, and labour, that I had better not talk to a political economist like you.'",3 "'Nay, the more reason,' said he, eagerly.",3 "'I shall only be too glad to explain to you all that may seem anomalous or mysterious to a stranger; especially at a time like this, when our doings are sure to be canvassed by every scribbler who can hold a pen.'",1 "'Thank you,' she answered, coldly.",1 "'Of course, I shall apply to my father in the first instance for any information he can give me, if I get puzzled with living here amongst this strange society.'",1 'You think it strange.,1 Why?',2 "'I don't know--I suppose because, on the very face of it, I see two classes dependent on each other in every possible way, yet each evidently regarding the interests of the other as opposed to their own; I never lived in a place before where there were two sets of people always running each other down.'",3 'Who have you heard running the masters down?,3 I don't ask who you have heard abusing the men; for I see you persist in misunderstanding what I said the other day.,1 But who have you heard abusing the masters?',3 "Margaret reddened; then smiled as she said, 'I am not fond of being catechised.",3 I refuse to answer your question.,1 "Besides, it has nothing to do with the fact.",2 "You must take my word for it, that I have heard some people, or, it may be, only someone of the workpeople, speak as though it were the interest of the employers to keep them from acquiring money--that it would make them too independent if they had a sum in the savings' bank.'",2 "'I dare say it was that man Higgins who told you all this,' said Mrs Hale.",3 Mr. Thornton did not appear to hear what Margaret evidently did not wish him to know.,2 "But he caught it, nevertheless.",2 "'I heard, moreover, that it was considered to the advantage of the masters to have ignorant workmen--not hedge-lawyers, as Captain Lennox used to call those men in his company who questioned and would know the reason for every order.'",2 This latter part of her sentence she addressed rather to her father than to Mr. Thornton.,2 Who is Captain Lennox?,2 "asked Mr. Thornton of himself, with a strange kind of displeasure, that prevented him for the moment from replying to her!",1 Her father took up the conversation.,2 "'You never were fond of schools, Margaret, or you would have seen and known before this, how much is being done for education in Milton.'",3 'No!',2 "said she, with sudden meekness.",2 'I know I do not care enough about schools.,3 "But the knowledge and the ignorance of which I was speaking, did not relate to reading and writing,--the teaching or information one can give to a child.",1 "I am sure, that what was meant was ignorance of the wisdom that shall guide men and women.",2 I hardly know what that is.,2 "But he--that is, my informant--spoke as if the masters would like their hands to be merely tall, large children--living in the present moment--with a blind unreasoning kind of obedience.'",3 "'In short, Miss Hale, it is very evident that your informant found a pretty ready listener to all the slander he chose to utter against the masters,' said Mr. Thornton, in an offended tone.",3 Margaret did not reply.,2 She was displeased at the personal character Mr. Thornton affixed to what she had said.,1 "Mr. Hale spoke next: 'I must confess that, although I have not become so intimately acquainted with any workmen as Margaret has, I am very much struck by the antagonism between the employer and the employed, on the very surface of things.",1 I even gather this impression from what you yourself have from time to time said.',2 Mr. Thornton paused awhile before he spoke.,2 "Margaret had just left the room, and he was vexed at the state of feeling between himself and her.",2 "However, the little annoyance, by making him cooler and more thoughtful, gave a greater dignity to what he said: 'My theory is, that my interests are identical with those of my workpeople and vice-versa.",3 "Miss Hale, I know, does not like to hear men called 'hands,' so I won't use that word, though it comes most readily to my lips as the technical term, whose origin, whatever it was, dates before my time.",3 "On some future day--in some millennium--in Utopia, this unity may be brought into practice--just as I can fancy a republic the most perfect form of government.'",4 'We will read Plato's Republic as soon as we have finished Homer.',2 "'Well, in the Platonic year, it may fall out that we are all--men women, and children--fit for a republic: but give me a constitutional monarchy in our present state of morals and intelligence.",2 In our infancy we require a wise despotism to govern us.,2 "Indeed, long past infancy, children and young people are the happiest under the unfailing laws of a discreet, firm authority.",2 "I agree with Miss Hale so far as to consider our people in the condition of children, while I deny that we, the masters, have anything to do with the making or keeping them so.",2 I maintain that despotism is the best kind of government for them; so that in the hours in which I come in contact with them I must necessarily be an autocrat.,1 "I will use my best discretion--from no humbug or philanthropic feeling, of which we have had rather too much in the North--to make wise laws and come to just decisions in the conduct of my business--laws and decisions which work for my own good in the first instance--for theirs in the second; but I will neither be forced to give my reasons, nor flinch from what I have once declared to be my resolution.",4 Let them turn out!,2 I shall suffer as well as they: but at the end they will find I have not bated nor altered one jot.',2 Margaret had re-entered the room and was sitting at her work; but she did not speak.,3 "Mr. Hale answered-- 'I dare say I am talking in great ignorance; but from the little I know, I should say that the masses were already passing rapidly into the troublesome stage which intervenes between childhood and manhood, in the life of the multitude as well as that of the individual.",3 "Now, the error which many parents commit in the treatment of the individual at this time is, insisting on the same unreasoning obedience as when all he had to do in the way of duty was, to obey the simple laws of ""Come when you're called"" and ""Do as you're bid!""",1 "But a wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease.",3 "If I get wrong in my reasoning, recollect, it is you who adopted the analogy.'",1 "'Very lately,' said Margaret, 'I heard a story of what happened in Nuremberg only three or four years ago.",2 A rich man there lived alone in one of the immense mansions which were formerly both dwellings and warehouses.,3 "It was reported that he had a child, but no one knew of it for certain.",2 For forty years this rumour kept rising and falling--never utterly dying away.,0 After his death it was found to be true.,1 "He had a son--an overgrown man with the unexercised intellect of a child, whom he had kept up in that strange way, in order to save him from temptation and error.",0 "But, of course, when this great old child was turned loose into the world, every bad counsellor had power over him.",1 He did not know good from evil.,2 "His father had made the blunder of bringing him up in ignorance and taking it for innocence; and after fourteen months of riotous living, the city authorities had to take charge of him, in order to save him from starvation.",0 He could not even use words effectively enough to be a successful beggar.',3 'I used the comparison (suggested by Miss Hale) of the position of the master to that of a parent; so I ought not to complain of your turning the simile into a weapon against me.,2 "But, Mr. Hale, when you were setting up a wise parent as a model for us, you said he humoured his children in their desire for independent action.",3 "Now certainly, the time is not come for the hands to have any independent action during business hours; I hardly know what you would mean by it then.",2 "And I say, that the masters would be trenching on the independence of their hands, in a way that I, for one, should not feel justified in doing, if we interfered too much with the life they lead out of the mills.",3 "Because they labour ten hours a-day for us, I do not see that we have any right to impose leading-strings upon them for the rest of their time.",3 "I value my own independence so highly that I can fancy no degradation greater than that of having another man perpetually directing and advising and lecturing me, or even planning too closely in any way about my actions.",2 "He might be the wisest of men, or the most powerful--I should equally rebel and resent his interference I imagine this is a stronger feeling in the North of England that in the South.'",2 "'I beg your pardon, but is not that because there has been none of the equality of friendship between the adviser and advised classes?",2 "Because every man has had to stand in an unchristian and isolated position, apart from and jealous of his brother-man: constantly afraid of his rights being trenched upon?'",0 'I only state the fact.,2 "I am sorry to say, I have an appointment at eight o'clock, and I must just take facts as I find them to-night, without trying to account for them; which, indeed, would make no difference in determining how to act as things stand--the facts must be granted.'",1 "'But,' said Margaret in a low voice, 'it seems to me that it makes all the difference in the world--.'",2 "Her father made a sign to her to be silent, and allow Mr. Thornton to finish what he had to say.",3 He was already standing up and preparing to go.,2 'You must grant me this one point.,2 "Given a strong feeling of independence in every Darkshire man, have I any right to obtrude my views, of the manner in which he shall act, upon another (hating it as I should do most vehemently myself), merely because he has labour to sell and I capital to buy?'",2 "'Not in the least,' said Margaret, determined just to say this one thing; 'not in the least because of your labour and capital positions, whatever they are, but because you are a man, dealing with a set of men over whom you have, whether you reject the use of it or not, immense power, just because your lives and your welfare are so constantly and intimately interwoven.",2 God has made us so that we must be mutually dependent.,2 "We may ignore our own dependence, or refuse to acknowledge that others depend upon us in more respects than the payment of weekly wages; but the thing must be, nevertheless.",1 Neither you nor any other master can help yourselves.,3 The most proudly independent man depends on those around him for their insensible influence on his character--his life.,1 "And the most isolated of all your Darkshire Egos has dependants clinging to him on all sides; he cannot shake them off, any more than the great rock he resembles can shake off--' 'Pray don't go into similes, Margaret; you have led us off once already,' said her father, smiling, yet uneasy at the thought that they were detaining Mr. Thornton against his will, which was a mistake; for he rather liked it, as long as Margaret would talk, although what she said only irritated him.",1 "'Just tell me, Miss Hale, are you yourself ever influenced--no, that is not a fair way of putting it;--but if you are ever conscious of being influenced by others, and not by circumstances, have those others been working directly or indirectly?",3 "Have they been labouring to exhort, to enjoin, to act rightly for the sake of example, or have they been simple, true men, taking up their duty, and doing it unflinchingly, without a thought of how their actions were to make this man industrious, that man saving?",2 "Why, if I were a workman, I should be twenty times more impressed by the knowledge that my master was honest, punctual, quick, resolute in all his doings (and hands are keener spies even than valets), than by any amount of interference, however kindly meant, with my ways of going on out of work-hours.",4 "I do not choose to think too closely on what I am myself; but, I believe, I rely on the straightforward honesty of my hands, and the open nature of their opposition, in contra-distinction to the way in which the turnout will be managed in some mills, just because they know I scorn to take a single dishonourable advantage, or do an underhand thing myself.",3 "It goes farther than a whole course of lectures on ""Honesty is the Best Policy""--life diluted into words.",3 "No, no!",2 "What the master is, that will the men be, without over-much taking thought on his part.'",3 "'That is a great admission,' said Margaret, laughing.",3 "'When I see men violent and obstinate in pursuit of their rights, I may safely infer that the master is the same that he is a little ignorant of that spirit which suffereth long, and is kind, and seeketh not her own.'",1 "'You are just like all strangers who don't understand the working of our system, Miss Hale,' said he, hastily.",2 "'You suppose that our men are puppets of dough, ready to be moulded into any amiable form we please.",3 "You forget we have only to do with them for less than a third of their lives; and you seem not to perceive that the duties of a manufacturer are far larger and wider than those merely of an employer of labour: we have a wide commercial character to maintain, which makes us into the great pioneers of civilisation.'",3 "'It strikes me,' said Mr. Hale, smiling, 'that you might pioneer a little at home.",3 "They are a rough, heathenish set of fellows, these Milton men of yours.'",1 "'They are that,' replied Mr. Thornton.",2 'Rosewater surgery won't do for them.,2 "Cromwell would have made a capital mill-owner, Miss Hale.",2 I wish we had him to put down this strike for us.',1 "'Cromwell is no hero of mine,' said she, coldly.",2 'But I am trying to reconcile your admiration of despotism with your respect for other men's independence of character.',3 He reddened at her tone.,2 "'I choose to be the unquestioned and irresponsible master of my hands, during the hours that they labour for me.",2 "But those hours past, our relation ceases; and then comes in the same respect for their independence that I myself exact.'",3 "He did not speak again for a minute, he was too much vexed.",2 "But he shook it off, and bade Mr. and Mrs. Hale good night.",3 "Then, drawing near to Margaret, he said in a lower voice-- 'I spoke hastily to you once this evening, and I am afraid, rather rudely.",1 But you know I am but an uncouth Milton manufacturer; will you forgive me?',1 "'Certainly,' said she, smiling up in his face, the expression of which was somewhat anxious and oppressed, and hardly cleared away as he met her sweet sunny countenance, out of which all the north-wind effect of their discussion had entirely vanished.",3 "But she did not put out her hand to him, and again he felt the omission, and set it down to pride.",2 The next afternoon Dr. Donaldson came to pay his first visit to Mrs. Hale.,3 "The mystery that Margaret hoped their late habits of intimacy had broken through, was resumed.",1 "She was excluded from the room, while Dixon was admitted.",2 "Margaret was not a ready lover, but where she loved she loved passionately, and with no small degree of jealousy.",4 "She went into her mother's bed-room, just behind the drawing-room, and paced it up and down, while awaiting the doctor's coming out.",2 Every now and then she stopped to listen; she fancied she heard a moan.,1 "She clenched her hands tight, and held her breath.",2 She was sure she heard a moan.,1 "Then all was still for a few minutes more; and then there was the moving of chairs, the raised voices, all the little disturbances of leave-taking.",2 "When she heard the door open, she went quickly out of the bed-room.",2 "'My father is from home, Dr. Donaldson; he has to attend a pupil at this hour.",2 May I trouble you to come into his room down stairs?',1 "She saw, and triumphed over all the obstacles which Dixon threw in her way; assuming her rightful position as daughter of the house in something of the spirit of the Elder Brother, which quelled the old servant's officiousness very effectually.",3 "Margaret's conscious assumption of this unusual dignity of demeanour towards Dixon, gave her an instant's amusement in the midst of her anxiety.",1 "She knew, from the surprised expression on Dixon's face, how ridiculously grand she herself must be looking; and the idea carried her down stairs into the room; it gave her that length of oblivion from the keen sharpness of the recollection of the actual business in hand.",3 "Now, that came back, and seemed to take away her breath.",2 It was a moment or two before she could utter a word.,2 "But she spoke with an air of command, as she asked:--' 'What is the matter with mamma?",2 You will oblige me by telling the simple truth.',2 "Then, seeing a slight hesitation on the doctor's part, she added-- 'I am the only child she has--here, I mean.",2 "My father is not sufficiently alarmed, I fear; and, therefore, if there is any serious apprehension, it must be broken to him gently.",0 I can do this.,2 I can nurse my mother.,2 "Pray, speak, sir; to see your face, and not be able to read it, gives me a worse dread than I trust any words of yours will justify.'",1 "'My dear young lady, your mother seems to have a most attentive and efficient servant, who is more like her friend--' 'I am her daughter, sir.'",4 'But when I tell you she expressly desired that you might not be told--' 'I am not good or patient enough to submit to the prohibition.,4 "Besides, I am sure you are too wise--too experienced to have promised to keep the secret.'",3 "'Well,' said he, half-smiling, though sadly enough, 'there you are right.",3 I did not promise.,3 "In fact, I fear, the secret will be known soon enough without my revealing it.'",2 He paused.,2 "Margaret went very white, and compressed her lips a little more.",2 Otherwise not a feature moved.,2 "With the quick insight into character, without which no medical man can rise to the eminence of Dr. Donaldson, he saw that she would exact the full truth; that she would know if one iota was withheld; and that the withholding would be torture more acute than the knowledge of it.",2 "He spoke two short sentences in a low voice, watching her all the time; for the pupils of her eyes dilated into a black horror and the whiteness of her complexion became livid.",1 He ceased speaking.,2 "He waited for that look to go off,--for her gasping breath to come.",2 "Then she said:-- 'I thank you most truly, sir, for your confidence.",3 That dread has haunted me for many weeks.,1 "It is a true, real agony.",1 "My poor, poor mother!'",1 "her lips began to quiver, and he let her have the relief of tears, sure of her power of self-control to check them.",3 "A few tears--those were all she shed, before she recollected the many questions she longed to ask.",2 'Will there be much suffering?',1 He shook his head.,2 'That we cannot tell.,2 It depends on constitution; on a thousand things.,2 But the late discoveries of medical science have given us large power of alleviation.',2 'My father!',2 "said Margaret, trembling all over.",2 'I do not know Mr. Hale.,3 "I mean, it is difficult to give advice.",1 "But I should say, bear on, with the knowledge you have forced me to give you so abruptly, till the fact which I could not with-hold has become in some degree familiar to you, so that you may, without too great an effort, be able to give what comfort you can to your father.",3 "Before then,--my visits, which, of course, I shall repeat from time to time, although I fear I can do nothing but alleviate,--a thousand little circumstances will have occurred to awaken his alarm, to deepen it--so that he will be all the better prepared.--Nay, my dear young lady--nay, my dear--I saw Mr. Thornton, and I honour your father for the sacrifice he has made, however mistaken I may believe him to be.--Well, this once, if it will please you, my dear.",1 "Only remember, when I come again, I come as a friend.",2 "And you must learn to look upon me as such, because seeing each other--getting to know each other at such times as these, is worth years of morning calls.'",3 Margaret could not speak for crying: but she wrung his hand at parting.,2 'That's what I call a fine girl!',3 "thought Dr. Donaldson, when he was seated in his carriage, and had time to examine his ringed hand, which had slightly suffered from her pressure.",1 'Who would have thought that little hand could have given such a squeeze?,2 "But the bones were well put together, and that gives immense power.",3 What a queen she is!,2 "With her head thrown back at first, to force me into speaking the truth; and then bent so eagerly forward to listen.",2 Poor thing!,1 I must see she does not overstrain herself.,2 Though it's astonishing how much those thorough-bred creatures can do and suffer.,2 That girl's game to the back-bone.,2 "Another, who had gone that deadly colour, could never have come round without either fainting or hysterics.",1 But she wouldn't do either--not she!,2 And the very force of her will brought her round.,2 "Such a girl as that would win my heart, if I were thirty years younger.",3 It's too late now.,2 Ah!,2 here we are at the Archers'.',2 "So out he jumped, with thought, wisdom, experience, sympathy, and ready to attend to the calls made upon them by this family, just as if there were none other in the world.",3 "Meanwhile, Margaret had returned into her father's study for a moment, to recover strength before going upstairs into her mother's presence.",3 "'Oh, my God, my God!",2 but this is terrible.,1 How shall I bear it?,2 Such a deadly disease!,1 no hope!,2 "Oh, mamma, mamma, I wish I had never gone to aunt Shaw's, and been all those precious years away from you!",3 Poor mamma!,1 how much she must have borne!,2 "Oh, I pray thee, my God, that her sufferings may not be too acute, too dreadful.",1 How shall I bear to see them?,2 How can I bear papa's agony?,1 He must not be told yet; not all at once.,2 It would kill him.,1 "But I won't lose another moment of my own dear, precious mother.'",2 She ran upstairs.,2 Dixon was not in the room.,2 "Mrs. Hale lay back in an easy chair, with a soft white shawl wrapped around her, and a becoming cap put on, in expectation of the doctor's visit.",4 "Her face had a little faint colour in it, and the very exhaustion after the examination gave it a peaceful look.",1 Margaret was surprised to see her look so calm.,3 "'Why, Margaret, how strange you look!",1 What is the matter?',2 "And then, as the idea stole into her mind of what was indeed the real state of the case, she added, as if a little displeased: 'you have not been seeing Dr. Donaldson, and asking him any questions--have you, child?'",1 Margaret did not reply--only looked wistfully towards her.,2 Mrs. Hale became more displeased.,2 "'He would not, surely, break his word to me, and'-- 'Oh yes, mamma, he did.",1 I made him.,2 It was I--blame me.',1 "She knelt down by her mother's side, and caught her hand--she would not let it go, though Mrs. Hale tried to pull it away.",3 "She kept kissing it, and the hot tears she shed bathed it.",3 "'Margaret, it was very wrong of you.",1 You knew I did not wish you to know.',2 "But, as if tired with the contest, she left her hand in Margaret's clasp, and by-and-by she returned the pressure faintly.",1 That encouraged Margaret to speak.,2 "'Oh, mamma!",2 let me be your nurse.,2 I will learn anything Dixon can teach me.,2 "But you know I am your child, and I do think I have a right to do everything for you.'",3 "'You don't know what you are asking,' said Mrs. Hale, with a shudder.",3 "'Yes, I do.",2 I know a great deal more than you are aware of.,3 Let me be your nurse.,2 "Let me try, at any rate.",2 "No one has ever, shall ever try so hard as I will do.",1 "It will be such a comfort, mamma.'",3 'My poor child!,1 "Well, you shall try.",3 "Do you know, Margaret, Dixon and I thought you would quite shrink from me if you knew--' 'Dixon thought!'",2 "said Margaret, her lip curling.",2 'Dixon could not give me credit for enough true love--for as much as herself!,3 "She thought, I suppose, that I was one of those poor sickly women who like to lie on rose leaves, and be fanned all day.",1 "Don't let Dixon's fancies come any more between you and me, mamma.",2 "Don't, please!'",2 implored she.,2 "'Don't be angry with Dixon,' said Mrs. Hale, anxiously.",1 Margaret recovered herself.,2 'No!,2 I won't.,2 "I will try and be humble, and learn her ways, if you will only let me do all I can for you.",3 "Let me be in the first place, mother--I am greedy of that.",1 "I used to fancy you would forget me while I was away at aunt Shaw's, and cry myself to sleep at nights with that notion in my head.'",2 "'And I used to think, how will Margaret bear our makeshift poverty after the thorough comfort and luxury in Harley Street, till I have many a time been more ashamed of your seeing our contrivances at Helstone than of any stranger finding them out.'",1 "'Oh, mamma!",2 and I did so enjoy them.,3 They were so much more amusing than all the jog-trot Harley Street ways.,3 "The wardrobe shelf with handles, that served as a supper-tray on grand occasions!",3 And the old tea-chests stuffed and covered for ottomans!,2 I think what you call the makeshift contrivances at dear Helstone were a charming part of the life there.',3 "'I shall never see Helstone again, Margaret,' said Mrs. Hale, the tears welling up into her eyes.",3 Margaret could not reply.,2 Mrs. Hale went on.,3 "'While I was there, I was for ever wanting to leave it.",2 Every place seemed pleasanter.,2 And now I shall die far away from it.,1 I am rightly punished.',3 "'You must not talk so,' said Margaret, impatiently.",1 'He said you might live for years.,2 "Oh, mother!",2 we will have you back at Helstone yet.',2 'No never!,2 That I must take as a just penance.,2 "But, Margaret--Frederick!'",2 "At the mention of that one word, she suddenly cried out loud, as in some sharp agony.",1 "It seemed as if the thought of him upset all her composure, destroyed the calm, overcame the exhaustion.",1 Wild passionate cry succeeded to cry--'Frederick!,2 Frederick!,2 Come to me.,2 I am dying.,1 "Little first-born child, come to me once again!'",2 She was in violent hysterics.,1 Margaret went and called Dixon in terror.,1 "Dixon came in a huff, and accused Margaret of having over-excited her mother.",3 "Margaret bore all meekly, only trusting that her father might not return.",2 "In spite of her alarm, which was even greater than the occasion warranted, she obeyed all Dixon's directions promptly and well, without a word of self-justification.",2 By so doing she mollified her accuser.,2 "They put her mother to bed, and Margaret sate by her till she fell asleep, and afterwards till Dixon beckoned her out of the room, and, with a sour face, as if doing something against the grain, she bade her drink a cup of coffee which she had prepared for her in the drawing-room, and stood over her in a commanding attitude as she did so.",1 "'You shouldn't have been so curious, Miss, and then you wouldn't have needed to fret before your time.",1 It would have come soon enough.,3 "And now, I suppose, you'll tell master, and a pretty household I shall have of you!'",3 "'No, Dixon,' said Margaret, sorrowfully, 'I will not tell papa.",1 He could not bear it as I can.',2 "And by way of proving how well she bore it, she burst into tears.",3 'Ay!,2 I knew how it would be.,2 "Now you'll waken your mamma, just after she's gone to sleep so quietly.",2 "Miss Margaret my dear, I've had to keep it down this many a week; and though I don't pretend I can love her as you do, yet I loved her better than any other man, woman, or child--no one but Master Frederick ever came near her in my mind.",3 "Ever since Lady Beresford's maid first took me in to see her dressed out in white crape, and corn-ears, and scarlet poppies, and I ran a needle down into my finger, and broke it in, and she tore up her worked pocket-handkerchief, after they'd cut it out, and came in to wet the bandages again with lotion when she returned from the ball--where she'd been the prettiest young lady of all--I've never loved any one like her.",3 I little thought then that I should live to see her brought so low.,2 I don't mean no reproach to nobody.,1 "Many a one calls you pretty and handsome, and what not.",3 "Even in this smoky place, enough to blind one's eyes, the owls can see that.",2 But you'll never be like your mother for beauty--never; not if you live to be a hundred.',3 'Mamma is very pretty still.,3 Poor mamma!',1 "'Now don't ye set off again, or I shall give way at last' (whimpering).",2 "'You'll never stand master's coming home, and questioning, at this rate.",2 "Go out and take a walk, and come in something like.",3 "Many's the time I've longed to walk it off--the thought of what was the matter with her, and how it must all end.'",2 "'Oh, Dixon!'",2 "said Margaret, 'how often I've been cross with you, not knowing what a terrible secret you had to bear!'",1 "'Bless you, child!",2 I like to see you showing a bit of a spirit.,3 It's the good old Beresford blood.,3 "Why, the last Sir John but two shot his steward down, there where he stood, for just telling him that he'd racked the tenants, and he'd racked the tenants till he could get no more money off them than he could get skin off a flint.'",2 "'Well, Dixon, I won't shoot you, and I'll try not to be cross again.'",2 'You never have.,2 "If I've said it at times, it has always been to myself, just in private, by way of making a little agreeable conversation, for there's no one here fit to talk to.",3 "And when you fire up, you're the very image of Master Frederick.",3 "I could find in my heart to put you in a passion any day, just to see his stormy look coming like a great cloud over your face.",3 "But now you go out, Miss.",1 "I'll watch over missus; and as for master, his books are company enough for him, if he should come in.'",3 "'I will go,' said Margaret.",2 "She hung about Dixon for a minute or so, as if afraid and irresolute; then suddenly kissing her, she went quickly out of the room.",0 'Bless her!',2 said Dixon.,2 'She's as sweet as a nut.,3 "There are three people I love: it's missus, Master Frederick, and her.",3 Just them three.,2 That's all.,2 "The rest be hanged, for I don't know what they're in the world for.",2 "Master was born, I suppose, for to marry missus.",3 "If I thought he loved her properly, I might get to love him in time.",4 "But he should ha' made a deal more on her, and not been always reading, reading, thinking, thinking.",2 See what it has brought him to!,2 "Many a one who never reads nor thinks either, gets to be Rector, and Dean, and what not; and I dare say master might, if he'd just minded missus, and let the weary reading and thinking alone.--There she goes' (looking out of the window as she heard the front door shut).",2 'Poor young lady!,2 her clothes look shabby to what they did when she came to Helstone a year ago.,1 Then she hadn't so much as a darned stocking or a cleaned pair of gloves in all her wardrobe.,2 And now--!',2 Margaret went out heavily and unwillingly enough.,2 "But the length of a street--yes, the air of a Milton Street--cheered her young blood before she reached her first turning.",2 "Her step grew lighter, her lip redder.",3 "She began to take notice, instead of having her thoughts turned so exclusively inward.",2 "She saw unusual loiterers in the streets: men with their hands in their pockets sauntering along; loud-laughing and loud-spoken girls clustered together, apparently excited to high spirits, and a boisterous independence of temper and behaviour.",0 "The more ill-looking of the men--the discreditable minority--hung about on the steps of the beer-houses and gin-shops, smoking, and commenting pretty freely on every passer-by.",2 "Margaret disliked the prospect of the long walk through these streets, before she came to the fields which she had planned to reach.",1 "Instead, she would go and see Bessy Higgins.",2 "It would not be so refreshing as a quiet country walk, but still it would perhaps be doing the kinder thing.",3 "Nicholas Higgins was sitting by the fire smoking, as she went in.",2 Bessy was rocking herself on the other side.,2 "Nicholas took the pipe out of his mouth, and standing up, pushed his chair towards Margaret; he leant against the chimney piece in a lounging attitude, while she asked Bessy how she was.",2 "'Hoo's rather down i' th' mouth in regard to spirits, but hoo's better in health.",3 Hoo doesn't like this strike.,2 Hoo's a deal too much set on peace and quietness at any price.',3 "'This is th' third strike I've seen,' said she, sighing, as if that was answer and explanation enough.",2 "'Well, third time pays for all.",2 See if we don't dang th' masters this time.,3 "See if they don't come, and beg us to come back at our own price.",1 That's all.,2 "We've missed it afore time, I grant yo'; but this time we'n laid our plans desperate deep.'",1 'Why do you strike?',1 asked Margaret.,2 "'Striking is leaving off work till you get your own rate of wages, is it not?",3 You must not wonder at my ignorance; where I come from I never heard of a strike.',1 "'I wish I were there,' said Bessy, wearily.",2 'But it's not for me to get sick and tired o' strikes.,1 This is the last I'll see.,2 Before it's ended I shall be in the Great City--the Holy Jerusalem.',3 "'Hoo's so full of th' life to come, hoo cannot think of th' present.",2 "Now I, yo' see, am bound to do the best I can here.",3 I think a bird i' th' hand is worth two i' th' bush.,3 So them's the different views we take on th' strike question.',1 "'But,' said Margaret, 'if the people struck, as you call it, where I come from, as they are mostly all field labourers, the seed would not be sown, the hay got in, the corn reaped.'",1 'Well?',2 said he.,2 "He had resumed his pipe, and put his 'well' in the form of an interrogation.",2 "'Why,' she went on, 'what would become of the farmers.'",2 He puffed away.,2 "'I reckon they'd have either to give up their farms, or to give fair rate of wage.'",3 "'Suppose they could not, or would not do the last; they could not give up their farms all in a minute, however much they might wish to do so; but they would have no hay, nor corn to sell that year; and where would the money come from to pay the labourers' wages the next?'",2 Still puffing away.,2 At last he said: 'I know nought of your ways down South.,2 "I have heerd they're a pack of spiritless, down-trodden men; welly clemmed to death; too much dazed wi' clemming to know when they're put upon.",0 "Now, it's not so here.",2 We known when we're put upon; and we'en too much blood in us to stand it.,2 "We just take our hands fro' our looms, and say, ""Yo' may clem us, but yo'll not put upon us, my masters!""",3 "And be danged to 'em, they shan't this time!'",2 "'I wish I lived down South,' said Bessy.",2 "'There's a deal to bear there,' said Margaret.",2 'There are sorrows to bear everywhere.,2 "There is very hard bodily labour to be gone through, with very little food to give strength.'",1 "'But it's out of doors,' said Bessy.",2 "'And away from the endless, endless noise, and sickening heat.'",1 "'It's sometimes in heavy rain, and sometimes in bitter cold.",1 "A young person can stand it; but an old man gets racked with rheumatism, and bent and withered before his time; yet he must just work on the same, or else go to the workhouse.'",2 'I thought yo' were so taken wi' the ways of the South country.',2 "'So I am,' said Margaret, smiling a little, as she found herself thus caught.",3 "'I only mean, Bessy, there's good and bad in everything in this world; and as you felt the bad up here, I thought it was but fair you should know the bad down there.'",3 'And yo' say they never strike down there?',1 "asked Nicholas, abruptly.",1 'No!',2 said Margaret; 'I think they have too much sense.',2 "'An' I think,' replied he, dashing the ashes out of his pipe with so much vehemence that it broke, 'it's not that they've too much sense, but that they've too little spirit.'",2 "'O, father!'",2 "said Bessy, 'what have ye gained by striking?",3 "Think of that first strike when mother died--how we all had to clem--you the worst of all; and yet many a one went in every week at the same wage, till all were gone in that there was work for; and some went beggars all their lives at after.'",1 "'Ay,' said he.",2 'That there strike was badly managed.,1 "Folk got into th' management of it, as were either fools or not true men.",2 "Yo'll see, it'll be different this time.'",2 "'But all this time you've not told me what you're striking for,' said Margaret, again.",3 "'Why, yo' see, there's five or six masters who have set themselves again paying the wages they've been paying these two years past, and flourishing upon, and getting richer upon.",4 "And now they come to us, and say we're to take less.",2 And we won't.,2 We'll just clem them to death first; and see who'll work for 'em then.,2 "They'll have killed the goose that laid 'em the golden eggs, I reckon.'",2 "'And so you plan dying, in order to be revenged upon them!'",1 "'No,' said he, 'I dunnot.",2 I just look forward to the chance of dying at my post sooner than yield.,1 "That's what folk call fine and honourable in a soldier, and why not in a poor weaver-chap?'",2 "'But,' said Margaret, 'a soldier dies in the cause of the Nation--in the cause of others.'",1 He laughed grimly.,2 "'My lass,' said he, 'yo're but a young wench, but don't yo' think I can keep three people--that's Bessy, and Mary, and me--on sixteen shilling a week?",2 Dun yo' think it's for mysel' I'm striking work at this time?,3 "It's just as much in the cause of others as yon soldier--only m'appen, the cause he dies for is just that of somebody he never clapt eyes on, nor heerd on all his born days, while I take up John Boucher's cause, as lives next door but one, wi' a sickly wife, and eight childer, none on 'em factory age; and I don't take up his cause only, though he's a poor good-for-nought, as can only manage two looms at a time, but I take up th' cause o' justice.",1 "Why are we to have less wage now, I ask, than two year ago?'",2 "'Don't ask me,' said Margaret; 'I am very ignorant.",1 Ask some of your masters.,3 Surely they will give you a reason for it.,2 "It is not merely an arbitrary decision of theirs, come to without reason.'",1 "'Yo're just a foreigner, and nothing more,' said he, contemptuously.",1 'Much yo' know about it.,2 Ask th' masters!,3 "They'd tell us to mind our own business, and they'd mind theirs.",2 "Our business being, yo' understand, to take the bated' wage, and be thankful, and their business to bate us down to clemming point, to swell their profits.",3 That's what it is.',2 "'But said Margaret, determined not to give way, although she saw she was irritating him, 'the state of trade may be such as not to enable them to give you the same remuneration.",1 'State o' trade!,2 That's just a piece o' masters' humbug.,2 It's rate o' wages I was talking of.,2 "Th' masters keep th' state o' trade in their own hands; and just walk it forward like a black bug-a-boo, to frighten naughty children with into being good.",2 "I'll tell yo' it's their part,--their cue, as some folks call it,--to beat us down, to swell their fortunes; and it's ours to stand up and fight hard,--not for ourselves alone, but for them round about us--for justice and fair play.",2 "We help to make their profits, and we ought to help spend 'em.",2 "It's not that we want their brass so much this time, as we've done many a time afore.",2 We'n getten money laid by; and we're resolved to stand and fall together; not a man on us will go in for less wage than th' Union says is our due.,1 "So I say, ""hooray for the strike,"" and let Thornton, and Slickson, and Hamper, and their set look to it!'",1 'Thornton!',2 said Margaret.,2 'Mr. Thornton of Marlborough Street?',2 'Aye!,2 "Thornton o' Marlborough Mill, as we call him.'",2 "'He is one of the masters you are striving with, is he not?",3 What sort of a master is he?',3 'Did yo' ever see a bulldog?,2 "Set a bulldog on hind legs, and dress him up in coat and breeches, and yo'n just getten John Thornton.'",2 "'Nay,' said Margaret, laughing, 'I deny that.",1 "Mr. Thornton is plain enough, but he's not like a bulldog, with its short broad nose, and snarling upper lip.'",3 'No!,2 "not in look, I grant yo'.",2 "But let John Thornton get hold on a notion, and he'll stick to it like a bulldog; yo' might pull him away wi' a pitch-fork ere he'd leave go.",3 "He's worth fighting wi', is John Thornton.",3 "As for Slickson, I take it, some o' these days he'll wheedle his men back wi' fair promises; that they'll just get cheated out of as soon as they're in his power again.",2 "He'll work his fines well out on 'em, I'll warrant.",3 "He's as slippery as an eel, he is.",2 "He's like a cat,--as sleek, and cunning, and fierce.",3 "It'll never be an honest up and down fight wi' him, as it will be wi' Thornton.",3 "Thornton's as dour as a door-nail; an obstinate chap, every inch on him,--th' oud bulldog!'",1 'Poor Bessy!',2 "said Margaret, turning round to her.",2 'You sigh over it all.,2 "You don't like struggling and fighting as your father does, do you?'",2 'No!',2 "said she, heavily.",2 'I'm sick on it.,1 "I could have wished to have had other talk about me in my latter days, than just the clashing and clanging and clattering that has wearied a' my life long, about work and wages, and masters, and hands, and knobsticks.'",3 'Poor wench!,2 latter days be farred!,2 Thou'rt looking a sight better already for a little stir and change.,3 "Beside, I shall be a deal here to make it more lively for thee.'",3 'Tobacco-smoke chokes me!',1 "said she, querulously.",2 'Then I'll never smoke no more i' th' house!',1 "he replied, tenderly.",3 "'But why didst thou not tell me afore, thou foolish wench?'",1 "She did not speak for a while, and then so low that only Margaret heard her: 'I reckon, he'll want a' the comfort he can get out o' either pipe or drink afore he's done.'",3 "Her father went out of doors, evidently to finish his pipe.",2 "Bessy said passionately, 'Now am not I a fool,--am I not, Miss?--there, I knew I ought for to keep father at home, and away fro' the folk that are always ready for to tempt a man, in time o' strike, to go drink,--and there my tongue must needs quarrel with this pipe o' his'n,--and he'll go off, I know he will,--as often as he wants to smoke--and nobody knows where it'll end.",1 I wish I'd letten myself be choked first.',2 'But does your father drink?',2 asked Margaret.,2 "'No--not to say drink,' replied she, still in the same wild excited tone.",2 'But what win ye have?,3 "There are days wi' you, as wi' other folk, I suppose, when yo' get up and go through th' hours, just longing for a bit of a change--a bit of a fillip, as it were.",1 "I know I ha' gone and bought a four-pounder out o' another baker's shop to common on such days, just because I sickened at the thought of going on for ever wi' the same sight in my eyes, and the same sound in my ears, and the same taste i' my mouth, and the same thought (or no thought, for that matter) in my head, day after day, for ever.",2 "I've longed for to be a man to go spreeing, even it were only a tramp to some new place in search o' work.",2 And father--all men--have it stronger in 'em than me to get tired o' sameness and work for ever.,3 And what is 'em to do?,2 "It's little blame to them if they do go into th' gin-shop for to make their blood flow quicker, and more lively, and see things they never see at no other time--pictures, and looking-glass, and such like.",3 "But father never was a drunkard, though maybe, he's got worse for drink, now and then.",1 "Only yo' see,' and now her voice took a mournful, pleading tone, 'at times o' strike there's much to knock a man down, for all they start so hopefully; and where's the comfort to come fro'?",1 "He'll get angry and mad--they all do--and then they get tired out wi' being angry and mad, and maybe ha' done things in their passion they'd be glad to forget.",1 Bless yo'r sweet pitiful face!,3 but yo' dunnot know what a strike is yet.',1 "'Come, Bessy,' said Margaret, 'I won't say you're exaggerating, because I don't know enough about it: but, perhaps, as you're not well, you're only looking on one side, and there is another and a brighter to be looked to.'",4 "'It's all well enough for yo' to say so, who have lived in pleasant green places all your life long, and never known want or care, or wickedness either, for that matter.'",3 "'Take care,' said Margaret, her cheek flushing, and her eye lightening, 'how you judge, Bessy.",2 "I shall go home to my mother, who is so ill--so ill, Bessy, that there's no outlet but death for her out of the prison of her great suffering; and yet I must speak cheerfully to my father, who has no notion of her real state, and to whom the knowledge must come gradually.",1 The only person--the only one who could sympathise with me and help me--whose presence could comfort my mother more than any other earthly thing--is falsely accused--would run the risk of death if he came to see his dying mother.,0 "This I tell you--only you, Bessy.",2 You must not mention it.,2 No other person in Milton--hardly any other person in England knows.,2 Have I not care?,2 "Do I not know anxiety, though I go about well-dressed, and have food enough?",3 "Oh, Bessy, God is just, and our lots are well portioned out by Him, although none but He knows the bitterness of our souls.'",2 "'I ask your pardon,' replied Bessy, humbly.",3 "'Sometimes, when I've thought o' my life, and the little pleasure I've had in it, I've believed that, maybe, I was one of those doomed to die by the falling of a star from heaven; ""And the name of the star is called Wormwood;"" and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.""",0 "One can bear pain and sorrow better if one thinks it has been prophesied long before for one: somehow, then it seems as if my pain was needed for the fulfilment; otherways it seems all sent for nothing.'",1 "'Nay, Bessy--think!'",2 said Margaret.,2 'God does not willingly afflict.,2 "Don't dwell so much on the prophecies, but read the clearer parts of the Bible.'",3 "'I dare say it would be wiser; but where would I hear such grand words of promise--hear tell o' anything so far different fro' this dreary world, and this town above a', as in Revelations?",3 "Many's the time I've repeated the verses in the seventh chapter to myself, just for the sound.",2 "It's as good as an organ, and as different from every day, too.",3 "No, I cannot give up Revelations.",2 It gives me more comfort than any other book i' the Bible.',3 'Let me come and read you some of my favourite chapters.',2 "'Ay,' said she, greedily, 'come.",2 Father will maybe hear yo'.,2 "He's deaved wi' my talking; he says it's all nought to do with the things o' to-day, and that's his business.'",2 'Where is your sister?',2 'Gone fustian-cutting.,2 I were loth to let her go; but somehow we must live; and th' Union can't afford us much.',3 'Now I must go.,2 "You have done me good, Bessy.'",3 'I done you good!',3 'Yes.,2 "I came here very sad, and rather too apt to think my own cause for grief was the only one in the world.",1 "And now I hear how you have had to bear for years, and that makes me stronger.'",3 'Bless yo'!,2 I thought a' the good-doing was on the side of gentle folk.,3 I shall get proud if I think I can do good to yo'.',3 'You won't do it if you think about it.,2 "But you'll only puzzle yourself if you do, that's one comfort.'",3 'Yo're not like no one I ever seed.,3 I dunno what to make of yo'.',2 'Nor I of myself.,2 Good-bye!',3 Bessy stilled her rocking to gaze after her.,2 'I wonder if there are many folk like her down South.,3 "She's like a breath of country air, somehow.",3 She freshens me up above a bit.,2 Who'd ha' thought that face--as bright and as strong as the angel I dream of--could have known the sorrow she speaks on?,3 I wonder how she'll sin.,2 All on us must sin.,1 "I think a deal on her, for sure.",2 "But father does the like, I see.",3 And Mary even.,2 It's not often hoo's stirred up to notice much.',2 "On Margaret's return home she found two letters on the table: one was a note for her mother,--the other, which had come by the post, was evidently from her Aunt Shaw--covered with foreign post-marks--thin, silvery, and rustling.",2 "She took up the other, and was examining it, when her father came in suddenly: 'So your mother is tired, and gone to bed early!",1 "I'm afraid, such a thundery day was not the best in the world for the doctor to see her.",2 What did he say?,2 Dixon tells me he spoke to you about her.',2 Margaret hesitated.,2 Her father's looks became more grave and anxious: 'He does not think her seriously ill?',1 "'Not at present; she needs care, he says; he was very kind, and said he would call again, and see how his medicines worked.'",3 "'Only care--he did not recommend change of air?--he did not say this smoky town was doing her any harm, did he, Margaret?'",2 'No!,2 "not a word,' she replied, gravely.",1 "'He was anxious, I think.'",1 "'Doctors have that anxious manner; it's professional,' said he.",1 "Margaret saw, in her father's nervous ways, that the first impression of possible danger was made upon his mind, in spite of all his making light of what she told him.",0 "He could not forget the subject,--could not pass from it to other things; he kept recurring to it through the evening, with an unwillingness to receive even the slightest unfavourable idea, which made Margaret inexpressibly sad.",1 "'This letter is from Aunt Shaw, papa.",2 "She has got to Naples, and finds it too hot, so she has taken apartments at Sorrento.",3 But I don't think she likes Italy.',3 "'He did not say anything about diet, did he?'",2 "'It was to be nourishing, and digestible.",3 "Mamma's appetite is pretty good, I think.'",3 'Yes!,2 and that makes it all the more strange he should have thought of speaking about diet.',1 "'I asked him, papa.'",2 Another pause.,2 "Then Margaret went on: 'Aunt Shaw says, she has sent me some coral ornaments, papa; but,' added Margaret, half smiling, 'she's afraid the Milton Dissenters won't appreciate them.",3 "She has got all her ideas of Dissenters from the Quakers, has not she?'",2 "'If ever you hear or notice that your mother wishes for anything, be sure you let me know.",2 I am so afraid she does not tell me always what she would like.,2 "Pray, see after that girl Mrs. Thornton named.",2 "If we had a good, efficient house-servant, Dixon could be constantly with her, and I'd answer for it we'd soon set her up amongst us, if care will do it.",3 "She's been very much tired of late, with the hot weather, and the difficulty of getting a servant.",1 "A little rest will put her quite to rights--eh, Margaret?'",2 "'I hope so,' said Margaret,--but so sadly, that her father took notice of it.",1 He pinched her cheek.,2 "'Come; if you look so pale as this, I must rouge you up a little.",1 "Take care of yourself, child, or you'll be wanting the doctor next.'",2 But he could not settle to anything that evening.,2 "He was continually going backwards and forwards, on laborious tiptoe, to see if his wife was still asleep.",2 Margaret's heart ached at his restlessness--his trying to stifle and strangle the hideous fear that was looming out of the dark places of his heart.,0 "He came back at last, somewhat comforted.",2 "'She's awake now, Margaret.",2 She quite smiled as she saw me standing by her.,2 Just her old smile.,3 "And she says she feels refreshed, and ready for tea.",3 Where's the note for her?,2 She wants to see it.,2 I'll read it to her while you make tea.',2 "The note proved to be a formal invitation from Mrs. Thornton, to Mr., Mrs., and Miss Hale to dinner, on the twenty-first instant.",2 "Margaret was surprised to find an acceptance contemplated, after all she had learnt of sad probabilities during the day.",1 But so it was.,2 "The idea of her husband's and daughter's going to this dinner had quite captivated Mrs. Hale's fancy, even before Margaret had heard the contents of the note.",3 "It was an event to diversify the monotony of the invalid's life; and she clung to the idea of their going, with even fretful pertinacity when Margaret objected.",0 "'Nay, Margaret?",2 "if she wishes it, I'm sure we'll both go willingly.",3 "She never would wish it unless she felt herself really stronger--really better than we thought she was, eh, Margaret?'",3 "said Mr. Hale, anxiously, as she prepared to write the note of acceptance, the next day.",2 'Eh!,2 Margaret?',2 "questioned he, with a nervous motion of his hands.",1 It seemed cruel to refuse him the comfort he craved for.,1 "And besides, his passionate refusal to admit the existence of fear, almost inspired Margaret herself with hope.",1 "'I do think she is better since last night,' said she.",3 "'Her eyes look brighter, and her complexion clearer.'",3 "'God bless you,' said her father, earnestly.",3 'But is it true?,2 Yesterday was so sultry every one felt ill.,2 It was a most unlucky day for Mr. Donaldson to see her on.',1 "So he went away to his day's duties, now increased by the preparation of some lectures he had promised to deliver to the working people at a neighbouring Lyceum.",3 "He had chosen Ecclesiastical Architecture as his subject, rather more in accordance with his own taste and knowledge than as falling in with the character of the place or the desire for particular kinds of information among those to whom he was to lecture.",1 "And the institution itself, being in debt, was only too glad to get a gratis course from an educated and accomplished man like Mr. Hale, let the subject be what it might.",4 "'Well, mother,' asked Mr. Thornton that night, 'who have accepted your invitations for the twenty-first?'",2 "'Fanny, where are the notes?",2 "The Slicksons accept, Collingbrooks accept, Stephenses accept, Browns decline.",1 "Hales--father and daughter come,--mother too great an invalid--Macphersons come, and Mr. Horsfall, and Mr. Young.",2 "I was thinking of asking the Porters, as the Browns can't come.'",2 'Very good.,3 "Do you know, I'm really afraid Mrs. Hale is very far from well, from what Dr. Donaldson says.'",3 "'It's strange of them to accept a dinner-invitation if she's very ill,' said Fanny.",1 "'I didn't say very ill,' said her brother, rather sharply.",1 'I only said very far from well.,3 They may not know it either.',2 "And then he suddenly remembered that, from what Dr. Donaldson had told him, Margaret, at any rate, must be aware of the exact state of the case.",2 "'Very probably they are quite aware of what you said yesterday, John--of the great advantage it would be to them--to Mr. Hale, I mean, to be introduced to such people as the Stephenses and the Collingbrooks.'",4 'I'm sure that motive would not influence them.,2 No!,2 I think I understand how it is.',2 'John!',2 "said Fanny, laughing in her little, weak, nervous way.",1 "'How you profess to understand these Hales, and how you never will allow that we can know anything about them.",2 Are they really so very different to most people one meets with?',2 "She did not mean to vex him; but if she had intended it, she could not have done it more thoroughly.",1 "He chafed in silence, however, not deigning to reply to her question.",2 "'They do not seem to me out of the common way,' said Mrs. Thornton.",2 "'He appears a worthy kind of man enough; rather too simple for trade--so it's perhaps as well he should have been a clergyman first, and now a teacher.",4 "She's a bit of a fine lady, with her invalidism; and as for the girl--she's the only one who puzzles me when I think about her,--which I don't often do.",3 She seems to have a great notion of giving herself airs; and I can't make out why.,3 I could almost fancy she thinks herself too good for her company at times.,3 "And yet they're not rich, from all I can hear they never have been.'",3 "'And she's not accomplished, mamma.",3 She can't play.',2 "'Go on, Fanny.",2 What else does she want to bring her up to your standard?',2 'Nay!,2 "John,' said his mother, 'that speech of Fanny's did no harm.",1 I myself heard Miss Hale say she could not play.,2 "If you would let us alone, we could perhaps like her, and see her merits.'",3 'I'm sure I never could!',2 "murmured Fanny, protected by her mother.",2 "Mr. Thornton heard, but did not care to reply.",2 "He was walking up and down the dining-room, wishing that his mother would order candles, and allow him to set to work at either reading or writing, and so put a stop to the conversation.",3 "But he never thought of interfering in any of the small domestic regulations that Mrs. Thornton observed, in habitual remembrance of her old economies.",2 "'Mother,' said he, stopping, and bravely speaking out the truth, 'I wish you would like Miss Hale.'",3 'Why?',2 "asked she, startled by his earnest, yet tender manner.",3 'You're never thinking of marrying her?--a girl without a penny.',2 "'She would never have me,' said he, with a short laugh.",2 "'No, I don't think she would,' answered his mother.",2 "'She laughed in my face, when I praised her for speaking out something Mr. Bell had said in your favour.",3 "I liked the girl for doing it so frankly, for it made me sure she had no thought of you; and the next minute she vexed me so by seeming to think---- Well, never mind!",3 Only you're right in saying she's too good an opinion of herself to think of you.,3 The saucy jade!,2 I should like to know where she'd find a better!',3 "If these words hurt her son, the dusky light prevented him from betraying any emotion.",1 "In a minute he came up quite cheerfully to his mother, and putting one hand lightly on her shoulder, said: 'Well, as I'm just as much convinced of the truth of what you have been saying as you can be; and as I have no thought or expectation of ever asking her to be my wife, you'll believe me for the future that I'm quite disinterested in speaking about her.",1 "I foresee trouble for that girl--perhaps want of motherly care--and I only wish you to be ready to be a friend to her, in case she needs one.",2 "Now, Fanny,' said he, 'I trust you have delicacy enough to understand, that it is as great an injury to Miss Hale as to me--in fact, she would think it a greater--to suppose that I have any reason, more than I now give, for begging you and my mother to show her every kindly attention.'",4 "'I cannot forgive her her pride,' said his mother; 'I will befriend her, if there is need, for your asking, John.",3 I would befriend Jezebel herself if you asked me.,2 "But this girl, who turns up her nose at us all--who turns up her nose at you---- ' 'Nay, mother; I have never yet put myself, and I mean never to put myself, within reach of her contempt.'",1 "'Contempt, indeed!'",2 "--(One of Mrs. Thornton's expressive snorts.)--'Don't go on speaking of Miss Hale, John, if I've to be kind to her.",2 "When I'm with her, I don't know if I like or dislike her most; but when I think of her, and hear you talk of her, I hate her.",1 I can see she's given herself airs to you as well as if you'd told me out.',3 "'And if she has,' said he--and then he paused for a moment--then went on: 'I'm not a lad, to be cowed by a proud look from a woman, or to care for her misunderstanding me and my position.",2 I can laugh at it!',2 'To be sure!,2 "and at her too, with her fine notions and haughty tosses!'",2 "'I only wonder why you talk so much about her, then,' said Fanny.",3 "'I'm sure, I'm tired enough of the subject.'",2 'Well!',2 "said her brother, with a shade of bitterness.",1 'Suppose we find some more agreeable subject.,3 "What do you say to a strike, by way of something pleasant to talk about?'",2 'Have the hands actually turned out?',2 "asked Mrs. Thornton, with vivid interest.",3 'Hamper's men are actually out.,2 "Mine are working out their week, through fear of being prosecuted for breach of contract.",1 "I'd have had every one of them up and punished for it, that left his work before his time was out.'",3 'The law expenses would have been more than the hands them selves were worth--a set of ungrateful naughts!',2 said his mother.,2 'To be sure.,2 "But I'd have shown them how I keep my word, and how I mean them to keep theirs.",2 They know me by this time.,2 Slickson's men are off--pretty certain he won't spend money in getting them punished.,3 "We're in for a turn-out, mother.'",2 'I hope there are not many orders in hand?',2 'Of course there are.,2 They know that well enough.,3 "But they don't quite understand all, though they think they do.'",2 "'What do you mean, John?'",2 "Candles had been brought, and Fanny had taken up her interminable piece of worsted-work, over which she was yawning; throwing herself back in her chair, from time to time, to gaze at vacancy, and think of nothing at her ease.",3 "'Why,' said he, 'the Americans are getting their yarns so into the general market, that our only chance is producing them at a lower rate.",2 "If we can't, we may shut up shop at once, and hands and masters go alike on tramp.",2 "Yet these fools go back to the prices paid three years ago--nay, some of their leaders quote Dickinson's prices now--though they know as well as we do that, what with fines pressed out of their wages as no honourable man would extort them, and other ways which I for one would scorn to use, the real rate of wage paid at Dickinson's is less than at ours.",1 "Upon my word, mother, I wish the old combination-laws were in force.",2 "It is too bad to find out that fools--ignorant wayward men like these--just by uniting their weak silly heads, are to rule over the fortunes of those who bring all the wisdom that knowledge and experience, and often painful thought and anxiety, can give.",0 "The next thing will be--indeed, we're all but come to it now--that we shall have to go and ask--stand hat in hand--and humbly ask the secretary of the Spinner' Union to be so kind as to furnish us with labour at their own price.",2 "That's what they want--they, who haven't the sense to see that, if we don't get a fair share of the profits to compensate us for our wear and tear here in England, we can move off to some other country; and that, what with home and foreign competition, we are none of us likely to make above a fair share, and may be thankful enough if we can get that, in an average number of years.'",4 'Can't you get hands from Ireland?,2 I wouldn't keep these fellows a day.,2 "I'd teach them that I was master, and could employ what servants I liked.'",3 'Yes!,2 "to be sure, I can; and I will, too, if they go on long.",2 "It will be trouble and expense, and I fear there will be some danger; but I will do it, rather than give in.'",0 "'If there is to be all this extra expense, I'm sorry we're giving a dinner just now.'",1 "'So am I,--not because of the expense, but because I shall have much to think about, and many unexpected calls on my time.",1 "But we must have had Mr. Horsfall, and he does not stay in Milton long.",2 "And as for the others, we owe them dinners, and it's all one trouble.'",1 "He kept on with his restless walk--not speaking any more, but drawing a deep breath from time to time, as if endeavouring to throw off some annoying thought.",1 "Fanny asked her mother numerous small questions, all having nothing to do with the subject, which a wiser person would have perceived was occupying her attention.",2 "Consequently, she received many short answers.",2 "She was not sorry when, at ten o'clock, the servants filed in to prayers.",1 "These her mother always read,--first reading a chapter.",2 They were now working steadily through the Old Testament.,2 "When prayers were ended, and his mother had wished him goodnight, with that long steady look of hers which conveyed no expression of the tenderness that was in her heart, but yet had the intensity of a blessing, Mr. Thornton continued his walk.",3 "All his business plans had received a check, a sudden pull-up, from this approaching turn-out.",2 "The forethought of many anxious hours was thrown away, utterly wasted by their insane folly, which would injure themselves even more than him, though no one could set any limit to the mischief they were doing.",0 And these were the men who thought themselves fitted to direct the masters in the disposal of their capital!,3 "Hamper had said, only this very day, that if he were ruined by the strike, he would start life again, comforted by the conviction that those who brought it on were in a worse predicament than he himself,--for he had head as well as hands, while they had only hands; and if they drove away their market, they could not follow it, nor turn to anything else.",0 But this thought was no consolation to Mr. Thornton.,2 "It might be that revenge gave him no pleasure; it might be that he valued the position he had earned with the sweat of his brow, so much that he keenly felt its being endangered by the ignorance or folly of others,--so keenly that he had no thoughts to spare for what would be the consequences of their conduct to themselves.",2 "He paced up and down, setting his teeth a little now and then.",2 At last it struck two.,1 The candles were flickering in their sockets.,1 "He lighted his own, muttering to himself: 'Once for all, they shall know whom they have got to deal with.",2 "I can give them a fortnight,--no more.",2 "If they don't see their madness before the end of that time, I must have hands from Ireland.",1 "I believe it's Slickson's doing,--confound him and his dodges!",1 "He thought he was overstocked; so he seemed to yield at first, when the deputation came to him,--and of course, he only confirmed them in their folly, as he meant to do.",2 That's where it spread from.',2 Mrs. Hale was curiously amused and interested by the idea of the Thornton dinner party.,3 "She kept wondering about the details, with something of the simplicity of a little child, who wants to have all its anticipated pleasures described beforehand.",2 "But the monotonous life led by invalids often makes them like children, inasmuch as they have neither of them any sense of proportion in events, and seem each to believe that the walls and curtains which shut in their world, and shut out everything else, must of necessity be larger than anything hidden beyond.",3 "Besides, Mrs. Hale had had her vanities as a girl; had perhaps unduly felt their mortification when she became a poor clergyman's wife;--they had been smothered and kept down; but they were not extinct; and she liked to think of seeing Margaret dressed for a party, and discussed what she should wear, with an unsettled anxiety that amused Margaret, who had been more accustomed to society in her one in Harley Street than her mother in five and twenty years of Helstone.",1 'Then you think you shall wear your white silk.,2 Are you sure it will fit?,2 It's nearly a year since Edith was married!',2 "'Oh yes, mamma!",2 "Mrs. Murray made it, and it's sure to be right; it may be a straw's breadth shorter or longer-waisted, according to my having grown fat or thin.",2 But I don't think I've altered in the least.',2 'Hadn't you better let Dixon see it?,3 It may have gone yellow with lying by.',1 "'If you like, mamma.",3 "But if the worst comes to the worst, I've a very nice pink gauze which aunt Shaw gave me, only two or three months before Edith was married.",2 That can't have gone yellow.',2 'No!,2 but it may have faded.',2 'Well!,2 then I've a green silk.,2 I feel more as if it was the embarrassment of riches.',1 "'I wish I knew what you ought to wear,' said Mrs. Hale, nervously.",2 Margaret's manner changed instantly.,3 "'Shall I go and put them on one after another, mamma, and then you could see which you liked best?'",3 'But--yes!,2 perhaps that will be best.',3 So off Margaret went.,2 "She was very much inclined to play some pranks when she was dressed up at such an unusual hour; to make her rich white silk balloon out into a cheese, to retreat backwards from her mother as if she were the queen; but when she found that these freaks of hers were regarded as interruptions to the serious business, and as such annoyed her mother, she became grave and sedate.",0 "What had possessed the world (her world) to fidget so about her dress, she could not understand; but that very after noon, on naming her engagement to Bessy Higgins (apropos of the servant that Mrs. Thornton had promised to inquire about), Bessy quite roused up at the intelligence.",3 'Dear!,2 and are you going to dine at Thornton's at Marlborough Mills?',2 "'Yes, Bessy.",2 Why are you so surprised?',2 "'Oh, I dunno.",2 But they visit wi' a' th' first folk in Milton.',2 "'And you don't think we're quite the first folk in Milton, eh, Bessy?'",2 Bessy's cheeks flushed a little at her thought being thus easily read.,2 "'Well,' said she, 'yo' see, they thinken a deal o' money here and I reckon yo've not getten much.'",2 "'No,' said Margaret, 'that's very true.",2 "But we are educated people, and have lived amongst educated people.",3 "Is there anything so wonderful, in our being asked out to dinner by a man who owns himself inferior to my father by coming to him to be instructed?",2 I don't mean to blame Mr. Thornton.,1 "Few drapers' assistants, as he was once, could have made themselves what he is.'",2 "'But can yo' give dinners back, in yo'r small house?",2 Thornton's house is three times as big.',2 "'Well, I think we could manage to give Mr. Thornton a dinner back, as you call it.",2 "Perhaps not in such a large room, nor with so many people.",2 But I don't think we've thought about it at all in that way.',2 "'I never thought yo'd be dining with Thorntons,' repeated I Bessy.",2 "'Why, the mayor hissel' dines there; and the members of Parliament and all.'",2 'I think I could support the honour of meeting the mayor of Milton.,3 'But them ladies dress so grand!',3 "said Bessy, with an anxious look at Margaret's print gown, which her Milton eyes appraised at sevenpence a yard.",1 Margaret's face dimpled up into a merry laugh.,3 "'Thank You, Bessy, for thinking so kindly about my looking nice among all the smart people.",4 "But I've plenty of grand gowns,--a week ago, I should have said they were far too grand for anything I should ever want again.",3 "But as I'm to dine at Mr. Thornton's, and perhaps to meet the mayor, I shall put on my very best gown, you may be sure.'",3 'What win yo' wear?',3 "asked Bessy, somewhat relieved.",2 "'White silk,' said Margaret.",2 "'A gown I had for a cousin's wedding, a year ago.",2 'That'll do!',2 "said Bessy, falling back in her chair.",1 'I should be loth to have yo' looked down upon.,2 'Oh!,2 "I'll be fine enough, if that will save me from being looked down upon in Milton.'",3 "'I wish I could see you dressed up,' said Bessy.",2 "'I reckon, yo're not what folk would ca' pretty; yo've not red and white enough for that.",3 "But dun yo' know, I ha' dreamt of yo', long afore ever I seed yo'.'",2 "'Nonsense, Bessy!'",2 "'Ay, but I did.",2 "Yo'r very face,--looking wi' yo'r clear steadfast eyes out o' th' darkness, wi' yo'r hair blown off from yo'r brow, and going out like rays round yo'r forehead, which was just as smooth and as straight as it is now,--and yo' always came to give me strength, which I seemed to gather out o' yo'r deep comforting eyes,--and yo' were drest in shining raiment--just as yo'r going to be drest.",4 "So, yo' see, it was yo'!'",2 "'Nay, Bessy,' said Margaret, gently, 'it was but a dream.'",2 'And why might na I dream a dream in my affliction as well as others?,2 Did not many a one i' the Bible?,2 "Ay, and see visions too!",2 "Why, even my father thinks a deal o' dreams!",2 "I tell yo' again, I saw yo' as plainly, coming swiftly towards me, wi' yo'r hair blown back wi' the very swiftness o' the motion, just like the way it grows, a little standing off like; and the white shining dress on yo've getten to wear.",3 Let me come and see yo' in it.,2 I want to see yo' and touch yo' as in very deed yo' were in my dream.',2 "'My dear Bessy, it is quite a fancy of yours.'",3 "'Fancy or no fancy,--yo've come, as I knew yo' would, when I saw yo'r movement in my dream,--and when yo're here about me, I reckon I feel easier in my mind, and comforted, just as a fire comforts one on a dree day.",3 "Yo' said it were on th' twenty-first; please God, I'll come and see yo'.'",2 'Oh Bessy!,2 you may come and welcome; but don't talk so--it really makes me sorry.,2 It does indeed.',2 "'Then I'll keep it to mysel', if I bite my tongue out.",2 Not but what it's true for all that.',2 Margaret was silent.,3 "At last she said, 'Let us talk about it sometimes, if you think it true.",2 But not now.,2 "Tell me, has your father turned out?'",2 'Ay!',2 "said Bessy, heavily--in a manner very different from that she had spoken in but a minute or two before.",2 "'He and many another,--all Hamper's men,--and many a one besides.",2 "Th' women are as bad as th' men, in their savageness, this time.",1 "Food is high,--and they mun have food for their childer, I reckon.",2 "Suppose Thorntons sent 'em their dinner out,--th' same money, spent on potatoes and meal, would keep many a crying babby quiet, and hush up its mother's heart for a bit!'",3 'Don't speak so!',2 said Margaret.,2 'You'll make me feel wicked and guilty in going to this dinner.',1 'No!',2 said Bessy.,2 "'Some's pre-elected to sumptuous feasts, and purple and fine linen,--may be yo're one on 'em.",3 "Others toil and moil all their lives long--and the very dogs are not pitiful in our days, as they were in the days of Lazarus.",1 "But if yo' ask me to cool yo'r tongue wi' th' tip of my finger, I'll come across the great gulf to yo' just for th' thought o' what yo've been to me here.'",3 'Bessy!,2 you're very feverish!,1 "I can tell it in the touch of your hand, as well as in what you're saying.",3 "It won't be division enough, in that awful day, that some of us have been beggars here, and some of us have been rich,--we shall not be judged by that poor accident, but by our faithful following of Christ.'",3 "Margaret got up, and found some water and soaking her pocket-handkerchief in it, she laid the cool wetness on Bessy's forehead, and began to chafe the stone-cold feet.",1 "Bessy shut her eyes, and allowed herself to be soothed.",2 "At last she said, 'Yo'd ha' been deaved out o' yo'r five wits, as well as me, if yo'd had one body after another coming in to ask for father, and staying to tell me each one their tale.",3 "Some spoke o' deadly hatred, and made my blood run cold wi' the terrible things they said o' th' masters,--but more, being women, kept plaining, plaining (wi' the tears running down their cheeks, and never wiped away, nor heeded), of the price o' meat, and how their childer could na sleep at nights for th' hunger.'",0 'And do they think the strike will mend this?',1 asked Margaret.,2 "'They say so,' replied Bessy.",2 "'They do say trade has been good for long, and the masters has made no end o' money; how much father doesn't know, but, in course, th' Union does; and, as is natural, they wanten their share o' th' profits, now that food is getting dear; and th' Union says they'll not be doing their duty if they don't make the masters give 'em their share.",3 But masters has getten th' upper hand somehow; and I'm feared they'll keep it now and evermore.,3 "It's like th' great battle o' Armageddon, the way they keep on, grinning and fighting at each other, till even while they fight, they are picked off into the pit.'",3 "Just then, Nicholas Higgins came in.",2 He caught his daughter's last words.,2 'Ay!,2 and I'll fight on too; and I'll get it this time.,2 "It'll not take long for to make 'em give in, for they've getten a pretty lot of orders, all under contract; and they'll soon find out they'd better give us our five per cent than lose the profit they'll gain; let alone the fine for not fulfilling the contract.",4 "Aha, my masters!",3 I know who'll win.',3 "Margaret fancied from his manner that he must have been drinking, not so much from what he said, as from the excited way in which he spoke; and she was rather confirmed in this idea by the evident anxiety Bessy showed to hasten her departure.",2 "Bessy said to her,-- 'The twenty-first--that's Thursday week.",2 "I may come and see yo' dressed for Thornton's, I reckon.",2 What time is yo'r dinner?',2 "Before Margaret could answer, Higgins broke out, 'Thornton's!",1 Ar' t' going to dine at Thornton's?,2 Ask him to give yo' a bumper to the success of his orders.,3 "By th' twenty-first, I reckon, he'll be pottered in his brains how to get 'em done in time.",2 "Tell him, there's seven hundred'll come marching into Marlborough Mills, the morning after he gives the five per cent, and will help him through his contract in no time.",2 You'll have 'em all there.,2 "My master, Hamper.",2 He's one o' th' oud-fashioned sort.,2 "Ne'er meets a man bout an oath or a curse; I should think he were going to die if he spoke me civil; but arter all, his bark's waur than his bite, and yo' may tell him one o' his turn-outs said so, if yo' like.",1 Eh!,2 but yo'll have a lot of prize mill-owners at Thornton's!,3 "I should like to get speech o' them, when they're a bit inclined to sit still after dinner, and could na run for the life on 'em.",3 I'd tell 'em my mind.,2 I'd speak up again th' hard way they're driving on us!',1 'Good-bye!',2 "said Margaret, hastily.",1 "'Good-bye, Bessy!",2 "I shall look to see you on the twenty-first, if you're well enough.'",3 "The medicines and treatment which Dr. Donaldson had ordered for Mrs. Hale, did her so much good at first that not only she herself, but Margaret, began to hope that he might have been mistaken, and that she could recover permanently.",3 "As for Mr. Hale, although he had never had an idea of the serious nature of their apprehensions, he triumphed over their fears with an evident relief, which proved how much his glimpse into the nature of them had affected him.",2 Only Dixon croaked for ever into Margaret's ear.,2 "However, Margaret defied the raven, and would hope.",2 "They needed this gleam of brightness in-doors, for out-of-doors, even to their uninstructed eyes, there was a gloomy brooding appearance of discontent.",1 "Mr. Hale had his own acquaintances among the working men, and was depressed with their earnestly told tales of suffering and long-endurance.",2 "They would have scorned to speak of what they had to bear to any one who might, from his position, have understood it without their words.",2 "But here was this man, from a distant county, who was perplexed by the workings of the system into the midst of which he was thrown, and each was eager to make him a judge, and to bring witness of his own causes for irritation.",1 "Then Mr. Hale brought all his budget of grievances, and laid it before Mr. Thornton, for him, with his experience as a master, to arrange them, and explain their origin; which he always did, on sound economical principles; showing that, as trade was conducted, there must always be a waxing and waning of commercial prosperity; and that in the waning a certain number of masters, as well as of men, must go down into ruin, and be no more seen among the ranks of the happy and prosperous.",4 "He spoke as if this consequence were so entirely logical, that neither employers nor employed had any right to complain if it became their fate: the employer to turn aside from the race he could no longer run, with a bitter sense of incompetency and failure--wounded in the struggle--trampled down by his fellows in their haste to get rich--slighted where he once was honoured--humbly asking for, instead of bestowing, employment with a lordly hand.",1 "Of course, speaking so of the fate that, as a master, might be his own in the fluctuations of commerce, he was not likely to have more sympathy with that of the workmen, who were passed by in the swift merciless improvement or alteration who would fain lie down and quietly die out of the world that needed them not, but felt as if they could never rest in their graves for the clinging cries of the beloved and helpless they would leave behind; who envied the power of the wild bird, that can feed her young with her very heart's blood.",1 Margaret's whole soul rose up against him while he reasoned in this way--as if commerce were everything and humanity nothing.,3 "She could hardly, thank him for the individual kindness, which brought him that very evening to offer her--for the delicacy which made him understand that he must offer her privately--every convenience for illness that his own wealth or his mother's foresight had caused them to accumulate in their household, and which, as he learnt from Dr. Donaldson, Mrs. Hale might possibly require.",4 "His presence, after the way he had spoken--his bringing before her the doom, which she was vainly trying to persuade herself might yet be averted from her mother--all conspired to set Margaret's teeth on edge, as she looked at him, and listened to him.",1 "What business had he to be the only person, except Dr. Donaldson and Dixon, admitted to the awful secret, which she held shut up in the most dark and sacred recess of her heart--not daring to look at it, unless she invoked heavenly strength to bear the sight--that, some day soon, she should cry aloud for her mother, and no answer would come out of the blank, dumb darkness?",0 Yet he knew all.,2 She saw it in his pitying eyes.,2 She heard it in his grave and tremulous voice.,2 "How reconcile those eyes, that voice, with the hard-reasoning, dry, merciless way in which he laid down axioms of trade, and serenely followed them out to their full consequences?",1 The discord jarred upon her inexpressibly.,1 The more because of the gathering woe of which she heard from Bessy.,1 "To be sure, Nicholas Higgins, the father, spoke differently.",2 "He had been appointed a committee-man, and said that he knew secrets of which the exoteric knew nothing.",2 "He said this more expressly and particularly, on the very day before Mrs. Thornton's dinner-party, when Margaret, going in to speak to Bessy, found him arguing the point with Boucher, the neighbour of whom she had frequently heard mention, as by turns exciting Higgins's compassion, as an unskilful workman with a large family depending upon him for support, and at other times enraging his more energetic and sanguine neighbour by his want of what the latter called spirit.",4 It was very evident that Higgins was in a passion when Margaret entered.,3 "Boucher stood, with both hands on the rather high mantel-piece, swaying himself a little on the support which his arms, thus placed, gave him, and looking wildly into the fire, with a kind of despair that irritated Higgins, even while it went to his heart.",1 "Bessy was rocking herself violently backwards and forwards, as was her wont (Margaret knew by this time) when she was agitated.",1 "Her sister Mary was tying on her bonnet (in great clumsy bows, as suited her great clumsy fingers), to go to her fustian-cutting, blubbering out loud the while, and evidently longing to be away from a scene that distressed her.",0 Margaret came in upon this scene.,2 "She stood for a moment at the door--then, her finger on her lips, she stole to a seat on the squab near Bessy.",1 "Nicholas saw her come in, and greeted her with a gruff, but not unfriendly nod.",1 "Mary hurried out of the house catching gladly at the open door, and crying aloud when she got away from her father's presence.",3 It was only John Boucher that took no notice whatever who came in and who went out.,2 "'It's no use, Higgins.",2 Hoo cannot live long a' this'n.,2 Hoo's just sinking away--not for want o' meat hersel'--but because hoo cannot stand th' sight o' the little ones clemming.,1 "Ay, clemming!",2 "Five shilling a week may do well enough for thee, wi' but two mouths to fill, and one on 'em a wench who can welly earn her own meat.",3 But it's clemming to us.,2 "An' I tell thee plain--if hoo dies as I'm 'feard hoo will afore we've getten th' five per cent, I'll fling th' money back i' th' master's face, and say, ""Be domned to yo'; be domned to th' whole cruel world o' yo'; that could na leave me th' best wife that ever bore childer to a man!""",1 "An' look thee, lad, I'll hate thee, and th' whole pack o' th' Union.",1 "Ay, an' chase yo' through heaven wi' my hatred,--I will, lad!",2 "I will,--if yo're leading me astray i' this matter.",2 "Thou saidst, Nicholas, on Wednesday sennight--and it's now Tuesday i' th' second week--that afore a fortnight we'd ha' the masters coming a-begging to us to take back our' work, at our own wage--and time's nearly up,--and there's our lile Jack lying a-bed, too weak to cry, but just every now and then sobbing up his heart for want o' food,--our lile Jack, I tell thee, lad!",1 "Hoo's never looked up sin' he were born, and hoo loves him as if he were her very life,--as he is,--for I reckon he'll ha' cost me that precious price,--our lile Jack, who wakened me each morn wi' putting his sweet little lips to my great rough fou' face, a-seeking a smooth place to kiss,--an' he lies clemming.'",4 "Here the deep sobs choked the poor man, and Nicholas looked up, with eyes brimful of tears, to Margaret, before he could gain courage to speak.",3 "'Hou'd up, man.",2 Thy lile Jack shall na' clem.,2 "I ha' getten brass, and we'll go buy the chap a sup o' milk an' a good four-pounder this very minute.",3 "What's mine's thine, sure enough, i' thou'st i' want.",3 "Only, dunnot lose heart, man!'",1 "continued he, as he fumbled in a tea-pot for what money he had.",2 "'I lay yo' my heart and soul we'll win for a' this: it's but bearing on one more week, and yo just see th' way th' masters 'll come round, praying on us to come back to our mills.",3 "An' th' Union,--that's to say, I--will take care yo've enough for th' childer and th' missus.",3 "So dunnot turn faint-heart, and go to th' tyrants a-seeking work.'",2 "The man turned round at these words,--turned round a face so white, and gaunt, and tear-furrowed, and hopeless, that its very calm forced Margaret to weep.",1 "'Yo' know well, that a worser tyrant than e'er th' masters were says ""Clem to death, and see 'em a' clem to death, ere yo' dare go again th' Union.""",2 "Yo' know it well, Nicholas, for a' yo're one on 'em.",3 "Yo' may be kind hearts, each separate; but once banded together, yo've no more pity for a man than a wild hunger-maddened wolf.'",1 "Nicholas had his hand on the lock of the door--he stopped and turned round on Boucher, close following: 'So help me God!",2 "man alive--if I think not I'm doing best for thee, and for all on us.",3 "If I'm going wrong when I think I'm going right, it's their sin, who ha' left me where I am, in my ignorance.",1 "I ha' thought till my brains ached,--Beli' me, John, I have.",1 "An' I say again, there's no help for us but having faith i' th' Union.",3 "They'll win the day, see if they dunnot!'",3 Not one word had Margaret or Bessy spoken.,2 "They had hardly uttered the sighing, that the eyes of each called to the other to bring up from the depths of her heart.",2 "At last Bessy said, 'I never thought to hear father call on God again.",2 "But yo' heard him say, ""So help me God!""",2 ' 'Yes!',2 said Margaret.,2 "'Let me bring you what money I can spare,--let me bring you a little food for that poor man's children.",1 Don't let them know it comes from any one but your father.,2 It will be but little.',2 Bessy lay back without taking any notice of what Margaret said.,2 "She did not cry--she only quivered up her breath, 'My heart's drained dry o' tears,' she said.",1 "'Boucher's been in these days past, a telling me of his fears and his troubles.",1 "He's but a weak kind o' chap, I know, but he's a man for a' that; and tho' I've been angry, many a time afore now, wi' him an' his wife, as knew no more nor him how to manage, yet, yo' see, all folks isn't wise, yet God lets 'em live--ay, an' gives 'em some one to love, and be loved by, just as good as Solomon.",3 "An', if sorrow comes to them they love, it hurts 'em as sore as e'er it did Solomon.",1 I can't make it out.,2 Perhaps it's as well such a one as Boucher has th' Union to see after him.,3 "But I'd just like for to see th' mean as make th' Union, and put 'em one by one face to face wi' Boucher.",3 "I reckon, if they heard him, they'd tell him (if I cotched 'em one by one), he might go back and get what he could for his work, even if it weren't so much as they ordered.'",3 Margaret sat utterly silent.,2 "How was she ever to go away into comfort and forget that man's voice, with the tone of unutterable agony, telling more by far than his words of what he had to suffer?",1 "She took out her purse; she had not much in it of what she could call her own, but what she had she put into Bessy's hand without speaking.",2 'Thank yo'.,2 "There's many on 'em gets no more, and is not so bad off,--leastways does not show it as he does.",1 "But father won't let 'em want, now he knows.",2 "Yo' see, Boucher's been pulled down wi' his childer,--and her being so cranky, and a' they could pawn has gone this last twelvemonth.",1 "Yo're not to think we'd ha' letten 'em clem, for all we're a bit pressed oursel'; if neighbours doesn't see after neighbours, I dunno who will.'",2 "Bessy seemed almost afraid lest Margaret should think they had not the will, and, to a certain degree, the power of helping one whom she evidently regarded as having a claim upon them.",2 "'Besides,' she went on, 'father is sure and positive the masters must give in within these next few days,--that they canna hould on much longer.",3 "But I thank yo' all the same,--I thank yo' for mysel', as much as for Boucher, for it just makes my heart warm to yo' more and more.'",3 "Bessy seemed much quieter to-day, but fearfully languid and exhausted.",1 "As she finished speaking, she looked so faint and weary that Margaret became alarmed.",0 "'It's nout,' said Bessy.",2 'It's not death yet.,1 "I had a fearfu' night wi' dreams--or somewhat like dreams, for I were wide awake--and I'm all in a swounding daze to-day,--only yon poor chap made me alive again.",1 No!,2 "it's not death yet, but death is not far off.",1 Ay!,2 "Cover me up, and I'll may be sleep, if th' cough will let me.",2 "Good night--good afternoon, m'appen I should say--but th' light is dim an' misty to-day.'",2 "Margaret went home so painfully occupied with what she had heard and seen that she hardly knew how to rouse herself up to the duties which awaited her; the necessity for keeping up a constant flow of cheerful conversation for her mother, who, now that she was unable to go out, always looked to Margaret's return from the shortest walk as bringing in some news.",1 'And can your factory friend come on Thursday to see you dressed?',2 "'She was so ill I never thought of asking her,' said Margaret, dolefully.",2 'Dear!,2 "Everybody is ill now, I think,' said Mrs. Hale, with a little of the jealousy which one invalid is apt to feel of another.",1 'But it must be very sad to be ill in one of those little back streets.',1 "(Her kindly nature prevailing, and the old Helstone habits of thought returning.) 'It's bad enough here.",3 "What could you do for her, Margaret?",2 Mr. Thornton has sent me some of his old port wine since you went out.,2 "Would a bottle of that do her good, think you?'",3 "'No, mamma!",2 "I don't believe they are very poor,--at least, they don't speak as if they were; and, at any rate, Bessy's illness is consumption--she won't want wine.",1 "Perhaps, I might take her a little preserve, made of our dear Helstone fruit.",2 No!,2 "there's another family to whom I should like to give--Oh mamma, mamma!",3 "how am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen to-day?'",2 "exclaimed Margaret, bursting the bounds she had preordained for herself before she came in, and telling her mother of what she had seen and heard at Higgins's cottage.",2 It distressed Mrs. Hale excessively.,1 It made her restlessly irritated till she could do something.,1 "She directed Margaret to pack up a basket in the very drawing-room, to be sent there and then to the family; and was almost angry with her for saying, that it would not signify if it did not go till morning, as she knew Higgins had provided for their immediate wants, and she herself had left money with Bessy.",1 Mrs. Hale called her unfeeling for saying this; and never gave herself breathing-time till the basket was sent out of the house.,2 "Then she said: 'After all, we may have been doing wrong.",1 "It was only the last time Mr. Thornton was here that he said, those were no true friends who helped to prolong the struggle by assisting the turn outs.",2 "And this Boucher-man was a turn-out, was he not?'",2 "The question was referred to Mr. Hale by his wife, when he came up-stairs, fresh from giving a lesson to Mr. Thornton, which had ended in conversation, as was their wont.",3 "Margaret did not care if their gifts had prolonged the strike; she did not think far enough for that, in her present excited state.",3 "Mr. Hale listened, and tried to be as calm as a judge; he recalled all that had seemed so clear not half-an-hour before, as it came out of Mr. Thornton's lips; and then he made an unsatisfactory compromise.",3 "His wife and daughter had not only done quite right in this instance, but he did not see for a moment how they could have done otherwise.",3 "Nevertheless, as a general rule, it was very true what Mr. Thornton said, that as the strike, if prolonged, must end in the masters' bringing hands from a distance (if, indeed, the final result were not, as it had often been before, the invention of some machine which would diminish the need of hands at all), why, it was clear enough that the kindest thing was to refuse all help which might bolster them up in their folly.",3 "But, as to this Boucher, he would go and see him the first thing in the morning, and try and find out what could be done for him.",2 "Mr. Hale went the next morning, as he proposed.",3 "He did not find Boucher at home, but he had a long talk with his wife; promised to ask for an Infirmary order for her; and, seeing the plenty provided by Mrs. Hale, and somewhat lavishly used by the children, who were masters down-stairs in their father's absence, he came back with a more consoling and cheerful account than Margaret had dared to hope for; indeed, what she had said the night before had prepared her father for so much worse a state of things that, by a reaction of his imagination, he described all as better than it really was.",4 "'But I will go again, and see the man himself,' said Mr. Hale.",3 'I hardly know as yet how to compare one of these houses with our Helstone cottages.,2 "I see furniture here which our labourers would never have thought of buying, and food commonly used which they would consider luxuries; yet for these very families there seems no other resource, now that their weekly wages are stopped, but the pawn-shop.",2 "One had need to learn a different language, and measure by a different standard, up here in Milton.'",2 "Bessy, too, was rather better this day.",3 "Still she was so weak that she seemed to have entirely forgotten her wish to see Margaret dressed--if, indeed, that had not been the feverish desire of a half-delirious state.",0 "Margaret could not help comparing this strange dressing of hers, to go where she did not care to be--her heart heavy with various anxieties--with the old, merry, girlish toilettes that she and Edith had performed scarcely more than a year ago.",1 Her only pleasure now in decking herself out was in thinking that her mother would take delight in seeing her dressed.,3 "She blushed when Dixon, throwing the drawing-room door open, made an appeal for admiration.",3 "'Miss Hale looks well, ma'am,--doesn't she?",3 Mrs. Shaw's coral couldn't have come in better.,3 "It just gives the right touch of colour, ma'am.",3 "Otherwise, Miss Margaret, you would have been too pale.'",1 "Margaret's black hair was too thick to be plaited; it needed rather to be twisted round and round, and have its fine silkiness compressed into massive coils, that encircled her head like a crown, and then were gathered into a large spiral knot behind.",3 "She kept its weight together by two large coral pins, like small arrows for length.",3 "Her white silk sleeves were looped up with strings of the same material, and on her neck, just below the base of her curved and milk-white throat, there lay heavy coral beads.",2 "'Oh, Margaret!",2 "how I should like to be going with you to one of the old Barrington assemblies,--taking you as Lady Beresford used to take me.'",3 "Margaret kissed her mother for this little burst of maternal vanity; but she could hardly smile at it, she felt so much out of spirits.",2 "'I would rather stay at home with you,--much rather, mamma.'",2 "'Nonsense, darling!",3 Be sure you notice the dinner well.,3 I shall like to hear how they manage these things in Milton.,3 "Particularly the second course, dear.",2 Look what they have instead of game.',2 "Mrs. Hale would have been more than interested,--she would have been astonished, if she had seen the sumptuousness of the dinner-table and its appointments.",4 "Margaret, with her London cultivated taste, felt the number of delicacies to be oppressive; one half of the quantity would have been enough, and the effect lighter and more elegant.",3 "But it was one of Mrs. Thornton's rigorous laws of hospitality, that of each separate dainty enough should be provided for all the guests to partake, if they felt inclined.",3 "Careless to abstemiousness in her daily habits, it was part of her pride to set a feast before such of her guests as cared for it.",2 Her son shared this feeling.,2 "He had never known--though he might have imagined, and had the capability to relish--any kind of society but that which depended on an exchange of superb meals and even now, though he was denying himself the personal expenditure of an unnecessary sixpence, and had more than once regretted that the invitations for this dinner had been sent out, still, as it was to be, he was glad to see the old magnificence of preparation.",3 Margaret and her father were the first to arrive.,2 Mr. Hale was anxiously punctual to the time specified.,3 There was no one up-stairs in the drawing-room but Mrs. Thornton and Fanny.,2 "Every cover was taken off, and the apartment blazed forth in yellow silk damask and a brilliantly-flowered carpet.",3 "Every corner seemed filled up with ornament, until it became a weariness to the eye, and presented a strange contrast to the bald ugliness of the look-out into the great mill-yard, where wide folding gates were thrown open for the admission of carriages.",1 "The mill loomed high on the left-hand side of the windows, casting a shadow down from its many stories, which darkened the summer evening before its time.",1 'My son was engaged up to the last moment on business.,2 "He will be here directly, Mr. Hale.",3 May I beg you to take a seat?',1 Mr. Hale was standing at one of the windows as Mrs. Thornton spoke.,3 "He turned away, saying, 'Don't you find such close neighbourhood to the mill rather unpleasant at times?'",1 She drew herself up: 'Never.,2 I am not become so fine as to desire to forget the source of my son's wealth and power.,3 "Besides, there is not such another factory in Milton.",2 One room alone is two hundred and twenty square yards.',2 "'I meant that the smoke and the noise--the constant going out and coming in of the work-people, might be annoying!'",1 "'I agree with you, Mr. Hale!'",3 said Fanny.,2 "'There is a continual smell of steam, and oily machinery--and the noise is perfectly deafening.'",1 'I have heard noise that was called music far more deafening.,1 "The engine-room is at the street-end of the factory; we hardly hear it, except in summer weather, when all the windows are open; and as for the continual murmur of the work-people, it disturbs me no more than the humming of a hive of bees.",2 "If I think of it at all, I connect it with my son, and feel how all belongs to him, and that his is the head that directs it.",2 "Just now, there are no sounds to come from the mill; the hands have been ungrateful enough to turn out, as perhaps you have heard.",2 "But the very business (of which I spoke, when you entered), had reference to the steps he is going to take to make them learn their place.'",2 "The expression on her face, always stern, deepened into dark anger, as she said this.",0 "Nor did it clear away when Mr. Thornton entered the room; for she saw, in an instant, the weight of care and anxiety which he could not shake off, although his guests received from him a greeting that appeared both cheerful and cordial.",2 He shook hands with Margaret.,2 "He knew it was the first time their hands had met, though she was perfectly unconscious of the fact.",3 "He inquired after Mrs. Hale, and heard Mr. Hale's sanguine, hopeful account; and glancing at Margaret, to understand how far she agreed with her father, he saw that no dissenting shadow crossed her face.",3 "And as he looked with this intention, he was struck anew with her great beauty.",3 "He had never seen her in such dress before and yet now it appeared as if such elegance of attire was so befitting her noble figure and lofty serenity of countenance, that she ought to go always thus apparelled.",4 "She was talking to Fanny; about what, he could not hear; but he saw his sister's restless way of continually arranging some part of her gown, her wandering eyes, now glancing here, now there, but without any purpose in her observation; and he contrasted them uneasily with the large soft eyes that looked forth steadily at one object, as if from out their light beamed some gentle influence of repose: the curving lines of the red lips, just parted in the interest of listening to what her companion said--the head a little bent forwards, so as to make a long sweeping line from the summit, where the light caught on the glossy raven hair, to the smooth ivory tip of the shoulder; the round white arms, and taper hands, laid lightly across each other, but perfectly motionless in their pretty attitude.",3 Mr. Thornton sighed as he took in all this with one of his sudden comprehensive glances.,3 "And then he turned his back to the young ladies, and threw himself, with an effort, but with all his heart and soul, into a conversation with Mr. Hale.",3 More people came--more and more.,2 "Fanny left Margaret's side, and helped her mother to receive her guests.",3 "Mr. Thornton felt that in this influx no one was speaking to Margaret, and was restless under this apparent neglect.",1 But he never went near her himself; he did not look at her.,2 "Only, he knew what she was doing--or not doing--better than he knew the movements of any one else in the room.",3 "Margaret was so unconscious of herself, and so much amused by watching other people, that she never thought whether she was left unnoticed or not.",1 Somebody took her down to dinner; she did not catch the name; nor did he seem much inclined to talk to her.,2 "There was a very animated conversation going on among the gentlemen; the ladies, for the most part, were silent, employing themselves in taking notes of the dinner and criticising each other's dresses.",3 "Margaret caught the clue to the general conversation, grew interested and listened attentively.",2 "Mr. Horsfall, the stranger, whose visit to the town was the original germ of the party, was asking questions relative to the trade and manufactures of the place; and the rest of the gentlemen--all Milton men,--were giving him answers and explanations.",1 "Some dispute arose, which was warmly contested; it was referred to Mr. Thornton, who had hardly spoken before; but who now gave an opinion, the grounds of which were so clearly stated that even the opponents yielded.",3 "Margaret's attention was thus called to her host; his whole manner as master of the house, and entertainer of his friends, was so straightforward, yet simple and modest, as to be thoroughly dignified.",4 Margaret thought she had never seen him to so much advantage.,3 "When he had come to their house, there had been always something, either of over-eagerness or of that kind of vexed annoyance which seemed ready to pre-suppose that he was unjustly judged, and yet felt too proud to try and make himself better understood.",3 "But now, among his fellows, there was no uncertainty as to his position.",2 He was regarded by them as a man of great force of character; of power in many ways.,3 There was no need to struggle for their respect.,2 "He had it, and he knew it; and the security of this gave a fine grand quietness to his voice and ways, which Margaret had missed before.",3 He was not in the habit of talking to ladies; and what he did say was a little formal.,2 To Margaret herself he hardly spoke at all.,2 She was surprised to think how much she enjoyed this dinner.,3 "She knew enough now to understand many local interests--nay, even some of the technical words employed by the eager mill-owners.",4 She silently took a very decided part in the question they were discussing.,2 "At any rate, they talked in desperate earnest,--not in the used-up style that wearied her so in the old London parties.",2 "She wondered that with all this dwelling on the manufactures and trade of the place, no allusion was made to the strike then pending.",1 "She did not yet know how coolly such things were taken by the masters, as having only one possible end.",3 "To be sure, the men were cutting their own throats, as they had done many a time before; but if they would be fools, and put themselves into the hands of a rascally set of paid delegates, they must take the consequence.",2 "One or two thought Thornton looked out of spirits; and, of course, he must lose by this turn-out.",1 But it was an accident that might happen to themselves any day; and Thornton was as good to manage a strike as any one; for he was as iron a chap as any in Milton.,2 The hands had mistaken their man in trying that dodge on him.,1 "And they chuckled inwardly at the idea of the workmen's discomfiture and defeat, in their attempt to alter one iota of what Thornton had decreed.",3 It was rather dull for Margaret after dinner.,1 "She was glad when the gentlemen came, not merely because she caught her father's eye to brighten her sleepiness up; but because she could listen to something larger and grander than the petty interests which the ladies had been talking about.",3 She liked the exultation in the sense of power which these Milton men had.,3 "It might be rather rampant in its display, and savour of boasting; but still they seemed to defy the old limits of possibility, in a kind of fine intoxication, caused by the recollection of what had been achieved, and what yet should be.",1 "If in her cooler moments she might not approve of their spirit in all things, still there was much to admire in their forgetfulness of themselves and the present, in their anticipated triumphs over all inanimate matter at some future time which none of them should live to see.",3 "She was rather startled when Mr. Thornton spoke to her, close at her elbow: 'I could see you were on our side in our discussion at dinner,--were you not, Miss Hale?'",2 'Certainly.,2 But then I know so little about it.,2 "I was surprised, however, to find from what Mr. Horsfall said, that there were others who thought in so diametrically opposite a manner, as the Mr. Morison he spoke about.",1 He cannot be a gentleman--is he?',2 "'I am not quite the person to decide on another's gentlemanliness, Miss Hale.",2 "I mean, I don't quite understand your application of the word.",2 But I should say that this Morison is no true man.,2 I don't know who he is; I merely judge him from Mr. Horsfall's account.',2 "'I suspect my ""gentleman"" includes your ""true man.""",1 "' 'And a great deal more, you would imply.",3 I differ from you.,2 A man is to me a higher and a completer being than a gentleman.',2 'What do you mean?',2 asked Margaret.,2 'We must understand the words differently.',2 "'I take it that ""gentleman"" is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as ""a man,"" we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself,--to life--to time--to eternity.",3 "A cast-away lonely as Robinson Crusoe--a prisoner immured in a dungeon for life--nay, even a saint in Patmos, has his endurance, his strength, his faith, best described by being spoken of as ""a man.""",2 "I am rather weary of this word ""gentlemanly,"" which seems to me to be often inappropriately used, and often, too, with such exaggerated distortion of meaning, while the full simplicity of the noun ""man,"" and the adjective ""manly"" are unacknowledged--that I am induced to class it with the cant of the day.'",0 "Margaret thought a moment,--but before she could speak her slow conviction, he was called away by some of the eager manufacturers, whose speeches she could not hear, though she could guess at their import by the short clear answers Mr. Thornton gave, which came steady and firm as the boom of a distant minute gun.",4 "They were evidently talking of the turn-out, and suggesting what course had best be pursued.",3 She heard Mr. Thornton say: 'That has been done.',2 "Then came a hurried murmur, in which two or three joined.",2 'All those arrangements have been made.',2 "Some doubts were implied, some difficulties named by Mr. Slickson, who took hold of Mr. Thornton's arm, the better to impress his words.",2 "Mr. Thornton moved slightly away, lifted his eyebrows a very little, and then replied: 'I take the risk.",1 You need not join in it unless you choose.',2 Still some more fears were urged.,1 'I'm not afraid of anything so dastardly as incendiarism.,1 We are open enemies; and I can protect myself from any violence that I apprehend.,2 And I will assuredly protect all others who come to me for work.,4 "They know my determination by this time, as well and as fully as you do.'",3 "Mr. Horsfall took him a little on one side, as Margaret conjectured, to ask him some other question about the strike; but, in truth, it was to inquire who she herself was--so quiet, so stately, and so beautiful.",3 'A Milton lady?',2 "asked he, as the name was given.",2 'No!,2 "from the south of England--Hampshire, I believe,' was the cold, indifferent answer.",1 Mrs. Slickson was catechising Fanny on the same subject.,2 'Who is that fine distinguished-looking girl?,3 a sister of Mr. Horsfall's?',2 "'Oh dear, no!",2 "That is Mr. Hale, her father, talking now to Mr. Stephens.",3 "He gives lessons; that is to say, he reads with young men.",2 "My brother John goes to him twice a week, and so he begged mamma to ask them here, in hopes of getting him known.",2 "I believe, we have some of their prospectuses, if you would like to have one.'",3 'Mr. Thornton!,2 "Does he really find time to read with a tutor, in the midst of all his business,--and this abominable strike in hand as well?'",1 "Fanny was not sure, from Mrs. Slickson's manner, whether she ought to be proud or ashamed of her brother's conduct; and, like all people who try and take other people's 'ought' for the rule of their feelings, she was inclined to blush for any singularity of action.",3 Her shame was interrupted by the dispersion of the guests.,1 Margaret and her father walked home.,2 "The night was fine, the streets clean, and with her pretty white silk, like Leezie Lindsay's gown o' green satin, in the ballad, 'kilted up to her knee,' she was off with her father--ready to dance along with the excitement of the cool, fresh night air.",4 'I rather think Thornton is not quite easy in his mind about this strike.,2 He seemed very anxious to-night.',1 'I should wonder if he were not.,3 "But he spoke with his usual coolness to the others, when they suggested different things, just before we came away.'",2 'So he did after dinner as well.,3 It would take a good deal to stir him from his cool manner of speaking; but his face strikes me as anxious.',3 "'I should be, if I were he.",2 "He must know of the growing anger and hardly smothered hatred of his workpeople, who all look upon him as what the Bible calls a ""hard man,""--not so much unjust as unfeeling; clear in judgment, standing upon his ""rights"" as no human being ought to stand, considering what we and all our petty rights are in the sight of the Almighty.",0 I am glad you think he looks anxious.,2 "When I remember Boucher's half mad words and ways, I cannot bear to think how coolly Mr. Thornton spoke.'",1 "'In the first place, I am not so convinced as you are about that man Boucher's utter distress; for the moment, he was badly off, I don't doubt.",0 "But there is always a mysterious supply of money from these Unions; and, from what you said, it was evident the man was of a passionate, demonstrative nature, and gave strong expression to all he felt.'",3 "'Oh, papa!'",2 'Well!,2 "I only want you to do justice to Mr. Thornton, who is, I suspect, of an exactly opposite nature,--a man who is far too proud to show his feelings.",2 "Just the character I should have thought beforehand, you would have admired, Margaret.'",2 "'So I do,--so I should; but I don't feel quite so sure as you do of the existence of those feelings.",2 "He is a man of great strength of character,--of unusual intellect, considering the few advantages he has had.'",3 'Not so few.,2 He has led a practical life from a very early age; has been called upon to exercise judgment and self-control.,3 All that developes one part of the intellect.,2 "To be sure, he needs some of the knowledge of the past, which gives the truest basis for conjecture as to the future; but he knows this need,--he perceives it, and that is something.",2 "You are quite prejudiced against Mr. Thornton, Margaret.'",2 "'He is the first specimen of a manufacturer--of a person engaged in trade--that I had ever the opportunity of studying, papa.",2 He is my first olive: let me make a face while I swallow it.,2 "I know he is good of his kind, and by and by I shall like the kind.",3 I rather think I am already beginning to do so.,2 "I was very much interested by what the gentlemen were talking about, although I did not understand half of it.",2 "I was quite sorry when Miss Thornton came to take me to the other end of the room, saying she was sure I should be uncomfortable at being the only lady among so many gentlemen.",0 "I had never thought about it, I was so busy listening; and the ladies were so dull, papa--oh, so dull!",1 Yet I think it was clever too.,3 It reminded me of our old game of having each so many nouns to introduce into a sentence.',2 "'What do you mean, child?'",2 asked Mr. Hale.,3 "'Why, they took nouns that were signs of things which gave evidence of wealth,--housekeepers, under-gardeners, extent of glass, valuable lace, diamonds, and all such things; and each one formed her speech so as to bring them all in, in the prettiest accidental manner possible.'",2 "'You will be as proud of your one servant when you get her, if all is true about her that Mrs. Thornton says.'",3 "'To be sure, I shall.",2 "I felt like a great hypocrite to-night, sitting there in my white silk gown, with my idle hands before me, when I remembered all the good, thorough, house-work they had done to-day.",3 "They took me for a fine lady, I'm sure.'",3 "'Even I was mistaken enough to think you looked like a lady my dear,' said Mr. Hale, quietly smiling.",4 "But smiles were changed to white and trembling looks, when they saw Dixon's face, as she opened the door.",3 "'Oh, master!--Oh, Miss Margaret!",2 Thank God you are come!,3 Dr. Donaldson is here.,2 "The servant next door went for him, for the charwoman is gone home.",2 "She's better now; but, oh, sir!",3 I thought she'd have died an hour ago.',1 Mr. Hale caught Margaret's arm to steady himself from falling.,3 "He looked at her face, and saw an expression upon it of surprise and extremest sorrow, but not the agony of terror that contracted his own unprepared heart.",0 "She knew more than he did, and yet she listened with that hopeless expression of awed apprehension.",1 'Oh!,2 I should not have left her--wicked daughter that I am!',1 "moaned forth Margaret, as she supported her trembling father's hasty steps up-stairs.",2 Dr. Donaldson met them on the landing.,2 "'She is better now,' he whispered.",3 'The opiate has taken effect.,2 The spasms were very bad: no wonder they frightened your maid; but she'll rally this time.',2 'This time!,2 Let me go to her!',2 "Half an hour ago, Mr. Hale was a middle-aged man; now his sight was dim, his senses wavering, his walk tottering, as if he were seventy years of age.",2 "Dr. Donaldson took his arm, and led him into the bedroom.",3 Margaret followed close.,2 "There lay her mother, with an unmistakable look on her face.",2 "She might be better now; she was sleeping, but Death had signed her for his own, and it was clear that ere long he would return to take possession.",3 Mr. Hale looked at her for some time without a word.,3 "Then he began to shake all over, and, turning away from Dr. Donaldson's anxious care, he groped to find the door; he could not see it, although several candles, brought in the sudden affright, were burning and flaring there.",0 "He staggered into the drawing-room, and felt about for a chair.",2 "Dr. Donaldson wheeled one to him, and placed him in it.",2 He felt his pulse.,2 "'Speak to him, Miss Hale.",2 We must rouse him.',2 'Papa!',2 "said Margaret, with a crying voice that was wild with pain.",1 'Papa!,2 Speak to me!',2 "The speculation came again into his eyes, and he made a great effort.",3 "'Margaret, did you know of this?",2 "Oh, it was cruel of you!'",1 "'No, sir, it was not cruel!'",1 "replied Dr. Donaldson, with quick decision.",2 'Miss Hale acted under my directions.,3 "There may have been a mistake, but it was not cruel.",1 "Your wife will be a different creature to-morrow, I trust.",3 "She has had spasms, as I anticipated, though I did not tell Miss Hale of my apprehensions.",1 "She has taken the opiate I brought with me; she will have a good long sleep; and to-morrow, that look which has alarmed you so much will have passed away.'",2 'But not the disease?',2 Dr. Donaldson glanced at Margaret.,2 "Her bent head, her face raised with no appeal for a temporary reprieve, showed that quick observer of human nature that she thought it better that the whole truth should be told.",3 'Not the disease.,2 "We cannot touch the disease, with all our poor vaunted skill.",2 We can only delay its progress--alleviate the pain it causes.,1 "Be a man, sir--a Christian.",2 "Have faith in the immortality of the soul, which no pain, no mortal disease, can assail or touch!'",1 "But all the reply he got, was in the choked words, 'You have never been married, Dr. Donaldson; you do not know what it is,' and in the deep, manly sobs, which went through the stillness of the night like heavy pulses of agony.",2 "Margaret knelt by him, caressing him with tearful caresses.",2 "No one, not even Dr. Donaldson, knew how the time went by.",2 Mr. Hale was the first to dare to speak of the necessities of the present moment.,3 'What must we do?',2 asked he.,2 'Tell us both.,2 Margaret is my staff--my right hand.',3 "Dr. Donaldson gave his clear, sensible directions.",3 "No fear for to-night--nay, even peace for to-morrow, and for many days yet.",2 But no enduring hope of recovery.,3 "He advised Mr. Hale to go to bed, and leave only one to watch the slumber, which he hoped would be undisturbed.",3 He promised to come again early in the morning.,3 "And with a warm and kindly shake of the hand, he left them.",3 They spoke but few words; they were too much exhausted by their terror to do more than decide upon the immediate course of action.,1 "Mr. Hale was resolved to sit up through the night, and all that Margaret could do was to prevail upon him to rest on the drawing-room sofa.",3 "Dixon stoutly and bluntly refused to go to bed; and, as for Margaret, it was simply impossible that she should leave her mother, let all the doctors in the world speak of 'husbanding resources,' and 'one watcher only being required.'",1 "So, Dixon sat, and stared, and winked, and drooped, and picked herself up again with a jerk, and finally gave up the battle, and fairly snored.",2 "Margaret had taken off her gown and tossed it aside with a sort of impatient disgust, and put on her dressing-gown.",1 "She felt as if she never could sleep again; as if her whole senses were acutely vital, and all endued with double keenness, for the purposes of watching.",3 "Every sight and sound--nay, even every thought, touched some nerve to the very quick.",2 "For more than two hours, she heard her father's restless movements in the next room.",1 "He came perpetually to the door of her mother's chamber, pausing there to listen, till she, not hearing his close unseen presence, went and opened it to tell him how all went on, in reply to the questions his baked lips could hardly form.",2 "At last he, too, fell asleep, and all the house was still.",1 Margaret sate behind the curtain thinking.,2 "Far away in time, far away in space, seemed all the interests of past days.",3 "Not more than thirty-six hours ago, she cared for Bessy Higgins and her father, and her heart was wrung for Boucher; now, that was all like a dreaming memory of some former life;--everything that had passed out of doors seemed dissevered from her mother, and therefore unreal.",3 "Even Harley Street appeared more distinct; there she remembered, as if it were yesterday, how she had pleased herself with tracing out her mother's features in her Aunt Shaw's face,--and how letters had come, making her dwell on the thoughts of home with all the longing of love.",3 "Helstone, itself, was in the dim past.",1 "The dull gray days of the preceding winter and spring, so uneventless and monotonous, seemed more associated with what she cared for now above all price.",1 "She would fain have caught at the skirts of that departing time, and prayed it to return, and give her back what she had too little valued while it was yet in her possession.",2 What a vain show Life seemed!,1 "How unsubstantial, and flickering, and flitting!",1 "It was as if from some aerial belfry, high up above the stir and jar of the earth, there was a bell continually tolling, 'All are shadows!--all are passing!--all is past!'",2 "And when the morning dawned, cool and gray, like many a happier morning before--when Margaret looked one by one at the sleepers, it seemed as if the terrible night were unreal as a dream; it, too, was a shadow.",4 "It, too, was past.",2 "Mrs. Hale herself was not aware when she awoke, how ill she had been the night before.",3 "She was rather surprised at Dr. Donaldson's early visit, and perplexed by the anxious faces of husband and child.",1 "She consented to remain in bed that day, saying she certainly was tired; but, the next, she insisted on getting up; and Dr. Donaldson gave his consent to her returning into the drawing-room.",1 "She was restless and uncomfortable in every position, and before night she became very feverish.",0 "Mr. Hale was utterly listless, and incapable of deciding on anything.",1 'What can we do to spare mamma such another night?',2 asked Margaret on the third day.,2 "'It is, to a certain degree, the reaction after the powerful opiates I have been obliged to use.",3 "It is more painful for you to see than for her to bear, I believe.",1 "But, I think, if we could get a water-bed it might be a good thing.",3 Not but what she will be better to-morrow; pretty much like herself as she was before this attack.,3 "Still, I should like her to have a water-bed.",3 "Mrs. Thornton has one, I know.",2 I'll try and call there this afternoon.,2 "Stay,' said he, his eye catching on Margaret's face, blanched with watching in a sick room, 'I'm not sure whether I can go; I've a long round to take.",1 "It would do you no harm to have a brisk walk to Marlborough Street, and ask Mrs. Thornton if she can spare it.'",2 "'Certainly,' said Margaret.",2 'I could go while mamma is asleep this afternoon.,2 I'm sure Mrs. Thornton would lend it to us.',2 Dr. Donaldson's experience told them rightly.,3 "Mrs. Hale seemed to shake off the consequences of her attack, and looked brighter and better this afternoon than Margaret had ever hoped to see her again.",3 "Her daughter left her after dinner, sitting in her easy chair, with her hand lying in her husband's, who looked more worn and suffering than she by far.",1 "Still, he could smile now--rather slowly, rather faintly, it is true; but a day or two before, Margaret never thought to see him smile again.",2 It was about two miles from their house in Crampton Crescent to Marlborough Street.,2 It was too hot to walk very quickly.,3 An August sun beat straight down into the street at three o'clock in the afternoon.,2 "Margaret went along, without noticing anything very different from usual in the first mile and a half of her journey; she was absorbed in her own thoughts, and had learnt by this time to thread her way through the irregular stream of human beings that flowed through Milton streets.",1 "But, by and by, she was struck with an unusual heaving among the mass of people in the crowded road on which she was entering.",0 "They did not appear to be moving on, so much as talking, and listening, and buzzing with excitement, without much stirring from the spot where they might happen to be.",2 "Still, as they made way for her, and, wrapt up in the purpose of her errand, and the necessities that suggested it, she was less quick of observation than she might have been, if her mind had been at ease, she had got into Marlborough Street before the full conviction forced itself upon her, that there was a restless, oppressive sense of irritation abroad among the people; a thunderous atmosphere, morally as well as physically, around her.",1 "From every narrow lane opening out on Marlborough Street came up a low distant roar, as of myriads of fierce indignant voices.",1 "The inhabitants of each poor squalid dwelling were gathered round the doors and windows, if indeed they were not actually standing in the middle of the narrow ways--all with looks intent towards one point.",1 "Marlborough Street itself was the focus of all those human eyes, that betrayed intensest interest of various kinds; some fierce with anger, some lowering with relentless threats, some dilated with fear, or imploring entreaty; and, as Margaret reached the small side-entrance by the folding doors, in the great dead wall of Marlborough mill-yard and waited the porter's answer to the bell, she looked round and heard the first long far-off roll of the tempest;--saw the first slow-surging wave of the dark crowd come, with its threatening crest, tumble over, and retreat, at the far end of the street, which a moment ago, seemed so full of repressed noise, but which now was ominously still; all these circumstances forced themselves on Margaret's notice, but did not sink down into her pre-occupied heart.",0 "She did not know what they meant--what was their deep significance; while she did know, did feel the keen sharp pressure of the knife that was soon to stab her through and through by leaving her motherless.",2 "She was trying to realise that, in order that, when it came, she might be ready to comfort her father.",3 "The porter opened the door cautiously, not nearly wide enough to admit her.",3 "'It's you, is it, ma'am?'",2 "said he, drawing a long breath, and widening the entrance, but still not opening it fully.",2 Margaret went in.,2 He hastily bolted it behind her.,1 'Th' folk are all coming up here I reckon?',2 asked he.,2 'I don't know.,2 "Something unusual seemed going on; but this street is quite empty, I think.'",1 She went across the yard and up the steps to the house door.,2 "There was no near sound,--no steam-engine at work with beat and pant,--no click of machinery, or mingling and clashing of many sharp voices; but far away, the ominous gathering roar, deep-clamouring.",3 Margaret was shown into the drawing-room.,2 It had returned into its normal state of bag and covering.,2 "The windows were half open because of the heat, and the Venetian blinds covered the glass,--so that a gray grim light, reflected from the pavement below, threw all the shadows wrong, and combined with the green-tinged upper light to make even Margaret's own face, as she caught it in the mirrors, look ghastly and wan.",0 She sat and waited; no one came.,2 "Every now and then, the wind seemed to bear the distant multitudinous sound nearer; and yet there was no wind!",2 It died away into profound stillness between whiles.,2 Fanny came in at last.,2 "'Mamma will come directly, Miss Hale.",2 She desired me to apologise to you as it is.,2 "Perhaps you know my brother has imported hands from Ireland, and it has irritated the Milton people excessively--as if he hadn't a right to get labour where he could; and the stupid wretches here wouldn't work for him; and now they've frightened these poor Irish starvelings so with their threats, that we daren't let them out.",0 "You may see them huddled in that top room in the mill,--and they're to sleep there, to keep them safe from those brutes, who will neither work nor let them work.",4 "And mamma is seeing about their food, and John is speaking to them, for some of the women are crying to go back.",2 Ah!,2 here's mamma!',2 "Mrs. Thornton came in with a look of black sternness on her face, which made Margaret feel she had arrived at a bad time to trouble her with her request.",1 "However, it was only in compliance with Mrs. Thornton's expressed desire, that she would ask for whatever they might want in the progress of her mother's illness.",2 "Mrs. Thornton's brow contracted, and her mouth grew set, while Margaret spoke with gentle modesty of her mother's restlessness, and Dr. Donaldson's wish that she should have the relief of a water-bed.",3 She ceased.,2 Mrs. Thornton did not reply immediately.,2 Then she started up and exclaimed-- 'They're at the gates!,2 "Call John, Fanny,--call him in from the mill!",2 They're at the gates!,2 They'll batter them in!,2 "Call John, I say!'",2 "And simultaneously, the gathering tramp--to which she had been listening, instead of heeding Margaret's words--was heard just right outside the wall, and an increasing din of angry voices raged behind the wooden barrier, which shook as if the unseen maddened crowd made battering-rams of their bodies, and retreated a short space only to come with more united steady impetus against it, till their great beats made the strong gates quiver, like reeds before the wind.",2 "The women gathered round the windows, fascinated to look on the scene which terrified them.",2 "Mrs. Thornton, the women-servants, Margaret,--all were there.",2 "Fanny had returned, screaming up-stairs as if pursued at every step, and had thrown herself in hysterical sobbing on the sofa.",1 "Mrs. Thornton watched for her son, who was still in the mill.",2 "He came out, looked up at them--the pale cluster of faces--and smiled good courage to them, before he locked the factory-door.",3 "Then he called to one of the women to come down and undo his own door, which Fanny had fastened behind her in her mad flight.",1 Mrs. Thornton herself went.,2 "And the sound of his well-known and commanding voice, seemed to have been like the taste of blood to the infuriated multitude outside.",3 "Hitherto they had been voiceless, wordless, needing all their breath for their hard-labouring efforts to break down the gates.",1 "But now, hearing him speak inside, they set up such a fierce unearthly groan, that even Mrs. Thornton was white with fear as she preceded him into the room.",1 "He came in a little flushed, but his eyes gleaming, as in answer to the trumpet-call of danger, and with a proud look of defiance on his face, that made him a noble, if not a handsome man.",3 "Margaret had always dreaded lest her courage should fail her in any emergency, and she should be proved to be, what she dreaded lest she was--a coward.",1 "But now, in this real great time of reasonable fear and nearness of terror, she forgot herself, and felt only an intense sympathy--intense to painfulness--in the interests of the moment.",2 "Mr. Thornton came frankly forwards: 'I'm sorry, Miss Hale, you have visited us at this unfortunate moment, when, I fear, you may be involved in whatever risk we have to bear.",0 Mother!,2 hadn't you better go into the back rooms?,3 "I'm not sure whether they may not have made their way from Pinner's Lane into the stable-yard; but if not, you will be safer there than here.",3 Go Jane!',2 "continued he, addressing the upper-servant.",2 "And she went, followed by the others.",2 'I stop here!',2 said his mother.,2 "'Where you are, there I stay.'",2 "And indeed, retreat into the back rooms was of no avail; the crowd had surrounded the outbuildings at the rear, and were sending forth their awful threatening roar behind.",0 "The servants retreated into the garrets, with many a cry and shriek.",0 Mr. Thornton smiled scornfully as he heard them.,1 "He glanced at Margaret, standing all by herself at the window nearest the factory.",2 "Her eyes glittered, her colour was deepened on cheek and lip.",2 "As if she felt his look, she turned to him and asked a question that had been for some time in her mind: 'Where are the poor imported work-people?",2 In the factory there?',2 'Yes!,2 "I left them cowered up in a small room, at the head of a back flight of stairs; bidding them run all risks, and escape down there, if they heard any attack made on the mill-doors.",1 But it is not them--it is me they want.',2 'When can the soldiers be here?',2 "asked his mother, in a low but not unsteady voice.",1 He took out his watch with the same measured composure with which he did everything.,2 "He made some little calculation: 'Supposing Williams got straight off when I told him, and hadn't to dodge about amongst them--it must be twenty minutes yet.'",2 'Twenty minutes!',2 "said his mother, for the first time showing her terror in the tones of her voice.",1 "'Shut down the windows instantly, mother,' exclaimed he: 'the gates won't bear such another shock.",2 "Shut down that window, Miss Hale.'",2 "Margaret shut down her window, and then went to assist Mrs. Thornton's trembling fingers.",2 "From some cause or other, there was a pause of several minutes in the unseen street.",2 "Mrs. Thornton looked with wild anxiety at her son's countenance, as if to gain the interpretation of the sudden stillness from him.",1 His face was set into rigid lines of contemptuous defiance; neither hope nor fear could be read there.,0 Fanny raised herself up: 'Are they gone?',2 "asked she, in a whisper.",2 'Gone!',2 replied he.,2 'Listen!',2 She did listen; they all could hear the one great straining breath; the creak of wood slowly yielding; the wrench of iron; the mighty fall of the ponderous gates.,1 "Fanny stood up tottering--made a step or two towards her mother, and fell forwards into her arms in a fainting fit.",1 "Mrs. Thornton lifted her up with a strength that was as much that of the will as of the body, and carried her away.",2 'Thank God!',2 "said Mr. Thornton, as he watched her out.",2 "'Had you not better go upstairs, Miss Hale?'",3 Margaret's lips formed a 'No!',2 "--but he could not hear her speak, for the tramp of innumerable steps right under the very wall of the house, and the fierce growl of low deep angry voices that had a ferocious murmur of satisfaction in them, more dreadful than their baffled cries not many minutes before.",0 'Never mind!',2 "said he, thinking to encourage her.",3 "'I am very sorry you should have been entrapped into all this alarm; but it cannot last long now; a few minutes more, and the soldiers will be here.'",1 "'Oh, God!'",2 "cried Margaret, suddenly; 'there is Boucher.",2 "I know his face, though he is livid with rage,--he is fighting to get to the front--look!",1 look!',2 'Who is Boucher?',2 "asked Mr. Thornton, coolly, and coming close to the window to discover the man in whom Margaret took such an interest.",2 "As soon as they saw Mr. Thornton, they set up a yell,--to call it not human is nothing,--it was as the demoniac desire of some terrible wild beast for the food that is withheld from his ravening.",1 "Even he drew back for a moment, dismayed at the intensity of hatred he had provoked.",1 'Let them yell!',2 said he.,2 'In five minutes more--.,2 I only hope my poor Irishmen are not terrified out of their wits by such a fiendlike noise.,1 "Keep up your courage for five minutes, Miss Hale.'",3 "'Don't be afraid for me,' she said hastily.",1 'But what in five minutes?,2 Can you do nothing to soothe these poor creatures?,2 It is awful to see them.',1 "'The soldiers will be here directly, and that will bring them to reason.'",2 'To reason!',2 "said Margaret, quickly.",2 'What kind of reason?',2 'The only reason that does with men that make themselves into wild beasts.,1 By heaven!,3 they've turned to the mill-door!',2 "'Mr. Thornton,' said Margaret, shaking all over with her passion, 'go down this instant, if you are not a coward.",2 Go down and face them like a man.,3 "Save these poor strangers, whom you have decoyed here.",1 Speak to your workmen as if they were human beings.,2 Speak to them kindly.,3 Don't let the soldiers come in and cut down poor creatures who are driven mad.,1 I see one there who is.,2 "If you have any courage or noble quality in you, go out and speak to them, man to man.'",3 He turned and looked at her while she spoke.,2 A dark cloud came over his face while he listened.,1 He set his teeth as he heard her words.,2 'I will go.,2 "Perhaps I may ask you to accompany me downstairs, and bar the door behind me; my mother and sister will need that protection.'",3 'Oh!,2 Mr. Thornton!,2 "I do not know--I may be wrong--only--' But he was gone; he was downstairs in the hall; he had unbarred the front door; all she could do, was to follow him quickly, and fasten it behind him, and clamber up the stairs again with a sick heart and a dizzy head.",0 Again she took her place by the farthest window.,2 He was on the steps below; she saw that by the direction of a thousand angry eyes; but she could neither see nor hear anything save the savage satisfaction of the rolling angry murmur.,1 She threw the window wide open.,2 "Many in the crowd were mere boys; cruel and thoughtless,--cruel because they were thoughtless; some were men, gaunt as wolves, and mad for prey.",0 "She knew how it was; they were like Boucher, with starving children at home--relying on ultimate success in their efforts to get higher wages, and enraged beyond measure at discovering that Irishmen were to be brought in to rob their little ones of bread.",3 "Margaret knew it all; she read it in Boucher's face, forlornly desperate and livid with rage.",0 "If Mr. Thornton would but say something to them--let them hear his voice only--it seemed as if it would be better than this wild beating and raging against the stony silence that vouchsafed them no word, even of anger or reproach.",0 "But perhaps he was speaking now; there was a momentary hush of their noise, inarticulate as that of a troop of animals.",1 She tore her bonnet off; and bent forwards to hear.,1 "She could only see; for if Mr. Thornton had indeed made the attempt to speak, the momentary instinct to listen to him was past and gone, and the people were raging worse than ever.",1 He stood with his arms folded; still as a statue; his face pale with repressed excitement.,2 They were trying to intimidate him--to make him flinch; each was urging the other on to some immediate act of personal violence.,1 "Margaret felt intuitively, that in an instant all would be uproar; the first touch would cause an explosion, in which, among such hundreds of infuriated men and reckless boys, even Mr. Thornton's life would be unsafe,--that in another instant the stormy passions would have passed their bounds, and swept away all barriers of reason, or apprehension of consequence.",0 "Even while she looked, she saw lads in the back-ground stooping to take off their heavy wooden clogs--the readiest missile they could find; she saw it was the spark to the gunpowder, and, with a cry, which no one heard, she rushed out of the room, down stairs,--she had lifted the great iron bar of the door with an imperious force--had thrown the door open wide--and was there, in face of that angry sea of men, her eyes smiting them with flaming arrows of reproach.",0 "The clogs were arrested in the hands that held them--the countenances, so fell not a moment before, now looked irresolute, and as if asking what this meant.",0 For she stood between them and their enemy.,1 "She could not speak, but held out her arms towards them till she could recover breath.",3 "'Oh, do not use violence!",2 "He is one man, and you are many; but her words died away, for there was no tone in her voice; it was but a hoarse whisper.",1 "Mr. Thornton stood a little on one side; he had moved away from behind her, as if jealous of anything that should come between him and danger.",1 'Go!',2 "said she, once more (and now her voice was like a cry).",2 'The soldiers are sent for--are coming.,2 Go peaceably.,2 Go away.,2 "You shall have relief from your complaints, whatever they are.'",2 'Shall them Irish blackguards be packed back again?',2 "asked one from out the crowd, with fierce threatening in his voice.",1 "'Never, for your bidding!'",2 exclaimed Mr. Thornton.,2 And instantly the storm broke.,2 "The hootings rose and filled the air,--but Margaret did not hear them.",2 Her eye was on the group of lads who had armed themselves with their clogs some time before.,1 "She saw their gesture--she knew its meaning,--she read their aim.",2 "Another moment, and Mr. Thornton might be smitten down,--he whom she had urged and goaded to come to this perilous place.",2 She only thought how she could save him.,2 She threw her arms around him; she made her body into a shield from the fierce people beyond.,1 "Still, with his arms folded, he shook her off.",2 "'Go away,' said he, in his deep voice.",2 'This is no place for you.',2 'It is!',2 said she.,2 'You did not see what I saw.',2 "If she thought her sex would be a protection,--if, with shrinking eyes she had turned away from the terrible anger of these men, in any hope that ere she looked again they would have paused and reflected, and slunk away, and vanished,--she was wrong.",1 "Their reckless passion had carried them too far to stop--at least had carried some of them too far; for it is always the savage lads, with their love of cruel excitement, who head the riot--reckless to what bloodshed it may lead.",2 A clog whizzed through the air.,1 "Margaret's fascinated eyes watched its progress; it missed its aim, and she turned sick with affright, but changed not her position, only hid her face on Mr. Thornton s arm.",1 Then she turned and spoke again:' 'For God's sake!,2 do not damage your cause by this violence.,1 You do not know what you are doing.',2 She strove to make her words distinct.,2 "A sharp pebble flew by her, grazing forehead and cheek, and drawing a blinding sheet of light before her eyes.",2 She lay like one dead on Mr. Thornton's shoulder.,2 "Then he unfolded his arms, and held her encircled in one for an instant: 'You do well!'",3 said he.,2 'You come to oust the innocent stranger.,1 "You fall--you hundreds--on one man; and when a woman comes before you, to ask you for your own sakes to be reasonable creatures, your cowardly wrath falls upon her!",0 You do well!',3 They were silent while he spoke.,3 "They were watching, open-eyed and open-mouthed, the thread of dark-red blood which wakened them up from their trance of passion.",2 Those nearest the gate stole out ashamed; there was a movement through all the crowd--a retreating movement.,1 Only one voice cried out: 'Th' stone were meant for thee; but thou wert sheltered behind a woman!',2 Mr. Thornton quivered with rage.,1 "The blood-flowing had made Margaret conscious--dimly, vaguely conscious.",2 "He placed her gently on the door-step, her head leaning against the frame.",2 'Can you rest there?',2 he asked.,2 "But without waiting for her answer, he went slowly down the steps right into the middle of the crowd.",2 "'Now kill me, if it is your brutal will.",1 There is no woman to shield me here.,2 You may beat me to death--you will never move me from what I have determined upon--not you!',1 "He stood amongst them, with his arms folded, in precisely the same attitude as he had been in on the steps.",3 "But the retrograde movement towards the gate had begun--as unreasoningly, perhaps as blindly, as the simultaneous anger.",1 "Or, perhaps, the idea of the approach of the soldiers, and the sight of that pale, upturned face, with closed eyes, still and sad as marble, though the tears welled out of the long entanglement of eyelashes and dropped down; and, heavier, slower plash than even tears, came the drip of blood from her wound.",0 "Even the most desperate--Boucher himself--drew back, faltered away, scowled, and finally went off, muttering curses on the master, who stood in his unchanging attitude, looking after their retreat with defiant eyes.",0 "The moment that retreat had changed into a flight (as it was sure from its very character to do), he darted up the steps to Margaret.",1 She tried to rise without his help.,2 "'It is nothing,' she said, with a sickly smile.",2 "'The skin is grazed, and I was stunned at the moment.",3 "Oh, I am so thankful they are gone!'",3 And she cried without restraint.,2 He could not sympathise with her.,2 His anger had not abated; it was rather rising the more as his sense of immediate danger was passing away.,1 The distant clank of the soldiers was heard just five minutes too late to make this vanished mob feel the power of authority and order.,2 "He hoped they would see the troops, and be quelled by the thought of their narrow escape.",2 "While these thoughts crossed his mind, Margaret clung to the doorpost to steady herself: but a film came over her eyes--he was only just in time to catch her.",3 'Mother--mother!',2 "cried he; 'Come down--they are gone, and Miss Hale is hurt!'",1 "He bore her into the dining-room, and laid her on the sofa there; laid her down softly, and looking on her pure white face, the sense of what she was to him came upon him so keenly that he spoke it out in his pain: 'Oh, my Margaret--my Margaret!",2 no one can tell what you are to me!,2 "Dead--cold as you lie there, you are the only woman I ever loved!",1 "Oh, Margaret--Margaret!'",2 "Inarticulately as he spoke, kneeling by her, and rather moaning than saying the words, he started up, ashamed of himself, as his mother came in.",1 "She saw nothing, but her son a little paler, a little sterner than usual.",2 "'Miss Hale is hurt, mother.",2 A stone has grazed her temple.,2 "She has lost a good deal of blood, I'm afraid.'",1 "'She looks very seriously hurt,--I could almost fancy her dead,' said Mrs. Thornton, a good deal alarmed.",1 'It is only a fainting-fit.,2 She has spoken to me since.',2 "But all the blood in his body seemed to rush inwards to his heart as he spoke, and he absolutely trembled.",2 "'Go and call Jane,--she can find me the things I want; and do you go to your Irish people, who are crying and shouting as if they were mad with fright.'",1 He went.,2 He went away as if weights were tied to every limb that bore him from her.,1 He called Jane; he called his sister.,2 "She should have all womanly care, all gentle tendance.",3 "But every pulse beat in him as he remembered how she had come down and placed herself in foremost danger,--could it be to save him?",2 "At the time, he had pushed her aside, and spoken gruffly; he had seen nothing but the unnecessary danger she had placed herself in.",1 "He went to his Irish people, with every nerve in his body thrilling at the thought of her, and found it difficult to understand enough of what they were saying to soothe and comfort away their fears.",3 "There, they declared, they would not stop; they claimed to be sent back.",2 "And so he had to think, and talk, and reason.",2 Mrs. Thornton bathed Margaret's temples with eau de Cologne.,2 "As the spirit touched the wound, which till then neither Mrs. Thornton nor Jane had perceived, Margaret opened her eyes; but it was evident she did not know where she was, nor who they were.",1 "The dark circles deepened, the lips quivered and contracted, and she became insensible once more.",1 "'She has had a terrible blow,' said Mrs. Thornton.",1 'Is there any one who will go for a doctor?',2 "'Not me, ma'am, if you please,' said Jane, shrinking back.",2 "'Them rabble may be all about; I don't think the cut is so deep, ma'am, as it looks.'",2 'I will not run the chance.,2 She was hurt in our house.,1 "If you are a coward, Jane, I am not.",1 I will go.',2 "'Pray, ma'am, let me send one of the police.",2 "There's ever so many come up, and soldiers too.'",2 'And yet you're afraid to go!,1 I will not have their time taken up with our errands.,2 They'll have enough to do to catch some of the mob.,3 "You will not be afraid to stop in this house,' she asked contemptuously, 'and go on bathing Miss Hale's forehead, shall you?",0 I shall not be ten minutes away.',2 "'Couldn't Hannah go, ma'am?'",2 'Why Hannah?,2 Why any but you?,2 "No, Jane, if you don't go, I do.'",2 Mrs. Thornton went first to the room in which she had left Fanny stretched on the bed.,2 She started up as her mother entered.,2 "'Oh, mamma, how you terrified me!",2 I thought you were a man that had got into the house.',2 'Nonsense!,2 The men are all gone away.,2 "There are soldiers all round the place, seeking for their work now it is too late.",3 Miss Hale is lying on the dining-room sofa badly hurt.,0 I am going for the doctor.',2 'Oh!,2 "don't, mamma!",2 they'll murder you.',1 She clung to her mother's gown.,2 Mrs. Thornton wrenched it away with no gentle hand.,3 'Find me some one else to go but that girl must not bleed to death.',1 'Bleed!,2 "oh, how horrid!",1 How has she got hurt?',1 "'I don't know,--I have no time to ask.",2 "Go down to her, Fanny, and do try to make yourself of use.",2 Jane is with her; and I trust it looks worse than it is.,2 "Jane has refused to leave the house, cowardly woman!",1 "And I won't put myself in the way of any more refusals from my servants, so I am going myself.'",2 "'Oh, dear, dear!'",2 "said Fanny, crying, and preparing to go down rather than be left alone, with the thought of wounds and bloodshed in the very house.",1 "'Oh, Jane!'",2 "said she, creeping into the dining-room, 'what is the matter?",1 How white she looks!,2 How did she get hurt?,1 Did they throw stones into the drawing-room?',2 "Margaret did indeed look white and wan, although her senses were beginning to return to her.",2 But the sickly daze of the swoon made her still miserably faint.,0 "She was conscious of movement around her, and of refreshment from the eau de Cologne, and a craving for the bathing to go on without intermission; but when they stopped to talk, she could no more have opened her eyes, or spoken to ask for more bathing, than the people who lie in death-like trance can move, or utter sound, to arrest the awful preparations for their burial, while they are yet fully aware, not merely of the actions of those around them, but of the idea that is the motive for such actions.",1 "Jane paused in her bathing, to reply to Miss Thornton's question.",1 "'She'd have been safe enough, miss, if she'd stayed in the drawing-room, or come up to us; we were in the front garret, and could see it all, out of harm's way.'",3 "'Where was she, then?'",2 "said Fanny, drawing nearer by slow degrees, as she became accustomed to the sight of Margaret's pale face.",1 'Just before the front door--with master!',3 "said Jane, significantly.",2 'With John!,2 with my brother!,2 How did she get there?',2 "'Nay, miss, that's not for me to say,' answered Jane, with a slight toss of her head.",1 'Sarah did'---- 'Sarah what?',2 "said Fanny, with impatient curiosity.",1 "Jane resumed her bathing, as if what Sarah did or said was not exactly the thing she liked to repeat.",3 'Sarah what?',2 "asked Fanny, sharply.",1 "'Don't speak in these half sentences, or I can't understand you.'",2 "'Well, miss, since you will have it--Sarah, you see, was in the best place for seeing, being at the right-hand window; and she says, and said at the very time too, that she saw Miss Hale with her arms about master's neck, hugging him before all the people.'",3 "'I don't believe it,' said Fanny.",2 "'I know she cares for my brother; any one can see that; and I dare say, she'd give her eyes if he'd marry her,--which he never will, I can tell her.",2 But I don't believe she'd be so bold and forward as to put her arms round his neck.',2 'Poor young lady!,2 she's paid for it dearly if she did.,2 "It's my belief, that the blow has given her such an ascendency of blood to the head as she'll never get the better from.",2 She looks like a corpse now.',3 "'Oh, I wish mamma would come!'",2 "said Fanny, wringing her hands.",2 'I never was in the room with a dead person before.',1 "'Stay, miss!",1 "She's not dead: her eye-lids are quivering, and here's wet tears a-coming down her cheeks.",1 "Speak to her, Miss Fanny!'",1 'Are you better now?',3 "asked Fanny, in a quavering voice.",2 "No answer; no sign of recognition; but a faint pink colour returned to her lips, although the rest of her face was ashen pale.",1 "Mrs. Thornton came hurriedly in, with the nearest surgeon she could find.",2 'How is she?,2 "Are you better, my dear?'",3 "as Margaret opened her filmy eyes, and gazed dreamily at her.",2 'Here is Mr. Lowe come to see you.',2 "Mrs. Thornton spoke loudly and distinctly, as to a deaf person.",1 "Margaret tried to rise, and drew her ruffled, luxuriant hair instinctly over the cut.",3 "'I am better now,' said she, in a very low, faint voice.",2 I was a little sick.',1 She let him take her hand and feel her pulse.,2 "The bright colour came for a moment into her face, when he asked to examine the wound in her forehead; and she glanced up at Jane, as if shrinking from her inspection more than from the doctor's.",2 "'It is not much, I think.",2 I am better now.,3 I must go home.',2 'Not until I have applied some strips of plaster; and you have rested a little.',2 "She sat down hastily, without another word, and allowed it to be bound up.",1 "'Now, if you please,' said she, 'I must go.",2 "Mamma will not see it, I think.",2 "It is under the hair, is it not?'",2 'Quite; no one could tell.',2 "'But you must not go,' said Mrs. Thornton, impatiently.",1 'You are not fit to go.,2 "'I must,' said Margaret, decidedly.",2 'Think of mamma.,2 "If they should hear---- Besides, I must go,' said she, vehemently.",1 'I cannot stay here.,2 May I ask for a cab?',2 "'You are quite flushed and feverish,' observed Mr. Lowe.",1 "'It is only with being here, when I do so want to go.",2 "The air--getting away, would do me more good than anything,' pleaded she.",3 "'I really believe it is as she says,' Mr. Lowe replied.",2 "'If her mother is so ill as you told me on the way here, it may be very serious if she hears of this riot, and does not see her daughter back at the time she expects.",2 The injury is not deep.,1 "I will fetch a cab, if your servants are still afraid to go out.'",1 "'Oh, thank you!'",3 said Margaret.,2 'It will do me more good than anything.,3 It is the air of this room that makes me feel so miserable.',1 "She leant back on the sofa, and closed her eyes.",2 "Fanny beckoned her mother out of the room, and told her something that made her equally anxious with Margaret for the departure of the latter.",2 "Not that she fully believed Fanny's statement; but she credited enough to make her manner to Margaret appear very much constrained, at wishing her good-bye.",3 Mr. Lowe returned in the cab.,2 "'If you will allow me, I will see you home, Miss Hale.",2 The streets are not very quiet yet.',3 "Margaret's thoughts were quite alive enough to the present to make her desirous of getting rid of both Mr. Lowe and the cab before she reached Crampton Crescent, for fear of alarming her father and mother.",2 Beyond that one aim she would not look.,2 "That ugly dream of insolent words spoken about herself, could never be forgotten--but could be put aside till she was stronger--for, oh!",1 "she was very weak; and her mind sought for some present fact to steady itself upon, and keep it from utterly losing consciousness in another hideous, sickly swoon.",0 "Margaret had not been gone five minutes when Mr. Thornton came in, his face all a-glow.",3 'I could not come sooner: the superintendent would---- Where is she?',2 "He looked round the dining-room, and then almost fiercely at his mother, who was quietly re-arranging the disturbed furniture, and did not instantly reply.",2 'Where is Miss Hale?',2 asked he again.,2 "'Gone home,' said she, rather shortly.",2 'Gone home!',2 'Yes.,2 She was a great deal better.,3 "Indeed, I don't believe it was so very much of a hurt; only some people faint at the least thing.'",1 "'I am sorry she is gone home,' said he, walking uneasily about.",1 'She could not have been fit for it.',2 'She said she was; and Mr. Lowe said she was.,2 I went for him myself.',2 "'Thank you, mother.'",2 "He stopped, and partly held out his hand to give her a grateful shake.",2 But she did not notice the movement.,2 'What have you done with your Irish people?',2 "'Sent to the Dragon for a good meal for them, poor wretches.",2 "And then, luckily, I caught Father Grady, and I've asked him in to speak to them, and dissuade them from going off in a body.",1 How did Miss Hale go home?,2 I'm sure she could not walk.',2 'She had a cab.,2 "Everything was done properly, even to the paying.",3 Let us talk of something else.,2 She has caused disturbance enough.',2 'I don't know where I should have been but for her.',2 'Are you become so helpless as to have to be defended by a girl?',1 "asked Mrs. Thornton, scornfully.",1 He reddened.,2 "'Not many girls would have taken the blows on herself which were meant for me;--meant with right down good-will, too.'",3 "'A girl in love will do a good deal,' replied Mrs. Thornton, shortly.",3 'Mother!',2 He made a step forwards; stood still; heaved with passion.,3 She was a little startled at the evident force he used to keep himself calm.,3 She was not sure of the nature of the emotions she had provoked.,2 It was only their violence that was clear.,3 Was it anger?,1 "His eyes glowed, his figure was dilated, his breath came thick and fast.",3 "It was a mixture of joy, of anger, of pride, of glad surprise, of panting doubt; but she could not read it.",3 "Still it made her uneasy,--as the presence of all strong feeling, of which the cause is not fully understood or sympathised in, always has this effect.",2 "She went to the side-board, opened a drawer, and took out a duster, which she kept there for any occasional purpose.",2 "She had seen a drop of eau de Cologne on the polished arm of the sofa, and instinctively sought to wipe it off.",3 "But she kept her back turned to her son much longer than was necessary; and when she spoke, her voice seemed unusual and constrained.",1 "'You have taken some steps about the rioters, I suppose?",2 "You don't apprehend any more violence, do you?",2 Where were the police?,2 Never at hand when they're wanted!',2 "'On the contrary, I saw three or four of them, when the gates gave way, struggling and beating about in fine fashion; and more came running up just when the yard was clearing.",2 "I might have given some of the fellows in charge then, if I had had my wits about me.",2 "But there will be no difficulty, plenty of people can identify them.'",1 'But won't they come back to-night?',2 'I'm going to see about a sufficient guard for the premises.,3 I have appointed to meet Captain Hanbury in half an hour at the station.',2 'You must have some tea first.',2 'Tea!,2 "Yes, I suppose I must.",2 "It's half-past six, and I may be out for some time.",2 "Don't sit up for me, mother.'",2 "'You expect me to go to bed before I have seen you safe, do you?'",3 "'Well, perhaps not.'",2 He hesitated for a moment.,2 "'But if I've time, I shall go round by Crampton, after I've arranged with the police and seen Hamper and Clarkson.'",1 Their eyes met; they looked at each other intently for a minute.,2 Then she asked: 'Why are you going round by Crampton?',2 'To ask after Miss Hale.',2 'I will send.,2 Williams must take the water-bed she came to ask for.,2 He shall inquire how she is.',2 'I must go myself.',2 'Not merely to ask how Miss Hale is?',2 "'No, not merely for that.",2 I want to thank her for the way in which she stood between me and the mob.',3 'What made you go down at all?,2 It was putting your head into the lion's mouth!',2 "He glanced sharply at her; saw that she did not know what had passed between him and Margaret in the drawing-room; and replied by another question: 'Shall you be afraid to be left without me, until I can get some of the police; or had we better send Williams for them now, and they could be here by the time we have done tea?",1 There's no time to be lost.,1 I must be off in a quarter of an hour.',2 Mrs. Thornton left the room.,2 "Her servants wondered at her directions, usually so sharply-cut and decided, now confused and uncertain.",0 "Mr. Thornton remained in the dining-room, trying to think of the business he had to do at the police-office, and in reality thinking of Margaret.",2 Everything seemed dim and vague beyond--behind--besides the touch of her arms round his neck--the soft clinging which made the dark colour come and go in his cheek as he thought of it.,1 "The tea would have been very silent, but for Fanny's perpetual description of her own feelings; how she had been alarmed--and then thought they were gone--and then felt sick and faint and trembling in every limb.",1 "'There, that's enough,' said her brother, rising from the table.",3 'The reality was enough for me.',3 "He was going to leave the room, when his mother stopped him with her hand upon his arm.",2 "'You will come back here before you go to the Hales', said she, in a low, anxious voice.",1 "'I know what I know,' said Fanny to herself.",2 'Why?,2 Will it be too late to disturb them?',1 "'John, come back to me for this one evening.",2 It will be late for Mrs. Hale.,3 But that is not it.,2 "To-morrow, you will---- Come back to-night, John!'",2 She had seldom pleaded with her son at all--she was too proud for that: but she had never pleaded in vain.,2 'I will return straight here after I have done my business.,2 You will be sure to inquire after them?--after her?',2 "Mrs. Thornton was by no means a talkative companion to Fanny, nor yet a good listener while her son was absent.",3 "But on his return, her eyes and ears were keen to see and to listen to all the details which he could give, as to the steps he had taken to secure himself, and those whom he chose to employ, from any repetition of the day's outrages.",3 He clearly saw his object.,2 "Punishment and suffering, were the natural consequences to those who had taken part in the riot.",1 "All that was necessary, in order that property should be protected, and that the will of the proprietor might cut to his end, clean and sharp as a sword.",3 'Mother!,2 "You know what I have got to say to Miss Hale, to-morrow?'",2 "The question came upon her suddenly, during a pause in which she, at least, had forgotten Margaret.",2 She looked up at him.,2 'Yes!,2 I do.,2 You can hardly do otherwise.',2 'Do otherwise!,2 I don't understand you.',2 "'I mean that, after allowing her feelings so to overcome her, I consider you bound in honour--' 'Bound in honour,' said he, scornfully.",1 'I'm afraid honour has nothing to do with it.,1 """Her feelings overcome her!""",2 What feelings do you mean?',2 "'Nay, John, there is no need to be angry.",1 "Did she not rush down, and cling to you to save you from danger?'",1 'She did!',2 said he.,2 "'But, mother,' continued he, stopping short in his walk right in front of her, 'I dare not hope.",3 I never was fainthearted before; but I cannot believe such a creature cares for me.',1 "'Don't be foolish, John.",1 Such a creature!,2 "Why, she might be a duke's daughter, to hear you speak.",2 "And what proof more would you have, I wonder, of her caring for you?",3 I can believe she has had a struggle with her aristocratic way of viewing things; but I like her the better for seeing clearly at last.,3 "It is a good deal for me to say,' said Mrs. Thornton, smiling slowly, while the tears stood in her eyes; 'for after to-night, I stand second.",3 "It was to have you to myself, all to myself, a few hours longer, that I begged you not to go till to-morrow!'",2 'Dearest mother!',2 "(Still love is selfish, and in an instant he reverted to his own hopes and fears in a way that drew the cold creeping shadow over Mrs. Thornton's heart.) 'But I know she does not care for me.",0 I shall put myself at her feet--I must.,2 If it were but one chance in a thousand--or a million--I should do it.',2 'Don't fear!',1 "said his mother, crushing down her own personal mortification at the little notice he had taken of the rare ebullition of her maternal feelings--of the pang of jealousy that betrayed the intensity of her disregarded love.",1 "'Don't be afraid,' she said, coldly.",1 'As far as love may go she may be worthy of you.,3 It must have taken a good deal to overcome her pride.,3 "Don't be afraid, John,' said she, kissing him, as she wished him good-night.",2 And she went slowly and majestically out of the room.,1 "But when she got into her own, she locked the door, and sate down to cry unwonted tears.",1 "Margaret entered the room (where her father and mother still sat, holding low conversation together), looking very pale and white.",1 She came close up to them before she could trust herself to speak.,3 "'Mrs. Thornton will send the water-bed, mamma.'",2 "'Dear, how tired you look!",1 "Is it very hot, Margaret?'",3 "'Very hot, and the streets are rather rough with the strike.'",1 Margaret's colour came back vivid and bright as ever; but it faded away instantly.,4 "'Here has been a message from Bessy Higgins, asking you to go to her,' said Mrs. Hale.",3 'But I'm sure you look too tired.',1 'Yes!',2 said Margaret.,2 "'I am tired, I cannot go.'",1 She was very silent and trembling while she made tea.,3 She was thankful to see her father so much occupied with her mother as not to notice her looks.,3 "Even after her mother went to bed, he was not content to be absent from her, but undertook to read her to sleep.",2 Margaret was alone.,2 'Now I will think of it--now I will remember it all.,2 I could not before--I dared not.',2 "She sat still in her chair, her hands clasped on her knees, her lips compressed, her eyes fixed as one who sees a vision.",2 She drew a deep breath.,2 "'I, who hate scenes--I, who have despised people for showing emotion--who have thought them wanting in self-control--I went down and must needs throw myself into the melee, like a romantic fool!",1 Did I do any good?,3 They would have gone away without me I dare say.',2 "But this was over-leaping the rational conclusion,--as in an instant her well-poised judgment felt.",4 "'No, perhaps they would not.",2 I did some good.,3 But what possessed me to defend that man as if he were a helpless child!,1 Ah!',2 "said she, clenching her hands together, 'it is no wonder those people thought I was in love with him, after disgracing myself in that way.",3 I in love--and with him too!',3 Her pale cheeks suddenly became one flame of fire; and she covered her face with her hands.,1 "When she took them away, her palms were wet with scalding tears.",2 'Oh how low I am fallen that they should say that of me!,1 "I could not have been so brave for any one else, just because he was so utterly indifferent to me--if, indeed, I do not positively dislike him.",1 It made me the more anxious that there should be fair play on each side; and I could see what fair play was.,2 "It was not fair,' said she, vehemently, 'that he should stand there--sheltered, awaiting the soldiers, who might catch those poor maddened creatures as in a trap--without an effort on his part, to bring them to reason.",1 And it was worse than unfair for them to set on him as they threatened.,1 "I would do it again, let who will say what they like of me.",3 "If I saved one blow, one cruel, angry action that might otherwise have been committed, I did a woman's work.",1 Let them insult my maiden pride as they will--I walk pure before God!',3 "She looked up, and a noble peace seemed to descend and calm her face, till it was 'stiller than chiselled marble.'",4 "Dixon came in: 'If you please, Miss Margaret, here's the water-bed from Mrs. Thornton's.",1 "It's too late for to-night, I'm afraid, for missus is nearly asleep: but it will do nicely for to-morrow.'",2 "'Very,' said Margaret.",2 'You must send our best thanks.',3 Dixon left the room for a moment.,2 "'If you please, Miss Margaret, he says he's to ask particular how you are.",1 "I think he must mean missus; but he says his last words were, to ask how Miss Hale was.'",2 'Me!',2 "said Margaret, drawing herself up.",2 'I am quite well.,3 Tell him I am perfectly well.',3 But her complexion was as deadly white as her handkerchief; and her head ached intensely.,1 Mr. Hale now came in.,3 "He had left his sleeping wife; and wanted, as Margaret saw, to be amused and interested by something that she was to tell him.",2 "With sweet patience did she bear her pain, without a word of complaint; and rummaged up numberless small subjects for conversation--all except the riot, and that she never named once.",2 It turned her sick to think of it.,1 "'Good-night, Margaret.",2 "I have every chance of a good night myself, and you are looking very pale with your watching.",2 I shall call Dixon if your mother needs anything.,2 "Do you go to bed and sleep like a top; for I'm sure you need it, poor child!'",3 "'Good-night, papa.'",2 She let her colour go--the forced smile fade away--the eyes grow dull with heavy pain.,1 She released her strong will from its laborious task.,3 Till morning she might feel ill and weary.,1 She lay down and never stirred.,2 "To move hand or foot, or even so much as one finger, would have been an exertion beyond the powers of either volition or motion.",2 "She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity.",1 "She could not be alone, prostrate, powerless as she was,--a cloud of faces looked up at her, giving her no idea of fierce vivid anger, or of personal danger, but a deep sense of shame that she should thus be the object of universal regard--a sense of shame so acute that it seemed as if she would fain have burrowed into the earth to hide herself, and yet she could not escape out of that unwinking glare of many eyes.",0 "The next morning, Margaret dragged herself up, thankful that the night was over,--unrefreshed, yet rested.",2 All had gone well through the house; her mother had only wakened once.,3 "A little breeze was stirring in the hot air, and though there were no trees to show the playful tossing movement caused by the wind among the leaves, Margaret knew how, somewhere or another, by way-side, in copses, or in thick green woods, there was a pleasant, murmuring, dancing sound,--a rushing and falling noise, the very thought of which was an echo of distant gladness in her heart.",4 She sat at her work in Mrs. Hale's room.,3 "As soon as that forenoon slumber was over, she would help her mother to dress after dinner, she would go and see Bessy Higgins.",2 "She would banish all recollection of the Thornton family,--no need to think of them till they absolutely stood before her in flesh and blood.",1 "But, of course, the effort not to think of them brought them only the more strongly before her; and from time to time, the hot flush came over her pale face sweeping it into colour, as a sunbeam from between watery clouds comes swiftly moving over the sea.",3 "Dixon opened the door very softly, and stole on tiptoe up to Margaret, sitting by the shaded window.",1 "'Mr. Thornton, Miss Margaret.",1 He is in the drawing-room.',2 Margaret dropped her sewing.,2 'Did he ask for me?,2 Isn't papa come in?',2 "'He asked for you, miss; and master is out.'",2 "'Very well, I will come,' said Margaret, quietly.",3 But she lingered strangely.,1 "Mr. Thornton stood by one of the windows, with his back to the door, apparently absorbed in watching something in the street.",2 "But, in truth, he was afraid of himself.",1 His heart beat thick at the thought of her coming.,2 "He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatiently felt as it had been at the time; but now the recollection of her clinging defence of him, seemed to thrill him through and through,--to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire.",2 "He dreaded lest he should go forwards to meet her, with his arms held out in mute entreaty that she would come and nestle there, as she had done, all unheeded, the day before, but never unheeded again.",2 His heart throbbed loud and quick.,1 "Strong man as he was, he trembled at the anticipation of what he had to say, and how it might be received.",3 "She might droop, and flush, and flutter to his arms, as to her natural home and resting-place.",2 "One moment, he glowed with impatience at the thought that she might do this, the next, he feared a passionate rejection, the very idea of which withered up his future with so deadly a blight that he refused to think of it.",0 He was startled by the sense of the presence of some one else in the room.,2 He turned round.,2 "She had come in so gently, that he had never heard her; the street noises had been more distinct to his inattentive ear than her slow movements, in her soft muslin gown.",1 "She stood by the table, not offering to sit down.",2 "Her eyelids were dropped half over her eyes; her teeth were shut, not compressed; her lips were just parted over them, allowing the white line to be seen between their curve.",2 Her slow deep breathings dilated her thin and beautiful nostrils; it was the only motion visible on her countenance.,2 "The fine-grained skin, the oval cheek, the rich outline of her mouth, its corners deep set in dimples,--were all wan and pale to-day; the loss of their usual natural healthy colour being made more evident by the heavy shadow of the dark hair, brought down upon the temples, to hide all sign of the blow she had received.",1 "Her head, for all its drooping eyes, was thrown a little back, in the old proud attitude.",3 Her long arms hung motion-less by her sides.,1 "Altogether she looked like some prisoner, falsely accused of a crime that she loathed and despised, and from which she was too indignant to justify herself.",0 "Mr. Thornton made a hasty step or two forwards; recovered himself, and went with quiet firmness to the door (which she had left open), and shut it.",2 "Then he came back, and stood opposite to her for a moment, receiving the general impression of her beautiful presence, before he dared to disturb it, perhaps to repel it, by what he had to say.",1 "'Miss Hale, I was very ungrateful yesterday--' 'You had nothing to be grateful for,' said she, raising her eyes, and looking full and straight at him.",3 "'You mean, I suppose, that you believe you ought to thank me for what I did.'",3 "In spite of herself--in defiance of her anger--the thick blushes came all over her face, and burnt into her very eyes; which fell not nevertheless from their grave and steady look.",0 'It was only a natural instinct; any woman would have done just the same.,2 We all feel the sanctity of our sex as a high privilege when we see danger.,2 "I ought rather,' said she, hastily, 'to apologise to you, for having said thoughtless words which sent you down into the danger.'",0 "'It was not your words; it was the truth they conveyed, pungently as it was expressed.",2 "But you shall not drive me off upon that, and so escape the expression of my deep gratitude, my--' he was on the verge now; he would not speak in the haste of his hot passion; he would weigh each word.",3 He would; and his will was triumphant.,3 He stopped in mid career.,2 "'I do not try to escape from anything,' said she.",2 "'I simply say, that you owe me no gratitude; and I may add, that any expression of it will be painful to me, because I do not feel that I deserve it.",2 "Still, if it will relieve you from even a fancied obligation, speak on.'",2 "'I do not want to be relieved from any obligation,' said he, goaded by her calm manner.",3 "'Fancied, or not fancied--I question not myself to know which--I choose to believe that I owe my very life to you--ay--smile, and think it an exaggeration if you will.",2 "I believe it, because it adds a value to that life to think--oh, Miss Hale!'",2 "continued he, lowering his voice to such a tender intensity of passion that she shivered and trembled before him, 'to think circumstance so wrought, that whenever I exult in existence henceforward, I may say to myself, ""All this gladness in life, all honest pride in doing my work in the world, all this keen sense of being, I owe to her!""",4 "And it doubles the gladness, it makes the pride glow, it sharpens the sense of existence till I hardly know if it is pain or pleasure, to think that I owe it to one--nay, you must, you shall hear'--said he, stepping forwards with stern determination--'to one whom I love, as I do not believe man ever loved woman before.'",4 He held her hand tight in his.,2 He panted as he listened for what should come.,2 "He threw the hand away with indignation, as he heard her icy tone; for icy it was, though the words came faltering out, as if she knew not where to find them.",1 'Your way of speaking shocks me.,2 It is blasphemous.,1 "I cannot help it, if that is my first feeling.",2 "It might not be so, I dare say, if I understood the kind of feeling you describe.",2 "I do not want to vex you; and besides, we must speak gently, for mamma is asleep; but your whole manner offends me--' 'How!'",1 exclaimed he.,2 'Offends you!,2 I am indeed most unfortunate.',1 'Yes!',2 "said she, with recovered dignity.",3 "'I do feel offended; and, I think, justly.",3 "You seem to fancy that my conduct of yesterday'--again the deep carnation blush, but this time with eyes kindling with indignation rather than shame--'was a personal act between you and me; and that you may come and thank me for it, instead of perceiving, as a gentleman would--yes!",2 "a gentleman,' she repeated, in allusion to their former conversation about that word, 'that any woman, worthy of the name of woman, would come forward to shield, with her reverenced helplessness, a man in danger from the violence of numbers.'",1 'And the gentleman thus rescued is forbidden the relief of thanks!',2 he broke in contemptuously.,1 'I am a man.,2 I claim the right of expressing my feelings.',3 "'And I yielded to the right; simply saying that you gave me pain by insisting upon it,' she replied, proudly.",2 "'But you seem to have imagined, that I was not merely guided by womanly instinct, but'--and here the passionate tears (kept down for long--struggled with vehemently) came up into her eyes, and choked her voice--'but that I was prompted by some particular feeling for you--you!",1 "Why, there was not a man--not a poor desperate man in all that crowd--for whom I had not more sympathy--for whom I should not have done what little I could more heartily.'",1 "'You may speak on, Miss Hale.",2 I am aware of all these misplaced sympathies of yours.,2 "I now believe that it was only your innate sense of oppression--(yes; I, though a master, may be oppressed)--that made you act so nobly as you did.",3 "I know you despise me; allow me to say, it is because you do not understand me.'",1 "'I do not care to understand,' she replied, taking hold of the table to steady herself; for she thought him cruel--as, indeed, he was--and she was weak with her indignation.",1 "'No, I see you do not.",2 You are unfair and unjust.',1 Margaret compressed her lips.,2 She would not speak in answer to such accusations.,1 "But, for all that--for all his savage words, he could have thrown himself at her feet, and kissed the hem of her garment.",1 She did not speak; she did not move.,2 The tears of wounded pride fell hot and fast.,3 "He waited awhile, longing for her to say something, even a taunt, to which he might reply.",1 But she was silent.,3 He took up his hat.,2 'One word more.,2 You look as if you thought it tainted you to be loved by me.,2 You cannot avoid it.,2 "Nay, I, if I would, cannot cleanse you from it.",2 "But I would not, if I could.",2 "I have never loved any woman before: my life has been too busy, my thoughts too much absorbed with other things.",3 "Now I love, and will love.",3 But do not be afraid of too much expression on my part.',1 "'I am not afraid,' she replied, lifting herself straight up.",1 "'No one yet has ever dared to be impertinent to me, and no one ever shall.",1 "But, Mr. Thornton, you have been very kind to my father,' said she, changing her whole tone and bearing to a most womanly softness.",2 'Don't let us go on making each other angry.,1 Pray don't!',2 "He took no notice of her words: he occupied himself in smoothing the nap of his hat with his coat-sleeve, for half a minute or so; and then, rejecting her offered hand, and making as if he did not see her grave look of regret, he turned abruptly away, and left the room.",0 Margaret caught one glance at his face before he went.,2 "When he was gone, she thought she had seen the gleam of unshed tears in his eyes; and that turned her proud dislike into something different and kinder, if nearly as painful--self-reproach for having caused such mortification to any one.",0 'But how could I help it?',2 asked she of herself.,2 'I never liked him.,3 I was civil; but I took no trouble to conceal my indifference.,1 "Indeed, I never thought about myself or him, so my manners must have shown the truth.",2 "All that yesterday, he might mistake.",1 "But that is his fault, not mine.",1 "I would do it again, if need were, though it does lead me into all this shame and trouble.'",1 "Margaret began to wonder whether all offers were as unexpected beforehand,--as distressing at the time of their occurrence, as the two she had had.",1 An involuntary comparison between Mr. Lennox and Mr. Thornton arose in her mind.,1 She had been sorry that an expression of any other feeling than friendship had been lured out by circumstances from Henry Lennox.,1 "That regret was the predominant feeling, on the first occasion of her receiving a proposal.",1 "She had not felt so stunned--so impressed as she did now, when echoes of Mr. Thornton's voice yet lingered about the room.",3 "In Lennox's case, he seemed for a moment to have slid over the boundary between friendship and love; and the instant afterwards, to regret it nearly as much as she did, although for different reasons.",2 "In Mr. Thornton's case, as far as Margaret knew, there was no intervening stage of friendship.",2 Their intercourse had been one continued series of opposition.,1 "Their opinions clashed; and indeed, she had never perceived that he had cared for her opinions, as belonging to her, the individual.",2 "As far as they defied his rock-like power of character, his passion-strength, he seemed to throw them off from him with contempt, until she felt the weariness of the exertion of making useless protests; and now, he had come, in this strange wild passionate way, to make known his love.",1 "For, although at first it had struck her, that his offer was forced and goaded out of him by sharp compassion for the exposure she had made of herself,--which he, like others, might misunderstand--yet, even before he left the room,--and certainly, not five minutes after, the clear conviction dawned upon her, shined bright upon her, that he did love her; that he had loved her; that he would love her.",4 "And she shrank and shuddered as under the fascination of some great power, repugnant to her whole previous life.",3 "She crept away, and hid from his idea.",1 But it was of no use.,2 To parody a line out of Fairfax's Tasso-- 'His strong idea wandered through her thought.',2 She disliked him the more for having mastered her inner will.,1 "How dared he say that he would love her still, even though she shook him off with contempt?",2 She wished she had spoken more--stronger.,3 "Sharp, decisive speeches came thronging into her mind, now that it was too late to utter them.",3 "The deep impression made by the interview, was like that of a horror in a dream; that will not leave the room although we waken up, and rub our eyes, and force a stiff rigid smile upon our lips.",2 "It is there--there, cowering and gibbering, with fixed ghastly eyes, in some corner of the chamber, listening to hear whether we dare to breathe of its presence to any one.",1 And we dare not; poor cowards that we are!,1 And so she shuddered away from the threat of his enduring love.,2 What did he mean?,2 Had she not the power to daunt him?,1 She would see.,2 It was more daring than became a man to threaten her so.,2 Did he ground it upon the miserable yesterday?,1 "If need were, she would do the same to-morrow,--by a crippled beggar, willingly and gladly,--but by him, she would do it, just as bravely, in spite of his deductions, and the cold slime of women's impertinence.",0 "She did it because it was right, and simple, and true to save where she could save; even to try to save.",3 "'Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra.'",2 "Hitherto she had not stirred from where he had left her; no outward circumstances had roused her out of the trance of thought in which she had been plunged by his last words, and by the look of his deep intent passionate eyes, as their flames had made her own fall before them.",2 "She went to the window, and threw it open, to dispel the oppression which hung around her.",1 "Then she went and opened the door, with a sort of impetuous wish to shake off the recollection of the past hour in the company of others, or in active exertion.",1 "But all was profoundly hushed in the noonday stillness of a house, where an invalid catches the unrefreshing sleep that is denied to the night-hours.",1 Margaret would not be alone.,2 What should she do?,2 "'Go and see Bessy Higgins, of course,' thought she, as the recollection of the message sent the night before flashed into her mind.",2 And away she went.,2 "When she got there, she found Bessy lying on the settle, moved close to the fire, though the day was sultry and oppressive.",1 "She was laid down quite flat, as if resting languidly after some paroxysm of pain.",1 "Margaret felt sure she ought to have the greater freedom of breathing which a more sitting posture would procure; and, without a word, she raised her up, and so arranged the pillows, that Bessy was more at ease, though very languid.",3 "'I thought I should na' ha' seen yo' again,' said she, at last, looking wistfully in Margaret's face.",2 'I'm afraid you're much worse.,1 "But I could not have come yesterday, my mother was so ill--for many reasons,' said Margaret, colouring.",2 'Yo'd m'appen think I went beyond my place in sending Mary for yo'.,2 "But the wranglin' and the loud voices had just torn me to pieces, and I thought when father left, oh!",1 "if I could just hear her voice, reading me some words o' peace and promise, I could die away into the silence and rest o' God, just as a babby is hushed up to sleep by its mother's lullaby.'",3 "'Shall I read you a chapter, now?'",2 "'Ay, do!",2 "M'appen I shan't listen to th' sense, at first; it will seem far away--but when yo' come to words I like--to th' comforting texts--it'll seem close in my ear, and going through me as it were.'",3 Margaret began.,2 Bessy tossed to and fro.,2 "If, by an effort, she attended for one moment, it seemed as though she were convulsed into double restlessness the next.",1 "At last, she burst out 'Don't go on reading.",2 It's no use.,2 "I'm blaspheming all the time in my mind, wi' thinking angrily on what canna be helped.--Yo'd hear of th' riot, m'appen, yesterday at Marlborough Mills?",2 "Thornton's factory, yo' know.'",2 "'Your father was not there, was he?'",2 "said Margaret, colouring deep.",2 'Not he.,2 He'd ha' given his right hand if it had never come to pass.,3 It's that that's fretting me.,2 He's fairly knocked down in his mind by it.,3 "It's no use telling him, fools will always break out o' bounds.",1 Yo' never saw a man so down-hearted as he is.',2 'But why?',2 asked Margaret.,2 'I don't understand.',2 "'Why yo' see, he's a committee-man on this special strike'.",2 "Th' Union appointed him because, though I say it as shouldn't say it, he's reckoned a deep chap, and true to th' back-bone.",2 And he and t' other committee-men laid their plans.,2 "They were to hou'd together through thick and thin; what the major part thought, t'others were to think, whether they would or no.",2 And above all there was to be no going again the law of the land.,2 "Folk would go with them if they saw them striving and starving wi' dumb patience; but if there was once any noise o' fighting and struggling--even wi' knobsticks--all was up, as they knew by th' experience of many, and many a time before.",1 "They would try and get speech o' th' knobsticks, and coax 'em, and reason wi' 'em, and m'appen warn 'em off; but whatever came, the Committee charged all members o' th' Union to lie down and die, if need were, without striking a blow; and then they reckoned they were sure o' carrying th' public with them.",1 "And beside all that, Committee knew they were right in their demand, and they didn't want to have right all mixed up wi' wrong, till folk can't separate it, no more nor I can th' physic-powder from th' jelly yo' gave me to mix it in; jelly is much the biggest, but powder tastes it all through.",2 "Well, I've told yo' at length about this'n, but I'm tired out.",2 "Yo' just think for yo'rsel, what it mun be for father to have a' his work undone, and by such a fool as Boucher, who must needs go right again the orders of Committee, and ruin th' strike, just as bad as if he meant to be a Judas.",0 Eh!,2 but father giv'd it him last night!,2 "He went so far as to say, he'd go and tell police where they might find th' ringleader o' th' riot; he'd give him up to th' mill-owners to do what they would wi' him.",2 "He'd show the world that th' real leaders o' the strike were not such as Boucher, but steady thoughtful men; good hands, and good citizens, who were friendly to law and judgment, and would uphold order; who only wanted their right wage, and wouldn't work, even though they starved, till they got 'em; but who would ne'er injure property or life: For,' dropping her voice, 'they do say, that Boucher threw a stone at Thornton's sister, that welly killed her.'",4 "'That's not true,' said Margaret.",2 "'It was not Boucher that threw the stone'--she went first red, then white.",2 "'Yo'd be there then, were yo'?'",2 "asked Bessy languidly for indeed, she had spoken with many pauses, as if speech was unusually difficult to her.",1 'Yes.,2 Never mind.,2 Go on.,2 Only it was not Boucher that threw the stone.,2 But what did he answer to your father?',2 'He did na' speak words.,2 "He were all in such a tremble wi' spent passion, I could na' bear to look at him.",3 "I heard his breath coming quick, and at one time I thought he were sobbing.",2 "But when father said he'd give him up to police, he gave a great cry, and struck father on th' face wi' his closed fist, and be off like lightning.",1 "Father were stunned wi' the blow at first, for all Boucher were weak wi' passion and wi' clemming.",2 "He sat down a bit, and put his hand afore his eyes; and then made for th' door.",2 "I dunno' where I got strength, but I threw mysel' off th' settle and clung to him.",2 """Father, father!""",2 "said I. ""Thou'll never go peach on that poor clemmed man.",2 "I'll never leave go on thee, till thou sayst thou wunnot.""",2 """Dunnot be a fool,"" says he, ""words come readier than deeds to most men.",1 "I never thought o' telling th' police on him; though by G--, he deserves it, and I should na' ha' minded if some one else had done the dirty work, and got him clapped up.",2 "But now he has strucken me, I could do it less nor ever, for it would be getting other men to take up my quarrel.",1 "But if ever he gets well o'er this clemming, and is in good condition, he and I'll have an up and down fight, purring an' a', and I'll see what I can do for him.""",3 "And so father shook me off,--for indeed, I was low and faint enough, and his face was all clay white, where it weren't bloody, and turned me sick to look at.",1 "And I know not if I slept or waked, or were in a dead swoon, till Mary come in; and I telled her to fetch yo' to me.",1 "And now dunnot talk to me, but just read out th' chapter.",2 I'm easier in my mind for having spit it out; but I want some thoughts of the world that's far away to take the weary taste of it out o' my mouth.,2 "Read me--not a sermon chapter, but a story chapter; they've pictures in them, which I see when my eyes are shut.",2 "Read about the New Heavens, and the New Earth; and m'appen I'll forget this.'",2 Margaret read in her soft low voice.,3 "Though Bessy's eyes were shut, she was listening for some time, for the moisture of tears gathered heavy on her eyelashes.",2 "At last she slept; with many starts, and muttered pleadings.",2 "Margaret covered her up, and left her, for she had an uneasy consciousness that she might be wanted at home, and yet, until now, it seemed cruel to leave the dying girl.",0 Mrs. Hale was in the drawing-room on her daughter's return.,3 "It was one of her better days, and she was full of praises of the water-bed.",3 It had been more like the beds at Sir John Beresford's than anything she had slept on since.,3 "She did not know how it was, but people seemed to have lost the art of making the same kind of beds as they used to do in her youth.",1 "One would think it was easy enough; there was the same kind of feathers to be had, and yet somehow, till this last night she did not know when she had had a good sound resting sleep.",4 "Mr. Hale suggested, that something of the merits of the featherbeds of former days might be attributed to the activity of youth, which gave a relish to rest; but this idea was not kindly received by his wife.",4 "'No, indeed, Mr. Hale, it was those beds at Sir John's.",3 "Now, Margaret, you're young enough, and go about in the day; are the beds comfortable?",3 I appeal to you.,3 "Do they give you a feeling of perfect repose when you lie down upon them; or rather, don't you toss about, and try in vain to find an easy position, and waken in the morning as tired as when you went to bed?'",1 Margaret laughed.,2 "'To tell the truth, mamma, I've never thought about my bed at all, what kind it is.",2 "I'm so sleepy at night, that if I only lie down anywhere, I nap off directly.",1 So I don't think I'm a competent witness.,2 "But then, you know, I never had the opportunity of trying Sir John Beresford's beds.",2 I never was at Oxenham.',2 'Were not you?,2 "Oh, no!",2 to be sure.,2 "It was poor darling Fred I took with me, I remember.",2 "I only went to Oxenham once after I was married,--to your Aunt Shaw's wedding; and poor little Fred was the baby then.",1 "And I know Dixon did not like changing from lady's maid to nurse, and I was afraid that if I took her near her old home, and amongst her own people, she might want to leave me.",2 "But poor baby was taken ill at Oxenham, with his teething; and, what with my being a great deal with Anna just before her marriage, and not being very strong myself, Dixon had more of the charge of him than she ever had before; and it made her so fond of him, and she was so proud when he would turn away from every one and cling to her, that I don't believe she ever thought of leaving me again; though it was very different from what she'd been accustomed to.",4 Poor Fred!,1 Everybody loved him.,3 He was born with the gift of winning hearts.,3 It makes me think very badly of Captain Reid when I know that he disliked my own dear boy.,1 I think it a certain proof he had a bad heart.,1 Ah!,2 "Your poor father, Margaret.",1 He has left the room.,2 He can't bear to hear Fred spoken of.',2 "'I love to hear about him, mamma.",3 Tell me all you like; you never can tell me too much.,3 Tell me what he was like as a baby.',3 "'Why, Margaret, you must not be hurt, but he was much prettier than you were.",1 "I remember, when I first saw you in Dixon's arms, I said, ""Dear, what an ugly little thing!""",1 "And she said, ""It's not every child that's like Master Fred, bless him!""",4 Dear!,2 how well I remember it.,3 "Then I could have had Fred in my arms every minute of the day, and his cot was close by my bed; and now, now--Margaret--I don't know where my boy is, and sometimes I think I shall never see him again.'",2 "Margaret sat down by her mother's sofa on a little stool, and softly took hold of her hand, caressing it and kissing it, as if to comfort.",3 Mrs. Hale cried without restraint.,3 "At last, she sat straight, stiff up on the sofa, and turning round to her daughter, she said with tearful, almost solemn earnestness, 'Margaret, if I can get better,--if God lets me have a chance of recovery, it must be through seeing my son Frederick once more.",3 It will waken up all the poor springs of health left in me.,1 "She paused, and seemed to try and gather strength for something more yet to be said.",2 "Her voice was choked as she went on--was quavering as with the contemplation of some strange, yet closely-present idea.",1 "'And, Margaret, if I am to die--if I am one of those appointed to die before many weeks are over--I must see my child first.",1 "I cannot think how it must be managed; but I charge you, Margaret, as you yourself hope for comfort in your last illness, bring him to me that I may bless him.",3 "Only for five minutes, Margaret.",2 There could be no danger in five minutes.,1 "Oh, Margaret, let me see him before I die!'",1 "Margaret did not think of anything that might be utterly unreasonable in this speech: we do not look for reason or logic in the passionate entreaties of those who are sick unto death; we are stung with the recollection of a thousand slighted opportunities of fulfilling the wishes of those who will soon pass away from among us: and do they ask us for the future happiness of our lives, we lay it at their feet, and will it away from us.",1 "But this wish of Mrs. Hale's was so natural, so just, so right to both parties, that Margaret felt as if, on Frederick's account as well as on her mother's, she ought to overlook all intermediate chances of danger, and pledge herself to do everything in her power for its realisation.",2 "The large, pleading, dilated eyes were fixed upon her wistfully, steady in their gaze, though the poor white lips quivered like those of a child.",3 Margaret gently rose up and stood opposite to her frail mother; so that she might gather the secure fulfilment of her wish from the calm steadiness of her daughter's face.,3 "'Mamma, I will write to-night, and tell Frederick what you say.",2 "I am as sure that he will come directly to us, as I am sure of my life.",2 "Be easy, mamma, you shall see him as far as anything earthly can be promised.'",3 'You will write to-night?,2 "Oh, Margaret!",2 "the post goes out at five--you will write by it, won't you?",2 "I have so few hours left--I feel, dear, as if I should not recover, though sometimes your father over-persuades me into hoping; you will write directly, won't you?",3 Don't lose a single post; for just by that very post I may miss him.',1 "'But, mamma, papa is out.'",2 'Papa is out!,2 and what then?,2 "Do you mean that he would deny me this last wish, Margaret?",1 "Why, I should not be ill--be dying--if he had not taken me away from Helstone, to this unhealthy, smoky, sunless place.'",1 "'Oh, mamma!'",2 said Margaret.,2 "'Yes; it is so, indeed.",2 He knows it himself; he has said so many a time.,2 "He would do anything for me; you don't mean he would refuse me this last wish--prayer, if you will.",1 "And, indeed, Margaret, the longing to see Frederick stands between me and God.",1 "I cannot pray till I have this one thing; indeed, I cannot.",2 "Don't lose time, dear, dear Margaret.",1 Write by this very next post.,2 Then he may be here--here in twenty-two days!,2 For he is sure to come.,2 No cords or chains can keep him.,2 In twenty-two days I shall see my boy.',2 "She fell back, and for a short time she took no notice of the fact that Margaret sat motionless, her hand shading her eyes.",1 'You are not writing!',2 said her mother at last 'Bring me some pens and paper; I will try and write myself.',2 "She sat up, trembling all over with feverish eagerness.",2 Margaret took her hand down and looked at her mother sadly.,1 'Only wait till papa comes in.,2 Let us ask him how best to do it.',3 "'You promised, Margaret, not a quarter of an hour ago;--you said he should come.'",3 "'And so he shall, mamma; don't cry, my own dear mother.",1 "I'll write here, now,--you shall see me write,--and it shall go by this very post; and if papa thinks fit, he can write again when he comes in,--it is only a day's delay.",1 "Oh, mamma, don't cry so pitifully,--it cuts me to the heart.'",1 "Mrs. Hale could not stop her tears; they came hysterically; and, in truth, she made no effort to control them, but rather called up all the pictures of the happy past, and the probable future--painting the scene when she should lie a corpse, with the son she had longed to see in life weeping over her, and she unconscious of his presence--till she was melted by self-pity into a state of sobbing and exhaustion that made Margaret's heart ache.",0 "But at last she was calm, and greedily watched her daughter, as she began her letter; wrote it with swift urgent entreaty; sealed it up hurriedly, for fear her mother should ask to see it: and then, to make security most sure, at Mrs. Hale's own bidding, took it herself to the post-office.",2 She was coming home when her father overtook her.,3 "'And where have you been, my pretty maid?'",3 asked he.,2 "'To the post-office,--with a letter; a letter to Frederick.",2 "Oh, papa, perhaps I have done wrong: but mamma was seized with such a passionate yearning to see him--she said it would make her well again,--and then she said that she must see him before she died,--I cannot tell you how urgent she was!",1 Did I do wrong?',1 Mr. Hale did not reply at first.,3 "Then he said: 'You should have waited till I came in, Margaret.'",2 'I tried to persuade her--' and then she was silent.,3 "'I don't know,' said Mr. Hale, after a pause.",3 "'She ought to see him if she wishes it so much, for I believe it would do her much more good than all the doctor's medicine,--and, perhaps, set her up altogether; but the danger to him, I'm afraid, is very great.'",2 "'All these years since the mutiny, papa?'",2 "'Yes; it is necessary, of course, for government to take very stringent measures for the repression of offences against authority, more particularly in the navy, where a commanding officer needs to be surrounded in his men's eyes with a vivid consciousness of all the power there is at home to back him, and take up his cause, and avenge any injuries offered to him, if need be.",1 Ah!,2 "it's no matter to them how far their authorities have tyrannised,--galled hasty tempers to madness,--or, if that can be any excuse afterwards, it is never allowed for in the first instance; they spare no expense, they send out ships,--they scour the seas to lay hold of the offenders,--the lapse of years does not wash out the memory of the offence,--it is a fresh and vivid crime on the Admiralty books till it is blotted out by blood.'",0 "'Oh, papa, what have I done!",2 And yet it seemed so right at the time.,3 "I'm sure Frederick himself, would run the risk.'",1 'So he would; so he should!,2 "Nay, Margaret, I'm glad it is done, though I durst not have done it myself.",3 "I'm thankful it is as it is; I should have hesitated till, perhaps, it might have been too late to do any good.",3 "Dear Margaret, you have done what is right about it; and the end is beyond our control.'",3 It was all very well; but her father's account of the relentless manner in which mutinies were punished made Margaret shiver and creep.,1 If she had decoyed her brother home to blot out the memory of his error by his blood!,1 She saw her father's anxiety lay deeper than the source of his latter cheering words.,1 She took his arm and walked home pensively and wearily by his side.,2 When Mr. Thornton had left the house that morning he was almost blinded by his baffled passion.,2 "He was as dizzy as if Margaret, instead of looking, and speaking, and moving like a tender graceful woman, had been a sturdy fish-wife, and given him a sound blow with her fists.",3 "He had positive bodily pain,--a violent headache, and a throbbing intermittent pulse.",0 "He could not bear the noise, the garish light, the continued rumble and movement of the street.",1 "He called himself a fool for suffering so; and yet he could not, at the moment, recollect the cause of his suffering, and whether it was adequate to the consequences it had produced.",1 "It would have been a relief to him, if he could have sat down and cried on a door-step by a little child, who was raging and storming, through his passionate tears, at some injury he had received.",2 "He said to himself, that he hated Margaret, but a wild, sharp sensation of love cleft his dull, thunderous feeling like lightning, even as he shaped the words expressive of hatred.",2 "His greatest comfort was in hugging his torment; and in feeling, as he had indeed said to her, that though she might despise him, contemn him, treat him with her proud sovereign indifference, he did not change one whit.",2 She could not make him change.,2 "He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.",1 "He stood still for a moment, to make this resolution firm and clear.",3 "There was an omnibus passing--going into the country; the conductor thought he was wishing for a place, and stopped near the pavement.",2 "It was too much trouble to apologise and explain; so he mounted upon it, and was borne away,--past long rows of houses--then past detached villas with trim gardens, till they came to real country hedge-rows, and, by-and-by, to a small country town.",1 "Then everybody got down; and so did Mr. Thornton, and because they walked away he did so too.",2 "He went into the fields, walking briskly, because the sharp motion relieved his mind.",3 "He could remember all about it now; the pitiful figure he must have cut; the absurd way in which he had gone and done the very thing he had so often agreed with himself in thinking would be the most foolish thing in the world; and had met with exactly the consequences which, in these wise moods, he had always fore-told were certain to follow, if he ever did make such a fool of himself.",0 "Was he bewitched by those beautiful eyes, that soft, half-open, sighing mouth which lay so close upon his shoulder only yesterday?",3 "He could not even shake off the recollection that she had been there; that her arms had been round him, once--if never again.",1 He only caught glimpses of her; he did not understand her altogether.,2 "At one time she was so brave, and at another so timid; now so tender, and then so haughty and regal-proud.",3 "And then he thought over every time he had ever seen her once again, by way of finally forgetting her.",2 "He saw her in every dress, in every mood, and did not know which became her best.",3 "Even this morning, how magnificent she had looked,--her eyes flashing out upon him at the idea that, because she had shared his danger yesterday, she had cared for him the least!",2 "If Mr. Thornton was a fool in the morning, as he assured himself at least twenty times he was, he did not grow much wiser in the afternoon.",1 "All that he gained in return for his sixpenny omnibus ride, was a more vivid conviction that there never was, never could be, any one like Margaret; that she did not love him and never would; but that she--no!",4 nor the whole world--should never hinder him from loving her.,2 "And so he returned to the little market-place, and remounted the omnibus to return to Milton.",2 "It was late in the afternoon when he was set down, near his warehouse.",2 The accustomed places brought back the accustomed habits and trains of thought.,2 "He knew how much he had to do--more than his usual work, owing to the commotion of the day before.",2 "He had to see his brother magistrates; he had to complete the arrangements, only half made in the morning, for the comfort and safety of his newly imported Irish hands; he had to secure them from all chance of communication with the discontented work-people of Milton.",3 "Last of all, he had to go home and encounter his mother.",2 "Mrs. Thornton had sat in the dining-room all day, every moment expecting the news of her son's acceptance by Miss Hale.",2 "She had braced herself up many and many a time, at some sudden noise in the house; had caught up the half-dropped work, and begun to ply her needle diligently, though through dimmed spectacles, and with an unsteady hand!",2 "and many times had the door opened, and some indifferent person entered on some insignificant errand.",1 "Then her rigid face unstiffened from its gray frost-bound expression, and the features dropped into the relaxed look of despondency, so unusual to their sternness.",0 She wrenched herself away from the contemplation of all the dreary changes that would be brought about to herself by her son's marriage; she forced her thoughts into the accustomed household grooves.,1 "The newly-married couple-to-be would need fresh household stocks of linen; and Mrs. Thornton had clothes-basket upon clothes-basket, full of table-cloths and napkins, brought in, and began to reckon up the store.",3 "There was some confusion between what was hers, and consequently marked G. H. T. (for George and Hannah Thornton), and what was her son's--bought with his money, marked with his initials.",1 "Some of those marked G. H. T. were Dutch damask of the old kind, exquisitely fine; none were like them now.",4 "Mrs. Thornton stood looking at them long,--they had been her pride when she was first married.",3 "Then she knit her brows, and pinched and compressed her lips tight, and carefully unpicked the G. H.",2 "She went so far as to search for the Turkey-red marking-thread to put in the new initials; but it was all used,--and she had no heart to send for any more just yet.",2 "So she looked fixedly at vacancy; a series of visions passing before her, in all of which her son was the principal, the sole object,--her son, her pride, her property.",2 Still he did not come.,2 Doubtless he was with Miss Hale.,3 The new love was displacing her already from her place as first in his heart.,3 A terrible pain--a pang of vain jealousy--shot through her: she hardly knew whether it was more physical or mental; but it forced her to sit down.,0 "In a moment, she was up again as straight as ever,--a grim smile upon her face for the first time that day, ready for the door opening, and the rejoicing triumphant one, who should never know the sore regret his mother felt at his marriage.",3 "In all this, there was little thought enough of the future daughter-in-law as an individual.",3 She was to be John's wife.,2 "To take Mrs. Thornton's place as mistress of the house, was only one of the rich consequences which decked out the supreme glory; all household plenty and comfort, all purple and fine linen, honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, would all come as naturally as jewels on a king's robe, and be as little thought of for their separate value.",4 "To be chosen by John, would separate a kitchen-wench from the rest of the world.",2 And Miss Hale was not so bad.,1 "If she had been a Milton lass, Mrs. Thornton would have positively liked her.",3 "She was pungent, and had taste, and spirit, and flavour in her.",2 "True, she was sadly prejudiced, and very ignorant; but that was to be expected from her southern breeding.",1 "A strange sort of mortified comparison of Fanny with her, went on in Mrs. Thornton's mind; and for once she spoke harshly to her daughter; abused her roundly; and then, as if by way of penance, she took up Henry's Commentaries, and tried to fix her attention on it, instead of pursuing the employment she took pride and pleasure in, and continuing her inspection of the table-linen.",1 _His_ step at last!,2 "She heard him, even while she thought she was finishing a sentence; while her eye did pass over it, and her memory could mechanically have repeated it word for word, she heard him come in at the hall-door.",2 Her quickened sense could interpret every sound of motion: now he was at the hat-stand--now at the very room-door.,2 Why did he pause?,2 Let her know the worst.,1 Yet her head was down over the book; she did not look up.,2 "He came close to the table, and stood still there, waiting till she should have finished the paragraph which apparently absorbed her.",2 By an effort she looked up.,2 "'Well, John?'",2 He knew what that little speech meant.,2 But he had steeled himself.,2 "He longed to reply with a jest; the bitterness of his heart could have uttered one, but his mother deserved better of him.",2 "He came round behind her, so that she could not see his looks, and, bending back her gray, stony face, he kissed it, murmuring: 'No one loves me,--no one cares for me, but you, mother.'",3 "He turned away and stood leaning his head against the mantel-piece, tears forcing themselves into his manly eyes.",2 "She stood up,--she tottered.",2 "For the first time in her life, the strong woman tottered.",3 She put her hands on his shoulders; she was a tall woman.,2 She looked into his face; she made him look at her.,2 "'Mother's love is given by God, John.",3 It holds fast for ever and ever.,3 "A girl's love is like a puff of smoke,--it changes with every wind.",3 "And she would not have you, my own lad, would not she?'",2 She set her teeth; she showed them like a dog for the whole length of her mouth.,3 He shook his head.,2 "'I am not fit for her, mother; I knew I was not.'",2 She ground out words between her closed teeth.,2 "He could not hear what she said; but the look in her eyes interpreted it to be a curse,--if not as coarsely worded, as fell in intent as ever was uttered.",1 "And yet her heart leapt up light, to know he was her own again.",2 'Mother!',2 "said he, hurriedly, 'I cannot hear a word against her.",2 "Spare me,--spare me!",2 I am very weak in my sore heart;--I love her yet; I love her more than ever.',1 "'And I hate her,' said Mrs. Thornton, in a low fierce voice.",1 "'I tried not to hate her, when she stood between you and me, because,--I said to myself,--she will make him happy; and I would give my heart's blood to do that.",2 "But now, I hate her for your misery's sake.",1 "Yes, John, it's no use hiding up your aching heart from me.",1 "I am the mother that bore you, and your sorrow is my agony; and if you don't hate her, I do.'",0 "'Then, mother, you make me love her more.",3 "She is unjustly treated by you, and I must make the balance even.",1 But why do we talk of love or hatred?,2 "She does not care for me, and that is enough,--too much.",3 Let us never name the subject again.,2 It is the only thing you can do for me in the matter.,2 Let us never name her.',2 'With all my heart.,2 "I only wish that she, and all belonging to her, were swept back to the place they came from.'",2 "He stood still, gazing into the fire for a minute or two longer.",2 Her dry dim eyes filled with unwonted tears as she looked at him; but she seemed just as grim and quiet as usual when he next spoke.,1 "'Warrants are out against three men for conspiracy, mother.",1 The riot yesterday helped to knock up the strike.',1 And Margaret's name was no more mentioned between Mrs. Thornton and her son.,2 "They fell back into their usual mode of talk,--about facts, not opinions, far less feelings.",1 Their voices and tones were calm and cold a stranger might have gone away and thought that he had never seen such frigid indifference of demeanour between such near relations.,0 Mr. Thornton went straight and clear into all the interests of the following day.,3 "There was a slight demand for finished goods; and as it affected his branch of the trade, he took advantage of it, and drove hard bargains.",2 "He was sharp to the hour at the meeting of his brother magistrates,--giving them the best assistance of his strong sense, and his power of seeing consequences at a glance, and so coming to a rapid decision.",4 "Older men, men of long standing in the town, men of far greater wealth--realised and turned into land, while his was all floating capital, engaged in his trade--looked to him for prompt, ready wisdom.",4 He was the one deputed to see and arrange with the police--to lead in all the requisite steps.,3 "And he cared for their unconscious deference no more than for the soft west wind, that scarcely made the smoke from the great tall chimneys swerve in its straight upward course.",3 He was not aware of the silent respect paid to him.,3 "If it had been otherwise, he would have felt it as an obstacle in his progress to the object he had in view.",1 "As it was, he looked to the speedy accomplishment of that alone.",3 "It was his mother's greedy ears that sucked in, from the women-kind of these magistrates and wealthy men, how highly Mr. This or Mr. That thought of Mr. Thornton; that if he had not been there, things would have gone on very differently,--very badly, indeed.",1 He swept off his business right and left that day.,3 "It seemed as though his deep mortification of yesterday, and the stunned purposeless course of the hours afterwards, had cleared away all the mists from his intellect.",2 He felt his power and revelled in it.,2 He could almost defy his heart.,1 "If he had known it, he could have sang the song of the miller who lived by the river Dee:-- 'I care for nobody-- Nobody cares for me.'",2 "The evidence against Boucher, and other ringleaders of the riot, was taken before him; that against the three others, for conspiracy, failed.",1 "But he sternly charged the police to be on the watch; for the swift right arm of the law should be in readiness to strike, as soon as they could prove a fault.",2 "And then he left the hot reeking room in the borough court, and went out into the fresher, but still sultry street.",3 "It seemed as though he gave way all at once; he was so languid that he could not control his thoughts; they would wander to her; they would bring back the scene,--not of his repulse and rejection the day before but the looks, the actions of the day before that.",0 "He went along the crowded streets mechanically, winding in and out among the people, but never seeing them,--almost sick with longing for that one half-hour--that one brief space of time when she clung to him, and her heart beat against his--to come once again.",0 "'Why, Mr. Thornton you're cutting me very coolly, I must say.",2 And how is Mrs. Thornton?,2 Brave weather this!,3 "We doctors don't like it, I can tell you!'",3 "'I beg your pardon, Dr. Donaldson.",2 I really didn't see you.,2 "My mother's quite well, thank you.",3 "It is a fine day, and good for the harvest, I hope.",3 "If the wheat is well got in, we shall have a brisk trade next year, whatever you doctors have.'",3 "'Ay, ay.",2 Each man for himself.,2 "Your bad weather, and your bad times, are my good ones.",2 "When trade is bad, there's more undermining of health, and preparation for death, going on among you Milton men than you're aware of.'",0 "'Not with me, Doctor.",2 I'm made of iron.,2 "The news of the worst bad debt I ever had, never made my pulse vary.",0 "This strike, which affects me more than any one else in Milton,--more than Hamper,--never comes near my appetite.",1 "You must go elsewhere for a patient, Doctor.'",3 "'By the way, you've recommended me a good patient, poor lady!",3 "Not to go on talking in this heartless way, I seriously believe that Mrs. Hale--that lady in Crampton, you know--hasn't many weeks to live.",2 "I never had any hope of cure, as I think I told you; but I've been seeing her to-day, and I think very badly of her.'",2 Mr. Thornton was silent.,3 The vaunted steadiness of pulse failed him for an instant.,2 "'Can I do anything, Doctor?'",2 "he asked, in an altered voice.",2 "'You know--you would see, that money is not very plentiful; are there any comforts or dainties she ought to have?'",3 "'No,' replied the Doctor, shaking his head.",2 "'She craves for fruit,--she has a constant fever on her; but jargonelle pears will do as well as anything, and there are quantities of them in the market.'",2 "'You will tell me, if there is anything I can do, I'm sure,' replied Mr. Thornton.",2 'I rely upon you.',2 'Oh!,2 never fear!,1 "I'll not spare your purse,--I know it's deep enough.",3 "I wish you'd give me carte-blanche for all my patients, and all their wants.'",2 "But Mr. Thornton had no general benevolence,--no universal philanthropy; few even would have given him credit for strong affections.",3 "But he went straight to the first fruit-shop in Milton, and chose out the bunch of purple grapes with the most delicate bloom upon them,--the richest-coloured peaches,--the freshest vine-leaves.",4 "They were packed into a basket, and the shopman awaited the answer to his inquiry, 'Where shall we send them to, sir?'",2 There was no reply.,2 "'To Marlborough Mills, I suppose, sir?'",2 'No!',2 Mr. Thornton said.,2 "'Give the basket to me,--I'll take it.'",2 It took up both his hands to carry it; and he had to pass through the busiest part of the town for feminine shopping.,2 "Many a young lady of his acquaintance turned to look after him, and thought it strange to see him occupied just like a porter or an errand-boy.",2 "He was thinking, 'I will not be daunted from doing as I choose by the thought of her.",2 "I like to take this fruit to the poor mother, and it is simply right that I should.",3 She shall never scorn me out of doing what I please.,1 "A pretty joke, indeed, if, for fear of a haughty girl, I failed in doing a kindness to a man I liked!",1 I do it for Mr. Hale; I do it in defiance of her.',2 "He went at an unusual pace, and was soon at Crampton.",1 "He went upstairs two steps at a time, and entered the drawing-room before Dixon could announce him,--his face flushed, his eyes shining with kindly earnestness.",3 "Mrs. Hale lay on the sofa, heated with fever.",2 Mr. Hale was reading aloud.,3 Margaret was working on a low stool by her mother's side.,2 "Her heart fluttered, if his did not, at this interview.",2 "But he took no notice of her, hardly of Mr. Hale himself; he went up straight with his basket to Mrs. Hale, and said, in that subdued and gentle tone, which is so touching when used by a robust man in full health, speaking to a feeble invalid-- 'I met Dr. Donaldson, ma'am, and as he said fruit would be good for you, I have taken the liberty--the great liberty of bringing you some that seemed to me fine.'",4 Mrs. Hale was excessively surprised; excessively pleased; quite in a tremble of eagerness.,3 Mr. Hale with fewer words expressed a deeper gratitude.,3 "'Fetch a plate, Margaret--a basket--anything.'",2 "Margaret stood up by the table, half afraid of moving or making any noise to arouse Mr. Thornton into a consciousness of her being in the room.",1 "She thought it would be awkward for both to be brought into conscious collision; and fancied that, from her being on a low seat at first, and now standing behind her father, he had overlooked her in his haste.",1 "As if he did not feel the consciousness of her presence all over, though his eyes had never rested on her!",2 "'I must go,' said he, 'I cannot stay.",2 "If you will forgive this liberty,--my rough ways,--too abrupt, I fear--but I will be more gentle next time.",1 "You will allow me the pleasure of bringing you some fruit again, if I should see any that is tempting.",3 "Good afternoon, Mr. Hale.",3 "Good-bye, ma'am.'",3 He was gone.,2 Not one word: not one look to Margaret.,2 She believed that he had not seen her.,2 "She went for a plate in silence, and lifted the fruit out tenderly, with the points of her delicate taper fingers.",3 It was good of him to bring it; and after yesterday too!,3 'Oh!,2 it is so delicious!',3 "said Mrs. Hale, in a feeble voice.",2 'How kind of him to think of me!,2 "Margaret love, only taste these grapes!",3 Was it not good of him?',3 'Yes!',2 "said Margaret, quietly.",2 'Margaret!',2 "said Mrs. Hale, rather querulously, 'you won't like anything Mr. Thornton does.",3 I never saw anybody so prejudiced.',2 "Mr. Hale had been peeling a peach for his wife; and, cutting off a small piece for himself, he said: 'If I had any prejudices, the gift of such delicious fruit as this would melt them all away.",3 I have not tasted such fruit--no!,2 "not even in Hampshire--since I was a boy; and to boys, I fancy, all fruit is good.",3 I remember eating sloes and crabs with a relish.,3 "Do you remember the matted-up currant bushes, Margaret, at the corner of the west-wall in the garden at home?'",2 Did she not?,2 Did she not remember every weather-stain on the old stone wall; the gray and yellow lichens that marked it like a map; the little crane's-bill that grew in the crevices?,2 "She had been shaken by the events of the last two days; her whole life just now was a strain upon her fortitude; and, somehow, these careless words of her father's, touching on the remembrance of the sunny times of old, made her start up, and, dropping her sewing on the ground, she went hastily out of the room into her own little chamber.",1 "She had hardly given way to the first choking sob, when she became aware of Dixon standing at her drawers, and evidently searching for something.",1 "'Bless me, miss!",1 How you startled me!,2 "Missus is not worse, is she?",1 Is anything the matter?',2 "'No, nothing.",2 "Only I'm silly, Dixon, and want a glass of water.",1 What are you looking for?,2 I keep my muslins in that drawer.',2 "Dixon did not speak, but went on rummaging.",2 The scent of lavender came out and perfumed the room.,2 At last Dixon found what she wanted; what it was Margaret could not see.,2 "Dixon faced round, and spoke to her: 'Now I don't like telling you what I wanted, because you've fretting enough to go through, and I know you'll fret about this.",3 "I meant to have kept it from you till night, may be, or such times as that.'",2 'What is the matter?,2 "Pray, tell me, Dixon, at once.'",2 "'That young woman you go to see--Higgins, I mean.'",2 'Well?',2 'Well!,2 "she died this morning, and her sister is here--come to beg a strange thing.",0 "It seems, the young woman who died had a fancy for being buried in something of yours, and so the sister's come to ask for it,--and I was looking for a night-cap that wasn't too good to give away.'",3 'Oh!,2 "let me find one,' said Margaret, in the midst of her tears.",2 'Poor Bessy!,2 I never thought I should not see her again.',2 "'Why, that's another thing.",2 "This girl down-stairs wanted me to ask you, if you would like to see her.'",3 'But she's dead!',1 "said Margaret, turning a little pale.",1 'I never saw a dead person.,1 No!,2 I would rather not.',2 "'I should never have asked you, if you hadn't come in.",2 I told her you wouldn't.',2 "'I will go down and speak to her,' said Margaret, afraid lest Dixon's harshness of manner might wound the poor girl.",0 "So, taking the cap in her hand, she went to the kitchen.",2 "Mary's face was all swollen with crying, and she burst out afresh when she saw Margaret.",1 "'Oh, ma'am, she loved yo', she loved yo', she did indeed!'",3 "And for a long time, Margaret could not get her to say anything more than this.",2 "At last, her sympathy, and Dixon's scolding, forced out a few facts.",1 "Nicholas Higgins had gone out in the morning, leaving Bessy as well as on the day before.",3 But in an hour she was taken worse; some neighbour ran to the room where Mary was working; they did not know where to find her father; Mary had only come in a few minutes before she died.,1 'It were a day or two ago she axed to be buried in somewhat o' yourn.,2 She were never tired o' talking o' yo'.,1 She used to say yo' were the prettiest thing she'd ever clapped eyes on.,2 She loved yo' dearly.,3 "Her last words were, ""Give her my affectionate respects; and keep father fro' drink.""",3 "Yo'll come and see her, ma'am.",2 "She would ha' thought it a great compliment, I know.'",3 Margaret shrank a little from answering.,2 "'Yes, perhaps I may.",2 "Yes, I will.",2 I'll come before tea.,2 "But where's your father, Mary?'",2 "Mary shook her head, and stood up to be going.",2 "'Miss Hale,' said Dixon, in a low voice, 'where's the use o' your going to see the poor thing laid out?",2 "I'd never say a word against it, if it could do the girl any good; and I wouldn't mind a bit going myself, if that would satisfy her.",3 "They've just a notion, these common folks, of its being a respect to the departed.",3 "Here,' said she, turning sharply round, 'I'll come and see your sister.",1 "Miss Hale is busy, and she can't come, or else she would.'",2 The girl looked wistfully at Margaret.,2 "Dixon's coming might be a compliment, but it was not the same thing to the poor sister, who had had her little pangs of jealousy, during Bessy's lifetime, at the intimacy between her and the young lady.",2 "'No, Dixon!'",2 said Margaret with decision.,2 'I will go.,2 "Mary, you shall see me this afternoon.'",2 "And for fear of her own cowardice, she went away, in order to take from herself any chance of changing her determination.",1 That afternoon she walked swiftly to the Higgins's house.,2 "Mary was looking out for her, with a half-distrustful face.",1 Margaret smiled into her eyes to re-assure her.,3 "They passed quickly through the house-place, upstairs, and into the quiet presence of the dead.",2 Then Margaret was glad that she had come.,3 "The face, often so weary with pain, so restless with troublous thoughts, had now the faint soft smile of eternal rest upon it.",1 "The slow tears gathered into Margaret's eyes, but a deep calm entered into her soul.",2 And that was death!,1 It looked more peaceful than life.,3 All beautiful scriptures came into her mind.,3 'They rest from their labours.',2 'The weary are at rest.',1 'He giveth His beloved sleep.',3 "Slowly, slowly Margaret turned away from the bed.",1 Mary was humbly sobbing in the back-ground.,2 They went down stairs without a word.,2 "Resting his hand upon the house-table, Nicholas Higgins stood in the midst of the floor; his great eyes startled open by the news he had heard, as he came along the court, from many busy tongues.",3 His eyes were dry and fierce; studying the reality of her death; bringing himself to understand that her place should know her no more.,1 "For she had been sickly, dying so long, that he had persuaded himself she would not die; that she would 'pull through.'",0 "Margaret felt as if she had no business to be there, familiarly acquainting herself with the surroundings of death which he, the father, had only just learnt.",1 "There had been a pause of an instant on the steep crooked stair, when she first saw him; but now she tried to steal past his abstracted gaze, and to leave him in the solemn circle of his household misery.",0 "Mary sat down on the first chair she came to, and throwing her apron over her head, began to cry.",1 The noise appeared to rouse him.,1 "He took sudden hold of Margaret's arm, and held her till he could gather words to speak seemed dry; they came up thick, and choked, and hoarse: 'Were yo' with her?",2 Did yo' see her die?',1 'No!',2 "replied Margaret, standing still with the utmost patience, now she found herself perceived.",3 "It was some time before he spoke again, but he kept his hold on her arm.",2 "'All men must die,' said he at last, with a strange sort of gravity, which first suggested to Margaret the idea that he had been drinking--not enough to intoxicate himself, but enough to make his thoughts bewildered.",0 'But she were younger than me.',2 "Still he pondered over the event, not looking at Margaret, though he grasped her tight.",2 "Suddenly, he looked up at her with a wild searching inquiry in his glance.",1 "'Yo're sure and certain she's dead--not in a dwam, a faint?--she's been so before, often.'",1 "'She is dead,' replied Margaret.",1 "She felt no fear in speaking to him, though he hurt her arm with his gripe, and wild gleams came across the stupidity of his eyes.",0 'She is dead!',1 she said.,2 "He looked at her still with that searching look, which seemed to fade out of his eyes as he gazed.",2 "Then he suddenly let go his hold of Margaret, and, throwing his body half across the table, he shook it and every piece of furniture in the room, with his violent sobs.",1 Mary came trembling towards him.,2 'Get thee gone!--get thee gone!',2 "he cried, striking wildly and blindly at her.",2 'What do I care for thee?',2 "Margaret took her hand, and held it softly in hers.",2 "He tore his hair, he beat his head against the hard wood, then he lay exhausted and stupid.",0 Still his daughter and Margaret did not move.,2 Mary trembled from head to foot.,2 "At last--it might have been a quarter of an hour, it might have been an hour--he lifted himself up.",2 "His eyes were swollen and bloodshot, and he seemed to have forgotten that any one was by; he scowled at the watchers when he saw them.",1 "He shook himself heavily, gave them one more sullen look, spoke never a word, but made for the door.",1 "'Oh, father, father!'",2 "said Mary, throwing herself upon his arm,--'not to-night!",2 Any night but to-night.,2 "Oh, help me!",2 he's going out to drink again!,2 "Father, I'll not leave yo'.",2 "Yo' may strike, but I'll not leave yo'.",1 She told me last of all to keep yo' fro' drink!',2 "But Margaret stood in the doorway, silent yet commanding.",3 He looked up at her defyingly.,2 'It's my own house.,2 "Stand out o' the way, wench, or I'll make yo'!'",2 He had shaken off Mary with violence; he looked ready to strike Margaret.,2 "But she never moved a feature--never took her deep, serious eyes off him.",2 He stared back on her with gloomy fierceness.,1 "If she had stirred hand or foot, he would have thrust her aside with even more violence than he had used to his own daughter, whose face was bleeding from her fall against a chair.",1 'What are yo' looking at me in that way for?',2 "asked he at last, daunted and awed by her severe calm.",3 "'If yo' think for to keep me from going what gait I choose, because she loved yo'--and in my own house, too, where I never asked yo' to come, yo're mista'en.",3 It's very hard upon a man that he can't go to the only comfort left.',2 Margaret felt that he acknowledged her power.,2 What could she do next?,2 "He had seated himself on a chair, close to the door; half-conquered, half-resenting; intending to go out as soon as she left her position, but unwilling to use the violence he had threatened not five minutes before.",1 Margaret laid her hand on his arm.,2 "'Come with me,' she said.",2 'Come and see her!',2 "The voice in which she spoke was very low and solemn; but there was no fear or doubt expressed in it, either of him or of his compliance.",0 He sullenly rose up.,2 "He stood uncertain, with dogged irresolution upon his face.",1 She waited him there; quietly and patiently waited for his time to move.,3 He had a strange pleasure in making her wait; but at last he moved towards the stairs.,2 She and he stood by the corpse.,2 "'Her last words to Mary were, ""Keep my father fro' drink.""",2 "' 'It canna hurt her now,' muttered he.",1 'Nought can hurt her now.',1 "Then, raising his voice to a wailing cry, he went on: 'We may quarrel and fall out--we may make peace and be friends--we may clem to skin and bone--and nought o' all our griefs will ever touch her more.",1 Hoo's had her portion on 'em.,2 "What wi' hard work first, and sickness at last, hoo's led the life of a dog.",2 And to die without knowing one good piece o' rejoicing in all her days!,3 "Nay, wench, whatever hoo said, hoo can know nought about it now, and I mun ha' a sup o' drink just to steady me again sorrow.'",2 "'No,' said Margaret, softening with his softened manner.",2 'You shall not.,2 "If her life has been what you say, at any rate she did not fear death as some do.",1 "Oh, you should have heard her speak of the life to come--the life hidden with God, that she is now gone to.'",2 "He shook his head, glancing sideways up at Margaret as he did so.",2 "His pale, haggard face struck her painfully.",0 'You are sorely tired.,1 Where have you been all day--not at work?',3 "'Not at work, sure enough,' said he, with a short, grim laugh.",3 'Not at what you call work.,3 "I were at the Committee, till I were sickened out wi' trying to make fools hear reason.",2 I were fetched to Boucher's wife afore seven this morning.,2 "She's bed-fast, but she were raving and raging to know where her dunder-headed brute of a chap was, as if I'd to keep him--as if he were fit to be ruled by me.",1 "The d---- d fool, who has put his foot in all our plans!",1 "And I've walked my feet sore wi' going about for to see men who wouldn't be seen, now the law is raised again us.",1 "And I were sore-hearted, too, which is worse than sore-footed; and if I did see a friend who ossed to treat me, I never knew hoo lay a-dying here.",0 "Bess, lass, thou'd believe me, thou wouldst--wouldstn't thou?'",2 turning to the poor dumb form with wild appeal.,1 "'I am sure,' said Margaret, 'I am sure you did not know: it was quite sudden.",2 "But now, you see, it would be different; you do know; you do see her lying there; you hear what she said with her last breath.",1 You will not go?',2 No answer.,2 "In fact, where was he to look for comfort?",3 "'Come home with me,' said she at last, with a bold venture, half trembling at her own proposal as she made it.",2 "'At least you shall have some comfortable food, which I'm sure you need.'",3 'Yo'r father's a parson?',2 "asked he, with a sudden turn in his ideas.",2 "'He was,' said Margaret, shortly.",2 "'I'll go and take a dish o' tea with him, since yo've asked me.",2 "I've many a thing I often wished to say to a parson, and I'm not particular as to whether he's preaching now, or not.'",2 "Margaret was perplexed; his drinking tea with her father, who would be totally unprepared for his visitor--her mother so ill--seemed utterly out of the question; and yet if she drew back now, it would be worse than ever--sure to drive him to the gin-shop.",0 "She thought that if she could only get him to their own house, it was so great a step gained that she would trust to the chapter of accidents for the next.",4 "'Goodbye, ou'd wench!",2 "We've parted company at last, we have!",2 But thou'st been a blessin' to thy father ever sin' thou wert born.,2 "Bless thy white lips, lass,--they've a smile on 'em now!",3 "and I'm glad to see it once again, though I'm lone and forlorn for evermore.'",1 "He stooped down and fondly kissed his daughter; covered up her face, and turned to follow Margaret.",3 "She had hastily gone down stairs to tell Mary of the arrangement; to say it was the only way she could think of to keep him from the gin-palace; to urge Mary to come too, for her heart smote her at the idea of leaving the poor affectionate girl alone.",1 "But Mary had friends among the neighbours, she said, who would come in and sit a bit with her, it was all right; but father-- He was there by them as she would have spoken more.",3 "He had shaken off his emotion, as if he was ashamed of having ever given way to it; and had even o'erleaped himself so much that he assumed a sort of bitter mirth, like the crackling of thorns under a pot.",1 "'I'm going to take my tea wi' her father, I am!'",2 "But he slouched his cap low down over his brow as he went out into the street, and looked neither to the right nor to the left, while he tramped along by Margaret's side; he feared being upset by the words, still more the looks, of sympathising neighbours.",2 So he and Margaret walked in silence.,2 "As he got near the street in which he knew she lived, he looked down at his clothes, his hands, and shoes.",2 "'I should m'appen ha' cleaned mysel', first?'",2 "It certainly would have been desirable, but Margaret assured him he should be allowed to go into the yard, and have soap and towel provided; she could not let him slip out of her hands just then.",3 "While he followed the house-servant along the passage, and through the kitchen, stepping cautiously on every dark mark in the pattern of the oil-cloth, in order to conceal his dirty foot-prints, Margaret ran upstairs.",1 She met Dixon on the landing.,2 'How is mamma?--where is papa?',2 "Missus was tired, and gone into her own room.",1 "She had wanted to go to bed, but Dixon had persuaded her to lie down on the sofa, and have her tea brought to her there; it would be better than getting restless by being too long in bed.",1 "So far, so good.",3 But where was Mr. Hale?,3 In the drawing-room.,2 Margaret went in half breathless with the hurried story she had to tell.,2 "Of course, she told it incompletely; and her father was rather 'taken aback' by the idea of the drunken weaver awaiting him in his quiet study, with whom he was expected to drink tea, and on whose behalf Margaret was anxiously pleading.",1 "The meek, kind-hearted Mr. Hale would have readily tried to console him in his grief, but, unluckily, the point Margaret dwelt upon most forcibly was the fact of his having been drinking, and her having brought him home with her as a last expedient to keep him from the gin-shop.",3 "One little event had come out of another so naturally that Margaret was hardly conscious of what she had done, till she saw the slight look of repugnance on her father's face.",1 "'Oh, papa!",2 he really is a man you will not dislike--if you won't be shocked to begin with.',1 "'But, Margaret, to bring a drunken man home--and your mother so ill!'",1 Margaret's countenance fell.,1 "'I am sorry, papa.",1 He is very quiet--he is not tipsy at all.,3 "He was only rather strange at first, but that might be the shock of poor Bessy's death.'",0 Margaret's eyes filled with tears.,2 "Mr. Hale took hold of her sweet pleading face in both his hands, and kissed her forehead.",3 "'It is all right, dear.",3 "I'll go and make him as comfortable as I can, and do you attend to your mother.",3 "Only, if you can come in and make a third in the study, I shall be glad.'",3 "'Oh, yes--thank you.'",3 "But as Mr. Hale was leaving the room, she ran after him: 'Papa--you must not wonder at what he says: he's an---- I mean he does not believe in much of what we do.'",3 'Oh dear!,2 a drunken infidel weaver!',1 "said Mr. Hale to himself, in dismay.",2 "But to Margaret he only said, 'If your mother goes to sleep, be sure you come directly.'",2 Margaret went into her mother's room.,2 Mrs. Hale lifted herself up from a doze.,3 "'When did you write to Frederick, Margaret?",2 "Yesterday, or the day before?'",2 "'Yesterday, mamma.'",2 'Yesterday.,2 And the letter went?',2 'Yes.,2 "I took it myself' 'Oh, Margaret, I'm so afraid of his coming!",1 If he should be recognised!,2 If he should be taken!,2 "If he should be executed, after all these years that he has kept away and lived in safety!",2 I keep falling asleep and dreaming that he is caught and being tried.',1 "'Oh, mamma, don't be afraid.",1 There will be some risk no doubt; but we will lessen it as much as ever we can.,1 And it is so little!,2 "Now, if we were at Helstone, there would be twenty--a hundred times as much.",2 "There, everybody would remember him and if there was a stranger known to be in the house, they would be sure to guess it was Frederick; while here, nobody knows or cares for us enough to notice what we do.",2 "Dixon will keep the door like a dragon--won't you, Dixon--while he is here?'",3 'They'll be clever if they come in past me!',3 "said Dixon, showing her teeth at the bare idea.",2 "'And he need not go out, except in the dusk, poor fellow!'",1 'Poor fellow!',2 echoed Mrs. Hale.,3 'But I almost wish you had not written.,2 "Would it be too late to stop him if you wrote again, Margaret?'",2 "'I'm afraid it would, mamma,' said Margaret, remembering the urgency with which she had entreated him to come directly, if he wished to see his mother alive.",1 "'I always dislike that doing things in such a hurry,' said Mrs. Hale.",2 Margaret was silent.,3 "'Come now, ma'am,' said Dixon, with a kind of cheerful authority, 'you know seeing Master Frederick is just the very thing of all others you're longing for.",3 "And I'm glad Miss Margaret wrote off straight, without shilly-shallying.",2 I've had a great mind to do it myself.,3 "And we'll keep him snug, depend upon it.",2 There's only Martha in the house that would not do a good deal to save him on a pinch; and I've been thinking she might go and see her mother just at that very time.,2 "She's been saying once or twice she should like to go, for her mother has had a stroke since she came here, only she didn't like to ask.",3 "But I'll see about her being safe off, as soon as we know when he comes, God bless him!",3 "So take your tea, ma'am, in comfort, and trust to me.'",3 Mrs. Hale did trust in Dixon more than in Margaret.,3 Dixon's words quieted her for the time.,2 "Margaret poured out the tea in silence, trying to think of something agreeable to say; but her thoughts made answer something like Daniel O'Rourke, when the man-in-the-moon asked him to get off his reaping-hook.",3 "'The more you ax us, the more we won't stir.'",1 The more she tried to think of something anything besides the danger to which Frederick would be exposed--the more closely her imagination clung to the unfortunate idea presented to her.,1 "Her mother prattled with Dixon, and seemed to have utterly forgotten the possibility of Frederick being tried and executed--utterly forgotten that at her wish, if by Margaret's deed, he was summoned into this danger.",1 "Her mother was one of those who throw out terrible possibilities, miserable probabilities, unfortunate chances of all kinds, as a rocket throws out sparks; but if the sparks light on some combustible matter, they smoulder first, and burst out into a frightful flame at last.",0 "Margaret was glad when, her filial duties gently and carefully performed, she could go down into the study.",3 She wondered how her father and Higgins had got on.,2 "In the first place, the decorous, kind-hearted, simple, old-fashioned gentleman, had unconsciously called out, by his own refinement and courteousness of manner, all the latent courtesy in the other.",3 Mr. Hale treated all his fellow-creatures alike: it never entered into his head to make any difference because of their rank.,3 "He placed a chair for Nicholas stood up till he, at Mr. Hale's request, took a seat; and called him, invariably, 'Mr. Higgins,' instead of the curt 'Nicholas' or 'Higgins,' to which the 'drunken infidel weaver' had been accustomed.",1 But Nicholas was neither an habitual drunkard nor a thorough infidel.,1 "He drank to drown care, as he would have himself expressed it: and he was infidel so far as he had never yet found any form of faith to which he could attach himself, heart and soul.",2 "Margaret was a little surprised, and very much pleased, when she found her father and Higgins in earnest conversation--each speaking with gentle politeness to the other, however their opinions might clash.",4 "Nicholas--clean, tidied (if only at the pump-trough), and quiet spoken--was a new creature to her, who had only seen him in the rough independence of his own hearthstone.",3 "He had 'slicked' his hair down with the fresh water; he had adjusted his neck-handkerchief, and borrowed an odd candle-end to polish his clogs with and there he sat, enforcing some opinion on her father, with a strong Darkshire accent, it is true, but with a lowered voice, and a good, earnest composure on his face.",3 "Her father, too, was interested in what his companion was saying.",2 "He looked round as she came in, smiled, and quietly gave her his chair, and then sat down afresh as quickly as possible, and with a little bow of apology to his guest for the interruption.",1 "Higgins nodded to her as a sign of greeting; and she softly adjusted her working materials on the table, and prepared to listen.",2 "'As I was a-sayin, sir, I reckon yo'd not ha' much belief in yo' if yo' lived here,--if yo'd been bred here.",2 "I ax your pardon if I use wrong words; but what I mean by belief just now, is a-thinking on sayings and maxims and promises made by folk yo' never saw, about the things and the life, yo' never saw, nor no one else.",2 "Now, yo' say these are true things, and true sayings, and a true life.",2 "I just say, where's the proof?",2 "There's many and many a one wiser, and scores better learned than I am around me,--folk who've had time to think on these things,--while my time has had to be gi'en up to getting my bread.",3 "Well, I sees these people.",3 Their lives is pretty much open to me.,3 They're real folk.,2 "They don't believe i' the Bible,--not they.",2 "They may say they do, for form's sake; but Lord, sir, d'ye think their first cry i' th' morning is, ""What shall I do to get hold on eternal life?""",1 "or ""What shall I do to fill my purse this blessed day?",2 Where shall I go?,2 "What bargains shall I strike?""",1 "The purse and the gold and the notes is real things; things as can be felt and touched; them's realities; and eternal life is all a talk, very fit for--I ax your pardon, sir; yo'r a parson out o' work, I believe.",3 Well!,3 I'll never speak disrespectful of a man in the same fix as I'm in mysel'.,1 "But I'll just ax yo another question, sir, and I dunnot want yo to answer it, only to put in yo'r pipe, and smoke it, afore yo' go for to set down us, who only believe in what we see, as fools and noddies.",1 "If salvation, and life to come, and what not, was true--not in men's words, but in men's hearts' core--dun yo' not think they'd din us wi' it as they do wi' political 'conomy?",1 "They're mighty anxious to come round us wi' that piece o' wisdom; but t'other would be a greater convarsion, if it were true.'",3 'But the masters have nothing to do with your religion.,3 "All that they are connected with you in is trade,--so they think,--and all that it concerns them, therefore, to rectify your opinions in is the science of trade.'",2 "'I'm glad, sir,' said Higgins, with a curious wink of his eye, 'that yo' put in, ""so they think.""",3 "I'd ha' thought yo' a hypocrite, I'm afeard, if yo' hadn't, for all yo'r a parson, or rayther because yo'r a parson.",1 "Yo' see, if yo'd spoken o' religion as a thing that, if it was true, it didn't concern all men to press on all men's attention, above everything else in this 'varsal earth, I should ha' thought yo' a knave for to be a parson; and I'd rather think yo' a fool than a knave.",0 "No offence, I hope, sir.'",1 'None at all.,2 "You consider me mistaken, and I consider you far more fatally mistaken.",1 "I don't expect to convince you in a day,--not in one conversation; but let us know each other, and speak freely to each other about these things, and the truth will prevail.",2 I should not believe in God if I did not believe that.,2 "Mr. Higgins, I trust, whatever else you have given up, you believe'--(Mr. Hale's voice dropped low in reverence)--'you believe in Him.'",3 "Nicholas Higgins suddenly stood straight, stiff up.",1 "Margaret started to her feet,--for she thought, by the working of his face, he was going into convulsions.",2 Mr. Hale looked at her dismayed.,2 At last Higgins found words: 'Man!,2 I could fell yo' to the ground for tempting me.,2 Whatten business have yo' to try me wi' your doubts?,1 "Think o' her lying theere, after the life hoo's led and think then how yo'd deny me the one sole comfort left--that there is a God, and that He set her her life.",2 "I dunnot believe she'll ever live again,' said he, sitting down, and drearily going on, as if to the unsympathising fire.",2 "'I dunnot believe in any other life than this, in which she dreed such trouble, and had such never-ending care; and I cannot bear to think it were all a set o' chances, that might ha' been altered wi' a breath o' wind.",1 "There's many a time when I've thought I didna believe in God, but I've never put it fair out before me in words, as many men do.",3 "I may ha' laughed at those who did, to brave it out like--but I have looked round at after, to see if He heard me, if so be there was a He; but to-day, when I'm left desolate, I wunnot listen to yo' wi' yo'r questions, and yo'r doubts.",2 "There's but one thing steady and quiet i' all this reeling world, and, reason or no reason, I'll cling to that.",3 It's a' very well for happy folk'---- Margaret touched his arm very softly.,3 "She had not spoken before, nor had he heard her rise.",2 "'Nicholas, we do not want to reason; you misunderstand my father.",1 We do not reason--we believe; and so do you.,2 It is the one sole comfort in such times.',3 He turned round and caught her hand.,2 'Ay!,2 "it is, it is--(brushing away the tears with the back of his hand).--'But yo' know, she's lying dead at home and I'm welly dazed wi' sorrow, and at times I hardly know what I'm saying.",0 It's as if speeches folk ha' made--clever and smart things as I've thought at the time--come up now my heart's welly brossen.,3 "Th' strike's failed as well; dun yo' know that, miss?",1 "I were coming whoam to ask her, like a beggar as I am, for a bit o' comfort i' that trouble; and I were knocked down by one who telled me she were dead--just dead.",1 That were all; but that were enough for me.,3 "Mr. Hale blew his nose, and got up to snuff the candles in order to conceal his emotion.",3 "'He's not an infidel, Margaret; how could you say so?'",1 muttered he reproachfully 'I've a good mind to read him the fourteenth chapter of Job.',3 "'Not yet, papa, I think.",2 Perhaps not at all.,2 "Let us ask him about the strike, and give him all the sympathy he needs, and hoped to have from poor Bessy.'",1 So they questioned and listened.,2 The workmen's calculations were based (like too many of the masters') on false premises.,2 "They reckoned on their fellow-men as if they possessed the calculable powers of machines, no more, no less; no allowance for human passions getting the better of reason, as in the case of Boucher and the rioters; and believing that the representations of their injuries would have the same effect on strangers far away, as the injuries (fancied or real) had upon themselves.",3 "They were consequently surprised and indignant at the poor Irish, who had allowed themselves to be imported and brought over to take their places.",1 "This indignation was tempered, in some degree, by contempt for 'them Irishers,' and by pleasure at the idea of the bungling way in which they would set to work, and perplex their new masters with their ignorance and stupidity, strange exaggerated stories of which were already spreading through the town.",0 "But the most cruel cut of all was that of the Milton workmen, who had defied and disobeyed the commands of the Union to keep the peace, whatever came; who had originated discord in the camp, and spread the panic of the law being arrayed against them.",1 "'And so the strike is at an end,' said Margaret.",1 "'Ay, miss.",1 It's save as save can.,2 "Th' factory doors will need open wide to-morrow to let in all who'll be axing for work; if it's only just to show they'd nought to do wi' a measure, which if we'd been made o' th' right stuff would ha' brought wages up to a point they'n not been at this ten year.'",3 "'You'll get work, shan't you?'",3 asked Margaret.,2 "'You're a famous workman, are not you?'",3 "'Hamper'll let me work at his mill, when he cuts off his right hand--not before, and not after,' said Nicholas, quietly.",3 Margaret was silenced and sad.,1 "'About the wages,' said Mr. Hale.",3 "'You'll not be offended, but I think you make some sad mistakes.",1 I should like to read you some remarks in a book I have.',3 He got up and went to his book-shelves.,2 "'Yo' needn't trouble yoursel', sir,' said Nicholas.",1 'Their book-stuff goes in at one ear and out at t'other.,2 I can make nought on't.,2 "Afore Hamper and me had this split, th' overlooker telled him I were stirring up the men to ask for higher wages; and Hamper met me one day in th' yard.",1 "He'd a thin book i' his hand, and says he, ""Higgins, I'm told you're one of those damned fools that think you can get higher wages for asking for 'em; ay, and keep 'em up too, when you've forced 'em up.",1 "Now, I'll give yo' a chance and try if yo've any sense in yo'.",2 "Here's a book written by a friend o' mine, and if yo'll read it yo'll see how wages find their own level, without either masters or men having aught to do with them; except the men cut their own throats wi' striking, like the confounded noodles they are.""",3 "Well, now, sir, I put it to yo', being a parson, and having been in th' preaching line, and having had to try and bring folk o'er to what yo' thought was a right way o' thinking--did yo' begin by calling 'em fools and such like, or didn't yo' rayther give 'em some kind words at first, to make 'em ready for to listen and be convinced, if they could; and in yo'r preaching, did yo' stop every now and then, and say, half to them and half to yo'rsel', ""But yo're such a pack o' fools, that I've a strong notion it's no use my trying to put sense into yo'?""",4 "I were not i' th' best state, I'll own, for taking in what Hamper's friend had to say--I were so vexed at the way it were put to me;--but I thought, ""Come, I'll see what these chaps has got to say, and try if it's them or me as is th' noodle.""",3 "So I took th' book and tugged at it; but, Lord bless yo', it went on about capital and labour, and labour and capital, till it fair sent me off to sleep.",3 "I ne'er could rightly fix i' my mind which was which; and it spoke on 'em as if they was vartues or vices; and what I wanted for to know were the rights o' men, whether they were rich or poor--so be they only were men.'",3 "'But for all that,' said Mr. Hale, 'and granting to the full the offensiveness, the folly, the unchristianness of Mr. Hamper's way of speaking to you in recommending his friend's book, yet if it told you what he said it did, that wages find their own level, and that the most successful strike can only force them up for a moment, to sink in far greater proportion afterwards, in consequence of that very strike, the book would have told you the truth.'",1 "'Well, sir,' said Higgins, rather doggedly; 'it might, or it might not.",1 There's two opinions go to settling that point.,2 "But suppose it was truth double strong, it were no truth to me if I couldna take it in.",3 "I daresay there's truth in yon Latin book on your shelves; but it's gibberish and not truth to me, unless I know the meaning o' the words.",1 "If yo', sir, or any other knowledgable, patient man come to me, and says he'll larn me what the words mean, and not blow me up if I'm a bit stupid, or forget how one thing hangs on another--why, in time I may get to see the truth of it; or I may not.",1 I'll not be bound to say I shall end in thinking the same as any man.,2 "And I'm not one who think truth can be shaped out in words, all neat and clean, as th' men at th' foundry cut out sheet-iron.",3 Same bones won't go down wi' every one.,2 "It'll stick here i' this man's throat, and there i' t'other's.",2 "Let alone that, when down, it may be too strong for this one, too weak for that.",2 "Folk who sets up to doctor th' world wi' their truth, mun suit different for different minds; and be a bit tender in th' way of giving it too, or th' poor sick fools may spit it out i' their faces.",1 "Now Hamper first gi'es me a box on my ear, and then he throws his big bolus at me, and says he reckons it'll do me no good, I'm such a fool, but there it is.'",1 "'I wish some of the kindest and wisest of the masters would meet some of you men, and have a good talk on these things; it would, surely, be the best way of getting over your difficulties, which, I do believe, arise from your ignorance--excuse me, Mr. Higgins--on subjects which it is for the mutual interest of both masters and men should be well understood by both.",3 "I wonder'--(half to his daughter), 'if Mr. Thornton might not be induced to do such a thing?'",2 "'Remember, papa,' said she in a very low voice, 'what he said one day--about governments, you know.'",2 "She was unwilling to make any clearer allusion to the conversation they had held on the mode of governing work-people--by giving men intelligence enough to rule themselves, or by a wise despotism on the part of the master--for she saw that Higgins had caught Mr. Thornton's name, if not the whole of the speech: indeed, he began to speak of him.",4 'Thornton!,2 He's the chap as wrote off at once for these Irishers; and led to th' riot that ruined th' strike.,1 "Even Hamper wi' all his bullying, would ha' waited a while--but it's a word and a blow wi' Thornton.",0 "And, now, when th' Union would ha' thanked him for following up th' chase after Boucher, and them chaps as went right again our commands, it's Thornton who steps forrard and coolly says that, as th' strike's at an end, he, as party injured, doesn't want to press the charge again the rioters.",3 I thought he'd had more pluck.,2 "I thought he'd ha' carried his point, and had his revenge in an open way; but says he (one in court telled me his very words) ""they are well known; they will find the natural punishment of their conduct, in the difficulty they will meet wi' in getting employment.",1 "That will be severe enough.""",2 "I only wish they'd cotched Boucher, and had him up before Hamper.",1 I see th' oud tiger setting on him!,2 would he ha' let him off?,2 Not he!',2 "'Mr. Thornton was right,' said Margaret.",3 "You are angry against Boucher, Nicholas; or else you would be the first to see, that where the natural punishment would be severe enough for the offence, any farther punishment would be something like revenge.",1 "'My daughter is no great friend of Mr. Thornton's,' said Mr. Hale, smiling at Margaret; while she, as red as any carnation, began to work with double diligence, 'but I believe what she says is the truth.",4 I like him for it.',3 "'Well, sir, this strike has been a weary piece o' business to me; and yo'll not wonder if I'm a bit put out wi' seeing it fail, just for a few men who would na suffer in silence, and hou'd out, brave and firm.'",1 'You forget!',2 said Margaret.,2 "'I don't know much of Boucher; but the only time I saw him it was not his own sufferings he spoke of, but those of his sick wife--his little children.'",1 'True!,2 but he were not made of iron himsel'.,2 "He'd ha' cried out for his own sorrows, next.",2 He were not one to bear.',2 'How came he into the Union?',2 asked Margaret innocently.,2 'You don't seem to have much respect for him; nor gained much good from having him in.',4 Higgins's brow clouded.,2 He was silent for a minute or two.,3 "Then he said, shortly enough: 'It's not for me to speak o' th' Union.",3 "What they does, they does.",2 "Them that is of a trade mun hang together; and if they're not willing to take their chance along wi' th' rest, th' Union has ways and means.'",2 "Mr. Hale saw that Higgins was vexed at the turn the conversation had taken, and was silent.",3 "Not so Margaret, though she saw Higgins's feeling as clearly as he did.",3 "By instinct she felt, that if he could but be brought to express himself in plain words, something clear would be gained on which to argue for the right and the just.",4 'And what are the Union's ways and means?',2 "He looked up at her, as if on' the point of dogged resistance to her wish for information.",1 "But her calm face, fixed on his, patient and trustful, compelled him to answer.",3 'Well!,2 "If a man doesn't belong to th' Union, them as works next looms has orders not to speak to him--if he's sorry or ill it's a' the same; he's out o' bounds; he's none o' us; he comes among us, he works among us, but he's none o' us.",2 I' some places them's fined who speaks to him.,2 "Yo' try that, miss; try living a year or two among them as looks away if yo' look at 'em; try working within two yards o' crowds o' men, who, yo' know, have a grinding grudge at yo' in their hearts--to whom if yo' say yo'r glad, not an eye brightens, nor a lip moves,--to whom if your heart's heavy, yo' can never say nought, because they'll ne'er take notice on your sighs or sad looks (and a man 's no man who'll groan out loud 'bout folk asking him what 's the matter?)--just yo' try that, miss--ten hours for three hundred days, and yo'll know a bit what th' Union is.'",0 'Why!',2 "said Margaret, 'what tyranny this is!",1 "Nay, Higgins, I don't care one straw for your anger.",1 "I know you can't be angry with me if you would, and I must tell you the truth: that I never read, in all the history I have read, of a more slow, lingering torture than this.",0 And you belong to the Union!,2 And you talk of the tyranny of the masters!',2 "'Nay,' said Higgins, 'yo' may say what yo' like!",3 The dead stand between yo and every angry word o' mine.,1 "D' ye think I forget who's lying _there_, and how hoo loved yo'?",2 "And it's th' masters as has made us sin, if th' Union is a sin.",2 "Not this generation maybe, but their fathers.",2 Their fathers ground our fathers to the very dust; ground us to powder!,1 Parson!,2 "I reckon, I've heerd my mother read out a text, ""The fathers have eaten sour grapes and th' children's teeth are set on edge.""",1 It's so wi' them.,2 In those days of sore oppression th' Unions began; it were a necessity.,1 "It's a necessity now, according to me.",2 "It's a withstanding of injustice, past, present, or to come.",1 It may be like war; along wi' it come crimes; but I think it were a greater crime to let it alone.,2 "Our only chance is binding men together in one common interest; and if some are cowards and some are fools, they mun come along and join the great march, whose only strength is in numbers.'",3 'Oh!',2 "said Mr. Hale, sighing, 'your Union in itself would be beautiful, glorious,--it would be Christianity itself--if it were but for an end which affected the good of all, instead of that of merely one class as opposed to another.'",4 "'I reckon it's time for me to be going, sir,' said Higgins, as the clock struck ten.",1 'Home?',2 said Margaret very softly.,2 "He understood her, and took her offered hand.",2 "'Home, miss.",1 "Yo' may trust me, tho' I am one o' th' Union.'",3 "'I do trust you most thoroughly, Nicholas.'",3 'Stay!',2 "said Mr. Hale, hurrying to the book-shelves.",3 'Mr. Higgins!,2 I'm sure you'll join us in family prayer?',2 "Higgins looked at Margaret, doubtfully.",1 "Her grave sweet eyes met his; there was no compulsion, only deep interest in them.",2 "He did not speak, but he kept his place.",2 "Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together.",1 It did them no harm.,1 The next morning brought Margaret a letter from Edith.,2 It was affectionate and inconsequent like the writer.,3 "But the affection was charming to Margaret's own affectionate nature; and she had grown up with the inconsequence, so she did not perceive it.",4 "It was as follows:-- 'Oh, Margaret, it is worth a journey from England to see my boy!",3 "He is a superb little fellow, especially in his caps, and most especially in the one you sent him, you good, dainty-fingered, persevering little lady!",3 "Having made all the mothers here envious, I want to show him to somebody new, and hear a fresh set of admiring expressions; perhaps, that's all the reason; perhaps it is not--nay, possibly, there is just a little cousinly love mixed with it; but I do want you so much to come here, Margaret!",4 "I'm sure it would be the very best thing for Aunt Hale's health; everybody here is young and well, and our skies are always blue, and our sun always shines, and the band plays deliciously from morning till night; and, to come back to the burden of my ditty, my baby always smiles.",3 "I am constantly wanting you to draw him for me, Margaret.",2 "It does not signify what he is doing; that very thing is prettiest, gracefulest, best.",3 "I think I love him a great deal better than my husband, who is getting stout, and grumpy,--what he calls ""busy.""",3 No!,2 he is not.,2 "He has just come in with news of such a charming pic-nic, given by the officers of the Hazard, at anchor in the bay below.",2 "Because he has brought in such a pleasant piece of news, I retract all I said just now.",2 Did not somebody burn his hand for having said or done something he was sorry for?,1 "Well, I can't burn mine, because it would hurt me, and the scar would be ugly; but I'll retract all I said as fast as I can.",0 "Cosmo is quite as great a darling as baby, and not a bit stout, and as un-grumpy as ever husband was; only, sometimes he is very, very busy.",3 "I may say that without love--wifely duty--where was I?--I had something very particular to say, I know, once.",3 "Oh, it is this--Dearest Margaret!--you must come and see me; it would do Aunt Hale good, as I said before.",3 Get the doctor to order it for her.,2 Tell him that it's the smoke of Milton that does her harm.,1 "I have no doubt it is that, really.",1 "Three months (you must not come for less) of this delicious climate--all sunshine, and grapes as common as blackberries, would quite cure her.",3 "I don't ask my uncle'--(Here the letter became more constrained, and better written; Mr. Hale was in the corner, like a naughty child, for having given up his living.)--'because, I dare say, he disapproves of war, and soldiers, and bands of music; at least, I know that many Dissenters are members of the Peace Society, and I am afraid he would not like to come; but, if he would, dear, pray say that Cosmo and I will do our best to make him happy; and I'll hide up Cosmo's red coat and sword, and make the band play all sorts of grave, solemn things; or, if they do play pomps and vanities, it shall be in double slow time.",3 "Dear Margaret, if he would like to accompany you and Aunt Hale, we will try and make it pleasant, though I'm rather afraid of any one who has done something for conscience sake.",3 "You never did, I hope.",2 "Tell Aunt Hale not to bring many warm clothes, though I'm afraid it will be late in the year before you can come.",3 But you have no idea of the heat here!,2 I tried to wear my great beauty Indian shawl at a pic-nic.,3 "I kept myself up with proverbs as long as I could; ""Pride must abide,""--and such wholesome pieces of pith; but it was of no use.",3 "I was like mamma's little dog Tiny with an elephant's trappings on; smothered, hidden, killed with my finery; so I made it into a capital carpet for us all to sit down upon.",2 "Here's this boy of mine, Margaret,--if you don't pack up your things as soon as you get this letter, a come straight off to see him, I shall think you're descended from King Herod!'",2 "Margaret did long for a day of Edith's life--her freedom from care, her cheerful home, her sunny skies.",3 "If a wish could have transported her, she would have gone off; just for one day.",2 "She yearned for the strength which such a change would give,--even for a few hours to be in the midst of that bright life, and to feel young again.",3 Not yet twenty!,2 and she had had to bear up against such hard pressure that she felt quite old.,1 That was her first feeling after reading Edith's letter.,2 "Then she read it again, and, forgetting herself, was amused at its likeness to Edith's self, and was laughing merrily over it when Mrs. Hale came into the drawing-room, leaning on Dixon's arm.",3 Margaret flew to adjust the pillows.,2 Her mother seemed more than usually feeble.,1 "'What were you laughing at, Margaret?'",2 "asked she, as soon as she had recovered from the exertion of settling herself on the sofa.",2 'A letter I have had this morning from Edith.,2 "Shall I read it you, mamma?'",2 "She read it aloud, and for a time it seemed to interest her mother, who kept wondering what name Edith had given to her boy, and suggesting all probable names, and all possible reasons why each and all of these names should be given.",2 "Into the very midst of these wonders Mr. Thornton came, bringing another offering of fruit for Mrs. Hale.",3 "He could not--say rather, he would not--deny himself the chance of the pleasure of seeing Margaret.",2 He had no end in this but the present gratification.,3 It was the sturdy wilfulness of a man usually most reasonable and self-controlled.,3 "He entered the room, taking in at a glance the fact of Margaret's presence; but after the first cold distant bow, he never seemed to let his eyes fall on her again.",1 "He only stayed to present his peaches--to speak some gentle kindly words--and then his cold offended eyes met Margaret's with a grave farewell, as he left the room.",3 She sat down silent and pale.,2 "'Do you know, Margaret, I really begin quite to like Mr. Thornton.'",3 No answer at first.,2 Then Margaret forced out an icy 'Do you?',2 'Yes!,2 I think he is really getting quite polished in his manners.',3 Margaret's voice was more in order now.,2 "She replied, 'He is very kind and attentive,--there is no doubt of that.'",2 'I wonder Mrs. Thornton never calls.,3 "She must know I am ill, because of the water-bed.'",2 "'I dare say, she hears how you are from her son.'",2 "'Still, I should like to see her.",3 "You have so few friends here, Margaret.'",2 "Margaret felt what was in her mother's thoughts,--a tender craving to bespeak the kindness of some woman towards the daughter that might be so soon left motherless.",3 But she could not speak.,2 "'Do you think,' said Mrs. Hale, after a pause, 'that you could go and ask Mrs. Thornton to come and see me?",3 "Only once,--I don't want to be troublesome.'",1 "'I will do anything, if you wish it, mamma,--but if--but when Frederick comes---- ' 'Ah, to be sure!",2 "we must keep our doors shut,--we must let no one in.",2 I hardly know whether I dare wish him to come or not.,2 Sometimes I think I would rather not.,2 Sometimes I have such frightful dreams about him.',1 "'Oh, mamma!",2 we'll take good care.,3 I will put my arm in the bolt sooner than he should come to the slightest harm.,1 "Trust the care of him to me, mamma.",3 I will watch over him like a lioness over her young.',3 'When can we hear from him?',2 "'Not for a week yet, certainly,--perhaps more.'",2 'We must send Martha away in good time.,3 "It would never do to have her here when he comes, and then send her off in a hurry.'",2 'Dixon is sure to remind us of that.,2 "I was thinking that, if we wanted any help in the house while he is here, we could perhaps get Mary Higgins.",2 "She is very slack of work, and is a good girl, and would take pains to do her best, I am sure, and would sleep at home, and need never come upstairs, so as to know who is in the house.'",3 'As you please.,2 As Dixon pleases.,3 "But, Margaret, don't get to use these horrid Milton words.",1 """Slack of work:"" it is a provincialism.",2 "What will your aunt Shaw say, if she hears you use it on her return?'",2 "'Oh, mamma!",2 "don't try and make a bugbear of aunt Shaw' said Margaret, laughing.",2 "'Edith picked up all sorts of military slang from Captain Lennox, and aunt Shaw never took any notice of it.'",2 'But yours is factory slang.',2 "'And if I live in a factory town, I must speak factory language when I want it.",2 "Why, mamma, I could astonish you with a great many words you never heard in your life.",3 I don't believe you know what a knobstick is.',2 "'Not I, child.",2 I only know it has a very vulgar sound and I don't want to hear you using it.',1 "'Very well, dearest mother, I won't.",3 Only I shall have to use a whole explanatory sentence instead.',2 "'I don't like this Milton,' said Mrs. Hale.",3 'Edith is right enough in saying it's the smoke that has made me so ill.',3 Margaret started up as her mother said this.,2 "Her father had just entered the room, and she was most anxious that the faint impression she had seen on his mind that the Milton air had injured her mother's health, should not be deepened,--should not receive any confirmation.",1 "She could not tell whether he had heard what Mrs. Hale had said or not; but she began speaking hurriedly of other things, unaware that Mr. Thornton was following him.",3 'Mamma is accusing me of having picked up a great deal of vulgarity since we came to Milton.',2 "The 'vulgarity' Margaret spoke of, referred purely to the use of local words, and the expression arose out of the conversation they had just been holding.",2 "But Mr. Thornton's brow darkened; and Margaret suddenly felt how her speech might be misunderstood by him; so, in the natural sweet desire to avoid giving unnecessary pain, she forced herself to go forwards with a little greeting, and continue what she was saying, addressing herself to him expressly.",0 "'Now, Mr. Thornton, though ""knobstick"" has not a very pretty sound, is it not expressive?",3 "Could I do without it, in speaking of the thing it represents?",2 "If using local words is vulgar, I was very vulgar in the Forest,--was I not, mamma?'",1 "It was unusual with Margaret to obtrude her own subject of conversation on others; but, in this case, she was so anxious to prevent Mr. Thornton from feeling annoyance at the words he had accidentally overheard, that it was not until she had done speaking that she coloured all over with consciousness, more especially as Mr. Thornton seemed hardly to understand the exact gist or bearing of what she was saying, but passed her by, with a cold reserve of ceremonious movement, to speak to Mrs. Hale.",0 "The sight of him reminded her of the wish to see his mother, and commend Margaret to her care.",3 "Margaret, sitting in burning silence, vexed and ashamed of her difficulty in keeping her right place, and her calm unconsciousness of heart, when Mr. Thornton was by, heard her mother's slow entreaty that Mrs. Thornton would come and see her; see her soon; to-morrow, if it were possible.",1 "Mr. Thornton promised that she should--conversed a little, and then took his leave; and Margaret's movements and voice seemed at once released from some invisible chains.",2 "He never looked at her; and yet, the careful avoidance of his eyes betokened that in some way he knew exactly where, if they fell by chance, they would rest on her.",1 "If she spoke, he gave no sign of attention, and yet his next speech to any one else was modified by what she had said; sometimes there was an express answer to what she had remarked, but given to another person as though unsuggested by her.",2 It was not the bad manners of ignorance; it was the wilful bad manners arising from deep offence.,0 "It was wilful at the time, repented of afterwards.",2 "But no deep plan, no careful cunning could have stood him in such good stead.",3 "Margaret thought about him more than she had ever done before; not with any tinge of what is called love, but with regret that she had wounded him so deeply,--and with a gentle, patient striving to return to their former position of antagonistic friendship; for a friend's position was what she found that he had held in her regard, as well as in that of the rest of the family.",4 "There was a pretty humility in her behaviour to him, as if mutely apologising for the over-strong words which were the reaction from the deeds of the day of the riot.",4 But he resented those words bitterly.,1 They rung in his ears; and he was proud of the sense of justice which made him go on in every kindness he could offer to her parents.,3 "He exulted in the power he showed in compelling himself to face her, whenever he could think of any action which might give her father or mother pleasure.",3 He thought that he disliked seeing one who had mortified him so keenly; but he was mistaken.,1 "It was a stinging pleasure to be in the room with her, and feel her presence.",2 "But he was no great analyser of his own motives, and was mistaken as I have said.",2 Mrs. Thornton came to see Mrs. Hale the next morning.,3 She was much worse.,1 "One of those sudden changes--those great visible strides towards death, had been taken in the night, and her own family were startled by the gray sunken look her features had assumed in that one twelve hours of suffering.",1 Mrs. Thornton--who had not seen her for weeks--was softened all at once.,2 "She had come because her son asked it from her as a personal favour, but with all the proud bitter feelings of her nature in arms against that family of which Margaret formed one.",3 "She doubted the reality of Mrs. Hale's illness; she doubted any want beyond a momentary fancy on that lady's part, which should take her out of her previously settled course of employment for the day.",2 She told her son that she wished they had never come near the place; that he had never got acquainted with them; that there had been no such useless languages as Latin and Greek ever invented.,1 "He bore all this pretty silently; but when she had ended her invective against the dead languages, he quietly returned to the short, curt, decided expression of his wish that she should go and see Mrs. Hale at the time appointed, as most likely to be convenient to the invalid.",1 "Mrs. Thornton submitted with as bad a grace as she could to her son's desire, all the time liking him the better for having it; and exaggerating in her own mind the same notion that he had of extraordinary goodness on his part in so perseveringly keeping up with the Hales.",4 "His goodness verging on weakness (as all the softer virtues did in her mind), and her own contempt for Mr. and Mrs. Hale, and positive dislike to Margaret, were the ideas which occupied Mrs. Thornton, till she was struck into nothingness before the dark shadow of the wings of the angel of death.",1 "There lay Mrs. Hale--a mother like herself--a much younger woman than she was,--on the bed from which there was no sign of hope that she might ever rise again.",3 "No more variety of light and shade for her in that darkened room; no power of action, scarcely change of movement; faint alternations of whispered sound and studious silence; and yet that monotonous life seemed almost too much!",0 "When Mrs. Thornton, strong and prosperous with life, came in, Mrs. Hale lay still, although from the look on her face she was evidently conscious of who it was.",4 But she did not even open her eyes for a minute or two.,2 "The heavy moisture of tears stood on the eye-lashes before she looked up, then with her hand groping feebly over the bed-clothes, for the touch of Mrs. Thornton's large firm fingers, she said, scarcely above her breath--Mrs. Thornton had to stoop from her erectness to listen,-- 'Margaret--you have a daughter--my sister is in Italy.",1 "My child will be without a mother;--in a strange place,--if I die--will you'---- And her filmy wandering eyes fixed themselves with an intensity of wistfulness on Mrs. Thornton's face.",1 "For a minute, there was no change in its rigidness; it was stern and unmoved;--nay, but that the eyes of the sick woman were growing dim with the slow-gathering tears, she might have seen a dark cloud cross the cold features.",0 "And it was no thought of her son, or of her living daughter Fanny, that stirred her heart at last; but a sudden remembrance, suggested by something in the arrangement of the room,--of a little daughter--dead in infancy--long years ago--that, like a sudden sunbeam, melted the icy crust, behind which there was a real tender woman.",3 "'You wish me to be a friend to Miss Hale,' said Mrs. Thornton, in her measured voice, that would not soften with her heart, but came out distinct and clear.",3 "Mrs. Hale, her eyes still fixed on Mrs. Thornton's face, pressed the hand that lay below hers on the coverlet.",3 She could not speak.,2 "Mrs. Thornton sighed, 'I will be a true friend, if circumstances require it.",2 Not a tender friend.,3 "That I cannot be,'--('to her,' she was on the point of adding, but she relented at the sight of that poor, anxious face.)--'It is not my nature to show affection even where I feel it, nor do I volunteer advice in general.",1 "Still, at your request,--if it will be any comfort to you, I will promise you.'",3 Then came a pause.,2 "Mrs. Thornton was too conscientious to promise what she did not mean to perform; and to perform any-thing in the way of kindness on behalf of Margaret, more disliked at this moment than ever, was difficult; almost impossible.",2 "'I promise,' said she, with grave severity; which, after all, inspired the dying woman with faith as in something more stable than life itself,--flickering, flitting, wavering life!",2 'I promise that in any difficulty in which Miss Hale'---- 'Call her Margaret!',1 gasped Mrs. Hale.,3 "'In which she comes to me for help, I will help her with every power I have, as if she were my own daughter.",2 "I also promise that if ever I see her doing what I think is wrong'---- 'But Margaret never does wrong--not wilfully wrong,' pleaded Mrs. Hale.",3 "Mrs. Thornton went on as before; as if she had not heard: 'If ever I see her doing what I believe to be wrong--such wrong not touching me or mine, in which case I might be supposed to have an interested motive--I will tell her of it, faithfully and plainly, as I should wish my own daughter to be told.'",2 There was a long pause.,2 Mrs. Hale felt that this promise did not include all; and yet it was much.,3 "It had reservations in it which she did not understand; but then she was weak, dizzy, and tired.",0 Mrs. Thornton was reviewing all the probable cases in which she had pledged herself to act.,2 "She had a fierce pleasure in the idea of telling Margaret unwelcome truths, in the shape of performance of duty.",1 Mrs. Hale began to speak: 'I thank you.,3 I pray God to bless you.,3 I shall never see you again in this world.,2 "But my last words are, I thank you for your promise of kindness to my child.'",4 'Not kindness!',3 "testified Mrs. Thornton, ungraciously truthful to the last.",3 "But having eased her conscience by saying these words, she was not sorry that they were not heard.",2 She pressed Mrs. Hale's soft languid hand; and rose up and went her way out of the house without seeing a creature.,2 "During the time that Mrs. Thornton was having this interview with Mrs. Hale, Margaret and Dixon were laying their heads together, and consulting how they should keep Frederick's coming a profound secret to all out of the house.",3 A letter from him might now be expected any day; and he would assuredly follow quickly on its heels.,3 "Martha must be sent away on her holiday; Dixon must keep stern guard on the front door, only admitting the few visitors that ever came to the house into Mr. Hale's room down-stairs--Mrs. Hale's extreme illness giving her a good excuse for this.",1 "If Mary Higgins was required as a help to Dixon in the kitchen she was to hear and see as little of Frederick as possible; and he was, if necessary to be spoken of to her under the name of Mr. Dickinson.",2 But her sluggish and incurious nature was the greatest safeguard of all.,2 They resolved that Martha should leave them that very afternoon for this visit to her mother.,2 "Margaret wished that she had been sent away on the previous day, as she fancied it might be thought strange to give a servant a holiday when her mistress's state required so much attendance.",1 Poor Margaret!,1 "All that afternoon she had to act the part of a Roman daughter, and give strength out of her own scanty stock to her father.",2 "Mr. Hale would hope, would not despair, between the attacks of his wife's malady; he buoyed himself up in every respite from her pain, and believed that it was the beginning of ultimate recovery.",1 "And so, when the paroxysms came on, each more severe than the last, they were fresh agonies, and greater disappointments to him.",1 "This afternoon, he sat in the drawing-room, unable to bear the solitude of his study, or to employ himself in any way.",1 "He buried his head in his arms, which lay folded on the table.",2 "Margaret's heart ached to see him; yet, as he did not speak, she did not like to volunteer any attempt at comfort.",3 Martha was gone.,2 Dixon sat with Mrs. Hale while she slept.,3 "The house was very still and quiet, and darkness came on, without any movement to procure candles.",2 "Margaret sat at the window, looking out at the lamps and the street, but seeing nothing,--only alive to her father's heavy sighs.",2 "She did not like to go down for lights, lest the tacit restraint of her presence being withdrawn, he might give way to more violent emotion, without her being at hand to comfort him.",3 "Yet she was just thinking that she ought to go and see after the well-doing of the kitchen fire, which there was nobody but herself to attend to when she heard the muffled door-ring with so violent a pull, that the wires jingled all through the house, though the positive sound was not great.",3 "She started up, passed her father, who had never moved at the veiled, dull sound,--returned, and kissed him tenderly.",2 "And still he never moved, nor took any notice of her fond embrace.",3 "Then she went down softly, through the dark, to the door.",1 "Dixon would have put the chain on before she opened it, but Margaret had not a thought of fear in her pre-occupied mind.",1 A man's tall figure stood between her and the luminous street.,3 He was looking away; but at the sound of the latch he turned quickly round.,2 'Is this Mr. Hale's?',2 "said he, in a clear, full, delicate voice.",3 Margaret trembled all over; at first she did not answer.,2 "In a moment she sighed out, 'Frederick!'",2 "and stretched out both her hands to catch his, and draw him in.",2 "'Oh, Margaret!'",2 "said he, holding her off by her shoulders, after they had kissed each other, as if even in that darkness he could see her face, and read in its expression a quicker answer to his question than words could give,-- 'My mother!",2 is she alive?',2 "'Yes, she is alive, dear, dear brother!",2 She--as ill as she can be she is; but alive!,2 She is alive!',2 'Thank God!',2 said he.,2 'Papa is utterly prostrate with this great grief.',1 "'You expect me, don't you?'",2 "'No, we have had no letter.'",2 'Then I have come before it.,2 But my mother knows I am coming?',2 'Oh!,2 we all knew you would come.,2 But wait a little!,2 Step in here.,2 Give me your hand.,2 What is this?,2 Oh!,2 your carpet-bag.,2 "Dixon has shut the shutters; but this is papa's study, and I can take you to a chair to rest yourself for a few minutes; while I go and tell him.'",2 She groped her way to the taper and the lucifer matches.,2 "She suddenly felt shy, when the little feeble light made them visible.",1 "All she could see was, that her brother's face was unusually dark in complexion, and she caught the stealthy look of a pair of remarkably long-cut blue eyes, that suddenly twinkled up with a droll consciousness of their mutual purpose of inspecting each other.",1 "But though the brother and sister had an instant of sympathy in their reciprocal glances, they did not exchange a word; only, Margaret felt sure that she should like her brother as a companion as much as she already loved him as a near relation.",3 "Her heart was wonderfully lighter as she went up-stairs; the sorrow was no less in reality, but it became less oppressive from having some one in precisely the same relation to it as that in which she stood.",3 Not her father's desponding attitude had power to damp her now.,2 "He lay across the table, helpless as ever; but she had the spell by which to rouse him.",1 She used it perhaps too violently in her own great relief.,3 "'Papa,' said she, throwing her arms fondly round his neck; pulling his weary head up in fact with her gentle violence, till it rested in her arms, and she could look into his eyes, and let them gain strength and assurance from hers.",4 'Papa!,2 guess who is here!',2 "He looked at her; she saw the idea of the truth glimmer into their filmy sadness, and be dismissed thence as a wild imagination.",1 "He threw himself forward, and hid his face once more in his stretched-out arms, resting upon the table as heretofore.",2 She heard him whisper; she bent tenderly down to listen.,2 'I don't know.,2 Don't tell me it is Frederick--not Frederick.,2 "I cannot bear it,--I am too weak.",1 And his mother is dying!',1 He began to cry and wail like a child.,1 "It was so different to all which Margaret had hoped and expected, that she turned sick with disappointment, and was silent for an instant.",1 "Then she spoke again--very differently--not so exultingly, far more tenderly and carefully.",3 "'Papa, it is Frederick!",2 "Think of mamma, how glad she will be!",3 "And oh, for her sake, how glad we ought to be!",3 "For his sake, too,--our poor, poor boy!'",1 "Her father did not change his attitude, but he seemed to be trying to understand the fact.",2 'Where is he?',2 "asked he at last, his face still hidden in his prostrate arms.",2 "'In your study, quite alone.",2 "I lighted the taper, and ran up to tell you.",2 "He is quite alone, and will be wondering why--' 'I will go to him,' broke in her father; and he lifted himself up and leant on her arm as on that of a guide.",1 "Margaret led him to the study door, but her spirits were so agitated that she felt she could not bear to see the meeting.",3 "She turned away, and ran up-stairs, and cried most heartily.",3 It was the first time she had dared to allow herself this relief for days.,3 "The strain had been terrible, as she now felt.",1 But Frederick was come!,2 "He, the one precious brother, was there, safe, amongst them again!",3 She could hardly believe it.,2 "She stopped her crying, and opened her bedroom door.",2 "She heard no sound of voices, and almost feared she might have dreamt.",2 "She went down-stairs, and listened at the study door.",2 She heard the buzz of voices; and that was enough.,3 "She went into the kitchen, and stirred up the fire, and lighted the house, and prepared for the wanderer's refreshment.",2 How fortunate it was that her mother slept!,3 "She knew that she did, from the candle-lighter thrust through the keyhole of her bedroom door.",3 "The traveller could be refreshed and bright, and the first excitement of the meeting with his father all be over, before her mother became aware of anything unusual.",3 "When all was ready, Margaret opened the study door, and went in like a serving-maiden, with a heavy tray held in her extended arms.",3 She was proud of serving Frederick.,3 "But he, when he saw her, sprang up in a minute, and relieved her of her burden.",1 "It was a type, a sign, of all the coming relief which his presence would bring.",3 "The brother and sister arranged the table together, saying little, but their hands touching, and their eyes speaking the natural language of expression, so intelligible to those of the same blood.",3 "The fire had gone out; and Margaret applied herself to light it, for the evenings had begun to be chilly; and yet it was desirable to make all noises as distant as possible from Mrs. Hale's room.",1 'Dixon says it is a gift to light a fire; not an art to be acquired.',2 "'Poeta nascitur, non fit,' murmured Mr. Hale; and Margaret was glad to hear a quotation once more, however languidly given.",3 'Dear old Dixon!,2 How we shall kiss each other!',2 said Frederick.,2 "'She used to kiss me, and then look in my face to be sure I was the right person, and then set to again!",3 "But, Margaret, what a bungler you are!",1 "I never saw such a little awkward, good-for-nothing pair of hands.",2 "Run away, and wash them, ready to cut bread-and-butter for me, and leave the fire.",3 I'll manage it.,2 Lighting fires is one of my natural accomplishments.',3 "So Margaret went away; and returned; and passed in and out of the room, in a glad restlessness that could not be satisfied with sitting still.",3 "The more wants Frederick had, the better she was pleased; and he understood all this by instinct.",3 "It was a joy snatched in the house of mourning, and the zest of it was all the more pungent, because they knew in the depths of their hearts what irremediable sorrow awaited them.",3 "In the middle, they heard Dixon's foot on the stairs.",2 "Mr. Hale started from his languid posture in his great armchair, from which he had been watching his children in a dreamy way, as if they were acting some drama of happiness, which it was pretty to look at, but which was distinct from reality, and in which he had no part.",4 "He stood up, and faced the door, showing such a strange, sudden anxiety to conceal Frederick from the sight of any person entering, even though it were the faithful Dixon, that a shiver came over Margaret's heart: it reminded her of the new fear in their lives.",0 "She caught at Frederick's arm, and clutched it tight, while a stern thought compressed her brows, and caused her to set her teeth.",1 And yet they knew it was only Dixon's measured tread.,2 "They heard her walk the length of the passage, into the kitchen.",2 Margaret rose up.,2 "'I will go to her, and tell her.",2 And I shall hear how mamma is.',2 Mrs. Hale was awake.,3 "She rambled at first; but after they had given her some tea she was refreshed, though not disposed to talk.",3 It was better that the night should pass over before she was told of her son's arrival.,3 Dr. Donaldson's appointed visit would bring nervous excitement enough for the evening; and he might tell them how to prepare her for seeing Frederick.,3 "He was there, in the house; could be summoned at any moment.",2 Margaret could not sit still.,2 It was a relief to her to aid Dixon in all her preparations for 'Master Frederick.',3 It seemed as though she never could be tired again.,1 "Each glimpse into the room where he sate by his father, conversing with him, about, she knew not what, nor cared to know,--was increase of strength to her.",2 "Her own time for talking and hearing would come at last, and she was too certain of this to feel in a hurry to grasp it now.",2 She took in his appearance and liked it.,3 "He had delicate features, redeemed from effeminacy by the swarthiness of his complexion, and his quick intensity of expression.",3 "His eyes were generally merry-looking, but at times they and his mouth so suddenly changed, and gave her such an idea of latent passion, that it almost made her afraid.",3 "But this look was only for an instant; and had in it no doggedness, no vindictiveness; it was rather the instantaneous ferocity of expression that comes over the countenances of all natives of wild or southern countries--a ferocity which enhances the charm of the childlike softness into which such a look may melt away.",1 "Margaret might fear the violence of the impulsive nature thus occasionally betrayed, but there was nothing in it to make her distrust, or recoil in the least, from the new-found brother.",0 "On the contrary, all their intercourse was peculiarly charming to her from the very first.",2 "She knew then how much responsibility she had had to bear, from the exquisite sensation of relief which she felt in Frederick's presence.",4 "He understood his father and mother--their characters and their weaknesses, and went along with a careless freedom, which was yet most delicately careful not to hurt or wound any of their feelings.",0 "He seemed to know instinctively when a little of the natural brilliancy of his manner and conversation would not jar on the deep depression of his father, or might relieve his mother's pain.",1 "Whenever it would have been out of tune, and out of time, his patient devotion and watchfulness came into play, and made him an admirable nurse.",3 Then Margaret was almost touched into tears by the allusions which he often made to their childish days in the New Forest; he had never forgotten her--or Helstone either--all the time he had been roaming among distant countries and foreign people.,1 "She might talk to him of the old spot, and never fear tiring him.",1 "She had been afraid of him before he came, even while she had longed for his coming; seven or eight years had, she felt, produced such great changes in herself that, forgetting how much of the original Margaret was left, she had reasoned that if her tastes and feelings had so materially altered, even in her stay-at-home life, his wild career, with which she was but imperfectly acquainted, must have almost substituted another Frederick for the tall stripling in his middy's uniform, whom she remembered looking up to with such admiring awe.",3 "But in their absence they had grown nearer to each other in age, as well as in many other things.",2 "And so it was that the weight, this sorrowful time, was lightened to Margaret.",1 Other light than that of Frederick's presence she had none.,2 "For a few hours, the mother rallied on seeing her son.",2 "She sate with his hand in hers; she would not part with it even while she slept; and Margaret had to feed him like a baby, rather than that he should disturb her mother by removing a finger.",2 "Mrs. Hale wakened while they were thus engaged; she slowly moved her head round on the pillow, and smiled at her children, as she understood what they were doing, and why it was done.",2 "'I am very selfish,' said she; 'but it will not be for long.'",1 Frederick bent down and kissed the feeble hand that imprisoned his.,1 "This state of tranquillity could not endure for many days, nor perhaps for many hours; so Dr. Donaldson assured Margaret.",2 "After the kind doctor had gone away, she stole down to Frederick, who, during the visit, had been adjured to remain quietly concealed in the back parlour, usually Dixon's bedroom, but now given up to him.",1 Margaret told him what Dr. Donaldson said.,2 "'I don't believe it,' he exclaimed.",2 "'She is very ill; she may be dangerously ill, and in immediate danger, too; but I can't imagine that she could be as she is, if she were on the point of death.",1 Margaret!,2 she should have some other advice--some London doctor.,2 Have you never thought of that?',2 "'Yes,' said Margaret, 'more than once.",2 But I don't believe it would do any good.,3 "And, you know, we have not the money to bring any great London surgeon down, and I am sure Dr. Donaldson is only second in skill to the very best,--if, indeed, he is to them.'",4 Frederick began to walk up and down the room impatiently.,1 "'I have credit in Cadiz,' said he, 'but none here, owing to this wretched change of name.",1 Why did my father leave Helstone?,2 That was the blunder.',1 "'It was no blunder,' said Margaret gloomily.",1 "'And above all possible chances, avoid letting papa hear anything like what you have just been saying.",3 "I can see that he is tormenting himself already with the idea that mamma would never have been ill if we had stayed at Helstone, and you don't know papa's agonising power of self-reproach!'",1 Frederick walked away as if he were on the quarter-deck.,2 "At last he stopped right opposite to Margaret, and looked at her drooping and desponding attitude for an instant.",3 'My little Margaret!',2 "said he, caressing her.",2 'Let us hope as long as we can.,2 Poor little woman!,1 what!,2 is this face all wet with tears?,2 I will hope.,2 "I will, in spite of a thousand doctors.",1 "Bear up, Margaret, and be brave enough to hope!'",3 "Margaret choked in trying to speak, and when she did it was very low.",2 'I must try to be meek enough to trust.,3 "Oh, Frederick!",2 mamma was getting to love me so!,3 And I was getting to understand her.,2 And now comes death to snap us asunder!',1 "'Come, come, come!",2 "Let us go up-stairs, and do something, rather than waste time that may be so precious.",2 "Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life.",2 "My theory is a sort of parody on the maxim of ""Get money, my son, honestly if you can; but get money.""",1 "My precept is, ""Do something, my sister, do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something.""",3 "' 'Not excluding mischief,' said Margaret, smiling faintly through her tears.",2 'By no means.,2 What I do exclude is the remorse afterwards.,1 "Blot your misdeeds out (if you are particularly conscientious), by a good deed, as soon as you can; just as we did a correct sum at school on the slate, where an incorrect one was only half rubbed out.",3 "It was better than wetting our sponge with our tears; both less loss of time where tears had to be waited for, and a better effect at last.'",2 "If Margaret thought Frederick's theory rather a rough one at first, she saw how he worked it out into continual production of kindness in fact.",3 "After a bad night with his mother (for he insisted on taking his turn as a sitter-up) he was busy next morning before breakfast, contriving a leg-rest for Dixon, who was beginning to feel the fatigues of watching.",1 "At breakfast-time, he interested Mr. Hale with vivid, graphic, rattling accounts of the wild life he had led in Mexico, South America, and elsewhere.",3 Margaret would have given up the effort in despair to rouse Mr. Hale out of his dejection; it would even have affected herself and rendered her incapable of talking at all.,1 "But Fred, true to his theory, did something perpetually; and talking was the only thing to be done, besides eating, at breakfast.",2 "Before the night of that day, Dr. Donaldson's opinion was proved to be too well founded.",3 "Convulsions came on; and when they ceased, Mrs. Hale was unconscious.",3 Her husband might lie by her shaking the bed with his sobs; her son's strong arms might lift her tenderly up into a comfortable position; her daughter's hands might bathe her face; but she knew them not.,3 "She would never recognise them again, till they met in Heaven.",3 Before the morning came all was over.,2 "Then Margaret rose from her trembling and despondency, and became as a strong angel of comfort to her father and brother.",3 "For Frederick had broken down now, and all his theories were of no use to him.",1 "He cried so violently when shut up alone in his little room at night, that Margaret and Dixon came down in affright to warn him to be quiet: for the house partitions were but thin, and the next-door neighbours might easily hear his youthful passionate sobs, so different from the slower trembling agony of after-life, when we become inured to grief, and dare not be rebellious against the inexorable doom, knowing who it is that decrees.",0 Margaret sate with her father in the room with the dead.,1 "If he had cried, she would have been thankful.",3 "But he sate by the bed quite quietly; only, from time to time, he uncovered the face, and stroked it gently, making a kind of soft inarticulate noise, like that of some mother-animal caressing her young.",2 He took no notice of Margaret's presence.,2 "Once or twice she came up to kiss him; and he submitted to it, giving her a little push away when she had done, as if her affection disturbed him from his absorption in the dead.",1 "He started when he heard Frederick's cries, and shook his head:--'Poor boy!",2 poor boy!',1 "he said, and took no more notice.",2 Margaret's heart ached within her.,1 She could not think of her own loss in thinking of her father's case.,1 "The night was wearing away, and the day was at hand, when, without a word of preparation, Margaret's voice broke upon the stillness of the room, with a clearness of sound that startled even herself: 'Let not your heart be troubled,' it said; and she went steadily on through all that chapter of unspeakable consolation.",0 "The chill, shivery October morning came; not the October morning of the country, with soft, silvery mists, clearing off before the sunbeams that bring out all the gorgeous beauty of colouring, but the October morning of Milton, whose silver mists were heavy fogs, and where the sun could only show long dusky streets when he did break through and shine.",3 "Margaret went languidly about, assisting Dixon in her task of arranging the house.",2 "Her eyes were continually blinded by tears, but she had no time to give way to regular crying.",2 "The father and brother depended upon her; while they were giving way to grief, she must be working, planning, considering.",1 Even the necessary arrangements for the funeral seemed to devolve upon her.,2 "When the fire was bright and crackling--when everything was ready for breakfast, and the tea-kettle was singing away, Margaret gave a last look round the room before going to summon Mr. Hale and Frederick.",4 "She wanted everything to look as cheerful as possible; and yet, when it did so, the contrast between it and her own thoughts forced her into sudden weeping.",3 "She was kneeling by the sofa, hiding her face in the cushions that no one might hear her cry, when she was touched on the shoulder by Dixon.",1 "'Come, Miss Hale--come, my dear!",2 "You must not give way, or where shall we all be?",2 "There is not another person in the house fit to give a direction of any kind, and there is so much to be done.",2 "There's who's to manage the funeral; and who's to come to it; and where it's to be; and all to be settled: and Master Frederick's like one crazed with crying, and master never was a good one for settling; and, poor gentleman, he goes about now as if he was lost.",3 "It's bad enough, my dear, I know; but death comes to us all; and you're well off never to have lost any friend till now.'",1 Perhaps so.,2 But this seemed a loss by itself; not to bear comparison with any other event in the world.,1 "Margaret did not take any comfort from what Dixon said, but the unusual tenderness of the prim old servant's manner touched her to the heart; and, more from a desire to show her gratitude for this than for any other reason, she roused herself up, and smiled in answer to Dixon's anxious look at her; and went to tell her father and brother that breakfast was ready.",2 "Mr. Hale came--as if in a dream, or rather with the unconscious motion of a sleep-walker, whose eyes and mind perceive other things than what are present.",3 "Frederick came briskly in, with a forced cheerfulness, grasped her hand, looked into her eyes, and burst into tears.",2 "She had to try and think of little nothings to say all breakfast-time, in order to prevent the recurrence of her companions' thoughts too strongly to the last meal they had taken together, when there had been a continual strained listening for some sound or signal from the sick-room.",1 "After breakfast, she resolved to speak to her father, about the funeral.",2 "He shook his head, and assented to all she proposed, though many of her propositions absolutely contradicted one another.",2 "Margaret gained no real decision from him; and was leaving the room languidly, to have a consultation with Dixon, when Mr. Hale motioned her back to his side.",3 "'Ask Mr. Bell,' said he in a hollow voice.",1 'Mr. Bell!',2 "said she, a little surprised.",2 'Mr. Bell of Oxford?',2 "'Mr. Bell,' he repeated.",2 'Yes.,2 He was my groom's-man.',2 Margaret understood the association.,2 "'I will write to-day,' said she.",2 He sank again into listlessness.,2 "All morning she toiled on, longing for rest, but in a continual whirl of melancholy business.",1 "Towards evening, Dixon said to her: 'I've done it, miss.",1 "I was really afraid for master, that he'd have a stroke with grief.",1 "He's been all this day with poor missus; and when I've listened at the door, I've heard him talking to her, and talking to her, as if she was alive.",1 "When I went in he would be quite quiet, but all in a maze like.",3 "So I thought to myself, he ought to be roused; and if it gives him a shock at first, it will, maybe, be the better afterwards.",2 "So I've been and told him, that I don't think it's safe for Master Frederick to be here.",3 And I don't.,2 "It was only on Tuesday, when I was out, that I met a Southampton man--the first I've seen since I came to Milton; they don't make their way much up here, I think.",2 "Well, it was young Leonards, old Leonards the draper's son, as great a scamp as ever lived--who plagued his father almost to death, and then ran off to sea.",3 I never could abide him.,2 "He was in the Orion at the same time as Master Frederick, I know; though I don't recollect if he was there at the mutiny.'",3 'Did he know you?',2 "said Margaret, eagerly.",3 "'Why, that's the worst of it.",1 I don't believe he would have known me but for my being such a fool as to call out his name.,1 "He were a Southampton man, in a strange place, or else I should never have been so ready to call cousins with him, a nasty, good-for-nothing fellow.",2 "Says he, ""Miss Dixon!",1 who would ha' thought of seeing you here?,2 "But perhaps I mistake, and you're Miss Dixon no longer?""",1 "So I told him he might still address me as an unmarried lady, though if I hadn't been so particular, I'd had good chances of matrimony.",3 "He was polite enough: ""He couldn't look at me and doubt me.""",3 "But I were not to be caught with such chaff from such a fellow as him, and so I told him; and, by way of being even, I asked him after his father (who I knew had turned him out of doors), as if they was the best friends as ever was.",2 "So then, to spite me--for you see we were getting savage, for all we were so civil to each other--he began to inquire after Master Frederick, and said, what a scrape he'd got into (as if Master Frederick's scrapes would ever wash George Leonards' white, or make 'em look otherwise than nasty, dirty black), and how he'd be hung for mutiny if ever he were caught, and how a hundred pound reward had been offered for catching him, and what a disgrace he had been to his family--all to spite me, you see, my dear, because before now I've helped old Mr. Leonards to give George a good rating, down in Southampton.",1 "So I said, there were other families be thankful if they could think they were earning an honest living as I knew, who had far more cause to blush for their sons, and to far away from home.",3 "To which he made answer, like the impudent chap he is, that he were in a confidential situation, and if I knew of any young man who had been so unfortunate as to lead vicious courses, and wanted to turn steady, he'd have no objection to lend him his patronage.",1 "He, indeed!",2 "Why, he'd corrupt a saint.",2 I've not felt so bad myself for years as when I were standing talking to him the other day.,1 "I could have cried to think I couldn't spite him better, for he kept smiling in my face, as if he took all my compliments for earnest; and I couldn't see that he minded what I said in the least, while I was mad with all his speeches.'",3 'But you did not tell him anything about us--about Frederick?',2 "'Not I,' said Dixon.",2 'He had never the grace to ask where I was staying; and I shouldn't have told him if he had asked.,3 Nor did I ask him what his precious situation was.,3 "He was waiting for a bus, and just then it drove up, and he hailed it.",2 "But, to plague me to the last, he turned back before he got in, and said, ""If you can help me to trap Lieutenant Hale, Miss Dixon, we'll go partners in the reward.",1 "I know you'd like to be my partner, now wouldn't you?",3 "Don't be shy, but say yes.""",2 "And he jumped on the bus, and I saw his ugly face leering at me with a wicked smile to think how he'd had the last word of plaguing.'",1 Margaret was made very uncomfortable by this account of Dixon's.,1 'Have you told Frederick?',2 asked she.,2 "'No,' said Dixon.",2 'I were uneasy in my mind at knowing that bad Leonards was in town; but there was so much else to think about that I did not dwell on it at all.,1 "But when I saw master sitting so stiff, and with his eyes so glazed and sad, I thought it might rouse him to have to think of Master Frederick's safety a bit.",1 "So I told him all, though I blushed to say how a young man had been speaking to me.",2 And it has done master good.,3 "And if we're to keep Master Frederick in hiding, he would have to go, poor fellow, before Mr. Bell came.'",2 "'Oh, I'm not afraid of Mr. Bell; but I am afraid of this Leonards.",1 I must tell Frederick.,2 What did Leonards look like?',3 "'A bad-looking fellow, I can assure you, miss.",1 Whiskers such as I should be ashamed to wear--they are so red.,1 "And for all he said he'd got a confidential situation, he was dressed in fustian just like a working-man.'",3 It was evident that Frederick must go.,2 "Go, too, when he had so completely vaulted into his place in the family, and promised to be such a stay and staff to his father and sister.",3 "Go, when his cares for the living mother, and sorrow for the dead, seemed to make him one of those peculiar people who are bound to us by a fellow-love for them that are taken away.",1 "Just as Margaret was thinking all this, sitting over the drawing-room fire--her father restless and uneasy under the pressure of this newly-aroused fear, of which he had not as yet spoken--Frederick came in, his brightness dimmed, but the extreme violence of his grief passed away.",0 "He came up to Margaret, and kissed her forehead.",2 "'How wan you look, Margaret!'",2 said he in a low voice.,2 "'You have been thinking of everybody, and no one has thought of you.",2 Lie on this sofa--there is nothing for you to do.',1 "'That is the worst,' said Margaret, in a sad whisper.",1 "But she went and lay down, and her brother covered her feet with a shawl, and then sate on the ground by her side; and the two began to talk in a subdued tone.",1 Margaret told him all that Dixon had related of her interview with young Leonards.,2 Frederick's lips closed with a long whew of dismay.,1 'I should just like to have it out with that young fellow.,3 A worse sailor was never on board ship--nor a much worse man either.,1 "I declare, Margaret--you know the circumstances of the whole affair?'",2 "'Yes, mamma told me.'",2 "'Well, when all the sailors who were good for anything were indignant with our captain, this fellow, to curry favour--pah!",3 And to think of his being here!,2 "Oh, if he'd a notion I was within twenty miles of him, he'd ferret me out to pay off old grudges.",1 I'd rather anybody had the hundred pounds they think I am worth than that rascal.,2 "What a pity poor old Dixon could not be persuaded to give me up, and make a provision for her old age!'",1 "'Oh, Frederick, hush!",2 Don't talk so.',2 "Mr. Hale came towards them, eager and trembling.",3 He had overheard what they were saying.,2 "He took Frederick's hand in both of his: 'My boy, you must go.",2 It is very bad--but I see you must.,1 You have done all you could--you have been a comfort to her.',3 "'Oh, papa, must he go?'",2 "said Margaret, pleading against her own conviction of necessity.",2 "'I declare, I've a good mind to face it out, and stand my trial.",3 If I could only pick up my evidence!,2 I cannot endure the thought of being in the power of such a blackguard as Leonards.,2 I could almost have enjoyed--in other circumstances--this stolen visit: it has had all the charm which the French-woman attributed to forbidden pleasures.',2 "'One of the earliest things I can remember,' said Margaret, 'was your being in some great disgrace, Fred, for stealing apples.",1 "We had plenty of our own--trees loaded with them; but some one had told you that stolen fruit tasted sweetest, which you took au pied de la lettre, and off you went a-robbing.",1 You have not changed your feelings much since then.',2 "'Yes--you must go,' repeated Mr. Hale, answering Margaret's question, which she had asked some time ago.",3 "His thoughts were fixed on one subject, and it was an effort to him to follow the zig-zag remarks of his children--an effort which he did not make.",2 Margaret and Frederick looked at each other.,2 That quick momentary sympathy would be theirs no longer if he went away.,2 So much was understood through eyes that could not be put into words.,2 Both coursed the same thought till it was lost in sadness.,1 "Frederick shook it off first: 'Do you know, Margaret, I was very nearly giving both Dixon and myself a good fright this afternoon.",2 "I was in my bedroom; I had heard a ring at the front door, but I thought the ringer must have done his business and gone away long ago; so I was on the point of making my appearance in the passage, when, as I opened my room door, I saw Dixon coming downstairs; and she frowned and kicked me into hiding again.",2 "I kept the door open, and heard a message given to some man that was in my father's study, and that then went away.",2 Who could it have been?,2 Some of the shopmen?',2 "'Very likely,' said Margaret, indifferently.",2 'There was a little quiet man who came up for orders about two o'clock.',3 'But this was not a little man--a great powerful fellow; and it was past four when he was here.',3 "'It was Mr. Thornton,' said Mr. Hale.",3 They were glad to have drawn him into the conversation.,3 'Mr. Thornton!',2 "said Margaret, a little surprised.",2 "'I thought---- ' 'Well, little one, what did you think?'",2 "asked Frederick, as she did not finish her sentence.",2 "'Oh, only,' said she, reddening and looking straight at him, 'I fancied you meant some one of a different class, not a gentleman; somebody come on an errand.'",2 "'He looked like some one of that kind,' said Frederick, carelessly.",3 "'I took him for a shopman, and he turns out a manufacturer.'",2 Margaret was silent.,3 "She remembered how at first, before she knew his character, she had spoken and thought of him just as Frederick was doing.",2 "It was but a natural impression that was made upon him, and yet she was a little annoyed by it.",1 She was unwilling to speak; she wanted to make Frederick understand what kind of person Mr. Thornton was--but she was tongue-tied.,1 Mr. Hale went on.,3 "'He came to offer any assistance in his power, I believe.",2 But I could not see him.,2 "I told Dixon to ask him if he would like to see you--I think I asked her to find you, and you would go to him.",3 I don't know what I said.',2 "'He has been a very agreeable acquaintance, has he not?'",3 "asked Frederick, throwing the question like a ball for any one to catch who chose.",3 "'A very kind friend,' said Margaret, when her father did not answer.",2 Frederick was silent for a time.,3 "At last he spoke: 'Margaret, it is painful to think I can never thank those who have shown you kindness.",3 Your acquaintances and mine must be separate.,2 "Unless, indeed, I run the chances of a court-martial, or unless you and my father would come to Spain.'",2 He threw out this last suggestion as a kind of feeler; and then suddenly made the plunge.,2 'You don't know how I wish you would.,2 "I have a good position--the chance of a better,' continued he, reddening like a girl.",4 "'That Dolores Barbour that I was telling you of, Margaret--I only wish you knew her; I am sure you would like--no, love is the right word, like is so poor--you would love her, father, if you knew her.",3 "She is not eighteen; but if she is in the same mind another year, she is to be my wife.",2 Mr. Barbour won't let us call it an engagement.,2 "But if you would come, you would find friends everywhere, besides Dolores.",2 "Think of it, father.",2 "Margaret, be on my side.'",2 "'No--no more removals for me,' said Mr. Hale.",3 'One removal has cost me my wife.,2 No more removals in this life.,2 She will be here; and here will I stay out my appointed time.',2 "'Oh, Frederick,' said Margaret, 'tell us more about her.",2 I never thought of this; but I am so glad.,3 You will have some one to love and care for you out there.,3 Tell us all about it.',2 "'In the first place, she is a Roman Catholic.",2 That's the only objection I anticipated.,1 "But my father's change of opinion--nay, Margaret, don't sigh.'",2 Margaret had reason to sigh a little more before the conversation ended.,2 "Frederick himself was Roman Catholic in fact, though not in profession as yet.",2 "This was, then, the reason why his sympathy in her extreme distress at her father's leaving the Church had been so faintly expressed in his letters.",1 "She had thought it was the carelessness of a sailor; but the truth was, that even then he was himself inclined to give up the form of religion into which he had been baptised, only that his opinions were tending in exactly the opposite direction to those of his father.",1 How much love had to do with this change not even Frederick himself could have told.,3 "Margaret gave up talking about this branch of the subject at last; and, returning to the fact of the engagement, she began to consider it in some fresh light: 'But for her sake, Fred, you surely will try and clear yourself of the exaggerated charges brought against you, even if the charge of mutiny itself be true.",3 "If there were to be a court-martial, and you could find your witnesses, you might, at any rate, show how your disobedience to authority was because that authority was unworthily exercised.'",1 Mr. Hale roused himself up to listen to his son's answer.,3 "'In the first place, Margaret, who is to hunt up my witnesses?",2 "All of them are sailors, drafted off to other ships, except those whose evidence would go for very little, as they took part, or sympathised in the affair.",2 "In the next place, allow me to tell you, you don't know what a court-martial is, and consider it as an assembly where justice is administered, instead of what it really is--a court where authority weighs nine-tenths in the balance, and evidence forms only the other tenth.",2 "In such cases, evidence itself can hardly escape being influenced by the prestige of authority.'",3 "'But is it not worth trying, to see how much evidence might be discovered and arrayed on your behalf?",3 "At present, all those who knew you formerly, believe you guilty without any shadow of excuse.",1 "You have never tried to justify yourself, and we have never known where to seek for proofs of your justification.",2 "Now, for Miss Barbour's sake, make your conduct as clear as you can in the eye of the world.",2 "She may not care for it; she has, I am sure, that trust in you that we all have; but you ought not to let her ally herself to one under such a serious charge, without showing the world exactly how it is you stand.",3 "You disobeyed authority--that was bad; but to have stood by, without word or act, while the authority was brutally used, would have been infinitely worse.",0 People know what you did; but not the motives that elevate it out of a crime into an heroic protection of the weak.,3 "For Dolores' sake, they ought to know.'",2 'But how must I make them know?,2 "I am not sufficiently sure of the purity and justice of those who would be my judges, to give myself up to a court-martial, even if I could bring a whole array of truth-speaking witnesses.",3 "I can't send a bellman about, to cry aloud and proclaim in the streets what you are pleased to call my heroism.",2 "No one would read a pamphlet of self-justification so long after the deed, even if I put one out.'",2 'Will you consult a lawyer as to your chances of exculpation?',2 "asked Margaret, looking up, and turning very red.",2 "'I must first catch my lawyer, and have a look at him, and see how I like him, before I make him into my confidant.",3 "Many a briefless barrister might twist his conscience into thinking that he could earn a hundred pounds very easily by doing a good action--in giving me, a criminal, up to justice.'",1 "'Nonsense, Frederick!--because I know a lawyer on whose honour I can rely; of whose cleverness in his profession people speak very highly; and who would, I think, take a good deal of trouble for any of--of Aunt Shaw's relations.",2 "Mr. Henry Lennox, papa.'",2 "'I think it is a good idea,' said Mr. Hale.",3 'But don't propose anything which will detain Frederick in England.,2 "Don't, for your mother's sake.'",2 "'You could go to London to-morrow evening by a night-train,' continued Margaret, warming up into her plan.",2 "'He must go to-morrow, I'm afraid, papa,' said she, tenderly; 'we fixed that, because of Mr. Bell, and Dixon's disagreeable acquaintance.'",1 "'Yes; I must go to-morrow,' said Frederick decidedly.",2 Mr. Hale groaned.,3 "'I can't bear to part with you, and yet I am miserable with anxiety as long as you stop here.'",1 "'Well then,' said Margaret, 'listen to my plan.",2 He gets to London on Friday morning.,2 I will--you might--no!,2 it would be better for me to give him a note to Mr. Lennox.,3 You will find him at his chambers in the Temple.',2 'I will write down a list of all the names I can remember on board the Orion.,2 I could leave it with him to ferret them out.,2 "He is Edith's husband's brother, isn't he?",2 I remember your naming him in your letters.,2 I have money in Barbour's hands.,2 "I can pay a pretty long bill, if there is any chance of success.",3 "Money, dear father, that I had meant for a different purpose; so I shall only consider it as borrowed from you and Margaret.'",2 "'Don't do that,' said Margaret.",2 'You won't risk it if you do.,1 And it will be a risk only it is worth trying.,2 You can sail from London as well as from Liverpool?',3 "'To be sure, little goose.",2 "Wherever I feel water heaving under a plank, there I feel at home.",2 "I'll pick up some craft or other to take me off, never fear.",1 "I won't stay twenty-four hours in London, away from you on the one hand, and from somebody else on the other.'",2 It was rather a comfort to Margaret that Frederick took it into his head to look over her shoulder as she wrote to Mr. Lennox.,3 "If she had not been thus compelled to write steadily and concisely on, she might have hesitated over many a word, and been puzzled to choose between many an expression, in the awkwardness of being the first to resume the intercourse of which the concluding event had been so unpleasant to both sides.",0 "However, the note was taken from her before she had even had time to look it over, and treasured up in a pocket-book, out of which fell a long lock of black hair, the sight of which caused Frederick's eyes to glow with pleasure.",3 "'Now you would like to see that, wouldn't you?'",3 said he.,2 'No!,2 you must wait till you see her herself.,2 She is too perfect to be known by fragments.,3 No mean brick shall be a specimen of the building of my palace.',2 All the next day they sate together--they three.,2 "Mr. Hale hardly ever spoke but when his children asked him questions, and forced him, as it were, into the present.",3 "Frederick's grief was no more to be seen or heard; the first paroxysm had passed over, and now he was ashamed of having been so battered down by emotion; and though his sorrow for the loss of his mother was a deep real feeling, and would last out his life, it was never to be spoken of again.",0 "Margaret, not so passionate at first, was more suffering now.",2 "At times she cried a good deal; and her manner, even when speaking on indifferent things, had a mournful tenderness about it, which was deepened whenever her looks fell on Frederick, and she thought of his rapidly approaching departure.",0 "She was glad he was going, on her father's account, however much she might grieve over it on her own.",2 "The anxious terror in which Mr. Hale lived lest his son should be detected and captured, far out-weighed the pleasure he derived from his presence.",2 "The nervousness had increased since Mrs. Hale's death, probably because he dwelt upon it more exclusively.",1 He started at every unusual sound; and was never comfortable unless Frederick sate out of the immediate view of any one entering the room.,2 "Towards evening he said: 'You will go with Frederick to the station, Margaret?",2 I shall want to know he is safely off.,3 "You will bring me word that he is clear of Milton, at any rate?'",3 "'Certainly,' said Margaret.",2 "'I shall like it, if you won't be lonely without me, papa.'",2 "'No, no!",2 "I should always be fancying some one had known him, and that he had been stopped, unless you could tell me you had seen him off.",2 And go to the Outwood station.,2 "It is quite as near, and not so many people about.",2 Take a cab there.,2 There is less risk of his being seen.,1 "What time is your train, Fred?'",2 'Ten minutes past six; very nearly dark.,1 "So what will you do, Margaret?'",2 "'Oh, I can manage.",2 I am getting very brave and very hard.,2 "It is a well-lighted road all the way home, if it should be dark.",2 But I was out last week much later.',2 Margaret was thankful when the parting was over--the parting from the dead mother and the living father.,2 "She hurried Frederick into the cab, in order to shorten a scene which she saw was so bitterly painful to her father, who would accompany his son as he took his last look at his mother.",1 "Partly in consequence of this, and partly owing to one of the very common mistakes in the 'Railway Guide' as to the times when trains arrive at the smaller stations, they found, on reaching Outwood, that they had nearly twenty minutes to spare.",1 "The booking-office was not open, so they could not even take the ticket.",2 They accordingly went down the flight of steps that led to the level of the ground below the railway.,3 "There was a broad cinder-path diagonally crossing a field which lay along-side of the carriage-road, and they went there to walk backwards and forwards for the few minutes they had to spare.",2 Margaret's hand lay in Frederick's arm.,2 He took hold of it affectionately.,2 'Margaret!,2 "I am going to consult Mr. Lennox as to the chance of exculpating myself, so that I may return to England whenever I choose, more for your sake than for the sake of any one else.",2 I can't bear to think of your lonely position if anything should happen to my father.,1 He looks sadly changed--terribly shaken.,1 "I wish you could get him to think of the Cadiz plan, for many reasons.",2 What could you do if he were taken away?,2 You have no friend near.,2 We are curiously bare of relations.',2 "Margaret could hardly keep from crying at the tender anxiety with which Frederick was bringing before her an event which she herself felt was not very improbable, so severely had the cares of the last few months told upon Mr. Hale.",2 "But she tried to rally as she said: 'There have been such strange unexpected changes in my life during these last two years, that I feel more than ever that it is not worth while to calculate too closely what I should do if any future event took place.",1 I try to think only upon the present.',2 "She paused; they were standing still for a moment, close on the field side of the stile leading into the road; the setting sun fell on their faces.",2 "Frederick held her hand in his, and looked with wistful anxiety into her face, reading there more care and trouble than she would betray by words.",0 "She went on: 'We shall write often to one another, and I will promise--for I see it will set your mind at ease--to tell you every worry I have.",3 "Papa is'--she started a little, a hardly visible start--but Frederick felt the sudden motion of the hand he held, and turned his full face to the road, along which a horseman was slowly riding, just passing the very stile where they stood.",1 Margaret bowed; her bow was stiffly returned.,2 'Who is that?',2 "said Frederick, almost before he was out of hearing.",2 "Margaret was a little drooping, a little flushed, as she replied: 'Mr. Thornton; you saw him before, you know.'",2 'Only his back.,2 He is an unprepossessing-looking fellow.,2 What a scowl he has!',1 "'Something has happened to vex him,' said Margaret, apologetically.",1 'You would not have thought him unprepossessing if you had seen him with mamma.',2 'I fancy it must be time to go and take my ticket.,3 "If I had known how dark it would be, we wouldn't have sent back the cab, Margaret.'",1 "'Oh, don't fidget about that.",1 "I can take a cab here, if I like; or go back by the rail-road, when I should have shops and people and lamps all the way from the Milton station-house.",2 Don't think of me; take care of yourself.,2 I am sick with the thought that Leonards may be in the same train with you.,1 Look well into the carriage before you get in.',3 They went back to the station.,2 Margaret insisted upon going into the full light of the flaring gas inside to take the ticket.,2 Some idle-looking young men were lounging about with the stationmaster.,1 "Margaret thought she had seen the face of one of them before, and returned him a proud look of offended dignity for his somewhat impertinent stare of undisguised admiration.",3 "She went hastily to her brother, who was standing outside, and took hold of his arm.",1 'Have you got your bag?,2 "Let us walk about here on the platform,' said she, a little flurried at the idea of so soon being left alone, and her bravery oozing out rather faster than she liked to acknowledge even to herself.",4 "She heard a step following them along the flags; it stopped when they stopped, looking out along the line and hearing the whizz of the coming train.",2 They did not speak; their hearts were too full.,2 "Another moment, and the train would be here; a minute more, and he would be gone.",2 Margaret almost repented the urgency with which she had entreated him to go to London; it was throwing more chances of detection in his way.,2 "If he had sailed for Spain by Liverpool, he might have been off in two or three hours.",2 "Frederick turned round, right facing the lamp, where the gas darted up in vivid anticipation of the train.",3 "A man in the dress of a railway porter started forward; a bad-looking man, who seemed to have drunk himself into a state of brutality, although his senses were in perfect order.",1 "'By your leave, miss!'",1 "said he, pushing Margaret rudely on one side, and seizing Frederick by the collar.",2 "'Your name is Hale, I believe?'",3 "In an instant--how, Margaret did not see, for everything danced before her eyes--but by some sleight of wrestling, Frederick had tripped him up, and he fell from the height of three or four feet, which the platform was elevated above the space of soft ground, by the side of the railroad.",2 There he lay.,2 "'Run, run!'",2 gasped Margaret.,2 'The train is here.,2 "It was Leonards, was it?",2 "oh, run!",2 I will carry your bag.',2 And she took him by the arm to push him along with all her feeble force.,1 "A door was opened in a carriage--he jumped in; and as he leant out to say, 'God bless you, Margaret!'",3 the train rushed past her; an she was left standing alone.,2 "She was so terribly sick and faint that she was thankful to be able to turn into the ladies' waiting-room, and sit down for an instant.",1 At first she could do nothing but gasp for breath.,1 It was such a hurry; such a sickening alarm; such a near chance.,1 "If the train had not been there at the moment, the man would have jumped up again and called for assistance to arrest him.",2 She wondered if the man had got up: she tried to remember if she had seen him move; she wondered if he could have been seriously hurt.,1 "She ventured out; the platform was all alight, but still quite deserted; she went to the end, and looked over, somewhat fearfully.",1 "No one was there; and then she was glad she had made herself go, and inspect, for otherwise terrible thoughts would have haunted her dreams.",2 "And even as it was, she was so trembling and affrighted that she felt she could not walk home along the road, which did indeed seem lonely and dark, as she gazed down upon it from the blaze of the station.",1 She would wait till the down train passed and take her seat in it.,2 But what if Leonards recognised her as Frederick's companion!,2 "She peered about, before venturing into the booking-office to take her ticket.",2 There were only some railway officials standing about; and talking loud to one another.,1 'So Leonards has been drinking again!',2 "said one, seemingly in authority.",2 'He'll need all his boasted influence to keep his place this time.',2 'Where is he?',2 "asked another, while Margaret, her back towards them, was counting her change with trembling fingers, not daring to turn round until she heard the answer to this question.",3 'I don't know.,2 "He came in not five minutes ago, with some long story or other about a fall he'd had, swearing awfully; and wanted to borrow some money from me to go to London by the next up-train.",1 "He made all sorts of tipsy promises, but I'd something else to do than listen to him; I told him to go about his business; and he went off at the front door.'",3 "'He's at the nearest vaults, I'll be bound,' said the first speaker.",2 "'Your money would have gone there too, if you'd been such a fool as to lend it.'",1 'Catch me!,2 I knew better what his London meant.,3 "Why, he has never paid me off that five shillings'--and so they went on.",2 And now all Margaret's anxiety was for the train to come.,1 "She hid herself once more in the ladies' waiting-room, and fancied every noise was Leonards' step--every loud and boisterous voice was his.",0 "But no one came near her until the train drew up; when she was civilly helped into a carriage by a porter, into whose face she durst not look till they were in motion, and then she saw that it was not Leonards'.",3 Home seemed unnaturally quiet after all this terror and noisy commotion.,0 "Her father had seen all due preparation made for her refreshment on her return; and then sate down again in his accustomed chair, to fall into one of his sad waking dreams.",1 "Dixon had got Mary Higgins to scold and direct in the kitchen; and her scolding was not the less energetic because it was delivered in an angry whisper; for, speaking above her breath she would have thought irreverent, as long as there was any one dead lying in the house.",0 Margaret had resolved not to mention the crowning and closing affright to her father.,2 "There was no use in speaking about it; it had ended well; the only thing to be feared was lest Leonards should in some way borrow money enough to effect his purpose of following Frederick to London, and hunting him out there.",3 But there were immense chances against the success of any such plan; and Margaret determined not to torment herself by thinking of what she could do nothing to prevent.,3 Frederick would be as much on his guard as she could put him; and in a day or two at most he would be safely out of England.,3 "'I suppose we shall hear from Mr. Bell to-morrow,' said Margaret.",2 "'Yes,' replied her father.",2 'I suppose so.',2 "'If he can come, he will be here to-morrow evening, I should think.'",2 "'If he cannot come, I shall ask Mr. Thornton to go with me to the funeral.",2 I cannot go alone.,2 I should break down utterly.',1 "'Don't ask Mr. Thornton, papa.",2 "Let me go with you,' said Margaret, impetuously.",1 'You!,2 "My dear, women do not generally go.'",2 'No: because they can't control themselves.,2 "Women of our class don't go, because they have no power over their emotions, and yet are ashamed of showing them.",1 "Poor women go, and don't care if they are seen overwhelmed with grief.",0 "But I promise you, papa, that if you will let me go, I will be no trouble.",2 "Don't have a stranger, and leave me out.",1 Dear papa!,2 "if Mr. Bell cannot come, I shall go.",2 "I won't urge my wish against your will, if he does.'",2 Mr. Bell could not come.,2 He had the gout.,2 "It was a most affectionate letter, and expressed great and true regret for his inability to attend.",2 "He hoped to come and pay them a visit soon, if they would have him; his Milton property required some looking after, and his agent had written to him to say that his presence was absolutely necessary; or else he had avoided coming near Milton as long as he could, and now the only thing that would reconcile him to this necessary visit was the idea that he should see, and might possibly be able to comfort his old friend.",3 Margaret had all the difficulty in the world to persuade her father not to invite Mr. Thornton.,1 She had an indescribable repugnance to this step being taken.,1 "The night before the funeral, came a stately note from Mrs. Thornton to Miss Hale, saying that, at her son's desire, their carriage should attend the funeral, if it would not be disagreeable to the family.",2 Margaret tossed the note to her father.,2 "'Oh, don't let us have these forms,' said she.",2 "'Let us go alone--you and me, papa.",2 "They don't care for us, or else he would have offered to go himself, and not have proposed this sending an empty carriage.'",2 "'I thought you were so extremely averse to his going, Margaret,' said Mr. Hale in some surprise.",2 'And so I am.,2 I don't want him to come at all; and I should especially dislike the idea of our asking him.,1 But this seems such a mockery of mourning that I did not expect it from him.',1 She startled her father by bursting into tears.,2 "She had been so subdued in her grief, so thoughtful for others, so gentle and patient in all things, that he could not understand her impatient ways to-night; she seemed agitated and restless; and at all the tenderness which her father in his turn now lavished upon her, she only cried the more.",1 She passed so bad a night that she was ill prepared for the additional anxiety caused by a letter received from Frederick.,1 Mr. Lennox was out of town; his clerk said that he would return by the following Tuesday at the latest; that he might possibly be at home on Monday.,2 "Consequently, after some consideration, Frederick had determined upon remaining in London a day or two longer.",2 "He had thought of coming down to Milton again; the temptation had been very strong; but the idea of Mr. Bell domesticated in his father's house, and the alarm he had received at the last moment at the railway station, had made him resolve to stay in London.",1 Margaret might be assured he would take every precaution against being tracked by Leonards.,2 Margaret was thankful that she received this letter while her father was absent in her mother's room.,3 "If he had been present, he would have expected her to read it aloud to him, and it would have raised in him a state of nervous alarm which she would have found it impossible to soothe away.",1 "There was not merely the fact, which disturbed her excessively, of Frederick's detention in London, but there were allusions to the recognition at the last moment at Milton, and the possibility of a pursuit, which made her blood run cold; and how then would it have affected her father?",0 Many a time did Margaret repent of having suggested and urged on the plan of consulting Mr. Lennox.,2 "At the moment, it had seemed as if it would occasion so little delay--add so little to the apparently small chances of detection; and yet everything that had since occurred had tended to make it so undesirable.",1 "Margaret battled hard against this regret of hers for what could not now be helped; this self-reproach for having said what had at the time appeared to be wise, but which after events were proving to have been so foolish.",1 But her father was in too depressed a state of mind and body to struggle healthily; he would succumb to all these causes for morbid regret over what could not be recalled.,0 Margaret summoned up all her forces to her aid.,2 Her father seemed to have forgotten that they had any reason to expect a letter from Frederick that morning.,2 "He was absorbed in one idea--that the last visible token of the presence of his wife was to be carried away from him, and hidden from his sight.",2 He trembled pitifully as the undertaker's man was arranging his crape draperies around him.,1 "He looked wistfully at Margaret; and, when released, he tottered towards her, murmuring, 'Pray for me, Margaret.",2 I have no strength left in me.,2 I cannot pray.,2 I give her up because I must.,2 I try to bear it: indeed I do.,2 I know it is God's will.,2 But I cannot see why she died.,1 "Pray for me, Margaret, that I may have faith to pray.",3 "It is a great strait, my child.'",3 "Margaret sat by him in the coach, almost supporting him in her arms; and repeating all the noble verses of holy comfort, or texts expressive of faithful resignation, that she could remember.",4 Her voice never faltered; and she herself gained strength by doing this.,2 "Her father's lips moved after her, repeating the well-known texts as her words suggested them; it was terrible to see the patient struggling effort to obtain the resignation which he had not strength to take into his heart as a part of himself.",1 "Margaret's fortitude nearly gave way as Dixon, with a slight motion of her hand, directed her notice to Nicholas Higgins and his daughter, standing a little aloof, but deeply attentive to the ceremonial.",3 "Nicholas wore his usual fustian clothes, but had a bit of black stuff sewn round his hat--a mark of mourning which he had never shown to his daughter Bessy's memory.",2 But Mr. Hale saw nothing.,3 "He went on repeating to himself, mechanically as it were, all the funeral service as it was read by the officiating clergyman; he sighed twice or thrice when all was ended; and then, putting his hand on Margaret's arm, he mutely entreated to be led away, as if he were blind, and she his faithful guide.",3 "Dixon sobbed aloud; she covered her face with her handkerchief, and was so absorbed in her own grief, that she did not perceive that the crowd, attracted on such occasions, was dispersing, till she was spoken to by some one close at hand.",1 It was Mr. Thornton.,2 "He had been present all the time, standing, with bent head, behind a group of people, so that, in fact, no one had recognised him.",1 "'I beg your pardon,--but, can you tell me how Mr. Hale is?",3 "And Miss Hale, too?",2 I should like to know how they both are.',3 "'Of course, sir.",2 They are much as is to be expected.,2 Master is terribly broke down.,1 Miss Hale bears up better than likely.',3 Mr. Thornton would rather have heard that she was suffering the natural sorrow.,1 "In the first place, there was selfishness enough in him to have taken pleasure in the idea that his great love might come in to comfort and console her; much the same kind of strange passionate pleasure which comes stinging through a mother's heart, when her drooping infant nestles close to her, and is dependent upon her for everything.",4 "But this delicious vision of what might have been--in which, in spite of all Margaret's repulse, he would have indulged only a few days ago--was miserably disturbed by the recollection of what he had seen near the Outwood station.",0 'Miserably disturbed!',1 that is not strong enough.,3 "He was haunted by the remembrance of the handsome young man, with whom she stood in an attitude of such familiar confidence; and the remembrance shot through him like an agony, till it made him clench his hands tight in order to subdue the pain.",3 "At that late hour, so far from home!",2 "It took a great moral effort to galvanise his trust--erewhile so perfect--in Margaret's pure and exquisite maidenliness, into life; as soon as the effort ceased, his trust dropped down dead and powerless: and all sorts of wild fancies chased each other like dreams through his mind.",4 "Here was a little piece of miserable, gnawing confirmation.",1 'She bore up better than likely' under this grief.,1 "She had then some hope to look to, so bright that even in her affectionate nature it could come in to lighten the dark hours of a daughter newly made motherless.",3 Yes!,2 he knew how she would love.,3 He had not loved her without gaining that instinctive knowledge of what capabilities were in her.,3 "Her soul would walk in glorious sunlight if any man was worthy, by his power of loving, to win back her love.",4 Even in her mourning she would rest with a peaceful faith upon his sympathy.,3 His sympathy!,2 Whose?,2 That other man's.,2 And that it was another was enough to make Mr. Thornton's pale grave face grow doubly wan and stern at Dixon's answer.,1 "'I suppose I may call,' said he coldly.",1 "'On Mr. Hale, I mean.",3 He will perhaps admit me after to-morrow or so.',2 He spoke as if the answer were a matter of indifference to him.,1 But it was not so.,2 "For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it.",1 "Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of that gentle familiar attitude and all the attendant circumstances, he had a restless desire to renew her picture in his mind--a longing for the very atmosphere she breathed.",1 "He was in the Charybdis of passion, and must perforce circle and circle ever nearer round the fatal centre.",2 "'I dare say, sir, master will see you.",3 He was very sorry to have to deny you the other day; but circumstances was not agreeable just then.',1 "For some reason or other, Dixon never named this interview that she had had with Mr. Thornton to Margaret.",2 "It might have been mere chance, but so it was that Margaret never heard that he had attended her poor mother's funeral.",1 The 'bearing up better than likely' was a terrible strain upon Margaret.,1 "Sometimes she thought she must give way, and cry out with pain, as the sudden sharp thought came across her, even during her apparently cheerful conversations with her father, that she had no longer a mother.",2 "About Frederick, too, there was great uneasiness.",2 "The Sunday post intervened, and interfered with their London letters; and on Tuesday Margaret was surprised and disheartened to find that there was still no letter.",2 "She was quite in the dark as to his plans, and her father was miserable at all this uncertainty.",1 It broke in upon his lately acquired habit of sitting still in one easy chair for half a day together.,2 "He kept pacing up and down the room; then out of it; and she heard him upon the landing opening and shutting the bed-room doors, without any apparent object.",1 She tried to tranquillise him by reading aloud; but it was evident he could not listen for long together.,2 "How thankful she was then, that she had kept to herself the additional cause for anxiety produced by their encounter with Leonards.",2 She was thankful to hear Mr. Thornton announced.,3 His visit would force her father's thoughts into another channel.,2 "He came up straight to her father, whose hands he took and wrung without a word--holding them in his for a minute or two, during which time his face, his eyes, his look, told of more sympathy than could be put into words.",2 Then he turned to Margaret.,2 Not 'better than likely' did she look.,2 Her stately beauty was dimmed with much watching and with many tears.,3 The expression on her countenance was of gentle patient sadness--nay of positive present suffering.,3 "He had not meant to greet her otherwise than with his late studied coldness of demeanour; but he could not help going up to her, as she stood a little aside, rendered timid by the uncertainty of his manner of late, and saying the few necessary common-place words in so tender a voice, that her eyes filled with tears, and she turned away to hide her emotion.",2 She took her work and sate down very quiet and silent.,4 "Mr. Thornton's heart beat quick and strong, and for the time he utterly forgot the Outwood lane.",2 "He tried to talk to Mr. Hale: and--his presence always a certain kind of pleasure to Mr. Hale, as his power and decision made him, and his opinions, a safe, sure port--was unusually agreeable to her father, as Margaret saw.",4 "Presently Dixon came to the door and said, 'Miss Hale, you are wanted.'",3 Dixon's manner was so flurried that Margaret turned sick at heart.,1 Something had happened to Fred.,2 She had no doubt of that.,1 It was well that her father and Mr. Thornton were so much occupied by their conversation.,3 "'What is it, Dixon?'",2 "asked Margaret, the moment she had shut the drawing-room door.",2 "'Come this way, miss,' said Dixon, opening the door of what had been Mrs. Hale's bed-chamber, now Margaret's, for her father refused to sleep there again after his wife's death.",0 "'It's nothing, miss,' said Dixon, choking a little.",1 'Only a police-inspector.,2 "He wants to see you, miss.",1 "But I dare say, it's about nothing at all.'",2 "'Did he name--' asked Margaret, almost inaudibly.",2 "'No, miss; he named nothing.",1 "He only asked if you lived here, and if he could speak to you.",2 "Martha went to the door, and let him in; she has shown him into master's study.",2 "I went to him myself, to try if that would do; but no--it's you, miss, he wants.'",1 Margaret did not speak again till her hand was on the lock of the study door.,2 "Here she turned round and said, 'Take care papa does not come down.",2 Mr. Thornton is with him now.',2 The inspector was almost daunted by the haughtiness of her manner as she entered.,2 "There was something of indignation expressed in her countenance, but so kept down and controlled, that it gave her a superb air of disdain.",1 "There was no surprise, no curiosity.",2 She stood awaiting the opening of his business there.,2 Not a question did she ask.,2 "'I beg your pardon, ma'am, but my duty obliges me to ask you a few plain questions.",2 "A man has died at the Infirmary, in consequence of a fall, received at Outwood station, between the hours of five and six on Thursday evening, the twenty-sixth instant.",1 "At the time, this fall did not seem of much consequence; but it was rendered fatal, the doctors say, by the presence of some internal complaint, and the man's own habit of drinking.'",0 "The large dark eyes, gazing straight into the inspector's face, dilated a little.",1 Otherwise there was no motion perceptible to his experienced observation.,2 "Her lips swelled out into a richer curve than ordinary, owing to the enforced tension of the muscles, but he did not know what was their usual appearance, so as to recognise the unwonted sullen defiance of the firm sweeping lines.",1 She never blenched or trembled.,2 She fixed him with her eye.,2 "Now--as he paused before going on, she said, almost as if she would encourage him in telling his tale--'Well--go on!'",3 "'It is supposed that an inquest will have to be held; there is some slight evidence to prove that the blow, or push, or scuffle that caused the fall, was provoked by this poor fellow's half-tipsy impertinence to a young lady, walking with the man who pushed the deceased over the edge of the platform.",0 "This much was observed by some one on the platform, who, however, thought no more about the matter, as the blow seemed of slight consequence.",1 "There is also some reason to identify the lady with yourself; in which case--' 'I was not there,' said Margaret, still keeping her expressionless eyes fixed on his face, with the unconscious look of a sleep-walker.",2 The inspector bowed but did not speak.,2 "The lady standing before him showed no emotion, no fluttering fear, no anxiety, no desire to end the interview.",1 "The information he had received was very vague; one of the porters, rushing out to be in readiness for the train, had seen a scuffle, at the other end of the platform, between Leonards and a gentleman accompanied by a lady, but heard no noise; and before the train had got to its full speed after starting, he had been almost knocked down by the headlong run of the enraged half intoxicated Leonards, swearing and cursing awfully.",0 "He had not thought any more about it, till his evidence was routed out by the inspector, who, on making some farther inquiry at the railroad station, had heard from the station-master that a young lady and gentleman had been there about that hour--the lady remarkably handsome--and said, by some grocer's assistant present at the time, to be a Miss Hale, living at Crampton, whose family dealt at his shop.",4 "There was no certainty that the one lady and gentleman were identical with the other pair, but there was great probability.",3 "Leonards himself had gone, half-mad with rage and pain, to the nearest gin-palace for comfort; and his tipsy words had not been attended to by the busy waiters there; they, however, remembered his starting up and cursing himself for not having sooner thought of the electric telegraph, for some purpose unknown; and they believed that he left with the idea of going there.",0 "On his way, overcome by pain or drink, he had lain down in the road, where the police had found him and taken him to the Infirmary: there he had never recovered sufficient consciousness to give any distinct account of his fall, although once or twice he had had glimmerings of sense sufficient to make the authorities send for the nearest magistrate, in hopes that he might be able to take down the dying man's deposition of the cause of his death.",0 "But when the magistrate had come, he was rambling about being at sea, and mixing up names of captains and lieutenants in an indistinct manner with those of his fellow porters at the railway; and his last words were a curse on the 'Cornish trick' which had, he said, made him a hundred pounds poorer than he ought to have been.",1 "The inspector ran all this over in his mind--the vagueness of the evidence to prove that Margaret had been at the station--the unflinching, calm denial which she gave to such a supposition.",1 She stood awaiting his next word with a composure that appeared supreme.,3 "'Then, madam, I have your denial that you were the lady accompanying the gentleman who struck the blow, or gave the push, which caused the death of this poor man?'",0 "A quick, sharp pain went through Margaret's brain.",2 'Oh God!,2 that I knew Frederick were safe!',3 "A deep observer of human countenances might have seen the momentary agony shoot out of her great gloomy eyes, like the torture of some creature brought to bay.",1 "But the inspector though a very keen, was not a very deep observer.",3 "He was a little struck, notwithstanding, by the form of the answer, which sounded like a mechanical repetition of her first reply--not changed and modified in shape so as to meet his last question.",2 "'I was not there,' said she, slowly and heavily.",1 "And all this time she never closed her eyes, or ceased from that glassy, dream-like stare.",3 His quick suspicions were aroused by this dull echo of her former denial.,0 "It was as if she had forced herself to one untruth, and had been stunned out of all power of varying it.",3 He put up his book of notes in a very deliberate manner.,2 Then he looked up; she had not moved any more than if she had been some great Egyptian statue.,3 "'I hope you will not think me impertinent when I say, that I may have to call on you again.",1 "I may have to summon you to appear on the inquest, and prove an alibi, if my witnesses' (it was but one who had recognised her) 'persist in deposing to your presence at the unfortunate event.'",1 He looked at her sharply.,1 "She was still perfectly quiet--no change of colour, or darker shadow of guilt, on her proud face.",3 He thought to have seen her wince: he did not know Margaret Hale.,2 He was a little abashed by her regal composure.,3 It must have been a mistake of identity.,1 "He went on: 'It is very unlikely, ma'am, that I shall have to do anything of the kind.",1 "I hope you will excuse me for doing what is only my duty, although it may appear impertinent.'",1 Margaret bowed her head as he went towards the door.,2 Her lips were stiff and dry.,1 She could not speak even the common words of farewell.,2 "But suddenly she walked forwards, and opened the study door, and preceded him to the door of the house, which she threw wide open for his exit.",2 "She kept her eyes upon him in the same dull, fixed manner, until he was fairly out of the house.",2 "She shut the door, and went half-way into the study; then turned back, as if moved by some passionate impulse, and locked the door inside.",3 "Then she went into the study, paused--tottered forward--paused again--swayed for an instant where she stood, and fell prone on the floor in a dead swoon.",1 Mr. Thornton sate on and on.,2 "He felt that his company gave pleasure to Mr. Hale; and was touched by the half-spoken wishful entreaty that he would remain a little longer--the plaintive 'Don't go yet,' which his poor friend put forth from time to time.",3 He wondered Margaret did not return; but it was with no view of seeing her that he lingered.,2 For the hour--and in the presence of one who was so thoroughly feeling the nothingness of earth--he was reasonable and self-controlled.,3 "He was deeply interested in all her father said, 'Of death, and of the heavy lull, And of the brain that has grown dull.'",0 It was curious how the presence of Mr. Thornton had power over Mr. Hale to make him unlock the secret thoughts which he kept shut up even from Margaret.,3 "Whether it was that her sympathy would be so keen, and show itself in so lively a manner, that he was afraid of the reaction upon himself, or whether it was that to his speculative mind all kinds of doubts presented themselves at such a time, pleading and crying aloud to be resolved into certainties, and that he knew she would have shrunk from the expression of any such doubts--nay, from him himself as capable of conceiving them--whatever was the reason, he could unburden himself better to Mr. Thornton than to her of all the thoughts and fancies and fears that had been frost-bound in his brain till now.",2 Mr. Thornton said very little; but every sentence he uttered added to Mr. Hale's reliance and regard for him.,3 "Was it that he paused in the expression of some remembered agony, Mr. Thornton's two or three words would complete the sentence, and show how deeply its meaning was entered into.",1 "Was it a doubt--a fear--a wandering uncertainty seeking rest, but finding none--so tear-blinded were its eyes--Mr. Thornton, instead of being shocked, seemed to have passed through that very stage of thought himself, and could suggest where the exact ray of light was to be found, which should make the dark places plain.",0 "Man of action as he was, busy in the world's great battle, there was a deeper religion binding him to God in his heart, in spite of his strong wilfulness, through all his mistakes, than Mr. Hale had ever dreamed.",3 "They never spoke of such things again, as it happened; but this one conversation made them peculiar people to each other; knit them together, in a way which no loose indiscriminate talking about sacred things can ever accomplish.",1 "When all are admitted, how can there be a Holy of Holies?",3 "And all this while, Margaret lay as still and white as death on the study floor!",1 She had sunk under her burden.,1 "It had been heavy in weight and long carried; and she had been very meek and patient, till all at once her faith had given way, and she had groped in vain for help!",3 "There was a pitiful contraction of suffering upon her beautiful brows, although there was no other sign of consciousness remaining.",1 "The mouth--a little while ago, so sullenly projected in defiance--was relaxed and livid.",1 "'E par che de la sua labbia si mova Uno spirto soave e pien d'amore, Chi va dicendo a l'anima: sospira!'",2 The first symptom of returning life was a quivering about the lips--a little mute soundless attempt at speech; but the eyes were still closed; and the quivering sank into stillness.,1 "Then, feebly leaning on her arms for an instant to steady herself, Margaret gathered herself up, and rose.",3 "Her comb had fallen out of her hair; and with an intuitive desire to efface the traces of weakness, and bring herself into order again, she sought for it, although from time to time, in the course of the search, she had to sit down and recover strength.",2 "Her head drooped forwards--her hands meekly laid one upon the other--she tried to recall the force of her temptation, by endeavouring to remember the details which had thrown her into such deadly fright; but she could not.",0 "She only understood two facts--that Frederick had been in danger of being pursued and detected in London, as not only guilty of manslaughter, but as the more unpardonable leader of the mutiny, and that she had lied to save him.",0 "There was one comfort; her lie had saved him, if only by gaining some additional time.",3 "If the inspector came again to-morrow, after she had received the letter she longed for to assure her of her brother's safety, she would brave shame, and stand in her bitter penance--she, the lofty Margaret--acknowledging before a crowded justice-room, if need were, that she had been as 'a dog, and done this thing.'",1 "But if he came before she heard from Frederick; if he returned, as he had half threatened, in a few hours, why!",2 "she would tell that lie again; though how the words would come out, after all this terrible pause for reflection and self-reproach, without betraying her falsehood, she did not know, she could not tell.",0 But her repetition of it would gain time--time for Frederick.,3 She was roused by Dixon's entrance into the room; she had just been letting out Mr. Thornton.,2 "He had hardly gone ten steps in the street, before a passing omnibus stopped close by him, and a man got down, and came up to him, touching his hat as he did so.",2 It was the police-inspector.,2 "Mr. Thornton had obtained for him his first situation in the police, and had heard from time to time of the progress of his protege, but they had not often met, and at first Mr. Thornton did not remember him.",3 "'My name is Watson--George Watson, sir, that you got---- ' 'Ah, yes!",2 I recollect.,2 "Why you are getting on famously, I hear.'",3 "'Yes, sir.",2 "I ought to thank you, sir.",3 But it is on a little matter of business I made so bold as to speak to you now.,2 I believe you were the magistrate who attended to take down the deposition of a poor man who died in the Infirmary last night.',1 "'Yes,' replied Mr. Thornton.",2 "'I went and heard some kind of a rambling statement, which the clerk said was of no great use.",3 "I'm afraid he was but a drunken fellow, though there is no doubt he came to his death by violence at last.",0 "One of my mother's servants was engaged to him, I believe, and she is in great distress to-day.",2 What about him?',2 "'Why, sir, his death is oddly mixed up with somebody in the house I saw you coming out of just now; it was a Mr. Hale's, I believe.'",1 'Yes!',2 "said Mr. Thornton, turning sharp round and looking into the inspector's face with sudden interest.",3 'What about it?',2 "'Why, sir, it seems to me that I have got a pretty distinct chain of evidence, inculpating a gentleman who was walking with Miss Hale that night at the Outwood station, as the man who struck or pushed Leonards off the platform and so caused his death.",1 But the young lady denies that she was there at the time.',1 'Miss Hale denies she was there!',2 "repeated Mr. Thornton, in an altered voice.",2 "'Tell me, what evening was it?",2 What time?',2 "'About six o'clock, on the evening of Thursday, the twenty-sixth.'",2 "They walked on, side by side, in silence for a minute or two.",2 The inspector was the first to speak.,2 "'You see, sir, there is like to be a coroner's inquest; and I've got a young man who is pretty positive,--at least he was at first;--since he has heard of the young lady's denial, he says he should not like to swear; but still he's pretty positive that he saw Miss Hale at the station, walking about with a gentleman, not five minutes before the time, when one of the porters saw a scuffle, which he set down to some of Leonards' impudence--but which led to the fall which caused his death.",2 "And seeing you come out of the very house, sir, I thought I might make bold to ask if--you see, it's always awkward having to do with cases of disputed identity, and one doesn't like to doubt the word of a respectable young woman unless one has strong proof to the contrary.'",2 'And she denied having been at the station that evening!',1 "repeated Mr. Thornton, in a low, brooding tone.",2 "'Yes, sir, twice over, as distinct as could be.",2 "I told her I should call again, but seeing you just as I was on my way back from questioning the young man who said it was her, I thought I would ask your advice, both as the magistrate who saw Leonards on his death-bed, and as the gentleman who got me my berth in the force.'",1 "'You were quite right,' said Mr. Thornton.",3 'Don't take any steps till you have seen me again.',2 "'The young lady will expect me to call, from what I said.'",2 'I only want to delay you an hour.,1 It's now three.,2 Come to my warehouse at four.',2 "'Very well, sir!'",3 And they parted company.,2 "Mr. Thornton hurried to his warehouse, and, sternly forbidding his clerks to allow any one to interrupt him, he went his way to his own private room, and locked the door.",1 "Then he indulged himself in the torture of thinking it all over, and realising every detail.",1 "How could he have lulled himself into the unsuspicious calm in which her tearful image had mirrored itself not two hours before, till he had weakly pitied her and yearned towards her, and forgotten the savage, distrustful jealousy with which the sight of her--and that unknown to him--at such an hour--in such a place--had inspired him!",0 How could one so pure have stooped from her decorous and noble manner of bearing!,3 But was it decorous--was it?,2 "He hated himself for the idea that forced itself upon him, just for an instant--no more--and yet, while it was present, thrilled him with its old potency of attraction towards her image.",3 "And then this falsehood--how terrible must be some dread of shame to be revealed--for, after all, the provocation given by such a man as Leonards was, when excited by drinking, might, in all probability, be more than enough to justify any one who came forward to state the circumstances openly and without reserve!",1 How creeping and deadly that fear which could bow down the truthful Margaret to falsehood!,0 He could almost pity her.,1 What would be the end of it?,2 She could not have considered all she was entering upon; if there was an inquest and the young man came forward.,2 Suddenly he started up.,2 There should be no inquest.,2 He would save Margaret.,2 "He would take the responsibility of preventing the inquest, the issue of which, from the uncertainty of the medical testimony (which he had vaguely heard the night before, from the surgeon in attendance), could be but doubtful; the doctors had discovered an internal disease far advanced, and sure to prove fatal; they had stated that death might have been accelerated by the fall, or by the subsequent drinking and exposure to cold.",0 "If he had but known how Margaret would have become involved in the affair--if he had but foreseen that she would have stained her whiteness by a falsehood, he could have saved her by a word; for the question, of inquest or no inquest, had hung trembling in the balance only the night before.",1 Miss Hale might love another--was indifferent and contemptuous to him--but he would yet do her faithful acts of service of which she should never know.,2 "He might despise her, but the woman whom he had once loved should be kept from shame; and shame it would be to pledge herself to a lie in a public court, or otherwise to stand and acknowledge her reason for desiring darkness rather than light.",1 "Very gray and stern did Mr. Thornton look, as he passed out through his wondering clerks.",1 "He was away about half an hour; and scarcely less stern did he look when he returned, although his errand had been successful.",1 "He wrote two lines on a slip of paper, put it in an envelope, and sealed it up.",2 "This he gave to one of the clerks, saying:-- 'I appointed Watson--he who was a packer in the warehouse, and who went into the police--to call on me at four o'clock.",2 I have just met with a gentleman from Liverpool who wishes to see me before he leaves town.,2 Take care to give this note to Watson when he calls.',2 The note contained these words: 'There will be no inquest.,2 Medical evidence not sufficient to justify it.,3 Take no further steps.,2 I have not seen the coroner; but I will take the responsibility.',2 "'Well,' thought Watson, 'it relieves me from an awkward job.",1 None of my witnesses seemed certain of anything except the young woman.,2 "She was clear and distinct enough; the porter at the rail-road had seen a scuffle; or when he found it was likely to bring him in as a witness, then it might not have been a scuffle, only a little larking, and Leonards might have jumped off the platform himself;--he would not stick firm to anything.",3 "And Jennings, the grocer's shopman,--well, he was not quite so bad, but I doubt if I could have got him up to an oath after he heard that Miss Hale flatly denied it.",1 It would have been a troublesome job and no satisfaction.,1 And now I must go and tell them they won't be wanted.',2 He accordingly presented himself again at Mr. Hale's that evening.,2 "Her father and Dixon would fain have persuaded Margaret to go to bed; but they, neither of them, knew the reason for her low continued refusals to do so.",2 Dixon had learnt part of the truth--but only part.,2 "Margaret would not tell any human being of what she had said, and she did not reveal the fatal termination to Leonards' fall from the platform.",1 "So Dixon curiosity combined with her allegiance to urge Margaret to go to rest, which her appearance, as she lay on the sofa, showed but too clearly that she required.",3 "She did not speak except when spoken to; she tried to smile back in reply to her father's anxious looks and words of tender enquiry; but, instead of a smile, the wan lips resolved themselves into a sigh.",3 "He was so miserably uneasy that, at last, she consented to go into her own room, and prepare for going to bed.",1 "She was indeed inclined to give up the idea that the inspector would call again that night, as it was already past nine o'clock.",2 "She stood by her father, holding on to the back of his chair.",2 "'You will go to bed soon, papa, won't you?",2 Don't sit up alone!',2 "What his answer was she did not hear; the words were lost in the far smaller point of sound that magnified itself to her fears, and filled her brain.",1 There was a low ring at the door-bell.,2 "She kissed her father and glided down stairs, with a rapidity of motion of which no one would have thought her capable, who had seen her the minute before.",3 She put aside Dixon.,2 'Don't come; I will open the door.,2 I know it is him--I can--I must manage it all myself.',2 "'As you please, miss!'",1 "said Dixon testily; but in a moment afterwards, she added, 'But you're not fit for it.",1 You are more dead than alive.',1 'Am I?',2 "said Margaret, turning round and showing her eyes all aglow with strange fire, her cheeks flushed, though her lips were baked and livid still.",1 "She opened the door to the Inspector, and preceded him into the study.",2 "She placed the candle on the table, and snuffed it carefully, before she turned round and faced him.",2 'You are late!',2 said she.,2 'Well?',2 She held her breath for the answer.,2 "'I'm sorry to have given any unnecessary trouble, ma'am; for, after all, they've given up all thoughts of holding an inquest.",0 "I have had other work to do and other people to see, or I should have been here before now.'",3 "'Then it is ended,' said Margaret.",2 'There is to be no further enquiry.',2 "'I believe I've got Mr. Thornton's note about me,' said the Inspector, fumbling in his pocket-book.",2 'Mr. Thornton's!',2 said Margaret.,2 'Yes!,2 he's a magistrate--ah!,2 here it is.',2 "She could not see to read it--no, not although she was close to the candle.",2 The words swam before her.,2 "But she held it in her hand, and looked at it as if she were intently studying it.",2 "'I'm sure, ma'am, it's a great weight off my mind; for the evidence was so uncertain, you see, that the man had received any blow at all,--and if any question of identity came in, it so complicated the case, as I told Mr. Thornton--' 'Mr. Thornton!'",1 "said Margaret, again.",2 "'I met him this morning, just as he was coming out of this house, and, as he's an old friend of mine, besides being the magistrate who saw Leonards last night, I made bold to tell him of my difficulty.'",1 Margaret sighed deeply.,2 "She did not want to hear any more; she was afraid alike of what she had heard, and of what she might hear.",1 She wished that the man would go.,2 She forced herself to speak.,2 'Thank you for calling.,2 It is very late.,2 I dare say it is past ten o'clock.,2 Oh!,2 here is the note!',2 "she continued, suddenly interpreting the meaning of the hand held out to receive it.",2 "He was putting it up, when she said, 'I think it is a cramped, dazzling sort of writing.",2 I could not read it; will you just read it to me?',2 He read it aloud to her.,2 'Thank you.,2 You told Mr. Thornton that I was not there?',2 "'Oh, of course, ma'am.",2 "I'm sorry now that I acted upon information, which seems to have been so erroneous.",1 "At first the young man was so positive; and now he says that he doubted all along, and hopes that his mistake won't have occasioned you such annoyance as to lose their shop your custom.",1 "Good night, ma'am.'",3 'Good night.',2 She rang the bell for Dixon to show him out.,2 As Dixon returned up the passage Margaret passed her swiftly.,2 'It is all right!',3 "said she, without looking at Dixon; and before the woman could follow her with further questions she had sped up-stairs, and entered her bed-chamber, and bolted her door.",2 "She threw herself, dressed as she was, upon her bed.",2 She was too much exhausted to think.,1 "Half an hour or more elapsed before the cramped nature of her position, and the chilliness, supervening upon great fatigue, had the power to rouse her numbed faculties.",1 "Then she began to recall, to combine, to wonder.",3 "The first idea that presented itself to her was, that all this sickening alarm on Frederick's behalf was over; that the strain was past.",0 The next was a wish to remember every word of the Inspector's which related to Mr. Thornton.,2 When had he seen him?,2 What had he said?,2 What had Mr. Thornton done?,2 What were the exact words of his note?,2 "And until she could recollect, even to the placing or omitting an article, the very expressions which he had used in the note, her mind refused to go on with its progress.",2 "But the next conviction she came to was clear enough;--Mr. Thornton had seen her close to Outwood station on the fatal Thursday night, and had been told of her denial that she was there.",2 She stood as a liar in his eyes.,1 She was a liar.,1 "But she had no thought of penitence before God; nothing but chaos and night surrounded the one lurid fact that, in Mr. Thornton's eyes, she was degraded.",1 "She cared not to think, even to herself, of how much of excuse she might plead.",1 "That had nothing to do with Mr. Thornton; she never dreamed that he, or any one else, could find cause for suspicion in what was so natural as her accompanying her brother; but what was really false and wrong was known to him, and he had a right to judge her.",1 "'Oh, Frederick!",2 Frederick!',2 "she cried, 'what have I not sacrificed for you!'",1 "Even when she fell asleep her thoughts were compelled to travel the same circle, only with exaggerated and monstrous circumstances of pain.",0 When she awoke a new idea flashed upon her with all the brightness of the morning.,2 "Mr. Thornton had learnt her falsehood before he went to the coroner; that suggested the thought, that he had possibly been influenced so to do with a view of sparing her the repetition of her denial.",1 But she pushed this notion on one side with the sick wilfulness of a child.,1 "If it were so, she felt no gratitude to him, as it only showed her how keenly he must have seen that she was disgraced already, before he took such unwonted pains to spare her any further trial of truthfulness, which had already failed so signally.",2 "She would have gone through the whole--she would have perjured herself to save Frederick, rather--far rather--than Mr. Thornton should have had the knowledge that prompted him to interfere to save her.",1 What ill-fate brought him in contact with the Inspector?,2 What made him be the very magistrate sent for to receive Leonards' deposition?,2 What had Leonards said?,2 "How much of it was intelligible to Mr. Thornton, who might already, for aught she knew, be aware of the old accusation against Frederick, through their mutual friend, Mr. Bell?",2 "If so, he had striven to save the son, who came in defiance of the law to attend his mother's death-bed.",1 "And under this idea she could feel grateful--not yet, if ever she should, if his interference had been prompted by contempt.",1 Oh!,2 had any one such just cause to feel contempt for her?,1 "Mr. Thornton, above all people, on whom she had looked down from her imaginary heights till now!",1 "She suddenly found herself at his feet, and was strangely distressed at her fall.",0 "She shrank from following out the premises to their conclusion, and so acknowledging to herself how much she valued his respect and good opinion.",3 "Whenever this idea presented itself to her at the end of a long avenue of thoughts, she turned away from following that path--she would not believe in it.",2 "It was later than she fancied, for in the agitation of the previous night, she had forgotten to wind up her watch; and Mr. Hale had given especial orders that she was not to be disturbed by the usual awakening.",2 "By and by the door opened cautiously, and Dixon put her head in.",2 "Perceiving that Margaret was awake, she came forwards with a letter.",2 "'Here's something to do you good, miss.",2 A letter from Master Frederick.',3 "'Thank you, Dixon.",2 How late it is!',2 "She spoke very languidly, and suffered Dixon to lay it on the counterpane before her, without putting out a hand to take it.",1 "'You want your breakfast, I'm sure.",2 I will bring it you in a minute.,2 "Master has got the tray all ready, I know.'",3 Margaret did not reply; she let her go; she felt that she must be alone before she could open that letter.,2 She opened it at last.,2 The first thing that caught her eye was the date two days earlier than she received it.,2 "He had then written when he had promised, and their alarm might have been spared.",2 But she would read the letter and see.,2 "It was hasty enough, but perfectly satisfactory.",3 "He had seen Henry Lennox, who knew enough of the case to shake his head over it, in the first instance, and tell him he had done a very daring thing in returning to England, with such an accusation, backed by such powerful influence, hanging over him.",3 "But when they had come to talk it over, Mr. Lennox had acknowledged that there might be some chance of his acquittal, if he could but prove his statements by credible witnesses--that in such case it might be worth while to stand his trial, otherwise it would be a great risk.",3 He would examine--he would take every pains.,1 "'It struck me' said Frederick, 'that your introduction, little sister of mine, went a long way.",1 Is it so?,2 "He made many inquiries, I can assure you.",3 "He seemed a sharp, intelligent fellow, and in good practice too, to judge from the signs of business and the number of clerks about him.",4 But these may be only lawyer's dodges.,2 I have just caught a packet on the point of sailing--I am off in five minutes.,2 "I may have to come back to England again on this business, so keep my visit secret.",2 "I shall send my father some rare old sherry, such as you cannot buy in England,--(such stuff as I've got in the bottle before me)!",2 He needs something of the kind--my dear love to him--God bless him.,3 I'm sure--here's my cab.,2 P.S.--What an escape that was!,2 Take care you don't breathe of my having been--not even to the Shaws.',2 Margaret turned to the envelope; it was marked 'Too late.',2 "The letter had probably been trusted to some careless waiter, who had forgotten to post it.",2 Oh!,2 what slight cobwebs of chances stand between us and Temptation!,1 "Frederick had been safe, and out of England twenty, nay, thirty hours ago; and it was only about seventeen hours since she had told a falsehood to baffle pursuit, which even then would have been vain.",1 How faithless she had been!,1 "Where now was her proud motto, 'Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra?'",3 "If she had but dared to bravely tell the truth as regarded herself, defying them to find out what she refused to tell concerning another, how light of heart she would now have felt!",1 "Not humbled before God, as having failed in trust towards Him; not degraded and abased in Mr. Thornton's sight.",2 She caught herself up at this with a miserable tremor; here was she classing his low opinion of her alongside with the displeasure of God.,1 How was it that he haunted her imagination so persistently?,2 What could it be?,2 "Why did she care for what he thought, in spite of all her pride in spite of herself?",2 "She believed that she could have borne the sense of Almighty displeasure, because He knew all, and could read her penitence, and hear her cries for help in time to come.",1 "But Mr. Thornton--why did she tremble, and hide her face in the pillow?",2 What strong feeling had overtaken her at last?,3 She sprang out of bed and prayed long and earnestly.,3 It soothed and comforted her so to open her heart.,2 "But as soon as she reviewed her position she found the sting was still there; that she was not good enough, nor pure enough to be indifferent to the lowered opinion of a fellow creature; that the thought of how he must be looking upon her with contempt, stood between her and her sense of wrong-doing.",1 She took her letter in to her father as soon as she was drest.,2 "There was so slight an allusion to their alarm at the rail-road station, that Mr. Hale passed over it without paying any attention to it.",1 "Indeed, beyond the mere fact of Frederick having sailed undiscovered and unsuspected, he did not gather much from the letter at the time, he was so uneasy about Margaret's pallid looks.",1 She seemed continually on the point of weeping.,2 "'You are sadly overdone, Margaret.",1 It is no wonder.,3 But you must let me nurse you now.',2 "He made her lie down on the sofa, and went for a shawl to cover her with.",1 His tenderness released her tears; and she cried bitterly.,1 'Poor child!--poor child!',1 "said he, looking fondly at her, as she lay with her face to the wall, shaking with her sobs.",3 "After a while they ceased, and she began to wonder whether she durst give herself the relief of telling her father of all her trouble.",3 But there were more reasons against it than for it.,2 "The only one for it was the relief to herself; and against it was the thought that it would add materially to her father's nervousness, if it were indeed necessary for Frederick to come to England again; that he would dwell on the circumstance of his son's having caused the death of a man, however unwittingly and unwillingly; that this knowledge would perpetually recur to trouble him, in various shapes of exaggeration and distortion from the simple truth.",0 "And about her own great fault--he would be distressed beyond measure at her want of courage and faith, yet perpetually troubled to make excuses for her.",1 "Formerly Margaret would have come to him as priest as well as father, to tell him of her temptation and her sin; but latterly they had not spoken much on such subjects; and she knew not how, in his change of opinions, he would reply if the depth of her soul called unto his.",1 "No; she would keep her secret, and bear the burden alone.",1 "Alone she would go before God, and cry for His absolution.",1 Alone she would endure her disgraced position in the opinion of Mr. Thornton.,1 "She was unspeakably touched by the tender efforts of her father to think of cheerful subjects on which to talk, and so to take her thoughts away from dwelling on all that had happened of late.",3 It was some months since he had been so talkative as he was this day.,2 "He would not let her sit up, and offended Dixon desperately by insisting on waiting upon her himself.",1 "At last she smiled; a poor, weak little smile; but it gave him the truest pleasure.",2 "'It seems strange to think, that what gives us most hope for the future should be called Dolores,' said Margaret.",1 The remark was more in character with her father than with her usual self; but to-day they seemed to have changed natures.,2 "'Her mother was a Spaniard, I believe: that accounts for her religion.",2 Her father was a stiff Presbyterian when I knew him.,1 But it is a very soft and pretty name.',3 'How young she is!--younger by fourteen months than I am.,2 Just the age that Edith was when she was engaged to Captain Lennox.,2 "Papa, we will go and see them in Spain.'",2 He shook his head.,2 "But he said, 'If you wish it, Margaret.",2 Only let us come back here.,2 "It would seem unfair--unkind to your mother, who always, I'm afraid, disliked Milton so much, if we left it now she is lying here, and cannot go with us.",0 "No, dear; you shall go and see them, and bring me back a report of my Spanish daughter.'",2 "'No, papa, I won't go without you.",2 Who is to take care of you when I am gone?',2 'I should like to know which of us is taking care of the other.,3 "But if you went, I should persuade Mr. Thornton to let me give him double lessons.",2 We would work up the classics famously.,3 That would be a perpetual interest.,2 "You might go on, and see Edith at Corfu, if you liked.'",3 Margaret did not speak all at once.,2 "Then she said rather gravely: 'Thank you, papa.",1 But I don't want to go.,2 "We will hope that Mr. Lennox will manage so well, that Frederick may bring Dolores to see us when they are married.",3 "And as for Edith, the regiment won't remain much longer in Corfu.",2 Perhaps we shall see both of them here before another year is out.',2 Mr. Hale's cheerful subjects had come to an end.,3 "Some painful recollection had stolen across his mind, and driven him into silence.",1 By-and-by Margaret said: 'Papa--did you see Nicholas Higgins at the funeral?,2 "He was there, and Mary too.",2 Poor fellow!,1 it was his way of showing sympathy.,2 He has a good warm heart under his bluff abrupt ways.',3 "'I am sure of it,' replied Mr. Hale.",3 "'I saw it all along, even while you tried to persuade me that he was all sorts of bad things.",1 "We will go and see them to-morrow, if you are strong enough to walk so far.'",3 'Oh yes.,2 I want to see them.,2 "We did not pay Mary--or rather she refused to take it, Dixon says.",1 "We will go so as to catch him just after his dinner, and before he goes to his work.'",3 Towards evening Mr. Hale said: 'I half expected Mr. Thornton would have called.,3 "He spoke of a book yesterday which he had, and which I wanted to see.",2 He said he would try and bring it to-day.',2 Margaret sighed.,2 She knew he would not come.,2 "He would be too delicate to run the chance of meeting her, while her shame must be so fresh in his memory.",3 "The very mention of his name renewed her trouble, and produced a relapse into the feeling of depressed, pre-occupied exhaustion.",0 She gave way to listless languor.,1 "Suddenly it struck her that this was a strange manner to show her patience, or to reward her father for his watchful care of her all through the day.",2 She sate up and offered to read aloud.,2 "His eyes were failing, and he gladly accepted her proposal.",2 "She read well: she gave the due emphasis; but had any one asked her, when she had ended, the meaning of what she had been reading, she could not have told.",3 "She was smitten with a feeling of ingratitude to Mr. Thornton, inasmuch as, in the morning, she had refused to accept the kindness he had shown her in making further inquiry from the medical men, so as to obviate any inquest being held.",2 Oh!,2 she was grateful!,3 "She had been cowardly and false, and had shown her cowardliness and falsehood in action that could not be recalled; but she was not ungrateful.",0 "It sent a glow to her heart, to know how she could feel towards one who had reason to despise her.",2 "His cause for contempt was so just, that she should have respected him less if she had thought he did not feel contempt.",1 It was a pleasure to feel how thoroughly she respected him.,3 He could not prevent her doing that; it was the one comfort in all this misery.,2 "Late in the evening, the expected book arrived, 'with Mr. Thornton's kind regards, and wishes to know how Mr. Hale is.'",3 "'Say that I am much better, Dixon, but that Miss Hale--' 'No, papa,' said Margaret, eagerly--'don't say anything about me.",3 He does not ask.',2 "'My dear child, how you are shivering!'",2 "said her father, a few minutes afterwards.",2 'You must go to bed directly.,2 You have turned quite pale!',1 "Margaret did not refuse to go, though she was loth to leave her father alone.",1 "She needed the relief of solitude after a day of busy thinking, and busier repenting.",3 "But she seemed much as usual the next day; the lingering gravity and sadness, and the occasional absence of mind, were not unnatural symptoms in the early days of grief.",0 "And almost in proportion to her re-establishment in health, was her father's relapse into his abstracted musing upon the wife he had lost, and the past era in his life that was closed to him for ever.",1 "At the time arranged the previous day, they set out on their walk to see Nicholas Higgins and his daughter.",2 "They both were reminded of their recent loss, by a strange kind of shyness in their new habiliments, and in the fact that it was the first time, for many weeks, that they had deliberately gone out together.",1 They drew very close to each other in unspoken sympathy.,2 Nicholas was sitting by the fire-side in his accustomed corner: but he had not his accustomed pipe.,2 "He was leaning his head upon his hand, his arm resting on his knee.",2 "He did not get up when he saw them, though Margaret could read the welcome in his eye.",3 "'Sit ye down, sit ye down.",2 "Fire's welly out,' said he, giving it a vigorous poke, as if to turn attention away from himself.",2 "He was rather disorderly, to be sure, with a black unshaven beard of several days' growth, making his pale face look yet paler, and a jacket which would have been all the better for patching.",1 "'We thought we should have a good chance of finding you, just after dinner-time,' said Margaret.",3 "'We have had our sorrow too, since we saw you,' said Mr. Hale.",2 "'Ay, ay.",2 "Sorrows is more plentiful than dinners just now; I reckon, my dinner hour stretches all o'er the day; yo're pretty sure of finding me.'",3 'Are you out of work?',3 asked Margaret.,2 "'Ay,' he replied shortly.",2 "Then, after a moment's silence, he added, looking up for the first time: 'I'm not wanting brass.",2 Dunno yo' think it.,2 "Bess, poor lass, had a little stock under her pillow, ready to slip into my hand, last moment, and Mary is fustian-cutting.",2 But I'm out o' work a' the same.',3 "'We owe Mary some money,' said Mr. Hale, before Margaret's sharp pressure on his arm could arrest the words.",3 "'If hoo takes it, I'll turn her out o' doors.",2 "I'll bide inside these four walls, and she'll bide out.",2 That's a'.',2 "'But we owe her many thanks for her kind service,' began Mr. Hale again.",3 'I ne'er thanked yo'r daughter theer for her deeds o' love to my poor wench.,2 I ne'er could find th' words.,2 "I'se have to begin and try now, if yo' start making an ado about what little Mary could sarve yo'.'",2 'Is it because of the strike you're out of work?',2 asked Margaret gently.,2 'Strike's ended.,2 It's o'er for this time.,2 I'm out o' work because I ne'er asked for it.,3 "And I ne'er asked for it, because good words is scarce, and bad words is plentiful.'",2 He was in a mood to take a surly pleasure in giving answers that were like riddles.,3 But Margaret saw that he would like to be asked for the explanation.,3 'And good words are--?',3 'Asking for work.,3 I reckon them's almost the best words that men can say.,3 """Gi' me work"" means ""and I'll do it like a man.""",3 Them's good words.',3 'And bad words are refusing you work when you ask for it.',1 'Ay.,2 "Bad words is saying ""Aha, my fine chap!",2 "Yo've been true to yo'r order, and I'll be true to mine.",2 Yo' did the best yo' could for them as wanted help; that's yo'r way of being true to yo'r kind; and I'll be true to mine.,3 "Yo've been a poor fool, as knowed no better nor be a true faithful fool.",2 So go and be d---- d to yo'.,2 "There's no work for yo' here.""",3 Them's bad words.,1 "I'm not a fool; and if I was, folk ought to ha' taught me how to be wise after their fashion.",2 "I could mappen ha' learnt, if any one had tried to teach me.'",2 "'Would it not be worth while,' said Mr. Hale, 'to ask your old master if he would take you back again?",4 "It might be a poor chance, but it would be a chance.'",1 "He looked up again, with a sharp glance at the questioner; and then tittered a low and bitter laugh.",2 'Measter!,2 "if it's no offence, I'll ask yo' a question or two in my turn.'",1 "'You're quite welcome,' said Mr. Hale.",3 'I reckon yo'n some way of earning your bread.,2 "Folk seldom lives i' Milton just for pleasure, if they can live anywhere else.'",3 'You are quite right.,3 "I have some independent property, but my intention in settling in Milton was to become a private tutor.'",2 'To teach folk.,2 Well!,3 "I reckon they pay yo' for teaching them, dunnot they?'",2 "'Yes,' replied Mr. Hale, smiling.",3 'I teach in order to get paid.',2 "'And them that pays yo', dun they tell yo' whatten to do, or whatten not to do wi' the money they gives you in just payment for your pains--in fair exchange like?'",3 'No; to be sure not!',2 "'They dunnot say, ""Yo' may have a brother, or a friend as dear as a brother, who wants this here brass for a purpose both yo' and he think right; but yo' mun promise not give it to him.",3 "Yo' may see a good use, as yo' think, to put yo'r money to; but we don't think it good, and so if yo' spend it a-thatens we'll just leave off dealing with yo'.""",3 "They dunnot say that, dun they?'",2 'No: to be sure not!',2 'Would yo' stand it if they did?',2 'It would be some very hard pressure that would make me even think of submitting to such dictation.',1 "'There's not the pressure on all the broad earth that would make me, said Nicholas Higgins.",2 'Now yo've got it.,2 Yo've hit the bull's eye.,2 Hamper's--that's where I worked--makes their men pledge 'emselves they'll not give a penny to help th' Union or keep turnouts fro' clemming.,3 "They may pledge and make pledge,' continued he, scornfully; 'they nobbut make liars and hypocrites.",0 "And that's a less sin, to my mind, to making men's hearts so hard that they'll not do a kindness to them as needs it, or help on the right and just cause, though it goes again the strong hand.",3 But I'll ne'er forswear mysel' for a' the work the king could gi'e me.,2 I'm a member o' the Union; and I think it's the only thing to do the workman any good.,3 "And I've been a turn-out, and known what it were to clem; so if I get a shilling, sixpence shall go to them if they axe it from me.",2 "Consequence is, I dunnot see where I'm to get a shilling.'",2 'Is that rule about not contributing to the Union in force at all the mills?',2 asked Margaret.,2 'I cannot say.,2 It's a new regulation at ourn; and I reckon they'll find that they cannot stick to it.,2 But it's in force now.,2 "By-and-by they'll find out, tyrants makes liars.'",1 There was a little pause.,2 Margaret was hesitating whether she should say what was in her mind; she was unwilling to irritate one who was already gloomy and despondent enough.,0 At last out it came.,2 "But in her soft tones, and with her reluctant manner, showing that she was unwilling to say anything unpleasant, it did not seem to annoy Higgins, only to perplex him.",0 'Do you remember poor Boucher saying that the Union was a tyrant?,1 I think he said it was the worst tyrant of all.,1 And I remember at the time I agreed with him.',2 It was a long while before he spoke.,2 "He was resting his head on his two hands, and looking down into the fire, so she could not read the expression on his face.",2 'I'll not deny but what th' Union finds it necessary to force a man into his own good.,2 I'll speak truth.,2 A man leads a dree life who's not i' th' Union.,3 "But once i' the' Union, his interests are taken care on better nor he could do it for himsel', or by himsel', for that matter.",3 "It's the only way working men can get their rights, by all joining together.",2 "More the members, more chance for each one separate man having justice done him.",2 "Government takes care o' fools and madmen; and if any man is inclined to do himsel' or his neighbour a hurt, it puts a bit of a check on him, whether he likes it or no.",2 That's all we do i' th' Union.,2 "We can't clap folk into prison; but we can make a man's life so heavy to be borne, that he's obliged to come in, and be wise and helpful in spite of himself.",2 "Boucher were a fool all along, and ne'er a worse fool than at th' last.'",1 'He did you harm?',1 asked Margaret.,2 "'Ay, that did he.",2 "We had public opinion on our side, till he and his sort began rioting and breaking laws.",1 It were all o'er wi' the strike then.',1 "'Then would it not have been far better to have left him alone, and not forced him to join the Union?",3 He did you no good; and you drove him mad.',2 "'Margaret,' said her father, in a low and warning tone, for he saw the cloud gathering on Higgins's face.",1 "'I like her,' said Higgins, suddenly.",3 'Hoo speaks plain out what's in her mind.,2 Hoo doesn't comprehend th' Union for all that.,2 It's a great power: it's our only power.,3 "I ha' read a bit o' poetry about a plough going o'er a daisy, as made tears come into my eyes, afore I'd other cause for crying.",2 "But the chap ne'er stopped driving the plough, I'se warrant, for all he were pitiful about the daisy.",1 He'd too much mother-wit for that.,2 "Th' Union's the plough, making ready the land for harvest-time.",3 Such as Boucher--'twould be settin' him up too much to liken him to a daisy; he's liker a weed lounging over the ground--mun just make up their mind to be put out o' the way.,1 I'm sore vexed wi' him just now.,1 "So, mappen, I dunnot speak him fair.",3 "I could go o'er him wi' a plough mysel', wi' a' the pleasure in life.'",3 'Why?,2 What has he been doing?,2 Anything fresh?',3 "'Ay, to be sure.",2 "He's ne'er out o' mischief, that man.",1 "First of a' he must go raging like a mad fool, and kick up yon riot.",1 "Then he'd to go into hiding, where he'd a been yet, if Thornton had followed him out as I'd hoped he would ha' done.",2 "But Thornton, having got his own purpose, didn't care to go on wi' the prosecution for the riot.",2 So Boucher slunk back again to his house.,2 He ne'er showed himsel' abroad for a day or two.,2 He had that grace.,3 "And then, where think ye that he went?",2 "Why, to Hamper's.",2 Damn him!,1 "He went wi' his mealy-mouthed face, that turns me sick to look at, a-asking for work, though he knowed well enough the new rule, o' pledging themselves to give nought to th' Unions; nought to help the starving turn-out!",3 "Why he'd a clemmed to death, if th' Union had na helped him in his pinch.",1 "There he went, ossing to promise aught, and pledge himsel' to aught--to tell a' he know'd on our proceedings, the good-for-nothing Judas!",3 "But I'll say this for Hamper, and thank him for it at my dying day, he drove Boucher away, and would na listen to him--ne'er a word--though folk standing by, says the traitor cried like a babby!'",1 'Oh!,2 how shocking!,1 how pitiful!',1 exclaimed Margaret.,2 "'Higgins, I don't know you to-day.",2 "Don't you see how you've made Boucher what he is, by driving him into the Union against his will--without his heart going with it.",2 You have made him what he is!',2 Made him what he is!,2 What was he?,2 "Gathering, gathering along the narrow street, came a hollow, measured sound; now forcing itself on their attention.",1 "Many voices were hushed and low: many steps were heard not moving onwards, at least not with any rapidity or steadiness of motion, but as if circling round one spot.",3 "Yes, there was one distinct, slow tramp of feet, which made itself a clear path through the air, and reached their ears; the measured laboured walk of men carrying a heavy burden.",1 "They were all drawn towards the house-door by some irresistible impulse; impelled thither--not by a poor curiosity, but as if by some solemn blast.",1 "Six men walked in the middle of the road, three of them being policemen.",2 "They carried a door, taken off its hinges, upon their shoulders, on which lay some dead human creature; and from each side of the door there were constant droppings.",1 "All the street turned out to see, and, seeing, to accompany the procession, each one questioning the bearers, who answered almost reluctantly at last, so often had they told the tale.",1 'We found him i' th' brook in the field beyond there.',2 'Th' brook!--why there's not water enough to drown him!',3 'He was a determined chap.,2 He lay with his face downwards.,2 "He was sick enough o' living, choose what cause he had for it.'",2 "Higgins crept up to Margaret's side, and said in a weak piping kind of voice: 'It's not John Boucher?",1 He had na spunk enough.,3 Sure!,2 It's not John Boucher!,2 "Why, they are a' looking this way!",2 Listen!,2 "I've a singing in my head, and I cannot hear.'",2 "They put the door down carefully upon the stones, and all might see the poor drowned wretch--his glassy eyes, one half-open, staring right upwards to the sky.",1 "Owing to the position in which he had been found lying, his face was swollen and discoloured besides, his skin was stained by the water in the brook, which had been used for dyeing purposes.",1 "The fore part of his head was bald; but the hair grew thin and long behind, and every separate lock was a conduit for water.",2 "Through all these disfigurements, Margaret recognised John Boucher.",2 "It seemed to her so sacrilegious to be peering into that poor distorted, agonised face, that, by a flash of instinct, she went forwards and softly covered the dead man's countenance with her handkerchief.",0 "The eyes that saw her do this followed her, as she turned away from her pious office, and were thus led to the place where Nicholas Higgins stood, like one rooted to the spot.",3 "The men spoke together, and then one of them came up to Higgins, who would have fain shrunk back into his house.",2 "'Higgins, thou knowed him!",2 Thou mun go tell the wife.,2 "Do it gently, man, but do it quick, for we canna leave him here long.'",2 "'I canna go,' said Higgins.",2 'Dunnot ask me.,2 I canna face her.',2 "'Thou knows her best,' said the man.",3 'We'n done a deal in bringing him here--thou take thy share.',2 "'I canna do it,' said Higgins.",2 'I'm welly felled wi' seeing him.,2 We wasn't friends; and now he's dead.',1 "'Well, if thou wunnot thou wunnot.",2 "Some one mun, though.",2 "It's a dree task; but it's a chance, every minute, as she doesn't hear on it in some rougher way nor a person going to make her let on by degrees, as it were.'",2 "'Papa, do you go,' said Margaret, in a low voice.",2 'If I could--if I had time to think of what I had better say; but all at once---- ' Margaret saw that her father was indeed unable.,2 He was trembling from head to foot.,2 "'I will go,' said she.",2 "'Bless yo', miss, it will be a kind act; for she's been but a sickly sort of body, I hear, and few hereabouts know much on her.'",1 "Margaret knocked at the closed door; but there was such a noise, as of many little ill-ordered children, that she could hear no reply; indeed, she doubted if she was heard, and as every moment of delay made her recoil from her task more and more, she opened the door and went in, shutting it after her, and even, unseen to the woman, fastening the bolt.",0 "Mrs. Boucher was sitting in a rocking-chair, on the other side of the ill-redd-up fireplace; it looked as if the house had been untouched for days by any effort at cleanliness.",2 "Margaret said something, she hardly knew what, her throat and mouth were so dry, and the children's noise completely prevented her from being heard.",1 She tried again.,2 "'How are you, Mrs. Boucher?",2 "But very poorly, I'm afraid.'",1 "'I've no chance o' being well,' said she querulously.",3 "'I'm left alone to manage these childer, and nought for to give 'em for to keep 'em quiet.",3 "John should na ha' left me, and me so poorly.'",1 'How long is it since he went away?',2 'Four days sin'.,2 "No one would give him work here, and he'd to go on tramp toward Greenfield.",2 "But he might ha' been back afore this, or sent me some word if he'd getten work.",3 "He might---- ' 'Oh, don't blame him,' said Margaret.",1 "'He felt it deeply, I'm sure---- ' 'Willto' hold thy din, and let me hear the lady speak!'",1 "addressing herself, in no very gentle voice, to a little urchin of about a year old.",3 "She apologetically continued to Margaret, 'He's always mithering me for ""daddy"" and ""butty;"" and I ha' no butties to give him, and daddy's away, and forgotten us a', I think.",2 "He's his father's darling, he is,' said she, with a sudden turn of mood, and, dragging the child up to her knee, she began kissing it fondly.",3 Margaret laid her hand on the woman's arm to arrest her attention.,2 Their eyes met.,2 'Poor little fellow!',2 "said Margaret, slowly; 'he _was_ his father's darling.'",2 "'He _is_ his father's darling,' said the woman, rising hastily, and standing face to face with Margaret.",2 Neither of them spoke for a moment or two.,2 "Then Mrs. Boucher began in a low, growling tone, gathering in wildness as she went on: 'He _is_ his father's darling, I say.",3 Poor folk can love their childer as well as rich.,3 Why dunno yo' speak?,2 Why dun yo' stare at me wi' your great pitiful eyes?,2 Where's John?',2 "Weak as she was, she shook Margaret to force out an answer.",1 "'Oh, my God!'",2 "said she, understanding the meaning of that tearful look.",2 She sank back into the chair.,2 Margaret took up the child and put him into her arms.,2 "'He loved him,' said she.",3 "'Ay,' said the woman, shaking her head, 'he loved us a'.",3 We had some one to love us once.,3 "It's a long time ago; but when he were in life and with us, he did love us, he did.",3 "He loved this babby mappen the best on us; but he loved me and I loved him, though I was calling him five minutes agone.",3 Are yo' sure he's dead?',1 "said she, trying to get up.",2 "'If it's only that he's ill and like to die, they may bring him round yet.",2 I'm but an ailing creature mysel'--I've been ailing this long time.',1 'But he is dead--he is drowned!',1 'Folk are brought round after they're dead-drowned.,1 "Whatten was I thinking of, to sit still when I should be stirring mysel'?",2 "Here, whisth thee, child--whisth thee!",2 "tak' this, tak' aught to play wi', but dunnot cry while my heart's breaking!",1 "Oh, where is my strength gone to?",2 "Oh, John--husband!'",2 Margaret saved her from falling by catching her in her arms.,1 "She sate down in the rocking chair, and held the woman upon her knees, her head lying on Margaret's shoulder.",1 "The other children, clustered together in affright, began to understand the mystery of the scene; but the ideas came slowly, for their brains were dull and languid of perception.",0 "They set up such a cry of despair as they guessed the truth, that Margaret knew not how to bear it.",1 "Johnny's cry was loudest of them all, though he knew not why he cried, poor little fellow.",1 The mother quivered as she lay in Margaret's arms.,2 Margaret heard a noise at the door.,1 'Open it.,2 "Open it quick,' said she to the eldest child.",2 'It's bolted; make no noise--be very still.,1 "Oh, papa, let them go upstairs very softly and carefully, and perhaps she will not hear them.",2 She has fainted--that's all.',2 "'It's as well for her, poor creature,' said a woman following in the wake of the bearers of the dead.",1 'But yo're not fit to hold her.,2 "Stay, I'll run fetch a pillow and we'll let her down easy on the floor.'",3 "This helpful neighbour was a great relief to Margaret; she was evidently a stranger to the house, a new-comer in the district, indeed; but she was so kind and thoughtful that Margaret felt she was no longer needed; and that it would be better, perhaps, to set an example of clearing the house, which was filled with idle, if sympathising gazers.",4 She looked round for Nicholas Higgins.,2 He was not there.,2 So she spoke to the woman who had taken the lead in placing Mrs. Boucher on the floor.,3 'Can you give all these people a hint that they had better leave in quietness?,3 "So that when she comes round, she should only find one or two that she knows about her.",2 "Papa, will you speak to the men, and get them to go away?",2 "She cannot breathe, poor thing, with this crowd about her.'",1 Margaret was kneeling down by Mrs. Boucher and bathing her face with vinegar; but in a few minutes she was surprised at the gush of fresh air.,3 "She looked round, and saw a smile pass between her father and the woman.",3 'What is it?',2 asked she.,2 "'Only our good friend here,' replied her father, 'hit on a capital expedient for clearing the place.'",3 "'I bid 'em begone, and each take a child with 'em, and to mind that they were orphans, and their mother a widow.",2 "It was who could do most, and the childer are sure of a bellyful to-day, and of kindness too.",3 Does hoo know how he died?',1 "'No,' said Margaret; 'I could not tell her all at once.'",2 'Hoo mun be told because of th' Inquest.,2 See!,2 Hoo's coming round; shall you or I do it?,2 or mappen your father would be best?',3 "'No; you, you,' said Margaret.",2 They awaited her perfect recovery in silence.,3 "Then the neighbour woman sat down on the floor, and took Mrs. Boucher's head and shoulders on her lap.",2 "'Neighbour,' said she, 'your man is dead.",1 Guess yo' how he died?',1 "'He were drowned,' said Mrs. Boucher, feebly, beginning to cry for the first time, at this rough probing of her sorrows.",1 'He were found drowned.,2 He were coming home very hopeless o' aught on earth.,1 He thought God could na be harder than men; mappen not so hard; mappen as tender as a mother; mappen tenderer.,2 "I'm not saying he did right, and I'm not saying he did wrong.",2 "All I say is, may neither me nor mine ever have his sore heart, or we may do like things.'",2 'He has left me alone wi' a' these children!',2 "moaned the widow, less distressed at the manner of the death than Margaret expected; but it was of a piece with her helpless character to feel his loss as principally affecting herself and her children.",0 "'Not alone,' said Mr. Hale, solemnly.",3 'Who is with you?,2 Who will take up your cause?',2 "The widow opened her eyes wide, and looked at the new speaker, of whose presence she had not been aware till then.",2 'Who has promised to be a father to the fatherless?',3 continued he.,2 "'But I've getten six children, sir, and the eldest not eight years of age.",2 "I'm not meaning for to doubt His power, sir,--only it needs a deal o' trust;' and she began to cry afresh.",1 "'Hoo'll be better able to talk to-morrow, sir,' said the neighbour.",3 'Best comfort now would be the feel of a child at her heart.,3 I'm sorry they took the babby.',1 "'I'll go for it,' said Margaret.",2 "And in a few minutes she returned, carrying Johnnie, his face all smeared with eating, and his hands loaded with treasures in the shape of shells, and bits of crystal, and the head of a plaster figure.",2 She placed him in his mother's arms.,2 'There!',2 "said the woman, 'now you go.",2 "They'll cry together, and comfort together, better nor any one but a child can do.",3 "I'll stop with her as long as I'm needed, and if yo' come to-morrow, yo' can have a deal o' wise talk with her, that she's not up to to-day.'",3 "As Margaret and her father went slowly up the street, she paused at Higgins's closed door.",1 'Shall we go in?',2 asked her father.,2 'I was thinking of him too.',2 They knocked.,2 "There was no answer, so they tried the door.",2 "It was bolted, but they thought they heard him moving within.",2 'Nicholas!',2 said Margaret.,2 "There was no answer, and they might have gone away, believing the house to be empty, if there had not been some accidental fall, as of a book, within.",1 'Nicholas!',2 said Margaret again.,2 'It is only us.,2 Won't you let us come in?',2 "'No,' said he.",2 "'I spoke as plain as I could, 'bout using words, when I bolted th' door.",2 "Let me be, this day.'",2 "Mr. Hale would have urged their desire, but Margaret placed her finger on his lips.",3 "'I don't wonder at it,' said she.",3 'I myself long to be alone.,2 It seems the only thing to do one good after a day like this.',3 "Higgins's door was locked the next day, when they went to pay their call on the widow Boucher: but they learnt this time from an officious neighbour, that he was really from home.",1 "He had, however, been in to see Mrs. Boucher, before starting on his day's business, whatever that was.",2 It was but an unsatisfactory visit to Mrs. Boucher; she considered herself as an ill-used woman by her poor husband's suicide; and there was quite germ of truth enough in this idea to make it a very difficult one to refute.,0 "Still, it was unsatisfactory to see how completely her thoughts were turned upon herself and her own position, and this selfishness extended even to her relations with her children, whom she considered as incumbrances, even in the very midst of her somewhat animal affection for them.",1 "Margaret tried to make acquaintances with one or two of them, while her father strove to raise the widow's thoughts into some higher channel than that of mere helpless querulousness.",1 She found that the children were truer and simpler mourners than the widow.,3 "Daddy had been a kind daddy to them; each could tell, in their eager stammering way, of some tenderness shown some indulgence granted by the lost father.",2 'Is yon thing upstairs really him?,2 it doesna look like him.,3 "I'm feared on it, and I never was feared o' daddy.'",2 "Margaret's heart bled to hear that the mother, in her selfish requirement of sympathy, had taken her children upstairs to see their disfigured father.",1 It was intermingling the coarseness of horror with the profoundness of natural grief.,1 She tried to turn their thoughts in some other direction; on what they could do for mother; on what--for this was a more efficacious way of putting it--what father would have wished them to do.,3 Margaret was more successful than Mr. Hale in her efforts.,3 "The children seeing their little duties lie in action close around them, began to try each one to do something that she suggested towards redding up the slatternly room.",1 "But her father set too high a standard, and too abstract a view, before the indolent invalid.",1 "She could not rouse her torpid mind into any vivid imagination of what her husband's misery might have been before he had resorted to the last terrible step; she could only look upon it as it affected herself; she could not enter into the enduring mercy of the God who had not specially interposed to prevent the water from drowning her prostrate husband; and although she was secretly blaming her husband for having fallen into such drear despair, and denying that he had any excuse for his last rash act, she was inveterate in her abuse of all who could by any possibility be supposed to have driven him to such desperation.",0 "The masters--Mr. Thornton in particular, whose mill had been attacked by Boucher, and who, after the warrant had been issued for his apprehension on the charge of rioting, had caused it to be withdrawn,--the Union, of which Higgins was the representative to the poor woman,--the children so numerous, so hungry, and so noisy--all made up one great army of personal enemies, whose fault it was that she was now a helpless widow.",0 Margaret heard enough of this unreasonableness to dishearten her; and when they came away she found it impossible to cheer her father.,2 "'It is the town life,' said she.",2 "'Their nerves are quickened by the haste and bustle and speed of everything around them, to say nothing of the confinement in these pent-up houses, which of itself is enough to induce depression and worry of spirits.",1 "Now in the country, people live so much more out of doors, even children, and even in the winter.'",2 'But people must live in towns.,2 And in the country some get such stagnant habits of mind that they are almost fatalists.',1 'Yes; I acknowledge that.,2 I suppose each mode of life produces its own trials and its own temptations.,2 "The dweller in towns must find it as difficult to be patient and calm, as the country-bred man must find it to be active, and equal to unwonted emergencies.",3 "Both must find it hard to realise a future of any kind; the one because the present is so living and hurrying and close around him; the other because his life tempts him to revel in the mere sense of animal existence, not knowing of, and consequently not caring for any pungency of pleasure for the attainment of which he can plan, and deny himself and look forward.'",2 "'And thus both the necessity for engrossment, and the stupid content in the present, produce the same effects.",1 But this poor Mrs. Boucher!,1 how little we can do for her.',2 "'And yet we dare not leave her without our efforts, although they may seem so useless.",1 Oh papa!,2 it's a hard world to live in!',1 "'So it is, my child.",2 "We feel it so just now, at any rate; but we have been very happy, even in the midst of our sorrow.",2 What a pleasure Frederick's visit was!',3 "'Yes, that it was,' said Margaret; brightly.",2 "'It was such a charming, snatched, forbidden thing.'",2 But she suddenly stopped speaking.,2 She had spoiled the remembrance of Frederick's visit to herself by her own cowardice.,1 Of all faults the one she most despised in others was the want of bravery; the meanness of heart which leads to untruth.,1 And here had she been guilty of it!,1 Then came the thought of Mr. Thornton's cognisance of her falsehood.,1 She wondered if she should have minded detection half so much from any one else.,2 She tried herself in imagination with her Aunt Shaw and Edith; with her father; with Captain and Mr. Lennox; with Frederick.,2 "The thought of the last knowing what she had done, even in his own behalf, was the most painful, for the brother and sister were in the first flush of their mutual regard and love; but even any fall in Frederick's opinion was as nothing to the shame, the shrinking shame she felt at the thought of meeting Mr. Thornton again.",1 "And yet she longed to see him, to get it over; to understand where she stood in his opinion.",2 "Her cheeks burnt as she recollected how proudly she had implied an objection to trade (in the early days of their acquaintance), because it too often led to the deceit of passing off inferior for superior goods, in the one branch; of assuming credit for wealth and resources not possessed, in the other.",1 "She remembered Mr. Thornton's look of calm disdain, as in few words he gave her to understand that, in the great scheme of commerce, all dishonourable ways of acting were sure to prove injurious in the long run, and that, testing such actions simply according to the poor standard of success, there was folly and not wisdom in all such, and every kind of deceit in trade, as well as in other things.",3 "She remembered--she, then strong in her own untempted truth--asking him, if he did not think that buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market proved some want of the transparent justice which is so intimately connected with the idea of truth: and she had used the word chivalric--and her father had corrected her with the higher word, Christian; and so drawn the argument upon himself, while she sate silent by with a slight feeling of contempt.",4 No more contempt for her!--no more talk about the chivalric!,1 Henceforward she must feel humiliated and disgraced in his sight.,1 But when should she see him?,2 "Her heart leaped up in apprehension at every ring of the door-bell; and yet when it fell down to calmness, she felt strangely saddened and sick at heart at each disappointment.",0 "It was very evident that her father expected to see him, and was surprised that he did not come.",2 "The truth was, that there were points in their conversation the other night on which they had no time then to enlarge; but it had been understood that if possible on the succeeding evening--if not then, at least the very first evening that Mr. Thornton could command,--they should meet for further discussion.",3 Mr. Hale had looked forward to this meeting ever since they had parted.,3 "He had not yet resumed the instruction to his pupils, which he had relinquished at the commencement of his wife's more serious illness, so he had fewer occupations than usual; and the great interest of the last day or so (Boucher's suicide) had driven him back with more eagerness than ever upon his speculations.",2 He was restless all evening.,1 "He kept saying, 'I quite expected to have seen Mr. Thornton.",2 "I think the messenger who brought the book last night must have had some note, and forgot to deliver it.",2 Do you think there has been any message left to-day?',2 "'I will go and inquire, papa,' said Margaret, after the changes on these sentences had been rung once or twice.",2 "'Stay, there's a ring!'",2 "She sate down instantly, and bent her head attentively over her work.",3 "She heard a step on the stairs, but it was only one, and she knew it was Dixon's.",2 "She lifted up her head and sighed, and believed she felt glad.",3 "'It's that Higgins, sir.",2 "He wants to see you, or else Miss Hale.",2 "Or it might be Miss Hale first, and then you, sir; for he's in a strange kind of way.",1 "'He had better come up here, Dixon; and then he can see us both, and choose which he likes for his listener.'",3 'Oh!,2 "very well, sir.",3 "I've no wish to hear what he's got to say, I'm sure; only, if you could see his shoes, I'm sure you'd say the kitchen was the fitter place.",2 "'He can wipe them, I suppose, said Mr. Hale.",3 "So Dixon flung off, to bid him walk up-stairs.",2 "She was a little mollified, however, when he looked at his feet with a hesitating air; and then, sitting down on the bottom stair, he took off the offending shoes, and without a word walked up-stairs.",1 "'Sarvant, sir!'",2 "said he, slicking his hair down when he came into the room.",2 "'If hoo'l excuse me (looking at Margaret) for being i' my stockings; I'se been tramping a' day, and streets is none o' th' cleanest.'",2 "Margaret thought that fatigue might account for the change in his manner, for he was unusually quiet and subdued; and he had evidently some difficulty in saying what he came to say.",0 "Mr. Hale's ever-ready sympathy with anything of shyness or hesitation, or want of self-possession, made him come to his aid.",3 "'We shall have tea up directly, and then you'll take a cup with us, Mr. Higgins.",2 "I am sure you are tired, if you've been out much this wet relaxing day.",1 "Margaret, my dear, can't you hasten tea?'",2 "Margaret could only hasten tea by taking the preparation of it into her own hands, and so offending Dixon, who was emerging out of her sorrow for her late mistress into a very touchy, irritable state.",0 "But Martha, like all who came in contact with Margaret--even Dixon herself, in the long run--felt it a pleasure and an honour to forward any of her wishes; and her readiness, and Margaret's sweet forbearance, soon made Dixon ashamed of herself.",3 "'Why master and you must always be asking the lower classes up-stairs, since we came to Milton, I cannot understand.",3 Folk at Helstone were never brought higher than the kitchen; and I've let one or two of them know before now that they might think it an honour to be even there.',2 Higgins found it easier to unburden himself to one than to two.,3 "After Margaret left the room, he went to the door and assured himself that it was shut.",2 Then he came and stood close to Mr. Hale.,3 "'Master,' said he, 'yo'd not guess easy what I've been tramping after to-day.",3 Special if yo' remember my manner o' talk yesterday.,2 I've been a seeking work.,3 I have' said he.,2 "'I said to mysel', I'd keep a civil tongue in my head, let who would say what 'em would.",2 I'd set my teeth into my tongue sooner nor speak i' haste.,1 "For that man's sake--yo' understand,' jerking his thumb back in some unknown direction.",1 "'No, I don't,' said Mr. Hale, seeing he waited for some kind of assent, and completely bewildered as to who 'that man' could be.",2 "'That chap as lies theer,' said he, with another jerk.",1 "'Him as went and drownded himself, poor chap!",1 I did na' think he'd got it in him to lie still and let th' water creep o'er him till he died.,0 "Boucher, yo' know.'",2 "'Yes, I know now,' said Mr. Hale.",3 'Go back to what you were saying: you'd not speak in haste---- ' 'For his sake.,1 "Yet not for his sake; for where'er he is, and whate'er, he'll ne'er know other clemming or cold again; but for the wife's sake, and the bits o' childer.'",1 'God bless you!',3 "said Mr. Hale, starting up; then, calming down, he said breathlessly, 'What do you mean?",3 Tell me out.',2 "'I have telled yo',' said Higgins, a little surprised at Mr. Hale's agitation.",2 'I would na ask for work for mysel'; but them's left as a charge on me.,3 "I reckon, I would ha guided Boucher to a better end; but I set him off o' th' road, and so I mun answer for him.'",3 "Mr. Hale got hold of Higgins's hand and shook it heartily, without speaking.",3 Higgins looked awkward and ashamed.,1 "'Theer, theer, master!",3 "Theer's ne'er a man, to call a man, amongst us, but what would do th' same; ay, and better too; for, belie' me, I'se ne'er got a stroke o' work, nor yet a sight of any.",3 "For all I telled Hamper that, let alone his pledge--which I would not sign--no, I could na, not e'en for this--he'd ne'er ha' such a worker on his mill as I would be--he'd ha' none o' me--no more would none o' th' others.",1 "I'm a poor black feckless sheep--childer may clem for aught I can do, unless, parson, yo'd help me?'",1 'Help you!,2 How?,2 "I would do anything,--but what can I do?'",2 "'Miss there'--for Margaret had re-entered the room, and stood silent, listening--'has often talked grand o' the South, and the ways down there.",3 "Now I dunnot know how far off it is, but I've been thinking if I could get 'em down theer, where food is cheap and wages good, and all the folk, rich and poor, master and man, friendly like; yo' could, may be, help me to work.",4 "I'm not forty-five, and I've a deal o' strength in me, measter.'",2 "'But what kind of work could you do, my man?'",3 "'Well, I reckon I could spade a bit---- ' 'And for that,' said Margaret, stepping forwards, 'for anything you could do, Higgins, with the best will in the world, you would, may be, get nine shillings a week; maybe ten, at the outside.",2 "Food is much the same as here, except that you might have a little garden---- ' 'The childer could work at that,' said he.",3 "'I'm sick o' Milton anyways, and Milton is sick o' me.'",1 "'You must not go to the South,' said Margaret, 'for all that.",2 You could not stand it.,2 You would have to be out all weathers.,2 It would kill you with rheumatism.,1 The mere bodily work at your time of life would break you down.,2 The fare is far different to what you have been accustomed to.',2 "'I'se nought particular about my meat,' said he, as if offended.",2 "'But you've reckoned on having butcher's meat once a day, if you're in work; pay for that out of your ten shillings, and keep those poor children if you can.",2 I owe it to you--since it's my way of talking that has set you off on this idea--to put it all clear before you.,3 You would not bear the dulness of the life; you don't know what it is; it would eat you away like rust.,2 "Those that have lived there all their lives, are used to soaking in the stagnant waters.",1 "They labour on, from day to day, in the great solitude of steaming fields--never speaking or lifting up their poor, bent, downcast heads.",1 "The hard spade-work robs their brain of life; the sameness of their toil deadens their imagination; they don't care to meet to talk over thoughts and speculations, even of the weakest, wildest kind, after their work is done; they go home brutishly tired, poor creatures!",0 caring for nothing but food and rest.,2 "You could not stir them up into any companionship, which you get in a town as plentiful as the air you breathe, whether it be good or bad--and that I don't know; but I do know, that you of all men are not one to bear a life among such labourers.",3 What would be peace to them would be eternal fretting to you.,3 "Think no more of it, Nicholas, I beg.",1 "Besides, you could never pay to get mother and children all there--that's one good thing.'",3 'I've reckoned for that.,2 "One house mun do for us a', and the furniture o' t'other would go a good way.",3 And men theer mun have their families to keep--mappen six or seven childer.,2 God help 'em!',2 "said he, more convinced by his own presentation of the facts than by all Margaret had said, and suddenly renouncing the idea, which had but recently formed itself in a brain worn out by the day's fatigue and anxiety.",0 'God help 'em!,2 North an' South have each getten their own troubles.,1 "If work's sure and steady theer, labour's paid at starvation prices; while here we'n rucks o' money coming in one quarter, and ne'er a farthing th' next.",2 "For sure, th' world is in a confusion that passes me or any other man to understand; it needs fettling, and who's to fettle it, if it's as yon folks say, and there's nought but what we see?'",1 "Mr. Hale was busy cutting bread and butter; Margaret was glad of this, for she saw that Higgins was better left to himself: that if her father began to speak ever so mildly on the subject of Higgins's thoughts, the latter would consider himself challenged to an argument, and would feel himself bound to maintain his own ground.",4 "She and her father kept up an indifferent conversation until Higgins, scarcely aware whether he ate or not, had made a very substantial meal.",1 "Then he pushed his chair away from the table, and tried to take an interest in what they were saying; but it was of no use; and he fell back into dreamy gloom.",1 "Suddenly, Margaret said (she had been thinking of it for some time, but the words had stuck in her throat), 'Higgins, have you been to Marlborough Mills to seek for work?'",2 'Thornton's?',2 asked he.,2 "'Ay, I've been at Thornton's.'",2 'And what did he say?',2 'Such a chap as me is not like to see the measter.,3 "Th' o'erlooker bid me go and be d---- d.' 'I wish you had seen Mr. Thornton,' said Mr. Hale.",3 "'He might not have given you work, but he would not have used such language.'",3 "'As to th' language, I'm welly used to it; it dunnot matter to me.",2 I'm not nesh mysel' when I'm put out.,2 "It were th' fact that I were na wanted theer, no more nor ony other place, as I minded.'",2 "'But I wish you had seen Mr. Thornton,' repeated Margaret.",2 "'Would you go again--it's a good deal to ask, I know--but would you go to-morrow and try him?",3 I should be so glad if you would.',3 "'I'm afraid it would be of no use,' said Mr. Hale, in a low voice.",2 'It would be better to let me speak to him.',3 Margaret still looked at Higgins for his answer.,2 Those grave soft eyes of hers were difficult to resist.,2 He gave a great sigh.,3 "'It would tax my pride above a bit; if it were for mysel', I could stand a deal o' clemming first; I'd sooner knock him down than ask a favour from him.",3 "I'd a deal sooner be flogged mysel'; but yo're not a common wench, axing yo'r pardon, nor yet have yo' common ways about yo'.",3 "I'll e'en make a wry face, and go at it to-morrow.",2 Dunna yo' think that he'll do it.,2 That man has it in him to be burnt at the stake afore he'll give in.,2 "I do it for yo'r sake, Miss Hale, and it's first time in my life as e'er I give way to a woman.",2 Neither my wife nor Bess could e'er say that much again me.',2 "'All the more do I thank you,' said Margaret, smiling.",3 'Though I don't believe you: I believe you have just given way to wife and daughter as much as most men.',2 "'And as to Mr. Thornton,' said Mr. Hale, 'I'll give you a note to him, which, I think I may venture to say, will ensure you a hearing.'",3 "'I thank yo' kindly, sir, but I'd as lief stand on my own bottom.",3 "I dunnot stomach the notion of having favour curried for me, by one as doesn't know the ins and outs of the quarrel.",2 Meddling 'twixt master and man is liker meddling 'twixt husband and wife than aught else: it takes a deal o' wisdom for to do ony good.,4 I'll stand guard at the lodge door.,2 I'll stand there fro' six in the morning till I get speech on him.,2 "But I'd liefer sweep th' streets, if paupers had na' got hold on that work.",2 "Dunna yo' hope, miss.",1 There'll be more chance o' getting milk out of a flint.,2 "I wish yo' a very good night, and many thanks to yo'.'",3 "'You'll find your shoes by the kitchen fire; I took them there to dry,' said Margaret.",2 "He turned round and looked at her steadily, and then he brushed his lean hand across his eyes and went his way.",3 'How proud that man is!',3 "said her father, who was a little annoyed at the manner in which Higgins had declined his intercession with Mr. Thornton.",1 "'He is,' said Margaret; 'but what grand makings of a man there are in him, pride and all.'",3 'It's amusing to see how he evidently respects the part in Mr. Thornton's character which is like his own.',3 "'There's granite in all these northern people, papa, is there not?'",2 "'There was none in poor Boucher, I am afraid; none in his wife either.'",1 'I should guess from their tones that they had Irish blood in them.,2 I wonder what success he'll have to-morrow.,3 "If he and Mr. Thornton would speak out together as man to man--if Higgins would forget that Mr. Thornton was a master, and speak to him as he does to us--and if Mr. Thornton would be patient enough to listen to him with his human heart, not with his master's ears--' 'You are getting to do Mr. Thornton justice at last, Margaret,' said her father, pinching her ear.",4 "Margaret had a strange choking at her heart, which made her unable to answer.",1 'Oh!',2 "thought she, 'I wish I were a man, that I could go and force him to express his disapprobation, and tell him honestly that I knew I deserved it.",1 It seems hard to lose him as a friend just when I had begun to feel his value.,1 How tender he was with dear mamma!,3 "If it were only for her sake, I wish he would come, and then at least I should know how much I was abased in his eyes.'",2 "It was not merely that Margaret was known to Mr. Thornton to have spoken falsely,--though she imagined that for this reason only was she so turned in his opinion,--but that this falsehood of hers bore a distinct reference in his mind to some other lover.",1 "He could not forget the fond and earnest look that had passed between her and some other man--the attitude of familiar confidence, if not of positive endearment.",4 "The thought of this perpetually stung him; it was a picture before his eyes, wherever he went and whatever he was doing.",2 "In addition to this (and he ground his teeth as he remembered it), was the hour, dusky twilight; the place, so far away from home, and comparatively unfrequented.",2 "His nobler self had said at first, that all this last might be accidental, innocent, justifiable; but once allow her right to love and be beloved (and had he any reason to deny her right?--had not her words been severely explicit when she cast his love away from her?), she might easily have been beguiled into a longer walk, on to a later hour than she had anticipated.",3 But that falsehood!,1 "which showed a fatal consciousness of something wrong, and to be concealed, which was unlike her.",1 "He did her that justice, though all the time it would have been a relief to believe her utterly unworthy of his esteem.",1 "It was this that made the misery--that he passionately loved her, and thought her, even with all her faults, more lovely and more excellent than any other woman; yet he deemed her so attached to some other man, so led away by her affection for him as to violate her truthful nature.",4 "The very falsehood that stained her, was a proof how blindly she loved another--this dark, slight, elegant, handsome man--while he himself was rough, and stern, and strongly made.",1 He lashed himself into an agony of fierce jealousy.,0 "He thought of that look, that attitude!--how he would have laid his life at her feet for such tender glances, such fond detention!",3 "He mocked at himself, for having valued the mechanical way in which she had protected him from the fury of the mob; now he had seen how soft and bewitching she looked when with a man she really loved.",2 "He remembered, point by point, the sharpness of her words--'There was not a man in all that crowd for whom she would not have done as much, far more readily than for him.'",3 "He shared with the mob, in her desire of averting bloodshed from them; but this man, this hidden lover, shared with nobody; he had looks, words, hand-cleavings, lies, concealment, all to himself.",1 "Mr. Thornton was conscious that he had never been so irritable as he was now, in all his life long; he felt inclined to give a short abrupt answer, more like a bark than a speech, to every one that asked him a question; and this consciousness hurt his pride: he had always piqued himself on his self-control, and control himself he would.",1 "So the manner was subdued to a quiet deliberation, but the matter was even harder and sterner than common.",2 "He was more than usually silent at home; employing his evenings in a continual pace backwards and forwards, which would have annoyed his mother exceedingly if it had been practised by any one else; and did not tend to promote any forbearance on her part even to this beloved son.",3 'Can you stop--can you sit down for a moment?,2 "I have something to say to you, if you would give up that everlasting walk, walk, walk.'",3 "He sat down instantly, on a chair against the wall.",3 'I want to speak to you about Betsy.,2 She says she must leave us; that her lover's death has so affected her spirits she can't give her heart to her work.',2 'Very well.,3 I suppose other cooks are to be met with.',2 'That's so like a man.,3 "It's not merely the cooking, it is that she knows all the ways of the house.",2 "Besides, she tells me something about your friend Miss Hale.'",2 'Miss Hale is no friend of mine.,3 Mr. Hale is my friend.',3 "'I am glad to hear you say so, for if she had been your friend, what Betsy says would have annoyed you.'",2 "'Let me hear it,' said he, with the extreme quietness of manner he had been assuming for the last few days.",2 "'Betsy says, that the night on which her lover--I forget his name--for she always calls him ""he""---- ' 'Leonards.'",3 "'The night on which Leonards was last seen at the station--when he was last seen on duty, in fact--Miss Hale was there, walking about with a young man who, Betsy believes, killed Leonards by some blow or push.'",1 'Leonards was not killed by any blow or push.',1 'How do you know?',2 'Because I distinctly put the question to the surgeon of the Infirmary.,2 "He told me there was an internal disease of long standing, caused by Leonards' habit of drinking to excess; that the fact of his becoming rapidly worse while in a state of intoxication, settled the question as to whether the last fatal attack was caused by excess of drinking, or the fall.'",0 'The fall!,1 What fall?',1 'Caused by the blow or push of which Betsy speaks.',1 'Then there was a blow or push?',1 'I believe so.',2 'And who did it?',2 "'As there was no inquest, in consequence of the doctor's opinion, I cannot tell you.'",2 'But Miss Hale was there?',2 No answer.,2 'And with a young man?',2 Still no answer.,2 "At last he said: 'I tell you, mother, that there was no inquest--no inquiry.",2 "No judicial inquiry, I mean.'",2 "'Betsy says that Woolmer (some man she knows, who is in a grocer's shop out at Crampton) can swear that Miss Hale was at the station at that hour, walking backwards and forwards with a young man.'",2 'I don't see what we have to do with that.,2 Miss Hale is at liberty to please herself.',3 "'I'm glad to hear you say so,' said Mrs. Thornton, eagerly.",3 "'It certainly signifies very little to us--not at all to you, after what has passed!",2 "but I--I made a promise to Mrs. Hale, that I would not allow her daughter to go wrong without advising and remonstrating with her.",3 I shall certainly let her know my opinion of such conduct.',2 "'I do not see any harm in what she did that evening,' said Mr. Thornton, getting up, and coming near to his mother; he stood by the chimney-piece with his face turned away from the room.",1 "'You would not have approved of Fanny's being seen out, after dark, in rather a lonely place, walking about with a young man.",1 "I say nothing of the taste which could choose the time, when her mother lay unburied, for such a promenade.",2 Should you have liked your sister to have been noticed by a grocer's assistant for doing so?',3 "'In the first place, as it is not many years since I myself was a draper's assistant, the mere circumstance of a grocer's assistant noticing any act does not alter the character of the act to me.",2 "And in the next place, I see a great deal of difference between Miss Hale and Fanny.",3 "I can imagine that the one may have weighty reasons, which may and ought to make her overlook any seeming Impropriety in her conduct.",1 I never knew Fanny have weighty reasons for anything.,2 Other people must guard her.,2 I believe Miss Hale is a guardian to herself.',2 "'A pretty character of your sister, indeed!",3 "Really, John, one would have thought Miss Hale had done enough to make you clear-sighted.",3 "She drew you on to an offer, by a bold display of pretended regard for you,--to play you off against this very young man, I've no doubt.",2 Her whole conduct is clear to me now.,3 "You believe he is her lover, I suppose--you agree to that.'",3 He turned round to his mother; his face was very gray and grim.,1 "'Yes, mother.",2 I do believe he is her lover.',3 "When he had spoken, he turned round again; he writhed himself about, like one in bodily pain.",2 He leant his face against his hand.,2 "Then before she could speak, he turned sharp again: 'Mother.",3 "He is her lover, whoever he is; but she may need help and womanly counsel;--there may be difficulties or temptations which I don't know.",2 I fear there are.,1 I don't want to know what they are; but as you have ever been a good--ay!,3 "and a tender mother to me, go to her, and gain her confidence, and tell her what is best to be done.",4 "I know that something is wrong; some dread, must be a terrible torture to her.'",0 "'For God's sake, John!'",2 "said his mother, now really shocked, 'what do you mean?",1 What do you mean?,2 What do you know?',2 He did not reply to her.,2 'John!,2 I don't know what I shan't think unless you speak.,2 You have no right to say what you have done against her.',3 "'Not against her, mother!",2 I _could_ not speak against her.',2 'Well!,2 "you have no right to say what you have done, unless you say more.",3 These half-expressions are what ruin a woman's character.',1 'Her character!,2 "Mother, you do not dare--' he faced about, and looked into her face with his flaming eyes.",2 "Then, drawing himself up into determined composure and dignity, he said, 'I will not say any more than this, which is neither more nor less than the simple truth, and I am sure you believe me,--I have good reason to believe, that Miss Hale is in some strait and difficulty connected with an attachment which, of itself, from my knowledge of Miss Hale's character, is perfectly innocent and right.",4 "What my reason is, I refuse to tell.",1 "But never let me hear any one say a word against her, implying any more serious imputation than that she now needs the counsel of some kind and gentle woman.",3 You promised Mrs. Hale to be that woman!',3 'No!',2 said Mrs. Thornton.,2 "'I am happy to say, I did not promise kindness and gentleness, for I felt at the time that it might be out of my power to render these to one of Miss Hale's character and disposition.",3 "I promised counsel and advice, such as I would give to my own daughter; I shall speak to her as I would do to Fanny, if she had gone gallivanting with a young man in the dusk.",3 "I shall speak with relation to the circumstances I know, without being influenced either one way or another by the ""strong reasons"" which you will not confide to me.",3 "Then I shall have fulfilled my promise, and done my duty.'",3 "'She will never bear it,' said he passionately.",3 "'She will have to bear it, if I speak in her dead mother's name.'",1 'Well!',2 "said he, breaking away, 'don't tell me any more about it.",1 I cannot endure to think of it.,2 "It will be better that you should speak to her any way, than that she should not be spoken to at all.--Oh!",3 that look of love!',3 "continued he, between his teeth, as he bolted himself into his own private room.",2 "'And that cursed lie; which showed some terrible shame in the background, to be kept from the light in which I thought she lived perpetually!",0 "Oh, Margaret, Margaret!",2 "Mother, how you have tortured me!",1 Oh!,2 "Margaret, could you not have loved me?",3 "I am but uncouth and hard, but I would never have led you into any falsehood for me.'",1 "The more Mrs. Thornton thought over what her son had said, in pleading for a merciful judgment for Margaret's indiscretion, the more bitterly she felt inclined towards her.",1 "She took a savage pleasure in the idea of 'speaking her mind' to her, in the guise of fulfilment of a duty.",2 "She enjoyed the thought of showing herself untouched by the 'glamour,' which she was well aware Margaret had the power of throwing over many people.",3 "She snorted scornfully over the picture of the beauty of her victim; her jet black hair, her clear smooth skin, her lucid eyes would not help to save her one word of the just and stern reproach which Mrs. Thornton spent half the night in preparing to her mind.",3 'Is Miss Hale within?',2 "She knew she was, for she had seen her at the window, and she had her feet inside the little hall before Martha had half answered her question.",2 "Margaret was sitting alone, writing to Edith, and giving her many particulars of her mother's last days.",2 "It was a softening employment, and she had to brush away the unbidden tears as Mrs. Thornton was announced.",2 "She was so gentle and ladylike in her mode of reception that her visitor was somewhat daunted; and it became impossible to utter the speech, so easy of arrangement with no one to address it to.",3 "Margaret's low rich voice was softer than usual; her manner more gracious, because in her heart she was feeling very grateful to Mrs. Thornton for the courteous attention of her call.",4 "She exerted herself to find subjects of interest for conversation; praised Martha, the servant whom Mrs. Thornton had found for them; had asked Edith for a little Greek air, about which she had spoken to Miss Thornton.",1 Mrs. Thornton was fairly discomfited.,3 "Her sharp Damascus blade seemed out of place, and useless among rose-leaves.",2 "She was silent, because she was trying to task herself up to her duty.",3 "At last, she stung herself into its performance by a suspicion which, in spite of all probability, she allowed to cross her mind, that all this sweetness was put on with a view of propitiating Mr. Thornton; that, somehow, the other attachment had fallen through, and that it suited Miss Hale's purpose to recall her rejected lover.",0 Poor Margaret!,1 "there was perhaps so much truth in the suspicion as this: that Mrs. Thornton was the mother of one whose regard she valued, and feared to have lost; and this thought unconsciously added to her natural desire of pleasing one who was showing her kindness by her visit.",3 "Mrs. Thornton stood up to go, but yet she seemed to have something more to say.",2 "She cleared her throat and began: 'Miss Hale, I have a duty to perform.",3 "I promised your poor mother that, as far as my poor judgment went, I would not allow you to act in any way wrongly, or (she softened her speech down a little here) inadvertently, without remonstrating; at least, without offering advice, whether you took it or not.'",1 "Margaret stood before her, blushing like any culprit, with her eyes dilating as she gazed at Mrs. Thornton.",2 "She thought she had come to speak to her about the falsehood she had told--that Mr. Thornton had employed her to explain the danger she had exposed herself to, of being confuted in full court!",1 "and although her heart sank to think he had not rather chosen to come himself, and upbraid her, and receive her penitence, and restore her again to his good opinion, yet she was too much humbled not to bear any blame on this subject patiently and meekly.",2 "Mrs. Thornton went on: 'At first, when I heard from one of my servants, that you had been seen walking about with a gentleman, so far from home as the Outwood station, at such a time of the evening, I could hardly believe it.",2 "But my son, I am sorry to say, confirmed her story.",1 "It was indiscreet, to say the least; many a young woman has lost her character before now---- ' Margaret's eyes flashed fire.",1 This was a new idea--this was too insulting.,1 "If Mrs. Thornton had spoken to her about the lie she had told, well and good--she would have owned it, and humiliated herself.",3 But to interfere with her conduct--to speak of her character!,1 "she--Mrs. Thornton, a mere stranger--it was too impertinent!",1 She would not answer her--not one word.,2 "Mrs. Thornton saw the battle-spirit in Margaret's eyes, and it called up her combativeness also.",2 "'For your mother's sake, I have thought it right to warn you against such improprieties; they must degrade you in the long run in the estimation of the world, even if in fact they do not lead you to positive harm.'",3 "'For my mother's sake,' said Margaret, in a tearful voice, 'I will bear much; but I cannot bear everything.",2 "She never meant me to be exposed to insult, I am sure.'",1 "'Insult, Miss Hale!'",2 "'Yes, madam,' said Margaret more steadily, 'it is insult.",1 What do you know of me that should lead you to suspect--Oh!',2 "said she, breaking down, and covering her face with her hands--'I know now, Mr. Thornton has told you---- ' 'No, Miss Hale,' said Mrs. Thornton, her truthfulness causing her to arrest the confession Margaret was on the point of making, though her curiosity was itching to hear it.",1 'Stop.,2 Mr. Thornton has told me nothing.,2 You do not know my son.,2 You are not worthy to know him.,3 He said this.,2 "Listen, young lady, that you may understand, if you can, what sort of a man you rejected.",1 "This Milton manufacturer, his great tender heart scorned as it was scorned, said to me only last night, ""Go to her.",3 "I have good reason to know that she is in some strait, arising out of some attachment; and she needs womanly counsel.""",3 I believe those were his very words.,2 "Farther than that--beyond admitting the fact of your being at the Outwood station with a gentleman, on the evening of the twenty-sixth--he has said nothing--not one word against you.",2 "If he has knowledge of anything which should make you sob so, he keeps it to himself.'",1 "Margaret's face was still hidden in her hands, the fingers of which were wet with tears.",2 Mrs. Thornton was a little mollified.,2 "'Come, Miss Hale.",2 "There may be circumstances, I'll allow, that, if explained, may take off from the seeming impropriety.'",1 Still no answer.,2 "Margaret was considering what to say; she wished to stand well with Mrs. Thornton; and yet she could not, might not, give any explanation.",3 Mrs. Thornton grew impatient.,1 "'I shall be sorry to break off an acquaintance; but for Fanny's sake--as I told my son, if Fanny had done so we should consider it a great disgrace--and Fanny might be led away---- ' 'I can give you no explanation,' said Margaret, in a low voice.",1 "'I have done wrong, but not in the way you think or know about.",1 "I think Mr. Thornton judges me more mercifully than you;'--she had hard work to keep herself from choking with her tears--'but, I believe, madam, you mean to do rightly.'",3 "'Thank you,' said Mrs. Thornton, drawing herself up; 'I was not aware that my meaning was doubted.",2 It is the last time I shall interfere.,1 "I was unwilling to consent to do it, when your mother asked me.",1 "I had not approved of my son's attachment to you, while I only suspected it.",2 You did not appear to me worthy of him.,3 "But when you compromised yourself as you did at the time of the riot, and exposed yourself to the comments of servants and workpeople, I felt it was no longer right to set myself against my son's wish of proposing to you--a wish, by the way, which he had always denied entertaining until the day of the riot.'",3 "Margaret winced, and drew in her breath with a long, hissing sound; of which, however, Mrs. Thornton took no notice.",1 'He came; you had apparently changed your mind.,2 "I told my son yesterday, that I thought it possible, short as was the interval, you might have heard or learnt something of this other lover---- ' 'What must you think of me, madam?'",3 "asked Margaret, throwing her head back with proud disdain, till her throat curved outwards like a swan's.",3 "'You can say nothing more, Mrs. Thornton.",2 I decline every attempt to justify myself for anything.,1 You must allow me to leave the room.',2 And she swept out of it with the noiseless grace of an offended princess.,3 Mrs. Thornton had quite enough of natural humour to make her feel the ludicrousness of the position in which she was left.,3 There was nothing for it but to show herself out.,2 She was not particularly annoyed at Margaret's way of behaving.,1 She did not care enough for her for that.,3 "She had taken Mrs. Thornton's remonstrance to the full as keenly to heart as that lady expected; and Margaret's passion at once mollified her visitor, far more than any silence or reserve could have done.",3 It showed the effect of her words.,2 "'My young lady,' thought Mrs. Thornton to herself; 'you've a pretty good temper of your own.",3 "If John and you had come together, he would have had to keep a tight hand over you, to make you know your place.",2 "But I don't think you will go a-walking again with your beau, at such an hour of the day, in a hurry.",2 You've too much pride and spirit in you for that.,3 I like to see a girl fly out at the notion of being talked about.,3 "It shows they're neither giddy, nor bold by nature.",1 "As for that girl, she might be bold, but she'd never be giddy.",1 I'll do her that justice.,2 "Now as to Fanny, she'd be giddy, and not bold.",1 "She's no courage in her, poor thing!'",2 Mr. Thornton was not spending the morning so satisfactorily as his mother.,3 "She, at any rate, was fulfilling her determined purpose.",2 He was trying to understand where he stood; what damage the strike had done him.,1 "A good deal of his capital was locked up in new and expensive machinery; and he had also bought cotton largely, with a view to some great orders which he had in hand.",3 "The strike had thrown him terribly behindhand, as to the completion of these orders.",1 "Even with his own accustomed and skilled workpeople, he would have had some difficulty in fulfilling his engagements; as it was, the incompetence of the Irish hands, who had to be trained to their work, at a time requiring unusual activity, was a daily annoyance.",1 It was not a favourable hour for Higgins to make his request.,2 But he had promised Margaret to do it at any cost.,3 "So, though every moment added to his repugnance, his pride, and his sullenness of temper, he stood leaning against the dead wall, hour after hour, first on one leg, then on the other.",1 "At last the latch was sharply lifted, and out came Mr. Thornton.",1 "'I want for to speak to yo', sir.'",2 "'Can't stay now, my man.",2 I'm too late as it is.',2 "'Well, sir, I reckon I can wait till yo' come back.'",2 Mr. Thornton was half way down the street.,2 Higgins sighed.,2 But it was no use.,2 "To catch him in the street was his only chance of seeing 'the measter;' if he had rung the lodge bell, or even gone up to the house to ask for him, he would have been referred to the overlooker.",2 "So he stood still again, vouchsafing no answer, but a short nod of recognition to the few men who knew and spoke to him, as the crowd drove out of the millyard at dinner-time, and scowling with all his might at the Irish 'knobsticks' who had just been imported.",2 At last Mr. Thornton returned.,2 'What!,2 you there still!',2 "'Ay, sir.",2 I mun speak to yo'.',2 "'Come in here, then.",2 "Stay, we'll go across the yard; the men are not come back, and we shall have it to ourselves.",2 "These good people, I see, are at dinner;' said he, closing the door of the porter's lodge.",3 He stopped to speak to the overlooker.,2 "The latter said in a low tone: 'I suppose you know, sir, that that man is Higgins, one of the leaders of the Union; he that made that speech in Hurstfield.'",2 "'No, I didn't,' said Mr. Thornton, looking round sharply at his follower.",1 Higgins was known to him by name as a turbulent spirit.,1 "'Come along,' said he, and his tone was rougher than before.",2 "'It is men such as this,' thought he, 'who interrupt commerce and injure the very town they live in: mere demagogues, lovers of power, at whatever cost to others.'",1 "'Well, sir!",2 what do you want with me?',2 "said Mr. Thornton, facing round at him, as soon as they were in the counting-house of the mill.",2 "'My name is Higgins'-- 'I know that,' broke in Mr. Thornton.",1 "'What do you want, Mr. Higgins?",2 That's the question.',2 'I want work.',3 'Work!,2 You're a pretty chap to come asking me for work.,3 "You don't want impudence, that's very clear.'",2 "'I've getten enemies and backbiters, like my betters; but I ne'er heerd o' ony of them calling me o'er-modest,' said Higgins.",3 "His blood was a little roused by Mr. Thornton's manner, more than by his words.",2 Mr. Thornton saw a letter addressed to himself on the table.,2 He took it up and read it through.,2 "At the end, he looked up and said, 'What are you waiting for?'",2 'An answer to the question I axed.',2 'I gave it you before.,2 Don't waste any more of your time.',1 "'Yo' made a remark, sir, on my impudence: but I were taught that it was manners to say either ""yes"" or ""no,"" when I were axed a civil question.",1 I should be thankfu' to yo' if yo'd give me work.,3 Hamper will speak to my being a good hand.',2 "'I've a notion you'd better not send me to Hamper to ask for a character, my man.",2 I might hear more than you'd like.',3 'I'd take th' risk.,1 "Worst they could say of me is, that I did what I thought best, even to my own wrong.'",1 "'You'd better go and try them, then, and see whether they'll give you work.",3 "I've turned off upwards of a hundred of my best hands, for no other fault than following you and such as you; and d'ye think I'll take you on?",2 I might as well put a firebrand into the midst of the cotton-waste.',2 "Higgins turned away; then the recollection of Boucher came over him, and he faced round with the greatest concession he could persuade himself to make.",2 "'I'd promise yo', measter, I'd not speak a word as could do harm, if so be yo' did right by us; and I'd promise more: I'd promise that when I seed yo' going wrong, and acting unfair, I'd speak to yo' in private first; and that would be a fair warning.",2 "If yo' and I did na agree in our opinion o' your conduct, yo' might turn me off at an hour's notice.'",2 "'Upon my word, you don't think small beer of yourself!",2 Hamper has had a loss of you.,1 How came he to let you and your wisdom go?',3 "'Well, we parted wi' mutual dissatisfaction.",1 I wouldn't gi'e the pledge they were asking; and they wouldn't have me at no rate.,2 "So I'm free to make another engagement; and as I said before, though I should na' say it, I'm a good hand, measter, and a steady man--specially when I can keep fro' drink; and that I shall do now, if I ne'er did afore.'",4 "'That you may have more money laid up for another strike, I suppose?'",1 'No!,2 I'd be thankful if I was free to do that; it's for to keep th' widow and childer of a man who was drove mad by them knobsticks o' yourn; put out of his place by a Paddy that did na know weft fro' warp.',2 'Well!,2 "you'd better turn to something else, if you've any such good intention in your head.",3 I shouldn't advise you to stay in Milton: you're too well known here.',3 "'If it were summer,' said Higgins, 'I'd take to Paddy's work, and go as a navvy, or haymaking, or summut, and ne'er see Milton again.",3 "But it's winter, and th' childer will clem.'",2 'A pretty navvy you'd make!,3 "why, you couldn't do half a day's work at digging against an Irishman.'",3 "'I'd only charge half-a-day for th' twelve hours, if I could only do half-a-day's work in th' time.",3 "Yo're not knowing of any place, where they could gi' me a trial, away fro' the mills, if I'm such a firebrand?",2 "I'd take any wage they thought I was worth, for the sake of those childer.'",3 'Don't you see what you would be?,2 You'd be a knobstick.,2 You'd be taking less wages than the other labourers--all for the sake of another man's children.,2 Think how you'd abuse any poor fellow who was willing to take what he could get to keep his own children.,1 You and your Union would soon be down upon him.,2 No!,2 no!,2 "if it's only for the recollection of the way in which you've used the poor knobsticks before now, I say No!",1 to your question.,2 I'll not give you work.,3 "I won't say, I don't believe your pretext for coming and asking for work; I know nothing about it.",3 "It may be true, or it may not.",2 "It's a very unlikely story, at any rate.",1 Let me pass.,2 I'll not give you work.,3 There's your answer.',2 "'I hear, sir.",2 "I would na ha' troubled yo', but that I were bid to come, by one as seemed to think yo'd getten some soft place in yo'r heart.",2 "Hoo were mistook, and I were misled.",2 But I'm not the first man as is misled by a woman.',2 "'Tell her to mind her own business the next time, instead of taking up your time and mine too.",2 I believe women are at the bottom of every plague in this world.,1 Be off with you.',2 "'I'm obleeged to yo' for a' yo'r kindness, measter, and most of a' for yo'r civil way o' saying good-bye.'",3 Mr. Thornton did not deign a reply.,1 "But, looking out of the window a minute after, he was struck with the lean, bent figure going out of the yard: the heavy walk was in strange contrast with the resolute, clear determination of the man to speak to him.",2 He crossed to the porter's lodge: 'How long has that man Higgins been waiting to speak to me?',2 "'He was outside the gate before eight o'clock, sir.",2 I think he's been there ever since.',2 'And it is now--?',2 "'Just one, sir.'",2 "'Five hours,' thought Mr. Thornton; 'it's a long time for a man to wait, doing nothing but first hoping and then fearing.'",2 "Margaret shut herself up in her own room, after she had quitted Mrs. Thornton.",2 "She began to walk backwards and forwards, in her old habitual way of showing agitation; but, then, remembering that in that slightly-built house every step was heard from one room to another, she sate down until she heard Mrs. Thornton go safely out of the house.",3 "She forced herself to recollect all the conversation that had passed between them; speech by speech, she compelled her memory to go through with it.",2 "At the end, she rose up, and said to herself, in a melancholy tone: 'At any rate, her words do not touch me; they fall off from me; for I am innocent of all the motives she attributes to me.",1 "But still, it is hard to think that any one--any woman--can believe all this of another so easily.",1 It is hard and sad.,1 "Where I have done wrong, she does not accuse me--she does not know.",1 He never told her: I might have known he would not!',2 "She lifted up her head, as if she took pride in any delicacy of feeling which Mr. Thornton had shown.",3 "Then, as a new thought came across her, she pressed her hands tightly together.",2 "'He, too, must take poor Frederick for some lover.'",2 (She blushed as the word passed through her mind.) 'I see it now.,2 "It is not merely that he knows of my falsehood, but he believes that some one else cares for me; and that I---- Oh dear!--oh dear!",1 What shall I do?,2 What do I mean?,2 "Why do I care what he thinks, beyond the mere loss of his good opinion as regards my telling the truth or not?",2 I cannot tell.,2 But I am very miserable!,1 "Oh, how unhappy this last year has been!",1 I have passed out of childhood into old age.,2 "I have had no youth--no womanhood; the hopes of womanhood have closed for me--for I shall never marry; and I anticipate cares and sorrows just as if I were an old woman, and with the same fearful spirit.",1 I am weary of this continual call upon me for strength.,1 "I could bear up for papa; because that is a natural, pious duty.",2 "And I think I could bear up against--at any rate, I could have the energy to resent, Mrs. Thornton's unjust, impertinent suspicions.",0 But it is hard to feel how completely he must misunderstand me.,1 What has happened to make me so morbid to-day?,1 I do not know.,2 I only know I cannot help it.,2 I must give way sometimes.,2 "No, I will not, though,' said she, springing to her feet.",2 'I will not--I _will_ not think of myself and my own position.,2 I won't examine into my own feelings.,2 It would be of no use now.,2 "Some time, if I live to be an old woman, I may sit over the fire, and, looking into the embers, see the life that might have been.'",2 "All this time, she was hastily putting on her things to go out, only stopping from time to time to wipe her eyes, with an impatience of gesture at the tears that would come, in spite of all her bravery.",1 "'I dare say, there's many a woman makes as sad a mistake as I have done, and only finds it out too late.",1 And how proudly and impertinently I spoke to him that day!,2 But I did not know then.,2 "It has come upon me little by little, and I don't know where it began.",2 Now I won't give way.,2 "I shall find it difficult to behave in the same way to him, with this miserable consciousness upon me; but I will be very calm and very quiet, and say very little.",2 "But, to be sure, I may not see him; he keeps out of our way evidently.",2 That would be worse than all.,1 "And yet no wonder that he avoids me, believing what he must about me.'",3 "She went out, going rapidly towards the country, and trying to drown reflection by swiftness of motion.",3 "As she stood on the door-step, at her return, her father came up: 'Good girl!'",2 said he.,2 'You've been to Mrs. Boucher's.,2 "I was just meaning to go there, if I had time, before dinner.'",2 "'No, papa; I have not,' said Margaret, reddening.",2 'I never thought about her.,2 But I will go directly after dinner; I will go while you are taking your nap.',2 Accordingly Margaret went.,2 Mrs. Boucher was very ill; really ill--not merely ailing.,1 "The kind and sensible neighbour, who had come in the other day, seemed to have taken charge of everything.",3 Some of the children were gone to the neighbours.,2 Mary Higgins had come for the three youngest at dinner-time; and since then Nicholas had gone for the doctor.,2 He had not come as yet; Mrs. Boucher was dying; and there was nothing to do but to wait.,1 "Margaret thought that she should like to know his opinion, and that she could not do better than go and see the Higginses in the meantime.",3 She might then possibly hear whether Nicholas had been able to make his application to Mr. Thornton.,2 "She found Nicholas busily engaged in making a penny spin on the dresser, for the amusement of three little children, who were clinging to him in a fearless manner.",3 "He, as well as they, was smiling at a good long spin; and Margaret thought, that the happy look of interest in his occupation was a good sign.",4 "When the penny stopped spinning, 'lile Johnnie' began to cry.",1 "'Come to me,' said Margaret, taking him off the dresser, and holding him in her arms; she held her watch to his ear, while she asked Nicholas if he had seen Mr. Thornton.",2 The look on his face changed instantly.,3 'Ay!',2 said he.,2 'I've seen and heerd too much on him.',2 "'He refused you, then?'",1 "said Margaret, sorrowfully.",1 'To be sure.,2 I knew he'd do it all long.,2 It's no good expecting marcy at the hands o' them measters.,3 "Yo're a stranger and a foreigner, and aren't likely to know their ways; but I knowed it.'",1 'I am sorry I asked you.,1 Was he angry?,1 "He did not speak to you as Hamper did, did he?'",1 'He weren't o'er-civil!',2 "said Nicholas, spinning the penny again, as much for his own amusement as for that of the children.",2 "'Never yo' fret, I'm only where I was.",1 I'll go on tramp to-morrow.,1 I gave him as good as I got.,3 "I telled him, I'd not that good opinion on him that I'd ha' come a second time of mysel'; but yo'd advised me for to come, and I were beholden to yo'.'",3 'You told him I sent you?',2 'I dunno' if I ca'd yo' by your name.,2 I dunnot think I did.,2 "I said, a woman who knew no better had advised me for to come and see if there was a soft place in his heart.'",3 'And he--?',2 asked Margaret.,2 "'Said I were to tell yo' to mind yo'r own business.--That's the longest spin yet, my lads.--And them's civil words to what he used to me.",2 But ne'er mind.,2 We're but where we was; and I'll break stones on th' road afore I let these little uns clem.',1 "Margaret put the struggling Johnnie out of her arms, back into his former place on the dresser.",1 'I am sorry I asked you to go to Mr. Thornton's.,1 I am disappointed in him.',1 There was a slight noise behind her.,1 "Both she and Nicholas turned round at the same moment, and there stood Mr. Thornton, with a look of displeased surprise upon his face.",1 "Obeying her swift impulse, Margaret passed out before him, saying not a word, only bowing low to hide the sudden paleness that she felt had come over her face.",3 "He bent equally low in return, and then closed the door after her.",1 "As she hurried to Mrs. Boucher's, she heard the clang, and it seemed to fill up the measure of her mortification.",1 He too was annoyed to find her there.,1 "He had tenderness in his heart--'a soft place,' as Nicholas Higgins called it; but he had some pride in concealing it; he kept it very sacred and safe, and was jealous of every circumstance that tried to gain admission.",3 "But if he dreaded exposure of his tenderness, he was equally desirous that all men should recognise his justice; and he felt that he had been unjust, in giving so scornful a hearing to any one who had waited, with humble patience, for five hours, to speak to him.",2 "That the man had spoken saucily to him when he had the opportunity, was nothing to Mr. Thornton.",2 "He rather liked him for it; and he was conscious of his own irritability of temper at the time, which probably made them both quits.",2 It was the five hours of waiting that struck Mr. Thornton.,1 "He had not five hours to spare himself; but one hour--two hours, of his hard penetrating intellectual, as well as bodily labour, did he give up to going about collecting evidence as to the truth of Higgins's story, the nature of his character, the tenor of his life.",2 "He tried not to be, but was convinced that all that Higgins had said was true.",2 "And then the conviction went in, as if by some spell, and touched the latent tenderness of his heart; the patience of the man, the simple generosity of the motive (for he had learnt about the quarrel between Boucher and Higgins), made him forget entirely the mere reasonings of justice, and overleap them by a diviner instinct.",2 "He came to tell Higgins he would give him work; and he was more annoyed to find Margaret there than by hearing her last words, for then he understood that she was the woman who had urged Higgins to come to him; and he dreaded the admission of any thought of her, as a motive to what he was doing solely because it was right.",3 'So that was the lady you spoke of as a woman?',2 said he indignantly to Higgins.,1 'You might have told me who she was.,2 "'And then, maybe, yo'd ha' spoken of her more civil than yo' did; yo'd getten a mother who might ha' kept yo'r tongue in check when yo' were talking o' women being at the root o' all the plagues.'",2 'Of course you told that to Miss Hale?',2 'In coorse I did.,2 "Leastways, I reckon I did.",2 I telled her she weren't to meddle again in aught that concerned yo'.',1 'Whose children are those--yours?',2 "Mr. Thornton had a pretty good notion whose they were, from what he had heard; but he felt awkward in turning the conversation round from this unpromising beginning.",3 "'They're not mine, and they are mine.'",2 'They are the children you spoke of to me this morning?',2 "'When yo' said,' replied Higgins, turning round, with ill-smothered fierceness, 'that my story might be true or might not, bur it were a very unlikely one.",1 "Measter, I've not forgetten.'",2 Mr. Thornton was silent for a moment; then he said: 'No more have I. I remember what I said.,3 I spoke to you about those children in a way I had no business to do.,2 I did not believe you.,2 "I could not have taken care of another man's children myself, if he had acted towards me as I hear Boucher did towards you.",2 But I know now that you spoke truth.,2 I beg your pardon.',2 "Higgins did not turn round, or immediately respond to this.",2 "But when he did speak, it was in a softened tone, although the words were gruff enough.",2 'Yo've no business to go prying into what happened between Boucher and me.,2 "He's dead, and I'm sorry.",1 That's enough.',3 'So it is.,2 Will you take work with me?,3 That's what I came to ask.',2 "Higgins's obstinacy wavered, recovered strength, and stood firm.",2 He would not speak.,2 Mr. Thornton would not ask again.,2 Higgins's eye fell on the children.,1 "'Yo've called me impudent, and a liar, and a mischief-maker, and yo' might ha' said wi' some truth, as I were now and then given to drink.",0 "An' I ha' called you a tyrant, an' an oud bull-dog, and a hard, cruel master; that's where it stands.",1 But for th' childer.,2 "Measter, do yo' think we can e'er get on together?'",2 'Well!',2 "said Mr. Thornton, half-laughing, 'it was not my proposal that we should go together.",2 "But there's one comfort, on your own showing.",3 We neither of us can think much worse of the other than we do now.',1 "'That's true,' said Higgins, reflectively.",2 "'I've been thinking, ever sin' I saw you, what a marcy it were yo' did na take me on, for that I ne'er saw a man whom I could less abide.",2 But that's maybe been a hasty judgment; and work's work to such as me.,2 "So, measter, I'll come; and what's more, I thank yo'; and that's a deal fro' me,' said he, more frankly, suddenly turning round and facing Mr. Thornton fully for the first time.",3 "'And this is a deal from me,' said Mr. Thornton, giving Higgins's hand a good grip.",3 "'Now mind you come sharp to your time,' continued he, resuming the master.",3 'I'll have no laggards at my mill.,2 "What fines we have, we keep pretty sharply.",2 "And the first time I catch you making mischief, off you go.",1 So now you know where you are.',2 'Yo' spoke of my wisdom this morning.,3 I reckon I may bring it wi' me; or would yo' rayther have me 'bout my brains?',2 ''Bout your brains if you use them for meddling with my business; with your brains if you can keep them to your own.',2 'I shall need a deal o' brains to settle where my business ends and yo'rs begins.',2 "'Your business has not begun yet, and mine stands still for me.",2 So good afternoon.',3 "Just before Mr. Thornton came up to Mrs. Boucher's door, Margaret came out of it.",2 "She did not see him; and he followed her for several yards, admiring her light and easy walk, and her tall and graceful figure.",4 "But, suddenly, this simple emotion of pleasure was tainted, poisoned by jealousy.",1 "He wished to overtake her, and speak to her, to see how she would receive him, now she must know he was aware of some other attachment.",3 "He wished too, but of this wish he was rather ashamed, that she should know that he had justified her wisdom in sending Higgins to him to ask for work; and had repented him of his morning's decision.",3 He came up to her.,2 She started.,2 "'Allow me to say, Miss Hale, that you were rather premature in expressing your disappointment.",1 I have taken Higgins on.',2 "'I am glad of it,' said she, coldly.",2 "'He tells me, he repeated to you, what I said this morning about--' Mr. Thornton hesitated.",2 Margaret took it up: 'About women not meddling.,2 "You had a perfect right to express your opinion, which was a very correct one, I have no doubt.",3 "But,' she went on a little more eagerly, 'Higgins did not quite tell you the exact truth.'",3 "The word 'truth,' reminded her of her own untruth, and she stopped short, feeling exceedingly uncomfortable.",2 "Mr. Thornton at first was puzzled to account for her silence; and then he remembered the lie she had told, and all that was foregone.",1 'The exact truth!',2 said he.,2 'Very few people do speak the exact truth.,2 I have given up hoping for it.,2 "Miss Hale, have you no explanation to give me?",2 You must perceive what I cannot but think.',2 Margaret was silent.,3 She was wondering whether an explanation of any kind would be consistent with her loyalty to Frederick.,3 "'Nay,' said he, 'I will ask no farther.",2 I may be putting temptation in your way.,1 "At present, believe me, your secret is safe with me.",3 "But you run great risks, allow me to say, in being so indiscreet.",1 "I am now only speaking as a friend of your father's: if I had any other thought or hope, of course that is at an end.",2 I am quite disinterested.',1 "'I am aware of that,' said Margaret, forcing herself to speak in an indifferent, careless way.",1 "'I am aware of what I must appear to you, but the secret is another person's, and I cannot explain it without doing him harm.'",1 "'I have not the slightest wish to pry into the gentleman's secrets,' he said, with growing anger.",1 'My own interest in you is--simply that of a friend.,2 "You may not believe me, Miss Hale, but it is--in spite of the persecution I'm afraid I threatened you with at one time--but that is all given up; all passed away.",0 "You believe me, Miss Hale?'",2 "'Yes,' said Margaret, quietly and sadly.",1 "'Then, really, I don't see any occasion for us to go on walking together.",2 "I thought, perhaps you might have had something to say, but I see we are nothing to each other.",2 "If you're quite convinced, that any foolish passion on my part is entirely over, I will wish you good afternoon.'",3 He walked off very hastily.,1 'What can he mean?',2 "thought Margaret,--'what could he mean by speaking so, as if I were always thinking that he cared for me, when I know he does not; he cannot.",2 His mother will have said all those cruel things about me to him.,1 But I won't care for him.,2 "I surely am mistress enough of myself to control this wild, strange, miserable feeling, which tempted me even to betray my own dear Frederick, so that I might but regain his good opinion--the good opinion of a man who takes such pains to tell me that I am nothing to him.",0 Come poor little heart!,1 be cheery and brave.,3 "We'll be a great deal to one another, if we are thrown off and left desolate.'",2 Her father was almost startled by her merriment this afternoon.,3 "She talked incessantly, and forced her natural humour to an unusual pitch; and if there was a tinge of bitterness in much of what she said; if her accounts of the old Harley Street set were a little sarcastic, her father could not bear to check her, as he would have done at another time--for he was glad to see her shake off her cares.",0 "In the middle of the evening, she was called down to speak to Mary Higgins; and when she came back, Mr. Hale imagined that he saw traces of tears on her cheeks.",3 "But that could not be, for she brought good news--that Higgins had got work at Mr. Thornton's mill.",3 "Her spirits were damped, at any rate, and she found it very difficult to go on talking at all, much more in the wild way that she had done.",1 "For some days her spirits varied strangely; and her father was beginning to be anxious about her, when news arrived from one or two quarters that promised some change and variety for her.",2 "Mr. Hale received a letter from Mr. Bell, in which that gentleman volunteered a visit to them; and Mr. Hale imagined that the promised society of his old Oxford friend would give as agreeable a turn to Margaret's ideas as it did to his own.",4 "Margaret tried to take an interest in what pleased her father; but she was too languid to care about any Mr. Bell, even though he were twenty times her godfather.",2 "She was more roused by a letter from Edith, full of sympathy about her aunt's death; full of details about herself, her husband, and child; and at the end saying, that as the climate did not suit, the baby, and as Mrs. Shaw was talking of returning to England, she thought it probable that Captain Lennox might sell out, and that they might all go and live again in the old Harley Street house; which, however, would seem very incomplete with-out Margaret.",1 "Margaret yearned after that old house, and the placid tranquillity of that old well-ordered, monotonous life.",2 "She had found it occasionally tiresome while it lasted; but since then she had been buffeted about, and felt so exhausted by this recent struggle with herself, that she thought that even stagnation would be a rest and a refreshment.",0 "So she began to look towards a long visit to the Lennoxes, on their return to England, as to a point--no, not of hope--but of leisure, in which she could regain her power and command over herself.",2 At present it seemed to her as if all subjects tended towards Mr. Thornton; as if she could not forget him with all her endeavours.,2 "If she went to see the Higginses, she heard of him there; her father had resumed their readings together, and quoted his opinions perpetually; even Mr. Bell's visit brought his tenant's name upon the tapis; for he wrote word that he believed he must be occupied some great part of his time with Mr. Thornton, as a new lease was in preparation, and the terms of it must be agreed upon.",3 "Margaret had not expected much pleasure to herself from Mr. Bell's visit--she had only looked forward to it on her father's account, but when her godfather came, she at once fell into the most natural position of friendship in the world.",2 "He said she had no merit in being what she was, a girl so entirely after his own heart; it was an hereditary power which she had, to walk in and take possession of his regard; while she, in reply, gave him much credit for being so fresh and young under his Fellow's cap and gown.",4 "'Fresh and young in warmth and kindness, I mean.",3 "I'm afraid I must own, that I think your opinions are the oldest and mustiest I have met with this long time.'",1 "'Hear this daughter of yours, Hale.",3 Her residence in Milton has quite corrupted her.,1 "She's a democrat, a red republican, a member of the Peace Society, a socialist--' 'Papa, it's all because I'm standing up for the progress of commerce.",3 Mr. Bell would have had it keep still at exchanging wild-beast skins for acorns.',1 "'No, no.",2 I'd dig the ground and grow potatoes.,2 And I'd shave the wild-beast skins and make the wool into broad cloth.,1 "Don't exaggerate, missy.",1 But I'm tired of this bustle.,1 "Everybody rushing over everybody, in their hurry to get rich.'",3 "'It is not every one who can sit comfortably in a set of college rooms, and let his riches grow without any exertion of his own.",3 "No doubt there is many a man here who would be thankful if his property would increase as yours has done, without his taking any trouble about it,' said Mr. Hale.",2 'I don't believe they would.,2 It's the bustle and the struggle they like.,2 "As for sitting still, and learning from the past, or shaping out the future by faithful work done in a prophetic spirit--Why!",3 Pooh!,2 I don't believe there's a man in Milton who knows how to sit still; and it is a great art.',3 "'Milton people, I suspect, think Oxford men don't know how to move.",1 It would be a very good thing if they mixed a little more.',3 'It might be good for the Miltoners.,3 Many things might be good for them which would be very disagreeable for other people.',2 'Are you not a Milton man yourself?',2 asked Margaret.,2 'I should have thought you would have been proud of your town.',3 "'I confess, I don't see what there is to be proud of.",2 "If you'll only come to Oxford, Margaret, I will show you a place to glory in.'",3 'Well!',2 "said Mr. Hale, 'Mr. Thornton is coming to drink tea with us to-night, and he is as proud of Milton as you of Oxford.",3 You two must try and make each other a little more liberal-minded.',2 "'I don't want to be more liberal-minded, thank you,' said Mr. Bell.",3 "'Is Mr. Thornton coming to tea, papa?'",2 asked Margaret in a low voice.,2 'Either to tea or soon after.,2 He could not tell.,2 He told us not to wait.',2 Mr. Thornton had determined that he would make no inquiry of his mother as to how far she had put her project into execution of speaking to Margaret about the impropriety of her conduct.,1 "He felt pretty sure that, if this interview took place, his mother's account of what passed at it would only annoy and chagrin him, though he would all the time be aware of the colouring which it received by passing through her mind.",1 "He shrank from hearing Margaret's very name mentioned; he, while he blamed her--while he was jealous of her--while he renounced her--he loved her sorely, in spite of himself.",1 "He dreamt of her; he dreamt she came dancing towards him with outspread arms, and with a lightness and gaiety which made him loathe her, even while it allured him.",2 "But the impression of this figure of Margaret--with all Margaret's character taken out of it, as completely as if some evil spirit had got possession of her form--was so deeply stamped upon his imagination, that when he wakened he felt hardly able to separate the Una from the Duessa; and the dislike he had to the latter seemed to envelope and disfigure the former.",1 Yet he was too proud to acknowledge his weakness by avoiding the sight of her.,2 He would neither seek an opportunity of being in her company nor avoid it.,2 "To convince himself of his power of self-control, he lingered over every piece of business this afternoon; he forced every movement into unnatural slowness and deliberation; and it was consequently past eight o'clock before he reached Mr. Hale's.",1 "Then there were business arrangements to be transacted in the study with Mr. Bell; and the latter kept on, sitting over the fire, and talking wearily, long after all business was transacted, and when they might just as well have gone upstairs.",3 "But Mr. Thornton would not say a word about moving their quarters; he chafed and chafed, and thought Mr. Bell a most prosy companion; while Mr. Bell returned the compliment in secret, by considering Mr. Thornton about as brusque and curt a fellow as he had ever met with, and terribly gone off both in intelligence and manner.",1 "At last, some slight noise in the room above suggested the desirableness of moving there.",1 "They found Margaret with a letter open before her, eagerly discussing its contents with her father.",3 "On the entrance of the gentlemen, it was immediately put aside; but Mr. Thornton's eager senses caught some few words of Mr. Hale's to Mr. Bell.",3 'A letter from Henry Lennox.,2 It makes Margaret very hopeful.',3 Mr. Bell nodded.,2 Margaret was red as a rose when Mr. Thornton looked at her.,2 "He had the greatest mind in the world to get up and go out of the room that very instant, and never set foot in the house again.",3 "'We were thinking,' said Mr. Hale, 'that you and Mr. Thornton had taken Margaret's advice, and were each trying to convert the other, you were so long in the study.'",3 "'And you thought there would be nothing left of us but an opinion, like the Kilkenny cat's tail.",3 Pray whose opinion did you think would have the most obstinate vitality?',1 "Mr. Thornton had not a notion what they were talking about, and disdained to inquire.",1 Mr. Hale politely enlightened him.,3 "'Mr. Thornton, we were accusing Mr. Bell this morning of a kind of Oxonian mediaeval bigotry against his native town; and we--Margaret, I believe--suggested that it would do him good to associate a little with Milton manufacturers.'",1 'I beg your pardon.,2 Margaret thought it would do the Milton manufacturers good to associate a little more with Oxford men.,3 "Now wasn't it so, Margaret?'",2 "'I believe I thought it would do both good to see a little more of the other,--I did not know it was my idea any more than papa's.'",3 "'And so you see, Mr. Thornton, we ought to have been improving each other down-stairs, instead of talking over vanished families of Smiths and Harrisons.",3 "However, I am willing to do my part now.",3 I wonder when you Milton men intend to live.,3 All your lives seem to be spent in gathering together the materials for life.',2 "'By living, I suppose you mean enjoyment.'",3 "'Yes, enjoyment,--I don't specify of what, because I trust we should both consider mere pleasure as very poor enjoyment.'",3 'I would rather have the nature of the enjoyment defined.',3 'Well!,2 enjoyment of leisure--enjoyment of the power and influence which money gives.,3 You are all striving for money.,3 What do you want it for?',2 Mr. Thornton was silent.,3 "Then he said, 'I really don't know.",2 But money is not what _I_ strive for.',2 'What then?',2 'It is a home question.,2 "I shall have to lay myself open to such a catechist, and I am not sure that I am prepared to do it.'",2 'No!',2 said Mr. Hale; 'don't let us be personal in our catechism.,3 You are neither of you representative men; you are each of you too individual for that.',2 'I am not sure whether to consider that as a compliment or not.,3 "I should like to be the representative of Oxford, with its beauty and its learning, and its proud old history.",4 "What do you say, Margaret; ought I to be flattered?'",2 'I don't know Oxford.,2 But there is a difference between being the representative of a city and the representative man of its inhabitants.',2 "'Very true, Miss Margaret.",1 "Now I remember, you were against me this morning, and were quite Miltonian and manufacturing in your preferences.'",2 "Margaret saw the quick glance of surprise that Mr. Thornton gave her, and she was annoyed at the construction which he might put on this speech of Mr. Bell's.",1 Mr. Bell went on-- 'Ah!,2 I wish I could show you our High Street--our Radcliffe Square.,2 "I am leaving out our colleges, just as I give Mr. Thornton leave to omit his factories in speaking of the charms of Milton.",1 I have a right to abuse my birth-place.,2 Remember I am a Milton man.,2 Mr. Thornton was annoyed more than he ought to have been at all that Mr. Bell was saying.,1 He was not in a mood for joking.,2 "At another time, he could have enjoyed Mr. Bell's half testy condemnation of a town where the life was so at variance with every habit he had formed; but now, he was galled enough to attempt to defend what was never meant to be seriously attacked.",2 'I don't set up Milton as a model of a town.',2 'Not in architecture?',2 slyly asked Mr. Bell.,2 'No!,2 We've been too busy to attend to mere outward appearances.',2 "'Don't say _mere_ outward appearances,' said Mr. Hale, gently.",3 "'They impress us all, from childhood upward--every day of our life.'",3 "'Wait a little while,' said Mr. Thornton.",2 "'Remember, we are of a different race from the Greeks, to whom beauty was everything, and to whom Mr. Bell might speak of a life of leisure and serene enjoyment, much of which entered in through their outward senses.",4 "I don't mean to despise them, any more than I would ape them.",1 "But I belong to Teutonic blood; it is little mingled in this part of England to what it is in others; we retain much of their language; we retain more of their spirit; we do not look upon life as a time for enjoyment, but as a time for action and exertion.",3 "Our glory and our beauty arise out of our inward strength, which makes us victorious over material resistance, and over greater difficulties still.",3 We are Teutonic up here in Darkshire in another way.,2 We hate to have laws made for us at a distance.,1 "We wish people would allow us to right ourselves, instead of continually meddling, with their imperfect legislation.",2 "We stand up for self-government, and oppose centralisation.'",1 "'In short, you would like the Heptarchy back again.",3 "Well, at any rate, I revoke what I said this morning--that you Milton people did not reverence the past.",3 You are regular worshippers of Thor.',2 "'If we do not reverence the past as you do in Oxford, it is because we want something which can apply to the present more directly.",3 It is fine when the study of the past leads to a prophecy of the future.,3 "But to men groping in new circumstances, it would be finer if the words of experience could direct us how to act in what concerns us most intimately and immediately; which is full of difficulties that must be encountered; and upon the mode in which they are met and conquered--not merely pushed aside for the time--depends our future.",1 "Out of the wisdom of the past, help us over the present.",3 But no!,2 "People can speak of Utopia much more easily than of the next day's duty; and yet when that duty is all done by others, who so ready to cry, ""Fie, for shame!""",1 ' 'And all this time I don't see what you are talking about.,2 Would you Milton men condescend to send up your to-day's difficulty to Oxford?,1 You have not tried us yet.',2 Mr. Thornton laughed outright at this.,2 "'I believe I was talking with reference to a good deal that has been troubling us of late; I was thinking of the strikes we have gone through, which are troublesome and injurious things enough, as I am finding to my cost.",1 "And yet this last strike, under which I am smarting, has been respectable.'",2 'A respectable strike!',2 said Mr. Bell.,2 'That sounds as if you were far gone in the worship of Thor.',2 "Margaret felt, rather than saw, that Mr. Thornton was chagrined by the repeated turning into jest of what he was feeling as very serious.",2 "She tried to change the conversation from a subject about which one party cared little, while, to the other, it was deeply, because personally, interesting.",3 She forced herself to say something.,2 'Edith says she finds the printed calicoes in Corfu better and cheaper than in London.',3 'Does she?',2 said her father.,2 'I think that must be one of Edith's exaggerations.,2 "Are you sure of it, Margaret?'",2 "'I am sure she says so, papa.'",2 "'Then I am sure of the fact,' said Mr. Bell.",2 "'Margaret, I go so far in my idea of your truthfulness, that it shall cover your cousin's character.",3 I don't believe a cousin of yours could exaggerate.',1 'Is Miss Hale so remarkable for truth?',3 "said Mr. Thornton, bitterly.",1 "The moment he had done so, he could have bitten his tongue out.",2 What was he?,2 And why should he stab her with her shame in this way?,1 "How evil he was to-night; possessed by ill-humour at being detained so long from her; irritated by the mention of some name, because he thought it belonged to a more successful lover; now ill-tempered because he had been unable to cope, with a light heart, against one who was trying, by gay and careless speeches, to make the evening pass pleasantly away,--the kind old friend to all parties, whose manner by this time might be well known to Mr. Thornton, who had been acquainted with him for many years.",3 And then to speak to Margaret as he had done!,2 "She did not get up and leave the room, as she had done in former days, when his abruptness or his temper had annoyed her.",1 "She sat quite still, after the first momentary glance of grieved surprise, that made her eyes look like some child's who has met with an unexpected rebuff; they slowly dilated into mournful, reproachful sadness; and then they fell, and she bent over her work, and did not speak again.",0 "But he could not help looking at her, and he saw a sigh tremble over her body, as if she quivered in some unwonted chill.",1 "He felt as the mother would have done, in the midst of 'her rocking it, and rating it,' had she been called away before her slow confiding smile, implying perfect trust in mother's love, had proved the renewing of its love.",4 "He gave short sharp answers; he was uneasy and cross, unable to discern between jest and earnest; anxious only for a look, a word of hers, before which to prostrate himself in penitent humility.",2 But she neither looked nor spoke.,2 "Her round taper fingers flew in and out of her sewing, as steadily and swiftly as if that were the business of her life.",2 "She could not care for him, he thought, or else the passionate fervour of his wish would have forced her to raise those eyes, if but for an instant, to read the late repentance in his.",3 "He could have struck her before he left, in order that by some strange overt act of rudeness, he might earn the privilege of telling her the remorse that gnawed at his heart.",1 It was well that the long walk in the open air wound up this evening for him.,2 "It sobered him back into grave resolution, that henceforth he would see as little of her as possible,--since the very sight of that face and form, the very sounds of that voice (like the soft winds of pure melody) had such power to move him from his balance.",4 Well!,3 "He had known what love was--a sharp pang, a fierce experience, in the midst of whose flames he was struggling!",2 "but, through that furnace he would fight his way out into the serenity of middle age,--all the richer and more human for having known this great passion.",4 "When he had somewhat abruptly left the room, Margaret rose from her seat, and began silently to fold up her work; the long seams were heavy, and had an unusual weight for her languid arms.",1 "The round lines in her face took a lengthened, straighter form, and her whole appearance was that of one who had gone through a day of great fatigue.",2 "As the three prepared for bed, Mr. Bell muttered forth a little condemnation of Mr. Thornton.",1 'I never saw a fellow so spoiled by success.,2 He can't bear a word; a jest of any kind.,2 Everything seems to touch on the soreness of his high dignity.,2 "Formerly, he was as simple and noble as the open day; you could not offend him, because he had no vanity.'",1 "'He is not vain now,' said Margaret, turning round from the table, and speaking with quiet distinctness.",2 'To-night he has not been like himself.,3 Something must have annoyed him before he came here.',1 Mr. Bell gave her one of his sharp glances from above his spectacles.,3 "She stood it quite calmly; but, after she had left the room, he suddenly asked,-- 'Hale!",2 did it ever strike you that Thornton and your daughter have what the French call a tendresse for each other?',1 'Never!',2 "said Mr. Hale, first startled and then flurried by the new idea.",3 "'No, I am sure you are wrong.",1 I am almost certain you are mistaken.,1 "If there is anything, it is all on Mr. Thornton's side.",2 Poor fellow!,1 "I hope and trust he is not thinking of her, for I am sure she would not have him.'",3 'Well!,2 "I'm a bachelor, and have steered clear of love affairs all my life; so perhaps my opinion is not worth having.",4 Or else I should say there were very pretty symptoms about her!',2 "'Then I am sure you are wrong,' said Mr. Hale.",2 "'He may care for her, though she really has been almost rude to him at times.",1 "But she!--why, Margaret would never think of him, I'm sure!",2 Such a thing has never entered her head.',2 'Entering her heart would do.,2 But I merely threw out a suggestion of what might be.,2 I dare say I was wrong.,1 "And whether I was wrong or right, I'm very sleepy; so, having disturbed your night's rest (as I can see) with my untimely fancies, I'll betake myself with an easy mind to my own.'",1 "But Mr. Hale resolved that he would not be disturbed by any such nonsensical idea; so he lay awake, determining not to think about it.",2 "Mr. Bell took his leave the next day, bidding Margaret look to him as one who had a right to help and protect her in all her troubles, of whatever nature they might be.",3 "To Mr. Hale he said,-- 'That Margaret of yours has gone deep into my heart.",3 "Take care of her, for she is a very precious creature,--a great deal too good for Milton,--only fit for Oxford, in fact.",4 "The town, I mean; not the men.",2 I can't match her yet.,2 "When I can, I shall bring my young man to stand side by side with your young woman, just as the genie in the Arabian Nights brought Prince Caralmazan to match with the fairy's Princess Badoura.'",2 'I beg you'll do no such thing.,1 "Remember the misfortunes that ensued; and besides, I can't spare Margaret.'",2 "'No; on second thoughts, we'll have her to nurse us ten years hence, when we shall be two cross old invalids.",2 "Seriously, Hale!",3 "I wish you'd leave Milton; which is a most unsuitable place for you, though it was my recommendation in the first instance.",3 "If you would; I'd swallow my shadows of doubts, and take a college living; and you and Margaret should come and live at the parsonage--you to be a sort of lay curate, and take the unwashed off my hands; and she to be our housekeeper--the village Lady Bountiful--by day; and read us to sleep in the evenings.",2 I could be very happy in such a life.,3 What do you think of it?',2 'Never!',2 "said Mr. Hale, decidedly.",3 'My one great change has been made and my price of suffering paid.,2 "Here I stay out my life; and here will I be buried, and lost in the crowd.'",1 'I don't give up my plan yet.,2 Only I won't bait you with it any more just now.,1 Where's the Pearl?,2 "Come, Margaret, give me a farewell kiss; and remember, my dear, where you may find a true friend, as far as his capability goes.",3 "You are my child, Margaret.",2 "Remember that, and 'God bless you!'",3 So they fell back into the monotony of the quiet life they would henceforth lead.,2 There was no invalid to hope and fear about; even the Higginses--so long a vivid interest--seemed to have receded from any need of immediate thought.,1 "The Boucher children, left motherless orphans, claimed what of Margaret's care she could bestow; and she went pretty often to see Mary Higgins, who had charge of them.",3 "The two families were living in one house: the elder children were at humble schools, the younger ones were tended, in Mary's absence at her work, by the kind neighbour whose good sense had struck Margaret at the time of Boucher's death.",2 "Of course she was paid for her trouble; and indeed, in all his little plans and arrangements for these orphan children, Nicholas showed a sober judgment, and regulated method of thinking, which were at variance with his former more eccentric jerks of action.",0 "He was so steady at his work, that Margaret did not often see him during these winter months; but when she did, she saw that he winced away from any reference to the father of those children, whom he had so fully and heartily taken under his care.",4 He did not speak easily of Mr. Thornton.,2 "'To tell the truth,' said he, 'he fairly bamboozles me.",3 He's two chaps.,2 One chap I knowed of old as were measter all o'er.,2 T'other chap hasn't an ounce of measter's flesh about him.,2 "How them two chaps is bound up in one body, is a craddy for me to find out.",2 "I'll not be beat by it, though.",2 "Meanwhile he comes here pretty often; that's how I know the chap that's a man, not a measter.",3 "And I reckon he's taken aback by me pretty much as I am by him; for he sits and listens and stares, as if I were some strange beast newly caught in some of the zones.",2 But I'm none daunted.,2 "It would take a deal to daunt me in my own house, as he sees.",1 And I tell him some of my mind that I reckon he'd ha' been the better of hearing when he were a younger man.',3 'And does he not answer you?',2 asked Mr. Hale.,3 'Well!,2 "I'll not say th' advantage is all on his side, for all I take credit for improving him above a bit.",3 "Sometimes he says a rough thing or two, which is not agreeable to look at at first, but has a queer smack o' truth in it when yo' come to chew it.",1 "He'll be coming to-night, I reckon, about them childer's schooling.",2 "He's not satisfied wi' the make of it, and wants for t' examine 'em.'",3 "'What are they'--began Mr. Hale; but Margaret, touching his arm, showed him her watch.",3 "'It is nearly seven,' she said.",2 'The evenings are getting longer now.,2 "Come, papa.'",2 She did not breathe freely till they were some distance from the house.,2 "Then, as she became more calm, she wished that she had not been in so great a hurry; for, somehow, they saw Mr. Thornton but very seldom now; and he might have come to see Higgins, and for the old friendship's sake she should like to have seen him to-night.",4 Yes!,2 "he came very seldom, even for the dull cold purpose of lessons.",1 "Mr. Hale was disappointed in his pupil's lukewarmness about Greek literature, which had but a short time ago so great an interest for him.",3 "And now it often happened that a hurried note from Mr. Thornton would arrive, just at the last moment, saying that he was so much engaged that he could not come to read with Mr. Hale that evening.",3 "And though other pupils had taken more than his place as to time, no one was like his first scholar in Mr. Hale's heart.",3 He was depressed and sad at this partial cessation of an intercourse which had become dear to him; and he used to sit pondering over the reason that could have occasioned this change.,1 "He startled Margaret, one evening as she sate at her work, by suddenly asking: 'Margaret!",3 had you ever any reason for thinking that Mr. Thornton cared for you?',2 "He almost blushed as he put this question; but Mr. Bell's scouted idea recurred to him, and the words were out of his mouth before he well knew what he was about.",3 "Margaret did not answer immediately; but by the bent drooping of her head, he guessed what her reply would be.",1 "'Yes; I believe--oh papa, I should have told you.'",2 "And she dropped her work, and hid her face in her hands.",3 "'No, dear; don't think that I am impertinently curious.",2 I am sure you would have told me if you had felt that you could return his regard.,3 Did he speak to you about it?',2 No answer at first; but by-and-by a little gentle reluctant 'Yes.',2 'And you refused him?',1 "A long sigh; a more helpless, nerveless attitude, and another 'Yes.'",1 "But before her father could speak, Margaret lifted up her face, rosy with some beautiful shame, and, fixing her eyes upon him, said: 'Now, papa, I have told you this, and I cannot tell you more; and then the whole thing is so painful to me; every word and action connected with it is so unspeakably bitter, that I cannot bear to think of it.",1 "Oh, papa, I am sorry to have lost you this friend, but I could not help it--but oh!",1 I am very sorry.',1 "She sate down on the ground, and laid her head on his knees.",2 "'I too, am sorry, my dear.",1 "Mr. Bell quite startled me when he said, some idea of the kind--' 'Mr. Bell!",2 "Oh, did Mr. Bell see it?'",2 'A little; but he took it into his head that you--how shall I say it?--that you were not ungraciously disposed towards Mr. Thornton.,2 I knew that could never be.,2 I hoped the whole thing was but an imagination; but I knew too well what your real feelings were to suppose that you could ever like Mr. Thornton in that way.,3 But I am very sorry.',1 They were very quiet and still for some minutes.,3 "But, on stroking her cheek in a caressing way soon after, he was almost shocked to find her face wet with tears.",1 "As he touched her, she sprang up, and smiling with forced brightness, began to talk of the Lennoxes with such a vehement desire to turn the conversation, that Mr. Hale was too tender-hearted to try to force it back into the old channel.",3 "'To-morrow--yes, to-morrow they will be back in Harley Street.",2 "Oh, how strange it will be!",1 I wonder what room they will make into the nursery?,3 Aunt Shaw will be happy with the baby.,3 Fancy Edith a mamma!,3 And Captain Lennox--I wonder what he will do with himself now he has sold out!',3 "'I'll tell you what,' said her father, anxious to indulge her in this fresh subject of interest, 'I think I must spare you for a fortnight just to run up to town and see the travellers.",1 "You could learn more, by half an hour's conversation with Mr. Henry Lennox, about Frederick's chances, than in a dozen of these letters of his; so it would, in fact, be uniting business with pleasure.'",3 "'No, papa, you cannot spare me, and what's more, I won't be spared.'",2 "Then after a pause, she added: 'I am losing hope sadly about Frederick; he is letting us down gently, but I can see that Mr. Lennox himself has no hope of hunting up the witnesses under years and years of time.",1 "No,' said she, 'that bubble was very pretty, and very dear to our hearts; but it has burst like many another; and we must console ourselves with being glad that Frederick is so happy, and with being a great deal to each other.",4 "So don't offend me by talking of being able to spare me, papa, for I assure you you can't.'",2 "But the idea of a change took root and germinated in Margaret's heart, although not in the way in which her father proposed it at first.",2 "She began to consider how desirable something of the kind would be to her father, whose spirits, always feeble, now became too frequently depressed, and whose health, though he never complained, had been seriously affected by his wife's illness and death.",0 "There were the regular hours of reading with his pupils, but that all giving and no receiving could no longer be called companion-ship, as in the old days when Mr. Thornton came to study under him.",2 "Margaret was conscious of the want under which he was suffering, unknown to himself; the want of a man's intercourse with men.",1 "At Helstone there had been perpetual occasions for an interchange of visits with neighbouring clergymen; and the poor labourers in the fields, or leisurely tramping home at eve, or tending their cattle in the forest, were always at liberty to speak or be spoken to.",2 "But in Milton every one was too busy for quiet speech, or any ripened intercourse of thought; what they said was about business, very present and actual; and when the tension of mind relating to their daily affairs was over, they sunk into fallow rest until next morning.",1 "The workman was not to be found after the day's work was done; he had gone away to some lecture, or some club, or some beer-shop, according to his degree of character.",3 "Mr. Hale thought of trying to deliver a course of lectures at some of the institutions, but he contemplated doing this so much as an effort of duty, and with so little of the genial impulse of love towards his work and its end, that Margaret was sure that it would not be well done until he could look upon it with some kind of zest.",4 "So the winter was getting on, and the days were beginning to lengthen, without bringing with them any of the brightness of hope which usually accompanies the rays of a February sun.",2 Mrs. Thornton had of course entirely ceased to come to the house.,2 "Mr. Thornton came occasionally, but his visits were addressed to her father, and were confined to the study.",1 "Mr. Hale spoke of him as always the same; indeed, the very rarity of their intercourse seemed to make Mr. Hale set only the higher value on it.",3 "And from what Margaret could gather of what Mr. Thornton had said, there was nothing in the cessation of his visits which could arise from any umbrage or vexation.",1 "His business affairs had become complicated during the strike, and required closer attention than he had given to them last winter.",1 "Nay, Margaret could even discover that he spoke from time to time of her, and always, as far as she could learn, in the same calm friendly way, never avoiding and never seeking any mention of her name.",3 She was not in spirits to raise her father's tone of mind.,2 The dreary peacefulness of the present time had been preceded by so long a period of anxiety and care--even intermixed with storms--that her mind had lost its elasticity.,0 "She tried to find herself occupation in teaching the two younger Boucher children, and worked hard at goodness; hard, I say most truly, for her heart seemed dead to the end of all her efforts; and though she made them punctually and painfully, yet she stood as far off as ever from any cheerfulness; her life seemed still bleak and dreary.",0 "The only thing she did well, was what she did out of unconscious piety, the silent comforting and consoling of her father.",4 "Not a mood of his but what found a ready sympathiser in Margaret; not a wish of his that she did not strive to forecast, and to fulfil.",3 "They were quiet wishes to be sure, and hardly named without hesitation and apology.",3 All the more complete and beautiful was her meek spirit of obedience.,3 March brought the news of Frederick's marriage.,2 "He and Dolores wrote; she in Spanish-English, as was but natural, and he with little turns and inversions of words which proved how far the idioms of his bride's country were infecting him.",2 "On the receipt of Henry Lennox's letter, announcing how little hope there was of his ever clearing himself at a court-martial, in the absence of the missing witnesses, Frederick had written to Margaret a pretty vehement letter, containing his renunciation of England as his country; he wished he could unnative himself, and declared that he would not take his pardon if it were offered him, nor live in the country if he had permission to do so.",1 "All of which made Margaret cry sorely, so unnatural did it seem to her at the first opening; but on consideration, she saw rather in such expression the poignancy of the disappointment which had thus crushed his hopes; and she felt that there was nothing for it but patience.",0 "In the next letter, Frederick spoke so joyfully of the future that he had no thought for the past; and Margaret found a use in herself for the patience she had been craving for him.",3 She would have to be patient.,3 "But the pretty, timid, girlish letters of Dolores were beginning to have a charm for both Margaret and her father.",3 "The young Spaniard was so evidently anxious to make a favourable impression upon her lover's English relations, that her feminine care peeped out at every erasure; and the letters announcing the marriage, were accompanied by a splendid black lace mantilla, chosen by Dolores herself for her unseen sister-in-law, whom Frederick had represented as a paragon of beauty, wisdom and virtue.",4 Frederick's worldly position was raised by this marriage on to as high a level as they could desire.,2 "Barbour and Co. was one of the most extensive Spanish houses, and into it he was received as a junior partner.",2 "Margaret smiled a little, and then sighed as she remembered afresh her old tirades against trade.",2 "Here was her preux chevalier of a brother turned merchant, trader!",2 "But then she rebelled against herself, and protested silently against the confusion implied between a Spanish merchant and a Milton mill-owner.",1 Well!,3 "trade or no trade, Frederick was very, very happy.",3 "Dolores must be charming, and the mantilla was exquisite!",3 And then she returned to the present life.,2 "Her father had occasionally experienced a difficulty in breathing this spring, which had for the time distressed him exceedingly.",1 "Margaret was less alarmed, as this difficulty went off completely in the intervals; but she still was so desirous of his shaking off the liability altogether, as to make her very urgent that he should accept Mr. Bell's invitation to visit him at Oxford this April.",0 Mr. Bell's invitation included Margaret.,2 "Nay more, he wrote a special letter commanding her to come; but she felt as if it would be a greater relief to her to remain quietly at home, entirely free from any responsibility whatever, and so to rest her mind and heart in a manner which she had not been able to do for more than two years past.",3 "When her father had driven off on his way to the railroad, Margaret felt how great and long had been the pressure on her time and her spirits.",3 "It was astonishing, almost stunning, to feel herself so much at liberty; no one depending on her for cheering care, if not for positive happiness; no invalid to plan and think for; she might be idle, and silent, and forgetful,--and what seemed worth more than all the other privileges--she might be unhappy if she liked.",4 "For months past, all her own personal cares and troubles had had to be stuffed away into a dark cupboard; but now she had leisure to take them out, and mourn over them, and study their nature, and seek the true method of subduing them into the elements of peace.",1 "All these weeks she had been conscious of their existence in a dull kind of way, though they were hidden out of sight.",1 "Now, once for all she would consider them, and appoint to each of them its right work in her life.",3 "So she sat almost motionless for hours in the drawing-room, going over the bitterness of every remembrance with an unwincing resolution.",1 "Only once she cried aloud, at the stinging thought of the faithlessness which gave birth to that abasing falsehood.",1 "She now would not even acknowledge the force of the temptation; her plans for Frederick had all failed, and the temptation lay there a dead mockery,--a mockery which had never had life in it; the lie had been so despicably foolish, seen by the light of the ensuing events, and faith in the power of truth so infinitely the greater wisdom!",0 "In her nervous agitation, she unconsciously opened a book of her father's that lay upon the table,--the words that caught her eye in it, seemed almost made for her present state of acute self-abasement:-- 'Je ne voudrois pas reprendre mon coeur en ceste sorte: meurs de honte, aveugle, impudent, traistre et desloyal a ton Dieu, et sembables choses; mais je voudrois le corriger par voye de compassion.",1 "Or sus, mon pauvre coeur, nous voila tombez dans la fosse, laquelle nous avions tant resolu d'eschapper.",2 Ah!,2 "relevons-nous, et quittons-la pour jamais, reclamons la misericorde de Dieu, et esperons en elle qu'elle nous assistera pour desormais estre plus fermes; et remettons-nous au chemin de l'humilite.",2 "Courage, soyons meshuy sur nos gardes, Dieu nous aydera.'",3 'The way of humility.,3 "Ah,' thought Margaret, 'that is what I have missed!",1 "But courage, little heart.",3 "We will turn back, and by God's help we may find the lost path.'",1 "So she rose up, and determined at once to set to on some work which should take her out of herself.",3 "To begin with, she called in Martha, as she passed the drawing-room door in going up-stairs, and tried to find out what was below the grave, respectful, servant-like manner, which crusted over her individual character with an obedience that was almost mechanical.",3 "She found it difficult to induce Martha to speak of any of her personal interests; but at last she touched the right chord, in naming Mrs. Thornton.",3 "Martha's whole face brightened, and, on a little encouragement, out came a long story, of how her father had been in early life connected with Mrs. Thornton's husband--nay, had even been in a position to show him some kindness; what, Martha hardly knew, for it had happened when she was quite a little child; and circumstances had intervened to separate the two families until Martha was nearly grown up, when, her father having sunk lower and lower from his original occupation as clerk in a warehouse, and her mother being dead, she and her sister, to use Martha's own expression, would have been 'lost' but for Mrs. Thornton; who sought them out, and thought for them, and cared for them.",2 "'I had had the fever, and was but delicate; and Mrs. Thornton, and Mr. Thornton too, they never rested till they had nursed me up in their own house, and sent me to the sea and all.",2 "The doctors said the fever was catching, but they cared none for that--only Miss Fanny, and she went a-visiting these folk that she is going to marry into.",1 "So, though she was afraid at the time, it has all ended well.'",2 'Miss Fanny going to be married!',2 exclaimed Margaret.,2 "'Yes; and to a rich gentleman, too, only he's a deal older than she is.",3 "His name is Watson; and his mills are somewhere out beyond Hayleigh; it's a very good marriage, for all he's got such gray hair.'",3 "At this piece of information, Margaret was silent long enough for Martha to recover her propriety, and, with it, her habitual shortness of answer.",3 "She swept up the hearth, asked at what time she should prepare tea, and quitted the room with the same wooden face with which she had entered it.",2 "Margaret had to pull herself up from indulging a bad trick, which she had lately fallen into, of trying to imagine how every event that she heard of in relation to Mr. Thornton would affect him: whether he would like it or dislike it.",0 "The next day she had the little Boucher children for their lessons, and took a long walk, and ended by a visit to Mary Higgins.",2 "Somewhat to Margaret's surprise, she found Nicholas already come home from his work; the lengthening light had deceived her as to the lateness of the evening.",3 "He too seemed, by his manners, to have entered a little more on the way of humility; he was quieter, and less self-asserting.",3 "'So th' oud gentleman's away on his travels, is he?'",2 said he.,2 'Little 'uns telled me so.,2 Eh!,2 "but they're sharp 'uns, they are; I a'most think they beat my own wenches for sharpness, though mappen it's wrong to say so, and one on 'em in her grave.",2 "There's summut in th' weather, I reckon, as sets folk a-wandering.",2 "My measter, him at th' shop yonder, is spinning about th' world somewhere.'",2 'Is that the reason you're so soon at home to-night?',2 asked Margaret innocently.,2 "'Thou know'st nought about it, that's all,' said he, contemptuously.",1 "'I'm not one wi' two faces--one for my measter, and t'other for his back.",2 I counted a' th' clocks in the town striking afore I'd leave my work.,3 No!,2 "yon Thornton's good enough for to fight wi', but too good for to be cheated.",3 "It were you as getten me the place, and I thank yo' for it.",3 "Thornton's is not a bad mill, as times go.",1 "Stand down, lad, and say yo'r pretty hymn to Miss Margaret.",2 "That's right; steady on thy legs, and right arm out as straight as a shewer.",3 "One to stop, two to stay, three mak' ready, and four away!'",3 "The little fellow repeated a Methodist hymn, far above his comprehension in point of language, but of which the swinging rhythm had caught his ear, and which he repeated with all the developed cadence of a member of parliament.",2 "When Margaret had duly applauded, Nicholas called for another, and yet another, much to her surprise, as she found him thus oddly and unconsciously led to take an interest in the sacred things which he had formerly scouted.",2 "It was past the usual tea-time when she reached home; but she had the comfort of feeling that no one had been kept waiting for her; and of thinking her own thoughts while she rested, instead of anxiously watching another person to learn whether to be grave or gay.",2 "After tea she resolved to examine a large packet of letters, and pick out those that were to be destroyed.",2 "Among them she came to four or five of Mr. Henry Lennox's, relating to Frederick's affairs; and she carefully read them over again, with the sole intention, when she began, to ascertain exactly on how fine a chance the justification of her brother hung.",2 "But when she had finished the last, and weighed the pros and cons, the little personal revelation of character contained in them forced itself on her notice.",3 "It was evident enough, from the stiffness of the wording, that Mr. Lennox had never forgotten his relation to her in any interest he might feel in the subject of the correspondence.",2 They were clever letters; Margaret saw that in a twinkling; but she missed out of them all hearty and genial atmosphere.,3 "They were to be preserved, however, as valuable; so she laid them carefully on one side.",3 "When this little piece of business was ended, she fell into a reverie; and the thought of her absent father ran strangely in Margaret's head this night.",1 "She almost blamed herself for having felt her solitude (and consequently his absence) as a relief; but these two days had set her up afresh, with new strength and brighter hope.",3 "Plans which had lately appeared to her in the guise of tasks, now appeared like pleasures.",3 "The morbid scales had fallen from her eyes, and she saw her position and her work more truly.",1 "If only Mr. Thornton would restore her the lost friendship,--nay, if he would only come from time to time to cheer her father as in former days,--though she should never see him, she felt as if the course of her future life, though not brilliant in prospect, might lie clear and even before her.",3 She sighed as she rose up to go to bed.,2 "In spite of the 'One step's enough for me,'--in spite of the one plain duty of devotion to her father,--there lay at her heart an anxiety and a pang of sorrow.",1 "And Mr. Hale thought of Margaret, that April evening, just as strangely and as persistently as she was thinking of him.",2 He had been fatigued by going about among his old friends and old familiar places.,1 "He had had exaggerated ideas of the change which his altered opinions might make in his friends' reception of him; but although some of them might have felt shocked or grieved or indignant at his falling off in the abstract, as soon as they saw the face of the man whom they had once loved, they forgot his opinions in himself; or only remembered them enough to give an additional tender gravity to their manner.",2 "For Mr. Hale had not been known to many; he had belonged to one of the smaller colleges, and had always been shy and reserved; but those who in youth had cared to penetrate to the delicacy of thought and feeling that lay below his silence and indecision, took him to their hearts, with something of the protecting kindness which they would have shown to a woman.",3 "And the renewal of this kindliness, after the lapse of years, and an interval of so much change, overpowered him more than any roughness or expression of disapproval could have done.",1 "'I'm afraid we've done too much,' said Mr. Bell.",1 'You're suffering now from having lived so long in that Milton air.,1 "'I am tired,' said Mr. Hale.",2 'But it is not Milton air.,2 "I'm fifty-five years of age, and that little fact of itself accounts for any loss of strength.'",1 'Nonsense!,2 "I'm upwards of sixty, and feel no loss of strength, either bodily or mental.",1 Don't let me hear you talking so.,2 Fifty-five!,2 "why, you're quite a young man.'",2 Mr. Hale shook his head.,3 'These last few years!',2 said he.,2 "But after a minute's pause, he raised himself from his half recumbent position, in one of Mr. Bell's luxurious easy-chairs, and said with a kind of trembling earnestness: 'Bell!",4 "you're not to think, that if I could have foreseen all that would come of my change of opinion, and my resignation of my living--no!",1 "not even if I could have known how _she_ would have suffered,--that I would undo it--the act of open acknowledgment that I no longer held the same faith as the church in which I was a priest.",2 "As I think now, even if I could have foreseen that cruellest martyrdom of suffering, through the sufferings of one whom I loved, I would have done just the same as far as that step of openly leaving the church went.",2 "I might have done differently, and acted more wisely, in all that I subsequently did for my family.",3 "But I don't think God endued me with over-much wisdom or strength,' he added, falling back into his old position.",2 Mr. Bell blew his nose ostentatiously before answering.,2 Then he said: 'He gave you strength to do what your conscience told you was right; and I don't see that we need any higher or holier strength than that; or wisdom either.,3 "I know I have not that much; and yet men set me down in their fool's books as a wise man; an independent character; strong-minded, and all that cant.",3 "The veriest idiot who obeys his own simple law of right, if it be but in wiping his shoes on a door-mat, is wiser and stronger than I.",3 But what gulls men are!',2 There was a pause.,2 "Mr. Hale spoke first, in continuation of his thought: 'About Margaret.'",3 'Well!,2 about Margaret.,2 What then?',2 'If I die---- ' 'Nonsense!',1 'What will become of her--I often think?,2 I suppose the Lennoxes will ask her to live with them.,2 I try to think they will.,2 Her aunt Shaw loved her well in her own quiet way; but she forgets to love the absent.',4 'A very common fault.,1 What sort of people are the Lennoxes?',2 "'He, handsome, fluent, and agreeable.",4 "Edith, a sweet little spoiled beauty.",3 "Margaret loves her with all her heart, and Edith with as much of her heart as she can spare.'",3 "'Now, Hale; you know that girl of yours has got pretty nearly all my heart.",3 I told you that before.,2 "Of course, as your daughter, as my god-daughter, I took great interest in her before I saw her the last time.",3 But this visit that I paid to you at Milton made me her slave.,1 "I went, a willing old victim, following the car of the conqueror.",3 "For, indeed, she looks as grand and serene as one who has struggled, and may be struggling, and yet has the victory secure in sight.",3 "Yes, in spite of all her present anxieties, that was the look on her face.",1 "And so, all I have is at her service, if she needs it; and will be hers, whether she will or no, when I die.",1 "Moreover, I myself, will be her preux chevalier, sixty and gouty though I be.",2 "Seriously, old friend, your daughter shall be my principal charge in life, and all the help that either my wit or my wisdom or my willing heart can give, shall be hers.",3 I don't choose her out as a subject for fretting.,2 "Something, I know of old, you must have to worry yourself about, or you wouldn't be happy.",2 But you're going to outlive me by many a long year.,2 "You spare, thin men are always tempting and always cheating Death!",1 "It's the stout, florid fellows like me, that always go off first.'",3 "If Mr. Bell had had a prophetic eye he might have seen the torch all but inverted, and the angel with the grave and composed face standing very nigh, beckoning to his friend.",3 That night Mr. Hale laid his head down on the pillow on which it never more should stir with life.,3 "The servant who entered his room in the morning, received no answer to his speech; drew near the bed, and saw the calm, beautiful face lying white and cold under the ineffaceable seal of death.",1 The attitude was exquisitely easy; there had been no pain--no struggle.,2 The action of the heart must have ceased as he lay down.,2 Mr. Bell was stunned by the shock; and only recovered when the time came for being angry at every suggestion of his man's.,1 'A coroner's inquest?,2 Pooh.,2 You don't think I poisoned him!,2 Dr. Forbes says it is just the natural end of a heart complaint.,1 Poor old Hale!,2 You wore out that tender heart of yours before its time.,3 Poor old friend!,1 "how he talked of his---- Wallis, pack up a carpet-bag for me in five minutes.",2 Here have I been talking.,2 "Pack it up, I say.",2 I must go to Milton by the next train.',2 "The bag was packed, the cab ordered, the railway reached, in twenty minutes from the moment of this decision.",2 "The London train whizzed by, drew back some yards, and in Mr. Bell was hurried by the impatient guard.",1 "He threw himself back in his seat, to try, with closed eyes, to understand how one in life yesterday could be dead to-day; and shortly tears stole out between his grizzled eye-lashes, at the feeling of which he opened his keen eyes, and looked as severely cheerful as his set determination could make him.",2 He was not going to blubber before a set of strangers.,2 Not he!,2 "There was no set of strangers, only one sitting far from him on the same side.",2 "By and bye Mr. Bell peered at him, to discover what manner of man it was that might have been observing his emotion; and behind the great sheet of the outspread 'Times,' he recognised Mr. Thornton.",3 "'Why, Thornton!",2 is that you?',2 "said he, removing hastily to a closer proximity.",1 "He shook Mr. Thornton vehemently by the hand, until the gripe ended in a sudden relaxation, for the hand was wanted to wipe away tears.",1 He had last seen Mr. Thornton in his friend Hale's company.,2 "'I'm going to Milton, bound on a melancholy errand.",1 Going to break to Hale's daughter the news of his sudden death!',1 'Death!,2 Mr. Hale dead!',2 "'Ay; I keep saying it to myself, ""Hale is dead!""",2 but it doesn't make it any the more real.,2 Hale is dead for all that.,2 "He went to bed well, to all appearance, last night, and was quite cold this morning when my servant went to call him.'",2 'Where?,2 I don't understand!',2 'At Oxford.,2 He came to stay with me; hadn't been in Oxford this seventeen years--and this is the end of it.',2 Not one word was spoken for above a quarter of an hour.,2 Then Mr. Thornton said: 'And she!',2 and stopped full short.,2 'Margaret you mean.,2 Yes!,2 I am going to tell her.,2 Poor fellow!,1 how full his thoughts were of her all last night!,2 Good God!,3 Last night only.,2 And how immeasurably distant he is now!,2 But I take Margaret as my child for his sake.,2 I said last night I would take her for her own sake.,2 "Well, I take her for both.'",3 "Mr. Thornton made one or two fruitless attempts to speak, before he could get out the words: 'What will become of her!'",1 'I rather fancy there will be two people waiting for her: myself for one.,3 "I would take a live dragon into my house to live, if, by hiring such a chaperon, and setting up an establishment of my own, I could make my old age happy with having Margaret for a daughter.",3 But there are those Lennoxes!',2 'Who are they?',2 asked Mr. Thornton with trembling interest.,2 "'Oh, smart London people, who very likely will think they've the best right to her.",4 Captain Lennox married her cousin--the girl she was brought up with.,2 "Good enough people, I dare say.",3 "And there's her aunt, Mrs. Shaw.",2 "There might be a way open, perhaps, by my offering to marry that worthy lady!",3 but that would be quite a pis aller.,2 And then there's that brother!',2 'What brother?,2 A brother of her aunt's?',2 "'No, no; a clever Lennox, (the captain's a fool, you must understand) a young barrister, who will be setting his cap at Margaret.",2 I know he has had her in his mind this five years or more: one of his chums told me as much; and he was only kept back by her want of fortune.,3 Now that will be done away with.',2 'How?',2 "asked Mr. Thornton, too earnestly curious to be aware of the impertinence of his question.",3 "'Why, she'll have my money at my death.",1 "And if this Henry Lennox is half good enough for her, and she likes him--well!",4 I might find another way of getting a home through a marriage.,2 "I'm dreadfully afraid of being tempted, at an unguarded moment, by the aunt.'",1 Neither Mr. Bell nor Mr. Thornton was in a laughing humour; so the oddity of any of the speeches which the former made was unnoticed by them.,1 "Mr. Bell whistled, without emitting any sound beyond a long hissing breath; changed his seat, without finding comfort or rest while Mr. Thornton sat immoveably still, his eyes fixed on one spot in the newspaper, which he had taken up in order to give himself leisure to think.",2 'Where have you been?',2 "asked Mr. Bell, at length.",2 'To Havre.,2 Trying to detect the secret of the great rise in the price of cotton.',3 'Ugh!,2 "Cotton, and speculations, and smoke, well-cleansed and well-cared-for machinery, and unwashed and neglected hands.",1 Poor old Hale!,2 Poor old Hale!,2 If you could have known the change which it was to him from Helstone.,2 Do you know the New Forest at all?',2 'Yes.',2 (Very shortly).,2 'Then you can fancy the difference between it and Milton.,3 What part were you in?,2 Were you ever at Helstone?,2 "a little picturesque village, like some in the Odenwald?",3 You know Helstone?',2 'I have seen it.,2 It was a great change to leave it and come to Milton.',3 "He took up his newspaper with a determined air, as if resolved to avoid further conversation; and Mr. Bell was fain to resort to his former occupation of trying to find out how he could best break the news to Margaret.",2 She was at an up-stairs window; she saw him alight; she guessed the truth with an instinctive flash.,2 "She stood in the middle of the drawing-room, as if arrested in her first impulse to rush downstairs, and as if by the same restraining thought she had been turned to stone; so white and immoveable was she.",2 'Oh!,2 don't tell me!,2 I know it from your face!,2 You would have sent--you would not have left him--if he were alive!,2 "Oh papa, papa!'",2 The shock had been great.,2 "Margaret fell into a state of prostration, which did not show itself in sobs and tears, or even find the relief of words.",2 "She lay on the sofa, with her eyes shut, never speaking but when spoken to, and then replying in whispers.",2 Mr. Bell was perplexed.,1 "He dared not leave her; he dared not ask her to accompany him back to Oxford, which had been one of the plans he had formed on the journey to Milton, her physical exhaustion was evidently too complete for her to undertake any such fatigue--putting the sight that she would have to encounter out of the question.",1 "Mr. Bell sate over the fire, considering what he had better do.",3 "Margaret lay motionless, and almost breathless by him.",1 "He would not leave her, even for the dinner which Dixon had prepared for him down-stairs, and, with sobbing hospitality, would fain have tempted him to eat.",2 He had a plateful of something brought up to him.,2 "In general, he was particular and dainty enough, and knew well each shade of flavour in his food, but now the devilled chicken tasted like sawdust.",4 "He minced up some of the fowl for Margaret, and peppered and salted it well; but when Dixon, following his directions, tried to feed her, the languid shake of head proved that in such a state as Margaret was in, food would only choke, not nourish her.",1 "Mr. Bell gave a great sigh; lifted up his stout old limbs (stiff with travelling) from their easy position, and followed Dixon out of the room.",3 'I can't leave her.,2 "I must write to them at Oxford, to see that the preparations are made: they can be getting on with these till I arrive.",2 Can't Mrs. Lennox come to her?,2 I'll write and tell her she must.,2 "The girl must have some woman-friend about her, if only to talk her into a good fit of crying.'",3 "Dixon was crying--enough for two; but, after wiping her eyes and steadying her voice, she managed to tell Mr. Bell, that Mrs. Lennox was too near her confinement to be able to undertake any journey at present.",3 'Well!,2 "I suppose we must have Mrs. Shaw; she's come back to England, isn't she?'",2 "'Yes, sir, she's come back; but I don't think she will like to leave Mrs. Lennox at such an interesting time,' said Dixon, who did not much approve of a stranger entering the household, to share with her in her ruling care of Margaret.",3 'Interesting time be--' Mr. Bell restricted himself to coughing over the end of his sentence.,1 "'She could be content to be at Venice or Naples, or some of those Popish places, at the last ""interesting time,"" which took place in Corfu, I think.",3 "And what does that little prosperous woman's ""interesting time"" signify, in comparison with that poor creature there,--that helpless, homeless, friendless Margaret--lying as still on that sofa as if it were an altar-tomb, and she the stone statue on it.",1 "I tell you, Mrs. Shaw shall come.",2 "See that a room, or whatever she wants, is got ready for her by to-morrow night.",3 I'll take care she comes.',2 "Accordingly Mr. Bell wrote a letter, which Mrs. Shaw declared, with many tears, to be so like one of the dear general's when he was going to have a fit of the gout, that she should always value and preserve it.",3 "If he had given her the option, by requesting or urging her, as if a refusal were possible, she might not have come--true and sincere as was her sympathy with Margaret.",2 "It needed the sharp uncourteous command to make her conquer her vis inertiae, and allow herself to be packed by her maid, after the latter had completed the boxes.",3 "Edith, all cap, shawls, and tears, came out to the top of the stairs, as Captain Lennox was taking her mother down to the carriage: 'Don't forget, mamma; Margaret must come and live with us.",3 "Sholto will go to Oxford on Wednesday, and you must send word by Mr. Bell to him when we're to expect you.",2 "And if you want Sholto, he can go on from Oxford to Milton.",2 "Don't forget, mamma; you are to bring back Margaret.'",2 Edith re-entered the drawing-room.,2 "Mr. Henry Lennox was there, cutting open the pages of a new Review.",2 "Without lifting his head, he said, 'If you don't like Sholto to be so long absent from you, Edith, I hope you will let me go down to Milton, and give what assistance I can.'",3 "'Oh, thank you,' said Edith, 'I dare say old Mr. Bell will do everything he can, and more help may not be needed.",3 Only one does not look for much savoir-faire from a resident Fellow.,2 "Dear, darling Margaret!",3 "won't it be nice to have her here, again?",3 "You were both great allies, years ago.'",3 'Were we?',2 "asked he indifferently, with an appearance of being interested in a passage in the Review.",2 "'Well, perhaps not--I forget.",2 I was so full of Sholto.,2 "But doesn't it fall out well, that if my uncle was to die, it should be just now, when we are come home, and settled in the old house, and quite ready to receive Margaret?",2 Poor thing!,1 what a change it will be to her from Milton!,2 "I'll have new chintz for her bedroom, and make it look new and bright, and cheer her up a little.'",3 "In the same spirit of kindness, Mrs. Shaw journeyed to Milton, occasionally dreading the first meeting, and wondering how it would be got over; but more frequently planning how soon she could get Margaret away from 'that horrid place,' and back into the pleasant comforts of Harley Street.",3 'Oh dear!',2 she said to her maid; 'look at those chimneys!,2 My poor sister Hale!,2 "I don't think I could have rested at Naples, if I had known what it was!",2 I must have come and fetched her and Margaret away.',2 "And to herself she acknowledged, that she had always thought her brother-in-law rather a weak man, but never so weak as now, when she saw for what a place he had exchanged the lovely Helstone home.",2 "Margaret had remained in the same state; white, motionless, speechless, tearless.",1 "They had told her that her aunt Shaw was coming; but she had not expressed either surprise or pleasure, or dislike to the idea.",2 "Mr. Bell, whose appetite had returned, and who appreciated Dixon's endeavours to gratify it, in vain urged upon her to taste some sweetbreads stewed with oysters; she shook her head with the same quiet obstinacy as on the previous day; and he was obliged to console himself for her rejection, by eating them all himself.",3 But Margaret was the first to hear the stopping of the cab that brought her aunt from the railway station.,2 "Her eyelids quivered, her lips coloured and trembled.",2 "Mr. Bell went down to meet Mrs. Shaw; and when they came up, Margaret was standing, trying to steady her dizzy self; and when she saw her aunt, she went forward to the arms open to receive her, and first found the passionate relief of tears on her aunt's shoulder.",3 "All thoughts of quiet habitual love, of tenderness for years, of relationship to the dead,--all that inexplicable likeness in look, tone, and gesture, that seem to belong to one family, and which reminded Margaret so forcibly at this moment of her mother,--came in to melt and soften her numbed heart into the overflow of warm tears.",3 "Mr. Bell stole out of the room, and went down into the study, where he ordered a fire, and tried to divert his thoughts by taking down and examining the different books.",1 Each volume brought a remembrance or a suggestion of his dead friend.,1 "It might be a change of employment from his two days' work of watching Margaret, but it was no change of thought.",3 "He was glad to catch the sound of Mr. Thornton's voice, making enquiry at the door.",3 "Dixon was rather cavalierly dismissing him; for with the appearance of Mrs. Shaw's maid, came visions of former grandeur, of the Beresford blood, of the 'station' (so she was pleased to term it) from which her young lady had been ousted, and to which she was now, please God, to be restored.",4 "These visions, which she had been dwelling on with complacency in her conversation with Mrs. Shaw's maid (skilfully eliciting meanwhile all the circumstances of state and consequence connected with the Harley Street establishment, for the edification of the listening Martha), made Dixon rather inclined to be supercilious in her treatment of any inhabitant of Milton; so, though she always stood rather in awe of Mr. Thornton, she was as curt as she durst be in telling him that he could see none of the inmates of the house that night.",2 "It was rather uncomfortable to be contradicted in her statement by Mr. Bell's opening the study-door, and calling out: 'Thornton!",1 is that you?,2 Come in for a minute or two; I want to speak to you.',2 "So Mr. Thornton went into the study, and Dixon had to retreat into the kitchen, and reinstate herself in her own esteem by a prodigious story of Sir John Beresford's coach and six, when he was high sheriff.",2 'I don't know what I wanted to say to you after all.,2 Only it's dull enough to sit in a room where everything speaks to you of a dead friend.,1 Yet Margaret and her aunt must have the drawing-room to themselves!',2 'Is Mrs.--is her aunt come?',2 asked Mr. Thornton.,2 'Come?,2 Yes!,2 maid and all.,2 One would have thought she might have come by herself at such a time!,2 And now I shall have to turn out and find my way to the Clarendon.',2 'You must not go to the Clarendon.,2 We have five or six empty bed-rooms at home.',2 'Well aired?',2 'I think you may trust my mother for that.',3 "'Then I'll only run up-stairs and wish that wan girl good-night, and make my bow to her aunt, and go off with you straight.'",3 Mr. Bell was some time up-stairs.,2 "Mr. Thornton began to think it long, for he was full of business, and had hardly been able to spare the time for running up to Crampton, and enquiring how Miss Hale was.",2 "When they had set out upon their walk, Mr. Bell said: 'I was kept by those women in the drawing-room.",2 "Mrs. Shaw is anxious to get home--on account of her daughter, she says--and wants Margaret to go off with her at once.",1 Now she is no more fit for travelling than I am for flying.,2 "Besides, she says, and very justly, that she has friends she must see--that she must wish good-bye to several people; and then her aunt worried her about old claims, and was she forgetful of old friends?",2 "And she said, with a great burst of crying, she should be glad enough to go from a place where she had suffered so much.",3 "Now I must return to Oxford to-morrow, and I don't know on which side of the scale to throw in my voice.'",2 "He paused, as if asking a question; but he received no answer from his companion, the echo of whose thoughts kept repeating-- 'Where she had suffered so much.'",1 Alas!,2 "and that was the way in which this eighteen months in Milton--to him so unspeakably precious, down to its very bitterness, which was worth all the rest of life's sweetness--would be remembered.",3 "Neither loss of father, nor loss of mother, dear as she was to Mr. Thornton, could have poisoned the remembrance of the weeks, the days, the hours, when a walk of two miles, every step of which was pleasant, as it brought him nearer and nearer to her, took him to her sweet presence--every step of which was rich, as each recurring moment that bore him away from her made him recall some fresh grace in her demeanour, or pleasant pungency in her character.",4 Yes!,2 "whatever had happened to him, external to his relation to her, he could never have spoken of that time, when he could have seen her every day--when he had her within his grasp, as it were--as a time of suffering.",1 "It had been a royal time of luxury to him, with all its stings and contumelies, compared to the poverty that crept round and clipped the anticipation of the future down to sordid fact, and life without an atmosphere of either hope or fear.",1 "Mrs. Thornton and Fanny were in the dining-room; the latter in a flutter of small exultation, as the maid held up one glossy material after another, to try the effect of the wedding-dresses by candlelight.",3 "Her mother really tried to sympathise with her, but could not.",2 "Neither taste nor dress were in her line of subjects, and she heartily wished that Fanny had accepted her brother's offer of having the wedding clothes provided by some first-rate London dressmaker, without the endless troublesome discussions, and unsettled wavering, that arose out of Fanny's desire to choose and superintend everything herself.",1 "Mr. Thornton was only too glad to mark his grateful approbation of any sensible man, who could be captivated by Fanny's second-rate airs and graces, by giving her ample means for providing herself with the finery, which certainly rivalled, if it did not exceed, the lover in her estimation.",4 "When her brother and Mr. Bell came in, Fanny blushed and simpered, and fluttered over the signs of her employment, in a way which could not have failed to draw attention from any one else but Mr. Bell.",1 "If he thought about her and her silks and satins at all, it was to compare her and them with the pale sorrow he had left behind him, sitting motionless, with bent head and folded hands, in a room where the stillness was so great that you might almost fancy the rush in your straining ears was occasioned by the spirits of the dead, yet hovering round their beloved.",0 "For, when Mr. Bell had first gone up-stairs, Mrs. Shaw lay asleep on the sofa; and no sound broke the silence.",1 "Mrs. Thornton gave Mr. Bell her formal, hospitable welcome.",3 "She was never so gracious as when receiving her son's friends in her son's house; and the more unexpected they were, the more honour to her admirable housekeeping preparations for comfort.",3 'How is Miss Hale?',2 she asked.,2 'About as broken down by this last stroke as she can be.',1 'I am sure it is very well for her that she has such a friend as you.',3 "'I wish I were her only friend, madam.",2 "I daresay it sounds very brutal; but here have I been displaced, and turned out of my post of comforter and adviser by a fine lady aunt; and there are cousins and what not claiming her in London, as if she were a lap-dog belonging to them.",1 And she is too weak and miserable to have a will of her own.',1 "'She must indeed be weak,' said Mrs. Thornton, with an implied meaning which her son understood well.",2 "'But where,' continued Mrs. Thornton, 'have these relations been all this time that Miss Hale has appeared almost friendless, and has certainly had a good deal of anxiety to bear?'",2 But she did not feel interest enough in the answer to her question to wait for it.,3 She left the room to make her household arrangements.,2 'They have been living abroad.,2 They have some kind of claim upon her.,2 I will do them that justice.,2 "The aunt brought her up, and she and the cousin have been like sisters.",3 "The thing vexing me, you see, is that I wanted to take her for a child of my own; and I am jealous of these people, who don't seem to value the privilege of their right.",2 Now it would be different if Frederick claimed her.',2 'Frederick!',2 exclaimed Mr. Thornton.,2 'Who is he?,2 What right--?',3 He stopped short in his vehement question.,1 "'Frederick,' said Mr. Bell in surprise.",2 'Why don't you know?,2 He's her brother.,2 Have you not heard--' 'I never heard his name before.,2 Where is he?,2 Who is he?',2 "'Surely I told you about him, when the family first came to Milton--the son who was concerned in that mutiny.'",1 'I never heard of him till this moment.,2 Where does he live?',2 'In Spain.,2 He's liable to be arrested the moment he sets foot on English ground.,1 Poor fellow!,1 he will grieve at not being able to attend his father's funeral.,1 We must be content with Captain Lennox; for I don't know of any other relation to summon.',2 'I hope I may be allowed to go?',2 'Certainly; thankfully.,2 "You're a good fellow, after all, Thornton.",3 Hale liked you.,3 "He spoke to me, only the other day, about you at Oxford.",2 He regretted he had seen so little of you lately.,1 I am obliged to you for wishing to show him respect.',3 'But about Frederick.,2 Does he never come to England?',2 'Never.',2 'He was not over here about the time of Mrs. Hale's death?',1 'No.,2 "Why, I was here then.",2 "I hadn't seen Hale for years and years and, if you remember, I came--No, it was some time after that that I came.",3 But poor Frederick Hale was not here then.,2 What made you think he was?',2 "'I saw a young man walking with Miss Hale one day,' replied Mr. Thornton, 'and I think it was about that time.'",2 "'Oh, that would be this young Lennox, the Captain's brother.",2 "He's a lawyer, and they were in pretty constant correspondence with him; and I remember Mr. Hale told me he thought he would come down.",3 "Do you know,' said Mr. Bell, wheeling round, and shutting one eye, the better to bring the forces of the other to bear with keen scrutiny on Mr. Thornton's face, 'that I once fancied you had a little tenderness for Margaret?'",3 No answer.,2 No change of countenance.,2 'And so did poor Hale.,2 "Not at first, and not till I had put it into his head.'",2 'I admired Miss Hale.,2 Every one must do so.,2 "She is a beautiful creature,' said Mr. Thornton, driven to bay by Mr. Bell's pertinacious questioning.",2 'Is that all!,2 "You can speak of her in that measured way, as simply a ""beautiful creature""--only something to catch the eye.",3 I did hope you had had nobleness enough in you to make you pay her the homage of the heart.,3 "Though I believe--in fact I know, she would have rejected you, still to have loved her without return would have lifted you higher than all those, be they who they may, that have never known her to love.",3 """Beautiful creature"" indeed!",3 Do you speak of her as you would of a horse or a dog?',2 Mr. Thornton's eyes glowed like red embers.,3 "'Mr. Bell,' said he, 'before you speak so, you should remember that all men are not as free to express what they feel as you are.",3 Let us talk of something else.',2 "For though his heart leaped up, as at a trumpet-call, to every word that Mr. Bell had said, and though he knew that what he had said would henceforward bind the thought of the old Oxford Fellow closely up with the most precious things of his heart, yet he would not be forced into any expression of what he felt towards Margaret.",3 "He was no mocking-bird of praise, to try because another extolled what he reverenced and passionately loved, to outdo him in laudation.",4 "So he turned to some of the dry matters of business that lay between Mr. Bell and him, as landlord and tenant.",2 'What is that heap of brick and mortar we came against in the yard?,2 Any repairs wanted?',2 "'No, none, thank you.'",3 'Are you building on your own account?,2 "If you are, I'm very much obliged to you.'",2 'I'm building a dining-room--for the men I mean--the hands.',2 "'I thought you were hard to please, if this room wasn't good enough to satisfy you, a bachelor.'",3 "'I've got acquainted with a strange kind of chap, and I put one or two children in whom he is interested to school.",1 "So, as I happened to be passing near his house one day, I just went there about some trifling payment to be made; and I saw such a miserable black frizzle of a dinner--a greasy cinder of meat, as first set me a-thinking.",1 "But it was not till provisions grew so high this winter that I bethought me how, by buying things wholesale, and cooking a good quantity of provisions together, much money might be saved, and much comfort gained.",4 "So I spoke to my friend--or my enemy--the man I told you of--and he found fault with every detail of my plan; and in consequence I laid it aside, both as impracticable, and also because if I forced it into operation I should be interfering with the independence of my men; when, suddenly, this Higgins came to me and graciously signified his approval of a scheme so nearly the same as mine, that I might fairly have claimed it; and, moreover, the approval of several of his fellow-workmen, to whom he had spoken.",3 "I was a little ""riled,"" I confess, by his manner, and thought of throwing the whole thing overboard to sink or swim.",0 "But it seemed childish to relinquish a plan which I had once thought wise and well-laid, just because I myself did not receive all the honour and consequence due to the originator.",3 "So I coolly took the part assigned to me, which is something like that of steward to a club.",3 "I buy in the provisions wholesale, and provide a fitting matron or cook.'",2 'I hope you give satisfaction in your new capacity.,2 Are you a good judge of potatoes and onions?,3 But I suppose Mrs. Thornton assists you in your marketing.',2 "'Not a bit,' replied Mr. Thornton.",2 "'She disapproves of the whole plan, and now we never mention it to each other.",2 "But I manage pretty well, getting in great stocks from Liverpool, and being served in butcher's meat by our own family butcher.",3 "I can assure you, the hot dinners the matron turns out are by no means to be despised.'",3 "'Do you taste each dish as it goes in, in virtue of your office?",3 I hope you have a white wand.',2 "'I was very scrupulous, at first, in confining myself to the mere purchasing part, and even in that I rather obeyed the men's orders conveyed through the housekeeper, than went by my own judgment.",2 "At one time, the beef was too large, at another the mutton was not fat enough.",2 "I think they saw how careful I was to leave them free, and not to intrude my own ideas upon them; so, one day, two or three of the men--my friend Higgins among them--asked me if I would not come in and take a snack.",2 "It was a very busy day, but I saw that the men would be hurt if, after making the advance, I didn't meet them half-way, so I went in, and I never made a better dinner in my life.",2 "I told them (my next neighbours I mean, for I'm no speech-maker) how much I'd enjoyed it; and for some time, whenever that especial dinner recurred in their dietary, I was sure to be met by these men, with a ""Master, there's hot-pot for dinner to-day, win yo' come?""",4 "If they had not asked me, I would no more have intruded on them than I'd have gone to the mess at the barracks without invitation.'",1 'I should think you were rather a restraint on your hosts' conversation.,2 They can't abuse the masters while you're there.,2 I suspect they take it out on non-hot-pot days.',2 'Well!,2 hitherto we've steered clear of all vexed questions.,3 "But if any of the old disputes came up again, I would certainly speak out my mind next hot-pot day.",3 "But you are hardly acquainted with our Darkshire fellows, for all you're a Darkshire man yourself.",2 "They have such a sense of humour, and such a racy mode of expression!",2 "I am getting really to know some of them now, and they talk pretty freely before me.'",3 'Nothing like the act of eating for equalising men.,3 Dying is nothing to it.,1 "The philosopher dies sententiously--the pharisee ostentatiously--the simple-hearted humbly--the poor idiot blindly, as the sparrow falls to the ground; the philosopher and idiot, publican and pharisee, all eat after the same fashion--given an equally good digestion.",0 There's theory for theory for you!',2 'Indeed I have no theory; I hate theories.',1 'I beg your pardon.,2 "To show my penitence, will you accept a ten pound note towards your marketing, and give the poor fellows a feast?'",1 'Thank you; but I'd rather not.,2 They pay me rent for the oven and cooking-places at the back of the mill: and will have to pay more for the new dining-room.,2 I don't want it to fall into a charity.,1 I don't want donations.,2 "Once let in the principle, and I should have people going, and talking, and spoiling the simplicity of the whole thing.'",2 'People will talk about any new plan.,2 You can't help that.',2 "'My enemies, if I have any, may make a philanthropic fuss about this dinner-scheme; but you are a friend, and I expect you will pay my experiment the respect of silence.",1 "It is but a new broom at present, and sweeps clean enough.",3 "But by-and-by we shall meet with plenty of stumbling-blocks, no doubt.'",1 "Mrs. Shaw took as vehement a dislike as it was possible for one of her gentle nature to do, against Milton.",1 "It was noisy, and smoky, and the poor people whom she saw in the streets were dirty, and the rich ladies over-dressed, and not a man that she saw, high or low, had his clothes made to fit him.",1 She was sure Margaret would never regain her lost strength while she stayed in Milton; and she herself was afraid of one of her old attacks of the nerves.,0 "Margaret must return with her, and that quickly.",2 "This, if not the exact force of her words, was at any rate the spirit of what she urged on Margaret, till the latter, weak, weary, and broken-spirited, yielded a reluctant promise that, as soon as Wednesday was over she would prepare to accompany her aunt back to town, leaving Dixon in charge of all the arrangements for paying bills, disposing of furniture, and shutting up the house.",1 "Before that Wednesday--that mournful Wednesday, when Mr. Hale was to be interred, far away from either of the homes he had known in life, and far away from the wife who lay lonely among strangers (and this last was Margaret's great trouble, for she thought that if she had not given way to that overwhelming stupor during the first sad days, she could have arranged things otherwise)--before that Wednesday, Margaret received a letter from Mr. Bell.",0 "'MY DEAR MARGARET:--I did mean to have returned to Milton on Thursday, but unluckily it turns out to be one of the rare occasions when we, Plymouth Fellows, are called upon to perform any kind of duty, and I must not be absent from my post.",2 Captain Lennox and Mr. Thornton are here.,2 "The former seems a smart, well-meaning man; and has proposed to go over to Milton, and assist you in any search for the will; of course there is none, or you would have found it by this time, if you followed my directions.",3 "Then the Captain declares he must take you and his mother-in-law home; and, in his wife's present state, I don't see how you can expect him to remain away longer than Friday.",2 "However, that Dixon of yours is trusty; and can hold her, or your own, till I come.",3 I will put matters into the hands of my Milton attorney if there is no will; for I doubt this smart captain is no great man of business.,3 "Nevertheless, his moustachios are splendid.",3 "There will have to be a sale, so select what things you wish reserved.",2 Or you can send a list afterwards.,2 "Now two things more, and I have done.",2 "You know, or if you don't, your poor father did, that you are to have my money and goods when I die.",1 Not that I mean to die yet; but I name this just to explain what is coming.,1 These Lennoxes seem very fond of you now; and perhaps may continue to be; perhaps not.,3 "So it is best to start with a formal agreement; namely, that you are to pay them two hundred and fifty pounds a year, as long as you and they find it pleasant to live together.",3 "(This, of course, includes Dixon; mind you don't be cajoled into paying any more for her.) Then you won't be thrown adrift, if some day the captain wishes to have his house to himself, but you can carry yourself and your two hundred and fifty pounds off somewhere else; if, indeed, I have not claimed you to come and keep house for me first.",2 "Then as to dress, and Dixon, and personal expenses, and confectionery (all young ladies eat confectionery till wisdom comes by age), I shall consult some lady of my acquaintance, and see how much you will have from your father before fixing this.",3 "Now, Margaret, have you flown out before you have read this far, and wondered what right the old man has to settle your affairs for you so cavalierly?",3 I make no doubt you have.,1 Yet the old man has a right.,3 He has loved your father for five and thirty years; he stood beside him on his wedding-day; he closed his eyes in death.,2 "Moreover, he is your godfather; and as he cannot do you much good spiritually, having a hidden consciousness of your superiority in such things, he would fain do you the poor good of endowing you materially.",3 "And the old man has not a known relation on earth; ""who is there to mourn for Adam Bell?""",1 "and his whole heart is set and bent upon this one thing, and Margaret Hale is not the girl to say him nay.",2 "Write by return, if only two lines, to tell me your answer.",2 But _no thanks_.',2 "Margaret took up a pen and scrawled with trembling hand, 'Margaret Hale is not the girl to say him nay.'",3 "In her weak state she could not think of any other words, and yet she was vexed to use these.",1 "But she was so much fatigued even by this slight exertion, that if she could have thought of another form of acceptance, she could not have sate up to write a syllable of it.",1 "She was obliged to lie down again, and try not to think.",1 'My dearest child!,2 Has that letter vexed or troubled you?',1 'No!',2 said Margaret feebly.,2 'I shall be better when to-morrow is over.',3 "'I feel sure, darling, you won't be better till I get you out of this horrid air.",3 How you can have borne it this two years I can't imagine.',2 'Where could I go to?,2 I could not leave papa and mamma.',2 'Well!,2 "don't distress yourself, my dear.",1 "I dare say it was all for the best, only I had no conception of how you were living.",3 Our butler's wife lives in a better house than this.',3 'It is sometimes very pretty--in summer; you can't judge by what it is now.,3 "I have been very happy here,' and Margaret closed her eyes by way of stopping the conversation.",3 "The house teemed with comfort now, compared to what it had done.",3 "The evenings were chilly, and by Mrs. Shaw's directions fires were lighted in every bedroom.",1 "She petted Margaret in every possible way, and bought every delicacy, or soft luxury in which she herself would have burrowed and sought comfort.",4 "But Margaret was indifferent to all these things; or, if they forced themselves upon her attention, it was simply as causes for gratitude to her aunt, who was putting herself so much out of her way to think of her.",2 "She was restless, though so weak.",1 "All the day long, she kept herself from thinking of the ceremony which was going on at Oxford, by wandering from room to room, and languidly setting aside such articles as she wished to retain.",2 "Dixon followed her by Mrs. Shaw's desire, ostensibly to receive instructions, but with a private injunction to soothe her into repose as soon as might be.",3 "'These books, Dixon, I will keep.",2 All the rest will you send to Mr. Bell?,2 "They are of a kind that he will value for themselves, as well as for papa's sake.",3 "This---- I should like you to take this to Mr. Thornton, after I am gone.",3 Stay; I will write a note with it.',2 "And she sate down hastily, as if afraid of thinking, and wrote: 'DEAR SIR,--The accompanying book I am sure will be valued by you for the sake of my father, to whom it belonged.",1 "'Yours sincerely, 'MARGARET HALE.' She set out again upon her travels through the house, turning over articles, known to her from her childhood, with a sort of caressing reluctance to leave them--old-fashioned, worn and shabby, as they might be.",1 "But she hardly spoke again; and Dixon's report to Mrs. Shaw was, that 'she doubted whether Miss Hale heard a word of what she said, though she talked the whole time, in order to divert her attention.'",2 "The consequence of being on her feet all day was excessive bodily weariness in the evening, and a better night's rest than she had had since she had heard of Mr. Hale's death.",1 "At breakfast time the next day, she expressed her wish to go and bid one or two friends good-bye.",3 "Mrs. Shaw objected: 'I am sure, my dear, you can have no friends here with whom you are sufficiently intimate to justify you in calling upon them so soon; before you have been at church.'",3 "'But to-day is my only day; if Captain Lennox comes this afternoon, and if we must--if I must really go to-morrow---- ' 'Oh, yes; we shall go to-morrow.",2 "I am more and more convinced that this air is bad for you, and makes you look so pale and ill; besides, Edith expects us; and she may be waiting me; and you cannot be left alone, my dear, at your age.",1 "No; if you must pay these calls, I will go with you.",2 "Dixon can get us a coach, I suppose?'",2 "So Mrs. Shaw went to take care of Margaret, and took her maid with her to take care of the shawls and air-cushions.",2 "Margaret's face was too sad to lighten up into a smile at all this preparation for paying two visits, that she had often made by herself at all hours of the day.",2 "She was half afraid of owning that one place to which she was going was Nicholas Higgins'; all she could do was to hope her aunt would be indisposed to get out of the coach, and walk up the court, and at every breath of wind have her face slapped by wet clothes, hanging out to dry on ropes stretched from house to house.",1 "There was a little battle in Mrs. Shaw's mind between ease and a sense of matronly propriety; but the former gained the day; and with many an injunction to Margaret to be careful of herself, and not to catch any fever, such as was always lurking in such places, her aunt permitted her to go where she had often been before without taking any precaution or requiring any permission.",2 Nicholas was out; only Mary and one or two of the Boucher children at home.,2 Margaret was vexed with herself for not having timed her visit better.,3 "Mary had a very blunt intellect, although her feelings were warm and kind; and the instant she understood what Margaret's purpose was in coming to see them, she began to cry and sob with so little restraint that Margaret found it useless to say any of the thousand little things which had suggested themselves to her as she was coming along in the coach.",0 "She could only try to comfort her a little by suggesting the vague chance of their meeting again, at some possible time, in some possible place, and bid her tell her father how much she wished, if he could manage it, that he should come to see her when he had done his work in the evening.",3 "As she was leaving the place, she stopped and looked round; then hesitated a little before she said: 'I should like to have some little thing to remind me of Bessy.'",3 Instantly Mary's generosity was keenly alive.,4 What could they give?,2 "And on Margaret's singling out a little common drinking-cup, which she remembered as the one always standing by Bessy's side with drink for her feverish lips, Mary said: 'Oh, take summut better; that only cost fourpence!'",2 "'That will do, thank you,' said Margaret; and she went quickly away, while the light caused by the pleasure of having something to give yet lingered on Mary's face.",3 "'Now to Mrs. Thornton's,' thought she to herself.",2 'It must be done.',2 "But she looked rather rigid and pale at the thought of it, and had hard work to find the exact words in which to explain to her aunt who Mrs. Thornton was, and why she should go to bid her farewell.",1 "They (for Mrs. Shaw alighted here) were shown into the drawing-room, in which a fire had only just been kindled.",2 "Mrs. Shaw huddled herself up in her shawl, and shivered.",2 'What an icy room!',2 she said.,2 They had to wait for some time before Mrs. Thornton entered.,2 "There was some softening in her heart towards Margaret, now that she was going away out of her sight.",2 "She remembered her spirit, as shown at various times and places even more than the patience with which she had endured long and wearing cares.",3 "Her countenance was blander than usual, as she greeted her; there was even a shade of tenderness in her manner, as she noticed the white, tear-swollen face, and the quiver in the voice which Margaret tried to make so steady.",1 "'Allow me to introduce my aunt, Mrs. Shaw.",2 "I am going away from Milton to-morrow; I do not know if you are aware of it; but I wanted to see you once again, Mrs. Thornton, to--to apologise for my manner the last time I saw you; and to say that I am sure you meant kindly--however much we may have misunderstood each other.'",2 Mrs. Shaw looked extremely perplexed by what Margaret had said.,1 Thanks for kindness!,3 and apologies for failure in good manners!,2 "But Mrs. Thornton replied: 'Miss Hale, I am glad you do me justice.",3 I did no more than I believed to be my duty in remonstrating with you as I did.,2 I have always desired to act the part of a friend to you.,2 I am glad you do me justice.',3 "'And,' said Margaret, blushing excessively as she spoke, 'will you do me justice, and believe that though I cannot--I do not choose--to give explanations of my conduct, I have not acted in the unbecoming way you apprehended?'",1 "Margaret's voice was so soft, and her eyes so pleading, that Mrs. Thornton was for once affected by the charm of manner to which she had hitherto proved herself invulnerable.",4 "'Yes, I do believe you.",2 Let us say no more about it.,2 "Where are you going to reside, Miss Hale?",2 I understood from Mr. Bell that you were going to leave Milton.,2 "You never liked Milton, you know,' said Mrs. Thornton, with a sort of grim smile; 'but for all that, you must not expect me to congratulate you on quitting it.",3 Where shall you live?',2 "'With my aunt,' replied Margaret, turning towards Mrs. Shaw.",2 'My niece will reside with me in Harley Street.,2 "She is almost like a daughter to me,' said Mrs. Shaw, looking fondly at Margaret; 'and I am glad to acknowledge my own obligation for any kindness that has been shown to her.",4 "If you and your husband ever come to town, my son and daughter, Captain and Mrs. Lennox, will, I am sure, join with me in wishing to do anything in our power to show you attention.'",2 "Mrs. Thornton thought in her own mind, that Margaret had not taken much care to enlighten her aunt as to the relationship between the Mr. and Mrs. Thornton, towards whom the fine-lady aunt was extending her soft patronage; so she answered shortly, 'My husband is dead.",3 Mr. Thornton is my son.,2 I never go to London; so I am not likely to be able to avail myself of your polite offers.',3 At this instant Mr. Thornton entered the room; he had only just returned from Oxford.,2 His mourning suit spoke of the reason that had called him there.,2 "'John,' said his mother, 'this lady is Mrs. Shaw, Miss Hale's aunt.",1 "I am sorry to say, that Miss Hale's call is to wish us good-bye.'",1 'You are going then!',2 "said he, in a low voice.",2 "'Yes,' said Margaret.",2 'We leave to-morrow.',2 "'My son-in-law comes this evening to escort us,' said Mrs. Shaw.",2 Mr. Thornton turned away.,2 "He had not sat down, and now he seemed to be examining something on the table, almost as if he had discovered an unopened letter, which had made him forget the present company.",2 He did not even seem to be aware when they got up to take leave.,2 "He started forwards, however, to hand Mrs. Shaw down to the carriage.",2 "As it drove up, he and Margaret stood close together on the door-step, and it was impossible but that the recollection of the day of the riot should force itself into both their minds.",1 "Into his it came associated with the speeches of the following day; her passionate declaration that there was not a man in all that violent and desperate crowd, for whom she did not care as much as for him.",1 "And at the remembrance of her taunting words, his brow grew stern, though his heart beat thick with longing love.",1 'No!',2 "said he, 'I put it to the touch once, and I lost it all.",1 "Let her go,--with her stony heart, and her beauty;--how set and terrible her look is now, for all her loveliness of feature!",3 She is afraid I shall speak what will require some stern repression.,0 Let her go.,2 "Beauty and heiress as she may be, she will find it hard to meet with a truer heart than mine.",2 Let her go!',2 "And there was no tone of regret, or emotion of any kind in the voice with which he said good-bye; and the offered hand was taken with a resolute calmness, and dropped as carelessly as if it had been a dead and withered flower.",3 But none in his household saw Mr. Thornton again that day.,2 He was busily engaged; or so he said.,2 "Margaret's strength was so utterly exhausted by these visits, that she had to submit to much watching, and petting, and sighing 'I-told-you-so's,' from her aunt.",1 Dixon said she was quite as bad as she had been on the first day she heard of her father's death; and she and Mrs. Shaw consulted as to the desirableness of delaying the morrow's journey.,0 "But when her aunt reluctantly proposed a few days' delay to Margaret, the latter writhed her body as if in acute suffering, and said: 'Oh!",0 let us go.,2 I cannot be patient here.,3 I shall not get well here.,3 I want to forget.',2 "So the arrangements went on; and Captain Lennox came, and with him news of Edith and the little boy; and Margaret found that the indifferent, careless conversation of one who, however kind, was not too warm and anxious a sympathiser, did her good.",1 "She roused up; and by the time that she knew she might expect Higgins, she was able to leave the room quietly, and await in her own chamber the expected summons.",2 'Eh!',2 "said he, as she came in, 'to think of th' oud gentleman dropping off as he did!",2 Yo' might ha' knocked me down wi' a straw when they telled me.,2 """Mr. Hale?""",3 "said I; ""him as was th' parson?""",2 """Ay,"" said they.",2 """Then,"" said I, ""there's as good a man gone as ever lived on this earth, let who will be t' other!""",3 "And I came to see yo', and tell yo' how grieved I were, but them women in th' kitchen wouldn't tell yo' I were there.",2 "They said yo' were ill,--and butter me, but yo' dunnot look like th' same wench.",3 "And yo're going to be a grand lady up i' Lunnon, aren't yo'?'",3 "'Not a grand lady,' said Margaret, half smiling.",3 'Well!,2 "Thornton said--says he, a day or two ago, ""Higgins, have yo' seen Miss Hale?""",2 """No,"" says I; ""there's a pack o' women who won't let me at her.",2 "But I can bide my time, if she's ill.",2 "She and I knows each other pretty well; and hoo'l not go doubting that I'm main sorry for th' oud gentleman's death, just because I can't get at her and tell her so.""",2 "And says he, ""Yo'll not have much time for to try and see her, my fine chap.",3 She's not for staying with us a day longer nor she can help.,2 "She's got grand relations, and they're carrying her off; and we sha'n't see her no more.""",3 """Measter,"" said I, ""if I dunnot see her afore hoo goes, I'll strive to get up to Lunnun next Whissuntide, that I will.",2 "I'll not be baulked of saying her good-bye by any relations whatsomdever.""",3 "But, bless yo', I knowed yo'd come.",3 "It were only for to humour the measter, I let on as if I thought yo'd mappen leave Milton without seeing me.'",3 "'You're quite right,' said Margaret.",3 'You only do me justice.,2 "And you'll not forget me, I'm sure.",2 "If no one else in Milton remembers me, I'm certain you will; and papa too.",2 You know how good and how tender he was.,3 "Look, Higgins!",2 here is his bible.,2 I have kept it for you.,2 I can ill spare it; but I know he would have liked you to have it.,3 "I'm sure you'll care for it, and study what is in it, for his sake.'",2 'Yo' may say that.,2 "If it were the deuce's own scribble, and yo' axed me to read in it for yo'r sake, and th' oud gentleman's, I'd do it.",2 "Whatten's this, wench?",2 "I'm not going for to take yo'r brass, so dunnot think it.",2 "We've been great friends, 'bout the sound o' money passing between us.'",3 "'For the children--for Boucher's children,' said Margaret, hurriedly.",2 'They may need it.,2 You've no right to refuse it for them.,2 "I would not give you a penny,' she said, smiling; 'don't think there's any of it for you.'",3 "'Well, wench!",2 "I can nobbut say, Bless yo'!",3 and bless yo'!--and amen.',3 "It was very well for Margaret that the extreme quiet of the Harley Street house, during Edith's recovery from her confinement, gave her the natural rest which she needed.",4 It gave her time to comprehend the sudden change which had taken place in her circumstances within the last two months.,2 "She found herself at once an inmate of a luxurious house, where the bare knowledge of the existence of every trouble or care seemed scarcely to have penetrated.",1 "The wheels of the machinery of daily life were well oiled, and went along with delicious smoothness.",3 "Mrs. Shaw and Edith could hardly make enough of Margaret, on her return to what they persisted in calling her home.",3 "And she felt that it was almost ungrateful in her to have a secret feeling that the Helstone vicarage--nay, even the poor little house at Milton, with her anxious father and her invalid mother, and all the small household cares of comparative poverty, composed her idea of home.",0 "Edith was impatient to get well, in order to fill Margaret's bed-room with all the soft comforts, and pretty nick-knacks, with which her own abounded.",3 Mrs. Shaw and her maid found plenty of occupation in restoring Margaret's wardrobe to a state of elegant variety.,3 "Captain Lennox was easy, kind, and gentlemanly; sate with his wife in her dressing-room an hour or two every day; played with his little boy for another hour, and lounged away the rest of his time at his club, when he was not engaged out to dinner.",3 "Just before Margaret had recovered from her necessity for quiet and repose--before she had begun to feel her life wanting and dull--Edith came down-stairs and resumed her usual part in the household; and Margaret fell into the old habit of watching, and admiring, and ministering to her cousin.",2 "She gladly took all charge of the semblances of duties off Edith's hands; answered notes, reminded her of engagements, tended her when no gaiety was in prospect, and she was consequently rather inclined to fancy herself ill.",4 "But all the rest of the family were in the full business of the London season, and Margaret was often left alone.",2 "Then her thoughts went back to Milton, with a strange sense of the contrast between the life there, and here.",1 She was getting surfeited of the eventless ease in which no struggle or endeavour was required.,2 She was afraid lest she should even become sleepily deadened into forgetfulness of anything beyond the life which was lapping her round with luxury.,1 "There might be toilers and moilers there in London, but she never saw them; the very servants lived in an underground world of their own, of which she knew neither the hopes nor the fears; they only seemed to start into existence when some want or whim of their master and mistress needed them.",1 "There was a strange unsatisfied vacuum in Margaret's heart and mode of life; and, once when she had dimly hinted this to Edith, the latter, wearied with dancing the night before, languidly stroked Margaret's cheek as she sat by her in the old attitude,--she on a footstool by the sofa where Edith lay.",1 'Poor child!',2 said Edith.,2 "'It is a little sad for you to be left, night after night, just at this time when all the world is so gay.",1 But we shall be having our dinner-parties soon--as soon as Henry comes back from circuit--and then there will be a little pleasant variety for you.,3 "No wonder it is moped, poor darling!'",3 Margaret did not feel as if the dinner-parties would be a panacea.,2 "But Edith piqued herself on her dinner-parties; 'so different,' as she said, 'from the old dowager dinners under mamma's regime;' and Mrs. Shaw herself seemed to take exactly the same kind of pleasure in the very different arrangements and circle of acquaintances which were to Captain and Mrs. Lennox's taste, as she did in the more formal and ponderous entertainments which she herself used to give.",3 Captain Lennox was always extremely kind and brotherly to Margaret.,3 "She was really very fond of him, excepting when he was anxiously attentive to Edith's dress and appearance, with a view to her beauty making a sufficient impression on the world.",4 "Then all the latent Vashti in Margaret was roused, and she could hardly keep herself from expressing her feelings.",2 "The course of Margaret's day was this; a quiet hour or two before a late breakfast; an unpunctual meal, lazily eaten by weary and half-awake people, but yet at which, in all its dragged-out length, she was expected to be present, because, directly afterwards, came a discussion of plans, at which, although they none of them concerned her, she was expected to give her sympathy, if she could not assist with her advice; an endless number of notes to write, which Edith invariably left to her, with many caressing compliments as to her eloquence du billet; a little play with Sholto as he returned from his morning's walk; besides the care of the children during the servants' dinner; a drive or callers; and some dinner or morning engagement for her aunt and cousins, which left Margaret free, it is true, but rather wearied with the inactivity of the day, coming upon depressed spirits and delicate health.",2 "She looked forward with longing, though unspoken interest to the homely object of Dixon's return from Milton; where, until now, the old servant had been busily engaged in winding up all the affairs of the Hale family.",1 "It had appeared a sudden famine to her heart, this entire cessation of any news respecting the people amongst whom she had lived so long.",1 "It was true, that Dixon, in her business-letters, quoted, every now and then, an opinion of Mr. Thornton's as to what she had better do about the furniture, or how act in regard to the landlord of the Crampton Terrace house.",3 "But it was only here and there that the name came in, or any Milton name, indeed; and Margaret was sitting one evening, all alone in the Lennoxes's drawing-room, not reading Dixon's letters, which yet she held in her hand, but thinking over them, and recalling the days which had been, and picturing the busy life out of which her own had been taken and never missed; wondering if all went on in that whirl just as if she and her father had never been; questioning within herself, if no one in all the crowd missed her, (not Higgins, she was not thinking of him,) when, suddenly, Mr. Bell was announced; and Margaret hurried the letters into her work-basket, and started up, blushing as if she had been doing some guilty thing.",1 "'Oh, Mr. Bell!",2 I never thought of seeing you!',2 "'But you give me a welcome, I hope, as well as that very pretty start of surprise.'",4 'Have you dined?,2 How did you come?,2 Let me order you some dinner.',2 'If you're going to have any.,2 "Otherwise, you know, there is no one who cares less for eating than I do.",2 But where are the others?,2 Gone out to dinner?,2 Left you alone?',2 'Oh yes!,2 and it is such a rest.,2 I was just thinking--But will you run the risk of dinner?,1 I don't know if there is anything in the house.',2 "'Why, to tell you the truth, I dined at my club.",2 "Only they don't cook as well as they did, so I thought, if you were going to dine, I might try and make out my dinner.",3 "But never mind, never mind!",2 There aren't ten cooks in England to be trusted at impromptu dinners.,3 "If their skill and their fires will stand it, their tempers won't.",3 "You shall make me some tea, Margaret.",2 "And now, what were you thinking of?",2 you were going to tell me.,2 "Whose letters were those, god-daughter, that you hid away so speedily?'",3 "'Only Dixon's,' replied Margaret, growing very red.",2 'Whew!,2 is that all?,2 Who do you think came up in the train with me?',2 "'I don't know,' said Margaret, resolved against making a guess.",2 'Your what d'ye call him?,2 What's the right name for a cousin-in-law's brother?',3 'Mr. Henry Lennox?',2 asked Margaret.,2 "'Yes,' replied Mr. Bell.",2 "'You knew him formerly, didn't you?",2 "What sort of a person is he, Margaret?'",2 "'I liked him long ago,' said Margaret, glancing down for a moment.",3 And then she looked straight up and went on in her natural manner.,2 "'You know we have been corresponding about Frederick since; but I have not seen him for nearly three years, and he may be changed.",2 What did you think of him?',2 'I don't know.,2 "He was so busy trying to find out who I was, in the first instance, and what I was in the second, that he never let out what he was; unless indeed that veiled curiosity of his as to what manner of man he had to talk to was not a good piece, and a fair indication of his character.",3 "Do you call him good looking, Margaret?'",3 'No!,2 certainly not.,2 Do you?',2 "'Not I. But I thought, perhaps, you might.",2 Is he a great deal here?',3 'I fancy he is when he is in town.,3 He has been on circuit now since I came.,2 But--Mr. Bell--have you come from Oxford or from Milton?',2 'From Milton.,2 Don't you see I'm smoke-dried?',1 'Certainly.,2 But I thought that it might be the effect of the antiquities of Oxford.',2 "'Come now, be a sensible woman!",3 "In Oxford, I could have managed all the landlords in the place, and had my own way, with half the trouble your Milton landlord has given me, and defeated me after all.",2 He won't take the house off our hands till next June twelvemonth.,2 "Luckily, Mr. Thornton found a tenant for it.",2 "Why don't you ask after Mr. Thornton, Margaret?",2 "He has proved himself a very active friend of yours, I can tell you.",2 Taken more than half the trouble off my hands.',1 'And how is he?,2 How is Mrs. Thornton?',2 "asked Margaret hurriedly and below her breath, though she tried to speak out.",2 'I suppose they're well.,3 I've been staying at their house till I was driven out of it by the perpetual clack about that Thornton girl's marriage.,2 "It was too much for Thornton himself, though she was his sister.",2 He used to go and sit in his own room perpetually.,2 "He's getting past the age for caring for such things, either as principal or accessory.",2 "I was surprised to find the old lady falling into the current, and carried away by her daughter's enthusiasm for orange-blossoms and lace.",2 I thought Mrs. Thornton had been made of sterner stuff.',2 "'She would put on any assumption of feeling to veil her daughter's weakness,' said Margaret in a low voice.",1 'Perhaps so.,2 "You've studied her, have you?",2 "She doesn't seem over fond of you, Margaret.'",3 "'I know it,' said Margaret.",2 "'Oh, here is tea at last!'",2 "exclaimed she, as if relieved.",2 "And with tea came Mr. Henry Lennox, who had walked up to Harley Street after a late dinner, and had evidently expected to find his brother and sister-in-law at home.",2 "Margaret suspected him of being as thankful as she was at the presence of a third party, on this their first meeting since the memorable day of his offer, and her refusal at Helstone.",3 "She could hardly tell what to say at first, and was thankful for all the tea-table occupations, which gave her an excuse for keeping silence, and him an opportunity of recovering himself.",2 "For, to tell the truth, he had rather forced himself up to Harley Street this evening, with a view of getting over an awkward meeting, awkward even in the presence of Captain Lennox and Edith, and doubly awkward now that he found her the only lady there, and the person to whom he must naturally and perforce address a great part of his conversation.",2 She was the first to recover her self-possession.,3 "She began to talk on the subject which came uppermost in her mind, after the first flush of awkward shyness.",1 "'Mr. Lennox, I have been so much obliged to you for all you have done about Frederick.'",2 "'I am only sorry it has been so unsuccessful,' replied he, with a quick glance towards Mr. Bell, as if reconnoitring how much he might say before him.",1 "Margaret, as if she read his thought, addressed herself to Mr. Bell, both including him in the conversation, and implying that he was perfectly aware of the endeavours that had been made to clear Frederick.",3 "'That Horrocks--that very last witness of all, has proved as unavailing as all the others.",2 "Mr. Lennox has discovered that he sailed for Australia only last August; only two months before Frederick was in England, and gave us the names of---- ' 'Frederick in England!",2 you never told me that!',2 exclaimed Mr. Bell in surprise.,2 'I thought you knew.,2 I never doubted you had been told.,2 "Of course, it was a great secret, and perhaps I should not have named it now,' said Margaret, a little dismayed.",2 "'I have never named it to either my brother or your cousin,' said Mr. Lennox, with a little professional dryness of implied reproach.",1 "'Never mind, Margaret.",2 "I am not living in a talking, babbling world, nor yet among people who are trying to worm facts out of me; you needn't look so frightened because you have let the cat out of the bag to a faithful old hermit like me.",3 "I shall never name his having been in England; I shall be out of temptation, for no one will ask me.",1 Stay!',2 (interrupting himself rather abruptly) 'was it at your mother's funeral?',1 "'He was with mamma when she died,' said Margaret, softly.",1 'To be sure!,2 To be sure!,2 "Why, some one asked me if he had not been over then, and I denied it stoutly--not many weeks ago--who could it have been?",1 Oh!,2 I recollect!',2 "But he did not say the name; and although Margaret would have given much to know if her suspicions were right, and it had been Mr. Thornton who had made the enquiry, she could not ask the question of Mr. Bell, much as she longed to do so.",2 There was a pause for a moment or two.,2 "Then Mr. Lennox said, addressing himself to Margaret, 'I suppose as Mr. Bell is now acquainted with all the circumstances attending your brother's unfortunate dilemma, I cannot do better than inform him exactly how the research into the evidence we once hoped to produce in his favour stands at present.",2 "So, if he will do me the honour to breakfast with me to-morrow, we will go over the names of these missing gentry.'",2 "'I should like to hear all the particulars, if I may.",3 Cannot you come here?,2 "I dare not ask you both to breakfast, though I am sure you would be welcome.",3 "But let me know all I can about Frederick, even though there may be no hope at present.'",2 'I have an engagement at half-past eleven.,2 "But I will certainly come if you wish it,' replied Mr. Lennox, with a little afterthought of extreme willingness, which made Margaret shrink into herself, and almost wish that she had not proposed her natural request.",3 "Mr. Bell got up and looked around him for his hat, which had been removed to make room for tea.",2 'Well!',2 "said he, 'I don't know what Mr. Lennox is inclined to do, but I'm disposed to be moving off homewards.",2 "I've been a journey to-day, and journeys begin to tell upon my sixty and odd years.'",1 "'I believe I shall stay and see my brother and sister,' said Mr. Lennox, making no movement of departure.",2 Margaret was seized with a shy awkward dread of being left alone with him.,1 "The scene on the little terrace in the Helstone garden was so present to her, that she could hardly help believing it was so with him.",2 "'Don't go yet, please, Mr. Bell,' said she, hastily.",1 'I want you to see Edith; and I want Edith to know you.,2 Please!',2 "said she, laying a light but determined hand on his arm.",2 "He looked at her, and saw the confusion stirring in her countenance; he sate down again, as if her little touch had been possessed of resistless strength.",1 "'You see how she overpowers me, Mr. Lennox,' said he.",2 "'And I hope you noticed the happy choice of her expressions; she wants me to ""see"" this cousin Edith, who, I am told, is a great beauty; but she has the honesty to change her word when she comes to me--Mrs. Lennox is to ""know"" me.",4 "I suppose I am not much to ""see,"" eh, Margaret?'",2 "He joked, to give her time to recover from the slight flutter which he had detected in her manner on his proposal to leave; and she caught the tone, and threw the ball back.",3 "Mr. Lennox wondered how his brother, the Captain, could have reported her as having lost all her good looks.",2 "To be sure, in her quiet black dress, she was a contrast to Edith, dancing in her white crape mourning, and long floating golden hair, all softness and glitter.",4 "She dimpled and blushed most becomingly when introduced to Mr. Bell, conscious that she had her reputation as a beauty to keep up, and that it would not do to have a Mordecai refusing to worship and admire, even in the shape of an old Fellow of a College, which nobody had ever heard of.",3 "Mrs. Shaw and Captain Lennox, each in their separate way, gave Mr. Bell a kind and sincere welcome, winning him over to like them almost in spite of himself, especially when he saw how naturally Margaret took her place as sister and daughter of the house.",4 "'What a shame that we were not at home to receive you,' said Edith.",1 "'You, too, Henry!",2 though I don't know that we should have stayed at home for you.,2 And for Mr. Bell!,2 "for Margaret's Mr. Bell---- ' 'There is no knowing what sacrifices you would not have made,' said her brother-in-law.",2 'Even a dinner-party!,2 and the delight of wearing this very becoming dress.',3 Edith did not know whether to frown or to smile.,2 But it did not suit Mr. Lennox to drive her to the first of these alternatives; so he went on.,2 "'Will you show your readiness to make sacrifices to-morrow morning, first by asking me to breakfast, to meet Mr. Bell, and secondly, by being so kind as to order it at half-past nine, instead of ten o'clock?",2 I have some letters and papers that I want to show to Miss Hale and Mr. Bell.',2 "'I hope Mr. Bell will make our house his own during his stay in London,' said Captain Lennox.",2 'I am only so sorry we cannot offer him a bed-room.',1 'Thank you.,2 I am much obliged to you.,2 "You would only think me a churl if you had, for I should decline it, I believe, in spite of all the temptations of such agreeable company,' said Mr. Bell, bowing all round, and secretly congratulating himself on the neat turn he had given to his sentence, which, if put into plain language, would have been more to this effect: 'I couldn't stand the restraints of such a proper-behaved and civil-spoken set of people as these are: it would be like meat without salt.",3 I'm thankful they haven't a bed.,3 And how well I rounded my sentence!,3 I am absolutely catching the trick of good manners.',2 "His self-satisfaction lasted him till he was fairly out in the streets, walking side by side with Henry Lennox.",3 "Here he suddenly remembered Margaret's little look of entreaty as she urged him to stay longer, and he also recollected a few hints given him long ago by an acquaintance of Mr. Lennox's, as to his admiration of Margaret.",3 It gave a new direction to his thoughts.,2 "'You have known Miss Hale for a long time, I believe.",2 How do you think her looking?,2 She strikes me as pale and ill.',1 'I thought her looking remarkably well.,3 Perhaps not when I first came in--now I think of it.,2 "But certainly, when she grew animated, she looked as well as ever I saw her do.'",3 "'She has had a great deal to go through,' said Mr. Bell.",3 'Yes!,2 "I have been sorry to hear of all she has had to bear; not merely the common and universal sorrow arising from death, but all the annoyance which her father's conduct must have caused her, and then----' 'Her father's conduct!'",0 "said Mr. Bell, in an accent of surprise.",2 'You must have heard some wrong statement.,1 He behaved in the most conscientious manner.,3 He showed more resolute strength than I should ever have given him credit for formerly.',3 'Perhaps I have been wrongly informed.,1 "But I have been told, by his successor in the living--a clever, sensible man, and a thoroughly active clergyman--that there was no call upon Mr. Hale to do what he did, relinquish the living, and throw himself and his family on the tender mercies of private teaching in a manufacturing town; the bishop had offered him another living, it is true, but if he had come to entertain certain doubts, he could have remained where he was, and so had no occasion to resign.",4 "But the truth is, these country clergymen live such isolated lives--isolated, I mean, from all intercourse with men of equal cultivation with themselves, by whose minds they might regulate their own, and discover when they were going either too fast or too slow--that they are very apt to disturb themselves with imaginary doubts as to the articles of faith, and throw up certain opportunities of doing good for very uncertain fancies of their own.'",0 'I differ from you.,2 I do not think they are very apt to do as my poor friend Hale did.',2 Mr. Bell was inwardly chafing.,2 "'Perhaps I used too general an expression, in saying ""very apt.""",2 "But certainly, their lives are such as very often to produce either inordinate self-sufficiency, or a morbid state of conscience,' replied Mr. Lennox with perfect coolness.",1 "'You don't meet with any self-sufficiency among the lawyers, for instance?'",2 asked Mr. Bell.,2 "'And seldom, I imagine, any cases of morbid conscience.'",1 "He was becoming more and more vexed, and forgetting his lately-caught trick of good manners.",2 "Mr. Lennox saw now that he had annoyed his companion; and as he had talked pretty much for the sake of saying something, and so passing the time while their road lay together, he was very indifferent as to the exact side he took upon the question, and quietly came round by saying: 'To be sure, there is something fine in a man of Mr. Hale's age leaving his home of twenty years, and giving up all settled habits, for an idea which was probably erroneous--but that does not matter--an untangible thought.",1 "One cannot help admiring him, with a mixture of pity in one's admiration, something like what one feels for Don Quixote.",3 Such a gentleman as he was too!,2 I shall never forget the refined and simple hospitality he showed to me that last day at Helstone.',3 "Only half mollified, and yet anxious, in order to lull certain qualms of his own conscience, to believe that Mr. Hale's conduct had a tinge of Quixotism in it, Mr. Bell growled out--'Aye!",0 And you don't know Milton.,2 Such a change from Helstone!,2 "It is years since I have been at Helstone--but I'll answer for it, it is standing there yet--every stick and every stone as it has done for the last century, while Milton!",2 "I go there every four or five years--and I was born there--yet I do assure you, I often lose my way--aye, among the very piles of warehouses that are built upon my father's orchard.",2 Do we part here?,2 "Well, good night, sir; I suppose we shall meet in Harley Street to-morrow morning.'",3 "The idea of Helstone had been suggested to Mr. Bell's waking mind by his conversation with Mr. Lennox, and all night long it ran riot through his dreams.",2 "He was again the tutor in the college where he now held the rank of Fellow; it was again a long vacation, and he was staying with his newly married friend, the proud husband, and happy Vicar of Helstone.",3 "Over babbling brooks they took impossible leaps, which seemed to keep them whole days suspended in the air.",1 "Time and space were not, though all other things seemed real.",2 "Every event was measured by the emotions of the mind, not by its actual existence, for existence it had none.",2 "But the trees were gorgeous in their autumnal leafiness--the warm odours of flower and herb came sweet upon the sense--the young wife moved about her house with just that mixture of annoyance at her position, as regarded wealth, with pride in her handsome and devoted husband, which Mr. Bell had noticed in real life a quarter of a century ago.",4 "The dream was so like life that, when he awoke, his present life seemed like a dream.",3 Where was he?,2 "In the close, handsomely furnished room of a London hotel!",3 "Where were those who spoke to him, moved around him, touched him, not an instant ago?",2 Dead!,1 buried!,2 "lost for evermore, as far as earth's for evermore would extend.",1 "He was an old man, so lately exultant in the full strength of manhood.",3 The utter loneliness of his life was insupportable to think about.,1 "He got up hastily, and tried to forget what never more might be, in a hurried dressing for the breakfast in Harley Street.",1 "He could not attend to all the lawyer's details, which, as he saw, made Margaret's eyes dilate, and her lips grow pale, as one by one fate decreed, or so it seemed, every morsel of evidence which would exonerate Frederick, should fall from beneath her feet and disappear.",1 "Even Mr. Lennox's well-regulated professional voice took a softer, tenderer tone, as he drew near to the extinction of the last hope.",3 It was not that Margaret had not been perfectly aware of the result before.,3 "It was only that the details of each successive disappointment came with such relentless minuteness to quench all hope, that she at last fairly gave way to tears.",1 Mr. Lennox stopped reading.,2 "'I had better not go on,' said he, in a concerned voice.",2 'It was a foolish proposal of mine.,1 "Lieutenant Hale,' and even this giving him the title of the service from which he had so harshly been expelled, was soothing to Margaret, 'Lieutenant Hale is happy now; more secure in fortune and future prospects than he could ever have been in the navy; and has, doubtless, adopted his wife's country as his own.'",4 "'That is it,' said Margaret.",2 "'It seems so selfish in me to regret it,' trying to smile, 'and yet he is lost to me, and I am so lonely.'",0 "Mr. Lennox turned over his papers, and wished that he were as rich and prosperous as he believed he should be some day.",3 "Mr. Bell blew his nose, but, otherwise, he also kept silence; and Margaret, in a minute or two, had apparently recovered her usual composure.",2 "She thanked Mr. Lennox very courteously for his trouble; all the more courteously and graciously because she was conscious that, by her behaviour, he might have probably been led to imagine that he had given her needless pain.",1 Yet it was pain she would not have been without.,1 Mr. Bell came up to wish her good-bye.,3 'Margaret!',2 "said he, as he fumbled with his gloves.",2 "'I am going down to Helstone to-morrow, to look at the old place.",2 Would you like to come with me?,3 Or would it give you too much pain?,1 "Speak out, don't be afraid.'",1 "'Oh, Mr. Bell,' said she--and could say no more.",2 "But she took his old gouty hand, and kissed it.",2 "'Come, come; that's enough,' said he, reddening with awkwardness.",2 'I suppose your aunt Shaw will trust you with me.,3 "We'll go to-morrow morning, and we shall get there about two o'clock, I fancy.",3 "We'll take a snack, and order dinner at the little inn--the Lennard Arms, it used to be,--and go and get an appetite in the forest.",2 "Can you stand it, Margaret?",2 "It will be a trial, I know, to both of us, but it will be a pleasure to me, at least.",3 "And there we'll dine--it will be but doe-venison, if we can get it at all--and then I'll take my nap while you go out and see old friends.",2 "I'll give you back safe and sound, barring railway accidents, and I'll insure your life for a thousand pounds before starting, which may be some comfort to your relations; but otherwise, I'll bring you back to Mrs. Shaw by lunch-time on Friday.",3 "So, if you say yes, I'll just go up-stairs and propose it.'",2 "'It's no use my trying to say how much I shall like it,' said Margaret, through her tears.",3 "'Well, then, prove your gratitude by keeping those fountains of yours dry for the next two days.",3 "If you don't, I shall feel queer myself about the lachrymal ducts, and I don't like that.'",2 "'I won't cry a drop,' said Margaret, winking her eyes to shake the tears off her eye-lashes, and forcing a smile.",1 'There's my good girl.,3 Then we'll go up-stairs and settle it all.',2 "Margaret was in a state of almost trembling eagerness, while Mr. Bell discussed his plan with her aunt Shaw, who was first startled, then doubtful and perplexed, and in the end, yielding rather to the rough force of Mr. Bell's words than to her own conviction; for to the last, whether it was right or wrong, proper or improper, she could not settle to her own satisfaction, till Margaret's safe return, the happy fulfilment of the project, gave her decision enough to say, 'she was sure it had been a very kind thought of Mr. Bell's, and just what she herself had been wishing for Margaret, as giving her the very change which she required, after all the anxious time she had had.'",2 "Margaret was ready long before the appointed time, and had leisure enough to cry a little, quietly, when unobserved, and to smile brightly when any one looked at her.",3 Her last alarm was lest they should be too late and miss the train; but no!,1 "they were all in time; and she breathed freely and happily at length, seated in the carriage opposite to Mr. Bell, and whirling away past the well-known stations; seeing the old south country-towns and hamlets sleeping in the warm light of the pure sun, which gave a yet ruddier colour to their tiled roofs, so different to the cold slates of the north.",4 "Broods of pigeons hovered around these peaked quaint gables, slowly settling here and there, and ruffling their soft, shiny feathers, as if exposing every fibre to the delicious warmth.",4 "There were few people about at the stations, it almost seemed as if they were too lazily content to wish to travel; none of the bustle and stir that Margaret had noticed in her two journeys on the London and North-Western line.",2 "Later on in the year, this line of railway should be stirring and alive with rich pleasure-seekers; but as to the constant going to and fro of busy trades-people it would always be widely different from the northern lines.",3 "Here a spectator or two stood lounging at nearly every station, with his hands in his pockets, so absorbed in the simple act of watching, that it made the travellers wonder what he could find to do when the train whirled away, and only the blank of a railway, some sheds, and a distant field or two were left for him to gaze upon.",3 "The hot air danced over the golden stillness of the land, farm after farm was left behind, each reminding Margaret of German Idyls--of Herman and Dorothea--of Evangeline.",3 From this waking dream she was roused.,2 It was the place to leave the train and take the fly to Helstone.,2 "And now sharper feelings came shooting through her heart, whether pain or pleasure she could hardly tell.",3 "Every mile was redolent of associations, which she would not have missed for the world, but each of which made her cry upon 'the days that are no more,' with ineffable longing.",0 "The last time she had passed along this road was when she had left it with her father and mother--the day, the season, had been gloomy, and she herself hopeless, but they were there with her.",1 "Now she was alone, an orphan, and they, strangely, had gone away from her, and vanished from the face of the earth.",1 "It hurt her to see the Helstone road so flooded in the sun-light, and every turn and every familiar tree so precisely the same in its summer glory as it had been in former years.",3 "Nature felt no change, and was ever young.",2 "Mr. Bell knew something of what would be passing through her mind, and wisely and kindly held his tongue.",3 "They drove up to the Lennard Arms; half farm-house, half-inn, standing a little apart from the road, as much as to say, that the host did not so depend on the custom of travellers, as to have to court it by any obtrusiveness; they, rather, must seek him out.",2 "The house fronted the village green; and right before it stood an immemorial lime-tree benched all round, in some hidden recesses of whose leafy wealth hung the grim escutcheon of the Lennards.",1 "The door of the inn stood wide open, but there was no hospitable hurry to receive the travellers.",3 "When the landlady did appear--and they might have abstracted many an article first--she gave them a kind welcome, almost as if they had been invited guests, and apologised for her coming having been so delayed, by saying, that it was hay-time, and the provisions for the men had to be sent a-field, and she had been too busy packing up the baskets to hear the noise of wheels over the road, which, since they had left the highway, ran over soft short turf.",2 "'Why, bless me!'",3 "exclaimed she, as at the end of her apology, a glint of sunlight showed her Margaret's face, hitherto unobserved in that shady parlour.",1 "'It's Miss Hale, Jenny,' said she, running to the door, and calling to her daughter.",2 "'Come here, come directly, it's Miss Hale!'",2 "And then she went up to Margaret, and shook her hands with motherly fondness.",3 'And how are you all?,2 How's the Vicar and Miss Dixon?,1 The Vicar above all!,2 God bless him!,3 We've never ceased to be sorry that he left.',1 "Margaret tried to speak and tell her of her father's death; of her mother's it was evident that Mrs. Purkis was aware, from her omission of her name.",1 "But she choked in the effort, and could only touch her deep mourning, and say the one word, 'Papa.'",2 "'Surely, sir, it's never so!'",2 "said Mrs. Purkis, turning to Mr. Bell for confirmation of the sad suspicion that now entered her mind.",1 "'There was a gentleman here in the spring--it might have been as long ago as last winter--who told us a deal of Mr. Hale and Miss Margaret; and he said Mrs. Hale was gone, poor lady.",1 But never a word of the Vicar's being ailing!',1 "'It is so, however,' said Mr. Bell.",2 "'He died quite suddenly, when on a visit to me at Oxford.",1 "He was a good man, Mrs. Purkis, and there's many of us that might be thankful to have as calm an end as his.",4 "Come Margaret, my dear!",2 "Her father was my oldest friend, and she's my god-daughter, so I thought we would just come down together and see the old place; and I know of old you can give us comfortable rooms and a capital dinner.",3 "You don't remember me I see, but my name is Bell, and once or twice when the parsonage has been full, I've slept here, and tasted your good ale.'",3 'To be sure; I ask your pardon; but you see I was taken up with Miss Hale.,3 "Let me show you to a room, Miss Margaret, where you can take off your bonnet, and wash your face.",1 "It's only this very morning I plunged some fresh-gathered roses head downward in the water-jug, for, thought I, perhaps some one will be coming, and there's nothing so sweet as spring-water scented by a musk rose or two.",3 To think of the Vicar being dead!,1 "Well, to be sure, we must all die; only that gentleman said, he was quite picking up after his trouble about Mrs. Hale's death.'",1 "'Come down to me, Mrs. Purkis, after you have attended to Miss Hale.",2 I want to have a consultation with you about dinner.',2 "The little casement window in Margaret's bed-chamber was almost filled up with rose and vine branches; but pushing them aside, and stretching a little out, she could see the tops of the parsonage chimneys above the trees; and distinguish many a well-known line through the leaves.",3 'Aye!',2 "said Mrs. Purkis, smoothing down the bed, and despatching Jenny for an armful of lavender-scented towels, 'times is changed, miss; our new Vicar has seven children, and is building a nursery ready for more, just out where the arbour and tool-house used to be in old times.",2 "And he has had new grates put in, and a plate-glass window in the drawing-room.",2 "He and his wife are stirring people, and have done a deal of good; at least they say it's doing good; if it were not, I should call it turning things upside down for very little purpose.",3 "The new Vicar is a teetotaller, miss, and a magistrate, and his wife has a deal of receipts for economical cooking, and is for making bread without yeast; and they both talk so much, and both at a time, that they knock one down as it were, and it's not till they're gone, and one's a little at peace, that one can think that there were things one might have said on one's own side of the question.",2 "He'll be after the men's cans in the hay-field, and peeping in; and then there'll be an ado because it's not ginger beer, but I can't help it.",2 "My mother and my grandmother before me sent good malt liquor to haymakers; and took salts and senna when anything ailed them; and I must e'en go on in their ways, though Mrs. Hepworth does want to give me comfits instead of medicine, which, as she says, is a deal pleasanter, only I've no faith in it.",3 "But I must go, miss, though I'm wanting to hear many a thing; I'll come back to you before long.",1 "Mr. Bell had strawberries and cream, a loaf of brown bread, and a jug of milk, (together with a Stilton cheese and a bottle of port for his own private refreshment,) ready for Margaret on her coming down stairs; and after this rustic luncheon they set out to walk, hardly knowing in what direction to turn, so many old familiar inducements were there in each.",3 'Shall we go past the vicarage?',2 asked Mr. Bell.,2 "'No, not yet.",2 "We will go this way, and make a round so as to come back by it,' replied Margaret.",2 Here and there old trees had been felled the autumn before; or a squatter's roughly-built and decaying cottage had disappeared.,2 "Margaret missed them each and all, and grieved over them like old friends.",2 They came past the spot where she and Mr. Lennox had sketched.,2 "The white, lightning-scarred trunk of the venerable beech, among whose roots they had sate down was there no more; the old man, the inhabitant of the ruinous cottage, was dead; the cottage had been pulled down, and a new one, tidy and respectable, had been built in its stead.",1 There was a small garden on the place where the beech-tree had been.,2 "'I did not think I had been so old,' said Margaret after a pause of silence; and she turned away sighing.",2 'Yes!',2 said Mr. Bell.,2 "'It is the first changes among familiar things that make such a mystery of time to the young, afterwards we lose the sense of the mysterious.",0 I take changes in all I see as a matter of course.,2 "The instability of all human things is familiar to me, to you it is new and oppressive.'",1 "'Let us go on to see little Susan,' said Margaret, drawing her companion up a grassy road-way, leading under the shadow of a forest glade.",3 "'With all my heart, though I have not an idea who little Susan may be.",2 "But I have a kindness for all Susans, for simple Susan's sake.'",3 "'My little Susan was disappointed when I left without wishing her goodbye; and it has been on my conscience ever since, that I gave her pain which a little more exertion on my part might have prevented.",1 But it is a long way.,2 Are you sure you will not be tired?',1 'Quite sure.,2 "That is, if you don't walk so fast.",3 "You see, here there are no views that can give one an excuse for stopping to take breath.",1 "You would think it romantic to be walking with a person ""fat and scant o' breath"" if I were Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.",1 Have compassion on my infirmities for his sake.',3 'I will walk slower for your own sake.,1 I like you twenty times better than Hamlet.',3 'On the principle that a living ass is better than a dead lion?',2 'Perhaps so.,2 I don't analyse my feelings.',2 "'I am content to take your liking me, without examining too curiously into the materials it is made of.",3 Only we need not walk at a snail's' pace.',2 'Very well.,3 "Walk at your own pace, and I will follow.",2 "Or stop still and meditate, like the Hamlet you compare yourself to, if I go too fast.'",3 'Thank you.,2 "But as my mother has not murdered my father, and afterwards married my uncle, I shouldn't know what to think about, unless it were balancing the chances of our having a well-cooked dinner or not.",3 What do you think?',2 'I am in good hopes.,3 She used to be considered a famous cook as far as Helstone opinion went.',3 'But have you considered the distraction of mind produced by all this haymaking?',1 "Margaret felt all Mr. Bell's kindness in trying to make cheerful talk about nothing, to endeavour to prevent her from thinking too curiously about the past.",3 "But she would rather have gone over these dear-loved walks in silence, if indeed she were not ungrateful enough to wish that she might have been alone.",3 They reached the cottage where Susan's widowed mother lived.,2 Susan was not there.,2 She was gone to the parochial school.,2 "Margaret was disappointed, and the poor woman saw it, and began to make a kind of apology.",1 'Oh!,2 "it is quite right,' said Margaret.",3 'I am very glad to hear it.,3 I might have thought of it.,2 Only she used to stop at home with you.',2 "'Yes, she did; and I miss her sadly.",1 I used to teach her what little I knew at nights.,2 It were not much to be sure.,2 "But she were getting such a handy girl, that I miss her sore.",1 But she's a deal above me in learning now.',2 And the mother sighed.,2 "'I'm all wrong,' growled Mr. Bell.",1 'Don't mind what I say.,2 I'm a hundred years behind the world.,2 "But I should say, that the child was getting a better and simpler, and more natural education stopping at home, and helping her mother, and learning to read a chapter in the New Testament every night by her side, than from all the schooling under the sun.' Margaret did not want to encourage him to go on by replying to him, and so prolonging the discussion before the mother.",4 "So she turned to her and asked, 'How is old Betty Barnes?'",2 "'I don't know,' said the woman rather shortly.",2 'We'se not friends.',2 'Why not?',2 "asked Margaret, who had formerly been the peacemaker of the village.",2 'She stole my cat.',1 'Did she know it was yours?',2 'I don't know.,2 I reckon not.',2 'Well!,2 could not you get it back again when you told her it was yours?',2 'No!,2 for she'd burnt it.',2 'Burnt it!',2 exclaimed both Margaret and Mr. Bell.,2 'Roasted it!',2 explained the woman.,2 It was no explanation.,2 "By dint of questioning, Margaret extracted from her the horrible fact that Betty Barnes, having been induced by a gypsy fortune-teller to lend the latter her husband's Sunday clothes, on promise of having them faithfully returned on the Saturday night before Goodman Barnes should have missed them, became alarmed by their non-appearance, and her consequent dread of her husband's anger, and as, according to one of the savage country superstitions, the cries of a cat, in the agonies of being boiled or roasted alive, compelled (as it were) the powers of darkness to fulfil the wishes of the executioner, resort had been had to the charm.",0 The poor woman evidently believed in its efficacy; her only feeling was indignation that her cat had been chosen out from all others for a sacrifice.,1 Margaret listened in horror; and endeavoured in vain to enlighten the woman's mind; but she was obliged to give it up in despair.,1 "Step by step she got the woman to admit certain facts, of which the logical connexion and sequence was perfectly clear to Margaret; but at the end, the bewildered woman simply repeated her first assertion, namely, that 'it were very cruel for sure, and she should not like to do it; but that there were nothing like it for giving a person what they wished for; she had heard it all her life; but it were very cruel for all that.'",3 "Margaret gave it up in despair, and walked away sick at heart.",1 "'You are a good girl not to triumph over me,' said Mr. Bell.",3 'How?,2 What do you mean?',2 "'I own, I am wrong about schooling.",1 Anything rather than have that child brought up in such practical paganism.',2 'Oh!,2 I remember.,2 Poor little Susan!,1 I must go and see her; would you mind calling at the school?',2 'Not a bit.,2 I am curious to see something of the teaching she is to receive.',2 "They did not speak much more, but thridded their way through many a bosky dell, whose soft green influence could not charm away the shock and the pain in Margaret's heart, caused by the recital of such cruelty; a recital too, the manner of which betrayed such utter want of imagination, and therefore of any sympathy with the suffering animal.",1 "The buzz of voices, like the murmur of a hive of busy human bees, made itself heard as soon as they emerged from the forest on the more open village-green on which the school was situated.",3 "The door was wide open, and they entered.",2 "A brisk lady in black, here, there, and everywhere, perceived them, and bade them welcome with somewhat of the hostess-air which, Margaret remembered, her mother was wont to assume, only in a more soft and languid manner, when any rare visitors strayed in to inspect the school.",3 "She knew at once it was the present Vicar's wife, her mother's successor; and she would have drawn back from the interview had it been possible; but in an instant she had conquered this feeling, and modestly advanced, meeting many a bright glance of recognition, and hearing many a half-suppressed murmur of 'It's Miss Hale.'",3 "The Vicar's lady heard the name, and her manner at once became more kindly.",3 Margaret wished she could have helped feeling that it also became more patronising.,3 "The lady held out a hand to Mr. Bell, with-- 'Your father, I presume, Miss Hale.",2 I see it by the likeness.,2 "I am sure I am very glad to see you, sir, and so will the Vicar be.'",3 "Margaret explained that it was not her father, and stammered out the fact of his death; wondering all the time how Mr. Hale could have borne coming to revisit Helstone, if it had been as the Vicar's lady supposed.",2 "She did not hear what Mrs. Hepworth was saying, and left it to Mr. Bell to reply, looking round, meanwhile, for her old acquaintances.",2 'Ah!,2 "I see you would like to take a class, Miss Hale.",3 I know it by myself.,2 First class stand up for a parsing lesson with Miss Hale.',2 "Poor Margaret, whose visit was sentimental, not in any degree inspective, felt herself taken in; but as in some way bringing her in contact with little eager faces, once well-known, and who had received the solemn rite of baptism from her father, she sate down, half losing herself in tracing out the changing features of the girls, and holding Susan's hand for a minute or two, unobserved by all, while the first class sought for their books, and the Vicar's lady went as near as a lady could towards holding Mr. Bell by the button, while she explained the Phonetic system to him, and gave him a conversation she had had with the Inspector about it.",1 "Margaret bent over her book, and seeing nothing but that--hearing the buzz of children's voices, old times rose up, and she thought of them, and her eyes filled with tears, till all at once there was a pause--one of the girls was stumbling over the apparently simple word 'a,' uncertain what to call it.",1 "'A, an indefinite article,' said Margaret, mildly.",2 "'I beg your pardon,' said the Vicar's wife, all eyes and ears; 'but we are taught by Mr. Milsome to call ""a"" an--who can remember?'",2 "'An adjective absolute,' said half-a-dozen voices at once.",2 And Margaret sate abashed.,2 The children knew more than she did.,2 "Mr. Bell turned away, and smiled.",2 Margaret spoke no more during the lesson.,2 "But after it was over, she went quietly round to one or two old favourites, and talked to them a little.",2 "They were growing out of children into great girls; passing out of her recollection in their rapid development, as she, by her three years' absence, was vanishing from theirs.",3 "Still she was glad to have seen them all again, though a tinge of sadness mixed itself with her pleasure.",3 "When school was over for the day, it was yet early in the summer afternoon; and Mrs. Hepworth proposed to Margaret that she and Mr. Bell should accompany her to the parsonage, and see the--the word 'improvements' had half slipped out of her mouth, but she substituted the more cautious term 'alterations' which the present Vicar was making.",2 "Margaret did not care a straw about seeing the alterations, which jarred upon her fond recollection of what her home had been; but she longed to see the old place once more, even though she shivered away from the pain which she knew she should feel.",2 "The parsonage was so altered, both inside and out, that the real pain was less than she had anticipated.",1 It was not like the same place.,3 "The garden, the grass-plat, formerly so daintily trim that even a stray rose-leaf seemed like a fleck on its exquisite arrangement and propriety, was strewed with children's things; a bag of marbles here, a hoop there; a straw-hat forced down upon a rose-tree as on a peg, to the destruction of a long beautiful tender branch laden with flowers, which in former days would have been trained up tenderly, as if beloved.",4 The little square matted hall was equally filled with signs of merry healthy rough childhood.,3 'Ah!',2 "said Mrs. Hepworth, 'you must excuse this untidiness, Miss Hale.",1 "When the nursery is finished, I shall insist upon a little order.",2 "We are building a nursery out of your room, I believe.",2 "How did you manage, Miss Hale, without a nursery?'",2 "'We were but two,' said Margaret.",2 "'You have many children, I presume?'",2 'Seven.,2 Look here!,2 we are throwing out a window to the road on this side.,2 "Mr. Hepworth is spending an immense deal of money on this house; but really it was scarcely habitable when we came--for so large a family as ours I mean, of course.'",2 "Every room in the house was changed, besides the one of which Mrs. Hepworth spoke, which had been Mr. Hale's study formerly; and where the green gloom and delicious quiet of the place had conduced, as he had said, to a habit of meditation, but, perhaps, in some degree to the formation of a character more fitted for thought than action.",3 "The new window gave a view of the road, and had many advantages, as Mrs. Hepworth pointed out.",3 "From it the wandering sheep of her husband's flock might be seen, who straggled to the tempting beer-house, unobserved as they might hope, but not unobserved in reality; for the active Vicar kept his eye on the road, even during the composition of his most orthodox sermons, and had a hat and stick hanging ready at hand to seize, before sallying out after his parishioners, who had need of quick legs if they could take refuge in the 'Jolly Forester' before the teetotal Vicar had arrested them.",3 "The whole family were quick, brisk, loud-talking, kind-hearted, and not troubled with much delicacy of perception.",2 "Margaret feared that Mrs. Hepworth would find out that Mr. Bell was playing upon her, in the admiration he thought fit to express for everything that especially grated on his taste.",3 But no!,2 "she took it all literally, and with such good faith, that Margaret could not help remonstrating with him as they walked slowly away from the parsonage back to their inn.",3 "'Don't scold, Margaret.",1 It was all because of you.,2 "If she had not shown you every change with such evident exultation in their superior sense, in perceiving what an improvement this and that would be, I could have behaved well.",4 "But if you must go on preaching, keep it till after dinner, when it will send me to sleep, and help my digestion.'",2 "They were both of them tired, and Margaret herself so much so, that she was unwilling to go out as she had proposed to do, and have another ramble among the woods and fields so close to the home of her childhood.",1 "And, somehow, this visit to Helstone had not been all--had not been exactly what she had expected.",2 "There was change everywhere; slight, yet pervading all.",2 "Households were changed by absence, or death, or marriage, or the natural mutations brought by days and months and years, which carry us on imperceptibly from childhood to youth, and thence through manhood to age, whence we drop like fruit, fully ripe, into the quiet mother earth.",2 "Places were changed--a tree gone here, a bough there, bringing in a long ray of light where no light was before--a road was trimmed and narrowed, and the green straggling pathway by its side enclosed and cultivated.",2 "A great improvement it was called; but Margaret sighed over the old picturesqueness, the old gloom, and the grassy wayside of former days.",3 "She sate by the window on the little settle, sadly gazing out upon the gathering shades of night, which harmonised well with her pensive thought.",2 "Mr. Bell slept soundly, after his unusual exercise through the day.",2 "At last he was roused by the entrance of the tea-tray, brought in by a flushed-looking country-girl, who had evidently been finding some variety from her usual occupation of waiter, in assisting this day in the hayfield.",3 'Hallo!,2 Who's there!,2 Where are we?,2 "Who's that,--Margaret?",2 "Oh, now I remember all.",2 "I could not imagine what woman was sitting there in such a doleful attitude, with her hands clasped straight out upon her knees, and her face looking so steadfastly before her.",3 What were you looking at?',2 "asked Mr. Bell, coming to the window, and standing behind Margaret.",2 "'Nothing,' said she, rising up quickly, and speaking as cheerfully as she could at a moment's notice.",2 'Nothing indeed!,2 "A bleak back-ground of trees, some white linen hung out on the sweet-briar hedge, and a great waft of damp air.",1 "Shut the window, and come in and make tea.'",2 Margaret was silent for some time.,3 "She played with her teaspoon, and did not attend particularly to what Mr. Bell said.",2 "He contradicted her, and she took the same sort of smiling notice of his opinion as if he had agreed with her.",3 "Then she sighed, and putting down her spoon, she began, apropos of nothing at all, and in the high-pitched voice which usually shows that the speaker has been thinking for some time on the subject that they wish to introduce--'Mr. Bell, you remember what we were saying about Frederick last night, don't you?'",2 'Last night.,2 Where was I?,2 "Oh, I remember!",2 Why it seems a week ago.,2 "Yes, to be sure, I recollect we talked about him, poor fellow.'",1 'Yes--and do you not remember that Mr. Lennox spoke about his having been in England about the time of dear mamma's death?',1 "asked Margaret, her voice now lower than usual.",2 'I recollect.,2 I hadn't heard of it before.',2 'And I thought--I always thought that papa had told you about it.',2 'No!,2 he never did.,2 "But what about it, Margaret?'",2 "'I want to tell you of something I did that was very wrong, about that time,' said Margaret, suddenly looking up at him with her clear honest eyes.",3 'I told a lie;' and her face became scarlet.,1 "'True, that was bad I own; not but what I have told a pretty round number in my life, not all in downright words, as I suppose you did, but in actions, or in some shabby circumlocutory way, leading people either to disbelieve the truth, or believe a falsehood.",1 "You know who is the father of lies, Margaret?",1 Well!,3 "a great number of folk, thinking themselves very good, have odd sorts of connexion with lies, left-hand marriages, and second cousins-once-removed.",2 The tainting blood of falsehood runs through us all.,1 I should have guessed you as far from it as most people.,2 What!,2 "crying, child?",2 "Nay, now we'll not talk of it, if it ends in this way.",2 "I dare say you have been sorry for it, and that you won't do it again, and it's long ago now, and in short I want you to be very cheerful, and not very sad, this evening.'",1 "Margaret wiped her eyes, and tried to talk about something else, but suddenly she burst out afresh.",2 "'Please, Mr. Bell, let me tell you about it--you could perhaps help me a little; no, not help me, but if you knew the truth, perhaps you could put me to rights--that is not it, after all,' said she, in despair at not being able to express herself more exactly as she wished.",1 Mr. Bell's whole manner changed.,2 "'Tell me all about it, child,' said he.",2 "'It's a long story; but when Fred came, mamma was very ill, and I was undone with anxiety, and afraid, too, that I might have drawn him into danger; and we had an alarm just after her death, for Dixon met some one in Milton--a man called Leonards--who had known Fred, and who seemed to owe him a grudge, or at any rate to be tempted by the recollection of the reward offered for his apprehension; and with this new fright, I thought I had better hurry off Fred to London, where, as you would understand from what we said the other night, he was to go to consult Mr. Lennox as to his chances if he stood the trial.",0 "So we--that is, he and I,--went to the railway station; it was one evening, and it was just getting rather dusk, but still light enough to recognise and be recognised, and we were too early, and went out to walk in a field just close by; I was always in a panic about this Leonards, who was, I knew, somewhere in the neighbourhood; and then, when we were in the field, the low red sunlight just in my face, some one came by on horseback in the road just below the field-style by which we stood.",2 "I saw him look at me, but I did not know who it was at first, the sun was so in my eyes, but in an instant the dazzle went off, and I saw it was Mr. Thornton, and we bowed,'---- 'And he saw Frederick of course,' said Mr. Bell, helping her on with her story, as he thought.",3 "'Yes; and then at the station a man came up--tipsy and reeling--and he tried to collar Fred, and over-balanced himself as Fred wrenched himself away, and fell over the edge of the platform; not far, not deep; not above three feet; but oh!",2 "Mr. Bell, somehow that fall killed him!'",1 'How awkward.,1 "It was this Leonards, I suppose.",2 And how did Fred get off?',2 'Oh!,2 "he went off immediately after the fall, which we never thought could have done the poor fellow any harm, it seemed so slight an injury.'",0 'Then he did not die directly?',1 'No!,2 not for two or three days.,2 "And then--oh, Mr. Bell!",2 "now comes the bad part,' said she, nervously twining her fingers together.",1 "'A police inspector came and taxed me with having been the companion of the young man, whose push or blow had occasioned Leonards' death; that was a false accusation, you know, but we had not heard that Fred had sailed, he might still be in London and liable to be arrested on this false charge, and his identity with the Lieutenant Hale, accused of causing that mutiny, discovered, he might be shot; all this flashed through my mind, and I said it was not me.",0 I was not at the railway station that night.,2 I knew nothing about it.,2 I had no conscience or thought but to save Frederick.',2 'I say it was right.,3 I should have done the same.,2 You forgot yourself in thought for another.,2 I hope I should have done the same.',2 "'No, you would not.",2 "It was wrong, disobedient, faithless.",0 "At that very time Fred was safely out of England, and in my blindness I forgot that there was another witness who could testify to my being there.'",3 'Who?',2 'Mr. Thornton.,2 You know he had seen me close to the station; we had bowed to each other.',2 'Well!,2 he would know nothing of this riot about the drunken fellow's death.,1 I suppose the inquiry never came to anything.',2 'No!,2 the proceedings they had begun to talk about on the inquest were stopped.,2 Mr. Thornton did know all about it.,2 "He was a magistrate, and he found out that it was not the fall that had caused the death.",1 But not before he knew what I had said.,2 "Oh, Mr. Bell!'",2 "She suddenly covered her face with her hands, as if wishing to hide herself from the presence of the recollection.",2 'Did you have any explanation with him?,2 "Did you ever tell him the strong, instinctive motive?'",3 "'The instinctive want of faith, and clutching at a sin to keep myself from sinking,' said she bitterly.",1 'No!,2 How could I?,2 He knew nothing of Frederick.,2 "To put myself to rights in his good opinion, was I to tell him of the secrets of our family, involving, as they seemed to do, the chances of poor Frederick's entire exculpation?",2 Fred's last words had been to enjoin me to keep his visit a secret from all.,1 "You see, papa never told, even you.",2 No!,2 I could bear the shame--I thought I could at least.,1 I did bear it.,2 Mr. Thornton has never respected me since.',2 "'He respects you, I am sure,' said Mr. Bell.",2 "'To be sure, it accounts a little for----.",2 "But he always speaks of you with regard and esteem, though now I understand certain reservations in his manner.'",3 Margaret did not speak; did not attend to what Mr. Bell went on to say; lost all sense of it.,1 "By-and-by she said: 'Will you tell me what you refer to about ""reservations"" in his manner of speaking of me?'",2 'Oh!,2 simply he has annoyed me by not joining in my praises of you.,1 "Like an old fool, I thought that every one would have the same opinions as I had; and he evidently could not agree with me.",2 I was puzzled at the time.,1 "But he must be perplexed, if the affair has never been in the least explained.",1 There was first your walking out with a young man in the dark--' 'But it was my brother!',1 "said Margaret, surprised.",2 'True.,2 But how was he to know that?',2 'I don't know.,2 "I never thought of anything of that kind,' said Margaret, reddening, and looking hurt and offended.",1 "'And perhaps he never would, but for the lie,--which, under the circumstances, I maintain, was necessary.'",1 'It was not.,2 I know it now.,2 I bitterly repent it.',1 There was a long pause of silence.,2 Margaret was the first to speak.,2 "'I am not likely ever to see Mr. Thornton again,'--and there she stopped.",2 "'There are many things more unlikely, I should say,' replied Mr. Bell.",1 'But I believe I never shall.,2 "Still, somehow one does not like to have sunk so low in--in a friend's opinion as I have done in his.'",2 "Her eyes were full of tears, but her voice was steady, and Mr. Bell was not looking at her.",3 "'And now that Frederick has given up all hope, and almost all wish of ever clearing himself, and returning to England, it would be only doing myself justice to have all this explained.",2 "If you please, and if you can, if there is a good opportunity, (don't force an explanation upon him, pray,) but if you can, will you tell him the whole circumstances, and tell him also that I gave you leave to do so, because I felt that for papa's sake I should not like to lose his respect, though we may never be likely to meet again?'",3 'Certainly.,2 I think he ought to know.,2 I do not like you to rest even under the shadow of an impropriety; he would not know what to think of seeing you alone with a young man.',2 "'As for that,' said Margaret, rather haughtily, 'I hold it is ""Honi soit qui mal y pense.""",1 "Yet still I should choose to have it explained, if any natural opportunity for easy explanation occurs.",3 "But it is not to clear myself of any suspicion of improper conduct that I wish to have him told--if I thought that he had suspected me, I should not care for his good opinion--no!",2 "it is that he may learn how I was tempted, and how I fell into the snare; why I told that falsehood, in short.'",0 'Which I don't blame you for.,1 "It is no partiality of mine, I assure you.'",2 "'What other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge, my innate conviction that it was wrong.",2 "But we will not talk of that any more, if you please.",2 It is done--my sin is sinned.,1 "I have now to put it behind me, and be truthful for evermore, if I can.'",3 'Very well.,3 "If you like to be uncomfortable and morbid, be so.",1 "I always keep my conscience as tight shut up as a jack-in-a-box, for when it jumps into existence it surprises me by its size.",2 "So I coax it down again, as the fisherman coaxed the genie.",2 """Wonderful,"" say I, ""to think that you have been concealed so long, and in so small a compass, that I really did not know of your existence.",3 "Pray, sir, instead of growing larger and larger every instant, and bewildering me with your misty outlines, would you once more compress yourself into your former dimensions?""",1 "And when I've got him down, don't I clap the seal on the vase, and take good care how I open it again, and how I go against Solomon, wisest of men, who confined him there.'",2 But it was no smiling matter to Margaret.,3 She hardly attended to what Mr. Bell was saying.,2 "Her thoughts ran upon the idea, before entertained, but which now had assumed the strength of a conviction, that Mr. Thornton no longer held his former good opinion of her--that he was disappointed in her.",2 "She did not feel as if any explanation could ever reinstate her--not in his love, for that and any return on her part she had resolved never to dwell upon, and she kept rigidly to her resolution--but in the respect and high regard which she had hoped would have ever made him willing, in the spirit of Gerald Griffin's beautiful lines, 'To turn and look back when thou hearest The sound of my name.'",4 She kept choking and swallowing all the time that she thought about it.,2 "She tried to comfort herself with the idea, that what he imagined her to be, did not alter the fact of what she was.",3 "But it was a truism, a phantom, and broke down under the weight of her regret.",1 "She had twenty questions on the tip of her tongue to ask Mr. Bell, but not one of them did she utter.",2 "Mr. Bell thought that she was tired, and sent her early to her room, where she sate long hours by the open window, gazing out on the purple dome above, where the stars arose, and twinkled and disappeared behind the great umbrageous trees before she went to bed.",2 "All night long too, there burnt a little light on earth; a candle in her old bedroom, which was the nursery with the present inhabitants of the parsonage, until the new one was built.",2 "A sense of change, of individual nothingness, of perplexity and disappointment, over-powered Margaret.",1 "Nothing had been the same; and this slight, all-pervading instability, had given her greater pain than if all had been too entirely changed for her to recognise it.",1 "'I begin to understand now what heaven must be--and, oh!",3 "the grandeur and repose of the words--""The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.""",3 Everlasting!,3 """From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.""",3 "That sky above me looks as though it could not change, and yet it will.",2 "I am so tired--so tired of being whirled on through all these phases of my life, in which nothing abides by me, no creature, no place; it is like the circle in which the victims of earthly passion eddy continually.",3 I am in the mood in which women of another religion take the veil.,2 I seek heavenly steadfastness in earthly monotony.,3 "If I were a Roman Catholic and could deaden my heart, stun it with some great blow, I might become a nun.",1 "But I should pine after my kind; no, not my kind, for love for my species could never fill my heart to the utter exclusion of love for individuals.",2 "Perhaps it ought to be so, perhaps not; I cannot decide to-night.'",2 "Wearily she went to bed, wearily she arose in four or five hours' time.",2 "But with the morning came hope, and a brighter view of things.",3 "'After all it is right,' said she, hearing the voices of children at play while she was dressing.",3 "'If the world stood still, it would retrograde and become corrupt, if that is not Irish.",1 "Looking out of myself, and my own painful sense of change, the progress all around me is right and necessary.",3 "I must not think so much of how circumstances affect me myself, but how they affect others, if I wish to have a right judgment, or a hopeful trustful heart.'",3 "And with a smile ready in her eyes to quiver down to her lips, she went into the parlour and greeted Mr. Bell.",3 "'Ah, Missy!",2 "you were up late last night, and so you're late this morning.",2 Now I've got a little piece of news for you.,2 What do you think of an invitation to dinner?,2 "a morning call, literally in the dewy morning.",2 "Why, I've had the Vicar here already, on his way to the school.",2 "How much the desire of giving our hostess a teetotal lecture for the benefit of the haymakers, had to do with his earliness, I don't know; but here he was, when I came down just before nine; and we are asked to dine there to-day.'",3 "'But Edith expects me back--I cannot go,' said Margaret, thankful to have so good an excuse.",3 'Yes!,2 I know; so I told him.,2 I thought you would not want to go.,2 "Still it is open, if you would like it.'",3 "'Oh, no!'",2 said Margaret.,2 'Let us keep to our plan.,2 Let us start at twelve.,2 It is very good and kind of them; but indeed I could not go.',3 'Very well.,3 "Don't fidget yourself, and I'll arrange it all.'",1 "Before they left Margaret stole round to the back of the Vicarage garden, and gathered a little straggling piece of honeysuckle.",1 "She would not take a flower the day before, for fear of being observed, and her motives and feelings commented upon.",1 "But as she returned across the common, the place was reinvested with the old enchanting atmosphere.",3 "The common sounds of life were more musical there than anywhere else in the whole world, the light more golden, the life more tranquil and full of dreamy delight.",4 "As Margaret remembered her feelings yesterday, she said to herself: 'And I too change perpetually--now this, now that--now disappointed and peevish because all is not exactly as I had pictured it, and now suddenly discovering that the reality is far more beautiful than I had imagined it.",1 "Oh, Helstone!",2 I shall never love any place like you.,3 "A few days afterwards, she had found her level, and decided that she was very glad to have been there, and that she had seen it again, and that to her it would always be the prettiest spot in the world, but that it was so full of associations with former days, and especially with her father and mother, that if it were all to come over again, she should shrink back from such another visit as that which she had paid with Mr. Bell.",3 "About this time Dixon returned from Milton, and assumed her post as Margaret's maid.",2 "She brought endless pieces of Milton gossip: How Martha had gone to live with Miss Thornton, on the latter's marriage; with an account of the bridesmaids, dresses and breakfasts, at that interesting ceremony; how people thought that Mr. Thornton had made too grand a wedding of it, considering he had lost a deal by the strike, and had had to pay so much for the failure of his contracts; how little money articles of furniture--long cherished by Dixon--had fetched at the sale, which was a shame considering how rich folks were at Milton; how Mrs. Thornton had come one day and got two or three good bargains, and Mr. Thornton had come the next, and in his desire to obtain one or two things, had bid against himself, much to the enjoyment of the bystanders, so as Dixon observed, that made things even; if Mrs. Thornton paid too little, Mr. Thornton paid too much.",2 "Mr. Bell had sent all sorts of orders about the books; there was no understanding him, he was so particular; if he had come himself it would have been all right, but letters always were and always will be more puzzling than they are worth.",3 Dixon had not much to tell about the Higginses.,2 "Her memory had an aristocratic bias, and was very treacherous whenever she tried to recall any circumstance connected with those below her in life.",1 Nicholas was very well she believed.,3 "He had been several times at the house asking for news of Miss Margaret--the only person who ever did ask, except once Mr. Thornton.",1 And Mary?,2 oh!,2 "of course she was very well, a great, stout, slatternly thing!",3 "She did hear, or perhaps it was only a dream of hers, though it would be strange if she had dreamt of such people as the Higginses, that Mary had gone to work at Mr. Thornton's mill, because her father wished her to know how to cook; but what nonsense that could mean she didn't know.",1 Margaret rather agreed with her that the story was incoherent enough to be like a dream.,3 "Still it was pleasant to have some one now with whom she could talk of Milton, and Milton people.",3 "Dixon was not over-fond of the subject, rather wishing to leave that part of her life in shadow.",3 "She liked much more to dwell upon speeches of Mr. Bell's, which had suggested an idea to her of what was really his intention--making Margaret his heiress.",3 "But her young lady gave her no encouragement, nor in any way gratified her insinuating enquiries, however disguised in the form of suspicions or assertions.",2 "All this time, Margaret had a strange undefined longing to hear that Mr. Bell had gone to pay one of his business visits to Milton; for it had been well understood between them, at the time of their conversation at Helstone, that the explanation she had desired should only be given to Mr. Thornton by word of mouth, and even in that manner should be in nowise forced upon him.",1 "Mr. Bell was no great correspondent, but he wrote from time to time long or short letters, as the humour took him, and although Margaret was not conscious of any definite hope, on receiving them, yet she always put away his notes with a little feeling of disappointment.",3 He was not going to Milton; he said nothing about it at any rate.,2 Well!,3 she must be patient.,3 Sooner or later the mists would be cleared away.,2 "Mr. Bell's letters were hardly like his usual self; they were short, and complaining, with every now and then a little touch of bitterness that was unusual.",1 "He did not look forward to the future; he rather seemed to regret the past, and be weary of the present.",1 "Margaret fancied that he could not be well; but in answer to some enquiry of hers as to his health, he sent her a short note, saying there was an old-fashioned complaint called the spleen; that he was suffering from that, and it was for her to decide if it was more mental or physical; but that he should like to indulge himself in grumbling, without being obliged to send a bulletin every time.",1 "In consequence of this note, Margaret made no more enquiries about his health.",2 "One day Edith let out accidentally a fragment of a conversation which she had had with Mr. Bell, when he was last in London, which possessed Margaret with the idea that he had some notion of taking her to pay a visit to her brother and new sister-in-law, at Cadiz, in the autumn.",2 "She questioned and cross-questioned Edith, till the latter was weary, and declared that there was nothing more to remember; all he had said was that he half-thought he should go, and hear for himself what Frederick had to say about the mutiny; and that it would be a good opportunity for Margaret to become acquainted with her new sister-in-law; that he always went somewhere during the long vacation, and did not see why he should not go to Spain as well as anywhere else.",3 That was all.,2 "Edith hoped Margaret did not want to leave them, that she was so anxious about all this.",1 "And then, having nothing else particular to do, she cried, and said that she knew she cared much more for Margaret than Margaret did for her.",2 "Margaret comforted her as well as she could, but she could hardly explain to her how this idea of Spain, mere chateau en Espagne as it might be, charmed and delighted her.",3 "Edith was in the mood to think that any pleasure enjoyed away from her was a tacit affront, or at best a proof of indifference.",3 "So Margaret had to keep her pleasure to herself, and could only let it escape by the safety-valve of asking Dixon, when she dressed for dinner, if she would not like to see Master Frederick and his new wife very much indeed?",4 "'She's a Papist, Miss, isn't she?'",1 "'I believe--oh yes, certainly!'",2 "said Margaret, a little damped for an instant at this recollection.",2 'And they live in a Popish country?',2 'Yes.',2 "'Then I'm afraid I must say, that my soul is dearer to me than even Master Frederick, his own dear self.",2 "I should be in a perpetual terror, Miss, lest I should be converted.'",1 "'Oh' said Margaret, 'I do not know that I am going; and if I go, I am not such a fine lady as to be unable to travel without you.",2 No!,2 "dear old Dixon, you shall have a long holiday, if we go.",2 "But I'm afraid it is a long ""if.""",1 ' Now Dixon did not like this speech.,3 "In the first place, she did not like Margaret's trick of calling her 'dear old Dixon' whenever she was particularly demonstrative.",2 "She knew that Miss Hale was apt to call all people that she liked 'old,' as a sort of term of endearment; but Dixon always winced away from the application of the word to herself, who, being not much past fifty, was, she thought, in the very prime of life.",3 "Secondly, she did not like being so easily taken at her word; she had, with all her terror, a lurking curiosity about Spain, the Inquisition, and Popish mysteries.",1 "So, after clearing her throat, as if to show her willingness to do away with difficulties, she asked Miss Hale, whether she thought if she took care never to see a priest, or enter into one of their churches, there would be so very much danger of her being converted?",1 "Master Frederick, to be sure, had gone over unaccountable.",3 "'I fancy it was love that first predisposed him to conversion,' said Margaret, sighing.",3 "'Indeed, Miss!'",1 said Dixon; 'well!,2 "I can preserve myself from priests, and from churches; but love steals in unawares!",2 I think it's as well I should not go.',3 Margaret was afraid of letting her mind run too much upon this Spanish plan.,1 But it took off her thoughts from too impatiently dwelling upon her desire to have all explained to Mr. Thornton.,1 "Mr. Bell appeared for the present to be stationary at Oxford, and to have no immediate purpose of going to Milton, and some secret restraint seemed to hang over Margaret, and prevent her from even asking, or alluding again to any probability of such a visit on his part.",1 "Nor did she feel at liberty to name what Edith had told her of the idea he had entertained,--it might be but for five minutes,--of going to Spain.",3 "He had never named it at Helstone, during all that sunny day of leisure; it was very probably but the fancy of a moment,--but if it were true, what a bright outlet it would be from the monotony of her present life, which was beginning to fall upon her.",2 "One of the great pleasures of Margaret's life at this time, was in Edith's boy.",3 "He was the pride and plaything of both father and mother, as long as he was good; but he had a strong will of his own, and as soon as he burst out into one of his stormy passions, Edith would throw herself back in despair and fatigue, and sigh out, 'Oh dear, what shall I do with him!",1 "Do, Margaret, please ring the bell for Hanley.'",2 But Margaret almost liked him better in these manifestations of character than in his good blue-sashed moods.,4 "She would carry him off into a room, where they two alone battled it out; she with a firm power which subdued him into peace, while every sudden charm and wile she possessed, was exerted on the side of right, until he would rub his little hot and tear-smeared face all over hers, kissing and caressing till he often fell asleep in her arms or on her shoulder.",3 Those were Margaret's sweetest moments.,2 They gave her a taste of the feeling that she believed would be denied to her for ever.,1 Mr. Henry Lennox added a new and not disagreeable element to the course of the household life by his frequent presence.,1 "Margaret thought him colder, if more brilliant than formerly; but there were strong intellectual tastes, and much and varied knowledge, which gave flavour to the otherwise rather insipid conversation.",3 "Margaret saw glimpses in him of a slight contempt for his brother and sister-in-law, and for their mode of life, which he seemed to consider as frivolous and purposeless.",1 "He once or twice spoke to his brother, in Margaret's presence, in a pretty sharp tone of enquiry, as to whether he meant entirely to relinquish his profession; and on Captain Lennox's reply, that he had quite enough to live upon, she had seen Mr. Lennox's curl of the lip as he said, 'And is that all you live for?'",4 "But the brothers were much attached to each other, in the way that any two persons are, when the one is cleverer and always leads the other, and this last is patiently content to be led.",4 "Mr. Lennox was pushing on in his profession; cultivating, with profound calculation, all those connections that might eventually be of service to him; keen-sighted, far-seeing, intelligent, sarcastic, and proud.",4 "Since the one long conversation relating to Frederick's affairs, which she had with him the first evening in Mr. Bell's presence, she had had no great intercourse with him, further than that which arose out of their close relations with the same household.",3 "But this was enough to wear off the shyness on her side, and any symptoms of mortified pride and vanity on his.",1 "They met continually, of course, but she thought that he rather avoided being alone with her; she fancied that he, as well as she, perceived that they had drifted strangely apart from their former anchorage, side by side, in many of their opinions, and all their tastes.",2 "And yet, when he had spoken unusually well, or with remarkable epigrammatic point, she felt that his eye sought the expression of her countenance first of all, if but for an instant; and that, in the family intercourse which constantly threw them together, her opinion was the one to which he listened with a deference,--the more complete, because it was reluctantly paid, and concealed as much as possible.",3 "The elements of the dinner-parties which Mrs. Lennox gave, were these; her friends contributed the beauty, Captain Lennox the easy knowledge of the subjects of the day; and Mr. Henry Lennox and the sprinkling of rising men who were received as his friends, brought the wit, the cleverness, the keen and extensive knowledge of which they knew well enough how to avail themselves without seeming pedantic, or burdening the rapid flow of conversation.",4 These dinners were delightful; but even here Margaret's dissatisfaction found her out.,2 "Every talent, every feeling, every acquirement; nay, even every tendency towards virtue was used up as materials for fireworks; the hidden, sacred fire, exhausted itself in sparkle and crackle.",3 "They talked about art in a merely sensuous way, dwelling on outside effects, instead of allowing themselves to learn what it has to teach.",2 "They lashed themselves up into an enthusiasm about high subjects in company, and never thought about them when they were alone; they squandered their capabilities of appreciation into a mere flow of appropriate words.",3 "One day, after the gentlemen had come up into the drawing-room, Mr. Lennox drew near to Margaret, and addressed her in almost the first voluntary words he had spoken to her since she had returned to live in Harley Street.",2 'You did not look pleased at what Shirley was saying at dinner.',3 'Didn't I?,2 "My face must be very expressive,' replied Margaret.",2 'It always was.,2 It has not lost the trick of being eloquent.',1 "'I did not like,' said Margaret, hastily, 'his way of advocating what he knew to be wrong--so glaringly wrong--even in jest.'",1 'But it was very clever.,3 How every word told!,2 Do you remember the happy epithets?',3 'Yes.',2 "'And despise them, you would like to add.",2 "Pray don't scruple, though he is my friend.'",2 'There!,2 "that is the exact tone in you, that--' she stopped short.",2 "He listened for a moment to see if she would finish her sentence; but she only reddened, and turned away; before she did so, however, she heard him say, in a very low, clear voice,-- 'If my tones, or modes of thought, are what you dislike, will you do me the justice to tell me so, and so give me the chance of learning to please you?'",2 All these weeks there was no intelligence of Mr. Bell's going to Milton.,3 "He had spoken of it at Helstone as of a journey which he might have to take in a very short time from then; but he must have transacted his business by writing, Margaret thought, ere now, and she knew that if he could, he would avoid going to a place which he disliked, and moreover would little understand the secret importance which she affixed to the explanation that could only be given by word of mouth.",1 "She knew that he would feel that it was necessary that it should be done; but whether in summer, autumn, or winter, it would signify very little.",2 "It was now August, and there had been no mention of the Spanish journey to which he had alluded to Edith, and Margaret tried to reconcile herself to the fading away of this illusion.",2 "But one morning she received a letter, saying that next week he meant to come up to town; he wanted to see her about a plan which he had in his head; and, moreover, he intended to treat himself to a little doctoring, as he had begun to come round to her opinion, that it would be pleasanter to think that his health was more in fault than he, when he found himself irritable and cross.",1 "There was altogether a tone of forced cheerfulness in the letter, as Margaret noticed afterwards; but at the time her attention was taken up by Edith's exclamations.",2 'Coming up to town!,2 Oh dear!,2 and I am so worn out by the heat that I don't believe I have strength enough in me for another dinner.,2 "Besides, everybody has left but our dear stupid selves, who can't settle where to go to.",1 There would be nobody to meet him.',2 'I'm sure he would much rather come and dine with us quite alone than with the most agreeable strangers you could pick up.,3 "Besides, if he is not well he won't wish for invitations.",3 I am glad he has owned it at last.,3 "I was sure he was ill from the whole tone of his letters, and yet he would not answer me when I asked him, and I had no third person to whom I could apply for news.'",2 'Oh!,2 "he is not very ill, or he would not think of Spain.'",2 'He never mentions Spain.',2 'No!,2 but his plan that is to be proposed evidently relates to that.,2 But would you really go in such weather as this?',2 'Oh!,2 it will get cooler every day.,2 Yes!,2 Think of it!,2 "I am only afraid I have thought and wished too much--in that absorbing wilful way which is sure to be disappointed--or else gratified, to the letter, while in the spirit it gives no pleasure.'",2 "'But that's superstitious, I'm sure, Margaret.'",1 "'No, I don't think it is.",2 "Only it ought to warn me, and check me from giving way to such passionate wishes.",3 "It is a sort of ""Give me children, or else I die.""",1 "I'm afraid my cry is, ""Let me go to Cadiz, or else I die.""",0 ' 'My dear Margaret!,2 You'll be persuaded to stay there; and then what shall I do?,2 Oh!,2 "I wish I could find somebody for you to marry here, that I could be sure of you!'",2 'I shall never marry.',2 "'Nonsense, and double nonsense!",1 "Why, as Sholto says, you're such an attraction to the house, that he knows ever so many men who will be glad to visit here next year for your sake.'",3 Margaret drew herself up haughtily.,1 "'Do you know, Edith, I sometimes think your Corfu life has taught you---- ' 'Well!'",2 'Just a shade or two of coarseness.',2 "Edith began to sob so bitterly, and to declare so vehemently that Margaret had lost all love for her, and no longer looked upon her as a friend, that Margaret came to think that she had expressed too harsh an opinion for the relief of her own wounded pride, and ended by being Edith's slave for the rest of the day; while that little lady, overcome by wounded feeling, lay like a victim on the sofa, heaving occasionally a profound sigh, till at last she fell asleep.",1 Mr. Bell did not make his appearance even on the day to which he had for a second time deferred his visit.,2 "The next morning there came a letter from Wallis, his servant, stating that his master had not been feeling well for some time, which had been the true reason of his putting off his journey; and that at the very time when he should have set out for London, he had been seized with an apoplectic fit; it was, indeed, Wallis added, the opinion of the medical men--that he could not survive the night; and more than probable, that by the time Miss Hale received this letter his poor master would be no more.",3 "Margaret received this letter at breakfast-time, and turned very pale as she read it; then silently putting it into Edith's hands, she left the room.",1 "Edith was terribly shocked as she read it, and cried in a sobbing, frightened, childish way, much to her husband's distress.",0 "Mrs. Shaw was breakfasting in her own room, and upon him devolved the task of reconciling his wife to the near contact into which she seemed to be brought with death, for the first time that she could remember in her life.",1 Here was a man who was to have dined with them to-day lying dead or dying instead!,0 It was some time before she could think of Margaret.,2 "Then she started up, and followed her upstairs into her room.",2 "Dixon was packing up a few toilette articles, and Margaret was hastily putting on her bonnet, shedding tears all the time, and her hands trembling so that she could hardly tie the strings.",1 "'Oh, dear Margaret!",2 how shocking!,1 What are you doing?,2 Are you going out?,2 Sholto would telegraph or do anything you like.',3 'I am going to Oxford.,2 There is a train in half-an-hour.,2 "Dixon has offered to go with me, but I could have gone by myself.",2 I must see him again.,2 "Besides, he may be better, and want some care.",3 He has been like a father to me.,3 "Don't stop me, Edith.'",2 'But I must.,2 Mamma won't like it at all.,3 "Come and ask her about it, Margaret.",2 You don't know where you're going.,2 I should not mind if he had a house of his own; but in his Fellow's rooms!,2 "Come to mamma, and do ask her before you go.",2 It will not take a minute.',2 "Margaret yielded, and lost her train.",1 "In the suddenness of the event, Mrs. Shaw became bewildered and hysterical, and so the precious time slipped by.",1 "But there was another train in a couple of hours; and after various discussions on propriety and impropriety, it was decided that Captain Lennox should accompany Margaret, as the one thing to which she was constant was her resolution to go, alone or otherwise, by the next train, whatever might be said of the propriety or impropriety of the step.",1 "Her father's friend, her own friend, was lying at the point of death; and the thought of this came upon her with such vividness, that she was surprised herself at the firmness with which she asserted something of her right to independence of action; and five minutes before the time for starting, she found herself sitting in a railway-carriage opposite to Captain Lennox.",1 "It was always a comfort to her to think that she had gone, though it was only to hear that he had died in the night.",2 "She saw the rooms that he had occupied, and associated them ever after most fondly in her memory with the idea of her father, and his one cherished and faithful friend.",4 "They had promised Edith before starting, that if all had ended as they feared, they would return to dinner; so that long, lingering look around the room in which her father had died, had to be interrupted, and a quiet farewell taken of the kind old face that had so often come out with pleasant words, and merry quips and cranks.",4 "Captain Lennox fell asleep on their journey home; and Margaret could cry at leisure, and bethink her of this fatal year, and all the woes it had brought to her.",0 "No sooner was she fully aware of one loss than another came--not to supersede her grief for the one before, but to re-open wounds and feelings scarcely healed.",0 "But at the sound of the tender voices of her aunt and Edith, of merry little Sholto's glee at her arrival, and at the sight of the well-lighted rooms, with their mistress pretty in her paleness and her eager sorrowful interest, Margaret roused herself from her heavy trance of almost superstitious hopelessness, and began to feel that even around her joy and gladness might gather.",4 "She had Edith's place on the sofa; Sholto was taught to carry aunt Margaret's cup of tea very carefully to her; and by the time she went up to dress, she could thank God for having spared her dear old friend a long or a painful illness.",1 "But when night came--solemn night, and all the house was quiet, Margaret still sate watching the beauty of a London sky at such an hour, on such a summer evening; the faint pink reflection of earthly lights on the soft clouds that float tranquilly into the white moonlight, out of the warm gloom which lies motionless around the horizon.",1 "Margaret's room had been the day nursery of her childhood, just when it merged into girlhood, and when the feelings and conscience had been first awakened into full activity.",2 "On some such night as this she remembered promising to herself to live as brave and noble a life as any heroine she ever read or heard of in romance, a life sans peur et sans reproche; it had seemed to her then that she had only to will, and such a life would be accomplished.",4 "And now she had learnt that not only to will, but also to pray, was a necessary condition in the truly heroic.",3 "Trusting to herself, she had fallen.",2 "It was a just consequence of her sin, that all excuses for it, all temptation to it, should remain for ever unknown to the person in whose opinion it had sunk her lowest.",0 She stood face to face at last with her sin.,1 "She knew it for what it was; Mr. Bell's kindly sophistry that nearly all men were guilty of equivocal actions, and that the motive ennobled the evil, had never had much real weight with her.",1 "Her own first thought of how, if she had known all, she might have fearlessly told the truth, seemed low and poor.",2 "Nay, even now, her anxiety to have her character for truth partially excused in Mr. Thornton's eyes, as Mr. Bell had promised to do, was a very small and petty consideration, now that she was afresh taught by death what life should be.",1 "If all the world spoke, acted, or kept silence with intent to deceive,--if dearest interests were at stake, and dearest lives in peril,--if no one should ever know of her truth or her falsehood to measure out their honour or contempt for her by, straight alone where she stood, in the presence of God, she prayed that she might have strength to speak and act the truth for evermore.",0 'Is not Margaret the heiress?',2 "whispered Edith to her husband, as they were in their room alone at night after the sad journey to Oxford.",1 "She had pulled his tall head down, and stood upon tiptoe, and implored him not to be shocked, before she had ventured to ask this question.",1 "Captain Lennox was, however, quite in the dark; if he had ever heard, he had forgotten; it could not be much that a Fellow of a small college had to leave; but he had never wanted her to pay for her board; and two hundred and fifty pounds a year was something ridiculous, considering that she did not take wine.",1 Edith came down upon her feet a little bit sadder; with a romance blown to pieces.,2 "A week afterwards, she came prancing towards her husband, and made him a low curtsey: 'I am right, and you are wrong, most noble Captain.",3 "Margaret has had a lawyer's letter, and she is residuary legatee--the legacies being about two thousand pounds, and the remainder about forty thousand, at the present value of property in Milton.'",2 'Indeed!,2 and how does she take her good fortune?',3 "'Oh, it seems she knew she was to have it all along; only she had no idea it was so much.",2 "She looks very white and pale, and says she's afraid of it; but that's nonsense, you know, and will soon go off.",0 "I left mamma pouring congratulations down her throat, and stole away to tell you.'",2 "It seemed to be supposed, by general consent, that the most natural thing was to consider Mr. Lennox henceforward as Margaret's legal adviser.",2 She was so entirely ignorant of all forms of business that in nearly everything she had to refer to him.,1 He chose out her attorney; he came to her with papers to be signed.,2 He was never so happy as when teaching her of what all these mysteries of the law were the signs and types.,3 "'Henry,' said Edith, one day, archly; 'do you know what I hope and expect all these long conversations with Margaret will end in?'",2 "'No, I don't,' said he, reddening.",2 'And I desire you not to tell me.',2 "'Oh, very well; then I need not tell Sholto not to ask Mr. Montagu so often to the house.'",3 "'Just as you choose,' said he with forced coolness.",2 "'What you are thinking of, may or may not happen; but this time, before I commit myself, I will see my ground clear.",3 Ask whom you choose.,2 "It may not be very civil, Edith, but if you meddle in it you will mar it.",1 She has been very farouche with me for a long time; and is only just beginning to thaw a little from her Zenobia ways.,2 "She has the making of a Cleopatra in her, if only she were a little more pagan.'",2 "'For my part,' said Edith, a little maliciously, 'I am very glad she is a Christian.",2 I know so very few!',2 "There was no Spain for Margaret that autumn; although to the last she hoped that some fortunate occasion would call Frederick to Paris, whither she could easily have met with a convoy.",3 "Instead of Cadiz, she had to content herself with Cromer.",2 To that place her aunt Shaw and the Lennoxes were bound.,2 "They had all along wished her to accompany them, and, consequently, with their characters, they made but lazy efforts to forward her own separate wish.",1 "Perhaps Cromer was, in one sense of the expression, the best for her.",3 She needed bodily strengthening and bracing as well as rest.,3 "Among other hopes that had vanished, was the hope, the trust she had had, that Mr. Bell would have given Mr. Thornton the simple facts of the family circumstances which had preceded the unfortunate accident that led to Leonards' death.",2 "Whatever opinion--however changed it might be from what Mr. Thornton had once entertained, she had wished it to be based upon a true understanding of what she had done; and why she had done it.",2 "It would have been a pleasure to her; would have given her rest on a point on which she should now all her life be restless, unless she could resolve not to think upon it.",2 "It was now so long after the time of these occurrences, that there was no possible way of explaining them save the one which she had lost by Mr. Bell's death.",1 "She must just submit, like many another, to be misunderstood; but, though reasoning herself into the belief that in this hers was no uncommon lot, her heart did not ache the less with longing that some time--years and years hence--before he died at any rate, he might know how much she had been tempted.",0 "She thought that she did not want to hear that all was explained to him, if only she could be sure that he would know.",2 "But this wish was vain, like so many others; and when she had schooled herself into this conviction, she turned with all her heart and strength to the life that lay immediately before her, and resolved to strive and make the best of that.",3 "She used to sit long hours upon the beach, gazing intently on the waves as they chafed with perpetual motion against the pebbly shore,--or she looked out upon the more distant heave, and sparkle against the sky, and heard, without being conscious of hearing, the eternal psalm, which went up continually.",3 She was soothed without knowing how or why.,2 "Listlessly she sat there, on the ground, her hands clasped round her knees, while her aunt Shaw did small shoppings, and Edith and Captain Lennox rode far and wide on shore and inland.",2 "The nurses, sauntering on with their charges, would pass and repass her, and wonder in whispers what she could find to look at so long, day after day.",3 "And when the family gathered at dinner-time, Margaret was so silent and absorbed that Edith voted her moped, and hailed a proposal of her husband's with great satisfaction, that Mr. Henry Lennox should be asked to take Cromer for a week, on his return from Scotland in October.",3 "But all this time for thought enabled Margaret to put events in their right places, as to origin and significance, both as regarded her past life and her future.",3 "Those hours by the sea-side were not lost, as any one might have seen who had had the perception to read, or the care to understand, the look that Margaret's face was gradually acquiring.",1 Mr. Henry Lennox was excessively struck by the change.,1 "'The sea has done Miss Hale an immense deal of good, I should fancy,' said he, when she first left the room after his arrival in their family circle.",4 'She looks ten years younger than she did in Harley Street.',2 'That's the bonnet I got her!',2 "said Edith, triumphantly.",3 'I knew it would suit her the moment I saw it.',2 "'I beg your pardon,' said Mr. Lennox, in the half-contemptuous, half-indulgent tone he generally used to Edith.",2 'But I believe I know the difference between the charms of a dress and the charms of a woman.,2 "No mere bonnet would have made Miss Hale's eyes so lustrous and yet so soft, or her lips so ripe and red--and her face altogether so full of peace and light.--She is like, and yet more,'--he dropped his voice,--'like the Margaret Hale of Helstone.'",4 From this time the clever and ambitious man bent all his powers to gaining Margaret.,3 He loved her sweet beauty.,4 "He saw the latent sweep of her mind, which could easily (he thought) be led to embrace all the objects on which he had set his heart.",3 "He looked upon her fortune only as a part of the complete and superb character of herself and her position: yet he was fully aware of the rise which it would immediately enable him, the poor barrister, to take.",3 "Eventually he would earn such success, and such honours, as would enable him to pay her back, with interest, that first advance in wealth which he should owe to her.",3 "He had been to Milton on business connected with her property, on his return from Scotland; and with the quick eye of a skilled lawyer, ready ever to take in and weigh contingencies, he had seen that much additional value was yearly accruing to the lands and tenements which she owned in that prosperous and increasing town.",4 "He was glad to find that the present relationship between Margaret and himself, of client and legal adviser, was gradually superseding the recollection of that unlucky, mismanaged day at Helstone.",2 "He had thus unusual opportunities of intimate intercourse with her, besides those that arose from the connection between the families.",2 "Margaret was only too willing to listen as long as he talked of Milton, though he had seen none of the people whom she more especially knew.",3 It had been the tone with her aunt and cousin to speak of Milton with dislike and contempt; just such feelings as Margaret was ashamed to remember she had expressed and felt on first going to live there.,0 But Mr. Lennox almost exceeded Margaret in his appreciation of the character of Milton and its inhabitants.,3 "Their energy, their power, their indomitable courage in struggling and fighting; their lurid vividness of existence, captivated and arrested his attention.",1 "He was never tired of talking about them; and had never perceived how selfish and material were too many of the ends they proposed to themselves as the result of all their mighty, untiring endeavour, till Margaret, even in the midst of her gratification, had the candour to point this out, as the tainting sin in so much that was noble, and to be admired.",2 "Still, when other subjects palled upon her, and she gave but short answers to many questions, Henry Lennox found out that an enquiry as to some Darkshire peculiarity of character, called back the light into her eye, the glow into her cheek.",3 "When they returned to town, Margaret fulfilled one of her sea-side resolves, and took her life into her own hands.",2 "Before they went to Cromer, she had been as docile to her aunt's laws as if she were still the scared little stranger who cried herself to sleep that first night in the Harley Street nursery.",1 "But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she herself must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem for women, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working.",0 "Mrs. Shaw was as good-tempered as could be; and Edith had inherited this charming domestic quality; Margaret herself had probably the worst temper of the three, for her quick perceptions, and over-lively imagination made her hasty, and her early isolation from sympathy had made her proud; but she had an indescribable childlike sweetness of heart, which made her manners, even in her rarely wilful moods, irresistible of old; and now, chastened even by what the world called her good fortune, she charmed her reluctant aunt into acquiescence with her will.",3 So Margaret gained the acknowledgment of her right to follow her own ideas of duty.,3 "'Only don't be strong-minded,' pleaded Edith.",3 "'Mamma wants you to have a footman of your own; and I'm sure you're very welcome, for they're great plagues.",3 "Only to please me, darling, don't go and have a strong mind; it's the only thing I ask.",3 "Footman or no footman, don't be strong-minded.'",3 "'Don't be afraid, Edith.",1 "I'll faint on your hands at the servants' dinner-time, the very first opportunity; and then, what with Sholto playing with the fire, and the baby crying, you'll begin to wish for a strong-minded woman, equal to any emergency.'",1 'And you'll not grow too good to joke and be merry?',3 "'Not I. I shall be merrier than I have ever been, now I have got my own way.'",2 "'And you'll not go a figure, but let me buy your dresses for you?'",2 'Indeed I mean to buy them for myself.,2 You shall come with me if you like; but no one can please me but myself.',3 'Oh!,2 "I was afraid you'd dress in brown and dust-colour, not to show the dirt you'll pick up in all those places.",0 "I'm glad you're going to keep one or two vanities, just by way of specimens of the old Adam.'",3 "'I'm going to be just the same, Edith, if you and my aunt could but fancy so.",3 "Only as I have neither husband nor child to give me natural duties, I must make myself some, in addition to ordering my gowns.'",2 "In the family conclave, which was made up of Edith, her mother, and her husband, it was decided that perhaps all these plans of hers would only secure her the more for Henry Lennox.",3 "They kept her out of the way of other friends who might have eligible sons or brothers; and it was also agreed that she never seemed to take much pleasure in the society of any one but Henry, out of their own family.",3 "The other admirers, attracted by her appearance or the reputation of her fortune, were swept away, by her unconscious smiling disdain, into the paths frequented by other beauties less fastidious, or other heiresses with a larger amount of gold.",3 Henry and she grew slowly into closer intimacy; but neither he nor she were people to brook the slightest notice of their proceedings.,2 "Meanwhile, at Milton the chimneys smoked, the ceaseless roar and mighty beat, and dizzying whirl of machinery, struggled and strove perpetually.",2 "Senseless and purposeless were wood and iron and steam in their endless labours; but the persistence of their monotonous work was rivalled in tireless endurance by the strong crowds, who, with sense and with purpose, were busy and restless in seeking after--What?",1 "In the streets there were few loiterers,--none walking for mere pleasure; every man's face was set in lines of eagerness or anxiety; news was sought for with fierce avidity; and men jostled each other aside in the Mart and in the Exchange, as they did in life, in the deep selfishness of competition.",1 There was gloom over the town.,1 "Few came to buy, and those who did were looked at suspiciously by the sellers; for credit was insecure, and the most stable might have their fortunes affected by the sweep in the great neighbouring port among the shipping houses.",2 "Hitherto there had been no failures in Milton; but, from the immense speculations that had come to light in making a bad end in America, and yet nearer home, it was known that some Milton houses of business must suffer so severely that every day men's faces asked, if their tongues did not, 'What news?",1 Who is gone?,2 How will it affect me?',2 "And if two or three spoke together, they dwelt rather on the names of those who were safe than dared to hint at those likely, in their opinion, to go; for idle breath may, at such times, cause the downfall of some who might otherwise weather the storm; and one going down drags many after.",1 "'Thornton is safe,' say they.",3 "'His business is large--extending every year; but such a head as he has, and so prudent with all his daring!'",3 "Then one man draws another aside, and walks a little apart, and, with head inclined into his neighbour's ear, he says, 'Thornton's business is large; but he has spent his profits in extending it; he has no capital laid by; his machinery is new within these two years, and has cost him--we won't say what!--a word to the wise!'",3 "But that Mr. Harrison was a croaker,--a man who had succeeded to his father's trade-made fortune, which he had feared to lose by altering his mode of business to any having a larger scope; yet he grudged every penny made by others more daring and far-sighted.",3 "But the truth was, Mr. Thornton was hard pressed.",1 He felt it acutely in his vulnerable point--his pride in the commercial character which he had established for himself.,2 "Architect of his own fortunes, he attributed this to no special merit or qualities of his own, but to the power, which he believed that commerce gave to every brave, honest, and persevering man, to raise himself to a level from which he might see and read the great game of worldly success, and honestly, by such far-sightedness, command more power and influence than in any other mode of life.",4 "Far away, in the East and in the West, where his person would never be known, his name was to be regarded, and his wishes to be fulfilled, and his word pass like gold.",3 That was the idea of merchant-life with which Mr. Thornton had started.,2 "'Her merchants be like princes,' said his mother, reading the text aloud, as if it were a trumpet-call to invite her boy to the struggle.",3 "He was but like many others--men, women, and children--alive to distant, and dead to near things.",2 "He sought to possess the influence of a name in foreign countries and far-away seas,--to become the head of a firm that should be known for generations; and it had taken him long silent years to come even to a glimmering of what he might be now, to-day, here in his own town, his own factory, among his own people.",3 "He and they had led parallel lives--very close, but never touching--till the accident (or so it seemed) of his acquaintance with Higgins.",3 "Once brought face to face, man to man, with an individual of the masses around him, and (take notice) out of the character of master and workman, in the first instance, they had each begun to recognise that 'we have all of us one human heart.'",3 "It was the fine point of the wedge; and until now, when the apprehension of losing his connection with two or three of the workmen whom he had so lately begun to know as men,--of having a plan or two, which were experiments lying very close to his heart, roughly nipped off without trial,--gave a new poignancy to the subtle fear that came over him from time to time; until now, he had never recognised how much and how deep was the interest he had grown of late to feel in his position as manufacturer, simply because it led him into such close contact, and gave him the opportunity of so much power, among a race of people strange, shrewd, ignorant; but, above all, full of character and strong human feeling.",0 He reviewed his position as a Milton manufacturer.,2 "The strike a year and a half ago,--or more, for it was now untimely wintry weather, in a late spring,--that strike, when he was young, and he now was old--had prevented his completing some of the large orders he had then on hand.",1 "He had locked up a good deal of his capital in new and expensive machinery, and he had also bought cotton largely, for the fulfilment of these orders, taken under contract.",2 "That he had not been able to complete them, was owing in some degree to the utter want of skill on the part of the Irish hands whom he had imported; much of their work was damaged and unfit to be sent forth by a house which prided itself on turning out nothing but first-rate articles.",2 "For many months, the embarrassment caused by the strike had been an obstacle in Mr. Thornton's way; and often, when his eye fell on Higgins, he could have spoken angrily to him without any present cause, just from feeling how serious was the injury that had arisen from this affair in which he was implicated.",0 "But when he became conscious of this sudden, quick resentment, he resolved to curb it.",1 "It would not satisfy him to avoid Higgins; he must convince himself that he was master over his own anger, by being particularly careful to allow Higgins access to him, whenever the strict rules of business, or Mr. Thornton's leisure permitted.",2 "And by-and-bye, he lost all sense of resentment in wonder how it was, or could be, that two men like himself and Higgins, living by the same trade, working in their different ways at the same object, could look upon each other's position and duties in so strangely different a way.",1 "And thence arose that intercourse, which though it might not have the effect of preventing all future clash of opinion and action, when the occasion arose, would, at any rate, enable both master and man to look upon each other with far more charity and sympathy, and bear with each other more patiently and kindly.",3 "Besides this improvement of feeling, both Mr. Thornton and his workmen found out their ignorance as to positive matters of fact, known heretofore to one side, but not to the other.",3 "But now had come one of those periods of bad trade, when the market falling brought down the value of all large stocks; Mr. Thornton's fell to nearly half.",0 "No orders were coming in; so he lost the interest of the capital he had locked up in machinery; indeed, it was difficult to get payment for the orders completed; yet there was the constant drain of expenses for working the business.",0 "Then the bills became due for the cotton he had purchased; and money being scarce, he could only borrow at exorbitant interest, and yet he could not realise any of his property.",1 "But he did not despair; he exerted himself day and night to foresee and to provide for all emergencies; he was as calm and gentle to the women in his home as ever; to the workmen in his mill he spoke not many words, but they knew him by this time; and many a curt, decided answer was received by them rather with sympathy for the care they saw pressing upon him, than with the suppressed antagonism which had formerly been smouldering, and ready for hard words and hard judgments on all occasions.",1 "'Th' measter's a deal to potter him,' said Higgins, one day, as he heard Mr. Thornton's short, sharp inquiry, why such a command had not been obeyed; and caught the sound of the suppressed sigh which he heaved in going past the room where some of the men were working.",3 "Higgins and another man stopped over-hours that night, unknown to any one, to get the neglected piece of work done; and Mr. Thornton never knew but that the overlooker, to whom he had given the command in the first instance, had done it himself.",1 'Eh!,2 I reckon I know who'd ha' been sorry for to see our measter sitting so like a piece o' grey calico!,2 "Th' ou'd parson would ha' fretted his woman's heart out, if he'd seen the woeful looks I have seen on our measter's face,' thought Higgins, one day, as he was approaching Mr. Thornton in Marlborough Street.",1 "'Measter,' said he, stopping his employer in his quick resolved walk, and causing that gentleman to look up with a sudden annoyed start, as if his thoughts had been far away.",1 'Have yo' heerd aught of Miss Marget lately?',1 'Miss--who?',2 replied Mr. Thornton.,2 "'Miss Marget--Miss Hale--th' oud parson's daughter--yo known who I mean well enough, if yo'll only think a bit--' (there was nothing disrespectful in the tone in which this was said).",3 'Oh yes!',2 "and suddenly, the wintry frost-bound look of care had left Mr. Thornton's face, as if some soft summer gale had blown all anxiety away from his mind; and though his mouth was as much compressed as before, his eyes smiled out benignly on his questioner.",1 "'She's my landlord now, you know, Higgins.",2 "I hear of her through her agent here, every now and then.",2 "She's well and among friends--thank you, Higgins.'",3 "That 'thank you' that lingered after the other words, and yet came with so much warmth of feeling, let in a new light to the acute Higgins.",3 "It might be but a will-o'-th'-wisp, but he thought he would follow it and ascertain whither it would lead him.",3 "'And she's not getten married, measter?'",2 'Not yet.',2 The face was cloudy once more.,1 "'There is some talk of it, as I understand, with a connection of the family.'",2 "'Then she'll not be for coming to Milton again, I reckon.'",2 'No!',2 "'Stop a minute, measter.'",2 "Then going up confidentially close, he said, 'Is th' young gentleman cleared?'",3 "He enforced the depth of his intelligence by a wink of the eye, which only made things more mysterious to Mr. Thornton.",2 "'Th' young gentleman, I mean--Master Frederick, they ca'ad him--her brother as was over here, yo' known.'",3 'Over here.',2 "'Ay, to be sure, at th' missus's death.",1 "Yo' need na be feared of my telling; for Mary and me, we knowed it all along, only we held our peace, for we got it through Mary working in th' house.'",3 'And he was over.,2 It was her brother!',2 "'Sure enough, and I reckoned yo' knowed it or I'd never ha' let on.",3 Yo' knowed she had a brother?',2 "'Yes, I know all about him.",2 And he was over at Mrs. Hale's death?',1 'Nay!,2 I'm not going for to tell more.,2 "I've maybe getten them into mischief already, for they kept it very close.",1 I nobbut wanted to know if they'd getten him cleared?',3 'Not that I know of.,2 I know nothing.,2 "I only hear of Miss Hale, now, as my landlord, and through her lawyer.'",2 "He broke off from Higgins, to follow the business on which he had been bent when the latter first accosted him; leaving Higgins baffled in his endeavour.",0 "'It was her brother,' said Mr. Thornton to himself.",2 'I am glad.,3 I may never see her again; but it is a comfort--a relief--to know that much.,3 I knew she could not be unmaidenly; and yet I yearned for conviction.,2 Now I am glad!',3 It was a little golden thread running through the dark web of his present fortunes; which were growing ever gloomier and more gloomy.,1 "His agent had largely trusted a house in the American trade, which went down, along with several others, just at this time, like a pack of cards, the fall of one compelling other failures.",2 What were Mr. Thornton's engagements?,2 Could he stand?,2 "Night after night he took books and papers into his own private room, and sate up there long after the family were gone to bed.",2 He thought that no one knew of this occupation of the hours he should have spent in sleep.,2 "One morning, when daylight was stealing in through the crevices of his shutters, and he had never been in bed, and, in hopeless indifference of mind, was thinking that he could do without the hour or two of rest, which was all that he should be able to take before the stir of daily labour began again, the door of his room opened, and his mother stood there, dressed as she had been the day before.",0 She had never laid herself down to slumber any more than he.,2 Their eyes met.,2 "Their faces were cold and rigid, and wan, from long watching.",1 'Mother!,2 why are not you in bed?',2 "'Son John,' said she, 'do you think I can sleep with an easy mind, while you keep awake full of care?",3 You have not told me what your trouble is; but sore trouble you have had these many days past.',1 'Trade is bad.',1 "'And you dread--' 'I dread nothing,' replied he, drawing up his head, and holding it erect.",1 'I know now that no man will suffer by me.,1 That was my anxiety.',1 'But how do you stand?,2 Shall you--will it be a failure?',1 her steady voice trembling in an unwonted manner.,3 'Not a failure.,1 "I must give up business, but I pay all men.",2 I might redeem myself--I am sorely tempted--' 'How?,2 "Oh, John!",2 keep up your name--try all risks for that.,1 How redeem it?',3 "'By a speculation offered to me, full of risk; but, if successful, placing me high above water-mark, so that no one need ever know the strait I am in.",2 "Still, if it fails--' 'And if it fails,' said she, advancing, and laying her hand on his arm, her eyes full of eager light.",2 She held her breath to hear the end of his speech.,2 "'Honest men are ruined by a rogue,' said he gloomily.",1 "'As I stand now, my creditors, money is safe--every farthing of it; but I don't know where to find my own--it may be all gone, and I penniless at this moment.",3 "Therefore, it is my creditors' money that I should risk.'",1 "'But if it succeeded, they need never know.",3 Is it so desperate a speculation?,1 "I am sure it is not, or you would never have thought of it.",2 "If it succeeded--' 'I should be a rich man, and my peace of conscience would be gone!'",4 'Why!,2 You would have injured no one.',2 'No; but I should have run the risk of ruining many for my own paltry aggrandisement.,0 "Mother, I have decided!",2 "You won't much grieve over our leaving this house, shall you, dear mother?'",1 'No!,2 but to have you other than what you are will break my heart.,1 What can you do?',2 "'Be always the same John Thornton in whatever circumstances; endeavouring to do right, and making great blunders; and then trying to be brave in setting to afresh.",3 "But it is hard, mother.",1 I have so worked and planned.,3 I have discovered new powers in my situation too late--and now all is over.,2 I am too old to begin again with the same heart.,2 "It is hard, mother.'",1 "He turned away from her, and covered his face with his hands.",2 "'I can't think,' said she, with gloomy defiance in her tone, 'how it comes about.",1 "Here is my boy--good son, just man, tender heart--and he fails in all he sets his mind upon: he finds a woman to love, and she cares no more for his affection than if he had been any common man; he labours, and his labour comes to nought.",4 "Other people prosper and grow rich, and hold their paltry names high and dry above shame.'",2 "'Shame never touched me,' said he, in a low tone: but she went on.",2 "'I sometimes have wondered where justice was gone to, and now I don't believe there is such a thing in the world,--now you are come to this; you, my own John Thornton, though you and I may be beggars together--my own dear son!'",2 "She fell upon his neck, and kissed him through her tears.",1 'Mother!',2 "said he, holding her gently in his arms, 'who has sent me my lot in life, both of good and of evil?'",2 She shook her head.,2 She would have nothing to do with religion just then.,2 "'Mother,' he went on, seeing that she would not speak, 'I, too, have been rebellious; but I am striving to be so no longer.",2 "Help me, as you helped me when I was a child.",3 "Then you said many good words--when my father died, and we were sometimes sorely short of comforts--which we shall never be now; you said brave, noble, trustful words then, mother, which I have never forgotten, though they may have lain dormant.",3 "Speak to me again in the old way, mother.",2 Do not let us have to think that the world has too much hardened our hearts.,1 "If you would say the old good words, it would make me feel something of the pious simplicity of my childhood.",3 "I say them to myself, but they would come differently from you, remembering all the cares and trials you have had to bear.'",2 "'I have had a many,' said she, sobbing, 'but none so sore as this.",1 To see you cast down from your rightful place!,3 "I could say it for myself, John, but not for you.",2 Not for you!,2 "God has seen fit to be very hard on you, very.'",1 She shook with the sobs that come so convulsively when an old person weeps.,2 The silence around her struck her at last; and she quieted herself to listen.,1 No sound.,2 She looked.,2 "Her son sate by the table, his arms thrown half across it, his head bent face downwards.",1 "'Oh, John!'",2 "she said, and she lifted his face up.",2 "Such a strange, pallid look of gloom was on it, that for a moment it struck her that this look was the forerunner of death; but, as the rigidity melted out of the countenance and the natural colour returned, and she saw that he was himself once again, all worldly mortification sank to nothing before the consciousness of the great blessing that he himself by his simple existence was to her.",0 "She thanked God for this, and this alone, with a fervour that swept away all rebellious feelings from her mind.",1 "He did not speak readily; but he went and opened the shutters, and let the ruddy light of dawn flood the room.",3 "But the wind was in the east; the weather was piercing cold, as it had been for weeks; there would be no demand for light summer goods this year.",1 That hope for the revival of trade must utterly be given up.,2 "It was a great comfort to have had this conversation with his mother; and to feel sure that, however they might henceforward keep silence on all these anxieties, they yet understood each other's feelings, and were, if not in harmony, at least not in discord with each other, in their way of viewing them.",3 "Fanny's husband was vexed at Thornton's refusal to take any share in the speculation which he had offered to him, and withdrew from any possibility of being supposed able to assist him with the ready money, which indeed the speculator needed for his own venture.",2 "There was nothing for it at last, but that which Mr. Thornton had dreaded for many weeks; he had to give up the business in which he had been so long engaged with so much honour and success; and look out for a subordinate situation.",2 "Marlborough Mills and the adjacent dwelling were held under a long lease; they must, if possible, be relet.",2 There was an immediate choice of situations offered to Mr. Thornton.,2 "Mr. Hamper would have been only too glad to have secured him as a steady and experienced partner for his son, whom he was setting up with a large capital in a neighbouring town; but the young man was half-educated as regarded information, and wholly uneducated as regarded any other responsibility than that of getting money, and brutalised both as to his pleasures and his pains.",3 "Mr. Thornton declined having any share in a partnership, which would frustrate what few plans he had that survived the wreck of his fortunes.",1 "He would sooner consent to be only a manager, where he could have a certain degree of power beyond the mere money-getting part, than have to fall in with the tyrannical humours of a moneyed partner with whom he felt sure that he should quarrel in a few months.",0 "So he waited, and stood on one side with profound humility, as the news swept through the Exchange, of the enormous fortune which his brother-in-law had made by his daring speculation.",4 It was a nine days' wonder.,3 Success brought with it its worldly consequence of extreme admiration.,3 No one was considered so wise and far-seeing as Mr. Watson.,3 It was a hot summer's evening.,3 "Edith came into Margaret's bedroom, the first time in her habit, the second ready dressed for dinner.",3 No one was there at first; the next time Edith found Dixon laying out Margaret's dress on the bed; but no Margaret.,2 Edith remained to fidget about.,1 "'Oh, Dixon!",2 not those horrid blue flowers to that dead gold-coloured gown.,1 What taste!,2 "Wait a minute, and I will bring you some pomegranate blossoms.'",2 "'It's not a dead gold-colour, ma'am.",2 It's a straw-colour.,2 And blue always goes with straw-colour.',2 But Edith had brought the brilliant scarlet flowers before Dixon had got half through her remonstrance.,3 'Where is Miss Hale?',2 "asked Edith, as soon as she had tried the effect of the garniture.",2 "'I can't think,' she went on, pettishly, 'how my aunt allowed her to get into such rambling habits in Milton!",2 I'm sure I'm always expecting to hear of her having met with something horrible among all those wretched places she pokes herself into.,1 I should never dare to go down some of those streets without a servant.,2 They're not fit for ladies.',2 "Dixon was still huffed about her despised taste; so she replied, rather shortly: 'It's no wonder to my mind, when I hear ladies talk such a deal about being ladies--and when they're such fearful, delicate, dainty ladies too--I say it's no wonder to me that there are no longer any saints on earth---- ' 'Oh, Margaret!",2 here you are!,2 I have been so wanting you.,2 "But how your cheeks are flushed with the heat, poor child!",1 "But only think what that tiresome Henry has done; really, he exceeds brother-in-law's limits.",1 "Just when my party was made up so beautifully--fitted in so precisely for Mr. Colthurst--there has Henry come, with an apology it is true, and making use of your name for an excuse, and asked me if he may bring that Mr. Thornton of Milton--your tenant, you know--who is in London about some law business.",3 "It will spoil my number, quite.'",1 'I don't mind dinner.,2 "I don't want any,' said Margaret, in a low voice.",2 "'Dixon can get me a cup of tea here, and I will be in the drawing-room by the time you come up.",2 I shall really be glad to lie down.',2 "'No, no!",2 that will never do.,2 "You do look wretchedly white, to be sure; but that is just the heat, and we can't do without you possibly.",1 "(Those flowers a little lower, Dixon.",2 "They look glorious flames, Margaret, in your black hair.) You know we planned you to talk about Milton to Mr. Colthurst.",3 Oh!,2 to be sure!,2 and this man comes from Milton.,2 "I believe it will be capital, after all.",2 "Mr. Colthurst can pump him well on all the subjects in which he is interested, and it will be great fun to trace out your experiences, and this Mr. Thornton's wisdom, in Mr. Colthurst's next speech in the House.",4 "Really, I think it is a happy hit of Henry's.",3 "I asked him if he was a man one would be ashamed of; and he replied, ""Not if you've any sense in you, my little sister.""",1 "So I suppose he is able to sound his h's, which is not a common Darkshire accomplishment--eh, Margaret?'",3 'Mr. Lennox did not say why Mr. Thornton was come up to town?,2 Was it law business connected with the property?',2 "asked Margaret, in a constrained voice.",2 'Oh!,2 "he's failed, or something of the kind, that Henry told you of that day you had such a headache,--what was it?",1 "(There, that's capital, Dixon.",2 "Miss Hale does us credit, does she not?) I wish I was as tall as a queen, and as brown as a gipsy, Margaret.'",2 'But about Mr. Thornton?',2 'Oh I really have such a terrible head for law business.,1 Henry will like nothing better than to tell you all about it.,3 "I know the impression he made upon me was, that Mr. Thornton is very badly off, and a very respectable man, and that I'm to be very civil to him; and as I did not know how, I came to you to ask you to help me.",2 "And now come down with me, and rest on the sofa for a quarter of an hour.'",2 "The privileged brother-in-law came early and Margaret reddening as she spoke, began to ask him the questions she wanted to hear answered about Mr. Thornton.",3 "'He came up about this sub-letting the property--Marlborough Mills, and the house and premises adjoining, I mean.",2 "He is unable to keep it on; and there are deeds and leases to be looked over, and agreements to be drawn up.",1 "I hope Edith will receive him properly; but she was rather put out, as I could see, by the liberty I had taken in begging for an invitation for him.",3 But I thought you would like to have some attention shown him: and one would be particularly scrupulous in paying every respect to a man who is going down in the world.',3 "He had dropped his voice to speak to Margaret, by whom he was sitting; but as he ended he sprang up, and introduced Mr. Thornton, who had that moment entered, to Edith and Captain Lennox.",2 Margaret looked with an anxious eye at Mr. Thornton while he was thus occupied.,1 It was considerably more than a year since she had seen him; and events had occurred to change him much in that time.,2 "His fine figure yet bore him above the common height of men; and gave him a distinguished appearance, from the ease of motion which arose out of it, and was natural to him; but his face looked older and care-worn; yet a noble composure sate upon it, which impressed those who had just been hearing of his changed position, with a sense of inherent dignity and manly strength.",4 "He was aware, from the first glance he had given round the room, that Margaret was there; he had seen her intent look of occupation as she listened to Mr. Henry Lennox; and he came up to her with the perfectly regulated manner of an old friend.",3 "With his first calm words a vivid colour flashed into her cheeks, which never left them again during the evening.",3 She did not seem to have much to say to him.,2 "She disappointed him by the quiet way in which she asked what seemed to him to be the merely necessary questions respecting her old acquaintances, in Milton; but others came in--more intimate in the house than he--and he fell into the background, where he and Mr. Lennox talked together from time to time.",2 "'You think Miss Hale looking well,' said Mr. Lennox, 'don't you?",3 "Milton didn't agree with her, I imagine; for when she first came to London, I thought I had never seen any one so much changed.",2 To-night she is looking radiant.,3 But she is much stronger.,3 Last autumn she was fatigued with a walk of a couple of miles.,1 On Friday evening we walked up to Hampstead and back.,2 Yet on Saturday she looked as well as she does now.,3 'We!',2 Who?,2 They two alone?,2 "Mr. Colthurst was a very clever man, and a rising member of parliament.",3 "He had a quick eye at discerning character, and was struck by a remark which Mr. Thornton made at dinner-time.",1 "He enquired from Edith who that gentleman was; and, rather to her surprise, she found, from the tone of his 'Indeed!'",2 that Mr. Thornton of Milton was not such an unknown name to him as she had imagined it would be.,1 Her dinner was going off well.,3 "Henry was in good humour, and brought out his dry caustic wit admirably.",3 "Mr. Thornton and Mr. Colthurst found one or two mutual subjects of interest, which they could only touch upon then, reserving them for more private after-dinner talk.",2 "Margaret looked beautiful in the pomegranate flowers; and if she did lean back in her chair and speak but little, Edith was not annoyed, for the conversation flowed on smoothly without her.",3 Margaret was watching Mr. Thornton's face.,2 "He never looked at her; so she might study him unobserved, and note the changes which even this short time had wrought in him.",1 "Only at some unexpected mot of Mr. Lennox's, his face flashed out into the old look of intense enjoyment; the merry brightness returned to his eyes, the lips just parted to suggest the brilliant smile of former days; and for an instant, his glance instinctively sought hers, as if he wanted her sympathy.",3 "But when their eyes met, his whole countenance changed; he was grave and anxious once more; and he resolutely avoided even looking near her again during dinner.",1 "There were only two ladies besides their own party, and as these were occupied in conversation by her aunt and Edith, when they went up into the drawing-room, Margaret languidly employed herself about some work.",3 "Presently the gentlemen came up, Mr. Colthurst and Mr. Thornton in close conversation.",2 "Mr. Lennox drew near to Margaret, and said in a low voice: 'I really think Edith owes me thanks for my contribution to her party.",3 "You've no idea what an agreeable, sensible fellow this tenant of yours is.",3 He has been the very man to give Colthurst all the facts he wanted coaching in.,2 I can't conceive how he contrived to mismanage his affairs.',1 "'With his powers and opportunities you would have succeeded,' said Margaret.",3 "He did not quite relish the tone in which she spoke, although the words but expressed a thought which had passed through his own mind.",3 "As he was silent, they caught a swell in the sound of conversation going on near the fire-place between Mr. Colthurst and Mr. Thornton.",3 "'I assure you, I heard it spoken of with great interest--curiosity as to its result, perhaps I should rather say.",3 I heard your name frequently mentioned during my short stay in the neighbourhood.',2 Then they lost some words; and when next they could hear Mr. Thornton was speaking.,1 "'I have not the elements for popularity--if they spoke of me in that way, they were mistaken.",1 "I fall slowly into new projects; and I find it difficult to let myself be known, even by those whom I desire to know, and with whom I would fain have no reserve.",0 "Yet, even with all these drawbacks, I felt that I was on the right path, and that, starting from a kind of friendship with one, I was becoming acquainted with many.",2 The advantages were mutual: we were both unconsciously and consciously teaching each other.',3 "'You say ""were.""",2 I trust you are intending to pursue the same course?',3 "'I must stop Colthurst,' said Henry Lennox, hastily.",1 "And by an abrupt, yet apropos question, he turned the current of the conversation, so as not to give Mr. Thornton the mortification of acknowledging his want of success and consequent change of position.",1 "But as soon as the newly-started subject had come to a close, Mr. Thornton resumed the conversation just where it had been interrupted, and gave Mr. Colthurst the reply to his inquiry.",2 "'I have been unsuccessful in business, and have had to give up my position as a master.",2 "I am on the look out for a situation in Milton, where I may meet with employment under some one who will be willing to let me go along my own way in such matters as these.",3 I can depend upon myself for having no go-ahead theories that I would rashly bring into practice.,2 "My only wish is to have the opportunity of cultivating some intercourse with the hands beyond the mere ""cash nexus.""",2 "But it might be the point Archimedes sought from which to move the earth, to judge from the importance attached to it by some of our manufacturers, who shake their heads and look grave as soon as I name the one or two experiments that I should like to try.'",2 "'You call them ""experiments"" I notice,' said Mr. Colthurst, with a delicate increase of respect in his manner.",3 'Because I believe them to be such.,2 I am not sure of the consequences that may result from them.,2 But I am sure they ought to be tried.,2 "I have arrived at the conviction that no mere institutions, however wise, and however much thought may have been required to organise and arrange them, can attach class to class as they should be attached, unless the working out of such institutions bring the individuals of the different classes into actual personal contact.",3 Such intercourse is the very breath of life.,2 A working man can hardly be made to feel and know how much his employer may have laboured in his study at plans for the benefit of his workpeople.,3 "A complete plan emerges like a piece of machinery, apparently fitted for every emergency.",2 "But the hands accept it as they do machinery, without understanding the intense mental labour and forethought required to bring it to such perfection.",2 "But I would take an idea, the working out of which would necessitate personal intercourse; it might not go well at first, but at every hitch interest would be felt by an increasing number of men, and at last its success in working come to be desired by all, as all had borne a part in the formation of the plan; and even then I am sure that it would lose its vitality, cease to be living, as soon as it was no longer carried on by that sort of common interest which invariably makes people find means and ways of seeing each other, and becoming acquainted with each others' characters and persons, and even tricks of temper and modes of speech.",2 "We should understand each other better, and I'll venture to say we should like each other more.'",3 'And you think they may prevent the recurrence of strikes?',2 'Not at all.,2 "My utmost expectation only goes so far as this--that they may render strikes not the bitter, venomous sources of hatred they have hitherto been.",0 A more hopeful man might imagine that a closer and more genial intercourse between classes might do away with strikes.,3 But I am not a hopeful man.',3 "Suddenly, as if a new idea had struck him, he crossed over to where Margaret was sitting, and began, without preface, as if he knew she had been listening to all that had passed: 'Miss Hale, I had a round-robin from some of my men--I suspect in Higgins' handwriting--stating their wish to work for me, if ever I was in a position to employ men again on my own behalf.",2 "That was good, wasn't it?'",3 'Yes.,2 Just right.,3 "I am glad of it,' said Margaret, looking up straight into his face with her speaking eyes, and then dropping them under his eloquent glance.",3 "He gazed back at her for a minute, as if he did not know exactly what he was about.",2 "Then sighed; and saying, 'I knew you would like it,' he turned away, and never spoke to her again until he bid her a formal 'good night.'",3 "As Mr. Lennox took his departure, Margaret said, with a blush that she could not repress, and with some hesitation, 'Can I speak to you to-morrow?",1 I want your help about--something.',2 'Certainly.,2 I will come at whatever time you name.,2 You cannot give me a greater pleasure than by making me of any use.,3 At eleven?,2 Very well.',3 His eye brightened with exultation.,3 How she was learning to depend upon him!,2 "It seemed as if any day now might give him the certainty, without having which he had determined never to offer to her again.",2 "Edith went about on tip-toe, and checked Sholto in all loud speaking that next morning, as if any sudden noise would interrupt the conference that was taking place in the drawing-room.",0 Two o'clock came; and they still sate there with closed doors.,2 Then there was a man's footstep running down stairs; and Edith peeped out of the drawing-room.,2 "'Well, Henry?'",2 "said she, with a look of interrogation.",2 'Well!',2 "said he, rather shortly.",2 'Come in to lunch!',2 "'No, thank you, I can't.",3 I've lost too much time here already.',1 "'Then it's not all settled,' said Edith despondingly.",2 'No!,2 not at all.,2 "It never will be settled, if the ""it"" is what I conjecture you mean.",2 "That will never be, Edith, so give up thinking about it.'",2 "'But it would be so nice for us all,' pleaded Edith.",3 "'I should always feel comfortable about the children, if I had Margaret settled down near me.",3 "As it is, I am always afraid of her going off to Cadiz.'",1 "'I will try, when I marry, to look out for a young lady who has a knowledge of the management of children.",2 That is all I can do.,2 Miss Hale would not have me.,2 And I shall not ask her.',2 "'Then, what have you been talking about?'",2 "'A thousand things you would not understand: investments, and leases, and value of land.'",2 "'Oh, go away if that's all.",2 "You and she will be unbearably stupid, if you've been talking all this time about such weary things.'",1 'Very well.,3 "I'm coming again to-morrow, and bringing Mr. Thornton with me, to have some more talk with Miss Hale.'",2 'Mr. Thornton!,2 What has he to do with it?',2 "'He is Miss Hale's tenant,' said Mr. Lennox, turning away.",1 'And he wishes to give up his lease.',2 'Oh!,2 very well.,3 "I can't understand details, so don't give them me.'",2 "'The only detail I want you to understand is, to let us have the back drawing-room undisturbed, as it was to-day.",2 "In general, the children and servants are so in and out, that I can never get any business satisfactorily explained; and the arrangements we have to make to-morrow are of importance.'",3 No one ever knew why Mr. Lennox did not keep to his appointment on the following day.,2 "Mr. Thornton came true to his time; and, after keeping him waiting for nearly an hour, Margaret came in looking very white and anxious.",1 "She began hurriedly: 'I am so sorry Mr. Lennox is not here,--he could have done it so much better than I can.",2 "He is my adviser in this'---- 'I am sorry that I came, if it troubles you.",1 Shall I go to Mr. Lennox's chambers and try and find him?',2 "'No, thank you.",3 "I wanted to tell you, how grieved I was to find that I am to lose you as a tenant.",1 "But, Mr. Lennox says, things are sure to brighten'---- 'Mr. Lennox knows little about it,' said Mr. Thornton quietly.",2 "'Happy and fortunate in all a man cares for, he does not understand what it is to find oneself no longer young--yet thrown back to the starting-point which requires the hopeful energy of youth--to feel one half of life gone, and nothing done--nothing remaining of wasted opportunity, but the bitter recollection that it has been.",2 "Miss Hale, I would rather not hear Mr. Lennox's opinion of my affairs.",2 Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others.',3 "'You are unjust,' said Margaret, gently.",1 'Mr. Lennox has only spoken of the great probability which he believes there to be of your redeeming--your more than redeeming what you have lost--don't speak till I have ended--pray don't!',3 "And collecting herself once more, she went on rapidly turning over some law papers, and statements of accounts in a trembling hurried manner.",2 'Oh!,2 here it is!,2 "and--he drew me out a proposal--I wish he was here to explain it--showing that if you would take some money of mine, eighteen thousand and fifty-seven pounds, lying just at this moment unused in the bank, and bringing me in only two and a half per cent.--you could pay me much better interest, and might go on working Marlborough Mills.'",2 Her voice had cleared itself and become more steady.,3 "Mr. Thornton did not speak, and she went on looking for some paper on which were written down the proposals for security; for she was most anxious to have it all looked upon in the light of a mere business arrangement, in which the principal advantage would be on her side.",2 "While she sought for this paper, her very heart-pulse was arrested by the tone in which Mr. Thornton spoke.",2 "His voice was hoarse, and trembling with tender passion, as he said:-- 'Margaret!'",3 For an instant she looked up; and then sought to veil her luminous eyes by dropping her forehead on her hands.,3 "Again, stepping nearer, he besought her with another tremulous eager call upon her name.",3 'Margaret!',2 "Still lower went the head; more closely hidden was the face, almost resting on the table before her.",2 He came close to her.,2 "He knelt by her side, to bring his face to a level with her ear; and whispered-panted out the words:-- 'Take care.--If you do not speak--I shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way.--Send me away at once, if I must go;--Margaret!--' At that third call she turned her face, still covered with her small white hands, towards him, and laid it on his shoulder, hiding it even there; and it was too delicious to feel her soft cheek against his, for him to wish to see either deep blushes or loving eyes.",3 He clasped her close.,2 But they both kept silence.,2 "At length she murmured in a broken voice: 'Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!'",3 'Not good enough!,3 Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness.',1 "After a minute or two, he gently disengaged her hands from her face, and laid her arms as they had once before been placed to protect him from the rioters.",3 "'Do you remember, love?'",3 he murmured.,2 'And how I requited you with my insolence the next day?',1 "'I remember how wrongly I spoke to you,--that is all.'",1 'Look here!,2 Lift up your head.,2 I have something to show you!',2 "She slowly faced him, glowing with beautiful shame.",2 'Do you know these roses?',2 "he said, drawing out his pocket-book, in which were treasured up some dead flowers.",1 'No!',2 "she replied, with innocent curiosity.",2 'Did I give them to you?',2 'No!,2 Vanity; you did not.,1 You may have worn sister roses very probably.',1 "She looked at them, wondering for a minute, then she smiled a little as she said-- 'They are from Helstone, are they not?",2 I know the deep indentations round the leaves.,2 Oh!,2 have you been there?,2 When were you there?',2 "'I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine.",1 I went there on my return from Havre.',2 "'You must give them to me,' she said, trying to take them out of his hand with gentle violence.",3 'Very well.,3 Only you must pay me for them!',2 'How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?',2 "she whispered, after some time of delicious silence.",3 'Let me speak to her.',2 "'Oh, no!",2 "I owe to her,--but what will she say?'",2 'I can guess.,2 "Her first exclamation will be, ""That man!""",2 'Hush!',2 "said Margaret, 'or I shall try and show you your mother's indignant tones as she says, ""That woman!""",1 "It lay down in a hollow, rich with fine old timber and luxuriant pastures; and you came upon it through an avenue of limes, bordered on either side by meadows, over the high hedges of which the cattle looked inquisitively at you as you passed, wondering, perhaps, what you wanted; for there was no thorough-fare, and unless you were going to the Court you had no business there at all.",3 "At the end of this avenue there was an old arch and a clock tower, with a stupid, bewildering clock, which had only one hand—and which jumped straight from one hour to the next—and was therefore always in extremes.",1 Through this arch you walked straight into the gardens of Audley Court.,2 "A smooth lawn lay before you, dotted with groups of rhododendrons, which grew in more perfection here than anywhere else in the county.",3 "To the right there were the kitchen gardens, the fish-pond, and an orchard bordered by a dry moat, and a broken ruin of a wall, in some places thicker than it was high, and everywhere overgrown with trailing ivy, yellow stonecrop, and dark moss.",0 "To the left there was a broad graveled walk, down which, years ago, when the place had been a convent, the quiet nuns had walked hand in hand; a wall bordered with espaliers, and shadowed on one side by goodly oaks, which shut out the flat landscape, and circled in the house and gardens with a darkening shelter.",3 "The house faced the arch, and occupied three sides of a quadrangle.",2 "It was very old, and very irregular and rambling.",1 "The windows were uneven; some small, some large, some with heavy stone mullions and rich stained glass; others with frail lattices that rattled in every breeze; others so modern that they might have been added only yesterday.",2 "Great piles of chimneys rose up here and there behind the pointed gables, and seemed as if they were so broken down by age and long service that they must have fallen but for the straggling ivy which, crawling up the walls and trailing even over the roof, wound itself about them and supported them.",1 "The principal door was squeezed into a corner of a turret at one angle of the building, as if it were in hiding from dangerous visitors, and wished to keep itself a secret—a noble door for all that—old oak, and studded with great square-headed iron nails, and so thick that the sharp iron knocker struck upon it with a muffled sound, and the visitor rung a clanging bell that dangled in a corner among the ivy, lest the noise of the knocking should never penetrate the stronghold.",2 A glorious old place.,3 "A place that visitors fell in raptures with; feeling a yearning wish to have done with life, and to stay there forever, staring into the cool fish-ponds and counting the bubbles as the roach and carp rose to the surface of the water.",1 "A spot in which peace seemed to have taken up her abode, setting her soothing hand on every tree and flower, on the still ponds and quiet alleys, the shady corners of the old-fashioned rooms, the deep window-seats behind the painted glass, the low meadows and the stately avenues—ay, even upon the stagnant well, which, cool and sheltered as all else in the old place, hid itself away in a shrubbery behind the gardens, with an idle handle that was never turned and a lazy rope so rotten that the pail had broken away from it, and had fallen into the water.",1 "A noble place; inside as well as out, a noble place—a house in which you incontinently lost yourself if ever you were so rash as to attempt to penetrate its mysteries alone; a house in which no one room had any sympathy with another, every chamber running off at a tangent into an inner chamber, and through that down some narrow staircase leading to a door which, in its turn, led back into that very part of the house from which you thought yourself the furthest; a house that could never have been planned by any mortal architect, but must have been the handiwork of that good old builder, Time, who, adding a room one year, and knocking down a room another year, toppling down a chimney coeval with the Plantagenets, and setting up one in the style of the Tudors; shaking down a bit of Saxon wall, allowing a Norman arch to stand here; throwing in a row of high narrow windows in the reign of Queen Anne, and joining on a dining-room after the fashion of the time of Hanoverian George I, to a refectory that had been standing since the Conquest, had contrived, in some eleven centuries, to run up such a mansion as was not elsewhere to be met with throughout the county of Essex.",3 "Of course, in such a house there were secret chambers; the little daughter of the present owner, Sir Michael Audley, had fallen by accident upon the discovery of one.",1 "A board had rattled under her feet in the great nursery where she played, and on attention being drawn to it, it was found to be loose, and so removed, revealed a ladder, leading to a hiding-place between the floor of the nursery and the ceiling of the room below—a hiding-place so small that he who had hid there must have crouched on his hands and knees or lain at full length, and yet large enough to contain a quaint old carved oak chest, half filled with priests' vestments, which had been hidden away, no doubt, in those cruel days when the life of a man was in danger if he was discovered to have harbored a Roman Catholic priest, or to have mass said in his house.",1 "The broad outer moat was dry and grass-grown, and the laden trees of the orchard hung over it with gnarled, straggling branches that drew fantastical shadows upon the green slope.",1 "Within this moat there was, as I have said, the fish-pond—a sheet of water that extended the whole length of the garden and bordering which there was an avenue called the lime-tree walk; an avenue so shaded from the sun and sky, so screened from observation by the thick shelter of the over-arching trees that it seemed a chosen place for secret meetings or for stolen interviews; a place in which a conspiracy might have been planned, or a lover's vow registered with equal safety; and yet it was scarcely twenty paces from the house.",0 "At the end of this dark arcade there was the shrubbery, where, half buried among the tangled branches and the neglected weeds, stood the rusty wheel of that old well of which I have spoken.",0 "It had been of good service in its time, no doubt; and busy nuns have perhaps drawn the cool water with their own fair hands; but it had fallen into disuse now, and scarcely any one at Audley Court knew whether the spring had dried up or not.",2 "But sheltered as was the solitude of this lime-tree walk, I doubt very much if it was ever put to any romantic uses.",2 "Often in the cool of the evening Sir Michael Audley would stroll up and down smoking his cigar, with his dogs at his heels, and his pretty young wife dawdling by his side; but in about ten minutes the baronet and his companion would grow tired of the rustling limes and the still water, hidden under the spreading leaves of the water-lilies, and the long green vista with the broken well at the end, and would stroll back to the drawing-room, where my lady played dreamy melodies by Beethoven and Mendelssohn till her husband fell asleep in his easy-chair.",3 "Sir Michael Audley was fifty-six years of age, and he had married a second wife three months after his fifty-fifth birthday.",2 "He was a big man, tall and stout, with a deep, sonorous voice, handsome black eyes, and a white beard—a white beard which made him look venerable against his will, for he was as active as a boy, and one of the hardest riders in the country.",3 "For seventeen years he had been a widower with an only child, a daughter, Alicia Audley, now eighteen, and by no means too well pleased at having a step-mother brought home to the Court; for Miss Alicia had reigned supreme in her father's house since her earliest childhood, and had carried the keys, and jingled them in the pockets of her silk aprons, and lost them in the shrubbery, and dropped them into the pond, and given all manner of trouble about them from the hour in which she entered her teens, and had, on that account, deluded herself into the sincere belief, that for the whole of that period, she had been keeping the house.",2 "But Miss Alicia's day was over; and now, when she asked anything of the housekeeper, the housekeeper would tell her that she would speak to my lady, or she would consult my lady, and if my lady pleased it should be done.",2 "So the baronet's daughter, who was an excellent horsewoman and a very clever artist, spent most of her time out of doors, riding about the green lanes, and sketching the cottage children, and the plow-boys, and the cattle, and all manner of animal life that came in her way.",3 "She set her face with a sulky determination against any intimacy between herself and the baronet's young wife; and amiable as that lady was, she found it quite impossible to overcome Miss Alicia's prejudices and dislike; or to convince the spoilt girl that she had not done her a cruel injury by marrying Sir Michael Audley.",0 "The truth was that Lady Audley had, in becoming the wife of Sir Michael, made one of those apparently advantageous matches which are apt to draw upon a woman the envy and hatred of her sex.",3 She had come into the neighborhood as a governess in the family of a surgeon in the village near Audley Court.,2 "No one knew anything of her, except that she came in answer to an advertisement which Mr. Dawson, the surgeon, had inserted in The Times.",2 "She came from London; and the only reference she gave was to a lady at a school at Brompton, where she had once been a teacher.",2 "But this reference was so satisfactory that none other was needed, and Miss Lucy Graham was received by the surgeon as the instructress of his daughters.",2 "Her accomplishments were so brilliant and numerous, that it seemed strange that she should have answered an advertisement offering such very moderate terms of remuneration as those named by Mr. Dawson; but Miss Graham seemed perfectly well satisfied with her situation, and she taught the girls to play sonatas by Beethoven, and to paint from nature after Creswick, and walked through a dull, out-of-the-way village to the humble little church, three times every Sunday, as contentedly as if she had no higher aspiration in the world than to do so all the rest of her life.",4 "People who observed this, accounted for it by saying that it was a part of her amiable and gentle nature always to be light-hearted, happy and contented under any circumstances.",4 Wherever she went she seemed to take joy and brightness with her.,3 In the cottages of the poor her fair face shone like a sunbeam.,3 "She would sit for a quarter of an hour talking to some old woman, and apparently as pleased with the admiration of a toothless crone as if she had been listening to the compliments of a marquis; and when she tripped away, leaving nothing behind her (for her poor salary gave no scope to her benevolence), the old woman would burst out into senile raptures with her grace, beauty, and her kindliness, such as she never bestowed upon the vicar's wife, who half fed and clothed her.",4 "For you see, Miss Lucy Graham was blessed with that magic power of fascination, by which a woman can charm with a word or intoxicate with a smile.",3 "Every one loved, admired, and praised her.",3 "The boy who opened the five-barred gate that stood in her pathway, ran home to his mother to tell of her pretty looks, and the sweet voice in which she thanked him for the little service.",3 "The verger at the church, who ushered her into the surgeon's pew; the vicar, who saw the soft blue eyes uplifted to his face as he preached his simple sermon; the porter from the railway station, who brought her sometimes a letter or a parcel, and who never looked for reward from her; her employer; his visitors; her pupils; the servants; everybody, high and low, united in declaring that Lucy Graham was the sweetest girl that ever lived.",3 "Perhaps it was the rumor of this which penetrated into the quiet chamber of Audley Court; or, perhaps, it was the sight of her pretty face, looking over the surgeon's high pew every Sunday morning; however it was, it was certain that Sir Michael Audley suddenly experienced a strong desire to be better acquainted with Mr. Dawson's governess.",4 "He had only to hint his wish to the worthy doctor for a little party to be got up, to which the vicar and his wife, and the baronet and his daughter, were invited.",3 That one quiet evening sealed Sir Michael's fate.,3 "He could no more resist the tender fascination of those soft and melting blue eyes; the graceful beauty of that slender throat and drooping head, with its wealth of showering flaxen curls; the low music of that gentle voice; the perfect harmony which pervaded every charm, and made all doubly charming in this woman; than he could resist his destiny!",4 Destiny!,3 "Why, she was his destiny!",3 He had never loved before.,3 "What had been his marriage with Alicia's mother but a dull, jog-trot bargain made to keep some estate in the family that would have been just as well out of it?",3 "What had been his love for his first wife but a poor, pitiful, smoldering spark, too dull to be extinguished, too feeble to burn?",0 "But this was love—this fever, this longing, this restless, uncertain, miserable hesitation; these cruel fears that his age was an insurmountable barrier to his happiness; this sick hatred of his white beard; this frenzied wish to be young again, with glistening raven hair, and a slim waist, such as he had twenty years before; these, wakeful nights and melancholy days, so gloriously brightened if he chanced to catch a glimpse of her sweet face behind the window curtains, as he drove past the surgeon's house; all these signs gave token of the truth, and told only too plainly that, at the sober age of fifty-five, Sir Michael Audley had fallen ill of the terrible fever called love.",0 "I do not think that, throughout his courtship, the baronet once calculated upon his wealth or his position as reasons for his success.",3 "If he ever remembered these things, he dismissed the thought of them with a shudder.",2 It pained him too much to believe for a moment that any one so lovely and innocent could value herself against a splendid house or a good old title.,4 "No; his hope was that, as her life had been most likely one of toil and dependence, and as she was very young nobody exactly knew her age, but she looked little more than twenty, she might never have formed any attachment, and that he, being the first to woo her, might, by tender attentions, by generous watchfulness, by a love which should recall to her the father she had lost, and by a protecting care that should make him necessary to her, win her young heart, and obtain from her fresh and earliest love, the promise of her hand.",4 "It was a very romantic day-dream, no doubt; but, for all that, it seemed in a very fair way to be realized.",3 Lucy Graham appeared by no means to dislike the baronet's attentions.,1 There was nothing whatever in her manner that betrayed the shallow artifices employed by a woman who wishes to captivate a rich man.,3 "She was so accustomed to admiration from every one, high and low, that Sir Michael's conduct made very little impression upon her.",3 "Again, he had been so many years a widower that people had given up the idea of his ever marrying again.",2 "At last, however, Mrs. Dawson spoke to the governess on the subject.",2 "The surgeon's wife was sitting in the school-room busy at work, while Lucy was putting the finishing touches on some water-color sketches done by her pupils.",3 """Do you know, my dear Miss Graham,"" said Mrs. Dawson, ""I think you ought to consider yourself a remarkably lucky girl?""",3 "The governess lifted her head from its stooping attitude, and stared wonderingly at her employer, shaking back a shower of curls.",2 "They were the most wonderful curls in the world—soft and feathery, always floating away from her face, and making a pale halo round her head when the sunlight shone through them.",3 """What do you mean, my dear Mrs. Dawson?""",2 "she asked, dipping her camel's-hair brush into the wet aquamarine upon the palette, and poising it carefully before putting in the delicate streak of purple which was to brighten the horizon in her pupil's sketch.",3 """Why, I mean, my dear, that it only rests with yourself to become Lady Audley, and the mistress of Audley Court.""",1 "Lucy Graham dropped the brush upon the picture, and flushed scarlet to the roots of her fair hair; and then grew pale again, far paler than Mrs. Dawson had ever seen her before.",2 """My dear, don't agitate yourself,"" said the surgeon's wife, soothingly; ""you know that nobody asks you to marry Sir Michael unless you wish.",3 "Of course it would be a magnificent match; he has a splendid income, and is one of the most generous of men.",4 "Your position would be very high, and you would be enabled to do a great deal of good; but, as I said before, you must be entirely guided by your own feelings.",3 "Only one thing I must say, and that is that if Sir Michael's attentions are not agreeable to you, it is really scarcely honorable to encourage him.""",3 """His attentions—encourage him!""",3 "muttered Lucy, as if the words bewildered her.",1 """Pray, pray don't talk to me, Mrs. Dawson.",2 I had no idea of this.,2 "It is the last thing that would have occurred to me.""",2 "She leaned her elbows on the drawing-board before her, and clasping her hands over her face, seemed for some minutes to be thinking deeply.",2 "She wore a narrow black ribbon round her neck, with a locket, or a cross, or a miniature, perhaps, attached to it; but whatever the trinket was, she always kept it hidden under her dress.",2 "Once or twice, while she sat silently thinking, she removed one of her hands from before her face, and fidgeted nervously with the ribbon, clutching at it with a half-angry gesture, and twisting it backward and forward between her fingers.",0 """I think some people are born to be unlucky, Mrs. Dawson,"" she said, by-and-by; ""it would be a great deal too much good fortune for me to become Lady Audley.""",3 "She said this with so much bitterness in her tone, that the surgeon's wife looked up at her with surprise.",1 """You unlucky, my dear!""",1 she exclaimed.,2 """I think you are the last person who ought to talk like that—you, such a bright, happy creature, that it does every one good to see you.",4 "I'm sure I don't know what we shall do if Sir Michael robs us of you.""",2 "After this conversation they often spoke upon the subject, and Lucy never again showed any emotion whatever when the baronet's admiration for her was canvassed.",3 "It was a tacitly understood thing in the surgeon's family that whenever Sir Michael proposed, the governess would quietly accept him; and, indeed, the simple Dawsons would have thought it something more than madness in a penniless girl to reject such an offer.",1 "So, one misty August evening, Sir Michael, sitting opposite to Lucy Graham, at a window in the surgeon's little drawing-room, took an opportunity while the family happened by some accident to be absent from the room, of speaking upon the subject nearest to his heart.",2 "He made the governess, in a few but solemn words, an offer of his hand.",1 "There was something almost touching in the manner and tone in which he spoke to her—half in deprecation, knowing that he could hardly expect to be the choice of a beautiful young girl, and praying rather that she would reject him, even though she broke his heart by doing so, than that she should accept his offer if she did not love him.",2 """I scarcely think there is a greater sin, Lucy,"" he said, solemnly, ""than that of a woman who marries a man she does not love.",1 "You are so precious to me, my beloved, that deeply as my heart is set on this, and bitter as the mere thought of disappointment is to me, I would not have you commit such a sin for any happiness of mine.",2 "If my happiness could be achieved by such an act, which it could not—which it never could,"" he repeated, earnestly—""nothing but misery can result from a marriage dictated by any motive but truth and love.""",3 "Lucy Graham was not looking at Sir Michael, but straight out into the misty twilight and dim landscape far away beyond the little garden.",1 "The baronet tried to see her face, but her profile was turned to him, and he could not discover the expression of her eyes.",2 "If he could have done so, he would have seen a yearning gaze which seemed as if it would have pierced the far obscurity and looked away—away into another world.",1 """Lucy, you heard me?""",2 """Yes,"" she said, gravely; not coldly, or in any way as if she were offended at his words.",1 """And your answer?""",2 "She did not remove her gaze from the darkening country side, but for some moments was quite silent; then turning to him, with a sudden passion in her manner, that lighted up her face with a new and wonderful beauty which the baronet perceived even in the growing twilight, she fell on her knees at his feet.",4 """No, Lucy; no, no!""",2 "he cried, vehemently, ""not here, not here!""",1 """Yes, here, here,"" she said, the strange passion which agitated her making her voice sound shrill and piercing—not loud, but preternaturally distinct; ""here and nowhere else.",1 How good you are—how noble and how generous!,4 Love you!,3 "Why, there are women a hundred times my superiors in beauty and in goodness who might love you dearly; but you ask too much of me!",4 Remember what my life has been; only remember that!,2 From my very babyhood I have never seen anything but poverty.,1 "My father was a gentleman: clever, accomplished, handsome—but poor—and what a pitiful wretch poverty made of him!",1 My mother—But do not let me speak of her.,2 "Poverty—poverty, trials, vexations, humiliations, deprivations.",1 "You cannot tell; you, who are among those for whom life is so smooth and easy, you can never guess what is endured by such as we.",3 "Do not ask too much of me, then.",2 I cannot be disinterested; I cannot be blind to the advantages of such an alliance.,1 "I cannot, I cannot!""",2 "Beyond her agitation and her passionate vehemence, there is an undefined something in her manner which fills the baronet with a vague alarm.",1 "She is still on the ground at his feet, crouching rather than kneeling, her thin white dress clinging about her, her pale hair streaming over her shoulders, her great blue eyes glittering in the dusk, and her hands clutching at the black ribbon about her throat, as if it had been strangling her.",2 """Don't ask too much of me,"" she kept repeating; ""I have been selfish from my babyhood.""",1 """Lucy—Lucy, speak plainly.",2 "Do you dislike me?""",1 """Dislike you?",1 "No—no!""",2 """But is there any one else whom you love?""",3 She laughed aloud at his question.,2 """I do not love any one in the world,"" she answered.",3 He was glad of her reply; and yet that and the strange laugh jarred upon his feelings.,2 "He was silent for some moments, and then said, with a kind of effort: ""Well, Lucy, I will not ask too much of you.",3 "I dare say I am a romantic old fool; but if you do not dislike me, and if you do not love any one else, I see no reason why we should not make a very happy couple.",3 "Is it a bargain, Lucy?""",3 """Yes.""",2 "The baronet lifted her in his arms and kissed her once upon the forehead, then quietly bidding her good-night, he walked straight out of the house.",3 "He walked straight out of the house, this foolish old man, because there was some strong emotion at work in his breast—neither joy nor triumph, but something almost akin to disappointment—some stifled and unsatisfied longing which lay heavy and dull at his heart, as if he had carried a corpse in his bosom.",2 He carried the corpse of that hope which had died at the sound of Lucy's words.,1 All the doubts and fears and timid aspirations were ended now.,1 "He must be contented, like other men of his age, to be married for his fortune and his position.",3 Lucy Graham went slowly up the stairs to her little room at the top of the house.,2 "She placed her dim candle on the chest of drawers, and seated herself on the edge of the white bed, still and white as the draperies hanging around her.",1 """No more dependence, no more drudgery, no more humiliations,"" she said; ""every trace of the old life melted away—every clew to identity buried and forgotten—except these, except these.""",2 She had never taken her left hand from the black ribbon at her throat.,2 "She drew it from her bosom, as she spoke, and looked at the object attached to it.",1 "It was neither a locket, a miniature, nor a cross; it was a ring wrapped in an oblong piece of paper—the paper partly written, partly printed, yellow with age, and crumpled with much folding.",1 "He threw the end of his cigar into the water, and leaning his elbows upon the bulwarks, stared meditatively at the waves.",2 """How wearisome they are,"" he said; ""blue and green, and opal; opal, and blue, and green; all very well in their way, of course, but three months of them are rather too much, especially—"" He did not attempt to finish his sentence; his thoughts seemed to wander in the very midst of it, and carry him a thousand miles or so away.",2 """Poor little girl, how pleased she'll be!""",2 "he muttered, opening his cigar-case, lazily surveying its contents; ""how pleased and how surprised?",3 Poor little girl.,1 "After three years and a half, too; she will be surprised.""",2 "He was a young man of about five-and-twenty, with dark face bronzed by exposure to the sun; he had handsome brown eyes, with a lazy smile in them that sparkled through the black lashes, and a bushy beard and mustache that covered the whole lower part of his face.",2 "He was tall and powerfully built; he wore a loose gray suit and a felt hat, thrown carelessly upon his black hair.",2 "His name was George Talboys, and he was aft-cabin passenger on board the good ship Argus, laden with Australian wool and sailing from Sydney to Liverpool.",3 There were very few passengers in the aft-cabin of the Argus.,2 "An elderly wool-stapler returning to his native country with his wife and daughters, after having made a fortune in the colonies; a governess of three-and-thirty years of age, going home to marry a man to whom she had been engaged fifteen years; the sentimental daughter of a wealthy Australian wine-merchant, invoiced to England to finish her education, and George Talboys, were the only first-class passengers on board.",3 "This George Talboys was the life and soul of the vessel; nobody knew who or what he was, or where he came from, but everybody liked him.",3 "He sat at the bottom of the dinner-table, and assisted the captain in doing the honors of the friendly meal.",3 "He opened the champagne bottles, and took wine with every one present; he told funny stories, and led the life himself with such a joyous peal that the man must have been a churl who could not have laughed for pure sympathy.",3 "He was a capital hand at speculation and vingt-et-un, and all the merry games, which kept the little circle round the cabin-lamp so deep in innocent amusement, that a hurricane might have howled overhead without their hearing it; but he freely owned that he had no talent for whist, and that he didn't know a knight from a castle upon the chess-board.",3 "Indeed, Mr. Talboys was by no means too learned a gentleman.",2 "The pale governess had tried to talk to him about fashionable literature, but George had only pulled his beard and stared very hard at her, saying occasionally, ""Ah, yes, by Jove!""",1 "and ""To be sure, ah!""",2 "The sentimental young lady, going home to finish her education, had tried him with Shelby and Byron, and he had fairly laughed in her face, as if poetry were a joke.",2 "The woolstapler sounded him on politics, but he did not seem very deeply versed in them; so they let him go his own way, smoke his cigars and talk to the sailors, lounge over the bulwarks and stare at the water, and make himself agreeable to everybody in his own fashion.",2 But when the Argus came to be within about a fortnight's sail of England everybody noticed a change in George Talboys.,2 He grew restless and fidgety; sometimes so merry that the cabin rung with his laughter; sometimes moody and thoughtful.,1 "Favorite as he was among the sailors, they were tired at last of answering his perpetual questions about the probable time of touching land.",2 "Would it be in ten days, in eleven, in twelve, in thirteen?",2 Was the wind favorable?,3 How many knots an hour was the vessel doing?,2 "Then a sudden passion would seize him, and he would stamp upon the deck, crying out that she was a rickety old craft, and that her owners were swindlers to advertise her as the fast-sailing Argus.",3 "She was not fit for passenger traffic; she was not fit to carry impatient living creatures, with hearts and souls; she was fit for nothing but to be laden with bales of stupid wool, that might rot on the sea and be none the worse for it.",0 The sun was drooping down behind the waves as George Talboys lighted his cigar upon this August evening.,2 "Only ten days more, the sailors had told him that afternoon, and they would see the English coast.",2 """I will go ashore in the first boat that hails us,"" he cried; ""I will go ashore in a cockle-shell.",2 "By Jove, if it comes to that, I will swim to land.""",2 "His friends in the aft-cabin, with the exception of the pale governess, laughed at his impatience; she sighed as she watched the young man, chafing at the slow hours, pushing away his untasted wine, flinging himself restlessly about upon the cabin sofa, rushing up and down the companion ladder, and staring at the waves.",0 "As the red rim of the sun dropped into the water, the governess ascended the cabin stairs for a stroll on deck, while the passengers sat over their wine below.",2 "She stopped when she came up to George, and, standing by his side, watched the fading crimson in the western sky.",2 "The lady was very quiet and reserved, seldom sharing in the after-cabin amusements, never laughing, and speaking very little; but she and George Talboys had been excellent friends throughout the passage.",3 """Does my cigar annoy you, Miss Morley?""",1 "he said, taking it out of his mouth.",2 """Not at all; pray do not leave off smoking.",2 I only came up to look at the sunset.,2 "What a lovely evening!""",3 """Yes, yes, I dare say,"" he answered, impatiently; ""yet so long, so long!",1 "Ten more interminable days and ten more weary nights before we land.""",1 """Yes,"" said Miss Morley, sighing.",1 """Do you wish the time shorter?""",2 """Do I?""",2 cried George.,2 """Indeed I do.",2 "Don't you?""",2 """Scarcely.""",1 """But is there no one you love in England?",3 "Is there no one you love looking out for your arrival?""",3 """I hope so,"" she said gravely.",1 "They were silent for some time, he smoking his cigar with a furious impatience, as if he could hasten the course of the vessel by his own restlessness; she looking out at the waning light with melancholy blue eyes—eyes that seemed to have faded with poring over closely-printed books and difficult needlework; eyes that had faded a little, perhaps, by reason of tears secretly shed in the lonely night.",0 """See!""",2 "said George, suddenly, pointing in another direction from that toward which Miss Morley was looking, ""there's the new moon!""",1 "She looked up at the pale crescent, her own face almost as pale and wan.",1 """This is the first time we have seen it.""",2 """We must wish!""",2 said George.,2 """I know what I wish.""",2 """What?""",2 """That we may get home quickly.""",2 """My wish is that we may find no disappointment when we get there,"" said the governess, sadly.",1 """Disappointment!""",1 "He started as if he had been struck, and asked what she meant by talking of disappointment.",1 """I mean this,"" she said, speaking rapidly, and with a restless motion of her thin hands; ""I mean that as the end of the voyage draws near, hope sinks in my heart; and a sick fear comes over me that at the last all may not be well.",1 "The person I go to meet may be changed in his feelings toward me; or he may retain all the old feeling until the moment of seeing me, and then lose it in a breath at sight of my poor wan face, for I was called a pretty girl, Mr. Talboys, when I sailed for Sydney, fifteen years ago; or he may be so changed by the world as to have grown selfish and mercenary, and he may welcome me for the sake of my fifteen years' savings.",2 "Again, he may be dead.",1 "He may have been well, perhaps, up to within a week of our landing, and in that last week may have taken a fever, and died an hour before our vessel anchors in the Mersey.",1 "I think of all these things, Mr. Talboys, and act the scenes over in my mind, and feel the anguish of them twenty times a day.",1 "Twenty times a day,"" she repeated; ""why I do it a thousand times a day.""",2 "George Talboys had stood motionless, with his cigar in his hand, listening to her so intently that, as she said the last words, his hold relaxed, and the cigar dropped in the water.",2 """I wonder,"" she continued, more to herself than to him, ""I wonder, looking back, to think how hopeful I was when the vessel sailed; I never thought then of disappointment, but I pictured the joy of meeting, imagining the very words that would be said, the very tones, the very looks; but for this last month of the voyage, day by day, and hour by hour my heart sinks and my hopeful fancies fade away, and I dread the end as much as if I knew that I was going to England to attend a funeral.""",3 "The young man suddenly changed his attitude, and turned his face full upon his companion, with a look of alarm.",1 She saw in the pale light that the color had faded from his cheek.,1 """What a fool!""",1 "he cried, striking his clenched fist upon the side of the vessel, ""what a fool I am to be frightened at this?",1 Why do you come and say these things to me?,2 "Why do you come and terrify me out of my senses, when I am going straight home to the woman I love; to a girl whose heart is as true as the light of Heaven; and in whom I no more expect to find any change than I do to see another sun rise in to-morrow's sky?",3 "Why do you come and try to put such fancies in my head when I am going home to my darling wife?""",3 """Your wife,"" she said; ""that is different.",2 There is no reason that my terrors should terrify you.,2 I am going to England to rejoin a man to whom I was engaged to be married fifteen years ago.,2 "He was too poor to marry then, and when I was offered a situation as governess in a rich Australian family, I persuaded him to let me accept it, so that I might leave him free and unfettered to win his way in the world, while I saved a little money to help us when we began life together.",4 "I never meant to stay away so long, but things have gone badly with him in England.",1 "That is my story, and you can understand my fears.",1 They need not influence you.,2 "Mine is an exceptional case.""",3 """So is mine,"" said George, impatiently.",1 """I tell you that mine is an exceptional case: although I swear to you that until this moment, I have never known a fear as to the result of my voyage home.",2 But you are right; your terrors have nothing to do with me.,3 You have been away fifteen years; all kinds of things may happen in fifteen years.,2 Now it is only three years and a half this very month since I left England.,2 "What can have happened in such a short time as that?""",2 "Miss Morley looked at him with a mournful smile, but did not speak.",1 "His feverish ardor, the freshness and impatience of his nature were so strange and new to her, that she looked at him half in admiration, half in pity.",1 """My pretty little wife!",3 "My gentle, innocent, loving little wife!",3 "Do you know, Miss Morley,"" he said, with all his old hopefulness of manner, ""that I left my little girl asleep, with her baby in her arms, and with nothing but a few blotted lines to tell her why her faithful husband had deserted her?""",2 """Deserted her!""",2 exclaimed the governess.,2 """Yes.",2 I was an ensign in a cavalry regiment when I first met my little darling.,3 "We were quartered at a stupid seaport town, where my pet lived with her shabby old father, a half-pay naval officer; a regular old humbug, as poor as Job, and with an eye for nothing but the main chance.",0 I saw through all his shallow tricks to catch one of us for his pretty daughter.,2 "I saw all the pitiable, contemptible, palpable traps he set for us big dragoons to walk into.",1 "I saw through his shabby-genteel dinners and public-house port; his fine talk of the grandeur of his family; his sham pride and independence, and the sham tears of his bleared old eyes when he talked of his only child.",3 "He was a drunken old hypocrite, and he was ready to sell my poor, little girl to the highest bidder.",1 "Luckily for me, I happened just then to be the highest bidder; for my father, is a rich man, Miss Morley, and as it was love at first sight on both sides, my darling and I made a match of it.",3 "No sooner, however, did my father hear that I had married a penniless little girl, the daughter of a tipsy old half-pay lieutenant, than he wrote me a furious letter, telling me he would never again hold any communication with me, and that my yearly allowance would stop from my wedding-day.",1 """As there was no remaining in such a regiment as mine, with nothing but my pay to live on, and my pretty little wife to keep, I sold out, thinking that before the money was exhausted, I should be sure to drop into something.",2 "I took my darling to Italy, and we lived there in splendid style as long as my two thousand pounds lasted; but when that began to dwindle down to a couple of hundred or so, we came back to England, and as my darling had a fancy for being near that tiresome old father of hers, we settled at the watering-place where he lived.",3 "Well, as soon as the old man heard that I had a couple of hundred pounds left, he expressed a wonderful degree of affection for us, and insisted on our boarding in his house.",4 "We consented, still to please my darling, who had just then a peculiar right to have every whim and fancy of her innocent heart indulged.",3 "We did board with him, and finally he fleeced us; but when I spoke of it to my little wife, she only shrugged her shoulders, and said she did not like to be unkind to her 'poor papa.'",2 "So poor papa made away with our little stock of money in no time; and as I felt that it was now becoming necessary to look about for something, I ran up to London, and tried to get a situation as a clerk in a merchant's office, or as accountant, or book-keeper, or something of that kind.",1 "But I suppose there was the stamp of a heavy dragoon about me, for do what I would I couldn't get anybody to believe in my capacity; and tired out, and down-hearted, I returned to my darling, to find her nursing a son and heir to his father's poverty.",1 "Poor little girl, she was very low-spirited; and when I told her that my London expedition had failed, she fairly broke down, and burst in to a storm of sobs and lamentations, telling me that I ought not to have married her if I could give her nothing but poverty and misery; and that I had done her a cruel wrong in making her my wife.",0 By heaven!,3 "Miss Morley, her tears and reproaches drove me almost mad; and I flew into a rage with her, myself, her father, the world, and everybody in it, and then ran out of the house.",0 "I walked about the streets all that day, half out of my mind, and with a strong inclination to throw myself into the sea, so as to leave my poor girl free to make a better match.",3 "'If I drown myself, her father must support her,' I thought; 'the old hypocrite could never refuse her a shelter; but while I live she has no claim on him.'",1 "I went down to a rickety old wooden pier, meaning to wait there till it was dark, and then drop quietly over the end of it into the water; but while I sat there smoking my pipe, and staring vacantly at the sea-gulls, two men came down, and one of them began to talk of the Australian gold-diggings, and the great things that were to be done there.",3 "It appeared that he was going to sail in a day or two, and he was trying to persuade his companion to join him in the expedition.",2 """I listened to these men for upward of an hour, following them up and down the pier, with my pipe in my mouth, and hearing all their talk.",2 "After this I fell into conversation with them myself, and ascertained that there was a vessel going to leave Liverpool in three days, by which vessel one of the men was going out.",1 "This man gave me all the information I required, and told me, moreover, that a stalwart young fellow, such as I was, could hardly fail to do well in the diggings.",2 "The thought flashed upon me so suddenly, that I grew hot and red in the face, and trembled in every limb with excitement.",3 "This was better than the water, at any rate.",3 "Suppose I stole away from my darling, leaving her safe under her father's roof, and went and made a fortune in the new world, and came back in a twelvemonth to throw it into her lap; for I was so sanguine in those days that I counted on making my fortune in a year or so.",3 "I thanked the man for his information, and late at night strolled homeward.",2 "It was bitter winter weather, but I had been too full of passion to feel cold, and I walked through the quiet streets, with the snow drifting in my face, and a desperate hopefulness in my heart.",1 "The old man was sitting drinking brandy-and-water in the little dining-room; and my wife was up-stairs, sleeping peacefully, with the baby on her breast.",3 "I sat down and wrote a few brief lines, which told her that I never had loved her better than now, when I seemed to desert her; that I was going to try my fortune in the new world, and that if I succeeded I should come back to bring her plenty and happiness; but that if I failed I should never look upon her face again.",4 "I divided the remainder of our money—something over forty pounds—into two equal portions, leaving one for her, and putting the other in my pocket.",2 "I knelt down and prayed for my wife and child, with my head upon the white counterpane that covered them.",2 "I wasn't much of a praying man at ordinary times, but God knows that was a heartfelt prayer.",3 "I kissed her once, and the baby once, and then crept out of the room.",1 "The dining-room door was open, and the old man was nodding over his paper.",2 "He looked up as he heard my step in the passage, and asked me where I was going.",2 "'To have a smoke in the street,' I answered; and as this was a common habit of mine he believed me.",1 "Three nights after I was out at sea, bound for Melbourne—a steerage passenger, with a digger's tools for my baggage, and about seven shillings in my pocket.""",2 """And you succeeded?""",3 asked Miss Morley.,1 """Not till I had long despaired of success; not until poverty and I had become such old companions and bed-fellows, that looking back at my past life, I wondered whether that dashing, reckless, extravagant, luxurious, champagne-drinking dragoon could have really been the same man who sat on the damp ground gnawing a moldy crust in the wilds of the new world.",1 "I clung to the memory of my darling, and the trust that I had in her love and truth was the one keystone that kept the fabric of my past life together—the one star that lit the thick black darkness of the future.",3 "I was hail-fellow-well-met with bad men; I was in the center of riot, drunkenness, and debauchery; but the purifying influence of my love kept me safe from all.",3 "Thin and gaunt, the half-starved shadow of what I once had been, I saw myself one day in a broken bit of looking-glass, and was frightened by my own face.",1 "But I toiled on through all; through disappointment and despair, rheumatism, fever, starvation; at the very gates of death, I toiled on steadily to the end; and in the end I conquered.""",0 "He was so brave in his energy and determination, in his proud triumph of success, and in the knowledge of the difficulties he had vanquished, that the pale governess could only look at him in wondering admiration.",4 """How brave you were!""",3 she said.,2 """Brave!""",3 "he cried, with a joyous peal of laughter; ""wasn't I working for my darling?",3 "Through all the dreary time of that probation, her pretty white hand seemed beckoning me onward to a happy future!",3 "Why, I have seen her under my wretched canvas tent sitting by my side, with her boy in her arms, as plainly as I had ever seen her in the one happy year of our wedded life.",2 "At last, one dreary foggy morning, just three months ago, with a drizzling rain wetting me to the skin, up to my neck in clay and mire, half-starved, enfeebled by fever, stiff with rheumatism, a monster nugget turned up under my spade, and I was in one minute the richest man in Australia.",0 "I fell down on the wet clay, with my lump of gold in the bosom of my shirt, and, for the first time in my life, cried like a child.",3 "I traveled post-haste to Sydney, realized my price, which was worth upward of £20,000, and a fortnight afterward took my passage for England in this vessel; and in ten days—in ten days I shall see my darling.""",3 """But in all that time did you never write to your wife?""",2 """Never, till the night before I left Sydney.",2 I could not write when everything looked so black.,2 I could not write and tell her that I was fighting hard with despair and death.,0 "I waited for better fortune, and when that came I wrote telling her that I should be in England almost as soon as my letter, and giving her an address at a coffee-house in London where she could write to me, telling me where to find her, though she is hardly likely to have left her father's house.""",3 "He fell into a reverie after this, and puffed meditatively at his cigar.",1 His companion did not disturb him.,1 "The last ray of summer daylight had died out, and the pale light of the crescent moon only remained.",1 "Presently George Talboys flung away his cigar, and turning to the governess, cried abruptly, ""Miss Morley, if, when I get to England, I hear that anything has happened to my wife, I shall fall down dead.""",0 """My dear Mr. Talboys, why do you think of these things?",2 God is very good to us; He will not afflict us beyond our power of endurance.,2 "I see all things, perhaps, in a melancholy light; for the long monotony of my life has given me too much time to think over my troubles.""",0 """And my life has been all action, privation, toil, alternate hope and despair; I have had no time to think upon the chances of anything happening to my darling.",1 "What a blind, reckless fool I have been!",0 "Three years and a half and not one line—one word from her, or from any mortal creature who knows her.",2 Heaven above!,3 "what may not have happened?""",2 "In the agitation of his mind he began to walk rapidly up and down the lonely deck, the governess following, and trying to soothe him.",2 """I swear to you, Miss Morley,"" he said, ""that till you spoke to me to-night, I never felt one shadow of fear, and now I have that sick, sinking dread at my heart which you talked of an hour ago.",0 "Let me alone, please, to get over it my own way.""",2 "She drew silently away from him, and seated herself by the side of the vessel, looking over into the water.",2 "George Talboys walked backward and forward for some time, with his head bent upon his breast, looking neither to the right nor the left, but in about a quarter of an hour he returned to the spot where the governess was seated.",1 """I have been praying,"" he said—""praying for my darling.""",3 "He spoke in a voice little above a whisper, and she saw his face ineffably calm in the moonlight.",3 The same August sun which had gone down behind the waste of waters glimmered redly upon the broad face of the old clock over that ivy-covered archway which leads into the gardens of Audley Court.,2 A fierce and crimson sunset.,1 "The mullioned windows and twinkling lattices are all ablaze with the red glory; the fading light flickers upon the leaves of the limes in the long avenue, and changes the still fish-pond into a sheet of burnished copper; even into those dim recesses of brier and brushwood, amidst which the old well is hidden, the crimson brightness penetrates in fitful flashes till the dank weeds and the rusty iron wheel and broken woodwork seem as if they were flecked with blood.",1 "The lowing of a cow in the quiet meadows, the splash of a trout in the fish-pond, the last notes of a tired bird, the creaking of wagon-wheels upon the distant road, every now and then breaking the evening silence, only made the stillness of the place seem more intense.",0 "It was almost oppressive, this twilight stillness.",1 "The very repose of the place grew painful from its intensity, and you felt as if a corpse must be lying somewhere within that gray and ivy-covered pile of building—so deathlike was the tranquillity of all around.",1 "As the clock over the archway struck eight, a door at the back of the house was softly opened, and a girl came out into the gardens.",1 "But even the presence of a human being scarcely broke the silence; for the girl crept slowly over the thick grass, and gliding into the avenue by the side of the fish-pond, disappeared in the rich shelter of the limes.",0 "She was not, perhaps, positively a pretty girl; but her appearance was of that order which is commonly called interesting.",4 "Interesting, it may be, because in the pale face and the light gray eyes, the small features and compressed lips, there was something which hinted at a power of repression and self-control not common in a woman of nineteen or twenty.",1 "She might have been pretty, I think, but for the one fault in her small oval face.",2 This fault was an absence of color.,1 Not one tinge of crimson flushed the waxen whiteness of her cheeks; not one shadow of brown redeemed the pale insipidity of her eyebrows and eyelashes; not one glimmer of gold or auburn relieved the dull flaxen of her hair.,2 Even her dress was spoiled by this same deficiency.,1 "The pale lavender muslin faded into a sickly gray, and the ribbon knotted round her throat melted into the same neutral hue.",0 "Her figure was slim and fragile, and in spite of her humble dress, she had something of the grace and carriage of a gentlewoman, but she was only a simple country girl, called Phoebe Marks, who had been nursemaid in Mr. Dawson's family, and whom Lady Audley had chosen for her maid after her marriage with Sir Michael.",2 "Of course, this was a wonderful piece of good fortune for Phoebe, who found her wages trebled and her work lightened in the well-ordered household at the Court; and who was therefore quite as much the object of envy among her particular friends as my lady herself to higher circles.",4 "A man, who was sitting on the broken wood-work of the well, started as the lady's-maid came out of the dim shade of the limes and stood before him among the weeds and brushwood.",2 "I have said before that this was a neglected spot; it lay in the midst of a low shrubbery, hidden away from the rest of the gardens, and only visible from the garret windows at the back of the west wing.",1 """Why, Phoebe,"" said the man, shutting a clasp-knife with which he had been stripping the bark from a blackthorn stake, ""you came upon me so still and sudden, that I thought you was an evil spirit.",1 "I've come across through the fields, and come in here at the gate agen the moat, and I was taking a rest before I came up to the house to ask if you was come back.""",2 """I can see the well from my bedroom window, Luke,"" Phoebe answered, pointing to an open lattice in one of the gables.",3 """I saw you sitting here, and came down to have a chat; it's better talking out here than in the house, where there's always somebody listening.""",3 "The man was a big, broad-shouldered, stupid-looking clod-hopper of about twenty-three years of age.",1 "His dark red hair grew low upon his forehead, and his bushy brows met over a pair of greenish gray eyes; his nose was large and well-shaped, but the mouth was coarse in form and animal in expression.",1 "Rosy-cheeked, red-haired, and bull-necked, he was not unlike one of the stout oxen grazing in the meadows round about the Court.",3 "The girl seated herself lightly upon the wood-work at his side, and put one of her hands, which had grown white in her new and easy service, about his thick neck.",3 """Are you glad to see me, Luke?""",3 she asked.,2 """Of course I'm glad, lass,"" he answered, boorishly, opening his knife again, and scraping away at the hedge-stake.",1 "They were first cousins, and had been play fellows in childhood, and sweethearts in early youth.",2 """You don't seem much as if you were glad,"" said the girl; ""you might look at me, Luke, and tell me if you think my journey has improved me.""",3 """It ain't put any color into your cheeks, my girl,"" he said, glancing up at her from under his lowering eyebrows; ""you're every bit as white as you was when you went away.""",2 """But they say traveling makes people genteel, Luke.",2 "I've been on the Continent with my lady, through all manner of curious places; and you know, when I was a child, Squire Horton's daughters taught me to speak a little French, and I found it so nice to be able to talk to the people abroad.""",3 """Genteel!""",2 "cried Luke Marks, with a hoarse laugh; ""who wants you to be genteel, I wonder?",3 "Not me, for one; when you're my wife you won't have overmuch time for gentility, my girl.",2 "French, too!",2 "Dang me, Phoebe, I suppose when we've saved money enough between us to buy a bit of a farm, you'll be parleyvooing to the cows?""",3 "She bit her lip as her lover spoke, and looked away.",3 "He went on cutting and chopping at a rude handle he was fashioning to the stake, whistling softly to himself all the while, and not once looking at his cousin.",1 "For some time they were silent, but by-and-by she said, with her face still turned away from her companion: ""What a fine thing it is for Miss Graham that was, to travel with her maid and her courier, and her chariot and four, and a husband that thinks there isn't one spot upon all the earth that's good enough for her to set her foot upon!""",4 """Ay, it is a fine thing, Phoebe, to have lots of money,"" answered Luke, ""and I hope you'll be warned by that, my lass, to save up your wages agin we get married.""",2 """Why, what was she in Mr. Dawson's house only three months ago?""",2 "continued the girl, as if she had not heard her cousin's speech.",2 """What was she but a servant like me?",3 "Taking wages and working for them as hard, or harder, than I did.",1 "You should have seen her shabby clothes, Luke—worn and patched, and darned and turned and twisted, yet always looking nice upon her, somehow.",1 She gives me more as lady's-maid here than ever she got from Mr. Dawson then.,2 "Why, I've seen her come out of the parlor with a few sovereigns and a little silver in her hand, that master had just given her for her quarter's salary; and now look at her!""",3 """Never you mind her,"" said Luke; ""take care of yourself, Phoebe; that's all you've got to do.",2 "What should you say to a public-house for you and me, by-and-by, my girl?",2 "There's a deal of money to be made out of a public-house.""",2 "The girl still sat with her face averted from her lover, her hands hanging listlessly in her lap, and her pale gray eyes fixed upon the last low streak of crimson dying out behind the trunks of the trees.",1 """You should see the inside of the house, Luke,"" she said; ""it's a tumbledown looking place enough outside; but you should see my lady's rooms—all pictures and gilding, and great looking-glasses that stretch from the ceiling to the floor.",3 "Painted ceilings, too, that cost hundreds of pounds, the housekeeper told her, and all done for her.""",2 """She's a lucky one,"" muttered Luke, with lazy indifference.",1 """You should have seen her while we were abroad, with a crowd of gentlemen hanging about her; Sir Michael not jealous of them, only proud to see her so much admired.",2 "You should have heard her laugh and talk with them; throwing all their compliments and fine speeches back at them, as it were, as if they had been pelting her with roses.",3 "She set everybody mad about her, wherever she went.",1 "Her singing, her playing, her painting, her dancing, her beautiful smile, and sunshiny ringlets!",3 "She was always the talk of a place, as long as we stayed in it.""",2 """Is she at home to-night?""",2 """No; she has gone out with Sir Michael to a dinner party at the Beeches.",2 "They've seven or eight miles to drive, and they won't be back till after eleven.""",2 """Then I'll tell you what, Phoebe, if the inside of the house is so mighty fine, I should like to have a look at it.""",4 """You shall, then.",2 "Mrs. Barton, the housekeeper, knows you by sight, and she can't object to my showing you some of the best rooms.""",2 It was almost dark when the cousins left the shrubbery and walked slowly to the house.,1 "The door by which they entered led into the servants' hall, on one side of which was the housekeeper's room.",3 "Phoebe Marks stopped for a moment to ask the housekeeper if she might take her cousin through some of the rooms, and having received permission to do so, lighted a candle at the lamp in the hall, and beckoned to Luke to follow her into the other part of the house.",3 "The long, black oak corridors were dim in the ghostly twilight—the light carried by Phoebe looking only a poor speck in the broad passages through which the girl led her cousin.",1 "Luke looked suspiciously over his shoulder now and then, half-frightened by the creaking of his own hob-nailed boots.",1 """It's a mortal dull place, Phoebe,"" he said, as they emerged from a passage into the principal hall, which was not yet lighted; ""I've heard tell of a murder that was done here in old times.""",1 """There are murders enough in these times, as to that, Luke,"" answered the girl, ascending the staircase, followed by the young man.",3 "She led the way through a great drawing-room, rich in satin and ormolu, buhl and inlaid cabinets, bronzes, cameos, statuettes, and trinkets, that glistened in the dusky light; then through a morning room, hung with proof engravings of valuable pictures; through this into an ante-chamber, where she stopped, holding the light above her head.",4 "The young man stared about him, open-mouthed and open-eyed.",2 """It's a rare fine place,"" he said, ""and must have cost a heap of money.""",3 """Look at the pictures on the walls,"" said Phoebe, glancing at the panels of the octagonal chamber, which were hung with Claudes and Poussins, Wouvermans and Cuyps.",1 """I've heard that those alone are worth a fortune.",3 "This is the entrance to my lady's apartments, Miss Graham that was.""",1 "She lifted a heavy green cloth curtain which hung across a doorway, and led the astonished countryman into a fairy-like boudoir, and thence to a dressing-room, in which the open doors of a wardrobe and a heap of dresses flung about a sofa showed that it still remained exactly as its occupants had left it.",3 """I've got all these things to put away before my lady comes home, Luke; you might sit down here while I do it, I shan't be long.""",2 "Her cousin looked around in gawky embarrassment, bewildered by the splendor of the room; and after some deliberation selected the most substantial of the chairs, on the extreme edge of which he carefully seated himself.",1 """I wish I could show you the jewels, Luke,"" said the girl; ""but I can't, for she always keeps the keys herself; that's the case on the dressing-table there.""",2 """What, that?""",2 "cried Luke, staring at the massive walnut-wood and brass inlaid casket.",2 """Why, that's big enough to hold every bit of clothes I've got!""",3 """And it's as full as it can be of diamonds, rubies, pearls and emeralds,"" answered Phoebe, busy as she spoke in folding the rustling silk dresses, and laying them one by one upon the shelves of the wardrobe.",2 "As she was shaking out the flounces of the last, a jingling sound caught her ear, and she put her hand into the pocket.",2 """I declare!""",2 "she exclaimed, ""my lady has left her keys in her pocket for once in a way; I can show you the jewelry, if you like, Luke.""",3 """Well, I may as well have a look at it, my girl,"" he said, rising from his chair and holding the light while his cousin unlocked the casket.",3 He uttered a cry of wonder when he saw the ornaments glittering on white satin cushions.,2 "He wanted to handle the delicate jewels; to pull them about, and find out their mercantile value.",3 Perhaps a pang of longing and envy shot through his heart as he thought how he would have liked to have taken one of them.,3 """Why, one of those diamond things would set us up in life, Phoebe, he said, turning a bracelet over and over in his big red hands.",2 """Put it down, Luke!",2 "Put it down directly!""",2 "cried the girl, with a look of terror; ""how can you speak about such things?""",1 "He laid the bracelet in its place with a reluctant sigh, and then continued his examination of the casket.",1 """What's this?""",2 "he asked presently, pointing to a brass knob in the frame-work of the box.",3 "He pushed it as he spoke, and a secret drawer, lined with purple velvet, flew out of the casket.",2 """Look ye here!""",2 "cried Luke, pleased at his discovery.",3 "Phoebe Marks threw down the dress she had been folding, and went over to the toilette table.",2 """Why, I never saw this before,"" she said; ""I wonder what there is in it?""",3 "There was not much in it; neither gold nor gems; only a baby's little worsted shoe rolled up in a piece of paper, and a tiny lock of pale and silky yellow hair, evidently taken from a baby's head.",3 Phoebe's eyes dilated as she examined the little packet.,2 """So this is what my lady hides in the secret drawer,"" she muttered.",2 """It's queer rubbish to keep in such a place,"" said Luke, carelessly.",1 The girl's thin lip curved into a curious smile.,3 """You will bear me witness where I found this,"" she said, putting the little parcel into her pocket.",2 """Why, Phoebe, you're not going to be such a fool as to take that,"" cried the young man.",1 """I'd rather have this than the diamond bracelet you would have liked to take,"" she answered; ""you shall have the public house, Luke.""",3 Robert Audley was supposed to be a barrister.,2 "As a barrister was his name inscribed in the law-list; as a barrister he had chambers in Figtree Court, Temple; as a barrister he had eaten the allotted number of dinners, which form the sublime ordeal through which the forensic aspirant wades on to fame and fortune.",3 "If these things can make a man a barrister, Robert Audley decidedly was one.",2 "But he had never either had a brief, or tried to get a brief, or even wished to have a brief in all those five years, during which his name had been painted upon one of the doors in Figtree Court.",2 "He was a handsome, lazy, care-for-nothing fellow, of about seven-and-twenty; the only son of a younger brother of Sir Michael Audley.",2 "His father had left him £400 a year, which his friends had advised him to increase by being called to the bar; and as he found it, after due consideration, more trouble to oppose the wishes of these friends than to eat so many dinners, and to take a set of chambers in the Temple, he adopted the latter course, and unblushingly called himself a barrister.",1 "Sometimes, when the weather was very hot, and he had exhausted himself with the exertion of smoking his German pipe, and reading French novels, he would stroll into the Temple Gardens, and lying in some shady spot, pale and cool, with his shirt collar turned down and a blue silk handkerchief tied loosely about his neck, would tell grave benchers that he had knocked himself up with over work.",1 "The sly old benchers laughed at the pleasant fiction; but they all agreed that Robert Audley was a good fellow; a generous-hearted fellow; rather a curious fellow, too, with a fund of sly wit and quiet humor, under his listless, dawdling, indifferent, irresolute manner.",2 A man who would never get on in the world; but who would not hurt a worm.,1 "Indeed, his chambers were converted into a perfect dog-kennel, by his habit of bringing home stray and benighted curs, who were attracted by his looks in the street, and followed him with abject fondness.",3 "Robert always spent the hunting season at Audley Court; not that he was distinguished as a Nimrod, for he would quietly trot to covert upon a mild-tempered, stout-limbed bay hack, and keep at a very respectful distance from the hard riders; his horse knowing quite as well as he did, that nothing was further from his thoughts than any desire to be in at the death.",2 "The young man was a great favorite with his uncle, and by no means despised by his pretty, gipsy-faced, light-hearted, hoydenish cousin, Miss Alicia Audley.",3 "It might have seemed to other men, that the partiality of a young lady who was sole heiress to a very fine estate, was rather well worth cultivating, but it did not so occur to Robert Audley.",3 "Alicia was a very nice girl, he said, a jolly girl, with no nonsense about her—a girl of a thousand; but this was the highest point to which enthusiasm could carry him.",3 The idea of turning his cousin's girlish liking for him to some good account never entered his idle brain.,3 "I doubt if he even had any correct notion of the amount of his uncle's fortune, and I am certain that he never for one moment calculated upon the chances of any part of that fortune ultimately coming to himself.",3 "So that when, one fine spring morning, about three months before the time of which I am writing, the postman brought him the wedding cards of Sir Michael and Lady Audley, together with a very indignant letter from his cousin, setting forth how her father had just married a wax-dollish young person, no older than Alicia herself, with flaxen ringlets, and a perpetual giggle; for I am sorry to say that Miss Audley's animus caused her thus to describe that pretty musical laugh which had been so much admired in the late Miss Lucy Graham—when, I say, these documents reached Robert Audley—they elicited neither vexation nor astonishment in the lymphatic nature of that gentleman.",1 He read Alicia's angry crossed and recrossed letter without so much as removing the amber mouth-piece of his German pipe from his mustached lips.,1 "When he had finished the perusal of the epistle, which he read with his dark eyebrows elevated to the center of his forehead (his only manner of expressing surprise, by the way) he deliberately threw that and the wedding cards into the waste-paper basket, and putting down his pipe, prepared himself for the exertion of thinking out the subject.",1 """I always said the old buffer would marry,"" he muttered, after about half an hour's revery.",2 "Alicia and my lady, the stepmother, will go at it hammer and tongs.",2 "I hope they won't quarrel in the hunting season, or say unpleasant things to each other at the dinner-table; rows always upset a man's digestion.",0 "At about twelve o'clock on the morning following that night upon which the events recorded in my last chapter had taken place, the baronet's nephew strolled out of the Temple, Blackfriarsward, on his way to the city.",2 "He had in an evil hour obliged some necessitous friend by putting the ancient name of Audley across a bill of accommodation, which bill not having been provided for by the drawer, Robert was called upon to pay.",1 "For this purpose he sauntered up Ludgate Hill, with his blue necktie fluttering in the hot August air, and thence to a refreshingly cool banking-house in a shady court out of St. Paul's churchyard, where he made arrangements for selling out a couple of hundred pounds' worth of consols.",3 "He had transacted this business, and was loitering at the corner of the court, waiting for a chance hansom to convey him back to the Temple, when he was almost knocked down by a man of about his own age, who dashed headlong into the narrow opening.",2 """Be so good as to look where you're going, my friend!""",3 "Robert remonstrated, mildly, to the impetuous passenger; ""you might give a man warning before you throw him down and trample upon him.""",0 "The stranger stopped suddenly, looked very hard at the speaker, and then gasped for breath.",1 """Bob!""",2 "he cried, in a tone expressive of the most intense astonishment; ""I only touched British ground after dark last night, and to think that I should meet you this morning.""",1 """I've seen you somewhere before, my bearded friend,"" said Mr. Audley, calmly scrutinizing the animated face of the other, ""but I'll be hanged if I can remember when or where.""",2 """What!""",2 "exclaimed the stranger, reproachfully.",1 """You don't mean to say that you've forgotten George Talboys?""",2 """No I have not!""",2 "said Robert, with an emphasis by no means usual to him; and then hooking his arm into that of his friend, he led him into the shady court, saying, with his old indifference, ""and now, George tell us all about it.""",1 George Talboys did tell him all about it.,2 "He told that very story which he had related ten days before to the pale governess on board the Argus; and then, hot and breathless, he said that he had twenty thousand pounds or so in his pocket, and that he wanted to bank it at Messrs.",2 "——, who had been his bankers many years before.",2 """If you'll believe me, I've only just left their counting-house,"" said Robert.",2 """I'll go back with you, and we'll settle that matter in five minutes.""",2 "They did contrive to settle it in about a quarter of an hour; and then Robert Audley was for starting off immediately for the Crown and Scepter, at Greenwich, or the Castle, at Richmond, where they could have a bit of dinner, and talk over those good old times when they were together at Eton.",2 "But George told his friend that before he went anywhere, before he shaved or broke his fast, or in any way refreshed himself after a night journey from Liverpool by express train, he must call at a certain coffee-house in Bridge street, Westminster, where he expected to find a letter from his wife.",3 "As they dashed through Ludgate Hill, Fleet street, and the Strand, in a fast hansom, George Talboys poured into his friend's ear all those wild hopes and dreams which had usurped such a dominion over his sanguine nature.",2 """I shall take a villa on the banks of the Thames, Bob,"" he said, ""for the little wife and myself; and we'll have a yacht, Bob, old boy, and you shall lie on the deck and smoke, while my pretty one plays her guitar and sings songs to us.",1 "She's for all the world like one of those what's-its-names, who got poor old Ulysses into trouble,"" added the young man, whose classic lore was not very great.",3 "The waiters at the Westminster coffee-house stared at the hollow-eyed, unshaven stranger, with his clothes of colonial cut, and his boisterous, excited manner; but he had been an old frequenter of the place in his military days, and when they heard who he was they flew to do his bidding.",1 "He did not want much—only a bottle of soda-water, and to know if there was a letter at the bar directed to George Talboys.",2 The waiter brought the soda-water before the young men had seated themselves in a shady box near the disused fire-place.,1 No; there was no letter for that name.,2 "The waiter said it with consummate indifference, while he mechanically dusted the little mahogany table.",2 George's face blanched to a deadly whiteness.,1 """Talboys,"" he said; ""perhaps you didn't hear the name distinctly—T, A, L, B, O, Y, S.",2 "Go and look again, there must be a letter.""",2 "The waiter shrugged his shoulders as he left the room, and returned in three minutes to say that there was no name at all resembling Talboys in the letter rack.",2 "There was Brown, and Sanderson, and Pinchbeck; only three letters altogether.",2 "The young man drank his soda-water in silence, and then, leaning his elbows on the table, covered his face with his hands.",2 "There was something in his manner which told Robert Audley that his disappointment, trifling as it may appear, was in reality a very bitter one.",1 "He seated himself opposite to his friend, but did not attempt to address him.",2 "By-and-by George looked up, and mechanically taking a greasy Times newspaper of the day before from a heap of journals on the table, stared vacantly at the first page.",1 "I cannot tell how long he sat blankly staring at one paragraph among the list of deaths, before his dazed brain took in its full meaning; but after considerable pause he pushed the newspaper over to Robert Audley, and with a face that had changed from its dark bronze to a sickly, chalky grayish white, and with an awful calmness in his manner, he pointed with his finger to a line which ran thus: ""On the 24th inst., at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, Helen Talboys, aged 22.""",0 "Yes, there it was in black and white—""Helen Talboys, aged 22.""",2 "When George told the governess on board the Argus that if he heard any evil tidings of his wife he should drop down dead, he spoke in perfect good faith; and yet, here were the worst tidings that could come to him, and he sat rigid, white and helpless, staring stupidly at the shocked face of his friend.",0 The suddenness of the blow had stunned him.,2 "In this strange and bewildered state of mind he began to wonder what had happened, and why it was that one line in the Times newspaper could have so horrible an effect upon him.",1 "Then by degrees even this vague consciousness of his misfortune faded slowly out of his mind, succeeded by a painful consciousness of external things.",0 "The hot August sunshine, the dusty window-panes and shabby-painted blinds, a file of fly-blown play-bills fastened to the wall, the black and empty fire-places, a bald-headed old man nodding over the Morning Advertizer, the slip-shod waiter folding a tumbled table-cloth, and Robert Audley's handsome face looking at him full of compassionate alarm—he knew that all these things took gigantic proportions, and then, one by one, melted into dark blots and swam before his eyes, He knew that there was a great noise, as of half a dozen furious steam-engines tearing and grinding in his ears, and he knew nothing more—except that somebody or something fell heavily to the ground.",0 "He opened his eyes upon the dusky evening in a cool and shaded room, the silence only broken by the rumbling of wheels at a distance.",1 "He looked about him wonderingly, but half indifferently.",2 "His old friend, Robert Audley, was seated by his side smoking.",2 "George was lying on a low iron bedstead opposite to an open window, in which there was a stand of flowers and two or three birds in cages.",1 """You don't mind the pipe, do you, George?""",2 "his friend asked, quietly.",2 """No.""",2 "He lay for some time looking at the flowers and the birds; one canary was singing a shrill hymn to the setting sun. ""Do the birds annoy you, George?",1 "Shall I take them out of the room?""",2 """No; I like to hear them sing.""",3 "Robert Audley knocked the ashes out of his pipe, laid the precious meerschaum tenderly upon the mantelpiece, and going into the next room, returned presently with a cup of strong tea.",4 """Take this, George,"" he said, as he placed the cup on a little table close to George's pillow; ""it will do your head good.""",3 "The young man did not answer, but looked slowly round the room, and then at his friend's grave face.",1 """Bob,"" he said, ""where are we?""",2 """In my chambers, dear boy, in the Temple.",2 "You have no lodgings of your own, so you may as well stay with me while you're in town.""",3 "George passed his hand once or twice across his forehead, and then, in a hesitating manner, said, quietly: ""That newspaper this morning, Bob; what was it?""",2 """Never mind just now, old boy; drink some tea.""",2 """Yes, yes,"" cried George, impatiently, raising himself upon the bed, and staring about him with hollow eyes.",1 """I remember all about it.",2 Helen!,2 my Helen!,2 "my wife, my darling, my only love!",3 "Dead, dead!""",1 """George,"" said Robert Audley, laying his hand gently upon the young man's arm, ""you must remember that the person whose name you saw in the paper may not be your wife.",2 "There may have been some other Helen Talboys.""",2 """No, no!""",2 "he cried; ""the age corresponds with hers, and Talboys is such an uncommon name.""",2 """It may be a misprint for Talbot.""",2 """No, no, no; my wife is dead!""",1 "He shook off Robert's restraining hand, and rising from the bed, walked straight to the door.",2 """Where are you going?""",2 exclaimed his friend.,2 """To Ventnor, to see her grave.""",2 """Not to-night, George, not to-night.",2 "I will go with you myself by the first train to-morrow.""",2 "Robert led him back to the bed, and gently forced him to lie down again.",2 "He then gave him an opiate, which had been left for him by the medical man whom they had called in at the coffee-house in Bridge street, when George fainted.",2 "So George Talboys fell into a heavy slumber, and dreamed that he went to Ventnor, to find his wife alive and happy, but wrinkled, old, and gray, and to find his son grown into a young man.",1 "Early the next morning he was seated opposite to Robert Audley in the first-class carriage of an express, whirling through the pretty open country toward Portsmouth.",3 They landed at Ventnor under the burning heat of the midday sun.,1 "As the two young men came from the steamer, the people on the pier stared at George's white face and untrimmed beard.",2 """What are we to do, George?""",2 Robert Audley asked.,2 """We have no clew to finding the people you want to see.""",2 "The young man looked at him with a pitiful, bewildered expression.",1 "The big dragoon was as helpless as a baby; and Robert Audley, the most vacillating and unenergetic of men, found himself called upon to act for another.",1 "He rose superior to himself, and equal to the occasion.",3 """Had we not better ask at one of the hotels about a Mrs. Talboys, George?""",3 he said.,2 """Her father's name was Maldon,"" George muttered; ""he could never have sent her here to die alone.""",1 They said nothing more; but Robert walked straight to a hotel where he inquired for a Mr. Maldon.,2 "Yes, they told him, there was a gentleman of that name stopping at Ventnor, a Captain Maldon; his daughter was lately dead.",1 The waiter would go and inquire for the address.,2 "The hotel was a busy place at this season; people hurrying in and out, and a great bustle of grooms and waiters about the halls.",3 "George Talboys leaned against the doorpost, with much the same look in his face, as that which had frightened his friend in the Westminister coffee-house.",2 The worst was confirmed now.,1 "His wife, Captain Maldon's daughter was dead.",1 "The waiter returned in about five minutes to say that Captain Maldon was lodging at Lansdowne Cottage, No. 4.",2 "They easily found the house, a shabby, low-windowed cottage, looking toward the water.",1 Was Captain Maldon at home?,2 "No, the landlady said; he had gone out on the beach with his little grandson.",2 Would the gentleman walk in and sit down a bit?,2 "George mechanically followed his friend into the little front parlor—dusty, shabbily furnished, and disorderly, with a child's broken toys scattered on the floor, and the scent of stale tobacco hanging about the muslin window-curtains.",0 """Look!""",2 "said George, pointing to a picture over the mantelpiece.",2 "It was his own portrait, painted in the old dragooning days.",2 "A pretty good likeness, representing him in uniform, with his charger in the background.",3 Perhaps the most animated of men would have been scarcely so wise a comforter as Robert Audley.,2 "He did not utter a word to the stricken widower, but quietly seated himself with his back to George, looking out of the open window.",1 "For some time the young man wandered restlessly about the room, looking at and sometimes touching the nick-nacks lying here and there.",1 "Her workbox, with an unfinished piece of work; her album full of extracts from Byron and Moore, written in his own scrawling hand; some books which he had given her, and a bunch of withered flowers in a vase they had bought in Italy.",2 """Her portrait used to hang by the side of mine,"" he muttered; ""I wonder what they have done with it.""",2 "By-and-by he said, after about an hour's silence: ""I should like to see the woman of the house; I should like to ask her about—"" He broke down, and buried his face in his hands.",2 Robert summoned the landlady.,2 "She was a good-natured garrulous creature, accustomed to sickness and death, for many of her lodgers came to her to die.",1 "She told all the particulars of Mrs. Talboys' last hours; how she had come to Ventnor only ten days before her death, in the last stage of decline; and how, day by day, she had gradually, but surely, sunk under the fatal malady.",0 Was the gentleman any relative?,2 "she asked of Robert Audley, as George sobbed aloud.",2 """Yes, he is the lady's husband.""",2 """What!""",2 "the woman cried; ""him as deserted her so cruel, and left her with her pretty boy upon her poor old father's hands, which Captain Maldon has told me often, with the tears in his poor eyes?""",1 """I did not desert her,"" George cried out; and then he told the history of his three years' struggle.",1 """Did she speak of me?""",2 "he asked; ""did she speak of me—at—at the last?""",2 """No, she went off as quiet as a lamb.",3 "She said very little from the first; but the last day she knew nobody, not even her little boy, nor her poor old father, who took on awful.",1 "Once she went off wild-like, talking about her mother, and about the cruel shame it was to leave her to die in a strange place, till it was quite pitiful to hear her.""",0 """Her mother died when she was quite a child,"" said George.",1 """To think that she should remember her and speak of her, but never once of me.""",2 The woman took him into the little bedroom in which his wife had died.,1 "He knelt down by the bed and kissed the pillow tenderly, the landlady crying as he did so.",3 "While he was kneeling, praying, perhaps, with his face buried in this humble, snow-white pillow, the woman took something from a drawer.",3 She gave it to him when he rose from his knees; it was a long tress of hair wrapped in silver paper.,2 """I cut this off when she lay in her coffin,"" she said, ""poor dear?""",1 He pressed the soft lock to his lips.,3 """Yes,"" he murmured; ""this is the dear hair that I have kissed so often when her head lay upon my shoulder.",2 "But it always had a rippling wave in it then, and now it seems smooth and straight.""",3 """It changes in illness,"" said the landlady.",1 """If you'd like to see where they have laid her, Mr. Talboys, my little boy shall show you the way to the churchyard.""",3 "So George Talboys and his faithful friend walked to the quiet spot, where, beneath a mound of earth, to which the patches of fresh turf hardly adhered, lay that wife of whose welcoming smile George had dreamed so often in the far antipodes.",4 "Robert left the young man by the side of this newly-made grave, and returning in about a quarter of an hour, found that he had not once stirred.",2 "He looked up presently, and said that if there was a stone-mason's anywhere near he should like to give an order.",3 "They very easily found the stonemason, and sitting down amidst the fragmentary litter of the man's yard, George Talboys wrote in pencil this brief inscription for the headstone of his dead wife's grave: Sacred to the Memory of HELEN, THE BELOVED WIFE OF GEORGE TALBOYS, ""Who departed this life August 24th, 18—, aged 22, Deeply regretted by her sorrowing Husband.",1 "When they returned to Lansdowne Cottage they found the old man had not yet come in, so they walked down to the beach to look for him.",2 "After a brief search they found him, sitting upon a heap of pebbles, reading a newspaper and eating filberts.",2 "The little boy was at some distance from his grandfather, digging in the sand with a wooden spade.",1 "The crape round the old man's shabby hat, and the child's poor little black frock, went to George's heart.",1 Go where he would he met fresh confirmation of this great grief of his life.,3 His wife was dead.,1 """Mr. Maldon,"" he said, as he approached his father-in-law.",2 "The old man looked up, and, dropping his newspaper, rose from the pebbles with a ceremonious bow.",2 "His faded light hair was tinged with gray; he had a pinched hook nose; watery blue eyes, and an irresolute-looking mouth; he wore his shabby dress with an affectation of foppish gentility; an eye-glass dangled over his closely buttoned-up waistcoat, and he carried a cane in his ungloved hand.",1 """Great Heaven!""",3 "cried George, ""don't you know me?""",2 "Mr. Maldon started and colored violently, with something of a frightened look, as he recognized his son-in-law.",1 """My dear boy,"" he said, ""I did not; for the first moment I did not.",2 That beard makes such a difference.,2 "You find the beard makes a great difference, do you not, sir?""",3 "he said, appealing to Robert.",3 """Great heavens!""",3 "exclaimed George Talboys, ""is this the way you welcome me?",3 "I come to England to find my wife dead within a week of my touching land, and you begin to chatter to me about my beard—you, her father!""",1 """True!",2 "true!""",2 "muttered the old man, wiping his bloodshot eyes; ""a sad shock, a sad shock, my dear George.",1 "If you'd only been here a week earlier.""",2 """If I had,"" cried George, in an outburst of grief and passion, ""I scarcely think that I would have let her die.",0 I would have disputed for her with death.,1 I would!,2 I would!,2 Oh God!,2 "why did not the Argus go down with every soul on board her before I came to see this day?""",2 "He began to walk up and down the beach, his father-in-law looking helplessly at him, rubbing his feeble eyes with a handkerchief.",1 """I've a strong notion that that old man didn't treat his daughter too well,"" thought Robert, as he watched the half-pay lieutenant.",3 """He seems, for some reason or other, to be half afraid of George.""",1 "While the agitated young man walked up and down in a fever of regret and despair, the child ran to his grandfather, and clung about the tails of his coat.",0 """Come home, grandpa, come home,"" he said.",2 """I'm tired.""",1 "George Talboys turned at the sound of the babyish voice, and looked long and earnestly at the boy.",3 He had his father's brown eyes and dark hair.,1 """My darling!",3 "my darling!""",3 "said George, taking the child in his arms, ""I am your father, come across the sea to find you.",2 "Will you love me?""",3 The little fellow pushed him away.,2 """I don't know you,"" he said.",2 """I love grandpa and Mrs. Monks at Southampton.""",3 """Georgey has a temper of his own, sir,"" said the old man.",1 """He has been spoiled.""",1 "They walked slowly back to the cottage, and once more George Talboys told the history of that desertion which had seemed so cruel.",0 "He told, too, of the twenty thousand pounds banked by him the day before.",2 "He had not the heart to ask any questions about the past, and his father-in-law only told him that a few months after his departure they had gone from the place where George left them to live at Southampton, where Helen got a few pupils for the piano, and where they managed pretty well till her health failed, and she fell into the decline of which she died.",1 Like most sad stories it was a very brief one.,2 """The boy seems fond of you, Mr. Maldon,"" said George, after a pause.",3 """Yes, yes,"" answered the old man, smoothing the child's curling hair; ""yes.",2 "Georgey is very fond of his grandfather.""",3 """Then he had better stop with you.",3 The interest of my money will be about six hundred a year.,2 "You can draw a hundred of that for Georgey's education, leaving the rest to accumulate till he is of age.",2 "My friend here will be trustee, and if he will undertake the charge, I will appoint him guardian to the boy, allowing him for the present to remain under your care.""",2 """But why not take care of him yourself, George?""",2 asked Robert Audley.,2 """Because I shall sail in the very next vessel that leaves Liverpool for Australia.",2 I shall be better in the diggings or the backwoods than ever I could be here.,2 "I'm broken for a civilized life from this hour, Bob.""",1 The old man's weak eyes sparkled as George declared this determination.,1 """My poor boy, I think you're right,"" he said, ""I really think you're right.",2 "The change, the wild life, the—the—"" He hesitated and broke down as Robert looked earnestly at him.",1 """You're in a great hurry to get rid of your son-in-law, I think, Mr. Maldon,"" he said, gravely.",2 """Get rid of him, dear boy!",2 "Oh, no, no!",2 "But for his own sake, my dear sir, for his own sake, you know.""",2 """I think for his own sake he'd much better stay in England and look after his son,"" said Robert.",3 """But I tell you I can't,"" cried George; ""every inch of this accursed ground is hateful to me—I want to run out of it as I would out of a graveyard.",1 "I'll go back to town to-night, get that business about the money settled early to-morrow morning, and start for Liverpool without a moment's delay.",1 "I shall be better when I've put half the world between me and her grave.""",3 """Before he left the house he stole out to the landlady, and asked some more questions about his dead wife.",1 """Were they poor?""",1 "he asked, ""were they pinched for money while she was ill?""",2 """Oh, no!""",2 "the woman answered; ""though the captain dresses shabby, he has always plenty of sovereigns in his purse.",1 "The poor lady wanted for nothing.""",1 "George was relieved at this, though it puzzled him to know where the drunken half-pay lieutenant could have contrived to find money for all the expenses of his daughter's illness.",0 "But he was too thoroughly broken down by the calamity which had befallen him to be able to think much of anything, so he asked no further questions, but walked with his father-in-law and Robert Audley down to the boat by which they were to cross to Portsmouth.",1 The old man bade Robert a very ceremonious adieu.,2 """You did not introduce me to your friend, by-the-bye, my dear boy,"" he said.",2 "George stared at him, muttered something indistinct, and ran down the ladder to the boat before Mr. Maldon could repeat his request.",2 "The steamer sped away through the sunset, and the outline of the island melted in the horizon as they neared the opposite shore.",2 """To think,"" said George, ""that two nights ago, at this time, I was steaming into Liverpool, full of the hope of clasping her to my heart, and to-night I am going away from her grave!""",2 The document which appointed Robert Audley as guardian to little George Talboys was drawn up in a solicitor's office the next morning.,2 """It's a great responsibility,"" exclaimed Robert; ""I, guardian to anybody or anything!",3 "I, who never in my life could take care of myself!""",2 """I trust in your noble heart, Bob,"" said George.",3 """I know you will take care of my poor orphan boy, and see that he is well used by his grandfather.",1 "I shall only draw enough from Georgey's fortune to take me back to Sydney, and then begin my old work again.""",4 "But it seemed as if George was destined to be himself the guardian of his son; for when he reached Liverpool, he found that a vessel had just sailed, and that there would not be another for a month; so he returned to London, and once more threw himself upon Robert Audley's hospitality.",2 "The barrister received him with open arms; he gave him the room with the birds and flowers, and had a bed put up in his dressing-room for himself.",2 Grief is so selfish that George did not know the sacrifices his friend made for his comfort.,1 "He only knew that for him the sun was darkened, and the business of life done.",1 "He sat all day long smoking cigars, and staring at the flowers and canaries, chafing for the time to pass that he might be far out at sea.",2 "But just as the hour was drawing near for the sailing of the vessel, Robert Audley came in one day, full of a great scheme.",3 "A friend of his, another of those barristers whose last thought is of a brief, was going to St. Petersburg to spend the winter, and wanted Robert to accompany him.",2 Robert would only go on condition that George went too.,2 "For a long time the young man resisted; but when he found that Robert was, in a quiet way, thoroughly determined upon not going without him, he gave in, and consented to join the party.",3 What did it matter?,2 he said.,2 One place was the same to him as another; anywhere out of England; what did he care where?,2 "This was not a very cheerful way of looking at things, but Robert Audley was quite satisfied with having won his consent.",4 "The three young men started under very favorable circumstances, carrying letters of introduction to the most influential inhabitants of the Russian capital.",3 "Before leaving England, Robert wrote to his cousin Alicia, telling her of his intended departure with his old friend George Talboys, whom he had lately met for the first time after a lapse of years, and who had just lost his wife.",1 "Alicia's reply came by return post, and ran thus: ""MY DEAR ROBERT—How cruel of you to run away to that horrid St. Petersburg before the hunting season!",1 "I have heard that people lose their noses in that disagreeable climate, and as yours is rather a long one, I should advise you to return before the very severe weather sets in.",0 What sort of person is this Mr. Talboys?,2 If he is very agreeable you may bring him to the Court as soon as you return from your travels.,3 Lady Audley tells me to request you to secure her a set of sables.,3 "You are not to consider the price, but to be sure that they are the handsomest that can be obtained.",2 "Papa is perfectly absurd about his new wife, and she and I cannot get on together at all; not that she is disagreeable to me, for, as far as that goes, she makes herself agreeable to every one; but she is so irretrievably childish and silly.",1 """Believe me to be, my dear Robert.",2 """Your affectionate cousin, ""ALICIA AUDLEY."" The first year of George Talboys' widowhood passed away, the deep band of crepe about his hat grew brown and dusty, and as the last burning day of another August faded out, he sat smoking cigars in the quiet chambers of Figtree Court, much as he had done the year before, when the horror of his grief was new to him, and every object in life, however trifling or however important, seemed saturated with his one great sorrow.",1 "But the big ex-dragoon had survived his affliction by a twelvemonth, and hard as it may be to have to tell it, he did not look much the worse for it.",0 "Heaven knows what wasted agonies of remorse and self-reproach may not have racked George's honest heart, as he lay awake at nights thinking of the wife he had abandoned in the pursuit of a fortune, which she never lived to share.",1 "Once, while they were abroad, Robert Audley ventured to congratulate him upon his recovered spirits.",3 He burst into a bitter laugh.,1 """Do you know, Bob,"" he said, ""that when some of our fellows were wounded in India, they came home, bringing bullets inside them.",2 "They did not talk of them, and they were stout and hearty, and looked as well, perhaps, as you or I; but every change in the weather, however slight, every variation of the atmosphere, however trifling, brought back the old agony of their wounds as sharp as ever they had felt it on the battle-field.",2 "I've had my wound, Bob; I carry the bullet still, and I shall carry it into my coffin.""",1 "The travelers returned from St. Petersburg in the spring, and George again took up his quarters at his old friend's chambers, only leaving them now and then to run down to Southampton and take a look at his little boy.",2 "He always went loaded with toys and sweetmeats to give to the child; but, for all this, Georgey would not become very familiar with his papa, and the young man's heart sickened as he began to fancy that even his child was lost to him.",2 """What can I do?""",2 he thought.,2 """If I take him away from his grandfather, I shall break his heart; if I let him remain, he will grow up a stranger to me, and care more for that drunken old hypocrite than for his own father.",0 "But then, what could an ignorant, heavy dragoon like me do with such a child?",1 "What could I teach him, except to smoke cigars and idle around all day with his hands in his pockets?""",1 "So the anniversary of that 30th of August, upon which George had seen the advertisement of his wife's death in the Times newspaper, came round for the first time, and the young man put off his black clothes and the shabby crape from his hat, and laid his mournful garments in a trunk in which he kept a packet of his wife's letters, her portrait, and that lock of hair which had been cut from her head after death.",0 "Robert Audley had never seen either the letters, the portrait, or the long tress of silky hair; nor, indeed, had George ever mentioned the name of his dead wife after that one day at Ventnor, on which he learned the full particulars of her decease.",1 """I shall write to my cousin Alicia to-day, George,"" the young barrister said, upon this very 30th of August.",2 """Do you know that the day after to-morrow is the 1st of September?",2 "I shall write and tell her that we will both run down to the Court for a week's shooting.""",2 """No, no, Bob; go by yourself; they don't want me, and I'd rather—"" ""Bury yourself in Figtree Court, with no company but my dogs and canaries!",2 "No, George, you shall do nothing of the kind.""",2 """But I don't care for shooting.""",2 """And do you suppose I care for it?""",2 "cried Robert, with charming naivete.",3 """Why, man, I don't know a partridge from a pigeon, and it might be the 1st of April, instead of the 1st of September, for aught I care.",2 "I never hurt a bird in my life, but I have hurt my own shoulder with the weight of my gun.",1 "I only go down to Essex for the change of air, the good dinners, and the sight of my uncle's honest, handsome face.",4 "Besides, this time I've another inducement, as I want to see this fair-haired paragon—my new aunt.",3 "You'll go with me, George?""",2 """Yes, if you really wish it.""",2 "The quiet form his grief had taken after its first brief violence, left him as submissive as a child to the will of his friend; ready to go anywhere or do anything; never enjoying himself, or originating any enjoyment, but joining in the pleasures of others with a hopeless, uncomplaining, unobtrusive resignation peculiar to his simple nature.",1 "But the return of post brought a letter from Alicia Audley, to say that the two young men could not be received at the Court.",2 """There are seventeen spare bed-rooms,"" wrote the young lady, in an indignant running hand, ""but for all that, my dear Robert, you can't come; for my lady has taken it into her silly head that she is too ill to entertain visitors (there is no more the matter with her than there is with me), and she cannot have gentlemen (great, rough men, she says) in the house.",1 "Please apologize to your friend Mr. Talboys, and tell him that papa expects to see you both in the hunting season.""",2 """My lady's airs and graces shan't keep us out of Essex for all that,"" said Robert, as he twisted the letter into a pipe-light for his big meerschaum.",1 """I'll tell you what we'll do, George: there's a glorious inn at Audley, and plenty of fishing in the neighborhood; we'll go there and have a week's sport.",3 "Fishing is much better than shooting; you've only to lie on a bank and stare at your line; I don't find that you often catch anything, but it's very pleasant.""",3 "He held the twisted letter to the feeble spark of fire glimmering in the grate, as he spoke, and then changing his mind, deliberately unfolded it, and smoothed the crumpled paper with his hand.",0 """Poor little Alicia!""",1 "he said, thoughtfully; ""it's rather hard to treat her letter so cavalierly—I'll keep it;"" upon which Mr. Robert Audley put the note back into its envelope, and afterward thrust it into a pigeon-hole in his office desk, marked important.",3 "Heaven knows what wonderful documents there were in this particular pigeon-hole, but I do not think it likely to have contained anything of great judicial value.",4 "If any one could at that moment have told the young barrister that so simple a thing as his cousin's brief letter would one day come to be a link in that terrible chain of evidence afterward to be slowly forged in the only criminal case in which he was ever to be concerned, perhaps Mr. Robert Audley would have lifted his eyebrows a little higher than usual.",0 "So the two young men left London the next day, with one portmanteau and a rod and tackle between them, and reached the straggling, old-fashioned, fast-decaying village of Audley, in time to order a good dinner at the Sun Inn.",3 "Audley Court was about three-quarters of a mile from the village, lying, as I have said, deep down in the hollow, shut in by luxuriant timber.",1 "You could only reach it by a cross-road bordered by trees, and as trimly kept as the avenues in a gentleman's park.",2 "It was a lonely place enough, even in all its rustic beauty, for so bright a creature as the late Miss Lucy Graham, but the generous baronet had transformed the interior of the gray old mansion into a little palace for his young wife, and Lady Audley seemed as happy as a child surrounded by new and costly toys.",3 "In her better fortunes, as in her old days of dependence, wherever she went she seemed to take sunshine and gladness with her.",3 "In spite of Miss Alicia's undisguised contempt for her step-mother's childishness and frivolity, Lucy was better loved and more admired than the baronet's daughter.",1 That very childishness had a charm which few could resist.,3 "The innocence and candor of an infant beamed in Lady Audley's fair face, and shone out of her large and liquid blue eyes.",3 "The rosy lips, the delicate nose, the profusion of fair ringlets, all contributed to preserve to her beauty the character of extreme youth and freshness.",4 "She owned to twenty years of age, but it was hard to believe her more than seventeen.",1 "Her fragile figure, which she loved to dress in heavy velvets, and stiff, rustling silks, till she looked like a child tricked out for a masquerade, was as girlish as if she had just left the nursery.",1 All her amusements were childish.,1 "She hated reading, or study of any kind, and loved society.",2 "Rather than be alone, she would admit Phoebe Marks into her confidence, and loll on one of the sofas in her luxurious dressing-room, discussing a new costume for some coming dinner-party; or sit chattering to the girl with her jewel-box beside her, upon the satin cushions, and Sir Michael's presents spread out in her lap, while she counted and admired her treasures.",3 "She had appeared at several public balls at Chelmsford and Colchester, and was immediately established as the belle of the county.",2 "Pleased with her high position and her handsome house; with every caprice gratified, every whim indulged; admired and caressed wherever she went; fond of her generous husband; rich in a noble allowance of pin-money; with no poor relations to worry her with claims upon her purse or patronage; it would have been hard to find in the County of Essex a more fortunate creature than Lucy, Lady Audley.",4 The two young men loitered over the dinner-table in the private sitting-room at the Sun Inn.,2 "The windows were thrown wide open, and the fresh country air blew in upon them as they dined.",3 "The weather was lovely; the foliage of the woods touched here and there with faint gleams of the earliest tints of autumn; the yellow corn still standing in some of the fields, in others just falling under the shining sickle; while in the narrow lanes you met great wagons drawn by broad-chested cart-horses, carrying home the rich golden store.",3 "To any one who has been, during the hot summer months, pent up in London, there is in the first taste of rustic life a kind of sensuous rapture scarcely to be described.",3 "George Talboys felt this, and in this he experienced the nearest approach to enjoyment that he had ever known since his wife's death.",2 The clock struck five as they finished dinner.,1 """Put on your hat, George,"" said Robert Audley; ""they don't dine at the Court till seven; we shall have time to stroll down and see the old place and its inhabitants.""",2 "The landlord, who had come into the room with a bottle of wine, looked up as the young man spoke.",2 """I beg your pardon, Mr. Audley,"" he said, ""but if you want to see your uncle, you'll lose your time by going to the Court just now.",1 "Sir Michael and my lady and Miss Alicia have all gone to the races up at Chorley, and they won't be back till nigh upon eight o'clock, most likely.",1 "They must pass by here to go home.""",2 "Under these circumstances of course it was no use going to the Court, so the two young men strolled through the village and looked at the old church, and then went and reconnoitered the streams in which they were to fish the next day, and by such means beguiled the time until after seven o'clock.",2 "At about a quarter past that hour they returned to the inn, and seating themselves in the open window, lit their cigars and looked out at the peaceful prospect.",3 We hear every day of murders committed in the country.,2 "Brutal and treacherous murders; slow, protracted agonies from poisons administered by some kindred hand; sudden and violent deaths by cruel blows, inflicted with a stake cut from some spreading oak, whose every shadow promised—peace.",0 "In the county of which I write, I have been shown a meadow in which, on a quiet summer Sunday evening, a young farmer murdered the girl who had loved and trusted him; and yet, even now, with the stain of that foul deed upon it, the aspect of the spot is—peace.",3 "No species of crime has ever been committed in the worst rookeries about Seven Dials that has not been also done in the face of that rustic calm which still, in spite of all, we look on with a tender, half-mournful yearning, and associate with—peace.",1 "It was dusk when gigs and chaises, dog-carts and clumsy farmers' phaetons, began to rattle through the village street, and under the windows of the Sun Inn; deeper dusk still when an open carriage and four drew suddenly up beneath the rocking sign-post.",1 It was Sir Michael Audley's barouche which came to so sudden a stop before the little inn.,2 "The harness of one of the leaders had become out of order, and the foremost postillion dismounted to set it right.",3 """Why, it's my uncle,"" cried Robert Audley, as the carriage stopped.",2 """I'll run down and speak to him.""",2 "George lit another cigar, and, sheltered by the window-curtains, looked out at the little party.",2 "Alicia sat with her back to the horses, and he could perceive, even in the dusk, that she was a handsome brunette; but Lady Audley was seated on the side of the carriage furthest from the inn, and he could see nothing of the fair-haired paragon of whom he had heard so much.",3 """Why, Robert,"" exclaimed Sir Michael, as his nephew emerged from the inn, ""this is a surprise!""",2 """I have not come to intrude upon you at the Court, my dear uncle,"" said the young man, as the baronet shook him by the hand in his own hearty fashion.",1 """Essex is my native county, you know, and about this time of year I generally have a touch of homesickness; so George and I have come down to the inn for two or three day's fishing.""",2 """George—George who?""",2 """George Talboys.""",2 """What, has he come?""",2 cried Alicia.,2 """I'm so glad; for I'm dying to see this handsome young widower.""",3 """Are you, Alicia?""",2 "said her cousin, ""Then egad, I'll run and fetch him, and introduce you to him at once.""",2 "Now, so complete was the dominion which Lady Audley had, in her own childish, unthinking way, obtained over her devoted husband, that it was very rarely that the baronet's eyes were long removed from his wife's pretty face.",2 "When Robert, therefore, was about to re-enter the inn, it needed but the faintest elevation of Lucy's eyebrows, with a charming expression of weariness and terror, to make her husband aware that she did not want to be bored by an introduction to Mr. George Talboys.",1 """Never mind to-night, Bob,"" he said.",2 """My wife is a little tired after our long day's pleasure.",2 "Bring your friend to dinner to-morrow, and then he and Alicia can make each other's acquaintance.",2 "Come round and speak to Lady Audley, and then we'll drive home.""",2 "My lady was so terribly fatigued that she could only smile sweetly, and hold out a tiny gloved hand to her nephew by marriage.",2 """You will come and dine with us to-morrow, and bring your interesting friend?""",3 "she said, in a low and tired voice.",1 "She had been the chief attraction of the race-course, and was wearied out by the exertion of fascinating half the county.",3 """It's a wonder she didn't treat you to her never-ending laugh,"" whispered Alicia, as she leaned over the carriage-door to bid Robert good-night; ""but I dare say she reserves that for your delectation to-morrow.",3 "I suppose you are fascinated as well as everybody else?""",3 "added the young lady, rather snappishly.",1 """She is a lovely creature, certainly,"" murmured Robert, with placid admiration.",3 """Oh, of course!",2 "Now, she is the first woman of whom I ever heard you say a civil word, Robert Audley.",2 "I'm sorry to find you can only admire wax dolls.""",2 "Poor Alicia had had many skirmishes with her cousin upon that particular temperament of his, which, while it enabled him to go through life with perfect content and tacit enjoyment, entirely precluded his feeling one spark of enthusiasm upon any subject whatever.",3 """As to his ever falling in love,"" thought the young lady sometimes, ""the idea is preposterous.",1 "If all the divinities on earth were ranged before him, waiting for his sultanship to throw the handkerchief, he would only lift his eyebrows to the middle of his forehead, and tell them to scramble for it.""",1 "But, for once in his life, Robert was almost enthusiastic.",3 """She's the prettiest little creature you ever saw in your life, George,"" he cried, when the carriage had driven off and he returned to his friend.",2 """Such blue eyes, such ringlets, such a ravishing smile, such a fairy-like bonnet—all of a-tremble with heart's-ease and dewy spangles, shining out of a cloud of gauze.",3 "George Talboys, I feel like the hero of a French novel: I am falling in love with my aunt.""",3 The widower only sighed and puffed his cigar fiercely out of the open window.,2 "Perhaps he was thinking of that far-away time—little better than five years ago, in fact; but such an age gone by to him—when he first met the woman for whom he had worn crape round his hat three days before.",2 "They returned, all those old unforgotten feelings; they came back, with the scene of their birth-place.",2 "Again he lounged with his brother officers upon the shabby pier at the shabby watering-place, listening to a dreary band with a cornet that was a note and a half flat.",1 "Again he heard the old operatic airs, and again she came tripping toward him, leaning on her old father's arm, and pretending (with such a charming, delicious, serio-comic pretense) to be listening to the music, and quite unaware of the admiration of half a dozen open-mouthed cavalry officers.",3 "Again the old fancy came back that she was something too beautiful for earth, or earthly uses, and that to approach her was to walk in a higher atmosphere and to breathe a purer air.",3 "And since this she had been his wife, and the mother of his child.",2 "She lay in the little churchyard at Ventnor, and only a year ago he had given the order for her tombstone.",2 "A few slow, silent tears dropped upon his waistcoat as he thought of these things in the quiet and darkening room.",3 "Lady Audley was so exhausted when she reached home, that she excused herself from the dinner-table, and retired at once to her dressing-room, attended by her maid, Phoebe Marks.",1 "She was a little capricious in her conduct to this maid—sometimes very confidential, sometimes rather reserved; but she was a liberal mistress, and the girl had every reason to be satisfied with her situation.",1 "This evening, in spite of her fatigue, she was in extremely high spirits, and gave an animated account of the races, and the company present at them.",1 """I am tired to death, though, Phoebe,"" she said, by-and-by.",1 """I am afraid I must look a perfect fright, after a day in the hot sun."" There were lighted candles on each side of the glass before which Lady Audley was standing unfastening her dress.",2 "She looked full at her maid as she spoke, her blue eyes clear and bright, and the rosy childish lips puckered into an arch smile.",4 """You are a little pale, my lady,"" answered the girl, ""but you look as pretty as ever.""",2 """That's right, Phoebe,"" she said, flinging herself into a chair, and throwing back her curls at the maid, who stood, brush in hand, ready to arrange the luxuriant hair for the night.",4 """Do you know, Phoebe, I have heard some people say that you and I are alike?""",2 """I have heard them say so, too, my lady,"" said the girl, quietly ""but they must be very stupid to say it, for your ladyship is a beauty, and I am a poor, plain creature.""",1 """Not at all, Phoebe,"" said the little lady, superbly; ""you are like me, and your features are very nice; it is only color that you want.",4 "My hair is pale yellow shot with gold, and yours is drab; my eyebrows and eyelashes are dark brown, and yours are almost—I scarcely like to say it, but they're almost white, my dear Phoebe.",1 "Your complexion is sallow, and mine is pink and rosy.",3 "Why, with a bottle of hair-dye, such as we see advertised in the papers, and a pot of rouge, you'd be as good-looking as I, any day, Phoebe.""",3 "She prattled on in this way for a long time, talking of a hundred different subjects, and ridiculing the people she had met at the races, for her maid's amusement.",2 "Her step-daughter came into the dressing-room to bid her good-night, and found the maid and mistress laughing aloud over one of the day's adventures.",2 "Alicia, who was never familiar with her servants, withdrew in disgust at my lady's frivolity.",1 """Go on brushing my hair, Phoebe,"" Lady Audley said, every time the girl was about to complete her task, ""I quite enjoy a chat with you.""",3 "At last, just as she had dismissed her maid, she suddenly called her back.",2 """Phoebe Marks,"" she said, ""I want you to do me a favor.""",3 """Yes, my lady.""",2 """I want you to go to London by the first train to-morrow morning to execute a little commission for me.",2 "You may take a day's holiday afterward, as I know you have friends in town; and I shall give you a five-pound note if you do what I want, and keep your own counsel about it.""",2 """Yes, my lady.""",2 """See that that door is securely shut, and come and sit on this stool at my feet.""",3 The girl obeyed.,2 "Lady Audley smoothed her maid's neutral-tinted hair with her plump, white, and bejeweled hand as she reflected for a few moments.",2 """And now listen, Phoebe.",2 "What I want you to do is very simple.""",2 "It was so simple that it was told in five minutes, and then Lady Audley retired into her bed-room, and curled herself up cozily under the eider-down quilt.",2 "She was a chilly creature, and loved to bury herself in soft wrappings of satin and fur.",3 """Kiss me, Phoebe,"" she said, as the girl arranged the curtains.",2 """I hear Sir Michael's step in the anteroom; you will meet him as you go out, and you may as well tell him that you are going up by the first train to-morrow morning to get my dress from Madam Frederick for the dinner at Morton Abbey.""",3 It was late the next morning when Lady Audley went down to breakfast—past ten o'clock.,2 "While she was sipping her coffee a servant brought her a sealed packet, and a book for her to sign.",2 """A telegraphic message!""",2 she cried; for the convenient word telegram had not yet been invented.,3 """What can be the matter?""",2 "She looked up at her husband with wide-open, terrified eyes, and seemed half afraid to break the seal.",1 "The envelope was addressed to Miss Lucy Graham, at Mr. Dawson's, and had been sent on from the village.",1 """Read it, my darling,"" he said, ""and do not be alarmed; it may be nothing of any importance.""",2 "It came from a Mrs. Vincent, the schoolmistress with whom she had lived before entering Mr. Dawson's family.",2 "The lady was dangerously ill, and implored her old pupil to go and see her.",2 """Poor soul!",1 "she always meant to leave me her money,"" said Lucy, with a mournful smile.",2 """She has never heard of the change in my fortunes.",2 "Dear Sir Michael, I must go to her.""",2 """To be sure you must, dearest.",2 "If she was kind to my poor girl in her adversity, she has a claim upon her prosperity that shall never be forgotten.",1 "Put on your bonnet, Lucy; we shall be in time to catch the express.""",2 """You will go with me?""",2 """Of course, my darling.",3 "Do you suppose I would let you go alone?""",2 """I was sure you would go with me,"" she said, thoughtfully.",3 """Does your friend send any address?""",2 """No; but she always lived at Crescent Villa, West Brompton; and no doubt she lives there still.""",1 "There was only time for Lady Audley to hurry on her bonnet and shawl before she heard the carriage drive round to the door, and Sir Michael calling to her at the foot of the staircase.",2 "Her suite of rooms, as I have said, opened one out of another, and terminated in an octagon antechamber hung with oil-paintings.",1 "Even in her haste she paused deliberately at the door of this room, double-locked it, and dropped the key into her pocket.",1 This door once locked cut off all access to my lady's apartments.,2 "So the dinner at Audley Court was postponed, and Miss Alicia had to wait still longer for an introduction to the handsome young widower, Mr. George Talboys.",2 "I am afraid, if the real truth is to be told, there was, perhaps, something of affectation in the anxiety this young lady expressed to make George's acquaintance; but if poor Alicia for a moment calculated upon arousing any latent spark of jealousy lurking in her cousin's breast by this exhibition of interest, she was not so well acquainted with Robert Audley's disposition as she might have been.",0 "Indolent, handsome, and indifferent, the young barrister took life as altogether too absurd a mistake for any one event in its foolish course to be for a moment considered seriously by a sensible man.",0 "His pretty, gipsy-faced cousin might have been over head and ears in love with him; and she might have told him so, in some charming, roundabout, womanly fashion, a hundred times a day for all the three hundred and sixty-five days in the year; but unless she had waited for some privileged 29th of February, and walked straight up to him, saying, ""Robert, please will you marry me?""",4 I very much doubt if he would ever have discovered the state of her feelings.,1 "Again, had he been in love with her himself, I fancy that the tender passion would, with him, have been so vague and feeble a sentiment that he might have gone down to his grave with a dim sense of some uneasy sensation which might be love or indigestion, and with, beyond this, no knowledge whatever of his state.",3 "So it was not the least use, my poor Alicia, to ride about the lanes around Audley during those three days which the two young men spent in Essex; it was wasted trouble to wear that pretty cavalier hat and plume, and to be always, by the most singular of chances, meeting Robert and his friend.",1 "The black curls (nothing like Lady Audley's feathery ringlets, but heavy clustering locks, that clung about your slender brown throat), the red and pouting lips, the nose inclined to be retrousse, the dark complexion, with its bright crimson flush, always ready to glance up like a signal light in a dusky sky, when you came suddenly upon your apathetic cousin—all this coquettish espiegle, brunette beauty was thrown away upon the dull eyes of Robert Audley, and you might as well have taken your rest in the cool drawing-room at the Court, instead of working your pretty mare to death under the hot September sun.",4 "Now fishing, except to the devoted disciple of Izaak Walton, is not the most lively of occupations; therefore, it is scarcely, perhaps, to be wondered that on the day after Lady Audley's departure, the two young men (one of whom was disabled by that heart wound which he bore so quietly, from really taking pleasure in anything, and the other of whom looked upon almost all pleasure as a negative kind of trouble) began to grow weary of the shade of the willows overhanging the winding streams about Audley.",0 """Figtree Court is not gay in the long vacation,"" said Robert, reflectively: ""but I think, upon the whole, it's better than this; at any rate, it's near a tobacconist's,"" he added, puffing resignedly at an execrable cigar procured from the landlord of the Sun Inn.",3 "George Talboys, who had only consented to the Essex expedition in passive submission to his friend, was by no means inclined to object to their immediate return to London.",1 """I shall be glad to get back, Bob,"" he said, ""for I want to take a run down to Southampton; I haven't seen the little one for upward of a month.""",3 "He always spoke of his son as ""the little one;"" always spoke of him mournfully rather than hopefully.",1 "He accounted for this by saying that he had a fancy that the child would never learn to love him; and worse even than this fancy, a dim presentiment that he would not live to see his little Georgey reach manhood.",2 """I'm not a romantic man, Bob,"" he would say sometimes, ""and I never read a line of poetry in my life that was any more to me than so many words and so much jingle; but a feeling has come over me, since my wife's death, that I am like a man standing upon a long, low shore, with hideous cliffs frowning down upon him from behind, and the rising tide crawling slowly but surely about his feet.",1 "It seems to grow nearer and nearer every day, that black, pitiless tide; not rushing upon me with a great noise and a mighty impetus, but crawling, creeping, stealing, gliding toward me, ready to close in above my head when I am least prepared for the end.""",1 "Robert Audley stared at his friend in silent amazement; and, after a pause of profound deliberation, said solemnly, ""George Talboys, I could understand this if you had been eating heavy suppers.",4 "Cold pork, now, especially if underdone, might produce this sort of thing.",1 "You want change of air, my dear boy; you want the refreshing breezes of Figtree Court, and the soothing air of Fleet street.",3 "Or, stay,"" he added, suddenly, ""I have it!",2 "You've been smoking our friend the landlord's cigars; that accounts for everything.""",2 They met Alicia Audley on her mare about half an hour after they had come to the determination of leaving Essex early the next morning.,2 "The young lady was very much surprised and disappointed at hearing her cousin's determination, and for that very reason pretended to take the matter with supreme indifference.",1 """You are very soon tired of Audley, Robert,"" she said, carelessly; ""but of course you have no friends here, except your relations at the Court; while in London, no doubt, you have the most delightful society and—"" ""I get good tobacco,"" murmured Robert, interrupting his cousin.",2 """Audley is the dearest old place, but when a man has to smoke dried cabbage leaves, you know, Alicia—"" ""Then you are really going to-morrow morning?""",1 """Positively—by the express train that leaves at 10.50.""",3 """Then Lady Audley will lose an introduction to Mr. Talboys, and Mr. Talboys will lose the chance of seeing the prettiest woman in Essex.""",1 """Really—"" stammered George.",2 """The prettiest woman in Essex would have a poor chance of getting much admiration out of my friend, George Talboys,"" said Robert.",2 """His heart is at Southampton, where he has a curly-headed little urchin, about as high as his knee, who calls him 'the big gentleman,' and asks him for sugar-plums.""",2 """I am going to write to my step-mother by to-night's post,"" said Alicia.",2 """She asked me particularly in her letter how long you were going to stop, and whether there was any chance of her being back in time to receive you.""",2 "Miss Audley took a letter from the pocket of her riding-jacket as she spoke—a pretty, fairy-like note, written on shining paper of a peculiar creamy hue.",2 """She says in her postcript, 'Be sure you answer my question about Mr. Audley and his friend, you volatile, forgetful Alicia!'",1 """ ""What a pretty hand she writes!""",3 "said Robert, as his cousin folded the note.",2 """Yes, it is pretty, is it not?",3 "Look at it, Robert.""",2 "She put the letter into his hand, and he contemplated it lazily for a few minutes, while Alicia patted the graceful neck of her chestnut mare, which was anxious to be off once more.",2 """Presently, Atalanta, presently.",2 "Give me back my note, Bob.""",2 """It is the prettiest, most coquettish little hand I ever saw.",2 "Do you know, Alicia, I have no great belief in those fellows who ask you for thirteen postage stamps, and offer to tell you what you have never been able to find out yourself; but upon my word I think that if I had never seen your aunt, I should know what she was like by this slip of paper.",3 "Yes, here it all is—the feathery, gold-shot, flaxen curls, the penciled eyebrows, the tiny, straight nose, the winning, childish smile; all to be guessed in these few graceful up-strokes and down-strokes.",4 "George, look here!""",2 "But absent-minded and gloomy George Talboys had strolled away along the margin of the ditch, and stood striking the bulrushes with his cane, half a dozen paces away from Robert and Alicia.",2 """Nevermind,"" said the young lady, impatiently; for she by no means relished this long disquisition upon my lady's note.",1 """Give me the letter, and let me go; it's past eight, and I must answer it by to-night's post.",2 "Come, Atalanta!",2 "Good-by, Robert—good-by, Mr. Talboys.",3 "A pleasant journey to town.""",3 "The chestnut mare cantered briskly through the lane, and Miss Audley was out of sight before those two big, bright tears that stood in her eyes for one moment, before her pride sent them, back again, rose from her angry heart.",2 """To have only one cousin in the world,"" she cried, passionately, ""my nearest relation after papa, and for him to care about as much for me as he would for a dog!""",3 "By the merest of accidents, however, Robert and his friend did not go by the 10.50 express on the following morning, for the young barrister awoke with such a splitting headache, that he asked George to send him a cup of the strongest green tea that had ever been made at the Sun, and to be furthermore so good as to defer their journey until the next day.",2 "Of course George assented, and Robert Audley spent the forenoon in a darkened room with a five-days'-old Chelmsford paper to entertain himself withal.",2 """It's nothing but the cigars, George,"" he said, repeatedly.",2 """Get me out of the place without my seeing the landlord; for if that man and I meet there will be bloodshed.""",1 "Fortunately for the peace of Audley, it happened to be market-day at Chelmsford; and the worthy landlord had ridden off in his chaise-cart to purchase supplies for his house—among other things, perhaps, a fresh stock of those very cigars which had been so fatal in their effect upon Robert.",4 "The young men spent a dull, dawdling, stupid, unprofitable day; and toward dusk Mr. Audley proposed that they should stroll down to the Court, and ask Alicia to take them over the house.",0 """It will kill a couple of hours, you know, George: and it seems a great pity to drag you away from Audley without having shown you the old place, which, I give you my honor, is very well worth seeing.""",3 "The sun was low in the skies as they took a short cut through the meadows, and crossed a stile into the avenue leading to the archway—a lurid, heavy-looking, ominous sunset, and a deathly stillness in the air, which frightened the birds that had a mind to sing, and left the field open to a few captious frogs croaking in the ditches.",1 "Still as the atmosphere was, the leaves rustled with that sinister, shivering motion which proceeds from no outer cause, but is rather an instinctive shudder of the frail branches, prescient of a coming storm.",1 "That stupid clock, which knew no middle course, and always skipped from one hour to the other, pointed to seven as the young men passed under the archway; but, for all that, it was nearer eight.",1 "They found Alicia in the lime-walk, wandering listlessly up and down under the black shadow of the trees, from which every now and then a withered leaf flapped slowly to the ground.",1 "Strange to say, George Talboys, who very seldom observed anything, took particular notice of this place.",1 """It ought to be an avenue in a churchyard,"" he said.",2 """How peacefully the dead might sleep under this somber shade!",1 "I wish the churchyard at Ventnor was like this.""",3 "They walked on to the ruined well; and Alicia told them some old legend connected with the spot—some gloomy story, such as those always attached to an old house, as if the past were one dark page of sorrow and crime.",0 """We want to see the house before it is dark, Alicia,"" said Robert.",1 """Then we must be quick.""",2 she answered.,2 """Come.""",2 "She led the way through an open French window, modernized a few years before, into the library, and thence to the hall.",3 "In the hall they passed my lady's pale-faced maid, who looked furtively under her white eyelashes at the two young men.",1 "They were going up-stairs, when Alicia turned and spoke to the girl.",2 """After we have been in the drawing-room, I should like to show these gentlemen Lady Audley's rooms.",3 "Are they in good order, Phoebe?""",3 """Yes, miss; but the door of the anteroom is locked, and I fancy that my lady has taken the key to London.""",2 """Taken the key!",2 "Impossible!""",1 cried Alicia.,2 """Indeed, miss, I think she has.",1 "I cannot find it, and it always used to be in the door.""",2 """I declare,"" said Alicia, impatiently, ""that is not at all unlike my lady to have taken this silly freak into her head.",0 "I dare say she was afraid we should go into her rooms, and pry about among her pretty dresses, and meddle with her jewelry.",1 "It is very provoking, for the best pictures in the house are in that antechamber.",3 "There is her own portrait, too, unfinished but wonderfully like.""",3 """Her portrait!""",2 exclaimed Robert Audley.,2 """I would give anything to see it, for I have only an imperfect notion of her face.",1 "Is there no other way of getting into the room, Alicia?""",2 """Another way?""",2 """Yes; is there any door, leading through some of the other rooms, by which we can contrive to get into hers?""",2 "His cousin shook her head, and conducted them into a corridor where there were some family portraits.",2 "She showed them a tapestried chamber, the large figures upon the faded canvas looking threatening in the dusky light.",1 """That fellow with the battle-ax looks as if he wanted to split George's head open,"" said Mr. Audley, pointing to a fierce warrior, whose uplifted arm appeared above George Talboys' dark hair.",0 """Come out of this room, Alicia,"" added the young man, nervously; ""I believe it's damp, or else haunted.",1 "Indeed, I believe all ghosts to be the result of damp or dyspepsia.",2 "You sleep in a damp bed—you awake suddenly in the dead of the night with a cold shiver, and see an old lady in the court costume of George the First's time, sitting at the foot of the bed.",0 "The old lady's indigestion, and the cold shiver is a damp sheet.""",1 There were lighted candles in the drawing-room.,2 No new-fangled lamps had ever made their appearance at Audley Court.,2 "Sir Michael's rooms were lighted by honest, thick, yellow-looking wax candles, in massive silver candlesticks, and in sconces against the walls.",3 "There was very little to see in the drawing-room; and George Talboys soon grew tired of staring at the handsome modern furniture, and at a few pictures of some of the Academicians.",3 """Isn't there a secret passage, or an old oak chest, or something of that kind, somewhere about the place, Alicia?""",2 asked Robert.,2 """To be sure!""",2 "cried Miss Audley, with a vehemence that startled her cousin; ""of course.",1 Why didn't I think of it before?,2 "How stupid of me, to be sure!""",1 """Why stupid?""",1 """Because, if you don't mind crawling upon your hands and knees, you can see my lady's apartments, for that passage communicates with her dressing-room.",2 "She doesn't know of it herself, I believe.",2 "How astonished she'd be if some black-visored burglar, with a dark-lantern, were to rise through the floor some night as she sat before her looking-glass, having her hair dressed for a party!""",2 """Shall we try the secret passage, George?""",2 asked Mr. Audley.,2 """Yes, if you wish it.""",2 Alicia led them into the room which had once been her nursery.,3 "It was now disused, except on very rare occasions when the house was full of company.",2 "Robert Audley lifted a corner of the carpet, according to his cousin's directions, and disclosed a rudely-cut trap-door in the oak flooring.",1 """Now listen to me,"" said Alicia.",2 """You must let yourself down by the hands into the passage, which is about four feet high; stoop your head, walk straight along it till you come to a sharp turn which will take you to the left, and at the extreme end of it you will find a short ladder below a trap-door like this, which you will have to unbolt; that door opens into the flooring of my lady's dressing-room, which is only covered with a square Persian carpet that you can easily manage to raise.",3 "You understand me?""",2 """Perfectly.""",3 """Then take the light; Mr. Talboys will follow you.",2 "I give you twenty minutes for your inspection of the paintings—that is, about a minute apiece—and at the end of that time I shall expect to see you return.""",2 "Robert obeyed her implicitly, and George submissively following his friend, found himself, in five minutes, standing amidst the elegant disorder of Lady Audley's dressing-room.",2 "She had left the house in a hurry on her unlooked-for journey to London, and the whole of her glittering toilette apparatus lay about on the marble dressing-table.",2 The atmosphere of the room was almost oppressive for the rich odors of perfumes in bottles whose gold stoppers had not been replaced.,3 A bunch of hot-house flowers was withering upon a tiny writing-table.,3 "Two or three handsome dresses lay in a heap upon the ground, and the open doors of a wardrobe revealed the treasures within.",3 "Jewelry, ivory-backed hair-brushes, and exquisite china were scattered here and there about the apartment.",3 "George Talboys saw his bearded face and tall, gaunt figure reflected in the glass, and wondered to see how out of place he seemed among all these womanly luxuries.",2 "They went from the dressing-room to the boudoir, and through the boudoir into the ante-chamber, in which there were, as Alicia had said, about twenty valuable paintings, besides my lady's portrait.",3 "My lady's portrait stood on an easel, covered with a green baize in the center of the octagonal chamber.",2 "It had been a fancy of the artist to paint her standing in this very room, and to make his background a faithful reproduction of the pictured walls.",3 "I am afraid the young man belonged to the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, for he had spent a most unconscionable time upon the accessories of this picture—upon my lady's crispy ringlets and the heavy folds of her crimson velvet dress.",1 "The two young men looked at the paintings on the walls first, leaving this unfinished portrait for a bonne bouche.",1 "By this time it was dark, the candle carried by Robert only making one nucleus of light as he moved about holding it before the pictures one by one.",1 "The broad, bare window looked out upon the pale sky, tinged with the last cold flicker of the twilight.",0 "The ivy rustled against the glass with the same ominous shiver as that which agitated every leaf in the garden, prophetic of the storm that was to come.",1 """There are our friend's eternal white horses,"" said Robert, standing beside a Wouvermans.",2 """Nicholas Poussin—Salvator—ha—hum!",1 "Now for the portrait.""",2 "He paused with his hand on the baize, and solemnly addressed his friend.",2 """George Talboys,"" he said, ""we have between us only one wax candle, a very inadequate light with which to look at a painting.",1 "Let me, therefore, request that you will suffer us to look at it one at a time; if there is one thing more disagreeable than another, it is to have a person dodging behind your back and peering over your shoulder, when you're trying to see what a picture's made of.""",1 George fell back immediately.,1 He took no more interest in any lady's picture than in all the other wearinesses of this troublesome world.,1 "He fell back, and leaning his forehead against the window-panes, looked out at the night.",1 "When he turned round he saw that Robert had arranged the easel very conveniently, and that he had seated himself on a chair before it for the purpose of contemplating the painting at his leisure.",3 He rose as George turned round.,2 """Now, then, for your turn, Talboys,"" he said.",2 """It's an extraordinary picture.""",3 "He took George's place at the window, and George seated himself in the chair before the easel.",2 "Yes, the painter must have been a pre-Raphaelite.",2 "No one but a pre-Raphaelite would have painted, hair by hair, those feathery masses of ringlets, with every glimmer of gold, and every shadow of pale brown.",3 "No one but a pre-Raphaelite would have so exaggerated every attribute of that delicate face as to give a lurid brightness to the blonde complexion, and a strange, sinister light to the deep blue eyes.",1 No one but a pre-Raphaelite could have given to that pretty pouting mouth the hard and almost wicked look it had in the portrait.,1 "It was so like, and yet so unlike.",3 "It was as if you had burned strange-colored fires before my lady's face, and by their influence brought out new lines and new expressions never seen in it before.",1 "The perfection of feature, the brilliancy of coloring, were there; but I suppose the painter had copied quaint mediaeval monstrosities until his brain had grown bewildered, for my lady, in his portrait of her, had something of the aspect of a beautiful fiend.",2 "Her crimson dress, exaggerated like all the rest in this strange picture, hung about her in folds that looked like flames, her fair head peeping out of the lurid mass of color as if out of a raging furnace.",1 "Indeed the crimson dress, the sunshine on the face, the red gold gleaming in the yellow hair, the ripe scarlet of the pouting lips, the glowing colors of each accessory of the minutely painted background, all combined to render the first effect of the painting by no means an agreeable one.",4 "But strange as the picture was, it could not have made any great impression on George Talboys, for he sat before it for about a quarter of an hour without uttering a word—only staring blankly at the painted canvas, with the candlestick grasped in his strong right hand, and his left arm hanging loosely by his side.",3 "He sat so long in this attitude, that Robert turned round at last.",2 """Why, George, I thought you had gone to sleep!""",2 """I had almost.""",2 """You've caught a cold from standing in that damp tapestried room.",1 "Mark my words, George Talboys, you've caught a cold; you're as hoarse as a raven.",1 "But come along.""",2 "Robert Audley took the candle from his friend's hand, and crept back through the secret passage, followed by George—very quiet, but scarcely more quiet than usual.",1 They found Alicia in the nursery waiting for them.,2 """Well?""",3 "she said, interrogatively.",2 """We managed it capitally.",2 "But I don't like the portrait; there's something odd about it.""",2 """There is,"" said Alicia; ""I've a strange fancy on that point.",2 "I think that sometimes a painter is in a manner inspired, and is able to see, through the normal expression of the face, another expression that is equally a part of it, though not to be perceived by common eyes.",2 "We have never seen my lady look as she does in that picture; but I think that she could look so.""",2 """Alicia,"" said Robert Audley, imploringly, ""don't be German!""",2 """But, Robert—"" ""Don't be German, Alicia, if you love me.",3 The picture is—the picture: and my lady is—my lady.,2 "That's my way of taking things, and I'm not metaphysical; don't unsettle me.""",1 "He repeated this several times with an air of terror that was perfectly sincere; and then, having borrowed an umbrella in case of being overtaken by the coming storm, left the Court, leading passive George Talboys away with him.",3 The one hand of the stupid clock had skipped to nine by the time they reached the archway; but before they could pass under its shadow they had to step aside to allow a carriage to dash past them.,1 "It was a fly from the village, but Lady Audley's fair face peeped out at the window.",3 "Dark as it was, she could see the two figures of the young men black against the dusk.",1 """Who is that?""",2 "she asked, putting out her head.",2 """Is it the gardener?""",2 """No, my dear aunt,"" said Robert, laughing; ""it is your most dutiful nephew.""",2 "He and George stopped by the archway while the fly drew up at the door, and the surprised servants came out to welcome their master and mistress.",3 """I think the storm will hold off to-night,"" said the baronet looking up at the sky; ""but we shall certainly have it tomorrow.""",2 Sir Michael was mistaken in his prophecy upon the weather.,1 "The storm did not hold off until next day, but burst with terrible fury over the village of Audley about half an hour before midnight.",1 Robert Audley took the thunder and lightning with the same composure with which he accepted all the other ills of life.,2 "He lay on a sofa in the sitting-room, ostensibly reading the five-days-old Chelmsford paper, and regaling himself occasionally with a few sips from a large tumbler of cold punch.",1 But the storm had quite a different effect upon George Talboys.,2 "His friend was startled when he looked at the young man's white face as he sat opposite the open window listening to the thunder, and staring at the black sky, rent every now and then by forked streaks of steel-blue lightning.",2 """George,"" said Robert, after watching him for some time, ""are you frightened of the lightning?""",2 """No,"" he answered, curtly.",2 """But, dear boy, some of the most courageous men have been frightened of it.",3 It is scarcely to be called a fear: it is constitutional.,1 "I am sure you are frightened of it.""",2 """No, I am not.""",2 """But, George, if you could see yourself, white and haggard, with your great hollow eyes staring out at the sky as if they were fixed upon a ghost.",1 "I tell you I know that you are frightened.""",2 """And I tell you that I am not.""",2 """George Talboys, you are not only afraid of the lightning, but you are savage with yourself for being afraid, and with me for telling you of your fear.""",0 """Robert Audley, if you say another word to me, I shall knock you down,"" cried George, furiously; having said which, Mr. Talboys strode out of the room, banging the door after him with a violence that shook the house.",1 "Those inky clouds, which had shut in the sultry earth as if with a roof of hot iron, poured out their blackness in a sudden deluge as George left the room; but if the young man was afraid of the lightning, he certainly was not afraid of the rain; for he walked straight down-stairs to the inn door, and went out into the wet high road.",1 "He walked up and down, up and down, in the soaking shower for about twenty minutes, and then, re-entering the inn, strode up to his bedroom.",2 "Robert Audley met him on the landing, with his hair beaten about his white face, and his garments dripping wet.",1 """Are you going to bed, George?""",2 """Yes.""",2 """But you have no candle.""",2 """I don't want one.""",2 """But look at your clothes, man!",2 Do you see the wet streaming down your coat-sleeves?,2 "What on earth made you go out upon such a night?""",2 """I am tired, and want to go to bed—don't bother me.""",1 """You'll take some hot brandy-and-water, George?""",3 "Robert Audley stood in his friend's way as he spoke, anxious to prevent his going to bed in the state he was in; but George pushed him fiercely aside, and, striding past him, said, in the same hoarse voice Robert had noticed at the Court: ""Let me alone, Robert Audley, and keep clear of me if you can.""",2 "Robert followed George to his bedroom, but the young man banged the door in his face, so there was nothing for it but to leave Mr. Talboys to himself, to recover his temper as best he might.",3 """He was irritated at my noticing his terror of the lightning,"" thought Robert, as he calmly retired to rest, serenely indifferent to the thunder, which seemed to shake him in his bed, and the lightning playing fitfully round the razors in his open dressing-case.",0 "The storm rolled away from the quiet village of Audley, and when Robert awoke the next morning it was to see bright sunshine, and a peep of cloudless sky between the white curtains of his bedroom window.",3 It was one of those serene and lovely mornings that sometimes succeed a storm.,4 "The birds sung loud and cheerily, the yellow corn uplifted itself in the broad fields, and waved proudly after its sharp tussle with the tempest, which had done its best to beat down the heavy ears with cruel wind and driving rain half the night through.",1 "The vine-leaves clustering round Robert's window fluttered with a joyous rustling, shaking the rain-drops in diamond showers from every spray and tendril.",3 Robert Audley found his friend waiting for him at the breakfast-table.,2 "George was very pale, but perfectly tranquil—if anything, indeed, more cheerful than usual.",3 He shook Robert by the hand with something of that hearty manner for which he had been distinguished before the one affliction of his life overtook and shipwrecked him.,3 """Forgive me, Bob,"" he said, frankly, ""for my surly temper of last night.",1 You were quite correct in your assertion; the thunderstorm did upset me.,2 "It always had the same effect upon me in my youth.""",2 """Poor old boy!",1 "Shall we go up by the express, or shall we stop here and dine with my uncle to-night?""",2 asked Robert.,2 """To tell the truth, Bob, I would rather do neither.",2 It's a glorious morning.,3 "Suppose we stroll about all day, take another turn with the rod and line, and go up to town by the train that leaves here at 6.15 in the evening?""",2 "Robert Audley would have assented to a far more disagreeable proposition than this, rather than have taken the trouble to oppose his friend, so the matter was immediately agreed upon; and after they had finished their breakfast, and ordered a four o'clock dinner, George Talboys took the fishing-rod across his broad shoulders, and strode out of the house with his friend and companion.",0 "But if the equable temperament of Mr. Robert Audley had been undisturbed by the crackling peals of thunder that shook the very foundations of the Sun Inn, it had not been so with the more delicate sensibilties of his uncle's young wife.",3 Lady Audley confessed herself terribly frightened of the lightning.,1 "She had her bedstead wheeled into a corner of the room, and with the heavy curtains drawn tightly round her, she lay with her face buried in the pillow, shuddering convulsively at every sound of the tempest without.",1 "Sir Michael, whose stout heart had never known a fear, almost trembled for this fragile creature, whom it was his happy privilege to protect and defend.",3 "My lady would not consent to undress till nearly three o'clock in the morning, when the last lingering peal of thunder had died away among the distant hills.",1 "Until that hour she lay in the handsome silk dress in which she had traveled, huddled together among the bedclothes, only looking up now and then with a scared face to ask if the storm was over.",2 "Toward four o'clock her husband, who spent the night in watching by her bedside, saw her drop off into a deep sleep, from which she did not awake for nearly five hours.",2 "But she came into the breakfast-room, at half-past nine o'clock, singing a little Scotch melody, her cheeks tinged with as delicate a pink as the pale hue of her muslin morning dress.",2 "Like the birds and the flowers, she seemed to recover her beauty and joyousness in the morning sunshine.",4 "She tripped lightly out onto the lawn, gathering a last lingering rosebud here and there, and a sprig or two of geranium, and returning through the dewy grass, warbling long cadences for very happiness of heart, and looking as fresh and radiant as the flowers in her hands.",4 The baronet caught her in his strong arms as she came in through the open window.,3 """My pretty one,"" he said, ""my darling, what happiness to see you your own merry self again!",4 "Do you know, Lucy, that once last night, when you looked out through the dark-green bed-curtains, with your poor, white face, and the purple rims round your hollow eyes, I had almost a difficulty to recognize my little wife in that terrified, agonized-looking creature, crying out about the storm.",0 "Thank God for the morning sun, which has brought back the rosy cheeks and bright smile!",4 "I hope to Heaven, Lucy, I shall never again see you look as you did last night.""",3 "She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and then was only tall enough to reach his white beard.",3 "She told him, laughing, that she had always been a silly, frightened creature—frightened of dogs, frightened of cattle, frightened of a thunderstorm, frightened of a rough sea.",1 """Frightened of everything and everybody but my dear, noble, handsome husband,"" she said.",3 "She had found the carpet in her dressing-room disarranged, and had inquired into the mystery of the secret passage.",1 "She chid Miss Alicia in a playful, laughing way, for her boldness in introducing two great men into my lady's rooms.",3 """And they had the audacity to look at my picture, Alicia,"" she said, with mock indignation.",0 """I found the baize thrown on the ground, and a great man's glove on the carpet.",3 "Look!""",2 """She held up a thick driving glove as she spoke.",2 "It was George's, which he had dropped looking at the picture.",2 """I shall go up to the Sun, and ask those boys to dinner,"" Sir Michael said, as he left the Court upon his morning walk around his farm.",2 "Lady Audley flitted from room to room in the bright September sunshine—now sitting down to the piano to trill out a ballad, or the first page of an Italian bravura, or running with rapid fingers through a brilliant waltz—now hovering about a stand of hot-house flowers, doing amateur gardening with a pair of fairy-like, silver-mounted embroidery scissors—now strolling into her dressing-room to talk to Phoebe Marks, and have her curls rearranged for the third or fourth time; for the ringlets were always getting into disorder, and gave no little trouble to Lady Audley's maid.",4 "My dear lady seemed, on this particular September day, restless from very joyousness of spirit, and unable to stay long in one place, or occupy herself with one thing.",1 "While Lady Audley amused herself in her own frivolous fashion, the two young men strolled slowly along the margin of the stream until they reached a shady corner where the water was deep and still, and the long branches of the willows trailed into the brook.",1 "George Talboys took the fishing-rod, while Robert stretched himself at full length on a railway rug, and balancing his hat upon his nose as a screen from the sunshine, fell fast asleep.",2 Those were happy fish in the stream on the banks of which Mr. Talboys was seated.,3 "They might have amused themselves to their hearts' content with timid nibbles at this gentleman's bait without in any manner endangering their safety; for George only stared vacantly in the water, holding his rod in a loose, listless hand, and with a strange, far-away look in his eyes.",0 "As the church clock struck two he threw down his rod, and, striding away along the bank, left Robert Audley to enjoy a nap which, according to that gentleman's habits, was by no means unlikely to last for two or three hours.",1 "About a quarter of a mile further on George crossed a rustic bridge, and struck into the meadows which led to Audley Court.",2 "The birds had sung so much all the morning, that they had, perhaps, by this time grown tired; the lazy cattle were asleep in the meadows; Sir Michael was still away on his morning's ramble; Miss Alicia had scampered off an hour before on her chestnut mare; the servants were all at dinner in the back part of the house; and my lady had strolled, book in hand, into the shadowy lime-walk; so the gray old building had never worn a more peaceful aspect than on that bright afternoon when George Talboys walked across the lawn to ring a sonorous peal at the sturdy, iron-bound oak door.",1 "The servant who answered his summons told him that Sir Michael was out, and my lady walking in the lime-tree avenue.",2 "He looked a little disappointed at this intelligence, and muttering something about wishing to see my lady, or going to look for my lady (the servant did not clearly distinguish his words), strode away from the door without leaving either card or message for the family.",3 "It was full an hour and a half after this when Lady Audley returned to the house, not coming from the lime-walk, but from exactly the opposite direction, carrying her open book in her hand, and singing as she came.",2 "Alicia had just dismounted from her mare, and stood in the low-arched doorway, with her great Newfoundland dog by her side.",3 "The dog, which had never liked my lady, showed his teeth with a suppressed growl.",2 """Send that horrid animal away, Alicia,"" Lady Audley said, impatiently.",1 """The brute knows that I am frightened of him, and takes advantage of my terror.",1 And yet they call the creatures generous and noble-hearted!,3 "Bah, Caesar!",2 "I hate you, and you hate me; and if you met me in the dark in some narrow passage you would fly at my throat and strangle me, wouldn't you?""",0 "My lady, safely sheltered behind her step-daughter, shook her yellow curls at the angry animal, and defied him maliciously.",1 """Do you know, Lady Audley, that Mr. Talboys, the young widower, has been here asking for Sir Michael and you?""",2 Lucy Audley lifted her penciled eyebrows.,2 """I thought they were coming to dinner,"" she said.",2 """Surely we shall have enough of them then.""",3 She had a heap of wild autumn flowers in the skirt of her muslin dress.,1 "She had come through the fields at the back of the Court, gathering the hedge-row blossoms in her way.",1 She ran lightly up the broad staircase to her own rooms.,2 George's glove lay on her boudoir table.,2 "Lady Audley rung the bell violently, and it was answered by Phoebe Marks.",1 """Take that litter away,"" she said, sharply.",1 The girl collected the glove and a few withered flowers and torn papers lying on the table into her apron.,1 """What have you been doing all this morning?""",2 asked my lady.,2 """Not wasting your time, I hope?""",1 """No, my lady, I have been altering the blue dress.",2 "It is rather dark on this side of the house, so I took it up to my own room, and worked at the window.""",2 "The girl was leaving the room as she spoke, but she turned around and looked at Lady Audley as if waiting for further orders.",2 "Lucy looked up at the same moment, and the eyes of the two women met.",2 """Phoebe Marks,"" said my lady, throwing herself into an easy-chair, and trifling with the wild flowers in her lap, ""you are a good, industrious girl, and while I live and am prosperous, you shall never want a firm friend or a twenty-pound note.""",4 "When Robert Audley awoke he was surprised to see the fishing-rod lying on the bank, the line trailing idly in the water, and the float bobbing harmlessly up and down in the afternoon sunshine.",1 "The young barrister was a long time stretching his arms and legs in various directions to convince himself, by means of such exercise, that he still retained the proper use of those members; then, with a mighty effort, he contrived to rise from the grass, and having deliberately folded his railway rug into a convenient shape for carrying over his shoulder, he strolled away to look for George Talboys.",3 "Once or twice he gave a sleepy shout, scarcely loud enough to scare the birds in the branches above his head, or the trout in the stream at his feet: but receiving no answer, grew tired of the exertion, and dawdled on, yawning as he went, and still looking for George Talboys.",0 "By-and-by he took out his watch, and was surprised to find that it was a quarter past four.",2 """Why, the selfish beggar must have gone home to his dinner!""",1 "he muttered, reflectively; ""and yet that isn't much like him, for he seldom remembers even his meals unless I jog his memory.""",3 "Even a good appetite, and the knowledge that his dinner would very likely suffer by this delay, could not quicken Mr. Robert Audley's constitutional dawdle, and by the time he strolled in at the front door of the Sun, the clocks were striking five.",1 "He so fully expected to find George Talboys waiting for him in the little sitting-room, that the absence of that gentleman seemed to give the apartment a dreary look, and Robert groaned aloud.",1 """This is lively!""",3 he said.,2 """A cold dinner, and nobody to eat it with!""",1 The landlord of the Sun came himself to apologize for his ruined dishes.,1 """As fine a pair of ducks, Mr. Audley, as ever you clapped eyes on, but burnt up to a cinder, along of being kep' hot.""",3 """Never mind the ducks,"" Robert said impatiently; ""where's Mr. Talboys?""",1 """He ain't been in, sir, since you went out together this morning.""",2 """What!""",2 cried Robert.,2 """Why, in heaven's name, what has the man done with himself?""",2 "He walked to the window and looked out upon the broad, white high road.",2 "There was a wagon laden with trusses of hay crawling slowly past, the lazy horses and the lazy wagoner drooping their heads with a weary stoop under the afternoon's sunshine.",0 "There was a flock of sheep straggling about the road, with a dog running himself into a fever in the endeavor to keep them decently together.",1 "There were some bricklayers just released from work—a tinker mending some kettles by the roadside; there was a dog-cart dashing down the road, carrying the master of the Audley hounds to his seven o'clock dinner; there were a dozen common village sights and sounds that mixed themselves up into a cheerful bustle and confusion; but there was no George Talboys.",4 """Of all the extraordinary things that ever happened to me in the whole course of my life,"" said Mr. Robert Audley, ""this is the most miraculous!""",3 "The landlord still in attendance, opened his eyes as Robert made this remark.",2 What could there be extraordinary in the simple fact of a gentleman being late for his dinner?,3 """I shall go and look for him,"" said Robert, snatching up his hat and walking straight out of the house.",2 But the question was where to look for him.,2 "He certainly was not by the trout stream, so it was no good going back there in search of him.",3 "Robert was standing before the inn, deliberating on what was best to be done, when the landlord came out after him.",3 """I forgot to tell you, Mr. Audley, as how your uncle called here five minutes after you was gone, and left a message, asking of you and the other gentleman to go down to dinner at the Court.""",2 """Then I shouldn't wonder,"" said Robert, ""if George Talboys has gone down to the Court to call upon my uncle.",3 "It isn't like him, but it's just possible that he has done it.""",3 It was six o'clock when Robert knocked at the door of his uncle's house.,2 "He did not ask to see any of the family, but inquired at once for his friend.",2 "Yes, the servant told him; Mr. Talboys had been there at two o'clock or a little after.",2 """And not since?""",2 """No, not since.""",2 Was the man sure that it was at two Mr. Talboys called?,2 Robert asked.,2 "Yes, perfectly sure.",3 "He remembered the hour because it was the servants' dinner hour, and he had left the table to open the door to Mr. Talboys.",2 """Why, what can have become of the man?""",2 "thought Robert, as he turned his back upon the Court.",2 """From two till six—four good hours—and no signs of him!""",3 "If any one had ventured to tell Mr. Robert Audley that he could possibly feel a strong attachment to any creature breathing, that cynical gentleman would have elevated his eyebrows in supreme contempt at the preposterous notion.",1 "Yet here he was, flurried and anxious, bewildering his brain by all manner of conjectures about his missing friend; and false to every attribute of his nature, walking fast.",1 """I haven't walked fast since I was at Eton,"" he murmured, as he hurried across one of Sir Michael's meadows in the direction of the village; ""and the worst of it is, that I haven't the most remote idea where I am going.""",2 "Here he crossed another meadow, and then seating himself upon a stile, rested his elbows upon his knees, buried his face in his hands, and set himself seriously to think the matter out.",2 """I have it,"" he said, after a few minutes' thought; ""the railway station!""",2 "He sprang over the stile, and started off in the direction of the little red brick building.",2 "There was no train expected for another half hour, and the clerk was taking his tea in an apartment on one side of the office, on the door of which was inscribed in large, white letters, ""Private.""",2 But Mr. Audley was too much occupied with the one idea of looking for his friend to pay any attention to this warning.,1 "He strode at once to the door, and rattling his cane against it, brought the clerk out of his sanctum in a perspiration from hot tea, and with his mouth full of bread and butter.",3 """Do you remember the gentleman that came down to Audley with me, Smithers?""",2 asked Robert.,2 """Well, to tell you the real truth, Mr. Audley, I can't say that I do.",3 "You came by the four o'clock, if you remember, and there's always a good many passengers by that train.""",3 """You don't remember him, then?""",2 """Not to my knowledge, sir.""",2 """That's provoking!",2 "I want to know, Smithers, whether he has taken a ticket for London since two o'clock to-day.",2 "He's a tall, broad-chested young fellow, with a big brown beard.",2 "You couldn't well mistake him.""",2 """There was four or five gentlemen as took tickets for the 3.30 up,"" said the clerk rather vaguely, casting an anxious glance over his shoulder at his wife, who looked by no means pleased at this interruption to the harmony of the tea-table.",2 """Four or five gentlemen!",2 "But did either of them answer to the description of my friend?""",2 """Well, I think one of them had a beard, sir.""",3 """A dark-brown beard?""",1 """Well, I don't know, but it was brownish-like.""",3 """Was he dressed in gray?""",2 """I believe it was gray; a great many gents wear gray.",3 "He asked for the ticket sharp and short-like, and when he'd got it walked straight out onto the platform whistling.""",3 """That's George,"" said Robert.",2 """Thank you, Smithers; I needn't trouble you any more.",2 "It's as clear as daylight,"" he muttered, as he left the station; ""he's got one of his gloomy fits on him, and he's gone back to London without saying a word about it.",2 "I'll leave Audley myself to-morrow morning; and for to-night—why, I may as well go down to the Court and make the acquaintance of my uncle's young wife.",3 They don't dine till seven; if I get back across the fields I shall be in time.,2 "Bob—otherwise Robert Audley—this sort of thing will never do; you are falling over head and ears in love with your aunt.""",2 Robert found Sir Michael and Lady Audley in the drawing-room.,2 "My lady was sitting on a music-stool before the grand piano, turning over the leaves of some new music.",3 "She twirled upon the revolving seat, making a rustling with her silk flounces, as Mr. Robert Audley's name was announced; then, leaving the piano, she made her nephew a pretty, mock ceremonious courtesy.",2 """Thank you so much for the sables,"" she said, holding out her little fingers, all glittering and twinkling with the diamonds she wore upon them; ""thank you for those beautiful sables.",3 "How good it was of you to get them for me.""",3 Robert had almost forgotten the commission he had executed for Lady Audley during his Russian expedition.,2 His mind was so full of George Talboys that he only acknowledged my lady's gratitude by a bow.,3 """Would you believe it, Sir Michael?""",2 he said.,2 """That foolish chum of mine has gone back to London leaving me in the lurch.""",1 """Mr. George Talboys returned to town?""",2 "exclaimed my lady, lifting her eyebrows.",2 """What a dreadful catastrophe!""",1 "said Alicia, maliciously, ""since Pythias, in the person of Mr. Robert Audley, cannot exist for half an hour without Damon, commonly known as George Talboys.""",1 """He's a very good fellow,"" Robert said, stoutly; ""and to tell the honest truth, I'm rather uneasy about him.""",3 """Uneasy about him!""",1 My lady was quite anxious to know why Robert was uneasy about his friend.,1 """I'll tell you why, Lady Audley,"" answered the young barrister.",2 """George had a bitter blow a year ago in the death of his wife.",0 He has never got over that trouble.,1 "He takes life pretty quietly—almost as quietly as I do—but he often talks very strangely, and I sometimes think that one day this grief will get the better of him, and he will do something rash.""",1 "Mr. Robert Audley spoke vaguely, but all three of his listeners knew that the something rash to which he alluded was that one deed for which there is no repentance.",1 "There was a brief pause, during which Lady Audley arranged her yellow ringlets by the aid of the glass over the console table opposite to her.",2 """Dear me!""",2 "she said, ""this is very strange.",1 I did not think men were capable of these deep and lasting affections.,3 "I thought that one pretty face was as good as another pretty face to them; and that when number one with blue eyes and fair hair died, they had only to look out for number two, with dark eyes and black hair, by way of variety.""",3 """George Talboys is not one of those men.",2 "I firmly believe that his wife's death broke his heart.""",1 """How sad!""",1 murmured Lady Audley.,2 """It seems almost cruel of Mrs. Talboys to die, and grieve her poor husband so much.""",0 """Alicia was right, she is childish,"" thought Robert as he looked at his aunt's pretty face.",3 "My lady was very charming at the dinner-table; she professed the most bewitching incapacity for carving the pheasant set before her, and called Robert to her assistance.",3 """I could carve a leg of mutton at Mr. Dawson's,"" she said, laughing; ""but a leg of mutton is so easy, and then I used to stand up.""",3 Sir Michael watched the impression my lady made upon his nephew with a proud delight in her beauty and fascination.,4 """I am so glad to see my poor little woman in her usual good spirits once more,"" he said.",3 """She was very down-hearted yesterday at a disappointment she met with in London.""",1 """A disappointment!""",1 """Yes, Mr. Audley, a very cruel one,"" answered my lady.",1 """I received the other morning a telegraphic message from my dear old friend and school-mistress, telling me that she was dying, and that if I wanted to see her again, I must hasten to her immediately.",1 "The telegraphic dispatch contained no address, and of course, from that very circumstance, I imagined that she must be living in the house in which I left her three years ago.",2 "Sir Michael and I hurried up to town immediately, and drove straight to the old address.",2 "The house was occupied by strange people, who could give me no tidings of my friend.",1 "It is in a retired place, where there are very few tradespeople about.",2 "Sir Michael made inquiries at the few shops there are, but, after taking an immense deal of trouble, could discover nothing whatever likely to lead to the information we wanted.",3 "I have no friends in London, and had therefore no one to assist me except my dear, generous husband, who did all in his power, but in vain, to find my friend's new residence.""",2 """It was very foolish not to send the address in the telegraphic message,"" said Robert.",1 """When people are dying it is not so easy to think of all these things,"" murmured my lady, looking reproachfully at Mr. Audley with her soft blue eyes.",3 "In spite of Lady Audley's fascination, and in spite of Robert's very unqualified admiration of her, the barrister could not overcome a vague feeling of uneasiness on this quiet September evening.",1 "As he sat in the deep embrasure of a mullioned window, talking to my lady, his mind wandered away to shady Figtree Court, and he thought of poor George Talboys smoking his solitary cigar in the room with the birds and canaries.",1 """I wish I'd never felt any friendliness for the fellow,"" he thought.",3 """I feel like a man who has an only son whose life has gone wrong with him.",2 "I wish to Heaven I could give him back his wife, and send him down to Ventnor to finish his days in peace.""",3 "Still my lady's pretty musical prattle ran on as merrily and continuously as the babble in some brook; and still Robert's thoughts wandered, in spite of himself, to George Talboys.",1 He thought of him hurrying down to Southampton by the mail train to see his boy.,2 "He thought of him as he had often seen him spelling over the shipping advertisements in the Times, looking for a vessel to take him back to Australia.",2 "Once he thought of him with a shudder, lying cold and stiff at the bottom of some shallow stream with his dead face turned toward the darkening sky.",0 "Lady Audley noticed his abstraction, and asked him what he was thinking of.",2 """George Talboys,"" he answered abruptly.",1 She gave a little nervous shudder.,1 """Upon my word,"" she said, ""you make me quite uncomfortable by the way in which you talk of Mr. Talboys.",1 "One would think that something extraordinary had happened to him.""",3 """God forbid!",1 "But I cannot help feeling uneasy about him.""",1 "Later in the evening Sir Michael asked for some music, and my lady went to the piano.",2 "Robert Audley strolled after her to the instrument to turn over the leaves of her music; but she played from memory, and he was spared the trouble his gallantry would have imposed upon him.",1 "He carried a pair of lighted candles to the piano, and arranged them conveniently for the pretty musician.",3 "She struck a few chords, and then wandered into a pensive sonata of Beethoven's.",1 "It was one of the many paradoxes in her character, that love of somber and melancholy melodies, so opposite to her gay nature.",1 "Robert Audley lingered by her side, and as he had no occupation in turning over the leaves of her music, he amused himself by watching her jeweled, white hands gliding softly over the keys, with the lace sleeves dropping away from, her graceful, arched wrists.",3 He looked at her pretty fingers one by one; this one glittering with a ruby heart; that encircled by an emerald serpent; and about them all a starry glitter of diamonds.,3 "From the fingers his eyes wandered to the rounded wrists: the broad, flat, gold bracelet upon her right wrist dropped over her hand, as she executed a rapid passage.",4 She stopped abruptly to rearrange it; but before she could do so Robert Audley noticed a bruise upon her delicate skin.,1 """You have hurt your arm, Lady Audley!""",1 he exclaimed.,2 She hastily replaced the bracelet.,1 """It is nothing,"" she said.",2 """I am unfortunate in having a skin which the slightest touch bruises.""",1 "She went on playing, but Sir Michael came across the room to look into the matter of the bruise upon his wife's pretty wrist.",2 """What is it, Lucy?""",2 "he asked; ""and how did it happen?""",2 """How foolish you all are to trouble yourselves about anything so absurd!""",0 "said Lady Audley, laughing.",2 """I am rather absent in mind, and amused myself a few days ago by tying a piece of ribbon around my arm so tightly, that it left a bruise when I removed it.""",1 """Hum!""",1 thought Robert.,2 """My lady tells little childish white lies; the bruise is of a more recent date than a few days ago; the skin has only just begun to change color.""",0 Sir Michael took the slender wrist in his strong hand.,3 """Hold the candle, Robert,"" he said, ""and let us look at this poor little arm.""",1 "It was not one bruise, but four slender, purple marks, such as might have been made by the four fingers of a powerful hand, that had grasped the delicate wrist a shade too roughly.",3 "A narrow ribbon, bound tightly, might have left some such marks, it is true, and my lady protested once more that, to the best of her recollection, that must have been how they were made.",2 "Across one of the faint purple marks there was a darker tinge, as if a ring worn on one of those strong and cruel fingers had been ground into the tender flesh.",1 """I am sure my lady must tell white lies,"" thought Robert, ""for I can't believe the story of the ribbon.""",1 He wished his relations good-night and good-by at about half past ten o'clock; he should run up to London by the first train to look for George in Figtree Court.,3 """If I don't find him there I shall go to Southampton,"" he said; ""and if I don't find him there—"" ""What then?""",2 asked my lady.,2 """I shall think that something strange has happened.""",1 "Robert Audley felt very low-spirited as he walked slowly home between the shadowy meadows; more low-spirited still when he re-entered the sitting room at Sun Inn, where he and George had lounged together, staring out of the window and smoking their cigars.",1 """To think,"" he said, meditatively, ""that it is possible to care so much for a fellow!",2 "But come what may, I'll go up to town after him the first thing to-morrow morning; and, sooner than be balked in finding him, I'll go to the very end of the world.""",2 "With Mr. Audley's lymphatic nature, determination was so much the exception rather than the rule, that when he did for once in his life resolve upon any course of action, he had a certain dogged, iron-like obstinacy that pushed him on to the fulfillment of his purpose.",3 "The lazy bent of his mind, which prevented him from thinking of half a dozen things at a time, and not thinking thoroughly of any one of them, as is the manner of your more energetic people, made him remarkably clear-sighted upon any point to which he ever gave his serious attention.",3 "Indeed, after all, though solemn benchers laughed at him, and rising barristers shrugged their shoulders under rustling silk gowns, when people spoke of Robert Audley, I doubt if, had he ever taken the trouble to get a brief, he might not have rather surprised the magnates who underrated his abilities.",0 The September sunlight sparkled upon the fountain in the Temple Gardens when Robert Audley returned to Figtree Court early the following morning.,2 "He found the canaries singing in the pretty little room in which George had slept, but the apartment was in the same prim order in which the laundress had arranged it after the departure of the two young men—not a chair displaced, or so much as the lid of a cigar-box lifted, to bespeak the presence of George Talboys.",2 "With a last, lingering hope, he searched upon the mantelpieces and tables of his rooms, on the chance of finding some letter left by George.",2 """He may have slept here last night, and started for Southampton early this morning,"" he thought.",2 """Mrs. Maloney has been here, very likely, to make everything tidy after him.""",3 "But as he sat looking lazily around the room, now and then whistling to his delighted canaries, a slipshod foot upon the staircase without bespoke the advent of that very Mrs. Maloney who waited upon the two young men.",3 "No, Mr. Talboys had not come home; she had looked in as early as six o'clock that morning, and found the chambers empty.",2 """Had anything happened to the poor, dear gentleman?""",1 "she asked, seeing Robert Audley's pale face.",1 He turned around upon her quite savagely at this question.,2 Happened to him!,2 What should happen to him?,2 They had only parted at two o'clock the day before.,2 "Mrs. Maloney would have related to him the history of a poor dear young engine-driver, who had once lodged with her, and who went out, after eating a hearty dinner, in the best of spirits, to meet with his death from the concussion of an express and a luggage train; but Robert put on his hat again, and walked straight out of the house before the honest Irishwoman could begin her pitiful story.",1 It was growing dusk when he reached Southampton.,2 "He knew his way to the poor little terrace of houses, in a full street leading down to the water, where George's father-in-law lived.",2 Little Georgey was playing at the open parlor window as the young man walked down the street.,2 "Perhaps it was this fact, and the dull and silent aspect of the house, which filled Robert Audley's mind with a vague conviction that the man he came to look for was not there.",1 "The old man himself opened the door, and the child peeped out of the parlor to see the strange gentleman.",1 "He was a handsome boy, with his father's brown eyes and dark waving hair, and with some latent expression which was not his father's and which pervaded his whole face, so that although each feature of the child resembled the same feature in George Talboys, the boy was not actually like him.",3 "Mr. Maldon was delighted to see Robert Audley; he remembered having had the pleasure of meeting him at Ventnor, on the melancholy occasion of—He wiped his watery old eyes by way of conclusion to the sentence.",3 Would Mr. Audley walk in?,2 Robert strode into the parlor.,2 "The furniture was shabby and dingy, and the place reeked with the smell of stale tobacco and brandy-and-water.",0 "The boy's broken playthings, and the old man's broken clay pipes and torn, brandy-and-water-stained newspapers were scattered upon the dirty carpet.",1 "Little Georgey crept toward the visitor, watching him furtively out of his big, brown eyes.",1 "Robert took the boy on his knee, and gave him his watch-chain to play with while he talked to the old man.",2 """I need scarcely ask the question that I come to ask,"" he said; ""I was in hopes I should have found your son-in-law here.""",1 """What!",2 "you knew that he was coming to Southampton?""",2 """Knew that he was coming?""",2 "cried Robert, brightening up.",2 """He is here, then?""",2 """No, he is not here now; but he has been here.""",2 """When?""",2 """Late last night; he came by the mail.""",2 """And left again immediately?""",2 """He stayed little better than an hour.""",3 """Good Heaven!""",3 "said Robert, ""what useless anxiety that man has given me!",1 "What can be the meaning of all this?""",2 """You knew nothing of his intention, then?""",2 """Of what intention?""",2 """I mean of his determination to go to Australia.""",2 """I know that it was always in his mind more or less, but not more just now than usual.""",2 """He sails to-night from Liverpool.",2 "He came here at one o'clock this morning to have a look at the boy, he said, before he left England, perhaps never to return.",2 "He told me he was sick of the world, and that the rough life out there was the only thing to suit him.",1 "He stayed an hour, kissed the boy without awaking him, and left Southampton by the mail that starts at a quarter-past two.""",2 """What can be the meaning of all this?""",2 said Robert.,2 """What could be his motive for leaving England in this manner, without a word to me, his most intimate friend—without even a change of clothes; for he has left everything at my chambers?",3 "It is the most extraordinary proceeding!""",3 The old man looked very grave.,2 """Do you know, Mr. Audley,"" he said, tapping his forehead significantly, ""I sometimes fancy that Helen's death had a strange effect upon poor George.""",1 """Pshaw!""",2 "cried Robert, contemptuously; ""he felt the blow most cruelly, but his brain was as sound as yours or mine.""",0 """Perhaps he will write to you from Liverpool,"" said George's father-in-law.",2 He seemed anxious to smooth over any indignation that Robert might feel at his friend's conduct.,1 """He ought,"" said Robert, gravely, ""for we've been good friends from the days when we were together at Eton.",2 "It isn't kind of George Talboys to treat me like this.""",3 But even at the moment that he uttered the reproach a strange thrill of remorse shot through his heart.,1 """It isn't like him,"" he said, ""it isn't like George Talboys.""",3 Little Georgey caught at the sound.,2 """That's my name,"" he said, ""and my papa's name—the big gentleman's name.""",2 """Yes, little Georgey, and your papa came last night and kissed you in your sleep.",2 "Do you remember?""",2 """No,"" said the boy, shaking his curly little head.",2 """You must have been very fast asleep, little Georgey, not to see poor papa.""",2 "The child did not answer, but presently, fixing his eyes upon Robert's face, he said abruptly: ""Where's the pretty lady?""",2 """What pretty lady?""",3 """The pretty lady that used to come a long while ago.""",3 """He means his poor mamma,"" said the old man.",1 """No,"" cried the boy resolutely, ""not mamma.",2 Mamma was always crying.,2 "I didn't like mamma—"" ""Hush, little Georgey!""",3 """But I didn't, and she didn't like me.",3 She was always crying.,2 "I mean the pretty lady; the lady that was dressed so fine, and that gave me my gold watch.""",4 """He means the wife of my old captain—an excellent creature, who took a great fancy to Georgey, and gave him some handsome presents.""",4 """Where's my gold watch?",3 "Let me show the gentleman my gold watch,"" cried Georgey.",3 """It's gone to be cleaned, Georgey,"" answered his grandfather.",2 """It's always going to be cleaned,"" said the boy.",2 """The watch is perfectly safe, I assure you, Mr. Audley,"" murmured the old man, apologetically; and taking out a pawnbroker's duplicate, he handed it to Robert.",4 "It was made out in the name of Captain Mortimer: ""Watch, set with diamonds, £11.""",2 """I'm often hard pressed for a few shillings, Mr. Audley,"" said the old man.",1 """My son-in-law has been very liberal to me; but there are others, there are others, Mr. Audley—and—and—I've not been treated well.""",3 "He wiped away some genuine tears as he said this in a pitiful, crying voice.",2 """Come, Georgey, it's time the brave little man was in bed.",3 Come along with grandpa.,2 "Excuse me for a quarter of an hour, Mr. Audley.""",1 The boy went very willingly.,3 "At the door of the room the old man looked back at his visitor, and said in the same peevish voice, ""This is a poor place for me to pass my declining years in, Mr. Audley.",0 "I've made many sacrifices, and I make them still, but I've not been treated well.""",3 "Left alone in the dusky little sitting-room, Robert Audley folded his arms, and sat absently staring at the floor.",2 "George was gone, then; he might receive some letter of explanation perhaps, when he returned to London; but the chances were that he would never see his old friend again.",2 """And to think that I should care so much for the fellow!""",2 "he said, lifting his eyebrows to the center of his forehead.",2 """The place smells of stale tobacco like a tap-room,"" he muttered presently; ""there can be no harm in my smoking a cigar here.""",1 "He took one from the case in his pocket: there was a spark of fire in the little grate, and he looked about for something to light his cigar with.",1 "A twisted piece of paper lay half burned upon the hearthrug; he picked it up, and unfolded it, in order to get a better pipe-light by folding it the other way of the paper.",1 "As he did so, absently glancing at the penciled writing upon the fragment of thin paper, a portion of a name caught his eye—a portion of the name that was most in his thoughts.",2 "He took the scrap of paper to the window, and examined it by the declining light.",1 It was part of a telegraphic dispatch.,2 "The upper portion had been burnt away, but the more important part, the greater part of the message itself, remained.",3 """—alboys came to —— last night, and left by the mail for London, on his way to Liverpool, whence he was to sail for Sydney.""",2 The date and the name and address of the sender of the message had been burnt with the heading.,2 Robert Audley's face blanched to a deathly whiteness.,2 "He carefully folded the scrap of paper, and placed it between the leaves of his pocket-book.",1 """My God!""",2 "he said, ""what is the meaning of this?",2 "I shall go to Liverpool to-night, and make inquiries there!""",2 "Robert Audley left Southampton by the mail, and let himself into his chambers just as the dawn was creeping cold and gray into the solitary rooms, and the canaries were beginning to rustle their feathers feebly in the early morning.",1 "There were several letters in the box behind the door, but there was none from George Talboys.",2 The young barrister was worn out by a long day spent in hurrying from place to place.,1 "The usual lazy monotony of his life had been broken as it had never been broken before in eight-and-twenty tranquil, easy-going years.",1 His mind was beginning to grow confused upon the point of time.,1 It seemed to him months since he had lost sight of George Talboys.,1 It was so difficult to believe that it was less than forty-eight hours ago that the young man had left him asleep under the willows by the trout stream.,1 His eyes were painfully weary for want of sleep.,1 "He searched about the room for some time, looking in all sorts of impossible places for a letter from George Talboys, and then threw himself dressed upon his friend's bed, in the room with the canaries and geraniums.",1 """I shall wait for to-morrow morning's post,"" he said; ""and if that brings no letter from George, I shall start for Liverpool without a moment's delay.""",1 "He was thoroughly exhausted, and fell into a heavy sleep—a sleep which was profound without being in any way refreshing, for he was tormented all the time by disagreeable dreams—dreams which were painful, not from any horror in themselves, but from a vague and wearying sense of their confusion and absurdity.",0 "At one time he was pursuing strange people and entering strange houses in the endeavor to unravel the mystery of the telegraphic dispatch; at another time he was in the church-yard at Ventnor, gazing at the headstone George had ordered for the grave of his dead wife.",0 "Once in the long, rambling mystery of these dreams he went to the grave, and found this headstone gone, and on remonstrating with the stonemason, was told that the man had a reason for removing the inscription; a reason that Robert would some day learn.",1 "In another dream he saw the grave of Helen Talboys open, and while he waited, with the cold horror lifting up his hair, to see the dead woman rise and stand before him with her stiff, charnel-house drapery clinging about her rigid limbs, his uncle's wife tripped gaily out of the open grave, dressed in the crimson velvet robes in which the artist had painted her, and with her ringlets flashing like red gold in the unearthly light that shone about her.",1 "But into all these dreams the places he had last been in, and the people with whom he had last been concerned, were dimly interwoven—sometimes his uncle; sometimes Alicia; oftenest of all my lady; the trout stream in Essex; the lime-walk at the Court.",1 "Once he was walking in the black shadows of this long avenue, with Lady Audley hanging on his arm, when suddenly they heard a great knocking in the distance, and his uncle's wife wound her slender arms around him, crying out that it was the day of judgment, and that all wicked secrets must now be told.",1 "Looking at her as she shrieked this in his ear, he saw that her face had grown ghastly white, and that her beautiful golden ringlets were changing into serpents, and slowly creeping down her fair neck.",2 He started from his dream to find that there was some one really knocking at the outer door of his chambers.,2 "It was a dreary, wet morning, the rain beating against the windows, and the canaries twittering dismally to each other—complaining, perhaps, of the bad weather.",0 Robert could not tell how long the person had been knocking.,2 "He had mixed the sound with his dreams, and when he woke he was only half conscious of other things.",2 """It's that stupid Mrs. Maloney, I dare say,"" he muttered.",1 """She may knock again for all I care.",1 "Why can't she use her duplicate key, instead of dragging a man out of bed when he's half dead with fatigue.""",0 "The person, whoever it was, did knock again, and then desisted, apparently tired out; but about a minute afterward a key turned in the door.",1 """She had her key with her all the time, then,"" said Robert.",2 """I'm very glad I didn't get up.""",3 "The door between the sitting-room and bed-room was half open, and he could see the laundress bustling about, dusting the furniture, and rearranging things that had never been disarranged.",2 """Is that you, Mrs. Maloney?""",2 he asked.,2 """Yes, sir,"" ""Then why, in goodness' name, did you make that row at the door, when you had a key with you all the time?""",2 """A row at the door, sir?""",2 """Yes; that infernal knocking.""",1 """Sure I never knocked, Mister Audley, but walked straight in with my kay—"" ""Then who did knock?",1 "There's been some one kicking up a row at that door for a quarter of an hour, I should think; you must have met him going down-stairs.""",2 """But I'm rather late this morning, sir, for I've been in Mr. Martin's rooms first, and I've come straight from the floor above.""",2 """Then you didn't see any one at the door, or on the stairs?""",2 """Not a mortal soul, sir.""",2 """Was ever anything so provoking?""",2 said Robert.,2 """To think that I should have let this person go away without ascertaining who he was, or what he wanted!",2 "How do I know that it was not some one with a message or a letter from George Talboys?""",2 """Sure if it was, sir, he'll come again,"" said Mrs. Maloney, soothingly.",3 """Yes, of course, if it was anything of consequence he'll come again,"" muttered Robert.",2 "The fact was, that from the moment of finding the telegraphic message at Southampton, all hope of hearing of George had faded out of his mind.",2 "He felt that there was some mystery involved in the disappearance of his friend—some treachery toward himself, or toward George.",1 What if the young man's greedy old father-in-law had tried to separate them on account of the monetary trust lodged in Robert Audley's hands?,2 "Or what if, since even in these civilized days all kinds of unsuspected horrors are constantly committed—what if the old man had decoyed George down to Southampton, and made away with him in order to get possession of that £20,000, left in Robert's custody for little Georgey's use?",2 "But neither of these suppositions explained the telegraphic message, and it was the telegraphic message which had filled Robert's mind with a vague sense of alarm.",1 "The postman brought no letter from George Talboys, and the person who had knocked at the door of the chambers did not return between seven and nine o'clock, so Robert Audley left Figtree Court once more in search of his friend.",2 "This time he told the cabman to drive to the Euston Station, and in twenty minutes he was on the platform, making inquiries about the trains.",2 "The Liverpool express had started half an hour before he reached the station, and he had to wait an hour and a quarter for a slow train to take him to his destination.",1 Robert Audley chafed cruelly at this delay.,1 "Half a dozen vessels might sail for Australia while he roamed up and down the long platform, tumbling over trucks and porters, and swearing at his ill-luck.",3 "He bought the Times newspaper, and looked instinctively at the second column, with a morbid interest in the advertisements of people missing—sons, brothers, and husbands who had left their homes, never to return or to be heard of more.",1 There was one advertisement of a young man found drowned somewhere on the Lambeth shore.,2 What if that should have been George's fate?,2 "No; the telegraphic message involved his father-in-law in the fact of his disappearance, and every speculation about him must start from that one point.",2 It was eight o'clock in the evening when Robert got into Liverpool; too late for anything except to make inquiries as to what vessel had sailed within the last two days for the antipodes.,2 "An emigrant ship had sailed at four o'clock that afternoon—the Victoria Regia, bound for Melbourne.",2 "The result of his inquiries amounted to this—If he wanted to find out who had sailed in the Victoria Regia, he must wait till the next morning, and apply for information of that vessel.",2 "Robert Audley was at the office at nine o'clock the next morning, and was the first person after the clerks who entered it.",2 He met with every civility from the clerk to whom he applied.,3 "The young man referred to his books, and running his pen down the list of passengers who had sailed in the Victoria Regia, told Robert that there was no one among them of the name of Talboys.",2 He pushed his inquiries further.,2 Had any of the passengers entered their names within a short time of the vessel's sailing?,2 One of the other clerks looked up from his desk as Robert asked this question.,2 "Yes, he said; he remembered a young man's coming into the office at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon, and paying his passage money.",2 His name was the last on the list—Thomas Brown.,2 Robert Audley shrugged his shoulders.,2 There could have been no possible reason for George's taking a feigned name.,2 He asked the clerk who had last spoken if he could remember the appearance of this Mr. Thomas Brown.,2 "No; the office was crowded at the time; people were running in and out, and he had not taken any particular notice of this last passenger.",1 "Robert thanked them for their civility, and wished them good-morning.",3 "As he was leaving the office, one of the young men called after him: ""Oh, by-the-by, sir,"" he said, ""I remember one thing about this Mr. Thomas Brown—his arm was in a sling.""",2 There was nothing more for Robert Audley to do but to return to town.,2 "He re-entered his chambers at six o'clock that evening, thoroughly worn out once more with his useless search.",1 Mrs. Maloney brought him his dinner and a pint of wine from a tavern in the Strand.,2 "The evening was raw and chilly, and the laundress had lighted a good fire in the sitting-room grate.",1 "After eating about half a mutton-chop, Robert sat with his wine untasted upon the table before him, smoking cigars and staring into the blaze.",2 """George Talboys never sailed for Australia,"" he said, after long and painful reflection.",1 """If he is alive, he is still in England; and if he is dead, his body is hidden in some corner of England.""",1 "He sat for hours smoking and thinking—trouble and gloomy thoughts leaving a dark shadow upon his moody face, which neither the brilliant light of the gas nor the red blaze of the fire could dispel.",0 "Very late in the evening he rose from his chair, pushed away the table, wheeled his desk over to the fire-place, took out a sheet of fools-cap, and dipped a pen in the ink.",2 "But after doing this he paused, leaned his forehead upon his hand, and once more relapsed into thought.",2 """I shall draw up a record of all that has occurred between our going down to Essex and to-night, beginning at the very beginning.""",2 "He drew up this record in short, detached sentences, which he numbered as he wrote.",2 "It ran thus: ""Journal of Facts connected with the Disappearance of George Talboys, inclusive of Facts which have no apparent Relation to that Circumstance.""",2 "In spite of the troubled state of his mind, he was rather inclined to be proud of the official appearance of this heading.",1 "He sat for some time looking at it with affection, and with the feather of his pen in his mouth.",3 """Upon my word,"" he said, ""I begin to think that I ought to have pursued my profession, instead of dawdling my life away as I have done.""",2 "He smoked half a cigar before he had got his thoughts in proper train, and then began to write: ""1.",3 "I write to Alicia, proposing to take George down to the Court.""",2 """2.",2 "Alicia writes, objecting to the visit, on the part of Lady Audley.""",2 """3.",2 We go to Essex in spite of that objection.,1 I see my lady.,2 "My lady refuses to be introduced to George on that particular evening on the score of fatigue.""",1 """4.",2 "Sir Michael invites George and me to dinner for the following evening.""",2 """5.",2 "My lady receives a telegraphic dispatch the next morning which summons her to London.""",2 """6.",2 "Alicia shows me a letter from my lady, in which she requests to be told when I and my friend, Mr. Talboys, mean to leave Essex.",2 "To this letter is subjoined a postscript, reiterating the above request.""",2 """7.",2 "We call at the Court, and ask to see the house.",2 "My lady's apartments are locked.""",2 """8.",2 "We get at the aforesaid apartments by means of a secret passage, the existence of which is unknown to my lady.",1 "In one of the rooms we find her portrait.""",2 """9.",2 George is frightened at the storm.,2 "His conduct is exceedingly strange for the rest of the evening.""",2 """10.",2 George quite himself again the following morning.,2 "I propose leaving Audley Court immediately; he prefers remaining till the evening.""",3 """11.",2 We go out fishing.,2 "George leaves me to go to the Court.""",2 """12.",2 "The last positive information I can obtain of him in Essex is at the Court, where the servant says he thinks Mr. Talboys told him he would go and look for my lady in the grounds.""",3 """13.",2 "I receive information about him at the station which may or may not be correct.""",3 """14.",2 "I hear of him positively once more at Southampton, where, according to his father-in-law, he had been for an hour on the previous night.""",3 """15.",2 "The telegraphic message.""",2 "When Robert Audley had completed this brief record, which he drew up with great deliberation, and with frequent pauses for reflection, alterations and erasures, he sat for a long time contemplating the written page.",3 "At last he read it carefully over, stopping at some of the numbered paragraphs, and marking some of them with a pencil cross; then he folded the sheet of foolscap, went over to a cabinet on the opposite side of the room, unlocked it, and placed the paper in that very pigeon-hole into which he had thrust Alicia's letter—the pigeon-hole marked Important.",3 "Having done this, he returned to his easy-chair by the fire, pushed away his desk, and lighted a cigar.",3 """It's as dark as midnight from first to last,"" he said; ""and the clew to the mystery must be found either at Southampton or in Essex.",1 "Be it how it may, my mind is made up.",2 "I shall first go to Audley Court, and look for George Talboys in a narrow radius.""",2 """Mr. George Talboys.—Any person who has met this gentleman since the 7th inst., or who possesses any information respecting him subsequent to that date, will be liberally rewarded on communicating with A.Z., 14 Chancery Lane.""",2 "Sir Michael Audley read the above advertisement in the second column of the Times, as he sat at breakfast with my lady and Alicia two or three days after Robert's return to town.",2 """Robert's friend has not yet been heard of, then,"" said the baronet, after reading the advertisement to his wife and daughter.",2 """As for that,"" replied my lady, ""I cannot help wondering that any one can be silly enough to advertise for him.",2 "The young man was evidently of a restless, roving disposition—a sort of Bamfyld Moore Carew of modern life, whom no attraction could ever keep in one spot.""",3 "Though the advertisement appeared three successive times, the party at the Court attached very little importance to Mr. Talboys' disappearance; and after this one occasion his name was never again mentioned by either Sir Michael, my lady, or Alicia.",2 Alicia Audley and her pretty stepmother were by no means any better friends after that quiet evening on which the young barrister had dined at the Court.,4 """She is a vain, frivolous, heartless little coquette,"" said Alicia, addressing herself to her Newfoundland dog Caesar, who was the sole recipient of the young lady's confidences; ""she is a practiced and consummate flirt, Caesar; and not contented with setting her yellow ringlets and her silly giggle at half the men in Essex, she must needs make that stupid cousin of mine dance attendance upon her.",0 "I haven't common patience with her.""",3 In proof of which last assertion Miss Alicia Audley treated her stepmother with such very palpable impertinence that Sir Michael felt himself called upon to remonstrate with his only daughter.,1 """The poor little woman is very sensitive, you know, Alicia,"" the baronet said, gravely, ""and she feels your conduct most acutely.""",1 """I don't believe it a bit, papa,"" answered Alicia, stoutly.",2 """You think her sensitive because she has soft little white hands, and big blue eyes with long lashes, and all manner of affected, fantastical ways, which you stupid men call fascinating.",3 Sensitive!,3 "Why, I've seen her do cruel things with those slender white fingers, and laugh at the pain she inflicted.",1 "I'm very sorry, papa,"" she added, softened a little by her father's look of distress; ""though she has come between us, and robbed poor Alicia of the love of that dear, generous heart, I wish I could like her for your sake; but I can't, I can't, and no more can Caesar.",2 "She came up to him once with her red lips apart, and her little white teeth glistening between them, and stroked his great head with her soft hand; but if I had not had hold of his collar, he would have flown at her throat and strangled her.",4 "She may bewitch every man in Essex, but she'd never make friends with my dog.""",1 """Your dog shall be shot,"" answered Sir Michael angrily, ""if his vicious temper ever endangers Lucy.""",0 "The Newfoundland rolled his eyes slowly round in the direction of the speaker, as if he understood every word that had been said.",1 "Lady Audley happened to enter the room at this very moment, and the animal cowered down by the side of his mistress with a suppressed growl.",1 "There was something in the manner of the dog which was, if anything, more indicative of terror than of fury; incredible as it appears that Caesar should be frightened by so fragile a creature as Lucy Audley.",1 "Amicable as was my lady's nature, she could not live long at the Court without discovering Alicia's dislike to her.",2 "She never alluded to it but once; then, shrugging her graceful white shoulders, she said, with a sigh: ""It seems very hard that you cannot love me, Alicia, for I have never been used to make enemies; but since it seems that it must be so, I cannot help it.",2 "If we cannot be friends, let us be neutral.",2 "You won't try to injure me?""",1 """Injure you!""",1 "exclaimed Alicia; ""how should I injure you?""",1 """You'll not try to deprive me of your father's affection?""",2 """I may not be as amiable as you are, my lady, and I may not have the same sweet smiles and pretty words for every stranger I meet, but I am not capable of a contemptible meanness; and even if I were, I think you are so secure of my father's love, that nothing but your own act will ever deprive you of it.""",4 """What a severe creature you are, Alicia!""",1 "said my lady, making a little grimace.",1 """I suppose you mean to infer by all that, that I'm deceitful.",1 "Why, I can't help smiling at people, and speaking prettily to them.",3 I know I'm no better than the rest of the world; but I can't help it if I'm pleasantér.,3 "It's constitutional.""",2 "Alicia having thus entirely shut the door upon all intimacy between Lady Audley and herself, and Sir Michael being chiefly occupied in agricultural pursuits and manly sports, which kept him away from home, it was perhaps natural that my lady, being of an eminently social disposition, should find herself thrown a good deal upon her white-eyelashed maid for society.",3 Phoebe Marks was exactly the sort of a girl who is generally promoted from the post of lady's maid to that of companion.,2 "She had just sufficient education to enable her to understand her mistress when Lucy chose to allow herself to run riot in a species of intellectual tarantella, in which her tongue went mad to the sound of its own rattle, as the Spanish dancer at the noise of his castanets.",0 "Phoebe knew enough of the French language to be able to dip into the yellow-paper-covered novels which my lady ordered from the Burlington Arcade, and to discourse with her mistress upon the questionable subjects of these romances.",1 "The likeness which the lady's maid bore to Lucy Audley was, perhaps, a point of sympathy between the two women.",1 "It was not to be called a striking likeness; a stranger might have seen them both together, and yet have failed to remark it.",1 "But there were certain dim and shadowy lights in which, meeting Phoebe Marks gliding softly through the dark oak passages of the Court, or under the shrouded avenues in the garden, you might have easily mistaken her for my lady.",0 "Sharp October winds were sweeping the leaves from the limes in the long avenue, and driving them in withered heaps with a ghostly rustling noise along the dry gravel walks.",3 "The old well must have been half choked up with the leaves that drifted about it, and whirled in eddying circles into its black, broken mouth.",2 "On the still bosom of the fish-pond the same withered leaves slowly rotted away, mixing themselves with the tangled weeds that discolored the surface of the water.",1 All the gardeners Sir Michael could employ could not keep the impress of autumn's destroying hand from the grounds about the Court.,3 """How I hate this desolate month!""",1 "my lady said, as she walked about the garden, shivering beneath her sable mantle.",2 """Every thing dropping to ruin and decay, and the cold flicker of the sun lighting up the ugliness of the earth, as the glare of gas-lamps lights the wrinkles of an old woman.",0 "Shall I ever grow old, Phoebe?",2 "Will my hair ever drop off as the leaves are falling from those trees, and leave me wan and bare like them?",2 "What is to become of me when I grow old?""",2 "She shivered at the thought of this more than she had done at the cold, wintry breeze, and muffling herself closely in her fur, walked so fast that her maid had some difficulty in keeping up with her.",2 """Do you remember, Phoebe,"" she said, presently, relaxing her pace, ""do you remember that French story we read—the story of a beautiful woman who had committed some crime—I forget what—in the zenith of her power and loveliness, when all Paris drank to her every night, and when the people ran away from the carriage of the king to flock about hers, and get a peep at her face?",3 "Do you remember how she kept the secret of what she had done for nearly half a century, spending her old age in her family chateau, beloved and honored by all the province as an uncanonized saint and benefactress to the poor; and how, when her hair was white, and her eyes almost blind with age, the secret was revealed through one of those strange accidents by which such secrets always are revealed in romances, and she was tried, found guilty, and condemned to be burned alive?",0 "The king who had worn her colors was dead and gone; the court of which she had been a star had passed away; powerful functionaries and great magistrates, who might perhaps have helped her, were moldering in the graves; brave young cavaliers, who would have died for her, had fallen upon distant battle-fields; she had lived to see the age to which she had belonged fade like a dream; and she went to the stake, followed by only a few ignorant country people, who forgot all her bounties, and hooted at her for a wicked sorceress.""",1 """I don't care for such dismal stories, my lady,"" said Phoebe Marks with a shudder.",1 """One has no need to read books to give one the horrors in this dull place.""",1 Lady Audley shrugged her shoulders and laughed at her maid's candor.,2 """It is a dull place, Phoebe,"" she said, ""though it doesn't do to say so to my dear old husband.",1 "Though I am the wife of one of the most influential men in the county, I don't know that I wasn't nearly as well off at Mr. Dawson's; and yet it's something to wear sables that cost sixty guineas, and have a thousand pounds spent on the decoration of one's apartments.""",3 "Treated as a companion by her mistress, in the receipt of the most liberal wages, and with perquisites such as perhaps lady's maid never had before, it was strange that Phoebe Marks should wish to leave her situation; but it was not the less a fact that she was anxious to exchange all the advantages of Audley Court for the very unpromising prospect which awaited her as the wife of her Cousin Luke.",1 The young man had contrived in some manner to associate himself with the improved fortunes of his sweetheart.,3 "He had never allowed Phoebe any peace till she had obtained for him, by the aid of my lady's interference, a situation as undergroom of the Court.",2 "He never rode out with either Alicia or Sir Michael; but on one of the few occasions upon which my lady mounted the pretty little gray thoroughbred reserved for her use, he contrived to attend her in her ride.",2 "He saw enough, in the very first half hour they were out, to discover that, graceful as Lucy Audley might look in her long blue cloth habit, she was a timid horsewoman, and utterly unable to manage the animal she rode.",1 Lady Audley remonstrated with her maid upon her folly in wishing to marry the uncouth groom.,1 "The two women were seated together over the fire in my lady's dressing-room, the gray sky closing in upon the October afternoon, and the black tracery of ivy darkening the casement windows.",2 """You surely are not in love with the awkward, ugly creature are you, Phoebe?""",1 asked my lady sharply.,1 The girl was sitting on a low stool at her mistress feet.,1 "She did not answer my lady's question immediately, but sat for some time looking vacantly into the red abyss in the hollow fire.",1 "Presently she said, rather as if she had been thinking aloud than answering Lucy's question: ""I don't think I can love him.",3 "We have been together from children, and I promised, when I was little better than fifteen, that I'd be his wife.",3 I daren't break that promise now.,2 "There have been times when I've made up the very sentence I meant to say to him, telling him that I couldn't keep my faith with him; but the words have died upon my lips, and I've sat looking at him, with a choking sensation, in my throat that wouldn't let me speak.",3 I daren't refuse to marry him.,1 "I've often watched and watched him, as he has sat slicing away at a hedge-stake with his great clasp-knife, till I have thought that it is just such men as he who have decoyed their sweethearts into lonely places, and murdered them for being false to their word.",0 When he was a boy he was always violent and revengeful.,1 I saw him once take up that very knife in a quarrel with his mother.,1 "I tell you, my lady, I must marry him.""",2 """You silly girl, you shall do nothing of the kind!""",1 answered Lucy.,2 """You think he'll murder you, do you?",1 "Do you think, then, if murder is in him, you would be any safer as his wife?",1 "If you thwarted him, or made him jealous; if he wanted to marry another woman, or to get hold of some poor, pitiful bit of money of yours, couldn't he murder you then?",0 "I tell you you sha'n't marry him, Phoebe.",2 "In the first place I hate the man; and, in the next place I can't afford to part with you.",2 "We'll give him a few pounds and send him about his business.""",2 "Phoebe Marks caught my lady's hand in hers, and clasped them convulsively.",2 """My lady—my good, kind mistress!""",2 "she cried, vehemently, ""don't try to thwart me in this—don't ask me to thwart him.",1 I tell you I must marry him.,2 You don't know what he is.,2 "It will be my ruin, and the ruin of others, if I break my word.",1 "I must marry him!""",2 """Very well, then, Phoebe,"" answered her mistress, ""I can't oppose you.",1 "There must be some secret at the bottom of all this.""",2 """There is, my lady,"" said the girl, with her face turned away from Lucy.",2 """I shall be very sorry to lose you; but I have promised to stand your friend in all things.",1 "What does your cousin mean to do for a living when you are married?""",2 """He would like to take a public house.""",3 """Then he shall take a public house, and the sooner he drinks himself to death the better.",2 "Sir Michael dines at a bachelor's party at Major Margrave's this evening, and my step-daughter is away with her friends at the Grange.",2 "You can bring your cousin into the drawing-room after dinner, and I'll tell him what I mean to do for him.""",2 """You are very good, my lady,"" Phoebe answered with a sigh.",3 "Lady Audley sat in the glow of firelight and wax candles in the luxurious drawing-room; the amber damask cushions of the sofa contrasting with her dark violet velvet dress, and her rippling hair falling about her neck in a golden haze.",2 "Everywhere around her were the evidences of wealth and splendor; while in strange contrast to all this, and to her own beauty; the awkward groom stood rubbing his bullet head as my lady explained to him what she intended to do for her confidential maid.",2 "Lucy's promises were very liberal, and she had expected that, uncouth as the man was, he would, in his own rough manner, have expressed his gratitude.",2 To her surprise he stood staring at the floor without uttering a word in answer to her offer.,2 "Phoebe was standing close to his elbow, and seemed distressed at the man's rudeness.",1 """Tell my lady how thankful you are, Luke,"" she said.",3 """But I'm not so over and above thankful,"" answered her lover, savagely.",3 """Fifty pound ain't much to start a public.",2 "You'll make it a hundred, my lady?""",2 """I shall do nothing of the kind,"" said Lady Audley, her clear blue eyes flashing with indignation, ""and I wonder at your impertinence in asking it.""",3 """Oh, yes, you will, though,"" answered Luke, with quiet insolence that had a hidden meaning.",2 """You'll make it a hundred, my lady.""",2 "Lady Audley rose from her seat, looked the man steadfastly in the face till his determined gaze sunk under hers; then walking straight up to her maid, she said in a high, piercing voice, peculiar to her in moments of intense agitation: ""Phoebe Marks, you have told this man!""",1 The girl fell on her knees at my lady's feet.,1 """Oh, forgive me, forgive me!""",2 she cried.,2 """He forced it from me, or I would never, never have told!""",2 "Upon a lowering morning late in November, with the yellow fog low upon the flat meadows, and the blinded cattle groping their way through the dim obscurity, and blundering stupidly against black and leafless hedges, or stumbling into ditches, undistinguishable in the hazy atmosphere; with the village church looming brown and dingy through the uncertain light; with every winding path and cottage door, every gable end and gray old chimney, every village child and straggling cur seeming strange and weird of aspect in the semi-darkness, Phoebe Marks and her Cousin Luke made their way through the churchyard of Audley, and presented themselves before a shivering curate, whose surplice hung in damp folds, soddened by the morning mist, and whose temper was not improved by his having waited five minutes for the bride and bridegroom.",0 "Luke Marks, dressed in his ill-fitting Sunday clothes, looked by no means handsomer than in his every-day apparel; but Phoebe, arrayed in a rustling silk of delicate gray, that had been worn about half a dozen times by her mistress, looked, as the few spectators of the ceremony remarked, ""quite the lady.""",1 "A very dim and shadowy lady, vague of outline, and faint of coloring, with eyes, hair, complexion and dress all melting into such pale and uncertain shades that, in the obscure light of the foggy November morning a superstitious stranger might have mistaken the bride for the ghost of some other bride, dead and buried in the vault below the church.",0 "Mr. Luke Marks, the hero of the occasion, thought very little of all this.",3 "He had secured the wife of his choice, and the object of his life-long ambition—a public house.",1 "My lady had provided the seventy-five pounds necessary for the purchase of the good-will and fixtures, with the stock of ales and spirits, of a small inn in the center of a lonely little village, perched on the summit of a hill, and called Mount Stanning.",2 "It was not a very pretty house to look at; it had something of a tumble-down, weather-beaten appearance, standing, as it did, upon high ground, sheltered only by four or five bare and overgrown poplars, that had shot up too rapidly for their strength, and had a blighted, forlorn look in consequence.",1 "The wind had had its own way with the Castle Inn, and had sometimes made cruel use of its power.",1 "It was the wind that battered and bent the low, thatched roofs of outhouses and stables, till they hung over and lurched forward, as a slouched hat hangs over the low forehead of some village ruffian; it was the wind that shook and rattled the wooden shutters before the narrow casements, till they hung broken and dilapidated upon their rusty hinges; it was the wind that overthrew the pigeon house, and broke the vane that had been imprudently set up to tell the movements of its mightiness; it was the wind that made light of any little bit of wooden trellis-work, or creeping plant, or tiny balcony, or any modest decoration whatsoever, and tore and scattered it in its scornful fury; it was the wind that left mossy secretions on the discolored surface of the plaster walls; it was the wind, in short, that shattered, and ruined, and rent, and trampled upon the tottering pile of buildings, and then flew shrieking off, to riot and glory in its destroying strength.",0 "The dispirited proprietor grew tired of his long struggle with this mighty enemy; so the wind was left to work its own will, and the Castle Inn fell slowly to decay.",0 "But for all that it suffered without, it was not the less prosperous within doors.",2 "Sturdy drovers stopped to drink at the little bar; well-to-do farmers spent their evenings and talked politics in the low, wainscoted parlor, while their horses munched some suspicious mixture of moldy hay and tolerable beans in the tumble-down stables.",3 "Sometimes even the members of the Audley hunt stopped to drink and bait their horses at the Castle Inn; while, on one grand and never-to-be-forgotten occasion, a dinner had been ordered by the master of the hounds for some thirty gentlemen, and the proprietor driven nearly mad by the importance of the demand.",2 "So Luke Marks, who was by no means troubled with an eye for the beautiful, thought himself very fortunate in becoming the landlord of the Castle Inn, Mount Stanning.",3 "A chaise-cart was waiting in the fog to convey the bride and bridegroom to their new home; and a few of the villagers, who had known Phoebe from a child, were lingering around the churchyard gate to bid her good-by.",3 "Her pale eyes were still paler from the tears she had shed, and the red rims which surrounded them.",1 The bridegroom was annoyed at this exhibition of emotion.,1 """What are you blubbering for, lass?""",2 "he said, fiercely.",2 """If you didn't want to marry me you should have told me so.",2 "I ain't going to murder you, am I?""",1 "The lady's maid shivered as he spoke to her, and dragged her little silk mantle closely around her.",1 """You're cold in all this here finery,"" said Luke, staring at her costly dress with no expression of good-will.",1 """Why can't women dress according to their station?",2 "You won't have no silk gownds out of my pocket, I can tell you.""",2 "He lifted the shivering girl into the chaise, wrapped a rough great-coat about her, and drove off through the yellow fog, followed by a feeble cheer from two or three urchins clustered around the gate.",2 "A new maid was brought from London to replace Phoebe Marks about the person of my lady—a very showy damsel, who wore a black satin gown, and rose-colored ribbons in her cap, and complained bitterly of the dullness of Audley Court.",1 But Christmas brought visitors to the rambling old mansion.,2 "A country squire and his fat wife occupied the tapestried chamber; merry girls scampered up and down the long passages, and young men stared out of the latticed windows, watching for southerly winds and cloudy skies; there was not an empty stall in the roomy old stables; an extempore forge had been set up in the yard for the shoeing of hunters; yelping dogs made the place noisy with their perpetual clamor; strange servants herded together on the garret story; and every little casement hidden away under some pointed gable, and every dormer window in the quaint old roof, glimmered upon the winter's night with its separate taper, till, coming suddenly upon Audley Court, the benighted stranger, misled by the light, and noise, and bustle of the place, might have easily fallen into young Marlowe's error, and have mistaken the hospitable mansion for a good, old-fashioned inn, such as have faded from this earth since the last mail coach and prancing tits took their last melancholy journey to the knacker's yard.",0 "Among other visitors Mr. Robert Audley came down to Essex for the hunting season, with half a dozen French novels, a case of cigars, and three pounds of Turkish tobacco in his portmanteau.",2 "The honest young country squires, who talked all breakfast time of Flying Dutchman fillies and Voltigeur colts; of glorious runs of seven hours' hard riding over three counties, and a midnight homeward ride of thirty miles upon their covert hacks; and who ran away from the well-spread table with their mouths full of cold sirloin, to look at that off pastern, or that sprained forearm, or the colt that had just come back from the veterinary surgeon's, set down Robert Audley, dawdling over a slice of bread and marmalade, as a person utterly unworthy of any remark whatsoever.",1 "The young barrister had brought a couple of dogs with him; and the country gentleman who gave fifty pounds for a pointer; and traveled a couple of hundred miles to look at a leash of setters before he struck a bargain, laughed aloud at the two miserable curs, one of which had followed Robert Audley through Chancery Lane, and half the length of Holborn; while his companion had been taken by the barrister vi et armis from a coster-monger who was ill-using him.",1 "And as Robert furthermore insisted on having these two deplorable animals under his easy-chair in the drawing-room, much to the annoyance of my lady, who, as we know, hated all dogs, the visitors at Audley Court looked upon the baronet's nephew as an inoffensive species of maniac.",0 During other visits to the Court Robert Audley had made a feeble show of joining in the sports of the merry assembly.,2 "He had jogged across half a dozen ploughed fields on a quiet gray pony of Sir Michael's, and drawing up breathless and panting at the door of some farm-house, had expressed his intention of following the hounds no further that morning.",3 "He had even gone so far as to put on, with great labor, a pair of skates, with a view to taking a turn on the frozen surface of the fishpond, and had fallen ignominously at the first attempt, lying placidly extended on the flat of his back until such time as the bystanders should think fit to pick him up.",1 "He had occupied the back seat in a dog-cart during a pleasant morning drive, vehemently protesting against being taken up hill, and requiring the vehicle to be stopped every ten minutes in order to readjust the cushions.",1 "But this year he showed no inclination for any of these outdoor amusements, and he spent his time entirely in lounging in the drawing-room, and making himself agreeable, after his own lazy fashion, to my lady and Alicia.",2 Lady Audley received her nephew's attentions in that graceful half-childish fashion which her admirers found so charming; but Alicia was indignant at the change in her cousin's conduct.,2 """You were always a poor, spiritless fellow, Bob,"" said the young lady, contemptuously, as she bounced into the drawing-room in her riding-habit, after a hunting breakfast, from which Robert had absented himself, preferring a cup of tea in my lady's boudoir; ""but this year I don't know what has come to you.",1 "You are good for nothing but to hold a skein of silk or read Tennyson to Lady Audley.""",3 """My dear, hasty, impetuous Alicia, don't be violent,"" said the young man imploringly.",0 """A conclusion isn't a five-barred gate; and you needn't give your judgment its head, as you give your mare Atalanta hers, when you're flying across country at the heels of an unfortunate fox.",1 "Lady Audley interests me, and my uncle's county friends do not.",3 "Is that a sufficient answer, Alicia?""",3 Miss Audley gave her head a little scornful toss.,1 """It's as good an answer as I shall ever get from, you, Bob,"" she said, impatiently; ""but pray amuse yourself in your own way; loll in an easy-chair all day, with those two absurd dogs asleep on your knees; spoil my lady's window-curtains with your cigars and annoy everybody in the house with your stupid, inanimate countenance.""",1 "Mr. Robert Audley opened his handsome gray eyes to their widest extent at this tirade, and looked helplessly at Miss Alicia.",1 "The young lady was walking up and down the room, slashing the skirt of her habit with her riding-whip.",1 "Her eyes sparkled with an angry flash, and a crimson glow burned under her clear brown skin.",2 "The young barrister knew very well, by these diagnostics, that his cousin was in a passion.",3 """Yes,"" she repeated, ""your stupid, inanimate countenance.",1 "Do you know, Robert Audley, that with all your mock amiability, you are brimful of conceit and superciliousness.",1 "You look down upon our amusements; you lift up your eyebrows, and shrug your shoulders, and throw yourself back in your chair, and wash your hands of us and our pleasures.",1 "You are a selfish, cold-hearted Sybarite—"" ""Alicia!",1 "Good—gracious—me!""",3 "The morning paper dropped out of his hands, and he sat feebly staring at his assailant.",2 """Yes, selfish, Robert Audley!",1 "You take home half-starved dogs, because you like half-starved dogs.",3 "You stoop down, and pat the head of every good-for-nothing cur in the village street, because you like good-for-nothing curs.",3 "You notice little children, and give them halfpence, because it amuses you to do so.",2 "But you lift your eyebrows a quarter of a yard when poor Sir Harry Towers tells a stupid story, and stare the poor fellow out of countenance with your lazy insolence.",0 "As to your amiability, you would let a man hit you, and say 'Thank you' for the blow, rather than take the trouble to hit him again; but you wouldn't go half a mile out of your way to serve your dearest friend.",1 "Sir Harry is worth twenty of you, though he did write to ask if my m-a-i-r Atalanta had recovered from the sprain.",3 "He can't spell, or lift his eyebrows to the roots of his hair; but he would go through fire and water for the girl he loves; while you—"" At this very point, when Robert was most prepared to encounter his cousin's violence, and when Miss Alicia seemed about to make her strongest attack, the young lady broke down altogether, and burst into tears.",1 "Robert sprang from his easy-chair, upsetting his dogs on the carpet.",2 """Alicia, my darling, what is it?""",3 """It's—it's—it's the feather of my hat that got into my eyes,"" sobbed his cousin; and before he could investigate the truth of this assertion Alicia had darted out of the room.",2 "Robert Audley was preparing to follow her, when he heard her voice in the court-yard below, amidst the tramping of horses and the clamor of visitors, dogs, and grooms.",1 "Sir Harry Towers, the most aristocratic young sportsman in the neighborhood, had just taken her little foot in his hand as she sprung into her saddle.",2 """Good Heaven!""",3 "exclaimed Robert, as he watched the merry party of equestrians until they disappeared under the archway.",3 """What does all this mean?",2 How charmingly she sits her horse!,3 "What a pretty figure, too, and a fine, candid, brown, rosy face: but to fly at a fellow like that, without the least provocation!",4 That's the consequence of letting a girl follow the hounds.,2 "She learns to look at everything in life as she does at six feet of timber or a sunk fence; she goes through the world as she goes across country—straight ahead, and over everything.",1 "Such a nice girl as she might have been, too, if she'd been brought up in Figtree Court!",3 "If ever I marry, and have daughters (which remote contingency may Heaven forefend!) they shall be educated in Paper Buildings, take their sole exercise in the Temple Gardens, and they shall never go beyond the gates till they are marriageable, when I will walk them straight across Fleet street to St. Dunstan's church, and deliver them into the hands of their husbands.""",3 "With such reflections as these did Mr. Robert Audley beguile the time until my lady re-entered the drawing-room, fresh and radiant in her elegant morning costume, her yellow curls glistening with the perfumed waters in which she had bathed, and her velvet-covered sketch-book in her arms.",4 "She planted a little easel upon a table by the window, seated herself before it, and began to mix the colors upon her palette, Robert watching her out of his half-closed eyes.",2 """You are sure my cigar does not annoy you, Lady Audley?""",1 """Oh, no indeed; I am quite used to the smell of tobacco.",1 "Mr. Dawson, the surgeon, smoked all the evening when I lived in his house.""",2 """Dawson is a good fellow, isn't he?""",3 "Robert asked, carelessly.",2 "My lady burst into her pretty, gushing laugh.",3 """The dearest of good creatures,"" she said.",3 """He paid me five-and-twenty pounds a year—only fancy, five-and-twenty pounds!",3 That made six pounds five a quarter.,2 "How well I remember receiving the money—six dingy old sovereigns, and a little heap of untidy, dirty silver, that came straight from the till in the surgery!",2 And then how glad I was to get it!,3 While now—I can't help laughing while I think of it—these colors I am using cost a guinea each at Winsor & Newton's—the carmine and ultramarine thirty shillings.,2 "I gave Mrs. Dawson one of my silk dresses the other day, and the poor thing kissed me, and the surgeon carried the bundle home under his cloak.""",1 My lady laughed long and joyously at the thought.,3 Her colors were mixed; she was copying a water-colored sketch of an impossibly Turneresque atmosphere.,1 "The sketch was nearly finished, and she had only to put in some critical little touches with the most delicate of her sable pencils.",2 "She prepared herself daintily for the work, looking sideways at the painting.",3 All this time Mr. Robert Audley's eyes were fixed intently on her pretty face.,3 """It is a change,"" he said, after so long a pause that my lady might have forgotten what she had been talking of, ""it is a change!",2 "Some women would do a great deal to accomplish such a change as that.""",3 Lady Audley's clear blue eyes dilated as she fixed them suddenly on the young barrister.,3 "The wintry sunlight, gleaming full upon her face from a side window, lit up the azure of those beautiful eyes, till their color seemed to flicker and tremble betwixt blue and green, as the opal tints of the sea change upon a summer's day.",2 "The small brush fell from her hand, and blotted out the peasant's face under a widening circle of crimson lake.",1 Robert Audley was tenderly coaxing the crumbled leaf of his cigar with cautious fingers.,3 """My friend at the corner of Chancery Lane has not given me such good Manillas as usual,"" he murmured.",3 """If ever you smoke, my dear aunt (and I am told that many women take a quiet weed under the rose), be very careful how you choose your cigars.""",1 "My lady drew a long breath, picked up her brush, and laughed aloud at Robert's advice.",2 """What an eccentric creature you are, Mr. Audley I Do you know that you sometimes puzzle me—"" ""Not more than you puzzle me, dear aunt.""",1 "My lady put away her colors and sketch book, and seating herself in the deep recess of another window, at a considerable distance from Robert Audley, settled to a large piece of Berlin-wool work—a piece of embroidery which the Penelopes of ten or twelve years ago were very fond of exercising their ingenuity upon—the Olden Time at Bolton Abbey.",4 "Seated in the embrasure of this window, my lady was separated from Robert Audley by the whole length of the room, and the young man could only catch an occasional glimpse of her fair face, surrounded by its bright aureole of hazy, golden hair.",3 "Robert Audley had been a week at the Court, but as yet neither he nor my lady had mentioned the name of George Talboys.",2 "This morning, however, after exhausting the usual topics of conversation, Lady Audley made an inquiry about her nephew's friend; ""That Mr. George—George—"" she said, hesitating.",2 """Talboys,"" suggested Robert.",2 """Yes, to be sure—Mr. George Talboys.",2 "Rather a singular name, by-the-by, and certainly, by all accounts, a very singular person.",2 "Have you seen him lately?""",2 """I have not seen him since the 7th of September last—the day upon which he left me asleep in the meadows on the other side of the village.""",2 """Dear me!""",2 "exclaimed my lady, ""what a very strange young man this Mr. George Talboys must be!",1 "Pray tell me all about it.""",2 "Robert told, in a few words, of his visit to Southampton and his journey to Liverpool, with their different results, my lady listening very attentively.",2 "In order to tell this story to better advantage, the young man left his chair, and, crossing the room, took up his place opposite to Lady Audley, in the embrasure of the window.",3 """And what do you infer from all this?""",2 "asked my lady, after a pause.",2 """It is so great a mystery to me,"" he answered, ""that I scarcely dare to draw any conclusion whatever; but in the obscurity I think I can grope my way to two suppositions, which to me seem almost certainties.""",1 """And they are—"" ""First, that George Talboys never went beyond Southampton.",2 "Second, that he never went to Southampton at all.""",2 """But you traced him there.",2 "His father-in-law had seen him.""",2 """I have reason to doubt his father-in-law's integrity.""",1 """Good gracious me!""",3 "cried my lady, piteously.",2 """What do you mean by all this?""",2 """Lady Audley,"" answered the young man, gravely, ""I have never practiced as a barrister.",1 "I have enrolled myself in the ranks of a profession, the members of which hold solemn responsibilities and have sacred duties to perform; and I have shrunk from those responsibilities and duties, as I have from all the fatigues of this troublesome life.",1 "But we are sometimes forced into the very position we have most avoided, and I have found myself lately compelled to think of these things.",2 "Lady Audley, did you ever study the theory of circumstantial evidence?""",2 """How can you ask a poor little woman about such horrid things?""",1 exclaimed my lady.,2 """Circumstantial evidence,"" continued the young man, as if he scarcely heard Lady Audley's interruption—""that wonderful fabric which is built out of straws collected at every point of the compass, and which is yet strong enough to hang a man.",2 "Upon what infinitesimal trifles may sometimes hang the whole secret of some wicked mystery, inexplicable heretofore to the wisest upon the earth!",0 "A scrap of paper, a shred of some torn garment, the button off a coat, a word dropped incautiously from the overcautious lips of guilt, the fragment of a letter, the shutting or opening of a door, a shadow on a window-blind, the accuracy of a moment tested by one of Benson's watches—a thousand circumstances so slight as to be forgotten by the criminal, but links of iron in the wonderful chain forged by the science of the detective officer; and lo!",0 "the gallows is built up; the solemn bell tolls through the dismal gray of the early morning, the drop creaks under the guilty feet, and the penalty of crime is paid.""",0 "Faint shadows of green and crimson fell upon my lady's face from the painted escutcheons in the mullioned window by which she sat; but every trace of the natural color of that face had faded out, leaving it a ghastly ashen gray.",0 "Sitting quietly in her chair, her head fallen back upon the amber damask cushions, and her little hands lying powerless in her lap, Lady Audley had fainted away.",0 """The radius grows narrower day by day,"" said Robert Audley.",1 """George Talboys never reached Southampton.""",2 "The Christmas week was over, and one by one the country visitors dropped away from Audley Court.",2 "The fat squire and his wife abandoned the gray, tapestried chamber, and left the black-browed warriors looming from the wall to scowl upon and threaten new guests, or to glare vengefully upon vacancy.",0 "The merry girls on the second story packed, or caused to be packed, their trunks and imperials, and tumbled gauze ball-dresses were taken home that had been brought fresh to Audley.",3 "Blundering old family chariots, with horses whose untrimmed fetlocks told of rougher work than even country roads, were brought round to the broad space before the grim oak door, and laden with chaotic heaps of womanly luggage.",1 "Pretty rosy faces peeped out of carriage windows to smile the last farewell upon the group at the hall door, as the vehicle rattled and rumbled under the ivied archway.",3 Sir Michael was in request everywhere.,2 "Shaking hands with the young sportsmen; kissing the rosy-cheeked girls; sometimes even embracing portly matrons who came to thank him for their pleasant visit; everywhere genial, hospitable, generous, happy, and beloved, the baronet hurried from room to room, from the hall to the stables, from the stables to the court-yard, from the court-yard to the arched gateway to speed the parting guest.",4 My lady's yellow curls flashed hither and thither like wandering gleams of sunshine on these busy days of farewell.,3 "Her great blue eyes had a pretty, mournful look, in charming unison with the soft pressure of her little hand, and that friendly, though perhaps rather stereotyped speech, in which she told her visitors how she was so sorry to lose them, and how she didn't know what she should do till they came once more to enliven the court by their charming society.",4 "But however sorry my lady might be to lose her visitors, there was at least one guest whose society she was not deprived of.",0 Robert Audley showed no intention of leaving his uncle's house.,2 "He had no professional duties, he said; Figtree Court was delightfully shady in hot weather, but there was a sharp corner round which the wind came in the summer months, armed with avenging rheumatisms and influenzas.",3 "Everybody was so good to him at the Court, that really he had no inclination to hurry away.",3 "Sir Michael had but one answer to this: ""Stay, my dear boy; stay, my dear Bob, as long as ever you like.",3 "I have no son, and you stand to me in the place of one.",2 "Make yourself agreeable to Lucy, and make the Court your home as long as you live.""",3 "To which Robert would merely reply by grasping his uncle's hand vehemently, and muttering something about ""a jolly old prince.""",2 "It was to be observed that there was sometimes a certain vague sadness in the young man's tone when he called Sir Michael ""a jolly old prince;"" some shadow of affectionate regret that brought a mist into Robert's eyes, as he sat in a corner of the room looking thoughtfully at the white-bearded baronet.",1 "Before the last of the young sportsmen departed, Sir Harry Towers demanded and obtained an interview with Miss Alicia Audley in the oak library—an interview in which considerable emotion was displayed by the stalwart young fox-hunter; so much emotion, indeed, and of such a genuine and honest character, that Alicia fairly broke down as she told him she should forever esteem and respect him for his true and noble heart, but that he must never, never, unless he wished to cause her the most cruel distress, ask more from her than this esteem and respect.",3 Sir Harry left the library by the French window opening into the pond-garden.,2 "He strolled into that very lime-walk which George Talboys had compared to an avenue in a churchyard, and under the leafless trees fought the battle of his brave young heart.",3 """What a fool I am to feel it like this!""",2 "he cried, stamping his foot upon the frosty ground.",2 """I always knew it would be so; I always knew that she was a hundred times too good for me.",3 God bless her!,3 "How nobly and tenderly she spoke; how beautiful she looked with the crimson blushes under her brown skin, and the tears in her big, gray eyes—almost as handsome as the day she took the sunk fence, and let me put the brush in her hat as we rode home!",4 God bless her!,3 I can get over anything as long as she doesn't care for that sneaking lawyer.,2 "But I couldn't stand that.""",2 "That sneaking lawyer, by which appellation Sir Harry alluded to Mr. Robert Audley, was standing in the hall, looking at a map of the midland counties, when Alicia came out of the library, with red eyes, after her interview with the fox-hunting baronet.",2 "Robert, who was short-sighted, had his eyes within half an inch of the surface of the map as the young lady approached him.",2 """Yes,"" he said, ""Norwich is in Norfolk, and that fool, young Vincent, said it was in Herefordshire.",1 "Ha, Alicia, is that you?""",2 He turned round so as to intercept Miss Audley on her way to the staircase.,1 """Yes,"" replied his cousin curtly, trying to pass him.",2 """Alicia, you have been crying.""",2 The young lady did not condescend to reply.,1 """You have been crying, Alicia.",2 "Sir Harry Towers, of Towers Park, in the county of Herts, has been making you an offer of his hand, eh?""",2 """Have you been listening at the door, Mr. Audley?""",2 """I have not, Miss Audley.",1 "On principle, I object to listen, and in practice I believe it to be a very troublesome proceeding; but I am a barrister, Miss Alicia, and able to draw a conclusion by induction.",0 "Do you know what inductive evidence is, Miss Audley?""",1 """No,"" replied Alicia, looking at her cousin as a handsome young panther might look at its daring tormentor.",3 """I thought not.",2 I dare say Sir Harry would ask if it was a new kind of horse-ball.,2 "I knew by induction that the baronet was going to make you an offer; first, because he came downstairs with his hair parted on the wrong side, and his face as pale as a tablecloth; secondly, because he couldn't eat any breakfast, and let his coffee go the wrong way; and, thirdly, because he asked for an interview with you before he left the Court.",1 "Well, how's it to be, Alicia?",3 "Do we marry the baronet, and is poor Cousin Bob to be the best man at the wedding?""",2 """Sir Harry Towers is a noble-hearted young man,"" said Alicia, still trying to pass her cousin.",3 """But do we accept him—yes or no?",2 "Are we to be Lady Towers, with a superb estate in Hertfordshire, summer quarters for our hunters, and a drag with outriders to drive us across to papa's place in Essex?",2 "Is it to be so, Alicia, or not?""",2 """What is that to you, Mr. Robert Audley?""",2 "cried Alicia, passionately.",3 """What do you care what becomes of me, or whom I marry?",2 "If I married a chimney-sweep you'd only lift up your eyebrows and say, 'Bless my soul, she was always eccentric.'",1 "I have refused Sir Harry Towers; but when I think of his generous and unselfish affection, and compare it with the heartless, lazy, selfish, supercilious indifference of other men, I've a good mind to run after him and tell him—"" ""That you'll retract, and be my Lady Towers?""",1 """Yes.""",2 """Then don't, Alicia, don't,"" said Robert Audley, grasping his cousin's slender little wrist, and leading her up-stairs.",3 """Come into the drawing-room with me, Alicia, my poor little cousin; my charming, impetuous, alarming little cousin.",1 "Sit down here in this mullioned window, and let us talk seriously and leave off quarreling if we can.""",2 The cousins had the drawing-room all to themselves.,2 "Sir Michael was out, my lady in her own apartments, and poor Sir Harry Towers walking up and down upon the gravel walk, darkened with the flickering shadows of the leafless branches in the cold winter sunshine.",0 """My poor little Alicia,"" said Robert, as tenderly as if he had been addressing some spoiled child, ""do you suppose that because people don't wear vinegar tops, or part their hair on the wrong side, or conduct themselves altogether after the manner of well-meaning maniacs, by way of proving the vehemence of their passion—do you suppose because of this, Alicia Audley, that they may not be just as sensible of the merits of a dear little warm-hearted and affectionate girl as ever their neighbors can be?",4 "Life is such a very troublesome matter, when all is said and done, that it's as well even to take its blessings quietly.",2 "I don't make a great howling because I can get good cigars one door from the corner of Chancery Lane, and have a dear, good girl for my cousin; but I am not the less grateful to Providence that it is so.""",4 "Alicia opened her gray eyes to their widest extent, looking her cousin full in the face with a bewildered stare.",1 "Robert had picked up the ugliest and leanest of his attendant curs, and was placidly stroking the animal's ears.",1 """Is this all you have to say to me, Robert?""",2 "asked Miss Audley, meekly.",1 """Well, yes, I think so,"" replied her cousin, after considerable deliberation.",3 """I fancy that what I wanted to say was this—don't marry the fox-hunting baronet if you like anybody else better; for if you'll only be patient and take life easily, and try and reform yourself of banging doors, bouncing in and out rooms, talking of the stables, and riding across country, I've no doubt the person you prefer will make you a very excellent husband.""",4 """Thank you, cousin,"" said Miss Audley, crimsoning with bright, indignant blushes up to the roots of her waving brown hair; ""but as you may not know the person I prefer, I think you had better not take upon yourself to answer for him.""",3 Robert pulled the dog's ears thoughtfully for some moments.,3 """No, to be sure,"" he said, after a pause.",2 """Of course, if I don't know him—I thought I did.""",2 """Did you?""",2 "exclaimed Alicia; and opening the door with a violence that made her cousin shiver, she bounced out of the drawing-room.",1 """I only said I thought I knew him,"" Robert called after her; and, then, as he sunk into an easy-chair, he murmured thoughtfully: ""Such a nice girl, too, if she didn't bounce.""",3 "So poor Sir Harry Towers rode away from Audley Court, looking very crestfallen and dismal.",1 "He had very little pleasure in returning to the stately mansion, hidden among sheltering oaks and venerable beeches.",3 "The square, red brick house, gleaming at the end of a long arcade of leafless trees was to be forever desolate, he thought, since Alicia would not come to be its mistress.",1 A hundred improvements planned and thought of were dismissed from his mind as useless now.,2 "The hunter that Jim the trainer was breaking in for a lady; the two pointer pups that were being reared for the next shooting season; the big black retriever that would have carried Alicia's parasol; the pavilion in the garden, disused since his mother's death, but which he had meant to have restored for Miss Audley—all these things were now so much vanity and vexation of spirit.",0 """What's the good of being rich if one has no one to help spend one's money?""",3 said the young baronet.,2 """One only grows a selfish beggar, and takes to drinking too much port.",1 It's a hard thing that a girl can refuse a true heart and such stables as we've got at the park.,1 "It unsettles a man somehow.""",2 "Indeed, this unlooked for rejection had very much unsettled the few ideas which made up the small sum of the baronet's mind.",1 "He had been desperately in love with Alicia ever since the last hunting season, when he had met her at the county ball.",2 "His passion, cherished through the slow monotony of a summer, had broken out afresh in the merry winter months, and the young man's mauvaise honte alone had delayed the offer of his hand.",1 "But he had never for a moment supposed that he would be refused; he was so used to the adulation of mothers who had daughters to marry, and of even the daughters themselves; he had been so accustomed to feel himself the leading personage in an assembly, although half the wits of the age had been there, and he could only say ""Haw, to be sure!""",3 "and ""By Jove—hum!""",1 "he had been so spoiled by the flatteries of bright eyes that looked, or seemed to look, the brighter when he drew near, that without being possessed of one shadow of personal vanity, he had yet come to think that he had only to make an offer to the prettiest girl in Essex to behold himself immediately accepted.",2 """Yes,"" he would say complacently to some admiring satellite, ""I know I'm a good match, and I know what makes the gals so civil.",3 "They're very pretty, and they're very friendly to a fellow; but I don't care about 'em.",3 "They're all alike—they can only drop their eyes and say, 'Lor', Sir Harry, why do you call that curly black dog a retriever?'",2 "or 'Oh Sir Harry, and did the poor mare really sprain her pastern shoulder-blade?'",1 "I haven't got much brains myself, I know,"" the baronet would add deprecatingly; ""and I don't want a strong-minded woman, who writes books and wears green spectacles; but, hang it!",2 "I like a gal who knows what she's talking about.""",3 "So when Alicia said ""No,"" or rather made that pretty speech about esteem and respect, which well-bred young ladies substitute for the obnoxious monosyllable, Sir Harry Towers felt that the whole fabric of the future he had built so complacently was shivered into a heap of dingy ruins.",3 Sir Michael grasped him warmly by the hand just before the young man mounted his horse in the court-yard.,3 """I'm very sorry, Towers,"" he said.",1 """You're as good a fellow as ever breathed, and would have made my girl an excellent husband; but you know there's a cousin, and I think that—"" ""Don't say that, Sir Michael,"" interrupted the fox-hunter, energetically.",3 """I can get over anything but that.",2 "A fellow whose hand upon the curb weighs half a ton (why, he pulled the Cavalier's mouth to pieces, sir, the day you let him ride the horse); a fellow who turns his collars down, and eats bread and marmalade!",2 "No, no, Sir Michael; it's a queer world, but I can't think that of Miss Audley.",1 "There must be some one in the background, sir; it can't be the cousin.""",2 Sir Michael shook his head as the rejected suitor rode away.,1 """I don't know about that,"" he muttered.",2 """Bob's a good lad, and the girl might do worse; but he hangs back as if he didn't care for her.",1 "There's some mystery—there's some mystery!""",1 The old baronet said this in that semi-thoughtful tone with which we speak of other people's affairs.,3 "The shadows of the early winter twilight, gathering thickest under the low oak ceiling of the hall, and the quaint curve of the arched doorway, fell darkly round his handsome head; but the light of his declining life, his beautiful and beloved young wife, was near him, and he could see no shadows when she was by.",3 "She came skipping through the hall to meet him, and, shaking her golden ringlets, buried her bright head on her husband's breast.",3 """So the last of our visitors is gone, dear, and we're all alone,"" she said.",2 """Isn't that nice?""",3 """Yes, darling,"" he answered fondly, stroking her bright hair.",4 """Except Mr. Robert Audley.",2 "How long is that nephew of yours going to stay here?""",2 """As long as he likes, my pet; he's always welcome,"" said the baronet; and then, as if remembering himself, he added, tenderly: ""But not unless his visit is agreeable to you, darling; not if his lazy habits, or his smoking, or his dogs, or anything about him is displeasing to you.""",4 Lady Audley pursed up her rosy lips and looked thoughtfully at the ground.,3 """It isn't that,"" she said, hesitatingly.",2 """Mr. Audley is a very agreeable young man, and a very honorable young man; but you know, Sir Michael, I'm rather a young aunt for such a nephew, and—"" ""And what, Lucy?""",3 "asked the baronet, fiercely.",2 """Poor Alicia is rather jealous of any attention Mr. Audley pays me, and—and—I think it would be better for her happiness if your nephew were to bring his visit to a close.""",2 """He shall go to-night, Lucy,"" exclaimed Sir Michael.",2 """I am a blind, neglectful fool not to have thought of this before.",1 "My lovely little darling, it was scarcely just to Bob to expose the poor lad to your fascinations.",2 "I know him to be as good and true-hearted a fellow as ever breathed, but—but—he shall go tonight.""",3 """But you won't be too abrupt, dear?",1 "You won't be rude?""",1 """Rude!",1 "No, Lucy.",2 I left him smoking in the lime-walk.,2 "I'll go and tell him that he must get out of the house in an hour.""",2 "So in that leafless avenue, under whose gloomy shade George Talboys had stood on that thunderous evening before the day of his disappearance, Sir Michael Audley told his nephew that the Court was no home for him, and that my lady was too young and pretty to accept the attentions of a handsome nephew of eight-and-twenty.",3 "Robert only shrugged his shoulders and elevated his thick, black eyebrows as Sir Michael delicately hinted all this.",2 """I have been attentive to my lady,"" he said.",3 """She interests me;"" and then, with a change in his voice, and an emotion not common to him, he turned to the baronet, and grasping his hand, exclaimed, ""God forbid, my dear uncle, that I should ever bring trouble upon such a noble heart as yours!",2 "God forbid that the slightest shadow of dishonor should ever fall upon your honored head—least of all through agency of mine.""",1 "The young man uttered these few words in a broken and disjointed fashion in which Sir Michael had never heard him speak, before, and then turning away his head, fairly broke down.",1 "He left the court that night, but he did not go far.",2 "Instead of taking the evening train for London, he went straight up to the little village of Mount Stanning, and walking into the neatly-kept inn, asked Phoebe Marks if he could be accommodated with apartments.",3 "The little sitting-room into which Phoebe Marks ushered the baronet's nephew was situated on the ground floor, and only separated by a lath-and-plaster partition from the little bar-parlor occupied by the innkeeper and his wife.",2 "It seemed as though the wise architect who had superintended the building of the Castle Inn had taken especial care that nothing but the frailest and most flimsy material should be used, and that the wind, having a special fancy for this unprotected spot, should have full play for the indulgence of its caprices.",3 "To this end pitiful woodwork had been used instead of solid masonry; rickety ceilings had been propped up by fragile rafters, and beams that threatened on every stormy night to fall upon the heads of those beneath them; doors whose specialty was never to be shut, yet always to be banging; windows constructed with a peculiar view to letting in the draft when they were shut, and keeping out the air when they were open.",0 "The hand of genius had devised this lonely country inn; and there was not an inch of woodwork, or trowelful of plaster employed in all the rickety construction that did not offer its own peculiar weak point to every assault of its indefatigable foe.",0 Robert looked about him with a feeble smile of resignation.,1 "It was a change, decidedly, from the luxurious comforts of Audley Court, and it was rather a strange fancy of the young barrister to prefer loitering at this dreary village hostelry to returning to his snug chambers in Figtree Court.",3 "But he had brought his Lares and Penates with him, in the shape of his German pipe, his tobacco canister, half a dozen French novels, and his two ill-conditioned, canine favorites, which sat shivering before the smoky little fire, barking shortly and sharply now and then, by way of hinting for some slight refreshment.",1 "While Mr. Robert Audley contemplated his new quarters, Phoebe Marks summoned a little village lad who was in the habit of running errands for her, and taking him into the kitchen, gave him a tiny note, carefully folded and sealed.",2 """You know Audley Court?""",2 """Yes, mum.""",2 """If you'll run there with this letter to-night, and see that it's put safely in Lady Audley's hands, I'll give you a shilling.""",3 """Yes, mum.""",2 """You understand?",2 "Ask to see my lady; you can say you've a message—not a note, mind—but a message from Phoebe Marks; and when you see her, give this into her own hand.""",2 """Yes, mum.""",2 """You won't forget?""",2 """No, mum.""",2 """Then be off with you.""",2 "The boy waited for no second bidding, but in another moment was scudding along the lonely high road, down the sharp descent that led to Audley.",3 "Phoebe Marks went to the window, and looked out at the black figure of the lad hurrying through the dusky winter evening.",2 """If there's any bad meaning in his coming here,"" she thought, ""my lady will know of it in time, at any rate.""",1 "Phoebe herself brought the neatly arranged tea-tray, and the little covered dish of ham and eggs which had been prepared for this unlooked-for visitor.",3 "Her pale hair was as smoothly braided, and her light gray dress fitted as precisely as of old.",3 The same neutral tints pervaded her person and her dress; no showy rose-colored ribbons or rustling silk gown proclaimed the well-to-do innkeeper's wife.,3 Phoebe Marks was a person who never lost her individuality.,1 "Silent and self-constrained, she seemed to hold herself within herself, and take no color from the outer world.",3 "Robert looked at her thoughtfully as she spread the cloth, and drew the table nearer to the fireplace.",3 """That,"" he thought, ""is a woman who could keep a secret.""",2 "The dogs looked rather suspiciously at the quiet figure of Mrs. Marks gliding softly about the room, from the teapot to the caddy, and from the caddy to the kettle singing on the hob.",2 """Will you pour out my tea for me, Mrs. Marks?""",2 "said Robert, seating himself on a horsehair-covered arm-chair, which fitted him as tightly in every direction as if he had been measured for it.",2 """You have come straight from the Court, sir?""",2 "said Phoebe, as she handed Robert the sugar-basin.",2 """Yes; I only left my uncle's an hour ago.""",2 """And my lady, sir, was she quite well?""",3 """Yes, quite well.""",3 """As gay and light-hearted as ever, sir?""",2 """As gay and light-hearted as ever.""",2 "Phoebe retired respectfully after having given Mr. Audley his tea, but as she stood with her hand upon the lock of the door he spoke again.",3 """You knew Lady Audley when she was Miss Lucy Graham, did you not?""",1 he asked.,2 """Yes, sir.",2 "I lived at Mrs. Dawson's when my lady was governess there.""",2 """Indeed!",2 "Was she long in the surgeon's family?""",2 """A year and a half, sir.""",2 """And she came from London?""",2 """Yes, sir.""",2 """And she was an orphan, I believe?""",1 """Yes, sir.""",2 """Always as cheerful as she is now?""",3 """Always, sir.""",2 Robert emptied his teacup and handed it to Mrs. Marks.,2 "Their eyes met—a lazy look in his, and an active, searching glance in hers.",1 """This woman would be good in a witness-box,"" he thought; ""it would take a clever lawyer to bother her in a cross-examination.""",3 "He finished his second cup of tea, pushed away his plate, fed his dogs, and lighted his pipe, while Phoebe carried off the tea-tray.",2 "The wind came whistling up across the frosty open country, and through the leafless woods, and rattled fiercely at the window-frames.",1 """There's a triangular draught from those two windows and the door that scarcely adds to the comfort of this apartment,"" murmured Robert; ""and there certainly are pleasantér sensations than that of standing up to one's knees in cold water.""",3 "He poked the fire, patted his dogs, put on his great coat, rolled a rickety old sofa close to the hearth, wrapped his legs in his railway rug, and stretching himself at full length upon the narrow horsehair cushion, smoked his pipe, and watched the bluish-gray wreaths curling upward to the dingy ceiling.",3 """No,"" he murmured, again; ""that is a woman who can keep a secret.",2 "A counsel for the prosecution could get very little out of her.""",2 I have said that the bar-parlor was only separated from the sitting-room occupied by Robert by a lath-and-plaster partition.,2 "The young barrister could hear the two or three village tradesmen and a couple of farmers laughing and talking round the bar, while Luke Marks served them from his stock of liquors.",2 "Very often he could even hear their words, especially the landlord's, for he spoke in a coarse, loud voice, and had a more boastful manner than any of his customers.",0 """The man is a fool,"" said Robert, as he laid down his pipe.",1 """I'll go and talk to him by-and-by.""",2 "He waited till the few visitors to the Castle had dropped away one by one, and when Luke Marks had bolted the door upon the last of his customers, he strolled quietly into the bar-parlor, where the landlord was seated with his wife.",2 "Phoebe was busy at a little table, upon which stood a prim work-box, with every reel of cotton and glistening steel bodkin in its appointed place.",3 "She was darning the coarse gray stockings that adorned her husband's awkward feet, but she did her work as daintily as if they had been my lady's delicate silken hose.",2 "I say that she took no color from external things, and that the vague air of refinement that pervaded her nature clung to her as closely in the society of her boorish husband at the Castle Inn as in Lady Audley's boudoir at the Court.",2 She looked up suddenly as Robert entered the bar-parlor.,2 "There was some shade of vexation in her pale gray eyes, which changed to an expression of anxiety—nay, rather of almost terror—as she glanced from Mr. Audley to Luke Marks.",0 """I have come in for a few minutes' chat before I go to bed,"" said Robert, settling himself very comfortably before the cheerful fire.",3 """Would you object to a cigar, Mrs. Marks?",1 "I mean, of course, to my smoking one,"" he added, explanatorily.",2 """Not at all, sir.""",2 """It would be a good 'un her objectin' to a bit o' 'bacca,"" growled Mr. Marks, ""when me and the customers smokes all day.""",3 "Robert lighted his cigar with a gilt-paper match of Phoebe's making that adorned the chimney-piece, and took half a dozen reflective puffs before he spoke.",2 """I want you to tell me all about Mount Stanning, Mr. Marks,"" he said, presently.",2 """Then that's pretty soon told,"" replied Luke, with a harsh, grating laugh.",1 """Of all the dull holes as ever a man set foot in, this is about the dullest.",1 "Not that the business don't pay pretty tidy; I don't complain of that; but I should ha' liked a public at Chelmsford, or Brentwood, or Romford, or some place where there's a bit of life in the streets; and I might have had it,"" he added, discontentedly, ""if folks hadn't been so precious stingy.""",3 "As her husband muttered this complaint in a grumbling undertone, Phoebe looked up from her work and spoke to him.",2 """We forgot the brew-house door, Luke,"" she said.",2 """Will you come with me and help me put up the bar?""",2 """The brew-house door can bide for to-night,"" said Mr. Marks; ""I ain't agoin' to move now.",2 "I've seated myself for a comfortable smoke.""",2 "He took a long clay pipe from a corner of the fender as he spoke, and began to fill it deliberately.",2 """I don't feel easy about that brew-house door, Luke,"" remonstrated his wife; ""there are always tramps about, and they can get in easily when the bar isn't up.""",3 """Go and put the bar up yourself, then, can't you?""",2 answered Mr. Marks.,2 """It's too heavy for me to lift.""",2 """Then let it bide, if you're too fine a lady to see to it yourself.",3 You're very anxious all of a sudden about this here brew-house door.,1 "I suppose you don't want me to open my mouth to this here gent, that's about it.",2 "Oh, you needn't frown at me to stop my speaking!",1 "You're always putting in your tongue and clipping off my words before I've half said 'em; but I won't stand it.""",2 """Do you hear?",2 "I won't stand it!""",2 "Phoebe Marks shrugged her shoulders, folded her work, shut her work-box, and crossing her hands in her lap, sat with her gray eyes fixed upon her husband's bull-like face.",3 """Then you don't particularly care to live at Mount Stanning?""",2 "said Robert, politely, as if anxious to change the conversation.",1 """No, I don't,"" answered Luke; ""and I don't care who knows it; and, as I said before, if folks hadn't been so precious stingy, I might have had a public in a thrivin' market town, instead of this tumble-down old place, where a man has his hair blowed off his head on a windy day.",1 "What's fifty pound, or what's a hundred pound—"" ""Luke!",2 "Luke!""",2 """No, you're not goin' to stop my mouth with all your 'Luke, Lukes!'",2 """ answered Mr. Marks to his wife's remonstrance.",2 """I say again, what's a hundred pound?""",2 """No,"" answered Robert Audley, with wonderful distinctness, and addressing his words to Luke Marks, but fixing his eyes upon Phoebe's anxious face.",2 """What, indeed, is a hundred pounds to a man possessed of the power which you hold, or rather which your wife holds, over the person in question.""",2 "Phoebe's face, at all times almost colorless, seemed scarcely capable of growing paler; but as her eyelids drooped under Robert Audley's searching glance, a visible change came over the pallid hues of her complexion.",2 """A quarter to twelve,"" said Robert, looking at his watch.",2 """Late hours for such a quiet village as Mount Stanning.",3 "Good-night, my worthy host.",3 "Good-night, Mrs. Marks.",3 "You needn't send me my shaving water till nine o'clock to-morrow morning.""",2 "Eleven o'clock struck the next morning, and found Mr. Robert Audley still lounging over the well ordered little breakfast table, with one of his dogs at each side of his arm-chair, regarding him with watchful eyes and opened mouths, awaiting the expected morsel of ham or toast.",2 "Robert had a county paper on his knees, and made a feeble effort now and then to read the first page, which was filled with advertisements of farming stock, quack medicines, and other interesting matter.",1 "The weather had changed, and the snow, which had for the last few days been looming blackly in the frosty sky, fell in great feathery flakes against the windows, and lay piled in the little bit of garden-ground without.",2 "The long, lonely road leading toward Audley seemed untrodden by a footstep, as Robert Audley looked out at the wintry landscape.",2 """Lively,"" he said, ""for a man used to the fascinations of Temple Bar.""",3 "As he watched the snow-flakes falling every moment thicker and faster upon the lonely road, he was surprised by seeing a brougham driving slowly up the hill.",0 """I wonder what unhappy wretch has too restless a spirit to stop at home on such a morning as this,"" he muttered, as he returned to the arm-chair by the fire.",1 He had only reseated himself a few moments when Phoebe Marks entered the room to announce Lady Audley.,2 """Lady Audley!",2 "Pray beg her to come in,"" said Robert; and then, as Phoebe left the room to usher in this unexpected visitor, he muttered between his teeth—""A false move, my lady, and one I never looked for from you.""",0 Lucy Audley was radiant on this cold and snowy January morning.,2 "Other people's noses are rudely assailed by the sharp fingers of the grim ice-king, but not my lady's; other people's lips turn pale and blue with the chilling influence of the bitter weather, but my lady's pretty little rosebud of a mouth retained its brightest coloring and cheeriest freshness.",2 "She was wrapped in the very sables which Robert Audley had brought from Russia, and carried a muff that the young man thought seemed almost as big as herself.",2 "She looked a childish, helpless, babyfied little creature; and Robert looked down upon her with some touch of pity in his eyes, as she came up to the hearth by which he was standing, and warmed her tiny gloved hands at the blaze.",0 """What a morning, Mr. Audley!""",2 "she said, ""what a morning!""",2 """Yes, indeed!",2 "Why did you come out in such weather?""",2 """Because I wished to see you—particularly.""",2 """Indeed!""",2 """Yes,"" said my lady, with an air of considerable embarrassment, playing with the button of her glove, and almost wrenching it off in her restlessness—""yes, Mr. Audley, I felt that you had not been well treated; that—that you had, in short, reason to complain; and that an apology was due to you.""",1 """I do not wish for any apology, Lady Audley.""",2 """But you are entitled to one,"" answered my lady, quietly.",2 """Why, my dear Robert, should we be so ceremonious toward each other?",2 "You were very comfortable at Audley; we were very glad to have you there; but, my dear, silly husband must needs take it into his foolish head that it is dangerous for his poor little wife's peace of mind to have a nephew of eight or nine and twenty smoking his cigars in her boudoir, and, behold!",1 "our pleasant little family circle is broken up.""",2 "Lucy Audley spoke with that peculiar childish vivacity which seemed so natural to her, Robert looking down almost sadly at her bright, animated face.",1 """Lady Audley,"" he said, ""Heaven forbid that either you or I should ever bring grief or dishonor upon my uncle's generous heart!",1 "Better, perhaps, that I should be out of the house—better, perhaps, that I had never entered it!""",3 "My lady had been looking at the fire while her nephew spoke, but at his last words she lifted her head suddenly, and looked him full in the face with a wondering expression—an earnest, questioning gaze, whose full meaning the young barrister understood.",3 """Oh, pray do not be alarmed, Lady Audley,"" he said, gravely.",1 """You have no sentimental nonsense, no silly infatuation, borrowed from Balzac or Dumas fils, to fear from me.",0 The benchers of the Inner Temple will tell you that Robert Audley is troubled with none of the epidemics whose outward signs are turn-down collars and Byronic neckties.,1 "I say that I wish I had never entered my uncle's house during the last year; but I say it with a far more solemn meaning than any sentimental one.""",1 My lady shrugged her shoulders.,2 """If you insist on talking in enigmas, Mr. Audley,"" she said, ""you must forgive a poor little woman if she declines to answer them.""",1 Robert made no reply to this speech.,2 """But tell me,"" said my lady, with an entire change of tone, ""what could have induced you to come up to this dismal place?""",1 """Curiosity.""",2 """Curiosity?""",2 """Yes; I felt an interest in that bull-necked man, with the dark-red hair and wicked gray eyes.",1 "A dangerous man, my lady—a man in whose power I should not like to be.""",2 "A sudden change came over Lady Audley's face; the pretty, roseate flush faded out from her cheeks, and left them waxen white, and angry flashes lightened in her blue eyes.",2 """What have I done to you, Robert Audley,"" she cried, passionately—""what have I done to you that you should hate me so?""",2 "He answered her very gravely: ""I had a friend, Lady Audley, whom I loved very dearly, and since I have lost him I fear that my feelings toward other people are strangely embittered.""",0 """You mean the Mr. Talboys who went to Australia?""",2 """Yes, I mean the Mr. Talboys who I was told set out for Liverpool with the idea of going to Australia.""",2 """And you do not believe in his having sailed for Australia?""",2 """I do not.""",2 """But why not?""",2 """Forgive me, Lady Audley, if I decline to answer that question.""",1 """As you please,"" she said, carelessly.",2 """A week after my friend disappeared,"" continued Robert, ""I posted an advertisement to the Sydney and Melbourne papers, calling upon him if he was in either city when the advertisement appeared, to write and tell me of his whereabouts, and also calling on any one who had met him, either in the colonies or on the voyage out, to give me any information respecting him.",2 "George Talboys left Essex, or disappeared from Essex, on the 6th of September last.",2 I ought to receive some answer to this advertisement by the end of this month.,2 "To-day is the 27th; the time draws very near.""",2 """And if you receive no answer?""",2 asked Lady Audley.,2 """If I receive no answer I shall think that my fears have been not unfounded, and I shall do my best to act.""",1 """What do you mean by that?""",2 """Ah, Lady Audley, you remind me how very powerless I am in this matter.",1 "My friend might have been made away with in this very inn, and I might stay here for a twelvemonth, and go away at the last as ignorant of his fate as if I had never crossed the threshold.",1 What do we know of the mysteries that may hang about the houses we enter?,1 "If I were to go to-morrow into that commonplace, plebeian, eight-roomed house in which Maria Manning and her husband murdered their guest, I should have no awful prescience of that bygone horror.",0 "Foul deeds have been done under the most hospitable roofs; terrible crimes have been committed amid the fairest scenes, and have left no trace upon the spot where they were done.",1 "I do not believe in mandrake, or in bloodstains that no time can efface.",2 "I believe rather that we may walk unconsciously in an atmosphere of crime, and breathe none the less freely.",1 "I believe that we may look into the smiling face of a murderer, and admire its tranquil beauty.""",4 My lady laughed at Robert's earnestness.,3 """You seem to have quite a taste for discussing these horrible subjects,"" she said, rather scornfully; ""you ought to have been a detective police officer.""",1 """I sometimes think I should have been a good one.""",3 """Why?""",2 """Because I am patient.""",3 """But to return to Mr. George Talboys, whom we lost sight of in your eloquent discussion.",2 "What if you receive no answer to your advertisements?""",2 """I shall then consider myself justified in concluding my friend is dead.""",1 """Yes, and then—?""",2 """I shall examine the effects he left at my chambers.""",2 """Indeed!",2 and what are they?,2 "Coats, waistcoats, varnished boots, and meerschaum pipes, I suppose,"" said Lady Audley, laughing.",2 """No; letters—letters from his friends, his old schoolfellows, his father, his brother officers.""",2 """Yes?""",2 """Letters, too, from his wife.""",2 "My lady was silent for some few moments, looking thoughtfully at the fire.",3 """Have you ever seen any of the letters written by the late Mrs. Talboys?""",2 she asked presently.,2 """Never.",2 Poor soul!,1 her letters are not likely to throw much light upon my friend's fate.,2 I dare say she wrote the usual womanly scrawl.,2 "There are very few who write so charming and uncommon a hand as yours, Lady Audley.""",3 """Ah, you know my hand, of course.""",2 """Yes, I know it very well indeed.""",3 "My lady warmed her hands once more, and then taking up the big muff which she had laid aside upon a chair, prepared to take her departure.",2 """You have refused to accept my apology, Mr. Audley,"" she said; ""but I trust you are not the less assured of my feelings toward you.""",2 """Perfectly assured, Lady Audley.""",3 """Then good-by, and let me recommend you not to stay long in this miserable draughty place, if you do not wish to take rheumatism back to Figtree Court.""",3 """I shall return to town to-morrow morning to see after my letters.""",2 """Then once more good-by.""",3 She held out her hand; he took it loosely in his own.,2 "It seemed such a feeble little hand that he might have crushed it in his strong grasp, had he chosen to be so pitiless.",1 "He attended her to her carriage, and watched it as it drove off, not toward Audley, but in the direction of Brentwood, which was about six miles from Mount Stanning.",2 "About an hour and a half after this, as Robert stood at the door of the inn, smoking a cigar and watching the snow falling in the whitened fields opposite, he saw the brougham drive back, empty this time, to the door of the inn.",1 """Have you taken Lady Audley back to the Court?""",2 "he said to the coachman, who had stopped to call for a mug of hot spiced ale.",3 """No, sir; I've just come from the Brentwood station.",2 "My lady started for London by the 12.40 train.""",2 """For town?""",2 """Yes, sir.""",2 """My lady gone to London!""",2 "said Robert, as he returned to the little sitting-room.",2 """Then I'll follow her by the next train; and if I'm not very much mistaken, I know where to find her.""",1 "He packed his portmanteau, paid his bill, fastened his dogs together with a couple of leathern collars and a chain, and stepped into the rumbling fly kept by the Castle Inn for the convenience of Mount Stanning.",2 "He caught an express that left Brentwood at three o'clock, and settled himself comfortably in a corner of an empty first-class carriage, coiled up in a couple of railway rugs, and smoking a cigar in mild defiance of the authorities.",2 "It was exactly five minutes past four as Mr. Robert Audley stepped out upon the platform at Shoreditch, and waited placidly until such time as his dogs and his portmanteau should be delivered up to the attendant porter who had called his cab, and undertaken the general conduct of his affairs, with that disinterested courtesy which does such infinite credit to a class of servitors who are forbidden to accept the tribute of a grateful public.",1 "Robert Audley waited with consummate patience for a considerable time; but as the express was generally a long train, and as there were a great many passengers from Norfolk carrying guns and pointers, and other paraphernalia of a critical description, it took a long while to make matters agreeable to all claimants, and even the barrister's seraphic indifference to mundane affairs nearly gave way.",3 """Perhaps, when that gentleman who is making such a noise about a pointer with liver-colored spots, has discovered the particular pointer and spots that he wants—which happy combination of events scarcely seems likely to arrive—they'll give me my luggage and let me go.",1 "The designing wretches knew at a glance that I was born to be imposed upon; and that if they were to trample the life out of me upon this very platform, I should never have the spirit to bring an action against the company.""",1 "Suddenly an idea seemed to strike him, and he left the porter to struggle for the custody of his goods, and walked round to the other side of the station.",1 "He heard a bell ring, and looking at the clock, had remembered that the down train for Colchester started at this time.",2 He had learned what it was to have an earnest purpose since the disappearance of George Talboys; and he reached the opposite platform in time to see the passengers take their seats.,3 "There was one lady who had evidently only just arrived at the station; for she hurried on to the platform at the very moment that Robert approached the train, and almost ran against that gentleman in her haste and excitement.",2 """I beg your pardon,"" she began, ceremoniously; then raising her eyes from Mr. Audley's waistcoat, which was about on a level with her pretty face, she exclaimed, ""Robert, you in London already?""",3 """Yes, Lady Audley; you were quite right; the Castle Inn is a dismal place, and—"" ""You got tired of it—I knew you would.",1 "Please open the carriage door for me: the train will start in two minutes.""",2 Robert Audley was looking at his uncle's wife with rather a puzzled expression of countenance.,1 """What does it mean?""",2 he thought.,2 """She is altogether a different being to the wretched, helpless creature who dropped her mask for a moment, and looked at me with her own pitiful face, in the little room at Mount Stanning, four hours ago.",0 "What has happened to cause the change?""",2 "He opened the door for her while he thought this, and helped her to settle herself in her seat, spreading her furs over her knees, and arranging the huge velvet mantle in which her slender little figure was almost hidden.",3 """Thank you very much; how good you are to me,"" she said, as he did this.",3 """You will think me very foolish to travel upon such a day, without my dear darling's knowledge too; but I went up to town to settle a very terrific milliner's bill, which I did not wish my best of husbands to see; for, indulgent as he is, he might think me extravagant; and I cannot bear to suffer even in his thoughts.""",2 """Heaven forbid that you ever should, Lady Audley,"" Robert said, gravely.",1 "She looked at him for a moment with a smile, which had something defiant in its brightness.",2 """Heaven forbid it, indeed,"" she murmured.",2 """I don't think I ever shall.""",2 "The second bell rung, and the train moved as she spoke.",2 The last Robert Audley saw of her was that bright defiant smile.,3 """Whatever object brought her to London has been successfully accomplished,"" he thought.",3 """Has she baffled me by some piece of womanly jugglery?",1 "Am I never to get any nearer to the truth, but am I to be tormented all my life by vague doubts, and wretched suspicions, which may grow upon me till I become a monomaniac?",0 "Why did she come to London?""",2 "He was still mentally asking himself this question as he ascended the stairs in Figtree Court, with one of his dogs under each arm, and his railway rugs over his shoulder.",2 He found his chambers in their accustomed order.,2 "The geraniums had been carefully tended, and the canaries had retired for the night under cover of a square of green baize, testifying to the care of honest Mrs. Maloney.",3 "Robert cast a hurried glance round the sitting-room; then setting down the dogs upon the hearth-rug, he walked straight into the little inner chamber which served as his dressing-room.",2 "It was in this room that he kept disused portmanteaus, battered japanned cases, and other lumber; and it was in this room that George Talboys had left his luggage.",1 "Robert lifted a portmanteau from the top of a large trunk, and kneeling down before it with a lighted candle in his hand, carefully examined the lock.",3 "To all appearance it was exactly in the same condition in which George had left it, when he laid his mourning garments aside and placed them in this shabby repository with all other memorials of his dead wife.",1 "Robert brushed his coat sleeve across the worn, leather-covered lid, upon which the initials G. T. were inscribed with big brass-headed nails; but Mrs. Maloney, the laundress, must have been the most precise of housewives, for neither the portmanteau nor the trunk were dusty.",1 "Mr. Audley dispatched a boy to fetch his Irish attendant, and paced up and down his sitting-room waiting anxiously for her arrival.",1 "She came in about ten minutes, and, after expressing her delight in the return of ""the master,"" humbly awaited his orders.",3 """I only sent for you to ask if anybody has been here; that is to say, if anybody has applied to you for the key of my rooms to-day—any lady?""",2 """Lady?",2 "No, indeed, yer honor; there's been no lady for the kay; barrin' it's the blacksmith.""",3 """The blacksmith!""",2 """Yes; the blacksmith your honor ordered to come to-day.""",3 """I order a blacksmith!""",2 exclaimed Robert.,2 """I left a bottle of French brandy in the cupboard,"" he thought, ""and Mrs. M. has been evidently enjoying herself.""",3 """Sure, and the blacksmith your honor tould to see to the locks,"" replied Mrs. Maloney.",3 """It's him that lives down in one of the little streets by the bridge,"" she added, giving a very lucid description of the man's whereabouts.",3 Robert lifted his eyebrows in mute despair.,1 """If you'll sit down and compose yourself, Mrs. M.,"" he said—he abbreviated her name thus on principle, for the avoidance of unnecessary labor—""perhaps we shall be able by and by to understand each other.",1 "You say a blacksmith has been here?""",2 """Sure and I did, sir.""",2 """To-day?""",2 """Quite correct, sir.""",3 Step by step Mr. Audley elicited the following information.,2 "A locksmith had called upon Mrs. Maloney that afternoon at three o'clock, and had asked for the key of Mr. Audley's chambers, in order that he might look to the locks of the doors, which he stated were all out of repair.",2 "He declared that he was acting upon Mr. Audley's own orders, conveyed to him by a letter from the country, where the gentleman was spending his Christmas.",2 "Mrs. Maloney, believing in the truth of this statement, had admitted the man to the chambers, where he stayed about half an hour.",2 """But you were with him while he examined the locks, I suppose?""",2 Mr. Audley asked.,2 """Sure I was, sir, in and out, as you may say, all the time, for I've been cleaning the stairs this afternoon, and I took the opportunity to begin my scouring while the man was at work.""",3 """Oh, you were in and out all the time.",2 "If you could conveniently give me a plain answer, Mrs. M., I should be glad to know what was the longest time that you were out while the locksmith was in my chambers?""",3 But Mrs. Maloney could not give a plain answer.,2 It might have been ten minutes; though she didn't think it was as much.,2 It might have been a quarter of an hour; but she was sure it wasn't more.,2 "It didn't seem to her more than five minutes, but ""thim stairs, your honor;"" and here she rambled off into a disquisition upon the scouring of stairs in general, and the stairs outside Robert's chambers in particular.",3 Mr. Audley sighed the weary sigh of mournful resignation.,0 """Never mind, Mrs. M.,"" he said; ""the locksmith had plenty of time to do anything he wanted to do, I dare say, without your being any the wiser.""",2 Mrs. Maloney stared at her employer with mingled surprise and alarm.,1 """Sure, there wasn't anything for him to stale, your honor, barrin' the birds and the geran'ums, and—"" ""No, no, I understand.",2 "There, that'll do, Mrs. M.",2 "Tell me where the man lives, and I'll go and see him.""",2 """But you'll have a bit of dinner first, sir?""",2 """I'll go and see the locksmith before I have my dinner.""",2 "He took up his hat as he announced his determination, and walked toward the door.",2 """The man's address, Mrs. M?""",2 "The Irishwoman directed him to a small street at the back of St. Bride's Church, and thither Mr. Robert Audley quietly strolled, through the miry slush which simple Londoners call snow.",2 "He found the locksmith, and, at the sacrifice of the crown of his hat, contrived to enter the low, narrow doorway of a little open shop.",1 "A jet of gas was flaring in the unglazed window, and there was a very merry party in the little room behind the shop; but no one responded to Robert's ""Hulloa!""",3 The reason of this was sufficiently obvious.,3 "The merry party was so much absorbed in its own merriment as to be deaf to all commonplace summonses from the outer world; and it was only when Robert, advancing further into the cavernous little shop, made so bold as to open the half-glass door which separated him from the merry-makers, that he succeeded in obtaining their attention.",3 A very jovial picture of the Teniers school was presented to Mr. Robert Audley upon the opening of this door.,3 "The locksmith, with his wife and family, and two or three droppers-in of the female sex, were clustered about a table, which was adorned by two bottles; not vulgar bottles of that colorless extract of the juniper berry, much affected by the masses; but of bona fide port and sherry—fiercely strong sherry, which left a fiery taste in the mouth, nut-brown sherry—rather unnaturally brown, if anything—and fine old port; no sickly vintage, faded and thin from excessive age: but a rich, full-bodied wine, sweet and substantial and high colored.",3 The locksmith was speaking as Robert Audley opened the door.,2 """And with that,"" he said, ""she walked off, as graceful as you please.""",3 "The whole party was thrown into confusion by the appearance of Mr. Audley, but it was to be observed that the locksmith was more embarrassed than his companions.",1 "He set down his glass so hurriedly, that he spilt his wine, and wiped his mouth nervously with the back of his dirty hand.",1 """You called at my chambers to-day,"" Robert said, quietly.",2 """Don't let me disturb you, ladies.""",1 This to the droppers-in.,2 """You called at my chambers to-day, Mr. White, and—"" The man interrupted him.",2 """I hope, sir, you will be so good as to look over the mistake,"" he stammered.",2 """I'm sure, sir, I'm very sorry it should have occurred.",1 "I was sent for to another gentleman's chambers, Mr. Aulwin, in Garden Court; and the name slipped my memory; and havin' done odd jobs before for you, I thought it must be you as wanted me to-day; and I called at Mrs. Maloney's for the key accordin'; but directly I see the locks in your chambers, I says to myself, the gentleman's locks ain't out of order; the gentleman don't want all his locks repaired.""",1 """But you stayed half an hour.""",2 """Yes, sir; for there was one lock out of order—the door nighest the staircase—and I took it off and cleaned it and put it on again.",2 "I won't charge you nothin' for the job, and I hope as you'll be as good as to look over the mistake as has occurred, which I've been in business thirteen years come July, and—"" ""Nothing of this kind ever happened before, I suppose,"" said Robert, gravely.",1 """No, it's altogether a singular kind of business, not likely to come about every day.",2 "You've been enjoying yourself this evening I see, Mr. White.",3 "You've done a good stroke of work to-day, I'll wager—made a lucky hit, and you're what you call 'standing treat,' eh?""",4 Robert Audley looked straight into the man's dingy face as he spoke.,2 "The locksmith was not a bad-looking fellow, and there was nothing that he need have been ashamed of in his face, except the dirt, and that, as Hamlet's mother says, ""is common;"" but in spite of this, Mr. White's eyelids dropped under the young barrister's calm scrutiny, and he stammered out some apologetic sort of speech about his ""missus,"" and his missus' neighbors, and port wine and sherry wine, with as much confusion as if he, an honest mechanic in a free country, were called upon to excuse himself to Robert Audley for being caught in the act of enjoying himself in his own parlor.",1 Robert cut him short with a careless nod.,1 """Pray don't apologize,"" he said; ""I like to see people enjoy themselves.",3 "Good-night, Mr. White good-night, ladies.""",3 "He lifted his hat to ""the missus,"" and the missus' neighbors, who were much fascinated by his easy manner and his handsome face, and left the shop.",3 """And so,"" he muttered to himself as he went back to his chambers, ""'with that she walked off as graceful as you please.'",3 Who was it that walked off; and what was the story which the locksmith was telling when I interrupted him at that sentence?,2 "Oh, George Talboys, George Talboys, am I ever to come any nearer to the secret of your fate?",2 "Am I coming nearer to it now, slowly but surely?",1 Is the radius to grow narrower day by day until it draws a dark circle around the home of those I love?,1 "How is it all to end?""",2 He sighed wearily as he walked slowly back across the flagged quadrangles in the Temple to his own solitary chambers.,1 "Mrs. Maloney had prepared for him that bachelor's dinner, which, however excellent and nutritious in itself, has no claim to the special charm of novelty.",4 "She had cooked for him a mutton-chop, which was soddening itself between two plates upon the little table near the fire.",2 "Robert Audley sighed as he sat down to the familiar meal, remembering his uncle's cook with a fond, regretful sorrow.",1 """Her cutlets a la Maintenon made mutton seem more than mutton; a sublimated meat that could scarcely have grown upon any mundane sheep,"" he murmured sentimentally, ""and Mrs. Maloney's chops are apt to be tough; but such is life—what does it matter?""",1 He pushed away his plate impatiently after eating a few mouthfuls.,1 """I have never eaten a good dinner at this table since I lost George Talboys,"" he said.",2 """The place seems as gloomy as if the poor fellow had died in the next room, and had never been taken away to be buried.",0 "How long ago that September afternoon appears as I look back at it—that September afternoon upon which I parted with him alive and well; and lost him as suddenly and unaccountably as if a trap-door had opened in the solid earth and let him through to the antipodes!""",2 Mr. Audley rose from the dinner-table and walked over to the cabinet in which he kept the document he had drawn up relating to George Talboys.,2 "He unlocked the doors of his cabinet, took the paper from the pigeon-hole marked important, and seated himself at his desk to write.",3 "He added several paragraphs to those in the document, numbering the fresh paragraphs as carefully as he had numbered the old ones.",3 """Heaven help us all,"" he muttered once; ""is this paper with which no attorney has had any hand to be my first brief?""",3 "He wrote for about half an hour, then replaced the document in the pigeon-hole, and locked the cabinet.",2 "When he had done this, he took a candle in his hand, and went into the room in which were his own portmanteaus and the trunk belonging to George Talboys.",2 "He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and tried them one by one.",2 "The lock of the shabby old trunk was a common one, and at the fifth trial the key turned easily.",1 """There'd be no need for any one to break open such a lock as this,"" muttered Robert, as he lifted the lid of the trunk.",1 "He slowly emptied it of its contents, taking out each article separately, and laying it carefully upon a chair by his side.",1 "He handled the things with a respectful tenderness, as if he had been lifting the dead body of his lost friend.",1 One by one he laid the neatly folded mourning garments on the chair.,3 "He found old meerschaum pipes, and soiled, crumpled gloves that had once been fresh from the Parisian maker; old play-bills, whose biggest letters spelled the names of actors who were dead and gone; old perfume-bottles, fragrant with essences, whose fashion had passed away; neat little parcels of letters, each carefully labeled with the name of the writer; fragments of old newspapers; and a little heap of shabby, dilapidated books, each of which tumbled into as many pieces as a pack of cards in Robert's incautious hand.",0 "But among all the mass of worthless litter, each scrap of which had once had its separate purpose, Robert Audley looked in vain for that which he sought—the packet of letters written to the missing man by his dead wife Helen Talboys.",0 He had heard George allude more than once to the existence of these letters.,2 "He had seen him once sorting the faded papers with a reverent hand; and he had seen him replace them, carefully tied together with a faded ribbon which had once been Helen's, among the mourning garments in the trunk.",3 "Whether he had afterward removed them, or whether they had been removed since his disappearance by some other hand, it was not easy to say; but they were gone.",3 "Robert Audley sighed wearily as he replaced the things in the empty box, one by one, as he had taken them out.",2 "He stopped with the little heap of tattered books in his hand, and hesitated for a moment.",1 """I will keep these out,"" he muttered, ""there may be something to help me in one of them.""",2 George's library was no very brilliant collection of literature.,3 "There was an old Greek Testament and the Eton Latin Grammar; a French pamphlet on the cavalry sword-exercise; an odd volume of Tom Jones with one half of its stiff leather cover hanging to it by a thread; Byron's Don Juan, printed in a murderous type, which must have been invented for the special advantage of oculists and opticians; and a fat book in a faded gilt and crimson cover.",0 Robert Audley locked the trunk and took the books under his arm.,2 Mrs. Maloney was clearing away the remains of his repast when he returned to the sitting-room.,2 "He put the books aside on a little table in a corner of the fire-place, and waited patiently while the laundress finished her work.",3 "He was in no humor even for his meerschaum consoler; the yellow-papered fictions on the shelves above his head seemed stale and profitless—he opened a volume of Balzac, but his uncle's wife's golden curls danced and trembled in a glittering haze, alike upon the metaphysical diablerie of the Peau de Chagrin, and the hideous social horrors of ""Cousine Bette.""",1 "The volume dropped from his hand, and he sat wearily watching Mrs. Maloney as she swept up the ashes on the hearth, replenished the fire, drew the dark damask curtains, supplied the simple wants of the canaries, and put on her bonnet in the disused clerk's office, prior to bidding her employer good-night.",2 "As the door closed upon the Irishwoman, he arose impatiently from his chair, and paced up and down the room.",1 """Why do I go on with this,"" he said, ""when I know that it is leading me, step by step, day by day, hour by hour, nearer to that conclusion which, of all others, I should avoid?",3 "Am I tied to a wheel, and must I go with its every revolution, let it take me where it will?",2 "Or can I sit down here to-night and say I have done my duty to my missing friend, I have searched for him patiently, but I have searched in vain?",2 Should I be justified in doing this?,2 "Should I be justified in letting the chain which I have slowly put together, link by link, drop at this point, or must I go on adding fresh links to that fatal chain until the last rivet drops into its place and the circle is complete?",1 "I think, and I believe, that I shall never see my friend's face again; and that no exertion of mine can ever be of any benefit to him.",3 "In plainer, crueler words I believe him to be dead.",1 Am I bound to discover how and where he died?,1 "or being, as I think, on the road to that discovery, shall I do a wrong to the memory of George Talboys by turning back or stopping still?",1 "What am I to do?—what am I to do?""",2 "He rested his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands.",2 "The one purpose which had slowly grown up in his careless nature until it had become powerful enough to work a change in that very nature, made him what he had never been before—a Christian; conscious of his own weakness; anxious to keep to the strict line of duty; fearful to swerve from the conscientious discharge of the strange task that had been forced upon him; and reliant on a stronger hand than his own to point the way which he was to go.",1 "Perhaps he uttered his first earnest prayer that night, seated by his lonely fireside, thinking of George Talboys.",2 "When he raised his head from that long and silent revery, his eyes had a bright, determined glance, and every feature in his face seemed to wear a new expression.",3 """Justice to the dead first,"" he said; ""mercy to the living afterward.""",2 "He wheeled his easy-chair to the table, trimmed the lamp, and settled himself to the examination of the books.",3 "He took them up, one by one, and looked carefully through them, first looking at the page on which the name of the owner is ordinarily written, and then searching for any scrap of paper which might have been left within the leaves.",1 "On the first page of the Eton Latin Grammar the name of Master Talboys was written in a prim, scholastic hand; the French pamphlet had a careless G.T. scrawled on the cover in pencil, in George's big, slovenly calligraphy: the Tom Jones had evidently been bought at a book-stall, and bore an inscription, dated March 14th, 1788, setting forth that the book was a tribute of respect to Mr. Thos.",1 "Scrowton, from his obedient servant, James Anderley; the Don Juan and the Testament were blank.",2 "Robert Audley breathed more freely; he had arrived at the last but one of the books without any result whatever, and there only remained the fat gilt-and-crimson-bound volume to be examined before his task was finished.",1 It was an annual of the year 1845.,2 "The copper-plate engravings of lovely ladies, who had flourished in that day, were yellow and spotted with mildew; the costumes grotesque and outlandish; the simpering beauties faded and commonplace.",1 "Even the little clusters of verses (in which the poet's feeble candle shed its sickly light upon the obscurities of the artist's meaning) had an old-fashioned twang; like music on a lyre, whose strings are slackened by the damps of time.",1 Robert Audley did not stop to read any of the mild productions.,2 "He ran rapidly through the leaves, looking for any scrap of writing or fragment of a letter which might have been used to mark a place.",1 "He found nothing but a bright ring of golden hair, of that glittering hue which is so rarely seen except upon the head of a child—a sunny lock, which curled as naturally as the tendril of a vine; and was very opposite in texture, if not different in hue, to the soft, smooth tresses which the landlady at Ventnor had given to George Talboys after his wife's death.",4 "Robert Audley suspended his examination of the book, and folded this yellow lock in a sheet of letter paper, which he sealed with his signet-ring, and laid aside, with the memorandum about George Talboys and Alicia's letter, in the pigeon-hole marked important.",3 "He was going to replace the fat annual among the other books, when he discovered that the two blank leaves at the beginning were stuck together.",1 "He was so determined to prosecute his search to the very uttermost, that he took the trouble to part these leaves with the sharp end of his paper-knife, and he was rewarded for his perseverance by finding an inscription upon one of them.",1 "This inscription was in three parts, and in three different hands.",2 "The first paragraph was dated as far back as the year in which the annual had been published, and set forth that the book was the property of a certain Miss Elizabeth Ann Bince, who had obtained the precious volume as a reward for habits of order, and for obedience to the authorities of Camford House Seminary, Torquay.",3 "The second paragraph was dated five years later, and was in the handwriting of Miss Bince herself, who presented the book, as a mark of undying affection and unfading esteem (Miss Bince was evidently of a romantic temperament) to her beloved friend, Helen Maldon.",3 "The third paragraph was dated September, 1853, and was in the hand of Helen Maldon, who gave the annual to George Talboys; and it was at the sight of this third paragraph that Mr. Robert Audley's face changed from its natural hue to a sickly, leaden pallor.",1 """I thought it would be so,"" said the young man, shutting the book with a weary sigh.",1 """God knows I was prepared for the worst, and the worst has come.",1 I can understand all now.,2 My next visit must be to Southampton.,2 "I must place the boy in better hands.""",3 "Among the packet of letters which Robert Audley had found in George's trunk, there was one labeled with the name of the missing man's father—the father, who had never been too indulgent a friend to his younger son, and who had gladly availed himself of the excuse afforded by George's imprudent marriage to abandon the young man to his own resources.",2 Robert Audley had never seen Mr. Harcourt Talboys; but George's careless talk of his father had given his friend some notion of that gentleman's character.,1 "He had written to Mr. Talboys immediately after the disappearance of George, carefully wording his letter, which vaguely hinted at the writer's fear of some foul play in the mysterious business; and, after the lapse of several weeks, he had received a formal epistle, in which Mr. Harcourt Talboys expressly declared that he had washed his hands of all responsibility in his son George's affairs upon the young man's wedding-day; and that his absurd disappearance was only in character with his preposterous marriage.",0 "The writer of this fatherly letter added in a postscript that if George Talboys had any low design of alarming his friends by this pretended disappearance, and thereby playing on their feelings with a view to pecuniary advantage, he was most egregiously deceived in the character of those persons with whom he had to deal.",1 "Robert Audley had answered this letter by a few indignant lines, informing Mr. Talboys that his son was scarcely likely to hide himself for the furtherance of any deep-laid design on the pockets of his relatives, as he had left twenty thousand pounds in his bankers' hands at the time of his disappearance.",1 "After dispatching this letter, Robert had abandoned all thought of assistance from the man who, in the natural course of things, should have been most interested in George's fate; but now that he found himself advancing every day some step nearer to the end that lay so darkly before him, his mind reverted to this heartlessly indifferent Mr. Harcourt Talboys.",1 """I will run into Dorsetshire after I leave Southampton,"" he said, ""and see this man.",2 "If he is content to let his son's fate rest a dark and cruel mystery to all who knew him—if he is content to go down to his grave uncertain to the last of this poor fellow's end—why should I try to unravel the tangled skein, to fit the pieces of the terrible puzzle, and gather together the stray fragments which, when collected, may make such a hideous whole?",0 I will go to him and lay my darkest doubts freely before him.,1 "It will be for him to say what I am to do.""",2 Robert Audley started by an early express for Southampton.,2 "The snow lay thick and white upon the pleasant country through which he went; and the young barrister had wrapped himself in so many comforters and railway rugs as to appear a perambulating mass of woollen goods, rather than a living member of a learned profession.",3 "He looked gloomily out of the misty window, opaque with the breath of himself and an elderly Indian officer, who was his only companion, and watched the fleeting landscape, which had a certain phantom-like appearance in its shroud of snow.",1 "He wrapped himself in the vast folds of his railway rug, with a peevish shiver, and felt inclined to quarrel with the destiny which compelled him to travel by an early train upon a pitiless winter's day.",0 """Who would have thought that I could have grown so fond of the fellow,"" he muttered, ""or feel so lonely without him?",2 "I've a comfortable little fortune in the three per cents.; I'm heir presumptive to my uncle's title; and I know of a certain dear little girl who, as I think, would do her best to make me happy; but I declare that I would freely give up all, and stand penniless in the world to-morrow, if this mystery could be satisfactorily cleared away, and George Talboys could stand by my side.""",4 "He reached Southampton between eleven and twelve o'clock, and walked across the platform, with the snow drifting in his face, toward the pier and the lower end of the town.",2 "The clock of St. Michael's Church was striking twelve as he crossed the quaint old square in which that edifice stands, and groped his way through the narrow streets leading down to the water.",4 Mr. Maldon had established his slovenly household gods in one of those dreary thoroughfares which speculative builders love to raise upon some miserable fragment of waste ground hanging to the skirts of a prosperous town.,1 "Brigsome's Terrace was, perhaps, one of the most dismal blocks of building that was ever composed of brick and mortar since the first mason plied his trowel and the first architect drew his plan.",1 The builder who had speculated in the ten dreary eight-roomed prison-houses had hung himself behind the parlor door of an adjacent tavern while the carcases were yet unfinished.,0 "The man who had bought the brick and mortar skeletons had gone through the bankruptcy court while the paper-hangers were still busy in Brigsome's Terrace, and had whitewashed his ceilings and himself simultaneously.",1 Ill luck and insolvency clung to the wretched habitations.,2 The bailiff and the broker's man were as well known as the butcher and the baker to the noisy children who played upon the waste ground in front of the parlor windows.,1 Solvent tenants were disturbed at unhallowed hours by the noise of ghostly furniture vans creeping stealthily away in the moonless night.,0 "Insolvent tenants openly defied the collector of the water-rate from their ten-roomed strongholds, and existed for weeks without any visible means of procuring that necessary fluid.",2 Robert Audley looked about him with a shudder as he turned from the waterside into this poverty-stricken locality.,1 "A child's funeral was leaving one of the houses as he approached, and he thought with a thrill of horror that if the little coffin had held George's son, he would have been in some measure responsible for the boy's death.",2 """The poor child shall not sleep another night in this wretched hovel,"" he thought, as he knocked at the door of Mr. Maldon's house.",1 """He is the legacy of my best friend, and it shall be my business to secure his safety.""",3 "A slipshod servant girl opened the door and looked at Mr. Audley rather suspiciously as she asked him, very much through her nose, what he pleased to want.",2 "The door of the little sitting room was ajar, and Robert could hear the clattering of knives and forks and the childish voice of little George prattling gayly.",1 "He told the servant that he had come from London, that he wanted to see Master Talboys, and that he would announce himself; and walking past her, without further ceremony he opened the door of the parlor.",3 "The girl stared at him aghast as he did this; and as if struck by some sudden and terrible conviction, threw her apron over her head and ran out into the snow.",0 "She darted across the waste ground, plunged into a narrow alley, and never drew breath till she found herself upon the threshold of a certain tavern called the Coach and Horses, and much affected by Mr. Maldon.",1 The lieutenant's faithful retainer had taken Robert Audley for some new and determined collector of poor's rates—rejecting that gentleman's account of himself as an artful fiction devised for the destruction of parochial defaulters—and had hurried off to give her master timely warning of the enemy's approach.,1 "When Robert entered the sitting-room he was surprised to find little George seated opposite to a woman who was doing the honors of a shabby repast, spread upon a dirty table-cloth, and flanked by a pewter beer measure.",1 "The woman rose as Robert entered, and courtesied very humbly to the young barrister.",2 "She looked about fifty years of age, and was dressed in rusty widow's weeds.",1 "Her complexion was insipidly fair, and the two smooth bands of hair beneath her cap were of that sunless, flaxen hue which generally accompanies pink cheeks and white eyelashes.",3 "She had been a rustic beauty, perhaps, in her time, but her features, although tolerably regular in their shape, had a mean, pinched look, as if they had been made too small for her face.",3 "This defect was peculiarly noticeable in her mouth, which was an obvious misfit for the set of teeth it contained.",0 "She smiled as she courtesied to Mr. Robert Audley, and her smile, which laid bare the greater part of this set of square, hungry-looking teeth, by no means added to the beauty of her personal appearance.",3 """Mr. Maldon is not at home, sir,"" she said, with insinuating civility; ""but if it's for the water-rate, he requested me to say that—"" She was interrupted by little George Talboys, who scrambled down from the high chair upon which he had been perched, and ran to Robert Audley.",1 """I know you,"" he said; ""you came to Ventnor with the big gentleman, and you came here once, and you gave me some money, and I gave it to gran'pa to take care of, and gran'pa kept it, and he always does.""",2 "Robert Audley took the boy in his arms, and carried him to a little table in the window.",2 """Stand there, Georgey,"" he said, ""I want to have a good look at you.""",3 "He turned the boy's face to the light, and pushed the brown curls off his forehead with both hands.",2 """You are growing more like your father every day, Georgey; and you're growing quite a man, too,"" he said; ""would you like to go to school?""",3 """Oh, yes, please, I should like it very much,"" the boy answered, eagerly.",3 """I went to school at Miss Pevins' once—day-school, you know—round the corner in the next street; but I caught the measles, and gran'pa wouldn't let me go any more, for fear I should catch the measles again; and gran'pa won't let me play with the little boys in the street, because they're rude boys; he said blackguard boys; but he said I mustn't say blackguard boys, because it's naughty.",0 "He says damn and devil, but he says he may because he's old.",1 "I shall say damn and devil when I'm old; and I should like to go to school, please, and I can go to-day, if you like; Mrs. Plowson will get my frocks ready, won't you, Mrs. Plowson?""",2 """Certainly, Master Georgey, if your grandpapa wishes it,"" the woman answered, looking rather uneasily at Mr. Robert Audley.",2 """What on earth is the matter with this woman,"" thought Robert as he turned from the boy to the fair-haired widow, who was edging herself slowly toward the table upon which little George Talboys stood talking to his guardian.",2 """Does she still take me for a tax-collector with inimical intentions toward these wretched goods and chattels; or can the cause of her fidgety manner lie deeper still.",0 "That's scarcely likely, though; for whatever secrets Lieutenant Maldon may have, it's not very probable that this woman has any knowledge of them.""",1 "Mrs. Plowson had edged herself close to the little table by this time, and was making a stealthy descent upon the boy, when Robert turned sharply round.",1 """What are you going to do with the child?""",2 he said.,2 """I was only going to take him away to wash his pretty face, sir, and smooth his hair,"" answered the woman, in the most insinuating tone in which she had spoken of the water-rate.",3 """You don't see him to any advantage, sir, while his precious face is dirty.",3 "I won't be five minutes making him as neat as a new pin.""",3 "She had her long, thin arms about the boy as she spoke, and she was evidently going to carry him off bodily, when Robert stopped her.",2 """I'd rather see him as he is, thank you,"" he said.",3 """My time in Southampton isn't very long, and I want to hear all that the little man can tell me.""",2 "The little man crept closer to Robert, and looked confidingly into the barrister's gray eyes.",1 """I like you very much,"" he said.",3 """I was frightened of you when you came before, because I was shy.",2 "I am not shy now—I am nearly six years old.""",2 "Robert patted the boy's head encouragingly, but he was not looking at little George; he was watching the fair-haired widow, who had moved to the window, and was looking out at the patch of waste ground.",3 """You're rather fidgety about some one, ma'am, I'm afraid,"" said Robert.",1 "She colored violently as the barrister made this remark, and answered him in a confused manner.",1 """I was looking for Mr. Maldon, sir,"" she said; ""he'll be so disappointed if he doesn't see you.""",1 """You know who I am, then?""",2 """No, sir, but—"" The boy interrupted her by dragging a little jeweled watch from his bosom and showing it to Robert.",1 """This is the watch the pretty lady gave me,"" he said.",3 """I've got it now—but I haven't had it long, because the jeweler who cleans it is an idle man, gran'pa says, and always keeps it such a long time; and gran'pa says it will have to be cleaned again, because of the taxes.",1 He always takes it to be cleaned when there's taxes—but he says if he were to lose it the pretty lady would give me another.,2 "Do you know the pretty lady?""",3 """No, Georgey, but tell me about her.""",2 Mrs. Plowson made another descent upon the boy.,2 "She was armed with a pocket-handkerchief this time, and displayed great anxiety about the state of little George's nose, but Robert warded off the dreaded weapon, and drew the child away from his tormentor.",2 """The boy will do very well, ma'am,"" he said, ""if you'll be good enough to let him alone for five minutes.",4 "Now, Georgey, suppose you sit on my knee, and tell me all about the pretty lady.""",3 "The child clambered from the table onto Mr. Audley's knees, assisting his descent by a very unceremonious manipulation of his guardian's coat-collar.",1 """I'll tell you all about the pretty lady,"" he said, ""because I like you very much.",3 "Gran'pa told me not to tell anybody, but I'll tell you, you know, because I like you, and because you're going to take me to school.",3 "The pretty lady came here one night—long ago—oh, so long ago,"" said the boy, shaking his head, with a face whose solemnity was expressive of some prodigious lapse of time.",3 """She came when I was not nearly so big as I am now—and she came at night—after I'd gone to bed, and she came up into my room, and sat upon the bed, and cried—and she left the watch under my pillow, and she—Why do you make faces at me, Mrs. Plowson?",2 "I may tell this gentleman,"" Georgey added, suddenly addressing the widow, who was standing behind Robert's shoulder.",2 Mrs. Plowson mumbled some confused apology to the effect that she was afraid Master George was troublesome.,1 """Suppose you wait till I say so, ma'am, before you stop the little fellow's mouth,"" said Robert Audley, sharply.",1 """A suspicious person might think from your manner that Mr. Maldon and you had some conspiracy between you, and that you were afraid of what the boy's talk may let slip.""",0 "He rose from his chair, and looked full at Mrs. Plowson as he said this.",2 "The fair-haired widow's face was as white as her cap when she tried to answer him, and her pale lips were so dry that she was compelled to wet them with her tongue before the words would come.",2 The little boy relieved her embarrassment.,1 """Don't be cross to Mrs. Plowson,"" he said.",2 """Mrs. Plowson is very kind to me.",2 Mrs. Plowson is Matilda's mother.,2 You don't know Matilda.,2 "Poor Matilda was always crying; she was ill, she—"" The boy was stopped by the sudden appearance of Mr. Maldon, who stood on the threshold of the parlor door staring at Robert Audley with a half-drunken, half-terrified aspect, scarcely consistent with the dignity of a retired naval officer.",1 "The servant girl, breathless and panting, stood close behind her master.",3 "Early in the day though it was, the old man's speech was thick and confused, as he addressed himself fiercely to Mrs. Plowson.",1 """You're a prett' creature to call yoursel' sensible woman?""",3 he said.,2 """Why don't you take th' chile 'way, er wash 's face?",2 D'yer want to ruin me?,1 D'yer want to 'stroy me?,2 Take th' chile 'way!,2 "Mr. Audley, sir, I'm ver' glad to see yer; ver' 'appy to 'ceive yer in m' humbl' 'bode,"" the old man added with tipsy politeness, dropping into a chair as he spoke, and trying to look steadily at his unexpected visitor.",3 """Whatever this man's secrets are,"" thought Robert, as Mrs. Plowson hustled little George Talboys out of the room, ""that woman has no unimportant share of them.",1 "Whatever the mystery may be, it grows darker and thicker at every step; but I try in vain to draw back or to stop short upon the road, for a stronger hand than my own is pointing the way to my lost friend's unknown grave.""",0 """I am going to take your grandson away with me, Mr. Maldon,"" Robert said gravely, as Mrs. Plowson retired with her young charge.",1 "The old man's drunken imbecility was slowly clearing away like the heavy mists of a London fog, through which the feeble sunshine struggles dimly to appear.",0 "The very uncertain radiance of Lieutenant Maldon's intellect took a considerable time in piercing the hazy vapors of rum-and-water; but the flickering light at last faintly glimmered athwart the clouds, and the old man screwed his poor wits to the sticking-point.",0 """Yes, yes,"" he said, feebly; ""take the boy away from his poor old grandfather; I always thought so.""",1 """You always thought that I should take him away?""",2 scrutinizing the half-drunken countenance with a searching glance.,1 """Why did you think so, Mr. Maldon?""",2 "The fogs of intoxication got the better of the light of sobriety for a moment, and the lieutenant answered vaguely: ""Thought so—'cause I thought so.""",3 "Meeting the young barrister's impatient frown, he made another effort, and the light glimmered again.",1 """Because I thought you or his father would fetch 'm away.""",2 """When I was last in this house, Mr. Maldon, you told me that George Talboys had sailed for Australia.""",2 """Yes, yes—I know, I know,"" the old man answered, confusedly, shuffling his scanty limp gray hairs with his two wandering hands—""I know; but he might have come back—mightn't he?",1 "He was restless, and—and—queer in his mind, perhaps, sometimes.",1 "He might have come back.""",2 "He repeated this two or three times in feeble, muttering tones; groping about on the littered mantle-piece for a dirty-looking clay pipe, and filling and lighting it with hands that trembled violently.",0 "Robert Audley watched those poor, withered, tremulous fingers dropping shreds of tobacco upon the hearth rug, and scarcely able to kindle a lucifer for their unsteadiness.",0 "Then walking once or twice up and down the little room, he left the old man to take a few puffs from the great consoler.",3 Presently he turned suddenly upon the half-pay lieutenant with a dark solemnity in his handsome face.,2 """Mr. Maldon,"" he said, slowly watching the effect of every syllable as he spoke, ""George Talboys never sailed for Australia—that I know.",1 "More than this, he never came to Southampton; and the lie you told me on the 8th of last September was dictated to you by the telegraphic message which you received on that day.""",1 "The dirty clay pipe dropped from the tremulous hand, and shivered against the iron fender, but the old man made no effort to find a fresh one; he sat trembling in every limb, and looking, Heaven knows how piteously, at Robert Audley.",3 """The lie was dictated to you, and you repeated your lesson.",1 But you no more saw George Talboys here on the 7th of September than I see him in this room now.,2 "You thought you had burnt the telegraphic message, but you had only burnt a part of it—the remainder is in my possession.""",2 Lieutenant Maldon was quite sober now.,1 """What have I done?""",2 "he murmured, hopelessly.",1 """Oh, my God!",2 "what have I done?""",2 """At two o'clock on the 7th of September last,"" continued the pitiless, accusing voice, ""George Talboys was seen alive and well at a house in Essex.""",1 Robert paused to see the effect of these words.,2 They had produced no change in the old man.,2 "He still sat trembling from head to foot, and staring with the fixed and solid gaze of some helpless wretch whose every sense is gradually becoming numbed by terror.",1 """At two o'clock on that day,"" remarked Robert Audley, ""my poor friend was seen alive and well at ——, at the house of which I speak.",2 From that hour to this I have never been able to hear that he has been seen by any living creature.,2 "I have taken such steps as must have resulted in procuring the information of his whereabouts, were he alive.",2 "I have done this patiently and carefully—at first, even hopefully.",3 "Now I know that he is dead.""",1 "Robert Audley had been prepared to witness some considerable agitation in the old man's manner, but he was not prepared for the terrible anguish, the ghastly terror, which convulsed Mr. Maldon's haggard face as he uttered the last word.",0 """No, no, no, no,"" reiterated the lieutenant, in a shrill, half-screaming voice; ""no, no!",1 "For God's sake, don't say that!",2 Don't think it—don't let me think it—don't let me dream of it!,2 Not dead—anything but dead!,1 "Hidden away, perhaps—bribed to keep out of the way, perhaps; but not dead—not dead—not dead!""",1 "He cried these words aloud, like one beside himself, beating his hands upon his gray head, and rocking backward and forward in his chair.",2 His feeble hands trembled no longer—they were strengthened by some convulsive force that gave them a new power.,1 """I believe,"" said Robert, in the same solemn, relentless voice, ""that my friend left Essex; and I believe he died on the 7th of September last.""",0 "The wretched old man, still beating his hands among his thin gray hair, slid from his chair to the ground, and groveled at Robert's feet.",1 """Oh!",2 "no, no—for God's, no!""",2 he shrieked hoarsely.,2 """No!",2 "you don't know what you say—you don't know what your words mean!""",2 """I know their weight and value only too well—as well as I see you do, Mr. Maldon.",3 "God help us!""",2 """Oh, what am I doing?",2 "what am I doing?""",2 "muttered the old man, feebly; then raising himself from the ground with an effort, he drew himself to his full height, and said, in a manner which was new to him, and which was not without a certain dignity of his own—that dignity which must be always attached to unutterable misery, in whatever form it may appear—he said, gravely: ""You have no right to come here and terrify a man who has been drinking, and who is not quite himself.",2 "You have no right to do it, Mr. Audley.",3 "Even the—the officer, sir, who—who—.""",2 "He did not stammer, but his lips trembled so violently that his words seemed to be shaken into pieces by their motion.",1 """The officer, I repeat, sir, who arrests a—thief, or a—.""",2 "He stopped to wipe his lips, and to still them if he could by doing so, which he could not.",2 """A thief or a murderer—"" His voice died suddenly away upon the last word, and it was only by the motion of those trembling lips that Robert knew what he meant.",1 """Gives him warning, sir, fair warning, that he may say nothing which shall commit himself—or—or—other people.",2 "The—the—law, sir, has that amount of mercy for a—a—suspected criminal.",2 "But you, sir,—you come to my house, and you come at a time when—when—contrary to my usual habits—which, as people will tell you, are sober—you take the opportunity to—terrify me—and it is not right, sir—it is—"" Whatever he would have said died away into inarticulate gasps, which seemed to choke him, and sinking into a chair, he dropped his face upon the table, and wept aloud.",0 "Perhaps in all the dismal scenes of domestic misery which had been acted in those spare and dreary houses—in all the petty miseries, the burning shames, the cruel sorrows, the bitter disgraces which own poverty for their father—there had never been such a scene as this.",0 "An old man hiding his face from the light of day, and sobbing aloud in his wretchedness.",1 Robert Audley contemplated the painful picture with a hopeless and pitying face.,1 """If I had known this,"" he thought, ""I might have spared him.",2 "It would have been better, perhaps, to have spared him.""",3 "The shabby room, the dirt, the confusion, the figure of the old man, with his gray head upon the soiled tablecloth, amid the muddled débris of a wretched dinner, grew blurred before the sight of Robert Audley as he thought of another man, as old as this one, but, ah!",0 how widely different in every other quality!,2 "who might come by and by to feel the same, or even a worse anguish, and to shed, perhaps, yet bitterer tears.",1 "The moment in which the tears rose to his eyes and dimmed the piteous scene before him, was long enough to take him back to Essex, and to show him the image of his uncle, stricken by agony and shame.",1 """Why do I go on with this?""",2 "he thought; ""how pitiless I am, and how relentlessly I am carried on.",1 "It is not myself; it is the hand which is beckoning me further and further upon the dark road, whose end I dare not dream of.""",2 "He thought this, and a hundred times more than this, while the old man sat with his face still hidden, wrestling with his anguish, but without power to keep it down.",1 """Mr. Maldon,"" Robert Audley said, after a pause, ""I do not ask you to forgive me for what I have brought upon you, for the feeling is strong within me that it must have come to you sooner or later—if not through me, through some one else.",3 "There are—"" he stopped for a moment hesitating.",2 "The sobbing did not cease; it was sometimes low, sometimes loud, bursting out with fresh violence, or dying away for an instant, but never ceasing.",1 """There are some things which, as people say, cannot be hidden.",2 I think there is truth in that common saying which had its origin in that old worldly wisdom which people gathered from experience and not from books.,3 "If—if I were content to let my friend rest in his hidden grave, it is but likely that some stranger who had never heard the name of George Talboys, might fall by the remotest accident upon the secret of his death.",0 "To-morrow, perhaps; or ten years hence, or in another generation, when the—the hand that wronged him is as cold as his own.",1 "If I could let the matter rest; if—if I could leave England forever, and purposely fly from the possibility of ever coming across another clew to the secret, I would do it—I would gladly, thankfully do it—but I cannot!",3 A hand which is stronger than my own beckons me on.,3 "I wish to take no base advantage of you, less than of all other people; but I must go on; I must go on.",3 "If there is any warning you would give to any one, give it.",1 "If the secret toward which I am traveling day by day, hour by hour, involves any one in whom you have an interest, let that person fly before I come to the end.",2 Let them leave this country; let them leave all who know them—all whose peace their wickedness has endangered; let them go away—they shall not be pursued.,2 "But if they slight your warning—if they try to hold their present position in defiance of what it will be in your power to tell them—let them beware of me, for, when the hour comes, I swear that I will not spare them.""",0 "The old man looked up for the first time, and wiped his wrinkled face upon a ragged silk handkerchief.",1 """I declare to you that I do not understand you,"" he said.",2 """I solemnly declare to you that I cannot understand; and I do not believe that George Talboys is dead.""",1 """I would give ten years of my own life if I could see him alive,"" answered Robert, sadly.",1 """I am sorry for you, Mr. Maldon—I am sorry for all of us.""",1 """I do not believe that my son-in-law is dead,"" said the lieutenant; ""I do not believe that the poor lad is dead.""",1 He endeavored in a feeble manner to show to Robert Audley that his wild outburst of anguish had been caused by his grief for the loss of George; but the pretense was miserably shallow.,0 "Mrs. Plowson re-entered the room, leading little Georgey, whose face shone with that brilliant polish which yellow soap and friction can produce upon the human countenance.",3 """Dear heart alive!""",2 "exclaimed Mrs. Plowson, ""what has the poor old gentleman been taking on about?",1 "We could hear him in the passage, sobbin' awful.""",1 "Little George crept up to his grandfather, and smoothed the wet and wrinkled face with his pudgy hand.",1 """Don't cry, gran'pa,"" he said, ""don't cry.",1 "You shall have my watch to be cleaned, and the kind jeweler shall lend you the money to pay the taxman while he cleans the watch—I don't mind, gran'pa.",2 "Let's go to the jeweler, the jeweler in High street, you know, with golden balls painted upon his door, to show that he comes from Lombar—Lombardshire,"" said the boy, making a dash at the name.",3 """Come, gran'pa.""",2 "The little fellow took the jeweled toy from his bosom and made for the door, proud of being possessed of a talisman, which he had seen so often made useful.",3 """There are wolves at Southampton,"" he said, with rather a triumphant nod to Robert Audley.",3 """My gran'pa says when he takes my watch that he does it to keep the wolf from the door.",2 "Are there wolves where you live?""",2 "The young barrister did not answer the child's question, but stopped him as he was dragging his grandfather toward the door.",1 """Your grandpapa does not want the watch to-day, Georgey,"" he said, gravely.",1 """Why is he sorry, then?""",1 "asked Georgey, naively; ""when he wants the watch he is always sorry, and beats his poor forehead so""—the boy stopped to pantomime with his small fists—""and says that she—the pretty lady, I think he means—uses him very hard, and that he can't keep the wolf from the door; and then I say, 'Gran'pa, have the watch;' and then he takes me in his arms, and says, 'Oh, my blessed angel!",1 how can I rob my blessed angel?',3 "and then he cries, but not like to-day—not loud, you know; only tears running down his poor cheeks, not so that you could hear him in the passage.""",1 "Painful as the child's prattle was to Robert Audley, it seemed a relief to the old man.",1 "He did not hear the boy's talk, but walked two or three times up and down the little room and smoothed his rumpled hair and suffered his cravat to be arranged by Mrs. Plowson, who seemed very anxious to find out the cause of his agitation.",1 """Poor dear old gentleman,"" she said, looking at Robert.",1 """What has happened to upset him so?""",1 """His son-in-law is dead,"" answered Mr. Audley, fixing his eyes upon Mrs. Plowson's sympathetic face.",1 """He died, within a year and a half after the death of Helen Talboys, who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard.""",0 "The face into which he was looking changed very slightly, but the eyes that had been looking at him shifted away as he spoke, and Mrs. Plowson was obliged to moisten her white lips with her tongue before she answered him.",2 """Poor Mr. Talboys dead!""",1 "she said; ""that is bad news indeed, sir.""",1 Little George looked wistfully up at his guardian's face as this was said.,2 """Who's dead?""",1 he said.,2 """George Talboys is my name.",2 "Who's dead?""",1 """Another person whose name is Talboys, Georgey.""",2 """Poor person!",1 "Will he go to the pit-hole?""",2 "The boy had that notion of death which is generally imparted to children by their wise elders, and which always leads the infant mind to the open grave and rarely carries it any higher.",3 """I should like to see him put in the pit-hole,"" Georgey remarked, after a pause.",3 "He had attended several infant funerals in the neighborhood, and was considered valuable as a mourner on account of his interesting appearance.",3 "He had come, therefore, to look upon the ceremony of interment as a solemn festivity; in which cake and wine, and a carriage drive were the leading features.",2 """You have no objection to my taking Georgey away with me, Mr. Maldon?""",1 asked Robert Audley.,2 The old man's agitation had very much subsided by this time.,2 "He had found another pipe stuck behind the tawdry frame of the looking-glass, and was trying to light it with a bit of twisted newspaper.",0 """You do not object, Mr. Maldon?""",1 """No, sir—no, sir; you are his guardian, and you have a right to take him where you please.",3 "He has been a very great comfort to me in my lonely old age, but I have been prepared to lose him.",2 "I—I may not have always done my duty to him, sir, in—in the way of schooling, and—and boots.",2 "The number of boots which boys of his age wear out, sir, is not easily realized by the mind of a young man like yourself; he has been kept away from school, perhaps, sometimes, and occasionally worn shabby boots when our funds have got low; but he has not been unkindly treated.",1 "No, sir; if you were to question him for a week, I don't think you'd hear that his poor old grandfather ever said a harsh word to him.""",1 "Upon this, Georgie, perceiving the distress of his old protector, set up a terrible howl, and declared that he would never leave him.",1 """Mr. Maldon,"" said Robert Audley, with a tone which was half-mournful, half-compassionate, ""when I looked at my position last night, I did not believe that I could ever come to think it more painful than I thought it then.",1 I can only say—God have mercy upon us all.,3 "I feel it my duty to take the child away, but I shall take him straight from your house to the best school in Southampton; and I give you my honor that I will extort nothing from his innocent simplicity which can in any manner—I mean,"" he said, breaking off abruptly, ""I mean this.",1 I will not seek to come one step nearer the secret through him.,2 "I—I am not a detective officer, and I do not think the most accomplished detective would like to get his information from a child.""",3 "The old man did not answer; he sat with his face shaded by his hand, and with his extinguished pipe between the listless fingers of the other.",1 """Take the boy away, Mrs. Plowson,"" he said, after a pause; ""take him away and put his things on.",2 "He is going with Mr. Audley.""",2 """Which I do say that it's not kind of the gentleman to take his poor grandpa's pet away,"" Mrs. Plowson exclaimed, suddenly, with respectful indignation.",1 """Hush, Mrs. Plowson,"" the old man answered, piteously; ""Mr. Audley is the best judge.",3 "I—I haven't many years to live; I sha'n't trouble anybody long.""",1 "The tears oozed slowly through the dirty fingers with which he shaded his blood-shot eyes, as he said this.",1 """God knows, I never injured your friend, sir,"" he said, by-and-by, when Mrs. Plowson and Georgey had returned, ""nor even wished him any ill.",2 He was a good son-in-law to me—better than many a son.,3 "I never did him any wilful wrong, sir.",1 "I—I spent his money, perhaps, but I am sorry for it—I am very sorry for it now.",1 "But I don't believe he is dead—no, sir; no, I don't believe it!""",1 "exclaimed the old man, dropping his hand from his eyes, and looking with new energy at Robert Audley.",2 """I—I don't believe it, sir!",2 "How—how should he be dead?""",1 Robert did not answer this eager questioning.,3 "He shook his head mournfully, and, walking to the little window, looked out across a row of straggling geraniums at the dreary patch of waste ground on which the children were at play.",0 "Mrs. Plowson returned with little Georgey muffled in a coat and comforter, and Robert took the boy's hand.",2 "The little fellow sprung toward the old man, and clinging about him, kissed the dirty tears from his faded cheeks.",1 """Don't be sorry for me, gran'pa,"" he said; ""I am going to school to learn to be a clever man, and I shall come home to see you and Mrs. Plowson, sha'n't I?""",2 "he added, turning to Robert.",2 """Yes, my dear, by-and-by.""",2 """Take him away, sir—take him away,"" cried Mr. Maldon; ""you are breaking my heart.""",1 The little fellow trotted away contentedly at Robert's side.,2 "He was very well pleased at the idea of going to school, though he had been happy enough with his drunken old grandfather, who had always displayed a maudlin affection for the pretty child, and had done his best to spoil Georgey, by letting him have his own way in everything; in consequence of which indulgence, Master Talboys had acquired a taste for late hours, hot suppers of the most indigestible nature, and sips of rum-and-water from his grandfather's glass.",4 "He communicated his sentiments upon many subjects to Robert Audley, as they walked to the Dolphin Hotel; but the barrister did not encourage him to talk.",3 It was no very difficult matter to find a good school in such a place as Southampton.,2 "Robert Audley was directed to a pretty house between the Bar and the Avenue, and leaving Georgey to the care of a good-natured waiter, who seemed to have nothing to do but to look out of the window, and whisk invisible dust off the brightly polished tables, the barrister walked up the High street toward Mr. Marchmont's academy for young gentlemen.",3 "He found Mr. Marchmont a very sensible man, and he met a file of orderly-looking young gentlemen walking townward under the escort of a couple of ushers as he entered the house.",3 "He told the schoolmaster that little George Talboys had been left in his charge by a dear friend, who had sailed for Australia some months before, and whom he believed to be dead.",1 "He confided him to Mr. Marchmont's especial care, and he further requested that no visitors should be admitted to see the boy unless accredited by a letter from himself.",2 "Having arranged the matter in a very few business-like words, he returned to the hotel to fetch Georgey.",3 "He found the little man on intimate terms with the idle waiter, who had been directing Master Georgey's attention to the different objects of interest in the High street.",3 Poor Robert had about as much notion of the requirements of a child as he had of those of a white elephant.,1 "He had catered for silkworms, guinea-pigs, dormice, canary-birds, and dogs, without number, during his boyhood, but he had never been called upon to provide for a young person of five years old.",1 "He looked back five-and-twenty years, and tried to remember his own diet at the age of five.",2 """I've a vague recollection of getting a good deal of bread and milk and boiled mutton,"" he thought; ""and I've another vague recollection of not liking them.",3 "I wonder if this boy likes bread and milk and boiled mutton.""",3 He stood pulling his thick mustache and staring thoughtfully at the child for some minutes before he could get any further.,3 """I dare say you're hungry, Georgey?""",2 "he said, at last.",2 "The boy nodded, and the waiter whisked some more invisible dust from the nearest table as a preparatory step toward laying a cloth.",1 """Perhaps you'd like some lunch?""",3 "Mr. Audley suggested, still pulling his mustache.",2 The boy burst out laughing.,2 """Lunch!""",2 he cried.,2 """Why, it's afternoon, and I've had my dinner.""",2 Robert Audley felt himself brought to a standstill.,1 What refreshment could he possibly provide for a boy who called it afternoon at three o'clock?,2 """You shall have some bread and milk, Georgey,"" he said, presently.",2 """Waiter, bread and milk, and a pint of hock.""",2 Master Talboys made a wry face.,3 """I never have bread and milk,"" he said, ""I don't like it.",3 I like what gran'pa calls something savory.,3 I should like a veal cutlet.,3 "Gran'pa told me he dined here once, and the veal cutlets were lovely, gran'pa said.",3 "Please may I have a veal cutlet, with egg and bread-crumb, you know, and lemon-juice you know?""",1 "he added to the waiter: ""Gran'pa knows the cook here.",2 "The cook's such a nice gentleman, and once gave me a shilling, when gran'pa brought me here.",3 "The cook wears better clothes than gran'pa—better than yours, even,"" said Master Georgey, pointing to Robert's rough great-coat with a depreciating nod.",3 Robert Audley stared aghast.,1 "How was he to deal with this epicure of five years old, who rejected bread and milk and asked for veal cutlets?",1 """I'll tell you what I'll do with you, little Georgey,"" he exclaimed, after a pause—""I'll give you a dinner!""",2 The waiter nodded briskly.,2 """Upon my word, sir,"" he said, approvingly, ""I think the little gentleman will know how to eat it.""",2 """I'll give you a dinner, Georgey,"" repeated Robert—""some stewed eels, a little Julienne, a dish of cutlets, a bird, and a pudding.",2 "What do you say to that, Georgey?""",2 """I don't think the young gentleman will object to it when he sees it, sir,"" said the waiter.",1 """Eels, Julienne, cutlets, bird, pudding—I'll go and tell the cook, sir.",2 "What time, sir?""",2 """Well, we'll say six, and Master Georgey will get to his new school by bedtime.",3 "You can contrive to amuse the child for this afternoon, I dare say.",2 "I have some business to settle, and sha'n't be able to take him out.",2 I shall sleep here to-night.,2 "Good-by, Georgey; take care of yourself and try and get your appetite in order against six o'clock.""",3 "Robert Audley left the boy in charge of the idle waiter, and strolled down to the water side, choosing that lonely bank which leads away under the moldering walls of the town toward the little villages beside the narrowing river.",1 "He had purposely avoided the society of the child, and he walked through the light drifting snow till the early darkness closed upon him.",1 "He went back to the town, and made inquiries at the station about the trains for Dorsetshire.",2 """I shall start early to-morrow morning,"" he thought, ""and see George's father before nightfall.",2 "I will tell him all—all but the interest which I take in—in the suspected person, and he shall decide what is next to be done.""",2 Master Georgey did very good justice to the dinner which Robert had ordered.,3 "He drank Bass' pale ale to an extent which considerably alarmed his entertainer, and enjoyed himself amazingly, showing an appreciation of roast pheasant and bread-sauce which was beyond his years.",2 "At eight o'clock a fly was brought out for his accommodation, and he departed in the highest spirits, with a sovereign in his pocket, and a letter from Robert to Mr. Marchmont, inclosing a check for the young gentleman's outfit.",2 """I'm glad I'm going to have new clothes,"" he said, as he bade Robert good-by; ""for Mrs. Plowson has mended the old ones ever so many times.",3 "She can have them now, for Billy.""",2 """Who's Billy?""",2 "Robert asked, laughing at the boy's chatter.",1 """Billy is poor Matilda's little boy.",1 "He's a common boy, you know.",2 "Matilda was common, but she—"" But the flyman snapping his whip at this moment, the old horse jogged off, and Robert Audley heard no more of Matilda.",2 "Mr. Harcourt Talboys lived in a prim, square, red-brick mansion, within a mile of a little village called Grange Heath, in Dorsetshire.",2 "The prim, square, red-brick mansion stood in the center of prim, square grounds, scarcely large enough to be called a park, too large to be called anything else—so neither the house nor the grounds had any name, and the estate was simply designated Squire Talboys'.",2 "Perhaps Mr. Harcourt Talboys was the last person in this world with whom it was possible to associate the homely, hearty, rural old English title of squire.",2 He neither hunted nor farmed.,2 "He had never worn crimson, pink, or top-boots in his life.",2 "A southerly wind and a cloudy sky were matters of supreme indifference to him, so long as they did not in any way interfere with his own prim comforts; and he only cared for the state of the crops inasmuch as it involved the hazard of certain rents which he received for the farms upon his estate.",0 "He was a man of about fifty years of age, tall, straight, bony and angular, with a square, pale face, light gray eyes, and scanty dark hair, brushed from either ear across a bald crown, and thus imparting to his physiognomy some faint resemblance to that of a terrier—a sharp, uncompromising, hard-headed terrier—a terrier not to be taken in by the cleverest dog-stealer who ever distinguished himself in his profession.",0 Nobody ever remembered getting upon what is popularly called the blind side of Harcourt Talboys.,1 "He was like his own square-built, northern-fronted, shelterless house.",3 There were no shady nooks in his character into which one could creep for shelter from his hard daylight.,0 He was all daylight.,2 "He looked at everything in the same broad glare of intellectual sunlight, and would see no softening shadows that might alter the sharp outlines of cruel facts, subduing them to beauty.",2 "I do not know if I express what I mean, when I say that there were no curves in his character—that his mind ran in straight lines, never diverging to the right or the left to round off their pitiless angles.",2 "With him right was right, and wrong was wrong.",2 "He had never in his merciless, conscientious life admitted the idea that circumstances might mitigate the blackness of wrong or weaken the force of right.",1 "He had cast off his only son because his only son had disobeyed him, and he was ready to cast off his only daughter at five minutes' notice for the same reason.",3 "If this square-built, hard-headed man could be possessed of such a weakness as vanity, he was certainly vain of his hardness.",0 "He was vain of that inflexible squareness of intellect, which made him the disagreeable creature that he was.",0 He was vain of that unwavering obstinacy which no influence of love or pity had ever been known to bend from its remorseless purpose.,1 "He was vain of the negative force of a nature which had never known the weakness of the affections, or the strength which may be born of that very weakness.",0 "If he had regretted his son's marriage, and the breach of his own making, between himself and George, his vanity had been more powerful than his regret, and had enabled him to conceal it.",0 "Indeed, unlikely as it appears at the first glance that such a man as this could have been vain, I have little doubt that vanity was the center from which radiated all the disagreeable lines in the character of Mr. Harcourt Talboys.",0 "I dare say Junius Brutus was vain, and enjoyed the approval of awe-stricken Rome when he ordered his son off for execution.",3 "Harcourt Talboys would have sent poor George from his presence between the reversed fasces of the lictors, and grimly relished his own agony.",1 "Heaven only knows how bitterly this hard man may have felt the separation between himself and his only son, or how much the more terrible the anguish might have been made by that unflinching self-conceit which concealed the torture.",0 """My son did me an unpardonable wrong by marrying the daughter of a drunken pauper,"" Mr. Talboys would answer to any one who had the temerity to speak to him about George, ""and from that hour I had no longer a son.",0 I wish him no ill.,2 He is simply dead to me.,1 "I am sorry for him, as I am sorry for his mother who died nineteen years ago.",1 "If you talk to me of him as you would talk of the dead, I shall be ready to hear you.",2 "If you speak of him as you would speak of the living, I must decline to listen.""",1 "I believe that Harcourt Talboys hugged himself upon the gloomy Roman grandeur of this speech, and that he would like to have worn a toga, and wrapped himself sternly in its folds, as he turned his back upon poor George's intercessor.",1 George never in his own person made any effort to soften his father's verdict.,2 He knew his father well enough to know that the case was hopeless.,3 """If I write to him, he will fold my letter with the envelope inside, and indorse it with my name and the date of its arrival,"" the young man would say, ""and call everybody in the house to witness that it had not moved him to one softening recollection or one pitiful thought.",1 He will stick to his resolution to his dying day.,1 "I dare say, if the truth was known, he is glad that his only son has offended him and given him the opportunity of parading his Roman virtues.""",3 George had answered his wife thus when she and her father had urged him to ask assistance from Harcourt Talboys.,2 """No my darling,"" he would say, conclusively.",3 """It's very hard, perhaps, to be poor, but we will bear it.",1 "We won't go with pitiful faces to the stern father, and ask him to give us food and shelter, only to be refused in long, Johnsonian sentences, and made a classical example for the benefit of the neighborhood.",1 "No, my pretty one; it is easy to starve, but it is difficult to stoop.""",2 Perhaps poor Mrs. George did not agree very heartily to the first of these two propositions.,2 "She had no great fancy for starving, and she whimpered pitifully when the pretty pint bottles of champagne, with Cliquot's and Moet's brands upon their corks, were exchanged for sixpenny ale, procured by a slipshod attendant from the nearest beer-shop.",3 "George had been obliged to carry his own burden and lend a helping hand with that of his wife, who had no idea of keeping her regrets or disappointments a secret.",1 """I thought dragoons were always rich,"" she used to say, peevishly.",2 """Girls always want to marry dragoons; and tradespeople always want to serve dragoons; and hotel-keepers to entertain dragoons; and theatrical managers to be patronized by dragoons.",3 "Who could have ever expected that a dragoon would drink sixpenny ale, smoke horrid bird's-eye tobacco, and let his wife wear a shabby bonnet?""",0 "If there were any selfish feelings displayed in such speeches as these, George Talboys had never discovered it.",1 He had loved and believed in his wife from the first to the last hour of his brief married life.,3 The love that is not blind is perhaps only a spurious divinity after all; for when Cupid takes the fillet from his eyes it is a fatally certain indication that he is preparing to spread his wings for a flight.,1 "George never forgot the hour in which he had first become bewitched by Lieutenant Maldon's pretty daughter, and however she might have changed, the image which had charmed him then, unchanged and unchanging, represented her in his heart.",3 "Robert Audley left Southampton by a train which started before daybreak, and reached Wareham station early in the day.",2 He hired a vehicle at Wareham to take him over to Grange Heath.,2 "The snow had hardened upon the ground, and the day was clear and frosty, every object in the landscape standing in sharp outline against the cold blue sky.",1 "The horses' hoofs clattered upon the ice-bound road, the iron shoes striking on the ground that was almost as iron as themselves.",3 The wintry day bore some resemblance to the man to whom Robert was going.,1 "Like him, it was sharp, frigid, and uncompromising: like him, it was merciless to distress and impregnable to the softening power of sunshine.",1 "It would accept no sunshine but such January radiance as would light up the bleak, bare country without brightening it; and thus resembled Harcourt Talboys, who took the sternest side of every truth, and declared loudly to the disbelieving world that there never had been, and never could be, any other side.",2 "Robert Audley's heart sunk within him as the shabby hired vehicle stopped at a stern-looking barred fence, and the driver dismounted to open a broad iron gate which swung back with a clanking noise and was caught by a great iron tooth, planted in the ground, which snapped at the lowest bar of the gate as if it wanted to bite.",0 "This iron gate opened into a scanty plantation of straight-limbed fir-trees, that grew in rows and shook their sturdy winter foliage defiantly in the very teeth of the frosty breeze.",3 "A straight graveled carriage-drive ran between these straight trees across a smoothly kept lawn to a square red-brick mansion, every window of which winked and glittered in the January sunlight as if it had been that moment cleaned by some indefatigable housemaid.",3 "I don't know whether Junius Brutus was a nuisance in his own house, but among other of his Roman virtues, Mr. Talboys owned an extreme aversion to disorder, and was the terror of every domestic in his establishment.",0 "The windows winked and the flight of stone steps glared in the sunlight, the prim garden walks were so freshly graveled that they gave a sandy, gingery aspect to the place, reminding one unpleasantly of red hair.",2 "The lawn was chiefly ornamented with dark, wintry shrubs of a funereal aspect which grew in beds that looked like problems in algebra; and the flight of stone steps leading to the square half-glass door of the hall was adorned with dark-green wooden tubs containing the same sturdy evergreens.",3 """If the man is anything like his house,"" Robert thought, ""I don't wonder that poor George and he parted.""",3 At the end of a scanty avenue the carriage-drive turned a sharp corner (it would have been made to describe a curve in any other man's grounds) and ran before the lower windows of the house.,3 "The flyman dismounted at the steps, ascended them, and rang a brass-handled bell, which flew back to its socket, with an angry, metallic snap, as if it had been insulted by the plebeian touch of the man's hand.",0 "A man in black trousers and a striped linen jacket, which was evidently fresh from the hands of the laundress, opened the door.",3 Mr. Talboys was at home.,2 Would the gentleman send in his card?,2 Robert waited in the hall while his card was taken to the master of the house.,3 "The hall was large and lofty, paved with stone.",2 The panels of the oaken wainscot shone with the same uncompromising polish which was on every object within and without the red-bricked mansion.,1 Some people are so weak-minded as to affect pictures and statues.,1 Mr. Harcourt Talboys was far too practical to indulge in any foolish fancies.,1 A barometer and an umbrella-stand were the only adornments of his entrance-hall.,2 Robert Audley looked at these while his name was being submitted to George's father.,2 The linen-jacketed servant returned presently.,2 "He was a square, pale-faced man of almost forty, and had the appearance of having outlived every emotion to which humanity is subject.",1 """If you will step this way, sir,"" he said, ""Mr. Talboys will see you, although he is at breakfast.",2 "He begged me to state that everybody in Dorsetshire was acquainted with his breakfast hour.""",2 This was intended as a stately reproof to Mr. Robert Audley.,3 "It had, however, very small effect upon the young barrister.",2 He merely lifted his eyebrows in placid deprecation of himself and everybody else.,2 """I don't belong to Dorsetshire,"" he said.",2 """Mr. Talboys might have known that, if he'd done me the honor to exercise his powers of ratiocination.",3 "Drive on, my friend.""",2 "The emotionless man looked at Robert Audley with a vacant stare of unmitigated horror, and opening one of the heavy oak doors, led the way into a large dining-room furnished with the severe simplicity of an apartment which is meant to be ate in, but never lived in; and at top of a table which would have accommodated eighteen persons Robert beheld Mr. Harcourt Talboys.",3 "Mr. Talboys was robed in a dressing-gown of gray cloth, fastened about his waist with a girdle.",2 "It was a severe looking garment, and was perhaps the nearest approach to the toga to be obtained within the range of modern costume.",2 "He wore a buff waistcoat, a stiffly starched cambric cravat, and a faultless shirt collar.",3 "The cold gray of his dressing gown was almost the same as the cold gray of his eyes, and the pale buff of his waistcoat was the pale buff of his complexion.",1 "Robert Audley had not expected to find Harcourt Talboys at all like George in his manners or disposition, but he had expected to see some family likeness between the father and the son.",3 There was none.,2 It would have been impossible to imagine any one more unlike George than the author of his existence.,1 Robert scarcely wondered at the cruel letter he received from Mr. Talboys when he saw the writer of it.,1 Such a man could scarcely have written otherwise.,1 "There was a second person in the large room, toward whom Robert glanced after saluting Harcourt Talboys, doubtful how to proceed.",1 "This second person was a lady, who sat at the last of a range of four windows, employed with some needlework, the kind which is generally called plain work, and with a large wicker basket, filled with calicoes and flannels, standing by her.",3 "The whole length of the room divided this lady from Robert, but he could see that she was young, and that she was like George Talboys.",3 """His sister!""",2 "he thought in that one moment, during which he ventured to glance away from the master of the house toward the female figure at the window.",3 """His sister, no doubt.",1 "He was fond of her, I know.",3 "Surely, she is not utterly indifferent as to his fate?""",1 "The lady half rose from her seat, letting her work, which was large and awkward, fall from her lap as she did so, and dropping a reel of cotton, which rolled away upon the polished oaken flooring beyond the margin of the Turkey carpet.",2 """Sit down, Clara,"" said the hard voice of Mr. Talboys.",1 "That gentleman did not appear to address his daughter, nor had his face been turned toward her when she rose.",2 "It seemed as if he had known it by some social magnetism peculiar to himself; it seemed, as his servants were apt disrespectfully to observe, as if he had eyes in the back of his head.",1 """Sit down, Clara,"" he repeated, ""and keep your cotton in your workbox.""",2 "The lady blushed at this reproof, and stooped to look for the cotton.",2 "Mr. Robert Audley, who was unabashed by the stern presence of the master of the house, knelt on the carpet, found the reel, and restored it to its owner; Harcourt Talboys staring at the proceeding with an expression of unmitigated astonishment.",4 """Perhaps, Mr. ——, Mr. Robert Audley!""",2 "he said, looking at the card which he held between his finger and thumb, ""perhaps when you have finished looking for reels of cotton, you will be good enough to tell me to what I owe the honor of this visit?""",4 "He waved his well-shaped hand with a gesture which might have been admired in the stately John Kemble; and the servant, understanding the gesture, brought forward a ponderous red-morocco chair.",3 "The proceeding was so slow and solemn, that Robert had at first thought that something extraordinary was about to be done; but the truth dawned upon him at last, and he dropped into the massive chair.",1 """You may remain, Wilson,"" said Mr. Talboys, as the servant was about to withdraw; ""Mr. Audley would perhaps like coffee.""",3 "Robert had eaten nothing that morning, but he glanced at the long expanse of dreary table-cloth, the silver tea and coffee equipage, the stiff splendor, and the very little appearance of any substantial entertainment, and he declined Mr. Talboys' invitation.",1 """Mr. Audley will not take coffee, Wilson,"" said the master of the house.",3 """You may go.""",2 "The man bowed and retired, opening and shutting the door as cautiously as if he were taking a liberty in doing it at all, or as if the respect due to Mr. Talboys demanded his walking straight through the oaken panel like a ghost in a German story.",4 "Mr. Harcourt Talboys sat with his gray eyes fixed severely on his visitor, his elbows on the red-morocco arms of his chair, and his finger-tips joined.",2 "It was the attitude in which, had he been Junius Brutus, he would have sat at the trial of his son.",2 "Had Robert Audley been easily to be embarrassed, Mr. Talboys might have succeeded in making him feel so: as he would have sat with perfect tranquility upon an open gunpowder barrel lighting his cigar, he was not at all disturbed upon this occasion.",3 The father's dignity seemed a very small thing to him when he thought of the possible causes of the son's disappearance.,3 """I wrote to you some time since, Mr. Talboys,"" he said quietly, when he saw that he was expected to open the conversation.",2 Harcourt Talboys bowed.,2 He knew that it was of his lost son that Robert came to speak.,1 "Heaven grant that his icy stoicism was the paltry affectation of a vain man, rather than the utter heartlessness which Robert thought it.",2 He bowed across his finger-tips at his visitor.,2 "The trial had begun, and Junius Brutus was enjoying himself.",3 """I received your communication, Mr. Audley,"" he said.",2 """It is among other business letters: it was duly answered.""",2 """That letter concerned your son.""",1 "There was a little rustling noise at the window where the lady sat, as Robert said this: he looked at her almost instantaneously, but she did not seem to have stirred.",1 "She was not working, but she was perfectly quiet.",3 """She's as heartless as her father, I expect, though she is like George,"" thought Mr. Audley.",2 """If your letter concerned the person who was once my son, perhaps, sir,"" said Harcourt Talboys, ""I must ask you to remember that I have no longer a son.""",1 """You have no reason to remind me of that, Mr. Talboys,"" answered Robert, gravely; ""I remember it only too well.",2 I have fatal reason to believe that you have no longer a son.,1 "I have bitter cause to think that he is dead.""",1 It may be that Mr. Talboys' complexion faded to a paler shade of buff as Robert said this; but he only elevated his bristling gray eyebrows and shook his head gently.,2 """No,"" he said, ""no, I assure you, no.""",3 """I believe that George Talboys died in the month of September.""",1 "The girl who had been addressed as Clara, sat with work primly folded upon her lap, and her hands lying clasped together on her work, and never stirred when Robert spoke of his friend's death.",1 "He could not distinctly see her face, for she was seated at some distance from him, and with her back to the window.",2 """No, no, I assure you,"" repeated Mr. Talboys, ""you labor under a sad mistake.""",1 """You believe that I am mistaken in thinking your son dead?""",1 asked Robert.,2 """Most certainly,"" replied Mr. Talboys, with a smile, expressive of the serenity of wisdom.",4 """Most certainly, my dear sir.",2 "The disappearance was a very clever trick, no doubt, but it was not sufficiently clever to deceive me.",1 "You must permit me to understand this matter a little better than you, Mr. Audley, and you must also permit me to assure you of three things.",3 "In the first place, your friend is not dead.",1 "In the second place, he is keeping out of the way for the purpose of alarming me, of trifling with my feelings as a—as a man who was once his father, and of ultimately obtaining my forgiveness.",1 "In the third place, he will not obtain that forgiveness, however long he may please to keep out of the way; and he would therefore act wisely by returning to his ordinary residence and avocations without delay.""",2 """Then you imagine him to purposely hide himself from all who know him, for the purpose of—"" ""For the purpose of influencing me,"" exclaimed Mr. Talboys, who, taking a stand upon his own vanity, traced every event in life from that one center, and resolutely declined to look at it from any other point of view.",1 """For the purpose of influencing me.",2 "He knew the inflexibility of my character; to a certain degree he was acquainted with me, and knew that all attempts at softening my decision, or moving me from the fixed purpose of my life, would fail.",1 "He therefore tried extraordinary means; he has kept out of the way in order to alarm me, and when after due time he discovers that he has not alarmed me, he will return to his old haunts.",1 "When he does so,"" said Mr. Talboys, rising to sublimity, ""I will forgive him.",2 "Yes, sir, I will forgive him.",2 "I shall say to him: You have attempted to deceive me, and I have shown you that I am not to be deceived; you have tried to frighten me, and I have convinced you that I am not to be frightened; you did not believe in my generosity, I will show you that I can be generous.""",2 "Harcourt Talboys delivered himself of these superb periods with a studied manner, that showed they had been carefully composed long ago.",3 Robert Audley sighed as he heard them.,2 """Heaven grant that you may have an opportunity of saying this to your son, sir,"" he answered sadly.",2 """I am very glad to find that you are willing to forgive him, but I fear that you will never see him again upon this earth.",3 "I have a great deal to say to you upon this—this sad subject, Mr. Talboys; but I would rather say it to you alone,"" he added, glancing at the lady in the window.",2 """My daughter knows my ideas upon this subject, Mr. Audley,"" said Harcourt Talboys; ""there is no reason why she should not hear all you have to say.",2 "Miss Clara Talboys, Mr. Robert Audley,"" he added, waving his hand majestically.",1 The young lady bent her head in recognition of Robert's bow.,1 """Let her hear it,"" he thought.",2 """If she has so little feeling as to show no emotion upon such a subject, let her hear the worst I have to tell.""",1 "There was a few minutes' pause, during which Robert took some papers from his pocket; among them the document which he had written immediately after George's disappearance.",2 """I shall require all your attention, Mr. Talboys,"" he said, ""for that which I have to disclose to you is of a very painful nature.",1 Your son was my very dear friend—dear to me for many reasons.,2 "Perhaps most of all dear, because I had known him and been with him through the great trouble of his life; and because he stood comparatively alone in the world—cast off by you who should have been his best friend, bereft of the only woman he had ever loved.""",3 """The daughter of a drunken pauper,"" Mr. Talboys remarked, parenthetically.",1 """Had he died in his bed, as I sometimes thought he would,"" continued Robert Audley, ""of a broken heart, I should have mourned for him very sincerely, even though I had closed his eyes with my own hands, and had seen him laid in his quiet resting-place.",2 "I should have grieved for my old schoolfellow, and for the companion who had been dear to me.",2 "But this grief would have been a very small one compared to that which I feel now, believing, as I do only too firmly, that my poor friend has been murdered.""",1 """Murdered!""",2 The father and daughter simultaneously repeated the horrible word.,1 "The father's face changed to a ghastly duskiness of hue; the daughter's face dropped upon her clasped hands, and was never lifted again throughout the interview.",1 """Mr. Audley, you are mad!""",1 "exclaimed Harcourt Talboys; ""you are mad, or else you are commissioned by your friend to play upon my feelings.",1 "I protest against this proceeding as a conspiracy, and I—I revoke my intended forgiveness of the person who was once my son!""",0 He was himself again as he said this.,2 "The blow had been a sharp one, but its effect had been momentary.",2 """It is far from my wish to alarm you unnecessarily, sir,"" answered Robert.",1 """Heaven grant that you may be right and I wrong.",3 "I pray for it, but I cannot think it—I cannot even hope it.",2 I come to you for advice.,2 I will state to you plainly and dispassionately the circumstances which have aroused my suspicions.,1 If you say those suspicions are foolish and unfounded I am ready to submit to your better judgment.,1 I will leave England; and I abandon my search for the evidence wanting to—to confirm my fears.,1 "If you say go on, I will go on.""",2 Nothing could be more gratifying to the vanity of Mr. Harcourt Talboys than this appeal.,3 "He declared himself ready to listen to all that Robert might have to say, and ready to assist him to the uttermost of his power.",3 "He laid some stress upon this last assurance, deprecating the value of his advice with an affectation that was as transparent as his vanity itself.",3 "Robert Audley drew his chair nearer to that of Mr. Talboys, and commenced a minutely detailed account of all that had occurred to George from the time of his arrival in England to the hour of his disappearance, as well as all that had occurred since his disappearance in any way touching upon that particular subject.",3 "Harcourt Talboys listened with demonstrative attention, now and then interrupting the speaker to ask some magisterial kind of question.",2 Clara Talboys never once lifted her face from her clasped hands.,2 The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past eleven when Robert began his story.,2 The clock struck twelve as he finished.,1 He had carefully suppressed the names of his uncle and his uncle's wife in relating the circumstances in which they had been concerned.,1 """Now, sir,"" he said, when the story had been told, ""I await your decision.",2 You have heard my reasons for coming to this terrible conclusion.,1 "In what manner do these reasons influence you?""",2 """They don't in any way turn me from my previous opinion,"" answered Mr. Harcourt Talboys, with the unreasoning pride of an obstinate man.",2 """I still think, as I thought before, that my son is alive, and that his disappearance is a conspiracy against myself.",1 "I decline to become the victim of that conspiracy.""",1 """And you tell me to stop?""",2 "asked Robert, solemnly.",2 """I tell you only this: If you go on, you go on for your own satisfaction, not for mine.",2 "I see nothing in what you have told me to alarm me for the safety of—your friend.""",1 """So be it, then!""",2 "exclaimed Robert, suddenly; ""from this moment I wash my hands of this business.",2 "From this moment the purpose of my life shall be to forget it.""",2 "He rose as he spoke, and took his hat from the table on which he had placed it.",2 He looked at Clara Talboys.,2 Her attitude had never changed since she had dropped her face upon her hands.,2 """Good morning, Mr. Talboys,"" he said, gravely.",2 """God grant that you are right.",3 God grant that I am wrong.,1 "But I fear a day will come when you will have reason to regret your apathy respecting the untimely fate of your only son.""",0 "He bowed gravely to Mr. Harcourt Talboys and to the lady, whose face was hidden by her hands.",1 "He lingered for a moment looking at Miss Talboys, thinking that she would look up, that she would make some sign, or show some desire to detain him.",1 "Mr. Talboys rang for the emotionless servant, who led Robert off to the hall-door with the solemnity of manner which would have been in perfect keeping had he been leading him to execution.",4 """She is like her father,"" thought Mr. Audley, as he glanced for the last time at the drooping head.",3 """Poor George, you had need of one friend in this world, for you have had very few to love you.""",2 Robert Audley found the driver asleep upon the box of his lumbering vehicle.,2 "He had been entertained with beer of so hard a nature as to induce temporary strangulation in the daring imbiber thereof, and he was very glad to welcome the return of his fare.",3 "The old white horse, who looked as if he had been foaled in the year in which the carriage had been built, and seemed, like the carriage, to have outlived the fashion, was as fast asleep as his master, and woke up with a jerk as Robert came down the stony flight of steps, attended by his executioner, who waited respectfully till Mr. Audley had entered the vehicle and been turned off.",4 "The horse, roused by a smack of his driver's whip and a shake of the shabby reins, crawled off in a semi-somnambulent state; and Robert, with his hat very much over his eyes, thought of his missing friend.",0 "He had played in these stiff gardens, and under these dreary firs, years ago, perhaps—if it were possible for the most frolicsome youth to be playful within the range of Mr. Harcourt Talboys' hard gray eyes.",1 "He had played beneath these dark trees, perhaps, with the sister who had heard of his fate to-day without a tear.",1 "Robert Audley looked at the rigid primness of the orderly grounds, wondering how George could have grown up in such a place to be the frank, generous, careless friend whom he had known.",2 "How was it that with his father perpetually before his eyes, he had not grown up after the father's disagreeable model, to be a nuisance to his fellow-men?",1 How was it?,2 "Because we have Some One higher than our parents to thank for the souls which make us great or small; and because, while family noses and family chins may descend in orderly sequence from father to son, from grandsire to grandchild, as the fashion of the fading flowers of one year is reproduced in the budding blossoms of the next, the spirit, more subtle than the wind which blows among those flowers, independent of all earthly rule, owns no order but the harmonious law of God.",4 """Thank God!""",3 "thought Robert Audley; ""thank God!",3 it is over.,2 My poor friend must rest in his unknown grave; and I shall not be the means of bringing disgrace upon those I love.,1 "It will come, perhaps, sooner or later, but it will not come through me.",2 "The crisis is past, and I am free.""",2 He felt an unutterable relief in this thought.,3 "His generous nature revolted at the office into which he had found himself drawn—the office of spy, the collector of damning facts that led on to horrible deductions.",2 He drew a long breath—a sigh of relief at his release.,3 It was all over now.,2 "The fly was crawling out of the gate of the plantation as he thought this, and he stood up in the vehicle to look back at the dreary fir-trees, the gravel paths, the smooth grass, and the great desolate-looking, red-brick mansion.",2 "He was startled by the appearance of a woman running, almost flying, along the carriage-drive by which he had come, and waving a handkerchief in her uplifted hand.",2 He stared at this singular apparition for some moments in silent wonder before he was able to reduce his stupefaction into words.,3 """Is it me the flying female wants?""",2 "he exclaimed, at last.",2 """You'd better stop, perhaps,"" he added, to the flyman.",3 """It is an age of eccentricity, an abnormal era of the world's history.",1 She may want me.,2 "Very likely I left my pocket-handkerchief behind me, and Mr. Talboys has sent this person with it.",2 Perhaps I'd better get out and go and meet her.,3 "It's civil to send my handkerchief.""",2 "Mr. Robert Audley deliberately descended from the fly and walked slowly toward the hurrying female figure, which gained upon him rapidly.",2 "He was rather short sighted, and it was not until she came very near to him that he saw who she was.",2 """Good Heaven!""",3 "he exclaimed, ""it's Miss Talboys.""",1 "It was Miss Talboys, flushed and breathless, with a woolen shawl thrown over her head.",1 "Robert Audley now saw her face clearly for the first time, and he saw that she was very handsome.",3 "She had brown eyes, like George's, a pale complexion (she had been flushed when she approached him, but the color faded away as she recovered her breath), regular features, with a mobility of expression which bore record of every change of feeling.",1 "He saw all this in a few moments, and he wondered only the more at the stoicism of her manner during his interview with Mr. Talboys.",2 "There were no tears in her eyes, but they were bright with a feverish luster—terribly bright and dry—and he could see that her lips trembled as she spoke to him.",2 """Miss Talboys,"" he said, ""what can I—why—"" She interrupted him suddenly, catching at his wrist with her disengaged hand—she was holding her shawl in the other.",1 """Oh, let me speak to you,"" she cried—""let me speak to you, or I shall go mad.",1 I heard it all.,2 "I believe what you believe, and I shall go mad unless I can do something—something toward avenging his death.""",1 For a few moments Robert Audley was too much bewildered to answer her.,1 Of all things possible upon earth he had least expected to behold her thus.,2 """Take my arm, Miss Talboys,"" he said.",1 """Pray calm yourself.",3 "Let us walk a little way back toward the house, and talk quietly.",2 "I would not have spoken as I did before you had I known—"" ""Had you known that I loved my brother?""",3 "she said, quickly.",2 """How should you know that I loved him?",3 "How should any one think that I loved him, when I have never had power to give him a welcome beneath that roof, or a kindly word from his father?",4 How should I dare to betray my love for him in that house when I knew that even a sister's affection would be turned to his disadvantage?,2 "You do not know my father, Mr. Audley.",2 I do.,2 I knew that to intercede for George would have been to ruin his cause.,1 "I knew that to leave matters in my father's hands, and to trust to time, was my only chance of ever seeing that dear brother again.",3 "And I waited—waited patiently, always hoping for the best; for I knew that my father loved his only son.",4 "I see your contemptuous smile, Mr. Audley, and I dare say it is difficult for a stranger to believe that underneath his affected stoicism my father conceals some degree of affection for his children—no very warm attachment perhaps, for he has always ruled his life by the strict law of duty.",1 "Stop,"" she said, suddenly, laying her hand upon his arm, and looking back through the straight avenue of pines; ""I ran out of the house by the back way.",2 "Papa must not see me talking to you, Mr. Audley, and he must not see the fly standing at the gate.",2 Will you go into the high-road and tell the man to drive on a little way?,2 "I will come out of the plantation by a little gate further on, and meet you in the road.""",2 """But you will catch cold, Miss Talboys,"" remonstrated Robert, looking at her anxiously, for he saw that she was trembling.",0 """You are shivering now.""",2 """Not with cold,"" she answered.",1 """I am thinking of my brother George.",2 "If you have any pity for the only sister of your lost friend, do what I ask you, Mr. Audley.",1 "I must speak to you—I must speak to you—calmly, if I can.""",2 "She put her hand to her head as if trying to collect her thoughts, and then pointed to the gate.",2 Robert bowed and left her.,2 "He told the man to drive slowly toward the station, and walked on by the side of the tarred fence surrounding Mr. Talboys' grounds.",1 "About a hundred yards beyond the principal entrance he came to a little wooden gate in the fence, and waited at it for Miss Talboys.",1 "She joined him presently, with her shawl still over her head, and her eyes still bright and tearless.",3 """Will you walk with me inside the plantation?""",2 she said.,2 """We might be observed on the high-road.""",2 "He bowed, passed through the gate, and shut it behind him.",2 When she took his offered arm he found that she was still trembling—trembling very violently.,1 """Pray, pray calm yourself, Miss Talboys,"" he said; ""I may have been deceived in the opinion which I have formed; I may—"" ""No, no, no,"" she exclaimed, ""you are not deceived.",2 My brother has been murdered.,2 "Tell me the name of that woman—the woman whom you suspect of being concerned in his disappearance—in his murder.""",0 """That I cannot do until—"" ""Until when?""",2 """Until I know that she is guilty.""",1 """You told my father that you would abandon all idea of discovering the truth—that you would rest satisfied to leave my brother's fate a horrible mystery never to be solved upon this earth; but you will not do so, Mr. Audley—you will not be false to the memory of your friend.",1 You will see vengeance done upon those who have destroyed him.,1 "You will do this, will you not?""",2 A gloomy shadow spread itself like a dark veil over Robert Audley's handsome face.,2 "He remembered what he had said the day before at Southampton: ""A hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning me onward, upon the dark road.""",3 "A quarter of an hour before, he had believed that all was over, and that he was released from the dreadful duty of discovering the secret of George's death.",1 "Now this girl, this apparently passionless girl, had found a voice, and was urging him on toward his fate.",2 """If you knew what misery to me may be involved in discovering the truth, Miss Talboys,"" he said, ""you would scarcely ask me to pursue this business any farther?""",0 """But I do ask you,"" she answered, with suppressed passion—""I do ask you.",3 I ask you to avenge my brother's untimely death.,0 Will you do so?,2 "Yes or no?""",2 """What if I answer no?""",2 """Then I will do it myself,"" she exclaimed, looking at him with her bright brown eyes.",3 """I myself will follow up the clew to this mystery; I will find this woman—though you refuse to tell me in what part of England my brother disappeared.",1 "I will travel from one end of the world to the other to find the secret of his fate, if you refuse to find it for me.",1 "I am of age; my own mistress; rich, for I have money left me by one of my aunts; I shall be able to employ those who will help me in my search, and I will make it to their interest to serve me well.",3 "Choose between the two alternatives, Mr. Audley.",2 "Shall you or I find my brother's murderer?""",1 "He looked in her face, and saw that her resolution was the fruit of no transient womanish enthusiasm which would give way under the iron hand of difficulty.",2 "Her beautiful features, naturally statuesque in their noble outlines, seemed transformed into marble by the rigidity of her expression.",3 The face in which he looked was the face of a woman whom death only could turn from her purpose.,1 """I have grown up in an atmosphere of suppression,"" she said, quietly; ""I have stifled and dwarfed the natural feelings of my heart, until they have become unnatural in their intensity; I have been allowed neither friends nor lovers.",1 My mother died when I was very young.,1 My father has always been to me what you saw him to-day.,2 I have had no one but my brother.,2 All the love that my heart can hold has been centered upon him.,3 "Do you wonder, then, that when I hear that his young life has been ended by the hand of treachery, that I wish to see vengeance done upon the traitor?",1 "Oh, my God,"" she cried, suddenly clasping her hands, and looking up at the cold winter sky, ""lead me to the murderer of my brother, and let mine be the hand to avenge his untimely death.""",0 Robert Audley stood looking at her with awe-stricken admiration.,3 Her beauty was elevated into sublimity by the intensity of her suppressed passion.,3 She was different to all other women that he had ever seen.,2 "His cousin was pretty, his uncle's wife was lovely, but Clara Talboys was beautiful.",4 "Niobe's face, sublimated by sorrow, could scarcely have been more purely classical than hers.",1 "Even her dress, puritan in its gray simplicity, became her beauty better than a more beautiful dress would have become a less beautiful woman.",4 """Miss Talboys,"" said Robert, after a pause, ""your brother shall not be unavenged.",1 He shall not be forgotten.,2 "I do not think that any professional aid which you could procure would lead you as surely to the secret of this mystery as I can lead you, if you are patient and trust me.""",3 """I will trust you,"" she answered, ""for I see that you will help me.""",3 """I believe that it is my destiny to do so,"" he said, solemnly.",3 "In the whole course of his conversation with Harcourt Talboys, Robert Audley had carefully avoided making any deductions from the circumstances which he had submitted to George's father.",2 "He had simply told the story of the missing man's life, from the hour of his arriving in London to that of his disappearance; but he saw that Clara Talboys had arrived at the same conclusion as himself, and that it was tacitly understood between them.",2 """Have you any letters of your brother's, Miss Talboys?""",1 he asked.,2 """Two.",2 "One written soon after his marriage, the other written at Liverpool, the night before he sailed for Australia.""",2 """Will you let me see them?""",2 """Yes, I will send them to you if you will give me your address.",2 "You will write to me from time to time, will you not, to tell me whether you are approaching the truth.",2 "I shall be obliged to act secretly here, but I am going to leave home in two or three months, and I shall be perfectly free then to act as I please.""",3 """You are not going to leave England?""",2 Robert asked.,2 """Oh no!",2 "I am only going to pay a long-promised visit to some friends in Essex.""",3 "Robert started so violently as Clara Talboys said this, that she looked suddenly at his face.",1 "The agitation visible there, betrayed a part of his secret.",2 """My brother George disappeared in Essex,"" she said.",2 He could not contradict her.,1 """I am sorry you have discovered so much,"" he replied.",1 """My position becomes every day more complicated, every day more painful.",1 "Good-bye.""",3 "She gave him her hand mechanically, when he held out his; but it was cold as marble, and lay listlessly in his own, and fell like a log at her side when he released it.",1 """Pray lose no time in returning to the house,"" he said earnestly.",2 """I fear you will suffer from this morning's work.""",1 """Suffer!""",1 "she exclaimed, scornfully.",1 """You talk to me of suffering, when the only creature in this world who ever loved me has been taken from it in the bloom of youth.",3 What can there be for me henceforth but suffering?,1 "What is the cold to me?""",1 "she said, flinging back her shawl and baring her beautiful head to the bitter wind.",2 """I would walk from here to London barefoot through the snow, and never stop by the way, if I could bring him back to life.",2 What would I not do to bring him back?,2 "What would I not do?""",2 "The words broke from her in a wail of passionate sorrow; and clasping her hands before her face, she wept for the first time that day.",1 "The violence of her sobs shook her slender frame, and she was obliged to lean against the trunk of a tree for support.",3 "Robert looked at her with a tender compassion in his face; she was so like the friend whom he had loved and lost, that it was impossible for him to think of her as a stranger; impossible to remember that they had met that morning for the first time.",3 """Pray, pray be calm,"" he said: ""hope even against hope.",3 "We may both be deceived; your brother may still live.""",2 """Oh!",2 "if it were so,"" she murmured, passionately; ""if it could be so.""",3 """Let us try and hope that it may be so.""",2 """No,"" she answered, looking at him through her tears, ""let us hope for nothing but revenge.",1 "Good-by, Mr. Audley.",3 "Stop; your address.""",2 "He gave her a card, which she put into the pocket of her dress.",2 """I will send you George's letters,"" she said; ""they may help you.",2 "Good-by.""",3 "She left him half bewildered by the passionate energy of her manner, and the noble beauty of her face.",3 "He watched her as she disappeared among the straight trunks of the fir-trees, and then walked slowly out of the plantation.",1 """Heaven help those who stand between me and the secret,"" he thought, ""for they will be sacrificed to the memory of George Talboys.""",2 "Robert Audley did not return to Southampton, but took a ticket for the first up town train that left Wareham, and reached Waterloo Bridge an hour or two after dark.",1 "The snow, which had been hard and crisp in Dorsetshire, was a black and greasy slush in the Waterloo Road, thawed by the flaring lamps of the gin-palaces and the glaring gas in the butchers' shops.",1 "Robert Audley shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the dingy streets through which the Hansom carried him, the cab-man choosing—with that delicious instinct which seems innate in the drivers of hackney vehicles—all those dark and hideous thoroughfares utterly unknown to the ordinary pedestrian.",0 """What a pleasant thing life is,"" thought the barrister.",3 """What an unspeakable boon—what an overpowering blessing!",2 "Let any man make a calculation of his existence, subtracting the hours in which he has been thoroughly happy—really and entirely at his ease, without one arriere pensée to mar his enjoyment—without the most infinitesimal cloud to overshadow the brightness of his horizon.",2 "Let him do this, and surely he will laugh in utter bitterness of soul when he sets down the sum of his felicity, and discovers the pitiful smallness of the amount.",1 "He will have enjoyed himself for a week or ten days in thirty years, perhaps.",3 "In thirty years of dull December, and blustering March, and showery April, and dark November weather, there may have been seven or eight glorious August days, through which the sun has blazed in cloudless radiance, and the summer breezes have breathed perpetual balm.",2 "How fondly we recollect these solitary days of pleasure, and hope for their recurrence, and try to plan the circumstances that made them bright; and arrange, and predestinate, and diplomatize with fate for a renewal of the remembered joy.",4 As if any joy could ever be built up out of such and such constituent parts!,3 "As if happiness were not essentially accidental—a bright and wandering bird, utterly irregular in its migrations; with us one summer's day, and forever gone from us on the next!",1 "Look at marriages, for instance,"" mused Robert, who was as meditative in the jolting vehicle, for whose occupation he was to pay sixpence a mile, as if he had been riding a mustang on the wild loneliness of the prairies.",1 """Look at marriage!",2 Who is to say which shall be the one judicious selection out of nine hundred and ninety-nine mistakes!,2 "Who shall decide from the first aspect of the slimy creature, which is to be the one eel out of the colossal bag of snakes?",2 "That girl on the curbstone yonder, waiting to cross the street when my chariot shall have passed, may be the one woman out of every female creature in this vast universe who could make me a happy man.",3 "Yet I pass her by—bespatter her with the mud from my wheels, in my helpless ignorance, in my blind submission to the awful hand of fatality.",0 "If that girl, Clara Talboys, had been five minutes later, I should have left Dorsetshire thinking her cold, hard, and unwomanly, and should have gone to my grave with that mistake part and parcel of my mind.",0 I took her for a stately and heartless automaton; I know her now to be a noble and beautiful woman.,3 What an incalculable difference this may make in my life.,2 "When I left that house, I went out into the winter day with the determination of abandoning all further thought of the secret of George's death.",1 "I see her, and she forces me onward upon the loathsome path—the crooked by-way of watchfulness and suspicion.",0 "How can I say to this sister of my dead friend, 'I believe that your brother has been murdered!",1 "I believe that I know by whom, but I will take no step to set my doubts at rest, or to confirm my fears'?",1 I cannot say this.,2 "This woman knows half my secret; she will soon possess herself of the rest, and then—and then—"" The cab stopped in the midst of Robert Audley's meditation, and he had to pay the cabman, and submit to all the dreary mechanism of life, which is the same whether we are glad or sorry—whether we are to be married or hung, elevated to the woolsack, or disbarred by our brother benchers on some mysterious technical tangle of wrong-doing, which is a social enigma to those outside the forum domesticum of the Middle Temple.",0 "We are apt to be angry with this cruel hardness in our life—this unflinching regularity in the smaller wheels and meaner mechanism of the human machine, which knows no stoppage or cessation, though the mainspring be forever hollow, and the hands pointing to purposeless figures on a shattered dial.",0 "Who has not felt, in the first madness of sorrow, an unreasoning rage against the mute propriety of chairs and tables, the stiff squareness of Turkey carpets, the unbending obstinacy of the outward apparatus of existence?",0 "We want to root up gigantic trees in a primeval forest, and to tear their huge branches asunder in our convulsive grasp; and the utmost that we can do for the relief of our passion is to knock over an easy-chair, or smash a few shillings' worth of Mr. Copeland's manufacture.",3 "Madhouses are large and only too numerous; yet surely it is strange they are not larger, when we think of how many helpless wretches must beat their brains against this hopeless persistency of the orderly outward world, as compared with the storm and tempest, the riot and confusion within—when we remember how many minds must tremble upon the narrow boundary between reason and unreason, mad to-day and sane to-morrow, mad yesterday and sane to-day.",0 "Robert Audley had directed the cabman to drop him at the corner of Chancery Lane, and he ascended the brilliantly-lighted staircase leading to the dining-saloon of The London, and seated himself at one of the snug tables with a confused sense of emptiness and weariness, rather than any agreeable sensation of healthy hunger.",3 "He had come to the luxurious eating-house to dine, because it was absolutely necessary to eat something somewhere, and a great deal easier to get a very good dinner from Mr. Sawyer than a very bad one from Mrs. Maloney, whose mind ran in one narrow channel of chops and steaks, only variable by small creeks and outlets in the way of ""broiled sole"" or ""boiled mack'-rill.""",4 The solicitous waiter tried in vain to rouse poor Robert to a proper sense of the solemnity of the dinner question.,2 "He muttered something to the effect that the man might bring him anything he liked, and the friendly waiter, who knew Robert as a frequent guest at the little tables, went back to his master with a doleful face, to say that Mr. Audley, from Figtree Court, was evidently out of spirits.",4 "Robert ate his dinner, and drank a pint of Moselle; but he had poor appreciation of the excellence of the viands or the delicate fragrance of the wine.",3 "The mental monologue still went on, and the young philosopher of the modern school was arguing the favorite modern question of the nothingness of everything, and the folly of taking too much trouble to walk upon a road that went nowhere, or to compass a work that meant nothing.",3 """I accept the dominion of that pale girl, with the statuesque features and the calm brown eyes,"" he thought.",3 """I recognize the power of a mind superior to my own, and I yield to it, and bow down to it.",3 "I've been acting for myself, and thinking for myself, for the last few months, and I'm tired of the unnatural business.",1 "I've been false to the leading principle of my life, and I've suffered for the folly.",1 "I found two gray hairs in my head the week before last, and an impertinent crow has planted a delicate impression of his foot under my right eye.",3 "Yes, I'm getting old upon the right side; and why—why should it be so?""",3 "He pushed away his plate and lifted his eyebrows, staring at the crumbs upon the glistening damask, as he pondered the question.",3 """What the devil am I doing in this galere?""",1 he asked.,2 """But I am in it, and I can't get out of it; so I better submit myself to the brown-eyed girl, and do what she tells me patiently and faithfully.",4 What a wonderful solution to life's enigma there is in petticoat government!,3 "Man might lie in the sunshine, and eat lotuses, and fancy it 'always afternoon,' if his wife would let him!",2 "But she won't, bless her impulsive heart and active mind!",2 She knows better than that.,3 Who ever heard of a woman taking life as it ought to be taken?,2 "Instead of supporting it as an unavoidable nuisance, only redeemable by its brevity, she goes through it as if it were a pageant or a procession.",2 "She dresses for it, and simpers and grins, and gesticulates for it.",2 "She pushes her neighbors, and struggles for a good place in the dismal march; she elbows, and writhes, and tramples, and prances to the one end of making the most of the misery.",1 "She gets up early and sits up late, and is loud, and restless, and noisy, and unpitying.",0 "She drags her husband on to the woolsack, or pushes him into Parliament.",1 "She drives him full butt at the dear, lazy machinery of government, and knocks and buffets him about the wheels, and cranks, and screws, and pulleys; until somebody, for quiet's sake, makes him something that she wanted him to be made.",1 "That's why incompetent men sometimes sit in high places, and interpose their poor, muddled intellects between the things to be done and the people that can do them, making universal confusion in the helpless innocence of well-placed incapacity.",0 The square men in the round holes are pushed into them by their wives.,2 "The Eastern potentate who declared that women were at the bottom of all mischief, should have gone a little further and seen why it is so.",1 It is because women are never lazy.,1 They don't know what it is to be quiet.,3 "They are Semiramides, and Cleopatras, and Joans of Arc, Queen Elizabeths, and Catharines the Second, and they riot in battle, and murder, and clamor and desperation.",0 "If they can't agitate the universe and play at ball with hemispheres, they'll make mountains of warfare and vexation out of domestic molehills, and social storms in household teacups.",1 "Forbid them to hold forth upon the freedom of nations and the wrongs of mankind, and they'll quarrel with Mrs. Jones about the shape of a mantle or the character of a small maid-servant.",1 To call them the weaker sex is to utter a hideous mockery.,0 "They are the stronger sex, the noisier, the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex.",2 "They want freedom of opinion, variety of occupation, do they?",3 Let them have it.,2 "Let them be lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, legislators—anything they like—but let them be quiet—if they can.""",3 "Mr. Audley pushed his hands through the thick luxuriance of his straight brown hair, and uplifted the dark mass in his despair.",1 """I hate women,"" he thought, savagely.",1 """They're bold, brazen, abominable creatures, invented for the annoyance and destruction of their superiors.",0 Look at this business of poor George's!,1 It's all woman's work from one end to the other.,3 "He marries a woman, and his father casts him off penniless and professionless.",2 "He hears of the woman's death and he breaks his heart—his good honest, manly heart, worth a million of the treacherous lumps of self-interest and mercenary calculation which beats in women's breasts.",2 He goes to a woman's house and he is never seen alive again.,2 "And now I find myself driven into a corner by another woman, of whose existence I had never thought until this day.",2 "And—and then,"" mused Mr. Audley, rather irrelevantly, ""there's Alicia, too; she's another nuisance.",1 "She'd like me to marry her I know; and she'll make me do it, I dare say, before she's done with me.",3 "But I'd much rather not; though she is a dear, bouncing, generous thing, bless her poor little heart.""",3 Robert paid his bill and rewarded the waiter liberally.,2 "The young barrister was very willing to distribute his comfortable little income among the people who served him, for he carried his indifference to all things in the universe, even to the matter of pounds, shillings and pence.",3 "Perhaps he was rather exceptional in this, as you may frequently find that the philosopher who calls life an empty delusion is pretty sharp in the investment of his moneys, and recognizes the tangible nature of India bonds, Spanish certificates, and Egyptian scrip—as contrasted with the painful uncertainty of an Ego or a non-Ego in metaphysics.",3 The snug rooms in Figtree Court seemed dreary in their orderly quiet to Robert Audley upon this particular evening.,3 "He had no inclination for his French novels, though there was a packet of uncut romances, comic and sentimental, ordered a month before, waiting his pleasure upon one of the tables.",3 He took his favorite meerschaum and dropped into his favorite chair with a sigh.,3 """It's comfortable, but it seems so deuced lonely to-night.",2 "If poor George were sitting opposite to me, or—or even George's sister—she's very like him—existence might be a little more endurable.",2 "But when a fellow's lived by himself for eight or ten years he begins to be bad company.""",1 He burst out laughing presently as he finished his first pipe.,2 """The idea of my thinking of George's sister,"" he thought; ""what a preposterous idiot I am!""",1 "The next day's post brought him a letter in a firm but feminine hand, which was strange to him.",1 "He found the little packet lying on his breakfast-table, beside the warm French roll wrapped in a napkin by Mrs. Maloney's careful but rather dirty hands.",1 "He contemplated the envelope for some minutes before opening it—not in any wonder as to his correspondent, for the letter bore the postmark of Grange Heath, and he knew that there was only one person who was likely to write to him from that obscure village, but in that lazy dreaminess which was a part of his character.",1 """From Clara Talboys,"" he murmured slowly, as he looked critically at the clearly-shaped letters of his name and address.",2 """Yes, from Clara Talboys, most decidedly; I recognized a feminine resemblance to poor George's hand; neater than his, and more decided than his, but very like, very like.""",2 "He turned the letter over and examined the seal, which bore his friend's familiar crest.",1 """I wonder what she says to me?""",3 he thought.,2 """It's a long letter, I dare say; she's the kind of woman who would write a long letter—a letter that will urge me on, drive me forward, wrench me out of myself, I've no doubt.",1 "But that can't be helped—so here goes!""",3 He tore open the envelope with a sigh of resignation.,1 "It contained nothing but George's two letters, and a few words written on the flap: ""I send the letters; please preserve and return them—C.T."" The letter, written from Liverpool, told nothing of the writer's life except his sudden determination of starting for a new world, to redeem the fortunes that had been ruined in the old.",2 "The letter written almost immediately after George's marriage, contained a full description of his wife—such a description as a man could only write within three weeks of a love match—a description in which every feature was minutely catalogued, every grace of form or beauty of expression fondly dwelt upon, every charm of manner lovingly depicted.",4 Robert Audley read the letter three times before he laid it down.,2 """If George could have known for what a purpose this description would serve when he wrote it,"" thought the young barrister, ""surely his hand would have fallen paralyzed by horror, and powerless to shape one syllable of these tender words.""",1 The dreary London January dragged its dull length slowly out.,0 "The last slender records of Christmas time were swept away, and Robert Audley still lingered in town—still spent his lonely evenings in his quiet sitting-room in Figtree Court—still wandered listlessly in the Temple Gardens on sunny mornings, absently listening to the children's babble, idly watching their play.",1 "He had many friends among the inhabitants of the quaint old buildings round him; he had other friends far away in pleasant country places, whose spare bedrooms were always at Bob's service, whose cheerful firesides had snugly luxurious chairs specially allotted to him.",4 "But he seemed to have lost all taste for companionship, all sympathy with the pleasures and occupations of his class, since the disappearance of George Talboys.",1 Elderly benchers indulged in facetious observations upon the young man's pale face and moody manner.,0 "They suggested the probability of some unhappy attachment, some feminine ill-usage as the secret cause of the change.",1 "They told him to be of good cheer, and invited him to supper-parties, at which ""lovely woman, with all her faults, God bless her,"" was drunk by gentlemen who shed tears as they proposed the toast, and were maudlin and unhappy in their cups toward the close of the entertainment.",3 Robert had no inclination for the wine-bibbing and the punch-making.,1 The one idea of his life had become his master.,3 He was the bonden slave of one gloomy thought—one horrible presentiment.,0 "A dark cloud was brooding above his uncle's house, and it was his hand which was to give the signal for the thunder-clap, and the tempest that was to ruin that noble life.",0 """If she would only take warning and run away,"" he said to himself sometimes.",1 """Heaven knows, I have given her a fair chance.",3 "Why doesn't she take it and run away?""",2 "He heard sometimes from Sir Michael, sometimes from Alicia.",2 "The young lady's letter rarely contained more than a few curt lines informing him that her papa was well; and that Lady Audley was in very high spirits, amusing herself in her usual frivolous manner, and with her usual disregard for other people.",2 "A letter from Mr. Marchmont, the Southampton schoolmaster, informed Robert that little Georgey was going on very well, but that he was behindhand in his education, and had not yet passed the intellectual Rubicon of words of two syllables.",3 "Captain Maldon had called to see his grandson, but that privilege had been withheld from him, in accordance with Mr. Audley's instructions.",3 "The old man had furthermore sent a parcel of pastry and sweetmeats to the little boy, which had also been rejected on the ground of indigestible and bilious tendencies in the edibles.",1 "Toward the close of February, Robert received a letter from his cousin Alicia, which hurried him one step further forward toward his destiny, by causing him to return to the house from which he had become in a manner exiled at the instigation of his uncle's wife.",3 """Papa is very ill,"" Alicia wrote; ""not dangerously ill, thank God; but confined to his room by an attack of low fever which has succeeded a violent cold.",0 "Come and see him, Robert, if you have any regard for your nearest relations.",3 He has spoken about you several times; and I know he will be glad to have you with him.,3 "Come at once, but say nothing about this letter.",2 """From your affectionate cousin, ALICIA."" A sick and deadly terror chilled Robert Audley's heart, as he read this letter—a vague yet hideous fear, which he dared not shape into any definite form.",0 """Have I done right?""",3 "he thought, in the first agony of this new horror—""have I done right to tamper with justice; and to keep the secret of my doubts in the hope that I was shielding those I love from sorrow and disgrace?",0 "What shall I do if I find him ill, very ill, dying perhaps, dying upon her breast!",1 "What shall I do?""",2 One course lay clear before him; and the first step of that course was a rapid journey to Audley Court.,3 "He packed his portmanteau, jumped into a cab, and reached the railway station within an hour of his receipt of Alicia's letter, which had come by the afternoon post.",2 The dim village lights flickered faintly through the growing dusk when Robert reached Audley.,1 "He left his portmanteau with the station-master, and walked at a leisurely pace through the quiet lanes that led away to the still loneliness of the Court.",3 "The over-arching trees stretched their leafless branches above his head, bare and weird in the dusky light.",1 "A low moaning wind swept across the flat meadow land, and tossed those rugged branches hither and thither against the dark gray sky.",1 "They looked like the ghostly arms of shrunken and withered giants, beckoning Robert to his uncle's house.",3 "They looked like threatening phantoms in the chill winter twilight, gesticulating to him to hasten upon his journey.",1 "The long avenue so bright and pleasant when the perfumed limes scattered their light bloom upon the pathway, and the dog-rose leaves floated on the summer air, was terribly bleak and desolate in the cheerless interregnum that divides the homely joys of Christmas from the pale blush of coming spring—a dead pause in the year, in which Nature seems to lie in a tranced sleep, awaiting the wondrous signal for the budding of the flower.",0 A mournful presentiment crept into Robert Audley's heart as he drew nearer to his uncle's house.,1 "Every changing outline in the landscape was familiar to him; every bend of the trees; every caprice of the untrammeled branches; every undulation in the bare hawthorn hedge, broken by dwarf horse-chestnuts, stunted willows, blackberry and hazel bushes.",0 "Sir Michael had been a second father to the young man, a generous and noble friend, a grave and earnest adviser; and perhaps the strongest sentiment of Robert's heart was his love for the gray-bearded baronet.",4 "But the grateful affection was so much a part of himself, that it seldom found an outlet in words, and a stranger would never have fathomed the depth of feeling which lay, a deep and powerful current, beneath the stagnant surface of the barrister's character.",3 """What would become of this place if my uncle were to die?""",1 "he thought, and he drew nearer to the ivied archway, and the still water-pools, coldly gray in the twilight.",1 """Would other people live in the old house, and sit under the low oak ceilings in the homely familiar rooms?""",2 "That wonderful faculty of association, so interwoven with the inmost fibers of even the hardest nature, filled the young man's breast with a prophetic pain as he remembered that, however long or late, the day must come on which the oaken shutters would be closed for awhile, and the sunshine shut out of the house he loved.",3 It was painful to him even to remember this; as it must always be painful to think of the narrow lease the greatest upon this earth can ever hold of its grandeurs.,2 "Is it so wonderful that some wayfarers drop asleep under the hedges, scarcely caring to toil onward on a journey that leads to no abiding habitation?",2 Is it wonderful that there have been quietists in the world ever since Christ's religion was first preached upon earth.,3 "Is it strange that there is a patient endurance and tranquil resignation, calm expectation of that which is to come on the further shore of the dark flowing river?",2 "Is it not rather to be wondered that anybody should ever care to be great for greatness' sake; for any other reason than pure conscientiousness; the simple fidelity of the servant who fears to lay his talents by in a napkin, knowing that indifference is near akin to dishonesty?",3 "If Robert Audley had lived in the time of Thomas à Kempis, he would very likely have built himself a narrow hermitage amid some forest loneliness, and spent his life in tranquil imitation of the reputed author of The Imitation.",2 "As it was, Figtree Court was a pleasant hermitage in its way, and for breviaries and Books of Hours, I am ashamed to say the young barrister substituted Paul de Kock and Dumas, fils.",2 "But his sins were of so simply negative an order, that it would have been very easy for him to have abandoned them for negative virtues.",2 "Only one solitary light was visible in the long irregular range of windows facing the archway, as Robert passed under the gloomy shade of the rustling ivy, restless in the chill moaning of the wind.",0 He recognized that lighted window as the large oriel in his uncle's room.,2 "When last he had looked at the old house it had been gay with visitors, every window glittering like a low star in the dusk; now, dark and silent, it faced the winter's night like some dismal baronial habitation, deep in a woodland solitude.",2 "The man who opened the door to the unlooked-for visitor, brightened as he recognized his master's nephew.",2 """Sir Michael will be cheered up a bit, sir, by the sight of you,"" he said, as he ushered Robert Audley into the fire-lit library, which seemed desolate by reason of the baronet's easy-chair standing empty on the broad hearth-rug.",2 """Shall I bring you some dinner here, sir, before you go up-stairs?""",2 the servant asked.,2 """My lady and Miss Audley have dined early during my master's illness, but I can bring you anything you would please to take, sir.""",1 """I'll take nothing until I have seen my uncle,"" Robert answered, hurriedly; ""that is to say, if I can see him at once.",2 "He is not too ill to receive me, I suppose?""",2 "he added, anxiously.",1 """Oh, no, sir—not too ill; only a little low, sir.",2 "This way, if you please.""",2 "He conducted Robert up the short flight of shallow oaken stairs to the octagon chamber in which George Talboys had sat long five months before, staring absently at my lady's portrait.",1 "The picture was finished now, and hung in the post of honor opposite the window, amidst Claudes, Poussins and Wouvermans, whose less brilliant hues were killed by the vivid coloring of the modern artist.",3 "The bright face looked out of that tangled glitter of golden hair, in which the Pre-Raphaelites delight, with a mocking smile, as Robert paused for a moment to glance at the well-remembered picture.",4 Two or three moments afterward he had passed through my lady's boudoir and dressing-room and stood upon the threshold of Sir Michael's room.,2 "The baronet lay in a quiet sleep, his arm laying outside the bed, and his strong hand clasped in his young wife's delicate fingers.",4 "Alicia sat in a low chair beside the broad open hearth, on which the huge logs burned fiercely in the frosty atmosphere.",1 The interior of this luxurious bedchamber might have made a striking picture for an artist's pencil.,3 "The massive furniture, dark and somber, yet broken up and relieved here and there by scraps of gilding, and masses of glowing color; the elegance of every detail, in which wealth was subservient to purity of taste; and last, but greatest in importance, the graceful figures of the two women, and the noble form of the old man would have formed a worthy study for any painter.",3 "Lucy Audley, with her disordered hair in a pale haze of yellow gold about her thoughtful face, the flowing lines of her soft muslin dressing-gown falling in straight folds to her feet, and clasped at the waist by a narrow circlet of agate links might have served as a model for a mediaeval saint, in one of the tiny chapels hidden away in the nooks and corners of a gray old cathedral, unchanged by Reformation or Cromwell; and what saintly martyr of the Middle Ages could have borne a holier aspect than the man whose gray beard lay upon the dark silken coverlet of the stately bed?",3 "Robert paused upon the threshold, fearful of awaking his uncle.",1 "The two ladies had heard his step, cautious though he had been, and lifted their heads to look at him.",2 "My lady's face, quietly watching the sick man, had worn an anxious earnestness which made it only more beautiful; but the same face recognizing Robert Audley, faded from its delicate brightness, and looked scared and wan in the lamplight.",1 """Mr. Audley!""",2 "she cried, in a faint, tremulous voice.",1 """Hush!""",2 "whispered Alicia, with a warning gesture; ""you will wake papa.",1 "How good of you to come, Robert,"" she added, in the same whispered tones, beckoning to her cousin to take an empty chair near the bed.",3 "The young man seated himself in the indicated seat at the bottom of the bed, and opposite to my lady, who sat close beside the pillows.",2 "He looked long and earnestly at the face of the sleeper; still longer, still more earnestly at the face of Lady Audley, which was slowly recovering its natural hues.",2 """He has not been very ill, has he?""",2 "Robert asked, in the same key as that in which Alicia had spoken.",2 My lady answered the question.,2 """Oh, no, not dangerously ill,"" she said, without taking her eyes from her husband's face; ""but still we have been anxious, very, very anxious.""",1 Robert never relaxed his scrutiny of that pale face.,2 """She shall look at me,"" he thought; ""I will make her meet my eyes, and I will read her as I have read her before.",2 "She shall know how useless her artifices are with me.""",1 He paused for a few minutes before he spoke again.,2 "The regular breathing of the sleeper the ticking of a gold hunting-watch at the head of the bed, and the crackling of the burning logs, were the only sounds that broke the stillness.",1 """I have no doubt you have been anxious, Lady Audley,"" Robert said, after a pause, fixing my lady's eyes as they wandered furtively to his face.",1 """There is no one to whom my uncle's life can be of more value than to you.",2 "Your happiness, your prosperity, your safety depend alike upon his existence.""",3 "The whisper in which he uttered these words was too low to reach the other side of the room, where Alicia sat.",2 Lucy Audley's eyes met those of the speaker with some gleam of triumph in their light.,3 """I know that,"" she said.",2 """Those who strike me must strike through him.""",1 "She pointed to the sleeper as she spoke, still looking at Robert Audley.",2 "She defied him with her blue eyes, their brightness intensified by the triumph in their glance.",3 "She defied him with her quiet smile—a smile of fatal beauty, full of lurking significance and mysterious meaning—the smile which the artist had exaggerated in his portrait of Sir Michael's wife.",2 "Robert turned away from the lovely face, and shaded his eyes with his hand; putting a barrier between my lady and himself; a screen which baffled her penetration and provoked her curiosity.",2 Was he still watching her or was he thinking?,2 and of what was he thinking?,2 Robert had been seated at the bedside for upward of an hour before his uncle awoke.,2 The baronet was delighted at his nephew's coming.,3 """It was very good of you to come to me, Bob,"" he said.",3 """I have been thinking of you a good deal since I have been ill.",3 "You and Lucy must be good friends, you know, Bob; and you must learn to think of her as your aunt, sir; though she is young and beautiful; and—and—you understand, eh?""",3 "Robert grasped his uncle's hand, but he looked down as he answered: ""I do understand you, sir,"" he said, quietly; ""and I give you my word of honor that I am steeled against my lady's fascinations.",3 "She knows that as well as I do.""",3 Lucy Audley made a little grimace with her pretty little lips.,2 """Bah, you silly Robert,"" she exclaimed; ""you take everything au serieux.",1 "If I thought you were rather too young for a nephew, it was only in my fear of other people's foolish gossip; not from any—"" She hesitated for a moment, and escaped any conclusion to her sentence by the timely intervention of Mr. Dawson, her late employer, who entered the room upon his evening visit while she was speaking.",1 "He felt the patient's pulse; asked two or three questions; pronounced the baronet to be steadily improving; exchanged a few commonplace remarks with Alicia and Lady Audley, and prepared to leave the room.",2 Robert rose and accompanied him to the door.,2 """I will light you to the staircase,"" he said, taking a candle from one of the tables, and lighting it at the lamp.",2 """No, no, Mr. Audley, pray do not trouble yourself,"" expostulated the surgeon; ""I know my way very well indeed.""",2 "Robert insisted, and the two men left the room together.",2 As they entered the octagon ante-chamber the barrister paused and shut the door behind him.,2 """Will you see that the door is closed, Mr. Dawson?""",2 "he said, pointing to that which opened upon the staircase.",2 """I wish to have a few moments' private conversation with you.""",2 """With much pleasure,"" replied the surgeon, complying with Robert's request; ""but if you are at all alarmed about your uncle, Mr. Audley, I can set your mind at rest.",2 There is no occasion for the least uneasiness.,1 "Had his illness been at all serious I should have telegraphed immediately for the family physician.""",1 """I am sure that you would have done your duty, sir,"" answered Robert, gravely.",1 """But I am not going to speak of my uncle.",2 "I wish to ask you two or three questions about another person.""",2 """Indeed.""",2 """The person who once lived in your family as Miss Lucy Graham; the person who is now Lady Audley.""",1 Mr. Dawson looked up with an expression of surprise upon his quiet face.,3 """Pardon me, Mr. Audley,"" he answered; ""you can scarcely expect me to answer any questions about your uncle's wife without Sir Michael's express permission.",2 "I can understand no motive which can prompt you to ask such questions—no worthy motive, at least.""",3 "He looked severely at the young man, as much as to say: ""You have been falling in love with your uncle's pretty wife, sir, and you want to make me a go-between in some treacherous flirtation; but it won't do, sir, it won't do.""",2 """I always respected the lady as Miss Graham, sir,"" he said, ""and I esteem her doubly as Lady Audley—not on account of her altered position, but because she is the wife of one of the noblest men in Christendom.""",1 """You cannot respect my uncle or my uncle's honor more sincerely than I do,"" answered Robert.",4 """I have no unworthy motive for the questions I am about to ask; and you must answer them.""",1 """Must!""",2 "echoed Mr. Dawson, indignantly.",1 """Yes, you are my uncle's friend.",2 It was at your house he met the woman who is now his wife.,2 "She called herself an orphan, I believe, and enlisted his pity as well as his admiration in her behalf.",2 "She told him that she stood alone in the world, did she not?—without a friend or relative.",2 "This was all I could ever learn of her antecedents.""",2 """What reason have you to wish to know more?""",2 asked the surgeon.,2 """A very terrible reason,"" answered Robert Audley.",1 """For some months past I have struggled with doubts and suspicions which have embittered my life.",0 They have grown stronger every day; and they will not be set at rest by the commonplace sophistries and the shallow arguments with which men try to deceive themselves rather than believe that which of all things upon earth they most fear to believe.,0 "I do not think that the woman who bears my uncle's name, is worthy to be his wife.",3 I may wrong her.,1 Heaven grant that it is so.,3 "But if I do, the fatal chain of circumstantial evidence never yet linked itself so closely about an innocent person.",1 I wish to set my doubts at rest or—or to confirm my fears.,1 There is but one manner in which I can do this.,2 "I must trace the life of my uncle's wife backward, minutely and carefully, from this night to a period of six years ago.",1 "This is the twenty-fourth of February, fifty-nine.",2 "I want to know every record of her life between to-night and the February of the year fifty-three.""",2 """And your motive is a worthy one?""",3 """Yes, I wish to clear her from a very dreadful suspicion.""",1 """Which exists only in your mind?""",2 """And in the mind of one other person.""",2 """May I ask who that person is?""",2 """No, Mr. Dawson,"" answered Robert, decisively; ""I cannot reveal anything more than what I have already told you.",2 "I am a very irresolute, vacillating man in most things.",1 In this matter I am compelled to be decided.,2 I repeat once more that I must know the history of Lucy Graham's life.,2 "If you refuse to help me to the small extent in your power, I will find others who will help me.",1 "Painful as it would become, I will ask my uncle for the information which you would withhold, rather than be baffled in the first step of my investigation.""",1 Mr. Dawson was silent for some minutes.,3 """I cannot express how much you have astonished and alarmed me, Mr. Audley.""",2 he said.,2 """I can tell you so little about Lady Audley's antecedents, that it would be mere obstinacy to withhold the small amount of information I possess.",2 I have always considered your uncle's wife one of the most amiable of women.,3 I cannot bring myself to think her otherwise.,2 It would be an uprooting of one of the strongest convictions of my life were I compelled to think her otherwise.,3 "You wish to follow her life backward from the present hour to the year fifty-three?""",1 """I do.""",2 """She was married to your uncle last June twelvemonth, in the midsummer of fifty-seven.",2 She had lived in my house a little more than thirteen months.,2 "She became a member of my household upon the fourteenth of May, in the year fifty-six.""",2 """And she came to you—"" ""From a school at Brompton, a school kept by a lady of the name of Vincent.",2 "It was Mrs. Vincent's strong recommendation that induced me to receive Miss Graham into my family without any more special knowledge of her antecedents.""",3 """Did you see this Mrs. Vincent?""",2 """I did not.",2 "I advertised for a governess, and Miss Graham answered my advertisement.",1 "In her letter she referred me to Mrs. Vincent, the proprietress of a school in which she was then residing as junior teacher.",2 "My time is always so fully occupied, that I was glad to escape the necessity of a day's loss in going from Audley to London to inquire about the young lady's qualifications.",2 "I looked for Mrs. Vincent's name in the directory, found it, and concluded that she was a responsible person, and wrote to her.",2 Her reply was perfectly satisfactory;—Miss Lucy Graham was assiduous and conscientious; as well as fully qualified for the situation I offered.,4 "I accepted this reference, and I had no cause to regret what may have been an indiscretion.",1 "And now, Mr. Audley, I have told you all that I have the power to tell.""",2 """Will you be so kind as to give me the address of this Mrs. Vincent?""",2 "asked Robert, taking out his pocketbook.",2 """Certainly; she was then living at No. 9 Crescent Villas, Brompton.""",2 """Ah, to be sure,"" muttered Mr. Audley, a recollection of last September flashing suddenly back upon him as the surgeon spoke.",2 """Crescent Villas—yes, I have heard the address before from Lady Audley herself.",2 This Mrs. Vincent telegraphed to my uncle's wife early in last September.,2 "She was ill—dying, I believe—and sent for my lady; but had removed from her old house and was not to be found.""",1 """Indeed!",2 "I never heard Lady Audley mention the circumstance.""",2 """Perhaps not.",2 It occurred while I was down here.,2 "Thank you, Mr. Dawson, for the information you have so kindly and honestly given me.",3 It takes me back two and a-half years in the history of my lady's life; but I have still a blank of three years to fill up before I can exonerate her from my terrible suspicion.,1 "Good evening.""",3 Robert shook hands with the surgeon and returned to his uncle's room.,2 He had been away about a quarter of an hour.,2 "Sir Michael had fallen asleep once more, and my lady's loving hands had lowered the heavy curtains and shaded the lamp by the bedside.",2 "Alicia and her father's wife were taking tea in Lady Audley's boudoir, the room next to the antechamber in which Robert and Mr. Dawson had been seated.",2 Lucy Audley looked up from her occupation among the fragile china cups and watched Robert rather anxiously as he walked softly to his uncle's room and back again to the boudoir.,1 "She looked very pretty and innocent, seated behind the graceful group of delicate opal china and glittering silver.",4 Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea.,3 "The most feminine and most domestic of all occupations imparts a magic harmony to her every movement, a witchery to her every glance.",3 "The floating mists from the boiling liquid in which she infuses the soothing herbs; whose secrets are known to her alone, envelope her in a cloud of scented vapor, through which she seems a social fairy, weaving potent spells with Gunpowder and Bohea.",0 "At the tea-table she reigns omnipotent, unapproachable.",2 What do men know of the mysterious beverage?,1 "Read how poor Hazlitt made his tea, and shudder at the dreadful barbarism.",1 "How clumsily the wretched creatures attempt to assist the witch president of the tea-tray; how hopelessly they hold the kettle, how continually they imperil the frail cups and saucers, or the taper hands of the priestess.",0 To do away with the tea-table is to rob woman of her legitimate empire.,2 "To send a couple of hulking men about among your visitors, distributing a mixture made in the housekeeper's room, is to reduce the most social and friendly of ceremonies to a formal giving out of rations.",3 Better the pretty influence of the tea cups and saucers gracefully wielded in a woman's hand than all the inappropriate power snatched at the point of the pen from the unwilling sterner sex.,3 "Imagine all the women of England elevated to the high level of masculine intellectuality, superior to crinoline; above pearl powder and Mrs. Rachael Levison; above taking the pains to be pretty; above tea-tables and that cruelly scandalous and rather satirical gossip which even strong men delight in; and what a drear, utilitarian, ugly life the sterner sex must lead.",1 My lady was by no means strong-minded.,3 "The starry diamonds upon her white fingers flashed hither and thither among the tea-things, and she bent her pretty head over the marvelous Indian tea-caddy of sandal-wood and silver, with as much earnestness as if life held no higher purpose than the infusion of Bohea.",3 """You'll take a cup of tea with us, Mr. Audley?""",2 "she asked, pausing with the teapot in her hand to look up at Robert, who was standing near the door.",2 """If you please.""",2 """But you have not dined, perhaps?",2 "Shall I ring and tell them to bring you something a little more substantial than biscuits and transparent bread and butter?""",3 """No, thank you, Lady Audley.",3 I took some lunch before I left town.,2 "I'll trouble you for nothing but a cup of tea.""",1 "He seated himself at the little table and looked across it at his Cousin Alicia, who sat with a book in her lap, and had the air of being very much absorbed by its pages.",2 "The bright brunette complexion had lost its glowing crimson, and the animation of the young lady's manner was suppressed—on account of her father's illness, no doubt, Robert thought.",1 """Alicia, my dear,"" the barrister said, after a very leisurely contemplation of his cousin, ""you're not looking well.""",3 "Miss Audley shrugged her shoulders, but did not condescend to lift her eyes from her book.",1 """Perhaps not,"" she answered, contemptuously.",1 """What does it matter?",2 "I'm growing a philosopher of your school, Robert Audley.",2 What does it matter?,2 "Who cares whether I am well or ill?""",3 """What a spitfire she is,"" thought the barrister.",2 "He always knew his cousin was angry with him when she addressed him as ""Robert Audley.""",1 """You needn't pitch into a fellow because he asks you a civil question, Alicia,"" he said, reproachfully.",2 """As to nobody caring about your health, that's nonsense.",1 "I care.""",2 Miss Audley looked up with a bright smile.,3 """Sir Harry Towers cares.""",2 Miss Audley returned to her book with a frown.,1 """What are you reading there, Alicia?""",2 "Robert asked, after a pause, during which he had sat thoughtfully stirring his tea.",3 """Changes and Chances.""",2 """A novel?""",2 """Yes.""",2 """Who is it by?""",2 """The author of Follies and Faults,"" answered Alicia, still pursuing her study of the romance upon her lap.",1 """Is it interesting?""",3 Miss Audley pursed up her mouth and shrugged her shoulders.,1 """Not particularly,"" she said.",2 """Then I think you might have better manners than to read it while your first cousin is sitting opposite you,"" observed Mr. Audley, with some gravity, ""especially as he has only come to pay you a flying visit, and will be off to-morrow morning.""",3 """To-morrow morning!""",2 "exclaimed my lady, looking up suddenly.",2 "Though the look of joy upon Lady Audley's face was as brief as a flash of lightning on a summer sky, it was not unperceived by Robert.",3 """Yes,"" he said; ""I shall be obliged to run up to London to-morrow on business, but I shall return the next day, if you will allow me, Lady Audley, and stay here till my uncle recovers.""",2 """But you are not seriously alarmed about him, are you?""",1 "asked my lady, anxiously.",1 """You do not think him very ill?""",2 """No,"" answered Robert.",2 """Thank Heaven, I think there is not the slightest cause for apprehension.""",3 "My lady sat silent for a few moments, looking at the empty teacups with a prettily thoughtful face—a face grave with the innocent seriousness of a musing child.",3 """But you were closeted such a long time with Mr. Dawson, just now,"" she said, after this brief pause.",2 """I was quite alarmed at the length of your conversation.",1 "Were you talking of Sir Michael all the time?""",2 """No; not all the time?""",2 My lady looked down at the teacups once more.,2 """Why, what could you find to say to Mr. Dawson, or he to say to you?""",2 "she asked, after another pause.",2 """You are almost strangers to each other.""",2 """Suppose Mr. Dawson wished to consult me about some law business.""",2 """Was it that?""",2 "cried Lady Audley, eagerly.",3 """It would be rather unprofessional to tell you if it were so, my lady,"" answered Robert, gravely.",1 "My lady bit her lip, and relapsed into silence.",2 "Alicia threw down her book, and watched her cousin's preoccupied face.",2 "He talked to her now and then for a few minutes, but it was evidently an effort to him to arouse himself from his revery.",2 """Upon my word, Robert Audley, you are a very agreeable companion,"" exclaimed Alicia at length, her rather limited stock of patience quite exhausted by two or three of these abortive attempts at conversation.",2 """Perhaps the next time you come to the Court you will be good enough to bring your mind with you.",3 "By your present inanimate appearance, I should imagine that you had left your intellect, such as it is, somewhere in the Temple.",2 "You were never one of the liveliest of people, but latterly you have really grown almost unendurable.",2 "I suppose you are in love, Mr. Audley, and are thinking of the honored object of your affections.""",3 "He was thinking of Clara Talboys' uplifted face, sublime in its unutterable grief; of her impassioned words still ringing in his ears as clearly as when they were first spoken.",3 Again he saw her looking at him with her bright brown eyes.,3 "Again he heard that solemn question: ""Shall you or I find my brother's murderer?""",1 And he was in Essex; in the little village from which he firmly believed George Talboys had never departed.,2 He was on the spot at which all record of his friend's life ended as suddenly as a story ends when the reader shuts the book.,2 And could he withdraw now from the investigation in which he found himself involved?,2 Could he stop now?,2 For any consideration?,2 No; a thousand times no!,2 Not with the image of that grief-stricken face imprinted on his mind.,1 Not with the accents of that earnest appeal ringing on his ear.,3 "Robert left Audley the next morning by an early train, and reached Shoreditch a little after nine o'clock.",2 "He did not return to his chambers, but called a cab and drove straight to Crescent Villas, West Brompton.",2 "He knew that he should fail in finding the lady he went to seek at this address, as his uncle had failed a few months before, but he thought it possible to obtain some clew to the schoolmistress' new residence, in spite of Sir Michael's ill-success.",1 """Mrs. Vincent was in a dying state, according to the telegraphic message,"" Robert thought.",1 """If I do find her, I shall at least succeed in discovering whether that message was genuine.""",3 He found Crescent Villas after some difficulty.,1 "The houses were large, but they lay half imbedded among the chaos of brick and rising mortar around them.",1 "New terraces, new streets, new squares led away into hopeless masses of stone and plaster on every side.",2 "The roads were sticky with damp clay, which clogged the wheels of the cab and buried the fetlocks of the horse.",1 "The desolations—that awful aspect of incompleteness and discomfort which pervades a new and unfinished neighborhood—had set its dismal seal upon the surrounding streets which had arisen about and intrenched Crescent Villas; and Robert wasted forty minutes by his watch, and an hour and a quarter by the cabman's reckoning, in driving up and down uninhabited streets and terraces, trying to find the Villas; whose chimney-tops were frowning down upon him black and venerable, amid groves of virgin plaster, undimmed by time or smoke.",0 "But having at last succeeded in reaching his destination, Mr. Audley alighted from the cab, directed the driver to wait for him at a certain corner, and set out upon his voyage of discovery.",3 """If I were a distinguished Q.C., I could not do this sort of thing,"" he thought; ""my time would be worth a guinea or so a minute, and I should be retained in the great case of Hoggs vs. Boggs, going forward this very day before a special jury at Westminster Hall.",4 "As it is, I can afford to be patient.""",3 He inquired for Mrs. Vincent at the number which Mr. Dawson had given him.,2 "The maid who opened the door had never heard that lady's name; but after going to inquire of her mistress, she returned to tell Robert that Mrs. Vincent had lived there, but that she had left two months before the present occupants had entered the house, ""and missus has been here fifteen months,"" the girl added emphatically.",1 """But you cannot tell where she went on leaving here?""",2 "Robert asked, despondingly.",2 """No, sir; missus says she believes the lady failed, and that she left sudden like, and didn't want her address to be known in the neighborhood.""",2 Mr. Audley felt himself at a standstill once more.,1 "If Mrs. Vincent had left the place in debt, she had no doubt scrupulously concealed her whereabouts.",1 "There was little hope, then, of learning her address from the tradespeople; and yet, on the other hand, it was just possible that some of her sharpest creditors might have made it their business to discover the defaulter's retreat.",2 "He looked about him for the nearest shops, and found a baker's, a stationer's, and a fruiterer's a few paces from the Crescent.",2 "Three empty-looking, pretentious shops, with plate-glass windows, and a hopeless air of gentility.",1 "He stopped at the baker's, who called himself a pastrycook and confectioner, and exhibited some specimens of petrified sponge-cake in glass bottles, and some highly-glazed tarts, covered with green gauze.",1 """She must have bought bread,"" Robert thought, as he deliberated before the baker's shop; ""and she is likely to have bought it at the handiest place.",2 "I'll try the baker.""",2 "The baker was standing behind his counter, disputing the items of a bill with a shabby-genteel young woman.",1 "He did not trouble himself to attend to Robert Audley until he had settled the dispute, but he looked up as he was receipting the bill, and asked the barrister what he pleased to want.",1 """Can you tell me the address of a Mrs. Vincent, who lived at No. 9 Crescent Villas a year and a half ago?""",2 "Mr. Audley inquired, mildly.",2 """No, I can't,"" answered the baker, growing very red in the face, and speaking in an unnecessarily loud voice; ""and what's more, I wish I could.",1 "That lady owes me upward of eleven pound for bread, and it's rather more than I can afford to lose.",2 "If anybody can tell me where she lives, I shall be much obliged to 'em for so doing.""",2 Robert Audley shrugged his shoulders and wished the man good-morning.,3 He felt that his discovery of the lady's whereabouts would involve more trouble than he had expected.,1 "He might have looked for Mrs. Vincent's name in the Post-Office directory, but he thought it scarcely likely that a lady who was on such uncomfortable terms with her creditors, would afford them so easy a means of ascertaining her residence.",2 """If the baker can't find her, how should I find her?""",2 "he thought, despairingly.",1 """If a resolute, sanguine, active and energetic creature, such as the baker, fail to achieve this business, how can a lymphatic wretch like me hope to accomplish it?",3 "Where the baker has been defeated, what preposterous folly it would be for me to try to succeed.""",3 Mr. Audley abandoned himself to these gloomy reflections as he walked slowly back toward the corner at which he had left the cab.,1 "About half-way between the baker's shop and this corner he was arrested by hearing a woman's step close at his side, and a woman's voice asking him to stop.",2 He turned and found himself face to face with the shabbily-dressed woman whom he had left settling her account with the baker.,2 """Eh, what?""",2 "he asked, vaguely.",2 """Can I do anything for you, ma'am?",2 "Does Mrs. Vincent owe you money, too?""",2 """Yes, sir,"" the woman answered, with a semi-genteel manner which corresponded with the shabby gentility of her dress.",1 """Mrs. Vincent is in my debt; but it isn't that, sir.",1 "I—I want to know, please, what your business may be with her—because—because—"" ""You can give me her address if you choose, ma'am.",2 "That's what you mean to say, isn't it?""",2 "The woman hesitated a little, looking rather suspiciously at Robert.",1 """You're not connected with—with the tally business, are you, sir?""",2 "she asked, after considering Mr. Audley's personal appearance for a few moments.",2 """The what, ma'am?""",2 "asked the young barrister, staring aghast at his questioner.",1 """I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir,"" exclaimed the little woman, seeing that she had made some awful mistake.",1 """I thought you might have been, you know.",2 "Some of the gentlemen who collect for the tally shops do dress so very handsome; and I know Mrs. Vincent owes a good deal of money.""",3 Robert Audley laid his hand upon the speaker's arm.,2 """My dear madam,"" he said, ""I want to know nothing of Mrs. Vincent's affairs.",2 "So far from being concerned in what you call the tally business, I have not the remotest idea what you mean by that expression.",1 You may mean a political conspiracy; you may mean some new species of taxes.,1 "Mrs. Vincent does not owe me any money, however badly she may stand with that awful-looking baker.",1 I never saw her in my life; but I wish to see her to-day for the simple purpose of asking her a few very plain questions about a young lady who once resided in her house.,2 "If you know where Mrs. Vincent lives and will give me her address, you will be doing me a great favor.""",3 "He took out his card-case and handed a card to the woman, who examined the slip of pasteboard anxiously before she spoke again.",1 """I'm sure you look and speak like a gentleman, sir,"" she said, after a brief pause, ""and I hope you will excuse me if I've seemed mistrustful like; but poor Mrs. Vincent has had dreadful difficulties, and I'm the only person hereabouts that she's trusted with her addresses.",0 "I'm a dressmaker, sir, and I've worked for her for upward of six years, and though she doesn't pay me regular, you know, sir, she gives me a little money on account now and then, and I get on as well as I can.",3 "I may tell you where she lives, then, sir?",2 "You haven't deceived me, have you?""",2 """On my honor, no.""",3 """Well, then sir,"" said the dressmaker, dropping her voice as if she thought the pavement beneath her feet, or the iron railings before the houses by her side, might have ears to hear her, ""it's Acacia Cottage, Peckham Grove.",3 "I took a dress there yesterday for Mrs. Vincent.""",2 """Thank you,"" said Robert, writing the address in his pocketbook.",3 """I am very much obliged to you, and you may rely upon it, Mrs. Vincent shall not suffer any inconvenience through me.""",1 "He lifted his hat, bowed to the little dressmaker, and turned back to the cab.",2 """I have beaten the baker, at any rate,"" he thought.",2 """Now for the second stage, traveling backward, in my lady's life.""",1 "The drive from Brompton to the Peckham Road was a very long one, and between Crescent Villas and Acacia Cottage, Robert Audley had ample leisure for reflection.",3 He thought of his uncle lying weak and ill in the oak-room at Audley Court.,1 "He thought of the beautiful blue eyes watching Sir Michael's slumbers; the soft, white hands tending on his waking moments; the low musical voice soothing his loneliness, cheering and consoling his declining years.",2 "What a pleasant picture it might have been, had he been able to look upon it ignorantly, seeing no more than others saw, looking no further than a stranger could look.",2 "But with the black cloud which he saw brooding over it, what an arch mockery, what a diabolical delusion it seemed.",0 "Peckham Grove—pleasant enough in the summer-time—has rather a dismal aspect upon a dull February day, when the trees are bare and leafless, and the little gardens desolate.",1 "Acacia Cottage bore small token of the fitness of its nomenclature, and faced the road with its stuccoed walls sheltered only by a couple of attenuated poplars.",1 "But it announced that it was Acacia Cottage by means of a small brass plate upon one of the gate-posts, which was sufficient indication for the sharp-sighted cabman, who dropped Mr. Audley upon the pavement before the little gate.",3 "Acacia Cottage was much lower in the social scale than Crescent Villas, and the small maid-servant who came to the low wooden gate and parleyed with Mr. Audley, was evidently well used to the encounter of relentless creditors across the same feeble barricade.",1 "She murmured the familiar domestic fiction of the uncertainty regarding her mistress's whereabouts; and told Robert that if he would please to state his name and business, she would go and see if Mrs. Vincent was at home.",1 "Mr. Audley produced a card, and wrote in pencil under his own name: ""a connection of the late Miss Graham.""",1 "He directed the small servant to carry his card to her mistress, and quietly awaited the result.",1 The servant returned in about five minutes with the key of the gate.,2 "Her mistress was at home, she told Robert as she admitted him, and would be happy to see the gentleman.",2 "The square parlor into which Robert was ushered bore in every scrap of ornament, in every article of furniture, the unmistakable stamp of that species of poverty which is most comfortless because it is never stationary.",0 "The mechanic who furnishes his tiny sitting-room with half-a-dozen cane chairs, a Pembroke table, a Dutch clock, a tiny looking-glass, a crockery shepherd and shepherdess, and a set of gaudily-japanned iron tea-trays, makes the most of his limited possessions, and generally contrives to get some degree of comfort out of them; but the lady who loses the handsome furniture of the house she is compelled to abandon and encamps in some smaller habitation with the shabby remainder—bought in by some merciful friend at the sale of her effects—carries with her an aspect of genteel desolation and tawdry misery not easily to be paralleled in wretchedness by any other phase which poverty can assume.",0 The room which Robert Audley surveyed was furnished with the shabbier scraps snatched from the ruin which had overtaken the imprudent schoolmistress in Crescent Villas.,1 "A cottage piano, a chiffonier, six sizes too large for the room, and dismally gorgeous in gilded moldings that were chipped and broken; a slim-legged card-table, placed in the post of honor, formed the principal pieces of furniture.",2 "A threadbare patch of Brussels carpet covered the center of the room, and formed an oasis of roses and lilies upon a desert of shabby green drugget.",1 "Knitted curtains shaded the windows, in which hung wire baskets of horrible-looking plants of the cactus species, that grew downward, like some demented class of vegetation, whose prickly and spider-like members had a fancy for standing on their heads.",2 "The green-baize covered card-table was adorned with gaudily-bound annuals or books of beauty, placed at right angles; but Robert Audley did not avail himself of these literary distractions.",3 "He seated himself upon one of the rickety chairs, and waited patiently for the advent of the schoolmistress.",3 "He could hear the hum of half-a-dozen voices in a room near him, and the jingling harmonies of a set of variations in Deh Conte, upon a piano, whose every wire was evidently in the last stage of attenuation.",1 "He had waited for about a quarter of an hour, when the door was opened, and a lady, very much dressed, and with the setting sunlight of faded beauty upon her face, entered the room.",3 """Mr. Audley, I presume,"" she said, motioning to Robert to reseat himself, and placing herself in an easy-chair opposite to him.",3 """You will pardon me, I hope, for detaining you so long; my duties—"" ""It is I who should apologize for intruding upon you,"" Robert answered, politely; ""but my motive for calling upon you is a very serious one, and must plead my excuse.",2 "You remember the lady whose name I wrote upon my card?""",2 """Perfectly.""",3 """May I ask how much you know of that lady's history since her departure from your house?""",2 """Very little.",2 "In point of fact, scarcely anything at all.",1 "Miss Graham, I believe, obtained a situation in the family of a surgeon resident in Essex.",1 "Indeed, it was I who recommended her to that gentleman.",3 "I have never heard from her since she left me.""",2 """But you have communicated with her?""",2 "Robert asked, eagerly.",3 """No, indeed.""",2 "Mr. Audley was silent for a few moments, the shadow of gloomy thoughts gathering darkly on his face.",2 """May I ask if you sent a telegraphic dispatch to Miss Graham early in last September, stating that you were dangerously ill, and that you wished to see her?""",1 Mrs. Vincent smiled at her visitor's question.,2 """I had no occasion to send such a message,"" she said; ""I have never been seriously ill in my life.""",2 "Robert Audley paused before he asked any further questions, and scrawled a few penciled words in his note-book.",2 """If I ask you a few straightforward questions about Miss Lucy Graham, madam,"" he said.",2 """Will you do me the favor to answer them without asking my motive in making such inquiries?""",3 """Most certainly,"" replied Mrs. Vincent.",2 """I know nothing to Miss Graham's disadvantage, and have no justification for making a mystery of the little I do know.""",0 """Then will you tell me at what date the young lady first came to you?""",2 Mrs. Vincent smiled and shook her head.,2 "She had a pretty smile—the frank smile of a woman who had been admired, and who has too long felt the certainty of being able to please, to be utterly subjugated by any worldly misfortune.",2 """It's not the least use to ask me, Mr. Audley,"" she said.",2 """I'm the most careless creature in the world; I never did, and never could remember dates, though I do all in my power to impress upon my girls how important it is for their future welfare that they should know when William the Conqueror began to reign, and all that kind of thing.",3 "But I haven't the remotest idea when Miss Graham came to me, although I know it was ages ago, for it was the very summer I had my peach-colored silk.",2 "But we must consult Tonks—Tonks is sure to be right.""",3 "Robert Audley wondered who or what Tonks could be; a diary, perhaps, or a memorandum-book—some obscure rival of Letsome.",1 "Mrs. Vincent rung the bell, which was answered by the maid-servant who had admitted Robert.",2 """Ask Miss Tonks to come to me,"" she said.",1 """I want to see her particularly.""",2 In less than five minutes Miss Tonks made her appearance.,1 "She was wintry and rather frost-bitten in aspect, and seemed to bring cold air in the scanty folds of her somber merino dress.",0 "She was no age in particular, and looked as if she had never been younger, and would never grow older, but would remain forever working backward and forward in her narrow groove, like some self-feeding machine for the instruction of young ladies.",2 """Tonks, my dear,"" said Mrs. Vincent, without ceremony, ""this gentleman is a relative of Miss Graham's.",1 "Do you remember how long it is since she came to us at Crescent Villas?""",2 """She came in August, 1854,"" answered Miss Tonks; ""I think it was the eighteenth of August, but I'm not quite sure that it wasn't the seventeenth.",1 "I know it was on a Tuesday.""",2 """Thank you, Tonks; you are a most invaluable darling,"" exclaimed Mrs. Vincent, with her sweetest smile.",4 "It was, perhaps, because of the invaluable nature of Miss Tonks' services that she had received no remuneration whatever from her employer for the last three or four years.",2 Mrs. Vincent might have hesitated to pay from very contempt for the pitiful nature of the stipend as compared with the merits of the teacher.,1 """Is there anything else that Tonks or I can tell you, Mr. Audley?""",2 asked the schoolmistress.,2 """Tonks has a far better memory than I have.""",3 """Can you tell me where Miss Graham came from when she entered your household?""",1 Robert inquired.,2 """Not very precisely,"" answered Mrs. Vincent.",3 """I have a vague notion that Miss Graham said something about coming from the seaside, but she didn't say where, or if she did I have forgotten it.",1 "Tonks, did Miss Graham tell you where she came from?""",1 """Oh, no!""",2 "replied Miss Tonks, shaking her grim little head significantly.",1 """Miss Graham told me nothing; she was too clever for that.",2 "She knows how to keep her own secrets, in spite of her innocent ways and her curly hair,"" Miss Tonks added, spitefully.",0 """You think she had secrets?""",2 "Robert asked, rather eagerly.",3 """I know she had,"" replied Miss Tonks, with frosty decision; ""all manner of secrets.",1 "I wouldn't have engaged such a person as junior teacher in a respectable school, without so much as one word of recommendation from any living creature.""",3 """You had no reference, then, from Miss Graham?""",1 "asked Robert, addressing Mrs. Vincent.",2 """No,"" the lady answered, with some little embarrassment; ""I waived that.",1 Miss Graham waived the question of salary; I could not do less than waive the question of reference.,1 "She quarreled with her papa, she told me, and she wanted to find a home away from all the people she had ever known.",2 She wished to keep herself quite separate from these people.,2 "She had endured so much, she said, young as she was, and she wanted to escape from her troubles.",1 "How could I press her for a reference under these circumstances, especially when I saw that she was a perfect lady.",3 "You know that Lucy Graham was a perfect lady, Tonks, and it is very unkind for you to say such cruel things about my taking her without a reference.""",1 """When people make favorites, they are apt to be deceived in them,"" Miss Tonks answered, with icy sententiousness, and with no very perceptible relevance to the point in discussion.",1 """I never made her a favorite, you jealous Tonks,"" Mrs. Vincent answered, reproachfully.",2 """I never said she was as useful as you, dear.",3 "You know I never did.""",2 """Oh, no!""",2 "replied Miss Tonks, with a chilling accent, ""you never said she was useful.",2 "She was only ornamental; a person to be shown off to visitors, and to play fantasias on the drawing-room piano.""",2 """Then you can give me no clew to Miss Graham's previous history?""",1 "Robert asked, looking from the schoolmistress to her teacher.",2 He saw very clearly that Miss Tonks bore an envious grudge against Lucy Graham—a grudge which even the lapse of time had not healed.,0 """If this woman knows anything to my lady's detriment, she will tell it,"" he thought.",1 """She will tell it only too willingly.""",3 "But Miss Tonks appeared to know nothing whatever; except that Miss Graham had sometimes declared herself an ill-used creature, deceived by the baseness of mankind, and the victim of unmerited sufferings, in the way of poverty and deprivation.",1 "Beyond this, Miss Tonks could tell nothing; and although she made the most of what she did know, Robert soon sounded the depth of her small stock of information.",1 """I have only one more question to ask,"" he said at last.",2 """It is this: Did Miss Graham leave any books or knick-knacks, or any other kind of property whatever, behind her, when she left your establishment?""",1 """Not to my knowledge,"" Mrs. Vincent replied.",2 """Yes,"" cried Miss Tonks, sharply.",1 """She did leave something.",2 She left a box.,2 It's up-stairs in my room.,2 I've got an old bonnet in it.,2 "Would you like to see the box?""",3 "she asked, addressing Robert.",2 """If you will be so good as to allow me,"" he answered, ""I should very much like to see it.""",3 """I'll fetch it down,"" said Miss Tonks.",1 """It's not very big.""",2 She ran out of the room before Mr. Audley had time to utter any polite remonstrance.,3 """How pitiless these women are to each other,"" he thought, while the teacher was absent.",1 """This one knows intuitively that there is some danger to the other lurking beneath my questions.",1 "She sniffs the coming trouble to her fellow female creature, and rejoices in it, and would take any pains to help me.",1 "What a world it is, and how these women take life out of her hands.",2 "Helen Maldon, Lady Audley, Clara Talboys, and now Miss Tonks—all womankind from beginning to end.""",1 Miss Tonks re-entered while the young barrister was meditating upon the infamy of her sex.,1 "She carried a dilapidated paper-covered bonnet-box, which she submitted to Robert's inspection.",1 Mr. Audley knelt down to examine the scraps of railway labels and addresses which were pasted here and there upon the box.,2 "It had been battered upon a great many different lines of railway, and had evidently traveled considerably.",2 "Many of the labels had been torn off, but fragments of some of them remained, and upon one yellow scrap of paper Robert read the letters, TURI. ""The box has been to Italy,"" he thought.",1 """Those are the first four letters of the word Turin, and the label is a foreign one.""",2 "The only direction which had not been either defaced or torn away was the last, which bore the name of Miss Graham, passenger to London.",1 "Looking very closely at this label, Mr. Audley discovered that it had been pasted over another.",2 """Will you be so good as to let me have a little water and a piece of sponge?""",3 he said.,2 """I want to get off this upper label.",2 "Believe me that I am justified in what I am doing.""",2 Miss Tonks ran out of the room and returned immediately with a basin of water and a sponge.,1 """Shall I take off the label?""",2 she asked.,2 """No, thank you,"" Robert answered, coldly.",2 """I can do it very well myself.""",3 "He damped the upper label several times before he could loosen the edges of the paper; but after two or three careful attempts the moistened surface peeled off, without injury to the underneath address.",1 "Miss Tonks could not contrive to read this address across Robert's shoulder, though she exhibited considerable dexterity in her endeavors to accomplish that object.",1 "Mr. Audley repeated his operations upon the lower label, which he removed from the box, and placed very carefully between two blank leaves of his pocket-book.",2 """I need intrude upon you no longer, ladies,"" he said, when he had done this.",1 """I am extremely obliged to you for having afforded me all the information in your power.",2 "I wish you good-morning.""",3 "Mrs. Vincent smiled and bowed, murmuring some complacent conventionality about the delight she had felt in Mr. Audley's visit.",2 "Miss Tonks, more observant, stared at the white change, which had come over the young man's face since he had removed the upper label from the box.",1 Robert walked slowly away from Acacia Cottage.,1 """If that which I have found to-day is no evidence for a jury,"" he thought, ""it is surely enough to convince my uncle that he has married a designing and infamous woman.""",2 "Robert Audley walked slowly through the leafless grove, under the bare and shadowless trees in the gray February atmosphere, thinking as he went of the discovery he had just made.",1 """I have that in my pocket-book,"" he pondered, ""which forms the connecting link between the woman whose death George Talboys read of in the Times newspaper and the woman who rules in my uncle's house.",1 The history of Lucy Graham ends abruptly on the threshold of Mrs. Vincent's school.,1 "She entered that establishment in August, 1854.",2 The schoolmistress and her assistant can tell me this but they cannot tell me whence she came.,2 They cannot give me one clew to the secrets of her life from the day of her birth until the day she entered that house.,2 I can go no further in this backward investigation of my lady's antecedents.,1 "What am I to do, then, if I mean to keep my promise to Clara Talboys?""",3 "He walked on for a few paces revolving this question in his mind, with a darker shadow than the shadows of the gathering winter twilight on his face, and a heavy oppression of mingled sorrow and dread weighing down his heart.",0 """My duty is clear enough,"" he thought—""not the less clear because it leads me step by step, carrying ruin and desolation with me, to the home I love.",3 "I must begin at the other end—I must begin at the other end, and discover the history of Helen Talboys from the hour of George's departure until the day of the funeral in the churchyard at Ventnor.""",2 "Mr. Audley hailed a passing hansom, and drove back to his chambers.",2 "He reached Figtree Court in time to write a few lines to Miss Talboys, and to post his letter at St. Martin's-le-Grand off before six o'clock.",2 """It will save me a day,"" he thought, as he drove to the General Post Office with this brief epistle.",2 "He had written to Clara Talboys to inquire the name of the little seaport town in which George had met Captain Maldon and his daughter; for in spite of the intimacy between the two young men, Robert Audley knew very few particulars of his friend's brief married life.",2 "From the hour in which George Talboys had read the announcement of his wife's death in the columns of the Times, he had avoided all mention of the tender history which had been so cruelly broken, the familiar record which had been so darkly blotted out.",1 There was so much that was painful in that brief story!,1 There was such bitter self-reproach involved in the recollection of that desertion which must have seemed so cruel to her who waited and watched at home!,0 "Robert Audley comprehended this, and he did not wonder at his friend's silence.",3 "The sorrowful story had been tacitly avoided by both, and Robert was as ignorant of the unhappy history of this one year in his schoolfellow's life as if they had never lived together in friendly companionship in those snug Temple chambers.",1 "The letter, written to Miss Talboys by her brother George, within a month of his marriage, was dated Harrowgate.",1 "It was at Harrowgate, therefore, Robert concluded, the young couple spent their honeymoon.",2 "Robert Audley had requested Clara Talboys to telegraph an answer to his question, in order to avoid the loss of a day in the accomplishment of the investigation he had promised to perform.",3 The telegraphic answer reached Figtree Court before twelve o'clock the next day.,2 "The name of the seaport town was Wildernsea, Yorkshire.",2 "Within an hour of the receipt of this message, Mr. Audley arrived at the King's-cross station, and took his ticket for Wildernsea by an express train that started at a quarter before two.",2 "The shrieking engine bore him on the dreary northward journey, whirling him over desert wastes of flat meadow-land and bare cornfields, faintly tinted with fresh sprouting green.",1 "This northern road was strange and unfamiliar to the young barrister, and the wide expanse of the wintry landscape chilled him by its aspect of bare loneliness.",0 "The knowledge of the purpose of his journey blighted every object upon which his absent glances fixed themselves for a moment, only to wander wearily away; only to turn inward upon that far darker picture always presenting itself to his anxious mind.",0 "It was dark when the train reached the Hull terminus, but Mr. Audley's journey was not ended.",1 "Amidst a crowd of porters and scattered heaps of that incongruous and heterogeneous luggage with which travelers incumber themselves, he was led, bewildered and half asleep, to another train which was to convey him along the branch line that swept past Wildernsea, and skirted the border of the German Ocean.",1 "Half an hour after leaving Hull, Robert felt the briny freshness of the sea upon the breeze that blew in at the open window of the carriage, and an hour afterward the train stopped at a melancholy station, built amid a sandy desert, and inhabited by two or three gloomy officials, one of whom rung a terrific peal upon a harshly clanging bell as the train approached.",1 Mr. Audley was the only passenger who alighted at the dismal station.,1 "The train swept on to the gayer scenes before the barrister had time to collect his senses, or to pick up the portmanteau which had been discovered with some difficulty amid a black cavern of baggage only illuminated by one lantern.",1 """I wonder whether settlers in the backwoods of America feel as solitary and strange as I feel to-night?""",1 "he thought, as he stared hopelessly about him in the darkness.",1 "He called to one of the officials, and pointed to his portmanteau.",2 """Will you carry that to the nearest hotel for me?""",2 "he asked—""that is to say, if I can get a good bed there.""",3 The man laughed as he shouldered the portmanteau.,2 """You can get thirty beds, I dare say, sir, if you wanted 'em,"" he said.",2 """We ain't over busy at Wildernsea at this time o' year.",2 "This way, sir.""",2 "The porter opened a wooden door in the station wall, and Robert Audley found himself upon a wide bowling-green of smooth grass, which surrounded a huge, square building, that loomed darkly on him through the winter's night, its black solidity only relieved by two lighted windows, far apart from each other, and glimmering redly like beacons on the darkness.",3 """This is the Victoria Hotel, sir,"" said the porter.",2 """You wouldn't believe the crowds of company we have down here in the summer.""",2 "In the face of the bare grass-plat, the tenantless wooden alcoves, and the dark windows of the hotel, it was indeed rather difficult to imagine that the place was ever gay with merry people taking pleasure in the bright summer weather; but Robert Audley declared himself willing to believe anything the porter pleased to tell him, and followed his guide meekly to a little door at the side of the big hotel, which led into a comfortable bar, where the humbler classes of summer visitors were accommodated with such refreshments as they pleased to pay for, without running the gantlet of the prim, white-waistcoated waiters on guard at the principal entrance.",4 "But there were very few attendants retained at the hotel in the bleak February season, and it was the landlord himself who ushered Robert into a dreary wilderness of polished mahogany tables and horsehair cushioned chairs, which he called the coffee-room.",1 "Mr. Audley seated himself close to the wide steel fender, and stretched his cramped legs upon the hearth-rug, while the landlord drove the poker into the vast pile of coal, and sent a ruddy blaze roaring upward through the chimney.",1 """If you would prefer a private room, sir—"" the man began.",3 """No, thank you,"" said Robert, indifferently; ""this room seems quite private enough just now.",3 "If you will order me a mutton chop and a pint of sherry, I shall be obliged.""",2 """Certainly, sir.""",2 """And I shall be still more obliged if you will favor me with a few minutes' conversation before you do so.""",3 """With very great pleasure, sir,"" the landlord answered, good-naturedly.",4 """We see so very little company at this season of the year, that we are only too glad to oblige those gentlemen who do visit us.",3 "Any information which I can afford you respecting the neighborhood of Wildernsea and its attractions,"" added the landlord, unconsciously quoting a small hand-book of the watering-place which he sold in the bar, ""I shall be most happy to—"" ""But I don't want to know anything about the neighborhood of Wildernsea,"" interrupted Robert, with a feeble protest against the landlord's volubility.",2 """I want to ask you a few questions about some people who once lived here.""",2 "The landlord bowed and smiled, with an air which implied his readiness to recite the biographies of all the inhabitants of the little seaport, if required by Mr. Audley to do so.",2 """How many years have you lived here?""",2 "Robert asked, taking his memorandum book from his pocket.",2 """Will it annoy you if I make notes of your replies to my questions?""",1 """Not at all, sir,"" replied the landlord, with a pompous enjoyment of the air of solemnity and importance which pervaded this business.",2 """Any information which I can afford that is likely to be of ultimate value—"" ""Yes, thank you,"" Robert murmured, interrupting the flow of words.",3 """You have lived here—"" ""Six years, sir.""",2 """Since the year fifty-three?""",2 """Since November, in the year fifty-two, sir.",2 I was in business at Hull prior to that time.,2 "This house was only completed in the October before I entered it.""",2 """Do you remember a lieutenant in the navy, on half-pay, I believe, at that time, called Maldon?""",2 """Captain Maldon, sir?""",2 """Yes, commonly called Captain Maldon.",2 "I see you do remember him.""",2 """Yes, sir.",2 Captain Maldon was one of our best customers.,3 "He used to spend his evenings in this very room, though the walls were damp at that time, and we weren't able to paper the place for nearly a twelvemonth afterward.",2 "His daughter married a young officer that came here with his regiment, at Christmas time in fifty-two.",2 "They were married here, sir, and they traveled on the Continent for six months, and came back here again.",2 "But the gentleman ran away to Australia, and left the lady, a week or two after her baby was born.",2 "The business made quite a sensation in Wildernsea, sir, and Mrs.—Mrs.—I forgot the name—"" ""Mrs. Talboys,"" suggested Robert.",3 """To be sure, sir, Mrs. Talboys.",2 "Mrs. Talboys was very much pitied by the Wildernsea folks, sir, I was going to say, for she was very pretty, and had such nice winning ways that she was a favorite with everybody who knew her.""",4 """Can you tell me how long Mr. Maldon and his daughter remained at Wildernsea after Mr. Talboys left them?""",2 Robert asked.,2 """Well—no, sir,"" answered the landlord, after a few moments' deliberation.",3 """I can't say exactly how long it was.",2 "I know Mr. Maldon used to sit here in this very parlor, and tell people how badly his daughter had been treated, and how he'd been deceived by a young man he'd put so much confidence in; but I can't say how long it was before he left Wildernsea.",2 "But Mrs. Barkamb could tell you, sir,"" added the landlord, briskly.",2 """Mrs. Barkamb.""",2 """Yes, Mrs. Barkamb is the person who owns No. 17 North Cottages, the house in which Mr. Maldon and his daughter lived.",2 "She's a nice, civil spoken, motherly woman, sir, and I'm sure she'll tell you anything you may want to know.""",3 """Thank you, I will call upon Mrs. Barkamb to-morrow.",3 Stay—one more question.,2 "Should you recognize Mrs. Talboys if you were to see her?""",2 """Certainly, sir.",2 "As sure as I should recognize one of my own daughters.""",2 "Robert Audley wrote Mrs. Barkamb's address in his pocket-book, ate his solitary dinner, drank a couple of glasses of sherry, smoked a cigar, and then retired to the apartment in which a fire had been lighted for his comfort.",3 "He soon fell asleep, worn out with the fatigue of hurrying from place to place during the last two days; but his slumber was not a heavy one, and he heard the disconsolate moaning of the wind upon the sandy wastes, and the long waves rolling in monotonously upon the flat shore.",0 "Mingling with these dismal sounds, the melancholy thoughts engendered by his joyless journey repeated themselves in never-varying succession in the chaos of his slumbering brain, and made themselves into visions of things that never had been and never could be upon this earth, but which had some vague relation to real events remembered by the sleeper.",0 "In those troublesome dreams he saw Audley Court, rooted up from amidst the green pastures and the shady hedgerows of Essex, standing bare and unprotected upon that desolate northern shore, threatened by the rapid rising of a boisterous sea, whose waves seemed gathering upward to descend and crush the house he loved.",0 "As the hurrying waves rolled nearer and nearer to the stately mansion, the sleeper saw a pale, starry face looking out of the silvery foam, and knew that it was my lady, transformed into a mermaid, beckoning his uncle to destruction.",2 "Beyond that rising sea great masses of cloud, blacker than the blackest ink, more dense than the darkest night, lowered upon the dreamer's eye; but as he looked at the dismal horizon the storm-clouds slowly parted, and from a narrow rent in the darkness a ray of light streamed out upon the hideous waves, which slowly, very slowly, receded, leaving the old mansion safe and firmly rooted on the shore.",0 "Robert awoke with the memory of this dream in his mind, and a sensation of physical relief, as if some heavy weight, which had oppressed him all the night, had been lifted from his breast.",3 "He fell asleep again, and did not awake until the broad winter sunlight shone upon the window-blind, and the shrill voice of the chambermaid at his door announced that it was half-past eight o'clock.",0 "At a quarter-before ten he had left Victoria Hotel, and was making his way along the lonely platform in front of a row of shadowless houses that faced the sea.",1 "This row of hard, uncompromising, square-built habitations stretched away to the little harbor, in which two or three merchant vessels and a couple of colliers were anchored.",1 "Beyond the harbor there loomed, gray and cold upon the wintry horizon, a dismal barrack, parted from the Wildernsea houses by a narrow creek, spanned by an iron drawbridge.",1 "The scarlet coat of the sentinel who walked backward and forward between two cannons, placed at remote angles before the barrack wall, was the only scrap of color that relieved the neutral-tinted picture of the gray stone houses and the leaden sea.",1 "On one side of the harbor a long stone pier stretched out far away into the cruel loneliness of the sea, as if built for the especial accommodation of some modern Timon, too misanthropical to be satisfied even with the solitude of Wildernsea, and anxious to get still further away from his fellow-creatures.",1 "It was on that pier George Talboys had first met his wife, under the blazing glory of a midsummer sky, and to the music of a braying band.",3 "It was there that the young cornet had first yielded to that sweet delusion, that fatal infatuation which had exercised so dark an influence upon his after-life.",1 Robert looked savagely at this solitary watering-place—the shabby seaport.,1 """It is such a place as this,"" he thought, ""that works a strong man's ruin.",3 "He comes here, heart whole and happy, with no better experience of women than is to be learned at a flower-show or in a ball-room; with no more familiar knowledge of the creature than he has of the far-away satellites or the remoter planets; with a vague notion that she is a whirling teetotum in pink or blue gauze, or a graceful automaton for the display of milliners' manufacture.",3 "He comes to some place of this kind, and the universe is suddenly narrowed into about half a dozen acres; the mighty scheme of creation is crushed into a bandbox.",2 "The far-away creatures whom he had seen floating about him, beautiful and indistinct, are brought under his very nose; and before he has time to recover his bewilderment, hey presto, the witchcraft has begun; the magic circle is drawn around him!",3 "the spells are at work, the whole formula of sorcery is in full play, and the victim is as powerless to escape as the marble-legged prince in the Eastern story.""",2 "Ruminating in this wise, Robert Audley reached the house to which he had been directed as the residence of Mrs. Barkamb.",3 "He was admitted immediately by a prim, elderly servant, who ushered him into a sitting-room as prim and elderly-looking as herself.",2 "Mrs. Barkamb, a comfortable matron of about sixty years of age, was sitting in an arm-chair before a bright handful of fire in the shining grate.",3 "An elderly terrier, whose black-and-tan coat was thickly sprinkled with gray, reposed in Mrs. Barkamb's lap.",2 "Every object in the quiet sitting-room had an elderly aspect of simple comfort and precision, which is the evidence of outward repose.",3 """I should like to live here,"" Robert thought, ""and watch the gray sea slowly rolling over the gray sand under the still, gray sky.",2 "I should like to live here, and tell the beads upon my rosary, and repent and rest.""",3 "He seated himself in the arm-chair opposite Mrs. Barkamb, at that lady's invitation, and placed his hat upon the ground.",2 The elderly terrier descended from his mistress' lap to bark at and otherwise take objection to this hat.,1 """You were wishing, I suppose, sir, to take one—be quiet, Dash—one of the cottages,"" suggested Mrs. Barkamb, whose mind ran in one narrow groove, and whose life during the last twenty years had been an unvarying round of house-letting.",3 Robert Audley explained the purpose of his visit.,2 """I come to ask one simple question,"" he said, in conclusion, ""I wish to discover the exact date of Mrs. Talboys' departure from Wildernsea.",2 "The proprietor of the Victoria Hotel informed me that you were the most likely person to afford me that information.""",3 Mrs. Barkamb deliberated for some moments.,2 """I can give you the date of Captain Maldon's departure,"" she said, ""for he left No. 17 considerably in my debt, and I have the whole business in black and white; but with regard to Mrs. Talboys—"" Mrs. Barkamb paused for a few moments before resuming.",2 """You are aware that Mrs. Talboys left rather abruptly?""",1 she asked.,2 """I was not aware of that fact.""",2 """Indeed!",2 "Yes, she left abruptly, poor little woman!",1 "She tried to support herself after her husband's desertion by giving music lessons; she was a very brilliant pianist, and succeeded pretty well, I believe.",4 "But I suppose her father took her money from her, and spent it in public houses.",2 "However that might be, they had a very serious misunderstanding one night; and the next morning Mrs. Talboys left Wildernsea, leaving her little boy, who was out at nurse in the neighborhood.""",1 """But you cannot tell me the date of her leaving?""",2 """I'm afraid not,"" answered Mrs. Barkamb; ""and yet, stay.",1 Captain Maldon wrote to me upon the day his daughter left.,2 "He was in very great distress, poor old gentleman, and he always came to me in his troubles.",1 "If I could find that letter, it might be dated, you know—mightn't it, now?""",2 Mr. Audley said that it was only probable the letter was dated.,2 "Mrs. Barkamb retired to a table in the window on which stood an old-fashioned mahogany desk, lined with green baize, and suffering from a plethora of documents, which oozed out of it in every direction.",1 "Letters, receipts, bills, inventories and tax-papers were mingled in hopeless confusion; and among these Mrs. Barkamb set to work to search for Captain Maldon's letter.",1 "Mr. Audley waited very patiently, watching the gray clouds sailing across the gray sky, the gray vessels gliding past upon the gray sea.",3 "After about ten minutes' search, and a great deal of rustling, crackling, folding and unfolding of the papers, Mrs. Barkamb uttered an exclamation of triumph.",3 """I've got the letter,"" she said; ""and there's a note inside it from Mrs. Talboys.""",2 Robert Audley's pale face flushed a vivid crimson as he stretched out his hand to receive the papers.,2 """The persons who stole Helen Maldon's love-letters from George's trunk in my chambers might have saved themselves the trouble,"" he thought.",1 "The letter from the old lieutenant was not long, but almost every other word was underscored.",2 """My generous friend,"" the writer began—Mr. Maldon had tried the lady's generosity pretty severely during his residence in her house, rarely paying his rent until threatened with the intruding presence of the broker's man—""I am in the depths of despair.",3 My daughter has left me!,2 You may imagine my feelings!,2 "We had a few words last night upon the subject of money matters, which subject has always been a disagreeable one between us, and on rising this morning I found I was deserted!",1 The enclosed from Helen was waiting for me on the parlor table.,2 """Yours in distraction and despair, ""HENRY MALDON. ""NORTH COTTAGES, August 16th, 1854.""",1 The note from Mrs. Talboys was still more brief.,2 "It began abruptly thus: ""I am weary of my life here, and wish, if I can, to find a new one.",1 "I go out into the world, dissevered from every link which binds me to the hateful past, to seek another home and another fortune.",2 "Forgive me if I have been fretful, capricious, changeable.",1 "You should forgive me, for you know why I have been so.",2 You know the secret which is the key to my life.,2 """HELEN TALBOYS."" These lines were written in a hand that Robert Audley knew only too well.",3 He sat for a long time pondering silently over the letter written by Helen Talboys.,2 "What was the meaning of those two last sentences—""You should forgive me, for you know why I have been so.",2 "You know the secret which is the key to my life?""",2 He wearied his brain in endeavoring to find a clew to the signification of these two sentences.,2 "He could remember nothing, nor could he imagine anything that would throw a light upon their meaning.",2 "The date of Helen's departure, according to Mr. Maldon's letter, was the 16th of August, 1854.",2 Miss Tonks had declared that Lucy Graham entered the school at Crescent Villas upon the 17th or 18th of August in the same year.,1 "Between the departure of Helen Talboys from the Yorkshire watering-place and the arrival of Lucy Graham at the Brompton school, not more than eight-and-forty hours could have elapsed.",2 "This made a very small link in the chain of circumstantial evidence, perhaps; but it was a link, nevertheless, and it fitted neatly into its place.",3 """Did Mr. Maldon hear from his daughter after she had left Wildernsea?""",2 Robert asked.,2 """Well, I believe he did hear from her,"" Mrs. Barkamb answered; ""but I didn't see much of the old gentleman after that August.",3 "I was obliged to sell him up in November, poor fellow, for he owed me fifteen months' rent; and it was only by selling his poor little bits of furniture that I could get him out of my place.",1 "We parted very good friends, in spite of my sending in the brokers; and the old gentleman went to London with the child, who was scarcely a twelvemonth old.""",1 "Mrs. Barkamb had nothing more to tell, and Robert had no further questions to ask.",2 "He requested permission to retain the two letters written by the lieutenant and his daughter, and left the house with them in his pocket-book.",2 "He walked straight back to the hotel, where he called for a time-table.",2 An express for London left Wildernsea at a quarter past one.,2 "Robert sent his portmanteau to the station, paid his bill, and walked up and down the stone terrace fronting the sea, waiting for the starting of the train.",2 """I have traced the histories of Lucy Graham and Helen Talboys to a vanishing point,"" he thought; ""my next business is to discover the history of the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard.""",1 "Upon his return from Wildernsea, Robert Audley found a letter from his Cousin Alicia, awaiting him at his chambers.",2 """Papa is much better,"" the young lady wrote, ""and is very anxious to have you at the Court.",2 "For some inexplicable reason, my stepmother has taken it into her head that your presence is extremely desirable, and worries me with her frivolous questions about your movements.",2 "So pray come without delay, and set these people at rest.",1 "Your affectionate cousin, A.A."" ""So my lady is anxious to know my movements,"" thought Robert Audley, as he sat brooding and smoking by his lonely fireside.",1 """She is anxious; and she questions her step-daughter in that pretty, childlike manner which has such a bewitching air of innocent frivolity.",2 Poor little creature; poor unhappy little golden-haired sinner; the battle between us seems terribly unfair.,1 Why doesn't she run away while there is still time?,2 "I have given her fair warning, I have shown her my cards, and worked openly enough in this business, Heaven knows.",4 "Why doesn't she run away?""",2 "He repeated this question again and again as he filled and emptied his meerschaum, surrounding himself with the blue vapor from his pipe until he looked like some modern magician seated in his laboratory.",3 """Why doesn't she run away?",2 "I would bring no needless shame upon that house, of all other houses upon this wide earth.",1 "I would only do my duty to my missing friend, and to that brave and generous man who has pledged his faith to a worthless woman.",3 Heaven knows I have no wish to punish.,2 Heaven knows I was never born to be the avenger of guilt or the persecutor of the guilty.,1 I only wish to do my duty.,2 "I will give her one more warning, a full and fair one, and then—"" His thoughts wandered away to that gloomy prospect in which he saw no gleam of brightness to relieve the dull, black obscurity that encompassed the future, shutting in his pathway on every side, and spreading a dense curtain around and about him, which Hope was powerless to penetrate.",0 "He was forever haunted by the vision of his uncle's anguish, forever tortured by the thought of that ruin and desolation which, being brought about by his instrumentality, would seem in a manner his handiwork.",0 "But amid all, and through all, Clara Talboys, with an imperious gesture, beckoned him onward to her brother's unknown grave.",1 """Shall I go down to Southampton,"" he thought, ""and endeavor to discover the history of the woman who died at Ventnor?",1 "Shall I work underground, bribing the paltry assistants in that foul conspiracy, until I find my way to the thrice guilty principal?",0 No!,2 not till I have tried other means of discovering the truth.,2 "Shall I go to that miserable old man, and charge him with his share in the shameful trick which I believe to have been played upon my poor friend?",0 No; I will not torture that terror-stricken wretch as I tortured him a few weeks ago.,0 "I will go straight to that arch-conspirator, and will tear away the beautiful veil under which she hides her wickedness, and will wring from her the secret of my friend's fate, and banish her forever from the house which her presence has polluted.""",1 "He started early the next morning for Essex, and reached Audley before eleven o'clock.",2 "Early as it was, my lady was out.",2 She had driven to Chelmsford upon a shopping expedition with her step-daughter.,2 "She had several calls to make in the neighborhood of the town, and was not likely to return until dinner-time.",2 "Sir Michael's health was very much improved, and he would come down stairs in the afternoon.",3 Would Mr. Audley go to his uncle's room?,2 No; Robert had no wish to meet that generous kinsman.,3 What could he say to him?,2 How could he smooth the way to the trouble that was to come?—how soften the cruel blow of the great grief that was preparing for that noble and trusting heart?,2 """If I could forgive her the wrong done to my friend,"" Robert thought, ""I should still abhor her for the misery her guilt must bring upon the man who has believed in her.""",0 "He told his uncle's servant that he would stroll into the village, and return before dinner.",2 "He walked slowly away from the Court, wandering across the meadows between his uncle's house and the village, purposeless and indifferent, with the great trouble and perplexity of his life stamped upon his face and reflected in his manner.",0 """I will go into the churchyard,"" he thought, ""and stare at the tombstones.",2 "There is nothing I can do that will make me more gloomy than I am.""",1 He was in those very meadows through which he had hurried from Audley Court to the station upon the September day in which George Talboys had disappeared.,2 "He looked at the pathway by which he had gone upon that day, and remembered his unaccustomed hurry, and the vague feeling of terror which had taken possession of him immediately upon losing sight of his friend.",0 """Why did that unaccountable terror seize upon me,"" he thought.",1 """Why was it that I saw some strange mystery in my friend's disappearance?",1 "Was it a monition, or a monomania?",2 What if I am wrong after all?,1 "What if this chain of evidence which I have constructed link by link, is woven out of my own folly?",2 What if this edifice of horror and suspicion is a mere collection of crotchets—the nervous fancies of a hypochondriacal bachelor?,1 Mr. Harcourt Talboys sees no meaning in the events out of which I have made myself a horrible mystery.,1 "I lay the separate links of the chain before him, and he cannot recognize their fitness.",2 He is unable to put them together.,1 "Oh, my God, if it should be in myself all this time that the misery lies; if—"" he smiled bitterly, and shook his head.",0 """I have the handwriting in my pocket-book which is the evidence of the conspiracy,"" he thought.",1 """It remains for me to discover the darker half of my lady's secret.""",1 "He avoided the village, still keeping to the meadows.",2 "The church lay a little way back from the straggling High street, and a rough wooden gate opened from the churchyard into a broad meadow, that was bordered by a running stream, and sloped down into a grassy valley dotted by groups of cattle.",1 Robert slowly ascended the narrow hillside pathway leading up to the gate in the churchyard.,2 The quiet dullness of the lonely landscape harmonized with his own gloom.,1 The solitary figure of an old man hobbling toward a stile at the further end of the wide meadow was the only human creature visible upon the area over which the young barrister looked.,2 The smoke slowly ascending from the scattered houses in the long High street was the only evidence of human life.,1 The slow progress of the hands of the old clock in the church steeple was the only token by which a traveler could perceive that a sluggish course of rustic life had not come to a full stop in the village of Audley.,1 "Yes, there was one other sign.",2 "As Robert opened the gate of the churchyard, and strolled listessly into the little inclosure, he became aware of the solemn music of an organ, audible through a half-open window in the steeple.",2 He stopped and listened to the slow harmonies of a dreamy melody that sounded like an extempore composition of an accomplished player.,3 """Who would have believed that Audley church could boast such an organ?""",2 thought Robert.,2 """When last I was here, the national schoolmaster used to accompany his children by a primitive performance of common chords.",1 "I didn't think the old organ had such music in it.""",2 "He lingered at the gate, not caring to break the lazy spell woven about him by the monotonous melancholy of the organist's performance.",0 "The tones of the instrument, now swelling to their fullest power, now sinking to a low, whispering softness, floated toward him upon the misty winter atmosphere, and had a soothing influence, that seemed to comfort him in his trouble.",1 "He closed the gate softly, and crossed the little patch of gravel before the door of the church.",2 "The door had been left ajar—by the organist, perhaps.",2 "Robert Audley pushed it open, and walked into the square porch, from which a flight of narrow stone steps wound upward to the organ-loft and the belfry.",1 "Mr. Audley took off his hat, and opened the door between the porch and the body of the church.",2 "He stepped softly into the holy edifice, which had a damp, moldy smell upon week-days.",2 "He walked down the narrow aisle to the altar-rails, and from that point of observation took a survey of the church.",2 "The little gallery was exactly opposite to him, but the scanty green curtains before the organ were closely drawn, and he could not get a glimpse of the player.",2 The music still rolled on.,2 "The organist had wandered into a melody of Mendelssohn's, a strain whose dreamy sadness went straight to Robert's heart.",1 "He loitered in the nooks and corners of the church, examining the dilapidated memorials of the well-nigh forgotten dead, and listening to the music.",1 """If my poor friend, George Talboys, had died in my arms, and I had buried him in this quiet church, in one corner of the vaults over which I tread to-day, how much anguish of mind, vacillation and torment I might have escaped,"" thought Robert Audley, as he read the faded inscriptions upon tablets of discolored marble; ""I should have known his fate—I should have known his fate!",0 "Ah, how much there would have been in that.",2 "It is this miserable uncertainty, this horrible suspicion which has poisoned my very life.""",0 He looked at his watch.,2 """Half-past one,"" he muttered.",2 """I shall have to wait four or five dreary hours before my lady comes home from her morning calls—her pretty visits of ceremony or friendliness.",3 Good Heaven!,3 what an actress this woman is.,2 What an arch trickster—what an all-accomplished deceiver.,2 But she shall play her pretty comedy no longer under my uncle's roof.,3 I have diplomatized long enough.,3 She has refused to accept an indirect warning.,1 "To-night I will speak plainly.""",2 "The music of the organ ceased, and Robert heard the closing of the instrument.",2 """I'll have a look at this new organist,"" he thought, ""who can afford to bury his talents at Audley, and play Mendelssohn's finest fugues for a stipend of sixteen pounds a year.""",4 "He lingered in the porch, waiting for the organist to descend the awkward little stair-case.",1 "In the weary trouble of his mind, and with the prospect of getting through the five hours in the best way he could, Mr. Audley was glad to cultivate any diversion of thought, however idle.",1 He therefore freely indulged his curiosity about the new organist.,2 "The first person who appeared upon the steep stone steps was a boy in corduroy trousers and a dark linen smock-frock, who shambled down the stairs with a good deal of unnecessary clatter of his hobnailed shoes, and who was red in the face from the exertion of blowing the bellows of the old organ.",1 "Close behind this boy came a young lady, very plainly dressed in a black silk gown and a large gray shawl, who started and turned pale at sight of Mr. Audley.",1 This young lady was Clara Talboys.,2 Of all people in the world she was the last whom Robert either expected or wished to see.,2 "She had told him that she was going to pay a visit to some friends who lived in Essex; but the county is a wide one, and the village of Audley one of the most obscure and least frequented spots in the whole of its extent.",1 "That the sister of his lost friend should be here—here where she could watch his every action, and from those actions deduce the secret workings of his mind, tracing his doubts home to their object, made a complication of his difficulties that he could never have anticipated.",0 "It brought him back to that consciousness of his own helplessness, in which he had exclaimed: ""A hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning me onward on the dark road that leads to my lost friend's unknown grave.""",1 Clara Talboys was the first to speak.,2 """You are surprised to see me here, Mr. Audley,"" she said.",2 """Very much surprised.""",2 """I told you that I was coming to Essex.",2 I left home day before yesterday.,2 I was leaving home when I received your telegraphic message.,2 "The friend with whom I am staying is Mrs. Martyn, the wife of the new rector of Mount Stanning.",2 "I came down this morning to see the village and church, and as Mrs. Martyn had to pay a visit to the school with the curate and his wife, I stopped here and amused myself by trying the old organ.",2 I was not aware till I came here that there was a village called Audley.,2 "The place takes its name from your family, I suppose?""",2 """I believe so,"" Robert answered, wondering at the lady's calmness, in contradistinction to his own embarrassment.",2 """I have a vague recollection of hearing the story of some ancestor who was called Audley of Audley in the reign of Edward the Fourth.",1 "The tomb inside the rails near the altar belongs to one of the knights of Audley, but I have never taken the trouble to remember his achievements.",2 "Are you going to wait here for your friends, Miss Talboys?""",1 """Yes; they are to return here for me after they have finished their rounds.""",2 """And you go back to Mount Stanning with them this afternoon?""",2 """Yes.""",2 "Robert stood with his hat in his hand, looking absently out at the tombstones and the low wall of the church yard.",2 "Clara Talboys watched his pale face, haggard under the deepening shadow that had rested upon it so long.",1 """You have been ill since I saw you last, Mr. Audley,"" she said, in a low voice, that had the same melodious sadness as the notes of the old organ under her touch.",1 """No, I have not been ill; I have been only harassed, wearied by a hundred doubts and perplexities.""",1 "He was thinking as he spoke to her: ""How much does she guess?",2 "How much does she suspect?""",1 "He had told the story of George's disappearance and of his own suspicions, suppressing only the names of those concerned in the mystery; but what if this girl should fathom this slender disguise, and discover for herself that which he had chosen to withhold.",0 "Her grave eyes were fixed upon his face, and he knew that she was trying to read the innermost secrets of his mind.",2 """What am I in her hands?""",2 he thought.,2 """What am I in the hands of this woman, who has my lost friend's face and the manner of Pallas Athene.",1 "She reads my pitiful, vacillating soul, and plucks the thoughts out of my heart with the magic of her solemn brown eyes.",1 "How unequal the fight must be between us, and how can I ever hope to conquer against the strength of her beauty and her wisdom?""",3 "Mr. Audley was clearing his throat preparatory to bidding his beautiful companion good-morning, and making his escape from the thraldom of her presence into the lonely meadow outside the churchyard, when Clara Talboys arrested him by speaking upon that very subject which he was most anxious to avoid.",2 """You promised to write to me, Mr. Audley,"" she said, ""if you made any discovery which carried you nearer to the mystery of my brother's disappearance.",2 "You have not written to me, and I imagine, therefore, that you have discovered nothing.""",2 Robert Audley was silent for some moments.,3 How could he answer this direct question?,2 """The chain of circumstantial evidence which unites the mystery of your brother's fate with the person whom I suspect,"" he said, after a pause, ""is formed of very slight links.",1 "I think that I have added another link to that chain since I saw you in Dorsetshire.""",2 """And you refuse to tell me what it is that you have discovered?""",1 """Only until I have discovered more.""",2 """I thought from your message that you were going to Wildernsea.""",2 """I have been there.""",2 """Indeed!",2 "It was there that you made some discovery, then?""",2 """It was,"" answered Robert.",2 """You must remember, Miss Talboys that the sole ground upon which my suspicions rest is the identity of two individuals who have no apparent connection—the identity of a person who is supposed to be dead with one who is living.",0 The conspiracy of which I believe your brother to have been the victim hinges upon this.,1 "If his wife, Helen Talboys, died when the papers recorded her death—if the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard was indeed the woman whose name is inscribed on the headstone of the grave—I have no case, I have no clew to the mystery of your brother's fate.",0 I am about to put this to the test.,2 "I believe that I am now in a position to play a bold game, and I believe that I shall soon arrive at the truth.""",2 "He spoke in a low voice, and with a solemn emphasis that betrayed the intensity of his feeling.",1 "Miss Talboys stretched out her ungloved hand, and laid it in his own.",1 The cold touch of that slender hand sent a shivering thrill through his frame.,2 """You will not suffer my brother's fate to remain a mystery, Mr. Audley,"" she said, quietly.",1 """I know that you will do your duty to your friend.""",2 The rector's wife and her two companions entered the churchyard as Clara Talboys said this.,2 "Robert Audley pressed the hand that rested in his own, and raised it to his lips.",2 """I am a lazy, good-for-nothing fellow, Miss Talboys,"" he said; ""but if I could restore your brother George to life and happiness, I should care very little for any sacrifice of my own feeling, fear that the most I can do is to fathom the secret of his fate and in doing that I must sacrifice those who are dearer to me than myself.""",1 "He put on his hat, and hurried through the gateway leading into the field as Mrs. Martyn came up to the porch.",3 """Who is that handsome young man I caught tête-a-tête with you, Clara?""",3 "she asked, laughing.",2 """He is a Mr. Audley, a friend of my poor brother's.""",1 """Indeed!",2 "He is some relation of Sir Michael Audley, I suppose?""",2 """Sir Michael Audley!""",2 """Yes, my dear; the most important personage in the parish of Audley.",3 "But we'll call at the Court in a day or two, and you shall see the baronet and his pretty young wife.""",3 """His young wife!""",2 "replied Clara Talboys, looking earnestly at her friend.",3 """Has Sir Michael Audley lately married, then?""",2 """Yes.",2 "He was a widower for sixteen years, and married a penniless young governess about a year and a half ago.",2 "The story is quite romantic, and Lady Audley is considered the belle of the county.",3 "But come, my dear Clara, the pony is tired of waiting for us, and we've a long drive before dinner.""",1 "Clara Talboys took her seat in the little basket-carriage which was waiting at the principal gate of the churchyard, in the care of the boy who had blown the organ-bellows.",2 "Mrs. Martyn shook the reins, and the sturdy chestnut cob trotted off in the direction of Mount Stanning.",3 """Will you tell me more about this Lady Audley, Fanny?""",2 "Miss Talboys said, after a long pause.",1 """I want to know all about her.",2 "Have you heard her maiden name?""",2 """Yes; she was a Miss Graham.""",1 """And she is very pretty?""",3 """Yes, very, very pretty.",3 "Rather a childish beauty though, with large, clear blue eyes, and pale golden ringlets, that fall in a feathery shower over her throat and shoulders.""",2 Clara Talboys was silent.,3 She did not ask any further questions about my lady.,2 "She was thinking of a passage in that letter which George had written to her during his honeymoon—a passage in which he said: ""My childish little wife is watching me as I write this—Ah!",1 "how I wish you could see her, Clara!",2 "Her eyes are as blue and as clear as the skies on a bright summer's day, and her hair falls about her face like the pale golden halo you see round the head of a Madonna in an Italian picture.""",3 "Robert Audley was loitering upon the broad grass-plat in front of the Court as the carriage containing my lady and Alicia drove under the archway, and drew up at the low turret-door.",2 Mr. Audley presented himself in time to hand the ladies out of the vehicle.,2 My lady looked very pretty in a delicate blue bonnet and the sables which her nephew had bought for her at St. Petersburg.,3 "She seemed very well pleased to see Robert, and smiled most bewitchingly as she gave him her exquisitely gloved little hand.",4 """So you have come back to us, truant?""",1 "she said, laughing.",2 """And now that you have returned, we shall keep you prisoner.",1 "We won't let him run away again, will we, Alicia?""",2 Miss Audley gave her head a scornful toss that shook the heavy curls under her cavalier hat.,1 """I have nothing to do with the movements of so erratic an individual,"" she said.",1 """Since Robert Audley has taken it into his head to conduct himself like some ghost-haunted hero in a German story, I have given up attempting to understand him.""",3 Mr. Audley looked at his cousin with an expression of serio-comic perplexity.,1 """She's a nice girl,"" he thought, ""but she's a nuisance.",2 "I don't know how it is, but she seems more a nuisance than she used to be.""",1 He pulled his mustaches reflectively as he considered this question.,2 His mind wandered away for a few moments from the great trouble of his life to dwell upon this minor perplexity.,1 """She's a dear girl,"" he thought; ""a generous-hearted, bouncing, noble English lassie; and yet—"" He lost himself in a quagmire of doubt and difficulty.",1 "There was some hitch in his mind which he could not understand; some change in himself, beyond the change made in him by his anxiety about George Talboys, which mystified and bewildered him.",1 """And pray where have you been wandering during the last day or two, Mr. Audley?""",2 "asked my lady, as she lingered with her step-daughter upon the threshold of the turret-door, waiting until Robert should be pleased to stand aside and allow them to pass.",3 The young man started as she asked this question and looked up at her suddenly.,2 "Something in the aspect of her bright young beauty, something in the childish innocence of her expression, seemed to smite him to the heart, and his face grew ghastly pale as he looked at her.",1 """I have been—in Yorkshire,"" he said; ""at the little watering place where my poor friend George Talboys lived at the time of his marriage.""",1 The white change in my lady's face was the only sign of her having heard these words.,2 "She smiled, a faint, sickly smile, and tried to pass her husband's nephew.",1 """I must dress for dinner,"" she said.",2 """I am going to a dinner-party, Mr. Audley; please let me go in.""",2 """I must ask you to spare me half an hour, Lady Audley,"" Robert answered, in a low voice.",2 """I came down to Essex on purpose to speak to you.""",2 """What about?""",2 asked my lady.,2 "She had recovered herself from any shock which she might have sustained a few moments before, and it was in her usual manner that she asked this question.",1 "Her face expressed the mingled bewilderment and curiosity of a puzzled child, rather than the serious surprise of a woman.",1 """What can you want to talk to me about, Mr. Audley?""",2 she repeated.,2 """I will tell you when we are alone,"" Robert said, glancing at his cousin, who stood a little way behind my lady, watching this confidential little dialogue.",2 """He is in love with my step-mother's wax-doll beauty,"" thought Alicia, ""and it is for her sake he has become such a disconsolate object.",2 "He's just the sort of person to fall in love with his aunt.""",2 "Miss Audley walked away to the grass-plat, turning her back upon Robert and my lady.",1 """The absurd creature turned as white as a sheet when he saw her,"" she thought.",1 """So he can be in love, after all.",3 "That slow lump of torpidity he calls his heart can beat, I suppose, once in a quarter of a century; but it seems that nothing but a blue-eyed wax-doll can set it going.",1 "I should have given him up long ago if I'd known that his idea of beauty was to be found in a toy-shop.""",3 "Poor Alicia crossed the grass-plat and disappeared upon the opposite side of the quadrangle, where there was a Gothic gate that communicated with the stables.",1 "I am sorry to say that Sir Michael Audley's daughter went to seek consolation from her dog Caesar and her chestnut mare Atalanta, whose loose box the young lady was in the habit of visiting every day.",1 """Will you come into the lime-walk, Lady Audley?""",2 "said Robert, as his cousin left the garden.",2 """I wish to talk to you without fear of interruption or observation.",1 I think we could choose no safer place than that.,2 "Will you come there with me?""",2 """If you please,"" answered my lady.",2 "Mr. Audley could see that she was trembling, and that she glanced from side to side as if looking for some outlet by which she might escape him.",2 """You are shivering, Lady Audley,"" he said.",2 """Yes, I am very cold.",1 "I would rather speak to you some other day, please.",2 "Let it be to-morrow, if you will.",2 "I have to dress for dinner, and I want to see Sir Michael; I have not seen him since ten o'clock this morning.",2 "Please let it be to-morrow.""",2 There was a painful piteousness in her tone.,1 Heaven knows how painful to Robert's heart.,2 Heaven knows what horrible images arose in his mind as he looked down at that fair young face and thought of the task that lay before him.,3 """I must speak to you, Lady Audley,"" he said.",2 """If I am cruel, it is you who have made me cruel.",1 You might have escaped this ordeal.,1 You might have avoided me.,2 I gave you fair warning.,2 "But you have chosen to defy me, and it is your own folly which is to blame if I no longer spare you.",1 Come with me.,2 "I tell you again I must speak to you.""",2 There was a cold determination in his tone which silenced my lady's objections.,1 She followed him submissively to the little iron gate which communicated with the long garden behind the house—the garden in which a little rustic wooden bridge led across the quiet fish-pond into the lime-walk.,3 "The early winter twilight was closing in, and the intricate tracery of the leafless branches that overarched the lonely pathway looked black against the cold gray of the evening sky.",1 The lime-walk seemed like some cloister in this uncertain light.,2 """Why do you bring me to this horrible place to frighten me out of my poor wits?""",0 "cried my lady, peevishly.",1 """You ought to know how nervous I am.""",1 """You are nervous, my lady?""",1 """Yes, dreadfully nervous.",1 I am worth a fortune to poor Mr. Dawson.,3 "He is always sending me camphor, and sal volatile, and red lavender, and all kinds of abominable mixtures, but he can't cure me.""",1 """Do you remember what Macbeth tells his physician, my lady?""",2 "asked Robert, gravely.",1 """Mr. Dawson may be very much more clever than the Scottish leech, but I doubt if even he can minister to the mind that is diseased.""",1 """Who said that my mind was diseased?""",2 exclaimed Lady Audley.,2 """I say so, my lady,"" answered Robert.",2 """You tell me that you are nervous, and that all the medicines your doctor can prescribe are only so much physic that might as well be thrown to the dogs.",2 "Let me be the physician to strike to the root of your malady, Lady Audley.",1 Heaven knows that I wish to be merciful—that I would spare you as far as it is in my power to spare you in doing justice to others—but justice must be done.,3 "Shall I tell you why you are nervous in this house, my lady?""",1 """If you can,"" she answered, with a little laugh.",2 """Because for you this house is haunted.""",2 """Haunted?""",2 """Yes, haunted by the ghost of George Talboys.""",2 "Robert Audley heard my lady's quickened breathing, he fancied he could almost hear the loud beating of her heart as she walked by his side, shivering now and then, and with her sable cloak wrapped tightly around her.",1 """What do you mean?""",2 "she cried suddenly, after a pause of some moments.",2 """Why do you torment me about this George Talboys, who happens to have taken it into his head to keep out of your way for a few months?",1 "Are you going mad, Mr. Audley, and do you select me as the victim of your monomania?",1 "What is George Talboys to me that you should worry me about him?""",1 """He was a stranger to you, my lady, was he not?""",1 """Of course!""",2 answered Lady Audley.,2 """What should he be but a stranger?""",1 """Shall I tell you the story of my friend's disappearance as I read that story, my lady?""",2 asked Robert.,2 """No,"" cried Lady Audley; ""I wish to know nothing of your friend.",2 "If he is dead, I am sorry for him.",1 "If he lives, I have no wish either to see him or to hear of him.",2 "Let me go in to see my husband, if you please, Mr. Audley, unless you wish to detain me in this gloomy place until I catch my death of cold.""",0 """I wish to detain you until you have heard what I have to say, Lady Audley,"" answered Robert, resolutely.",2 """I will detain you no longer than is necessary, and when you have heard me you shall take your own course of action.""",2 """Very well, then; pray lose no time in saying what you have to say,"" replied my lady, carelessly.",2 """I promise you to attend very patiently.""",3 """When my friend, George Talboys, returned to England,"" Robert began, gravely, ""the thought which was uppermost in his mind was the thought of his wife.""",1 """Whom he had deserted,"" said my lady, quickly.",2 """At least,"" she added, more deliberately, ""I remember your telling us something to that effect when you first told us your friend's story.""",2 Robert Audley did not notice this observation.,2 """The thought that was uppermost in his mind was the thought of his wife,"" he repeated.",2 """His fairest hope in the future was the hope of making her happy, and lavishing upon her the pittance which he had won by the force of his own strong arm in the gold-fields of Australia.",4 "I saw him within a few hours of his reaching England, and I was a witness to the joyful pride with which he looked forward to his re-union with his wife.",3 I was also a witness to the blow which struck him to the very heart—which changed him from the man he had been to a creature as unlike that former self as one human being can be unlike another.,1 The blow which made that cruel change was the announcement of his wife's death in the Times newspaper.,0 "I now believe that that announcement was a black and bitter lie.""",1 """Indeed!""",2 "said my lady; ""and what reason could any one have for announcing the death of Mrs. Talboys, if Mrs. Talboys had been alive?""",1 """The lady herself might have had a reason,"" Robert answered, quietly.",2 """What reason?""",2 """How if she had taken advantage of George's absence to win a richer husband?",3 "How if she had married again, and wished to throw my poor friend off the scent by this false announcement?""",1 Lady Audley shrugged her shoulders.,2 """Your suppositions are rather ridiculous, Mr. Audley,"" she said; ""it is to be hoped that you have some reasonable grounds for them.""",2 """I have examined a file of each of the newspapers published in Chelmsford and Colchester,"" continued Robert, without replying to my lady's last observation, ""and I find in one of the Colchester papers, dated July the 2d, 1857, a brief paragraph among numerous miscellaneous scraps of information copied from other newspapers, to the effect that a Mr. George Talboys, an English gentleman, had arrived at Sydney from the gold-fields, carrying with him nuggets and gold-dust to the amount of twenty thousand pounds, and that he had realized his property and sailed for Liverpool in the fast-sailing clipper Argus.",2 "This is a very small fact, of course, Lady Audley, but it is enough to prove that any person residing in Essex in the July of the year fifty-seven, was likely to become aware of George Talboys' return from Australia.",3 "Do you follow me?""",2 """Not very clearly,"" said my lady.",3 """What have the Essex papers to do with the death of Mrs. Talboys?""",1 """We will come to that by-and-by, Lady Audley.",2 "I say that I believe the announcement in the Times to have been a false announcement, and a part of the conspiracy which was carried out by Helen Talboys and Lieutenant Maldon against my poor friend.""",0 """A conspiracy!""",1 """Yes, a conspiracy concocted by an artful woman, who had speculated upon the chances of her husband's death, and had secured a splendid position at the risk of committing a crime; a bold woman, my lady, who thought to play her comedy out to the end without fear of detection; a wicked woman, who did not care what misery she might inflict upon the honest heart of the man she betrayed; but a foolish woman, who looked at life as a game of chance, in which the best player was likely to hold the winning cards, forgetting that there is a Providence above the pitiful speculators, and that wicked secrets are never permitted to remain long hidden.",0 "If this woman of whom I speak had never been guilty of any blacker sin than the publication of that lying announcement in the Times newspaper, I should still hold her as the most detestable and despicable of her sex—the most pitiless and calculating of human creatures.",0 "That cruel lie was a base and cowardly blow in the dark; it was the treacherous dagger-thrust of an infamous assassin.""",0 """But how do you know that the announcement was a false one?""",1 asked my lady.,2 """You told us that you had been to Ventnor with Mr. Talboys to see his wife's grave.",2 "Who was it who died at Ventnor if it was not Mrs. Talboys?""",1 """Ah, Lady Audley,"" said Robert, ""that is a question which only two or three people can answer, and one or other of those persons shall answer it to me before long.",2 "I tell you, my lady, that I am determined to unravel the mystery of George Talboy's death.",0 Do you think I am to be put off by feminine prevarication—by womanly trickery?,1 No!,2 "Link by link I have put together the chain of evidence, which wants but a link here and there to be complete in its terrible strength.",1 Do you think I will suffer myself to be baffled?,1 Do you think I shall fail to discover those missing links?,1 "No, Lady Audley, I shall not fail, for I know where to look for them!",1 "There is a fair-haired woman at Southampton—a woman called Plowson, who has some share in the secrets of the father of my friend's wife.",3 "I have an idea that she can help me to discover the history of the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard, and I will spare no trouble in making that discovery, unless—"" ""Unless what?""",1 "asked my lady, eagerly.",3 """Unless the woman I wish to save from degradation and punishment accepts the mercy I offer her, and takes warning while there is still time.""",1 "My lady shrugged her graceful shoulders, and flashed bright defiance out of her blue eyes.",3 """She would be a very foolish woman if she suffered herself to be influenced by any such absurdity,"" she said.",0 """You are hypochondriacal, Mr. Audley, and you must take camphor, or red lavender, or sal volatile.",1 What can be more ridiculous than this idea which you have taken into your head?,1 "You lose your friend George Talboys in rather a mysterious manner—that is to say, that gentleman chooses to leave England without giving you due notice.",1 What of that?,2 You confess that he became an altered man after his wife's death.,1 He grew eccentric and misanthropical; he affected an utter indifference as to what became of him.,1 "What more likely, then, than that he grew tired of the monotony of civilized life, and ran away to those savage gold-fields to find a distraction for his grief?",0 "It is rather a romantic story, but by no means an uncommon one.",3 "But you are not satisfied with this simple interpretation of your friend's disappearance, and you build up some absurd theory of a conspiracy which has no existence except in your own overheated brain.",1 Helen Talboys is dead.,1 The Times newspaper declares she is dead.,1 Her own father tells you that she is dead.,1 The headstone of the grave in Ventnor churchyard bears record of her death.,1 "By what right,"" cried my lady, her voice rising to that shrill and piercing tone peculiar to her when affected by any intense agitation—""by what right, Mr. Audley, do you come to me, and torment me about George Talboys—by what right do you dare to say that his wife is still alive?""",0 """By the right of circumstantial evidence, Lady Audley,"" answered Robert—""by the right of that circumstantial evidence which will sometimes fix the guilt of a man's murder upon that person who, on the first hearing of the case, seems of all other men the most unlikely to be guilty.""",0 """What circumstantial evidence?""",2 """The evidence of time and place.",2 The evidence of handwriting.,2 "When Helen Talboys left her father's at Wildernsea, she left a letter behind her—a letter in which she declared that she was weary of her old life, and that she wished to seek a new home and a new fortune.",2 "That letter is in my possession.""",2 """Indeed.""",2 """Shall I tell you whose handwriting resembles that of Helen Talboys so closely, that the most dexterous expert could perceive no distinction between the two?""",3 """A resemblance between the handwriting of two women is no very uncommon circumstance now-a-days,"" replied my lady carelessly.",2 """I could show you the caligraphies of half-a-dozen female correspondents, and defy you to discover any great difference in them.""",2 """But what if the handwriting is a very uncommon one, presenting marked peculiarities by which it may be recognized among a hundred?""",2 """Why, in that case the coincidence is rather curious,"" answered my lady; ""but it is nothing more than a coincidence.",2 "You cannot deny the fact of Helen Talboys death on the ground that her handwriting resembles that of some surviving person.""",1 """But if a series of such coincidences lead up to the same point,"" said Robert.",3 """Helen Talboys left her father's house, according to the declaration in her own handwriting, because she was weary of her old life, and wished to begin a new one.",1 "Do you know what I infer from this?""",2 My lady shrugged her shoulders.,2 """I have not the least idea,"" she said; ""and as you have detained me in this gloomy place nearly half-an-hour, I must beg that you will release me, and let me go and dress for dinner.""",1 """No, Lady Audley,"" answered Robert, with a cold sternness that was so strange to him as to transform him into another creature—a pitiless embodiment of justice, a cruel instrument of retribution—""no, Lady Audley,"" he repeated, ""I have told you that womanly prevarication will not help you; I tell you now that defiance will not serve you.",0 "I have dealt fairly with you, and have given you fair warning.",3 "I gave you indirect notice of your danger two months ago.""",1 """What do you mean?""",2 "asked my lady, suddenly.",2 """You did not choose to take that warning, Lady Audley,"" pursued Robert, ""and the time has come in which I must speak very plainly to you.",1 Do you think the gifts which you have played against fortune are to hold you exempt from retribution?,3 "No, my lady, your youth and beauty, your grace and refinement, only make the horrible secret of your life more horrible.",3 "I tell you that the evidence against you wants only one link to be strong enough for your condemnation, and that link shall be added.",3 Helen Talboys never returned to her father's house.,2 "When she deserted that poor old father, she went away from his humble shelter with the declared intention of washing her hands of that old life.",2 "What do people generally do when they wish to begin a new existence—to start for a second time in the race of life, free from the incumbrances that had fettered their first journey.",3 "They change their names, Lady Audley.",2 Helen Talboys deserted her infant son—she went away from Wildernsea with the predetermination of sinking her identity.,1 "She disappeared as Helen Talboys upon the 16th of August, 1854, and upon the 17th of that month she reappeared as Lucy Graham, the friendless girl who undertook a profitless duty in consideration of a home in which she was asked no questions.""",2 """You are mad, Mr. Audley!""",1 cried my lady.,2 """You are mad, and my husband shall protect me from your insolence.",1 "What if this Helen Talboys ran away from her home upon one day, and I entered my employer's house upon the next, what does that prove?""",2 """By itself, very little,"" replied Robert Audley; ""but with the help of other evidence—"" ""What evidence?""",2 """The evidence of two labels, pasted one over the other, upon a box left by you in possession of Mrs. Vincent, the upper label bearing the name of Miss Graham, the lower that of Mrs. George Talboys.""",1 My lady was silent.,3 "Robert Audley could not see her face in the dusk, but he could see that her two small hands were clasped convulsively over her heart, and he knew that the shot had gone home to its mark.",2 """God help her, poor, wretched creature,"" he thought.",1 """She knows now that she is lost.",1 "I wonder if the judges of the land feel as I do now when they put on the black cap and pass sentence of death upon some poor, shivering wretch, who has never done them any wrong.",0 "Do they feel a heroic fervor of virtuous indignation, or do they suffer this dull anguish which gnaws my vitals as I talk to this helpless woman?""",1 "He walked by my lady's side, silently, for some minutes.",2 "They had been pacing up and down the dim avenue, and they were now drawing near the leafless shrubbery at one end of the lime-walk—the shrubbery in which the ruined well sheltered its unheeded decay among the tangled masses of briery underwood.",0 "A winding pathway, neglected and half-choked with weeds, led toward this well.",3 "Robert left the lime-walk, and struck into this pathway.",1 "There was more light in the shrubbery than in the avenue, and Mr. Audley wished to see my lady's face.",2 He did not speak until they reached the patch of rank grass beside the well.,3 "The massive brickwork had fallen away here and there, and loose fragments of masonry lay buried amidst weeds and briars.",1 "The heavy posts which had supported the wooden roller still remained, but the iron spindle had been dragged from its socket and lay a few paces from the well, rusty, discolored, and forgotten.",2 "Robert Audley leaned against one of the moss-grown posts and looked down at my lady's face, very pale in the chill winter twilight.",1 "The moon had newly risen, a feebly luminous crescent in the gray heavens, and a faint, ghostly light mingled with the misty shadows of the declining day.",1 My lady's face seemed like that face which Robert Audley had seen in his dreams looking out of the white foam-flakes on the green sea waves and luring his uncle to destruction.,2 """Those two labels are in my possession, Lady Audley,"" he resumed.",2 """I took them from the box left by you at Crescent Villas.",2 I took them in the presence of Mrs. Vincent and Miss Tonks.,1 Have you any proofs to offer against this evidence?,2 "You say to me, 'I am Lucy Graham and I have nothing whatever to do with Helen Talboys.'",2 In that case you will produce witnesses who will declare your antecedents.,2 Where had you been living prior to your appearance at Crescent Villas?,2 "You must have friends, relations, connections, who can come forward to prove as much as this for you?",2 "If you were the most desolate creature upon this earth, you would be able to point to someone who could identify you with the past.""",1 """Yes,"" cried my lady, ""if I were placed in a criminal dock I could, no doubt, bring forward witnesses to refute your absurd accusation.",0 "But I am not in a criminal dock, Mr. Audley, and I do not choose to do anything but laugh at your ridiculous folly.",1 I tell you that you are mad!,1 "If you please to say that Helen Talboys is not dead, and that I am Helen Talboys, you may do so.",1 "If you choose to go wandering about in the places in which I have lived, and to the places in which this Mrs. Talboys has lived, you must follow the bent of your own inclination, but I would warn you that such fancies have sometimes conducted people, as apparently sane as yourself, to the life-long imprisonment of a private lunatic-asylum.""",1 Robert Audley started and recoiled a few paces among the weeds and brushwood as my lady said this.,2 """She would be capable of any new crime to shield her from the consequences of the old one,"" he thought.",2 """She would be capable of using her influence with my uncle to place me in a mad-house.""",2 "I do not say that Robert Audley was a coward, but I will admit that a shiver of horror, something akin to fear, chilled him to the heart as he remembered the horrible things that have been done by women since that day upon which Eve was created to be Adam's companion and help-meet in the garden of Eden.",0 """What if this woman's hellish power of dissimulation should be stronger than the truth, and crush him?",2 She had not spared George Talboys when he stood in her way and menaced her with a certain peril; would she spare him who threatened her with a far greater danger?,1 "Are women merciful, or loving, or kind in proportion to their beauty and grace?",4 "Was there not a certain Monsieur Mazers de Latude, who had the bad fortune to offend the all-accomplished Madam de Pompadour, who expiated his youthful indiscretion by a life-long imprisonment; who twice escaped from prison, to be twice cast back into captivity; who, trusting in the tardy generosity of his beautiful foe, betrayed himself to an implacable fiend?",0 "Robert Audley looked at the pale face of the woman standing by his side; that fair and beautiful face, illumined by starry-blue eyes, that had a strange and surely a dangerous light in them; and remembering a hundred stories of womanly perfidy, shuddered as he thought how unequal the struggle might be between himself and his uncle's wife.",0 """I have shown her my cards,"" he thought, ""but she has kept hers hidden from me.",2 The mask that she wears is not to be plucked away.,2 "My uncle would rather think me mad than believe her guilty.""",1 "The pale face of Clara Talboys—that grave and earnest face, so different in its character to my lady's fragile beauty—arose before him.",2 """What a coward I am to think of myself or my own danger,"" he thought.",1 """The more I see of this woman the more reason I have to dread her influence upon others; the more reason to wish her far away from this house.""",1 He looked about him in the dusky obscurity.,1 "The lonely garden was as quiet as some solitary grave-yard, walled in and hidden away from the world of the living.",2 """It was somewhere in this garden that she met George Talboys upon the day of his disappearance,"" he thought.",2 """I wonder where it was they met; I wonder where it was that he looked into her cruel face and taxed her with her falsehood?""",1 "My lady, with her little hand resting lightly upon the opposite post to that against which Robert leaned, toyed with her pretty foot among the long weeds, but kept a furtive watch upon her enemy's face.",3 """It is to be a duel to the death, then, my lady,"" said Robert Audley, solemnly.",1 """You refuse to accept my warning.",1 "You refuse to run away and repent of your wickedness in some foreign place, far from the generous gentleman you have deceived and fooled by your false witcheries.",0 "You choose to remain here and defy me.""",1 """I do,"" answered Lady Audley, lifting her head and looking full at the young barrister.",2 """It is no fault of mine if my husband's nephew goes mad, and chooses me for the victim of his monomania.""",1 """So be it, then, my lady,"" answered Robert.",2 """My friend George Talboys was last seen entering these gardens by the little iron gate by which we came in to-night.",2 He was last heard inquiring for you.,2 "He was seen to enter these gardens, but he was never seen to leave them.",2 "I believe that he met his death within the boundary of these grounds; and that his body lies hidden below some quiet water, or in some forgotten corner of this place.",1 "I will have such a search made as shall level that house to the earth and root up every tree in these gardens, rather than I will fail in finding the grave of my murdered friend.""",1 "Lucy Audley uttered a long, low, wailing cry, and threw up her arms above her head with a wild gesture of despair, but she made no answer to the ghastly charge of her accuser.",0 "Her arms slowly dropped, and she stood staring at Robert Audley, her white face gleaming through the dusk, her blue eyes glittering and dilated.",1 """You shall never live to do this,"" she said.",2 """I will kill you first.",1 Why have you tormented me so?,1 Why could you not let me alone?,2 "What harm had I ever done you that you should make yourself my persecutor, and dog my steps, and watch my looks, and play the spy upon me?",1 Do you want to drive me mad?,1 Do you know what it is to wrestle with a mad-woman?,1 "No,"" cried my lady, with a laugh, ""you do not, or you would never—"" She stopped abruptly and drew herself suddenly to her fullest hight.",1 It was the same action which Robert had seen in the old half-drunken lieutenant; and it had that same dignity—the sublimity of extreme misery.,1 """Go away, Mr. Audley,"" she said.",2 """You are mad, I tell you, you are mad.""",1 """I am going, my lady,"" answered Robert, quietly.",2 """I would have condoned your crimes out of pity to your wretcheness.",1 You have refused to accept my mercy.,2 I wished to have pity upon the living.,1 "I shall henceforth only remember my duty to the dead.""",1 He walked away from the lonely well under the shadow of the limes.,2 "My lady followed him slowly down that long, gloomy avenue, and across the rustic bridge to the iron gate.",1 "As he passed through the gate, Alicia came out of a little half-glass door that opened from an oak-paneled breakfast-room at one angle of the house, and met her cousin upon the threshold of the gateway.",2 """I have been looking for you everywhere, Robert,"" she said.",2 """Papa has come down to the library, and will be glad to see you.""",3 The young man started at the sound of his cousin's fresh young voice.,3 """Good Heaven!""",3 "he thought, ""can these two women be of the same clay?",2 "Can this frank, generous-hearted girl, who cannot conceal any impulse of her innocent nature, be of the same flesh and blood as that wretched creature whose shadow falls upon the path beside me!""",1 "He looked from his cousin to Lady Audley, who stood near the gateway, waiting for him to stand aside and let her pass him.",2 """I don't know what has come to your cousin, my dear Alicia,"" said my lady.",2 """He is so absent-minded and eccentric as to be quite beyond my comprehension.""",1 """Indeed,"" exclaimed Miss Audley; ""and yet I should imagine, from the length of your tête-a-tête, that you had made some effort to understand him.""",1 """Oh, yes,"" said Robert, quietly, ""my lady and I understand each other very well; but as it is growing late I will wish you good-evening, ladies.",3 "I shall sleep to-night at Mount Stanning, as I have some business to attend to up there, and I will come down and see my uncle to-morrow.""",2 """What, Robert,"" cried Alicia, ""you surely won't go away without seeing papa?""",2 """Yes, my dear,"" answered the young man.",2 """I am a little disturbed by some disagreeable business in which I am very much concerned, and I would rather not see my uncle.",0 "Good-night, Alicia.",3 "I will come or write to-morrow.""",2 "He pressed his cousin's hand, bowed to Lady Audley, and walked away under the black shadows of the archway, and out into the quiet avenue beyond the Court.",3 My lady and Alicia stood watching him until he was out of sight.,2 """What in goodness' name is the matter with my Cousin Robert?""",2 "exclaimed Miss Audley, impatiently, as the barrister disappeared.",1 """What does he mean by these absurd goings-on?",1 "Some disagreeable business that disturbs him, indeed!",1 "I suppose the unhappy creature has had a brief forced upon him by some evil-starred attorney, and is sinking into a state of imbecility from a dim consciousness of his own incompetence.""",0 """Have you ever studied your cousin's character, Alicia?""",2 "asked my lady, very seriously, after a pause.",2 """Studied his character!",2 "No, Lady Audley.",2 "Why should I study his character?""",2 said Alicia.,2 """There is very little study required to convince anybody that he is a lazy, selfish Sybarite, who cares for nothing in the world except his own ease and comfort.""",2 """But have you never thought him eccentric?""",1 """Eccentric!""",1 "repeated Alicia, pursing up her red lips and shrugging up her shoulders.",2 """Well, yes—I believe that is the excuse generally made for such people.",2 "I suppose Bob is eccentric.""",1 """I have never heard you speak of his father and mother,"" said my lady, thoughtfully.",3 """Do you remember them?""",2 """I never saw his mother.",2 "She was a Miss Dalrymple, a very dashing girl, who ran away with my uncle, and lost a very handsome fortune in consequence.",3 "She died at Nice when poor Bob was five years old.""",1 """Did you ever hear anything particular about her?""",2 """How do you mean 'particular?'",2 """ asked Alicia.",2 """Did you ever hear that she was eccentric—what people call 'odd?'",1 """ ""Oh, no,"" said Alicia, laughing.",2 """My aunt was a very reasonable woman, I believe, though she did marry for love.",3 "But you must remember that she died before I was born, and I have not, therefore, felt very much curiosity about her.""",1 """But you recollect your uncle, I suppose.""",2 """My Uncle Robert?""",2 said Alicia.,2 """Oh, yes, I remember him very well, indeed.""",3 """Was he eccentric—I mean to say, peculiar in his habits, like your cousin?""",1 """Yes, I believe Robert inherits all his absurdities from his father.",2 "My uncle expressed the same indifference for his fellow-creatures as my cousin, but as he was a good husband, an affectionate father, and a kind master, nobody ever challenged his opinions.""",3 """But he was eccentric?""",1 """Yes; I suppose he was generally thought a little eccentric.""",1 """Ah,"" said my lady, gravely, ""I thought as much.",1 "Do you know, Alicia, that madness is more often transmitted from father to daughter, and from mother to daughter than from mother to son?",1 "Your cousin, Robert Audley, is a very handsome young man, and I believe, a very good-hearted young man, but he must be watched, Alicia, for he is mad!""",3 """Mad!""",1 "cried Miss Audley, indignantly; ""you are dreaming, my lady, or—or—you are trying to frighten me,"" added the young lady, with considerable alarm.",0 """I only wish to put you on your guard, Alicia,"" answered my lady.",2 """Mr. Audley may be as you say, merely eccentric; but he has talked to me this evening in a manner that has filled me with absolute terror, and I believe that he is going mad.",0 "I shall speak very seriously to Sir Michael this very night.""",2 """Speak to papa,"" exclaimed Alicia; ""you surely won't distress papa by suggesting such a possibility!""",1 """I shall only put him on his guard, my dear Alicia.""",2 """But he'll never believe you,"" said Miss Audley; ""he will laugh at such an idea.""",1 """No, Alicia; he will believe anything that I tell him,"" answered my lady, with a quiet smile.",3 "Lady Audley went from the garden to the library, a pleasant, oak-paneled, homely apartment in which Sir Michael liked to sit reading or writing, or arranging the business of his estate with his steward, a stalwart countryman, half agriculturalist, half lawyer, who rented a small farm a few miles from the Court.",3 The baronet was seated in a capacious easy-chair near the hearth.,3 "The bright blaze of the fire rose and fell, flashing now upon the polished carvings of the black-oak bookcase, now upon the gold and scarlet bindings of the books; sometimes glimmering upon the Athenian helmet of a marble Pallas, sometimes lighting up the forehead of Sir Robert Peel.",4 "The lamp upon the reading-table had not yet been lighted, and Sir Michael sat in the firelight waiting for the coming of his young wife.",2 "It is impossible for me ever to tell the purity of his generous love—it is impossible to describe that affection which was as tender as the love of a young mother for her first born, as brave and chivalrous as the heroic passion of a Bayard for his liege mistress.",4 "The door opened while he was thinking of this fondly-loved wife, and looking up, the baronet saw the slender form standing in the doorway.",3 """Why, my darling!""",3 "he exclaimed, as my lady closed the door behind her, and came toward his chair, ""I have been thinking of you and waiting for you for an hour.",2 "Where have you been, and what have you been doing?""",2 "My lady, standing in the shadow rather than the light, paused a few moments before replying to this question.",2 """I have been to Chelmsford,"" she said, ""shopping; and—"" She hesitated—twisting her bonnet strings in her thin white fingers with an air of pretty embarrassment.",2 """And what, my dear?""",2 "asked the baronet—""what have you been doing since you came from Chelmsford?",2 I heard a carriage stop at the door an hour ago.,2 "It was yours, was it not?""",2 """Yes, I came home an hour ago,"" answered my lady, with the same air of embarrassment.",1 """And what have you been doing since you came home?""",2 Sir Michael Audley asked this question with a slightly reproachful accent.,1 "His young wife's presence made the sunshine of his life; and though he could not bear to chain her to his side, it grieved him to think that she could willingly remain unnecessarily absent from him, frittering away her time in some childish talk or frivolous occupation.",2 """What have you been doing since you came home, my dear?""",2 he repeated.,2 """What has kept you so long away from me?""",2 """I have been—talking—to—Mr. Robert Audley.""",2 She still twisted her bonnet-string round and round her fingers.,1 She still spoke with the same air of embarrassment.,1 """Robert!""",2 "exclaimed the baronet; ""is Robert here?""",2 """He was here a little while ago.""",2 """And is here still, I suppose?""",2 """No, he has gone away.""",2 """Gone away!""",2 cried Sir Michael.,2 """What do you mean, my darling?""",3 """I mean that your nephew came to the Court this afternoon.",2 Alicia and I found him idling about the gardens.,2 "He stayed here till about a quarter of an hour ago talking to me, and then he hurried off without a word of explanation; except, indeed, some ridiculous excuse about business at Mount Stanning.""",1 """Business at Mount Stanning!",2 "Why, what business can he possibly have in that out-of-the-way place?",2 "He has gone to sleep at Mount Stanning, then, I suppose?",2 """Yes; I think he said something to that effect.""",2 """Upon my word,"" exclaimed the baronet, ""I think that boy is half mad.""",1 "My lady's face was so much in shadow, that Sir Michael Audley was unaware of the bright change that came over its sickly pallor as he made this very commonplace observation.",1 "A triumphant smile illuminated Lucy Audley's countenance, a smile that plainly said, ""It is coming—it is coming; I can twist him which way I like.",3 "I can put black before him, and if I say it is white, he will believe me.""",2 "But Sir Michael Audley in declaring that his nephew's wits were disordered, merely uttered that commonplace ejaculation which is well-known to have very little meaning.",1 "The baronet had, it is true, no very great estimate of Robert's faculty for the business of this everyday life.",3 "He was in the habit of looking upon his nephew as a good-natured nonentity—a man whose heart had been amply stocked by liberal Nature with all the best things the generous goddess had to bestow, but whose brain had been somewhat overlooked in the distribution of intellectual gifts.",4 "Sir Michael Audley made that mistake which is very commonly made by easy-going, well-to-do-observers, who have no occasion to look below the surface.",3 He mistook laziness for incapacity.,2 "He thought because his nephew was idle, he must necessarily be stupid.",1 "He concluded that if Robert did not distinguish himself, it was because he could not.",2 "He forgot the mute inglorious Miltons, who die voiceless and inarticulate for want of that dogged perseverance, that blind courage, which the poet must possess before he can find a publisher; he forgot the Cromwells, who see the noble vessels of the state floundering upon a sea of confusion, and going down in a tempest of noisy bewilderment, and who yet are powerless to get at the helm; forbidden even to send out a life-boat to the sinking ship.",0 Surely it is a mistake to judge of what a man can do by that which he has done.,1 "The world's Valhalla is a close borough, and perhaps the greatest men may be those who perish silently far away from the sacred portal.",2 Perhaps the purest and brightest spirits are those who shrink from the turmoil of the race-course—the tumult and confusion of the struggle.,1 "The game of life is something like the game of écarte, and it may be that the very best cards are sometimes left in the pack.",3 "My lady threw off her bonnet, and seated herself upon a velvet-covered footstool at Sir Michael's feet.",2 There was nothing studied or affected in this girlish action.,2 "It was so natural to Lucy Audley to be childish, that no one would have wished to see her otherwise.",1 "It would have seemed as foolish to expect dignified reserve or womanly gravity from this amber-haired siren, as to wish for rich basses amid the clear treble of a sky-lark's song.",3 "She sat with her pale face turned away from the firelight, and with her hands locked together upon the arm of her husband's easy-chair.",2 "They were very restless, these slender white hands.",1 My lady twisted the jeweled fingers in and out of each other as she talked to her husband.,1 """I wanted to come to you, you know, dear,"" said she—""I wanted to come to you directly I got home, but Mr. Audley insisted upon my stopping to talk to him.""",2 """But what about, my love?""",3 asked the baronet.,2 """What could Robert have to say to you?""",2 My lady did not answer this question.,2 "Her fair head dropped upon her husband's knee, her rippling, yellow curls fell over her face.",2 "Sir Michael lifted that beautiful head with his strong hands, and raised my lady's face.",3 "The firelight shining on that pale face lit up the large, soft blue eyes and showed them drowned in tears.",2 """Lucy, Lucy!""",2 "cried the baronet, ""what is the meaning of this?",2 "My love, my love!",3 "what has happened to distress you in this manner?""",1 "Lady Audley tried to speak, but the words died inarticulately upon her trembling lips.",1 "A choking sensation in her throat seemed to strangle those false and plausible words, her only armor against her enemies.",1 She could not speak.,2 "The agony she had endured silently in the dismal lime-walk had grown too strong for her, and she broke into a tempest of hysterical sobbing.",0 It was no simulated grief that shook her slender frame and tore at her like some ravenous beast that would have rent her piecemeal with its horrible strength.,1 "It was a storm of real anguish and terror, of remorse and misery.",0 "It was the one wild outcry, in which the woman's feebler nature got the better of the siren's art.",1 It was not thus that she had meant to fight her terrible duel with Robert Audley.,1 Those were not the weapons which she had intended to use; but perhaps no artifice which she could have devised would have served her so well as this one outburst of natural grief.,1 It shook her husband to the very soul.,2 It bewildered and terrified him.,1 It reduced the strong intellect of the man to helpless confusion and perplexity.,1 It struck at the one weak point in a good man's nature.,1 It appealed straight to Sir Michael Audley's affection for his wife.,3 "Ah, Heaven help a strong man's tender weakness for the woman he loves!",4 "Heaven pity him when the guilty creature has deceived him and comes with her tears and lamentations to throw herself at his feet in self-abandonment and remorse; torturing him with the sight of her agony; rending his heart with her sobs, lacerating his breast with her groans—multiplying her sufferings into a great anguish for him to bear!",0 multiplying them by twenty-fold; multiplying them in a ratio of a brave man's capacity for endurance.,3 "Heaven forgive him, if maddened by that cruel agony, the balance wavers for a moment, and he is ready to forgive anything; ready to take this wretched one to the shelter of his breast, and to pardon that which the stern voice of manly honor urges must not be pardoned.",2 "Pity him, pity him!",1 The wife's worst remorse when she stands without the threshold of the home she may never enter more is not equal to the agony of the husband who closes the portal on that familiar and entreating face.,0 "The anguish of the mother who may never look again upon her children is less than the torment of the father who has to say to those little ones, ""My darlings, you are henceforth motherless.""",1 "Sir Michael Audley rose from his chair, trembling with indignation, and ready to do immediate battle with the person who had caused his wife's grief.",1 """Lucy,"" he said, ""Lucy, I insist upon your telling me what and who has distressed you.",1 I insist upon it.,2 Whoever has annoyed you shall answer to me for your grief.,1 "Come, my love, tell me directly what it is.""",3 "He seated himself and bent over the drooping figure at his feet, calming his own agitation in his desire to soothe his wife's distress.",2 """Tell me what it is, my dear,"" he whispered, tenderly.",3 "The sharp paroxysm had passed away, and my lady looked up.",3 "A glittering light shone through the tears in her eyes, and the lines about her pretty rosy mouth, those hard and cruel lines which Robert Audley had observed in the pre-Raphaelite portrait, were plainly visible in the firelight.",2 """I am very silly,"" she said; ""but really he has made me quite hysterical.""",1 """Who—who has made you hysterical?""",1 """Your nephew—Mr. Robert Audley.""",2 """Robert,"" cried the baronet.",2 """Lucy, what do you mean?""",2 """I told you that Mr. Audley insisted upon my going into the lime-walk, dear,"" said my lady.",2 """He wanted to talk to me, he said, and I went, and he said such horrible things that—"" ""What horrible things, Lucy?""",1 "Lady Audley shuddered, and clung with convulsive fingers to the strong hand that had rested caressingly upon her shoulder.",3 """What did he say, Lucy?""",2 """Oh, my dear love, how can I tell you?""",3 cried my lady.,2 """I know that I shall distress you—or you will laugh at me, and then—"" ""Laugh at you?",1 "no, Lucy.""",2 Lady Audley was silent for a moment.,3 "She sat looking straight before her into the fire, with her fingers still locked about her husband's hand.",2 """My dear,"" she said, slowly, hesitating now and then between her words, as if she almost shrunk from uttering them, ""have you ever—I am so afraid of vexing you—have you ever thought Mr. Audley a little—a little—"" ""A little what, my darling?""",1 """A little out of his mind?""",2 faltered Lady Audley.,1 """Out of his mind!""",2 cried Sir Michael.,2 """My dear girl, what are you thinking of?""",2 """You said just now, dear, that you thought he was half mad.""",1 """Did I, my love?""",3 "said the baronet, laughing.",2 """I don't remember saying it, and it was a mere façon de parler, that meant nothing whatever.",2 "Robert may be a little eccentric—a little stupid, perhaps—he mayn't be overburdened with wits, but I don't think he has brains enough for madness.",1 "I believe it's generally your great intellects that get out of order.""",3 """But madness is sometimes hereditary,"" said my lady.",1 """Mr. Audley may have inherited—"" ""He has inherited no madness from his father's family,"" interrupted Sir Michael.",1 """The Audleys have never peopled private lunatic asylums or fed mad doctors.""",1 """Nor from his mother's family?""",2 """Not to my knowledge.""",2 """People generally keep these things a secret,"" said my lady, gravely.",1 """There may have been madness in your sister-in-law's family.""",1 """I don't think so, my dear,"" replied Sir Michael.",2 """But, Lucy, tell me what, in Heaven's name, has put this idea into your head.""",2 """I have been trying to account for your nephew's conduct.",2 I can account for it in no other manner.,2 "If you had heard the things he said to me to-night, Sir Michael, you too might have thought him mad.""",1 """But what did he say, Lucy?""",2 """I can scarcely tell you.",1 You can see how much he has stupefied and bewildered me.,1 I believe he has lived too long alone in those solitary Temple chambers.,2 "Perhaps he reads too much, or smokes too much.",2 "You know that some physicians declare madness to be a mere illness of the brain—an illness to which any one is subject, and which may be produced by given causes, and cured by given means.""",1 Lady Audley's eyes were still fixed upon the burning coals in the wide grate.,1 She spoke as if she had been discussing a subject that she had often heard discussed before.,2 She spoke as if her mind had almost wandered away from the thought of her husband's nephew to the wider question of madness in the abstract.,1 """Why should he not be mad?""",1 resumed my lady.,2 """People are insane for years and years before their insanity is found out.",1 "They know that they are mad, but they know how to keep their secret; and, perhaps, they may sometimes keep it till they die.",1 "Sometimes a paroxysm seizes them, and in an evil hour they betray themselves.",1 "They commit a crime, perhaps.",1 "The horrible temptation of opportunity assails them; the knife is in their hand, and the unconscious victim by their side.",0 "They may conquer the restless demon and go away and die innocent of any violent deed; but they may yield to the horrible temptation—the frightful, passionate, hungry craving for violence and horror.",0 "They sometimes yield and are lost.""",1 "Lady Audley's voice rose as she argued this dreadful question, The hysterical excitement from which she had only just recovered had left its effects upon her, but she controlled herself, and her tone grew calmer as she resumed: ""Robert Audley is mad,"" she said, decisively.",1 """What is one of the strangest diagnostics of madness—what is the first appalling sign of mental aberration?",0 The mind becomes stationary; the brain stagnates; the even current of reflection is interrupted; the thinking power of the brain resolves itself into a monotone.,2 "As the waters of a tideless pool putrefy by reason of their stagnation, the mind becomes turbid and corrupt through lack of action; and the perpetual reflection upon one subject resolves itself into monomania.",0 Robert Audley is a monomaniac.,2 "The disappearance of his friend, George Talboys, grieved and bewildered him.",1 He dwelt upon this one idea until he lost the power of thinking of anything else.,1 The one idea looked at perpetually became distorted to his mental vision.,1 "Repeat the commonest word in the English language twenty times, and before the twentieth repetition you will have begun to wonder whether the word which you repeat is really the word you mean to utter.",3 Robert Audley has thought of his friend's disappearance until the one idea has done its fatal and unhealthy work.,1 "He looks at a common event with a vision that is diseased, and he distorts it into a gloomy horror engendered of his own monomania.",1 "If you do not want to make me as mad as he is, you must never let me see him again.",1 "He declared to-night that George Talboys was murdered in this place, and that he will root up every tree in the garden, and pull down every brick in the house in search for—"" My lady paused.",2 The words died away upon her lips.,1 She had exhausted herself by the strange energy with which she had spoken.,1 "She had been transformed from a frivolous, childish beauty into a woman, strong to argue her own cause and plead her own defense.",3 """Pull down this house?""",2 cried the baronet.,2 """George Talboys murdered at Audley Court!",2 "Did Robert say this, Lucy?""",2 """He said something of that kind—something that frightened me very much.""",2 """Then he must be mad,"" said Sir Michael, gravely.",1 """I'm bewildered by what you tell me.",1 "Did he really say this, Lucy, or did you misunderstand him?""",1 """I—I—don't think I did,"" faltered my lady.",1 """You saw how frightened I was when I first came in.",2 "I should not have been so much agitated if he hadn't said something horrible.""",1 Lady Audley had availed herself of the very strongest arguments by which she could help her cause.,3 """To be sure, my darling, to be sure,"" answered the baronet.",3 """What could have put such a horrible fancy into the unhappy boy's head.",1 This Mr. Talboys—a perfect stranger to all of us—murdered at Audley Court!,2 "I'll go to Mount Stanning to-night, and see Robert.",2 "I have known him ever since he was a baby, and I cannot be deceived in him.",2 "If there is really anything wrong, he will not be able to conceal it from me.""",1 My lady shrugged her shoulders.,2 """That is rather an open question,"" she said.",2 """It is generally a stranger who is the first to observe any psychological peculiarity.""",1 "The big words sounded strange from my lady's rosy lips; but her newly-adopted wisdom had a certain quaint prettiness about it, which charmed and bewildered her husband.",3 """But you must not go to Mount Stanning, my dear darling,"" she said, tenderly.",3 """Remember that you are under strict orders to stay in doors until the weather is milder, and the sun shines upon this cruel ice-bound country.""",1 Sir Michael Audley sank back in his capacious chair with a sigh of resignation.,1 """That's true, Lucy,"" he said; ""we must obey Mr. Dawson.",2 "I suppose Robert will come to see me to-morrow.""",2 """Yes, dear.",2 "I think he said he would.""",2 """Then we must wait till to-morrow, my darling.",3 "I can't believe that there really is anything wrong with the poor boy—I can't believe it, Lucy.""",1 """Then how do you account for this extraordinary delusion about this Mr. Talboys?""",2 asked my lady.,2 Sir Michael shook his head.,2 """I don't know, Lucy—I don't know,"" he answered.",2 """It is always so difficult to believe that any one of the calamities that continually befall our fellow-men will ever happen to us.",1 I can't believe that my nephew's mind is impaired—I can't believe it.,1 "I—I'll get him to stop here, Lucy, and I'll watch him closely.",2 "I tell you, my love, if there is anything wrong I am sure to find it out.",2 I can't be mistaken in a young man who has always been the same to me as my own son.,1 "But, my darling, why were you so frightened by Robert's wild talk?",2 "It could not affect you.""",2 My lady sighed piteously.,2 """You must think me very strong-minded, Sir Michael,"" she said, with rather an injured air, ""if you imagine I can hear of these sort of things indifferently.",3 "I know I shall never be able to see Mr. Audley again.""",2 """And you shall not, my dear—you shall not.""",2 """You said just now you would have him here,"" murmured Lady Audley.",2 """But I will not, my darling girl, if his presence annoys you.",2 Good Heaven!,3 "Lucy, can you imagine for a moment that I have any higher wish than to promote your happiness?",3 "I will consult some London physician about Robert, and let him discover if there is really anything the matter with my poor brother's only son.",1 "You shall not be annoyed, Lucy.""",1 """You must think me very unkind, dear,"" said my lady, ""and I know I ought not to be annoyed by the poor fellow; but he really seems to have taken some absurd notion into his head about me.""",0 """About you, Lucy!""",2 cried Sir Michael.,2 """Yes, dear.",2 "He seems to connect me in some vague manner—which I cannot quite understand—with the disappearance of this Mr. Talboys.""",1 """Impossible, Lucy!",1 "You must have misunderstood him.""",1 """I don't think so.""",2 """Then he must be mad,"" said the baronet—""he must be mad.",1 "I will wait till he goes back to town, and then send some one to his chambers to talk to him.",2 Good Heaven!,3 "what a mysterious business this is.""",1 """I fear I have distressed you, darling,"" murmured Lady Audley.",1 """Yes, my dear, I am very much distressed by what you have told me; but you were quite right to talk to me frankly about this dreadful business.",1 "I must think it over, dearest, and try and decide what is best to be done.""",3 My lady rose from the low ottoman on which she had been seated.,2 "The fire had burned down, and there was only a faint glow of red light in the room.",1 "Lucy Audley bent over her husband's chair, and put her lips to his broad forehead.",1 """How good you have always been to me, dear,"" she whispered softly.",3 """You would never let any one influence you against me, would you, dear?""",2 """Influence me against you?""",2 repeated the baronet.,2 """No, my love.""",3 """Because you know, dear,"" pursued my lady, ""there are wicked people as well as mad people in the world, and there may be some persons to whose interest it would be to injure me.""",1 """They had better not try it, then, my dear,"" answered Sir Michael; ""they would find themselves in rather a dangerous position if they did.""",2 "Lady Audley laughed aloud, with a gay, triumphant, silvery peal of laughter that vibrated through the quiet room.",3 """My own dear darling,"" she said, ""I know you love me.",3 "And now I must run away, dear, for it's past seven o'clock.",2 "I was engaged to dine at Mrs. Montford's, but I must send a groom with a message of apology, for Mr. Audley has made me quite unfit for company.",1 "I shall stay at home and nurse you, dear.",2 "You'll go to bed very early, won't you, and take great care of yourself?""",3 """Yes, dear.""",2 My lady tripped out of the room to give her orders about the message that was to be carried to the house at which she was to have dined.,2 "She paused for a moment as she closed the library door—she paused, and laid her hand upon her breast to check the rapid throbbing of her heart.",2 """I have been afraid of you, Mr. Robert Audley,"" she thought; ""but perhaps the time may come in which you will have cause to be afraid of me.""",1 The division between Lady Audley and her step-daughter had not become any narrower in the two months which had elapsed since the pleasant Christmas holiday time had been kept at Audley Court.,2 "There was no open warfare between the two women; there was only an armed neutrality, broken every now and then by brief feminine skirmishes and transient wordy tempests.",1 I am sorry to say that Alicia would very much have preferred a hearty pitched battle to this silent and undemonstrative disunion; but it was not very easy to quarrel with my lady.,2 She had soft answers for the turning away of wrath.,2 "She could smile bewitchingly at her step-daughter's open petulance, and laugh merrily at the young lady's ill-temper.",3 "Perhaps had she been less amiable, had she been more like Alicia in disposition, the two ladies might have expended their enmity in one tremendous quarrel, and might ever afterward have been affectionate and friendly.",3 But Lucy Audley would not make war.,2 "She carried forward the sum of her dislike, and put it out at a steady rate of interest, until the breach between her step-daughter and herself, widening a little every day, became a great gulf, utterly impassable by olive-branch-bearing doves from either side of the abyss.",1 There can be no reconciliation where there is no open warfare.,3 "There must be a battle, a brave, boisterous battle, with pennants waving and cannon roaring, before there can be peaceful treaties and enthusiastic shaking of hands.",3 "Perhaps the union between France and England owes its greatest force to the recollection of Cressy and Waterloo, Navarino and Trafalgar.",3 "We have hated each other and licked each other and had it out, as the common phrase goes; and we can afford now to fall into each others' arms and vow eternal friendship and everlasting brotherhood.",2 "Let us hope that when Northern Yankeedom has decimated and been decimated, blustering Jonathan may fling himself upon his Southern brother's breast, forgiving and forgiven.",2 Alicia Audley and her father's pretty wife had plenty of room for the comfortable indulgence of their dislike in the spacious old mansion.,4 "My lady had her own apartments, as we know—luxurious chambers, in which all conceivable elegancies had been gathered for the comfort of their occupant.",3 Alicia had her own rooms in another part of the large house.,2 "She had her favorite mare, her Newfoundland dog, and her drawing materials, and she made herself tolerably happy.",3 "She was not very happy, this frank, generous-hearted girl, for it was scarcely possible that she could be altogether at ease in the constrained atmosphere of the Court.",3 "Her father was changed; that dear father over whom she had once reigned supreme with the boundless authority of a spoiled child, had accepted another ruler and submitted to a new dynasty.",3 "Little by little my lady's petty power made itself felt in that narrow household; and Alicia saw her father gradually lured across the gulf that divided Lady Audley from her step-daughter, until he stood at last quite upon the other side of the abyss, and looked coldly upon his only child across that widening chasm.",0 Alicia felt that he was lost to her.,1 "My lady's beaming smiles, my lady's winning words, my lady's radiant glances and bewitching graces had done their work of enchantment, and Sir Michael had grown to look upon his daughter as a somewhat wilful and capricious young person who had behaved with determined unkindness to the wife he loved.",4 "Poor Alicia saw all this, and bore her burden as well as she could.",1 "It seemed very hard to be a handsome, gray-eyed heiress, with dogs and horses and servants at her command, and yet to be so much alone in the world as to know of not one friendly ear into which she might pour her sorrows.",3 """If Bob was good for anything I could have told him how unhappy I am,"" thought Miss Audley; ""but I may just as well tell Caesar my troubles for any consolation I should get from Cousin Robert.""",1 "Sir Michael Audley obeyed his pretty nurse, and went to bed a little after nine o'clock upon this bleak March evening.",2 Perhaps the baronet's bedroom was about the pleasantést retreat that an invalid could have chosen in such cold and cheerless weather.,0 The dark-green velvet curtains were drawn before the windows and about the ponderous bed.,1 The wood fire burned redly upon the broad hearth.,1 "The reading lamp was lighted upon a delicious little table close to Sir Michael's pillow, and a heap of magazines and newspapers had been arranged by my lady's own fair hands for the pleasure of the invalid.",3 "Lady Audley sat by the bedside for about ten minutes, talking to her husband, talking very seriously, about this strange and awful question—Robert Audley's lunacy; but at the end of that time she rose and bade her husband good-night.",1 "She lowered the green silk shade before the reading lamp, adjusting it carefully for the repose of the baronet's eyes.",2 """I shall leave you, dear,"" she said.",2 """If you can sleep, so much the better.",3 "If you wish to read, the books and papers are close to you.",2 "I will leave the doors between the rooms open, and I shall hear your voice if you call me.""",2 "Lady Audley went through her dressing-room into the boudoir, where she had sat with her husband since dinner.",2 Every evidence of womanly refinement was visible in the elegant chamber.,3 "My lady's piano was open, covered with scattered sheets of music and exquisitely-bound collections of scenas and fantasias which no master need have disdained to study.",3 "My lady's easel stood near the window, bearing witness to my lady's artistic talent, in the shape of a water-colored sketch of the Court and gardens.",3 "My lady's fairy-like embroideries of lace and muslin, rainbow-hued silks, and delicately-tinted wools littered the luxurious apartment; while the looking-glasses, cunningly placed at angles and opposite corners by an artistic upholsterer, multiplied my lady's image, and in that image reflected the most beautiful object in the enchanted chamber.",4 "Amid all this lamplight, gilding, color, wealth, and beauty, Lucy Audley sat down on a low seat by the fire to think.",3 "If Mr. Holman Hunt could have peeped into the pretty boudoir, I think the picture would have been photographed upon his brain to be reproduced by-and-by upon a bishop's half-length for the glorification of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.",3 "My lady in that half-recumbent attitude, with her elbow resting on one knee, and her perfect chin supported by her hand, the rich folds of drapery falling away in long undulating lines from the exquisite outline of her figure, and the luminous, rose-colored firelight enveloping her in a soft haze, only broken by the golden glitter of her yellow hair—beautiful in herself, but made bewilderingly beautiful by the gorgeous surroundings which adorn the shrine of her loveliness.",4 "Drinking-cups of gold and ivory, chiseled by Benvenuto Cellini; cabinets of buhl and porcelain, bearing the cipher of Austrian Marie-Antoinette, amid devices of rosebuds and true-lovers' knots, birds and butterflies, cupidons and shepherdesses, goddesses, courtiers, cottagers, and milkmaids; statuettes of Parian marble and biscuit china; gilded baskets of hothouse flowers; fantastical caskets of Indian filigree-work; fragile tea-cups of turquoise china, adorned by medallion miniatures of Louis the Great and Louis the Well-beloved, Louise de la Valliere, Athenais de Montespan, and Marie Jeanne Gomard de Vaubernier: cabinet pictures and gilded mirrors, shimmering satin and diaphanous lace; all that gold can buy or art devise had been gathered together for the beautification of this quiet chamber in which my lady sat listening to the mourning of the shrill March wind, and the flapping of the ivy leaves against the casements, and looking into the red chasms in the burning coals.",4 "I should be preaching a very stale sermon, and harping upon a very familiar moral, if I were to seize this opportunity of declaiming against art and beauty, because my lady was more wretched in this elegant apartment than many a half-starved seamstress in her dreary garret.",1 "She was wretched by reason of a wound which lay too deep for the possibility of any solace from such plasters as wealth and luxury; but her wretchedness was of an abnormal nature, and I can see no occasion for seizing upon the fact of her misery as an argument in favor of poverty and discomfort as opposed to opulence.",0 "The Benvenuto Cellini carvings and the Sevres porcelain could not give her happiness, because she had passed out of their region.",3 "She was no longer innocent; and the pleasure we take in art and loveliness being an innocent pleasure, had passed beyond her reach.",3 "Six or seven years before, she would have been happy in the possession of this little Aladdin's palace; but she had wandered out of the circle of careless, pleasure seeking creatures, she had strayed far away into a desolate labyrinth of guilt and treachery, terror and crime, and all the treasures that had been collected for her could have given her no pleasure but one, the pleasure of flinging them into a heap beneath her feet and trampling upon them and destroying them in her cruel despair.",0 "There were some things that would have inspired her with an awful joy, a horrible rejoicing.",2 "If Robert Audley, her pitiless enemy, her unrelenting pursuer, had lain dead in the adjoining chamber, she would have exulted over his bier.",0 "What pleasures could have remained for Lucretia Borgia and Catharine de Medici, when the dreadful boundary line between innocence and guilt was passed, and the lost creatures stood upon the lonely outer side?",0 "Only horrible, vengeful joys, and treacherous delights were left for these miserable women.",0 "With what disdainful bitterness they must have watched the frivolous vanities, the petty deceptions, the paltry sins of ordinary offenders.",0 "Perhaps they took a horrible pride in the enormity of their wickedness; in this ""Divinity of Hell,"" which made them greatest among sinful creatures.",1 "My lady, brooding by the fire in her lonely chamber, with her large, clear blue eyes fixed upon the yawning gulfs of lurid crimson in the burning coals, may have thought of many things very far away from the terribly silent struggle in which she was engaged.",0 "She may have thought of long-ago years of childish innocence, childish follies and selfishness, of frivolous, feminine sins that had weighed very lightly upon her conscience.",1 "Perhaps in that retrospective revery she recalled that early time in which she had first looked in the glass and discovered that she was beautiful; that fatal early time in which she had first begun to look upon her loveliness as a right divine, a boundless possession which was to be a set-off against all girlish shortcomings, a counterbalance of every youthful sin.",4 "Did she remember the day in which that fairy dower of beauty had first taught her to be selfish and cruel, indifferent to the joys and sorrows of others, cold-hearted and capricious, greedy of admiration, exacting and tyrannical with that petty woman's tyranny which is the worst of despotism?",0 Did she trace every sin of her life back to its true source?,1 and did she discover that poisoned fountain in her own exaggerated estimate of the value of a pretty face?,3 "Surely, if her thoughts wandered so far along the backward current of her life, she must have repented in bitterness and despair of that first day in which the master-passions of her life had become her rulers, and the three demons of Vanity, Selfishness, and Ambition, had joined hands and said, ""This woman is our slave, let us see what she will become under our guidance.""",0 How small those first youthful errors seemed as my lady looked back upon them in that long revery by the lonely hearth!,1 "What small vanities, what petty cruelties!",1 A triumph over a schoolfellow; a flirtation with the lover of a friend; an assertion of the right divine invested in blue eyes and shimmering golden-tinted hair.,4 "But how terribly that narrow pathway had widened out into the broad highroad of sin, and how swift the footsteps had become upon the now familiar way!",1 "My lady twisted her fingers in her loose amber curls, and made as if she would have torn them from her head.",1 "But even in that moment of mute despair the unyielding dominion of beauty asserted itself, and she released the poor tangled glitter of ringlets, leaving them to make a halo round her head in the dim firelight.",0 """I was not wicked when I was young,"" she thought, as she stared gloomingly at the fire, ""I was only thoughtless.",1 "I never did any harm—at least, wilfully.",1 "Have I ever been really wicked, I wonder?""",2 she mused.,2 """My worst wickednesses have been the result of wild impulses, and not of deeply-laid plots.",1 "I am not like the women I have read of, who have lain night after night in the horrible darkness and stillness, planning out treacherous deeds, and arranging every circumstance of an appointed crime.",0 "I wonder whether they suffered—those women—whether they ever suffered as—"" Her thoughts wandered away into a weary maze of confusion.",1 "Suddenly she drew herself up with a proud, defiant gesture, and her eyes glittered with a light that was not entirely reflected from the fire.",2 """You are mad, Mr. Robert Audley,"" she said, ""you are mad, and your fancies are a madman's fancies.",1 I know what madness is.,1 "I know its signs and tokens, and I say that you are mad.""",1 "She put her hand to her head, as if thinking of something which confused and bewildered her, and which she found it difficult to contemplate with calmness.",1 """Dare I defy him?""",1 she muttered.,2 """Dare I?",2 dare I?,2 "Will he stop, now that he has once gone so far?",2 Will he stop for fear of me?,1 "Will he stop for fear of me, when the thought of what his uncle must suffer has not stopped him?",1 "Will anything stop him—but death?""",1 "She pronounced the last words in an awful whisper; and with her head bent forward, her eyes dilated, and her lips still parted as they had been parted in her utterance of that final word ""death,"" she sat blankly staring at the fire.",0 """I can't plot horrible things,"" she muttered, presently; ""my brain isn't strong enough, or I'm not wicked enough, or brave enough.",2 "If I met Robert Audley in those lonely gardens, as I—"" The current of her thoughts was interrupted by a cautious knocking at her door.",1 "She rose suddenly, startled by any sound in the stillness of her room.",2 "She rose, and threw herself into a low chair near the fire.",2 "She flung her beautiful head back upon the soft cushions, and took a book from the table near her.",3 "Insignificant as this action was, it spoke very plainly.",1 It spoke very plainly of ever-recurring fears—of fatal necessities for concealment—of a mind that in its silent agonies was ever alive to the importance of outward effect.,1 It told more plainly than anything else could have told how complete an actress my lady had been made by the awful necessity of her life.,1 The modest rap at the door was repeated.,3 """Come in,"" cried Lady Audley, in her liveliest tone.",2 "The door was opened with that respectful noiselessness peculiar to a well-bred servant, and a young woman, plainly dressed, and carrying some of the cold March winds in the folds of her garments, crossed the threshold of the apartment and lingered near the door, waiting permission to approach the inner regions of my lady's retreat.",1 "It was Phoebe Marks, the pale-faced wife of the Mount Stanning innkeeper.",1 """I beg pardon, my lady, for intruding without leave,"" she said; ""but I thought I might venture to come straight up without waiting for permission.""",2 """Yes, yes, Phoebe, to be sure.",2 "Take off your bonnet, you wretched, cold-looking creature, and come sit down here.""",1 Lady Audley pointed to the low ottoman upon which she had herself been seated a few minutes before.,2 "The lady's maid had often sat upon it listening to her mistress' prattle in the old days, when she had been my lady's chief companion and confidante.",1 """Sit down here, Phoebe,"" Lady Audley repeated; ""sit down here and talk to me; I'm very glad you came here to-night.",3 "I was horribly lonely in this dreary place.""",1 "My lady shivered and looked round at the bright collection of bric-a-brac, as if the Sevres and bronze, the buhl and ormolu, had been the moldering adornments of some ruined castle.",2 "The dreary wretchedness of her thoughts had communicated itself to every object about her, and all outer things took their color from that weary inner life which held its slow course of secret anguish in her breast.",0 She had spoken the entire truth in saying that she was glad of her lady's maid's visit.,3 Her frivolous nature clung to this weak shelter in the hour of her fear and suffering.,0 "There were sympathies between her and this girl, who was like herself, inwardly as well as outwardly—like herself, selfish, and cold, and cruel, eager for her own advancement, and greedy of opulence and elegance; angry with the lot that had been cast her, and weary of dull dependence.",0 "My lady hated Alicia for her frank, passionate, generous, daring nature; she hated her step-daughter, and clung to this pale-faced, pale-haired girl, whom she thought neither better nor worse than herself.",3 "Phoebe Marks obeyed her late mistress' commands, and took off her bonnet before seating herself on the ottoman at Lady Audley's feet.",2 Her smooth bands of light hair were unruffled by the March winds; her trimly-made drab dress and linen collar were as neatly arranged as they could have been had she only that moment completed her toilet.,3 """Sir Michael is better, I hope, my lady,"" she said.",3 """Yes, Phoebe, much better.",3 He is asleep.,2 "You may close that door,"" added Lady Audley, with a motion of her head toward the door of communication between the rooms, which had been left open.",2 "Mrs. Marks obeyed submissively, and then returned to her seat.",2 """I am very, very unhappy, Phoebe,"" my lady said, fretfully; ""wretchedly miserable.""",0 """About the—secret?""",2 "asked Mrs. Marks, in a half whisper.",2 My lady did not notice that question.,2 She resumed in the same complaining tone.,1 She was glad to be able to complain even to this lady's maid.,2 "She had brooded over her fears, and had suffered in secret so long, that it was an inexpressible relief to her to bemoan her fate aloud.",1 """I am cruelly persecuted and harassed, Phoebe Marks,"" she said.",1 """I am pursued and tormented by a man whom I never injured, whom I have never wished to injure.",1 "I am never suffered to rest by this relentless tormentor, and—"" She paused, staring at the fire again, as she had done in her loneliness.",0 "Lost again in the dark intricacies of thoughts which wandered hither and thither in a dreadful chaos of terrified bewilderments, she could not come to any fixed conclusion.",0 "Phoebe Marks watched my lady's face, looking upward at her late mistress with pale, anxious eyes, that only relaxed their watchfulness when Lady Audley's glance met that of her companion.",1 """I think I know whom you mean, my lady,"" said the innkeeper's wife, after a pause; ""I think I know who it is who is so cruel to you.""",1 """Oh, of course,"" answered my lady, bitterly; ""my secrets are everybody's secrets.",1 "You know all about it, no doubt.""",1 """The person is a gentleman—is he not, my lady?""",2 """Yes.""",2 """A gentleman who came to the Castle Inn two months ago, when I warned you—"" ""Yes, yes,"" answered my lady, impatiently.",1 """I thought so.",2 "The same gentleman is at our place to-night, my lady.""",2 "Lady Audley started up from her chair—started up as if she would have done something desperate in her despairing fury; but she sank back again with a weary, querulous sigh.",0 What warfare could such a feeble creature wage against her fate?,1 "What could she do but wind like a hunted hare till she found her way back to the starting-point of the cruel chase, to be there trampled down by her pursuers?",2 """At the Castle Inn?""",2 she cried.,2 """I might have known as much.",2 He has gone there to wring my secrets from your husband.,2 "Fool!""",1 "she exclaimed, suddenly turning upon Phoebe Marks in a transport of anger, ""do you want to destroy me that you have left those two men together?""",1 Mrs. Marks clasped her hands piteously.,2 """I didn't come away of my own free will, my lady,"" she said; ""no one could have been more unwilling to leave the house than I was this night.",2 "I was sent here.""",2 """Who sent you here?""",2 """Luke, my lady.",2 "You can't tell how hard he can be upon me if I go against him.""",1 """Why did he send you?""",2 "The innkeeper's wife dropped her eyelids under Lady Audley's angry glances, and hesitated confusedly before she answered this question.",1 """Indeed, my lady,"" she stammered, ""I didn't want to come.",2 "I told Luke that it was too bad for us to worry you, first asking this favor, and then asking that, and never leaving you alone for a month together; but—but—he bore me down with his loud, blustering talk, and he made me come.""",0 """Yes, yes,"" cried Lady Audley, impatiently.",1 """I know that.",2 "I want to know why you have come.""",2 """Why, you know, my lady,"" answered Phoebe, half reluctantly, ""Luke is very extravagant; and all I can say to him, I can't get him to be careful or steady.",1 "He's not sober; and when he's drinking with a lot of rough countrymen, and drinking, perhaps even more than they do, it isn't likely that his head can be very clear for accounts.",1 "If it hadn't been for me we should have been ruined before this; and hard as I've tried, I haven't been able to keep the ruin off.",0 "You remember giving me the money for the brewer's bill, my lady?""",2 """Yes, I remember very well,"" answered Lady Audley, with a bitter laugh, ""for I wanted that money to pay my own bills.""",2 """I know you did, my lady, and it was very, very hard for me to have to come and ask you for it, after all that we'd received from you before.",1 "But that isn't the worst: when Luke sent me down here to beg the favor of that help he never told me that the Christmas rent was still owing; but it was, my lady, and it's owing now, and—and there's a bailiff in the house to-night, and we're to be sold up to-morrow unless—"" ""Unless I pay your rent, I suppose,"" cried Lucy Audley.",1 """I might have guessed what was coming.""",2 """Indeed, indeed, my lady, I wouldn't have asked it,"" sobbed Phoebe Marks, ""but he made me come.""",2 """Yes,"" answered my lady, bitterly, ""he made you come; and he will make you come whenever he pleases, and whenever he wants money for the gratification of his low vices; and you and he are my pensioners as long as I live, or as long as I have any money to give; for I suppose when my purse is empty and my credit ruined, you and your husband will turn upon me and sell me to the highest bidder.",2 "Do you know, Phoebe Marks, that my jewel-case has been half emptied to meet your claims?",2 "Do you know that my pin-money, which I thought such a princely allowance when my marriage settlement was made, and when I was a poor governess at Mr. Dawson's, Heaven help me!",2 my pin-money has been overdrawn half a year to satisfy your demands?,3 What can I do to appease you?,2 "Shall I sell my Marie Antoinette cabinet, or my pompadour china, Leroy's and Benson's ormolu clocks, or my Gobelin tapestried chairs and ottomans?",2 "How shall I satisfy you next?""",3 """Oh, my lady, my lady,"" cried Phoebe, piteously, ""don't be so cruel to me; you know, you know that it isn't I who want to impose upon you.""",1 """I know nothing,"" exclaimed Lady Audley, ""except that I am the most miserable of women.",1 "Let me think,"" she cried, silencing Phoebe's consolatory murmurs with an imperious gesture.",1 """Hold your tongue, girl, and let me think of this business, if I can.""",2 "She put her hands to her forehead, clasping her slender fingers across her brow, as if she would have controlled the action of her brain by their convulsive pressure.",2 """Robert Audley is with your husband,"" she said, slowly, speaking to herself rather than to her companion.",1 """These two men are together, and there are bailiffs in the house, and your brutal husband is no doubt brutally drunk by this time, and brutally obstinate and ferocious in his drunkenness.",0 If I refuse to pay this money his ferocity will be multiplied by a hundredfold.,1 There's little use in discussing that matter.,2 "The money must be paid.""",2 """But if you do pay it,"" said Phoebe, earnestly, ""I hope you will impress upon Luke that it is the last money you will ever give him while he stops in that house.""",3 """Why?""",2 "asked Lady Audley, letting her hands fall on her lap, and looking inquiringly at Mrs. Marks.",1 """Because I want Luke to leave the Castle.""",2 """But why do you want him to leave?""",2 """Oh, for ever so many reasons, my lady,"" answered Phoebe.",2 """He's not fit to be the landlord of a public-house.",2 "I didn't know that when I married him, or I would have gone against the business, and tried to persuade him to take to the farming line.",2 "Not that I suppose he'd have given up his own fancy, either; for he's obstinate enough, as you know, my lady.",3 He's not fit for his present business.,2 "He's scarcely ever sober after dark; and when he's drunk he gets almost wild, and doesn't seem to know what he does.",0 "We've had two or three narrow escapes with him already.""",2 """Narrow escapes!""",2 repeated Lady Audley.,2 """What do you mean?""",2 """Why, we've run the risk of being burnt in our beds through his carelessness.""",1 """Burnt in your beds through his carelessness!",1 "Why, how was that?""",2 "asked my lady, rather listlessly.",2 "She was too selfish, and too deeply absorbed in her own troubles to take much interest in any danger which had befallen her some-time lady's-maid.",0 """You know what a queer old place the Castle is, my lady; all tumble-down wood-work, and rotten rafters, and such like.",1 "The Chelmsford Insurance Company won't insure it; for they say if the place did happen to catch fire of a windy night it would blaze away like so much tinder, and nothing in the world could save it.",3 "Well, Luke knows this; and the landlord has warned him of it times and often, for he lives close against us, and he keeps a pretty sharp eye upon all my husband's goings on; but when Luke's tipsy he doesn't know what he's about, and only a week ago he left a candle burning in one of the out-houses, and the flame caught one of the rafters of the sloping roof, and if it hadn't been for me finding it out when I went round the house the last thing, we should have all been burnt to death, perhaps.",2 "And that's the third time the same kind of thing has happened in the six months we've had the place, and you can't wonder that I'm frightened, can you, my lady?""",3 "My lady had not wondered, she had not thought about the business at all.",2 She had scarcely listened to these commonplace details; why should she care for this low-born waiting-woman's perils and troubles?,0 "Had she not her own terrors, her own soul-absorbing perplexities to usurp every thought of which her brain was capable?",2 "She did not make any remark upon that which poor Phoebe just told her; she scarcely comprehended what had been said, until some moments after the girl had finished speaking, when the words assumed their full meaning, as some words do after they have been heard without being heeded.",1 """Burnt in your beds,"" said the young lady, at last.",2 """It would have been a good thing for me if that precious creature, your husband, had been burnt in his bed before to-night.""",3 A vivid picture had flashed upon her as she spoke.,3 "The picture of that frail wooden tenement, the Castle Inn, reduced to a roofless chaos of lath and plaster, vomiting flames from its black mouth, and spitting blazing sparks upward toward the cold night sky.",0 She gave a weary sigh as she dismissed this image from her restless brain.,1 She would be no better off even if this enemy should be for ever silenced.,2 "She had another and far more dangerous foe—a foe who was not to be bribed or bought off, though she had been as rich as an empress.",1 """I'll give you the money to send this bailiff away,"" my lady said, after a pause.",2 """I must give you the last sovereign in my purse, but what of that?",2 "you know as well as I do that I dare not refuse you.""",2 Lady Audley rose and took the lighted lamp from her writing-table.,2 """The money is in my dressing-room,"" she said; ""I will go and fetch it.""",2 """Oh, my lady,"" exclaimed Phoebe, suddenly, ""I forgot something; I was in such a way about this business that I quite forgot it.""",2 """Quite forgot what?""",2 """A letter that was given me to bring to you, my lady, just before I left home.""",2 """What letter?""",2 """A letter from Mr. Audley.",2 "He heard my husband mention that I was coming down here, and he asked me to carry this letter.""",2 "Lady Audley set the lamp down upon the table nearest to her, and held out her hand to receive the letter.",2 Phoebe Marks could scarcely fail to observe that the little jeweled hand shook like a leaf.,1 """Give it me—give it me,"" she cried; ""let me see what more he has to say.""",2 Lady Audley almost snatched the letter from Phoebe's hand in her wild impatience.,1 She tore open the envelope and flung it from her; she could scarcely unfold the sheet of note-paper in her eager excitement.,3 The letter was very brief.,2 "It contained only these words: ""Should Mrs. George Talboys really have survived the date of her supposed death, as recorded in the public prints, and upon the tombstone in Ventnor churchyard, and should she exist in the person of the lady suspected and accused by the writer of this, there can be no great difficulty in finding some one able and willing to identify her.",2 "Mrs. Barkamb, the owner of North Cottages, Wildernsea, would no doubt consent to throw some light upon this matter; either to dispel a delusion or to confirm a suspicion.",0 """ROBERT AUDLEY. ""March 3, 1859.",2 """The Castle Inn, Mount Stanning.""",2 "My lady crushed the letter fiercely in her hand, and flung it from her into the flames.",1 """If he stood before me now, and I could kill him,"" she muttered in a strange, inward whisper, ""I would do it—I would do it!""",1 She snatched up the lamp and rushed into the adjoining room.,2 She shut the door behind her.,2 "She could not endure any witness of her horrible despair—she could endure nothing, neither herself nor her surroundings.",1 "The door between my lady's dressing-room and the bed-chamber in which Sir Michael lay, had been left open.",2 "The baronet slept peacefully, his noble face plainly visible in the subdued lamplight.",3 "His breathing was low and regular, his lips curved into a half smile—a smile of tender happiness which he often wore when he looked at his beautiful wife, the smile of an all-indulgent father, who looks admiringly at his favorite child.",4 "Some touch of womanly feeling, some sentiment of compassion softened Lady Audley's glance as it fell upon that noble, reposing figure.",3 For a moment the horrible egotism of her own misery yielded to her pitying tenderness for another.,0 "It was perhaps only a semi-selfish tenderness after all, in which pity for herself was as powerful as pity for her husband; but for once in a way, her thoughts ran out of the narrow groove of her own terrors and her own troubles to dwell with prophetic grief upon the coming sorrows of another.",0 """If they make him believe, how wretched he will be,"" she thought.",1 "But intermingled with that thought there was another—there was the thought of her lovely face, her bewitching manner, her arch smile, her low, musical laugh, which was like a peal of silvery bells ringing across a broad expanse of flat meadow-land and a rippling river in the misty summer evening.",4 "She thought of all these things with a transient thrill of triumph, which was stronger even than her terror.",3 "If Sir Michael Audley lived to be a hundred years old, whatever he might learn to believe of her, however he might grow to despise her, would he ever be able to disassociate her from these attributes?",1 No; a thousand times no.,2 "To the last hour of his life his memory would present her to him invested with the loveliness that had first won his enthusiastic admiration, his devoted affection.",4 Her worst enemies could not rob her of that fairy dower which had been so fatal in its influence upon her frivolous mind.,0 "She paced up and down the dressing-room in the silvery lamplight, pondering upon the strange letter which she had received from Robert Audley.",1 She walked backward and forward in that monotonous wandering for some time before she was able to steady her thoughts—before she was able to bring the scattered forces of her narrow intellect to bear upon the one all-important subject of the threat contained in the barrister's letter.,1 """He will do it,"" she said, between her set teeth—""he will do it, unless I get him into a lunatic-asylum first; or unless—"" She did not finish the thought in words.",1 She did not even think out the sentence; but some new and unnatural impulse in her heart seemed to beat each syllable against her breast.,1 "The thought was this: ""He will do it, unless some strange calamity befalls him, and silences him for ever.""",1 "The red blood flashed up into my lady's face with as sudden and transient a blaze as the flickering flame of a fire, and died as suddenly away, leaving her more pale than winter snow.",0 "Her hands, which had before been locked convulsively together, fell apart and dropped heavily at her sides.",1 "She stopped in her rapid pacing to and fro—stopped as Lot's wife may have stopped, after that fatal backward glance at the perishing city—with every pulse slackening, with every drop of blood congealing in her veins, in the terrible process that was to transform her from a woman into a statue.",1 "Lady Audley stood still for about five minutes in that strangely statuesque attitude, her head erect, her eyes staring straight before her—staring far beyond the narrow boundary of her chamber wall, into dark distances of peril and horror.",1 But by-and-by she started from that rigid attitude almost as abruptly as she had fallen into it.,0 She roused herself from that semi-lethargy.,1 "She walked rapidly to her dressing-table, and, seating herself before it, pushed away the litter of golden-stoppered bottles and delicate china essence-boxes, and looked at her reflection in the large, oval glass.",3 She was very pale; but there was no other trace of agitation visible in her girlish face.,1 "The lines of her exquisitely molded lips were so beautiful, that it was only a very close observer who could have perceived a certain rigidity that was unusual to them.",2 "She saw this herself, and tried to smile away that statue-like immobility: but to-night the rosy lips refused to obey her; they were firmly locked, and were no longer the slaves of her will and pleasure.",3 All the latent forces of her character concentrated themselves in this one feature.,2 "She might command her eyes, but she could not control the muscles of her mouth.",2 "She rose from before her dressing-table, and took a dark velvet cloak and bonnet from the recesses of her wardrobe, and dressed herself for walking.",1 The little ormolu clock on the chimney-piece struck the quarter after eleven while Lady Audley was employed in this manner; five minutes afterward she re-entered the room in which she had left Phoebe Marks.,1 The innkeeper's wife was sitting before the low fender very much in the same attitude as that in which her late mistress had brooded over that lonely hearth earlier in the evening.,1 "Phoebe had replenished the fire, and had reassumed her bonnet and shawl.",2 "She was anxious to get home to that brutal husband, who was only too apt to fall into some mischief in her absence.",0 "She looked up as Lady Audley entered the room, and uttered an exclamation of surprise at seeing her late mistress in a walking-costume.",1 """My lady,"" she cried, ""you are not going out to-night?""",2 """Yes, I am, Phoebe,"" Lady Audley answered, very quietly.",2 """I am going to Mount Stanning with you to see this bailiff, and to pay and dismiss him myself.""",2 """But, my lady, you forget what the time is; you can't go out at such an hour.""",2 Lady Audley did not answer.,2 "She stood with her finger resting lightly upon the handle of the bell, meditating quietly.",2 """The stables are always locked, and the men in bed by ten o'clock,"" she murmured, ""when we are at home.",2 "It will make a terrible hubbub to get a carriage ready; but yet I dare say one of the servants could manage the matter quietly for me.""",2 """But why should you go to-night, my lady?""",2 cried Phoebe Marks.,2 """To-morrow will do quite as well.",3 A week hence will do as well.,3 "Our landlord would take the man away if he had your promise to settle the debt.""",2 Lady Audley took no notice of this interruption.,1 "She went hastily into the dressing-room, and flung off her bonnet and cloak, and then returned to the boudoir, in her simple dinner-costume, with her curls brushed carelessly away from her face.",1 """Now, Phoebe Marks, listen to me,"" she said, grasping her confidante's wrist, and speaking in a low, earnest voice, but with a certain imperious air that challenged contradiction and commanded obedience.",1 """Listen to me, Phoebe,"" she repeated.",2 """I am going to the Castle Inn to-night; whether it is early or late is of very little consequence to me; I have set my mind upon going, and I shall go.",2 "You have asked me why, and I have told you.",2 I am going in order that I may pay this debt myself; and that I may see for myself that the money I give is applied to the purpose for which I give it.,1 There is nothing out of the common course of life in my doing this.,2 I am going to do what other women in my position very often do.,2 "I am going to assist a favorite servant.""",3 """But it's getting on for twelve o'clock, my lady,"" pleaded Phoebe.",2 Lady Audley frowned impatiently at this interruption.,1 """If my going to your house to pay this man should be known,"" she continued, still retaining her hold of Phoebe's wrist, ""I am ready to answer for my conduct; but I would rather that the business should be kept quiet.",3 "I think that I can leave this house without being seen by any living creature, if you will do as I tell you.""",2 """I will do anything you wish, my lady,"" answered Phoebe, submissively.",2 """Then you will wish me good-night presently, when my maid comes into the room, and you will suffer her to show you out of the house.",2 You will cross the courtyard and wait for me in the avenue upon the other side of the archway.,2 "It may be half an hour before I am able to join you, for I must not leave my room till the servants have all gone to bed, but you may wait for me patiently, for come what may I will join you.""",3 Lady Audley's face was no longer pale.,1 An unnatural luster gleamed in her great blue eyes.,3 She spoke with an unnatural rapidity.,1 She had altogether the appearance and manner of a person who has yielded to the dominant influence of some overpowering excitement.,3 Phoebe Marks stared at her late mistress in mute bewilderment.,1 She began to fear that my lady was going mad.,1 "The bell which Lady Audley rang was answered by the smart lady's-maid who wore rose-colored ribbons, and black silk gowns, and other adornments which were unknown to the humble people who sat below the salt in the good old days when servants wore linsey-woolsey.",3 """I did not know that it was so late, Martin,"" said my lady, in that gentle tone which always won for her the willing service of her inferiors.",4 """I have been talking with Mrs. Marks and have let the time slip by me.",2 "I sha'n't want anything to-night, so you may go to bed when you please.""",2 """Thank you, my lady,"" answered the girl, who looked very sleepy, and had some difficulty in repressing a yawn even in her mistress' presence, for the Audley household usually kept very early hours.",1 """I'd better show Mrs. Marks out, my lady, hadn't I?""",3 "asked the maid, ""before I go to bed?""",2 """Oh, yes, to be sure; you can let Phoebe out.",2 "All the other servants have gone to bed, then, I suppose?""",2 """Yes, my lady.""",2 Lady Audley laughed as she glanced at the timepiece.,2 """We have been terrible dissipated up here, Phoebe,"" she said.",1 """Good-night.",3 "You may tell your husband that his rent shall be paid.""",2 """Thank you very much, my lady, and good-night,"" murmured Phoebe as she backed out of the room, followed by the lady's maid.",3 "Lady Audley listened at the door, waiting till the muffled sounds of their footsteps died away in the octagon chamber and on the carpeted staircase.",1 """Martin sleeps at the top of the house,"" she said, ""half a mile away from this room.",3 "In ten minutes I may safely make my escape.""",3 "She went back into her dressing-room, and put on her cloak and bonnet for the second time.",2 The unnatural color still burnt like a flame in her cheeks; the unnatural light still glittered in her eyes.,2 The excitement which she was under held her in so strong a spell that neither her mind nor her body seemed to have any consciousness of fatigue.,3 "However verbose I may be in my description of her feelings, I can never describe a tithe of her thoughts or her sufferings.",2 "She suffered agonies that would fill closely printed volumes, bulky with a thousand pages, in that one horrible night.",0 "She underwent volumes of anguish, and doubt, and perplexity; sometimes repeating the same chapters of her torments over and over again; sometimes hurrying through a thousand pages of her misery without one pause, without one moment of breathing time.",0 "She stood by the low fender in her boudoir, watching the minute-hand of the clock, and waiting till it should be time for her to leave the house in safety.",2 """I will wait ten minutes,"" she said, ""not a moment beyond, before I enter on my new peril.""",1 "She listened to the wild roaring of the March wind, which seemed to have risen with the stillness and darkness of the night.",1 The hand slowly made its inevitable way to the figures which told that the ten minutes were past.,1 "It was exactly a quarter to twelve when my lady took her lamp in her hand, and stole softly from the room.",1 "Her footfall was as light as that of some graceful wild animal, and there was no fear of that airy step awakening any echo upon the carpeted stone corridors and staircase.",1 She did not pause until she reached the vestibule upon the ground floor.,2 "Several doors opened out of the vestibule, which was octagon, like my lady's ante-chamber.",3 "One of these doors led into the library, and it was this door which Lady Audley opened softly and cautiously.",3 "To have attempted to leave the house secretly by any of the principal outlets would have been simple madness, for the housekeeper herself superintended the barricading of the great doors, back and front.",2 "The secrets of the bolts, and bars, and chains, and bells which secured these doors, and provided for the safety of Sir Michael Audley's plate-room, the door of which was lined with sheet-iron, were known only to the servants who had to deal with them.",2 "But although all these precautions were taken with the principal entrances to the citadel, a wooden shutter and a slender iron bar, light enough to be lifted by a child, were considered sufficient safeguard for the half-glass door which opened out of the breakfast-room into the graveled pathway and smooth turf in the courtyard.",4 It was by this outlet that Lady Audley meant to make her escape.,2 "She could easily remove the bar and unfasten the shutter, and she might safely venture to leave the window ajar while she was absent.",3 "There was little fear of Sir Michael's awaking for some time, as he was a heavy sleeper in the early part of the night, and had slept more heavily than usual since his illness.",1 "Lady Audley crossed the library, and opened the door of the breakfast-room, which communicated with it.",2 This latter apartment was one of the later additions to the Court.,2 "It was a simple, cheerful chamber, with brightly papered walls and pretty maple furniture, and was more occupied by Alicia than any one else.",3 "The paraphernalia of that young lady's favorite pursuits were scattered about the room—drawing-materials, unfinished scraps of work, tangled skeins of silk, and all the other tokens of a careless damsel's presence; while Miss Audley's picture—a pretty crayon sketch of a rosy-faced hoyden in a riding-habit and hat—hung over the quaint Wedgewood ornaments on the chimneypiece.",2 My lady looked upon these familiar objects with scornful hatred flaming in her blue eyes.,1 """How glad she will be if any disgrace befalls me,"" she thought; ""how she will rejoice if I am driven out of this house!""",3 "Lady Audley set the lamp upon a table near the fireplace, and went to the window.",2 "She removed the iron-bar and the light wooden shutter, and then opened the glass-door.",2 "The March night was black and moonless, and a gust of wind blew in upon her as she opened this door, and filled the room with its chilly breath, extinguishing the lamp upon the table.",1 """No matter,"" my lady muttered, ""I could not have left it burning.",1 I shall know how to find my way through the house when I come back.,2 "I have left all the doors ajar.""",2 "She stepped quickly out upon the smooth gravel, and closed the glass-door behind her.",3 "She was afraid lest that treacherous wind should blow-to the door opening into the library, and thus betray her.",0 "She was in the quadrangle now, with that chill wind sweeping against her, and swirling her silken garments round her with a shrill, rustling noise, like the whistling of a sharp breeze against the sails of a yacht.",3 "She crossed the quadrangle and looked back—looked back for a moment at the firelight gleaming between the rosy-tinted curtains in her boudoir, and the dim gleam of the lamp through the mullioned windows in the room where Sir Michael Audley lay asleep.",2 """I feel as if I were running away,"" she thought; ""I feel as if I were running away secretly in the dead of the night, to lose myself and be forgotten.",1 "Perhaps it would be wiser in me to run away, to take this man's warning, and escape out of his power forever.",1 If I were to run away and disappear as—as George Talboys disappeared.,2 But where could I go?,2 what would become of me?,2 "I have no money; my jewels are not worth a couple of hundred pounds, now that I have got rid of the best part of them.",3 What could I do?,2 "I must go back to the old life, the old, hard, cruel, wretched life—the life of poverty, and humiliation, and vexation, and discontent.",0 "I should have to go back and wear myself out in that long struggle, and die—as my mother died, perhaps!""",0 "My lady stood still for a moment on the smooth lawn between the quadrangle and the archway, with her head drooping upon her breast and her hands locked together, debating this question in the unnatural activity of her mind.",2 Her attitude reflected the state of that mind—it expressed irresolution and perplexity.,1 But presently a sudden change came over her; she lifted her head—lifted it with an action of defiance and determination.,1 """No!",2 "Mr. Robert Audley,"" she said, aloud, in a low, clear voice; ""I will not go back—I will not go back.",3 "If the struggle between us is to be a duel to the death, you shall not find me drop my weapon.""",1 She walked with a firm and rapid step under the archway.,3 "As she passed under that massive arch, it seemed as if she disappeared into some black gulf that had waited open to receive her.",2 "The stupid clock struck twelve, and the whole archway seemed to vibrate under its heavy strokes, as Lady Audley emerged upon the other side and joined Phoebe Marks, who had waited for her late mistress very near the gateway of the Court.",0 """Now, Phoebe,"" she said, ""it is three miles from here to Mount Stanning, isn't it?""",2 """Yes, my lady.""",2 """Then we can walk the distance in an hour and a half.""",2 Lady Audley had not stopped to say this; she was walking quickly along the avenue with her humble companion by her side.,3 "Fragile and delicate as she was in appearance, she was a very good walker.",3 "She had been in the habit of taking long country rambles with Mr. Dawson's children in her old days of dependence, and she thought very little of a distance of three miles.",2 """Your beautiful husband will sit up for you, I suppose, Phoebe?""",3 "she said, as they struck across an open field that was used as a short cut from Audley Court to the high-road.",1 """Oh, yes, my lady; he's sure to sit up.",2 "He'll be drinking with the man, I dare say.""",2 """The man!",2 "What man?""",2 """The man that's in possession, my lady.""",2 """Ah, to be sure,"" said Lady Audley, indifferently.",2 It was strange that Phoebe's domestic troubles should seem so very far away from her thoughts at the time she was taking such an extraordinary step toward setting things right at the Castle Inn.,2 The two women crossed the field and turned into the high road.,2 "The way to Mount Stanning was all up hill, and the long road looked black and dreary in the dark night; but my lady walked on with a desperate courage, which was no common constituent in her selfish sensuous nature, but a strange faculty born out of her great despair.",0 She did not speak again to her companion until they were close upon the glimmering lights at the top of the hill.,3 "One of these village lights, glaring redly through a crimson curtain, marked out the particular window behind which it was likely that Luke Marks sat nodding drowsily over his liquor, and waiting for the coming of his wife.",2 """He has not gone to bed, Phoebe,"" said my lady, eagerly.",3 """But there is no other light burning at the inn.",1 "I suppose Mr. Audley is in bed and asleep.""",2 """Yes, my lady, I suppose so.""",2 """You are sure he was going to stay at the Castle to night?""",2 """Oh, yes, my lady.",2 "I helped the girl to get his room ready before I came away.""",3 "The wind, boisterous everywhere, was even shriller and more pitiless in the neighborhood of that bleak hill-top upon which the Castle Inn reared its rickety walls.",1 The cruel blasts raved wildly round that frail erection.,0 "They disported themselves with the shattered pigeon-house, the broken weathercock, the loose tiles, and unshapely chimneys; they rattled at the window-panes, and whistled in the crevices; they mocked the feeble building from foundation to roof, and battered, and banged, and tormented it in their fierce gambols, until it trembled and rocked with the force of their rough play.",0 Mr. Luke Marks had not troubled himself to secure the door of his dwelling-house before sitting down to booze with the man who held provisional possession of his goods and chattels.,2 "The landlord of the Castle Inn was a lazy, sensual brute, who had no thought higher than a selfish concern for his own enjoyments, and a virulent hatred for anybody who stood in the way of his gratification.",0 "Phoebe pushed open the door with her hand, and went into the house, followed by my lady.",2 "The gas was flaring in the bar, and smoking the low plastered ceiling.",2 "The door of the bar-parlor was half open, and Lady Audley heard the brutal laughter of Mr. Marks as she crossed the threshold of the inn.",1 """I'll tell him you're here, my lady,"" whispered Phoebe to her late mistress.",1 """I know he'll be tipsy.",2 "You—you won't be offended, my lady, if he should say anything rude?",1 "You know it wasn't my wish that you should come.""",2 """Yes, yes,"" answered Lady Audley, impatiently, ""I know that.",1 What should I care for his rudeness!,2 "Let him say what he likes.""",3 "Phoebe Marks pushed open the parlor door, leaving my lady in the bar close behind her.",2 Luke sat with his clumsy legs stretched out upon the hearth.,1 He held a glass of gin-and-water in one hand and the poker in the other.,2 "He had just thrust the poker into a heap of black coals, and was scattering them to make a blaze, when his wife appeared upon the threshold of the room.",2 "He snatched the poker from between the bars, and made a half drunken, half threatening motion with it as he saw her.",1 """So you've condescended to come home at last, ma'am,"" he said; ""I thought you was never coming no more.""",2 "He spoke in a thick and drunken voice, and was by no means too intelligible.",2 He was steeped to the very lips in alcohol.,2 His eyes were dim and watery; his hands were unsteady; his voice was choked and muffled with drink.,1 "A brute, even when most sober; a brute, even on his best behavior, he was ten times more brutal in his drunkenness, when the few restraints which held his ignorant, every day brutality in check were flung aside in the indolent recklessness of intoxication.",0 """I—I've been longer than I intended to be, Luke,"" Phoebe answered, in her most conciliatory manner; ""but I've seen my lady, and she's been very kind, and—and she'll settle this business for us.""",3 """She's been very kind, has she?""",2 "muttered Mr. Marks, with a drunken laugh; ""thank her for nothing.",2 I know the vally of her kindness.,3 "She'd be oncommon kind, I dessay, if she warn't obligated to be it.""",2 "The man in possession, who had fallen into a maudlin and semi-unconscious state of intoxication upon about a third of the liquor that Mr. Marks had consumed, only stared in feeble wonderment at his host and hostess.",1 He sat near the table.,2 "Indeed, he had hooked himself on to it with his elbows, as a safeguard against sliding under it, and he was making imbecile attempts to light his pipe at the flame of a guttering tallow candle near him.",1 """My lady has promised to settle the business for us, Luke,"" Phoebe repeated, without noticing Luke's remarks.",3 She knew her husband's dogged nature well enough by this time to know that it was worse than useless to try to stop him from doing or saying anything which his own stubborn will led him to do or say.,1 """My lady will settle it,"" she said, ""and she's come down here to see about it to-night,"" she added.",2 "The poker dropped from the landlord's hand, and fell clattering among the cinders on the hearth.",1 """My Lady Audley come here to-night!""",2 he said.,2 """Yes, Luke.""",2 My lady appeared upon the threshold of the door as Phoebe spoke.,2 """Yes, Luke Marks,"" she said, ""I have come to pay this man, and to send him about his business.""",2 "Lady Audley said these words in a strange, semi-mechanical manner; very much as if she had learned the sentence by rote, and were repeating it without knowing what she said.",1 "Mr. Marks gave a discontented growl, and set his empty glass down upon the table with an impatient gesture.",0 """You might have given the money to Phoebe,"" he said, ""as well as have brought it yourself.",3 "We don't want no fine ladies up here, pryin' and pokin' their precious noses into everythink.""",3 """Luke, Luke!""",2 "remonstrated Phoebe, ""when my lady has been so kind!""",2 """Oh, damn her kindness!""",2 "cried Mr. Marks; ""it ain't her kindness as we want, gal, it's her money.",3 She won't get no snivelin' gratitood from me.,2 "Whatever she does for us she does because she is obliged; and if she wasn't obliged she wouldn't do it—"" Heaven knows how much more Luke Marks might have said, had not my lady turned upon him suddenly and awed him into silence by the unearthly glitter of her beauty.",4 "Her hair had been blown away from her face, and being of a light, feathery quality, had spread itself into a tangled mass that surrounded her forehead like a yellow flame.",2 "There was another flame in her eyes—a greenish light, such as might flash from the changing-hued orbs of an angry mermaid.",1 """Stop,"" she cried.",2 """I didn't come up here in the dead of night to listen to your insolence.",1 "How much is this debt?""",1 """Nine pound.""",2 "Lady Audley produced her purse—a toy of ivory, silver, and turquoise—she took from it a note and four sovereigns.",2 She laid these upon the table.,2 """Let that man give me a receipt for the money,"" she said, ""before I go.""",2 "It was some time before the man could be roused into sufficient consciousness for the performance of this simple duty, and it was only by dipping a pen into the ink and pushing it between his clumsy fingers, that he was at last made to comprehend that his autograph was wanted at the bottom of the receipt which had been made out by Phoebe Marks.",2 "Lady Audley took the document as soon as the ink was dry, and turned to leave the parlor.",2 Phoebe followed her.,2 """You mustn't go home alone, my lady,"" she said.",2 """You'll let me go with you?""",2 """Yes, yes; you shall go home with me.""",2 The two women were standing near the door of the inn as my lady said this.,2 Phoebe stared wonderingly at her patroness.,2 "She had expected that Lady Audley would be in a hurry to return home after settling this business which she had capriciously taken upon herself; but it was not so; my lady stood leaning against the inn door and staring into vacancy, and again Mrs. Marks began to fear that trouble had driven her late mistress mad.",0 "A little Dutch clock in the bar struck two while Lady Audley lingered in this irresolute, absent manner.",1 She started at the sound and began to tremble violently.,1 """I think I am going to faint, Phoebe,"" she said; ""where can I get some cold water?""",1 """The pump is in the wash-house, my lady; I'll run and get you a glass of cold water.""",1 """No, no, no,"" cried my lady, clutching Phoebe's arm as she was about to run away upon this errand; ""I'll get it myself.",2 I must dip my head in a basin of water if I want to save myself from fainting.,2 "In which room does Mr. Audley sleep?""",2 There was something so irrelevant in this question that Phoebe Marks stared aghast at her mistress before she answered it.,0 """It was number three that I got ready, my lady—the front room—the room next to ours,"" she replied, after that pause of astonishment.",3 """Give me a candle,"" said my lady.",2 """I'll go into your room, and get some water for my head; stay where you are, and see that that brute of a husband of yours does not follow me!""",1 "She snatched the candle which Phoebe had lighted from the girl's hand and ran up the rickety, winding staircase which led to the narrow corridor upon the upper floor.",3 "Five bed-rooms opened out of this low-ceilinged, close-smelling corridor; the numbers of these rooms were indicated by squat black figures painted upon the panels of the doors.",1 "Lady Audley had driven up to Mount Stanning to inspect the house when she bought the business for her servant's bridegroom, and she knew her way about the dilapidated old place; she knew where to find Phoebe's bedroom, but she stopped before the door of that other chamber which had been prepared for Mr. Robert Audley.",1 She stopped and looked at the number on the door.,2 "The key was in the lock, and her hand dropped upon it as if unconsciously.",2 "But presently she suddenly began to tremble again, as she had trembled a few minutes before at the striking of the clock.",3 "She stood for a few moments trembling thus, with her hand still upon the key; then a horrible expression came over her face, and she turned the key in the lock.",1 "She turned it twice, double locking the door.",2 There was no sound from within; the occupant of the chamber made no sign of having heard that ominous creaking of the rusty key in the rusty lock.,0 Lady Audley hurried into the next room.,2 "She set the candle on the dressing-table, flung off her bonnet and slung it loosely across her arm; then she went to the wash-stand and filled the basin with water.",2 "She plunged her golden hair into this water, and then stood for a few moments in the center of the room looking about her, with a white, earnest face, and an eager gaze that seemed to take in every object in the poorly furnished chamber.",3 Phoebe's bedroom was certainly very shabbily furnished; she had been compelled to select all the most decent things for those best bedrooms which were set apart for any chance traveler who might stop for a night's lodging at the Castle Inn; but Phoebe Marks had done her best to atone for the lack of substantial furniture in her apartment by a superabundance of drapery.,3 "Crisp curtains of cheap chintz hung from the tent-bedstead; festooned drapery of the same material shrouded the narrow window shutting out the light of day, and affording a pleasant harbor for tribes of flies and predatory bands of spiders.",1 "Even the looking-glass, a miserably cheap construction which distorted every face whose owner had the hardihood to look into it, stood upon a draperied altar of starched muslin and pink glazed calico, and was adorned with frills of lace and knitted work.",1 My lady smiled as she looked at the festoons and furbelows which met her eyes upon every side.,2 "She had reason, perhaps, to smile, remembering the costly elegance of her own apartments; but there was something in that sardonic smile that seemed to have a deeper meaning than any natural contempt for Phoebe's attempts at decoration.",1 "She went to the dressing-table and, smoothed her wet hair before the looking-glass, and then put on her bonnet.",2 She was obliged to place the flaming tallow candle very close to the lace furbelows about the glass; so close that the starched muslin seemed to draw the flame toward it by some power of attraction in its fragile tissue.,2 "Phoebe waited anxiously by the inn door for my lady's coming She watched the minute hand of the little Dutch clock, wondering at the slowness of its progress.",2 "It was only ten minutes past two when Lady Audley came down-stairs, with her bonnet on and her hair still wet, but without the candle.",2 Phoebe was immediately anxious about this missing candle.,1 """The light, my lady,"" she said, ""you have left it up-stairs!""",2 """The wind blew it out as I was leaving your room,"" Lady Audley answered, quietly.",2 """I left it there.""",2 """In my room, my lady?""",2 """Yes.""",2 """And it was quite out?""",2 """Yes, I tell you; why do you worry me about your candle?",1 It is past two o'clock.,2 "Come.""",2 "She took the girl's arm, and half led, half dragged her from the house.",2 The convulsive pressure of her slight hand held her firmly as an iron vise could have held her.,2 "The fierce March wind banged to the door of the house, and left the two women standing outside it.",1 "The long, black road lay bleak and desolate before them, dimly visible between straight lines of leafless hedges.",1 "A walk of three miles' length upon a lonely country road, between the hours of two and four on a cold winter's morning, is scarcely a pleasant task for a delicate woman—a woman whose inclinations lean toward ease and luxury.",3 "But my lady hurried along the hard, dry highway, dragging her companion with her as if she had been impelled by some horrible demoniac force which knew no abatement.",0 "With the black night above them—with the fierce wind howling around them, sweeping across a broad expanse of hidden country, blowing as if it had arisen simultaneously from every point of the compass, and making those wanderers the focus of its ferocity—the two women walked through the darkness down the hill upon which Mount Stanning stood, along a mile and a half of flat road, and then up another hill, on the western side of which Audley Court lay in that sheltered valley, which seemed to shut in the old house from all the clamor and hubbub of the everyday world.",0 "My lady stopped upon the summit of this hill to draw breath and to clasp her hands upon her heart, in the vain hope that she might still its cruel beating.",1 "They were now within three-quarters of a mile of the Court, and they had been walking for nearly an hour since they had left the Castle Inn.",2 "Lady Audley stopped to rest, with her face still turned toward the place of her destination.",2 "Phoebe Marks, stopping also, and very glad of a moment's pause in that hurried journey, looked back into the far darkness beneath which lay that dreary shelter that had given her so much uneasiness.",1 "And she did so, she uttered a shrill cry of horror, and clutched wildly at her companion's cloak.",0 The night sky was no longer all dark.,1 The thick blackness was broken by one patch of lurid light.,1 """My lady, my lady!""",2 "cried Phoebe, pointing to this lurid patch; ""do you see?""",1 """Yes, child, I see,"" answered Lady Audley, trying to shake the clinging hands from her garments.",1 """What's the matter?""",2 """It's a fire—a fire, my lady!""",2 """Yes, I am afraid it is a fire.",1 "At Brentwood, most likely.",2 "Let me go, Phoebe; it's nothing to us.""",2 """Yes, yes, my lady; it's nearer than Brentwood—much nearer; it's at Mount Stanning.""",2 Lady Audley did not answer.,2 "She was trembling again, with the cold perhaps, for the wind had torn her heavy cloak from her shoulders, and had left her slender figure exposed to the blast.",1 """It's at Mount Stanning, my lady!""",2 cried Phoebe Marks.,2 """It's the Castle that's on fire—I know it is, I know it is!",2 "I thought of fire to-night, and I was fidgety and uneasy, for I knew this would happen some day.",1 "I wouldn't mind if it was only the wretched place, but there'll be life lost, there'll be life lost!""",1 "sobbed the girl, distractedly.",2 """There's Luke, too tipsy to help himself, unless others help him; there's Mr. Audley asleep—"" Phoebe Marks stopped suddenly at the mention of Robert's name, and fell upon her knees, clasping her uplifted hands, and appealing wildly to Lady Audley.",1 """Oh, my God!""",2 she cried.,2 """Say it's not true, my lady, say it's not true!",2 "It's too horrible, it's too horrible, it's too horrible!""",1 """What's too horrible?""",1 """The thought that's in my mind; the terrible thought that's in my mind.""",1 """What do you mean, girl?""",2 "cried my lady, fiercely.",2 """Oh, God forgive me if I'm wrong!""",1 "the kneeling woman gasped in detached sentences, ""and God grant I may be.",2 "Why did you go up to the Castle, my lady?",2 "Why were you so set on going against all I could say—you who are so bitter against Mr. Audley and against Luke, and who knew they were both under that roof?",1 "Oh, tell me that I do you a cruel wrong, my lady; tell me so—tell me!",1 for as there is a Heaven above me I think that you went to that place to-night on purpose to set fire to it.,3 "Tell me that I'm wrong, my lady; tell me that I'm doing you a wicked wrong.""",1 """I will tell you nothing, except that you are a mad woman,"" answered Lady Audley; in a cold, hard voice.",0 """Get up; fool, idiot, coward!",0 "Is your husband such a precious bargain that you should be groveling there, lamenting and groaning for him?",3 "What is Robert Audley to you, that you behave like a maniac, because you think he is in danger?",1 How do you know the fire is at Mount Stanning?,2 "You see a red patch in the sky, and you cry out directly that your own paltry hovel is in flames, as if there were no place in the world that could burn except that.",0 "The fire may be at Brentwood, or further away—at Romford, or still further away, on the eastern side of London, perhaps.",2 "Get up, mad woman, and go back and look after your goods and chattels, and your husband and your lodger.",1 "Get up and go: I don't want you.""",2 """Oh!",2 "my lady, my lady, forgive me,"" sobbed Phoebe; ""there's nothing you can say to me that's hard enough for having done you such a wrong, even in my thoughts.",1 "I don't mind your cruel words—I don't mind anything if I'm wrong.""",1 """Go back and see for yourself,"" answered Lady Audley, sternly.",2 """I tell you again, I don't want you.""",2 "She walked away in the darkness, leaving Phoebe Marks still kneeling upon the hard road, where she had cast herself in that agony of supplication.",0 "Sir Michael's wife walked toward the house in which her husband slept with the red blaze lighting up the skies behind her, and with nothing but the blackness of the night before.",2 "It was very late the next morning when Lady Audley emerged from her dressing-room, exquisitely dressed in a morning costume of delicate muslin, delicate laces, and embroideries; but with a very pale face, and with half-circles of purple shadow under her eyes.",3 She accounted for this pale face and these hollow eyes by declaring that she had sat up reading until a very late hour on the previous night.,1 "Sir Michael and his young wife breakfasted in the library at a comfortable round table, wheeled close to the blazing fire; and Alicia was compelled to share this meal with her step-mother, however she might avoid that lady in the long interval between breakfast and dinner.",3 "The March morning was bleak and dull, and a drizzling rain fell incessantly, obscuring the landscape and blotting out the distance.",0 "There were very few letters by the morning post; the daily newspapers did not arrive until noon; and such aids to conversation being missing, there was very little talk at the breakfast table.",2 Alicia looked out at the drizzling rain drifting against the broad window-panes.,2 """No riding to-day,"" she said; ""and no chance of any callers to enliven us, unless that ridiculous Bob comes crawling through the wet from Mount Stanning.""",2 "Have you ever heard anybody, whom you knew to be dead, alluded to in a light, easy going manner by another person who did not know of his death—alluded to as doing that or this, as performing some trivial everyday operation—when you know that he has vanished away from the face of this earth, and separated himself forever from all living creatures and their commonplace pursuits in the awful solemnity of death?",0 "Such a chance allusion, insignificant though it may be, is apt to send a strange thrill of pain through the mind.",1 The ignorant remark jars discordantly upon the hyper-sensitive brain; the King of Terrors is desecrated by that unwitting disrespect.,1 "Heaven knows what hidden reason my lady may have had for experiencing some such revulsion of feeling on the sudden mention of Mr. Audley's name, but her pale face blanched to a sickly white as Alicia Audley spoke of her cousin.",1 """Yes, he will come down here in the wet, perhaps,"" the young lady continued, ""with his hat sleek and shining as if it had been brushed with a pat of fresh butter, and with white vapors steaming out of his clothes, and making him look like an awkward genie just let out of his bottle.",3 "He will come down here and print impressions of his muddy boots all over the carpet, and he'll sit on your Gobelin tapestry, my lady, in his wet overcoat; and he'll abuse you if you remonstrate, and will ask why people have chairs that are not to be sat upon, and why you don't live in Figtree Court, and—"" Sir Michael Audley watched his daughter with a thoughtful countenance as she talked of her cousin.",1 "She very often talked of him, ridiculing him and inveighing against him in no very measured terms.",2 "But perhaps the baronet thought of a certain Signora Beatrice who very cruelly entreated a gentleman called Benedick, but who was, it may be, heartily in love with him at the same time.",3 """What do you think Major Melville told me when he called here yesterday, Alicia?""",2 "Sir Michael asked, presently.",2 """I haven't the remotest idea,"" replied Alicia, rather disdainfully.",1 """Perhaps he told you that we should have another war before long, by Ged, sir; or perhaps he told you that we should have a new ministry, by Ged, sir, for that those fellows are getting themselves into a mess, sir; or that those other fellows were reforming this, and cutting down that, and altering the other in the army, until, by Ged, sir, we shall have no army at all, by-and-by—nothing but a pack of boys, sir, crammed up to the eyes with a lot of senseless schoolmasters' rubbish, and dressed in shell-jackets and calico helmets.",1 "Yes, sir, they're fighting in Oudh in calico helmets at this very day, sir.""",2 """You're an impertinent minx, miss,"" answered the baronet.",1 """Major Melville told me nothing of the kind; but he told me that a very devoted admirer of you, a certain Sir Harry Towers, has forsaken his place in Hertfordshire, and his hunting stable, and has gone on the continent for a twelvemonths' tour.""",3 "Miss Audley flushed up suddenly at the mention of her old adorer, but recovered herself very quickly.",2 """He has gone on the continent, has he?""",2 she said indifferently.,2 """He told me that he meant to do so—if—if he didn't have everything his own way.",2 Poor fellow!,1 "he's a dear, good-hearted, stupid creature, and twenty times better than that peripatetic, patent refrigerator, Mr. Robert Audley.""",3 """I wish, Alicia, you were not so fond of ridiculing Bob,"" Sir Michael said, gravely.",2 """Bob is a good fellow, and I'm as fond of him as if he'd been my own son; and—and—I've been very uncomfortable about him lately.",3 "He has changed very much within the last few days, and he has taken all sorts of absurd ideas into his head, and my lady has alarmed me about him.",1 "She thinks—"" Lady Audley interrupted her husband with a grave shake of her head.",1 """It is better not to say too much about it as yet awhile,"" she said; ""Alicia knows what I think.""",3 """Yes,"" replied Miss Audley, ""my lady thinks that Bob is going mad, but I know better than that.",1 He's not at all the sort of person to go mad.,1 How should such a sluggish ditch-pond of an intellect as his ever work itself into a tempest?,1 "He may move about for the rest of his life, perhaps, in a tranquil state of semi-idiotcy, imperfectly comprehending who he is, and where he's going, and what he's doing—but he'll never go mad.""",1 Sir Michael did not reply to this.,2 "He had been very much disturbed by his conversation with my lady on the previous evening, and had silently debated the painful question, in his mind ever since.",1 "His wife—the woman he best loved and most believed in—had told him, with all appearance of regret and agitation, her conviction of his nephew's insanity.",2 "He tried in vain to arrive at the conclusion he wished most ardently to attain; he tried in vain to think that my lady was misled by her own fancies, and had no foundation for what she said.",2 "But then, again, it suddenly flashed upon him, that to think this was to arrive at a worse conclusion; it was to transfer the horrible suspicion from his nephew to his wife.",0 She appeared to be possessed with an actual conviction of Robert's insanity.,1 To imagine her wrong was to imagine some weakness in her own mind.,1 The longer he thought of the subject the more it harassed and perplexed him.,1 It was most certain that the young man had always been eccentric.,1 "He was sensible, he was tolerably clever, he was honorable and gentlemanlike in feeling, though perhaps a little careless in the performance of certain minor social duties; but there were some slight differences, not easily to be defined, that separated him from other men of his age and position.",3 "Then, again, it was equally true that he had very much changed within the period that had succeeded the disappearance of George Talboys.",3 "He had grown moody and thoughtful, melancholy and absent-minded.",1 "He had held himself aloof from society, had sat for hours without speaking; had talked at other points by fits and starts; and had excited himself unusually in the discussion of subjects which apparently lay far out of the region of his own life and interests.",2 Then there was even another region which seemed to strengthen my lady's case against this unhappy young man.,1 "He had been brought up in the frequent society of his cousin, Alicia—his pretty, genial cousin—to whom interest, and one would have thought affection, naturally pointed as his most fitting bride.",4 "More than this, the girl had shown him, in the innocent guilelessness of a transparent nature, that on her side at least, affection was not wanting; and yet, in spite of all this, he had held himself aloof, and had allowed others to propose for her hand, and to be rejected by her, and had still made no sign.",1 "Now love is so very subtle an essence, such an indefinable metaphysical marvel, that its due force, though very cruelly felt by the sufferer himself, is never clearly understood by those who look on at its torments and wonder why he takes the common fever so badly.",2 Sir Michael argued that because Alicia was a pretty girl and an amiable girl it was therefore extraordinary and unnatural in Robert Audley not to have duly fallen in love with her.,3 "This baronet, who close upon his sixtieth birthday, had for the first time encountered that one woman who out of all the women in the world had power to quicken the pulses of his heart, wondered why Robert failed to take the fever from the first breath of contagion that blew toward him.",1 "He forgot that there are men who go their ways unscathed amidst legions of lovely and generous women, to succumb at last before some harsh-featured virago, who knows the secret of that only philter which can intoxicate and bewitch him.",1 "He had forgot that there are certain Jacks who go through life without meeting the Jill appointed for them by Nemesis, and die old bachelors, perhaps, with poor Jill pining an old maid upon the other side of the party-wall.",0 "He forgot that love, which is a madness, and a scourge, and a fever, and a delusion, and a snare, is also a mystery, and very imperfectly understood by everyone except the individual sufferer who writhes under its tortures.",0 "Jones, who is wildly enamored of Miss Brown, and who lies awake at night until he loathes his comfortable pillow and tumbles his sheets into two twisted rags of linen in his agonies, as if he were a prisoner and wanted to wind them into impromptu ropes; this same Jones who thinks Russell Square a magic place because his divinity inhabits it, who thinks the trees in that inclosure and the sky above it greener and bluer than other trees or sky, and who feels a pang, yes, an actual pang, of mingled hope, and joy, and expectation, and terror, when he emerges from Guilford street, descending from the hights of Islington, into those sacred precincts; this very Jones is hard and callous toward the torments of Smith, who adores Miss Robinson, and cannot imagine what the infatuated fellow can see in the girl.",0 So it was with Sir Michael Audley.,2 "He looked at his nephew as a sample of a very large class of young men, and his daughter as a sample of an equally extensive class of feminine goods, and could not see why the two samples should not make a very respectable match.",3 He ignored all those infinitesimal differences in nature which make the wholesome food of one man the deadly poison of another.,1 How difficult it is to believe sometimes that a man doesn't like such and such a favorite dish.,3 "If at a dinner-party, a meek looking guest refuses early salmon and cucumbers, or green peas in February, we set him down as a poor relation whose instincts warn him off those expensive plates.",0 "If an alderman were to declare that he didn't like green fat, he would be looked upon as a social martyr, a Marcus Curtius of the dinner-table, who immolated himself for the benefit of his kind.",3 His fellow-aldermen would believe in anything rather than an heretical distaste for the city ambrosia of the soup tureen.,1 "But there are people who dislike salmon, and white-bait, and spring ducklings, and all manner of old-established delicacies, and there are other people who affect eccentric and despicable dishes, generally stigmatized as nasty.",0 "Alas, my pretty Alicia, your cousin did not love you!",3 "He admired your rosy English face, and had a tender affection for you which might perhaps have expanded by-and-by into something warm enough for matrimony, that every-day jog-trot species of union which demands no very passionate devotion, but for a sudden check which it had received in Dorsetshire.",4 "Yes, Robert Audley's growing affection for his cousin, a plant of very slow growth, I am fain to confess, had been suddenly dwarfed and stunted upon that bitter February day on which he had stood beneath the pine-trees talking to Clara Talboys.",0 Since that day the young man had experienced an unpleasant sensation in thinking of poor Alicia.,1 "He looked at her as being in some vague manner an incumbrance upon the freedom of his thoughts; he had a haunting fear that he was in some tacit way pledged to her; that she had a species of claim upon him, which forbade to him the right of thinking of another woman.",1 I believe it was the image of Miss Audley presented to him in this light that goaded the young barrister into those outbursts of splenetic rage against the female sex which he was liable to at certain times.,0 "He was strictly honorable, so honorable that he would rather have immolated himself upon the altar of truth and Alicia than have done her the remotest wrong, though by so doing he might have secured his own comfort and happiness.",3 """If the poor little girl loves me,"" he thought, ""and if she thinks that I love her, and has been led to think so by any word or act of mine, I'm in duty bound to let her think so to the end of time, and to fulfill any tacit promise which I may have unconsciously made.",4 "I thought once—I meant once to—to make her an offer by-and-by when this horrible mystery about George Talboys should have been cleared up and everything peacefully settled—but now—"" His thoughts would ordinarily wander away at this point of his reflections, carrying him where he never had intended to go; carrying him back under the pine-trees in Dorsetshire, and setting him once more face to face with the sister of his missing friend, and it was generally a very laborious journey by which he traveled back to the point from which he strayed.",2 It was so difficult for him to tear himself away from the stunted turf and the pine-trees.,1 """Poor little girl!""",1 he would think on coming back to Alicia.,2 """How good it is of her to love me, and how grateful ought I to be for her tenderness.",3 "How many fellows would think such a generous, loving heart the highest boon that earth could give them.",3 There's Sir Harry Towers stricken with despair at his rejection.,0 "He would give me half his estate, all his estate, twice his estate, if he had it, to be in the shoes which I am anxious to shake off my ungrateful feet.",0 Why don't I love her?,3 "Why is it that although I know her to be pretty, and pure, and good, and truthful, I don't love her?",4 "Her image never haunts me, except reproachfully.",2 I never see her in my dreams.,2 "I never wake up suddenly in the dead of the night with her eyes shining upon me and her warm breath upon my cheek, or with the fingers of her soft hand clinging to mine.",3 "No, I'm not in love with her, I can't fall in love with her.""",2 He raged and rebelled against his ingratitude.,1 "He tried to argue himself into a passionate attachment for his cousin, but he failed ignominiously, and the more he tried to think of Alicia the more he thought of Clara Talboys.",1 I am speaking now of his feelings in the period that elapsed between his return from Dorsetshire and his visit to Grange Heath.,2 "Sir Michael sat by the library fire after breakfast upon this wretched rainy morning, writing letters and reading the newspapers.",1 Alicia shut herself in her own apartment to read the third volume of a novel.,2 "Lady Audley locked the door of the octagon ante-chamber, and roamed up and down the suite of rooms from the bedroom to the boudoir all through that weary morning.",1 She had locked the door to guard against the chance of any one coming in suddenly and observing her before she was aware—before she had had sufficient warning to enable her to face their scrutiny.,2 Her pale face seemed to grow paler as the morning advanced.,2 "A tiny medicine-chest was open upon the dressing-table, and little stoppered bottles of red lavender, sal-volatile, chloroform, chlorodyne, and ether were scattered about.",1 "Once my lady paused before this medicine-chest, and took out the remaining bottles, half-absently, perhaps, until she came to one which was filled with a thick, dark liquid, and labeled ""opium—poison.""",1 "She trifled a long time with this last bottle; holding it up to the light, and even removing the stopper and smelling the sickly liquid.",1 But she put it from her suddenly with a shudder.,2 """If I could!""",2 "she muttered, ""if I could only do it!",2 "And yet why should I now?""",2 "She clinched her small hands as she uttered the last words, and walked to the window of the dressing-room, which looked straight toward that ivied archway under which any one must come who came from Mount Stanning to the Court.",2 "There were smaller gates in the gardens which led into the meadows behind the Court, but there was no other way of coming from Mount Stanning or Brentwood than by the principal entrance.",3 The solitary hand of the clock over the archway was midway between one and two when my lady looked at it.,2 """How slow the time is,"" she said, wearily; ""how slow, how slow!",1 "Shall I grow old like this, I wonder, with every minute of my life seeming like an hour?""",3 "She stood for a few minutes watching the archway, but no one passed under it while she looked, and she turned impatiently away from the window to resume her weary wandering about the rooms.",1 "Whatever fire that had been which had reflected itself vividly in the black sky, no tidings of it had as yet come to Audley Court.",2 "The day was miserably wet and windy, altogether the very last day upon which even the most confirmed idler and gossip would care to venture out.",1 "It was not a market-day, and there were therefore very few passengers upon the road between Brentwood and Chelmsford, so that as yet no news of the fire, which had occurred in the dead of the wintry night, had reached the village of Audley, or traveled from the village to the Court.",1 "The girl with the rose-colored ribbons came to the door of the anteroom to summon her mistress to luncheon, but Lady Audley only opened the door a little way, and intimated her intention of taking no luncheon.",1 """My head aches terribly, Martin,"" she said; ""I shall go and lie down till dinner-time.",0 "You may come at five to dress me.""",2 "Lady Audley said this with the predetermination of dressing at four, and thus dispensing with the services of her attendant.",2 "Among all privileged spies, a lady's-maid has the highest privileges; it is she who bathes Lady Theresa's eyes with eau-de-cologne after her ladyship's quarrel with the colonel; it is she who administers sal-volatile to Miss Fanny when Count Beaudesert, of the Blues, has jilted her.",1 She has a hundred methods for the finding out of her mistress' secrets.,2 "She knows by the manner in which her victim jerks her head from under the hair-brush, or chafes at the gentlest administration of the comb, what hidden tortures are racking her breast—what secret perplexities are bewildering her brain.",1 "That well-bred attendant knows how to interpret the most obscure diagnosis of all mental diseases that can afflict her mistress; she knows when the ivory complexion is bought and paid for—when the pearly teeth are foreign substances fashioned by the dentist—when the glossy plaits are the relics of the dead, rather than the property of the living; and she knows other and more sacred secrets than these; she knows when the sweet smile is more false than Madame Levison's enamel, and far less enduring—when the words that issue from between gates of borrowed pearl are more disguised and painted than the lips which help to shape them—when the lovely fairy of the ball-room re-enters the dressing-room after the night's long revelry, and throws aside her voluminous burnous and her faded bouquet, and drops her mask, and like another Cinderella loses the glass-slipper, by whose glitter she has been distinguished, and falls back into her rags and dirt, the lady's maid is by to see the transformation.",1 "The valet who took wages from the prophet of Korazin must have seen his master sometimes unveiled, and must have laughed in his sleeve at the folly of the monster's worshipers.",3 "Lady Audley had made no confidante of her new maid, and on this day of all others she wished to be alone.",2 "She did lie down; she cast herself wearily upon the luxurious sofa in the dressing-room, and buried her face in the down pillows and tried to sleep.",2 "Sleep!—she had almost forgotten what it was, that tender restorer of tired nature, it seemed so long now since she had slept.",2 "It was only about eight-and-forty hours perhaps, but it appeared an intolerable time.",1 "Her fatigue of the night before, and her unnatural excitement, had worn her out at last.",1 She did fall asleep; she fell into a heavy slumber that was almost like stupor.,1 She had taken a few drops out of the opium bottle in a glass of water before lying down.,1 "The clock over the mantelpiece chimed the quarter before four as she woke suddenly and started up, with the cold perspiration breaking out in icy drops upon her forehead.",1 "She had dreamt that every member of the household was clamoring at the door, eager to tell her of a dreadful fire that had happened in the night.",2 "There was no sound but the flapping of the ivy-leaves against the glass, the occasional falling of a cinder, and the steady ticking of the clock.",2 """Perhaps I shall be always dreaming these sort of dreams,"" my lady thought, ""until the terror of them kills me!""",1 "The rain had ceased, and the cold spring sunshine was glittering upon the windows.",1 Lady Audley dressed herself rapidly but carefully.,2 I do not say that even in her supremest hour of misery she still retained her pride in her beauty.,3 "It was not so; she looked upon that beauty as a weapon, and she felt that she had now double need to be well armed.",3 "She dressed herself in her most gorgeous silk, a voluminous robe of silvery, shimmering blue, that made her look as if she had been arrayed in moonbeams.",3 "She shook out her hair into feathery showers of glittering gold, and, with a cloak of white cashmere about her shoulders, went down-stairs into the vestibule.",3 She opened the door of the library and looked in.,2 Sir Michael Audley was asleep in his easy-chair.,3 As my lady softly closed this door Alicia descended the stairs from her own room.,2 "The turret door was open, and the sun was shining upon the wet grass-plat in the quadrangle.",2 "The firm gravel-walks were already very nearly dry, for the rain had ceased for upward of two hours.",2 """Will you take a walk with me in the quadrangle?""",2 Lady Audley asked as her step-daughter approached.,2 The armed neutrality between the two women admitted of any chance civility such as this.,3 """Yes, if you please, my lady,"" Alicia answered, rather listlessly.",2 """I have been yawning over a stupid novel all the morning, and shall be very glad of a little fresh air.""",3 "Heaven help the novelist whose fiction Miss Audley had been perusing, if he had no better critics than that young lady.",1 "She had read page after page without knowing what she had been reading, and had flung aside the volume half a dozen times to go to the window and watch for that visitor whom she had so confidently expected.",2 "Lady Audley led the way through the low doorway and on to the smooth gravel drive, by which carriages approached the house.",3 "She was still very pale, but the brightness of her dress and of her feathery golden ringlets, distracted an observer's eyes from her pallid face.",2 "All mental distress is, with some show of reason, associated in our minds with loose, disordered garments and dishabilled hair, and an appearance in every way the reverse of my lady's.",0 Why had she come out into the chill sunshine of that March afternoon to wander up and down that monotonous pathway with the step-daughter she hated?,0 "She came because she was under the dominion of a horrible restlessness, which, would not suffer her to remain within the house waiting for certain tidings which she knew must too surely come.",0 "At first she had wished to ward them off—at first she had wished that strange convulsions of nature might arise to hinder their coming—that abnormal winter lightnings might wither and destroy the messenger who carried them—that the ground might tremble and yawn beneath his hastening feet, and that impassable gulfs might separate the spot from which the tidings were to come and the place to which they were to be carried.",0 "She wished that the earth might stand still, and the paralyzed elements cease from their natural functions, that the progress of time might stop, that the Day of Judgment might come, and that she might thus be brought before an unearthly tribunal, and so escape the intervening shame and misery of any earthly judgment.",1 "In the wild chaos of her brain, every one of these thoughts had held its place, and in her short slumber on the sofa in her dressing-room she had dreamed all these things and a hundred other things, all bearing upon the same subject.",1 "She had dreamed that a brook, a tiny streamlet when she first saw it, flowed across the road between Mount Stanning and Audley, and gradually swelled into a river, and from a river became an ocean, till the village on the hill receded far away out of sight and only a great waste of waters rolled where it once had been.",1 "She dreamt that she saw the messenger, now one person, now another, but never any probable person, hindered by a hundred hinderances, now startling and terrible, now ridiculous and trivial, but never either natural or probable; and going down into the quiet house with the memory of these dreams strong upon her, she had been bewildered by the stillness which had betokened that the tidings had not yet come.",0 And now her mind underwent a complete change.,2 She no longer wished to delay the dreaded intelligence.,2 "She wished the agony, whatever it was to be, over and done with, the pain suffered, and the release attained.",0 "It seemed to her as if the intolerable day would never come to an end, as if her mad wishes had been granted, and the progress of time had actually stopped.",1 """What a long day it has been!""",2 "exclaimed Alicia, as if taking up the burden of my lady's thoughts; ""nothing but drizzle and mist and wind!",1 "And now that it's too late for anybody to go out, it must needs be fine,"" the young lady added, with an evident sense of injury.",2 Lady Audley did not answer.,2 "She was looking at the stupid one-handed clock, and waiting for the news which must come sooner or later, which could not surely fail to come very speedily.",1 """They have been afraid to come and tell him,"" she thought; ""they have been afraid to break the news to Sir Michael.",1 "Who will come to tell it, at last, I wonder?",3 "The rector of Mount Stanning, perhaps, or the doctor; some important person at least.""",3 "If she could have gone out into the leafless avenues, or onto the high road beyond them; if she could have gone so far as that hill upon which she had so lately parted with Phoebe, she would have gladly done so.",3 "She would rather have suffered anything than that slow suspense, that corroding anxiety, that metaphysical dryrot in which heart and mind seemed to decay under an insufferable torture.",0 "She tried to talk, and by a painful effort contrived now and then to utter some commonplace remark.",0 "Under any ordinary circumstances her companion would have noticed her embarrassment, but Miss Audley, happening to be very much absorbed by her own vexations, was quite as well inclined to be silent as my lady herself.",2 The monotonous walk up and down the graveled pathway suited Alicia's humor.,2 "I think that she even took a malicious pleasure in the idea that she was very likely catching cold, and that her Cousin Robert was answerable for her danger.",1 "If she could have brought upon herself inflammation of the lungs, or ruptured blood-vessels, by that exposure to the chill March atmosphere, I think she would have felt a gloomy satisfaction in her sufferings.",0 """Perhaps Robert might care for me, if I had inflammation of the lungs,"" she thought.",1 """He couldn't insult me by calling me a bouncer then.",1 "Bouncers don't have inflammation of the lungs.""",1 "I believe she drew a picture of herself in the last stage of consumption, propped up by pillows in a great easy-chair, looking out of a window in the afternoon sunshine, with medicine bottles, a bunch of grapes and a Bible upon a table by her side, and with Robert, all contrition and tenderness, summoned to receive her farewell blessing.",3 "She preached a whole chapter to him in that parting benediction, talking a great deal longer than was in keeping with her prostrate state, and very much enjoying her dismal castle in the air.",3 "Employed in this sentimental manner, Miss Audley took very little notice of her step-mother, and the one hand of the blundering clock had slipped to six by the time Robert had been blessed and dismissed.",1 """Good gracious me!""",3 "she cried, suddenly—""six o'clock, and I'm not dressed.""",2 The half-hour bell rung in a cupola upon the roof while Alicia was speaking.,2 """I must go in, my lady,"" she said.",2 """Won't you come?""",2 """Presently,"" answered Lady Audley.",2 """I'm dressed, you see.""",2 "Alicia ran off, but Sir Michael's wife still lingered in the quadrangle, still waited for those tidings which were so long coming.",2 It was nearly dark.,1 The blue mists of evening had slowly risen from the ground.,1 "The flat meadows were filled with a gray vapor, and a stranger might have fancied Audley Court a castle on the margin of a sea.",1 "Under the archway the shadows of fastcoming night lurked darkly, like traitors waiting for an opportunity to glide stealthily into the quadrangle.",3 "Through the archway a patch of cold blue sky glimmered faintly, streaked by one line of lurid crimson, and lighted by the dim glitter of one wintry-looking star.",1 "Not a creature was stirring in the quadrangle but the restless woman who paced up and down the straight pathways, listening for a footstep whose coming was to strike terror to her soul.",0 She heard it at last!—a footstep in the avenue upon the other side of the archway.,2 But was it the footstep?,2 "Her sense of hearing, made unnaturally acute by excitement, told her that it was a man's footstep—told even more, that it was the tread of a gentleman, no slouching, lumbering pedestrian in hobnailed boots, but a gentleman who walked firmly and well.",3 Every sound fell like a lump of ice upon my lady's heart.,2 "She could not wait, she could not contain herself, she lost all self-control, all power of endurance, all capability of self-restraint, and she rushed toward the archway.",2 "She paused beneath its shadow, for the stranger was close upon her.",1 "She saw him, oh, God!",2 she saw him in that dim evening light.,1 "Her brain reeled, her heart stopped beating.",2 "She uttered no cry of surprise, no exclamation of terror, but staggered backward and clung for support to the ivied buttress of the archway.",1 "With her slender figure crouched into the angle formed by the buttress and the wall which it supported, she stood staring at the new-comer.",3 "As he approached her more closely her knees sunk under her, and she dropped to the ground, not fainting, or in any manner unconscious, but sinking into a crouching attitude, and still crushed into the angle of the wall, as if she would have made a tomb for herself in the shadow of that sheltering brickwork.",0 """My lady!""",2 The speaker was Robert Audley.,2 He whose bedroom door she had double-locked seventeen hours before at the Castle Inn.,2 """What is the matter with you?""",2 "he said, in a strange, constrained manner.",1 """Get up, and let me take you indoors.""",2 "He assisted her to rise, and she obeyed him very submissively.",2 He took her arm in his strong hand and led her across the quadrangle and into the lamp-lit hall.,3 "She shivered more violently than he had ever seen any woman shiver before, but she made no attempt at resistance to his will.",0 """Is there any room in which I can talk to you alone?""",2 "Robert Audley asked, as he looked dubiously round the hall.",1 My lady only bowed her head in answer.,2 "She pushed open the door of the library, which had been left ajar.",2 "Sir Michael had gone to his dressing-room to prepare for dinner after a day of lazy enjoyment, perfectly legitimate for an invalid.",2 "The apartment was quite empty, only lighted by the blaze of the fire, as it had been upon the previous evening.",2 "Lady Audley entered the room, followed by Robert, who closed the door behind him.",2 "The wretched, shivering woman went to the fireplace and knelt down before the blaze, as if any natural warmth, could have power to check that unnatural chill.",1 "The young man followed her, and stood beside her upon the hearth, with his arm resting upon the chimney-piece.",2 """Lady Audley,"" he said, in a voice whose icy sternness held out no hope of any tenderness or compassion, ""I spoke to you last-night very plainly, but you refused to listen to me.",1 "To-night I must speak to you still more plainly, and you must no longer refuse to listen to me.""",1 "My lady, crouching before the fire with her face hidden in her hands, uttered a low, sobbing sound which was almost a moan, but made no other answer.",1 """There was a fire last night at Mount Stanning, Lady Audley,"" the pitiless voice proceeded; ""the Castle Inn, the house in which I slept, was burned to the ground.",1 "Do you know how I escaped perishing in that destruction?""",1 """No.""",2 """I escaped by a most providential circumstance which seems a very simple one.",2 I did not sleep in the room which had been prepared for me.,2 "The place seemed wretchedly damp and chilly, the chimney smoked abominably when an attempt was made at lighting a fire, and I persuaded the servant to make me up a bed on the sofa in the small ground-floor sitting-room which I had occupied during the evening.""",0 "He paused for a moment, watching the crouching figure.",2 The only change in my lady's attitude was that her head had fallen a little lower.,1 """Shall I tell you by whose agency the destruction of the Castle Inn was brought about, my lady?""",1 There was no answer.,2 """Shall I tell you?""",2 Still the same obstinate silence.,1 """My Lady Audley,"" cried Robert, suddenly, ""you are the incendiary.",1 It was you whose murderous hand kindled those flames.,1 "It was you who thought by that thrice-horrible deed to rid yourself of me, your enemy and denouncer.",1 What was it to you that other lives might be sacrificed?,1 If by a second massacre of Saint Bartholomew you could have ridded yourself of me you would have sacrificed an army of victims.,1 The day is past for tenderness and mercy.,2 For you I can no longer know pity or compunction.,1 "So far as by sparing your shame I can spare others who must suffer by your shame, I will be merciful, but no further.",1 "If there were any secret tribunal before which you might be made to answer for your crimes, I would have little scruple in being your accuser, but I would spare that generous and high-born gentleman upon whose noble name your infamy would be reflected.""",3 "His voice softened as he made this allusion, and for a moment he broke down, but he recovered himself by an effort and continued: ""No life was lost in the fire of last night.",1 "I slept lightly, my lady, for my mind was troubled, as it has been for a long time, by the misery which I knew was lowering upon this house.",1 "It was I who discovered the breaking out of the fire in time to give the alarm and to save the servant girl and the poor drunken wretch, who was very much burnt in spite of efforts, and who now lies in a precarious state at his mother's cottage.",0 It was from him and from his wife that I learned who had visited the Castle Inn in the dead of the night.,1 "The woman was almost distracted when she saw me, and from her I discovered the particulars of last night.",2 "Heaven knows what other secrets of yours she may hold, my lady, or how easily they might be extorted from her if I wanted her aid, which I do not.",3 My path lies very straight before me.,1 "I have sworn to bring the murderer of George Talboys to justice, and I will keep my oath.",1 I say that it was by your agency my friend met with his death.,1 "If I have wondered sometimes, as it was only natural I should, whether I was not the victim of some horrible hallucination, whether such an alternative was not more probable than that a young and lovely woman should be capable of so foul and treacherous a murder, all wonder is past.",1 "After last night's deed of horror, there is no crime you could commit, however vast and unnatural, which could make me wonder.",1 "Henceforth you must seem to me no longer a woman, a guilty woman with a heart which in its worst wickedness has yet some latent power to suffer and feel; I look upon you henceforth as the demoniac incarnation of some evil principle.",0 But you shall no longer pollute this place by your presence.,1 "Unless you will confess what you are and who you are in the presence of the man you have deceived so long, and accept from him and from me such mercy as we may be inclined to extend to you, I will gather together the witnesses who shall swear to your identity, and at peril of any shame to myself and those I love, I will bring upon you the just and awful punishment of your crime.""",0 "The woman rose suddenly and stood before him erect and resolute, with her hair dashed away from her face and her eyes glittering.",3 """Bring Sir Michael!""",2 "she cried; ""bring him here, and I will confess anything—everything.",1 What do I care?,2 "God knows I have struggled hard enough against you, and fought the battle patiently enough; but you have conquered, Mr. Robert Audley.",2 "It is a great triumph, is it not—a wonderful victory?",4 "You have used your cool, calculating, frigid, luminous intellect to a noble purpose.",3 "You have conquered—a MAD WOMAN!""",1 """A mad woman!""",1 cried Mr. Audley.,2 """Yes, a mad woman.",1 "When you say that I killed George Talboys, you say the truth.",1 "When you say that I murdered him treacherously and foully, you lie.",0 I killed him because I AM MAD!,1 "because my intellect is a little way upon the wrong side of that narrow boundary-line between sanity and insanity; because, when George Talboys goaded me, as you have goaded me, and reproached me, and threatened me, my mind, never properly balanced, utterly lost its balance, and I was mad!",0 Bring Sir Michael; and bring him quickly.,2 "If he is to be told one thing let him be told everything; let him hear the secret of my life!""",2 Robert Audley left the room to look for his uncle.,2 "He went in search of that honored kinsman with God knows how heavy a weight of anguish at his heart, for he knew he was about to shatter the day-dream of his uncle's life; and he knew that our dreams are none the less terrible to lose, because they have never been the realities for which we have mistaken them.",0 "But even in the midst of his sorrow for Sir Michael, he could not help wondering at my lady's last words—""the secret of my life.""",1 "He remembered those lines in the letter written by Helen Talboys upon the eve of her flight from Wildernsea, which had so puzzled him.",1 "He remembered those appealing sentences—""You should forgive me, for you know why I have been so.",3 "You know the secret of my life.""",2 He met Sir Michael in the hall.,2 He made no attempt to prepare the way for the terrible revelation which the baronet was to hear.,2 "He only drew him into the fire-lit library, and there for the first time addressed him quietly thus: ""Lady Audley has a confession to make to you, sir—a confession which I know will be a most cruel surprise, a most bitter grief.",0 "But it is necessary for your present honor, and for your future peace, that you should hear it.",3 "She has deceived you, I regret to say, most basely; but it is only right that you should hear from her own lips any excuses which she may have to offer for her wickedness.",1 "May God soften this blow for you!""",1 "sobbed the young man, suddenly breaking down; ""I cannot!""",1 "Sir Michael lifted his hand as if he would command his nephew to be silent, but that imperious hand dropped feeble and impotent at his side.",1 He stood in the center of the fire-lit room rigid and immovable.,1 """Lucy!""",2 "he cried, in a voice whose anguish struck like a blow upon the jarred nerves of those who heard it, as the cry of a wounded animal pains the listener—""Lucy, tell me that this man is a madman!",0 "tell me so, my love, or I shall kill him!""",2 "There was a sudden fury in his voice as he turned upon Robert, as if he could indeed have felled his wife's accuser to the earth with the strength of his uplifted arm.",1 "But my lady fell upon her knees at his feet, interposing herself between the baronet and his nephew, who stood leaning on the back of an easy-chair, with his face hidden by his hand.",2 """He has told you the truth,"" said my lady, ""and he is not mad!",1 I have sent him for you that I may confess everything to you.,1 "I should be sorry for you if I could, for you have been very, very good to me, much better to me than I ever deserved; but I can't, I can't—I can feel nothing but my own misery.",2 I told you long ago that I was selfish; I am selfish still—more selfish than ever in my misery.,1 "Happy, prosperous people may feel for others.",3 "I laugh at other people's sufferings; they seem so small compared to my own.""",2 "When first my lady had fallen on her knees, Sir Michael had attempted to raise her, and had remonstrated with her; but as she spoke he dropped into a chair close to the spot upon which she knelt, and with his hands clasped together, and with his head bent to catch every syllable of those horrible words, he listened as if his whole being had been resolved into that one sense of hearing.",0 """I must tell you the story of my life, in order to tell you why I have become the miserable wretch who has no better hope than to be allowed to run away and hide in some desolate corner of the earth.",1 "I must tell you the story of my life,"" repeated my lady, ""but you need not fear that I shall dwell long upon it.",1 It has not been so pleasant to me that I should wish to remember it.,3 "When I was a very little child I remember asking a question which it was natural enough that I should ask, God help me!",3 I asked where my mother was.,2 "I had a faint remembrance of a face, like what my own is now, looking at me when I was very little better than a baby; but I had missed the face suddenly, and had never seen it since.",2 They told me that mother was away.,2 "I was not happy, for the woman who had charge of me was a disagreeable woman and the place in which we lived was a lonely place, a village upon the Hampshire coast, about seven miles from Portsmouth.",1 "My father, who was in the navy, only came now and then to see me; and I was left almost entirely to the charge of this woman, who was irregularly paid, and who vented her rage upon me when my father was behindhand in remitting her money.",1 So you see that at a very early age I found out what it was to be poor.,1 """Perhaps it was more from being discontented with my dreary life than from any wonderful impulse of affection, that I asked very often the same question about my mother.",2 I always received the same answer—she was away.,2 "When I asked where, I was told that that was a secret.",2 "When I grew old enough to understand the meaning of the word death, I asked if my mother was dead, and I was told—'No, she was not dead; she was ill, and she was away.'",1 "I asked how long she had been ill, and I was told that she had been so some years, ever since I was a baby.",2 """At last the secret came out.",2 "I worried my foster-mother with the old question one day when the remittances had fallen very much in arrear, and her temper had been unusually tried.",0 "She flew into a passion, and told me that my mother was a mad woman, and that she was in a madhouse forty miles away.",2 "She had scarcely said this when she repented, and told me that it was not the truth, and that I was not to believe it, or to say that she had told me such a thing.",1 I discovered afterward that my father had made her promise most solemnly never to tell me the secret of my mother's fate.,3 """I brooded horribly upon the thought of my mother's madness.",1 It haunted me by day and night.,2 "I was always picturing to myself this mad woman pacing up and down some prison cell, in a hideous garment that bound her tortured limbs.",0 I had exaggerated ideas of the horror of her situation.,2 "I had no knowledge of the different degrees of madness, and the image that haunted me was that of a distraught and violent creature, who would fall upon me and kill me if I came within her reach.",0 "This idea grew upon me until I used to awake in the dead of night, screaming aloud in an agony of terror, from a dream in which I had felt my mother's icy grasp upon my throat, and heard her ravings in my ear.",0 """When I was ten years old my father came to pay up the arrears due to my protectress, and to take me to school.",2 "He had left me in Hampshire longer than he had intended, from his inability to pay this money; so there again I felt the bitterness of poverty, and ran the risk of growing up an ignorant creature among coarse rustic children, because my father was poor.""",0 "My lady paused for a moment, but only to take breath, for she had spoken rapidly, as if eager to tell this hated story, and to have done with it.",2 "She was still on her knees, but Sir Michael made no effort to raise her.",2 He sat silent and immovable.,2 What was this story that he was listening to?,2 "Whose was it, and to what was it to lead?",3 "It could not be his wife's; he had heard her simple account of her youth, and had believed it as he had believed in the Gospel.",2 "She had told him a very brief story of an early orphanage, and a long, quiet, colorless youth spent in the conventional seclusion of an English boarding-school.",3 """My father came at last, and I told him what I had discovered.",2 He was very much affected when I spoke of my mother.,2 "He was not what the world generally calls a good man, but I learned afterward that he had loved his wife very dearly, and that he would have willingly sacrificed his life to her, and constituted himself her guardian, had he not been compelled to earn the daily bread of the mad woman and her child by the exercise of his profession.",3 So here again I beheld what a bitter thing it is to be poor.,1 "My mother, who might have been tended by a devoted husband, was given over to the care of hired nurses.",2 """Before my father sent me to school at Torquay, he took me to see my mother.",2 This visit served at least to dispel the idea which had so often terrified me.,2 "I saw no raving, straight-waist-coated maniac, guarded by zealous jailers, but a golden-haired, blue-eyed, girlish creature, who seemed as frivolous as a butterfly, and who skipped toward us with her yellow curls decorated with natural flowers, and saluted us with radiant smiles, and gay, ceaseless chatter.",1 """But she didn't know us.",2 She would have spoken in the same manner to any stranger who had entered the gates of the garden about her prison-house.,1 "Her madness was an hereditary disease transmitted to her from her mother, who had died mad.",0 "She, my mother, had been, or had appeared sane up to the hour of my birth, but from that hour her intellect had decayed, and she had become what I saw her.",2 """I went away with the knowledge of this, and with the knowledge that the only inheritance I had to expect from my mother was—insanity!",1 """I went away with this knowledge in my mind, and with something more—a secret to keep.",2 "I was a child of ten years only, but I felt all the weight of that burden.",1 I was to keep the secret of my mother's madness; for it was a secret that might affect me injuriously in after-life.,1 I was to remember this.,2 """I did remember this; and it was, perhaps, this that made me selfish and heartless, for I suppose I am heartless.",1 As I grew older I was told that I was pretty—beautiful—lovely—bewitching.,4 "I heard all these things at first indifferently, but by-and-by I listened to them greedily, and began to think that in spite of the secret of my life I might be more successful in the world's great lottery than my companions.",3 "I had learnt that which in some indefinite manner or other every school-girl learns sooner or later—I learned that my ultimate fate in life depended upon my marriage, and I concluded that if I was indeed prettier than my schoolfellows, I ought to marry better than any one of them.",3 """I left school before I was seventeen years of age, with this thought in my mind, and I went to live at the other extremity of England with my father, who had retired upon his half-pay, and had established himself at Wildernsea, with the idea that the place was cheap and select.",1 """The place was indeed select.",2 I had not been there a month before I discovered that even the prettiest girl might wait a long time for a rich husband.,3 I wish to hurry over this part of my life.,2 I dare say I was very despicable.,1 "You and your nephew, Sir Michael, have been rich all your lives, and can very well afford to despise me; but I knew how far poverty can affect a life, and I looked forward with a sickening dread to a life so affected.",1 "At last the rich suitor, the wandering prince came.""",3 "She paused for a moment, and shuddered convulsively.",2 "It was impossible to see any of the changes in her countenance, for her face was obstinately bent toward the floor.",0 Throughout her long confession she never lifted it; throughout her long confession her voice was never broken by a tear.,1 "What she had to tell she told in a cold, hard tone, very much the tone in which some criminal, dogged and sullen to the last, might have confessed to a jail chaplain.",0 """The wandering prince came,"" she repeated; ""he was called George Talboys.""",2 "For the first time since his wife's confession had begun, Sir Michael Audley started.",1 He began to understand it all now.,2 "A crowd of unheeded words and forgotten circumstances that had seemed too insignificant for remark or recollection, flashed back upon him as vividly as if they had been the leading incidents of his past life.",2 """Mr. George Talboys was a cornet in a dragoon regiment.",1 He was the only son of a rich country gentleman.,3 "He fell in love with me, and married me three months after my seventeenth birthday.",2 "I think I loved him as much as it was in my power to love anybody; not more than I have loved you, Sir Michael—not so much, for when you married me you elevated me to a position that he could never have given me.""",3 The dream was broken.,1 "Sir Michael Audley remembered that summer's evening, nearly two years ago, when he had first declared his love for Mr. Dawson's governess; he remembered the sick, half-shuddering sensation of regret and disappointment that had come over him then, and he felt as if it had in some manner dimly foreshadowed the agony of to-night.",1 "But I do not believe that even in his misery he felt that entire and unmitigated surprise, that utter revulsion of feeling that is felt when a good woman wanders away from herself and becomes the lost creature whom her husband is bound in honor to abjure.",1 I do not believe that Sir Michael Audley had ever really believed in his wife.,2 "He had loved her and admired her; he had been bewitched by her beauty and bewildered by her charms; but that sense of something wanting, that vague feeling of loss and disappointment which had come upon him on the summer's night of his betrothal had been with him more or less distinctly ever since.",1 "I cannot believe that an honest man, however pure and single may be his mind, however simply trustful his nature, is ever really deceived by falsehood.",3 "There is beneath the voluntary confidence an involuntary distrust, not to be conquered by any effort of the will.",1 """We were married,"" my lady continued, ""and I loved him very well, quite well enough to be happy with him as long as his money lasted, and while we were on the Continent, traveling in the best style and always staying at the best hotels.",4 "But when we came back to Wildernsea and lived with papa, and all the money was gone, and George grew gloomy and wretched, and was always thinking of his troubles, and appeared to neglect me, I was very unhappy, and it seemed as if this fine marriage had only given me a twelvemonth's gayety and extravagance after all.",0 "I begged George to appeal to his father, but he refused.",2 "I persuaded him to try and get employment, and he failed.",1 "My baby was born, and the crisis which had been fatal to my mother arose for me.",1 "I escaped, but I was more irritable perhaps after my recovery, less inclined to fight the hard battle of the world, more disposed to complain of poverty and neglect.",0 "I did complain one day, loudly and bitterly; I upbraided George Talboys for his cruelty in having allied a helpless girl to poverty and misery, and he flew into a passion with me and ran out of the house.",0 "When I awoke the next morning, I found a letter lying on the table by my bed, telling me that he was going to the antipodes to seek his fortune, and that he would never see me again until he was a rich man.",3 """I looked upon this as a desertion, and I resented it bitterly—resented it by hating the man who had left me with no protector but a weak, tipsy father, and with a child to support.",0 "I had to work hard for my living, and in every hour of labor—and what labor is more wearisome than the dull slavery of a governess?—I recognized a separate wrong done me by George Talboys.",0 "His father was rich, his sister was living in luxury and respectability, and I, his wife, and the mother of his son, was a slave allied to beggary and obscurity.",2 "People pitied me, and I hated them for their pity.",1 "I did not love the child, for he had been left a burden upon my hands.",2 The hereditary taint that was in my blood had never until this time showed itself by any one sign or token; but at this time I became subject to fits of violence and despair.,1 "At this time I think my mind first lost its balance, and for the first time I crossed that invisible line which separates reason from madness.",0 I have seen my father's eyes fixed upon me in horror and alarm.,1 "I have known him soothe me as only mad people and children are soothed, and I have chafed against his petty devices, I have resented even his indulgence.",2 """At last these fits of desperation resolved themselves into a desperate purpose.",1 I determined to run away from this wretched home which my slavery supported.,2 I determined to desert this father who had more fear of me than love for me.,1 I determined to go to London and lose myself in that great chaos of humanity.,1 """I had seen an advertisement in the Times while I was at Wildernsea, and I presented myself to Mrs. Vincent, the advertiser, under a feigned name.",2 "She accepted me, waiving all questions as to my antecedents.",2 You know the rest.,2 "I came here, and you made me an offer, the acceptance of which would lift me at once into the sphere to which my ambition had pointed ever since I was a school-girl, and heard for the first time that I was pretty.",3 """Three years had passed, and I had received no token of my husband's existence; for, I argued, that if he had returned to England, he would have succeeded in finding me under any name and in any place.",3 I knew the energy of his character well enough to know this.,3 """I said 'I have a right to think that he is dead, or that he wishes me to believe him dead, and his shadow shall not stand between me and prosperity.'",3 "I said this, and I became your wife, Sir Michael, with every resolution to be as good a wife as it was in my nature to be.",3 The common temptations that assail and shipwreck some women had no terror for me.,0 "I would have been your true and pure wife to the end of time, though I had been surrounded by a legion of tempters.",3 "The mad folly that the world calls love had never had any part in my madness, and here at least extremes met, and the vice of heartlessness became the virtue of constancy.",1 """I was very happy in the first triumph and grandeur of my new position, very grateful to the hand that had lifted me to it.",4 "In the sunshine of my own happiness I felt, for the first time in my life, for the miseries of others.",2 "I had been poor myself, and I was now rich, and could afford to pity and relieve the poverty of my neighbors.",1 I took pleasure in acts of kindness and benevolence.,4 "I found out my father's address and sent him large sums of money, anonymously, for I did not wish him to discover what had become of me.",2 I availed myself to the full of the privilege your generosity afforded me.,3 I dispensed happiness on every side.,3 "I saw myself loved as well as admired, and I think I might have been a good woman for the rest of my life, if fate would have allowed me to be so.",4 """I believe that at this time my mind regained its just balance.",2 I had watched myself very closely since leaving Wildernsea; I had held a check upon myself.,2 "I had often wondered while sitting in the surgeon's quiet family circle whether any suspicion of that invisible, hereditary taint had ever occurred to Mr. Dawson.",1 """Fate would not suffer me to be good.",2 My destiny compelled me to be a wretch.,2 "Within a month of my marriage, I read in one of the Essex papers of the return of a certain Mr. Talboys, a fortunate gold-seeker, from Australia.",3 The ship had sailed at the time I read the paragraph.,2 What was to be done?,2 """I said just now that I knew the energy of George's character.",2 I knew that the man who had gone to the antipodes and won a fortune for his wife would leave no stone unturned in his efforts to find her.,3 It was hopeless to think of hiding myself from him.,1 """Unless he could be induced to believe that I was dead, he would never cease in his search for me.",1 """My brain was dazed as I thought of my peril.",1 "Again the balance trembled, again the invisible boundary was passed, again I was mad.",1 """I went down to Southampton and found my father, who was living there with my child.",2 "You remember how Mrs. Vincent's name was used as an excuse for this hurried journey, and how it was contrived I should go with no other escort than Phoebe Marks, whom I left at the hotel while I went to my father's house.",1 """I confided to my father the whole secret of my peril.",1 "He was not very much shocked at what I had done, for poverty had perhaps blunted his sense of honor and principle.",1 "He was not very much shocked, but he was frightened, and he promised to do all in his power to assist me in my horrible emergency.",1 """He had received a letter addressed to me at Wildernsea, by George, and forwarded from there to my father.",2 "This letter had been written within a few days of the sailing of the Argus, and it announced the probable date of the ship's arrival at Liverpool.",2 "This letter gave us, therefore, data upon which to act.",2 """We decided at once upon the first step.",2 "This was that on the date of the probable arrival of the Argus, or a few days later, an advertisement of my death should be inserted in the Times.",1 """But almost immediately after deciding upon this, we saw that there were fearful difficulties in the carrying out of such a simple plan.",1 "The date of the death, and the place in which I died, must be announced, as well as the death itself.",1 "George would immediately hurry to that place, however distant it might be, however comparatively inaccessible, and the shallow falsehood would be discovered.",1 """I knew enough of his sanguine temperament, his courage and determination, his readiness to hope against hope, to know that unless he saw the grave in which I was buried, and the register of my death, he would never believe that I was lost to him.",2 """My father was utterly dumfounded and helpless.",1 He could only shed childish tears of despair and terror.,0 He was of no use to me in this crisis.,1 """I was hopeless of any issue out of my difficulties.",0 "I began to think that I must trust to the chapter of accidents, and hope that among other obscure corners of the earth, Audley Court might be undreamt of by my husband.",2 """I sat with my father, drinking tea with him in his miserable hovel, and playing with the child, who was pleased with my dress and jewels, but quite unconscious that I was anything but a stranger to him.",1 "I had the boy in my arms, when a woman who attended him came to fetch him that she might make him more fit to be seen by the lady, as she said.",2 """I was anxious to know how the boy was treated, and I detained this woman in conversation with me while my father dozed over the tea-table.",1 """She was a pale-faced, sandy-haired woman of about five-and-forty and she seemed very glad to get the chance of talking to me as long as I pleased to allow her.",3 "She soon left off talking of the boy, however, to tell me of her own troubles.",1 "She was in very great trouble, she told me.",2 "Her eldest daughter had been obliged to leave her situation from ill-health; in fact, the doctor said the girl was in a decline; and it was a hard thing for a poor widow who had seen better days to have a sick daughter to support, as well as a family of young children.",1 """I let the woman run on for a long time in this manner, telling me the girl's ailments, and the girl's age, and the girl's doctor's stuff, and piety, and sufferings, and a great deal more.",3 But I neither listened to her nor heeded her.,2 "I heard her, but only in a far-away manner, as I heard the traffic in the street, or the ripple of the stream at the bottom of it.",2 What were this woman's troubles to me?,1 "I had miseries of my own, and worse miseries than her coarse nature could ever have to endure.",0 "These sort of people always had sick husbands or sick children, and expected to be helped in their illness by the rich.",2 It was nothing out of the common.,2 "I was thinking this, and I was just going to dismiss the woman with a sovereign for her sick daughter, when an idea flashed upon me with such painful suddenness that it sent the blood surging up to my brain, and set my heart beating, as it only beats when I am mad.",0 """I asked the woman her name.",2 "She was a Mrs. Plowson, and she kept a small general shop, she said, and only ran in now and then to look after Georgey, and to see that the little maid-of-all-work took care of him.",3 Her daughter's name was Matilda.,2 "I asked her several questions about this girl Matilda, and I ascertained that she was four-and-twenty, that she had always been consumptive, and that she was now, as the doctor said, going off in a rapid decline.",2 He had declared that she could not last much more than a fortnight.,2 """It was in three weeks that the ship that carried George Talboys was expected to anchor in the Mersey.",2 """I need not dwell upon this business.",2 I visited the sick girl.,1 She was fair and slender.,3 "Her description, carelessly given, might tally nearly enough with my own, though she bore no shadow of resemblance to me, except in these two particulars.",2 I was received by the girl as a rich lady who wished to do her a service.,3 "I bought the mother, who was poor and greedy, and who for a gift of money, more money than she had ever before received, consented to submit to anything I wished.",1 "Upon the second day after my introduction to this Mrs. Plowson, my father went over to Ventnor, and hired lodgings for his invalid daughter and her little boy.",1 "Early the next morning he carried over the dying girl and Georgey, who had been bribed to call her 'mamma.'",1 "She entered the house as Mrs. Talboys; she was attended by a Ventnor medical man as Mrs. Talboys; she died, and her death and burial were registered in that name.",1 """The advertisement was inserted in the Times, and upon the second day after its insertion George Talboys visited Ventnor, and ordered the tombstone which at this hour records the death of his wife, Helen Talboys.""",1 "Sir Michael Audley rose slowly, and with a stiff, constrained action, as if every physical sense had been benumbed by that one sense of misery.",0 """I cannot hear any more,"" he said, in a hoarse whisper; ""if there is anything more to be told I cannot hear it.",2 "Robert, it is you who have brought about this discovery, as I understand.",2 I want to know nothing more.,2 Will you take upon yourself the duty of providing for the safety and comfort of this lady whom I have thought my wife?,3 "I need not ask you to remember in all you do, that I have loved her very dearly and truly.",3 I cannot say farewell to her.,2 "I will not say it until I can think of her without bitterness—until I can pity her, as I now pray that God may pity her this night.""",1 Sir Michael walked slowly from the room.,1 He did not trust himself to look at that crouching figure.,3 He did not wish to see the creature whom he had cherished.,3 "He went straight to his dressing-room, rung for his valet, and ordered him to pack a portmanteau, and make all necessary arrangements for accompanying his master by the last up-train.",3 Robert Audley followed his uncle into the vestibule after Sir Michael had spoken those few quiet words which sounded the death-knell of his hope and love.,3 Heaven knows how much the young man had feared the coming of this day.,3 "It had come; and though there had been no great outburst of despair, no whirlwind of stormy grief, no loud tempest of anguish and tears, Robert took no comforting thought from the unnatural stillness.",0 "He knew enough to know that Sir Michael Audley went away with the barbed arrow, which his nephew's hand had sent home to its aim, rankling in his tortured heart; he knew that this strange and icy calm was the first numbness of a heart stricken by grief so unexpected as for a time to be rendered almost incomprehensible by a blank stupor of astonishment; he knew that when this dull quiet had passed away, when little by little, and one by one, each horrible feature of the sufferer's sorrow became first dimly apparent and then terribly familiar to him, the storm would burst in fatal fury, and tempests of tears and cruel thunder-claps of agony would rend that generous heart.",0 "Robert had heard of cases in which men of his uncle's age had borne some great grief, as Sir Michael had borne this, with a strange quiet; and had gone away from those who would have comforted them, and whose anxieties have been relieved by this patient stillness, to fall down upon the ground and die under the blow which at first had only stunned him.",1 "He remembered cases in which paralysis and apoplexy had stricken men as strong as his uncle in the first hour of the horrible affliction; and he lingered in the lamp-lit vestibule, wondering whether it was not his duty to be with Sir Michael—to be near him, in case of any emergency, and to accompany him wherever he went.",0 "Yet would it be wise to force himself upon that gray-headed sufferer in this cruel hour, in which he had been awakened from the one delusion of a blameless life to discover that he had been the dupe of a false face, and the fool of a nature which was too coldly mercenary, too cruelly heartless, to be sensible of its own infamy?",0 """No,"" thought Robert Audley, ""I will not intrude upon the anguish of this wounded heart.",1 There is humiliation mingled with this bitter grief.,0 It is better he should fight the battle alone.,3 "I have done what I believe to have been my solemn duty, yet I should scarcely wonder if I had rendered myself forever hateful to him.",1 It is better he should fight the battle alone.,3 I can do nothing to make the strife less terrible.,1 "Better that it should be fought alone.""",3 "While the young man stood with his hand upon the library door, still half-doubtful whether he should follow his uncle or re-enter the room in which he had left that more wretched creature whom it had been his business to unmask, Alicia Audley opened the dining-room door, and revealed to him the old-fashioned oak-paneled apartment, the long table covered with showy damask, and bright with a cheerful glitter of glass and silver.",3 """Is papa coming to dinner?""",2 asked Miss Audley.,1 """I'm so hungry; and poor Tomlins has sent up three times to say the fish will be spoiled.",1 "It must be reduced to a species of isinglass soup, by this time, I should think,"" added the young lady, as she came out into the vestibule with the Times newspaper in her hand.",2 "She had been sitting by the fire reading the paper, and waiting for her seniors to join her at the dinner table.",2 """Oh, it's you, Mr. Robert Audley.""",2 "she remarked, indifferently.",2 """You dine with us of course.",2 Pray go and find papa.,2 "It must be nearly eight o'clock, and we are supposed to dine at six.""",2 Mr. Audley answered his cousin rather sternly.,2 "Her frivolous manner jarred upon him, and he forgot in his irrational displeasure that Miss Audley had known nothing of the terrible drama which had been so long enacting under her very nose.",0 """Your papa has just endured a very great grief, Alicia,"" the young man said, gravely.",1 "The girl's arch, laughing face changed in a moment to a tenderly earnest look of sorrow and anxiety.",2 Alicia Audley loved her father very dearly.,3 """A grief?""",1 "she exclaimed; ""papa grieved!",2 Oh!,2 "Robert, what has happened?""",2 """I can tell you nothing yet, Alicia,"" Robert answered in a low voice.",2 "He took his cousin by the wrist, and drew her into the dining-room as he spoke.",2 "He closed the door carefully behind him before he continued: ""Alicia, can I trust you?""",3 "he asked, earnestly.",3 """Trust me to do what?""",3 """To be a comfort and a friend to your poor father under a very heavy affliction.""",1 """Yes!""",2 "cried Alicia, passionately.",3 """How can you ask me such a question?",2 Do you think there is anything I would not do to lighten any sorrow of my father's?,1 "Do you think there is anything I would not suffer if my suffering could lighten his?""",1 The rushing tears rose to Miss Audley's bright gray eyes as she spoke.,2 """Oh, Robert!",2 Robert!,2 "could you think so badly of me as to think I would not try to be a comfort to my father in his grief?""",1 "she said, reproachfully.",2 """No, no, my dear,"" answered the young man, quietly; ""I never doubted your affection, I only doubted your discretion.",3 "May I rely upon that?""",2 """You may, Robert,"" said Alicia, resolutely.",2 """Very well, then, my dear girl, I will trust you.",3 "Your father is going to leave the Court, for a time at least.",2 "The grief which he has just endured—a sudden and unlooked-for sorrow, remember—has no doubt made this place hateful to him.",0 "He is going away; but he must not go alone, must he, Alicia?""",2 """Alone?",2 no!,2 no!,2 "But I suppose my lady—"" ""Lady Audley will not go with him,"" said Robert, gravely; ""he is about to separate himself from her.""",1 """For a time?""",2 """No, forever.""",2 """Separate himself from her forever!""",2 exclaimed Alicia.,2 """Then this grief—"" ""Is connected with Lady Audley.",1 "Lady Audley is the cause of your father's sorrow.""",1 "Alicia's face, which had been pale before, flushed crimson.",1 "Sorrow, of which my lady was the cause—a sorrow which was to separate Sir Michael forever from his wife!",1 There had been no quarrel between them—there had never been anything but harmony and sunshine between Lady Audley and her generous husband.,3 "This sorrow must surely then have arisen from some sudden discovery; it was, no doubt, a sorrow associated with disgrace.",0 Robert Audley understood the meaning of that vivid blush.,3 """You will offer to accompany your father wherever he may choose to go, Alicia,"" he said.",2 """You are his natural comforter at such a time as this, but you will best befriend him in this hour of trial by avoiding all intrusion upon his grief.",1 Your very ignorance of the particulars of that grief will be a security for your discretion.,1 "Say nothing to your father that you might not have said to him two years ago, before he married a second wife.",2 "Try and be to him what you were before the woman in yonder room came between you and your father's love.""",3 """I will,"" murmured Alicia, ""I will.""",2 """You will naturally avoid all mention of Lady Audley's name.",2 "If your father is often silent, be patient; if it sometimes seems to you that the shadow of this great sorrow will never pass away from his life, be patient still; and remember that there can be no better hope of a cure of his grief than the hope that his daughter's devotion may lead him to remember there is one woman upon this earth who will love him truly and purely until the last.""",4 """Yes—yes, Robert, dear cousin, I will remember.""",2 "Mr. Audley, for the first time since he had been a schoolboy, took his cousin in his arms and kissed her broad forehead.",2 """My dear Alicia,"" he said, ""do this and you will make me happy.",3 I have been in some measure the means of bringing this sorrow upon your father.,1 Let me hope that it is not an enduring one.,2 "Try and restore my uncle to happiness, Alicia, and I will love you more dearly than brother ever loved a noble-hearted sister; and a brotherly affection may be worth having, perhaps, after all, my dear, though it is very different to poor Sir Harry's enthusiastic worship.""",4 "Alicia's head was bent and her face hidden from her cousin while he spoke, but she lifted her head when he had finished, and looked him full in the face with a smile that was only the brighter for her eyes being filled with tears.",3 """You are a good fellow, Bob,"" she said; ""and I've been very foolish and wicked to feel angry with you because—"" The young lady stopped suddenly.",1 """Because what, my dear?""",2 asked Mr. Audley.,2 """Because I'm silly, Cousin Robert,"" Alicia said, quickly; ""never mind that, Bob, I'll do all you wish, and it shall not be my fault if my dearest father doesn't forget his troubles before long.",0 "I'd go to the end of the world with him, poor darling, if I thought there was any comfort to be found for him in the journey.",3 I'll go and get ready directly.,3 "Do you think papa will go to-night?""",2 """Yes, my dear; I don't think Sir Michael will rest another night under this roof yet awhile.""",2 """The mail goes at twenty minutes past nine,"" said Alicia; ""we must leave the house in an hour if we are to travel by it.",2 "I shall see you again before we go, Robert?""",2 """Yes, dear.""",2 "Miss Audley ran off to her room to summon her maid, and make all necessary preparations for the sudden journey, of whose ultimate destination she was as yet quite ignorant.",1 She went heart and soul into the carrying out of the duty which Robert had dictated to her.,2 "She assisted in the packing of her portmanteaus, and hopelessly bewildered her maid by stuffing silk dresses into her bonnet-boxes and satin shoes into her dressing-case.",1 "She roamed about her rooms, gathering together drawing-materials, music-books, needle-work, hair-brushes, jewelry, and perfume-bottles, very much as she might have done had she been about to sail for some savage country, devoid of all civilized resources.",1 "She was thinking all the time of her father's unknown grief, and perhaps a little of the serious face and earnest voice which had that night revealed her Cousin Robert to her in a new character.",1 "Mr. Audley went up-stairs after his cousin, and found his way to Sir Michael's dressing-room.",2 "He knocked at the door and listened, Heaven knows how anxiously, for the expected answer.",2 "There was a moment's pause, during which the young man's heart beat loud and fast, and then the door was opened by the baronet himself.",2 Robert saw that his uncle's valet was already hard at work preparing for his master's hurried journey.,2 Sir Michael came out into the corridor.,2 """Have you anything more to say to me, Robert?""",2 "he asked, quietly.",2 """I only came to ascertain if I could assist in any of your arrangements.",2 "You go to London by the mail?""",2 """Yes.""",2 """Have you any idea of where you will stay.""",2 """Yes, I shall stop at the Clarendon; I am known there.",2 "Is that all you have to say?""",2 """Yes; except that Alicia will accompany you?""",2 """Alicia!""",2 """She could not very well stay here, you know, just now.",3 "It would be best for her to leave the Court until—"" ""Yes, yes, I understand,"" interrupted the baronet; ""but is there nowhere else that she could go—must she be with me?""",3 """She could go nowhere else so immediately, and she would not be happy anywhere else.""",3 """Let her come, then,"" said Sir Michael, ""let her come.""",2 "He spoke in a strange, subdued voice, and with an apparent effort, as if it were painful to him to have to speak at all; as if all this ordinary business of life were a cruel torture to him, and jarred so much upon his grief as to be almost worse to bear than that grief itself.",0 """Very well, my dear uncle, then all is arranged; Alicia will be ready to start at nine o'clock.""",3 """Very good, very good,"" muttered the baronet; ""let her come if she pleases, poor child, let her come.""",3 He sighed heavily as he spoke in that half pitying tone of his daughter.,2 He was thinking how comparatively indifferent he had been toward that only child for the sake of the woman now shut in the fire-lit room below.,1 """I shall see you again before you go, sir,"" said Robert; ""I will leave you till then.""",2 """Stay!""",2 "said Sir Michael, suddenly; ""have you told Alicia?""",2 """I have told her nothing, except that you are about to leave the Court for some time.""",2 """You are very good, my boy, you are very good,"" the baronet murmured in a broken voice.",2 He stretched out his hand.,2 "His nephew took it in both his own, and pressed it to his lips.",2 """Oh, sir!",2 "how can I ever forgive myself?""",2 "he said; ""how can I ever cease to hate myself for having brought this grief upon you?""",1 """No, no, Robert, you did right; I wish that God had been so merciful to me as to take my miserable life before this night; but you did right.""",3 "Sir Michael re-entered his dressing-room, and Robert slowly returned to the vestibule.",1 "He paused upon the threshold of that chamber in which he had left Lucy—Lady Audley, otherwise Helen Talboys, the wife of his lost friend.",1 "She was lying upon the floor, upon the very spot in which she had crouched at her husband's feet telling her guilty story.",1 "Whether she was in a swoon, or whether she lay there in the utter helplessness of her misery, Robert scarcely cared to know.",0 "He went out into the vestibule, and sent one of the servants to look for her maid, the smart, be-ribboned damsel who was loud in wonder and consternation at the sight of her mistress.",1 """Lady Audley is very ill,"" he said; ""take her to her room and see that she does not leave it to-night.",2 "You will be good enough to remain near her, but do not either talk to her or suffer her to excite herself by talking.""",3 "My lady had not fainted; she allowed the girl to assist her, and rose from the ground upon which she had groveled.",2 "Her golden hair fell in loose, disheveled masses about her ivory throat and shoulders, her face and lips were colorless, her eyes terrible in their unnatural light.",0 """Take me away,"" she said, ""and let me sleep!",2 "Let me sleep, for my brain is on fire!""",2 "As she was leaving the room with her maid, she turned and looked at Robert.",2 """Is Sir Michael gone?""",2 she asked.,2 """He will leave in half an hour.""",2 """There were no lives lost in the fire at Mount Stanning?""",1 """None.""",2 """I am glad of that.""",3 """The landlord of the house, Marks, was very terribly burned, and lies in a precarious state at his mother's cottage; but he may recover.""",0 """I am glad of that—I am glad no life was lost.",2 "Good-night, Mr. Audley.""",3 """I shall ask to see you for half an hour's conversation in the course of to-morrow, my lady.""",2 """Whenever you please.",2 "Good night.""",3 """Good night.""",3 "She went away quietly leaning upon her maid's shoulder, and leaving Robert with a sense of strange bewilderment that was very painful to him.",0 "He sat down by the broad hearth upon which the red embers were fading, and wondered at the change in that old house which, until the day of his friend's disappearance, had been so pleasant a home for all who sheltered beneath its hospitable roof.",3 "He sat brooding over the desolate hearth, and trying to decide upon what must be done in this sudden crisis.",1 "He sat helpless and powerless to determine upon any course of action, lost in a dull revery, from which he was aroused by the sound of carriage-wheels driving up to the little turret entrance.",0 The clock in the vestibule struck nine as Robert opened the library door.,1 Alicia had just descended the stairs with her maid; a rosy-faced country girl.,3 """Good-by, Robert,"" said Miss Audley, holding out her hand to her cousin; ""good-by, and God bless you!",3 "You may trust me to take care of papa.""",3 """I am sure I may.",2 "God bless you, my dear.""",3 "For the second time that night Robert Audley pressed his lips to his cousin's candid forehead, and for the second time the embrace was of a brotherly or paternal character, rather than the rapturous proceeding which it would have been had Sir Harry Towers been the privileged performer.",4 "It was five minutes past nine when Sir Michael came down-stairs, followed by his valet, grave and gray-haired like himself.",3 "The baronet was pale, but calm and self-possessed.",2 "The hand which he gave to his nephew was as cold as ice, but it was with a steady voice that he bade the young man good-by.",3 """I leave all in your hands, Robert,"" he said, as he turned to leave the house in which he had lived so long.",2 """I may not have heard the end, but I have heard enough.",3 Heaven knows I have no need to hear more.,3 "I leave all to you, but you will not be cruel—you will remember how much I loved—"" His voice broke huskily before he could finish the sentence.",1 """I will remember you in everything, sir,"" the young man answered.",2 """I will do everything for the best.""",3 "A treacherous mist of tears blinded him and shut out his uncle's face, and in another minute the carriage had driven away, and Robert Audley sat alone in the dark library, where only one red spark glowed among the pale gray ashes.",0 "He sat alone, trying to think what he ought to do, and with the awful responsibility of a wicked woman's fate upon his shoulders.",1 """Good Heaven!""",3 "he thought; ""surely this must be God's judgment upon the purposeless, vacillating life I led up to the seventh day of last September.",3 "Surely this awful responsibility has been forced upon me in order that I may humble myself to an offended Providence, and confess that a man cannot choose his own life.",2 "He cannot say, 'I will take existence lightly, and keep out of the way of the wretched, mistaken, energetic creatures, who fight so heartily in the great battle.'",3 "He cannot say, 'I will stop in the tents while the strife is fought, and laugh at the fools who are trampled down in the useless struggle.'",0 He cannot do this.,2 "He can only do, humbly and fearfully, that which the Maker who created him has appointed for him to do.",1 "If he has a battle to fight, let him fight it faithfully; but woe betide him if he skulks when his name is called in the mighty muster-roll, woe betide him if he hides in the tents when the tocsin summons him to the scene of war!""",3 "One of the servants brought candles into the library and relighted the fire, but Robert Audley did not stir from his seat by the hearth.",2 "He sat as he had often sat in his chambers in Figtree Court, with his elbows resting upon the arms of his chair, and his chin upon his hand.",2 But he lifted his head as the servant was about to leave the room.,2 """Can I send a message from here to London?""",2 he asked.,2 """It can be sent from Brentwood, sir—not from here.""",2 Mr. Audley looked at his watch thoughtfully.,3 """One of the men can ride over to Brentwood, sir, if you wish any message to be sent.""",2 """I do wish to send a message; will you manage it for me, Richards?""",2 """Certainly, sir.""",2 """You can wait, then, while I write the message.""",2 """Yes, sir.""",2 "The man brought writing materials from one of the side-tables, and placed them before Mr. Audley.",2 "Robert dipped a pen in the ink, and stared thoughtfully at one of the candles for a few moments before he began to write.",3 "The message ran thus: ""From Robert Audley, of Audley Court, Essex, to Francis Wilmington, of Paper-buildings, Temple.",2 """DEAR WILMINGTON—If you know any physician experienced in cases of mania, and to be trusted with a secret, be so good as to send me his address by telegraph.""",3 "Mr. Audley sealed this document in a stout envelope, and handed it to the man, with a sovereign.",2 """You will see that this is given to a trustworthy person, Richards,"" he said, ""and let the man wait at the station for the return message.",3 "He ought to get it in an hour and a half.""",2 "Mr. Richards, who had known Robert Audley in jackets and turn-down collars, departed to execute his commission.",2 "Heaven forbid that we should follow him into the comfortable servants' hall at the Court, where the household sat round the blazing fire, discussing in utter bewilderment the events of the day.",2 Nothing could be wider from the truth than the speculations of these worthy people.,3 What clew had they to the mystery of that firelit room in which a guilty woman had knelt at their master's feet to tell the story of her sinful life?,0 They only knew that which Sir Michael's valet had told them of this sudden journey.,2 "How his master was as pale as a sheet, and spoke in a strange voice that didn't sound like his own, somehow, and how you might have knocked him—Mr. Parsons, the valet—down with a feather, if you had been minded to prostrate him by the aid of so feeble a weapon.",1 "The wiseheads of the servants' hall decided that Sir Michael had received sudden intelligence through Mr. Robert—they were wise enough to connect the young man with the catastrophe—either of the death of some near and dear relation—the elder servants decimated the Audley family in their endeavors to find a likely relation—or of some alarming fall in the funds, or of the failure of some speculation or bank in which the greater part of the baronet's money was invested.",1 "The general leaning was toward the failure of a bank, and every member of the assembly seemed to take a dismal and raven-like delight in the fancy, though such a supposition involved their own ruin in the general destruction of that liberal household.",1 "Robert sat by the dreary hearth, which seemed dreary even now when the blaze of a great wood-fire roared in the wide chimney, and listened to the low wail of the March wind moaning round the house and lifting the shivering ivy from the walls it sheltered.",1 "He was tired and worn out, for remember that he had been awakened from his sleep at two o'clock that morning by the hot breath of blazing timber and the sharp crackling of burning woodwork.",1 "But for his presence of mind and cool decision, Mr. Luke Marks would have died a dreadful death.",1 "He still bore the traces of the night's peril, for the dark hair had been singed upon one side of his forehead, and his left hand was red and inflamed, from the effect of the scorching atmosphere out of which he had dragged the landlord of the Castle Inn.",0 "He was thoroughly exhausted with fatigue and excitement, and he fell into a heavy sleep in his easy-chair before the bright fire, from which he was only awakened by the entrance of Mr. Richards with the return message.",2 This return message was very brief.,2 """DEAR AUDLEY—Always glad to oblige.",3 "Alwyn Mosgrave, M.D., 12 Saville Row.",2 "Safe.""",3 "This with names and addresses, was all that it contained.",2 """I shall want another message taken to Brentwood to-morrow morning, Richards,"" said Mr. Audley, as he folded the telegram.",2 """I should be glad if the man would ride over with it before breakfast.",3 "He shall have half a sovereign for his trouble.""",1 Mr. Richards bowed.,2 """Thank you, sir—not necessary, sir; but as you please, of course, sir,"" he murmured.",3 """At what hour might you wish the man to go?""",2 "Mr. Audley might wish the man to go as early as he could, so it was decided that he should go at six.",2 """My room is ready, I suppose, Richards?""",3 said Robert.,2 """Yes, sir—your old room.""",2 """Very good.",3 I shall go to bed at once.,2 "Bring me a glass of brandy and water as hot as you can make it, and wait for the telegram.""",3 This second message was only a very earnest request to Doctor Mosgrave to pay an immediate visit to Audley Court on a matter of serious moment.,3 "Having written this message, Mr. Audley felt that he had done all that he could do.",2 He drank his brandy and water.,2 "He had actual need of the diluted alcohol, for he had been chilled to the bone by his adventures during the fire.",2 "He slowly sipped the pale golden liquid and thought of Clara Talboys, of that earnest girl whose brother's memory was now avenged, whose brother's destroyer was humiliated in the dust.",1 Had she heard of the fire at the Castle Inn?,2 How could she have done otherwise than hear of it in such a place as Mount Stanning?,2 "But had she heard that he had been in danger, and that he had distinguished himself by the rescue of a drunken boor?",1 "I fear that, even sitting by that desolate hearth, and beneath the roof whose noble was an exile from his own house, Robert Audley was weak enough to think of these things—weak enough to let his fancy wander away to the dismal fir-trees under the cold March sky, and the dark-brown eyes that were so like the eyes of his lost friend.",0 My lady slept.,2 Through that long winter night she slept soundly.,3 "Criminals have often so slept their last sleep upon earth; and have been found in the gray morning slumbering peacefully, by the jailer who came to wake them.",3 The game had been played and lost.,1 "I do not think that my lady had thrown away a card, or missed the making of a trick which she might by any possibility have made; but her opponent's hand had been too powerful for her, and he had won.",2 "She looked upon herself as a species of state prisoner, who would have to be taken good care of.",2 "A second Iron Mask, who must be provided for in some comfortable place of confinement.",3 She abandoned herself to a dull indifference.,1 "She had lived a hundred lives within the space of the last few days of her existence, and she had worn out her capacity for suffering—for a time at least.",1 "She ate her breakfast, and took her morning bath, and emerged, with perfumed hair and in the most exquisitely careless of morning toilets, from her luxurious dressing-room.",3 She looked at herself in the cheval-glass before she left the room.,2 "A long night's rest had brought back the delicate rose-tints of her complexion, and the natural luster of her blue eyes.",3 "That unnatural light which had burned so fearfully the day before had gone, and my lady smiled triumphantly as she contemplated the reflection of her beauty.",1 "The days were gone in which her enemies could have branded her with white-hot irons, and burned away the loveliness which had done such mischief.",1 "Whatever they did to her they must leave her her beauty, she thought.",3 "At the worst, they were powerless to rob her of that.",1 "The March day was bright and sunny, with a cheerless sunshine certainly.",2 My lady wrapped herself in an Indian shawl; a shawl that had cost Sir Michael a hundred guineas.,2 "I think she had an idea that it would be well to wear this costly garment; so that if hustled suddenly away, she might carry at least one of her possessions with her.",2 "Remember how much she had periled for a fine house and gorgeous furniture, for carriages and horses, jewels and laces; and do not wonder if she clings with a desperate tenacity to gauds and gew-gaws, in the hour of her despair.",3 "If she had been Judas, she would have held to her thirty pieces of silver to the last moment of her shameful life.",1 Mr. Robert Audley breakfasted in the library.,2 "He sat long over his solitary cup of tea, smoking his meerschaum pipe, and meditating darkly upon the task that lay before him.",2 """I will appeal to the experience of this Dr. Mosgrave,"" he though; ""physicians and lawyers are the confessors of this prosaic nineteenth century.",3 "Surely, he will be able to help me.""",2 "The first fast train from London arrived at Audley at half-past ten o'clock, and at five minutes before eleven, Richards, the grave servant, announced Dr. Alwyn Mosgrave.",3 The physician from Saville Row was a tall man of about fifty years of age.,2 "He was thin and sallow, with lantern jaws, and eyes of a pale, feeble gray, that seemed as if they had once been blue, and had faded by the progress of time to their present neutral shade.",1 "However powerful the science of medicine as wielded by Dr. Alwyn Mosgrave, it had not been strong enough to put flesh upon his bones, or brightness into his face.",4 "He had a strangely expressionless, and yet strangely attentive countenance.",2 "He had the face of a man who had spent the greater part of his life in listening to other people, and who had parted with his own individuality and his own passions at the very outset of his career.",2 "He bowed to Robert Audley, took the opposite seat indicated by him, and addressed his attentive face to the young barrister.",3 "Robert saw that the physician's glance for a moment lost its quiet look of attention, and became earnest and searching.",3 """He is wondering whether I am the patient,"" thought Mr. Audley, ""and is looking for the diagnoses of madness in my face.""",2 Dr. Mosgrave spoke as if in answer to this thought.,2 """Is it not about your own—health—that you wish to consult me?""",2 "he said, interrogatively.",2 """Oh, no!""",2 "Dr. Mosgrave looked at his watch, a fifty-guinea Benson-made chronometer, which he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket as carelessly as if it had been a potato.",1 """I need not remind you that my time is precious,"" he said; ""your telegram informed me that my services were required in a case of—danger—as I apprehend, or I should not be here this morning.""",2 "Robert Audley had sat looking gloomily at the fire, wondering how he should begin the conversation, and had needed this reminder of the physician's presence.",2 """You are very good, Dr. Mosgrave,"" he said, rousing himself by an effort, ""and I thank you very much for having responded to my summons.",3 I am about to appeal to you upon a subject which is more painful to me than words can describe.,2 "I am about to implore your advice in a most difficult case, and I trust almost blindly to your experience to rescue me, and others who are very dear to me, from a cruel and complicated position.""",1 The business-like attention in Dr. Mosgrave's face grew into a look of interest as he listened to Robert Audley.,3 """The revelation made by the patient to the physician is, I believe, as sacred as the confession of a penitent to his priest?""",3 "Robert asked, gravely.",1 """Quite as sacred.""",2 """A solemn confidence, to be violated under no circumstances?""",2 """Most certainly.""",2 Robert Audley looked at the fire again.,2 "How much should he tell, or how little, of the dark history of his uncle's second wife?",1 """I have been given to understand, Dr. Mosgrave, that you have devoted much of your attention to the treatment of insanity.""",1 """Yes, my practice is almost confined to the treatment of mental diseases.""",1 """Such being the case, I think I may venture to conclude that you sometimes receive strange, and even terrible, revelations.""",1 Dr. Mosgrave bowed.,2 "He looked like a man who could have carried, safely locked in his passionless breast, the secrets of a nation, and who would have suffered no inconvenience from the weight of such a burden.",1 """The story which I am about to tell you is not my own story,"" said Robert, after a pause; ""you will forgive me, therefore, if I once more remind you that I can only reveal it upon the understanding that under no circumstances, or upon no apparent justification, is that confidence to be betrayed.""",3 Dr. Mosgrave bowed again.,2 "A little sternly, perhaps, this time.",2 """I am all attention, Mr. Audley,"" he said coldly.",1 "Robert Audley drew his chair nearer to that of the physician, and in a low voice began the story which my lady had told upon her knees in that same chamber upon the previous night.",2 "Dr. Mosgrave's listening face, turned always toward the speaker, betrayed no surprise at that strange revelation.",2 "He smiled once, a grave, quiet smile, when Mr. Audley came to that part of the story which told of the conspiracy at Ventnor; but he was not surprised.",3 Robert Audley ended his story at the point at which Sir Michael Audley had interrupted my lady's confession.,1 "He told nothing of the disappearance of George Talboys, nor of the horrible suspicions that had grown out of that disappearance.",1 He told nothing of the fire at the Castle Inn.,2 "Dr. Mosgrave shook his head, gravely, when Mr. Audley came to the end of his story.",1 """You have nothing further to tell me?""",2 he said.,2 """No.",2 "I do not think there is anything more that need be told,"" Robert answered, rather evasively.",2 """You would wish to prove that this lady is mad, and therefore irresponsible for her actions, Mr. Audley?""",1 said the physician.,2 "Robert Audley stared, wondering at the mad doctor.",1 By what process had he so rapidly arrived at the young man's secret desire?,2 """Yes, I would rather, if possible, think her mad; I should be glad to find that excuse for her.""",1 """And to save the esclandre of a Chancery suit, I suppose, Mr. Audley,"" said Dr. Mosgrave.",2 Robert shuddered as he bowed an assent to this remark.,2 It was something worse than a Chancery suit that he dreaded with a horrible fear.,0 It was a trial for murder that had so long haunted his dreams.,1 "How often he had awoke, in an agony of shame, from a vision of a crowded court-house, and his uncle's wife in a criminal dock, hemmed in on every side by a sea of eager faces.",0 """I fear that I shall not be of any use to you,"" the physician said, quietly; ""I will see the lady, if you please, but I do not believe that she is mad.""",1 """Why not?""",2 """Because there is no evidence of madness in anything she has done.",1 "She ran away from her home, because her home was not a pleasant one, and she left in the hope of finding a better.",3 There is no madness in that.,1 "She committed the crime of bigamy, because by that crime she obtained fortune and position.",2 There is no madness there.,1 "When she found herself in a desperate position, she did not grow desperate.",1 "She employed intelligent means, and she carried out a conspiracy which required coolness and deliberation in its execution.",2 "There is no madness in that.""",1 """But the traits of hereditary insanity—"" ""May descend to the third generation, and appear in the lady's children, if she have any.",1 Madness is not necessarily transmitted from mother to daughter.,1 "I should be glad to help you, if I could, Mr. Audley, but I do not think there is any proof of insanity in the story you have told me.",2 I do not think any jury in England would accept the plea of insanity in such a case as this.,1 "The best thing you can do with this lady is to send her back to her first husband; if he will have her.""",3 Robert started at this sudden mention of his friend.,2 """Her first husband is dead,"" he answered, ""at least, he has been missing for some time—and I have reason to believe that he is dead.""",1 "Dr. Mosgrave saw the startled movement, and heard the embarrassment in Robert Audley's voice as he spoke of George Talboys.",1 """The lady's first husband is missing,"" he said, with a strange emphasis on the word—""you think that he is dead?""",1 "He paused for a few moments and looked at the fire, as Robert had looked before.",2 """Mr. Audley,"" he said, presently, ""there must be no half-confidences between us.",2 "You have not told me all.""",2 "Robert, looking up suddenly, plainly expressed in his face the surprise he felt at these words.",2 """I should be very poorly able to meet the contingencies of my professional experience,"" said Dr. Mosgrave, ""if I could not perceive where confidence ends and reservation begins.",2 "You have only told me half this lady's story, Mr. Audley.",2 You must tell me more before I can offer you any advice.,2 "What has become of the first husband?""",2 "He asked this question in a decisive tone, as if he knew it to be the key-stone of an arch.",3 """I have already told you, Dr. Mosgrave, that I do not know.""",2 """Yes,"" answered the physician, ""but your face has told me what you have withheld from me; it has told me that you suspect.""",1 Robert Audley was silent.,3 """If I am to be of use to you, you must trust me, Mr. Audley,"" said the physician.",3 """The first husband disappeared—how and when?",2 "I want to know the history of his disappearance.""",2 "Robert paused for some time before he replied to this speech; but, by and by, he lifted his head, which had been bent in an attitude of earnest thought, and addressed the physician.",2 """I will trust you, Dr. Mosgrave,"" he said.",3 """I will confide entirely in your honor and goodness.",3 "I do not ask you to do any wrong to society; but I ask you to save our stainless name from degradation and shame, if you can do so conscientiously.""",1 "He told the story of George's disappearance, and of his own doubts and fears, Heaven knows how reluctantly.",1 Dr. Mosgrave listened as quietly as he had listened before.,2 Robert concluded with an earnest appeal to the physician's best feelings.,4 He implored him to spare the generous old man whose fatal confidence in a wicked woman had brought much misery upon his declining years.,1 "It was impossible to draw any conclusion, either favorable or otherwise, from Dr. Mosgrave's attentive face.",3 "He rose, when Robert had finished speaking, and looked at his watch once more.",2 """I can only spare you twenty minutes,"" he said.",2 """I will see the lady, if you please.",2 "You say her mother died in a madhouse?""",1 """She did.",2 "Will you see Lady Audley alone?""",2 """Yes, alone, if you please.""",2 "Robert rung for my lady's maid, and under convoy of that smart young damsel the physician found his way to the octagon antechamber, and the fairy boudoir with which it communicated.",3 "Ten minutes afterward, he returned to the library, in which Robert sat waiting for him.",2 """I have talked to the lady,"" he said, quietly, ""and we understand each other very well.",3 There is latent insanity!,1 Insanity which might never appear; or which might appear only once or twice in a lifetime.,1 "It would be a dementia in its worst phase, perhaps; acute mania; but its duration would be very brief, and it would only arise under extreme mental pressure.",1 The lady is not mad; but she has the hereditary taint in her blood.,1 "She has the cunning of madness, with the prudence of intelligence.",3 "I will tell you what she is, Mr. Audley.",2 "She is dangerous!""",1 Dr. Mosgrave walked up and down the room once or twice before he spoke again.,2 """I will not discuss the probabilities of the suspicion which distresses you, Mr. Audley,"" he said, presently, ""but I will tell you this much, I do not advise any esclandre.",1 "This Mr. George Talboys has disappeared, but you have no evidence of his death.",1 "If you could produce evidence of his death, you could produce no evidence against this lady, beyond the one fact that she had a powerful motive for getting rid of him.",2 "No jury in the United Kingdom would condemn her upon such evidence as that.""",1 "Robert Audley interrupted Dr. Mosgrave, hastily.",1 """I assure you, my dear sir,"" he said, ""that my greatest fear is the necessity of any exposure—any disgrace.""",2 """Certainly, Mr. Audley,"" answered the physician, coolly, ""but you cannot expect me to assist you to condone one of the worst offenses against society.",1 "If I saw adequate reason for believing that a murder had been committed by this woman, I should refuse to assist you in smuggling her away out of the reach of justice, although the honor of a hundred noble families might be saved by my doing so.",3 "But I do not see adequate reason for your suspicions; and I will do my best to help you.""",3 Robert Audley grasped the physician's hands in both his own.,2 """I will thank you when I am better able to do so,"" he said, with emotion; ""I will thank you in my uncle's name as well as in my own.""",4 """I have only five minutes more, and I have a letter to write,"" said Dr. Mosgrave, smiling at the young man's energy.",3 "He seated himself at a writing-table in the window, dipped his pen in the ink, and wrote rapidly for about seven minutes.",2 "He had filled three sides of a sheet of note-paper, when he threw down his pen and folded his letter.",2 "He put this letter into an envelope, and delivered it, unsealed, to Robert Audley.",2 "The address which it bore was: ""Monsieur Val, ""Villebrumeuse, ""Belgium.""",1 "Mr. Audley looked rather doubtfully from this address to the doctor, who was putting on his gloves as deliberately as if his life had never known a more solemn purpose than the proper adjustment of them.",1 """That letter,"" he said, in answer to Robert Audley's inquiring look, ""is written to my friend Monsieur Val, the proprietor and medical superintendent of a very excellent maison de santé in the town of Villebrumeuse.",3 "We have known each other for many years, and he will no doubt willingly receive Lady Audley into his establishment, and charge himself with the full responsibility of her future life; it will not be a very eventful one!""",3 "Robert Audley would have spoken, he would have once more expressed his gratitude for the help which had been given to him, but Dr. Mosgrave checked him with an authoritative gesture.",3 """From the moment in which Lady Audley enters that house,"" he said, ""her life, so far as life is made up of action and variety, will be finished.",3 Whatever secrets she may have will be secrets forever!,2 Whatever crimes she may have committed she will be able to commit no more.,2 "If you were to dig a grave for her in the nearest churchyard and bury her alive in it, you could not more safely shut her from the world and all worldly associations.",3 "But as a physiologist and as an honest man, I believe you could do no better service to society than by doing this; for physiology is a lie if the woman I saw ten minutes ago is a woman to be trusted at large.",3 "If she could have sprung at my throat and strangled me with her little hands, as I sat talking to her just now, she would have done it.""",2 """She suspected your purpose, then!""",2 """She knew it.",2 "'You think I am mad like my mother, and you have come to question me,' she said.",2 'You are watching for some sign of the dreadful taint in my blood.',1 "Good-day to you, Mr. Audley,"" the physician added hurriedly, ""my time was up ten minutes ago; it is as much as I shall do to catch the train.""",3 "Robert Audley sat alone in the library with the physician's letter upon the table before him, thinking of the work which was still to be done.",3 The young barrister had constituted himself the denouncer of this wretched woman.,1 He had been her judge; and he was now her jailer.,2 "Not until he had delivered the letter which lay before him to its proper address, not until he had given up his charge into the safe-keeping of the foreign mad-house doctor, not until then would the dreadful burden be removed from him and his duty done.",1 "He wrote a few lines to my lady, telling her that he was going to carry her away from Audley Court to a place from which she was not likely to return, and requesting her to lose no time in preparing for the journey.",1 "He wished to start that evening, if possible, he told her.",2 "Miss Susan Martin, the lady's maid, thought it a very hard thing to have to pack her mistress' trunks in such a hurry, but my lady assisted in the task.",1 "She toiled resolutely in directing and assisting her servant, who scented bankruptcy and ruin in all this packing up and hurrying away, and was therefore rather languid and indifferent in the discharge of her duties; and at six o'clock in the evening she sent her attendant to tell Mr. Audley that she was ready to depart as soon as he pleased.",1 "Robert had consulted a volume of Bradshaw, and had discovered that Villebrumeuse lay out of the track of all railway traffic, and was only approachable by diligence from Brussels.",3 "The mail for Dover left London Bridge at nine o'clock, and could be easily caught by Robert and his charge, as the seven o'clock up-train from Audley reached Shoreditch at a quarter past eight.",2 "Traveling by the Dover and Calais route, they would reach Villebrumeuse by the following afternoon or evening.",2 It was late in the afternoon of the next day when the diligence bumped and rattled over the uneven paving of the principal street in Villebrumeuse.,1 "Robert Audley and my lady had had the coupé of the diligence to themselves for the whole of the journey, for there were not many travelers between Brussels and Villebrumeuse, and the public conveyance was supported by the force of tradition rather than any great profit attaching to it as a speculation.",4 "My lady had not spoken during the journey, except to decline some refreshments which Robert had offered her at a halting place upon the road.",1 "Her heart sunk when they left Brussels behind, for she had hoped that city might have been the end of her journey, and she had turned with a feeling of sickness and despair from the dull Belgian landscape.",0 "She looked up at last as the vehicle jolted into a great stony quadrangle, which had been the approach to a monastery once, but which was now the court yard of a dismal hotel, in whose cellars legions of rats skirmished and squeaked even while the broad sunshine was bright in the chambers above.",3 "Lady Audley shuddered as she alighted from the diligence, and found herself in that dreary court yard.",2 "Robert was surrounded by chattering porters, who clamored for his ""baggages,"" and disputed among themselves as to the hotel at which he was to rest.",1 "One of these men ran away to fetch a hackney-coach at Mr. Audley's behest, and reappeared presently, urging on a pair of horses—which were so small as to suggest the idea that they had been made out of one ordinary-sized animal—with wild shrieks and whoops that had a demoniac sound in the darkness.",1 Mr. Audley left my lady in a dreary coffee-room in the care of a drowsy attendant while he drove away to some distant part of the quiet city.,2 There was official business to be gone through before Sir Michael's wife could be quietly put away in the place suggested by Dr. Mosgrave.,2 Robert had to see all manner of important personages; and to take numerous oaths; and to exhibit the English physician's letter; and to go through much ceremony of signing and countersigning before he could take his lost friend's cruel wife to the home which was to be her last upon earth.,2 "Upward of two hours elapsed before all this was arranged, and the young man was free to return to the hotel, where he found his charge staring absently at a pair of wax-candles, with a cup of untasted coffee standing cold and stagnant before her.",1 "Robert handed my lady into the hired vehicle, and took his seat opposite to her once more.",2 """Where are you going to take me?""",2 "she asked, at last.",2 """I am tired of being treated like some naughty child, who is put into a dark cellar as a punishment for its offenses.",0 "Where are you taking me?""",2 """To a place in which you will have ample leisure to repent the past, Mrs. Talboys,"" Robert answered, gravely.",2 "They had left the paved streets behind them, and had emerged out of a great gaunt square, in which there appeared to be about half a dozen cathedrals, into a small boulevard, a broad lamp-lit road, on which the shadows of the leafless branches went and came tremblingly, like the shadows of a paralytic skeleton.",3 "There were houses here and there upon this boulevard; stately houses, entre cour et jardin, and with plaster vases of geraniums on the stone pillars of the ponderous gateways.",3 "The rumbling hackney-carriage drove upward of three-quarters of a mile along this smooth roadway before it drew up against a gateway, older and more ponderous than any of those they had passed.",2 My lady gave a little scream as she looked out of the coach-window.,1 "The gaunt gateway was lighted by an enormous lamp; a great structure of iron and glass, in which one poor little shivering flame struggled with the March wind.",1 "The coachman rang the bell, and a little wooden door at the side of the gate was opened by a gray-haired man, who looked out at the carriage, and then retired.",2 "He reappeared three minutes afterward behind the folding iron gates, which he unlocked and threw back to their full extent, revealing a dreary desert of stone-paved courtyard.",1 "The coachman led his wretched horses into the courtyard, and piloted the vehicle to the principal doorway of the house, a great mansion of gray stone, with several long ranges of windows, many of which were dimly lighted, and looked out like the pale eyes of weary watchers upon the darkness of the night.",1 "My lady, watchful and quiet as the cold stars in the wintry sky, looked up at these casements with an earnest and scrutinizing gaze.",3 "One of the windows was shrouded by a scanty curtain of faded red; and upon this curtain there went and came a dark shadow, the shadow of a woman with a fantastic head dress, the shadow of a restless creature, who paced perpetually backward and forward before the window.",0 "Sir Michael Audley's wicked wife laid her hand suddenly upon Robert's arm, and pointed with the other hand to this curtained window.",1 """I know where you have brought me,"" she said.",2 """This is a MAD-HOUSE."" Mr. Audley did not answer her.",1 "He had been standing at the door of the coach when she addressed him, and he quietly assisted her to alight, and led her up a couple of shallow stone steps, and into the entrance-hall of the mansion.",2 "He handed Dr. Mosgrave's letter to a neatly-dressed, cheerful-looking, middle-aged woman, who came tripping out of a little chamber which opened out of the hall, and was very much like the bureau of an hotel.",4 "This person smilingly welcome Robert and his charge: and after dispatching a servant with the letter, invited them into her pleasant little apartment, which was gayly furnished with bright amber curtains and heated by a tiny stove.",4 """Madam finds herself very much fatigued?""",1 "the Frenchwoman said, interrogatively, with a look of intense sympathy, as she placed an arm-chair for my lady.",1 """Madam"" shrugged her shoulders wearily, and looked round the little chamber with a sharp glance of scrutiny that betokened no very great favor.",4 """WHAT is this place, Robert Audley?""",2 she cried fiercely.,2 """Do you think I am a baby, that you may juggle with and deceive me—what is it?",1 "It is what I said just now, is it not?""",2 """It is a maison de santé, my lady,"" the young man answered, gravely.",1 """I have no wish to juggle with or to deceive you.""",1 "My lady paused for a few moments, looking reflectively at Robert.",2 """A maison de santé,"" she repeated.",2 """Yes, they manage these things better in France.",3 In England we should call it a madhouse.,2 "This a house for mad people, this, is it not, madam?""",1 "she said in French, turning upon the woman, and tapping the polished floor with her foot.",3 """Ah, but no, madam,"" the woman answered with a shrill scream of protest.",0 """It is an establishment of the most agreeable, where one amuses one's self—"" She was interrupted by the entrance of the principal of this agreeable establishment, who came beaming into the room with a radiant smile illuminating his countenance, and with Dr. Mosgrave's letter open in his hand.",4 It was impossible to say how enchanted he was to make the acquaintance of M'sieu.,2 "There was nothing upon earth which he was not ready to do for M'sieu in his own person, and nothing under heaven which he would not strive to accomplish for him, as the friend of his acquaintance, so very much distinguished, the English doctor.",4 "Dr. Mosgrave's letter had given him a brief synopsis of the case, he informed Robert, in an undertone, and he was quite prepared to undertake the care of the charming and very interesting ""Madam—Madam—"" He rubbed his hands politely, and looked at Robert.",3 "Mr. Audley remembered, for the first time, that he had been recommended to introduce his wretched charge under a feigned name.",2 He affected not to hear the proprietor's question.,2 "It might seem a very easy matter to have hit upon a heap of names, any one of which would have answered his purpose; but Mr. Audley appeared suddenly to have forgotten that he had ever heard any mortal appellation except that of himself and of his lost friend.",2 Perhaps the proprietor perceived and understood his embarrassment.,1 "He at any rate relieved it by turning to the woman who had received them, and muttering something about No. 14, Bis.",2 "The woman took a key from a long range of others, that hung over the mantel-piece, and a wax candle from a bracket in a corner of the room, and having lighted the candle, led the way across the stone-paved hall, and up a broad, slippery staircase of polished wood.",3 The English physician had informed his Belgian colleague that money would be of minor consequence in any arrangements made for the comfort of the English lady who was to be committed to his care.,3 "Acting upon this hint, Monsieur Val opened the outer door of a stately suite of apartments, which included a lobby, paved with alternate diamonds of black and white marble, but of a dismal and cellar-like darkness; a saloon furnished with gloomy velvet draperies, and with a certain funereal splendor which is not peculiarly conducive to the elevation of the spirits; and a bed-chamber, containing a bed so wondrously made, as to appear to have no opening whatever in its coverings, unless the counterpane had been split asunder with a pen-knife.",0 "My lady stared dismally round at the range of rooms, which looked dreary enough in the wan light of a single wax-candle.",1 "This solitary flame, pale and ghost-like in itself, was multiplied by paler phantoms of its ghostliness, which glimmered everywhere about the rooms; in the shadowy depths of the polished floors and wainscot, or the window-panes, in the looking-glasses, or in those great expanses of glimmering something which adorned the rooms, and which my lady mistook for costly mirrors, but which were in reality wretched mockeries of burnished tin.",1 "Amid all the faded splendor of shabby velvet, and tarnished gilding, and polished wood, the woman dropped into an arm-chair, and covered her face with her hands.",2 "The whiteness of them, and the starry light of diamonds trembling about them, glittered in the dimly-lighted chamber.",2 "She sat silent, motionless, despairing, sullen, and angry, while Robert and the French doctor retired to an outer chamber, and talked together in undertones.",0 "Mr. Audley had very little to say that had not been already said for him, with a far better grace than he himself could have expressed it, by the English physician.",3 "He had, after great trouble of mind, hit upon the name of Taylor, as a safe and simple substitute for that other name, to which alone my lady had a right.",3 "He told the Frenchman that this Mrs. Taylor was distantly related to him—that she had inherited the seeds of madness from her mother, as indeed Dr. Mosgrave had informed Monsieur Val; and that she had shown some fearful tokens of the lurking taint that was latent in her mind; but that she was not to be called ""mad.""",0 "He begged that she might be treated with all tenderness and compassion; that she might receive all reasonable indulgences; but he impressed upon Monsieur Val, that under no circumstances was she to be permitted to leave the house and grounds without the protection of some reliable person, who should be answerable for her safe-keeping.",4 "He had only one other point to urge, and that was, that Monsieur Val, who, as he had understood, was himself a Protestant—the doctor bowed—would make arrangements with some kind and benevolent Protestant clergyman, through whom spiritual advice and consolation might be secured for the invalid lady; who had especial need, Robert added, gravely, of such advantages.",3 "This—with all necessary arrangements as to pecuniary matters, which were to be settled from time to time between Mr. Audley and the doctor, unassisted by any agents whatever—was the extent of the conversation between the two men, and occupied about a quarter of an hour.",2 "My lady sat in the same attitude when they re-entered the bedchamber in which they had left her, with her ringed hands still clasped over her face.",2 Robert bent over to whisper in her ear.,1 """Your name is Madam Taylor here,"" he said.",2 """I do not think you would wish to be known by your real name.""",2 "She only shook her head in answer to him, and did not even remove her hands from over her face.",2 """Madam will have an attendant entirely devoted to her service.""",2 said Monsieur Val.,2 """Madam will have all her wishes obeyed; her reasonable wishes, but that goes without saying,"" monsieur adds, with a quaint shrug.",3 """Every effort will be made to render madam's sojourn at Villebrumeuse agreeable.",3 The inmates dine together when it is wished.,2 "I dine with the inmates sometimes; my subordinate, a clever and a worthy man always.",3 I reside with my wife and children in a little pavilion in the grounds; my subordinate resides in the establishment.,1 "Madam may rely upon our utmost efforts being exerted to insure her comfort.""",3 "Monsieur is saying a great deal more to the same effect, rubbing his hands and beaming radiantly upon Robert and his charge, when madam rises suddenly, erect and furious, and dropping her jeweled fingers from before her face, tells him to hold his tongue.",2 """Leave me alone with the man who has brought me here.""",2 "she cried, between her set teeth.",2 """Leave me!""",2 "She points to the door with a sharp, imperious gesture; so rapid that the silken drapery about her arm makes a swooping sound as she lifts her hand.",3 "The sibilant French syllables hiss through her teeth as she utters them, and seem better fitted to her mood and to herself than the familiar English she has spoken hitherto.",2 "The French doctor shrugs his shoulders as he goes out into the lobby, and mutters something about a ""beautiful devil,"" and a gesture worthy of ""the Mars.""",3 "My lady walked with a rapid footstep to the door between the bed-chamber and the saloon; closed it, and with the handle of the door still in her hand, turned and looked at Robert Audley.",3 """You have brought me to my grave, Mr. Audley,"" she cried; ""you have used your power basely and cruelly, and have brought me to a living grave.""",1 """I have done that which I thought just to others and merciful to you,"" Robert answered, quietly.",3 """I should have been a traitor to society had I suffered you to remain at liberty after—the disappearance of George Talboys and the fire at Castle Inn.",1 I have brought you to a place in which you will be kindly treated by people who have no knowledge of your story—no power to taunt or to reproach you.,1 "You will lead a quiet and peaceful life, my lady; such a life as many a good and holy woman in this Catholic country freely takes upon herself, and happily endures until the end.",4 "The solitude of your existence in this place will be no greater than that of a king's daughter, who, flying from the evil of the time, was glad to take shelter in a house as tranquil as this.",3 "Surely, it is a small atonement which I ask you to render for your sins, a light penance which I call upon you to perform.",2 "Live here and repent; nobody will assail you, nobody will torment you.",1 "I only say to you, repent!""",2 """I cannot!""",2 "cried my lady, pushing her hair fiercely from her white forehead, and fixing her dilated eyes upon Robert Audley, ""I cannot!",2 Has my beauty brought me to this?,3 "Have I plotted and schemed to shield myself and laid awake in the long deadly nights, trembling to think of my dangers, for this?",1 "I had better have given up at once, since this was to be the end.",3 "I had better have yielded to the curse that was upon me, and given up when George Talboys first came back to England.""",2 She plucked at the feathery golden curls as if she would have torn them from her head.,3 "It had served her so little after all, that gloriously glittering hair, that beautiful nimbus of yellow light that had contrasted so exquisitely with the melting azure of her eyes.",4 She hated herself and her beauty.,2 """I would laugh at you and defy you, if I dared,"" she cried; ""I would kill myself and defy you, if I dared.",1 "But I am a poor, pitiful coward, and have been so from the first.",0 "Afraid of my mother's horrible inheritance; afraid of poverty; afraid of George Talboys; afraid of you.""",0 "She was silent for a little while, but she held her place by the door, as if determined to detain Robert as long as it was her pleasure to do so.",3 """Do you know what I am thinking of?""",2 "she said, presently.",2 """Do you know what I am thinking of, as I look at you in the dim light of this room?",1 "I am thinking of the day upon which George Talboys disappeared.""",2 "Robert started as she mentioned the name of his lost friend; his face turned pale in the dusky light, and his breathing grew quicker and louder.",1 """He was standing opposite me, as you are standing now,"" continued my lady.",2 """You said that you would raze the old house to the ground; that you would root up every tree in the gardens to find your dead friend.",1 "You would have had no need to do so much: the body of George Talboys lies at the bottom of the old well, in the shrubbery beyond the lime-walk.""",2 "Robert Audley flung his hands and clasped them above his head, with one loud cry of horror.",1 """Oh, my God!""",2 "he said, after a dreadful pause; ""have all the ghastly things that I have thought prepared me so little for the ghastly truth, that it should come upon me like this at last?""",1 """He came to me in the lime-walk,"" resumed my lady, in the same hard, dogged tone as that in which she had confessed the wicked story of her life.",0 """I knew that he would come, and I had prepared myself, as well as I could, to meet him.",3 "I was determined to bribe him, to cajole him, to defy him; to do anything sooner than abandon the wealth and the position I had won, and go back to my old life.",3 "He came, and he reproached me for the conspiracy at Ventnor.",1 He declared that so long as he lived he would never forgive me for the lie that had broken his heart.,1 He told me that I had plucked his heart out of his breast and trampled upon it; and that he had now no heart in which to feel one sentiment of mercy for me.,3 "That he would have forgiven me any wrong upon earth, but that one deliberate and passionless wrong that I had done him.",1 "He said this and a great deal more, and he told me that no power on earth should turn him from his purpose, which was to take me to the man I had deceived, and make me tell my wicked story.",2 He did not know the hidden taint that I had sucked in with my mother's milk.,1 He did not know that it was possible to drive me mad.,1 He goaded me as you have goaded me; he was as merciless as you have been merciless.,1 We were in the shrubbery at the end of the lime-walk.,2 I was seated upon the broken masonry at the mouth of the well.,2 "George Talboys was leaning upon the disused windlass, in which the rusty iron spindle rattled loosely whenever he shifted his position.",1 "I rose at last, and turned upon him to defy him, as I had determined to defy him at the worst.",1 "I told him that if he denounced me to Sir Michael, I would declare him to be a madman or a liar, and I defied him to convince the man who loved me—blindly, as I told him—that he had any claim to me.",1 "I was going to leave him after having told him this, when he caught me by the wrist and detained me by force.",2 "You saw the bruises that his fingers made upon my wrist, and noticed them, and did not believe the account I gave of them.",1 "I could see that, Mr. Robert Audley, and I saw that you were a person I should have to fear.""",1 "She paused, as if she had expected Robert to speak; but he stood silent and motionless, waiting for the end.",2 """George Talboys treated me as you treated me,"" she said, petulantly.",2 """He swore that if there was but one witness of my identity, and that witness was removed from Audley Court by the width of the whole earth, he would bring him there to swear to my identity, and to denounce me.",1 "It was then that I was mad, it was then that I drew the loose iron spindle from the shrunken wood, and saw my first husband sink with one horrible cry into the black mouth of the well.",0 There is a legend of its enormous depth.,2 I do not know how deep it is.,2 "It is dry, I suppose, for I heard no splash, only a dull thud.",1 I looked down and I saw nothing but black emptiness.,1 "I knelt down and listened, but the cry was not repeated, though I waited for nearly a quarter of an hour—God knows how long it seemed to me!—by the mouth of the well.""",2 Robert Audley uttered a word of horror when the story was finished.,2 He moved a little nearer toward the door against which Helen Talboys stood.,2 "Had there been any other means of exit from the room, he would gladly have availed himself of it.",3 He shrank from even a momentary contact with this creature.,2 """Let me pass you, if you please,"" he said, in an icy voice.",2 """You see I do not fear to make my confession to you,"" said Helen Talboys; ""for two reasons.",1 "The first is, that you dare not use it against me, because you know it would kill your uncle to see me in a criminal dock; the second is, that the law could pronounce no worse sentence than this—a life-long imprisonment in a mad-house.",0 "You see I do not thank you for your mercy, Mr. Robert Audley, for I know exactly what it is worth.""",4 "She moved away from the door, and Robert passed her without a word, without a look.",2 "Half an hour afterward he was in one of the principal hotels at Villebrumeuse, sitting at a neatly-ordered supper-table, with no power to eat; with no power to distract his mind, even for a moment, from the image of that lost friend who had been treacherously murdered in the thicket at Audley Court.",1 "No feverish sleeper traveling in a strange dream ever looked out more wonderingly upon a world that seemed unreal than Robert Audley, as he stared absently at the flat swamps and dismal poplars between Villebrumeuse and Brussels.",1 Could it be that he was returning to his uncle's house without the woman who had reigned in it for nearly two years as queen and mistress?,1 "He felt as if he had carried off my lady, and had made away with her secretly and darkly, and must now render up an account to Sir Michael of the fate of that woman, whom the baronet had so dearly loved.",3 """What shall I tell him?""",2 he thought.,2 """Shall I tell the truth—the horrible, ghastly truth?",1 No; that would be too cruel.,1 His generous spirit would sink under the hideous revelation.,2 "Yet, in his ignorance of the extent of this wretched woman's wickedness, he may think, perhaps, that I have been hard with her.""",0 "Brooding thus, Mr. Robert Audley absently watched the cheerless landscape from the seat in the shabby coupé of the diligence, and thought how great a leaf had been torn out of his life, now that the dark story of George Talboys was finished.",1 What had he to do next?,2 A crowd of horrible thoughts rushed into his mind as he remembered the story that he had heard from the white lips of Helen Talboys.,1 His friend—his murdered friend—lay hidden among the moldering ruins of the old well at Audley Court.,2 "He had lain there for six long months, unburied, unknown; hidden in the darkness of the old convent well.",1 What was to be done?,2 To institute a search for the remains of the murdered man was to inevitably bring about a coroner's inquest.,1 "Should such an inquest be held, it was next to impossible that the history of my lady's crime could fail to be brought to light.",0 "To prove that George Talboys met with his death at Audley Court, was to prove almost as surely that my lady had been the instrument of that mysterious death; for the young man had been known to follow her into the lime-walk upon the day of his disappearance.",1 """My God!""",2 "Robert exclaimed, as the full horror of his position became evident to him; ""is my friend to rest in this unhallowed burial-place because I have condoned the offenses of the woman who murdered him?""",1 He felt that there was no way out of this difficulty.,1 "Sometimes he thought that it little mattered to his dead friend whether he lay entombed beneath a marble monument, whose workmanship should be the wonder of the universe, or in that obscure hiding-place in the thicket at Audley Court.",1 "At another time he would be seized with a sudden horror at the wrong that had been done to the murdered man, and would fain have traveled even more rapidly than the express between Brussels and Paris could carry him in his eagerness to reach the end of his journey, that he might set right this cruel wrong.",2 "He was in London at dusk on the second day after that on which he had left Audley Court, and he drove straight to the Clarendon, to inquire after his uncle.",2 "He had no intention of seeing Sir Michael, as he had not yet determined how much or how little he should tell him, but he was very anxious to ascertain how the old man had sustained the cruel shock he had so lately endured.",0 """I will see Alicia,"" he thought, ""she will tell me all about her father.",2 It is only two days since he left Audley.,2 "I can scarcely expect to hear of any favorable change.""",2 "But Mr. Audley was not destined to see his cousin that evening, for the servants at the Clarendon told him that Sir Michael and his daughter had left by the morning mail for Paris, on their way to Vienna.",2 "Robert was very well pleased to receive this intelligence; it afforded him a welcome respite, for it would be decidedly better to tell the baronet nothing of his guilty wife until he returned to England, with health unimpaired and spirits re-established, it was to be hoped.",4 Mr. Audley drove to the Temple.,2 "The chambers which had seemed dreary to him ever since the disappearance of George Talboys, were doubly so to-night.",1 For that which had been only a dark suspicion had now become a horrible certainty.,0 "There was no longer room for the palest ray, the most transitory glimmer of hope.",3 His worst terrors had been too well founded.,2 George Talboys had been cruelly and treacherously murdered by the wife he had loved and mourned.,1 There were three letters waiting for Mr. Audley at his chambers.,2 "One was from Sir Michael, and another from Alicia.",2 "The third was addressed in a hand the young barrister knew only too well, though he had seen it but once before.",3 "His face flushed redly at the sight of the superscription, and he took the letter in his hand, carefully and tenderly, as if it had been a living thing, and sentient to his touch.",3 "He turned it over and over in his hands, looking at the crest upon the envelope, at the post-mark, at the color of the paper, and then put it into the bosom of his waistcoat with a strange smile upon his face.",2 """What a wretched and unconscionable fool I am!""",1 he thought.,2 """Have I laughed at the follies of weak men all my life, and am I to be more foolish than the weakest of them at last?",1 The beautiful brown-eyed creature!,3 Why did I ever see her?,2 "Why did my relentless Nemesis ever point the way to that dreary house in Dorsetshire?""",0 He opened the first two letters.,2 He was foolish enough to keep the last for a delicious morsel—a fairy-like dessert after the commonplace substantialities of a dinner.,3 Alicia's letter told him that Sir Michael had borne his agony with such a persevering tranquility that she had become at last far more alarmed by his patient calmness than by any stormy manifestation of despair.,1 "In this difficulty she had secretly called upon the physician who attended the Audley household in any cases of serious illness, and had requested this gentleman to pay Sir Michael an apparently accidental visit.",0 "He had done so, and after stopping half an hour with the baronet, had told Alicia that there was no present danger of any serious consequence from this great grief, but that it was necessary that every effort should be made to arouse Sir Michael, and to force him, however unwillingly, into action.",1 "Alicia had immediately acted upon this advice, had resumed her old empire as a spoiled child, and reminded her father of a promise he had made of taking her through Germany.",2 "With considerable difficulty she had induced him to consent to fulfilling this old promise, and having once gained her point, she had contrived that they should leave England as soon as it was possible to do so, and she told Robert, in conclusion, that she would not bring her father back to his old house until she had taught him to forget the sorrows associated with it.",2 The baronet's letter was very brief.,2 It contained half a dozen blank checks on Sir Michael Audley's London bankers.,2 """You will require money, my dear Robert,"" he wrote, ""for such arrangements as you may think fit to make for the future comfort of the person I committed to your care.",3 I need scarcely tell you that those arrangements cannot be too liberal.,1 "But perhaps it is as well that I should tell you now, for the first and only time, that it is my earnest wish never again to hear that person's name.",3 I have no wish to be told the nature of the arrangements you may make for her.,2 I am sure that you will act conscientiously and mercifully.,3 I seek to know no more.,2 "Whenever you want money, you will draw upon me for any sums that you may require; but you will have no occasion to tell me for whose use you want that money.""",2 Robert Audley breathed a long sigh of relief as he folded this letter.,3 "It released him from a duty which it would have been most painful for him to perform, and it forever decided his course of action with regard to the murdered man.",2 "George Talboys must lie at peace in his unknown grave, and Sir Michael Audley must never learn that the woman he had loved bore the red brand of murder on her soul.",1 "Robert had only the third letter to open—the letter which he had placed in his bosom while he read the others; he tore open the envelope, handling it carefully and tenderly as he had done before.",3 The letter was as brief as Sir Michael's.,2 "It contained only these few lines: ""DEAR MR.",2 "AUDLEY—The rector of this place has been twice to see Marks, the man you saved in the fire at the Castle Inn.",2 "He lies in a very precarious state at his mother's cottage, near Audley Court, and is not expected to live many days.",1 "His wife is attending him, and both he and she have expressed a most earnest desire that you should see him before he dies.",2 Pray come without delay.,1 """Yours very sincerely, ""CLARA TALBOYS. ""Mount Stanning Rectory, March 6.""",3 "Robert Audley folded this letter very reverently, and placed it underneath that part of his waistcoat which might be supposed to cover the region of his heart.",3 "Having done this, he seated himself in his favorite arm-chair, filled and lighted a pipe and smoked it out, staring reflectingly at the fire as long as his tobacco lasted.",3 """What can that man Marks want with me,"" thought the barrister.",2 """He is afraid to die until he has made confession, perhaps.",0 He wishes to tell me that which I know already—the story of my lady's crime.,1 I knew that he was in the secret.,2 I was sure of it even upon the night on which I first saw him.,2 "He knew the secret, and he traded on it.""",2 Robert Audley shrank strangely from returning to Essex.,1 How should he meet Clara Talboys now that he knew the secret of her brother's fate?,2 "How many lies he should have to tell, or how much equivocation he must use in order to keep the truth from her?",1 "Yet would there be any mercy in telling that horrible story, the knowledge of which must cast a blight upon her youth, and blot out every hope she had even secretly cherished?",3 "He knew by his own experience how possible it was to hope against hope, and to hope unconsciously; and he could not bear that her heart should be crushed as his had been by the knowledge of the truth.",1 """Better that she should hope vainly to the last,"" he thought; ""better that she should go through life seeking the clew to her lost brother's fate, than that I should give that clew into her hands, and say, 'Our worst fears are realized.",0 The brother you loved has been foully murdered in the early promise of his youth.',3 """ But Clara Talboys had written to him, imploring him to return to Essex without delay.",1 "Could he refuse to do her bidding, however painful its accomplishment might be?",1 "And again, the man was dying, perhaps, and had implored to see him.",1 Would it not be cruel to refuse to go—to delay an hour unnecessarily?,0 He looked at his watch.,2 It wanted only five minutes to nine.,2 "There was no train to Audley after the Ipswich mail, which left London at half-past eight; but there was a train that left Shoreditch at eleven, and stopped at Brentwood between twelve and one.",2 "Robert decided upon going by this train, and walking the distance between Brentwood and Audley, which was upwards of six miles.",2 "Fleet street was quiet and lonely at this late hour, and Robert Audley being in a ghost-seeing mood, would have been scarcely astonished had he seen Johnson's set come roystering westward in the lamp-light, or blind John Milton groping his way down the steps before Saint Bride's Church.",2 "Mr. Audley hailed a hansom at the corner of Farrington street, and was rattled rapidly away across tenantless Smithfield market, and into a labyrinth of dingy streets that brought him out upon the broad grandeur of Finsbury Pavement.",2 "The hansom rattled up the steep and stony approach to Shoreditch Station, and deposited Robert at the doors of that unlovely temple.",1 "There were very few people going to travel by this midnight train, and Robert walked up and down the long wooden platform, reading the huge advertisements whose gaunt lettering looked wan and ghastly in the dim lamplight.",1 He had the carriage in which he sat all to himself.,2 All to himself did I say?,2 Had he not lately summoned to his side that ghostly company which of all companionship is the most tenacious?,3 "The shadow of George Talboys pursued him, even in the comfortable first-class carriage, and was behind him when he looked out of the window, and was yet far ahead of him and the rushing engine, in that thicket toward which the train was speeding, by the side of the unhallowed hiding-place in which the mortal remains of the dead man lay, neglected and uncared for.",1 """I must give my lost friend decent burial,"" Robert thought, as the chill wind swept across the flat landscape, and struck him with such frozen breath as might have emanated from the lips of the dead.",0 """I must do it; or I shall die of some panic like this which has seized upon me to-night.",1 I must do it; at any peril; at any cost.,1 "Even at the price of that revelation which will bring the mad woman back from her safe hiding-place, and place her in a criminal dock.""",2 He was glad when the train stopped at Brentwood at a few minutes after twelve.,3 "It was half-past one o'clock when the night wanderer entered the village of Audley, and it was only there that he remembered that Clara Talboys had omitted to give him any direction by which he might find the cottage in which Luke Marks lay.",2 """It was Dawson who recommended that the poor creature should be taken to his mother's cottage,"" Robert thought, by-and-by, ""and, I dare say.",2 Dawson has attended him ever since the fire.,2 "He'll be able to tell me the way to the cottage.""",2 "Acting upon this idea, Mr. Audley stopped at the house in which Helen Talboys had lived before her second marriage.",2 "The door of the little surgery was ajar, and there was a light burning within.",1 Robert pushed the door open and peeped in.,2 "The surgeon was standing at the mahogany counter, mixing a draught in a glass measure, with his hat close beside him.",2 "Late as it was, he had evidently only just come in.",2 The harmonious snoring of his assistant sounded from a little room within the surgery.,3 """I am sorry to disturb you, Mr. Dawson,"" Robert said, apologetically, as the surgeon looked up and recognized him, ""but I have come down to see Marks, who, I hear, is in a very bad way, and I want you to tell me the way to his mother's cottage.""",0 """I'll show you the way, Mr. Audley,"" answered the surgeon, ""I am going there this minute.""",2 """The man is very bad, then?""",1 """So bad that he can be no worse.",1 "The change that can happen is that change which will take him beyond the reach of any earthly suffering.""",1 """Strange!""",1 exclaimed Robert.,2 """He did not appear to be much burned.""",1 """He was not much burnt.",2 "Had he been, I should never have recommended his being removed from Mount Stanning.",3 It is the shock that has done the business.,1 "He has been in a raging fever for the last two days; but to-night he is much calmer, and I'm afraid, before to-morrow night, we shall have seen the last of him.""",0 """He has asked to see me, I am told,"" said Mr. Audley.",2 """Yes,"" answered the surgeon, carelessly.",2 """A sick man's fancy, no doubt.",1 "You dragged him out of the house, and did your best to save his life.",2 "I dare say, rough and boorish as the poor fellow is, he thinks a good deal of that.""",1 "They had left the surgery, the door of which Mr. Dawson had locked behind him.",2 "There was money in the till, perhaps, for surely the village apothecary could not have feared that the most daring housebreaker would imperil his liberty in the pursuit of blue pill and colocynth, of salts and senna.",3 "The surgeon led the way along the silent street, and presently turned into a lane at the end of which Robert Audley saw the wan glimmer of a light; a light which told of the watch that is kept by the sick and dying; a pale, melancholy light, which always has a dismal aspect when looked upon in this silent hour betwixt night and morning.",1 "It shone from the window of the cottage in which Luke Marks lay, watched by his wife and mother.",2 "Mr. Dawson lifted the latch, and walked into the common room of the little tenement, followed by Robert Audley.",2 "It was empty, but a feeble tallow candle, with a broken back, and a long, cauliflower-headed wick, sputtered upon the table.",1 The sick man lay in the room above.,1 """Shall I tell him you are here?""",2 asked Mr. Dawson.,2 """Yes, yes, if you please.",2 "But be cautious how you tell him, if you think the news likely to agitate him.",2 I am in no hurry.,2 I can wait.,2 "You can call me when you think I can safely come up-stairs.""",3 "The surgeon nodded, and softly ascended the narrow wooden stairs leading to the upper chamber.",3 "Robert Audley seated himself in a Windsor chair by the cold hearth-stone, and stared disconsolately about him.",1 "But he was relieved at last by the low voice of the surgeon, who looked down from the top of the little staircase to tell him that Luke Marks was awake, and would be glad to see him.",3 Robert immediately obeyed this summons.,2 "He crept softly up the stairs, and took off his hat before he bent his head to enter at the low doorway of the humble rustic chamber.",1 "He took off his hat in the presence of this common peasant man, because he knew that there was another and a more awful presence hovering about the room, and eager to be admitted.",2 "Phoebe Marks was sitting at the foot of the bed, with her eyes fixed upon her husband's face—not with any very tender expression in the pale light, but with a sharp, terrified anxiety, which showed that it was the coming of death itself that she dreaded, rather than the loss of her husband.",1 "The old woman was busy at the fire-place, airing linen, and preparing some mess of broth which it was not likely the patient would ever eat.",2 "The sick man lay with his head propped up by pillows, his coarse face deadly pale, and his great hands wandering uneasily about the coverlet.",0 "Phoebe had been reading to him, for an open Testament lay among the medicine and lotion bottles upon the table near the bed.",2 "Every object in the room was neat and orderly, and bore witness of that delicate precision which had always been a distinguishing characteristic of Phoebe.",3 "The young woman rose as Robert Audley crossed the threshold, and hurried toward him.",2 """Let me speak to you for a moment, sir, before you talk to Luke,"" she said, in an eager whisper.",3 """Pray let me speak to you first.""",2 """What's the gal a-sayin', there?""",2 "asked the invalid in a subdued roar, which died away hoarsely on his lips.",0 "He was feebly savage, even in his weakness.",1 "The dull glaze of death was gathering over his eyes, but they still watched Phoebe with a sharp glance of dissatisfaction.",1 """What's she up to there?""",2 he said.,2 """I won't have no plottin' and no hatchin' agen me.",2 I want to speak to Mr. Audley my own self; and whatever I done I'm goin' to answer for.,2 "If I done any mischief, I'm a-goin' to try and undo it.",1 "What's she a-sayin'?""",2 """She ain't a-sayin' nothin', lovey,"" answered the old woman, going to the bedside of her son, who even when made more interesting than usual by illness, did not seem a very fit subject for this tender appellation.",3 """She's only a-tellin' the gentleman how bad you've been, my pretty.""",2 """What I'm a-goin' to tell I'm only a-goin' to tell to him, remember,"" growled Mr. Mark; ""and ketch me a-tellin' of it to him if it warn't for what he done for me the other night.""",2 """To be sure not, lovey,"" answered the old woman soothingly.",3 Phoebe Marks had drawn Mr. Audley out of the room and onto the narrow landing at the top of the little staircase.,3 "This landing was a platform of about three feet square, and it was as much as the two could manage to stand upon it without pushing each other against the whitewashed wall, or backward down the stairs.",1 """Oh, sir, I wanted to speak to you so badly,"" Phoebe answered, eagerly; ""you know what I told you when I found you safe and well upon the night of the fire?""",3 """Yes, yes.""",2 """I told you what I suspected; what I think still.""",2 """Yes, I remember.""",2 """But I never breathed a word of it to anybody but you, sir, and I think that Luke has forgotten all about that night; I think that what went before the fire has gone clean out of his head altogether.",3 "He was tipsy, you know, when my la—when she came to the Castle; and I think he was so dazed and scared like by the fire that it all went out of his memory.",1 "He doesn't suspect what I suspect, at any rate, or he'd have spoken of it to anybody or everybody; but he's dreadful spiteful against my lady, for he says if she'd have let him have a place at Brentwood or Chelmsford, this wouldn't have happened.",0 "So what I wanted to beg of you, sir, is not to let a word drop before Luke.""",1 """Yes, yes, I understand; I will be careful.""",2 """My lady has left the Court, I hear, sir?""",2 """Yes.""",2 """Never to come back, sir?""",2 """Never to come back.""",2 """But she has not gone where she'll be cruelly treated; where she'll be ill-used?""",1 """No: she will be very kindly treated.""",3 """I'm glad of that, sir; I beg your pardon for troubling you with the question, sir, but my lady was a kind mistress to me.""",1 "Luke's voice, husky and feeble, was heard within the little chamber at this period of the conversation, demanding angrily when ""that gal would have done jawing;"" upon which Phoebe put her finger to her lips, and led Mr. Audley back into the sick-room.",1 """I don't want you"" said Mr. Marks, decisively, as his wife re-entered the chamber—""I don't want you; you've no call to hear what I've got to say—I only want Mr. Audley, and I wants to speak to him all alone, with none o' your sneakin' listenin' at doors, d'ye hear?",2 "so you may go down-stairs and keep there till you're wanted; and you may take mother—no, mother may stay, I shall want her presently.""",2 "The sick man's feeble hand pointed to the door, through which his wife departed very submissively.",1 """I've no wish to hear anything, Luke,"" she said, ""but I hope you won't say anything against those that have been good and generous to you.""",3 """I shall say what I like,"" answered Mr. Marks, fiercely, ""and I'm not a-goin' to be ordered by you.",3 "You ain't the parson, as I've ever heerd of; nor the lawyer neither.""",2 "The landlord of the Castle Inn had undergone no moral transformation by his death-bed sufferings, fierce and rapid as they had been.",1 Perhaps some faint glimmer of a light that had been far off from his life now struggled feebly through the black obscurities of ignorance that darkened his soul.,0 "Perhaps a half angry, half sullen penitence urged him to make some rugged effort to atone for a life that had been selfish and drunken and wicked.",0 "Be it how it might he wiped his white lips, and turning his haggard eyes earnestly upon Robert Audley, pointed to a chair by the bedside.",2 """You made game of me in a general way, Mr. Audley,"" he said, presently, ""and you've drawed me out, and you've tumbled and tossed me about like in a gentlemanly way, till I was nothink or anythink in your hands; and you've looked me through and through, and turned me inside out till you thought you knowed as much as I knowed.",2 "I'd no particular call to be grateful to you, not before the fire at the Castle t'other night.",3 But I am grateful to you for that.,3 "I'm not grateful to folks in a general way, p'r'aps, because the things as gentlefolks have give have a'most allus been the very things I didn't want.",3 "They've give me soup, and tracks, and flannel, and coals; but, Lord, they've made such a precious noise about it that I'd have been to send 'em all back to 'em.",2 "But when a gentleman goes and puts his own life in danger to save a drunken brute like me, the drunkenest brute as ever was feels grateful like to that gentleman, and wishes to say before he dies—which he sees in the doctor's face as he ain't got long to live—'Thank ye, sir, I'm obliged to you.""",1 "Luke Marks stretched out his left hand—the right hand had been injured by the fire, and was wrapped in linen—and groped feebly for that of Mr. Robert Audley.",3 "The young man took the coarse but shrunken hand in both his own, and pressed it cordially.",1 """I need no thanks, Luke Marks,"" he said; ""I was very glad to be of service to you.""",3 Mr. Marks did not speak immediately.,2 "He was lying quietly upon his side, staring reflectingly at Robert Audley.",1 """You was oncommon fond of that gent as disappeared at the Court, warn't you, sir?""",3 he said at last.,2 Robert started at the mention of his dead friend.,1 """You was oncommon fond of that Mr. Talboys, I've heard say, sir,"" repeated Luke.",3 """Yes, yes,"" answered Robert, rather impatiently, ""he was my very dear friend.""",1 """I've heard the servants at the Court say how you took on when you couldn't find him.",2 I've heered the landlord of the Sun Inn say how cut up you was when you first missed him.,1 "'If the two gents had been brothers,' the landlord said, 'our gent,' meanin' you, sir, 'couldn't have been more cut up when he missed the other.'",1 """ ""Yes, yes, I know, I know,"" said Robert; ""pray do not speak any more of this subject.",2 "I cannot tell you how much it distresses me.""",2 Was he to be haunted forever by the ghost of his unburied friend?,2 "He came here to comfort the sick man, and even here he was pursued by this relentless shadow; even here he was reminded of the secret crime which had darkened his life.",0 """Listen to me, Marks,"" he said, earnestly; ""believe me that I appreciate your grateful words, and that I am very glad to have been of service to you.",4 "But before you say anything more, let me make one most solemn request.",1 "If you have sent for me that you may tell me anything of the fate of my lost friend, I entreat you to spare yourself and to spare me that horrible story.",1 You can tell me nothing which I do not already know.,2 "The worst you can tell me of the woman who was once in your power, has already been revealed to me by her own lips.",1 "Pray, then, be silent upon this subject; I say again, you can tell me nothing which I do not know.""",3 "Luke Marks looked musingly at the earnest face of his visitor, and some shadowy expression, which was almost like a smile, flitted feebly across the sick man's haggard features.",2 """I can't tell you nothin' you don't know?""",2 he asked.,2 """Nothing.""",2 """Then it ain't no good for me to try,"" said the invalid, thoughtfully.",3 """Did she tell you?""",2 "he asked, after a pause.",2 """I must beg, Marks, that you will drop the subject,"" Robert answered, almost sternly.",1 """I have already told you that I do not wish to hear it spoken of.",2 "Whatever discoveries you made, you made your market out of them.",2 "Whatever guilty secrets you got possession of, you were paid for keeping silence.",1 "You had better keep silence to the end.""",3 """Had I?""",2 "cried Luke Marks, in an eager whisper.",3 """Had I really now better hold my tongue to the last?""",3 """I think so, most decidedly.",2 "You traded on your secret, and you were paid to keep it.",2 "It would be more honest to hold to your bargain, and keep it still.""",3 """Would it now?""",2 "said Mr. Marks with a ghastly grin; ""but suppose my lady had one secret and I another.",2 "How then?""",2 """What do you mean?""",2 """Suppose I could have told something all along; and would have told it, perhaps, if I'd been a little better treated; if what was give to me had been give a little more liberal like, and not flung at me as if I was a dog, and was only give it to be kep' from bitin'.",3 "Suppose I could have told somethin', and would have told it but for that?",2 "How then?""",2 It was impossible to describe the ghastliness of the triumphant grin that lighted up the sick man's haggard face.,1 """His mind is wandering,"" Robert thought; ""I had need be patient with him, poor fellow.",2 "It would be strange if I could not be patient with a dying man.""",1 Luke marks lay staring at Mr. Audley for some moments with that triumphant grin upon his face.,3 "The old woman, wearied out with watching her dying son, had dropped into a doze, and sat nodding her sharp chin over the handful of fire, upon which the broth that was never to be eaten, still bubbled and simmered.",2 Mr. Audley waited very patiently until it should be the sick man's pleasure to speak.,3 Every sound was painfully distinct in that dead hour of the night.,1 "The dropping of the ashes on the hearth, the ominous crackling of the burning coals, the slow and ponderous ticking of the sulky clock in the room below, the low moaning of the March wind (which might have been the voice of an English Banshee, screaming her dismal warning to the watchers of the dying), the hoarse breathing of the sick man--every sound held itself apart from all other sounds, and made itself into a separate voice, loud with a gloomy portent in the solemn stillness of the house.",0 "Robert sat with his face shaded by his hands, thinking what was to become of him now that the secret of his friend's fate had been told, and the dark story of George Talboys and his wicked wife had been finished in the Belgian mad-house.",0 What was to become of him?,2 He had no claim upon Clara Talboys; for he had resolved to keep the horrible secret that had been told to him.,1 How then could he dare to meet her with that secret held back fom her?,2 "How could he ever look into her earnest eyes, and yet withhold the truth?",3 He felt that all power of reservation would fail before the searching glance of those calm brown eyes.,2 If he was indeed to keep this secret he must never see her again.,2 To reveal it would be to embitter her life.,2 "Could he, for any selfish motive of his own, tell her this terrible story?--or could he think that if he told her she would suffer her murdered brother to lie unavenged and forgotten in his unhallowed grave?",0 "Hemmed in on every side by difficulties which seemed utterly insumountable; with the easy temperament which was natural to him embittered by the gloomy burden he had borne so long, Robert Audley looked hopelessly forward to the life which lay before him, and thought that it would have been better for him had he perished among the burning ruins of the Castle Inn.",0 """Who would have been sorry for me?",1 "No one but my poor little Alicia,"" he thought, ""and hers would have only been an April sorrow.",1 Would Clara Talboys have been sorry?,1 No!,2 She would have only regretted me as a lost link in the mystery of her brother's death.,0 "She would only--"" Heaven knows whither Mr. Audley's thoughts might have wandered had he not been startled by a sudden movement of the sick man, who raised himself up in his bed, and called to his mother.",2 "The old woman woke up with a jerk, and turned sleepily enough to look at her son.",2 """What is it, Luke, deary?""",2 she asked soothingly.,3 """It ain't time for the doctor's stuff yet.",2 "Mr. Dawson said as you weren't to have it till two hours after he went away, and he ain't been gone an hour yet.""",2 """Who said it was the doctor's stuff I wanted?""",2 "cried Mr. Marks, impatiently.",1 """I want to ask you something, mother.",2 "Do you remember the seventh of last September?""",2 "Robert started, and looked eagerly at the sick man.",2 Why did he harp upon this forbidden subject?,1 Why did he insist upon recalling the date of George's murder?,1 The old woman shook her head in feeble confusion of mind.,1 """Lord, Luke,"" she said, ""how can'ee ask me such questions?",2 "My memory's been a failin' me this eight or nine year; and I never was one to remember the days of the month, or aught o' that sort.",2 "How should a poor workin' woman remember such things.""",1 Luke Marks shrugged his shoulders impatiently.,1 """You're a good un to do what's asked you, mother,"" he said, peevishly.",2 """Didn't I tell you to rememer that day?",2 "Didn't I tell you as the time might come when you'd be called upon to bear witness about it, and put upon your Bible oath about it?",2 "Didn't I tell you that, mother?""",2 The old woman shook her head hopelessly.,1 """If you say so, I make no doubt you did, Luke,"" she said, with a conciliatory smile; ""but I can't call it to mind, lovey.",3 "My memory's been failin' me this nine yaer, sir,"" she added, turning to Robert Audley, ""and I'm but a poor crittur.""",1 Mr. Audley laid his hand upon the sick man's arm.,1 """Marks,"" he said, ""I tell you again, you have no cause to worry yourself about this matter.",1 "I ask you no questions, I have no wish to hear anything.""",2 """But, suppose I want to tell something,"" cried Luke, with feverish energy, ""suppose I feel I can't die with a secret on my mind, and have asked to see you on purpose that I might tell you; suppose that, and you'll suppose nothing but the truth.",1 "I'd have been burnt alive before I'd have told her.""",2 "He spoke these words between his set teeth, and scowled savagely as he uttered them.",2 """I'd have been burnt alive first.",2 "I made her pay for her pretty insolent ways; I made her pay for her airs and graces; I'd never have told her—never, never!",2 "I had my power over her, and I kept it; I had my secret and was paid for it; and there wasn't a petty slight as she ever put upon me or mine that I didn't pay her out for twenty times over!""",1 """Marks, Marks, for Heaven's sake be calm,"" said Robert, earnestly.",3 """What are you talking of?",2 "What is it that you could have told?""",2 """I'm a-goin to tell you,"" answered Luke, wiping his lips.",2 """Give us a drink, mother.""",2 "The old woman poured out some cooling drink into a mug, and carried it to her son.",2 "He drank it in an eager hurry, as if he felt that the brief remainder of his life must be a race with the pitiless pedestrian, Time.",2 """Stop where you are,"" he said to his mother, pointing to a chair at the foot of the bed.",2 "The old woman obeyed, and seated herself meekly opposite to Mr. Audley.",2 """I'll ask you another question, mother,"" said Luke, ""and I think it'll be strange if you can't answer it.",1 "Do you remember when I was at work upon Atkinson's farm; before I was married you know, and when I was livin' down here along of you?""",3 """Yes, yes,"" Mrs. Marks answered, nodding triumphantly, ""I remember that, my dear.",3 "It were last fall, just about as the apples was bein' gathered in the orchard across our lane, and about the time as you had your new sprigged wesket.",1 "I remember, Luke, I remember.""",2 "Mr. Audley wondered where all this was to lead to, and how long he would have to sit by the sick man's bed, hearing a conversation that had no meaning to him.",2 """If you remember that much, maybe you'll remember more, mother,"" said Luke.",2 """Can you call to mind my bringing some one home here one night, while Atkinsons was stackin' the last o' their corn?""",2 "Once more Mr. Audley started violently, and this time he looked up earnestly at the face of the speaker, and listened, with a strange, breathless interest, that he scarcely understood himself, to what Luke Marks was saying.",1 """I rek'lect your bringing home Phoebe,"" the old woman answered, with great animation.",3 """I rek'lect your bringin' Phoebe home to take a cup o' tea, or a little snack o' supper, a mort o' times.""",2 """Bother Phoebe,"" cried Mr. Marks, ""who's a talkin' of Phoebe?",1 "What's Phoebe, that anybody should go to put theirselves out about her?",2 "Do you remember my bringin' home a gentleman after ten o'clock, one September night; a gentleman as was wet through to the skin, and was covered with mud and slush, and green slime and black muck, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and had his arm broke, and his shoulder swelled up awful; and was such a objeck that nobody would ha' knowed him; a gentleman as had to have his clothes cut off him in some places, and as sat by the kitchen fire, starin' at the coals as if he had gone mad or stupid-like, and didn't know where he was, or who he was; and as had to be cared for like a baby, and dressed, and dried, and washed, and fed with spoonfuls of brandy, that had to be forced between his locked teeth, before any life could be got into him?",0 "Do you remember that, mother?""",2 "The old woman nodded, and muttered something to the effect that she remembered all these circumstances most vividly, now that Luke happened to mention them.",2 "Robert Audley uttered a wild cry, and fell down upon his knees by the side of the sick man's bed.",0 """My God!""",2 "he ejaculated, ""I think Thee for Thy wondrous mercies.",3 "George Talboys is alive!""",2 """Wait a bit,"" said Mr. Marks, ""don't you be too fast.",3 "Mother, give us down that tin box on the shelf over against the chest of drawers, will you?""",2 "The old woman obeyed, and after fumbling among broken teacups and milk-jugs, lidless wooden cotton-boxes, and a miscellaneous litter of rags and crockery, produced a tin snuff-box with a sliding lid; a shabby, dirty-looking box enough.",0 Robert Audley still knelt by the bedside with his face hidden by his clasped hands.,2 Luke Marks opened the tin box.,2 """There ain't no money in it, more's the pity,"" he said, ""or if there had been it wouldn't have been let stop very long.",1 "But there's summat in it that perhaps you'll think quite as valliable as money, and that's what I'm goin' to give you as a proof that a drunken brute can feel thankful to them as is kind to him.""",1 "He took out two folded papers, which he gave into Robert Audley's hands.",2 "They were two leaves torn out of a pocket-book, and they were written upon in pencil, and in a handwriting that was quite strange to Mr. Audley—a cramped, stiff, and yet scrawling hand, such as some plowman might have written.",0 """I don't know this writing,"" Robert said, as he eagerly unfolded the first of the two papers.",3 """What has this to do with my friend?",2 "Why do you show me these?""",2 """Suppose you read 'em first,"" said Mr. Marks, ""and ask me questions about them afterwards.""",2 "The first paper which Robert Audley had unfolded contained the following lines, written in that cramped, yet scrawling hand which was so strange to him: ""MY DEAR FRIEND—I write to you in such utter confusion of mind as perhaps no man ever before suffered.",0 "I cannot tell you what has happened to me, I can only tell you that something has happened which will drive me from England a broken-hearted man, to seek some corner of the earth in which I may live and die unknown and forgotten.",0 I can only ask you to forget me.,2 "If your friendship could have done me any good, I would have appealed to it.",3 "If your counsel could have been any help to me, I would have confided in you.",2 "But neither friendship nor counsel can help me; and all I can say to you is this, God bless you for the past, and teach you to forget me in the future.",3 "G.T."" The second paper was addressed to another person, and its contents were briefer than those of the first.",2 """HELEN—May God pity and forgive you for that which you have done to-day, as truly as I do.",1 Rest in peace.,3 You shall never hear of me again; to you and to the world I shall henceforth be that which you wished me to be to-day.,2 You need fear no molestation from me.,1 I leave England never to return.,2 """G.T."" Robert Audley sat staring at these lines in hopeless bewilderment.",1 "They were not in his friend's familiar hand, and yet they purported to be written by him and were signed with his initials.",2 "He looked scrutinizingly at the face of Luke Marks, thinking that perhaps some trick was being played upon him.",1 """This was not written by George Talboys,"" he said.",2 """It was,"" answered Luke Marks, ""it was written by Mr. Talboys, every line of it.",2 "He wrote it with his own hand; but it was his left hand, for he couldn't use his right because of his broken arm.""",2 "Robert Audley looked up suddenly, and the shadow of suspicion passed away from his face.",1 """I understand,"" he said, ""I understand.",2 "Tell me all; tell me how it was that my poor friend was saved.""",1 """I was at work up at Atkinson's farm, last September,"" said Luke Marks, ""helping to stack the last of the corn, and as the nighest way from the farm to mother's cottage was through the meadows at the back of the Court, I used to come that way, and Phoebe used to stand in the garden wall beyond the lime-walk sometimes, to have a chat with me, knowin' my time o' comin' home.",3 """I don't know what Phoebe was a-doin' upon the evenin' of the seventh o' September—I rek'lect the date because Farmer Atkinson paid me my wages all of a lump on that day, and I'd had to sign a bit of a receipt for the money he give me—I don't know what she was a-doin', but she warn't at the gate agen the lime-walk, so I went round to the other side o' the gardens and jumped across the dry ditch, for I wanted partic'ler to see her that night, as I was goin' away to work upon a farm beyond Chelmsford the next day.",3 "Audley church clock struck nine as I was crossin' the meadows between Atkinson's and the Court, and it must have been about a quarter past nine when I got into the kitchen garden.",1 """I crossed the garden, and went into the lime-walk; the nighest way to the servants' hall took me through the shrubbery and past the dry well.",3 "It was a dark night, but I knew my way well enough about the old place, and the light in the window of the servants' hall looked red and comfortable through the darkness.",3 I was close against the mouth of the dry well when I heard a sound that made my blood creep.,2 "It was a groan—a groan of a man in pain, as was lyin' somewhere hid among the bushes.",1 "I warn't afraid of ghosts and I warn't afraid of anythink in a general way, but there was somethin in hearin' this groan as chilled me to the very heart, and for a minute I was struck all of a heap, and didn't know what to do.",1 "But I heard the groan again, and then I began to search among the bushes.",2 "I found a man lyin' hidden under a lot o' laurels, and I thought at first he was up to no good, and I was a-goin' to collar him to take him to the house, when he caught me by the wrist without gettin' up from the ground, but lookin' at me very earnest, as I could see by the way his face was turned toward me in the darkness, and asked me who I was, and what I was, and what I had to do with the folks at the Court.",3 """There was somethin' in the way he spoke that told me he was a gentleman, though I didn't know him from Adam, and couldn't see his face; and I answered his questions civil.",2 """'I want to get away from this place,' he said, 'without bein' seen by any livin' creetur, remember that.",2 "I've been lyin' here ever since four o'clock to-day, and I'm half dead, but I want to get away without bein' seen, mind that.'",1 """I told him that was easy enough, but I began to think my first thoughts of him might have been right enough, after all, and that he couldn't have been up to no good to want to sneak away so precious quiet.",4 """'Can you take me to any place where I can get a change of dry clothes,' he says, 'without half a dozen people knowin' it?'",2 """He'd got up into a sittin' attitude by this time, and I could see that his right arm hung close by his side, and that he was in pain.",1 """I pointed to his arm, and asked him what was the matter with it; but he only answered, very quiet like: 'Broken, my lad, broken.",3 "Not that that's much,' he says in another tone, speaking to himself like, more than to me.",3 "'There's broken hearts as well as broken limbs, and they're not so easy mended.'",3 """I told him I could take him to mother's cottage, and that he could dry his clothes there and welcome.",3 """'Can your mother keep a secret?'",2 he asked.,2 """'Well, she could keep one well enough if she could remember it,' I told him; 'but you might tell her all the secrets of the Freemasons, and Foresters, and Buffalers and Oddfellers as ever was, to-night: and she'd have forgotten all about 'em to-morrow mornin'.'",3 """He seemed satisfied with this, and he got himself up by holdin' on to me, for it seemed as if his limbs was cramped, the use of 'em was almost gone.",2 "I felt as he came agen me, that his clothes was wet and mucky.",2 """'You haven't been and fell into the fish-pond, have you, sir?'",1 I asked.,2 """He made no answer to my question; he didn't seem even to have heard it.",2 "I could see now he was standin' upon his feet that he was a tall, fine-made man, a head and shoulders higher than me.",3 """'Take me to your mother's cottage,' he said, 'and get me some dry clothes if you can; I'll pay you well for your trouble.'",2 """I knew that the key was mostly left in the wooden gate in the garden wall, so I led him that way.",3 "He could scarcely walk at first, and it was only by leanin' heavily upon my shoulder that he managed to get along.",1 "I got him through the gate, leavin' it unlocked behind me, and trustin' to the chance of that not bein' noticed by the under-gardener, who had the care of the key, and was a careless chap enough.",2 "I took him across the meadows, and brought him up here, still keepin' away from the village, and in the fields, where there wasn't a creature to see us at that time o' night; and so I got him into the room down-stairs, where mother was a-sittin' over the fire gettin' my bit o' supper ready for me.",3 """I put the strange chap in a chair agen the fire, and then for the first time I had a good look at him.",2 I never see anybody in such a state before.,2 "He was all over green damp and muck, and his hands was scratched and cut to pieces.",1 "I got his clothes off him how I could, for he was like a child in my hands, and sat starin' at the fire as helpless as any baby; only givin' a long heavy sigh now and then, as if his heart was a-goin' to bust.",1 "At last he dropped into a kind of a doze, a stupid sort of sleep, and began to nod over the fire, so I ran and got a blanket and wrapped him in it, and got him to lie down on the press bedstead in the room under this.",1 "I sent mother to bed, and I sat by the fire and watched him, and kep' the fire up till it was just upon daybreak, when he 'woke up all of a sudden with a start, and said he must go, directly this minute.",2 """I begged him not to think of such a thing and told him he warn't fit to move for ever so long; but he said he must go, and he got up, and though he staggered like, and at first could hardly stand steady two minutes together, he wouldn't be beat, and he got me to dress him in his clothes as I'd dried and cleaned as well as I could while he laid asleep.",4 "I did manage it at last, but the clothes was awful spoiled, and he looked a dreadful objeck, with his pale face and a great cut on his forehead that I'd washed and tied up with a handkercher.",0 "He could only get his coat on by buttoning it on round his neck, for he couldn't put a sleeve upon his broken arm.",1 "But he held out agen everything, though he groaned every now and then; and what with the scratches and bruises on his hands, and the cut upon his forehead, and his stiff limbs and broken arm, he'd plenty of call to groan; and by the time it was broad daylight he was dressed and ready to go.",0 """'What's the nearest town to this upon the London road?'",2 he asked me.,2 """I told him as the nighest town was Brentwood.",2 """'Very well, then,' he says, 'if you'll go with me to Brentwood, and take me to some surgeon as'll set my arm, I'll give you a five pound note for that and all your other trouble.'",2 """I told him that I was ready and willin' to do anything as he wanted done; and asked him if I shouldn't go and see if I could borrow a cart from some of the neighbors to drive him over in, for I told him it was a good six miles' walk.",3 """He shook his head.",2 "No, no, no, he said, he didn't want anybody to know anything about him; he'd rather walk it.",2 """He did walk it; and he walked like a good 'un, too; though I know as every step he took o' them six miles he took in pain; but he held out as he'd held out before; I never see such a chap to hold out in all my blessed life.",3 "He had to stop sometimes and lean agen a gateway to get his breath; but he held out still, till at last we got into Brentwood, and then he says, 'Take me to the nighest surgeon's,' and I waited while he had his arm set in splints, which took a precious long time.",3 "The surgeon wanted him to stay in Brentwood till he was better, but he said it warn't to be heard on, he must get up to London without a minute's loss of time; so the surgeon made him as comfortable as he could, considering and tied up his arm in a sling.""",3 Robert Audley started.,2 A circumstance connected with his visit to Liverpool dashed suddenly back upon his memory.,2 "He remembered the clerk who had called him back to say there was a passenger who took his berth on board the Victoria Regia within an hour or so of the vessel's sailing; a young man with his arm in a sling, who had called himself by some common name, which Robert had forgotten.",2 """When his arm was dressed,"" continued Luke, ""he says to the surgeon, 'Can you give me a pencil to write something before I go away?'",2 "The surgeon smiles and shakes his head: 'You'll never be able to write with that there hand to-day,' he says, pointin' to the arm as had just been dressed.",3 "'P'raps not,' the young chap answers, quiet enough, 'but I can write with the other,' 'Can't I write it for you?'",3 says the surgeon.,2 "'No, thank you,' answers the other; 'what I've got to write is private.",3 "If you can give me a couple of envelopes, I'll be obliged to you.'",2 """With that the surgeon goes to fetch the envelopes, and the young chap takes a pocket-book out of his coat pocket with his left hand; the cover was wet and dirty, but the inside was clean enough, and he tears out a couple of leaves and begins to write upon 'em as you see; and he writes dreadful awk'ard with his left hand, and he writes slow, but he contrives to finish what you see, and then he puts the two bits o' writin' into the envelopes as the surgeon brings him, and he seals 'em up, and he puts a pencil cross upon one of 'em, and nothing on the other: and then he pays the surgeon for his trouble, and the surgeon says, ain't there nothin' more he can do for him, and can't he persuade him to stay in Brentwood till his arm's better; but he says no, no, it ain't possible; and then he says to me, 'Come along o' me to the railway station, and I'll give you what I've promised.'",2 """So I went to the station with him.",2 "We was in time to catch the train as stops at Brentwood at half after eight, and we had five minutes to spare.",2 "So he takes me into a corner of the platform, and he says, 'I wants you to deliver these here letters for me,' which I told him I was willin'.",2 "'Very well, then,' he says; 'look here; you know Audley Court?'",3 "'Yes,' I says, 'I ought to, for my sweetheart lives lady's maid there.'",3 'Whose lady's maid?',2 he says.,2 "So I tells him, 'My lady's, the new lady what was governess at Mr. Dawson's.'",2 "'Very well, then,' he says; 'this here letter with the cross upon the envelope is for Lady Audley, but you're to be sure to give it into her own hands; and remember to take care as nobody sees you give it.'",3 "I promises to do this, and he hands me the first letter.",3 "And then he says, 'Do you know Mr. Audley, as is nevy to Sir Michael?'",2 "and I said, 'Yes, I've heerd tell on him, and I've heerd as he was a reg'lar swell, but affable and free-spoken' (for I heerd 'em tell on you, you know),"" Luke added, parenthetically.",3 """'Now look here,' the young chap says, 'you're to give this other letter to Mr. Robert Audley, whose a-stayin' at the Sun Inn, in the village;' and I tells him it's all right, as I've know'd the Sun ever since I was a baby.",3 "So then he gives me the second letter, what's got nothing wrote upon the envelope, and he gives me a five-pound note, accordin' to promise; and then he says, 'Good-day, and thank you for all your trouble,'and he gets into a second-class carriage; and the last I sees of him is a face as white as a sheet of writin' paper, and a great patch of stickin'-plaster criss-crossed upon his forehead.""",3 """Poor George!",1 "poor George!""",1 """I went back to Audley, and I went straight to the Sun Inn, and asked for you, meanin' to deliver both letters faithful, so help me God!",3 "then; but the landlord told me as you'd started off that mornin' for London, and he didn't know when you'd come back, and he didn't know the name o' the place where you lived in London, though he said he thought it was in one o' them law courts, such as Westminster Hall or Doctors' Commons, or somethin' like that.",3 So what was I to do?,2 "I couldn't send a letter by post, not knowin' where to direct to, and I couldn't give it into your own hands, and I'd been told partickler not to let anybody else know of it; so I'd nothing to do but to wait and see if you come back, and bide my time for givin' of it to you.",2 """I thought I'd go over to the Court in the evenin' and see Phoebe, and find out from her when there'd be a chance of seein' her lady, for I know'd she could manage it if she liked.",3 "So I didn't go to work that day, though I ought to ha' done, and I lounged and idled about until it was nigh upon dusk, and then I goes down to the meadows behind the Court, and there I finds Phoebe sure enough, waitin' agen the wooden door in the wall, on the lookout for me.",3 """I hadn't been talkin' to her long before I see there was somethink wrong with her and I told her as much.",1 """Well,' she says, 'I ain't quite myself this evenin', for I had a upset yesterday, and I ain't got over it yet.'",2 """'A upset,' I says.",1 "'You had a quarrel with your missus, I suppose.'",1 """She didn't answer me directly, but she smiled the queerest smile as ever I see, and presently she says: ""No, Luke, it weren't nothin' o' that kind; and what's more, nobody could be friendlier toward me than my lady.",3 "I think she'd do any think for me a'most; and I think, whether it was a bit o' farming stock and furniture or such like, or whether it was the good-will of a public-house, she wouldn't refuse me anythink as I asked her.'",3 """I couldn't make out this, for it was only a few days before as she'd told me her missus was selfish and extravagant, and we might wait a long time before we could get what we wanted from her.",1 """So I says to her, 'Why, this is rather sudden like, Phoebe;' and she says, 'Yes, it is sudden;' and she smiles again, just the same sort of smile as before.",4 "Upon that I turns round upon her sharp, and says: ""I'll tell you what it is, my gal, you're a-keepin' somethink from me; somethink you've been told, or somethink you've found out; and if you think you're a-goin' to try that game on with me, you'll find you're very much mistaken; and so I give you warnin'.""",2 """But she laughed it off like, and says, 'Lor' Luke, what could have put such fancies into your head?'",3 """'Perhaps other people can keep secrets as well as you,' I said, 'and perhaps other people can make friends as well as you.",3 "There was a gentleman came here to see your missus yesterday, warn't there—a tall young gentleman with a brown beard?'",2 """Instead of answering of me like a Christian, my Cousin Phoebe bursts out a-cryin', and wrings her hands, and goes on awful, until I'm dashed if I can make out what she's up to.",2 """But little by little I got it out of her, for I wouldn't stand no nonsense; find she told me how she'd been sittin' at work at the window of her little room, which was at the top of the house, right up in one of the gables, and overlooked the lime-walk, and the shrubbery and the well, when she see my lady walking with a strange gentleman, and they walked together for a long time, until by-and-by they—"" ""Stop!""",3 "cried Robert, ""I know the rest.""",2 """Well, Phoebe told me all about what she see, and she told me she'd met her lady almost directly afterward, and somethin' had passed between 'em, not much, but enough to let her missus know that the servant what she looked down upon had found out that as would put her in that servant's power to the last day of her life.",3 """'And she is in my power, Luke,' says Phoebe; 'and she'll do anythin' in the world for us if we keep her secret.'",2 """So you see both my Lady Audley and her maid thought as the gentleman as I'd seen safe off by the London train was lying dead at the bottom of the well.",2 "If I was to give the letter they'd find out the contrary of this; and if I was to give the letter, Phoebe and me would lose the chance of gettin' started in life by her missus.",1 """So I kep' the letter and kep' my secret, and my lady kep' hern.",2 "But I thought if she acted liberal by me, and gave me the money I wanted, free like, I'd tell her everythink, and make her mind easy.",4 """But she didn't.",2 Whatever she give me she throwed me as if I'd been a dog.,2 "Whenever she spoke to me, she spoke as she might have spoken to a dog; and a dog she couldn't abide the sight of.",2 "There was no word in her mouth that was too bad for me; there was no toss as she could give her head that was too proud and scornful for me; and my blood b'iled agen her, and I kep' my secret, and let her keep hern.",1 "I opened the two letters, and I read 'em, but I couldn't make much sense out of 'em, and I hid 'em away; and not a creature but me has seen 'em until this night.""",2 "Luke Marks had finished his story, and lay quietly enough, exhausted by having talked so long.",2 "He watched Robert Audley's face, fully expecting some reproof, some grave lecture; for he had a vague consciousness that he had done wrong.",1 But Robert did not lecture him; he had no fancy for an office which he did not think himself fitted to perform.,3 "Robert Audley sat until long after daybreak with the sick man, who fell into a heavy slumber a short time after he had finished his story.",1 The old woman had dozed comfortably throughout her son's confession.,2 Phoebe was asleep upon the press bedstead in the room below; so the young barrister was the only watcher.,2 He could not sleep; he could only think of the story he had heard.,2 "He could only thank God for his friend's preservation, and pray that he might be able to go to Clara Talboys, and say, ""Your brother still lives, and has been found.""",3 "Phoebe came up-stairs at eight o'clock, ready to take her place at the sick-bed, and Robert Audley went away, to get a bed at the Sun Inn.",2 "It was nearly dusk when he awoke out of a long dreamless slumber, and dressed himself before dining in the little sitting-room, in which he and George had sat together a few months before.",2 "The landlord waited upon him at dinner, and told him that Luke Marks had died at five o'clock that afternoon.",1 """He went off rather sudden like,"" the man said, ""but very quiet.""",3 "Robert Audley wrote a long letter that evening, addressed to Madame Taylor, care of Monsieur Val, Villebrumeuse; a long letter in which he told the wretched woman who had borne so many names, and was to bear a false one for the rest of her life, the story that the dying man had told him.",0 """It may be some comfort to her to hear that her husband did not perish in his youth by her wicked hand,"" he thought, ""if her selfish soul can hold any sentiment of pity or sorrow for others.""",0 "Clara Talboys returned to Dorsetshire, to tell her father that his only son had sailed for Australia upon the 9th of September, and that it was most probable he yet lived, and would return to claim the forgiveness of the father he had never very particularly injured; except in the matter of having made that terrible matrimonial mistake which had exercised so fatal an influence upon his youth.",0 Mr. Harcourt-Talboys was fairly nonplused.,3 "Junius Brutus had never been placed in such a position as this, and seeing no way of getting out of this dilemma by acting after his favorite model, Mr. Talboys was fain to be natural for once in his life, and to confess that he had suffered much uneasiness and pain of mind about his only son since his conversation with Robert Audley, and that he would be heartily glad to take his poor boy to his arms, whenever he should return to England.",0 But when was he likely to return?,2 and how was he to be communicated with?,2 That was the question.,2 Robert Audley remembered the advertisements which he had caused to be inserted in the Melbourne and Sydney papers.,2 "If George had re-entered either city alive, how was it that no notice had ever been taken of that advertisement?",2 Was it likely that his friend would be indifferent to his uneasiness?,1 "But then, again, it was just possible that George Talboys had not happened to see this advertisement; and, as he had traveled under a feigned name, neither his fellow passengers nor the captain of the vessel would have been able to identify him with the person advertised for.",2 What was to be done?,2 "Must they wait patiently till George grew weary of his exile, and returned to his friends who loved him?",2 or were there any means to be taken by which his return might be hastened?,2 Robert Audley was at fault!,1 "Perhaps, in the unspeakable relief of mind which he had experienced upon the discovery of his friend's escape, he was unable to look beyond the one fact of that providential preservation.",1 "In this state of mind he went down to Dorsetshire to pay a visit to Mr. Talboys, who had given way to a perfect torrent of generous impulses, and had gone so far as to invite his son's friend to share the prim hospitality of the square, red brick mansion.",3 "Mr. Talboys had only two sentiments upon the subject of George's story; one was a natural relief and happiness in the thought that his son had been saved, the other was an earnest wish that my lady had been his wife, and that he might thus have had the pleasure of making a signal example of her.",4 """It is not for me to blame you, Mr. Audley,"" he said, ""for having smuggled this guilty woman out of the reach of justice, and thus, as I may say, paltered with the laws of your country.",1 "I can only remark that, had the lady fallen into my hands, she would have been very differently treated.""",1 It was in the middle of April when Robert Audley found himself once more under those black fir-trees beneath which his wandering thoughts had so often stayed since his first meeting with Clara Talboys.,2 "There were primroses and early violets in the hedges now, and the streams, which, upon his first visit, had been hard and frost-bound as the heart of Harcourt Talboys, had thawed, like that gentleman, and ran merrily under the blackthorn bushes in the capricious April sunshine.",1 "Robert had a prim bedroom, and an uncompromising dressing-room allotted him in the square house, and he woke every morning upon a metallic spring mattress, which always gave him the idea of sleeping upon some musical instrument, to see the sun glaring in upon him through the square, white blinds and lighting up the two lackered urns which adorned the foot of the blue iron bedstead, until they blazed like two tiny brazen lamps of the Roman period.",1 "He emulated Mr. Harcourt Talboys in the matter of shower-baths and cold water, and emerged prim and blue as that gentleman himself, as the clock in the hall struck seven, to join the master of the house in his ante-breakfast constitutional under the fir-trees in the stiff plantation.",1 "But there was generally a third person who assisted in the constitutional promenades, and that third person was Clara Talboys, who used to walk by her father's side, more beautiful than the morning—for that was sometimes dull and cloudy, while she was always fresh and bright—in a broad-leaved straw-hat and flapping blue ribbons, one quarter of an inch of which Mr. Audley would have esteemed a prouder decoration than ever adorned a favored creature's button-hole.",3 "At first they were very ceremonious toward each other, and were only familiar and friendly upon the one subject of George's adventures; but little by little a pleasant intimacy arose between them, and before the first three weeks of Robert's visit had elapsed, Miss Talboys made him happy, by taking him seriously in hand and lecturing him on the purposeless life he had led so long, and the little use he had made of the talents and opportunities that had been given to him.",4 How pleasant it was to be lectured by the woman he loved!,3 How pleasant it was to humiliate himself and depreciate himself before her!,2 "How delightful it was to get such splendid opportunities of hinting that if his life had been sanctified by an object he might indeed have striven to be something better than an idle flaneur upon the smooth pathways that have no particular goal; that, blessed by the ties which would have given a solemn purpose to every hour of his existence, he might indeed have fought the battle earnestly and unflinchingly.",3 "He generally wound up with a gloomy insinuation to the effect that it was only likely he would drop quietly over the edge of the Temple Gardens some afternoon when the river was bright and placid in the low sunlight, and the little children had gone home to their tea.",1 """Do you think I can read French novels and smoke mild Turkish until I am three-score-and-ten, Miss Talboys?""",1 he asked.,2 """Do you think there will not come a day in which my meerschaums will be foul, and the French novels more than usually stupid, and life altogether such a dismal monotony that I shall want to get rid of it somehow or other?""",0 "I am sorry to say that while this hypocritical young barrister was holding forth in this despondent way, he had mentally sold up his bachelor possessions, including all Michel Levy's publications, and half a dozen solid silver-mounted meerschaums; pensioned off Mrs. Maloney, and laid out two or three thousand pounds in the purchase of a few acres of verdant shrubbery and sloping lawn, embosomed amid which there should be a fairy cottage ornée, whose rustic casements should glimmer out of bowers of myrtle and clematis to see themselves reflected in the purple bosom of the lake.",1 "Of course, Clara Talboys was far from discovering the drift of these melancholy lamentations.",1 "She recommended Mr. Audley to read hard and think seriously of his profession, and begin life in real earnest.",3 "It was a hard, dry sort of existence, perhaps, which she recommended; a life of serious work and application, in which he should strive to be useful to his fellow-creatures, and win a reputation for himself.",4 """I'd do all that,"" he thought, ""and do it earnestly, if I could be sure of a reward for my labor.",3 "If she would accept my reputation when it was won, and support me in the struggle by her beloved companionship.",4 "But what if she sends me away to fight the battle, and marries some hulking country squire while my back is turned?""",2 "Being naturally of a vacillating and dilatory disposition, there is no saying how long Mr. Audley might have kept his secret, fearful to speak and break the charm of that uncertainty which, though not always hopeful, was very seldom quite despairing, had not he been hurried by the impulse of an unguarded moment into a full confession of the truth.",1 "He had stayed five weeks at Grange Heath, and felt that he could not, in common decency, stay any longer; so he had packed his portmanteau one pleasant May morning, and had announced his departure.",3 "Mr. Talboys was not the sort of man to utter any passionate lamentations at the prospect of losing his guest, but he expressed himself with a cool cordiality which served with him as the strongest demonstration of friendship.",3 """We have got on very well together, Mr. Audley,"" he said, ""and you have been pleased to appear sufficiently happy in the quiet routine of our orderly household; nay, more, you have conformed to our little domestic regulations in a manner which I cannot refrain from saying I take as an especial compliment to myself.""",4 Robert bowed.,2 "How thankful he was to the good fortune which had never suffered him to oversleep the signal of the clanging bell, or led him away beyond the ken of clocks at Mr. Talboys' luncheon hour.",4 """I trust as we have got on so remarkably well together,"" Mr. Talboys resumed, ""you will do me the honor of repeating your visit to Dorsetshire whenever you feel inclined.",4 "You will find plenty of sport among my farms, and you will meet with every politeness and attention from my tenants, if you like to bring your gun with you.""",3 Robert responded most heartily to these friendly overtures.,3 "He declared that there was no earthly occupation that was more agreeable to him than partridge-shooting, and that he should be only too delighted to avail himself of the privilege so kindly offered to him.",4 He could not help glancing toward Clara as he said this.,2 "The perfect lids drooped a little over the brown eyes, and the faintest shadow of a blush illuminated the beautiful face.",3 "But this was the young barrister's last day in Elysium, and there must be a dreary interval of days and nights and weeks and months before the first of September would give him an excuse for returning to Dorsetshire; a dreary interval which fresh colored young squires or fat widowers of eight-and-forty, might use to his disadvantage.",0 "It was no wonder, therefore, that he contemplated this dismal prospect with moody despair, and was bad company for Miss Talboys that morning.",0 "But in the evening after dinner, when the sun was low in the west, and Harcourt Talboys closeted in his library upon some judicial business with his lawyer and a tenant farmer, Mr. Audley grew a little more agreeable.",3 "He stood by Clara's side in one of the long windows of the drawing-room, watching the shadows deepening in the sky and the rosy light growing every moment rosier as the sun died out.",2 "He could not help enjoying that quiet tête-a-tête, though the shadow of the next morning's express which was to carry him away to London loomed darkly across the pathway of his joy.",4 "He could not help being happy in her presence; forgetful of the past, reckless of the future.",1 They talked of the one subject which was always a bond of union between them.,2 They talked of her lost brother George.,1 She spoke of him in a very melancholy tone this evening.,1 "How could she be otherwise than sad, remembering that if he lived—and she was not even sure of that—he was a lonely wanderer far away from all who loved him, and carrying the memory of a blighted life wherever he went.",1 """I cannot think how papa can be so resigned to my poor brother's absence,"" she said, ""for he does love him, Mr. Audley; even you must have seen lately that he does love him.",1 But I cannot think how he can so quietly submit to his absence.,1 "If I were a man, I would go to Australia, and find him, and bring him back; if he was still to be found among the living,"" she added, in a lower voice.",2 "She turned her face away from Robert, and looked out at the darkening sky.",2 He laid his hand upon her arm.,2 "It trembled in spite of him, and his voice trembled, too, as he spoke to her.",1 """Shall I go to look for your brother?""",2 he said.,2 """You!""",2 "She turned her head, and looked at him earnestly through her tears.",3 """You, Mr. Audley!",2 "Do you think that I could ask you to make such a sacrifice for me, or for those I love?""",3 """And do you think, Clara, that I should think any sacrifice too great a one if it were made for you?",3 "Do you think there is any voyage I would refuse to take, if I knew that you would welcome me when I came home, and thank me for having served you faithfully?",3 "I will go from one end of the continent of Australia to the other to look for your brother, if you please, Clara; and will never return alive unless I bring him with me, and will take my chance of what reward you shall give me for my labor.""",3 "Her head was bent, and it was some moments before she answered him.",1 """You are very good and generous, Mr. Audley,"" she said, at last, ""and I feel this offer too much to be able to thank you for it.",4 But what you speak of could never be.,2 "By what right could I accept such a sacrifice?""",3 """By the right which makes me your bounden slave forever and ever, whether you will or no.",2 "By right of the love I bear you, Clara,"" cried Mr. Audley, dropping on his knees—rather awkwardly, it must be confessed—and covering a soft little hand, that he had found half hidden among the folds of a silken dress, with passionate kisses.",4 """I love you, Clara,"" he said, ""I love you.",3 "You may call for your father, and have me turned out of the house this moment, if you like; but I shall go on loving you all the same; and I shall love you forever and ever, whether you will or no.""",4 "The little hand was drawn away from his, but not with a sudden or angry gesture, and it rested for one moment lightly and tremulously upon his dark hair.",1 """Clara, Clara!""",2 "he murmured, in a low, pleading voice, ""shall I go to Australia to look for your brother?""",2 There was no answer.,2 "I don't know how it is, but there is scarcely anything more delicious than silence in such cases.",2 Every moment of hesitation is a tacit avowal; every pause is a tender confession.,2 """Shall we both go, dearest?",2 Shall we go as man and wife?,2 "Shall we go together, my dear love, and bring our brother back between us?""",3 "Mr. Harcourt Talboys, coming into the lamplit room a quarter of an hour afterward, found Robert Audley alone, and had to listen to a revelation which very much surprised him.",3 "Like all self-sufficient people, he was tolerably blind to everything that happened under his nose, and he had fully believed that his own society, and the Spartan regularity of his household, had been the attractions which had made Dorsetshire delightful to his guest.",3 "He was rather disappointed, therefore; but he bore his disappointment pretty well, and expressed a placid and rather stoical satisfaction at the turn which affairs had taken.",1 "So Robert Audley went back to London, to surrender his chambers in Figtree Court, and to make all due inquiries about such ships as sailed from Liverpool for Sydney in the month of June.",1 "He had lingered until after luncheon at Grange Heath, and it was in the dusky twilight that he entered the shady Temple courts and found his way to his chambers.",1 "He found Mrs. Maloney scrubbing the stairs, as was her wont upon a Saturday evening, and he had to make his way upward amidst an atmosphere of soapy steam, that made the balusters greasy under his touch.",1 """There's lots of letters, yer honor,"" the laundress said, as she rose from her knees and flattened herself against the wall to enable Robert to pass her, ""and there's some parcels, and there's a gentleman which has called ever so many times, and is waitin' to-night, for I towld him you'd written to me to say your rooms were to be aired.""",3 "He opened the door of his sitting-room, and walked in.",2 "The canaries were singing their farewell to the setting sun, and the faint, yellow light was flickering upon the geranium leaves.",1 "The visitor, whoever he was, sat with his back to the window and his head bent upon his breast.",1 "But he started up as Robert Audley entered the room, and the young man uttered a great cry of delight and surprise, and opened his arms to his lost friend, George Talboys.",2 We know how much Robert had to tell.,2 He touched lightly and tenderly upon that subject which he knew was cruelly painful to his friends; he said very little of the wretched woman who was wearing out the remnant of her wicked life in the quiet suburb of the forgotten Belgian city.,1 "George Talboys spoke very briefly of that sunny seventh of September, upon which he had left his friend sleeping by the trout stream while he went to accuse his false wife of that conspiracy which had well nigh broken his heart.",0 """God knows that from the moment in which I sunk into the black pit, knowing the treacherous hand that had sent me to what might have been my death, my chief thought was of the safety of the woman who had betrayed me.",0 "I fell upon my feet upon a mass of slush and mire, but my shoulder was bruised, and my arm broken against the side of the well.",0 "I was stunned and dazed for a few minutes, but I roused myself by an effort, for I felt that the atmosphere I breathed was deadly.",1 I had my Australian experiences to help me in my peril; I could climb like a cat.,2 "The stones of which the well was built were rugged and irregular, and I was able to work my way upward by planting my feet in the interstices of the stones, and resting my back at times against the opposite side of the well, helping myself as well as I could with my hands, though one arm was crippled.",3 "It was hard work, Bob, and it seems strange that a man who had long professed himself weary of his life, should take so much trouble to preserve it.",0 I think I must have been working upward of half an hour before I got to the top; I know the time seemed an eternity of pain and peril.,1 "It was impossible for me to leave the place until after dark without being observed, so I hid myself behind a clump of laurel-bushes, and lay down on the grass faint and exhausted to wait for nightfall.",0 The man who found me there told you the rest.,2 "Robert.""",2 """Yes, my poor old friend.—yes, he told me all.""",1 George had never returned to Australia after all.,2 "He had gone on board the Victoria Regia, but had afterward changed his berth for one in another vessel belonging to the same owners, and had gone to New York, where he had stayed as long as he could endure the loneliness of an existence which separated him from every friend he had ever known.",1 """Jonathan was very kind to me, Bob,"" he said; ""I had enough money to enable me to get on pretty well in my own quiet way and I meant to have started for the California gold fields to get more when that was gone.",4 "I might have made plenty of friends had I pleased, but I carried the old bullet in my breast; and what sympathy could I have with men who knew nothing of my grief?",2 "I yearned for the strong grasp of your hand, Bob; the friendly touch of the hand which had guided me through the darkest passage of my life.""",3 "Two years have passed since the May twilight in which Robert found his old friend; and Mr. Audley's dream of a fairy cottage has been realized between Teddington Locks and Hampton Bridge, where, amid a little forest of foliage, there is a fantastical dwelling place of rustic woodwork, whose latticed windows look out upon the river.",2 "Here, among the lilies and the rushes on the sloping bank, a brave boy of eight years old plays with a toddling baby, who peers wonderingly from his nurse's arms at that other baby in the purple depth of the quiet water.",3 "Mr. Audley is a rising man upon the home circuit by this time, and has distinguished himself in the great breach of promise case of Hobbs v.",3 "Nobbs, and has convulsed the court by his deliciously comic rendering of the faithless Nobb's amatory correspondence.",1 "The handsome dark-eyed boy is Master George Talboys, who declines musa at Eton, and fishes for tadpoles in the clear water under the spreading umbrage beyond the ivied walls of the academy.",3 "But he comes very often to the fairy cottage to see his father, who lives there with his sister and his sister's husband; and he is very happy with his Uncle Robert, his Aunt Clara, and the pretty baby who has just begun to toddle on the smooth lawn that slopes down to the water's brink, upon which there is a little Swiss boat-house and landing-stage where Robert and George moor their slender wherries.",4 Other people come to the cottage near Teddington.,2 "A bright, merry-hearted girl, and a gray-bearded gentleman, who has survived the trouble of his life, and battled with it as a Christian should.",3 "It is more than a year since a black-edged letter, written upon foreign paper, came to Robert Audley, to announce the death of a certain Madame Taylor, who had expired peacefully at Villebrumeuse, dying after a long illness, which Monsieur Val describes as a maladie de langueur.",0 "Another visitor comes to the cottage in this bright summer of 1861—a frank, generous hearted young man, who tosses the baby and plays with Georgey, and is especially great in the management of the boats, which are never idle when Sir Harry Towers is at Teddington.",3 "There is a pretty rustic smoking-room over the Swiss boat-house, in which the gentlemen sit and smoke in the summer evenings, and whence they are summoned by Clara and Alicia to drink tea, and eat strawberries and cream upon the lawn.",2 "Audley Court is shut up, and a grim old housekeeper reigns paramount in the mansion which my lady's ringing laughter once made musical.",2 "A curtain hangs before the pre-Raphaelite portrait; and the blue mold which artists dread gathers upon the Wouvermans and Poussins, the Cuyps and Tintorettis.",1 "The house is often shown to inquisitive visitors, though the baronet is not informed of that fact, and people admire my lady's rooms, and ask many questions about the pretty, fair-haired woman who died abroad.",3 Sir Michael has no fancy to return to the familiar dwelling-place in which he once dreamed a brief dream of impossible happiness.,3 "He remains in London until Alicia shall be Lady Towers, when he is to remove to a house he has lately bought in Hertfordshire, on the borders of his son-in-law's estate.",2 George Talboys is very happy with his sister and his old friend.,3 "He is a young man yet, remember, and it is not quite impossible that he may, by-and-by, find some one who will console him for the past.",1 "That dark story of the past fades little by little every day, and there may come a time in which the shadow my lady's wickedness has cast upon the young man's life will utterly vanish away.",0 "The meerschaum and the French novels have been presented to a young Templar with whom Robert Audley had been friendly in his bachelor days; and Mrs. Maloney has a little pension, paid her quarterly, for her care of the canaries and geraniums.",3 I hope no one will take objection to my story because the end of it leaves the good people all happy and at peace.,3 "If my experience of life has not been very long, it has at least been manifold; and I can safely subscribe to that which a mighty king and a great philosopher declared, when he said, that neither the experience of his youth nor of his age had ever shown him ""the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.""",3 "With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past.",2 "This is what I undertake to do for you, reader.",2 "With this drop of ink at the end of my pen, I will show you the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in the village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the eighteenth of June, in the year of our Lord 1799.",3 "The afternoon sun was warm on the five workmen there, busy upon doors and window-frames and wainscoting.",3 "A scent of pine-wood from a tentlike pile of planks outside the open door mingled itself with the scent of the elder-bushes which were spreading their summer snow close to the open window opposite; the slanting sunbeams shone through the transparent shavings that flew before the steady plane, and lit up the fine grain of the oak panelling which stood propped against the wall.",4 "On a heap of those soft shavings a rough, grey shepherd dog had made himself a pleasant bed, and was lying with his nose between his fore-paws, occasionally wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the tallest of the five workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of a wooden mantelpiece.",2 "It was to this workman that the strong barytone belonged which was heard above the sound of plane and hammer singing-- Awake, my soul, and with the sun Thy daily stage of duty run; Shake off dull sloth...",1 "Here some measurement was to be taken which required more concentrated attention, and the sonorous voice subsided into a low whistle; but it presently broke out again with renewed vigour-- Let all thy converse be sincere, Thy conscience as the noonday clear.",3 "Such a voice could only come from a broad chest, and the broad chest belonged to a large-boned, muscular man nearly six feet high, with a back so flat and a head so well poised that when he drew himself up to take a more distant survey of his work, he had the air of a soldier standing at ease.",4 "The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long supple hand, with its broad finger-tips, looked ready for works of skill.",4 "In his tall stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name; but the jet-black hair, made the more noticeable by its contrast with the light paper cap, and the keen glance of the dark eyes that shone from under strongly marked, prominent and mobile eyebrows, indicated a mixture of Celtic blood.",3 "The face was large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such as belongs to an expression of good-humoured honest intelligence.",4 It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam's brother.,3 "He is nearly as tall; he has the same type of features, the same hue of hair and complexion; but the strength of the family likeness seems only to render more conspicuous the remarkable difference of expression both in form and face.",2 "Seth's broad shoulders have a slight stoop; his eyes are grey; his eyebrows have less prominence and more repose than his brother's; and his glance, instead of being keen, is confiding and benign.",3 "He has thrown off his paper cap, and you see that his hair is not thick and straight, like Adam's, but thin and wavy, allowing you to discern the exact contour of a coronal arch that predominates very decidedly over the brow.",3 The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth; they scarcely ever spoke to Adam.,1 "The concert of the tools and Adam's voice was at last broken by Seth, who, lifting the door at which he had been working intently, placed it against the wall, and said, ""There!",1 "I've finished my door to-day, anyhow.""",2 "The workmen all looked up; Jim Salt, a burly, red-haired man known as Sandy Jim, paused from his planing, and Adam said to Seth, with a sharp glance of surprise, ""What!",3 "Dost think thee'st finished the door?""",2 """Aye, sure,"" said Seth, with answering surprise; ""what's awanting to't?""",2 A loud roar of laughter from the other three workmen made Seth look round confusedly.,1 "Adam did not join in the laughter, but there was a slight smile on his face as he said, in a gentler tone than before, ""Why, thee'st forgot the panels.""",3 "The laughter burst out afresh as Seth clapped his hands to his head, and coloured over brow and crown.",2 """Hoorray!""",2 "shouted a small lithe fellow called Wiry Ben, running forward and seizing the door.",2 """We'll hang up th' door at fur end o' th' shop an' write on't 'Seth Bede, the Methody, his work.'",2 "Here, Jim, lend's hould o' th' red pot.""",2 """Nonsense!""",1 said Adam.,2 """Let it alone, Ben Cranage.",2 "You'll mayhap be making such a slip yourself some day; you'll laugh o' th' other side o' your mouth then.""",2 """Catch me at it, Adam.",2 "It'll be a good while afore my head's full o' th' Methodies,"" said Ben.",3 """Nay, but it's often full o' drink, and that's worse.""",1 "Ben, however, had now got the ""red pot"" in his hand, and was about to begin writing his inscription, making, by way of preliminary, an imaginary S in the air.",1 """Let it alone, will you?""",2 "Adam called out, laying down his tools, striding up to Ben, and seizing his right shoulder.",3 """Let it alone, or I'll shake the soul out o' your body.""",1 "Ben shook in Adam's iron grasp, but, like a plucky small man as he was, he didn't mean to give in.",3 "With his left hand he snatched the brush from his powerless right, and made a movement as if he would perform the feat of writing with his left.",3 "In a moment Adam turned him round, seized his other shoulder, and, pushing him along, pinned him against the wall.",2 But now Seth spoke.,2 """Let be, Addy, let be.",2 Ben will be joking.,2 "Why, he's i' the right to laugh at me--I canna help laughing at myself.""",3 """I shan't loose him till he promises to let the door alone,"" said Adam.",2 """Come, Ben, lad,"" said Seth, in a persuasive tone, ""don't let's have a quarrel about it.",1 You know Adam will have his way.,2 You may's well try to turn a waggon in a narrow lane.,3 "Say you'll leave the door alone, and make an end on't.""",2 """I binna frighted at Adam,"" said Ben, ""but I donna mind sayin' as I'll let 't alone at your askin', Seth.""",2 """Come, that's wise of you, Ben,"" said Adam, laughing and relaxing his grasp.",3 "They all returned to their work now; but Wiry Ben, having had the worst in the bodily contest, was bent on retrieving that humiliation by a success in sarcasm.",1 """Which was ye thinkin' on, Seth,"" he began--""the pretty parson's face or her sarmunt, when ye forgot the panels?""",3 """Come and hear her, Ben,"" said Seth, good-humouredly; ""she's going to preach on the Green to-night; happen ye'd get something to think on yourself then, instead o' those wicked songs you're so fond on.",3 "Ye might get religion, and that 'ud be the best day's earnings y' ever made.""",3 """All i' good time for that, Seth; I'll think about that when I'm a-goin' to settle i' life; bachelors doesn't want such heavy earnin's.",3 "Happen I shall do the coortin' an' the religion both together, as YE do, Seth; but ye wouldna ha' me get converted an' chop in atween ye an' the pretty preacher, an' carry her aff?""",3 """No fear o' that, Ben; she's neither for you nor for me to win, I doubt.",1 "Only you come and hear her, and you won't speak lightly on her again.""",2 """Well, I'm half a mind t' ha' a look at her to-night, if there isn't good company at th' Holly Bush.",3 What'll she take for her text?,2 "Happen ye can tell me, Seth, if so be as I shouldna come up i' time for't.",2 Will't be--what come ye out for to see?,2 A prophetess?,2 "Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophetess--a uncommon pretty young woman.""",3 """Come, Ben,"" said Adam, rather sternly, ""you let the words o' the Bible alone; you're going too far now.""",2 """What!",2 "Are YE a-turnin' roun', Adam?",2 "I thought ye war dead again th' women preachin', a while agoo?""",1 """Nay, I'm not turnin' noway.",2 I said nought about the women preachin'.,2 "I said, You let the Bible alone: you've got a jest-book, han't you, as you're rare and proud on?",3 "Keep your dirty fingers to that.""",1 """Why, y' are gettin' as big a saint as Seth.",3 "Y' are goin' to th' preachin' to-night, I should think.",2 Ye'll do finely t' lead the singin'.,3 "But I don' know what Parson Irwine 'ull say at his gran' favright Adam Bede a-turnin' Methody.""",2 """Never do you bother yourself about me, Ben.",1 I'm not a-going to turn Methodist any more nor you are--though it's like enough you'll turn to something worse.,3 Mester Irwine's got more sense nor to meddle wi' people's doing as they like in religion.,2 "That's between themselves and God, as he's said to me many a time.""",2 """Aye, aye; but he's none so fond o' your dissenters, for all that.""",3 """Maybe; I'm none so fond o' Josh Tod's thick ale, but I don't hinder you from making a fool o' yourself wi't.""",1 "There was a laugh at this thrust of Adam's, but Seth said, very seriously.",2 """Nay, nay, Addy, thee mustna say as anybody's religion's like thick ale.",3 "Thee dostna believe but what the dissenters and the Methodists have got the root o' the matter as well as the church folks.""",3 """Nay, Seth, lad; I'm not for laughing at no man's religion.",2 "Let 'em follow their consciences, that's all.",2 Only I think it 'ud be better if their consciences 'ud let 'em stay quiet i' the church--there's a deal to be learnt there.,3 And there's such a thing as being oversperitial; we must have something beside Gospel i' this world.,2 "Look at the canals, an' th' aqueduc's, an' th' coal-pit engines, and Arkwright's mills there at Cromford; a man must learn summat beside Gospel to make them things, I reckon.",2 "But t' hear some o' them preachers, you'd think as a man must be doing nothing all's life but shutting's eyes and looking what's agoing on inside him.",2 "I know a man must have the love o' God in his soul, and the Bible's God's word.",3 But what does the Bible say?,2 "Why, it says as God put his sperrit into the workman as built the tabernacle, to make him do all the carved work and things as wanted a nice hand.",3 "And this is my way o' looking at it: there's the sperrit o' God in all things and all times--weekday as well as Sunday--and i' the great works and inventions, and i' the figuring and the mechanics.",4 "And God helps us with our headpieces and our hands as well as with our souls; and if a man does bits o' jobs out o' working hours--builds a oven for 's wife to save her from going to the bakehouse, or scrats at his bit o' garden and makes two potatoes grow istead o' one, he's doin' more good, and he's just as near to God, as if he was running after some preacher and a-praying and a-groaning.""",3 """Well done, Adam!""",3 "said Sandy Jim, who had paused from his planing to shift his planks while Adam was speaking; ""that's the best sarmunt I've heared this long while.",3 "By th' same token, my wife's been a-plaguin' on me to build her a oven this twelvemont.""",2 """There's reason in what thee say'st, Adam,"" observed Seth, gravely.",1 """But thee know'st thyself as it's hearing the preachers thee find'st so much fault with has turned many an idle fellow into an industrious un.",1 "It's the preacher as empties th' alehouse; and if a man gets religion, he'll do his work none the worse for that.""",2 """On'y he'll lave the panels out o' th' doors sometimes, eh, Seth?""",2 said Wiry Ben.,2 """Ah, Ben, you've got a joke again' me as 'll last you your life.",1 "But it isna religion as was i' fault there; it was Seth Bede, as was allays a wool-gathering chap, and religion hasna cured him, the more's the pity.""",1 """Ne'er heed me, Seth,"" said Wiry Ben, ""y' are a down-right good-hearted chap, panels or no panels; an' ye donna set up your bristles at every bit o' fun, like some o' your kin, as is mayhap cliverer.""",4 """Seth, lad,"" said Adam, taking no notice of the sarcasm against himself, ""thee mustna take me unkind.",1 I wasna driving at thee in what I said just now.,2 "Some 's got one way o' looking at things and some 's got another.""",2 """Nay, nay, Addy, thee mean'st me no unkindness,"" said Seth, ""I know that well enough.",3 "Thee't like thy dog Gyp--thee bark'st at me sometimes, but thee allays lick'st my hand after.""",3 "All hands worked on in silence for some minutes, until the church clock began to strike six.",2 "Before the first stroke had died away, Sandy Jim had loosed his plane and was reaching his jacket; Wiry Ben had left a screw half driven in, and thrown his screwdriver into his tool-basket; Mum Taft, who, true to his name, had kept silence throughout the previous conversation, had flung down his hammer as he was in the act of lifting it; and Seth, too, had straightened his back, and was putting out his hand towards his paper cap.",1 Adam alone had gone on with his work as if nothing had happened.,3 "But observing the cessation of the tools, he looked up, and said, in a tone of indignation, ""Look there, now!",1 "I can't abide to see men throw away their tools i' that way, the minute the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i' their work and was afraid o' doing a stroke too much.""",2 "Seth looked a little conscious, and began to be slower in his preparations for going, but Mum Taft broke silence, and said, ""Aye, aye, Adam lad, ye talk like a young un.",1 "When y' are six-an'-forty like me, istid o' six-an'-twenty, ye wonna be so flush o' workin' for nought.""",3 """Nonsense,"" said Adam, still wrathful; ""what's age got to do with it, I wonder?",2 "Ye arena getting stiff yet, I reckon.",1 "I hate to see a man's arms drop down as if he was shot, before the clock's fairly struck, just as if he'd never a bit o' pride and delight in 's work.",3 "The very grindstone 'ull go on turning a bit after you loose it.""",1 """Bodderation, Adam!""",2 "exclaimed Wiry Ben; ""lave a chap aloon, will 'ee?",2 Ye war afinding faut wi' preachers a while agoo--y' are fond enough o' preachin' yoursen.,3 "Ye may like work better nor play, but I like play better nor work; that'll 'commodate ye--it laves ye th' more to do.""",4 "With this exit speech, which he considered effective, Wiry Ben shouldered his basket and left the workshop, quickly followed by Mum Taft and Sandy Jim.",3 "Seth lingered, and looked wistfully at Adam, as if he expected him to say something.",2 """Shalt go home before thee go'st to the preaching?""",2 "Adam asked, looking up.",2 """Nay; I've got my hat and things at Will Maskery's.",2 I shan't be home before going for ten.,2 "I'll happen see Dinah Morris safe home, if she's willing.",3 "There's nobody comes with her from Poyser's, thee know'st."" ""Then I'll tell mother not to look for thee,"" said Adam.",2 """Thee artna going to Poyser's thyself to-night?""",2 "said Seth rather timidly, as he turned to leave the workshop.",1 """Nay, I'm going to th' school.""",2 "Hitherto Gyp had kept his comfortable bed, only lifting up his head and watching Adam more closely as he noticed the other workmen departing.",3 "But no sooner did Adam put his ruler in his pocket, and begin to twist his apron round his waist, than Gyp ran forward and looked up in his master's face with patient expectation.",2 "If Gyp had had a tail he would doubtless have wagged it, but being destitute of that vehicle for his emotions, he was like many other worthy personages, destined to appear more phlegmatic than nature had made him.",4 """What!",2 "Art ready for the basket, eh, Gyp?""",3 "said Adam, with the same gentle modulation of voice as when he spoke to Seth.",3 "Gyp jumped and gave a short bark, as much as to say, ""Of course.""",2 "Poor fellow, he had not a great range of expression.",2 "The basket was the one which on workdays held Adam's and Seth's dinner; and no official, walking in procession, could look more resolutely unconscious of all acquaintances than Gyp with his basket, trotting at his master's heels.",2 "On leaving the workshop Adam locked the door, took the key out, and carried it to the house on the other side of the woodyard.",2 "It was a low house, with smooth grey thatch and buff walls, looking pleasant and mellow in the evening light.",3 "The leaded windows were bright and speckless, and the door-stone was as clean as a white boulder at ebb tide.",3 "On the door-stone stood a clean old woman, in a dark-striped linen gown, a red kerchief, and a linen cap, talking to some speckled fowls which appeared to have been drawn towards her by an illusory expectation of cold potatoes or barley.",1 "The old woman's sight seemed to be dim, for she did not recognize Adam till he said, ""Here's the key, Dolly; lay it down for me in the house, will you?""",1 """Aye, sure; but wunna ye come in, Adam?",2 "Miss Mary's i' th' house, and Mester Burge 'ull be back anon; he'd be glad t' ha' ye to supper wi'm, I'll be's warrand.""",2 """No, Dolly, thank you; I'm off home.",3 "Good evening.""",3 "Adam hastened with long strides, Gyp close to his heels, out of the workyard, and along the highroad leading away from the village and down to the valley.",3 "As he reached the foot of the slope, an elderly horseman, with his portmanteau strapped behind him, stopped his horse when Adam had passed him, and turned round to have another long look at the stalwart workman in paper cap, leather breeches, and dark-blue worsted stockings.",1 "Adam, unconscious of the admiration he was exciting, presently struck across the fields, and now broke out into the tune which had all day long been running in his head: Let all thy converse be sincere, Thy conscience as the noonday clear; For God's all-seeing eye surveys Thy secret thoughts, thy works and ways.",4 "About a quarter to seven there was an unusual appearance of excitement in the village of Hayslope, and through the whole length of its little street, from the Donnithorne Arms to the churchyard gate, the inhabitants had evidently been drawn out of their houses by something more than the pleasure of lounging in the evening sunshine.",3 "The Donnithorne Arms stood at the entrance of the village, and a small farmyard and stackyard which flanked it, indicating that there was a pretty take of land attached to the inn, gave the traveller a promise of good feed for himself and his horse, which might well console him for the ignorance in which the weather-beaten sign left him as to the heraldic bearings of that ancient family, the Donnithornes.",4 "Mr. Casson, the landlord, had been for some time standing at the door with his hands in his pockets, balancing himself on his heels and toes and looking towards a piece of unenclosed ground, with a maple in the middle of it, which he knew to be the destination of certain grave-looking men and women whom he had observed passing at intervals.",2 Mr. Casson's person was by no means of that common type which can be allowed to pass without description.,2 "On a front view it appeared to consist principally of two spheres, bearing about the same relation to each other as the earth and the moon: that is to say, the lower sphere might be said, at a rough guess, to be thirteen times larger than the upper which naturally performed the function of a mere satellite and tributary.",1 "But here the resemblance ceased, for Mr. Casson's head was not at all a melancholy-looking satellite nor was it a ""spotty globe,"" as Milton has irreverently called the moon; on the contrary, no head and face could look more sleek and healthy, and its expression--which was chiefly confined to a pair of round and ruddy cheeks, the slight knot and interruptions forming the nose and eyes being scarcely worth mention--was one of jolly contentment, only tempered by that sense of personal dignity which usually made itself felt in his attitude and bearing.",3 "This sense of dignity could hardly be considered excessive in a man who had been butler to ""the family"" for fifteen years, and who, in his present high position, was necessarily very much in contact with his inferiors.",2 "How to reconcile his dignity with the satisfaction of his curiosity by walking towards the Green was the problem that Mr. Casson had been revolving in his mind for the last five minutes; but when he had partly solved it by taking his hands out of his pockets, and thrusting them into the armholes of his waistcoat, by throwing his head on one side, and providing himself with an air of contemptuous indifference to whatever might fall under his notice, his thoughts were diverted by the approach of the horseman whom we lately saw pausing to have another look at our friend Adam, and who now pulled up at the door of the Donnithorne Arms.",1 """Take off the bridle and give him a drink, ostler,"" said the traveller to the lad in a smock-frock, who had come out of the yard at the sound of the horse's hoofs.",2 """Why, what's up in your pretty village, landlord?""",3 "he continued, getting down.",2 """There seems to be quite a stir.""",2 """It's a Methodis' preaching, sir; it's been gev hout as a young woman's a-going to preach on the Green,"" answered Mr. Casson, in a treble and wheezy voice, with a slightly mincing accent.",2 """Will you please to step in, sir, an' tek somethink?""",2 """No, I must be getting on to Rosseter.",2 I only want a drink for my horse.,2 "And what does your parson say, I wonder, to a young woman preaching just under his nose?""",3 """Parson Irwine, sir, doesn't live here; he lives at Brox'on, over the hill there.",2 "The parsonage here's a tumble-down place, sir, not fit for gentry to live in.",1 "He comes here to preach of a Sunday afternoon, sir, an' puts up his hoss here.",2 "It's a grey cob, sir, an' he sets great store by't.",3 "He's allays put up his hoss here, sir, iver since before I hed the Donnithorne Arms.",2 "I'm not this countryman, you may tell by my tongue, sir.",2 "They're cur'ous talkers i' this country, sir; the gentry's hard work to hunderstand 'em.",2 "I was brought hup among the gentry, sir, an' got the turn o' their tongue when I was a bye.",2 "Why, what do you think the folks here says for 'hevn't you?'",2 "--the gentry, you know, says, 'hevn't you'--well, the people about here says 'hanna yey.'",3 "It's what they call the dileck as is spoke hereabout, sir.",2 "That's what I've heared Squire Donnithorne say many a time; it's the dileck, says he.""",2 """Aye, aye,"" said the stranger, smiling.",2 """I know it very well.",3 "But you've not got many Methodists about here, surely--in this agricultural spot?",2 I should have thought there would hardly be such a thing as a Methodist to be found about here.,2 "You're all farmers, aren't you?",2 "The Methodists can seldom lay much hold on THEM."" ""Why, sir, there's a pretty lot o' workmen round about, sir.",3 "There's Mester Burge as owns the timber-yard over there, he underteks a good bit o' building an' repairs.",3 An' there's the stone-pits not far off.,2 "There's plenty of emply i' this countryside, sir.",2 "An' there's a fine batch o' Methodisses at Treddles'on--that's the market town about three mile off--you'll maybe ha' come through it, sir.",3 "There's pretty nigh a score of 'em on the Green now, as come from there.",3 "That's where our people gets it from, though there's only two men of 'em in all Hayslope: that's Will Maskery, the wheelwright, and Seth Bede, a young man as works at the carpenterin'.""",3 """The preacher comes from Treddleston, then, does she?""",2 """Nay, sir, she comes out o' Stonyshire, pretty nigh thirty mile off.",3 "But she's a-visitin' hereabout at Mester Poyser's at the Hall Farm--it's them barns an' big walnut-trees, right away to the left, sir.",3 "She's own niece to Poyser's wife, an' they'll be fine an' vexed at her for making a fool of herself i' that way.",2 But I've heared as there's no holding these Methodisses when the maggit's once got i' their head: many of 'em goes stark starin' mad wi' their religion.,1 "Though this young woman's quiet enough to look at, by what I can make out; I've not seen her myself.""",3 """Well, I wish I had time to wait and see her, but I must get on.",3 I've been out of my way for the last twenty minutes to have a look at that place in the valley.,2 "It's Squire Donnithorne's, I suppose?""",2 """Yes, sir, that's Donnithorne Chase, that is.",2 "Fine hoaks there, isn't there, sir?",3 "I should know what it is, sir, for I've lived butler there a-going i' fifteen year.",2 "It's Captain Donnithorne as is th' heir, sir--Squire Donnithorne's grandson.",2 "He'll be comin' of hage this 'ay-'arvest, sir, an' we shall hev fine doin's.",3 "He owns all the land about here, sir, Squire Donnithorne does.""",2 """Well, it's a pretty spot, whoever may own it,"" said the traveller, mounting his horse; ""and one meets some fine strapping fellows about too.",4 "I met as fine a young fellow as ever I saw in my life, about half an hour ago, before I came up the hill--a carpenter, a tall, broad-shouldered fellow with black hair and black eyes, marching along like a soldier.",3 "We want such fellows as he to lick the French.""",2 """Aye, sir, that's Adam Bede, that is, I'll be bound--Thias Bede's son everybody knows him hereabout.",2 "He's an uncommon clever stiddy fellow, an' wonderful strong.",4 "Lord bless you, sir--if you'll hexcuse me for saying so--he can walk forty mile a-day, an' lift a matter o' sixty ston'.",3 "He's an uncommon favourite wi' the gentry, sir: Captain Donnithorne and Parson Irwine meks a fine fuss wi' him.",2 "But he's a little lifted up an' peppery-like.""",3 """Well, good evening to you, landlord; I must get on.""",3 """Your servant, sir; good evenin'.""",3 "The traveller put his horse into a quick walk up the village, but when he approached the Green, the beauty of the view that lay on his right hand, the singular contrast presented by the groups of villagers with the knot of Methodists near the maple, and perhaps yet more, curiosity to see the young female preacher, proved too much for his anxiety to get to the end of his journey, and he paused.",3 "The Green lay at the extremity of the village, and from it the road branched off in two directions, one leading farther up the hill by the church, and the other winding gently down towards the valley.",3 "On the side of the Green that led towards the church, the broken line of thatched cottages was continued nearly to the churchyard gate; but on the opposite northwestern side, there was nothing to obstruct the view of gently swelling meadow, and wooded valley, and dark masses of distant hill.",0 "That rich undulating district of Loamshire to which Hayslope belonged lies close to a grim outskirt of Stonyshire, overlooked by its barren hills as a pretty blooming sister may sometimes be seen linked in the arm of a rugged, tall, swarthy brother; and in two or three hours' ride the traveller might exchange a bleak treeless region, intersected by lines of cold grey stone, for one where his road wound under the shelter of woods, or up swelling hills, muffled with hedgerows and long meadow-grass and thick corn; and where at every turn he came upon some fine old country-seat nestled in the valley or crowning the slope, some homestead with its long length of barn and its cluster of golden ricks, some grey steeple looking out from a pretty confusion of trees and thatch and dark-red tiles.",0 "It was just such a picture as this last that Hayslope Church had made to the traveller as he began to mount the gentle slope leading to its pleasant uplands, and now from his station near the Green he had before him in one view nearly all the other typical features of this pleasant land.",4 "High up against the horizon were the huge conical masses of hill, like giant mounds intended to fortify this region of corn and grass against the keen and hungry winds of the north; not distant enough to be clothed in purple mystery, but with sombre greenish sides visibly specked with sheep, whose motion was only revealed by memory, not detected by sight; wooed from day to day by the changing hours, but responding with no change in themselves--left for ever grim and sullen after the flush of morning, the winged gleams of the April noonday, the parting crimson glory of the ripening summer sun.",3 "And directly below them the eye rested on a more advanced line of hanging woods, divided by bright patches of pasture or furrowed crops, and not yet deepened into the uniform leafy curtains of high summer, but still showing the warm tints of the young oak and the tender green of the ash and lime.",4 "Then came the valley, where the woods grew thicker, as if they had rolled down and hurried together from the patches left smooth on the slope, that they might take the better care of the tall mansion which lifted its parapets and sent its faint blue summer smoke among them.",1 "Doubtless there was a large sweep of park and a broad glassy pool in front of that mansion, but the swelling slope of meadow would not let our traveller see them from the village green.",2 "He saw instead a foreground which was just as lovely--the level sunlight lying like transparent gold among the gently curving stems of the feathered grass and the tall red sorrel, and the white ambels of the hemlocks lining the bushy hedgerows.",4 It was that moment in summer when the sound of the scythe being whetted makes us cast more lingering looks at the flower-sprinkled tresses of the meadows.,2 "He might have seen other beauties in the landscape if he had turned a little in his saddle and looked eastward, beyond Jonathan Burge's pasture and woodyard towards the green corn-fields and walnut-trees of the Hall Farm; but apparently there was more interest for him in the living groups close at hand.",2 "Every generation in the village was there, from old ""Feyther Taft"" in his brown worsted night-cap, who was bent nearly double, but seemed tough enough to keep on his legs a long while, leaning on his short stick, down to the babies with their little round heads lolling forward in quilted linen caps.",3 "Now and then there was a new arrival; perhaps a slouching labourer, who, having eaten his supper, came out to look at the unusual scene with a slow bovine gaze, willing to hear what any one had to say in explanation of it, but by no means excited enough to ask a question.",3 "But all took care not to join the Methodists on the Green, and identify themselves in that way with the expectant audience, for there was not one of them that would not have disclaimed the imputation of having come out to hear the ""preacher woman""--they had only come out to see ""what war a-goin' on, like.""",3 The men were chiefly gathered in the neighbourhood of the blacksmith's shop.,2 But do not imagine them gathered in a knot.,2 "Villagers never swarm: a whisper is unknown among them, and they seem almost as incapable of an undertone as a cow or a stag.",1 "Your true rustic turns his back on his interlocutor, throwing a question over his shoulder as if he meant to run away from the answer, and walking a step or two farther off when the interest of the dialogue culminates.",2 "So the group in the vicinity of the blacksmith's door was by no means a close one, and formed no screen in front of Chad Cranage, the blacksmith himself, who stood with his black brawny arms folded, leaning against the door-post, and occasionally sending forth a bellowing laugh at his own jokes, giving them a marked preference over the sarcasms of Wiry Ben, who had renounced the pleasures of the Holly Bush for the sake of seeing life under a new form.",2 But both styles of wit were treated with equal contempt by Mr. Joshua Rann.,1 "Mr. Rann's leathern apron and subdued griminess can leave no one in any doubt that he is the village shoemaker; the thrusting out of his chin and stomach and the twirling of his thumbs are more subtle indications, intended to prepare unwary strangers for the discovery that they are in the presence of the parish clerk.",1 """Old Joshway,"" as he is irreverently called by his neighbours, is in a state of simmering indignation; but he has not yet opened his lips except to say, in a resounding bass undertone, like the tuning of a violoncello, ""Sehon, King of the Amorites; for His mercy endureth for ever; and Og the King of Basan: for His mercy endureth for ever""--a quotation which may seem to have slight bearing on the present occasion, but, as with every other anomaly, adequate knowledge will show it to be a natural sequence.",3 "Mr. Rann was inwardly maintaining the dignity of the Church in the face of this scandalous irruption of Methodism, and as that dignity was bound up with his own sonorous utterance of the responses, his argument naturally suggested a quotation from the psalm he had read the last Sunday afternoon.",2 "The stronger curiosity of the women had drawn them quite to the edge of the Green, where they could examine more closely the Quakerlike costume and odd deportment of the female Methodists.",2 "Underneath the maple there was a small cart, which had been brought from the wheelwright's to serve as a pulpit, and round this a couple of benches and a few chairs had been placed.",2 "Some of the Methodists were resting on these, with their eyes closed, as if wrapt in prayer or meditation.",2 "Others chose to continue standing, and had turned their faces towards the villagers with a look of melancholy compassion, which was highly amusing to Bessy Cranage, the blacksmith's buxom daughter, known to her neighbours as Chad's Bess, who wondered ""why the folks war amakin' faces a that'ns.""",3 "Chad's Bess was the object of peculiar compassion, because her hair, being turned back under a cap which was set at the top of her head, exposed to view an ornament of which she was much prouder than of her red cheeks--namely, a pair of large round ear-rings with false garnets in them, ornaments condemned not only by the Methodists, but by her own cousin and namesake Timothy's Bess, who, with much cousinly feeling, often wished ""them ear-rings"" might come to good.",1 "Timothy's Bess, though retaining her maiden appellation among her familiars, had long been the wife of Sandy Jim, and possessed a handsome set of matronly jewels, of which it is enough to mention the heavy baby she was rocking in her arms, and the sturdy fellow of five in knee-breeches, and red legs, who had a rusty milk-can round his neck by way of drum, and was very carefully avoided by Chad's small terrier.",3 "This young olive-branch, notorious under the name of Timothy's Bess's Ben, being of an inquiring disposition, unchecked by any false modesty, had advanced beyond the group of women and children, and was walking round the Methodists, looking up in their faces with his mouth wide open, and beating his stick against the milk-can by way of musical accompaniment.",2 "But one of the elderly women bending down to take him by the shoulder, with an air of grave remonstrance, Timothy's Bess's Ben first kicked out vigorously, then took to his heels and sought refuge behind his father's legs.",2 """Ye gallows young dog,"" said Sandy Jim, with some paternal pride, ""if ye donna keep that stick quiet, I'll tek it from ye.",3 "What dy'e mane by kickin' foulks?""",2 """Here!",2 "Gie him here to me, Jim,"" said Chad Cranage; ""I'll tie hirs up an' shoe him as I do th' hosses.",2 "Well, Mester Casson,"" he continued, as that personage sauntered up towards the group of men, ""how are ye t' naight?",3 Are ye coom t' help groon?,2 "They say folks allays groon when they're hearkenin' to th' Methodys, as if they war bad i' th' inside.",1 "I mane to groon as loud as your cow did th' other naight, an' then the praicher 'ull think I'm i' th' raight way.""",1 """I'd advise you not to be up to no nonsense, Chad,"" said Mr. Casson, with some dignity; ""Poyser wouldn't like to hear as his wife's niece was treated any ways disrespectful, for all he mayn't be fond of her taking on herself to preach.""",3 """Aye, an' she's a pleasant-looked un too,"" said Wiry Ben.",3 """I'll stick up for the pretty women preachin'; I know they'd persuade me over a deal sooner nor th' ugly men.",2 "I shouldna wonder if I turn Methody afore the night's out, an' begin to coort the preacher, like Seth Bede.""",3 """Why, Seth's looking rether too high, I should think,"" said Mr. Casson.",2 """This woman's kin wouldn't like her to demean herself to a common carpenter.""",2 """Tchu!""",2 "said Ben, with a long treble intonation, ""what's folks's kin got to do wi't?",2 Not a chip.,2 "Poyser's wife may turn her nose up an' forget bygones, but this Dinah Morris, they tell me, 's as poor as iver she was--works at a mill, an's much ado to keep hersen.",2 "A strappin' young carpenter as is a ready-made Methody, like Seth, wouldna be a bad match for her.",3 "Why, Poysers make as big a fuss wi' Adam Bede as if he war a nevvy o' their own.""",1 """Idle talk!",1 "idle talk!""",1 said Mr. Joshua Rann.,2 """Adam an' Seth's two men; you wunna fit them two wi' the same last.""",2 """Maybe,"" said Wiry Ben, contemptuously, ""but Seth's the lad for me, though he war a Methody twice o'er.",1 "I'm fair beat wi' Seth, for I've been teasin' him iver sin' we've been workin' together, an' he bears me no more malice nor a lamb.",2 "An' he's a stout-hearted feller too, for when we saw the old tree all afire a-comin' across the fields one night, an' we thought as it war a boguy, Seth made no more ado, but he up to't as bold as a constable.",2 "Why, there he comes out o' Will Maskery's; an' there's Will hisself, lookin' as meek as if he couldna knock a nail o' the head for fear o' hurtin't.",1 An' there's the pretty preacher woman!,3 "My eye, she's got her bonnet off.",2 "I mun go a bit nearer.""",2 "Several of the men followed Ben's lead, and the traveller pushed his horse on to the Green, as Dinah walked rather quickly and in advance of her companions towards the cart under the maple-tree.",3 "While she was near Seth's tall figure, she looked short, but when she had mounted the cart, and was away from all comparison, she seemed above the middle height of woman, though in reality she did not exceed it--an effect which was due to the slimness of her figure and the simple line of her black stuff dress.",3 "The stranger was struck with surprise as he saw her approach and mount the cart--surprise, not so much at the feminine delicacy of her appearance, as at the total absence of self-consciousness in her demeanour.",1 "He had made up his mind to see her advance with a measured step and a demure solemnity of countenance; he had felt sure that her face would be mantled with the smile of conscious saintship, or else charged with denunciatory bitterness.",2 He knew but two types of Methodist--the ecstatic and the bilious.,3 "But Dinah walked as simply as if she were going to market, and seemed as unconscious of her outward appearance as a little boy: there was no blush, no tremulousness, which said, ""I know you think me a pretty woman, too young to preach""; no casting up or down of the eyelids, no compression of the lips, no attitude of the arms that said, ""But you must think of me as a saint.""",3 "She held no book in her ungloved hands, but let them hang down lightly crossed before her, as she stood and turned her grey eyes on the people.",1 "There was no keenness in the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding love than making observations; they had the liquid look which tells that the mind is full of what it has to give out, rather than impressed by external objects.",4 "She stood with her left hand towards the descending sun, and leafy boughs screened her from its rays; but in this sober light the delicate colouring of her face seemed to gather a calm vividness, like flowers at evening.",3 "It was a small oval face, of a uniform transparent whiteness, with an egg-like line of cheek and chin, a full but firm mouth, a delicate nostril, and a low perpendicular brow, surmounted by a rising arch of parting between smooth locks of pale reddish hair.",4 "The hair was drawn straight back behind the ears, and covered, except for an inch or two above the brow, by a net Quaker cap.",2 "The eyebrows, of the same colour as the hair, were perfectly horizontal and firmly pencilled; the eyelashes, though no darker, were long and abundant--nothing was left blurred or unfinished.",1 It was one of those faces that make one think of white flowers with light touches of colour on their pure petals.,3 "The eyes had no peculiar beauty, beyond that of expression; they looked so simple, so candid, so gravely loving, that no accusing scowl, no light sneer could help melting away before their glance.",0 "Joshua Rann gave a long cough, as if he were clearing his throat in order to come to a new understanding with himself; Chad Cranage lifted up his leather skull-cap and scratched his head; and Wiry Ben wondered how Seth had the pluck to think of courting her.",1 """A sweet woman,"" the stranger said to himself, ""but surely nature never meant her for a preacher.""",2 "Perhaps he was one of those who think that nature has theatrical properties and, with the considerate view of facilitating art and psychology, ""makes up,"" her characters, so that there may be no mistake about them.",2 But Dinah began to speak.,2 """Dear friends,"" she said in a clear but not loud voice ""let us pray for a blessing.""",3 "She closed her eyes, and hanging her head down a little continued in the same moderate tone, as if speaking to some one quite near her: ""Saviour of sinners!",2 "When a poor woman laden with sins, went out to the well to draw water, she found Thee sitting at the well.",2 She knew Thee not; she had not sought Thee; her mind was dark; her life was unholy.,1 "But Thou didst speak to her, Thou didst teach her, Thou didst show her that her life lay open before Thee, and yet Thou wast ready to give her that blessing which she had never sought.",3 "Jesus, Thou art in the midst of us, and Thou knowest all men: if there is any here like that poor woman--if their minds are dark, their lives unholy--if they have come out not seeking Thee, not desiring to be taught; deal with them according to the free mercy which Thou didst show to her.",3 "Speak to them, Lord, open their ears to my message, bring their sins to their minds, and make them thirst for that salvation which Thou art ready to give.",2 """Lord, Thou art with Thy people still: they see Thee in the night-watches, and their hearts burn within them as Thou talkest with them by the way.",1 "And Thou art near to those who have not known Thee: open their eyes that they may see Thee--see Thee weeping over them, and saying 'Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life'--see Thee hanging on the cross and saying, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do'--see Thee as Thou wilt come again in Thy glory to judge them at the last.",2 "Amen.""",2 "Dinah opened her eyes again and paused, looking at the group of villagers, who were now gathered rather more closely on her right hand.",3 """Dear friends,"" she began, raising her voice a little, ""you have all of you been to church, and I think you must have heard the clergyman read these words: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.'",1 "Jesus Christ spoke those words--he said he came TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. I don't know whether you ever thought about those words much, but I will tell you when I remember first hearing them.",1 "It was on just such a sort of evening as this, when I was a little girl, and my aunt as brought me up took me to hear a good man preach out of doors, just as we are here.",3 "I remember his face well: he was a very old man, and had very long white hair; his voice was very soft and beautiful, not like any voice I had ever heard before.",4 "I was a little girl and scarcely knew anything, and this old man seemed to me such a different sort of a man from anybody I had ever seen before that I thought he had perhaps come down from the sky to preach to us, and I said, 'Aunt, will he go back to the sky to-night, like the picture in the Bible?'",2 """That man of God was Mr. Wesley, who spent his life in doing what our blessed Lord did--preaching the Gospel to the poor--and he entered into his rest eight years ago.",1 "I came to know more about him years after, but I was a foolish thoughtless child then, and I remembered only one thing he told us in his sermon.",1 He told us as 'Gospel' meant 'good news.',2 "The Gospel, you know, is what the Bible tells us about God.",2 """Think of that now!",2 "Jesus Christ did really come down from heaven, as I, like a silly child, thought Mr. Wesley did; and what he came down for was to tell good news about God to the poor.",3 "Why, you and me, dear friends, are poor.",1 "We have been brought up in poor cottages and have been reared on oat-cake, and lived coarse; and we haven't been to school much, nor read books, and we don't know much about anything but what happens just round us.",1 We are just the sort of people that want to hear good news.,3 "For when anybody's well off, they don't much mind about hearing news from distant parts; but if a poor man or woman's in trouble and has hard work to make out a living, they like to have a letter to tell 'em they've got a friend as will help 'em.",2 "To be sure, we can't help knowing something about God, even if we've never heard the Gospel, the good news that our Saviour brought us.",3 "For we know everything comes from God: don't you say almost every day, 'This and that will happen, please God,' and 'We shall begin to cut the grass soon, please God to send us a little more sunshine'?",2 We know very well we are altogether in the hands of God.,3 "We didn't bring ourselves into the world, we can't keep ourselves alive while we're sleeping; the daylight, and the wind, and the corn, and the cows to give us milk--everything we have comes from God.",2 "And he gave us our souls and put love between parents and children, and husband and wife.",3 But is that as much as we want to know about God?,2 "We see he is great and mighty, and can do what he will: we are lost, as if we was struggling in great waters, when we try to think of him.",2 """But perhaps doubts come into your mind like this: Can God take much notice of us poor people?",1 Perhaps he only made the world for the great and the wise and the rich.,4 "It doesn't cost him much to give us our little handful of victual and bit of clothing; but how do we know he cares for us any more than we care for the worms and things in the garden, so as we rear our carrots and onions?",2 Will God take care of us when we die?,1 And has he any comfort for us when we are lame and sick and helpless?,1 "Perhaps, too, he is angry with us; else why does the blight come, and the bad harvests, and the fever, and all sorts of pain and trouble?",0 "For our life is full of trouble, and if God sends us good, he seems to send bad too.",1 How is it?,2 How is it?,2 """Ah, dear friends, we are in sad want of good news about God; and what does other good news signify if we haven't that?",2 "For everything else comes to an end, and when we die we leave it all.",1 But God lasts when everything else is gone.,2 "What shall we do if he is not our friend?""",2 "Then Dinah told how the good news had been brought, and how the mind of God towards the poor had been made manifest in the life of Jesus, dwelling on its lowliness and its acts of mercy.",3 """So you see, dear friends,"" she went on, ""Jesus spent his time almost all in doing good to poor people; he preached out of doors to them, and he made friends of poor workmen, and taught them and took pains with them.",1 "Not but what he did good to the rich too, for he was full of love to all men, only he saw as the poor were more in want of his help.",3 "So he cured the lame and the sick and the blind, and he worked miracles to feed the hungry because, he said, he was sorry for them; and he was very kind to the little children and comforted those who had lost their friends; and he spoke very tenderly to poor sinners that were sorry for their sins.",0 """Ah, wouldn't you love such a man if you saw him--if he were here in this village?",3 What a kind heart he must have!,2 What a friend he would be to go to in trouble!,1 How pleasant it must be to be taught by him.,3 """Well, dear friends, who WAS this man?",3 "Was he only a good man--a very good man, and no more--like our dear Mr. Wesley, who has been taken from us?...",3 "He was the Son of God--'in the image of the Father,' the Bible says; that means, just like God, who is the beginning and end of all things--the God we want to know about.",3 "So then, all the love that Jesus showed to the poor is the same love that God has for us.",2 "We can understand what Jesus felt, because he came in a body like ours and spoke words such as we speak to each other.",3 We were afraid to think what God was before--the God who made the world and the sky and the thunder and lightning.,1 "We could never see him; we could only see the things he had made; and some of these things was very terrible, so as we might well tremble when we thought of him.",2 "But our blessed Saviour has showed us what God is in a way us poor ignorant people can understand; he has showed us what God's heart is, what are his feelings towards us.",1 """But let us see a little more about what Jesus came on earth for.",2 "Another time he said, 'I came to seek and to save that which was lost'; and another time, 'I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.'",3 """The LOST!...SINNERS!...Ah, dear friends, does that mean you and me?""",1 "Hitherto the traveller had been chained to the spot against his will by the charm of Dinah's mellow treble tones, which had a variety of modulation like that of a fine instrument touched with the unconscious skill of musical instinct.",4 "The simple things she said seemed like novelties, as a melody strikes us with a new feeling when we hear it sung by the pure voice of a boyish chorister; the quiet depth of conviction with which she spoke seemed in itself an evidence for the truth of her message.",4 He saw that she had thoroughly arrested her hearers.,2 "The villagers had pressed nearer to her, and there was no longer anything but grave attention on all faces.",2 "She spoke slowly, though quite fluently, often pausing after a question, or before any transition of ideas.",1 "There was no change of attitude, no gesture; the effect of her speech was produced entirely by the inflections of her voice, and when she came to the question, ""Will God take care of us when we die?""",1 she uttered it in such a tone of plaintive appeal that the tears came into some of the hardest eyes.,3 "The stranger had ceased to doubt, as he had done at the first glance, that she could fix the attention of her rougher hearers, but still he wondered whether she could have that power of rousing their more violent emotions, which must surely be a necessary seal of her vocation as a Methodist preacher, until she came to the words, ""Lost!--Sinners!""",0 when there was a great change in her voice and manner.,3 "She had made a long pause before the exclamation, and the pause seemed to be filled by agitating thoughts that showed themselves in her features.",2 "Her pale face became paler; the circles under her eyes deepened, as they did when tears half-gather without falling; and the mild loving eyes took an expression of appalled pity, as if she had suddenly discerned a destroying angel hovering over the heads of the people.",1 "Her voice became deep and muffled, but there was still no gesture.",2 Nothing could be less like the ordinary type of the Ranter than Dinah.,3 "She was not preaching as she heard others preach, but speaking directly from her own emotions and under the inspiration of her own simple faith.",3 But now she had entered into a new current of feeling.,2 "Her manner became less calm, her utterance more rapid and agitated, as she tried to bring home to the people their guilt, their wilful darkness, their state of disobedience to God--as she dwelt on the hatefulness of sin, the Divine holiness, and the sufferings of the Saviour, by which a way had been opened for their salvation.",1 "At last it seemed as if, in her yearning desire to reclaim the lost sheep, she could not be satisfied by addressing her hearers as a body.",3 "She appealed first to one and then to another, beseeching them with tears to turn to God while there was yet time; painting to them the desolation of their souls, lost in sin, feeding on the husks of this miserable world, far away from God their Father; and then the love of the Saviour, who was waiting and watching for their return.",0 "There was many a responsive sigh and groan from her fellow-Methodists, but the village mind does not easily take fire, and a little smouldering vague anxiety that might easily die out again was the utmost effect Dinah's preaching had wrought in them at present.",0 "Yet no one had retired, except the children and ""old Feyther Taft,"" who being too deaf to catch many words, had some time ago gone back to his inglenook.",1 "Wiry Ben was feeling very uncomfortable, and almost wishing he had not come to hear Dinah; he thought what she said would haunt him somehow.",1 "Yet he couldn't help liking to look at her and listen to her, though he dreaded every moment that she would fix her eyes on him and address him in particular.",3 "She had already addressed Sandy Jim, who was now holding the baby to relieve his wife, and the big soft-hearted man had rubbed away some tears with his fist, with a confused intention of being a better fellow, going less to the Holly Bush down by the Stone-pits, and cleaning himself more regularly of a Sunday.",2 "In front of Sandy Jim stood Chad's Bess, who had shown an unwonted quietude and fixity of attention ever since Dinah had begun to speak.",2 "Not that the matter of the discourse had arrested her at once, for she was lost in a puzzling speculation as to what pleasure and satisfaction there could be in life to a young woman who wore a cap like Dinah's.",2 "Giving up this inquiry in despair, she took to studying Dinah's nose, eyes, mouth, and hair, and wondering whether it was better to have such a sort of pale face as that, or fat red cheeks and round black eyes like her own.",1 "But gradually the influence of the general gravity told upon her, and she became conscious of what Dinah was saying.",2 "The gentle tones, the loving persuasion, did not touch her, but when the more severe appeals came she began to be frightened.",3 "Poor Bessy had always been considered a naughty girl; she was conscious of it; if it was necessary to be very good, it was clear she must be in a bad way.",1 "She couldn't find her places at church as Sally Rann could, she had often been tittering when she ""curcheyed"" to Mr. Irwine; and these religious deficiencies were accompanied by a corresponding slackness in the minor morals, for Bessy belonged unquestionably to that unsoaped lazy class of feminine characters with whom you may venture to ""eat an egg, an apple, or a nut.""",1 "All this she was generally conscious of, and hitherto had not been greatly ashamed of it.",1 But now she began to feel very much as if the constable had come to take her up and carry her before the justice for some undefined offence.,1 "She had a terrified sense that God, whom she had always thought of as very far off, was very near to her, and that Jesus was close by looking at her, though she could not see him.",2 "For Dinah had that belief in visible manifestations of Jesus, which is common among the Methodists, and she communicated it irresistibly to her hearers: she made them feel that he was among them bodily, and might at any moment show himself to them in some way that would strike anguish and penitence into their hearts.",1 """See!""",2 "she exclaimed, turning to the left, with her eyes fixed on a point above the heads of the people.",2 """See where our blessed Lord stands and weeps and stretches out his arms towards you.",2 "Hear what he says: 'How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!'",2 ...,2 "and ye would not,"" she repeated, in a tone of pleading reproach, turning her eyes on the people again.",1 """See the print of the nails on his dear hands and feet.",2 It is your sins that made them!,2 Ah!,2 How pale and worn he looks!,1 "He has gone through all that great agony in the garden, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death, and the great drops of sweat fell like blood to the ground.",1 "They spat upon him and buffeted him, they scourged him, they mocked him, they laid the heavy cross on his bruised shoulders.",1 Then they nailed him up.,2 "Ah, what pain!",1 "His lips are parched with thirst, and they mock him still in this great agony; yet with those parched lips he prays for them, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'",1 "Then a horror of great darkness fell upon him, and he felt what sinners feel when they are for ever shut out from God.",1 That was the last drop in the cup of bitterness.,1 "'My God, my God!'",2 "he cries, 'why hast Thou forsaken me?'",1 """All this he bore for you!",1 For you--and you never think of him; for you--and you turn your backs on him; you don't care what he has gone through for you.,2 "Yet he is not weary of toiling for you: he has risen from the dead, he is praying for you at the right hand of God--'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'",1 "And he is upon this earth too; he is among us; he is there close to you now; I see his wounded body and his look of love.""",3 "Here Dinah turned to Bessy Cranage, whose bonny youth and evident vanity had touched her with pity.",1 """Poor child!",1 Poor child!,1 "He is beseeching you, and you don't listen to him.",2 "You think of ear-rings and fine gowns and caps, and you never think of the Saviour who died to save your precious soul.",3 "Your cheeks will be shrivelled one day, your hair will be grey, your poor body will be thin and tottering!",1 "Then you will begin to feel that your soul is not saved; then you will have to stand before God dressed in your sins, in your evil tempers and vain thoughts.",1 "And Jesus, who stands ready to help you now, won't help you then; because you won't have him to be your Saviour, he will be your judge.",3 "Now he looks at you with love and mercy and says, 'Come to me that you may have life'; then he will turn away from you, and say, 'Depart from me into ever-lasting fire!'",3 """ Poor Bessy's wide-open black eyes began to fill with tears, her great red cheeks and lips became quite pale, and her face was distorted like a little child's before a burst of crying.",1 """Ah, poor blind child!""",1 "Dinah went on, ""think if it should happen to you as it once happened to a servant of God in the days of her vanity.",1 SHE thought of her lace caps and saved all her money to buy 'em; she thought nothing about how she might get a clean heart and a right spirit--she only wanted to have better lace than other girls.,4 "And one day when she put her new cap on and looked in the glass, she saw a bleeding Face crowned with thorns.",1 "That face is looking at you now""--here Dinah pointed to a spot close in front of Bessy--""Ah, tear off those follies!",2 "Cast them away from you, as if they were stinging adders.",1 "They ARE stinging you--they are poisoning your soul--they are dragging you down into a dark bottomless pit, where you will sink for ever, and for ever, and for ever, further away from light and God.""",0 "Bessy could bear it no longer: a great terror was upon her, and wrenching her ear-rings from her ears, she threw them down before her, sobbing aloud.",2 "Her father, Chad, frightened lest he should be ""laid hold on"" too, this impression on the rebellious Bess striking him as nothing less than a miracle, walked hastily away and began to work at his anvil by way of reassuring himself.",3 """Folks mun ha' hoss-shoes, praichin' or no praichin': the divil canna lay hould o' me for that,"" he muttered to himself.",2 "But now Dinah began to tell of the joys that were in store for the penitent, and to describe in her simple way the divine peace and love with which the soul of the believer is filled--how the sense of God's love turns poverty into riches and satisfies the soul so that no uneasy desire vexes it, no fear alarms it: how, at last, the very temptation to sin is extinguished, and heaven is begun upon earth, because no cloud passes between the soul and God, who is its eternal sun. ""Dear friends,"" she said at last, ""brothers and sisters, whom I love as those for whom my Lord has died, believe me, I know what this great blessedness is; and because I know it, I want you to have it too.",1 "I am poor, like you: I have to get my living with my hands; but no lord nor lady can be so happy as me, if they haven't got the love of God in their souls.",3 "Think what it is--not to hate anything but sin; to be full of love to every creature; to be frightened at nothing; to be sure that all things will turn to good; not to mind pain, because it is our Father's will; to know that nothing--no, not if the earth was to be burnt up, or the waters come and drown us--nothing could part us from God who loves us, and who fills our souls with peace and joy, because we are sure that whatever he wills is holy, just, and good.",4 """Dear friends, come and take this blessedness; it is offered to you; it is the good news that Jesus came to preach to the poor.",2 "It is not like the riches of this world, so that the more one gets the less the rest can have.",3 "God is without end; his love is without end--"" Its streams the whole creation reach, So plenteous is the store; Enough for all, enough for each, Enough for evermore.",3 "Dinah had been speaking at least an hour, and the reddening light of the parting day seemed to give a solemn emphasis to her closing words.",1 "The stranger, who had been interested in the course of her sermon as if it had been the development of a drama--for there is this sort of fascination in all sincere unpremeditated eloquence, which opens to one the inward drama of the speaker's emotions--now turned his horse aside and pursued his way, while Dinah said, ""Let us sing a little, dear friends""; and as he was still winding down the slope, the voices of the Methodists reached him, rising and falling in that strange blending of exultation and sadness which belongs to the cadence of a hymn.",2 "IN less than an hour from that time, Seth Bede was walking by Dinah's side along the hedgerow-path that skirted the pastures and green corn-fields which lay between the village and the Hall Farm.",2 "Dinah had taken off her little Quaker bonnet again, and was holding it in her hands that she might have a freer enjoyment of the cool evening twilight, and Seth could see the expression of her face quite clearly as he walked by her side, timidly revolving something he wanted to say to her.",3 It was an expression of unconscious placid gravity--of absorption in thoughts that had no connection with the present moment or with her own personality--an expression that is most of all discouraging to a lover.,2 Her very walk was discouraging: it had that quiet elasticity that asks for no support.,3 "Seth felt this dimly; he said to himself, ""She's too good and holy for any man, let alone me,"" and the words he had been summoning rushed back again before they had reached his lips.",3 "But another thought gave him courage: ""There's no man could love her better and leave her freer to follow the Lord's work.""",4 "They had been silent for many minutes now, since they had done talking about Bessy Cranage; Dinah seemed almost to have forgotten Seth's presence, and her pace was becoming so much quicker that the sense of their being only a few minutes' walk from the yard-gates of the Hall Farm at last gave Seth courage to speak.",4 """You've quite made up your mind to go back to Snowfield o' Saturday, Dinah?""",2 """Yes,"" said Dinah, quietly.",2 """I'm called there.",2 "It was borne in upon my mind while I was meditating on Sunday night, as Sister Allen, who's in a decline, is in need of me.",1 "I saw her as plain as we see that bit of thin white cloud, lifting up her poor thin hand and beckoning to me.",1 "And this morning when I opened the Bible for direction, the first words my eyes fell on were, 'And after we had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia.'",1 "If it wasn't for that clear showing of the Lord's will, I should be loath to go, for my heart yearns over my aunt and her little ones, and that poor wandering lamb Hetty Sorrel.",1 "I've been much drawn out in prayer for her of late, and I look on it as a token that there may be mercy in store for her.""",3 """God grant it,"" said Seth.",2 """For I doubt Adam's heart is so set on her, he'll never turn to anybody else; and yet it 'ud go to my heart if he was to marry her, for I canna think as she'd make him happy.",2 "It's a deep mystery--the way the heart of man turns to one woman out of all the rest he's seen i' the world, and makes it easier for him to work seven year for HER, like Jacob did for Rachel, sooner than have any other woman for th' asking.",3 "I often think of them words, 'And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed to him but a few days for the love he had to her.'",3 "I know those words 'ud come true with me, Dinah, if so be you'd give me hope as I might win you after seven years was over.",3 "I know you think a husband 'ud be taking up too much o' your thoughts, because St. Paul says, 'She that's married careth for the things of the world how she may please her husband'; and may happen you'll think me overbold to speak to you about it again, after what you told me o' your mind last Saturday.",2 "But I've been thinking it over again by night and by day, and I've prayed not to be blinded by my own desires, to think what's only good for me must be good for you too.",3 And it seems to me there's more texts for your marrying than ever you can find against it.,2 "For St. Paul says as plain as can be in another place, 'I will that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully'; and then 'two are better than one'; and that holds good with marriage as well as with other things.",3 "For we should be o' one heart and o' one mind, Dinah.",2 "We both serve the same Master, and are striving after the same gifts; and I'd never be the husband to make a claim on you as could interfere with your doing the work God has fitted you for.",3 "I'd make a shift, and fend indoor and out, to give you more liberty--more than you can have now, for you've got to get your own living now, and I'm strong enough to work for us both.""",4 "When Seth had once begun to urge his suit, he went on earnestly and almost hurriedly, lest Dinah should speak some decisive word before he had poured forth all the arguments he had prepared.",3 "His cheeks became flushed as he went on his mild grey eyes filled with tears, and his voice trembled as he spoke the last sentence.",2 "They had reached one of those very narrow passes between two tall stones, which performed the office of a stile in Loamshire, and Dinah paused as she turned towards Seth and said, in her tender but calm treble notes, ""Seth Bede, I thank you for your love towards me, and if I could think of any man as more than a Christian brother, I think it would be you.",4 But my heart is not free to marry.,3 "That is good for other women, and it is a great and a blessed thing to be a wife and mother; but 'as God has distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every man, so let him walk.'",3 "God has called me to minister to others, not to have any joys or sorrows of my own, but to rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with those that weep.",2 "He has called me to speak his word, and he has greatly owned my work.",3 "It could only be on a very clear showing that I could leave the brethren and sisters at Snowfield, who are favoured with very little of this world's good; where the trees are few, so that a child might count them, and there's very hard living for the poor in the winter.",2 "It has been given me to help, to comfort, and strengthen the little flock there and to call in many wanderers; and my soul is filled with these things from my rising up till my lying down.",2 "My life is too short, and God's work is too great for me to think of making a home for myself in this world.",3 "I've not turned a deaf ear to your words, Seth, for when I saw as your love was given to me, I thought it might be a leading of Providence for me to change my way of life, and that we should be fellow-helpers; and I spread the matter before the Lord.",3 "But whenever I tried to fix my mind on marriage, and our living together, other thoughts always came in--the times when I've prayed by the sick and dying, and the happy hours I've had preaching, when my heart was filled with love, and the Word was given to me abundantly.",2 "And when I've opened the Bible for direction, I've always lighted on some clear word to tell me where my work lay.",3 "I believe what you say, Seth, that you would try to be a help and not a hindrance to my work; but I see that our marriage is not God's will--He draws my heart another way.",2 I desire to live and die without husband or children.,1 "I seem to have no room in my soul for wants and fears of my own, it has pleased God to fill my heart so full with the wants and sufferings of his poor people.""",1 "Seth was unable to reply, and they walked on in silence.",1 "At last, as they were nearly at the yard-gate, he said, ""Well, Dinah, I must seek for strength to bear it, and to endure as seeing Him who is invisible.",2 But I feel now how weak my faith is.,2 "It seems as if, when you are gone, I could never joy in anything any more.",3 "I think it's something passing the love of women as I feel for you, for I could be content without your marrying me if I could go and live at Snowfield and be near you.",3 I trusted as the strong love God has given me towards you was a leading for us both; but it seems it was only meant for my trial.,4 "Perhaps I feel more for you than I ought to feel for any creature, for I often can't help saying of you what the hymn says-- In darkest shades if she appear, My dawning is begun; She is my soul's bright morning-star, And she my rising sun.",3 "That may be wrong, and I am to be taught better.",2 "But you wouldn't be displeased with me if things turned out so as I could leave this country and go to live at Snowfield?""",1 """No, Seth; but I counsel you to wait patiently, and not lightly to leave your own country and kindred.",3 Do nothing without the Lord's clear bidding.,3 "It's a bleak and barren country there, not like this land of Goshen you've been used to.",1 "We mustn't be in a hurry to fix and choose our own lot; we must wait to be guided.""",2 """But you'd let me write you a letter, Dinah, if there was anything I wanted to tell you?""",2 """Yes, sure; let me know if you're in any trouble.",1 "You'll be continually in my prayers.""",2 "They had now reached the yard-gate, and Seth said, ""I won't go in, Dinah, so farewell.""",2 "He paused and hesitated after she had given him her hand, and then said, ""There's no knowing but what you may see things different after a while.",2 "There may be a new leading.""",3 """Let us leave that, Seth.",2 "It's good to live only a moment at a time, as I've read in one of Mr. Wesley's books.",3 It isn't for you and me to lay plans; we've nothing to do but to obey and to trust.,3 "Farewell.""",2 "Dinah pressed his hand with rather a sad look in her loving eyes, and then passed through the gate, while Seth turned away to walk lingeringly home.",2 "But instead of taking the direct road, he chose to turn back along the fields through which he and Dinah had already passed; and I think his blue linen handkerchief was very wet with tears long before he had made up his mind that it was time for him to set his face steadily homewards.",2 "He was but three-and-twenty, and had only just learned what it is to love--to love with that adoration which a young man gives to a woman whom he feels to be greater and better than himself.",3 Love of this sort is hardly distinguishable from religious feeling.,3 "What deep and worthy love is so, whether of woman or child, or art or music.",3 "Our caresses, our tender words, our still rapture under the influence of autumn sunsets, or pillared vistas, or calm majestic statues, or Beethoven symphonies all bring with them the consciousness that they are mere waves and ripples in an unfathomable ocean of love and beauty; our emotion in its keenest moment passes from expression into silence, our love at its highest flood rushes beyond its object and loses itself in the sense of divine mystery.",4 "And this blessed gift of venerating love has been given to too many humble craftsmen since the world began for us to feel any surprise that it should have existed in the soul of a Methodist carpenter half a century ago, while there was yet a lingering after-glow from the time when Wesley and his fellow-labourer fed on the hips and haws of the Cornwall hedges, after exhausting limbs and lungs in carrying a divine message to the poor.",4 "That afterglow has long faded away; and the picture we are apt to make of Methodism in our imagination is not an amphitheatre of green hills, or the deep shade of broad-leaved sycamores, where a crowd of rough men and weary-hearted women drank in a faith which was a rudimentary culture, which linked their thoughts with the past, lifted their imagination above the sordid details of their own narrow lives, and suffused their souls with the sense of a pitying, loving, infinite Presence, sweet as summer to the houseless needy.",2 "It is too possible that to some of my readers Methodism may mean nothing more than low-pitched gables up dingy streets, sleek grocers, sponging preachers, and hypocritical jargon--elements which are regarded as an exhaustive analysis of Methodism in many fashionable quarters.",3 "That would be a pity; for I cannot pretend that Seth and Dinah were anything else than Methodists--not indeed of that modern type which reads quarterly reviews and attends in chapels with pillared porticoes, but of a very old-fashioned kind.",1 "They believed in present miracles, in instantaneous conversions, in revelations by dreams and visions; they drew lots, and sought for Divine guidance by opening the Bible at hazard; having a literal way of interpreting the Scriptures, which is not at all sanctioned by approved commentators; and it is impossible for me to represent their diction as correct, or their instruction as liberal.",3 "Still--if I have read religious history aright--faith, hope, and charity have not always been found in a direct ratio with a sensibility to the three concords, and it is possible--thank Heaven!--to have very erroneous theories and very sublime feelings.",4 "The raw bacon which clumsy Molly spares from her own scanty store that she may carry it to her neighbour's child to ""stop the fits,"" may be a piteously inefficacious remedy; but the generous stirring of neighbourly kindness that prompted the deed has a beneficent radiation that is not lost.",3 "Considering these things, we can hardly think Dinah and Seth beneath our sympathy, accustomed as we may be to weep over the loftier sorrows of heroines in satin boots and crinoline, and of heroes riding fiery horses, themselves ridden by still more fiery passions.",2 Poor Seth!,1 "He was never on horseback in his life except once, when he was a little lad, and Mr. Jonathan Burge took him up behind, telling him to ""hold on tight""; and instead of bursting out into wild accusing apostrophes to God and destiny, he is resolving, as he now walks homewards under the solemn starlight, to repress his sadness, to be less bent on having his own will, and to live more for others, as Dinah does.",0 "A GREEN valley with a brook running through it, full almost to overflowing with the late rains, overhung by low stooping willows.",2 "Across this brook a plank is thrown, and over this plank Adam Bede is passing with his undoubting step, followed close by Gyp with the basket; evidently making his way to the thatched house, with a stack of timber by the side of it, about twenty yards up the opposite slope.",2 "The door of the house is open, and an elderly woman is looking out; but she is not placidly contemplating the evening sunshine; she has been watching with dim eyes the gradually enlarging speck which for the last few minutes she has been quite sure is her darling son Adam.",2 Lisbeth Bede loves her son with the love of a woman to whom her first-born has come late in life.,3 "She is an anxious, spare, yet vigorous old woman, clean as a snowdrop.",2 "Her grey hair is turned neatly back under a pure linen cap with a black band round it; her broad chest is covered with a buff neckerchief, and below this you see a sort of short bedgown made of blue-checkered linen, tied round the waist and descending to the hips, from whence there is a considerable length of linsey-woolsey petticoat.",3 "For Lisbeth is tall, and in other points too there is a strong likeness between her and her son Adam.",3 "Her dark eyes are somewhat dim now--perhaps from too much crying--but her broadly marked eyebrows are still black, her teeth are sound, and as she stands knitting rapidly and unconsciously with her work-hardened hands, she has as firmly upright an attitude as when she is carrying a pail of water on her head from the spring.",1 "There is the same type of frame and the same keen activity of temperament in mother and son, but it was not from her that Adam got his well-filled brow and his expression of large-hearted intelligence.",4 Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it.,1 "Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every movement.",2 "We hear a voice with the very cadence of our own uttering the thoughts we despise; we see eyes--ah, so like our mother's!--averted from us in cold alienation; and our last darling child startles us with the air and gestures of the sister we parted from in bitterness long years ago.",1 "The father to whom we owe our best heritage--the mechanical instinct, the keen sensibility to harmony, the unconscious skill of the modelling hand--galls us and puts us to shame by his daily errors; the long-lost mother, whose face we begin to see in the glass as our own wrinkles come, once fretted our young souls with her anxious humours and irrational persistence.",0 "It is such a fond anxious mother's voice that you hear, as Lisbeth says, ""Well, my lad, it's gone seven by th' clock.",3 Thee't allays stay till the last child's born.,2 "Thee wants thy supper, I'll warrand.",2 Where's Seth?,2 "Gone arter some o's chapellin', I reckon?""",2 """Aye, aye, Seth's at no harm, mother, thee mayst be sure.",1 "But where's father?""",2 "said Adam quickly, as he entered the house and glanced into the room on the left hand, which was used as a workshop.",2 """Hasn't he done the coffin for Tholer?",2 "There's the stuff standing just as I left it this morning.""",2 """Done the coffin?""",2 "said Lisbeth, following him, and knitting uninterruptedly, though she looked at her son very anxiously.",1 """Eh, my lad, he went aff to Treddles'on this forenoon, an's niver come back.",2 "I doubt he's got to th' 'Waggin Overthrow' again.""",1 A deep flush of anger passed rapidly over Adam's face.,1 "He said nothing, but threw off his jacket and began to roll up his shirt-sleeves again.",2 """What art goin' to do, Adam?""",2 "said the mother, with a tone and look of alarm.",1 """Thee wouldstna go to work again, wi'out ha'in thy bit o' supper?""",3 "Adam, too angry to speak, walked into the workshop.",1 "But his mother threw down her knitting, and, hurrying after him, took hold of his arm, and said, in a tone of plaintive remonstrance, ""Nay, my lad, my lad, thee munna go wi'out thy supper; there's the taters wi' the gravy in 'em, just as thee lik'st 'em.",2 I saved 'em o' purpose for thee.,2 "Come an' ha' thy supper, come.""",2 """Let be!""",2 "said Adam impetuously, shaking her off and seizing one of the planks that stood against the wall.",1 """It's fine talking about having supper when here's a coffin promised to be ready at Brox'on by seven o'clock to-morrow morning, and ought to ha' been there now, and not a nail struck yet.",3 "My throat's too full to swallow victuals.""",2 """Why, thee canstna get the coffin ready,"" said Lisbeth.",3 """Thee't work thyself to death.",2 "It 'ud take thee all night to do't.""",2 """What signifies how long it takes me?",2 Isn't the coffin promised?,3 Can they bury the man without a coffin?,2 I'd work my right hand off sooner than deceive people with lies i' that way.,2 It makes me mad to think on't.,1 I shall overrun these doings before long.,1 "I've stood enough of 'em.""",3 "Poor Lisbeth did not hear this threat for the first time, and if she had been wise she would have gone away quietly and said nothing for the next hour.",1 But one of the lessons a woman most rarely learns is never to talk to an angry or a drunken man.,1 "Lisbeth sat down on the chopping bench and began to cry, and by the time she had cried enough to make her voice very piteous, she burst out into words.",2 """Nay, my lad, my lad, thee wouldstna go away an' break thy mother's heart, an' leave thy feyther to ruin.",1 "Thee wouldstna ha' 'em carry me to th' churchyard, an' thee not to follow me.",2 "I shanna rest i' my grave if I donna see thee at th' last; an' how's they to let thee know as I'm a-dyin', if thee't gone a-workin' i' distant parts, an' Seth belike gone arter thee, and thy feyther not able to hold a pen for's hand shakin', besides not knowin' where thee art?",2 Thee mun forgie thy feyther--thee munna be so bitter again' him.,1 He war a good feyther to thee afore he took to th' drink.,3 "He's a clever workman, an' taught thee thy trade, remember, an's niver gen me a blow nor so much as an ill word--no, not even in 's drink.",2 "Thee wouldstna ha' 'm go to the workhus--thy own feyther--an' him as was a fine-growed man an' handy at everythin' amost as thee art thysen, five-an'-twenty 'ear ago, when thee wast a baby at the breast.""",3 "Lisbeth's voice became louder, and choked with sobs--a sort of wail, the most irritating of all sounds where real sorrows are to be borne and real work to be done.",1 Adam broke in impatiently.,1 """Now, Mother, don't cry and talk so.",1 Haven't I got enough to vex me without that?,2 What's th' use o' telling me things as I only think too much on every day?,2 "If I didna think on 'em, why should I do as I do, for the sake o' keeping things together here?",2 "But I hate to be talking where it's no use: I like to keep my breath for doing i'stead o' talking.""",2 """I know thee dost things as nobody else 'ud do, my lad.",2 "But thee't allays so hard upo' thy feyther, Adam.",1 Thee think'st nothing too much to do for Seth: thee snapp'st me up if iver I find faut wi' th' lad.,2 "But thee't so angered wi' thy feyther, more nor wi' anybody else.""",2 """That's better than speaking soft and letting things go the wrong way, I reckon, isn't it?",3 If I wasn't sharp with him he'd sell every bit o' stuff i' th' yard and spend it on drink.,3 "I know there's a duty to be done by my father, but it isn't my duty to encourage him in running headlong to ruin.",2 And what has Seth got to do with it?,2 The lad does no harm as I know of.,1 "But leave me alone, Mother, and let me get on with the work.""",3 "Lisbeth dared not say any more; but she got up and called Gyp, thinking to console herself somewhat for Adam's refusal of the supper she had spread out in the loving expectation of looking at him while he ate it, by feeding Adam's dog with extra liberality.",2 "But Gyp was watching his master with wrinkled brow and ears erect, puzzled at this unusual course of things; and though he glanced at Lisbeth when she called him, and moved his fore-paws uneasily, well knowing that she was inviting him to supper, he was in a divided state of mind, and remained seated on his haunches, again fixing his eyes anxiously on his master.",0 "Adam noticed Gyp's mental conflict, and though his anger had made him less tender than usual to his mother, it did not prevent him from caring as much as usual for his dog.",1 We are apt to be kinder to the brutes that love us than to the women that love us.,3 Is it because the brutes are dumb?,1 """Go, Gyp; go, lad!""",2 "Adam said, in a tone of encouraging command; and Gyp, apparently satisfied that duty and pleasure were one, followed Lisbeth into the house-place.",4 "But no sooner had he licked up his supper than he went back to his master, while Lisbeth sat down alone to cry over her knitting.",2 "Women who are never bitter and resentful are often the most querulous; and if Solomon was as wise as he is reputed to be, I feel sure that when he compared a contentious woman to a continual dropping on a very rainy day, he had not a vixen in his eye--a fury with long nails, acrid and selfish.",0 "Depend upon it, he meant a good creature, who had no joy but in the happiness of the loved ones whom she contributed to make uncomfortable, putting by all the tid-bits for them and spending nothing on herself.",4 "Such a woman as Lisbeth, for example--at once patient and complaining, self-renouncing and exacting, brooding the livelong day over what happened yesterday and what is likely to happen to-morrow, and crying very readily both at the good and the evil.",3 "But a certain awe mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam, and when he said, ""Leave me alone,"" she was always silenced.",3 "So the hours passed, to the loud ticking of the old day-clock and the sound of Adam's tools.",1 "At last he called for a light and a draught of water (beer was a thing only to be drunk on holidays), and Lisbeth ventured to say as she took it in, ""Thy supper stan's ready for thee, when thee lik'st."" ""Donna thee sit up, mother,"" said Adam, in a gentle tone.",3 "He had worked off his anger now, and whenever he wished to be especially kind to his mother, he fell into his strongest native accent and dialect, with which at other times his speech was less deeply tinged.",2 """I'll see to Father when he comes home; maybe he wonna come at all to-night.",2 "I shall be easier if thee't i' bed.""",3 """Nay, I'll bide till Seth comes.",2 "He wonna be long now, I reckon.""",2 "It was then past nine by the clock, which was always in advance of the days, and before it had struck ten the latch was lifted and Seth entered.",1 He had heard the sound of the tools as he was approaching.,2 """Why, Mother,"" he said, ""how is it as Father's working so late?""",2 """It's none o' thy feyther as is a-workin'--thee might know that well anoof if thy head warna full o' chapellin'--it's thy brother as does iverything, for there's niver nobody else i' th' way to do nothin'.""",3 "Lisbeth was going on, for she was not at all afraid of Seth, and usually poured into his ears all the querulousness which was repressed by her awe of Adam.",2 "Seth had never in his life spoken a harsh word to his mother, and timid people always wreak their peevishness on the gentle.",1 "But Seth, with an anxious look, had passed into the workshop and said, ""Addy, how's this?",1 What!,2 "Father's forgot the coffin?""",2 """Aye, lad, th' old tale; but I shall get it done,"" said Adam, looking up and casting one of his bright keen glances at his brother.",3 """Why, what's the matter with thee?",2 "Thee't in trouble.""",1 "Seth's eyes were red, and there was a look of deep depression on his mild face.",1 """Yes, Addy, but it's what must be borne, and can't be helped.",3 "Why, thee'st never been to the school, then?""",2 """School?",2 "No, that screw can wait,"" said Adam, hammering away again.",2 """Let me take my turn now, and do thee go to bed,"" said Seth.",2 """No, lad, I'd rather go on, now I'm in harness.",2 Thee't help me to carry it to Brox'on when it's done.,2 I'll call thee up at sunrise.,2 "Go and eat thy supper, and shut the door so as I mayn't hear Mother's talk.""",2 "Seth knew that Adam always meant what he said, and was not to be persuaded into meaning anything else.",2 "So he turned, with rather a heavy heart, into the house-place.",2 """Adam's niver touched a bit o' victual sin' home he's come,"" said Lisbeth.",2 """I reckon thee'st hed thy supper at some o' thy Methody folks.""",2 """Nay, Mother,"" said Seth, ""I've had no supper yet.""",2 """Come, then,"" said Lisbeth, ""but donna thee ate the taters, for Adam 'ull happen ate 'em if I leave 'em stannin'.",2 He loves a bit o' taters an' gravy.,3 "But he's been so sore an' angered, he wouldn't ate 'em, for all I'd putten 'em by o' purpose for him.",1 "An' he's been a-threatenin' to go away again,"" she went on, whimpering, ""an' I'm fast sure he'll go some dawnin' afore I'm up, an' niver let me know aforehand, an' he'll niver come back again when once he's gone.",3 "An' I'd better niver ha' had a son, as is like no other body's son for the deftness an' th' handiness, an' so looked on by th' grit folks, an' tall an' upright like a poplar-tree, an' me to be parted from him an' niver see 'm no more.""",3 """Come, Mother, donna grieve thyself in vain,"" said Seth, in a soothing voice.",1 """Thee'st not half so good reason to think as Adam 'ull go away as to think he'll stay with thee.",3 He may say such a thing when he's in wrath--and he's got excuse for being wrathful sometimes--but his heart 'ud never let him go.,1 "Think how he's stood by us all when it's been none so easy--paying his savings to free me from going for a soldier, an' turnin' his earnin's into wood for father, when he's got plenty o' uses for his money, and many a young man like him 'ud ha' been married and settled before now.",4 "He'll never turn round and knock down his own work, and forsake them as it's been the labour of his life to stand by.""",1 """Donna talk to me about's marr'in',"" said Lisbeth, crying afresh.",2 """He's set's heart on that Hetty Sorrel, as 'ull niver save a penny, an' 'ull toss up her head at's old mother.",2 "An' to think as he might ha' Mary Burge, an' be took partners, an' be a big man wi' workmen under him, like Mester Burge--Dolly's told me so o'er and o'er again--if it warna as he's set's heart on that bit of a wench, as is o' no more use nor the gillyflower on the wall.",3 "An' he so wise at bookin' an' figurin', an' not to know no better nor that!""",3 """But, Mother, thee know'st we canna love just where other folks 'ud have us.",3 There's nobody but God can control the heart of man.,2 "I could ha' wished myself as Adam could ha' made another choice, but I wouldn't reproach him for what he can't help.",1 And I'm not sure but what he tries to o'ercome it.,2 "But it's a matter as he doesn't like to be spoke to about, and I can only pray to the Lord to bless and direct him.""",3 """Aye, thee't allays ready enough at prayin', but I donna see as thee gets much wi' thy prayin'.",3 Thee wotna get double earnin's o' this side Yule.,2 "Th' Methodies 'll niver make thee half the man thy brother is, for all they're a-makin' a preacher on thee.""",2 """It's partly truth thee speak'st there, Mother,"" said Seth, mildly; ""Adam's far before me, an's done more for me than I can ever do for him.",2 God distributes talents to every man according as He sees good.,3 But thee mustna undervally prayer.,2 "Prayer mayna bring money, but it brings us what no money can buy--a power to keep from sin and be content with God's will, whatever He may please to send.",1 "If thee wouldst pray to God to help thee, and trust in His goodness, thee wouldstna be so uneasy about things.""",3 """Unaisy?",2 I'm i' th' right on't to be unaisy.,3 It's well seen on THEE what it is niver to be unaisy.,3 "Thee't gi' away all thy earnin's, an' niver be unaisy as thee'st nothin' laid up again' a rainy day.",2 "If Adam had been as aisy as thee, he'd niver ha' had no money to pay for thee.",2 Take no thought for the morrow--take no thought--that's what thee't allays sayin'; an' what comes on't?,2 "Why, as Adam has to take thought for thee.""",2 """Those are the words o' the Bible, Mother,"" said Seth.",2 """They don't mean as we should be idle.",1 "They mean we shouldn't be overanxious and worreting ourselves about what'll happen to-morrow, but do our duty and leave the rest to God's will.""",2 """Aye, aye, that's the way wi' thee: thee allays makes a peck o' thy own words out o' a pint o' the Bible's.",2 I donna see how thee't to know as 'take no thought for the morrow' means all that.,2 "An' when the Bible's such a big book, an' thee canst read all thro't, an' ha' the pick o' the texes, I canna think why thee dostna pick better words as donna mean so much more nor they say.",3 "Adam doesna pick a that'n; I can understan' the tex as he's allays a-sayin', 'God helps them as helps theirsens.'",2 """ ""Nay, Mother,"" said Seth, ""that's no text o' the Bible.",2 It comes out of a book as Adam picked up at the stall at Treddles'on.,1 "It was wrote by a knowing man, but overworldly, I doubt.",1 "However, that saying's partly true; for the Bible tells us we must be workers together with God.""",2 """Well, how'm I to know?",3 It sounds like a tex.,3 But what's th' matter wi' th' lad?,2 Thee't hardly atin' a bit o' supper.,2 Dostna mean to ha' no more nor that bit o' oat-cake?,2 An' thee lookst as white as a flick o' new bacon.,2 "What's th' matter wi' thee?""",2 """Nothing to mind about, Mother; I'm not hungry.",2 "I'll just look in at Adam again, and see if he'll let me go on with the coffin.""",2 """Ha' a drop o' warm broth?""",3 "said Lisbeth, whose motherly feeling now got the better of her ""nattering"" habit.",3 """I'll set two-three sticks a-light in a minute.""",2 """Nay, Mother, thank thee; thee't very good,"" said Seth, gratefully; and encouraged by this touch of tenderness, he went on: ""Let me pray a bit with thee for Father, and Adam, and all of us--it'll comfort thee, happen, more than thee thinkst.""",4 """Well, I've nothin' to say again' it.""",3 "Lisbeth, though disposed always to take the negative side in her conversations with Seth, had a vague sense that there was some comfort and safety in the fact of his piety, and that it somehow relieved her from the trouble of any spiritual transactions on her own behalf.",2 "So the mother and son knelt down together, and Seth prayed for the poor wandering father and for those who were sorrowing for him at home.",1 "And when he came to the petition that Adam might never be called to set up his tent in a far country, but that his mother might be cheered and comforted by his presence all the days of her pilgrimage, Lisbeth's ready tears flowed again, and she wept aloud.",3 "When they rose from their knees, Seth went to Adam again and said, ""Wilt only lie down for an hour or two, and let me go on the while?""",1 """No, Seth, no.",2 "Make Mother go to bed, and go thyself.""",2 "Meantime Lisbeth had dried her eyes, and now followed Seth, holding something in her hands.",2 It was the brown-and-yellow platter containing the baked potatoes with the gravy in them and bits of meat which she had cut and mixed among them.,2 "Those were dear times, when wheaten bread and fresh meat were delicacies to working people.",3 "She set the dish down rather timidly on the bench by Adam's side and said, ""Thee canst pick a bit while thee't workin'.",1 "I'll bring thee another drop o' water.""",2 """Aye, Mother, do,"" said Adam, kindly; ""I'm getting very thirsty.""",3 In half an hour all was quiet; no sound was to be heard in the house but the loud ticking of the old day-clock and the ringing of Adam's tools.,2 "The night was very still: when Adam opened the door to look out at twelve o'clock, the only motion seemed to be in the glowing, twinkling stars; every blade of grass was asleep.",3 Bodily haste and exertion usually leave our thoughts very much at the mercy of our feelings and imagination; and it was so to-night with Adam.,2 "While his muscles were working lustily, his mind seemed as passive as a spectator at a diorama: scenes of the sad past, and probably sad future, floating before him and giving place one to the other in swift succession.",1 "He saw how it would be to-morrow morning, when he had carried the coffin to Broxton and was at home again, having his breakfast: his father perhaps would come in ashamed to meet his son's glance--would sit down, looking older and more tottering than he had done the morning before, and hang down his head, examining the floor-quarries; while Lisbeth would ask him how he supposed the coffin had been got ready, that he had slinked off and left undone--for Lisbeth was always the first to utter the word of reproach, although she cried at Adam's severity towards his father.",0 """So it will go on, worsening and worsening,"" thought Adam; ""there's no slipping uphill again, and no standing still when once you 've begun to slip down.""",1 "And then the day came back to him when he was a little fellow and used to run by his father's side, proud to be taken out to work, and prouder still to hear his father boasting to his fellow-workmen how ""the little chap had an uncommon notion o' carpentering.""",3 What a fine active fellow his father was then!,3 "When people asked Adam whose little lad he was, he had a sense of distinction as he answered, ""I'm Thias Bede's lad.""",3 He was quite sure everybody knew Thias Bede--didn't he make the wonderful pigeon-house at Broxton parsonage?,3 "Those were happy days, especially when Seth, who was three years the younger, began to go out working too, and Adam began to be a teacher as well as a learner.",3 "But then came the days of sadness, when Adam was someway on in his teens, and Thias began to loiter at the public-houses, and Lisbeth began to cry at home, and to pour forth her plaints in the hearing of her sons.",1 "Adam remembered well the night of shame and anguish when he first saw his father quite wild and foolish, shouting a song out fitfully among his drunken companions at the ""Waggon Overthrown.""",0 "He had run away once when he was only eighteen, making his escape in the morning twilight with a little blue bundle over his shoulder, and his ""mensuration book"" in his pocket, and saying to himself very decidedly that he could bear the vexations of home no longer--he would go and seek his fortune, setting up his stick at the crossways and bending his steps the way it fell.",2 "But by the time he got to Stoniton, the thought of his mother and Seth, left behind to endure everything without him, became too importunate, and his resolution failed him.",1 "He came back the next day, but the misery and terror his mother had gone through in those two days had haunted her ever since.",1 """No!""",2 "Adam said to himself to-night, ""that must never happen again.",2 "It 'ud make a poor balance when my doings are cast up at the last, if my poor old mother stood o' the wrong side.",1 My back's broad enough and strong enough; I should be no better than a coward to go away and leave the troubles to be borne by them as aren't half so able.,3 "'They that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of those that are weak, and not to please themselves.'",2 There's a text wants no candle to show't; it shines by its own light.,2 It's plain enough you get into the wrong road i' this life if you run after this and that only for the sake o' making things easy and pleasant to yourself.,3 "A pig may poke his nose into the trough and think o' nothing outside it; but if you've got a man's heart and soul in you, you can't be easy a-making your own bed an' leaving the rest to lie on the stones.",1 "Nay, nay, I'll never slip my neck out o' the yoke, and leave the load to be drawn by the weak uns.",1 "Father's a sore cross to me, an's likely to be for many a long year to come.",1 What then?,2 "I've got th' health, and the limbs, and the sperrit to bear it.""",2 "At this moment a smart rap, as if with a willow wand, was given at the house door, and Gyp, instead of barking, as might have been expected, gave a loud howl.",2 "Adam, very much startled, went at once to the door and opened it.",2 "Nothing was there; all was still, as when he opened it an hour before; the leaves were motionless, and the light of the stars showed the placid fields on both sides of the brook quite empty of visible life.",1 "Adam walked round the house, and still saw nothing except a rat which darted into the woodshed as he passed.",2 "He went in again, wondering; the sound was so peculiar that the moment he heard it it called up the image of the willow wand striking the door.",2 "He could not help a little shudder, as he remembered how often his mother had told him of just such a sound coming as a sign when some one was dying.",1 "Adam was not a man to be gratuitously superstitious, but he had the blood of the peasant in him as well as of the artisan, and a peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when he sees a camel.",1 "Besides, he had that mental combination which is at once humble in the region of mystery and keen in the region of knowledge: it was the depth of his reverence quite as much as his hard common sense which gave him his disinclination to doctrinal religion, and he often checked Seth's argumentative spiritualism by saying, ""Eh, it's a big mystery; thee know'st but little about it.""",1 And so it happened that Adam was at once penetrating and credulous.,1 "If a new building had fallen down and he had been told that this was a divine judgment, he would have said, ""May be; but the bearing o' the roof and walls wasn't right, else it wouldn't ha' come down""; yet he believed in dreams and prognostics, and to his dying day he bated his breath a little when he told the story of the stroke with the willow wand.",2 "I tell it as he told it, not attempting to reduce it to its natural elements--in our eagerness to explain impressions, we often lose our hold of the sympathy that comprehends them.",2 "But he had the best antidote against imaginative dread in the necessity for getting on with the coffin, and for the next ten minutes his hammer was ringing so uninterruptedly, that other sounds, if there were any, might well be overpowered.",3 "A pause came, however, when he had to take up his ruler, and now again came the strange rap, and again Gyp howled.",1 "Adam was at the door without the loss of a moment; but again all was still, and the starlight showed there was nothing but the dew-laden grass in front of the cottage.",1 "Adam for a moment thought uncomfortably about his father; but of late years he had never come home at dark hours from Treddleston, and there was every reason for believing that he was then sleeping off his drunkenness at the ""Waggon Overthrown.""",1 "Besides, to Adam, the conception of the future was so inseparable from the painful image of his father that the fear of any fatal accident to him was excluded by the deeply infixed fear of his continual degradation.",0 "The next thought that occurred to him was one that made him slip off his shoes and tread lightly upstairs, to listen at the bedroom doors.",2 But both Seth and his mother were breathing regularly.,2 "Adam came down and set to work again, saying to himself, ""I won't open the door again.",3 It's no use staring about to catch sight of a sound.,2 "Maybe there's a world about us as we can't see, but th' ear's quicker than the eye and catches a sound from't now and then.",3 "Some people think they get a sight on't too, but they're mostly folks whose eyes are not much use to 'em at anything else.",2 "For my part, I think it's better to see when your perpendicular's true than to see a ghost.""",3 Such thoughts as these are apt to grow stronger and stronger as daylight quenches the candles and the birds begin to sing.,3 "By the time the red sunlight shone on the brass nails that formed the initials on the lid of the coffin, any lingering foreboding from the sound of the willow wand was merged in satisfaction that the work was done and the promise redeemed.",3 "There was no need to call Seth, for he was already moving overhead, and presently came downstairs.",2 """Now, lad,"" said Adam, as Seth made his appearance, ""the coffin's done, and we can take it over to Brox'on, and be back again before half after six.",2 "I'll take a mouthful o' oat-cake, and then we'll be off.""",2 "The coffin was soon propped on the tall shoulders of the two brothers, and they were making their way, followed close by Gyp, out of the little woodyard into the lane at the back of the house.",2 "It was but about a mile and a half to Broxton over the opposite slope, and their road wound very pleasantly along lanes and across fields, where the pale woodbines and the dog-roses were scenting the hedgerows, and the birds were twittering and trilling in the tall leafy boughs of oak and elm.",1 "It was a strangely mingled picture--the fresh youth of the summer morning, with its Edenlike peace and loveliness, the stalwart strength of the two brothers in their rusty working clothes, and the long coffin on their shoulders.",3 They paused for the last time before a small farmhouse outside the village of Broxton.,2 "By six o'clock the task was done, the coffin nailed down, and Adam and Seth were on their way home.",2 "They chose a shorter way homewards, which would take them across the fields and the brook in front of the house.",2 "Adam had not mentioned to Seth what had happened in the night, but he still retained sufficient impression from it himself to say, ""Seth, lad, if Father isn't come home by the time we've had our breakfast, I think it'll be as well for thee to go over to Treddles'on and look after him, and thee canst get me the brass wire I want.",3 Never mind about losing an hour at thy work; we can make that up.,2 "What dost say?""",2 """I'm willing,"" said Seth.",3 """But see what clouds have gathered since we set out.",2 I'm thinking we shall have more rain.,2 It'll be a sore time for th' haymaking if the meadows are flooded again.,1 "The brook's fine and full now: another day's rain 'ud cover the plank, and we should have to go round by the road.""",3 "They were coming across the valley now, and had entered the pasture through which the brook ran.",2 """Why, what's that sticking against the willow?""",2 "continued Seth, beginning to walk faster.",3 Adam's heart rose to his mouth: the vague anxiety about his father was changed into a great dread.,1 "He made no answer to Seth, but ran forward preceded by Gyp, who began to bark uneasily; and in two moments he was at the bridge.",1 "This was what the omen meant, then!",2 "And the grey-haired father, of whom he had thought with a sort of hardness a few hours ago, as certain to live to be a thorn in his side was perhaps even then struggling with that watery death!",1 "This was the first thought that flashed through Adam's conscience, before he had time to seize the coat and drag out the tall heavy body.",1 "Seth was already by his side, helping him, and when they had it on the bank, the two sons in the first moment knelt and looked with mute awe at the glazed eyes, forgetting that there was need for action--forgetting everything but that their father lay dead before them.",3 Adam was the first to speak.,2 """I'll run to Mother,"" he said, in a loud whisper.",1 """I'll be back to thee in a minute.""",2 "Poor Lisbeth was busy preparing her sons' breakfast, and their porridge was already steaming on the fire.",1 "Her kitchen always looked the pink of cleanliness, but this morning she was more than usually bent on making her hearth and breakfast-table look comfortable and inviting.",3 """The lads 'ull be fine an' hungry,"" she said, half-aloud, as she stirred the porridge.",3 """It's a good step to Brox'on, an' it's hungry air o'er the hill--wi' that heavy coffin too.",3 Eh!,2 "It's heavier now, wi' poor Bob Tholer in't.",1 "Howiver, I've made a drap more porridge nor common this mornin'.",2 The feyther 'ull happen come in arter a bit.,2 Not as he'll ate much porridge.,2 "He swallers sixpenn'orth o' ale, an' saves a hap'orth o' por-ridge--that's his way o' layin' by money, as I've told him many a time, an' am likely to tell him again afore the day's out.",2 "Eh, poor mon, he takes it quiet enough; there's no denyin' that.""",3 "But now Lisbeth heard the heavy ""thud"" of a running footstep on the turf, and, turning quickly towards the door, she saw Adam enter, looking so pale and overwhelmed that she screamed aloud and rushed towards him before he had time to speak.",1 """Hush, Mother,"" Adam said, rather hoarsely, ""don't be frightened.",2 Father's tumbled into the water.,1 Belike we may bring him round again.,2 Seth and me are going to carry him in.,2 "Get a blanket and make it hot as the fire.""",3 In reality Adam was convinced that his father was dead but he knew there was no other way of repressing his mother's impetuous wailing grief than by occupying her with some active task which had hope in it.,0 "He ran back to Seth, and the two sons lifted the sad burden in heart-stricken silence.",0 "The wide-open glazed eyes were grey, like Seth's, and had once looked with mild pride on the boys before whom Thias had lived to hang his head in shame.",2 Seth's chief feeling was awe and distress at this sudden snatching away of his father's soul; but Adam's mind rushed back over the past in a flood of relenting and pity.,1 "When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.",1 "BEFORE twelve o'clock there had been some heavy storms of rain, and the water lay in deep gutters on the sides of the gravel walks in the garden of Broxton Parsonage; the great Provence roses had been cruelly tossed by the wind and beaten by the rain, and all the delicate-stemmed border flowers had been dashed down and stained with the wet soil.",3 "A melancholy morning--because it was nearly time hay-harvest should begin, and instead of that the meadows were likely to be flooded.",1 But people who have pleasant homes get indoor enjoyments that they would never think of but for the rain.,3 "If it had not been a wet morning, Mr. Irwine would not have been in the dining-room playing at chess with his mother, and he loves both his mother and chess quite well enough to pass some cloudy hours very easily by their help.",3 "Let me take you into that dining-room and show you the Rev. Adolphus Irwine, Rector of Broxton, Vicar of Hayslope, and Vicar of Blythe, a pluralist at whom the severest Church reformer would have found it difficult to look sour.",1 "We will enter very softly and stand still in the open doorway, without awaking the glossy-brown setter who is stretched across the hearth, with her two puppies beside her; or the pug, who is dozing, with his black muzzle aloft, like a sleepy president.",3 "The room is a large and lofty one, with an ample mullioned oriel window at one end; the walls, you see, are new, and not yet painted; but the furniture, though originally of an expensive sort, is old and scanty, and there is no drapery about the window.",2 "The crimson cloth over the large dining-table is very threadbare, though it contrasts pleasantly enough with the dead hue of the plaster on the walls; but on this cloth there is a massive silver waiter with a decanter of water on it, of the same pattern as two larger ones that are propped up on the sideboard with a coat of arms conspicuous in their centre.",2 "You suspect at once that the inhabitants of this room have inherited more blood than wealth, and would not be surprised to find that Mr. Irwine had a finely cut nostril and upper lip; but at present we can only see that he has a broad flat back and an abundance of powdered hair, all thrown backward and tied behind with a black ribbon--a bit of conservatism in costume which tells you that he is not a young man.",2 "He will perhaps turn round by and by, and in the meantime we can look at that stately old lady, his mother, a beautiful aged brunette, whose rich-toned complexion is well set off by the complex wrappings of pure white cambric and lace about her head and neck.",4 "She is as erect in her comely embonpoint as a statue of Ceres; and her dark face, with its delicate aquiline nose, firm proud mouth, and small, intense, black eye, is so keen and sarcastic in its expression that you instinctively substitute a pack of cards for the chess-men and imagine her telling your fortune.",3 "The small brown hand with which she is lifting her queen is laden with pearls, diamonds, and turquoises; and a large black veil is very carefully adjusted over the crown of her cap, and falls in sharp contrast on the white folds about her neck.",2 It must take a long time to dress that old lady in the morning!,2 But it seems a law of nature that she should be dressed so: she is clearly one of those children of royalty who have never doubted their right divine and never met with any one so absurd as to question it.,3 """There, Dauphin, tell me what that is!""",2 "says this magnificent old lady, as she deposits her queen very quietly and folds her arms.",3 """I should be sorry to utter a word disagreeable to your feelings.""",1 """Ah, you witch-mother, you sorceress!",2 How is a Christian man to win a game off you?,3 I should have sprinkled the board with holy water before we began.,3 "You've not won that game by fair means, now, so don't pretend it.""",3 """Yes, yes, that's what the beaten have always said of great conquerors.",3 "But see, there's the sunshine falling on the board, to show you more clearly what a foolish move you made with that pawn.",1 "Come, shall I give you another chance?""",2 """No, Mother, I shall leave you to your own conscience, now it's clearing up.",2 "We must go and plash up the mud a little, mus'n't we, Juno?""",2 "This was addressed to the brown setter, who had jumped up at the sound of the voices and laid her nose in an insinuating way on her master's leg.",1 """But I must go upstairs first and see Anne.",2 "I was called away to Tholer's funeral just when I was going before.""",2 """It's of no use, child; she can't speak to you.",2 "Kate says she has one of her worst headaches this morning.""",1 """Oh, she likes me to go and see her just the same; she's never too ill to care about that.""",3 "If you know how much of human speech is mere purposeless impulse or habit, you will not wonder when I tell you that this identical objection had been made, and had received the same kind of answer, many hundred times in the course of the fifteen years that Mr. Irwine's sister Anne had been an invalid.",1 "Splendid old ladies, who take a long time to dress in the morning, have often slight sympathy with sickly daughters.",2 "But while Mr. Irwine was still seated, leaning back in his chair and stroking Juno's head, the servant came to the door and said, ""If you please, sir, Joshua Rann wishes to speak with you, if you are at liberty.""",3 """Let him be shown in here,"" said Mrs. Irwine, taking up her knitting.",2 """I always like to hear what Mr. Rann has got to say.",3 "His shoes will be dirty, but see that he wipes them Carroll.""",1 "In two minutes Mr. Rann appeared at the door with very deferential bows, which, however, were far from conciliating Pug, who gave a sharp bark and ran across the room to reconnoitre the stranger's legs; while the two puppies, regarding Mr. Rann's prominent calf and ribbed worsted stockings from a more sensuous point of view, plunged and growled over them in great enjoyment.",4 "Meantime, Mr. Irwine turned round his chair and said, ""Well, Joshua, anything the matter at Hayslope, that you've come over this damp morning?",3 "Sit down, sit down.",2 Never mind the dogs; give them a friendly kick.,3 "Here, Pug, you rascal!""",1 "It is very pleasant to see some men turn round; pleasant as a sudden rush of warm air in winter, or the flash of firelight in the chill dusk.",3 Mr. Irwine was one of those men.,2 "He bore the same sort of resemblance to his mother that our loving memory of a friend's face often bears to the face itself: the lines were all more generous, the smile brighter, the expression heartier.",4 "If the outline had been less finely cut, his face might have been called jolly; but that was not the right word for its mixture of bonhomie and distinction.",4 """Thank Your Reverence,"" answered Mr. Rann, endeavouring to look unconcerned about his legs, but shaking them alternately to keep off the puppies; ""I'll stand, if you please, as more becoming.",3 "I hope I see you an' Mrs. Irwine well, an' Miss Irwine--an' Miss Anne, I hope's as well as usual.""",2 """Yes, Joshua, thank you.",3 You see how blooming my mother looks.,2 She beats us younger people hollow.,1 "But what's the matter?""",2 """Why, sir, I had to come to Brox'on to deliver some work, and I thought it but right to call and let you know the goins-on as there's been i' the village, such as I hanna seen i' my time, and I've lived in it man and boy sixty year come St. Thomas, and collected th' Easter dues for Mr. Blick before Your Reverence come into the parish, and been at the ringin' o' every bell, and the diggin' o' every grave, and sung i' the choir long afore Bartle Massey come from nobody knows where, wi' his counter-singin' and fine anthems, as puts everybody out but himself--one takin' it up after another like sheep a-bleatin' i' th' fold.",4 "I know what belongs to bein' a parish clerk, and I know as I should be wantin' i' respect to Your Reverence, an' church, an' king, if I was t' allow such goins-on wi'out speakin'.",3 "I was took by surprise, an' knowed nothin' on it beforehand, an' I was so flustered, I was clean as if I'd lost my tools.",2 "I hanna slep' more nor four hour this night as is past an' gone; an' then it was nothin' but nightmare, as tired me worse nor wakin'.""",0 """Why, what in the world is the matter, Joshua?",2 "Have the thieves been at the church lead again?""",3 """Thieves!",2 "No, sir--an' yet, as I may say, it is thieves, an' a-thievin' the church, too.",2 "It's the Methodisses as is like to get th' upper hand i' th' parish, if Your Reverence an' His Honour, Squire Donnithorne, doesna think well to say the word an' forbid it.",3 "Not as I'm a-dictatin' to you, sir; I'm not forgettin' myself so far as to be wise above my betters.",3 "Howiver, whether I'm wise or no, that's neither here nor there, but what I've got to say I say--as the young Methodis woman as is at Mester Poyser's was a-preachin' an' a-prayin' on the Green last night, as sure as I'm a-stannin' afore Your Reverence now.""",3 """Preaching on the Green!""",2 "said Mr. Irwine, looking surprised but quite serene.",3 """What, that pale pretty young woman I've seen at Poyser's?",2 "I saw she was a Methodist, or Quaker, or something of that sort, by her dress, but I didn't know she was a preacher.""",2 """It's a true word as I say, sir,"" rejoined Mr. Rann, compressing his mouth into a semicircular form and pausing long enough to indicate three notes of exclamation.",3 """She preached on the Green last night; an' she's laid hold of Chad's Bess, as the girl's been i' fits welly iver sin'.""",2 """Well, Bessy Cranage is a hearty-looking lass; I daresay she'll come round again, Joshua.",3 "Did anybody else go into fits?""",2 """No, sir, I canna say as they did.",2 "But there's no knowin' what'll come, if we're t' have such preachin's as that a-goin' on ivery week--there'll be no livin' i' th' village.",2 "For them Methodisses make folks believe as if they take a mug o' drink extry, an' make theirselves a bit comfortable, they'll have to go to hell for't as sure as they're born.",2 "I'm not a tipplin' man nor a drunkard--nobody can say it on me--but I like a extry quart at Easter or Christmas time, as is nat'ral when we're goin' the rounds a-singin', an' folks offer't you for nothin'; or when I'm a-collectin' the dues; an' I like a pint wi' my pipe, an' a neighbourly chat at Mester Casson's now an' then, for I was brought up i' the Church, thank God, an' ha' been a parish clerk this two-an'-thirty year: I should know what the church religion is.""",3 """Well, what's your advice, Joshua?",3 "What do you think should be done?""",2 """Well, Your Reverence, I'm not for takin' any measures again' the young woman.",3 She's well enough if she'd let alone preachin'; an' I hear as she's a-goin' away back to her own country soon.,3 "She's Mr. Poyser's own niece, an' I donna wish to say what's anyways disrespectful o' th' family at th' Hall Farm, as I've measured for shoes, little an' big, welly iver sin' I've been a shoemaker.",1 "But there's that Will Maskery, sir as is the rampageousest Methodis as can be, an' I make no doubt it was him as stirred up th' young woman to preach last night, an' he'll be a-bringin' other folks to preach from Treddles'on, if his comb isn't cut a bit; an' I think as he should be let know as he isna t' have the makin' an' mendin' o' church carts an' implemen's, let alone stayin' i' that house an' yard as is Squire Donnithorne's.""",1 """Well, but you say yourself, Joshua, that you never knew any one come to preach on the Green before; why should you think they'll come again?",3 "The Methodists don't come to preach in little villages like Hayslope, where there's only a handful of labourers, too tired to listen to them.",2 They might almost as well go and preach on the Binton Hills.,3 "Will Maskery is no preacher himself, I think.""",2 """Nay, sir, he's no gift at stringin' the words together wi'out book; he'd be stuck fast like a cow i' wet clay.",3 "But he's got tongue enough to speak disrespectful about's neebors, for he said as I was a blind Pharisee--a-usin' the Bible i' that way to find nick-names for folks as are his elders an' betters!--and what's worse, he's been heard to say very unbecomin' words about Your Reverence; for I could bring them as 'ud swear as he called you a 'dumb dog,' an' a 'idle shepherd.'",1 "You'll forgi'e me for sayin' such things over again.""",2 """Better not, better not, Joshua.",3 Let evil words die as soon as they're spoken.,1 Will Maskery might be a great deal worse fellow than he is.,2 "He used to be a wild drunken rascal, neglecting his work and beating his wife, they told me; now he's thrifty and decent, and he and his wife look comfortable together.",3 "If you can bring me any proof that he interferes with his neighbours and creates any disturbance, I shall think it my duty as a clergyman and a magistrate to interfere.",0 "But it wouldn't become wise people like you and me to be making a fuss about trifles, as if we thought the Church was in danger because Will Maskery lets his tongue wag rather foolishly, or a young woman talks in a serious way to a handful of people on the Green.",1 "We must 'live and let live,' Joshua, in religion as well as in other things.",3 "You go on doing your duty, as parish clerk and sexton, as well as you've always done it, and making those capital thick boots for your neighbours, and things won't go far wrong in Hayslope, depend upon it.""",2 """Your Reverence is very good to say so; an' I'm sensable as, you not livin' i' the parish, there's more upo' my shoulders.""",3 """To be sure; and you must mind and not lower the Church in people's eyes by seeming to be frightened about it for a little thing, Joshua.",2 "I shall trust to your good sense, now to take no notice at all of what Will Maskery says, either about you or me.",3 "You and your neighbours can go on taking your pot of beer soberly, when you've done your day's work, like good churchmen; and if Will Maskery doesn't like to join you, but to go to a prayer-meeting at Treddleston instead, let him; that's no business of yours, so long as he doesn't hinder you from doing what you like.",3 "And as to people saying a few idle words about us, we must not mind that, any more than the old church-steeple minds the rooks cawing about it.",1 "Will Maskery comes to church every Sunday afternoon, and does his wheelwright's business steadily in the weekdays, and as long as he does that he must be let alone.""",2 """Ah, sir, but when he comes to church, he sits an' shakes his head, an' looks as sour an' as coxy when we're a-singin' as I should like to fetch him a rap across the jowl--God forgi'e me--an' Mrs. Irwine, an' Your Reverence too, for speakin' so afore you.",3 "An' he said as our Christmas singin' was no better nor the cracklin' o' thorns under a pot.""",3 """Well, he's got a bad ear for music, Joshua.",2 "When people have wooden heads, you know, it can't be helped.",3 "He won't bring the other people in Hayslope round to his opinion, while you go on singing as well as you do.""",3 """Yes, sir, but it turns a man's stomach t' hear the Scripture misused i' that way.",2 "I know as much o' the words o' the Bible as he does, an' could say the Psalms right through i' my sleep if you was to pinch me; but I know better nor to take 'em to say my own say wi'.",3 "I might as well take the Sacriment-cup home and use it at meals.""",3 """That's a very sensible remark of yours, Joshua; but, as I said before----"" While Mr. Irwine was speaking, the sound of a booted step and the clink of a spur were heard on the stone floor of the entrance-hall, and Joshua Rann moved hastily aside from the doorway to make room for some one who paused there, and said, in a ringing tenor voice, ""Godson Arthur--may he come in?""",2 """Come in, come in, godson!""",2 "Mrs. Irwine answered, in the deep half-masculine tone which belongs to the vigorous old woman, and there entered a young gentleman in a riding-dress, with his right arm in a sling; whereupon followed that pleasant confusion of laughing interjections, and hand-shakings, and ""How are you's?""",3 "mingled with joyous short barks and wagging of tails on the part of the canine members of the family, which tells that the visitor is on the best terms with the visited.",3 "The young gentleman was Arthur Donnithorne, known in Hayslope, variously, as ""the young squire,"" ""the heir,"" and ""the captain.""",2 "He was only a captain in the Loamshire Militia, but to the Hayslope tenants he was more intensely a captain than all the young gentlemen of the same rank in his Majesty's regulars--he outshone them as the planet Jupiter outshines the Milky Way.",3 "If you want to know more particularly how he looked, call to your remembrance some tawny-whiskered, brown-locked, clear-complexioned young Englishman whom you have met with in a foreign town, and been proud of as a fellow-countryman--well-washed, high-bred, white-handed, yet looking as if he could deliver well from 'the left shoulder and floor his man: I will not be so much of a tailor as to trouble your imagination with the difference of costume, and insist on the striped waistcoat, long-tailed coat, and low top-boots.",4 "Turning round to take a chair, Captain Donnithorne said, ""But don't let me interrupt Joshua's business--he has something to say.""",1 """Humbly begging Your Honour's pardon,"" said Joshua, bowing low, ""there was one thing I had to say to His Reverence as other things had drove out o' my head.""",3 """Out with it, Joshua, quickly!""",2 said Mr. Irwine.,2 """Belike, sir, you havena heared as Thias Bede's dead--drownded this morning, or more like overnight, i' the Willow Brook, again' the bridge right i' front o' the house.""",3 """Ah!""",2 "exclaimed both the gentlemen at once, as if they were a good deal interested in the information.",3 """An' Seth Bede's been to me this morning to say he wished me to tell Your Reverence as his brother Adam begged of you particular t' allow his father's grave to be dug by the White Thorn, because his mother's set her heart on it, on account of a dream as she had; an' they'd ha' come theirselves to ask you, but they've so much to see after with the crowner, an' that; an' their mother's took on so, an' wants 'em to make sure o' the spot for fear somebody else should take it.",2 "An' if Your Reverence sees well and good, I'll send my boy to tell 'em as soon as I get home; an' that's why I make bold to trouble you wi' it, His Honour being present.""",3 """To be sure, Joshua, to be sure, they shall have it.",2 "I'll ride round to Adam myself, and see him.",2 "Send your boy, however, to say they shall have the grave, lest anything should happen to detain me.",2 "And now, good morning, Joshua; go into the kitchen and have some ale.""",3 """Poor old Thias!""",1 "said Mr. Irwine, when Joshua was gone.",2 """I'm afraid the drink helped the brook to drown him.",2 I should have been glad for the load to have been taken off my friend Adam's shoulders in a less painful way.,2 "That fine fellow has been propping up his father from ruin for the last five or six years.""",2 """He's a regular trump, is Adam,"" said Captain Donnithorne.",3 """When I was a little fellow, and Adam was a strapping lad of fifteen, and taught me carpentering, I used to think if ever I was a rich sultan, I would make Adam my grand-vizier.",3 And I believe now he would bear the exaltation as well as any poor wise man in an Eastern story.,3 "If ever I live to be a large-acred man instead of a poor devil with a mortgaged allowance of pocket-money, I'll have Adam for my right hand.",1 "He shall manage my woods for me, for he seems to have a better notion of those things than any man I ever met with; and I know he would make twice the money of them that my grandfather does, with that miserable old Satchell to manage, who understands no more about timber than an old carp.",1 "I've mentioned the subject to my grandfather once or twice, but for some reason or other he has a dislike to Adam, and I can do nothing.",1 "But come, Your Reverence, are you for a ride with me?",3 It's splendid out of doors now.,3 "We can go to Adam's together, if you like; but I want to call at the Hall Farm on my way, to look at the whelps Poyser is keeping for me.""",3 """You must stay and have lunch first, Arthur,"" said Mrs. Irwine.",2 """It's nearly two.",2 "Carroll will bring it in directly.""",2 """I want to go to the Hall Farm too,"" said Mr. Irwine, ""to have another look at the little Methodist who is staying there.",2 "Joshua tells me she was preaching on the Green last night.""",2 """Oh, by Jove!""",2 "said Captain Donnithorne, laughing.",2 """Why, she looks as quiet as a mouse.",3 "There's something rather striking about her, though.",3 "I positively felt quite bashful the first time I saw her--she was sitting stooping over her sewing in the sunshine outside the house, when I rode up and called out, without noticing that she was a stranger, 'Is Martin Poyser at home?'",1 "I declare, when she got up and looked at me and just said, 'He's in the house, I believe: I'll go and call him,' I felt quite ashamed of having spoken so abruptly to her.",1 She looked like St. Catherine in a Quaker dress.,3 "It's a type of face one rarely sees among our common people.""",2 """I should like to see the young woman, Dauphin,"" said Mrs. Irwine.",3 """Make her come here on some pretext or other.""",2 """I don't know how I can manage that, Mother; it will hardly do for me to patronize a Methodist preacher, even if she would consent to be patronized by an idle shepherd, as Will Maskery calls me.",1 "You should have come in a little sooner, Arthur, to hear Joshua's denunciation of his neighbour Will Maskery.",1 "The old fellow wants me to excommunicate the wheelwright, and then deliver him over to the civil arm--that is to say, to your grandfather--to be turned out of house and yard.",2 "If I chose to interfere in this business, now, I might get up as pretty a story of hatred and persecution as the Methodists need desire to publish in the next number of their magazine.",1 "It wouldn't take me much trouble to persuade Chad Cranage and half a dozen other bull-headed fellows that they would be doing an acceptable service to the Church by hunting Will Maskery out of the village with rope-ends and pitchforks; and then, when I had furnished them with half a sovereign to get gloriously drunk after their exertions, I should have put the climax to as pretty a farce as any of my brother clergy have set going in their parishes for the last thirty years.""",1 """It is really insolent of the man, though, to call you an 'idle shepherd' and a 'dumb dog,'"" said Mrs. Irwine.",1 """I should be inclined to check him a little there.",2 "You are too easy-tempered, Dauphin.""",3 """Why, Mother, you don't think it would be a good way of sustaining my dignity to set about vindicating myself from the aspersions of Will Maskery?",3 "Besides, I'm not so sure that they ARE aspersions.",1 "I AM a lazy fellow, and get terribly heavy in my saddle; not to mention that I'm always spending more than I can afford in bricks and mortar, so that I get savage at a lame beggar when he asks me for sixpence.",0 "Those poor lean cobblers, who think they can help to regenerate mankind by setting out to preach in the morning twilight before they begin their day's work, may well have a poor opinion of me.",3 "But come, let us have our luncheon.",2 "Isn't Kate coming to lunch?""",2 """Miss Irwine told Bridget to take her lunch upstairs,"" said Carroll; ""she can't leave Miss Anne.""",1 """Oh, very well.",3 Tell Bridget to say I'll go up and see Miss Anne presently.,1 "You can use your right arm quite well now, Arthur,"" Mr. Irwine continued, observing that Captain Donnithorne had taken his arm out of the sling.",3 """Yes, pretty well; but Godwin insists on my keeping it up constantly for some time to come.",3 "I hope I shall be able to get away to the regiment, though, in the beginning of August.",2 "It's a desperately dull business being shut up at the Chase in the summer months, when one can neither hunt nor shoot, so as to make one's self pleasantly sleepy in the evening.",1 "However, we are to astonish the echoes on the 30th of July.",3 "My grandfather has given me carte blanche for once, and I promise you the entertainment shall be worthy of the occasion.",3 The world will not see the grand epoch of my majority twice.,3 "I think I shall have a lofty throne for you, Godmamma, or rather two, one on the lawn and another in the ballroom, that you may sit and look down upon us like an Olympian goddess.""",3 """I mean to bring out my best brocade, that I wore at your christening twenty years ago,"" said Mrs. Irwine.",3 """Ah, I think I shall see your poor mother flitting about in her white dress, which looked to me almost like a shroud that very day; and it WAS her shroud only three months after; and your little cap and christening dress were buried with her too.",1 "She had set her heart on that, sweet soul!",3 "Thank God you take after your mother's family, Arthur.",3 "If you had been a puny, wiry, yellow baby, I wouldn't have stood godmother to you.",1 I should have been sure you would turn out a Donnithorne.,2 "But you were such a broad-faced, broad-chested, loud-screaming rascal, I knew you were every inch of you a Tradgett.""",1 """But you might have been a little too hasty there, Mother,"" said Mr. Irwine, smiling.",2 """Don't you remember how it was with Juno's last pups?",2 "One of them was the very image of its mother, but it had two or three of its father's tricks notwithstanding.",2 "Nature is clever enough to cheat even you, Mother.""",3 """Nonsense, child!",1 Nature never makes a ferret in the shape of a mastiff.,2 You'll never persuade me that I can't tell what men are by their outsides.,2 "If I don't like a man's looks, depend upon it I shall never like HIM. I don't want to know people that look ugly and disagreeable, any more than I want to taste dishes that look disagreeable.",1 "If they make me shudder at the first glance, I say, take them away.",2 "An ugly, piggish, or fishy eye, now, makes me feel quite ill; it's like a bad smell.""",1 """Talking of eyes,"" said Captain Donnithorne, ""that reminds me that I've got a book I meant to bring you, Godmamma.",2 It came down in a parcel from London the other day.,2 "I know you are fond of queer, wizardlike stories.",2 "It's a volume of poems, 'Lyrical Ballads.'",2 "Most of them seem to be twaddling stuff, but the first is in a different style--'The Ancient Mariner' is the title.",2 "I can hardly make head or tail of it as a story, but it's a strange, striking thing.",2 "I'll send it over to you; and there are some other books that you may like to see, Irwine--pamphlets about Antinomianism and Evangelicalism, whatever they may be.",3 I can't think what the fellow means by sending such things to me.,2 "I've written to him to desire that from henceforth he will send me no book or pamphlet on anything that ends in ISM."" ""Well, I don't know that I'm very fond of isms myself; but I may as well look at the pamphlets; they let one see what is going on.",3 "I've a little matter to attend to, Arthur,"" continued Mr. Irwine, rising to leave the room, ""and then I shall be ready to set out with you.""",3 The little matter that Mr. Irwine had to attend to took him up the old stone staircase (part of the house was very old) and made him pause before a door at which he knocked gently.,2 """Come in,"" said a woman's voice, and he entered a room so darkened by blinds and curtains that Miss Kate, the thin middle-aged lady standing by the bedside, would not have had light enough for any other sort of work than the knitting which lay on the little table near her.",2 But at present she was doing what required only the dimmest light--sponging the aching head that lay on the pillow with fresh vinegar.,2 "It was a small face, that of the poor sufferer; perhaps it had once been pretty, but now it was worn and sallow.",1 "Miss Kate came towards her brother and whispered, ""Don't speak to her; she can't bear to be spoken to to-day.""",1 "Anne's eyes were closed, and her brow contracted as if from intense pain.",1 "Mr. Irwine went to the bedside and took up one of the delicate hands and kissed it, a slight pressure from the small fingers told him that it was worth-while to have come upstairs for the sake of doing that.",3 "He lingered a moment, looking at her, and then turned away and left the room, treading very gently--he had taken off his boots and put on slippers before he came upstairs.",2 "Whoever remembers how many things he has declined to do even for himself, rather than have the trouble of putting on or taking off his boots, will not think this last detail insignificant.",1 "And Mr. Irwine's sisters, as any person of family within ten miles of Broxton could have testified, were such stupid, uninteresting women!",1 "It was quite a pity handsome, clever Mrs. Irwine should have had such commonplace daughters.",2 "That fine old lady herself was worth driving ten miles to see, any day; her beauty, her well-preserved faculties, and her old-fashioned dignity made her a graceful subject for conversation in turn with the King's health, the sweet new patterns in cotton dresses, the news from Egypt, and Lord Dacey's lawsuit, which was fretting poor Lady Dacey to death.",4 "But no one ever thought of mentioning the Miss Irwines, except the poor people in Broxton village, who regarded them as deep in the science of medicine, and spoke of them vaguely as ""the gentlefolks.""",1 "If any one had asked old Job Dummilow who gave him his flannel jacket, he would have answered, ""the gentlefolks, last winter""; and widow Steene dwelt much on the virtues of the ""stuff"" the gentlefolks gave her for her cough.",2 "Under this name too, they were used with great effect as a means of taming refractory children, so that at the sight of poor Miss Anne's sallow face, several small urchins had a terrified sense that she was cognizant of all their worst misdemeanours, and knew the precise number of stones with which they had intended to hit Farmer Britton's ducks.",1 "But for all who saw them through a less mythical medium, the Miss Irwines were quite superfluous existences--inartistic figures crowding the canvas of life without adequate effect.",1 "Miss Anne, indeed, if her chronic headaches could have been accounted for by a pathetic story of disappointed love, might have had some romantic interest attached to her: but no such story had either been known or invented concerning her, and the general impression was quite in accordance with the fact, that both the sisters were old maids for the prosaic reason that they had never received an eligible offer.",0 "Nevertheless, to speak paradoxically, the existence of insignificant people has very important consequences in the world.",1 "It can be shown to affect the price of bread and the rate of wages, to call forth many evil tempers from the selfish and many heroisms from the sympathetic, and, in other ways, to play no small part in the tragedy of life.",0 "And if that handsome, generous-blooded clergyman, the Rev. Adolphus Irwine, had not had these two hopelessly maiden sisters, his lot would have been shaped quite differently: he would very likely have taken a comely wife in his youth, and now, when his hair was getting grey under the powder, would have had tall sons and blooming daughters--such possessions, in short, as men commonly think will repay them for all the labour they take under the sun.",3 "As it was--having with all his three livings no more than seven hundred a-year, and seeing no way of keeping his splendid mother and his sickly sister, not to reckon a second sister, who was usually spoken of without any adjective, in such ladylike ease as became their birth and habits, and at the same time providing for a family of his own--he remained, you see, at the age of eight-and-forty, a bachelor, not making any merit of that renunciation, but saying laughingly, if any one alluded to it, that he made it an excuse for many indulgences which a wife would never have allowed him.",2 "And perhaps he was the only person in the world who did not think his sisters uninteresting and superfluous; for his was one of those large-hearted, sweet-blooded natures that never know a narrow or a grudging thought; Epicurean, if you will, with no enthusiasm, no self-scourging sense of duty; but yet, as you have seen, of a sufficiently subtle moral fibre to have an unwearying tenderness for obscure and monotonous suffering.",0 "It was his large-hearted indulgence that made him ignore his mother's hardness towards her daughters, which was the more striking from its contrast with her doting fondness towards himself; he held it no virtue to frown at irremediable faults.",3 "See the difference between the impression a man makes on you when you walk by his side in familiar talk, or look at him in his home, and the figure he makes when seen from a lofty historical level, or even in the eyes of a critical neighbour who thinks of him as an embodied system or opinion rather than as a man.",1 "Mr. Roe, the ""travelling preacher"" stationed at Treddleston, had included Mr. Irwine in a general statement concerning the Church clergy in the surrounding district, whom he described as men given up to the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life; hunting and shooting, and adorning their own houses; asking what shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?--careless of dispensing the bread of life to their flocks, preaching at best but a carnal and soul-benumbing morality, and trafficking in the souls of men by receiving money for discharging the pastoral office in parishes where they did not so much as look on the faces of the people more than once a-year.",3 "The ecclesiastical historian, too, looking into parliamentary reports of that period, finds honourable members zealous for the Church, and untainted with any sympathy for the ""tribe of canting Methodists,"" making statements scarcely less melancholy than that of Mr. Roe.",0 And it is impossible for me to say that Mr. Irwine was altogether belied by the generic classification assigned him.,1 "He really had no very lofty aims, no theological enthusiasm: if I were closely questioned, I should be obliged to confess that he felt no serious alarms about the souls of his parishioners, and would have thought it a mere loss of time to talk in a doctrinal and awakening manner to old ""Feyther Taft,"" or even to Chad Cranage the blacksmith.",1 "If he had been in the habit of speaking theoretically, he would perhaps have said that the only healthy form religion could take in such minds was that of certain dim but strong emotions, suffusing themselves as a hallowing influence over the family affections and neighbourly duties.",3 "He thought the custom of baptism more important than its doctrine, and that the religious benefits the peasant drew from the church where his fathers worshipped and the sacred piece of turf where they lay buried were but slightly dependent on a clear understanding of the Liturgy or the sermon.",4 "Clearly the rector was not what is called in these days an ""earnest"" man: he was fonder of church history than of divinity, and had much more insight into men's characters than interest in their opinions; he was neither laborious, nor obviously self-denying, nor very copious in alms-giving, and his theology, you perceive, was lax.",3 "His mental palate, indeed, was rather pagan, and found a savouriness in a quotation from Sophocles or Theocritus that was quite absent from any text in Isaiah or Amos.",2 "But if you feed your young setter on raw flesh, how can you wonder at its retaining a relish for uncooked partridge in after-life?",3 And Mr. Irwine's recollections of young enthusiasm and ambition were all associated with poetry and ethics that lay aloof from the Bible.,2 "On the other hand, I must plead, for I have an affectionate partiality towards the rector's memory, that he was not vindictive--and some philanthropists have been so; that he was not intolerant--and there is a rumour that some zealous theologians have not been altogether free from that blemish; that although he would probably have declined to give his body to be burned in any public cause, and was far from bestowing all his goods to feed the poor, he had that charity which has sometimes been lacking to very illustrious virtue--he was tender to other men's failings, and unwilling to impute evil.",0 "He was one of those men, and they are not the commonest, of whom we can know the best only by following them away from the marketplace, the platform, and the pulpit, entering with them into their own homes, hearing the voice with which they speak to the young and aged about their own hearthstone, and witnessing their thoughtful care for the everyday wants of everyday companions, who take all their kindness as a matter of course, and not as a subject for panegyric.",4 "Such men, happily, have lived in times when great abuses flourished, and have sometimes even been the living representatives of the abuses.",3 That is a thought which might comfort us a little under the opposite fact--that it is better sometimes NOT to follow great reformers of abuses beyond the threshold of their homes.,3 "But whatever you may think of Mr. Irwine now, if you had met him that June afternoon riding on his grey cob, with his dogs running beside him--portly, upright, manly, with a good-natured smile on his finely turned lips as he talked to his dashing young companion on the bay mare, you must have felt that, however ill he harmonized with sound theories of the clerical office, he somehow harmonized extremely well with that peaceful landscape.",4 "See them in the bright sunlight, interrupted every now and then by rolling masses of cloud, ascending the slope from the Broxton side, where the tall gables and elms of the rectory predominate over the tiny whitewashed church.",2 "They will soon be in the parish of Hayslope; the grey church-tower and village roofs lie before them to the left, and farther on, to the right, they can just see the chimneys of the Hall Farm.",2 "EVIDENTLY that gate is never opened, for the long grass and the great hemlocks grow close against it, and if it were opened, it is so rusty that the force necessary to turn it on its hinges would be likely to pull down the square stone-built pillars, to the detriment of the two stone lionesses which grin with a doubtful carnivorous affability above a coat of arms surmounting each of the pillars.",2 "It would be easy enough, by the aid of the nicks in the stone pillars, to climb over the brick wall with its smooth stone coping; but by putting our eyes close to the rusty bars of the gate, we can see the house well enough, and all but the very corners of the grassy enclosure.",4 "It is a very fine old place, of red brick, softened by a pale powdery lichen, which has dispersed itself with happy irregularity, so as to bring the red brick into terms of friendly companionship with the limestone ornaments surrounding the three gables, the windows, and the door-place.",3 "But the windows are patched with wooden panes, and the door, I think, is like the gate--it is never opened.",3 How it would groan and grate against the stone floor if it were!,1 "For it is a solid, heavy, handsome door, and must once have been in the habit of shutting with a sonorous bang behind a liveried lackey, who had just seen his master and mistress off the grounds in a carriage and pair.",3 "But at present one might fancy the house in the early stage of a chancery suit, and that the fruit from that grand double row of walnut-trees on the right hand of the enclosure would fall and rot among the grass, if it were not that we heard the booming bark of dogs echoing from great buildings at the back.",4 "And now the half-weaned calves that have been sheltering themselves in a gorse-built hovel against the left-hand wall come out and set up a silly answer to that terrible bark, doubtless supposing that it has reference to buckets of milk.",1 "Yes, the house must be inhabited, and we will see by whom; for imagination is a licensed trespasser: it has no fear of dogs, but may climb over walls and peep in at windows with impunity.",1 Put your face to one of the glass panes in the right-hand window: what do you see?,3 "A large open fireplace, with rusty dogs in it, and a bare boarded floor; at the far end, fleeces of wool stacked up; in the middle of the floor, some empty corn-bags.",1 That is the furniture of the dining-room.,2 And what through the left-hand window?,2 "Several clothes-horses, a pillion, a spinning-wheel, and an old box wide open and stuffed full of coloured rags.",2 "At the edge of this box there lies a great wooden doll, which, so far as mutilation is concerned, bears a strong resemblance to the finest Greek sculpture, and especially in the total loss of its nose.",2 "Near it there is a little chair, and the butt end of a boy's leather long-lashed whip.",2 The history of the house is plain now.,2 "It was once the residence of a country squire, whose family, probably dwindling down to mere spinsterhood, got merged in the more territorial name of Donnithorne.",1 It was once the Hall; it is now the Hall Farm.,2 "Like the life in some coast town that was once a watering-place, and is now a port, where the genteel streets are silent and grass-grown, and the docks and warehouses busy and resonant, the life at the Hall has changed its focus, and no longer radiates from the parlour, but from the kitchen and the farmyard.",3 "Plenty of life there, though this is the drowsiest time of the year, just before hay-harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the day too, for it is close upon three by the sun, and it is half-past three by Mrs. Poyser's handsome eight-day clock.",3 "But there is always a stronger sense of life when the sun is brilliant after rain; and now he is pouring down his beams, and making sparkles among the wet straw, and lighting up every patch of vivid green moss on the red tiles of the cow-shed, and turning even the muddy water that is hurrying along the channel to the drain into a mirror for the yellow-billed ducks, who are seizing the opportunity of getting a drink with as much body in it as possible.",3 "There is quite a concert of noises; the great bull-dog, chained against the stables, is thrown into furious exasperation by the unwary approach of a cock too near the mouth of his kennel, and sends forth a thundering bark, which is answered by two fox-hounds shut up in the opposite cow-house; the old top-knotted hens, scratching with their chicks among the straw, set up a sympathetic croaking as the discomfited cock joins them; a sow with her brood, all very muddy as to the legs, and curled as to the tail, throws in some deep staccato notes; our friends the calves are bleating from the home croft; and, under all, a fine ear discerns the continuous hum of human voices.",0 "For the great barn-doors are thrown wide open, and men are busy there mending the harness, under the superintendence of Mr. Goby, the ""whittaw,"" otherwise saddler, who entertains them with the latest Treddleston gossip.",3 "It is certainly rather an unfortunate day that Alick, the shepherd, has chosen for having the whittaws, since the morning turned out so wet; and Mrs. Poyser has spoken her mind pretty strongly as to the dirt which the extra number of men's shoes brought into the house at dinnertime.",1 "Indeed, she has not yet recovered her equanimity on the subject, though it is now nearly three hours since dinner, and the house-floor is perfectly clean again; as clean as everything else in that wonderful house-place, where the only chance of collecting a few grains of dust would be to climb on the salt-coffer, and put your finger on the high mantel-shelf on which the glittering brass candlesticks are enjoying their summer sinecure; for at this time of year, of course, every one goes to bed while it is yet light, or at least light enough to discern the outline of objects after you have bruised your shins against them.",4 "Surely nowhere else could an oak clock-case and an oak table have got to such a polish by the hand: genuine ""elbow polish,"" as Mrs. Poyser called it, for she thanked God she never had any of your varnished rubbish in her house.",2 "Hetty Sorrel often took the opportunity, when her aunt's back was turned, of looking at the pleasing reflection of herself in those polished surfaces, for the oak table was usually turned up like a screen, and was more for ornament than for use; and she could see herself sometimes in the great round pewter dishes that were ranged on the shelves above the long deal dinner-table, or in the hobs of the grate, which always shone like jasper.",4 "Everything was looking at its brightest at this moment, for the sun shone right on the pewter dishes, and from their reflecting surfaces pleasant jets of light were thrown on mellow oak and bright brass--and on a still pleasanter object than these, for some of the rays fell on Dinah's finely moulded cheek, and lit up her pale red hair to auburn, as she bent over the heavy household linen which she was mending for her aunt.",3 "No scene could have been more peaceful, if Mrs. Poyser, who was ironing a few things that still remained from the Monday's wash, had not been making a frequent clinking with her iron and moving to and fro whenever she wanted it to cool; carrying the keen glance of her blue-grey eye from the kitchen to the dairy, where Hetty was making up the butter, and from the dairy to the back kitchen, where Nancy was taking the pies out of the oven.",4 "Do not suppose, however, that Mrs. Poyser was elderly or shrewish in her appearance; she was a good-looking woman, not more than eight-and-thirty, of fair complexion and sandy hair, well-shapen, light-footed.",4 "The most conspicuous article in her attire was an ample checkered linen apron, which almost covered her skirt; and nothing could be plainer or less noticeable than her cap and gown, for there was no weakness of which she was less tolerant than feminine vanity, and the preference of ornament to utility.",0 "The family likeness between her and her niece Dinah Morris, with the contrast between her keenness and Dinah's seraphic gentleness of expression, might have served a painter as an excellent suggestion for a Martha and Mary.",3 "Their eyes were just of the same colour, but a striking test of the difference in their operation was seen in the demeanour of Trip, the black-and-tan terrier, whenever that much-suspected dog unwarily exposed himself to the freezing arctic ray of Mrs. Poyser's glance.",2 "Her tongue was not less keen than her eye, and, whenever a damsel came within earshot, seemed to take up an unfinished lecture, as a barrel-organ takes up a tune, precisely at the point where it had left off.",3 "The fact that it was churning day was another reason why it was inconvenient to have the whittaws, and why, consequently, Mrs. Poyser should scold Molly the housemaid with unusual severity.",0 "To all appearance Molly had got through her after-dinner work in an exemplary manner, had ""cleaned herself"" with great dispatch, and now came to ask, submissively, if she should sit down to her spinning till milking time.",4 "But this blameless conduct, according to Mrs. Poyser, shrouded a secret indulgence of unbecoming wishes, which she now dragged forth and held up to Molly's view with cutting eloquence.",3 """Spinning, indeed!",2 "It isn't spinning as you'd be at, I'll be bound, and let you have your own way.",2 I never knew your equals for gallowsness.,2 To think of a gell o' your age wanting to go and sit with half-a-dozen men!,2 I'd ha' been ashamed to let the words pass over my lips if I'd been you.,1 "And you, as have been here ever since last Michaelmas, and I hired you at Treddles'on stattits, without a bit o' character--as I say, you might be grateful to be hired in that way to a respectable place; and you knew no more o' what belongs to work when you come here than the mawkin i' the field.",4 "As poor a two-fisted thing as ever I saw, you know you was.",1 "Who taught you to scrub a floor, I should like to know?",3 "Why, you'd leave the dirt in heaps i' the corners--anybody 'ud think you'd never been brought up among Christians.",1 "And as for spinning, why, you've wasted as much as your wage i' the flax you've spoiled learning to spin.",1 "And you've a right to feel that, and not to go about as gaping and as thoughtless as if you was beholding to nobody.",2 "Comb the wool for the whittaws, indeed!",2 "That's what you'd like to be doing, is it?",3 "That's the way with you--that's the road you'd all like to go, headlongs to ruin.",2 "You're never easy till you've got some sweetheart as is as big a fool as yourself: you think you'll be finely off when you're married, I daresay, and have got a three-legged stool to sit on, and never a blanket to cover you, and a bit o' oat-cake for your dinner, as three children are a-snatching at.""",3 """I'm sure I donna want t' go wi' the whittaws,"" said Molly, whimpering, and quite overcome by this Dantean picture of her future, ""on'y we allays used to comb the wool for 'n at Mester Ottley's; an' so I just axed ye.",2 "I donna want to set eyes on the whittaws again; I wish I may never stir if I do.""",2 """Mr. Ottley's, indeed!",2 It's fine talking o' what you did at Mr. Ottley's.,3 Your missis there might like her floors dirted wi' whittaws for what I know.,3 There's no knowing what people WONNA like--such ways as I've heard of!,3 "I never had a gell come into my house as seemed to know what cleaning was; I think people live like pigs, for my part.",2 "And as to that Betty as was dairymaid at Trent's before she come to me, she'd ha' left the cheeses without turning from week's end to week's end, and the dairy thralls, I might ha' wrote my name on 'em, when I come downstairs after my illness, as the doctor said it was inflammation--it was a mercy I got well of it.",2 "And to think o' your knowing no better, Molly, and been here a-going i' nine months, and not for want o' talking to, neither--and what are you stanning there for, like a jack as is run down, instead o' getting your wheel out?",3 "You're a rare un for sitting down to your work a little while after it's time to put by.""",3 """Munny, my iron's twite told; pease put it down to warm.""",3 "The small chirruping voice that uttered this request came from a little sunny-haired girl between three and four, who, seated on a high chair at the end of the ironing table, was arduously clutching the handle of a miniature iron with her tiny fat fist, and ironing rags with an assiduity that required her to put her little red tongue out as far as anatomy would allow.",0 """Cold, is it, my darling?",2 "Bless your sweet face!""",3 "said Mrs. Poyser, who was remarkable for the facility with which she could relapse from her official objurgatory to one of fondness or of friendly converse.",3 """Never mind!",2 Mother's done her ironing now.,2 "She's going to put the ironing things away.""",2 """Munny, I tould 'ike to do into de barn to Tommy, to see de whittawd.""",2 """No, no, no; Totty 'ud get her feet wet,"" said Mrs. Poyser, carrying away her iron.",2 """Run into the dairy and see cousin Hetty make the butter.""",2 """I tould 'ike a bit o' pum-take,"" rejoined Totty, who seemed to be provided with several relays of requests; at the same time, taking the opportunity of her momentary leisure to put her fingers into a bowl of starch, and drag it down so as to empty the contents with tolerable completeness on to the ironing sheet.",2 """Did ever anybody see the like?""",3 "screamed Mrs. Poyser, running towards the table when her eye had fallen on the blue stream.",1 """The child's allays i' mischief if your back's turned a minute.",1 "What shall I do to you, you naughty, naughty gell?""",1 "Totty, however, had descended from her chair with great swiftness, and was already in retreat towards the dairy with a sort of waddling run, and an amount of fat on the nape of her neck which made her look like the metamorphosis of a white suckling pig.",2 "The starch having been wiped up by Molly's help, and the ironing apparatus put by, Mrs. Poyser took up her knitting which always lay ready at hand, and was the work she liked best, because she could carry it on automatically as she walked to and fro.",4 "But now she came and sat down opposite Dinah, whom she looked at in a meditative way, as she knitted her grey worsted stocking.",2 """You look th' image o' your Aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing.",2 "I could almost fancy it was thirty years back, and I was a little gell at home, looking at Judith as she sat at her work, after she'd done the house up; only it was a little cottage, Father's was, and not a big rambling house as gets dirty i' one corner as fast as you clean it in another--but for all that, I could fancy you was your Aunt Judith, only her hair was a deal darker than yours, and she was stouter and broader i' the shoulders.",3 "Judith and me allays hung together, though she had such queer ways, but your mother and her never could agree.",1 "Ah, your mother little thought as she'd have a daughter just cut out after the very pattern o' Judith, and leave her an orphan, too, for Judith to take care on, and bring up with a spoon when SHE was in the graveyard at Stoniton.",1 "I allays said that o' Judith, as she'd bear a pound weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce.",2 "And she was just the same from the first o' my remembering her; it made no difference in her, as I could see, when she took to the Methodists, only she talked a bit different and wore a different sort o' cap; but she'd never in her life spent a penny on herself more than keeping herself decent.""",3 """She was a blessed woman,"" said Dinah; ""God had given her a loving, self-forgetting nature, and He perfected it by grace.",3 "And she was very fond of you too, Aunt Rachel.",3 I often heard her talk of you in the same sort of way.,2 "When she had that bad illness, and I was only eleven years old, she used to say, 'You'll have a friend on earth in your Aunt Rachel, if I'm taken from you, for she has a kind heart,' and I'm sure I've found it so.""",1 """I don't know how, child; anybody 'ud be cunning to do anything for you, I think; you're like the birds o' th' air, and live nobody knows how.",3 "I'd ha' been glad to behave to you like a mother's sister, if you'd come and live i' this country where there's some shelter and victual for man and beast, and folks don't live on the naked hills, like poultry a-scratching on a gravel bank.",3 "And then you might get married to some decent man, and there'd be plenty ready to have you, if you'd only leave off that preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt Judith ever did.",3 "And even if you'd marry Seth Bede, as is a poor wool-gathering Methodist and's never like to have a penny beforehand, I know your uncle 'ud help you with a pig, and very like a cow, for he's allays been good-natur'd to my kin, for all they're poor, and made 'em welcome to the house; and 'ud do for you, I'll be bound, as much as ever he'd do for Hetty, though she's his own niece.",3 "And there's linen in the house as I could well spare you, for I've got lots o' sheeting and table-clothing, and towelling, as isn't made up.",3 "There's a piece o' sheeting I could give you as that squinting Kitty spun--she was a rare girl to spin, for all she squinted, and the children couldn't abide her; and, you know, the spinning's going on constant, and there's new linen wove twice as fast as the old wears out.",3 "But where's the use o' talking, if ye wonna be persuaded, and settle down like any other woman in her senses, i'stead o' wearing yourself out with walking and preaching, and giving away every penny you get, so as you've nothing saved against sickness; and all the things you've got i' the world, I verily believe, 'ud go into a bundle no bigger nor a double cheese.",2 "And all because you've got notions i' your head about religion more nor what's i' the Catechism and the Prayer-book.""",2 """But not more than what's in the Bible, Aunt,"" said Dinah.",2 """Yes, and the Bible too, for that matter,"" Mrs. Poyser rejoined, rather sharply; ""else why shouldn't them as know best what's in the Bible--the parsons and people as have got nothing to do but learn it--do the same as you do?",2 "But, for the matter o' that, if everybody was to do like you, the world must come to a standstill; for if everybody tried to do without house and home, and with poor eating and drinking, and was allays talking as we must despise the things o' the world as you say, I should like to know where the pick o' the stock, and the corn, and the best new-milk cheeses 'ud have to go.",1 "Everybody 'ud be wanting bread made o' tail ends and everybody 'ud be running after everybody else to preach to 'em, istead o' bringing up their families, and laying by against a bad harvest.",1 "It stands to sense as that can't be the right religion.""",3 """Nay, dear aunt, you never heard me say that all people are called to forsake their work and their families.",2 "It's quite right the land should be ploughed and sowed, and the precious corn stored, and the things of this life cared for, and right that people should rejoice in their families, and provide for them, so that this is done in the fear of the Lord, and that they are not unmindful of the soul's wants while they are caring for the body.",3 "We can all be servants of God wherever our lot is cast, but He gives us different sorts of work, according as He fits us for it and calls us to it.",3 "I can no more help spending my life in trying to do what I can for the souls of others, than you could help running if you heard little Totty crying at the other end of the house; the voice would go to your heart, you would think the dear child was in trouble or in danger, and you couldn't rest without running to help her and comfort her.""",1 """Ah,"" said Mrs. Poyser, rising and walking towards the door, ""I know it 'ud be just the same if I was to talk to you for hours.",2 "You'd make me the same answer, at th' end.",2 "I might as well talk to the running brook and tell it to stan' still.""",3 "The causeway outside the kitchen door was dry enough now for Mrs. Poyser to stand there quite pleasantly and see what was going on in the yard, the grey worsted stocking making a steady progress in her hands all the while.",4 "But she had not been standing there more than five minutes before she came in again, and said to Dinah, in rather a flurried, awe-stricken tone, ""If there isn't Captain Donnithorne and Mr. Irwine a-coming into the yard!",2 "I'll lay my life they're come to speak about your preaching on the Green, Dinah; it's you must answer 'em, for I'm dumb.",1 I've said enough a'ready about your bringing such disgrace upo' your uncle's family.,2 "I wouldn't ha' minded if you'd been Mr. Poyser's own niece--folks must put up wi' their own kin, as they put up wi' their own noses--it's their own flesh and blood.",2 "But to think of a niece o' mine being cause o' my husband's being turned out of his farm, and me brought him no fortin but my savin's----"" ""Nay, dear Aunt Rachel,"" said Dinah gently, ""you've no cause for such fears.",1 I've strong assurance that no evil will happen to you and my uncle and the children from anything I've done.,3 "I didn't preach without direction.""",2 """Direction!",2 "I know very well what you mean by direction,"" said Mrs. Poyser, knitting in a rapid and agitated manner.",3 """When there's a bigger maggot than usual in your head you call it 'direction'; and then nothing can stir you--you look like the statty o' the outside o' Treddles'on church, a-starin' and a-smilin' whether it's fair weather or foul.",3 "I hanna common patience with you.""",3 By this time the two gentlemen had reached the palings and had got down from their horses: it was plain they meant to come in.,2 "Mrs. Poyser advanced to the door to meet them, curtsying low and trembling between anger with Dinah and anxiety to conduct herself with perfect propriety on the occasion.",2 "For in those days the keenest of bucolic minds felt a whispering awe at the sight of the gentry, such as of old men felt when they stood on tiptoe to watch the gods passing by in tall human shape.",3 """Well, Mrs. Poyser, how are you after this stormy morning?""",2 "said Mr. Irwine, with his stately cordiality.",3 """Our feet are quite dry; we shall not soil your beautiful floor.""",3 """Oh, sir, don't mention it,"" said Mrs. Poyser.",2 """Will you and the captain please to walk into the parlour?""",2 """No, indeed, thank you, Mrs. Poyser,"" said the captain, looking eagerly round the kitchen, as if his eye were seeking something it could not find.",3 """I delight in your kitchen.",3 I think it is the most charming room I know.,3 "I should like every farmer's wife to come and look at it for a pattern.""",3 """Oh, you're pleased to say so, sir.",3 "Pray take a seat,"" said Mrs. Poyser, relieved a little by this compliment and the captain's evident good-humour, but still glancing anxiously at Mr. Irwine, who, she saw, was looking at Dinah and advancing towards her.",3 """Poyser is not at home, is he?""",2 "said Captain Donnithorne, seating himself where he could see along the short passage to the open dairy-door.",2 """No, sir, he isn't; he's gone to Rosseter to see Mr. West, the factor, about the wool.",2 "But there's Father i' the barn, sir, if he'd be of any use.""",2 """No, thank you; I'll just look at the whelps and leave a message about them with your shepherd.",3 I must come another day and see your husband; I want to have a consultation with him about horses.,2 "Do you know when he's likely to be at liberty?""",3 """Why, sir, you can hardly miss him, except it's o' Treddles'on market-day--that's of a Friday, you know.",1 For if he's anywhere on the farm we can send for him in a minute.,2 "If we'd got rid o' the Scantlands, we should have no outlying fields; and I should be glad of it, for if ever anything happens, he's sure to be gone to the Scantlands.",3 "Things allays happen so contrairy, if they've a chance; and it's an unnat'ral thing to have one bit o' your farm in one county and all the rest in another.""",2 """Ah, the Scantlands would go much better with Choyce's farm, especially as he wants dairyland and you've got plenty.",3 "I think yours is the prettiest farm on the estate, though; and do you know, Mrs. Poyser, if I were going to marry and settle, I should be tempted to turn you out, and do up this fine old house, and turn farmer myself.""",3 """Oh, sir,"" said Mrs. Poyser, rather alarmed, ""you wouldn't like it at all.",2 "As for farming, it's putting money into your pocket wi' your right hand and fetching it out wi' your left.",3 "As fur as I can see, it's raising victual for other folks and just getting a mouthful for yourself and your children as you go along.",2 "Not as you'd be like a poor man as wants to get his bread--you could afford to lose as much money as you liked i' farming--but it's poor fun losing money, I should think, though I understan' it's what the great folks i' London play at more than anything.",3 "For my husband heard at market as Lord Dacey's eldest son had lost thousands upo' thousands to the Prince o' Wales, and they said my lady was going to pawn her jewels to pay for him.",1 "But you know more about that than I do, sir.",2 "But, as for farming, sir, I canna think as you'd like it; and this house--the draughts in it are enough to cut you through, and it's my opinion the floors upstairs are very rotten, and the rats i' the cellar are beyond anything.""",3 """Why, that's a terrible picture, Mrs. Poyser.",1 I think I should be doing you a service to turn you out of such a place.,2 But there's no chance of that.,2 "I'm not likely to settle for the next twenty years, till I'm a stout gentleman of forty; and my grandfather would never consent to part with such good tenants as you.""",3 """Well, sir, if he thinks so well o' Mr. Poyser for a tenant I wish you could put in a word for him to allow us some new gates for the Five closes, for my husband's been asking and asking till he's tired, and to think o' what he's done for the farm, and's never had a penny allowed him, be the times bad or good.",2 "And as I've said to my husband often and often, I'm sure if the captain had anything to do with it, it wouldn't be so.",2 "Not as I wish to speak disrespectful o' them as have got the power i' their hands, but it's more than flesh and blood 'ull bear sometimes, to be toiling and striving, and up early and down late, and hardly sleeping a wink when you lie down for thinking as the cheese may swell, or the cows may slip their calf, or the wheat may grow green again i' the sheaf--and after all, at th' end o' the year, it's like as if you'd been cooking a feast and had got the smell of it for your pains.""",1 "Mrs. Poyser, once launched into conversation, always sailed along without any check from her preliminary awe of the gentry.",3 The confidence she felt in her own powers of exposition was a motive force that overcame all resistance.,2 """I'm afraid I should only do harm instead of good, if I were to speak about the gates, Mrs. Poyser,"" said the captain, ""though I assure you there's no man on the estate I would sooner say a word for than your husband.",2 "I know his farm is in better order than any other within ten miles of us; and as for the kitchen,"" he added, smiling, ""I don't believe there's one in the kingdom to beat it.",3 "By the by, I've never seen your dairy: I must see your dairy, Mrs. Poyser.""",2 """Indeed, sir, it's not fit for you to go in, for Hetty's in the middle o' making the butter, for the churning was thrown late, and I'm quite ashamed.""",1 "This Mrs. Poyser said blushing, and believing that the captain was really interested in her milk-pans, and would adjust his opinion of her to the appearance of her dairy.",2 """Oh, I've no doubt it's in capital order.",1 "Take me in,"" said the captain, himself leading the way, while Mrs. Poyser followed.",3 "THE dairy was certainly worth looking at: it was a scene to sicken for with a sort of calenture in hot and dusty streets--such coolness, such purity, such fresh fragrance of new-pressed cheese, of firm butter, of wooden vessels perpetually bathed in pure water; such soft colouring of red earthenware and creamy surfaces, brown wood and polished tin, grey limestone and rich orange-red rust on the iron weights and hooks and hinges.",4 "But one gets only a confused notion of these details when they surround a distractingly pretty girl of seventeen, standing on little pattens and rounding her dimpled arm to lift a pound of butter out of the scale.",2 "Hetty blushed a deep rose-colour when Captain Donnithorne entered the dairy and spoke to her; but it was not at all a distressed blush, for it was inwreathed with smiles and dimples, and with sparkles from under long, curled, dark eyelashes; and while her aunt was discoursing to him about the limited amount of milk that was to be spared for butter and cheese so long as the calves were not all weaned, and a large quantity but inferior quality of milk yielded by the shorthorn, which had been bought on experiment, together with other matters which must be interesting to a young gentleman who would one day be a landlord, Hetty tossed and patted her pound of butter with quite a self-possessed, coquettish air, slyly conscious that no turn of her head was lost.",0 "There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women.",3 "It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief--a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you.",2 Hetty Sorrel's was that sort of beauty.,3 "Her aunt, Mrs. Poyser, who professed to despise all personal attractions and intended to be the severest of mentors, continually gazed at Hetty's charms by the sly, fascinated in spite of herself; and after administering such a scolding as naturally flowed from her anxiety to do well by her husband's niece--who had no mother of her own to scold her, poor thing!--she would often confess to her husband, when they were safe out of hearing, that she firmly believed, ""the naughtier the little huzzy behaved, the prettier she looked.""",0 "It is of little use for me to tell you that Hetty's cheek was like a rose-petal, that dimples played about her pouting lips, that her large dark eyes hid a soft roguishness under their long lashes, and that her curly hair, though all pushed back under her round cap while she was at work, stole back in dark delicate rings on her forehead, and about her white shell-like ears; it is of little use for me to say how lovely was the contour of her pink-and-white neckerchief, tucked into her low plum-coloured stuff bodice, or how the linen butter-making apron, with its bib, seemed a thing to be imitated in silk by duchesses, since it fell in such charming lines, or how her brown stockings and thick-soled buckled shoes lost all that clumsiness which they must certainly have had when empty of her foot and ankle--of little use, unless you have seen a woman who affected you as Hetty affected her beholders, for otherwise, though you might conjure up the image of a lovely woman, she would not in the least resemble that distracting kittenlike maiden.",3 "I might mention all the divine charms of a bright spring day, but if you had never in your life utterly forgotten yourself in straining your eyes after the mounting lark, or in wandering through the still lanes when the fresh-opened blossoms fill them with a sacred silent beauty like that of fretted aisles, where would be the use of my descriptive catalogue?",4 I could never make you know what I meant by a bright spring day.,3 "Hetty's was a spring-tide beauty; it was the beauty of young frisking things, round-limbed, gambolling, circumventing you by a false air of innocence--the innocence of a young star-browed calf, for example, that, being inclined for a promenade out of bounds, leads you a severe steeplechase over hedge and ditch, and only comes to a stand in the middle of a bog.",1 "And they are the prettiest attitudes and movements into which a pretty girl is thrown in making up butter--tossing movements that give a charming curve to the arm, and a sideward inclination of the round white neck; little patting and rolling movements with the palm of the hand, and nice adaptations and finishings which cannot at all be effected without a great play of the pouting mouth and the dark eyes.",4 "And then the butter itself seems to communicate a fresh charm--it is so pure, so sweet-scented; it is turned off the mould with such a beautiful firm surface, like marble in a pale yellow light!",4 "Moreover, Hetty was particularly clever at making up the butter; it was the one performance of hers that her aunt allowed to pass without severe criticism; so she handled it with all the grace that belongs to mastery.",3 """I hope you will be ready for a great holiday on the thirtieth of July, Mrs. Poyser,"" said Captain Donnithorne, when he had sufficiently admired the dairy and given several improvised opinions on Swede turnips and shorthorns.",4 """You know what is to happen then, and I shall expect you to be one of the guests who come earliest and leave latest.",2 "Will you promise me your hand for two dances, Miss Hetty?",2 "If I don't get your promise now, I know I shall hardly have a chance, for all the smart young farmers will take care to secure you.""",4 "Hetty smiled and blushed, but before she could answer, Mrs. Poyser interposed, scandalized at the mere suggestion that the young squire could be excluded by any meaner partners.",1 """Indeed, sir, you are very kind to take that notice of her.",2 "And I'm sure, whenever you're pleased to dance with her, she'll be proud and thankful, if she stood still all the rest o' th' evening.""",4 """Oh no, no, that would be too cruel to all the other young fellows who can dance.",1 "But you will promise me two dances, won't you?""",3 "the captain continued, determined to make Hetty look at him and speak to him.",2 "Hetty dropped the prettiest little curtsy, and stole a half-shy, half-coquettish glance at him as she said, ""Yes, thank you, sir.""",2 """And you must bring all your children, you know, Mrs. Poyser; your little Totty, as well as the boys.",3 "I want all the youngest children on the estate to be there--all those who will be fine young men and women when I'm a bald old fellow.""",3 """Oh dear, sir, that 'ull be a long time first,"" said Mrs. Poyser, quite overcome at the young squire's speaking so lightly of himself, and thinking how her husband would be interested in hearing her recount this remarkable specimen of high-born humour.",3 "The captain was thought to be ""very full of his jokes,"" and was a great favourite throughout the estate on account of his free manners.",3 "Every tenant was quite sure things would be different when the reins got into his hands--there was to be a millennial abundance of new gates, allowances of lime, and returns of ten per cent.",3 """But where is Totty to-day?""",2 he said.,2 """I want to see her.""",2 """Where IS the little un, Hetty?""",2 said Mrs. Poyser.,2 """She came in here not long ago.""",2 """I don't know.",2 "She went into the brewhouse to Nancy, I think.""",2 "The proud mother, unable to resist the temptation to show her Totty, passed at once into the back kitchen, in search of her, not, however, without misgivings lest something should have happened to render her person and attire unfit for presentation.",0 """And do you carry the butter to market when you've made it?""",2 "said the Captain to Hetty, meanwhile.",2 """Oh no, sir; not when it's so heavy.",2 I'm not strong enough to carry it.,3 "Alick takes it on horseback.""",2 """No, I'm sure your pretty arms were never meant for such heavy weights.",3 "But you go out a walk sometimes these pleasant evenings, don't you?",3 "Why don't you have a walk in the Chase sometimes, now it's so green and pleasant?",3 "I hardly ever see you anywhere except at home and at church.""",2 """Aunt doesn't like me to go a-walking only when I'm going somewhere,"" said Hetty.",3 """But I go through the Chase sometimes.""",2 """And don't you ever go to see Mrs. Best, the housekeeper?",3 "I think I saw you once in the housekeeper's room.""",2 """It isn't Mrs. Best, it's Mrs. Pomfret, the lady's maid, as I go to see.",3 She's teaching me tent-stitch and the lace-mending.,2 "I'm going to tea with her to-morrow afternoon.""",2 "The reason why there had been space for this tete-a-tete can only be known by looking into the back kitchen, where Totty had been discovered rubbing a stray blue-bag against her nose, and in the same moment allowing some liberal indigo drops to fall on her afternoon pinafore.",1 But now she appeared holding her mother's hand--the end of her round nose rather shiny from a recent and hurried application of soap and water.,3 """Here she is!""",2 "said the captain, lifting her up and setting her on the low stone shelf.",2 """Here's Totty!",2 "By the by, what's her other name?",2 "She wasn't christened Totty.""",2 """Oh, sir, we call her sadly out of her name.",1 Charlotte's her christened name.,2 It's a name i' Mr. Poyser's family: his grandmother was named Charlotte.,2 "But we began with calling her Lotty, and now it's got to Totty.",2 "To be sure it's more like a name for a dog than a Christian child.""",3 """Totty's a capital name.",2 "Why, she looks like a Totty.",3 "Has she got a pocket on?""",2 "said the captain, feeling in his own waistcoat pockets.",2 "Totty immediately with great gravity lifted up her frock, and showed a tiny pink pocket at present in a state of collapse.",2 """It dot notin' in it,"" she said, as she looked down at it very earnestly.",3 """No!",2 What a pity!,1 Such a pretty pocket.,3 "Well, I think I've got some things in mine that will make a pretty jingle in it.",3 Yes!,2 "I declare I've got five little round silver things, and hear what a pretty noise they make in Totty's pink pocket.""",2 "Here he shook the pocket with the five sixpences in it, and Totty showed her teeth and wrinkled her nose in great glee; but, divining that there was nothing more to be got by staying, she jumped off the shelf and ran away to jingle her pocket in the hearing of Nancy, while her mother called after her, ""Oh for shame, you naughty gell!",1 "Not to thank the captain for what he's given you I'm sure, sir, it's very kind of you; but she's spoiled shameful; her father won't have her said nay in anything, and there's no managing her.",1 "It's being the youngest, and th' only gell.""",2 """Oh, she's a funny little fatty; I wouldn't have her different.",1 "But I must be going now, for I suppose the rector is waiting for me.""",2 "With a ""good-bye,"" a bright glance, and a bow to Hetty Arthur left the dairy.",3 But he was mistaken in imagining himself waited for.,1 The rector had been so much interested in his conversation with Dinah that he would not have chosen to close it earlier; and you shall hear now what they had been saying to each other.,2 "DINAH, who had risen when the gentlemen came in, but still kept hold of the sheet she was mending, curtsied respectfully when she saw Mr. Irwine looking at her and advancing towards her.",3 "He had never yet spoken to her, or stood face to face with her, and her first thought, as her eyes met his, was, ""What a well-favoured countenance!",3 "Oh that the good seed might fall on that soil, for it would surely flourish.""",3 "The agreeable impression must have been mutual, for Mr. Irwine bowed to her with a benignant deference, which would have been equally in place if she had been the most dignified lady of his acquaintance.",4 """You are only a visitor in this neighbourhood, I think?""",2 "were his first words, as he seated himself opposite to her.",2 """No, sir, I come from Snowfield, in Stonyshire.",2 "But my aunt was very kind, wanting me to have rest from my work there, because I'd been ill, and she invited me to come and stay with her for a while.""",3 """Ah, I remember Snowfield very well; I once had occasion to go there.",3 It's a dreary bleak place.,1 They were building a cotton-mill there; but that's many years ago now.,2 "I suppose the place is a good deal changed by the employment that mill must have brought.""",3 """It IS changed so far as the mill has brought people there, who get a livelihood for themselves by working in it, and make it better for the tradesfolks.",3 "I work in it myself, and have reason to be grateful, for thereby I have enough and to spare.",4 "But it's still a bleak place, as you say, sir--very different from this country.""",1 """You have relations living there, probably, so that you are attached to the place as your home?""",2 """I had an aunt there once; she brought me up, for I was an orphan.",1 "But she was taken away seven years ago, and I have no other kindred that I know of, besides my Aunt Poyser, who is very good to me, and would have me come and live in this country, which to be sure is a good land, wherein they eat bread without scarceness.",3 "But I'm not free to leave Snowfield, where I was first planted, and have grown deep into it, like the small grass on the hill-top.""",4 """Ah, I daresay you have many religious friends and companions there; you are a Methodist--a Wesleyan, I think?""",2 """Yes, my aunt at Snowfield belonged to the Society, and I have cause to be thankful for the privileges I have had thereby from my earliest childhood.""",3 """And have you been long in the habit of preaching?",2 "For I understand you preached at Hayslope last night.""",2 """I first took to the work four years since, when I was twenty-one.""",3 """Your Society sanctions women's preaching, then?""",2 """It doesn't forbid them, sir, when they've a clear call to the work, and when their ministry is owned by the conversion of sinners and the strengthening of God's people.",3 "Mrs. Fletcher, as you may have heard about, was the first woman to preach in the Society, I believe, before she was married, when she was Miss Bosanquet; and Mr. Wesley approved of her undertaking the work.",2 "She had a great gift, and there are many others now living who are precious fellow-helpers in the work of the ministry.",4 "I understand there's been voices raised against it in the Society of late, but I cannot but think their counsel will come to nought.",2 "It isn't for men to make channels for God's Spirit, as they make channels for the watercourses, and say, 'Flow here, but flow not there.'",2 """ ""But don't you find some danger among your people--I don't mean to say that it is so with you, far from it--but don't you find sometimes that both men and women fancy themselves channels for God's Spirit, and are quite mistaken, so that they set about a work for which they are unfit and bring holy things into contempt?""",1 """Doubtless it is so sometimes; for there have been evil-doers among us who have sought to deceive the brethren, and some there are who deceive their own selves.",1 But we are not without discipline and correction to put a check upon these things.,2 "There's a very strict order kept among us, and the brethren and sisters watch for each other's souls as they that must give account.",1 "They don't go every one his own way and say, 'Am I my brother's keeper?'",2 """ ""But tell me--if I may ask, and I am really interested in knowing it--how you first came to think of preaching?""",2 """Indeed, sir, I didn't think of it at all--I'd been used from the time I was sixteen to talk to the little children, and teach them, and sometimes I had had my heart enlarged to speak in class, and was much drawn out in prayer with the sick.",1 "But I had felt no call to preach, for when I'm not greatly wrought upon, I'm too much given to sit still and keep by myself.",1 It seems as if I could sit silent all day long with the thought of God overflowing my soul--as the pebbles lie bathed in the Willow Brook.,2 "For thoughts are so great--aren't they, sir?",3 "They seem to lie upon us like a deep flood; and it's my besetment to forget where I am and everything about me, and lose myself in thoughts that I could give no account of, for I could neither make a beginning nor ending of them in words.",1 "That was my way as long as I can remember; but sometimes it seemed as if speech came to me without any will of my own, and words were given to me that came out as the tears come, because our hearts are full and we can't help it.",2 "And those were always times of great blessing, though I had never thought it could be so with me before a congregation of people.",3 "But, sir, we are led on, like the little children, by a way that we know not.",3 "I was called to preach quite suddenly, and since then I have never been left in doubt about the work that was laid upon me.""",2 """But tell me the circumstances--just how it was, the very day you began to preach.""",2 """It was one Sunday I walked with brother Marlowe, who was an aged man, one of the local preachers, all the way to Hetton-Deeps--that's a village where the people get their living by working in the lead-mines, and where there's no church nor preacher, but they live like sheep without a shepherd.",3 "It's better than twelve miles from Snowfield, so we set out early in the morning, for it was summertime; and I had a wonderful sense of the Divine love as we walked over the hills, where there's no trees, you know, sir, as there is here, to make the sky look smaller, but you see the heavens stretched out like a tent, and you feel the everlasting arms around you.",4 "But before we got to Hetton, brother Marlowe was seized with a dizziness that made him afraid of falling, for he overworked himself sadly, at his years, in watching and praying, and walking so many miles to speak the Word, as well as carrying on his trade of linen-weaving.",1 "And when we got to the village, the people were expecting him, for he'd appointed the time and the place when he was there before, and such of them as cared to hear the Word of Life were assembled on a spot where the cottages was thickest, so as others might be drawn to come.",2 "But he felt as he couldn't stand up to preach, and he was forced to lie down in the first of the cottages we came to.",1 "So I went to tell the people, thinking we'd go into one of the houses, and I would read and pray with them.",2 "But as I passed along by the cottages and saw the aged and trembling women at the doors, and the hard looks of the men, who seemed to have their eyes no more filled with the sight of the Sabbath morning than if they had been dumb oxen that never looked up to the sky, I felt a great movement in my soul, and I trembled as if I was shaken by a strong spirit entering into my weak body.",1 "And I went to where the little flock of people was gathered together, and stepped on the low wall that was built against the green hillside, and I spoke the words that were given to me abundantly.",2 "And they all came round me out of all the cottages, and many wept over their sins, and have since been joined to the Lord.",2 "That was the beginning of my preaching, sir, and I've preached ever since.""",2 "Dinah had let her work fall during this narrative, which she uttered in her usual simple way, but with that sincere articulate, thrilling treble by which she always mastered her audience.",4 "She stooped now to gather up her sewing, and then went on with it as before.",2 Mr. Irwine was deeply interested.,2 "He said to himself, ""He must be a miserable prig who would act the pedagogue here: one might as well go and lecture the trees for growing in their own shape.""",2 """And you never feel any embarrassment from the sense of your youth--that you are a lovely young woman on whom men's eyes are fixed?""",2 he said aloud.,2 """No, I've no room for such feelings, and I don't believe the people ever take notice about that.",2 "I think, sir, when God makes His presence felt through us, we are like the burning bush: Moses never took any heed what sort of bush it was--he only saw the brightness of the Lord.",2 "I've preached to as rough ignorant people as can be in the villages about Snowfield--men that looked very hard and wild--but they never said an uncivil word to me, and often thanked me kindly as they made way for me to pass through the midst of them.""",0 """THAT I can believe--that I can well believe,"" said Mr. Irwine, emphatically.",2 """And what did you think of your hearers last night, now?",2 "Did you find them quiet and attentive?""",3 """Very quiet, sir, but I saw no signs of any great work upon them, except in a young girl named Bessy Cranage, towards whom my heart yearned greatly, when my eyes first fell on her blooming youth, given up to folly and vanity.",3 "I had some private talk and prayer with her afterwards, and I trust her heart is touched.",3 "But I've noticed that in these villages where the people lead a quiet life among the green pastures and the still waters, tilling the ground and tending the cattle, there's a strange deadness to the Word, as different as can be from the great towns, like Leeds, where I once went to visit a holy woman who preaches there.",4 "It's wonderful how rich is the harvest of souls up those high-walled streets, where you seemed to walk as in a prison-yard, and the ear is deafened with the sounds of worldly toil.",2 "I think maybe it is because the promise is sweeter when this life is so dark and weary, and the soul gets more hungry when the body is ill at ease.""",2 """Why, yes, our farm-labourers are not easily roused.",2 They take life almost as slowly as the sheep and cows.,1 But we have some intelligent workmen about here.,3 "I daresay you know the Bedes; Seth Bede, by the by, is a Methodist.""",2 """Yes, I know Seth well, and his brother Adam a little.",3 "Seth is a gracious young man--sincere and without offence; and Adam is like the patriarch Joseph, for his great skill and knowledge and the kindness he shows to his brother and his parents.""",4 """Perhaps you don't know the trouble that has just happened to them?",1 "Their father, Matthias Bede, was drowned in the Willow Brook last night, not far from his own door.",2 "I'm going now to see Adam.""",2 """Ah, their poor aged mother!""",1 "said Dinah, dropping her hands and looking before her with pitying eyes, as if she saw the object of her sympathy.",1 """She will mourn heavily, for Seth has told me she's of an anxious, troubled heart.",0 "I must go and see if I can give her any help.""",2 "As she rose and was beginning to fold up her work, Captain Donnithorne, having exhausted all plausible pretexts for remaining among the milk-pans, came out of the dairy, followed by Mrs. Poyser.",2 "Mr. Irwine now rose also, and, advancing towards Dinah, held out his hand, and said, ""Good-bye.",3 "I hear you are going away soon; but this will not be the last visit you will pay your aunt--so we shall meet again, I hope.""",2 "His cordiality towards Dinah set all Mrs. Poyser's anxieties at rest, and her face was brighter than usual, as she said, ""I've never asked after Mrs. Irwine and the Miss Irwines, sir; I hope they're as well as usual.""",2 """Yes, thank you, Mrs. Poyser, except that Miss Anne has one of her bad headaches to-day.",1 "By the by, we all liked that nice cream-cheese you sent us--my mother especially.""",3 """I'm very glad, indeed, sir.",3 "It is but seldom I make one, but I remembered Mrs. Irwine was fond of 'em.",3 "Please to give my duty to her, and to Miss Kate and Miss Anne.",1 "They've never been to look at my poultry this long while, and I've got some beautiful speckled chickens, black and white, as Miss Kate might like to have some of amongst hers.""",3 """Well, I'll tell her; she must come and see them.",3 "Good-bye,"" said the rector, mounting his horse.",3 """Just ride slowly on, Irwine,"" said Captain Donnithorne, mounting also.",1 """I'll overtake you in three minutes.",3 I'm only going to speak to the shepherd about the whelps.,2 "Good-bye, Mrs. Poyser; tell your husband I shall come and have a long talk with him soon.""",3 "Mrs. Poyser curtsied duly, and watched the two horses until they had disappeared from the yard, amidst great excitement on the part of the pigs and the poultry, and under the furious indignation of the bull-dog, who performed a Pyrrhic dance, that every moment seemed to threaten the breaking of his chain.",0 "Mrs. Poyser delighted in this noisy exit; it was a fresh assurance to her that the farm-yard was well guarded, and that no loiterers could enter unobserved; and it was not until the gate had closed behind the captain that she turned into the kitchen again, where Dinah stood with her bonnet in her hand, waiting to speak to her aunt, before she set out for Lisbeth Bede's cottage.",3 "Mrs. Poyser, however, though she noticed the bonnet, deferred remarking on it until she had disburdened herself of her surprise at Mr. Irwine's behaviour.",2 """Why, Mr. Irwine wasn't angry, then?",1 "What did he say to you, Dinah?",2 "Didn't he scold you for preaching?""",1 """No, he was not at all angry; he was very friendly to me.",2 "I was quite drawn out to speak to him; I hardly know how, for I had always thought of him as a worldly Sadducee.",2 "But his countenance is as pleasant as the morning sunshine.""",3 """Pleasant!",3 "And what else did y' expect to find him but pleasant?""",3 "said Mrs. Poyser impatiently, resuming her knitting.",1 """I should think his countenance is pleasant indeed!",3 "And him a gentleman born, and's got a mother like a picter.",3 You may go the country round and not find such another woman turned sixty-six.,2 It's summat-like to see such a man as that i' the desk of a Sunday!,3 "As I say to Poyser, it's like looking at a full crop o' wheat, or a pasture with a fine dairy o' cows in it; it makes you think the world's comfortable-like.",4 "But as for such creaturs as you Methodisses run after, I'd as soon go to look at a lot o' bare-ribbed runts on a common.",2 "Fine folks they are to tell you what's right, as look as if they'd never tasted nothing better than bacon-sword and sour-cake i' their lives.",3 "But what did Mr. Irwine say to you about that fool's trick o' preaching on the Green?""",1 """He only said he'd heard of it; he didn't seem to feel any displeasure about it.",1 "But, dear aunt, don't think any more about that.",2 "He told me something that I'm sure will cause you sorrow, as it does me.",1 "Thias Bede was drowned last night in the Willow Brook, and I'm thinking that the aged mother will be greatly in need of comfort.",3 "Perhaps I can be of use to her, so I have fetched my bonnet and am going to set out.""",2 """Dear heart, dear heart!",2 "But you must have a cup o' tea first, child,"" said Mrs. Poyser, falling at once from the key of B with five sharps to the frank and genial C. ""The kettle's boiling--we'll have it ready in a minute; and the young uns 'ull be in and wanting theirs directly.",2 "I'm quite willing you should go and see th' old woman, for you're one as is allays welcome in trouble, Methodist or no Methodist; but, for the matter o' that, it's the flesh and blood folks are made on as makes the difference.",3 "Some cheeses are made o' skimmed milk and some o' new milk, and it's no matter what you call 'em, you may tell which is which by the look and the smell.",1 "But as to Thias Bede, he's better out o' the way nor in--God forgi' me for saying so--for he's done little this ten year but make trouble for them as belonged to him; and I think it 'ud be well for you to take a little bottle o' rum for th' old woman, for I daresay she's got never a drop o' nothing to comfort her inside.",3 "Sit down, child, and be easy, for you shan't stir out till you've had a cup o' tea, and so I tell you.""",3 "During the latter part of this speech, Mrs. Poyser had been reaching down the tea-things from the shelves, and was on her way towards the pantry for the loaf (followed close by Totty, who had made her appearance on the rattling of the tea-cups), when Hetty came out of the dairy relieving her tired arms by lifting them up, and clasping her hands at the back of her head.",1 """Molly,"" she said, rather languidly, ""just run out and get me a bunch of dock-leaves: the butter's ready to pack up now.""",3 """D' you hear what's happened, Hetty?""",2 said her aunt.,2 """No; how should I hear anything?""",2 "was the answer, in a pettish tone.",2 """Not as you'd care much, I daresay, if you did hear; for you're too feather-headed to mind if everybody was dead, so as you could stay upstairs a-dressing yourself for two hours by the clock.",1 But anybody besides yourself 'ud mind about such things happening to them as think a deal more of you than you deserve.,2 "But Adam Bede and all his kin might be drownded for what you'd care--you'd be perking at the glass the next minute.""",2 """Adam Bede--drowned?""",2 "said Hetty, letting her arms fall and looking rather bewildered, but suspecting that her aunt was as usual exaggerating with a didactic purpose.",1 """No, my dear, no,"" said Dinah kindly, for Mrs. Poyser had passed on to the pantry without deigning more precise information.",3 """Not Adam.",2 "Adam's father, the old man, is drowned.",2 He was drowned last night in the Willow Brook.,2 "Mr. Irwine has just told me about it.""",2 """Oh, how dreadful!""",1 "said Hetty, looking serious, but not deeply affected; and as Molly now entered with the dock-leaves, she took them silently and returned to the dairy without asking further questions.",2 WHILE she adjusted the broad leaves that set off the pale fragrant butter as the primrose is set off by its nest of green I am afraid Hetty was thinking a great deal more of the looks Captain Donnithorne had cast at her than of Adam and his troubles.,1 "Bright, admiring glances from a handsome young gentleman with white hands, a gold chain, occasional regimentals, and wealth and grandeur immeasurable--those were the warm rays that set poor Hetty's heart vibrating and playing its little foolish tunes over and over again.",4 "We do not hear that Memnon's statue gave forth its melody at all under the rushing of the mightiest wind, or in response to any other influence divine or human than certain short-lived sunbeams of morning; and we must learn to accommodate ourselves to the discovery that some of those cunningly fashioned instruments called human souls have only a very limited range of music, and will not vibrate in the least under a touch that fills others with tremulous rapture or quivering agony.",1 Hetty was quite used to the thought that people liked to look at her.,3 "She was not blind to the fact that young Luke Britton of Broxton came to Hayslope Church on a Sunday afternoon on purpose that he might see her; and that he would have made much more decided advances if her uncle Poyser, thinking but lightly of a young man whose father's land was so foul as old Luke Britton's, had not forbidden her aunt to encourage him by any civilities.",1 "She was aware, too, that Mr. Craig, the gardener at the Chase, was over head and ears in love with her, and had lately made unmistakable avowals in luscious strawberries and hyperbolical peas.",3 "She knew still better, that Adam Bede--tall, upright, clever, brave Adam Bede--who carried such authority with all the people round about, and whom her uncle was always delighted to see of an evening, saying that ""Adam knew a fine sight more o' the natur o' things than those as thought themselves his betters""--she knew that this Adam, who was often rather stern to other people and not much given to run after the lasses, could be made to turn pale or red any day by a word or a look from her.",4 "Hetty's sphere of comparison was not large, but she couldn't help perceiving that Adam was ""something like"" a man; always knew what to say about things, could tell her uncle how to prop the hovel, and had mended the churn in no time; knew, with only looking at it, the value of the chestnut-tree that was blown down, and why the damp came in the walls, and what they must do to stop the rats; and wrote a beautiful hand that you could read off, and could do figures in his head--a degree of accomplishment totally unknown among the richest farmers of that countryside.",3 "Not at all like that slouching Luke Britton, who, when she once walked with him all the way from Broxton to Hayslope, had only broken silence to remark that the grey goose had begun to lay.",2 "And as for Mr. Craig, the gardener, he was a sensible man enough, to be sure, but he was knock-kneed, and had a queer sort of sing-song in his talk; moreover, on the most charitable supposition, he must be far on the way to forty.",3 "Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and would be pleased for her to marry him.",3 "For those were times when there was no rigid demarcation of rank between the farmer and the respectable artisan, and on the home hearth, as well as in the public house, they might be seen taking their jug of ale together; the farmer having a latent sense of capital, and of weight in parish affairs, which sustained him under his conspicuous inferiority in conversation.",1 "Martin Poyser was not a frequenter of public houses, but he liked a friendly chat over his own home-brewed; and though it was pleasant to lay down the law to a stupid neighbour who had no notion how to make the best of his farm, it was also an agreeable variety to learn something from a clever fellow like Adam Bede.",4 "Accordingly, for the last three years--ever since he had superintended the building of the new barn--Adam had always been made welcome at the Hall Farm, especially of a winter evening, when the whole family, in patriarchal fashion, master and mistress, children and servants, were assembled in that glorious kitchen, at well-graduated distances from the blazing fire.",4 "And for the last two years, at least, Hetty had been in the habit of hearing her uncle say, ""Adam Bede may be working for wage now, but he'll be a master-man some day, as sure as I sit in this chair.",3 "Mester Burge is in the right on't to want him to go partners and marry his daughter, if it's true what they say; the woman as marries him 'ull have a good take, be't Lady day or Michaelmas,"" a remark which Mrs. Poyser always followed up with her cordial assent.",3 """Ah,"" she would say, ""it's all very fine having a ready-made rich man, but mayhappen he'll be a ready-made fool; and it's no use filling your pocket full o' money if you've got a hole in the corner.",3 "It'll do you no good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own, if you've got a soft to drive you: he'll soon turn you over into the ditch.",3 I allays said I'd never marry a man as had got no brains; for where's the use of a woman having brains of her own if she's tackled to a geck as everybody's a-laughing at?,2 "She might as well dress herself fine to sit back'ards on a donkey.""",3 "These expressions, though figurative, sufficiently indicated the bent of Mrs. Poyser's mind with regard to Adam; and though she and her husband might have viewed the subject differently if Hetty had been a daughter of their own, it was clear that they would have welcomed the match with Adam for a penniless niece.",3 "For what could Hetty have been but a servant elsewhere, if her uncle had not taken her in and brought her up as a domestic help to her aunt, whose health since the birth of Totty had not been equal to more positive labour than the superintendence of servants and children?",3 But Hetty had never given Adam any steady encouragement.,3 "Even in the moments when she was most thoroughly conscious of his superiority to her other admirers, she had never brought herself to think of accepting him.",3 "She liked to feel that this strong, skilful, keen-eyed man was in her power, and would have been indignant if he had shown the least sign of slipping from under the yoke of her coquettish tyranny and attaching himself to the gentle Mary Burge, who would have been grateful enough for the most trifling notice from him.",4 """Mary Burge, indeed!",2 "Such a sallow-faced girl: if she put on a bit of pink ribbon, she looked as yellow as a crow-flower and her hair was as straight as a hank of cotton.""",2 "And always when Adam stayed away for several weeks from the Hall Farm, and otherwise made some show of resistance to his passion as a foolish one, Hetty took care to entice him back into the net by little airs of meekness and timidity, as if she were in trouble at his neglect.",0 "But as to marrying Adam, that was a very different affair!",2 There was nothing in the world to tempt her to do that.,3 "Her cheeks never grew a shade deeper when his name was mentioned; she felt no thrill when she saw him passing along the causeway by the window, or advancing towards her unexpectedly in the footpath across the meadow; she felt nothing, when his eyes rested on her, but the cold triumph of knowing that he loved her and would not care to look at Mary Burge.",3 He could no more stir in her the emotions that make the sweet intoxication of young love than the mere picture of a sun can stir the spring sap in the subtle fibres of the plant.,3 "She saw him as he was--a poor man with old parents to keep, who would not be able, for a long while to come, to give her even such luxuries as she shared in her uncle's house.",1 "And Hetty's dreams were all of luxuries: to sit in a carpeted parlour, and always wear white stockings; to have some large beautiful ear-rings, such as were all the fashion; to have Nottingham lace round the top of her gown, and something to make her handkerchief smell nice, like Miss Lydia Donnithorne's when she drew it out at church; and not to be obliged to get up early or be scolded by anybody.",3 "She thought, if Adam had been rich and could have given her these things, she loved him well enough to marry him.",4 "But for the last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty--vague, atmospheric, shaping itself into no self-confessed hopes or prospects, but producing a pleasant narcotic effect, making her tread the ground and go about her work in a sort of dream, unconscious of weight or effort, and showing her all things through a soft, liquid veil, as if she were living not in this solid world of brick and stone, but in a beatified world, such as the sun lights up for us in the waters.",4 "Hetty had become aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of trouble for the chance of seeing her; that he always placed himself at church so as to have the fullest view of her both sitting and standing; that he was constantly finding reason for calling at the Hall Farm, and always would contrive to say something for the sake of making her speak to him and look at him.",1 "The poor child no more conceived at present the idea that the young squire could ever be her lover than a baker's pretty daughter in the crowd, whom a young emperor distinguishes by an imperial but admiring smile, conceives that she shall be made empress.",4 "But the baker's daughter goes home and dreams of the handsome young emperor, and perhaps weighs the flour amiss while she is thinking what a heavenly lot it must be to have him for a husband.",3 "And so, poor Hetty had got a face and a presence haunting her waking and sleeping dreams; bright, soft glances had penetrated her, and suffused her life with a strange, happy languor.",1 "The eyes that shed those glances were really not half so fine as Adam's, which sometimes looked at her with a sad, beseeching tenderness, but they had found a ready medium in Hetty's little silly imagination, whereas Adam's could get no entrance through that atmosphere.",1 "For three weeks, at least, her inward life had consisted of little else than living through in memory the looks and words Arthur had directed towards her--of little else than recalling the sensations with which she heard his voice outside the house, and saw him enter, and became conscious that his eyes were fixed on her, and then became conscious that a tall figure, looking down on her with eyes that seemed to touch her, was coming nearer in clothes of beautiful texture with an odour like that of a flower-garden borne on the evening breeze.",4 Foolish thoughts!,1 "But all this happened, you must remember, nearly sixty years ago, and Hetty was quite uneducated--a simple farmer's girl, to whom a gentleman with a white hand was dazzling as an Olympian god.",3 "Until to-day, she had never looked farther into the future than to the next time Captain Donnithorne would come to the Farm, or the next Sunday when she should see him at church; but now she thought, perhaps he would try to meet her when she went to the Chase to-morrow--and if he should speak to her, and walk a little way, when nobody was by!",2 "That had never happened yet; and now her imagination, instead of retracing the past, was busy fashioning what would happen to-morrow--whereabout in the Chase she should see him coming towards her, how she should put her new rose-coloured ribbon on, which he had never seen, and what he would say to her to make her return his glance--a glance which she would be living through in her memory, over and over again, all the rest of the day.",2 "In this state of mind, how could Hetty give any feeling to Adam's troubles, or think much about poor old Thias being drowned?",1 "Young souls, in such pleasant delirium as hers are as unsympathetic as butterflies sipping nectar; they are isolated from all appeals by a barrier of dreams--by invisible looks and impalpable arms.",1 "While Hetty's hands were busy packing up the butter, and her head filled with these pictures of the morrow, Arthur Donnithorne, riding by Mr. Irwine's side towards the valley of the Willow Brook, had also certain indistinct anticipations, running as an undercurrent in his mind while he was listening to Mr. Irwine's account of Dinah--indistinct, yet strong enough to make him feel rather conscious when Mr. Irwine suddenly said, ""What fascinated you so in Mrs. Poyser's dairy, Arthur?",3 "Have you become an amateur of damp quarries and skimming dishes?""",2 "Arthur knew the rector too well to suppose that a clever invention would be of any use, so he said, with his accustomed frankness, ""No, I went to look at the pretty butter-maker Hetty Sorrel.",4 "She's a perfect Hebe; and if I were an artist, I would paint her.",3 "It's amazing what pretty girls one sees among the farmers' daughters, when the men are such clowns.",3 "That common, round, red face one sees sometimes in the men--all cheek and no features, like Martin Poyser's--comes out in the women of the family as the most charming phiz imaginable.""",3 """Well, I have no objection to your contemplating Hetty in an artistic light, but I must not have you feeding her vanity and filling her little noddle with the notion that she's a great beauty, attractive to fine gentlemen, or you will spoil her for a poor man's wife--honest Craig's, for example, whom I have seen bestowing soft glances on her.",4 The little puss seems already to have airs enough to make a husband as miserable as it's a law of nature for a quiet man to be when he marries a beauty.,3 "Apropos of marrying, I hope our friend Adam will get settled, now the poor old man's gone.",1 "He will only have his mother to keep in future, and I've a notion that there's a kindness between him and that nice modest girl, Mary Burge, from something that fell from old Jonathan one day when I was talking to him.",3 But when I mentioned the subject to Adam he looked uneasy and turned the conversation.,1 "I suppose the love-making doesn't run smooth, or perhaps Adam hangs back till he's in a better position.",3 "He has independence of spirit enough for two men--rather an excess of pride, if anything.""",3 """That would be a capital match for Adam.",2 "He would slip into old Burge's shoes and make a fine thing of that building business, I'll answer for him.",3 I should like to see him well settled in this parish; he would be ready then to act as my grand-vizier when I wanted one.,4 We could plan no end of repairs and improvements together.,3 "I've never seen the girl, though, I think--at least I've never looked at her.""",2 """Look at her next Sunday at church--she sits with her father on the left of the reading-desk.",2 You needn't look quite so much at Hetty Sorrel then.,2 "When I've made up my mind that I can't afford to buy a tempting dog, I take no notice of him, because if he took a strong fancy to me and looked lovingly at me, the struggle between arithmetic and inclination might become unpleasantly severe.",3 "I pique myself on my wisdom there, Arthur, and as an old fellow to whom wisdom had become cheap, I bestow it upon you.""",1 """Thank you.",3 It may stand me in good stead some day though I don't know that I have any present use for it.,3 Bless me!,3 How the brook has overflowed.,2 "Suppose we have a canter, now we're at the bottom of the hill.""",2 "That is the great advantage of dialogue on horseback; it can be merged any minute into a trot or a canter, and one might have escaped from Socrates himself in the saddle.",3 The two friends were free from the necessity of further conversation till they pulled up in the lane behind Adam's cottage.,3 AT five o'clock Lisbeth came downstairs with a large key in her hand: it was the key of the chamber where her husband lay dead.,1 "Throughout the day, except in her occasional outbursts of wailing grief, she had been in incessant movement, performing the initial duties to her dead with the awe and exactitude that belong to religious rites.",0 "She had brought out her little store of bleached linen, which she had for long years kept in reserve for this supreme use.",3 "It seemed but yesterday--that time so many midsummers ago, when she had told Thias where this linen lay, that he might be sure and reach it out for her when SHE died, for she was the elder of the two.",1 "Then there had been the work of cleansing to the strictest purity every object in the sacred chamber, and of removing from it every trace of common daily occupation.",2 "The small window, which had hitherto freely let in the frosty moonlight or the warm summer sunrise on the working man's slumber, must now be darkened with a fair white sheet, for this was the sleep which is as sacred under the bare rafters as in ceiled houses.",3 "Lisbeth had even mended a long-neglected and unnoticeable rent in the checkered bit of bed-curtain; for the moments were few and precious now in which she would be able to do the smallest office of respect or love for the still corpse, to which in all her thoughts she attributed some consciousness.",3 "Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them: they can be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence.",1 And the aged peasant woman most of all believes that her dead are conscious.,1 "Decent burial was what Lisbeth had been thinking of for herself through years of thrift, with an indistinct expectation that she should know when she was being carried to the churchyard, followed by her husband and her sons; and now she felt as if the greatest work of her life were to be done in seeing that Thias was buried decently before her--under the white thorn, where once, in a dream, she had thought she lay in the coffin, yet all the while saw the sunshine above and smelt the white blossoms that were so thick upon the thorn the Sunday she went to be churched after Adam was born.",4 "But now she had done everything that could be done to-day in the chamber of death--had done it all herself, with some aid from her sons in lifting, for she would let no one be fetched to help her from the village, not being fond of female neighbours generally; and her favourite Dolly, the old housekeeper at Mr. Burge's, who had come to condole with her in the morning as soon as she heard of Thias's death, was too dim-sighted to be of much use.",1 "She had locked the door, and now held the key in her hand, as she threw herself wearily into a chair that stood out of its place in the middle of the house floor, where in ordinary times she would never have consented to sit.",2 The kitchen had had none of her attention that day; it was soiled with the tread of muddy shoes and untidy with clothes and other objects out of place.,1 "But what at another time would have been intolerable to Lisbeth's habits of order and cleanliness seemed to her now just what should be: it was right that things should look strange and disordered and wretched, now the old man had come to his end in that sad way; the kitchen ought not to look as if nothing had happened.",0 "Adam, overcome with the agitations and exertions of the day after his night of hard work, had fallen asleep on a bench in the workshop; and Seth was in the back kitchen making a fire of sticks that he might get the kettle to boil, and persuade his mother to have a cup of tea, an indulgence which she rarely allowed herself.",1 There was no one in the kitchen when Lisbeth entered and threw herself into the chair.,2 "She looked round with blank eyes at the dirt and confusion on which the bright afternoon's sun shone dismally; it was all of a piece with the sad confusion of her mind--that confusion which belongs to the first hours of a sudden sorrow, when the poor human soul is like one who has been deposited sleeping among the ruins of a vast city, and wakes up in dreary amazement, not knowing whether it is the growing or the dying day--not knowing why and whence came this illimitable scene of desolation, or why he too finds himself desolate in the midst of it.",0 "At another time Lisbeth's first thought would have been, ""Where is Adam?""",2 but the sudden death of her husband had restored him in these hours to that first place in her affections which he had held six-and-twenty years ago.,2 "She had forgotten his faults as we forget the sorrows of our departed childhood, and thought of nothing but the young husband's kindness and the old man's patience.",3 "Her eyes continued to wander blankly until Seth came in and began to remove some of the scattered things, and clear the small round deal table that he might set out his mother's tea upon it.",3 """What art goin' to do?""",2 "she said, rather peevishly.",1 """I want thee to have a cup of tea, Mother,"" answered Seth, tenderly.",3 """It'll do thee good; and I'll put two or three of these things away, and make the house look more comfortable.""",3 """Comfortable!",3 How canst talk o' ma'in' things comfortable?,3 "Let a-be, let a-be.",2 "There's no comfort for me no more,"" she went on, the tears coming when she began to speak, ""now thy poor feyther's gone, as I'n washed for and mended, an' got's victual for him for thirty 'ear, an' him allays so pleased wi' iverything I done for him, an' used to be so handy an' do the jobs for me when I war ill an' cumbered wi' th' babby, an' made me the posset an' brought it upstairs as proud as could be, an' carried the lad as war as heavy as two children for five mile an' ne'er grumbled, all the way to Warson Wake, 'cause I wanted to go an' see my sister, as war dead an' gone the very next Christmas as e'er come.",3 "An' him to be drownded in the brook as we passed o'er the day we war married an' come home together, an' he'd made them lots o' shelves for me to put my plates an' things on, an' showed 'em me as proud as could be, 'cause he know'd I should be pleased.",3 "An' he war to die an' me not to know, but to be a-sleepin' i' my bed, as if I caredna nought about it.",1 Eh!,2 An' me to live to see that!,2 "An' us as war young folks once, an' thought we should do rarely when we war married.",2 "Let a-be, lad, let a-be!",2 I wonna ha' no tay.,2 I carena if I ne'er ate nor drink no more.,2 "When one end o' th' bridge tumbles down, where's th' use o' th' other stannin'?",1 "I may's well die, an' foller my old man.",2 "There's no knowin' but he'll want me.""",2 "Here Lisbeth broke from words into moans, swaying herself backwards and forwards on her chair.",1 "Seth, always timid in his behaviour towards his mother, from the sense that he had no influence over her, felt it was useless to attempt to persuade or soothe her till this passion was past; so he contented himself with tending the back kitchen fire and folding up his father's clothes, which had been hanging out to dry since morning--afraid to move about in the room where his mother was, lest he should irritate her further.",1 "But after Lisbeth had been rocking herself and moaning for some minutes, she suddenly paused and said aloud to herself, ""I'll go an' see arter Adam, for I canna think where he's gotten; an' I want him to go upstairs wi' me afore it's dark, for the minutes to look at the corpse is like the meltin' snow.""",2 "Seth overheard this, and coming into the kitchen again, as his mother rose from her chair, he said, ""Adam's asleep in the workshop, mother.",2 Thee'dst better not wake him.,3 "He was o'erwrought with work and trouble.""",2 """Wake him?",2 Who's a-goin' to wake him?,2 I shanna wake him wi' lookin' at him.,2 "I hanna seen the lad this two hour--I'd welly forgot as he'd e'er growed up from a babby when's feyther carried him.""",2 "Adam was seated on a rough bench, his head supported by his arm, which rested from the shoulder to the elbow on the long planing-table in the middle of the workshop.",2 "It seemed as if he had sat down for a few minutes' rest and had fallen asleep without slipping from his first attitude of sad, fatigued thought.",0 "His face, unwashed since yesterday, looked pallid and clammy; his hair was tossed shaggily about his forehead, and his closed eyes had the sunken look which follows upon watching and sorrow.",1 "His brow was knit, and his whole face had an expression of weariness and pain.",1 "Gyp was evidently uneasy, for he sat on his haunches, resting his nose on his master's stretched-out leg, and dividing the time between licking the hand that hung listlessly down and glancing with a listening air towards the door.",1 "The poor dog was hungry and restless, but would not leave his master, and was waiting impatiently for some change in the scene.",1 "It was owing to this feeling on Gyp's part that, when Lisbeth came into the workshop and advanced towards Adam as noiselessly as she could, her intention not to awaken him was immediately defeated; for Gyp's excitement was too great to find vent in anything short of a sharp bark, and in a moment Adam opened his eyes and saw his mother standing before him.",4 "It was not very unlike his dream, for his sleep had been little more than living through again, in a fevered delirious way, all that had happened since daybreak, and his mother with her fretful grief was present to him through it all.",0 The chief difference between the reality and the vision was that in his dream Hetty was continually coming before him in bodily presence--strangely mingling herself as an actor in scenes with which she had nothing to do.,1 "She was even by the Willow Brook; she made his mother angry by coming into the house; and he met her with her smart clothes quite wet through, as he walked in the rain to Treddleston, to tell the coroner.",2 "But wherever Hetty came, his mother was sure to follow soon; and when he opened his eyes, it was not at all startling to see her standing near him.",1 """Eh, my lad, my lad!""",2 "Lisbeth burst out immediately, her wailing impulse returning, for grief in its freshness feels the need of associating its loss and its lament with every change of scene and incident, ""thee'st got nobody now but thy old mother to torment thee and be a burden to thee.",0 Thy poor feyther 'ull ne'er anger thee no more; an' thy mother may's well go arter him--the sooner the better--for I'm no good to nobody now.,3 "One old coat 'ull do to patch another, but it's good for nought else.",3 "Thee'dst like to ha' a wife to mend thy clothes an' get thy victual, better nor thy old mother.",3 "An' I shall be nought but cumber, a-sittin' i' th' chimney-corner.",2 "(Adam winced and moved uneasily; he dreaded, of all things, to hear his mother speak of Hetty.) But if thy feyther had lived, he'd ne'er ha' wanted me to go to make room for another, for he could no more ha' done wi'out me nor one side o' the scissars can do wi'out th' other.",1 "Eh, we should ha' been both flung away together, an' then I shouldna ha' seen this day, an' one buryin' 'ud ha' done for us both.""",2 "Here Lisbeth paused, but Adam sat in pained silence--he could not speak otherwise than tenderly to his mother to-day, but he could not help being irritated by this plaint.",2 It was not possible for poor Lisbeth to know how it affected Adam any more than it is possible for a wounded dog to know how his moans affect the nerves of his master.,2 "Like all complaining women, she complained in the expectation of being soothed, and when Adam said nothing, she was only prompted to complain more bitterly.",0 """I know thee couldst do better wi'out me, for thee couldst go where thee likedst an' marry them as thee likedst.",3 "But I donna want to say thee nay, let thee bring home who thee wut; I'd ne'er open my lips to find faut, for when folks is old an' o' no use, they may think theirsens well off to get the bit an' the sup, though they'n to swallow ill words wi't.",3 "An' if thee'st set thy heart on a lass as'll bring thee nought and waste all, when thee mightst ha' them as 'ud make a man on thee, I'll say nought, now thy feyther's dead an' drownded, for I'm no better nor an old haft when the blade's gone.""",1 "Adam, unable to bear this any longer, rose silently from the bench and walked out of the workshop into the kitchen.",1 But Lisbeth followed him.,2 """Thee wutna go upstairs an' see thy feyther then?",2 "I'n done everythin' now, an' he'd like thee to go an' look at him, for he war allays so pleased when thee wast mild to him.""",3 "Adam turned round at once and said, ""Yes, mother; let us go upstairs.",2 "Come, Seth, let us go together.""",2 "They went upstairs, and for five minutes all was silence.",2 "Then the key was turned again, and there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs.",2 "But Adam did not come down again; he was too weary and worn-out to encounter more of his mother's querulous grief, and he went to rest on his bed.",0 "Lisbeth no sooner entered the kitchen and sat down than she threw her apron over her head, and began to cry and moan and rock herself as before.",1 "Seth thought, ""She will be quieter by and by, now we have been upstairs""; and he went into the back kitchen again, to tend his little fire, hoping that he should presently induce her to have some tea.",3 "Lisbeth had been rocking herself in this way for more than five minutes, giving a low moan with every forward movement of her body, when she suddenly felt a hand placed gently on hers, and a sweet treble voice said to her, ""Dear sister, the Lord has sent me to see if I can be a comfort to you.""",3 "Lisbeth paused, in a listening attitude, without removing her apron from her face.",2 The voice was strange to her.,1 Could it be her sister's spirit come back to her from the dead after all those years?,1 She trembled and dared not look.,2 "Dinah, believing that this pause of wonder was in itself a relief for the sorrowing woman, said no more just yet, but quietly took off her bonnet, and then, motioning silence to Seth, who, on hearing her voice, had come in with a beating heart, laid one hand on the back of Lisbeth's chair and leaned over her, that she might be aware of a friendly presence.",4 "Slowly Lisbeth drew down her apron, and timidly she opened her dim dark eyes.",0 "She saw nothing at first but a face--a pure, pale face, with loving grey eyes, and it was quite unknown to her.",2 Her wonder increased; perhaps it WAS an angel.,3 "But in the same instant Dinah had laid her hand on Lisbeth's again, and the old woman looked down at it.",2 "It was a much smaller hand than her own, but it was not white and delicate, for Dinah had never worn a glove in her life, and her hand bore the traces of labour from her childhood upwards.",1 "Lisbeth looked earnestly at the hand for a moment, and then, fixing her eyes again on Dinah's face, said, with something of restored courage, but in a tone of surprise, ""Why, ye're a workin' woman!""",4 """Yes, I am Dinah Morris, and I work in the cotton-mill when I am at home.""",3 """Ah!""",2 "said Lisbeth slowly, still wondering; ""ye comed in so light, like the shadow on the wall, an' spoke i' my ear, as I thought ye might be a sperrit.",2 "Ye've got a'most the face o' one as is a-sittin' on the grave i' Adam's new Bible.""",2 """I come from the Hall Farm now.",2 "You know Mrs. Poyser--she's my aunt, and she has heard of your great affliction, and is very sorry; and I'm come to see if I can be any help to you in your trouble; for I know your sons Adam and Seth, and I know you have no daughter; and when the clergyman told me how the hand of God was heavy upon you, my heart went out towards you, and I felt a command to come and be to you in the place of a daughter in this grief, if you will let me.""",0 """Ah!",2 "I know who y' are now; y' are a Methody, like Seth; he's tould me on you,"" said Lisbeth fretfully, her overpowering sense of pain returning, now her wonder was gone.",3 """Ye'll make it out as trouble's a good thing, like HE allays does.",3 But where's the use o' talkin' to me a-that'n?,2 Ye canna make the smart less wi' talkin'.,3 "Ye'll ne'er make me believe as it's better for me not to ha' my old man die in's bed, if he must die, an' ha' the parson to pray by him, an' me to sit by him, an' tell him ne'er to mind th' ill words I've gi'en him sometimes when I war angered, an' to gi' him a bit an' a sup, as long as a bit an' a sup he'd swallow.",2 But eh!,2 "To die i' the cold water, an' us close to him, an' ne'er to know; an' me a-sleepin', as if I ne'er belonged to him no more nor if he'd been a journeyman tramp from nobody knows where!""",0 "Here Lisbeth began to cry and rock herself again; and Dinah said, ""Yes, dear friend, your affliction is great.",1 It would be hardness of heart to say that your trouble was not heavy to bear.,1 "God didn't send me to you to make light of your sorrow, but to mourn with you, if you will let me.",1 "If you had a table spread for a feast, and was making merry with your friends, you would think it was kind to let me come and sit down and rejoice with you, because you'd think I should like to share those good things; but I should like better to share in your trouble and your labour, and it would seem harder to me if you denied me that.",4 You won't send me away?,2 "You're not angry with me for coming?""",1 """Nay, nay; angered!",2 who said I war angered?,2 It war good on you to come.,3 "An' Seth, why donna ye get her some tay?",2 "Ye war in a hurry to get some for me, as had no need, but ye donna think o' gettin' 't for them as wants it.",2 Sit ye down; sit ye down.,2 "I thank you kindly for comin', for it's little wage ye get by walkin' through the wet fields to see an old woman like me....Nay, I'n got no daughter o' my own--ne'er had one--an' I warna sorry, for they're poor queechy things, gells is; I allays wanted to ha' lads, as could fend for theirsens.",3 "An' the lads 'ull be marryin'--I shall ha' daughters eno', an' too many.",2 "But now, do ye make the tay as ye like it, for I'n got no taste i' my mouth this day--it's all one what I swaller--it's all got the taste o' sorrow wi't.""",2 "Dinah took care not to betray that she had had her tea, and accepted Lisbeth's invitation very readily, for the sake of persuading the old woman herself to take the food and drink she so much needed after a day of hard work and fasting.",2 Seth was so happy now Dinah was in the house that he could not help thinking her presence was worth purchasing with a life in which grief incessantly followed upon grief; but the next moment he reproached himself--it was almost as if he were rejoicing in his father's sad death.,1 "Nevertheless the joy of being with Dinah WOULD triumph--it was like the influence of climate, which no resistance can overcome.",3 "And the feeling even suffused itself over his face so as to attract his mother's notice, while she was drinking her tea.",2 """Thee may'st well talk o' trouble bein' a good thing, Seth, for thee thriv'st on't.",3 Thee look'st as if thee know'dst no more o' care an' cumber nor when thee wast a babby a-lyin' awake i' th' cradle.,2 "For thee'dst allays lie still wi' thy eyes open, an' Adam ne'er 'ud lie still a minute when he wakened.",1 "Thee wast allays like a bag o' meal as can ne'er be bruised--though, for the matter o' that, thy poor feyther war just such another.",1 "But ye've got the same look too"" (here Lisbeth turned to Dinah).",2 """I reckon it's wi' bein' a Methody.",2 "Not as I'm a-findin' faut wi' ye for't, for ye've no call to be frettin', an' somehow ye looken sorry too.",1 Eh!,2 "Well, if the Methodies are fond o' trouble, they're like to thrive: it's a pity they canna ha't all, an' take it away from them as donna like it.",3 "I could ha' gi'en 'em plenty; for when I'd gotten my old man I war worreted from morn till night; and now he's gone, I'd be glad for the worst o'er again.""",2 """Yes,"" said Dinah, careful not to oppose any feeling of Lisbeth's, for her reliance, in her smallest words and deeds, on a divine guidance, always issued in that finest woman's tact which proceeds from acute and ready sympathy; ""yes, I remember too, when my dear aunt died, I longed for the sound of her bad cough in the nights, instead of the silence that came when she was gone.",3 "But now, dear friend, drink this other cup of tea and eat a little more.""",2 """What!""",2 "said Lisbeth, taking the cup and speaking in a less querulous tone, ""had ye got no feyther and mother, then, as ye war so sorry about your aunt?""",1 """No, I never knew a father or mother; my aunt brought me up from a baby.",2 "She had no children, for she was never married and she brought me up as tenderly as if I'd been her own child.""",3 """Eh, she'd fine work wi' ye, I'll warrant, bringin' ye up from a babby, an' her a lone woman--it's ill bringin' up a cade lamb.",3 "But I daresay ye warna franzy, for ye look as if ye'd ne'er been angered i' your life.",2 "But what did ye do when your aunt died, an' why didna ye come to live in this country, bein' as Mrs. Poyser's your aunt too?""",1 "Dinah, seeing that Lisbeth's attention was attracted, told her the story of her early life--how she had been brought up to work hard, and what sort of place Snowfield was, and how many people had a hard life there--all the details that she thought likely to interest Lisbeth.",2 "The old woman listened, and forgot to be fretful, unconsciously subject to the soothing influence of Dinah's face and voice.",1 "After a while she was persuaded to let the kitchen be made tidy; for Dinah was bent on this, believing that the sense of order and quietude around her would help in disposing Lisbeth to join in the prayer she longed to pour forth at her side.",2 "Seth, meanwhile, went out to chop wood, for he surmised that Dinah would like to be left alone with his mother.",3 "Lisbeth sat watching her as she moved about in her still quick way, and said at last, ""Ye've got a notion o' cleanin' up.",2 "I wouldna mind ha'in ye for a daughter, for ye wouldna spend the lad's wage i' fine clothes an' waste.",2 Ye're not like the lasses o' this countryside.,3 "I reckon folks is different at Snowfield from what they are here.""",2 """They have a different sort of life, many of 'em,"" said Dinah; ""they work at different things--some in the mill, and many in the mines, in the villages round about.",3 "But the heart of man is the same everywhere, and there are the children of this world and the children of light there as well as elsewhere.",3 "But we've many more Methodists there than in this country.""",2 """Well, I didna know as the Methody women war like ye, for there's Will Maskery's wife, as they say's a big Methody, isna pleasant to look at, at all.",4 I'd as lief look at a tooad.,2 "An' I'm thinkin' I wouldna mind if ye'd stay an' sleep here, for I should like to see ye i' th' house i' th' mornin'.",3 "But mayhappen they'll be lookin for ye at Mester Poyser's.""",2 """No,"" said Dinah, ""they don't expect me, and I should like to stay, if you'll let me.""",3 """Well, there's room; I'n got my bed laid i' th' little room o'er the back kitchen, an' ye can lie beside me.",2 "I'd be glad to ha' ye wi' me to speak to i' th' night, for ye've got a nice way o' talkin'.",3 It puts me i' mind o' the swallows as was under the thack last 'ear when they fust begun to sing low an' soft-like i' th' mornin'.,3 "Eh, but my old man war fond o' them birds!",3 "An' so war Adam, but they'n ne'er comed again this 'ear.",2 "Happen THEY'RE dead too.""",1 """There,"" said Dinah, ""now the kitchen looks tidy, and now, dear Mother--for I'm your daughter to-night, you know--I should like you to wash your face and have a clean cap on.",4 "Do you remember what David did, when God took away his child from him?",2 "While the child was yet alive he fasted and prayed to God to spare it, and he would neither eat nor drink, but lay on the ground all night, beseeching God for the child.",2 "But when he knew it was dead, he rose up from the ground and washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes, and ate and drank; and when they asked him how it was that he seemed to have left off grieving now the child was dead, he said, 'While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?",1 "But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast?",2 Can I bring him back again?,2 "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.'",2 """ ""Eh, that's a true word,"" said Lisbeth.",2 """Yea, my old man wonna come back to me, but I shall go to him--the sooner the better.",3 "Well, ye may do as ye like wi' me: there's a clean cap i' that drawer, an' I'll go i' the back kitchen an' wash my face.",4 "An' Seth, thee may'st reach down Adam's new Bible wi' th' picters in, an' she shall read us a chapter.",2 "Eh, I like them words--'I shall go to him, but he wonna come back to me.'",3 """ Dinah and Seth were both inwardly offering thanks for the greater quietness of spirit that had come over Lisbeth.",2 "This was what Dinah had been trying to bring about, through all her still sympathy and absence from exhortation.",1 "From her girlhood upwards she had had experience among the sick and the mourning, among minds hardened and shrivelled through poverty and ignorance, and had gained the subtlest perception of the mode in which they could best be touched and softened into willingness to receive words of spiritual consolation or warning.",1 "As Dinah expressed it, ""she was never left to herself; but it was always given her when to keep silence and when to speak.""",2 And do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration?,4 "After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say, as Dinah did, that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us.",3 "And so there was earnest prayer--there was faith, love, and hope pouring forth that evening in the little kitchen.",4 "And poor, aged, fretful Lisbeth, without grasping any distinct idea, without going through any course of religious emotions, felt a vague sense of goodness and love, and of something right lying underneath and beyond all this sorrowing life.",1 "She couldn't understand the sorrow; but, for these moments, under the subduing influence of Dinah's spirit, she felt that she must be patient and still.",2 "IT was but half-past four the next morning when Dinah, tired of lying awake listening to the birds and watching the growing light through the little window in the garret roof, rose and began to dress herself very quietly, lest she should disturb Lisbeth.",0 "But already some one else was astir in the house, and had gone downstairs, preceded by Gyp.",2 "The dog's pattering step was a sure sign that it was Adam who went down; but Dinah was not aware of this, and she thought it was more likely to be Seth, for he had told her how Adam had stayed up working the night before.",2 "Seth, however, had only just awakened at the sound of the opening door.",2 "The exciting influence of the previous day, heightened at last by Dinah's unexpected presence, had not been counteracted by any bodily weariness, for he had not done his ordinary amount of hard work; and so when he went to bed; it was not till he had tired himself with hours of tossing wakefulness that drowsiness came, and led on a heavier morning sleep than was usual with him.",1 "But Adam had been refreshed by his long rest, and with his habitual impatience of mere passivity, he was eager to begin the new day and subdue sadness by his strong will and strong arm.",3 "The white mist lay in the valley; it was going to be a bright warm day, and he would start to work again when he had had his breakfast.",3 """There's nothing but what's bearable as long as a man can work,"" he said to himself; ""the natur o' things doesn't change, though it seems as if one's own life was nothing but change.",3 "The square o' four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight, is as true when a man's miserable as when he's happy; and the best o' working is, it gives you a grip hold o' things outside your own lot.""",3 "As he dashed the cold water over his head and face, he felt completely himself again, and with his black eyes as keen as ever and his thick black hair all glistening with the fresh moisture, he went into the workshop to look out the wood for his father's coffin, intending that he and Seth should carry it with them to Jonathan Burge's and have the coffin made by one of the workmen there, so that his mother might not see and hear the sad task going forward at home.",3 He had just gone into the workshop when his quick ear detected a light rapid foot on the stairs--certainly not his mother's.,3 "He had been in bed and asleep when Dinah had come in, in the evening, and now he wondered whose step this could be.",2 "A foolish thought came, and moved him strangely.",1 As if it could be Hetty!,2 She was the last person likely to be in the house.,2 And yet he felt reluctant to go and look and have the clear proof that it was some one else.,2 "He stood leaning on a plank he had taken hold of, listening to sounds which his imagination interpreted for him so pleasantly that the keen strong face became suffused with a timid tenderness.",3 "The light footstep moved about the kitchen, followed by the sound of the sweeping brush, hardly making so much noise as the lightest breeze that chases the autumn leaves along the dusty path; and Adam's imagination saw a dimpled face, with dark bright eyes and roguish smiles looking backward at this brush, and a rounded figure just leaning a little to clasp the handle.",2 "A very foolish thought--it could not be Hetty; but the only way of dismissing such nonsense from his head was to go and see WHO it was, for his fancy only got nearer and nearer to belief while he stood there listening.",1 He loosed the plank and went to the kitchen door.,2 """How do you do, Adam Bede?""",2 "said Dinah, in her calm treble, pausing from her sweeping and fixing her mild grave eyes upon him.",3 """I trust you feel rested and strengthened again to bear the burden and heat of the day.""",2 It was like dreaming of the sunshine and awaking in the moonlight.,3 "Adam had seen Dinah several times, but always at the Hall Farm, where he was not very vividly conscious of any woman's presence except Hetty's, and he had only in the last day or two begun to suspect that Seth was in love with her, so that his attention had not hitherto been drawn towards her for his brother's sake.",2 "But now her slim figure, her plain black gown, and her pale serene face impressed him with all the force that belongs to a reality contrasted with a preoccupying fancy.",3 "For the first moment or two he made no answer, but looked at her with the concentrated, examining glance which a man gives to an object in which he has suddenly begun to be interested.",1 "Dinah, for the first time in her life, felt a painful self-consciousness; there was something in the dark penetrating glance of this strong man so different from the mildness and timidity of his brother Seth.",1 "A faint blush came, which deepened as she wondered at it.",1 This blush recalled Adam from his forgetfulness.,1 """I was quite taken by surprise; it was very good of you to come and see my mother in her trouble,"" he said, in a gentle grateful tone, for his quick mind told him at once how she came to be there.",3 """I hope my mother was thankful to have you,"" he added, wondering rather anxiously what had been Dinah's reception.",2 """Yes,"" said Dinah, resuming her work, ""she seemed greatly comforted after a while, and she's had a good deal of rest in the night, by times.",3 "She was fast asleep when I left her.""",3 """Who was it took the news to the Hall Farm?""",2 "said Adam, his thoughts reverting to some one there; he wondered whether SHE had felt anything about it.",2 """It was Mr. Irwine, the clergyman, told me, and my aunt was grieved for your mother when she heard it, and wanted me to come; and so is my uncle, I'm sure, now he's heard it, but he was gone out to Rosseter all yesterday.",2 "They'll look for you there as soon as you've got time to go, for there's nobody round that hearth but what's glad to see you.""",3 "Dinah, with her sympathetic divination, knew quite well that Adam was longing to hear if Hetty had said anything about their trouble; she was too rigorously truthful for benevolent invention, but she had contrived to say something in which Hetty was tacitly included.",2 "Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while disbelieves.",4 "Adam liked what Dinah had said so much that his mind was directly full of the next visit he should pay to the Hall Farm, when Hetty would perhaps behave more kindly to him than she had ever done before.",3 """But you won't be there yourself any longer?""",2 he said to Dinah.,2 """No, I go back to Snowfield on Saturday, and I shall have to set out to Treddleston early, to be in time for the Oakbourne carrier.",2 "So I must go back to the farm to-night, that I may have the last day with my aunt and her children.",2 "But I can stay here all to-day, if your mother would like me; and her heart seemed inclined towards me last night.""",3 """Ah, then, she's sure to want you to-day.",2 "If mother takes to people at the beginning, she's sure to get fond of 'em; but she's a strange way of not liking young women.",3 "Though, to be sure,"" Adam went on, smiling, ""her not liking other young women is no reason why she shouldn't like you.""",4 "Hitherto Gyp had been assisting at this conversation in motionless silence, seated on his haunches, and alternately looking up in his master's face to watch its expression and observing Dinah's movements about the kitchen.",1 "The kind smile with which Adam uttered the last words was apparently decisive with Gyp of the light in which the stranger was to be regarded, and as she turned round after putting aside her sweeping-brush, he trotted towards her and put up his muzzle against her hand in a friendly way.",4 """You see Gyp bids you welcome,"" said Adam, ""and he's very slow to welcome strangers.""",2 """Poor dog!""",1 "said Dinah, patting the rough grey coat, ""I've a strange feeling about the dumb things as if they wanted to speak, and it was a trouble to 'em because they couldn't.",0 "I can't help being sorry for the dogs always, though perhaps there's no need.",1 "But they may well have more in them than they know how to make us understand, for we can't say half what we feel, with all our words.""",3 "Seth came down now, and was pleased to find Adam talking with Dinah; he wanted Adam to know how much better she was than all other women.",3 "But after a few words of greeting, Adam drew him into the workshop to consult about the coffin, and Dinah went on with her cleaning.",2 By six o'clock they were all at breakfast with Lisbeth in a kitchen as clean as she could have made it herself.,3 "The window and door were open, and the morning air brought with it a mingled scent of southernwood, thyme, and sweet-briar from the patch of garden by the side of the cottage.",3 "Dinah did not sit down at first, but moved about, serving the others with the warm porridge and the toasted oat-cake, which she had got ready in the usual way, for she had asked Seth to tell her just what his mother gave them for breakfast.",3 "Lisbeth had been unusually silent since she came downstairs, apparently requiring some time to adjust her ideas to a state of things in which she came down like a lady to find all the work done, and sat still to be waited on.",3 Her new sensations seemed to exclude the remembrance of her grief.,2 "At last, after tasting the porridge, she broke silence: ""Ye might ha' made the parridge worse,"" she said to Dinah; ""I can ate it wi'out its turnin' my stomach.",1 "It might ha' been a trifle thicker an' no harm, an' I allays putten a sprig o' mint in mysen; but how's ye t' know that?",1 The lads arena like to get folks as 'll make their parridge as I'n made it for 'em; it's well if they get onybody as 'll make parridge at all.,3 "But ye might do, wi' a bit o' showin'; for ye're a stirrin' body in a mornin', an' ye've a light heel, an' ye've cleaned th' house well enough for a ma'shift.""",3 """Makeshift, mother?""",2 said Adam.,2 """Why, I think the house looks beautiful.",3 "I don't know how it could look better.""",3 """Thee dostna know?",2 Nay; how's thee to know?,2 Th' men ne'er know whether the floor's cleaned or cat-licked.,2 "But thee'lt know when thee gets thy parridge burnt, as it's like enough to be when I'n gi'en o'er makin' it.",3 "Thee'lt think thy mother war good for summat then.""",3 """Dinah,"" said Seth, ""do come and sit down now and have your breakfast.",2 "We're all served now.""",2 """Aye, come an' sit ye down--do,"" said Lisbeth, ""an' ate a morsel; ye'd need, arter bein' upo' your legs this hour an' half a'ready.",2 "Come, then,"" she added, in a tone of complaining affection, as Dinah sat down by her side, ""I'll be loath for ye t' go, but ye canna stay much longer, I doubt.",1 "I could put up wi' ye i' th' house better nor wi' most folks.""",3 """I'll stay till to-night if you're willing,"" said Dinah.",3 """I'd stay longer, only I'm going back to Snowfield on Saturday, and I must be with my aunt to-morrow.""",2 """Eh, I'd ne'er go back to that country.",2 "My old man come from that Stonyshire side, but he left it when he war a young un, an' i' the right on't too; for he said as there war no wood there, an' it 'ud ha' been a bad country for a carpenter.""",2 """Ah,"" said Adam, ""I remember father telling me when I was a little lad that he made up his mind if ever he moved it should be south'ard.",2 But I'm not so sure about it.,2 "Bartle Massey says--and he knows the South--as the northern men are a finer breed than the southern, harder-headed and stronger-bodied, and a deal taller.",3 "And then he says in some o' those counties it's as flat as the back o' your hand, and you can see nothing of a distance without climbing up the highest trees.",2 I couldn't abide that.,2 "I like to go to work by a road that'll take me up a bit of a hill, and see the fields for miles round me, and a bridge, or a town, or a bit of a steeple here and there.",3 "It makes you feel the world's a big place, and there's other men working in it with their heads and hands besides yourself.""",2 """I like th' hills best,"" said Seth, ""when the clouds are over your head and you see the sun shining ever so far off, over the Loamford way, as I've often done o' late, on the stormy days.",3 "It seems to me as if that was heaven where there's always joy and sunshine, though this life's dark and cloudy.""",2 """Oh, I love the Stonyshire side,"" said Dinah; ""I shouldn't like to set my face towards the countries where they're rich in corn and cattle, and the ground so level and easy to tread; and to turn my back on the hills where the poor people have to live such a hard life and the men spend their days in the mines away from the sunlight.",3 "It's very blessed on a bleak cold day, when the sky is hanging dark over the hill, to feel the love of God in one's soul, and carry it to the lonely, bare, stone houses, where there's nothing else to give comfort.""",1 """Eh!""",2 "said Lisbeth, ""that's very well for ye to talk, as looks welly like the snowdrop-flowers as ha' lived for days an' days when I'n gethered 'em, wi' nothin' but a drop o' water an' a peep o' daylight; but th' hungry foulks had better leave th' hungry country.",4 It makes less mouths for the scant cake.,1 "But,"" she went on, looking at Adam, ""donna thee talk o' goin' south'ard or north'ard, an' leavin' thy feyther and mother i' the churchyard, an' goin' to a country as they know nothin' on.",2 "I'll ne'er rest i' my grave if I donna see thee i' the churchyard of a Sunday.""",2 """Donna fear, mother,"" said Adam.",1 """If I hadna made up my mind not to go, I should ha' been gone before now.""",2 "He had finished his breakfast now, and rose as he was speaking.",2 """What art goin' to do?""",2 asked Lisbeth.,2 """Set about thy feyther's coffin?""",2 """No, mother,"" said Adam; ""we're going to take the wood to the village and have it made there.""",2 """Nay, my lad, nay,"" Lisbeth burst out in an eager, wailing tone; ""thee wotna let nobody make thy feyther's coffin but thysen?",3 Who'd make it so well?,3 "An' him as know'd what good work war, an's got a son as is the head o' the village an' all Treddles'on too, for cleverness.""",3 """Very well, mother, if that's thy wish, I'll make the coffin at home; but I thought thee wouldstna like to hear the work going on.""",4 """An' why shouldna I like 't?",3 It's the right thing to be done.,3 An' what's liking got to do wi't?,3 It's choice o' mislikings is all I'n got i' this world.,2 One morsel's as good as another when your mouth's out o' taste.,3 Thee mun set about it now this mornin' fust thing.,2 "I wonna ha' nobody to touch the coffin but thee.""",2 "Adam's eyes met Seth's, which looked from Dinah to him rather wistfully.",2 """No, Mother,"" he said, ""I'll not consent but Seth shall have a hand in it too, if it's to be done at home.",2 "I'll go to the village this forenoon, because Mr. Burge 'ull want to see me, and Seth shall stay at home and begin the coffin.",2 "I can come back at noon, and then he can go.""",2 """Nay, nay,"" persisted Lisbeth, beginning to cry, ""I'n set my heart on't as thee shalt ma' thy feyther's coffin.",1 "Thee't so stiff an' masterful, thee't ne'er do as thy mother wants thee.",2 Thee wast often angered wi' thy feyther when he war alive; thee must be the better to him now he's gone.,3 "He'd ha' thought nothin' on't for Seth to ma's coffin.""",2 """Say no more, Adam, say no more,"" said Seth, gently, though his voice told that he spoke with some effort; ""Mother's in the right.",3 "I'll go to work, and do thee stay at home.""",3 "He passed into the workshop immediately, followed by Adam; while Lisbeth, automatically obeying her old habits, began to put away the breakfast things, as if she did not mean Dinah to take her place any longer.",2 "Dinah said nothing, but presently used the opportunity of quietly joining the brothers in the workshop.",2 "They had already got on their aprons and paper caps, and Adam was standing with his left hand on Seth's shoulder, while he pointed with the hammer in his right to some boards which they were looking at.",3 "Their backs were turned towards the door by which Dinah entered, and she came in so gently that they were not aware of her presence till they heard her voice saying, ""Seth Bede!""",2 "Seth started, and they both turned round.",2 "Dinah looked as if she did not see Adam, and fixed her eyes on Seth's face, saying with calm kindness, ""I won't say farewell.",3 I shall see you again when you come from work.,3 "So as I'm at the farm before dark, it will be quite soon enough.""",2 """Thank you, Dinah; I should like to walk home with you once more.",3 "It'll perhaps be the last time.""",2 There was a little tremor in Seth's voice.,2 "Dinah put out her hand and said, ""You'll have sweet peace in your mind to-day, Seth, for your tenderness and long-suffering towards your aged mother.""",2 She turned round and left the workshop as quickly and quietly as she had entered it.,2 "Adam had been observing her closely all the while, but she had not looked at him.",2 "As soon as she was gone, he said, ""I don't wonder at thee for loving her, Seth.",3 "She's got a face like a lily.""",3 "Seth's soul rushed to his eyes and lips: he had never yet confessed his secret to Adam, but now he felt a delicious sense of disburdenment, as he answered, ""Aye, Addy, I do love her--too much, I doubt.",3 "But she doesna love me, lad, only as one child o' God loves another.",3 "She'll never love any man as a husband--that's my belief.""",3 """Nay, lad, there's no telling; thee mustna lose heart.",1 She's made out o' stuff with a finer grain than most o' the women; I can see that clear enough.,4 "But if she's better than they are in other things, I canna think she'll fall short of 'em in loving.""",3 No more was said.,2 "Seth set out to the village, and Adam began his work on the coffin.",3 """God help the lad, and me too,"" he thought, as he lifted the board.",2 """We're like enough to find life a tough job--hard work inside and out.",4 "It's a strange thing to think of a man as can lift a chair with his teeth and walk fifty mile on end, trembling and turning hot and cold at only a look from one woman out of all the rest i' the world.",1 "It's a mystery we can give no account of; but no more we can of the sprouting o' the seed, for that matter.""",1 "THAT same Thursday morning, as Arthur Donnithorne was moving about in his dressing-room seeing his well-looking British person reflected in the old-fashioned mirrors, and stared at, from a dingy olive-green piece of tapestry, by Pharaoh's daughter and her maidens, who ought to have been minding the infant Moses, he was holding a discussion with himself, which, by the time his valet was tying the black silk sling over his shoulder, had issued in a distinct practical resolution.",3 """I mean to go to Eagledale and fish for a week or so,"" he said aloud.",2 """I shall take you with me, Pym, and set off this morning; so be ready by half-past eleven.""",3 "The low whistle, which had assisted him in arriving at this resolution, here broke out into his loudest ringing tenor, and the corridor, as he hurried along it, echoed to his favourite song from the Beggar's Opera, ""When the heart of a man is oppressed with care.""",1 Not an heroic strain; nevertheless Arthur felt himself very heroic as he strode towards the stables to give his orders about the horses.,2 "His own approbation was necessary to him, and it was not an approbation to be enjoyed quite gratuitously; it must be won by a fair amount of merit.",4 "He had never yet forfeited that approbation, and he had considerable reliance on his own virtues.",2 No young man could confess his faults more candidly; candour was one of his favourite virtues; and how can a man's candour be seen in all its lustre unless he has a few failings to talk of?,1 "But he had an agreeable confidence that his faults were all of a generous kind--impetuous, warm-blooded, leonine; never crawling, crafty, reptilian.",3 "It was not possible for Arthur Donnithorne to do anything mean, dastardly, or cruel.",1 """No!",2 "I'm a devil of a fellow for getting myself into a hobble, but I always take care the load shall fall on my own shoulders.""",0 "Unhappily, there is no inherent poetical justice in hobbles, and they will sometimes obstinately refuse to inflict their worst consequences on the prime offender, in spite of his loudly expressed wish.",0 It was entirely owing to this deficiency in the scheme of things that Arthur had ever brought any one into trouble besides himself.,1 "He was nothing if not good-natured; and all his pictures of the future, when he should come into the estate, were made up of a prosperous, contented tenantry, adoring their landlord, who would be the model of an English gentleman--mansion in first-rate order, all elegance and high taste--jolly housekeeping, finest stud in Loamshire--purse open to all public objects--in short, everything as different as possible from what was now associated with the name of Donnithorne.",4 "And one of the first good actions he would perform in that future should be to increase Irwine's income for the vicarage of Hayslope, so that he might keep a carriage for his mother and sisters.",3 His hearty affection for the rector dated from the age of frocks and trousers.,3 "It was an affection partly filial, partly fraternal--fraternal enough to make him like Irwine's company better than that of most younger men, and filial enough to make him shrink strongly from incurring Irwine's disapprobation.",4 "You perceive that Arthur Donnithorne was ""a good fellow""--all his college friends thought him such.",3 He couldn't bear to see any one uncomfortable; he would have been sorry even in his angriest moods for any harm to happen to his grandfather; and his Aunt Lydia herself had the benefit of that soft-heartedness which he bore towards the whole sex.,1 "Whether he would have self-mastery enough to be always as harmless and purely beneficent as his good-nature led him to desire, was a question that no one had yet decided against him; he was but twenty-one, you remember, and we don't inquire too closely into character in the case of a handsome generous young fellow, who will have property enough to support numerous peccadilloes--who, if he should unfortunately break a man's legs in his rash driving, will be able to pension him handsomely; or if he should happen to spoil a woman's existence for her, will make it up to her with expensive bon-bons, packed up and directed by his own hand.",4 "It would be ridiculous to be prying and analytic in such cases, as if one were inquiring into the character of a confidential clerk.",1 "We use round, general, gentlemanly epithets about a young man of birth and fortune; and ladies, with that fine intuition which is the distinguishing attribute of their sex, see at once that he is ""nice.""",4 The chances are that he will go through life without scandalizing any one; a seaworthy vessel that no one would refuse to insure.,1 "Ships, certainly, are liable to casualties, which sometimes make terribly evident some flaw in their construction that would never have been discoverable in smooth water; and many a ""good fellow,"" through a disastrous combination of circumstances, has undergone a like betrayal.",1 "But we have no fair ground for entertaining unfavourable auguries concerning Arthur Donnithorne, who this morning proves himself capable of a prudent resolution founded on conscience.",4 "One thing is clear: Nature has taken care that he shall never go far astray with perfect comfort and satisfaction to himself; he will never get beyond that border-land of sin, where he will be perpetually harassed by assaults from the other side of the boundary.",2 "He will never be a courtier of Vice, and wear her orders in his button-hole.",1 "It was about ten o'clock, and the sun was shining brilliantly; everything was looking lovelier for the yesterday's rain.",3 "It is a pleasant thing on such a morning to walk along the well-rolled gravel on one's way to the stables, meditating an excursion.",3 "But the scent of the stables, which, in a natural state of things, ought to be among the soothing influences of a man's life, always brought with it some irritation to Arthur.",1 There was no having his own way in the stables; everything was managed in the stingiest fashion.,2 "His grandfather persisted in retaining as head groom an old dolt whom no sort of lever could move out of his old habits, and who was allowed to hire a succession of raw Loamshire lads as his subordinates, one of whom had lately tested a new pair of shears by clipping an oblong patch on Arthur's bay mare.",2 "This state of things is naturally embittering; one can put up with annoyances in the house, but to have the stable made a scene of vexation and disgust is a point beyond what human flesh and blood can be expected to endure long together without danger of misanthropy.",0 "Old John's wooden, deep-wrinkled face was the first object that met Arthur's eyes as he entered the stable-yard, and it quite poisoned for him the bark of the two bloodhounds that kept watch there.",1 He could never speak quite patiently to the old blockhead.,2 """You must have Meg saddled for me and brought to the door at half-past eleven, and I shall want Rattler saddled for Pym at the same time.",2 "Do you hear?""",2 """Yes, I hear, I hear, Cap'n,"" said old John very deliberately, following the young master into the stable.",3 "John considered a young master as the natural enemy of an old servant, and young people in general as a poor contrivance for carrying on the world.",1 "Arthur went in for the sake of patting Meg, declining as far as possible to see anything in the stables, lest he should lose his temper before breakfast.",0 "The pretty creature was in one of the inner stables, and turned her mild head as her master came beside her.",3 "Little Trot, a tiny spaniel, her inseparable companion in the stable, was comfortably curled up on her back.",3 """Well, Meg, my pretty girl,"" said Arthur, patting her neck, ""we'll have a glorious canter this morning.""",4 """Nay, your honour, I donna see as that can be,"" said John.",2 """Not be?",2 "Why not?""",2 """Why, she's got lamed.""",2 """Lamed, confound you!",1 "What do you mean?""",2 """Why, th' lad took her too close to Dalton's hosses, an' one on 'em flung out at her, an' she's got her shank bruised o' the near foreleg.""",1 The judicious historian abstains from narrating precisely what ensued.,3 "You understand that there was a great deal of strong language, mingled with soothing ""who-ho's"" while the leg was examined; that John stood by with quite as much emotion as if he had been a cunningly carved crab-tree walking-stick, and that Arthur Donnithorne presently repassed the iron gates of the pleasure-ground without singing as he went.",4 He considered himself thoroughly disappointed and annoyed.,1 There was not another mount in the stable for himself and his servant besides Meg and Rattler.,3 It was vexatious; just when he wanted to get out of the way for a week or two.,2 It seemed culpable in Providence to allow such a combination of circumstances.,2 "To be shut up at the Chase with a broken arm when every other fellow in his regiment was enjoying himself at Windsor--shut up with his grandfather, who had the same sort of affection for him as for his parchment deeds!",3 And to be disgusted at every turn with the management of the house and the estate!,1 "In such circumstances a man necessarily gets in an ill humour, and works off the irritation by some excess or other.",3 """Salkeld would have drunk a bottle of port every day,"" he muttered to himself, ""but I'm not well seasoned enough for that.",3 "Well, since I can't go to Eagledale, I'll have a gallop on Rattler to Norburne this morning, and lunch with Gawaine.""",3 Behind this explicit resolution there lay an implicit one.,2 "If he lunched with Gawaine and lingered chatting, he should not reach the Chase again till nearly five, when Hetty would be safe out of his sight in the housekeeper's room; and when she set out to go home, it would be his lazy time after dinner, so he should keep out of her way altogether.",2 "There really would have been no harm in being kind to the little thing, and it was worth dancing with a dozen ballroom belles only to look at Hetty for half an hour.",2 "But perhaps he had better not take any more notice of her; it might put notions into her head, as Irwine had hinted; though Arthur, for his part, thought girls were not by any means so soft and easily bruised; indeed, he had generally found them twice as cool and cunning as he was himself.",3 "As for any real harm in Hetty's case, it was out of the question: Arthur Donnithorne accepted his own bond for himself with perfect confidence.",3 So the twelve o'clock sun saw him galloping towards Norburne; and by good fortune Halsell Common lay in his road and gave him some fine leaps for Rattler.,4 "Nothing like ""taking"" a few bushes and ditches for exorcising a demon; and it is really astonishing that the Centaurs, with their immense advantages in this way, have left so bad a reputation in history.",4 "After this, you will perhaps be surprised to hear that although Gawaine was at home, the hand of the dial in the courtyard had scarcely cleared the last stroke of three when Arthur returned through the entrance-gates, got down from the panting Rattler, and went into the house to take a hasty luncheon.",1 "But I believe there have been men since his day who have ridden a long way to avoid a rencontre, and then galloped hastily back lest they should miss it.",1 "It is the favourite stratagem of our passions to sham a retreat, and to turn sharp round upon us at the moment we have made up our minds that the day is our own.",1 """The cap'n's been ridin' the devil's own pace,"" said Dalton the coachman, whose person stood out in high relief as he smoked his pipe against the stable wall, when John brought up Rattler.",3 """An' I wish he'd get the devil to do's grooming for'n,"" growled John.",1 """Aye; he'd hev a deal haimabler groom nor what he has now,"" observed Dalton--and the joke appeared to him so good that, being left alone upon the scene, he continued at intervals to take his pipe from his mouth in order to wink at an imaginary audience and shake luxuriously with a silent, ventral laughter, mentally rehearsing the dialogue from the beginning, that he might recite it with effect in the servants' hall.",2 "When Arthur went up to his dressing-room again after luncheon, it was inevitable that the debate he had had with himself there earlier in the day should flash across his mind; but it was impossible for him now to dwell on the remembrance--impossible to recall the feelings and reflections which had been decisive with him then, any more than to recall the peculiar scent of the air that had freshened him when he first opened his window.",1 The desire to see Hetty had rushed back like an ill-stemmed current; he was amazed himself at the force with which this trivial fancy seemed to grasp him: he was even rather tremulous as he brushed his hair--pooh!,3 it was riding in that break-neck way.,1 "It was because he had made a serious affair of an idle matter, by thinking of it as if it were of any consequence.",1 "He would amuse himself by seeing Hetty to-day, and get rid of the whole thing from his mind.",3 It was all Irwine's fault.,1 """If Irwine had said nothing, I shouldn't have thought half so much of Hetty as of Meg's lameness.""",2 "However, it was just the sort of day for lolling in the Hermitage, and he would go and finish Dr. Moore's Zeluco there before dinner.",2 The Hermitage stood in Fir-tree Grove--the way Hetty was sure to come in walking from the Hall Farm.,2 "So nothing could be simpler and more natural: meeting Hetty was a mere circumstance of his walk, not its object.",2 "Arthur's shadow flitted rather faster among the sturdy oaks of the Chase than might have been expected from the shadow of a tired man on a warm afternoon, and it was still scarcely four o'clock when he stood before the tall narrow gate leading into the delicious labyrinthine wood which skirted one side of the Chase, and which was called Fir-tree Grove, not because the firs were many, but because they were few.",4 "It was a wood of beeches and limes, with here and there a light silver-stemmed birch--just the sort of wood most haunted by the nymphs: you see their white sunlit limbs gleaming athwart the boughs, or peeping from behind the smooth-sweeping outline of a tall lime; you hear their soft liquid laughter--but if you look with a too curious sacrilegious eye, they vanish behind the silvery beeches, they make you believe that their voice was only a running brooklet, perhaps they metamorphose themselves into a tawny squirrel that scampers away and mocks you from the topmost bough.",3 "It was not a grove with measured grass or rolled gravel for you to tread upon, but with narrow, hollow-shaped, earthy paths, edged with faint dashes of delicate moss--paths which look as if they were made by the free will of the trees and underwood, moving reverently aside to look at the tall queen of the white-footed nymphs.",3 "It was along the broadest of these paths that Arthur Donnithorne passed, under an avenue of limes and beeches.",2 "It was a still afternoon--the golden light was lingering languidly among the upper boughs, only glancing down here and there on the purple pathway and its edge of faintly sprinkled moss: an afternoon in which destiny disguises her cold awful face behind a hazy radiant veil, encloses us in warm downy wings, and poisons us with violet-scented breath.",3 "Arthur strolled along carelessly, with a book under his arm, but not looking on the ground as meditative men are apt to do; his eyes WOULD fix themselves on the distant bend in the road round which a little figure must surely appear before long.",2 Ah!,2 There she comes.,2 "First a bright patch of colour, like a tropic bird among the boughs; then a tripping figure, with a round hat on, and a small basket under her arm; then a deep-blushing, almost frightened, but bright-smiling girl, making her curtsy with a fluttered yet happy glance, as Arthur came up to her.",4 "If Arthur had had time to think at all, he would have thought it strange that he should feel fluttered too, be conscious of blushing too--in fact, look and feel as foolish as if he had been taken by surprise instead of meeting just what he expected.",1 Poor things!,1 "It was a pity they were not in that golden age of childhood when they would have stood face to face, eyeing each other with timid liking, then given each other a little butterfly kiss, and toddled off to play together.",2 "Arthur would have gone home to his silk-curtained cot, and Hetty to her home-spun pillow, and both would have slept without dreams, and to-morrow would have been a life hardly conscious of a yesterday.",2 Arthur turned round and walked by Hetty's side without giving a reason.,2 They were alone together for the first time.,2 What an overpowering presence that first privacy is!,2 He actually dared not look at this little butter-maker for the first minute or two.,2 "As for Hetty, her feet rested on a cloud, and she was borne along by warm zephyrs; she had forgotten her rose-coloured ribbons; she was no more conscious of her limbs than if her childish soul had passed into a water-lily, resting on a liquid bed and warmed by the midsummer sun-beams.",1 "It may seem a contradiction, but Arthur gathered a certain carelessness and confidence from his timidity: it was an entirely different state of mind from what he had expected in such a meeting with Hetty; and full as he was of vague feeling, there was room, in those moments of silence, for the thought that his previous debates and scruples were needless.",0 """You are quite right to choose this way of coming to the Chase,"" he said at last, looking down at Hetty; ""it is so much prettier as well as shorter than coming by either of the lodges.""",3 """Yes, sir,"" Hetty answered, with a tremulous, almost whispering voice.",2 "She didn't know one bit how to speak to a gentleman like Mr. Arthur, and her very vanity made her more coy of speech.",2 """Do you come every week to see Mrs. Pomfret?""",2 """Yes, sir, every Thursday, only when she's got to go out with Miss Donnithorne.""",1 """And she's teaching you something, is she?""",2 """Yes, sir, the lace-mending as she learnt abroad, and the stocking-mending--it looks just like the stocking, you can't tell it's been mended; and she teaches me cutting-out too.""",3 """What!",2 "are YOU going to be a lady's maid?""",2 """I should like to be one very much indeed.""",3 "Hetty spoke more audibly now, but still rather tremulously; she thought, perhaps she seemed as stupid to Captain Donnithorne as Luke Britton did to her.",2 """I suppose Mrs. Pomfret always expects you at this time?""",2 """She expects me at four o'clock.",2 "I'm rather late to-day, because my aunt couldn't spare me; but the regular time is four, because that gives us time before Miss Donnithorne's bell rings.""",1 """Ah, then, I must not keep you now, else I should like to show you the Hermitage.",3 "Did you ever see it?""",2 """No, sir.""",2 """This is the walk where we turn up to it.",2 But we must not go now.,2 "I'll show it you some other time, if you'd like to see it.""",3 """Yes, please, sir.""",2 """Do you always come back this way in the evening, or are you afraid to come so lonely a road?""",1 """Oh no, sir, it's never late; I always set out by eight o'clock, and it's so light now in the evening.",2 "My aunt would be angry with me if I didn't get home before nine.""",1 """Perhaps Craig, the gardener, comes to take care of you?""",2 A deep blush overspread Hetty's face and neck.,2 """I'm sure he doesn't; I'm sure he never did; I wouldn't let him; I don't like him,"" she said hastily, and the tears of vexation had come so fast that before she had done speaking a bright drop rolled down her hot cheek.",3 "Then she felt ashamed to death that she was crying, and for one long instant her happiness was all gone.",1 "But in the next she felt an arm steal round her, and a gentle voice said, ""Why, Hetty, what makes you cry?",1 I didn't mean to vex you.,1 "I wouldn't vex you for the world, you little blossom.",2 "Come, don't cry; look at me, else I shall think you won't forgive me.""",1 "Arthur had laid his hand on the soft arm that was nearest to him, and was stooping towards Hetty with a look of coaxing entreaty.",3 "Hetty lifted her long dewy lashes, and met the eyes that were bent towards her with a sweet, timid, beseeching look.",1 What a space of time those three moments were while their eyes met and his arms touched her!,2 "Love is such a simple thing when we have only one-and-twenty summers and a sweet girl of seventeen trembles under our glance, as if she were a bud first opening her heart with wondering rapture to the morning.",4 Such young unfurrowed souls roll to meet each other like two velvet peaches that touch softly and are at rest; they mingle as easily as two brooklets that ask for nothing but to entwine themselves and ripple with ever-interlacing curves in the leafiest hiding-places.,3 "While Arthur gazed into Hetty's dark beseeching eyes, it made no difference to him what sort of English she spoke; and even if hoops and powder had been in fashion, he would very likely not have been sensible just then that Hetty wanted those signs of high breeding.",2 "But they started asunder with beating hearts: something had fallen on the ground with a rattling noise; it was Hetty's basket; all her little workwoman's matters were scattered on the path, some of them showing a capability of rolling to great lengths.",1 "There was much to be done in picking up, and not a word was spoken; but when Arthur hung the basket over her arm again, the poor child felt a strange difference in his look and manner.",0 "He just pressed her hand, and said, with a look and tone that were almost chilling to her, ""I have been hindering you; I must not keep you any longer now.",2 You will be expected at the house.,2 "Good-bye.""",3 "Without waiting for her to speak, he turned away from her and hurried back towards the road that led to the Hermitage, leaving Hetty to pursue her way in a strange dream that seemed to have begun in bewildering delight and was now passing into contrarieties and sadness.",1 Would he meet her again as she came home?,2 Why had he spoken almost as if he were displeased with her?,1 And then run away so suddenly?,2 "She cried, hardly knowing why.",2 "Arthur too was very uneasy, but his feelings were lit up for him by a more distinct consciousness.",1 "He hurried to the Hermitage, which stood in the heart of the wood, unlocked the door with a hasty wrench, slammed it after him, pitched Zeluco into the most distant corner, and thrusting his right hand into his pocket, first walked four or five times up and down the scanty length of the little room, and then seated himself on the ottoman in an uncomfortable stiff way, as we often do when we wish not to abandon ourselves to feeling.",1 He was getting in love with Hetty--that was quite plain.,3 He was ready to pitch everything else--no matter where--for the sake of surrendering himself to this delicious feeling which had just disclosed itself.,3 "It was no use blinking the fact now--they would get too fond of each other, if he went on taking notice of her--and what would come of it?",3 "He should have to go away in a few weeks, and the poor little thing would be miserable.",1 He MUST NOT see her alone again; he must keep out of her way.,2 What a fool he was for coming back from Gawaine's!,1 "He got up and threw open the windows, to let in the soft breath of the afternoon, and the healthy scent of the firs that made a belt round the Hermitage.",3 "The soft air did not help his resolution, as he leaned out and looked into the leafy distance.",3 But he considered his resolution sufficiently fixed: there was no need to debate with himself any longer.,3 "He had made up his mind not to meet Hetty again; and now he might give himself up to thinking how immensely agreeable it would be if circumstances were different--how pleasant it would have been to meet her this evening as she came back, and put his arm round her again and look into her sweet face.",4 He wondered if the dear little thing were thinking of him too--twenty to one she was.,2 How beautiful her eyes were with the tear on their lashes!,3 "He would like to satisfy his soul for a day with looking at them, and he MUST see her again--he must see her, simply to remove any false impression from her mind about his manner to her just now.",3 "He would behave in a quiet, kind way to her--just to prevent her from going home with her head full of wrong fancies.",2 "Yes, that would be the best thing to do after all.",3 "It was a long while--more than an hour before Arthur had brought his meditations to this point; but once arrived there, he could stay no longer at the Hermitage.",2 The time must be filled up with movement until he should see Hetty again.,2 "And it was already late enough to go and dress for dinner, for his grandfather's dinner-hour was six.",3 "IT happened that Mrs. Pomfret had had a slight quarrel with Mrs. Best, the housekeeper, on this Thursday morning--a fact which had two consequences highly convenient to Hetty.",3 "It caused Mrs. Pomfret to have tea sent up to her own room, and it inspired that exemplary lady's maid with so lively a recollection of former passages in Mrs. Best's conduct, and of dialogues in which Mrs. Best had decidedly the inferiority as an interlocutor with Mrs. Pomfret, that Hetty required no more presence of mind than was demanded for using her needle, and throwing in an occasional ""yes"" or ""no.""",3 "She would have wanted to put on her hat earlier than usual; only she had told Captain Donnithorne that she usually set out about eight o'clock, and if he SHOULD go to the Grove again expecting to see her, and she should be gone!",2 Would he come?,2 Her little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory and dubious expectation.,1 "At last the minute-hand of the old-fashioned brazen-faced timepiece was on the last quarter to eight, and there was every reason for its being time to get ready for departure.",2 Even Mrs. Pomfret's preoccupied mind did not prevent her from noticing what looked like a new flush of beauty in the little thing as she tied on her hat before the looking-glass.,3 """That child gets prettier and prettier every day, I do believe,"" was her inward comment.",2 """The more's the pity.",1 She'll get neither a place nor a husband any the sooner for it.,2 Sober well-to-do men don't like such pretty wives.,3 "When I was a girl, I was more admired than if I had been so very pretty.",3 "However, she's reason to be grateful to me for teaching her something to get her bread with, better than farm-house work.",4 "They always told me I was good-natured--and that's the truth, and to my hurt too, else there's them in this house that wouldn't be here now to lord it over me in the housekeeper's room.""",2 "Hetty walked hastily across the short space of pleasure-ground which she had to traverse, dreading to meet Mr. Craig, to whom she could hardly have spoken civilly.",2 How relieved she was when she had got safely under the oaks and among the fern of the Chase!,3 Even then she was as ready to be startled as the deer that leaped away at her approach.,3 "She thought nothing of the evening light that lay gently in the grassy alleys between the fern, and made the beauty of their living green more visible than it had been in the overpowering flood of noon: she thought of nothing that was present.",3 She only saw something that was possible: Mr. Arthur Donnithorne coming to meet her again along the Fir-tree Grove.,2 That was the foreground of Hetty's picture; behind it lay a bright hazy something--days that were not to be as the other days of her life had been.,2 "It was as if she had been wooed by a river-god, who might any time take her to his wondrous halls below a watery heaven.",3 "There was no knowing what would come, since this strange entrancing delight had come.",3 "If a chest full of lace and satin and jewels had been sent her from some unknown source, how could she but have thought that her whole lot was going to change, and that to-morrow some still more bewildering joy would befall her?",1 "Hetty had never read a novel; if she had ever seen one, I think the words would have been too hard for her; how then could she find a shape for her expectations?",1 "They were as formless as the sweet languid odours of the garden at the Chase, which had floated past her as she walked by the gate.",2 She is at another gate now--that leading into Fir-tree Grove.,3 "She enters the wood, where it is already twilight, and at every step she takes, the fear at her heart becomes colder.",1 If he should not come!,2 "Oh, how dreary it was--the thought of going out at the other end of the wood, into the unsheltered road, without having seen him.",1 "She reaches the first turning towards the Hermitage, walking slowly--he is not there.",1 She hates the leveret that runs across the path; she hates everything that is not what she longs for.,1 "She walks on, happy whenever she is coming to a bend in the road, for perhaps he is behind it.",3 No.,2 "She is beginning to cry: her heart has swelled so, the tears stand in her eyes; she gives one great sob, while the corners of her mouth quiver, and the tears roll down.",1 "She doesn't know that there is another turning to the Hermitage, that she is close against it, and that Arthur Donnithorne is only a few yards from her, full of one thought, and a thought of which she only is the object.",1 He is going to see Hetty again: that is the longing which has been growing through the last three hours to a feverish thirst.,0 "Not, of course, to speak in the caressing way into which he had unguardedly fallen before dinner, but to set things right with her by a kindness which would have the air of friendly civility, and prevent her from running away with wrong notions about their mutual relation.",3 "If Hetty had known he was there, she would not have cried; and it would have been better, for then Arthur would perhaps have behaved as wisely as he had intended.",3 "As it was, she started when he appeared at the end of the side-alley, and looked up at him with two great drops rolling down her cheeks.",3 "What else could he do but speak to her in a soft, soothing tone, as if she were a bright-eyed spaniel with a thorn in her foot?",3 """Has something frightened you, Hetty?",2 Have you seen anything in the wood?,2 "Don't be frightened--I'll take care of you now.""",2 "Hetty was blushing so, she didn't know whether she was happy or miserable.",2 To be crying again--what did gentlemen think of girls who cried in that way?,2 "She felt unable even to say ""no,"" but could only look away from him and wipe the tears from her cheek.",1 Not before a great drop had fallen on her rose-coloured strings--she knew that quite well.,3 """Come, be cheerful again.",3 "Smile at me, and tell me what's the matter.",3 "Come, tell me.""",2 "Hetty turned her head towards him, whispered, ""I thought you wouldn't come,"" and slowly got courage to lift her eyes to him.",2 That look was too much: he must have had eyes of Egyptian granite not to look too lovingly in return.,2 """You little frightened bird!",2 Little tearful rose!,2 Silly pet!,1 "You won't cry again, now I'm with you, will you?""",1 "Ah, he doesn't know in the least what he is saying.",2 This is not what he meant to say.,2 "His arm is stealing round the waist again; it is tightening its clasp; he is bending his face nearer and nearer to the round cheek; his lips are meeting those pouting child-lips, and for a long moment time has vanished.",1 "He may be a shepherd in Arcadia for aught he knows, he may be the first youth kissing the first maiden, he may be Eros himself, sipping the lips of Psyche--it is all one.",2 There was no speaking for minutes after.,2 They walked along with beating hearts till they came within sight of the gate at the end of the wood.,2 "Then they looked at each other, not quite as they had looked before, for in their eyes there was the memory of a kiss.",2 But already something bitter had begun to mingle itself with the fountain of sweets: already Arthur was uncomfortable.,1 "He took his arm from Hetty's waist, and said, ""Here we are, almost at the end of the Grove.",2 "I wonder how late it is,"" he added, pulling out his watch.",3 """Twenty minutes past eight--but my watch is too fast.",3 "However, I'd better not go any further now.",3 "Trot along quickly with your little feet, and get home safely.",3 "Good-bye.""",3 "He took her hand, and looked at her half-sadly, half with a constrained smile.",2 "Hetty's eyes seemed to beseech him not to go away yet; but he patted her cheek and said ""Good-bye"" again.",2 She was obliged to turn away from him and go on.,2 "As for Arthur, he rushed back through the wood, as if he wanted to put a wide space between himself and Hetty.",2 "He would not go to the Hermitage again; he remembered how he had debated with himself there before dinner, and it had all come to nothing--worse than nothing.",1 "He walked right on into the Chase, glad to get out of the Grove, which surely was haunted by his evil genius.",3 Those beeches and smooth limes--there was something enervating in the very sight of them; but the strong knotted old oaks had no bending languor in them--the sight of them would give a man some energy.,2 "Arthur lost himself among the narrow openings in the fern, winding about without seeking any issue, till the twilight deepened almost to night under the great boughs, and the hare looked black as it darted across his path.",1 He was feeling much more strongly than he had done in the morning: it was as if his horse had wheeled round from a leap and dared to dispute his mastery.,2 "He was dissatisfied with himself, irritated, mortified.",0 "He no sooner fixed his mind on the probable consequences of giving way to the emotions which had stolen over him to-day--of continuing to notice Hetty, of allowing himself any opportunity for such slight caresses as he had been betrayed into already--than he refused to believe such a future possible for himself.",1 "To flirt with Hetty was a very different affair from flirting with a pretty girl of his own station: that was understood to be an amusement on both sides, or, if it became serious, there was no obstacle to marriage.",1 "But this little thing would be spoken ill of directly, if she happened to be seen walking with him; and then those excellent people, the Poysers, to whom a good name was as precious as if they had the best blood in the land in their veins--he should hate himself if he made a scandal of that sort, on the estate that was to be his own some day, and among tenants by whom he liked, above all, to be respected.",4 He could no more believe that he should so fall in his own esteem than that he should break both his legs and go on crutches all the rest of his life.,1 "He couldn't imagine himself in that position; it was too odious, too unlike him.",2 "And even if no one knew anything about it, they might get too fond of each other, and then there could be nothing but the misery of parting, after all.",2 "No gentleman, out of a ballad, could marry a farmer's niece.",2 There must be an end to the whole thing at once.,2 It was too foolish.,1 "And yet he had been so determined this morning, before he went to Gawaine's; and while he was there something had taken hold of him and made him gallop back.",2 "It seemed he couldn't quite depend on his own resolution, as he had thought he could; he almost wished his arm would get painful again, and then he should think of nothing but the comfort it would be to get rid of the pain.",1 "There was no knowing what impulse might seize him to-morrow, in this confounded place, where there was nothing to occupy him imperiously through the livelong day.",1 What could he do to secure himself from any more of this folly?,3 There was but one resource.,2 He would go and tell Irwine--tell him everything.,2 "The mere act of telling it would make it seem trivial; the temptation would vanish, as the charm of fond words vanishes when one repeats them to the indifferent.",1 In every way it would help him to tell Irwine.,2 He would ride to Broxton Rectory the first thing after breakfast to-morrow.,2 "Arthur had no sooner come to this determination than he began to think which of the paths would lead him home, and made as short a walk thither as he could.",3 "He felt sure he should sleep now: he had had enough to tire him, and there was no more need for him to think.",3 "WHILE that parting in the wood was happening, there was a parting in the cottage too, and Lisbeth had stood with Adam at the door, straining her aged eyes to get the last glimpse of Seth and Dinah, as they mounted the opposite slope.",1 """Eh, I'm loath to see the last on her,"" she said to Adam, as they turned into the house again.",1 """I'd ha' been willin' t' ha' her about me till I died and went to lie by my old man.",1 She'd make it easier dyin'--she spakes so gentle an' moves about so still.,3 I could be fast sure that pictur' was drawed for her i' thy new Bible--th' angel a-sittin' on the big stone by the grave.,3 "Eh, I wouldna mind ha'in a daughter like that; but nobody ne'er marries them as is good for aught.""",3 """Well, Mother, I hope thee WILT have her for a daughter; for Seth's got a liking for her, and I hope she'll get a liking for Seth in time.""",3 """Where's th' use o' talkin' a-that'n?",2 She caresna for Seth.,2 She's goin' away twenty mile aff.,2 "How's she to get a likin' for him, I'd like to know?",3 No more nor the cake 'ull come wi'out the leaven.,2 "Thy figurin' books might ha' tould thee better nor that, I should think, else thee mightst as well read the commin print, as Seth allays does.""",3 """Nay, Mother,"" said Adam, laughing, ""the figures tell us a fine deal, and we couldn't go far without 'em, but they don't tell us about folks's feelings.",3 It's a nicer job to calculate THEM.,3 "But Seth's as good-hearted a lad as ever handled a tool, and plenty o' sense, and good-looking too; and he's got the same way o' thinking as Dinah.",3 "He deserves to win her, though there's no denying she's a rare bit o' workmanship.",2 "You don't see such women turned off the wheel every day.""",2 """Eh, thee't allays stick up for thy brother.",2 "Thee'st been just the same, e'er sin' ye war little uns together.",2 Thee wart allays for halving iverything wi' him.,2 "But what's Seth got to do with marryin', as is on'y three-an'-twenty?",2 He'd more need to learn an' lay by sixpence.,2 An' as for his desarving her--she's two 'ear older nor Seth: she's pretty near as old as thee.,3 "But that's the way; folks mun allays choose by contrairies, as if they must be sorted like the pork--a bit o' good meat wi' a bit o' offal.""",3 "To the feminine mind in some of its moods, all things that might be receive a temporary charm from comparison with what is; and since Adam did not want to marry Dinah himself, Lisbeth felt rather peevish on that score--as peevish as she would have been if he HAD wanted to marry her, and so shut himself out from Mary Burge and the partnership as effectually as by marrying Hetty.",2 "It was more than half-past eight when Adam and his mother were talking in this way, so that when, about ten minutes later, Hetty reached the turning of the lane that led to the farmyard gate, she saw Dinah and Seth approaching it from the opposite direction, and waited for them to come up to her.",3 "They, too, like Hetty, had lingered a little in their walk, for Dinah was trying to speak words of comfort and strength to Seth in these parting moments.",3 "But when they saw Hetty, they paused and shook hands; Seth turned homewards, and Dinah came on alone.",2 """Seth Bede would have come and spoken to you, my dear,"" she said, as she reached Hetty, ""but he's very full of trouble to-night.""",1 "Hetty answered with a dimpled smile, as if she did not quite know what had been said; and it made a strange contrast to see that sparkling self-engrossed loveliness looked at by Dinah's calm pitying face, with its open glance which told that her heart lived in no cherished secrets of its own, but in feelings which it longed to share with all the world.",4 "Hetty liked Dinah as well as she had ever liked any woman; how was it possible to feel otherwise towards one who always put in a kind word for her when her aunt was finding fault, and who was always ready to take Totty off her hands--little tiresome Totty, that was made such a pet of by every one, and that Hetty could see no interest in at all?",3 "Dinah had never said anything disapproving or reproachful to Hetty during her whole visit to the Hall Farm; she had talked to her a great deal in a serious way, but Hetty didn't mind that much, for she never listened: whatever Dinah might say, she almost always stroked Hetty's cheek after it, and wanted to do some mending for her.",1 "Dinah was a riddle to her; Hetty looked at her much in the same way as one might imagine a little perching bird that could only flutter from bough to bough, to look at the swoop of the swallow or the mounting of the lark; but she did not care to solve such riddles, any more than she cared to know what was meant by the pictures in the Pilgrim's Progress, or in the old folio Bible that Marty and Tommy always plagued her about on a Sunday.",3 Dinah took her hand now and drew it under her own arm.,2 """You look very happy to-night, dear child,"" she said.",3 """I shall think of you often when I'm at Snowfield, and see your face before me as it is now.",2 "It's a strange thing--sometimes when I'm quite alone, sitting in my room with my eyes closed, or walking over the hills, the people I've seen and known, if it's only been for a few days, are brought before me, and I hear their voices and see them look and move almost plainer than I ever did when they were really with me so as I could touch them.",1 "And then my heart is drawn out towards them, and I feel their lot as if it was my own, and I take comfort in spreading it before the Lord and resting in His love, on their behalf as well as my own.",4 "And so I feel sure you will come before me.""",2 "She paused a moment, but Hetty said nothing.",2 """It has been a very precious time to me,"" Dinah went on, ""last night and to-day--seeing two such good sons as Adam and Seth Bede.",3 They are so tender and thoughtful for their aged mother.,3 "And she has been telling me what Adam has done, for these many years, to help his father and his brother; it's wonderful what a spirit of wisdom and knowledge he has, and how he's ready to use it all in behalf of them that are feeble.",3 And I'm sure he has a loving spirit too.,3 "I've noticed it often among my own people round Snowfield, that the strong, skilful men are often the gentlest to the women and children; and it's pretty to see 'em carrying the little babies as if they were no heavier than little birds.",4 And the babies always seem to like the strong arm best.,4 I feel sure it would be so with Adam Bede.,2 "Don't you think so, Hetty?""",2 """Yes,"" said Hetty abstractedly, for her mind had been all the while in the wood, and she would have found it difficult to say what she was assenting to.",1 "Dinah saw she was not inclined to talk, but there would not have been time to say much more, for they were now at the yard-gate.",2 "The still twilight, with its dying western red and its few faint struggling stars, rested on the farm-yard, where there was not a sound to be heard but the stamping of the cart-horses in the stable.",1 It was about twenty minutes after sunset.,2 "The fowls were all gone to roost, and the bull-dog lay stretched on the straw outside his kennel, with the black-and-tan terrier by his side, when the falling-to of the gate disturbed them and set them barking, like good officials, before they had any distinct knowledge of the reason.",2 "The barking had its effect in the house, for, as Dinah and Hetty approached, the doorway was filled by a portly figure, with a ruddy black-eyed face which bore in it the possibility of looking extremely acute, and occasionally contemptuous, on market-days, but had now a predominant after-supper expression of hearty good-nature.",1 "It is well known that great scholars who have shown the most pitiless acerbity in their criticism of other men's scholarship have yet been of a relenting and indulgent temper in private life; and I have heard of a learned man meekly rocking the twins in the cradle with his left hand, while with his right he inflicted the most lacerating sarcasms on an opponent who had betrayed a brutal ignorance of Hebrew.",1 Weaknesses and errors must be forgiven--alas!,1 they are not alien to us--but the man who takes the wrong side on the momentous subject of the Hebrew points must be treated as the enemy of his race.,1 "There was the same sort of antithetic mixture in Martin Poyser: he was of so excellent a disposition that he had been kinder and more respectful than ever to his old father since he had made a deed of gift of all his property, and no man judged his neighbours more charitably on all personal matters; but for a farmer, like Luke Britton, for example, whose fallows were not well cleaned, who didn't know the rudiments of hedging and ditching, and showed but a small share of judgment in the purchase of winter stock, Martin Poyser was as hard and implacable as the north-east wind.",3 "Luke Britton could not make a remark, even on the weather, but Martin Poyser detected in it a taint of that unsoundness and general ignorance which was palpable in all his farming operations.",1 "He hated to see the fellow lift the pewter pint to his mouth in the bar of the Royal George on market-day, and the mere sight of him on the other side of the road brought a severe and critical expression into his black eyes, as different as possible from the fatherly glance he bent on his two nieces as they approached the door.",0 "Mr. Poyser had smoked his evening pipe, and now held his hands in his pockets, as the only resource of a man who continues to sit up after the day's business is done.",2 """Why, lasses, ye're rather late to-night,"" he said, when they reached the little gate leading into the causeway.",3 """The mother's begun to fidget about you, an' she's got the little un ill.",1 "An' how did you leave the old woman Bede, Dinah?",2 Is she much down about the old man?,2 "He'd been but a poor bargain to her this five year.""",2 """She's been greatly distressed for the loss of him,"" said Dinah, ""but she's seemed more comforted to-day.",1 "Her son Adam's been at home all day, working at his father's coffin, and she loves to have him at home.",3 She's been talking about him to me almost all the day.,2 "She has a loving heart, though she's sorely given to fret and be fearful.",1 "I wish she had a surer trust to comfort her in her old age.""",3 """Adam's sure enough,"" said Mr. Poyser, misunderstanding Dinah's wish.",2 """There's no fear but he'll yield well i' the threshing.",2 He's not one o' them as is all straw and no grain.,2 "I'll be bond for him any day, as he'll be a good son to the last.",3 Did he say he'd be coming to see us soon?,2 "But come in, come in,"" he added, making way for them; ""I hadn't need keep y' out any longer.""",2 "The tall buildings round the yard shut out a good deal of the sky, but the large window let in abundant light to show every corner of the house-place.",3 "Mrs. Poyser, seated in the rocking-chair, which had been brought out of the ""right-hand parlour,"" was trying to soothe Totty to sleep.",3 "But Totty was not disposed to sleep; and when her cousins entered, she raised herself up and showed a pair of flushed cheeks, which looked fatter than ever now they were defined by the edge of her linen night-cap.",2 "In the large wicker-bottomed arm-chair in the left-hand chimney-nook sat old Martin Poyser, a hale but shrunken and bleached image of his portly black-haired son--his head hanging forward a little, and his elbows pushed backwards so as to allow the whole of his forearm to rest on the arm of the chair.",3 "His blue handkerchief was spread over his knees, as was usual indoors, when it was not hanging over his head; and he sat watching what went forward with the quiet OUTWARD glance of healthy old age, which, disengaged from any interest in an inward drama, spies out pins upon the floor, follows one's minutest motions with an unexpectant purposeless tenacity, watches the flickering of the flame or the sun-gleams on the wall, counts the quarries on the floor, watches even the hand of the clock, and pleases itself with detecting a rhythm in the tick.",4 """What a time o' night this is to come home, Hetty!""",2 said Mrs. Poyser.,2 """Look at the clock, do; why, it's going on for half-past nine, and I've sent the gells to bed this half-hour, and late enough too; when they've got to get up at half after four, and the mowers' bottles to fill, and the baking; and here's this blessed child wi' the fever for what I know, and as wakeful as if it was dinner-time, and nobody to help me to give her the physic but your uncle, and fine work there's been, and half of it spilt on her night-gown--it's well if she's swallowed more nor 'ull make her worse i'stead o' better.",4 "But folks as have no mind to be o' use have allays the luck to be out o' the road when there's anything to be done.""",3 """I did set out before eight, aunt,"" said Hetty, in a pettish tone, with a slight toss of her head.",2 """But this clock's so much before the clock at the Chase, there's no telling what time it'll be when I get here.""",2 """What!",2 "You'd be wanting the clock set by gentlefolks's time, would you?",2 "An' sit up burnin' candle, an' lie a-bed wi' the sun a-bakin' you like a cowcumber i' the frame?",2 "The clock hasn't been put forrard for the first time to-day, I reckon.""",2 "The fact was, Hetty had really forgotten the difference of the clocks when she told Captain Donnithorne that she set out at eight, and this, with her lingering pace, had made her nearly half an hour later than usual.",2 "But here her aunt's attention was diverted from this tender subject by Totty, who, perceiving at length that the arrival of her cousins was not likely to bring anything satisfactory to her in particular, began to cry, ""Munny, munny,"" in an explosive manner.",2 """Well, then, my pet, Mother's got her, Mother won't leave her; Totty be a good dilling, and go to sleep now,"" said Mrs. Poyser, leaning back and rocking the chair, while she tried to make Totty nestle against her.",3 "But Totty only cried louder, and said, ""Don't yock!""",1 "So the mother, with that wondrous patience which love gives to the quickest temperament, sat up again, and pressed her cheek against the linen night-cap and kissed it, and forgot to scold Hetty any longer.",3 """Come, Hetty,"" said Martin Poyser, in a conciliatory tone, ""go and get your supper i' the pantry, as the things are all put away; an' then you can come and take the little un while your aunt undresses herself, for she won't lie down in bed without her mother.",2 "An' I reckon YOU could eat a bit, Dinah, for they don't keep much of a house down there.""",2 """No, thank you, Uncle,"" said Dinah; ""I ate a good meal before I came away, for Mrs. Bede would make a kettle-cake for me.""",3 """I don't want any supper,"" said Hetty, taking off her hat.",2 """I can hold Totty now, if Aunt wants me.""",2 """Why, what nonsense that is to talk!""",1 said Mrs. Poyser.,2 """Do you think you can live wi'out eatin', an' nourish your inside wi' stickin' red ribbons on your head?",3 "Go an' get your supper this minute, child; there's a nice bit o' cold pudding i' the safe--just what you're fond of.""",3 "Hetty complied silently by going towards the pantry, and Mrs. Poyser went on speaking to Dinah.",2 """Sit down, my dear, an' look as if you knowed what it was to make yourself a bit comfortable i' the world.",3 "I warrant the old woman was glad to see you, since you stayed so long.""",3 """She seemed to like having me there at last; but her sons say she doesn't like young women about her commonly; and I thought just at first she was almost angry with me for going.""",2 """Eh, it's a poor look-out when th' ould folks doesna like the young uns,"" said old Martin, bending his head down lower, and seeming to trace the pattern of the quarries with his eye.",2 """Aye, it's ill livin' in a hen-roost for them as doesn't like fleas,"" said Mrs. Poyser.",3 """We've all had our turn at bein' young, I reckon, be't good luck or ill.""",3 """But she must learn to 'commodate herself to young women,"" said Mr. Poyser, ""for it isn't to be counted on as Adam and Seth 'ull keep bachelors for the next ten year to please their mother.",2 That 'ud be unreasonable.,1 It isn't right for old nor young nayther to make a bargain all o' their own side.,3 What's good for one's good all round i' the long run.,3 "I'm no friend to young fellows a-marrying afore they know the difference atween a crab an' a apple; but they may wait o'er long.""",2 """To be sure,"" said Mrs. Poyser; ""if you go past your dinner-time, there'll be little relish o' your meat.",3 "You turn it o'er an' o'er wi' your fork, an' don't eat it after all.",2 "You find faut wi' your meat, an' the faut's all i' your own stomach.""",2 "Hetty now came back from the pantry and said, ""I can take Totty now, Aunt, if you like.""",3 """Come, Rachel,"" said Mr. Poyser, as his wife seemed to hesitate, seeing that Totty was at last nestling quietly, ""thee'dst better let Hetty carry her upstairs, while thee tak'st thy things off.",3 Thee't tired.,1 It's time thee wast in bed.,2 "Thee't bring on the pain in thy side again.""",1 """Well, she may hold her if the child 'ull go to her,"" said Mrs. Poyser.",3 "Hetty went close to the rocking-chair, and stood without her usual smile, and without any attempt to entice Totty, simply waiting for her aunt to give the child into her hands.",3 """Wilt go to Cousin Hetty, my dilling, while mother gets ready to go to bed?",2 "Then Totty shall go into Mother's bed, and sleep there all night.""",2 "Before her mother had done speaking, Totty had given her answer in an unmistakable manner, by knitting her brow, setting her tiny teeth against her underlip, and leaning forward to slap Hetty on the arm with her utmost force.",1 "Then, without speaking, she nestled to her mother again.",2 """Hey, hey,"" said Mr. Poyser, while Hetty stood without moving, ""not go to Cousin Hetty?",2 That's like a babby.,3 "Totty's a little woman, an' not a babby.""",2 """It's no use trying to persuade her,"" said Mrs. Poyser.",2 """She allays takes against Hetty when she isn't well.",3 "Happen she'll go to Dinah.""",2 "Dinah, having taken off her bonnet and shawl, had hitherto kept quietly seated in the background, not liking to thrust herself between Hetty and what was considered Hetty's proper work.",4 "But now she came forward, and, putting out her arms, said, ""Come Totty, come and let Dinah carry her upstairs along with Mother: poor, poor Mother!",1 "she's so tired--she wants to go to bed.""",1 "Totty turned her face towards Dinah, and looked at her an instant, then lifted herself up, put out her little arms, and let Dinah lift her from her mother's lap.",2 "Hetty turned away without any sign of ill humour, and, taking her hat from the table, stood waiting with an air of indifference, to see if she should be told to do anything else.",2 """You may make the door fast now, Poyser; Alick's been come in this long while,"" said Mrs. Poyser, rising with an appearance of relief from her low chair.",3 """Get me the matches down, Hetty, for I must have the rushlight burning i' my room.",1 "Come, Father.""",2 "The heavy wooden bolts began to roll in the house doors, and old Martin prepared to move, by gathering up his blue handkerchief, and reaching his bright knobbed walnut-tree stick from the corner.",3 "Mrs. Poyser then led the way out of the kitchen, followed by the grandfather, and Dinah with Totty in her arms--all going to bed by twilight, like the birds.",3 "Mrs. Poyser, on her way, peeped into the room where her two boys lay; just to see their ruddy round cheeks on the pillow, and to hear for a moment their light regular breathing.",2 """Come, Hetty, get to bed,"" said Mr. Poyser, in a soothing tone, as he himself turned to go upstairs.",2 """You didna mean to be late, I'll be bound, but your aunt's been worrited to-day.",2 "Good-night, my wench, good-night.""",3 "HETTY and Dinah both slept in the second story, in rooms adjoining each other, meagrely furnished rooms, with no blinds to shut out the light, which was now beginning to gather new strength from the rising of the moon--more than enough strength to enable Hetty to move about and undress with perfect comfort.",4 "She could see quite well the pegs in the old painted linen-press on which she hung her hat and gown; she could see the head of every pin on her red cloth pin-cushion; she could see a reflection of herself in the old-fashioned looking-glass, quite as distinct as was needful, considering that she had only to brush her hair and put on her night-cap.",2 A queer old looking-glass!,1 Hetty got into an ill temper with it almost every time she dressed.,1 "It had been considered a handsome glass in its day, and had probably been bought into the Poyser family a quarter of a century before, at a sale of genteel household furniture.",3 "Even now an auctioneer could say something for it: it had a great deal of tarnished gilding about it; it had a firm mahogany base, well supplied with drawers, which opened with a decided jerk and sent the contents leaping out from the farthest corners, without giving you the trouble of reaching them; above all, it had a brass candle-socket on each side, which would give it an aristocratic air to the very last.",1 "But Hetty objected to it because it had numerous dim blotches sprinkled over the mirror, which no rubbing would remove, and because, instead of swinging backwards and forwards, it was fixed in an upright position, so that she could only get one good view of her head and neck, and that was to be had only by sitting down on a low chair before her dressing-table.",2 "And the dressing-table was no dressing-table at all, but a small old chest of drawers, the most awkward thing in the world to sit down before, for the big brass handles quite hurt her knees, and she couldn't get near the glass at all comfortably.",1 "But devout worshippers never allow inconveniences to prevent them from performing their religious rites, and Hetty this evening was more bent on her peculiar form of worship than usual.",1 "Having taken off her gown and white kerchief, she drew a key from the large pocket that hung outside her petticoat, and, unlocking one of the lower drawers in the chest, reached from it two short bits of wax candle--secretly bought at Treddleston--and stuck them in the two brass sockets.",1 "Then she drew forth a bundle of matches and lighted the candles; and last of all, a small red-framed shilling looking-glass, without blotches.",2 It was into this small glass that she chose to look first after seating herself.,2 "She looked into it, smiling and turning her head on one side, for a minute, then laid it down and took out her brush and comb from an upper drawer.",3 "She was going to let down her hair, and make herself look like that picture of a lady in Miss Lydia Donnithorne's dressing-room.",2 "It was soon done, and the dark hyacinthine curves fell on her neck.",1 "It was not heavy, massive, merely rippling hair, but soft and silken, running at every opportunity into delicate rings.",3 "But she pushed it all backward to look like the picture, and form a dark curtain, throwing into relief her round white neck.",2 "Then she put down her brush and comb and looked at herself, folding her arms before her, still like the picture.",3 "Even the old mottled glass couldn't help sending back a lovely image, none the less lovely because Hetty's stays were not of white satin--such as I feel sure heroines must generally wear--but of a dark greenish cotton texture.",2 Oh yes!,2 She was very pretty.,3 Captain Donnithorne thought so.,2 "Prettier than anybody about Hayslope--prettier than any of the ladies she had ever seen visiting at the Chase--indeed it seemed fine ladies were rather old and ugly--and prettier than Miss Bacon, the miller's daughter, who was called the beauty of Treddleston.",2 And Hetty looked at herself to-night with quite a different sensation from what she had ever felt before; there was an invisible spectator whose eye rested on her like morning on the flowers.,3 "His soft voice was saying over and over again those pretty things she had heard in the wood; his arm was round her, and the delicate rose-scent of his hair was with her still.",4 The vainest woman is never thoroughly conscious of her own beauty till she is loved by the man who sets her own passion vibrating in return.,3 "But Hetty seemed to have made up her mind that something was wanting, for she got up and reached an old black lace scarf out of the linen-press, and a pair of large ear-rings out of the sacred drawer from which she had taken her candles.",2 "It was an old old scarf, full of rents, but it would make a becoming border round her shoulders, and set off the whiteness of her upper arm.",2 "And she would take out the little ear-rings she had in her ears--oh, how her aunt had scolded her for having her ears bored!--and put in those large ones.",1 "They were but coloured glass and gilding, but if you didn't know what they were made of, they looked just as well as what the ladies wore.",3 "And so she sat down again, with the large ear-rings in her ears, and the black lace scarf adjusted round her shoulders.",2 "She looked down at her arms: no arms could be prettier down to a little way below the elbow--they were white and plump, and dimpled to match her cheeks; but towards the wrist, she thought with vexation that they were coarsened by butter-making and other work that ladies never did.",2 "Captain Donnithorne couldn't like her to go on doing work: he would like to see her in nice clothes, and thin shoes, and white stockings, perhaps with silk clocks to them; for he must love her very much--no one else had ever put his arm round her and kissed her in that way.",4 He would want to marry her and make a lady of her; she could hardly dare to shape the thought--yet how else could it be?,2 "Marry her quite secretly, as Mr. James, the doctor's assistant, married the doctor's niece, and nobody ever found it out for a long while after, and then it was of no use to be angry.",1 The doctor had told her aunt all about it in Hetty's hearing.,2 "She didn't know how it would be, but it was quite plain the old Squire could never be told anything about it, for Hetty was ready to faint with awe and fright if she came across him at the Chase.",2 "He might have been earth-born, for what she knew.",2 It had never entered her mind that he had been young like other men; he had always been the old Squire at whom everybody was frightened.,3 "Oh, it was impossible to think how it would be!",1 "But Captain Donnithorne would know; he was a great gentleman, and could have his way in everything, and could buy everything he liked.",3 "And nothing could be as it had been again: perhaps some day she should be a grand lady, and ride in her coach, and dress for dinner in a brocaded silk, with feathers in her hair, and her dress sweeping the ground, like Miss Lydia and Lady Dacey, when she saw them going into the dining-room one evening as she peeped through the little round window in the lobby; only she should not be old and ugly like Miss Lydia, or all the same thickness like Lady Dacey, but very pretty, with her hair done in a great many different ways, and sometimes in a pink dress, and sometimes in a white one--she didn't know which she liked best; and Mary Burge and everybody would perhaps see her going out in her carriage--or rather, they would HEAR of it: it was impossible to imagine these things happening at Hayslope in sight of her aunt.",4 "At the thought of all this splendour, Hetty got up from her chair, and in doing so caught the little red-framed glass with the edge of her scarf, so that it fell with a bang on the floor; but she was too eagerly occupied with her vision to care about picking it up; and after a momentary start, began to pace with a pigeon-like stateliness backwards and forwards along her room, in her coloured stays and coloured skirt, and the old black lace scarf round her shoulders, and the great glass ear-rings in her ears.",3 How pretty the little puss looks in that odd dress!,2 "It would be the easiest folly in the world to fall in love with her: there is such a sweet babylike roundness about her face and figure; the delicate dark rings of hair lie so charmingly about her ears and neck; her great dark eyes with their long eye-lashes touch one so strangely, as if an imprisoned frisky sprite looked out of them.",3 "Ah, what a prize the man gets who wins a sweet bride like Hetty!",4 "How the men envy him who come to the wedding breakfast, and see her hanging on his arm in her white lace and orange blossoms.",3 "The dear, young, round, soft, flexible thing!",3 "Her heart must be just as soft, her temper just as free from angles, her character just as pliant.",3 "If anything ever goes wrong, it must be the husband's fault there: he can make her what he likes--that is plain.",1 "And the lover himself thinks so too: the little darling is so fond of him, her little vanities are so bewitching, he wouldn't consent to her being a bit wiser; those kittenlike glances and movements are just what one wants to make one's hearth a paradise.",4 Every man under such circumstances is conscious of being a great physiognomist.,3 "Nature, he knows, has a language of her own, which she uses with strict veracity, and he considers himself an adept in the language.",1 "Nature has written out his bride's character for him in those exquisite lines of cheek and lip and chin, in those eyelids delicate as petals, in those long lashes curled like the stamen of a flower, in the dark liquid depths of those wonderful eyes.",4 How she will dote on her children!,3 "She is almost a child herself, and the little pink round things will hang about her like florets round the central flower; and the husband will look on, smiling benignly, able, whenever he chooses, to withdraw into the sanctuary of his wisdom, towards which his sweet wife will look reverently, and never lift the curtain.",4 "It is a marriage such as they made in the golden age, when the men were all wise and majestic and the women all lovely and loving.",4 It was very much in this way that our friend Adam Bede thought about Hetty; only he put his thoughts into different words.,2 "If ever she behaved with cold vanity towards him, he said to himself it is only because she doesn't love me well enough; and he was sure that her love, whenever she gave it, would be the most precious thing a man could possess on earth.",3 "Before you despise Adam as deficient in penetration, pray ask yourself if you were ever predisposed to believe evil of any pretty woman--if you ever COULD, without hard head-breaking demonstration, believe evil of the ONE supremely pretty woman who has bewitched you.",0 "No: people who love downy peaches are apt not to think of the stone, and sometimes jar their teeth terribly against it.",2 "Arthur Donnithorne, too, had the same sort of notion about Hetty, so far as he had thought of her nature of all.",2 "He felt sure she was a dear, affectionate, good little thing.",3 "The man who awakes the wondering tremulous passion of a young girl always thinks her affectionate; and if he chances to look forward to future years, probably imagines himself being virtuously tender to her, because the poor thing is so clingingly fond of him.",4 God made these dear women so--and it is a convenient arrangement in case of sickness.,2 "After all, I believe the wisest of us must be beguiled in this way sometimes, and must think both better and worse of people than they deserve.",2 "Nature has her language, and she is not unveracious; but we don't know all the intricacies of her syntax just yet, and in a hasty reading we may happen to extract the very opposite of her real meaning.",1 "Long dark eyelashes, now--what can be more exquisite?",2 "I find it impossible not to expect some depth of soul behind a deep grey eye with a long dark eyelash, in spite of an experience which has shown me that they may go along with deceit, peculation, and stupidity.",0 "But if, in the reaction of disgust, I have betaken myself to a fishy eye, there has been a surprising similarity of result.",1 "One begins to suspect at length that there is no direct correlation between eyelashes and morals; or else, that the eyelashes express the disposition of the fair one's grandmother, which is on the whole less important to us.",3 "No eyelashes could be more beautiful than Hetty's; and now, while she walks with her pigeon-like stateliness along the room and looks down on her shoulders bordered by the old black lace, the dark fringe shows to perfection on her pink cheek.",3 "They are but dim ill-defined pictures that her narrow bit of an imagination can make of the future; but of every picture she is the central figure in fine clothes; Captain Donnithorne is very close to her, putting his arm round her, perhaps kissing her, and everybody else is admiring and envying her--especially Mary Burge, whose new print dress looks very contemptible by the side of Hetty's resplendent toilette.",3 "Does any sweet or sad memory mingle with this dream of the future--any loving thought of her second parents--of the children she had helped to tend--of any youthful companion, any pet animal, any relic of her own childhood even?",4 Not one.,2 "There are some plants that have hardly any roots: you may tear them from their native nook of rock or wall, and just lay them over your ornamental flower-pot, and they blossom none the worse.",2 Hetty could have cast all her past life behind her and never cared to be reminded of it again.,2 "I think she had no feeling at all towards the old house, and did not like the Jacob's Ladder and the long row of hollyhocks in the garden better than other flowers--perhaps not so well.",4 "It was wonderful how little she seemed to care about waiting on her uncle, who had been a good father to her--she hardly ever remembered to reach him his pipe at the right time without being told, unless a visitor happened to be there, who would have a better opportunity of seeing her as she walked across the hearth.",4 Hetty did not understand how anybody could be very fond of middle-aged people.,3 "And as for those tiresome children, Marty and Tommy and Totty, they had been the very nuisance of her life--as bad as buzzing insects that will come teasing you on a hot day when you want to be quiet.",1 "Marty, the eldest, was a baby when she first came to the farm, for the children born before him had died, and so Hetty had had them all three, one after the other, toddling by her side in the meadow, or playing about her on wet days in the half-empty rooms of the large old house.",1 "The boys were out of hand now, but Totty was still a day-long plague, worse than either of the others had been, because there was more fuss made about her.",0 And there was no end to the making and mending of clothes.,2 Hetty would have been glad to hear that she should never see a child again; they were worse than the nasty little lambs that the shepherd was always bringing in to be taken special care of in lambing time; for the lambs WERE got rid of sooner or later.,1 "As for the young chickens and turkeys, Hetty would have hated the very word ""hatching,"" if her aunt had not bribed her to attend to the young poultry by promising her the proceeds of one out of every brood.",1 "The round downy chicks peeping out from under their mother's wing never touched Hetty with any pleasure; that was not the sort of prettiness she cared about, but she did care about the prettiness of the new things she would buy for herself at Treddleston Fair with the money they fetched.",3 "And yet she looked so dimpled, so charming, as she stooped down to put the soaked bread under the hen-coop, that you must have been a very acute personage indeed to suspect her of that hardness.",2 "Molly, the housemaid, with a turn-up nose and a protuberant jaw, was really a tender-hearted girl, and, as Mrs. Poyser said, a jewel to look after the poultry; but her stolid face showed nothing of this maternal delight, any more than a brown earthenware pitcher will show the light of the lamp within it.",3 "It is generally a feminine eye that first detects the moral deficiencies hidden under the ""dear deceit"" of beauty, so it is not surprising that Mrs. Poyser, with her keenness and abundant opportunity for observation, should have formed a tolerably fair estimate of what might be expected from Hetty in the way of feeling, and in moments of indignation she had sometimes spoken with great openness on the subject to her husband.",4 """She's no better than a peacock, as 'ud strut about on the wall and spread its tail when the sun shone if all the folks i' the parish was dying: there's nothing seems to give her a turn i' th' inside, not even when we thought Totty had tumbled into the pit.",1 To think o' that dear cherub!,3 And we found her wi' her little shoes stuck i' the mud an' crying fit to break her heart by the far horse-pit.,1 "But Hetty never minded it, I could see, though she's been at the nussin' o' the child ever since it was a babby.",2 "It's my belief her heart's as hard as a pebble.""",1 """Nay, nay,"" said Mr. Poyser, ""thee mustn't judge Hetty too hard.",1 "Them young gells are like the unripe grain; they'll make good meal by and by, but they're squashy as yet.",3 "Thee't see Hetty 'll be all right when she's got a good husband and children of her own.""",3 """I don't want to be hard upo' the gell.",1 "She's got cliver fingers of her own, and can be useful enough when she likes and I should miss her wi' the butter, for she's got a cool hand.",4 "An' let be what may, I'd strive to do my part by a niece o' yours--an' THAT I've done, for I've taught her everything as belongs to a house, an' I've told her her duty often enough, though, God knows, I've no breath to spare, an' that catchin' pain comes on dreadful by times.",1 Wi' them three gells in the house I'd need have twice the strength to keep 'em up to their work.,3 "It's like having roast meat at three fires; as soon as you've basted one, another's burnin'.""",3 Hetty stood sufficiently in awe of her aunt to be anxious to conceal from her so much of her vanity as could be hidden without too great a sacrifice.,3 "She could not resist spending her money in bits of finery which Mrs. Poyser disapproved; but she would have been ready to die with shame, vexation, and fright if her aunt had this moment opened the door, and seen her with her bits of candle lighted, and strutting about decked in her scarf and ear-rings.",0 "To prevent such a surprise, she always bolted her door, and she had not forgotten to do so to-night.",2 "It was well: for there now came a light tap, and Hetty, with a leaping heart, rushed to blow out the candles and throw them into the drawer.",2 "She dared not stay to take out her ear-rings, but she threw off her scarf, and let it fall on the floor, before the light tap came again.",1 "We shall know how it was that the light tap came, if we leave Hetty for a short time and return to Dinah, at the moment when she had delivered Totty to her mother's arms, and was come upstairs to her bedroom, adjoining Hetty's.",2 Dinah delighted in her bedroom window.,3 "Being on the second story of that tall house, it gave her a wide view over the fields.",2 "The thickness of the wall formed a broad step about a yard below the window, where she could place her chair.",2 "And now the first thing she did on entering her room was to seat herself in this chair and look out on the peaceful fields beyond which the large moon was rising, just above the hedgerow elms.",3 "She liked the pasture best where the milch cows were lying, and next to that the meadow where the grass was half-mown, and lay in silvered sweeping lines.",3 "Her heart was very full, for there was to be only one more night on which she would look out on those fields for a long time to come; but she thought little of leaving the mere scene, for, to her, bleak Snowfield had just as many charms.",1 "She thought of all the dear people whom she had learned to care for among these peaceful fields, and who would now have a place in her loving remembrance for ever.",3 "She thought of the struggles and the weariness that might lie before them in the rest of their life's journey, when she would be away from them, and know nothing of what was befalling them; and the pressure of this thought soon became too strong for her to enjoy the unresponding stillness of the moonlit fields.",1 "She closed her eyes, that she might feel more intensely the presence of a Love and Sympathy deeper and more tender than was breathed from the earth and sky.",3 That was often Dinah's mode of praying in solitude.,2 "Simply to close her eyes and to feel herself enclosed by the Divine Presence; then gradually her fears, her yearning anxieties for others, melted away like ice-crystals in a warm ocean.",3 "She had sat in this way perfectly still, with her hands crossed on her lap and the pale light resting on her calm face, for at least ten minutes when she was startled by a loud sound, apparently of something falling in Hetty's room.",1 "But like all sounds that fall on our ears in a state of abstraction, it had no distinct character, but was simply loud and startling, so that she felt uncertain whether she had interpreted it rightly.",1 "She rose and listened, but all was quiet afterwards, and she reflected that Hetty might merely have knocked something down in getting into bed.",3 "She began slowly to undress; but now, owing to the suggestions of this sound, her thoughts became concentrated on Hetty--that sweet young thing, with life and all its trials before her--the solemn daily duties of the wife and mother--and her mind so unprepared for them all, bent merely on little foolish, selfish pleasures, like a child hugging its toys in the beginning of a long toilsome journey in which it will have to bear hunger and cold and unsheltered darkness.",0 "Dinah felt a double care for Hetty, because she shared Seth's anxious interest in his brother's lot, and she had not come to the conclusion that Hetty did not love Adam well enough to marry him.",3 "She saw too clearly the absence of any warm, self-devoting love in Hetty's nature to regard the coldness of her behaviour towards Adam as any indication that he was not the man she would like to have for a husband.",4 "And this blank in Hetty's nature, instead of exciting Dinah's dislike, only touched her with a deeper pity: the lovely face and form affected her as beauty always affects a pure and tender mind, free from selfish jealousies.",4 "It was an excellent divine gift, that gave a deeper pathos to the need, the sin, the sorrow with which it was mingled, as the canker in a lily-white bud is more grievous to behold than in a common pot-herb.",1 "By the time Dinah had undressed and put on her night-gown, this feeling about Hetty had gathered a painful intensity; her imagination had created a thorny thicket of sin and sorrow, in which she saw the poor thing struggling torn and bleeding, looking with tears for rescue and finding none.",0 "It was in this way that Dinah's imagination and sympathy acted and reacted habitually, each heightening the other.",2 She felt a deep longing to go now and pour into Hetty's ear all the words of tender warning and appeal that rushed into her mind.,2 But perhaps Hetty was already asleep.,2 "Dinah put her ear to the partition and heard still some slight noises, which convinced her that Hetty was not yet in bed.",1 "Still she hesitated; she was not quite certain of a divine direction; the voice that told her to go to Hetty seemed no stronger than the other voice which said that Hetty was weary, and that going to her now in an unseasonable moment would only tend to close her heart more obstinately.",2 Dinah was not satisfied without a more unmistakable guidance than those inward voices.,3 "There was light enough for her, if she opened her Bible, to discern the text sufficiently to know what it would say to her.",3 "She knew the physiognomy of every page, and could tell on what book she opened, sometimes on what chapter, without seeing title or number.",2 "It was a small thick Bible, worn quite round at the edges.",1 "Dinah laid it sideways on the window ledge, where the light was strongest, and then opened it with her forefinger.",3 "The first words she looked at were those at the top of the left-hand page: ""And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him.""",1 "That was enough for Dinah; she had opened on that memorable parting at Ephesus, when Paul had felt bound to open his heart in a last exhortation and warning.",3 "She hesitated no longer, but, opening her own door gently, went and tapped on Hetty's.",2 "We know she had to tap twice, because Hetty had to put out her candles and throw off her black lace scarf; but after the second tap the door was opened immediately.",2 "Dinah said, ""Will you let me come in, Hetty?""",2 "and Hetty, without speaking, for she was confused and vexed, opened the door wider and let her in.",1 "What a strange contrast the two figures made, visible enough in that mingled twilight and moonlight!",2 "Hetty, her cheeks flushed and her eyes glistening from her imaginary drama, her beautiful neck and arms bare, her hair hanging in a curly tangle down her back, and the baubles in her ears.",2 "Dinah, covered with her long white dress, her pale face full of subdued emotion, almost like a lovely corpse into which the soul has returned charged with sublimer secrets and a sublimer love.",3 They were nearly of the same height; Dinah evidently a little the taller as she put her arm round Hetty's waist and kissed her forehead.,2 """I knew you were not in bed, my dear,"" she said, in her sweet clear voice, which was irritating to Hetty, mingling with her own peevish vexation like music with jangling chains, ""for I heard you moving; and I longed to speak to you again to-night, for it is the last but one that I shall be here, and we don't know what may happen to-morrow to keep us apart.",2 "Shall I sit down with you while you do up your hair?""",2 """Oh yes,"" said Hetty, hastily turning round and reaching the second chair in the room, glad that Dinah looked as if she did not notice her ear-rings.",2 "Dinah sat down, and Hetty began to brush together her hair before twisting it up, doing it with that air of excessive indifference which belongs to confused self-consciousness.",0 But the expression of Dinah's eyes gradually relieved her; they seemed unobservant of all details.,2 """Dear Hetty,"" she said, ""It has been borne in upon my mind to-night that you may some day be in trouble--trouble is appointed for us all here below, and there comes a time when we need more comfort and help than the things of this life can give.",2 "I want to tell you that if ever you are in trouble, and need a friend that will always feel for you and love you, you have got that friend in Dinah Morris at Snowfield, and if you come to her, or send for her, she'll never forget this night and the words she is speaking to you now.",2 "Will you remember it, Hetty?""",2 """Yes,"" said Hetty, rather frightened.",2 """But why should you think I shall be in trouble?",1 "Do you know of anything?""",2 "Hetty had seated herself as she tied on her cap, and now Dinah leaned forwards and took her hands as she answered, ""Because, dear, trouble comes to us all in this life: we set our hearts on things which it isn't God's will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing; the people we love are taken from us, and we can joy in nothing because they are not with us; sickness comes, and we faint under the burden of our feeble bodies; we go astray and do wrong, and bring ourselves into trouble with our fellow-men.",0 "There is no man or woman born into this world to whom some of these trials do not fall, and so I feel that some of them must happen to you; and I desire for you, that while you are young you should seek for strength from your Heavenly Father, that you may have a support which will not fail you in the evil day.""",1 Dinah paused and released Hetty's hands that she might not hinder her.,1 "Hetty sat quite still; she felt no response within herself to Dinah's anxious affection; but Dinah's words uttered with solemn pathetic distinctness, affected her with a chill fear.",0 "Her flush had died away almost to paleness; she had the timidity of a luxurious pleasure-seeking nature, which shrinks from the hint of pain.",1 "Dinah saw the effect, and her tender anxious pleading became the more earnest, till Hetty, full of a vague fear that something evil was some time to befall her, began to cry.",0 "It is our habit to say that while the lower nature can never understand the higher, the higher nature commands a complete view of the lower.",2 "But I think the higher nature has to learn this comprehension, as we learn the art of vision, by a good deal of hard experience, often with bruises and gashes incurred in taking things up by the wrong end, and fancying our space wider than it is.",1 "Dinah had never seen Hetty affected in this way before, and, with her usual benignant hopefulness, she trusted it was the stirring of a divine impulse.",3 "She kissed the sobbing thing, and began to cry with her for grateful joy.",3 "But Hetty was simply in that excitable state of mind in which there is no calculating what turn the feelings may take from one moment to another, and for the first time she became irritated under Dinah's caress.",1 "She pushed her away impatiently, and said, with a childish sobbing voice, ""Don't talk to me so, Dinah.",1 Why do you come to frighten me?,1 I've never done anything to you.,2 "Why can't you let me be?""",2 Poor Dinah felt a pang.,1 "She was too wise to persist, and only said mildly, ""Yes, my dear, you're tired; I won't hinder you any longer.",1 Make haste and get into bed.,1 "Good-night.""",3 "She went out of the room almost as quietly and quickly as if she had been a ghost; but once by the side of her own bed, she threw herself on her knees and poured out in deep silence all the passionate pity that filled her heart.",2 "As for Hetty, she was soon in the wood again--her waking dreams being merged in a sleeping life scarcely more fragmentary and confused.",1 "ARTHUR DONNITHORNE, you remember, is under an engagement with himself to go and see Mr. Irwine this Friday morning, and he is awake and dressing so early that he determines to go before breakfast, instead of after.",2 "The rector, he knows, breakfasts alone at half-past nine, the ladies of the family having a different breakfast-hour; Arthur will have an early ride over the hill and breakfast with him.",2 One can say everything best over a meal.,3 The progress of civilization has made a breakfast or a dinner an easy and cheerful substitute for more troublesome and disagreeable ceremonies.,3 We take a less gloomy view of our errors now our father confessor listens to us over his egg and coffee.,1 "We are more distinctly conscious that rude penances are out of the question for gentlemen in an enlightened age, and that mortal sin is not incompatible with an appetite for muffins.",0 "An assault on our pockets, which in more barbarous times would have been made in the brusque form of a pistol-shot, is quite a well-bred and smiling procedure now it has become a request for a loan thrown in as an easy parenthesis between the second and third glasses of claret.",2 "Still, there was this advantage in the old rigid forms, that they committed you to the fulfilment of a resolution by some outward deed: when you have put your mouth to one end of a hole in a stone wall and are aware that there is an expectant ear at the other end, you are more likely to say what you came out with the intention of saying than if you were seated with your legs in an easy attitude under the mahogany with a companion who will have no reason to be surprised if you have nothing particular to say.",3 "However, Arthur Donnithorne, as he winds among the pleasant lanes on horseback in the morning sunshine, has a sincere determination to open his heart to the rector, and the swirling sound of the scythe as he passes by the meadow is all the pleasanter to him because of this honest purpose.",4 "He is glad to see the promise of settled weather now, for getting in the hay, about which the farmers have been fearful; and there is something so healthful in the sharing of a joy that is general and not merely personal, that this thought about the hay-harvest reacts on his state of mind and makes his resolution seem an easier matter.",4 "A man about town might perhaps consider that these influences were not to be felt out of a child's story-book; but when you are among the fields and hedgerows, it is impossible to maintain a consistent superiority to simple natural pleasures.",3 "Arthur had passed the village of Hayslope and was approaching the Broxton side of the hill, when, at a turning in the road, he saw a figure about a hundred yards before him which it was impossible to mistake for any one else than Adam Bede, even if there had been no grey, tailless shepherd-dog at his heels.",1 "He was striding along at his usual rapid pace, and Arthur pushed on his horse to overtake him, for he retained too much of his boyish feeling for Adam to miss an opportunity of chatting with him.",3 "I will not say that his love for that good fellow did not owe some of its force to the love of patronage: our friend Arthur liked to do everything that was handsome, and to have his handsome deeds recognized.",4 "Adam looked round as he heard the quickening clatter of the horse's heels, and waited for the horseman, lifting his paper cap from his head with a bright smile of recognition.",3 "Next to his own brother Seth, Adam would have done more for Arthur Donnithorne than for any other young man in the world.",2 "There was hardly anything he would not rather have lost than the two-feet ruler which he always carried in his pocket; it was Arthur's present, bought with his pocket-money when he was a fair-haired lad of eleven, and when he had profited so well by Adam's lessons in carpentering and turning as to embarrass every female in the house with gifts of superfluous thread-reels and round boxes.",1 "Adam had quite a pride in the little squire in those early days, and the feeling had only become slightly modified as the fair-haired lad had grown into the whiskered young man.",3 "Adam, I confess, was very susceptible to the influence of rank, and quite ready to give an extra amount of respect to every one who had more advantages than himself, not being a philosopher or a proletaire with democratic ideas, but simply a stout-limbed clever carpenter with a large fund of reverence in his nature, which inclined him to admit all established claims unless he saw very clear grounds for questioning them.",4 "He had no theories about setting the world to rights, but he saw there was a great deal of damage done by building with ill-seasoned timber--by ignorant men in fine clothes making plans for outhouses and workshops and the like without knowing the bearings of things--by slovenly joiners' work, and by hasty contracts that could never be fulfilled without ruining somebody; and he resolved, for his part, to set his face against such doings.",3 On these points he would have maintained his opinion against the largest landed proprietor in Loamshire or Stonyshire either; but he felt that beyond these it would be better for him to defer to people who were more knowing than himself.,3 "He saw as plainly as possible how ill the woods on the estate were managed, and the shameful state of the farm-buildings; and if old Squire Donnithorne had asked him the effect of this mismanagement, he would have spoken his opinion without flinching, but the impulse to a respectful demeanour towards a ""gentleman"" would have been strong within him all the while.",3 "The word ""gentleman"" had a spell for Adam, and, as he often said, he ""couldn't abide a fellow who thought he made himself fine by being coxy to's betters.""",3 "I must remind you again that Adam had the blood of the peasant in his veins, and that since he was in his prime half a century ago, you must expect some of his characteristics to be obsolete.",1 "Towards the young squire this instinctive reverence of Adam's was assisted by boyish memories and personal regard so you may imagine that he thought far more of Arthur's good qualities, and attached far more value to very slight actions of his, than if they had been the qualities and actions of a common workman like himself.",4 "He felt sure it would be a fine day for everybody about Hayslope when the young squire came into the estate--such a generous open-hearted disposition as he had, and an ""uncommon"" notion about improvements and repairs, considering he was only just coming of age.",4 Thus there was both respect and affection in the smile with which he raised his paper cap as Arthur Donnithorne rode up.,4 """Well, Adam, how are you?""",3 "said Arthur, holding out his hand.",2 "He never shook hands with any of the farmers, and Adam felt the honour keenly.",3 """I could swear to your back a long way off.",2 "It's just the same back, only broader, as when you used to carry me on it.",2 "Do you remember?""",2 """Aye, sir, I remember.",2 It 'ud be a poor look-out if folks didn't remember what they did and said when they were lads.,1 "We should think no more about old friends than we do about new uns, then.""",2 """You're going to Broxton, I suppose?""",2 "said Arthur, putting his horse on at a slow pace while Adam walked by his side.",1 """Are you going to the rectory?""",2 """No, sir, I'm going to see about Bradwell's barn.",2 "They're afraid of the roof pushing the walls out, and I'm going to see what can be done with it before we send the stuff and the workmen.""",1 """Why, Burge trusts almost everything to you now, Adam, doesn't he?",2 I should think he will make you his partner soon.,2 "He will, if he's wise.""",3 """Nay, sir, I don't see as he'd be much the better off for that.",3 "A foreman, if he's got a conscience and delights in his work, will do his business as well as if he was a partner.",3 "I wouldn't give a penny for a man as 'ud drive a nail in slack because he didn't get extra pay for it.""",1 """I know that, Adam; I know you work for him as well as if you were working for yourself.",3 "But you would have more power than you have now, and could turn the business to better account perhaps.",3 "The old man must give up his business sometime, and he has no son; I suppose he'll want a son-in-law who can take to it.",2 "But he has rather grasping fingers of his own, I fancy.",3 I daresay he wants a man who can put some money into the business.,2 "If I were not as poor as a rat, I would gladly invest some money in that way, for the sake of having you settled on the estate.",2 I'm sure I should profit by it in the end.,2 And perhaps I shall be better off in a year or two.,3 "I shall have a larger allowance now I'm of age; and when I've paid off a debt or two, I shall be able to look about me.""",1 """You're very good to say so, sir, and I'm not unthankful.",3 "But""--Adam continued, in a decided tone--""I shouldn't like to make any offers to Mr. Burge, or t' have any made for me.",3 I see no clear road to a partnership.,3 "If he should ever want to dispose of the business, that 'ud be a different matter.",2 "I should be glad of some money at a fair interest then, for I feel sure I could pay it off in time.""",3 """Very well, Adam,"" said Arthur, remembering what Mr. Irwine had said about a probable hitch in the love-making between Adam and Mary Burge, ""we'll say no more about it at present.",3 "When is your father to be buried?""",2 """On Sunday, sir; Mr. Irwine's coming earlier on purpose.",2 "I shall be glad when it's over, for I think my mother 'ull perhaps get easier then.",3 "It cuts one sadly to see the grief of old people; they've no way o' working it off, and the new spring brings no new shoots out on the withered tree.""",1 """Ah, you've had a good deal of trouble and vexation in your life, Adam.",1 "I don't think you've ever been hare-brained and light-hearted, like other youngsters.",3 "You've always had some care on your mind.""",2 """Why, yes, sir; but that's nothing to make a fuss about.",1 "If we're men and have men's feelings, I reckon we must have men's troubles.",1 "We can't be like the birds, as fly from their nest as soon as they've got their wings, and never know their kin when they see 'em, and get a fresh lot every year.",3 I've had enough to be thankful for: I've allays had health and strength and brains to give me a delight in my work; and I count it a great thing as I've had Bartle Massey's night-school to go to.,4 "He's helped me to knowledge I could never ha' got by myself.""",3 """What a rare fellow you are, Adam!""",2 "said Arthur, after a pause, in which he had looked musingly at the big fellow walking by his side.",2 """I could hit out better than most men at Oxford, and yet I believe you would knock me into next week if I were to have a battle with you.""",2 """God forbid I should ever do that, sir,"" said Adam, looking round at Arthur and smiling.",2 """I used to fight for fun, but I've never done that since I was the cause o' poor Gil Tranter being laid up for a fortnight.",2 "I'll never fight any man again, only when he behaves like a scoundrel.",2 "If you get hold of a chap that's got no shame nor conscience to stop him, you must try what you can do by bunging his eyes up.""",1 "Arthur did not laugh, for he was preoccupied with some thought that made him say presently, ""I should think now, Adam, you never have any struggles within yourself.",1 "I fancy you would master a wish that you had made up your mind it was not quite right to indulge, as easily as you would knock down a drunken fellow who was quarrelsome with you.",1 "I mean, you are never shilly-shally, first making up your mind that you won't do a thing, and then doing it after all?""",2 """Well,"" said Adam, slowly, after a moment's hesitation, ""no.",2 "I don't remember ever being see-saw in that way, when I'd made my mind up, as you say, that a thing was wrong.",1 "It takes the taste out o' my mouth for things, when I know I should have a heavy conscience after 'em.",2 "I've seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum, as you can never do what's wrong without breeding sin and trouble more than you can ever see.",1 It's like a bit o' bad workmanship--you never see th' end o' the mischief it'll do.,1 And it's a poor look-out to come into the world to make your fellow-creatures worse off instead o' better.,1 But there's a difference between the things folks call wrong.,1 "I'm not for making a sin of every little fool's trick, or bit o' nonsense anybody may be let into, like some o' them dissenters.",1 And a man may have two minds whether it isn't worthwhile to get a bruise or two for the sake of a bit o' fun.,3 But it isn't my way to be see-saw about anything: I think my fault lies th' other way.,1 "When I've said a thing, if it's only to myself, it's hard for me to go back.""",1 """Yes, that's just what I expected of you,"" said Arthur.",2 """You've got an iron will, as well as an iron arm.",3 "But however strong a man's resolution may be, it costs him something to carry it out, now and then.",3 "We may determine not to gather any cherries and keep our hands sturdily in our pockets, but we can't prevent our mouths from watering.""",2 """That's true, sir, but there's nothing like settling with ourselves as there's a deal we must do without i' this life.",3 "It's no use looking on life as if it was Treddles'on Fair, where folks only go to see shows and get fairings.",3 "If we do, we shall find it different.",2 "But where's the use o' me talking to you, sir?",2 "You know better than I do.""",3 """I'm not so sure of that, Adam.",2 "You've had four or five years of experience more than I've had, and I think your life has been a better school to you than college has been to me.""",3 """Why, sir, you seem to think o' college something like what Bartle Massey does.",3 He says college mostly makes people like bladders--just good for nothing but t' hold the stuff as is poured into 'em.,3 "But he's got a tongue like a sharp blade, Bartle has--it never touches anything but it cuts.",3 "Here's the turning, sir.",2 "I must bid you good-morning, as you're going to the rectory.""",3 """Good-bye, Adam, good-bye.""",3 "Arthur gave his horse to the groom at the rectory gate, and walked along the gravel towards the door which opened on the garden.",2 "He knew that the rector always breakfasted in his study, and the study lay on the left hand of this door, opposite the dining-room.",2 "It was a small low room, belonging to the old part of the house--dark with the sombre covers of the books that lined the walls; yet it looked very cheery this morning as Arthur reached the open window.",2 "For the morning sun fell aslant on the great glass globe with gold fish in it, which stood on a scagliola pillar in front of the ready-spread bachelor breakfast-table, and by the side of this breakfast-table was a group which would have made any room enticing.",4 "In the crimson damask easy-chair sat Mr. Irwine, with that radiant freshness which he always had when he came from his morning toilet; his finely formed plump white hand was playing along Juno's brown curly back; and close to Juno's tail, which was wagging with calm matronly pleasure, the two brown pups were rolling over each other in an ecstatic duet of worrying noises.",4 "On a cushion a little removed sat Pug, with the air of a maiden lady, who looked on these familiarities as animal weaknesses, which she made as little show as possible of observing.",1 "On the table, at Mr. Irwine's elbow, lay the first volume of the Foulis AEschylus, which Arthur knew well by sight; and the silver coffee-pot, which Carroll was bringing in, sent forth a fragrant steam which completed the delights of a bachelor breakfast.",3 """Hallo, Arthur, that's a good fellow!",3 "You're just in time,"" said Mr. Irwine, as Arthur paused and stepped in over the low window-sill.",2 """Carroll, we shall want more coffee and eggs, and haven't you got some cold fowl for us to eat with that ham?",1 "Why, this is like old days, Arthur; you haven't been to breakfast with me these five years.""",3 """It was a tempting morning for a ride before breakfast,"" said Arthur; ""and I used to like breakfasting with you so when I was reading with you.",3 My grandfather is always a few degrees colder at breakfast than at any other hour in the day.,2 "I think his morning bath doesn't agree with him.""",2 Arthur was anxious not to imply that he came with any special purpose.,1 "He had no sooner found himself in Mr. Irwine's presence than the confidence which he had thought quite easy before, suddenly appeared the most difficult thing in the world to him, and at the very moment of shaking hands he saw his purpose in quite a new light.",3 How could he make Irwine understand his position unless he told him those little scenes in the wood; and how could he tell them without looking like a fool?,2 "And then his weakness in coming back from Gawaine's, and doing the very opposite of what he intended!",1 Irwine would think him a shilly-shally fellow ever after.,2 "However, it must come out in an unpremeditated way; the conversation might lead up to it.",3 """I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day,"" said Mr. Irwine.",3 """No dust has settled on one's mind then, and it presents a clear mirror to the rays of things.",2 "I always have a favourite book by me at breakfast, and I enjoy the bits I pick up then so much, that regularly every morning it seems to me as if I should certainly become studious again.",3 "But presently Dent brings up a poor fellow who has killed a hare, and when I've got through my 'justicing,' as Carroll calls it, I'm inclined for a ride round the glebe, and on my way back I meet with the master of the workhouse, who has got a long story of a mutinous pauper to tell me; and so the day goes on, and I'm always the same lazy fellow before evening sets in.",0 "Besides, one wants the stimulus of sympathy, and I have never had that since poor D'Oyley left Treddleston.",1 "If you had stuck to your books well, you rascal, I should have had a pleasanter prospect before me.",1 "But scholarship doesn't run in your family blood.""",2 """No indeed.",2 It's well if I can remember a little inapplicable Latin to adorn my maiden speech in Parliament six or seven years hence.,3 "'Cras ingens iterabimus aequor,' and a few shreds of that sort, will perhaps stick to me, and I shall arrange my opinions so as to introduce them.",2 "But I don't think a knowledge of the classics is a pressing want to a country gentleman; as far as I can see, he'd much better have a knowledge of manures.",3 "I've been reading your friend Arthur Young's books lately, and there's nothing I should like better than to carry out some of his ideas in putting the farmers on a better management of their land; and, as he says, making what was a wild country, all of the same dark hue, bright and variegated with corn and cattle.",3 "My grandfather will never let me have any power while he lives, but there's nothing I should like better than to undertake the Stonyshire side of the estate--it's in a dismal condition--and set improvements on foot, and gallop about from one place to another and overlook them.",3 "I should like to know all the labourers, and see them touching their hats to me with a look of goodwill.""",3 """Bravo, Arthur!",3 A man who has no feeling for the classics couldn't make a better apology for coming into the world than by increasing the quantity of food to maintain scholars--and rectors who appreciate scholars.,3 And whenever you enter on your career of model landlord may I be there to see.,2 "You'll want a portly rector to complete the picture, and take his tithe of all the respect and honour you get by your hard work.",3 Only don't set your heart too strongly on the goodwill you are to get in consequence.,3 I'm not sure that men are the fondest of those who try to be useful to them.,3 You know Gawaine has got the curses of the whole neighbourhood upon him about that enclosure.,1 "You must make it quite clear to your mind which you are most bent upon, old boy--popularity or usefulness--else you may happen to miss both.""",1 """Oh!",2 Gawaine is harsh in his manners; he doesn't make himself personally agreeable to his tenants.,2 I don't believe there's anything you can't prevail on people to do with kindness.,3 "For my part, I couldn't live in a neighbourhood where I was not respected and beloved.",3 "And it's very pleasant to go among the tenants here--they seem all so well inclined to me I suppose it seems only the other day to them since I was a little lad, riding on a pony about as big as a sheep.",3 "And if fair allowances were made to them, and their buildings attended to, one could persuade them to farm on a better plan, stupid as they are.""",3 """Then mind you fall in love in the right place, and don't get a wife who will drain your purse and make you niggardly in spite of yourself.",1 "My mother and I have a little discussion about you sometimes: she says, 'I'll never risk a single prophecy on Arthur until I see the woman he falls in love with.'",1 She thinks your lady-love will rule you as the moon rules the tides.,3 "But I feel bound to stand up for you, as my pupil you know, and I maintain that you're not of that watery quality.",2 "So mind you don't disgrace my judgment.""",1 "Arthur winced under this speech, for keen old Mrs. Irwine's opinion about him had the disagreeable effect of a sinister omen.",1 "This, to be sure, was only another reason for persevering in his intention, and getting an additional security against himself.",2 "Nevertheless, at this point in the conversation, he was conscious of increased disinclination to tell his story about Hetty.",1 "He was of an impressible nature, and lived a great deal in other people's opinions and feelings concerning himself; and the mere fact that he was in the presence of an intimate friend, who had not the slightest notion that he had had any such serious internal struggle as he came to confide, rather shook his own belief in the seriousness of the struggle.",2 "It was not, after all, a thing to make a fuss about; and what could Irwine do for him that he could not do for himself?",1 "He would go to Eagledale in spite of Meg's lameness--go on Rattler, and let Pym follow as well as he could on the old hack.",1 "That was his thought as he sugared his coffee; but the next minute, as he was lifting the cup to his lips, he remembered how thoroughly he had made up his mind last night to tell Irwine.",2 No!,2 "He would not be vacillating again--he WOULD do what he had meant to do, this time.",2 So it would be well not to let the personal tone of the conversation altogether drop.,3 "If they went to quite indifferent topics, his difficulty would be heightened.",1 "It had required no noticeable pause for this rush and rebound of feeling, before he answered, ""But I think it is hardly an argument against a man's general strength of character that he should be apt to be mastered by love.",3 A fine constitution doesn't insure one against smallpox or any other of those inevitable diseases.,2 "A man may be very firm in other matters and yet be under a sort of witchery from a woman.""",2 """Yes; but there's this difference between love and smallpox, or bewitchment either--that if you detect the disease at an early stage and try change of air, there is every chance of complete escape without any further development of symptoms.",2 "And there are certain alternative doses which a man may administer to himself by keeping unpleasant consequences before his mind: this gives you a sort of smoked glass through which you may look at the resplendent fair one and discern her true outline; though I'm afraid, by the by, the smoked glass is apt to be missing just at the moment it is most wanted.",2 "I daresay, now, even a man fortified with a knowledge of the classics might be lured into an imprudent marriage, in spite of the warning given him by the chorus in the Prometheus.""",0 "The smile that flitted across Arthur's face was a faint one, and instead of following Mr. Irwine's playful lead, he said, quite seriously--""Yes, that's the worst of it.",3 "It's a desperately vexatious thing, that after all one's reflections and quiet determinations, we should be ruled by moods that one can't calculate on beforehand.",2 "I don't think a man ought to be blamed so much if he is betrayed into doing things in that way, in spite of his resolutions.""",1 """Ah, but the moods lie in his nature, my boy, just as much as his reflections did, and more.",1 A man can never do anything at variance with his own nature.,2 "He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom.""",4 """Well, but one may be betrayed into doing things by a combination of circumstances, which one might never have done otherwise.""",3 """Why, yes, a man can't very well steal a bank-note unless the bank-note lies within convenient reach; but he won't make us think him an honest man because he begins to howl at the bank-note for falling in his way.""",2 """But surely you don't think a man who struggles against a temptation into which he falls at last as bad as the man who never struggles at all?""",0 """No, certainly; I pity him in proportion to his struggles, for they foreshadow the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis.",0 Consequences are unpitying.,2 "Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before--consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves.",1 "And it is best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of considering what may be the elements of excuse for us.",2 "But I never knew you so inclined for moral discussion, Arthur?",2 "Is it some danger of your own that you are considering in this philosophical, general way?""",1 "In asking this question, Mr. Irwine pushed his plate away, threw himself back in his chair, and looked straight at Arthur.",2 "He really suspected that Arthur wanted to tell him something, and thought of smoothing the way for him by this direct question.",2 But he was mistaken.,1 "Brought suddenly and involuntarily to the brink of confession, Arthur shrank back and felt less disposed towards it than ever.",1 "The conversation had taken a more serious tone than he had intended--it would quite mislead Irwine--he would imagine there was a deep passion for Hetty, while there was no such thing.",2 "He was conscious of colouring, and was annoyed at his boyishness.",1 """Oh no, no danger,"" he said as indifferently as he could.",1 """I don't know that I am more liable to irresolution than other people; only there are little incidents now and then that set one speculating on what might happen in the future.""",1 "Was there a motive at work under this strange reluctance of Arthur's which had a sort of backstairs influence, not admitted to himself?",1 Our mental business is carried on much in the same way as the business of the State: a great deal of hard work is done by agents who are not acknowledged.,3 "In a piece of machinery, too, I believe there is often a small unnoticeable wheel which has a great deal to do with the motion of the large obvious ones.",3 "Possibly there was some such unrecognized agent secretly busy in Arthur's mind at this moment--possibly it was the fear lest he might hereafter find the fact of having made a confession to the rector a serious annoyance, in case he should NOT be able quite to carry out his good resolutions?",1 I dare not assert that it was not so.,2 The human soul is a very complex thing.,1 "The idea of Hetty had just crossed Mr. Irwine's mind as he looked inquiringly at Arthur, but his disclaiming indifferent answer confirmed the thought which had quickly followed--that there could be nothing serious in that direction.",1 "There was no probability that Arthur ever saw her except at church, and at her own home under the eye of Mrs. Poyser; and the hint he had given Arthur about her the other day had no more serious meaning than to prevent him from noticing her so as to rouse the little chit's vanity, and in this way perturb the rustic drama of her life.",1 "Arthur would soon join his regiment, and be far away: no, there could be no danger in that quarter, even if Arthur's character had not been a strong security against it.",2 "His honest, patronizing pride in the good-will and respect of everybody about him was a safeguard even against foolish romance, still more against a lower kind of folly.",4 "If there had been anything special on Arthur's mind in the previous conversation, it was clear he was not inclined to enter into details, and Mr. Irwine was too delicate to imply even a friendly curiosity.",4 "He perceived a change of subject would be welcome, and said, ""By the way, Arthur, at your colonel's birthday fete there were some transparencies that made a great effect in honour of Britannia, and Pitt, and the Loamshire Militia, and, above all, the 'generous youth,' the hero of the day.",4 "Don't you think you should get up something of the same sort to astonish our weak minds?""",2 The opportunity was gone.,2 "While Arthur was hesitating, the rope to which he might have clung had drifted away--he must trust now to his own swimming.",3 "In ten minutes from that time, Mr. Irwine was called for on business, and Arthur, bidding him good-bye, mounted his horse again with a sense of dissatisfaction, which he tried to quell by determining to set off for Eagledale without an hour's delay.",1 """THIS Rector of Broxton is little better than a pagan!""",3 I hear one of my readers exclaim.,2 """How much more edifying it would have been if you had made him give Arthur some truly spiritual advice!",3 "You might have put into his mouth the most beautiful things--quite as good as reading a sermon.""",3 "Certainly I could, if I held it the highest vocation of the novelist to represent things as they never have been and never will be.",2 "Then, of course, I might refashion life and character entirely after my own liking; I might select the most unexceptionable type of clergyman and put my own admirable opinions into his mouth on all occasions.",3 "But it happens, on the contrary, that my strongest effort is to avoid any such arbitrary picture, and to give a faithful account of men and things as they have mirrored themselves in my mind.",3 "The mirror is doubtless defective, the outlines will sometimes be disturbed, the reflection faint or confused; but I feel as much bound to tell you as precisely as I can what that reflection is, as if I were in the witness-box, narrating my experience on oath.",1 "Sixty years ago--it is a long time, so no wonder things have changed--all clergymen were not zealous; indeed, there is reason to believe that the number of zealous clergymen was small, and it is probable that if one among the small minority had owned the livings of Broxton and Hayslope in the year 1799, you would have liked him no better than you like Mr. Irwine.",4 "Ten to one, you would have thought him a tasteless, indiscreet, methodistical man.",1 It is so very rarely that facts hit that nice medium required by our own enlightened opinions and refined taste!,3 "Perhaps you will say, ""Do improve the facts a little, then; make them more accordant with those correct views which it is our privilege to possess.",4 "The world is not just what we like; do touch it up with a tasteful pencil, and make believe it is not quite such a mixed entangled affair.",3 Let all people who hold unexceptionable opinions act unexceptionably.,2 "Let your most faulty characters always be on the wrong side, and your virtuous ones on the right.",2 Then we shall see at a glance whom we are to condemn and whom we are to approve.,2 "Then we shall be able to admire, without the slightest disturbance of our prepossessions: we shall hate and despise with that true ruminant relish which belongs to undoubting confidence.""",2 "But, my good friend, what will you do then with your fellow-parishioner who opposes your husband in the vestry?",3 "With your newly appointed vicar, whose style of preaching you find painfully below that of his regretted predecessor?",1 With the honest servant who worries your soul with her one failing?,1 "With your neighbour, Mrs. Green, who was really kind to you in your last illness, but has said several ill-natured things about you since your convalescence?",1 "Nay, with your excellent husband himself, who has other irritating habits besides that of not wiping his shoes?",2 "These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people--amongst whom your life is passed--that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire--for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience.",4 "And I would not, even if I had the choice, be the clever novelist who could create a world so much better than this, in which we get up in the morning to do our daily work, that you would be likely to turn a harder, colder eye on the dusty streets and the common green fields--on the real breathing men and women, who can be chilled by your indifference or injured by your prejudice; who can be cheered and helped onward by your fellow-feeling, your forbearance, your outspoken, brave justice.",3 "So I am content to tell my simple story, without trying to make things seem better than they were; dreading nothing, indeed, but falsity, which, in spite of one's best efforts, there is reason to dread.",2 "Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult.",1 "The pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing a griffin--the longer the claws, and the larger the wings, the better; but that marvellous facility which we mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a real unexaggerated lion.",4 "Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings--much harder than to say something fine about them which is NOT the exact truth.",2 "It is for this rare, precious quality of truthfulness that I delight in many Dutch paintings, which lofty-minded people despise.",3 "I find a source of delicious sympathy in these faithful pictures of a monotonous homely existence, which has been the fate of so many more among my fellow-mortals than a life of pomp or of absolute indigence, of tragic suffering or of world-stirring actions.",1 "I turn, without shrinking, from cloud-borne angels, from prophets, sibyls, and heroic warriors, to an old woman bending over her flower-pot, or eating her solitary dinner, while the noonday light, softened perhaps by a screen of leaves, falls on her mob-cap, and just touches the rim of her spinning-wheel, and her stone jug, and all those cheap common things which are the precious necessaries of life to her--or I turn to that village wedding, kept between four brown walls, where an awkward bridegroom opens the dance with a high-shouldered, broad-faced bride, while elderly and middle-aged friends look on, with very irregular noses and lips, and probably with quart-pots in their hands, but with an expression of unmistakable contentment and goodwill.",1 """Foh!""",2 "says my idealistic friend, ""what vulgar details!",1 What good is there in taking all these pains to give an exact likeness of old women and clowns?,2 What a low phase of life!,2 "What clumsy, ugly people!""",1 "But bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I hope?",4 "I am not at all sure that the majority of the human race have not been ugly, and even among those ""lords of their kind,"" the British, squat figures, ill-shapen nostrils, and dingy complexions are not startling exceptions.",1 Yet there is a great deal of family love amongst us.,3 "I have a friend or two whose class of features is such that the Apollo curl on the summit of their brows would be decidedly trying; yet to my certain knowledge tender hearts have beaten for them, and their miniatures--flattering, but still not lovely--are kissed in secret by motherly lips.",4 "I have seen many an excellent matron, who could have never in her best days have been handsome, and yet she had a packet of yellow love-letters in a private drawer, and sweet children showered kisses on her sallow cheeks.",4 "And I believe there have been plenty of young heroes, of middle stature and feeble beards, who have felt quite sure they could never love anything more insignificant than a Diana, and yet have found themselves in middle life happily settled with a wife who waddles.",2 Yes!,2 Thank God; human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty--it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it.,4 All honour and reverence to the divine beauty of form!,4 "Let us cultivate it to the utmost in men, women, and children--in our gardens and in our houses.",2 "But let us love that other beauty too, which lies in no secret of proportion, but in the secret of deep human sympathy.",3 "Paint us an angel, if you can, with a floating violet robe, and a face paled by the celestial light; paint us yet oftener a Madonna, turning her mild face upward and opening her arms to welcome the divine glory; but do not impose on us any aesthetic rules which shall banish from the region of Art those old women scraping carrots with their work-worn hands, those heavy clowns taking holiday in a dingy pot-house, those rounded backs and stupid weather-beaten faces that have bent over the spade and done the rough work of the world--those homes with their tin pans, their brown pitchers, their rough curs, and their clusters of onions.",1 "In this world there are so many of these common coarse people, who have no picturesque sentimental wretchedness!",1 "It is so needful we should remember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite out of our religion and philosophy and frame lofty theories which only fit a world of extremes.",2 "Therefore, let Art always remind us of them; therefore let us always have men ready to give the loving pains of a life to the faithful representing of commonplace things--men who see beauty in these commonplace things, and delight in showing how kindly the light of heaven falls on them.",4 There are few prophets in the world; few sublimely beautiful women; few heroes.,3 "I can't afford to give all my love and reverence to such rarities: I want a great deal of those feelings for my every-day fellow-men, especially for the few in the foreground of the great multitude, whose faces I know, whose hands I touch, for whom I have to make way with kindly courtesy.",4 "Neither are picturesque lazzaroni or romantic criminals half so frequent as your common labourer, who gets his own bread and eats it vulgarly but creditably with his own pocket-knife.",3 "It is more needful that I should have a fibre of sympathy connecting me with that vulgar citizen who weighs out my sugar in a vilely assorted cravat and waistcoat, than with the handsomest rascal in red scarf and green feathers--more needful that my heart should swell with loving admiration at some trait of gentle goodness in the faulty people who sit at the same hearth with me, or in the clergyman of my own parish, who is perhaps rather too corpulent and in other respects is not an Oberlin or a Tillotson, than at the deeds of heroes whom I shall never know except by hearsay, or at the sublimest abstract of all clerical graces that was ever conceived by an able novelist.",3 "And so I come back to Mr. Irwine, with whom I desire you to be in perfect charity, far as he may be from satisfying your demands on the clerical character.",3 Perhaps you think he was not--as he ought to have been--a living demonstration of the benefits attached to a national church?,3 "But I am not sure of that; at least I know that the people in Broxton and Hayslope would have been very sorry to part with their clergyman, and that most faces brightened at his approach; and until it can be proved that hatred is a better thing for the soul than love, I must believe that Mr. Irwine's influence in his parish was a more wholesome one than that of the zealous Mr. Ryde, who came there twenty years afterwards, when Mr. Irwine had been gathered to his fathers.",2 "It is true, Mr. Ryde insisted strongly on the doctrines of the Reformation, visited his flock a great deal in their own homes, and was severe in rebuking the aberrations of the flesh--put a stop, indeed, to the Christmas rounds of the church singers, as promoting drunkenness and too light a handling of sacred things.",2 "But I gathered from Adam Bede, to whom I talked of these matters in his old age, that few clergymen could be less successful in winning the hearts of their parishioners than Mr. Ryde.",3 "They learned a great many notions about doctrine from him, so that almost every church-goer under fifty began to distinguish as well between the genuine gospel and what did not come precisely up to that standard, as if he had been born and bred a Dissenter; and for some time after his arrival there seemed to be quite a religious movement in that quiet rural district.",4 """But,"" said Adam, ""I've seen pretty clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion's something else besides notions.",3 It isn't notions sets people doing the right thing--it's feelings.,3 "It's the same with the notions in religion as it is with math'matics--a man may be able to work problems straight off in's head as he sits by the fire and smokes his pipe, but if he has to make a machine or a building, he must have a will and a resolution and love something else better than his own ease.",4 "Somehow, the congregation began to fall off, and people began to speak light o' Mr. Ryde.",1 "I believe he meant right at bottom; but, you see, he was sourish-tempered, and was for beating down prices with the people as worked for him; and his preaching wouldn't go down well with that sauce.",4 "And he wanted to be like my lord judge i' the parish, punishing folks for doing wrong; and he scolded 'em from the pulpit as if he'd been a Ranter, and yet he couldn't abide the Dissenters, and was a deal more set against 'em than Mr. Irwine was.",1 "And then he didn't keep within his income, for he seemed to think at first go-off that six hundred a-year was to make him as big a man as Mr. Donnithorne.",2 That's a sore mischief I've often seen with the poor curates jumping into a bit of a living all of a sudden.,0 "Mr. Ryde was a deal thought on at a distance, I believe, and he wrote books, but as for math'matics and the natur o' things, he was as ignorant as a woman.",1 "He was very knowing about doctrines, and used to call 'em the bulwarks of the Reformation; but I've always mistrusted that sort o' learning as leaves folks foolish and unreasonable about business.",1 "Now Mester Irwine was as different as could be: as quick!--he understood what you meant in a minute, and he knew all about building, and could see when you'd made a good job.",3 "And he behaved as much like a gentleman to the farmers, and th' old women, and the labourers, as he did to the gentry.",3 "You never saw HIM interfering and scolding, and trying to play th' emperor.",1 "Ah, he was a fine man as ever you set eyes on; and so kind to's mother and sisters.",3 That poor sickly Miss Anne--he seemed to think more of her than of anybody else in the world.,0 "There wasn't a soul in the parish had a word to say against him; and his servants stayed with him till they were so old and pottering, he had to hire other folks to do their work.""",3 """Well,"" I said, ""that was an excellent way of preaching in the weekdays; but I daresay, if your old friend Mr. Irwine were to come to life again, and get into the pulpit next Sunday, you would be rather ashamed that he didn't preach better after all your praise of him.""",4 """Nay, nay,"" said Adam, broadening his chest and throwing himself back in his chair, as if he were ready to meet all inferences, ""nobody has ever heard me say Mr. Irwine was much of a preacher.",3 "He didn't go into deep speritial experience; and I know there s a deal in a man's inward life as you can't measure by the square, and say, 'Do this and that 'll follow,' and, 'Do that and this 'll follow.'",2 "There's things go on in the soul, and times when feelings come into you like a rushing mighty wind, as the Scripture says, and part your life in two a'most, so you look back on yourself as if you was somebody else.",3 Those are things as you can't bottle up in a 'do this' and 'do that'; and I'll go so far with the strongest Methodist ever you'll find.,3 That shows me there's deep speritial things in religion.,2 "You can't make much out wi' talking about it, but you feel it.",2 "Mr. Irwine didn't go into those things--he preached short moral sermons, and that was all.",2 "But then he acted pretty much up to what he said; he didn't set up for being so different from other folks one day, and then be as like 'em as two peas the next.",3 "And he made folks love him and respect him, and that was better nor stirring up their gall wi' being overbusy.",3 "Mrs. Poyser used to say--you know she would have her word about everything--she said, Mr. Irwine was like a good meal o' victual, you were the better for him without thinking on it, and Mr. Ryde was like a dose o' physic, he gripped you and worreted you, and after all he left you much the same.""",4 """But didn't Mr. Ryde preach a great deal more about that spiritual part of religion that you talk of, Adam?",3 "Couldn't you get more out of his sermons than out of Mr. Irwine's?""",2 """Eh, I knowna.",2 He preached a deal about doctrines.,2 "But I've seen pretty clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion's something else besides doctrines and notions.",3 "I look at it as if the doctrines was like finding names for your feelings, so as you can talk of 'em when you've never known 'em, just as a man may talk o' tools when he knows their names, though he's never so much as seen 'em, still less handled 'em.",3 "I've heard a deal o' doctrine i' my time, for I used to go after the Dissenting preachers along wi' Seth, when I was a lad o' seventeen, and got puzzling myself a deal about th' Arminians and the Calvinists.",1 "The Wesleyans, you know, are strong Arminians; and Seth, who could never abide anything harsh and was always for hoping the best, held fast by the Wesleyans from the very first; but I thought I could pick a hole or two in their notions, and I got disputing wi' one o' the class leaders down at Treddles'on, and harassed him so, first o' this side and then o' that, till at last he said, 'Young man, it's the devil making use o' your pride and conceit as a weapon to war against the simplicity o' the truth.'",2 "I couldn't help laughing then, but as I was going home, I thought the man wasn't far wrong.",1 "I began to see as all this weighing and sifting what this text means and that text means, and whether folks are saved all by God's grace, or whether there goes an ounce o' their own will to't, was no part o' real religion at all.",3 "You may talk o' these things for hours on end, and you'll only be all the more coxy and conceited for't.",1 "So I took to going nowhere but to church, and hearing nobody but Mr. Irwine, for he said nothing but what was good and what you'd be the wiser for remembering.",3 "And I found it better for my soul to be humble before the mysteries o' God's dealings, and not be making a clatter about what I could never understand.",3 And they're poor foolish questions after all; for what have we got either inside or outside of us but what comes from God?,1 "If we've got a resolution to do right, He gave it us, I reckon, first or last; but I see plain enough we shall never do it without a resolution, and that's enough for me.""",3 "Adam, you perceive, was a warm admirer, perhaps a partial judge, of Mr. Irwine, as, happily, some of us still are of the people we have known familiarly.",4 "Doubtless it will be despised as a weakness by that lofty order of minds who pant after the ideal, and are oppressed by a general sense that their emotions are of too exquisite a character to find fit objects among their everyday fellowmen.",3 "I have often been favoured with the confidence of these select natures, and find them to concur in the experience that great men are overestimated and small men are insupportable; that if you would love a woman without ever looking back on your love as a folly, she must die while you are courting her; and if you would maintain the slightest belief in human heroism, you must never make a pilgrimage to see the hero.",3 I confess I have often meanly shrunk from confessing to these accomplished and acute gentlemen what my own experience has been.,2 "I am afraid I have often smiled with hypocritical assent, and gratified them with an epigram on the fleeting nature of our illusions, which any one moderately acquainted with French literature can command at a moment's notice.",0 "Human converse, I think some wise man has remarked, is not rigidly sincere.",3 "But I herewith discharge my conscience, and declare that I have had quite enthusiastic movements of admiration towards old gentlemen who spoke the worst English, who were occasionally fretful in their temper, and who had never moved in a higher sphere of influence than that of parish overseer; and that the way in which I have come to the conclusion that human nature is lovable--the way I have learnt something of its deep pathos, its sublime mysteries--has been by living a great deal among people more or less commonplace and vulgar, of whom you would perhaps hear nothing very surprising if you were to inquire about them in the neighbourhoods where they dwelt.",2 Ten to one most of the small shopkeepers in their vicinity saw nothing at all in them.,2 "For I have observed this remarkable coincidence, that the select natures who pant after the ideal, and find nothing in pantaloons or petticoats great enough to command their reverence and love, are curiously in unison with the narrowest and pettiest.",4 "For example, I have often heard Mr. Gedge, the landlord of the Royal Oak, who used to turn a bloodshot eye on his neighbours in the village of Shepperton, sum up his opinion of the people in his own parish--and they were all the people he knew--in these emphatic words: ""Aye, sir, I've said it often, and I'll say it again, they're a poor lot i' this parish--a poor lot, sir, big and little.""",1 "I think he had a dim idea that if he could migrate to a distant parish, he might find neighbours worthy of him; and indeed he did subsequently transfer himself to the Saracen's Head, which was doing a thriving business in the back street of a neighbouring market-town.",3 "But, oddly enough, he has found the people up that back street of precisely the same stamp as the inhabitants of Shepperton--""a poor lot, sir, big and little, and them as comes for a go o' gin are no better than them as comes for a pint o' twopenny--a poor lot.""",3 """HETTY, Hetty, don't you know church begins at two, and it's gone half after one a'ready?",2 "Have you got nothing better to think on this good Sunday as poor old Thias Bede's to be put into the ground, and him drownded i' th' dead o' the night, as it's enough to make one's back run cold, but you must be 'dizening yourself as if there was a wedding i'stid of a funeral?""",2 """Well, Aunt,"" said Hetty, ""I can't be ready so soon as everybody else, when I've got Totty's things to put on.",3 "And I'd ever such work to make her stand still.""",3 "Hetty was coming downstairs, and Mrs. Poyser, in her plain bonnet and shawl, was standing below.",2 "If ever a girl looked as if she had been made of roses, that girl was Hetty in her Sunday hat and frock.",2 "For her hat was trimmed with pink, and her frock had pink spots, sprinkled on a white ground.",2 "There was nothing but pink and white about her, except in her dark hair and eyes and her little buckled shoes.",1 "Mrs. Poyser was provoked at herself, for she could hardly keep from smiling, as any mortal is inclined to do at the sight of pretty round things.",3 "So she turned without speaking, and joined the group outside the house door, followed by Hetty, whose heart was fluttering so at the thought of some one she expected to see at church that she hardly felt the ground she trod on.",2 And now the little procession set off.,2 "Mr. Poyser was in his Sunday suit of drab, with a red-and-green waistcoat and a green watch-ribbon having a large cornelian seal attached, pendant like a plumb-line from that promontory where his watch-pocket was situated; a silk handkerchief of a yellow tone round his neck; and excellent grey ribbed stockings, knitted by Mrs. Poyser's own hand, setting off the proportions of his leg.",3 "Mr. Poyser had no reason to be ashamed of his leg, and suspected that the growing abuse of top-boots and other fashions tending to disguise the nether limbs had their origin in a pitiable degeneracy of the human calf.",1 "Still less had he reason to be ashamed of his round jolly face, which was good humour itself as he said, ""Come, Hetty--come, little uns!""",3 "and giving his arm to his wife, led the way through the causeway gate into the yard.",3 "The ""little uns"" addressed were Marty and Tommy, boys of nine and seven, in little fustian tailed coats and knee-breeches, relieved by rosy cheeks and black eyes, looking as much like their father as a very small elephant is like a very large one.",3 "Hetty walked between them, and behind came patient Molly, whose task it was to carry Totty through the yard and over all the wet places on the road; for Totty, having speedily recovered from her threatened fever, had insisted on going to church to-day, and especially on wearing her red-and-black necklace outside her tippet.",3 "And there were many wet places for her to be carried over this afternoon, for there had been heavy showers in the morning, though now the clouds had rolled off and lay in towering silvery masses on the horizon.",2 You might have known it was Sunday if you had only waked up in the farmyard.,2 "The cocks and hens seemed to know it, and made only crooning subdued noises; the very bull-dog looked less savage, as if he would have been satisfied with a smaller bite than usual.",1 The sunshine seemed to call all things to rest and not to labour.,2 "It was asleep itself on the moss-grown cow-shed; on the group of white ducks nestling together with their bills tucked under their wings; on the old black sow stretched languidly on the straw, while her largest young one found an excellent spring-bed on his mother's fat ribs; on Alick, the shepherd, in his new smock-frock, taking an uneasy siesta, half-sitting, half-standing on the granary steps.",1 "Alick was of opinion that church, like other luxuries, was not to be indulged in often by a foreman who had the weather and the ewes on his mind.",3 """Church!",2 "Nay--I'n gotten summat else to think on,"" was an answer which he often uttered in a tone of bitter significance that silenced further question.",1 "I feel sure Alick meant no irreverence; indeed, I know that his mind was not of a speculative, negative cast, and he would on no account have missed going to church on Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, and ""Whissuntide.""",1 "But he had a general impression that public worship and religious ceremonies, like other non-productive employments, were intended for people who had leisure.",3 """There's Father a-standing at the yard-gate,"" said Martin Poyser.",2 """I reckon he wants to watch us down the field.",2 "It's wonderful what sight he has, and him turned seventy-five.""",3 """Ah, I often think it's wi' th' old folks as it is wi' the babbies,"" said Mrs. Poyser; ""they're satisfied wi' looking, no matter what they're looking at.",3 "It's God A'mighty's way o' quietening 'em, I reckon, afore they go to sleep.""",2 "Old Martin opened the gate as he saw the family procession approaching, and held it wide open, leaning on his stick--pleased to do this bit of work; for, like all old men whose life has been spent in labour, he liked to feel that he was still useful--that there was a better crop of onions in the garden because he was by at the sowing--and that the cows would be milked the better if he stayed at home on a Sunday afternoon to look on.",4 "He always went to church on Sacrament Sundays, but not very regularly at other times; on wet Sundays, or whenever he had a touch of rheumatism, he used to read the three first chapters of Genesis instead.",2 """They'll ha' putten Thias Bede i' the ground afore ye get to the churchyard,"" he said, as his son came up.",2 """It 'ud ha' been better luck if they'd ha' buried him i' the forenoon when the rain was fallin'; there's no likelihoods of a drop now; an' the moon lies like a boat there, dost see?",3 "That's a sure sign o' fair weather--there's a many as is false but that's sure.""",2 """Aye, aye,"" said the son, ""I'm in hopes it'll hold up now.""",2 """Mind what the parson says, mind what the parson says, my lads,"" said Grandfather to the black-eyed youngsters in knee-breeches, conscious of a marble or two in their pockets which they looked forward to handling, a little, secretly, during the sermon.",2 """Dood-bye, Dandad,"" said Totty.",2 """Me doin' to church.",2 Me dot my neklace on.,2 "Dive me a peppermint.""",2 "Grandad, shaking with laughter at this ""deep little wench,"" slowly transferred his stick to his left hand, which held the gate open, and slowly thrust his finger into the waistcoat pocket on which Totty had fixed her eyes with a confident look of expectation.",2 "And when they were all gone, the old man leaned on the gate again, watching them across the lane along the Home Close, and through the far gate, till they disappeared behind a bend in the hedge.",1 "For the hedgerows in those days shut out one's view, even on the better-managed farms; and this afternoon, the dog-roses were tossing out their pink wreaths, the nightshade was in its yellow and purple glory, the pale honeysuckle grew out of reach, peeping high up out of a holly bush, and over all an ash or a sycamore every now and then threw its shadow across the path.",3 "There were acquaintances at other gates who had to move aside and let them pass: at the gate of the Home Close there was half the dairy of cows standing one behind the other, extremely slow to understand that their large bodies might be in the way; at the far gate there was the mare holding her head over the bars, and beside her the liver-coloured foal with its head towards its mother's flank, apparently still much embarrassed by its own straddling existence.",1 "The way lay entirely through Mr. Poyser's own fields till they reached the main road leading to the village, and he turned a keen eye on the stock and the crops as they went along, while Mrs. Poyser was ready to supply a running commentary on them all.",4 "The woman who manages a dairy has a large share in making the rent, so she may well be allowed to have her opinion on stock and their ""keep""--an exercise which strengthens her understanding so much that she finds herself able to give her husband advice on most other subjects.",3 """There's that shorthorned Sally,"" she said, as they entered the Home Close, and she caught sight of the meek beast that lay chewing the cud and looking at her with a sleepy eye.",2 """I begin to hate the sight o' the cow; and I say now what I said three weeks ago, the sooner we get rid of her the better, for there's that little yallow cow as doesn't give half the milk, and yet I've twice as much butter from her.""",2 """Why, thee't not like the women in general,"" said Mr. Poyser; ""they like the shorthorns, as give such a lot o' milk.",3 "There's Chowne's wife wants him to buy no other sort.""",2 """What's it sinnify what Chowne's wife likes?",3 "A poor soft thing, wi' no more head-piece nor a sparrow.",2 "She'd take a big cullender to strain her lard wi', and then wonder as the scratchin's run through.",2 "I've seen enough of her to know as I'll niver take a servant from her house again--all hugger-mugger--and you'd niver know, when you went in, whether it was Monday or Friday, the wash draggin' on to th' end o' the week; and as for her cheese, I know well enough it rose like a loaf in a tin last year.",4 "And then she talks o' the weather bein' i' fault, as there's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i' their boots.""",1 """Well, Chowne's been wanting to buy Sally, so we can get rid of her if thee lik'st,"" said Mr. Poyser, secretly proud of his wife's superior power of putting two and two together; indeed, on recent market-days he had more than once boasted of her discernment in this very matter of shorthorns.",4 """Aye, them as choose a soft for a wife may's well buy up the shorthorns, for if you get your head stuck in a bog, your legs may's well go after it.",3 Eh!,2 "Talk o' legs, there's legs for you,"" Mrs. Poyser continued, as Totty, who had been set down now the road was dry, toddled on in front of her father and mother.",2 """There's shapes!",2 "An' she's got such a long foot, she'll be her father's own child.""",2 """Aye, she'll be welly such a one as Hetty i' ten years' time, on'y she's got THY coloured eyes.",2 "I niver remember a blue eye i' my family; my mother had eyes as black as sloes, just like Hetty's.""",3 """The child 'ull be none the worse for having summat as isn't like Hetty.",2 An' I'm none for having her so overpretty.,2 "Though for the matter o' that, there's people wi' light hair an' blue eyes as pretty as them wi' black.",3 "If Dinah had got a bit o' colour in her cheeks, an' didn't stick that Methodist cap on her head, enough to frighten the cows, folks 'ud think her as pretty as Hetty.""",3 """Nay, nay,"" said Mr. Poyser, with rather a contemptuous emphasis, ""thee dostna know the pints of a woman.",1 "The men 'ud niver run after Dinah as they would after Hetty.""",2 """What care I what the men 'ud run after?",2 "It's well seen what choice the most of 'em know how to make, by the poor draggle-tails o' wives you see, like bits o' gauze ribbin, good for nothing when the colour's gone.""",3 """Well, well, thee canstna say but what I knowed how to make a choice when I married thee,"" said Mr. Poyser, who usually settled little conjugal disputes by a compliment of this sort; ""and thee wast twice as buxom as Dinah ten year ago.""",3 """I niver said as a woman had need to be ugly to make a good missis of a house.",2 "There's Chowne's wife ugly enough to turn the milk an' save the rennet, but she'll niver save nothing any other way.",2 "But as for Dinah, poor child, she's niver likely to be buxom as long as she'll make her dinner o' cake and water, for the sake o' giving to them as want.",1 "She provoked me past bearing sometimes; and, as I told her, she went clean again' the Scriptur', for that says, 'Love your neighbour as yourself'; 'but,' I said, 'if you loved your neighbour no better nor you do yourself, Dinah, it's little enough you'd do for him.",4 You'd be thinking he might do well enough on a half-empty stomach.',3 "Eh, I wonder where she is this blessed Sunday!",3 "Sitting by that sick woman, I daresay, as she'd set her heart on going to all of a sudden.""",1 """Ah, it was a pity she should take such megrims into her head, when she might ha' stayed wi' us all summer, and eaten twice as much as she wanted, and it 'ud niver ha' been missed.",1 "She made no odds in th' house at all, for she sat as still at her sewing as a bird on the nest, and was uncommon nimble at running to fetch anything.",3 "If Hetty gets married, theed'st like to ha' Dinah wi' thee constant.""",3 """It's no use thinking o' that,"" said Mrs. Poyser.",2 """You might as well beckon to the flying swallow as ask Dinah to come an' live here comfortable, like other folks.",4 "If anything could turn her, I should ha' turned her, for I've talked to her for a hour on end, and scolded her too; for she's my own sister's child, and it behoves me to do what I can for her.",1 "But eh, poor thing, as soon as she'd said us 'good-bye' an' got into the cart, an' looked back at me with her pale face, as is welly like her Aunt Judith come back from heaven, I begun to be frightened to think o' the set-downs I'd given her; for it comes over you sometimes as if she'd a way o' knowing the rights o' things more nor other folks have.",2 "But I'll niver give in as that's 'cause she's a Methodist, no more nor a white calf's white 'cause it eats out o' the same bucket wi' a black un.""",2 """Nay,"" said Mr. Poyser, with as near an approach to a snarl as his good-nature would allow; ""I'm no opinion o' the Methodists.",2 It's on'y tradesfolks as turn Methodists; you nuver knew a farmer bitten wi' them maggots.,2 "There's maybe a workman now an' then, as isn't overclever at's work, takes to preachin' an' that, like Seth Bede.",3 "But you see Adam, as has got one o' the best head-pieces hereabout, knows better; he's a good Churchman, else I'd never encourage him for a sweetheart for Hetty.""",4 """Why, goodness me,"" said Mrs. Poyser, who had looked back while her husband was speaking, ""look where Molly is with them lads!",3 They're the field's length behind us.,2 "How COULD you let 'em do so, Hetty?",2 Anybody might as well set a pictur' to watch the children as you.,3 "Run back and tell 'em to come on.""",2 "Mr. and Mrs. Poyser were now at the end of the second field, so they set Totty on the top of one of the large stones forming the true Loamshire stile, and awaited the loiterers Totty observing with complacency, ""Dey naughty, naughty boys--me dood.""",2 "The fact was that this Sunday walk through the fields was fraught with great excitement to Marty and Tommy, who saw a perpetual drama going on in the hedgerows, and could no more refrain from stopping and peeping than if they had been a couple of spaniels or terriers.",3 "Marty was quite sure he saw a yellow-hammer on the boughs of the great ash, and while he was peeping, he missed the sight of a white-throated stoat, which had run across the path and was described with much fervour by the junior Tommy.",2 "Then there was a little greenfinch, just fledged, fluttering along the ground, and it seemed quite possible to catch it, till it managed to flutter under the blackberry bush.",3 "Hetty could not be got to give any heed to these things, so Molly was called on for her ready sympathy, and peeped with open mouth wherever she was told, and said ""Lawks!""",3 whenever she was expected to wonder.,3 "Molly hastened on with some alarm when Hetty had come back and called to them that her aunt was angry; but Marty ran on first, shouting, ""We've found the speckled turkey's nest, Mother!""",1 with the instinctive confidence that people who bring good news are never in fault.,3 """Ah,"" said Mrs. Poyser, really forgetting all discipline in this pleasant surprise, ""that's a good lad; why, where is it?""",3 """Down in ever such a hole, under the hedge.",1 "I saw it first, looking after the greenfinch, and she sat on th' nest.""",2 """You didn't frighten her, I hope,"" said the mother, ""else she'll forsake it.""",1 """No, I went away as still as still, and whispered to Molly--didn't I, Molly?""",2 """Well, well, now come on,"" said Mrs. Poyser, ""and walk before Father and Mother, and take your little sister by the hand.",3 We must go straight on now.,2 "Good boys don't look after the birds of a Sunday.""",3 """But, Mother,"" said Marty, ""you said you'd give half-a-crown to find the speckled turkey's nest.",2 "Mayn't I have the half-crown put into my money-box?""",2 """We'll see about that, my lad, if you walk along now, like a good boy.""",3 The father and mother exchanged a significant glance of amusement at their eldest-born's acuteness; but on Tommy's round face there was a cloud.,2 """Mother,"" he said, half-crying, ""Marty's got ever so much more money in his box nor I've got in mine.""",2 """Munny, me want half-a-toun in my bots,"" said Totty.",2 """Hush, hush, hush,"" said Mrs. Poyser, ""did ever anybody hear such naughty children?",1 "Nobody shall ever see their money-boxes any more, if they don't make haste and go on to church.""",1 "This dreadful threat had the desired effect, and through the two remaining fields the three pair of small legs trotted on without any serious interruption, notwithstanding a small pond full of tadpoles, alias ""bullheads,"" which the lads looked at wistfully.",0 "The damp hay that must be scattered and turned afresh to-morrow was not a cheering sight to Mr. Poyser, who during hay and corn harvest had often some mental struggles as to the benefits of a day of rest; but no temptation would have induced him to carry on any field-work, however early in the morning, on a Sunday; for had not Michael Holdsworth had a pair of oxen ""sweltered"" while he was ploughing on Good Friday?",3 "That was a demonstration that work on sacred days was a wicked thing; and with wickedness of any sort Martin Poyser was quite clear that he would have nothing to do, since money got by such means would never prosper.",3 """It a'most makes your fingers itch to be at the hay now the sun shines so,"" he observed, as they passed through the ""Big Meadow.""",1 """But it's poor foolishness to think o' saving by going against your conscience.",1 "There's that Jim Wakefield, as they used to call 'Gentleman Wakefield,' used to do the same of a Sunday as o' weekdays, and took no heed to right or wrong, as if there was nayther God nor devil.",1 An' what's he come to?,2 "Why, I saw him myself last market-day a-carrying a basket wi' oranges in't.""",2 """Ah, to be sure,"" said Mrs. Poyser, emphatically, ""you make but a poor trap to catch luck if you go and bait it wi' wickedness.",0 The money as is got so's like to burn holes i' your pocket.,2 I'd niver wish us to leave our lads a sixpence but what was got i' the rightful way.,3 "And as for the weather, there's One above makes it, and we must put up wi't: it's nothing of a plague to what the wenches are.""",1 "Notwithstanding the interruption in their walk, the excellent habit which Mrs. Poyser's clock had of taking time by the forelock had secured their arrival at the village while it was still a quarter to two, though almost every one who meant to go to church was already within the churchyard gates.",2 "Those who stayed at home were chiefly mothers, like Timothy's Bess, who stood at her own door nursing her baby and feeling as women feel in that position--that nothing else can be expected of them.",3 It was not entirely to see Thias Bede's funeral that the people were standing about the churchyard so long before service began; that was their common practice.,2 "The women, indeed, usually entered the church at once, and the farmers' wives talked in an undertone to each other, over the tall pews, about their illnesses and the total failure of doctor's stuff, recommending dandelion-tea, and other home-made specifics, as far preferable--about the servants, and their growing exorbitance as to wages, whereas the quality of their services declined from year to year, and there was no girl nowadays to be trusted any further than you could see her--about the bad price Mr. Dingall, the Treddleston grocer, was giving for butter, and the reasonable doubts that might be held as to his solvency, notwithstanding that Mrs. Dingall was a sensible woman, and they were all sorry for HER, for she had very good kin.",3 "Meantime the men lingered outside, and hardly any of them except the singers, who had a humming and fragmentary rehearsal to go through, entered the church until Mr. Irwine was in the desk.",1 "They saw no reason for that premature entrance--what could they do in church if they were there before service began?--and they did not conceive that any power in the universe could take it ill of them if they stayed out and talked a little about ""bus'ness.""",2 "Chad Cranage looks like quite a new acquaintance to-day, for he has got his clean Sunday face, which always makes his little granddaughter cry at him as a stranger.",2 "But an experienced eye would have fixed on him at once as the village blacksmith, after seeing the humble deference with which the big saucy fellow took off his hat and stroked his hair to the farmers; for Chad was accustomed to say that a working-man must hold a candle to a personage understood to be as black as he was himself on weekdays; by which evil-sounding rule of conduct he meant what was, after all, rather virtuous than otherwise, namely, that men who had horses to be shod must be treated with respect.",4 "Chad and the rougher sort of workmen kept aloof from the grave under the white thorn, where the burial was going forward; but Sandy Jim, and several of the farm-labourers, made a group round it, and stood with their hats off, as fellow-mourners with the mother and sons.",1 "Others held a midway position, sometimes watching the group at the grave, sometimes listening to the conversation of the farmers, who stood in a knot near the church door, and were now joined by Martin Poyser, while his family passed into the church.",2 "On the outside of this knot stood Mr. Casson, the landlord of the Donnithorne Arms, in his most striking attitude--that is to say, with the forefinger of his right hand thrust between the buttons of his waistcoat, his left hand in his breeches pocket, and his head very much on one side; looking, on the whole, like an actor who has only a mono-syllabic part entrusted to him, but feels sure that the audience discern his fitness for the leading business; curiously in contrast with old Jonathan Burge, who held his hands behind him and leaned forward, coughing asthmatically, with an inward scorn of all knowingness that could not be turned into cash.",4 "The talk was in rather a lower tone than usual to-day, hushed a little by the sound of Mr. Irwine's voice reading the final prayers of the burial-service.",2 "They had all had their word of pity for poor Thias, but now they had got upon the nearer subject of their own grievances against Satchell, the Squire's bailiff, who played the part of steward so far as it was not performed by old Mr. Donnithorne himself, for that gentleman had the meanness to receive his own rents and make bargains about his own timber.",0 "This subject of conversation was an additional reason for not being loud, since Satchell himself might presently be walking up the paved road to the church door.",1 "And soon they became suddenly silent; for Mr. Irwine's voice had ceased, and the group round the white thorn was dispersing itself towards the church.",3 "They all moved aside, and stood with their hats off, while Mr. Irwine passed.",2 "Adam and Seth were coming next, with their mother between them; for Joshua Rann officiated as head sexton as well as clerk, and was not yet ready to follow the rector into the vestry.",3 But there was a pause before the three mourners came on: Lisbeth had turned round to look again towards the grave!,2 Ah!,2 There was nothing now but the brown earth under the white thorn.,2 Yet she cried less to-day than she had done any day since her husband's death.,1 "Along with all her grief there was mixed an unusual sense of her own importance in having a ""burial,"" and in Mr. Irwine's reading a special service for her husband; and besides, she knew the funeral psalm was going to be sung for him.",1 "She felt this counter-excitement to her sorrow still more strongly as she walked with her sons towards the church door, and saw the friendly sympathetic nods of their fellow-parishioners.",3 "The mother and sons passed into the church, and one by one the loiterers followed, though some still lingered without; the sight of Mr. Donnithorne's carriage, which was winding slowly up the hill, perhaps helping to make them feel that there was no need for haste.",1 "But presently the sound of the bassoon and the key-bugles burst forth; the evening hymn, which always opened the service, had begun, and every one must now enter and take his place.",2 "I cannot say that the interior of Hayslope Church was remarkable for anything except for the grey age of its oaken pews--great square pews mostly, ranged on each side of a narrow aisle.",3 "It was free, indeed, from the modern blemish of galleries.",3 "The choir had two narrow pews to themselves in the middle of the right-hand row, so that it was a short process for Joshua Rann to take his place among them as principal bass, and return to his desk after the singing was over.",3 "The pulpit and desk, grey and old as the pews, stood on one side of the arch leading into the chancel, which also had its grey square pews for Mr. Donnithorne's family and servants.",3 "Yet I assure you these grey pews, with the buff-washed walls, gave a very pleasing tone to this shabby interior, and agreed extremely well with the ruddy faces and bright waistcoats.",4 "And there were liberal touches of crimson toward the chancel, for the pulpit and Mr. Donnithorne's own pew had handsome crimson cloth cushions; and, to close the vista, there was a crimson altar-cloth, embroidered with golden rays by Miss Lydia's own hand.",3 "But even without the crimson cloth, the effect must have been warm and cheering when Mr. Irwine was in the desk, looking benignly round on that simple congregation--on the hardy old men, with bent knees and shoulders, perhaps, but with vigour left for much hedge-clipping and thatching; on the tall stalwart frames and roughly cut bronzed faces of the stone-cutters and carpenters; on the half-dozen well-to-do farmers, with their apple-cheeked families; and on the clean old women, mostly farm-labourers' wives, with their bit of snow-white cap-border under their black bonnets, and with their withered arms, bare from the elbow, folded passively over their chests.",3 For none of the old people held books--why should they?,2 Not one of them could read.,2 "But they knew a few ""good words"" by heart, and their withered lips now and then moved silently, following the service without any very clear comprehension indeed, but with a simple faith in its efficacy to ward off harm and bring blessing.",4 "And now all faces were visible, for all were standing up--the little children on the seats peeping over the edge of the grey pews, while good Bishop Ken's evening hymn was being sung to one of those lively psalm-tunes which died out with the last generation of rectors and choral parish clerks.",3 "Melodies die out, like the pipe of Pan, with the ears that love them and listen for them.",2 "Adam was not in his usual place among the singers to-day, for he sat with his mother and Seth, and he noticed with surprise that Bartle Massey was absent too--all the more agreeable for Mr. Joshua Rann, who gave out his bass notes with unusual complacency and threw an extra ray of severity into the glances he sent over his spectacles at the recusant Will Maskery.",1 "I beseech you to imagine Mr. Irwine looking round on this scene, in his ample white surplice that became him so well, with his powdered hair thrown back, his rich brown complexion, and his finely cut nostril and upper lip; for there was a certain virtue in that benignant yet keen countenance as there is in all human faces from which a generous soul beams out.",4 "And over all streamed the delicious June sunshine through the old windows, with their desultory patches of yellow, red, and blue, that threw pleasant touches of colour on the opposite wall.",3 "I think, as Mr. Irwine looked round to-day, his eyes rested an instant longer than usual on the square pew occupied by Martin Poyser and his family.",2 "And there was another pair of dark eyes that found it impossible not to wander thither, and rest on that round pink-and-white figure.",1 "But Hetty was at that moment quite careless of any glances--she was absorbed in the thought that Arthur Donnithorne would soon be coming into church, for the carriage must surely be at the church-gate by this time.",1 "She had never seen him since she parted with him in the wood on Thursday evening, and oh, how long the time had seemed!",2 Things had gone on just the same as ever since that evening; the wonders that had happened then had brought no changes after them; they were already like a dream.,3 "When she heard the church door swinging, her heart beat so, she dared not look up.",2 She felt that her aunt was curtsying; she curtsied herself.,2 "That must be old Mr. Donnithorne--he always came first, the wrinkled small old man, peering round with short-sighted glances at the bowing and curtsying congregation; then she knew Miss Lydia was passing, and though Hetty liked so much to look at her fashionable little coal-scuttle bonnet, with the wreath of small roses round it, she didn't mind it to-day.",2 "But there were no more curtsies--no, he was not come; she felt sure there was nothing else passing the pew door but the house-keeper's black bonnet and the lady's maid's beautiful straw hat that had once been Miss Lydia's, and then the powdered heads of the butler and footman.",2 "No, he was not there; yet she would look now--she might be mistaken--for, after all, she had not looked.",1 "So she lifted up her eyelids and glanced timidly at the cushioned pew in the chancel--there was no one but old Mr. Donnithorne rubbing his spectacles with his white handkerchief, and Miss Lydia opening the large gilt-edged prayer-book.",1 The chill disappointment was too hard to bear.,0 "She felt herself turning pale, her lips trembling; she was ready to cry.",1 "Oh, what SHOULD she do?",2 Everybody would know the reason; they would know she was crying because Arthur was not there.,2 "And Mr. Craig, with the wonderful hothouse plant in his button-hole, was staring at her, she knew.",2 "It was dreadfully long before the General Confession began, so that she could kneel down.",1 "Two great drops WOULD fall then, but no one saw them except good-natured Molly, for her aunt and uncle knelt with their backs towards her.",3 "Molly, unable to imagine any cause for tears in church except faintness, of which she had a vague traditional knowledge, drew out of her pocket a queer little flat blue smelling-bottle, and after much labour in pulling the cork out, thrust the narrow neck against Hetty's nostrils.",0 """It donna smell,"" she whispered, thinking this was a great advantage which old salts had over fresh ones: they did you good without biting your nose.",3 "Hetty pushed it away peevishly; but this little flash of temper did what the salts could not have done--it roused her to wipe away the traces of her tears, and try with all her might not to shed any more.",1 "Hetty had a certain strength in her vain little nature: she would have borne anything rather than be laughed at, or pointed at with any other feeling than admiration; she would have pressed her own nails into her tender flesh rather than people should know a secret she did not want them to know.",3 "What fluctuations there were in her busy thoughts and feelings, while Mr. Irwine was pronouncing the solemn ""Absolution"" in her deaf ears, and through all the tones of petition that followed!",1 "Anger lay very close to disappointment, and soon won the victory over the conjectures her small ingenuity could devise to account for Arthur's absence on the supposition that he really wanted to come, really wanted to see her again.",2 "And by the time she rose from her knees mechanically, because all the rest were rising, the colour had returned to her cheeks even with a heightened glow, for she was framing little indignant speeches to herself, saying she hated Arthur for giving her this pain--she would like him to suffer too.",1 "Yet while this selfish tumult was going on in her soul, her eyes were bent down on her prayer-book, and the eyelids with their dark fringe looked as lovely as ever.",1 "Adam Bede thought so, as he glanced at her for a moment on rising from his knees.",2 "But Adam's thoughts of Hetty did not deafen him to the service; they rather blended with all the other deep feelings for which the church service was a channel to him this afternoon, as a certain consciousness of our entire past and our imagined future blends itself with all our moments of keen sensibility.",3 "And to Adam the church service was the best channel he could have found for his mingled regret, yearning, and resignation; its interchange of beseeching cries for help with outbursts of faith and praise, its recurrent responses and the familiar rhythm of its collects, seemed to speak for him as no other form of worship could have done; as, to those early Christians who had worshipped from their childhood upwards in catacombs, the torch-light and shadows must have seemed nearer the Divine presence than the heathenish daylight of the streets.",3 "The secret of our emotions never lies in the bare object, but in its subtle relations to our own past: no wonder the secret escapes the unsympathizing observer, who might as well put on his spectacles to discern odours.",2 But there was one reason why even a chance comer would have found the service in Hayslope Church more impressive than in most other village nooks in the kingdom--a reason of which I am sure you have not the slightest suspicion.,2 It was the reading of our friend Joshua Rann.,2 Where that good shoemaker got his notion of reading from remained a mystery even to his most intimate acquaintances.,3 "I believe, after all, he got it chiefly from Nature, who had poured some of her music into this honest conceited soul, as she had been known to do into other narrow souls before his.",2 "She had given him, at least, a fine bass voice and a musical ear; but I cannot positively say whether these alone had sufficed to inspire him with the rich chant in which he delivered the responses.",4 "The way he rolled from a rich deep forte into a melancholy cadence, subsiding, at the end of the last word, into a sort of faint resonance, like the lingering vibrations of a fine violoncello, I can compare to nothing for its strong calm melancholy but the rush and cadence of the wind among the autumn boughs.",4 "This may seem a strange mode of speaking about the reading of a parish clerk--a man in rusty spectacles, with stubbly hair, a large occiput, and a prominent crown.",1 "But that is Nature's way: she will allow a gentleman of splendid physiognomy and poetic aspirations to sing woefully out of tune, and not give him the slightest hint of it; and takes care that some narrow-browed fellow, trolling a ballad in the corner of a pot-house, shall be as true to his intervals as a bird.",3 "Joshua himself was less proud of his reading than of his singing, and it was always with a sense of heightened importance that he passed from the desk to the choir.",3 "Still more to-day: it was a special occasion, for an old man, familiar to all the parish, had died a sad death--not in his bed, a circumstance the most painful to the mind of the peasant--and now the funeral psalm was to be sung in memory of his sudden departure.",0 "Moreover, Bartle Massey was not at church, and Joshua's importance in the choir suffered no eclipse.",1 It was a solemn minor strain they sang.,1 "The old psalm-tunes have many a wail among them, and the words-- Thou sweep'st us off as with a flood; We vanish hence like dreams-- seemed to have a closer application than usual in the death of poor Thias.",1 "The mother and sons listened, each with peculiar feelings.",1 Lisbeth had a vague belief that the psalm was doing her husband good; it was part of that decent burial which she would have thought it a greater wrong to withhold from him than to have caused him many unhappy days while he was living.,1 "The more there was said about her husband, the more there was done for him, surely the safer he would be.",2 It was poor Lisbeth's blind way of feeling that human love and pity are a ground of faith in some other love.,1 "Seth, who was easily touched, shed tears, and tried to recall, as he had done continually since his father's death, all that he had heard of the possibility that a single moment of consciousness at the last might be a moment of pardon and reconcilement; for was it not written in the very psalm they were singing that the Divine dealings were not measured and circumscribed by time?",3 Adam had never been unable to join in a psalm before.,1 "He had known plenty of trouble and vexation since he had been a lad, but this was the first sorrow that had hemmed in his voice, and strangely enough it was sorrow because the chief source of his past trouble and vexation was for ever gone out of his reach.",0 "He had not been able to press his father's hand before their parting, and say, ""Father, you know it was all right between us; I never forgot what I owed you when I was a lad; you forgive me if I have been too hot and hasty now and then!""",3 "Adam thought but little to-day of the hard work and the earnings he had spent on his father: his thoughts ran constantly on what the old man's feelings had been in moments of humiliation, when he had held down his head before the rebukes of his son.",1 "When our indignation is borne in submissive silence, we are apt to feel twinges of doubt afterwards as to our own generosity, if not justice; how much more when the object of our anger has gone into everlasting silence, and we have seen his face for the last time in the meekness of death!",0 """Ah!",2 "I was always too hard,"" Adam said to himself.",1 """It's a sore fault in me as I'm so hot and out o' patience with people when they do wrong, and my heart gets shut up against 'em, so as I can't bring myself to forgive 'em.",1 "I see clear enough there's more pride nor love in my soul, for I could sooner make a thousand strokes with th' hammer for my father than bring myself to say a kind word to him.",4 "And there went plenty o' pride and temper to the strokes, as the devil WILL be having his finger in what we call our duties as well as our sins.",2 Mayhap the best thing I ever did in my life was only doing what was easiest for myself.,3 "It's allays been easier for me to work nor to sit still, but the real tough job for me 'ud be to master my own will and temper and go right against my own pride.",4 "It seems to me now, if I was to find Father at home to-night, I should behave different; but there's no knowing--perhaps nothing 'ud be a lesson to us if it didn't come too late.",2 "It's well we should feel as life's a reckoning we can't make twice over; there's no real making amends in this world, any more nor you can mend a wrong subtraction by doing your addition right.""",3 "This was the key-note to which Adam's thoughts had perpetually returned since his father's death, and the solemn wail of the funeral psalm was only an influence that brought back the old thoughts with stronger emphasis.",1 "So was the sermon, which Mr. Irwine had chosen with reference to Thias's funeral.",2 "It spoke briefly and simply of the words, ""In the midst of life we are in death""--how the present moment is all we can call our own for works of mercy, of righteous dealing, and of family tenderness.",3 All very old truths--but what we thought the oldest truth becomes the most startling to us in the week when we have looked on the dead face of one who has made a part of our own lives.,1 "For when men want to impress us with the effect of a new and wonderfully vivid light, do they not let it fall on the most familiar objects, that we may measure its intensity by remembering the former dimness?",3 "Then came the moment of the final blessing, when the forever sublime words, ""The peace of God, which passeth all understanding,"" seemed to blend with the calm afternoon sunshine that fell on the bowed heads of the congregation; and then the quiet rising, the mothers tying on the bonnets of the little maidens who had slept through the sermon, the fathers collecting the prayer-books, until all streamed out through the old archway into the green churchyard and began their neighbourly talk, their simple civilities, and their invitations to tea; for on a Sunday every one was ready to receive a guest--it was the day when all must be in their best clothes and their best humour.",4 "Mr. and Mrs. Poyser paused a minute at the church gate: they were waiting for Adam to come up, not being contented to go away without saying a kind word to the widow and her sons.",2 """Well, Mrs. Bede,"" said Mrs. Poyser, as they walked on together, ""you must keep up your heart; husbands and wives must be content when they've lived to rear their children and see one another's hair grey.""",3 """Aye, aye,"" said Mr. Poyser; ""they wonna have long to wait for one another then, anyhow.",2 "And ye've got two o' the strapping'st sons i' th' country; and well you may, for I remember poor Thias as fine a broad-shouldered fellow as need to be; and as for you, Mrs. Bede, why you're straighter i' the back nor half the young women now.""",3 """Eh,"" said Lisbeth, ""it's poor luck for the platter to wear well when it's broke i' two.",2 The sooner I'm laid under the thorn the better.,3 "I'm no good to nobody now.""",3 "Adam never took notice of his mother's little unjust plaints; but Seth said, ""Nay, Mother, thee mustna say so.",1 "Thy sons 'ull never get another mother.""",2 """That's true, lad, that's true,"" said Mr. Poyser; ""and it's wrong on us to give way to grief, Mrs. Bede; for it's like the children cryin' when the fathers and mothers take things from 'em.",1 "There's One above knows better nor us.""",3 """Ah,"" said Mrs. Poyser, ""an' it's poor work allays settin' the dead above the livin'.",1 "We shall all on us be dead some time, I reckon--it 'ud be better if folks 'ud make much on us beforehand, i'stid o' beginnin' when we're gone.",2 "It's but little good you'll do a-watering the last year's crop.""",3 """Well, Adam,"" said Mr. Poyser, feeling that his wife's words were, as usual, rather incisive than soothing, and that it would be well to change the subject, ""you'll come and see us again now, I hope.",3 "I hanna had a talk with you this long while, and the missis here wants you to see what can be done with her best spinning-wheel, for it's got broke, and it'll be a nice job to mend it--there'll want a bit o' turning.",3 "You'll come as soon as you can now, will you?""",2 "Mr. Poyser paused and looked round while he was speaking, as if to see where Hetty was; for the children were running on before.",2 "Hetty was not without a companion, and she had, besides, more pink and white about her than ever, for she held in her hand the wonderful pink-and-white hot-house plant, with a very long name--a Scotch name, she supposed, since people said Mr. Craig the gardener was Scotch.",3 Adam took the opportunity of looking round too; and I am sure you will not require of him that he should feel any vexation in observing a pouting expression on Hetty's face as she listened to the gardener's small talk.,1 "Yet in her secret heart she was glad to have him by her side, for she would perhaps learn from him how it was Arthur had not come to church.",3 "Not that she cared to ask him the question, but she hoped the information would be given spontaneously; for Mr. Craig, like a superior man, was very fond of giving information.",4 "Mr. Craig was never aware that his conversation and advances were received coldly, for to shift one's point of view beyond certain limits is impossible to the most liberal and expansive mind; we are none of us aware of the impression we produce on Brazilian monkeys of feeble understanding--it is possible they see hardly anything in us.",0 "Moreover, Mr. Craig was a man of sober passions, and was already in his tenth year of hesitation as to the relative advantages of matrimony and bachelorhood.",2 "It is true that, now and then, when he had been a little heated by an extra glass of grog, he had been heard to say of Hetty that the ""lass was well enough,"" and that ""a man might do worse""; but on convivial occasions men are apt to express themselves strongly.",3 "Martin Poyser held Mr. Craig in honour, as a man who ""knew his business"" and who had great lights concerning soils and compost; but he was less of a favourite with Mrs. Poyser, who had more than once said in confidence to her husband, ""You're mighty fond o' Craig, but for my part, I think he's welly like a cock as thinks the sun's rose o' purpose to hear him crow.""",4 "For the rest, Mr. Craig was an estimable gardener, and was not without reasons for having a high opinion of himself.",2 "He had also high shoulders and high cheek-bones and hung his head forward a little, as he walked along with his hands in his breeches pockets.",1 "I think it was his pedigree only that had the advantage of being Scotch, and not his ""bringing up""; for except that he had a stronger burr in his accent, his speech differed little from that of the Loamshire people about him.",3 "But a gardener is Scotch, as a French teacher is Parisian.",2 """Well, Mr. Poyser,"" he said, before the good slow farmer had time to speak, ""ye'll not be carrying your hay to-morrow, I'm thinking.",3 "The glass sticks at 'change,' and ye may rely upo' my word as we'll ha' more downfall afore twenty-four hours is past.",1 "Ye see that darkish-blue cloud there upo' the 'rizon--ye know what I mean by the 'rizon, where the land and sky seems to meet?""",1 """Aye, aye, I see the cloud,"" said Mr. Poyser, ""'rizon or no 'rizon.",1 "It's right o'er Mike Holdsworth's fallow, and a foul fallow it is.""",2 """Well, you mark my words, as that cloud 'ull spread o'er the sky pretty nigh as quick as you'd spread a tarpaulin over one o' your hay-ricks.",3 It's a great thing to ha' studied the look o' the clouds.,3 Lord bless you!,3 "Th' met'orological almanecks can learn me nothing, but there's a pretty sight o' things I could let THEM up to, if they'd just come to me.",3 "And how are you, Mrs. Poyser?--thinking o' getherin' the red currants soon, I reckon.",2 "You'd a deal better gether 'em afore they're o'erripe, wi' such weather as we've got to look forward to.",3 "How do ye do, Mistress Bede?""",1 "Mr. Craig continued, without a pause, nodding by the way to Adam and Seth.",2 """I hope y' enjoyed them spinach and gooseberries as I sent Chester with th' other day.",3 "If ye want vegetables while ye're in trouble, ye know where to come to.",1 "It's well known I'm not giving other folks' things away, for when I've supplied the house, the garden's my own spekilation, and it isna every man th' old squire could get as 'ud be equil to the undertaking, let alone asking whether he'd be willing I've got to run my calkilation fine, I can tell you, to make sure o' getting back the money as I pay the squire.",4 "I should like to see some o' them fellows as make the almanecks looking as far before their noses as I've got to do every year as comes.""",3 """They look pretty fur, though,"" said Mr. Poyser, turning his head on one side and speaking in rather a subdued reverential tone.",2 """Why, what could come truer nor that pictur o' the cock wi' the big spurs, as has got its head knocked down wi' th' anchor, an' th' firin', an' the ships behind?",2 "Why, that pictur was made afore Christmas, and yit it's come as true as th' Bible.",2 "Why, th' cock's France, an' th' anchor's Nelson--an' they told us that beforehand.""",2 """Pee--ee-eh!""",2 said Mr. Craig.,2 """A man doesna want to see fur to know as th' English 'ull beat the French.",2 "Why, I know upo' good authority as it's a big Frenchman as reaches five foot high, an' they live upo' spoon-meat mostly.",3 I knew a man as his father had a particular knowledge o' the French.,2 I should like to know what them grasshoppers are to do against such fine fellows as our young Captain Arthur.,3 "Why, it 'ud astonish a Frenchman only to look at him; his arm's thicker nor a Frenchman's body, I'll be bound, for they pinch theirsells in wi' stays; and it's easy enough, for they've got nothing i' their insides.""",3 """Where IS the captain, as he wasna at church to-day?""",2 said Adam.,2 """I was talking to him o' Friday, and he said nothing about his going away.""",2 """Oh, he's only gone to Eagledale for a bit o' fishing; I reckon he'll be back again afore many days are o'er, for he's to be at all th' arranging and preparing o' things for the comin' o' age o' the 30th o' July.",2 "But he's fond o' getting away for a bit, now and then.",3 "Him and th' old squire fit one another like frost and flowers.""",2 "Mr. Craig smiled and winked slowly as he made this last observation, but the subject was not developed farther, for now they had reached the turning in the road where Adam and his companions must say ""good-bye.""",2 "The gardener, too, would have had to turn off in the same direction if he had not accepted Mr. Poyser's invitation to tea.",2 "Mrs. Poyser duly seconded the invitation, for she would have held it a deep disgrace not to make her neighbours welcome to her house: personal likes and dislikes must not interfere with that sacred custom.",1 "Moreover, Mr. Craig had always been full of civilities to the family at the Hall Farm, and Mrs. Poyser was scrupulous in declaring that she had ""nothing to say again' him, on'y it was a pity he couldna be hatched o'er again, an' hatched different.""",1 "So Adam and Seth, with their mother between them, wound their way down to the valley and up again to the old house, where a saddened memory had taken the place of a long, long anxiety--where Adam would never have to ask again as he entered, ""Where's Father?""",1 "And the other family party, with Mr. Craig for company, went back to the pleasant bright house-place at the Hall Farm--all with quiet minds, except Hetty, who knew now where Arthur was gone, but was only the more puzzled and uneasy.",3 For it appeared that his absence was quite voluntary; he need not have gone--he would not have gone if he had wanted to see her.,1 "She had a sickening sense that no lot could ever be pleasant to her again if her Thursday night's vision was not to be fulfilled; and in this moment of chill, bare, wintry disappointment and doubt, she looked towards the possibility of being with Arthur again, of meeting his loving glance, and hearing his soft words with that eager yearning which one may call the ""growing pain"" of passion.",2 "NOTWITHSTANDING Mr. Craig's prophecy, the dark-blue cloud dispersed itself without having produced the threatened consequences.",1 """The weather""--as he observed the next morning--""the weather, you see, 's a ticklish thing, an' a fool 'ull hit on't sometimes when a wise man misses; that's why the almanecks get so much credit.",1 "It's one o' them chancy things as fools thrive on.""",3 "This unreasonable behaviour of the weather, however, could displease no one else in Hayslope besides Mr. Craig.",1 "All hands were to be out in the meadows this morning as soon as the dew had risen; the wives and daughters did double work in every farmhouse, that the maids might give their help in tossing the hay; and when Adam was marching along the lanes, with his basket of tools over his shoulder, he caught the sound of jocose talk and ringing laughter from behind the hedges.",3 "The jocose talk of hay-makers is best at a distance; like those clumsy bells round the cows' necks, it has rather a coarse sound when it comes close, and may even grate on your ears painfully; but heard from far off, it mingles very prettily with the other joyous sounds of nature.",2 "Men's muscles move better when their souls are making merry music, though their merriment is of a poor blundering sort, not at all like the merriment of birds.",3 And perhaps there is no time in a summer's day more cheering than when the warmth of the sun is just beginning to triumph over the freshness of the morning--when there is just a lingering hint of early coolness to keep off languor under the delicious influence of warmth.,3 "The reason Adam was walking along the lanes at this time was because his work for the rest of the day lay at a country-house about three miles off, which was being put in repair for the son of a neighbouring squire; and he had been busy since early morning with the packing of panels, doors, and chimney-pieces, in a waggon which was now gone on before him, while Jonathan Burge himself had ridden to the spot on horseback, to await its arrival and direct the workmen.",3 "This little walk was a rest to Adam, and he was unconsciously under the charm of the moment.",3 "It was summer morning in his heart, and he saw Hetty in the sunshine--a sunshine without glare, with slanting rays that tremble between the delicate shadows of the leaves.",2 "He thought, yesterday when he put out his hand to her as they came out of church, that there was a touch of melancholy kindness in her face, such as he had not seen before, and he took it as a sign that she had some sympathy with his family trouble.",1 Poor fellow!,1 "That touch of melancholy came from quite another source, but how was he to know?",1 "We look at the one little woman's face we love as we look at the face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own yearnings.",3 It was impossible for Adam not to feel that what had happened in the last week had brought the prospect of marriage nearer to him.,1 "Hitherto he had felt keenly the danger that some other man might step in and get possession of Hetty's heart and hand, while he himself was still in a position that made him shrink from asking her to accept him.",2 Even if he had had a strong hope that she was fond of him--and his hope was far from being strong--he had been too heavily burdened with other claims to provide a home for himself and Hetty--a home such as he could expect her to be content with after the comfort and plenty of the Farm.,4 "Like all strong natures, Adam had confidence in his ability to achieve something in the future; he felt sure he should some day, if he lived, be able to maintain a family and make a good broad path for himself; but he had too cool a head not to estimate to the full the obstacles that were to be overcome.",4 And the time would be so long!,2 "And there was Hetty, like a bright-cheeked apple hanging over the orchard wall, within sight of everybody, and everybody must long for her!",3 "To be sure, if she loved him very much, she would be content to wait for him: but DID she love him?",3 His hopes had never risen so high that he had dared to ask her.,2 "He was clear-sighted enough to be aware that her uncle and aunt would have looked kindly on his suit, and indeed, without this encouragement he would never have persevered in going to the Farm; but it was impossible to come to any but fluctuating conclusions about Hetty's feelings.",4 "She was like a kitten, and had the same distractingly pretty looks, that meant nothing, for everybody that came near her.",3 "But now he could not help saying to himself that the heaviest part of his burden was removed, and that even before the end of another year his circumstances might be brought into a shape that would allow him to think of marrying.",1 "It would always be a hard struggle with his mother, he knew: she would be jealous of any wife he might choose, and she had set her mind especially against Hetty--perhaps for no other reason than that she suspected Hetty to be the woman he HAD chosen.",0 "It would never do, he feared, for his mother to live in the same house with him when he was married; and yet how hard she would think it if he asked her to leave him!",1 "Yes, there was a great deal of pain to be gone through with his mother, but it was a case in which he must make her feel that his will was strong--it would be better for her in the end.",3 "For himself, he would have liked that they should all live together till Seth was married, and they might have built a bit themselves to the old house, and made more room.",3 "He did not like ""to part wi' th' lad"": they had hardly ever been separated for more than a day since they were born.",3 But Adam had no sooner caught his imagination leaping forward in this way--making arrangements for an uncertain future--than he checked himself.,1 """A pretty building I'm making, without either bricks or timber.",3 "I'm up i' the garret a'ready, and haven't so much as dug the foundation.""",2 "Whenever Adam was strongly convinced of any proposition, it took the form of a principle in his mind: it was knowledge to be acted on, as much as the knowledge that damp will cause rust.",1 Perhaps here lay the secret of the hardness he had accused himself of: he had too little fellow-feeling with the weakness that errs in spite of foreseen consequences.,1 "Without this fellow-feeling, how are we to get enough patience and charity towards our stumbling, falling companions in the long and changeful journey?",3 "And there is but one way in which a strong determined soul can learn it--by getting his heart-strings bound round the weak and erring, so that he must share not only the outward consequence of their error, but their inward suffering.",1 "That is a long and hard lesson, and Adam had at present only learned the alphabet of it in his father's sudden death, which, by annihilating in an instant all that had stimulated his indignation, had sent a sudden rush of thought and memory over what had claimed his pity and tenderness.",0 "But it was Adam's strength, not its correlative hardness, that influenced his meditations this morning.",2 "He had long made up his mind that it would be wrong as well as foolish for him to marry a blooming young girl, so long as he had no other prospect than that of growing poverty with a growing family.",1 "And his savings had been so constantly drawn upon (besides the terrible sweep of paying for Seth's substitute in the militia) that he had not enough money beforehand to furnish even a small cottage, and keep something in reserve against a rainy day.",3 "He had good hope that he should be ""firmer on his legs"" by and by; but he could not be satisfied with a vague confidence in his arm and brain; he must have definite plans, and set about them at once.",4 "The partnership with Jonathan Burge was not to be thought of at present--there were things implicitly tacked to it that he could not accept; but Adam thought that he and Seth might carry on a little business for themselves in addition to their journeyman's work, by buying a small stock of superior wood and making articles of household furniture, for which Adam had no end of contrivances.",3 "Seth might gain more by working at separate jobs under Adam's direction than by his journeyman's work, and Adam, in his overhours, could do all the ""nice"" work that required peculiar skill.",4 "The money gained in this way, with the good wages he received as foreman, would soon enable them to get beforehand with the world, so sparingly as they would all live now.",3 "No sooner had this little plan shaped itself in his mind than he began to be busy with exact calculations about the wood to be bought and the particular article of furniture that should be undertaken first--a kitchen cupboard of his own contrivance, with such an ingenious arrangement of sliding-doors and bolts, such convenient nooks for stowing household provender, and such a symmetrical result to the eye, that every good housewife would be in raptures with it, and fall through all the gradations of melancholy longing till her husband promised to buy it for her.",3 "Adam pictured to himself Mrs. Poyser examining it with her keen eye and trying in vain to find out a deficiency; and, of course, close to Mrs. Poyser stood Hetty, and Adam was again beguiled from calculations and contrivances into dreams and hopes.",1 "Yes, he would go and see her this evening--it was so long since he had been at the Hall Farm.",2 "He would have liked to go to the night-school, to see why Bartle Massey had not been at church yesterday, for he feared his old friend was ill; but, unless he could manage both visits, this last must be put off till to-morrow--the desire to be near Hetty and to speak to her again was too strong.",3 "As he made up his mind to this, he was coming very near to the end of his walk, within the sound of the hammers at work on the refitting of the old house.",3 "The sound of tools to a clever workman who loves his work is like the tentative sounds of the orchestra to the violinist who has to bear his part in the overture: the strong fibres begin their accustomed thrill, and what was a moment before joy, vexation, or ambition, begins its change into energy.",4 "All passion becomes strength when it has an outlet from the narrow limits of our personal lot in the labour of our right arm, the cunning of our right hand, or the still, creative activity of our thought.",3 "Look at Adam through the rest of the day, as he stands on the scaffolding with the two-feet ruler in his hand, whistling low while he considers how a difficulty about a floor-joist or a window-frame is to be overcome; or as he pushes one of the younger workmen aside and takes his place in upheaving a weight of timber, saying, ""Let alone, lad!",1 "Thee'st got too much gristle i' thy bones yet""; or as he fixes his keen black eyes on the motions of a workman on the other side of the room and warns him that his distances are not right.",3 "Look at this broad-shouldered man with the bare muscular arms, and the thick, firm, black hair tossed about like trodden meadow-grass whenever he takes off his paper cap, and with the strong barytone voice bursting every now and then into loud and solemn psalm-tunes, as if seeking an outlet for superfluous strength, yet presently checking himself, apparently crossed by some thought which jars with the singing.",1 "Perhaps, if you had not been already in the secret, you might not have guessed what sad memories what warm affection, what tender fluttering hopes, had their home in this athletic body with the broken finger-nails--in this rough man, who knew no better lyrics than he could find in the Old and New Version and an occasional hymn; who knew the smallest possible amount of profane history; and for whom the motion and shape of the earth, the course of the sun, and the changes of the seasons lay in the region of mystery just made visible by fragmentary knowledge.",1 "It had cost Adam a great deal of trouble and work in overhours to know what he knew over and above the secrets of his handicraft, and that acquaintance with mechanics and figures, and the nature of the materials he worked with, which was made easy to him by inborn inherited faculty--to get the mastery of his pen, and write a plain hand, to spell without any other mistakes than must in fairness be attributed to the unreasonable character of orthography rather than to any deficiency in the speller, and, moreover, to learn his musical notes and part-singing.",3 "Besides all this, he had read his Bible, including the apocryphal books; Poor Richard's Almanac, Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, The Pilgrim's Progress, with Bunyan's Life and Holy War, a great deal of Bailey's Dictionary, Valentine and Orson, and part of a History of Babylon, which Bartle Massey had lent him.",3 "He might have had many more books from Bartle Massey, but he had no time for reading ""the commin print,"" as Lisbeth called it, so busy as he was with figures in all the leisure moments which he did not fill up with extra carpentry.",2 "Adam, you perceive, was by no means a marvellous man, nor, properly speaking, a genius, yet I will not pretend that his was an ordinary character among workmen; and it would not be at all a safe conclusion that the next best man you may happen to see with a basket of tools over his shoulder and a paper cap on his head has the strong conscience and the strong sense, the blended susceptibility and self-command, of our friend Adam.",4 He was not an average man.,2 "Yet such men as he are reared here and there in every generation of our peasant artisans--with an inheritance of affections nurtured by a simple family life of common need and common industry, and an inheritance of faculties trained in skilful courageous labour: they make their way upwards, rarely as geniuses, most commonly as painstaking honest men, with the skill and conscience to do well the tasks that lie before them.",4 "Their lives have no discernible echo beyond the neighbourhood where they dwelt, but you are almost sure to find there some good piece of road, some building, some application of mineral produce, some improvement in farming practice, some reform of parish abuses, with which their names are associated by one or two generations after them.",3 "Their employers were the richer for them, the work of their hands has worn well, and the work of their brains has guided well the hands of other men.",3 "They went about in their youth in flannel or paper caps, in coats black with coal-dust or streaked with lime and red paint; in old age their white hairs are seen in a place of honour at church and at market, and they tell their well-dressed sons and daughters, seated round the bright hearth on winter evenings, how pleased they were when they first earned their twopence a-day.",3 Others there are who die poor and never put off the workman's coat on weekdays.,1 "They have not had the art of getting rich, but they are men of trust, and when they die before the work is all out of them, it is as if some main screw had got loose in a machine; the master who employed them says, ""Where shall I find their like?""",4 ADAM came back from his work in the empty waggon--that was why he had changed his clothes--and was ready to set out to the Hall Farm when it still wanted a quarter to seven.,3 """What's thee got thy Sunday cloose on for?""",2 "said Lisbeth complainingly, as he came downstairs.",2 """Thee artna goin' to th' school i' thy best coat?""",3 """No, Mother,"" said Adam, quietly.",2 """I'm going to the Hall Farm, but mayhap I may go to the school after, so thee mustna wonder if I'm a bit late.",3 "Seth 'ull be at home in half an hour--he's only gone to the village; so thee wutna mind.""",2 """Eh, an' what's thee got thy best cloose on for to go to th' Hall Farm?",3 "The Poyser folks see'd thee in 'em yesterday, I warrand.",2 What dost mean by turnin' worki'day into Sunday a-that'n?,2 "It's poor keepin' company wi' folks as donna like to see thee i' thy workin' jacket.""",2 """Good-bye, mother, I can't stay,"" said Adam, putting on his hat and going out.",3 But he had no sooner gone a few paces beyond the door than Lisbeth became uneasy at the thought that she had vexed him.,1 "Of course, the secret of her objection to the best clothes was her suspicion that they were put on for Hetty's sake; but deeper than all her peevishness lay the need that her son should love her.",2 "She hurried after him, and laid hold of his arm before he had got half-way down to the brook, and said, ""Nay, my lad, thee wutna go away angered wi' thy mother, an' her got nought to do but to sit by hersen an' think on thee?""",2 """Nay, nay, Mother,"" said Adam, gravely, and standing still while he put his arm on her shoulder, ""I'm not angered.",1 "But I wish, for thy own sake, thee'dst be more contented to let me do what I've made up my mind to do.",2 I'll never be no other than a good son to thee as long as we live.,3 "But a man has other feelings besides what he owes to's father and mother, and thee oughtna to want to rule over me body and soul.",2 And thee must make up thy mind as I'll not give way to thee where I've a right to do what I like.,3 "So let us have no more words about it.""",2 """Eh,"" said Lisbeth, not willing to show that she felt the real bearing of Adam's words, ""and' who likes to see thee i' thy best cloose better nor thy mother?",4 "An' when thee'st got thy face washed as clean as the smooth white pibble, an' thy hair combed so nice, and thy eyes a-sparklin'--what else is there as thy old mother should like to look at half so well?",4 "An' thee sha't put on thy Sunday cloose when thee lik'st for me--I'll ne'er plague thee no moor about'n.""",1 """Well, well; good-bye, mother,"" said Adam, kissing her and hurrying away.",3 He saw there was no other means of putting an end to the dialogue.,2 "Lisbeth stood still on the spot, shading her eyes and looking after him till he was quite out of sight.",2 "She felt to the full all the meaning that had lain in Adam's words, and, as she lost sight of him and turned back slowly into the house, she said aloud to herself--for it was her way to speak her thoughts aloud in the long days when her husband and sons were at their work--""Eh, he'll be tellin' me as he's goin' to bring her home one o' these days; an' she'll be missis o'er me, and I mun look on, belike, while she uses the blue-edged platters, and breaks 'em, mayhap, though there's ne'er been one broke sin' my old man an' me bought 'em at the fair twenty 'ear come next Whissuntide.",1 "Eh!""",2 "she went on, still louder, as she caught up her knitting from the table, ""but she'll ne'er knit the lad's stockin's, nor foot 'em nayther, while I live; an' when I'm gone, he'll bethink him as nobody 'ull ne'er fit's leg an' foot as his old mother did.",1 "She'll know nothin' o' narrowin' an' heelin', I warrand, an' she'll make a long toe as he canna get's boot on.",2 That's what comes o' marr'in' young wenches.,2 "I war gone thirty, an' th' feyther too, afore we war married; an' young enough too.",3 "She'll be a poor dratchell by then SHE'S thirty, a-marr'in' a-that'n, afore her teeth's all come.""",1 Adam walked so fast that he was at the yard-gate before seven.,3 "Martin Poyser and the grandfather were not yet come in from the meadow: every one was in the meadow, even to the black-and-tan terrier--no one kept watch in the yard but the bull-dog; and when Adam reached the house-door, which stood wide open, he saw there was no one in the bright clean house-place.",3 "But he guessed where Mrs. Poyser and some one else would be, quite within hearing; so he knocked on the door and said in his strong voice, ""Mrs. Poyser within?""",3 """Come in, Mr. Bede, come in,"" Mrs. Poyser called out from the dairy.",2 She always gave Adam this title when she received him in her own house.,2 """You may come into the dairy if you will, for I canna justly leave the cheese.""",3 "Adam walked into the dairy, where Mrs. Poyser and Nancy were crushing the first evening cheese.",1 """Why, you might think you war come to a dead-house,"" said Mrs. Poyser, as he stood in the open doorway; ""they're all i' the meadow; but Martin's sure to be in afore long, for they're leaving the hay cocked to-night, ready for carrying first thing to-morrow.",2 "I've been forced t' have Nancy in, upo' 'count as Hetty must gether the red currants to-night; the fruit allays ripens so contrairy, just when every hand's wanted.",2 "An' there's no trustin' the children to gether it, for they put more into their own mouths nor into the basket; you might as well set the wasps to gether the fruit.""",3 "Adam longed to say he would go into the garden till Mr. Poyser came in, but he was not quite courageous enough, so he said, ""I could be looking at your spinning-wheel, then, and see what wants doing to it.",3 "Perhaps it stands in the house, where I can find it?""",2 """No, I've put it away in the right-hand parlour; but let it be till I can fetch it and show it you.",3 I'd be glad now if you'd go into the garden and tell Hetty to send Totty in.,3 "The child 'ull run in if she's told, an' I know Hetty's lettin' her eat too many currants.",2 "I'll be much obliged to you, Mr. Bede, if you'll go and send her in; an' there's the York and Lankester roses beautiful in the garden now--you'll like to see 'em.",3 "But you'd like a drink o' whey first, p'r'aps; I know you're fond o' whey, as most folks is when they hanna got to crush it out.""",3 """Thank you, Mrs. Poyser,"" said Adam; ""a drink o' whey's allays a treat to me.",3 "I'd rather have it than beer any day.""",2 """Aye, aye,"" said Mrs. Poyser, reaching a small white basin that stood on the shelf, and dipping it into the whey-tub, ""the smell o' bread's sweet t' everybody but the baker.",2 "The Miss Irwines allays say, 'Oh, Mrs. Poyser, I envy you your dairy; and I envy you your chickens; and what a beautiful thing a farm-house is, to be sure!'",3 "An' I say, 'Yes; a farm-house is a fine thing for them as look on, an' don't know the liftin', an' the stannin', an' the worritin' o' th' inside as belongs to't.'",3 """ ""Why, Mrs. Poyser, you wouldn't like to live anywhere else but in a farm-house, so well as you manage it,"" said Adam, taking the basin; ""and there can be nothing to look at pleasanter nor a fine milch cow, standing up to'ts knees in pasture, and the new milk frothing in the pail, and the fresh butter ready for market, and the calves, and the poultry.",4 "Here's to your health, and may you allays have strength to look after your own dairy, and set a pattern t' all the farmers' wives in the country.""",2 "Mrs. Poyser was not to be caught in the weakness of smiling at a compliment, but a quiet complacency over-spread her face like a stealing sunbeam, and gave a milder glance than usual to her blue-grey eyes, as she looked at Adam drinking the whey.",3 Ah!,2 "I think I taste that whey now--with a flavour so delicate that one can hardly distinguish it from an odour, and with that soft gliding warmth that fills one's imagination with a still, happy dreaminess.",4 "And the light music of the dropping whey is in my ears, mingling with the twittering of a bird outside the wire network window--the window overlooking the garden, and shaded by tall Guelder roses.",2 """Have a little more, Mr. Bede?""",2 "said Mrs. Poyser, as Adam set down the basin.",2 """No, thank you; I'll go into the garden now, and send in the little lass.""",3 """Aye, do; and tell her to come to her mother in the dairy.""",2 "Adam walked round by the rick-yard, at present empty of ricks, to the little wooden gate leading into the garden--once the well-tended kitchen-garden of a manor-house; now, but for the handsome brick wall with stone coping that ran along one side of it, a true farmhouse garden, with hardy perennial flowers, unpruned fruit-trees, and kitchen vegetables growing together in careless, half-neglected abundance.",4 "In that leafy, flowery, bushy time, to look for any one in this garden was like playing at ""hide-and-seek.""",3 "There were the tall hollyhocks beginning to flower and dazzle the eye with their pink, white, and yellow; there were the syringas and Guelder roses, all large and disorderly for want of trimming; there were leafy walls of scarlet beans and late peas; there was a row of bushy filberts in one direction, and in another a huge apple-tree making a barren circle under its low-spreading boughs.",1 But what signified a barren patch or two?,1 The garden was so large.,2 "There was always a superfluity of broad beans--it took nine or ten of Adam's strides to get to the end of the uncut grass walk that ran by the side of them; and as for other vegetables, there was so much more room than was necessary for them that in the rotation of crops a large flourishing bed of groundsel was of yearly occurrence on one spot or other.",3 "The very rose-trees at which Adam stopped to pluck one looked as if they grew wild; they were all huddled together in bushy masses, now flaunting with wide-open petals, almost all of them of the streaked pink-and-white kind, which doubtless dated from the union of the houses of York and Lancaster.",2 "Adam was wise enough to choose a compact Provence rose that peeped out half-smothered by its flaunting scentless neighbours, and held it in his hand--he thought he should be more at ease holding something in his hand--as he walked on to the far end of the garden, where he remembered there was the largest row of currant-trees, not far off from the great yew-tree arbour.",4 "But he had not gone many steps beyond the roses, when he heard the shaking of a bough, and a boy's voice saying, ""Now, then, Totty, hold out your pinny--there's a duck.""",2 "The voice came from the boughs of a tall cherry-tree, where Adam had no difficulty in discerning a small blue-pinafored figure perched in a commodious position where the fruit was thickest.",2 "Doubtless Totty was below, behind the screen of peas.",3 "Yes--with her bonnet hanging down her back, and her fat face, dreadfully smeared with red juice, turned up towards the cherry-tree, while she held her little round hole of a mouth and her red-stained pinafore to receive the promised downfall.",1 "I am sorry to say, more than half the cherries that fell were hard and yellow instead of juicy and red; but Totty spent no time in useless regrets, and she was already sucking the third juiciest when Adam said, ""There now, Totty, you've got your cherries.",0 Run into the house with 'em to Mother--she wants you--she's in the dairy.,2 "Run in this minute--there's a good little girl.""",3 "He lifted her up in his strong arms and kissed her as he spoke, a ceremony which Totty regarded as a tiresome interruption to cherry-eating; and when he set her down she trotted off quite silently towards the house, sucking her cherries as she went along.",1 """Tommy, my lad, take care you're not shot for a little thieving bird,"" said Adam, as he walked on towards the currant-trees.",2 "He could see there was a large basket at the end of the row: Hetty would not be far off, and Adam already felt as if she were looking at him.",2 "Yet when he turned the corner she was standing with her back towards him, and stooping to gather the low-hanging fruit.",2 Strange that she had not heard him coming!,1 Perhaps it was because she was making the leaves rustle.,2 "She started when she became conscious that some one was near--started so violently that she dropped the basin with the currants in it, and then, when she saw it was Adam, she turned from pale to deep red.",1 That blush made his heart beat with a new happiness.,3 Hetty had never blushed at seeing him before.,2 """I frightened you,"" he said, with a delicious sense that it didn't signify what he said, since Hetty seemed to feel as much as he did; ""let ME pick the currants up.""",3 "That was soon done, for they had only fallen in a tangled mass on the grass-plot, and Adam, as he rose and gave her the basin again, looked straight into her eyes with the subdued tenderness that belongs to the first moments of hopeful love.",0 "Hetty did not turn away her eyes; her blush had subsided, and she met his glance with a quiet sadness, which contented Adam because it was so unlike anything he had seen in her before.",2 """There's not many more currants to get,"" she said; ""I shall soon ha' done now.""",2 """I'll help you,"" said Adam; and he fetched the large basket, which was nearly full of currants, and set it close to them.",2 Not a word more was spoken as they gathered the currants.,2 "Adam's heart was too full to speak, and he thought Hetty knew all that was in it.",2 "She was not indifferent to his presence after all; she had blushed when she saw him, and then there was that touch of sadness about her which must surely mean love, since it was the opposite of her usual manner, which had often impressed him as indifference.",1 "And he could glance at her continually as she bent over the fruit, while the level evening sunbeams stole through the thick apple-tree boughs, and rested on her round cheek and neck as if they too were in love with her.",1 "It was to Adam the time that a man can least forget in after-life, the time when he believes that the first woman he has ever loved betrays by a slight something--a word, a tone, a glance, the quivering of a lip or an eyelid--that she is at least beginning to love him in return.",3 "The sign is so slight, it is scarcely perceptible to the ear or eye--he could describe it to no one--it is a mere feather-touch, yet it seems to have changed his whole being, to have merged an uneasy yearning into a delicious unconsciousness of everything but the present moment.",1 So much of our early gladness vanishes utterly from our memory: we can never recall the joy with which we laid our heads on our mother's bosom or rode on our father's back in childhood.,3 "Doubtless that joy is wrought up into our nature, as the sunlight of long-past mornings is wrought up in the soft mellowness of the apricot, but it is gone for ever from our imagination, and we can only BELIEVE in the joy of childhood.",3 "But the first glad moment in our first love is a vision which returns to us to the last, and brings with it a thrill of feeling intense and special as the recurrent sensation of a sweet odour breathed in a far-off hour of happiness.",4 "It is a memory that gives a more exquisite touch to tenderness, that feeds the madness of jealousy and adds the last keenness to the agony of despair.",0 "Hetty bending over the red bunches, the level rays piercing the screen of apple-tree boughs, the length of bushy garden beyond, his own emotion as he looked at her and believed that she was thinking of him, and that there was no need for them to talk--Adam remembered it all to the last moment of his life.",2 And Hetty?,2 You know quite well that Adam was mistaken about her.,2 "Like many other men, he thought the signs of love for another were signs of love towards himself.",3 "When Adam was approaching unseen by her, she was absorbed as usual in thinking and wondering about Arthur's possible return.",2 "The sound of any man's footstep would have affected her just in the same way--she would have FELT it might be Arthur before she had time to see, and the blood that forsook her cheek in the agitation of that momentary feeling would have rushed back again at the sight of any one else just as much as at the sight of Adam.",2 "He was not wrong in thinking that a change had come over Hetty: the anxieties and fears of a first passion, with which she was trembling, had become stronger than vanity, had given her for the first time that sense of helpless dependence on another's feeling which awakens the clinging deprecating womanhood even in the shallowest girl that can ever experience it, and creates in her a sensibility to kindness which found her quite hard before.",0 For the first time Hetty felt that there was something soothing to her in Adam's timid yet manly tenderness.,1 "She wanted to be treated lovingly--oh, it was very hard to bear this blank of absence, silence, apparent indifference, after those moments of glowing love!",1 She was not afraid that Adam would tease her with love-making and flattering speeches like her other admirers; he had always been so reserved to her; she could enjoy without any fear the sense that this strong brave man loved her and was near her.,4 It never entered into her mind that Adam was pitiable too--that Adam too must suffer one day.,1 "Hetty, we know, was not the first woman that had behaved more gently to the man who loved her in vain because she had herself begun to love another.",3 "It was a very old story, but Adam knew nothing about it, so he drank in the sweet delusion.",2 """That'll do,"" said Hetty, after a little while.",2 """Aunt wants me to leave some on the trees.",2 "I'll take 'em in now.""",2 """It's very well I came to carry the basket,"" said Adam ""for it 'ud ha' been too heavy for your little arms.""",3 """No; I could ha' carried it with both hands.""",2 """Oh, I daresay,"" said Adam, smiling, ""and been as long getting into the house as a little ant carrying a caterpillar.",3 "Have you ever seen those tiny fellows carrying things four times as big as themselves?""",2 """No,"" said Hetty, indifferently, not caring to know the difficulties of ant life.",1 """Oh, I used to watch 'em often when I was a lad.",2 "But now, you see, I can carry the basket with one arm, as if it was an empty nutshell, and give you th' other arm to lean on.",3 Won't you?,2 "Such big arms as mine were made for little arms like yours to lean on.""",3 Hetty smiled faintly and put her arm within his.,2 "Adam looked down at her, but her eyes were turned dreamily towards another corner of the garden.",2 """Have you ever been to Eagledale?""",2 "she said, as they walked slowly along.",1 """Yes,"" said Adam, pleased to have her ask a question about himself.",3 """Ten years ago, when I was a lad, I went with father to see about some work there.",3 It's a wonderful sight--rocks and caves such as you never saw in your life.,3 "I never had a right notion o' rocks till I went there.""",3 """How long did it take to get there?""",2 """Why, it took us the best part o' two days' walking.",3 But it's nothing of a day's journey for anybody as has got a first-rate nag.,1 "The captain 'ud get there in nine or ten hours, I'll be bound, he's such a rider.",2 "And I shouldn't wonder if he's back again to-morrow; he's too active to rest long in that lonely place, all by himself, for there's nothing but a bit of a inn i' that part where he's gone to fish.",2 "I wish he'd got th' estate in his hands; that 'ud be the right thing for him, for it 'ud give him plenty to do, and he'd do't well too, for all he's so young; he's got better notions o' things than many a man twice his age.",4 "He spoke very handsome to me th' other day about lending me money to set up i' business; and if things came round that way, I'd rather be beholding to him nor to any man i' the world.""",3 "Poor Adam was led on to speak about Arthur because he thought Hetty would be pleased to know that the young squire was so ready to befriend him; the fact entered into his future prospects, which he would like to seem promising in her eyes.",4 And it was true that Hetty listened with an interest which brought a new light into her eyes and a half-smile upon her lips.,3 """How pretty the roses are now!""",3 "Adam continued, pausing to look at them.",2 """See!",2 "I stole the prettiest, but I didna mean to keep it myself.",1 "I think these as are all pink, and have got a finer sort o' green leaves, are prettier than the striped uns, don't you?""",3 He set down the basket and took the rose from his button-hole.,2 """It smells very sweet,"" he said; ""those striped uns have no smell.",1 "Stick it in your frock, and then you can put it in water after.",2 "It 'ud be a pity to let it fade.""",1 "Hetty took the rose, smiling as she did so at the pleasant thought that Arthur could so soon get back if he liked.",4 "There was a flash of hope and happiness in her mind, and with a sudden impulse of gaiety she did what she had very often done before--stuck the rose in her hair a little above the left ear.",3 The tender admiration in Adam's face was slightly shadowed by reluctant disapproval.,2 "Hetty's love of finery was just the thing that would most provoke his mother, and he himself disliked it as much as it was possible for him to dislike anything that belonged to her.",1 """Ah,"" he said, ""that's like the ladies in the pictures at the Chase; they've mostly got flowers or feathers or gold things i' their hair, but somehow I don't like to see 'em; they allays put me i' mind o' the painted women outside the shows at Treddles'on Fair.",4 "What can a woman have to set her off better than her own hair, when it curls so, like yours?",3 "If a woman's young and pretty, I think you can see her good looks all the better for her being plain dressed.",4 "Why, Dinah Morris looks very nice, for all she wears such a plain cap and gown.",3 It seems to me as a woman's face doesna want flowers; it's almost like a flower itself.,3 "I'm sure yours is.""",2 """Oh, very well,"" said Hetty, with a little playful pout, taking the rose out of her hair.",3 """I'll put one o' Dinah's caps on when we go in, and you'll see if I look better in it.",3 "She left one behind, so I can take the pattern.""",2 """Nay, nay, I don't want you to wear a Methodist cap like Dinah's.",3 "I daresay it's a very ugly cap, and I used to think when I saw her here as it was nonsense for her to dress different t' other people; but I never rightly noticed her till she came to see mother last week, and then I thought the cap seemed to fit her face somehow as th 'acorn-cup fits th' acorn, and I shouldn't like to see her so well without it.",3 "But you've got another sort o' face; I'd have you just as you are now, without anything t' interfere with your own looks.",1 "It's like when a man's singing a good tune--you don't want t' hear bells tinkling and interfering wi' the sound.""",3 "He took her arm and put it within his again, looking down on her fondly.",3 "He was afraid she should think he had lectured her, imagining, as we are apt to do, that she had perceived all the thoughts he had only half-expressed.",1 And the thing he dreaded most was lest any cloud should come over this evening's happiness.,2 "For the world he would not have spoken of his love to Hetty yet, till this commencing kindness towards him should have grown into unmistakable love.",3 "In his imagination he saw long years of his future life stretching before him, blest with the right to call Hetty his own: he could be content with very little at present.",3 "So he took up the basket of currants once more, and they went on towards the house.",2 The scene had quite changed in the half-hour that Adam had been in the garden.,2 "The yard was full of life now: Marty was letting the screaming geese through the gate, and wickedly provoking the gander by hissing at him; the granary-door was groaning on its hinges as Alick shut it, after dealing out the corn; the horses were being led out to watering, amidst much barking of all the three dogs and many ""whups"" from Tim the ploughman, as if the heavy animals who held down their meek, intelligent heads, and lifted their shaggy feet so deliberately, were likely to rush wildly in every direction but the right.",2 "Everybody was come back from the meadow; and when Hetty and Adam entered the house-place, Mr. Poyser was seated in the three-cornered chair, and the grandfather in the large arm-chair opposite, looking on with pleasant expectation while the supper was being laid on the oak table.",3 "Mrs. Poyser had laid the cloth herself--a cloth made of homespun linen, with a shining checkered pattern on it, and of an agreeable whitey-brown hue, such as all sensible housewives like to see--none of your bleached ""shop-rag"" that would wear into holes in no time, but good homespun that would last for two generations.",4 "The cold veal, the fresh lettuces, and the stuffed chine might well look tempting to hungry men who had dined at half-past twelve o'clock.",3 "On the large deal table against the wall there were bright pewter plates and spoons and cans, ready for Alick and his companions; for the master and servants ate their supper not far off each other; which was all the pleasanter, because if a remark about to-morrow morning's work occurred to Mr. Poyser, Alick was at hand to hear it.",4 """Well, Adam, I'm glad to see ye,"" said Mr. Poyser.",3 """What!",2 "ye've been helping Hetty to gether the curran's, eh?",3 "Come, sit ye down, sit ye down.",2 "Why, it's pretty near a three-week since y' had your supper with us; and the missis has got one of her rare stuffed chines.",3 "I'm glad ye're come.""",3 """Hetty,"" said Mrs. Poyser, as she looked into the basket of currants to see if the fruit was fine, ""run upstairs and send Molly down.",3 "She's putting Totty to bed, and I want her to draw th' ale, for Nancy's busy yet i' the dairy.",2 You can see to the child.,2 "But whativer did you let her run away from you along wi' Tommy for, and stuff herself wi' fruit as she can't eat a bit o' good victual?""",3 "This was said in a lower tone than usual, while her husband was talking to Adam; for Mrs. Poyser was strict in adherence to her own rules of propriety, and she considered that a young girl was not to be treated sharply in the presence of a respectable man who was courting her.",1 "That would not be fair-play: every woman was young in her turn, and had her chances of matrimony, which it was a point of honour for other women not to spoil--just as one market-woman who has sold her own eggs must not try to balk another of a customer.",1 "Hetty made haste to run away upstairs, not easily finding an answer to her aunt's question, and Mrs. Poyser went out to see after Marty and Tommy and bring them in to supper.",1 "Soon they were all seated--the two rosy lads, one on each side, by the pale mother, a place being left for Hetty between Adam and her uncle.",2 "Alick too was come in, and was seated in his far corner, eating cold broad beans out of a large dish with his pocket-knife, and finding a flavour in them which he would not have exchanged for the finest pineapple.",1 """What a time that gell is drawing th' ale, to be sure!""",2 "said Mrs. Poyser, when she was dispensing her slices of stuffed chine.",2 """I think she sets the jug under and forgets to turn the tap, as there's nothing you can't believe o' them wenches: they'll set the empty kettle o' the fire, and then come an hour after to see if the water boils.""",2 """She's drawin' for the men too,"" said Mr. Poyser.",2 """Thee shouldst ha' told her to bring our jug up first.""",2 """Told her?""",2 said Mrs. Poyser.,2 """Yes, I might spend all the wind i' my body, an' take the bellows too, if I was to tell them gells everything as their own sharpness wonna tell 'em.",2 "Mr. Bede, will you take some vinegar with your lettuce?",2 Aye you're i' the right not.,3 "It spoils the flavour o' the chine, to my thinking.",1 It's poor eating where the flavour o' the meat lies i' the cruets.,1 "There's folks as make bad butter and trusten to the salt t' hide it.""",1 "Mrs. Poyser's attention was here diverted by the appearance of Molly, carrying a large jug, two small mugs, and four drinking-cans, all full of ale or small beer--an interesting example of the prehensile power possessed by the human hand.",3 "Poor Molly's mouth was rather wider open than usual, as she walked along with her eyes fixed on the double cluster of vessels in her hands, quite innocent of the expression in her mistress's eye.",1 """Molly, I niver knew your equils--to think o' your poor mother as is a widow, an' I took you wi' as good as no character, an' the times an' times I've told you....""",2 "Molly had not seen the lightning, and the thunder shook her nerves the more for the want of that preparation.",2 "With a vague alarmed sense that she must somehow comport herself differently, she hastened her step a little towards the far deal table, where she might set down her cans--caught her foot in her apron, which had become untied, and fell with a crash and a splash into a pool of beer; whereupon a tittering explosion from Marty and Tommy, and a serious ""Ello!""",0 "from Mr. Poyser, who saw his draught of ale unpleasantly deferred.",2 """There you go!""",2 "resumed Mrs. Poyser, in a cutting tone, as she rose and went towards the cupboard while Molly began dolefully to pick up the fragments of pottery.",2 """It's what I told you 'ud come, over and over again; and there's your month's wage gone, and more, to pay for that jug as I've had i' the house this ten year, and nothing ever happened to't before; but the crockery you've broke sin' here in th' house you've been 'ud make a parson swear--God forgi' me for saying so--an' if it had been boiling wort out o' the copper, it 'ud ha' been the same, and you'd ha' been scalded and very like lamed for life, as there's no knowing but what you will be some day if you go on; for anybody 'ud think you'd got the St. Vitus's Dance, to see the things you've throwed down.",1 "It's a pity but what the bits was stacked up for you to see, though it's neither seeing nor hearing as 'ull make much odds to you--anybody 'ud think you war case-hardened.""",1 "Poor Molly's tears were dropping fast by this time, and in her desperation at the lively movement of the beer-stream towards Alick's legs, she was converting her apron into a mop, while Mrs. Poyser, opening the cupboard, turned a blighting eye upon her.",2 """Ah,"" she went on, ""you'll do no good wi' crying an' making more wet to wipe up.",3 "It's all your own wilfulness, as I tell you, for there's nobody no call to break anything if they'll only go the right way to work.",3 But wooden folks had need ha' wooden things t' handle.,2 "And here must I take the brown-and-white jug, as it's niver been used three times this year, and go down i' the cellar myself, and belike catch my death, and be laid up wi' inflammation....""",1 "Mrs. Poyser had turned round from the cupboard with the brown-and-white jug in her hand, when she caught sight of something at the other end of the kitchen; perhaps it was because she was already trembling and nervous that the apparition had so strong an effect on her; perhaps jug-breaking, like other crimes, has a contagious influence.",1 "However it was, she stared and started like a ghost-seer, and the precious brown-and-white jug fell to the ground, parting for ever with its spout and handle.",3 """Did ever anybody see the like?""",3 "she said, with a suddenly lowered tone, after a moment's bewildered glance round the room.",1 """The jugs are bewitched, I think.",2 "It's them nasty glazed handles--they slip o'er the finger like a snail.""",2 """Why, thee'st let thy own whip fly i' thy face,"" said her husband, who had now joined in the laugh of the young ones.",2 """It's all very fine to look on and grin,"" rejoined Mrs. Poyser; ""but there's times when the crockery seems alive an' flies out o' your hand like a bird.",4 "It's like the glass, sometimes, 'ull crack as it stands.",2 "What is to be broke WILL be broke, for I never dropped a thing i' my life for want o' holding it, else I should never ha' kept the crockery all these 'ears as I bought at my own wedding.",1 "And Hetty, are you mad?",1 "Whativer do you mean by coming down i' that way, and making one think as there's a ghost a-walking i' th' house?""",2 "A new outbreak of laughter, while Mrs. Poyser was speaking, was caused, less by her sudden conversion to a fatalistic view of jug-breaking than by that strange appearance of Hetty, which had startled her aunt.",0 "The little minx had found a black gown of her aunt's, and pinned it close round her neck to look like Dinah's, had made her hair as flat as she could, and had tied on one of Dinah's high-crowned borderless net caps.",3 "The thought of Dinah's pale grave face and mild grey eyes, which the sight of the gown and cap brought with it, made it a laughable surprise enough to see them replaced by Hetty's round rosy cheeks and coquettish dark eyes.",1 "The boys got off their chairs and jumped round her, clapping their hands, and even Alick gave a low ventral laugh as he looked up from his beans.",2 "Under cover of the noise, Mrs. Poyser went into the back kitchen to send Nancy into the cellar with the great pewter measure, which had some chance of being free from bewitchment.",3 """Why, Hetty, lass, are ye turned Methodist?""",2 "said Mr. Poyser, with that comfortable slow enjoyment of a laugh which one only sees in stout people.",3 """You must pull your face a deal longer before you'll do for one; mustna she, Adam?",2 "How come you put them things on, eh?""",2 """Adam said he liked Dinah's cap and gown better nor my clothes,"" said Hetty, sitting down demurely.",3 """He says folks looks better in ugly clothes.""",2 """Nay, nay,"" said Adam, looking at her admiringly; ""I only said they seemed to suit Dinah.",3 "But if I'd said you'd look pretty in 'em, I should ha' said nothing but what was true.""",3 """Why, thee thought'st Hetty war a ghost, didstna?""",2 "said Mr. Poyser to his wife, who now came back and took her seat again.",2 """Thee look'dst as scared as scared.""",1 """It little sinnifies how I looked,"" said Mrs. Poyser; ""looks 'ull mend no jugs, nor laughing neither, as I see.",2 "Mr. Bede, I'm sorry you've to wait so long for your ale, but it's coming in a minute.",1 Make yourself at home wi' th' cold potatoes: I know you like 'em.,2 "Tommy, I'll send you to bed this minute, if you don't give over laughing.",2 "What is there to laugh at, I should like to know?",3 I'd sooner cry nor laugh at the sight o' that poor thing's cap; and there's them as 'ud be better if they could make theirselves like her i' more ways nor putting on her cap.,2 "It little becomes anybody i' this house to make fun o' my sister's child, an' her just gone away from us, as it went to my heart to part wi' her.",3 "An' I know one thing, as if trouble was to come, an' I was to be laid up i' my bed, an' the children was to die--as there's no knowing but what they will--an' the murrain was to come among the cattle again, an' everything went to rack an' ruin, I say we might be glad to get sight o' Dinah's cap again, wi' her own face under it, border or no border.",1 "For she's one o' them things as looks the brightest on a rainy day, and loves you the best when you're most i' need on't.""",4 "Mrs. Poyser, you perceive, was aware that nothing would be so likely to expel the comic as the terrible.",1 "Tommy, who was of a susceptible disposition, and very fond of his mother, and who had, besides, eaten so many cherries as to have his feelings less under command than usual, was so affected by the dreadful picture she had made of the possible future that he began to cry; and the good-natured father, indulgent to all weaknesses but those of negligent farmers, said to Hetty, ""You'd better take the things off again, my lass; it hurts your aunt to see 'em.""",1 "Hetty went upstairs again, and the arrival of the ale made an agreeable diversion; for Adam had to give his opinion of the new tap, which could not be otherwise than complimentary to Mrs. Poyser; and then followed a discussion on the secrets of good brewing, the folly of stinginess in ""hopping,"" and the doubtful economy of a farmer's making his own malt.",3 "Mrs. Poyser had so many opportunities of expressing herself with weight on these subjects that by the time supper was ended, the ale-jug refilled, and Mr. Poyser's pipe alight she was once more in high good humour, and ready, at Adam's request, to fetch the broken spinning-wheel for his inspection.",3 """Ah,"" said Adam, looking at it carefully, ""here's a nice bit o' turning wanted.",3 It's a pretty wheel.,3 "I must have it up at the turning-shop in the village and do it there, for I've no convenence for turning at home.",2 "If you'll send it to Mr. Burge's shop i' the morning, I'll get it done for you by Wednesday.",2 "I've been turning it over in my mind,"" he continued, looking at Mr. Poyser, ""to make a bit more convenence at home for nice jobs o' cabinet-making.",3 "I've always done a deal at such little things in odd hours, and they're profitable, for there's more workmanship nor material in 'em.",1 "I look for me and Seth to get a little business for ourselves i' that way, for I know a man at Rosseter as 'ull take as many things as we should make, besides what we could get orders for round about.""",2 "Mr. Poyser entered with interest into a project which seemed a step towards Adam's becoming a ""master-man,"" and Mrs. Poyser gave her approbation to the scheme of the movable kitchen cupboard, which was to be capable of containing grocery, pickles, crockery, and house-linen in the utmost compactness without confusion.",3 "Hetty, once more in her own dress, with her neckerchief pushed a little backwards on this warm evening, was seated picking currants near the window, where Adam could see her quite well.",3 And so the time passed pleasantly till Adam got up to go.,3 "He was pressed to come again soon, but not to stay longer, for at this busy time sensible people would not run the risk of being sleepy at five o'clock in the morning.",2 """I shall take a step farther,"" said Adam, ""and go on to see Mester Massey, for he wasn't at church yesterday, and I've not seen him for a week past.",2 "I've never hardly known him to miss church before.""",1 """Aye,"" said Mr. Poyser, ""we've heared nothing about him, for it's the boys' hollodays now, so we can give you no account.""",2 """But you'll niver think o' going there at this hour o' the night?""",2 "said Mrs. Poyser, folding up her knitting.",2 """Oh, Mester Massey sits up late,"" said Adam.",2 """An' the night-school's not over yet.",2 Some o' the men don't come till late--they've got so far to walk.,2 "And Bartle himself's never in bed till it's gone eleven.""",2 """I wouldna have him to live wi' me, then,"" said Mrs. Poyser, ""a-dropping candle-grease about, as you're like to tumble down o' the floor the first thing i' the morning.""",2 """Aye, eleven o'clock's late--it's late,"" said old Martin.",2 """I ne'er sot up so i' MY life, not to say as it warna a marr'in', or a christenin', or a wake, or th' harvest supper.",2 "Eleven o'clock's late.""",2 """Why, I sit up till after twelve often,"" said Adam, laughing, ""but it isn't t' eat and drink extry, it's to work extry.",3 "Good-night, Mrs. Poyser; good-night, Hetty.""",3 "Hetty could only smile and not shake hands, for hers were dyed and damp with currant-juice; but all the rest gave a hearty shake to the large palm that was held out to them, and said, ""Come again, come again!""",2 """Aye, think o' that now,"" said Mr. Poyser, when Adam was out of on the causeway.",2 """Sitting up till past twelve to do extry work!",3 Ye'll not find many men o' six-an' twenty as 'ull do to put i' the shafts wi' him.,2 "If you can catch Adam for a husband, Hetty, you'll ride i' your own spring-cart some day, I'll be your warrant.""",2 "Hetty was moving across the kitchen with the currants, so her uncle did not see the little toss of the head with which she answered him.",2 To ride in a spring-cart seemed a very miserable lot indeed to her now.,1 "Bartle Massey's was one of a few scattered houses on the edge of a common, which was divided by the road to Treddleston.",2 "Adam reached it in a quarter of an hour after leaving the Hall Farm; and when he had his hand on the door-latch, he could see, through the curtainless window, that there were eight or nine heads bending over the desks, lighted by thin dips.",2 "When he entered, a reading lesson was going forward and Bartle Massey merely nodded, leaving him to take his place where he pleased.",3 "He had not come for the sake of a lesson to-night, and his mind was too full of personal matters, too full of the last two hours he had passed in Hetty's presence, for him to amuse himself with a book till school was over; so he sat down in a corner and looked on with an absent mind.",3 "It was a sort of scene which Adam had beheld almost weekly for years; he knew by heart every arabesque flourish in the framed specimen of Bartle Massey's handwriting which hung over the schoolmaster's head, by way of keeping a lofty ideal before the minds of his pupils; he knew the backs of all the books on the shelf running along the whitewashed wall above the pegs for the slates; he knew exactly how many grains were gone out of the ear of Indian corn that hung from one of the rafters; he had long ago exhausted the resources of his imagination in trying to think how the bunch of leathery seaweed had looked and grown in its native element; and from the place where he sat, he could make nothing of the old map of England that hung against the opposite wall, for age had turned it of a fine yellow brown, something like that of a well-seasoned meerschaum.",4 "The drama that was going on was almost as familiar as the scene, nevertheless habit had not made him indifferent to it, and even in his present self-absorbed mood, Adam felt a momentary stirring of the old fellow-feeling, as he looked at the rough men painfully holding pen or pencil with their cramped hands, or humbly labouring through their reading lesson.",0 The reading class now seated on the form in front of the schoolmaster's desk consisted of the three most backward pupils.,1 "Adam would have known it only by seeing Bartle Massey's face as he looked over his spectacles, which he had shifted to the ridge of his nose, not requiring them for present purposes.",2 "The face wore its mildest expression: the grizzled bushy eyebrows had taken their more acute angle of compassionate kindness, and the mouth, habitually compressed with a pout of the lower lip, was relaxed so as to be ready to speak a helpful word or syllable in a moment.",4 "This gentle expression was the more interesting because the schoolmaster's nose, an irregular aquiline twisted a little on one side, had rather a formidable character; and his brow, moreover, had that peculiar tension which always impresses one as a sign of a keen impatient temperament: the blue veins stood out like cords under the transparent yellow skin, and this intimidating brow was softened by no tendency to baldness, for the grey bristly hair, cut down to about an inch in length, stood round it in as close ranks as ever.",3 """Nay, Bill, nay,"" Bartle was saying in a kind tone, as he nodded to Adam, ""begin that again, and then perhaps, it'll come to you what d-r-y spells.",2 "It's the same lesson you read last week, you know.""",2 """Bill"" was a sturdy fellow, aged four-and-twenty, an excellent stone-sawyer, who could get as good wages as any man in the trade of his years; but he found a reading lesson in words of one syllable a harder matter to deal with than the hardest stone he had ever had to saw.",4 "The letters, he complained, were so ""uncommon alike, there was no tellin' 'em one from another,"" the sawyer's business not being concerned with minute differences such as exist between a letter with its tail turned up and a letter with its tail turned down.",1 "But Bill had a firm determination that he would learn to read, founded chiefly on two reasons: first, that Tom Hazelow, his cousin, could read anything ""right off,"" whether it was print or writing, and Tom had sent him a letter from twenty miles off, saying how he was prospering in the world and had got an overlooker's place; secondly, that Sam Phillips, who sawed with him, had learned to read when he was turned twenty, and what could be done by a little fellow like Sam Phillips, Bill considered, could be done by himself, seeing that he could pound Sam into wet clay if circumstances required it.",3 "So here he was, pointing his big finger towards three words at once, and turning his head on one side that he might keep better hold with his eye of the one word which was to be discriminated out of the group.",3 The amount of knowledge Bartle Massey must possess was something so dim and vast that Bill's imagination recoiled before it: he would hardly have ventured to deny that the schoolmaster might have something to do in bringing about the regular return of daylight and the changes in the weather.,1 "The man seated next to Bill was of a very different type: he was a Methodist brickmaker who, after spending thirty years of his life in perfect satisfaction with his ignorance, had lately ""got religion,"" and along with it the desire to read the Bible.",2 "But with him, too, learning was a heavy business, and on his way out to-night he had offered as usual a special prayer for help, seeing that he had undertaken this hard task with a single eye to the nourishment of his soul--that he might have a greater abundance of texts and hymns wherewith to banish evil memories and the temptations of old habit--or, in brief language, the devil.",1 "For the brickmaker had been a notorious poacher, and was suspected, though there was no good evidence against him, of being the man who had shot a neighbouring gamekeeper in the leg.",2 "However that might be, it is certain that shortly after the accident referred to, which was coincident with the arrival of an awakening Methodist preacher at Treddleston, a great change had been observed in the brickmaker; and though he was still known in the neighbourhood by his old sobriquet of ""Brimstone,"" there was nothing he held in so much horror as any further transactions with that evil-smelling element.",1 "He was a broad-chested fellow with a fervid temperament, which helped him better in imbibing religious ideas than in the dry process of acquiring the mere human knowledge of the alphabet.",4 "Indeed, he had been already a little shaken in his resolution by a brother Methodist, who assured him that the letter was a mere obstruction to the Spirit, and expressed a fear that Brimstone was too eager for the knowledge that puffeth up.",1 The third beginner was a much more promising pupil.,3 "He was a tall but thin and wiry man, nearly as old as Brimstone, with a very pale face and hands stained a deep blue.",1 "He was a dyer, who in the course of dipping homespun wool and old women's petticoats had got fired with the ambition to learn a great deal more about the strange secrets of colour.",2 "He had already a high reputation in the district for his dyes, and he was bent on discovering some method by which he could reduce the expense of crimsons and scarlets.",2 "The druggist at Treddleston had given him a notion that he might save himself a great deal of labour and expense if he could learn to read, and so he had begun to give his spare hours to the night-school, resolving that his ""little chap"" should lose no time in coming to Mr. Massey's day-school as soon as he was old enough.",3 "It was touching to see these three big men, with the marks of their hard labour about them, anxiously bending over the worn books and painfully making out, ""The grass is green,"" ""The sticks are dry,"" ""The corn is ripe""--a very hard lesson to pass to after columns of single words all alike except in the first letter.",0 It was almost as if three rough animals were making humble efforts to learn how they might become human.,2 "And it touched the tenderest fibre in Bartle Massey's nature, for such full-grown children as these were the only pupils for whom he had no severe epithets and no impatient tones.",1 "He was not gifted with an imperturbable temper, and on music-nights it was apparent that patience could never be an easy virtue to him; but this evening, as he glances over his spectacles at Bill Downes, the sawyer, who is turning his head on one side with a desperate sense of blankness before the letters d-r-y, his eyes shed their mildest and most encouraging light.",4 "After the reading class, two youths between sixteen and nineteen came up with the imaginary bills of parcels, which they had been writing out on their slates and were now required to calculate ""off-hand""--a test which they stood with such imperfect success that Bartle Massey, whose eyes had been glaring at them ominously through his spectacles for some minutes, at length burst out in a bitter, high-pitched tone, pausing between every sentence to rap the floor with a knobbed stick which rested between his legs.",0 """Now, you see, you don't do this thing a bit better than you did a fortnight ago, and I'll tell you what's the reason.",3 You want to learn accounts--that's well and good.,3 "But you think all you need do to learn accounts is to come to me and do sums for an hour or so, two or three times a-week; and no sooner do you get your caps on and turn out of doors again than you sweep the whole thing clean out of your mind.",3 "You go whistling about, and take no more care what you're thinking of than if your heads were gutters for any rubbish to swill through that happened to be in the way; and if you get a good notion in 'em, it's pretty soon washed out again.",3 "You think knowledge is to be got cheap--you'll come and pay Bartle Massey sixpence a-week, and he'll make you clever at figures without your taking any trouble.",1 "But knowledge isn't to be got with paying sixpence, let me tell you.",2 "If you're to know figures, you must turn 'em over in your heads and keep your thoughts fixed on 'em.",2 "There's nothing you can't turn into a sum, for there's nothing but what's got number in it--even a fool.",1 "You may say to yourselves, 'I'm one fool, and Jack's another; if my fool's head weighed four pound, and Jack's three pound three ounces and three quarters, how many pennyweights heavier would my head be than Jack's?'",1 A man that had got his heart in learning figures would make sums for himself and work 'em in his head.,3 "When he sat at his shoemaking, he'd count his stitches by fives, and then put a price on his stitches, say half a farthing, and then see how much money he could get in an hour; and then ask himself how much money he'd get in a day at that rate; and then how much ten workmen would get working three, or twenty, or a hundred years at that rate--and all the while his needle would be going just as fast as if he left his head empty for the devil to dance in.",2 "But the long and the short of it is--I'll have nobody in my night-school that doesn't strive to learn what he comes to learn, as hard as if he was striving to get out of a dark hole into broad daylight.",1 "I'll send no man away because he's stupid: if Billy Taft, the idiot, wanted to learn anything, I'd not refuse to teach him.",0 "But I'll not throw away good knowledge on people who think they can get it by the sixpenn'orth, and carry it away with 'em as they would an ounce of snuff.",3 "So never come to me again, if you can't show that you've been working with your own heads, instead of thinking that you can pay for mine to work for you.",3 "That's the last word I've got to say to you.""",2 "With this final sentence, Bartle Massey gave a sharper rap than ever with his knobbed stick, and the discomfited lads got up to go with a sulky look.",3 "The other pupils had happily only their writing-books to show, in various stages of progress from pot-hooks to round text; and mere pen-strokes, however perverse, were less exasperating to Bartle than false arithmetic.",1 "He was a little more severe than usual on Jacob Storey's Z's, of which poor Jacob had written a pageful, all with their tops turned the wrong way, with a puzzled sense that they were not right ""somehow.""",1 "But he observed in apology, that it was a letter you never wanted hardly, and he thought it had only been there ""to finish off th' alphabet, like, though ampusand (&) would ha' done as well, for what he could see.""",3 "At last the pupils had all taken their hats and said their ""Good-nights,"" and Adam, knowing his old master's habits, rose and said, ""Shall I put the candles out, Mr. Massey?""",3 """Yes, my boy, yes, all but this, which I'll carry into the house; and just lock the outer door, now you're near it,"" said Bartle, getting his stick in the fitting angle to help him in descending from his stool.",2 He was no sooner on the ground than it became obvious why the stick was necessary--the left leg was much shorter than the right.,3 "But the school-master was so active with his lameness that it was hardly thought of as a misfortune; and if you had seen him make his way along the schoolroom floor, and up the step into his kitchen, you would perhaps have understood why the naughty boys sometimes felt that his pace might be indefinitely quickened and that he and his stick might overtake them even in their swiftest run.",2 "The moment he appeared at the kitchen door with the candle in his hand, a faint whimpering began in the chimney-corner, and a brown-and-tan-coloured bitch, of that wise-looking breed with short legs and long body, known to an unmechanical generation as turnspits, came creeping along the floor, wagging her tail, and hesitating at every other step, as if her affections were painfully divided between the hamper in the chimney-corner and the master, whom she could not leave without a greeting.",0 """Well, Vixen, well then, how are the babbies?""",3 "said the schoolmaster, making haste towards the chimney-corner and holding the candle over the low hamper, where two extremely blind puppies lifted up their heads towards the light from a nest of flannel and wool.",0 "Vixen could not even see her master look at them without painful excitement: she got into the hamper and got out again the next moment, and behaved with true feminine folly, though looking all the while as wise as a dwarf with a large old-fashioned head and body on the most abbreviated legs.",3 """Why, you've got a family, I see, Mr. Massey?""",2 "said Adam, smiling, as he came into the kitchen.",3 """How's that?",2 "I thought it was against the law here.""",2 """Law?",2 "What's the use o' law when a man's once such a fool as to let a woman into his house?""",1 "said Bartle, turning away from the hamper with some bitterness.",1 "He always called Vixen a woman, and seemed to have lost all consciousness that he was using a figure of speech.",1 """If I'd known Vixen was a woman, I'd never have held the boys from drowning her; but when I'd got her into my hand, I was forced to take to her.",1 "And now you see what she's brought me to--the sly, hypocritical wench""--Bartle spoke these last words in a rasping tone of reproach, and looked at Vixen, who poked down her head and turned up her eyes towards him with a keen sense of opprobrium--""and contrived to be brought to bed on a Sunday at church-time.",0 "I've wished again and again I'd been a bloody minded man, that I could have strangled the mother and the brats with one cord.""",1 """I'm glad it was no worse a cause kept you from church,"" said Adam.",2 """I was afraid you must be ill for the first time i' your life.",1 "And I was particularly sorry not to have you at church yesterday.""",1 """Ah, my boy, I know why, I know why,"" said Bartle kindly, going up to Adam and raising his hand up to the shoulder that was almost on a level with his own head.",3 """You've had a rough bit o' road to get over since I saw you--a rough bit o' road.",1 But I'm in hopes there are better times coming for you.,3 I've got some news to tell you.,2 "But I must get my supper first, for I'm hungry, I'm hungry.",2 "Sit down, sit down.""",2 "Bartel went into his little pantry, and brought out an excellent home-baked loaf; for it was his one extravagance in these dear times to eat bread once a-day instead of oat-cake; and he justified it by observing, that what a schoolmaster wanted was brains, and oat-cake ran too much to bone instead of brains.",2 Then came a piece of cheese and a quart jug with a crown of foam upon it.,2 "He placed them all on the round deal table which stood against his large arm-chair in the chimney-corner, with Vixen's hamper on one side of it and a window-shelf with a few books piled up in it on the other.",1 "The table was as clean as if Vixen had been an excellent housewife in a checkered apron; so was the quarry floor; and the old carved oaken press, table, and chairs, which in these days would be bought at a high price in aristocratic houses, though, in that period of spider-legs and inlaid cupids, Bartle had got them for an old song, where as free from dust as things could be at the end of a summer's day.",3 """Now, then, my boy, draw up, draw up.",2 We'll not talk about business till we've had our supper.,2 No man can be wise on an empty stomach.,3 "But,"" said Bartle, rising from his chair again, ""I must give Vixen her supper too, confound her!",1 Though she'll do nothing with it but nourish those unnecessary babbies.,2 "That's the way with these women--they've got no head-pieces to nourish, and so their food all runs either to fat or to brats.""",2 "He brought out of the pantry a dish of scraps, which Vixen at once fixed her eyes on, and jumped out of her hamper to lick up with the utmost dispatch.",1 """I've had my supper, Mr. Massey,"" said Adam, ""so I'll look on while you eat yours.",2 "I've been at the Hall Farm, and they always have their supper betimes, you know: they don't keep your late hours.""",2 """I know little about their hours,"" said Bartle dryly, cutting his bread and not shrinking from the crust.",2 """It's a house I seldom go into, though I'm fond of the boys, and Martin Poyser's a good fellow.",3 There's too many women in the house for me: I hate the sound of women's voices; they're always either a-buzz or a-squeak--always either a-buzz or a-squeak.,1 "Mrs. Poyser keeps at the top o' the talk like a fife; and as for the young lasses, I'd as soon look at water-grubs.",3 "I know what they'll turn to--stinging gnats, stinging gnats.",1 "Here, take some ale, my boy: it's been drawn for you--it's been drawn for you.""",2 """Nay, Mr. Massey,"" said Adam, who took his old friend's whim more seriously than usual to-night, ""don't be so hard on the creaturs God has made to be companions for us.",1 "A working-man 'ud be badly off without a wife to see to th' house and the victual, and make things clean and comfortable.""",3 """Nonsense!",1 "It's the silliest lie a sensible man like you ever believed, to say a woman makes a house comfortable.",3 It's a story got up because the women are there and something must be found for 'em to do.,2 "I tell you there isn't a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better than a woman, unless it's bearing children, and they do that in a poor make-shift way; it had better ha' been left to the men--it had better ha' been left to the men.",2 "I tell you, a woman 'ull bake you a pie every week of her life and never come to see that the hotter th' oven the shorter the time.",2 "I tell you, a woman 'ull make your porridge every day for twenty years and never think of measuring the proportion between the meal and the milk--a little more or less, she'll think, doesn't signify.",2 "The porridge WILL be awk'ard now and then: if it's wrong, it's summat in the meal, or it's summat in the milk, or it's summat in the water.",1 Look at me!,2 "I make my own bread, and there's no difference between one batch and another from year's end to year's end; but if I'd got any other woman besides Vixen in the house, I must pray to the Lord every baking to give me patience if the bread turned out heavy.",3 "And as for cleanliness, my house is cleaner than any other house on the Common, though the half of 'em swarm with women.",3 "Will Baker's lad comes to help me in a morning, and we get as much cleaning done in one hour, without any fuss, as a woman 'ud get done in three, and all the while be sending buckets o' water after your ankles, and let the fender and the fire-irons stand in the middle o' the floor half the day for you to break your shins against 'em.",1 Don't tell me about God having made such creatures to be companions for us!,2 "I don't say but He might make Eve to be a companion to Adam in Paradise--there was no cooking to be spoilt there, and no other woman to cackle with and make mischief, though you see what mischief she did as soon as she'd an opportunity.",1 "But it's an impious, unscriptural opinion to say a woman's a blessing to a man now; you might as well say adders and wasps, and foxes and wild beasts are a blessing, when they're only the evils that belong to this state o' probation, which it's lawful for a man to keep as clear of as he can in this life, hoping to get quit of 'em for ever in another--hoping to get quit of 'em for ever in another.""",3 "Bartle had become so excited and angry in the course of his invective that he had forgotten his supper, and only used the knife for the purpose of rapping the table with the haft.",1 "But towards the close, the raps became so sharp and frequent, and his voice so quarrelsome, that Vixen felt it incumbent on her to jump out of the hamper and bark vaguely.",1 """Quiet, Vixen!""",3 "snarled Bartle, turning round upon her.",2 """You're like the rest o' the women--always putting in your word before you know why.""",3 "Vixen returned to her hamper again in humiliation, and her master continued his supper in a silence which Adam did not choose to interrupt; he knew the old man would be in a better humour when he had had his supper and lighted his pipe.",2 "Adam was used to hear him talk in this way, but had never learned so much of Bartle's past life as to know whether his view of married comfort was founded on experience.",3 "On that point Bartle was mute, and it was even a secret where he had lived previous to the twenty years in which happily for the peasants and artisans of this neighbourhood he had been settled among them as their only schoolmaster.",3 "If anything like a question was ventured on this subject, Bartle always replied, ""Oh, I've seen many places--I've been a deal in the south,"" and the Loamshire men would as soon have thought of asking for a particular town or village in Africa as in ""the south.""",3 """Now then, my boy,"" said Bartle, at last, when he had poured out his second mug of ale and lighted his pipe, ""now then, we'll have a little talk.",2 "But tell me first, have you heard any particular news to-day?""",2 """No,"" said Adam, ""not as I remember.""",2 """Ah, they'll keep it close, they'll keep it close, I daresay.",2 "But I found it out by chance; and it's news that may concern you, Adam, else I'm a man that don't know a superficial square foot from a solid.""",1 "Here Bartle gave a series of fierce and rapid puffs, looking earnestly the while at Adam.",3 "Your impatient loquacious man has never any notion of keeping his pipe alight by gentle measured puffs; he is always letting it go nearly out, and then punishing it for that negligence.",1 "At last he said, ""Satchell's got a paralytic stroke.",2 "I found it out from the lad they sent to Treddleston for the doctor, before seven o'clock this morning.",2 "He's a good way beyond sixty, you know; it's much if he gets over it.""",3 """Well,"" said Adam, ""I daresay there'd be more rejoicing than sorrow in the parish at his being laid up.",3 "He's been a selfish, tale-bearing, mischievous fellow; but, after all, there's nobody he's done so much harm to as to th' old squire.",0 "Though it's the squire himself as is to blame--making a stupid fellow like that a sort o' man-of-all-work, just to save th' expense of having a proper steward to look after th' estate.",3 "And he's lost more by ill management o' the woods, I'll be bound, than 'ud pay for two stewards.",1 "If he's laid on the shelf, it's to be hoped he'll make way for a better man, but I don't see how it's like to make any difference to me.""",3 """But I see it, but I see it,"" said Bartle, ""and others besides me.",2 The captain's coming of age now--you know that as well as I do--and it's to be expected he'll have a little more voice in things.,3 "And I know, and you know too, what 'ud be the captain's wish about the woods, if there was a fair opportunity for making a change.",3 "He's said in plenty of people's hearing that he'd make you manager of the woods to-morrow, if he'd the power.",2 "Why, Carroll, Mr. Irwine's butler, heard him say so to the parson not many days ago.",2 "Carroll looked in when we were smoking our pipes o' Saturday night at Casson's, and he told us about it; and whenever anybody says a good word for you, the parson's ready to back it, that I'll answer for.",3 "It was pretty well talked over, I can tell you, at Casson's, and one and another had their fling at you; for if donkeys set to work to sing, you're pretty sure what the tune'll be.""",4 """Why, did they talk it over before Mr. Burge?""",2 "said Adam; ""or wasn't he there o' Saturday?""",2 """Oh, he went away before Carroll came; and Casson--he's always for setting other folks right, you know--would have it Burge was the man to have the management of the woods.",3 "'A substantial man,' says he, 'with pretty near sixty years' experience o' timber: it 'ud be all very well for Adam Bede to act under him, but it isn't to be supposed the squire 'ud appoint a young fellow like Adam, when there's his elders and betters at hand!'",4 "But I said, 'That's a pretty notion o' yours, Casson.",3 "Why, Burge is the man to buy timber; would you put the woods into his hands and let him make his own bargains?",2 "I think you don't leave your customers to score their own drink, do you?",2 "And as for age, what that's worth depends on the quality o' the liquor.",3 It's pretty well known who's the backbone of Jonathan Burge's business.',4 """ ""I thank you for your good word, Mr. Massey,"" said Adam.",3 """But, for all that, Casson was partly i' the right for once.",3 There's not much likelihood that th' old squire 'ud ever consent t' employ me.,2 "I offended him about two years ago, and he's never forgiven me.""",2 """Why, how was that?",2 "You never told me about it,"" said Bartle.",2 """Oh, it was a bit o' nonsense.",1 "I'd made a frame for a screen for Miss Lyddy--she's allays making something with her worsted-work, you know--and she'd given me particular orders about this screen, and there was as much talking and measuring as if we'd been planning a house.",2 "However, it was a nice bit o' work, and I liked doing it for her.",4 "But, you know, those little friggling things take a deal o' time.",2 "I only worked at it in overhours--often late at night--and I had to go to Treddleston over an' over again about little bits o' brass nails and such gear; and I turned the little knobs and the legs, and carved th' open work, after a pattern, as nice as could be.",4 And I was uncommon pleased with it when it was done.,3 "And when I took it home, Miss Lyddy sent for me to bring it into her drawing-room, so as she might give me directions about fastening on the work--very fine needlework, Jacob and Rachel a-kissing one another among the sheep, like a picture--and th' old squire was sitting there, for he mostly sits with her.",3 "Well, she was mighty pleased with the screen, and then she wanted to know what pay she was to give me.",4 "I didn't speak at random--you know it's not my way; I'd calculated pretty close, though I hadn't made out a bill, and I said, 'One pound thirteen.'",3 "That was paying for the mater'als and paying me, but none too much, for my work.",3 "Th' old squire looked up at this, and peered in his way at the screen, and said, 'One pound thirteen for a gimcrack like that!",3 "Lydia, my dear, if you must spend money on these things, why don't you get them at Rosseter, instead of paying double price for clumsy work here?",2 Such things are not work for a carpenter like Adam.,3 "Give him a guinea, and no more.'",2 "Well, Miss Lyddy, I reckon, believed what he told her, and she's not overfond o' parting with the money herself--she's not a bad woman at bottom, but she's been brought up under his thumb; so she began fidgeting with her purse, and turned as red as her ribbon.",1 "But I made a bow, and said, 'No, thank you, madam; I'll make you a present o' the screen, if you please.",3 "I've charged the regular price for my work, and I know it's done well; and I know, begging His Honour's pardon, that you couldn't get such a screen at Rosseter under two guineas.",3 "I'm willing to give you my work--it's been done in my own time, and nobody's got anything to do with it but me; but if I'm paid, I can't take a smaller price than I asked, because that 'ud be like saying I'd asked more than was just.",4 "With your leave, madam, I'll bid you good-morning.'",3 "I made my bow and went out before she'd time to say any more, for she stood with the purse in her hand, looking almost foolish.",1 "I didn't mean to be disrespectful, and I spoke as polite as I could; but I can give in to no man, if he wants to make it out as I'm trying to overreach him.",1 And in the evening the footman brought me the one pound thirteen wrapped in paper.,2 "But since then I've seen pretty clear as th' old squire can't abide me.""",3 """That's likely enough, that's likely enough,"" said Bartle meditatively.",3 """The only way to bring him round would be to show him what was for his own interest, and that the captain may do--that the captain may do.""",2 """Nay, I don't know,"" said Adam; ""the squire's 'cute enough but it takes something else besides 'cuteness to make folks see what'll be their interest in the long run.",3 "It takes some conscience and belief in right and wrong, I see that pretty clear.",3 You'd hardly ever bring round th' old squire to believe he'd gain as much in a straightfor'ard way as by tricks and turns.,3 "And, besides, I've not much mind to work under him: I don't want to quarrel with any gentleman, more particular an old gentleman turned eighty, and I know we couldn't agree long.",2 "If the captain was master o' th' estate, it 'ud be different: he's got a conscience and a will to do right, and I'd sooner work for him nor for any man living.""",4 """Well, well, my boy, if good luck knocks at your door, don't you put your head out at window and tell it to be gone about its business, that's all.",4 "You must learn to deal with odd and even in life, as well as in figures.",2 "I tell you now, as I told you ten years ago, when you pommelled young Mike Holdsworth for wanting to pass a bad shilling before you knew whether he was in jest or earnest--you're overhasty and proud, and apt to set your teeth against folks that don't square to your notions.",3 "It's no harm for me to be a bit fiery and stiff-backed--I'm an old schoolmaster, and shall never want to get on to a higher perch.",1 "But where's the use of all the time I've spent in teaching you writing and mapping and mensuration, if you're not to get for'ard in the world and show folks there's some advantage in having a head on your shoulders, instead of a turnip?",3 Do you mean to go on turning up your nose at every opportunity because it's got a bit of a smell about it that nobody finds out but yourself?,1 It's as foolish as that notion o' yours that a wife is to make a working-man comfortable.,2 Stuff and nonsense!,1 Stuff and nonsense!,1 Leave that to fools that never got beyond a sum in simple addition.,2 Simple addition enough!,3 "Add one fool to another fool, and in six years' time six fools more--they're all of the same denomination, big and little's nothing to do with the sum!""",1 "During this rather heated exhortation to coolness and discretion the pipe had gone out, and Bartle gave the climax to his speech by striking a light furiously, after which he puffed with fierce resolution, fixing his eye still on Adam, who was trying not to laugh.",1 """There's a good deal o' sense in what you say, Mr. Massey,"" Adam began, as soon as he felt quite serious, ""as there always is.",3 But you'll give in that it's no business o' mine to be building on chances that may never happen.,2 What I've got to do is to work as well as I can with the tools and mater'als I've got in my hands.,3 "If a good chance comes to me, I'll think o' what you've been saying; but till then, I've got nothing to do but to trust to my own hands and my own head-piece.",3 "I'm turning over a little plan for Seth and me to go into the cabinet-making a bit by ourselves, and win a extra pound or two in that way.",3 "But it's getting late now--it'll be pretty near eleven before I'm at home, and Mother may happen to lie awake; she's more fidgety nor usual now.",1 "So I'll bid you good-night.""",3 """Well, well, we'll go to the gate with you--it's a fine night,"" said Bartle, taking up his stick.",3 "Vixen was at once on her legs, and without further words the three walked out into the starlight, by the side of Bartle's potato-beds, to the little gate.",2 """Come to the music o' Friday night, if you can, my boy,"" said the old man, as he closed the gate after Adam and leaned against it.",2 """Aye, aye,"" said Adam, striding along towards the streak of pale road.",1 He was the only object moving on the wide common.,1 "The two grey donkeys, just visible in front of the gorse bushes, stood as still as limestone images--as still as the grey-thatched roof of the mud cottage a little farther on.",2 "Bartle kept his eye on the moving figure till it passed into the darkness, while Vixen, in a state of divided affection, had twice run back to the house to bestow a parenthetic lick on her puppies.",2 """Aye, aye,"" muttered the schoolmaster, as Adam disappeared, ""there you go, stalking along--stalking along; but you wouldn't have been what you are if you hadn't had a bit of old lame Bartle inside you.",1 The strongest calf must have something to suck at.,2 "There's plenty of these big, lumbering fellows 'ud never have known their A B C if it hadn't been for Bartle Massey.",2 "Well, well, Vixen, you foolish wench, what is it, what is it?",2 "I must go in, must I?",2 "Aye, aye, I'm never to have a will o' my own any more.",2 "And those pups--what do you think I'm to do with 'em, when they're twice as big as you?",2 "For I'm pretty sure the father was that hulking bull-terrier of Will Baker's--wasn't he now, eh, you sly hussy?""",2 (Here Vixen tucked her tail between her legs and ran forward into the house.,2 "Subjects are sometimes broached which a well-bred female will ignore.) ""But where's the use of talking to a woman with babbies?""",2 continued Bartle.,2 """She's got no conscience--no conscience; it's all run to milk.""",2 "THE thirtieth of July was come, and it was one of those half-dozen warm days which sometimes occur in the middle of a rainy English summer.",3 "No rain had fallen for the last three or four days, and the weather was perfect for that time of the year: there was less dust than usual on the dark-green hedge-rows and on the wild camomile that starred the roadside, yet the grass was dry enough for the little children to roll on it, and there was no cloud but a long dash of light, downy ripple, high, high up in the far-off blue sky.",0 "Perfect weather for an outdoor July merry-making, yet surely not the best time of year to be born in.",4 "Nature seems to make a hot pause just then: all the loveliest flowers are gone; the sweet time of early growth and vague hopes is past; and yet the time of harvest and ingathering is not come, and we tremble at the possible storms that may ruin the precious fruit in the moment of its ripeness.",3 "The woods are all one dark monotonous green; the waggon-loads of hay no longer creep along the lanes, scattering their sweet-smelling fragments on the blackberry branches; the pastures are often a little tanned, yet the corn has not got its last splendour of red and gold; the lambs and calves have lost all traces of their innocent frisky prettiness, and have become stupid young sheep and cows.",0 "But it is a time of leisure on the farm--that pause between hay-and corn-harvest, and so the farmers and labourers in Hayslope and Broxton thought the captain did well to come of age just then, when they could give their undivided minds to the flavour of the great cask of ale which had been brewed the autumn after ""the heir"" was born, and was to be tapped on his twenty-first birthday.",3 "The air had been merry with the ringing of church-bells very early this morning, and every one had made haste to get through the needful work before twelve, when it would be time to think of getting ready to go to the Chase.",3 "The midday sun was streaming into Hetty's bedchamber, and there was no blind to temper the heat with which it fell on her head as she looked at herself in the old specked glass.",0 "Still, that was the only glass she had in which she could see her neck and arms, for the small hanging glass she had fetched out of the next room--the room that had been Dinah's--would show her nothing below her little chin; and that beautiful bit of neck where the roundness of her cheek melted into another roundness shadowed by dark delicate curls.",3 "And to-day she thought more than usual about her neck and arms; for at the dance this evening she was not to wear any neckerchief, and she had been busy yesterday with her spotted pink-and-white frock, that she might make the sleeves either long or short at will.",2 "She was dressed now just as she was to be in the evening, with a tucker made of ""real"" lace, which her aunt had lent her for this unparalleled occasion, but with no ornaments besides; she had even taken out her small round ear-rings which she wore every day.",3 "But there was something more to be done, apparently, before she put on her neckerchief and long sleeves, which she was to wear in the day-time, for now she unlocked the drawer that held her private treasures.",2 "It is more than a month since we saw her unlock that drawer before, and now it holds new treasures, so much more precious than the old ones that these are thrust into the corner.",3 Hetty would not care to put the large coloured glass ear-rings into her ears now; for see!,2 "she has got a beautiful pair of gold and pearls and garnet, lying snugly in a pretty little box lined with white satin.",3 "Oh, the delight of taking out that little box and looking at the ear-rings!",3 "Do not reason about it, my philosphical reader, and say that Hetty, being very pretty, must have known that it did not signify whether she had on any ornaments or not; and that, moreover, to look at ear-rings which she could not possibly wear out of her bedroom could hardly be a satisfaction, the essence of vanity being a reference to the impressions produced on others; you will never understand women's natures if you are so excessively rational.",2 "Try rather to divest yourself of all your rational prejudices, as much as if you were studying the psychology of a canary bird, and only watch the movements of this pretty round creature as she turns her head on one side with an unconscious smile at the ear-rings nestled in the little box.",3 "Ah, you think, it is for the sake of the person who has given them to her, and her thoughts are gone back now to the moment when they were put into her hands.",2 No; else why should she have cared to have ear-rings rather than anything else?,2 And I know that she had longed for ear-rings from among all the ornaments she could imagine.,2 """Little, little ears!""",2 "Arthur had said, pretending to pinch them one evening, as Hetty sat beside him on the grass without her hat.",1 """I wish I had some pretty ear-rings!""",3 "she said in a moment, almost before she knew what she was saying--the wish lay so close to her lips, it WOULD flutter past them at the slightest breath.",3 And the next day--it was only last week--Arthur had ridden over to Rosseter on purpose to buy them.,2 "That little wish so naively uttered seemed to him the prettiest bit of childishness; he had never heard anything like it before; and he had wrapped the box up in a great many covers, that he might see Hetty unwrapping it with growing curiosity, till at last her eyes flashed back their new delight into his.",3 "No, she was not thinking most of the giver when she smiled at the ear-rings, for now she is taking them out of the box, not to press them to her lips, but to fasten them in her ears--only for one moment, to see how pretty they look, as she peeps at them in the glass against the wall, with first one position of the head and then another, like a listening bird.",3 "It is impossible to be wise on the subject of ear-rings as one looks at her; what should those delicate pearls and crystals be made for, if not for such ears?",3 "One cannot even find fault with the tiny round hole which they leave when they are taken out; perhaps water-nixies, and such lovely things without souls, have these little round holes in their ears by nature, ready to hang jewels in.",2 "And Hetty must be one of them: it is too painful to think that she is a woman, with a woman's destiny before her--a woman spinning in young ignorance a light web of folly and vain hopes which may one day close round her and press upon her, a rancorous poisoned garment, changing all at once her fluttering, trivial butterfly sensations into a life of deep human anguish.",0 "But she cannot keep in the ear-rings long, else she may make her uncle and aunt wait.",2 She puts them quickly into the box again and shuts them up.,2 "Some day she will be able to wear any ear-rings she likes, and already she lives in an invisible world of brilliant costumes, shimmering gauze, soft satin, and velvet, such as the lady's maid at the Chase has shown her in Miss Lydia's wardrobe.",3 "She feels the bracelets on her arms, and treads on a soft carpet in front of a tall mirror.",3 "But she has one thing in the drawer which she can venture to wear to-day, because she can hang it on the chain of dark-brown berries which she has been used to wear on grand days, with a tiny flat scent-bottle at the end of it tucked inside her frock; and she must put on her brown berries--her neck would look so unfinished without it.",1 "Hetty was not quite as fond of the locket as of the ear-rings, though it was a handsome large locket, with enamelled flowers at the back and a beautiful gold border round the glass, which showed a light-brown slightly waving lock, forming a background for two little dark rings.",4 "She must keep it under her clothes, and no one would see it.",2 "But Hetty had another passion, only a little less strong than her love of finery, and that other passion made her like to wear the locket even hidden in her bosom.",4 "She would always have worn it, if she had dared to encounter her aunt's questions about a ribbon round her neck.",1 "So now she slipped it on along her chain of dark-brown berries, and snapped the chain round her neck.",1 "It was not a very long chain, only allowing the locket to hang a little way below the edge of her frock.",1 "And now she had nothing to do but to put on her long sleeves, her new white gauze neckerchief, and her straw hat trimmed with white to-day instead of the pink, which had become rather faded under the July sun.",2 "That hat made the drop of bitterness in Hetty's cup to-day, for it was not quite new--everybody would see that it was a little tanned against the white ribbon--and Mary Burge, she felt sure, would have a new hat or bonnet on.",1 "She looked for consolation at her fine white cotton stockings: they really were very nice indeed, and she had given almost all her spare money for them.",3 Hetty's dream of the future could not make her insensible to triumph in the present.,2 "To be sure, Captain Donnithorne loved her so that he would never care about looking at other people, but then those other people didn't know how he loved her, and she was not satisfied to appear shabby and insignificant in their eyes even for a short space.",2 "The whole party was assembled in the house-place when Hetty went down, all of course in their Sunday clothes; and the bells had been ringing so this morning in honour of the captain's twenty-first birthday, and the work had all been got done so early, that Marty and Tommy were not quite easy in their minds until their mother had assured them that going to church was not part of the day's festivities.",3 "Mr. Poyser had once suggested that the house should be shut up and left to take care of itself; ""for,"" said he, ""there's no danger of anybody's breaking in--everybody'll be at the Chase, thieves an' all.",1 "If we lock th' house up, all the men can go: it's a day they wonna see twice i' their lives.""",2 "But Mrs. Poyser answered with great decision: ""I never left the house to take care of itself since I was a missis, and I never will.",3 "There's been ill-looking tramps enoo' about the place this last week, to carry off every ham an' every spoon we'n got; and they all collogue together, them tramps, as it's a mercy they hanna come and poisoned the dogs and murdered us all in our beds afore we knowed, some Friday night when we'n got the money in th' house to pay the men.",3 "And it's like enough the tramps know where we're going as well as we do oursens; for if Old Harry wants any work done, you may be sure he'll find the means.""",4 """Nonsense about murdering us in our beds,"" said Mr. Poyser; ""I've got a gun i' our room, hanna I?",1 and thee'st got ears as 'ud find it out if a mouse was gnawing the bacon.,1 "Howiver, if thee wouldstna be easy, Alick can stay at home i' the forepart o' the day, and Tim can come back tow'rds five o'clock, and let Alick have his turn.",3 "They may let Growler loose if anybody offers to do mischief, and there's Alick's dog too, ready enough to set his tooth in a tramp if Alick gives him a wink.""",1 "Mrs. Poyser accepted this compromise, but thought it advisable to bar and bolt to the utmost; and now, at the last moment before starting, Nancy, the dairy-maid, was closing the shutters of the house-place, although the window, lying under the immediate observation of Alick and the dogs, might have been supposed the least likely to be selected for a burglarious attempt.",1 "The covered cart, without springs, was standing ready to carry the whole family except the men-servants.",3 "Mr. Poyser and the grandfather sat on the seat in front, and within there was room for all the women and children; the fuller the cart the better, because then the jolting would not hurt so much, and Nancy's broad person and thick arms were an excellent cushion to be pitched on.",3 "But Mr. Poyser drove at no more than a walking pace, that there might be as little risk of jolting as possible on this warm day, and there was time to exchange greetings and remarks with the foot-passengers who were going the same way, specking the paths between the green meadows and the golden cornfields with bits of movable bright colour--a scarlet waistcoat to match the poppies that nodded a little too thickly among the corn, or a dark-blue neckerchief with ends flaunting across a brand-new white smock-frock.",3 "All Broxton and all Hayslope were to be at the Chase, and make merry there in honour of ""th' heir""; and the old men and women, who had never been so far down this side of the hill for the last twenty years, were being brought from Broxton and Hayslope in one of the farmer's waggons, at Mr. Irwine's suggestion.",3 "The church-bells had struck up again now--a last tune, before the ringers came down the hill to have their share in the festival; and before the bells had finished, other music was heard approaching, so that even Old Brown, the sober horse that was drawing Mr. Poyser's cart, began to prick up his ears.",0 "It was the band of the Benefit Club, which had mustered in all its glory--that is to say, in bright-blue scarfs and blue favours, and carrying its banner with the motto, ""Let brotherly love continue,"" encircling a picture of a stone-pit.",4 "The carts, of course, were not to enter the Chase.",2 "Every one must get down at the lodges, and the vehicles must be sent back.",2 """Why, the Chase is like a fair a'ready,"" said Mrs. Poyser, as she got down from the cart, and saw the groups scattered under the great oaks, and the boys running about in the hot sunshine to survey the tall poles surmounted by the fluttering garments that were to be the prize of the successful climbers.",4 """I should ha' thought there wasna so many people i' the two parishes.",2 Mercy on us!,3 How hot it is out o' the shade!,3 "Come here, Totty, else your little face 'ull be burnt to a scratchin'!",2 They might ha' cooked the dinners i' that open space an' saved the fires.,2 "I shall go to Mrs. Best's room an' sit down.""",2 """Stop a bit, stop a bit,"" said Mr. Poyser.",2 """There's th' waggin coming wi' th' old folks in't; it'll be such a sight as wonna come o'er again, to see 'em get down an' walk along all together.",2 "You remember some on 'em i' their prime, eh, Father?""",2 """Aye, aye,"" said old Martin, walking slowly under the shade of the lodge porch, from which he could see the aged party descend.",1 """I remember Jacob Taft walking fifty mile after the Scotch raybels, when they turned back from Stoniton.""",2 "He felt himself quite a youngster, with a long life before him, as he saw the Hayslope patriarch, old Feyther Taft, descend from the waggon and walk towards him, in his brown nightcap, and leaning on his two sticks.",2 """Well, Mester Taft,"" shouted old Martin, at the utmost stretch of his voice--for though he knew the old man was stone deaf, he could not omit the propriety of a greeting--""you're hearty yet.",1 "You can enjoy yoursen to-day, for-all you're ninety an' better.""",3 """Your sarvant, mesters, your sarvant,"" said Feyther Taft in a treble tone, perceiving that he was in company.",2 "The aged group, under care of sons or daughters, themselves worn and grey, passed on along the least-winding carriage-road towards the house, where a special table was prepared for them; while the Poyser party wisely struck across the grass under the shade of the great trees, but not out of view of the house-front, with its sloping lawn and flower-beds, or of the pretty striped marquee at the edge of the lawn, standing at right angles with two larger marquees on each side of the open green space where the games were to be played.",3 "The house would have been nothing but a plain square mansion of Queen Anne's time, but for the remnant of an old abbey to which it was united at one end, in much the same way as one may sometimes see a new farmhouse rising high and prim at the end of older and lower farm-offices.",2 "The fine old remnant stood a little backward and under the shadow of tall beeches, but the sun was now on the taller and more advanced front, the blinds were all down, and the house seemed asleep in the hot midday.",3 "It made Hetty quite sad to look at it: Arthur must be somewhere in the back rooms, with the grand company, where he could not possibly know that she was come, and she should not see him for a long, long while--not till after dinner, when they said he was to come up and make a speech.",2 But Hetty was wrong in part of her conjecture.,1 "No grand company was come except the Irwines, for whom the carriage had been sent early, and Arthur was at that moment not in a back room, but walking with the rector into the broad stone cloisters of the old abbey, where the long tables were laid for all the cottage tenants and the farm-servants.",3 "A very handsome young Briton he looked to-day, in high spirits and a bright-blue frock-coat, the highest mode--his arm no longer in a sling.",3 "So open-looking and candid, too; but candid people have their secrets, and secrets leave no lines in young faces.",2 """Upon my word,"" he said, as they entered the cool cloisters, ""I think the cottagers have the best of it: these cloisters make a delightful dining-room on a hot day.",4 "That was capital advice of yours, Irwine, about the dinners--to let them be as orderly and comfortable as possible, and only for the tenants: especially as I had only a limited sum after all; for though my grandfather talked of a carte blanche, he couldn't make up his mind to trust me, when it came to the point.""",3 """Never mind, you'll give more pleasure in this quiet way,"" said Mr. Irwine.",3 """In this sort of thing people are constantly confounding liberality with riot and disorder.",1 "It sounds very grand to say that so many sheep and oxen were roasted whole, and everybody ate who liked to come; but in the end it generally happens that no one has had an enjoyable meal.",4 "If the people get a good dinner and a moderate quantity of ale in the middle of the day, they'll be able to enjoy the games as the day cools.",3 "You can't hinder some of them from getting too much towards evening, but drunkenness and darkness go better together than drunkenness and daylight.""",1 """Well, I hope there won't be much of it.",3 "I've kept the Treddleston people away by having a feast for them in the town; and I've got Casson and Adam Bede and some other good fellows to look to the giving out of ale in the booths, and to take care things don't go too far.",3 "Come, let us go up above now and see the dinner-tables for the large tenants.""",2 "They went up the stone staircase leading simply to the long gallery above the cloisters, a gallery where all the dusty worthless old pictures had been banished for the last three generations--mouldy portraits of Queen Elizabeth and her ladies, General Monk with his eye knocked out, Daniel very much in the dark among the lions, and Julius Caesar on horseback, with a high nose and laurel crown, holding his Commentaries in his hand.",1 """What a capital thing it is that they saved this piece of the old abbey!""",2 said Arthur.,2 """If I'm ever master here, I shall do up the gallery in first-rate style.",3 We've got no room in the house a third as large as this.,2 That second table is for the farmers' wives and children: Mrs. Best said it would be more comfortable for the mothers and children to be by themselves.,3 "I was determined to have the children, and make a regular family thing of it.",2 "I shall be 'the old squire' to those little lads and lasses some day, and they'll tell their children what a much finer young fellow I was than my own son.",3 There's a table for the women and children below as well.,3 "But you will see them all--you will come up with me after dinner, I hope?""",2 """Yes, to be sure,"" said Mr. Irwine.",2 """I wouldn't miss your maiden speech to the tenantry.""",1 """And there will be something else you'll like to hear,"" said Arthur.",3 """Let us go into the library and I'll tell you all about it while my grandfather is in the drawing-room with the ladies.",2 "Something that will surprise you,"" he continued, as they sat down.",2 """My grandfather has come round after all.""",2 """What, about Adam?""",2 """Yes; I should have ridden over to tell you about it, only I was so busy.",2 "You know I told you I had quite given up arguing the matter with him--I thought it was hopeless--but yesterday morning he asked me to come in here to him before I went out, and astonished me by saying that he had decided on all the new arrangements he should make in consequence of old Satchell being obliged to lay by work, and that he intended to employ Adam in superintending the woods at a salary of a guinea a-week, and the use of a pony to be kept here.",3 "I believe the secret of it is, he saw from the first it would be a profitable plan, but he had some particular dislike of Adam to get over--and besides, the fact that I propose a thing is generally a reason with him for rejecting it.",1 "There's the most curious contradiction in my grandfather: I know he means to leave me all the money he has saved, and he is likely enough to have cut off poor Aunt Lydia, who has been a slave to him all her life, with only five hundred a-year, for the sake of giving me all the more; and yet I sometimes think he positively hates me because I'm his heir.",1 "I believe if I were to break my neck, he would feel it the greatest misfortune that could befall him, and yet it seems a pleasure to him to make my life a series of petty annoyances.""",1 """Ah, my boy, it is not only woman's love that is [two greek words omitted] as old AEschylus calls it.",3 There's plenty of 'unloving love' in the world of a masculine kind.,2 But tell me about Adam.,2 Has he accepted the post?,2 "I don't see that it can be much more profitable than his present work, though, to be sure, it will leave him a good deal of time on his own hands.",3 """Well, I felt some doubt about it when I spoke to him and he seemed to hesitate at first.",2 His objection was that he thought he should not be able to satisfy my grandfather.,2 "But I begged him as a personal favour to me not to let any reason prevent him from accepting the place, if he really liked the employment and would not be giving up anything that was more profitable to him.",3 "And he assured me he should like it of all things--it would be a great step forward for him in business, and it would enable him to do what he had long wished to do, to give up working for Burge.",3 "He says he shall have plenty of time to superintend a little business of his own, which he and Seth will carry on, and will perhaps be able to enlarge by degrees.",2 "So he has agreed at last, and I have arranged that he shall dine with the large tenants to-day; and I mean to announce the appointment to them, and ask them to drink Adam's health.",2 It's a little drama I've got up in honour of my friend Adam.,2 "He's a fine fellow, and I like the opportunity of letting people know that I think so.""",3 """A drama in which friend Arthur piques himself on having a pretty part to play,"" said Mr. Irwine, smiling.",3 "But when he saw Arthur colour, he went on relentingly, ""My part, you know, is always that of the old fogy who sees nothing to admire in the young folks.",3 I don't like to admit that I'm proud of my pupil when he does graceful things.,4 "But I must play the amiable old gentleman for once, and second your toast in honour of Adam.",3 "Has your grandfather yielded on the other point too, and agreed to have a respectable man as steward?""",3 """Oh no,"" said Arthur, rising from his chair with an air of impatience and walking along the room with his hands in his pockets.",1 """He's got some project or other about letting the Chase Farm and bargaining for a supply of milk and butter for the house.",2 But I ask no questions about it--it makes me too angry.,1 "I believe he means to do all the business himself, and have nothing in the shape of a steward.",2 "It's amazing what energy he has, though.""",3 """Well, we'll go to the ladies now,"" said Mr. Irwine, rising too.",3 """I want to tell my mother what a splendid throne you've prepared for her under the marquee.""",3 """Yes, and we must be going to luncheon too,"" said Arthur.",2 """It must be two o'clock, for there is the gong beginning to sound for the tenants' dinners.""",2 "WHEN Adam heard that he was to dine upstairs with the large tenants, he felt rather uncomfortable at the idea of being exalted in this way above his mother and Seth, who were to dine in the cloisters below.",2 "But Mr. Mills, the butler, assured him that Captain Donnithorne had given particular orders about it, and would be very angry if Adam was not there.",1 "Adam nodded and went up to Seth, who was standing a few yards off.",2 """Seth, lad,"" he said, ""the captain has sent to say I'm to dine upstairs--he wishes it particular, Mr. Mills says, so I suppose it 'ud be behaving ill for me not to go.",2 "But I don't like sitting up above thee and mother, as if I was better than my own flesh and blood.",3 "Thee't not take it unkind, I hope?""",1 """Nay, nay, lad,"" said Seth, ""thy honour's our honour; and if thee get'st respect, thee'st won it by thy own deserts.",3 "The further I see thee above me, the better, so long as thee feel'st like a brother to me.",3 "It's because o' thy being appointed over the woods, and it's nothing but what's right.",3 "That's a place o' trust, and thee't above a common workman now.""",3 """Aye,"" said Adam, ""but nobody knows a word about it yet.",2 "I haven't given notice to Mr. Burge about leaving him, and I don't like to tell anybody else about it before he knows, for he'll be a good bit hurt, I doubt.",2 "People 'ull be wondering to see me there, and they'll like enough be guessing the reason and asking questions, for there's been so much talk up and down about my having the place, this last three weeks.""",3 """Well, thee canst say thee wast ordered to come without being told the reason.",3 That's the truth.,2 And mother 'ull be fine and joyful about it.,3 "Let's go and tell her.""",2 Adam was not the only guest invited to come upstairs on other grounds than the amount he contributed to the rent-roll.,2 "There were other people in the two parishes who derived dignity from their functions rather than from their pocket, and of these Bartle Massey was one.",3 "His lame walk was rather slower than usual on this warm day, so Adam lingered behind when the bell rang for dinner, that he might walk up with his old friend; for he was a little too shy to join the Poyser party on this public occasion.",1 "Opportunities of getting to Hetty's side would be sure to turn up in the course of the day, and Adam contented himself with that for he disliked any risk of being ""joked"" about Hetty--the big, outspoken, fearless man was very shy and diffident as to his love-making.",2 """Well, Mester Massey,"" said Adam, as Bartle came up ""I'm going to dine upstairs with you to-day: the captain's sent me orders.""",3 """Ah!""",2 "said Bartle, pausing, with one hand on his back.",2 """Then there's something in the wind--there's something in the wind.",2 "Have you heard anything about what the old squire means to do?""",2 """Why, yes,"" said Adam; ""I'll tell you what I know, because I believe you can keep a still tongue in your head if you like, and I hope you'll not let drop a word till it's common talk, for I've particular reasons against its being known.""",3 """Trust to me, my boy, trust to me.",3 I've got no wife to worm it out of me and then run out and cackle it in everybody's hearing.,1 "If you trust a man, let him be a bachelor--let him be a bachelor.""",3 """Well, then, it was so far settled yesterday that I'm to take the management o' the woods.",3 "The captain sent for me t' offer it me, when I was seeing to the poles and things here and I've agreed to't.",2 "But if anybody asks any questions upstairs, just you take no notice, and turn the talk to something else, and I'll be obliged to you.",2 "Now, let us go on, for we're pretty nigh the last, I think.""",3 """I know what to do, never fear,"" said Bartle, moving on.",1 """The news will be good sauce to my dinner.",3 "Aye, aye, my boy, you'll get on.",2 "I'll back you for an eye at measuring and a head-piece for figures, against any man in this county and you've had good teaching--you've had good teaching.""",3 "When they got upstairs, the question which Arthur had left unsettled, as to who was to be president, and who vice, was still under discussion, so that Adam's entrance passed without remark.",1 """It stands to sense,"" Mr. Casson was saying, ""as old Mr. Poyser, as is th' oldest man i' the room, should sit at top o' the table.",3 "I wasn't butler fifteen year without learning the rights and the wrongs about dinner.""",2 """Nay, nay,"" said old Martin, ""I'n gi'en up to my son; I'm no tenant now: let my son take my place.",2 "Th' ould foulks ha' had their turn: they mun make way for the young uns.""",2 """I should ha' thought the biggest tenant had the best right, more nor th' oldest,"" said Luke Britton, who was not fond of the critical Mr. Poyser; ""there's Mester Holdsworth has more land nor anybody else on th' estate.""",3 """Well,"" said Mr. Poyser, ""suppose we say the man wi' the foulest land shall sit at top; then whoever gets th' honour, there'll be no envying on him.""",3 """Eh, here's Mester Massey,"" said Mr. Craig, who, being a neutral in the dispute, had no interest but in conciliation; ""the schoolmaster ought to be able to tell you what's right.",2 "Who's to sit at top o' the table, Mr. Massey?""",3 """Why, the broadest man,"" said Bartle; ""and then he won't take up other folks' room; and the next broadest must sit at bottom.""",2 "This happy mode of settling the dispute produced much laughter--a smaller joke would have sufficed for that Mr. Casson, however, did not feel it compatible with his dignity and superior knowledge to join in the laugh, until it turned out that he was fixed on as the second broadest man.",4 "Martin Poyser the younger, as the broadest, was to be president, and Mr. Casson, as next broadest, was to be vice.",1 "Owing to this arrangement, Adam, being, of course, at the bottom of the table, fell under the immediate observation of Mr. Casson, who, too much occupied with the question of precedence, had not hitherto noticed his entrance.",1 "Mr. Casson, we have seen, considered Adam ""rather lifted up and peppery-like"": he thought the gentry made more fuss about this young carpenter than was necessary; they made no fuss about Mr. Casson, although he had been an excellent butler for fifteen years.",3 """Well, Mr. Bede, you're one o' them as mounts hup'ards apace,"" he said, when Adam sat down.",3 """You've niver dined here before, as I remember.""",2 """No, Mr. Casson,"" said Adam, in his strong voice, that could be heard along the table; ""I've never dined here before, but I come by Captain Donnithorne's wish, and I hope it's not disagreeable to anybody here.""",2 """Nay, nay,"" said several voices at once, ""we're glad ye're come.",3 "Who's got anything to say again' it?""",2 """And ye'll sing us 'Over the hills and far away,' after dinner, wonna ye?""",2 said Mr. Chowne.,2 """That's a song I'm uncommon fond on.""",3 """Peeh!""",2 "said Mr. Craig; ""it's not to be named by side o' the Scotch tunes.",2 I've never cared about singing myself; I've had something better to do.,3 A man that's got the names and the natur o' plants in's head isna likely to keep a hollow place t' hold tunes in.,1 "But a second cousin o' mine, a drovier, was a rare hand at remembering the Scotch tunes.",2 "He'd got nothing else to think on.""",2 """The Scotch tunes!""",2 "said Bartle Massey, contemptuously; ""I've heard enough o' the Scotch tunes to last me while I live.",2 "They're fit for nothing but to frighten the birds with--that's to say, the English birds, for the Scotch birds may sing Scotch for what I know.",1 "Give the lads a bagpipe instead of a rattle, and I'll answer for it the corn 'll be safe.""",2 """Yes, there's folks as find a pleasure in undervallying what they know but little about,"" said Mr. Craig.",3 """Why, the Scotch tunes are just like a scolding, nagging woman,"" Bartle went on, without deigning to notice Mr. Craig's remark.",1 """They go on with the same thing over and over again, and never come to a reasonable end.",3 "Anybody 'ud think the Scotch tunes had always been asking a question of somebody as deaf as old Taft, and had never got an answer yet.""",1 "Adam minded the less about sitting by Mr. Casson, because this position enabled him to see Hetty, who was not far off him at the next table.",2 "Hetty, however, had not even noticed his presence yet, for she was giving angry attention to Totty, who insisted on drawing up her feet on to the bench in antique fashion, and thereby threatened to make dusty marks on Hetty's pink-and-white frock.",1 "No sooner were the little fat legs pushed down than up they came again, for Totty's eyes were too busy in staring at the large dishes to see where the plum pudding was for her to retain any consciousness of her legs.",1 "Hetty got quite out of patience, and at last, with a frown and pout, and gathering tears, she said, ""Oh dear, Aunt, I wish you'd speak to Totty; she keeps putting her legs up so, and messing my frock.""",1 """What's the matter wi' the child?",2 "She can niver please you,"" said the mother.",2 """Let her come by the side o' me, then.",2 "I can put up wi' her.""",2 "Adam was looking at Hetty, and saw the frown, and pout, and the dark eyes seeming to grow larger with pettish half-gathered tears.",0 "Quiet Mary Burge, who sat near enough to see that Hetty was cross and that Adam's eyes were fixed on her, thought that so sensible a man as Adam must be reflecting on the small value of beauty in a woman whose temper was bad.",3 "Mary was a good girl, not given to indulge in evil feelings, but she said to herself, that, since Hetty had a bad temper, it was better Adam should know it.",1 "And it was quite true that if Hetty had been plain, she would have looked very ugly and unamiable at that moment, and no one's moral judgment upon her would have been in the least beguiled.",1 "But really there was something quite charming in her pettishness: it looked so much more like innocent distress than ill humour; and the severe Adam felt no movement of disapprobation; he only felt a sort of amused pity, as if he had seen a kitten setting up its back, or a little bird with its feathers ruffled.",1 "He could not gather what was vexing her, but it was impossible to him to feel otherwise than that she was the prettiest thing in the world, and that if he could have his way, nothing should ever vex her any more.",0 "And presently, when Totty was gone, she caught his eye, and her face broke into one of its brightest smiles, as she nodded to him.",3 It was a bit of flirtation--she knew Mary Burge was looking at them.,2 But the smile was like wine to Adam.,3 "WHEN the dinner was over, and the first draughts from the great cask of birthday ale were brought up, room was made for the broad Mr. Poyser at the side of the table, and two chairs were placed at the head.",3 "It had been settled very definitely what Mr. Poyser was to do when the young squire should appear, and for the last five minutes he had been in a state of abstraction, with his eyes fixed on the dark picture opposite, and his hands busy with the loose cash and other articles in his breeches pockets.",1 "When the young squire entered, with Mr. Irwine by his side, every one stood up, and this moment of homage was very agreeable to Arthur.",3 "He liked to feel his own importance, and besides that, he cared a great deal for the good-will of these people: he was fond of thinking that they had a hearty, special regard for him.",4 "The pleasure he felt was in his face as he said, ""My grandfather and I hope all our friends here have enjoyed their dinner, and find my birthday ale good.",4 "Mr. Irwine and I are come to taste it with you, and I am sure we shall all like anything the better that the rector shares with us.""",3 "All eyes were now turned on Mr. Poyser, who, with his hands still busy in his pockets, began with the deliberateness of a slow-striking clock.",2 """Captain, my neighbours have put it upo' me to speak for 'em to-day, for where folks think pretty much alike, one spokesman's as good as a score.",3 "And though we've mayhappen got contrairy ways o' thinking about a many things--one man lays down his land one way an' another another--an' I'll not take it upon me to speak to no man's farming, but my own--this I'll say, as we're all o' one mind about our young squire.",2 "We've pretty nigh all on us known you when you war a little un, an' we've niver known anything on you but what was good an' honorable.",4 "You speak fair an' y' act fair, an' we're joyful when we look forrard to your being our landlord, for we b'lieve you mean to do right by everybody, an' 'ull make no man's bread bitter to him if you can help it.",3 "That's what I mean, an' that's what we all mean; and when a man's said what he means, he'd better stop, for th' ale 'ull be none the better for stannin'.",3 "An' I'll not say how we like th' ale yet, for we couldna well taste it till we'd drunk your health in it; but the dinner was good, an' if there's anybody hasna enjoyed it, it must be the fault of his own inside.",3 "An' as for the rector's company, it's well known as that's welcome t' all the parish wherever he may be; an' I hope, an' we all hope, as he'll live to see us old folks, an' our children grown to men an' women an' Your Honour a family man.",3 "I've no more to say as concerns the present time, an' so we'll drink our young squire's health--three times three.""",1 "Hereupon a glorious shouting, a rapping, a jingling, a clattering, and a shouting, with plentiful da capo, pleasanter than a strain of sublimest music in the ears that receive such a tribute for the first time.",3 "Arthur had felt a twinge of conscience during Mr. Poyser's speech, but it was too feeble to nullify the pleasure he felt in being praised.",2 Did he not deserve what was said of him on the whole?,2 "If there was something in his conduct that Poyser wouldn't have liked if he had known it, why, no man's conduct will bear too close an inspection; and Poyser was not likely to know it; and, after all, what had he done?",3 "Gone a little too far, perhaps, in flirtation, but another man in his place would have acted much worse; and no harm would come--no harm should come, for the next time he was alone with Hetty, he would explain to her that she must not think seriously of him or of what had passed.",1 "It was necessary to Arthur, you perceive, to be satisfied with himself.",3 "Uncomfortable thoughts must be got rid of by good intentions for the future, which can be formed so rapidly that he had time to be uncomfortable and to become easy again before Mr. Poyser's slow speech was finished, and when it was time for him to speak he was quite light-hearted.",2 """I thank you all, my good friends and neighbours,"" Arthur said, ""for the good opinion of me, and the kind feelings towards me which Mr. Poyser has been expressing on your behalf and on his own, and it will always be my heartiest wish to deserve them.",3 "In the course of things we may expect that, if I live, I shall one day or other be your landlord; indeed, it is on the ground of that expectation that my grandfather has wished me to celebrate this day and to come among you now; and I look forward to this position, not merely as one of power and pleasure for myself, but as a means of benefiting my neighbours.",3 "It hardly becomes so young a man as I am to talk much about farming to you, who are most of you so much older, and are men of experience; still, I have interested myself a good deal in such matters, and learned as much about them as my opportunities have allowed; and when the course of events shall place the estate in my hands, it will be my first desire to afford my tenants all the encouragement a landlord can give them, in improving their land and trying to bring about a better practice of husbandry.",4 "It will be my wish to be looked on by all my deserving tenants as their best friend, and nothing would make me so happy as to be able to respect every man on the estate, and to be respected by him in return.",4 "It is not my place at present to enter into particulars; I only meet your good hopes concerning me by telling you that my own hopes correspond to them--that what you expect from me I desire to fulfil; and I am quite of Mr. Poyser's opinion, that when a man has said what he means, he had better stop.",3 "But the pleasure I feel in having my own health drunk by you would not be perfect if we did not drink the health of my grandfather, who has filled the place of both parents to me.",3 "I will say no more, until you have joined me in drinking his health on a day when he has wished me to appear among you as the future representative of his name and family.""",2 Perhaps there was no one present except Mr. Irwine who thoroughly understood and approved Arthur's graceful mode of proposing his grandfather's health.,3 "The farmers thought the young squire knew well enough that they hated the old squire, and Mrs. Poyser said, ""he'd better not ha' stirred a kettle o' sour broth.""",3 The bucolic mind does not readily apprehend the refinements of good taste.,3 "But the toast could not be rejected and when it had been drunk, Arthur said, ""I thank you, both for my grandfather and myself; and now there is one more thing I wish to tell you, that you may share my pleasure about it, as I hope and believe you will.",2 "I think there can be no man here who has not a respect, and some of you, I am sure, have a very high regard, for my friend Adam Bede.",3 "It is well known to every one in this neighbourhood that there is no man whose word can be more depended on than his; that whatever he undertakes to do, he does well, and is as careful for the interests of those who employ him as for his own.",3 "I'm proud to say that I was very fond of Adam when I was a little boy, and I have never lost my old feeling for him--I think that shows that I know a good fellow when I find him.",3 "It has long been my wish that he should have the management of the woods on the estate, which happen to be very valuable, not only because I think so highly of his character, but because he has the knowledge and the skill which fit him for the place.",3 "And I am happy to tell you that it is my grandfather's wish too, and it is now settled that Adam shall manage the woods--a change which I am sure will be very much for the advantage of the estate; and I hope you will by and by join me in drinking his health, and in wishing him all the prosperity in life that he deserves.",4 "But there is a still older friend of mine than Adam Bede present, and I need not tell you that it is Mr. Irwine.",2 I'm sure you will agree with me that we must drink no other person's health until we have drunk his.,1 "I know you have all reason to love him, but no one of his parishioners has so much reason as I.",3 "Come, charge your glasses, and let us drink to our excellent rector--three times three!""",3 "This toast was drunk with all the enthusiasm that was wanting to the last, and it certainly was the most picturesque moment in the scene when Mr. Irwine got up to speak, and all the faces in the room were turned towards him.",3 The superior refinement of his face was much more striking than that of Arthur's when seen in comparison with the people round them.,4 "Arthur's was a much commoner British face, and the splendour of his new-fashioned clothes was more akin to the young farmer's taste in costume than Mr. Irwine's powder and the well-brushed but well-worn black, which seemed to be his chosen suit for great occasions; for he had the mysterious secret of never wearing a new-looking coat.",2 """This is not the first time, by a great many,"" he said, ""that I have had to thank my parishioners for giving me tokens of their goodwill, but neighbourly kindness is among those things that are the more precious the older they get.",4 "Indeed, our pleasant meeting to-day is a proof that when what is good comes of age and is likely to live, there is reason for rejoicing, and the relation between us as clergyman and parishioners came of age two years ago, for it is three-and-twenty years since I first came among you, and I see some tall fine-looking young men here, as well as some blooming young women, that were far from looking as pleasantly at me when I christened them as I am happy to see them looking now.",4 "But I'm sure you will not wonder when I say that among all those young men, the one in whom I have the strongest interest is my friend Mr. Arthur Donnithorne, for whom you have just expressed your regard.",4 "I had the pleasure of being his tutor for several years, and have naturally had opportunities of knowing him intimately which cannot have occurred to any one else who is present; and I have some pride as well as pleasure in assuring you that I share your high hopes concerning him, and your confidence in his possession of those qualities which will make him an excellent landlord when the time shall come for him to take that important position among you.",4 "We feel alike on most matters on which a man who is getting towards fifty can feel in common with a young man of one-and-twenty, and he has just been expressing a feeling which I share very heartily, and I would not willingly omit the opportunity of saying so.",3 That feeling is his value and respect for Adam Bede.,3 "People in a high station are of course more thought of and talked about and have their virtues more praised, than those whose lives are passed in humble everyday work; but every sensible man knows how necessary that humble everyday work is, and how important it is to us that it should be done well.",4 "And I agree with my friend Mr. Arthur Donnithorne in feeling that when a man whose duty lies in that sort of work shows a character which would make him an example in any station, his merit should be acknowledged.",3 "He is one of those to whom honour is due, and his friends should delight to honour him.",3 "I know Adam Bede well--I know what he is as a workman, and what he has been as a son and brother--and I am saying the simplest truth when I say that I respect him as much as I respect any man living.",4 "But I am not speaking to you about a stranger; some of you are his intimate friends, and I believe there is not one here who does not know enough of him to join heartily in drinking his health.""",3 "As Mr. Irwine paused, Arthur jumped up and, filling his glass, said, ""A bumper to Adam Bede, and may he live to have sons as faithful and clever as himself!""",3 "No hearer, not even Bartle Massey, was so delighted with this toast as Mr. Poyser.",3 """Tough work"" as his first speech had been, he would have started up to make another if he had not known the extreme irregularity of such a course.",3 "As it was, he found an outlet for his feeling in drinking his ale unusually fast, and setting down his glass with a swing of his arm and a determined rap.",2 "If Jonathan Burge and a few others felt less comfortable on the occasion, they tried their best to look contented, and so the toast was drunk with a goodwill apparently unanimous.",3 Adam was rather paler than usual when he got up to thank his friends.,3 "He was a good deal moved by this public tribute--very naturally, for he was in the presence of all his little world, and it was uniting to do him honour.",3 "But he felt no shyness about speaking, not being troubled with small vanity or lack of words; he looked neither awkward nor embarrassed, but stood in his usual firm upright attitude, with his head thrown a little backward and his hands perfectly still, in that rough dignity which is peculiar to intelligent, honest, well-built workmen, who are never wondering what is their business in the world.",1 """I'm quite taken by surprise,"" he said.",2 """I didn't expect anything o' this sort, for it's a good deal more than my wages.",3 "But I've the more reason to be grateful to you, Captain, and to you, Mr. Irwine, and to all my friends here, who've drunk my health and wished me well.",3 "It 'ud be nonsense for me to be saying, I don't at all deserve th' opinion you have of me; that 'ud be poor thanks to you, to say that you've known me all these years and yet haven't sense enough to find out a great deal o' the truth about me.",2 "You think, if I undertake to do a bit o' work, I'll do it well, be my pay big or little--and that's true.",3 I'd be ashamed to stand before you here if it wasna true.,1 "But it seems to me that's a man's plain duty, and nothing to be conceited about, and it's pretty clear to me as I've never done more than my duty; for let us do what we will, it's only making use o' the sperrit and the powers that ha' been given to us.",3 "And so this kindness o' yours, I'm sure, is no debt you owe me, but a free gift, and as such I accept it and am thankful.",3 "And as to this new employment I've taken in hand, I'll only say that I took it at Captain Donnithorne's desire, and that I'll try to fulfil his expectations.",2 "I'd wish for no better lot than to work under him, and to know that while I was getting my own bread I was taking care of his int'rests.",3 "For I believe he's one o those gentlemen as wishes to do the right thing, and to leave the world a bit better than he found it, which it's my belief every man may do, whether he's gentle or simple, whether he sets a good bit o' work going and finds the money, or whether he does the work with his own hands.",4 "There's no occasion for me to say any more about what I feel towards him: I hope to show it through the rest o' my life in my actions.""",2 "There were various opinions about Adam's speech: some of the women whispered that he didn't show himself thankful enough, and seemed to speak as proud as could be; but most of the men were of opinion that nobody could speak more straightfor'ard, and that Adam was as fine a chap as need to be.",4 "While such observations were being buzzed about, mingled with wonderings as to what the old squire meant to do for a bailiff, and whether he was going to have a steward, the two gentlemen had risen, and were walking round to the table where the wives and children sat.",2 "There was none of the strong ale here, of course, but wine and dessert--sparkling gooseberry for the young ones, and some good sherry for the mothers.",4 "Mrs. Poyser was at the head of this table, and Totty was now seated in her lap, bending her small nose deep down into a wine-glass in search of the nuts floating there.",2 """How do you do, Mrs. Poyser?""",2 said Arthur.,2 """Weren't you pleased to hear your husband make such a good speech to-day?""",3 """Oh, sir, the men are mostly so tongue-tied--you're forced partly to guess what they mean, as you do wi' the dumb creaturs.""",1 """What!",2 "you think you could have made it better for him?""",3 "said Mr. Irwine, laughing.",2 """Well, sir, when I want to say anything, I can mostly find words to say it in, thank God.",3 "Not as I'm a-finding faut wi' my husband, for if he's a man o' few words, what he says he'll stand to.""",2 """I'm sure I never saw a prettier party than this,"" Arthur said, looking round at the apple-cheeked children.",2 """My aunt and the Miss Irwines will come up and see you presently.",1 "They were afraid of the noise of the toasts, but it would be a shame for them not to see you at table.""",0 "He walked on, speaking to the mothers and patting the children, while Mr. Irwine satisfied himself with standing still and nodding at a distance, that no one's attention might be disturbed from the young squire, the hero of the day.",3 "Arthur did not venture to stop near Hetty, but merely bowed to her as he passed along the opposite side.",2 "The foolish child felt her heart swelling with discontent; for what woman was ever satisfied with apparent neglect, even when she knows it to be the mask of love?",1 "Hetty thought this was going to be the most miserable day she had had for a long while, a moment of chill daylight and reality came across her dream: Arthur, who had seemed so near to her only a few hours before, was separated from her, as the hero of a great procession is separated from a small outsider in the crowd.",1 "THE great dance was not to begin until eight o'clock, but for any lads and lasses who liked to dance on the shady grass before then, there was music always at hand--for was not the band of the Benefit Club capable of playing excellent jigs, reels, and hornpipes?",4 "And, besides this, there was a grand band hired from Rosseter, who, with their wonderful wind-instruments and puffed-out cheeks, were themselves a delightful show to the small boys and girls.",4 "To say nothing of Joshua Rann's fiddle, which, by an act of generous forethought, he had provided himself with, in case any one should be of sufficiently pure taste to prefer dancing to a solo on that instrument.",4 "Meantime, when the sun had moved off the great open space in front of the house, the games began.",3 "There were, of course, well-soaped poles to be climbed by the boys and youths, races to be run by the old women, races to be run in sacks, heavy weights to be lifted by the strong men, and a long list of challenges to such ambitious attempts as that of walking as many yards possible on one leg--feats in which it was generally remarked that Wiry Ben, being ""the lissom'st, springest fellow i' the country,"" was sure to be pre-eminent.",4 "To crown all, there was to be a donkey-race--that sublimest of all races, conducted on the grand socialistic idea of everybody encouraging everybody else's donkey, and the sorriest donkey winning.",4 "And soon after four o'clock, splendid old Mrs. Irwine, in her damask satin and jewels and black lace, was led out by Arthur, followed by the whole family party, to her raised seat under the striped marquee, where she was to give out the prizes to the victors.",3 "Staid, formal Miss Lydia had requested to resign that queenly office to the royal old lady, and Arthur was pleased with this opportunity of gratifying his godmother's taste for stateliness.",2 "Old Mr. Donnithorne, the delicately clean, finely scented, withered old man, led out Miss Irwine, with his air of punctilious, acid politeness; Mr. Gawaine brought Miss Lydia, looking neutral and stiff in an elegant peach-blossom silk; and Mr. Irwine came last with his pale sister Anne.",4 "No other friend of the family, besides Mr. Gawaine, was invited to-day; there was to be a grand dinner for the neighbouring gentry on the morrow, but to-day all the forces were required for the entertainment of the tenants.",3 "There was a sunk fence in front of the marquee, dividing the lawn from the park, but a temporary bridge had been made for the passage of the victors, and the groups of people standing, or seated here and there on benches, stretched on each side of the open space from the white marquees up to the sunk fence.",1 """Upon my word it's a pretty sight,"" said the old lady, in her deep voice, when she was seated, and looked round on the bright scene with its dark-green background; ""and it's the last fete-day I'm likely to see, unless you make haste and get married, Arthur.",2 "But take care you get a charming bride, else I would rather die without seeing her.""",2 """You're so terribly fastidious, Godmother,"" said Arthur, ""I'm afraid I should never satisfy you with my choice.""",1 """Well, I won't forgive you if she's not handsome.",3 "I can't be put off with amiability, which is always the excuse people are making for the existence of plain people.",2 "And she must not be silly; that will never do, because you'll want managing, and a silly woman can't manage you.",1 "Who is that tall young man, Dauphin, with the mild face?",2 "There, standing without his hat, and taking such care of that tall old woman by the side of him--his mother, of course.",2 "I like to see that.""",3 """What, don't you know him, Mother?""",2 said Mr. Irwine.,2 """That is Seth Bede, Adam's brother--a Methodist, but a very good fellow.",3 "Poor Seth has looked rather down-hearted of late; I thought it was because of his father's dying in that sad way, but Joshua Rann tells me he wanted to marry that sweet little Methodist preacher who was here about a month ago, and I suppose she refused him.""",0 """Ah, I remember hearing about her.",2 "But there are no end of people here that I don't know, for they're grown up and altered so since I used to go about.""",2 """What excellent sight you have!""",3 "said old Mr. Donnithorne, who was holding a double glass up to his eyes, ""to see the expression of that young man's face so far off.",2 His face is nothing but a pale blurred spot to me.,1 But I fancy I have the advantage of you when we come to look close.,3 "I can read small print without spectacles.""",2 """Ah, my dear sir, you began with being very near-sighted, and those near-sighted eyes always wear the best.",3 "I want very strong spectacles to read with, but then I think my eyes get better and better for things at a distance.",3 "I suppose if I could live another fifty years, I should be blind to everything that wasn't out of other people's sight, like a man who stands in a well and sees nothing but the stars.""",3 """See,"" said Arthur, ""the old women are ready to set out on their race now.",3 "Which do you bet on, Gawaine?""",2 """The long-legged one, unless they're going to have several heats, and then the little wiry one may win.""",3 """There are the Poysers, Mother, not far off on the right hand,"" said Miss Irwine.",2 """Mrs. Poyser is looking at you.",2 "Do take notice of her.""",2 """To be sure I will,"" said the old lady, giving a gracious bow to Mrs. Poyser.",3 """A woman who sends me such excellent cream-cheese is not to be neglected.",2 Bless me!,3 What a fat child that is she is holding on her knee!,1 "But who is that pretty girl with dark eyes?""",2 """That is Hetty Sorrel,"" said Miss Lydia Donnithorne, ""Martin Poyser's niece--a very likely young person, and well-looking too.",2 "My maid has taught her fine needlework, and she has mended some lace of mine very respectably indeed--very respectably.""",3 """Why, she has lived with the Poysers six or seven years, Mother; you must have seen her,"" said Miss Irwine.",1 """No, I've never seen her, child--at least not as she is now,"" said Mrs. Irwine, continuing to look at Hetty.",2 """Well-looking, indeed!",3 She's a perfect beauty!,3 I've never seen anything so pretty since my young days.,3 "What a pity such beauty as that should be thrown away among the farmers, when it's wanted so terribly among the good families without fortune!",3 "I daresay, now, she'll marry a man who would have thought her just as pretty if she had had round eyes and red hair.""",3 Arthur dared not turn his eyes towards Hetty while Mrs. Irwine was speaking of her.,2 "He feigned not to hear, and to be occupied with something on the opposite side.",2 "But he saw her plainly enough without looking; saw her in heightened beauty, because he heard her beauty praised--for other men's opinion, you know, was like a native climate to Arthur's feelings: it was the air on which they thrived the best, and grew strong.",4 Yes!,2 She was enough to turn any man's head: any man in his place would have done and felt the same.,3 "And to give her up after all, as he was determined to do, would be an act that he should always look back upon with pride.",3 """No, Mother,"" and Mr. Irwine, replying to her last words; ""I can't agree with you there.",2 The common people are not quite so stupid as you imagine.,1 "The commonest man, who has his ounce of sense and feeling, is conscious of the difference between a lovely, delicate woman and a coarse one.",3 Even a dog feels a difference in their presence.,2 "The man may be no better able than the dog to explain the influence the more refined beauty has on him, but he feels it.""",4 """Bless me, Dauphin, what does an old bachelor like you know about it?""",3 """Oh, that is one of the matters in which old bachelors are wiser than married men, because they have time for more general contemplation.",2 Your fine critic of woman must never shackle his judgment by calling one woman his own.,2 "But, as an example of what I was saying, that pretty Methodist preacher I mentioned just now told me that she had preached to the roughest miners and had never been treated with anything but the utmost respect and kindness by them.",4 "The reason is--though she doesn't know it--that there's so much tenderness, refinement, and purity about her.",2 "Such a woman as that brings with her 'airs from heaven' that the coarsest fellow is not insensible to.""",1 """Here's a delicate bit of womanhood, or girlhood, coming to receive a prize, I suppose,"" said Mr. Gawaine.",3 """She must be one of the racers in the sacks, who had set off before we came.""",2 "The ""bit of womanhood"" was our old acquaintance Bessy Cranage, otherwise Chad's Bess, whose large red cheeks and blowsy person had undergone an exaggeration of colour, which, if she had happened to be a heavenly body, would have made her sublime.",3 "Bessy, I am sorry to say, had taken to her ear-rings again since Dinah's departure, and was otherwise decked out in such small finery as she could muster.",1 Any one who could have looked into poor Bessy's heart would have seen a striking resemblance between her little hopes and anxieties and Hetty's.,1 "The advantage, perhaps, would have been on Bessy's side in the matter of feeling.",3 "But then, you see, they were so very different outside!",2 "You would have been inclined to box Bessy's ears, and you would have longed to kiss Hetty.",2 "Bessy had been tempted to run the arduous race, partly from mere hedonish gaiety, partly because of the prize.",3 "Some one had said there were to be cloaks and other nice clothes for prizes, and she approached the marquee, fanning herself with her handkerchief, but with exultation sparkling in her round eyes.",4 """Here is the prize for the first sack-race,"" said Miss Lydia, taking a large parcel from the table where the prizes were laid and giving it to Mrs. Irwine before Bessy came up, ""an excellent grogram gown and a piece of flannel.""",2 """You didn't think the winner was to be so young, I suppose, Aunt?""",3 said Arthur.,2 """Couldn't you find something else for this girl, and save that grim-looking gown for one of the older women?""",1 """I have bought nothing but what is useful and substantial,"" said Miss Lydia, adjusting her own lace; ""I should not think of encouraging a love of finery in young women of that class.",3 "I have a scarlet cloak, but that is for the old woman who wins.""",3 "This speech of Miss Lydia's produced rather a mocking expression in Mrs. Irwine's face as she looked at Arthur, while Bessy came up and dropped a series of curtsies.",1 """This is Bessy Cranage, mother,"" said Mr. Irwine, kindly, ""Chad Cranage's daughter.",3 "You remember Chad Cranage, the blacksmith?""",2 """Yes, to be sure,"" said Mrs. Irwine.",2 """Well, Bessy, here is your prize--excellent warm things for winter.",4 "I'm sure you have had hard work to win them this warm day.""",3 "Bessy's lip fell as she saw the ugly, heavy gown--which felt so hot and disagreeable too, on this July day, and was such a great ugly thing to carry.",1 "She dropped her curtsies again, without looking up, and with a growing tremulousness about the corners of her mouth, and then turned away.",2 """Poor girl,"" said Arthur; ""I think she's disappointed.",1 "I wish it had been something more to her taste.""",2 """She's a bold-looking young person,"" observed Miss Lydia.",1 """Not at all one I should like to encourage.""",3 "Arthur silently resolved that he would make Bessy a present of money before the day was over, that she might buy something more to her mind; but she, not aware of the consolation in store for her, turned out of the open space, where she was visible from the marquee, and throwing down the odious bundle under a tree, began to cry--very much tittered at the while by the small boys.",1 "In this situation she was descried by her discreet matronly cousin, who lost no time in coming up, having just given the baby into her husband's charge.",1 """What's the matter wi' ye?""",2 "said Bess the matron, taking up the bundle and examining it.",2 """Ye'n sweltered yoursen, I reckon, running that fool's race.",2 "An' here, they'n gi'en you lots o' good grogram and flannel, as should ha' been gi'en by good rights to them as had the sense to keep away from such foolery.",3 "Ye might spare me a bit o' this grogram to make clothes for the lad--ye war ne'er ill-natured, Bess; I ne'er said that on ye.""",2 """Ye may take it all, for what I care,"" said Bess the maiden, with a pettish movement, beginning to wipe away her tears and recover herself.",3 """Well, I could do wi't, if so be ye want to get rid on't,"" said the disinterested cousin, walking quickly away with the bundle, lest Chad's Bess should change her mind.",2 "But that bonny-cheeked lass was blessed with an elasticity of spirits that secured her from any rankling grief; and by the time the grand climax of the donkey-race came on, her disappointment was entirely lost in the delightful excitement of attempting to stimulate the last donkey by hisses, while the boys applied the argument of sticks.",3 "But the strength of the donkey mind lies in adopting a course inversely as the arguments urged, which, well considered, requires as great a mental force as the direct sequence; and the present donkey proved the first-rate order of his intelligence by coming to a dead standstill just when the blows were thickest.",2 "Great was the shouting of the crowd, radiant the grinning of Bill Downes the stone-sawyer and the fortunate rider of this superior beast, which stood calm and stiff-legged in the midst of its triumph.",4 "Arthur himself had provided the prizes for the men, and Bill was made happy with a splendid pocket-knife, supplied with blades and gimlets enough to make a man at home on a desert island.",3 "He had hardly returned from the marquee with the prize in his hand, when it began to be understood that Wiry Ben proposed to amuse the company, before the gentry went to dinner, with an impromptu and gratuitous performance--namely, a hornpipe, the main idea of which was doubtless borrowed; but this was to be developed by the dancer in so peculiar and complex a manner that no one could deny him the praise of originality.",3 "Wiry Ben's pride in his dancing--an accomplishment productive of great effect at the yearly Wake--had needed only slightly elevating by an extra quantity of good ale to convince him that the gentry would be very much struck with his performance of his hornpipe; and he had been decidedly encouraged in this idea by Joshua Rann, who observed that it was nothing but right to do something to please the young squire, in return for what he had done for them.",4 "You will be the less surprised at this opinion in so grave a personage when you learn that Ben had requested Mr. Rann to accompany him on the fiddle, and Joshua felt quite sure that though there might not be much in the dancing, the music would make up for it.",2 "Adam Bede, who was present in one of the large marquees, where the plan was being discussed, told Ben he had better not make a fool of himself--a remark which at once fixed Ben's determination: he was not going to let anything alone because Adam Bede turned up his nose at it.",2 """What's this, what's this?""",2 said old Mr. Donnithorne.,2 """Is it something you've arranged, Arthur?",2 "Here's the clerk coming with his fiddle, and a smart fellow with a nosegay in his button-hole.""",3 """No,"" said Arthur; ""I know nothing about it.",2 "By Jove, he's going to dance!",2 "It's one of the carpenters--I forget his name at this moment.""",2 """It's Ben Cranage--Wiry Ben, they call him,"" said Mr. Irwine; ""rather a loose fish, I think.",1 "Anne, my dear, I see that fiddle-scraping is too much for you: you're getting tired.",1 "Let me take you in now, that you may rest till dinner.""",2 "Miss Anne rose assentingly, and the good brother took her away, while Joshua's preliminary scrapings burst into the ""White Cockade,"" from which he intended to pass to a variety of tunes, by a series of transitions which his good ear really taught him to execute with some skill.",3 "It would have been an exasperating fact to him, if he had known it, that the general attention was too thoroughly absorbed by Ben's dancing for any one to give much heed to the music.",1 Have you ever seen a real English rustic perform a solo dance?,2 "Perhaps you have only seen a ballet rustic, smiling like a merry countryman in crockery, with graceful turns of the haunch and insinuating movements of the head.",4 "That is as much like the real thing as the ""Bird Waltz"" is like the song of birds.",3 Wiry Ben never smiled: he looked as serious as a dancing monkey--as serious as if he had been an experimental philosopher ascertaining in his own person the amount of shaking and the varieties of angularity that could be given to the human limbs.,2 "To make amends for the abundant laughter in the striped marquee, Arthur clapped his hands continually and cried ""Bravo!""",3 But Ben had one admirer whose eyes followed his movements with a fervid gravity that equalled his own.,3 "It was Martin Poyser, who was seated on a bench, with Tommy between his legs.",2 """What dost think o' that?""",2 he said to his wife.,2 """He goes as pat to the music as if he was made o' clockwork.",2 "I used to be a pretty good un at dancing myself when I was lighter, but I could niver ha' hit it just to th' hair like that.""",4 """It's little matter what his limbs are, to my thinking,"" re-turned Mrs. Poyser.",2 """He's empty enough i' the upper story, or he'd niver come jigging an' stamping i' that way, like a mad grasshopper, for the gentry to look at him.",3 "They're fit to die wi' laughing, I can see.""",1 """Well, well, so much the better, it amuses 'em,"" said Mr. Poyser, who did not easily take an irritable view of things.",3 """But they're going away now, t' have their dinner, I reckon.",2 "Well move about a bit, shall we, and see what Adam Bede's doing.",3 "He's got to look after the drinking and things: I doubt he hasna had much fun.""",2 "ARTHUR had chosen the entrance-hall for the ballroom: very wisely, for no other room could have been so airy, or would have had the advantage of the wide doors opening into the garden, as well as a ready entrance into the other rooms.",4 "To be sure, a stone floor was not the pleasantest to dance on, but then, most of the dancers had known what it was to enjoy a Christmas dance on kitchen quarries.",3 "It was one of those entrance-halls which make the surrounding rooms look like closets--with stucco angels, trumpets, and flower-wreaths on the lofty ceiling, and great medallions of miscellaneous heroes on the walls, alternating with statues in niches.",3 "Just the sort of place to be ornamented well with green boughs, and Mr. Craig had been proud to show his taste and his hothouse plants on the occasion.",3 "The broad steps of the stone staircase were covered with cushions to serve as seats for the children, who were to stay till half-past nine with the servant-maids to see the dancing, and as this dance was confined to the chief tenants, there was abundant room for every one.",2 "The lights were charmingly disposed in coloured-paper lamps, high up among green boughs, and the farmers' wives and daughters, as they peeped in, believed no scene could be more splendid; they knew now quite well in what sort of rooms the king and queen lived, and their thoughts glanced with some pity towards cousins and acquaintances who had not this fine opportunity of knowing how things went on in the great world.",4 "The lamps were already lit, though the sun had not long set, and there was that calm light out of doors in which we seem to see all objects more distinctly than in the broad day.",3 "It was a pretty scene outside the house: the farmers and their families were moving about the lawn, among the flowers and shrubs, or along the broad straight road leading from the east front, where a carpet of mossy grass spread on each side, studded here and there with a dark flat-boughed cedar, or a grand pyramidal fir sweeping the ground with its branches, all tipped with a fringe of paler green.",4 "The groups of cottagers in the park were gradually diminishing, the young ones being attracted towards the lights that were beginning to gleam from the windows of the gallery in the abbey, which was to be their dancing-room, and some of the sober elder ones thinking it time to go home quietly.",1 "One of these was Lisbeth Bede, and Seth went with her--not from filial attention only, for his conscience would not let him join in dancing.",2 "It had been rather a melancholy day to Seth: Dinah had never been more constantly present with him than in this scene, where everything was so unlike her.",1 He saw her all the more vividly after looking at the thoughtless faces and gay-coloured dresses of the young women--just as one feels the beauty and the greatness of a pictured Madonna the more when it has been for a moment screened from us by a vulgar head in a bonnet.,2 "But this presence of Dinah in his mind only helped him to bear the better with his mother's mood, which had been becoming more and more querulous for the last hour.",3 Poor Lisbeth was suffering from a strange conflict of feelings.,0 Her joy and pride in the honour paid to her darling son Adam was beginning to be worsted in the conflict with the jealousy and fretfulness which had revived when Adam came to tell her that Captain Donnithorne desired him to join the dancers in the hall.,3 "Adam was getting more and more out of her reach; she wished all the old troubles back again, for then it mattered more to Adam what his mother said and did.",1 """Eh, it's fine talkin' o' dancin',"" she said, ""an' thy father not a five week in's grave.",3 "An' I wish I war there too, i'stid o' bein' left to take up merrier folks's room above ground.""",2 """Nay, don't look at it i' that way, Mother,"" said Adam, who was determined to be gentle to her to-day.",3 """I don't mean to dance--I shall only look on.",2 "And since the captain wishes me to be there, it 'ud look as if I thought I knew better than him to say as I'd rather not stay.",3 "And thee know'st how he's behaved to me to-day.""",2 """Eh, thee't do as thee lik'st, for thy old mother's got no right t' hinder thee.",2 "She's nought but th' old husk, and thee'st slipped away from her, like the ripe nut.""",3 """Well, Mother,"" said Adam, ""I'll go and tell the captain as it hurts thy feelings for me to stay, and I'd rather go home upo' that account: he won't take it ill then, I daresay, and I'm willing.""",3 "He said this with some effort, for he really longed to be near Hetty this evening.",2 """Nay, nay, I wonna ha' thee do that--the young squire 'ull be angered.",2 "Go an' do what thee't ordered to do, an' me and Seth 'ull go whome.",2 I know it's a grit honour for thee to be so looked on--an' who's to be prouder on it nor thy mother?,2 "Hadna she the cumber o' rearin' thee an' doin' for thee all these 'ears?""",2 """Well, good-bye, then, Mother--good-bye, lad--remember Gyp when you get home,"" said Adam, turning away towards the gate of the pleasure-grounds, where he hoped he might be able to join the Poysers, for he had been so occupied throughout the afternoon that he had had no time to speak to Hetty.",4 "His eye soon detected a distant group, which he knew to be the right one, returning to the house along the broad gravel road, and he hastened on to meet them.",3 """Why, Adam, I'm glad to get sight on y' again,"" said Mr. Poyser, who was carrying Totty on his arm.",3 """You're going t' have a bit o' fun, I hope, now your work's all done.",3 "And here's Hetty has promised no end o' partners, an' I've just been askin' her if she'd agreed to dance wi' you, an' she says no.""",3 """Well, I didn't think o' dancing to-night,"" said Adam, already tempted to change his mind, as he looked at Hetty.",3 """Nonsense!""",1 said Mr. Poyser.,2 """Why, everybody's goin' to dance to-night, all but th' old squire and Mrs. Irwine.",2 "Mrs. Best's been tellin' us as Miss Lyddy and Miss Irwine 'ull dance, an' the young squire 'ull pick my wife for his first partner, t' open the ball: so she'll be forced to dance, though she's laid by ever sin' the Christmas afore the little un was born.",1 "You canna for shame stand still, Adam, an' you a fine young fellow and can dance as well as anybody.""",3 """Nay, nay,"" said Mrs. Poyser, ""it 'ud be unbecomin'.",2 "I know the dancin's nonsense, but if you stick at everything because it's nonsense, you wonna go far i' this life.",1 "When your broth's ready-made for you, you mun swallow the thickenin', or else let the broth alone.""",3 """Then if Hetty 'ull dance with me,"" said Adam, yielding either to Mrs. Poyser's argument or to something else, ""I'll dance whichever dance she's free.""",3 """I've got no partner for the fourth dance,"" said Hetty; ""I'll dance that with you, if you like.""",3 """Ah,"" said Mr. Poyser, ""but you mun dance the first dance, Adam, else it'll look partic'ler.",2 "There's plenty o' nice partners to pick an' choose from, an' it's hard for the gells when the men stan' by and don't ask 'em.""",2 "Adam felt the justice of Mr. Poyser's observation: it would not do for him to dance with no one besides Hetty; and remembering that Jonathan Burge had some reason to feel hurt to-day, he resolved to ask Miss Mary to dance with him the first dance, if she had no other partner.",1 """There's the big clock strikin' eight,"" said Mr. Poyser; ""we must make haste in now, else the squire and the ladies 'ull be in afore us, an' that wouldna look well.""",2 "When they had entered the hall, and the three children under Molly's charge had been seated on the stairs, the folding-doors of the drawing-room were thrown open, and Arthur entered in his regimentals, leading Mrs. Irwine to a carpet-covered dais ornamented with hot-house plants, where she and Miss Anne were to be seated with old Mr. Donnithorne, that they might look on at the dancing, like the kings and queens in the plays.",3 "Arthur had put on his uniform to please the tenants, he said, who thought as much of his militia dignity as if it had been an elevation to the premiership.",3 He had not the least objection to gratify them in that way: his uniform was very advantageous to his figure.,3 "The old squire, before sitting down, walked round the hall to greet the tenants and make polite speeches to the wives: he was always polite; but the farmers had found out, after long puzzling, that this polish was one of the signs of hardness.",2 "It was observed that he gave his most elaborate civility to Mrs. Poyser to-night, inquiring particularly about her health, recommending her to strengthen herself with cold water as he did, and avoid all drugs.",2 "Mrs. Poyser curtsied and thanked him with great self-command, but when he had passed on, she whispered to her husband, ""I'll lay my life he's brewin' some nasty turn against us.",2 "Old Harry doesna wag his tail so for nothin'.""",2 "Mr. Poyser had no time to answer, for now Arthur came up and said, ""Mrs. Poyser, I'm come to request the favour of your hand for the first dance; and, Mr. Poyser, you must let me take you to my aunt, for she claims you as her partner.""",3 "The wife's pale cheek flushed with a nervous sense of unwonted honour as Arthur led her to the top of the room; but Mr. Poyser, to whom an extra glass had restored his youthful confidence in his good looks and good dancing, walked along with them quite proudly, secretly flattering himself that Miss Lydia had never had a partner in HER life who could lift her off the ground as he would.",4 "In order to balance the honours given to the two parishes, Miss Irwine danced with Luke Britton, the largest Broxton farmer, and Mr. Gawaine led out Mrs. Britton.",2 "Mr. Irwine, after seating his sister Anne, had gone to the abbey gallery, as he had agreed with Arthur beforehand, to see how the merriment of the cottagers was prospering.",3 "Meanwhile, all the less distinguished couples had taken their places: Hetty was led out by the inevitable Mr. Craig, and Mary Burge by Adam; and now the music struck up, and the glorious country-dance, best of all dances, began.",3 Pity it was not a boarded floor!,1 Then the rhythmic stamping of the thick shoes would have been better than any drums.,3 "That merry stamping, that gracious nodding of the head, that waving bestowal of the hand--where can we see them now?",3 "That simple dancing of well-covered matrons, laying aside for an hour the cares of house and dairy, remembering but not affecting youth, not jealous but proud of the young maidens by their side--that holiday sprightliness of portly husbands paying little compliments to their wives, as if their courting days were come again--those lads and lasses a little confused and awkward with their partners, having nothing to say--it would be a pleasant variety to see all that sometimes, instead of low dresses and large skirts, and scanning glances exploring costumes, and languid men in lacquered boots smiling with double meaning.",3 "There was but one thing to mar Martin Poyser's pleasure in this dance: it was that he was always in close contact with Luke Britton, that slovenly farmer.",2 "He thought of throwing a little glazed coldness into his eye in the crossing of hands; but then, as Miss Irwine was opposite to him instead of the offensive Luke, he might freeze the wrong person.",0 "So he gave his face up to hilarity, unchilled by moral judgments.",2 How Hetty's heart beat as Arthur approached her!,2 He had hardly looked at her to-day: now he must take her hand.,2 Would he press it?,2 Would he look at her?,2 She thought she would cry if he gave her no sign of feeling.,1 "Now he was there--he had taken her hand--yes, he was pressing it.",2 "Hetty turned pale as she looked up at him for an instant and met his eyes, before the dance carried him away.",1 "That pale look came upon Arthur like the beginning of a dull pain, which clung to him, though he must dance and smile and joke all the same.",1 "Hetty would look so, when he told her what he had to tell her; and he should never be able to bear it--he should be a fool and give way again.",1 Hetty's look did not really mean so much as he thought: it was only the sign of a struggle between the desire for him to notice her and the dread lest she should betray the desire to others.,0 But Hetty's face had a language that transcended her feelings.,2 "There are faces which nature charges with a meaning and pathos not belonging to the single human soul that flutters beneath them, but speaking the joys and sorrows of foregone generations--eyes that tell of deep love which doubtless has been and is somewhere, but not paired with these eyes--perhaps paired with pale eyes that can say nothing; just as a national language may be instinct with poetry unfelt by the lips that use it.",3 "That look of Hetty's oppressed Arthur with a dread which yet had something of a terrible unconfessed delight in it, that she loved him too well.",3 "There was a hard task before him, for at that moment he felt he would have given up three years of his youth for the happiness of abandoning himself without remorse to his passion for Hetty.",2 "These were the incongruous thoughts in his mind as he led Mrs. Poyser, who was panting with fatigue, and secretly resolving that neither judge nor jury should force her to dance another dance, to take a quiet rest in the dining-room, where supper was laid out for the guests to come and take it as they chose.",2 """I've desired Hetty to remember as she's got to dance wi' you, sir,"" said the good innocent woman; ""for she's so thoughtless, she'd be like enough to go an' engage herself for ivery dance.",3 "So I told her not to promise too many.""",3 """Thank you, Mrs. Poyser,"" said Arthur, not without a twinge.",3 """Now, sit down in this comfortable chair, and here is Mills ready to give you what you would like best.""",4 "He hurried away to seek another matronly partner, for due honour must be paid to the married women before he asked any of the young ones; and the country-dances, and the stamping, and the gracious nodding, and the waving of the hands, went on joyously.",3 "At last the time had come for the fourth dance--longed for by the strong, grave Adam, as if he had been a delicate-handed youth of eighteen; for we are all very much alike when we are in our first love; and Adam had hardly ever touched Hetty's hand for more than a transient greeting--had never danced with her but once before.",4 "His eyes had followed her eagerly to-night in spite of himself, and had taken in deeper draughts of love.",3 "He thought she behaved so prettily, so quietly; she did not seem to be flirting at all she smiled less than usual; there was almost a sweet sadness about her.",3 """God bless her!""",3 "he said inwardly; ""I'd make her life a happy 'un, if a strong arm to work for her, and a heart to love her, could do it.""",4 "And then there stole over him delicious thoughts of coming home from work, and drawing Hetty to his side, and feeling her cheek softly pressed against his, till he forgot where he was, and the music and the tread of feet might have been the falling of rain and the roaring of the wind, for what he knew.",2 "But now the third dance was ended, and he might go up to her and claim her hand.",2 "She was at the far end of the hall near the staircase, whispering with Molly, who had just given the sleeping Totty into her arms before running to fetch shawls and bonnets from the landing.",2 Mrs. Poyser had taken the two boys away into the dining-room to give them some cake before they went home in the cart with Grandfather and Molly was to follow as fast as possible.,3 """Let me hold her,"" said Adam, as Molly turned upstairs; ""the children are so heavy when they're asleep.""",2 "Hetty was glad of the relief, for to hold Totty in her arms, standing, was not at all a pleasant variety to her.",4 "But this second transfer had the unfortunate effect of rousing Totty, who was not behind any child of her age in peevishness at an unseasonable awaking.",1 "While Hetty was in the act of placing her in Adam's arms, and had not yet withdrawn her own, Totty opened her eyes, and forthwith fought out with her left fist at Adam's arm, and with her right caught at the string of brown beads round Hetty's neck.",2 "The locket leaped out from her frock, and the next moment the string was broken, and Hetty, helpless, saw beads and locket scattered wide on the floor.",1 """My locket, my locket!""",2 "she said, in a loud frightened whisper to Adam; ""never mind the beads.""",1 "Adam had already seen where the locket fell, for it had attracted his glance as it leaped out of her frock.",1 "It had fallen on the raised wooden dais where the band sat, not on the stone floor; and as Adam picked it up, he saw the glass with the dark and light locks of hair under it.",1 "It had fallen that side upwards, so the glass was not broken.",1 "He turned it over on his hand, and saw the enamelled gold back.",3 """It isn't hurt,"" he said, as he held it towards Hetty, who was unable to take it because both her hands were occupied with Totty.",1 """Oh, it doesn't matter, I don't mind about it,"" said Hetty, who had been pale and was now red.",1 """Not matter?""",2 "said Adam, gravely.",1 """You seemed very frightened about it.",2 "I'll hold it till you're ready to take it,"" he added, quietly closing his hand over it, that she might not think he wanted to look at it again.",3 "By this time Molly had come with bonnet and shawl, and as soon as she had taken Totty, Adam placed the locket in Hetty's hand.",2 "She took it with an air of indifference and put it in her pocket, in her heart vexed and angry with Adam because he had seen it, but determined now that she would show no more signs of agitation.",1 """See,"" she said, ""they're taking their places to dance; let us go.""",2 Adam assented silently.,2 A puzzled alarm had taken possession of him.,1 Had Hetty a lover he didn't know of?,3 "For none of her relations, he was sure, would give her a locket like that; and none of her admirers, with whom he was acquainted, was in the position of an accepted lover, as the giver of that locket must be.",3 Adam was lost in the utter impossibility of finding any person for his fears to alight on.,1 "He could only feel with a terrible pang that there was something in Hetty's life unknown to him; that while he had been rocking himself in the hope that she would come to love him, she was already loving another.",2 "The pleasure of the dance with Hetty was gone; his eyes, when they rested on her, had an uneasy questioning expression in them; he could think of nothing to say to her; and she too was out of temper and disinclined to speak.",1 They were both glad when the dance was ended.,3 "Adam was determined to stay no longer; no one wanted him, and no one would notice if he slipped away.",2 "As soon as he got out of doors, he began to walk at his habitual rapid pace, hurrying along without knowing why, busy with the painful thought that the memory of this day, so full of honour and promise to him, was poisoned for ever.",3 "Suddenly, when he was far on through the Chase, he stopped, startled by a flash of reviving hope.",2 "After all, he might be a fool, making a great misery out of a trifle.",1 "Hetty, fond of finery as she was, might have bought the thing herself.",3 It looked too expensive for that--it looked like the things on white satin in the great jeweller's shop at Rosseter.,3 "But Adam had very imperfect notions of the value of such things, and he thought it could certainly not cost more than a guinea.",1 "Perhaps Hetty had had as much as that in Christmas boxes, and there was no knowing but she might have been childish enough to spend it in that way; she was such a young thing, and she couldn't help loving finery!",3 "But then, why had she been so frightened about it at first, and changed colour so, and afterwards pretended not to care?",2 "Oh, that was because she was ashamed of his seeing that she had such a smart thing--she was conscious that it was wrong for her to spend her money on it, and she knew that Adam disapproved of finery.",1 It was a proof she cared about what he liked and disliked.,2 "She must have thought from his silence and gravity afterwards that he was very much displeased with her, that he was inclined to be harsh and severe towards her foibles.",0 "And as he walked on more quietly, chewing the cud of this new hope, his only uneasiness was that he had behaved in a way which might chill Hetty's feeling towards him.",1 For this last view of the matter must be the true one.,2 "How could Hetty have an accepted lover, quite unknown to him?",2 "She was never away from her uncle's house for more than a day; she could have no acquaintances that did not come there, and no intimacies unknown to her uncle and aunt.",1 It would be folly to believe that the locket was given to her by a lover.,3 "The little ring of dark hair he felt sure was her own; he could form no guess about the light hair under it, for he had not seen it very distinctly.",1 "It might be a bit of her father's or mother's, who had died when she was a child, and she would naturally put a bit of her own along with it.",1 "And so Adam went to bed comforted, having woven for himself an ingenious web of probabilities--the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth.",3 "His last waking thoughts melted into a dream that he was with Hetty again at the Hall Farm, and that he was asking her to forgive him for being so cold and silent.",2 "And while he was dreaming this, Arthur was leading Hetty to the dance and saying to her in low hurried tones, ""I shall be in the wood the day after to-morrow at seven; come as early as you can.""",3 "And Hetty's foolish joys and hopes, which had flown away for a little space, scared by a mere nothing, now all came fluttering back, unconscious of the real peril.",0 "She was happy for the first time this long day, and wished that dance would last for hours.",3 Arthur wished it too; it was the last weakness he meant to indulge in; and a man never lies with more delicious languor under the influence of a passion than when he has persuaded himself that he shall subdue it to-morrow.,1 "But Mrs. Poyser's wishes were quite the reverse of this, for her mind was filled with dreary forebodings as to the retardation of to-morrow morning's cheese in consequence of these late hours.",1 "Now that Hetty had done her duty and danced one dance with the young squire, Mr. Poyser must go out and see if the cart was come back to fetch them, for it was half-past ten o'clock, and notwithstanding a mild suggestion on his part that it would be bad manners for them to be the first to go, Mrs. Poyser was resolute on the point, ""manners or no manners.""",2 """What!",2 "Going already, Mrs. Poyser?""",2 "said old Mr. Donnithorne, as she came to curtsy and take leave; ""I thought we should not part with any of our guests till eleven.",2 "Mrs. Irwine and I, who are elderly people, think of sitting out the dance till then.""",2 """Oh, Your Honour, it's all right and proper for gentlefolks to stay up by candlelight--they've got no cheese on their minds.",3 "We're late enough as it is, an' there's no lettin' the cows know as they mustn't want to be milked so early to-morrow mornin'.",3 "So, if you'll please t' excuse us, we'll take our leave.""",1 """Eh!""",2 "she said to her husband, as they set off in the cart, ""I'd sooner ha' brewin' day and washin' day together than one o' these pleasurin' days.",2 There's no work so tirin' as danglin' about an' starin' an' not rightly knowin' what you're goin' to do next; and keepin' your face i' smilin' order like a grocer o' market-day for fear people shouldna think you civil enough.,4 "An' you've nothing to show for't when it's done, if it isn't a yallow face wi' eatin' things as disagree.""",1 """Nay, nay,"" said Mr. Poyser, who was in his merriest mood, and felt that he had had a great day, ""a bit o' pleasuring's good for thee sometimes.",3 "An' thee danc'st as well as any of 'em, for I'll back thee against all the wives i' the parish for a light foot an' ankle.",3 An' it was a great honour for the young squire to ask thee first--I reckon it was because I sat at th' head o' the table an' made the speech.,3 An' Hetty too--she never had such a partner before--a fine young gentleman in reg'mentals.,3 "It'll serve you to talk on, Hetty, when you're an old woman--how you danced wi' th' young squire the day he come o' age.""",2 IT was beyond the middle of August--nearly three weeks after the birthday feast.,2 "The reaping of the wheat had begun in our north midland county of Loamshire, but the harvest was likely still to be retarded by the heavy rains, which were causing inundations and much damage throughout the country.",1 "From this last trouble the Broxton and Hayslope farmers, on their pleasant uplands and in their brook-watered valleys, had not suffered, and as I cannot pretend that they were such exceptional farmers as to love the general good better than their own, you will infer that they were not in very low spirits about the rapid rise in the price of bread, so long as there was hope of gathering in their own corn undamaged; and occasional days of sunshine and drying winds flattered this hope.",4 The eighteenth of August was one of these days when the sunshine looked brighter in all eyes for the gloom that went before.,2 "Grand masses of cloud were hurried across the blue, and the great round hills behind the Chase seemed alive with their flying shadows; the sun was hidden for a moment, and then shone out warm again like a recovered joy; the leaves, still green, were tossed off the hedgerow trees by the wind; around the farmhouses there was a sound of clapping doors; the apples fell in the orchards; and the stray horses on the green sides of the lanes and on the common had their manes blown about their faces.",4 And yet the wind seemed only part of the general gladness because the sun was shining.,3 "A merry day for the children, who ran and shouted to see if they could top the wind with their voices; and the grown-up people too were in good spirits, inclined to believe in yet finer days, when the wind had fallen.",4 If only the corn were not ripe enough to be blown out of the husk and scattered as untimely seed!,2 And yet a day on which a blighting sorrow may fall upon a man.,1 For if it be true that Nature at certain moments seems charged with a presentiment of one individual lot must it not also be true that she seems unmindful unconscious of another?,2 "For there is no hour that has not its births of gladness and despair, no morning brightness that does not bring new sickness to desolation as well as new forces to genius and love.",3 "There are so many of us, and our lots are so different, what wonder that Nature's mood is often in harsh contrast with the great crisis of our lives?",2 "We are children of a large family, and must learn, as such children do, not to expect that our hurts will be made much of--to be content with little nurture and caressing, and help each other the more.",1 "It was a busy day with Adam, who of late had done almost double work, for he was continuing to act as foreman for Jonathan Burge, until some satisfactory person could be found to supply his place, and Jonathan was slow to find that person.",3 "But he had done the extra work cheerfully, for his hopes were buoyant again about Hetty.",3 "Every time she had seen him since the birthday, she had seemed to make an effort to behave all the more kindly to him, that she might make him understand she had forgiven his silence and coldness during the dance.",3 "He had never mentioned the locket to her again; too happy that she smiled at him--still happier because he observed in her a more subdued air, something that he interpreted as the growth of womanly tenderness and seriousness.",1 """Ah!""",2 "he thought, again and again, ""she's only seventeen; she'll be thoughtful enough after a while.",3 And her aunt allays says how clever she is at the work.,3 "She'll make a wife as Mother'll have no occasion to grumble at, after all.""",1 "To be sure, he had only seen her at home twice since the birthday; for one Sunday, when he was intending to go from church to the Hall Farm, Hetty had joined the party of upper servants from the Chase and had gone home with them--almost as if she were inclined to encourage Mr. Craig.",3 """She's takin' too much likin' to them folks i' the house keeper's room,"" Mrs. Poyser remarked.",2 """For my part, I was never overfond o' gentlefolks's servants--they're mostly like the fine ladies' fat dogs, nayther good for barking nor butcher's meat, but on'y for show.""",3 "And another evening she was gone to Treddleston to buy some things; though, to his great surprise, as he was returning home, he saw her at a distance getting over a stile quite out of the Treddleston road.",3 "But, when he hastened to her, she was very kind, and asked him to go in again when he had taken her to the yard gate.",2 "She had gone a little farther into the fields after coming from Treddleston because she didn't want to go in, she said: it was so nice to be out of doors, and her aunt always made such a fuss about it if she wanted to go out.",2 """Oh, do come in with me!""",2 "she said, as he was going to shake hands with her at the gate, and he could not resist that.",1 "So he went in, and Mrs. Poyser was contented with only a slight remark on Hetty's being later than was expected; while Hetty, who had looked out of spirits when he met her, smiled and talked and waited on them all with unusual promptitude.",1 That was the last time he had seen her; but he meant to make leisure for going to the Farm to-morrow.,2 "To-day, he knew, was her day for going to the Chase to sew with the lady's maid, so he would get as much work done as possible this evening, that the next might be clear.",3 "One piece of work that Adam was superintending was some slight repairs at the Chase Farm, which had been hitherto occupied by Satchell, as bailiff, but which it was now rumoured that the old squire was going to let to a smart man in top-boots, who had been seen to ride over it one day.",4 "Nothing but the desire to get a tenant could account for the squire's undertaking repairs, though the Saturday-evening party at Mr. Casson's agreed over their pipes that no man in his senses would take the Chase Farm unless there was a bit more ploughland laid to it.",2 "However that might be, the repairs were ordered to be executed with all dispatch, and Adam, acting for Mr. Burge, was carrying out the order with his usual energy.",2 "But to-day, having been occupied elsewhere, he had not been able to arrive at the Chase Farm till late in the afternoon, and he then discovered that some old roofing, which he had calculated on preserving, had given way.",2 "There was clearly no good to be done with this part of the building without pulling it all down, and Adam immediately saw in his mind a plan for building it up again, so as to make the most convenient of cow-sheds and calf-pens, with a hovel for implements; and all without any great expense for materials.",4 "So, when the workmen were gone, he sat down, took out his pocket-book, and busied himself with sketching a plan, and making a specification of the expenses that he might show it to Burge the next morning, and set him on persuading the squire to consent.",2 "To ""make a good job"" of anything, however small, was always a pleasure to Adam, and he sat on a block, with his book resting on a planing-table, whistling low every now and then and turning his head on one side with a just perceptible smile of gratification--of pride, too, for if Adam loved a bit of good work, he loved also to think, ""I did it!""",4 And I believe the only people who are free from that weakness are those who have no work to call their own.,3 "It was nearly seven before he had finished and put on his jacket again; and on giving a last look round, he observed that Seth, who had been working here to-day, had left his basket of tools behind him.",2 """Why, th' lad's forgot his tools,"" thought Adam, ""and he's got to work up at the shop to-morrow.",3 "There never was such a chap for wool-gathering; he'd leave his head behind him, if it was loose.",1 "However, it's lucky I've seen 'em; I'll carry 'em home.""",3 "The buildings of the Chase Farm lay at one extremity of the Chase, at about ten minutes' walking distance from the Abbey.",2 "Adam had come thither on his pony, intending to ride to the stables and put up his nag on his way home.",1 "At the stables he encountered Mr. Craig, who had come to look at the captain's new horse, on which he was to ride away the day after to-morrow; and Mr. Craig detained him to tell how all the servants were to collect at the gate of the courtyard to wish the young squire luck as he rode out; so that by the time Adam had got into the Chase, and was striding along with the basket of tools over his shoulder, the sun was on the point of setting, and was sending level crimson rays among the great trunks of the old oaks, and touching every bare patch of ground with a transient glory that made it look like a jewel dropt upon the grass.",4 "The wind had fallen now, and there was only enough breeze to stir the delicate-stemmed leaves.",3 "Any one who had been sitting in the house all day would have been glad to walk now; but Adam had been quite enough in the open air to wish to shorten his way home, and he bethought himself that he might do so by striking across the Chase and going through the Grove, where he had never been for years.",4 "He hurried on across the Chase, stalking along the narrow paths between the fern, with Gyp at his heels, not lingering to watch the magnificent changes of the light--hardly once thinking of it--yet feeling its presence in a certain calm happy awe which mingled itself with his busy working-day thoughts.",4 How could he help feeling it?,2 "The very deer felt it, and were more timid.",1 "Presently Adam's thoughts recurred to what Mr. Craig had said about Arthur Donnithorne, and pictured his going away, and the changes that might take place before he came back; then they travelled back affectionately over the old scenes of boyish companionship, and dwelt on Arthur's good qualities, which Adam had a pride in, as we all have in the virtues of the superior who honours us.",4 "A nature like Adam's, with a great need of love and reverence in it, depends for so much of its happiness on what it can believe and feel about others!",4 And he had no ideal world of dead heroes; he knew little of the life of men in the past; he must find the beings to whom he could cling with loving admiration among those who came within speech of him.,3 "These pleasant thoughts about Arthur brought a milder expression than usual into his keen rough face: perhaps they were the reason why, when he opened the old green gate leading into the Grove, he paused to pat Gyp and say a kind word to him.",3 "After that pause, he strode on again along the broad winding path through the Grove.",2 What grand beeches!,3 "Adam delighted in a fine tree of all things; as the fisherman's sight is keenest on the sea, so Adam's perceptions were more at home with trees than with other objects.",3 "He kept them in his memory, as a painter does, with all the flecks and knots in their bark, all the curves and angles of their boughs, and had often calculated the height and contents of a trunk to a nicety, as he stood looking at it.",2 "No wonder that, not-withstanding his desire to get on, he could not help pausing to look at a curious large beech which he had seen standing before him at a turning in the road, and convince himself that it was not two trees wedded together, but only one.",3 "For the rest of his life he remembered that moment when he was calmly examining the beech, as a man remembers his last glimpse of the home where his youth was passed, before the road turned, and he saw it no more.",2 "The beech stood at the last turning before the Grove ended in an archway of boughs that let in the eastern light; and as Adam stepped away from the tree to continue his walk, his eyes fell on two figures about twenty yards before him.",1 "He remained as motionless as a statue, and turned almost as pale.",1 "The two figures were standing opposite to each other, with clasped hands about to part; and while they were bending to kiss, Gyp, who had been running among the brushwood, came out, caught sight of them, and gave a sharp bark.",3 "They separated with a start--one hurried through the gate out of the Grove, and the other, turning round, walked slowly, with a sort of saunter, towards Adam who still stood transfixed and pale, clutching tighter the stick with which he held the basket of tools over his shoulder, and looking at the approaching figure with eyes in which amazement was fast turning to fierceness.",2 "Arthur Donnithorne looked flushed and excited; he had tried to make unpleasant feelings more bearable by drinking a little more wine than usual at dinner to-day, and was still enough under its flattering influence to think more lightly of this unwished-for rencontre with Adam than he would otherwise have done.",3 "After all, Adam was the best person who could have happened to see him and Hetty together--he was a sensible fellow, and would not babble about it to other people.",3 Arthur felt confident that he could laugh the thing off and explain it away.,3 "And so he sauntered forward with elaborate carelessness--his flushed face, his evening dress of fine cloth and fine linen, his hands half-thrust into his waistcoat pockets, all shone upon by the strange evening light which the light clouds had caught up even to the zenith, and were now shedding down between the topmost branches above him.",2 "Adam was still motionless, looking at him as he came up.",1 He understood it all now--the locket and everything else that had been doubtful to him: a terrible scorching light showed him the hidden letters that changed the meaning of the past.,0 "If he had moved a muscle, he must inevitably have sprung upon Arthur like a tiger; and in the conflicting emotions that filled those long moments, he had told himself that he would not give loose to passion, he would only speak the right thing.",2 "He stood as if petrified by an unseen force, but the force was his own strong will.",2 """Well, Adam,"" said Arthur, ""you've been looking at the fine old beeches, eh?",3 "They're not to be come near by the hatchet, though; this is a sacred grove.",2 "I overtook pretty little Hetty Sorrel as I was coming to my den--the Hermitage, there.",3 She ought not to come home this way so late.,2 "So I took care of her to the gate, and asked for a kiss for my pains.",1 "But I must get back now, for this road is confoundedly damp.",2 "Good-night, Adam.",3 "I shall see you to-morrow--to say good-bye, you know.""",3 Arthur was too much preoccupied with the part he was playing himself to be thoroughly aware of the expression in Adam's face.,2 "He did not look directly at Adam, but glanced carelessly round at the trees and then lifted up one foot to look at the sole of his boot.",2 "He cared to say no more--he had thrown quite dust enough into honest Adam's eyes--and as he spoke the last words, he walked on.",3 """Stop a bit, sir,"" said Adam, in a hard peremptory voice, without turning round.",1 """I've got a word to say to you.""",2 Arthur paused in surprise.,2 "Susceptible persons are more affected by a change of tone than by unexpected words, and Arthur had the susceptibility of a nature at once affectionate and vain.",1 "He was still more surprised when he saw that Adam had not moved, but stood with his back to him, as if summoning him to return.",2 What did he mean?,2 He was going to make a serious business of this affair.,2 Arthur felt his temper rising.,1 "A patronising disposition always has its meaner side, and in the confusion of his irritation and alarm there entered the feeling that a man to whom he had shown so much favour as to Adam was not in a position to criticize his conduct.",0 "And yet he was dominated, as one who feels himself in the wrong always is, by the man whose good opinion he cares for.",3 "In spite of pride and temper, there was as much deprecation as anger in his voice when he said, ""What do you mean, Adam?""",1 """I mean, sir""--answered Adam, in the same harsh voice, still without turning round--""I mean, sir, that you don't deceive me by your light words.",1 "This is not the first time you've met Hetty Sorrel in this grove, and this is not the first time you've kissed her.""",2 "Arthur felt a startled uncertainty how far Adam was speaking from knowledge, and how far from mere inference.",2 "And this uncertainty, which prevented him from contriving a prudent answer, heightened his irritation.",2 "He said, in a high sharp tone, ""Well, sir, what then?""",3 """Why, then, instead of acting like th' upright, honourable man we've all believed you to be, you've been acting the part of a selfish light-minded scoundrel.",1 "You know as well as I do what it's to lead to when a gentleman like you kisses and makes love to a young woman like Hetty, and gives her presents as she's frightened for other folks to see.",4 "And I say it again, you're acting the part of a selfish light-minded scoundrel though it cuts me to th' heart to say so, and I'd rather ha' lost my right hand.""",1 """Let me tell you, Adam,"" said Arthur, bridling his growing anger and trying to recur to his careless tone, ""you're not only devilishly impertinent, but you're talking nonsense.",0 "Every pretty girl is not such a fool as you, to suppose that when a gentleman admires her beauty and pays her a little attention, he must mean something particular.",3 "Every man likes to flirt with a pretty girl, and every pretty girl likes to be flirted with.",3 "The wider the distance between them, the less harm there is, for then she's not likely to deceive herself.""",1 """I don't know what you mean by flirting,"" said Adam, ""but if you mean behaving to a woman as if you loved her, and yet not loving her all the while, I say that's not th' action of an honest man, and what isn't honest does come t' harm.",3 "I'm not a fool, and you're not a fool, and you know better than what you're saying.",2 You know it couldn't be made public as you've behaved to Hetty as y' have done without her losing her character and bringing shame and trouble on her and her relations.,0 What if you meant nothing by your kissing and your presents?,2 Other folks won't believe as you've meant nothing; and don't tell me about her not deceiving herself.,1 "I tell you as you've filled her mind so with the thought of you as it'll mayhap poison her life, and she'll never love another man as 'ud make her a good husband.""",3 "Arthur had felt a sudden relief while Adam was speaking; he perceived that Adam had no positive knowledge of the past, and that there was no irrevocable damage done by this evening's unfortunate rencontre.",2 Adam could still be deceived.,2 The candid Arthur had brought himself into a position in which successful lying was his only hope.,2 The hope allayed his anger a little.,1 """Well, Adam,"" he said, in a tone of friendly concession, ""you're perhaps right.",3 Perhaps I've gone a little too far in taking notice of the pretty little thing and stealing a kiss now and then.,2 "You're such a grave, steady fellow, you don't understand the temptation to such trifling.",2 I'm sure I wouldn't bring any trouble or annoyance on her and the good Poysers on any account if I could help it.,1 But I think you look a little too seriously at it.,2 "You know I'm going away immediately, so I shan't make any more mistakes of the kind.",1 "But let us say good-night""--Arthur here turned round to walk on--""and talk no more about the matter.",3 "The whole thing will soon be forgotten.""",2 """No, by God!""",2 "Adam burst out with rage that could be controlled no longer, throwing down the basket of tools and striding forward till he was right in front of Arthur.",2 "All his jealousy and sense of personal injury, which he had been hitherto trying to keep under, had leaped up and mastered him.",1 "What man of us, in the first moments of a sharp agony, could ever feel that the fellow-man who has been the medium of inflicting it did not mean to hurt us?",1 "In our instinctive rebellion against pain, we are children again, and demand an active will to wreak our vengeance on.",0 "Adam at this moment could only feel that he had been robbed of Hetty--robbed treacherously by the man in whom he had trusted--and he stood close in front of Arthur, with fierce eyes glaring at him, with pale lips and clenched hands, the hard tones in which he had hitherto been constraining himself to express no more than a just indignation giving way to a deep agitated voice that seemed to shake him as he spoke.",0 """No, it'll not be soon forgot, as you've come in between her and me, when she might ha' loved me--it'll not soon be forgot as you've robbed me o' my happiness, while I thought you was my best friend, and a noble-minded man, as I was proud to work for.",4 "And you've been kissing her, and meaning nothing, have you?",2 And I never kissed her i' my life--but I'd ha' worked hard for years for the right to kiss her.,3 And you make light of it.,2 "You think little o' doing what may damage other folks, so as you get your bit o' trifling, as means nothing.",1 "I throw back your favours, for you're not the man I took you for.",2 I'll never count you my friend any more.,2 "I'd rather you'd act as my enemy, and fight me where I stand--it's all th' amends you can make me.""",1 "Poor Adam, possessed by rage that could find no other vent, began to throw off his coat and his cap, too blind with passion to notice the change that had taken place in Arthur while he was speaking.",0 Arthur's lips were now as pale as Adam's; his heart was beating violently.,1 "The discovery that Adam loved Hetty was a shock which made him for the moment see himself in the light of Adam's indignation, and regard Adam's suffering as not merely a consequence, but an element of his error.",1 The words of hatred and contempt--the first he had ever heard in his life--seemed like scorching missiles that were making ineffaceable scars on him.,0 "All screening self-excuse, which rarely falls quite away while others respect us, forsook him for an instant, and he stood face to face with the first great irrevocable evil he had ever committed.",1 "He was only twenty-one, and three months ago--nay, much later--he had thought proudly that no man should ever be able to reproach him justly.",2 "His first impulse, if there had been time for it, would perhaps have been to utter words of propitiation; but Adam had no sooner thrown off his coat and cap than he became aware that Arthur was standing pale and motionless, with his hands still thrust in his waistcoat pockets.",1 """What!""",2 "he said, ""won't you fight me like a man?",3 "You know I won't strike you while you stand so.""",1 """Go away, Adam,"" said Arthur, ""I don't want to fight you.""",2 """No,"" said Adam, bitterly; ""you don't want to fight me--you think I'm a common man, as you can injure without answering for it.""",1 """I never meant to injure you,"" said Arthur, with returning anger.",1 """I didn't know you loved her.""",3 """But you've made her love you,"" said Adam.",3 """You're a double-faced man--I'll never believe a word you say again.""",2 """Go away, I tell you,"" said Arthur, angrily, ""or we shall both repent.""",1 """No,"" said Adam, with a convulsed voice, ""I swear I won't go away without fighting you.",2 Do you want provoking any more?,2 "I tell you you're a coward and a scoundrel, and I despise you.""",0 "The colour had all rushed back to Arthur's face; in a moment his right hand was clenched, and dealt a blow like lightning, which sent Adam staggering backward.",2 "His blood was as thoroughly up as Adam's now, and the two men, forgetting the emotions that had gone before, fought with the instinctive fierceness of panthers in the deepening twilight darkened by the trees.",1 "The delicate-handed gentleman was a match for the workman in everything but strength, and Arthur's skill enabled him to protract the struggle for some long moments.",3 "But between unarmed men the battle is to the strong, where the strong is no blunderer, and Arthur must sink under a well-planted blow of Adam's as a steel rod is broken by an iron bar.",1 "The blow soon came, and Arthur fell, his head lying concealed in a tuft of fern, so that Adam could only discern his darkly clad body.",0 He stood still in the dim light waiting for Arthur to rise.,1 "The blow had been given now, towards which he had been straining all the force of nerve and muscle--and what was the good of it?",1 What had he done by fighting?,2 "Only satisfied his own passion, only wreaked his own vengeance.",2 "He had not rescued Hetty, nor changed the past--there it was, just as it had been, and he sickened at the vanity of his own rage.",1 But why did not Arthur rise?,2 "He was perfectly motionless, and the time seemed long to Adam.",2 Good God!,3 had the blow been too much for him?,1 "Adam shuddered at the thought of his own strength, as with the oncoming of this dread he knelt down by Arthur's side and lifted his head from among the fern.",1 There was no sign of life: the eyes and teeth were set.,2 "The horror that rushed over Adam completely mastered him, and forced upon him its own belief.",2 "He could feel nothing but that death was in Arthur's face, and that he was helpless before it.",1 "He made not a single movement, but knelt like an image of despair gazing at an image of death.",1 IT was only a few minutes measured by the clock--though Adam always thought it had been a long while--before he perceived a gleam of consciousness in Arthur's face and a slight shiver through his frame.,1 The intense joy that flooded his soul brought back some of the old affection with it.,3 """Do you feel any pain, sir?""",1 "he said, tenderly, loosening Arthur's cravat.",3 Arthur turned his eyes on Adam with a vague stare which gave way to a slightly startled motion as if from the shock of returning memory.,1 But he only shivered again and said nothing.,2 """Do you feel any hurt, sir?""",1 "Adam said again, with a trembling in his voice.",2 "Arthur put his hand up to his waistcoat buttons, and when Adam had unbuttoned it, he took a longer breath.",2 """Lay my head down,"" he said, faintly, ""and get me some water if you can.""",2 "Adam laid the head down gently on the fern again, and emptying the tools out of the flag-basket, hurried through the trees to the edge of the Grove bordering on the Chase, where a brook ran below the bank.",2 "When he returned with his basket leaking, but still half-full, Arthur looked at him with a more thoroughly reawakened consciousness.",1 """Can you drink a drop out o' your hand, sir?""",2 "said Adam, kneeling down again to lift up Arthur's head.",2 """No,"" said Arthur, ""dip my cravat in and souse it on my head.""",2 "The water seemed to do him some good, for he presently raised himself a little higher, resting on Adam's arm.",3 """Do you feel any hurt inside sir?""",1 "Adam asked again ""No--no hurt,"" said Arthur, still faintly, ""but rather done up.""",1 "After a while he said, ""I suppose I fainted away when you knocked me down.""",2 """Yes, sir, thank God,"" said Adam.",3 """I thought it was worse.""",1 """What!",2 "You thought you'd done for me, eh?",2 "Come help me on my legs.""",2 """I feel terribly shaky and dizzy,"" Arthur said, as he stood leaning on Adam's arm; ""that blow of yours must have come against me like a battering-ram.",0 "I don't believe I can walk alone.""",2 """Lean on me, sir; I'll get you along,"" said Adam.",3 """Or, will you sit down a bit longer, on my coat here, and I'll prop y' up.",2 "You'll perhaps be better in a minute or two.""",3 """No,"" said Arthur.",2 """I'll go to the Hermitage--I think I've got some brandy there.",2 "There's a short road to it a little farther on, near the gate.",2 "If you'll just help me on.""",2 "They walked slowly, with frequent pauses, but without speaking again.",1 "In both of them, the concentration in the present which had attended the first moments of Arthur's revival had now given way to a vivid recollection of the previous scene.",3 "It was nearly dark in the narrow path among the trees, but within the circle of fir-trees round the Hermitage there was room for the growing moonlight to enter in at the windows.",1 "Their steps were noiseless on the thick carpet of fir-needles, and the outward stillness seemed to heighten their inward consciousness, as Arthur took the key out of his pocket and placed it in Adam's hand, for him to open the door.",3 "Adam had not known before that Arthur had furnished the old Hermitage and made it a retreat for himself, and it was a surprise to him when he opened the door to see a snug room with all the signs of frequent habitation.",1 Arthur loosed Adam's arm and threw himself on the ottoman.,2 """You'll see my hunting-bottle somewhere,"" he said.",2 """A leather case with a bottle and glass in.""",2 Adam was not long in finding the case.,2 """There's very little brandy in it, sir,"" he said, turning it downwards over the glass, as he held it before the window; ""hardly this little glassful.""",2 """Well, give me that,"" said Arthur, with the peevishness of physical depression.",2 "When he had taken some sips, Adam said, ""Hadn't I better run to th' house, sir, and get some more brandy?",3 I can be there and back pretty soon.,3 "It'll be a stiff walk home for you, if you don't have something to revive you.""",2 """Yes--go.",2 But don't say I'm ill.,2 "Ask for my man Pym, and tell him to get it from Mills, and not to say I'm at the Hermitage.",2 "Get some water too.""",2 Adam was relieved to have an active task--both of them were relieved to be apart from each other for a short time.,2 "But Adam's swift pace could not still the eager pain of thinking--of living again with concentrated suffering through the last wretched hour, and looking out from it over all the new sad future.",1 "Arthur lay still for some minutes after Adam was gone, but presently he rose feebly from the ottoman and peered about slowly in the broken moonlight, seeking something.",1 It was a short bit of wax candle that stood amongst a confusion of writing and drawing materials.,1 "There was more searching for the means of lighting the candle, and when that was done, he went cautiously round the room, as if wishing to assure himself of the presence or absence of something.",2 "At last he had found a slight thing, which he put first in his pocket, and then, on a second thought, took out again and thrust deep down into a waste-paper basket.",1 "It was a woman's little, pink, silk neckerchief.",2 "He set the candle on the table, and threw himself down on the ottoman again, exhausted with the effort.",1 "When Adam came back with his supplies, his entrance awoke Arthur from a doze.",2 """That's right,"" Arthur said; ""I'm tremendously in want of some brandy-vigour.""",3 """I'm glad to see you've got a light, sir,"" said Adam.",3 """I've been thinking I'd better have asked for a lanthorn.""",3 """No, no; the candle will last long enough--I shall soon be up to walking home now.""",3 """I can't go before I've seen you safe home, sir,"" said Adam, hesitatingly.",3 """No: it will be better for you to stay--sit down.""",3 "Adam sat down, and they remained opposite to each other in uneasy silence, while Arthur slowly drank brandy-and-water, with visibly renovating effect.",1 "He began to lie in a more voluntary position, and looked as if he were less overpowered by bodily sensations.",2 "Adam was keenly alive to these indications, and as his anxiety about Arthur's condition began to be allayed, he felt more of that impatience which every one knows who has had his just indignation suspended by the physical state of the culprit.",0 Yet there was one thing on his mind to be done before he could recur to remonstrance: it was to confess what had been unjust in his own words.,1 "Perhaps he longed all the more to make this confession, that his indignation might be free again; and as he saw the signs of returning ease in Arthur, the words again and again came to his lips and went back, checked by the thought that it would be better to leave everything till to-morrow.",3 "As long as they were silent they did not look at each other, and a foreboding came across Adam that if they began to speak as though they remembered the past--if they looked at each other with full recognition--they must take fire again.",2 "So they sat in silence till the bit of wax candle flickered low in the socket, the silence all the while becoming more irksome to Adam.",1 "Arthur had just poured out some more brandy-and-water, and he threw one arm behind his head and drew up one leg in an attitude of recovered ease, which was an irresistible temptation to Adam to speak what was on his mind.",3 """You begin to feel more yourself again, sir,"" he said, as the candle went out and they were half-hidden from each other in the faint moonlight.",1 """Yes: I don't feel good for much--very lazy, and not inclined to move; but I'll go home when I've taken this dose.""",2 "There was a slight pause before Adam said, ""My temper got the better of me, and I said things as wasn't true.",2 "I'd no right to speak as if you'd known you was doing me an injury: you'd no grounds for knowing it; I've always kept what I felt for her as secret as I could.""",2 He paused again before he went on.,2 """And perhaps I judged you too harsh--I'm apt to be harsh--and you may have acted out o' thoughtlessness more than I should ha' believed was possible for a man with a heart and a conscience.",1 "We're not all put together alike, and we may misjudge one another.",1 "God knows, it's all the joy I could have now, to think the best of you.""",3 "Arthur wanted to go home without saying any more--he was too painfully embarrassed in mind, as well as too weak in body, to wish for any further explanation to-night.",1 And yet it was a relief to him that Adam reopened the subject in a way the least difficult for him to answer.,2 "Arthur was in the wretched position of an open, generous man who has committed an error which makes deception seem a necessity.",1 "The native impulse to give truth in return for truth, to meet trust with frank confession, must be suppressed, and duty was becoming a question of tactics.",2 His deed was reacting upon him--was already governing him tyrannously and forcing him into a course that jarred with his habitual feelings.,2 The only aim that seemed admissible to him now was to deceive Adam to the utmost: to make Adam think better of him than he deserved.,2 And when he heard the words of honest retractation--when he heard the sad appeal with which Adam ended--he was obliged to rejoice in the remains of ignorant confidence it implied.,3 "He did not answer immediately, for he had to be judicious and not truthful.",3 """Say no more about our anger, Adam,"" he said, at last, very languidly, for the labour of speech was unwelcome to him; ""I forgive your momentary injustice--it was quite natural, with the exaggerated notions you had in your mind.",0 "We shall be none the worse friends in future, I hope, because we've fought.",1 "You had the best of it, and that was as it should be, for I believe I've been most in the wrong of the two.",2 "Come, let us shake hands.""",1 "Arthur held out his hand, but Adam sat still.",2 """I don't like to say 'No' to that, sir,"" he said, ""but I can't shake hands till it's clear what we mean by't.",3 "I was wrong when I spoke as if you'd done me an injury knowingly, but I wasn't wrong in what I said before, about your behaviour t' Hetty, and I can't shake hands with you as if I held you my friend the same as ever till you've cleared that up better.""",1 Arthur swallowed his pride and resentment as he drew back his hand.,2 "He was silent for some moments, and then said, as indifferently as he could, ""I don't know what you mean by clearing up, Adam.",3 I've told you already that you think too seriously of a little flirtation.,2 "But if you are right in supposing there is any danger in it--I'm going away on Saturday, and there will be an end of it.",2 "As for the pain it has given you, I'm heartily sorry for it.",1 "I can say no more.""",2 "Adam said nothing, but rose from his chair and stood with his face towards one of the windows, as if looking at the blackness of the moonlit fir-trees; but he was in reality conscious of nothing but the conflict within him.",1 It was of no use now--his resolution not to speak till to-morrow.,2 He must speak there and then.,2 "But it was several minutes before he turned round and stepped nearer to Arthur, standing and looking down on him as he lay.",2 """It'll be better for me to speak plain,"" he said, with evident effort, ""though it's hard work.",3 "You see, sir, this isn't a trifle to me, whatever it may be to you.",2 "I'm none o' them men as can go making love first to one woman and then t' another, and don't think it much odds which of 'em I take.",3 "What I feel for Hetty's a different sort o' love, such as I believe nobody can know much about but them as feel it and God as has given it to 'em.",3 "She's more nor everything else to me, all but my conscience and my good name.",3 "And if it's true what you've been saying all along--and if it's only been trifling and flirting as you call it, as 'll be put an end to by your going away--why, then, I'd wait, and hope her heart 'ud turn to me after all.",2 "I'm loath to think you'd speak false to me, and I'll believe your word, however things may look.""",1 """You would be wronging Hetty more than me not to believe it,"" said Arthur, almost violently, starting up from the ottoman and moving away.",1 "But he threw himself into a chair again directly, saying, more feebly, ""You seem to forget that, in suspecting me, you are casting imputations upon her.""",2 """Nay, sir,"" Adam said, in a calmer voice, as if he were half-relieved--for he was too straightforward to make a distinction between a direct falsehood and an indirect one--""Nay, sir, things don't lie level between Hetty and you.",2 "You're acting with your eyes open, whatever you may do; but how do you know what's been in her mind?",2 She's all but a child--as any man with a conscience in him ought to feel bound to take care on.,2 "And whatever you may think, I know you've disturbed her mind.",1 "I know she's been fixing her heart on you, for there's a many things clear to me now as I didn't understand before.",3 "But you seem to make light o' what she may feel--you don't think o' that.""",2 """Good God, Adam, let me alone!""",3 "Arthur burst out impetuously; ""I feel it enough without your worrying me.""",1 He was aware of his indiscretion as soon as the words had escaped him.,1 """Well, then, if you feel it,"" Adam rejoined, eagerly; ""if you feel as you may ha' put false notions into her mind, and made her believe as you loved her, when all the while you meant nothing, I've this demand to make of you--I'm not speaking for myself, but for her.",3 I ask you t' undeceive her before you go away.,2 "Y'aren't going away for ever, and if you leave her behind with a notion in her head o' your feeling about her the same as she feels about you, she'll be hankering after you, and the mischief may get worse.",1 "It may be a smart to her now, but it'll save her pain i' th' end.",2 I ask you to write a letter--you may trust to my seeing as she gets it.,3 "Tell her the truth, and take blame to yourself for behaving as you'd no right to do to a young woman as isn't your equal.",2 "I speak plain, sir, but I can't speak any other way.",2 "There's nobody can take care o' Hetty in this thing but me.""",2 """I can do what I think needful in the matter,"" said Arthur, more and more irritated by mingled distress and perplexity, ""without giving promises to you.",1 "I shall take what measures I think proper.""",3 """No,"" said Adam, in an abrupt decided tone, ""that won't do.",1 I must know what ground I'm treading on.,2 I must be safe as you've put an end to what ought never to ha' been begun.,3 "I don't forget what's owing to you as a gentleman, but in this thing we're man and man, and I can't give up.""",2 There was no answer for some moments.,2 "Then Arthur said, ""I'll see you to-morrow.",2 "I can bear no more now; I'm ill.""",2 "He rose as he spoke, and reached his cap, as if intending to go.",2 """You won't see her again!""",2 "Adam exclaimed, with a flash of recurring anger and suspicion, moving towards the door and placing his back against it.",1 """Either tell me she can never be my wife--tell me you've been lying--or else promise me what I've said.""",2 "Adam, uttering this alternative, stood like a terrible fate before Arthur, who had moved forward a step or two, and now stopped, faint, shaken, sick in mind and body.",1 "It seemed long to both of them--that inward struggle of Arthur's--before he said, feebly, ""I promise; let me go.""",2 "Adam moved away from the door and opened it, but when Arthur reached the step, he stopped again and leaned against the door-post.",2 """You're not well enough to walk alone, sir,"" said Adam.",3 """Take my arm again.""",2 "Arthur made no answer, and presently walked on, Adam following.",2 "But, after a few steps, he stood still again, and said, coldly, ""I believe I must trouble you.",1 "It's getting late now, and there may be an alarm set up about me at home.""",1 "Adam gave his arm, and they walked on without uttering a word, till they came where the basket and the tools lay.",2 """I must pick up the tools, sir,"" Adam said.",2 """They're my brother's.",2 I doubt they'll be rusted.,1 "If you'll please to wait a minute.""",2 "Arthur stood still without speaking, and no other word passed between them till they were at the side entrance, where he hoped to get in without being seen by any one.",2 "He said then, ""Thank you; I needn't trouble you any further.""",2 """What time will it be conven'ent for me to see you to-morrow, sir?""",2 said Adam.,2 """You may send me word that you're here at five o'clock,"" said Arthur; ""not before.""",2 """Good-night, sir,"" said Adam.",3 But he heard no reply; Arthur had turned into the house.,2 ARTHUR did not pass a sleepless night; he slept long and well.,3 For sleep comes to the perplexed--if the perplexed are only weary enough.,1 "But at seven he rang his bell and astonished Pym by declaring he was going to get up, and must have breakfast brought to him at eight.",3 """And see that my mare is saddled at half-past eight, and tell my grandfather when he's down that I'm better this morning and am gone for a ride.""",3 "He had been awake an hour, and could rest in bed no longer.",2 "In bed our yesterdays are too oppressive: if a man can only get up, though it be but to whistle or to smoke, he has a present which offers some resistance to the past--sensations which assert themselves against tyrannous memories.",1 "And if there were such a thing as taking averages of feeling, it would certainly be found that in the hunting and shooting seasons regret, self-reproach, and mortified pride weigh lighter on country gentlemen than in late spring and summer.",1 Arthur felt that he should be more of a man on horseback.,2 "Even the presence of Pym, waiting on him with the usual deference, was a reassurance to him after the scenes of yesterday.",3 "For, with Arthur's sensitiveness to opinion, the loss of Adam's respect was a shock to his self-contentment which suffused his imagination with the sense that he had sunk in all eyes--as a sudden shock of fear from some real peril makes a nervous woman afraid even to step, because all her perceptions are suffused with a sense of danger.",0 "Arthur's, as you know, was a loving nature.",3 "Deeds of kindness were as easy to him as a bad habit: they were the common issue of his weaknesses and good qualities, of his egoism and his sympathy.",2 "He didn't like to witness pain, and he liked to have grateful eyes beaming on him as the giver of pleasure.",4 "When he was a lad of seven, he one day kicked down an old gardener's pitcher of broth, from no motive but a kicking impulse, not reflecting that it was the old man's dinner; but on learning that sad fact, he took his favourite pencil-case and a silver-hafted knife out of his pocket and offered them as compensation.",1 "He had been the same Arthur ever since, trying to make all offences forgotten in benefits.",3 "If there were any bitterness in his nature, it could only show itself against the man who refused to be conciliated by him.",1 And perhaps the time was come for some of that bitterness to rise.,1 "At the first moment, Arthur had felt pure distress and self-reproach at discovering that Adam's happiness was involved in his relation to Hetty.",2 "If there had been a possibility of making Adam tenfold amends--if deeds of gift, or any other deeds, could have restored Adam's contentment and regard for him as a benefactor, Arthur would not only have executed them without hesitation, but would have felt bound all the more closely to Adam, and would never have been weary of making retribution.",4 But Adam could receive no amends; his suffering could not be cancelled; his respect and affection could not be recovered by any prompt deeds of atonement.,3 He stood like an immovable obstacle against which no pressure could avail; an embodiment of what Arthur most shrank from believing in--the irrevocableness of his own wrongdoing.,1 "The words of scorn, the refusal to shake hands, the mastery asserted over him in their last conversation in the Hermitage--above all, the sense of having been knocked down, to which a man does not very well reconcile himself, even under the most heroic circumstances--pressed on him with a galling pain which was stronger than compunction.",2 Arthur would so gladly have persuaded himself that he had done no harm!,2 "And if no one had told him the contrary, he could have persuaded himself so much better.",3 Nemesis can seldom forge a sword for herself out of our consciences--out of the suffering we feel in the suffering we may have caused: there is rarely metal enough there to make an effective weapon.,2 "Our moral sense learns the manners of good society and smiles when others smile, but when some rude person gives rough names to our actions, she is apt to take part against us.",3 "And so it was with Arthur: Adam's judgment of him, Adam's grating words, disturbed his self-soothing arguments.",1 Not that Arthur had been at ease before Adam's discovery.,3 Struggles and resolves had transformed themselves into compunction and anxiety.,1 "He was distressed for Hetty's sake, and distressed for his own, that he must leave her behind.",1 "He had always, both in making and breaking resolutions, looked beyond his passion and seen that it must speedily end in separation; but his nature was too ardent and tender for him not to suffer at this parting; and on Hetty's account he was filled with uneasiness.",3 "He had found out the dream in which she was living--that she was to be a lady in silks and satins--and when he had first talked to her about his going away, she had asked him tremblingly to let her go with him and be married.",2 It was his painful knowledge of this which had given the most exasperating sting to Adam's reproaches.,0 He had said no word with the purpose of deceiving her--her vision was all spun by her own childish fancy--but he was obliged to confess to himself that it was spun half out of his own actions.,1 "And to increase the mischief, on this last evening he had not dared to hint the truth to Hetty; he had been obliged to soothe her with tender, hopeful words, lest he should throw her into violent distress.",2 "He felt the situation acutely, felt the sorrow of the dear thing in the present, and thought with a darker anxiety of the tenacity which her feelings might have in the future.",1 That was the one sharp point which pressed against him; every other he could evade by hopeful self-persuasion.,3 The whole thing had been secret; the Poysers had not the shadow of a suspicion.,1 "No one, except Adam, knew anything of what had passed--no one else was likely to know; for Arthur had impressed on Hetty that it would be fatal to betray, by word or look, that there had been the least intimacy between them; and Adam, who knew half their secret, would rather help them to keep it than betray it.",2 "It was an unfortunate business altogether, but there was no use in making it worse than it was by imaginary exaggerations and forebodings of evil that might never come.",0 The temporary sadness for Hetty was the worst consequence; he resolutely turned away his eyes from any bad consequence that was not demonstrably inevitable.,0 But--but Hetty might have had the trouble in some other way if not in this.,1 And perhaps hereafter he might be able to do a great deal for her and make up to her for all the tears she would shed about him.,3 She would owe the advantage of his care for her in future years to the sorrow she had incurred now.,2 So good comes out of evil.,2 Such is the beautiful arrangement of things!,3 "Are you inclined to ask whether this can be the same Arthur who, two months ago, had that freshness of feeling, that delicate honour which shrinks from wounding even a sentiment, and does not contemplate any more positive offence as possible for it?--who thought that his own self-respect was a higher tribunal than any external opinion?",3 "The same, I assure you, only under different conditions.",3 "Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds, and until we know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts, which constitutes a man's critical actions, it will be better not to think ourselves wise about his character.",2 "There is a terrible coercion in our deeds, which may first turn the honest man into a deceiver and then reconcile him to the change, for this reason--that the second wrong presents itself to him in the guise of the only practicable right.",1 "The action which before commission has been seen with that blended common sense and fresh untarnished feeling which is the healthy eye of the soul, is looked at afterwards with the lens of apologetic ingenuity, through which all things that men call beautiful and ugly are seen to be made up of textures very much alike.",4 "Europe adjusts itself to a _fait accompli_, and so does an individual character--until the placid adjustment is disturbed by a convulsive retribution.",1 "No man can escape this vitiating effect of an offence against his own sentiment of right, and the effect was the stronger in Arthur because of that very need of self-respect which, while his conscience was still at ease, was one of his best safeguards.",4 Self-accusation was too painful to him--he could not face it.,1 He must persuade himself that he had not been very much to blame; he began even to pity himself for the necessity he was under of deceiving Adam--it was a course so opposed to the honesty of his own nature.,1 "But then, it was the only right thing to do.",3 "Well, whatever had been amiss in him, he was miserable enough in consequence: miserable about Hetty; miserable about this letter that he had promised to write, and that seemed at one moment to be a gross barbarity, at another perhaps the greatest kindness he could do to her.",3 And across all this reflection would dart every now and then a sudden impulse of passionate defiance towards all consequences.,2 "He would carry Hetty away, and all other considerations might go to....",2 "In this state of mind the four walls of his room made an intolerable prison to him; they seemed to hem in and press down upon him all the crowd of contradictory thoughts and conflicting feelings, some of which would fly away in the open air.",0 "He had only an hour or two to make up his mind in, and he must get clear and calm.",3 "Once on Meg's back, in the fresh air of that fine morning, he should be more master of the situation.",4 "The pretty creature arched her bay neck in the sunshine, and pawed the gravel, and trembled with pleasure when her master stroked her nose, and patted her, and talked to her even in a more caressing tone than usual.",4 He loved her the better because she knew nothing of his secrets.,3 But Meg was quite as well acquainted with her master's mental state as many others of her sex with the mental condition of the nice young gentlemen towards whom their hearts are in a state of fluttering expectation.,3 "Arthur cantered for five miles beyond the Chase, till he was at the foot of a hill where there were no hedges or trees to hem in the road.",2 Then he threw the bridle on Meg's neck and prepared to make up his mind.,2 "Hetty knew that their meeting yesterday must be the last before Arthur went away--there was no possibility of their contriving another without exciting suspicion--and she was like a frightened child, unable to think of anything, only able to cry at the mention of parting, and then put her face up to have the tears kissed away.",1 "He could do nothing but comfort her, and lull her into dreaming on.",2 A letter would be a dreadfully abrupt way of awakening her!,1 "Yet there was truth in what Adam said--that it would save her from a lengthened delusion, which might be worse than a sharp immediate pain.",1 "And it was the only way of satisfying Adam, who must be satisfied, for more reasons than one.",3 If he could have seen her again!,2 "But that was impossible; there was such a thorny hedge of hindrances between them, and an imprudence would be fatal.",0 "And yet, if he COULD see her again, what good would it do?",3 Only cause him to suffer more from the sight of her distress and the remembrance of it.,1 Away from him she was surrounded by all the motives to self-control.,2 "A sudden dread here fell like a shadow across his imagination--the dread lest she should do something violent in her grief; and close upon that dread came another, which deepened the shadow.",0 But he shook them off with the force of youth and hope.,2 What was the ground for painting the future in that dark way?,1 It was just as likely to be the reverse.,2 Arthur told himself he did not deserve that things should turn out badly.,1 He had never meant beforehand to do anything his conscience disapproved; he had been led on by circumstances.,3 "There was a sort of implicit confidence in him that he was really such a good fellow at bottom, Providence would not treat him harshly.",3 "At all events, he couldn't help what would come now: all he could do was to take what seemed the best course at the present moment.",3 And he persuaded himself that that course was to make the way open between Adam and Hetty.,2 "Her heart might really turn to Adam, as he said, after a while; and in that case there would have been no great harm done, since it was still Adam's ardent wish to make her his wife.",3 "To be sure, Adam was deceived--deceived in a way that Arthur would have resented as a deep wrong if it had been practised on himself.",1 That was a reflection that marred the consoling prospect.,2 Arthur's cheeks even burned in mingled shame and irritation at the thought.,0 But what could a man do in such a dilemma?,1 He was bound in honour to say no word that could injure Hetty: his first duty was to guard her.,1 He would never have told or acted a lie on his own account.,1 Good God!,3 "What a miserable fool he was to have brought himself into such a dilemma; and yet, if ever a man had excuses, he had.",0 "(Pity that consequences are determined not by excuses but by actions!) Well, the letter must be written; it was the only means that promised a solution of the difficulty.",1 The tears came into Arthur's eyes as he thought of Hetty reading it; but it would be almost as hard for him to write it; he was not doing anything easy to himself; and this last thought helped him to arrive at a conclusion.,3 He could never deliberately have taken a step which inflicted pain on another and left himself at ease.,2 Even a movement of jealousy at the thought of giving up Hetty to Adam went to convince him that he was making a sacrifice.,1 "When once he had come to this conclusion, he turned Meg round and set off home again in a canter.",2 "The letter should be written the first thing, and the rest of the day would be filled up with other business: he should have no time to look behind him.",2 "Happily, Irwine and Gawaine were coming to dinner, and by twelve o'clock the next day he should have left the Chase miles behind him.",3 There was some security in this constant occupation against an uncontrollable impulse seizing him to rush to Hetty and thrust into her hand some mad proposition that would undo everything.,1 "Faster and faster went the sensitive Meg, at every slight sign from her rider, till the canter had passed into a swift gallop.",4 """I thought they said th' young mester war took ill last night,"" said sour old John, the groom, at dinner-time in the servants' hall.",1 """He's been ridin' fit to split the mare i' two this forenoon.""",1 """That's happen one o' the symptims, John,"" said the facetious coachman.",1 """Then I wish he war let blood for 't, that's all,"" said John, grimly.",2 "Adam had been early at the Chase to know how Arthur was, and had been relieved from all anxiety about the effects of his blow by learning that he was gone out for a ride.",1 "At five o'clock he was punctually there again, and sent up word of his arrival.",2 "In a few minutes Pym came down with a letter in his hand and gave it to Adam, saying that the captain was too busy to see him, and had written everything he had to say.",2 "The letter was directed to Adam, but he went out of doors again before opening it.",2 It contained a sealed enclosure directed to Hetty.,2 "On the inside of the cover Adam read: ""In the enclosed letter I have written everything you wish.",2 I leave it to you to decide whether you will be doing best to deliver it to Hetty or to return it to me.,3 Ask yourself once more whether you are not taking a measure which may pain her more than mere silence.,1 """There is no need for our seeing each other again now.",2 We shall meet with better feelings some months hence.,3 """A.D."" ""Perhaps he's i' th' right on 't not to see me,"" thought Adam.",3 """It's no use meeting to say more hard words, and it's no use meeting to shake hands and say we're friends again.",1 "We're not friends, an' it's better not to pretend it.",2 "I know forgiveness is a man's duty, but, to my thinking, that can only mean as you're to give up all thoughts o' taking revenge: it can never mean as you're t' have your old feelings back again, for that's not possible.",1 "He's not the same man to me, and I can't feel the same towards him.",2 God help me!,2 "I don't know whether I feel the same towards anybody: I seem as if I'd been measuring my work from a false line, and had got it all to measure over again.""",2 But the question about delivering the letter to Hetty soon absorbed Adam's thoughts.,2 "Arthur had procured some relief to himself by throwing the decision on Adam with a warning; and Adam, who was not given to hesitation, hesitated here.",2 He determined to feel his way--to ascertain as well as he could what was Hetty's state of mind before he decided on delivering the letter.,3 "THE next Sunday Adam joined the Poysers on their way out of church, hoping for an invitation to go home with them.",2 "He had the letter in his pocket, and was anxious to have an opportunity of talking to Hetty alone.",1 "He could not see her face at church, for she had changed her seat, and when he came up to her to shake hands, her manner was doubtful and constrained.",1 "He expected this, for it was the first time she had met him since she had been aware that he had seen her with Arthur in the Grove.",2 """Come, you'll go on with us, Adam,"" Mr. Poyser said when they reached the turning; and as soon as they were in the fields Adam ventured to offer his arm to Hetty.",2 "The children soon gave them an opportunity of lingering behind a little, and then Adam said: ""Will you contrive for me to walk out in the garden a bit with you this evening, if it keeps fine, Hetty?",2 "I've something partic'lar to talk to you about.""",2 "Hetty said, ""Very well.""",3 She was really as anxious as Adam was that she should have some private talk with him.,1 She wondered what he thought of her and Arthur.,2 "He must have seen them kissing, she knew, but she had no conception of the scene that had taken place between Arthur and Adam.",2 "Her first feeling had been that Adam would be very angry with her, and perhaps would tell her aunt and uncle, but it never entered her mind that he would dare to say anything to Captain Donnithorne.",1 "It was a relief to her that he behaved so kindly to her to-day, and wanted to speak to her alone, for she had trembled when she found he was going home with them lest he should mean ""to tell.""",3 "But, now he wanted to talk to her by herself, she should learn what he thought and what he meant to do.",2 "She felt a certain confidence that she could persuade him not to do anything she did not want him to do; she could perhaps even make him believe that she didn't care for Arthur; and as long as Adam thought there was any hope of her having him, he would do just what she liked, she knew.",3 "Besides, she MUST go on seeming to encourage Adam, lest her uncle and aunt should be angry and suspect her of having some secret lover.",2 "Hetty's little brain was busy with this combination as she hung on Adam's arm and said ""yes"" or ""no"" to some slight observations of his about the many hawthorn-berries there would be for the birds this next winter, and the low-hanging clouds that would hardly hold up till morning.",1 "And when they rejoined her aunt and uncle, she could pursue her thoughts without interruption, for Mr. Poyser held that though a young man might like to have the woman he was courting on his arm, he would nevertheless be glad of a little reasonable talk about business the while; and, for his own part, he was curious to hear the most recent news about the Chase Farm.",3 "So, through the rest of the walk, he claimed Adam's conversation for himself, and Hetty laid her small plots and imagined her little scenes of cunning blandishment, as she walked along by the hedgerows on honest Adam's arm, quite as well as if she had been an elegantly clad coquette alone in her boudoir.",4 "For if a country beauty in clumsy shoes be only shallow-hearted enough, it is astonishing how closely her mental processes may resemble those of a lady in society and crinoline, who applies her refined intellect to the problem of committing indiscretions without compromising herself.",3 Perhaps the resemblance was not much the less because Hetty felt very unhappy all the while.,1 The parting with Arthur was a double pain to her--mingling with the tumult of passion and vanity there was a dim undefined fear that the future might shape itself in some way quite unlike her dream.,0 "She clung to the comforting hopeful words Arthur had uttered in their last meeting--""I shall come again at Christmas, and then we will see what can be done.""",3 "She clung to the belief that he was so fond of her, he would never be happy without her; and she still hugged her secret--that a great gentleman loved her--with gratified pride, as a superiority over all the girls she knew.",4 "But the uncertainty of the future, the possibilities to which she could give no shape, began to press upon her like the invisible weight of air; she was alone on her little island of dreams, and all around her was the dark unknown water where Arthur was gone.",1 "She could gather no elation of spirits now by looking forward, but only by looking backward to build confidence on past words and caresses.",3 "But occasionally, since Thursday evening, her dim anxieties had been almost lost behind the more definite fear that Adam might betray what he knew to her uncle and aunt, and his sudden proposition to talk with her alone had set her thoughts to work in a new way.",0 "She was eager not to lose this evening's opportunity; and after tea, when the boys were going into the garden and Totty begged to go with them, Hetty said, with an alacrity that surprised Mrs. Poyser, ""I'll go with her, Aunt.""",2 "It did not seem at all surprising that Adam said he would go too, and soon he and Hetty were left alone together on the walk by the filbert-trees, while the boys were busy elsewhere gathering the large unripe nuts to play at ""cob-nut"" with, and Totty was watching them with a puppylike air of contemplation.",2 It was but a short time--hardly two months--since Adam had had his mind filled with delicious hopes as he stood by Hetty's side in this garden.,3 "The remembrance of that scene had often been with him since Thursday evening: the sunlight through the apple-tree boughs, the red bunches, Hetty's sweet blush.",3 "It came importunately now, on this sad evening, with the low-hanging clouds, but he tried to suppress it, lest some emotion should impel him to say more than was needful for Hetty's sake.",1 """After what I saw on Thursday night, Hetty,"" he began, ""you won't think me making too free in what I'm going to say.",3 "If you was being courted by any man as 'ud make you his wife, and I'd known you was fond of him and meant to have him, I should have no right to speak a word to you about it; but when I see you're being made love to by a gentleman as can never marry you, and doesna think o' marrying you, I feel bound t' interfere for you.",3 "I can't speak about it to them as are i' the place o' your parents, for that might bring worse trouble than's needful.""",1 "Adam's words relieved one of Hetty's fears, but they also carried a meaning which sickened her with a strengthened foreboding.",1 "She was pale and trembling, and yet she would have angrily contradicted Adam, if she had dared to betray her feelings.",0 But she was silent.,3 """You're so young, you know, Hetty,"" he went on, almost tenderly, ""and y' haven't seen much o' what goes on in the world.",3 It's right for me to do what I can to save you from getting into trouble for want o' your knowing where you're being led to.,3 "If anybody besides me knew what I know about your meeting a gentleman and having fine presents from him, they'd speak light on you, and you'd lose your character.",2 "And besides that, you'll have to suffer in your feelings, wi' giving your love to a man as can never marry you, so as he might take care of you all your life.""",2 "Adam paused and looked at Hetty, who was plucking the leaves from the filbert-trees and tearing them up in her hand.",2 "Her little plans and preconcerted speeches had all forsaken her, like an ill-learnt lesson, under the terrible agitation produced by Adam's words.",1 There was a cruel force in their calm certainty which threatened to grapple and crush her flimsy hopes and fancies.,0 She wanted to resist them--she wanted to throw them off with angry contradiction--but the determination to conceal what she felt still governed her.,1 "It was nothing more than a blind prompting now, for she was unable to calculate the effect of her words.",1 """You've no right to say as I love him,"" she said, faintly, but impetuously, plucking another rough leaf and tearing it up.",2 "She was very beautiful in her paleness and agitation, with her dark childish eyes dilated and her breath shorter than usual.",1 Adam's heart yearned over her as he looked at her.,2 "Ah, if he could but comfort her, and soothe her, and save her from this pain; if he had but some sort of strength that would enable him to rescue her poor troubled mind, as he would have rescued her body in the face of all danger!",1 """I doubt it must be so, Hetty,"" he said, tenderly; ""for I canna believe you'd let any man kiss you by yourselves, and give you a gold box with his hair, and go a-walking i' the Grove to meet him, if you didna love him.",3 "I'm not blaming you, for I know it 'ud begin by little and little, till at last you'd not be able to throw it off.",2 "It's him I blame for stealing your love i' that way, when he knew he could never make you the right amends.",2 "He's been trifling with you, and making a plaything of you, and caring nothing about you as a man ought to care.""",1 """Yes, he does care for me; I know better nor you,"" Hetty burst out.",3 Everything was forgotten but the pain and anger she felt at Adam's words.,1 """Nay, Hetty,"" said Adam, ""if he'd cared for you rightly, he'd never ha' behaved so.",3 "He told me himself he meant nothing by his kissing and presents, and he wanted to make me believe as you thought light of 'em too.",2 But I know better nor that.,3 "I can't help thinking as you've been trusting to his loving you well enough to marry you, for all he's a gentleman.",4 "And that's why I must speak to you about it, Hetty, for fear you should be deceiving yourself.",1 "It's never entered his head the thought o' marrying you.""",2 """How do you know?",2 "How durst you say so?""",2 "said Hetty, pausing in her walk and trembling.",2 The terrible decision of Adam's tone shook her with fear.,1 She had no presence of mind left for the reflection that Arthur would have his reasons for not telling the truth to Adam.,2 Her words and look were enough to determine Adam: he must give her the letter.,3 """Perhaps you can't believe me, Hetty, because you think too well of him--because you think he loves you better than he does.",4 "But I've got a letter i' my pocket, as he wrote himself for me to give you.",2 "I've not read the letter, but he says he's told you the truth in it.",2 "But before I give you the letter, consider, Hetty, and don't let it take too much hold on you.",2 "It wouldna ha' been good for you if he'd wanted to do such a mad thing as marry you: it 'ud ha' led to no happiness i' th' end.""",3 Hetty said nothing; she felt a revival of hope at the mention of a letter which Adam had not read.,3 There would be something quite different in it from what he thought.,2 "Adam took out the letter, but he held it in his hand still, while he said, in a tone of tender entreaty, ""Don't you bear me ill will, Hetty, because I'm the means o' bringing you this pain.",2 God knows I'd ha' borne a good deal worse for the sake o' sparing it you.,2 "And think--there's nobody but me knows about this, and I'll take care of you as if I was your brother.",2 "You're the same as ever to me, for I don't believe you've done any wrong knowingly.""",1 "Hetty had laid her hand on the letter, but Adam did not loose it till he had done speaking.",1 "She took no notice of what he said--she had not listened; but when he loosed the letter, she put it into her pocket, without opening it, and then began to walk more quickly, as if she wanted to go in.",2 """You're in the right not to read it just yet,"" said Adam.",3 """Read it when you're by yourself.",2 "But stay out a little bit longer, and let us call the children: you look so white and ill, your aunt may take notice of it.""",2 Hetty heard the warning.,1 "It recalled to her the necessity of rallying her native powers of concealment, which had half given way under the shock of Adam's words.",1 And she had the letter in her pocket: she was sure there was comfort in that letter in spite of Adam.,2 "She ran to find Totty, and soon reappeared with recovered colour, leading Totty, who was making a sour face because she had been obliged to throw away an unripe apple that she had set her small teeth in.",2 """Hegh, Totty,"" said Adam, ""come and ride on my shoulder--ever so high--you'll touch the tops o' the trees.""",3 What little child ever refused to be comforted by that glorious sense of being seized strongly and swung upward?,2 "I don't believe Ganymede cried when the eagle carried him away, and perhaps deposited him on Jove's shoulder at the end.",2 "Totty smiled down complacently from her secure height, and pleasant was the sight to the mother's eyes, as she stood at the house door and saw Adam coming with his small burden.",3 """Bless your sweet face, my pet,"" she said, the mother's strong love filling her keen eyes with mildness, as Totty leaned forward and put out her arms.",4 "She had no eyes for Hetty at that moment, and only said, without looking at her, ""You go and draw some ale, Hetty; the gells are both at the cheese.""",2 "After the ale had been drawn and her uncle's pipe lighted, there was Totty to be taken to bed, and brought down again in her night-gown because she would cry instead of going to sleep.",1 "Then there was supper to be got ready, and Hetty must be continually in the way to give help.",3 "Adam stayed till he knew Mrs. Poyser expected him to go, engaging her and her husband in talk as constantly as he could, for the sake of leaving Hetty more at ease.",3 "He lingered, because he wanted to see her safely through that evening, and he was delighted to find how much self-command she showed.",3 "He knew she had not had time to read the letter, but he did not know she was buoyed up by a secret hope that the letter would contradict everything he had said.",1 It was hard work for him to leave her--hard to think that he should not know for days how she was bearing her trouble.,1 "But he must go at last, and all he could do was to press her hand gently as he said ""Good-bye,"" and hope she would take that as a sign that if his love could ever be a refuge for her, it was there the same as ever.",3 "How busy his thoughts were, as he walked home, in devising pitying excuses for her folly, in referring all her weakness to the sweet lovingness of her nature, in blaming Arthur, with less and less inclination to admit that his conduct might be extenuated too!",1 His exasperation at Hetty's suffering--and also at the sense that she was possibly thrust for ever out of his own reach--deafened him to any plea for the miscalled friend who had wrought this misery.,0 "Adam was a clear-sighted, fair-minded man--a fine fellow, indeed, morally as well as physically.",4 "But if Aristides the Just was ever in love and jealous, he was at that moment not perfectly magnanimous.",3 "And I cannot pretend that Adam, in these painful days, felt nothing but righteous indignation and loving pity.",1 "He was bitterly jealous, and in proportion as his love made him indulgent in his judgment of Hetty, the bitterness found a vent in his feeling towards Arthur.",1 """Her head was allays likely to be turned,"" he thought, ""when a gentleman, with his fine manners, and fine clothes, and his white hands, and that way o' talking gentlefolks have, came about her, making up to her in a bold way, as a man couldn't do that was only her equal; and it's much if she'll ever like a common man now.""",3 He could not help drawing his own hands out of his pocket and looking at them--at the hard palms and the broken finger-nails.,1 """I'm a roughish fellow, altogether; I don't know, now I come to think on't, what there is much for a woman to like about me; and yet I might ha' got another wife easy enough, if I hadn't set my heart on her.",4 "But it's little matter what other women think about me, if she can't love me.",3 "She might ha' loved me, perhaps, as likely as any other man--there's nobody hereabouts as I'm afraid of, if he hadn't come between us; but now I shall belike be hateful to her because I'm so different to him.",1 "And yet there's no telling--she may turn round the other way, when she finds he's made light of her all the while.",2 She may come to feel the vally of a man as 'ud be thankful to be bound to her all his life.,3 But I must put up with it whichever way it is--I've only to be thankful it's been no worse.,2 I am not th' only man that's got to do without much happiness i' this life.,3 There's many a good bit o' work done with a bad heart.,3 "It's God's will, and that's enough for us: we shouldn't know better how things ought to be than He does, I reckon, if we was to spend our lives i' puzzling.",3 "But it 'ud ha' gone near to spoil my work for me, if I'd seen her brought to sorrow and shame, and through the man as I've always been proud to think on.",1 "Since I've been spared that, I've no right to grumble.",2 "When a man's got his limbs whole, he can bear a smart cut or two.""",3 "As Adam was getting over a stile at this point in his reflections, he perceived a man walking along the field before him.",2 "He knew it was Seth, returning from an evening preaching, and made haste to overtake him.",2 """I thought thee'dst be at home before me,"" he said, as Seth turned round to wait for him, ""for I'm later than usual to-night.""",2 """Well, I'm later too, for I got into talk, after meeting, with John Barnes, who has lately professed himself in a state of perfection, and I'd a question to ask him about his experience.",3 "It's one o' them subjects that lead you further than y' expect--they don't lie along the straight road.""",2 They walked along together in silence two or three minutes.,2 "Adam was not inclined to enter into the subtleties of religious experience, but he was inclined to interchange a word or two of brotherly affection and confidence with Seth.",4 "That was a rare impulse in him, much as the brothers loved each other.",3 "They hardly ever spoke of personal matters, or uttered more than an allusion to their family troubles.",1 "Adam was by nature reserved in all matters of feeling, and Seth felt a certain timidity towards his more practical brother.",1 """Seth, lad,"" Adam said, putting his arm on his brother's shoulder, ""hast heard anything from Dinah Morris since she went away?""",2 """Yes,"" said Seth.",2 """She told me I might write her word after a while, how we went on, and how mother bore up under her trouble.",1 "So I wrote to her a fortnight ago, and told her about thee having a new employment, and how Mother was more contented; and last Wednesday, when I called at the post at Treddles'on, I found a letter from her.",2 "I think thee'dst perhaps like to read it, but I didna say anything about it because thee'st seemed so full of other things.",3 "It's quite easy t' read--she writes wonderful for a woman.""",3 "Seth had drawn the letter from his pocket and held it out to Adam, who said, as he took it, ""Aye, lad, I've got a tough load to carry just now--thee mustna take it ill if I'm a bit silenter and crustier nor usual.",3 Trouble doesna make me care the less for thee.,1 "I know we shall stick together to the last.""",2 """I take nought ill o' thee, Adam.",2 "I know well enough what it means if thee't a bit short wi' me now and then.""",3 """There's Mother opening the door to look out for us,"" said Adam, as they mounted the slope.",2 """She's been sitting i' the dark as usual.",1 "Well, Gyp, well, art glad to see me?""",3 "Lisbeth went in again quickly and lighted a candle, for she had heard the welcome rustling of footsteps on the grass, before Gyp's joyful bark.",3 """Eh, my lads!",2 Th' hours war ne'er so long sin' I war born as they'n been this blessed Sunday night.,2 "What can ye both ha' been doin' till this time?""",2 """Thee shouldstna sit i' the dark, Mother,"" said Adam; ""that makes the time seem longer.""",1 """Eh, what am I to do wi' burnin' candle of a Sunday, when there's on'y me an' it's sin to do a bit o' knittin'?",1 The daylight's long enough for me to stare i' the booke as I canna read.,3 "It 'ud be a fine way o' shortenin' the time, to make it waste the good candle.",3 But which on you's for ha'in' supper?,2 "Ye mun ayther be clemmed or full, I should think, seein' what time o' night it is.""",2 """I'm hungry, Mother,"" said Seth, seating himself at the little table, which had been spread ever since it was light.",2 """I've had my supper,"" said Adam.",2 """Here, Gyp,"" he added, taking some cold potato from the table and rubbing the rough grey head that looked up towards him.",1 """Thee needstna be gi'in' th' dog,"" said Lisbeth; ""I'n fed him well a'ready.",3 "I'm not like to forget him, I reckon, when he's all o' thee I can get sight on.""",3 """Come, then, Gyp,"" said Adam, ""we'll go to bed.",2 "Good-night, Mother; I'm very tired.""",2 """What ails him, dost know?""",2 "Lisbeth said to Seth, when Adam was gone upstairs.",2 """He's like as if he was struck for death this day or two--he's so cast down.",1 "I found him i' the shop this forenoon, arter thee wast gone, a-sittin' an' doin' nothin'--not so much as a booke afore him.""",2 """He's a deal o' work upon him just now, Mother,"" said Seth, ""and I think he's a bit troubled in his mind.",2 "Don't you take notice of it, because it hurts him when you do.",1 "Be as kind to him as you can, Mother, and don't say anything to vex him.""",1 """Eh, what dost talk o' my vexin' him?",2 An' what am I like to be but kind?,3 "I'll ma' him a kettle-cake for breakfast i' the mornin'.""",2 "Adam, meanwhile, was reading Dinah's letter by the light of his dip candle.",2 "DEAR BROTHER SETH--Your letter lay three days beyond my knowing of it at the post, for I had not money enough by me to pay the carriage, this being a time of great need and sickness here, with the rains that have fallen, as if the windows of heaven were opened again; and to lay by money, from day to day, in such a time, when there are so many in present need of all things, would be a want of trust like the laying up of the manna.",4 "I speak of this, because I would not have you think me slow to answer, or that I had small joy in your rejoicing at the worldly good that has befallen your brother Adam.",3 "The honour and love you bear him is nothing but meet, for God has given him great gifts, and he uses them as the patriarch Joseph did, who, when he was exalted to a place of power and trust, yet yearned with tenderness towards his parent and his younger brother.",4 """My heart is knit to your aged mother since it was granted me to be near her in the day of trouble.",1 "Speak to her of me, and tell her I often bear her in my thoughts at evening time, when I am sitting in the dim light as I did with her, and we held one another's hands, and I spoke the words of comfort that were given to me.",2 "Ah, that is a blessed time, isn't it, Seth, when the outward light is fading, and the body is a little wearied with its work and its labour.",3 "Then the inward light shines the brighter, and we have a deeper sense of resting on the Divine strength.",3 "I sit on my chair in the dark room and close my eyes, and it is as if I was out of the body and could feel no want for evermore.",1 "For then, the very hardship, and the sorrow, and the blindness, and the sin I have beheld and been ready to weep over--yea, all the anguish of the children of men, which sometimes wraps me round like sudden darkness--I can bear with a willing pain, as if I was sharing the Redeemer's cross.",0 "For I feel it, I feel it--infinite love is suffering too--yea, in the fulness of knowledge it suffers, it yearns, it mourns; and that is a blind self-seeking which wants to be freed from the sorrow wherewith the whole creation groaneth and travaileth.",1 "Surely it is not true blessedness to be free from sorrow, while there is sorrow and sin in the world: sorrow is then a part of love, and love does not seek to throw it off.",2 It is not the spirit only that tells me this--I see it in the whole work and word of the Gospel.,3 Is there not pleading in heaven?,3 Is not the Man of Sorrows there in that crucified body wherewith he ascended?,2 And is He not one with the Infinite Love itself--as our love is one with our sorrow?,2 """These thoughts have been much borne in on me of late, and I have seen with new clearness the meaning of those words, 'If any man love me, let him take up my cross.'",3 I have heard this enlarged on as if it meant the troubles and persecutions we bring on ourselves by confessing Jesus.,1 But surely that is a narrow thought.,2 "The true cross of the Redeemer was the sin and sorrow of this world--that was what lay heavy on his heart--and that is the cross we shall share with him, that is the cup we must drink of with him, if we would have any part in that Divine Love which is one with his sorrow.",2 """In my outward lot, which you ask about, I have all things and abound.",3 "I have had constant work in the mill, though some of the other hands have been turned off for a time, and my body is greatly strengthened, so that I feel little weariness after long walking and speaking.",2 "What you say about staying in your own country with your mother and brother shows me that you have a true guidance; your lot is appointed there by a clear showing, and to seek a greater blessing elsewhere would be like laying a false offering on the altar and expecting the fire from heaven to kindle it.",4 "My work and my joy are here among the hills, and I sometimes think I cling too much to my life among the people here, and should be rebellious if I was called away.",3 """I was thankful for your tidings about the dear friends at the Hall Farm, for though I sent them a letter, by my aunt's desire, after I came back from my sojourn among them, I have had no word from them.",3 "My aunt has not the pen of a ready writer, and the work of the house is sufficient for the day, for she is weak in body.",3 "My heart cleaves to her and her children as the nearest of all to me in the flesh--yea, and to all in that house.",2 "I am carried away to them continually in my sleep, and often in the midst of work, and even of speech, the thought of them is borne in on me as if they were in need and trouble, which yet is dark to me.",1 There may be some leading here; but I wait to be taught.,3 You say they are all well.,3 """We shall see each other again in the body, I trust, though, it may be, not for a long while; for the brethren and sisters at Leeds are desirous to have me for a short space among them, when I have a door opened me again to leave Snowfield.",3 """Farewell, dear brother--and yet not farewell.",2 "For those children of God whom it has been granted to see each other face to face, and to hold communion together, and to feel the same spirit working in both can never more be sundered though the hills may lie between.",1 "For their souls are enlarged for evermore by that union, and they bear one another about in their thoughts continually as it were a new strength.--Your faithful Sister and fellow-worker in Christ, ""DINAH MORRIS."" ""I have not skill to write the words so small as you do and my pen moves slow.",3 "And so I am straitened, and say but little of what is in my mind.",2 Greet your mother for me with a kiss.,2 "She asked me to kiss her twice when we parted.""",2 "Adam had refolded the letter, and was sitting meditatively with his head resting on his arm at the head of the bed, when Seth came upstairs.",2 """Hast read the letter?""",2 said Seth.,2 """Yes,"" said Adam.",2 """I don't know what I should ha' thought of her and her letter if I'd never seen her: I daresay I should ha' thought a preaching woman hateful.",1 "But she's one as makes everything seem right she says and does, and I seemed to see her and hear her speaking when I read the letter.",3 It's wonderful how I remember her looks and her voice.,3 "She'd make thee rare and happy, Seth; she's just the woman for thee.""",3 """It's no use thinking o' that,"" said Seth, despondingly.",2 """She spoke so firm, and she's not the woman to say one thing and mean another.""",2 """Nay, but her feelings may grow different.",2 A woman may get to love by degrees--the best fire dosna flare up the soonest.,3 "I'd have thee go and see her by and by: I'd make it convenient for thee to be away three or four days, and it 'ud be no walk for thee--only between twenty and thirty mile.""",3 """I should like to see her again, whether or no, if she wouldna be displeased with me for going,"" said Seth.",2 """She'll be none displeased,"" said Adam emphatically, getting up and throwing off his coat.",1 """It might be a great happiness to us all if she'd have thee, for mother took to her so wonderful and seemed so contented to be with her.""",4 """Aye,"" said Seth, rather timidly, ""and Dinah's fond o' Hetty too; she thinks a deal about her.""",2 "Adam made no reply to that, and no other word but ""good-night"" passed between them.",3 "IT was no longer light enough to go to bed without a candle, even in Mrs. Poyser's early household, and Hetty carried one with her as she went up at last to her bedroom soon after Adam was gone, and bolted the door behind her.",3 Now she would read her letter.,2 It must--it must have comfort in it.,3 How was Adam to know the truth?,2 It was always likely he should say what he did say.,2 She set down the candle and took out the letter.,2 "It had a faint scent of roses, which made her feel as if Arthur were close to her.",1 "She put it to her lips, and a rush of remembered sensations for a moment or two swept away all fear.",2 "But her heart began to flutter strangely, and her hands to tremble as she broke the seal.",1 "She read slowly; it was not easy for her to read a gentleman's handwriting, though Arthur had taken pains to write plainly.",1 """DEAREST HETTY--I have spoken truly when I have said that I loved you, and I shall never forget our love.",3 "I shall be your true friend as long as life lasts, and I hope to prove this to you in many ways.",2 "If I say anything to pain you in this letter, do not believe it is for want of love and tenderness towards you, for there is nothing I would not do for you, if I knew it to be really for your happiness.",2 "I cannot bear to think of my little Hetty shedding tears when I am not there to kiss them away; and if I followed only my own inclinations, I should be with her at this moment instead of writing.",2 "It is very hard for me to part from her--harder still for me to write words which may seem unkind, though they spring from the truest kindness.",1 """Dear, dear Hetty, sweet as our love has been to me, sweet as it would be to me for you to love me always, I feel that it would have been better for us both if we had never had that happiness, and that it is my duty to ask you to love me and care for me as little as you can.",4 "The fault has all been mine, for though I have been unable to resist the longing to be near you, I have felt all the while that your affection for me might cause you grief.",0 I ought to have resisted my feelings.,2 "I should have done so, if I had been a better fellow than I am; but now, since the past cannot be altered, I am bound to save you from any evil that I have power to prevent.",2 "And I feel it would be a great evil for you if your affections continued so fixed on me that you could think of no other man who might be able to make you happier by his love than I ever can, and if you continued to look towards something in the future which cannot possibly happen.",3 "For, dear Hetty, if I were to do what you one day spoke of, and make you my wife, I should do what you yourself would come to feel was for your misery instead of your welfare.",1 "I know you can never be happy except by marrying a man in your own station; and if I were to marry you now, I should only be adding to any wrong I have done, besides offending against my duty in the other relations of life.",1 "You know nothing, dear Hetty, of the world in which I must always live, and you would soon begin to dislike me, because there would be so little in which we should be alike.",1 """And since I cannot marry you, we must part--we must try not to feel like lovers any more.",3 "I am miserable while I say this, but nothing else can be.",1 "Be angry with me, my sweet one, I deserve it; but do not believe that I shall not always care for you--always be grateful to you--always remember my Hetty; and if any trouble should come that we do not now foresee, trust in me to do everything that lies in my power.",2 """I have told you where you are to direct a letter to, if you want to write, but I put it down below lest you should have forgotten.",2 "Do not write unless there is something I can really do for you; for, dear Hetty, we must try to think of each other as little as we can.",2 "Forgive me, and try to forget everything about me, except that I shall be, as long as I live, your affectionate friend, ""ARTHUR DONNITHORNE."" Slowly Hetty had read this letter; and when she looked up from it there was the reflection of a blanched face in the old dim glass--a white marble face with rounded childish forms, but with something sadder than a child's pain in it.",0 Hetty did not see the face--she saw nothing--she only felt that she was cold and sick and trembling.,1 The letter shook and rustled in her hand.,2 She laid it down.,2 It was a horrible sensation--this cold and trembling.,1 "It swept away the very ideas that produced it, and Hetty got up to reach a warm cloak from her clothes-press, wrapped it round her, and sat as if she were thinking of nothing but getting warm.",3 "Presently she took up the letter with a firmer hand, and began to read it through again.",3 The tears came this time--great rushing tears that blinded her and blotched the paper.,3 "She felt nothing but that Arthur was cruel--cruel to write so, cruel not to marry her.",1 Reasons why he could not marry her had no existence for her mind; how could she believe in any misery that could come to her from the fulfilment of all she had been longing for and dreaming of?,1 She had not the ideas that could make up the notion of that misery.,1 "As she threw down the letter again, she caught sight of her face in the glass; it was reddened now, and wet with tears; it was almost like a companion that she might complain to--that would pity her.",1 "She leaned forward on her elbows, and looked into those dark overflooding eyes and at the quivering mouth, and saw how the tears came thicker and thicker, and how the mouth became convulsed with sobs.",1 "The shattering of all her little dream-world, the crushing blow on her new-born passion, afflicted her pleasure-craving nature with an overpowering pain that annihilated all impulse to resistance, and suspended her anger.",0 "She sat sobbing till the candle went out, and then, wearied, aching, stupefied with crying, threw herself on the bed without undressing and went to sleep.",1 "There was a feeble dawn in the room when Hetty awoke, a little after four o'clock, with a sense of dull misery, the cause of which broke upon her gradually as she began to discern the objects round her in the dim light.",0 "And then came the frightening thought that she had to conceal her misery as well as to bear it, in this dreary daylight that was coming.",1 She could lie no longer.,1 She got up and went towards the table: there lay the letter.,2 She opened her treasure-drawer: there lay the ear-rings and the locket--the signs of all her short happiness--the signs of the lifelong dreariness that was to follow it.,3 "Looking at the little trinkets which she had once eyed and fingered so fondly as the earnest of her future paradise of finery, she lived back in the moments when they had been given to her with such tender caresses, such strangely pretty words, such glowing looks, which filled her with a bewildering delicious surprise--they were so much sweeter than she had thought anything could be.",4 "And the Arthur who had spoken to her and looked at her in this way, who was present with her now--whose arm she felt round her, his cheek against hers, his very breath upon her--was the cruel, cruel Arthur who had written that letter, that letter which she snatched and crushed and then opened again, that she might read it once more.",1 The half-benumbed mental condition which was the effect of the last night's violent crying made it necessary to her to look again and see if her wretched thoughts were actually true--if the letter was really so cruel.,0 "She had to hold it close to the window, else she could not have read it by the faint light.",1 Yes!,2 It was worse--it was more cruel.,1 She crushed it up again in anger.,1 She hated the writer of that letter--hated him for the very reason that she hung upon him with all her love--all the girlish passion and vanity that made up her love.,1 She had no tears this morning.,2 "She had wept them all away last night, and now she felt that dry-eyed morning misery, which is worse than the first shock because it has the future in it as well as the present.",1 "Every morning to come, as far as her imagination could stretch, she would have to get up and feel that the day would have no joy for her.",3 "For there is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recovered hope.",1 "As Hetty began languidly to take off the clothes she had worn all the night, that she might wash herself and brush her hair, she had a sickening sense that her life would go on in this way.",1 "She should always be doing things she had no pleasure in, getting up to the old tasks of work, seeing people she cared nothing about, going to church, and to Treddleston, and to tea with Mrs. Best, and carrying no happy thought with her.",4 "For her short poisonous delights had spoiled for ever all the little joys that had once made the sweetness of her life--the new frock ready for Treddleston Fair, the party at Mr. Britton's at Broxton wake, the beaux that she would say ""No"" to for a long while, and the prospect of the wedding that was to come at last when she would have a silk gown and a great many clothes all at once.",3 "These things were all flat and dreary to her now; everything would be a weariness, and she would carry about for ever a hopeless thirst and longing.",0 She paused in the midst of her languid undressing and leaned against the dark old clothes-press.,1 "Her neck and arms were bare, her hair hung down in delicate rings--and they were just as beautiful as they were that night two months ago, when she walked up and down this bed-chamber glowing with vanity and hope.",3 She was not thinking of her neck and arms now; even her own beauty was indifferent to her.,2 "Her eyes wandered sadly over the dull old chamber, and then looked out vacantly towards the growing dawn.",1 Did a remembrance of Dinah come across her mind?,2 "Of her foreboding words, which had made her angry?",1 Of Dinah's affectionate entreaty to think of her as a friend in trouble?,2 "No, the impression had been too slight to recur.",2 Any affection or comfort Dinah could have given her would have been as indifferent to Hetty this morning as everything else was except her bruised passion.,3 She was only thinking she could never stay here and go on with the old life--she could better bear something quite new than sinking back into the old everyday round.,2 "She would like to run away that very morning, and never see any of the old faces again.",3 But Hetty's was not a nature to face difficulties--to dare to loose her hold on the familiar and rush blindly on some unknown condition.,0 "Hers was a luxurious and vain nature--not a passionate one--and if she were ever to take any violent measure, she must be urged to it by the desperation of terror.",1 "There was not much room for her thoughts to travel in the narrow circle of her imagination, and she soon fixed on the one thing she would do to get away from her old life: she would ask her uncle to let her go to be a lady's maid.",2 "Miss Lydia's maid would help her to get a situation, if she knew Hetty had her uncle's leave.",1 "When she had thought of this, she fastened up her hair and began to wash: it seemed more possible to her to go downstairs and try to behave as usual.",2 She would ask her uncle this very day.,2 "On Hetty's blooming health it would take a great deal of such mental suffering as hers to leave any deep impress; and when she was dressed as neatly as usual in her working-dress, with her hair tucked up under her little cap, an indifferent observer would have been more struck with the young roundness of her cheek and neck and the darkness of her eyes and eyelashes than with any signs of sadness about her.",1 "But when she took up the crushed letter and put it in her drawer, that she might lock it out of sight, hard smarting tears, having no relief in them as the great drops had that fell last night, forced their way into her eyes.",1 She wiped them away quickly: she must not cry in the day-time.,1 "Nobody should find out how miserable she was, nobody should know she was disappointed about anything; and the thought that the eyes of her aunt and uncle would be upon her gave her the self-command which often accompanies a great dread.",1 "For Hetty looked out from her secret misery towards the possibility of their ever knowing what had happened, as the sick and weary prisoner might think of the possible pillory.",0 "They would think her conduct shameful, and shame was torture.",0 That was poor little Hetty's conscience.,1 So she locked up her drawer and went away to her early work.,3 "In the evening, when Mr. Poyser was smoking his pipe, and his good-nature was therefore at its superlative moment, Hetty seized the opportunity of her aunt's absence to say, ""Uncle, I wish you'd let me go for a lady's maid.""",2 Mr. Poyser took the pipe from his mouth and looked at Hetty in mild surprise for some moments.,2 "She was sewing, and went on with her work industriously.",3 """Why, what's put that into your head, my wench?""",2 "he said at last, after he had given one conservative puff.",1 """I should like it--I should like it better than farm-work.""",4 """Nay, nay; you fancy so because you donna know it, my wench.",3 "It wouldn't be half so good for your health, nor for your luck i' life.",3 "I'd like you to stay wi' us till you've got a good husband: you're my own niece, and I wouldn't have you go to service, though it was a gentleman's house, as long as I've got a home for you.""",3 "Mr. Poyser paused, and puffed away at his pipe.",2 """I like the needlework,"" said Hetty, ""and I should get good wages.""",3 """Has your aunt been a bit sharp wi' you?""",3 "said Mr. Poyser, not noticing Hetty's further argument.",2 """You mustna mind that, my wench--she does it for your good.",3 "She wishes you well; an' there isn't many aunts as are no kin to you 'ud ha' done by you as she has.""",3 """No, it isn't my aunt,"" said Hetty, ""but I should like the work better.""",4 """It was all very well for you to learn the work a bit--an' I gev my consent to that fast enough, sin' Mrs. Pomfret was willing to teach you.",4 "For if anything was t' happen, it's well to know how to turn your hand to different sorts o' things.",3 "But I niver meant you to go to service, my wench; my family's ate their own bread and cheese as fur back as anybody knows, hanna they, Father?",2 "You wouldna like your grand-child to take wage?""",3 """Na-a-y,"" said old Martin, with an elongation of the word, meant to make it bitter as well as negative, while he leaned forward and looked down on the floor.",1 """But the wench takes arter her mother.",2 "I'd hard work t' hould HER in, an' she married i' spite o' me--a feller wi' on'y two head o' stock when there should ha' been ten on's farm--she might well die o' th' inflammation afore she war thirty.""",1 "It was seldom the old man made so long a speech, but his son's question had fallen like a bit of dry fuel on the embers of a long unextinguished resentment, which had always made the grandfather more indifferent to Hetty than to his son's children.",1 "Her mother's fortune had been spent by that good-for-nought Sorrel, and Hetty had Sorrel's blood in her veins.",3 """Poor thing, poor thing!""",1 "said Martin the younger, who was sorry to have provoked this retrospective harshness.",1 """She'd but bad luck.",2 "But Hetty's got as good a chance o' getting a solid, sober husband as any gell i' this country.""",3 "After throwing out this pregnant hint, Mr. Poyser recurred to his pipe and his silence, looking at Hetty to see if she did not give some sign of having renounced her ill-advised wish.",2 "But instead of that, Hetty, in spite of herself, began to cry, half out of ill temper at the denial, half out of the day's repressed sadness.",0 """Hegh, hegh!""",2 "said Mr. Poyser, meaning to check her playfully, ""don't let's have any crying.",3 "Crying's for them as ha' got no home, not for them as want to get rid o' one.",2 "What dost think?""",2 "he continued to his wife, who now came back into the house-place, knitting with fierce rapidity, as if that movement were a necessary function, like the twittering of a crab's antennae.",2 """Think?",2 "Why, I think we shall have the fowl stole before we are much older, wi' that gell forgetting to lock the pens up o' nights.",1 "What's the matter now, Hetty?",2 "What are you crying at?""",2 """Why, she's been wanting to go for a lady's maid,"" said Mr. Poyser.",2 """I tell her we can do better for her nor that.""",3 """I thought she'd got some maggot in her head, she's gone about wi' her mouth buttoned up so all day.",2 "It's all wi' going so among them servants at the Chase, as we war fools for letting her.",2 She thinks it 'ud be a finer life than being wi' them as are akin to her and ha' brought her up sin' she war no bigger nor Marty.,3 "She thinks there's nothing belongs to being a lady's maid but wearing finer clothes nor she was born to, I'll be bound.",3 "It's what rag she can get to stick on her as she's thinking on from morning till night, as I often ask her if she wouldn't like to be the mawkin i' the field, for then she'd be made o' rags inside and out.",3 "I'll never gi' my consent to her going for a lady's maid, while she's got good friends to take care on her till she's married to somebody better nor one o' them valets, as is neither a common man nor a gentleman, an' must live on the fat o' the land, an's like enough to stick his hands under his coat-tails and expect his wife to work for him.""",4 """Aye, aye,"" said Mr. Poyser, ""we must have a better husband for her nor that, and there's better at hand.",3 "Come, my wench, give over crying and get to bed.",2 I'll do better for you nor letting you go for a lady's maid.,3 "Let's hear no more on't.""",2 "When Hetty was gone upstairs he said, ""I canna make it out as she should want to go away, for I thought she'd got a mind t' Adam Bede.",2 "She's looked like it o' late.""",3 """Eh, there's no knowing what she's got a liking to, for things take no more hold on her than if she was a dried pea.",3 "I believe that gell, Molly--as is aggravatin' enough, for the matter o' that--but I believe she'd care more about leaving us and the children, for all she's been here but a year come Michaelmas, nor Hetty would.",3 But she's got this notion o' being a lady's maid wi' going among them servants--we might ha' known what it 'ud lead to when we let her go to learn the fine work.,4 "But I'll put a stop to it pretty quick.""",3 """Thee'dst be sorry to part wi' her, if it wasn't for her good,"" said Mr. Poyser.",2 """She's useful to thee i' the work.""",3 """Sorry?",1 "Yes, I'm fonder on her nor she deserves--a little hard-hearted hussy, wanting to leave us i' that way.",1 "I can't ha' had her about me these seven year, I reckon, and done for her, and taught her everything wi'out caring about her.",2 "An' here I'm having linen spun, an' thinking all the while it'll make sheeting and table-clothing for her when she's married, an' she'll live i' the parish wi' us, and never go out of our sights--like a fool as I am for thinking aught about her, as is no better nor a cherry wi' a hard stone inside it.""",2 """Nay, nay, thee mustna make much of a trifle,"" said Mr. Poyser, soothingly.",3 """She's fond on us, I'll be bound; but she's young, an' gets things in her head as she can't rightly give account on.",3 "Them young fillies 'ull run away often wi'-ou knowing why.""",2 "Her uncle's answers, however, had had another effect on Hetty besides that of disappointing her and making her cry.",1 "She knew quite well whom he had in his mind in his allusions to marriage, and to a sober, solid husband; and when she was in her bedroom again, the possibility of her marrying Adam presented itself to her in a new light.",3 "In a mind where no strong sympathies are at work, where there is no supreme sense of right to which the agitated nature can cling and steady itself to quiet endurance, one of the first results of sorrow is a desperate vague clutching after any deed that will change the actual condition.",4 "Poor Hetty's vision of consequences, at no time more than a narrow fantastic calculation of her own probable pleasures and pains, was now quite shut out by reckless irritation under present suffering, and she was ready for one of those convulsive, motiveless actions by which wretched men and women leap from a temporary sorrow into a lifelong misery.",0 Why should she not marry Adam?,2 "She did not care what she did, so that it made some change in her life.",2 "She felt confident that he would still want to marry her, and any further thought about Adam's happiness in the matter had never yet visited her.",3 """Strange!""",1 "perhaps you will say, ""this rush of impulse to-wards a course that might have seemed the most repugnant to her present state of mind, and in only the second night of her sadness!""",1 "Yes, the actions of a little trivial soul like Hetty's, struggling amidst the serious sad destinies of a human being, are strange.",0 So are the motions of a little vessel without ballast tossed about on a stormy sea.,1 "How pretty it looked with its parti-coloured sail in the sunlight, moored in the quiet bay!",3 """Let that man bear the loss who loosed it from its moorings.""",1 But that will not save the vessel--the pretty thing that might have been a lasting joy.,3 "THE next Saturday evening there was much excited discussion at the Donnithorne Arms concerning an incident which had occurred that very day--no less than a second appearance of the smart man in top-boots said by some to be a mere farmer in treaty for the Chase Farm, by others to be the future steward, but by Mr. Casson himself, the personal witness to the stranger's visit, pronounced contemptuously to be nothing better than a bailiff, such as Satchell had been before him.",4 "No one had thought of denying Mr. Casson's testimony to the fact that he had seen the stranger; nevertheless, he proffered various corroborating circumstances.",1 """I see him myself,"" he said; ""I see him coming along by the Crab-tree Meadow on a bald-faced hoss.",2 "I'd just been t' hev a pint--it was half after ten i' the fore-noon, when I hev my pint as reg'lar as the clock--and I says to Knowles, as druv up with his waggon, 'You'll get a bit o' barley to-day, Knowles,' I says, 'if you look about you'; and then I went round by the rick-yard, and towart the Treddles'on road, and just as I come up by the big ash-tree, I see the man i' top-boots coming along on a bald-faced hoss--I wish I may never stir if I didn't.",3 "And I stood still till he come up, and I says, 'Good morning, sir,' I says, for I wanted to hear the turn of his tongue, as I might know whether he was a this-country man; so I says, 'Good morning, sir: it 'll 'old hup for the barley this morning, I think.",2 "There'll be a bit got hin, if we've good luck.'",3 "And he says, 'Eh, ye may be raight, there's noo tallin',' he says, and I knowed by that""--here Mr. Casson gave a wink--""as he didn't come from a hundred mile off.",2 "I daresay he'd think me a hodd talker, as you Loamshire folks allays does hany one as talks the right language.""",3 """The right language!""",3 "said Bartle Massey, contemptuously.",1 """You're about as near the right language as a pig's squeaking is like a tune played on a key-bugle.""",3 """Well, I don't know,"" answered Mr. Casson, with an angry smile.",3 """I should think a man as has lived among the gentry from a by, is likely to know what's the right language pretty nigh as well as a schoolmaster.""",4 """Aye, aye, man,"" said Bartle, with a tone of sarcastic consolation, ""you talk the right language for you.",2 "When Mike Holdsworth's goat says ba-a-a, it's all right--it 'ud be unnatural for it to make any other noise.""",1 "The rest of the party being Loamshire men, Mr. Casson had the laugh strongly against him, and wisely fell back on the previous question, which, far from being exhausted in a single evening, was renewed in the churchyard, before service, the next day, with the fresh interest conferred on all news when there is a fresh person to hear it; and that fresh hearer was Martin Poyser, who, as his wife said, ""never went boozin' with that set at Casson's, a-sittin' soakin' in drink, and looking as wise as a lot o' cod-fish wi' red faces.""",3 "It was probably owing to the conversation she had had with her husband on their way from church concerning this problematic stranger that Mrs. Poyser's thoughts immediately reverted to him when, a day or two afterwards, as she was standing at the house-door with her knitting, in that eager leisure which came to her when the afternoon cleaning was done, she saw the old squire enter the yard on his black pony, followed by John the groom.",1 "She always cited it afterwards as a case of prevision, which really had something more in it than her own remarkable penetration, that the moment she set eyes on the squire she said to herself, ""I shouldna wonder if he's come about that man as is a-going to take the Chase Farm, wanting Poyser to do something for him without pay.",3 "But Poyser's a fool if he does.""",1 "Something unwonted must clearly be in the wind, for the old squire's visits to his tenantry were rare; and though Mrs. Poyser had during the last twelvemonth recited many imaginary speeches, meaning even more than met the ear, which she was quite determined to make to him the next time he appeared within the gates of the Hall Farm, the speeches had always remained imaginary.",2 """Good-day, Mrs. Poyser,"" said the old squire, peering at her with his short-sighted eyes--a mode of looking at her which, as Mrs. Poyser observed, ""allays aggravated me: it was as if you was a insect, and he was going to dab his finger-nail on you.""",3 "However, she said, ""Your servant, sir,"" and curtsied with an air of perfect deference as she advanced towards him: she was not the woman to misbehave towards her betters, and fly in the face of the catechism, without severe provocation.",2 """Is your husband at home, Mrs. Poyser?""",2 """Yes, sir; he's only i' the rick-yard.",2 "I'll send for him in a minute, if you'll please to get down and step in.""",2 """Thank you; I will do so.",3 "I want to consult him about a little matter; but you are quite as much concerned in it, if not more.",1 "I must have your opinion too.""",2 """Hetty, run and tell your uncle to come in,"" said Mrs. Poyser, as they entered the house, and the old gentleman bowed low in answer to Hetty's curtsy; while Totty, conscious of a pinafore stained with gooseberry jam, stood hiding her face against the clock and peeping round furtively.",1 """What a fine old kitchen this is!""",3 "said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round admiringly.",3 "He always spoke in the same deliberate, well-chiselled, polite way, whether his words were sugary or venomous.",3 """And you keep it so exquisitely clean, Mrs. Poyser.",3 "I like these premises, do you know, beyond any on the estate.""",3 """Well, sir, since you're fond of 'em, I should be glad if you'd let a bit o' repairs be done to 'em, for the boarding's i' that state as we're like to be eaten up wi' rats and mice; and the cellar, you may stan' up to your knees i' water in't, if you like to go down; but perhaps you'd rather believe my words.",4 "Won't you please to sit down, sir?""",2 """Not yet; I must see your dairy.",2 "I have not seen it for years, and I hear on all hands about your fine cheese and butter,"" said the squire, looking politely unconscious that there could be any question on which he and Mrs. Poyser might happen to disagree.",2 """I think I see the door open, there.",2 You must not be surprised if I cast a covetous eye on your cream and butter.,1 "I don't expect that Mrs. Satchell's cream and butter will bear comparison with yours.""",2 """I can't say, sir, I'm sure.",2 "It's seldom I see other folks's butter, though there's some on it as one's no need to see--the smell's enough.""",3 """Ah, now this I like,"" said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round at the damp temple of cleanliness, but keeping near the door.",3 """I'm sure I should like my breakfast better if I knew the butter and cream came from this dairy.",3 "Thank you, that really is a pleasant sight.",3 "Unfortunately, my slight tendency to rheumatism makes me afraid of damp: I'll sit down in your comfortable kitchen.",1 "Ah, Poyser, how do you do?",2 "In the midst of business, I see, as usual.",2 "I've been looking at your wife's beautiful dairy--the best manager in the parish, is she not?""",3 "Mr. Poyser had just entered in shirt-sleeves and open waistcoat, with a face a shade redder than usual, from the exertion of ""pitching.""",2 "As he stood, red, rotund, and radiant, before the small, wiry, cool old gentleman, he looked like a prize apple by the side of a withered crab.",4 """Will you please to take this chair, sir?""",2 "he said, lifting his father's arm-chair forward a little: ""you'll find it easy.""",3 """No, thank you, I never sit in easy-chairs,"" said the old gentleman, seating himself on a small chair near the door.",3 """Do you know, Mrs. Poyser--sit down, pray, both of you--I've been far from contented, for some time, with Mrs. Satchell's dairy management.",2 "I think she has not a good method, as you have.""",3 """Indeed, sir, I can't speak to that,"" said Mrs. Poyser in a hard voice, rolling and unrolling her knitting and looking icily out of the window, as she continued to stand opposite the squire.",1 "Poyser might sit down if he liked, she thought; she wasn't going to sit down, as if she'd give in to any such smooth-tongued palaver.",3 "Mr. Poyser, who looked and felt the reverse of icy, did sit down in his three-cornered chair.",2 """And now, Poyser, as Satchell is laid up, I am intending to let the Chase Farm to a respectable tenant.",3 "I'm tired of having a farm on my own hands--nothing is made the best of in such cases, as you know.",2 "A satisfactory bailiff is hard to find; and I think you and I, Poyser, and your excellent wife here, can enter into a little arrangement in consequence, which will be to our mutual advantage.""",3 """Oh,"" said Mr. Poyser, with a good-natured blankness of imagination as to the nature of the arrangement.",3 """If I'm called upon to speak, sir,"" said Mrs. Poyser, after glancing at her husband with pity at his softness, ""you know better than me; but I don't see what the Chase Farm is t' us--we've cumber enough wi' our own farm.",3 "Not but what I'm glad to hear o' anybody respectable coming into the parish; there's some as ha' been brought in as hasn't been looked on i' that character.""",3 """You're likely to find Mr. Thurle an excellent neighbour, I assure you--such a one as you will feel glad to have accommodated by the little plan I'm going to mention, especially as I hope you will find it as much to your own advantage as his.""",4 """Indeed, sir, if it's anything t' our advantage, it'll be the first offer o' the sort I've heared on.",3 "It's them as take advantage that get advantage i' this world, I think.",3 "Folks have to wait long enough afore it's brought to 'em.""",3 """The fact is, Poyser,"" said the squire, ignoring Mrs. Poyser's theory of worldly prosperity, ""there is too much dairy land, and too little plough land, on the Chase Farm to suit Thurle's purpose--indeed, he will only take the farm on condition of some change in it: his wife, it appears, is not a clever dairy-woman, like yours.",4 "Now, the plan I'm thinking of is to effect a little exchange.",2 "If you were to have the Hollow Pastures, you might increase your dairy, which must be so profitable under your wife's management; and I should request you, Mrs. Poyser, to supply my house with milk, cream, and butter at the market prices.",1 "On the other hand, Poyser, you might let Thurle have the Lower and Upper Ridges, which really, with our wet seasons, would be a good riddance for you.",3 "There is much less risk in dairy land than corn land.""",1 "Mr. Poyser was leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees, his head on one side, and his mouth screwed up--apparently absorbed in making the tips of his fingers meet so as to represent with perfect accuracy the ribs of a ship.",2 "He was much too acute a man not to see through the whole business, and to foresee perfectly what would be his wife's view of the subject; but he disliked giving unpleasant answers.",1 "Unless it was on a point of farming practice, he would rather give up than have a quarrel, any day; and, after all, it mattered more to his wife than to him.",1 "So, after a few moments' silence, he looked up at her and said mildly, ""What dost say?""",2 "Mrs. Poyser had had her eyes fixed on her husband with cold severity during his silence, but now she turned away her head with a toss, looked icily at the opposite roof of the cow-shed, and spearing her knitting together with the loose pin, held it firmly between her clasped hands.",0 """Say?",2 "Why, I say you may do as you like about giving up any o' your corn-land afore your lease is up, which it won't be for a year come next Michaelmas, but I'll not consent to take more dairy work into my hands, either for love or money; and there's nayther love nor money here, as I can see, on'y other folks's love o' theirselves, and the money as is to go into other folks's pockets.",4 "I know there's them as is born t' own the land, and them as is born to sweat on't""--here Mrs. Poyser paused to gasp a little--""and I know it's christened folks's duty to submit to their betters as fur as flesh and blood 'ull bear it; but I'll not make a martyr o' myself, and wear myself to skin and bone, and worret myself as if I was a churn wi' butter a-coming in't, for no landlord in England, not if he was King George himself.""",1 """No, no, my dear Mrs. Poyser, certainly not,"" said the squire, still confident in his own powers of persuasion, ""you must not overwork yourself; but don't you think your work will rather be lessened than increased in this way?",3 "There is so much milk required at the Abbey that you will have little increase of cheese and butter making from the addition to your dairy; and I believe selling the milk is the most profitable way of disposing of dairy produce, is it not?""",2 """Aye, that's true,"" said Mr. Poyser, unable to repress an opinion on a question of farming profits, and forgetting that it was not in this case a purely abstract question.",1 """I daresay,"" said Mrs. Poyser bitterly, turning her head half-way towards her husband and looking at the vacant arm-chair--""I daresay it's true for men as sit i' th' chimney-corner and make believe as everything's cut wi' ins an' outs to fit int' everything else.",1 "If you could make a pudding wi' thinking o' the batter, it 'ud be easy getting dinner.",3 How do I know whether the milk 'ull be wanted constant?,2 "What's to make me sure as the house won't be put o' board wage afore we're many months older, and then I may have to lie awake o' nights wi' twenty gallons o' milk on my mind--and Dingall 'ull take no more butter, let alone paying for it; and we must fat pigs till we're obliged to beg the butcher on our knees to buy 'em, and lose half of 'em wi' the measles.",0 "And there's the fetching and carrying, as 'ud be welly half a day's work for a man an' hoss--that's to be took out o' the profits, I reckon?",3 "But there's folks 'ud hold a sieve under the pump and expect to carry away the water.""",2 """That difficulty--about the fetching and carrying--you will not have, Mrs. Poyser,"" said the squire, who thought that this entrance into particulars indicated a distant inclination to compromise on Mrs. Poyser's part.",1 """Bethell will do that regularly with the cart and pony.""",2 """Oh, sir, begging your pardon, I've never been used t' having gentlefolks's servants coming about my back places, a-making love to both the gells at once and keeping 'em with their hands on their hips listening to all manner o' gossip when they should be down on their knees a-scouring.",2 "If we're to go to ruin, it shanna be wi' having our back kitchen turned into a public.""",1 """Well, Poyser,"" said the squire, shifting his tactics and looking as if he thought Mrs. Poyser had suddenly withdrawn from the proceedings and left the room, ""you can turn the Hollows into feeding-land.",3 I can easily make another arrangement about supplying my house.,2 And I shall not forget your readiness to accommodate your landlord as well as a neighbour.,3 "I know you will be glad to have your lease renewed for three years, when the present one expires; otherwise, I daresay Thurle, who is a man of some capital, would be glad to take both the farms, as they could be worked so well together.",4 "But I don't want to part with an old tenant like you.""",3 "To be thrust out of the discussion in this way would have been enough to complete Mrs. Poyser's exasperation, even without the final threat.",1 "Her husband, really alarmed at the possibility of their leaving the old place where he had been bred and born--for he believed the old squire had small spite enough for anything--was beginning a mild remonstrance explanatory of the inconvenience he should find in having to buy and sell more stock, with, ""Well, sir, I think as it's rether hard...""",1 "when Mrs. Poyser burst in with the desperate determination to have her say out this once, though it were to rain notices to quit and the only shelter were the work-house.",2 """Then, sir, if I may speak--as, for all I'm a woman, and there's folks as thinks a woman's fool enough to stan' by an' look on while the men sign her soul away, I've a right to speak, for I make one quarter o' the rent, and save another quarter--I say, if Mr. Thurle's so ready to take farms under you, it's a pity but what he should take this, and see if he likes to live in a house wi' all the plagues o' Egypt in't--wi' the cellar full o' water, and frogs and toads hoppin' up the steps by dozens--and the floors rotten, and the rats and mice gnawing every bit o' cheese, and runnin' over our heads as we lie i' bed till we expect 'em to eat us up alive--as it's a mercy they hanna eat the children long ago.",2 "I should like to see if there's another tenant besides Poyser as 'ud put up wi' never having a bit o' repairs done till a place tumbles down--and not then, on'y wi' begging and praying and having to pay half--and being strung up wi' the rent as it's much if he gets enough out o' the land to pay, for all he's put his own money into the ground beforehand.",2 "See if you'll get a stranger to lead such a life here as that: a maggot must be born i' the rotten cheese to like it, I reckon.",2 "You may run away from my words, sir,"" continued Mrs. Poyser, following the old squire beyond the door--for after the first moments of stunned surprise he had got up, and, waving his hand towards her with a smile, had walked out towards his pony.",3 "But it was impossible for him to get away immediately, for John was walking the pony up and down the yard, and was some distance from the causeway when his master beckoned.",3 """You may run away from my words, sir, and you may go spinnin' underhand ways o' doing us a mischief, for you've got Old Harry to your friend, though nobody else is, but I tell you for once as we're not dumb creatures to be abused and made money on by them as ha' got the lash i' their hands, for want o' knowing how t' undo the tackle.",0 "An' if I'm th' only one as speaks my mind, there's plenty o' the same way o' thinking i' this parish and the next to 't, for your name's no better than a brimstone match in everybody's nose--if it isna two-three old folks as you think o' saving your soul by giving 'em a bit o' flannel and a drop o' porridge.",2 "An' you may be right i' thinking it'll take but little to save your soul, for it'll be the smallest savin' y' iver made, wi' all your scrapin'.""",3 "There are occasions on which two servant-girls and a waggoner may be a formidable audience, and as the squire rode away on his black pony, even the gift of short-sightedness did not prevent him from being aware that Molly and Nancy and Tim were grinning not far from him.",3 Perhaps he suspected that sour old John was grinning behind him--which was also the fact.,1 "Meanwhile the bull-dog, the black-and-tan terrier, Alick's sheep-dog, and the gander hissing at a safe distance from the pony's heels carried out the idea of Mrs. Poyser's solo in an impressive quartet.",3 "Mrs. Poyser, however, had no sooner seen the pony move off than she turned round, gave the two hilarious damsels a look which drove them into the back kitchen, and unspearing her knitting, began to knit again with her usual rapidity as she re-entered the house.",3 """Thee'st done it now,"" said Mr. Poyser, a little alarmed and uneasy, but not without some triumphant amusement at his wife's outbreak.",1 """Yes, I know I've done it,"" said Mrs. Poyser; ""but I've had my say out, and I shall be th' easier for't all my life.",3 "There's no pleasure i' living if you're to be corked up for ever, and only dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel.",2 "I shan't repent saying what I think, if I live to be as old as th' old squire; and there's little likelihood--for it seems as if them as aren't wanted here are th' only folks as aren't wanted i' th' other world.""",2 """But thee wutna like moving from th' old place, this Michaelmas twelvemonth,"" said Mr. Poyser, ""and going into a strange parish, where thee know'st nobody.",2 "It'll be hard upon us both, and upo' Father too.""",1 """Eh, it's no use worreting; there's plenty o' things may happen between this and Michaelmas twelvemonth.",2 "The captain may be master afore them, for what we know,"" said Mrs. Poyser, inclined to take an unusually hopeful view of an embarrassment which had been brought about by her own merit and not by other people's fault.",2 """I'm none for worreting,"" said Mr. Poyser, rising from his three-cornered chair and walking slowly towards the door; ""but I should be loath to leave th' old place, and the parish where I was bred and born, and Father afore me.",1 "We should leave our roots behind us, I doubt, and niver thrive again.""",2 "THE barley was all carried at last, and the harvest suppers went by without waiting for the dismal black crop of beans.",1 "The apples and nuts were gathered and stored; the scent of whey departed from the farm-houses, and the scent of brewing came in its stead.",2 "The woods behind the Chase, and all the hedgerow trees, took on a solemn splendour under the dark low-hanging skies.",1 "Michaelmas was come, with its fragrant basketfuls of purple damsons, and its paler purple daisies, and its lads and lasses leaving or seeking service and winding along between the yellow hedges, with their bundles under their arms.",3 "But though Michaelmas was come, Mr. Thurle, that desirable tenant, did not come to the Chase Farm, and the old squire, after all, had been obliged to put in a new bailiff.",3 "It was known throughout the two parishes that the squire's plan had been frustrated because the Poysers had refused to be ""put upon,"" and Mrs. Poyser's outbreak was discussed in all the farm-houses with a zest which was only heightened by frequent repetition.",1 "The news that ""Bony"" was come back from Egypt was comparatively insipid, and the repulse of the French in Italy was nothing to Mrs. Poyser's repulse of the old squire.",1 "Mr. Irwine had heard a version of it in every parishioner's house, with the one exception of the Chase.",2 "But since he had always, with marvellous skill, avoided any quarrel with Mr. Donnithorne, he could not allow himself the pleasure of laughing at the old gentleman's discomfiture with any one besides his mother, who declared that if she were rich she should like to allow Mrs. Poyser a pension for life, and wanted to invite her to the parsonage that she might hear an account of the scene from Mrs. Poyser's own lips.",4 """No, no, Mother,"" said Mr. Irwine; ""it was a little bit of irregular justice on Mrs. Poyser's part, but a magistrate like me must not countenance irregular justice.",2 "There must be no report spread that I have taken notice of the quarrel, else I shall lose the little good influence I have over the old man.""",1 """Well, I like that woman even better than her cream-cheeses,"" said Mrs. Irwine.",4 """She has the spirit of three men, with that pale face of hers.",1 "And she says such sharp things too.""",3 """Sharp!",3 "Yes, her tongue is like a new-set razor.",3 She's quite original in her talk too; one of those untaught wits that help to stock a country with proverbs.,2 "I told you that capital thing I heard her say about Craig--that he was like a cock, who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.",3 "Now that's an AEsop's fable in a sentence.""",2 """But it will be a bad business if the old gentleman turns them out of the farm next Michaelmas, eh?""",1 said Mrs. Irwine.,2 """Oh, that must not be; and Poyser is such a good tenant that Donnithorne is likely to think twice, and digest his spleen rather than turn them out.",3 "But if he should give them notice at Lady Day, Arthur and I must move heaven and earth to mollify him.",3 "Such old parishioners as they are must not go.""",2 """Ah, there's no knowing what may happen before Lady day,"" said Mrs. Irwine.",2 """It struck me on Arthur's birthday that the old man was a little shaken: he's eighty-three, you know.",1 It's really an unconscionable age.,2 "It's only women who have a right to live as long as that.""",3 """When they've got old-bachelor sons who would be forlorn without them,"" said Mr. Irwine, laughing, and kissing his mother's hand.",1 "Mrs. Poyser, too, met her husband's occasional forebodings of a notice to quit with ""There's no knowing what may happen before Lady day""--one of those undeniable general propositions which are usually intended to convey a particular meaning very far from undeniable.",2 But it is really too hard upon human nature that it should be held a criminal offence to imagine the death even of the king when he is turned eighty-three.,0 It is not to be believed that any but the dullest Britons can be good subjects under that hard condition.,2 "Apart from this foreboding, things went on much as usual in the Poyser household.",1 Mrs. Poyser thought she noticed a surprising improvement in Hetty.,3 "To be sure, the girl got ""closer tempered, and sometimes she seemed as if there'd be no drawing a word from her with cart-ropes,"" but she thought much less about her dress, and went after the work quite eagerly, without any telling.",3 "And it was wonderful how she never wanted to go out now--indeed, could hardly be persuaded to go; and she bore her aunt's putting a stop to her weekly lesson in fine-work at the Chase without the least grumbling or pouting.",3 "It must be, after all, that she had set her heart on Adam at last, and her sudden freak of wanting to be a lady's maid must have been caused by some little pique or misunderstanding between them, which had passed by.",0 "For whenever Adam came to the Hall Farm, Hetty seemed to be in better spirits and to talk more than at other times, though she was almost sullen when Mr. Craig or any other admirer happened to pay a visit there.",3 "Adam himself watched her at first with trembling anxiety, which gave way to surprise and delicious hope.",2 "Five days after delivering Arthur's letter, he had ventured to go to the Hall Farm again--not without dread lest the sight of him might be painful to her.",1 "She was not in the house-place when he entered, and he sat talking to Mr. and Mrs. Poyser for a few minutes with a heavy fear on his heart that they might presently tell him Hetty was ill.",1 "But by and by there came a light step that he knew, and when Mrs. Poyser said, ""Come, Hetty, where have you been?""",2 "Adam was obliged to turn round, though he was afraid to see the changed look there must be in her face.",1 "He almost started when he saw her smiling as if she were pleased to see him--looking the same as ever at a first glance, only that she had her cap on, which he had never seen her in before when he came of an evening.",3 "Still, when he looked at her again and again as she moved about or sat at her work, there was a change: the cheeks were as pink as ever, and she smiled as much as she had ever done of late, but there was something different in her eyes, in the expression of her face, in all her movements, Adam thought--something harder, older, less child-like.",3 """Poor thing!""",1 "he said to himself, ""that's allays likely.",2 It's because she's had her first heartache.,2 But she's got a spirit to bear up under it.,2 "Thank God for that.""",3 "As the weeks went by, and he saw her always looking pleased to see him--turning up her lovely face towards him as if she meant him to understand that she was glad for him to come--and going about her work in the same equable way, making no sign of sorrow, he began to believe that her feeling towards Arthur must have been much slighter than he had imagined in his first indignation and alarm, and that she had been able to think of her girlish fancy that Arthur was in love with her and would marry her as a folly of which she was timely cured.",4 "And it perhaps was, as he had sometimes in his more cheerful moments hoped it would be--her heart was really turning with all the more warmth towards the man she knew to have a serious love for her.",4 "Possibly you think that Adam was not at all sagacious in his interpretations, and that it was altogether extremely unbecoming in a sensible man to behave as he did--falling in love with a girl who really had nothing more than her beauty to recommend her, attributing imaginary virtues to her, and even condescending to cleave to her after she had fallen in love with another man, waiting for her kind looks as a patient trembling dog waits for his master's eye to be turned upon him.",3 "But in so complex a thing as human nature, we must consider, it is hard to find rules without exceptions.",1 "Of course, I know that, as a rule, sensible men fall in love with the most sensible women of their acquaintance, see through all the pretty deceits of coquettish beauty, never imagine themselves loved when they are not loved, cease loving on all proper occasions, and marry the woman most fitted for them in every respect--indeed, so as to compel the approbation of all the maiden ladies in their neighbourhood.",4 "But even to this rule an exception will occur now and then in the lapse of centuries, and my friend Adam was one.",1 "For my own part, however, I respect him none the less--nay, I think the deep love he had for that sweet, rounded, blossom-like, dark-eyed Hetty, of whose inward self he was really very ignorant, came out of the very strength of his nature and not out of any inconsistent weakness.",3 "Is it any weakness, pray, to be wrought on by exquisite music?",1 "To feel its wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings of your soul, the delicate fibres of life where no memory can penetrate, and binding together your whole being past and present in one unspeakable vibration, melting you in one moment with all the tenderness, all the love that has been scattered through the toilsome years, concentrating in one emotion of heroic courage or resignation all the hard-learnt lessons of self-renouncing sympathy, blending your present joy with past sorrow and your present sorrow with all your past joy?",2 "If not, then neither is it a weakness to be so wrought upon by the exquisite curves of a woman's cheek and neck and arms, by the liquid depths of her beseeching eyes, or the sweet childish pout of her lips.",1 For the beauty of a lovely woman is like music: what can one say more?,4 "Beauty has an expression beyond and far above the one woman's soul that it clothes, as the words of genius have a wider meaning than the thought that prompted them.",3 "It is more than a woman's love that moves us in a woman's eyes--it seems to be a far-off mighty love that has come near to us, and made speech for itself there; the rounded neck, the dimpled arm, move us by something more than their prettiness--by their close kinship with all we have known of tenderness and peace.",3 "The noblest nature sees the most of this impersonal expression in beauty (it is needless to say that there are gentlemen with whiskers dyed and undyed who see none of it whatever), and for this reason, the noblest nature is often the most blinded to the character of the one woman's soul that the beauty clothes.",1 "Whence, I fear, the tragedy of human life is likely to continue for a long time to come, in spite of mental philosophers who are ready with the best receipts for avoiding all mistakes of the kind.",1 "Our good Adam had no fine words into which he could put his feeling for Hetty: he could not disguise mystery in this way with the appearance of knowledge; he called his love frankly a mystery, as you have heard him.",3 "He only knew that the sight and memory of her moved him deeply, touching the spring of all love and tenderness, all faith and courage within him.",3 "How could he imagine narrowness, selfishness, hardness in her?",1 "He created the mind he believed in out of his own, which was large, unselfish, tender.",3 The hopes he felt about Hetty softened a little his feeling towards Arthur.,2 "Surely his attentions to Hetty must have been of a slight kind; they were altogether wrong, and such as no man in Arthur's position ought to have allowed himself, but they must have had an air of playfulness about them, which had probably blinded him to their danger and had prevented them from laying any strong hold on Hetty's heart.",1 "As the new promise of happiness rose for Adam, his indignation and jealousy began to die out.",1 "Hetty was not made unhappy; he almost believed that she liked him best; and the thought sometimes crossed his mind that the friendship which had once seemed dead for ever might revive in the days to come, and he would not have to say ""good-bye"" to the grand old woods, but would like them better because they were Arthur's.",4 "For this new promise of happiness following so quickly on the shock of pain had an intoxicating effect on the sober Adam, who had all his life been used to much hardship and moderate hope.",1 Was he really going to have an easy lot after all?,3 "It seemed so, for at the beginning of November, Jonathan Burge, finding it impossible to replace Adam, had at last made up his mind to offer him a share in the business, without further condition than that he should continue to give his energies to it and renounce all thought of having a separate business of his own.",1 "Son-in-law or no son-in-law, Adam had made himself too necessary to be parted with, and his headwork was so much more important to Burge than his skill in handicraft that his having the management of the woods made little difference in the value of his services; and as to the bargains about the squire's timber, it would be easy to call in a third person.",4 "Adam saw here an opening into a broadening path of prosperous work such as he had thought of with ambitious longing ever since he was a lad: he might come to build a bridge, or a town hall, or a factory, for he had always said to himself that Jonathan Burge's building business was like an acorn, which might be the mother of a great tree.",4 "So he gave his hand to Burge on that bargain, and went home with his mind full of happy visions, in which (my refined reader will perhaps be shocked when I say it) the image of Hetty hovered, and smiled over plans for seasoning timber at a trifling expense, calculations as to the cheapening of bricks per thousand by water-carriage, and a favourite scheme for the strengthening of roofs and walls with a peculiar form of iron girder.",3 What then?,2 "Adam's enthusiasm lay in these things; and our love is inwrought in our enthusiasm as electricity is inwrought in the air, exalting its power by a subtle presence.",4 "Adam would be able to take a separate house now, and provide for his mother in the old one; his prospects would justify his marrying very soon, and if Dinah consented to have Seth, their mother would perhaps be more contented to live apart from Adam.",2 But he told himself that he would not be hasty--he would not try Hetty's feeling for him until it had had time to grow strong and firm.,2 "However, tomorrow, after church, he would go to the Hall Farm and tell them the news.",2 "Mr. Poyser, he knew, would like it better than a five-pound note, and he should see if Hetty's eyes brightened at it.",3 "The months would be short with all he had to fill his mind, and this foolish eagerness which had come over him of late must not hurry him into any premature words.",2 "Yet when he got home and told his mother the good news, and ate his supper, while she sat by almost crying for joy and wanting him to eat twice as much as usual because of this good-luck, he could not help preparing her gently for the coming change by talking of the old house being too small for them all to go on living in it always.",4 "IT was a dry Sunday, and really a pleasant day for the 2d of November.",3 "There was no sunshine, but the clouds were high, and the wind was so still that the yellow leaves which fluttered down from the hedgerow elms must have fallen from pure decay.",1 "Nevertheless, Mrs. Poyser did not go to church, for she had taken a cold too serious to be neglected; only two winters ago she had been laid up for weeks with a cold; and since his wife did not go to church, Mr. Poyser considered that on the whole it would be as well for him to stay away too and ""keep her company.""",1 "He could perhaps have given no precise form to the reasons that determined this conclusion, but it is well known to all experienced minds that our firmest convictions are often dependent on subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium.",3 "However it was, no one from the Poyser family went to church that afternoon except Hetty and the boys; yet Adam was bold enough to join them after church, and say that he would walk home with them, though all the way through the village he appeared to be chiefly occupied with Marty and Tommy, telling them about the squirrels in Binton Coppice, and promising to take them there some day.",3 "But when they came to the fields he said to the boys, ""Now, then, which is the stoutest walker?",2 Him as gets to th' home-gate first shall be the first to go with me to Binton Coppice on the donkey.,2 "But Tommy must have the start up to the next stile, because he's the smallest.""",2 Adam had never behaved so much like a determined lover before.,3 "As soon as the boys had both set off, he looked down at Hetty and said, ""Won't you hang on my arm, Hetty?""",1 "in a pleading tone, as if he had already asked her and she had refused.",1 Hetty looked up at him smilingly and put her round arm through his in a moment.,3 "It was nothing to her, putting her arm through Adam's, but she knew he cared a great deal about having her arm through his, and she wished him to care.",3 "Her heart beat no faster, and she looked at the half-bare hedgerows and the ploughed field with the same sense of oppressive dulness as before.",2 But Adam scarcely felt that he was walking.,1 He thought Hetty must know that he was pressing her arm a little--a very little.,2 Words rushed to his lips that he dared not utter--that he had made up his mind not to utter yet--and so he was silent for the length of that field.,3 "The calm patience with which he had once waited for Hetty's love, content only with her presence and the thought of the future, had forsaken him since that terrible shock nearly three months ago.",2 The agitations of jealousy had given a new restlessness to his passion--had made fear and uncertainty too hard almost to bear.,0 "But though he might not speak to Hetty of his love, he would tell her about his new prospects and see if she would be pleased.",3 "So when he was enough master of himself to talk, he said, ""I'm going to tell your uncle some news that'll surprise him, Hetty; and I think he'll be glad to hear it too.""",4 """What's that?""",2 Hetty said indifferently.,2 """Why, Mr. Burge has offered me a share in his business, and I'm going to take it.""",2 "There was a change in Hetty's face, certainly not produced by any agreeable impression from this news.",3 "In fact she felt a momentary annoyance and alarm, for she had so often heard it hinted by her uncle that Adam might have Mary Burge and a share in the business any day, if he liked, that she associated the two objects now, and the thought immediately occurred that perhaps Adam had given her up because of what had happened lately, and had turned towards Mary Burge.",1 "With that thought, and before she had time to remember any reasons why it could not be true, came a new sense of forsakenness and disappointment.",1 "The one thing--the one person--her mind had rested on in its dull weariness, had slipped away from her, and peevish misery filled her eyes with tears.",0 "She was looking on the ground, but Adam saw her face, saw the tears, and before he had finished saying, ""Hetty, dear Hetty, what are you crying for?""",2 "his eager rapid thought had flown through all the causes conceivable to him, and had at last alighted on half the true one.",3 Hetty thought he was going to marry Mary Burge--she didn't like him to marry--perhaps she didn't like him to marry any one but herself?,3 "All caution was swept away--all reason for it was gone, and Adam could feel nothing but trembling joy.",3 "He leaned towards her and took her hand, as he said: ""I could afford to be married now, Hetty--I could make a wife comfortable; but I shall never want to be married if you won't have me.""",3 "Hetty looked up at him and smiled through her tears, as she had done to Arthur that first evening in the wood, when she had thought he was not coming, and yet he came.",2 "It was a feebler relief, a feebler triumph she felt now, but the great dark eyes and the sweet lips were as beautiful as ever, perhaps more beautiful, for there was a more luxuriant womanliness about Hetty of late.",4 Adam could hardly believe in the happiness of that moment.,3 "His right hand held her left, and he pressed her arm close against his heart as he leaned down towards her.",3 """Do you really love me, Hetty?",3 "Will you be my own wife, to love and take care of as long as I live?""",3 "Hetty did not speak, but Adam's face was very close to hers, and she put up her round cheek against his, like a kitten.",3 She wanted to be caressed--she wanted to feel as if Arthur were with her again.,2 "Adam cared for no words after that, and they hardly spoke through the rest of the walk.",2 "He only said, ""I may tell your uncle and aunt, mayn't I, Hetty?""",2 "and she said, ""Yes.""",2 "The red fire-light on the hearth at the Hall Farm shone on joyful faces that evening, when Hetty was gone upstairs and Adam took the opportunity of telling Mr. and Mrs. Poyser and the grandfather that he saw his way to maintaining a wife now, and that Hetty had consented to have him.",3 """I hope you have no objections against me for her husband,"" said Adam; ""I'm a poor man as yet, but she shall want nothing as I can work for.""",1 """Objections?""",1 "said Mr. Poyser, while the grandfather leaned forward and brought out his long ""Nay, nay.""",2 """What objections can we ha' to you, lad?",1 "Never mind your being poorish as yet; there's money in your head-piece as there's money i' the sown field, but it must ha' time.",2 "You'n got enough to begin on, and we can do a deal tow'rt the bit o' furniture you'll want.",3 "Thee'st got feathers and linen to spare--plenty, eh?""",2 "This question was of course addressed to Mrs. Poyser, who was wrapped up in a warm shawl and was too hoarse to speak with her usual facility.",3 "At first she only nodded emphatically, but she was presently unable to resist the temptation to be more explicit.",0 """It ud be a poor tale if I hadna feathers and linen,"" she said, hoarsely, ""when I never sell a fowl but what's plucked, and the wheel's a-going every day o' the week.""",1 """Come, my wench,"" said Mr. Poyser, when Hetty came down, ""come and kiss us, and let us wish you luck.""",3 Hetty went very quietly and kissed the big good-natured man.,3 """There!""",2 "he said, patting her on the back, ""go and kiss your aunt and your grandfather.",2 "I'm as wishful t' have you settled well as if you was my own daughter; and so's your aunt, I'll be bound, for she's done by you this seven 'ear, Hetty, as if you'd been her own.",3 "Come, come, now,"" he went on, becoming jocose, as soon as Hetty had kissed her aunt and the old man, ""Adam wants a kiss too, I'll warrant, and he's a right to one now.""",3 "Hetty turned away, smiling, towards her empty chair.",3 """Come, Adam, then, take one,"" persisted Mr. Poyser, ""else y' arena half a man.""",2 "Adam got up, blushing like a small maiden--great strong fellow as he was--and, putting his arm round Hetty stooped down and gently kissed her lips.",4 "It was a pretty scene in the red fire-light; for there were no candles--why should there be, when the fire was so bright and was reflected from all the pewter and the polished oak?",4 No one wanted to work on a Sunday evening.,3 Even Hetty felt something like contentment in the midst of all this love.,4 "Adam's attachment to her, Adam's caress, stirred no passion in her, were no longer enough to satisfy her vanity, but they were the best her life offered her now--they promised her some change.",4 "There was a great deal of discussion before Adam went away, about the possibility of his finding a house that would do for him to settle in.",3 "No house was empty except the one next to Will Maskery's in the village, and that was too small for Adam now.",2 "Mr. Poyser insisted that the best plan would be for Seth and his mother to move and leave Adam in the old home, which might be enlarged after a while, for there was plenty of space in the woodyard and garden; but Adam objected to turning his mother out.",3 """Well, well,"" said Mr. Poyser at last, ""we needna fix everything to-night.",3 We must take time to consider.,2 You canna think o' getting married afore Easter.,2 "I'm not for long courtships, but there must be a bit o' time to make things comfortable.""",3 """Aye, to be sure,"" said Mrs. Poyser, in a hoarse whisper; ""Christian folks can't be married like cuckoos, I reckon.""",3 """I'm a bit daunted, though,"" said Mr. Poyser, ""when I think as we may have notice to quit, and belike be forced to take a farm twenty mile off.""",2 """Eh,"" said the old man, staring at the floor and lifting his hands up and down, while his arms rested on the elbows of his chair, ""it's a poor tale if I mun leave th' ould spot an be buried in a strange parish.",1 "An' you'll happen ha' double rates to pay,"" he added, looking up at his son.",2 """Well, thee mustna fret beforehand, father,"" said Martin the younger.",2 """Happen the captain 'ull come home and make our peace wi' th' old squire.",3 "I build upo' that, for I know the captain 'll see folks righted if he can.""",2 "IT was a busy time for Adam--the time between the beginning of November and the beginning of February, and he could see little of Hetty, except on Sundays.",2 "But a happy time, nevertheless, for it was taking him nearer and nearer to March, when they were to be married, and all the little preparations for their new housekeeping marked the progress towards the longed-for day.",3 "Two new rooms had been ""run up"" to the old house, for his mother and Seth were to live with them after all.",2 "Lisbeth had cried so piteously at the thought of leaving Adam that he had gone to Hetty and asked her if, for the love of him, she would put up with his mother's ways and consent to live with her.",3 "To his great delight, Hetty said, ""Yes; I'd as soon she lived with us as not.""",3 Hetty's mind was oppressed at that moment with a worse difficulty than poor Lisbeth's ways; she could not care about them.,0 "So Adam was consoled for the disappointment he had felt when Seth had come back from his visit to Snowfield and said ""it was no use--Dinah's heart wasna turned towards marrying.""",1 "For when he told his mother that Hetty was willing they should all live together and there was no more need of them to think of parting, she said, in a more contented tone than he had heard her speak in since it had been settled that he was to be married, ""Eh, my lad, I'll be as still as th' ould tabby, an' ne'er want to do aught but th' offal work, as she wonna like t' do.",4 "An' then we needna part the platters an' things, as ha' stood on the shelf together sin' afore thee wast born.""",2 There was only one cloud that now and then came across Adam's sunshine: Hetty seemed unhappy sometimes.,1 "But to all his anxious, tender questions, she replied with an assurance that she was quite contented and wished nothing different; and the next time he saw her she was more lively than usual.",3 "It might be that she was a little overdone with work and anxiety now, for soon after Christmas Mrs. Poyser had taken another cold, which had brought on inflammation, and this illness had confined her to her room all through January.",0 "Hetty had to manage everything downstairs, and half-supply Molly's place too, while that good damsel waited on her mistress, and she seemed to throw herself so entirely into her new functions, working with a grave steadiness which was new in her, that Mr. Poyser often told Adam she was wanting to show him what a good housekeeper he would have; but he ""doubted the lass was o'erdoing it--she must have a bit o' rest when her aunt could come downstairs.""",3 "This desirable event of Mrs. Poyser's coming downstairs happened in the early part of February, when some mild weather thawed the last patch of snow on the Binton Hills.",3 "On one of these days, soon after her aunt came down, Hetty went to Treddleston to buy some of the wedding things which were wanting, and which Mrs. Poyser had scolded her for neglecting, observing that she supposed ""it was because they were not for th' outside, else she'd ha' bought 'em fast enough.""",3 "It was about ten o'clock when Hetty set off, and the slight hoar-frost that had whitened the hedges in the early morning had disappeared as the sun mounted the cloudless sky.",1 Bright February days have a stronger charm of hope about them than any other days in the year.,4 "One likes to pause in the mild rays of the sun, and look over the gates at the patient plough-horses turning at the end of the furrow, and think that the beautiful year is all before one.",4 The birds seem to feel just the same: their notes are as clear as the clear air.,3 "There are no leaves on the trees and hedgerows, but how green all the grassy fields are!",2 And the dark purplish brown of the ploughed earth and of the bare branches is beautiful too.,2 "What a glad world this looks like, as one drives or rides along the valleys and over the hills!",3 "I have often thought so when, in foreign countries, where the fields and woods have looked to me like our English Loamshire--the rich land tilled with just as much care, the woods rolling down the gentle slopes to the green meadows--I have come on something by the roadside which has reminded me that I am not in Loamshire: an image of a great agony--the agony of the Cross.",4 "It has stood perhaps by the clustering apple-blossoms, or in the broad sunshine by the cornfield, or at a turning by the wood where a clear brook was gurgling below; and surely, if there came a traveller to this world who knew nothing of the story of man's life upon it, this image of agony would seem to him strangely out of place in the midst of this joyous nature.",2 "He would not know that hidden behind the apple-blossoms, or among the golden corn, or under the shrouding boughs of the wood, there might be a human heart beating heavily with anguish--perhaps a young blooming girl, not knowing where to turn for refuge from swift-advancing shame, understanding no more of this life of ours than a foolish lost lamb wandering farther and farther in the nightfall on the lonely heath, yet tasting the bitterest of life's bitterness.",0 "Such things are sometimes hidden among the sunny fields and behind the blossoming orchards; and the sound of the gurgling brook, if you came close to one spot behind a small bush, would be mingled for your ear with a despairing human sob.",1 No wonder man's religion has much sorrow in it: no wonder he needs a suffering God.,1 "Hetty, in her red cloak and warm bonnet, with her basket in her hand, is turning towards a gate by the side of the Treddleston road, but not that she may have a more lingering enjoyment of the sunshine and think with hope of the long unfolding year.",3 "She hardly knows that the sun is shining; and for weeks, now, when she has hoped at all, it has been for something at which she herself trembles and shudders.",2 "She only wants to be out of the high-road, that she may walk slowly and not care how her face looks, as she dwells on wretched thoughts; and through this gate she can get into a field-path behind the wide thick hedgerows.",1 "Her great dark eyes wander blankly over the fields like the eyes of one who is desolate, homeless, unloved, not the promised bride of a brave tender man.",4 "But there are no tears in them: her tears were all wept away in the weary night, before she went to sleep.",1 "At the next stile the pathway branches off: there are two roads before her--one along by the hedgerow, which will by and by lead her into the road again, the other across the fields, which will take her much farther out of the way into the Scantlands, low shrouded pastures where she will see nobody.",2 "She chooses this and begins to walk a little faster, as if she had suddenly thought of an object towards which it was worth while to hasten.",3 "Soon she is in the Scantlands, where the grassy land slopes gradually downwards, and she leaves the level ground to follow the slope.",2 "Farther on there is a clump of trees on the low ground, and she is making her way towards it.",2 "No, it is not a clump of trees, but a dark shrouded pool, so full with the wintry rains that the under boughs of the elder-bushes lie low beneath the water.",0 "She sits down on the grassy bank, against the stooping stem of the great oak that hangs over the dark pool.",1 "She has thought of this pool often in the nights of the month that has just gone by, and now at last she is come to see it.",2 "She clasps her hands round her knees, and leans forward, and looks earnestly at it, as if trying to guess what sort of bed it would make for her young round limbs.",3 "No, she has not courage to jump into that cold watery bed, and if she had, they might find her--they might find out why she had drowned herself.",2 "There is but one thing left to her: she must go away, go where they can't find her.",2 "After the first on-coming of her great dread, some weeks after her betrothal to Adam, she had waited and waited, in the blind vague hope that something would happen to set her free from her terror; but she could wait no longer.",1 "All the force of her nature had been concentrated on the one effort of concealment, and she had shrunk with irresistible dread from every course that could tend towards a betrayal of her miserable secret.",1 "Whenever the thought of writing to Arthur had occurred to her, she had rejected it.",1 "He could do nothing for her that would shelter her from discovery and scorn among the relatives and neighbours who once more made all her world, now her airy dream had vanished.",1 "Her imagination no longer saw happiness with Arthur, for he could do nothing that would satisfy or soothe her pride.",4 "No, something else would happen--something must happen--to set her free from this dread.",2 "In young, childish, ignorant souls there is constantly this blind trust in some unshapen chance: it is as hard to a boy or girl to believe that a great wretchedness will actually befall them as to believe that they will die.",0 But now necessity was pressing hard upon her--now the time of her marriage was close at hand--she could no longer rest in this blind trust.,1 "She must run away; she must hide herself where no familiar eyes could detect her; and then the terror of wandering out into the world, of which she knew nothing, made the possibility of going to Arthur a thought which brought some comfort with it.",2 "She felt so helpless now, so unable to fashion the future for herself, that the prospect of throwing herself on him had a relief in it which was stronger than her pride.",3 "As she sat by the pool and shuddered at the dark cold water, the hope that he would receive her tenderly--that he would care for her and think for her--was like a sense of lulling warmth, that made her for the moment indifferent to everything else; and she began now to think of nothing but the scheme by which she should get away.",2 "She had had a letter from Dinah lately, full of kind words about the coming marriage, which she had heard of from Seth; and when Hetty had read this letter aloud to her uncle, he had said, ""I wish Dinah 'ud come again now, for she'd be a comfort to your aunt when you're gone.",3 "What do you think, my wench, o' going to see her as soon as you can be spared and persuading her to come back wi' you?",2 "You might happen persuade her wi' telling her as her aunt wants her, for all she writes o' not being able to come.""",2 "Hetty had not liked the thought of going to Snowfield, and felt no longing to see Dinah, so she only said, ""It's so far off, Uncle.""",2 But now she thought this proposed visit would serve as a pretext for going away.,2 She would tell her aunt when she got home again that she should like the change of going to Snowfield for a week or ten days.,3 "And then, when she got to Stoniton, where nobody knew her, she would ask for the coach that would take her on the way to Windsor.",2 "Arthur was at Windsor, and she would go to him.",2 "As soon as Hetty had determined on this scheme, she rose from the grassy bank of the pool, took up her basket, and went on her way to Treddleston, for she must buy the wedding things she had come out for, though she would never want them.",2 She must be careful not to raise any suspicion that she was going to run away.,1 Mrs. Poyser was quite agreeably surprised that Hetty wished to go and see Dinah and try to bring her back to stay over the wedding.,3 "The sooner she went the better, since the weather was pleasant now; and Adam, when he came in the evening, said, if Hetty could set off to-morrow, he would make time to go with her to Treddleston and see her safe into the Stoniton coach.",4 """I wish I could go with you and take care of you, Hetty,"" he said, the next morning, leaning in at the coach door; ""but you won't stay much beyond a week--the time 'ull seem long.""",2 "He was looking at her fondly, and his strong hand held hers in its grasp.",3 Hetty felt a sense of protection in his presence--she was used to it now: if she could have had the past undone and known no other love than her quiet liking for Adam!,4 The tears rose as she gave him the last look.,2 """God bless her for loving me,"" said Adam, as he went on his way to work again, with Gyp at his heels.",4 But Hetty's tears were not for Adam--not for the anguish that would come upon him when he found she was gone from him for ever.,1 "They were for the misery of her own lot, which took her away from this brave tender man who offered up his whole life to her, and threw her, a poor helpless suppliant, on the man who would think it a misfortune that she was obliged to cling to him.",1 "At three o'clock that day, when Hetty was on the coach that was to take her, they said, to Leicester--part of the long, long way to Windsor--she felt dimly that she might be travelling all this weary journey towards the beginning of new misery.",1 Yet Arthur was at Windsor; he would surely not be angry with her.,1 "If he did not mind about her as he used to do, he had promised to be good to her.",3 "A LONG, lonely journey, with sadness in the heart; away from the familiar to the strange: that is a hard and dreary thing even to the rich, the strong, the instructed; a hard thing, even when we are called by duty, not urged by dread.",0 What was it then to Hetty?,2 "With her poor narrow thoughts, no longer melting into vague hopes, but pressed upon by the chill of definite fear, repeating again and again the same small round of memories--shaping again and again the same childish, doubtful images of what was to come--seeing nothing in this wide world but the little history of her own pleasures and pains; with so little money in her pocket, and the way so long and difficult.",0 "Unless she could afford always to go in the coaches--and she felt sure she could not, for the journey to Stoniton was more expensive than she had expected--it was plain that she must trust to carriers' carts or slow waggons; and what a time it would be before she could get to the end of her journey!",2 "The burly old coachman from Oakbourne, seeing such a pretty young woman among the outside passengers, had invited her to come and sit beside him; and feeling that it became him as a man and a coachman to open the dialogue with a joke, he applied himself as soon as they were off the stones to the elaboration of one suitable in all respects.",3 "After many cuts with his whip and glances at Hetty out of the corner of his eye, he lifted his lips above the edge of his wrapper and said, ""He's pretty nigh six foot, I'll be bound, isna he, now?""",3 """Who?""",2 "said Hetty, rather startled.",2 """Why, the sweetheart as you've left behind, or else him as you're goin' arter--which is it?""",3 Hetty felt her face flushing and then turning pale.,1 She thought this coachman must know something about her.,2 "He must know Adam, and might tell him where she was gone, for it is difficult to country people to believe that those who make a figure in their own parish are not known everywhere else, and it was equally difficult to Hetty to understand that chance words could happen to apply closely to her circumstances.",1 She was too frightened to speak.,2 """Hegh, hegh!""",2 "said the coachman, seeing that his joke was not so gratifying as he had expected, ""you munna take it too ser'ous; if he's behaved ill, get another.",2 "Such a pretty lass as you can get a sweetheart any day.""",3 "Hetty's fear was allayed by and by, when she found that the coachman made no further allusion to her personal concerns; but it still had the effect of preventing her from asking him what were the places on the road to Windsor.",1 "She told him she was only going a little way out of Stoniton, and when she got down at the inn where the coach stopped, she hastened away with her basket to another part of the town.",2 "When she had formed her plan of going to Windsor, she had not foreseen any difficulties except that of getting away, and after she had overcome this by proposing the visit to Dinah, her thoughts flew to the meeting with Arthur and the question how he would behave to her--not resting on any probable incidents of the journey.",1 "She was too entirely ignorant of traveling to imagine any of its details, and with all her store of money--her three guineas--in her pocket, she thought herself amply provided.",2 "It was not until she found how much it cost her to get to Stoniton that she began to be alarmed about the journey, and then, for the first time, she felt her ignorance as to the places that must be passed on her way.",1 "Oppressed with this new alarm, she walked along the grim Stoniton streets, and at last turned into a shabby little inn, where she hoped to get a cheap lodging for the night.",0 "Here she asked the landlord if he could tell her what places she must go to, to get to Windsor.",2 """Well, I can't rightly say.",3 "Windsor must be pretty nigh London, for it's where the king lives,"" was the answer.",3 """Anyhow, you'd best go t' Ashby next--that's south'ard.",3 "But there's as many places from here to London as there's houses in Stoniton, by what I can make out.",2 I've never been no traveller myself.,2 "But how comes a lone young woman like you to be thinking o' taking such a journey as that?""",2 """I'm going to my brother--he's a soldier at Windsor,"" said Hetty, frightened at the landlord's questioning look.",2 """I can't afford to go by the coach; do you think there's a cart goes toward Ashby in the morning?""",3 """Yes, there may be carts if anybody knowed where they started from; but you might run over the town before you found out.",2 "You'd best set off and walk, and trust to summat overtaking you.""",4 Every word sank like lead on Hetty's spirits; she saw the journey stretch bit by bit before her now.,3 "Even to get to Ashby seemed a hard thing: it might take the day, for what she knew, and that was nothing to the rest of the journey.",1 But it must be done--she must get to Arthur.,2 "Oh, how she yearned to be again with somebody who would care for her!",2 "She who had never got up in the morning without the certainty of seeing familiar faces, people on whom she had an acknowledged claim; whose farthest journey had been to Rosseter on the pillion with her uncle; whose thoughts had always been taking holiday in dreams of pleasure, because all the business of her life was managed for her--this kittenlike Hetty, who till a few months ago had never felt any other grief than that of envying Mary Burge a new ribbon, or being girded at by her aunt for neglecting Totty, must now make her toilsome way in loneliness, her peaceful home left behind for ever, and nothing but a tremulous hope of distant refuge before her.",2 "Now for the first time, as she lay down to-night in the strange hard bed, she felt that her home had been a happy one, that her uncle had been very good to her, that her quiet lot at Hayslope among the things and people she knew, with her little pride in her one best gown and bonnet, and nothing to hide from any one, was what she would like to wake up to as a reality, and find that all the feverish life she had known besides was a short nightmare.",3 She thought of all she had left behind with yearning regret for her own sake.,1 Her own misery filled her heart--there was no room in it for other people's sorrow.,1 "And yet, before the cruel letter, Arthur had been so tender and loving.",3 "The memory of that had still a charm for her, though it was no more than a soothing draught that just made pain bearable.",2 "For Hetty could conceive no other existence for herself in future than a hidden one, and a hidden life, even with love, would have had no delights for her; still less a life mingled with shame.",2 "She knew no romances, and had only a feeble share in the feelings which are the source of romance, so that well-read ladies may find it difficult to understand her state of mind.",1 "She was too ignorant of everything beyond the simple notions and habits in which she had been brought up to have any more definite idea of her probable future than that Arthur would take care of her somehow, and shelter her from anger and scorn.",0 He would not marry her and make her a lady; and apart from that she could think of nothing he could give towards which she looked with longing and ambition.,1 "The next morning she rose early, and taking only some milk and bread for her breakfast, set out to walk on the road towards Ashby, under a leaden-coloured sky, with a narrowing streak of yellow, like a departing hope, on the edge of the horizon.",3 "Now in her faintness of heart at the length and difficulty of her journey, she was most of all afraid of spending her money, and becoming so destitute that she would have to ask people's charity; for Hettv had the pride not only of a proud nature but of a proud class--the class that pays the most poor-rates, and most shudders at the idea of profiting by a poor-rate.",1 "It had not yet occurred to her that she might get money for her locket and earrings which she carried with her, and she applied all her small arithmetic and knowledge of prices to calculating how many meals and how many rides were contained in her two guineas, and the odd shillings, which had a melancholy look, as if they were the pale ashes of the other bright-flaming coin.",1 "For the first few miles out of Stoniton, she walked on bravely, always fixing on some tree or gate or projecting bush at the most distant visible point in the road as a goal, and feeling a faint joy when she had reached it.",2 "But when she came to the fourth milestone, the first she had happened to notice among the long grass by the roadside, and read that she was still only four miles beyond Stoniton, her courage sank.",3 "She had come only this little way, and yet felt tired, and almost hungry again in the keen morning air; for though Hetty was accustomed to much movement and exertion indoors, she was not used to long walks which produced quite a different sort of fatigue from that of household activity.",1 As she was looking at the milestone she felt some drops falling on her face--it was beginning to rain.,1 "Here was a new trouble which had not entered into her sad thoughts before, and quite weighed down by this sudden addition to her burden, she sat down on the step of a stile and began to sob hysterically.",0 "The beginning of hardship is like the first taste of bitter food--it seems for a moment unbearable; yet, if there is nothing else to satisfy our hunger, we take another bite and find it possible to go on.",1 "When Hetty recovered from her burst of weeping, she rallied her fainting courage: it was raining, and she must try to get on to a village where she might find rest and shelter.",3 "Presently, as she walked on wearily, she heard the rumbling of heavy wheels behind her; a covered waggon was coming, creeping slowly along with a slouching driver cracking his whip beside the horses.",0 "She waited for it, thinking that if the waggoner were not a very sour-looking man, she would ask him to take her up.",1 "As the waggon approached her, the driver had fallen behind, but there was something in the front of the big vehicle which encouraged her.",1 "At any previous moment in her life she would not have noticed it, but now, the new susceptibility that suffering had awakened in her caused this object to impress her strongly.",1 "It was only a small white-and-liver-coloured spaniel which sat on the front ledge of the waggon, with large timid eyes, and an incessant trembling in the body, such as you may have seen in some of these small creatures.",1 "Hetty cared little for animals, as you know, but at this moment she felt as if the helpless timid creature had some fellowship with her, and without being quite aware of the reason, she was less doubtful about speaking to the driver, who now came forward--a large ruddy man, with a sack over his shoulders, by way of scarf or mantle.",0 """Could you take me up in your waggon, if you're going towards Ashby?""",2 said Hetty.,2 """I'll pay you for it.""",2 """Aw,"" said the big fellow, with that slowly dawning smile which belongs to heavy faces, ""I can take y' up fawst enough wi'out bein' paid for't if you dooant mind lyin' a bit closish a-top o' the wool-packs.",3 Where do you coom from?,2 "And what do you want at Ashby?""",2 """I come from Stoniton.",2 "I'm going a long way--to Windsor.""",2 """What!",2 "Arter some service, or what?""",2 """Going to my brother--he's a soldier there.""",2 """Well, I'm going no furder nor Leicester--and fur enough too--but I'll take you, if you dooant mind being a bit long on the road.",3 "Th' hosses wooant feel YOUR weight no more nor they feel the little doog there, as I puck up on the road a fortni't agoo.",2 "He war lost, I b'lieve, an's been all of a tremble iver sin'.",1 "Come, gi' us your basket an' come behind and let me put y' in.""",2 "To lie on the wool-packs, with a cranny left between the curtains of the awning to let in the air, was luxury to Hetty now, and she half-slept away the hours till the driver came to ask her if she wanted to get down and have ""some victual""; he himself was going to eat his dinner at this ""public.""",2 "Late at night they reached Leicester, and so this second day of Hetty's journey was past.",2 "She had spent no money except what she had paid for her food, but she felt that this slow journeying would be intolerable for her another day, and in the morning she found her way to a coach-office to ask about the road to Windsor, and see if it would cost her too much to go part of the distance by coach again.",1 Yes!,2 "The distance was too great--the coaches were too dear--she must give them up; but the elderly clerk at the office, touched by her pretty anxious face, wrote down for her the names of the chief places she must pass through.",3 "This was the only comfort she got in Leicester, for the men stared at her as she went along the street, and for the first time in her life Hetty wished no one would look at her.",3 "She set out walking again; but this day she was fortunate, for she was soon overtaken by a carrier's cart which carried her to Hinckley, and by the help of a return chaise, with a drunken postilion--who frightened her by driving like Jehu the son of Nimshi, and shouting hilarious remarks at her, twisting himself backwards on his saddle--she was before night in the heart of woody Warwickshire: but still almost a hundred miles from Windsor, they told her.",4 "Oh what a large world it was, and what hard work for her to find her way in it!",2 "She went by mistake to Stratford-on-Avon, finding Stratford set down in her list of places, and then she was told she had come a long way out of the right road.",2 It was not till the fifth day that she got to Stony Stratford.,2 "That seems but a slight journey as you look at the map, or remember your own pleasant travels to and from the meadowy banks of the Avon.",3 But how wearily long it was to Hetty!,2 "It seemed to her as if this country of flat fields, and hedgerows, and dotted houses, and villages, and market-towns--all so much alike to her indifferent eyes--must have no end, and she must go on wandering among them for ever, waiting tired at toll-gates for some cart to come, and then finding the cart went only a little way--a very little way--to the miller's a mile off perhaps; and she hated going into the public houses, where she must go to get food and ask questions, because there were always men lounging there, who stared at her and joked her rudely.",0 Her body was very weary too with these days of new fatigue and anxiety; they had made her look more pale and worn than all the time of hidden dread she had gone through at home.,0 "When at last she reached Stony Stratford, her impatience and weariness had become too strong for her economical caution; she determined to take the coach for the rest of the way, though it should cost her all her remaining money.",2 She would need nothing at Windsor but to find Arthur.,2 "When she had paid the fare for the last coach, she had only a shilling; and as she got down at the sign of the Green Man in Windsor at twelve o'clock in the middle of the seventh day, hungry and faint, the coachman came up, and begged her to ""remember him.""",1 "She put her hand in her pocket and took out the shilling, but the tears came with the sense of exhaustion and the thought that she was giving away her last means of getting food, which she really required before she could go in search of Arthur.",1 "As she held out the shilling, she lifted up her dark tear-filled eyes to the coachman's face and said, ""Can you give me back sixpence?""",1 """No, no,"" he said, gruffly, ""never mind--put the shilling up again.""",2 "The landlord of the Green Man had stood near enough to witness this scene, and he was a man whose abundant feeding served to keep his good nature, as well as his person, in high condition.",4 And that lovely tearful face of Hetty's would have found out the sensitive fibre in most men.,3 """Come, young woman, come in,"" he said, ""and have adrop o' something; you're pretty well knocked up, I can see that.""",3 "He took her into the bar and said to his wife, ""Here, missis, take this young woman into the parlour; she's a little overcome""--for Hetty's tears were falling fast.",2 "They were merely hysterical tears: she thought she had no reason for weeping now, and was vexed that she was too weak and tired to help it.",0 "She was at Windsor at last, not far from Arthur.",2 "She looked with eager, hungry eyes at the bread and meat and beer that the landlady brought her, and for some minutes she forgot everything else in the delicious sensations of satisfying hunger and recovering from exhaustion.",4 "The landlady sat opposite to her as she ate, and looked at her earnestly.",3 "No wonder: Hetty had thrown off her bonnet, and her curls had fallen down.",2 "Her face was all the more touching in its youth and beauty because of its weary look, and the good woman's eyes presently wandered to her figure, which in her hurried dressing on her journey she had taken no pains to conceal; moreover, the stranger's eye detects what the familiar unsuspecting eye leaves unnoticed.",1 """Why, you're not very fit for travelling,"" she said, glancing while she spoke at Hetty's ringless hand.",2 """Have you come far?""",2 """Yes,"" said Hetty, roused by this question to exert more self-command, and feeling the better for the food she had taken.",3 """I've come a good long way, and it's very tiring.",2 But I'm better now.,3 "Could you tell me which way to go to this place?""",2 Here Hetty took from her pocket a bit of paper: it was the end of Arthur's letter on which he had written his address.,2 "While she was speaking, the landlord had come in and had begun to look at her as earnestly as his wife had done.",3 "He took up the piece of paper which Hetty handed across the table, and read the address.",2 """Why, what do you want at this house?""",2 he said.,2 It is in the nature of innkeepers and all men who have no pressing business of their own to ask as many questions as possible before giving any information.,2 """I want to see a gentleman as is there,"" said Hetty.",2 """But there's no gentleman there,"" returned the landlord.",2 """It's shut up--been shut up this fortnight.",2 What gentleman is it you want?,2 "Perhaps I can let you know where to find him.""",2 """It's Captain Donnithorne,"" said Hetty tremulously, her heart beginning to beat painfully at this disappointment of her hope that she should find Arthur at once.",1 """Captain Donnithorne?",2 "Stop a bit,"" said the landlord, slowly.",1 """Was he in the Loamshire Militia?",2 "A tall young officer with a fairish skin and reddish whiskers--and had a servant by the name o' Pym?""",2 """Oh yes,"" said Hetty; ""you know him--where is he?""",2 """A fine sight o' miles away from here.",3 "The Loamshire Militia's gone to Ireland; it's been gone this fortnight.""",2 """Look there!",2 "She's fainting,"" said the landlady, hastening to support Hetty, who had lost her miserable consciousness and looked like a beautiful corpse.",3 They carried her to the sofa and loosened her dress.,2 """Here's a bad business, I suspect,"" said the landlord, as he brought in some water.",1 """Ah, it's plain enough what sort of business it is,"" said the wife.",3 """She's not a common flaunting dratchell, I can see that.",2 "She looks like a respectable country girl, and she comes from a good way off, to judge by her tongue.",4 She talks something like that ostler we had that come from the north.,3 "He was as honest a fellow as we ever had about the house--they're all honest folks in the north.""",3 """I never saw a prettier young woman in my life,"" said the husband.",2 """She's like a pictur in a shop-winder.",3 "It goes to one's 'eart to look at her.""",2 """It 'ud have been a good deal better for her if she'd been uglier and had more conduct,"" said the landlady, who on any charitable construction must have been supposed to have more ""conduct"" than beauty.",4 """But she's coming to again.",2 "Fetch a drop more water.""",2 HETTY was too ill through the rest of that day for any questions to be addressed to her--too ill even to think with any distinctness of the evils that were to come.,1 "She only felt that all her hope was crushed, and that instead of having found a refuge she had only reached the borders of a new wilderness where no goal lay before her.",1 "The sensations of bodily sickness, in a comfortable bed, and with the tendance of the good-natured landlady, made a sort of respite for her; such a respite as there is in the faint weariness which obliges a man to throw himself on the sand instead of toiling onward under the scorching sun.",2 "But when sleep and rest had brought back the strength necessary for the keenness of mental suffering--when she lay the next morning looking at the growing light which was like a cruel task-master returning to urge from her a fresh round of hated hopeless labour--she began to think what course she must take, to remember that all her money was gone, to look at the prospect of further wandering among strangers with the new clearness shed on it by the experience of her journey to Windsor.",2 But which way could she turn?,2 "It was impossible for her to enter into any service, even if she could obtain it.",1 There was nothing but immediate beggary before her.,2 "She thought of a young woman who had been found against the church wall at Hayslope one Sunday, nearly dead with cold and hunger--a tiny infant in her arms.",1 The woman was rescued and taken to the parish.,2 """The parish!""",2 "You can perhaps hardly understand the effect of that word on a mind like Hetty's, brought up among people who were somewhat hard in their feelings even towards poverty, who lived among the fields, and had little pity for want and rags as a cruel inevitable fate such as they sometimes seem in cities, but held them a mark of idleness and vice--and it was idleness and vice that brought burdens on the parish.",0 "To Hetty the ""parish"" was next to the prison in obloquy, and to ask anything of strangers--to beg--lay in the same far-off hideous region of intolerable shame that Hetty had all her life thought it impossible she could ever come near.",0 "But now the remembrance of that wretched woman whom she had seen herself, on her way from church, being carried into Joshua Rann's, came back upon her with the new terrible sense that there was very little now to divide HER from the same lot.",1 And the dread of bodily hardship mingled with the dread of shame; for Hetty had the luxurious nature of a round soft-coated pet animal.,1 "How she yearned to be back in her safe home again, cherished and cared for as she had always been!",3 Her aunt's scolding about trifles would have been music to her ears now; she longed for it; she used to hear it in a time when she had only trifles to hide.,1 "Could she be the same Hetty that used to make up the butter in the dairy with the Guelder roses peeping in at the window--she, a runaway whom her friends would not open their doors to again, lying in this strange bed, with the knowledge that she had no money to pay for what she received, and must offer those strangers some of the clothes in her basket?",0 "It was then she thought of her locket and ear-rings, and seeing her pocket lie near, she reached it and spread the contents on the bed before her.",1 "There were the locket and ear-rings in the little velvet-lined boxes, and with them there was a beautiful silver thimble which Adam had bought her, the words ""Remember me"" making the ornament of the border; a steel purse, with her one shilling in it; and a small red-leather case, fastening with a strap.",3 "Those beautiful little ear-rings, with their delicate pearls and garnet, that she had tried in her ears with such longing in the bright sunshine on the 30th of July!",3 "She had no longing to put them in her ears now: her head with its dark rings of hair lay back languidly on the pillow, and the sadness that rested about her brow and eyes was something too hard for regretful memory.",0 "Yet she put her hands up to her ears: it was because there were some thin gold rings in them, which were also worth a little money.",3 "Yes, she could surely get some money for her ornaments: those Arthur had given her must have cost a great deal of money.",3 The landlord and landlady had been good to her; perhaps they would help her to get the money for these things.,3 But this money would not keep her long.,2 What should she do when it was gone?,2 Where should she go?,2 The horrible thought of want and beggary drove her once to think she would go back to her uncle and aunt and ask them to forgive her and have pity on her.,1 "But she shrank from that idea again, as she might have shrunk from scorching metal.",1 "She could never endure that shame before her uncle and aunt, before Mary Burge, and the servants at the Chase, and the people at Broxton, and everybody who knew her.",1 They should never know what had happened to her.,2 What could she do?,2 "She would go away from Windsor--travel again as she had done the last week, and get among the flat green fields with the high hedges round them, where nobody could see her or know her; and there, perhaps, when there was nothing else she could do, she should get courage to drown herself in some pond like that in the Scantlands.",3 "Yes, she would get away from Windsor as soon as possible: she didn't like these people at the inn to know about her, to know that she had come to look for Captain Donnithorne.",3 She must think of some reason to tell them why she had asked for him.,2 "With this thought she began to put the things back into her pocket, meaning to get up and dress before the landlady came to her.",2 "She had her hand on the red-leather case, when it occurred to her that there might be something in this case which she had forgotten--something worth selling; for without knowing what she should do with her life, she craved the means of living as long as possible; and when we desire eagerly to find something, we are apt to search for it in hopeless places.",3 "No, there was nothing but common needles and pins, and dried tulip-petals between the paper leaves where she had written down her little money-accounts.",2 "But on one of these leaves there was a name, which, often as she had seen it before, now flashed on Hetty's mind like a newly discovered message.",3 "The name was--Dinah Morris, Snowfield.",2 "There was a text above it, written, as well as the name, by Dinah's own hand with a little pencil, one evening that they were sitting together and Hetty happened to have the red case lying open before her.",2 Hetty did not read the text now: she was only arrested by the name.,2 "Now, for the first time, she remembered without indifference the affectionate kindness Dinah had shown her, and those words of Dinah in the bed-chamber--that Hetty must think of her as a friend in trouble.",2 "Suppose she were to go to Dinah, and ask her to help her?",2 Dinah did not think about things as other people did.,2 "She was a mystery to Hetty, but Hetty knew she was always kind.",1 "She couldn't imagine Dinah's face turning away from her in dark reproof or scorn, Dinah's voice willingly speaking ill of her, or rejoicing in her misery as a punishment.",1 "Dinah did not seem to belong to that world of Hetty's, whose glance she dreaded like scorching fire.",2 But even to her Hetty shrank from beseeching and confession.,1 "She could not prevail on herself to say, ""I will go to Dinah"": she only thought of that as a possible alternative, if she had not courage for death.",2 "The good landlady was amazed when she saw Hetty come downstairs soon after herself, neatly dressed, and looking resolutely self-possessed.",4 Hetty told her she was quite well this morning.,3 "She had only been very tired and overcome with her journey, for she had come a long way to ask about her brother, who had run away, and they thought he was gone for a soldier, and Captain Donnithorne might know, for he had been very kind to her brother once.",1 "It was a lame story, and the landlady looked doubtfully at Hetty as she told it; but there was a resolute air of self-reliance about her this morning, so different from the helpless prostration of yesterday, that the landlady hardly knew how to make a remark that might seem like prying into other people's affairs.",1 "She only invited her to sit down to breakfast with them, and in the course of it Hetty brought out her ear-rings and locket, and asked the landlord if he could help her to get money for them.",2 "Her journey, she said, had cost her much more than she expected, and now she had no money to get back to her friends, which she wanted to do at once.",2 "It was not the first time the landlady had seen the ornaments, for she had examined the contents of Hetty's pocket yesterday, and she and her husband had discussed the fact of a country girl having these beautiful things, with a stronger conviction than ever that Hetty had been miserably deluded by the fine young officer.",3 """Well,"" said the landlord, when Hetty had spread the precious trifles before him, ""we might take 'em to the jeweller's shop, for there's one not far off; but Lord bless you, they wouldn't give you a quarter o' what the things are worth.",4 "And you wouldn't like to part with 'em?""",3 "he added, looking at her inquiringly.",2 """Oh, I don't mind,"" said Hetty, hastily, ""so as I can get money to go back.""",1 """And they might think the things were stolen, as you wanted to sell 'em,"" he went on, ""for it isn't usual for a young woman like you to have fine jew'llery like that.""",3 The blood rushed to Hetty's face with anger.,1 """I belong to respectable folks,"" she said; ""I'm not a thief.""",3 """No, that you aren't, I'll be bound,"" said the landlady; ""and you'd no call to say that,"" looking indignantly at her husband.",1 """The things were gev to her: that's plain enough to be seen.""",3 """I didn't mean as I thought so,"" said the husband, apologetically, ""but I said it was what the jeweller might think, and so he wouldn't be offering much money for 'em.""",2 """Well,"" said the wife, ""suppose you were to advance some money on the things yourself, and then if she liked to redeem 'em when she got home, she could.",4 "But if we heard nothing from her after two months, we might do as we liked with 'em.""",3 "I will not say that in this accommodating proposition the landlady had no regard whatever to the possible reward of her good nature in the ultimate possession of the locket and ear-rings: indeed, the effect they would have in that case on the mind of the grocer's wife had presented itself with remarkable vividness to her rapid imagination.",4 The landlord took up the ornaments and pushed out his lips in a meditative manner.,2 "He wished Hetty well, doubtless; but pray, how many of your well-wishers would decline to make a little gain out of you?",3 "Your landlady is sincerely affected at parting with you, respects you highly, and will really rejoice if any one else is generous to you; but at the same time she hands you a bill by which she gains as high a percentage as possible.",4 """How much money do you want to get home with, young woman?""",2 "said the well-wisher, at length.",3 """Three guineas,"" answered Hetty, fixing on the sum she set out with, for want of any other standard, and afraid of asking too much.",1 """Well, I've no objections to advance you three guineas,"" said the landlord; ""and if you like to send it me back and get the jewellery again, you can, you know.",3 "The Green Man isn't going to run away.""",2 """Oh yes, I'll be very glad if you'll give me that,"" said Hetty, relieved at the thought that she would not have to go to the jeweller's and be stared at and questioned.",3 """But if you want the things again, you'll write before long,"" said the landlady, ""because when two months are up, we shall make up our minds as you don't want 'em.""",2 """Yes,"" said Hetty indifferently.",2 The husband and wife were equally content with this arrangement.,2 "The husband thought, if the ornaments were not redeemed, he could make a good thing of it by taking them to London and selling them.",3 The wife thought she would coax the good man into letting her keep them.,3 "And they were accommodating Hetty, poor thing--a pretty, respectable-looking young woman, apparently in a sad case.",2 They declined to take anything for her food and bed: she was quite welcome.,3 "And at eleven o'clock Hetty said ""Good-bye"" to them with the same quiet, resolute air she had worn all the morning, mounting the coach that was to take her twenty miles back along the way she had come.",3 There is a strength of self-possession which is the sign that the last hope has departed.,2 "Despair no more leans on others than perfect contentment, and in despair pride ceases to be counteracted by the sense of dependence.",3 "Hetty felt that no one could deliver her from the evils that would make life hateful to her; and no one, she said to herself, should ever know her misery and humiliation.",0 No; she would not confess even to Dinah.,1 "She would wander out of sight, and drown herself where her body would never be found, and no one should know what had become of her.",2 "When she got off this coach, she began to walk again, and take cheap rides in carts, and get cheap meals, going on and on without distinct purpose, yet strangely, by some fascination, taking the way she had come, though she was determined not to go back to her own country.",1 "Perhaps it was because she had fixed her mind on the grassy Warwickshire fields, with the bushy tree-studded hedgerows that made a hiding-place even in this leafless season.",2 "She went more slowly than she came, often getting over the stiles and sitting for hours under the hedgerows, looking before her with blank, beautiful eyes; fancying herself at the edge of a hidden pool, low down, like that in the Scantlands; wondering if it were very painful to be drowned, and if there would be anything worse after death than what she dreaded in life.",1 Religious doctrines had taken no hold on Hetty's mind.,2 "She was one of those numerous people who have had godfathers and godmothers, learned their catechism, been confirmed, and gone to church every Sunday, and yet, for any practical result of strength in life, or trust in death, have never appropriated a single Christian idea or Christian feeling.",2 "You would misunderstand her thoughts during these wretched days, if you imagined that they were influenced either by religious fears or religious hopes.",0 "She chose to go to Stratford-on-Avon again, where she had gone before by mistake, for she remembered some grassy fields on her former way towards it--fields among which she thought she might find just the sort of pool she had in her mind.",1 "Yet she took care of her money still; she carried her basket; death seemed still a long way off, and life was so strong in her.",2 She craved food and rest--she hastened towards them at the very moment she was picturing to herself the bank from which she would leap towards death.,1 "It was already five days since she had left Windsor, for she had wandered about, always avoiding speech or questioning looks, and recovering her air of proud self-dependence whenever she was under observation, choosing her decent lodging at night, and dressing herself neatly in the morning, and setting off on her way steadily, or remaining under shelter if it rained, as if she had a happy life to cherish.",4 "And yet, even in her most self-conscious moments, the face was sadly different from that which had smiled at itself in the old specked glass, or smiled at others when they glanced at it admiringly.",2 "A hard and even fierce look had come in the eyes, though their lashes were as long as ever, and they had all their dark brightness.",0 And the cheek was never dimpled with smiles now.,3 "It was the same rounded, pouting, childish prettiness, but with all love and belief in love departed from it--the sadder for its beauty, like that wondrous Medusa-face, with the passionate, passionless lips.",4 "At last she was among the fields she had been dreaming of, on a long narrow pathway leading towards a wood.",3 If there should be a pool in that wood!,2 It would be better hidden than one in the fields.,3 "No, it was not a wood, only a wild brake, where there had once been gravel-pits, leaving mounds and hollows studded with brushwood and small trees.",1 "She roamed up and down, thinking there was perhaps a pool in every hollow before she came to it, till her limbs were weary, and she sat down to rest.",1 "The afternoon was far advanced, and the leaden sky was darkening, as if the sun were setting behind it.",3 "After a little while Hetty started up again, feeling that darkness would soon come on; and she must put off finding the pool till to-morrow, and make her way to some shelter for the night.",1 "She had quite lost her way in the fields, and might as well go in one direction as another, for aught she knew.",2 "She walked through field after field, and no village, no house was in sight; but there, at the corner of this pasture, there was a break in the hedges; the land seemed to dip down a little, and two trees leaned towards each other across the opening.",1 Hetty's heart gave a great beat as she thought there must be a pool there.,3 "She walked towards it heavily over the tufted grass, with pale lips and a sense of trembling.",1 "It was as if the thing were come in spite of herself, instead of being the object of her search.",1 "There it was, black under the darkening sky: no motion, no sound near.",2 "She set down her basket, and then sank down herself on the grass, trembling.",2 "The pool had its wintry depth now: by the time it got shallow, as she remembered the pools did at Hayslope, in the summer, no one could find out that it was her body.",1 But then there was her basket--she must hide that too.,2 "She must throw it into the water--make it heavy with stones first, and then throw it in.",2 "She got up to look about for stones, and soon brought five or six, which she laid down beside her basket, and then sat down again.",2 There was no need to hurry--there was all the night to drown herself in.,2 She sat leaning her elbow on the basket.,2 "She was weary, hungry.",1 "There were some buns in her basket--three, which she had supplied herself with at the place where she ate her dinner.",2 "She took them out now and ate them eagerly, and then sat still again, looking at the pool.",3 "The soothed sensation that came over her from the satisfaction of her hunger, and this fixed dreamy attitude, brought on drowsiness, and presently her head sank down on her knees.",3 She was fast asleep.,3 "When she awoke it was deep night, and she felt chill.",1 She was frightened at this darkness--frightened at the long night before her.,1 If she could but throw herself into the water!,2 "No, not yet.",2 "She began to walk about that she might get warm again, as if she would have more resolution then.",3 Oh how long the time was in that darkness!,1 "The bright hearth and the warmth and the voices of home, the secure uprising and lying down, the familiar fields, the familiar people, the Sundays and holidays with their simple joys of dress and feasting--all the sweets of her young life rushed before her now, and she seemed to be stretching her arms towards them across a great gulf.",3 She set her teeth when she thought of Arthur.,2 "She cursed him, without knowing what her cursing would do.",1 "She wished he too might know desolation, and cold, and a life of shame that he dared not end by death.",0 "The horror of this cold, and darkness, and solitude--out of all human reach--became greater every long minute.",1 "It was almost as if she were dead already, and knew that she was dead, and longed to get back to life again.",1 But no: she was alive still; she had not taken the dreadful leap.,1 "She felt a strange contradictory wretchedness and exultation: wretchedness, that she did not dare to face death; exultation, that she was still in life--that she might yet know light and warmth again.",1 "She walked backwards and forwards to warm herself, beginning to discern something of the objects around her, as her eyes became accustomed to the night--the darker line of the hedge, the rapid motion of some living creature--perhaps a field-mouse--rushing across the grass.",2 She no longer felt as if the darkness hedged her in.,1 "She thought she could walk back across the field, and get over the stile; and then, in the very next field, she thought she remembered there was a hovel of furze near a sheepfold.",2 "If she could get into that hovel, she would be warmer.",3 "She could pass the night there, for that was what Alick did at Hayslope in lambing-time.",2 The thought of this hovel brought the energy of a new hope.,2 "She took up her basket and walked across the field, but it was some time before she got in the right direction for the stile.",3 "The exercise and the occupation of finding the stile were a stimulus to her, however, and lightened the horror of the darkness and solitude.",1 "There were sheep in the next field, and she startled a group as she set down her basket and got over the stile; and the sound of their movement comforted her, for it assured her that her impression was right--this was the field where she had seen the hovel, for it was the field where the sheep were.",3 "Right on along the path, and she would get to it.",3 "She reached the opposite gate, and felt her way along its rails and the rails of the sheep-fold, till her hand encountered the pricking of the gorsy wall.",2 Delicious sensation!,3 She had found the shelter.,2 "She groped her way, touching the prickly gorse, to the door, and pushed it open.",2 "It was an ill-smelling close place, but warm, and there was straw on the ground.",2 Hetty sank down on the straw with a sense of escape.,2 "Tears came--she had never shed tears before since she left Windsor--tears and sobs of hysterical joy that she had still hold of life, that she was still on the familiar earth, with the sheep near her.",2 "The very consciousness of her own limbs was a delight to her: she turned up her sleeves, and kissed her arms with the passionate love of life.",4 "Soon warmth and weariness lulled her in the midst of her sobs, and she fell continually into dozing, fancying herself at the brink of the pool again--fancying that she had jumped into the water, and then awaking with a start, and wondering where she was.",1 "But at last deep dreamless sleep came; her head, guarded by her bonnet, found a pillow against the gorsy wall, and the poor soul, driven to and fro between two equal terrors, found the one relief that was possible to it--the relief of unconsciousness.",2 Alas!,2 That relief seems to end the moment it has begun.,3 "It seemed to Hetty as if those dozen dreams had only passed into another dream--that she was in the hovel, and her aunt was standing over her with a candle in her hand.",2 "She trembled under her aunt's glance, and opened her eyes.",2 "There was no candle, but there was light in the hovel--the light of early morning through the open door.",2 "And there was a face looking down on her; but it was an unknown face, belonging to an elderly man in a smock-frock.",1 """Why, what do you do here, young woman?""",2 the man said roughly.,2 Hetty trembled still worse under this real fear and shame than she had done in her momentary dream under her aunt's glance.,0 She felt that she was like a beggar already--found sleeping in that place.,2 "But in spite of her trembling, she was so eager to account to the man for her presence here, that she found words at once.",2 """I lost my way,"" she said.",1 """I'm travelling--north'ard, and I got away from the road into the fields, and was overtaken by the dark.",2 "Will you tell me the way to the nearest village?""",2 "She got up as she was speaking, and put her hands to her bonnet to adjust it, and then laid hold of her basket.",2 "The man looked at her with a slow bovine gaze, without giving her any answer, for some seconds.",1 "Then he turned away and walked towards the door of the hovel, but it was not till he got there that he stood still, and, turning his shoulder half-round towards her, said, ""Aw, I can show you the way to Norton, if you like.",3 "But what do you do gettin' out o' the highroad?""",2 "he added, with a tone of gruff reproof.",1 """Y'ull be gettin' into mischief, if you dooant mind.""",1 """Yes,"" said Hetty, ""I won't do it again.",2 "I'll keep in the road, if you'll be so good as show me how to get to it.""",3 """Why dooant you keep where there's a finger-poasses an' folks to ax the way on?""",1 "the man said, still more gruffly.",2 """Anybody 'ud think you was a wild woman, an' look at yer.""",1 "Hetty was frightened at this gruff old man, and still more at this last suggestion that she looked like a wild woman.",1 "As she followed him out of the hovel she thought she would give him a sixpence for telling her the way, and then he would not suppose she was wild.",1 "As he stopped to point out the road to her, she put her hand in her pocket to get the six-pence ready, and when he was turning away, without saying good-morning, she held it out to him and said, ""Thank you; will you please to take something for your trouble?""",3 "He looked slowly at the sixpence, and then said, ""I want none o' your money.",1 "You'd better take care on't, else you'll get it stool from yer, if you go trapesin' about the fields like a mad woman a-thatway.""",3 "The man left her without further speech, and Hetty held on her way.",2 "Another day had risen, and she must wander on.",2 "It was no use to think of drowning herself--she could not do it, at least while she had money left to buy food and strength to journey on.",1 "But the incident on her waking this morning heightened her dread of that time when her money would be all gone; she would have to sell her basket and clothes then, and she would really look like a beggar or a wild woman, as the man had said.",1 "The passionate joy in life she had felt in the night, after escaping from the brink of the black cold death in the pool, was gone now.",2 "Life now, by the morning light, with the impression of that man's hard wondering look at her, was as full of dread as death--it was worse; it was a dread to which she felt chained, from which she shrank and shrank as she did from the black pool, and yet could find no refuge from it.",0 "She took out her money from her purse, and looked at it.",2 "She had still two-and-twenty shillings; it would serve her for many days more, or it would help her to get on faster to Stonyshire, within reach of Dinah.",3 "The thought of Dinah urged itself more strongly now, since the experience of the night had driven her shuddering imagination away from the pool.",2 If it had been only going to Dinah--if nobody besides Dinah would ever know--Hetty could have made up her mind to go to her.,2 "The soft voice, the pitying eyes, would have drawn her.",3 "But afterwards the other people must know, and she could no more rush on that shame than she could rush on death.",1 "She must wander on and on, and wait for a lower depth of despair to give her courage.",2 "Perhaps death would come to her, for she was getting less and less able to bear the day's weariness.",1 "And yet--such is the strange action of our souls, drawing us by a lurking desire towards the very ends we dread--Hetty, when she set out again from Norton, asked the straightest road northwards towards Stonyshire, and kept it all that day.",0 "Poor wandering Hetty, with the rounded childish face and the hard, unloving, despairing soul looking out of it--with the narrow heart and narrow thoughts, no room in them for any sorrows but her own, and tasting that sorrow with the more intense bitterness!",0 "My heart bleeds for her as I see her toiling along on her weary feet, or seated in a cart, with her eyes fixed vacantly on the road before her, never thinking or caring whither it tends, till hunger comes and makes her desire that a village may be near.",1 "What will be the end, the end of her objectless wandering, apart from all love, caring for human beings only through her pride, clinging to life only as the hunted wounded brute clings to it?",3 God preserve you and me from being the beginners of such misery!,1 "THE first ten days after Hetty's departure passed as quietly as any other days with the family at the Hall Farm, and with Adam at his daily work.",3 "They had expected Hetty to stay away a week or ten days at least, perhaps a little longer if Dinah came back with her, because there might then be something to detain them at Snowfield.",2 But when a fortnight had passed they began to feel a little surprise that Hetty did not return; she must surely have found it pleasanter to be with Dinah than any one could have supposed.,2 "Adam, for his part, was getting very impatient to see her, and he resolved that, if she did not appear the next day (Saturday), he would set out on Sunday morning to fetch her.",1 "There was no coach on a Sunday, but by setting out before it was light, and perhaps getting a lift in a cart by the way, he would arrive pretty early at Snowfield, and bring back Hetty the next day--Dinah too, if she were coming.",3 "It was quite time Hetty came home, and he would afford to lose his Monday for the sake of bringing her.",2 His project was quite approved at the Farm when he went there on Saturday evening.,2 "Mrs. Poyser desired him emphatically not to come back without Hetty, for she had been quite too long away, considering the things she had to get ready by the middle of March, and a week was surely enough for any one to go out for their health.",3 "As for Dinah, Mrs. Poyser had small hope of their bringing her, unless they could make her believe the folks at Hayslope were twice as miserable as the folks at Snowfield.",1 """Though,"" said Mrs. Poyser, by way of conclusion, ""you might tell her she's got but one aunt left, and SHE'S wasted pretty nigh to a shadder; and we shall p'rhaps all be gone twenty mile farther off her next Michaelmas, and shall die o' broken hearts among strange folks, and leave the children fatherless and motherless.""",0 """Nay, nay,"" said Mr. Poyser, who certainly had the air of a man perfectly heart-whole, ""it isna so bad as that.",2 "Thee't looking rarely now, and getting flesh every day.",2 "But I'd be glad for Dinah t' come, for she'd help thee wi' the little uns: they took t' her wonderful.""",3 "So at daybreak, on Sunday, Adam set off.",2 "Seth went with him the first mile or two, for the thought of Snowfield and the possibility that Dinah might come again made him restless, and the walk with Adam in the cold morning air, both in their best clothes, helped to give him a sense of Sunday calm.",3 "It was the last morning in February, with a low grey sky, and a slight hoar-frost on the green border of the road and on the black hedges.",1 "They heard the gurgling of the full brooklet hurrying down the hill, and the faint twittering of the early birds.",1 "For they walked in silence, though with a pleased sense of companionship.",3 """Good-bye, lad,"" said Adam, laying his hand on Seth's shoulder and looking at him affectionately as they were about to part.",3 """I wish thee wast going all the way wi' me, and as happy as I am.""",3 """I'm content, Addy, I'm content,"" said Seth cheerfully.",2 """I'll be an old bachelor, belike, and make a fuss wi' thy children.""",1 "They turned away from each other, and Seth walked leisurely homeward, mentally repeating one of his favourite hymns--he was very fond of hymns: Dark and cheerless is the morn Unaccompanied by thee: Joyless is the day's return Till thy mercy's beams I see: Till thou inward light impart, Glad my eyes and warm my heart.",3 "Visit, then, this soul of mine, Pierce the gloom of sin and grief-- Fill me, Radiancy Divine, Scatter all my unbelief.",1 "More and more thyself display, Shining to the perfect day.",3 "Adam walked much faster, and any one coming along the Oakbourne road at sunrise that morning must have had a pleasant sight in this tall broad-chested man, striding along with a carriage as upright and firm as any soldier's, glancing with keen glad eyes at the dark-blue hills as they began to show themselves on his way.",4 "Seldom in Adam's life had his face been so free from any cloud of anxiety as it was this morning; and this freedom from care, as is usual with constructive practical minds like his, made him all the more observant of the objects round him and all the more ready to gather suggestions from them towards his own favourite plans and ingenious contrivances.",4 "His happy love--the knowledge that his steps were carrying him nearer and nearer to Hetty, who was so soon to be his--was to his thoughts what the sweet morning air was to his sensations: it gave him a consciousness of well-being that made activity delightful.",4 "Every now and then there was a rush of more intense feeling towards her, which chased away other images than Hetty; and along with that would come a wondering thankfulness that all this happiness was given to him--that this life of ours had such sweetness in it.",3 "For Adam had a devout mind, though he was perhaps rather impatient of devout words, and his tenderness lay very close to his reverence, so that the one could hardly be stirred without the other.",2 "But after feeling had welled up and poured itself out in this way, busy thought would come back with the greater vigour; and this morning it was intent on schemes by which the roads might be improved that were so imperfect all through the country, and on picturing all the benefits that might come from the exertions of a single country gentleman, if he would set himself to getting the roads made good in his own district.",3 "It seemed a very short walk, the ten miles to Oakbourne, that pretty town within sight of the blue hills, where he break-fasted.",2 "After this, the country grew barer and barer: no more rolling woods, no more wide-branching trees near frequent homesteads, no more bushy hedgerows, but greystone walls intersecting the meagre pastures, and dismal wide-scattered greystone houses on broken lands where mines had been and were no longer.",1 """A hungry land,"" said Adam to himself.",2 """I'd rather go south'ard, where they say it's as flat as a table, than come to live here; though if Dinah likes to live in a country where she can be the most comfort to folks, she's i' the right to live o' this side; for she must look as if she'd come straight from heaven, like th' angels in the desert, to strengthen them as ha' got nothing t' eat.""",4 "And when at last he came in sight of Snowfield, he thought it looked like a town that was ""fellow to the country,"" though the stream through the valley where the great mill stood gave a pleasant greenness to the lower fields.",4 "The town lay, grim, stony, and unsheltered, up the side of a steep hill, and Adam did not go forward to it at present, for Seth had told him where to find Dinah.",1 "It was at a thatched cottage outside the town, a little way from the mill--an old cottage, standing sideways towards the road, with a little bit of potato-ground before it.",2 "Here Dinah lodged with an elderly couple; and if she and Hetty happened to be out, Adam could learn where they were gone, or when they would be at home again.",2 "Dinah might be out on some preaching errand, and perhaps she would have left Hetty at home.",2 "Adam could not help hoping this, and as he recognized the cottage by the roadside before him, there shone out in his face that involuntary smile which belongs to the expectation of a near joy.",3 "He hurried his step along the narrow causeway, and rapped at the door.",2 "It was opened by a very clean old woman, with a slow palsied shake of the head.",1 """Is Dinah Morris at home?""",2 said Adam.,2 """Eh?...no,"" said the old woman, looking up at this tall stranger with a wonder that made her slower of speech than usual.",1 """Will you please to come in?""",2 "she added, retiring from the door, as if recollecting herself.",2 """Why, ye're brother to the young man as come afore, arena ye?""",2 """Yes,"" said Adam, entering.",2 """That was Seth Bede.",2 I'm his brother Adam.,2 "He told me to give his respects to you and your good master.""",3 """Aye, the same t' him.",2 He was a gracious young man.,3 "An' ye feature him, on'y ye're darker.",1 Sit ye down i' th' arm-chair.,2 "My man isna come home from meeting.""",2 "Adam sat down patiently, not liking to hurry the shaking old woman with questions, but looking eagerly towards the narrow twisting stairs in one corner, for he thought it was possible Hetty might have heard his voice and would come down them.",4 """So you're come to see Dinah Morris?""",2 "said the old woman, standing opposite to him.",2 """An' you didn' know she was away from home, then?""",2 """No,"" said Adam, ""but I thought it likely she might be away, seeing as it's Sunday.",2 "But the other young woman--is she at home, or gone along with Dinah?""",2 The old woman looked at Adam with a bewildered air.,1 """Gone along wi' her?""",2 she said.,2 """Eh, Dinah's gone to Leeds, a big town ye may ha' heared on, where there's a many o' the Lord's people.",2 She's been gone sin' Friday was a fortnight: they sent her the money for her journey.,2 "You may see her room here,"" she went on, opening a door and not noticing the effect of her words on Adam.",2 "He rose and followed her, and darted an eager glance into the little room with its narrow bed, the portrait of Wesley on the wall, and the few books lying on the large Bible.",2 He had had an irrational hope that Hetty might be there.,1 He could not speak in the first moment after seeing that the room was empty; an undefined fear had seized him--something had happened to Hetty on the journey.,1 "Still the old woman was so slow of speech and apprehension, that Hetty might be at Snowfield after all.",1 """It's a pity ye didna know,"" she said.",1 """Have ye come from your own country o' purpose to see her?""",2 """But Hetty--Hetty Sorrel,"" said Adam, abruptly; ""Where is she?""",1 """I know nobody by that name,"" said the old woman, wonderingly.",2 """Is it anybody ye've heared on at Snowfield?""",2 """Did there come no young woman here--very young and pretty--Friday was a fortnight, to see Dinah Morris?""",3 """Nay; I'n seen no young woman.""",2 """Think; are you quite sure?",2 "A girl, eighteen years old, with dark eyes and dark curly hair, and a red cloak on, and a basket on her arm?",1 "You couldn't forget her if you saw her.""",2 """Nay; Friday was a fortnight--it was the day as Dinah went away--there come nobody.",2 "There's ne'er been nobody asking for her till you come, for the folks about know as she's gone.",2 "Eh dear, eh dear, is there summat the matter?""",2 The old woman had seen the ghastly look of fear in Adam's face.,1 But he was not stunned or confounded: he was thinking eagerly where he could inquire about Hetty.,3 """Yes; a young woman started from our country to see Dinah, Friday was a fortnight.",2 I came to fetch her back.,2 I'm afraid something has happened to her.,1 I can't stop.,2 "Good-bye.""",3 "He hastened out of the cottage, and the old woman followed him to the gate, watching him sadly with her shaking head as he almost ran towards the town.",1 He was going to inquire at the place where the Oakbourne coach stopped.,2 No!,2 No young woman like Hetty had been seen there.,3 Had any accident happened to the coach a fortnight ago?,2 No.,2 And there was no coach to take him back to Oakbourne that day.,2 "Well, he would walk: he couldn't stay here, in wretched inaction.",1 "But the innkeeper, seeing that Adam was in great anxiety, and entering into this new incident with the eagerness of a man who passes a great deal of time with his hands in his pockets looking into an obstinately monotonous street, offered to take him back to Oakbourne in his own ""taxed cart"" this very evening.",1 It was not five o'clock; there was plenty of time for Adam to take a meal and yet to get to Oakbourne before ten o'clock.,2 "The innkeeper declared that he really wanted to go to Oakbourne, and might as well go to-night; he should have all Monday before him then.",3 "Adam, after making an ineffectual attempt to eat, put the food in his pocket, and, drinking a draught of ale, declared himself ready to set off.",2 "As they approached the cottage, it occurred to him that he would do well to learn from the old woman where Dinah was to be found in Leeds: if there was trouble at the Hall Farm--he only half-admitted the foreboding that there would be--the Poysers might like to send for Dinah.",2 "But Dinah had not left any address, and the old woman, whose memory for names was infirm, could not recall the name of the ""blessed woman"" who was Dinah's chief friend in the Society at Leeds.",1 "During that long, long journey in the taxed cart, there was time for all the conjectures of importunate fear and struggling hope.",0 "In the very first shock of discovering that Hetty had not been to Snowfield, the thought of Arthur had darted through Adam like a sharp pang, but he tried for some time to ward off its return by busying himself with modes of accounting for the alarming fact, quite apart from that intolerable thought.",1 Some accident had happened.,2 "Hetty had, by some strange chance, got into a wrong vehicle from Oakbourne: she had been taken ill, and did not want to frighten them by letting them know.",0 But this frail fence of vague improbabilities was soon hurled down by a rush of distinct agonizing fears.,0 "Hetty had been deceiving herself in thinking that she could love and marry him: she had been loving Arthur all the while; and now, in her desperation at the nearness of their marriage, she had run away.",2 And she was gone to him.,2 "The old indignation and jealousy rose again, and prompted the suspicion that Arthur had been dealing falsely--had written to Hetty--had tempted her to come to him--being unwilling, after all, that she should belong to another man besides himself.",0 "Perhaps the whole thing had been contrived by him, and he had given her directions how to follow him to Ireland--for Adam knew that Arthur had been gone thither three weeks ago, having recently learnt it at the Chase.",1 "Every sad look of Hetty's, since she had been engaged to Adam, returned upon him now with all the exaggeration of painful retrospect.",0 He had been foolishly sanguine and confident.,2 "The poor thing hadn't perhaps known her own mind for a long while; had thought that she could forget Arthur; had been momentarily drawn towards the man who offered her a protecting, faithful love.",3 He couldn't bear to blame her: she never meant to cause him this dreadful pain.,0 The blame lay with that man who had selfishly played with her heart--had perhaps even deliberately lured her away.,1 "At Oakbourne, the ostler at the Royal Oak remembered such a young woman as Adam described getting out of the Treddleston coach more than a fortnight ago--wasn't likely to forget such a pretty lass as that in a hurry--was sure she had not gone on by the Buxton coach that went through Snowfield, but had lost sight of her while he went away with the horses and had never set eyes on her again.",2 "Adam then went straight to the house from which the Stonition coach started: Stoniton was the most obvious place for Hetty to go to first, whatever might be her destination, for she would hardly venture on any but the chief coach-roads.",2 "She had been noticed here too, and was remembered to have sat on the box by the coachman; but the coachman could not be seen, for another man had been driving on that road in his stead the last three or four days.",2 "He could probably be seen at Stoniton, through inquiry at the inn where the coach put up.",2 "So the anxious heart-stricken Adam must of necessity wait and try to rest till morning--nay, till eleven o'clock, when the coach started.",1 "At Stoniton another delay occurred, for the old coachman who had driven Hetty would not be in the town again till night.",1 "When he did come he remembered Hetty well, and remembered his own joke addressed to her, quoting it many times to Adam, and observing with equal frequency that he thought there was something more than common, because Hetty had not laughed when he joked her.",2 "But he declared, as the people had done at the inn, that he had lost sight of Hetty directly she got down.",1 "Part of the next morning was consumed in inquiries at every house in the town from which a coach started--(all in vain, for you know Hetty did not start from Stonition by coach, but on foot in the grey morning)--and then in walking out to the first toll-gates on the different lines of road, in the forlorn hope of finding some recollection of her there.",0 "No, she was not to be traced any farther; and the next hard task for Adam was to go home and carry the wretched tidings to the Hall Farm.",1 "As to what he should do beyond that, he had come to two distinct resolutions amidst the tumult of thought and feeling which was going on within him while he went to and fro.",2 "He would not mention what he knew of Arthur Donnithorne's behaviour to Hetty till there was a clear necessity for it: it was still possible Hetty might come back, and the disclosure might be an injury or an offence to her.",1 "And as soon as he had been home and done what was necessary there to prepare for his further absence, he would start off to Ireland: if he found no trace of Hetty on the road, he would go straight to Arthur Donnithorne and make himself certain how far he was acquainted with her movements.",1 "Several times the thought occurred to him that he would consult Mr. Irwine, but that would be useless unless he told him all, and so betrayed the secret about Arthur.",1 "It seems strange that Adam, in the incessant occupation of his mind about Hetty, should never have alighted on the probability that she had gone to Windsor, ignorant that Arthur was no longer there.",0 "Perhaps the reason was that he could not conceive Hetty's throwing herself on Arthur uncalled; he imagined no cause that could have driven her to such a step, after that letter written in August.",2 "There were but two alternatives in his mind: either Arthur had written to her again and enticed her away, or she had simply fled from her approaching marriage with himself because she found, after all, she could not love him well enough, and yet was afraid of her friends' anger if she retracted.",3 "With this last determination on his mind, of going straight to Arthur, the thought that he had spent two days in inquiries which had proved to be almost useless, was torturing to Adam; and yet, since he would not tell the Poysers his conviction as to where Hetty was gone, or his intention to follow her thither, he must be able to say to them that he had traced her as far as possible.",1 "It was after twelve o'clock on Tuesday night when Adam reached Treddleston; and, unwilling to disturb his mother and Seth, and also to encounter their questions at that hour, he threw himself without undressing on a bed at the ""Waggon Overthrown,"" and slept hard from pure weariness.",0 "Not more than four hours, however, for before five o'clock he set out on his way home in the faint morning twilight.",1 "He always kept a key of the workshop door in his pocket, so that he could let himself in; and he wished to enter without awaking his mother, for he was anxious to avoid telling her the new trouble himself by seeing Seth first, and asking him to tell her when it should be necessary.",1 "He walked gently along the yard, and turned the key gently in the door; but, as he expected, Gyp, who lay in the workshop, gave a sharp bark.",3 "It subsided when he saw Adam, holding up his finger at him to impose silence, and in his dumb, tailless joy he must content himself with rubbing his body against his master's legs.",1 Adam was too heart-sick to take notice of Gyp's fondling.,1 "He threw himself on the bench and stared dully at the wood and the signs of work around him, wondering if he should ever come to feel pleasure in them again, while Gyp, dimly aware that there was something wrong with his master, laid his rough grey head on Adam's knee and wrinkled his brows to look up at him.",2 "Hitherto, since Sunday afternoon, Adam had been constantly among strange people and in strange places, having no associations with the details of his daily life, and now that by the light of this new morning he was come back to his home and surrounded by the familiar objects that seemed for ever robbed of their charm, the reality--the hard, inevitable reality of his troubles pressed upon him with a new weight.",0 "Right before him was an unfinished chest of drawers, which he had been making in spare moments for Hetty's use, when his home should be hers.",2 "Seth had not heard Adam's entrance, but he had been roused by Gyp's bark, and Adam heard him moving about in the room above, dressing himself.",2 "Seth's first thoughts were about his brother: he would come home to-day, surely, for the business would be wanting him sadly by to-morrow, but it was pleasant to think he had had a longer holiday than he had expected.",2 And would Dinah come too?,2 "Seth felt that that was the greatest happiness he could look forward to for himself, though he had no hope left that she would ever love him well enough to marry him; but he had often said to himself, it was better to be Dinah's friend and brother than any other woman's husband.",4 "If he could but be always near her, instead of living so far off!",2 "He came downstairs and opened the inner door leading from the kitchen into the workshop, intending to let out Gyp; but he stood still in the doorway, smitten with a sudden shock at the sight of Adam seated listlessly on the bench, pale, unwashed, with sunken blank eyes, almost like a drunkard in the morning.",1 "But Seth felt in an instant what the marks meant--not drunkenness, but some great calamity.",2 "Adam looked up at him without speaking, and Seth moved forward towards the bench, himself trembling so that speech did not come readily.",3 """God have mercy on us, Addy,"" he said, in a low voice, sitting down on the bench beside Adam, ""what is it?""",3 Adam was unable to speak.,1 "The strong man, accustomed to suppress the signs of sorrow, had felt his heart swell like a child's at this first approach of sympathy.",2 He fell on Seth's neck and sobbed.,1 "Seth was prepared for the worst now, for, even in his recollections of their boyhood, Adam had never sobbed before.",1 """Is it death, Adam?",1 "Is she dead?""",1 "he asked, in a low tone, when Adam raised his head and was recovering himself.",2 """No, lad; but she's gone--gone away from us.",2 She's never been to Snowfield.,2 "Dinah's been gone to Leeds ever since last Friday was a fortnight, the very day Hetty set out.",2 "I can't find out where she went after she got to Stoniton.""",2 Seth was silent from utter astonishment: he knew nothing that could suggest to him a reason for Hetty's going away.,3 """Hast any notion what she's done it for?""",2 "he said, at last.",2 """She can't ha' loved me.",3 "She didn't like our marriage when it came nigh--that must be it,"" said Adam.",3 He had determined to mention no further reason.,2 """I hear Mother stirring,"" said Seth.",2 """Must we tell her?""",2 """No, not yet,"" said Adam, rising from the bench and pushing the hair from his face, as if he wanted to rouse himself.",2 """I can't have her told yet; and I must set out on another journey directly, after I've been to the village and th' Hall Farm.",2 "I can't tell thee where I'm going, and thee must say to her I'm gone on business as nobody is to know anything about.",2 "I'll go and wash myself now.""",2 "Adam moved towards the door of the workshop, but after a step or two he turned round, and, meeting Seth's eyes with a calm sad glance, he said, ""I must take all the money out o' the tin box, lad; but if anything happens to me, all the rest 'll be thine, to take care o' Mother with.""",2 Seth was pale and trembling: he felt there was some terrible secret under all this.,1 """Brother,"" he said, faintly--he never called Adam ""Brother"" except in solemn moments--""I don't believe you'll do anything as you can't ask God's blessing on.""",2 """Nay, lad,"" said Adam, ""don't be afraid.",1 "I'm for doing nought but what's a man's duty.""",2 "The thought that if he betrayed his trouble to his mother, she would only distress him by words, half of blundering affection, half of irrepressible triumph that Hetty proved as unfit to be his wife as she had always foreseen, brought back some of his habitual firmness and self-command.",0 "He had felt ill on his journey home--he told her when she came down--had stayed all night at Tredddleston for that reason; and a bad headache, that still hung about him this morning, accounted for his paleness and heavy eyes.",0 "He determined to go to the village, in the first place, attend to his business for an hour, and give notice to Burge of his being obliged to go on a journey, which he must beg him not to mention to any one; for he wished to avoid going to the Hall Farm near breakfast-time, when the children and servants would be in the house-place, and there must be exclamations in their hearing about his having returned without Hetty.",1 "He waited until the clock struck nine before he left the work-yard at the village, and set off, through the fields, towards the Farm.",2 "It was an immense relief to him, as he came near the Home Close, to see Mr. Poyser advancing towards him, for this would spare him the pain of going to the house.",3 "Mr. Poyser was walking briskly this March morning, with a sense of spring business on his mind: he was going to cast the master's eye on the shoeing of a new cart-horse, carrying his spud as a useful companion by the way.",3 "His surprise was great when he caught sight of Adam, but he was not a man given to presentiments of evil.",2 """Why, Adam, lad, is't you?",2 "Have ye been all this time away and not brought the lasses back, after all?",2 "Where are they?""",2 """No, I've not brought 'em,"" said Adam, turning round, to indicate that he wished to walk back with Mr. Poyser.",2 """Why,"" said Martin, looking with sharper attention at Adam, ""ye look bad.",2 "Is there anything happened?""",2 """Yes,"" said Adam, heavily.",2 """A sad thing's happened.",1 "I didna find Hetty at Snowfield.""",2 Mr. Poyser's good-natured face showed signs of troubled astonishment.,3 """Not find her?",2 "What's happened to her?""",2 "he said, his thoughts flying at once to bodily accident.",2 """That I can't tell, whether anything's happened to her.",2 "She never went to Snowfield--she took the coach to Stoniton, but I can't learn nothing of her after she got down from the Stoniton coach.""",2 """Why, you donna mean she's run away?""",2 "said Martin, standing still, so puzzled and bewildered that the fact did not yet make itself felt as a trouble by him.",0 """She must ha' done,"" said Adam.",2 """She didn't like our marriage when it came to the point--that must be it.",3 "She'd mistook her feelings.""",2 "Martin was silent for a minute or two, looking on the ground and rooting up the grass with his spud, without knowing what he was doing.",3 His usual slowness was always trebled when the subject of speech was painful.,1 "At last he looked up, right in Adam's face, saying, ""Then she didna deserve t' ha' ye, my lad.",3 "An' I feel i' fault myself, for she was my niece, and I was allays hot for her marr'ing ye.",2 "There's no amends I can make ye, lad--the more's the pity: it's a sad cut-up for ye, I doubt.""",0 "Adam could say nothing; and Mr. Poyser, after pursuing his walk for a little while, went on, ""I'll be bound she's gone after trying to get a lady's maid's place, for she'd got that in her head half a year ago, and wanted me to gi' my consent.",2 "But I'd thought better on her""--he added, shaking his head slowly and sadly--""I'd thought better on her, nor to look for this, after she'd gi'en y' her word, an' everything been got ready.""",2 "Adam had the strongest motives for encouraging this supposition in Mr. Poyser, and he even tried to believe that it might possibly be true.",3 He had no warrant for the certainty that she was gone to Arthur.,2 """It was better it should be so,"" he said, as quietly as he could, ""if she felt she couldn't like me for a husband.",3 Better run away before than repent after.,3 "I hope you won't look harshly on her if she comes back, as she may do if she finds it hard to get on away from home.""",1 """I canna look on her as I've done before,"" said Martin decisively.",2 """She's acted bad by you, and by all of us.",1 "But I'll not turn my back on her: she's but a young un, and it's the first harm I've knowed on her.",1 It'll be a hard job for me to tell her aunt.,1 Why didna Dinah come back wi' ye?,2 "She'd ha' helped to pacify her aunt a bit.""",3 """Dinah wasn't at Snowfield.",2 "She's been gone to Leeds this fortnight, and I couldn't learn from th' old woman any direction where she is at Leeds, else I should ha' brought it you.""",2 """She'd a deal better be staying wi' her own kin,"" said Mr. Poyser, indignantly, ""than going preaching among strange folks a-that'n.""",1 """I must leave you now, Mr. Poyser,"" said Adam, ""for I've a deal to see to.""",2 """Aye, you'd best be after your business, and I must tell the missis when I go home.",3 "It's a hard job.""",1 """But,"" said Adam, ""I beg particular, you'll keep what's happened quiet for a week or two.",2 "I've not told my mother yet, and there's no knowing how things may turn out.""",2 """Aye, aye; least said, soonest mended.",2 "We'n no need to say why the match is broke off, an' we may hear of her after a bit.",1 "Shake hands wi' me, lad: I wish I could make thee amends.""",1 There was something in Martin Poyser's throat at that moment which caused him to bring out those scanty words in rather a broken fashion.,1 "Yet Adam knew what they meant all the better, and the two honest men grasped each other's hard hands in mutual understanding.",3 There was nothing now to hinder Adam from setting off.,1 "He had told Seth to go to the Chase and leave a message for the squire, saying that Adam Bede had been obliged to start off suddenly on a journey--and to say as much, and no more, to any one else who made inquiries about him.",2 "If the Poysers learned that he was gone away again, Adam knew they would infer that he was gone in search of Hetty.",2 "He had intended to go right on his way from the Hall Farm, but now the impulse which had frequently visited him before--to go to Mr. Irwine, and make a confidant of him--recurred with the new force which belongs to a last opportunity.",3 He was about to start on a long journey--a difficult one--by sea--and no soul would know where he was gone.,1 If anything happened to him?,2 "Or, if he absolutely needed help in any matter concerning Hetty?",2 Mr. Irwine was to be trusted; and the feeling which made Adam shrink from telling anything which was her secret must give way before the need there was that she should have some one else besides himself who would be prepared to defend her in the worst extremity.,2 "Towards Arthur, even though he might have incurred no new guilt, Adam felt that he was not bound to keep silence when Hetty's interest called on him to speak.",1 """I must do it,"" said Adam, when these thoughts, which had spread themselves through hours of his sad journeying, now rushed upon him in an instant, like a wave that had been slowly gathering; ""it's the right thing.",2 "I can't stand alone in this way any longer.""",2 "ADAM turned his face towards Broxton and walked with his swiftest stride, looking at his watch with the fear that Mr. Irwine might be gone out--hunting, perhaps.",1 "The fear and haste together produced a state of strong excitement before he reached the rectory gate, and outside it he saw the deep marks of a recent hoof on the gravel.",2 "But the hoofs were turned towards the gate, not away from it, and though there was a horse against the stable door, it was not Mr. Irwine's: it had evidently had a journey this morning, and must belong to some one who had come on business.",3 "Mr. Irwine was at home, then; but Adam could hardly find breath and calmness to tell Carroll that he wanted to speak to the rector.",3 The double suffering of certain and uncertain sorrow had begun to shake the strong man.,0 "The butler looked at him wonderingly, as he threw himself on a bench in the passage and stared absently at the clock on the opposite wall.",2 "The master had somebody with him, he said, but he heard the study door open--the stranger seemed to be coming out, and as Adam was in a hurry, he would let the master know at once.",2 "Adam sat looking at the clock: the minute-hand was hurrying along the last five minutes to ten with a loud, hard, indifferent tick, and Adam watched the movement and listened to the sound as if he had had some reason for doing so.",0 "In our times of bitter suffering there are almost always these pauses, when our consciousness is benumbed to everything but some trivial perception or sensation.",1 It is as if semi-idiocy came to give us rest from the memory and the dread which refuse to leave us in our sleep.,0 "Carroll, coming back, recalled Adam to the sense of his burden.",1 He was to go into the study immediately.,2 """I can't think what that strange person's come about,"" the butler added, from mere incontinence of remark, as he preceded Adam to the door, ""he's gone i' the dining-room.",1 "And master looks unaccountable--as if he was frightened.""",3 Adam took no notice of the words: he could not care about other people's business.,2 "But when he entered the study and looked in Mr. Irwine's face, he felt in an instant that there was a new expression in it, strangely different from the warm friendliness it had always worn for him before.",2 "A letter lay open on the table, and Mr. Irwine's hand was on it, but the changed glance he cast on Adam could not be owing entirely to preoccupation with some disagreeable business, for he was looking eagerly towards the door, as if Adam's entrance were a matter of poignant anxiety to him.",2 """You want to speak to me, Adam,"" he said, in that low constrainedly quiet tone which a man uses when he is determined to suppress agitation.",2 """Sit down here.""",2 "He pointed to a chair just opposite to him, at no more than a yard's distance from his own, and Adam sat down with a sense that this cold manner of Mr. Irwine's gave an additional unexpected difficulty to his disclosure.",0 "But when Adam had made up his mind to a measure, he was not the man to renounce it for any but imperative reasons.",1 """I come to you, sir,"" he said, ""as the gentleman I look up to most of anybody.",2 I've something very painful to tell you--something as it'll pain you to hear as well as me to tell.,1 "But if I speak o' the wrong other people have done, you'll see I didn't speak till I'd good reason.""",2 "Mr. Irwine nodded slowly, and Adam went on rather tremulously, ""You was t' ha' married me and Hetty Sorrel, you know, sir, o' the fifteenth o' this month.",1 "I thought she loved me, and I was th' happiest man i' the parish.",3 "But a dreadful blow's come upon me.""",1 "Mr. Irwine started up from his chair, as if involuntarily, but then, determined to control himself, walked to the window and looked out.",1 """She's gone away, sir, and we don't know where.",2 "She said she was going to Snowfield o' Friday was a fortnight, and I went last Sunday to fetch her back; but she'd never been there, and she took the coach to Stoniton, and beyond that I can't trace her.",2 "But now I'm going a long journey to look for her, and I can't trust t' anybody but you where I'm going.""",3 Mr. Irwine came back from the window and sat down.,2 """Have you no idea of the reason why she went away?""",2 he said.,2 """It's plain enough she didn't want to marry me, sir,"" said Adam.",3 """She didn't like it when it came so near.",3 "But that isn't all, I doubt.",1 "There's something else I must tell you, sir.",2 "There's somebody else concerned besides me.""",1 A gleam of something--it was almost like relief or joy--came across the eager anxiety of Mr. Irwine's face at that moment.,4 "Adam was looking on the ground, and paused a little: the next words were hard to speak.",1 "But when he went on, he lifted up his head and looked straight at Mr. Irwine.",2 "He would do the thing he had resolved to do, without flinching.",2 """You know who's the man I've reckoned my greatest friend,"" he said, ""and used to be proud to think as I should pass my life i' working for him, and had felt so ever since we were lads....""",3 "Mr. Irwine, as if all self-control had forsaken him, grasped Adam's arm, which lay on the table, and, clutching it tightly like a man in pain, said, with pale lips and a low hurried voice, ""No, Adam, no--don't say it, for God's sake!""",1 "Adam, surprised at the violence of Mr. Irwine's feeling, repented of the words that had passed his lips and sat in distressed silence.",1 "The grasp on his arm gradually relaxed, and Mr. Irwine threw himself back in his chair, saying, ""Go on--I must know it.""",3 """That man played with Hetty's feelings, and behaved to her as he'd no right to do to a girl in her station o' life--made her presents and used to go and meet her out a-walking.",3 I found it out only two days before he went away--found him a-kissing her as they were parting in the Grove.,2 "There'd been nothing said between me and Hetty then, though I'd loved her for a long while, and she knew it.",3 "But I reproached him with his wrong actions, and words and blows passed between us; and he said solemnly to me, after that, as it had been all nonsense and no more than a bit o' flirting.",1 "But I made him write a letter to tell Hetty he'd meant nothing, for I saw clear enough, sir, by several things as I hadn't understood at the time, as he'd got hold of her heart, and I thought she'd belike go on thinking of him and never come to love another man as wanted to marry her.",4 "And I gave her the letter, and she seemed to bear it all after a while better than I'd expected...",3 and she behaved kinder and kinder to me...,2 "I daresay she didn't know her own feelings then, poor thing, and they came back upon her when it was too late...",1 I don't want to blame her...,1 I can't think as she meant to deceive me.,1 "But I was encouraged to think she loved me, and--you know the rest, sir.",3 "But it's on my mind as he's been false to me, and 'ticed her away, and she's gone to him--and I'm going now to see, for I can never go to work again till I know what's become of her.""",2 "During Adam's narrative, Mr. Irwine had had time to recover his self-mastery in spite of the painful thoughts that crowded upon him.",1 It was a bitter remembrance to him now--that morning when Arthur breakfasted with him and seemed as if he were on the verge of a confession.,1 It was plain enough now what he had wanted to confess.,2 And if their words had taken another turn...,2 if he himself had been less fastidious about intruding on another man's secrets...,1 it was cruel to think how thin a film had shut out rescue from all this guilt and misery.,0 He saw the whole history now by that terrible illumination which the present sheds back upon the past.,1 "But every other feeling as it rushed upon his was thrown into abeyance by pity, deep respectful pity, for the man who sat before him--already so bruised, going forth with sad blind resignedness to an unreal sorrow, while a real one was close upon him, too far beyond the range of common trial for him ever to have feared it.",0 "His own agitation was quelled by a certain awe that comes over us in the presence of a great anguish, for the anguish he must inflict on Adam was already present to him.",2 "Again he put his hand on the arm that lay on the table, but very gently this time, as he said solemnly: ""Adam, my dear friend, you have had some hard trials in your life.",1 "You can bear sorrow manfully, as well as act manfully.",2 God requires both tasks at our hands.,2 And there is a heavier sorrow coming upon you than any you have yet known.,1 But you are not guilty--you have not the worst of all sorrows.,1 "God help him who has!""",2 "The two pale faces looked at each other; in Adam's there was trembling suspense, in Mr. Irwine's hesitating, shrinking pity.",1 But he went on.,2 """I have had news of Hetty this morning.",2 She is not gone to him.,2 "She is in Stonyshire--at Stoniton.""",2 "Adam started up from his chair, as if he thought he could have leaped to her that moment.",2 "But Mr. Irwine laid hold of his arm again and said, persuasively, ""Wait, Adam, wait.""",2 So he sat down.,2 """She is in a very unhappy position--one which will make it worse for you to find her, my poor friend, than to have lost her for ever.""",0 "Adam's lips moved tremulously, but no sound came.",2 "They moved again, and he whispered, ""Tell me.""",2 """She has been arrested...",2 "she is in prison.""",1 It was as if an insulting blow had brought back the spirit of resistance into Adam.,0 "The blood rushed to his face, and he said, loudly and sharply, ""For what?""",1 """For a great crime--the murder of her child.""",1 """It CAN'T BE!""",2 "Adam almost shouted, starting up from his chair and making a stride towards the door; but he turned round again, setting his back against the bookcase, and looking fiercely at Mr. Irwine.",2 """It isn't possible.",2 She never had a child.,2 She can't be guilty.,1 "WHO says it?""",2 """God grant she may be innocent, Adam.",2 "We can still hope she is.""",2 """But who says she is guilty?""",1 said Adam violently.,1 """Tell me everything.""",2 """Here is a letter from the magistrate before whom she was taken, and the constable who arrested her is in the dining-room.",2 "She will not confess her name or where she comes from; but I fear, I fear, there can be no doubt it is Hetty.",0 "The description of her person corresponds, only that she is said to look very pale and ill.",1 "She had a small red-leather pocket-book in her pocket with two names written in it--one at the beginning, 'Hetty Sorrel, Hayslope,' and the other near the end, 'Dinah Morris, Snowfield.'",2 "She will not say which is her own name--she denies everything, and will answer no questions, and application has been made to me, as a magistrate, that I may take measures for identifying her, for it was thought probable that the name which stands first is her own name.""",1 """But what proof have they got against her, if it IS Hetty?""",2 "said Adam, still violently, with an effort that seemed to shake his whole frame.",1 """I'll not believe it.",2 "It couldn't ha' been, and none of us know it.""",2 """Terrible proof that she was under the temptation to commit the crime; but we have room to hope that she did not really commit it.",0 "Try and read that letter, Adam.""",2 Adam took the letter between his shaking hands and tried to fix his eyes steadily on it.,2 Mr. Irwine meanwhile went out to give some orders.,2 "When he came back, Adam's eyes were still on the first page--he couldn't read--he could not put the words together and make out what they meant.",2 He threw it down at last and clenched his fist.,1 """It's HIS doing,"" he said; ""if there's been any crime, it's at his door, not at hers.",1 HE taught her to deceive--HE deceived me first.,1 "Let 'em put HIM on his trial--let him stand in court beside her, and I'll tell 'em how he got hold of her heart, and 'ticed her t' evil, and then lied to me.",1 "Is HE to go free, while they lay all the punishment on her...",3 "so weak and young?""",1 The image called up by these last words gave a new direction to poor Adam's maddened feelings.,1 "He was silent, looking at the corner of the room as if he saw something there.",3 "Then he burst out again, in a tone of appealing anguish, ""I can't bear it...",2 "O God, it's too hard to lay upon me--it's too hard to think she's wicked.""",1 Mr. Irwine had sat down again in silence.,2 "He was too wise to utter soothing words at present, and indeed, the sight of Adam before him, with that look of sudden age which sometimes comes over a young face in moments of terrible emotion--the hard bloodless look of the skin, the deep lines about the quivering mouth, the furrows in the brow--the sight of this strong firm man shattered by the invisible stroke of sorrow, moved him so deeply that speech was not easy.",1 "Adam stood motionless, with his eyes vacantly fixed in this way for a minute or two; in that short space he was living through all his love again.",2 """She can't ha' done it,"" he said, still without moving his eyes, as if he were only talking to himself: ""it was fear made her hide it...",1 I forgive her for deceiving me...,1 "I forgive thee, Hetty...",2 "thee wast deceived too...it's gone hard wi' thee, my poor Hetty...",1 "but they'll never make me believe it.""",2 "He was silent again for a few moments, and then he said, with fierce abruptness, ""I'll go to him--I'll bring him back--I'll make him go and look at her in her misery--he shall look at her till he can't forget it--it shall follow him night and day--as long as he lives it shall follow him--he shan't escape wi' lies this time--I'll fetch him, I'll drag him myself.""",0 "In the act of going towards the door, Adam paused automatically and looked about for his hat, quite unconscious where he was or who was present with him.",2 "Mr. Irwine had followed him, and now took him by the arm, saying, in a quiet but decided tone, ""No, Adam, no; I'm sure you will wish to stay and see what good can be done for her, instead of going on a useless errand of vengeance.",2 The punishment will surely fall without your aid.,1 "Besides, he is no longer in Ireland.",2 "He must be on his way home--or would be, long before you arrived, for his grandfather, I know, wrote for him to come at least ten days ago.",2 I want you now to go with me to Stoniton.,2 "I have ordered a horse for you to ride with us, as soon as you can compose yourself.""",2 "While Mr. Irwine was speaking, Adam recovered his consciousness of the actual scene.",2 He rubbed his hair off his forehead and listened.,2 """Remember,"" Mr. Irwine went on, ""there are others to think of, and act for, besides yourself, Adam: there are Hetty's friends, the good Poysers, on whom this stroke will fall more heavily than I can bear to think.",2 "I expect it from your strength of mind, Adam--from your sense of duty to God and man--that you will try to act as long as action can be of any use.""",2 "In reality, Mr. Irwine proposed this journey to Stoniton for Adam's own sake.",2 "Movement, with some object before him, was the best means of counteracting the violence of suffering in these first hours.",1 """You will go with me to Stoniton, Adam?""",2 "he said again, after a moment's pause.",2 """We have to see if it is really Hetty who is there, you know.""",2 """Yes, sir,"" said Adam, ""I'll do what you think right.",3 "But the folks at th' Hall Farm?""",2 """I wish them not to know till I return to tell them myself.",2 "I shall have ascertained things then which I am uncertain about now, and I shall return as soon as possible.",1 "Come now, the horses are ready.""",3 MR.,2 "IRWINE returned from Stoniton in a post-chaise that night, and the first words Carroll said to him, as he entered the house, were, that Squire Donnithorne was dead--found dead in his bed at ten o'clock that morning--and that Mrs. Irwine desired him to say she should be awake when Mr. Irwine came home, and she begged him not to go to bed without seeing her.",1 """Well, Dauphin,"" Mrs. Irwine said, as her son entered her room, ""you're come at last.",3 "So the old gentleman's fidgetiness and low spirits, which made him send for Arthur in that sudden way, really meant something.",2 I suppose Carroll has told you that Donnithorne was found dead in his bed this morning.,1 "You will believe my prognostications another time, though I daresay I shan't live to prognosticate anything but my own death.""",1 """What have they done about Arthur?""",2 said Mr. Irwine.,2 """Sent a messenger to await him at Liverpool?""",2 """Yes, Ralph was gone before the news was brought to us.",2 "Dear Arthur, I shall live now to see him master at the Chase, and making good times on the estate, like a generous-hearted fellow as he is.",4 "He'll be as happy as a king now.""",3 "Mr. Irwine could not help giving a slight groan: he was worn with anxiety and exertion, and his mother's light words were almost intolerable.",0 """What are you so dismal about, Dauphin?",1 Is there any bad news?,1 "Or are you thinking of the danger for Arthur in crossing that frightful Irish Channel at this time of year?""",1 """No, Mother, I'm not thinking of that; but I'm not prepared to rejoice just now.""",3 """You've been worried by this law business that you've been to Stoniton about.",1 "What in the world is it, that you can't tell me?""",2 """You will know by and by, mother.",2 It would not be right for me to tell you at present.,3 "Good-night: you'll sleep now you have no longer anything to listen for.""",3 "Mr. Irwine gave up his intention of sending a letter to meet Arthur, since it would not now hasten his return: the news of his grandfather's death would bring him as soon as he could possibly come.",1 "He could go to bed now and get some needful rest, before the time came for the morning's heavy duty of carrying his sickening news to the Hall Farm and to Adam's home.",1 "Adam himself was not come back from Stoniton, for though he shrank from seeing Hetty, he could not bear to go to a distance from her again.",2 """It's no use, sir,"" he said to the rector, ""it's no use for me to go back.",2 "I can't go to work again while she's here, and I couldn't bear the sight o' the things and folks round home.",3 "I'll take a bit of a room here, where I can see the prison walls, and perhaps I shall get, in time, to bear seeing her.""",1 "Adam had not been shaken in his belief that Hetty was innocent of the crime she was charged with, for Mr. Irwine, feeling that the belief in her guilt would be a crushing addition to Adam's load, had kept from him the facts which left no hope in his own mind.",0 "There was not any reason for thrusting the whole burden on Adam at once, and Mr. Irwine, at parting, only said, ""If the evidence should tell too strongly against her, Adam, we may still hope for a pardon.",2 "Her youth and other circumstances will be a plea for her.""",1 """Ah, and it's right people should know how she was tempted into the wrong way,"" said Adam, with bitter earnestness.",2 """It's right they should know it was a fine gentleman made love to her, and turned her head wi' notions.",4 "You'll remember, sir, you've promised to tell my mother, and Seth, and the people at the farm, who it was as led her wrong, else they'll think harder of her than she deserves.",3 "You'll be doing her a hurt by sparing him, and I hold him the guiltiest before God, let her ha' done what she may.",1 "If you spare him, I'll expose him!""",2 """I think your demand is just, Adam,"" said Mr. Irwine, ""but when you are calmer, you will judge Arthur more mercifully.",3 "I say nothing now, only that his punishment is in other hands than ours.""",2 "Mr. Irwine felt it hard upon him that he should have to tell of Arthur's sad part in the story of sin and sorrow--he who cared for Arthur with fatherly affection, who had cared for him with fatherly pride.",1 "But he saw clearly that the secret must be known before long, even apart from Adam's determination, since it was scarcely to be supposed that Hetty would persist to the end in her obstinate silence.",1 "He made up his mind to withhold nothing from the Poysers, but to tell them the worst at once, for there was no time to rob the tidings of their suddenness.",1 "Hetty's trial must come on at the Lent assizes, and they were to be held at Stoniton the next week.",2 "It was scarcely to be hoped that Martin Poyser could escape the pain of being called as a witness, and it was better he should know everything as long beforehand as possible.",1 Before ten o'clock on Thursday morning the home at the Hall Farm was a house of mourning for a misfortune felt to be worse than death.,0 The sense of family dishonour was too keen even in the kind-hearted Martin Poyser the younger to leave room for any compassion towards Hetty.,3 "He and his father were simple-minded farmers, proud of their untarnished character, proud that they came of a family which had held up its head and paid its way as far back as its name was in the parish register; and Hetty had brought disgrace on them all--disgrace that could never be wiped out.",2 "That was the all-conquering feeling in the mind both of father and son--the scorching sense of disgrace, which neutralised all other sensibility--and Mr. Irwine was struck with surprise to observe that Mrs. Poyser was less severe than her husband.",0 "We are often startled by the severity of mild people on exceptional occasions; the reason is, that mild people are most liable to be under the yoke of traditional impressions.",1 """I'm willing to pay any money as is wanted towards trying to bring her off,"" said Martin the younger when Mr. Irwine was gone, while the old grandfather was crying in the opposite chair, ""but I'll not go nigh her, nor ever see her again, by my own will.",3 "She's made our bread bitter to us for all our lives to come, an' we shall ne'er hold up our heads i' this parish nor i' any other.",1 "The parson talks o' folks pitying us: it's poor amends pity 'ull make us.""",1 """Pity?""",1 "said the grandfather, sharply.",1 """I ne'er wanted folks's pity i' MY life afore...an' I mun begin to be looked down on now, an' me turned seventy-two last St. Thomas's, an' all th' underbearers and pall-bearers as I'n picked for my funeral are i' this parish and the next to 't....It's o' no use now...",1 "I mun be ta'en to the grave by strangers.""",2 """Don't fret so, father,"" said Mrs. Poyser, who had spoken very little, being almost overawed by her husband's unusual hardness and decision.",1 """You'll have your children wi' you; an' there's the lads and the little un 'ull grow up in a new parish as well as i' th' old un.""",3 """Ah, there's no staying i' this country for us now,"" said Mr. Poyser, and the hard tears trickled slowly down his round cheeks.",1 """We thought it 'ud be bad luck if the old squire gave us notice this Lady day, but I must gi' notice myself now, an' see if there can anybody be got to come an' take to the crops as I'n put i' the ground; for I wonna stay upo' that man's land a day longer nor I'm forced to't.",2 "An' me, as thought him such a good upright young man, as I should be glad when he come to be our landlord.",3 "I'll ne'er lift my hat to him again, nor sit i' the same church wi' him...",2 a man as has brought shame on respectable folks...an' pretended to be such a friend t' everybody....,2 Poor Adam there...,1 "a fine friend he's been t' Adam, making speeches an' talking so fine, an' all the while poisoning the lad's life, as it's much if he can stay i' this country any more nor we can.""",3 """An' you t' ha' to go into court, and own you're akin t' her,"" said the old man.",2 """Why, they'll cast it up to the little un, as isn't four 'ear old, some day--they'll cast it up t' her as she'd a cousin tried at the 'sizes for murder.""",1 """It'll be their own wickedness, then,"" said Mrs. Poyser, with a sob in her voice.",1 """But there's One above 'ull take care o' the innicent child, else it's but little truth they tell us at church.",2 "It'll be harder nor ever to die an' leave the little uns, an' nobody to be a mother to 'em.""",1 """We'd better ha' sent for Dinah, if we'd known where she is,"" said Mr. Poyser; ""but Adam said she'd left no direction where she'd be at Leeds.""",3 """Why, she'd be wi' that woman as was a friend t' her Aunt Judith,"" said Mrs. Poyser, comforted a little by this suggestion of her husband.",2 """I've often heard Dinah talk of her, but I can't remember what name she called her by.",2 "But there's Seth Bede; he's like enough to know, for she's a preaching woman as the Methodists think a deal on.""",3 """I'll send to Seth,"" said Mr. Poyser.",2 """I'll send Alick to tell him to come, or else to send up word o' the woman's name, an' thee canst write a letter ready to send off to Treddles'on as soon as we can make out a direction.""",3 """It's poor work writing letters when you want folks to come to you i' trouble,"" said Mrs. Poyser.",1 """Happen it'll be ever so long on the road, an' never reach her at last.""",2 "Before Alick arrived with the message, Lisbeth's thoughts too had already flown to Dinah, and she had said to Seth, ""Eh, there's no comfort for us i' this world any more, wi'out thee couldst get Dinah Morris to come to us, as she did when my old man died.",2 "I'd like her to come in an' take me by th' hand again, an' talk to me.",3 "She'd tell me the rights on't, belike--she'd happen know some good i' all this trouble an' heart-break comin' upo' that poor lad, as ne'er done a bit o' wrong in's life, but war better nor anybody else's son, pick the country round.",1 "Eh, my lad...Adam, my poor lad!""",1 """Thee wouldstna like me to leave thee, to go and fetch Dinah?""",3 "said Seth, as his mother sobbed and rocked herself to and fro.",2 """Fetch her?""",2 "said Lisbeth, looking up and pausing from her grief, like a crying child who hears some promise of consolation.",3 """Why, what place is't she's at, do they say?""",2 """It's a good way off, mother--Leeds, a big town.",3 "But I could be back in three days, if thee couldst spare me.""",2 """Nay, nay, I canna spare thee.",2 "Thee must go an' see thy brother, an' bring me word what he's a-doin'.",2 "Mester Irwine said he'd come an' tell me, but I canna make out so well what it means when he tells me.",3 "Thee must go thysen, sin' Adam wonna let me go to him.",2 Write a letter to Dinah canstna?,2 "Thee't fond enough o' writin' when nobody wants thee.""",3 """I'm not sure where she'd be i' that big town,"" said Seth.",2 """If I'd gone myself, I could ha' found out by asking the members o' the Society.",2 "But perhaps if I put Sarah Williamson, Methodist preacher, Leeds, o' th' outside, it might get to her; for most like she'd be wi' Sarah Williamson.""",3 "Alick came now with the message, and Seth, finding that Mrs. Poyser was writing to Dinah, gave up the intention of writing himself; but he went to the Hall Farm to tell them all he could suggest about the address of the letter, and warn them that there might be some delay in the delivery, from his not knowing an exact direction.",1 "On leaving Lisbeth, Mr. Irwine had gone to Jonathan Burge, who had also a claim to be acquainted with what was likely to keep Adam away from business for some time; and before six o'clock that evening there were few people in Broxton and Hayslope who had not heard the sad news.",1 "Mr. Irwine had not mentioned Arthur's name to Burge, and yet the story of his conduct towards Hetty, with all the dark shadows cast upon it by its terrible consequences, was presently as well known as that his grandfather was dead, and that he was come into the estate.",1 "For Martin Poyser felt no motive to keep silence towards the one or two neighbours who ventured to come and shake him sorrowfully by the hand on the first day of his trouble; and Carroll, who kept his ears open to all that passed at the rectory, had framed an inferential version of the story, and found early opportunities of communicating it.",0 One of those neighbours who came to Martin Poyser and shook him by the hand without speaking for some minutes was Bartle Massey.,2 "He had shut up his school, and was on his way to the rectory, where he arrived about half-past seven in the evening, and, sending his duty to Mr. Irwine, begged pardon for troubling him at that hour, but had something particular on his mind.",2 "He was shown into the study, where Mr. Irwine soon joined him.",2 """Well, Bartle?""",3 "said Mr. Irwine, putting out his hand.",2 "That was not his usual way of saluting the schoolmaster, but trouble makes us treat all who feel with us very much alike.",1 """Sit down.""",2 """You know what I'm come about as well as I do, sir, I daresay,"" said Bartle.",3 """You wish to know the truth about the sad news that has reached you...",1 "about Hetty Sorrel?""",2 """Nay, sir, what I wish to know is about Adam Bede.",2 "I understand you left him at Stoniton, and I beg the favour of you to tell me what's the state of the poor lad's mind, and what he means to do.",1 "For as for that bit o' pink-and-white they've taken the trouble to put in jail, I don't value her a rotten nut--not a rotten nut--only for the harm or good that may come out of her to an honest man--a lad I've set such store by--trusted to, that he'd make my bit o' knowledge go a good way in the world....Why, sir, he's the only scholar I've had in this stupid country that ever had the will or the head-piece for mathematics.",1 "If he hadn't had so much hard work to do, poor fellow, he might have gone into the higher branches, and then this might never have happened--might never have happened.""",1 "Bartle was heated by the exertion of walking fast in an agitated frame of mind, and was not able to check himself on this first occasion of venting his feelings.",3 "But he paused now to rub his moist forehead, and probably his moist eyes also.",2 """You'll excuse me, sir,"" he said, when this pause had given him time to reflect, ""for running on in this way about my own feelings, like that foolish dog of mine howling in a storm, when there's nobody wants to listen to me.",1 "I came to hear you speak, not to talk myself--if you'll take the trouble to tell me what the poor lad's doing.""",1 """Don't put yourself under any restraint, Bartle,"" said Mr. Irwine.",2 """The fact is, I'm very much in the same condition as you just now; I've a great deal that's painful on my mind, and I find it hard work to be quite silent about my own feelings and only attend to others.",3 "I share your concern for Adam, though he is not the only one whose sufferings I care for in this affair.",1 He intends to remain at Stoniton till after the trial: it will come on probably a week to-morrow.,2 "He has taken a room there, and I encouraged him to do so, because I think it better he should be away from his own home at present; and, poor fellow, he still believes Hetty is innocent--he wants to summon up courage to see her if he can; he is unwilling to leave the spot where she is.""",2 """Do you think the creatur's guilty, then?""",1 said Bartle.,2 """Do you think they'll hang her?""",1 """I'm afraid it will go hard with her.",1 The evidence is very strong.,3 And one bad symptom is that she denies everything--denies that she has had a child in the face of the most positive evidence.,1 "I saw her myself, and she was obstinately silent to me; she shrank up like a frightened animal when she saw me.",3 I was never so shocked in my life as at the change in her.,1 "But I trust that, in the worst case, we may obtain a pardon for the sake of the innocent who are involved.""",3 """Stuff and nonsense!""",1 "said Bartle, forgetting in his irritation to whom he was speaking.",1 """I beg your pardon, sir, I mean it's stuff and nonsense for the innocent to care about her being hanged.",1 "For my own part, I think the sooner such women are put out o' the world the better; and the men that help 'em to do mischief had better go along with 'em for that matter.",2 "What good will you do by keeping such vermin alive, eating the victual that 'ud feed rational beings?",3 "But if Adam's fool enough to care about it, I don't want him to suffer more than's needful....",1 "Is he very much cut up, poor fellow?""",1 "Bartle added, taking out his spectacles and putting them on, as if they would assist his imagination.",2 """Yes, I'm afraid the grief cuts very deep,"" said Mr. Irwine.",1 """He looks terribly shattered, and a certain violence came over him now and then yesterday, which made me wish I could have remained near him.",1 "But I shall go to Stoniton again to-morrow, and I have confidence enough in the strength of Adam's principle to trust that he will be able to endure the worst without being driven to anything rash.""",3 "Mr. Irwine, who was involuntarily uttering his own thoughts rather than addressing Bartle Massey in the last sentence, had in his mind the possibility that the spirit of vengeance to-wards Arthur, which was the form Adam's anguish was continually taking, might make him seek an encounter that was likely to end more fatally than the one in the Grove.",0 This possibility heightened the anxiety with which he looked forward to Arthur's arrival.,1 "But Bartle thought Mr. Irwine was referring to suicide, and his face wore a new alarm.",1 """I'll tell you what I have in my head, sir,"" he said, ""and I hope you'll approve of it.",3 "I'm going to shut up my school--if the scholars come, they must go back again, that's all--and I shall go to Stoniton and look after Adam till this business is over.",2 I'll pretend I'm come to look on at the assizes; he can't object to that.,1 "What do you think about it, sir?""",2 """Well,"" said Mr. Irwine, rather hesitatingly, ""there would be some real advantages in that...",3 "and I honour you for your friendship towards him, Bartle.",2 But...,2 "you must be careful what you say to him, you know.",2 "I'm afraid you have too little fellow-feeling in what you consider his weakness about Hetty.""",1 """Trust to me, sir--trust to me.",3 I know what you mean.,2 "I've been a fool myself in my time, but that's between you and me.",1 "I shan't thrust myself on him only keep my eye on him, and see that he gets some good food, and put in a word here and there.""",3 """Then,"" said Mr. Irwine, reassured a little as to Bartle's discretion, ""I think you'll be doing a good deed; and it will be well for you to let Adam's mother and brother know that you're going.""",3 """Yes, sir, yes,"" said Bartle, rising, and taking off his spectacles, ""I'll do that, I'll do that; though the mother's a whimpering thing--I don't like to come within earshot of her; however, she's a straight-backed, clean woman, none of your slatterns.",3 "I wish you good-bye, sir, and thank you for the time you've spared me.",3 You're everybody's friend in this business--everybody's friend.,2 "It's a heavy weight you've got on your shoulders.""",2 """Good-bye, Bartle, till we meet at Stoniton, as I daresay we shall.""",3 "Bartle hurried away from the rectory, evading Carroll's conversational advances, and saying in an exasperated tone to Vixen, whose short legs pattered beside him on the gravel, ""Now, I shall be obliged to take you with me, you good-for-nothing woman.",2 "You'd go fretting yourself to death if I left you--you know you would, and perhaps get snapped up by some tramp.",1 "And you'll be running into bad company, I expect, putting your nose in every hole and corner where you've no business!",1 "But if you do anything disgraceful, I'll disown you--mind that, madam, mind that!""",1 "AN upper room in a dull Stoniton street, with two beds in it--one laid on the floor.",1 "It is ten o'clock on Thursday night, and the dark wall opposite the window shuts out the moonlight that might have struggled with the light of the one dip candle by which Bartle Massey is pretending to read, while he is really looking over his spectacles at Adam Bede, seated near the dark window.",1 You would hardly have known it was Adam without being told.,2 "His face has got thinner this last week: he has the sunken eyes, the neglected beard of a man just risen from a sick-bed.",1 "His heavy black hair hangs over his forehead, and there is no active impulse in him which inclines him to push it off, that he may be more awake to what is around him.",1 "He has one arm over the back of the chair, and he seems to be looking down at his clasped hands.",2 He is roused by a knock at the door.,1 """There he is,"" said Bartle Massey, rising hastily and unfastening the door.",1 It was Mr. Irwine.,2 "Adam rose from his chair with instinctive respect, as Mr. Irwine approached him and took his hand.",3 """I'm late, Adam,"" he said, sitting down on the chair which Bartle placed for him, ""but I was later in setting off from Broxton than I intended to be, and I have been incessantly occupied since I arrived.",1 "I have done everything now, however--everything that can be done to-night, at least.",2 "Let us all sit down.""",2 "Adam took his chair again mechanically, and Bartle, for whom there was no chair remaining, sat on the bed in the background.",2 """Have you seen her, sir?""",2 said Adam tremulously.,2 """Yes, Adam; I and the chaplain have both been with her this evening.""",2 """Did you ask her, sir...",2 "did you say anything about me?""",2 """Yes,"" said Mr. Irwine, with some hesitation, ""I spoke of you.",2 "I said you wished to see her before the trial, if she consented.""",2 "As Mr. Irwine paused, Adam looked at him with eager, questioning eyes.",3 """You know she shrinks from seeing any one, Adam.",2 It is not only you--some fatal influence seems to have shut up her heart against her fellow-creatures.,1 She has scarcely said anything more than 'No' either to me or the chaplain.,1 "Three or four days ago, before you were mentioned to her, when I asked her if there was any one of her family whom she would like to see--to whom she could open her mind--she said, with a violent shudder, 'Tell them not to come near me--I won't see any of them.'",2 """ Adam's head was hanging down again, and he did not speak.",2 "There was silence for a few minutes, and then Mr. Irwine said, ""I don't like to advise you against your own feelings, Adam, if they now urge you strongly to go and see her to-morrow morning, even without her consent.",3 "It is just possible, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, that the interview might affect her favourably.",2 But I grieve to say I have scarcely any hope of that.,1 "She didn't seem agitated when I mentioned your name; she only said 'No,' in the same cold, obstinate way as usual.",1 "And if the meeting had no good effect on her, it would be pure, useless suffering to you--severe suffering, I fear.",1 "She is very much changed...""",2 "Adam started up from his chair and seized his hat, which lay on the table.",2 "But he stood still then, and looked at Mr. Irwine, as if he had a question to ask which it was yet difficult to utter.",1 "Bartle Massey rose quietly, turned the key in the door, and put it in his pocket.",2 """Is he come back?""",2 said Adam at last.,2 """No, he is not,"" said Mr. Irwine, quietly.",2 """Lay down your hat, Adam, unless you like to walk out with me for a little fresh air.",3 "I fear you have not been out again to-day.""",1 """You needn't deceive me, sir,"" said Adam, looking hard at Mr. Irwine and speaking in a tone of angry suspicion.",0 """You needn't be afraid of me.",1 I only want justice.,2 I want him to feel what she feels.,2 It's his work...,3 she was a child as it 'ud ha' gone t' anybody's heart to look at...,2 I don't care what she's done...,2 it was him brought her to it.,2 And he shall know it...,2 he shall feel it...,2 "if there's a just God, he shall feel what it is t' ha' brought a child like her to sin and misery.""",1 """I'm not deceiving you, Adam,"" said Mr. Irwine.",1 """Arthur Donnithorne is not come back--was not come back when I left.",2 "I have left a letter for him: he will know all as soon as he arrives.""",2 """But you don't mind about it,"" said Adam indignantly.",1 """You think it doesn't matter as she lies there in shame and misery, and he knows nothing about it--he suffers nothing.""",0 """Adam, he WILL know--he WILL suffer, long and bitterly.",1 He has a heart and a conscience: I can't be entirely deceived in his character.,2 I am convinced--I am sure he didn't fall under temptation without a struggle.,0 "He may be weak, but he is not callous, not coldly selfish.",0 I am persuaded that this will be a shock of which he will feel the effects all his life.,1 Why do you crave vengeance in this way?,1 "No amount of torture that you could inflict on him could benefit her.""",1 """No--O God, no,"" Adam groaned out, sinking on his chair again; ""but then, that's the deepest curse of all...that's what makes the blackness of it...",1 IT CAN NEVER BE UNDONE.,1 My poor Hetty...,1 she can never be my sweet Hetty again...,3 the prettiest thing God had made--smiling up at me...,3 I thought she loved me...,3 "and was good...""",3 "Adam's voice had been gradually sinking into a hoarse undertone, as if he were only talking to himself; but now he said abruptly, looking at Mr. Irwine, ""But she isn't as guilty as they say?",0 "You don't think she is, sir?",2 "She can't ha' done it.""",2 """That perhaps can never be known with certainty, Adam,"" Mr. Irwine answered gently.",2 """In these cases we sometimes form our judgment on what seems to us strong evidence, and yet, for want of knowing some small fact, our judgment is wrong.",2 "But suppose the worst: you have no right to say that the guilt of her crime lies with him, and that he ought to bear the punishment.",0 It is not for us men to apportion the shares of moral guilt and retribution.,1 "We find it impossible to avoid mistakes even in determining who has committed a single criminal act, and the problem how far a man is to be held responsible for the unforeseen consequences of his own deed is one that might well make us tremble to look into it.",0 The evil consequences that may lie folded in a single act of selfish indulgence is a thought so awful that it ought surely to awaken some feeling less presumptuous than a rash desire to punish.,0 "You have a mind that can understand this fully, Adam, when you are calm.",3 Don't suppose I can't enter into the anguish that drives you into this state of revengeful hatred.,0 "But think of this: if you were to obey your passion--for it IS passion, and you deceive yourself in calling it justice--it might be with you precisely as it has been with Arthur; nay, worse; your passion might lead you yourself into a horrible crime.""",1 """No--not worse,"" said Adam, bitterly; ""I don't believe it's worse--I'd sooner do it--I'd sooner do a wickedness as I could suffer for by myself than ha' brought HER to do wickedness and then stand by and see 'em punish her while they let me alone; and all for a bit o' pleasure, as, if he'd had a man's heart in him, he'd ha' cut his hand off sooner than he'd ha' taken it.",0 What if he didn't foresee what's happened?,2 He foresaw enough; he'd no right to expect anything but harm and shame to her.,2 And then he wanted to smooth it off wi' lies.,2 No--there's plenty o' things folks are hanged for not half so hateful as that.,1 "Let a man do what he will, if he knows he's to bear the punishment himself, he isn't half so bad as a mean selfish coward as makes things easy t' himself and knows all the while the punishment 'll fall on somebody else.""",0 """There again you partly deceive yourself, Adam.",1 There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone; you can't isolate yourself and say that the evil which is in you shall not spread.,0 Men's lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe: evil spreads as necessarily as disease.,1 "I know, I feel the terrible extent of suffering this sin of Arthur's has caused to others; but so does every sin cause suffering to others besides those who commit it.",0 An act of vengeance on your part against Arthur would simply be another evil added to those we are suffering under: you could not bear the punishment alone; you would entail the worst sorrows on every one who loves you.,0 You would have committed an act of blind fury that would leave all the present evils just as they were and add worse evils to them.,0 "You may tell me that you meditate no fatal act of vengeance, but the feeling in your mind is what gives birth to such actions, and as long as you indulge it, as long as you do not see that to fix your mind on Arthur's punishment is revenge, and not justice, you are in danger of being led on to the commission of some great wrong.",0 "Remember what you told me about your feelings after you had given that blow to Arthur in the Grove.""",1 "Adam was silent: the last words had called up a vivid image of the past, and Mr. Irwine left him to his thoughts, while he spoke to Bartle Massey about old Mr. Donnithorne's funeral and other matters of an indifferent kind.",3 "But at length Adam turned round and said, in a more subdued tone, ""I've not asked about 'em at th' Hall Farm, sir.",1 "Is Mr. Poyser coming?""",2 """He is come; he is in Stoniton to-night.",2 "But I could not advise him to see you, Adam.",2 "His own mind is in a very perturbed state, and it is best he should not see you till you are calmer.""",2 """Is Dinah Morris come to 'em, sir?",2 "Seth said they'd sent for her.""",2 """No.",2 Mr. Poyser tells me she was not come when he left.,2 They're afraid the letter has not reached her.,1 "It seems they had no exact address.""",2 "Adam sat ruminating a little while, and then said, ""I wonder if Dinah 'ud ha' gone to see her.",3 "But perhaps the Poysers would ha' been sorely against it, since they won't come nigh her themselves.",1 "But I think she would, for the Methodists are great folks for going into the prisons; and Seth said he thought she would.",3 "She'd a very tender way with her, Dinah had; I wonder if she could ha' done any good.",4 "You never saw her, sir, did you?""",2 """Yes, I did.",2 I had a conversation with her--she pleased me a good deal.,3 "And now you mention it, I wish she would come, for it is possible that a gentle mild woman like her might move Hetty to open her heart.",3 "The jail chaplain is rather harsh in his manner.""",1 """But it's o' no use if she doesn't come,"" said Adam sadly.",1 """If I'd thought of it earlier, I would have taken some measures for finding her out,"" said Mr. Irwine, ""but it's too late now, I fear...Well, Adam, I must go now.",2 Try to get some rest to-night.,2 God bless you.,3 "I'll see you early to-morrow morning.""",2 "AT one o'clock the next day, Adam was alone in his dull upper room; his watch lay before him on the table, as if he were counting the long minutes.",1 "He had no knowledge of what was likely to be said by the witnesses on the trial, for he had shrunk from all the particulars connected with Hetty's arrest and accusation.",1 "This brave active man, who would have hastened towards any danger or toil to rescue Hetty from an apprehended wrong or misfortune, felt himself powerless to contemplate irremediable evil and suffering.",0 "The susceptibility which would have been an impelling force where there was any possibility of action became helpless anguish when he was obliged to be passive, or else sought an active outlet in the thought of inflicting justice on Arthur.",0 "Energetic natures, strong for all strenuous deeds, will often rush away from a hopeless sufferer, as if they were hard-hearted.",1 It is the overmastering sense of pain that drives them.,1 "They shrink by an ungovernable instinct, as they would shrink from laceration.",1 "Adam had brought himself to think of seeing Hetty, if she would consent to see him, because he thought the meeting might possibly be a good to her--might help to melt away this terrible hardness they told him of.",2 "If she saw he bore her no ill will for what she had done to him, she might open her heart to him.",1 "But this resolution had been an immense effort--he trembled at the thought of seeing her changed face, as a timid woman trembles at the thought of the surgeon's knife, and he chose now to bear the long hours of suspense rather than encounter what seemed to him the more intolerable agony of witnessing her trial.",0 "Deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.",1 "The yearning memories, the bitter regret, the agonized sympathy, the struggling appeals to the Invisible Right--all the intense emotions which had filled the days and nights of the past week, and were compressing themselves again like an eager crowd into the hours of this single morning, made Adam look back on all the previous years as if they had been a dim sleepy existence, and he had only now awaked to full consciousness.",0 "It seemed to him as if he had always before thought it a light thing that men should suffer, as if all that he had himself endured and called sorrow before was only a moment's stroke that had never left a bruise.",0 "Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity.",3 """O God,"" Adam groaned, as he leaned on the table and looked blankly at the face of the watch, ""and men have suffered like this before...",2 and poor helpless young things have suffered like her....,1 Such a little while ago looking so happy and so pretty...,3 "kissing 'em all, her grandfather and all of 'em, and they wishing her luck....",3 "O my poor, poor Hetty...",1 "dost think on it now?""",2 Adam started and looked round towards the door.,2 "Vixen had begun to whimper, and there was a sound of a stick and a lame walk on the stairs.",1 It was Bartle Massey come back.,2 Could it be all over?,2 "Bartle entered quietly, and, going up to Adam, grasped his hand and said, ""I'm just come to look at you, my boy, for the folks are gone out of court for a bit.""",2 "Adam's heart beat so violently he was unable to speak--he could only return the pressure of his friend's hand--and Bartle, drawing up the other chair, came and sat in front of him, taking off his hat and his spectacles.",1 """That's a thing never happened to me before,"" he observed, ""to go out o' the door with my spectacles on.",2 "I clean forgot to take 'em off.""",3 "The old man made this trivial remark, thinking it better not to respond at all to Adam's agitation: he would gather, in an indirect way, that there was nothing decisive to communicate at present.",3 """And now,"" he said, rising again, ""I must see to your having a bit of the loaf, and some of that wine Mr. Irwine sent this morning.",2 He'll be angry with me if you don't have it.,1 "Come, now,"" he went on, bringing forward the bottle and the loaf and pouring some wine into a cup, ""I must have a bit and a sup myself.",2 "Drink a drop with me, my lad--drink with me.""",2 "Adam pushed the cup gently away and said, entreatingly, ""Tell me about it, Mr. Massey--tell me all about it.",2 Was she there?,2 "Have they begun?""",2 """Yes, my boy, yes--it's taken all the time since I first went; but they're slow, they're slow; and there's the counsel they've got for her puts a spoke in the wheel whenever he can, and makes a deal to do with cross-examining the witnesses and quarrelling with the other lawyers.",1 That's all he can do for the money they give him; and it's a big sum--it's a big sum.,2 "But he's a 'cute fellow, with an eye that 'ud pick the needles out of the hay in no time.",2 "If a man had got no feelings, it 'ud be as good as a demonstration to listen to what goes on in court; but a tender heart makes one stupid.",3 "I'd have given up figures for ever only to have had some good news to bring to you, my poor lad.""",2 """But does it seem to be going against her?""",2 said Adam.,2 """Tell me what they've said.",2 "I must know it now--I must know what they have to bring against her.""",2 """Why, the chief evidence yet has been the doctors; all but Martin Poyser--poor Martin.",1 "Everybody in court felt for him--it was like one sob, the sound they made when he came down again.",2 The worst was when they told him to look at the prisoner at the bar.,1 "It was hard work, poor fellow--it was hard work.",1 "Adam, my boy, the blow falls heavily on him as well as you; you must help poor Martin; you must show courage.",1 "Drink some wine now, and show me you mean to bear it like a man.""",3 Bartle had made the right sort of appeal.,3 "Adam, with an air of quiet obedience, took up the cup and drank a little.",3 """Tell me how SHE looked,"" he said presently.",2 """Frightened, very frightened, when they first brought her in; it was the first sight of the crowd and the judge, poor creatur.",1 "And there's a lot o' foolish women in fine clothes, with gewgaws all up their arms and feathers on their heads, sitting near the judge: they've dressed themselves out in that way, one 'ud think, to be scarecrows and warnings against any man ever meddling with a woman again.",2 "They put up their glasses, and stared and whispered.",2 "But after that she stood like a white image, staring down at her hands and seeming neither to hear nor see anything.",3 And she's as white as a sheet.,2 "She didn't speak when they asked her if she'd plead 'guilty' or 'not guilty,' and they pleaded 'not guilty' for her.",1 "But when she heard her uncle's name, there seemed to go a shiver right through her; and when they told him to look at her, she hung her head down, and cowered, and hid her face in her hands.",1 "He'd much ado to speak poor man, his voice trembled so.",1 "And the counsellors--who look as hard as nails mostly--I saw, spared him as much as they could.",1 Mr. Irwine put himself near him and went with him out o' court.,2 "Ah, it's a great thing in a man's life to be able to stand by a neighbour and uphold him in such trouble as that.""",3 """God bless him, and you too, Mr. Massey,"" said Adam, in a low voice, laying his hand on Bartle's arm.",3 """Aye, aye, he's good metal; he gives the right ring when you try him, our parson does.",3 A man o' sense--says no more than's needful.,2 "He's not one of those that think they can comfort you with chattering, as if folks who stand by and look on knew a deal better what the trouble was than those who have to bear it.",3 "I've had to do with such folks in my time--in the south, when I was in trouble myself.",1 "Mr. Irwine is to be a witness himself, by and by, on her side, you know, to speak to her character and bringing up.""",2 """But the other evidence...",2 "does it go hard against her!""",1 said Adam.,2 """What do you think, Mr. Massey?",2 "Tell me the truth.""",2 """Yes, my lad, yes.",2 The truth is the best thing to tell.,3 It must come at last.,2 The doctors' evidence is heavy on her--is heavy.,2 But she's gone on denying she's had a child from first to last.,1 These poor silly women-things--they've not the sense to know it's no use denying what's proved.,0 "It'll make against her with the jury, I doubt, her being so obstinate: they may be less for recommending her to mercy, if the verdict's against her.",1 "But Mr. Irwine 'ull leave no stone unturned with the judge--you may rely upon that, Adam.""",2 """Is there nobody to stand by her and seem to care for her in the court?""",2 said Adam.,2 """There's the chaplain o' the jail sits near her, but he's a sharp ferrety-faced man--another sort o' flesh and blood to Mr. Irwine.",3 "They say the jail chaplains are mostly the fag-end o' the clergy.""",2 """There's one man as ought to be there,"" said Adam bitterly.",1 "Presently he drew himself up and looked fixedly out of the window, apparently turning over some new idea in his mind.",2 """Mr. Massey,"" he said at last, pushing the hair off his forehead, ""I'll go back with you.",2 I'll go into court.,2 It's cowardly of me to keep away.,1 I'll stand by her--I'll own her--for all she's been deceitful.,1 They oughtn't to cast her off--her own flesh and blood.,2 "We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.",3 I used to be hard sometimes: I'll never be hard again.,1 "I'll go, Mr. Massey--I'll go with you.""",2 "There was a decision in Adam's manner which would have prevented Bartle from opposing him, even if he had wished to do so.",2 "He only said, ""Take a bit, then, and another sup, Adam, for the love of me.",3 "See, I must stop and eat a morsel.",2 "Now, you take some.""",2 "Nerved by an active resolution, Adam took a morsel of bread and drank some wine.",2 "He was haggard and unshaven, as he had been yesterday, but he stood upright again, and looked more like the Adam Bede of former days.",2 "THE place fitted up that day as a court of justice was a grand old hall, now destroyed by fire.",3 "The midday light that fell on the close pavement of human heads was shed through a line of high pointed windows, variegated with the mellow tints of old painted glass.",1 "Grim dusty armour hung in high relief in front of the dark oaken gallery at the farther end, and under the broad arch of the great mullioned window opposite was spread a curtain of old tapestry, covered with dim melancholy figures, like a dozing indistinct dream of the past.",0 "It was a place that through the rest of the year was haunted with the shadowy memories of old kings and queens, unhappy, discrowned, imprisoned; but to-day all those shadows had fled, and not a soul in the vast hall felt the presence of any but a living sorrow, which was quivering in warm hearts.",1 "But that sorrow seemed to have made it itself feebly felt hitherto, now when Adam Bede's tall figure was suddenly seen being ushered to the side of the prisoner's dock.",1 "In the broad sunlight of the great hall, among the sleek shaven faces of other men, the marks of suffering in his face were startling even to Mr. Irwine, who had last seen him in the dim light of his small room; and the neighbours from Hayslope who were present, and who told Hetty Sorrel's story by their firesides in their old age, never forgot to say how it moved them when Adam Bede, poor fellow, taller by the head than most of the people round him, came into court and took his place by her side.",1 But Hetty did not see him.,2 "She was standing in the same position Bartle Massey had described, her hands crossed over each other and her eyes fixed on them.",2 "Adam had not dared to look at her in the first moments, but at last, when the attention of the court was withdrawn by the proceedings he turned his face towards her with a resolution not to shrink.",2 Why did they say she was so changed?,2 "In the corpse we love, it is the likeness we see--it is the likeness, which makes itself felt the more keenly because something else was and is not.",3 "There they were--the sweet face and neck, with the dark tendrils of hair, the long dark lashes, the rounded cheek and the pouting lips--pale and thin, yes, but like Hetty, and only Hetty.",2 "Others thought she looked as if some demon had cast a blighting glance upon her, withered up the woman's soul in her, and left only a hard despairing obstinacy.",0 "But the mother's yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the debased, degraded man; and to Adam, this pale, hard-looking culprit was the Hetty who had smiled at him in the garden under the apple-tree boughs--she was that Hetty's corpse, which he had trembled to look at the first time, and then was unwilling to turn away his eyes from.",1 "But presently he heard something that compelled him to listen, and made the sense of sight less absorbing.",2 "A woman was in the witness-box, a middle-aged woman, who spoke in a firm distinct voice.",2 "She said, ""My name is Sarah Stone.",2 "I am a widow, and keep a small shop licensed to sell tobacco, snuff, and tea in Church Lane, Stoniton.",2 "The prisoner at the bar is the same young woman who came, looking ill and tired, with a basket on her arm, and asked for a lodging at my house on Saturday evening, the 27th of February.",1 "She had taken the house for a public, because there was a figure against the door.",2 "And when I said I didn't take in lodgers, the prisoner began to cry, and said she was too tired to go anywhere else, and she only wanted a bed for one night.",0 "And her prettiness, and her condition, and something respectable about her clothes and looks, and the trouble she seemed to be in made me as I couldn't find in my heart to send her away at once.",2 "I asked her to sit down, and gave her some tea, and asked her where she was going, and where her friends were.",2 "She said she was going home to her friends: they were farming folks a good way off, and she'd had a long journey that had cost her more money than she expected, so as she'd hardly any money left in her pocket, and was afraid of going where it would cost her much.",2 "She had been obliged to sell most of the things out of her basket, but she'd thankfully give a shilling for a bed.",2 I saw no reason why I shouldn't take the young woman in for the night.,2 "I had only one room, but there were two beds in it, and I told her she might stay with me.",2 "I thought she'd been led wrong, and got into trouble, but if she was going to her friends, it would be a good work to keep her out of further harm.""",2 "The witness then stated that in the night a child was born, and she identified the baby-clothes then shown to her as those in which she had herself dressed the child.",2 """Those are the clothes.",2 "I made them myself, and had kept them by me ever since my last child was born.",2 I took a deal of trouble both for the child and the mother.,1 I couldn't help taking to the little thing and being anxious about it.,1 "I didn't send for a doctor, for there seemed no need.",2 "I told the mother in the day-time she must tell me the name of her friends, and where they lived, and let me write to them.",2 "She said, by and by she would write herself, but not to-day.",2 "She would have no nay, but she would get up and be dressed, in spite of everything I could say.",1 She said she felt quite strong enough; and it was wonderful what spirit she showed.,4 "But I wasn't quite easy what I should do about her, and towards evening I made up my mind I'd go, after Meeting was over, and speak to our minister about it.",3 I left the house about half-past eight o'clock.,2 "I didn't go out at the shop door, but at the back door, which opens into a narrow alley.",2 "I've only got the ground-floor of the house, and the kitchen and bedroom both look into the alley.",2 I left the prisoner sitting up by the fire in the kitchen with the baby on her lap.,1 "She hadn't cried or seemed low at all, as she did the night before.",2 "I thought she had a strange look with her eyes, and she got a bit flushed towards evening.",1 "I was afraid of the fever, and I thought I'd call and ask an acquaintance of mine, an experienced woman, to come back with me when I went out.",1 It was a very dark night.,1 "I didn't fasten the door behind me; there was no lock; it was a latch with a bolt inside, and when there was nobody in the house I always went out at the shop door.",2 But I thought there was no danger in leaving it unfastened that little while.,1 "I was longer than I meant to be, for I had to wait for the woman that came back with me.",2 "It was an hour and a half before we got back, and when we went in, the candle was standing burning just as I left it, but the prisoner and the baby were both gone.",1 "She'd taken her cloak and bonnet, but she'd left the basket and the things in it....",2 "I was dreadful frightened, and angry with her for going.",1 "I didn't go to give information, because I'd no thought she meant to do any harm, and I knew she had money in her pocket to buy her food and lodging.",1 "I didn't like to set the constable after her, for she'd a right to go from me if she liked.""",4 The effect of this evidence on Adam was electrical; it gave him new force.,2 Hetty could not be guilty of the crime--her heart must have clung to her baby--else why should she have taken it with her?,1 She might have left it behind.,2 "The little creature had died naturally, and then she had hidden it.",1 Babies were so liable to death--and there might be the strongest suspicions without any proof of guilt.,0 "His mind was so occupied with imaginary arguments against such suspicions, that he could not listen to the cross-examination by Hetty's counsel, who tried, without result, to elicit evidence that the prisoner had shown some movements of maternal affection towards the child.",1 "The whole time this witness was being examined, Hetty had stood as motionless as before: no word seemed to arrest her ear.",1 "But the sound of the next witness's voice touched a chord that was still sensitive, she gave a start and a frightened look towards him, but immediately turned away her head and looked down at her hands as before.",3 "This witness was a man, a rough peasant.",1 "He said: ""My name is John Olding.",2 "I am a labourer, and live at Tedd's Hole, two miles out of Stoniton.",2 "A week last Monday, towards one o'clock in the afternoon, I was going towards Hetton Coppice, and about a quarter of a mile from the coppice I saw the prisoner, in a red cloak, sitting under a bit of a haystack not far off the stile.",1 "She got up when she saw me, and seemed as if she'd be walking on the other way.",2 "It was a regular road through the fields, and nothing very uncommon to see a young woman there, but I took notice of her because she looked white and scared.",1 "I should have thought she was a beggar-woman, only for her good clothes.",2 "I thought she looked a bit crazy, but it was no business of mine.",1 "I stood and looked back after her, but she went right on while she was in sight.",3 I had to go to the other side of the coppice to look after some stakes.,2 "There's a road right through it, and bits of openings here and there, where the trees have been cut down, and some of 'em not carried away.",3 "I didn't go straight along the road, but turned off towards the middle, and took a shorter way towards the spot I wanted to get to.",2 I hadn't got far out of the road into one of the open places before I heard a strange cry.,1 "I thought it didn't come from any animal I knew, but I wasn't for stopping to look about just then.",2 "But it went on, and seemed so strange to me in that place, I couldn't help stopping to look.",1 "I began to think I might make some money of it, if it was a new thing.",2 "But I had hard work to tell which way it came from, and for a good while I kept looking up at the boughs.",3 "And then I thought it came from the ground; and there was a lot of timber-choppings lying about, and loose pieces of turf, and a trunk or two.",1 "And I looked about among them, but could find nothing, and at last the cry stopped.",1 "So I was for giving it up, and I went on about my business.",2 "But when I came back the same way pretty nigh an hour after, I couldn't help laying down my stakes to have another look.",3 "And just as I was stooping and laying down the stakes, I saw something odd and round and whitish lying on the ground under a nut-bush by the side of me.",1 And I stooped down on hands and knees to pick it up.,2 "And I saw it was a little baby's hand.""",2 At these words a thrill ran through the court.,3 "Hetty was visibly trembling; now, for the first time, she seemed to be listening to what a witness said.",2 """There was a lot of timber-choppings put together just where the ground went hollow, like, under the bush, and the hand came out from among them.",2 "But there was a hole left in one place and I could see down it and see the child's head; and I made haste and did away the turf and the choppings, and took out the child.",1 "It had got comfortable clothes on, but its body was cold, and I thought it must be dead.",1 "I made haste back with it out of the wood, and took it home to my wife.",1 "She said it was dead, and I'd better take it to the parish and tell the constable.",2 "And I said, 'I'll lay my life it's that young woman's child as I met going to the coppice.'",2 But she seemed to be gone clean out of sight.,3 "And I took the child on to Hetton parish and told the constable, and we went on to Justice Hardy.",3 "And then we went looking after the young woman till dark at night, and we went and gave information at Stoniton, as they might stop her.",1 "And the next morning, another constable came to me, to go with him to the spot where I found the child.",2 "And when we got there, there was the prisoner a-sitting against the bush where I found the child; and she cried out when she saw us, but she never offered to move.",1 "She'd got a big piece of bread on her lap.""",2 Adam had given a faint groan of despair while this witness was speaking.,1 "He had hidden his face on his arm, which rested on the boarding in front of him.",2 It was the supreme moment of his suffering: Hetty was guilty; and he was silently calling to God for help.,1 "He heard no more of the evidence, and was unconscious when the case for the prosecution had closed--unconscious that Mr. Irwine was in the witness-box, telling of Hetty's unblemished character in her own parish and of the virtuous habits in which she had been brought up.",3 "This testimony could have no influence on the verdict, but it was given as part of that plea for mercy which her own counsel would have made if he had been allowed to speak for her--a favour not granted to criminals in those stern times.",2 "At last Adam lifted up his head, for there was a general movement round him.",2 "The judge had addressed the jury, and they were retiring.",2 The decisive moment was not far off.,3 "Adam felt a shuddering horror that would not let him look at Hetty, but she had long relapsed into her blank hard indifference.",1 "All eyes were strained to look at her, but she stood like a statue of dull despair.",1 "There was a mingled rustling, whispering, and low buzzing throughout the court during this interval.",1 "The desire to listen was suspended, and every one had some feeling or opinion to express in undertones.",2 "Adam sat looking blankly before him, but he did not see the objects that were right in front of his eyes--the counsel and attorneys talking with an air of cool business, and Mr. Irwine in low earnest conversation with the judge--did not see Mr. Irwine sit down again in agitation and shake his head mournfully when somebody whispered to him.",3 The inward action was too intense for Adam to take in outward objects until some strong sensation roused him.,3 "It was not very long, hardly more than a quarter of an hour, before the knock which told that the jury had come to their decision fell as a signal for silence on every ear.",1 It is sublime--that sudden pause of a great multitude which tells that one soul moves in them all.,3 "Deeper and deeper the silence seemed to become, like the deepening night, while the jurymen's names were called over, and the prisoner was made to hold up her hand, and the jury were asked for their verdict.",2 """Guilty.""",1 "It was the verdict every one expected, but there was a sigh of disappointment from some hearts that it was followed by no recommendation to mercy.",3 Still the sympathy of the court was not with the prisoner.,1 The unnaturalness of her crime stood out the more harshly by the side of her hard immovability and obstinate silence.,0 "Even the verdict, to distant eyes, had not appeared to move her, but those who were near saw her trembling.",2 "The stillness was less intense until the judge put on his black cap, and the chaplain in his canonicals was observed behind him.",1 "Then it deepened again, before the crier had had time to command silence.",2 "If any sound were heard, it must have been the sound of beating hearts.",2 "The judge spoke, ""Hester Sorrel....""",2 "The blood rushed to Hetty's face, and then fled back again as she looked up at the judge and kept her wide-open eyes fixed on him, as if fascinated by fear.",1 "Adam had not yet turned towards her, there was a deep horror, like a great gulf, between them.",3 "But at the words ""and then to be hanged by the neck till you be dead,"" a piercing shriek rang through the hall.",1 It was Hetty's shriek.,1 Adam started to his feet and stretched out his arms towards her.,2 "But the arms could not reach her: she had fallen down in a fainting-fit, and was carried out of court.",1 "When Arthur Donnithorne landed at Liverpool and read the letter from his Aunt Lydia, briefly announcing his grand-father's death, his first feeling was, ""Poor Grandfather!",1 I wish I could have got to him to be with him when he died.,1 He might have felt or wished something at the last that I shall never know now.,2 "It was a lonely death.""",1 It is impossible to say that his grief was deeper than that.,1 "Pity and softened memory took place of the old antagonism, and in his busy thoughts about the future, as the chaise carried him rapidly along towards the home where he was now to be master, there was a continually recurring effort to remember anything by which he could show a regard for his grandfather's wishes, without counteracting his own cherished aims for the good of the tenants and the estate.",3 "But it is not in human nature--only in human pretence--for a young man like Arthur, with a fine constitution and fine spirits, thinking well of himself, believing that others think well of him, and having a very ardent intention to give them more and more reason for that good opinion--it is not possible for such a young man, just coming into a splendid estate through the death of a very old man whom he was not fond of, to feel anything very different from exultant joy.",4 "Now his real life was beginning; now he would have room and opportunity for action, and he would use them.",2 He would show the Loamshire people what a fine country gentleman was; he would not exchange that career for any other under the sun.,3 "He felt himself riding over the hills in the breezy autumn days, looking after favourite plans of drainage and enclosure; then admired on sombre mornings as the best rider on the best horse in the hunt; spoken well of on market-days as a first-rate landlord; by and by making speeches at election dinners, and showing a wonderful knowledge of agriculture; the patron of new ploughs and drills, the severe upbraider of negligent landowners, and withal a jolly fellow that everybody must like--happy faces greeting him everywhere on his own estate, and the neighbouring families on the best terms with him.",4 "The Irwines should dine with him every week, and have their own carriage to come in, for in some very delicate way that Arthur would devise, the lay-impropriator of the Hayslope tithes would insist on paying a couple of hundreds more to the vicar; and his aunt should be as comfortable as possible, and go on living at the Chase, if she liked, in spite of her old-maidish ways--at least until he was married, and that event lay in the indistinct background, for Arthur had not yet seen the woman who would play the lady-wife to the first-rate country gentleman.",3 "These were Arthur's chief thoughts, so far as a man's thoughts through hours of travelling can be compressed into a few sentences, which are only like the list of names telling you what are the scenes in a long long panorama full of colour, of detail, and of life.",3 "The happy faces Arthur saw greeting him were not pale abstractions, but real ruddy faces, long familiar to him: Martin Poyser was there--the whole Poyser family.",2 What--Hetty?,2 "Yes; for Arthur was at ease about Hetty--not quite at ease about the past, for a certain burning of the ears would come whenever he thought of the scenes with Adam last August, but at ease about her present lot.",2 "Mr. Irwine, who had been a regular correspondent, telling him all the news about the old places and people, had sent him word nearly three months ago that Adam Bede was not to marry Mary Burge, as he had thought, but pretty Hetty Sorrel.",3 "Martin Poyser and Adam himself had both told Mr. Irwine all about it--that Adam had been deeply in love with Hetty these two years, and that now it was agreed they were to be married in March.",3 "That stalwart rogue Adam was more susceptible than the rector had thought; it was really quite an idyllic love affair; and if it had not been too long to tell in a letter, he would have liked to describe to Arthur the blushing looks and the simple strong words with which the fine honest fellow told his secret.",4 He knew Arthur would like to hear that Adam had this sort of happiness in prospect.,3 "Yes, indeed!",2 "Arthur felt there was not air enough in the room to satisfy his renovated life, when he had read that passage in the letter.",3 "He threw up the windows, he rushed out of doors into the December air, and greeted every one who spoke to him with an eager gaiety, as if there had been news of a fresh Nelson victory.",4 "For the first time that day since he had come to Windsor, he was in true boyish spirits.",2 "The load that had been pressing upon him was gone, the haunting fear had vanished.",1 "He thought he could conquer his bitterness towards Adam now--could offer him his hand, and ask to be his friend again, in spite of that painful memory which would still make his ears burn.",0 "He had been knocked down, and he had been forced to tell a lie: such things make a scar, do what we will.",1 "But if Adam were the same again as in the old days, Arthur wished to be the same too, and to have Adam mixed up with his business and his future, as he had always desired before the accursed meeting in August.",1 "Nay, he would do a great deal more for Adam than he should otherwise have done, when he came into the estate; Hetty's husband had a special claim on him--Hetty herself should feel that any pain she had suffered through Arthur in the past was compensated to her a hundredfold.",1 "For really she could not have felt much, since she had so soon made up her mind to marry Adam.",2 You perceive clearly what sort of picture Adam and Hetty made in the panorama of Arthur's thoughts on his journey homeward.,3 It was March now; they were soon to be married: perhaps they were already married.,2 And now it was actually in his power to do a great deal for them.,3 Sweet--sweet little Hetty!,3 "The little puss hadn't cared for him half as much as he cared for her; for he was a great fool about her still--was almost afraid of seeing her--indeed, had not cared much to look at any other woman since he parted from her.",1 "That little figure coming towards him in the Grove, those dark-fringed childish eyes, the lovely lips put up to kiss him--that picture had got no fainter with the lapse of months.",1 And she would look just the same.,2 It was impossible to think how he could meet her: he should certainly tremble.,1 "Strange, how long this sort of influence lasts, for he was certainly not in love with Hetty now.",2 "He had been earnestly desiring, for months, that she should marry Adam, and there was nothing that contributed more to his happiness in these moments than the thought of their marriage.",4 It was the exaggerating effect of imagination that made his heart still beat a little more quickly at the thought of her.,2 "When he saw the little thing again as she really was, as Adam's wife, at work quite prosaically in her new home, he should perhaps wonder at the possibility of his past feelings.",3 Thank heaven it had turned out so well!,4 "He should have plenty of affairs and interests to fill his life now, and not be in danger of playing the fool again.",1 Pleasant the crack of the post-boy's whip!,2 "Pleasant the sense of being hurried along in swift ease through English scenes, so like those round his own home, only not quite so charming.",4 "Here was a market-town--very much like Treddleston--where the arms of the neighbouring lord of the manor were borne on the sign of the principal inn; then mere fields and hedges, their vicinity to a market-town carrying an agreeable suggestion of high rent, till the land began to assume a trimmer look, the woods were more frequent, and at length a white or red mansion looked down from a moderate eminence, or allowed him to be aware of its parapet and chimneys among the dense-looking masses of oaks and elms--masses reddened now with early buds.",3 "And close at hand came the village: the small church, with its red-tiled roof, looking humble even among the faded half-timbered houses; the old green gravestones with nettles round them; nothing fresh and bright but the children, opening round eyes at the swift post-chaise; nothing noisy and busy but the gaping curs of mysterious pedigree.",3 What a much prettier village Hayslope was!,2 "And it should not be neglected like this place: vigorous repairs should go on everywhere among farm-buildings and cottages, and travellers in post-chaises, coming along the Rosseter road, should do nothing but admire as they went.",3 "And Adam Bede should superintend all the repairs, for he had a share in Burge's business now, and, if he liked, Arthur would put some money into the concern and buy the old man out in another year or two.",2 "That was an ugly fault in Arthur's life, that affair last summer, but the future should make amends.",1 "Many men would have retained a feeling of vindictiveness towards Adam, but he would not--he would resolutely overcome all littleness of that kind, for he had certainly been very much in the wrong; and though Adam had been harsh and violent, and had thrust on him a painful dilemma, the poor fellow was in love, and had real provocation.",0 "No, Arthur had not an evil feeling in his mind towards any human being: he was happy, and would make every one else happy that came within his reach.",2 "And here was dear old Hayslope at last, sleeping, on the hill, like a quiet old place as it was, in the late afternoon sunlight, and opposite to it the great shoulders of the Binton Hills, below them the purplish blackness of the hanging woods, and at last the pale front of the Abbey, looking out from among the oaks of the Chase, as if anxious for the heir's return.",3 """Poor Grandfather!",1 And he lies dead there.,1 "He was a young fellow once, coming into the estate and making his plans.",2 So the world goes round!,2 "Aunt Lydia must feel very desolate, poor thing; but she shall be indulged as much as she indulges her fat Fido.""",0 "The wheels of Arthur's chaise had been anxiously listened for at the Chase, for to-day was Friday, and the funeral had already been deferred two days.",1 "Before it drew up on the gravel of the courtyard, all the servants in the house were assembled to receive him with a grave, decent welcome, befitting a house of death.",3 "A month ago, perhaps, it would have been difficult for them to have maintained a suitable sadness in their faces, when Mr. Arthur was come to take possession; but the hearts of the head-servants were heavy that day for another cause than the death of the old squire, and more than one of them was longing to be twenty miles away, as Mr. Craig was, knowing what was to become of Hetty Sorrel--pretty Hetty Sorrel--whom they used to see every week.",1 "They had the partisanship of household servants who like their places, and were not inclined to go the full length of the severe indignation felt against him by the farming tenants, but rather to make excuses for him; nevertheless, the upper servants, who had been on terms of neighbourly intercourse with the Poysers for many years, could not help feeling that the longed-for event of the young squire's coming into the estate had been robbed of all its pleasantness.",1 "To Arthur it was nothing surprising that the servants looked grave and sad: he himself was very much touched on seeing them all again, and feeling that he was in a new relation to them.",1 "It was that sort of pathetic emotion which has more pleasure than pain in it--which is perhaps one of the most delicious of all states to a good-natured man, conscious of the power to satisfy his good nature.",3 "His heart swelled agreeably as he said, ""Well, Mills, how is my aunt?""",3 "But now Mr. Bygate, the lawyer, who had been in the house ever since the death, came forward to give deferential greetings and answer all questions, and Arthur walked with him towards the library, where his Aunt Lydia was expecting him.",1 Aunt Lydia was the only person in the house who knew nothing about Hetty.,2 "Her sorrow as a maiden daughter was unmixed with any other thoughts than those of anxiety about funeral arrangements and her own future lot; and, after the manner of women, she mourned for the father who had made her life important, all the more because she had a secret sense that there was little mourning for him in other hearts.",1 But Arthur kissed her tearful face more tenderly than he had ever done in his life before.,3 """Dear Aunt,"" he said affectionately, as he held her hand, ""YOUR loss is the greatest of all, but you must tell me how to try and make it up to you all the rest of your life.""",2 """It was so sudden and so dreadful, Arthur,"" poor Miss Lydia began, pouring out her little plaints, and Arthur sat down to listen with impatient patience.",0 "When a pause came, he said: ""Now, Aunt, I'll leave you for a quarter of an hour just to go to my own room, and then I shall come and give full attention to everything.""",2 """My room is all ready for me, I suppose, Mills?""",3 "he said to the butler, who seemed to be lingering uneasily about the entrance-hall.",1 """Yes, sir, and there are letters for you; they are all laid on the writing-table in your dressing-room.""",2 "On entering the small anteroom which was called a dressing-room, but which Arthur really used only to lounge and write in, he just cast his eyes on the writing-table, and saw that there were several letters and packets lying there; but he was in the uncomfortable dusty condition of a man who has had a long hurried journey, and he must really refresh himself by attending to his toilette a little, before he read his letters.",1 "Pym was there, making everything ready for him, and soon, with a delightful freshness about him, as if he were prepared to begin a new day, he went back into his dressing-room to open his letters.",3 "The level rays of the low afternoon sun entered directly at the window, and as Arthur seated himself in his velvet chair with their pleasant warmth upon him, he was conscious of that quiet well-being which perhaps you and I have felt on a sunny afternoon when, in our brightest youth and health, life has opened a new vista for us, and long to-morrows of activity have stretched before us like a lovely plain which there was no need for hurrying to look at, because it was all our own.",4 "The top letter was placed with its address upwards: it was in Mr. Irwine's handwriting, Arthur saw at once; and below the address was written, ""To be delivered as soon as he arrives.""",3 "Nothing could have been less surprising to him than a letter from Mr. Irwine at that moment: of course, there was something he wished Arthur to know earlier than it was possible for them to see each other.",2 At such a time as that it was quite natural that Irwine should have something pressing to say.,2 Arthur broke the seal with an agreeable anticipation of soon seeing the writer.,2 """I send this letter to meet you on your arrival, Arthur, because I may then be at Stoniton, whither I am called by the most painful duty it has ever been given me to perform, and it is right that you should know what I have to tell you without delay.",1 """I will not attempt to add by one word of reproach to the retribution that is now falling on you: any other words that I could write at this moment must be weak and unmeaning by the side of those in which I must tell you the simple fact.",0 """Hetty Sorrel is in prison, and will be tried on Friday for the crime of child-murder.""",0 ...,2 Arthur read no more.,2 "He started up from his chair and stood for a single minute with a sense of violent convulsion in his whole frame, as if the life were going out of him with horrible throbs; but the next minute he had rushed out of the room, still clutching the letter--he was hurrying along the corridor, and down the stairs into the hall.",0 "Mills was still there, but Arthur did not see him, as he passed like a hunted man across the hall and out along the gravel.",3 "The butler hurried out after him as fast as his elderly limbs could run: he guessed, he knew, where the young squire was going.",3 "When Mills got to the stables, a horse was being saddled, and Arthur was forcing himself to read the remaining words of the letter.",2 "He thrust it into his pocket as the horse was led up to him, and at that moment caught sight of Mills' anxious face in front of him.",2 """Tell them I'm gone--gone to Stoniton,"" he said in a muffled tone of agitation--sprang into the saddle, and set off at a gallop.",2 "NEAR sunset that evening an elderly gentleman was standing with his back against the smaller entrance-door of Stoniton jail, saying a few last words to the departing chaplain.",2 "The chaplain walked away, but the elderly gentleman stood still, looking down on the pavement and stroking his chin with a ruminating air, when he was roused by a sweet clear woman's voice, saying, ""Can I get into the prison, if you please?""",3 He turned his head and looked fixedly at the speaker for a few moments without answering.,2 """I have seen you before,"" he said at last.",2 """Do you remember preaching on the village green at Hayslope in Loamshire?""",2 """Yes, sir, surely.",2 "Are you the gentleman that stayed to listen on horseback?""",2 """Yes.",2 "Why do you want to go into the prison?""",1 """I want to go to Hetty Sorrel, the young woman who has been condemned to death--and to stay with her, if I may be permitted.",1 "Have you power in the prison, sir?""",1 """Yes; I am a magistrate, and can get admittance for you.",2 "But did you know this criminal, Hetty Sorrel?""",1 """Yes, we are kin.",2 "My own aunt married her uncle, Martin Poyser.",2 "But I was away at Leeds, and didn't know of this great trouble in time to get here before to-day.",2 "I entreat you, sir, for the love of our heavenly Father, to let me go to her and stay with her.""",3 """How did you know she was condemned to death, if you are only just come from Leeds?""",1 """I have seen my uncle since the trial, sir.",2 "He is gone back to his home now, and the poor sinner is forsaken of all.",1 "I beseech you to get leave for me to be with her.""",1 """What!",2 Have you courage to stay all night in the prison?,2 "She is very sullen, and will scarcely make answer when she is spoken to.""",1 """Oh, sir, it may please God to open her heart still.",2 "Don't let us delay.""",1 """Come, then,"" said the elderly gentleman, ringing and gaining admission, ""I know you have a key to unlock hearts.""",3 "Dinah mechanically took off her bonnet and shawl as soon as they were within the prison court, from the habit she had of throwing them off when she preached or prayed, or visited the sick; and when they entered the jailer's room, she laid them down on a chair unthinkingly.",1 "There was no agitation visible in her, but a deep concentrated calmness, as if, even when she was speaking, her soul was in prayer reposing on an unseen support.",3 "After speaking to the jailer, the magistrate turned to her and said, ""The turnkey will take you to the prisoner's cell and leave you there for the night, if you desire it, but you can't have a light during the night--it is contrary to rules.",2 "My name is Colonel Townley: if I can help you in anything, ask the jailer for my address and come to me.",2 "I take some interest in this Hetty Sorrel, for the sake of that fine fellow, Adam Bede.",3 "I happened to see him at Hayslope the same evening I heard you preach, and recognized him in court to-day, ill as he looked.""",2 """Ah, sir, can you tell me anything about him?",2 Can you tell me where he lodges?,2 "For my poor uncle was too much weighed down with trouble to remember.""",1 """Close by here.",2 I inquired all about him of Mr. Irwine.,2 "He lodges over a tinman's shop, in the street on the right hand as you entered the prison.",2 There is an old school-master with him.,3 "Now, good-bye: I wish you success.""",3 """Farewell, sir.",2 "I am grateful to you.""",3 "As Dinah crossed the prison court with the turnkey, the solemn evening light seemed to make the walls higher than they were by day, and the sweet pale face in the cap was more than ever like a white flower on this background of gloom.",1 "The turnkey looked askance at her all the while, but never spoke.",1 He somehow felt that the sound of his own rude voice would be grating just then.,1 "He struck a light as they entered the dark corridor leading to the condemned cell, and then said in his most civil tone, ""It'll be pretty nigh dark in the cell a'ready, but I can stop with my light a bit, if you like.""",2 """Nay, friend, thank you,"" said Dinah.",3 """I wish to go in alone.""",2 """As you like,"" said the jailer, turning the harsh key in the lock and opening the door wide enough to admit Dinah.",3 "A jet of light from his lantern fell on the opposite corner of the cell, where Hetty was sitting on her straw pallet with her face buried in her knees.",1 "It seemed as if she were asleep, and yet the grating of the lock would have been likely to waken her.",1 "The door closed again, and the only light in the cell was that of the evening sky, through the small high grating--enough to discern human faces by.",2 "Dinah stood still for a minute, hesitating to speak because Hetty might be asleep, and looking at the motionless heap with a yearning heart.",1 "Then she said, softly, ""Hetty!""",2 There was a slight movement perceptible in Hetty's frame--a start such as might have been produced by a feeble electrical shock--but she did not look up.,1 "Dinah spoke again, in a tone made stronger by irrepressible emotion, ""Hetty...it's Dinah.""",2 "Again there was a slight startled movement through Hetty's frame, and without uncovering her face, she raised her head a little, as if listening.",2 """Hetty...",2 "Dinah is come to you.""",2 "After a moment's pause, Hetty lifted her head slowly and timidly from her knees and raised her eyes.",1 "The two pale faces were looking at each other: one with a wild hard despair in it, the other full of sad yearning love.",0 Dinah unconsciously opened her arms and stretched them out.,2 """Don't you know me, Hetty?",2 Don't you remember Dinah?,2 "Did you think I wouldn't come to you in trouble?""",1 "Hetty kept her eyes fixed on Dinah's face--at first like an animal that gazes, and gazes, and keeps aloof.",2 """I'm come to be with you, Hetty--not to leave you--to stay with you--to be your sister to the last.""",2 "Slowly, while Dinah was speaking, Hetty rose, took a step forward, and was clasped in Dinah's arms.",1 "They stood so a long while, for neither of them felt the impulse to move apart again.",2 "Hetty, without any distinct thought of it, hung on this something that was come to clasp her now, while she was sinking helpless in a dark gulf; and Dinah felt a deep joy in the first sign that her love was welcomed by the wretched lost one.",0 "The light got fainter as they stood, and when at last they sat down on the straw pallet together, their faces had become indistinct.",2 Not a word was spoken.,2 "Dinah waited, hoping for a spontaneous word from Hetty, but she sat in the same dull despair, only clutching the hand that held hers and leaning her cheek against Dinah's.",1 "It was the human contact she clung to, but she was not the less sinking into the dark gulf.",1 Dinah began to doubt whether Hetty was conscious who it was that sat beside her.,1 She thought suffering and fear might have driven the poor sinner out of her mind.,0 "But it was borne in upon her, as she afterwards said, that she must not hurry God's work: we are overhasty to speak--as if God did not manifest himself by our silent feeling, and make his love felt through ours.",4 "She did not know how long they sat in that way, but it got darker and darker, till there was only a pale patch of light on the opposite wall: all the rest was darkness.",0 "But she felt the Divine presence more and more--nay, as if she herself were a part of it, and it was the Divine pity that was beating in her heart and was willing the rescue of this helpless one.",2 At last she was prompted to speak and find out how far Hetty was conscious of the present.,2 """Hetty,"" she said gently, ""do you know who it is that sits by your side?""",2 """Yes,"" Hetty answered slowly, ""it's Dinah.""",1 """And do you remember the time when we were at the Hall Farm together, and that night when I told you to be sure and think of me as a friend in trouble?""",1 """Yes,"" said Hetty.",2 "Then, after a pause, she added, ""But you can do nothing for me.",2 You can't make 'em do anything.,2 "They'll hang me o' Monday--it's Friday now.""",1 "As Hetty said the last words, she clung closer to Dinah, shuddering.",2 """No, Hetty, I can't save you from that death.",1 "But isn't the suffering less hard when you have somebody with you, that feels for you--that you can speak to, and say what's in your heart?...Yes, Hetty: you lean on me: you are glad to have me with you.""",2 """You won't leave me, Dinah?",2 "You'll keep close to me?""",2 """No, Hetty, I won't leave you.",2 "I'll stay with you to the last....But, Hetty, there is some one else in this cell besides me, some one close to you.""",2 "Hetty said, in a frightened whisper, ""Who?""",2 """Some one who has been with you through all your hours of sin and trouble--who has known every thought you have had--has seen where you went, where you lay down and rose up again, and all the deeds you have tried to hide in darkness.",0 "And on Monday, when I can't follow you--when my arms can't reach you--when death has parted us--He who is with us now, and knows all, will be with you then.",1 "It makes no difference--whether we live or die, we are in the presence of God.""",1 """Oh, Dinah, won't nobody do anything for me?",2 Will they hang me for certain?...,1 "I wouldn't mind if they'd let me live.""",2 """My poor Hetty, death is very dreadful to you.",0 I know it's dreadful.,1 But if you had a friend to take care of you after death--in that other world--some one whose love is greater than mine--who can do everything?...,2 "If God our Father was your friend, and was willing to save you from sin and suffering, so as you should neither know wicked feelings nor pain again?",0 "If you could believe he loved you and would help you, as you believe I love you and will help you, it wouldn't be so hard to die on Monday, would it?""",2 """But I can't know anything about it,"" Hetty said, with sullen sadness.",1 """Because, Hetty, you are shutting up your soul against him, by trying to hide the truth.",2 "God's love and mercy can overcome all things--our ignorance, and weakness, and all the burden of our past wickedness--all things but our wilful sin, sin that we cling to, and will not give up.",0 "You believe in my love and pity for you, Hetty, but if you had not let me come near you, if you wouldn't have looked at me or spoken to me, you'd have shut me out from helping you.",3 I couldn't have made you feel my love; I couldn't have told you what I felt for you.,3 "Don't shut God's love out in that way, by clinging to sin....",2 "He can't bless you while you have one falsehood in your soul; his pardoning mercy can't reach you until you open your heart to him, and say, 'I have done this great wickedness; O God, save me, make me pure from sin.'",3 "While you cling to one sin and will not part with it, it must drag you down to misery after death, as it has dragged you to misery here in this world, my poor, poor Hetty.",0 "It is sin that brings dread, and darkness, and despair: there is light and blessedness for us as soon as we cast it off.",0 "God enters our souls then, and teaches us, and brings us strength and peace.",3 "Cast it off now, Hetty--now: confess the wickedness you have done--the sin you have been guilty of against your Heavenly Father.",0 "Let us kneel down together, for we are in the presence of God.""",2 "Hetty obeyed Dinah's movement, and sank on her knees.",2 "They still held each other's hands, and there was long silence.",2 "Then Dinah said, ""Hetty, we are before God.",2 "He is waiting for you to tell the truth.""",2 Still there was silence.,2 "At last Hetty spoke, in a tone of beseeching-- ""Dinah...",2 help me...,2 I can't feel anything like you...,3 "my heart is hard.""",1 "Dinah held the clinging hand, and all her soul went forth in her voice: ""Jesus, thou present Saviour!",2 "Thou hast known the depths of all sorrow: thou hast entered that black darkness where God is not, and hast uttered the cry of the forsaken.",0 "Come Lord, and gather of the fruits of thy travail and thy pleading.",2 "Stretch forth thy hand, thou who art mighty to save to the uttermost, and rescue this lost one.",2 She is clothed round with thick darkness.,1 "The fetters of her sin are upon her, and she cannot stir to come to thee.",1 "She can only feel her heart is hard, and she is helpless.",1 "She cries to me, thy weak creature....Saviour!",1 It is a blind cry to thee.,1 Hear it!,2 Pierce the darkness!,1 "Look upon her with thy face of love and sorrow that thou didst turn on him who denied thee, and melt her hard heart.",1 """See, Lord, I bring her, as they of old brought the sick and helpless, and thou didst heal them.",1 I bear her on my arms and carry her before thee.,2 "Fear and trembling have taken hold on her, but she trembles only at the pain and death of the body.",0 "Breathe upon her thy life-giving Spirit, and put a new fear within her--the fear of her sin.",1 Make her dread to keep the accursed thing within her soul.,1 "Make her feel the presence of the living God, who beholds all the past, to whom the darkness is as noonday; who is waiting now, at the eleventh hour, for her to turn to him, and confess her sin, and cry for mercy--now, before the night of death comes, and the moment of pardon is for ever fled, like yesterday that returneth not.",1 """Saviour!",2 It is yet time--time to snatch this poor soul from everlasting darkness.,1 I believe--I believe in thy infinite love.,3 What is my love or my pleading?,3 It is quenched in thine.,2 I can only clasp her in my weak arms and urge her with my weak pity.,1 "Thou--thou wilt breathe on the dead soul, and it shall arise from the unanswering sleep of death.",0 """Yea, Lord, I see thee, coming through the darkness coming, like the morning, with healing on thy wings.",2 "The marks of thy agony are upon thee--I see, I see thou art able and willing to save--thou wilt not let her perish for ever.",1 "Come, mighty Saviour!",3 Let the dead hear thy voice.,1 Let the eyes of the blind be opened.,1 Let her see that God encompasses her.,2 Let her tremble at nothing but at the sin that cuts her off from him.,1 Melt the hard heart.,1 "Unseal the closed lips: make her cry with her whole soul, 'Father, I have sinned.'",1 "...""",2 """Dinah,"" Hetty sobbed out, throwing her arms round Dinah's neck, ""I will speak...",2 I will tell...,2 "I won't hide it any more.""",2 But the tears and sobs were too violent.,1 "Dinah raised her gently from her knees and seated her on the pallet again, sitting down by her side.",2 "It was a long time before the convulsed throat was quiet, and even then they sat some time in stillness and darkness, holding each other's hands.",2 "At last Hetty whispered, ""I did do it, Dinah...",2 I buried it in the wood...,2 the little baby...,2 and it cried...,2 I heard it cry...,1 ever such a way off...,2 all night...,2 "and I went back because it cried.""",2 "She paused, and then spoke hurriedly in a louder, pleading tone.",1 """But I thought perhaps it wouldn't die--there might somebody find it.",1 I didn't kill it--I didn't kill it myself.,1 "I put it down there and covered it up, and when I came back it was gone....",2 "It was because I was so very miserable, Dinah...",1 I didn't know where to go...,2 "and I tried to kill myself before, and I couldn't.",1 "Oh, I tried so to drown myself in the pool, and I couldn't.",2 I went to Windsor--I ran away--did you know?,2 "I went to find him, as he might take care of me; and he was gone; and then I didn't know what to do.",2 I daredn't go back home again--I couldn't bear it.,2 "I couldn't have bore to look at anybody, for they'd have scorned me.",1 "I thought o' you sometimes, and thought I'd come to you, for I didn't think you'd be cross with me, and cry shame on me.",1 I thought I could tell you.,2 "But then the other folks 'ud come to know it at last, and I couldn't bear that.",2 "It was partly thinking o' you made me come toward Stoniton; and, besides, I was so frightened at going wandering about till I was a beggar-woman, and had nothing; and sometimes it seemed as if I must go back to the farm sooner than that.",1 "Oh, it was so dreadful, Dinah...",1 I was so miserable...,1 I wished I'd never been born into this world.,2 "I should never like to go into the green fields again--I hated 'em so in my misery.""",1 "Hetty paused again, as if the sense of the past were too strong upon her for words.",3 """And then I got to Stoniton, and I began to feel frightened that night, because I was so near home.",2 "And then the little baby was born, when I didn't expect it; and the thought came into my mind that I might get rid of it and go home again.",2 "The thought came all of a sudden, as I was lying in the bed, and it got stronger and stronger...",2 I longed so to go back again...,2 I couldn't bear being so lonely and coming to beg for want.,1 And it gave me strength and resolution to get up and dress myself.,2 I felt I must do it...,2 I didn't know how...,2 "I thought I'd find a pool, if I could, like that other, in the corner of the field, in the dark.",2 "And when the woman went out, I felt as if I was strong enough to do anything...",3 "I thought I should get rid of all my misery, and go back home, and never let 'em know why I ran away.",1 "I put on my bonnet and shawl, and went out into the dark street, with the baby under my cloak; and I walked fast till I got into a street a good way off, and there was a public, and I got some warm stuff to drink and some bread.",3 "And I walked on and on, and I hardly felt the ground I trod on; and it got lighter, for there came the moon--oh, Dinah, it frightened me when it first looked at me out o' the clouds--it never looked so before; and I turned out of the road into the fields, for I was afraid o' meeting anybody with the moon shining on me.",2 "And I came to a haystack, where I thought I could lie down and keep myself warm all night.",2 "There was a place cut into it, where I could make me a bed, and I lay comfortable, and the baby was warm against me; and I must have gone to sleep for a good while, for when I woke it was morning, but not very light, and the baby was crying.",4 And I saw a wood a little way off...,2 I thought there'd perhaps be a ditch or a pond there...,2 "and it was so early I thought I could hide the child there, and get a long way off before folks was up.",2 "And then I thought I'd go home--I'd get rides in carts and go home and tell 'em I'd been to try and see for a place, and couldn't get one.",2 "I longed so for it, Dinah, I longed so to be safe at home.",3 I don't know how I felt about the baby.,2 "I seemed to hate it--it was like a heavy weight hanging round my neck; and yet its crying went through me, and I daredn't look at its little hands and face.",2 "But I went on to the wood, and I walked about, but there was no water....""",2 Hetty shuddered.,2 "She was silent for some moments, and when she began again, it was in a whisper.",3 """I came to a place where there was lots of chips and turf, and I sat down on the trunk of a tree to think what I should do.",2 "And all of a sudden I saw a hole under the nut-tree, like a little grave.",3 And it darted into me like lightning--I'd lay the baby there and cover it with the grass and the chips.,3 I couldn't kill it any other way.,1 "And I'd done it in a minute; and, oh, it cried so, Dinah--I couldn't cover it quite up--I thought perhaps somebody 'ud come and take care of it, and then it wouldn't die.",1 "And I made haste out of the wood, but I could hear it crying all the while; and when I got out into the fields, it was as if I was held fast--I couldn't go away, for all I wanted so to go.",2 And I sat against the haystack to watch if anybody 'ud come.,2 "I was very hungry, and I'd only a bit of bread left, but I couldn't go away.",2 "And after ever such a while--hours and hours--the man came--him in a smock-frock, and he looked at me so, I was frightened, and I made haste and went on.",1 I thought he was going to the wood and would perhaps find the baby.,2 "And I went right on, till I came to a village, a long way off from the wood, and I was very sick, and faint, and hungry.",1 "I got something to eat there, and bought a loaf.",2 But I was frightened to stay.,2 "I heard the baby crying, and thought the other folks heard it too--and I went on.",2 "But I was so tired, and it was getting towards dark.",1 "And at last, by the roadside there was a barn--ever such a way off any house--like the barn in Abbot's Close, and I thought I could go in there and hide myself among the hay and straw, and nobody 'ud be likely to come.",3 "I went in, and it was half full o' trusses of straw, and there was some hay too.",2 "And I made myself a bed, ever so far behind, where nobody could find me; and I was so tired and weak, I went to sleep....",1 "But oh, the baby's crying kept waking me, and I thought that man as looked at me so was come and laying hold of me.",2 "But I must have slept a long while at last, though I didn't know, for when I got up and went out of the barn, I didn't know whether it was night or morning.",2 "But it was morning, for it kept getting lighter, and I turned back the way I'd come.",3 "I couldn't help it, Dinah; it was the baby's crying made me go--and yet I was frightened to death.",1 I thought that man in the smock-frock 'ud see me and know I put the baby there.,2 "But I went on, for all that.",2 I'd left off thinking about going home--it had gone out o' my mind.,2 I saw nothing but that place in the wood where I'd buried the baby...,2 I see it now.,2 Oh Dinah!,2 "shall I allays see it?""",2 Hetty clung round Dinah and shuddered again.,2 The silence seemed long before she went on.,2 """I met nobody, for it was very early, and I got into the wood....",2 I knew the way to the place...,2 the place against the nut-tree; and I could hear it crying at every step....,2 I thought it was alive....,2 I don't know whether I was frightened or glad...,3 I don't know what I felt.,2 I only know I was in the wood and heard the cry.,1 I don't know what I felt till I saw the baby was gone.,2 "And when I'd put it there, I thought I should like somebody to find it and save it from dying; but when I saw it was gone, I was struck like a stone, with fear.",1 "I never thought o' stirring, I felt so weak.",1 "I knew I couldn't run away, and everybody as saw me 'ud know about the baby.",2 My heart went like a stone.,3 "I couldn't wish or try for anything; it seemed like as if I should stay there for ever, and nothing 'ud ever change.",3 "But they came and took me away.""",2 "Hetty was silent, but she shuddered again, as if there was still something behind; and Dinah waited, for her heart was so full that tears must come before words.",3 "At last Hetty burst out, with a sob, ""Dinah, do you think God will take away that crying and the place in the wood, now I've told everything?""",1 """Let us pray, poor sinner.",1 "Let us fall on our knees again, and pray to the God of all mercy.""",2 "ON Sunday morning, when the church bells in Stoniton were ringing for morning service, Bartle Massey re-entered Adam's room, after a short absence, and said, ""Adam, here's a visitor wants to see you.""",1 "Adam was seated with his back towards the door, but he started up and turned round instantly, with a flushed face and an eager look.",3 "His face was even thinner and more worn than we have seen it before, but he was washed and shaven this Sunday morning.",2 """Is it any news?""",2 he said.,2 """Keep yourself quiet, my lad,"" said Bartle; ""keep quiet.",3 It's not what you're thinking of.,2 It's the young Methodist woman come from the prison.,1 "She's at the bottom o' the stairs, and wants to know if you think well to see her, for she has something to say to you about that poor castaway; but she wouldn't come in without your leave, she said.",2 She thought you'd perhaps like to go out and speak to her.,3 "These preaching women are not so back'ard commonly,"" Bartle muttered to himself.",2 """Ask her to come in,"" said Adam.",2 "He was standing with his face towards the door, and as Dinah entered, lifting up her mild grey eyes towards him, she saw at once the great change that had come since the day when she had looked up at the tall man in the cottage.",3 "There was a trembling in her clear voice as she put her hand into his and said, ""Be comforted, Adam Bede, the Lord has not forsaken her.""",2 """Bless you for coming to her,"" Adam said.",3 """Mr. Massey brought me word yesterday as you was come.""",2 "They could neither of them say any more just yet, but stood before each other in silence; and Bartle Massey, too, who had put on his spectacles, seemed transfixed, examining Dinah's face.",2 "But he recovered himself first, and said, ""Sit down, young woman, sit down,"" placing the chair for her and retiring to his old seat on the bed.",2 """Thank you, friend; I won't sit down,"" said Dinah, ""for I must hasten back.",3 She entreated me not to stay long away.,2 "What I came for, Adam Bede, was to pray you to go and see the poor sinner and bid her farewell.",1 "She desires to ask your forgiveness, and it is meet you should see her to-day, rather than in the early morning, when the time will be short.""",2 "Adam stood trembling, and at last sank down on his chair again.",2 """It won't be,"" he said, ""it'll be put off--there'll perhaps come a pardon.",3 Mr. Irwine said there was hope.,2 "He said, I needn't quite give it up.""",2 """That's a blessed thought to me,"" said Dinah, her eyes filling with tears.",2 """It's a fearful thing hurrying her soul away so fast.""",2 """But let what will be,"" she added presently.",2 """You will surely come, and let her speak the words that are in her heart.",2 "Although her poor soul is very dark and discerns little beyond the things of the flesh, she is no longer hard.",0 "She is contrite, she has confessed all to me.",2 "The pride of her heart has given way, and she leans on me for help and desires to be taught.",3 "This fills me with trust, for I cannot but think that the brethren sometimes err in measuring the Divine love by the sinner's knowledge.",3 "She is going to write a letter to the friends at the Hall Farm for me to give them when she is gone, and when I told her you were here, she said, 'I should like to say good-bye to Adam and ask him to forgive me.'",3 "You will come, Adam?",2 "Perhaps you will even now come back with me.""",2 """I can't,"" Adam said.",2 """I can't say good-bye while there's any hope.",3 "I'm listening, and listening--I can't think o' nothing but that.",2 "It can't be as she'll die that shameful death--I can't bring my mind to it.""",0 "He got up from his chair again and looked away out of the window, while Dinah stood with compassionate patience.",3 "In a minute or two he turned round and said, ""I will come, Dinah...to-morrow morning...",2 if it must be.,2 "I may have more strength to bear it, if I know it must be.",2 "Tell her, I forgive her; tell her I will come--at the very last.""",2 """I will not urge you against the voice of your own heart,"" said Dinah.",2 """I must hasten back to her, for it is wonderful how she clings now, and was not willing to let me out of her sight.",3 "She used never to make any return to my affection before, but now tribulation has opened her heart.",3 "Farewell, Adam.",2 "Our heavenly Father comfort you and strengthen you to bear all things.""",3 "Dinah put out her hand, and Adam pressed it in silence.",2 "Bartle Massey was getting up to lift the stiff latch of the door for her, but before he could reach it, she had said gently, ""Farewell, friend,"" and was gone, with her light step down the stairs.",1 """Well,"" said Bartle, taking off his spectacles and putting them into his pocket, ""if there must be women to make trouble in the world, it's but fair there should be women to be comforters under it; and she's one--she's one.",3 "It's a pity she's a Methodist; but there's no getting a woman without some foolishness or other.""",1 Adam never went to bed that night.,2 "The excitement of suspense, heightening with every hour that brought him nearer the fatal moment, was too great, and in spite of his entreaties, in spite of his promises that he would be perfectly quiet, the schoolmaster watched too.",4 """What does it matter to me, lad?""",2 "Bartle said: ""a night's sleep more or less?",2 "I shall sleep long enough, by and by, underground.",3 "Let me keep thee company in trouble while I can.""",1 It was a long and dreary night in that small chamber.,1 "Adam would sometimes get up and tread backwards and forwards along the short space from wall to wall; then he would sit down and hide his face, and no sound would be heard but the ticking of the watch on the table, or the falling of a cinder from the fire which the schoolmaster carefully tended.",1 "Sometimes he would burst out into vehement speech, ""If I could ha' done anything to save her--if my bearing anything would ha' done any good...",2 "but t' have to sit still, and know it, and do nothing...it's hard for a man to bear...",1 "and to think o' what might ha' been now, if it hadn't been for HIM....",2 "O God, it's the very day we should ha' been married.""",2 """Aye, my lad,"" said Bartle tenderly, ""it's heavy--it's heavy.",3 "But you must remember this: when you thought of marrying her, you'd a notion she'd got another sort of a nature inside her.",2 "You didn't think she could have got hardened in that little while to do what she's done.""",1 """I know--I know that,"" said Adam.",2 """I thought she was loving and tender-hearted, and wouldn't tell a lie, or act deceitful.",2 How could I think any other way?,2 "And if he'd never come near her, and I'd married her, and been loving to her, and took care of her, she might never ha' done anything bad.",2 What would it ha' signified--my having a bit o' trouble with her?,1 "It 'ud ha' been nothing to this.""",2 """There's no knowing, my lad--there's no knowing what might have come.",2 The smart's bad for you to bear now: you must have time--you must have time.,1 "But I've that opinion of you, that you'll rise above it all and be a man again, and there may good come out of this that we don't see.""",3 """Good come out of it!""",3 said Adam passionately.,3 """That doesn't alter th' evil: HER ruin can't be undone.",0 "I hate that talk o' people, as if there was a way o' making amends for everything.",1 They'd more need be brought to see as the wrong they do can never be altered.,1 "When a man's spoiled his fellow-creatur's life, he's no right to comfort himself with thinking good may come out of it.",3 "Somebody else's good doesn't alter her shame and misery.""",1 """Well, lad, well,"" said Bartle, in a gentle tone, strangely in contrast with his usual peremptoriness and impatience of contradiction, ""it's likely enough I talk foolishness.",1 "I'm an old fellow, and it's a good many years since I was in trouble myself.",2 "It's easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient.""",3 """Mr. Massey,"" said Adam penitently, ""I'm very hot and hasty.",2 "I owe you something different; but you mustn't take it ill of me.""",2 """Not I, lad--not I."" So the night wore on in agitation till the chill dawn and the growing light brought the tremulous quiet that comes on the brink of despair.",2 There would soon be no more suspense.,2 """Let us go to the prison now, Mr. Massey,"" said Adam, when he saw the hand of his watch at six.",1 """If there's any news come, we shall hear about it.""",2 "The people were astir already, moving rapidly, in one direction, through the streets.",2 "Adam tried not to think where they were going, as they hurried past him in that short space between his lodging and the prison gates.",1 He was thankful when the gates shut him in from seeing those eager people.,3 No; there was no news come--no pardon--no reprieve.,3 Adam lingered in the court half an hour before he could bring himself to send word to Dinah that he was come.,2 But a voice caught his ear: he could not shut out the words.,2 """The cart is to set off at half-past seven.""",2 It must be said--the last good-bye: there was no help.,3 "In ten minutes from that time, Adam was at the door of the cell.",2 Dinah had sent him word that she could not come to him; she could not leave Hetty one moment; but Hetty was prepared for the meeting.,2 "He could not see her when he entered, for agitation deadened his senses, and the dim cell was almost dark to him.",1 "He stood a moment after the door closed behind him, trembling and stupefied.",2 "But he began to see through the dimness--to see the dark eyes lifted up to him once more, but with no smile in them.",2 "O God, how sad they looked!",1 "The last time they had met his was when he parted from her with his heart full of joyous hopeful love, and they looked out with a tearful smile from a pink, dimpled, childish face.",4 "The face was marble now; the sweet lips were pallid and half-open and quivering; the dimples were all gone--all but one, that never went; and the eyes--O, the worst of all was the likeness they had to Hetty's.",2 "They were Hetty's eyes looking at him with that mournful gaze, as if she had come back to him from the dead to tell him of her misery.",0 She was clinging close to Dinah; her cheek was against Dinah's.,2 "It seemed as if her last faint strength and hope lay in that contact, and the pitying love that shone out from Dinah's face looked like a visible pledge of the Invisible Mercy.",3 "When the sad eyes met--when Hetty and Adam looked at each other--she felt the change in him too, and it seemed to strike her with fresh fear.",1 It was the first time she had seen any being whose face seemed to reflect the change in herself: Adam was a new image of the dreadful past and the dreadful present.,1 She trembled more as she looked at him.,2 """Speak to him, Hetty,"" Dinah said; ""tell him what is in your heart.""",2 "Hetty obeyed her, like a little child.",3 """Adam...I'm very sorry...",1 I behaved very wrong to you...,1 will you forgive me...,2 "before I die?""",1 "Adam answered with a half-sob, ""Yes, I forgive thee Hetty.",1 "I forgave thee long ago.""",2 "It had seemed to Adam as if his brain would burst with the anguish of meeting Hetty's eyes in the first moments, but the sound of her voice uttering these penitent words touched a chord which had been less strained.",1 "There was a sense of relief from what was becoming unbearable, and the rare tears came--they had never come before, since he had hung on Seth's neck in the beginning of his sorrow.",1 "Hetty made an involuntary movement towards him, some of the love that she had once lived in the midst of was come near her again.",2 "She kept hold of Dinah's hand, but she went up to Adam and said timidly, ""Will you kiss me again, Adam, for all I've been so wicked?""",1 "Adam took the blanched wasted hand she put out to him, and they gave each other the solemn unspeakable kiss of a lifelong parting.",0 """And tell him,"" Hetty said, in rather a stronger voice, ""tell him...",3 for there's nobody else to tell him...,2 as I went after him and couldn't find him...,2 and I hated him and cursed him once...,1 but Dinah says I should forgive him...,2 and I try...,2 "for else God won't forgive me.""",2 "There was a noise at the door of the cell now--the key was being turned in the lock, and when the door opened, Adam saw indistinctly that there were several faces there.",1 He was too agitated to see more--even to see that Mr. Irwine's face was one of them.,2 "He felt that the last preparations were beginning, and he could stay no longer.",2 "Room was silently made for him to depart, and he went to his chamber in loneliness, leaving Bartle Massey to watch and see the end.",1 "IT was a sight that some people remembered better even than their own sorrows--the sight in that grey clear morning, when the fatal cart with the two young women in it was descried by the waiting watching multitude, cleaving its way towards the hideous symbol of a deliberately inflicted sudden death.",1 "All Stoniton had heard of Dinah Morris, the young Methodist woman who had brought the obstinate criminal to confess, and there was as much eagerness to see her as to see the wretched Hetty.",0 But Dinah was hardly conscious of the multitude.,2 "When Hetty had caught sight of the vast crowd in the distance, she had clutched Dinah convulsively.",2 """Close your eyes, Hetty,"" Dinah said, ""and let us pray without ceasing to God.""",2 "And in a low voice, as the cart went slowly along through the midst of the gazing crowd, she poured forth her soul with the wrestling intensity of a last pleading, for the trembling creature that clung to her and clutched her as the only visible sign of love and pity.",1 "Dinah did not know that the crowd was silent, gazing at her with a sort of awe--she did not even know how near they were to the fatal spot, when the cart stopped, and she shrank appalled at a loud shout hideous to her ear, like a vast yell of demons.",1 "Hetty's shriek mingled with the sound, and they clasped each other in mutual horror.",1 But it was not a shout of execration--not a yell of exultant cruelty.,2 It was a shout of sudden excitement at the appearance of a horseman cleaving the crowd at full gallop.,3 "The horse is hot and distressed, but answers to the desperate spurring; the rider looks as if his eyes were glazed by madness, and he saw nothing but what was unseen by others.",1 "See, he has something in his hand--he is holding it up as if it were a signal.",2 "The Sheriff knows him: it is Arthur Donnithorne, carrying in his hand a hard-won release from death.",1 "THE next day, at evening, two men were walking from opposite points towards the same scene, drawn thither by a common memory.",2 The scene was the Grove by Donnithorne Chase: you know who the men were.,2 "The old squire's funeral had taken place that morning, the will had been read, and now in the first breathing-space, Arthur Donnithorne had come out for a lonely walk, that he might look fixedly at the new future before him and confirm himself in a sad resolution.",1 He thought he could do that best in the Grove.,3 "Adam too had come from Stontion on Monday evening, and to-day he had not left home, except to go to the family at the Hall Farm and tell them everything that Mr. Irwine had left untold.",2 "He had agreed with the Poysers that he would follow them to their new neighbourhood, wherever that might be, for he meant to give up the management of the woods, and, as soon as it was practicable, he would wind up his business with Jonathan Burge and settle with his mother and Seth in a home within reach of the friends to whom he felt bound by a mutual sorrow.",1 """Seth and me are sure to find work,"" he said.",3 """A man that's got our trade at his finger-ends is at home everywhere; and we must make a new start.",2 "My mother won't stand in the way, for she's told me, since I came home, she'd made up her mind to being buried in another parish, if I wished it, and if I'd be more comfortable elsewhere.",3 It's wonderful how quiet she's been ever since I came back.,3 It seems as if the very greatness o' the trouble had quieted and calmed her.,2 "We shall all be better in a new country, though there's some I shall be loath to leave behind.",2 "But I won't part from you and yours, if I can help it, Mr. Poyser.",2 "Trouble's made us kin.""",2 """Aye, lad,"" said Martin.",2 """We'll go out o' hearing o' that man's name.",2 "But I doubt we shall ne'er go far enough for folks not to find out as we've got them belonging to us as are transported o'er the seas, and were like to be hanged.",3 "We shall have that flyin' up in our faces, and our children's after us.""",2 "That was a long visit to the Hall Farm, and drew too strongly on Adam's energies for him to think of seeing others, or re-entering on his old occupations till the morrow.",2 """But to-morrow,"" he said to himself, ""I'll go to work again.",3 "I shall learn to like it again some time, maybe; and it's right whether I like it or not.""",3 "This evening was the last he would allow to be absorbed by sorrow: suspense was gone now, and he must bear the unalterable.",1 "He was resolved not to see Arthur Donnithorne again, if it were possible to avoid him.",2 "He had no message to deliver from Hetty now, for Hetty had seen Arthur.",2 And Adam distrusted himself--he had learned to dread the violence of his own feeling.,1 That word of Mr. Irwine's--that he must remember what he had felt after giving the last blow to Arthur in the Grove--had remained with him.,1 "These thoughts about Arthur, like all thoughts that are charged with strong feeling, were continually recurring, and they always called up the image of the Grove--of that spot under the overarching boughs where he had caught sight of the two bending figures, and had been possessed by sudden rage.",3 """I'll go and see it again to-night for the last time,"" he said; ""it'll do me good; it'll make me feel over again what I felt when I'd knocked him down.",3 "I felt what poor empty work it was, as soon as I'd done it, before I began to think he might be dead.""",1 In this way it happened that Arthur and Adam were walking towards the same spot at the same time.,2 "Adam had on his working-dress again, now, for he had thrown off the other with a sense of relief as soon as he came home; and if he had had the basket of tools over his shoulder, he might have been taken, with his pale wasted face, for the spectre of the Adam Bede who entered the Grove on that August evening eight months ago.",1 "But he had no basket of tools, and he was not walking with the old erectness, looking keenly round him; his hands were thrust in his side pockets, and his eyes rested chiefly on the ground.",3 "He had not long entered the Grove, and now he paused before a beech.",2 "He knew that tree well; it was the boundary mark of his youth--the sign, to him, of the time when some of his earliest, strongest feelings had left him.",3 He felt sure they would never return.,2 "And yet, at this moment, there was a stirring of affection at the remembrance of that Arthur Donnithorne whom he had believed in before he had come up to this beech eight months ago.",3 It was affection for the dead: THAT Arthur existed no longer.,2 "He was disturbed by the sound of approaching footsteps, but the beech stood at a turning in the road, and he could not see who was coming until the tall slim figure in deep mourning suddenly stood before him at only two yards' distance.",1 "They both started, and looked at each other in silence.",2 "Often, in the last fortnight, Adam had imagined himself as close to Arthur as this, assailing him with words that should be as harrowing as the voice of remorse, forcing upon him a just share in the misery he had caused; and often, too, he had told himself that such a meeting had better not be.",1 "But in imagining the meeting he had always seen Arthur, as he had met him on that evening in the Grove, florid, careless, light of speech; and the figure before him touched him with the signs of suffering.",1 Adam knew what suffering was--he could not lay a cruel finger on a bruised man.,0 He felt no impulse that he needed to resist.,2 Silence was more just than reproach.,1 Arthur was the first to speak.,2 """Adam,"" he said, quietly, ""it may be a good thing that we have met here, for I wished to see you.",3 "I should have asked to see you to-morrow.""",2 "He paused, but Adam said nothing.",2 """I know it is painful to you to meet me,"" Arthur went on, ""but it is not likely to happen again for years to come.""",1 """No, sir,"" said Adam, coldly, ""that was what I meant to write to you to-morrow, as it would be better all dealings should be at an end between us, and somebody else put in my place.""",2 "Arthur felt the answer keenly, and it was not without an effort that he spoke again.",3 """It was partly on that subject I wished to speak to you.",2 "I don't want to lessen your indignation against me, or ask you to do anything for my sake.",1 "I only wish to ask you if you will help me to lessen the evil consequences of the past, which is unchangeable.",1 "I don't mean consequences to myself, but to others.",2 "It is but little I can do, I know.",2 "I know the worst consequences will remain; but something may be done, and you can help me.",1 "Will you listen to me patiently?""",3 """Yes, sir,"" said Adam, after some hesitation; ""I'll hear what it is.",2 "If I can help to mend anything, I will.",2 "Anger 'ull mend nothing, I know.",1 "We've had enough o' that.""",3 """I was going to the Hermitage,"" said Arthur.",2 """Will you go there with me and sit down?",2 "We can talk better there.""",3 "The Hermitage had never been entered since they left it together, for Arthur had locked up the key in his desk.",2 "And now, when he opened the door, there was the candle burnt out in the socket; there was the chair in the same place where Adam remembered sitting; there was the waste-paper basket full of scraps, and deep down in it, Arthur felt in an instant, there was the little pink silk handkerchief.",1 It would have been painful to enter this place if their previous thoughts had been less painful.,1 "They sat down opposite each other in the old places, and Arthur said, ""I'm going away, Adam; I'm going into the army.""",2 Poor Arthur felt that Adam ought to be affected by this announcement--ought to have a movement of sympathy towards him.,1 "But Adam's lips remained firmly closed, and the expression of his face unchanged.",2 """What I want to say to you,"" Arthur continued, ""is this: one of my reasons for going away is that no one else may leave Hayslope--may leave their home on my account.",2 "I would do anything, there is no sacrifice I would not make, to prevent any further injury to others through my--through what has happened.""",1 Arthur's words had precisely the opposite effect to that he had anticipated.,3 "Adam thought he perceived in them that notion of compensation for irretrievable wrong, that self-soothing attempt to make evil bear the same fruits as good, which most of all roused his indignation.",0 He was as strongly impelled to look painful facts right in the face as Arthur was to turn away his eyes from them.,2 "Moreover, he had the wakeful suspicious pride of a poor man in the presence of a rich man.",2 "He felt his old severity returning as he said, ""The time's past for that, sir.",1 A man should make sacrifices to keep clear of doing a wrong; sacrifices won't undo it when it's done.,2 "When people's feelings have got a deadly wound, they can't be cured with favours.""",1 """Favours!""",2 "said Arthur, passionately; ""no; how can you suppose I meant that?",3 But the Poysers--Mr. Irwine tells me the Poysers mean to leave the place where they have lived so many years--for generations.,2 "Don't you see, as Mr. Irwine does, that if they could be persuaded to overcome the feeling that drives them away, it would be much better for them in the end to remain on the old spot, among the friends and neighbours who know them?""",3 """That's true,"" said Adam coldly.",1 """But then, sir, folks's feelings are not so easily overcome.",2 "It'll be hard for Martin Poyser to go to a strange place, among strange faces, when he's been bred up on the Hall Farm, and his father before him; but then it 'ud be harder for a man with his feelings to stay.",1 I don't see how the thing's to be made any other than hard.,1 "There's a sort o' damage, sir, that can't be made up for.""",1 Arthur was silent some moments.,3 "In spite of other feelings dominant in him this evening, his pride winced under Adam's mode of treating him.",2 Wasn't he himself suffering?,1 Was not he too obliged to renounce his most cherished hopes?,2 It was now as it had been eight months ago--Adam was forcing Arthur to feel more intensely the irrevocableness of his own wrong-doing.,1 He was presenting the sort of resistance that was the most irritating to Arthur's eager ardent nature.,2 But his anger was subdued by the same influence that had subdued Adam's when they first confronted each other--by the marks of suffering in a long familiar face.,0 "The momentary struggle ended in the feeling that he could bear a great deal from Adam, to whom he had been the occasion of bearing so much; but there was a touch of pleading, boyish vexation in his tone as he said, ""But people may make injuries worse by unreasonable conduct--by giving way to anger and satisfying that for the moment, instead of thinking what will be the effect in the future.",0 """If I were going to stay here and act as landlord,"" he added presently, with still more eagerness--""if I were careless about what I've done--what I've been the cause of, you would have some excuse, Adam, for going away and encouraging others to go.",2 You would have some excuse then for trying to make the evil worse.,0 "But when I tell you I'm going away for years--when you know what that means for me, how it cuts off every plan of happiness I've ever formed--it is impossible for a sensible man like you to believe that there is any real ground for the Poysers refusing to remain.",3 "I know their feeling about disgrace--Mr. Irwine has told me all; but he is of opinion that they might be persuaded out of this idea that they are disgraced in the eyes of their neighbours, and that they can't remain on my estate, if you would join him in his efforts--if you would stay yourself and go on managing the old woods.""",1 "Arthur paused a moment and then added, pleadingly, ""You know that's a good work to do for the sake of other people, besides the owner.",3 "And you don't know but that they may have a better owner soon, whom you will like to work for.",4 "If I die, my cousin Tradgett will have the estate and take my name.",1 "He is a good fellow.""",3 Adam could not help being moved: it was impossible for him not to feel that this was the voice of the honest warm-hearted Arthur whom he had loved and been proud of in old days; but nearer memories would not be thrust away.,4 "He was silent; yet Arthur saw an answer in his face that induced him to go on, with growing earnestness.",3 """And then, if you would talk to the Poysers--if you would talk the matter over with Mr. Irwine--he means to see you to-morrow--and then if you would join your arguments to his to prevail on them not to go....",2 "I know, of course, that they would not accept any favour from me--I mean nothing of that kind--but I'm sure they would suffer less in the end.",2 Irwine thinks so too.,2 And Mr. Irwine is to have the chief authority on the estate--he has consented to undertake that.,2 They will really be under no man but one whom they respect and like.,3 "It would be the same with you, Adam, and it could be nothing but a desire to give me worse pain that could incline you to go.""",1 "Arthur was silent again for a little while, and then said, with some agitation in his voice, ""I wouldn't act so towards you, I know.",3 "If you were in my place and I in yours, I should try to help you to do the best.""",3 Adam made a hasty movement on his chair and looked on the ground.,1 "Arthur went on, ""Perhaps you've never done anything you've had bitterly to repent of in your life, Adam; if you had, you would be more generous.",2 "You would know then that it's worse for me than for you.""",1 "Arthur rose from his seat with the last words, and went to one of the windows, looking out and turning his back on Adam, as he continued, passionately, ""Haven't I loved her too?",3 Didn't I see her yesterday?,2 Shan't I carry the thought of her about with me as much as you will?,2 "And don't you think you would suffer more if you'd been in fault?""",1 "There was silence for several minutes, for the struggle in Adam's mind was not easily decided.",1 "Facile natures, whose emotions have little permanence, can hardly understand how much inward resistance he overcame before he rose from his seat and turned towards Arthur.",1 "Arthur heard the movement, and turning round, met the sad but softened look with which Adam said, ""It's true what you say, sir.",1 I'm hard--it's in my nature.,1 "I was too hard with my father, for doing wrong.",1 I've been a bit hard t' everybody but her.,1 "I felt as if nobody pitied her enough--her suffering cut into me so; and when I thought the folks at the farm were too hard with her, I said I'd never be hard to anybody myself again.",1 But feeling overmuch about her has perhaps made me unfair to you.,2 I've known what it is in my life to repent and feel it's too late.,2 "I felt I'd been too harsh to my father when he was gone from me--I feel it now, when I think of him.",1 "I've no right to be hard towards them as have done wrong and repent.""",1 Adam spoke these words with the firm distinctness of a man who is resolved to leave nothing unsaid that he is bound to say; but he went on with more hesitation.,2 """I wouldn't shake hands with you once, sir, when you asked me--but if you're willing to do it now, for all I refused then...""",1 "Arthur's white hand was in Adam's large grasp in an instant, and with that action there was a strong rush, on both sides, of the old, boyish affection.",3 """Adam,"" Arthur said, impelled to full confession now, ""it would never have happened if I'd known you loved her.",2 That would have helped to save me from it.,3 And I did struggle.,1 I never meant to injure her.,1 "I deceived you afterwards--and that led on to worse; but I thought it was forced upon me, I thought it was the best thing I could do.",3 And in that letter I told her to let me know if she were in any trouble: don't think I would not have done everything I could.,1 "But I was all wrong from the very first, and horrible wrong has come of it.",1 "God knows, I'd give my life if I could undo it.""",2 "They sat down again opposite each other, and Adam said, tremulously, ""How did she seem when you left her, sir?""",2 """Don't ask me, Adam,"" Arthur said; ""I feel sometimes as if I should go mad with thinking of her looks and what she said to me, and then, that I couldn't get a full pardon--that I couldn't save her from that wretched fate of being transported--that I can do nothing for her all those years; and she may die under it, and never know comfort any more.""",1 """Ah, sir,"" said Adam, for the first time feeling his own pain merged in sympathy for Arthur, ""you and me'll often be thinking o' the same thing, when we're a long way off one another.",1 "I'll pray God to help you, as I pray him to help me.""",2 """But there's that sweet woman--that Dinah Morris,"" Arthur said, pursuing his own thoughts and not knowing what had been the sense of Adam's words, ""she says she shall stay with her to the very last moment--till she goes; and the poor thing clings to her as if she found some comfort in her.",3 I could worship that woman; I don't know what I should do if she were not there.,2 "Adam, you will see her when she comes back.",2 I could say nothing to her yesterday--nothing of what I felt towards her.,2 "Tell her,"" Arthur went on hurriedly, as if he wanted to hide the emotion with which he spoke, while he took off his chain and watch, ""tell her I asked you to give her this in remembrance of me--of the man to whom she is the one source of comfort, when he thinks of...",3 I know she doesn't care about such things--or anything else I can give her for its own sake.,2 "But she will use the watch--I shall like to think of her using it.""",3 """I'll give it to her, sir,"" Adam said, ""and tell her your words.",2 "She told me she should come back to the people at the Hall Farm.""",2 """And you will persuade the Poysers to stay, Adam?""",2 "said Arthur, reminded of the subject which both of them had forgotten in the first interchange of revived friendship.",2 """You will stay yourself, and help Mr. Irwine to carry out the repairs and improvements on the estate?""",3 """There's one thing, sir, that perhaps you don't take account of,"" said Adam, with hesitating gentleness, ""and that was what made me hang back longer.",1 "You see, it's the same with both me and the Poysers: if we stay, it's for our own worldly interest, and it looks as if we'd put up with anything for the sake o' that.",2 "I know that's what they'll feel, and I can't help feeling a little of it myself.",2 "When folks have got an honourable independent spirit, they don't like to do anything that might make 'em seem base-minded.""",3 """But no one who knows you will think that, Adam.",2 "That is not a reason strong enough against a course that is really more generous, more unselfish than the other.",4 "And it will be known--it shall be made known, that both you and the Poysers stayed at my entreaty.",2 "Adam, don't try to make things worse for me; I'm punished enough without that.""",2 """No, sir, no,"" Adam said, looking at Arthur with mournful affection.",2 """God forbid I should make things worse for you.",1 "I used to wish I could do it, in my passion--but that was when I thought you didn't feel enough.",3 "I'll stay, sir, I'll do the best I can.",3 "It's all I've got to think of now--to do my work well and make the world a bit better place for them as can enjoy it.""",4 """Then we'll part now, Adam.",2 "You will see Mr. Irwine to-morrow, and consult with him about everything.""",2 """Are you going soon, sir?""",2 said Adam.,2 """As soon as possible--after I've made the necessary arrangements.",2 "Good-bye, Adam.",3 "I shall think of you going about the old place.""",2 """Good-bye, sir.",3 "God bless you.""",3 "The hands were clasped once more, and Adam left the Hermitage, feeling that sorrow was more bearable now hatred was gone.",1 "As soon as the door was closed behind him, Arthur went to the waste-paper basket and took out the little pink silk handkerchief.",1 "THE first autumnal afternoon sunshine of 1801--more than eighteen months after that parting of Adam and Arthur in the Hermitage--was on the yard at the Hall Farm; and the bull-dog was in one of his most excited moments, for it was that hour of the day when the cows were being driven into the yard for their afternoon milking.",3 "No wonder the patient beasts ran confusedly into the wrong places, for the alarming din of the bull-dog was mingled with more distant sounds which the timid feminine creatures, with pardonable superstition, imagined also to have some relation to their own movements--with the tremendous crack of the waggoner's whip, the roar of his voice, and the booming thunder of the waggon, as it left the rick-yard empty of its golden load.",1 "The milking of the cows was a sight Mrs. Poyser loved, and at this hour on mild days she was usually standing at the house door, with her knitting in her hands, in quiet contemplation, only heightened to a keener interest when the vicious yellow cow, who had once kicked over a pailful of precious milk, was about to undergo the preventive punishment of having her hinder-legs strapped.",3 "To-day, however, Mrs. Poyser gave but a divided attention to the arrival of the cows, for she was in eager discussion with Dinah, who was stitching Mr. Poyser's shirt-collars, and had borne patiently to have her thread broken three times by Totty pulling at her arm with a sudden insistence that she should look at ""Baby,"" that is, at a large wooden doll with no legs and a long skirt, whose bald head Totty, seated in her small chair at Dinah's side, was caressing and pressing to her fat cheek with much fervour.",2 "Totty is larger by more than two years' growth than when you first saw her, and she has on a black frock under her pinafore.",2 "Mrs. Poyser too has on a black gown, which seems to heighten the family likeness between her and Dinah.",2 "In other respects there is little outward change now discernible in our old friends, or in the pleasant house-place, bright with polished oak and pewter.",4 """I never saw the like to you, Dinah,"" Mrs. Poyser was saying, ""when you've once took anything into your head: there's no more moving you than the rooted tree.",3 "You may say what you like, but I don't believe that's religion; for what's the Sermon on the Mount about, as you're so fond o' reading to the boys, but doing what other folks 'ud have you do?",3 "But if it was anything unreasonable they wanted you to do, like taking your cloak off and giving it to 'em, or letting 'em slap you i' the face, I daresay you'd be ready enough.",3 "It's only when one 'ud have you do what's plain common sense and good for yourself, as you're obstinate th' other way.""",2 """Nay, dear Aunt,"" said Dinah, smiling slightly as she went on with her work, ""I'm sure your wish 'ud be a reason for me to do anything that I didn't feel it was wrong to do.""",3 """Wrong!",1 You drive me past bearing.,2 "What is there wrong, I should like to know, i' staying along wi' your own friends, as are th' happier for having you with 'em an' are willing to provide for you, even if your work didn't more nor pay 'em for the bit o' sparrow's victual y' eat and the bit o' rag you put on?",4 "An' who is it, I should like to know, as you're bound t' help and comfort i' the world more nor your own flesh and blood--an' me th' only aunt you've got above-ground, an' am brought to the brink o' the grave welly every winter as comes, an' there's the child as sits beside you 'ull break her little heart when you go, an' the grandfather not been dead a twelvemonth, an' your uncle 'ull miss you so as never was--a-lighting his pipe an' waiting on him, an' now I can trust you wi' the butter, an' have had all the trouble o' teaching you, and there's all the sewing to be done, an' I must have a strange gell out o' Treddles'on to do it--an' all because you must go back to that bare heap o' stones as the very crows fly over an' won't stop at.""",1 """Dear Aunt Rachel,"" said Dinah, looking up in Mrs. Poyser's face, ""it's your kindness makes you say I'm useful to you.",3 "You don't really want me now, for Nancy and Molly are clever at their work, and you're in good health now, by the blessing of God, and my uncle is of a cheerful countenance again, and you have neighbours and friends not a few--some of them come to sit with my uncle almost daily.",4 "Indeed, you will not miss me; and at Snowfield there are brethren and sisters in great need, who have none of those comforts you have around you.",2 I feel that I am called back to those amongst whom my lot was first cast.,2 "I feel drawn again towards the hills where I used to be blessed in carrying the word of life to the sinful and desolate.""",1 """You feel!",2 "Yes,"" said Mrs. Poyser, returning from a parenthetic glance at the cows, ""that's allays the reason I'm to sit down wi', when you've a mind to do anything contrairy.",2 What do you want to be preaching for more than you're preaching now?,2 "Don't you go off, the Lord knows where, every Sunday a-preaching and praying?",2 "An' haven't you got Methodists enow at Treddles'on to go and look at, if church-folks's faces are too handsome to please you?",3 "An' isn't there them i' this parish as you've got under hand, and they're like enough to make friends wi' Old Harry again as soon as your back's turned?",3 "There's that Bessy Cranage--she'll be flaunting i' new finery three weeks after you're gone, I'll be bound.",2 She'll no more go on in her new ways without you than a dog 'ull stand on its hind-legs when there's nobody looking.,2 "But I suppose it doesna matter so much about folks's souls i' this country, else you'd be for staying with your own aunt, for she's none so good but what you might help her to be better.""",3 "There was a certain something in Mrs. Poyser's voice just then, which she did not wish to be noticed, so she turned round hastily to look at the clock, and said: ""See there!",1 "It's tea-time; an' if Martin's i' the rick-yard, he'll like a cup.",3 "Here, Totty, my chicken, let mother put your bonnet on, and then you go out into the rick-yard and see if Father's there, and tell him he mustn't go away again without coming t' have a cup o' tea; and tell your brothers to come in too.""",2 "Totty trotted off in her flapping bonnet, while Mrs. Poyser set out the bright oak table and reached down the tea-cups.",3 """You talk o' them gells Nancy and Molly being clever i' their work,"" she began again; ""it's fine talking.",4 "They're all the same, clever or stupid--one can't trust 'em out o' one's sight a minute.",3 They want somebody's eye on 'em constant if they're to be kept to their work.,3 "An' suppose I'm ill again this winter, as I was the winter before last?",2 "Who's to look after 'em then, if you're gone?",2 "An' there's that blessed child--something's sure t' happen to her--they'll let her tumble into the fire, or get at the kettle wi' the boiling lard in't, or some mischief as 'ull lame her for life; an' it'll be all your fault, Dinah.""",0 """Aunt,"" said Dinah, ""I promise to come back to you in the winter if you're ill.",3 Don't think I will ever stay away from you if you're in real want of me.,2 "But, indeed, it is needful for my own soul that I should go away from this life of ease and luxury in which I have all things too richly to enjoy--at least that I should go away for a short space.",4 "No one can know but myself what are my inward needs, and the besetments I am most in danger from.",1 "Your wish for me to stay is not a call of duty which I refuse to hearken to because it is against my own desires; it is a temptation that I must resist, lest the love of the creature should become like a mist in my soul shutting out the heavenly light.""",2 """It passes my cunning to know what you mean by ease and luxury,"" said Mrs. Poyser, as she cut the bread and butter.",3 """It's true there's good victual enough about you, as nobody shall ever say I don't provide enough and to spare, but if there's ever a bit o' odds an' ends as nobody else 'ud eat, you're sure to pick it out...",3 but look there!,2 There's Adam Bede a-carrying the little un in.,2 "I wonder how it is he's come so early.""",3 "Mrs. Poyser hastened to the door for the pleasure of looking at her darling in a new position, with love in her eyes but reproof on her tongue.",4 """Oh for shame, Totty!",1 Little gells o' five year old should be ashamed to be carried.,1 "Why, Adam, she'll break your arm, such a big gell as that; set her down--for shame!""",1 """Nay, nay,"" said Adam, ""I can lift her with my hand--I've no need to take my arm to it.""",2 "Totty, looking as serenely unconscious of remark as a fat white puppy, was set down at the door-place, and the mother enforced her reproof with a shower of kisses.",1 """You're surprised to see me at this hour o' the day,"" said Adam.",2 """Yes, but come in,"" said Mrs. Poyser, making way for him; ""there's no bad news, I hope?""",1 """No, nothing bad,"" Adam answered, as he went up to Dinah and put out his hand to her.",1 "She had laid down her work and stood up, instinctively, as he approached her.",3 A faint blush died away from her pale cheek as she put her hand in his and looked up at him timidly.,0 """It's an errand to you brought me, Dinah,"" said Adam, apparently unconscious that he was holding her hand all the while; ""mother's a bit ailing, and she's set her heart on your coming to stay the night with her, if you'll be so kind.",1 I told her I'd call and ask you as I came from the village.,2 "She overworks herself, and I can't persuade her to have a little girl t' help her.",2 "I don't know what's to be done.""",2 "Adam released Dinah's hand as he ceased speaking, and was expecting an answer, but before she had opened her lips Mrs. Poyser said, ""Look there now!",2 "I told you there was folks enow t' help i' this parish, wi'out going further off.",2 "There's Mrs. Bede getting as old and cas'alty as can be, and she won't let anybody but you go a-nigh her hardly.",2 "The folks at Snowfield have learnt by this time to do better wi'out you nor she can.""",3 """I'll put my bonnet on and set off directly, if you don't want anything done first, Aunt,"" said Dinah, folding up her work.",3 """Yes, I do want something done.",2 "I want you t' have your tea, child; it's all ready--and you'll have a cup, Adam, if y' arena in too big a hurry.""",3 """Yes, I'll have a cup, please; and then I'll walk with Dinah.",2 "I'm going straight home, for I've got a lot o' timber valuations to write out.""",2 """Why, Adam, lad, are you here?""",2 "said Mr. Poyser, entering warm and coatless, with the two black-eyed boys behind him, still looking as much like him as two small elephants are like a large one.",3 """How is it we've got sight o' you so long before foddering-time?""",2 """I came on an errand for Mother,"" said Adam.",2 """She's got a touch of her old complaint, and she wants Dinah to go and stay with her a bit.""",1 """Well, we'll spare her for your mother a little while,"" said Mr. Poyser.",3 """But we wonna spare her for anybody else, on'y her husband.""",2 """Husband!""",2 "said Marty, who was at the most prosaic and literal period of the boyish mind.",2 """Why, Dinah hasn't got a husband.""",2 """Spare her?""",2 "said Mrs. Poyser, placing a seed-cake on the table and then seating herself to pour out the tea.",2 """But we must spare her, it seems, and not for a husband neither, but for her own megrims.",2 "Tommy, what are you doing to your little sister's doll?",2 "Making the child naughty, when she'd be good if you'd let her.",2 "You shanna have a morsel o' cake if you behave so.""",2 "Tommy, with true brotherly sympathy, was amusing himself by turning Dolly's skirt over her bald head and exhibiting her truncated body to the general scorn--an indignity which cut Totty to the heart.",2 """What do you think Dinah's been a-telling me since dinner-time?""",2 "Mrs. Poyser continued, looking at her husband.",2 """Eh!",2 "I'm a poor un at guessing,"" said Mr. Poyser.",1 """Why, she means to go back to Snowfield again, and work i' the mill, and starve herself, as she used to do, like a creatur as has got no friends.""",3 "Mr. Poyser did not readily find words to express his unpleasant astonishment; he only looked from his wife to Dinah, who had now seated herself beside Totty, as a bulwark against brotherly playfulness, and was busying herself with the children's tea.",3 "If he had been given to making general reflections, it would have occurred to him that there was certainly a change come over Dinah, for she never used to change colour; but, as it was, he merely observed that her face was flushed at that moment.",2 Mr. Poyser thought she looked the prettier for it: it was a flush no deeper than the petal of a monthly rose.,2 "Perhaps it came because her uncle was looking at her so fixedly; but there is no knowing, for just then Adam was saying, with quiet surprise, ""Why, I hoped Dinah was settled among us for life.",3 "I thought she'd given up the notion o' going back to her old country.""",2 """Thought!",2 "Yes,"" said Mrs. Poyser, ""and so would anybody else ha' thought, as had got their right end up'ards.",3 But I suppose you must be a Methodist to know what a Methodist 'ull do.,2 "It's ill guessing what the bats are flying after.""",2 """Why, what have we done to you.",2 "Dinah, as you must go away from us?""",2 "said Mr. Poyser, still pausing over his tea-cup.",2 """It's like breaking your word, welly, for your aunt never had no thought but you'd make this your home.""",2 """Nay, Uncle,"" said Dinah, trying to be quite calm.",3 """When I first came, I said it was only for a time, as long as I could be of any comfort to my aunt.""",3 """Well, an' who said you'd ever left off being a comfort to me?""",3 said Mrs. Poyser.,2 """If you didna mean to stay wi' me, you'd better never ha' come.",3 "Them as ha' never had a cushion don't miss it.""",1 """Nay, nay,"" said Mr. Poyser, who objected to exaggerated views.",2 """Thee mustna say so; we should ha' been ill off wi'out her, Lady day was a twelvemont'.",2 "We mun be thankful for that, whether she stays or no.",3 "But I canna think what she mun leave a good home for, to go back int' a country where the land, most on't, isna worth ten shillings an acre, rent and profits.""",3 """Why, that's just the reason she wants to go, as fur as she can give a reason,"" said Mrs. Poyser.",2 """She says this country's too comfortable, an' there's too much t' eat, an' folks arena miserable enough.",3 And she's going next week.,2 "I canna turn her, say what I will.",2 It's allays the way wi' them meek-faced people; you may's well pelt a bag o' feathers as talk to 'em.,3 "But I say it isna religion, to be so obstinate--is it now, Adam?""",1 "Adam saw that Dinah was more disturbed than he had ever seen her by any matter relating to herself, and, anxious to relieve her, if possible, he said, looking at her affectionately, ""Nay, I can't find fault with anything Dinah does.",0 "I believe her thoughts are better than our guesses, let 'em be what they may.",3 "I should ha' been thankful for her to stay among us, but if she thinks well to go, I wouldn't cross her, or make it hard to her by objecting.",3 "We owe her something different to that.""",2 "As it often happens, the words intended to relieve her were just too much for Dinah's susceptible feelings at this moment.",1 "The tears came into the grey eyes too fast to be hidden and she got up hurriedly, meaning it to be understood that she was going to put on her bonnet.",3 """Mother, what's Dinah crying for?""",2 said Totty.,2 """She isn't a naughty dell.""",1 """Thee'st gone a bit too fur,"" said Mr. Poyser.",2 """We've no right t' interfere with her doing as she likes.",3 "An' thee'dst be as angry as could be wi' me, if I said a word against anything she did.""",1 """Because you'd very like be finding fault wi'out reason,"" said Mrs. Poyser.",2 """But there's reason i' what I say, else I shouldna say it.",2 It's easy talking for them as can't love her so well as her own aunt does.,4 An' me got so used to her!,2 I shall feel as uneasy as a new sheared sheep when she's gone from me.,1 An' to think of her leaving a parish where she's so looked on.,2 "There's Mr. Irwine makes as much of her as if she was a lady, for all her being a Methodist, an' wi' that maggot o' preaching in her head--God forgi'e me if I'm i' the wrong to call it so.""",1 """Aye,"" said Mr. Poyser, looking jocose; ""but thee dostna tell Adam what he said to thee about it one day.",2 "The missis was saying, Adam, as the preaching was the only fault to be found wi' Dinah, and Mr. Irwine says, 'But you mustn't find fault with her for that, Mrs. Poyser; you forget she's got no husband to preach to.",1 "I'll answer for it, you give Poyser many a good sermon.'",3 "The parson had thee there,"" Mr. Poyser added, laughing unctuously.",2 """I told Bartle Massey on it, an' he laughed too.""",2 """Yes, it's a small joke sets men laughing when they sit a-staring at one another with a pipe i' their mouths,"" said Mrs. Poyser.",1 """Give Bartle Massey his way and he'd have all the sharpness to himself.",2 "If the chaff-cutter had the making of us, we should all be straw, I reckon.",1 "Totty, my chicken, go upstairs to cousin Dinah, and see what she's doing, and give her a pretty kiss.""",3 "This errand was devised for Totty as a means of checking certain threatening symptoms about the corners of the mouth; for Tommy, no longer expectant of cake, was lifting up his eyelids with his forefingers and turning his eyeballs towards Totty in a way that she felt to be disagreeably personal.",0 """You're rare and busy now--eh, Adam?""",2 said Mr. Poyser.,2 """Burge's getting so bad wi' his asthmy, it's well if he'll ever do much riding about again.""",2 """Yes, we've got a pretty bit o' building on hand now,"" said Adam, ""what with the repairs on th' estate, and the new houses at Treddles'on.""",3 """I'll bet a penny that new house Burge is building on his own bit o' land is for him and Mary to go to,"" said Mr. Poyser.",2 """He'll be for laying by business soon, I'll warrant, and be wanting you to take to it all and pay him so much by th' 'ear.",2 "We shall see you living on th' hill before another twelvemont's over.""",2 """Well,"" said Adam, ""I should like t' have the business in my own hands.",3 It isn't as I mind much about getting any more money.,2 "We've enough and to spare now, with only our two selves and mother; but I should like t' have my own way about things--I could try plans then, as I can't do now.""",3 """You get on pretty well wi' the new steward, I reckon?""",3 said Mr. Poyser.,2 """Yes, yes; he's a sensible man enough; understands farming--he's carrying on the draining, and all that, capital.",3 You must go some day towards the Stonyshire side and see what alterations they're making.,2 But he's got no notion about buildings.,2 You can so seldom get hold of a man as can turn his brains to more nor one thing; it's just as if they wore blinkers like th' horses and could see nothing o' one side of 'em.,3 "Now, there's Mr. Irwine has got notions o' building more nor most architects; for as for th' architects, they set up to be fine fellows, but the most of 'em don't know where to set a chimney so as it shan't be quarrelling with a door.",3 "My notion is, a practical builder that's got a bit o' taste makes the best architect for common things; and I've ten times the pleasure i' seeing after the work when I've made the plan myself.""",4 "Mr. Poyser listened with an admiring interest to Adam's discourse on building, but perhaps it suggested to him that the building of his corn-rick had been proceeding a little too long without the control of the master's eye, for when Adam had done speaking, he got up and said, ""Well, lad, I'll bid you good-bye now, for I'm off to the rick-yard again.""",4 "Adam rose too, for he saw Dinah entering, with her bonnet on and a little basket in her hand, preceded by Totty.",2 """You're ready, I see, Dinah,"" Adam said; ""so we'll set off, for the sooner I'm at home the better.""",3 """Mother,"" said Totty, with her treble pipe, ""Dinah was saying her prayers and crying ever so.""",2 """Hush, hush,"" said the mother, ""little gells mustn't chatter.""",1 "Whereupon the father, shaking with silent laughter, set Totty on the white deal table and desired her to kiss him.",3 "Mr. and Mrs. Poyser, you perceive, had no correct principles of education.",3 """Come back to-morrow if Mrs. Bede doesn't want you, Dinah,"" said Mrs. Poyser: ""but you can stay, you know, if she's ill.""",2 "So, when the good-byes had been said, Dinah and Adam left the Hall Farm together.",3 ADAM did not ask Dinah to take his arm when they got out into the lane.,2 "He had never yet done so, often as they had walked together, for he had observed that she never walked arm-in-arm with Seth, and he thought, perhaps, that kind of support was not agreeable to her.",3 "So they walked apart, though side by side, and the close poke of her little black bonnet hid her face from him.",2 """You can't be happy, then, to make the Hall Farm your home, Dinah?""",3 "Adam said, with the quiet interest of a brother, who has no anxiety for himself in the matter.",2 """It's a pity, seeing they're so fond of you.""",2 """You know, Adam, my heart is as their heart, so far as love for them and care for their welfare goes, but they are in no present need.",3 "Their sorrows are healed, and I feel that I am called back to my old work, in which I found a blessing that I have missed of late in the midst of too abundant worldly good.",4 "I know it is a vain thought to flee from the work that God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing to our own souls, as if we could choose for ourselves where we shall find the fulness of the Divine Presence, instead of seeking it where alone it is to be found, in loving obedience.",3 "But now, I believe, I have a clear showing that my work lies elsewhere--at least for a time.",3 "In the years to come, if my aunt's health should fail, or she should otherwise need me, I shall return.""",1 """You know best, Dinah,"" said Adam.",3 """I don't believe you'd go against the wishes of them that love you, and are akin to you, without a good and sufficient reason in your own conscience.",4 "I've no right to say anything about my being sorry: you know well enough what cause I have to put you above every other friend I've got; and if it had been ordered so that you could ha' been my sister, and lived with us all our lives, I should ha' counted it the greatest blessing as could happen to us now.",4 "But Seth tells me there's no hope o' that: your feelings are different, and perhaps I'm taking too much upon me to speak about it.""",2 "Dinah made no answer, and they walked on in silence for some yards, till they came to the stone stile, where, as Adam had passed through first and turned round to give her his hand while she mounted the unusually high step, she could not prevent him from seeing her face.",1 "It struck him with surprise, for the grey eyes, usually so mild and grave, had the bright uneasy glance which accompanies suppressed agitation, and the slight flush in her cheeks, with which she had come downstairs, was heightened to a deep rose-colour.",1 She looked as if she were only sister to Dinah.,2 "Adam was silent with surprise and conjecture for some moments, and then he said, ""I hope I've not hurt or displeased you by what I've said, Dinah.",1 Perhaps I was making too free.,3 "I've no wish different from what you see to be best, and I'm satisfied for you to live thirty mile off, if you think it right.",4 "I shall think of you just as much as I do now, for you're bound up with what I can no more help remembering than I can help my heart beating.""",2 Poor Adam!,1 Thus do men blunder.,1 "Dinah made no answer, but she presently said, ""Have you heard any news from that poor young man, since we last spoke of him?""",1 Dinah always called Arthur so; she had never lost the image of him as she had seen him in the prison.,1 """Yes,"" said Adam.",2 """Mr. Irwine read me part of a letter from him yesterday.",2 "It's pretty certain, they say, that there'll be a peace soon, though nobody believes it'll last long; but he says he doesn't mean to come home.",3 "He's no heart for it yet, and it's better for others that he should keep away.",3 Mr. Irwine thinks he's in the right not to come.,3 It's a sorrowful letter.,1 "He asks about you and the Poysers, as he always does.",2 "There's one thing in the letter cut me a good deal: 'You can't think what an old fellow I feel,' he says; 'I make no schemes now.",3 I'm the best when I've a good day's march or fighting before me.',3 """ ""He's of a rash, warm-hearted nature, like Esau, for whom I have always felt great pity,"" said Dinah.",3 """That meeting between the brothers, where Esau is so loving and generous, and Jacob so timid and distrustful, notwithstanding his sense of the Divine favour, has always touched me greatly.",3 "Truly, I have been tempted sometimes to say that Jacob was of a mean spirit.",2 "But that is our trial: we must learn to see the good in the midst of much that is unlovely.""",3 """Ah,"" said Adam, ""I like to read about Moses best, in th' Old Testament.",3 "He carried a hard business well through, and died when other folks were going to reap the fruits.",1 "A man must have courage to look at his life so, and think what'll come of it after he's dead and gone.",2 "A good solid bit o' work lasts: if it's only laying a floor down, somebody's the better for it being done well, besides the man as does it.""",4 "They were both glad to talk of subjects that were not personal, and in this way they went on till they passed the bridge across the Willow Brook, when Adam turned round and said, ""Ah, here's Seth.",3 I thought he'd be home soon.,2 "Does he know of you're going, Dinah?""",2 """Yes, I told him last Sabbath.""",2 "Adam remembered now that Seth had come home much depressed on Sunday evening, a circumstance which had been very unusual with him of late, for the happiness he had in seeing Dinah every week seemed long to have outweighed the pain of knowing she would never marry him.",1 "This evening he had his habitual air of dreamy benignant contentment, until he came quite close to Dinah and saw the traces of tears on her delicate eyelids and eyelashes.",3 "He gave one rapid glance at his brother, but Adam was evidently quite outside the current of emotion that had shaken Dinah: he wore his everyday look of unexpectant calm.",3 "Seth tried not to let Dinah see that he had noticed her face, and only said, ""I'm thankful you're come, Dinah, for Mother's been hungering after the sight of you all day.",3 "She began to talk of you the first thing in the morning.""",2 "When they entered the cottage, Lisbeth was seated in her arm-chair, too tired with setting out the evening meal, a task she always performed a long time beforehand, to go and meet them at the door as usual, when she heard the approaching footsteps.",1 """Coom, child, thee't coom at last,"" she said, when Dinah went towards her.",2 """What dost mane by lavin' me a week an' ne'er coomin' a-nigh me?""",2 """Dear friend,"" said Dinah, taking her hand, ""you're not well.",3 "If I'd known it sooner, I'd have come.""",2 """An' how's thee t' know if thee dostna coom?",2 Th' lads on'y know what I tell 'em.,2 As long as ye can stir hand and foot the men think ye're hearty.,2 "But I'm none so bad, on'y a bit of a cold sets me achin'.",1 An' th' lads tease me so t' ha' somebody wi' me t' do the work--they make me ache worse wi' talkin'.,1 "If thee'dst come and stay wi' me, they'd let me alone.",2 The Poysers canna want thee so bad as I do.,1 "But take thy bonnet off, an' let me look at thee.""",2 "Dinah was moving away, but Lisbeth held her fast, while she was taking off her bonnet, and looked at her face as one looks into a newly gathered snowdrop, to renew the old impressions of purity and gentleness.",3 """What's the matter wi' thee?""",2 "said Lisbeth, in astonishment; ""thee'st been a-cryin'.""",3 """It's only a grief that'll pass away,"" said Dinah, who did not wish just now to call forth Lisbeth's remonstrances by disclosing her intention to leave Hayslope.",1 """You shall know about it shortly--we'll talk of it to-night.",2 "I shall stay with you to-night.""",2 Lisbeth was pacified by this prospect.,2 "And she had the whole evening to talk with Dinah alone; for there was a new room in the cottage, you remember, built nearly two years ago, in the expectation of a new inmate; and here Adam always sat when he had writing to do or plans to make.",2 "Seth sat there too this evening, for he knew his mother would like to have Dinah all to herself.",3 There were two pretty pictures on the two sides of the wall in the cottage.,3 "On one side there was the broad-shouldered, large-featured, hardy old woman, in her blue jacket and buff kerchief, with her dim-eyed anxious looks turned continually on the lily face and the slight form in the black dress that were either moving lightly about in helpful activity, or seated close by the old woman's arm-chair, holding her withered hand, with eyes lifted up towards her to speak a language which Lisbeth understood far better than the Bible or the hymn-book.",3 She would scarcely listen to reading at all to-night.,1 """Nay, nay, shut the book,"" she said.",2 """We mun talk.",2 I want t' know what thee was cryin' about.,2 "Hast got troubles o' thy own, like other folks?""",2 "On the other side of the wall there were the two brothers so like each other in the midst of their unlikeness: Adam with knit brows, shaggy hair, and dark vigorous colour, absorbed in his ""figuring""; Seth, with large rugged features, the close copy of his brother's, but with thin, wavy, brown hair and blue dreamy eyes, as often as not looking vaguely out of the window instead of at his book, although it was a newly bought book--Wesley's abridgment of Madame Guyon's life, which was full of wonder and interest for him.",3 "Seth had said to Adam, ""Can I help thee with anything in here to-night?",2 "I don't want to make a noise in the shop.""",1 """No, lad,"" Adam answered, ""there's nothing but what I must do myself.",2 "Thee'st got thy new book to read.""",2 "And often, when Seth was quite unconscious, Adam, as he paused after drawing a line with his ruler, looked at his brother with a kind smile dawning in his eyes.",3 "He knew ""th' lad liked to sit full o' thoughts he could give no account of; they'd never come t' anything, but they made him happy,"" and in the last year or so, Adam had been getting more and more indulgent to Seth.",4 It was part of that growing tenderness which came from the sorrow at work within him.,1 "For Adam, though you see him quite master of himself, working hard and delighting in his work after his inborn inalienable nature, had not outlived his sorrow--had not felt it slip from him as a temporary burden, and leave him the same man again.",1 Do any of us?,2 God forbid.,1 "It would be a poor result of all our anguish and our wrestling if we won nothing but our old selves at the end of it--if we could return to the same blind loves, the same self-confident blame, the same light thoughts of human suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted human lives, the same feeble sense of that Unknown towards which we have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness.",0 "Let us rather be thankful that our sorrow lives in us as an indestructible force, only changing its form, as forces do, and passing from pain into sympathy--the one poor word which includes all our best insight and our best love.",2 Not that this transformation of pain into sympathy had completely taken place in Adam yet.,1 "There was still a great remnant of pain, and this he felt would subsist as long as her pain was not a memory, but an existing thing, which he must think of as renewed with the light of every new morning.",3 "But we get accustomed to mental as well as bodily pain, without, for all that, losing our sensibility to it.",1 "It becomes a habit of our lives, and we cease to imagine a condition of perfect ease as possible for us.",3 "Desire is chastened into submission, and we are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our grief in silence and act as if we were not suffering.",1 "For it is at such periods that the sense of our lives having visible and invisible relations, beyond any of which either our present or prospective self is the centre, grows like a muscle that we are obliged to lean on and exert.",3 That was Adam's state of mind in this second autumn of his sorrow.,1 "His work, as you know, had always been part of his religion, and from very early days he saw clearly that good carpentry was God's will--was that form of God's will that most immediately concerned him.",3 "But now there was no margin of dreams for him beyond this daylight reality, no holiday-time in the working-day world, no moment in the distance when duty would take off her iron glove and breast-plate and clasp him gently into rest.",2 "He conceived no picture of the future but one made up of hard-working days such as he lived through, with growing contentment and intensity of interest, every fresh week.",3 "Love, he thought, could never be anything to him but a living memory--a limb lopped off, but not gone from consciousness.",3 "He did not know that the power of loving was all the while gaining new force within him; that the new sensibilities bought by a deep experience were so many new fibres by which it was possible, nay, necessary to him, that his nature should intertwine with another.",3 "Yet he was aware that common affection and friendship were more precious to him than they used to be--that he clung more to his mother and Seth, and had an unspeakable satisfaction in the sight or imagination of any small addition to their happiness.",3 "The Poysers, too--hardly three or four days passed but he felt the need of seeing them and interchanging words and looks of friendliness with them.",3 "He would have felt this, probably, even if Dinah had not been with them, but he had only said the simplest truth in telling Dinah that he put her above all other friends in the world.",3 Could anything be more natural?,2 For in the darkest moments of memory the thought of her always came as the first ray of returning comfort.,3 "The early days of gloom at the Hall Farm had been gradually turned into soft moonlight by her presence; and in the cottage, too, for she had come at every spare moment to soothe and cheer poor Lisbeth, who had been stricken with a fear that subdued even her querulousness at the sight of her darling Adam's grief-worn face.",0 "He had become used to watching her light quiet movements, her pretty loving ways to the children, when he went to the Hall Farm; to listen for her voice as for a recurrent music; to think everything she said and did was just right, and could not have been better.",4 "In spite of his wisdom, he could not find fault with her for her overindulgence of the children, who had managed to convert Dinah the preacher, before whom a circle of rough men had often trembled a little, into a convenient household slave--though Dinah herself was rather ashamed of this weakness, and had some inward conflict as to her departure from the precepts of Solomon.",0 "Yes, there was one thing that might have been better; she might have loved Seth and consented to marry him.",3 "He felt a little vexed, for his brother's sake, and he could not help thinking regretfully how Dinah, as Seth's wife, would have made their home as happy as it could be for them all--how she was the one being that would have soothed their mother's last days into peacefulness and rest.",2 """It's wonderful she doesn't love th' lad,"" Adam had said sometimes to himself, ""for anybody 'ud think he was just cut out for her.",3 But her heart's so taken up with other things.,2 She's one o' those women that feel no drawing towards having a husband and children o' their own.,2 "She thinks she should be filled up with her own life then, and she's been used so to living in other folks's cares, she can't bear the thought of her heart being shut up from 'em.",2 "I see how it is, well enough.",3 She's cut out o' different stuff from most women: I saw that long ago.,2 "She's never easy but when she's helping somebody, and marriage 'ud interfere with her ways--that's true.",3 "I've no right to be contriving and thinking it 'ud be better if she'd have Seth, as if I was wiser than she is--or than God either, for He made her what she is, and that's one o' the greatest blessings I've ever had from His hands, and others besides me.""",4 "This self-reproof had recurred strongly to Adam's mind when he gathered from Dinah's face that he had wounded her by referring to his wish that she had accepted Seth, and so he had endeavoured to put into the strongest words his confidence in her decision as right--his resignation even to her going away from them and ceasing to make part of their life otherwise than by living in their thoughts, if that separation were chosen by herself.",3 He felt sure she knew quite well enough how much he cared to see her continually--to talk to her with the silent consciousness of a mutual great remembrance.,4 "It was not possible she should hear anything but self-renouncing affection and respect in his assurance that he was contented for her to go away; and yet there remained an uneasy feeling in his mind that he had not said quite the right thing--that, somehow, Dinah had not understood him.",4 "Dinah must have risen a little before the sun the next morning, for she was downstairs about five o'clock.",2 "So was Seth, for, through Lisbeth's obstinate refusal to have any woman-helper in the house, he had learned to make himself, as Adam said, ""very handy in the housework,"" that he might save his mother from too great weariness; on which ground I hope you will not think him unmanly, any more than you can have thought the gallant Colonel Bath unmanly when he made the gruel for his invalid sister.",1 "Adam, who had sat up late at his writing, was still asleep, and was not likely, Seth said, to be down till breakfast-time.",2 "Often as Dinah had visited Lisbeth during the last eighteen months, she had never slept in the cottage since that night after Thias's death, when, you remember, Lisbeth praised her deft movements and even gave a modified approval to her porridge.",3 "But in that long interval Dinah had made great advances in household cleverness, and this morning, since Seth was there to help, she was bent on bringing everything to a pitch of cleanliness and order that would have satisfied her Aunt Poyser.",3 "The cottage was far from that standard at present, for Lisbeth's rheumatism had forced her to give up her old habits of dilettante scouring and polishing.",2 "When the kitchen was to her mind, Dinah went into the new room, where Adam had been writing the night before, to see what sweeping and dusting were needed there.",3 "She opened the window and let in the fresh morning air, and the smell of the sweet-brier, and the bright low-slanting rays of the early sun, which made a glory about her pale face and pale auburn hair as she held the long brush, and swept, singing to herself in a very low tone--like a sweet summer murmur that you have to listen for very closely--one of Charles Wesley's hymns: Eternal Beam of Light Divine, Fountain of unexhausted love, In whom the Father's glories shine, Through earth beneath and heaven above; Jesus!",4 "the weary wanderer's rest, Give me thy easy yoke to bear; With steadfast patience arm my breast, With spotless love and holy fear.",4 "Speak to my warring passions, ""Peace!""",3 "Say to my trembling heart, ""Be still!""",2 "Thy power my strength and fortress is, For all things serve thy sovereign will.",2 "She laid by the brush and took up the duster; and if you had ever lived in Mrs. Poyser's household, you would know how the duster behaved in Dinah's hand--how it went into every small corner, and on every ledge in and out of sight--how it went again and again round every bar of the chairs, and every leg, and under and over everything that lay on the table, till it came to Adam's papers and rulers and the open desk near them.",2 "Dinah dusted up to the very edge of these and then hesitated, looking at them with a longing but timid eye.",1 It was painful to see how much dust there was among them.,1 "As she was looking in this way, she heard Seth's step just outside the open door, towards which her back was turned, and said, raising her clear treble, ""Seth, is your brother wrathful when his papers are stirred?""",3 """Yes, very, when they are not put back in the right places,"" said a deep strong voice, not Seth's.",3 It was as if Dinah had put her hands unawares on a vibrating chord.,1 "She was shaken with an intense thrill, and for the instant felt nothing else; then she knew her cheeks were glowing, and dared not look round, but stood still, distressed because she could not say good-morning in a friendly way.",3 "Adam, finding that she did not look round so as to see the smile on his face, was afraid she had thought him serious about his wrathfulness, and went up to her, so that she was obliged to look at him.",2 """What!",2 "You think I'm a cross fellow at home, Dinah?""",2 "he said, smilingly.",3 """Nay,"" said Dinah, looking up with timid eyes, ""not so.",1 "But you might be put about by finding things meddled with; and even the man Moses, the meekest of men, was wrathful sometimes.""",2 """Come, then,"" said Adam, looking at her affectionately, ""I'll help you move the things, and put 'em back again, and then they can't get wrong.",1 "You're getting to be your aunt's own niece, I see, for particularness.""",2 "They began their little task together, but Dinah had not recovered herself sufficiently to think of any remark, and Adam looked at her uneasily.",2 "Dinah, he thought, had seemed to disapprove him somehow lately; she had not been so kind and open to him as she used to be.",1 "He wanted her to look at him, and be as pleased as he was himself with doing this bit of playful work.",4 "But Dinah did not look at him--it was easy for her to avoid looking at the tall man--and when at last there was no more dusting to be done and no further excuse for him to linger near her, he could bear it no longer, and said, in rather a pleading tone, ""Dinah, you're not displeased with me for anything, are you?",1 "I've not said or done anything to make you think ill of me?""",2 "The question surprised her, and relieved her by giving a new course to her feeling.",2 "She looked up at him now, quite earnestly, almost with the tears coming, and said, ""Oh, no, Adam!",3 "how could you think so?""",2 """I couldn't bear you not to feel as much a friend to me as I do to you,"" said Adam.",2 """And you don't know the value I set on the very thought of you, Dinah.",2 "That was what I meant yesterday, when I said I'd be content for you to go, if you thought right.",3 "I meant, the thought of you was worth so much to me, I should feel I ought to be thankful, and not grumble, if you see right to go away.",3 "You know I do mind parting with you, Dinah?""",2 """Yes, dear friend,"" said Dinah, trembling, but trying to speak calmly, ""I know you have a brother's heart towards me, and we shall often be with one another in spirit; but at this season I am in heaviness through manifold temptations.",2 You must not mark me.,2 "I feel called to leave my kindred for a while; but it is a trial--the flesh is weak.""",1 Adam saw that it pained her to be obliged to answer.,2 """I hurt you by talking about it, Dinah,"" he said.",1 """I'll say no more.",2 "Let's see if Seth's ready with breakfast now.""",3 "That is a simple scene, reader.",2 "But it is almost certain that you, too, have been in love--perhaps, even, more than once, though you may not choose to say so to all your feminine friends.",3 "If so, you will no more think the slight words, the timid looks, the tremulous touches, by which two human souls approach each other gradually, like two little quivering rain-streams, before they mingle into one--you will no more think these things trivial than you will think the first-detected signs of coming spring trivial, though they be but a faint indescribable something in the air and in the song of the birds, and the tiniest perceptible budding on the hedge-row branches.",0 "Those slight words and looks and touches are part of the soul's language; and the finest language, I believe, is chiefly made up of unimposing words, such as ""light,"" ""sound,"" ""stars,"" ""music""--words really not worth looking at, or hearing, in themselves, any more than ""chips"" or ""sawdust.""",3 It is only that they happen to be the signs of something unspeakably great and beautiful.,3 "I am of opinion that love is a great and beautiful thing too, and if you agree with me, the smallest signs of it will not be chips and sawdust to you: they will rather be like those little words, ""light"" and ""music,"" stirring the long-winding fibres of your memory and enriching your present with your most precious past.",4 "LISBETH'S touch of rheumatism could not be made to appear serious enough to detain Dinah another night from the Hall Farm, now she had made up her mind to leave her aunt so soon, and at evening the friends must part.",3 """For a long while,"" Dinah had said, for she had told Lisbeth of her resolve.",2 """Then it'll be for all my life, an' I shall ne'er see thee again,"" said Lisbeth.",2 """Long while!",2 I'n got no long while t' live.,2 "An' I shall be took bad an' die, an' thee canst ne'er come a-nigh me, an' I shall die a-longing for thee.""",0 "That had been the key-note of her wailing talk all day; for Adam was not in the house, and so she put no restraint on her complaining.",1 "She had tried poor Dinah by returning again and again to the question, why she must go away; and refusing to accept reasons, which seemed to her nothing but whim and ""contrairiness""; and still more, by regretting that she ""couldna' ha' one o' the lads"" and be her daughter.",1 """Thee couldstna put up wi' Seth,"" she said.",2 """He isna cliver enough for thee, happen, but he'd ha' been very good t' thee--he's as handy as can be at doin' things for me when I'm bad, an' he's as fond o' the Bible an' chappellin' as thee art thysen.",4 "But happen, thee'dst like a husband better as isna just the cut o' thysen: the runnin' brook isna athirst for th' rain.",3 "Adam 'ud ha' done for thee--I know he would--an' he might come t' like thee well enough, if thee'dst stop.",4 But he's as stubborn as th' iron bar--there's no bending him no way but's own.,1 "But he'd be a fine husband for anybody, be they who they will, so looked-on an' so cliver as he is.",3 "And he'd be rare an' lovin': it does me good on'y a look o' the lad's eye when he means kind tow'rt me.""",3 "Dinah tried to escape from Lisbeth's closest looks and questions by finding little tasks of housework that kept her moving about, and as soon as Seth came home in the evening she put on her bonnet to go.",2 "It touched Dinah keenly to say the last good-bye, and still more to look round on her way across the fields and see the old woman still standing at the door, gazing after her till she must have been the faintest speck in the dim aged eyes.",3 """The God of love and peace be with them,"" Dinah prayed, as she looked back from the last stile.",3 """Make them glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted them, and the years wherein they have seen evil.",2 "It is thy will that I should part from them; let me have no will but thine.""",2 "Lisbeth turned into the house at last and sat down in the workshop near Seth, who was busying himself there with fitting some bits of turned wood he had brought from the village into a small work-box, which he meant to give to Dinah before she went away.",3 """Thee't see her again o' Sunday afore she goes,"" were her first words.",2 """If thee wast good for anything, thee'dst make her come in again o' Sunday night wi' thee, and see me once more.""",3 """Nay, Mother,"" said Seth.",2 """Dinah 'ud be sure to come again if she saw right to come.",3 I should have no need to persuade her.,2 "She only thinks it 'ud be troubling thee for nought, just to come in to say good-bye over again.""",2 """She'd ne'er go away, I know, if Adam 'ud be fond on her an' marry her, but everything's so contrairy,"" said Lisbeth, with a burst of vexation.",2 "Seth paused a moment and looked up, with a slight blush, at his mother's face.",2 """What!",2 "Has she said anything o' that sort to thee, Mother?""",2 "he said, in a lower tone.",2 """Said?",2 "Nay, she'll say nothin'.",2 "It's on'y the men as have to wait till folks say things afore they find 'em out.""",2 """Well, but what makes thee think so, Mother?",3 "What's put it into thy head?""",2 """It's no matter what's put it into my head.",2 "My head's none so hollow as it must get in, an' nought to put it there.",1 "I know she's fond on him, as I know th' wind's comin' in at the door, an' that's anoof.",3 "An' he might be willin' to marry her if he know'd she's fond on him, but he'll ne'er think on't if somebody doesna put it into's head.""",3 "His mother's suggestion about Dinah's feeling towards Adam was not quite a new thought to Seth, but her last words alarmed him, lest she should herself undertake to open Adam's eyes.",1 "He was not sure about Dinah's feeling, and he thought he was sure about Adam's.",2 """Nay, Mother, nay,"" he said, earnestly, ""thee mustna think o' speaking o' such things to Adam.",3 "Thee'st no right to say what Dinah's feelings are if she hasna told thee, and it 'ud do nothing but mischief to say such things to Adam.",2 "He feels very grateful and affectionate toward Dinah, but he's no thoughts towards her that 'ud incline him to make her his wife, and I don't believe Dinah 'ud marry him either.",3 "I don't think she'll marry at all.""",2 """Eh,"" said Lisbeth, impatiently.",1 """Thee think'st so 'cause she wouldna ha' thee.",2 "She'll ne'er marry thee; thee mightst as well like her t' ha' thy brother.""",3 Seth was hurt.,1 """Mother,"" he said, in a remonstrating tone, ""don't think that of me.",2 I should be as thankful t' have her for a sister as thee wouldst t' have her for a daughter.,3 "I've no more thoughts about myself in that thing, and I shall take it hard if ever thee say'st it again.""",1 """Well, well, then thee shouldstna cross me wi' sayin' things arena as I say they are.""",3 """But, Mother,"" said Seth, ""thee'dst be doing Dinah a wrong by telling Adam what thee think'st about her.",1 "It 'ud do nothing but mischief, for it 'ud make Adam uneasy if he doesna feel the same to her.",1 "And I'm pretty sure he feels nothing o' the sort.""",3 """Eh, donna tell me what thee't sure on; thee know'st nought about it.",2 "What's he allays goin' to the Poysers' for, if he didna want t' see her?",2 He goes twice where he used t' go once.,2 "Happen he knowsna as he wants t' see her; he knowsna as I put salt in's broth, but he'd miss it pretty quick if it warna there.",2 "He'll ne'er think o' marrying if it isna put into's head, an' if thee'dst any love for thy mother, thee'dst put him up to't an' not let her go away out o' my sight, when I might ha' her to make a bit o' comfort for me afore I go to bed to my old man under the white thorn.""",3 """Nay, Mother,"" said Seth, ""thee mustna think me unkind, but I should be going against my conscience if I took upon me to say what Dinah's feelings are.",1 "And besides that, I think I should give offence to Adam by speaking to him at all about marrying; and I counsel thee not to do't.",1 Thee may'st be quite deceived about Dinah.,2 "Nay, I'm pretty sure, by words she said to me last Sabbath, as she's no mind to marry.""",3 """Eh, thee't as contrairy as the rest on 'em.",2 "If it war summat I didna want, it 'ud be done fast enough.""",3 "Lisbeth rose from the bench at this, and went out of the workshop, leaving Seth in much anxiety lest she should disturb Adam's mind about Dinah.",1 "He consoled himself after a time with reflecting that, since Adam's trouble, Lisbeth had been very timid about speaking to him on matters of feeling, and that she would hardly dare to approach this tenderest of all subjects.",1 "Even if she did, he hoped Adam would not take much notice of what she said.",2 "Seth was right in believing that Lisbeth would be held in restraint by timidity, and during the next three days, the intervals in which she had an opportunity of speaking to Adam were too rare and short to cause her any strong temptation.",2 "But in her long solitary hours she brooded over her regretful thoughts about Dinah, till they had grown very near that point of unmanageable strength when thoughts are apt to take wing out of their secret nest in a startling manner.",1 "And on Sunday morning, when Seth went away to chapel at Treddleston, the dangerous opportunity came.",1 "Sunday morning was the happiest time in all the week to Lisbeth, for as there was no service at Hayslope church till the afternoon, Adam was always at home, doing nothing but reading, an occupation in which she could venture to interrupt him.",1 "Moreover, she had always a better dinner than usual to prepare for her sons--very frequently for Adam and herself alone, Seth being often away the entire day--and the smell of the roast meat before the clear fire in the clean kitchen, the clock ticking in a peaceful Sunday manner, her darling Adam seated near her in his best clothes, doing nothing very important, so that she could go and stroke her hand across his hair if she liked, and see him look up at her and smile, while Gyp, rather jealous, poked his muzzle up between them--all these things made poor Lisbeth's earthly paradise.",4 "The book Adam most often read on a Sunday morning was his large pictured Bible, and this morning it lay open before him on the round white deal table in the kitchen; for he sat there in spite of the fire, because he knew his mother liked to have him with her, and it was the only day in the week when he could indulge her in that way.",1 You would have liked to see Adam reading his Bible.,3 "He never opened it on a weekday, and so he came to it as a holiday book, serving him for history, biography, and poetry.",2 "He held one hand thrust between his waistcoat buttons, and the other ready to turn the pages, and in the course of the morning you would have seen many changes in his face.",3 "Sometimes his lips moved in semi-articulation--it was when he came to a speech that he could fancy himself uttering, such as Samuel's dying speech to the people; then his eyebrows would be raised, and the corners of his mouth would quiver a little with sad sympathy--something, perhaps old Isaac's meeting with his son, touched him closely; at other times, over the New Testament, a very solemn look would come upon his face, and he would every now and then shake his head in serious assent, or just lift up his hand and let it fall again.",0 "And on some mornings, when he read in the Apocrypha, of which he was very fond, the son of Sirach's keen-edged words would bring a delighted smile, though he also enjoyed the freedom of occasionally differing from an Apocryphal writer.",4 "For Adam knew the Articles quite well, as became a good churchman.",3 "Lisbeth, in the pauses of attending to her dinner, always sat opposite to him and watched him, till she could rest no longer without going up to him and giving him a caress, to call his attention to her.",2 "This morning he was reading the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and Lisbeth had been standing close by him for some minutes, stroking his hair, which was smoother than usual this morning, and looking down at the large page with silent wonderment at the mystery of letters.",3 "She was encouraged to continue this caress, because when she first went up to him, he had thrown himself back in his chair to look at her affectionately and say, ""Why, Mother, thee look'st rare and hearty this morning.",2 "Eh, Gyp wants me t' look at him.",2 "He can't abide to think I love thee the best.""",3 "Lisbeth said nothing, because she wanted to say so many things.",2 "And now there was a new leaf to be turned over, and it was a picture--that of the angel seated on the great stone that has been rolled away from the sepulchre.",3 "This picture had one strong association in Lisbeth's memory, for she had been reminded of it when she first saw Dinah, and Adam had no sooner turned the page, and lifted the book sideways that they might look at the angel, than she said, ""That's her--that's Dinah.""",3 "Adam smiled, and, looking more intently at the angel's face, said, ""It is a bit like her; but Dinah's prettier, I think.""",3 """Well, then, if thee think'st her so pretty, why arn't fond on her?""",4 Adam looked up in surprise.,2 """Why, Mother, dost think I don't set store by Dinah?""",2 """Nay,"" said Lisbeth, frightened at her own courage, yet feeling that she had broken the ice, and the waters must flow, whatever mischief they might do.",1 """What's th' use o' settin' store by things as are thirty mile off?",2 "If thee wast fond enough on her, thee wouldstna let her go away.""",3 """But I've no right t' hinder her, if she thinks well,"" said Adam, looking at his book as if he wanted to go on reading.",3 He foresaw a series of complaints tending to nothing.,1 "Lisbeth sat down again in the chair opposite to him, as she said: ""But she wouldna think well if thee wastna so contrairy.""",3 Lisbeth dared not venture beyond a vague phrase yet.,1 """Contrairy, mother?""",2 "Adam said, looking up again in some anxiety.",1 """What have I done?",2 "What dost mean?""",2 """Why, thee't never look at nothin', nor think o' nothin', but thy figurin, an' thy work,"" said Lisbeth, half-crying.",3 """An' dost think thee canst go on so all thy life, as if thee wast a man cut out o' timber?",2 "An' what wut do when thy mother's gone, an' nobody to take care on thee as thee gett'st a bit o' victual comfortable i' the mornin'?""",3 """What hast got i' thy mind, Mother?""",2 "said Adam, vexed at this whimpering.",2 """I canna see what thee't driving at.",2 "Is there anything I could do for thee as I don't do?""",2 """Aye, an' that there is.",2 "Thee might'st do as I should ha' somebody wi' me to comfort me a bit, an' wait on me when I'm bad, an' be good to me.""",3 """Well, Mother, whose fault is it there isna some tidy body i' th' house t' help thee?",3 It isna by my wish as thee hast a stroke o' work to do.,3 We can afford it--I've told thee often enough.,3 "It 'ud be a deal better for us.""",3 """Eh, what's the use o' talking o' tidy bodies, when thee mean'st one o' th' wenches out o' th' village, or somebody from Treddles'on as I ne'er set eyes on i' my life?",3 "I'd sooner make a shift an' get into my own coffin afore I die, nor ha' them folks to put me in.""",1 "Adam was silent, and tried to go on reading.",3 That was the utmost severity he could show towards his mother on a Sunday morning.,1 "But Lisbeth had gone too far now to check herself, and after scarcely a minute's quietness she began again.",1 """Thee mightst know well enough who 'tis I'd like t' ha' wi' me.",4 It isna many folks I send for t' come an' see me.,2 I reckon.,2 "An' thee'st had the fetchin' on her times enow.""",2 """Thee mean'st Dinah, Mother, I know,"" said Adam.",2 """But it's no use setting thy mind on what can't be.",2 "If Dinah 'ud be willing to stay at Hayslope, it isn't likely she can come away from her aunt's house, where they hold her like a daughter, and where she's more bound than she is to us.",3 "If it had been so that she could ha' married Seth, that 'ud ha' been a great blessing to us, but we can't have things just as we like in this life.",4 "Thee must try and make up thy mind to do without her.""",2 """Nay, but I canna ma' up my mind, when she's just cut out for thee; an' nought shall ma' me believe as God didna make her an' send her there o' purpose for thee.",2 What's it sinnify about her bein' a Methody!,2 "It 'ud happen wear out on her wi' marryin'.""",2 Adam threw himself back in his chair and looked at his mother.,2 He understood now what she had been aiming at from the beginning of the conversation.,2 "It was as unreasonable, impracticable a wish as she had ever urged, but he could not help being moved by so entirely new an idea.",1 "The chief point, however, was to chase away the notion from his mother's mind as quickly as possible.",2 """Mother,"" he said, gravely, ""thee't talking wild.",1 Don't let me hear thee say such things again.,2 It's no good talking o' what can never be.,3 "Dinah's not for marrying; she's fixed her heart on a different sort o' life.""",2 """Very like,"" said Lisbeth, impatiently, ""very like she's none for marr'ing, when them as she'd be willin' t' marry wonna ax her.",1 "I shouldna ha' been for marr'ing thy feyther if he'd ne'er axed me; an' she's as fond o' thee as e'er I war o' Thias, poor fellow.""",2 "The blood rushed to Adam's face, and for a few moments he was not quite conscious where he was.",2 "His mother and the kitchen had vanished for him, and he saw nothing but Dinah's face turned up towards his.",2 It seemed as if there were a resurrection of his dead joy.,2 "But he woke up very speedily from that dream (the waking was chill and sad), for it would have been very foolish in him to believe his mother's words--she could have no ground for them.",1 "He was prompted to express his disbelief very strongly--perhaps that he might call forth the proofs, if there were any to be offered.",1 """What dost say such things for, Mother, when thee'st got no foundation for 'em?",2 "Thee know'st nothing as gives thee a right to say that.""",3 """Then I knowna nought as gi'es me a right to say as the year's turned, for all I feel it fust thing when I get up i' th' morning.",3 "She isna fond o' Seth, I reckon, is she?",3 She doesna want to marry HIM?,2 But I can see as she doesna behave tow'rt thee as she daes tow'rt Seth.,2 "She makes no more o' Seth's coming a-nigh her nor if he war Gyp, but she's all of a tremble when thee't a-sittin' down by her at breakfast an' a-looking at her.",2 "Thee think'st thy mother knows nought, but she war alive afore thee wast born.""",2 """But thee canstna be sure as the trembling means love?""",3 said Adam anxiously.,1 """Eh, what else should it mane?",2 "It isna hate, I reckon.",1 An' what should she do but love thee?,3 Thee't made to be loved--for where's there a straighter cliverer man?,3 An' what's it sinnify her bein' a Methody?,2 "It's on'y the marigold i' th' parridge.""",2 "Adam had thrust his hands in his pockets, and was looking down at the book on the table, without seeing any of the letters.",2 He was trembling like a gold-seeker who sees the strong promise of gold but sees in the same moment a sickening vision of disappointment.,3 He could not trust his mother's insight; she had seen what she wished to see.,3 "And yet--and yet, now the suggestion had been made to him, he remembered so many things, very slight things, like the stirring of the water by an imperceptible breeze, which seemed to him some confirmation of his mother's words.",3 Lisbeth noticed that he was moved.,2 "She went on, ""An' thee't find out as thee't poorly aff when she's gone.",1 "Thee't fonder on her nor thee know'st. Thy eyes follow her about, welly as Gyp's follow thee.""",2 Adam could sit still no longer.,2 "He rose, took down his hat, and went out into the fields.",2 "The sunshine was on them: that early autumn sunshine which we should know was not summer's, even if there were not the touches of yellow on the lime and chestnut; the Sunday sunshine too, which has more than autumnal calmness for the working man; the morning sunshine, which still leaves the dew-crystals on the fine gossamer webs in the shadow of the bushy hedgerows.",3 "Adam needed the calm influence; he was amazed at the way in which this new thought of Dinah's love had taken possession of him, with an overmastering power that made all other feelings give way before the impetuous desire to know that the thought was true.",3 "Strange, that till that moment the possibility of their ever being lovers had never crossed his mind, and yet now, all his longing suddenly went out towards that possibility.",1 He had no more doubt or hesitation as to his own wishes than the bird that flies towards the opening through which the daylight gleams and the breath of heaven enters.,2 "The autumnal Sunday sunshine soothed him, but not by preparing him with resignation to the disappointment if his mother--if he himself--proved to be mistaken about Dinah.",0 It soothed him by gentle encouragement of his hopes.,3 "Her love was so like that calm sunshine that they seemed to make one presence to him, and he believed in them both alike.",4 "And Dinah was so bound up with the sad memories of his first passion that he was not forsaking them, but rather giving them a new sacredness by loving her.",3 "Nay, his love for her had grown out of that past: it was the noon of that morning.",3 But Seth?,2 Would the lad be hurt?,1 "Hardly; for he had seemed quite contented of late, and there was no selfish jealousy in him; he had never been jealous of his mother's fondness for Adam.",1 But had he seen anything of what their mother talked about?,2 "Adam longed to know this, for he thought he could trust Seth's observation better than his mother's.",3 "He must talk to Seth before he went to see Dinah, and, with this intention in his mind, he walked back to the cottage and said to his mother, ""Did Seth say anything to thee about when he was coming home?",2 "Will he be back to dinner?""",2 """Aye, lad, he'll be back for a wonder.",3 He isna gone to Treddles'on.,2 "He's gone somewhere else a-preachin' and a-prayin'.""",2 """Hast any notion which way he's gone?""",2 said Adam.,2 """Nay, but he aften goes to th' Common.",2 "Thee know'st more o's goings nor I do.""",2 "Adam wanted to go and meet Seth, but he must content himself with walking about the near fields and getting sight of him as soon as possible.",2 "That would not be for more than an hour to come, for Seth would scarcely be at home much before their dinner-time, which was twelve o'clock.",1 "But Adam could not sit down to his reading again, and he sauntered along by the brook and stood leaning against the stiles, with eager intense eyes, which looked as if they saw something very vividly; but it was not the brook or the willows, not the fields or the sky.",2 "Again and again his vision was interrupted by wonder at the strength of his own feeling, at the strength and sweetness of this new love--almost like the wonder a man feels at the added power he finds in himself for an art which he had laid aside for a space.",4 "How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love?",3 Are their first poems their best?,3 "Or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections?",3 The boy's flutelike voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer deeper music.,3 "At last, there was Seth, visible at the farthest stile, and Adam hastened to meet him.",2 "Seth was surprised, and thought something unusual must have happened, but when Adam came up, his face said plainly enough that it was nothing alarming.",1 """Where hast been?""",2 "said Adam, when they were side by side.",2 """I've been to the Common,"" said Seth.",2 """Dinah's been speaking the Word to a little company of hearers at Brimstone's, as they call him.",2 They're folks as never go to church hardly--them on the Common--but they'll go and hear Dinah a bit.,2 "She's been speaking with power this forenoon from the words, 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'",3 And there was a little thing happened as was pretty to see.,3 "The women mostly bring their children with 'em, but to-day there was one stout curly headed fellow about three or four year old, that I never saw there before.",2 "He was as naughty as could be at the beginning while I was praying, and while we was singing, but when we all sat down and Dinah began to speak, th' young un stood stock still all at once, and began to look at her with's mouth open, and presently he ran away from's mother and went to Dinah, and pulled at her, like a little dog, for her to take notice of him.",2 "So Dinah lifted him up and held th' lad on her lap, while she went on speaking; and he was as good as could be till he went to sleep--and the mother cried to see him.""",3 """It's a pity she shouldna be a mother herself,"" said Adam, ""so fond as the children are of her.",2 "Dost think she's quite fixed against marrying, Seth?",2 "Dost think nothing 'ud turn her?""",2 "There was something peculiar in his brother's tone, which made Seth steal a glance at his face before he answered.",1 """It 'ud be wrong of me to say nothing 'ud turn her,"" he answered.",1 """But if thee mean'st it about myself, I've given up all thoughts as she can ever be my wife.",2 "She calls me her brother, and that's enough.""",3 """But dost think she might ever get fond enough of anybody else to be willing to marry 'em?""",4 said Adam rather shyly.,2 """Well,"" said Seth, after some hesitation, ""it's crossed my mind sometimes o' late as she might; but Dinah 'ud let no fondness for the creature draw her out o' the path as she believed God had marked out for her.",3 "If she thought the leading was not from Him, she's not one to be brought under the power of it.",3 "And she's allays seemed clear about that--as her work was to minister t' others, and make no home for herself i' this world.""",3 """But suppose,"" said Adam, earnestly, ""suppose there was a man as 'ud let her do just the same and not interfere with her--she might do a good deal o' what she does now, just as well when she was married as when she was single.",3 "Other women of her sort have married--that's to say, not just like her, but women as preached and attended on the sick and needy.",1 "There's Mrs. Fletcher as she talks of.""",2 A new light had broken in on Seth.,1 "He turned round, and laying his hand on Adam's shoulder, said, ""Why, wouldst like her to marry THEE, Brother?""",3 "Adam looked doubtfully at Seth's inquiring eyes and said, ""Wouldst be hurt if she was to be fonder o' me than o' thee?""",1 """Nay,"" said Seth warmly, ""how canst think it?",3 "Have I felt thy trouble so little that I shouldna feel thy joy?""",2 "There was silence a few moments as they walked on, and then Seth said, ""I'd no notion as thee'dst ever think of her for a wife.""",2 """But is it o' any use to think of her?""",2 said Adam.,2 """What dost say?",2 "Mother's made me as I hardly know where I am, with what she's been saying to me this forenoon.",2 "She says she's sure Dinah feels for me more than common, and 'ud be willing t' have me.",3 But I'm afraid she speaks without book.,1 "I want to know if thee'st seen anything.""",2 """It's a nice point to speak about,"" said Seth, ""and I'm afraid o' being wrong; besides, we've no right t' intermeddle with people's feelings when they wouldn't tell 'em themselves.""",2 Seth paused.,2 """But thee mightst ask her,"" he said presently.",2 """She took no offence at me for asking, and thee'st more right than I had, only thee't not in the Society.",2 But Dinah doesn't hold wi' them as are for keeping the Society so strict to themselves.,1 "She doesn't mind about making folks enter the Society, so as they're fit t' enter the kingdom o' God.",2 "Some o' the brethren at Treddles'on are displeased with her for that.""",1 """Where will she be the rest o' the day?""",2 said Adam.,2 """She said she shouldn't leave the farm again to-day,"" said Seth, ""because it's her last Sabbath there, and she's going t' read out o' the big Bible wi' the children.""",2 "Adam thought--but did not say--""Then I'll go this afternoon; for if I go to church, my thoughts 'ull be with her all the while.",2 "They must sing th' anthem without me to-day.""",2 IT was about three o'clock when Adam entered the farmyard and roused Alick and the dogs from their Sunday dozing.,2 "Alick said everybody was gone to church ""but th' young missis""--so he called Dinah--but this did not disappoint Adam, although the ""everybody"" was so liberal as to include Nancy the dairymaid, whose works of necessity were not unfrequently incompatible with church-going.",1 There was perfect stillness about the house.,3 "The doors were all closed, and the very stones and tubs seemed quieter than usual.",3 "Adam heard the water gently dripping from the pump--that was the only sound--and he knocked at the house door rather softly, as was suitable in that stillness.",2 "The door opened, and Dinah stood before him, colouring deeply with the great surprise of seeing Adam at this hour, when she knew it was his regular practice to be at church.",3 "Yesterday he would have said to her without any difficulty, ""I came to see you, Dinah: I knew the rest were not at home.""",1 "But to-day something prevented him from saying that, and he put out his hand to her in silence.",2 "Neither of them spoke, and yet both wished they could speak, as Adam entered, and they sat down.",2 "Dinah took the chair she had just left; it was at the corner of the table near the window, and there was a book lying on the table, but it was not open.",1 "She had been sitting perfectly still, looking at the small bit of clear fire in the bright grate.",3 "Adam sat down opposite her, in Mr. Poyser's three-cornered chair.",2 """Your mother is not ill again, I hope, Adam?""",2 "Dinah said, recovering herself.",2 """Seth said she was well this morning.""",3 """No, she's very hearty to-day,"" said Adam, happy in the signs of Dinah's feeling at the sight of him, but shy.",3 """There's nobody at home, you see,"" Dinah said; ""but you'll wait.",2 "You've been hindered from going to church to-day, doubtless.""",3 """Yes,"" Adam said, and then paused, before he added, ""I was thinking about you: that was the reason.""",2 "This confession was very awkward and sudden, Adam felt, for he thought Dinah must understand all he meant.",1 "But the frankness of the words caused her immediately to interpret them into a renewal of his brotherly regrets that she was going away, and she answered calmly, ""Do not be careful and troubled for me, Adam.",1 I have all things and abound at Snowfield.,3 "And my mind is at rest, for I am not seeking my own will in going.""",2 """But if things were different, Dinah,"" said Adam, hesitatingly.",2 """If you knew things that perhaps you don't know now....""",2 "Dinah looked at him inquiringly, but instead of going on, he reached a chair and brought it near the corner of the table where she was sitting.",2 "She wondered, and was afraid--and the next moment her thoughts flew to the past: was it something about those distant unhappy ones that she didn't know?",1 Adam looked at her.,2 "It was so sweet to look at her eyes, which had now a self-forgetful questioning in them--for a moment he forgot that he wanted to say anything, or that it was necessary to tell her what he meant.",2 """Dinah,"" he said suddenly, taking both her hands between his, ""I love you with my whole heart and soul.",3 "I love you next to God who made me.""",3 "Dinah's lips became pale, like her cheeks, and she trembled violently under the shock of painful joy.",1 Her hands were cold as death between Adam's.,1 "She could not draw them away, because he held them fast.",3 """Don't tell me you can't love me, Dinah.",3 "Don't tell me we must part and pass our lives away from one another.""",2 "The tears were trembling in Dinah's eyes, and they fell before she could answer.",1 But she spoke in a quiet low voice.,3 """Yes, dear Adam, we must submit to another Will.",2 "We must part.""",2 """Not if you love me, Dinah--not if you love me,"" Adam said passionately.",3 """Tell me--tell me if you can love me better than a brother?""",3 Dinah was too entirely reliant on the Supreme guidance to attempt to achieve any end by a deceptive concealment.,3 "She was recovering now from the first shock of emotion, and she looked at Adam with simple sincere eyes as she said, ""Yes, Adam, my heart is drawn strongly towards you; and of my own will, if I had no clear showing to the contrary, I could find my happiness in being near you and ministering to you continually.",3 "I fear I should forget to rejoice and weep with others; nay, I fear I should forget the Divine presence, and seek no love but yours.""",3 Adam did not speak immediately.,2 They sat looking at each other in delicious silence--for the first sense of mutual love excludes other feelings; it will have the soul all to itself.,3 """Then, Dinah,"" Adam said at last, ""how can there be anything contrary to what's right in our belonging to one another and spending our lives together?",3 Who put this great love into our hearts?,3 Can anything be holier than that?,2 For we can help one another in everything as is good.,3 "I'd never think o' putting myself between you and God, and saying you oughtn't to do this and you oughtn't to do that.",2 "You'd follow your conscience as much as you do now.""",2 """Yes, Adam,"" Dinah said, ""I know marriage is a holy state for those who are truly called to it, and have no other drawing; but from my childhood upwards I have been led towards another path; all my peace and my joy have come from having no life of my own, no wants, no wishes for myself, and living only in God and those of his creatures whose sorrows and joys he has given me to know.",4 "Those have been very blessed years to me, and I feel that if I was to listen to any voice that would draw me aside from that path, I should be turning my back on the light that has shone upon me, and darkness and doubt would take hold of me.",1 "We could not bless each other, Adam, if there were doubts in my soul, and if I yearned, when it was too late, after that better part which had once been given me and I had put away from me.""",3 """But if a new feeling has come into your mind, Dinah, and if you love me so as to be willing to be nearer to me than to other people, isn't that a sign that it's right for you to change your life?",4 "Doesn't the love make it right when nothing else would?""",3 """Adam, my mind is full of questionings about that; for now, since you tell me of your strong love towards me, what was clear to me has become dark again.",3 "I felt before that my heart was too strongly drawn towards you, and that your heart was not as mine; and the thought of you had taken hold of me, so that my soul had lost its freedom, and was becoming enslaved to an earthly affection, which made me anxious and careful about what should befall myself.",2 "For in all other affection I had been content with any small return, or with none; but my heart was beginning to hunger after an equal love from you.",3 "And I had no doubt that I must wrestle against that as a great temptation, and the command was clear that I must go away.""",1 """But now, dear, dear Dinah, now you know I love you better than you love me...it's all different now.",3 You won't think o' going.,2 "You'll stay, and be my dear wife, and I shall thank God for giving me my life as I never thanked him before.""",3 """Adam, it's hard to me to turn a deaf ear...",1 you know it's hard; but a great fear is upon me.,1 "It seems to me as if you were stretching out your arms to me, and beckoning me to come and take my ease and live for my own delight, and Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, was standing looking towards me, and pointing to the sinful, and suffering, and afflicted.",3 "I have seen that again and again when I have been sitting in stillness and darkness, and a great terror has come upon me lest I should become hard, and a lover of self, and no more bear willingly the Redeemer's cross.""",2 "Dinah had closed her eyes, and a faint shudder went through her.",1 """Adam,"" she went on, ""you wouldn't desire that we should seek a good through any unfaithfulness to the light that is in us; you wouldn't believe that could be a good.",3 "We are of one mind in that.""",2 """Yes, Dinah,"" said Adam sadly, ""I'll never be the man t' urge you against your conscience.",1 But I can't give up the hope that you may come to see different.,2 "I don't believe your loving me could shut up your heart--it's only adding to what you've been before, not taking away from it.",3 "For it seems to me it's the same with love and happiness as with sorrow--the more we know of it the better we can feel what other people's lives are or might be, and so we shall only be more tender to 'em, and wishful to help 'em.",4 "The more knowledge a man has, the better he'll do's work; and feeling's a sort o' knowledge.""",3 Dinah was silent; her eyes were fixed in contemplation of something visible only to herself.,3 "Adam went on presently with his pleading, ""And you can do almost as much as you do now.",2 I won't ask you to go to church with me of a Sunday.,2 "You shall go where you like among the people, and teach 'em; for though I like church best, I don't put my soul above yours, as if my words was better for you to follow than your own conscience.",4 "And you can help the sick just as much, and you'll have more means o' making 'em a bit comfortable; and you'll be among all your own friends as love you, and can help 'em and be a blessing to 'em till their dying day.",3 "Surely, Dinah, you'd be as near to God as if you was living lonely and away from me.""",1 Dinah made no answer for some time.,2 "Adam was still holding her hands and looking at her with almost trembling anxiety, when she turned her grave loving eyes on his and said, in rather a sad voice, ""Adam there is truth in what you say, and there's many of the brethren and sisters who have greater strength than I have, and find their hearts enlarged by the cares of husband and kindred.",1 "But I have not faith that it would be so with me, for since my affections have been set above measure on you, I have had less peace and joy in God.",4 I have felt as it were a division in my heart.,2 "And think how it is with me, Adam.",2 "That life I have led is like a land I have trodden in blessedness since my childhood; and if I long for a moment to follow the voice which calls me to another land that I know not, I cannot but fear that my soul might hereafter yearn for that early blessedness which I had forsaken; and where doubt enters there is not perfect love.",3 I must wait for clearer guidance.,3 "I must go from you, and we must submit ourselves entirely to the Divine Will.",3 "We are sometimes required to lay our natural lawful affections on the altar.""",3 "Adam dared not plead again, for Dinah's was not the voice of caprice or insincerity.",1 But it was very hard for him; his eyes got dim as he looked at her.,1 """But you may come to feel satisfied...",3 "to feel that you may come to me again, and we may never part, Dinah?""",2 """We must submit ourselves, Adam.",2 "With time, our duty will be made clear.",3 "It may be when I have entered on my former life, I shall find all these new thoughts and wishes vanish, and become as things that were not.",2 Then I shall know that my calling is not towards marriage.,2 "But we must wait.""",2 """Dinah,"" said Adam mournfully, ""you can't love me so well as I love you, else you'd have no doubts.",2 "But it's natural you shouldn't, for I'm not so good as you.",3 "I can't doubt it's right for me to love the best thing God's ever given me to know.""",3 """Nay, Adam.",2 "It seems to me that my love for you is not weak, for my heart waits on your words and looks, almost as a little child waits on the help and tenderness of the strong on whom it depends.",2 "If the thought of you took slight hold of me, I should not fear that it would be an idol in the temple.",2 "But you will strengthen me--you will not hinder me in seeking to obey to the uttermost.""",1 """Let us go out into the sunshine, Dinah, and walk together.",2 "I'll speak no word to disturb you.""",1 "They went out and walked towards the fields, where they would meet the family coming from church.",2 "Adam said, ""Take my arm, Dinah,"" and she took it.",2 That was the only change in their manner to each other since they were last walking together.,2 But no sadness in the prospect of her going away--in the uncertainty of the issue--could rob the sweetness from Adam's sense that Dinah loved him.,2 He thought he would stay at the Hall Farm all that evening.,2 He would be near her as long as he could.,2 """Hey-day!",2 "There's Adam along wi' Dinah,"" said Mr. Poyser, as he opened the far gate into the Home Close.",2 """I couldna think how he happened away from church.",2 "Why,"" added good Martin, after a moment's pause, ""what dost think has just jumped into my head?""",3 """Summat as hadna far to jump, for it's just under our nose.",2 "You mean as Adam's fond o' Dinah.""",3 """Aye!",2 "hast ever had any notion of it before?""",2 """To be sure I have,"" said Mrs. Poyser, who always declined, if possible, to be taken by surprise.",2 """I'm not one o' those as can see the cat i' the dairy an' wonder what she's come after.""",3 """Thee never saidst a word to me about it.""",2 """Well, I aren't like a bird-clapper, forced to make a rattle when the wind blows on me.",3 "I can keep my own counsel when there's no good i' speaking.""",3 """But Dinah 'll ha' none o' him.",2 "Dost think she will?""",2 """Nay,"" said Mrs. Poyser, not sufficiently on her guard against a possible surprise, ""she'll never marry anybody, if he isn't a Methodist and a cripple.""",2 """It 'ud ha' been a pretty thing though for 'em t' marry,"" said Martin, turning his head on one side, as if in pleased contemplation of his new idea.",3 """Thee'dst ha' liked it too, wouldstna?""",3 """Ah!",2 I should.,2 "I should ha' been sure of her then, as she wouldn't go away from me to Snowfield, welly thirty mile off, and me not got a creatur to look to, only neighbours, as are no kin to me, an' most of 'em women as I'd be ashamed to show my face, if my dairy things war like their'n.",2 There may well be streaky butter i' the market.,2 "An' I should be glad to see the poor thing settled like a Christian woman, with a house of her own over her head; and we'd stock her well wi' linen and feathers, for I love her next to my own children.",4 "An' she makes one feel safer when she's i' the house, for she's like the driven snow: anybody might sin for two as had her at their elbow.""",2 """Dinah,"" said Tommy, running forward to meet her, ""mother says you'll never marry anybody but a Methodist cripple.",1 "What a silly you must be!""",1 "a comment which Tommy followed up by seizing Dinah with both arms, and dancing along by her side with incommodious fondness.",3 """Why, Adam, we missed you i' the singing to-day,"" said Mr. Poyser.",1 """How was it?""",2 """I wanted to see Dinah--she's going away so soon,"" said Adam.",2 """Ah, lad!",2 Can you persuade her to stop somehow?,2 Find her a good husband somewhere i' the parish.,3 "If you'll do that, we'll forgive you for missing church.",2 "But, anyway, she isna going before the harvest supper o' Wednesday, and you must come then.",2 "There's Bartle Massey comin', an' happen Craig.",2 "You'll be sure an' come, now, at seven?",2 "The missis wunna have it a bit later.""",2 """Aye,"" said Adam, ""I'll come if I can.",2 "But I can't often say what I'll do beforehand, for the work often holds me longer than I expect.",3 "You'll stay till the end o' the week, Dinah?""",2 """Yes, yes!""",2 said Mr. Poyser.,2 """We'll have no nay.""",2 """She's no call to be in a hurry,"" observed Mrs. Poyser.",2 """Scarceness o' victual 'ull keep: there's no need to be hasty wi' the cooking.",1 "An' scarceness is what there's the biggest stock of i' that country.""",2 "Dinah smiled, but gave no promise to stay, and they talked of other things through the rest of the walk, lingering in the sunshine to look at the great flock of geese grazing, at the new corn-ricks, and at the surprising abundance of fruit on the old pear-tree; Nancy and Molly having already hastened home, side by side, each holding, carefully wrapped in her pocket-handkerchief, a prayer-book, in which she could read little beyond the large letters and the Amens.",4 "Surely all other leisure is hurry compared with a sunny walk through the fields from ""afternoon church""--as such walks used to be in those old leisurely times, when the boat, gliding sleepily along the canal, was the newest locomotive wonder; when Sunday books had most of them old brown-leather covers, and opened with remarkable precision always in one place.",3 "Leisure is gone--gone where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow waggons, and the pedlars, who brought bargains to the door on sunny afternoons.",1 "Ingenious philosophers tell you, perhaps, that the great work of the steam-engine is to create leisure for mankind.",4 Do not believe them: it only creates a vacuum for eager thought to rush in.,3 "Even idleness is eager now--eager for amusement; prone to excursion-trains, art museums, periodical literature, and exciting novels; prone even to scientific theorizing and cursory peeps through microscopes.",3 Old Leisure was quite a different personage.,2 "He only read one newspaper, innocent of leaders, and was free from that periodicity of sensations which we call post-time.",3 "He was a contemplative, rather stout gentleman, of excellent digestion; of quiet perceptions, undiseased by hypothesis; happy in his inability to know the causes of things, preferring the things themselves.",4 "He lived chiefly in the country, among pleasant seats and homesteads, and was fond of sauntering by the fruit-tree wall and scenting the apricots when they were warmed by the morning sunshine, or of sheltering himself under the orchard boughs at noon, when the summer pears were falling.",3 "He knew nothing of weekday services, and thought none the worse of the Sunday sermon if it allowed him to sleep from the text to the blessing; liking the afternoon service best, because the prayers were the shortest, and not ashamed to say so; for he had an easy, jolly conscience, broad-backed like himself, and able to carry a great deal of beer or port-wine, not being made squeamish by doubts and qualms and lofty aspirations.",4 "Life was not a task to him, but a sinecure.",2 "He fingered the guineas in his pocket, and ate his dinners, and slept the sleep of the irresponsible, for had he not kept up his character by going to church on the Sunday afternoons?",1 Fine old Leisure!,3 "Do not be severe upon him, and judge him by our modern standard.",2 "He never went to Exeter Hall, or heard a popular preacher, or read Tracts for the Times or Sartor Resartus.",3 "As Adam was going homeward, on Wednesday evening, in the six o'clock sunlight, he saw in the distance the last load of barley winding its way towards the yard-gate of the Hall Farm, and heard the chant of ""Harvest Home!""",2 rising and sinking like a wave.,2 "Fainter and fainter, and more musical through the growing distance, the falling dying sound still reached him, as he neared the Willow Brook.",1 "The low westering sun shone right on the shoulders of the old Binton Hills, turning the unconscious sheep into bright spots of light; shone on the windows of the cottage too, and made them a-flame with a glory beyond that of amber or amethyst.",4 "It was enough to make Adam feel that he was in a great temple, and that the distant chant was a sacred song.",3 """It's wonderful,"" he thought, ""how that sound goes to one's heart almost like a funeral bell, for all it tells one o' the joyfullest time o' the year, and the time when men are mostly the thankfullest.",3 I suppose it's a bit hard to us to think anything's over and gone in our lives; and there's a parting at the root of all our joys.,1 It's like what I feel about Dinah.,3 "I should never ha' come to know that her love 'ud be the greatest o' blessings to me, if what I counted a blessing hadn't been wrenched and torn away from me, and left me with a greater need, so as I could crave and hunger for a greater and a better comfort.""",4 "He expected to see Dinah again this evening, and get leave to accompany her as far as Oakbourne; and then he would ask her to fix some time when he might go to Snowfield, and learn whether the last best hope that had been born to him must be resigned like the rest.",3 "The work he had to do at home, besides putting on his best clothes, made it seven before he was on his way again to the Hall Farm, and it was questionable whether, with his longest and quickest strides, he should be there in time even for the roast beef, which came after the plum pudding, for Mrs. Poyser's supper would be punctual.",3 "Great was the clatter of knives and pewter plates and tin cans when Adam entered the house, but there was no hum of voices to this accompaniment: the eating of excellent roast beef, provided free of expense, was too serious a business to those good farm-labourers to be performed with a divided attention, even if they had had anything to say to each other--which they had not.",4 "And Mr. Poyser, at the head of the table, was too busy with his carving to listen to Bartle Massey's or Mr. Craig's ready talk.",3 """Here, Adam,"" said Mrs. Poyser, who was standing and looking on to see that Molly and Nancy did their duty as waiters, ""here's a place kept for you between Mr. Massey and the boys.",2 "It's a poor tale you couldn't come to see the pudding when it was whole.""",1 "Adam looked anxiously round for a fourth woman's figure, but Dinah was not there.",1 "He was almost afraid of asking about her; besides, his attention was claimed by greetings, and there remained the hope that Dinah was in the house, though perhaps disinclined to festivities on the eve of her departure.",1 "It was a goodly sight--that table, with Martin Poyser's round good-humoured face and large person at the head of it helping his servants to the fragrant roast beef and pleased when the empty plates came again.",4 "Martin, though usually blest with a good appetite, really forgot to finish his own beef to-night--it was so pleasant to him to look on in the intervals of carving and see how the others enjoyed their supper; for were they not men who, on all the days of the year except Christmas Day and Sundays, ate their cold dinner, in a makeshift manner, under the hedgerows, and drank their beer out of wooden bottles--with relish certainly, but with their mouths towards the zenith, after a fashion more endurable to ducks than to human bipeds.",4 Martin Poyser had some faint conception of the flavour such men must find in hot roast beef and fresh-drawn ale.,3 "He held his head on one side and screwed up his mouth, as he nudged Bartle Massey, and watched half-witted Tom Tholer, otherwise known as ""Tom Saft,"" receiving his second plateful of beef.",1 "A grin of delight broke over Tom's face as the plate was set down before him, between his knife and fork, which he held erect, as if they had been sacred tapers.",2 "But the delight was too strong to continue smouldering in a grin--it burst out the next instant in a long-drawn ""haw, haw!""",3 "followed by a sudden collapse into utter gravity, as the knife and fork darted down on the prey.",1 Martin Poyser's large person shook with his silent unctuous laugh.,3 "He turned towards Mrs. Poyser to see if she too had been observant of Tom, and the eyes of husband and wife met in a glance of good-natured amusement.",3 """Tom Saft"" was a great favourite on the farm, where he played the part of the old jester, and made up for his practical deficiencies by his success in repartee.",3 "His hits, I imagine, were those of the flail, which falls quite at random, but nevertheless smashes an insect now and then.",1 "They were much quoted at sheep-shearing and haymaking times, but I refrain from recording them here, lest Tom's wit should prove to be like that of many other bygone jesters eminent in their day--rather of a temporary nature, not dealing with the deeper and more lasting relations of things.",3 "Tom excepted, Martin Poyser had some pride in his servants and labourers, thinking with satisfaction that they were the best worth their pay of any set on the estate.",4 "There was Kester Bale, for example (Beale, probably, if the truth were known, but he was called Bale, and was not conscious of any claim to a fifth letter), the old man with the close leather cap and the network of wrinkles on his sun-browned face.",1 "Was there any man in Loamshire who knew better the ""natur"" of all farming work?",3 "He was one of those invaluable labourers who can not only turn their hand to everything, but excel in everything they turn their hand to.",3 "It is true Kester's knees were much bent outward by this time, and he walked with a perpetual curtsy, as if he were among the most reverent of men.",2 "And so he was; but I am obliged to admit that the object of his reverence was his own skill, towards which he performed some rather affecting acts of worship.",3 "He always thatched the ricks--for if anything were his forte more than another, it was thatching--and when the last touch had been put to the last beehive rick, Kester, whose home lay at some distance from the farm, would take a walk to the rick-yard in his best clothes on a Sunday morning and stand in the lane, at a due distance, to contemplate his own thatching, walking about to get each rick from the proper point of view.",3 "As he curtsied along, with his eyes upturned to the straw knobs imitative of golden globes at the summits of the beehive ricks, which indeed were gold of the best sort, you might have imagined him to be engaged in some pagan act of adoration.",4 "Kester was an old bachelor and reputed to have stockings full of coin, concerning which his master cracked a joke with him every pay-night: not a new unseasoned joke, but a good old one, that had been tried many times before and had worn well.",2 """Th' young measter's a merry mon,"" Kester frequently remarked; for having begun his career by frightening away the crows under the last Martin Poyser but one, he could never cease to account the reigning Martin a young master.",3 I am not ashamed of commemorating old Kester.,1 "You and I are indebted to the hard hands of such men--hands that have long ago mingled with the soil they tilled so faithfully, thriftily making the best they could of the earth's fruits, and receiving the smallest share as their own wages.",3 "Then, at the end of the table, opposite his master, there was Alick, the shepherd and head-man, with the ruddy face and broad shoulders, not on the best terms with old Kester; indeed, their intercourse was confined to an occasional snarl, for though they probably differed little concerning hedging and ditching and the treatment of ewes, there was a profound difference of opinion between them as to their own respective merits.",3 "When Tityrus and Meliboeus happen to be on the same farm, they are not sentimentally polite to each other.",3 "Alick, indeed, was not by any means a honeyed man.",2 "His speech had usually something of a snarl in it, and his broad-shouldered aspect something of the bull-dog expression--""Don't you meddle with me, and I won't meddle with you.""",1 "But he was honest even to the splitting of an oat-grain rather than he would take beyond his acknowledged share, and as ""close-fisted"" with his master's property as if it had been his own--throwing very small handfuls of damaged barley to the chickens, because a large handful affected his imagination painfully with a sense of profusion.",1 "Good-tempered Tim, the waggoner, who loved his horses, had his grudge against Alick in the matter of corn.",3 "They rarely spoke to each other, and never looked at each other, even over their dish of cold potatoes; but then, as this was their usual mode of behaviour towards all mankind, it would be an unsafe conclusion that they had more than transient fits of unfriendliness.",1 "The bucolic character at Hayslope, you perceive, was not of that entirely genial, merry, broad-grinning sort, apparently observed in most districts visited by artists.",3 "The mild radiance of a smile was a rare sight on a field-labourer's face, and there was seldom any gradation between bovine gravity and a laugh.",3 Nor was every labourer so honest as our friend Alick.,3 "At this very table, among Mr. Poyser's men, there is that big Ben Tholoway, a very powerful thresher, but detected more than once in carrying away his master's corn in his pockets--an action which, as Ben was not a philosopher, could hardly be ascribed to absence of mind.",2 "However, his master had forgiven him, and continued to employ him, for the Tholoways had lived on the Common time out of mind, and had always worked for the Poysers.",3 "And on the whole, I daresay, society was not much the worse because Ben had not six months of it at the treadmill, for his views of depredation were narrow, and the House of Correction might have enlarged them.",1 "As it was, Ben ate his roast beef to-night with a serene sense of having stolen nothing more than a few peas and beans as seed for his garden since the last harvest supper, and felt warranted in thinking that Alick's suspicious eye, for ever upon him, was an injury to his innocence.",1 "But NOW the roast beef was finished and the cloth was drawn, leaving a fair large deal table for the bright drinking-cans, and the foaming brown jugs, and the bright brass candlesticks, pleasant to behold.",4 "NOW, the great ceremony of the evening was to begin--the harvest-song, in which every man must join.",3 "He might be in tune, if he liked to be singular, but he must not sit with closed lips.",3 The movement was obliged to be in triple time; the rest was ad libitum.,2 "As to the origin of this song--whether it came in its actual state from the brain of a single rhapsodist, or was gradually perfected by a school or succession of rhapsodists, I am ignorant.",1 "There is a stamp of unity, of individual genius upon it, which inclines me to the former hypothesis, though I am not blind to the consideration that this unity may rather have arisen from that consensus of many minds which was a condition of primitive thought, foreign to our modern consciousness.",3 "Some will perhaps think that they detect in the first quatrain an indication of a lost line, which later rhapsodists, failing in imaginative vigour, have supplied by the feeble device of iteration.",1 "Others, however, may rather maintain that this very iteration is an original felicity, to which none but the most prosaic minds can be insensible.",2 The ceremony connected with the song was a drinking ceremony.,2 "(That is perhaps a painful fact, but then, you know, we cannot reform our forefathers.) During the first and second quatrain, sung decidedly forte, no can was filled.",2 "Here's a health unto our master, The founder of the feast; Here's a health unto our master And to our mistress!",2 "And may his doings prosper, Whate'er he takes in hand, For we are all his servants, And are at his command.",3 "But now, immediately before the third quatrain or chorus, sung fortissimo, with emphatic raps of the table, which gave the effect of cymbals and drum together, Alick's can was filled, and he was bound to empty it before the chorus ceased.",1 "Then drink, boys, drink!",2 "And see ye do not spill, For if ye do, ye shall drink two, For 'tis our master's will.",2 "When Alick had gone successfully through this test of steady-handed manliness, it was the turn of old Kester, at his right hand--and so on, till every man had drunk his initiatory pint under the stimulus of the chorus.",3 "Tom Saft--the rogue--took care to spill a little by accident; but Mrs. Poyser (too officiously, Tom thought) interfered to prevent the exaction of the penalty.",1 "To any listener outside the door it would have been the reverse of obvious why the ""Drink, boys, drink!""",2 "should have such an immediate and often-repeated encore; but once entered, he would have seen that all faces were at present sober, and most of them serious--it was the regular and respectable thing for those excellent farm-labourers to do, as much as for elegant ladies and gentlemen to smirk and bow over their wine-glasses.",3 "Bartle Massey, whose ears were rather sensitive, had gone out to see what sort of evening it was at an early stage in the ceremony, and had not finished his contemplation until a silence of five minutes declared that ""Drink, boys, drink!""",3 was not likely to begin again for the next twelvemonth.,2 "Much to the regret of the boys and Totty: on them the stillness fell rather flat, after that glorious thumping of the table, towards which Totty, seated on her father's knee, contributed with her small might and small fist.",1 "When Bartle re-entered, however, there appeared to be a general desire for solo music after the choral.",2 "Nancy declared that Tim the waggoner knew a song and was ""allays singing like a lark i' the stable,"" whereupon Mr. Poyser said encouragingly, ""Come, Tim, lad, let's hear it.""",4 "Tim looked sheepish, tucked down his head, and said he couldn't sing, but this encouraging invitation of the master's was echoed all round the table.",3 "It was a conversational opportunity: everybody could say, ""Come, Tim,"" except Alick, who never relaxed into the frivolity of unnecessary speech.",2 "At last, Tim's next neighbour, Ben Tholoway, began to give emphasis to his speech by nudges, at which Tim, growing rather savage, said, ""Let me alooan, will ye?",1 "Else I'll ma' ye sing a toon ye wonna like.""",3 "A good-tempered waggoner's patience has limits, and Tim was not to be urged further.",3 """Well, then, David, ye're the lad to sing,"" said Ben, willing to show that he was not discomfited by this check.",3 """Sing 'My loove's a roos wi'out a thorn.'",2 """ The amatory David was a young man of an unconscious abstracted expression, which was due probably to a squint of superior intensity rather than to any mental characteristic; for he was not indifferent to Ben's invitation, but blushed and laughed and rubbed his sleeve over his mouth in a way that was regarded as a symptom of yielding.",1 And for some time the company appeared to be much in earnest about the desire to hear David's song.,3 But in vain.,1 "The lyricism of the evening was in the cellar at present, and was not to be drawn from that retreat just yet.",1 Meanwhile the conversation at the head of the table had taken a political turn.,2 "Mr. Craig was not above talking politics occasionally, though he piqued himself rather on a wise insight than on specific information.",3 He saw so far beyond the mere facts of a case that really it was superfluous to know them.,1 """I'm no reader o' the paper myself,"" he observed to-night, as he filled his pipe, ""though I might read it fast enough if I liked, for there's Miss Lyddy has 'em and 's done with 'em i' no time.",3 "But there's Mills, now, sits i' the chimney-corner and reads the paper pretty nigh from morning to night, and when he's got to th' end on't he's more addle-headed than he was at the beginning.",3 "He's full o' this peace now, as they talk on; he's been reading and reading, and thinks he's got to the bottom on't.",3 "'Why, Lor' bless you, Mills,' says I, 'you see no more into this thing nor you can see into the middle of a potato.",3 I'll tell you what it is: you think it'll be a fine thing for the country.,3 And I'm not again' it--mark my words--I'm not again' it.,2 "But it's my opinion as there's them at the head o' this country as are worse enemies to us nor Bony and all the mounseers he's got at 's back; for as for the mounseers, you may skewer half-a-dozen of 'em at once as if they war frogs.'",1 """ ""Aye, aye,"" said Martin Poyser, listening with an air of much intelligence and edification, ""they ne'er ate a bit o' beef i' their lives.",3 "Mostly sallet, I reckon.""",2 """And says I to Mills,"" continued Mr. Craig, ""'Will you try to make me believe as furriners like them can do us half th' harm them ministers do with their bad government?",1 "If King George 'ud turn 'em all away and govern by himself, he'd see everything righted.",2 He might take on Billy Pitt again if he liked; but I don't see myself what we want wi' anybody besides King and Parliament.,3 "It's that nest o' ministers does the mischief, I tell you.'",1 """ ""Ah, it's fine talking,"" observed Mrs. Poyser, who was now seated near her husband, with Totty on her lap--""it's fine talking.",3 "It's hard work to tell which is Old Harry when everybody's got boots on.""",2 """As for this peace,"" said Mr. Poyser, turning his head on one side in a dubitative manner and giving a precautionary puff to his pipe between each sentence, ""I don't know.",3 "Th' war's a fine thing for the country, an' how'll you keep up prices wi'out it?",3 "An' them French are a wicked sort o' folks, by what I can make out.",1 "What can you do better nor fight 'em?""",3 """Ye're partly right there, Poyser,"" said Mr. Craig, ""but I'm not again' the peace--to make a holiday for a bit.",3 "We can break it when we like, an' I'm in no fear o' Bony, for all they talk so much o' his cliverness.",1 That's what I says to Mills this morning.,2 "Lor' bless you, he sees no more through Bony!...why, I put him up to more in three minutes than he gets from's paper all the year round.",3 "Says I, 'Am I a gardener as knows his business, or arn't I, Mills?",2 Answer me that.',2 "'To be sure y' are, Craig,' says he--he's not a bad fellow, Mills isn't, for a butler, but weak i' the head.",1 "'Well,' says I, 'you talk o' Bony's cliverness; would it be any use my being a first-rate gardener if I'd got nought but a quagmire to work on?'",3 "'No,' says he.",2 "'Well,' I says, 'that's just what it is wi' Bony.",2 "I'll not deny but he may be a bit cliver--he's no Frenchman born, as I understand--but what's he got at's back but mounseers?'",1 """ Mr. Craig paused a moment with an emphatic stare after this triumphant specimen of Socratic argument, and then added, thumping the table rather fiercely, ""Why, it's a sure thing--and there's them 'ull bear witness to't--as i' one regiment where there was one man a-missing, they put the regimentals on a big monkey, and they fit him as the shell fits the walnut, and you couldn't tell the monkey from the mounseers!""",2 """Ah!",2 "Think o' that, now!""",2 "said Mr. Poyser, impressed at once with the political bearings of the fact and with its striking interest as an anecdote in natural history.",3 """Come, Craig,"" said Adam, ""that's a little too strong.",3 You don't believe that.,2 It's all nonsense about the French being such poor sticks.,1 "Mr. Irwine's seen 'em in their own country, and he says they've plenty o' fine fellows among 'em.",3 "And as for knowledge, and contrivances, and manufactures, there's a many things as we're a fine sight behind 'em in.",3 It's poor foolishness to run down your enemies.,0 "Why, Nelson and the rest of 'em 'ud have no merit i' beating 'em, if they were such offal as folks pretend.""",2 "Mr. Poyser looked doubtfully at Mr. Craig, puzzled by this opposition of authorities.",0 "Mr. Irwine's testimony was not to be disputed; but, on the other hand, Craig was a knowing fellow, and his view was less startling.",1 "Martin had never ""heard tell"" of the French being good for much.",3 "Mr. Craig had found no answer but such as was implied in taking a long draught of ale and then looking down fixedly at the proportions of his own leg, which he turned a little outward for that purpose, when Bartle Massey returned from the fireplace, where he had been smoking his first pipe in quiet, and broke the silence by saying, as he thrust his forefinger into the canister, ""Why, Adam, how happened you not to be at church on Sunday?",2 "Answer me that, you rascal.",1 The anthem went limping without you.,2 "Are you going to disgrace your schoolmaster in his old age?""",1 """No, Mr. Massey,"" said Adam.",2 """Mr. and Mrs. Poyser can tell you where I was.",2 "I was in no bad company.""",1 """She's gone, Adam--gone to Snowfield,"" said Mr. Poyser, reminded of Dinah for the first time this evening.",2 """I thought you'd ha' persuaded her better.",3 "Nought 'ud hold her, but she must go yesterday forenoon.",2 The missis has hardly got over it.,2 "I thought she'd ha' no sperrit for th' harvest supper.""",2 "Mrs. Poyser had thought of Dinah several times since Adam had come in, but she had had ""no heart"" to mention the bad news.",1 """What!""",2 "said Bartle, with an air of disgust.",1 """Was there a woman concerned?",1 "Then I give you up, Adam.""",2 """But it's a woman you'n spoke well on, Bartle,"" said Mr. Poyser.",3 """Come now, you canna draw back; you said once as women wouldna ha' been a bad invention if they'd all been like Dinah.""",2 """I meant her voice, man--I meant her voice, that was all,"" said Bartle.",2 """I can bear to hear her speak without wanting to put wool in my ears.",2 "As for other things, I daresay she's like the rest o' the women--thinks two and two 'll come to make five, if she cries and bothers enough about it.""",3 """Aye, aye!""",2 "said Mrs. Poyser; ""one 'ud think, an' hear some folks talk, as the men war 'cute enough to count the corns in a bag o' wheat wi' only smelling at it.",2 "They can see through a barn-door, they can.",2 "Perhaps that's the reason THEY can see so little o' this side on't.""",2 "Martin Poyser shook with delighted laughter and winked at Adam, as much as to say the schoolmaster was in for it now.",3 """Ah!""",2 "said Bartle sneeringly, ""the women are quick enough--they're quick enough.",2 "They know the rights of a story before they hear it, and can tell a man what his thoughts are before he knows 'em himself.""",2 """Like enough,"" said Mrs. Poyser, ""for the men are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun 'em, an' they can only catch 'em by the tail.",2 "I can count a stocking-top while a man's getting's tongue ready an' when he outs wi' his speech at last, there's little broth to be made on't.",3 It's your dead chicks take the longest hatchin'.,1 "Howiver, I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men.""",1 """Match!""",2 said Bartle.,2 """Aye, as vinegar matches one's teeth.",2 "If a man says a word, his wife 'll match it with a contradiction; if he's a mind for hot meat, his wife 'll match it with cold bacon; if he laughs, she'll match him with whimpering.",1 "She's such a match as the horse-fly is to th' horse: she's got the right venom to sting him with--the right venom to sting him with.""",1 """Yes,"" said Mrs. Poyser, ""I know what the men like--a poor soft, as 'ud simper at 'em like the picture o' the sun, whether they did right or wrong, an' say thank you for a kick, an' pretend she didna know which end she stood uppermost, till her husband told her.",3 "That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure o' one fool as 'ull tell him he's wise.",2 But there's some men can do wi'out that--they think so much o' themselves a'ready.,2 "An' that's how it is there's old bachelors.""",2 """Come, Craig,"" said Mr. Poyser jocosely, ""you mun get married pretty quick, else you'll be set down for an old bachelor; an' you see what the women 'ull think on you.""",3 """Well,"" said Mr. Craig, willing to conciliate Mrs. Poyser and setting a high value on his own compliments, ""I like a cleverish woman--a woman o' sperrit--a managing woman.""",4 """You're out there, Craig,"" said Bartle, dryly; ""you're out there.",2 You judge o' your garden-stuff on a better plan than that.,3 You pick the things for what they can excel in--for what they can excel in.,3 "You don't value your peas for their roots, or your carrots for their flowers.",2 "Now, that's the way you should choose women.",2 "Their cleverness 'll never come to much--never come to much--but they make excellent simpletons, ripe and strong-flavoured.""",3 """What dost say to that?""",2 "said Mr. Poyser, throwing himself back and looking merrily at his wife.",3 """Say!""",2 "answered Mrs. Poyser, with dangerous fire kindling in her eye.",1 """Why, I say as some folks' tongues are like the clocks as run on strikin', not to tell you the time o' the day, but because there's summat wrong i' their own inside...""",2 "Mrs. Poyser would probably have brought her rejoinder to a further climax, if every one's attention had not at this moment been called to the other end of the table, where the lyricism, which had at first only manifested itself by David's sotto voce performance of ""My love's a rose without a thorn,"" had gradually assumed a rather deafening and complex character.",1 "Tim, thinking slightly of David's vocalization, was impelled to supersede that feeble buzz by a spirited commencement of ""Three Merry Mowers,"" but David was not to be put down so easily, and showed himself capable of a copious crescendo, which was rendering it doubtful whether the rose would not predominate over the mowers, when old Kester, with an entirely unmoved and immovable aspect, suddenly set up a quavering treble--as if he had been an alarum, and the time was come for him to go off.",1 "The company at Alick's end of the table took this form of vocal entertainment very much as a matter of course, being free from musical prejudices; but Bartle Massey laid down his pipe and put his fingers in his ears; and Adam, who had been longing to go ever since he had heard Dinah was not in the house, rose and said he must bid good-night.",2 """I'll go with you, lad,"" said Bartle; ""I'll go with you before my ears are split.""",1 """I'll go round by the Common and see you home, if you like, Mr. Massey,"" said Adam.",3 """Aye, aye!""",2 "said Bartle; ""then we can have a bit o' talk together.",2 "I never get hold of you now.""",2 """Eh!",2 "It's a pity but you'd sit it out,"" said Martin Poyser.",1 """They'll all go soon, for th' missis niver lets 'em stay past ten.""",2 "But Adam was resolute, so the good-nights were said, and the two friends turned out on their starlight walk together.",3 """There's that poor fool, Vixen, whimpering for me at home,"" said Bartle.",1 """I can never bring her here with me for fear she should be struck with Mrs. Poyser's eye, and the poor bitch might go limping for ever after.""",0 """I've never any need to drive Gyp back,"" said Adam, laughing.",2 """He always turns back of his own head when he finds out I'm coming here.""",2 """Aye, aye,"" said Bartle.",2 """A terrible woman!--made of needles, made of needles.",1 But I stick to Martin--I shall always stick to Martin.,2 "And he likes the needles, God help him!",3 "He's a cushion made on purpose for 'em.""",2 """But she's a downright good-natur'd woman, for all that,"" said Adam, ""and as true as the daylight.",3 "She's a bit cross wi' the dogs when they offer to come in th' house, but if they depended on her, she'd take care and have 'em well fed.",3 "If her tongue's keen, her heart's tender: I've seen that in times o' trouble.",3 "She's one o' those women as are better than their word.""",3 """Well, well,"" said Bartle, ""I don't say th' apple isn't sound at the core; but it sets my teeth on edge--it sets my teeth on edge.""",3 "ADAM understood Dinah's haste to go away, and drew hope rather than discouragement from it.",1 She was fearful lest the strength of her feeling towards him should hinder her from waiting and listening faithfully for the ultimate guiding voice from within.,1 """I wish I'd asked her to write to me, though,"" he thought.",2 """And yet even that might disturb her a bit, perhaps.",1 She wants to be quite quiet in her old way for a while.,3 And I've no right to be impatient and interrupting her with my wishes.,2 "She's told me what her mind is, and she's not a woman to say one thing and mean another.",2 "I'll wait patiently.""",3 "That was Adam's wise resolution, and it throve excellently for the first two or three weeks on the nourishment it got from the remembrance of Dinah's confession that Sunday afternoon.",3 There is a wonderful amount of sustenance in the first few words of love.,3 "But towards the middle of October the resolution began to dwindle perceptibly, and showed dangerous symptoms of exhaustion.",0 The weeks were unusually long: Dinah must surely have had more than enough time to make up her mind.,2 "Let a woman say what she will after she has once told a man that she loves him, he is a little too flushed and exalted with that first draught she offers him to care much about the taste of the second.",3 "He treads the earth with a very elastic step as he walks away from her, and makes light of all difficulties.",1 "But that sort of glow dies out: memory gets sadly diluted with time, and is not strong enough to revive us.",3 Adam was no longer so confident as he had been.,3 He began to fear that perhaps Dinah's old life would have too strong a grasp upon her for any new feeling to triumph.,3 "If she had not felt this, she would surely have written to him to give him some comfort; but it appeared that she held it right to discourage him.",3 "As Adam's confidence waned, his patience waned with it, and he thought he must write himself.",3 He must ask Dinah not to leave him in painful doubt longer than was needful.,1 "He sat up late one night to write her a letter, but the next morning he burnt it, afraid of its effect.",1 "It would be worse to have a discouraging answer by letter than from her own lips, for her presence reconciled him to her will.",1 "You perceive how it was: Adam was hungering for the sight of Dinah, and when that sort of hunger reaches a certain stage, a lover is likely to still it though he may have to put his future in pawn.",3 But what harm could he do by going to Snowfield?,1 Dinah could not be displeased with him for it.,1 She had not forbidden him to go.,1 She must surely expect that he would go before long.,2 "By the second Sunday in October this view of the case had become so clear to Adam that he was already on his way to Snowfield, on horseback this time, for his hours were precious now, and he had borrowed Jonathan Burge's good nag for the journey.",3 What keen memories went along the road with him!,3 "He had often been to Oakbourne and back since that first journey to Snowfield, but beyond Oakbourne the greystone walls, the broken country, the meagre trees, seemed to be telling him afresh the story of that painful past which he knew so well by heart.",1 "But no story is the same to us after a lapse of time--or rather, we who read it are no longer the same interpreters--and Adam this morning brought with him new thoughts through that grey country, thoughts which gave an altered significance to its story of the past.",1 "That is a base and selfish, even a blasphemous, spirit which rejoices and is thankful over the past evil that has blighted or crushed another, because it has been made a source of unforeseen good to ourselves.",0 Adam could never cease to mourn over that mystery of human sorrow which had been brought so close to him; he could never thank God for another's misery.,0 "And if I were capable of that narrow-sighted joy in Adam's behalf, I should still know he was not the man to feel it for himself.",3 "He would have shaken his head at such a sentiment and said, ""Evil's evil, and sorrow's sorrow, and you can't alter it's natur by wrapping it up in other words.",1 "Other folks were not created for my sake, that I should think all square when things turn out well for me.""",3 But it is not ignoble to feel that the fuller life which a sad experience has brought us is worth our own personal share of pain.,1 "Surely it is not possible to feel otherwise, any more than it would be possible for a man with cataract to regret the painful process by which his dim blurred sight of men as trees walking had been exchanged for clear outline and effulgent day.",0 "The growth of higher feeling within us is like the growth of faculty, bringing with it a sense of added strength.",3 "We can no more wish to return to a narrower sympathy than a painter or a musician can wish to return to his cruder manner, or a philosopher to his less complete formula.",1 "Something like this sense of enlarged being was in Adam's mind this Sunday morning, as he rode along in vivid recollection of the past.",3 "His feeling towards Dinah, the hope of passing his life with her, had been the distant unseen point towards which that hard journey from Snowfield eighteen months ago had been leading him.",2 "Tender and deep as his love for Hetty had been--so deep that the roots of it would never be torn away--his love for Dinah was better and more precious to him, for it was the outgrowth of that fuller life which had come to him from his acquaintance with deep sorrow.",4 """It's like as if it was a new strength to me,"" he said to himself, ""to love her and know as she loves me.",4 I shall look t' her to help me to see things right.,3 "For she's better than I am--there's less o' self in her, and pride.",3 "And it's a feeling as gives you a sort o' liberty, as if you could walk more fearless, when you've more trust in another than y' have in yourself.",4 "I've always been thinking I knew better than them as belonged to me, and that's a poor sort o' life, when you can't look to them nearest to you t' help you with a bit better thought than what you've got inside you a'ready.""",2 "It was more than two o'clock in the afternoon when Adam came in sight of the grey town on the hill-side and looked searchingly towards the green valley below, for the first glimpse of the old thatched roof near the ugly red mill.",1 "The scene looked less harsh in the soft October sunshine than it had in the eager time of early spring, and the one grand charm it possessed in common with all wide-stretching woodless regions--that it filled you with a new consciousness of the overarching sky--had a milder, more soothing influence than usual, on this almost cloudless day.",4 Adam's doubts and fears melted under this influence as the delicate weblike clouds had gradually melted away into the clear blue above him.,2 "He seemed to see Dinah's gentle face assuring him, with its looks alone, of all he longed to know.",3 "He did not expect Dinah to be at home at this hour, but he got down from his horse and tied it at the little gate, that he might ask where she was gone to-day.",2 He had set his mind on following her and bringing her home.,2 "She was gone to Sloman's End, a hamlet about three miles off, over the hill, the old woman told him--had set off directly after morning chapel, to preach in a cottage there, as her habit was.",2 Anybody at the town would tell him the way to Sloman's End.,2 "So Adam got on his horse again and rode to the town, putting up at the old inn and taking a hasty dinner there in the company of the too chatty landlord, from whose friendly questions and reminiscences he was glad to escape as soon as possible and set out towards Sloman's End.",3 "With all his haste it was nearly four o'clock before he could set off, and he thought that as Dinah had gone so early, she would perhaps already be near returning.",1 "The little, grey, desolate-looking hamlet, unscreened by sheltering trees, lay in sight long before he reached it, and as he came near he could hear the sound of voices singing a hymn.",1 """Perhaps that's the last hymn before they come away,"" Adam thought.",2 """I'll walk back a bit and turn again to meet her, farther off the village.""",2 "He walked back till he got nearly to the top of the hill again, and seated himself on a loose stone, against the low wall, to watch till he should see the little black figure leaving the hamlet and winding up the hill.",2 "He chose this spot, almost at the top of the hill, because it was away from all eyes--no house, no cattle, not even a nibbling sheep near--no presence but the still lights and shadows and the great embracing sky.",3 She was much longer coming than he expected.,2 "He waited an hour at least watching for her and thinking of her, while the afternoon shadows lengthened and the light grew softer.",3 At last he saw the little black figure coming from between the grey houses and gradually approaching the foot of the hill.,2 "Slowly, Adam thought, but Dinah was really walking at her usual pace, with a light quiet step.",2 "Now she was beginning to wind along the path up the hill, but Adam would not move yet; he would not meet her too soon; he had set his heart on meeting her in this assured loneliness.",1 And now he began to fear lest he should startle her too much.,1 """Yet,"" he thought, ""she's not one to be overstartled; she's always so calm and quiet, as if she was prepared for anything.""",3 What was she thinking of as she wound up the hill?,1 "Perhaps she had found complete repose without him, and had ceased to feel any need of his love.",3 On the verge of a decision we all tremble: hope pauses with fluttering wings.,2 "But now at last she was very near, and Adam rose from the stone wall.",2 "It happened that just as he walked forward, Dinah had paused and turned round to look back at the village--who does not pause and look back in mounting a hill?",2 "Adam was glad, for, with the fine instinct of a lover, he felt that it would be best for her to hear his voice before she saw him.",4 "He came within three paces of her and then said, ""Dinah!""",2 "She started without looking round, as if she connected the sound with no place.",2 """Dinah!""",2 Adam said again.,2 He knew quite well what was in her mind.,3 She was so accustomed to think of impressions as purely spiritual monitions that she looked for no material visible accompaniment of the voice.,3 But this second time she looked round.,2 What a look of yearning love it was that the mild grey eyes turned on the strong dark-eyed man!,3 "She did not start again at the sight of him; she said nothing, but moved towards him so that his arm could clasp her round.",2 "And they walked on so in silence, while the warm tears fell.",2 "Adam was content, and said nothing.",2 It was Dinah who spoke first.,2 """Adam,"" she said, ""it is the Divine Will.",3 My soul is so knit to yours that it is but a divided life I live without you.,2 "And this moment, now you are with me, and I feel that our hearts are filled with the same love.",3 "I have a fulness of strength to bear and do our heavenly Father's Will that I had lost before.""",2 Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.,3 """Then we'll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us.""",1 And they kissed each other with a deep joy.,3 "What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life--to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?",1 IN little more than a month after that meeting on the hill--on a rimy morning in departing November--Adam and Dinah were married.,2 It was an event much thought of in the village.,2 "All Mr. Burge's men had a holiday, and all Mr. Poyser's, and most of those who had a holiday appeared in their best clothes at the wedding.",3 "I think there was hardly an inhabitant of Hayslope specially mentioned in this history and still resident in the parish on this November morning who was not either in church to see Adam and Dinah married, or near the church door to greet them as they came forth.",2 "Mrs. Irwine and her daughters were waiting at the churchyard gates in their carriage (for they had a carriage now) to shake hands with the bride and bridegroom and wish them well; and in the absence of Miss Lydia Donnithorne at Bath, Mrs. Best, Mr. Mills, and Mr. Craig had felt it incumbent on them to represent ""the family"" at the Chase on the occasion.",1 "The churchyard walk was quite lined with familiar faces, many of them faces that had first looked at Dinah when she preached on the Green.",2 "And no wonder they showed this eager interest on her marriage morning, for nothing like Dinah and the history which had brought her and Adam Bede together had been known at Hayslope within the memory of man.",4 "Bessy Cranage, in her neatest cap and frock, was crying, though she did not exactly know why; for, as her cousin Wiry Ben, who stood near her, judiciously suggested, Dinah was not going away, and if Bessy was in low spirits, the best thing for her to do was to follow Dinah's example and marry an honest fellow who was ready to have her.",4 "Next to Bessy, just within the church door, there were the Poyser children, peeping round the corner of the pews to get a sight of the mysterious ceremony; Totty's face wearing an unusual air of anxiety at the idea of seeing cousin Dinah come back looking rather old, for in Totty's experience no married people were young.",0 I envy them all the sight they had when the marriage was fairly ended and Adam led Dinah out of church.,4 "She was not in black this morning, for her Aunt Poyser would by no means allow such a risk of incurring bad luck, and had herself made a present of the wedding dress, made all of grey, though in the usual Quaker form, for on this point Dinah could not give way.",1 "So the lily face looked out with sweet gravity from under a grey Quaker bonnet, neither smiling nor blushing, but with lips trembling a little under the weight of solemn feelings.",3 "Adam, as he pressed her arm to his side, walked with his old erectness and his head thrown rather backward as if to face all the world better.",2 "But it was not because he was particularly proud this morning, as is the wont of bridegrooms, for his happiness was of a kind that had little reference to men's opinion of it.",3 "There was a tinge of sadness in his deep joy; Dinah knew it, and did not feel aggrieved.",1 "There were three other couples, following the bride and bridegroom: first, Martin Poyser, looking as cheery as a bright fire on this rimy morning, led quiet Mary Burge, the bridesmaid; then came Seth serenely happy, with Mrs. Poyser on his arm; and last of all Bartle Massey, with Lisbeth--Lisbeth in a new gown and bonnet, too busy with her pride in her son and her delight in possessing the one daughter she had desired to devise a single pretext for complaint.",4 "Bartle Massey had consented to attend the wedding at Adam's earnest request, under protest against marriage in general and the marriage of a sensible man in particular.",3 "Nevertheless, Mr. Poyser had a joke against him after the wedding dinner, to the effect that in the vestry he had given the bride one more kiss than was necessary.",1 "Behind this last couple came Mr. Irwine, glad at heart over this good morning's work of joining Adam and Dinah.",4 For he had seen Adam in the worst moments of his sorrow; and what better harvest from that painful seed-time could there be than this?,1 "The love that had brought hope and comfort in the hour of despair, the love that had found its way to the dark prison cell and to poor Hetty's darker soul--this strong gentle love was to be Adam's companion and helper till death.",1 "There was much shaking of hands mingled with ""God bless you's"" and other good wishes to the four couples, at the churchyard gate, Mr. Poyser answering for the rest with unwonted vivacity of tongue, for he had all the appropriate wedding-day jokes at his command.",4 "And the women, he observed, could never do anything but put finger in eye at a wedding.",2 "Even Mrs. Poyser could not trust herself to speak as the neighbours shook hands with her, and Lisbeth began to cry in the face of the very first person who told her she was getting young again.",2 "Mr. Joshua Rann, having a slight touch of rheumatism, did not join in the ringing of the bells this morning, and, looking on with some contempt at these informal greetings which required no official co-operation from the clerk, began to hum in his musical bass, ""Oh what a joyful thing it is,"" by way of preluding a little to the effect he intended to produce in the wedding psalm next Sunday.",1 """That's a bit of good news to cheer Arthur,"" said Mr. Irwine to his mother, as they drove off.",3 """I shall write to him the first thing when we get home.""",2 "Epilogue IT is near the end of June, in 1807.",2 "The workshops have been shut up half an hour or more in Adam Bede's timber-yard, which used to be Jonathan Burge's, and the mellow evening light is falling on the pleasant house with the buff walls and the soft grey thatch, very much as it did when we saw Adam bringing in the keys on that June evening nine years ago.",3 "There is a figure we know well, just come out of the house, and shading her eyes with her hands as she looks for something in the distance, for the rays that fall on her white borderless cap and her pale auburn hair are very dazzling.",2 But now she turns away from the sunlight and looks towards the door.,2 "We can see the sweet pale face quite well now: it is scarcely at all altered--only a little fuller, to correspond to her more matronly figure, which still seems light and active enough in the plain black dress.",3 """I see him, Seth,"" Dinah said, as she looked into the house.",2 """Let us go and meet him.",2 "Come, Lisbeth, come with Mother.""",2 "The last call was answered immediately by a small fair creature with pale auburn hair and grey eyes, little more than four years old, who ran out silently and put her hand into her mother's.",2 """Come, Uncle Seth,"" said Dinah.",2 """Aye, aye, we're coming,"" Seth answered from within, and presently appeared stooping under the doorway, being taller than usual by the black head of a sturdy two-year-old nephew, who had caused some delay by demanding to be carried on uncle's shoulder.",2 """Better take him on thy arm, Seth,"" said Dinah, looking fondly at the stout black-eyed fellow.",3 """He's troublesome to thee so.""",1 """Nay, nay: Addy likes a ride on my shoulder.",3 "I can carry him so for a bit.""",2 A kindness which young Addy acknowledged by drumming his heels with promising force against Uncle Seth's chest.,3 "But to walk by Dinah's side, and be tyrannized over by Dinah's and Adam's children, was Uncle Seth's earthly happiness.",3 """Where didst see him?""",2 "asked Seth, as they walked on into the adjoining field.",2 """I can't catch sight of him anywhere.""",2 """Between the hedges by the roadside,"" said Dinah.",2 """I saw his hat and his shoulder.",2 "There he is again.""",2 """Trust thee for catching sight of him if he's anywhere to be seen,"" said Seth, smiling.",3 """Thee't like poor mother used to be.",2 "She was always on the look out for Adam, and could see him sooner than other folks, for all her eyes got dim.""",1 """He's been longer than he expected,"" said Dinah, taking Arthur's watch from a small side pocket and looking at it; ""it's nigh upon seven now.""",2 """Aye, they'd have a deal to say to one another,"" said Seth, ""and the meeting 'ud touch 'em both pretty closish.",3 "Why, it's getting on towards eight years since they parted.""",2 """Yes,"" said Dinah, ""Adam was greatly moved this morning at the thought of the change he should see in the poor young man, from the sickness he has undergone, as well as the years which have changed us all.",1 "And the death of the poor wanderer, when she was coming back to us, has been sorrow upon sorrow.""",0 """See, Addy,"" said Seth, lowering the young one to his arm now and pointing, ""there's Father coming--at the far stile.""",2 "Dinah hastened her steps, and little Lisbeth ran on at her utmost speed till she clasped her father's leg.",2 "Adam patted her head and lifted her up to kiss her, but Dinah could see the marks of agitation on his face as she approached him, and he put her arm within his in silence.",2 """Well, youngster, must I take you?""",3 "he said, trying to smile, when Addy stretched out his arms--ready, with the usual baseness of infancy, to give up his Uncle Seth at once, now there was some rarer patronage at hand.",3 """It's cut me a good deal, Dinah,"" Adam said at last, when they were walking on.",3 """Didst find him greatly altered?""",2 said Dinah.,2 """Why, he's altered and yet not altered.",2 I should ha' known him anywhere.,2 "But his colour's changed, and he looks sadly.",1 "However, the doctors say he'll soon be set right in his own country air.",3 He's all sound in th' inside; it's only the fever shattered him so.,1 "But he speaks just the same, and smiles at me just as he did when he was a lad.",3 "It's wonderful how he's always had just the same sort o' look when he smiles.""",3 """I've never seen him smile, poor young man,"" said Dinah.",2 """But thee wilt see him smile, to-morrow,"" said Adam.",2 """He asked after thee the first thing when he began to come round, and we could talk to one another.",2 "'I hope she isn't altered,' he said, 'I remember her face so well.'",3 "I told him 'no,'"" Adam continued, looking fondly at the eyes that were turned towards his, ""only a bit plumper, as thee'dst a right to be after seven year.",3 "'I may come and see her to-morrow, mayn't I?'",2 he said; 'I long to tell her how I've thought of her all these years.',2 """ ""Didst tell him I'd always used the watch?""",2 said Dinah.,2 """Aye; and we talked a deal about thee, for he says he never saw a woman a bit like thee.",3 "'I shall turn Methodist some day,' he said, 'when she preaches out of doors, and go to hear her.'",2 "And I said, 'Nay, sir, you can't do that, for Conference has forbid the women preaching, and she's given it up, all but talking to the people a bit in their houses.'",1 """ ""Ah,"" said Seth, who could not repress a comment on this point, ""and a sore pity it was o' Conference; and if Dinah had seen as I did, we'd ha' left the Wesleyans and joined a body that 'ud put no bonds on Christian liberty.""",1 """Nay, lad, nay,"" said Adam, ""she was right and thee wast wrong.",2 There's no rules so wise but what it's a pity for somebody or other.,2 "Most o' the women do more harm nor good with their preaching--they've not got Dinah's gift nor her sperrit--and she's seen that, and she thought it right to set th' example o' submitting, for she's not held from other sorts o' teaching.",3 "And I agree with her, and approve o' what she did.""",3 Seth was silent.,3 "This was a standing subject of difference rarely alluded to, and Dinah, wishing to quit it at once, said, ""Didst remember, Adam, to speak to Colonel Donnithorne the words my uncle and aunt entrusted to thee?""",2 """Yes, and he's going to the Hall Farm with Mr. Irwine the day after to-morrow.",2 "Mr. Irwine came in while we were talking about it, and he would have it as the Colonel must see nobody but thee to-morrow.",2 He said--and he's in the right of it--as it'll be bad for him t' have his feelings stirred with seeing many people one after another.,2 "'We must get you strong and hearty,' he said, 'that's the first thing to be done Arthur, and then you shall have your own way.",3 But I shall keep you under your old tutor's thumb till then.',2 "Mr. Irwine's fine and joyful at having him home again.""",3 "Adam was silent a little while, and then said, ""It was very cutting when we first saw one another.",3 "He'd never heard about poor Hetty till Mr. Irwine met him in London, for the letters missed him on his journey.",1 "The first thing he said to me, when we'd got hold o' one another's hands was, 'I could never do anything for her, Adam--she lived long enough for all the suffering--and I'd thought so of the time when I might do something for her.",2 "But you told me the truth when you said to me once, ""There's a sort of wrong that can never be made up for.""",1 "'"" ""Why, there's Mr. and Mrs. Poyser coming in at the yard gate,"" said Seth.",2 """So there is,"" said Dinah.",2 """Run, Lisbeth, run to meet Aunt Poyser.",2 "Come in, Adam, and rest; it has been a hard day for thee.""",1