ask him first what I have done--will you only promise that,
Miss Nell?"

Before the child could reply to this earnest solicitation,
the street-door opened, and Mr. Brass thrusting out his
night-capped head called in a surly voice, "Who's there!"
Kit immediately glided away, and Nell, closing the window
softly, drew back into the room.

Before Mr. Brass had repeated his inquiry many times,
Mr. Quilp, also embellished with a night-cap, emerged from
the same door and looked carefully up and down the street,
and up at all the windows of the house from the opposite
side. Finding that there was nobody in sight he presently
returned into the house with his legal friend, protesting (as
the child heard from the staircase) that there was a league
and plot against him, that he was in danger of being
robbed and plundered by a band of conspirators who
prowled about the house at all seasons, and that he would
delay no longer but take immediate steps for disposing of
the property and returning to his own peaceful roof.
Having growled forth these and a great many other threats
of the same nature, he coiled himself once more in the
child's little bed, and Nell crept softly up the stairs.

It was natural enough that her short and unfinished
dialogue with Kit should leave a strong impression on her
mind, and influence her dreams that night and her recollec-
tions for a long, long time. Surrounded by unfeeling
creditors, and mercenary attendants upon the sick, and
meeting in the height of her anxiety and sorrow with little
regard or sympathy even from the women about her, it is
not surprising that the affectionate heart of the child should
have been touched to the quick by one kind and generous
spirit, however uncouth the temple in which it dwelt.
Thank Heaven that the temples of such spirits are not
made with hands, and that they may be more worthily hung
with poor patchwork than with purple and fine linen!

AT length the crisis of the old man's disorder was past,
and he began to mend. By very slow and feeble degrees
his consciousness came back, but the mind was weakened

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