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words than they have given me, so help
me God!
from me, lady. I am younger than you
would think, to look at me, but Í am well
used to it; the poorest women fall back
as I make my way along the crowded
pavement."
cc What dreadful cong
Rose, involuntarily fal
strange companion.
*‘ Thank Heaven upon your knees, dear
lady,” cried the girl, “that you had
friends to care for and keep you in your
childhood, and that you were never in the
midst of cold and hunger, and riot and
drunkenness, and—and something worse
than all—as I have been from my cradle;
I may use the word, for the alley and the
utter were mine, as they will be my
eath-bed.”
“TI pity you!” said Rose ina broken
voice. ‘It wrings my heart to hear you!”
God bless you for your goodness
rejoined the girl. "If you knew what I
am sometimes, you would pity me, indeed.
But I have stolen away from those who
would surely murder me if they knew I
had been here to tell you what I have
overheard. Do you know a man named
Monks?”
s No,” said Rose.
“He knows you,” replied the girl;
c and knew you were here, for it was by
hearing him tell the place that I found
you out.”
s T never heard the name,” said Rose.
s "Then he goes by some other amongst
us,” rejoined the girl, “which I more
than thought before. Some time ago,
and soon after Oliver was putin your house
on the night of the robbery, 1—suspecting
this man—listened to a conversation held
between him and Fagin in the dark. I
found out from what I heard that Monks
—the man I asked you about, you
know—”
“Yes,” said Rose, “I understand.”
“That Monks,” pursued the girl,
“had seen him accidentally with two of
our boys on the day we first lost him, and
had known him directly to be the same
child that he was watching for, though I
couldn’t make out why. A bargain was
struck with Fagin, that if Oliver was got
back he should have a certain sum; and
he was to have more for making him a
thief, which this Monks wanted for some
purpose of his own."
s For what purpose?” asked Rose.
s He caught sight of my shadow on the
wall as I listened in the hope of finding
are these!” said
ling from her
19"
|
out,’ said the girl; “and there are not
many people besides me that could have
got out of their way in time to escape
discovery. But I did; and I saw him no
more till last night.”
6 And what occurred then?"
“Tl tell you, lady. Last night he
came again. Again they went up stairs,
and I, wrapping myself up so that my
shadow should not betray me, again
listened at the door. ‘The first words I
heard Monks say were these. ‘So, the
only proofs of the boy’s identity lie at
the bottom of the river, and the old hag
that received them from the mother is
in her coffin.” They laughed and
talked of his success in doing this; and
Monks, talking on about the boy, and get¬
ting very wild, said that though he had
got the young devil’s money safely now,
he’d rather have had it the other way ; for,
what a game it would have been to have
brought down the boast of the father’s
will, by driving him through every jail in
town, and then hauling him up for some
capital felony, which Fagin could easily
manage, after having made a good profit
of him besides.”
“ What is all this!” said Rose.
“The truth, lady, though it comes from
my lips,” replied the girl. ‘Then he
said, with oaths common enough in my
ears, but strangers to yours, that if he
could gratify his hatred by taking the
boy’s life without bringing his own neck
in danger, he would; but as he couldn’t,
he’d be upon the watch to meet him at
every turn in life, and if he took advan¬
tage of his birth and history, he might
harm him yet. ‘In short, Fagin,’ he
says, ‘Jew as you are, you never laid such
snares as I’ll contrive for my young
brother, Oliver.’ ”
c His brother!” exclaimed Rose, clasp¬
ing her hands.
“Those were his words,” said Nancy,
glancing uneasily round, as she had
scarcely ceased to do since she began to
speak, for a vision of Sikes haunted her
perpetually. “And more. When he
spoke of you and the other lady, and said
it seemed contrived by heaven, or the
devil, against him, that Oliver should
come into your hands, he laughed, and
said there was some comfort in that too,
for how many thousands and hundreds of
thousands of pounds would you not give,
if you had them, to know who your two¬
legged spaniel was."
“ You do not mean,” said Rose, turning