he very moment when the crowd was forcing its way into the house,
Sikes made a running noose to slip beneath his arm-pits, and so lower
himself to a ditch beneath. He was out on the roof, and then, when the
loop was over his head, the face of the murdered girl seemed to stare at
him.

"The eyes again!" he cried, in an unearthly screech, and threw up his
arms in horror.

Staggering, as if struck by lightning, he lost his balance and tumbled
over the parapet. The noose was on his neck. It ran up with his weight,
tight as a bowstring. He fell for five-and-thirty feet, and then, after
a sudden jerk, and a terrible convulsion of the limbs, swung lifeless
against the wall.

* * * * *

Old Curiosity Shop

"The Old Curiosity Shop" was begun by Dickens in his new
weekly publication called "Master Humphrey's Clock," in 1840,
and its early chapters were written in the first person. But
its author soon got rid of the impediments that pertained to
"Master Humphrey," and "when the story was finished," Dickens
wrote, "I caused the few sheets of 'Master Humphrey's Clock,'
which had been printed in connection with it, to be
cancelled." "The Old Curiosity Shop" won a host of friends for
the author; A.C. Swinburne even declared Little Nell equal to
any character in fiction. The lonely figure of the child with
grotesque and wild, but not impossible, companions, took the
hearts of all readers by storm, and the death of Little Nell
moved thousands to tears. While the story was appearing, Tom
Hood, then unknown to Dickens, wrote an essay "tenderly
appreciative" of Little Nell, "and of all her shadowy kith and
kin." The immense and deserved popularity of the book is shown
by the universal acquaintance with Mrs. Jarley, and the common
use of the phrase "Codlin's the friend--not Short."

_I.--Little Nell and Her Grandfather_

The shop was one of those receptacles for old and curious things which
seem to crouch in odd corners of London. There were suits of mail
standing like ghosts in armour, rusty weapons of various kinds,
tapestry, and strange furniture that might have been designed in dreams.

The haggard aspect of a little old man, with long grey hair, who stood
within, was wonderfully suited to the place. Nothing in the whole
collection looked older or more worn than he.

Confronting the old man wa