room, and began to instruct Nell in her
duty.

"That," said Mrs. Jarley in her exhibition tone, "is an unfortunate maid
of honour in the time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her
finger in consequence of working on a Sunday. Observe the blood which is
trickling from her finger, also the gold-eyed needle of the period, with
which she is at work."

Nell found in the lady of the caravan a kind and considerate person, who
had not only a peculiar relish for being comfortable herself, but for
making everybody about her comfortable also.

But the child noticed that her grandfather grew more and more listless
and vacant, and soon a greater sorrow was to come. The passion for
gambling revived in the old man one evening, when he and Nell, out
walking in the country, took passing shelter from a storm in a small
public-house. He saw men playing cards, and, allowed to join them, lost.
The next night he went off alone, and Nell, finding him gone, followed.
Her grandfather was with the card-players near an encampment of gypsies,
and, to her horror, he promised to bring more money.

Flight was now the only thing possible, before her grandfather should
steal. How else could he get the money?

_IV.--Beyond the Pale_

Flight by water! For two days they travelled on a barge, Nell sitting
with her grandfather in the boat. Rugged and noisy fellows were the
bargemen, and quite brutal among themselves, though civil enough to
their passengers. The barge floated into the wharf to which it belonged,
and now came flight by land through a strange, unfriendly town. The
travellers were penniless, and at nightfall took refuge in a deep
doorway.

A man, miserably clad and begrimed with smoke, found them here, and,
learning they were homeless, promised them shelter by the fire of a
great furnace.

A dark and blackened region was this they were in. On every side tall
chimneys poured out their plague of smoke, and at night the smoke was
changed to fire, and chimneys spurted flame. Struggling vegetation
sickened and sank under the hot breath of kiln and furnace. The
people--men, women, and children--wan in their looks and ragged in their
attire, tended the engines, or scowled, half naked, from the doorless
houses.

That night Nell and her grandfather lay down with nothing between them
and the sky. A penny loaf was all they had had that day, and very weak
and spent the child felt.

With morning she was weaker still, and a loathin