ng after midnight when the play came to an end; and they were
forced to remain where they were until the morning. And in the night the
child was wakened from her troubled sleep to find a figure in the
room--a figure busying its hands about her garments, while its face was
turned to her, listening and looking lest she should awake. It was her
grandfather himself, his white face pinched and sharpened by the
greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright, counting the money of
which his hands were robbing her.

Evening after evening, after that night, the old man would steal away,
not to return until the night was far spent, demanding, wildly, money.
And at last there came an hour when the child overheard him, tempted
beyond his feeble powers of resistance, undertake to find more money to
feed the desperate passion which had laid its hold upon his weakness by
robbing the kind Mrs. Jarley, who had done so much for them. The poor
old man had become so weak in his mind, that he did not understand how
wicked was his act.

That night the child took her grandfather by the hand and led him forth.
Through the strait streets and narrow outskirts of the town their
trembling feet passed quickly; the child sustained by one idea--that
they were flying from wickedness and disgrace, and that she could save
her grandfather only by her firmness unaided by one word of advice or
any helping hand; the old man following her as though she had been an
angel messenger sent to lead him where she would.

The hardest part of all their wanderings was now before them. They slept
in the open air that night, and on the following morning some men
offered to take them a long distance on their barge on the river. These
men, though they were not unkindly, were very rugged, noisy fellows, and
they drank and quarreled fearfully among themselves, to Nell's
inexpressible terror. It rained, too, heavily, and she was wet and
cold. At last they reached the great city whither the barge was bound,
and here they wandered up and down, being now penniless, and watched the
faces of those who passed, to find among them a ray of encouragement or
hope. Ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child needed her
utmost courage and will even to creep along.

They lay down that night, and the next night too, with nothing between
them and the sky; a penny loaf was all they had had that day, and when
the third morning came, it found the child much weaker, yet she made n