the
helpless figure on to a stretcher, which had been brought for the
purpose. "Aye, it's old Dolls--tipsy old Dolls," cried someone in the
crowd, for it was by this name that they knew the old man.

"He's her father, sir," said Riah in a low tone to the doctor who was
now bending over the stretcher.

"So much the worse," answered the doctor, "for the man is dead."

Yes, "Mr. Dolls" was dead, and many were the dresses which the weary
fingers of the sorrowful little worker must make in order to pay for his
humble funeral and buy a black frock for herself. Riah sat by her in her
poor room, saying a word of comfort now and then, and Lizzie came and
went, and did all manner of little things to help her; but often the
tears rolled down on to her work. "My poor child," she said to Riah, "my
poor old child, and to think I scolded him so."

"You were always a good, brave, patient girl," returned Riah, smiling a
little over her quaint fancy about her _child_, "always good and
patient, however tired."

And so the poor little "person of the house" was left alone but for the
faithful affection of the kind Jew and her friend Lizzie. Her room grew
pretty and comfortable, for she was in great request in her
"profession," as she called it, and there were now no one to spend and
waste her earnings. But nothing could make her life otherwise than a
suffering one till the happy morning when her child-angels visited her
for the last time and carried her away to the land where all such pain
as hers is healed for evermore.

[Illustration: "Keep Still, You Little Imp, or I'll Cut Your Throat."

Page 185]

IX.

PIP'S ADVENTURE

ALL that little Philip Pirrip, usually called Pip, knew about his father
and mother, and his five little brothers, was from seeing their
tombstones in the churchyard. He was cared for by his sister, who was
twenty years older than himself. She had married a blacksmith, named Joe
Gargery, a kind, good man, while she, unfortunately, was a hard, stern
woman, and treated her little brother and her amiable husband with great
harshness. They lived in a marshy part of the country, about twenty
miles from the sea.

One cold, raw day towards evening, when Pip was about six years old, he
had wandered into the churchyard, and was trying to make out what he
could of the inscriptions on his family tombstones. The darkness was
coming on, and feeling very