words the fat boy laid himself affectionately down by
the side of the provisions and placing an oyster barrel under his head
for a pillow, fell asleep instantly.

"Vell," said Sam, "of all the boys ever I set my eyes on--wake up young
dropsy." But as young dropsy could not be awakened, Sam Weller set
himself down in front of the cart, started the old horse with a jerk of
the rein, and jogged steadily on toward Manor Farm.

XIII.

A BRAVE AND HONEST BOY, OLIVER TWIST.

LITTLE Oliver Twist was an orphan. He never saw his mother or his
father. He was born at the workhouse, the home for paupers, where his
poor heart-broken mother had been taken just a short time before baby
Oliver came; and, the very night he was born, she was so sick and weak
she said: "Let me see my child and then I will die." The old nurse said:
"Nonsense, my dear, you must not think of dying, you have something now
to live for." The good kind doctor said she must be very brave and she
might get well. They brought her little baby boy to her, and she hugged
him in her weak arms and she kissed him on the brow many times and
cuddled him up as close as her feeble arms could hold him; and then she
looked at him long and steadily, and a sweet smile came over her face
and a bright light came into her eyes, and before the smile could pass
from her lips she died.

The old nurse wept as she took the little baby from its dead mother's
arms; and the good doctor had to wipe the tears from his eyes, it was
so very, very sad.

After wrapping the baby in a blanket and laying him in a warm place, the
old nurse straightened out the limbs of the young mother and folded her
hands on her breast; and, spreading a white sheet over her still form,
she called the doctor to look at her--for the nurse and the doctor were
all who were there. The same sweet smile was on her face, and the doctor
said as he looked upon her: "Poor, poor girl, she is so beautiful and so
young! What strange fate has brought her to this poor place? Nurse, take
good care of the baby, for his mother must have been, at one time, a
kind and gentle woman."

The next day they took the unknown woman out to the potter's field and
buried her; and, for nine months, the old nurse at the workhouse took
care of the baby; though, it is sad to say, this old woman, kind-hearted
though she was, was at the same time so fond of gin that she often took
the money, which ought to have bought milk for the baby,