ecret way of coming and going, without you--which was
strange--led to my suspecting something wrong. I got into the coach
from London last night, as it came through Norwich, and was here this
morning. Oh, oh, oh! too late!'

Poor little Mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying and fretting,
that she turned round on the fender, putting her poor little wet feet in
among the ashes to warm them, and sat looking at the fire, like a large
doll. I sat in a chair on the other side of the hearth, lost in unhappy
reflections, and looking at the fire too, and sometimes at her.

'I must go,' she said at last, rising as she spoke. 'It's late. You
don't mistrust me?'

Meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever when she asked me,
I could not on that short challenge answer no, quite frankly.

'Come!' said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her over the
fender, and looking wistfully up into my face, 'you know you wouldn't
mistrust me, if I was a full-sized woman!'

I felt that there was much truth in this; and I felt rather ashamed of
myself.

'You are a young man,' she said, nodding. 'Take a word of advice,
even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects with
mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason.'

She had got over the fender now, and I had got over my suspicion. I told
her that I believed she had given me a faithful account of herself,
and that we had both been hapless instruments in designing hands. She
thanked me, and said I was a good fellow.

'Now, mind!' she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door, and
looking shrewdly at me, with her forefinger up again.--'I have some
reason to suspect, from what I have heard--my ears are always open; I
can't afford to spare what powers I have--that they are gone abroad. But
if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns, while I am alive,
I am more likely than another, going about as I do, to find it out soon.
Whatever I know, you shall know. If ever I can do anything to serve the
poor betrayed girl, I will do it faithfully, please Heaven! And Littimer
had better have a bloodhound at his back, than little Mowcher!'

I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked the look
with which it was accompanied.

'Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a
full-sized woman,' said the little creature, touching me appealingly
on the wrist. 'If ever you see me again, unlike what I am now, and lik