'Ye-yes. We had a struggle for the path,' said Tom. 'But I didn't mean
to hurt him so much.'

'Not so much!' she repeated, clenching her hand and stamping her foot,
to Tom's great wonder. 'Don't say that. It was brave of you. I honour
you for it. If you should ever quarrel again, don't spare him for the
world, but beat him down and set your shoe upon him. Not a word of this
to anybody. Dear Mr Pinch, I am your friend from tonight. I am always
your friend from this time.'

She turned her flushed face upon Tom to confirm her words by its
kindling expression; and seizing his right hand, pressed it to her
breast, and kissed it. And there was nothing personal in this to render
it at all embarrassing, for even Tom, whose power of observation was by
no means remarkable, knew from the energy with which she did it that she
would have fondled any hand, no matter how bedaubed or dyed, that had
broken the head of Jonas Chuzzlewit.

Tom went into his room, and went to bed, full of uncomfortable thoughts.
That there should be any such tremendous division in the family as he
knew must have taken place to convert Charity Pecksniff into his friend,
for any reason, but, above all, for that which was clearly the real one;
that Jonas, who had assailed him with such exceeding coarseness, should
have been sufficiently magnanimous to keep the secret of their quarrel;
and that any train of circumstances should have led to the commission of
an assault and battery by Thomas Pinch upon any man calling himself
the friend of Seth Pecksniff; were matters of such deep and painful
cogitation that he could not close his eyes. His own violence, in
particular, so preyed upon the generous mind of Tom, that coupling it
with the many former occasions on which he had given Mr Pecksniff pain
and anxiety (occasions of which that gentleman often reminded him), he
really began to regard himself as destined by a mysterious fate to be
the evil genius and bad angel of his patron. But he fell asleep at last,
and dreamed--new source of waking uneasiness--that he had betrayed his
trust, and run away with Mary Graham.

It must be acknowledged that, asleep or awake, Tom's position in
reference to this young lady was full of uneasiness. The more he saw
of her, the more he admired her beauty, her intelligence, the amiable
qualities that even won on the divided house of Pecksniff, and in a
few days restored, at all events, the semblance of harmony and kindness
betwee