ever seen his brother since. But he dreamed
often of the days when they had been children and at last he forgot the
thing that had driven them apart. He had come back now to England, a
rich man, to find the other had vanished with little Nell, his
grandchild. He had soon learned the story of their misfortune and how
the fear of Quilp had driven them away. After much inquiry he had
discovered they had been seen with a Punch-and-Judy show and now he was
trying to find the showmen. And finally, in this way, he did find the
very same pair the wanderers had met!

He learned from them all they could tell him--that the child and the old
man had disappeared at the fair, and that since then (so they had heard)
a pair resembling them had been seen with the Jarley waxwork exhibition.
The Stranger easily discovered where Mrs. Jarley was, and determined to
set out to her at once. But he remembered that his brother, little
Nell's grandfather, could not be expected to know him after all the
years he had been gone, and as for little Nell herself, she had never
seen him, and he was afraid if they heard a strange man had come for
them they would take fright and run away again. So he tried to find some
one they had loved to go with him to show that he intended only
kindness.

He was not long in hearing of Kit, who had found a situation as footman,
and he gained his employer's leave to take the lad with him. When Kit
learned that The Stranger had discovered where little Nell was he was
overjoyed; but he knew he himself was not the one to go, because before
they disappeared she had told him he must never come to the Old
Curiosity Shop again and that her grandfather blamed him as the cause of
their misfortune. But Kit promised the Stranger that his mother should
go in his place, and went to tell her at once.

Kit found his mother was at church, but the matter was so urgent that he
went straight to the pew and brought her out, which caused even the
minister to pause in his sermon and made all the congregation look
surprised. Kit took her home, packed her box and bundled her into the
coach which the Stranger brought, and away they went to find the
wanderers.

Now Quilp had all along suspected that Kit and his mother knew something
of their whereabouts, and he had made it his business to watch either
one or the other. The dwarf, in fact, was in the church when Kit came
for his mother, and he followed. When she left with the Stranger he took