plotting afresh Nancy, who had been feeling sorrier and
sorrier for what she had done, overheard them, and so found out that
Monks was Oliver's half-brother and why he so hated him; and she made up
her mind to save the boy from his last and greatest danger.

So one evening, when she was alone with him, she gave Sikes some
laudanum in a glass of liquor, and when he was asleep she slipped away,
found Miss Rose and told her all about it. Bad as Nancy was, however,
she was not willing to betray Fagin or Bill Sikes, so she only told her
of Monks.

Miss Rose was greatly astonished, for she had never heard of him before,
but she pitied Nancy because she had tried to help Oliver, and, of
course, she herself wanted very much to help him discover who he was and
who his parents had been. She thanked Nancy and begged her to come to
see her again. Nancy was afraid to do this, because Bill Sikes watched
her so closely, but she promised that on the next Sunday at midnight she
would be on a certain bridge where Miss Rose might see her. Then Nancy
hurried back before Sikes should wake up.

Miss Rose was in trouble now, for there was no one in London with her
then who could help her. But the same afternoon, whom should Oliver see
at a distance, walking into his house, but Mr. Brownlow. He came back in
great joy to tell Miss Rose, and she concluded that the old gentleman
would be the very one to aid her. She took Oliver to the house, and,
sure enough, there was the boy's old benefactor.

Very glad, indeed, he was to hear what she told him. For the old
gentleman, when Oliver had disappeared with the money he had given him
to take to the bookseller, had been reluctant to think the boy he had
befriended was, after all, a liar and a thief. He had advertised for
him, but the only result had been a call from Mr. Bumble, who told him
terrible tales of Oliver's wickedness. To find now, after all this time,
that Oliver had not run away, and that Mr. Bumble's tales were lying
ones, was a joyful surprise to Mr. Brownlow.

After he had heard the whole, and when Oliver had gone into the garden,
Miss Rose told him of Nancy's visit and of the man Monks who still
pursued the boy to do him harm.

It was fortunate that she had come to Mr. Brownlow, for, as it happened,
he knew a great deal about Monks and his evil life. Years before the old
gentleman himself had been a friend of Oliver's father. He knew all
about his death in a foreign country, and