ounger brother, which you will--had
at his heart a heavy sorrow; but it bred in him no misanthropy or
monastic gloom. He went forth into the world, a lover of his kind.
For a long, long time, it was his chief delight to travel in the steps
of the old man and the child (so far as he could trace them from her
last narrative), to halt where they had halted, sympathise where they
had suffered, and rejoice where they had been made glad. Those who had
been kind to them, did not escape his search. The sisters at the
school--they who were her friends, because themselves so
friendless--Mrs Jarley of the wax-work, Codlin, Short--he found them
all; and trust me, the man who fed the furnace fire was not forgotten.

Kit's story having got abroad, raised him up a host of friends, and
many offers of provision for his future life. He had no idea at first
of ever quitting Mr Garland's service; but, after serious remonstrance
and advice from that gentleman, began to contemplate the possibility of
such a change being brought about in time. A good post was procured
for him, with a rapidity which took away his breath, by some of the
gentlemen who had believed him guilty of the offence laid to his
charge, and who had acted upon that belief. Through the same kind
agency, his mother was secured from want, and made quite happy. Thus,
as Kit often said, his great misfortune turned out to be the source of
all his subsequent prosperity.

Did Kit live a single man all his days, or did he marry? Of course he
married, and who should be his wife but Barbara? And the best of it
was, he married so soon that little Jacob was an uncle, before the
calves of his legs, already mentioned in this history, had ever been
encased in broadcloth pantaloons,--though that was not quite the best
either, for of necessity the baby was an uncle too. The delight of
Kit's mother and of Barbara's mother upon the great occasion is past
all telling; finding they agreed so well on that, and on all other
subjects, they took up their abode together, and were a most harmonious
pair of friends from that time forth. And hadn't Astley's cause to
bless itself for their all going together once a quarter--to the
pit--and didn't Kit's mother always say, when they painted the outside,
that Kit's last treat had helped to that, and wonder what the manager
would feel if he but knew it as they passed his house!

When Kit had children six and seven years old, there was a Barbara