ness that
overpowered her, and fallen asleep; though not so soundly but that she
could, from time to time, utter a slight and almost inaudible groan, as
if in recognition of the orator's doctrines. The baby in her arms was
as fast asleep as she; and little Jacob, whose youth prevented him from
recognising in this prolonged spiritual nourishment anything half as
interesting as oysters, was alternately very fast asleep and very wide
awake, as his inclination to slumber, or his terror of being personally
alluded to in the discourse, gained the mastery over him.

'And now I'm here,' thought Kit, gliding into the nearest empty pew
which was opposite his mother's, and on the other side of the little
aisle, 'how am I ever to get at her, or persuade her to come out! I
might as well be twenty miles off. She'll never wake till it's all
over, and there goes the clock again! If he would but leave off for a
minute, or if they'd only sing!'

But there was little encouragement to believe that either event would
happen for a couple of hours to come. The preacher went on telling
them what he meant to convince them of before he had done, and it was
clear that if he only kept to one-half of his promises and forgot the
other, he was good for that time at least.

In his desperation and restlessness Kit cast his eyes about the chapel,
and happening to let them fall upon a little seat in front of the
clerk's desk, could scarcely believe them when they showed him--Quilp!

He rubbed them twice or thrice, but still they insisted that Quilp was
there, and there indeed he was, sitting with his hands upon his knees,
and his hat between them on a little wooden bracket, with the
accustomed grin on his dirty face, and his eyes fixed upon the ceiling.
He certainly did not glance at Kit or at his mother, and appeared
utterly unconscious of their presence; still Kit could not help
feeling, directly, that the attention of the sly little fiend was
fastened upon them, and upon nothing else.

But, astounded as he was by the apparition of the dwarf among the
Little Bethelites, and not free from a misgiving that it was the
forerunner of some trouble or annoyance, he was compelled to subdue his
wonder and to take active measures for the withdrawal of his parent, as
the evening was now creeping on, and the matter grew serious.
Therefore, the next time little Jacob woke, Kit set himself to attract
his wandering attention, and this not being a very diffi