d Kit. 'Quite ready now, sir.'

'Then come along,' said the single gentleman. And thereupon he gave
his arm to Kit's mother, handed her into the carriage as politely as
you please, and took his seat beside her.

Up went the steps, bang went the door, round whirled the wheels, and
off they rattled, with Kit's mother hanging out at one window waving a
damp pocket-handkerchief and screaming out a great many messages to
little Jacob and the baby, of which nobody heard a word.

Kit stood in the middle of the road, and looked after them with tears
in his eyes--not brought there by the departure he witnessed, but by
the return to which he looked forward. 'They went away,' he thought,
'on foot with nobody to speak to them or say a kind word at parting,
and they'll come back, drawn by four horses, with this rich gentleman
for their friend, and all their troubles over! She'll forget that she
taught me to write--'

Whatever Kit thought about after this, took some time to think of, for
he stood gazing up the lines of shining lamps, long after the chaise
had disappeared, and did not return into the house until the Notary and
Mr Abel, who had themselves lingered outside till the sound of the
wheels was no longer distinguishable, had several times wondered what
could possibly detain him.

CHAPTER 42

It behoves us to leave Kit for a while, thoughtful and expectant, and
to follow the fortunes of little Nell; resuming the thread of the
narrative at the point where it was left, some chapters back.

In one of those wanderings in the evening time, when, following the two
sisters at a humble distance, she felt, in her sympathy with them and
her recognition in their trials of something akin to her own loneliness
of spirit, a comfort and consolation which made such moments a time of
deep delight, though the softened pleasure they yielded was of that
kind which lives and dies in tears--in one of those wanderings at the
quiet hour of twilight, when sky, and earth, and air, and rippling
water, and sound of distant bells, claimed kindred with the emotions of
the solitary child, and inspired her with soothing thoughts, but not of
a child's world or its easy joys--in one of those rambles which had now
become her only pleasure or relief from care, light had faded into
darkness and evening deepened into night, and still the young creature
lingered in the gloom; feeling a companionship in Nature so serene and
still, when noise of ton