tisfactory to a crowd. A score of
dirty hands were raised directly to knock for him, and seldom has a
knocker of equal powers been made to produce more deafening sounds than
this particular engine on the occasion in question. Having rendered
these voluntary services, the throng modestly retired a little,
preferring that the single gentleman should bear their consequences
alone.

'Now, sir, what do you want!' said a man with a large white bow at his
button-hole, opening the door, and confronting him with a very stoical
aspect.

'Who has been married here, my friend?' said the single gentleman.

'I have.'

'You! and to whom in the devil's name?'

'What right have you to ask?' returned the bridegroom, eyeing him from
top to toe.

'What right!' cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit's
mother more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently had
it in contemplation to run away. 'A right you little dream of. Mind,
good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor--tut, tut, that
can't be. Where is the child you have here, my good fellow. You call
her Nell. Where is she?'

As he propounded this question, which Kit's mother echoed, somebody in
a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in a
white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon the
bridegroom's arm.

'Where is she!' cried this lady. 'What news have you brought me? What
has become of her?'

The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the late
Mrs Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to the
eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of
conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity. At length
he stammered out,

'I ask YOU where she is? What do you mean?'

'Oh sir!' cried the bride, 'If you have come here to do her any good,
why weren't you here a week ago?'

'She is not--not dead?' said the person to whom she addressed herself,
turning very pale.

'No, not so bad as that.'

'I thank God!' cried the single gentleman feebly. 'Let me come in.'

They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the door.

'You see in me, good people,' he said, turning to the newly-married
couple, 'one to whom life itself is not dearer than the two persons
whom I seek. They would not know me. My features are strange to them,
but if they or either of them are here, take this good woman with you,
and let them see her first,