tumble and fall in. I am too
old--I mean rheumatic--to stoop, myself.'

'A black and dreadful place!' exclaimed the child.

'Look in,' said the old man, pointing downward with his finger.

The child complied, and gazed down into the pit.

'It looks like a grave itself,' said the old man.

'It does,' replied the child.

'I have often had the fancy,' said the sexton, 'that it might have been
dug at first to make the old place more gloomy, and the old monks more
religious. It's to be closed up, and built over.'

The child still stood, looking thoughtfully into the vault.

'We shall see,' said the sexton, 'on what gay heads other earth will
have closed, when the light is shut out from here. God knows! They'll
close it up, next spring.'

'The birds sing again in spring,' thought the child, as she leaned at
her casement window, and gazed at the declining sun. 'Spring! a
beautiful and happy time!'

CHAPTER 56

A day or two after the Quilp tea-party at the Wilderness, Mr Swiveller
walked into Sampson Brass's office at the usual hour, and being alone
in that Temple of Probity, placed his hat upon the desk, and taking
from his pocket a small parcel of black crape, applied himself to
folding and pinning the same upon it, after the manner of a hatband.
Having completed the construction of this appendage, he surveyed his
work with great complacency, and put his hat on again--very much over
one eye, to increase the mournfulness of the effect. These
arrangements perfected to his entire satisfaction, he thrust his hands
into his pockets, and walked up and down the office with measured steps.

'It has always been the same with me,' said Mr Swiveller, 'always.
'Twas ever thus--from childhood's hour I've seen my fondest hopes
decay, I never loved a tree or flower but 'twas the first to fade away;
I never nursed a dear Gazelle, to glad me with its soft black eye, but
when it came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to marry a
market-gardener.'

Overpowered by these reflections, Mr Swiveller stopped short at the
clients' chair, and flung himself into its open arms.

'And this,' said Mr Swiveller, with a kind of bantering composure, 'is
life, I believe. Oh, certainly. Why not! I'm quite satisfied. I
shall wear,' added Richard, taking off his hat again and looking hard
at it, as if he were only deterred by pecuniary considerations from
spurning it with his foot, 'I shall wear this emblem of woman's
perf