Illness had not improved Mr. Sikes's temper; for, as the girl raised
him up and led him to a chair, he muttered various curses on her
awkwardness, and struck her.

'Whining are you?' said Sikes. 'Come! Don't stand snivelling there.
If you can't do anything better than that, cut off altogether. D'ye
hear me?'

'I hear you,' replied the girl, turning her face aside, and forcing a
laugh. 'What fancy have you got in your head now?'

'Oh! you've thought better of it, have you?' growled Sikes, marking the
tear which trembled in her eye. 'All the better for you, you have.'

'Why, you don't mean to say, you'd be hard upon me to-night, Bill,'
said the girl, laying her hand upon his shoulder.

'No!' cried Mr. Sikes. 'Why not?'

'Such a number of nights,' said the girl, with a touch of woman's
tenderness, which communicated something like sweetness of tone, even
to her voice: 'such a number of nights as I've been patient with you,
nursing and caring for you, as if you had been a child: and this the
first that I've seen you like yourself; you wouldn't have served me as
you did just now, if you'd thought of that, would you? Come, come; say
you wouldn't.'

'Well, then,' rejoined Mr. Sikes, 'I wouldn't. Why, damme, now, the
girls's whining again!'

'It's nothing,' said the girl, throwing herself into a chair. 'Don't
you seem to mind me. It'll soon be over.'

'What'll be over?' demanded Mr. Sikes in a savage voice. 'What foolery
are you up to, now, again? Get up and bustle about, and don't come
over me with your woman's nonsense.'

At any other time, this remonstrance, and the tone in which it was
delivered, would have had the desired effect; but the girl being really
weak and exhausted, dropped her head over the back of the chair, and
fainted, before Mr. Sikes could get out a few of the appropriate oaths
with which, on similar occasions, he was accustomed to garnish his
threats. Not knowing, very well, what to do, in this uncommon
emergency; for Miss Nancy's hysterics were usually of that violent kind
which the patient fights and struggles out of, without much assistance;
Mr. Sikes tried a little blasphemy: and finding that mode of treatment
wholly ineffectual, called for assistance.

'What's the matter here, my dear?' said Fagin, looking in.

'Lend a hand to the girl, can't you?' replied Sikes impatiently. 'Don't
stand chattering and grinning at me!'

With an exclamation of surprise, Fagin hastened to t