t their traces too.
She grew pale and thin, even within a few days. At times, she took no
heed of what was passing before her, or no part in conversations where
once, she would have been the loudest. At other times, she laughed
without merriment, and was noisy without a moment afterwards--she sat
silent and dejected, brooding with her head upon her hands, while the
very effort by which she roused herself, told, more forcibly than even
these indications, that she was ill at ease, and that her thoughts were
occupied with matters very different and distant from those in the
course of discussion by her companions.

It was Sunday night, and the bell of the nearest church struck the
hour. Sikes and the Jew were talking, but they paused to listen. The
girl looked up from the low seat on which she crouched, and listened
too. Eleven.

'An hour this side of midnight,' said Sikes, raising the blind to look
out and returning to his seat. 'Dark and heavy it is too. A good night
for business this.'

'Ah!' replied Fagin. 'What a pity, Bill, my dear, that there's none
quite ready to be done.'

'You're right for once,' replied Sikes gruffly. 'It is a pity, for I'm
in the humour too.'

Fagin sighed, and shook his head despondingly.

'We must make up for lost time when we've got things into a good train.
That's all I know,' said Sikes.

'That's the way to talk, my dear,' replied Fagin, venturing to pat him
on the shoulder. 'It does me good to hear you.'

'Does you good, does it!' cried Sikes. 'Well, so be it.'

'Ha! ha! ha!' laughed Fagin, as if he were relieved by even this
concession. 'You're like yourself to-night, Bill. Quite like
yourself.'

'I don't feel like myself when you lay that withered old claw on my
shoulder, so take it away,' said Sikes, casting off the Jew's hand.

'It make you nervous, Bill,--reminds you of being nabbed, does it?'
said Fagin, determined not to be offended.

'Reminds me of being nabbed by the devil,' returned Sikes. 'There never
was another man with such a face as yours, unless it was your father,
and I suppose _he_ is singeing his grizzled red beard by this time,
unless you came straight from the old 'un without any father at all
betwixt you; which I shouldn't wonder at, a bit.'

Fagin offered no reply to this compliment: but, pulling Sikes by the
sleeve, pointed his finger towards Nancy, who had taken advantage of
the foregoing conversation to put on her bonnet, and was now