, if you please, sir," said Oliver "I'll run all
the way, sir."

Mr. Brownlow was about to refuse to have Oliver go out, when Mr. Grimwig's
malicious cough made him change his mind, and let the boy go.

"You are to say," said Mr. Brownlow, "that you have brought those books
back; and that you have come to pay the four pound ten I owe him. This is
a five-pound note, so you will have to bring me back ten shilling change."

"I won't be ten minutes, sir," replied Oliver, eagerly, as with a
respectful bow he left the room. Mrs. Bedwin watched him out of sight
exclaiming, "Bless his sweet face!"--while Oliver looked gaily round, and
nodded before he turned the corner.

Then Mr. Brownlow drew out his watch and waited, while Mr. Grimwig
asserted that the boy would never be back. "He has a new suit of clothes
on his back; a set of valuable books under his arm; and a five-pound note
in his pocket. He'll join his old friends the thieves, and laugh at you.
If ever that boy returns to this house, sir," said Mr. Grimwig, "I'll eat
my head!"

It grew so dark that the figures on the dial-plate were scarcely
discernible. The gas lamps were lighted; Mrs. Bedwin was waiting anxiously
at the open door; the servant had run up the street twenty times to see if
there were any traces of Oliver; and still the two old gentlemen sat,
perseveringly, in the dark parlour, with the watch between them,
waiting--but Oliver did not come.

He meanwhile, had walked along, on his way to the bookstall, thinking how
happy and contented he ought to feel, when he was startled by a young
woman screaming out very loud, "Oh, my dear brother!"--and then he was
stopped by having a pair of arms thrown tight round his neck.

"Don't!" cried Oliver, struggling. "Let go of Who is it? What are you
stopping me for?"

"Oh my gracious!" said the young woman, "I've found him! Oh you naughty
boy, to make me suffer sich distress on your account! Come home, dear,
come!" With these and more incoherent exclamations, the young woman burst
out crying, and told the onlookers that Oliver was her brother, who had
run away from his respectable parents a month ago, joined a gang of
thieves and almost broke his mother's heart,--to which Oliver, greatly
alarmed, replied that he was an orphan, had no sister, and lived at
Pentonville. Then, catching sight of the woman's face for the first time,
he cried,--"Why, it's Nancy!"

"You see he knows me!" cried Nancy. "Make him come home,