I had not been at home again many days when one evening I wentupstairs into my own room to take a peep over Charley's shoulderand see how she was getting on with her copy-book. Writing was atrying business to Charley, who seemed to have no natural powerover a pen, but in whose hand every pen appeared to becomeperversely animated, and to go wrong and crooked, and to stop, andsplash, and sidle into corners like a saddle-donkey. It was veryodd to see what old letters Charley's young hand had made, they sowrinkled, and shrivelled, and tottering, it so plump and round.

　　Yet Charley was uncommonly expert at other things and had as nimblelittle fingers as I ever watched.

　　"Well, Charley," said I, looking over a copy of the letter O inwhich it was represented as square, triangular, pear-shaped, andcollapsed in all kinds of ways, "we are improving. If we only getto make it round, we shall be perfect, Charley."Then I made one, and Charley made one, and the pen wouldn't joinCharley's neatly, but twisted it up into a knot.

　　"Never mind, Charley. We shall do it in time."Charley laid down her pen, the copy being finished, opened and shuther cramped little hand, looked gravely at the page, half in prideand half in doubt, and got up, and dropped me a curtsy.

　　"Thank you, miss. If you please, miss, did you know a poor personof the name of Jenny?""A brickmaker's wife, Charley? Yes.""She came and spoke to me when I was out a little while ago, andsaid you knew her, miss. She asked me if I wasn't the young lady'slittle maid--meaning you for the young lady, miss--and I said yes,miss.""I thought she had left this neighbourhood altogether, Charley.""So she had, miss, but she's come back again to where she used tolive--she and Liz. Did you know another poor person of the name ofLiz, miss?""I think I do, Charley, though not by name.""That's what she said!" returned Chariey. "They have both comeback, miss, and have been tramping high and low.""Tramping high and low, have they, Charley?""Yes, miss." If Charley could only have made the letters in hercopy as round as the eyes with which she looked into my face, theywould have been excellent. "And this poor person came about thehouse three or four days, hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss--allshe wanted, she said--but you were away. That was when she saw me.

　　She saw me a-going about, miss," said Charley with a short laugh ofthe greatest delight and pride, "and she thought I looked like yourmaid!""Did she though, really, Charley?""Yes, miss!" said Charley. "Really and truly." And Charley, withanother short laugh of the purest glee, made her eyes very roundagain and looked as serious as became my maid. I was never tiredof seeing Charley in the full enjoyment of that great dignity,standing before me with her youthful face and figure, and hersteady manner, and her childish exultation breaking through it nowand then in the pleasantest way.

　　"And where did you see her, Charley?" said I.

　　My little maid's countenance fell as she replied, "By the doctor'sshop, miss." For Charley wore her black frock yet.

　　I asked if the brickmaker's wife were ill, but Charley said no. Itwas some one else. Some one in her cottage who had tramped down toSaint Albans and was tramping he didn't know where. A poor boy,Charley said. No father, no mother, no any one. "Like as Tommight have been, miss, if Emma and me had died after father," saidCharley, her round eyes filling with tears.

　　"And she was getting medicine for him, Charley?""She said, miss," returned Charley, "how that he had once done asmuch for her."My little maid's face was so eager and her quiet hands were foldedso closely in one another as she stood looking at me that I had nogreat difficulty in reading her thoughts. "Well, Charley," said I,"it appears to me that you and I can do no better than go round toJenny's and see what's the matter."The alacrity with which Charley brought my bonnet and veil, andhaving dressed me, quaintly pinned herself into her warm shawl andmade herself look like a little old woman, sufficiently expressedher readiness. So Charley and I, without saying anything to anyone, went out.

　　It was a cold, wild night, and the trees shuddered in the wind.

　　The rain had been thick and heavy all day, and with littleintermission for many days. None was falling just then, however.

　　The sky had partly cleared, but was very gloomy--even above us,where a few stars were shining. In the north and north-west, wherethe sun had set three hours before, there was a pale dead lightboth beautiful and awful; and into it long sullen lines of cloudwaved up like a sea stricken immovable as it was heaving. TowardsLondon a lurid glare overhung the whole dark waste, and thecontrast between these two lights, and the fancy which the redderlight engendered of an unearthly fire, gleaming on all the unseenbuildings of the city and on all the faces of its many thousands ofwondering inhabitants, was as solemn as might be.

　　I had no thought that night--none, I am quite sure--of what wassoon to happen to me. But I have always remembered since that whenwe had stopped at the garden-gate to look up at the sky, and whenwe went upon our way, I had for a moment an undefinable impressionof myself as being something different from what I then was. Iknow it was then and there that I had it. I have ever sinceconnected the feeling with that spot and time and with everythingassociated with that spot and time, to the distant voices in thetown, the barking of a dog, and the sound of wheels coming down themiry hill.

　　It was Saturday night, and most of the people belonging to theplace where we were going were drinking elsewhere. We found itquieter than I had previously seen it, though quite as miserable.

　　The kilns were burning, and a stifling vapour set towards us with apale-blue glare.

　　We came to the cottage, where there was a feeble candle in thepatched window. We tapped at the door and went in. The mother ofthe little child who had died was sitting in a chair on one side ofthe poor fire by the bed; and opposite to her, a wretched boy,supported by the chimney-piece, was cowering on the floor. He heldunder his arm, like a little bundle, a fragment of a fur cap; andas he tried to warm himself, he shook until the crazy door andwindow shook. The place was closer than before and had anunhealthy and a very peculiar smell.

　　I had not lifted by veil when I first spoke to the woman, which wasat the moment of our going in. The boy staggered up instantly andstared at me with a remarkable expression of surprise and terror.

　　His action was so quick and my being the cause of it was so evidentthat I stood still instead of advancing nearer.

　　"I won't go no more to the berryin ground," muttered the boy; "Iain't a-going there, so I tell you!"I lifted my veil and spoke to the woman. She said to me in a lowvoice, "Don't mind him, ma'am. He'll soon come back to his head,"and said to him, "Jo, Jo, what's the matter?""I know wot she's come for!" cried the boy.

　　"Who?""The lady there. She's come to get me to go along with her to theberryin ground. I won't go to the berryin ground. I don't likethe name on it. She might go a-berryin ME." His shivering came onagain, and as he leaned against the wall, he shook the hovel.

　　"He has been talking off and on about such like all day, ma'am,"said Jenny softly. "Why, how you stare! This is MY lady, Jo.""Is it?" returned the boy doubtfully, and surveying me with his armheld out above his burning eyes. "She looks to me the t'other one.

　　It ain't the bonnet, nor yet it ain't the gownd, but she looks tome the t'other one."My little Charley, with her premature experience of illness andtrouble, had pulled off her bonnet and shawl and now went quietlyup to him with a chair and sat him down in it like an old sicknurse. Except that no such attendant could have shown himCharley's youthful face, which seemed to engage his confidence.

　　"I say!" said the boy. "YOU tell me. Ain't the lady the t'otherlady?"Charley shook her head as she methodically drew his rags about himand made him as warm as she could.

　　"Oh!" the boy muttered. "Then I s'pose she ain't.""I came to see if I could do you any good," said I. "What is thematter with you?""I'm a-being froze," returned the boy hoarsely, with his haggardgaze wandering about me, "and then burnt up, and then froze, andthen burnt up, ever so many times in a hour. And my head's allsleepy, and all a-going mad-like--and I'm so dry--and my bonesisn't half so much bones as pain.

　　"When did he come here?" I asked the woman.

　　"This morning, ma'am, I found him at the corner of the town. I hadknown him up in London yonder. Hadn't I, Jo?""Tom-all-Alone's," the boy replied.

　　Whenever he fixed his attention or his eyes, it was only for a verylittle while. He soon began to droop his head again, and roll itheavily, and speak as if he were half awake.

　　"When did he come from London?" I asked.

　　"I come from London yes'day," said the boy himself, now flushed andhot. "I'm a-going somewheres.""Where is he going?" I asked.

　　"Somewheres," repeated the boy in a louder tone. "I have beenmoved on, and moved on, more nor ever I was afore, since thet'other one give me the sov'ring. Mrs. Snagsby, she's always a-watching, and a-driving of me--what have I done to her?--andthey're all a-watching and a-driving of me. Every one of 'em'sdoing of it, from the time when I don't get up, to the time when Idon't go to bed. And I'm a-going somewheres. That's where I'm a-going. She told me, down in Tom-all-Alone's, as she came fromStolbuns, and so I took the Stolbuns Road. It's as good asanother."He always concluded by addressing Charley.

　　"What is to be done with him?" said I, taking the woman aside. "Hecould not travel in this state even if he had a purpose and knewwhere he was going!""I know no more, ma'am, than the dead," she replied, glancingcompassionately at him. "Perhaps the dead know better, if theycould only tell us. I've kept him here all day for pity's sake,and I've given him broth and physic, and Liz has gone to try if anyone will take him in (here's my pretty in the bed--her child, but Icall it mine); but I can't keep him long, for if my husband was tocome home and find him here, he'd be rough in putting him out andmight do him a hurt. Hark! Here comes Liz back!"The other woman came hurriedly in as she spoke, and the boy got upwith a half-obscured sense that he was expected to be going. Whenthe little child awoke, and when and how Charley got at it, took itout of bed, and began to walk about hushing it, I don't know.

　　There she was, doing all this in a quiet motherly manner as if shewere living in Mrs. Blinder's attic with Tom and Emma again.

　　The friend had been here and there, and had been played about fromhand to hand, and had come back as she went. At first it was tooearly for the boy to be received into the proper refuge, and atlast it was too late. One official sent her to another, and theother sent her back again to the first, and so backward andforward, until it appeared to me as if both must have beenappointed for their skill in evading their duties instead ofperforming them. And now, after all, she said, breathing quickly,for she had been running and was frightened too, "Jenny, yourmaster's on the road home, and mine's not far behind, and the Lordhelp the boy, for we can do no more for him!" They put a fewhalfpence together and hurried them into his hand, and so, in anoblivious, half-thankful, half-insensible way, he shuffled out ofthe house.

　　"Give me the child, my dear," said its mother to Charley, "andthank you kindly too! Jenny, woman dear, good night!

　　Young lady, if my master don't fall out with me, I'll look down bythe kiln by and by, where the boy will be most like, and again inthe morning!" She hurried off, and presenfty we passed her hushingand singing to her child at her own door and looking anxiouslyalong the road for her drunken husband.

　　I was afraid of staying then to speak to either woman, lest Ishould bring her into trouble. But I said to Charley that we mustnot leave the boy to die. Charley, who knew what to do much betterthan I did, and whose quickness equalled her presence of mind,glided on before me, and presently we came up with Jo, just shortof the brick-kiln.

　　I think he must have begun his journey with some small bundle underhis arm and must have had it stolen or lost it. For he stillcarried his wretched fragment of fur cap like a bundle, though hewent bareheaded through the rain, which now fell fast. He stoppedwhen we called to him and again showed a dread of me when I cameup, standing with his lustrous eyes fixed upon me, and evenarrested in his shivering fit.

　　I asked him to come with us, and we would take care that he hadsome shelter for the night.

　　"I don't want no shelter," he said; "I can lay amongst the warmbricks.""But don't you know that people die there?" replied Charley.

　　"They dies everywheres," said the boy. "They dies in theirlodgings--she knows where; I showed her--and they dies down in Tom-all-Alone's in heaps. They dies more than they lives, according towhat I see." Then he hoarsely whispered Charley, "If she ain't thet'other one, she ain't the forrenner. Is there THREE of 'em then?"Charley looked at me a little frightened. I felt half frightenedat myself when the boy glared on me so.

　　But he turned and followed when I beckoned to him, and finding thathe acknowledged that influence in me, I led the way straight home.

　　It was not far, only at the summit of the hill. We passed but oneman. I doubted if we should have got home without assistance, theboy's steps were so uncertain and tremulous. He made no complaint,however, and was strangely unconcerned about himself, if I may sayso strange a thing.

　　Leaving him in the hall for a moment, shrunk into the corner of thewindow-seat and staring with an indifference that scarcely could becalled wonder at the comfort and brightness about him, I went intothe drawing-room to speak to my guardian. There I found Mr.

　　Skimpole, who had come down by the coach, as he frequently didwithout notice, and never bringing any clothes with him, but alwaysborrowing everything he wanted.

　　They came out with me directly to look at the boy. The servantshad gathered in the hall too, and he shivered in the window-seatwith Charley standing by him, like some wounded animal that hadbeen found in a ditch.

　　"This is a sorrowful case," said my guardian after asking him aquestion or two and touching him and examining his eyes. "What doyou say, Harold?""You had better turn him out," said Mr. Skimpole.

　　"What do you mean?" inquired my guardian, almost sternly.

　　"My dear Jarndyce," said Mr. Skimpole, "you know what I am: I am achild. Be cross to me if I deserve it. But I have aconstitutional objection to this sort of thing. I always had, whenI was a medical man. He's not safe, you know. There's a very badsort of fever about him."Mr. Skimpole had retreated from the hall to the drawing-room againand said this in his airy way, seated on the music-stool as westood by.

　　"You'll say it's childish," observed Mr. Skimpole, looking gaily atus. "Well, I dare say it may be; but I AM a child, and I neverpretend to be anything else. If you put him out in the road, youonly put him where he was before. He will be no worse off than hewas, you know. Even make him better off, if you like. Give himsixpence, or five shillings, or five pound ten--you arearithmeticians, and I am not--and get rid of him!""And what is he to do then?" asked my guardian.

　　"Upon my life," said Mr. Skimpole, shrugging his shoulders with hisengaging smile, "I have not the least idea what he is to do then.

　　But I have no doubt he'll do it.""Now, is it not a horrible reflection," said my guardian, to whom Ihad hastily explained the unavailing efforts of the two women, "isit not a horrible reflection," walking up and down and rumpling hishair, "that if this wretched creature were a convicted prisoner,his hospital would be wide open to him, and he would be as welltaken care of as any sick boy in the kingdom?""My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, "you'll pardon thesimplicity of the question, coming as it does from a creature whois perfectly simple in worldly matters, but why ISN'T he a prisonerthen?"My guardian stopped and looked at him with a whimsical mixture ofamusement and indignation in his face.

　　"Our young friend is not to be suspected of any delicacy, I shouldimagine," said Mr. Skimpole, unabashed and candid. "It seems to methat it would be wiser, as well as in a certain kind of way morerespectable, if he showed some misdirected energy that got him intoprison. There would be more of an adventurous spirit in it, andconsequently more of a certain sort of poetry.""I believe," returned my guardian, resuming his uneasy............