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they trifled with, and influenced perhaps by his late libations, he

performed such feats of agility and such spins and twirls as filled the

company with astonishment, and in particular caused a very long

gentleman who was dancing with a very short scholar, to stand quite

transfixed by wonder and admiration. Even Mrs Wackles forgot for the

moment to snub three small young ladies who were inclined to be happy,

and could not repress a rising thought that to have such a dancer as

that in the family would be a pride indeed.

At this momentous crisis, Miss Cheggs proved herself a vigourous and

useful ally, for not confining herself to expressing by scornful smiles

a contempt for Mr Swiveller's accomplishments, she took every

opportunity of whispering into Miss Sophy's ear expressions of

condolence and sympathy on her being worried by such a ridiculous

creature, declaring that she was frightened to death lest Alick should

fall upon, and beat him, in the fulness of his wrath, and entreating

Miss Sophy to observe how the eyes of the said Alick gleamed with love

and fury; passions, it may be observed, which being too much for his

eyes rushed into his nose also, and suffused it with a crimson glow.

'You must dance with Miss Cheggs,' said Miss Sophy to Dick Swiviller,

after she had herself danced twice with Mr Cheggs and made great show

of encouraging his advances. 'She's a nice girl--and her brother's

quite delightful.'

'Quite delightful, is he?' muttered Dick. 'Quite delighted too, I

should say, from the manner in which he's looking this way.'

Here Miss Jane (previously instructed for the purpose) interposed her

many curls and whispered her sister to observe how jealous Mr Cheggs

was.

'Jealous! Like his impudence!' said Richard Swiviller.

'His impudence, Mr Swiviller!' said Miss Jane, tossing her head. 'Take

care he don't hear you, sir, or you may be sorry for it.'

'Oh, pray, Jane--' said Miss Sophy.

'Nonsense!' replied her sister. 'Why shouldn't Mr Cheggs be jealous if

he likes? I like that, certainly. Mr Cheggs has a good a right to be

jealous as anyone else has, and perhaps he may have a better right soon

if he hasn't already. You know best about that, Sophy!'

Though this was a concerted plot between Miss Sophy and her sister,

originating in humane intentions and having for its object the inducing

Mr Swiviller to declare himself in time, it failed in its effect; for

Miss Jane being one of those young ladies who are prematurely shrill

and shrewish, gave such undue importance to her part that Mr Swiviller

retired in dudgeon, resigning his mistress to Mr Cheggs and conveying a

defiance into his looks which that gentleman indignantly returned.

'Did you speak to me, sir?' said Mr Cheggs, following him into a

corner. 'Have the kindness to smile, sir, in order that we may not be

suspected. Did you speak to me, sir'?

Mr Swiviller looked with a supercilious smile at Mr Chegg's toes, then

raised his eyes from them to his ankles, from that to his shin, from

that to his knee, and so on very gradually, keeping up his right leg,

until he reached his waistcoat, when he raised his eyes from button to

button until he reached his chin, and travelling straight up the middle

of his nose came at last to his eyes, when he said abruptly,

'No, sir, I didn't.'

`'Hem!' said Mr Cheggs, glancing over his shoulder, 'have the goodness

to smile again, sir. Perhaps you wished to speak to me, sir.'

'No, sir, I didn't do that, either.'

'Perhaps you may have nothing to say to me now, sir,' said Mr Cheggs

fiercely.

At these words Richard Swiviller withdrew his eyes from Mr Chegg's

face, and travelling down the middle of his nose and down his waistcoat

and down his right leg, reached his toes again, and carefully surveyed

him; this done, he crossed over, and coming up the other leg, and

thence approaching by the waistcoat as before, said when had got to his

eyes, 'No sir, I haven't.'

'Oh, indeed, sir!' said Mr Cheggs. 'I'm glad to hear it. You know where

I'm to be found, I suppose, sir, in case you should have anything to

say to me?'

'I can easily inquire, sir, when I want to know.'

'There's nothing more we need say, I believe, sir?'

'Nothing more, sir'--With that they closed the tremendous dialog by

frowning mutually. Mr Cheggs hastened to tender his hand to Miss Sophy,

and Mr Swiviller sat himself down in a corner in a very moody state.

Hard by this corner, Mrs Wackles and Miss Wackles were seated, looking

on at the dance; and unto Mrs and Miss Wackles, Miss Cheggs

occasionally darted when her partner was occupied with his share of the

figure, and made some remark or other which was gall and wormwood to

Richard Swiviller's soul. Looking into the eyes of Mrs and Miss Wackles

for encouragement, and sitting very upright and uncomfortable on a

couple of hard stools, were two of the day-scholars; and when Miss

Wackles smiled, and Mrs Wackles smiled, the two little girls on the

stools sought to curry favour by smiling likewise, in gracious

acknowledgement of which attention the old lady frowned them down

instantly, and said that if they dared to be guilty of such an

impertinence again, they should be sent under convoy to their

respective homes. This threat caused one of the young ladies, she being

of a weak and trembling temperament, to shed tears, and for this

offense they were both filed off immediately, with a dreadful

promptitude that struck terror into the souls of all the pupils.

'I've got such news for you,' said Miss Cheggs approaching once more,

'Alick has been saying such things to Sophy. Upon my word, you know,

it's quite serious and in earnest, that's clear.'

'What's he been saying, my dear?' demanded Mrs Wackles.

'All manner of things,' replied Miss Cheggs, 'you can't think how out

he has been speaking!'

Richard Swiviller considered it advisable to hear no more, but taking

advantage of a pause in the dancing, and the approach of Mr Cheggs to

pay his court to the old lady, swaggered with an extremely careful

assumption of extreme carelessness toward the door, passing on the way

Miss Jane Wackles, who in all the glory of her curls was holding a

flirtation, (as good practice when no better was to be had) with a

feeble old gentleman who lodged in the parlour. Near the door sat Miss

Sophy, still fluttered and confused by the attentions of Mr Cheggs, and

by her side Richard Swiveller lingered for a moment to exchange a few

parting words.

'My boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass

this door I will say farewell to thee,' murmured Dick, looking gloomily

upon her.

'Are you going?' said Miss Sophy, whose heart sank within her at the

result of her stratagem, but who affected a light indifference

notwithstanding.

'Am I going!' echoed Dick bitterly. 'Yes, I am. What then?'

'Nothing, except that it's very early,' said Miss Sophy; 'but you are

your own master, of course.'

'I would that I had been my own mistress too,' said Dick, 'before I had

ever entertained a thought of you. Miss Wackles, I believed you true,

and I was blest in so believing, but now I mourn that e'er I knew, a

girl so fair yet so deceiving.'

Miss Sophy bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after

Mr Cheggs, who was quaffing lemonade in the distance.

'I came here,' said Dick, rather oblivious of the purpose with which he

had really come, 'with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and my

sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with feelings that

may be conceived but cannot be described, feeling within myself that

desolating truth that my best affections have experienced this night a

stifler!'

'I am sure I don't know what you mean, Mr Swiviller,' said Miss Sophy

with downcast eyes. 'I'm very sorry if--'

'Sorry, Ma'am!' said Dick, 'sorry in the possession of a Cheggs! But I

wish you a very good night, concluding with this slight remark, that

there is a young lady growing up at this present moment for me, who has

not only great personal attractions but great wealth, and who has

requested her next of kin to propose for my hand, which, having a

regard for some members of her family, I have consented to promise.

It's a gratifying circumstance which you'll be glad to hear, that a

young and lovely girl is growing into a woman expressly on my account,

and is now saving up for me. I thought I'd mention it. I have now

merely to apologize for trespassing so long upon your attention. Good

night.'

'There's one good thing springs out of all this,' said Richard

Swiviller to himself when he had reached home and was hanging over the

candle with the extinguisher in his hand, 'which is, that I now go

heart and soul, neck and heels, with Fred in all his scheme about

little Nelly, and right glad he'll be to find me so strong upon it. He

shall know all about that to-morrow, and in the meantime, as it's

rather late, I'll try and get a wink of the balmy.'

'The balmy' came almost as soon as it was courted. In a very few

minutes Mr Swiviller was fast asleep, dreaming that he had married

Nelly Trent and come into the property, and that his first act of power

was to lay waste the market-garden of Mr Cheggs and turn it into a

brick-field.

CHAPTER 9

The child, in her confidence with Mrs Quilp, had but feebly described

the sadness and sorrow of her thoughts, or the heaviness of the cloud

which overhung her home, and cast dark shadows on its hearth. Besides

that it was very difficult to impart to any person not intimately

acquainted with the life she led, an adequate sense of its gloom and

loneliness, a constant fear of in some way committing or injuring the

old man to whom she was so tenderly attached, had restrained her, even

in the midst of her heart's overflowing, and made her timid of allusion

to the main cause of her anxiety and distress.

For, it was not the monotonous days unchequered by variety and

uncheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary

evenings or the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of every

slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high, or the

knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness and its easily wounded

spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell. To see the old man struck

down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark his wavering

and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a dreadful fear that

his mind was wandering, and to trace in his words and looks the dawning

of despondent madness; to watch and wait and listen for confirmation of

these things day after day, and to feel and know that, come what might,

they were alone in the world with no one to help or advise or care

about them--these were causes of depression and anxiety that might have

sat heavily on an older breast with many influences at work to cheer

and gladden it, but how heavily on the mind of a young child to whom

they were ever present, and who was constantly surrounded by all that

could keep such thoughts in restless action!

And yet, to the old man's vision, Nell was still the same. When he

could, for a moment, disengage his mind from the phantom that haunted

and brooded on it always, there was his young companion with the same

smile for him, the same earnest words, the same merry laugh, the same

love and care that, sinking deep into his soul, seemed to have been

present to him through his whole life. And so he went on, content to

read the book of her heart from the page first presented to him, little

dreaming of the story that lay hidden in its other leaves, and

murmuring within himself that at least the child was happy.

She had been once. She had gone singing through the dim rooms, and

moving with gay and lightsome step among their dusty treasures, making

them older by her young life, and sterner and more grim by her gay and

cheerful presence. But, now, the chambers were cold and gloomy, and

when she left her own little room to while away the tedious hours, and

sat in one of them, she was still and motionless as their inanimate

occupants, and had no heart to startle the echoes--hoarse from their

long silence--with her voice.

In one of these rooms, was a window looking into the street, where the

child sat, many and many a long evening, and often far into the night,

alone and thoughtful. None are so anxious as those who watch and wait;

at these times, mournful fancies came flocking on her mind, in crowds.

She would take her station here, at dusk, and watch the people as they

passed up and down the street, or appeared at the windows of the

opposite houses; wondering whether those rooms were as lonesome as that

in which she sat, and whether those people felt it company to see her

sitting there, as she did only to see them look out and draw in their

heads again. There was a crooked stack of chimneys on one of the

roofs, in which, by often looking at them, she had fancied ugly faces

that were frowning over at her and trying to peer into the room; and

she felt glad when it grew too dark to make them out, though she was

sorry too, when the man came to light the lamps in the street--for it

made it late, and very dull inside. Then, she would draw in her head

to look round the room and see that everything was in its place and

hadn't moved; and looking out into the street again, would perhaps see

a man passing with a coffin on his back, and two or three others

silently following him to a house where somebody lay dead; which made

her shudder and think of such things until they suggested afresh the

old man's altered face and manner, and a new train of fears and