Ladies present, Mr. Giles," murmured the tinker.

"Of shoes, sir," said Giles, turning upon him, and laying great emphasis on the word, "seized the loaded pistol that always goes up stairs with the platebasket, and walked on tip-toes to his room. Brittles,' I says, when I had woke him, don't be frightened!'"

"So you did," observed Brittles, in a low voice.

"We're dead men, I think, Brittles, I says,' continued Giles, "but don't be under any alarm.'"

"Was he frightened ?" asked the cook. "Not a bit of it," replied Mr. Giles. "He was as firm-ah! pretty near as firm as I was.

I should have died at once, I'm sure, if it had been me," observed the housemaid.

"You're a woman," retorted Brittles, plucking up a little.

"Brittles is right," said Mr. Giles, nodding his head approvingly; "from a woman nothing else was to be expected. But we, being men, took a dark lantern that was standing on Brittle's hob, and groped our way down stairs in the pitch dark, as it might be so."

Mr. Giles had risen from his seat and taken two steps with his eyes shut to accompany his description with appropriate action, when he started violently in common with the rest of the company, and hurried back to his chair. The cook and housemaid screamed.

"It was a knock," said Mr. Giles, assuming perfect serenity; "open the door, somebody.'

Nobody moved.

"It seems a strange sort of thing, a knock coming at such a time in the morning," said Mr. Giles, surveying the pale faces which surrounded him, and looking very blank himself; "but the door must be opened. Do you hear, somebody?"

Mr. Giles, as he spoke, looked at Britles; but that young man being naturally modest, probably considered himself nobody, and so held that the inquiry could not have any application to him. At all events, he tendered no reply. Mr. Giles directed an appealing glance at the tinker, but he had suddenly fallen asleep. The women were out of the question.

Mr. Giles, after a short silence, "I am ready to make one."

"So am I," said the tinker, waking up as suddenly as he had fallen asleep.

Brittles capitulated on these terms; and the party being somewhat re-assured by the discovery (made on throwing open the shutters) that it was now broad day, took their way up stairs with the dogs in front, and the two women, who were afraid to stop below, bringing up the rear. By the advice of Mr. Giles they all talked very loud, to warn any evildisposed person outside that they were strong in numbers; and by a masterstroke of policy, originating in the brain of the same ingenious gentleman, the dogs' tails were well pinched in the hall to make them bark savagely.

These precautions having been taken, Mr. Giles held on fast by the tinker's arm, (to prevent his running away, as he pleasantly said,) and gave the word of command to open the door. Brittles obeyed, and the group peeping timorously over each other's shoulder, beheld no more formidable object than poor little Oliver Twist, speechless and exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes, and mutely solicited their compassion.

"A boy!" exclaimed Mr. Giles, valiantly pushing the tinker into the back ground. "What's the matter with the eh?-Why-Brittles-look heredon't you know?"

arm

Brittles, who had got behind the door to open it, no sooner saw Oliver, than he uttered a loud cry of recognition. Mr. Giles seizing the boy by one leg and one -fortunately not the broken limb lugged him straight into the hall, and deposited him at full length on the floor thereof. "Here he is!" bawled Giles, calling in a great state of excitement up the staircase; "here 's one of the thieves, ma'am! Here's a thief, misswounded, miss! I shot him, miss, and Brittles held the light."

"In a lantern, miss," cried Brittles, applying one hand to the side of his mouth, so that his voice might travel the better.

The two women servants ran up stairs to carry the intelligence that Mr. Giles had captured a robber; and the tinker busied himself in endeavouring to restore Oliver, lest he should die before he could be hung. In the midst of all this noise and commotion there was heard a sweet female voice which quelled it in ar in

stant.

"Giles!' whispered the voice from the

"I'm here, miss," replied Mr. Giles. "Don't be frightened, miss; I ain't much injured. He did n't make a very desperate resistance, miss; I was soon too many for him."

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"Hush!" replied the young lady; you frighten my aunt almost as much as the thieves did. Is the poor creature severely hurt?"

"Wounded desperate, miss," replied Giles, with indescribable complacency.

"He looks as if he was a-going, miss,' bawled Brittles, in the same manner as before. "Wouldn't you like to come and look at him, miss, in case he should-?" "Hush, pray, there's a good man!" rejoined the young lady. "Wait quietly one instant while I speak to aunt."

With a footstep as soft and gentle as the voice, the speaker tripped away, and soon returned with the direction that the wounded person was to be carried carefully up stairs to Mr. Giles's room, and that Brittles was to saddle the pony and betake himself instantly to Chertsey, from which place he was to despatch with all speed a constable and doctor.

"But won't you take one look at him first, miss?" said Giles, with as much pride as if Oliver were some bird of rare plumage that he had skilfully brought down. "Not one little peep, miss."

"Not now for the world," replied the young lady. "Poor fellow! oh! treat him kindly Giles, if it is only for my sake!"

The old servant looked up at the speaker, as she turned away, with a glance as proud and admiring as if she had been his own child. Then bending over Oliver, he helped to carry him up stairs with the care and solicitude of a

woman.

merest trifle on one side, his left leg advanced, and his right hand thrust into his waistcoat, while his left hung down by his side grasping a waiter, looked like one who laboured under a very agreeable sense of his own merits and importance.

Of the two ladies, one was well advanced in years, but the high-backed oaken chair in which she sat was not more upright than she. Dressed with the utmost nicety and precision in a quaint mixture of bygone costume, with some slight concessions to the prevailing taste, which rather served to point the old style pleasantly than to impair its effect, she sat in a stately manner with her hands folded on the table before her, and her eyes, of which age had dimmed but little of their brightness, attentively fixed upon her young companion.

The younger lady was in the lovely bloom and spring-time of womanhood; at that age when, if ever angels be for God's good purposes enthroned in mortal forms, they may be without impiety supposed to abide in such as hers.

Cast in

She was not past seventeen. so slight and exquisite a mould, so mild and gentle, so pure and beautiful, that earth seemed not her element, nor its rough creatures her fit companions. The very intelligence that shone in her deep blue eye and was stamped upon her noble head, seemed scarcely of her age or of the world, and yet the changing expres sion of sweetness and good humour, the thousand lights that played about the face ar left no shadow there; above all, the smile-the cheerful happy smile-were entwined with the best sympathies and affections of our nature.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

the house to which Oliver resorted, and relates what they thought of him.

In a handsome room-though its furniture had rather the air of old-fashioned comfort, than of modern elegance-there sat two ladies at a well-spread breakfasttable. Mr. Giles, dressed with scrupulous care in a full suit of black, was in attendance upon them. He had taken his station some half-way between the sideboard and the breakfast-table, and with his body drawn up to its full height, bis head thrown back and inclined the

upon her.

The elder lady smiled; but her heart was full, and she brushed away a tear as she did so.

"And Brittles has been gone upwards of an hour, has he?" asked the old lady after a pause.

"An hour and twelve minutes, ma'am;" replied Mr. Giles, referring to a silver watch which he drew forth by a black ribbon.

"He is always slow," remarked the old lady.

"Brittles always was a slow boy, ma'am," replied the attendant. And seeing, by-the-by, that Brittles had been a slow boy for upwards of thirty years, there appeared no great probability of his ever being a fast one.

He gets worse instead of better, I think," said the elder lady.

"It is very inexcusable in him if he stops to play with any other boys," said the young lady, smiling.

Mr. Giles was apparently considering the propriety of indulging in a respectful smile himself, when a gig drove up to the garden-gate, out of which there jumped a fat gentleman, who ran straight up to the door, and getting quickly into the house by some mysterious process, burst into the room, and nearly overturned Mr. Giles and the breakfast-table together.

"I never heard of such a thing!" exclaimed the fat gentleman. "My dear Mrs. Maylie-bless my soul in the silence of night too-I never heard of such a thing!"

With these expressions of condolence, the fat gentleman shook hands with both ladies, and drawing up a chair, inquired how they found themselves.

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"You ought to be dead positively dead with the fright," said the fat gentleman. Why didn't you send? Bless me, my man should have come in a minute, or I myself and my assistant would have been delighted, or anybody: I'm sure, under such circumstances; dear, dear so unexpected—in the silence of night too!"

The doctor seemed especially troubled by the fact of the robbery having been unexpected, and attempted in the night time, as if it were the established custom of gentlemen in the house-breaking way to transact business at noon, and to make an appointment by the twopenny post a day or two previous.

"And you, Miss Rose," said the doctor, turning to the young lady, "I

"Oh! very much so, indeed," said Rose, interrupting him; "but there is a poor creature up stairs whom aunt wishes you to see."

"Ah! to be sure,” replied the doctor, so there is. That was your handywork, Giles, I understand."

Mr. Giles, who had been feverishly putting the tea-cups to rights, blushed very red, and said that he had had that honour.

"Honour, eh?" said the doctor; "well, I don't know, perhaps it's as honourable to hit a thief in a back kitchen, as to hit

your man at twelve paces. Fancy that he fired in the air, and you've fought a duel, Giles."

Mr. Giles, who thought this light treatment of the matter an unjust attempt at diminishing his glory, answered respectfully, that it was not for the like of him to judge about that, but he rather though: it was no joke to the opposite party,

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'Gad, that's true!" said the doctor. "Where is he? Show me the way. I'll look in again as I come down, Mrs. Maylie. That's the little window that he got in at, eh? Well, I could n't have believed it." Talking all the way, he followed Mr. Giles up stairs; and while he is going up stairs the reader may be informed, that Mr. Losberne, a surgeon, in the neighbourhood, known through a circuit of ten miles round as "the doctor," had grown fat more from good humour than from good living, and was as kind and hearty, and withal as eccentric an old bachelor as will be found in five times that space by any explorer alive.

The doctor was absent much longer than either he or the ladies had anticipated. A large flat box was fetched out of the gig, and a bed-room bell was rung very often, and the servants ran up and down stairs perpetually, from which tokens it was justly concluded that something important was going on above. length he returned; and in reply to an anxious inquiry after his patient, looked very mysterious, and closed the door carefully.

At

"This is a very extraordinary thing, Mrs. Maylie," said the doctor, standing with his back to the door as if to keep it shut.

"He is not in danger, I hope?" said the old lady.

"Why, that would not be an extraordinary thing, under the circumstances," replied the doctor, "though I don't think he is. Have you seen this thief?" "No," rejoined the old lady. "Nor heard anything about him?" "No."

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," interposed Mr. Giles; "but I was going to tell you about him when Doctor Losberne came in."

The fact was, that Mr. Giles had not at first been able to bring his mind to the avowal that he had only shot a boy. Such commendations had been bestowed upon his bravery, that he could not for the life of him help postponing the explanation for a few delicious minutes, during which he had flourished in the

very zenith of a brief reputation for undaunted courage. "Rose wished to see the man," said Mrs. Maylie, "but I wouldn't hear of it."

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Humph!" rejoined the doctor. "There's nothing very alarming in his appearance. Have you any objection to see him in my presence?"

"If it be necessary," replied the old lady, "certainly not."

"Then I think it is necessary," said the doctor; "at all events I am quite sure that you would deeply regret not having done so, if you postponed it. He is perfectly quiet and comfortable now. Allow me- Miss Rose, will you permit me? not the slightest fear, I pledge you my honour."

With many more loquacious assurances that they would be agreeably surprised in the aspect of the criminal, the doctor drew the young lady's arm through one of his, and offering his disengaged hand to Mrs. Maylie, led them with much ceremony and stateliness up stairs.

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Now," said the doctor in a whisper as he softly turned the handle of a bedroom door, "let us hear what you think of him. He has not been shaved very recently, but he doesn't look at all ferocious notwithstanding. Stop, though: let me see that he is in visiting order first."

Stepping before them, he looked into the room, and motioning them to advance, closed the door when they had entered, and gently drew back the curtains of the bed. Upon it, in lieu of the dogged, black-visaged ruffian they had expected to behold, there lay a mere child, worn with pain and exhaustion and sunk into a deep sleep. His wounded arm, bound and splintered up, was crossed upon his breast, and his head reclined upon the other, which was half hidden by his long hair as it streamed over the pillow.

The honest gentleman held the curtain in his hand, and looked on for a minute or so, in silence. Whilst he was watching the patient thus, the younger lady glided softly past, and seating herself in a chair by the bedside gathered Oliver's hair from his face, and as she stooped over him, her tears fell upon his forehead.

The boy stirred and smiled in his sleep, as though tnese marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known; as a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of water in a silent

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But, can you-oh, sir! can you, really believe that this delicate boy has been the voluntary associate of the worst outcasts of society?" said Rose anxiously.

The surgeon shook his head in a manner which intimated that he feared it was very possible; and observing that they might disturb the patient, led the way into an adjoining apartment.

"But even if he has been wicked," pursued Rose, "think how young he is; think that he may never have known a mother's love, or even the comfort of a home, and that ill-usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have driven him to herd with the men who have forced him to guilt. Aunt, dear aunt, for mercy's sake think of this before you let them drag this sick child to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his chances of amendment. love me, and know that I have never felt the want of parents in your goodness and affection, but that I might have done so, and might have been equally helpless and unprotected with this poor child, have pity upon him before it is too late."

Oh! as you

"My dear love!" said the elder lady, as she folded the weeping girl to her bosom; "do you think I would harm a hair of his head?"