of devices for strengthening his failing memory; but in vain. He
even forgot that he did forget; and when Dolly was laughing and
frolicking about him he grew a child again, and felt himself the happiest
man in London.

The person who took upon himself the heaviest weight of anxiety and
responsibility about Dolly was Tony, who began to make it his daily
custom to pass by the house at the hour when old Oliver ought to be going
for his morning papers; and if he found no symptom of life about the
place, he did not leave off kicking and butting at the shop-door until
the owner appeared. It was very much the same thing at night, when the
time for shutting up came; though it generally happened now that the boy
was paying his friends an evening visit, and was therefore at hand to put
up the shutters for Oliver. Tony could not keep away from the place.
Though he felt a boy's contemptuous pity for the poor old man's declining
faculties as regarded business, he had a very high veneration for his
learning. Nothing pleased him better than to sit upon the old box near
the door, his elbows on his knees, and his chin upon his hands, while
Oliver read aloud, with Dolly upon his knee, her curly hair and small
pretty features making a strange contrast to his white head and withered,
hollow face. Tony, who had never had anything to love except a stray cur
or two, which he had always lost after a few days' friendship, felt as if
he could have suffered himself to be put to death for either of these
two; while Beppo came in for a large share of his unclaimed affections.
The chief subject of their reading was the life of the Master, who was so
intimately dear to the heart of old Oliver. Tony was very eager to learn
all he could of this great friend who did so much for the old man, and
who might perhaps be persuaded some day or other to take a little notice
of him, if he should fail to get a crossing for himself. Oliver, in his
long, unbroken solitude of six years, had fallen into a notion, amounting
to a firm belief, that his Lord was not dead and far off, as most of the
world believed, but was a very present, living friend, always ready to
listen to the meanest of his words. He had a vague suspicion that his
faith had got into a different course from that of most other people; and
he bore meekly the rebukes of his sister Charlotte for the
unwholesomeness of his visions. But none the less, when he was alone, he
talked and prayed to, and spoke