owever, she expressed herself very sorry to hear such a dismal account
of her state of health, and shortly afterwards sat down with her
grandfather and Mrs Jarley to breakfast. The meal finished, Nell
assisted to wash the cups and saucers, and put them in their proper
places, and these household duties performed, Mrs Jarley arrayed
herself in an exceedingly bright shawl for the purpose of making a
progress through the streets of the town.

'The wan will come on to bring the boxes,' said Mrs Jarley, and you had
better come in it, child. I am obliged to walk, very much against my
will; but the people expect it of me, and public characters can't be
their own masters and mistresses in such matters as these. How do I
look, child?'

Nell returned a satisfactory reply, and Mrs Jarley, after sticking a
great many pins into various parts of her figure, and making several
abortive attempts to obtain a full view of her own back, was at last
satisfied with her appearance, and went forth majestically.

The caravan followed at no great distance. As it went jolting through
the streets, Nell peeped from the window, curious to see in what kind
of place they were, and yet fearful of encountering at every turn the
dreaded face of Quilp. It was a pretty large town, with an open square
which they were crawling slowly across, and in the middle of which was
the Town-Hall, with a clock-tower and a weather-cock. There were
houses of stone, houses of red brick, houses of yellow brick, houses of
lath and plaster; and houses of wood, many of them very old, with
withered faces carved upon the beams, and staring down into the street.
These had very little winking windows, and low-arched doors, and, in
some of the narrower ways, quite overhung the pavement. The streets
were very clean, very sunny, very empty, and very dull. A few idle men
lounged about the two inns, and the empty market-place, and the
tradesmen's doors, and some old people were dozing in chairs outside an
alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed bent on going
anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if perchance some
straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot bright pavement for
minutes afterwards. Nothing seemed to be going on but the clocks, and
they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy hands, and such cracked
voices that they surely must have been too slow. The very dogs were
all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the gro