ated voice; 'I cannot
bear to see you.'

'They are more hard with me than ever,' sobbed the boy.

'I know it,' rejoined Nicholas. 'They are.'

'But for you,' said the outcast, 'I should die. They would kill me; they
would; I know they would.'

'You will do better, poor fellow,' replied Nicholas, shaking his head
mournfully, 'when I am gone.'

'Gone!' cried the other, looking intently in his face.

'Softly!' rejoined Nicholas. 'Yes.'

'Are you going?' demanded the boy, in an earnest whisper.

'I cannot say,' replied Nicholas. 'I was speaking more to my own
thoughts, than to you.'

'Tell me,' said the boy imploringly, 'oh do tell me, WILL you go--WILL
you?'

'I shall be driven to that at last!' said Nicholas. 'The world is before
me, after all.'

'Tell me,' urged Smike, 'is the world as bad and dismal as this place?'

'Heaven forbid,' replied Nicholas, pursuing the train of his own
thoughts; 'its hardest, coarsest toil, were happiness to this.'

'Should I ever meet you there?' demanded the boy, speaking with unusual
wildness and volubility.

'Yes,' replied Nicholas, willing to soothe him.

'No, no!' said the other, clasping him by the hand. 'Should I--should
I--tell me that again. Say I should be sure to find you.'

'You would,' replied Nicholas, with the same humane intention, 'and I
would help and aid you, and not bring fresh sorrow on you as I have done
here.'

The boy caught both the young man's hands passionately in his, and,
hugging them to his breast, uttered a few broken sounds which were
unintelligible. Squeers entered at the moment, and he shrunk back into
his old corner.

CHAPTER 13

Nicholas varies the Monotony of Dothebys Hall by a most vigorous and
remarkable proceeding, which leads to Consequences of some Importance

The cold, feeble dawn of a January morning was stealing in at the
windows of the common sleeping-room, when Nicholas, raising himself on
his arm, looked among the prostrate forms which on every side surrounded
him, as though in search of some particular object.

It needed a quick eye to detect, from among the huddled mass of
sleepers, the form of any given individual. As they lay closely packed
together, covered, for warmth's sake, with their patched and ragged
clothes, little could be distinguished but the sharp outlines of pale
faces, over which the sombre light shed the same dull heavy colour;
with, here and there, a gaunt arm thrust forth: its thinness hidd