fewer like me,--there
would--there would!'

'Sit down,' said Rose, earnestly. 'If you are in poverty or affliction
I shall be truly glad to relieve you if I can,--I shall indeed. Sit
down.'

'Let me stand, lady,' said the girl, still weeping, 'and do not speak
to me so kindly till you know me better. It is growing late.
Is--is--that door shut?'

'Yes,' said Rose, recoiling a few steps, as if to be nearer assistance
in case she should require it. 'Why?'

'Because,' said the girl, 'I am about to put my life and the lives of
others in your hands. I am the girl that dragged little Oliver back to
old Fagin's on the night he went out from the house in Pentonville.'

'You!' said Rose Maylie.

'I, lady!' replied the girl. 'I am the infamous creature you have
heard of, that lives among the thieves, and that never from the first
moment I can recollect my eyes and senses opening on London streets
have known any better life, or kinder words than they have given me, so
help me God! Do not mind shrinking openly from me, lady. I am younger
than you would think, to look at me, but I am well used to it. The
poorest women fall back, as I make my way along the crowded pavement.'

'What dreadful things are these!' said Rose, involuntarily falling from
her strange companion.

'Thank Heaven upon your knees, dear lady,' cried the girl, 'that you
had friends to care for and keep you in your childhood, and that you
were never in the midst of cold and hunger, and riot and drunkenness,
and--and--something worse than all--as I have been from my cradle. I
may use the word, for the alley and the gutter were mine, as they will
be my deathbed.'

'I pity you!' said Rose, in a broken voice. 'It wrings my heart to
hear you!'

'Heaven bless you for your goodness!' rejoined the girl. 'If you knew
what I am sometimes, you would pity me, indeed. But I have stolen away
from those who would surely murder me, if they knew I had been here, to
tell you what I have overheard. Do you know a man named Monks?'

'No,' said Rose.

'He knows you,' replied the girl; 'and knew you were here, for it was
by hearing him tell the place that I found you out.'

'I never heard the name,' said Rose.

'Then he goes by some other amongst us,' rejoined the girl, 'which I
more than thought before. Some time ago, and soon after Oliver was put
into your house on the night of the robbery, I--suspecting this
man--listened to a conversation held between him