s
observed, shrank back, as if expecting a blow.

"You need not fear me. Are you cold?"

"N-n-o."

"You are shivering."

"I'm not cold. I'm used to it."

There was such an obvious fear of giving offense in his manner, and he
was such a timid, broken-spirited creature, that Nicholas could not help
exclaiming, "Poor fellow!"

"Oh dear, oh dear! my heart will break. It will, it will!" said Smike.

"Hush! Be a man; you are nearly one by years. God help you!"

"By years! Oh dear, dear, how many of them! How many of them since I was
a little child, younger than any that are here now! Where are they all?"

"Of whom do you speak? Tell me."

"My friends, myself--my--oh! what sufferings mine have been!"

"There is always hope."

"No, no; none for me. Do you remember the boy that died here?"

"I was not here, you know."

"Why, I was with him at night, and when it was all silent, he cried no
more for friends he wished to come and sit with him, but began to see
faces round his bed that came from home. He said they smiled, and talked
to him; and he died at last lifting his head to kiss them. Do you
hear?"

"Yes, yes," rejoined Nicholas.

"What faces will smile on me when I die? Who will talk to me in those
long nights? They cannot come from home; they would frighten me if they
did, for I shouldn't know them. Pain and fear, pain and fear for me,
alive or dead. No hope, no hope!"

The bell rang to bed; and the boy, subsiding at the sound into his usual
listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice. It was with a
heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards--no, not retired, there was no
retirement there--followed to his dirty and crowded dormitory.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] Adapted by E. P. Trueblood from "Nicholas Nickleby."

THE SECRET OF DEATH

EDWIN ARNOLD

"She is dead!" they said to him; "come away;
Kiss her and leave her,--thy love is clay!"

They smoothed her tresses of dark-brown hair;
On her forehead of stone they laid it fair;

Over her eyes, that gazed too much,
They drew the lids with a gentle touch;

With a tender touch they closed up well
The sweet thin lips that had secrets to tell;

About her brows and beautiful face
They tied her veil and her marriage lace,

And drew on her feet her white silk shoes--
Which were the whitest no eye could choose--

And over her bosom they crossed her hands.
"Come away!" t