the
only friend I had!"

The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder, and
with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless and still.

"I have brought his money for the week," said the child, looking to the
woman, and laying it on the table,--"and--and--a little more, for he was
always good and kind to me. I hope he will be sorry and do well somewhere
else and not take this to heart too much. It grieves me very much to part
with him like this, but there is no help. It must be done. Good-night!"

With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure trembling
with intense agitation, the child hastened to the door, and disappeared as
rapidly as she had come.

The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every reason for
relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered, notwithstanding, by his
not having advanced one word in his own defence.

Visions of gallantry, knavery, robbery, flocked into her brain and
rendered her afraid to question him. She rocked herself upon a chair,
wringing her hands and weeping bitterly. The baby in the cradle woke up
and cried; the boy in the clothes-basket fell over on his back with the
basket on him, and was seen no more; the mother wept louder yet and rocked
faster; but Kit, insensible to all the din and tumult, remained in a state
of utter stupefaction.

Of course, after that there was nothing for him to do but to keep as far
away as possible from the shop, which he did, except in the evenings, when
he often stole beneath Nell's window on a chance of merely seeing her. One
night he was rewarded by a scrap of whispered conversation with her from
her window. She told him how sick her grandfather had been, and over and
over Kit reiterated all there was for him to say--that he had done nothing
to cause that sickness.

"He'll be sure to get better now," said the boy, anxiously, "when he does,
say a good word--say a kind word for me, Miss Nell!"

"They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long, long
time," rejoined the child. "I dare not; and even if I might, what good
would a kind word do you, Kit? We shall be very poor they say. We shall
scarcely have bread to eat, for everything has been taken from us."

"It's not that I may be taken back," said the boy. "No, it's not that. It
isn't for the sake of food and wages that I've been waiting about in hopes
of seeing you. Don't think that I'd come in a time of troubl