‘No, no. Has she thought about me?’ said Smike. ‘Has she though? oh, has she, has she? Don’t tell me so if she has not.’
‘She has,’ cried Newman. ‘She is as noble-hearted as she is beautiful.’
‘Yes, yes!’ cried Smike. ‘Well said!’
‘So mild and gentle,’ said Newman.
‘Yes, yes!’ cried Smike, with increasing eagerness.
‘And yet with such a true and gallant spirit,’ pursued Newman.
He was going on, in his enthusiasm, when, chancing to look at his companion, he saw that he had covered his face with his hands, and that tears were stealing out between his fingers.
A moment before, the boy’s eyes were sparkling with unwonted fire, and every feature had been lighted up with an excitement which made him appear, for the moment, quite a different being.
‘Well, well,’ muttered Newman, as if he were a little puzzled. ‘It has touched me, more than once, to think such a nature should have been exposed to such trials; this poor fellow—yes, yes,—he feels that too—it softens him—makes him think of his former misery. Hah! That’s it? Yes, that’s—hum!’
It was by no means clear, from the tone of these broken reflections, that Newman Noggs considered them as explaining, at all satisfactorily, the emotion which had suggested them. He sat, in a musing attitude, for some time, regarding Smike occasionally with an anxious and doubtful glance, which sufficiently showed that he was not very remotely connected with his thoughts.