Tom had been gaining a spirit of his own since he had parted from Pecksniff, and, now, at sight of his gentle little sister's tears, his honest indignation rose. He gave her unjust employer a lecture that left him much astonished, and then, drawing Ruth's arm through his, he led her from the house for ever.

It was not long before each had told the other all that had happened. Tom decided that they should part no more, and they set out together to find a lodging. They took some rooms in a quiet neighborhood and settled down together till Tom could find something to do.

Ruth was a neat housekeeper, but she had to learn to cook, and they had great fun over their first meal. While she was making her first beefsteak pudding Westlock called with a great piece of news. An agent had come to him asking him to offer to his friend Tom Pinch a position as a librarian at a good salary. Who the employer was Tom was not to know. Here was a rare mystery, and Ruth in her mingled excitement and pie-making looked so sweet and charming that then and there Westlock fell in love with her.

Tom and he went at once to the agent who had made this extraordinary offer, and he took them to an unoccupied house, to a dusty room whose floor was covered all over with books. Tom, he said, was to arrange and make a list of these. Then he gave him the key, told him to come to him each week for his salary, and disappeared.

Still wondering, the two friends went back together, for of course Westlock had to taste the beefsteak pudding. Ruth had supper waiting for them. Every minute Westlock thought she grew more lovely, and as he walked home he knew he was in love at last.

Now, the mystery of Tom's library, and of the bank-note that Martin had received when his money was all gone, would have been a very joyful one to them both if they could have guessed it. Old Chuzzlewit, whom they believed so harsh, and whom the wily Pecksniff thought he had got under his thumb, was a very deep and knowing old man indeed. He had never ceased to love Martin, his grandson, though he had misunderstood him at first, but he had seen very plainly that the lad was growing selfish and he wished to save him from this. He had longed for nothing more than that Martin and Mary should marry, but he wished to try their love for each other as well as Martin's affection for him. It was to test Pecksniff that old Chuzzlewit had asked the architect to send Martin from his house, and when he saw that Pecksniff was fawning hound enough to do it, he determined to punish him in the end. It was old Chuzzlewit who had found where Martin lodged in London, and had sent him the bank-note. And, won by Tom Pinch's goodness and honor, it was he who now, secretly, made him this position. If Pecksniff had guessed all this, he would probably have had a stroke of apoplexy.

III
JONAS GETS RID OF AN ENEMY

Jonas, meanwhile, in his miserly soul, had been wishing that his old father would hurry and die. He wanted the money and he wanted to marry Mercy Pecksniff, and to do both he preferred the old man out of his way. He thought of this and wished it so long that at last he began to think of helping the matter along.

His father kept in a drawer some cough lozenges which he constantly used. Jonas at last bought some poison from a dissipated man who needed money badly, and made some lozenges like them. These he put in his father's drawer instead of the others.

His father, however, and Chuffey, the old clerk, noticed that the lozenges were not the same, and they guessed what Jonas had done. The shock of discovering that his own son had tried to murder him proved the old man's death. He made Chuffey promise not to betray Jonas, then fell in a fit and never spoke again.