Ten Girls from Dickens

by Kate Dickinson Sweetser

She took from her pocket a little purse. He seized it, and hastened to the other side of the screen where the two men were playing. Almost immediately they invited him to join their game, whereupon, throwing Nell's purse down upon the table, he gathered up the cards as a miser would clutch at gold. The child sat by and watched the game in a perfect agony of fear, regardless of the run of luck; and mindful only of the desperate passion which had its hold upon her grandfather, losses and gains were to her alike.

The storm had raged for full three hours, when at length the play came to an end. Nell's little purse lay empty, and still the old man sat poring over the cards until the child laid her arm upon his shoulder, telling him that it was near midnight.

Now Nell had still the piece of gold, and considering the lateness of the hour, and into what a state of consternation they would throw Mrs. Jarley by knocking her up at that hour, proposed to her grandfather that they stay where they were for the night. As they would leave very early in the morning, the child was anxious to pay for their entertainment before they retired, but as she felt the necessity of concealing her little hoard from her grandfather, and had to change the piece of gold, she took it out secretly, and following the landlord into the bar, tendered it to him there. She was returning, when she fancied she saw a figure gliding in at the door. There was only a dark passage between this door and the place where she had changed the money, and being very certain that no person had passed in or out while she stood there, she felt that she had been watched. She was still thinking of this, when a girl came to light her to bed.

It was a great gloomy house, which the flaring candles seemed to make yet more gloomy, and the child did not feel comfortable when she was left alone. She could not help thinking of the figure stealing through the passage downstairs. At last a broken and fitful sleep stole upon her. A deeper slumber followed this--and then--What! That figure in the room! A figure was there, it crouched and slunk along, stealing round the bed. She had no voice to cry for help, no power to move,--on it came--silently and stealthily to the bed's head. There it remained, motionless as she. At length, it busied its hands in something, and she heard the chink of money. Then it dropped upon its hands and knees, and crawled away. It reached the door at last, the steps creaked beneath its noiseless tread, and it was gone.

The first impulse of the child was not to be alone--and with no consciousness of having moved, she gained the door. Once in her grandfather's room, she would be safe. An idea flashed suddenly upon her--what if the figure should enter there, and have a design upon the old man's life? She turned faint and sick. She saw it creeping in front of her. It went in. Not knowing what she meant to do, but meaning to preserve him, or be killed herself, she staggered forward and looked in.

What sight was that which met her view?

The bed was smooth and empty. And at a table sat the old man himself--the only living creature there--his white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright--counting the money of which his hands had robbed her.

With steps more unsteady than those with which she had approached the room, the child groped her way back into her own chamber. The terror which she had lately felt was nothing compared with that which now oppressed her. The grey-haired old man, gliding like a ghost into her room, and acting the thief, while he supposed her fast asleep, then bearing off his prize, and hanging over it with the ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was far more dreadful than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested. The feeling which beset her was one of uncertain horror. She had no fear of the dear old grandfather, but the man she had seen that night seemed like another creature in his shape. She could scarcely connect her own affectionate companion, save by his loss, with this old man, so like yet so unlike him. She had wept to see him dull and quiet. How much greater cause she had for weeping now!

She sat thinking of these things, until she felt it would be a relief to hear his voice, or if he were asleep, even to see him, and so she stole down the passage again. Looking into the room, she saw him lying calmly on his bed, fast asleep. She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she had a deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears.

"God bless him," said the child, softly kissing his placid cheek. "I see too well now that they would indeed part us if they found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky. He has only me. God bless us both!"