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| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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even in persons who live in much finer places than caravans, a far
more rare and uncommon one than the first, and is not by any means
its necessary consequence. As her popularity procured her various
little fees from the visitors on which her patroness never demanded
any toll, and as her grandfather too was well-treated and useful, she
had no cause of anxiety in connexion with the wax-work, beyond that
which sprung from her recollection of Quilp, and her fears that he
might return and one day suddenly encounter them.
Quilp indeed was a perpetual night-mare to the child, who was
constantly haunted by a vision of his ugly face and stunted figure. She
slept, for their better security, in the room where the wax-work figures
were, and she never retired to this place at night but she tortured
herself - she could not help it - with imagining a resemblance, in some
one or other of their death-like faces, to the dwarf, and this fancy
would sometimes so gain upon her that she would almost believe he
had removed the figure and stood within the clothes. Then there were
so many of them with their great glassy eyes - and, as they stood one
behind the other all about her bed, they looked so like living
creatures, and yet so unlike in their grim stillness and silence, that
she had a kind of terror of them for their own sakes, and would often
lie watching their dusky figures until she was obliged to rise and light
a candle, or go and sit at the open window and feel a companionship
in the bright stars. At these times, she would recall the old house and
the window at which she used to sit alone; and then she would think
of poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came into her eyes,
and she would weep and smile together.
Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to her
grandfather, and she would wonder how much he remembered of their
former life, and whether he was ever really mindful of the change in
their condition and of their late helplessness and destitution. When
they were wandering about, she seldom thought of this, but now she
could not help considering what would become of them if he fell sick,
or her own strength were to fail her. He was very patient and willing,
happy to execute any little task, and glad to be of use; but he was in
the same listless state, with no prospect of improvement - a mere
child - a poor, thoughtless, vacant creature - a harmless fond old
man, susceptible of tender love and regard for her, and of pleasant
and painful impressions, but alive to nothing more. It made her very
sad to know that this was so - so sad to see it that sometimes when he
sat idly by, smiling and nodding to her when she looked round, or
when he caressed some little child and carried it to and fro, as he was
fond of doing by the hour together, perplexed by its simple questions,
yet patient under his own infirmity, and seeming almost conscious of
it too, and humbled even before the mind of an infant - so sad it
made her to see him thus, that she would burst into tears, and,
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