Well,' said Mrs Nubbles, evading the point, 'your beer's down there by

the fender, Kit.'

I see,' replied her son, taking up the porter pot, 'my love to you,

mother. And the parson's health too if you like. I don't bear him any

malice, not I!'

Did you tell me, just now, that your master hadn't gone out to-night?'

inquired Mrs Nubbles.

Yes,' said Kit, 'worse luck!'

You should say better luck, I think,' returned his mother, 'because

Miss Nelly won't have been left alone.'

Ah!' said Kit, 'I forgot that. I said worse luck, because I've been

watching ever since eight o'clock, and seen nothing of her.'

'I wonder what she'd say,' cried his mother, stopping in her work and

looking round, 'if she knew that every night, when she - poor thing - is

sitting alone at that window, you are watching in the open street for

fear any harm should come to her, and that you never leave the place

or come home to your bed though you're ever so tired, till such time

as you think she's safe in hers.'

Never mind what she'd say,' replied Kit, with something like a blush

on his uncouth face; 'she'll never know nothing, and consequently,

she'll never say nothing.'

Mrs Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, and coming

to the fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while she

rubbed it on a board and dusted it with a duster, but said nothing

until she had returned to her table again: when, holding the iron at an

alarmingly short distance from her cheek, to test its temperature, and

looking round with a smile, she observed:

'I know what some people would say, Kit - '

'Nonsense,' interposed Kit with a perfect apprehension of what was to

follow.

No, but they would indeed. Some people would say that you'd fallen

in love with her, I know they would.'

To this, Kit only replied by bashfully bidding his mother 'get out,' and

forming sundry strange figures with his legs and arms, accompanied

by sympathetic contortions of his face. Not deriving from these means

the relief which he sought, he bit off an immense mouthful from the

The Old Curiosity Shop