ears one evening she was alone at work � standing up at the window to save the twilight lingering above the wall � when he opened the door and walked in she kissed and welcomed him but was afraid to ask him any question he saw how anxious and timid she was and appeared sorry i am afraid you ll be vexed this time upon my life i am little i am very sorry to hear you say so tip have you come back yes not expecting this time that what you had found would answer very well i am less surprised and sorry than i might have been tip ah but that s not the worst of it not the worst of it don t look so startled no not the worst of it i have come back you see but � don t look so startled � i have come back in what i may call a new way i am off the list altogether i am in now as one of the oh don t say you are a prisoner tip don t don t well i don t want to say it he returned in a reluctant tone but if you can t understand me without my saying it what am i to do i am in for forty pound odd for the first time in all those years she sunk under her cares she cried with her clasped hands lifted above her head that it would kill their father if he ever knew it and fell down at tip s f et it was easier for tip to bring her to her senses than for her to bring mm to understand that the father of the would be beside himself if he knew the truth the thing was incomprehensible to tip and altogether a fanciful notion he yielded to it in that light only when he submitted to her entreaties backed by those of his uncle and sister there was no want of precedent for his return it was accounted for to the father in the usual way and the with a better comprehension of the pious fraud than tip supported it this was the life and this the history of the child of the at twenty two with a still attachment to the one miserable yard and block of houses as her and home she passed to and fro in it now with a womanly consciousness that she was pointed out to every one since she had begun to work beyond the walls she had found it necessary to conceal where she lived and to come and go as secretly as she could between the free city and the iron gates outside of which she had never slept in her life her original timidity had grown with this concealment and her light step and her little figure the thronged streets while they passed along them worldly wise in hard and poor necessities she was innocent in all things else innocent in the mist through which she saw her father and the prison and the living river that flowed through it and flowed on this was the life and this the history of little now going home upon a dull september evening observed at a distance by arthur this was the life and this the history of little turning at the end of london bridge it going back again passing on to saint george s church turning back suddenly once more and flitting in at the open outer gate and little of the little chapter viii the lock stood in the street waiting to ask some by what place that was he suffered a few people to pass him in whose faces there was no encouragement to make the inquiry and still stood pausing in the street when an old man came up and turned into the court yard he stooped a good deal and along in a slow manner which made the bustling london no very safe resort for him he was and dressed in a coat once blue reaching to his ankles and to his chin where it vanished in the pale ghost of a velvet collar a piece of red cloth with which that phantom had been in its lifetime was now laid bare and itself up at the back of the old man s neck into a confusion of grey hair and rusty stock and which altogether nearly his hat off a greasy hat it was and a impending over his eyes cracked and at the brim and with a of pocket handkerchief dangling out below it his were so long and loose and his shoes so clumsy and large that he like an elephant though how much of this was gait and how much trailing cloth and leather no one could have told under one arm he carried a limp and worn out case containing some wind instrument in the same hand he had a of snuff in a little packet of brown paper from which he slowly comforted his poor old blue nose with a lengthened out pinch as arthur looked at him to this old man crossing the court yard he preferred his inquiry touching him on the shoulder the old man stopped and looked round with the expression in his weak grey eyes of one whose thoughts had been far off and who was a little dull of hearing also pray sir said arthur repeating his question what is this place ay this place returned the old man staying his pinch of snuff on its road and pointing at the place without looking at it this is the sir the prison sir said the old man with the air of it not quite necessary to insist upon that the prison he turned himself about and went on i beg your pardon said arthur stopping him once more but will you allow me to ask you another question 