'And,' I continued, 'there is so simple and so good a way of atoning for this wrong--a way that will bring Tom nearer to you, that will bind him closer to you. If, as you say, Tom will do anything for you, ask him to marry you.' The dogged look vanished; joy, wonder, took its place. 'Marry me!' she exclaimed softly. 'O Tom, if you would! if you would, Tom!' 'Is there any doubt of it?' 'I never arksed 'im, sir! I never arksed 'im!' 'Well, dear child, ask him now, and let me know.' 'Won't it cost money, sir? she asked anxiously. 'But little; and that little I will find.' She held out her hands to me in thankfulness. She had learned to trust me. 'I'll arks Tom, sir. Though, mind!' she said, out of the noble chivalry of her nature; 'nothink that Tom can do can bring me nearer to 'im, or make 'im stick closer to me! But I'll do it, sir, because you think it's good, and because I think, too, it might be righter so.' She turned with a newborn joy in her face, and knelt by the bed, and as I went out of the room, I heard her whisper to her child, 'Baby! baby! me and Tom's goin' to git married! Ain't you glad, baby?' Robert Truefit was waiting for me in Stoney-alley. 'I am glad you have come at this moment,' he said, as we walked out of the alley. 'You see those two men before us? One is Tom Beadle, and the other is the Delegate who roused Jimmy so strangely to-night.' 'They are not walking together; they do not seem to be acquainted.' 'No; but supposing this one to be an Apostle of Liberty, and that one a thief, it is well that they should be strangers.' Their destination, however, was the same. They both paused before the door of The True Briton's Delight, and both entered the building, which was a triumph of architecture, with its gay decorations and pillars. The light that came from this bad palace was dazzling. 'A bright coffin,' observed Robert Truefit, 'for virtue and morality.' Jimmy Virtue was leaning against one of the lamp-posts opposite the public-house, smoking his pipe. 'I've been thinkin', Bob,' he said, with reflective puffs, 'as I've been standin' watchin' the people go in and out, that this 'ere free and 'lightened country of our'n's crammed full o' Temples o' Liberty.' 'Crammed full of them!' exclaimed Robert Truefit, humouring his friend. 'Why, what kind of places, Jimmy?' Jimmy Virtue extended his pipe in the direction of the True Briton's Delight. 'Them kind o' places,' he said. Robert Truefit laughed. 'And where on earth, Jimmy, in those temples is liberty to be found?' 'At the bottom o' pewter pots,' replied Jimmy Virtue, with a flourish of his pipe. 'And the persevering way the free and 'lightened Briton searches for it in them pewter pots is a 'stonishing thing. Bob--a very 'stonishing thing!' IX. OPEN YOUR EYES, BABY! SPEAK TO ME! LOOK AT MOTHER, MY LIFE!