Opening her eyes at last, she begged that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile on her face--such, he said, as he had never seen--and threw both arms about his neck. They did not know at first that she was dead. They laid little Nell to rest the next day in the churchyard where she had so often sat. The old man never realized quite what had happened. He thought she would come back to him some day, and that then they would go away together. He used to sit beside her grave and watch for her each afternoon. One day he did not return at the usual hour and they went to look for him. He was lying dead upon the stone. They buried him beside the child he had loved, and there in the churchyard where they had often talked together they both lie side by side. None of those who had known little Nell ever forgot her story. After the death of the old man, his brother, the Stranger who had sought them so long, traveled in the footsteps of the two wanderers to search out and reward all who had been kind to them--Mrs. Jarley of the waxwork, the Punch-and-Judy showmen, he found them all. Even the rough canal boatmen were not forgotten. Kit's story got abroad and he found himself with hosts of friends, who gave him a good position and secured his mother from want. So that his greatest misfortune turned out, after all, to be his greatest good. The little maid whose evidence cleared Kit of the terrible charge against him lived to marry Dick Swiveller, the clerk of Brass, the lawyer, while meek Mrs. Quilp, after her husband's drowning, married a clever young man and lived a pleasant life on the dead dwarf's money. The fate of the others, whose wickedness has been a part of this story, was not so pleasant. The two gamblers who tempted the old man to steal Mrs. Jarley's strong box were detected in another crime and sent to jail. Brass became a convict, condemned to walk on a treadmill, chained to a long line of other evil men, and dragging wherever he went a heavy iron ball. After he was released he joined his wicked sister, Sally, and the two sank lower and lower till they might even be seen on dark nights on narrow London streets searching in refuse boxes for bits of food, like twin spirits of wickedness and crime. When Kit had grown to be a man and had children of his own, he often took them to the spot where stood what had been The Old Curiosity Shop and told them over and over the story of little Nell. And he always ended by saying that if they were good like her they might go some time where they could see and know her as he had done when he was a boy. THE ADVENTURES OF OLIVER TWIST Published 1837 _Scene_: London and Neighboring Towns _Time_: 1825 to 1837 CHARACTERS Oliver Twist A foundling Mr. Bumble The master of the poorhouse Mrs. Bumble The mistress of the poorhouse