That evening he sold his waistcoat to a clothes-dealer for a few pennies, and when night came he slept on the ground, under the walls of Mr. Creakle's old school where he had known Steerforth and Tommy Traddles. The next day he offered his jacket for sale to a half-crazy old store-keeper, who took the coat but would not pay him at first, and David had to sit all day on the door-step before the other would give him the money. The next four nights he slept under haystacks, greatly in fear of tramps, and at length, on the sixth day, ragged, sunburned, dusty and almost dead from weariness, he got to Dover. He had to ask many people before he could find out where Miss Betsy Trotwood lived. It was outside the town, in a cottage with a little garden. Here she lived all alone, except for a simple-minded old man, whom she called Mr. Dick, who was a relative of hers, and who did nothing all day but fly big kites and write petitions to the king, which he began every morning and never finished. All the neighbors thought Miss Betsy Trotwood a most queer old woman, but those who knew her best knew that she had a very kind heart under her grim appearance. When David reached the house Miss Betsy was digging at some flowers in the garden. All she saw was a ragged, dirty little boy, and she called out, without even turning her head: "Go away; no boys here!" But David was so wretched that he went right in at the gate and went up behind her and said: "If you please, aunt, I'm your nephew." His aunt was so startled at his looks and at what he said, that she sat down plump on the ground; and David, his misery getting all at once the better of him, sobbed out all the pitiful tale of his wrongs and sorrows since his mother had died. Miss Betsy Trotwood's heart was touched. She seized David by the collar, led him into the house, made him drink something and then made him lie down on the sofa while she fed him hot broth. Then she had a warm bath prepared, and at last, very tired and comfortable, and wrapped up in a big shawl, David fell asleep on the sofa. That night he was put to bed in a clean room, and before he slept he prayed that he might never be homeless and friendless again. II LITTLE EM'LY Good fortune was with David now. His aunt wrote to Mr. Murdstone, and he and his sister came, fully expecting to take the boy back with them, but, instead, Miss Betsy told Mr. Murdstone plainly that he was a stony-hearted hypocrite, who had broken his wife's heart and tortured her son, and she ordered him and his sister from the house. David was so delighted at this that he threw his arms around her neck and kissed her, and from that moment Miss Betsy Trotwood began to love him as if he had been her own son. David loved her in return. He drove out with her and helped Mr. Dick fly his kites and was very grateful. And at length his aunt placed him in a school in Dover and found him pleasant lodgings there in the house of her lawyer, Mr. Wickfield.