It was several days before Titmouse was allowed, by his medical man, to quit his bedroom; and it is impossible for any woman not to be touched by the sight of a sudden change effected in a man's appearance by severe indisposition and suffering, even be that man so poor a creature as Titmouse. He was very pale, and considerably reduced by the serious nature of the attack, and of the powerful treatment with which it had been encountered. When he made his first appearance before Miss Quirk, one afternoon, with somewhat feeble gait, and a languid air which mitigated, if it did not obliterate, the foolish and conceited expression of his features, she really regarded him with something akin to interest; and, though she might hardly have owned it even to herself, his expected good fortune invested him with a sort of subdued radiance. _Ten thousand a-year_!--Miss Quirk's heart fluttered! By the time that he was well enough to take his departure, she had, at his request, read over to him nearly half of that truly interesting work,--the Newgate Calendar; she had sung to him and played to him whatever he asked her; and, in short, she felt that if she could but be certain that he would gain his great lawsuit, and step into ten thousand a-year, she could _love_ him. She insisted, on the day of his quitting Alibi House, that he should write in her album; and he very readily complied. It was nearly ten minutes before he could get a pen to suit him. At length he succeeded, and left the following interesting memento of himself in the very centre of a fresh page:-- "Tittlebat Titmouse Is My name, England Is My Nation, London Is My dwelling-Place, And Christ Is My Salvation. "TITTLEBAT TITMOUSE, "halibi lodge." Miss Quirk turned pale with astonishment and vexation on seeing this elegant and striking addition to her album. Titmouse, on the contrary, looked at it with no little pride; for having had a capital pen, and his heart being in his task, he had produced what he conceived to be a very superior specimen of penmanship: in fact, the signature was by far the best he had ever written. When he had gone, Miss Quirk was twenty times on the point of tearing out the leaf which had been so dismally disfigured; but on her father coming home in the evening, he laughed heartily--"and as to tearing it out," said he, "let us first see which way the verdict goes!"