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.i , 1 - OLIVER TWIST.
lent his head-no,-not once; not even when he contra-
dicted a very old postboy about the nearest road to" Lon-
don‘, andmaiiitained’ he knew it ‘best, though he had
only come that way once, and that time fast asleep.
There was dinner prepared,vand there were bed-rooms
ready, and everything was arranged as if by magic.
. Notwithstanding all this,‘when the hurry of the first
half hour was over, the same silence and constraint pre-
vailed that had marked their journey down down. Mr.
Brownlow did not join them at dinner, but remained in
a separate room.‘ The‘ two other gentlemen hurried in
and out with anxious faces, and during the short inter-
vals wlienrtheywvere present, conversed apart. Once,
Mrs. Maylie was called away, and after being absent for
nearlyan hour, returned with eyes swollen with weep-
ing.’ All these things made Rose and Oliver, who were
not in any new‘ secrets, nervous and uncomfortable.
' They sat wondering, in silence ;‘or, if they exchanged a
' face.
. tiently to the papers as he spoke.
' day.
.few words, spoke in whispers, as if they were afraid to
-hear the sound of their own voices.
At length, when nine o’clock had come, and they be-
gan to think they were to hear no more that night, Mr.
Losberne and Mr. Grimwig entered the room, followed
by‘ Mr. Brownlow and a man whom Oliver almost
. shrieked with surprise to see; for they told him it was
his brother, and it was the same man he had met at the
market-town, and seen looking in with Fagin at the win-
dow of his little room; Monks cast a look of hate, which,
even then, he could not dissemble, at the astonished boy,
and sat down near the -door. Mr. Brownlow, who had
papers in his hand, walked to a table near which Oliver
and Rose were seated. - 1 -
3 “ This is 0. painful task,” said he, “but these declara-
tions, which have been si ed in London before many
gentlemen, must be in substance repeated here. I would
ave spared you the degradation, but we must hear them
from your own lips before we part, and you know wli .”
i“ Go on,” said the person addressed, turning away his
“ Quick. I have almost done enough, I think.
Don’t keep me here.” - - -1 -
‘.“Tl1lS child,” said Mr. Brownlow, drawing Oliver to
111111, and laying his hand upon his head, “is your half-
brother; the illegitimate son of your father, my dear
friendpEd.win ‘Leeford, by poor young Agnes Fleming,
who died in giving him birth.”
l “les,” said Monks, scowling at the trembling boy:
the beating of whose heart he might have heard. “That
13 their bastard child.” ‘
e’ “ The term you use,” said Mr..Brownlow, sternly, “is
areproach to those who long since passed beyond the
feeb ’ censure of the world. It reflects disgrace on no
one iving except you who use it. Let that pass. He
was born in this town 7”
“ In the workhouse of this town,” was the sullen re-
ply. “You have the story there.” He pointed impa-
.“ I must have it here, too,” said Mr. Brownlow, look-
mg Fqund upon the listeners. .
. :: Listen then! You l” returned Monks. "His father
being taken ill at Rome, was’joined by his wife, my
mother, from whomhe had been long separated, who
went from Paris and took me with her-to look after
his property, for what I know, for she had no great af-
fection for him, nor he for her. He knew nothing of us,
for his senses were gone; and he sluinbered on till next
when he died. Among the papers in his desk, were
“V0: dated 011 the night his illness first came on, directed
E? yourself ;” he addressed himself to Mr. Brownlow;
and enclosed in a few short lines to you, with an inti-
1113tI0I1 on the cover of the package that it was not to be
f0’“'“1'd0d 1111 after he was dead. One of these papers
was a'letter to this girl Agnes ; the other, a will.”
U“ hat of the letter?” asked Mr. Brownlow.
‘The ‘letter ?--A sheet of paper crossed and ' crossed
illgtllin, with a pcnitent confession, and prayers to God to
e p her. He had palmed a tale on‘ the girl that some
secmt.myste1'3'-to be explained one day-prevented his
muirymg hergnst then ; and so she had gone on, trusting
P‘“'19nt1Y to him, until she trusted too far, and lost what
110l11Ill3.00I11t1 ever give her back. She was, at that time,
gt in a few months of her confinement. He told her
he had meant to do, to hide her shame, if he had
and over again, as if he had gone distracted.
109
lived,’ and prayed her, if he died, not to curse his mem..
ory, or think the consequences of their sin would be
visited on her or their youn child ; for all the guilt was
his. ‘He reminded her of t e day he had given her the
little locket and the ring with her Christian name en-
graved npon it, and a blank left for that which he hoped
one day to have bestowed upon her--prayed her yet to
keep it, and wear it next her heart, as she had done he-
fore-and then ran on, wildly, in the same words, over
I believe
he had.”
f “ The will,” said Mr. Brownlow, as Oliver's tears fell
ast.
Monks was silent.
‘ “The will,” said Mr. Brownlow, speaking for him,
“ was in the same spirit as the letter. He talked of mis-
eries which his wife had brought upon him ; of the re-
bellious disposition, vice, malice, and premature bad pas-
sions, of you his" only son, who had been trained to
hate him ; and left you, and your mother, each an annu-
ity of eight hundred pounds. The bulk of his property.
he divided into two equal portions-one for Agnes Flezn-‘
ing, and the other for their child, if it should be born
alive and ever come of age. If it were a girl, it was to
inherit the money unconditionally ; but if a boy, only on
the stipulation that in his minority he should never
have stained his name with any public act of dishonour,
meanness, cowardice, or wrong. He did this, he said, to
mark his confidence in the mother, and his conviction-
only strengthened by approaching death-that the child
would share her entle heart, and noble nature. If he
weredisappointe in this expectation, then the money
was to come to you; for then, and not till then, when
both children were equal, would lie recognise "our prior
claim upon his purse, whohad none upon his ieart, but
had, ‘from an infant, repulsed him with coldness and
aversion.”
“My mother,” said Monks, ,in'a louder tone, f‘did
what a woman should have done-she burnt this will.
The letter never reached its destination ; but that, and
other proofs, she kept, in case they ever tried to lie
away the blot. The girl's father had the truth from her
with every aggravation that her violent hate-I love her
for it now-could add. Goaded by shame and dishon-
our, he fled with his children into a remote corner of
‘Vales, changing his very name that his friends might
never know of his retreat ; and here, no great while after-
wards,‘he was found dead in his bed. The girl had left
her home, in secret, some weeks before ; he had searched
for her, on foot,‘ in every town and village near ; and it
was on the night when he returned home, assured that
she had destroyed herself, to hide her shame and his,
that his old heart broke."
There was a short silence here, until Mr. Brownlow
took up the thread of the narrative.
“ Years after this,” he said, “this m:in’s--Edward
Leeford’s-mother came to me. He had left her, when
only eighteen; robbed her of jewels and money; gam-
bled, squandered, forged, and lied to London: where for
two years he had associated with the lowest outcasts.
She was sinking under a painful and incurable disease,
and wished to recover him before she died. Inquiries
were set on foot, and strict searches made. They were
unavailing for a long time, but ultimately successful;
and he went back with her to France." ' .
“ There she died,” said Monks, “after a lingering ill-
ness; and, on herldeath-bed, she bequeathed these se-
crets to me, together with her unquenchnble and deadly
hatred of all whom the involved-though she need not
have left me that, for I rad inherited it long before. She
would not believe that the girl had destroyed herself,
and the child too, but was filled with the impression that
a male child had been born, and was alive. I swore to
her, if ever it crossed my path, to hunt it down: never
to let it rest; to pursue it with tho hitterest andiniost
unrelenting animosity ; to vent upon it the hatred that I
deeply felt, and to spit upon the empty vaunt of that in-
sulting wlll by dragging it, if I could, to the very gal-I
lows-foot. She was right. He came in my way at last.
I be an well ; and, but for babbling drahs, I would have
finis ied as I berran 1"
As the villaiii’ folded his arms tight together, and mut-