so she said to me, did I know the way to the burying-ground? And I asked her which burying-ground? And she said, the poor burying-ground. And so I told her I had been a poor child myself, and it was according to parishes. But she said she meant a poor burying-ground not very far from here, where there was an archway, and a step, and an iron gate.”
As I watched her face, and soothed her to go on, I saw that Mr. Bucket received this with a look which I could not separate from one of alarm.
“O dear, dear!” cried the girl, pressing her hair back with her hands, “what shall I do, what shall I do! She meant the burying-ground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff—that you came home and told us of, Mr. Snagsby—that frightened me so, Mrs. Snagsby. O I am frightened again. Hold me!”
“You are so much better now,” said I. “Bray, pray tell me more.”
“Yes I will, yes I will! But don't be angry with me, that's a dear lady, because I have been so ill.”
Angry with her, poor soul!
“There! Now I will, now I will. So she said, could I tell her how to find it, and I said yes, and I told her; and she looked at me with eyes like almost as if she was blind, and herself all waving back. And so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said if she was to put that in the post-office, it would be rubbed out and not minded and never sent; and would I take it from her, and send it, and the messenger would be paid at the house? And so I said yes, if it was no harm, and she said no—no harm. And so I took it from her, and she said she had nothing to give me, and I said I was poor myself and consequently wanted nothing. And so she said God bless you!and went.”
“And did she go—?”
“Yes,” cried the girl, anticipating the inquiry, “yes! she went the way I had shown her. Then I came in, and Mrs. Snagsby came behind me from somewhere, and laid hold of me, and I was frightened.”
Mr. Woodcourt took her kindly from me. Mr. Bucket wrapped me up, and immediately we were in the street. Mr. Woodcourt hesitated, but I said, “Don't leave me now!” and Mr. Bucket added, “You'll be better with us, we may want you; don't lose time!”
I have the most confused impressions of that walk. I recollect that it was neither night nor day; that morning was dawning, but the street-lamps were not yet put out; that the sleet was still falling, and that till the ways were deep with it. I recollect a few chilled people passing in the streets. I recollect the wet housetops, the clogged and bursting gutters and water-spouts, the mounds of blackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the courts by which we went. At the same time I remember, that the poor girl seemed to be yet telling her story audibly and plainly in my hearing; that I could feel her resting on my arm; that the stained house fronts put on human shapes and looked at me; that great water-gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head, or in the air; and that the unreal things were more substantial than the real.
At last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one lamp was burning over an iron gate, and where the morning faintly struggled
