“What do you mean by this?” said Sikes; backing the inquiry with a very common imprecation concerning the most beautiful of human features: which, if it were heard above, only once out of every fifty thousand times that it is uttered below, would render blindness as common a disorder as measles: “what do you mean by it? Burn my body! Do you know who you are, and what you are?”

“Oh, yes, I know all about it,” replied the girl, laughing hysterically; and shaking her head from side to side, with a poor assumption of indifference.

“Well, then, keep quiet,” rejoined Sikes, with a growl like that he was accustomed to use when addressing his dog, “or I’ll quiet you for a good long time to come.”

The girl laughed again: even less composedly than before; and, darting a hasty look at Sikes, turned her face aside, and bit her lip till the blood came.

“You’re a nice one,” added Sikes, as he surveyed her with a contemptuous air, “to take up the humane and gen⁠—teel side! A pretty subject for the child, as you call him, to make a friend of!”