Nelly still slept on, and several times the brother paused and looked fondly down upon the fair face of the sleeping child. She looked very beautiful, Benny thought, as she lay sleeping there, with a pink spot glowing on either cheek, and the long flaxen hair thrown carelessly back from the pale forehead. Once or twice she murmured in her sheep, and the same happy smile spread over her face that he had noticed the evening before when she sat gazing into Joe Wrag's fire.

"I wonder what she's a-dreamin' on?" he murmured to himself. "Perhaps she sees the hills and flowers and trees agin."

Then he set to work again turning over a heap of rubbish that had been pushed as far back as possible under the stairs. At length a joyful exclamation burst from his lips as he came upon a small heap of potatoes.

"Here's a fortin', an' no mistake; Nell and I'll be able to walk off the lot."

And he brought them out into the room, and wrapped them up in an old handkerchief that his stepmother used to tie round her head when she went out. There were scarcely twenty potatoes altogether, but to Benny they seemed almost an inexhaustible supply.

This being done, he sat down beside his sleeping sister and waited until he should hear any movement in the room above. Gradually the cold grey light of the morning stole into the room, revealing all its squalor and dinginess, and Benny felt that he and Nelly would have to make their escape soon, or else they might be prevented. He felt very loth to awake his sister, she slept so sweetly, and he did not know where they might find a shelter when darkness covered the earth again. But there was no help for it. His father might awake any moment, and the neighbours would soon be stirring in the court and in Bowker's Row. So bending over her, he pressed his lips upon her brow: still she moved not.

"Nelly," he whispered, "it's time to be movin'."

Slowly the great round eyes opened, and looked languidly up into his face.

"Come, stir your pegs, Nell, or we'll be too late."

"Oh, ay," she said, as the recollection of the previous evening came back to her. "We 'as to be off to-day, ain't we?"

"Ay, my gal, we's goin' on our own 'ook now, so look alive."

"Does yer think we's doin' right, Benny?"

"'Course we is, Nell; I'll take care o' yer, never fear."

Thus reassured, she followed Benny silently out of the house and into Bowker's Row; then seeing that no one was about, they set off at a quick trot in the direction from whence they had come the previous night.