The child hesitated for one moment.  Thinking that the men whom she had seen with her grandfather might perhaps in their eagerness for the booty, follow them, and regain their influence over him, and that if they went on the canal-boat all traces of them must be surely lost—­accepted the offer.  Before she had any more time for consideration, she and her grandfather were on board, gliding smoothly down the canal, through the bright water.

They did not reach their destination until the following morning, and Nell was glad indeed when the trip was ended, for the noisy rugged fellows on the boat were rough enough to make her heart palpitate for fear, but though they quarrelled among themselves, they were civil enough to their two passengers; and at length the boat floated into its destination.  The men were occupied directly, and the child and her grandfather, after waiting in vain to thank them, or ask whither they should go, passed out into a crowded noisy street of a manufacturing village, and stood, in the pouring rain, distressed and confused.  Evening came on.  They were still wandering up and down, bewildered by the hurry they beheld, but had no part in.  Shivering with the cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child needed her utmost resolution to creep along.  No prospect of relief appearing, they retraced their steps to the wharf, hoping to be allowed to sleep on board the boat that night.  But here again they were disappointed, for the gate was closed.

“Why did you bring me here?” asked the old man fiercely, “I cannot bear these close eternal streets.  We came from a quiet part.  Why did you force me to leave it?”

“Because I must have that dream I told you of, no more,” said the child, “and we must live among poor people or it will come again.  Dear grandfather, you are old and weak, I know; but look at me.  I never will complain if you will not, but I have some suffering indeed.”

“Ah!  Poor, houseless, wandering, motherless child!” cried the old man, gazing as if for the first time upon her anxious face, her travel-stained dress, and bruised and swollen feet.  “Has all my agony of care brought her to this at last?  Was I a happy man once, and have I lost happiness and all I had, for this?”

Wandering on, they took shelter in an old doorway from which the figure of a man came forth, who, touched with the misery of their situation, and with Nell’s drenched condition, offered them such lodging as he had at his command, in the great foundry where he was employed.  He led them through the bewildering sights and deafening sounds of the huge building, to his furnace, and there spread Nell’s little cloak upon a heap of ashes, and showing her where to hang her outer clothes to dry, signed to her and the old man to lie down and sleep.  The warmth of her bed, combined with her great fatigue, caused the tumult of the place to lull the child to sleep, and the old man was stretched beside her, as she lay and dreamed.  On the following morning her friend shared his breakfast with the child and her grandfather, and parting with them left in Nell’s hand two battered smoke-encrusted penny pieces.  Who knows but they shone as brightly in the eyes of angels as golden gifts that have been chronicled on tombs?