Her jingling conveyance stopped at last at a fast-closed gateway,
which appeared to belong to somebody who had gone to bed very
early, and was much afraid of housebreakers; Rosa, discharging her
conveyance, timidly knocked at this gateway, and was let in, very
little bag and all, by a watchman.
'Does Mr. Grewgious live here?'
'Mr. Grewgious lives there, Miss,' said the watchman, pointing
further in.
So Rosa went further in, and, when the clocks were striking ten,
stood on P. J. T.'s doorsteps, wondering what P. J. T. had done
with his street-door.
Guided by the painted name of Mr. Grewgious, she went up-stairs and
softly tapped and tapped several times. But no one answering, and
Mr. Grewgious's door-handle yielding to her touch, she went in, and
saw her guardian sitting on a window-seat at an open window, with a
shaded lamp placed far from him on a table in a corner.
Rosa drew nearer to him in the twilight of the room. He saw her,
and he said, in an undertone: 'Good Heaven!'
Rosa fell upon his neck, with tears, and then he said, returning
her embrace:
'My child, my child! I thought you were your mother! - But what,
what, what,' he added, soothingly, 'has happened? My dear, what
has brought you here? Who has brought you here?'
'No one. I came alone.'
'Lord bless me!' ejaculated Mr. Grewgious. 'Came alone! Why
didn't you write to me to come and fetch you?'
'I had no time. I took a sudden resolution. Poor, poor Eddy!'
'Ah, poor fellow, poor fellow!'
'His uncle has made love to me.
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