majestic voice.

Oliver was about to say that he would go along with anybody with
great readiness, when, glancing upward, he caught sight of Mrs.
Mann, who had got behind the beadle's chair, and was shaking her
fist at him with a furious countenance. He took the hint at
once, for the fist had been too often impressed upon his body not
to be deeply impressed upon his recollection.

'Will she go with me?' inquired poor Oliver.

'No, she can't,' replied Mr. Bumble. 'But she'll come and see
you sometimes.'

This was no very great consolation to the child. Young as he
was, however, he had sense enough to make a feint of feeling
great regret at going away. It was no very difficult matter for
the boy to call tears into his eyes. Hunger and recent ill-usage
are great assistants if you want to cry; and Oliver cried very
naturally indeed. Mrs. Mann gave him a thousand embraces, and
what Oliver wanted a great deal more, a piece of bread and
butter, less he should seem too hungry when he got to the
workhouse. With the slice of bread in his hand, and the little
brown-cloth parish cap on his head, Oliver was then led away by
Mr. Bumble from the wretched home where one kind word or look had
never lighted the gloom of his infant years. And yet he burst
into an agony of childish grief, as the cottage-gate closed after
him. Wretched as were the little companions in misery he was
leaving behind, they were the only friends he had ever known; and
a sense of his loneliness in the great wide world, sank into the